Whose Job Is It to Answer JJ Redick's Question?

JJ Redick was on First Take this morning with Stephen A. Smith and Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. Apparently they all reached a point of contention over whose job it is to educate NBA fans about basketball, which morphed into the classic question of whether people want to be educated or informed in the first place. Which you may remember from the last three decades of cable news.

They were very serious about the whole thing and Redick seemed frustrated that someone would think it's the responsibility of players to inform the masses because that should be the media's purview. He also pointed out the extremely obvious: that the dramatic nonsense draws more eyeballs that the Xs and Os — again, something that no one has denied for a long time now.

Redick is great at his job and it's tremendously entertaining to watch him not back down from whomever is seated across the table or on remote, no matter their star power. But we're not really sure if aggressively seeking a binary answer to his more complicated question is even worthwhile because the actual facts of the matter are both kind of boring and long-winded.

As succinctly as possible, though, here's a try.

The answer is that it's a job anyone can have. Players. Media. Fans. Sketchy old middle school coaches who wear a whistle around their neck while running errands. There's a space for everything. And a seat at the table for anyone who want to just yell THIS LEAGUE or break down the finer points of a Spain PnR. That doesn't mean everyone's going to get to eat to their fill but they are more than capable of putting more information into society's input receptacles.

It has literally never been easier for fans to be educated about basketball. There's a giant reservoir of strategy and insight just waiting to be lapped up like Augustus Gloop on a tour yet no one has succeeded in making more people drink from it because the sugary stuff tastes way better.

Unless the person who is educating is doing at as a hobby or out of the goodness of their heart, there are viability issues to consider. Outlets employ experts and hot-takers and that's not always in balance but good ones generally have some sort of gameplan so pundits know what they should be focusing on. Redick's commentary obviously had to deal with The Media as a whole — and again, good luck coming up with broad observations because it's not a monolith.

It feels correct to say that educating fans is not the job of Smith on Russo. They are there because they are opinionated and they get attention. If Redick wants to take on the responsibility — and it's cool that he does — then so be it. The thoughtful stuff is not going to click with the same fervor.

Like, we will never write a headline on The Big Lead about Smith GOING OFF on the Memphis Grizzies' over-reliance on ball screens or Russo BLASTING the Detroit Pistons' vanilla out-of-bounds play packages. It'd be fun to live in that world but we don't. Instead we write about stuff like this.