Speaker 1: I did inside NBA. Change once Kenny Chuck joined the.
Speaker 2: Crew, it got worse, you know what.
Speaker 3: Me.
Speaker 2: I worked with Kenny first.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you guys know, there's just you either have
Speaker 4: that or you don't have to. You know, if somebody
Speaker 4: has to talk to you into being on TV, if
Speaker 4: somebody has to say, I really wish you would do this,
Speaker 4: you know, and you really you know, that's one thing.
Speaker 2: But when you got it, you got it. Kenny had it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: Kenny was late in his career. He was working his
Speaker 4: way through ten days, you know, like he'd be on
Speaker 4: the show one time. I say, hey, yeah, I was
Speaker 4: with Detroit, now I'm with so and so. You know so,
Speaker 4: but man, he just has a gift.
Speaker 5: So you transitioned into media, you're able to join T
Speaker 5: and T. Did you have any idea what you're getting
Speaker 5: yourself into?
Speaker 6: Somewhat?
Speaker 3: I never wanted to be in media, but I just
Speaker 3: enjoyed it because I love the game. I mean, if
Speaker 3: you come to my house tonight, it's gonna be five
Speaker 3: of us sitting around. We're gonna be talking about the games,
Speaker 3: talking about whatever it is. That's what we did. So
Speaker 3: my brother always says, you know, he should get paid
Speaker 3: half my TNT contract because I use his stuff.
Speaker 6: You know. My cousin says that.
Speaker 3: We all do we do group chats, and like that's
Speaker 3: all we that's what we do. So but I did
Speaker 3: notice like that most people couldn't in thirty seconds explain
Speaker 3: that's important what was going on, and not only explain it,
Speaker 3: but explain it to you guys who at the highest
Speaker 3: level and also where my grandmother could understand.
Speaker 6: I was like, oh, they can't do that.
Speaker 3: I just had that knack, And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: if we're going to talk to talk, I think what
Speaker 3: makes me the best in the businesses.
Speaker 6: I see the periphial like I don't.
Speaker 3: See like when I walked in here, I could see
Speaker 3: the environment that's created, and I could feel the energy
Speaker 3: of what part of each team that you pull from
Speaker 3: just based off of like a five minute walkthrough.
Speaker 6: I don't know. That's just a gift that.
Speaker 3: God's given me, and it's just in life, Like I
Speaker 3: could see that in life. But I could see him like,
Speaker 3: oh that person is important to this process. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: my man had said like two common he jumped in.
Speaker 3: He's the only one who jumped in, and neither one
Speaker 3: of y'all said anything, he's important to the process. When
Speaker 3: he was, he like, y'all allow him to speak, and yeah,
Speaker 3: but those are things I know. So when those are
Speaker 3: the things I bring to the show, I'm like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: You know when this guy like it was a player
Speaker 3: that had an unbelievable game and great player, and I
Speaker 3: was like, I'm not sure if his teammates like him, Like,
Speaker 3: what do you mean? I was like, because I could
Speaker 3: tell by the reactions on the bench which authentic and
Speaker 3: what wasn't. Like if I had fifty, everybody on the
Speaker 3: team would be going crazy, I like, or one of
Speaker 3: my teammates I would know. I'm like, but a guy
Speaker 3: ain't really feeling getting fifty. I'm like, yo, yo, I'm not.
Speaker 3: It's a different energy. Those are the things that I noticed,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, that's why they're gonna win. Well, that's
Speaker 3: why they won't win. And I think you know where
Speaker 3: Shock and Charles they come from. The always say Charles
Speaker 3: is he's a flashlight. And I know y'all had some beef. Everybody,
Speaker 3: everybody has some beef with you, but you could never
Speaker 3: have beef for Charles in this way. I'll say, because
Speaker 3: he looks at life through a flashlight and not a
Speaker 3: flood light. So if he says, if you look at
Speaker 3: life through a flashlight, he's like, man, everybody in here
Speaker 3: god on Jordan's. No, I got on Jordan's. He's got
Speaker 3: the flashlight. He's correct in it. But when you put
Speaker 3: the flood light on it, everybody else. But sometimes the
Speaker 3: flashlight is super accurate because he's pointing it directly at you.
Speaker 6: But sometimes he misses things.
Speaker 3: My job is always to bring the flood light to
Speaker 3: the situation and go, nah, you're right, but it's not
Speaker 3: that only you know. So he has an accuracy point
Speaker 3: to it that will rub you the wrong way, because.
Speaker 6: Or you would over love.
Speaker 3: I think he gets too much credit sometime, and then
Speaker 3: I sometime I think he gets too much the other way.
Speaker 6: But he's accurate all the time. But it's a flashlight.
