The Chronicles Of Redick

These are the arms.

These are the arms attached to the shoulders, torso, thighs, knees, calves and feet that create the purest and most perfect jump-shot form of all time.

These are the arms that have put an orange leather ball through an orange metal cylinder 825 times over the past four years and made the man they're connected to more famous than his wildest dreams.

Look at the arms--just the arms--when they're perfectly extended in the air and the wrist is bent at that perfect angle and the ball, in the background, is spinning with that perfect rotation on that perfect line into the basket from God knows how far away.

These arms are as perfect as humanly possible. These arms belong to J.J. Redick-the kid who lived the impossible.

He's the most prolific scorer in Duke and ACC history and will soon be made into a multi-multi-multi-millionaire by some billionaire owner in the NBA. His Blue Devil jersey-the one he dreamed about when he was growing up-will hang in Cameron's rafters until they tear the old barn down. He's been National Player of the Year twice, owns three ACC Tournament titles, went to a Final Four and won 116 career games. He has a great relationship with his parents and teammates who will always adore him. There are arenas and websites full of women who would love nothing more than to get their hands on his perfect, um, arms.

If you're not jealous of J.J. Redick, you're a damn fool.

But now look at the arms more closely. Look at them when they hang limply at Redick's sides on a bad night, when he realizes the most important part of that perfect shot is the one he can't control, when fate overwhelms perfection and it's all his fault that the best team in America doesn't win. Look at them when he hangs his head, when he's crying, when he's human.

Of course, without scars like that and the stories behind them, Redick wouldn't be the player-or the man-he is today. They are remnants of an earlier, stupider J.J. Redick than the one who will graduate from Duke in May.

"College for me has just been all about ups and downs," Redick says. "I've weathered the downs and enjoyed the highs. I just don't have any regrets-I really don't. Even the mistakes that I've made and the hard times-I'm glad I went through them. They've made me a better person."

Fun is a Duke Basketball Thing. It's definitely a Coach K Thing, and it's become a J.J. Thing. Krzyzewski might tell his players (as he did at halftime of Duke's win over N.C. State January 18) that "the outcome of the game will be determined by how well we have fun."

Fun might mean playing loosely and aggressively-going for the win instead of avoiding the loss. Fun might mean diving on the floor for loose balls, pulling up to take a three on a fast break. Or it might mean none of those things.

Whatever it really means, it's the secret to the program's success under Krzyzewski, or at least the secret to Redick's success under him.

Before this year's regional semifinal in Atlanta, Redick was the last player announced during pre-game introductions. As he sat alone on the bench, Krzyzewski squatted to his left. "Have fun out there" was the last thing the coach said to his superstar. Of course, he didn't have Fun, but that's another story.

To understand J.J. Redick, you have to understand the importance of Fun. Because when Redick's not having Fun, everything-especially that picture-perfect jumper-goes to Hell.

A jump shot is a mechanical thing. There's no emotion allowed in a jumper. Feet set, stay balanced, shoulders square, jump straight up, elbow in, follow through. It's simple mechanics and parabolic motion.

But a human jump shot, controlled by the mechanical movements of an emotional human, turns out to be a delicate thing. There are a lot of things that can make the ball come off the shooter's hand wrong, a lot of things that make a jump shot more complicated than just a matter of mechanics.

For Redick, one of those things is Fun. And without Fun, the jumper's not going to fall.

There was a time this season-the span of four games when Redick broke Curtis Staples' NCAA three-point record, Johnny Dawkins' Duke scoring record and Dickie Hemric's ACC scoring record-when the Fun disappeared.

"My confidence or whatever swagger I play with, it's not that it's shaken," he said before the ACC Tournament. "I just think I put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel a lot of pressure from outside sources, and it hasn't been fun for me."

Chasing-and catching-the records meant being surrounded by more cameras, by more nosy reporters, by more and more people asking for a piece of Redick's time when, damn it, that got old two years ago. Chasing the records meant more people asking about J.J. Redick's Legacy and fewer asking about the team's legacy. Chasing the records meant more people on television talking about Redick-how good he was and where he might rank among Duke greats of the past.

It got to the point that Redick, the lifelong basketball junkie, couldn't turn on ESPN anymore because he knew he'd hear Jay Bilas and Digger Phelps dissecting him or Dick Vitale giving him a shout-out during a random game. "They can't stop talking about us or me," he says. "Give it a rest for a couple of days."

That was not Fun.

