Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club Morning.
Speaker 3: Everybody's DJ Envy Charlamagne to God. We are the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: We got a special guest in the building. His book
Speaker 3: is out today. Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen, Rich Paul, welcome, sir,
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: How's everything? It's great man, I see you in years, Rich,
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: Last time we was together, we went to we had
Speaker 1: like a little brunch.
Speaker 2: We had a brunch. This is like damn like.
Speaker 1: That was a wild that was like that was over ten.
Speaker 4: Years, twenty eleven, Yeah, twenty twelve, look at you now, Rich.
Speaker 1: It's great, man.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: First of all, I will tell you how I love
Speaker 4: your book lucky Me than I read it thoroughly, thoroughly,
Speaker 4: thoroughly enjoyed it. But I need to know the process
Speaker 4: of this book because I know the publishers probably.
Speaker 2: Wanted more like your agent life.
Speaker 4: Now you know what is what is your relationship with
Speaker 4: Lebron But you didn't get him that. You gave him
Speaker 4: all east Side of Cleveland, very detailed, and I appreciated that.
Speaker 2: But how did you get the publishers to agree with that?
Speaker 1: Well, this wasn't a published the book was my idea
Speaker 1: along with my team, and you know, it's a timing thing.
Speaker 1: So it was like, you know, would you ever do
Speaker 1: a book. I'm like, yeah, if I do a book, though,
Speaker 1: I don't want it to be a puff piece because
Speaker 1: I think it's important for people to There's people inspiring
Speaker 1: to be you or be in your position, and they
Speaker 1: see the successes, right, they see courtside of games, the
Speaker 1: negotiated deals and all that, and so people say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I can be rich Paul. You got these
Speaker 1: companies looking for the next young black guy with a
Speaker 1: cool jacket on to be their representation of a rich Paul.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, now you're missing a lot. If you
Speaker 1: want to be me today, let's start here. Let me
Speaker 1: educate you on some of the things that I know
Speaker 1: would resonate with you. I know it resonates with you,
Speaker 1: you and everybody, and so I just didn't want to
Speaker 1: write a puff piece. I wanted to be something that
Speaker 1: was impactful education. You know, you know, because experiences are education.
Speaker 1: People look at it and what I didn't realize and
Speaker 1: I realized even more today. You know, when you're going
Speaker 1: through shit as a kid, like you read about my mom,
Speaker 1: you read about, you know, just some dark days. It's
Speaker 1: like the world is coming to an end, right, you
Speaker 1: think like everything is crumbling. But then in the position
Speaker 1: I sitting today, I'm like, oh shit, like those are
Speaker 1: like superpowers for me, right, because now these boardrooms. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm on the board of Live Nation, I'm on the
Speaker 1: board of Uta, I'm on the board of the Lakma,
Speaker 1: you know, coming from this place, this kid, and so
Speaker 1: it's weird how it shaped me and gave me just
Speaker 1: this unbelievable molding, if that makes sense, right. And so
Speaker 1: I think as we were writing a book, I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that it was not exactly what you
Speaker 1: what you was, because that's what people would think. And
Speaker 1: when they hear the title, they immediately go to, oh,
Speaker 1: he met Lebron in the airport, that's why he's lucky.
Speaker 1: And I'm really being extremely sarcastic to those simple minded
Speaker 1: thinkers like that. You know, I took some shot. I
Speaker 1: guess I took a little page out of shot of
Speaker 1: Mainz book with the sarcast.
Speaker 4: But it's interesting when you said that, because when you
Speaker 4: read the book, it's still luck. Because I was always
Speaker 4: the person that never believed in luck. I'm still trying
Speaker 4: to yeah, like create of luck, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 4: so to be in the position that you're in right now,
Speaker 4: do you think it was luck, hard work or hustle.
Speaker 3: But I want, I want to start from the game because
Speaker 3: somebody listening might not know who Rich Paul is, right,
Speaker 3: they might They might not know who Rich Paul is.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't want to take that for granted.
Speaker 3: Sure now, so super agent, you you, I want to say,
Speaker 3: manage the careers of a lot of athletes, not just
Speaker 3: in basketball and football and other sports as well. And
Speaker 3: you started from Ohio, but you didn't start with with
Speaker 3: this on your mind. So let's break down where you
Speaker 3: came from in Ohio and how you started because your
Speaker 3: story is is is crazy just talking about your pops,
Speaker 3: where you came from, and what puts you into this place.
Speaker 3: So let's start from there.
Speaker 1: So Maya grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, like you said,
Speaker 1: on the east side of Cleveland. It's an area called Glenville.
Speaker 1: It's Glenville, and but there's a street called Saint Clair,
Speaker 1: which is basically our broadway, right, and every every street
Speaker 1: off of Saint Clair is essentially its own block and
Speaker 1: it's the neighborhood, but it's but it's also separate. So
Speaker 1: you know, it was we grew up, you couldn't really
Speaker 1: go to certain corner stores. If you wasn't from you could,
Speaker 1: but you couldn't. Like and a weird thing is I
Speaker 1: could go anywhere in the city, but a friend of
Speaker 1: mine maybe not. They might not accept him like that
Speaker 1: or whatever. So I always had this this support system,
Speaker 1: right and the protection as well. You know, I think
Speaker 1: just based upon a lot of shit that I did
Speaker 1: is as growing up, but an athlete, you know, someone
Speaker 1: who I didn't really horse play as a kid because
Speaker 1: I was always about betting and getting some money some
Speaker 1: type of way love fashion, but I was into sports.
Speaker 1: I played sports, but I wasn't the best at it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't like growing up on my street, I was
Speaker 1: the best, but as I grew I wasn't the best
Speaker 1: player on my high school team. But it didn't really
Speaker 1: it didn't deter me from wanting to play and we
Speaker 1: wanted to state championship, you know, two years ago. I
Speaker 1: went to state championship three years straight in high school.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't good. I wasn't the best player on
Speaker 1: the team by far.
Speaker 2: Hey the book, you talked like he was getting buckets.
Speaker 1: Now, well, it depends on what the age I was.
Speaker 1: I'm still one of the best shooters out there period.
Speaker 1: You could talk to some NBA guys about this. They'll
Speaker 1: tell you that. But what I'm saying is, but I
Speaker 1: was the best off the court in certain things.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I love to get drassket fly. I had this confidence
Speaker 1: in any room, and I hung with older people. See,
Speaker 1: people don't understand I was thirteen, like hanging with y'all.
Speaker 1: So I'm thirteen years old, niggas say today today. And
Speaker 1: so when I was young, I remember I had I
Speaker 1: lived with both grandmothers, so my mom was struggling and
Speaker 1: we had to move in with my mother's mom in
Speaker 1: eighty six eighty seven, And then in nineteen ninety I
Speaker 1: moved to Saint Louis for a small stint because my
Speaker 1: mother's from Saint Louis. I went to Vashona High School.
Speaker 1: I had a ton of family in Saint Louis that
Speaker 1: wasn't working for me, my brother and my sister. So
Speaker 1: my dad put us on the Greyhound back to Cleveland.
