Speaker 1: M hmmm, welcome back all the smoke. Season five. Jack
Speaker 1: has been a nice three days.
Speaker 2: That's the way they ended.
Speaker 3: We get a strong three time NBA champ, n C
Speaker 3: Double A Champ, Finals MVP in nineteen eighty eight Hall
Speaker 3: of famer, his team was the reason I fell in
Speaker 3: love with basketball.
Speaker 2: A lot to the show. Yeah, James Worthy, appreciate youa
Speaker 2: what a pleasure, man, appreciate it. I love what you
Speaker 2: guys are doing. Man, ain't it's honored to be here
Speaker 2: for real? Thank you?
Speaker 3: I mean speak to obviously, the media crossover is prevalent
Speaker 3: now with former athletes, but you kind of did it
Speaker 3: and it wasn't as common. You kind of worked your media,
Speaker 3: you know, your media journey to what you're doing now.
Speaker 3: But speak to how you're seeing more players kind of
Speaker 3: cross over now to how important you feel that is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's. Uh, I think it's imperative for
Speaker 2: those who are interested.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, I wanted to do radio. You know, they
Speaker 2: always told me, you know, you have the face for radio.
Speaker 2: So I was like, I was like, so I was
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, I thought I could do that.
Speaker 2: But then coming in coming to Los Angeles, Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: being in the media, you know, environment and it being
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of opportunities. I got an opportunity to,
Speaker 2: uh to work a game because Stu Lands was working
Speaker 2: with Chick Hearn and Uh, Stu had to go to
Speaker 2: a funeral in his hometown, so I replaced him, and
Speaker 2: Sue Stratton, who was the producer at the time, she says, hey,
Speaker 2: you know you have a future in this. So every
Speaker 2: ever since she told me that. That was a year
Speaker 2: after I retired. Uh, and then I've always wanted to
Speaker 2: be in the medias to something exposure like radio or
Speaker 2: you know, even you know, uh investing in AM radio
Speaker 2: stations with something I always you know, thought about. So,
Speaker 2: but being in LA getting exposure, Uh, I sucked at
Speaker 2: it at the beginning because you know, as an athlete
Speaker 2: you have the knowledge. But then as you guys know
Speaker 2: from taping and timing, you know, so it it took
Speaker 2: me a while. So I worked. I worked at k
Speaker 2: CAL nine. I worked for the Seattle SuperSonics with Kevin Collaboro,
Speaker 2: just trying to get on tape. Uh, yeah, exactly, and
Speaker 2: the Vancouver UH Grizzlies at the time before they moved
Speaker 2: to Memphis. So and it's turned out to be a
Speaker 2: great job. I enjoy what I do. I've gotten really
Speaker 2: comfortable with it. So yeah, but I love to see
Speaker 2: guys who are interested in it because they have a
Speaker 2: lot to convey to an audience. You know, audience just
Speaker 2: see a lot, but they don't always know why something happened.
Speaker 2: And that's where the athlete comes into play.
Speaker 3: Showtime Lakers, you guys as a whole has been in
Speaker 3: the news a lot because of the winning time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Did you get a chance to watch that? And what
Speaker 3: were your thoughts if you did?
Speaker 2: You know, I haven't watched it in detail sometime i'd
Speaker 2: be because I said I wasn't going to watch when
Speaker 2: the first start.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so to tell me, so that wasn't cleared by you?
Speaker 3: What was the written? It was a book written by Peerlman.
Speaker 3: So you know, players don't really have rights to anything.
Speaker 2: You know, when it comes to uh, you know, writing
Speaker 2: movies and books and things of that nature. So the
Speaker 2: book was written, and I remember doing a couple of
Speaker 2: interviews on one interview for the book of several years ago,
Speaker 2: which turned into a series. Uh. And you know, the Lakers,
Speaker 2: you know, had their own legacy. Uh, so we were
Speaker 2: focused on that. But lately every now and I'm going
Speaker 2: through the channel. You know, I don't want to stop,
Speaker 2: but I'll stop because they you know, they presented me,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to see the guy that was playing me.
Speaker 2: You know, for for fans who you know, who lived
Speaker 2: that era and some who didn't, and they like it.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes it's a little satire, not always exactly
Speaker 2: what it. You know, I don't. I really didn't have
Speaker 2: a problem with it. I didn't really watch it because
Speaker 2: I lived it. It just looked weird to me to
Speaker 2: watch it. And I know how Hollywood is, so you know,
Speaker 2: I was cool with it. I would have liked to
Speaker 2: have taken part in it.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 2: It was. It was a great decade. You know, there
Speaker 2: was more to it than you know, all the all
Speaker 2: the crazy stuff. You know, it was Larry and magic.
Speaker 2: You know, there was a radical part to it. You know,
Speaker 2: there was a race component to it, you know, the
Speaker 2: West Coast and Boston. Uh. And I think it could
Speaker 2: have been much better better, But for those who enjoyed it,
Speaker 2: you know, it's all good.
Speaker 3: I held off watching it because I heard the former
Speaker 3: players weren't stamping it.
Speaker 2: But once I started watching I liked it. I hear
Speaker 2: the same thing man Strong for y'allah. I watched that.
Speaker 6: I think that the guy who played Bird did an
Speaker 6: excellent job. Man yeah, he for He'll fool you to.
Speaker 2: Do the play.
Speaker 3: I mean, I thought they got a lot of the
Speaker 3: guys right as far as like portraying them. You know,
Speaker 3: they guy to play j.
Speaker 2: I thought Kareem was good. You know, I thought Jerry Buss,
Speaker 2: you know, from what I saw I heard, I mean,
Speaker 2: it wasn't it wasn't his accurate as I remember, you know,
Speaker 2: but you know, when you're making a movie, you have
Speaker 2: to uh you know, uh yeah. So you know, my
Speaker 2: hats off to him.
Speaker 3: Lakers this year kind of made an unexpected run. Last year,
Speaker 3: I thought that Roblink had a really good summer grabbing
Speaker 3: some pieces. Thoughts on them this year.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, after you know, and I'm not in
Speaker 2: the moral seasons and more big is I was. I
Speaker 2: was okay with what they did, considering what they you know,
Speaker 2: had to go through, had had trade deadline been like December,
Speaker 2: and they'd had a chance to make some moves early,
Speaker 2: and you know, and I love Westbrook. Sometimes the chemistry
Speaker 2: is now what it should be you know, it just
Speaker 2: didn't work out. But after that, you know, I thought
Speaker 2: the run that they made to get into the play
Speaker 2: in was was pretty amazing. And then Memphis and Golden Stakes,
Speaker 2: so they're looking to compound on that, you know, picking
Speaker 2: up I really like Gabe from Miami, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: and some of the guys, but the key, you know,
Speaker 2: Austin Rivers, who I think is emerging as a really
Speaker 2: improved player. Rui. Uh and then Wood who they picked up.
Speaker 2: Share what you want to about Woods, He's the numbers
Speaker 2: gallon and so John Yeah, see runs farm, you know.
Speaker 2: You know, so I feel that they this is like
Speaker 2: Lebron's one of his last runs and uh but I
Speaker 2: think it's it's going to be up to what a
Speaker 2: D wants to do exactly. Uh. You know, Lebron is Lebron,
Speaker 2: but it's a d's team and I think it's time
Speaker 2: for him to uh and I think he understands that. Uh. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel really good. You know, Golden State's going to
Speaker 2: be are They're gonna make one more run. I think
Speaker 2: with the guys of course, Denver, uh, you know, Phoenix
Speaker 2: defended with Booker. You never can count them out. So
Speaker 2: it's gonna be interesting, it's gonna be hot tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Get an opportunity to watch bron a lot lately. He
Speaker 3: passed your former teammate obviously last season as an all
Speaker 3: time scoring just being able to see him and play
Speaker 3: with Magic, play with Jordans. What have you seen from him?
Speaker 3: Obviously a little bit later in his career, but just
Speaker 3: his body of work and his run during his.
Speaker 2: Leader Yeah, his his body at work is uh, is
Speaker 2: pretty amazing coming out of high school. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: college is where you get the repetition of skills and
Speaker 2: work and you get to do the drills for him
Speaker 2: to come you know, straight out of high school. Of course.
Speaker 2: Amazing body and for what he's done, you know, regardless
Speaker 2: of if he's done it with three teams, he's done it.
Speaker 2: And uh, he has a formula to longevity. Uh. You know,
Speaker 2: he's in the he's in the talk of you know,
Speaker 2: you know, being one of one of the one of
Speaker 2: the greatest. I can't say, you know who the greatest is, right,
Speaker 2: I Mean, if I had to guess, I would have
Speaker 2: to go with Kareem with his full body of work.
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's a full body of work.
Speaker 2: If you've seen it all, you can make a determination.
Speaker 2: But Lebron uh, you know, to be uh playing like
Speaker 2: a twenty some year old dominating the way he has.
Speaker 2: Of course, the science and the and and and the
Speaker 2: theory of the game of how you stay in shape
Speaker 2: and diet everything, it's changed tremendously. But his his ability
Speaker 2: to will reminds me of magic. You know, you're comfortable
Speaker 2: with him on the floor because you knows something it's
Speaker 2: going to happen. Good an assist guy a score. So
Speaker 2: I like his body at work, and you know he'll
Speaker 2: be mentioned in obviously the top three or four.
Speaker 5: He's mastered the longevity play.
Speaker 2: He's massive. He mastered that better than anybody that I've
Speaker 2: ever seen in any sport, including golf. When you can
Speaker 2: play for a long time in golf. But I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean you look at what you know, what he's
Speaker 2: been able to do and still able to do. Two
Speaker 2: pay close attention to details and sacrifice, you know, to
Speaker 2: keep his body afloat. And they have the will sometimes
Speaker 2: you know, it's mind of a matter, right, and he
Speaker 2: has that.
Speaker 6: Growing up in Gastonia and North Carolina, I played basketball
Speaker 6: up the road at Okhill yeah, what do you remember
Speaker 6: about your childhood?
Speaker 2: Man? Childhood was it was there was no exposure, about
Speaker 2: thirty thousand people, uh from Gaston in and the education
Speaker 2: was poor. You know, my dad had an eighth grade education.
Speaker 2: My mom went back to college to get a nursing
Speaker 2: you know degree later twenty three years after she graduated.
Speaker 2: So it was it was tough and you don't realize
Speaker 2: the situation you're in until later. I didn't realize what
Speaker 2: I had been through until I went to college. When
Speaker 2: you when you poor young, you don't know you poor.
Speaker 2: You just don't know. Well, my mom and dad were
Speaker 2: home every night, as opposed to some of my neighbors
Speaker 2: who didn't have that. I mean, I thought we were rich.
Speaker 2: You know, we had something to eat, biscuits in my lasties,
Speaker 2: you know, my grandmother lived around the corner, so I
Speaker 2: you know, I was happy. But you know, as far
Speaker 2: as the educational system, you know, when I took the
Speaker 2: SAT and I was like damn. And then you know,
Speaker 2: I had reading disabilities and because of the education system,
Speaker 2: the school system was really corrupt and you know, depending
Speaker 2: on where you lived. And I went through integration, you know,
Speaker 2: and and in elementary school. So that was. That was tough.
Speaker 2: Uh So my childhood was was sheltered, uh not a
Speaker 2: lot of conversation in my house. My mother was really submissive,
Speaker 2: my dad was who he was, and I, you know,
Speaker 2: my childer brothers we grew up and said, we're never
Speaker 2: going to be like our dad. You know he was
Speaker 2: you know, he was never home hardly. You know, we
Speaker 2: we ended up just lik him. So those cycles, you know,
Speaker 2: they perpetuate themselves as you get older, and until you
Speaker 2: able to break those cycles, they will disrupt your life.
