Speaker 1: Jack Good first day water Pump Gala, Dominique Wilkins. I
Speaker 1: told you, I even said during the interview. You know me,
Speaker 1: I don't really fumble my words too often, but what
Speaker 1: I think what he meant to the game maybe the most.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say disrespect, that's the wrong word. Underrated, What
Speaker 1: is the word I'm looking for? Underappreciated?
Speaker 2: Get anywhere? Was has Dominique fires outside goes after a.
Speaker 1: Ten years of averaging twenty five plus a game, was
Speaker 1: in a nasty Eastern Conference, had to face Isaiah, had
Speaker 1: to face MJ, had to face Patrick Ewan, had to
Speaker 1: face Reggie Miller Bird. But I think he's someone that
Speaker 1: people don't understand how talent he was.
Speaker 2: I think everyone thinks he was.
Speaker 1: A dunker, but if you look at the way he
Speaker 1: scored the basketball.
Speaker 2: Gave the most work.
Speaker 1: I think they said we found out what was it
Speaker 1: that Yester? We found him and MJ were the only
Speaker 1: two players that average against each other.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And they had sixty battles and forty battles and fifty battles.
Speaker 2: And Dominique won a lot of those games.
Speaker 1: And then also you know his upbringing you know the
Speaker 1: KKK burning crosses in his front Paris yep, born overseas,
Speaker 1: playing with his brother, the legendary dunk contests. Uh Man,
Speaker 1: that was a really that was one of my favorite.
Speaker 1: I mean we had three read episodes, but that was
Speaker 1: probably my favorite episode of the day because.
Speaker 2: They were young, were just such a great story teller.
Speaker 1: If you think about the first you guys will see,
Speaker 1: but the first ten minutes, man, he's talking about his
Speaker 1: bowels of Jordan, he's talking about his battles with birds,
Speaker 1: then he's talking about his battles with Mattic Johnson.
Speaker 2: And to me as a fan growing up in that time,
Speaker 2: and it didn't get no better, right, So make.
Speaker 1: Sure you guys check out this Dominique Wilkins episode, Welcome
Speaker 1: Back All the Smoke, La Jack. We started off with
Speaker 1: two good ones and it continues to get better.
Speaker 2: It's a legendary day man, super legendary man.
Speaker 1: Uh someone who we grew up watching very few times.
Speaker 1: That might lost for words, but I'm really excited because
Speaker 1: I've always been just such a huge fan of who
Speaker 1: you are and always thought that you never got the
Speaker 1: respect that you deserve. Talking about that, we don't get
Speaker 1: down to that too. But man, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: You thank always good to see you got Jacksonville, somebody
Speaker 2: who gave me some game early in my career.
Speaker 3: When I went to Atlanta after the championship, I was
Speaker 3: down and out, and you said a lot of things
Speaker 3: to me that you were were doing that time. They
Speaker 3: gave me confidence and and and and didn't kill my
Speaker 3: confience when San Antonio don't wanted to pay me. So
Speaker 3: I never told you thank you for what you what
Speaker 3: you meant to me. You really helped me my coming
Speaker 3: out of that championship. You had to get my confidence
Speaker 3: back up, So I thank you.
Speaker 2: Oh, no problem, man, it was a pleasure of mine. Man,
Speaker 2: you know we go back, Yes, sir, I got that
Speaker 2: little history. Yes, sir, I want to start before you start. Man,
Speaker 2: how come both of y'all sitting and hiding me? Now
Speaker 2: I know both of y'all ain't just that much tall
Speaker 2: in me so low. I mean, I'm just saying we
Speaker 2: wanted to be Yeah, yeah, that's good. I just I
Speaker 2: just want to throw that out there. Yeah, okay, now
Speaker 2: we can we can finish a conversation.
Speaker 1: You and I actually started coming off the elevator and
Speaker 1: we were talking obviously about the Olympic team winning gold,
Speaker 1: and we you know, we were talking about our thoughts and
Speaker 1: how the team was put together and how Tatum didn't play.
Speaker 1: But what was your take on on this year's Olympics
Speaker 1: and you know, the team winning goal.
Speaker 2: I mean, even though you know, wins and wins win,
Speaker 2: but I thought the mix wasn't the best mix because,
Speaker 2: like you brought up, Tatum didn't even play in one
Speaker 2: of the game. Yeah, they won two games. He didn't play,
Speaker 2: you know, either hurt or just didn't fit and hurt
Speaker 2: the role that needed to be played on that team.
Speaker 2: So it was kind of that was kind of strange
Speaker 2: for me. But at the end of the day, they won,
Speaker 2: but I know he wasn't happy. Ye, any White in
Speaker 2: any road, dead white can play.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure Tatum Blank, you know, very white didn't
Speaker 3: carry that team to the championship.
Speaker 2: Tatum did. But so just make it make sense. We
Speaker 2: got common sense first team. Yeah, that didn't make much
Speaker 2: sense to but you know, you know, the critics are
Speaker 2: all say, hey, they want, they want, you know, and
Speaker 2: and they right, But when you make a team like that,
Speaker 2: I think everybody have a deserver right to play right.
Speaker 2: You know, he didn't very much. So I was trying.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people are trying to figure
Speaker 2: out why he didn't play, especially coming off a championship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you know basketball, I mean, the only
Speaker 1: person that was first Team All NBA the last three years,
Speaker 1: the only person on the team. And there's great there there,
Speaker 1: but Jason Tatum has definitely paid his dues. And and
Speaker 1: I was disappointed overall because you know, I've been a
Speaker 1: fan of Steve Kerr and you know, obviously coaching, it's
Speaker 1: tough when you.
Speaker 2: Got on the US team. You know, everybody that's on
Speaker 2: the team deserves to play, no question. You know, we
Speaker 2: didn't care about who played minutes. It wasn't about the minutes.
Speaker 2: It was just us coming together and everybody having the
Speaker 2: chance to say, hey, I was a part of the victory.
Speaker 2: I contribute. You know, even though you want what does
Speaker 2: what is Tatum really saying to himself?
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's like whether the part of
Speaker 1: U next year Jayden Brown got you know, he didn't
Speaker 1: make it. Tatum didn't really get to play like they
Speaker 1: might have really broke up a monster.
Speaker 2: And so you know, and thedn a lot of people say, well,
Speaker 2: you know, why is it an issue? Well, you know,
Speaker 2: winning is everything. We all know that. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, it's like, you know, it worked hard to
Speaker 2: get to this respect there, so you know I earned
Speaker 2: my right to play, but for whatever reason, that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: I know Joe Missoula party sitting at home. Yes, I'm
Speaker 2: glad y'all doing them like this. They're finna come back
Speaker 2: and destroyed. That's the other part. That's the other party. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know I can't wait for the seasons. Yes, both
Speaker 2: my boys mad because ask competitors. And I don't care
Speaker 2: what anybody said. That goes to your mind, question that
Speaker 2: goes from it. You can paint it at however you want,
Speaker 2: that works on your psyche.
Speaker 3: We know Jason Tatum and I know it's Pops, and
Speaker 3: I know Jason Tatum is sitting at home. I can't
Speaker 3: wait in the gym right now. This is dedicated to
Speaker 3: all y'all. And you know number of times where I
Speaker 3: felt disrespected.
Speaker 2: You know you dealt with it more than anybody. Let's
Speaker 2: just say that, and it just fueled me and I said, whoever,
Speaker 2: I'm going against this next game in trouble, They better
Speaker 2: put on their hard had come coming. But that was
Speaker 2: just our mentality, you know, you know, because a lot
Speaker 2: of times, man, what you do, your actions speaks louder words.
Speaker 2: You don't have to say anything. And and I've seen it,
Speaker 2: and so I know how how you feel. But you know,
Speaker 2: we can, we can. We can talk about something for
Speaker 2: the moment, but we'll come back to that. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: go ahead, you go.
Speaker 3: If you go down and dunkele bar and had a
Speaker 3: rim shaking for the next three possessions, you ain't got
Speaker 3: to say nothing.
Speaker 2: That's what you used to do. The thing that I
Speaker 2: enjoyed the most. And somebody asked me this question earlier today, said,
Speaker 2: you know, what is your favorite plays? I said, well,
Speaker 2: I can't really say what my favorite play was, but
Speaker 2: I can tell you what my favorite situation was. Is
Speaker 2: when big men try to block my shot. Man, I
Speaker 2: tried to throw it so hard. I was trying to
Speaker 2: break the onn to tear them from trying to again.
Speaker 2: If you throw it down the big guy real hard
Speaker 2: the first time, he's gonna be thinking about that next one.
Speaker 2: And then you can lay it up, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: make a pass, whatever you need to do, to get
Speaker 2: the bucket, but it puts that fear in his mind.
Speaker 2: But then you have them guys who like the block
Speaker 2: shots don't never they paint freaks, Oh man, love it.
Speaker 2: But those are the best situations for me when I
Speaker 2: can create an advantage for myself or for the team.
Speaker 3: Before you start this and the memory of our great
Speaker 3: friend Pat McAfee passed me, of course, thank you.
Speaker 1: And before we really get through it, I have a question.
Speaker 1: Was your curl wet or dry?
Speaker 2: You know what? The same thing? It looked. It looked wet,
Speaker 2: but it was dry.
Speaker 1: You have the motherfucking Jerry curl dripped like my pops had.
Speaker 2: Look wet, but it was dry. Look wet, but it
Speaker 2: was dry. That I didn't put up the wet look
Speaker 2: but the dry but it was drying. Was getting Nexus,
Speaker 2: a product called Nexus. This is wet. Okay. We was
Speaker 2: in Atlanta at the same time, but it was just wet.
Speaker 2: Min was just some moist. It wasn't wet. You know,
Speaker 2: that's a difference. You know, it wasn't dripping, It wasn't dripping.
Speaker 2: It wasn't dripping. It wasn't dripping.
Speaker 1: But that but that was your your your your high
Speaker 1: top flat, flat top curl.
Speaker 2: That was the ship that with that was that was
Speaker 2: That was it. That was It wasn't It wasn't. Man.
Speaker 2: You ain't see like white spots on none of that
Speaker 2: around my hairline. You know it was moist. You know
Speaker 2: you see why. That's why ain't got nothing now, you know, you.
Speaker 1: Still got something a lot like my dad had that crow.
Speaker 1: He's been balled for the last twenty years. All the chemicals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know what you know, you know that
Speaker 2: was That was style was then? You know, that was it.
Speaker 2: You know, you know the funny thing because we went
Speaker 2: from the real skinny suits to the to the back
Speaker 2: yeah backs. You know a lot of young guys they
Speaker 2: think they invented it. Carry Carrious a bottom walkers from Carried. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was a couple of stores around the country that,
Speaker 2: you know, different ones that everybody. Yeah, you got you
Speaker 2: have place in Detroit, you had to place some Philly.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody went to the same thing. What's that
Speaker 2: They had all the styles and the shoe guy, what's
Speaker 2: the shoe place in Atlanta?
Speaker 1: Freeman Freemans, I mean Freemans, not Freemans.
Speaker 2: I won't let go of them old shoes though, you
Speaker 2: still have the old shoes. Yeah, I go from I
Speaker 2: haven't been in a while, but I go from Peck.