Redick is a perfectionist. He's still the same 10-year-old who worked on his jumper when his mom was distracted for a second while home-schooling him, only now he works on his jumper when the TV guy filming a segment needs to adjust his equipment. Even after breaking Staples' record in an 11-for-18, 33-point effort, he was still looking for flaws. "I forced a couple, and I'll beat myself up about that tonight," Redick said after that game.

Maybe the accolades threw off Redick because he doesn't think he deserves them ("I just did some things I never really thought I'd accomplish," he says). Maybe he thought they'd make him complacent, distract him from his constant, almost Sisyphean task of getting better ("I don't think I'll ever be able to shed the label of just a shooter.") Maybe it bugged him that the attention was on him instead of on his team ("It's not about me.") Maybe all those cameras and all those reporters just wore him down.

Constantly trying to push the world's attention away-while still gathering the energy to attract it-can get tiring. How many ways could Redick say, "I'm not the story, the team is"? How often could he give the perfect answer, sound grateful for all the attention paid to him without sounding like the asshole most of America thinks he is?

And the damndest thing about being J.J. Redick is that when any one little thing-like the record countdown or a fight with his girlfriend-throws off that delicate flower of a jumper, the whispers start.

The whispers say things like "J.J. isn't clutch." Or "He always fades at the end of the season." They point out things like his 17.8 career points per game average in the Tournament. They harp on his 38 percent field goal percentage (34 percent from three) in the games that really count. They bring up a 15-point performance on 4-of-12 shooting in a Final Four loss to UConn in 2004-the biggest game of his life. Now they'll never let him forget the 11-point egg he laid against LSU in the other biggest game of his life.

The whispers are remnants of that sophomore season when Duke was the best team in the country and UConn won it all. The whispers are The Scar, remnants of The Big Hurt that sparked The Big Transformation that turned Young and Stupid J.J. into Grown-Up J.J.-the older, more mature version that has twice been National Player of the Year.

You want to know who J.J. Redick really is? Stop whispering and start listening.

It's June 2004, and we're STANDING in an Erwin Square apartment off Ninth Street. That's J.J., over there on the couch. He wasn't supposed to be here this summer, was going to go home to Roanoke and spend time with his family, but Luol Deng left for the NBA and Krzyzewski told Redick to stay at school over the summer and work on his game.

This is where the Big Transformation begins.

It's 11 or 12 in the (late) morning and Redick is asleep. There was a party here last night-nothing crazy, nothing out of the ordinary, but there was definitely a party. "There's a little bit of a social life," Redick says later with a laugh, "and it could get the best of you."

Assistant coaches Steve Wojcie-chowski and Chris Collins ring the doorbell and walk into the apartment. They tell J.J. he's coming with them. He's going to see Coach K-whether he likes it or not. The five of them-Krzyzewski, his three assistants and the would-be superstar-sit down in the coach's kingly office at the top of the Schwartz-Butters building.

Krzyzewski and the other coaches had been telling an unmotivated Redick for two years that he could be the National Player of the Year-could win Duke a National Championship-if he could only get himself into shape. Collins told him over and over again that he didn't even know how good he could be.

Redick isn't a pure athlete like Grant Hill or even Corey Maggette. He can barely dunk, he's not all that fast, he's only 6-foot-4. He was blessed with the ability to knock down a jumpshot, but even that talent had to be cultivated by all those hours practicing in his backyard. But that jumper-damn, if he could get it off consistently, he'd be the best player in America.

And getting it off consistently meant being the best-conditioned player in America. It meant being able to run for 40 full minutes, just running in circles around screens until his defender couldn't run anymore. So when the coaches told Redick he had to get in shape, that's what they meant-if you become the best-conditioned player in the country, we'll run the offense that will make you the best player in the country.

Redick heard, but he didn't listen. He'd give the coaches the same "yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah" routine teenagers give their parents.

And it made sense, didn't it? Because when you get right down to it, he was a teenager. He may have been on magazine covers, he may have been on his way to becoming The Face of College Basketball, but he was still only 19.

During his freshman and sophomore years, Redick admits he wasn't ready to commit enough of himself to basketball to get in shape. He wasn't ready to be an "athlete-student," to give up so much of his social life in favor of practicing and working out.

"That was all of us," teammate Sean Dockery says. "That was me, that was Shav, that was Mike Thompson, that was Shelden, that was Lee, that was all of us. We were freshmen."

Maybe he wanted to be a Beirut All-American more than he wanted to be a basketball All-American ("He's pretty good when he's been playing consistently," says Ryan Kerlew, Redick's friend.). Maybe he wanted to stay up all night partying and then sit on an East Campus bench talking until nine in the morning ("We were saying, 'This is the greatest moment of our lives,'" says Kerlew.) He was an underclassman, damn it-he wasn't ready to grow up.

