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Speaker 3: What's up, everybody, Welcome back to the Draymond Green Show, Snana.
Speaker 4: It's always honored to have a guest, but win.
Speaker 3: When you have a Hall of Famer NBA champion, one
Speaker 3: of the goats, you can't help but be thankful and
Speaker 3: be honored.
Speaker 4: And today I have the honor of being joined by two.
Speaker 3: Time NBA Champion NBA Finals MVP in nineteen ninety, the
Speaker 3: year I was born. Such a great year, incredible year,
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety baby, twelve time NBA All Star, three time
Speaker 3: All NBA First Team, two time All NBA Second Team,
Speaker 3: and his number eleven is retired by my hometown, my
Speaker 3: home state, I should say, Detroit Pistons, Isaiah Thomas, d
Speaker 3: Isaiah Thomas zeke to go.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Draymond Green Show, my friend.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and it is an honor to be here.
Speaker 1: Awarded shirt just to represent us and we represent for
Speaker 1: the state of Michigan and appreciate you and thank you
Speaker 1: for inviting me on your show and proud to be
Speaker 1: here with you are your talent, your executives, and mom
Speaker 1: who stepped in in the background earlier right on New.
Speaker 5: Media, Yes sir, new Media baby.
Speaker 3: By the way, for those of y'all out there listening interview,
Speaker 3: my mom just stepped to hoped on here for a
Speaker 3: second before we started. Zeke is my mom's favorite player,
Speaker 3: obviously growing up in Saginaw, Michigan.
Speaker 4: Her teams the Detroit Pistons.
Speaker 3: Growing up, Zeke comes and brings us hope, him, Joe Dumars,
Speaker 3: the bad boys.
Speaker 4: They come.
Speaker 3: They bring two championships to the state and my mom
Speaker 3: ever since I can remember, you know, everybody grow up
Speaker 3: talking about who their favorite player is. Ever since I
Speaker 3: could remember, my mom talked about Isaiah Thomas.
Speaker 4: So this this is huge, This is this is big
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 3: But before just getting into it, man, how long have
Speaker 3: you been working in the NBA. Because you've obviously been
Speaker 3: a player, you have obviously done TV as you're doing now,
Speaker 3: you've been front office, you've been a coach. How long
Speaker 3: has it been that you've been working in the NBA ron.
Speaker 1: That's a great question, you know, I I was nineteen
Speaker 1: when I came in, and actually I played my first
Speaker 1: games I was twenty, so like maybe forty three years.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm basket you know, rather playing front office,
Speaker 1: own and managing TV. I've been a part of the NBA.
Speaker 1: I'm on my third commissioner now. I started with Larry
Speaker 1: O'Brien and you're familiar with the Larry O'Brien trophy, and
Speaker 1: I went to David Stern now Adam Silver. So I've
Speaker 1: seen a lot and being a former president of the Union,
Speaker 1: so I've I've been around a long time. And not
Speaker 1: only have I been around a long time, but I've
Speaker 1: seen the growth and the changes that have occurred. And
Speaker 1: I would encourage you and all of the young fellas
Speaker 1: are who are coming out. You know, basketball, this career,
Speaker 1: it can last a long time. It doesn't end when
Speaker 1: you stop playing. Now, your second career starts and you're
Speaker 1: on you know you're doing that now. You know you're
Speaker 1: you're being basketball forty fifty years and that's the goal,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the goal for all of us. You know,
Speaker 1: not to play and then lead, but play, stay and
Speaker 1: extend and give the knowledge on to the next.
Speaker 5: Generation being that you've seen.
Speaker 4: And number one, I thank you for that advice.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, like you said, obviously, I want to set
Speaker 3: up my path so that I can be a part
Speaker 3: of this league for a long time. You know, the
Speaker 3: NBA has done such an incredible job. I think of
Speaker 3: creating these different avenues that we as players who obviously
Speaker 3: do our part in growing this game. And I think
Speaker 3: it's a beautiful thing when you have these different avenues
Speaker 3: that we can continue in when we're done playing. Because
Speaker 3: the reality is, you know, for a lot of us,
Speaker 3: all you know initially is the NBA. You know, you
Speaker 3: come out of college, you come into the NBA, and
Speaker 3: that's all you know. And when you get out of that,
Speaker 3: so many guys struggle because you don't know anything else.
Speaker 3: You don't know And I say air quotes, you don't
Speaker 3: know the real world, you know. I always say, like
Speaker 3: we do like real work and we have real responsibilities.
Speaker 3: But the NBA always says a fantasy land, like you
Speaker 3: get to play basketball every day, you get to hang
Speaker 3: around great people. It's not always that way. I've been
Speaker 3: fortunate enough to be on one NBA team, but the
Speaker 3: you know, the travel, the hotels, all of these different things,
Speaker 3: they are greater. And so I always say like it's
Speaker 3: a fantasy land for us. So, you know, just to
Speaker 3: your point of staying in this, I think that's an
Speaker 3: incredible thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And and I got some I got some good
Speaker 1: advice at a very young age. And it actually came
Speaker 1: from Kareem Abdul Jabbar. It was, you know, our first
Speaker 1: All Star game and he was sitting there reading a
Speaker 1: book and nobody you know, was coming up speaking to
Speaker 1: him or anything. And you know me, I'm I mean,
Speaker 1: you know me, right, I'm like, hey, So I wound
Speaker 1: up to it and I just you know, trying to
Speaker 1: gain some knowledge, you know. I said, if you can
Speaker 1: give me any advice you know, coming into this, you
Speaker 1: know NBA, you know career that I'm getting ready to start,
Speaker 1: what advice would you give me? And I still hold
Speaker 1: on to it today. He said, as best you can,
Speaker 1: try to stay normal, wash your own clothes, iron your clothes, still,
Speaker 1: do the dishes, still take out trash, you know, do
Speaker 1: do the things that normal regular people in society do.
Speaker 1: Because as you just explained, Draymond. It's a fantasy world.
Speaker 1: It's a fantasy land in NBA. And when you come out, right,
Speaker 1: you ain't gonna be on the private plane all the time.
Speaker 1: You may have to go to the airport. You know,
Speaker 1: you may have to stand in line, You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to get your bags out of baggage claim and everything
Speaker 1: everything that regular people do, right, that's what you should
Speaker 1: keep trying to do. And and the second thing I
Speaker 1: would say along that journey what I figured out, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think the reason why you know, your mom
Speaker 1: would say I'm a favorite player, not because of what
Speaker 1: I did on the basketball court, but what I did
Speaker 1: off the court, just by showing up in the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: just by talking to people, just by being regular, right,
Speaker 1: you know, being an AWFU person, Uh that that carries
Speaker 1: a lot of weight. And the thing that you can do,
Speaker 1: you know, I would say, for yourself and for others
Speaker 1: who are listening, former players, current players, hey man, just
Speaker 1: just to try to stay amongst the people, not above
Speaker 1: the people. Always be one who are amongst the people
Speaker 1: and never above.
