J.J. Redick rips New Orleans Pelicans for his trade to Mavericks

The New Orleans Pelicans front office backed out of an agreement to trade J.J. Redick to a team closer to his family in Brooklyn, the veteran NBA guard said on his Old Man and the Three podcast.

“I don't think you're going to get honesty from that front office, objectively speaking,” Redick said on the podcast. “That's not an opinion, I just don't think you're going to get that.”

Redick says before the season he approached the front office – led by executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin and general manager Trajan Langdon – and made a trade request. Redick claims Griffin said, “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.”

On Thursday, the Pelicans traded Redick to Dallas.

“Obviously, he did not honor his word,” Redick said.

Griffin declined to comment.

Redick said he had four conversations with Griffin and Langdon.

“I had multiple, very transparent conversations with Trajan Langdon and David Griffin,” Redick said. “The impetus for this was my son, of course, had started kindergarten in Brooklyn back in September. We had no idea when the NBA season was going to start. The NBA sort of sprung this, ‘We’re starting Christmas day’ and simultaneously to that announcement, the Pelicans were trading Jrue Holiday. Jrue is the reason I went to New Orleans.

“As much I was excited to play with Zion (Williamson) and I was excited about the young guys they had just gotten from the Lakers and truthfully the contract was the best that was offered to me in free agency. The real excitement for me was to play with Jrue.”

Redick also explained that new Coach Stan Van Gundy’s defensive scheme wasn’t going to work for him, and COVID protocols set by the league and his kids’ school made hit difficult to see his family.

When Redick wasn’t traded by early February, he thought he would reach a buyout agreement with New Orleans.

“I look at the buyout situation not just me specifically being like “I’m going to get bought out and go to Brooklyn.’" Redick said "I just wanted to be able to on an off day go see my family and be within driving distance. That was the whole goal.”

Van Gundy said that the NBA is a business, saying that the front office has a responsibility to the franchise first.

"Listen, the one thing with me -- and I think I've been consistent about this throughout my career -- is you'll hear people say it from time to time that it's a business; well, it is," Van Gundy told reporters today. "Players are going to want to do what's best for them and they have every damn right to do that, and organizations have every damn right to do what's best for their organization. I have problems when it gets skewed that it's a business from my end, but you should not be a business on your end. That's not right. It's a business on both ends of it.

"Everyone should do what's best for them. That part of it, the business part of basketball, when you're talking about trades and free-agent signings and contracts and all of that -- everyone should do what's best for their interest. Unfortunately sometimes, what the player wants and what the team wants diverge. That's unfortunate, but that's just part of the way it is."

Redick, who signed a two-year, $26.5 million contract the Pelicans in 2019, is rehabbing a heel injury. He was complimentary of the Mavs.

“The Mavs situation, really great,” Redick said. “Obviously, huge respect for Mark (Cuban), and Rick (Carlisle) and Donnie (Nelson) and what they’ve been able to build there and play with two more transcendent young players."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: J.J. Redick rips New Orleans Pelicans for his trade to Mavericks