Speaker 4: Then when you get a chance, they have chuck on
Speaker 4: the shaw man, you know. And it looked for all
Speaker 4: the world like he's going to NBC. NBC was right
Speaker 4: here with him, and he said, you know, he had
Speaker 4: verbally agreed with you know, to go to NBC. And
Speaker 4: he comes down to Atlanta and goes out with the
Speaker 4: Turner folks one night. I don't know what that night
Speaker 4: was like, but it must have been good. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: so he signs with us. And your only hope is
Speaker 4: that the things that made him an attractive, you know,
Speaker 4: option to be on your air is that he'll maintain that,
Speaker 4: that he won't lose that because look, in the course
Speaker 4: of my years there, we've had guys on the air
Speaker 4: who you thought, from watching him interviewed or that kind
Speaker 4: of thing, is said, well, this gout'd be great on TV,
Speaker 4: and then the red light goes on and they'd rather
Speaker 4: be getting a root canal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you.
Speaker 4: Know, and they don't want to kiss anybody off. I
Speaker 4: don't want to say this because this you know, and
Speaker 4: it's not yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, Chuck doesn't care, and that's great.
Speaker 4: And that's the way Chuck's always been, you know, anytime
Speaker 4: he was interviewed as a players and then after his
Speaker 4: playing days, he's going to tell you what's on his mind.
Speaker 4: And if you don't agree, that's fine. But what he's
Speaker 4: not going to do is is back away from it
Speaker 4: and say no, I can't say that, right, And he's
Speaker 4: got that over me because sometimes there you know, there
Speaker 4: are times in a commercial break where I'll say something.
Speaker 2: He said, oh, you got to say that on the air.
Speaker 4: I said, no, I'm not gonna I'm not going to
Speaker 4: do that, so I'm stealing it.
Speaker 2: I said, you go ahead, you take that.
Speaker 5: Did you see I mean, obviously the transition. You may
Speaker 5: look seamless and fun, but did you see yourself? I mean,
Speaker 5: like you said, you're going on your twenty three of
Speaker 5: talking about basketball.
Speaker 1: No, I had no idea. So when Dick ever saw
Speaker 1: called me one day, he says, Charles, you want to
Speaker 1: get together to dinner? I said, course, you guys. Y'all probably
Speaker 1: remember the NBA started on NBC. Yeah. I tell people
Speaker 1: all the time, it's so funny being all these motherfuckers
Speaker 1: think there's always been everybody had a cell phone. They
Speaker 1: think there's like, I'm so old. That was no ESP
Speaker 1: when we started, we flew commercial. My first three or
Speaker 1: four years in the NBA, we flew commercial.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how crazy, that's how that's how long
Speaker 1: could go.
Speaker 7: It was.
Speaker 1: And Dick Ebersol said to me, what do you think
Speaker 1: about going on television? I says, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. I said, obviously I got to play
Speaker 1: a couple more years, but I don't know. But he says,
Speaker 1: I think you'll be good on TV. He said, I
Speaker 1: think I think you'll be great on TV. He said,
Speaker 1: You're always gonna be in trouble. I'm like, what does
Speaker 1: that mean? He says, clearly, somewhere along the way you
Speaker 1: made up your mind you're always just gonna be honest
Speaker 1: and deal with the ramifications. I said, well, that was
Speaker 1: actually interesting because when I first started becoming a star,
Speaker 1: I think I was my third at the end of
Speaker 1: my second year of my third year in the NBA.
Speaker 1: Because my first few years the NBA, nobody talked to me.
Speaker 1: It was Doc Moses, Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Tony, Bobby Jones.
Speaker 1: I was the rookie. Monthy didn't even mention me, didn't
Speaker 1: come to me. So when those guys started getting older,
Speaker 1: and then at the end of my second year, I
Speaker 1: started having success. My third year, I think I made
Speaker 1: the All Star team and it was a so they
Speaker 1: started coming to me, and I really wanted everybody to
Speaker 1: like me. And then I was like, you know, I
Speaker 1: was trying to answer every question politically correct and blah blah, blah.
Speaker 1: And I pulled doctor jlside one day. I said, Doc,
Speaker 1: I'm having a hard time. He says, yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: very Him and Moses probably were the two great influences
Speaker 1: for me, talking about like Moses got me in shape,
Speaker 1: but doct He says, Now this is a very slippery slope.
Speaker 1: Trying to answer every question and not make him or
Speaker 1: him or her make it, not making them mad. And
Speaker 1: he says it's impossible to do that. He says, so
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to figure out how you want to
Speaker 1: handle this. He said, you can try to make everybody happy,
Speaker 1: or you can be honest, but would honesty come and repercussions?