Speaker 2: So I deal with a lot of like mental therapy
Speaker 2: right now, trying to get guys to focus on don't
Speaker 2: be ashamed to sit down with the therapist, because I'm
Speaker 2: sixty two and for the last past fifteen years, I've
Speaker 2: been breaking these cycles you know of DNA. You know,
Speaker 2: you look like your parents. Yeah, you know, you walk
Speaker 2: around the town and say, oh you so and so son,
Speaker 2: So you look like them, but you also bring forth
Speaker 2: a lot of that pain, a lot of that anxiety,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, resentment, shame, you know, especially you know
Speaker 2: for a black man who who has dealt and still
Speaker 2: deals with, you know, systemic racism on a daily basis,
Speaker 2: for what you have to deal with. Then you've got
Speaker 2: to come home and try to, you know, compose yourself
Speaker 2: when you really don't have, you know, a voice. I
Speaker 2: didn't have a voice. I got married without a voice,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. I didn't have any expression.
Speaker 2: I just I played ball, you know, girls liked me,
Speaker 2: you know, but I didn't have I didn't have a voice.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to live in that environment. I
Speaker 2: lived into my thirties like that. So, you know, that
Speaker 2: was my childhood. That's what my childhood yielded me. So
Speaker 2: it's important to kind of grasp those moments. If you can't,
Speaker 2: I kind of wish that, you know, study hall and
Speaker 2: pe and high school or in junior high could be
Speaker 2: replaced not so much with a psychiatrist, but with conversation
Speaker 2: to kind of help these kids move along, because otherwise
Speaker 2: you'll bury it, you'll internalize it, explode, and you won't
Speaker 2: be able to convey it. And yeah, it comes out.
Speaker 2: It's gonna come out somewhere drinking, you know whatever. Women,
Speaker 2: it's gonna come out somehow in a negative way. So
Speaker 2: we need to we need to deal with that. You know.
Speaker 2: We go to the barber shop and that's where we get.
Speaker 2: That's our therapy. But it's okay. You know, I grew
Speaker 2: up weak. What I'm not going to see no da
Speaker 2: going to see no they. I've seen our communities in
Speaker 2: our community, you know, buck up, you know. So we
Speaker 2: were taught that, but we need to realize it's okay, man,
Speaker 2: it's okay to you know, sometimes you have to cry,
Speaker 2: sometimes you have to get that ship out. That's that's that.
Speaker 2: That was my childhood. But my child was cool. Nothing
Speaker 2: to do. Sports, that was it. If you didn't have sports,
Speaker 2: you were you were going to be either going to
Speaker 2: the military or depending on your you know, your your education.
Speaker 2: You you know, some people went to college. But uh,
Speaker 2: it was nothing to do but sports. Know, we had
Speaker 2: no gangs or nothing like that. So you know, if
Speaker 2: you were caught up, you know, go downtown, try to
Speaker 2: steal something. There was a lot of that going on.
Speaker 2: But we had sports, and we had the boys about this.
Speaker 2: My brothers took me around six grades. They had a
Speaker 2: league called Gray Why and it was through the y
Speaker 2: m c A. Through your elementary school at the time
Speaker 2: was one through six. But the goals were only uh
Speaker 2: five eight and they had a height limit. I barely
Speaker 2: made the height limit. I think it was like five
Speaker 2: seven into something. I was tall, but I knew I had,
Speaker 2: you know, some future. In the eighth grade, like in
Speaker 2: the seventh grade, I was like six feet and from
Speaker 2: seventh grade to eighth grade, I grew like five. And
Speaker 2: I was at the boys club. Uh my director, mister Perry,
Speaker 2: was talking to some high school guys who were athletes
Speaker 2: and they were football players. And I heard him say, scholarship.
Speaker 2: You can get a free ride if you get a scholarship.
Speaker 2: And I had no idea really what scholarship was all about.
Speaker 2: And I was like, you can get a free ride
Speaker 2: to college if you you know, if you're if you're balling.
Speaker 2: I had two older brothers in college, my mom and dad.
Speaker 2: We was scuffling put them through school. So that's when
Speaker 2: I really got interested. Wasn't that good in football baseball?
Speaker 2: So yeah, start getting busy.
Speaker 5: When you hear the name Dean Smith, will comes to mind.
Speaker 2: Conscious brother. He was a conscious man. You know. He
Speaker 2: really used his platform too to enroll you into what
Speaker 2: was possible in your life. He developed good citizens. And
Speaker 2: you see that not with Michael and Sam and I
Speaker 2: and Vince. You see it with all his lettermen who
Speaker 2: have done well. He took us to play a game
Speaker 2: with North Carolina State Prison. We went in there and
Speaker 2: this was in eighty and you know, I wasn't comfortable.
Speaker 2: I mean, they were looking at us in different ways
Speaker 2: than basketball. But he was. He was. He's that kind
Speaker 2: of guy, you know, he's it didn't matter if you
Speaker 2: were Michael Jordan or Michael the Tower Boy. So he
Speaker 2: used his platform very well to kind of prep you
Speaker 2: for life and keep you humble.
Speaker 6: Did he make you feel not only wanted, but like
Speaker 6: family and your recruiting process.
Speaker 2: He's very honest, so you know, and a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't believe it's when I tell him, But he
Speaker 2: was strictly by the book. I mean you've been asking
Speaker 2: mj saym anybody. There was no you know, money or
Speaker 2: anything involved. But he'd come in and tell your parents.
Speaker 2: He got to know your parents really well. He promised
Speaker 2: you three things. She's like, I promise you son and graduated.
Speaker 2: If he stayed four years, I promise you that you know,
Speaker 2: he'll go to class. And if he's we require you
Speaker 2: to go to the church your first semester. And my
Speaker 2: mom was sitting over there and I know. I know
Speaker 2: when she heard that, she was like, damn, that's where
Speaker 2: he's going. But he was really honest and I always
Speaker 2: loved him since he bought Charlie Scott was the first
Speaker 2: black ACC player to come to the ACC, and Coach
Speaker 2: Smith took a lot of heat. They tried to fire him,
Speaker 2: They hung him in f g after a game, but
Speaker 2: he used to take stands like that. Took Charlie Scott
Speaker 2: the church with him, took him to restaurants in sixty
Speaker 2: seven where blacks weren't still allowed. So I knew about
Speaker 2: him early. I got to go to basketball camp, but
Speaker 2: I fell in love with guys like Phil Ford, Walter Davis,
Speaker 2: guys like that, you know. So you know, Mitch cup
Speaker 2: Check was there, so I was. I was kind of
Speaker 2: tied in, locked in from like fifteen years old.
Speaker 6: Is it is it true that he left w UNC
Speaker 6: players money for a stake gental when he passed.
Speaker 2: Two hundred dollars. Yeah, every letterman that played for him,
Speaker 2: and I think he was like sticking it to the NCAA. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I take care of my player. Yeah, find out I'm
Speaker 2: to do something, you're not gonna be to do anything
Speaker 2: about it. But and then you know, he used to
Speaker 2: write personal notes. He'd have his secretary type him up
Speaker 2: and then at the bottom it would always be ps
Speaker 2: and he would write a few lines. So he had
Speaker 2: he had special special touches like that, and a memory
Speaker 2: like he wouldn't believe, which was which was sad to
Speaker 2: see him have dementia at the end of his life.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he had a memory that it was like amazing.
Speaker 6: Everybody talk about MJ's championship shot nineteen eighty three against
Speaker 6: Georgetown the championship, but you had twenty eight thirteenth seventeen
Speaker 6: from the field. Why don't talk about that? It was
Speaker 6: on your shoulders. But what's your take on that? Well,
Speaker 6: you did, Joe John.
Speaker 2: You know, if you watch the the Michael Jordan documentary,
Speaker 2: it was the Chicago that not the hair movie. I
Speaker 2: had a statement, you know, Michael came to Carolina tell
Speaker 2: everybody I was I was better than Michael. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know for about three weeks weeks, for about three weeks, man,
Speaker 2: I knew he had it. When you're an athlete and
Speaker 2: you guys are both tough, I watched you. I watched
Speaker 2: your whole career. You know, when you're when you're tough
Speaker 2: and you're not going back down from anybody, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna take them on. But then when somebody comes along
Speaker 2: that the fuck is tougher than you, they're like, he
Speaker 2: was an assassin and he bullied me. He because you know,
Speaker 2: he's he sought out the best and everything. If you
Speaker 2: were the best backgamming player in the dorm, he wanted
Speaker 2: to know. If you were the best card player, he
Speaker 2: wanted to find out, and he took everything as if
Speaker 2: he was losing a game seven. Losing just wasn't I
Speaker 2: didn't care what it was. He'd break a table if
Speaker 2: he lost the backgam And so he sought me out,
Speaker 2: and you know, we practiced two hours, two and a
Speaker 2: half hours. You guys know how to call practice. Are
Speaker 2: you ready to get out of there? And he would
Speaker 2: I'd be walking off the court and he pushed, where
Speaker 2: you're going, young, young fella, that's what he called me.
Speaker 2: So you were junior when he was junior freshman year,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, you know, he wanted to know and uh,
Speaker 2: and throughout that year, even though I was, you know, MVP.
Speaker 2: There were some games against Virginia in the ACC tournament
Speaker 2: where Michael kept us in the game and some big
Speaker 2: shots against you know, Ralph Sampson and those guys. And
Speaker 2: then against Georgetown, we only had really five players against
Speaker 2: Patrick Ewan and my home boys sleeping floor, and they
Speaker 2: were tough. Uh, but Michael hit some big shots and
Speaker 2: kept us in, you know, I and then at the
Speaker 2: end of the game, Coach Smith wanted me to be
Speaker 2: like a decoy, you know. You know, we had we
Speaker 2: had lost to Indiana the year before Isaiah Thomas and
Speaker 2: Bobby Knight, so getting back was was special and I
Speaker 2: wanted to win or lose.
Speaker 6: He'd been punching on Mike. I beat, I beat. I
Speaker 6: would always beat Mike. That's yeah, you know Zeke Zeke
Speaker 6: fit opinion alone. Man, he had a good career. It
Speaker 6: was awesome. Uh.
Speaker 2: But yeah, man, uh, you know, because you know they
Speaker 2: expected me to, you know, to take the shot. You know,
Speaker 2: we run a high low against their zohn. Patrick Ewhan
Speaker 2: was a beast, and I wanted to win and lose.
Speaker 2: Because Michael was a freshman. I didn't you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't know if he had it in his veins. But uh,
Speaker 2: I was to flash in the mill. Coach Smith didn't
Speaker 2: call it up like that, but he knew it would
Speaker 2: work out that way. We ran our offense properly, So
Speaker 2: we ran the high low, Sam went down low, I
Speaker 2: flashed in and three guys collapsed and Michael was wide open.
Speaker 2: Now he he didn't draw it up like that. But
Speaker 2: at the end of the time out, you know, when
Speaker 2: you're walking back on the court, Michael was one the
Speaker 2: last guys. And I heard Coach Smith kind of if
Speaker 2: you get it, if you get it clean, looking knock
Speaker 2: at it, you know, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 2: and yeah, he knew, he knew Michael had it in
Speaker 2: his veins. And yeah, that was the beginning. We called
Speaker 2: him Mike, Mike Jordan.
Speaker 5: Kenny said he had no handle when he came to
Speaker 5: when he first got there.
Speaker 2: No handles, No, not well, Kenny had him. Uh. After
Speaker 2: I left, Kenny still mad at me because I recruited Kenny.
Speaker 2: He wanted to play with me and I left after
Speaker 2: my junior year. He and Brad Dougherty. But yeah, he
Speaker 2: he didn't have a lot of fundamentals when he came.
Speaker 2: I think he was a better baseball player coming out
Speaker 2: of high school. And you know, you've heard the story
Speaker 2: of him getting cut from his high school team once,
Speaker 2: so he had a lot to work on. He had
Speaker 2: raw talent though, raw talent, but when he got the
Speaker 2: fundamentals down after his freshman year and he worked at
Speaker 2: it because we had drill after drills after drills. Whatever
Speaker 2: his weakness was, he was willing to work on it.
Speaker 2: And so I can't remember him having uh I mean,
Speaker 2: back then we ran four corners. There wasn't a twenty
Speaker 2: four second shot clock his freshman year, so he was
Speaker 2: okay in that, but I don't remember him ever having
Speaker 2: the ball handling skills that our guard has.
