An Ugly Allegation About JJ Redick

JJ Redick’s move from a media figure to the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers continues to generate conversation and controversy. Latest example: a woman named Halleemah Nash, a UNC grad apparently, tweeted this out on Tuesday: “I’ve only been called the N word to my face by a white man once in my life and it was on the campus of Duke University while I was doing work with the basketball team. And today he was named the new head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. What a world.“

None of us were there and a lot of times things like this come down to what you think or who you innately side with. It’s human nature. We get it.

But we will say this.

When JJ was at Duke, we e-mailed a bit with his father, a decent man who was understandably offended at how his son was being treated around the ACC.

We learned later that the Redicks were, for lack of a better phrase, semi-hippy artistic people who lived if not off the grid then a good ways away from the maelstrom of modern life. They are about as far from being rednecks or white trash as you can possibly be.

We can’t imagine that being tolerated in the Redick household. We also can’t imagine Mike Krzyzewski tolerating it when he coached at Duke. The harshest thing we ever heard a Duke player say about Redick was when Jon Scheyer said that Redick hosted him on his visit and “he wasn’t very nice.”

We’ve never heard a coach or teammate in the NBA say anything like this about Redick either and as far as we can tell, LeBron James, who co-hosted a podcast with Redick, seems to respect him, as do the many current and former NBA players who have appeared on Redick’s podcasts.

So since 2002, for the last 24 years, Redick has built a reputation pretty opposite of Nash’s allegations.

We can’t say this did or didn’t happen, but it’s fair to say that there’s not a discernible pattern of behavior there either. Worse, it’s the kind of thing that is very difficult to prove more than two decades later.

There are at times reasons why people don’t bring things up when they happen, but in general, and certainly for credibility, it’s better if they do.