Speaker 2: That's where I got my shoes from. Yeah. Yeah, let's
Speaker 2: get to it.
Speaker 1: Only the eighth player to average twenty five points ten
Speaker 1: consecutive seasons, nine time All Stars, seven time All NBA
Speaker 1: retire when you retired, the seventh leen score at the
Speaker 1: time twenty over twenty six thousand points. But again that's
Speaker 1: something we touched on, the credit and the respect because
Speaker 1: you were going head to head with MJ a lot
Speaker 1: of times but got the better of him a lot
Speaker 1: of times. Yeah, he was a bad man, he was good.
Speaker 2: You know what. I found this out early, I would
Speaker 2: say about a couple of years ago, and didn't realize
Speaker 2: that he and I was only two fold of the
Speaker 2: NBA history that average thirty against one another our whole career,
Speaker 2: for a whole career. Really, you had to, man, I
Speaker 2: had to get thirty against him because he was he
Speaker 2: and that on there too, he was man.
Speaker 1: And you shot nearly fifty percent while doing it by
Speaker 1: after thirty, and that's a lot of things.
Speaker 2: People don't realize the efficiency that I scored with that
Speaker 2: didn't take thirty shots and May twelve, you know, and
Speaker 2: especially in that era with the physicality and you're getting
Speaker 2: hit in touch and still they able to be that efficient. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it says a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, MJ was do you have a battle
Speaker 1: that comes to mind when you I mean, obviously you
Speaker 1: guys played a ton of times.
Speaker 2: I've said this many times, you know, people heard me
Speaker 2: say this. I think I scored fifty seven in Atlanta
Speaker 2: and I didn't play the fourth court. And we went
Speaker 2: back to Chicago a little while later and we're in
Speaker 2: the locker room suiting time. MJ walks down locker room
Speaker 2: shuting time. I'm saying, came in your Yeah, I'm just
Speaker 2: coming out, Like what are you coming in there for?
Speaker 2: Like he come in the training room with something weaker.
Speaker 2: He walks by me, walks by Kevile to get the
Speaker 2: Randy Whitman, taps him one the ass. He said, lace
Speaker 2: him up, it's going to be a long night, and
Speaker 2: turns to walk out, and I ain't know what to say.
Speaker 1: I'm shocked.
Speaker 2: I was like, well, you tell that something Scotti pipping,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna kick his ass. I didn't know what to say. Man,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm like, I'm blown away, man, he had
Speaker 2: sixty that night? What you do? We we won the
Speaker 2: game where ye had sixty that night. No, I had
Speaker 2: a hell of a game, but he had sixty, bro
Speaker 2: And when it wasn't like, no, like it was a
Speaker 2: hard sixty either. The way he was scoring, he was
Speaker 2: like he was on the miss. I think he was
Speaker 2: like pissed off that I had fifty seven, you know,
Speaker 2: a few days before, and he went crazy.
Speaker 1: But it said it loud enough so you could hear
Speaker 1: it too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And so it's it really set up the
Speaker 2: games we played against each other game with our career,
Speaker 2: you know, game I'll have forty three here forty one,
Speaker 2: or he'll have forty six and I have forty. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was go like that all the time. I'll back
Speaker 2: you know. He was a hard man to beat. That
Speaker 2: That team was so good. That team was that was
Speaker 2: That team was made up of a bunch of great,
Speaker 2: great role players. And I think Scottie Pippen I have
Speaker 2: a lot of respect for. I think he's one of
Speaker 2: the greatest role players they ever played this game. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he probably the best, Yeah, they ever played this game.
Speaker 2: And so he was a great compliment to Jordan, It's
Speaker 2: so hard for a lot of players, especially in Mike's era,
Speaker 2: to give him his props. Why is it so easy
Speaker 2: for you to give him his props? And if you
Speaker 2: ain't ever face them, you don't understand. If you ain't
Speaker 2: ever faced Mike on, you can't make that comment. Yeah, man,
Speaker 2: I played against some of the most hard nosed, talented
Speaker 2: players ever played this game. He was a phenomenon and
Speaker 2: he had attitude go with it. I mean he was
Speaker 2: when you played against Mike. His eyes were bloodshot red
Speaker 2: every game, like he was possessed. And I just sitting
Speaker 2: there and said, I got to go work tonight. Jesus
Speaker 2: is coming, you know. And so he and I, you know,
Speaker 2: we had so much respect. But I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 2: when I knew how good he was. When we was
Speaker 2: in college. I was a junior, he was a freshman.
Speaker 2: Were playing Carolina and the first time James Worthy and
Speaker 2: I had a chance to play against one another since
Speaker 2: high school. In high school, we we came out the
Speaker 2: same area but never played against others. So that Carolina
Speaker 2: game we played, were going back and forth or the
Speaker 2: first player of the game, I went up and I
Speaker 2: caught you know worthy finger roll and I wanted to,
Speaker 2: you know, set the tone. I threw it in like
Speaker 2: six rowd in the stands, you know this goal, We're
Speaker 2: gonna go, We're gonna come. And the game was back
Speaker 2: and forth the whole game close worthy with having the
Speaker 2: hell of a game. I was having the hell of
Speaker 2: a game. In the last two minutes of the game,
Speaker 2: a young kid named Michael Jordan took over by himself,
Speaker 2: a freshman. I said, I was like, who is this
Speaker 2: kid right here?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 2: And so I knew I knew this he was going
Speaker 2: to be a great pro. I didn't know he gonna
Speaker 2: be that good of a problem, but that kind of
Speaker 2: set the tone for me and my thoughts of what
Speaker 2: I saw. And because, like I said, if you hadn't
Speaker 2: played against Mike, you have no clue. You have no
Speaker 2: clue how good he is. You have to be there.
Speaker 2: What about Larry, that's another guy. You know. Larry and
Speaker 2: I we played in each other like twelve thirteen years.
Speaker 2: We never sure can never spoke, really never mean as
Speaker 2: a great players back then, you didn't want another great
Speaker 2: player to get that close to you, So we none
Speaker 2: of us liked each other, never spoke. I didn't speak
Speaker 2: to him for thirteen years straight. I love Larry even
Speaker 2: more here and that hey, another guy, because if you
Speaker 2: don't have any idea how good he was, if you
Speaker 2: hadn't played against him, that shit talking too right, Hey, listen,
Speaker 2: first time I played against him, I'm a rookie. I'm
Speaker 2: glad to be in the league. You know, I'm the
Speaker 2: Boston Garden and I'm guarding him right first played again,
Speaker 2: he said, I don't know while you got your guarding
Speaker 2: me homes Huh. He shoots a three and I wasn't mad.
Speaker 2: He made the three. I said, but this something. It's
Speaker 2: called me homes. And so the next play, you know
Speaker 2: I'm coming. I'm passed. So he comes out, he shifts
Speaker 2: to his right and I jumped. I said, got him,
Speaker 2: and I'm pumping it by my head and I banged
Speaker 2: it on him right and he on the ground. He
Speaker 2: fired me, and I'm pointing and he said, hey, look,
Speaker 2: I'm like what he said. I like you you got balls.
Speaker 2: He said, I'm still getting thirty on your yesterday he
Speaker 2: got about thirty seven. But I wasn't mad because I'm
Speaker 2: paying my dudes. That's Larry. Yeah, But that was the
Speaker 2: only time he ever talked trashing. He respected you because
Speaker 2: he knew I was gonna keep coming. You know. He
Speaker 2: and I again never talked, and until we retired, and
Speaker 2: he had an interview. They was talking about trash talking
Speaker 2: and he said, I never said things to offend anybody.
Speaker 2: He said, you take Dominique and he said, I said
Speaker 2: some things in NAK and he would just smile at me,
Speaker 2: but he understood what that smile was about. Yeah, he said,
Speaker 2: he just came to play. He said, I have more
Speaker 2: respect for him than any player I ever played against.
Speaker 2: I never knew he felt that way, and that was
Speaker 2: a major, major respect. That was one of the few
Speaker 2: times he has ever said anything to me. Now you know,
Speaker 2: today we're friends because we're not competitors anymore. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so I've always you know, he talked about Larry. I
Speaker 2: give him the utmost respect because of who he was
Speaker 2: to play again, and I'm talking about guys that if
Speaker 2: you hadn't played against him, you have no idea because
Speaker 2: they take your heart. Thank you tough, They take your heart.
Speaker 2: He's six ten small forward. His skill set, first of all,
Speaker 2: he had a basketball IQ off the chart. His skill set,
Speaker 2: he had very few weaknesses, and he can beat you anyway,
Speaker 2: be the passing, scoring, rebounding. He just knew how to play.
Speaker 2: A very smart player. And it's not a lot of
Speaker 2: guys that had that type of basketball IQ along with
Speaker 2: skill that beat you like that. And so when I
Speaker 2: played against him, I had to bring my a game
Speaker 2: every night. And when we played in one of the
Speaker 2: greatest games, in the seventh game in Boston Garden where
Speaker 2: he guaranteed to win because we blew our opportunity in
Speaker 2: Atlanta to beat them to go to the Eastern Gardens finals.
Speaker 2: And so as the article came out, this another crazy
Speaker 2: thing man. So he said, Atlanta blew the opportunity. I'm
Speaker 2: guaranteeing a win next game. So we come out of
Speaker 2: the locker room in Boston, so I stopped the hallway.
Speaker 2: I said, look, we're gonna win this goddamn game. I said,
Speaker 2: if you ain't ready to fight, you ain't ready to
Speaker 2: go to war, don't come out here. I said, whoever
Speaker 2: guard me, I gonna have a long fucking night. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: he was telling his teammates the same thing down and
Speaker 2: the game was pretty close, and I went out for
Speaker 2: blow in the third quarter. Larry On they had twelve
Speaker 2: points in the third quarter, and I remember Kevin Willis
Speaker 2: reached it across from me and pointing at Larry, but
Speaker 2: he said all that this somebody scored anymore tonight. I'm like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? Don't awake a sleeping giant. Were
Speaker 2: he end up with thirty four at night? Twenty fourth
Speaker 2: quarter and we had that famous shootout between us and
Speaker 2: he And now that fourth quarter this day, I'd be mad.
Speaker 2: I'm mad at Kevin, said, Kevin Man, why you just
Speaker 2: just then't sit don't say them alone. But it was
Speaker 2: guys like that, and he's one of the guys of
Speaker 2: many in the league, and that era took things personal.
Speaker 2: If you said something that wasn't they they you know,
Speaker 2: they didn't say nothing to you, but they showed it
Speaker 2: to you on the court. I love playing with guys
Speaker 2: like that and against guys like that, because because the
Speaker 2: only way you can measure your greatness, you got to
Speaker 2: play against the greatest.
Speaker 1: Now, what about I mean, obviously you didn't get to
Speaker 1: play them much because in the Western Conference, but Magic.
Speaker 2: I play against him a lot. And when he talked
Speaker 2: about point guard's greatest point guards ever? Okay, what is
Speaker 2: your real definition of that.
Speaker 3: Term.
Speaker 2: To me, the greatest point guard because of what he did.
Speaker 2: And first of all, at a conference in that Western Conference,
Speaker 2: and they had some monsters out there and they dominated,
Speaker 2: dominated them, and Magic Johnson bought a different level of
Speaker 2: basketball to La Yeah, that they had never seen. It
Speaker 2: was that showtime Lakers. It's all magic, I mean, magic magic.