Speaker 5: To possess you n C U n C summer runs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how was that? Lawrence Taylor played and some of
Speaker 2: those football players and Wool and Jim.
Speaker 5: Lawrence Talor was nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well Lorene Taylor was a beast. You get the rebound,
Speaker 2: you just move out of the way. Yeah, he was coming.
Speaker 2: He was coming, but yeah, to pick up games because
Speaker 2: a lot of guys from Duke came over. That's seven
Speaker 2: miles apart. We oh yeah, yeah, and willand Jim. But
Speaker 2: they were like they were like iconic games. You know,
Speaker 2: you guys probably faded some of the you know games
Speaker 2: over you la, you know, you don't want to You
Speaker 2: don't want to lose. So yeah, there was two courts
Speaker 2: you always had. But when LT came he was really
Speaker 2: good player. But yeah, he was a beast.
Speaker 5: Do you have any stories of anybody just dominating those run.
Speaker 2: I would, you guys trying to remember il would, but
Speaker 2: I would play. He was from Macon, Georgia, and in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one when we lost Sane Anna, we played
Speaker 2: Virginia in the semi and he scored thirty seven points.
Speaker 2: The brother could shoot man when he got hirt. He
Speaker 2: was like Ray Allen or Dale Ellis. Of course, you know,
Speaker 2: I only had MJ for about four months, but he
Speaker 2: dominated willing like the dunks that he threw down in there.
Speaker 2: A point guard. A lot of people don't remember Jimmy Black.
Speaker 2: He was from New York. He was our senior point guard.
Speaker 2: He was we called at the empty gym theory. You know,
Speaker 2: he topped forty five on you in a pickup game game.
Speaker 2: Uh and Sam and Sam Perkins, you know Sam Perkins
Speaker 2: was Sam Perkins was a beast, a big smooth man.
Speaker 2: He was roomy. For a year. We had guys like that,
Speaker 2: you know, uh the back you know, Uh, well, guys
Speaker 2: like Gene Banks, you know, Vince Taylor, guys like that
Speaker 2: would come on from but l t was, he was
Speaker 2: the guy Shirch and Skin, Schirch and Skin, Seirch and Skin.
Speaker 6: Is there a better big three in cottage history than
Speaker 6: Jordan's Perkins and Worthy?
Speaker 2: Uh? There there there they would be mentioned or honorable
Speaker 2: mention because when you think about some of the some
Speaker 2: of the the trios that John Wooden had, you know,
Speaker 2: Duke pass of some Kentucky. But you know, Sam was
Speaker 2: uh a captain of the eighty four one of the
Speaker 2: captains of the eighty four Olympic team, and Michael and
Speaker 2: you know when you think of Power Forward as the center,
Speaker 2: you don't you know, you don't mention Sam that much.
Speaker 2: You think of Tim Duncan, Carmelone. You think, but I
Speaker 2: would put my boy, and I'm I guess I'm being
Speaker 2: a little bit biased, but based on his performance and
Speaker 2: what he could do, I would say, we would we
Speaker 2: we could, We could play with anybody, no question. You
Speaker 2: know Kareem without you know back in the day with
Speaker 2: Lucius Allen and some of those guys, they were but
Speaker 2: Big Sam could go inside and out and he had
Speaker 2: to play Ralf Samson and Sam four a lot. Sam.
Speaker 2: You know he played against Sam Bouie. He held his
Speaker 2: own and then of course you know m J so, yeah,
Speaker 2: i'd be I'd be will him to me too, An
Speaker 2: put a little money on that.
Speaker 3: Uh, you leave after your junior year. Lakers win a
Speaker 3: championship in eighty two and get a first pick due
Speaker 3: to a Calves traded me there a few years ago,
Speaker 3: before any any good pre draft stories. The top three
Speaker 3: in that draft for yourself, Dominique Wilkers, and Terry Cummings.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, it was all depending on what Ralph Samson
Speaker 2: was going to do. If Ralph Samson had come out,
Speaker 2: that mean Rap would have gone first, Dominique probably would
Speaker 2: have gone second. Terry Cummins was a beast, and then
Speaker 2: I would have I don't know where I would have landed,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe even lower. So I would have stayed. But
Speaker 2: I knew Jerry West if Raft didn't come, I knew
Speaker 2: he was interested in me because the Lakers had won
Speaker 2: two out of three championships already. They had Jamal Wilkes,
Speaker 2: Pod McAdoo, you know, Kareem Magic, Norm Nixon. They didn't
Speaker 2: need a human highlighte man, what they needed was somebody
Speaker 2: was going to come in and you know, maybe not start,
Speaker 2: which was unusual for number one a draft pick, and
Speaker 2: so they needed you know, I guess they were looking
Speaker 2: for someone disciplined. Dean's boys were known for that. So
Speaker 2: when Ralph stayed, I knew I would be the number
Speaker 2: one pick based on some conversations that I've had with
Speaker 2: and so yeah, I man, that was that was that
Speaker 2: was That was awesome.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 2: But I remember being kind of not arrogant. I was
Speaker 2: kind of full of myself because I thought I was
Speaker 2: pretty good. So I walked into training camp and I'm
Speaker 2: looking around. You know, it's Kareem Magic, you know, as
Speaker 2: Jamal wilk was still still high because I was looking
Speaker 2: for a spot. You know, I'm like, fuck this, I'm
Speaker 2: starting this year Norm Nixon, you know. Sudden at the
Speaker 2: corner of mine, see Kurt Ramis come in. I had
Speaker 2: on these coke bottled glasses tape in the middle. He
Speaker 2: had all these apparatuses on his ship. He smelled like
Speaker 2: bend gay shitt. He ruther all this. He had this
Speaker 2: cream called four or five four back in the day.
Speaker 2: It's like horse on me. Shit. He had all that shit.
Speaker 2: I was faster. I was quick. So we started practice.
Speaker 2: Now I think power forward in college. Kirk was a
Speaker 2: power forward in the NBA. We started practice and within
Speaker 2: twenty minutes he beat the living shit out of me.
Speaker 2: He let me know what a real what the NBA
Speaker 2: power forward was. And I wasn't ready for that. I
Speaker 2: didn't really have a jumper. I was known for quick, inside, smooth,
Speaker 2: so but and that was his territory. I had to
Speaker 2: operate down and there where he lived. And when you
Speaker 2: got down in there, he was like, Okay, he's the
Speaker 2: reason I ain't got a jump shot.
Speaker 5: Really yeah.
Speaker 2: I couldn't handle it, and I couldn't handle other power forwards.
Speaker 2: It was different. That's why power forwards and college used
Speaker 2: to go down there. You know, you go down and
Speaker 2: so it was tough then with Kurt McHale and Lonnie
Speaker 2: Shelton and any car I remember a lot of old heads.
Speaker 2: You know, they didn't mess around. And so I had
Speaker 2: to go sit down for a second. And you know,
Speaker 2: I started looking at Jamal and I'm saying, all right, Jamal,
Speaker 2: you got you got an ex on your back. But
Speaker 2: that's a story I had. And then you know, man,
Speaker 2: it was shiitball crazy in the eighties. Man, it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, it was just crazy. You know, the hotels,
Speaker 2: the lifestyle. I'm glad, I'm really glad. It wasn't like
Speaker 2: a social media wow going on. It was just crazy,
Speaker 2: you know, it was you know, it was uh, it
Speaker 2: was just crazy and and it was it was it
Speaker 2: was fun, but it was dangerous and it was uh,
Speaker 2: it was just free for all. Talk about the fandom.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're coming from North Carolina. You're in Hollywood now,
Speaker 3: you know, you're coming on one of the best teams.
Speaker 3: You know, arguably the greatest players of all time. You know,
Speaker 3: this Showtime team is not only known for being great
Speaker 3: on the court, but being great off the court as well. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you were coming into a lot of different moving parts.
Speaker 2: Well, for a country boy like me who only had
Speaker 2: two girlfriends, it forced me to get married because I
Speaker 2: was out here for a couple of years alone and
Speaker 2: it was it was a death wish I couldn't have one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know, on a serious note, you know, if
Speaker 2: you if if you're not absolutely sure who you are,
Speaker 2: and it should be a process that you go through.
Speaker 2: You should not be in a seriously committed relationship or
Speaker 2: get married. It's okay to have a committed relationship. I
Speaker 2: take that back, but marriage is tough. You know. I
Speaker 2: went through my entire twenties internalizing, and you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't want to. I didn't really want to. I was,
Speaker 2: you know, brought up in the church. My mom, my
Speaker 2: dad was a minister, and so I didn't want to
Speaker 2: go to the strip clubs. You know, I was trying
Speaker 2: to be loyal to my wife. But all the you know,
Speaker 2: the uncertainty and all the internalization, you know, caused me
Speaker 2: to like start to use escort service because I wanted
Speaker 2: I wanted some sex, and I wanted to be told
Speaker 2: I was handsome. And there was a lot of things
Speaker 2: that you that you that you exploring your own mind.
Speaker 2: You make up all these excuses for you for yourself.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of guys turn to drugs. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's the athlete. You know on one side
Speaker 2: that you see you know who you who, who's who's
Speaker 2: a badass and he's you know, in public and he's
Speaker 2: dunking that. But then when you're sitting in a hotel
Speaker 2: room by yourself, and then your real shit comes. So
Speaker 2: you got that winning formula over here that works for you,
Speaker 2: and it keeps you alivee you know, it keeps you going,
Speaker 2: It gets you work, it gets your jobs, it makes
Speaker 2: people like you. You you're surviving with the winning formula.
Speaker 2: But then when you get back over here, you realize
Speaker 2: that you hate that over there, and so then you
Speaker 2: start dealing with that and and so then it comes
Speaker 2: out some kind of way. So yeah, I think you
Speaker 2: really have to have good mentor somebody that you can
Speaker 2: listen to, because because you know, when you when you
Speaker 2: become twenty twenty one and you run into all this
Speaker 2: fame and fortune and money and craziness. Like my best
Speaker 2: friend was a doctor or is a doctor, and so
Speaker 2: what he was doing at twenty was when he got
Speaker 2: out of college twenty one, he's finding a roommate, you know,
Speaker 2: to live in an apartment with, you know, find them
Speaker 2: a nice used toyota, you know, to kind of and
Speaker 2: then it took him till he was thirties until he
Speaker 2: got any money. And then he had a bunch of
Speaker 2: money to pay back. But he had a real stage
Speaker 2: of life. You know, people have real stage. They have
Speaker 2: to go out and get a real job and live
Speaker 2: a real they're not famous, so you really got to
Speaker 2: check yourself. Man, when you're an athlete, you know, most
Speaker 2: of the time, I'm gonna say most of the time.
Speaker 2: Some of the time the women that we do get
Speaker 2: are not for the real the real deal. They you know,
Speaker 2: because they're they're looking for popularity too, they're looking so
Speaker 2: sometimes it's just, uh, it's just something you got to
Speaker 2: check yourself with. Man. I'm I'm writing a book. I'm
Speaker 2: not promoting it yet, but I'm going to write a book.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna talk about not so much the exs and
Speaker 2: o's in my career, but you know, the mental state
Speaker 2: that we go through. And there's no excuses, but it is.
Speaker 2: It is a hard barrier unless you've been through it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's hard for people to grasp it. Yes, like you
Speaker 2: can have whatever you want. What are you complaining about?
Speaker 2: It's deeper than that. It's deeper than that. And you know,
Speaker 2: I think the more we talk about it, the more
Speaker 2: we explain it, people would be like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 5: I met a lot of women that was good. That
Speaker 5: was good for me, I mean good to me, but
Speaker 5: it wasn't good for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, but we live and learn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what would you guys popularity like back then though,
Speaker 3: from city to city. I mean, you guys are magic.
Speaker 3: Kareem yourself, you made a name for yourself very quick
Speaker 3: in the league. But what was the fandom like? Because
Speaker 3: it is obviously pre social media. You'll get a glance
Speaker 3: of you on TV and maybe in the paper, but
Speaker 3: that's the only real way unless they see you, guys
Speaker 3: in person.
