Speaker 1: Before we begin, a reminder to please rate and review
Speaker 1: our show. It helps new listeners discover us and grow
Speaker 1: the program. On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly. For years,
Speaker 1: one simple phrase has served as a catch all for
Speaker 1: NBA teams that have mailed it in and are ready
Speaker 1: for the postseason to be over. One to three Cancun
Speaker 1: s I Senior writer Howard Beck joins me to discuss
Speaker 1: where the saying came from, how it became famous among
Speaker 1: NBA players and fans alike, and how it's maybe more
Speaker 1: popular than ever more than two decades after it was
Speaker 1: first uttered. This is the legend of one to three Cancun.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly. Howard Beck. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Sports Illustrated Weekly. You're here again. I'm here again.
Speaker 1: I feel just like a regular guest. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: like set myself down on the couch. I'm gonna open
Speaker 1: your fridge and grab myself a beer. I feel. That's
Speaker 1: how at home I feel. Make yourself at home, my casa,
Speaker 1: your casa. You know, we've done a lot of things
Speaker 1: on this show together. We started the very first episode,
Speaker 1: we had you discussing the Warriors being back. We previewed
Speaker 1: the playoffs together in a very profane conversation. We discussed
Speaker 1: the NBA's profanity problem. But of all the segments that
Speaker 1: we've done together, I don't think I've been as excited
Speaker 1: as I have for this one, because you know, I
Speaker 1: go s I dot com one day and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, there it is, in all its glory. The
Speaker 1: story of one to three Cancun, which is legendary NBA circles,
Speaker 1: has written by one Howard Back. It's the catch phrase
Speaker 1: known and loved in the NBA, certainly by NBA media.
Speaker 1: So before we get into the origins, explaining macro terms
Speaker 1: for everybody, the meaning behind the phrase one to three cancun,
Speaker 1: how it's employed well too, three cancun means it's over done,
Speaker 1: time for vacation. So one two three Cancun. In the
Speaker 1: context of the NBA playoffs and certainly on inside the
Speaker 1: NBA on t NT that is now part and parcel
Speaker 1: of the Gone Fishing segment. Your team gets eliminated, either
Speaker 1: at the end of the regular season if you're out,
Speaker 1: or if you missed the playoffs. You lost in the
Speaker 1: play in now or any round of the playoffs that
Speaker 1: you've lost, it's time for gone fishing. And when it's
Speaker 1: time for gone fishing, it's time to say one to
Speaker 1: three cancoon. And since the Lakers lost, it's what canco.
Speaker 1: You mentioned inside the NBA, and they're probably the most
Speaker 1: prolific users of the phrase, but really everybody uses it now.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the media, But it's been a while now
Speaker 1: since it originated. It traces back to the Western Conference Finals.
Speaker 1: The Lakers had a young Shock and even younger Kobe.
Speaker 1: They were getting ruined by the Jazz. So take us
Speaker 1: back to that time and tell everybody about how the
Speaker 1: phrase originated and the origin an old genius behind it.
Speaker 1: The Western Conference Finals in is just the most lopsided
Speaker 1: of affairs. It's Krmelon and John Stockton, of course, the
Speaker 1: legendary duo for the Jazz and this really mature, methodical
Speaker 1: team and they're going up against the Lakers team that's
Speaker 1: really talented but young. They haven't figured it out yet.
Speaker 1: It's Shack and Kobe's second year together. Kobe is still
Speaker 1: just nineteen years old. They've got Robert Ory, Rick Fox,
Speaker 1: Derek Fisher, like all the guys who you now think
Speaker 1: of as part of a dynasty. But this is before
Speaker 1: the dynasty happens, before they figured it out. And they've
Speaker 1: still got Nick van Exel in his fifth season, They've
Speaker 1: got Eddie Jones. This is a really talented team, maybe
Speaker 1: too talented, maybe too many guys who wanted to be
Speaker 1: the featured player. That's possible, and at that time, the
Speaker 1: expectations already through the roof because of all this young talent.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to make a run. They don't have the
Speaker 1: polish or the efficiency, the mature, the togetherness to beat
Speaker 1: the Jazz. So they're on their way to getting swept.
Speaker 1: And that's the key part of this. So they're on
Speaker 1: their way to getting swept. They have their team huddle,
Speaker 1: you know, like this happens in all team sports. Put
Speaker 1: your hand in the middle on three, you say a phrase,
Speaker 1: and the general phrase for everybody else was one to
Speaker 1: three lakers, right, a pretty stock and standard phrase for
Speaker 1: everybody to you know, rally around or fake rallying around
Speaker 1: before they go out and have the Jazz beat their heads.