Speaker 2: I'm tell you what. Magic. Magic's funny and very strategic.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say it because I'm an old man. Now
Speaker 2: I'm married, So tell you what he did my rookie year.
Speaker 2: So we check in the hotel and I've been in
Speaker 2: my room about thirty seconds. I had my bag, so
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't need anybody bring my bag. So
Speaker 2: on our here knock at the door and I look
Speaker 2: at the people. It's tall lady with brown hair green.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what the hell is this a door? Right? Door? Right?
Speaker 2: And she said compliments some urving magic ter scared the
Speaker 2: hell out of me.
Speaker 4: After no, you didn't let her in know Sir Jack's room.
Speaker 4: I know, but I knew what he was doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, magic Magic was he was funny. But you know,
Speaker 2: magic kind of helped discover me when I came out
Speaker 2: of college even though I was third of overall pick
Speaker 2: I traveled with them in the summer before I even
Speaker 2: played a single game. So I played with all the
Speaker 2: best players in summer, Magic, Moses, Bird, Doctor j We
Speaker 2: were travel all over the country. Really yeah. We were
Speaker 2: like pick up, yeah, okay. And so when I came
Speaker 2: to Lea, like it's easy, played with the best players,
Speaker 2: you know. And then later we got Jordan who came in.
Speaker 2: He was he would play with us, and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it was just so many guys called mylone stocked and
Speaker 2: everybody was playing, you know, and I ain't talking about
Speaker 2: just run up down and I'm talking about going at Yeah,
Speaker 2: we were hooping, but that's what made the game fun, man,
Speaker 2: you know. So hey, I was really you know, privileged
Speaker 2: to play against guys like that.
Speaker 3: You're on record saying that the eighties was the East.
Speaker 3: Eighties Eastern Conference was the best conference ever. Eighties Eastern
Speaker 3: Conference against the two thousand Western Conference. That's gonna look
Speaker 3: the eighties Eastern Conference against the two thousand Western Conference.
Speaker 3: A tough boy, Chris Webber.
Speaker 2: There have some big boys, k Dirk the Whiskey, some
Speaker 2: big Kobe they had that that would be a great
Speaker 2: match up. That would be a great match up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think y'all have more guards they had. We had
Speaker 2: a lot of guards, but we have we have some
Speaker 2: forwards though, Yeah, we had some forwards. I ain't have
Speaker 2: Tim Duncan, Kevin garn that Chris Webber Wilder is none
Speaker 2: of that. We ain't care. We don't care about none
Speaker 2: of that I know about. But anyway, anyway, you know
Speaker 2: you're talking about doctor J and myself, you know, kings Man.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something. Nobody ever talking about this guy.
Speaker 2: Nobody ever talked I Look, I never feared anybody I've
Speaker 2: ever played. Again, that's the only man that ever schedule
Speaker 2: hell out of me. I can't because you know why,
Speaker 2: because he's getting forty eight ship you can do about it.
Speaker 2: Ain't nothing you can do about it. I used to
Speaker 2: He was the only guy I couldn't sleep the night
Speaker 2: before I had to play against because he's getting forty
Speaker 2: He could score anywhere and anyway. And so coach you said,
Speaker 2: when your guarding him, but meet him a half court.
Speaker 2: I'm not meeting him at half court. But I found
Speaker 2: very quickly what he meant. Because you didn't meet him
Speaker 2: a half court. You were like that, he was gone.
Speaker 2: I remember when I played against him. It was one
Speaker 2: game and like I said, I just couldn't sleep. So
Speaker 2: I just I said, I said, I know he gonna
Speaker 2: get forty. I said, so I'm gonna get forty. And
Speaker 2: we just called a watch because I ain't killed myself
Speaker 2: trying to chase this guy because you can't. You can't
Speaker 2: stop him. So when we went in the Hall of Fame,
Speaker 2: when he went to hall, he asked me, whatuld do
Speaker 2: something like me. You never spoke to me. We had
Speaker 2: no type of friendship. But I was privy. I was
Speaker 2: honored because that's b K man. I said, before we
Speaker 2: go up the steps, man, and be honest. I said, Man,
Speaker 2: I ain't never fear anybody. I said, you don't even
Speaker 2: guy have a scared ship out of me. And he's laughing.
Speaker 2: I said, man, why are you laughing? He said, because
Speaker 2: you scared ship it out of me too.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm like yeah, yeah, that was good. Yeah yeah. And
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, you know, my chests got big.
Speaker 2: But it just shows you that none of those guys
Speaker 2: let you get that close to him when we was competitors, man,
Speaker 2: And that's what made the game more fun, and it
Speaker 2: made you compete even harder because you never knew what
Speaker 2: was going on this here. You knew he was going
Speaker 2: to come at you, and you had to guard that
Speaker 2: guy too. You know, I'm not gonna guard the power
Speaker 2: forward because they had a license kick your ass. I'm
Speaker 2: I'm not playing hints position. So you know, we had
Speaker 2: enough problem at that small forward position, and we had
Speaker 2: a lot of me and another guy you talked about,
Speaker 2: Marco Guire, big draws man, big draw he was on
Speaker 2: the table man. He was a load to deal with.
Speaker 2: You know, to me, he's a Hall of Famer to me.
Speaker 2: Take us back.
Speaker 3: You're sitting in the room table five guys from the
Speaker 3: eight is your era, talk about the evolution of the game.
Speaker 2: How would they go? You know what we would give.
Speaker 2: We give all errors their respect because we had to
Speaker 2: learn from somebody, right, So we learned from the guys
Speaker 2: before us, and so we always appreciate basketball and every
Speaker 2: we talked about it. But the one thing we will
Speaker 2: say is that it's their time. We've had our time.
Speaker 2: But I hate when they tried to ship on us
Speaker 2: choose their point. They don't have to do that, you know,
Speaker 2: because you know greatest great don't care what are you,
Speaker 2: but you know, don't use path area to elevate yourself
Speaker 2: because we never did that to guys like look, I'm
Speaker 2: never gonna say better than Chamberlain or Russell or I
Speaker 2: was just I was just with Oscar, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: we appreciated you guys because we learned from y'all, you know,
Speaker 2: and so because we like anytime I get the chance
Speaker 2: to talk to guys before me, man, it's I'm like
Speaker 2: a kid in the candy store. It's a pleasure for me.
Speaker 2: And I've never thought that I was bigger than the game,
Speaker 2: because nobody's bigger than the game, because it's always one
Speaker 2: coming behind you, you know, so no one person is
Speaker 2: going to be bigger. You can be. You can be
Speaker 2: an iconic figure of the game, in which we have
Speaker 2: a lot of guys who fits that bill. But you know,
Speaker 2: the game going to keep evolving with or without you.
Speaker 2: Do you feel that your error gets enough credit for
Speaker 2: what's the players and how they make it?
Speaker 3: Monday today was one million dollar Saturday when you nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety nine is twelve million dollars.
Speaker 2: And hey, look God bless them. Get all you can get,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, because you have kids to come out.
Speaker 2: I have a son come there. I want him to
Speaker 2: experience that. But if I tell you what I made
Speaker 2: as a third overall pick, you go, you laugh, you know,
Speaker 2: But that's just the way it was. You made money.
Speaker 2: I made three hundred and twenty five. Topic, that's crazy, right,
Speaker 2: you know. But Patrick Ewing came and I think a
Speaker 2: year or two later, I think it was two years later,
Speaker 2: and they got that thirty million dollar contract, which was
Speaker 2: unheard of. And I told the team, I said, y'all
Speaker 2: call me when you're serious. I ain't coming back to
Speaker 2: three hundred and twenty five. Y'all call me. So they said, look,
Speaker 2: we got a new deal for you. I said, cool, okay,
Speaker 2: you know what's what's happening. They said, we gave John
Speaker 2: Contact thirteen million. We're gonna keep you fourteen. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm asking thirty heavision four.
Speaker 1: You're crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm not good. I said, I take it.
Speaker 2: They take it. They take them deals off the table
Speaker 2: back then, you know, yes. But you know what, though,
Speaker 2: I love that part of the evolution of the game,
Speaker 2: how guys get what they deserve, and you know, quite frankly,
Speaker 2: it's an even playing not quite an even playing field,
Speaker 2: but you get a chance to you know, prosper from
Speaker 2: you know, the league and owners and what they are
Speaker 2: able to pay. So yeah, I'm for the guy. Get
Speaker 2: all whatever you want to get what you can get.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you this house question. How do
Speaker 2: you feel about you? Boy? Murray? Love? I love to
Speaker 2: do Johntey Murray. You know, he was good for us,
Speaker 2: you know, but you know, sometimes things that don't work,
Speaker 2: you know. And I thought we had really the most
Speaker 2: dynamic backcourt in the league, but sometimes they don't work
Speaker 2: that way, you know. And so you know, Trey is
Speaker 2: a guy, the big personality on our team, and he's
Speaker 2: a guy who's that's your leader, and that's your leader,
Speaker 2: and that's the guy that is gonna hopefully get you
Speaker 2: to that next level. Not having a great show on
Speaker 2: in summer league. A lot of people know how your
Speaker 2: draft pick. He's young, man, I mean, this kid nineteen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he's skilled, Yeah, he's skilled. But you know you
Speaker 2: got to be able to give him time. You know,
Speaker 2: give him time. He's gonna he's gonna be just fine.
Speaker 2: Believe me. Yeah, he's gonna be just fine.
Speaker 1: I have a question. Obviously, you coming in the league,
Speaker 1: being the third pick, playing and then being in the
Speaker 1: office talking about the game. I feel like everything now
Speaker 1: they're always gonna base things on potential, but I feel
Speaker 1: like now, more than ever, the draft is hopefully they
Speaker 1: will do this instead of guys really coming in and
Speaker 1: making an impact.
Speaker 2: It's a gamble. It's a big gamble because as players,
Speaker 2: we know if a guy can play it that right.
Speaker 2: Because no matter what type of personality you bring to
Speaker 2: help grow your team, it's hard for them to know
Speaker 2: more than what we know because we've done this our
Speaker 2: whole live and so I can tell you right up
Speaker 2: front after watching a guy a couple of games, if
Speaker 2: he's ready to help you or he's not the right mote.
Speaker 2: And we've seen that time and time again. But I
Speaker 2: think you know, the teams that win early are the
Speaker 2: teams that get guys that contribute now instead of later.
Speaker 3: A lot of people don't know this. Everybody think your
Speaker 3: old country bumpkin, But you was born in Paris. Yeah,
Speaker 3: your mother was a superwoman. One of the eight kids.
Speaker 2: How was that? It was great? Man? My sister and
Speaker 2: I know we were the first two, and so both
Speaker 2: of us was born and so born France and I
Speaker 2: lived in France five years before we moved to the
Speaker 2: United States. My sister actually spoke fluent French. You I
Speaker 2: spoke it too, but you know what, if you don't
Speaker 2: speak it, you lose it. I even took five years
Speaker 2: of French too. But if I'm around that, I understand it.