Speaker 2: It was it was crazy because you couldn't get a ticket.
Speaker 2: You showed up at the hotel. You knew, you know
Speaker 2: what hotel. It was easy to find out what hotel
Speaker 2: were staying in. And back then, you know, we were
Speaker 2: hit the clubs. You know, guys were going to night club.
Speaker 2: So it was magic. I mean we had one player
Speaker 2: that was, you know, very popular. Kareem was very quiet.
Speaker 2: I was I was more toard Kareem pretty much. But
Speaker 2: you know I had my two's a fuse. You know,
Speaker 2: we might go out and enjoy, enjoy the popularity and
Speaker 2: hang with the guys. We went to the movies a lot.
Speaker 2: We always was like a magnet, you know, wherever you
Speaker 2: see four or five players. But back then, all the
Speaker 2: teams like you know, Troy Boston, you get the airport
Speaker 2: running and then when you get to that hotel, man,
Speaker 2: they that's where it all was. And the lobbies. A
Speaker 2: lot of people got rooms in the same hotel you
Speaker 2: stayed in, and it was you know, it was there
Speaker 2: was there was some you know, experts in there, there
Speaker 2: was some con artists in there. It was everything dangerous
Speaker 2: and fun at the same time. You know, the NBA,
Speaker 2: you know, they knew all the you know, they knew
Speaker 2: as you guys know, they know all the tickets are
Speaker 2: and a lot of times, you know, like one team
Speaker 2: would come in and give their tickets to whomever, and
Speaker 2: so you know, the next team would come in maybe
Speaker 2: a couple of nights later, and so that section is
Speaker 2: the same for the visiting team. Sometimes it'd be the
Speaker 2: same faces, you know what I mean, same people and
Speaker 2: so yeah, yeah, so the NBA, you know, they start
Speaker 2: investigating that kind of stuff. But you have to be what.
Speaker 3: Was it like when you get into the league. I mean,
Speaker 3: cigarettes in the locker room, commercial flights, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was too black, it was drug filled. I mean,
Speaker 3: the league obviously came a long way, you know, and
Speaker 3: you were part of the movement as a transition from
Speaker 3: something that wasn't very marketable to being a very marketable sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just wanted to play in the NBA. I
Speaker 2: had no idea in eighty two that the image was
Speaker 2: still lacking. You know, a lot of cocaine, you know,
Speaker 2: from the seventies, from the ABA merging up into the seventies.
Speaker 2: They had no drug policy, It had no TV contract.
Speaker 2: A lot of teams you couldn't even you didn't even
Speaker 2: know where they were playing. There was a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, talk about you know, too many black players.
Speaker 2: There's an article about the New York you know, Knickerbockers.
Speaker 2: You can you can pick up it's it's in Google.
Speaker 2: You can find out what they used to call them.
Speaker 2: So O'Brien only had him for one year before Commissioner
Speaker 2: Stern came in and to commission Stearn's credit. You know,
Speaker 2: he had a vision and the vision was to clean
Speaker 2: up the league, which thank god, everyone needed that, to
Speaker 2: have a drug policy where guys could you know, reconcile
Speaker 2: with themselves. Also, television was big. He started to create television.
Speaker 2: He had a rivalry with Boston and the Lakers with
Speaker 2: Magic and Bird. He had that rivalry, you know. So
Speaker 2: the drug policy cleaned a lot of stuff up. You know,
Speaker 2: teams started to organize better, you know, as far as
Speaker 2: getting television rights, and doctor Buss was very innovative as
Speaker 2: far as helping them with television contracts. And he was
Speaker 2: the first one to get signature on an arena. I
Speaker 2: think it was fifty million. He got the Great Western
Speaker 2: for him back in the eighties, and I think Crypto
Speaker 2: was seven hundred million. To see how it's evolved, So
Speaker 2: they started to you know, employ international players a little
Speaker 2: bit more, not as much as they are now, but
Speaker 2: the game became more global and it cleaned itself up. Uh.
Speaker 2: And then the Boston Laker rivalries in the eighties really
Speaker 2: helped sustain that. But not only that, man, you had
Speaker 2: you know, your Dallas Mavericks. You you had Utah with Malone.
Speaker 2: You had you know, artist Gilmore and you know Ice
Speaker 2: Gerlin and San Antonio, Philadelphia with Doc and you know
Speaker 2: Mo Cheeks and those guys, and you had Milwaukee with
Speaker 2: Mincrief and so the talent was was was good, the
Speaker 2: parody was good. It was just unfortunate. Well it's fortunate
Speaker 2: for us that you know, it was always the Lakers
Speaker 2: and the Celtics until Philly won a couple early in
Speaker 2: Detroit came. But yeah, it was it was. It was
Speaker 2: poor in the early eighties. You know, we flew around
Speaker 2: on commercial you know, a lot of guys don't even
Speaker 2: know where Eastern Caroline is. You know, diet was you know,
Speaker 2: we had one trainer that did everything. We practiced at
Speaker 2: Loyola Mariama, but sometimes we wake up and we'd have
Speaker 2: to practice at the Inglewood. Why. It was just it
Speaker 2: was just crazy. So that's where that started.
Speaker 6: That's why when we used to come play the Lakers,
Speaker 6: we used to practice that long and my long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definite practice. The practiced at Loyola Mariamo. And uh,
Speaker 2: you know sometimes we you know, the weather would be
Speaker 2: bad and we'd have a flight delay. You know, back
Speaker 2: to back games back then you had you had to
Speaker 2: catch the first possible fight out the next morning in
Speaker 2: order to get to the city. We had a Atlanta,
Speaker 2: we had an ice storm, and we didn't get to
Speaker 2: Indiana till like five point thirty or seven seven o'clock game.
Speaker 2: So it was a lot of a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: like that, you know, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: hot dogs with relish and beer at eight o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning. You know, you know, no diet, but it was,
Speaker 2: it was, it was, it was. It was great. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was awesome.
Speaker 3: You really spoken kind of being bullied when you first
Speaker 3: got to the Lakers to take you to kind of
Speaker 3: find your footing and start earning your respect amongst that team.
Speaker 2: You know, it took about half a season. You know.
Speaker 2: I started to really jail around March, and I was
Speaker 2: I was playing you know, I don't know, anywhere from
Speaker 2: eighteen to twenty minutes, average about thirteen points, and started
Speaker 2: to jail with magic as far as running the lane
Speaker 2: was concerned. So but that was also after about forty
Speaker 2: games because as you guys know, you know, you get
Speaker 2: to about thirty two games, thirty five the most you've
Speaker 2: ever played in college, and your body's like, wait, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, what the hell are you doing a little
Speaker 2: You got fifty more to play. So I did hit
Speaker 2: that wall. But once I got the second win and
Speaker 2: got the knowledge and knew how to travel, knew how
Speaker 2: to rest, I was ready around April April, in the March. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I broke my leg and missed the playoffs that Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it took it took me about about five six months.
Speaker 3: What was the dynamic like between Magic and Kareem. I
Speaker 3: mean you hear stuff. You know obviously you were there.
Speaker 3: What was their dynamic?
Speaker 2: Like, Man, Kareem's one of the misunderstood people and athletes
Speaker 2: that I know now. He's taken responsibility for his personality
Speaker 2: and how he was somewhat of an introvert and not
Speaker 2: always you know, compatible with what he needed to do
Speaker 2: to be nice to people all the time. But he
Speaker 2: understood the magic came that Magic had the personality and
Speaker 2: the game to lead. You know, Kareem was not a
Speaker 2: verbal guy. He led by example, so he allowed you know,
Speaker 2: he let Magic take over. And from what I saw
Speaker 2: my nineteen years together, they had a great relationship. Kareem
Speaker 2: was just mellow. He's wanted to play and do his job.
Speaker 2: I don't think there was ever any beef at all
Speaker 2: from what I saw. If it was, they took it upstairs.
Speaker 2: But that was the thing with our team. We you know,
Speaker 2: we didn't have you know, we we knew how to
Speaker 2: monitor each other. Most guys knew their roles. You know,
Speaker 2: when you got Kareem Jamal coming from John Wooden, you know,
Speaker 2: you got myself, Mitch cup Chack from Dean Smith, You've
Speaker 2: got guys coming from good programs. Judd, Heachcoh Magic from
Speaker 2: Michigan State. Pat Rowley played for a play for Adolph Rupp,
Speaker 2: which was a weird experience, you know, the race simms
Speaker 2: that was going on with that team. So we had
Speaker 2: guys that knew how to get over themselves and also
Speaker 2: knew how to get out of trouble when we got
Speaker 2: in trouble. So it was because we wanted to win.
Speaker 3: How good was Magic Johnson during his time cut short
Speaker 3: for a few different few different times, but just the
Speaker 3: body of work when he was out there playing his desk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, still to this day, if I had to pick
Speaker 2: one player, like if I got to pick five and
Speaker 2: they said we're gonna pick first, a yeah, because his
Speaker 2: his his ability to make you win, not to will
Speaker 2: will he gonna wiel some wins, but this makes you
Speaker 2: so much better. And his his fight and his face
Speaker 2: and his cheering you on doing the game and doing practice.
Speaker 2: Then his performance at six ' nine when he was humming, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's gonna find a way to win. He's gonna find
Speaker 2: a way to win. So he was amazing man, Like
Speaker 2: I remember trying to impress him first couple of weeks
Speaker 2: of practice. I'm gonna show him how fast I can
Speaker 2: hit the corner, hit the lane so you know, half court,
Speaker 2: and then I make my angle in and fall. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not ready for it. You know, he said you
Speaker 2: better be looking sun, you know, so he could get
Speaker 2: it to you from anywhere on the basketball court. And
Speaker 2: when he you know, he could take a snapshot from
Speaker 2: eighty feet away and calculate your steps without looking like
Speaker 2: he could get it and to take a snapshot and
Speaker 2: then he's just starting then. Uh. And then his height
Speaker 2: really made it difficult to the fan. Like when Magic retired.
Speaker 2: I thought I was pretty good until Magic retired and
Speaker 2: then we got todeal three that then, you know, and
Speaker 2: day three couldn't see nothing over the top. So I was,
Speaker 2: I was missing opportunities. I was like, why it open,
Speaker 2: I'll be like Magic. So yeah, he was, he was,
Speaker 2: he was. He was an amazing player, man, And uh yeah,
Speaker 2: ye speak to how great he was. His body of work,
Speaker 2: including college both academically and you know, three championships at
Speaker 2: UCLA when freshmen couldn't play varsity you're forced to play JV.
Speaker 2: And I know Matt knows the story There was an
Speaker 2: interest squad game against the JV team in John Wooden's
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy or one of his national championship teams, and
Speaker 2: Kareem the JV team beat them. Couldn't come out of
Speaker 2: high school. Now I had Kareem been able to come
Speaker 2: out of high school, the record may not ever be broken.
Speaker 2: But poetry in motion was the skyhook. I was on
Speaker 2: the other side of the block, and I was amazed.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I can myself spectating and not going for the
Speaker 2: offensive rebound because it was so special. It was more
Speaker 2: than just rolling there throwing the hook. It was it
Speaker 2: was the eyes, it was the pump fake, and it
Speaker 2: was like a triple jumping track. It was a lot
Speaker 2: to it. And by the time he got into it,
Speaker 2: if you could get through this left without getting your
Speaker 2: face reconstructed, you know, because it was up there. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know he I think he made one three so career.
Speaker 2: So he was he went through many decades. You know.
Speaker 2: I saw him as a kid playing against the west
Speaker 2: Son Sale and Nate Thurman, and then he went through
Speaker 2: the next decade. Then he went through you know, Keem
Speaker 2: Olaijuan and Patrick Ewing. Then he kept doing it. Until
Speaker 2: around eighty eight eighty seven. But yeah, Kareem was his
Speaker 2: whole body at work and smart as a whip. I
Speaker 2: was short after my junior year, about fifteen hours so
Speaker 2: I was taking a history course, black history course, and
Speaker 2: I was taking some independent courses out of USC really,
Speaker 2: and I was sitting on the bus and he saw
Speaker 2: what I was studying. It was something about the dred
Speaker 2: Scott Law, the Missouri compromise with some blacks. He saw it.
