Speaker 1: The Dream Team Tapes Season two, Kobe, Lebron and the
Speaker 1: Redeem Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio Diversion Podcasts. The players selected for
Speaker 1: the honor of representing the United States in the two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight Beijing Olympic Games are Kobe Bryant. We
Speaker 1: look forward to this for a while, you know it
Speaker 1: to be in this position now here we don't represent
Speaker 1: our country, especially especial Lebron James. We look for an
Speaker 1: opportunity of the weekend on a flam and being the
Speaker 1: best in the world. I guess the Redeem Team is
Speaker 1: it is right, We're the best team in the world.
Speaker 1: We're the best team in the world. We put Basketball
Speaker 1: America Basketball Wheal defeat, which is at the toime. I'm
Speaker 1: Jack mccalluman. Welcome to episode three of The Dream Team
Speaker 1: Tape Season two, Kobe Lebron and the Redeemed Team. This
Speaker 1: is a sequel to my podcast last year called The
Speaker 1: Dream Team Tape, but it's about another kind of dream team,
Speaker 1: the one that followed the Michael Magic Larry Immortals by
Speaker 1: sixteen years, the one that earned a gold medal in
Speaker 1: Beijing after our international basketball fortunes had fallen so drastically
Speaker 1: in the early part of the century. Now, in our
Speaker 1: last episode, co host j Dandie talked about Kobe Bryant alone,
Speaker 1: both who became part of the pack that one goal.
Speaker 1: This episode is about the Redeemed team's other alpha dog. That,
Speaker 1: by the way, is the term by Jason Kidd, who
Speaker 1: became the veteran leader of the team. Team. It's about
Speaker 1: that other alpha dogs. Eventful high school career, is eventful
Speaker 1: drafting into the NBA, and his eventful and disappointing adventure
Speaker 1: with the two thousand four Olympic team. We're calling it
Speaker 1: the Future King and the Greek Tragedy. Now, we've alluded
Speaker 1: several times to Kobe being a kind of lone wolf.
Speaker 1: The song Solitary Man would fit him. The song I'm
Speaker 1: choosing for Lebron is going back in time a little
Speaker 1: bit to the Shangra Laws, a great girl group from
Speaker 1: the early sixties, which was before j A was born.
Speaker 1: But I remember him, of course. I wonder j D
Speaker 1: have any idea about who the Shangra Laws are. I'm
Speaker 1: not really up on the same laws. I love sixties music, right,
Speaker 1: especially motown Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gay, Beatles, Only Stones. I'm
Speaker 1: not too up on the same Glas though, well there's
Speaker 1: no reason you should be. I'm not really. But they
Speaker 1: had this one memorable song called the Leader of the Path,
Speaker 1: and you know, had the motorcycle booming in the beginning,
Speaker 1: and I assume that's the one, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: the leader of the Pack. Yeah, I do know that,
Speaker 1: so I just didn't know who's saying. Well, that's probably
Speaker 1: the only thing that Shining Laws ever did. But I
Speaker 1: think of that, and it brings me around to Lebron
Speaker 1: and how he differs from Kobe. Lebron was a leader
Speaker 1: of the pack. He always had his guys around him.
Speaker 1: He was an inclusive guy. There's a lot of charming
Speaker 1: clips of Lebron from his high school days going up
Speaker 1: to the podium after he scored thirty five points and
Speaker 1: got twenty eight rebounds, and always he drags along the
Speaker 1: other four starters to the podium with him for a
Speaker 1: press conference. He looks like their father in some ways.
Speaker 1: But I found it very endearing and a real contrast
Speaker 1: with Kobe, who was not at all like that exactly.