Speaker 2: It was really great from two parts, one to see
Speaker 2: the French team, you know, get to the gold medal
Speaker 2: round and the other part, you know, do you ask
Speaker 2: you know, you're always pulling for us to to you know,
Speaker 2: pull it out. So it was it was it was
Speaker 2: a love love type of event from me watching that.
Speaker 2: So but yeah, I go back to Paris quite a bit.
Speaker 3: Would you would have played they would actually play with
Speaker 3: France then that she was born there, back.
Speaker 1: When we were doing a lot of pride, a lot
Speaker 1: of pride.
Speaker 2: If I wouldn't be I'd have really thought, I really
Speaker 2: thought about it being a part of Dream Team, and
Speaker 2: I mean that was that was great. That was great, man.
Speaker 2: So you would never you never could duplicate that or
Speaker 2: take anything over that.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about that time though, because that was
Speaker 1: kind of the shift in the game. You guys took
Speaker 1: the world by storm and the world took notes.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what we better. We wanted to send
Speaker 2: a message to the rest of the world that y'all
Speaker 2: had no shot, no shot, no shot, no shot, and
Speaker 2: no one came within twenty five or thirty of us.
Speaker 2: You know, we blow with blue blue with everybody out.
Speaker 2: And you know we had Sean Kemp and Derrick Coleman.
Speaker 2: There was two rebels on our team and they were man.
Speaker 2: They they was relentless, you know. I mean, guys would
Speaker 2: try to shake our head, shake your hand. They're like, man,
Speaker 2: we beat you like that and you want to shake
Speaker 2: my hand. I'm like, man, come on, I said, come on, guys.
Speaker 2: But you know, we had guys with personality. But we
Speaker 2: had some balls on that team. You had shot yeah
Speaker 2: Lownes on morning. You had you know, Isaiah Thomas who
Speaker 2: really didn't play because it was hurt. And then you
Speaker 2: had you know, Reggie Miller, Mark Price, Larry Johnson. You know,
Speaker 2: we had some We had a player, Steve Smith was
Speaker 2: also on. So what was I mean?
Speaker 1: Obviously we saw the greatness on the corp, but what
Speaker 1: were practices like where were the bus rides hanging in
Speaker 1: the hotel.
Speaker 2: Was that Like, we had Don uh Nelson coach Nelly,
Speaker 2: so it was a free frolls, which just a hell.
Speaker 2: I was like, man, look, I'm one of the older
Speaker 2: guys on this team. You know, I don't want to
Speaker 2: work that hard. But we were so ready to play
Speaker 2: after those our practices. Man used to see Aliones one
Speaker 2: morning and shot going ahead. He I mean it was
Speaker 2: like they didn't like each other, and they might didn't
Speaker 2: at that time, you know, but our practices was worse
Speaker 2: than the game because practices and always believed us practice
Speaker 2: should always be harder thany game. The game should be
Speaker 2: easy after rewards, it's that's the reward. But it of
Speaker 2: course it's changed now, it's not like that.
Speaker 1: Sean Kim told the story how Nelly made him celebrate
Speaker 1: after after done by grabbing his grabbing his crotch.
Speaker 2: You remember that. Yeah, a whole bunch of people that one.
Speaker 2: But you know, Don was a players coach. Yes, sir,
Speaker 2: that's Mike Donal. You know he'll run you to death,
Speaker 2: but you know what, he'll turn around and say, hey,
Speaker 2: let's go, let's go we have dinner. That was nothing.
Speaker 2: Was that a personal man, but he gonna he's gonna
Speaker 2: work you.
Speaker 1: He's gonna work And I'm glad we talked the back end.
Speaker 1: We got the cool now, Nelly, we got crazy.
Speaker 2: We got.
Speaker 1: We would come to practice either with crown or coffee
Speaker 1: in this cup you just didn't.
Speaker 2: Know what, and a little dog and then let his
Speaker 2: dog shipped in the middle of the court during practice. Oh,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you we had better tell you we had.
Speaker 2: We had. We had quite a few coaches because most
Speaker 2: of my career played for Mike for Teller, Mikey, and
Speaker 2: Mike was a little general and Mike with man. Le'm
Speaker 2: gonna tell you he would if the players are in situations,
Speaker 2: he's in the middle of it. He gonna go down
Speaker 2: with his players, you know. And he's the one guy
Speaker 2: you're gonna do it his way and you ain't gonna
Speaker 2: do it at all. Because I was a guy. At times,
Speaker 2: I didn't think he liked me man, because my name
Speaker 2: was either some little bitch or motherfucker. But I remember
Speaker 2: one time I had twenty three at half and I
Speaker 2: had seven rebounds. We were down nine to Chicago. So
Speaker 2: come in the locker, who he says, Nikki, you think
Speaker 2: you're better than everybody else? We got a hair cross.
Speaker 2: You ask, can't nobody talk to you? He said, let
Speaker 2: me tell you something.
Speaker 1: You ain't that shit.
Speaker 2: I was like, huh what I said? You see what
Speaker 2: I did halftime? I said, we down eight nine points,
Speaker 2: we still got a chance. He said, shit to me,
Speaker 2: you ain't done nothing. And so I said, you know what, Mike,
Speaker 2: f you he the nofolk you? I said no. It
Speaker 2: went on for like too many, everybody crying, laughing, right,
Speaker 2: you know, and finally everybody walked out of the locker
Speaker 2: room and he grabbed me out of the last one
Speaker 2: to leave. He said, okay, cut the ship. If I
Speaker 2: can talk to you like that and at times be little,
Speaker 2: you can't nobody else say it's all anybody? And I
Speaker 2: was like, wow, okay, I said, okay, I got I
Speaker 2: get it. And from that point we never had another argument.
Speaker 2: He would he would say some stuff to me and
Speaker 2: like a lot of guys couldn't take. But I knew
Speaker 2: where he was going with the reason. Yeah. And so
Speaker 2: you know, good coaches, man, they find ways to motivate
Speaker 2: you through other means and to your best player a
Speaker 2: lot of time. So I learned a lot from that.
Speaker 2: Dominating in high school seventy nine and one in North Carolina.
Speaker 2: I was that man that was that was out saying
Speaker 2: to me, you know when I went when I went there,
Speaker 2: before I went there, you know, they will always get
Speaker 2: to the state championship. We'll get close to the state,
Speaker 2: but they never won. And so when I got there
Speaker 2: when I was sixteen, and I got discovered on the
Speaker 2: playground that that next day the guy who got discovered
Speaker 2: on the black time. And this is crazy because I
Speaker 2: saw my best friend Rob somebody in Baltimore and I
Speaker 2: told my mom. I said, I'm leaving the city. I'm
Speaker 2: never coming back. I left weeks later and my brother said,
Speaker 2: this is with Nick gone. And so I left and
Speaker 2: went to Carolina on that grand bus.
Speaker 1: Family out there.
Speaker 2: I had family, but I didn't know where I was
Speaker 2: going to live really because all my grandparents aunts lived
Speaker 2: in Carolina. And so I get off the bus. I
Speaker 2: see these kids playing. I go over and I started
Speaker 2: playing basketball with them. And after I finished, I'm sitting
Speaker 2: on the ground. This oldest gentleman can say, hey, son,
Speaker 2: you living. I was like, I'm not sure yet. He said, well,
Speaker 2: where you're going living? I was like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, and he looked and he said, come
Speaker 2: come go with me. And I don't know why I
Speaker 2: went with him, but I went to his house. He
Speaker 2: showed me a bedroom, show me the kitchen. He said,
Speaker 2: you can have all this only trade office. He had
Speaker 2: to play for my high school team. He was a
Speaker 2: high school coach. All those players I was playing the
Speaker 2: front with his players on that high school team.
Speaker 1: Get the fresh off the bus, fresh off no plan.
Speaker 2: I had no plan at all. And he said god.
Speaker 2: I said, okay. I lived with him my first year,
Speaker 2: and then after that I lived with my grandparents. But
Speaker 2: we was We won. We had an undefeated season. My
Speaker 2: first year. We went to the semi final States and
Speaker 2: we lost by I think to a team we beat
Speaker 2: by thirty the regular season. And he said, if we
Speaker 2: stick together the next two years, we won't lose another game.
Speaker 2: And we ran off fifty six in a row in
Speaker 2: two years, big back to back stay titles in North Carolina,
Speaker 2: which is hard to do. You know. I played against
Speaker 2: Mitchell Wiggins and Buck Williams, all those guys in high school.
Speaker 2: But that's where it started for me. My high school
Speaker 2: coach man taught me that, you know, there's nothing you
Speaker 2: can't accomplish if you believe.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is the coach he was talking about before
Speaker 1: we got the teacher I could teach you how to
Speaker 1: be a man before.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah he was. He was. You know, you see
Speaker 2: these flyer metric things that they do in the day's game, right,
Speaker 2: So he used to have a bench about this why
Speaker 2: this high, and we used to have to jump across
Speaker 2: this bench without stopping fifty times and if you hesitate,
Speaker 2: you got to do it all over again. He would
Speaker 2: do that to help with your timing and explosion. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm telling you. You don't realize how much that helped
Speaker 2: us without without timing, you know, and balance. He was.
Speaker 2: He's the greatest coach I ever had. And I don't
Speaker 2: care what level. He's the greatest coach I've had. So
Speaker 2: you de committed from n C State to go to Georgia.
Speaker 2: You know that story. Yeah, you have to deal with
Speaker 2: some racist people burn across in the yard and all that.
Speaker 2: It's a long story, but I get it short. Well.
Speaker 2: First of all, if you're a great player in the
Speaker 2: state of North Calinda in those days, you don't leave
Speaker 2: the a c C. It was like against the law
Speaker 2: to leave the A C C. And so I signed
Speaker 2: eleven tenth with North Carolina State, and you know, it
Speaker 2: was pretty much decided. That's why I'm going. I'm going
Speaker 2: there with Wittenberg and Lowe and Guy thorough Bailey, all
Speaker 2: of us squad man, we had a squad. Then the
Speaker 2: University of Georgia came out of nowhere, and you know today,
Speaker 2: you know you had the ni O getting a little
Speaker 2: bit of bad give me a little bag, but anyway,
Speaker 2: low bag. But that was part of it. But the
Speaker 2: thing is that I didn't want to be compared to anyone,
Speaker 2: you know, by going to University Georgia, was no one
Speaker 2: to compare it to. So five other high school all America,
Speaker 2: we all decided to go there together. So when I
Speaker 2: made that decision, all health prokelues. I got all f's
Speaker 2: on my transcript, paint pulled on my mom car, and
Speaker 2: I had a cross burning in my yard and I
Speaker 2: got arrested. The next day. I'm coming out of a store,
Speaker 2: I think it was Sears or something like that, and
Speaker 2: I had this back there had eight track tapes. Man,
Speaker 2: they had CDs. So I'm coming out of store and
Speaker 2: I just paid for it, right, and I had three
Speaker 2: thousand dollars in my pocket. Gentlemen said, we got a wrested.
Speaker 2: We saw you steal at tape. I'm like what, I
Speaker 2: was like, why would I steal a three dollars tape?
Speaker 2: I got three thousand dollars my pocket. You kidded me,
Speaker 2: He said, we got arresture. So they called a police.
