The NBA's three worst winning-percentages all belong to Southeast teams, but two of those three clubs collected victories last night, as the Bobcats upset the Celtics and the Wizards beat the Bucks for their fourth straight win. Here's the latest out of the division:
- The Magic will be able to afford to keep J.J. Redick past this season, but must decide whether it's worth investing long-term money in a role player when they're trying to create cap flexibility, according to Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel.
- Steve Kyler of HoopsWorld writes that the Magic certainly aren't sitting out the trade deadline, but may ultimately stand relatively pat if there are no deals out there that help them gather long-term assets and flexibility. The price on Redick has been "steep" and many of the offers out there wouldn't help Orlando in the long run, according to Kyler.
- Josh Smith tells Jeff Caplan of NBA.com that he has "a lot invested" in his hometown of Atlanta, and that he'll give full consideration to re-signing with the Hawks if he remains on the team through this season.
- The Wizards' acquisitions of Nene Hilario and Emeka Okafor are looking better now that the team has gotten healthy, says Tom Ziller of SBNation.com.
JJ Redick is not a role player. You kidding me? He’s a starter now but even before that he was more than just a role player. He’s averaging 15.6 a game. That’s a role player in your eyes? Wow.
The “role player” tag was directly from Robbins’ article (“albeit a very good, very popular role player”), and I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t think being a role player necessarily means you’re an 8th or 9th man — it just means you’re not the sort of blue-chip guy that’s going to be the number one or two option on a team.
— Luke