Speaker 1: This is kJ Live with Chris john Sails and Chris
Speaker 1: is having conversations with influencers in the sports world and
Speaker 1: entertainment industry. Now here's Chris Johnson. You're now tuned into
Speaker 1: kJ Live. Today's guest in the show is formed with
Speaker 1: a Zaga All American and NBA veteran Dan dick out. Dan.
Speaker 1: How you doing, my man? I'm doing well. It's college
Speaker 1: basketball season, you know, I was doing really well after
Speaker 1: my Zag's. I gotta get there early because I know
Speaker 1: you're gonna get there at some point. I want to
Speaker 1: be the first. The Zag's got your bruins again once more. Um,
Speaker 1: But you know what, I'm sure you're gonna bring up Duke.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're gonna bring up Alabama recently. The biggest thing, though,
Speaker 1: is college basketball is here and it's off to a
Speaker 1: great start, right, Yes, it is. It's an exciting season.
Speaker 1: I love to see the fans back into the building,
Speaker 1: the return of the home court, Advan it just back.
Speaker 1: College basketball definitely is back down. I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: though about your Zags. We're gonna just start off with them.
Speaker 1: What makes this version of Gonzaga the one that's gonna
Speaker 1: hang a national championship banner. Well, they've got a crazy
Speaker 1: amount of depth. Like last year's team had depth, um,
Speaker 1: but they had experience where literally you just had to
Speaker 1: plug in Jalen Sugs and get him kind of up
Speaker 1: to speed with kiss Burg to YAYI Timmy a season ago.
Speaker 1: This year's team, you got Timmy obviously he's a he's
Speaker 1: a monster down low. Uh, and then them Mart's done
Speaker 1: a great job as a point guard. Watson has been there. Um,
Speaker 1: but you've got other guys that are either freshman or
Speaker 1: now sophomores with not experience coming into this year and
Speaker 1: they just have to find their way, find their roles. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, chat home Grins, it's either him or ban
Speaker 1: Chero gonna be the number one pick. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of expectations placed on him. He's still finding his way
Speaker 1: in college basketball. But it's crazy to think he's averaging
Speaker 1: like teen points a game and he shooting seventy from
Speaker 1: the field and he's finding his way. That's unheard of. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think this year's team has a lot more
Speaker 1: growth than any Gonzagger team that I can remember in
Speaker 1: recent memory. Because coach Few doesn't usually like he likes
Speaker 1: experience on his teams, and we've never had to deal
Speaker 1: with a lot of early entries or we've I think
Speaker 1: we've only had one one and done. UM, so guys
Speaker 1: have kind of gotten to know the program. The holpings
Speaker 1: are done where this year you have to learn on
Speaker 1: the fly and if you don't, sorry, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: play as much as you would like. Yeah, staying with
Speaker 1: good Zaga, Man, I've always been fascinated by just how
Speaker 1: good that program has been over the course of the
Speaker 1: last twenty something years. For as long as I can remember.
Speaker 1: What were some of the ingredients to the recipe of
Speaker 1: success for Mark feu Well, I think coach fe has
Speaker 1: got an unbelievable eye for talent um and it had
Speaker 1: to start that way in Spokane because Gonzaga wasn't a
Speaker 1: household name, so he had to find guys when he
Speaker 1: was an assistant coach under both Dan Fitzgerald and Dan
Speaker 1: Monson that um he felt maybe we're under the radar
Speaker 1: of Pac twelve schools with backpack ten back then, um,
Speaker 1: or if they were maybe good enough to play at
Speaker 1: that league, that he felt that why not recruit these guys,
Speaker 1: Let's go after him and those would have been guys
Speaker 1: like Matt Santangelo. Uh, probably a guy like Casey Calvary who, honestly,
Speaker 1: a lot of guys schools missed on Ritchie from they
Speaker 1: missed on because he went and played in the NBA
Speaker 1: for four years or so. UM. So he's had an
Speaker 1: unbelievable eye for talent and then he's done a really
Speaker 1: good job of developing that talent once they get on campus.
Speaker 1: But there's certain non negotiables that coach Few always has
Speaker 1: with his players in regards to the position that they play,
Speaker 1: but also what role they're gonna play on their teams.
Speaker 1: Like for for example, a non negotiable for a point
Speaker 1: guard for him is care about winning. And some guys
Speaker 1: and get the job done in winning. Some guys do
Speaker 1: it through scoring like I did it through scoring more
Speaker 1: than other guys do it through facilitating or or being
Speaker 1: a defensive you know, lockdown guy that wasn't me. He
Speaker 1: would help kind of carve out your niche and your
Speaker 1: role and then hold you to that standard. Um. And
Speaker 1: if you earned his trust, your leash is as long
Speaker 1: as they get. But you have to earn that trust,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to earn that trust. There's been a
Speaker 1: number of guys that have myself, Adam Morrison, you know,
Speaker 1: some Sabonus, a number of other guys have UM. But
Speaker 1: there are certain non negotiables at each position that have
Speaker 1: to be met, and once you do that, the sky's
Speaker 1: the limit for the growth in your game as well
Speaker 1: as the impact that you can have on the team.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're describing like buy in, like you
Speaker 1: know what what he's trying to get from each and
Speaker 1: every guy on that roster him to buy into his role,
Speaker 1: embrace his role, and flourish his role correct. I was
Speaker 1: at a practice earlier this year UM, before games even started,
Speaker 1: and you know that's the time of the year where
Speaker 1: guys are trying to prove themselves in practice to earn
Speaker 1: a possible starting role or earn rotational minutes, and Julian
Speaker 1: Strawther was doing things that weren't part of his correct
Speaker 1: skill set to impact the game. He was coming out,
Speaker 1: he passed up a corner three, came off a pick
Speaker 1: and roll, tried to a pocket pass, and he stopped practice.