Speaker 2: Police came with my uncle. It was my cousin who
Speaker 2: was a police force, and he said, we know what's
Speaker 2: going on, so we're gonna go down a police station.
Speaker 2: We'll work it out. Didn't He said, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take home. We're gonna pack up the house
Speaker 2: and we're getting you, the whole family out tonight. So
Speaker 2: we left at twelve o'clock at night. The whole family
Speaker 2: moved out of it, and I didn't go back for
Speaker 2: thirty years until the statue got unvailed. Wow, coach passed.
Speaker 2: That's so I've stayed away that long. I never went back,
Speaker 2: you know, And it's still this day. It bothers me
Speaker 2: because you know, that town was unknown before I got there.
Speaker 2: But it's still a part of my history. So every
Speaker 2: now and then I'll make a trip back there. But
Speaker 2: that was tough man. The racism was real because we
Speaker 2: had a white prim and black prom when I was
Speaker 2: in high school, white and we had our prom at
Speaker 2: the recreation center. They had theirs at the high school.
Speaker 2: I never went on the man, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: that shit, you know, and we can't be together. The
Speaker 2: only thing that leveled the racism in North Carolina with sports.
Speaker 2: One of my teammates was a white guy named Bobby Mouth.
Speaker 2: He and I the very close friends to this day,
Speaker 2: and that's the one thing he said, this is the
Speaker 2: only thing that level the racism in our town. It's
Speaker 2: basketball and sports, you know, because our fans will follow
Speaker 2: us all over the state. When we played, the town
Speaker 2: would be empty. But we came to social issues, it
Speaker 2: was different problem. Yeah, it was a problem.
Speaker 1: And then when you decided to leave, it was really different.
Speaker 2: When I left went to Georgia, they said, well, you know,
Speaker 2: we thought we could have him for another four years,
Speaker 2: have me. You don't own me. Yeah, you know, but
Speaker 2: that's what they thought, you know. But thirty years to
Speaker 2: go back, man, that was that's crazy. The only evening
Speaker 2: went back because my coach passed and I said, you
Speaker 2: know what if the mayor of that town can drive
Speaker 2: all the way to Atlanta and view my film. I
Speaker 2: can go back, and that's the reason why I went back.
Speaker 2: How proud are you being at Georgia alumna Anthony Ell was, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's my guy. I was like a mentor to him,
Speaker 2: you know, when he was coming up, and it's great
Speaker 2: to see the level of success he's achieved so far.
Speaker 3: So people don't know that you and stead Smith uh
Speaker 3: or instrumental and raising him, having a lot to do
Speaker 3: with him.
Speaker 1: You don't know that because you know, he was a
Speaker 1: kid that his family earlier he.
Speaker 2: Lost the family, so he moved around a different place.
Speaker 2: But and I understand you know how he felt and
Speaker 2: what he went through because I went through that. And
Speaker 2: so to see how he you know, persevered through all
Speaker 2: those disappointments and became what he is now. Man, it's
Speaker 2: a testament to his will and his determination to be
Speaker 2: successful and show him that hey, I can do this.
Speaker 3: Because he had every reason stacked up against him not
Speaker 3: to make it and to give up everything.
Speaker 1: Makes sense why he's so spoken, funny and well, because
Speaker 1: he's probably did a lot of crying. That's how you
Speaker 1: I used to you know, too. I used to make
Speaker 1: people laugh because I would cry all the time. And
Speaker 1: when I get a chance to be funny or be outgoing,
Speaker 1: that was me kind of hide and.
Speaker 2: Pain back in the day. So you're doing yeah, you
Speaker 2: know exactly what we're talking about. You know, with him,
Speaker 2: you know, growing up in the tough areas and then nobody.
Speaker 2: He don't feel nobody. You know, he's a guy. He's
Speaker 2: gonna he's gonna step up and be ready for the challenge.
Speaker 2: And that's what I admire about him. Man, he just
Speaker 2: come out. He just plays the game, and he's been
Speaker 2: doing that since high school.
Speaker 1: You feel like he could be the face of the league.
Speaker 2: I think he will be at at some point. I
Speaker 2: think he will be if he keeps maturing and going
Speaker 2: like he's going, absolutely, and that's what I'm hoping for. Yeah,
Speaker 2: me too.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty two third pick goes to Utah. Initially, what
Speaker 1: were you thinking.
Speaker 2: I wasn't going hell no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to tell y'all crazy to Utah. And
Speaker 2: then they told me I'd been playing power forward. I
Speaker 2: like y'all at two fifteen, not me. I said, y'all, beady,
Speaker 2: trade me today. So you know, we get a call
Speaker 2: that I've been traded to Atlanta, which I wanted to
Speaker 2: go to Atlanta. Uh, Freeman Williams a million dollars and
Speaker 2: John Drew back then, that's a ton, but.
Speaker 1: It's he It was rumored to be the worst trade
Speaker 1: in the history of it is goud.
Speaker 2: You know what at that time, you know, they were
Speaker 2: struggling Utah to make payroll. You know, so the money
Speaker 2: of that trade for really kind of helped for a
Speaker 2: short period of time until they got new ownership and
Speaker 2: investments with that team, because yeah, they were struggling financially,
Speaker 2: and so you know, people tell me all the time, man,
Speaker 2: you really helped save the franchise because they were gonna
Speaker 2: have to move. I said, well, I'm happy for them,
Speaker 2: but I'm glad I would have to go there.
Speaker 1: You know, any truth that Hank Aaron was instrumental in
Speaker 1: getting you over there.
Speaker 2: It was Hank Aaron and a guy named Mike Garrant
Speaker 2: seniors like a father to me. You know, he was
Speaker 2: part of the Atlanta Hawks at that time. And so
Speaker 2: they told Ted Turner was Hank Aaron said, you need
Speaker 2: to get this kid by any means necessary. I've been
Speaker 2: following him ever since he came to Georgia. He said,
Speaker 2: if you can trade to get him, trade everybody you can,
Speaker 2: and so they did. They traded two proven players, John
Speaker 2: jew who was a star now and a million dollars
Speaker 2: man I and went to heaven like man. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a great opportunity for.
Speaker 1: Me back then, Duncan, although it's not the only part
Speaker 1: of your game, it was something that you were known for.
Speaker 1: Where did that athleticism come from? And just the want
Speaker 1: to just dunk that motherfucker so hard?
Speaker 2: You know what, man, It's been that way since I
Speaker 2: was a kid. My first dunk was twelve years old
Speaker 2: and what Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like sixth grade.
Speaker 2: I told, were you about five eight five twelve? See,
Speaker 2: I was in this thing called BNBL. Was a basketball league,
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't you know. It was just really
Speaker 2: playground basketball. And I came down on fast break and
Speaker 2: the guy was trailing me. I just went up and
Speaker 2: I dunked it and I'm running everybody celebrating and I
Speaker 2: go down the other end. The refreer where you going?
Speaker 2: I said, what's wrong? He said, you got foul? So yeah,
Speaker 2: come down shoot the funeral you know, and all the
Speaker 2: old heads me said, young man, then they say young
Speaker 2: something else. You know, young motherfucker.
Speaker 4: You know you're gonna be all right.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be the first one to get out our neighborhood.
Speaker 2: So it's hands off. Nobody messes with him because back
Speaker 2: then you had to be in the game. I used
Speaker 2: us to the next because I played basketball was hands off,
Speaker 2: and so they used to make me play against older
Speaker 2: guys for money. So I had to play that much harder.
Speaker 2: And so as I started to grow black, I said,
Speaker 2: when I get a chance and I ever get anybody
Speaker 2: back paling that lamb, I'm gonna let them happen. And
Speaker 2: so I only knew how to play the game at
Speaker 2: one speed and that's all out. And so I used
Speaker 2: dunking for a two for intimidation and really who it was,
Speaker 2: but it was to give me an advantage, give me
Speaker 2: an edge over the guy I was playing good because
Speaker 2: I figured, if I can get two files on you early, right,
Speaker 2: I got all the advantage in the world. Now because
Speaker 2: you ain't play I gotta yeah it's physical, Yeah, you
Speaker 2: can't play physical. So that was it was always. I
Speaker 2: was always thinking the game and that's sense. How can
Speaker 2: I create vantage? And Duncan was one of them tools man,
Speaker 2: that I used, and I just took it to a
Speaker 2: different level.
Speaker 1: Obviously, a career full of highlights. Are there any dunks
Speaker 1: that's to kind of stand out to your mind? You
Speaker 1: said you love dunkan on big dudes.
Speaker 2: That's you know. Yeah. I think one of my favorite
Speaker 2: dunks was against Bob Lanier at the end of the game.
Speaker 2: I remember, I'm on the right side and I come
Speaker 2: to the middle and Kevin Greedy cuts me off and
Speaker 2: I go back base, sit right here, jump. That's it.
Speaker 2: That's the one.
Speaker 1: Was that a double punt reverse on to the side,
Speaker 1: So you see a ball fake hold on?
Speaker 2: Post game though? How many guards that post game? Back
Speaker 2: then through Hey, let me tell you he didn't speak
Speaker 2: to me for nine years. I said, why you why
Speaker 2: are you not? I mean, what's up with that? He said?
Speaker 2: As just recently my daughter said I need to get by.
Speaker 2: I said, he said, this little skinny kid dunk on
Speaker 2: you like that. You should be embarrassed.
Speaker 1: God damn when you kind of see how that say yourself,
Speaker 1: obviously he could put yourself back.
Speaker 2: What do you think one of the things that You
Speaker 2: could never put a little guard like that on me
Speaker 2: because if you switch, I'm going right to the post.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna be out on the wing. You're not
Speaker 2: gonna switch. He's thinking that you're gonna hide. Ain't no hiding,
Speaker 2: because we're gonna make you pay for switching. And I
Speaker 2: didn't know that was gonna happen because I thought I
Speaker 2: thought maybe I closed my eyes when I went by
Speaker 2: baseline and we went up, he was at the rim
Speaker 2: like this, you went and I kept going up. He
Speaker 2: was coming down and he looked at me all the
Speaker 2: way down the court. And my teammates said, don't go
Speaker 2: back to the basket, cause he's gonna fuck you up.
Speaker 2: She wasn't letting that happen. No, no tree, you told
Speaker 2: my tough guys, let me explain something about tree. She
Speaker 2: ain't letting that. There's only so much you could say
Speaker 2: the tree before he slaps you. Yeah, man, I'm not
Speaker 2: going And I've seen him slap many got a cart
Speaker 2: right guards. I mean he slaps on gods. I said,
Speaker 2: treat man, why you slap people like that? He said,
Speaker 2: it takes that manhood when I slap, right, that's what
Speaker 2: that's Hey, that's what get man the same way. I know.
Speaker 2: That's my dog. I mean the brother. That's one of
Speaker 2: the reason why you don't want to play power forward.
Speaker 2: Look at it right there, that's him and Zeke. Oh no, Vinny.
Speaker 1: That said eight foot wings.
Speaker 2: You can't get in there. You're not getting in there.
Speaker 2: And see he has you got to you gotta take
Speaker 2: one to getting there. And he had no problem hit.