Speaker 1: When we moved there for a short stint, we just
Speaker 1: stayed in a small apartment, just us. And you know,
Speaker 1: like that's when you're reading a book where I used
Speaker 1: to have to walk around and look on the ground
Speaker 1: and pick up a quarter or nicol or diamond, buy
Speaker 1: me a cheeseburger or whatever, and I start betting guys
Speaker 1: at the park without having any money to get and
Speaker 1: my jump shot got better because of that. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so then I moved in with my father's mom and
Speaker 1: it was her mother and my uncle Charlie. The average
Speaker 1: age in the house is sixty five. Right, I'm ten,
Speaker 1: So I'm watching Meet the Press and Larry king Liven
Speaker 1: sixty minutes and ironically I'm on sixty minutes last night,
Speaker 1: which is insane. So it was just I was that kid,
Speaker 1: that kid you see on the cover of the book
Speaker 1: that's thirteen, fourteen years old. I chose that because that's
Speaker 1: where there's a fork in the road in life. We
Speaker 1: all know that. Right at that age, you start being
Speaker 1: held accountable for your actions in the neighborhood. You start
Speaker 1: to and you see guys you hung with every day,
Speaker 1: and now y'all start to go. Y'all separate ways based
Speaker 1: upon your interest. So my interest was fashion, getting money girls,
Speaker 1: you know, and sports that those were my four pillars,
Speaker 1: and so it took me down this path. But I
Speaker 1: grew up in my dad's store and on that corner
Speaker 1: rn J and Jake confectioner. Yeah, you know, on that corner. Man,
Speaker 1: I was never allowed to be a kid. You saw things,
Speaker 1: you heard things that you probably shouldn't have seen as
Speaker 1: a kid, of course, and you start to mimic things,
Speaker 1: you start to do things. And so I aspired to
Speaker 1: be like certain guys on and off the court, right,
Speaker 1: And so I know you love real estate, Nindy. I
Speaker 1: never forget. I got my first apartment and my man
Speaker 1: that I went to lunch with, he's like, his name
Speaker 1: is Text. He's like, how long are you going staying
Speaker 1: up in the apartment. I'm like, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: I just got it. He's like, yeah, Bud, you should
Speaker 1: be thinking about buying a house, owning something, you know.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I'm nineteen years old, Like what are
Speaker 1: you talking? So he but he showed me when you
Speaker 1: go in the house, okay, this is kind of your
Speaker 1: money's in your kitchen and bathrooms. And you know, so
Speaker 1: when I bought my first home at twenty years old.
Speaker 1: The first thing I did was I redid the kitchen
Speaker 1: in bath. So I had this I was young, but
Speaker 1: I also had this older type soul to me. And
Speaker 1: so all those stories are in the book, but that's
Speaker 1: who I am.
Speaker 2: And so that picture.
Speaker 4: Lets me know that story. All that picture lets me
Speaker 4: know everything you said in that book was true.
Speaker 2: You ain't getting that hair and.
Speaker 1: Bone that's in front of my dad's story, by the way.
Speaker 1: And you know, and by then, by that time, by
Speaker 1: this age, Christmas gifts like if I got something for
Speaker 1: Christmas is because I bought it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like I never spent I can't remember a
Speaker 1: Christmas I ever spent with my mother, you know, prior
Speaker 1: to being grown. So you know it was miss Peach Holidays.
Speaker 1: She was a g by the way, you loved her.
Speaker 1: You eat sweet potato pine. Yeah, you would fly to
Speaker 1: Cleveland that for her, you know, or have her ship
Speaker 1: it to you. It was that good. But it was
Speaker 1: just a thing where like you're saying, that picture was
Speaker 1: taken by a lady. Her name was Picture Lady, and
Speaker 1: Picture Lady would go around to the different blocks and
Speaker 1: she had a polaroid camera with film and she would
Speaker 1: charge us five dollars for the pictures, and so that
Speaker 1: would just happen to be one to me. I may
Speaker 1: have some dudes in there, and you know, back in
Speaker 1: the day, you would get that picture to a girl
Speaker 1: you like or whatnot. And I was thinking about picture
Speaker 1: lady the other day, and she was somebody's mother and
Speaker 1: obviously she was strung out as well, but thinking she
Speaker 1: wasn't right. She was actually Instagram before Instagram, right, because
Speaker 1: what she was doing was she was allowing us to
Speaker 1: tell our story through this picture of what we were
Speaker 1: doing at that time in the moment. I know exactly
Speaker 1: when that was day and everything, well, I know exactly
Speaker 1: the moment that was because I said to her, hold on,
Speaker 1: let me take my shirt off, and you know, the
Speaker 1: one knee on the like, everything in that picture was
Speaker 1: detailed strategically like that because in my mind, I'm giving
Speaker 1: that to a girl, so I wanted, you know, the
Speaker 1: whole look to be what it was.
Speaker 2: She was documenting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was documented. So when I talk about the
Speaker 1: street aspect of it, I'm not glorifying it. But what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is when you young, especially young and black,
Speaker 1: just a minority in these in these poverty stricten communities.
Speaker 1: You don't grow up next to people with careers, right,
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't understand how corporate America actually works.
Speaker 1: And so if you have any type of entrepreneurial spirit,
Speaker 1: your options are so small, right, and then the opportunity
Speaker 1: is even smaller. There are no opportunities, and so you
Speaker 1: you know, you turn to certain things. And when you
Speaker 1: think about that, people talk about how to get to
Speaker 1: this point. I can't ask you. You know, you talk
Speaker 1: about lucky me. Part of that is I am lucky
Speaker 1: to grow up in the community. I am lucky to
Speaker 1: have a dad who had a I learned math work
Speaker 1: in my dad's cash register and playing people's lottery numbers.
Speaker 1: And you know, if your auntie been playing a number
Speaker 1: six sixty five for a whole year, and now she
Speaker 1: gets to the thing and this kid playing and she
Speaker 1: get home and six sixty five come out, but her
Speaker 1: tickets say six sixty four. Oh oh, you either better
Speaker 1: have the money that she missed out on or it's
Speaker 1: gonna be some smoke in the city, you know. And
Speaker 1: so that that was the pressure for me. There's no
Speaker 1: pressure in what I'm doing today because of look at
Speaker 1: the journey out for I was just trying to survive
Speaker 1: the day. You know, you come outside, you just trying
Speaker 1: to get home that night. So we couldn't plan ahead.
Speaker 1: There was no in the summertime. We going to Europe
Speaker 1: for two weeks and travel o. You know, we barely
Speaker 1: went downtown. I went with my dad on the bus,
Speaker 1: but I got friends that's never been to the airport.
Speaker 3: You also talk about, you know, your mom being strung out,
Speaker 3: but when your father passed away, you actually started selling drugs,
Speaker 3: the same drugs that strung her out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I respected my mom and my dad. I
Speaker 1: never wanted any part of that. But as you know,
Speaker 1: like and I respected my dad so much. And not
Speaker 1: to mention, my dad was like air traffic control for
Speaker 1: the hood. And that's the one thing like he didn't.
Speaker 1: He was a man of principal and moral and my
Speaker 1: dad was a man's man, like he was literally, you know,
Speaker 1: he's a man's man and I respected him so much.
Speaker 1: But when he passed away, it wasn't just that my
Speaker 1: dad passed away. My brother was locked up, my uncle
Speaker 1: was locked up, my cousin John John was locked up,
Speaker 1: and my mother and sister are in Saint Louis, and
Speaker 1: so I'm really on an island, you know. And when
Speaker 1: I made that decision, I made the decision with the
Speaker 1: understanding that I also know what comes with this, and
Speaker 1: so if you're going to do it, I had to
Speaker 1: make a conscious decision to try to find the right
Speaker 1: within the wrong. And I was just trying to survive.
Speaker 1: I'm not glorifying it because I think there's you have
Speaker 1: so much talent. I think there's people settle a lot, right,
Speaker 1: But back then, like I said, the options and the
Speaker 1: opportunity were so slim, and the things that I aspired
Speaker 1: to have and that I wanted, the only way to
Speaker 1: get it was to do And I was a hustler
Speaker 1: period in all every step of the way. I'm still
Speaker 1: hustling to this day. As you say, I came in
Speaker 1: and gave you guys athletics new balance and that's a sports,
Speaker 1: a pair of band I'm building. But yeah, man, like
Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't glorify it, but it was something
Speaker 1: that at that moment in my life I had to do,
Speaker 1: or at least I felt I had.
Speaker 4: I don't judge anybody for what they were doing while
Speaker 4: the survival mode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's just what I felt I had to do.
