JJ Redick has had an excellent transition to television after his playing career, but he has been coming under fire recently.
Dominique Wilkins was the first to blast him for his comments on the 80s/90s era of basketball, and now, Los Angeles Lakers legend Michael Cooper went off at him.
“That guy has no clue of how basketball was played in the ’80s,” said Cooper. “And I guarantee you this JJ Redick if you had played in the ’80s, this is Michael Cooper talking, I would’ve locked your a** up! You wouldn’t have got a shot off, you wouldn’t have gotten nothing off! You’d have spent more time on the bench than on the floor, you couldn’t have played when I was on the floor and I’m telling you that.”
https://twitter.com/John99440330/status/1630305897577627650
Cooper was one of the best defenders in the league in the 1980s and won DPOY in 1987, so he certainly would have shut down Redick fairly easily. JJ probably did not think that his comments would have angered players who played back then to this extent.
All this talk stemmed from a debate on First Take on ESPN when Redick and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo were arguing about the greatest 3-point shooters. Redick claimed that Larry Bird wasn’t in the discussion based on the numbers, which led to Russo talking about the physicality of the game back then. Redick then retorted by saying that he had seen plenty of instances where Bird had no one around him when he shot the ball, as compared to Stephen Curry, who has defenders glued to him almost at all times. His questioning of that physicality is what has gotten on the nerves of these players.
JJ Redick Responded To Dominique Wilkins
It will be interesting to see if Redick responds to Cooper as he did respond to Wilkins. JJ stated that he didn’t disrespect Bird but that he was only questioning the narrative around physicality. He won’t back down from what he said back then, as he is standing up for today’s players.
This isn’t the first time that Redick has been on the firing line, as he had been blasted by Jerry West for saying that Bob Cousy played against firemen and plumbers during a debate with Russo. It seems that debating with Russo tends to get JJ in trouble!
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