Sixers

JJ Redick Didn’t Even Know That He Had Scored His 10,000th Point

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Dec 20th, 2018 · 11:23 AM EST

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JJ Redick isn’t one to overstate things, nor does he seem to care too much about individual accomplishments and accolades.

Knowing that, it’s no surprise that he downplayed the milestone he reached last night, the scoring of his 10,000th professional point during the first half of the Sixers’ 131-109 win over the Knicks.

It was just another routine play, a 20-foot jump shot coming off a Joel Embiid screen in the uber-effective two-man elbow game. He’s hit hundreds of those over the course of his career, but this one put him into elite status as only one of 50 active NBA players to reach the five-digit plateau in point production.

“A couple thoughts,” Redick said after the game. “Number one, I feel like if you do something long enough, the milestones just sort of come. It doesn’t really equal greatness or anything like that. You just kind of luck into it, I guess. But the other part of that is, if you had told me like 10 years ago, as a third-year guy struggling to get into the rotation, that I would score 10,000 points, I would think you were crazy. It’s a cool thing for me. I’m a little self-deprecating, but it’s a cool thing for me. I didn’t realize that I was that close, so it’s cool.”

JJ should give himself a least a little bit of credit. Sure, he’s been lucky to stay healthy and find roles on above-average playoff teams, but he’s always been a pro when it comes to preparation and taking care of his body and remaining consistent year-in and year-out. That part of it is definitely not luck.

Redick now finds himself on a list that includes names like LeBron James, Steph Curry, Tony Parker, and Pau Gasol, and while he knew he was getting close to the milestone, he started to lose track of when exactly he was going to reach it.

“What happened was – so I looked it up in the offseason; I was like, ‘I’ve got to be getting close,’ because I remember I had scored 8,000 with the Clippers and they announced it. I thought it was kind of odd to announce eight, because that’s not really a number that gets celebrated often. I looked it up in the offseason and it was 500 (points) or whatever it was, that many points away. Oddly enough, like two weeks ago, I was like, ‘have I done it yet?’ I didn’t even know what it was, something like 80 or 90 points away. I was a few games away and I had forgotten about it. Right after I hit the shot I went to get my finger checked, and it was on TV that I had done it. That’s how I found out about it. I wasn’t aware that I was nine points away.”

Redick came off the floor and was serenaded by teammates in front of the bench. Joel Embiid rubbed his head while T.J. McConnell and Furkan Korkmaz vigorously waved towels in front of his face, as if to cool off a hot shooter:

Get you some friends who are as proud of your career milestones as the Sixers are of JJ Redick's. pic.twitter.com/BMHwAUmsvV

— NBC Sports Philadelphia (@NBCSPhilly) December 20, 2018

“That was great,” Redick said. “It’s always good to share those moments with your teammates. We’ve had a bunch of those moments in my two years here, whether it’s guys getting triple doubles or Jo going for 40-something points. It’s always good.”

If JJ was “self-deprecating” in his analysis, Brett Brown was on the other end of the spectrum. He was effusive with his praise.

“All over the place he’s a tremendous example of, in my eyes, what a professional really is,” the head ball coach said. “You see how he takes care out of his body. You watch how he prepares for a game. You watch him interacting with young guys in the locker room. You watch his demeanor on the court and his interaction with a referee. He’s class. He’s all class. And to see him get rewarded tonight as a Philadelphia 76er, one of our own, with 10,000 NBA points, that’s a big number. That’s hard to do. I’m just so proud of him and especially grateful to have him in our program and showing the way to a lot of our young guys.

Redick apparently does not have anything in his house to commemorate anything he’s done athletically. Nothing at all.

But he’s going to make sure there’s at least something tangible to take from Wednesday night and hold for the future.

“I’ll get the ball. The ball is somewhere back there,” he said. “If you walk into my home you would not know that I was a basketball player. I don’t have any trophies, memorabilia, jerseys hanging on the wall, nothing. Never will. But all of that stuff gets put away in a storage unit somewhere and when my boys are old enough I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”