Grant Hill Recounts the Moment When His Orlando Magic Team Wanted to Urinate on ESPN’s JJ Redick
ESPN’s JJ Redick reunited with former Orlando Magic teammate Grant Hill and discussed the hazing Redik faced as a rookie.
During last Thursday’s edition of The Old Man and The Three Podcast, Hill recalled wanting to protect Redick as a newcomer on the team but admitted hazing was inevitable.
“There’s this story, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you were late one day –” Hill began.
“One day?” Redick joked.
“Okay. Yes. You were late many days!” Hill corrected.
“Three days, three days. Only time I’ve been late,” Redick added.
“I think he was late — You might have shown up like when the practice was over, but it was definitely late in practice and the veterans brought you in the locker room and they put ’em in a chair. One of those like swivel chairs, that’s on wheels and they’re starting to talk to ’em and you know, ‘you can’t do this and blah, blah, blah,'” Hill recalled.
“And then they just duct tape him to the chair and then they wheel ’em into the showers and turn the showers on” he added. “Then Hedo Turkoglu was like, ‘Let’s pee on him!'”
“And I’m like, ‘No, no, no.’ And so they wheeled him out onto the court and then they duct-taped him in the chair to the basketball stanchion and just left him out there,” Hill said. “I probably didn’t do a good job of protecting you in that situation. But, um, but it was just — I look at that year. I know for you, it was probably the first time that you didn’t have, you know, immediate success and you were a star in high school, star in college, and all of a sudden you weren’t playing — you weren’t getting consistent minutes.”
“I wasn’t sure how your career was gonna turn out at that point,” Hill said bluntly. “But to your credit, you worked your ass off, you know. You just became a great player in this league. I don’t know if I thought you would be, I hate that I’m doubting you or I was doubting you back then, but just remembering that moment and trying to be, you know, like, okay, this is my guy, but we gotta do a little rookie hazing, but I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna let you pee on him here.”
Listen above via The Old Man and The Three Podcast.