Speaker 1: And I tried to do it the politically rate in
Speaker 1: the beginning, and I'm like, I'm still getting shipped from
Speaker 1: other people. And I'm like, I'm gonna be honest. He says,
Speaker 1: now they're gonna be coming for you. You better be great
Speaker 1: a basketball. But you can get away with saying what
Speaker 1: you want to if you're great a basketball. If you
Speaker 1: suck at basketball and you honest, they're gonna come get
Speaker 1: your ass. And I'm like, okay, I better be great
Speaker 1: a basketball. So when I was sitting with mister Ebsall
Speaker 1: at that meeting, he says, you what happened to make
Speaker 1: you be honest? He said, I tried pleasing everybody and
Speaker 1: I realized I couldn't. You guys know it's.
Speaker 5: Impossible about something if you do so.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm just gonna be honest and straightforward. And
Speaker 1: people get mad. Fuck them, they get mad. And I
Speaker 1: made that decision to just be a straight shooter. And
Speaker 1: he says, you're gonna be great, but you're always gonna
Speaker 1: be in trouble because people gonna get mad at what
Speaker 1: you say. And that was kind of the turning point
Speaker 1: in this whole thing. And like I say, people get mad,
Speaker 1: and I've lost friends, and you know, people get mad.
Speaker 1: But I can say this, I've never said anything on
Speaker 1: television personally about a person. I look at the situation.
Speaker 1: I try to be honest. I try to be fair.
Speaker 1: I've criticized the good ones, I've criticized the great ones,
Speaker 1: I criticized the bad one. But I actually feel say
Speaker 1: I can answer say, I think I've been very fair,
Speaker 1: especially as a player, even when I have to criticize
Speaker 1: the player, I try to be fair about it.
Speaker 8: How did how did this dis this happened. How did
Speaker 8: I even have him with the big Fellow coming on?
Speaker 4: I think I think everybody, look, when a big, a
Speaker 4: larger than life guy like that.
Speaker 2: Is done playing, everybody wants him and a kid at that,
Speaker 2: a big kid at that.
Speaker 4: World's biggest the world's biggest child. But if he's going
Speaker 4: to be out there and he's going to want to
Speaker 4: do TV, you got to be crazy not to make
Speaker 4: a run at him, right, you know, And so everybody
Speaker 4: makes a run at him. But I think, you know,
Speaker 4: there were some growing pains. I mean, I'll be honest, man.
Speaker 4: You know it's like number one, you're switching careers, okay,
Speaker 4: so nobody expects you to jump from that into this seamlessly,
Speaker 4: like okay, but he's you know what endeared what he
Speaker 4: looked at with our show is the fun we had.
Speaker 2: You know, Shack.
Speaker 4: Just happens to be an all world basketball player. It
Speaker 4: wasn't because he's studied every player in the game or.
Speaker 2: Is this great student of.
Speaker 4: Of how to how to play and that's that's like,
Speaker 4: he just happens to be really good at that. So
Speaker 4: it wasn't like the breakdown of games that that had
Speaker 4: him saying, I like to be on that show. It
Speaker 4: was some crazy stuff happened on our show and he
Speaker 4: wanted to be a part of that. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: and that was from the you know, from the jump.
Speaker 4: You know, he'd get on there on that first show
Speaker 4: and said, push out Christmas Tree over on me. We'll
Speaker 4: get you know, a lot of YouTube, you know.
Speaker 1: So he's down for fun. Yeah, we would.
Speaker 4: And you know, it got to the point after the
Speaker 4: first couple of months where he was throwing out all
Speaker 4: these suggestions.
Speaker 2: You know, you can taste me. I've been to Stone School,
Speaker 2: but I could just picture him all this.
Speaker 4: Show and Kenny, and Kenny was like, Shack, take a
Speaker 4: step back. He said, big film, We're afraid you're gonna
Speaker 4: set set fire to yourself. And we're not even halfway
Speaker 4: through your first year here. Because I think what he
Speaker 4: had to realize that there's a lot of what is
Speaker 4: funny on our show is really organic.
Speaker 1: Yeah happened.
Speaker 5: Then what makes you guys such a great team? Obviously,
Speaker 5: so many different insights and perspectives and points of views
Speaker 5: with Ernie and Shaq and U Chuck, But what he
Speaker 5: thinks makes you guys.
Speaker 3: We're the only show on television that listens that listens
Speaker 3: the only show. Yeah, everybody else has their written notes
Speaker 3: and they're gonna.
Speaker 6: Like I write shit down, like I'm gonna write stuff down.
Speaker 6: I might.
Speaker 3: I might say I'm gonna get this point out, but
Speaker 3: if Jack says something.
Speaker 6: That makes me go another direction.
Speaker 3: Not even on that point, I'm gonna stay with that
Speaker 3: because that's where the topic is. So we're listening instead
Speaker 3: of like, I gotta get this out about Kyrie tonight.