Speaker 2: He just starts said, yeah, eighteen ninety. He started nighting
Speaker 2: off these dates and without any notes or anything because
Speaker 2: he was a history major. And I said, damn, there's
Speaker 2: my tutor right there. We just had discussions and he
Speaker 2: turned me on the jazz. It's just you get to
Speaker 2: know him, which I'm sure you guys have talked to him.
Speaker 2: You get to know him, and he's reconciled with himself.
Speaker 2: He's realized his downside. But Kareem was one of my
Speaker 2: best friends and his good brother.
Speaker 3: Your introduction to the Forum Club.
Speaker 2: Woo mano man, my rookie year wall. First time I
Speaker 2: went in the Farm Club and I saw Ola Ray.
Speaker 2: If you guys remember who, Old Ray was the first
Speaker 2: black woman and Playboy, and I think she was also
Speaker 2: in Michael Jackson's Thriller. But I saw her and lost
Speaker 2: my mind. It was just so beautiful in there. Beautiful people,
Speaker 2: beautiful women, and it was like Doctor Buss's you know,
Speaker 2: Playboy match. He had his corner over there, and it
Speaker 2: was always, you know, you always wanted to see what
Speaker 2: was going on in there. But I had a couple
Speaker 2: of friends of mine that worked for the Atlanta but
Speaker 2: Delta in Atlanta, and they would always catch a plane.
Speaker 2: I get them tickets to the game. They would catch
Speaker 2: a plane with the three hour difference, they getting it
Speaker 2: right around game time, and I'd be looking for me,
Speaker 2: you know, because I knew where their seats were. They
Speaker 2: wouldn't touch their seats. They'd go to the Farm Club
Speaker 2: at the bar and get there and sit until halftime,
Speaker 2: and they would just go crazy because the stars were
Speaker 2: they were in there and a lot of a lot
Speaker 2: of beautiful people. And then they would stay there till
Speaker 2: around eleven thirty twelve, and back then you would get
Speaker 2: a red eye back at like one am, and they
Speaker 2: catch the red eye back in Atlanta. Quick business trip.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the Farm Club was like you didn't have
Speaker 2: to leave the farm, you know, because it was right
Speaker 2: there till closing time. It was it was nice.
Speaker 5: We played. We played their preseason game with Don Nelson.
Speaker 6: Remember he said when we was walking, He's like, if
Speaker 6: y'all could be a fly on the wall back when
Speaker 6: I was playing and my.
Speaker 2: Dad until Nelson he was talking about. It's funny, man.
Speaker 2: I was in Maui a couple of years ago and
Speaker 2: I was in the pro shop and I saw this
Speaker 2: guy with long white hair, Donnie fucking bare feet, you know, hippie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because he was my last All Star coach in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety two. I was like, I was a coach. I
Speaker 2: was like, man, you need to give me some of
Speaker 2: that whatever you got man.
Speaker 3: Nelly good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, that it was good. I think Willie Nelson
Speaker 2: was over there with you went on the golf cour
Speaker 2: That's the guy they be playing poker. Yeah, but coach
Speaker 2: Nelson's you know, I never got to play for him,
Speaker 2: but I always always thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 6: Speak on the brilliant mind and how great Pat Rowley is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pat Rally man, uh, you know from conversations with him,
Speaker 2: and you know you talk about cycles, his you know,
Speaker 2: relationship with his dad was tired, and then he used
Speaker 2: that to energize himself, you know, going to Kentucky, being
Speaker 2: drafted by the Dallas Cowboys out of college as well. Uh,
Speaker 2: he was always felt like, you know, he had to
Speaker 2: do more and be more, and so his preparation was
Speaker 2: second to none, like his his his his work ethic
Speaker 2: as a coach was so prepared and it was so analytical.
Speaker 2: Uh that you you were ready, and he would push
Speaker 2: you to the point where you want to fight him,
Speaker 2: and then the truth would be like right there too,
Speaker 2: and you have to deal with that. He knew personalities,
Speaker 2: like he knew how to push you like, you know, Byron,
Speaker 2: I don't know, Well, you haven't hit anything worthy, You're worthless.
Speaker 2: You know. He knew what to say, you know, to
Speaker 2: certain people. Magic.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's nothing mystical about you. I don't know what's going on, Kareem.
Speaker 2: What would you like to do? You know? So he
Speaker 2: knew how to push people, and but preparation and practice
Speaker 2: and he didn't delay his There wasn't any like delaying
Speaker 2: his you know, communication with it was it was going on.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: So, yeah, he was he was tough. He was he
Speaker 6: was a tough coach and we won. We want with
Speaker 6: your numbers always went up in the playoffs. That's how
Speaker 6: you got big game James.
Speaker 2: I think so to Hern realized, you know, in the
Speaker 2: regular season, as you guys know, when you like, I
Speaker 2: remember playing Larry Bird on a Tuesday night, got over
Speaker 2: to Philly, I'm sorry, got over to New York Wednesday night.
Speaker 2: Only they have Banard King waiting for you. You know
Speaker 2: I'd already had Larry back to back. Yeah, didn't have
Speaker 2: Banara King. Take a night off, and then following night
Speaker 2: you go to Philly. You got Doc and Bobby Jones.
Speaker 2: So regular season you hop around. You know, it's not
Speaker 2: the same. Playoffs. You got one team for seven games
Speaker 2: and you have less travel, so you get to lock in.
Speaker 2: Whoever locks in the most is going to be the one.
Speaker 2: So if you lock in too, like I knew, I
Speaker 2: had to play Clyde Drexler. I knew because we didn't
Speaker 2: want Magic playing point guards. They wear them down. You know,
Speaker 2: we needed him, So I lock in video after video,
Speaker 2: well Beta Max back then DHR. But you lock in Man,
Speaker 2: and you know that's all you got. Jrome Cursey, you
Speaker 2: know who you got. You just lock in and you're ready.
Speaker 2: You know, there's some tendencies. Then you just work on
Speaker 2: your game, man, and you know, ship you should. Everybody's
Speaker 2: numbers should go up. Yeah. Play you get the playing.
Speaker 6: Time, you made the cost and play in eighty four
Speaker 6: finals because the self bad pass left the self supports
Speaker 6: and overtime and winning the game.
Speaker 5: Yeah, take us back at that.
Speaker 2: Moment as you as you talk about it, I feel
Speaker 2: it like it never goes away. It was away.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: That was my fourth championship. So when they say how
Speaker 2: Mania got, it's it's cool to say three, but I
Speaker 2: mean that was it.
Speaker 5: It was on the doorstep.
Speaker 2: I had injured myself there before. I had no playoff experience,
Speaker 2: and you know, I had played very well up until
Speaker 2: that series. I've been to Boston, playing in the old
Speaker 2: Boston Garden. You know. Uh, I got a little rattle
Speaker 2: because we had already gone in and one game one,
Speaker 2: we'd already achieved. What we needed to do was split.
Speaker 2: But man, we had that. We had that game, and
Speaker 2: so we got the ball out of bounds. Magic wanted
Speaker 2: to get it in really quick, like throw it in
Speaker 2: and get so it was so so I was like,
Speaker 2: ROUSE didn't know what to call a timeout. Do we
Speaker 2: want to time out? So Magic got it in and
Speaker 2: so we're in the back court. So I'm panicking a
Speaker 2: little bit because you know they're coming there doubling. I
Speaker 2: need to get rid of it. So I see Byron
Speaker 2: so boom. Now soon as I let it go my
Speaker 2: peripheral vision, I see this green jersey coming and it's
Speaker 2: it slows down in your mind. It still slows down.
Speaker 2: I see it. I was like, oh shit, and he
Speaker 2: gets it, okay, but now he's got to come to me.
Speaker 2: So I got to go to angle and I go
Speaker 2: up and I sometime I wake up in the middle
Speaker 2: of that. I because I can still feel I can
Speaker 2: still feel, you know, the wind and the ball go
Speaker 2: right over two hits. Two retire a game. But you
Speaker 2: didn't foul it. I didn't found it. You didn't I
Speaker 2: tried to go for the block. I was still I
Speaker 2: was still, you know, trying to feel I could get
Speaker 2: to it. But now, if i'd had a chance to
Speaker 2: get it, maybe I should have. But the way they
Speaker 2: were following us, but I had no experience. Uh. I
Speaker 2: was kind of panicking in the you know, in the
Speaker 2: last minute, in the last thirty seconds, there and that's
Speaker 2: the one that that's the one that that's the one
Speaker 2: that that I still think about to this day, just
Speaker 2: like it got away.
Speaker 3: Speak to the physicality of the game back then, because
Speaker 3: now you touch someone and it's up. But you guys
Speaker 3: really used to be able to It was men playing
Speaker 3: back then.
Speaker 6: I got a couple of highlights and you're getting off
Speaker 6: the floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, throwing them. Yeah. My biggest regret was getting in
Speaker 2: Kurt Rams's way when he when he got clothes line,
Speaker 2: because I was, you know, there was a lot of
Speaker 2: shit going on. I was like, what's going on? And
Speaker 2: I saw something coming and I got kirted away. But
Speaker 2: the physicality back then was you could touch them. You
Speaker 2: could touch the brother up. You know, like if you
Speaker 2: set of picking the lane somebody's coming coming on, you
Speaker 2: could you can you can literally stand them up and
Speaker 2: uh like I remember Kurt Ramits getting clothes line. That
Speaker 2: was Michael. It was just two shots, crazy.
Speaker 3: Rights showed them back hit the ground.
Speaker 2: That's what three or four games now might get arrested,
Speaker 2: but but yeah, it was, it was. It was born
Speaker 2: out of the seventies, you know, when it was you know,
Speaker 2: it was mostly half court, not a lot of running
Speaker 2: teams except the A B A. Doc and George Beginnings
Speaker 2: and you know Ice and those guys they ran in
Speaker 2: the A B. A. But it was, you know, predicated
Speaker 2: on half court sets. The coach was always calling the plays.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of control, so you had specific
Speaker 2: players you wanted to get to and so to do
Speaker 2: that you had to set up cross pick for Carl Malone,
Speaker 2: a down pick for Dale Ellis or whoever the shoot
Speaker 2: it was. So it was more control. Now it's just
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's there's no play calling, it's emotion.
Speaker 2: So you had a lot of time to slow down
Speaker 2: and then you had a lot of champ think about
Speaker 2: how you're going to defend that, and the way to
Speaker 2: defend it is to slow him down with a boom
Speaker 2: with a chance. And then there were there were some
Speaker 2: games where there was a rule where no no freebies,
Speaker 2: no free lay ups. We had we had take files
Speaker 2: you know, you want to take John Stounton used to
Speaker 2: set a dirty pick early for Carl Malone. He'd get
Speaker 2: up under you and you know, get it, ahol. So
Speaker 2: we had one rule that we could waste one early
Speaker 2: on him, let him know take yeah, you know, you
Speaker 2: are here, he come, you know, and you try to
Speaker 2: go for his throat, you know, try to you know,
Speaker 2: get one. So yeah, but yeah, it was it was
Speaker 2: it was physical, It was tough.
Speaker 6: Man Championships in eighty five, eighty seven, and nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 6: You shot fifty percent in all three finals. Twenty points
Speaker 6: some more. Boston ninety five, I mean, exkip Boston eighty five,
Speaker 6: Boston eighty seven or Detroit eighty eight?
Speaker 5: Which was your favorite championship?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to say eighty five because the Lakers
Speaker 2: had never won. I guess the self. Jerry Wells, will chamblain,
Speaker 2: all those guys, Elgum Baylor, they lost seven to Bill
Speaker 2: Russell and Hevli Chak, Casey Jones. So and the fact
Speaker 2: that we lost that one in eighty four, I really
Speaker 2: thought there was some type of leprechaun or something in Boston.