Speaker 1: And again, but there was a conscious to it. There
Speaker 1: was just there was a strategy to it. There was
Speaker 1: a less it's more component to it as well.
Speaker 4: And you knew what you were doing was wrong because
Speaker 4: when you lost that two fifty, you felt like you
Speaker 4: shouldn't have been doing that anyway anyway.
Speaker 1: So I didn't even but I didn't even trip it,
Speaker 1: but I just kept I just kept kept going because
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't for me, right, And sometimes I've
Speaker 1: never sat in my success even to this day. And
Speaker 1: I don't see you guys much, but if you ever
Speaker 1: see me, I'm gonna be the same person every time.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: One thing about one thing about life growing up the
Speaker 1: way I did it, don't lie to you. It don't
Speaker 1: lie to you. So and I grew up around people
Speaker 1: that you know, you couldn't talk about it if you
Speaker 1: didn't live it. That's just how it was. We wasn't
Speaker 1: taking rental cars and putting rims on it and driving
Speaker 1: a freaknik and acting like this was my car. You know,
Speaker 1: we would never ever do that. So today in the
Speaker 1: chapter on your close, like those same principles stick to me.
Speaker 1: There's just certain things I'm not going to do so
Speaker 1: as I'm representing players, I'm not going to ever lie
Speaker 1: to you about anything or for no amount of money.
Speaker 1: But the title agent, you know, that was always deemed
Speaker 1: as a shady thing. I made it glamorous, right, being seen,
Speaker 1: being out, being on the floor, dressing fly all that.
Speaker 1: That's just who I am. That's not because I'm an agent.
Speaker 1: But then what I realized was, I'm saying to myself
Speaker 1: as I worked at another company and I'm looking at
Speaker 1: these guys representing players, I'm saying to myself, this is
Speaker 1: all transaction. This is why thinking about the Streets in
Speaker 1: the book, what the Streets does is it for most people,
Speaker 1: it's going to allow you to build bad habits right,
Speaker 1: get up late, You have nobody to answer to, You
Speaker 1: have no no structure, no scheduling, no anything, pretty much right,
Speaker 1: And every time you do something in a transaction form,
Speaker 1: it feels like you've made money. Yeah, you've made money,
Speaker 1: but you haven't made profit. It's a different dynamic, but
Speaker 1: it makes you feel as if you did. But it's
Speaker 1: setting you back, right. And so that's why people never
Speaker 1: tend to build anything. And so I took that and
Speaker 1: I learned from that, and I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: these people, it's only about a transaction when a talent
Speaker 1: run out. They're not investing in the person at all.
Speaker 1: They're treating a person as if they're you know, pretty
Speaker 1: much dumb. And the families, once they take the money,
Speaker 1: they took the money. And that's how it was, and
Speaker 1: that's how it still is in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And there's still a piece of families, especially and I
Speaker 1: target this towards black families. There's still a piece of
Speaker 1: black families that would rather do business with them than
Speaker 1: you for a number of things. And this is what
Speaker 1: I learned at my dad's store. When I worked to dad.
Speaker 1: At my dad's store, we used to give people credit
Speaker 1: brown paper bag that come in, Miss Johnson needs some
Speaker 1: toilet paper, some soap. You would write it down. That's
Speaker 1: in the middle of the month. First of the month.
Speaker 1: Come around, everybody get they checks. And me and my
Speaker 1: brother catch you spending the money with the competition around
Speaker 1: the corner.
Speaker 4: That's right, who probably white and you still but you still, oh,
Speaker 4: why you just don't come and pay us.
Speaker 1: And it started to see in my mind that oh,
Speaker 1: when they see me with the New Jordans on in
Speaker 1: their mind, they're spending money with my dad and that's
Speaker 1: helping him make me look better than them. Right, it's
Speaker 1: the same thing today. So you know you you're rather
Speaker 1: spend it with or you're rather pay them, But when
Speaker 1: it comes to me, you want me to cut my fees.
Speaker 3: How difficult was that when you are doing these deals
Speaker 3: with the NBA, NFL or whatever whatever organization it is
Speaker 3: because to them, like you said, they might not respect
Speaker 3: you as somebody else who's who doesn't look like that,
Speaker 3: that looks more like them than like you. How difficult
Speaker 3: it is to get in there and say, nah, it's
Speaker 3: still my worth, it's still my value. And for people
Speaker 3: that don't know, I just want to break down.
Speaker 1: You started.
Speaker 3: You met Lebron in the.
Speaker 1: Airport, and airport.
Speaker 3: Y'all connected on things outside of just sports. You're connected
Speaker 3: on fashion and familihood and this, that and the other.
Speaker 3: And you decided you wanted to be an agent, but
Speaker 3: you didn't go to streaming for sports management.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you put you on pay. I don't give
Speaker 2: them too much a book away, but.
Speaker 1: That's what happened. So I was already going back and
Speaker 1: forth to Atlanta because it actually has started here. I
Speaker 1: came up on all women's bus trip with my man's
Speaker 1: mom was throwing and I actually, you know how you
Speaker 1: go over your man's house and she's in there frying
Speaker 1: chicken or whatever. I gave it. She was like, we're
Speaker 1: doing a bus trip for the girls. Whatever. Okay, gret
Speaker 1: I said, here he go. You know, three four hundred
Speaker 1: dollars take four people by much, it's like just sixty
Speaker 1: five dollars apiece. Whatever, Like, yeah, go ahead, no problem, man,
Speaker 1: I'm in the gambling house. It's about two thirty three
Speaker 1: in the morning. My phone ring one night and they're like,
Speaker 1: she's like, where y'all at. I'm like, what, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we waiting on you guys. They park at a local
Speaker 1: grocery store and everybody park their car and you go
Speaker 1: up and back. I wasn't gonna go. My man who
Speaker 1: was with me, his named mike E. My man who
Speaker 1: was with me, He's like, yo, we might as well go, bro,
Speaker 1: because we had just bought these scooters that go like
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five miles an hour, and in
Speaker 1: order for us to ride them without a helmet, you
Speaker 1: can have a helmet on or eyewear, So, you know,
Speaker 1: we wanted to fly eyewear. We wanted cardies, you know
Speaker 1: back then this is this is in two thousand, right,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one pretty much. And so we come
Speaker 1: here and take the bus trip where they get off
Speaker 1: on Canal Street. Well, I definitely ain't shopping there. So
Speaker 1: him and I we hit, you know, we hit Fifth
Speaker 1: Avenue and hit all the story because we was flying
Speaker 1: like we would. This was what we was doing, right,
Speaker 1: And so at the corner of my eye when the
Speaker 1: NBA story was on, I think it's fifty third and fifth,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I gotta go here because I got
Speaker 1: these bo Jackson's on ice. I had these bow Jacksons
Speaker 1: on ice for like six months, and we used to
Speaker 1: buy sneakers. I'm not exaggerating literally every day, right, And
Speaker 1: so I wanted to latrell spree. Well, the white one
Speaker 1: because the number eight was outlined in black, and I
Speaker 1: had the black bo Jackson's. I wanted that to hit
Speaker 1: like that, And so I go in there.
Speaker 2: So you had the orange blue bow Jackson, not the
Speaker 2: black white.
Speaker 1: Black jack See, most people would put the white jersey
Speaker 1: with the white orange, but I didn't want that.
Speaker 4: By the way, he says that in the book, like
Speaker 4: you literally said, That's how I know you paid.
Speaker 2: Attention to that much. Thak you like everybody would do
Speaker 2: the orange.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because you just exsume because he in New
Speaker 3: York could go to the Knicks, he get the bull.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I already had the bo Jackson. I
Speaker 1: just I wanted the spree well because of that outline.