Speaker 4: Man. That's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Coming from the West Side of Chicago and then getting
Speaker 3: drafted to the Detroit Pistons. Uh do you do you
Speaker 3: think that kind of helped your transition in the sense
Speaker 3: of Detroit being a similar type of city at Chicago
Speaker 3: and you know, the people being similar, you know, just
Speaker 3: kind of having that that that's that feel of being
Speaker 3: at home when you got.
Speaker 4: To the city of Detroit.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm you know, I'm like you in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. We were raised very similar. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't we didn't travel outside of our state. We
Speaker 1: didn't have no money to do it. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: when I first got to Detroit, I knew nobody, and
Speaker 1: but my mom, just like your mom, had made some
Speaker 1: phone calls and it was like, hey, they keep my
Speaker 1: son when she when he when he gets there. And
Speaker 1: one of the people that she called that I had
Speaker 1: no idea that she even had this type of cloud. Right,
Speaker 1: she called Mayor Coleman Young and said, when my son
Speaker 1: gets there, I want you to look out for him.
Speaker 1: So when I get to Detroit, I get a welcome
Speaker 1: back from from the mayor, you know, from Coleman, and
Speaker 1: then you know, he he introduced you know, a Rita
Speaker 1: and everyone. So I always felt and I still feel
Speaker 1: like this today that I feel like in Michigan, I'm
Speaker 1: everybody's cousin, brother, brother. I feel like I'm a family
Speaker 1: member of everybody, like, and everybody treats me that way.
Speaker 1: I go back home to Michigan and you know, it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I try to check out at the hotel. They say,
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay. I try to. I try
Speaker 1: to buy some food in the restaurant. Manager come out
Speaker 1: say no, that's a me. So it's being from the
Speaker 1: West Side of Chicago, but then coming to Detroit and
Speaker 1: feeling in love and being embraced by everybody in Detroit,
Speaker 1: and still today it is. It is no place on
Speaker 1: earth that I get treated better than than when I'm
Speaker 1: in Detroit.
Speaker 3: Man, that's so incredible. That's so incredible. You a lot
Speaker 3: like myself. I've had the so far had the pleasure
Speaker 3: and honor of being with one team like yourself. And
Speaker 3: obviously I'm still playing, but you know, our ownership group
Speaker 3: has been absolutely amazing. Like I couldn't have asked to
Speaker 3: play for a team with a better ownership group. And
Speaker 3: since you've been a Detroit Piston, that's changed.
Speaker 4: How have you how?
Speaker 3: How how is the reception and like you're treated how
Speaker 3: you're treated by franchises.
Speaker 4: Is that the same? Is it different from.
Speaker 3: You know, the owner being who was the owner when
Speaker 3: you were playing there, Bill Davison and now the owner
Speaker 3: being timed girls Like, it's that same olive branch still
Speaker 3: extended to you the way it was when the previous
Speaker 3: owner was there.
Speaker 1: So the olive branch is extended as a as a guest.
Speaker 1: You're always welcome as a guest. But I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: not inside the organization, right and and it's okay because
Speaker 1: they have work, they have managers, and they have to
Speaker 1: do their thing. But from from a knowledge standpoint, what
Speaker 1: I what I think a lot of organizations miss, which
Speaker 1: now that I'm in corporate America, they never miss. They
Speaker 1: never let knowledge and brains walk out of the door,
Speaker 1: right they they have advised us, consultants, board members, everything else.
Speaker 1: That historical institutional knowledge never gets to walk out of
Speaker 1: the door. What happens in the NBA for former players,
Speaker 1: that knowledge base, it gets to walk out of the
Speaker 1: door and it goes someplace else. And uh, that's the
Speaker 1: That's the one thing that I think like owners do
Speaker 1: miss in this space. They don't recognize that the instruitutional
Speaker 1: knowledge that has been built up over years, and they
Speaker 1: let it walk out of the door. Now case in point,
Speaker 1: Joe Dumars leaves the floor. I left the floor, and
Speaker 1: I was the first owner, part owner of a team
Speaker 1: to Toronto Raptors that started in Toronto, first international team.
Speaker 1: So I left the floor transition right into management, right
Speaker 1: into ownership of an expansion. Joe Dumars leaves the floor
Speaker 1: with that same Detroit Pistons institutional knowledge and he goes
Speaker 1: into the front office and they win a championship, you know,
Speaker 1: with with Ben Wallace, Chauncey Ripped, you know, Rashid that group,
Speaker 1: and so they kept mister d kept that institutional knowledge inside.
Speaker 1: New owners they come in and everybody wants to make
Speaker 1: a splash and they wants to, you know, input, imprint
Speaker 1: their own name on the team. So they always bring
Speaker 1: in new people. Well, when you bring in new people,
Speaker 1: it takes you know, you lose twenty thirty years of
Speaker 1: institutional knowledge that walks out of the door. Most corporations
Speaker 1: don't do that.
Speaker 4: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: I didn't even think about it from that perspective, but
Speaker 3: I think that's a great perspective because you're right when
Speaker 3: I look at some company, it's like, Okay, this guy
Speaker 3: is the CEO. Now he's the chairman. You know, so
Speaker 3: you know Phil Knight, for instance, we'll go Phil Night, right,
Speaker 3: like Fiel Phil Knight, founder of Nike, was the CEO
Speaker 3: for so many years. Then he became the chairman of Nike.
Speaker 3: And so you're still sitting in the board meetings. Maybe
Speaker 3: you're not making the final call. Although if you're still
Speaker 3: sitting there, you have some say in the final call,
Speaker 3: and you're not trying to replace all those things. And
Speaker 3: I think that's a brilliant thing that more NBA teams
Speaker 3: need to need to star are taking into account, especially
Speaker 3: with this younger generation of guys that's coming in, because
Speaker 3: they come in, you know a lot of these young guys,
Speaker 3: they come in not being fans of the NBA. You know,
Speaker 3: like when we came up and I sound like I'm
Speaker 3: way older than I am, but you know, when we
Speaker 3: were coming like, we were huge fans of the NBA,
Speaker 3: you know, like a huge fans of this player. You
Speaker 3: knew who that player was. You know, we have some
Speaker 3: of these young guys now don't.
Speaker 4: Know who World be Free is. We say, World be
Speaker 4: Free they're like, who.
Speaker 3: We had a young guy a few weeks ago and
Speaker 3: Chris Paul was talking about world be Free and he
Speaker 3: like world what is that?
Speaker 4: And CP started telling him about world be Free?
Speaker 3: And he comes back like, yo, he averaged this amount
Speaker 3: of points, like this is crazy. But they don't know
Speaker 3: that these days. And I think that that's obviously just
Speaker 3: a small part of it.
Speaker 1: Right, that's a small part of it, but that's a
Speaker 1: huge part of it. And now I'll take you back
Speaker 1: to the Union, right because as a as a former
Speaker 1: president of a union and now a past president, but
Speaker 1: we always try to ensure is that you know the
Speaker 1: next man up at institutional knowledge and then your generation
Speaker 1: changed that a little bit. Right. But when you look
Speaker 1: over across the across the aisle at the NBA, I
Speaker 1: mentioned Larry O'Brien, underneath him was David Stern who took over,
Speaker 1: and then underneath David Stern who took over. So they
Speaker 1: never let that knowledge walk out of the door, whereas
Speaker 1: in the Union we always let this guy come out.
Speaker 1: We'll get a search committee to find that has the
Speaker 1: NBA ever had has the has the owners ever had
Speaker 1: a search committy? Sorry, but it's like we we we
Speaker 1: constantly let it walk out of the door. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's an old African proverb that says, each one teach
Speaker 1: one and we don't teach. We don't, we don't pass
Speaker 1: on the knowledge to each other. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: we get separated. And the the okay, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: you new media, but old media, right was was was
Speaker 1: a lot about pitting us against each other, making us,
Speaker 1: making us not like each other, making us not communicate
Speaker 1: because then it was best for the audience that they
Speaker 1: were serving. But new media coming along, insiders who have
Speaker 1: like yourself, you know, who like you know, Matt Barns
Speaker 1: and and that crew, I mean y'all making everybody now
Speaker 1: communicate and talk. And because we're communicating and talking and
Speaker 1: guess what we're doing, we're teaching and with spreading knowledge.
Speaker 1: And that young fellow who just found out about world
Speaker 1: be free. Right, that's not nobody else's fault except ours,
Speaker 1: because we're not talking to each other. They make us,
Speaker 1: you know, don't like each other for some other reason.
Speaker 3: But I agree facts, I agree one hundred percent. I
Speaker 3: remember when I first came into the league, maybe like
Speaker 3: my second year in the league, I want to say,
Speaker 3: could have possibly been now, I'd say my second year,
Speaker 3: at least the summer going into my second year, we
Speaker 3: were going through the search committee. We were about to
Speaker 3: replace at the time Billy Hunter as the NFL, NBA
Speaker 3: PA executive what is it, executive president, executive executive directed.
Speaker 3: And I remember you were in the room and you
Speaker 3: were in a sense trying to go for the job.
Speaker 3: And if I if my brain, if I can jog
Speaker 3: my brain correctly, it wasn't taken very seriously at all.
Speaker 3: It was almost like guys were fighting against it, if
Speaker 3: I remember correctly, Uh, did.
Speaker 4: You kind of get that sense when you were trying
Speaker 4: to do that? And what's that?
Speaker 3: The reasoning behind it is what you're speaking to now
Speaker 3: is about that knowledge and being able to pass that
Speaker 3: knowledge down, being through three commissioners and kind of understanding
Speaker 3: the layer of the land.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've kind of righted the ship now because you
Speaker 1: got Andree running your reunion. So now now you got
Speaker 1: a chance to course correct. So that day you're talking about,
Speaker 1: if you remember myself, Spencer Haywood and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if Oscar Oscar Robertson came that day, but we were
Speaker 1: we were all trying to meet with y'all just to say, hey,
Speaker 1: here's a history lesson that you need to be aware
Speaker 1: of before you, before you, you know, go down this track.
Speaker 1: Let us tell you where where, where we've been so
Speaker 1: you can make the correct decision, or at least involve
Speaker 1: us in decision making. And I'll never forget David West
Speaker 1: in that meeting, Love love what he do? You remember him.
Speaker 3: Groop economic roof economics, economy group economics.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, yes, so much so.
Speaker 3: About fifteen minutes into it, he kept saying that they
Speaker 3: were ignoring him.
Speaker 4: D West got up and walked out.
Speaker 1: Yes, and and and what what happened that day?
Speaker 5: Did I?
Speaker 1: Did I get upset? No? I didn't get upset because
Speaker 1: I understand the game that they play with y'all, and
Speaker 1: my goal and my job has always been, is to
Speaker 1: inform and give you the knowledge right. And people on
Speaker 1: the outside they get mad at me, and they spread
Speaker 1: a lot of rumors or stories about me, and they
Speaker 1: don't want y'all talking to me because they're like, well,
Speaker 1: he gonna he gonna tell you this, he gonna tell
Speaker 1: you that. Don't believe this, don't believe that. And before
Speaker 1: you know it, you've got disconnected from the information. And
Speaker 1: because you get disconnected from the information, they can take
Speaker 1: advantage of some of you, not all of you. But
Speaker 1: as you know, we got some players who are still
Speaker 1: getting taken advantage of. And my goal as a as
Speaker 1: a former president was always spread the knowledge and to
Speaker 1: give information. And you're you should ask the guy who
Speaker 1: represents you how he got into the business.
Speaker 4: I know y'all got that connection.
Speaker 3: And Andres from Springfield for Chicago, I definitely, I definitely
Speaker 3: know a relationship.
Speaker 4: Oh Rich Paul.
Speaker 1: Ask him one day to tell you the story of
Speaker 1: how he into the business.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, I'm gonna have to come back to y'all,
Speaker 3: Draymond Green show listeners with this one.
Speaker 4: I have to come back to y'all with this one.
Speaker 1: But speaking of the richest mentors to get him.
Speaker 4: Started, I respect that well. I tell you this.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you because he's been incredible for me, the
Speaker 3: knowledge that he's been sharing with me the business.
Speaker 4: He's helped me sign some great contracts.
Speaker 3: And when I say great contracts, I don't mean just
Speaker 3: the money, because it's not all about the money.
Speaker 4: The devil is in the details, and the.
Speaker 3: Details in my contracts I am so pleased with because
Speaker 3: it ends up being worth more than just the money
Speaker 3: the dollar amount that you see when you start adding
Speaker 3: in kickers and payment schedule and all of these different things.
Speaker 3: It ended up being worth more than just that dollar.
Speaker 3: You see that flash across the ticker. So I'm gonna
Speaker 3: say this for you right here. I appreciate you because
Speaker 3: that man has helped me a tone. But speaking in
Speaker 3: terms of pitting players together. In twenty twenty, and I
Speaker 3: know you've heard this lot, in twenty twenty, were all
Speaker 3: sitting at home watching the Last Dance with nothing else
Speaker 3: to do, and I was just wondering, Number one, did
Speaker 3: you watch that? And if you did watch it, what
Speaker 3: was your experience like watching that, being that you were
Speaker 3: such a huge part of the Last Dance and or
Speaker 3: just the bulls becoming who they became as a whole.