Speaker 2: But that one was because we not only represented ourselves,
Speaker 2: we represented all those misery nights that the Laker fans
Speaker 2: had to deal with, had to you know, hear all
Speaker 2: that trash. So I think eighty five personally eighty eight. Uh,
Speaker 2: not only it was my personal best, but it was
Speaker 2: a back to back year something had been done. And
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, yeah one and only triple double. Kareem
Speaker 2: was still with us, but he wasn't dominating like he
Speaker 2: was in eighty seven. Magic was MVP of the league.
Speaker 2: You know, pat Rally had asked him to do a
Speaker 2: little bit more. So I just felt like, okay, young
Speaker 2: younger Kareem wasn't dominated, So it was you know, it
Speaker 2: was time to it was time for me to, you know,
Speaker 2: step up.
Speaker 5: What's your take on Boston fans where they unruly back then?
Speaker 2: Buncle lived in Boston the sixties. Man, it was racist
Speaker 2: as hell. Yeah, and from what I understand, you know,
Speaker 2: we used to go through some some of that. You know,
Speaker 2: you you turned you know, we uld get to the
Speaker 2: Copley End and and you know you actually operated to
Speaker 2: turn your phone on, but she never did. You know
Speaker 2: you'd be getting calls. You have to plug your phone
Speaker 2: and people would say some some some crazy stuff on
Speaker 2: the phone. And uh, I know through baseball, like some
Speaker 2: of the outfielders you know in Boston, it still exists.
Speaker 2: It was a tough place to play. They love their fans,
Speaker 2: they love their their their their teams. I give them
Speaker 2: credit for that. I love playing in Boston because I
Speaker 2: just just love playing there because I hated Boston, hated it.
Speaker 2: I hated it, you know. And I'm sure all people
Speaker 2: aren't like that in Boston, but I had some friends
Speaker 2: that with the college that lived there, so sometimes I
Speaker 2: would go into the neighborhood and so yeah, and back
Speaker 2: then the old Boston Garden, you had a choice to either.
Speaker 2: Usually in traffic, you know game seven thirty eight o'clock,
Speaker 2: you had a choice to go around in the city.
Speaker 2: Had to go all the way around the city forty
Speaker 2: minutes to get all the way around to this ramp,
Speaker 2: this wooden ramp, and you could go that way if
Speaker 2: you wanted privacy. All do you take ten minutes and
Speaker 2: they drop you off right with us. The subway people
Speaker 2: get off the bus, so you're merging with the fans.
Speaker 2: No bodyguards, no nothing. We just and there was a
Speaker 2: special elevator for us right here, and then the fans
Speaker 2: went that way. But as you were waiting for the elevator,
Speaker 2: they would just give it to you. I love it
Speaker 2: because that was just my incentive. That was my incentant.
Speaker 2: But Bob McAdoo, you know, you have me listened to
Speaker 2: the Malcolm X takes before the game. Yeah, you'd be ready,
Speaker 2: you'd be ready then. So yeah, but you know, Bossoon
Speaker 2: great town, I guess if you lived there. But I
Speaker 2: hated Boston. I don't. I don't care to really visit.
Speaker 2: I'm good. It was Larry Bird. It was damn good.
Speaker 2: He was good.
Speaker 3: H You had a quote not to cut you off
Speaker 3: that Jordan made you look slow, Larry made you look dumb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, man, Yeah, Jordan. Jordan was an amazing you know,
Speaker 2: not not and both of them worked just as hard.
Speaker 2: But Larry didn't have the speed, couldn't jump, but a
Speaker 2: shoot he could work. He was a big, strong, beautiful
Speaker 2: pusser type player and he had a lot of skills.
Speaker 2: He could pass. He was ambidextrious, and you had to
Speaker 2: you had to be like on him. You couldn't get
Speaker 2: him any space. And when he got high, it didn't
Speaker 2: matter if he was on him or not. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he talked ship all the time, you know. He tell
Speaker 2: you now, I didn't get a lot of it because
Speaker 2: he didn't, you know, because I could give it back,
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't. And you know I guarded him
Speaker 2: half the game that we have Michael Coop on him.
Speaker 2: But there were times when he would tell you what
Speaker 2: he's going to do. You know it's coming, you know
Speaker 2: it's coming.
Speaker 6: What'd you think when he played that game left handed
Speaker 6: and had forty with his left hand.
Speaker 2: Well he's left handed, he right, he's a rights right hand.
Speaker 2: I wasn't surprised. But that's who he is. And he
Speaker 2: predicted it.
Speaker 5: And said it. That's what's crazy.
Speaker 2: He used to come in the All Star Game three
Speaker 2: point contests right before he started. He come in and
Speaker 2: look at everybody and say, which one of you guys
Speaker 2: coming in second place? You know, the one of the
Speaker 2: worst ones, man, And this is this is Larry White,
Speaker 2: guy from french Linco, Indiana, you know. And I heard
Speaker 2: he's done this to other teams too. But we had
Speaker 2: a guy on our team, Mark Landsberg, I think it
Speaker 2: was so we market the game and he's gonna guard
Speaker 2: Larry and so it was a free throw. So Larry
Speaker 2: was down near our bench and uh, he says, man,
Speaker 2: that's you got that's an insult. But you guys just
Speaker 2: dead to me. What you mean that's an insult? He says,
Speaker 2: you guys put a white ball on me. So that's
Speaker 2: that's that's who he was man he went. Then he
Speaker 2: went just eighties ass something and you look at up
Speaker 2: totally so he but he should do that. Anytime you
Speaker 2: put anytime that happened, what every team, he would always say,
Speaker 2: that's an insult. But he was. He was tough. He
Speaker 2: was tough, he was nasty physical. Oh yeah, I didn't
Speaker 2: really I didn't really like it.
Speaker 3: Late eighties. Your guys' dynasty run comes to an end.
Speaker 3: You get swept by the Pistons in eighty nine, did
Speaker 3: you guys know, did you think there was an opportunity
Speaker 3: to get back? Guys were getting a little bit older,
Speaker 3: and how good was that Detroit team?
Speaker 2: The Detroit team was good in eighty eight when we
Speaker 2: when we won, they were tough, so we knew coming back,
Speaker 2: and yeah we knew in eighty nine we were undefeated
Speaker 2: to that series. We swept everybody, Denver, Dallas, I believe,
Speaker 2: San Antonio. Maybe I can't remember who we played, but
Speaker 2: we were waiting for them and we had like seven
Speaker 2: days off back then television control when the playoffs started
Speaker 2: and Detruit was still playing in their finals Chicago or
Speaker 2: or maybe Boston. But Ralph took us to Santa Barbara
Speaker 2: because he didn't want us to have seven days off
Speaker 2: in La In and so we went to Santa Barbara
Speaker 2: and a couple of guys got hurt, Magic got hurt.
Speaker 2: Byron I had an ankle injury that got worse. But
Speaker 2: we just weren't healthy. And even if we were detruit
Speaker 2: was still they were good. Yeah, they were good, and
Speaker 2: you know they were isaas frain his ankle in eighty eight.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that they would have won, but that
Speaker 2: that hurt them in Game seven. But they were a defensive,
Speaker 2: tough team and the guy that guarded me the best
Speaker 2: they could slow me down was Dennis. So they were good.
Speaker 2: Kareem was not that much of a factor in eighty
Speaker 2: nine and we really hadn't made any significant changes to
Speaker 2: our team. I think we picked up Orland Awards Tony
Speaker 2: Campbell from Detroit, Rivers from Notre Dame, so you know,
Speaker 2: we were injured, We didn't really have enough experience. Really
Speaker 2: took him bat with them, and they were just they
Speaker 2: were just too good.
Speaker 3: To you spoke to someone who had, you know, did
Speaker 3: a fairly good job of slowing you down. Dennis Robin,
Speaker 3: what kind of player was he in that time?
Speaker 2: He was bad man Dennis was a machine Uh in Detroit,
Speaker 2: he was a machine man. He could guard anybody on
Speaker 2: the floor.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: He had the psychological games. He get in your head,
Speaker 2: like you know, before the game, you give a depth.
Speaker 2: He squeezed my ass a little too. It wasn't like
Speaker 2: what's up. It wasn't like let's go. It was I
Speaker 2: was so now you're thinking, you running down the court,
Speaker 2: you know, thinking about this motherfucker. Why he getting every
Speaker 2: fucking offensive rebound there is because he knew how to,
Speaker 2: you know, get physical and play, you know and flying
Speaker 2: and he was. But his footspeed matched mine. So all
Speaker 2: my little quick ship was so you had to be ready.
Speaker 2: But I was ready. I was ready. But but yeah,
Speaker 2: Dennis was. People.
Speaker 3: Do you consider that that that Bad Boys team? Was
Speaker 3: that a dynasty? I just I just know them for
Speaker 3: winning two championships.
Speaker 5: That's that's that's and that's not a dynasty of me.
Speaker 2: So you know, Golden State dynasty, Lakers, Boston, San Antonio, Chicago.
Speaker 2: But no, I mean they want, they want to and
Speaker 2: that's Uh. Isaiah Thomas is he underrated? Yeah? I'm picking
Speaker 2: him after Magic. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I don't don't
Speaker 2: don't get it. Twisted. Now, don't don't get it twisted, Isaiah.
Speaker 2: I'm picking him after Magic Yeah, and uh, because uh,
Speaker 2: this Zeke was the truth. I mean, he could give
Speaker 2: it to you however you wanted it. On both ends.
Speaker 2: He was. It was tough out of Chicago, so you know,
Speaker 2: I don't you know, I didn't really know it personally
Speaker 2: like like personality, I don't really care about that. But
Speaker 2: as a player, oh yeah, he's coming, no doubt. Definitely.
Speaker 3: The eighties really brought the game back to life. Stack
Speaker 3: Decade yourself, Magic Bird, Jordan, Isaiah Barkley, Elijah Want when
Speaker 3: you look back on that, where do you kind of
Speaker 3: rank that era of basketball?
Speaker 2: Well, the seventies, you know, the A B A, the
Speaker 2: NBA finally realized that we you know, doctor j Needham, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Ice Garbin, that was that. I would have to say
Speaker 2: the eighties and I know that, you know, the Lakers won,
Speaker 2: the Chicago won three in a row. But the emergence
Speaker 2: of the NBA again, I think happened in the eighties
Speaker 2: because there were so many good teams in addition to
Speaker 2: Boston and in LA uh and the players, Magic Ring
Speaker 2: Isaiah byrd McHale. You know, you know, Dennis Johnson was amazing,
Speaker 2: you know, Sidney mindcree. You know, there was a plethora
Speaker 2: of like just amazing great players during that time that
Speaker 2: I had to say. The way they merged out of
Speaker 2: the seventies and gave the NBA life, it kind of
Speaker 2: breathed life back into the NBA. So for me, and
Speaker 2: I'm being a little bit biased, but I think that was.
Speaker 2: It gave life to Shaq and Kobe and even Michael.
Speaker 2: Even MJ had to pay his dues to really, so
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, it was, it was. It was a
Speaker 2: good era. And then you know, television, the salaries began
Speaker 2: to emerge in the late eighties. You know, I tell
Speaker 2: people all the time, I was the number one draft
Speaker 2: pick in eighty two, you know, four hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: five thousand, that was. And I had veterans coming up
Speaker 2: to me who have been in the league seven or
Speaker 2: eight years saying, how the hell you getting four hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy five thousand dollars? You know, but I play
Speaker 2: for that Now I can't find a job. I mean
Speaker 2: you can. But but just to show you that the
Speaker 2: eighties propelled into salaries contracts, the balloon payment, all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, Collector Barton Agreement, beginning to
Speaker 2: be more focused on what the players were getting. You know,
Speaker 2: as a retired player, I'm getting full coverage insurance now
Speaker 2: because of you know, the way that you guys thought about,
Speaker 2: you know, what the league needs, and so yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it's but the eighties started a lot of we never
Speaker 2: we never strike. We were close a couple of times.
Speaker 2: But so it's good.