Speaker 1: He was like, hold on a second, we have guys
Speaker 1: that can come off pick and rolls and make that pass.
Speaker 1: You need run the floor, get easy buckets, space the floor.
Speaker 1: If you like it, shoot it. That's what we need
Speaker 1: from you. I don't think i've seen Julian Strawther try
Speaker 1: to throw a pinpoint pocket pass in traffic since since
Speaker 1: that stoppage in practice that I happen to see that day.
Speaker 1: That's amazing because a lot of time a coach won't
Speaker 1: stop practice and we'll kind of like let those type
Speaker 1: of plays build up, and sometimes you develop bad habits,
Speaker 1: but the good ones, you know, they nipped that in
Speaker 1: the butt. Uh. You started off at the University of
Speaker 1: Washington and then ended up transferring to Gonzaga. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about that decision. At the time, it
Speaker 1: was a little bit controversial transferring from you dub to
Speaker 1: the Zags. What what went into that decision? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean you would know better than I would because you
Speaker 1: grew up in in the heart of l A with
Speaker 1: with your dad and then the guys that you grew
Speaker 1: up playing a U high school with. You knew the
Speaker 1: Pac ten was the league, and you knew of U
Speaker 1: c l A As being them Arizona and it was
Speaker 1: probably Stanford at the time, the top three in the
Speaker 1: in the in the conference, which me growing up on
Speaker 1: the West Coast, I wanted to challenge in myself and
Speaker 1: play against the best players in college basketball, and on
Speaker 1: the West Coast that was the Pac ten. And if
Speaker 1: you wanted to have a chance to in the NBA,
Speaker 1: which I had big aspirations, I felt I had to
Speaker 1: go to a Pac ten school. So I was recruited
Speaker 1: by a number of Pac tens. I was recruited by
Speaker 1: a lot of w c c's, including uh one of
Speaker 1: one of the guys that was an assistant coach I
Speaker 1: think for you or he was at u c l
Speaker 1: A right before you got there, Lorenzo Romar, and he
Speaker 1: was so I looked at pepper Downe. I looked at
Speaker 1: Portland because it was home. I had no interest in
Speaker 1: Gonzaga because you know, this is the crazy thing when
Speaker 1: you're sixteen, seventeen years old. Sometimes you make a decision,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go to that school because it
Speaker 1: snows lo and behold, you're in the gym half the day,
Speaker 1: you're in class part of the other day. It's like
Speaker 1: a new weather attends at ten minute walk in the
Speaker 1: snow to get to the gym or back to your
Speaker 1: apartment whatever, you know, and so I felt like I
Speaker 1: had to go to a Pac ten school in Washington,
Speaker 1: being a hometown school, they seemed to be on the rise.
Speaker 1: It felt like a good spot for me. And it was,
Speaker 1: I mean my freshman year. Um, we made it the
Speaker 1: Sweet sixteen. We actually your team came to Seattle and
Speaker 1: it was I think second last week of the regular season.
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, you guys were locked. You guys
Speaker 1: were already in and we had to beat U c
Speaker 1: l A to go from off the bubble too into
Speaker 1: the bubble. We did, and then we get into the
Speaker 1: n c A Tournament make the Week six team. But again,
Speaker 1: I mean the big part is like I wanted to
Speaker 1: play the highest level college basketball at the time that
Speaker 1: was Pac ten. Absolutely, what did you How do you
Speaker 1: think Gonzaga prepared you to play in the NBA, not
Speaker 1: only to play in the NBA, but to be a
Speaker 1: first round draft pick. Yeah, I think a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Was you know, when I transferred from Washington, and you
Speaker 1: kind of touched on it in the previous question, it
Speaker 1: was a little controversial in the regards that when you
Speaker 1: transferred at that time in college basketball, it wasn't like
Speaker 1: nowur it's an immediate way where you go play, you
Speaker 1: have to sit out of here, So it has to
Speaker 1: be well thought out, Like am I willing to sit
Speaker 1: out a year? And many times if you did transfer,
Speaker 1: like there was a check mark on your name, like
Speaker 1: he's a terrible teammate, he's injury prone, he's not as
Speaker 1: good as people thought, he's a bust, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: So I kind of took that as fuel my red
Speaker 1: shirt ear to not take a day off and just improve,
Speaker 1: improve and work and get myself ready. Um but again
Speaker 1: kind of back going back to coach fuse non negotiables,
Speaker 1: my red shirt ear. One of the biggest things that
Speaker 1: he kept saying to me is, look, you gotta get tougher.
Speaker 1: And he wasn't saying it in the in the in
Speaker 1: the terms that, um, I wasn't physically willing to, you know,
Speaker 1: set a screen or I wasn't willing to do different things.