Speaker 1: It could have been envy on the back, but I
Speaker 1: just wanted that eight black eight. And so while I'm
Speaker 1: in there, I'm in line, and I don't even know
Speaker 1: this young man's name, but this is crazy. When I'm
Speaker 1: in the store and I'm in line, I look and
Speaker 1: it's an Oscar Robertson Bucks, it's an Elgin Baylor Lakers,
Speaker 1: and it's a Bill Russell Celtics. I get to Elgin
Speaker 1: Baylor and I get to Oscar Roberson. But prior to that,
Speaker 1: I asked him, I said, what is that section right there?
Speaker 1: This is very important? He said, that's our hardwood classics section.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, hold on, let me go. I
Speaker 1: grab two jerseys. I'm thinking they, you know, one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars or whatever. I should go up to seven point fifty.
Speaker 1: I'm like, but I'm in line. I'm not gonna get
Speaker 1: out of line. And I'm like, you know, forget it,
Speaker 1: come on with it. Boom. So now when I get home,
Speaker 1: we go back. I get home, I wear one jersey.
Speaker 1: It was this neighborhood called Superior Hill, and they throw
Speaker 1: a block party, right, so I knew I wanted to
Speaker 1: wear the Bucks with some butters and tams because that
Speaker 1: orange and green, I mean that green and red will
Speaker 1: hit with the tams with the butters. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to wear no red and white shoes or whatever. And
Speaker 1: then so I wore that, and everybody asked me about it.
Speaker 1: But I was fly, so they always would ask me
Speaker 1: about the I was wearing Vershachi in like ninety four,
Speaker 1: like tight, when nobody was wearing Charlottagne. Would be would
Speaker 1: have got on me. But I got pictures of this,
Speaker 1: you know, And I was always a kid that would
Speaker 1: if I had one thousand dollars, I spent eight hundred
Speaker 1: on the sweater. It didn't matter to me. So anyway,
Speaker 1: so I do that, and I wear the Elgin Beta Lakers.
Speaker 1: When I wear this jersey to the club called the
Speaker 1: Millennium everybody's asking me, and the millennium is every hood
Speaker 1: from everywhere is in here. So now I'm like, I
Speaker 1: get home first house I ever bought, and I had
Speaker 1: a little makeshift office, and I couldn't sleep, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep. Man, I'm like, this is on my mind
Speaker 1: because everybody kept asking me. And I remember the kid said,
Speaker 1: that's our Hardwood Classic session section. So I'm already getting
Speaker 1: into about four point thirty in the morning. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't really doze off my energy up. So I
Speaker 1: go into it and I get on the computer and
Speaker 1: it was still like might have been like it wasn't
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't Google. I don't think. I don't know what
Speaker 1: search engine, may be AOL or whatever. But I put
Speaker 1: in Hardwood Classics and distant replays came up. It was
Speaker 1: a story in Atlanta, and that was the first thing
Speaker 1: that popped up. So now I can't wait. It opened
Speaker 1: at nine called I buy three Jerseys. I do this,
Speaker 1: I repeat this for two months. I get close with
Speaker 1: the guy's name is Andy Hymen. I get close with him.
Speaker 1: I say Andy, I'm hustling. I say, Andy, do you
Speaker 1: would you mind if I you know, and allowed me
Speaker 1: to invest in your store. He said, rich, if you serious,
Speaker 1: come and see me fly down. I had never been
Speaker 1: on the plane because you know we live in Cleveland.
Speaker 1: Do we drive everywhere in Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, everything is close, Philly,
Speaker 1: d C. So my man d Hodge, he graduated from
Speaker 1: a school called Cleveland Heights. And when you graduate from
Speaker 1: Cleveland Heights as a as a man, most of these kids,
Speaker 1: especially the black kids, they went to hpcu's so they
Speaker 1: either went to Clark or Moorhouse. He was like, my
Speaker 1: man went to Clark. His name was Gerald. He lived
Speaker 1: in Marietta. He's like, my man went to Clark. Man,
Speaker 1: we can go to his spot. He'll let us stay
Speaker 1: with him. I'll book the flights. Well, if anybody know
Speaker 1: de Hodge, he's kind of like he's not cheap, but
Speaker 1: he's cheap, you know in terms of he gonna spend
Speaker 1: the money wise. He so he found a flight on
Speaker 1: air Tran from Akron Canton. That's what got me flying
Speaker 1: out of Akron, Cant because if I would have booked
Speaker 1: the flight, I would have probably just took Delta out
Speaker 1: of Cleveland because it's a fifteen minute Rocketer Airport versus
Speaker 1: a forty five minute rochet because the way I think
Speaker 1: the time I'm spending is money. But he didn't think
Speaker 1: that way, Thank god he didn't. And so now I
Speaker 1: get down there, I sleep on Gerald's couch. I'm sleep
Speaker 1: on Gerald's couch. They get up, take me to I
Speaker 1: get there eleven thirty. Is at twelve. I get there
Speaker 1: eleven thirty because the book away, man, am I yes,
Speaker 1: I just so, but but they should go and read.
Speaker 1: They still got tod But so when I have the meeting,
Speaker 1: Andy tells me, I can't let you invest, but if
Speaker 1: you work in the store, I'll allow you to get
Speaker 1: forty percent off whatever you buy. But you know I'm
Speaker 1: trying to I'm like, come on with it. And that's
Speaker 1: what really started me going back and forth. So through
Speaker 1: that those travels, I actually met Lebron in the airport
Speaker 1: one day. That's what happened.
Speaker 4: But it was interesting because Bron, you said, y'all, y'all
Speaker 4: kicked it became friends just on life, right.
Speaker 2: Did he put you on salary? You don't even know why.
Speaker 1: No. He called me down to his house one day, man,
Speaker 1: And by the way, I wasn't even looking at it
Speaker 1: from that perspective. But as we got cooler and cooler,
Speaker 1: he put me, you know, and I'm and I'm showing
Speaker 1: him a little. So I've been buying diamonds and so
Speaker 1: I was seventh eighth grade, so I'm showing him about
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And we really bonded over our mothers though.
Speaker 1: And I'm the last one too. I'm not from I
Speaker 1: don't play the fake cousin thing. I'm from Cleveland. They're
Speaker 1: from Akron. We wasn't friends. It wasn't fake anything. It
Speaker 1: just it was a fake thing, it really was. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he called me down to his house one day. He
Speaker 1: asked me for my social Security. I'm like, man, no way,
Speaker 1: I'm gonnaiving you my social you know, you can't play
Speaker 1: with nobody's social But after about forty five minutes, forty
Speaker 1: five minutes, I ended up giving it to him. And
Speaker 1: we had been to camps, Jordan Camp, Nike Camp, all
Speaker 1: these different camps and so yeah, man, like about a
Speaker 1: month or so later, my a check coming to mail
Speaker 1: and my mother. I didn't when I said I didn't
Speaker 1: know how to read a check. It's just because if
Speaker 1: you never got a check before, pretty much outside of
Speaker 1: a summer job at the post office. I did wasn't
Speaker 1: reading a check in terms of understanding pay period whatever,
Speaker 1: no title or anything like that. And my mother was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you're making forty eight thousand pretty much a year,
Speaker 1: two thousand, whatever it was. And I'm like, cool, but
Speaker 1: nobody's called me and told me anything. So I called him.
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, what am I supposed to be doing, Like,
Speaker 1: what's my job? He was like, I don't have nothing
Speaker 1: for you, bro, I don't got nothing. He was like,
Speaker 1: I just he told me, He's like, ever since you've
Speaker 1: been around me, it's been nothing but love. Like I
Speaker 1: don't I don't feel threatened you damn sure, ain't no
Speaker 1: leech or anything like that. And I will figure out.
Speaker 1: I just gotta have you around me, cause like cause
Speaker 1: you know, like it's situations in which I remember one
Speaker 1: time he didn't he might not have wanted to sign
Speaker 1: an autograph for a kid or something, and I had
Speaker 1: a conversation with him, like you should sign an autograph
Speaker 1: because you just never know, not knowing that he was
Speaker 1: gonna play, you know, thirty years in the league. But
Speaker 1: back then I'm saying, you don't know how long you
Speaker 1: know somebody's gonna want your autograph, and you also don't
Speaker 1: know what it does to this kid, right, And so
Speaker 1: I said to him, I said, God chooses people for
Speaker 1: a reason. And you know you got to play the cards.