Speaker 1: A lot of people listen to respond instead of listening
Speaker 1: to understand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like they are. It's like you've been in an
Speaker 3: argument before where the person who's already got their pre
Speaker 3: record you're telling them, no, I really was there at
Speaker 3: six o'clock and they're like they're waiting to get that
Speaker 3: point back.
Speaker 6: Now I'm listening like, oh he was at six, Tell
Speaker 6: me how you were there six, Like explain it.
Speaker 3: And well that's the only thing that separates us when
Speaker 3: that to me, And that's a hard job to listen,
Speaker 3: Like you can't just say Okay today, I'm gonna start listening.
Speaker 3: They just put three guys, four guys together that listen.
Speaker 3: We always in it and Shaq didn't listen at first
Speaker 3: and until he realized we were listening it, and I
Speaker 3: told Shaq he was terrible. Honestly, his first six months
Speaker 3: on the show, you.
Speaker 5: Got into some little piece. So what was it, you
Speaker 5: guys went behind the scenes of inside.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, like a documentary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ok, yeah, yeah it was terrible.
Speaker 6: It was terrible. And two things happened that made him great.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: I went to him first and I was like, bro,
Speaker 3: the stories you say in the green room of Bananas,
Speaker 3: like the stuff you're saying about Kobe, and like, you
Speaker 3: got to bring that to this.
Speaker 6: He's like, no, they don't. He's like, Shaq, that's one
Speaker 6: I said.
Speaker 3: The first other thing is like this the first time
Speaker 3: in your life. You ain't the most dominant player first time,
Speaker 3: Like we might be better than you at this, so
Speaker 3: just be you and blah blah blah. And then the
Speaker 3: second thing happened. So so Shaq used to come in
Speaker 3: and be shack. Y'all know what Shaka Shaq is a movie.
Speaker 3: Shaq's I'm walking on. He's got ten people coming in.
Speaker 3: He created a hookah lounge, no in the no in
Speaker 3: the studio, and they made let him do this. They
Speaker 3: were like, he was like, I have to have my hookah.
Speaker 3: So he has a hookah lounge outside. They make and
Speaker 3: they put a TV outside the studio. We got a
Speaker 3: green room, Like, yo, man, Chuck in the green room.
Speaker 3: We've been doing this for fifteen years together. This dude
Speaker 3: gonna come in. You're gonna build a hookah launcer. Like,
Speaker 3: what's going on?
Speaker 1: Yo?
Speaker 6: Like what's going on?
Speaker 3: And then he's got entourage, he's got he got Jerome
Speaker 3: and all the long they driving, everybody's driving, the one driving,
Speaker 3: the Rolls, one driving the Betterley one, the Ferrari. It's
Speaker 3: like it's just a movie and me and Chuck is
Speaker 3: Chuck for sure, and Chuck is very sensitive.
Speaker 6: He's like he doesn't like it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm used to that in a way, like
Speaker 3: I'm okay with dudes himself. But Chuck is not having it.
Speaker 3: So now he's not watching the game. He's literally DJ equipment,
Speaker 3: No kid, you not. He's practicing his DJ while the
Speaker 3: game is going on. They let him get away with
Speaker 3: all that because he's shot. So now he comes on
Speaker 3: the show and he's like he says something like yeah,
Speaker 3: DeAndre Jordan need it.
Speaker 6: And DeAndre is not playing tonight.
Speaker 3: So me and Charles like, because we sit next to
Speaker 3: each other, he's hitting me and I'm hitting up. We're
Speaker 3: gonna get his ass today. So we just lightening it
Speaker 3: to him. Oh and we're just gone, you don't know this.
Speaker 3: And so now we're saying stuff about the game because
Speaker 3: we know he didn't watch. So then our producer comes
Speaker 3: downstairs and he's like, what the is going on y'all
Speaker 3: giving him a hard time? Like that you embarrassing him
Speaker 3: on a national tea.
Speaker 6: I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa? Since when don't we make
Speaker 6: fun of each other when you don't know shit?
Speaker 1: Right? Because Matt Shug gonna.
Speaker 2: Do anybody can get it.
Speaker 3: And it goes like this, and then the producer goes
Speaker 3: like this, you're right, I can go get it. Get him,
Speaker 3: And from that day on he turned. He's like, I
Speaker 3: gotta be on shit. He got on point.
Speaker 5: As players, like he spoke on earlier, when you hear
Speaker 5: certain people talk about you, it's that shit, okay, T
Speaker 5: and T the postgame crew? Is that for us as players?
Speaker 5: What was it like, you know, to transition into that
Speaker 5: and being a focal point with that team.
Speaker 7: It came a year or too early because when I
Speaker 7: left you, I had a two year deal in Boston.