"There were times where my freshman or sophomore year I didn't know when to say no," he says. "I wanted to please a lot of people, and I kind of just forgot about pleasing myself and what made me the happiest."

Can you blame him? Honestly, can you? Is it fair that Joe College gets to go to school and do whatever he wants-drink what he wants, smoke what he wants, stay out 'til God knows when-when J.J. Redick has to be mature enough from Day One to make every sacrifice so that he can win basketball games for your sake? Would you deny J.J. Redick the right to a real college experience just because he happens to have a great jump-shot? Is that fair?

The second semester of Redick's sophomore year, he went into a funk. Basketball wasn't Fun anymore. He says now that if he'd had his shit together maybe there would be another championship banner in Cameron. "It was wrong of me, but that's just the way it was and I learned from it," he says.

After Duke lost, Redick refused to watch UConn play Georgia Tech in that title game-the fanatic refusing to watch the NCAA Championship-probably because he knew it should've been him out there.

Maybe it was that lost opportunity that made Redick listen to Krzyzewski this time. Maybe it was the feeling that he had cost his good friend Chris Duhon his last shot at a second championship. Maybe it was the realization that the Duke career he had dreamed about for so long was slipping away and that he would never accomplish anything without growing up. "He had to reach that point of getting pretty low and then deciding to say, 'This isn't how I should be living my life,'" says Ian Carey, a soccer player who has been Redick's close friend for four years.

Of course, the only person that really knows for sure why J.J. Redick decided to listen to his coaches and see how good he could be is J.J. Redick.

"I think you go through certain things, and certain events are wake-up calls, and you realize at some point in your life that you've got to start taking things a little more serious," he says. "And that's kind of what happened with me-I just finally realized that I need to give this my full effort, my full attention."

In the end, why he listened is less important than the fact that he did listen. At the meeting, Krzyzewski gave him a single sheet of paper entitled "J.J.'s Plan for Success" that regimented his life in a way that was half-military, half-comical. Nine o'clock, wake up and brush your teeth. Eleven o'clock, have a salad for lunch. Midnight, go to bed. Coach K, the old Army man, was kicking his talented but lazy soldier's ass into gear.

But there was only so much Krzyzewski's schedule could do. He could show Redick where he needed to go, but he couldn't carry him. He could tell him to wake up at a certain time, could tell him to go to sleep at a certain time, could tell him when to lift weights, when to run sprints and when to shoot jumpers until those perfect arms nearly fell off, but he couldn't make him do it.

The hard part-the doing-Redick had to take care of on his own.

He came back from his meeting, his friends say, with a look in his eye. A look that said, "I needed this meeting. I want to-have to-do what Coach says." He knew he needed the structure, needed less time to screw around, less time to play video games and drink beer.

He bought into Krzyzewski's plan. All summer long, Redick grew up.

He went to every class, showed up on time, did all the readings, and he found out that he liked it. He swore off Bojangles-the chicken biscuits, curly fries and sweet tea he loves so much. He rebuilt his body, became a 40-minutes-per-game machine. He stopped going out, got a serious girlfriend, moved into the gym, worked on shooting on the move and moving his feet on defense. He gave his heart and his body and his soul to Duke Basketball.

He wanted to win for himself now. Basketball was Fun again. He was ready to discover just how good he could become. He could be perfect. And for two years and counting, he (almost) has.

He's different now than he was then, but he hasn't changed. Young and Stupid J.J. and Grown-Up J.J. are the same guy, only Grown-Up J.J. has a better haircut, isn't quite as pudgy and, to use Dockery's words, handles his business better. He's still funny and smart, and still has the same quirky sense of humor.

"We rip on J.J. a lot," Dockery says. "He's a jokester, so if he says something that's not funny, we're like, 'Yo, J.J., shut up!'"

He's famous, but he doesn't come off like that. He signs autographs and poses for pictures with kids when they ask because that's just the nice thing to do. His close friends-some of them athletes, some just regular students-say that if you didn't know he was the best basketball player in the country, you'd never know it from spending time with him. He invites his friends up to his home in Roanoke, introduces them to his family. He drives a Corolla.

He likes to mess with people, get in their head. He's introduced himself to a wide-eyed freshman as Jack Johnson and kept the act going long enough for the freshman to believe that the guy who looks exactly like the most recognizable face on campus isn't actually the most recognizable face on campus. Then he told the freshman who he really is, and they both laughed about it, because that's the kind of guy J.J. Redick is.

