No one would blame you for being skeptical of J.J. Redick when the Orlando Magic made him the 11th pick in the 2006 Draft.
Redick had made his name in the college ranks as one of the best shooters in the league — what team does not need shooting? He was polarizing, most of all because he went to Duke and was so unstoppable without being the typical one-on-one superstar guard. Nobody knew if he would translate.
Redick was a specialist when he entered the league. Nobody saw where the league was headed and how influential Redick would be.
The whole 15-year journey that Redick went on was nearly ended early in his career as he struggled to break into what was a very different NBA than the one he left.
J.J. Redick struggled to find his footing early in his career. How he became an Orlando Magic legend is one of the most unlikely stories.
Redick carved his career as more than a specialist. If he had a specialty it was contributing to winning rosters. He became the kind of player who enhanced a roster.
From stepping in during the Magic’s 2009 NBA Finals run to becoming a key cog on that team to journeying from contender to contender, Redick became an unlikely hero throughout the NBA. He evolved from one of the most hated players in the league to one of its most beloved by fans.
Tuesday, Redick announced his retirement from the NBA after 15 seasons.
✌🏻 🏀 pic.twitter.com/4c0XsZ836u
— JJ Redick (@jj_redick) September 21, 2021
This really was an unlikely and incredible journey for Redick. His career defied the odds and was part of the transformation the league went under in the last two decades.
It is easy to remember how much skepticism existed about Redick when he entered the league and how he almost fell completely out of the league.
Redick, with his hair styled, was the pretty boy from the pretty-boy private university that nobody liked already. And he relished in quieting crowds. He was the most-hated player in the ACC for reasons everyone probably could not put their fingers on.
That was college. When he entered the NBA, there were plenty of questions he faced for much the same reason nobody could put their fingers on.
He was small for a guard and there were plenty of doubts about whether he could defend at the NBA level. The NBA was not a league necessarily for cutters. And shooting was not the completely flexible skill it has become in the league since.
Redick was a popular pick for the Magic for the name recognition only. With a defensive, slow-paced coach in Brian Hill, the Magic were not a perfect fit for him.
Redick did not play much in his first two seasons in the NBA. Hill never trusted him defensively and it seemed like the Magic made a classic play of going for a fan-popular pick or someone management believed in but the coach did not.
Even under Stan Van Gundy, with the value he put on shooting, J.J. Redick struggled to hit the floor.
Fans remained in Redick’s corner because of his college days, but Redick did not seem like an NBA player at times. He played only 76 games and 11.8 minutes per game his first two seasons. He still had the hints of what he could do — shooting 39.0-percent from deep even on a small sample.
Things came to a head in the summer of 2008. J.J. Redick reportedly asked general manager Otis Smith for a trade. Smith preached patience. And that might have been one of the most consequential moments of Redick’s career.
After two years of struggling to find his place, Redick got pushed into the rotation at a key moment for a team that suddenly had become a contender.
Redick played 64 games during the 2009 season, averaging 6.0 points per game and shooting 37.4-percent from deep. He got his playing time though because he began to play better defense, understanding angles and positioning well.
Redick often credits Van Gundy for saving his career for this season. He taught him strong team defense in addition to basic pick and roll — J.J. Redick became an expert at firing pocket passes to Dwight Howard in short pick and rolls.
When Dwight Howard accidentally elbowed Courtney Lee in Game 5 of the first round, J.J. Redick suddenly found himself thrown into a playoff rotation.
He scored 15 points and made five 3-pointers in the Magic’s clinching Game 6 win of that series with Howard suspended for a flagrant foul from the previous game.
Redick’s real standout moment though came in the next round against the Boston Celtics. He started all seven games in the series and only scored more than 10 points in the first two games (the Magic began working Lee back into the rotation).
But J.J. Redick kept his spot and stood out because of his work chasing Ray Allen. Allen averaged only 13.4 points per game and shot 19.0-percent on 3-pointers.
It was not just Redick defending Allen — Lee certainly was part of the equation. But the two combined to hold perhaps the best shooter in NBA history to an icy percentage in a playoff series. This should always be part of Redick’s legacy. It is somewhat forgotten though as Redick continued to develop into one of the most accurate 3-point shooters in the league.
He did not play in the Eastern Conference Finals with Lee back and healthy. But Redick earned his place in the rotation. It is likely one of the reasons the team felt comfortable letting such a valuable player go that offseason.
They knew they had Redick.
His career took off from there. He played in all 82 games during the 2010 season, averaging 9.6 points per game and shooting 40.5-percent from beyond the arc. He was still getting used to playing every night, but Redick had a role.
And it only grew from there.
In all, Redick averaged 9.2 points per game in seven seasons with the Magic. He shot 39.8-percent from beyond the arc and a 53.1-percent effective field goal percentage. From the 2010 season until his departure from Orlando, Redick averaged 11.3 points per game and shot 40.2-percent from beyond the arc.
He topped off his scoring at 15.1 points per game during the 2012 season, the first after Howard’s trade to the Los Angeles Lakers. The Orlando Magic traded him to the Milwaukee Bucks for Tobias Harris as the team continued its first rebuild, a move that kept J.J. Redick’s still nascent playoff streak alive.
In the process, Redick became one of the most popular players in Magic history.
There was the attraction of his college bravado initially — every fan wants to see rookies and young players play. But Redick endeared himself more because it was so clear the amount of work and effort he put in to improve.
He went from not playing (and justifiably not playing) to one of the key figures for a championship-level team. He was a story of true homegrown success.
Add on top of that his deadpan humor — he joked with Ryan Anderson that they were forming a rap supergroup and kept the story going along to the point nobody was sure if he was joking or serious — and Redick was someone who resonated with fans.
It was an incredible journey from Redick to reach this kind of relevancy and resonance.
At the beginning, nobody saw it coming. Nobody saw Redick making it in the league, let alone lasting this long — a career 41.5-percent 3-point shooter in a career that had notable stops with the LA Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers after leaving Orlando.
Redick made it this far. And Magic fans loved every part of that journey.