Speaker 3: Did you watch that and if you did, what was
Speaker 3: your experience like in watching it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I watched it, and I watched it with you know,
Speaker 1: my It was doing COVID, So so you know, the family,
Speaker 1: we gather around and you know this is this is
Speaker 1: going to be great because for me and you understand this,
Speaker 1: I say this being a champion, right, the first time
Speaker 1: I really got a chance to peep behind the opponent's kurtain, right,
Speaker 1: And no one else could understand that, right, but you
Speaker 1: would understand. It's like, okay, now we get ready to see,
Speaker 1: like what's behind the curtain. And and and I and
Speaker 1: I must say that.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 1: I was disappointed at what I saw. And here's why
Speaker 1: I was disappointed. You you have you had Bob Myers
Speaker 1: there as your as your president GM. The Chicago Boys
Speaker 1: had Jerry Krouse as their president. The way they treated
Speaker 1: Jerry Krouse, in the disrespect that they showed for him,
Speaker 1: I was blown away, totally blown away. Now can you
Speaker 1: imagine Bob Myers getting on y'all championship bus and y'all
Speaker 1: dogging him and calling him out his name and everything else.
Speaker 1: You can't even fathom that. So we were thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: in our era, these were the dudes. Jerry west read
Speaker 1: All Back, Jack McClosky, Wayne Embry, Jerry Crops, those were
Speaker 1: the dudes. And to watch how they treated him and
Speaker 1: the disrespect and lack of respect that they gave him
Speaker 1: as a person and as a man, it was cringe
Speaker 1: worthy watching that. I cringed for him and his family.
Speaker 1: And then the man you know, he was dead, right,
Speaker 1: so they it's going off on him in the dock now.
Speaker 1: In terms of Jordan and I, as I said, my
Speaker 1: little nephew lived with Jordan, lived with him for like,
Speaker 1: you know, five years, and and then was a ball
Speaker 1: boy for the Chicago Bulls, and so my my whole
Speaker 1: family was like, you know, we were all interacting and
Speaker 1: everything else. The All Star Game, Michael Jordan's last All
Speaker 1: Star game. I coached his last All Star game. Vince Carter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Vince Carter had won the starting spot. It's Michael Jordan's
Speaker 1: last All Star game. I took Vince Carter aside and
Speaker 1: I convinced him to give his spot to Michael Jordan.
Speaker 1: He said why, I said, because I gave mine to
Speaker 1: doctor j when Doctor j was voted on that. That's
Speaker 1: how it goes, right, Vince Carter gave up his spot
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan. You know, we interacted everything else. I never
Speaker 1: knew this dude felt the way he felt until the
Speaker 1: last Dand wow, really, I'm like, all these years you've
Speaker 1: been standing behind a tree, throwing stones and letting somebody
Speaker 1: else take the fall for it. I never knew he
Speaker 1: had dislike an anger for me. Had I known, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm grown man. I ain't got no problem.
Speaker 1: You know, we come from the same place. You know,
Speaker 1: at one point in time in my life. I used
Speaker 1: to fight really really good, and I know I can't
Speaker 1: do that. I used to not but but we wouldn't
Speaker 1: throw hands or anything. But I'm just saying, had I
Speaker 1: known you felt that way, I definitely would have treated
Speaker 1: you differently. But I was very gracious to him, not
Speaker 1: only in Chicago but everywhere we went. I never I
Speaker 1: never thought there was any type of you know, he
Speaker 1: ahmad and I when I stopped playing, we went out
Speaker 1: to dinner several times. So I never knew, like until
Speaker 1: the last dance, like this dude really felt this way
Speaker 1: about me. Now some people will say, oh, Isaiah, you
Speaker 1: should have known. How could you not know? I only
Speaker 1: know how people are with me when they treat me,
Speaker 1: Like when you and I to talk, it's like it's love.
Speaker 1: Right now you walk away and you like dogging me.
Speaker 1: I don't know that. I only know how we interact
Speaker 1: and when you and when and I interacted was always good.
Speaker 1: So now some people will say, well, why didn't you
Speaker 1: shake his hand? Let me give you all a history lesson. Okay,
Speaker 1: the champions and I went to every NBA finals, Boston Celtics,
Speaker 1: the LA Lakers, Philadelphia when they were all competing. At
Speaker 1: the end of the game, they always left the court
Speaker 1: and they would let the other team celebrate, and then
Speaker 1: they would come into your locker room after the game
Speaker 1: and shake your hand and say congratulations. Larry Bird and
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson. Y'all find me the tape in the video
Speaker 1: that showed them shake the hands at the end of
Speaker 1: their championship wins or losses. Showed me the tape, showed
Speaker 1: me the video where they all like chicking. Heck, where
Speaker 1: Larry Bird and Magic Johnson taking air. I want to
Speaker 1: see that now. In the locker room, you walk out,
Speaker 1: then you come back and you shake hands and you
Speaker 1: congratulate their back in the locker room. So when the
Speaker 1: Boston Celtics walked off the floor on us, we understood
Speaker 1: the program. You would see afterwards. See Jones, Jimmy Rogers,
Speaker 1: a couple of the players. They came into all locker
Speaker 1: room and they congratulated us. Okay, that's how it goes. Chicago,
Speaker 1: they're the only champion that still cries about somebody not
Speaker 1: shaking the hand.
Speaker 3: Interesting, So I asked you that question. I appreciate those facts.
Speaker 3: I got a couple questions for you. Number one, do
Speaker 3: you regret like the way that that all played out
Speaker 3: with it almost being like, I mean, you were essentially,
Speaker 3: for lack of a better term, demonis for that.
Speaker 4: It was like, oh that was Isaiah, Isaiah ducked. It
Speaker 4: was all Isaiah didn't want to.
Speaker 3: Shake their hands because he got a thing against MJ.
Speaker 3: Do you regret that now in seeing how it all
Speaker 3: played out?
Speaker 1: Of course, the way it all played out, right, have
Speaker 1: we known that this would be the impact? Of course
Speaker 1: we all stopped the shit, do shake your hands? But
Speaker 1: but nobody was thinking like that back then. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like that. It really wasn't a theme til they made
Speaker 1: it a thing. Yeah, and we're sitting here, what is
Speaker 1: it almost thirty years later and they still making it
Speaker 1: a thing?
Speaker 3: Sure, almost forty years later now, No, listen, I get it.
Speaker 3: But I have also a question when when you didn't
Speaker 3: make the Dream Team, as I all think, I think
Speaker 3: we all would agree you should have been on a
Speaker 3: Dream Team, did you not think in us like that
Speaker 3: that possibly came from MJ, like that MJ would have
Speaker 3: that type of power, so that you don't make that team.
Speaker 4: Did you feel like that then or at any.
Speaker 1: When I didn't make the team, my first reaction was
Speaker 1: why did not make it right? And and and that
Speaker 1: was the first time I had never made the team.
Speaker 1: You know, you yes, when you tried for a team,
Speaker 1: and remember they used to write your name up on
Speaker 1: the wall.
Speaker 6: You made it right. My name was always on the wall.
Speaker 6: I was always always made the team, right. And so
Speaker 6: that was the first time I didn't make a team.
Speaker 6: And so of course I was like, I was hurt.
Speaker 6: But at the same.
