Philadelphia 76ers: J.J. Redick’s season doesn’t need All-Star validation

While many fans had hoped that the Philadelphia 76ers would have four All-Stars this season, J.J. Redick doesn’t need accolades to validate his season.

Try as we might, it looks like J.J. Redick will not be representing the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2019 NBA All-Star game after all.

Now granted, in theory he could still find his way into the contest, as last season the East had 15 different players earn berths from the Eastern Conference due to a string of injuries, but after failing to land on the top-ten in fan voting (12th), player voting (18th), or media voting (zero votes), it’s pretty safe to say that won’t happen.

But really, that shouldn’t matter.

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I mean granted, it probably does matter to Redick at least a little bit, as he’s failed to appear in an All-Star game in any of his 13 (!) seasons in the NBA, but in a league where people are always looking for the next big thing, the 34-year-old shooting guard from Duke is in the midst of the best season of his NBA career.

Averaging a career-high 18.4 points on 13.8 shots a game, Redick is torching opposing defenses with his dead-eyed accuracy from beyond the arc (38.4 percent) and has almost single-handedly shaped the team’s outside shooting tradition that’s been passed on to the likes of Landry Shamet, Furkan Korkmaz, and Shake Milton.

Sure, Redick is a player with limitations, as he can’t really play defense at even a  serviceable level, and lacks the handle and tenacity to serve as a secondary playmaker with any regularity, but he’s among the best pure shooters in the league, and that’s invaluable in the modern NBA.

But that’s not all Redick brings to the table either.

Though it may not show up on the traditional stat sheet, Redick currently leads the Sixers in distance traveled per game with 12948.5 feet (about 2.5 miles) due to Brett Brown‘s near-constant reliance on freeing up his star shooter with (usually) Joel Embiid screens. Just for reference, that’s 35 more yards than Ben Simmons travels a game, and he’s considered one of the most athletic players in NBA history.

No wonder Emiid loves sharing the court with Redick, the duo is virtually unstoppable when they share the court, as their skill sets are perfectly complemented.

Redick may be old, and may not have the flashy 50 point games, slippery handle, or highlight reel moments of the Eastern Conference’s other All-Star caliber guards, but that’s not really his style. Many fans expect an elite shooting guard to play like Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, or even James Harden, but Redick’s game has far more in common with another former Sixer, Kyle Korver, who’s still going strong at the ripe old age of 37 with the Utah Jazz.

Does Redick want to play in the NBA until his late 30s, especially with the current success of his podcast ‘The J.J. Redick Podcast‘? Who knows, but at 34, J.J. Redick is playing the best basketball of his career for the Philadelphia 76ers, and doesn’t need an All-Star berth to validate his production.