Speaker 1: And but there was one guy who didn't do one
Speaker 1: to three lakers. He did one two, three, Cancun and
Speaker 1: tell us about him. That would be Nick van Exel.
Speaker 1: They're down three oh at the time, we know this.
Speaker 1: We know this even more now in two than they did.
Speaker 1: No one had ever come back from three oh. Then
Speaker 1: twenty four years later, still know what has come back
Speaker 1: from three oh. When you're down three oh, you know
Speaker 1: your time is coming. You're almost done. Vacation is close.
Speaker 1: So in the moment, on a whim they're huddling up one, two, three,
Speaker 1: Nick van Exel just blurts out Cancoon when everyone else
Speaker 1: said lakers. And because everyone else said lakers in Unison,
Speaker 1: probably not everybody heard it. Those who did hear it,
Speaker 1: some might have chuckled or smiled, some others might have
Speaker 1: wrinkled the brow a little bit, because though Nick van
Speaker 1: Exel could be a bit of a jokester, it wasn't
Speaker 1: clear to everybody. Is he saying he's done, he's given up,
Speaker 1: I'm out of here, guys? Is it just kind of
Speaker 1: dark humor? What does that mean? Because it came across like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe Nick van Exel is just saying, I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, guys, but I'm ready to go on vacation.
Speaker 1: What I love about this story is that you have
Speaker 1: talked to the principal players, Nick van Exel, and you
Speaker 1: had a conversation about this. What was his explanation, I mean,
Speaker 1: was it spontaneous? Did he decide to be purposefully snarky
Speaker 1: that had just come out accidentally? What was his explanation
Speaker 1: in retrospect? So I spoke to Nick ve next Well,
Speaker 1: who is now, of course, an assistant coach with the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Hawks. He's been an assistant coach in the league
Speaker 1: for several years now, and Nick says, there was nothing
Speaker 1: premeditated here, Like he didn't wake up that day thinking
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make this joke in the huddle. He didn't
Speaker 1: think about it on his drive in. I don't think
Speaker 1: he even knew he was going to say it at
Speaker 1: the moment that they first started to all say together
Speaker 1: one to three. It was just what came out. He thought,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna make a crack here. He
Speaker 1: can't even really account for why it was Cancun as
Speaker 1: opposed to say Fiji or Maui or Puerto Rico. It
Speaker 1: was the place that popped into his head first, and Cancoon,
Speaker 1: as it happens, was a really popular place for athletes
Speaker 1: and entertainers at that time, or as Robert Orry told me,
Speaker 1: a popular place for African American athletes and entertainers at
Speaker 1: that time. That was a big I think they had
Speaker 1: a jazz festival, and so Robert was telling me that
Speaker 1: that was where you see a lot of people. It
Speaker 1: was a go to spot. As you said, some people
Speaker 1: might have snickered, some people might have furrowed their brow.
Speaker 1: And after all this goes down. The next season, Nick
Speaker 1: van Exel gets traded and there was a report in
Speaker 1: the l A Times at the time that Shack had
Speaker 1: complained to Jerry West about the remark and the implication
Speaker 1: was that he almost got traded because of one two
Speaker 1: three cancoon. But you debunked this, Yeah, I don't want
Speaker 1: to say debunk um. You know, these stories tend to
Speaker 1: evolve over time. People's memories evolve. And also you know
Speaker 1: that that initial report in the l A Times was
Speaker 1: was an item in a notes column, so it's very short.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of elaboration. It didn't say sources,
Speaker 1: it didn't say sources who knew it because of so
Speaker 1: there was a lot that was kind of shrouded in
Speaker 1: that report. I will say that there are differing views
Speaker 1: of a couple of things. One, did Shaq really go
Speaker 1: to management? Nick told me, yeah, I heard that Shack
Speaker 1: didn't like it, and yeah, he might have gone to
Speaker 1: Jerry West who was then the g M, and complained
Speaker 1: whether that was why he was traded. That's the part
Speaker 1: where Nick him's self is debunking it. Nick saying, give
Speaker 1: me a break, and he was traded basically a month later.
