REDICK EMBRACES PRESSURE OF BEING A CONTENDER“Going back to the week or so we were getting this deal done during free agency, I mentioned to [Clippers head coach] Doc [Rivers] that I wanted to be in this situation because there was going to be pressure, because there was going to be expectations,” Redick said. “I feel like when I look back at my career I’ve always done better and I’ve always been happier when there’s more expectation and more pressure.”Clippers forward Matt Barnes, who played with Redick for a season in Orlando, said one of the traits that stood out about his current and former teammate is that no matter how much opponents came at him he never backed down.
“I think people that know what they’re talking about see that side of me,” Redick said, agreeing with Barnes. “Playing for Coach K and for Stan for a number of years, that’s one thing that they always saw in me as well. You want your coaches to see that in you. You want your teammates to see that in you. The average NBA fan, they’re going to see a 6-4 white guy who can shoot the ball. I’ll never change that and I don’t really care about that.”
What Redick cares about is winning. It’s why he joined the Clippers and it’s why playing for Rivers, a no nonsense style of leader, appealed to him.
“I don’t want to come to work and have it be an AAU game,” Redick said. “I want to come to work and have it be a very serious thing where we’re trying to win a championship. I treat this like a job.”
Eric Patten, Clippers.com
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8APvH1OH5I[/youtube]
DO YOU KNOW J.J. REDICK?Redick put in more than two months of intense workouts in offseason home of Austin, Texas. “I always feel like you can get better in any area,” he said. “I didn’t like the way I shot the ball in Milwaukee, so I worked really hard on my shooting—threes off the move and off the catch. And also continued to work on my ball-handling and my in-between game—my runners and floaters.”
His workouts included Pilates, Yoga and some preparation for joining Lob City. “Obviously, you look at a situation and you say, ‘What do I need to do to fit in?’ I looked at the Clippers and said, ‘I really need to work on my dunk shots.’”When he makes his team debut, Redick will be one of three Naismith College Players of the Year on the roster, along with Blake Griffin (2009) and Antawn Jamison (1998). Redick won the award in 2006, two years removed from his only Final Four appearance as a collegian. Four years later, Redick’s Orlando Magic team appeared in the NBA Finals. Another former Blue Devil, Shane Battier, is the only other player since the turn of the century to win the award and appear in the Final Four and NBA Finals in his career. Marcus Camby, a former Clippers big man, did so in 1996.
Eric Patten, Clippers.com