Speaker 1: Time, it never done on me that I didn't make
Speaker 1: the team because Michael Jordan didn't like me. That that
Speaker 1: that thought never crossed my mind. I went to the
Speaker 1: selection committee and John Stockton is a is a is
Speaker 1: a personal friend of mine and it has been a
Speaker 1: personal friend of mine for a long time. Jeff Hornisack,
Speaker 1: you know, his dad coached me in high school, right,
Speaker 1: So so when you look at my relationships, you know
Speaker 1: with with Hornorsack Stocked and you know we we've known
Speaker 1: each other for years. So when I never thought like, okay,
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna make the team. But when I looked
Speaker 1: at the com you know who they picked. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, well they picked this guy, they picked John,
Speaker 1: they picked this now. And then then I started thinking, okay, well,
Speaker 1: and you know you always want to make the team. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, but Larry hurt, Magic ain't even in
Speaker 1: the league no more, right, you know, stocked and injured. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got a chance. It never crossed my mind that
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna I wasn't on a team because Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan didn't want me on a team. And by the way,
Speaker 1: at that time, you're not thinking like somebody would have
Speaker 1: that much power because that was that first championship. Now
Speaker 1: I had I had won two, should have won three.
Speaker 1: Magic and Bird I think had five. Magic had five,
Speaker 1: Bird had three. I had two. We had won the
Speaker 1: most championships in that era. So I didn't I was
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking like, it just wasn't crossing my mind.
Speaker 1: Some people will say, oh, Isaiah, you should have known it,
Speaker 1: But that ain't how I operate. That ain't how I think.
Speaker 1: I wasn't like going to you know, oh, this guy
Speaker 1: didn't want me on the team. That's why I'm not
Speaker 1: on the team. And then it started coming out weeks later, well,
Speaker 1: Jordan don't like Isaiah, he didn't want him on the team.
Speaker 1: And then Michael Jordan did an interview or he did
Speaker 1: a made a quote and he said, Hey, I had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Isaiah not being on the team,
Speaker 1: So why wouldn't I take him at his word? That's
Speaker 1: what he said. Last dance said, Oh, this dude been
Speaker 1: lying for a long time.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: That's when now now you see me like wait a minute, okay,
Speaker 1: because now I'm like, okay, I'm pushing back now. But
Speaker 1: it really wasn't nothing to push back on at that
Speaker 1: time because I didn't make the team. Robmin didn't make
Speaker 1: the team, Robin was three times Defensive Player of the Year.
Speaker 1: Joe Dumars didn't make the team. Joe Dumars was you know,
Speaker 1: eighty nine NBA Finals MVP. I was ninety Finals MVP.
Speaker 1: We're the only backcourt that's ever been back to back
Speaker 1: NBA Finals MVP's. So Joe wasn't on the team, Robin
Speaker 1: wasn't on a team. I wasn't on the team. So
Speaker 1: now we're like, oh, well, the League hate us. We
Speaker 1: never said Jordan hate us. He's like the League hate
Speaker 1: us David Stern because we was fighting with David Stern
Speaker 1: in the in the NBA. Ever since I got into
Speaker 1: the NBA, that's been all fighting, right right, So but
Speaker 1: I never I never went to George, But now I am.
Speaker 3: I respect that is where is your relationship at today?
Speaker 4: And is that salvageable?
Speaker 5: Dude?
Speaker 4: No, not salvageable? Now we.
Speaker 1: The only way this is salvageable. This dude got on
Speaker 1: national television, international television and called me an asshole somebody
Speaker 1: who has been really good to him. And until he
Speaker 1: apologizes on international television, we you know, conversation. You can't.
Speaker 1: You can't apologize and have a private dinner when you
Speaker 1: and me publicly. If you didn't mean it, say it publicly.
Speaker 1: Now if you meant it, let us stand. I'm good
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 4: M h. I respect that. And switching gears.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, we always talk about the drastic styles
Speaker 3: of play and or drastic changes, I should say, to
Speaker 3: the style of play from when you guys played even
Speaker 3: to the early years of say Lebron and Kobe you know,
Speaker 3: and those guys the early two thousand Shack Duncan and
Speaker 3: to you know, twenty tens and to where the game
Speaker 3: is today. Uh, it's totally different. It's officiated differently, rules,
Speaker 3: some rules are different. But I think we all know
Speaker 3: and see the changes to the offense. And there's been
Speaker 3: some recent reports coming out that the NBA is looking
Speaker 3: about looking at shifting back to some of the rules
Speaker 3: that you guys played with, possibly being able to hand
Speaker 3: check again. Uh, being able to play a lot more
Speaker 3: physical on the defensive end as you have been able
Speaker 3: to in recent years. It's kind of tilted a bit,
Speaker 3: so it seems to favorite offense. What are your thoughts
Speaker 3: on that? Do you think that's good for the game?
Speaker 3: Do you think that's needed? Or like do the offense
Speaker 3: get way too too much freedom of movement and all
Speaker 3: of those things nowadays?
Speaker 4: Well, what are your what is your sense on that?
Speaker 1: I think that well, yes, it definitely has changed and
Speaker 1: it has shifted, and I would say skill wise, skill
Speaker 1: you have more skilled players on the roster and on
Speaker 1: the team than we had back then. Now what do
Speaker 1: I mean by skill? Mhm, everybody can shoot everybody. I
Speaker 1: mean you can't leave nobody. I mean everybody can shoot.
Speaker 1: And then the three point line in the distance in
Speaker 1: terms of where guys are shooting from, is is mind blowing.
Speaker 1: It's it's remarkable. Now in terms of the defense swinging
Speaker 1: back to where it was. I think we think we
Speaker 1: have to be careful because we can, we can all
Speaker 1: have these thoughts of how it should be, but it's
Speaker 1: really gonna come down to the officials. Now. Back then,
Speaker 1: all officials knew like okay and check in, you know,
Speaker 1: being physical with you know there. They could have called
Speaker 1: a foul on every single play, but they were selective
Speaker 1: in terms of what plays they would call on. And
Speaker 1: we knew as players, you know, kind of how the
Speaker 1: game was gonna go. They would set the table early
Speaker 1: in terms, okay, these are the rules. This is how
Speaker 1: this game's gonna be played. Now Tomorrow night games may
Speaker 1: be different, right, like we knew like like Magic Johnson
Speaker 1: has a and by the way, I watched all the
Speaker 1: Olympics and I rooted it for the US. But I
Speaker 1: but there was there's a scene in there with Magic
Speaker 1: and Larry. I taken a picture with Michael Jordan and
Speaker 1: Magic goes or you can't get too close. You know,
Speaker 1: they gonna call the five right that lot so yeah,
Speaker 1: so you just know, like, I don't know if these
Speaker 1: officials today can really control the game the way those
Speaker 1: officials back then were able to do. So when you're
Speaker 1: talking about changing the rules and everything else, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to take into account the temperament and the
Speaker 1: personality of the officials who are going to be officiating
Speaker 1: the game and that mhm. I okay, So I'm watching
Speaker 1: I'm watching some players like, okay, you you take a
Speaker 1: you take a look at Okay, let's use Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: and Steph Curry right now. Ever since they've been talking
Speaker 1: about you know you you we're gonna we're gonna let
Speaker 1: you hold in hand check a little bit. I'm watching Steph.
