With Pat McAfee on vacation, many in sports media (but certainly not at this website) worried that there might not be much to cover this week. Fortunately, JJ Redick was willing to fill that void.
Making his long awaited return to First Take on Tuesday, the former NBA shooting guard wasted little time attracting attention to himself, calling out his former coach, Doc Rivers, who he’ll also replace on ESPN/ABC’s NBA Finals coverage. Redick’s comments fueled a day’s worth of headlines — during the NBA All-Star break, no less — with former Clippers players, including Rivers’ son and fellow ESPN analyst Austin Rivers, coming to the Milwaukee Bucks head coach’s defense.
On Wednesday, Redick was at it again, albeit in a much more meta way. During a discussion regarding Kevin Durant’s comments about the way he’s perceived, Redick took issue with Stephen A. Smith’s stance that the league’s stars have a responsibility to educate their fanbase and proceeded to use his comments regarding Rivers to question how much fans actually want to learn in the first place.
“I can do a video on my podcast where I break down the last nine games the Pelicans have used Zion Williamson as the primary ballhandler… 54,000 views on YouTube,” Redick said. “But I wanna call out a coach yesterday. Oh, that gets tens of millions of engagements. That’s the ecosystem we live in. So do fans actually want to be educated or not?”
JJ Redick questions why it's the responsibility of NBA players to educate fans and questions how much fans actually want to be educated in the first place.
"I can do a video on my podcast where I break down the last nine games the Pelicans have used Zion Williamson as the… pic.twitter.com/3zJqUdZ3T1
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 21, 2024
Shortly after Redick made his comments, Fox Sports’ Nick Wright took to X (formerly Twitter) to seemingly respond.
“I totally understand folks who aren’t into televised sports discussion/debate. It’s not for everyone!” Wright wrote. “I will *never* understand someone who is incredibly wealthy, opts into working in the space, and then simply uses the platform to complain about how useless/dumb the space is.”
I totally understand folks who aren’t into televised sports discussion/debate. It’s not for everyone!
I will *never* understand someone who is incredibly wealthy, opts into working in the space, and then simply uses the platform to complain about how useless/dumb the space is.
— nick wright (@getnickwright) February 21, 2024
The First Things First co-host proceeded to post multiple analogies to further drive his point home, including one in which he likened sports debate to an Uno party and another in which he invoked Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
As I told @SherwoodStrauss, if I’m hosting an Uno party & invite you, and you eagerly show up, and then spend the whole party explaining how incredibly stupid you think Uno is, how it’s a waste of everyone’s time, and how we should all be playing chess, you’re the problem!
— nick wright (@getnickwright) February 21, 2024
The great thing about modern sports media is there’s literally an audience/platform for ALL TYPES of coverage. You can do anything!
And folks can create their own lanes/platforms where they do literally whatever they want!
It’s really an exciting time!
— nick wright (@getnickwright) February 21, 2024
But personally, I’d be a little embarrassed if, for example, @NekiasNBA invited me on to talk deep Xs & Os & I just yelled at him “This is boring! Let’s rank players!”
To know exactly what you signed up for, take the check, then whine about how beneath you it is is wild to me.
— nick wright (@getnickwright) February 21, 2024
https://twitter.com/getnickwright/status/1760336858293125212
While Wright didn’t mention Redick by name, it was fairly easy to connect the dots considering the timing of the posts and that Wright has previously been critical of the former Duke star’s takes on the sports talk space.
“You call JJ Redick and he’s just going to talk about how all sports television shows suck and about how we just need to dissect what horns action is,” Wright told Dan Patrick in December.
Nick Wright doesn't seem to see eye to eye with JJ Redick about sports television (via @dpshow) pic.twitter.com/XkR1NTr5xS
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 14, 2023
It’s understandable why Wright would accuse Redick of wanting to have his cake and eat it too. If you’re going to appear on First Take — a show that Redick is very good on — then it’s tough to also complain about the content that you’re helping to create.
In this particular instance, however, it’s worth noting that Redick was responding to a specific point that Smith had made regarding Durant and was using the response to his comments regarding Rivers to illustrate his own point. So in essence, he was playing the game the way Wright believes it should be — not that there’s any one way to do sports debate.
