Redick’s willingness gave new lineup a shot
PHILADELPHIA >> J.J. Redick will earn $12.5 million from the 76ers this season. For what he does best, it’s a fair price. For what he does second best, it is a bargain.
What Redick does best is shoot. From distance. From midrange. While being faceguarded. While being muscled, or hacked, or cleanly challenged. Whether he as caught the ball in rhythm, or if he has to adjust as he rises for a jump shot. In traffic. All alone. Early in the game and late. When it matters.
The Sixers have never employed a better distance shooter. Few teams have.
So it was with that knowledge that Brett Brown recently made a lineup decision that could define the Sixers’ season, if not his own coaching career. But that choice to start Markelle Fultz and to drag Redick to the bench was not made without confidence in Redick’s other legendary value. For what Redick does second-best is know how to be a teammate.
“He’s priceless to me, J.J. Redick,” Brown said.
Since Redick will be into Josh Harris’s money clip for $35.25 million over this season and last, the phrase “priceless” is ironic. Yet so is Brown’s new lineup. For in a sport where shooting is the only way to win, he replaced one of the best three-point shooters in the history of the sport with a second-year pro who can’t shoot at all. At shooting guard.
He replaced him with Fultz, who is pretty good with the ball in transition, who can use his long arms to unfold as he attacks the rim and to play much bigger than his 6-4 program height, who is an adequate defender and above-average leaper. But Fultz is so suspect an outside shooter that by Game 2 of the experiment, the Chicago Bulls elected not to bother to guard him at all.
Redick, who led the NBA in three-point percentage in 2016 and whose 193 threepointers were vital to the Sixers’ 52-win, 2017-2018 breakthrough, is out, at least until he is permitted to start the second half. And Fultz, who fought through a mysterious shoulder injury as a rookie and made one total three-pointer in his first 19 NBA games, playoffs included, before a visit Saturday from the Orlando Magic, is in.
Analyze it, argue it, embrace it or reject it. But Brown knew he could count on Redick to act professionally about it. And that was the vote that he needed the most.
“He’s fine with this Markelle thing at the start of the games,” Brown said. “Whatever it takes. And he generally means it. We talked lots about it before I did it.”
As a 34-year-old, 14thyear pro, Redick deserved that consideration. Had Brown simply disrespected a starter from a second-round playoff team, one who’d just re-upped for eight-figures, the ripples would have been damaging. He knows that. So he had his sit-down with Redick, and, early on at least, it helped. Redick has been the teammate, not just the shooter, that the Sixers knew they were buying. And while he has not exactly been Fultz’s campaign manager, he has been careful not to disrupt Brown’s plan. He routinely deflects the issue with a whatever-the-teamneeds stump speech. And when Fultz brought Sixers fans to ecstasy in a homeopener victory over the Bulls by taking 15 shots and making a three-pointer, Redick remembered his lines.
“I thought his mid-range shots were great,” he said the next day after practice. “If they are going to play him like that, that’s a shot he can make. And I think we all on the bench were encouraging him to take those shots. The crowd was too. And I was happy to see him feel confident enough to shoot a three off the dribble, which was great. And so, obviously, was winning.
“But I liked how aggressive he was.”
The Sixers are good enough to win 50-plus, even with Fultz stashed in the starting lineup at the twospot, then later at the point. That’s how off-center the NBA is; it’s a league of haves and have-nots. The Sixers are among the haves. Brown knows that. He’s been around. He knows they’ll usually win. And if they win, it will be difficult for Redick to create a stir.
But Redick is in a contract year. And since he will be 35 next season, he may leak some value if the marketplace dirties him as a guy unable to keep his own starting job, even if it was part of a mad experiment.
Brown doesn’t know how long he will keep starting Fultz at Redick’s expense. Nor is he particularly sure how balancing the responsibility to develop one pro player while trying to win a championship will work.
“If you find an answer come see me, I’ll take you to dinner,” Brown said. “Who knows what that is? Everybody here is going to have their own time line, when to say enough is enough and start J.J. We’re all going to have our own timeline. But what will influence it the most is me. It will be a gut feel as much as it will be our record or stats or analytics. What I can say confidently is it’s not going to happen immediately. Let this thing play out for a while. I can’t even tell you a quantity of games, is it five, 10, whatever, I don’t know. It’s just going to happen. So I am committed to trying this and trying to grow it.”
So Redick will be the good teammate. He even assumed a leadership role after the loss in Boston, commanding the room, demanding better.
“I really am just very grateful to have him,” Brown said. “He’s good people.”
In some situations, that beats being a good shooter.
Contact Jack McCaffery @jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery