Speaker 1: This is kJ Live with Chris john Sallis and chriss
Speaker 1: Is having conversations with influencers in the sports world and
Speaker 1: entertainment in a strain. Now here's Chris Johnson. You're now
Speaker 1: tuned in the kJ Live. Today's guest on the show
Speaker 1: is a multitalented multimedia personality, post writer, and producer. Two
Speaker 1: dollar fifteen, he won a Sports Emmy for Rand University.
Speaker 1: ESPN is thirty for thirty on legendary wide receiver Randy Moss.
Speaker 1: Our guest has written on sports, music and culture for
Speaker 1: politics for the past fifteen years and continues to entertain
Speaker 1: sports lovers with exceptional television, podcast and radio programming on
Speaker 1: ESPN and most recently, he was He is joining the
Speaker 1: cast of Back on the Record with the legendary Bob
Speaker 1: This on HBO. Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome into the show. Bo.
Speaker 1: Matti Jones is in the building. Bow. What's good dude, man?
Speaker 1: I'm good man. How about you, man, I'm wonderful man.
Speaker 1: I'm just out here in l A is a little overcast,
Speaker 1: my man. But we're hoping this burns off and we
Speaker 1: can make a day out of it. They are only
Speaker 1: gonna lose your minds over seeing plows that don't happen
Speaker 1: over there very much. I know you have a little
Speaker 1: history out here too, so we'll get into that a
Speaker 1: little bit. But yeah, man, it's you know, l A.
Speaker 1: Weather is a trip bro. But speaking on stuff that
Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to touch on with you, man,
Speaker 1: a lot of what you do right You're you're the
Speaker 1: kind of the contemporary pop culture commentator, the sports pop
Speaker 1: culture commentators, so we can always get your take on
Speaker 1: anything that's happening. You come up these really thoughtful, intelligent
Speaker 1: sort of takes. Man, You're always getting into the thick
Speaker 1: of it. But I don't think a lot of folks
Speaker 1: know your background. So one of the things I kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to do because I've always been fascinated with
Speaker 1: your background ever since I first met you. I just
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to touch on a little bit about
Speaker 1: where you're from, how you grew up, your edguc asial background, man,
Speaker 1: some of your accolades, and then sort of how you
Speaker 1: transitioned into sports media. Yeah. No, Um, I was born
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, UM, and we moved to Houston when I
Speaker 1: was right before I turned seven years old. We stayed
Speaker 1: there until I graduated high schools like right before I
Speaker 1: turned uh seventeen, and I went back to Atlanta with
Speaker 1: college at Clark Atlanta University. My parents were both professors.
Speaker 1: And the thing about Clark that was interesting was at
Speaker 1: the time my father was working there and you know
Speaker 1: people as well. I was going to school and one
Speaker 1: thing I knew I wasn't gon do was to go
Speaker 1: to school where my dad worked. That just didn't seem
Speaker 1: to make any sense whatsoever, right, Like, I know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to school anywhere near home, and then like
Speaker 1: everything was moving back towards there for the family. I
Speaker 1: was like, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Um. And
Speaker 1: then my brother, who's thirteen years old than me, explained
Speaker 1: that ain't worried about what you're doing. Okay, cool, right,
Speaker 1: And so I made a trip down there. So he
Speaker 1: got rather Atlanta like I got to college in ninety seven,
Speaker 1: but I took a visit there at ninety six, so
Speaker 1: like this isn't like yeah, like this is Atlanta on
Speaker 1: the come up, right, this is right after the Olympics
Speaker 1: and all of that. And I got there and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, there's no question where I'm going to school.
Speaker 1: Right here, and that is exactly what I did. And
Speaker 1: so I was there from one and always say that
Speaker 1: like being in Atlanta at that time. Now it's all
Speaker 1: kind of outside and kind of growing itself, and there's
Speaker 1: the Rezilion things going on, but not a lot of
Speaker 1: room for things to breed. This was while all of
Speaker 1: that was building, and it still felt like reasonable in
Speaker 1: a sense. It was like people were coming from everywhere
Speaker 1: to little did they know, contribute to something that was
Speaker 1: then regional and them would like suddenly become kind of
Speaker 1: like the pulse now of Black Coast in America is
Speaker 1: really coming out of Atlanta. Um. And so I started
Speaker 1: writing about music the summer after my junior year of college,
Speaker 1: and so he said, oh no, this is now. It's
Speaker 1: like two thousand, two thousand two kids when I got there,
Speaker 1: and that like, again, this was the best place to
Speaker 1: be because so many people like I went to college.
Speaker 1: We were trying to get this thing going, trying to
Speaker 1: get this website off the ground, trying to get this
Speaker 1: you know, producial company, because Atlanta was the place to be.
Speaker 1: If that's who you were, you know, that's what you
Speaker 1: were about, you were gonna know somebody, right, And so
Speaker 1: it's people like you just you know, you could always
Speaker 1: tell who was front. And like, this is when cell
Speaker 1: phones were not the most common thing in the world.
Speaker 1: You always have somebody walking down to yard act like
Speaker 1: they're being important talking. And then as I started writing
Speaker 1: and getting in it, I started doing things and realizing,
Speaker 1: oh no, this person actually is like making some things happen,
Speaker 1: actually is working on something. And so there was like
Speaker 1: a real spirit of collaboration around a lot of that
Speaker 1: stuff because so many people would just do you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to play the same game, but not in
Speaker 1: a way that was that necessitated, like competition between people,
Speaker 1: Like they didn't make a whole lot of sense for
Speaker 1: folks at that point. So I did that. I graduated
Speaker 1: from college, and I was like, the one thing I
Speaker 1: know I'm not gonna do is go to grad school,
Speaker 1: which meant, of course, in the fall of Able one,
Speaker 1: I was in grad school. I went to Claremont Graduate
Speaker 1: University in Clarmont, California. What made so you You was
Speaker 1: off of it at first, but then you decided to
Speaker 1: come to Calign. Now why did you decide to make
Speaker 1: the move to grad school? Because I wasn't doing anything
Speaker 1: else and these people called me, and I'll never forget
Speaker 1: they called me, like in August, and they were trying
Speaker 1: to talk to me about this fellowship that they had
Speaker 1: and I was like, man, I guess, like, I really
Speaker 1: don't want to do this. I really thought I was
Speaker 1: under a grave misunderstanding of how much money you could
Speaker 1: make by writing. Like I thought that I was going
Speaker 1: to be able to sustain in a livelihood as a
Speaker 1: freelance writer. And that was man, I was dumb, Like
Speaker 1: that was that like like that was just And I
Speaker 1: remember the moment that I realized it was dumb, and
Speaker 1: I realized that it was dumb. I guess it had
Speaker 1: to be around April because it was tax time and
Speaker 1: I was talking to a dude that I met, you know,
Speaker 1: internet met, you know, who was a freelance writer. And
Speaker 1: he told me he was so excited because he was
Speaker 1: doing his taxes and he realized that he had made
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars freelancing that year. And I was like,
Speaker 1: excuse me, what, like the whole year, the whole year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had no idea that these people that were right
Speaker 1: at the same site as we had day jobs, Like,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this. I was like, oh no, this
Speaker 1: is this is definitely a problem. And so I had
Speaker 1: met up with this dude from Baltimore who was trying
Speaker 1: to start a magazine and he had sold me some
Speaker 1: promises about, you know, how much work I could get
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So one weekend, my buddies were
Speaker 1: going up to d C because one of those from
Speaker 1: a d C and so rolled up there with him.