Speaker 6: That's one thing that the league got right. Took care
Speaker 6: of the older players and everybody's insurance. Not that's one
Speaker 6: thing they did get right.
Speaker 2: They did unlike you know, unfortunately the NFL, because when
Speaker 2: you think of guys like Bill Russell, Algum Baylor, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, all those guys, even even Bob Cousy and
Speaker 2: Tommy Hysen was very critical to starting the Players Association
Speaker 2: to get rights for us. Uh. And so yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean and you know, they played, you know, they played
Speaker 2: in the sixties. They were they were pretty good, you know,
Speaker 2: and they definitely deserve to have some some medical you know, uh,
Speaker 2: some medical care for for the contributions that they made.
Speaker 2: They kind of started. They did Busher Oh, I mean
Speaker 2: Bob Pettitt I Petted was a scoring machine, and you know,
Speaker 2: you do your little history, there's guys that stood for
Speaker 2: something and really, you know, uh left us something to
Speaker 2: work with.
Speaker 3: But the eighties being the physical league, it was do
Speaker 3: you feel, God, how do you feel? Guys like Steph Lebron,
Speaker 3: maybe even Giannis would affaired in that type of physicality
Speaker 3: and that kind of grind type league.
Speaker 2: It would have been a slight difference. The way Steph
Speaker 2: can shoot. I think he you know, the way he
Speaker 2: moves without the ball. I think he could survive to
Speaker 2: have to guard Magic on the other end, because we
Speaker 2: looked for matchups. You know, we put a lineup where
Speaker 2: he's going to have to guard me or Magic or
Speaker 2: you know, our A C. Green or somebody like that,
Speaker 2: who would get offensive rebounds. So I think the defensive
Speaker 2: issue would be a little bit different. And I you know,
Speaker 2: I remember when the league took away the handcheck and
Speaker 2: moved the three point line in a little bit because
Speaker 2: guys were coming out of college a little bit more,
Speaker 2: you know, frequently without having all the fundamentals. But you know,
Speaker 2: we're talking about defensive specialist like Sidney mind Cree, guys
Speaker 2: like you know, I mean, you guys played against Bruce
Speaker 2: Bowne and guys like that where they got to play
Speaker 2: Sean Elliott. It would be a little bit different. You
Speaker 2: wouldn't be able to run as freely and then you
Speaker 2: would definitely get exposed. I would see just clearing out
Speaker 2: even times in a row and Magic if you go
Speaker 2: to guard Magic, you know, we put in a situation
Speaker 2: where you got to guard somebody, So it would be
Speaker 2: a little bit different. But you know, look, guys today
Speaker 2: have mastered a style of play just like we did
Speaker 2: in the eighties. It's just a little bit. It's a
Speaker 2: little bit different, a little a little less inside now
Speaker 2: you know, your bigs aren't really big, so but yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I think it'd be a little different defensively,
Speaker 2: a little bit more lockdown. I'd love to see Michael Cooper,
Speaker 2: you know, play against some of the some of these
Speaker 2: guys that but the way the ball handling is, the
Speaker 2: way Kyrie Irving is, it'd be a challenge to be
Speaker 2: a challenger, no doubt.
Speaker 3: What was it like seeing Mike's kind of rise in
Speaker 3: the early nineties, It was, uh, I'm not gonna say
Speaker 3: it was overdue, but the timing was.
Speaker 2: Was was good for Michael because he realized you know,
Speaker 2: he couldn't do it all by himself. You know, I
Speaker 2: think Michael he knew about team at Carolina, but I
Speaker 2: don't think he really mastered it until guys like Hardst
Speaker 2: Grant Hippen, guys like that. Cartwright was a big part of,
Speaker 2: you know, the conversations with Michael. He had to learn
Speaker 2: through with the Pistons really, but once he got past
Speaker 2: that and what Fiel was in place, and he trusted
Speaker 2: his teammates, trusted Paxson and Kerr and those guys, he
Speaker 2: was he was. He was driven. He would driving them.
Speaker 2: But yet all those guys made him better. They enhanced
Speaker 2: his game, and that's why they started to win. Now,
Speaker 2: Lakers were done, Boston was done, The twelve was kind
Speaker 2: of over. Keem Olajawan did what he did, but the
Speaker 2: league was you know, it was was right for Michael.
Speaker 2: Utah was still there. He had some challenges, but once
Speaker 2: he once he tasted the honey, he wanted someone. That's
Speaker 2: what he is. He won chips with no All Stars. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he once he tasted, that's it for him. He's like
Speaker 2: locked in. That's it's like golf for him. Once he
Speaker 2: once he gets locked in, that's it and I've never
Speaker 2: seen one player that challenges everybody like in your face,
Speaker 2: right or wrong. Whether he's right or wrong, he's in
Speaker 2: your face. So he says it, he says a good example.
Speaker 3: Any fun or competitive stories on and off the court.
Speaker 3: What about Mike uh Man? Michael not not anything too crazy.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: The guys used to tease him a lot, right. So
Speaker 2: we had a running program. Three groups, A quick young guards.
Speaker 2: They'd have to run their time, you know, like a
Speaker 2: two twenty and twenty seven seconds. B group which Michael
Speaker 2: was in, had to run his and thirty and then
Speaker 2: the bigs. So the little guys were always telling Michael
Speaker 2: the point guards, ah, you got more, you got three
Speaker 2: more seconds to make your time. So Michael got tired
Speaker 2: of hearing that shit. He went and told coach she
Speaker 2: had put me in the A group. He just busted
Speaker 2: at he was running. He was running shit twenty five seconds.
Speaker 2: But rookies also had to carry like either field rejector
Speaker 2: or the boom box, and Michael had the big boom
Speaker 2: box he had to carry around. I don't really one time,
Speaker 2: you know, I think we had to get on him
Speaker 2: by Kurtfield boy, he was real close to because you know,
Speaker 2: one guy in Trouble, the whole team that run. Michael
Speaker 2: was pretty he was pretty clever. He didn't I don't
Speaker 2: really remember too many. Buzz Peterson. You have to ask
Speaker 2: Buzz his roommate. I know, Buzz used to say, you know, ah,
Speaker 2: because Buzz was kind of a preppy dresser kind of guy.
Speaker 2: So we always had to button down stairs, and Michael
Speaker 2: used to wear all his clothes and so he's, you know,
Speaker 2: Buzz's put his shoes on, maybe all stretched out and
Speaker 2: messed up. He used to do stuff like that with
Speaker 2: Buzz and they're still boys. But yeah, Michael was, he was.
Speaker 2: He was pretty cool on campus. He went to class,
Speaker 2: you know, low profile. When did you know it was
Speaker 2: time to retire? When it wasn't no fun anymore? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know Magic retired. Everybody was was gone, Coop
Speaker 2: was gone, Kareem. I think Byron had been traded to Indiana,
Speaker 2: and so I was there with a you know with
Speaker 2: young players, you know, Anthony Peeler, h Elden, Campbell, guys
Speaker 2: like that, and so they didn't really understand what I
Speaker 2: had gone through, and I couldn't understand where they were headed.
Speaker 2: They just wasn't fun anymore. The fun for me was
Speaker 2: getting up going to practice. You know, we would get
Speaker 2: with the ball. I practice used to be on point,
Speaker 2: like fun, and then you know the camaraderie, the joking
Speaker 2: on the back of the bus, and you know, we
Speaker 2: had family. We played the together for nine years. So
Speaker 2: when I you know, when I didn't see the same
Speaker 2: attitude and my knee was starting to you know, I
Speaker 2: had archscope. You know, I remember my signature dunk, you know,
Speaker 2: not from the free throne lad but right inside. And
Speaker 2: I just remember, like it was ninety three, and I
Speaker 2: remember stealing and I'm I'm there, and about halfway there,
Speaker 2: I start coming turned into a turned into a flip.
Speaker 2: You know when your body, when your body kind of
Speaker 2: starts talking to you, and you know, we didn't have
Speaker 2: what they guys have today, but you know it's pretty
Speaker 2: good shape. But when your body starts telling you, you know,
Speaker 2: and then when your mind starts saying, yeah, it's not
Speaker 2: finding more. Yeah, I was ready. I was ready to
Speaker 2: give it out.
Speaker 5: Anybody in today's game remind you of Big Game. James.
Speaker 2: I can't say, man, uh, I really I really can't.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, one of my favorite guys to
Speaker 2: see it. I liked him in Texas was Cavin Durant.
Speaker 2: He had that once I developed an eight foot you
Speaker 2: know area where you know to step back from eight
Speaker 2: foot you know. By no means, I'm not comparing myself
Speaker 2: to to a camera Durant, but I liked his style.
Speaker 2: I can't really say it. They say Jeff Green when
Speaker 2: he first came in.
Speaker 5: I can see that.
Speaker 2: When he first came in he had a statue. Yeah
Speaker 2: he had a little, but I can't really. Not too
Speaker 2: many guys had to spind move up the footwork. I
Speaker 2: went to Pete Newles big Man camp for like three
Speaker 2: or four years, so footwork was was big. But you
Speaker 2: don't see the post game too much anymore, especially from
Speaker 2: a guard or mid range player. Very very seldom that
Speaker 2: you see a plays called for that. And that was
Speaker 2: my specialty.
Speaker 5: So I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't really see that too much.
Speaker 5: Like I used to.
Speaker 6: When I got in the league. Paul Pierce started it,
Speaker 6: and every team started doing after Paul Piers because he
Speaker 6: was the master the stuff ual on that block to
Speaker 6: dribble man, get that shoulder, go quick inside, hitot that's
Speaker 6: all going from you.
Speaker 2: He was doing that at Inglewood High School used to
Speaker 2: come to our games like five minutes away. Paul, It's.
Speaker 6: Got any COVID was the biggest story end of the game.
Speaker 6: Some moves he probably picked up from you you got
Speaker 6: any Corby Store.
Speaker 2: I was. I was helping Byron Coach. I wasn't traveling,
Speaker 2: but I was going to all the practices here at home.
Speaker 2: So I was still doing television as well. And I
Speaker 2: was working with Julius Randall, Larry Nance, Turk Black just
Speaker 2: on footwork, you know, step backs up and on this
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff. And Kobe was on the team,
Speaker 2: but he wasn't really practicing a lot. So Gary Vda,
Speaker 2: the trainer, called me one night, like nine thirty. This
Speaker 2: is Kobe's nineteenth year. Now, I worked with Kobe maybe
Speaker 2: his second year in the league when he when the
Speaker 2: Lakers used to go to Honolulu. I worked with he
Speaker 2: and Lamar Odham and some other guys, so i'd already,
Speaker 2: but this is his nineteenth year. He calls me, Gary
Speaker 2: Vedy Car said, Cobe wants to meet you in the
Speaker 2: gym in the morning. Yeah, what's up? So I meet
Speaker 2: him in the gym and he starts questioning me out
Speaker 2: a certain area. It wasn't the whole lane. It was
Speaker 2: just a certain area that his dad used to get
Speaker 2: VHS and Beta Max when he was in Italy. Jellybean
Speaker 2: he played in the NBA for a little while before
Speaker 2: going to him, and this guy said he remembered this
Speaker 2: some move and then he went to show me based
Speaker 2: on this video that he had seen as a kid.
Speaker 2: He just because he was getting older, he wasn't relying
Speaker 2: on his quickness, and it was just a surprise step in.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: I would pretend that I was talking to Magic. I'd
Speaker 2: be like what, and then I would spend and you know,
Speaker 2: he just and because I said, you're working too hard
Speaker 2: to get you know, you don't need to be running
Speaker 2: all everywhere to get open. I said, just walk into it,
Speaker 2: you know. And then sometimes you might set a back pick,
Speaker 2: but you got to tell your point guard what you doing.
Speaker 5: And he was.
Speaker 2: He was still studying the game. Man, He wasn't even practicing.
Speaker 2: He wasn't playing a lot either, but he was still
Speaker 2: trying to pick up something. And I'd never seen that before.