Speaker 1: That's dept the car that's dealt to you. Just so
Speaker 1: happy to come with an abundance of pictures being taken,
Speaker 1: in autographs being signed. And this was prior to him
Speaker 1: being drafted.
Speaker 4: By the way, I believe that all the wisdom your
Speaker 4: father instilled in you. And that's that's another reason I
Speaker 4: loved the book, because of the way you honor your
Speaker 4: father in the book. I believe a lot of the
Speaker 4: wisdom he instilled in you you were able to instill
Speaker 4: in Brawn one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent, you know, undred percent. Yea moment and it
Speaker 1: was and you know it was four of us, but
Speaker 1: I brought we all brought some different to the table.
Speaker 1: I brought that element, like you're saying, just that cold
Speaker 1: hard truth street, you know, a protection in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways he felt, and a confidence for all of
Speaker 1: us though, like you know, I would do. You know,
Speaker 1: I had corns and Jacobs and Rolexes, and if it's
Speaker 1: here man, not him, because his risk was too big.
Speaker 1: But like I was a guy, I wanted everybody to
Speaker 1: look like something right, And so that mentality I got
Speaker 1: from my hood, Like if it was your turn, envy
Speaker 1: to go and buy the Jordans. You bought them for
Speaker 1: all ten of us. Damn you know, That's how it was.
Speaker 1: And if it was my turn, or if hours somebody
Speaker 1: had to go or and buy this, like they get
Speaker 1: them for it wasn't nothing like that right. Even when
Speaker 1: we brought the scooters, I didn't have the money on me.
Speaker 1: My man might had it. I'm like, he lived closer.
Speaker 1: I'm like, just give me it, Just give me ten
Speaker 1: I'll give it to you when we get back down
Speaker 1: the way. He's like, okay, cool. You know that's how.
Speaker 1: That's how our relationship. And I'm still friends to this
Speaker 1: day with pretty much all the guys I grew up with.
Speaker 1: I can't hang out with him because I'm in a
Speaker 1: different space. But when I go home, I don't really
Speaker 1: have no new friends. These are you know, my friends.
Speaker 4: Why was it important for you to honor and celebrate
Speaker 4: your father the way you did?
Speaker 2: In Lucky Me.
Speaker 1: He was just such a great example from me and
Speaker 1: growing up, most of my friends didn't have their father.
Speaker 1: And even though my father didn't live in the house
Speaker 1: with me, he was just such a great example, and
Speaker 1: not for me, for everybody. Everybody respected my man. When
Speaker 1: my dad funeral, you had two thousand people there from
Speaker 1: the age of three to ninety three. Wow. Everybody came
Speaker 1: and paid their respects. And I never forget. A man
Speaker 1: came in my dad's store one day after he pass
Speaker 1: and he was like big rich here and he was like, nah, man,
Speaker 1: you know he died. This grown man. He had to
Speaker 1: be about fifty seven years old. Man, you would have
Speaker 1: felt like he got hit by It was just it
Speaker 1: hit him hard. He couldn't believe it. Because my dad
Speaker 1: helped people grow. My dad helped people. He raised a
Speaker 1: lot of these people, and men and women like girls,
Speaker 1: if they got pregnant and didn't know how to tell
Speaker 1: their parents, they come to my dad. Guys went to jail.
Speaker 1: The payphone in my dad's store when you call a
Speaker 1: lot of guys that went to jail, they would call
Speaker 1: and my dad would actually bond him out, so you know,
Speaker 1: and a lot of ways, that actually saved my life
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways because I had so much
Speaker 1: protection from the foundation that my dad, my uncle, my
Speaker 1: brother laid down. So when I'm in the back alleys
Speaker 1: and I'm gambling behind abandoned building or the basement of
Speaker 1: abandoned house, for me to make it out of there
Speaker 1: with the money of this guy that I know, I
Speaker 1: know what he do. I know. And that's the thing
Speaker 1: about the business I'm in. I don't come from a
Speaker 1: place to where you can have anonymous people going who's
Speaker 1: hype and talk bad about rich Paul Like, I don't
Speaker 1: give a shit about any of that. But I'm a
Speaker 1: stand on business and so I also don't play that
Speaker 1: aspect of it. And when I had the conversation on
Speaker 1: gills Pot with Stephen A. Smith, remember when I said
Speaker 1: that's cap. I wasn't trying to be negative towards him.
Speaker 1: I'm saying this cap because I come from an environment
Speaker 1: where I survived that energy for somebody to tell me
Speaker 1: get the you know.
Speaker 2: Oh you talk about Stephen A. Smith when he said.
Speaker 1: When he said he told me to get the fuck
Speaker 1: out of his face, I'm like, you never said that
Speaker 1: to me. Not because I'm this tough guy, because I'm
Speaker 1: for I'm for peace prophet, but I'm a stand on
Speaker 1: what I believe in. It's because where I come from,
Speaker 1: that energy is every day and if I can survive,
Speaker 1: navigate my way throughout that and get to this point,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in Disney World right now. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: in terms of the energy and the aura and just
Speaker 1: everyday life trying to make it out. My energy is
Speaker 1: not gonna push you to say that to me nobody,
Speaker 1: And that was that was my thing, not because it's
Speaker 1: this tough thing. No, it's I never my aura doesn't
Speaker 1: exude that, and so that's what But it's because of
Speaker 1: how I grew up.
Speaker 2: Speaking of podcast, why you disrespect Michael Jordan like that?
Speaker 2: On the podcast?
Speaker 1: I didn't disrespect Michael Jordan.
Speaker 4: You said that he you said bron is Platinum and
Speaker 4: Michael God damn.
Speaker 1: I said, for me, the whatever you call them, the
Speaker 1: answer for me because again in Okay, the way I'm
Speaker 1: looking at it.
Speaker 2: Is you never respected Michael Jordan too. You said that
Speaker 2: in the book.
Speaker 1: I did not see. I did not say that, But
Speaker 1: you're not gonna do that.
Speaker 4: You said you said you respected him on the court,
Speaker 4: but off the court, he wasn't for the culture basically
Speaker 4: what you said.
Speaker 1: No, I said, I respected him on the court, of course,
Speaker 1: but there was no touch. Michael Jordan was a different
Speaker 1: guy off the court.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I had several examples of Michael Jordan off the court, right,
Speaker 1: So that's not a slight to me. I love Michael Jordan,
Speaker 1: by the way, every shoe until like after fourteen, because
Speaker 1: it started getting a little weird every game I used
Speaker 1: to watch the commercials. Wouldn't even shore I was a
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan.
Speaker 4: Everything you said about Jordan in the book, I understood
Speaker 4: exactly what you mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's my thing. So like I was more culturally, yeah,
Speaker 1: but but okay, So when you think about a guy
Speaker 1: like Alan Iverson, imagine if Alan Iverson had a rich Paul. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you see what I'm saying. It's a different dynamic because
Speaker 1: I understand him. I understand culture, and I know what
Speaker 1: those braids and what that armsleeve did, and I understand
Speaker 1: the business that that that didn't necessarily go with rebound.
Speaker 2: Who you were talking with back then, Nike? Did Nike?
Speaker 2: You understand it because he was there. It's not like
Speaker 2: I'm sure Nike off of him something.
Speaker 1: Alan Iverson knew what his agent told him, you can
Speaker 1: spend it higher, which way you want to spend it.
Speaker 1: And if you don't know culture, you don't know. Just shoot,
Speaker 1: how how many how many pairs of sneakers you think
Speaker 1: his agent bought?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I know I bought a bunch
Speaker 2: of the man I'm just saying prior.
