JJ Redick is not backing down from Dominique Wilkins.
It all started last week when Redick debated Larry Bird’s possible status as one of the greatest 3-point shooters of all time. Redick claimed Bird was not. He also argued that the physicality of the 80s is not much different than today’s standards.
“When I watch, let’s say Steph Curry for example, when I watch Steph Curry off the ball in a playoff game, getting grabbed and held by Marcus Smart, they’re attached to him at all times,” Redick said. “Then when I watch Larry Bird come off a pin-down, and no one is within five feet of him and they’re shooting the gap, you’re telling me one is more physical than another?”
Wilkins hated everything about what he said and fired back.
“First of all, Redick don’t know what the hell he’s talking about,” Wilkins said on SiriusXM NBA Radio on Tuesday. “I’m like, what basketball were you watching? To say something as idiotic as that is ridiculous.
“The physicality that was a part of the league … look, when you can put your hand on a guy’s hip and make him go a certain way and you can put your elbow into a guy to slow him up, there’s not that many guys that can deal with that type of pressure. For J.J. Redick, who played this game, I’m very disappointed that he said something so stupid.”
Redick has since responded on the most recent episode of his The Old Man & the Three podcast.
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“The trope that every old talking head uses, Mad Dog, Stephen A., ‘physicality, physicality, physicality.’ My entire point about the segment was that outside of hard fouls and fighting, the physicality, the basketball play, by play, by play, is not that much different than today’s NBA,” Redick said. “But it’s become such a talking point that people take it as gospel.”
“The idea that I’m disrespecting older players for questioning media narratives around that era, that’s not disrespect!” he added. “What I said then, what I’ve said 15 or 16 times since then, on the podcast, on ESPN, ‘players should be celebrated, we should congratulate greatness for that era. The greatest players of every era…they would be fine in any era.’ And one of the pushbacks on that comment is always, ‘today’s players wouldn’t be fine in the ‘80s and ‘90s,’ which is fcking horsesht.”
Unfortunately, Redick is trying to make a point to a bunch of old-school players and fans who do not and will not see anything past what they already think and know.
However, it is nice to see a younger player finally start to push back on these same talking points that continue to get brought up when people compare different eras.