Speaker 7: I wanted to shock to her. I wanted it, but
Speaker 7: the Achilles came out. I wasn't gonna even try and
Speaker 7: come back. I was just gonna take your year off treble.
Speaker 7: And then they come to the house and say, hey,
Speaker 7: maybe want to hire you, and I'm like, so, I'm
Speaker 7: trying to be like Brian Gumba, I'm terrible, awful. And
Speaker 7: then you know, Charles gonna take up the whole second
Speaker 7: by talking. I only get a few seconds, right, So then.
Speaker 5: The guys you off because he used to say it
Speaker 5: on the air, like, damn, mom, are you talking too much?
Speaker 7: So then the guy came in and said said, man,
Speaker 7: we ain't bring you in for that. He wants you
Speaker 7: to be shocked and so okay. So once I started
Speaker 7: doing that, it's better. And you know a good thing
Speaker 7: about that show is they allow us to be ourselves.
Speaker 7: And I think from a basketball standpoint, we have a
Speaker 7: lot of experience. You know, the fans know that. You know,
Speaker 7: you got two Hall of Famers up there, and he
Speaker 7: got a guy that was a part of the championship team,
Speaker 7: and you gotta earn it. So I think our respectability
Speaker 7: is up there.
Speaker 5: With all due respect, within the context of your championships
Speaker 5: in kind of that era, that was a two year
Speaker 5: period that Mike had took off. How do you feel
Speaker 5: like you guys would have fared your two championships? So
Speaker 5: he didn't take off, excuse me, he went to go
Speaker 5: play he was playing for He came back as number
Speaker 5: forty five. Yeah, and the second one, second one, Yeah,
Speaker 5: he came back as number forty five.
Speaker 3: And when he had fifty five in the guard and
Speaker 3: nobody was saying he was selling, he was.
Speaker 6: He wasn't.
Speaker 3: Mike, you know, we would have beat the ass because
Speaker 3: like dream was too much around it.
Speaker 6: Think about this, there's a couple of things.
Speaker 3: Michael was still the best player in the world and
Speaker 3: I've ever seen, but that means he would have had
Speaker 3: to win eight championships in them a lot.
Speaker 6: It's not gonna win eight in a row. He's not.
Speaker 3: Nobody's done it in the modern era, he wouldn't have
Speaker 3: done that. Secondly, there was no hardst grant he left,
Speaker 3: and they then they became way too small because even
Speaker 3: in there is regular season. In the regular season years
Speaker 3: we went seven and one against them, with six and two.
Speaker 3: They never beat us in the regular season. We used
Speaker 3: to go to Chicago, smack them, come back to Houston,
Speaker 3: smack them up.
Speaker 2: You know, they like.
Speaker 3: Bj and and and Packs and those guys were good players,
Speaker 3: but they were too slow for us in the parameter
Speaker 3: and No. One and Winnington and them couldn't guard him.
Speaker 3: And for some reason Scotty wasn't Scotty then he wasn't
Speaker 3: a scorer.
Speaker 1: You need you need score.
Speaker 3: So I think we would have got him because of that.
Speaker 3: There was no Rodman. Now when they got Rodmin, I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh different.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: If the Rockets we would have got them, but they
Speaker 3: were too little. And that that's why shocking them got them,
Speaker 3: because when he came back, it wasn't he was coming
Speaker 3: back from baseball. They were too little to shock. They
Speaker 3: lost to a team four two that we swept. We
Speaker 3: swept shocking us back, so like, no, no, no, they would
Speaker 3: not have beaten us. And then if you if I
Speaker 3: didn't come in there and I'm not splashing with three,
Speaker 3: Sam could sell is coming in there giving you twenty five.
Speaker 6: Rob Orrid was the new Scottie pitman.
Speaker 3: Then he wasn't like standing outside and he was handling
Speaker 3: the ball otis was in the first one. Then Clyde like, Nah,
Speaker 3: they wouldn't have beat us. They would not have beat
Speaker 3: us because they were just too little, and they wouldn't
Speaker 3: have won eight in a row. Something would have happened,
Speaker 3: somebody would have left because of contract, somebody would have
Speaker 3: got hurt something.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't have beat us. And I get picked number
Speaker 1: five by the sixers. It ain't broke, don't fix Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, but I'm not now I'm playing with real players.
Speaker 1: Can't play it that weight, don't know it. Just you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a rookie. Hey, rookie ain't playing a ton I'm
Speaker 1: playing some minutes, but then I'm not getting no quality minutes.
Speaker 1: And so Moses, Me and Moses happened to live in
Speaker 1: the same building. Moses lived in the penhouse. I live
Speaker 1: on like the sixth floor, if I remember correctly. And
Speaker 1: I said, Mo, can I come see you tonight? And
Speaker 1: I said, he said sure, And I called him Dad
Speaker 1: even to the day. And one of the most bittersweet
Speaker 1: things people his family knew how closely were I got
Speaker 1: to speak at the dude the eulogy at his funeral.
