It did not take long for New Orleans shooting guard JJ Redick to realize that the Crescent City is his kind of place. Now in his second season with the Pelicans, the 15-year NBA veteran has embraced the local food scene in particular, as he detailed in his response to how he’d spend an ideal day in the Big Easy. On Media Day in December, the 36-year-old also delved into a few thoughts on his Pelicans teammates in the latest edition of our “24 Seconds” Q&A series:
Pelicans.com: What would be your perfect New Orleans day?
Redick: I’m going to wake up and have breakfast at Bearcat Café (in Uptown) and have the Bearcat Breakfast, which is two eggs, potatoes. I’m going to sub avocado for the bison sausage or the bacon. Then I’m going to get two pancakes on the side. For lunch, I’m going to Turkey and the Wolf (on Jackson Avenue). I’m going to get four or five things, whatever concoctions (chef) Mason (Hereford) has come up with in his lab. For dinner, I’m going to Paladar 511 (in the Marigny) and get a few appetizers and the hot hangar wagyu steak. Then I’m going to get a late-night meal too, to be honest, because this is what New Orleans is all about. I’m going to Seaworthy (on Carondelet) to get about 24 oysters. [laughs] That is not an exaggeration. You can see I gained some weight last year when I got to New Orleans, and now you can see why. I’ve had that day a couple times.
Pelicans.com: What’s your guilty pleasure TV show?
Redick: All time, probably The OC. During quarantine, I watched The Outer Banks, which is basically a modern-day version of the OC, set in North Carolina – although where it was filmed, and where it was supposed to be set, are two very different things. That show is terrible. Poorly acted, poorly written, the plotlines have so many holes. It’s a terrible show. But I enjoyed it and recommended it to so many people. It’s a 10 out of 10 for me. It’s so bad, but so good.
Pelicans.com: If you had to pick a teammate to be your roommate, who would it be?
Redick: Josh Hart, because we’ve already been roommates and experienced that. I feel like it went well. It was an eight-day trial, and it went well.
Pelicans.com: What was the worst part of being his roommate?
Redick: Josh doesn’t really clean up. He’s a messy person. It annoyed me, and I can clearly tell that it annoyed Shannon, his (now fiancée).
Pelicans.com: Who has the best tattoos on the team? Redick: I’m going to say Brandon Ingram, because he’s had a real come up. I met Brandon his first couple weeks at Duke in the fall of his freshman year. He didn’t have that back then. He’s fully committed now, and I love it. Every inch he has tattooed, it looks great.
Pelicans.com: If you could raid any teammate’s closet, who would it be?
Redick: Nickeil Alexander-Walker's. His drip is serious. I like all of his fits and you can tell he puts a lot of thought into it and enthusiasm. If there’s any one specific thing I could raid, it would be all of the vintage T-shirts he’s collected.
Pelicans.com: How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Redick: Less than five. I’m not a sneaker guy. Clean and crisp, minimalist, that’s all I need.
Pelicans.com: What’s your take on watches?
Redick: [smiles] Well, you’re talking to a former addict, who went so far down the rabbit hole in the watch game, that it was consuming so much of my time and energy. Over the course of like eight years, I collected, bought, sold, traded well over 100 watches. I realized it was an unhealthy obsession, so I sold my entire collection over the course of a couple months. I recently purchased my first watch in over three years. So I have one watch now. I’m at the point in my life where I think I can wear that and just enjoy it, both for its functionality and its style.