Speaker 1: But toughness going from worrying about yourself maybe, which a
Speaker 1: lot of times you see at the Pac ten level
Speaker 1: because guys sometimes might think they're on the cusp of
Speaker 1: making the NBA they're selfish, But it was a toughness
Speaker 1: level as far as do the right things for us
Speaker 1: to be good, and in turn, you're already doing the
Speaker 1: things that gonna help you be good individually. You blend
Speaker 1: those two together, you're gonna be pretty damn good. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be pretty damn good. But he was always on
Speaker 1: me and I reach your ear about learning to compete, compete, compete,
Speaker 1: get better prepared for next year. And you're a first
Speaker 1: team All American as a senior. Was there a game
Speaker 1: or a moment during that season where you said yourself, man,
Speaker 1: I can you know I can I can go first
Speaker 1: round or you know I can play in the league
Speaker 1: or did you have that confidence well before then? Well,
Speaker 1: I think I think a lot of that started in
Speaker 1: high school. To be honest with you, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned Baron Davis in your group of U c
Speaker 1: l A the Nike All American Camp before my senior year.
Speaker 1: Um uh it was I had played regional AU tournaments
Speaker 1: up till then, but I got a chance to go
Speaker 1: to that All American camp but play against the best
Speaker 1: players in the country. Um and and Barren to me
Speaker 1: was by far the best point guard. But then you
Speaker 1: start looking around and you start like, okay, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: is good or better than this player at this I
Speaker 1: fit in differently at this program than this guy would.
Speaker 1: He's being recruited by that guy that school. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I I'm comparable. So you take some of those lessons,
Speaker 1: you learn them, and you start setting those goals and
Speaker 1: knowing that things are realistic if you keep working at him.
Speaker 1: And so that was a big piece of it, and
Speaker 1: another reason I went to you Dubbed because pros came
Speaker 1: out of the pack tent now the pact quet. That's
Speaker 1: the way you looked at it back then. Um, but
Speaker 1: when I got to Gonzaga, I still had these goals
Speaker 1: and dreams and aspirations, but you also knew there's check marks.
Speaker 1: I'm hurt. I was at Dubbed for two years. Um,
Speaker 1: A lot of people might have thought I lost my
Speaker 1: starting job. That really wasn't the case because I had injuries. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, is he gonna be good enough to keep
Speaker 1: Gonzaga at the level of it is? And coach Fuse,
Speaker 1: you know he had those non negotiables, but he also
Speaker 1: I don't care what you do as a point guard,
Speaker 1: score it not score. My job is for you to
Speaker 1: figure out how to get us to win. Games, and
Speaker 1: so that was my whole focus. And I knew. I
Speaker 1: knew he was gonna give me the freedom to score
Speaker 1: it the way that I thought I was capable of
Speaker 1: that I didn't have it at you, dubbed. But I
Speaker 1: also knew the most important thing was to win, and
Speaker 1: so I had to figure out and balance scoring facilitating
Speaker 1: for other guys with the victory being the end goal
Speaker 1: at the end of the day. At the end of
Speaker 1: my junior year, I did have a couple NBA agents
Speaker 1: or or evaluators want me to go into the draft,
Speaker 1: and I really haven't shared that with a lot of
Speaker 1: people because it took me about two minutes to say, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that because we got smacked by Michigan
Speaker 1: State in the sweet sixth team my junior year. But
Speaker 1: did you at least think about it? Did you at
Speaker 1: least think about it? Dan, Did you at least look
Speaker 1: at yourself and say, hey, man, maybe I'm ready. Did
Speaker 1: you least evaluate it or give it a give it?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't. I excuse me all. I literally
Speaker 1: gave it about two minutes finished, a phone call, hung up,
Speaker 1: and my focus was on the next season. But we
Speaker 1: got smacked by Michigan State, Zach and Off, Jason Richardson,
Speaker 1: aloish Is and a gang, just a team of dudes
Speaker 1: that just beat the heck out of us. And so
Speaker 1: I had such a bad taste in my mouth from
Speaker 1: losing that game that I was like, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to focus on the next season, and so focused workouts.
Speaker 1: I was able to represent USA basketball in the World
Speaker 1: university games. And at that point, you know, the tryouts
Speaker 1: and a lot of the practices are in front of
Speaker 1: n v A, NBA front offices, and you start, you know,
Speaker 1: playing really well, and you start thinking, okay, some of
Speaker 1: these goals and dreams they're within reach. Um. You get
Speaker 1: back to campus after that summer and the season starts
Speaker 1: off unbelievably well, and all of a sudden, my parents
Speaker 1: are getting phone calls from from agents across the country
Speaker 1: and coach Fuse, you know, saying hey this agents talking
Speaker 1: to me or whatever. And my whole thing was just
Speaker 1: get me through the season. I figured at that point
Speaker 1: I was gonna have a chance. But I thought I
Speaker 1: did a really good that senior year of just putting
Speaker 1: everything that wasn't pressing at that moment in time, out
Speaker 1: of out of in front of me, and that's unfortunately
Speaker 1: this day and age for college kids, that's impossible social
Speaker 1: media because of the new n I L deals. Man,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine going through what these kids are doing now.
Speaker 1: And they carry a bigger load than we did. They
Speaker 1: gotta They have a lot more, in my opinion, pressure
Speaker 1: because of these n I L deals and social media,
Speaker 1: and now you've got all the eyeballs on you and
Speaker 1: at any moment you can go viral in the whole
Speaker 1: country could be talking about you. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure associated with being a college athlete today. What
Speaker 1: do you think, since we're quickly talking about the n
Speaker 1: I L what are your thoughts on the n I
Speaker 1: L s and that whole situation. I like it. I
Speaker 1: think it's long overdue. Um. I think there's been plenty
Speaker 1: of schools that have skirted the guidelines and the rules
Speaker 1: for long enough, um, and they've gotten creative or creative
Speaker 1: enough to not get caught. Um. You know, but I
Speaker 1: think this is long overdue. I think it's gonna take
Speaker 1: a couple of years to sort itself out and really
Speaker 1: how best it's gonna work. Um. You know. Unfortunately, too
Speaker 1: many guys think, hey, these an ill ideals opened up.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make Hunter grand this year. Well that's not
Speaker 1: the case. I mean, I don't think. I don't I
Speaker 1: think I don't think you could go along or along
Speaker 1: the rosters of college basketball and find more than a
Speaker 1: handful of guys that are gonna make six figures. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it isn't just open the floodgates for everybody.
Speaker 1: You still have to produce, which I think is going
Speaker 1: to kind of play itself out over these next couple
Speaker 1: of years where the people in the businesses that want
Speaker 1: to support with an endorsement deal and the players are
Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna finally start figuring out is like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not as good a deal if the kid doesn't
Speaker 1: play as well as as they should, just like it
Speaker 1: is in pros and if you don't play well, your
Speaker 1: marketing deals dry up. You know, within that first year
Speaker 1: as approach just what is what it is? But I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I think what it has done is it's
Speaker 1: allowed college student athletes to get a little piece of
Speaker 1: what they deserve. But I think it's also opened up
Speaker 1: their eyes to think outside the boxing bigger than just
Speaker 1: what is my next game? Now that's good for some
Speaker 1: and it's bad for some, and it's to be determined
Speaker 1: for some. You know, for me, when I was in college,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I would have had a couple opportunities, but
Speaker 1: they would have been tiny ones. Um. But I don't
Speaker 1: know if I wouldn't necessarily taken advantage of them because
Speaker 1: I was so focused in on playing um Because at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, these athletes, what they have
Speaker 1: to understand is if you don't perform and if your
Speaker 1: team doesn't win, those things are gone in a heartbeat. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is performance space. Do you think you that the
Speaker 1: media we'll start to cover college athletes differently now that
Speaker 1: they're getting paid. If you will, I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: happen a little bit. I think it has to happen,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, because once you get paid,
Speaker 1: you're honestly taking an amateur status off um your resume. UM.
Speaker 1: I know you've done some college basketball broadcasting, That's what
Speaker 1: I do a lot of. I've also did a few
Speaker 1: studio shows for NBA games of different things. And I've
Speaker 1: always looked at it is when you're in the pros,
Speaker 1: you're getting paid, and you're getting paid usually a very
Speaker 1: large sum of money. You criticize them all you want,
Speaker 1: because that's their profession. At the college game, I try
Speaker 1: not to criticize as much as opposed to point out
Speaker 1: some things that maybe they could work on, So I
Speaker 1: do it objectively. Um, but I think if you start
Speaker 1: seeing more players make a bunch of money, I think
Speaker 1: you start blurring those lines. And I think you have
Speaker 1: every right to start criticizing them. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I haven't figured out which path I'll take or direction. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think you're really starting to blur those lines.
Speaker 1: Is how you report or how you comment on those players? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a you know, this whole thing is an infancy,
Speaker 1: so you know it's got to definitely play itself and
Speaker 1: work some of the kinks out of the situation. First
Speaker 1: round draft pick by the Hawks in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: that's around the time m J was back with the Wizards. Right, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you have did you now? Did you go up
Speaker 1: against m J and it What was the league like
Speaker 1: during that era of basketball? Yeah? I know my rookieyear
Speaker 1: was MJ's last year, and uh, you know, it's the
Speaker 1: only time I've ever stepped on a basketball floor and
Speaker 1: literally done like a triple take, Like that's Michael Jordan's.
Speaker 1: Like I grew up, come fly with me, all the posters,
Speaker 1: the shirts, begging for the shoes. When finally I was
Speaker 1: done growing in my feet, I wasn't getting shoes as often,
Speaker 1: you know, the cards all that. Um, So I remember
Speaker 1: clearly the first time I checked into the game. You know,
Speaker 1: I've always respected opponents, but I've never been in awe.
Speaker 1: Well that was different with Michael Jordan's. I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: that was pretty cool. But you know, I think the
Speaker 1: biggest thing with that is once the game flow and
Speaker 1: the action started happening, that as a player, as a
Speaker 1: competitor just kind of goes out the window. You're like,
Speaker 1: am I in health side? If I am, I gotta
Speaker 1: rotate transition, I gotta stop him. Um, you know those
Speaker 1: are fun memories for sure. Yeah, you don't want to
Speaker 1: get embarrassed out there. I know that's like definitely it
Speaker 1: helps side position. Um, you played and I forgot what year,
Speaker 1: two thousand five, but you average thirteen game in thirty
Speaker 1: one minutes. I'm curious to know about what the situation was.
Speaker 1: How did you get that opportunity out there? And How
Speaker 1: did it feel to flourish in the NBA. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I I battled some injuries and then some not being
Speaker 1: in the right spots the first part of my career. Um,
Speaker 1: whether it was Atlanta, whether it was being traded back
Speaker 1: to my hotel and Town Blazers, um or then quickly
Speaker 1: getting traded to Golden State, Golden State on the Dallas
Speaker 1: and you know Dallas, I had to essentially earn my
Speaker 1: under the roster because I was the odd man out
Speaker 1: going into camp with the amount of roster uh spots
Speaker 1: and contracts there were. So I was there and then
Speaker 1: they traded me to to New Orleans, which is what
Speaker 1: you're talking about my opportunity. And I knew that in
Speaker 1: all these other areas where I wasn't maybe having the
Speaker 1: opportunity that I wanted, or when the opportunity came, I
Speaker 1: wasn't making the most of it. Um that the next
Speaker 1: time a big chance came, I was gonna be ready.
Speaker 1: And so I always prided myself on work ethics staying ready.
Speaker 1: I get traded to New Orleans. Uh, your guy Baron
Speaker 1: Davis is hurt with his back injury. He's gonna be
Speaker 1: out a little bit of time I get there, the
Speaker 1: general manager said, hey, we're our rosters and flux. We
Speaker 1: don't know what we're gonna do. You might be here
Speaker 1: for three or four games. You might be waived tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We don't know. So I'm like, I show up. What
Speaker 1: the heck? I just want a chance. So literally, first
Speaker 1: game I get to New Orleans, I get a chance
Speaker 1: to play. I think I played four minutes, had four points,
Speaker 1: and then gradually my opportunities started building upon themselves. At
Speaker 1: the third game, I had double digit points quickly thereafter,
Speaker 1: I got moved into the starting lineup, and as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know, thirteen points a game or so for about
Speaker 1: a fifty game stretch. And I looked at it as
Speaker 1: something where the opportunity came, I was ready and I
Speaker 1: was not going to let it pass me by. I
Speaker 1: was gonna do everything I could to make the most
Speaker 1: of it. Unfortunately, um, we weren't very good. We had
Speaker 1: tons of injuries Baron Davis as well as some of
Speaker 1: our other main guys, and then they started trading some
Speaker 1: guys throughout the course of the year when it looked
Speaker 1: like we were kind of, you know, heading towards the
Speaker 1: bottom of the lottery. But I didn't mind. I didn't
Speaker 1: care because I had it. Finally had a chance to play.
Speaker 1: UM played meaningful minutes to extend my career, which obviously
Speaker 1: every player that's young wants to do. Absolutely heck of
Speaker 1: a season. And some of the teammates that you played
Speaker 1: with down there some pretty solid dudes. One of them,
Speaker 1: j R. Smith, is actually in the news. Uh. He
Speaker 1: had a four point oh in his first semester. I
Speaker 1: saw college. You got in the old j R. Smith
Speaker 1: stories from back in then. You know, j R was
Speaker 1: a rookie that year, and I just remember the confidence
Speaker 1: that j R had as a young eighteen year old
Speaker 1: rookie was off the charts. And you saw it throughout
Speaker 1: the whole course of his career. I mean he pulled
Speaker 1: up from thirty five ft on a on a fast
Speaker 1: break with no conscience. UM. And you knew that once
Speaker 1: he got more acclimated in the NBA game and his
Speaker 1: skills continued to develop even though he was he was
Speaker 1: good for an eighteen year old rookie that he was
Speaker 1: gonna have a good career. UM. But he always he
Speaker 1: always played hard, He played with an edge, He played UM,
Speaker 1: you know in a way that you knew he was
Speaker 1: gonna have a long career. The funniest JR. Smith story
Speaker 1: that I have is, so we had a couple of
Speaker 1: really good Uh we had some great vets. Um, George
Speaker 1: Lynch and p J. Brown were a couple of vets
Speaker 1: that we had on that team, and they kind of
Speaker 1: set the tone for, you know, shoot arounds being early. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, if we have a breakfast meeting, show up early,
Speaker 1: be prepared to you know, pay attention to film, do
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. And uh so we're at
Speaker 1: a breakfast meeting one day and j R. Smith walks in.
Speaker 1: He's still on time, but he's kind of skirting that
Speaker 1: line of being late. And he's wearing SpongeBob square pants, uh,
Speaker 1: pajama bottoms and slippers. And I'm sitting there eating breakfast
Speaker 1: with p J. Brown, and p J. Brown just puts
Speaker 1: his head over his over his face and he just
Speaker 1: starts shaking his head and he goes he says something
Speaker 1: along the lines of, young fellow, you got a lot
Speaker 1: to learn, SpongeBob, come on. But it's awesome to see
Speaker 1: he went back to college. It sounds like he's doing great,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, he's on the golf team now,
Speaker 1: so that's one of my passions of mine. Hopefully at
Speaker 1: some point, you know, he and I can get on
Speaker 1: the course and play around the golf. That'd be dope. Man.
Speaker 1: You got your live stream it too, Dan. What's something
Speaker 1: about the NBA that people, normal people like outside of
Speaker 1: the NBA have the wrong percept about, you know, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: at times, NBA players get a wrap for not playing hard,
Speaker 1: and I have always argued that as hard as I
Speaker 1: possibly can. And the reason is is those guys are
Speaker 1: the best in the world, and it looks like they're
Speaker 1: not playing hard because they make it look easy. I mean,
Speaker 1: they just make things look so unbelieving easy. You can
Speaker 1: see a guy go from free throw line to the
Speaker 1: rim and transition in two dribbles. I mean that is
Speaker 1: as heard of athletic feet as you're gonna find, you know.
Speaker 1: And then you throw in the the ability where you know,
Speaker 1: if a guy's splitting a pick and roll, you're talking
Speaker 1: about agility, strength, balance, hand dexterity, and then you know
Speaker 1: the spatial awareness of where help side is. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're doing so so many things so quickly athletically, um
Speaker 1: that that it is unbelievably difficult. But guys make it
Speaker 1: look so easy. And then you look at the top guys.
Speaker 1: You're talking about your Kobe's um, Tracy mcgrady's when I
Speaker 1: was playing, now the job morants and stuff, Damian Lillards.
Speaker 1: It's like they're on a whole another level than most pros. There.
Speaker 1: There's there's levels to being a pro, and some guys
Speaker 1: just take it to the extreme to Uh, do you
Speaker 1: think coaches in today's NBA dan have an easier job
Speaker 1: or harder job than coaches in the league when you
Speaker 1: were playing. Wow, that's a that's a excuse me, that's
Speaker 1: a difficult one. It's hard to say. I don't watch
Speaker 1: as much NBA as I used to, uh, simply because I,
Speaker 1: you know, have to prepare for college games. But I
Speaker 1: think if you look at the way the game was
Speaker 1: played then versus now, um, it's two totally different styles
Speaker 1: of coaching and preparation. The game was slower back then.
Speaker 1: You were talking about throw the ball on the block.
Speaker 1: See if a double team comes, split action, get to
Speaker 1: the week's side. If a double comes, play out of it, swing, swing, attack,
Speaker 1: close out. You know, if no double comes, you're gonna
Speaker 1: back do that bumping, grind game till the guy gets
Speaker 1: to a spot. You're gonna see that like eight times
Speaker 1: a game now if you're lucky, and that's what guys like,
Speaker 1: Yo kitchen, that's about it. Now, it's let's space the floor,
Speaker 1: let's let's pick and roll, let's dribble, hand off, let's
Speaker 1: give guys angles to to go, and then you're still
Speaker 1: swing swing, attacking closeouts, but it's in a different way.
Speaker 1: So I think that the difference now maybe isn't the
Speaker 1: way it's coached or the coaches are. I think it's
Speaker 1: the way the game is looked at. Now you're looking
Speaker 1: at the value of a three pointer as opposed to
Speaker 1: the value of a post. Stuff. I remember when I
Speaker 1: was a rookie um Lon Krueger got fired early in
Speaker 1: my rookie career rookie season and I was coming back
Speaker 1: from a knee surgery. The new head coach, Terry Stotts
Speaker 1: takes over. His view of a backup point guard was
Speaker 1: pick up um, don't turn it over, um, and only
Speaker 1: shoot open shots. Well, right there, those are three strikes
Speaker 1: against me. Because I stuck defensively to pick up. I
Speaker 1: would turn it over occasionally because I was willing to
Speaker 1: make a pocket pass, thread the needle or a tough pass.
Speaker 1: And then if if I'm only allowed to take open shots,
Speaker 1: that's hard because I was ingrained as a scorer in college. Um,
Speaker 1: I remember times I was told not to shoot a
Speaker 1: three pointer because it was a bad shot at the time.
Speaker 1: Now like, hey, let's get thirty five threes up and
Speaker 1: and and we're still not happy because we wanted forty.
Speaker 1: So it's just a difference in how the game is viewed.
Speaker 1: I think coaches still put the same amount of time
Speaker 1: and effort into coaching what they believe in at the time. Though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. When you think about the evolution of the
Speaker 1: game from then until now, obviously a lot more emphasis
Speaker 1: on the three point shots, spacing uh, less about centers
Speaker 1: down low and banging, more about being fleet a foot
Speaker 1: kind slender, you know, long three and D type guys. Um,
Speaker 1: When you think about the evolution of the game, how
Speaker 1: do you rank or how do you evaluate your game
Speaker 1: as far as being able to play today? How would
Speaker 1: I evaluate my game? Yes, your game. So we'll take
Speaker 1: Dan dick Gal's game back in two thousand and put
Speaker 1: him in today. You know, I think I would fit
Speaker 1: very well simply because I could shoot it, I can
Speaker 1: handle it, and I could pass it. Defensively, that was
Speaker 1: always gonna be a question for me regardless. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you a tremendous effort um, but the game, the
Speaker 1: floor was shrunk at that point in time, so it
Speaker 1: was a little bit easier um to guard guys. Plus
Speaker 1: you could physically hand check a little bit. Now, I
Speaker 1: wasn't a brute physically where I was gonna push you.
Speaker 1: But at least when you when you have the ability
Speaker 1: to armbar or kind of hand check, you can keep
Speaker 1: an eye on a guy. You can keep track of
Speaker 1: a guy, so at least you know you might be
Speaker 1: looking in one direction to see some action, but your
Speaker 1: hands on the guy so you could feel him go.