Speaker 1: I think I brought a hundred dollars from my parents
Speaker 1: because I was gonna meet this dude and hammerad this
Speaker 1: deal and get this figured out. And that dude stood
Speaker 1: me up like I never heard from the while I
Speaker 1: was there, and I was just ghost like. I think
Speaker 1: I talked to him again later, but it was kind
Speaker 1: of a wrap on that. And I remember I was
Speaker 1: at my buddies mom's house and I was just my
Speaker 1: head was back. I was so stressed out. In the
Speaker 1: phone rang and it was the folks that amat and
Speaker 1: they were like, yeah, so about this fellowship. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: like now I'm listening right, like now I gotta now.
Speaker 1: I got a little more of an into it. And
Speaker 1: then I remember I hit the lady on email. No,
Speaker 1: maybe in that conversation I said, Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: for February. I mean for January, right, She's like, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: that's for this fall. So we're now in the middle
Speaker 1: of August and she's like, it's for this fall, and
Speaker 1: I want to talk to the parents. And you know,
Speaker 1: we made it work. I got out there. I've never
Speaker 1: been to California before. I didn't know anybody in California.
Speaker 1: This wasn't the plan. And and and this is a
Speaker 1: very important detail. I had a misunderstanding of the spatial
Speaker 1: geography of southern California. So I thought that I was
Speaker 1: going to l A. I thought I was going to
Speaker 1: people Los Angeles. Clairemont is a little different than that.
Speaker 1: Right now, I caught a flight into Ontario, a very
Speaker 1: convenient and charming airport. Just absolutely but it became very
Speaker 1: clear to me very quickly that it was not Los Angeles, no, sir,
Speaker 1: I mean, was there an adjustment process being from the south,
Speaker 1: or did you just fit in fine because it's the
Speaker 1: college atmosphere. It was an adjustment. It wasn't really so
Speaker 1: much about being from the south. It wasn't that. The
Speaker 1: adjustment for me is that I spent four years in
Speaker 1: Southwest Atlanta, going to a black college, and like, if
Speaker 1: you're from like a place that has black colleges but
Speaker 1: their state schools, you ain't got a whole lot of
Speaker 1: white people there. But you got white people there right,
Speaker 1: Like you got white folks taking classes that night when
Speaker 1: they get off work. You've got people who live around
Speaker 1: the area because they can still live with their parents,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're still kind of there. When you
Speaker 1: go to like a private black college, which Clark was,
Speaker 1: white folks ain't going paying no sixteen thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: come hang out with us like that, Like that wasn't
Speaker 1: that that was not the property location. No, And so
Speaker 1: we had the blackest part of town at a school
Speaker 1: as black as you could possibly imagine. And I get
Speaker 1: to Claremont and I remember I got there for orientation
Speaker 1: and there was like one black person there, like there
Speaker 1: was no I was like a black person nowhere to
Speaker 1: be found. And I'm just walking around and I see
Speaker 1: the sign for the Office of Black Student Affairs. Because
Speaker 1: I don't know nothing about how white colleges get down
Speaker 1: and all of them got some office for the black
Speaker 1: people to go hide at. You know, when things get
Speaker 1: a little bit rough to put all programs for you
Speaker 1: and stuff, and I just remember I walked in there
Speaker 1: and they were like, yeah. I was like, I just
Speaker 1: feel like I need to be here right now. I
Speaker 1: did not know what was going at all, and so
Speaker 1: I had to like it wasn't full on adulthood, because
Speaker 1: my parents are still helped me out, you know, a lot,
Speaker 1: but this wasn't like this was a much more growing
Speaker 1: up endeva than anything that I had done before. And
Speaker 1: that was I think a big part of it. And
Speaker 1: graduate schools a lot harder than undergrad It's a lot
Speaker 1: more work than undergrad is. And I had been used
Speaker 1: to just kind of coasting and I could goes through
Speaker 1: their relatively, but yeah, no, it was it. It It
Speaker 1: was definitely a cultural difference. I wouldn't say shock, but
Speaker 1: it was definitely a difference. A quick thought on HBCUs.
Speaker 1: I have my younger brother, Mariah, graduated from Tuskegee. He
Speaker 1: actually got his masters in like occupational therapy, so he
Speaker 1: does stuff. And when I talked to him about his
Speaker 1: experience there, uh, he said it was the greatest thing
Speaker 1: that's ever happened to him in his life, just because
Speaker 1: of the way he felt and the way you know,
Speaker 1: people embraced him, and he felt like everybody cared about
Speaker 1: his personal success. When you see all these different sort
Speaker 1: of now new age kind of campaigns to highlight HBCUs,
Speaker 1: Chris Paul's coming out with a movie, jay Z and
Speaker 1: Beyonce just launched something, um that is you know, I
Speaker 1: forgot what it is, but a scholarship or something where
Speaker 1: they're giving directing funds to HBCUs. Do you feel like, um,
Speaker 1: this is something that's a completely genuine act or is
Speaker 1: it something that you feel that I almost say that
Speaker 1: you feel, But for me, it sort of feels like
Speaker 1: this is good timing and so people are jumping on it.
Speaker 1: They weren't really on it before, they're kind of getting
Speaker 1: on it now because of the timing. What's your take
Speaker 1: on that boat? I think it's genuine, and I also
Speaker 1: think it's good timing, right Like, I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of things happen in the last twelve to eighteen
Speaker 1: months that, you know, made people aware and think about
Speaker 1: things and you know that thing you've been meaning to
Speaker 1: do but you just ain't got around to yet, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that for a lot of these people, it
Speaker 1: is entirely possible that this is what it was, and
Speaker 1: they pushed you to the top of the stack. The
Speaker 1: only thing I questioned about it, and it's not with
Speaker 1: the intentions of the people who are doing it, is
Speaker 1: I don't feel like it's making the right point about HBCUs,
Speaker 1: And I don't know if a lot of these campaigns
Speaker 1: can really do it, because I think it's a real
Speaker 1: common sense thing that gets lost in these discussions, because
Speaker 1: like when I turn on TV and I see like
Speaker 1: on First Take, for example, where they'll go to a
Speaker 1: black college and they have somebody doing a step show
Speaker 1: and the band will be out there and they're selling
Speaker 1: the idea of the culture. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: that's dope, right, but um, that's not the reason to
Speaker 1: do it. It's not for the aesthetic. The biggest thing
Speaker 1: that I think that I got out of going to
Speaker 1: an HBCU two things. Number One, I make the argument
Speaker 1: that HBCUs are actually the most diverse four year college
Speaker 1: environments that you'll find, and it's because there is a
Speaker 1: diversity of class and experience. Because racist fiction, right, like
Speaker 1: race is just something that somebody made up in large park,
Speaker 1: and so the delice like why are all these people here,
Speaker 1: what's the common thing they have between them. They're all black, Okay,
Speaker 1: that doesn't really mean that much in terms of what
Speaker 1: they actually have in common. And so once you go
Speaker 1: down the level below that, that's where you start finding like,
Speaker 1: oh man, so we've got people from this you know,
Speaker 1: whose mama does this for a level with mama does
Speaker 1: that for a living um, And all those people are
Speaker 1: interacting with each other on a regular basis because they're like,
Speaker 1: for example, you want to come down and you can
Speaker 1: go to a school that is disproportionately bourgeois. Yes, but
Speaker 1: you go to most HBCU schools and you're a bougie kid.
Speaker 1: Hey man, there ain't enough of y'all to like really
Speaker 1: parse yourselves out from everybody else, Like all five of
Speaker 1: y'all gonna be doing that, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 1: it's just it's not enough people for you to be
Speaker 1: able to pull that kind of thing off. And so
Speaker 1: I met more kinds of people for more places in college.
Speaker 1: Then I think that most people who go to a
Speaker 1: predominant white school would like, you know, there's the international
Speaker 1: element I think that comes in when you go to
Speaker 1: a predominantly white school. You know, just as people know
Speaker 1: those brands and they go or whatever. But in terms
Speaker 1: of your actual interaction, especially if you are a black person,
Speaker 1: the black poles wind of going to them schools and
Speaker 1: then just still hanging out with a bunch of black people.