Speaker 1: I love that dude. But so I go up. I said,
Speaker 1: big mode, why am I not getting to play? He's old,
Speaker 1: young fella, you're fat and you're lazy, playing it simple.
Speaker 1: And I'm like what he says, you're fat and you're lazy.
Speaker 1: He said, Charles can't play at three hundred puns in
Speaker 1: the NBA, A young fella, you're too fat and too lazy.
Speaker 1: Can't work hard at three hundred pounds. And I put
Speaker 1: downstairs and cried, not gonna lie. And but he said,
Speaker 1: he says, you want to lose weight. I come meet
Speaker 1: you before practice, I meet you out to practice. I
Speaker 1: said please, And this dude says, and he did it
Speaker 1: in a way. It's how smart he was. He did
Speaker 1: in a way. He says, let's lose ten pounds together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said, let's lose ten pounds. He met me before practice,
Speaker 1: met me after practice. I get to two ninety and
Speaker 1: I noticed, like even at ten pounds, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: can work a little bit harder. He said, Okay, let's
Speaker 1: lose ten more. I'm like, okay, I get to too eighty.
Speaker 1: Now I'm actually getting to play. He says, let's lose
Speaker 1: ten more. Now I'm at two seventy. Now I'm really
Speaker 1: getting to play. It's not because I can work. I mean,
Speaker 1: thirty pounds a lot. Get to two sixty now I'm starting.
Speaker 1: Now I'm really can work. In my eyes out he says,
Speaker 1: I want to try something. I so he says, let's
Speaker 1: get to two fifty. I'm like, okay, shit working, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I get to two fifty. Now I'm really starting. Things
Speaker 1: are really starting to take off. I actually got to
Speaker 1: two forty, but I said, I don't feel strong. He said,
Speaker 1: two fifty is your weight. But he was so smart.
Speaker 1: If you had told me to lose fifty pounds, I
Speaker 1: was like, there's no fucking way I could lose fifty pounds.
Speaker 1: There's no way. And I lost to fifty pounds and
Speaker 1: the rest is history. But for that guy taking me
Speaker 1: under his wing, first of all, he was already one
Speaker 1: of the best to ever do it. For him to
Speaker 1: take a little fat kid under his wing, it changed
Speaker 1: my whole life.
Speaker 5: Your father of six two biological four adopted my father
Speaker 5: that very instant, because that's what my mom wanted to do,
Speaker 5: was adopt. But unfortunately she passed from cancer and O seven.
Speaker 5: So talk to us about just fatherhood, everything you fought
Speaker 5: through in your personal health life to still be here
Speaker 5: and be the father you.
Speaker 4: Are and your children. For your children, I mean, chary
Speaker 4: Anne and I are blessed, you know. And and she
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: You have a boy and a girl.
Speaker 4: You know, you get married in eighty two, you got
Speaker 4: a boy in eighty four, you get a girl in
Speaker 4: eighty seven.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, we're set. Good, let's not let's not
Speaker 2: mess with that.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 4: That's and that's you know, then the unscripted part of
Speaker 4: your life kind of kicks in because you know, my
Speaker 4: wife is just this has this wonderful heart.
Speaker 8: But we know because you talk about it so highly
Speaker 8: on the show, we all feel like we know your wife.
Speaker 4: I know, well, I apologize for doing but she's like,
Speaker 4: I come home from work one day and she says,
Speaker 4: you know what we need to do, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: chicken or.
Speaker 2: Fish, whatever you feel like, you know, I'll eat anything.
Speaker 4: And she's like, like, we need to go to Romania
Speaker 4: and get one of these kids out of an orphanage
Speaker 4: over there, because she had seen the ABC News twenty
Speaker 4: twenty about these kids just warehoused in this thing, and
Speaker 4: you know, and there's special needs kids. They're being forgotten
Speaker 4: and and so we wind up, you know, she goes,
Speaker 4: I stay here. I'm in Atlanta with our kids, who
Speaker 4: were like three and seven at the four and seven
Speaker 4: at the time. Yeah, so I'm taking care of them.
Speaker 4: She's more worried about them than she is about her
Speaker 4: trip to Romania. She's like, man, I'm going to come
Speaker 4: home and those kids are not going to have had
Speaker 4: a vegetable for two months.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so we had a lot of we had
Speaker 4: a lot of pizza and putt putt while she's over there.
Speaker 4: But she goes over there and finds this little boy
Speaker 4: who's got all these issues and and calls me from
Speaker 4: Romania and says, I don't know what I can we
Speaker 4: This boy is so much more than we can handle.
