April 22, 2023
JJ Redick has long been known as someone people love to hate. The former Duke basketball star is one of the most disliked players in college basketball history.
Redick a former Sixers guard had several run-ins with officials while in the NBA as well. The precision 3-point shooter was ejected multiple times during his 15-year NBA career.
His latest ejection, however, he's happy with. On an episode of his podcast, "The Old Man & the Three," Redick was interviewing his former Los Angeles Clippers teammate Jamal Crawford and asked if Crawford ever got ejected coaching his 13-year-old son's basketball team.
After laughing and quickly saying no, Crawford flipped the script to ask Redick if he ever got ejected coaching his son, Knox.
Redick happily went from interviewer to storyteller telling Crawford about an incident on April 16 in New Jersey.
"A kid on the other team caught the ball and he shuffled his feet, got a running start, and then dribbled. One of my kids had just been called for a travel, which I didn’t think was a travel by the rulebook," Redick said with a smile on his face.
"I said to the ref, ‘Are you seriously not going to call a travel when you just called a travel on one of my kids?’ And he T’d me up.”
Redick said that he eventually got thrown out for confronting the ref although he kept his cool unlike he did when he got ejected in the NBA when he said sometimes he would, 'get my money's worth.'
Crawford chimed in by saying Redick only showed restraint because he had to sit in the corner for the rest of the game and he probably did not want to make a scene and then have to stay in the gym.
Redick said he cleared the air with the ref after the game, however, he got annoyed when he later found out that once the referee realized who he was, he told another coach that he would not have ejected him if he recognized him during the exchange.
"I go to shake the kids’ hands, the coach’s hands and I go to the referee. I’m like, ‘Why did you throw me out? I didn’t raise my voice to you, I didn’t step to you. And you know, he said what he had to say, which I respect. Whatever, it’s all good. And then, the other team comes over and starts taking pictures with me. So he realizes who I am at this point. And then he sees my coach later that day, and he says, ‘Hey, will you tell JJ I’m sorry? I shouldn’t have done that."
Once the story of his ejection started to gain attention on social media, Redick tweeted, "I stand by my actions in New Jersey on Sunday afternoon."
"The Old Man & the Three" podcast is produced by ThreeFourTwo Productions and is available on all platforms. A video version of the podcast is available on Youtube.