One of his favorite things to do is to meet someone from Indianapolis and, without batting an eye, respond, "I love Indianapolis; it's so pretty in Michigan." Then he looks at them like he's dead serious until everyone starts laughing.

While posing for this magazine's cover in the visitors' locker room at Cameron, a photographer asked Redick to hold a piece of equipment that helped gauge the light. The photographer tested the flash, took back the light gauge and read the dial. Redick looked at him and said, "What is it-86 over 42?"-sounding exactly like he knew what he was talking about. The photographer looked confused, then realized Redick was joking.

On the same shoot, Redick was trying out facial expressions. He worked his way from blankly staring to smiling to focused to "perplexed," announcing which expression he was demonstrating as he did it. It was hard to believe that even Duke-haters could despise a guy this genuine, this down-to-earth, this eager to please.

But they do despise him, largely because of Young and Stupid J.J. They hate the guy who used to hold his follow-through when he nailed three-pointers, who prided himself on his trash-talking with opposing fans and players, whose Everyman build, bobbing head and trademark smug grin was everything they loved to hate about Duke Basketball.

"I had certain antics on the court, especially when I was younger-my freshman, sophomore years," he says, before quickly adding, "I don't do that anymore, but I guess they like to show that stuff on TV."

"It's part of who he is, but it's 10 percent of who he is," adds Dave Krauss, Redick's friend since freshman year. "It's 99 percent of who Joe Shmoe knows he is."

What Joe Shmoe doesn't know is that, now, Redick toys with his celebrity like a guy who isn't jaded by being on SportsCenter every night. Sure, he sees himself on the covers of basketball preview magazines when he walks into Sam's Quik Shop to get a Gatorade, and, sure, he's gotten used to it, but he still thinks it's a little weird. He's living a dream that he's had since he watched Hill-to-Laettner in 1992. He knows exactly how lucky he is.

The first extended time I spent with Redick, I tagged along for last October's taping of a segment for ACC Live, a show on Fox Sports Net that next to no one watches. We get there, and Jen Hilldreth, one of the hosts on the show, is wearing gym shorts and a Redick jersey. She and Redick are going to play HORSE.

I had heard the rumors by then-that Redick can be arrogant, that he can tell an interviewer a question is stupid. I worried that he would be too big-time for me. I was wrong.

As we walk through the gym to where Hilldreth is standing, the shoot's director tells Redick that Hilldreth played basketball in college. Redick looks over at Duke's PR guy with mock concern: "You didn't tell me she could play," he says.

I look at her and then at him and ask if he's going to keep it close. "I'm not f-ing around," he says. "I'm gonna destroy her." Then he laughs, and I laugh, too. That's what J.J. does: He makes you laugh.

He keeps laughing and smiling all through the shoot. He keeps smiling when he wins, keeps smiling when they ask him to stand over here with his feet like that looking right there so that they can get the shots they missed. He keeps smiling when tell him they have to redo a substantial part of the shoot because the behind-the-backboard camera is broken.

He keeps smiling for the director in the navy blue short shorts even as the shoot drags on for more than hour, even though he's missing a steak dinner with his teammates.

After the shoot, he's still smiling as he tells me that this particular episode was the most ridiculous press request he's ever done. "I guess the media is a good thing," he says. "The old saying goes, 'There's no such thing as bad publicity.' Some of the stuff can get a little corny, and you've just got to play along with it."

Maybe not the type of answer that would've come out of Young J.J., who wanted to be Joe College so bad that he ran from the responsibilities of his ridiculous life rather than play along with them.

See, he's the same guy, but grown-up. Handles his business better.

There isn't a fairy-tale ending to this story. It starts in anger and despair after a poor performance in an NCAA Tournament loss and ends in sadness and despair after a poor performance in an NCAA Tournament loss. Those are the facts.

It would have been nice-you know, for the story-if Redick's final redemption had come on a ladder in Indianapolis, piece of the National Championship net in hand, smile on his face. That's how these things are supposed to work themselves out. Player isn't as good as he can be because of distractions. Player sees the bottom and decides he doesn't like it so much. Player rededicates himself to the sport he once loved above all else, becomes a star. Player wins National Championship/Super Bowl/Masters/etc. Lights fade, cue the music, bring up the credits. But sometimes life intervenes and ruins all the dreams a kid can dream.