Speaker 4: He's three years old. He can't walk, he can't talk,
Speaker 4: and he said, but I just can't imagine going the
Speaker 4: rest of my life wondering what happened to this kid.
Speaker 4: It was like, bring them home and he was, you know,
Speaker 4: he had issues, still does I mean? And then he
Speaker 4: gets diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and there's no cure for that,
Speaker 4: and most of the time a lot of times kids
Speaker 4: don't get out of their teens. Gots thirty two. Now, man,
Speaker 4: I got this thirty two year old miracle at my
Speaker 4: house and he he's on a ventilator, you know, can't
Speaker 4: do anything on his own.
Speaker 1: But he's amazing, and you guys are amazing.
Speaker 4: No, no, you know what, God's amazing, you know, but
Speaker 4: it's you know, there'll be adopted little girl from Paraguay, Carmen.
Speaker 4: She's twenty eight, adopted two kids out of foster care
Speaker 4: in Ohio who are now twenty.
Speaker 2: And twenty one.
Speaker 4: But we've you know, it's not because me and Cheryl
Speaker 4: are great and then we don't do this for any
Speaker 4: pats on the back.
Speaker 2: It's just like everybody. There's value in everybody, Yes.
Speaker 4: There if you will look for it. There's value in everybody,
Speaker 4: and they all and everybody deserves a chance to shine
Speaker 4: and a chance to be what they can be. And
Speaker 4: so I think that's what has always been at the
Speaker 4: root of our heart for adoption, is that let's give
Speaker 4: somebody a chance, you know that, you know, let's give
Speaker 4: this Romanian kid a chance. That he was abandoned in
Speaker 4: a park when he was born, you know, the first
Speaker 4: time he'd been outside when my wife took him outside
Speaker 4: in that orphanage when he was three years older, and
Speaker 4: the first time he was outside since he was found
Speaker 4: in a park. And so I think we've just we've
Speaker 4: just tried to teach our kids and that there's value.
Speaker 4: Look for the value, don't look for the things that
Speaker 4: tell you, oh this, you know. Shoot, the nurse who
Speaker 4: brought Michael out to sharel the first time that they met,
Speaker 4: said don't take this boy. He's no good. And so
Speaker 4: we you know, this boy who's no good has impacted
Speaker 4: so many people just with his life.
Speaker 2: And so we got it good man.
Speaker 4: And I got four grandkids now too, so Grandpa Ernie,
Speaker 4: we got Poppy, Poppy, Poppy Poppy, and.
Speaker 2: My wife is good.
Speaker 8: And that was.
Speaker 1: But I can remember this vividly. I'm signing.
Speaker 7: As soon as I get signed, mister West said, hey man,
Speaker 7: I just moved, Lottie. I don't know how I got
Speaker 7: this kid. I got a kid named Kobe Bryant. You
Speaker 7: and him, we're gonna get multiple championships. And I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever,
Speaker 7: because I'm looking at all the way. But yeah, he
Speaker 7: said that like he saw something in Kobe and nobody saw.
Speaker 7: And then and then in an interview, Kobe reminded me
Speaker 7: that he came to Orlando to see Penny, and Penny
Speaker 7: kind of blew him off, but he had this sad
Speaker 7: look on his face, and I grabbed him. I was like,
Speaker 7: come on, man, I take a picture. I never knew
Speaker 7: that was him. Oh yeah, I never knew that was him.
Speaker 7: So he told me, you know, when we did that
Speaker 7: TAM two and everything, he said, you don't remember meeting me.
Speaker 7: He never told me that, Like, you know, through all
Speaker 7: the years that we played in there, he never told
Speaker 7: me that.
Speaker 1: He told the story.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that you Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 8: You and cold connect and y'all robbed at the same time.
Speaker 7: He was a guy that wanted it right away. And
Speaker 7: we all understand pecking order my team, that ain't about
Speaker 7: to happen right But I saw that he had something
Speaker 7: in them and he wanted.
Speaker 1: It right away.
Speaker 7: A lot of guys don't have that when they're coming.
Speaker 7: A lot of guys just like to go through the rope.
Speaker 7: But he wanted, he wanted it, he wanted it, he
Speaker 7: wanted he wanted it.
Speaker 6: So its rookie year.
Speaker 7: We let him do what he do make his mistakes,
Speaker 7: but the defining moment in his greatness was we were
Speaker 7: playing Utah. Nobody wanted to take the last shots. I'm
Speaker 7: not taking the last shot, shooting forty percent for the
Speaker 7: free throw line. Y'all ain't gonna be talking about me
Speaker 7: the shot closs game. So he takes three shots to
Speaker 7: air boss. If you can remember, and I hope you
Speaker 7: can show this clip. I was the one that grabbed him.
Speaker 7: Don't worry about it. One day people are gonna fear you.