Speaker 2: I interviewed him once down in everybody in his office,
Speaker 2: and I've never seen a player so focus. I don't
Speaker 2: think he had any hobbies like golf or anything. He
Speaker 2: was that he was just so super focused on detail
Speaker 2: and the way he watched the game. He watched everything
Speaker 2: hand movement. We'd be watching video and he'd be like,
Speaker 2: always got his hand up. I got him, what are
Speaker 2: you talking about? Because he's like, well, his weights on
Speaker 2: that side. So anytime he thro his hands up his
Speaker 2: So I've never seen anybody look at the game the
Speaker 2: way he did. And then you know, of course, his
Speaker 2: philosophy was nobody's going to have more hours than me.
Speaker 2: I'm working at at four am to six ten twelve,
Speaker 2: you know, so I know if I have twenty hours
Speaker 2: at the end of the day and somebody else only
Speaker 2: has seven, then I'm so when you when you're charging
Speaker 2: your mind with that and you believe it, you believe
Speaker 2: you're gonna make that shot, you know, when you're trapped
Speaker 2: in the corner and you gotta know what to do,
Speaker 2: but throw a left hand three and that shit goes in.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: That was that's a that's a mindset. That's uh, they
Speaker 2: can do anything. Probably I can probably be president one
Speaker 2: day if he wanted or something like that. But he
Speaker 2: had a and I was just sad that we didn't
Speaker 2: get to see what he was going to get to do.
Speaker 2: It's for for for for girls in particularly. You know,
Speaker 2: he's he's focused, he's locked in. He's locked in. Brother
Speaker 2: who is.
Speaker 5: Big game James outside of basketball? Like, what do you
Speaker 5: like to do? How is do you golf? Know you
Speaker 5: like golf?
Speaker 4: I love golf, man, I suck at it, but I
Speaker 4: love chasing it. I love chasing it as most people though. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I love playing golf, but I suck it most people
Speaker 4: who are honest about it. I just go out because
Speaker 4: it's a good fellowship.
Speaker 2: Really, A big part of my portfolio comes from being
Speaker 2: on the golf course because that's what the decision makers are.
Speaker 2: They're out there, you know, trying to see, hey, who
Speaker 2: can speak at my convention? Right? So it works some
Speaker 2: some business ventures I love. I love my girls thirty
Speaker 2: three and thirty one. Now, our journey was was was
Speaker 2: a tough journey, but now we're in a place where
Speaker 2: we you know, we've had some some good conversations. I
Speaker 2: just love helping people. Man Boys and Girls Club do
Speaker 2: some scholarships in my mom's ain't back home. Same things
Speaker 2: we all do because I think you get a platform
Speaker 2: for a reason, and that's to give back something whatever
Speaker 2: that is. So I try to you know, I try
Speaker 2: to stay focused on the business. Tip got a product.
Speaker 2: Uh it's a cryo therapy. Uh like a best that
Speaker 2: has like a specialized jail pass. Is kind of ice
Speaker 2: Ice Ice company. We're working with some little things. Man.
Speaker 2: Try to stay busy. Yeah, well, we.
Speaker 3: Appreciate your time today man. And with the quick hitters. Now,
Speaker 3: so the first thing to come to mind, let us
Speaker 3: know all time, your all time Lakers starting five. Uh.
Speaker 2: I gotta start with Elgin Baylor, only because I know
Speaker 2: the history a little bit about Elgin, seen footage, I
Speaker 2: talked to people. Uh one morning I woke up to
Speaker 2: the LA Times and Sports page James Worthy's second best
Speaker 2: small forward that would play second. And then once I
Speaker 2: saw the Elgin Baylor was first, I left it alone
Speaker 2: because he was that bad of a boy. Uh. I
Speaker 2: think Elgiebla created the jump shot. Nobody was jumping. They
Speaker 2: were shooting set shots. Uh, the euro step. If you go,
Speaker 2: you go look at someone Elgin's footage. He's been doing it,
Speaker 2: been doing it. And he was sticking on your hands too.
Speaker 2: He was I saw him sticking on Russell a couple
Speaker 2: of times in footage, and the brother played from an
Speaker 2: army base. He was in the military. A lot of
Speaker 2: the times they would go get him before the weekend game,
Speaker 2: bring them to the game. But Chick Hern to this
Speaker 2: day says the Elgin Baylor was the baddest boy he
Speaker 2: ever seen. So I'm starting with Elger. Will wasn't a
Speaker 2: Laker long enough, so I'm gonna go with Kareem at center, Shaq,
Speaker 2: Kobe and Magic.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: That's my all.
Speaker 6: Before I actually the next question, what's the story behind
Speaker 6: you signed with New Balands.
Speaker 5: You got a lifetime deal with New Balance.
Speaker 2: A lifetime right. Still, I still got a good relationship
Speaker 2: with them, man, and in fact congratulates to co Co
Speaker 2: getting the job done in the open. But I was
Speaker 2: the first one to wear their basketball shoe in eighty two.
Speaker 2: They were big and running. But the shoe is amazing
Speaker 2: the way it's built. So I took a chance. You know,
Speaker 2: Nike was there, Converse was still big, but my agent
Speaker 2: the time was was was talking to New Bounds because
Speaker 2: they were looking to get into the basketball one. Now,
Speaker 2: what they didn't do they paid well. I had the
Speaker 2: biggest shoe contract. I think it was like five, you know,
Speaker 2: five years.
Speaker 5: It was something like that.
Speaker 2: Crazy until Moses, I'm sorry, until Michael came along. But
Speaker 2: Great Shoe and I took a chance because I had
Speaker 2: no idea that New Balance was into basketball. But once
Speaker 2: I put they had a mesh shoe was the first
Speaker 2: year I put on. It was light, felt good, and
Speaker 2: I've been wearing those what I consider bucking ankle breakers
Speaker 2: converse in college. So I liked the shoe. I stuck
Speaker 2: with them forever. There's a couple times my shoes got
Speaker 2: stolen and I had to wear the visiting teams, I
Speaker 2: mean the whole team shoes. So they got they got
Speaker 2: on a couple of basketball cards. They got me in
Speaker 2: Adidas if you ever see it. But I just talked
Speaker 2: to them about six months ago about trying to you know,
Speaker 2: they always get me product. Yeah, but we're trying to
Speaker 2: be working on some things because I was the first. Actually,
Speaker 2: believe it or not, it was a Boston Celtic that
Speaker 2: introduced me to them mL CAR because they're out of
Speaker 2: New Balances out of Maine and he was working with
Speaker 2: them in Boston a little bit. So Great Shoe, the
Speaker 2: son has taken over now Chris, and he's in his
Speaker 2: thirties and he's you know a little bit more, you know,
Speaker 2: has more ideas, got baseball players, got women. You know,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's it's very competitive now. So yeah, so
Speaker 2: it's be nice to blend, you know, somebody's younger. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I had to tell Kawi Leonard m one album you
Speaker 2: can listen to on repeat, Jeffrey Osborne on the Wings
Speaker 2: of Love. If I'm on the Freeway, uh ierk Went
Speaker 2: and Fire is what I grew up on. Uh No,
Speaker 2: Billy Well Yeah, Billy Ocean. It was my guy was big, clean, yeah, Philly.
Speaker 2: Every time I see Michael Finley, I'm like, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it would have to be Earth Winding Fire. That was
Speaker 2: the first concert uh I ever seen. But man, I
Speaker 2: like bands like the Barcades Confunction. This is this the
Speaker 2: mold stuff. But then you know, as it got a
Speaker 2: little older, you know, tribe called uh track on Quest
Speaker 2: was hot in Jersey. You got to see them in
Speaker 2: some local clubs and you know, if I listened to
Speaker 2: I'm not big in the rap, but if I do,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm gonna probably be nos like that's some deep,
Speaker 2: stuffy earth Winding Fire is gonna get it, though. Who's
Speaker 2: the most underrated play of your generation?
Speaker 6: Man?
Speaker 2: Underrated? Well, people gonnay. There was a guy after Dennis
Speaker 2: Rodman that was just tough as nails and a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't remember him. But Rodney McCrae.
Speaker 5: I know that, I know that name.
Speaker 2: Uh played for the Rockets. Rockets, then he got traded
Speaker 2: I think after after that they beat us in eighty six.
Speaker 2: But we had a brother, Scooter McCrae, and they both
Speaker 2: played at Louisville and Uh, but one of the reasons
Speaker 2: that they that the that the Rockets beat us in
Speaker 2: eighty six was because of his ability to you know,
Speaker 2: slowed me down a little bit. We had Kareem, we
Speaker 2: had magic and they had they had a king Ralph
Speaker 2: and Reid and uh, you know they had they had
Speaker 2: they ran the ball. But right, Rodney McCrae was was
Speaker 2: tough man. And then there was another guy to play
Speaker 2: for the Mavericks in Seattle, Uh, Debtli Shrimp Deatlan Shrimp
Speaker 2: was He was tough, tough German guy man and uh
Speaker 2: strong fundamental foot work. His first step was long and quick,
Speaker 2: and I had some battles with him, But I would
Speaker 2: for me those those two guys didn't get all yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh, five dinner guests dead are alive? You plus five
Speaker 3: at the dinner table, dead are alive.
Speaker 2: Anybody that's hard?
Speaker 5: Man, that's hard. Uh.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't mind, you know, seeing what Frederick Douglass was
Speaker 2: all about. You know he was. He was an abolitionist,
Speaker 2: you know. Uh hm, So I'm gonna go there, Richard
Speaker 2: Pryor laugh off? Uh, Richard Pryor for sure? Uh maya
Speaker 2: Angelou just her dialect, you know Obama because you know
Speaker 2: he just emerged, and I got one more mhm oh man,
Speaker 2: I'm African entity, so strong, like Marcus Garvey or somebody
Speaker 2: my guy, that's my guy. I would have to go
Speaker 2: with Marcus because Marcus is deeper than a lot of people.
Speaker 6: Then he showed us how to get our own currency,
Speaker 6: showed us if you could see one guess on all
Speaker 6: the smoke, who would it be? But if I could
Speaker 6: see one guest on our show, who would it be?
Speaker 2: One guest?
Speaker 5: But you have to help us get your answer on
Speaker 5: the show.
Speaker 2: Uh ask me that one time?
Speaker 5: Who would you like to see on our show? And
Speaker 5: you have to help us get your answer? On our show.
Speaker 2: Is a I have been on the show before, no question, quest,
Speaker 2: no question. That's that's a tough one, man to anybody,
Speaker 2: athlete or not anybody.
Speaker 6: You know a lot of people that came through them games,
Speaker 6: and can you know a lot of people out here,
Speaker 6: a lot of people out here.
Speaker 2: It would be nice if you I think Denzel's been
Speaker 2: on too as not so that that would be somebody. Actually,
Speaker 2: if you get Denzel, get Paul Letter too, because there
Speaker 2: were Paul Letter's tickets. She was a bigger fan in
Speaker 2: the eighties than Denzel and nobody knows that. And Paul
Speaker 2: Letter was She's from North Carolina, So I would say
Speaker 2: Denzel and Paul Letter Lou gossip. Lou gossip was an
Speaker 2: old school say one of them with back back in
Speaker 2: the in the in the day. Okay, I'll see if
Speaker 2: we can get.
Speaker 3: You well, James, we appreciate it, man, your greatness, taking
Speaker 3: your time today, but just you know what you did
Speaker 3: for the game and Jackson. You know, you guys had
Speaker 3: a movement that inspired a lot of us to want
Speaker 3: to be great. So we want to thank you for
Speaker 3: that and continued success. Thank you guys for for keeping
Speaker 3: it going man, because you know, it's nice to sustain it.
Speaker 3: You guys were cond just about not only what basketball needed,
Speaker 3: but what life needed. You know what, what what the
Speaker 3: old players, retired players needed, what the communities need? So
Speaker 3: uh to use your platform doing this is you to
Speaker 3: be commended for. That's a wrap, James Worthy. You can
Speaker 3: catch us on Showtime Basketball, YouTube and the iHeart platform
Speaker 3: Black Effects.
Speaker 2: See y'all next week.