Speaker 1: Just like, what's going to going to school with all
Speaker 1: these white posts if you ain't gonna kick it with them?
Speaker 1: Right like, like like this is this is what you
Speaker 1: signed up for. But I think that I met a
Speaker 1: broader range of people than most people do in college
Speaker 1: by going to a black school. The other thing is
Speaker 1: like I'm not even talking about microaggressions and all that
Speaker 1: stuff that you know people who go to white school's
Speaker 1: talk about. And I mean I went to you know,
Speaker 1: to very white school, well one very in the Carolina,
Speaker 1: which is an interesting thing in itself, and Claremont's wiggy
Speaker 1: white um, and I never like, maybe I just don't
Speaker 1: notice these things, but you know, the microaggression and everybody
Speaker 1: getting on you and all that stuff. Now, I didn't
Speaker 1: notice that. What I did notice, though, was how surprised
Speaker 1: people would be when they found out I was actually
Speaker 1: kind of smart, right, Like that was the biggest difference there.
Speaker 1: And so at the black school, there's a level of
Speaker 1: skepticism that you don't have to deal with from people. Right,
Speaker 1: there are people who are more likely as a if
Speaker 1: you are a black person, to believe in what you're
Speaker 1: capable of, because white FLEs got so much hair trash
Speaker 1: about black people that they don't even necessarily realize that
Speaker 1: they have even the best intention. Some of the best
Speaker 1: people like, they grew up in this same thing that
Speaker 1: we did, right, Like all this stuff that we complain about,
Speaker 1: they grew up with it and ain't really done a
Speaker 1: whole lot of questioning of it for the most part,
Speaker 1: and so they don't know that they're thinking about that.
Speaker 1: So like with me, the way people who I worked
Speaker 1: with in college, you know, professors and the likes, leaned
Speaker 1: in on my capabilities. I didn't find that at most
Speaker 1: of the white educational environments that I was in that
Speaker 1: people did that the same way. And that's what I
Speaker 1: think is the biggest thing that has a black student
Speaker 1: that you are going to get out of the black college.
Speaker 1: If you are a talented person to create a person
Speaker 1: to think or whatever is, those people working with you
Speaker 1: have to jump over far fewer hoops and get a
Speaker 1: lot less stuff out of the way before they can
Speaker 1: see what you're capable of staying on. Uh, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's interesting, And that's the perspective that I really haven't
Speaker 1: heard to explain like that as far as the diversity.
Speaker 1: But you can't get on TV and say that stuff,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, like when they're trying to
Speaker 1: get out here and make the pitch. So what's the issue?
Speaker 1: A man? Wife? Fols don't be thinking we can do stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're not Chris Paul. Can't get on
Speaker 1: TV and be like that. That's not gonna work. That's
Speaker 1: not gonna work. They never gonna give us nobody to
Speaker 1: help do this if we start acting like that in
Speaker 1: front of people, come on, man, No exactly, but standing
Speaker 1: college man, the game, the college game has changed a lot.
Speaker 1: Basketball sports game has changed a lot since we were
Speaker 1: in school and since our era. Just what is your
Speaker 1: take on things like conference realignment, the n i L
Speaker 1: and and sort of the what I think is the
Speaker 1: declining popularity of college basketball. I feel like college basketball
Speaker 1: is at one of its lowest points as far as popularity.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with this assessment and what are your thoughts? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely do. And it's interesting for me because you know,
Speaker 1: when I started doing radio is doing it in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: you know, and living there and being immersed in the
Speaker 1: place where the sports market is college sports, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's also kind of exposed, not really exposed, but
Speaker 1: it just made me kind of think about it in
Speaker 1: a way that like, I wasn't making all the money
Speaker 1: in the world, but I was making money to sit
Speaker 1: up on the radio and talk about what college kids
Speaker 1: were doing, right, and I was, and I would and
Speaker 1: I would go through some dilemmas really on like how
Speaker 1: exactly to present it, because like you, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to be fair, you have to be honest, you
Speaker 1: have to be somewhat critical. But these are also kids,
Speaker 1: and they're not making no money, you know, Like I
Speaker 1: do not want my job to be out here and
Speaker 1: people being like, man, look at listen to the way
Speaker 1: that he picked on this twenty year old, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't want that, but it let me know
Speaker 1: these are pro sports, Like we are talking about this
Speaker 1: like it's pro sports, and all of it is professionalized
Speaker 1: and the money has just gotten so big. And I
Speaker 1: don't bring that up, you know, to like speak to
Speaker 1: the horrors or evils to capitalism, but just to talk
Speaker 1: about the incentives for players where the chances of making
Speaker 1: a gazillion dollars are just so much higher than they
Speaker 1: ever were, and so people are going all in on
Speaker 1: all these dreams real early, Like that's the big thing
Speaker 1: about it. Got a home boy. His son was one
Speaker 1: of the top ten nine year olds in the state
Speaker 1: of Georgia at basketball. How was that a list? Right? Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: how is somebody compiling this? But we are identifying athletes
Speaker 1: so young and so I remember somebody told me this,
Speaker 1: and I never really thought about it this way, and
Speaker 1: we were talking about Ty Lawson at the time, and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. I was there when Lawson declared for
Speaker 1: the draft press conference in Chapel Hill, and somebody asked
Speaker 1: the perfunctory question of whether he and Wayne Ellington were
Speaker 1: going to come back and finish their degrees and laws
Speaker 1: and laughed like he didn't laugh in the behind his face,
Speaker 1: but his immediate reaction was a laugh because this was
Speaker 1: not what he was here for. And I remember the
Speaker 1: guy was talking to he was pretty good high school
Speaker 1: basketball player at the time, and he was like, as
Speaker 1: soon as somebody changes schools for basketball, it's officially a job.
Speaker 1: Like once you once that happens, this becomes a professional endeavor.
Speaker 1: And so people are just looking up. They're not even
Speaker 1: thinking about going to college, like that's just not the ideas.
Speaker 1: And you also have a chance to get an education.
Speaker 1: Now they ain't even talk no more like like somebody
Speaker 1: might convince you of it after you get there. So
Speaker 1: the highest level dudes are just if they're going to college,
Speaker 1: they're getting there, they're immediately playing, they're getting out. They
Speaker 1: ain't really got no investment in what the program is
Speaker 1: or what is going to be except like cal figured
Speaker 1: out a way to build something where guys cared about
Speaker 1: where the place was. But they just getting in and
Speaker 1: they're getting out. And so where twenty five years ago,
Speaker 1: even though some guys were leaving early, But twenty five
Speaker 1: years ago, those were the best basketball players under twenty
Speaker 1: two in the world. Basically who are playing college basketball now?
Speaker 1: It's like are just a random mix of players and
Speaker 1: it's almost impossible to like not just put together a
Speaker 1: good team, but a team that you kind of grow
Speaker 1: up with and part of the charm of ledge basketball.
Speaker 1: And I think even if you're somebody like me who
Speaker 1: thinks the guy should get paid and understand all that,
Speaker 1: and so forth and so long. There is something to
Speaker 1: be said for watching somebody and meeting them at eighteen
Speaker 1: and then letting them go at twenty two and you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of seeing what the changes are and like
Speaker 1: what it's like when there's a freshman who comes in
Speaker 1: it can really ball. But the twenty two year olds
Speaker 1: is still the ones who are starting, you know, and
Speaker 1: like figuring out how all that gets integrated in and
Speaker 1: all that's gone, Like that's just not what the game
Speaker 1: is anymore. And so if you are a casual fan
Speaker 1: or even like a die hard, really what's there for
Speaker 1: you to latch onto? The most talented players of the
Speaker 1: age range are not there. It's hard to get like
Speaker 1: a real ciniment attachment to what's going on with it.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, they messed up so long ago, not
Speaker 1: realizing what this money game was, and now I don't
Speaker 1: feel like and you would probably notice better than me.
Speaker 1: I just don't feel like these kids grow up even
Speaker 1: dreaming of playing college basketball, like I can't wait till I,
Speaker 1: you know, get old enough and I'm gonna play at Caroltta.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play at U c l A. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like they do that anymore. No, it's sort of
Speaker 1: for me. It feels like the kids are already fast
Speaker 1: forwarding and skipping to you know, dreams of the league,
Speaker 1: and so that's their goal from the start, and then
Speaker 1: they don't even really care or care to know about
Speaker 1: college basketball in the history. So there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a disconnect. But with all these new leagues now
Speaker 1: over time, elite um, there's been the g League ignite
Speaker 1: um you know there, which gives elite level high school
Speaker 1: basketball players an opportunity to earn six figures a year
Speaker 1: playing basketball. I wanted to get your ticket somebody who
Speaker 1: has multiple degrees and been through all every you know,
Speaker 1: part of the college experience possible except I guess you
Speaker 1: almost finished the doctor too, but you're pretty much you've
Speaker 1: been pretty much done at all. BO. Do you think
Speaker 1: it's important for these guys to go to college for
Speaker 1: a year to get that experience of college, to socialize,
Speaker 1: you know, that socialization of college or whatever we want
Speaker 1: to call it. You think it's important for these basketball
Speaker 1: players to do that or do they need to go
Speaker 1: short of this tennis and golf individualized sport route where
Speaker 1: we're pros at fifteen and sixteen and that's all we do.
Speaker 1: I think it would be helpful to do that college
Speaker 1: route if they actually like get to be in college, right,
Speaker 1: like it really feels like you're in college, then they should.
Speaker 1: If it's just like just to do it, just to
Speaker 1: say it, I think the real value and that honestly
Speaker 1: is an incubation, just the idea that eighteen is wild
Speaker 1: young and the mature, Like it's probably a good idea
Speaker 1: to do just do a little growing up, you know,
Speaker 1: like like it's it's it's helpful. Like I look at
Speaker 1: like two examples that jump to mind, and Michael Beasley
Speaker 1: into Marcus Cousins, where they could have just stood to
Speaker 1: do a little growing up before they got out there,
Speaker 1: you know. And Michael Beasley who was begging to stay
Speaker 1: in school. He was doing interviews like why do I
Speaker 1: have to go do all this stuff? Like I if
Speaker 1: you don't have any money, a hundred thousand dollars, two
Speaker 1: h thousand dollars, whatever it is, it's a lot of
Speaker 1: money if you don't have any money. But for a
Speaker 1: lot of these guys that were talking about in the end,
Speaker 1: that money ain't gonna behind up being nothing to them,
Speaker 1: And I think that the value of taking a little
Speaker 1: time and growing up and not rushing all this stuff,
Speaker 1: in the end, it's probably worth more than a couple
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. However, I recognize it as easy for
Speaker 1: me to say that as a person with a couple
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars, right, Like, I don't want to pretend
Speaker 1: as though I don't recognize as a measure of privilege
Speaker 1: in the statement. But I think for like developing and
Speaker 1: becoming a happier person, because in the end, happy is
Speaker 1: we'll be going for right and happy. Happy is a
Speaker 1: hard thing to find. And I don't think being a
Speaker 1: professional basketball player fifteen years old is gonna make you happy.
Speaker 1: I just don't think so. The last thing on on
Speaker 1: on College and these guys skipping, I mean, there was
Speaker 1: you know, Kwamie Brown has been kind of he started
Speaker 1: off hot. It's kind of, you know, got locked into
Speaker 1: something now that he's doing on YouTube, which you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really have an opinion about. What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts when you see this type of situation unfolded in
Speaker 1: front of everybody, and you're we're kind of outsiders watching
Speaker 1: you watch somebody kind of just go on and on
Speaker 1: about being picked on and you know, just I just
Speaker 1: wanted to get your thoughts some media, somebody that's in
Speaker 1: the media on how you view just the whole Kwamie
Speaker 1: Brown situation. Well, hey, I'll be careful, man. He finds everything. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that dude is the troll of all trolls. Bro.
Speaker 1: You know, he's crazy that he Yeah, he finds everything. Um.
Speaker 1: You know the thing with him, and I think I
Speaker 1: do think one point that he makes that is important
Speaker 1: is that we don't know him, right, And so I tried.
Speaker 1: I want to be careful as I can a psycho
Speaker 1: analysis and somebody like him, because it's fair. I don't
Speaker 1: really know the dude. But what I do know is
Speaker 1: we were really hard on him just because he was
Speaker 1: the number one pick in the draft. Like that's honestly
Speaker 1: his sin. If he were the number six pick in
Speaker 1: the draft, we wouldn't have had none of that stuff
Speaker 1: to say. And if you go back and look at
Speaker 1: that draft, with the exception being maybe Tyson Chandler, who
Speaker 1: ever went number one in that draft, we were going
Speaker 1: to ridicule forever. It was not a good draft. It did,
Speaker 1: and even Tyson, when you think about it. You know,
Speaker 1: you being in California, you remember what the legend of
Speaker 1: Tyson Chandler was when he was in high school. If
Speaker 1: he had been the number one pick and gone and
Speaker 1: played with Mike, we had just spent all our time
Speaker 1: talking about how Tyson Chandler came school, it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: mattered how good. And it took him a while to
Speaker 1: get it together too. We gotta remember that part. Like
Speaker 1: he didn't just walk in and shut down the lane.
Speaker 1: Like even like healthy Greg Oden before he got hurt
Speaker 1: as a young player, was more impactful than Tyson Chandler. Right,
Speaker 1: We would have killed Tyson Chandler if he wound up
Speaker 1: in that same situation. And so then for all these
Speaker 1: years that come after the fact, Kwamie Brown's name is
Speaker 1: listed as all time draft bus data DA and all
Speaker 1: of this stuff, I would understand if somebody just got
Speaker 1: tired of that, you know. And I think that's one
Speaker 1: thing working in the media that I don't think that
Speaker 1: people we don't give enough credence to about the people
Speaker 1: that we covered, which is we don't have people in
Speaker 1: our faces asking us these questions all the time. We
Speaker 1: don't have people like we we are not. Most of
Speaker 1: us are not as good at our jobs as the
Speaker 1: people we cover are at their jobs, and nobody ridicules
Speaker 1: us in the ways that these guys deal with it.
Speaker 1: And who knows what else goes on in their lives
Speaker 1: and everything else, you know. So when I see a
Speaker 1: cat like him, I'm like, yeah, I can see how
Speaker 1: this happens, you know. Now he is a fascinating combination
Speaker 1: of a whole bunch of stuff that's going on. Like
Speaker 1: I actually think it's really interested. Um, I haven't gonna
Speaker 1: checked him out in a while, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a lot going on over there. Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 1: He's still on the trades and coding for the for
Speaker 1: the youth. I mean, that's been kind of his thing,
Speaker 1: his theme, you know, regardless of whatever mud he's thrown
Speaker 1: or you know, stuff he's talked, he's always trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, stay true to that. I guess we'll see
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, what happens out of that. But
Speaker 1: but talking more about like today's athlete, right when you
Speaker 1: look at Kevin Love and and and Simone bios and
Speaker 1: and Naomial Sokka, three athletes that have been really outspoken
Speaker 1: and open about mental health challenges. Now. When I was
Speaker 1: coming up, both, you know, you couldn't really be talking
Speaker 1: about that publicly people. You know, that was back in
Speaker 1: the day where you would get ostracized, bagged on, and
Speaker 1: you know people you know, you get a stigma about you.
Speaker 1: But so you would have to suffer and hold things
Speaker 1: in and kind of, you know, just sort of cope
Speaker 1: on your own. With you With more athletes coming out now,
Speaker 1: I wanted to get your opinion on how young do
Speaker 1: you think it's important to start providing mental health resources
Speaker 1: to athletes? How young of an age do you think
Speaker 1: we should start addressing situations in athletes. I'll be honest
Speaker 1: with you. Um, when I was twelve thirteen, somewhere in there, um,
Speaker 1: my mother suggested that I go see a therapist. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't like I was like in some supremely depressed
Speaker 1: place or anything like that. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it was just the function of like being that age.
Speaker 1: But I was also like I was in a unique
Speaker 1: sort of circumstance because I had skipped a grade and
Speaker 1: then my birthday is in late August, so like the
Speaker 1: people I like, the people in my grade in some
Speaker 1: cases are literally two years older than me, you know,
Speaker 1: and so they growing I'm not you know, all these
Speaker 1: different things that are going on, and it was just
Speaker 1: my I was living a life that was unique relative
Speaker 1: to my peers and not really something where I had
Speaker 1: people I could relate to or even really a circumstance
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways that like my parents could
Speaker 1: relate to or anything, you know, um, and so the
Speaker 1: uniqueness of that situation, you know, mom thought was a
Speaker 1: good idea and it's one of the best things that
Speaker 1: ever happened, right, It's one of the best things for me,
Speaker 1: And like I felt down the line, like left me
Speaker 1: grounded with a certain confidence and the ability to kind
Speaker 1: of be forgiving of myself when I make mistakes and
Speaker 1: the likes and you know, all those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: And so if I think it was a good idea
Speaker 1: for me at that age because my situation was particularly unique,
Speaker 1: we talked about people whose situations are probably more unique
Speaker 1: than mine where and mind didn't come with any pressures
Speaker 1: you know that would coming with this, you know, because
Speaker 1: the big level of this also what a lot of
Speaker 1: these kids, you know and these athletics, is they know
Speaker 1: it man, their parents trying to get this money too,
Speaker 1: you know, like this could like I don't obviously. For example,
Speaker 1: I think I was in this book only the Strong
Speaker 1: survived of bio of iruson and made the point that
Speaker 1: his mama thought the guy said out and orison into
Speaker 1: her life to save her from poverty. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: the pressure that comes from somebody you know, thinking that
Speaker 1: and the other people like that? Yeah, like people people
Speaker 1: that probably folks probably go like see their cars and
Speaker 1: look at their parents cars, look at their parents houses
Speaker 1: and think, oh, y'all living good, and their parents still
Speaker 1: looking at you like okay, but we could be living great,
Speaker 1: you know, like imagine like you know, so imagine all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And so I really think, honestly, for just
Speaker 1: about anybody, but especially for them, this is something you
Speaker 1: need to start learning how to deal with early as
Speaker 1: you're doing it, as opposed to like somebody like Osaka
Speaker 1: who suddenly got a lot more famous than I think
Speaker 1: she ever thought was going to be possible, and fame,
Speaker 1: by the way, the most overrated thing in the world.
Speaker 1: And now you're in it, and now so many people
Speaker 1: to tie to you and everything else, and you're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to deal with it like all
Speaker 1: at the same time with folks. No, you should probably
Speaker 1: get started on this like most people should as soon
Speaker 1: as possible. Yeah, and don't wait until there's you know,
Speaker 1: an inciting incident or something like that. Kind of be
Speaker 1: proactive much like you bo. I started seeing the therapist
Speaker 1: when I was twelve and thirteen years old. I had
Speaker 1: a younger brother that drowned in the pool accident. Man.
Speaker 1: I needed I needed some coping mechanisms. I was in
Speaker 1: a bad place, depressed, I was low, and I do
Speaker 1: think it was life changing. The ability to talk to
Speaker 1: somebody about what you're going through that doesn't judge you.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the most important things that
Speaker 1: we have today because a lot of times, as people
Speaker 1: man anybody right, we don't want to communicate, we don't
Speaker 1: want to talk about stuff, get stuff off our chest.
Speaker 1: So that's what it served for me. And and even
Speaker 1: in college both um, you know, I had situation where
Speaker 1: I got suspended for you know, undisclosed reasons, but you know,
Speaker 1: everybody kind of knew what it was. I had to
Speaker 1: go through, you know, uh, alcoholics anonymous. I had to
Speaker 1: do see a counselor three times a week. A guy
Speaker 1: by the name of Dr William Parrhand, who, by the way,
Speaker 1: is the head of the NBA Players Association Sports Psychiatric
Speaker 1: part right now. But so I had to do that, man,
Speaker 1: I tell you what. That it changed my life. It
Speaker 1: changed the trajectory of my basketball career and my life. Man.
Speaker 1: When you when you get equipped with you know, some
Speaker 1: ways to cope. Brother, that stuff is you know, that
Speaker 1: stuff is lifelong and it's lasting, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And you were Marcus Johnson's son, like you know, and
Speaker 1: like that's the thing. And I think that's something I
Speaker 1: imagine like some of these athletes, they like, I'm somebody's son.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't mean nothing to most of the people who
Speaker 1: would listen them in the world that I trafficked in.
Speaker 1: I was somebody's son. That's a pressure that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have in their lives. By the way, sometimes
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. Sometimes that's a bad thing. But
Speaker 1: you know, right, but like you know, but like, but
Speaker 1: these are just the pressures of being a regular person. Right.
Speaker 1: We go get our bodies checked out like once a year.
Speaker 1: You know, we all can stand a little maintenance. I
Speaker 1: think the problem the stigma, which I think is largely
Speaker 1: gone at this point. But I think that the idea
Speaker 1: of the stigma comes from the error that people make,
Speaker 1: which is you need to go look into those things
Speaker 1: because you've got something wrong. Na, na, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: These are little things, right, These are tune up. This
Speaker 1: is tune up type stuff. Right. We're not talking about
Speaker 1: getting you a kid, right, We're not talking about rebuilding
Speaker 1: the engine block buying large for most people. We're just
Speaker 1: talking about some little tweaks. Because those little tweaks they
Speaker 1: get out of control, they get out of and now
Speaker 1: you can ye now, yeah, exactly both. Do you ever
Speaker 1: think that cannabis in the NBA or in professional sports
Speaker 1: will be an accepted way to address like just a
Speaker 1: widely universally accepted way to address different elements mental anxiety
Speaker 1: or whatever or whatever. Do you think it will ever
Speaker 1: be that way or there always be sort of that
Speaker 1: cheachen chung stigma associated with athletes and cannada smoking cannabis. Now,
Speaker 1: I think it's widely accepted now, they just don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about it. Like. The thing that people always
Speaker 1: have to remember with weed in the NBA is that
Speaker 1: they did not prohibit it until nineteen nine, Right, like
Speaker 1: this was during that lockout, the ultimate culture lockout. Right,
Speaker 1: we got we gotta shut down this buddy, We gotta
Speaker 1: get these dudes in a lot. They are out here
Speaker 1: wildly right, So just to get a little bit of
Speaker 1: that control back, they put in the Marriwater prohibition. But
Speaker 1: again nineteen nobody really cared about this before that happened.
Speaker 1: And so what I think happened with legalization. I remember
Speaker 1: when they legalized in Colorado. UM I used to read
Speaker 1: a section of the paper up there. They had a
Speaker 1: section called the Cannabis where they were just talking about
Speaker 1: all the things that he changed. It was really interesting
Speaker 1: stuff like just you know, like like of course they
Speaker 1: had like reviews of food type stuff, reviews of strains
Speaker 1: and everything, but it was also just a lot of
Speaker 1: like business type stuff. And so the local symphony was
Speaker 1: having Cannabis Night. But it makes sense. You're gonna get
Speaker 1: really high and then you go to a concerts good time.
Speaker 1: But those are the people who were going there. And
Speaker 1: so what I think happened is as these more for
Speaker 1: lack of a better term, like sophisticated types started engaging
Speaker 1: these things and presented these sorts of activities and started
Speaker 1: using words like cannabis and everything to kind of move
Speaker 1: away from, you know, the previous connotations of the way
Speaker 1: that people talked about this stuff. I just don't think
Speaker 1: that's something that anybody really cares about anymore. Like if
Speaker 1: you get caught, like some got caught on a possession charge,
Speaker 1: I don't think like the way we still have people
Speaker 1: telling jokes about James Winston and the crab legs, that's
Speaker 1: any really gonna happened with you if you get cast
Speaker 1: smoking weed At this point, you know what I think
Speaker 1: about the New York City has said it's the wildest
Speaker 1: thing now walking through New York. You can smoke weed
Speaker 1: in New York Now any place you can smoke a
Speaker 1: cigarette word any place. Nobody's like trip nothing the wall,
Speaker 1: that's the wall. That's what I'm saying. Like the days
Speaker 1: of ducking off in the alley has passed. I was
Speaker 1: walking down the street on Sunday. I saw four girls
Speaker 1: in the brunch clothes just standing on the corner placing
Speaker 1: a blunt, and I'm like, I know what that used
Speaker 1: to look like. It used to look like, let's go
Speaker 1: take a walk. And then they're over there in the
Speaker 1: circle and somebody like heck, keep popping up like that.
Speaker 1: Ain't was going on anymore, you know, And so once
Speaker 1: once in the bubble, I thought it was a very
Speaker 1: self aware thing of Adam Silver to look at the
Speaker 1: bubble and be like all right, yeah, like right, like
Speaker 1: like y'all because because I feel very confident to that
Speaker 1: somebody in the process was like so uh me and
Speaker 1: the fellas was talking, and uh I just think that,
Speaker 1: you know, given the circumstances in the situations, and you know,
Speaker 1: you say you care about how we feel, it would
Speaker 1: be really helpful for us, you know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: if we could just you know, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: like like come allay, they'll do it like that, you
Speaker 1: know for sure? What do you what do you think
Speaker 1: about the job though that Adam Silver has done Since
Speaker 1: taking over as Commissioner of the NBA, He's had you know,
Speaker 1: a little tumultuous kind of uh well issues to deal with.
Speaker 1: So what do you think? I think that overall he
Speaker 1: has done a good job. I think that being the
Speaker 1: Commissioner of the NBA is a difficult job, and I
Speaker 1: think succeeding David Stern is a lot to ask um
Speaker 1: out of any um. I think that he's got a
Speaker 1: league that is probably about maxed out on how much
Speaker 1: money it can make domestically, which means that it is
Speaker 1: look to make this money in other countries that have
Speaker 1: lots of people, and that then also means that they
Speaker 1: also have some questionable governments. One could say, as you
Speaker 1: try to figure and balance, you know, those sorts of
Speaker 1: things out. But one thing I do think about the
Speaker 1: NBA at this point, even with the Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: stuff and how it win the bubble and everything else,
Speaker 1: I feel like when discussing the n B a race
Speaker 1: is less at the forefront then it has ever been
Speaker 1: in the times that we talked about it. Like we
Speaker 1: don't have discussions now about how the league is too black,
Speaker 1: which discussions all the way through the twentieth century, right
Speaker 1: like they have kind of gotten the league past that point.
Speaker 1: I was opposed to the dress code and everything else
Speaker 1: when they did that stuff, but I do have to
Speaker 1: say it's kind of effective, Like we had reached a
Speaker 1: point with the public really disliked NBA players. Now they
Speaker 1: don't write like, do I think it's silly that something
Speaker 1: like that would help bring about that change? Yes? Can
Speaker 1: I deny that it happened. No, I can't like, you
Speaker 1: know these things, you know, these things have gone down,
Speaker 1: and so they got a league where I think people
Speaker 1: generally like the players. And I think, though, what he's
Speaker 1: going to have to do is figure out how to
Speaker 1: get people back to caring about the basketball. And I
Speaker 1: think that people care less about the actual basketball than
Speaker 1: they have before. And so the social media arguments people
Speaker 1: enjoy having and they're kind of cool to do. But
Speaker 1: the basketball, and I think they probably do for some
Speaker 1: rules changes to encourage attacking the basket more and get
Speaker 1: away from all these three point shooting and everything. But
Speaker 1: I still love the NBA, and I think someone is
Speaker 1: a good dude has done a good job. I agree.
Speaker 1: I love where the NBA is. I'm not one of
Speaker 1: these dudes that salty about you know, the rules and
Speaker 1: how these guys have it easier. I do acknowledge that
Speaker 1: they definitely have some advantages and they have love in
Speaker 1: this league that I would have never thought i'd seen
Speaker 1: in the NBA. I never thought i'd seen somebody making
Speaker 1: fifty million, you know for the contract, you know these deals.
Speaker 1: He's forty eight. I've seen the forty eight, and I'm
Speaker 1: like godly. But but all that to be said, Um,
Speaker 1: obviously on the highest levels the NBA is is we focus.
Speaker 1: It seems like we focus, Like you just said, it's
Speaker 1: not about the basketball, it's about sort of the soap opera,
Speaker 1: sort of the drama. Which kind of brings me to
Speaker 1: this point about Rich Paul. Do you do you feel
Speaker 1: like like this Lebron Rich Paul situation, you feel like
Speaker 1: that's too much power for Lebron to have because he's
Speaker 1: able to kind of influence a lot due to his
Speaker 1: relationship with Rich, right, yeah, I mean or not really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the discussions of them are so tricky, just because
Speaker 1: it was all the whispers that always exist about how
Speaker 1: exactly this came to be. Okay, this is my thing
Speaker 1: about Rich as it relates to Lebron. If David Falk
Speaker 1: represented Lebron and David Falk had a bunch of David
Speaker 1: Falk clients on the Lakers, we would just be like,
Speaker 1: you do what you want when your popp it. That's
Speaker 1: what that that that that would be the way we
Speaker 1: talked about it. Now. I also get to feel like,
Speaker 1: and I don't know this completely, but I get the
Speaker 1: feeling that Rich Paul is willing to represents the dudes
Speaker 1: that David falk would even give his phone number two,
Speaker 1: right like like like Mark Keith Morris, David Fonk has
Speaker 1: no time from Mark Keith Morris's phone calls, right Like,
Speaker 1: that's I think one of the most interesting things there.
Speaker 1: Rich Paul has a client base that allows him to
Speaker 1: bring role players onto the Lakers, Right, he still got
Speaker 1: those guys. Um, But yeah, if somebody else, nobody would
Speaker 1: really have like a giant issue with what it is.
Speaker 1: They're just a lot of people that feel like Rich
Speaker 1: Paul is not supposed to be in the position there.
Speaker 1: Rich Paul is it hard? Stop? That's what it is.
Speaker 1: And what it comes down to to me with agency
Speaker 1: is that ain't a job you learn how to do
Speaker 1: in school. You got game or you don't, right, like
Speaker 1: people who understand leverage. That's a real innate sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Like I could eat up on all that stuff. I
Speaker 1: got degrees in economics, I know all the game theory,
Speaker 1: I know all of that. But when it comes to
Speaker 1: the stomach the gun, you know, because Rich Paul will
Speaker 1: stare you down. We've seen that happen with a lot
Speaker 1: of contracts, right, Like, it's not like people just bow
Speaker 1: and capitulate to whatever Rich Paul wants. Remember how Lord
Speaker 1: Tristan Thompson had to wait on that money. How long
Speaker 1: are you lets so had to wait on that money,
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. The dude's actually just good at
Speaker 1: his job. And so again I don't think he has
Speaker 1: any more power. David Falk had more power to Rich Paul.