Speaker 7: And the next year he come in and we come
Speaker 7: in a little more. He wanted it, he wanted it,
Speaker 7: He wanted it, He wanted it, he wanted it. And
Speaker 7: this is where I wish I was a little bit
Speaker 7: more tactful. Egos getting away that word my team will
Speaker 7: mess you up, right, especially from big guy giving up
Speaker 7: to a little guy. I don't play that ship so
Speaker 7: instead of But fortunately it still worked out. We still
Speaker 7: won three out of four. But a lot of necessary
Speaker 7: stuff that shouldn't have happened happened because of the ego,
Speaker 7: and it was probably my fault. But one thing I
Speaker 7: never do is I never disrespect nobody. I ain't got
Speaker 7: to like you. I ain't got to do what you do.
Speaker 7: But if you open in the corner, Matt, even if
Speaker 7: we had a fight the other day, I know you're
Speaker 7: gonna knock that down for it came it. So you know,
Speaker 7: even though we didn't hang out or do anything of that,
Speaker 7: I'm always looking for him first, and he's always looking
Speaker 7: for me. When he go into the hole, he get
Speaker 7: doubled and he dropped it off. So I think that'd
Speaker 7: help us.
Speaker 5: You guys had the unfortunate duty of being live on
Speaker 5: air with the Kobe tragedy. What was the emotion like
Speaker 5: and energy like and how tough was it to be
Speaker 5: able to get through that particular night.
Speaker 4: I've never been in a show like that. I mean,
Speaker 4: in thirty one years, it was the most unique show
Speaker 4: ever ever hosted. And because it was so fresh from
Speaker 4: I mean, it happens Sunday, We're in La Tuesday and
Speaker 4: we are in the middle of Staples Center empty just
Speaker 4: to talk about it. Shack had even talk to anybody
Speaker 4: about it at that point. Jerry West is on the show.
Speaker 4: We just had other voices. I think Rick Fox was
Speaker 4: on that show at some point, and it was just,
Speaker 4: you know what, it was one of those days where
Speaker 4: it just told you that this job we're doing sometimes
Speaker 4: can can go above and beyond being just a basketball show,
Speaker 4: because everybody in the country was kind of coming to
Speaker 4: grips with how do you deal with this?
Speaker 2: How do we.
Speaker 4: How do we deal with these emotions we're feeling, And
Speaker 4: for Shack to be sitting there and just pour his
Speaker 4: heart out, Jerry West do the same thing, Chuck Kenny.
Speaker 4: I mean, I can't even put into words how impactful
Speaker 4: that was for us to do it, and just by
Speaker 4: gauging the reaction of people that it helps some people
Speaker 4: get through it too. And that's not to put it
Speaker 4: any self importance on us, like, oh look what we
Speaker 4: It was just it was good for us all to
Speaker 4: talk about it to lock eyes and say, yeah, man,
Speaker 4: it hurts.
Speaker 2: I hope we never have to do another one.
Speaker 8: Hard to talk about, right for me, right, you know,
Speaker 8: just thinking about it right now, man, it's still hard
Speaker 8: to even talk about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean when Jerry was sitting there,
Speaker 4: you know, talking about what was going through his mind
Speaker 4: when he decided that he had to have Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 4: you know, and those first few years and how tight
Speaker 4: they were, you know, the tears start coming, and we're
Speaker 4: not there to stop them, right, We're just there to
Speaker 4: kind of put a hand on his shoulder and say.
Speaker 2: We've got you right, this is what you're doing.
Speaker 4: And you know, and you know who gets a lot
Speaker 4: of credit and you may not know this story. You
Speaker 4: know who gets a lot of credit for the way
Speaker 4: that show came off is the folks, you know, like
Speaker 4: our salespeople. Because we're supposed to do like a four
Speaker 4: or five segment show, our pregame show leading up to
Speaker 4: the game that we were going to show that night,
Speaker 4: and we didn't take a commercial break. Maybe we took one,
Speaker 4: and so like our producer Jeremy was calling them and saying,
Speaker 4: I don't think I can't we can't stop this, we
Speaker 4: can't stop this, and then go to commercial and come
Speaker 4: back and they said, just go wow. And that's and
Speaker 4: that was one of those things where it said, I
Speaker 4: don't care what this does in terms of the sponsors
Speaker 4: in the bottom line, and we value the sponsors and
Speaker 4: all that stuff, and I know they're supposed to get this,
Speaker 4: but the recognition that.
Speaker 1: This is special.
Speaker 4: And we're not going to cut somebody off is because
Speaker 4: we've got to get to commercial and somebody may be
Speaker 4: struggling to get the words out, and we don't care
Speaker 4: if they're going to sit for thirty seconds and gather
Speaker 4: their thoughts. That silence was speaking right.
Speaker 2: Alliums