Speaker 1: And of course a big part of the lebron story
Speaker 1: goes on to become how he empowered his childhood friends, right,
Speaker 1: guys like Maverick Carter, Rich Paul, Randy Mimms. They all
Speaker 1: became big players in the NBA world. Now. Maverick Carter
Speaker 1: became a big orketing guy. Ridge, Paul's an agent, very
Speaker 1: powerful agent. And Lebron always craved the group and the inclusiveness,
Speaker 1: and that was very different from Kobe. Kobe was off
Speaker 1: on his own, as we talked about in the last episode,
Speaker 1: and at times that was viewed as a detriment for Lebron,
Speaker 1: that he was too deferential. For example, I think especially
Speaker 1: earlier in his career during the two thousand and seven playoffs,
Speaker 1: when there was a critical moment a playoff game and
Speaker 1: instead of taking a shot, Lebron passes to Danielle Marshall,
Speaker 1: and Marshall takes and mrs the three pointer. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking, if that had come along a couple years later,
Speaker 1: in the heart of the social media era, Danielle Marshall
Speaker 1: would have been trending all because of lebron is and
Speaker 1: people saying how could Lebron pass to Danielle Marshall there?
Speaker 1: But Lebron always wanted to make the right basketball play
Speaker 1: right even if that meant had passed. And he also
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that everyone is a part of
Speaker 1: his family, his extended family, including his friends, that they
Speaker 1: were all included. Going back to Lebron's early days, before
Speaker 1: the America really truly knew him, the hoop Heeds did,
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to this story about Lebron's early career.
Speaker 1: So it was early two thousand two when I pitched
Speaker 1: doing a Sports Illustrated feature story on Lebron, and Lebron
Speaker 1: was in his junior year in Akron in high school
Speaker 1: and had really made a name for himself the previous
Speaker 1: summer at the ABC D camp in New Jersey, and
Speaker 1: that's when he basically became the number one player in
Speaker 1: his class, but also in the class that was a
Speaker 1: year older too. He was the best high school prospect
Speaker 1: anyone had seen essentially in a very long time, and
Speaker 1: so the timing seemed right to do a story on him. Now.
Speaker 1: That was the voice of Grant Wall, who was a
Speaker 1: writer colleague of mine at Sports Illustrated. Grant was a
Speaker 1: soccer specialist who nevertheless had been intrigued by tales of
Speaker 1: this superstar kid. Now, I was kind of like I
Speaker 1: was the old fashioned painting the ass back then. I
Speaker 1: didn't think we should put young kids on the cover.
Speaker 1: I was busy covering the NBA, and though I had
Speaker 1: heard about Lebron, I didn't scour the internet like a
Speaker 1: lot of people. And I'm going, what do we We
Speaker 1: have a lot of good NBA stories, Why are we
Speaker 1: doing this? High school could plus, over the years, Sports
Speaker 1: Illustrated had wrecked the careers of so many phenomens. We
Speaker 1: had a whole series of kids from high school we
Speaker 1: put on the cover. They were the next somebody, and
Speaker 1: we publicized them until they became the next nobody. Never
Speaker 1: never mind college kids. Felipe Lopez, Sebastian Telfair, Johnny manziel
Speaker 1: Toald Burinovich, Ryan Leaf. There were a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: these players. I'm guessing, though, J you looked at it differently.
Speaker 1: You probably said, I want to read more about this
Speaker 1: kid from Akron exactly, Jack, And you know what, I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: Part of that could be the influence of the ESPN
Speaker 1: magazine that they came out in the mid nineties, and
Speaker 1: their whole thing was next right on the cover of
Speaker 1: their first issue was Kobe Bryant, among others. Rik Lynn
Speaker 1: Ross was another one. I think Cordell Stewart, and one
Speaker 1: didn't quite work out as well as the other ones.
Speaker 1: I think a right alixid Reagus was another one. But
Speaker 1: ESPN magazine came along and they were emphasizing next, next, next,
Speaker 1: the next thing, and I'm wondering. Jack of Sports Illustrated
Speaker 1: got caught up in that a little bit and said, Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll show you next. This is gonna be the next superstar,
Speaker 1: the chosen one. We're gonna put a high school player
Speaker 1: on the cover of Sports Illustrated at a time when
Speaker 1: the cover of Sports Illustrated was probably the most premium
Speaker 1: real estate in the sports world. Yeah. But even as
Speaker 1: Grant wall is about to tell us, even he was
Speaker 1: worried about that phenomenal factor. I mean, I covered Treddy
Speaker 1: It Dude as well, so on the soccer side, and
Speaker 1: so I was part of that tradition of screwing up penoms.
Speaker 1: If you couldn't quite think that. Grant was talking about
Speaker 1: Freddie a Do who Sports Illustrated had had managed to
Speaker 1: put on the cover when he was fourteen, proclaiming him
Speaker 1: the next Pelee. He was not the next Pale. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure who he was the next one off, but
Speaker 1: I did check. By the way, Jay and Freddie has
Speaker 1: three d and thirty thousand Twitter followers, though I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what they're following. But anyway, j what do you
Speaker 1: remember about hearing about this kid from Akron, about the
Speaker 1: young Lebron, about the next I don't know who we
Speaker 1: said he was. He was so physically manifest and developed
Speaker 1: that we he wasn't. He wasn't painted as the next Magic,
Speaker 1: for the next Jordan. He was really in his own class.
Speaker 1: But I think those Jordan comparisons came though, because if
Speaker 1: you were going to talk about someone destined to be
Speaker 1: the greatest, well, Jordan was still hanging over the league,
Speaker 1: even though I think he just had a second retirement,
Speaker 1: but it was still Jordan was the standard, right, So
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be the next in basketball, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be the next Jordans. And I wanted in on the hype.
Speaker 1: I remember watching on ESPN when It's high school games
Speaker 1: were shown on ESPN, and I'm someone that doesn't like
Speaker 1: to see young people, teenagers and even preteens showing on
Speaker 1: national TV. I'm really opposed to the televisition of the
Speaker 1: Little League World Series. I don't think we should see
Speaker 1: those little kids on national television, especially if they're crying,
Speaker 1: you know. But with Lebron, I wanted to see what
Speaker 1: the hype was about. Yeah, I don't want to see that. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing was Lebron was unlikely to cry, and he
Speaker 1: came and played in Polly Pavilion. It was it was
Speaker 1: an event Lebron played Sebastian Telfare was in that. It
Speaker 1: was a high school. Remember, they played all over the country,
Speaker 1: and I was a little more uncomfortable with that. The
Speaker 1: fact that they were taking these kids and traveling them
Speaker 1: all around the country. I was a little more uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with that than the fact that they were actually showing
Speaker 1: their games on television. Why was Lebron from Akron, Ohio
Speaker 1: playing a game in Polly Pavilion in Los Angeles? So
Speaker 1: Graham talked about a number of things in that story
Speaker 1: about Lebron at St. Vincent St. Mary Why away, I
Speaker 1: wonder a high school that uh is lucky enough to
Speaker 1: have Lebron? Why they need two saints in their nickname.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it becomes clear to Grant that wherever Lebron
Speaker 1: goes his boys the Lebron Airs, if you want to
Speaker 1: call them, they're going to go. And where they went
Speaker 1: was to a Cavalier basketball game, where of course the
Speaker 1: soon to be king meets the reigning king who was
Speaker 1: then in his final season, and Grant picks up that
Speaker 1: story so literally the first day that I arrived in
Speaker 1: Akron and went to his team's practice and talked to
Speaker 1: him briefly after that practice, it was clear that he
Speaker 1: and his buddies, including Maverick Carter, We're gonna go up
Speaker 1: an hour from Acron to Cleveland that night for the
Speaker 1: NBA game between the Cavaliers and Michael Jordan's Washington Wizards.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking for good access, and so as part
Speaker 1: of my pitch to Lebron, I was like, can I go?
Speaker 1: Can I drive you guys in my crappy rental car
Speaker 1: up to Cleveland and just be a fly on the wall,
Speaker 1: And thankfully they said yes. So we end up going
Speaker 1: to Akron, stuffed about Lebron and Maverick and a couple
Speaker 1: of other friends in my rental car and we watched
Speaker 1: this game. Lebron is rooting for Jordan's big Jordan guy
Speaker 1: not reading for the Cavs and Jordan hits a buzzer
Speaker 1: beater to win, which is pretty great. And so I
Speaker 1: remember after the game, Lebron and Maverick said, we're talking
Speaker 1: about this guy that kept calling Uncle West. I'm like,
Speaker 1: whose Uncle West? And it turns out it's William Wesley
Speaker 1: Worldwide West. My first ever experience with the guy, this
Speaker 1: amazingly well dressed, bald guy who brings Michael out. And
Speaker 1: it was clear also that Jordan was in recruiting mode
Speaker 1: because he was trying to get Lebron to sign for Nike.
Speaker 1: UM got to build a relationship with Lebron, and Maverick
Speaker 1: ended up going to Lebron's apartment in West Akron where
Speaker 1: there was a a on the TV. There was a
Speaker 1: fake Sports Illustrated somebody had made for with Lebron on
Speaker 1: the cover. Is like, is he the next Michael Jordan's
Speaker 1: You know that ends up in the story. UM. I
Speaker 1: remember Lebron communicating with Sebastian Telfare on his two way
Speaker 1: pager in the car on the drive, and I remember
Speaker 1: Lebron bringing this big notebook full of CDs out, so
Speaker 1: he was like the DJ and it was just a
Speaker 1: lot of good stuff. Nothing much has to be explained
Speaker 1: in that j A except you're the one better than
Speaker 1: me to explain Worldwide West to everyone. But I'm not
Speaker 1: sure Worldwide West is explicable. I can't tell you how,
Speaker 1: where or when I got to know him. I just did.
Speaker 1: And that fits his profile because he kind of just is.
Speaker 1: He's there, And by there, I mean everywhere wherever you go.
Speaker 1: It seems like world Wide West would show up. So
Speaker 1: NBA Playoffs, you're in Miami, or you're in Chicago, and
Speaker 1: there's West. Of course, with full access everything that you
Speaker 1: get with the media credential West has and and West
Speaker 1: is somebody that I think he first got into the
Speaker 1: basketball world through Milt Wagner and Louisville. I think Rip
Speaker 1: Hamilton he was a Rip Hamilton connection too. No, but well,
Speaker 1: but it goes, it goes way earlier than that. And
Speaker 1: also he was hanging out in Miami with like the
Speaker 1: Michael Irvin and the you back in the days that
Speaker 1: the Miami football team, and so through that he got
Speaker 1: to hang out with the Dallas Cowboys like you'll see
Speaker 1: him on the sidelines or in the stands or courtside
Speaker 1: throughout all these periods at the infamous Malice in the Palace,
Speaker 1: he's there helping get guys off the court. There's where
Speaker 1: like West is everywhere. Um, he's a confidante. He's an advisor.
Speaker 1: You know you're Lebron called him Uncle West. He's a connector,
Speaker 1: I'd say a facilitator. Those are some of his greatest assets.
Speaker 1: Is that he's so plugged into everyone and so he
Speaker 1: can help you get from this place to that place,
Speaker 1: help this person meet that person. And he's just someone
Speaker 1: who's everywhere and yet nowhere because you can't pin him down. Um,
Speaker 1: he's really I think something that could kind of only
Speaker 1: exist in the NBA. Is one of my favorite NBA figures,
Speaker 1: even if he's one of the least understood NBA figures.
Speaker 1: He's like so many people. He manages to be famous
Speaker 1: for being famous, you know, which is pretty good to
Speaker 1: art anyway. So that this was all during his junior year,
Speaker 1: Lebron turned to his senior year just keeps getting better
Speaker 1: and better. And here's one of his future Redeemed team teammates,
Speaker 1: Darren Williams, who himself was a high school star back
Speaker 1: when Lebron had acorn rolling for something other than Goodyear tires.
Speaker 1: Of course I had already you know, heard heard all
Speaker 1: the hype and you know, had read about him and
Speaker 1: you know, seen highlights on the internet, but I never
Speaker 1: played against him. Um, and then I saw him. I
Speaker 1: think the first time I saw him was in l A.
Speaker 1: He's playing for like the Oakland Soldiers, and uh, it
Speaker 1: was like him and Leon Poe on the same team
Speaker 1: and they were just dominant, and I was definitely impressed.
Speaker 1: And then I went to ABC D camp that summer
Speaker 1: and and saw him again there and saw him and
Speaker 1: Carmelo go against each other, Lenny Cook, um, all the
Speaker 1: guys that you know, they were they were talking about
Speaker 1: this being the next ones and so um, that's kind
Speaker 1: of my my first experience with him. Well, when you're
Speaker 1: a good player, also, do you look at it the
Speaker 1: same way we do, like, oh that is the next one?
Speaker 1: Or do you go not that? Where do you see
Speaker 1: something with Lebron? Like right away? That pretty much I
Speaker 1: think I saw some with him. You know, you could
Speaker 1: tell that he was gonna be special. Of course, nobody,
Speaker 1: nobody knew this. Who could have predicted, you know, he
Speaker 1: was gonna be this, you know, especially at thirty six
Speaker 1: and I don't think anybody could have predicted this this
Speaker 1: type of future. Interestingly, Darren mentioned two other players in there,
Speaker 1: Leon Powell and Lenny Cook, who were in some quarters
Speaker 1: considered as good as Lebron. They turned out more to
Speaker 1: be cautionary tales. You're listening to Kobe Lebron and the
Speaker 1: redeem Team. We'll be back in a minute. So by
Speaker 1: the time Lebron is a senior even you know, I've
Speaker 1: come around and say, this guy is marvelous. This guy
Speaker 1: is the number one. This guy I thought projected as
Speaker 1: clear a number one pick as anyone since Magic in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine. Remember, Bird had already been selected territorially
Speaker 1: back in and maybe shack in two ahead of Latener.
Speaker 1: But Donde tells me that that's not really the case.
Speaker 1: There was some debate, and I remember speaking to at
Speaker 1: least one and then probably even two uh NBA executives
Speaker 1: who would have taken Carmelo Anthony if they had the
Speaker 1: number one pick. And the thought behind that was we'd
Speaker 1: seen Carmelo succeed at the highest level available to him,
Speaker 1: which was the Antila Bay Tournament. Re member one year
Speaker 1: at Syracuse, he leads Syracuse and Jim Beheim to its
Speaker 1: first his first national championship. Despite all the great teams
Speaker 1: Beheim had had, he never had a national champion until
Speaker 1: Carmelo comes along. And we'll hear the pride that Beheim
Speaker 1: takes in Carmelo throughout this uh this podcast series. There
Speaker 1: forever bonded. But Carmelo was somewhat of a made man
Speaker 1: because of that, and there was some thought that, well, Lebron,
Speaker 1: as great as he is, he's playing against high school guys.
Speaker 1: We don't necessarily know what he can do if you
Speaker 1: asked him to step up another level. We've seen Carmelo
Speaker 1: succeed at the highest level available to him. So there
Speaker 1: was some thought. I'm trying to think of examples. I'm
Speaker 1: sure sure there were. Lou El sind Or at u
Speaker 1: c l A. But that guy dragged Syracuse to the
Speaker 1: n c A championship. Man, I mean, he was a
Speaker 1: serious guy during there. But nevertheless, comes a moment in
Speaker 1: New York with the late great David Stern announces with
Speaker 1: the first pick in the two thousand and three NBA Draft,
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Cavaliers select Lebron James. By that time, Lebron
Speaker 1: and Carmelo they played against each other in high school.
Speaker 1: They recognize that they are, you know, the next two
Speaker 1: big things in whatever order that might be. And they're
Speaker 1: both in New York ready to go one too in
Speaker 1: the draft and create a new storyline and a kind
Speaker 1: of rust belt rivalry between Cleveland and Detroit. And here's
Speaker 1: Carmelo talking about it. There's a picture of like me
Speaker 1: and Lebron. I'm laying over tell you at the chip,
Speaker 1: like Lebron, we're facing like each other. But with that
Speaker 1: conversation was you know, you're about to go to Cleveland
Speaker 1: and he's like, man, you're about to go to Detroit.
Speaker 1: Like you You're about to be right there next to
Speaker 1: It's like we're gonna be right next door to each other.
Speaker 1: This is the new game. You know, We're the new
Speaker 1: magic Bird. Like you know what I'm saying, Like that's
Speaker 1: how we was thinking at that at that point in time,
Speaker 1: because this we I mean, we had the hype coming
Speaker 1: out of you know, me coming out of college, him
Speaker 1: you know, being a number of high school player being drafted.
Speaker 1: So we had that hype around us. And then as
Speaker 1: he gets called, I get the call, my agent is dead,
Speaker 1: just like Man's like Detroit is up next. You're like, Detroit,
Speaker 1: chaking Darker. I'm like, what, yes, ladies and gentlemen, Darko
Speaker 1: Milichick went second to Detroit, before Carmelo Anthony who was third,
Speaker 1: before Chris Bosh who was fourth, and before Dwyane Wade
Speaker 1: who was fifth. So that as fully as we said before,
Speaker 1: that is one third of the kids who five years
Speaker 1: later would be on the Redeemed team. But that draft, interestingly,
Speaker 1: j A, that that gave us those guys. I think
Speaker 1: that's probably ranked among the greatest drafts of all time.