Speaker 1: When David falks out here representing Michael Jordan and Patrick
Speaker 1: Ewing and we can go, you know, up and down
Speaker 1: the list of all the guys that he had, plus
Speaker 1: all the college coaches who are walking their guys up.
Speaker 1: That was a dude that had some real power, right
Speaker 1: Rich Paul is I think just really just a really
Speaker 1: interesting story. Yeah, fascinating story. Who who do you think
Speaker 1: it's gonna be the face of the NBA when the
Speaker 1: Lebron retires if he can get his team anywhere in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, My guests is a Luca people want it man.
Speaker 1: And he is a fascinating case to me in terms
Speaker 1: of the way that like he is received, because you
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong here, but I can't think
Speaker 1: of a white dude who immediately shook off skepticism from
Speaker 1: the African American voting block as quickly as Luca Dodgad
Speaker 1: you think Larry Bird could we say Bird was so
Speaker 1: positioned against magic that you have some haters, right, they
Speaker 1: just that just they like like they don't they don't
Speaker 1: want to admit it now, like they stopped right Like
Speaker 1: it's like how suddenly every white person you do love
Speaker 1: Bahammad Ali. You're like, yeah, that's not possible too. Then
Speaker 1: they just had to come back around to be like,
Speaker 1: nah man, Larry Bird was. I think what happened was
Speaker 1: you got more access to black players of the day
Speaker 1: being like no man, he was in and then it
Speaker 1: was just like right now, we gotta come around. And
Speaker 1: so with Luca, he's fun um for NBA purposes. He's
Speaker 1: white and you know that matters, man, Whether people want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge it or not, that matters um. And he's
Speaker 1: really really really good, Like if they can take it anywhere,
Speaker 1: he'll be that guy because he's so much fun to
Speaker 1: watch when he's rolling, Like you're not gonna like Tim
Speaker 1: Duncan was never gonna be the face of the NBA
Speaker 1: because that this wasn't no fun to watch. Luca is
Speaker 1: a party when it comes down to play his game, man,
Speaker 1: his game. But you know what, you know what I
Speaker 1: want to ask you about this as somebody who again
Speaker 1: played in a different time than now, what Luca kind
Speaker 1: of has that I think has been lost a little
Speaker 1: bit over time in terms of like now the game
Speaker 1: is more spaced, it's more open, you know, it's more
Speaker 1: up and down. It's more about those shots. But a
Speaker 1: big part of the charm of basketball. It's like a
Speaker 1: dude like, mellow, m you are trying to guard me.
Speaker 1: I'm right here, I got the ball in triple threat.
Speaker 1: Nobody never been better that I've ever seen that, Like
Speaker 1: waiting to decide when to dribble the mellow, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But just that he a game, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like like it's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's I can't explain it any other way, Like when
Speaker 1: you watch like Kevin mchhale, will never be able to
Speaker 1: explain to these young dudes how cold Kevin McHale was.
Speaker 1: But Kevin maal right, but the game that he had,
Speaker 1: this game, the current NBA that that that style, there's
Speaker 1: no room for it, but there's an artistry to it
Speaker 1: right up and under this stuff like that like there's
Speaker 1: a charm to that kind of stuff, and you don't
Speaker 1: see a lot of guys that have that kind of
Speaker 1: game and Luca kind of does, right, Like obviously I
Speaker 1: mentioned a lot of post players, but I think you
Speaker 1: understand what I mean, Like just kind of going on
Speaker 1: one little stuff right, Well, he hasn't impeccable footwork, He
Speaker 1: has impeccable footwork, and then the handle and just he's
Speaker 1: got big shot making, just huge canes. Man, he will
Speaker 1: take the big shot, he don't care, and he will
Speaker 1: also knock down that shot off a crazy ass move.
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite things to watch is daunch
Speaker 1: it when he's in his freaking bag. Man. One more
Speaker 1: thing on the NBA, as I do with everybody that
Speaker 1: we interview, Man, I just wanted to get maybe you know,
Speaker 1: your most just memorable story about Kobe Bryant, my Kobe story,
Speaker 1: and see it was it was an interesting thing for
Speaker 1: me when Kobe died because I was not a fan, right,
Speaker 1: and so you know, you're in this thing and you
Speaker 1: don't never want to seem like the fake dude out here, right,
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, how do you do this?
Speaker 1: And I realized about Kobe, that I grew up with
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant in a way I hadn't thought about, like
Speaker 1: Kobe graduating from high school the year before I did.
Speaker 1: So I have been aware of Kobe Bryant at some
Speaker 1: form of fashion my whole life. And I always said
Speaker 1: that I realized, like after this went that I was
Speaker 1: eighteen years old looking at twenty year old Kobe Bryant
Speaker 1: and evaluating him like he should have been so fully
Speaker 1: for himed adult, because my stupid eighteen year old ass
Speaker 1: thought that I was some kind of fully formed adult,
Speaker 1: right like you know. And so then it's time went on,
Speaker 1: Like I looked back at some of it and it
Speaker 1: was just like, oh ya, I was hating right right,
Speaker 1: Like I just that that was I was. I was,
Speaker 1: I was, I was hating. It was a thing. But
Speaker 1: what I'll always remember is in two thousand five, that's
Speaker 1: when I really kind of started getting into the sports
Speaker 1: writing thing. And one thing about ESPN is it ain't
Speaker 1: a place to learn how to do the job. That's
Speaker 1: just not what the place is built for. It's already
Speaker 1: at the top. You're running, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And they wanted me to go cover It was a
Speaker 1: charity game in Houston after Hurricane Katrium. I had never
Speaker 1: covered anything before in my life. I had no idea
Speaker 1: what I was supposed to do. And now I'm dropped
Speaker 1: off in a locker room at a charity game. And
Speaker 1: you have to understand, it's one thing to get dropped
Speaker 1: off in a locker room. And it's like a star
Speaker 1: player and then just the dudes that are on the team,
Speaker 1: not for the charity game after Katrina that's being broadcast
Speaker 1: on T and T. It's like being at the whole
Speaker 1: star game, right, and it's not just the all star players,
Speaker 1: it's like the all star media guys. Dude, I'm terrified.
Speaker 1: I'm legitimately terrified. I have no idea what I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to do. I'm obviously shook. I'm standing in the corner room.
Speaker 1: I'm not a type of person who's inclined to go
Speaker 1: make conversations with strangers, not understanding that's the whole job.
Speaker 1: And these guys expect you to come up here and
Speaker 1: do it because I've never been in that space, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure and I look over and I see Kobe
Speaker 1: sitting there, and I don't think he asked me to
Speaker 1: come over there. But I walked over to go talk
Speaker 1: to Kobe Bryant, and he obviously saw I shook. I
Speaker 1: was right, like, you clearly understood how scared I was,
Speaker 1: and I'm like the youngest dude in the room buying large.
Speaker 1: He was really really nice and like delicate and courty
Speaker 1: is towards me in that circumstance. Yeah, I really really was.
Speaker 1: And again this is two thousand five, so nobody knows
Speaker 1: any like I'm know who am I? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying? Like, and I remember answered my questions he
Speaker 1: says the things I didn't know. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to ask questions. I know how to do anything. And
Speaker 1: he really kind of like walked me through it that
Speaker 1: he didn't tell me how to do it, but it
Speaker 1: was just real cool about it, you know, Like I
Speaker 1: was like, I always remember that in that way because
Speaker 1: it was completely counter to anything I would have thought
Speaker 1: about him before I got in there, and honestly, maybe
Speaker 1: even counter to a lot of things I might have
Speaker 1: thought about him after I got out. But I will
Speaker 1: never forget that in that moment because I think I
Speaker 1: realized better now how young I was then I understood
Speaker 1: at the time, and like that was a real cool
Speaker 1: thing for you to do. Man. Man, No, man, I
Speaker 1: had That's that's a great story. I had a couple
Speaker 1: of interactions with Kobe, might kind of lationship with him
Speaker 1: was kind of up and down. Uh, And I like
Speaker 1: to tell the story just to give people an idea.
