Life comes at you speedy. Less than a week after JJ Redick was hired as the fresh head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, a Black woman on social media accused the former NBA sharpshooter of calling her the N-word while he was in college.
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On Tuesday, Halleemah Nash wrote on X, “I’ve only been called the N word to my face by a white man once in my life and it was on the campus of Duke University while I was doing work with the basketball team. And today he was named the new head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. What a world.”
Nash posted this tweet just minutes after Redick was officially introduced as the Lakers head coach and just finished his first press conference as a member of the team.
Black and NBA Twitters had various reactions to the post, with some claiming that she was lying, others claiming that she was telling the truth, and a few adding that behavior like this from Redick is not shocking.
Naturally, some on social media just couldn’t lend a hand themselves and used Nash’s post to make jokes.
Despite all the conversation surrounding him, Redick has denied the allegations, with a spokesperson telling TMZ, “No, it never happened.”
Even prior to these allegations, Redick’s hiring was already controversial: Before taking this job, Redick has never had any experience coaching on the high school, college or professional level. As far as we know, he’s only coached his son’s team when he was in fourth grade, that’s it.
Many have also questioned Redick’s relationship with LeBron James, and have concluded that he only got the job because he had a podcast with the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. Since it looked like they got along well on the podcast, James must’ve made the call to have him become the next head coach, right?
Either way, with these fresh allegations, Redick’s hiring will only be questioned more than it already was.