Speaker 1: Look how far away he's swinging though, like you can't
Speaker 1: even get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got you got to take one back. Then
Speaker 2: it wasn't no just wolfing wolf wasn't no crazy fine
Speaker 2: nah man. I mean, I'm a oak with the first
Speaker 2: kid and jump. So he said, I'm gonna hit your hands,
Speaker 2: your hands, you know. He scored and just jab somebody
Speaker 2: running back. Look, hey, that's nobody like that. Something that
Speaker 2: came in all out brawl because he dunked and Danny
Speaker 2: ain't no nobody He hit him with his elbow because
Speaker 2: Danny Ain't kept jabbing him in the ribs every time
Speaker 2: he go by a pick. So that was a perfect
Speaker 2: opportunity for treating get him. They got you in your
Speaker 2: bag too. Me and Bird got into it. They got
Speaker 2: into the situation and I could man my train, I
Speaker 2: couldn't get loose. I hate that I couldn't get like.
Speaker 1: Like this is this little the strength and conditioning motherfucker right, I.
Speaker 2: Couldn't get loose. He did on purpose to watch the face.
Speaker 2: He almost broke his neck. He took his face and
Speaker 2: andrels a competitor to oh yeah, yeah, the back down.
Speaker 2: You know one guy that he's another guy that gave
Speaker 2: me so much respect man that after I retired. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because he was a past man. We we got in
Speaker 2: so many fights from Boston. Man, it was a normal thing.
Speaker 2: But you know what, it was expected. It wasn't personal.
Speaker 2: We're just trying to to in between Boston and Detroit
Speaker 2: and New York teams we had. We had it because
Speaker 2: if you hit us, we're hitting you back. You know.
Speaker 2: That was just our attitude. We had a we had
Speaker 2: a policy on our team. Anybody gets into it, bench clear.
Speaker 2: If the bench don't clear.
Speaker 1: You you right, you find if you didn't come now,
Speaker 1: you get fined. You get fined.
Speaker 2: I'm doing just like this. I catch you all after Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not giving up twenty five. That was different, no,
Speaker 2: but but then you know your fines were like one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty two hundred dollars. Fine, you know, and
Speaker 2: we used to we should put it. Yeah, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: noticed that, right, Hey, I know we put it in
Speaker 2: a we put it in a pot, you know, and
Speaker 2: we have shooting and shoot for it. Yeah, that's our minimal.
Speaker 2: That's because it wasn't that much. May you know, flagrant found.
Speaker 2: We didn't really know what the flaggran found was. Everything
Speaker 2: looked back then against that in my horn, he gonna
Speaker 2: he's gonna lie about it if you talk to me.
Speaker 2: I'm coming down. And I get hit by here by
Speaker 2: my horn, right, I get hit and the smaller back
Speaker 2: by lambering. I went like that. Damn. It hit the
Speaker 2: ground and I wasn't hurt, but I just looked up.
Speaker 2: I said, they didn't just snatch me out of the ASP.
Speaker 2: I just jump out and start swinging. And then I
Speaker 2: came to my senses. I said, damn, I gotta fight
Speaker 2: these two big now. Then on this side Kevin Willis
Speaker 2: comes up, and on this side of tree rollins, I
Speaker 2: got more braid and they got closer, right, and you know,
Speaker 2: and nobody nobody right there too. He even tried to
Speaker 2: black a shot. Yeah, man, my horn beefing right now?
Speaker 2: Wo he was he just cheap shot at You know.
Speaker 2: I broke my hand on his head though, punch him
Speaker 2: in the back of his head and broke my finger.
Speaker 2: I said, boy, you got a big old head. Boy.
Speaker 2: I had to pay for that. You know, I wasn't
Speaker 2: a guy. I didn't start a lot of crap. And
Speaker 2: it's you know, a lot of fighting. But one thing
Speaker 2: about I wasn't gonna start no fighting. But I'm on
Speaker 2: him on yeah, you know you're not knocking this.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: One thing I didn't deal with disrespect man. You know,
Speaker 2: I just played my game. You know that's it. But
Speaker 2: you know, like I said, you have certain guys that
Speaker 2: you don't like. I don't care. And like I said,
Speaker 2: it ain't nothing they did. They just don't like like
Speaker 2: like Chuck person and play with. And then we fought
Speaker 2: all the right time. We fought all the time, even
Speaker 2: in pre season. I'm coming down the court, pre said,
Speaker 2: wamn it, hits me, knocked the win at me. I
Speaker 2: just got I just start swinging out, you know, hit
Speaker 2: them two or three times. Then somebody grabbed me by
Speaker 2: the neck and I'm choking. They choking me right to
Speaker 2: like with Draymond, deal with Gobert. Then it's arm loosen
Speaker 2: up and all you hear behind him, your boy caves
Speaker 2: and let him go, let them go. And he went
Speaker 2: limp and I looked back like.
Speaker 1: Thank you, appreciate the big So if you read if
Speaker 1: if he threw punches back, then what was that five hundred.
Speaker 2: To fifty two hundred? Oh god that man? Hey fifty
Speaker 2: you got thrown a million. He might you might have
Speaker 2: got thrown out, but you might have got a technical file.
Speaker 1: You get that second taxtic too, But go twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand for pushing somebody.
Speaker 2: Man, You know what we would guy would laugh at
Speaker 2: that back then push times. We got enough time, we
Speaker 2: got pushed and pushed up. Man. But you know, for us,
Speaker 2: it's set the tone, like you know the game, This
Speaker 2: could be the game. Ain't gonna be no, okay, for
Speaker 2: I got fined three million, and he ain't die.
Speaker 4: He said, he didn't even die.
Speaker 2: He I remember when you got fired at three thousand,
Speaker 2: were watching dollars. So y'all had a total of about
Speaker 2: what eight? Uh no, not close to ten million? Man,
Speaker 2: Ron was eight a piece, I mean just me and
Speaker 2: him was eight. He got five. I had three Wow,
Speaker 2: and all the other players ended up to be like ten.
Speaker 2: So you know, you know right now, you know you
Speaker 2: talk about fine, if you dunk on a guy, you
Speaker 2: look at him ridiculous back. I'm like, come on, man,
Speaker 2: come on, man, I think I need to call the
Speaker 2: league and go back and watch you know, you know
Speaker 2: what he's got to need to watch real street ball. Yeah,
Speaker 2: how them brothers play, Hey, they would make a lot
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Or hockey. You just go sit down four minutes.
Speaker 3: The league is full a whole bunch of light skin
Speaker 3: casts and they all ain't like you ain't gonna get
Speaker 3: too much of that.
Speaker 2: Don't tell the toughest life the crazy league right now,
Speaker 2: the tougher light skin you you talk about life skin.
Speaker 2: The toughest nights got to play this game is Mary's Lucas.
Speaker 2: They enforce what hey, nobody messing with him, Nobody who
Speaker 2: was the one he noted someone out him and Daryl
Speaker 2: Dawkins went to when I was in college back then,
Speaker 2: you're not supposed to do it. But Marius Lucas and
Speaker 2: Pete Marriage used to train me in the summertime, and
Speaker 2: so when I came league, I got the toughest guy
Speaker 2: in the league. Then I got the wonder little skilled
Speaker 2: guy to ever played the game working out with me.
Speaker 2: And you know, Marius Lucas, when you work out, if
Speaker 2: you ain't working hard with him, he get upset. Man,
Speaker 2: he'll call you out and you ain't gonna question him.
Speaker 2: You know, you've seen some of the fights he had. Man,
Speaker 2: what was Pistol Pete Like Pistol Pete was before his time.
Speaker 1: Amparent to anybody who's ever played the game.
Speaker 2: I think he a mixture of some guys. You know,
Speaker 2: you look at some of the stuff that Kyrie does.
Speaker 2: Pete Marriage was doing that way back then. And Pete
Speaker 2: Maverage was six five sixty six point, he was tall.
Speaker 2: He was just a freaking that his court vision was.
Speaker 2: It's unmatched the stuff he could do with the ball.
Speaker 2: And so I learned a lot from them guys coming
Speaker 2: into the league because they helped prepare me. So he
Speaker 2: was showing down darkers just now with Maurice, looked nasty,
Speaker 2: were big, tough. We're playing in Phoenix and Doc rivers
Speaker 2: and Cole Macy gets on that. Doc literally kicks cow
Speaker 2: Mason right in his ass, and Marie Lucas came up
Speaker 2: behind Doc and grabbed him by his head like this.
Speaker 2: He said, that's enough of that ship. And I looked
Speaker 2: at the tree all the day around. I said, which
Speaker 2: one of y'all gonna help Doc? You know I ain't
Speaker 2: saying nothing to this dude. You know, you know, hey,
Speaker 2: nobody moved nobody. He used to knock you on the floor, right,
Speaker 2: and he reached down to help you up there. And
Speaker 2: the fans think he's being a nice guy, and he's
Speaker 2: telling him, he said, get your ass up. It an't
Speaker 2: time to lay down now. This is what you want.
Speaker 2: This is how it's gonna be all night long. I
Speaker 2: love it. He was a man. It was some It
Speaker 2: was just some animal. Mean the fact there, I said,
Speaker 2: you have to put a tool on the line. They
Speaker 2: had They had Anthony Mason, they had another guy that
Speaker 2: Keim Bannister. Them guys are the three amingles. And then
Speaker 2: you got they don't realize the level of toughness that
Speaker 2: was in the area. Not only toughness, but skilled players
Speaker 2: who was tough, you know, and strong, strong grown man's,
Speaker 2: real grown men. I mean, mister Mean he got that
Speaker 2: name for a reason, mister mad not play. You know.
Speaker 2: I made friends with some of the guys, like a
Speaker 2: lot of guys like Lonnie Shelton. You remember Lonie Shelton.
Speaker 2: Lonnie Shelton got robbed out in front of the arena
Speaker 2: one game Atlanta in Cleveland. He took the gun from
Speaker 2: the guy who robbed him. Pistol whipm set on him
Speaker 2: to the police game and he was like two sixty
Speaker 2: playing the three. I was like, man's here in the
Speaker 2: US because he because again he fought Buck Williams.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, remember that bucket buckles.
Speaker 2: Him and Buck fought for one of the court to
Speaker 2: the other end, to the tunnel, to the bus.
Speaker 3: How many people you know name not each one of them,
Speaker 3: you know, the big old black dudes, big old strong
Speaker 3: about black.
Speaker 2: Beer North Carolina kids. Yeah, just just looked like a
Speaker 2: big old I'm talking about bro. Everybody named Buck looked
Speaker 2: like they can knock you out until he could and
Speaker 2: would for real. Everybody named Buck just a probably You
Speaker 2: understand now why I didn't want to play power for Yeah, Well,
Speaker 2: no three. I'm a three. I've been a three since
Speaker 2: I was a bait. I ain't trying to play no
Speaker 2: other positions.
Speaker 1: I'm a three, you know, Yes, so you had five
Speaker 1: dunk contests one, two, the Home Cooking you should have
Speaker 1: won three the Home Cooking and eighty eight for Chicago
Speaker 1: when Mike won his what were those? What were those
Speaker 1: dunk contests? That's back when the stars the best player.
Speaker 2: We wanted to know who the best was. I don't
Speaker 2: think guys want to know who the best is.
Speaker 1: They're scared enough, they scared to lose. They're free to
Speaker 1: look thin.