Speaker 1: To Alan, I how many pairs of sneakers you think
Speaker 1: his agent probably bought?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Probably nothing exactly.
Speaker 1: So how could you? How could you do a shoe
Speaker 1: deal for me? And you don't. You don't have no
Speaker 1: because you're gonna get very few guys that can actually
Speaker 1: move product. Everybody have a signature shoe cannot move product.
Speaker 1: So that shit just for your ego. When you have
Speaker 1: a signature shoe, to go is to build a signature business.
Speaker 1: There's been very few guys that can build a signature business.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: Okay, So my thing is, you can't help me make
Speaker 1: that decision. Now, you can help ninety nine point nine
Speaker 1: percent of the players make a decision on a shoe deal,
Speaker 1: because it's just pretty simple. If you don't care about
Speaker 1: the brand, pretty much, most guys go on to where
Speaker 1: who's paying the most money. It's only gonna work while
Speaker 1: I'm playing. But if you're an alan iverson. That ain't
Speaker 1: what you need. You need somebody that understands culture, understands cool,
Speaker 1: understands product. You get what I'm saying, because you have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to build a business that can have sustainability
Speaker 1: in the marketplace much longer than you play.
Speaker 4: He still eat off the answers, though only because it's
Speaker 4: something that the agent did or somebody took some money away.
Speaker 1: Now his data deferred based upon his spending habits, so
Speaker 1: they deferred his money, which was great. I'm not knocking that,
Speaker 1: But you also could have got the money right now
Speaker 1: and diversified his portfolio to where he couldn't touch it
Speaker 1: and let that money compound and investigate it. He's paying
Speaker 1: up you know. Then now he's paying capital gains instead
Speaker 1: of paying an income tax. Right, So I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not knocking it. I'm just saying for him, it was
Speaker 1: the right thing in terms of, oh, he likes to
Speaker 1: do this, so we're going to do this so he
Speaker 1: doesn't mess it up for his family or whatever the
Speaker 1: case may be, which you have to appreciate that. But
Speaker 1: there's also a side to where you can educate him
Speaker 1: on what you're doing and put that money in the
Speaker 1: dictor you give what I'm saying, because if I'm not
Speaker 1: getting it to fifty two, then look at what was
Speaker 1: he thirty two? So twenty years that money not working
Speaker 1: for me? Is that necessarily the right thing too? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm not again, I'm not knocking. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying the way I think versus.
Speaker 2: You know, got you? Yeah, I got it. Let's go
Speaker 2: back to the platinum Antlast thing.
Speaker 1: Though, No, Okay, So all I'm saying is that's just
Speaker 1: for me. I think people people oftentimes want you to
Speaker 1: think how they think for whatever reason. Obviously we know
Speaker 1: MJ's a goat of his era. No, he's the goat
Speaker 1: of his era.
Speaker 2: He's the goat Rich's okay.
Speaker 1: Of listen, you can't compare eras man like because you
Speaker 1: can't fallt MJ for the era he played in. You
Speaker 1: can't fault Lebron for the era he played in. You
Speaker 1: can't fault Steph Curry for changing it. Steph Curry changed
Speaker 1: the game of basketball and the way it's played. My
Speaker 1: coach Frank Novak or coach j May rest in peace
Speaker 1: of Glenville, legendary coach. If you stepped across half court
Speaker 1: and shot forty foot jumper. The only guy I know
Speaker 1: did that was Damon Stringer Cleveland Heights. Gard Cappeletti let
Speaker 1: him do that, but he actually made him. That's a
Speaker 1: bad shot. Steph Curry turned a bad shot into a
Speaker 1: great shot for Steph Curry, not for everybody. You get
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. We can knock those things. And again,
Speaker 1: when you talk about the Jordan Lebron, everybody gonna have
Speaker 1: their own opinion. You're tired, you're entired to that. Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan was the best guy I ever seen play the
Speaker 1: game of basketball until twenty years of Lebron. Me saying
Speaker 1: twenty years of Lebron. That's not a knock because Lebron
Speaker 1: could also Lebron could also play with Mike. But I
Speaker 1: think Lebron would have been just as good in Mike's era.
Speaker 4: Do you think people will ever fully appreciate Bron. No,
Speaker 4: if we keep comparing him to Michael Jordan.
Speaker 1: That's my thing, and but it's but it's because people
Speaker 1: Lebron was the first person that did things how he
Speaker 1: wanted to do it right, unapologetic, unapologetically. They wanted him
Speaker 1: to do everything like Mike well, I don't have to
Speaker 1: do that right, and it's not that shouldn't be a
Speaker 1: knock on me.
Speaker 2: Good marketing, though, Like Mike, everybody wanted to be like Mike.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know everybody wanted to be like Mike.
Speaker 1: That was a great. That was a great you know.
Speaker 2: When you think about himself.
Speaker 1: But when you think about that, that.
Speaker 2: Shot hurts you. That bad man beat Cleveland in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: No, I actually I was actually Mike fan. I was
Speaker 1: actually I'm still a Mike fan. I talked to Mike
Speaker 1: all the time, like it's not that's not a thing.
Speaker 2: Do y'all argue about who's better him?
Speaker 1: Aroun Me and Mike never had we argue, but we
Speaker 1: had we go on the base about different things. I
Speaker 1: got the utmost respect for Mike. We're gonna rebate debates
Speaker 1: about different things. But I'm also a truth like I
Speaker 1: don't sugarcoat things. And I'm never gonna get in the
Speaker 1: room and it could be Jay z in here and
Speaker 1: Mike and here, and then here comes Charlotte Magne and
Speaker 1: I act like I don't know you, or I start
Speaker 1: talking different. I'm not gonna get to New York and
Speaker 1: start talking like I'm from New York, I don't. We
Speaker 1: don't play that where I'm from. So it don't matter
Speaker 1: who it is on the other end. If I believe something,
Speaker 1: that's what I believe. It's not a slight to anybody.
Speaker 1: I think Mike's to go. I also think Lebron's to go.
Speaker 2: I agree with that.
Speaker 1: I think the antlers are a little different for different reasons.
Speaker 1: That has nothing to do with the game of basketball, though.
Speaker 4: It's if he has the problem with Lebron Jordan thing
Speaker 4: because it always turns into what what type of man
Speaker 4: they are off the court? Now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm not I'm not looking at that either,
Speaker 1: because I can't. I can't judge Mike for a type
Speaker 1: of man. Mike's a great, great man, take care of
Speaker 1: his family, kids, everything so great business time, my top
Speaker 1: five all timetime. You know, people be trying to front
Speaker 1: on Isaiah Thomas from a point guard perspective, like they
Speaker 1: need to stop that, go stop because Zeke. Very few
Speaker 1: guys touching Zeke. So from a point guard perspective, there's Zeke,
Speaker 1: there's Magic, there's Steph you know. Yeah, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: I would, I would, I would even throw even though
Speaker 1: he hasn't won a championship yet. As a point guard,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta respect what what CP has done
Speaker 1: to you know, you.
Speaker 2: Say five point guard, you just five players. He's players.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's tough. But my top five of all time,
Speaker 1: Bron Mike. I mean, I gotta put Steph in there
Speaker 1: now because at three, not in no particular, I'm doing positions. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: See that's where it gets tough, because I gotta put
Speaker 1: I gotta put Kobe in there too.
Speaker 2: You got to think about it.
Speaker 1: No, No, I'm just saying I gotta put Kobe in there.
Speaker 1: That's four four and then ship you magic, you go shack,
Speaker 1: you go nah, because I already got my point guard
Speaker 1: and I rock with magic. But I mean, you know
Speaker 1: I would go shack. Yeah, I would probably go shack.
