I'm not here to talk about the morality of what happened with JJ Redick on Tuesday morning. Drunk Driving is clearly a criminally dangerous offense, but I also wonder how many bloggers here have "toed the line" with alchohol and getting behind the wheel. Let's let the North Carolina fans blindly savage, and the Duke fans blindly defend.

The real issue here is what happens to JJ's draft stock? We all agree that this couldn't have happened at a worse time. Combine the arrest with the news that he may have a very serious back injury (the real reason he was back in NC), and most people seem to think that this past week has cost Redick a ton of money.

I would hesitate to jump to that conclusion.

Obviously, having your mug shot show up national TV is never a good thing, but the average fan probably thinks of the terms "draft stock" in a black and white sense that doesn't accurately represent the rising and falling of players on draft night. While we see players rising and falling on internet mock draft boards on a weekly basis based off their performance, draft night isn't one person's board. It is a combination of 30 boards - 30 decision makers with different methods and opinions, and 30 teams with widely varying needs.

The reality is that even though JJ Redick's stock was considered to be firmly planted somewhere between the mid-late lottery and the middle of the first round, there are probably only a couple of teams drafting in that range seriously looking at him. Not every club is looking for a deadeye shooting specialist that is likely a roleplayer his entire career. From what I can tell, the three teams seriously looking at Redick are Houston, Orlando, and Utah.  

So forget about lottery, mid first round, or dropping to the second. What do Houston, Orlando, and Utah think of these developments?

On one hand, we could get an image conscious executive that could get cold feet about drafting a kid that he was assuming wouldn't make these types of headlines. On the other, decision makers probably know a lot about the person that they are considering drafting at this point in the process. If they believe JJ Redick is a good kid that made a mistake, this incident might not factor into their evaluation one bit. In the end, it could easily come down to the demeanor and values of that one GM that was planning on taking him before this week.

The back injury can looked at in much the same way. If Redick thought he was over scrutinized in everything he did at Duke, just wait until NBA teams get out the microscope to take a look at his back. Redick may be back on the court doing workouts in the next week, but his back was red flagged during his physical in Orlando. Anybody with even a thought of drafting Redick will be twice as thorough as they probably need to be, and will get to the bottom of what is going on there. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to waste a first round pick on a low-upside guy like Redick that might have a career-threatening back injury.

And this is the real risk that Redick runs on draft night. Houston, Orlando, and Utah are going to be well-informed. If this is nothing and JJ Redick is going to be 100% in no time, these teams will know it. It may not even matter if Redick is going to miss four months like has been reported. Redick might just be the most visible college basketball player of the last four years. Teams know what they are getting with JJ, and a four-month layoff isn't going to change anything about him as a player. As long a team can be confident that JJ Redick will make a full recovery...

But what happens if he happens to slip past all three? What if he falls into that late first round territory, where teams weren't expecting him to be available and don't have as good a read on his back situation?  Pick your cliched comparison: Redick alone in the green room crying harder than he did after his choke job in the NCAA Tournament, or Redick alone in the green groom crying like Rashard Lewis nearly a decade ago. It doesn't matter whether Redick is going to be back on the court before the season starts or not - teams are going to shy away from drafting JJ Redick if he gets past a certain few key teams.

We saw this with Loren Woods in 2001, and we could easily see it again with Redick in 2006.

So how does the past week affect JJ Redick's draft stock? We won't have any idea until draft night. It is very easy to see him keeping his spot in the lottery, but JJ should really start to sweat only once he falls past Utah at #14...