Speaker 2: It's gonna, you know, interfere with your legacy or whatever.
Speaker 2: The fact that they still talking about Jordan and Michael
Speaker 2: dunk contest thirty five years later, tell you his greatest
Speaker 2: dunk contest, right, because you had great players going head
Speaker 2: up and that one in Chicago was that was that
Speaker 2: was a great dunk contest. And it was funny because
Speaker 2: after he said, Nick, you know you know you want
Speaker 2: I know you want to do in Chicago. What can
Speaker 2: I say? I said, well, tell you give me the
Speaker 2: twenty five granded They gave. But it about two years ago.
Speaker 2: Man I went to greet him and his wife and
Speaker 2: was sitting at the table and I went to say hello.
Speaker 2: He said, you know you won that dunk contest that
Speaker 2: so how are you doing, Mike? You're doing good. But
Speaker 2: the fact that you know, he acknowledged that a few times. Man,
Speaker 2: it's special. So for me, it isn't about who want
Speaker 2: to a loss, you know, competitive because it speaks to
Speaker 2: your greatness man, you know. And we never talked about it.
Speaker 2: We never talked about who wanted lost. It was kind
Speaker 2: of unspoken rule with us.
Speaker 1: But she was doing dunk contest, dunks and games.
Speaker 2: Well, he would both of us. None of us ever went,
Speaker 2: you know, when we were going to dunk contest, never
Speaker 2: went to a gym doing some stuff. And I never
Speaker 2: practiced those dunks, not once. Some of the dunks I
Speaker 2: thought as the contest went on, like the one I
Speaker 2: threw off the glass when of them got women. I've
Speaker 2: never done that one before. I just knew, I said,
Speaker 2: with jumping abillity, I if you catch it right, yeah,
Speaker 2: this dunk the hall as you can, you know. And
Speaker 2: so I never worked on that stuff, and neither did he.
Speaker 2: Neither did he.
Speaker 3: I would love to see y'all having one on one
Speaker 3: to talk about like Magic and Isaiah did. I'd love
Speaker 3: to see you and Mike because you might be the
Speaker 3: person gave Mike the most work in his career.
Speaker 2: We went at it. I know that we went at it,
Speaker 2: you know, and the thing that we have so much
Speaker 2: respect for on and one thing that's what I love
Speaker 2: about it. One thing he said, man, and I looked
Speaker 2: at it. I'm like, wow, he actually believed that, he said,
Speaker 2: you know, when I was going against Nick, he said,
Speaker 2: Nick was amazing. I just tried to be as amazing.
Speaker 2: And I said special. Wow, that's pretty special, he said,
Speaker 2: you know, but it just showed me that how special
Speaker 2: our relationship was, you know, as competitors, you know, but
Speaker 2: how special you were as well. Well. He's always showed
Speaker 2: me respect, you know, and he don't know about it
Speaker 2: with him and he used to say, like, look, we
Speaker 2: play excuse me. You know, we're gonna make a tough
Speaker 2: on We're gonna double and triple. You know. I rarely
Speaker 2: ever saw one on one coverage, you know, as a player,
Speaker 2: and so a lot of times they would send a
Speaker 2: guy at me as soon as I caught it, you know, like,
Speaker 2: don't even give him a chance to go into that
Speaker 2: Sam move or get to the middle. And but Chicago
Speaker 2: was a team that you know, I had great success
Speaker 2: with and probably because of Michael Jordan and Scotti. You know,
Speaker 2: they brought out that level of toughness.
Speaker 1: If Adam Silver gave you the opportunity, said, Dominique, we
Speaker 1: need you to fix the dunk contest.
Speaker 2: You do I gotten asked that question before. At first,
Speaker 2: I said, won't we throw more money at it? I'll
Speaker 2: let you pick the you know, I said, but they
Speaker 2: make too much money. That ain't gonna work. I said,
Speaker 2: you know, if you can pick the contestants and sit
Speaker 2: down and say, hey man, this would be great for
Speaker 2: the contest, great for the fans for that weekend. Would
Speaker 2: you be willing to get into it. I don't know
Speaker 2: a lot of guys who be willing to do it.
Speaker 2: So to answer a question, I really don't know. Because
Speaker 2: you got a G League guy and Clone has coming
Speaker 2: won it twice in a row, Matt mcluon, and I
Speaker 2: have much respect for him, the tough little guy man,
Speaker 2: and he puts on the shows. And I told her,
Speaker 2: I said he had, I said, yeah, he worked. I said,
Speaker 2: you had. You had to come with it to beat
Speaker 2: this kid. But on the other side, as as a
Speaker 2: competitor that's in the NBA going to like you should
Speaker 2: be a little embarrassed, right, let me tell you And
Speaker 2: it's just my mentality. Anybody coming up, that's a guy
Speaker 2: that's not known out of nowhere, not even the league,
Speaker 2: gonna beat me. And he happened, especially if I got
Speaker 2: them boys. No, no, no, I'm going, I'm going. I'm
Speaker 2: going upstairs and get it, you know. And that's funny thing.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about my son, my youngest son, six eleven seventeen,
Speaker 2: and he does some things. Man. I had to look
Speaker 2: at my brother like, holy shit, you see, I said,
Speaker 2: you see where he came from. I mean, he goes
Speaker 2: off the bounce off of one foot, man, he goes
Speaker 2: above that square and I saw it in state championship. Man,
Speaker 2: he was catching stuff. Man, it was so effortless. My
Speaker 2: brother looked at me and said, where did he get
Speaker 2: it from? Nick? Are you surprised? You know? He inherited that,
Speaker 2: you know. I was like, yeah, you're right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So is Gerald your brother? You guys cousins? No brother brother, yeah,
Speaker 1: younger brother, my younger brother.
Speaker 2: No, he's my second younger Basin. I got a younger brother, James,
Speaker 2: who was probably as good or better than Gerald and
Speaker 2: towards me up and then Daniel's son runs ot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and his son is live. He the truth. He might
Speaker 2: be the best one at all, y'all. Who son, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: he the true guard true him and my true son.
Speaker 2: Him and my son. You know, they's around the same age.
Speaker 2: They both nice. Well, my son is I think a
Speaker 2: year older than him, but yeah, he's they both nice. Nice.
Speaker 1: Getting the opportunity to play against your brother in the
Speaker 1: league though, that's.
Speaker 2: That's two parts. And have you ever had a dunk contest?
Speaker 2: My brother because he could jump to oh he was
Speaker 2: in the dunk contest and said, I ever had your own? Oh? No, No,
Speaker 2: he knew who the king was. You know your place?
Speaker 2: You know place. And my son, my young son. He
Speaker 2: thinks he got me figured out. He talked to me crazive.
Speaker 2: So he gonna say to his coaches when they said
Speaker 2: you at seventeen, me at seventeen, Dad, who's better? I said, Man, hey,
Speaker 2: you're gonna make a lot of money. Man. So if
Speaker 2: they believe that, I'm all for it. Yeah, Hey, you
Speaker 2: a much better player than I ever was. I said,
Speaker 2: But don't get a twisted Yeah, you know, I said,
Speaker 2: I don't really want to tell you the truth, but
Speaker 2: member's up there. I said, Look, if you want to
Speaker 2: get to that level of professionalism, dominant work, you got
Speaker 2: to work for it. And he said to me, he said,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be better than you, Dad. And I said,
Speaker 2: I love that attitude, son, I love the fact that
Speaker 2: you know you're willing to work for it. He said,
Speaker 2: I know, I got a lot of work to do.
Speaker 2: I said, Look, if you as half as good, you
Speaker 2: can make more money. I ever dream if you're half
Speaker 2: is good, I said, so all you got to do
Speaker 2: is want it. Everything else comes easy.
Speaker 1: Tough Eastern Conference when you were trying to navigate your
Speaker 1: way through career average twenty five and seven, but never
Speaker 1: got a chance to make the Eastern finals. What was
Speaker 1: the best chance you feel like you guys had against Boston.
Speaker 2: First of all, you got to beat Boston and the
Speaker 2: Prime with their five Hall of Famers. You got to
Speaker 2: get Chicago and their prime with Multimore Famous, you got
Speaker 2: Detroit and their Prime with Moca, you got the next,
Speaker 2: you got Milwaukee, you got Cleveland. Oh, these are good teams,
Speaker 2: great teams. So if you make it to the second round,
Speaker 2: you've had a hell of a season because the East
Speaker 2: was loaded. I mean, people need to talk about that.
Speaker 2: Cleveland Cavolliers team back then. How good they were for
Speaker 2: Nance and hot Rode and Harper and who was at
Speaker 2: the guard Mark Price. That a good team. Man's some
Speaker 2: great teams. And then you got that Indiana Pacers team.
Speaker 2: They were loaded, you know, so it was it was
Speaker 2: hard to get out of the East man. You know,
Speaker 2: been to the Eastern Conference second round many times, but
Speaker 2: getting to the conference finals, yeah, the good command because
Speaker 2: you always bet on Boston to be there, and this
Speaker 2: even before Chicago had their run. And then you got
Speaker 2: New York, Indiana, Oh, Philadelphia seventy Yeah, with doctor j
Speaker 2: and Mosehunt and people don't understand that level of competition. Man,
Speaker 2: you were lucky. You had to have some luck to
Speaker 2: get out of the second round because all those all
Speaker 2: those teams has been there at one point in time.
Speaker 2: They've been there before. But it's hard for us to
Speaker 2: talk about it because people, ah, yeah, it wasn't that good.
Speaker 2: You have no idea.
Speaker 1: What was what year was your last year?
Speaker 2: I stopped. I want to say ninety eight ninety nine
Speaker 2: with my.
Speaker 1: Sol you got you went had to head with Jordan
Speaker 1: for many years. You got to see at the end
Speaker 1: of your career, you got to see Kobe any can
Speaker 1: you compare and contrast those you.
Speaker 2: Love Cob Kobe old school throwback with a new school twist.
Speaker 2: You know, I remember when he left, when he was
Speaker 2: leaving it the last game in Atlanta, and I went
Speaker 2: to the locker room afterwards. I said, man, I love
Speaker 2: the way you know you played the game. You never
Speaker 2: made excuses, you play, didn't make excuses, help hip accountable.
Speaker 2: I said, you the last of our kind. I when
Speaker 2: you leave, the last of our kind leads with it.
Speaker 2: And he looked at me and said, man, that's really
Speaker 2: really means like coming for you, because a lot of
Speaker 2: the legendary guys have told me that. I said, It's true, Man,
Speaker 2: that's just true. He was a student of the game.
Speaker 2: I said, man, you play no matter what I mean,
Speaker 2: you played really on the bad Achilles, which you ain't.
Speaker 2: Nobody's gonna do that, Kobe, Kobe, I mean, if you
Speaker 2: talk about comparisons, he the closest to me as a
Speaker 2: Michael like player ever ever. And I don't think you'll
Speaker 2: find too many people that would disagree, right, especially us.
Speaker 2: And they played the same position, you know he was
Speaker 2: you played against Kobe. I've seen I've seen the Skirvices.
Speaker 1: They you had an injury in ninety two that was
Speaker 1: ending a lot of careers. You battle back through an
Speaker 1: achilles In the next year you averaged thirty points game.
Speaker 2: What was that reason? Which unheard of back then.