Speaker 1: So it gives you a head start. Well, now, if
Speaker 1: you put a hand on a gag guy, that's a
Speaker 1: foul um And so I think space and quickness. It
Speaker 1: really helps offensive players these days. Um, I don't like
Speaker 1: to be one of those guys that say I would
Speaker 1: have been better now versus then, because it's still at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, the best talented players are
Speaker 1: going to make that league, and the most talented players
Speaker 1: are gonna play minutes, um, and so I do think
Speaker 1: the style would fit me better, but it's hard to
Speaker 1: say if I would have been better. Where do you
Speaker 1: pinpoint that moment where or that year that the NBA
Speaker 1: style of basketball changed. Do you have a recollection of
Speaker 1: when it went to this, you know, pace in space
Speaker 1: or specifically speaking about Steph Cerry, Yeah, do you think
Speaker 1: that he think, singularly was responsible for that change in
Speaker 1: the way that we play basketball and all level? I
Speaker 1: think I think the start of it was Mike d'antoni's
Speaker 1: eight seconds or less, but then Steph took it to
Speaker 1: the next level. But Steph, I don't think, you know,
Speaker 1: Mark Jackson deserves some credit for being willing to let
Speaker 1: him shoot deep threes in transition. Um, you know, Steve
Speaker 1: Kerr took it to the next level and basically built
Speaker 1: an offensive philosophy around his ability to pull up in transition,
Speaker 1: come off pick and rolls, as well as his ability
Speaker 1: to move without the basketball, which I don't think gets
Speaker 1: enough credit the shape and condition he's in to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. But I think if you look
Speaker 1: at you know, D'Antoni sons with Steve Nash started it,
Speaker 1: and then Steph Curries and those groups took it off.
Speaker 1: But an interesting story I have is the last NBA
Speaker 1: training camp that I was a part of was Phoenix Suns,
Speaker 1: and this would have been with Nash and Mariic's dattermar
Speaker 1: Grant hilp Um and unfortunately got cut basically the last
Speaker 1: day of training camp because Robert Sarver didn't want to
Speaker 1: hold any more contracts. Um to this day, it's a
Speaker 1: frustration because I knew I was good enough to be
Speaker 1: on that team. I had a good enough training camp.
Speaker 1: But the one of the last games, if not the
Speaker 1: last preseason game I played that year, was against the
Speaker 1: Warriors Steff Curries rookie year, and I had to guard
Speaker 1: him on a few minutes because a few minutes towards
Speaker 1: the end of the game, and and and I just
Speaker 1: remember I had watched him just light up my Gonzaga
Speaker 1: Bulldogs in the n c A tournament. And probably it's
Speaker 1: a good defender, and Stephen Gray, I remember, like he's good.
Speaker 1: But okay, come on, I know it's in it's college
Speaker 1: versus the pros. And I wasn't thinking I was gonna
Speaker 1: stop him by anyway, But I just gardened him. Just
Speaker 1: like at the end of that a few minutes stretch
Speaker 1: where I had to guard him, I was like, he's different.
Speaker 1: I couldn't put my finger on it. You know. It's
Speaker 1: just the way he moved with the ball, the way
Speaker 1: he moved handling the ball, the pureness and the rhythm
Speaker 1: that he shot it with. And you've been around enough
Speaker 1: shooters to know there's good shooters and then the here shooters,
Speaker 1: and and a lot of times the pureness is because
Speaker 1: of how rhythmic their shot and how effortless it looks.
Speaker 1: He had all those intangibles. It just took a couple
Speaker 1: of years of getting through some injuries for him, uh,
Speaker 1: and kind of growing into his game at that next
Speaker 1: level before he took off. But I mean he's as
Speaker 1: fun as anybody there ever has been to watch the play.
Speaker 1: Do you consider him a PG dad? Uh? Yeah, I do. Um, Well,
Speaker 1: you know you probably followed Rashad Phillips a little bit too.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's got a great breakdown of of you know,
Speaker 1: some different characteristics and how we slots players. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't go as in depth as he does, but I
Speaker 1: I like to call them ball handler decision makers, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a lot of true point guards anymore.
Speaker 1: Chris Paul's point guard. I mean, bottom line, he's a
Speaker 1: point guard. I think John Morant's kind of a ball
Speaker 1: handler decision maker, saying with Damian Lillard, um, you know
Speaker 1: guys that can make point guard as, but they're also
Speaker 1: such a good score you don't want to take the
Speaker 1: emphasis of them searching for their own shot out of
Speaker 1: their comfort level. So that's the way I kind of
Speaker 1: try to look at it. Ball handler decision makers. Wings
Speaker 1: are like slasher attackers. And then Biggs. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: always I've always been guard oriented and how I look
Speaker 1: at the game. So it post up bigs or pop
Speaker 1: out step out bigs. I guess, yeah, yeah, I'm the
Speaker 1: same way. I guess I was. I had Bob Meyer's
Speaker 1: Gold States GM on a few weeks ago. We're had
Speaker 1: the conversation of what position to Steph Kerry playing. Bob's like,
Speaker 1: he's not a point guard, He's just a basketball player,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's a basketball player, and that's how
Speaker 1: they like to define things up in Golden State. My man,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know once you decided right to shut
Speaker 1: it down, call it a day. How did you transition
Speaker 1: back into the real world. Yeah, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: hard one for any former athlete. I mean, you grow up.