Speaker 1: But you know it's the whole top five. I don't
Speaker 1: do top five. You know, if I would, that's my
Speaker 1: team that nobody can beat. That's my team. But then
Speaker 1: when you talk about just great players, Kevin Durants a
Speaker 1: great player. Despite what anybody has to say, the league
Speaker 1: is full of great players right now. Giannis is a
Speaker 1: great player. You know, Damian Lillard, you know, like people
Speaker 1: try to get on a guy like a d But
Speaker 1: there's no better basketball player. When you talk about Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis when he's playing the game of basketball level, he's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But our league is in the But these young guys today,
Speaker 1: you look at what Jason Tatum, I mean, all these
Speaker 1: and I have the guys that I represent, the young
Speaker 1: guys that I represent. We got dogs Man Garland, Maxie John,
Speaker 1: tay Trey, you know, Miles Bridges is back. You got
Speaker 1: you got, I mean, we got so many Zach Lavine,
Speaker 1: Darrin File in.
Speaker 2: The world just playing. So maybe what was the dude
Speaker 2: named Drew Rosenhouse. Maybe a little bit, but not.
Speaker 1: Because you understand, like I'm appreciative of my guys, You're
Speaker 1: only as strong as the guys allow you to be.
Speaker 1: My guys state, And it's I'm not just representing them
Speaker 1: as basketball players. There are young men, they're people. We
Speaker 1: talk about everything. Draymond Draymond is at my house more
Speaker 1: than me. I don't even have to be there. Draymond
Speaker 1: could be in my house right now.
Speaker 2: That's my favorite play in the league. And it's not
Speaker 2: because I just like the way he leads on the.
Speaker 1: Court, and I like to show, you know, the young
Speaker 1: guys coming up right. Like I said, you know, this
Speaker 1: year our draft was was great. Not because we had
Speaker 1: every pick one through ten. No, it's not about that,
Speaker 1: because if you do the numbers, there's on sixty picks
Speaker 1: a lot of guys will make it the second deals.
Speaker 1: But the character of guys is what I really focus
Speaker 1: on just as much as the talent today. And I
Speaker 1: can't name everybody. I was just naming a few guys,
Speaker 1: but you know, the way I go about and we
Speaker 1: go about our business as a company, it's just different.
Speaker 1: We know I'm not I know I'm not gonna be
Speaker 1: able to represent every player. Every family don't want to
Speaker 1: hear the truth when you're in a when you're in
Speaker 1: a meeting, And at the same time, you know you
Speaker 1: still got parents that believe in the so called establishment,
Speaker 1: and you still got people that are divined by their
Speaker 1: business card. I don't. I don't carry a business card
Speaker 1: because I defined a business card. It's a difference, you know.
Speaker 2: So let me tell you my top five.
Speaker 4: Then I got two more questions for you, Okay, Michael Jordan,
Speaker 4: Kobe Bryant, Steph Curry, Lebron Magic in that order.
Speaker 2: That's my top five.
Speaker 1: Okay, I went by positions though, when the league tried
Speaker 1: to box you not top five a team that doesn't,
Speaker 1: I don't do the top five thing.
Speaker 3: When the league tried to box you out, How difficult
Speaker 3: was that because at one time they tried to change
Speaker 3: the rich Paul had to go to school, and this, that,
Speaker 3: and the other. When they tried to box you out,
Speaker 3: break that down.
Speaker 1: A couple of things happened. So when I first got
Speaker 1: in the business, the first thing there was an article
Speaker 1: written on me that tried to basically stuck my growth
Speaker 1: or or stop me from being put in position to
Speaker 1: even represent players. That was done strategically coming from a
Speaker 1: place that I once was, and they tried to do that.
Speaker 1: You know, a couple of people did. That was one
Speaker 1: thing that many people skip over and don't even know about.
Speaker 1: And so I had to go through this whole thing.
Speaker 1: The nc DOUBLEA investigating me all that found nothing but
Speaker 1: the young man lost his eligibility, which was bad. It
Speaker 1: really cost him. But that came from somebody strategically targeting
Speaker 1: me to try to do that number one. And at
Speaker 1: the time when the article was written, it was like, damn,
Speaker 1: you got them to write this article about me that
Speaker 1: you know not true, and so that was that really
Speaker 1: pissed me off. And then from there the rule from
Speaker 1: the nc double A about that became the Rich Paul
Speaker 1: rule that said agents had to have a college degree
Speaker 1: to be able to represent people that are testing the water,
Speaker 1: meaning that I'm not sure if I'm a pro or
Speaker 1: not and I want to keep my eligibility. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't really represent guys that's testing the water anyway, So
Speaker 1: I really wasn't focused on that. At the same time,
Speaker 1: when I thought about it a little bit more, I'm like, damn,
Speaker 1: this is not even about me per se, because I'm
Speaker 1: already over the heill in terms of I made on
Speaker 1: another side, it's nothing that could really do to me.
Speaker 1: This is about people come behind me, right, and so
Speaker 1: they're trying to stop that. And that's when I wrote
Speaker 1: the opt head and I think it took six days
Speaker 1: from to take it down or whatever. It was like,
Speaker 1: they totally removed it because that was BS and it.
Speaker 2: Was clear and blatant.
Speaker 1: They know that, Yeah, it was blatant.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Now now I know books are always you know,
Speaker 4: great first steps, first steps in the journey of healing.
Speaker 4: So what are you doing to unpack some of the
Speaker 4: trauma that you experienced throughout your life?
Speaker 1: Writing this book was very therapeutic for me. Man. I
Speaker 1: needed that. I needed that because you know, as a kid,
Speaker 1: I bottled so much and I didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: talking to a therapist back then. You know, the therapist
Speaker 1: was like guy with a fifth of rolls in his hand,
Speaker 1: he drunk, you know. But today I'm in a much
Speaker 1: different space. And that's why I felt there was you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like four things motivation the book. I think
Speaker 1: it was important to give people perspective and perception, and
Speaker 1: then to allow people to walk with you through your
Speaker 1: journey and these experiences because we have shared experiences despite race, gender,
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be, background, wherever you came from,
Speaker 1: there's a chapter in this book that you share an
Speaker 1: experience with me in some shape form of fast for sure,
Speaker 1: and for some people, most chapters in this books you're
Speaker 1: gonna share experience and experience with me. So the timing
Speaker 1: of it just felt right. And anything I do is
Speaker 1: gutting heart, man, like you know, and just like I
Speaker 1: was texting me and Lebron was texting the other day
Speaker 1: and I was like man, I really want to get
Speaker 1: the artists to do like a self destruction or all
Speaker 1: in the same game type of song because it's just
Speaker 1: what's happening today with our youth, just just so much
Speaker 1: careless killing. And you know, I lost my my little
Speaker 1: cousin the other day, was seventeen years old last Thursday,
Speaker 1: was found, you know, shot in the drive by, like
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. And I buried his father in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine. So I'm talking to my uncles, my
Speaker 1: mother's brother, and you know I can I can hear
Speaker 1: his hurt. And my uncle Kevin, like is my mother's
Speaker 1: second youngest brother, great guy hunt, you know, big farm
Speaker 1: down in Mississippi, do his thing, and this is his grandson.
Speaker 1: But he lost so now he lost his son and
Speaker 1: his grandson. And I'm connected to like I'm not bro.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many funerals I paid for this year,
Speaker 1: just yearly, I don't know how many you know times
Speaker 1: I send money to people books and I've been doing
Speaker 1: that for twenty years. So I'm still connected as it
Speaker 1: pertains to just people because I understand it.
Speaker 2: You know, it means nothing's changing.
Speaker 1: You know, it means nothing change, nothing's changing man. And
Speaker 1: so I just think, like I don't knock the music
Speaker 1: in terms of sharing your story, but but it's just
Speaker 1: to a point to where we need. We need a
Speaker 1: different message. And that's not to not be cool and
Speaker 1: not to be relatable and all that. I know the
Speaker 1: relatability thing, but it's also relatable to talk to tell
Speaker 1: somebody what you're doing, why you're doing it, and why
Speaker 1: not to do it as well, because that's what we
Speaker 1: grew up on. You know what I'm saying, like change
Speaker 1: is cool to cop but more important, as lawyer fees,
Speaker 1: That's how it is now, That's how it always be.