And that's why Redick is standing here on the Georgia Dome floor, the scoreboard above him showing that Duke has lost in the Sweet 16 for the third time in Redick's four years. He's crying-really crying-in front of all these people as he gives Coach K a half-hearted hug. It's why he's still crying, looking absolutely miserable as the photographers snap their pictures and the TV guys point their cameras at him. It's why he cries as he moves down the bench, stopping in front of each teammate for a hug, just like he did when he broke Staples' record and Dawkins' record. Except this time his heart isn't in it and the hugs are half-hearted, and they taper off to handshakes and high-fives as he reaches the end of the bench.

When the game ends, he walks off the court for the last time. Collins has his arm around him, and he has his arm around Collins, and it seems that if Collins lets go, Redick will just collapse on the floor. They pass the LSU fans screaming above the tunnel on their way to the locker room, and they look sad and pathetic.

This is how a career ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

In the interview room afterward, there's a table covered with a royal blue tablecloth on a stage in front of a blue background facing hundreds of chairs and maybe 50 reporters. Redick, Krzyzewski and Shelden Williams sit down.

Krzyzewski starts talking, congratulating LSU, then moving on to his own team. "The two kids here," he says, "have been two of the best players I've ever coached. They have been part of 116 wins at Duke during their four years, many championships. And although we have lost games, they have always represented me, our program and our school and themselves in the best possible manner."

Meanwhile, Redick, sitting two seats away from his coach, looks like he wants to punch someone. He doesn't look like most people look when they're sad, though he keeps swallowing and clearing his throat, obviously fighting tears. His face is set, his eyes are hard as he stares straight ahead, and his lips are pursed and stuck out at the same time. It seems that one false move could drive Redick to spring out of his chair and fight whomever it was that pissed him off. He looks like a man whose inescapable Scar has split into a gaping wound.

But when he starts to talk, it's a different story. He couldn't stop the whispers, but he doesn't listen to them anymore. "The past four years have just been pretty amazing, and I didn't want that to end," he says. "It's been such a thrill and a blessing for me to play for Duke, and to have the teammates and the coaches that I've had. I really consider myself one of the luckiest people. That doesn't really help the pain I'm feeling right now."

It wasn't supposed to end in pain like this. Not two years before, when Redick dedicated himself to sculpting his body so he could win Duke a fourth title. Not 14 years before, when Redick watched the 1992 Regional Final-Christian Laettner's Shot-and decided he'd come to Duke and do it himself. Not almost six years before, when Redick and Dockery sat on the porch at Mike Dunleavy's Erwin apartment and talked about how good their Duke teams would be.

In the fall of 2001, Redick's senior year of high school, he and Dockery went on their official recruiting visit. Dunleavy threw a party at his place, and most of the team-five months removed from winning it all-attended. The two high schoolers were starstruck-"You're just thinking, 'I'm at Mike Dunleavy's house, I know he sat right here,' so you sit right there," Dockery says-but the future freshman-year roommates left the party. They sat on the porch outside facing the big open yard behind the building and dreamed. We'll go to the Final Four, beat Carolina, win four national titles, they said. We're never going to lose.

Of course, they were kids then. They were young and stupid and had gigantic, impossible dreams. They toned them down, but in October, before the season started, Redick said there was still a part of the dream he was dedicated to chasing.

"We were just talking about, you know, Duke, and our time here and what we wanted to accomplish," he says. "And the one thing we haven't accomplished yet is a National Championship."

Five months later, the dream was dead. Redick never won that National Championship. His teams-because for four years, J.J. Redick has been synonymous with Duke Basketball-earned three No. 1 seeds, went to four Sweet 16s and a Final Four, but they never climbed to the top of the ladder. He gave up most of his social life, worked harder to be in better physical shape than anyone else in the country, and a loss in the Sweet 16 is his whole tangible reward.

Life's a bitch sometimes, when even the most wide-open three-pointer rattles around the rim and bounces out in the biggest game of your whole life.

And that's why it doesn't matter that Redick never won a title. He never could control the movement of an orange leather ball through the sky or which way that ball bounces when it hits a quarter-inch-thick iron rim. No one can.

Ultimately, championships are decided by events that no one can control. Sometimes, the shot doesn't fall. For J.J. Redick, the shots didn't fall on the biggest stage. Can you fail just because you didn't get the breaks you needed to succeed?

Maybe success means more than that. Maybe it means growing up, working your ass off to have the power to live-however ridiculous-even your wildest dreams. Because then, when fate screws you over and the best man doesn't win, at least you can accept failure, knowing you did everything any man could possibly do to come out on top, knowing that no man can ever really control his own destiny.

"Certain things are in your control and certain things are out of your control," Redick said after his career ended. "I'll be able to look back... and be proud of what we have accomplished."

In the end, it didn't have to be a storybook ending to be perfect.