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J.J. Redick says he turned down more money from Houston Rockets to join Sixers

"I didn't want a one-year deal, but I'm not going to complain about the one-year deal that I got," Redick said.

New Philadelphia 76ers shooting guard J.J. Redick.
New Philadelphia 76ers shooting guard J.J. Redick.Read moreRobert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/NS

J.J. Redick launched a new version of his podcast Thursday, teaming up with Uninterrupted – a digital media company run by Maverick Carter, the longtime business associate of LeBron James. Carter was a guest on the show, and they spent a lot of time getting into Redick's decision to join the Sixers as a free agent.

Redick began with a message to Clippers fans about why he left Los Angeles.

"I know maybe some Clippers fans, and some NBA fans, may be wondering, why did I not go back — or probably there are some ignorant people out there that are questioning my loyalty," Redick said. "Going back to the Clippers was honestly just not an option. I kind of figured last summer when they signed Austin [Rivers] and Jamal [Crawford] back, they basically had guaranteed $25 million in salary for this upcoming season. And I knew they weren't going to be able to commit financially long-term to having a third shooting guard at a high rate."

It's no secret that many teams sought to sign Redick. He offered some insight into what it's like to be courted – and to wait to be courted by the teams he wanted to play for.

"There were a couple of teams that I had sort of hoped [for] and wanted to work something out with," he said. "You know how the NBA works – there's all these back-channel communications. It got back to me what these other teams were thinking, and it wasn't the terms I necessarily wanted."

One team that made a big push to get Redick was the Houston Rockets. It surprised him.

"Five days before free agency, I didn't think Houston was even a possibility," he said. "Then, the night before free agency started, I'm getting a call from CP [Chris Paul] telling me how much I need to go there."

Redick also offered some details about another big part of the Rockets' effort: the check they put on the table.

"Houston offered me more total money than Philly," he said. "I knew in Houston I was going to come off the bench. Me and Eric Gordon do a lot of the same things. We were going to play some minutes together. He would get to finish some games; maybe I would get to. But it wasn't necessarily going to be what I wanted in this point in my career for the court part of it. Now certainly, it was a contender and all that stuff, so that's probably the main reason I wanted to do it."

But money wasn't the ultimate factor for him. Of course, he was always going to make plenty, and he knew it, so he could allow there to be other factors.

One of them was his wife's desire to be in Brooklyn, as the family bought a house there 2 1/2 years ago. Redick insists, though, that it wasn't with an eye on a move to the Nets. And this summer, he turned down a one-year offer from them.

"If it was going to be Brooklyn for me, I really wanted that to be on a long-term thing," he said. "I wanted stability more than anything."

Eventually, he came to realize he probably wasn't going to get it. So he took stock of the offers he had. In time, his agent called and said he needed to make a decision.

So what ultimately took him to the Sixers?

"The feedback that I kept getting about Philly was all really positive. And then, when they made the trade [for the No. 1 draft pick] and were going to draft [Markelle] Fultz, the feedback I got on him was all superlative," he said. "So I'm thinking this may be a good spot. Everything I heard about Brett Brown was great. So ultimately, I think I ended up in the best spot for me. … I didn't want a one-year deal, but I'm not going to complain about the one-year deal that I got."

Nor is he going to complain about not getting to wear his traditional No. 4 jersey, which the Sixers have retired in honor of Dolph Schayes.

"I had to go to double digits, and 17 looked kind of cool, basically," Redick said. "That's why I chose 17. It's a pretty random number."

In the last part of the show, starting at around the 45-minute mark, Redick was joined by 76ers president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo. Redick took the opportunity to ask his boss why he got only a one-year deal.

Not surprisingly, Colangelo only said nice things.

"By virtue of, to some degree, extending a higher salary than normal to you – not that you're worth every dollar of the $23 [million] that you're coming in for – we gave you a one-year scenario and paid a premium for that flexibility," Colangelo said. "Quite frankly, I know you didn't want to pursue the one-year scenario, but I was consistent with my message that this is our objective and we're going to stick to it. I can't say that I wasn't tempted, as we were sitting there talking and trying to decide which direction to go."

Colangelo later said: "This is a one-year contract, but I don't view it as a one-year relationship. This is a situation where if you come in and deliver on what we expect, and if we deliver for you what you expect, there's no reason why we can't move forward in some form or fashion."

To which Redick replied: "Like I said in Las Vegas, that's my hope as well. I'm hoping that this is sort of, maybe, my last stop in my career. I would love to be here long-term. By the end of our conversation on that first night, I understood everything."

You can listen to the full podcast here.

In addition to the podcast, Redick and Carter teamed up to produce a video that went behind the scenes of Redick's time as a free agent. It runs about 15 minutes. You can watch it below. Note that there's some explicit language in it, and the podcast, too.