Jerry West pretty much destroys JJ Redick

[LuDux1]

Will anyone remember JJ Redick when he's 84 years old?

Come on, who can forget architect of Atlanta Hawks dynasty that won 3 titles in the row in Roaring Fourties with under 1.5 billion salary?

[Karate Diop]

It's odd because both JJ and West are right in this situation...

Yeah, except one of them is wrong and it's not West.

Eh... To each their own, but that's a super simplistic / casual type take.

[Dupp]

Magic Johnson Vs Pop… explain that

[Infinite Llamas]

Will anyone remember JJ Redick when he's 84 years old?

Will anyone remember Redick when he’s 48 years old?

[Nate505]

Good for West. **** Reddick and his stupid plumbers comment.

[LuDux1]

Good for West. **** Reddick and his stupid plumbers comment.

TBF you had to be pretty smart to be good at both plumbing and basketball

[LuDux1]

Will anyone remember JJ Redick when he's 84 years old?

Come on, who can forget architect of Atlanta Hawks dynasty that won 3 titles in the row in Roaring Fourties with under 1.5 billion salary?

Ironically he did it with help of plumbing AI system that he modified to be GM

[chilluminati]

JJ is making himself enemy number one at the geriatrics center. Dentures and asper cream bottles are gonna be thrown at him at his next live show.

[Nate505]

I don't get the "the players had to have jobs in the summer to support their families" take. The average annual salary in the NBA in even 1946 was $4-5k. Back then the median income in the US was about $3k, and that's back when families tended to be one income families. $5k a year then is about $75k a year now. Not amazing money by any means, but it's not exactly like they were standing in the soup line. I doubt plumbers were making that much then (actually it was close, but more like $3120 a year in 1945, or $1.50 an hour based on a 40 hour work week and 52 weeks a year).

My guess is most guys worked in the off season because it was a chance to make more money, and the idea of training in the off season just wasn't that common back then. Why train when you could make some extra money and thus have your annual income be like $6-7k for the year (or $91-$106k today).

Now a better take could be that in the early days of the NBA, there were guys would could go to other careers and make more money. So perhaps you didn't get the best of the best because maybe a great college player could parlay that fame into a better job with the connections they made in college.

[Nate505]

Good for West. **** Reddick and his stupid plumbers comment.

TBF you had to be pretty smart to be good at both plumbing and basketball

Hahaha, good point. Honestly, if I had to do life over again I would seriously consider taking up plumbing. Those guys make great money.

[madmaxmedia]

Good for West. **** Reddick and his stupid plumbers comment.

TBF you had to be pretty smart to be good at both plumbing and basketball

Thank you, I mean someone has to stand up for plumbers past and present…

[madmaxmedia]

There’s little to be gained by criticizing the level of play of the past, without providing some context as has been discussed here.

If you transported 28 year old Jerry West to 2022, of course the deck would be stacked against him. But if you take some of the greats of the past and have them born and raised in the current climate, a lot of them would be great today.

[Pennebaker]

Read on Twitter

Wow! Props to the old man for the fire. Get em Mr. Clutch.

Jerry is short tempered and bitter. He's angry here because he knows Redick is right. Redick's comment is too on the nose. Hits too close to home. And Redick is only repeating what Michael Jordan had already said in the 90s and nobody gave MJ crap for that.

[cam24thomas]

JJ comes across as extremely hateful when he's debating Stephan A. Smith on First Take.
Its good entertainment, because JJ is so uptight and takes everything so personally, whereas Stephen A. Smith just loves debating and has a great time
JJ has a low IQ but a huge ego, so he's good at never giving ground.

[Synciere]

I understand his point, but Jerry is basically saying only the greats can competently talk basketball. That’s just not true. If you make it to the league, your opinion on ball should be revered. But that’s just me. Keep doing your thing JJ!

I didn’t really take it that way. I think Jerry was just highlighting the point that it’s still an accomplishment to dominate your era regardless of how much the game has changed and that JJ shouldn’t be dragging down other guys to prop his own career up.

