JJ Redick: Orlando Magic Had ‘Some Issues’ in the Locker Room

Given all of the well-publicized Dwight Howard and Stan Van Gundy drama in Orlando this year, JJ Redick admitting that the Magic had “some issues” in their locker room is perhaps the understatement of the season. From WYGM in Orlando, via SRI: “How he felt when Stan Van Gundy was let go: ‘Yeah I think that’s the best way to say it. I was disappointed. I can’t say that I was shocked because there had been so much speculation and obviously with how this season turned out and the disappointment of the last two years of losing in the first round, obviously someone kind of had to take the fall for that but I went on Doug Gottlieb’s show the day after it happened and I will say this, I don’t think Stan is to blame, I don’t think Dwight is to blame, I think each player and each coach has to take some responsibility myself. At the end of every season I look in the mirror and ask myself what can I do better? Where did I screw up this year? Why are we still not playing? What could I have done to help us beat Indiana? I think about all those things and I think for the most part everybody should be thinking about that and unfortunately Stan was the guy that took the heat of it.’ Whether there were locker room problems in Orlando this past season: ‘Yeah I don’t think we were as unified as we could’ve been and maybe that is an understatement but there were some issues. We had a great culture the years that we won in 2009 and made it to the Finals. 2008 where it was kind of our first year winning 50 games for Stan’s first year. 2010 when we made it to the Conference Finals again and I really enjoyed our locker room. Those were three teams that I loved being around. In ’08 we had guys like Keyon Dooling, Tony Battie, who had great approaches, were professionals, MP (Mickael Pietrus), Marcin (Gortat), Courtney Lee and myself, we had young guys in ’09 and really the 2010 team to me was my favorite team I played on because we just did everything as a team and it was my one year where everybody kind of bonded on and off the court and then for whatever reason the culture has just changed over the last two years and that certainly affects the locker room. I can’t say it was outright arguing but look there were some issues. I think if you watched us play this year you knew that. You don’t score 66 points in games and lose by 30. That doesn’t happen five times in a season unless there’s some issues.'”