Disgruntled Dallas Mavericks guard, J.J. Redick took to his “The Old Man & the Three” podcast to air his grievances about the New Orleans Pelicans front office on Wednesday, detailing the timeline of events that led up to his trade from New Orleans to Dallas at the trade deadline.
Redick, 36-years-old, was expecting a contract buyout or a trade to a team in the Northeastern region to be near his family.
This is a desire that he believes was communicated clearly to Pelicans executive vice president David Griffin and general manager Trajan Langdon.
“I talked to Griff. I talked to Trajan. Griff basically says to me, ‘Come down for a month. If you still want to be traded, I give you my word, I’ll get you to a situation that you like.’ We had four subsequent conversations,” Redick said on the podcast. “Again, my agent talked to them. But I’m talking to Griff directly. Griff and I had a personal relationship.
“Obviously, he did not honor his word.”
Instead of being sent to a team near his family, franchises that could have included the Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers and New York Nets, Redick was traded to the Dallas Mavericks without being consulted.
The handling of the matter led to Redick openly questioning whether players can expect the Pelicans’ front office to be honest with them:
“I don’t think you’re going to get honesty from that front office, just objectively speaking,” Reddick said. “That’s not an opinion — I just don’t think you’re going to get that. I don’t think what happened with me is necessarily an isolated incident either. But I do think across the league, front offices, they act in their best interest. I get that. I understand that.
“Truthfully — and it’s hard for me to admit this — I think I was a little naive in thinking that because I was in Year 15, and I had at least attempted to do things right throughout my career and I honored my end of the bargain … But in terms of this front office, yeah, it’s not something where I would expect certainly the agents that worked on this with me to ever trust that front office again.”
The Mavericks are Redick’s sixth team in 15 seasons and the third team he’s been traded to since 2017-18.