Speaker 1: I'm watching Kevin, and these guys are getting held now
Speaker 1: away from the bar. And I'm sure you're watching too.
Speaker 1: I mean, they you know, they they have an arrestle
Speaker 1: and they they getting beat up. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's really good. But this generation, now fall generation, we
Speaker 1: were used to it, right, so we were used to
Speaker 1: you know, you put in on our show, you you're
Speaker 1: hacking us, you're hitting upside to head. But if you
Speaker 1: just go drastically into it, now, you know, some some
Speaker 1: of your best players are really gonna get hurt by it.
Speaker 3: And speaking of Steph, how do you look at the
Speaker 3: how do you look at the all time great point
Speaker 3: guard conversation? Like, obviously you're right up there, Obviously STEP's
Speaker 3: right up there, obviously Magic's right up there. But how
Speaker 3: do you look at that debate or do you even
Speaker 3: think like those should be debates.
Speaker 1: They they should be debates because they're good for basketball
Speaker 1: and it's good for you know, we always want the
Speaker 1: general public to be interested in what we're doing. Good
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, So when you when you when you define the
Speaker 7: position of point guard, you know, this isn't an era
Speaker 7: where they say we are positionless.
Speaker 1: But but then you want to say, okay, well he's
Speaker 1: a point guard. He's not a point guard. So let
Speaker 1: me let me just tell you what the way I
Speaker 1: think about point guards and the Golden State Warriors. You
Speaker 1: are the point guard. You you you have more assists
Speaker 1: than Steph. You, you bring the ball up, you, you
Speaker 1: initiate the offense, you set the defense. You you you
Speaker 1: run the show. Steph comes off screens, he catches, and
Speaker 1: he shoots, and he's one of the greatest shoots shooters ever,
Speaker 1: and and what he's been able to do for this
Speaker 1: generation of play and the way he's one with it,
Speaker 1: Key Worrid, the way he's won with it has been
Speaker 1: different than anybody else has ever tried to do it.
Speaker 1: I won a different way as a point guard. I
Speaker 1: led my team and I may be the only one
Speaker 1: who's done this as a point guard where I've led
Speaker 1: my team in scoring and assists to back to back championships.
Speaker 1: I don't think Magic led his team and scored and
Speaker 1: assists in back to back championships. He may have led
Speaker 1: them and assists. He may have led them in scorn.
Speaker 1: I'm the only one who's done it in both categories. Now,
Speaker 1: what Steph? When I look at Steph, I look at
Speaker 1: Steph when he talks about the people that he's emulated.
Speaker 1: He talks about Reggie Miller, he talks about Ray Allen,
Speaker 1: he talks about you know, guys coming off catching and shooting,
Speaker 1: and he by far has taken it to another level.
Speaker 1: But when you talk about the point guard position, the
Speaker 1: way I was taught and the way I think of it,
Speaker 1: not today's point guard, but I would I would say
Speaker 1: that the Michigan State point guards right, So Eric Snow
Speaker 1: had Alan Iverson, right, Alan Iverson is not the point guard.
Speaker 1: Eric Snow was the point guard. They'd never want to
Speaker 1: give Eric Snow the credit for being point guard. But
Speaker 1: that's who ran the team for the Golden State Warriors.
Speaker 1: You're the point guard, and that's okay. Now, what Steph
Speaker 1: is Steph is. Steph has been able to do something
Speaker 1: at his size that no other player has ever been
Speaker 1: able to do, so he really does have his kind
Speaker 1: of own category, just like I think I have my category.
Speaker 1: But if you want to say who's the best point
Speaker 1: guards between us, it all depends on what era you
Speaker 1: want to put us in. Now, I think Magic Johnson
Speaker 1: Oscar Robertson, because of their size, they always have an
Speaker 1: advantage over me and Steph in a real basketball game, right,
Speaker 1: and Magic could score, he could run the show, and
Speaker 1: he to me, he's the best to ever do it.
Speaker 1: Second best is Oscar Robertson. And I would say, in
Speaker 1: terms of the way I had to do it in
Speaker 1: my era, the little guys don't nobody compete with me.
Speaker 1: But I would also say with Jef Curry, the way
Speaker 1: he has done it, nobody could compete with him. Alan
Speaker 1: Iverson was the closest small guy to come to doing
Speaker 1: it the way Steph is doing it, you know, but
Speaker 1: he by far is in a different category. So point guard,
Speaker 1: shooting guard, whatever you want to call him, you know
Speaker 1: that the assists number for the point guard is always
Speaker 1: what we We were like, okay, can you do this right?
Speaker 1: That's what really what you were judged on. We weren't
Speaker 1: judged on how many points we scored. We were judged
Speaker 1: on how can you help your teammates score.
Speaker 3: I can apprec shit that answer because I was gonna
Speaker 3: sit here and argue with.
Speaker 4: You by my point guard.
Speaker 3: But then you said he's in a whole different category
Speaker 3: and how he goes about things.
Speaker 4: I can accept that.
Speaker 3: But I also do think like when we were playing
Speaker 3: for Mark Jackson, Steph had the ball more, he led
Speaker 3: the team and assist and all of that. Once Steve
Speaker 3: came in, it's not quite the offense, you know, like
Speaker 3: the offense is. It's all, you know, swinging the basketball,
Speaker 3: move the ball to the next guy. Ultimately, I remember
Speaker 3: when Steve first was implementing his offense. We're like, man,
Speaker 3: like you keep telling us and swinging the ball, You
Speaker 3: keep telling telling Steph to pass the ball and then
Speaker 3: pin down like Steph's supposed to get these shots man.
Speaker 3: And I remember Steve telling us like, you guys are
Speaker 3: looking at me like I'm crazy because I keep telling
Speaker 3: this guy to swing it and Clay to swing it,
Speaker 3: and they should be pinning in.
Speaker 4: Too, he said.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell y'all, the shots are going to find
Speaker 3: the guys that they're supposed to find.
Speaker 4: I can promise you that. You just got to trust it.
Speaker 4: You trusted.
Speaker 3: I promise you the shots will find the guys that
Speaker 3: they're supposed to find. And so I do think, you know,
Speaker 3: like the way our offense run and me having the
Speaker 3: ball a lot and initiating some of the offense, I
Speaker 3: do think you know that is also kind of a
Speaker 3: product of our system as well.
Speaker 4: You know, where Steph isn't going to dominate the ball.
Speaker 3: You know, he's not going to have the ball all
Speaker 3: the time, making play affter play after play, because it's
Speaker 3: just not like if Steph did do that, Steve would
Speaker 3: lose his mind, Like Steve would go ape shit if
Speaker 3: Steph just sat there and like, what's trying to make
Speaker 3: every play like he just had a We were lanning
Speaker 3: the next the other day and I was trying to
Speaker 3: wave Moses through to get Steph coming off the pen down.