Speaker 1: I never changed. It's always me, you know, Like I
Speaker 1: can't expect people to be Jay and I don't and
Speaker 1: I but at the same time there's a balance, right
Speaker 1: and so but we need that we need because it's
Speaker 1: just it's just crazy. That's what's going on, you know
Speaker 1: right now. It's not even about no money. You know this,
Speaker 1: And there's there's a there's a chapter in the book.
Speaker 1: Remember I talked about the kid who said, well, that's
Speaker 1: why your mom smoke crack and.
Speaker 4: You learned how you learned when you was a good
Speaker 4: you used to snap crazy and then when they do that,
Speaker 4: you would get frozen.
Speaker 2: You learn how to navigate through that.
Speaker 1: Right, And today it's hard for kids to do that
Speaker 1: because social media is observer's paradox. And so if me
Speaker 1: and you got into that school and we was in
Speaker 1: the bathroom, but Envy was the only one that's seen us,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, well, I want to know you
Speaker 1: say you want, well, m be the only one that's
Speaker 1: seen us. Maybe he want to comment on it, Maybe
Speaker 1: he don't.
Speaker 4: I think would have been teasing Envy. I just feel
Speaker 4: like that. I feel like I feel.
Speaker 1: Like he's got Yeah, you gotta you gotta relax on
Speaker 1: v with the last kids, Relax than rich.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I support Envy back in the day when they did
Speaker 1: a lot for us in the culture, like you got
Speaker 1: to relax. But what I will say is just like,
Speaker 1: but today, anything you do, if a kid don't get
Speaker 1: a like, they take the picture down or enough likes,
Speaker 1: you know, and then now it's about comments that people
Speaker 1: are making and it's calls in this retaliation and you're
Speaker 1: losing the kid prior to so I look at it.
Speaker 1: I'm saying like you got to be able to get there,
Speaker 1: like these kids not even allowing themselves to get there
Speaker 1: to where. You know, we all did crazy stuff when
Speaker 1: you're young, but like who you are today, how you
Speaker 1: perceive life and you know, your family and different things
Speaker 1: like that, your job. When you look back on some
Speaker 1: of the things you did when you was young, like
Speaker 1: and that was stupid. That was really stupid, you know,
Speaker 1: and so but they're not even getting a chance to
Speaker 1: look back. They want to do it. They want to
Speaker 1: It's a cloud thing, and it's and it's a it's
Speaker 1: just a weird place right now. Rich got to go
Speaker 1: by it, lat question whatever, east side of Cleveland, Yeah, Mton, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Saint Clair, you know, fifth of Edmonton is like the
Speaker 1: to the exact Google map boom origin. But Glynn Community
Speaker 1: in Saint Claire's where where I'm from.
Speaker 2: How does the del fare environments?
Speaker 1: I took her there?
Speaker 2: Really hell yeah?
Speaker 1: What yeah?
Speaker 2: What did she say?
Speaker 1: By the way, it's funny hundred percent one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you know, we're pulling up and
Speaker 1: I got security right in the Cleveland police everybody. So
Speaker 1: I'm pulling up to houses and you know what it
Speaker 1: looks like when we when we're pulling up, you know,
Speaker 1: all black trucks.
Speaker 3: The president, they think the presidents.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so they're like, man, you know it starts spreading
Speaker 1: throughout the neighborhood. Like man, like you, bro, you can't.
Speaker 1: You got to give us a heads up for something
Speaker 1: pulling up like that. But no, like we went to
Speaker 1: the hood though, No, for sure, you know, like my
Speaker 1: family is my family, bro, I don't. I can't. You
Speaker 1: know in the book, when you and when you in Cleveland,
Speaker 1: all we all we saw was Cleveland. So no matter
Speaker 1: how far I go in life, I take Cleveland with
Speaker 1: me because I couldn't be me without Cleveland, and not
Speaker 1: just Saint Clair, all of Cleveland, you know, up the way,
Speaker 1: down the way, cross town, like it's it's just.
Speaker 2: This book is a love letter of Cleveland.
Speaker 1: It raised me, really, it really, it really raised me.
Speaker 1: And it'd be hard for me to be who I
Speaker 1: am without the way I grew up. And I really
Speaker 1: appreciate the guys in the Dice House that that that
Speaker 1: raised me, you know, all of them, you know, little
Speaker 1: Mos and Texas and Wings and and you know, like
Speaker 1: it was my uncle Lance, my uncle Warren.
Speaker 4: You know, how did they embracing Adele though? How did
Speaker 4: the hood embracing Adele when you.
Speaker 2: Had her out there.
Speaker 1: They loved it, you know. Yeah, they rock with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's some legendary rock with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they look at me. They rock with it because
Speaker 1: because you know, like and and again that's part to me.
Speaker 1: It's hard to date me and then I'm not me
Speaker 1: that like that'll never happen. I'm not changing for for nobody.
Speaker 1: I had. I had Jake to sending the hoods one
Speaker 1: one day during the tour. This was like five, and
Speaker 1: he came out and where am I this guys at?
Speaker 1: Where this guy's at? Where my where my Saint Clair?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, grew up in Mars.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I understand that you said. You're saying that.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying in terms of just me being me.
Speaker 1: But no, they they they love it. They love it
Speaker 1: for sure. They embrace it. Life is good, Charlotte, man.
Speaker 2: Are you as her husband?
Speaker 1: Life is very good?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: I don't you know?
Speaker 2: Why are you on in that man's personals?
Speaker 1: Ask your question is always in people's personal.
Speaker 4: Web, the internets, Like I saying, I don't care, let's
Speaker 4: asking questions for the Internet.
Speaker 1: I know everybody's asking questions for the internet. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: you know, life is good.
Speaker 3: The book is out today, Lucky Me, and we appreciate
Speaker 3: you joining us.
Speaker 1: Brother, I appreciate you guys. Man. That was just great.
Speaker 1: I'm happy about the book. I'm happy.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm just in a good space. Man. You know, I
Speaker 1: never get too highed too little about anything, and I
Speaker 1: don't really sit in my success, so I'm just just grinding.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: This is a fantastic reed. I think everybody should go
Speaker 4: out there and get Lucky Me. And it was funny
Speaker 4: because everybody, remember they was talking about when you were
Speaker 4: supposed to have a movie about your life. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: everybody was saying, like, why would Rich Paul have a
Speaker 4: movie about his life?
Speaker 1: You'll let you know why.
Speaker 2: You need.
Speaker 1: Congrats of y'all too, man, Like you know how long
Speaker 1: y'all been.
Speaker 2: On that thirteen years before fourteen?
Speaker 1: Yeah, crazy starting a lot of shit, just a lot
Speaker 1: of shit started with you, Charlotte Main saying, I agree
Speaker 1: that lead people alone. I agree you've definitely matured, You've
Speaker 1: gotten better.
Speaker 2: Shit therapist, absolutely. I started going to therapy in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: And that's when it changed because prior to that you was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was minister and me and Rich used to
Speaker 4: argue about stuff like I'm gonna bring no light there,
Speaker 4: But we used to have some good common station.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I missed those conversations. We need to do that.
Speaker 1: I'm with more often. Absolutely, now I miss those conversations
Speaker 1: because I like the debates. It's all good.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, he needs he needs a light skin therapist.
Speaker 3: That's what he needs to stay up the light skin
Speaker 3: brothers man.
Speaker 1: See, I mean you know he.
Speaker 2: Was no Brown. Cut it out, stop it all right,
Speaker 2: cut it out. It's Rich Paul Breakfast. Wake that ass
Speaker 2: up in the morning. Breakfast Club.