Listened to the latest J.J. Redick podcast. He didn't go into details but he mentioned as an aside that he was 1 hour from signing with Indiana before the Sixers increased their offer. Sounds like he was offered the 1 year/12M deal that Evans eventually got.
As an aside, does anyone remember when Redick was a draft bust?
He was the 11th pick. I know people didn't think he would work out well, but even his first few seasons he was at worst going to end up as a bench 3 point specialist. Now maybe for the 11th pick you want more than that (though historically you rarely get more than rotation level players in that range). He certainly developed into a much better player than that.
I’m talking about after three seasons.
Coming out of the draft, Redick was a 4-year starting college senior from Duke, a 2-time ACC POY, a two-time consensus 1st-team All-American, and won virtually every major Player of the Ywar award for his senior season (Naismith, Wooden, AP, Sporting News, etc.). This is the type of player who might lack a high ceiling, but you would expect to be a contributor relatively early in his career. Instead he averaged 6, 4.1, and 6 points through his first three seasons, averaging under 18 MPG each season (with a low of 8 MPG in year 2), and a FG% below 40% in year 3. He looked for all the world like someone who would be out of the league or bouncing around on 1-year minimum deals after his rookie contract ended, given he was already in his mid-20s.
The point of my original comment was not to have a debate about whether or not people misjudged Redick going into the draft. It wasn’t to have a debate at all. It was more about his interesting career arc. He’s become the player many thought he would, and even a bit more than that perhaps. But it took him 2-3 years longer to reach that career path than many would have expected. Just something to keep in mind when judging players early in their careers.