New Orleans Pelicans: J.J. Redick too valuable for deal at NBA Deadline

While teams around the league have certainly expressed interest in New Orleans Pelicans’ veteran guard J.J. Redick, he’s is a big part of their current plan.

This season didn’t start as planned for the New Orleans Pelicans, but over the last few weeks, the team has clearly begun to find an identity. With veterans like J.J. Redick acting as the voice of this young team’s locker room, the young, humble group needs his presence to continue to grow.

Playing his first season in New Orleans, Redick is having one of the best years of his career, averaging 15.2 points and shooting the second-best rate of his career from three, making 46.4% on 6.5 attempts per contest.

Redick is also simply one of the great shooters in the history of the game of basketball and his own impact is certainly has an impact on why his teams have never missed the playoffs in his NBA Career. He’s made 1,840 threes in his career which is good enough for 14th-most in the league’s history, while also hitting them at a 41.6% rate.

Signing to New Orleans this offseason on a team-friendly 2-yr., $26.5 million deal this summer, the Pelicans little incentive to move Redick unless a team completely overwhelms them with a trade package.

Even as teams come knocking, it seems like they’ll be dishing less favorable first-rounders, if not just combinations of second-rounders with mid-tier player prospects.

The team will certainly hear offers on Redick before Thursday’s deadline, but there isn’t a whole lot of optimism that they’ll be able to pluck the guard away from New Orleans.

"“Teams who have called about J.J. Redick have been shooed away, sources say. Reminder: Everything is fluid,” Zach Lowe wrote in his NBA trade column yesterday for ESPN."

On one hand, the New Orleans Pelicans can certainly get appreciable value for J.J. Redick in a package if they’re patient, but there’s a much higher value on his veteran stature with this core of young talent.

However, with the team focused on developing a winning culture, it seems like a pretty negative move, especially when measuring the leadership Redick already brings to this young team.

For example, on a recent episode of The J.J. Redick Podcast, the guard shared an anecdote about the team’s rookie guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker setting himself in a protégé role to the veteran Redick.

"“We have a rookie now, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who I love. And he basically just does whatever I do and it’s amazing. Sometimes I’m trying to do [sidework] on my own, I want to go work on my game, and he’ll go ‘can I come in and work in the morning with you?’ And I’m like ‘yeah man, why not? Tag along, let’s go,” J.J. Redick said on his podcast. “He’s going to be stud.”"

Later in the podcast, Redick explained that Alexander-Walker understands that his mentor’s work ethic doesn’t change, win or lose.

There were also rumblings that one of the key voices behind the New Orleans Pelicans’ defensive system adjustments was the troubled defender himself in J.J. Redick. While coaches do have to hide Redick on defense due to his negative wingspan and 6’4″ frame, it’s certainly telling that he was the voice to push for the change.

More important than any other factor, however, is that Zion Williamson back in the lineup, the inclusion of Redick as a floor spacer makes far too much sense, especially as Alvin Gentry continues to roll out the star rookie as a small-ball center.

For a team like the New Orleans Pelicans, a restructuring young roster that seems a few years away from contending from titles, having a 35-year-old perimeter scorer might seem like a luxury that’s a little too rich not to turn into assets.

However, when you look strictly at the human factor of having J.J. Redick on the roster, someone who’s played on big stages with high-stakes throughout his NBA career, it’s easy to realize what a great fit that sort of talent is for the Pelicans.

The New Orleans Pelicans certainly seem unlikely to make any major stakes moves at the NBA Trade Deadline, so J.J. Redick seems very likely to remain with the team through the season, if not through his contract