Speaker 1: That's all you're focused in on, that's all you're doing.
Speaker 1: And unless you're truly at the at the peak, you
Speaker 1: don't get to say I'm done. It's like the contracts
Speaker 1: kind of you know, they dry up there, they're not
Speaker 1: there anymore. I got waived by UH Phoenix, like I
Speaker 1: had mentioned, and then I stuck around the house and
Speaker 1: worked out, stayed in shape, and I said, if there's
Speaker 1: no phone calls from an NBA team or a great
Speaker 1: European opportunity, I was gonna go to the D League.
Speaker 1: So I went to the D League for a short
Speaker 1: stretch that year before I got hurt. I think I
Speaker 1: played eight or ten games, played really well. No call
Speaker 1: have happened, which it is what it is. You know,
Speaker 1: how the drill goes. Sometimes it works, betimes it doesn't.
Speaker 1: I got hurt, and in the D League, once you
Speaker 1: get hurt chopping block, you're done. You're out of there.
Speaker 1: Um And it was an injury plan or fasciitist that
Speaker 1: it took me eight nine months to get rid of
Speaker 1: and by that time we were kind of blended into
Speaker 1: like the next season, there's no opportunities. Uh. Then the
Speaker 1: lock what happens? And then the Blazers they had me
Speaker 1: on the coaching staff for a year of player development. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I wasn't kept when they had the new
Speaker 1: regime come in with Terry Stott's and Neil old Shay um.
Speaker 1: But at that point it was an opportunity where my
Speaker 1: family moved to Spokane and I got into business and
Speaker 1: I really started going into the broadcasting world, which for
Speaker 1: a former player is as good as it gets. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta do your homework, you gotta prepare, but you're
Speaker 1: around the game. But you're not around the game where
Speaker 1: you're watching eight hours of film like a coach and
Speaker 1: having to like put together scouttering reports. You just gotta
Speaker 1: know the game. As a broadcaster, you got you gotta
Speaker 1: know storylines and be able to tell them a little
Speaker 1: bit more. Yeah. No, it's a dream to call college basketball,
Speaker 1: high school basketball, sit courtside. Uh you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: There was like it's off the hook for a real hooper. Um.
Speaker 1: I guess man, I wanted to touch on what you're
Speaker 1: doing now where we can watch you, where we can
Speaker 1: listen to your podcasts and you know, everything that's Dan Dick.
Speaker 1: Where can we find it? Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: So I've been working with a sports media technology company
Speaker 1: in Spokane for about six years. UM. We've got a
Speaker 1: number of partnerships with associations across the country. UM, but
Speaker 1: I'm more focused on their media side where UM. I've
Speaker 1: been doing a podcast for about a year and a
Speaker 1: half called The ISO. You were a guest on it
Speaker 1: a couple of months back, UM, where I try to
Speaker 1: get players, coaches, former players, UM, just to share their experiences.
Speaker 1: It's very similar to what you're doing now with myself.
Speaker 1: So that's been fun. But then college basketball analysts work
Speaker 1: or work pack twelve networks, CBS Sports, Westwood one Radio, UM,
Speaker 1: so that keeps me close to the game. And then
Speaker 1: most recently, I just opened to Shoot three sixty facility
Speaker 1: and Spokane. I'm sure you're aware of those down in
Speaker 1: the l A. Area. UM. It's the new wave of
Speaker 1: of technology based basketball training. So I was lucky enough
Speaker 1: to have an opportunity. We've been open for three weeks
Speaker 1: and it's going really well. I love it because you know,
Speaker 1: once a hooper, always a hooper. You want to find
Speaker 1: a way to get into a gym, This is kind
Speaker 1: of an extra incentive and extra way to get into
Speaker 1: the gym and be around what I love. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: have one down here in the Torrance area. I've actually
Speaker 1: been to one. I was always wondering about, do you
Speaker 1: guys have the full court also? And then like a
Speaker 1: bunch of other smaller courts like set up. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the Torrents one that you're talking about has an NBA
Speaker 1: regulation full court and I think ten skills stations, shooting stations.
Speaker 1: Ours in Spokane we've got five shooting stations, five skills stations,
Speaker 1: and then we do have a full court, but it's
Speaker 1: not NBA length. It's uh, I think it's seventy six
Speaker 1: ft by fifties, so, you know, all the way up
Speaker 1: to high school aged kids. It's perfect. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we do a number. You sign up as a member,
Speaker 1: you get unlimited access to the technology. But then we
Speaker 1: were gonna run a number of you know, skill workouts
Speaker 1: and and clinics throughout the you know, upcoming years here
Speaker 1: in Spokane and really try to put Spokane on a
Speaker 1: map basketball wise. It's never gonna be l A. It's
Speaker 1: never gonna be Portland or Seattle. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: we do get some good players occasionally out of here.
Speaker 1: One of two of them that you might know, John
Speaker 1: Stockton and Adam Morrison. Yeah, I heard of those guys.
Speaker 1: They were pretty good. They're pretty good. Hey, Dan, well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us on kJ Live today. Man.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be checking you out and all of your
Speaker 1: endeavors that everybody that's in the Spokane area hit up
Speaker 1: shoot three sixty. When you get the chance, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: Dan dick out