Speaker 1: I'm still unhard of it, you know, because.
Speaker 2: Currently I was such a competitor. Man, I wasn't gonna
Speaker 2: let an obstacle like that hold stop me, because I
Speaker 2: tell people all the time, obstacles are not meant to
Speaker 2: stop you. It's meant to make you sit back. You
Speaker 2: find a way to get over it. Around there, and
Speaker 2: I said, I'm gonna work. So I worked twice a
Speaker 2: day every day for nine months, and I did water
Speaker 2: therapy with everything you can name. And I remember coming back.
Speaker 2: I was in training camp and I hit the ground
Speaker 2: really hard and I grabbed my my achilles right, but
Speaker 2: I have no pain. Just like you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: going all out. If the pops is gonna pop on
Speaker 2: my terms, I'm going all out. And I remember the
Speaker 2: first game of the season, playing against New York and
Speaker 2: I scored thirty and I said, motherfuckers, I'm back. I'm back.
Speaker 2: I'm back, and said this is gonna be all year.
Speaker 2: And you like I haveage thirty points the game that year.
Speaker 2: Then they made the trade after that that was about money.
Speaker 2: That wasn't about my ability. But that's another thing. I know.
Speaker 2: Feel like the winner Chip Overseas.
Speaker 3: I'm actually Don Pablo and Dominican Republic right now, might
Speaker 3: have a couple of kids.
Speaker 2: How y'all meet, y'all stupid? But how does it feel
Speaker 2: winning the championship oversee? Oh? Man? Win in that championship
Speaker 2: in Greece? Man Greek fans the most fanatical fans in
Speaker 2: the world or their nuts. Man. When we played the
Speaker 2: European Championship, we was in Paris, you know, being in
Speaker 2: my home, and the Greek fans took over Paris and
Speaker 2: the police said, as long as they don't tear up anything.
Speaker 2: It was the most unreal thing I've ever experienced. When
Speaker 2: I get back to the airport in Athens' two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand people the airport damn and we had
Speaker 2: to go and buses, police force and whole ride. Year
Speaker 2: I was scared to death already. Who you are the
Speaker 2: NBA and do you come out there with this day?
Speaker 2: They treat me like I'm one of their own. Day
Speaker 2: I was just over there this summer, and I can't
Speaker 2: tell you the respect that I got there when I
Speaker 2: went there. I mean, I didn't want for nothing, to
Speaker 2: pay for nothing to this day, man, because we won
Speaker 2: the first championship they ever won. They won seven since then.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to take Mad to d R for you
Speaker 2: have his baby, so panop night, coach. Yeah, I take
Speaker 2: Mad the DR for you've been.
Speaker 1: I already got motherfucking about seven kids.
Speaker 2: I don't need anymore. No, we're not gonna go down
Speaker 2: that for more kids. Yeah. The food and the people
Speaker 2: are awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, they might have rest you for back payd child support, definitely.
Speaker 1: I just don't know how much this has been conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm what you're talking about the way he's like, I
Speaker 1: got He's like, I'm done. You got eight, right?
Speaker 2: I got? I got sevenncause I got five girls and
Speaker 2: two sons. Yeah, man, I had a girl paying me
Speaker 2: back from my earlier life.
Speaker 3: But just like Oscar Robinson, daughter just said, you're gonna
Speaker 3: be good at your old age because you got daughters.
Speaker 2: They gonna take care, gonna take care. Hey they do, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm good. I got five. Oldest is forty and
Speaker 2: my youngest is sixteen. Yeah, I'm getting old man. You
Speaker 2: still look good. Hey, Movement is life, Yeah, I gotta
Speaker 2: keep moving.
Speaker 1: Absolutely quick hitters. First thing to come to mind. Let
Speaker 1: us know dream.
Speaker 2: Dunk contests, including yourself, all time you and three more guys. Well,
Speaker 2: of course you got to have Mike and Doctor Jay.
Speaker 2: Of course automatically you gotta have them in there, the
Speaker 2: diggy Diggy doctor Bench Carter. That's class right there. Nobody
Speaker 2: else deserves more one more. Who else deserves to be
Speaker 2: in there? That's in fine?
Speaker 1: Maybe he has someone that's for I got an honorable
Speaker 1: mention David Thompson.
Speaker 2: David Okay, I thought was gonna say Sean Camp to
Speaker 2: Sean Camp. Well, Sean, yeah, Sean Camp definitely, I mean
Speaker 2: because he's a different type. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, powerful.
Speaker 2: You gotta put him with so you're right, I mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: he highly influenced by you know what, and sometimes you know,
Speaker 2: we forget about Sean and so you know, I'm putting
Speaker 2: them in that top six game. Yeah, all y'all was special.
Speaker 1: One thing you wish you were better at.
Speaker 2: Most people say three point shooting, but I could shoot
Speaker 2: the three I had that never never had a problem
Speaker 2: with three point shooting. I think for me, the thing
Speaker 2: you can always get better at as a player is
Speaker 2: the fundamentals of the game, different fundaments, the little things,
Speaker 2: even having to handle the ball more, be more efficient passing,
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So I think the total fundamentals of
Speaker 2: the game, you could always be better. But you know,
Speaker 2: back when we were playing, you know, we concentrate on
Speaker 2: all that stuff. You know, we were just kind of
Speaker 2: trying to to win however that looked, and however we
Speaker 2: got there, we was going to do this.
Speaker 1: I got the question, do you guys, because I know
Speaker 1: training is so heavy in the game, and you guys
Speaker 1: off seasons, did you guys train, train harder, just play
Speaker 1: a lot about you know what.
Speaker 2: I never stopped playing for one play, but I never
Speaker 2: stopped training. You know, I was always on the track.
Speaker 2: I was always you know, I didn't lift a lot
Speaker 2: because my game was about endurance and speed. So I
Speaker 2: didn't do a lot. I didn't have to because you
Speaker 2: get you get stronger just by bumping down in the season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean I didn't mean like training, like
Speaker 1: running and lifting, I mean like skill work.
Speaker 2: Did you guys do that?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did a lot of skills. We did a
Speaker 2: lot of skill because you know, the thing is, I
Speaker 2: don't understand. Guy's going the gym and you can work out,
Speaker 2: but how do you perfect your game from a skill level.
Speaker 2: You got to play against guys to kind of illustrate
Speaker 2: those skills that you've been working all the work, right,
Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, you got to play the play the game,
Speaker 2: play the game. Play the game, play the game. But
Speaker 2: I always worked on I worked on if I'm weak
Speaker 2: at my left, I worked on my left if I
Speaker 2: needed to add another more because every year, my first
Speaker 2: five years, I put new two new things in my game.
Speaker 2: So one guy wasn't gonna babyguard man because I was
Speaker 2: going to have a counter to his counter. Like my
Speaker 2: high school coach always taught me. One guy had no
Speaker 2: shot by himself. I don't give the damn who he
Speaker 2: was any help. That's kind of what Cobe said. Kobe said,
Speaker 2: I'm not even worrying about the person. I'm worried about
Speaker 2: the person who don't help. That's the thing he from us,
Speaker 2: you know, because I know I can beat him. That
Speaker 2: guy there, I want to see where he's coming from,
Speaker 2: because if I can get there, I know he's coming,
Speaker 2: But how are you beat the double team? Go before
Speaker 2: it gets there? A lot of guys you know, you wait,
Speaker 2: you wait, wait, I ain't not waiting on going. I'm gone,
Speaker 2: you know. And then we decide that at the rim,
Speaker 2: what you're going to get me at the rim?
Speaker 1: Is there any but this is not on the list.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to ask, have you seen anyone since
Speaker 1: you're done playing to remind you of yourself at all?
Speaker 2: I think it's a mixture of guys. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's one. But you know, Jalen Brown, for example, A
Speaker 2: lot of things he do is reminds me of some
Speaker 2: of the things I did. But but you look how
Speaker 2: a guy like Lebron gets in the open floor. You
Speaker 2: ain't stop down here. That's that was my thing. If
Speaker 2: I get an open floor, it was over, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I think it's a mixture of guys. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this one guy that's that's that's a hard one. Childhood crush,
Speaker 2: my high school girl that I never got. I never
Speaker 2: got her got oh man, I tried, but yeah, my name,
Speaker 2: huh name? I remember her? Damn she was country, she
Speaker 2: was she was country. The name was Wilhelmina, will Lean
Speaker 2: Country country, that name, I know that name right, curved up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: them willing maids and them willing men. Yeah, it's always
Speaker 2: one of these guys married and start raising chickens. Yeah
Speaker 2: that's Wilhelmina, that's all. I'm like, you can have the chickens, babe.
Speaker 1: May one album you can play with no skips.
Speaker 2: Stevie Wonder you picked the album anyone him, Frankie Beverly,
Speaker 2: Maid's Gap Band and Earth Winding Fire, same thing, I said,
Speaker 2: my relative, my relatives saying one of the leaves with
Speaker 2: earth Winding was Philip to Yeah, he's he's a special
Speaker 2: but your guilty pleasure cigars. That's probably my guiltiest place.
Speaker 2: You know, I have at least one a day. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I have. I have my own brain coming out to
Speaker 2: shout it out. Yeah. Well, you know we're trying to
Speaker 2: finalize thing right now.
Speaker 1: You know you got to get that money first coming,
Speaker 1: so you got to make sure that you know, right,
Speaker 1: are you in Atlanta?
Speaker 2: I mean Atlanta?
Speaker 1: Okay, we got we got some we're gonna go doing
Speaker 1: thevent out there.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have you off to Yeah, just let me know.
Speaker 2: Let me know you got my information. Just let me know.
Speaker 3: If you could see one guest on all the smoke,
Speaker 3: but you rusted, you rusted all, you rusted his hell dog.
Speaker 3: It's embarrassing. Okay, get your ship together. Come on, man,
Speaker 3: get your ship to get back in the gym. But
Speaker 3: he's been in the gym lippings and getting trying to
Speaker 3: get ready for getting.
Speaker 2: To look like he can still played.
Speaker 3: He will, he still get cooked by his sons. You
Speaker 3: can see one person on all the smoke, who would
Speaker 3: it be? But you have to help us get your
Speaker 3: answer on the show.
Speaker 2: Call him alone. The male man be crazy, yes, and
Speaker 2: some things. That's why I said I said something. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you come up here on up to him, were
Speaker 2: cool because I ain't say noning that ain't true. And
Speaker 2: I definitely said to.
Speaker 1: Him, well, Dominique, man, we appreciate your time. We appreciate
Speaker 1: your time, We appreciate all you.
Speaker 2: He knows me better than he knows me.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you all you gave to the game man,
Speaker 1: and and and again. We brought it up throughout the interview.
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't get the flower and the recognition
Speaker 1: you deserve, but the real basketball.
Speaker 2: Has appreciate I think it's okay. The real one. We know, man,
Speaker 2: we appreci appreciate it.
Speaker 4: To thank you man, Jacksonville.
Speaker 1: When you come, sir, that's the right, Dominique Wilkins. You
Speaker 1: can catch this on damn Where are we at now? Everywhere,
Speaker 1: Kings Network and all the Smoke Productions YouTube. Man, We'll
Speaker 1: see y'all next week.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm, mm hmmm.