Speaker 1: He was like that. The season ends late May in
Speaker 1: the conference finals with that sweep. A month later, he's
Speaker 1: traded on Draft Night for the draft rights to one
Speaker 1: Tehron Lou as well as Tony Batty. Why he was
Speaker 1: traded then a month after one to three Cancun, It
Speaker 1: would be easy to say it was because of one
Speaker 1: to three Cancun. Nick says, no, that's not it. I
Speaker 1: was traded in the middle of the season. I say,
Speaker 1: what do you mean, you were traded in the middle
Speaker 1: of the season, because obviously he wasn't literally traded in
Speaker 1: the middle of the season. He says he knew by
Speaker 1: the middle of the season that he was gone, that
Speaker 1: this was his last run with the Lakers for a
Speaker 1: bunch of different reasons, and the one that he sided
Speaker 1: it was just that they had a little bit more
Speaker 1: camaraderie at the beginning of this run with this particular group,
Speaker 1: but by mid season he felt like clicks were forming,
Speaker 1: factions were forming, and they weren't really together anymore. And again,
Speaker 1: Eddie Jones and and Nick Van Exel had made the
Speaker 1: All Star Team that season. Kobe had made the All
Speaker 1: Star Game despite not even starting for his own team.
Speaker 1: Shocked me. The All Star Game. Elden Campbell had been
Speaker 1: a starting center and who was still capable of being
Speaker 1: a starting center and a starting power forward next to Shack,
Speaker 1: but when they didn't want to go with that alignment,
Speaker 1: he had to go to the bench. So you've got
Speaker 1: his feelings, You've got Nick van Exel, who's a primary
Speaker 1: ball handler. There's just so many guys, and so it's
Speaker 1: understandable and I think believable when Nick says there were
Speaker 1: just other things going on, other things kind of in
Speaker 1: the air that made him feel like I'm probably going
Speaker 1: to get traded. And on top of all of that,
Speaker 1: and not to be lost in all this, Nick Van
Speaker 1: exellent Del Harris had very very publicly and privately clashed
Speaker 1: repeatedly in their time together del Harris being the coach.
Speaker 1: So we know for sure that Nick van Exel said one,
Speaker 1: two three cancoon. But more than twenty years later a
Speaker 1: little bit of a fog and a controversy around whether
Speaker 1: or not he was the lone sayer of this fraser
Speaker 1: of other people joined in. On the one hand, we
Speaker 1: have people saying, hey, Shock didn't like it, Shack went
Speaker 1: to Jerry West. But all these years later you talked
Speaker 1: to Shock and Shaq said, oh, I might have said
Speaker 1: it too, and I wouldn't put all the blame on
Speaker 1: Nick van Exel. And then Robert Ory said to you, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was just Nick. So what's the deal here? Was
Speaker 1: it just Nick? Or were there other co conspirators? There
Speaker 1: were no co conspirators. There was no Grassy Knoll. There
Speaker 1: wasn't a Shaquille O'Neal on the Grassy Knoll. There were
Speaker 1: no knolls that I know of, anywhere near the Great
Speaker 1: Western Forum in Inglewood, California. Nick said this on his own.
Speaker 1: And Nick will tell you that Robert Orry will tell
Speaker 1: you that Shack has this um knack. We'll call it
Speaker 1: for storytelling, embellishing. He did this a lot when I
Speaker 1: was back on the Laker beat, and you could usually
Speaker 1: tell when Shack was making something up out a whole cloth,
Speaker 1: and it was funny because sometimes people would run with
Speaker 1: those things. This was a case where I think Shack
Speaker 1: doesn't want to get involved twenty four years later and
Speaker 1: whether or not he's the cause of Nick being traded,
Speaker 1: and so Shack says, just say we all said it.
Speaker 1: Just say it was me, it was Eddie, was Nick?
Speaker 1: Was Shack really? And then you know that's why I
Speaker 1: follow up with Nick and Robert orry about it. No, Shack,
Speaker 1: Shack's just being Shock, So no, no, but nobody else
Speaker 1: said it. I think that Shock maybe is a little
Speaker 1: sheepish now about whether or not he might have been
Speaker 1: responsible for Nick getting traded. And again, based on my reporting,
Speaker 1: I truly believe that even if this were a contributing
Speaker 1: elements to Nick getting traded, it wasn't in the top
Speaker 1: five of reasons why they would move on. You know,
Speaker 1: Kobe was gonna come up for a big contract eventually,
Speaker 1: Eddie Jones was coming up on a big contract. Shock
Speaker 1: of course, was already paid big. Like they had a
Speaker 1: lot of star caliber players who need to get paid,
Speaker 1: who needed the ball, who needed to be featured, and
Speaker 1: it was a natural progression and worth noting that less
Speaker 1: than a year later they also traded Eddie Jones and
Speaker 1: Eldon Campbell, so there was a thinning out process that
Speaker 1: they needed to do to create the team that ultimately
Speaker 1: became a dynasty. Alright, So Nick Van Exel is the
Speaker 1: sole author of this incredible catchphrase that is two decades
Speaker 1: plus being used by everybody. He could not have known
Speaker 1: that it would blow up like this. What did he
Speaker 1: make of it in the subsequent of years that it
Speaker 1: has endured this long? But the funny thing, John, is
Speaker 1: that it kind of was I feel like in hibernation.
