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JUST IN: What Coach K Said to JJ Redick Will Leave You Speechless
Former Duke star JJ Redick was named head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers this week, in a move many NBA followers dubbed high risk and high reward.
Redick played four years at Duke and then 15 years in the NBA, but this week’s appointment will be the first time he’s ever been a head coach. Which, of course, raises numerous questions about the former Blue Devil on the sidelines from his ability to gameplan, adapt, motivate players, relate to players, and everything in between.
All of those concerns are valid, and while Redick’s ultimate validation will come from his team’s performance on the court, heading into he meat of the offseason in Los Angeles he’s got a lot of wisdom to look back and lean on.
One of the primary figures in Redick’s career is undoubtedly former Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski for whom he played four memorable seasons from 2003-2006.
During an interview with The Players’ Tribune, Redick reflected on his time in Durham, including a postseason meeting following the 2003-2004 season in which Krzyzewski dealt with his player’s immaturity and the fallout from a series of unique challenges.
As a sophomore the 6-foot-4 scoring guard averaged 15.9 points per game in 37 appearances, shooting .395 from the perimeter and .953 from the free throw line, while helping the Blue Devils to the Final Four where they were upended by Connecticut. For the year Redick earned third-team All-American honors, but Duke fell short and the player was ready to quit.
“When you grow up a Duke fan for ten years, eight years old to 18 years old and you have this idea in your head of how cool it must be to play for Duke, and don’t get me wrong, it was cool, but there was a lot of sh*t that went with it, and there were times I wanted to quit,” explained Redick. “And then on top of that I had the hatred, I would call it hatred from other student fanbases. It became a lot, and I’m 18, 19 years old and I don’ have the ego structure or the confidence, the security in who I am to sort of deal with that.”
In an effort to deal with the hatred and negative notoriety, Redick adopted an off the court lifestyle he termed detrimental to himself and everyone around him. It seemed as though the one time five star recruit was heading down a path that would end his career – both on and off the court at Duke.
But then the meeting, one of several that offseason, with Krzyzewski took place and the coach appears to have changed the player’s life.
“So after my sophomore year, that’s when coach had a series of meetings with me in April, and at one of those meetings he said to me ‘We didn’t win a national championship because you weren’t worthy of being a champion.’ That’s one of the worst things and best things that’s ever been said to me. I mean, that cut me deep and for the rest of my career that was sort of my goal, it was like, ‘I can’t let a coach ever tell me that I’m not worthy to win.'”
Redick would return to Duke for two more seasons including his senior year in which he averaged 26.8 points per game while shooting .470/.421/.863 on his way to national college player of the year honors in 2006.
As he prepares to take over in Los Angeles, the former Blue Devil says he’s looking forward to building his own coaching legacy and imparting the lessons learned from Coach K and throughout his playing days to the Lakers’ young players as they look to develop.
Whether any of them will need to have their own versions of the worst and best things ever said to them from Redick remains to be seen.