Except I don’t care if he dominated his era if that doesn’t necessarily give me greater insight into this current era… I didn’t see JJs comments as bringing anyone else down, just uplifting current players if anything. So again, West is just an old man trying to uplift his own era, which I’m not mad at, but I’m not giving him any credit for either..

[CIN-C-STAR]

It's really not clear at all that JJ is even qualified to discuss the league from 50 or 60 years ago.
Is he actually studying the history of the game? Does he really think those players wouldn't be autmotically better with the same luxuries modern players have, like dedicated shooting coaches, dietitians, daily massages, access to modern medical care, and fundamentally changed rules that allow things like traveling and launching yourself into defenders for gift wrapped FTs?

This is exactly JJs point though, that you can’t compare players from different eras cause of all the modern advancements. Bob Cousy and the players he competed against didn’t have any of the luxuries you list, so to try to directly compare him to someone like CP3 is unfair. CP3 is going up against modern athletes with every modern advancement available to improve their skills and body. He’d tear those 1950s players to shreds by comparison.

First you say, "you can't compare players from different eras," then you conclude with, "(JJ Reddick) would tear those 1950s players to shreds by comparison."
So which is it? Can we compare players from different eras or not? Your argument is trying to have it both ways.
And if this was really his point, and I'm not sure it was, then perhaps he could have phrased it as, "The 1950s would have ripped me to shreds and I wouldn't have even made the NBA as a mediocre-at-best athlete without the privilege of professional coaching at a very young age." Perhaps that's a more fair way to make his point without unnecessarily disparaging older players based on things that were out of their control.
It seems to me that his point as you've described it is self contradicting, self serving and lacking in context, so good on West for calling him out.

[cam24thomas]

I understand his point, but Jerry is basically saying only the greats can competently talk basketball. That’s just not true. If you make it to the league, your opinion on ball should be revered. But that’s just me. Keep doing your thing JJ!

I didn’t really take it that way. I think Jerry was just highlighting the point that it’s still an accomplishment to dominate your era regardless of how much the game has changed and that JJ shouldn’t be dragging down other guys to prop his own career up.

Except I don’t care if he dominated his era if that doesn’t necessarily give me greater insight into this current era… I didn’t see JJs comments as bringing anyone else down, just uplifting current players if anything. So again, West is just an old man trying to uplift his own era, which I’m not mad at, but I’m not giving him any credit for either..

Every team Jerry West touches, turns to gold, including the LA Clippers roster since he joined them in 2017. He's the smartest man in the NBA.

[Sprewell4Three]

Can’t compare eras, do people know how different the game was back in the 50s and 60s? It’s like comparing a car from 50 yrs ago. Of course today is going to be better because technology advances. This era comparisons/ debates is only going on in the NBA. Why not NFL and MLB?

JJ redick is falling into the social media rabbit hole he’s literally spewing talking points directly from the trolls on IG/ twitter.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NyKnicks1714]

You have to love the arrogance of modern athletes. Who is to say that Jim Thorpe or Jesse Owens would not be the greatest athletes if they were alive today?

Modern athletes benefit from a host of things, modern medicine, scientific advances, better equipment, etc... when my grandfather was playing sports they told them not to drink water! Heck there was an Olympic marathon once were the runners were nearly killed by idiotic advice. So yes, of course these guys were not putting up the numbers we see today. What this doesn't mean though is that given what modern athletes have to work with today they wouldn't be capable of the same things, or... even better things.

Well here's the thing. If we take the greatest NBA athletes of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and put them in today's era, with all the modern training, science, medicine, and resources we have today, I'm happy to concede that they would be among the NBA's best athletes. I don't think that they would be as head-and-shoulders above the average competition today as they were back then. Let's say that Wilt would be the greatest athlete and best player in the NBA today: he's still not going to come close to a 50 and 25 season. I think this illustrates the point people like JJ Reddick sometimes make.

[Fencer reregistered]

Lol, JJ has now gotten told by an 84 year old and a 94 year old.

Wanna see Oscar and Russell lay into him next.

Sort of a real-life version of one of my favorite clips:

Watch on YouTube