Speaker 1: This happens in Nick gets traded. A couple of stories
Speaker 1: are written the following season about Okay, he's now a
Speaker 1: Denver nugget, how does he feel about his Lakers time,
Speaker 1: what does he think about the cancoon storyline, and whether
Speaker 1: that was the reason for his being traded? But then
Speaker 1: it disappears like nobody ever writes about this, no one
Speaker 1: talks about it, and no one says one to three
Speaker 1: cancoon to my knowledge in all my years covering the
Speaker 1: NBA until around sixteen, even t NT officials when I
Speaker 1: asked them weren't sure exactly when it kind of permeated
Speaker 1: their presentations, but somewhere in sixteen range, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it's probably because of Shack They're doing
Speaker 1: going fishing, and suddenly now it's one to three Cancun,
Speaker 1: and then that kind of picks up steam. Other guys
Speaker 1: catch on. Now they're making cancoon references. And then the
Speaker 1: t NT graphics staff, that phenomenal, wonderful, incredibly talented and
Speaker 1: creative staff is now working cancoon to They're gone fishing graphics,
Speaker 1: and you know, the next thing, you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of years later, Alvin Gentry coaching the Pelicans at the
Speaker 1: time they're getting eliminated, and he ends his press conference
Speaker 1: with one to three Cancun. What does it want to? Three?
Speaker 1: Can code? Suddenly now it's a staple. So I think
Speaker 1: for the first you know, fifteen sixteen years after it
Speaker 1: was said in that huddle back at the forum, and
Speaker 1: no one's using it, no one's saying it's not a
Speaker 1: reference point. And now suddenly, all these years later, it
Speaker 1: is as much a part of the NBA post season
Speaker 1: as anything else. Yeah, I love that it's become popular
Speaker 1: in the lexicon. Again Van Excel told you that he
Speaker 1: should have trademarked, and he should have. Does he like
Speaker 1: that it's become popular? Yeah, it was funny. Nick and
Speaker 1: Robert Ry both independently. Like rob before I talked to Nick, said, man,
Speaker 1: tell Nick he should have trademarked that thing, like pat
Speaker 1: Riley with three pete And then Nick said it on
Speaker 1: his own, unprompted. He's joking about it. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: no one's worried about missing out on some sort of royalties.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure one to three Cancun's, you know, generating
Speaker 1: any big corporate sponsorships or anything. Although you know, frankly,
Speaker 1: I think he deserves at least some kind of kick
Speaker 1: back from the tourism bureau in Cancoon, right, It's the
Speaker 1: least they can do. Um. Nick likes it. Nick enjoys it.
Speaker 1: Nick thinks it's funny. I think he enjoys the fact that,
Speaker 1: even if especially younger fans have no idea where this
Speaker 1: catchphrase came from, I think he loves the fact that
Speaker 1: it kind of originated with him. And it's not as
Speaker 1: a negative thing, you know, because to him, that's not
Speaker 1: the reason he got traded. It's not the reason that
Speaker 1: his Lakers tenure ended. It was just a quick funny
Speaker 1: line that he was throwing out, trying to lighten the mood,
Speaker 1: because the mood, as he says, was pretty dour at
Speaker 1: that time, as the mood tends to be when you're
Speaker 1: down three oh in a playoff series in the NBA. Well,
Speaker 1: he has lightened the mood all these years later, We
Speaker 1: thank him for We thank you for reading his excellent
Speaker 1: piece about one to three Kankun a piece of NBA
Speaker 1: lare on st dot com. Listen to him on the
Speaker 1: Crossover podcast. I don't know where he's going this offseason,
Speaker 1: could be Camcoon, but he has earned a vacation. Howard
Speaker 1: back as always, thank you for this. Appreciate it. John,
Speaker 1: thank you, thanks for listening, and a reminder to please
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Speaker 1: episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Jordan Rozsieri,
Speaker 1: Jessica Ramoski, and Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer.
Speaker 1: Our senior producers are Dan Bloom and Harry swart Out.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Scott Brodie and me John Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider. And if you
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