Mr JJ Redick has just about seen it all over the course of his playing career. From his time at Duke when he was the best player in all of college basketball, through his early years in the league in Orlando, to a rock-star contract on a Philadelphia team with great expectations – and, now, to exciting new beginnings alongside rookie superstar Mr Zion Williamson in New Orleans.

What has remained incredibly consistent, and consistently inspiring, though, is the man himself – interested (in everything from watches to wines to the perfect pasta dough), insightful (whether it is on his industry, the restaurant business, media and beyond) and a lifetime free-throw percentage of more than 90 per cent. We couldn’t think of any one we’d rather turn to in times of clutch or crisis, so, as soon as he and his family were settled at an undisclosed location, we called Mr Redick in one of our regular At Home With… Instagram Live chats to see how he is holding up. 

You seem so… relaxed.

I actually just did 30 minutes of a visualisation meditation exercise with one of our assistant coaches and our team psychologist. Every team now has a mental health professional on staff and we’ve been doing these guided visualisations for the past few weeks. I do some meditation on my own, as well with the Calm app. Do you use the Calm app? It’s pretty great. One of my favourite things to do on game days, after shoot around, is jump in the steam room for 15 minutes and do the meditation in there, guided with the Calm app. It’s beautiful.

**Last time we spoke, you were telling me about the joys of downtime, about not having a basketball in your hand, finding a necessary retreat. Are you in the gym right now? **

I’ve been kicked out of all the gyms. It’s a very interesting time. There’s a lot of angst and anxiety in general regarding health, the health of our loved ones, regarding the economy, jobs. I feel all of that, and as an athlete, I have this angst because my entire system, my entire orbit, is set up so that my release is playing basketball – and I can’t do that right now. They are telling us you literally cannot use a gym. And believe me, I’ve tried to find some gyms, and I’ve been kicked out of two now since they locked everything down. So, I’m kind of going a little nuts here.

Speaking of feeling the angst, this has got to be overwhelming for your kids. How are you talking to them about what’s going on right now?

We decided that we were just going to be honest with them. My wife was ahead of the curve on this. She started prepping them a month ago. They had been really diligent for weeks about washing their hands and not touching things in public, and we kind of let them know there was a chance that school might get cancelled. But they’ve been amazing. We have a whiteboard set up with our daily schedule. We have a meeting every morning at 8.45am so they have some free time before then. And we kind of cruise through on the weekdays because we have a set schedule. It’s the weekends that are a little longer and a little harder.

Outside of sports, what are the things that you’re particularly missing?

I tell you what’s hard is not being around your teammates. You spend every day for seven or eight months with these guys and you form this family that’s separate from your real family. And then, in a normal season, it ends and there’s this adjustment period where you get back to being a dad and a husband. But, right now, in this limbo, it’s weird trying to figure out which place to go to because you want to stay connected – technically, we’re still in the middle of our season, it’s just suspended. Josh Hart just sent a message to say, “I’m saving a bottle of wine to share with you, bud.”

Thank god for wine!

I started getting really into wine about two years ago, and, over the course of the six or seven months that we were in New Orleans, I ordered some bottles of wine, some nice red and white burgundies. When we came up here, I sort of had everything come at once, so the first couple of nights, I’m just like, “Let me open this. Let me see what this is.” I definitely treated myself. But I’ve calmed down with that.

**What are you wearing? Are you in T-shirts and sweats all day? **

We packed pretty quickly. I packed like all these nice sweaters and some pants and a clean pair of white Common Projects, like we were going on vacation. I’ve worn literally the same three things – a rotation of this [New Orleans restaurant] Turkey And The Wolf shirt, a grey T-shirt, and two pairs of adidas sweatpants, and that’s it. It’s so bad.

Has this time allowed you to zoom out at all, to make resolutions, or plans for what you’d like to do going forward?

I think the big thing for me, when this first happened, was to figure out a plan for what I want to do when I’m done playing basketball. That has been on my mind quite a bit now and, in some ways, this time has given me perspective and I can now approach it in a way that doesn’t give me anxiety. I think the things that relate to basketball – ie, the podcast, or going into the front office – those things interest me and I’ve been working toward them. But the really exciting things to me all have to do with something outside of basketball. And look, that may never happen because I do love the game so much and it’s been my drug for 27 years since I was eight years old. It’s going to be a hard thing to really give up.