Speaker 3: He pulled me to the side. He's like, yo, just
Speaker 3: swinging to Moses, Like like, stop trying to get the
Speaker 3: ball to Steph. Like it'll find Steph. You got to
Speaker 3: swing that ball to Moses. And I'm like, all right, cool,
Speaker 3: I got you. But I think Steve will lose his
Speaker 3: mind if Steph was trying to lead to you know,
Speaker 3: if he was putting himself in a position to lead
Speaker 3: the team and assists or do it that way. I
Speaker 3: don't think it would necessarily work for the way Steve
Speaker 3: wants us to play either, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So now'm gonna give you a history lesson. Okay,
Speaker 1: the offense that you run. I played for the guy
Speaker 1: who invented it. His name was Bob Knight.
Speaker 4: And absolute money.
Speaker 1: Yes, I won championships at Indiana University as a student
Speaker 1: under Bob Knight. When I got into the NBA, I
Speaker 1: had never ran a pick and role in my life.
Speaker 1: I has never ran a picking role in my life.
Speaker 1: I played passing game in high school. I played passing
Speaker 1: game in college. When I got to the NBA, and
Speaker 1: they gave me a playbook and told me I had
Speaker 1: to remember the plays. I'm like, what play seventy two played?
Speaker 1: Thirty two down fifty two US seventy What the hell
Speaker 1: is this? So what you're describing and in terms of
Speaker 1: your style of play in Steve Kurr's basketball philosophy, that
Speaker 1: passing game, read and react, move the basketball, set screens,
Speaker 1: that comes from coach Knight's philosophy and how offensive basketball
Speaker 1: ship be played. And by the way, your team is
Speaker 1: very successful with it and have been successful with it.
Speaker 1: And that's what makes Steph Curry such an anomaly because
Speaker 1: he You guys don't really have a point guard. You
Speaker 1: don't have traditional one two, three, four five man. You
Speaker 1: don't post up, you know, and put it in the boat.
Speaker 1: You move, re, react, backcut, dribble, handoff. You force the
Speaker 1: defense to play every single action m hm. And if
Speaker 1: that defense isn't on the stream, it only takes one
Speaker 1: man to break right. And if that defense isn't on
Speaker 1: the stream and they don't understand how to defend down screens,
Speaker 1: cross screens, flare screens, dribble handoff, you know, split cuts,
Speaker 1: if they don't understand how and they not tight enough
Speaker 1: to defend all that, then guess what you're gonna get
Speaker 1: a layup. I'm gonna go one step further, right, You
Speaker 1: know that I've gotten to know Kevin Durant extremely well.
Speaker 1: Now he's one of my favorite dudes. Now, right now,
Speaker 1: I understand why Kevin Durant left OKAC to come to
Speaker 1: Golden State. It had nothing to do with you know,
Speaker 1: I don't like this. Gotta Kevin Durant being as subvant,
Speaker 1: as smart as he is. You Steph clay moving reading
Speaker 1: reaction plan that that's the way he wants to play.
Speaker 1: That's the way we all want to play. Steve Kerr
Speaker 1: brilliant enough and he trusts y'all enough and keyword that
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to say, he trusts his teaching enough
Speaker 1: that he gives you the freedom, the freedom to play.
Speaker 1: So therefore, you never know if Steph is gonna start
Speaker 1: in the corner, if he gonna start on the wing,
Speaker 1: if he gonna start on the box. You know, you
Speaker 1: never know. So the perfect randomness of play that Bob
Speaker 1: Knight invented that I came up in that I won
Speaker 1: championships at Indiana. That's the way you play, and that
Speaker 1: makes it so difficult so yeah, it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: What I appreciate that history less and I'll be honest
Speaker 3: with you, I can go well speaking to Kevin Durant,
Speaker 3: I'm happy to hear you say that because I've known
Speaker 3: this all alone.
Speaker 4: Right, Like he wanted to come here. He loved the
Speaker 4: style of play.
Speaker 3: He would always say like, yo, I just wanted to
Speaker 3: play basketball the right way.
Speaker 4: Like I haven't played the game of basketball.
Speaker 3: The right way and I don't know how long, and
Speaker 3: I just want to play the right way. When he
Speaker 3: was coming here and there was this whole you know
Speaker 3: Uproar Trademond was recruited in this that and he no,
Speaker 3: dude wanted to play the game the right way. And
Speaker 3: so in saying that, probably didn't make the right decision
Speaker 3: in leaving, because not many teams play like that.
Speaker 4: It's going to be hard to find that.
Speaker 3: Although I think with Book, you know, Book likes to
Speaker 3: play the game the right way, and so I think
Speaker 3: they're finding some of that in Phoenix.
Speaker 4: But it's never quite going.
Speaker 3: To be this because I think we do play a
Speaker 3: different brand of basketball.
Speaker 4: But before we get out of.
Speaker 1: Here, before you come wait, let me make let me
Speaker 1: make a both here yes, sir, and I hope this
Speaker 1: don't upset you, but because I'm saying, I'm giving you
Speaker 1: our compliment. Before Kevin Durant arrived in Gopen State, Golden State,
Speaker 1: y'all were on the verge of and being and being
Speaker 1: remembered as the team that wins seventy three and nine
Speaker 1: and lost to a Cleveland Cavalier team in the finals
Speaker 1: three to one. You up three to one and probably
Speaker 1: one of the biggest collapse in NBA Finals history from
Speaker 1: the seventy three and nine historical team. Kevin Durant comes
Speaker 1: that summer and really saves y'all basketball legacy and and
Speaker 1: you win two championships after that, and now you're the
Speaker 1: Golden State Warriors dynasty that you're going to go into
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame own and everything else. It is
Speaker 1: cemented because if Durant don't come that summer and you
Speaker 1: guys are remembered as the seventy three and nine team
Speaker 1: that lost three to one in the NBA Finals, all
Speaker 1: of your legacies are different. So all of you with
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant, y'all, are you know right? And that was
Speaker 1: that was a powerful moment in sport that he should
Speaker 1: be rewarded for, but also your team should be rewarded
Speaker 1: for accepting a juggernaut like that and being able to
Speaker 1: incorporate it. And what y'all did was beautiful. Man, it
Speaker 1: was beautiful. So I hope that didn't hurt you in
Speaker 1: any way, but I did want acknowledge him and y'all
Speaker 1: for that beautiful moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, it didn't hurt me at all.
Speaker 3: I've actually gone public and said before, like, yo, K
Speaker 3: coming here opened up a totally different thing, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: we were destroying everybody. The most feared action in the
Speaker 3: NBA was a Steph Curry Draymond Green pick and roll
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. It was the most devastating action
Speaker 3: you can get to an NBA. During that time, teams
Speaker 3: started figuring out how to guard it. When teams started
Speaker 3: figuring out how to guard that, you know what we did.