Speaker 1: I wasn't just a hater, but you have to understand
Speaker 1: how we felt. Uh. I had just wanted We had
Speaker 1: just won a national championship. And you see it, like, man,
Speaker 1: I think it's like summer or nineties or the next
Speaker 1: summer or something. But Kobe shows up as a seven
Speaker 1: two year old rookie to the gym. So he comes in. Man,
Speaker 1: everybody kind of looks. We see the you know, tall
Speaker 1: six six, you know, just good looking young man, just
Speaker 1: young youth. He gets on the court, starts turning it out. Man.
Speaker 1: He's dunking on folks, pinning people, goldending everything, just doing
Speaker 1: crazy stuff. And so we're just like, dude, what's up
Speaker 1: with this dude? So ultimately eventually we get into like,
Speaker 1: you know, a little thing, a little fight. He's you know,
Speaker 1: he I think he tipped jammed on me and they
Speaker 1: kind of looked back at me, and I was kind
Speaker 1: of like, hey man, you know after you man, don't
Speaker 1: be looking at me like that. And as I'm going
Speaker 1: to to to go get him, you know, because I'm
Speaker 1: running at I'm piste off this young man. This young
Speaker 1: But that's back in the day. When a young fellow
Speaker 1: show you up, you know you gotta get it go.
Speaker 1: That's back in those days. As I run into ad Kobe,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I see Magic Johnson enters my
Speaker 1: vision and he's like, Chris, come out, Chris, No, that's
Speaker 1: my chill out. So I like running the Magic kind
Speaker 1: of like Kobe. Kobe is like behind Magic under scared
Speaker 1: of you, Chris, like it was a crazy seed. So
Speaker 1: let's fast. So that happened, and you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: see Kobe for like another two years. That's fast. I
Speaker 1: think I was a sophomore at the time. Fast forward
Speaker 1: to my senior year. I'm playing in Magic Johnson's Midsummer
Speaker 1: Night's Classic, which is this big celebrity game that he
Speaker 1: invites a bunch of pro so he invited us U
Speaker 1: c l A seniors to play in the game. I
Speaker 1: get to the arena, find out, man, Kobe's my dog
Speaker 1: on Coach Bro, He's my coach of the celebrity Game.
Speaker 1: So I'm already kind of feeling like and this is
Speaker 1: like Froby and he already busted Sacramento. I mean he's been,
Speaker 1: you know, winning the dunk contest. You know, he turned
Speaker 1: it off. So he's like, I had to sort of
Speaker 1: bow down and kind of have you know, fall in
Speaker 1: line both but check this out. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: get on the court, he puts me in the game.
Speaker 1: You know, I scored like six or eight in a row.
Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden, we had we had sort
Speaker 1: of a free throw situation. I'm kind of on the
Speaker 1: other end. I hear like a whistle, he whistles. He
Speaker 1: looks at me, He looks at me on the bench.
Speaker 1: I looked look at him. He's like, we keep shooting,
Speaker 1: keep shooting. He gave me that like keep shooting encouragement. Confidence.
Speaker 1: Moving from that moment, man, I was just like, man,
Speaker 1: I felt like a jerk and an asshole, because, like
Speaker 1: you said, when you have that sort of intimate moment
Speaker 1: with the guy, he shows you a part of him
Speaker 1: that you just didn't expect. Man, I didn't expect him
Speaker 1: to do that. I thought it was gonna be surly
Speaker 1: about everything showed me love man, dap me up eventually
Speaker 1: down the line. You know, I had my feelings about
Speaker 1: him with Shaq left and all that, but when he
Speaker 1: when he passed, Bro, it was it was, you know,
Speaker 1: it was one of the toughest days I had as
Speaker 1: just an adult. I hate to say that because I
Speaker 1: have had family and all types of people that have passed,
Speaker 1: but it was a different sort of tough. It was,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, both the same thing for me.
Speaker 1: It was like, yo, like I say, I'm not a
Speaker 1: Kobe guy, right, And it was still a thing, right,
Speaker 1: you know, because look, there were Kobe guys, like they're
Speaker 1: calling them my podcast, and I was listening to them, right,
Speaker 1: I Like, I'm not saying that to be like, Yo,
Speaker 1: I ain't even like that dude. That's the other point
Speaker 1: I'm making. I'm trying to make sure I understand what
Speaker 1: he means to some people. I'm not in that space
Speaker 1: that those people are in. And even still when that happened,
Speaker 1: and it really was, it was just like, nah, we
Speaker 1: kind of grew up with this dude because what I
Speaker 1: feel like happened to him in the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: and like the story you described points out he had
Speaker 1: to learn this people thing right and see, and I
Speaker 1: could really I could personally relate to that because like
Speaker 1: I have older parents and I went to school twenty
Speaker 1: some miles away from where I lived. I spent most
Speaker 1: of my childhood interacting with adults, and like on college
Speaker 1: campuses with my parents. I did not know much about
Speaker 1: interacting with people who were my own age. Like when
Speaker 1: I got to college, Oh boy, I was I just
Speaker 1: didn't know how to do it, right. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure it out, and I really just simply didn't know
Speaker 1: how to do it. And when you think about Kobe's
Speaker 1: upbringing and you know where he'd wind up in the
Speaker 1: places he's in or whatever. And I was a dude
Speaker 1: that had to learn how to hang out with his peers.
Speaker 1: Except he didn't he have any peers. He's Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 1: and so he just here, I have come to destroy, right,
Speaker 1: like I have come to destroy, And now he destroyed everybody.
Speaker 1: And he's probably like, yo, what's the big deal? Why
Speaker 1: these guys bad? And like bad bad, you know, and
Speaker 1: I could have badge you Kobe sitting there with him,
Speaker 1: but like like like with a five year old hit
Speaker 1: you back with the simplest questions because like you know,
Speaker 1: you try to hit him with something that don't really
Speaker 1: make no sense, and they just can't. They can't grasp
Speaker 1: the nuance of what you're talking about. Like that's what
Speaker 1: I could imagine. And so that's what I really thought.
Speaker 1: As he got farther along with him. It's just it
Speaker 1: sounds like he just got a bit better at interacting
Speaker 1: with people. Yeah, he did. And then you know how
Speaker 1: he ended everything. You know, it's kind of being a
Speaker 1: sort of the role model or stepping up for the
Speaker 1: women's game. I think that part of it, and then
Speaker 1: the girl dad aspect. Man, So you know it was
Speaker 1: it's been tough, but I thank you for sharing, uh
Speaker 1: that story, man, because I try to get everybody's take
Speaker 1: on somebody that meant a lot to a lot of people. Brother,
Speaker 1: um Bo, Man, it's been a real one. It's it's
Speaker 1: about an hour in man, I think, uh, we can
Speaker 1: shut it down here. Man. I appreciate you're giving us
Speaker 1: your time, brother, being open with us talking about what
Speaker 1: we did. My man, and uh, and I hope we
Speaker 1: can do this again. Sometimes all good. We gotta catch up.
Speaker 1: You realized it's been ten years since we was hanging
Speaker 1: in New York that time. How did ten years like
Speaker 1: run away that fast? I'll talk about fast too, but
Speaker 1: I look up. Man, it's like what No, Man, that
Speaker 1: was a memorable night, man, But we got to do
Speaker 1: it again at some point both. Yeah. Man, let me
Speaker 1: know how I let you next time. I make it
Speaker 1: out to l A. If the world's don't catch on
Speaker 1: fire man, please do I got you. I gott to
Speaker 1: appreciate it, alright. But Monty Jones on kJ Live