Speaker 3: Kevin Durant came in, It's like, oh, you figured that out,
Speaker 3: all right, Well, let's go see you figure this out.
Speaker 4: Now, we're gonna get a ball to this dude. He
Speaker 4: gonna go score.
Speaker 3: And if you dare sent a double team, you're only
Speaker 3: gonna double off me. You're never leaving Steph, you're never
Speaker 3: leaving Clay. So if you sent a double team, you're
Speaker 3: only helping off me. Well, now we got to to
Speaker 3: that too. You go double off of me. I'm a
Speaker 3: catch and if I'm not shooting, I'm handing off to
Speaker 3: one of these guys and they shooting your eyeball off.
Speaker 4: And so we came up with counter.
Speaker 3: So all of that and I think, you know, I
Speaker 3: am never one that's going to be like yo, k't
Speaker 3: got championships because because he came here, Like no, he
Speaker 3: helped us get championships. Now, what I will say is
Speaker 3: he never gets a championship if he doesn't come here,
Speaker 3: because I just don't foresee that happening anywhere else or else.
Speaker 3: We would have saw it again, happened somewhere else. But
Speaker 3: it was a match made in heaven. You had us
Speaker 3: in the way we played our brand of basketball and
Speaker 3: him wanting to play that style of basketball. You have
Speaker 3: a face of a franchise and Steph Curry who's so
Speaker 3: secure in himself that he's not worried about another jugger
Speaker 3: not coming over and what that does to him or
Speaker 3: his legacy or how that you know, makes him where
Speaker 3: his standing is in a franchise, and so all of
Speaker 3: those things coming together. I agree with you like it was.
Speaker 3: It was absolutely insane. What I will say is definitely
Speaker 3: blue three to one lead. No one likes to talk
Speaker 3: about me can suspended Game five with them boys was
Speaker 3: about to get a gentleman sweet No one likes to
Speaker 3: talk about that, And it's okay. I'm cool with that.
Speaker 3: I don't mind. It's totally fine. But I am not
Speaker 3: one of those people who's on the bandwagon of like
Speaker 3: Kevin didn't do nothing. Kevin doesn't deserve them rings, like
Speaker 3: you don't win two finals MVPs if you don't deserve rings.
Speaker 4: That's just kind of a dumb thing to say, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm with you. I'm gonna hit you with
Speaker 1: this right because they always talk about the Lakers and
Speaker 1: when they repeat it, but they never mentioned they got
Speaker 1: their phantom foul. So that that.
Speaker 5: Gentlemen, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Isaiah Thomas, we should have been the first one to
Speaker 1: three pete in all air. The other thing I do
Speaker 1: want to I do want to give Steve Kurr some credit,
Speaker 1: you know, because the brilliant mind and the way he's
Speaker 1: he molded and got all of you to trust and
Speaker 1: believe that this was a great way to play. You know,
Speaker 1: so all the things that you said, I do want
Speaker 1: to add Steve Kurve on top of that because coaching
Speaker 1: really does matter, and he was the coach.
Speaker 4: Steve was great.
Speaker 3: One more question before we get out of here, because
Speaker 3: I could talk to you all day.
Speaker 4: I'm sitting here, I'm learning and this is great.
Speaker 3: Just one last question is this guy was born in Saginaw, Michigan.
Speaker 3: Popsters from Saginaw, Michigan. Obviously he didn't grow up in Saganow,
Speaker 3: but he got that Saganaw water somewhere in his veins,
Speaker 3: and so he is the way he is, I would
Speaker 3: like to think because he got that Saganaw blood. But
Speaker 3: Kenya Martin Senior once took Karl Malone out of a
Speaker 3: game and said he did that elbowed him because he
Speaker 3: cost you fourteen stitches.
Speaker 4: How have y'all ever talked about that moment? So how
Speaker 4: did that make you feel?
Speaker 1: I called him up and said thank you and actually
Speaker 1: gave me you know, you know, I'm going to supposedly
Speaker 1: hard guy. So I took forty two stitches in the head,
Speaker 1: not fourteen, right, But but and this is what I
Speaker 1: want to say to you, right, you you never know
Speaker 1: who you touch him, and you never know who that
Speaker 1: little kid is going to grow up to be. I
Speaker 1: had no idea that I had impacted Kenyan Martin, you know,
Speaker 1: NBA player Final, you know, in the NBA Final. I
Speaker 1: had no idea that I had impacted his life from
Speaker 1: Saginaw that way. I had never met him, didn't didn't
Speaker 1: didn't know it. And when I when I when I
Speaker 1: heard the story, right, you know, it's like right on,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm happy for that. But the fact that
Speaker 1: we in Michigan to this day, I don't care young
Speaker 1: or old. If it's a fight or get back, I'm down, right,
Speaker 1: I'm down. We were coming and it's like when you
Speaker 1: when you got in your little dust up. I call
Speaker 1: Rich I don't know if he said the first call.
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, man, tell Draymond, I'm here.
Speaker 5: You know, absolutely, I'm here.
Speaker 1: I mean that that that's the community in the state,
Speaker 1: that in the bond of basketball that's been formed there.
Speaker 1: And you know, it made me feel good that, you know,
Speaker 1: he got him back because I wanted to get him back,
Speaker 1: but you know, I want big enough to get him back.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad he got him back.
Speaker 3: Shout out the man. Kmart has some gray years in
Speaker 3: this league and was a dog. Shout out to him. Hey,
Speaker 3: but og Zeke, I appreciate you man, Thank you. You
Speaker 3: always welcome here. You want to talk about something, you
Speaker 3: want to drop some more knowledge the Draymond Green Show
Speaker 3: listeners and obviously myself can't thank you enough.
Speaker 4: We would love to have you any time you want
Speaker 4: to come.
Speaker 3: But also I just thank you for what you've been
Speaker 3: to the state of Michigan and the presence that you
Speaker 3: and Joe d and your guys brought to the state
Speaker 3: of Michigan as far as basketball goes, like I don't
Speaker 3: take that for granted, being a kid that grew up
Speaker 3: watching that you know, and for all that you've done
Speaker 3: for the game of basketball, being a legend that you are,
Speaker 3: the gyms you share.
Speaker 4: As far as business like, people don't.
Speaker 3: We didn't even get the chance to talk about all
Speaker 3: the things that you're doing in the business world.
Speaker 4: It's absolutely amazing.
Speaker 3: So from myself but also other players like we thank
Speaker 3: you for being who you are, what you've meant to
Speaker 3: this league, and what you continue.
Speaker 1: Me well, we love you and we're very proud of you.
Speaker 1: And you know you keep doing your thing, brother, because
Speaker 1: you you're changing the world, and you inspiring a little
Speaker 1: kid somewhere that's never met you. But one day we'll
Speaker 1: tell the story about how Draymond Green inspired him. So
Speaker 1: keep doing your.
Speaker 3: Things, yes, sir, well do. Thank you so much. I
Speaker 3: really appreciate you.