Speaker 1: Do you have any memories of other great drafts? It's
Speaker 1: right up there. I mean, to me, I think the
Speaker 1: standard has to be draft if nothing else, they gave
Speaker 1: us Michael Jordan's, but also a Chemo La Juan h
Speaker 1: Charles Barkley, John Stockton's in there as well. So if
Speaker 1: you think about stocking Olympic teams, you've got Barkley, Jordan's
Speaker 1: and John Stockton's. So there's a third of the two
Speaker 1: Dream Team comes out of that one draft, similar to
Speaker 1: the way that that two thousand three draft stocked the
Speaker 1: Redeemed team. In two thousand eight, Yeah, another great draft
Speaker 1: was your guy though, was was Kobe Kobe in nineties six.
Speaker 1: You've got Kobe, You've got Ray Allen, You've got Steve Nash,
Speaker 1: you got Iverson At the top of that A I
Speaker 1: A I was right there, Pages Stoyokovic, Marcus Camby, Stefan Marbury,
Speaker 1: a bunch of got Derek Fisher, you know who played
Speaker 1: out and you watched for a hundred years when he
Speaker 1: was in five championships with Kobe making jump shots out
Speaker 1: in l A. But it was, it was a great draft.
Speaker 1: You know What's funny, by the way, to me is
Speaker 1: why maybe there was, but I don't remember, maybe because
Speaker 1: nobody gives too much of a damn about Cleveland. But
Speaker 1: was there ever examination of how Lebron got to Cleveland?
Speaker 1: He had a twenty two remember you ing and the
Speaker 1: New York conspiracy. Good old Lebron only had about a
Speaker 1: chance of going to Cleveland. But nevertheless there he was.
Speaker 1: And I don't think there has ever been one athlete,
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong, who has ever brought more
Speaker 1: of a renaissance to one city? I mean Chicago. You know,
Speaker 1: mikel went to Chicago. Chicago was already a pretty damn
Speaker 1: great city, you know, el Jin Jerry West, Kareem Magic,
Speaker 1: Kobe Later l A was a pretty good city too.
Speaker 1: They had other stuff going on. Lebron to Cleveland that
Speaker 1: set things off. Man, that was everything. Well, there is
Speaker 1: that great YouTube video Cleveland Tourism Board or something like that.
Speaker 1: It was like a mock Cleveland promotional video which really
Speaker 1: pointed out all the things that were wrong with Cleveland.
Speaker 1: But one of the lines in there is our economy
Speaker 1: is built on Lebron James, and it was true. I mean, Jack,
Speaker 1: what reason did you have to go to Cleveland before? Now?
Speaker 1: They had a pretty good team in the nineties that
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's ended with a couple of well placed and
Speaker 1: well timed shots. So they were on the rise in
Speaker 1: the nineties, but or the early nineties. But then the
Speaker 1: football team leaves to go to Baltimore, right, and so
Speaker 1: then they they're they're blessed with another team soon thereafter,
Speaker 1: but they have to start from scratch all over again
Speaker 1: with an expansion football team. The Indians went to the
Speaker 1: World Series where a game away in ven I believe
Speaker 1: it was from winning the World Series, but most of
Speaker 1: the history of that franchise is won of utility. But
Speaker 1: with Lebron. Cleveland was at the quickly became at the
Speaker 1: center of the NBA. I was assigned, of course, to write.
Speaker 1: I was on the beat then, and the big preseason
Speaker 1: story was going to be Lebron, and I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: you about my interview session with him. But this is
Speaker 1: what I wrote. One of the paragraphs I wrote in
Speaker 1: the Lebron story. The Cleveland law firm that represents James
Speaker 1: has pursued more than one thousand infringements on Lebron's name
Speaker 1: and image. This was before he played a game, by
Speaker 1: the way, already, he is an economic system as much
Speaker 1: as he is an athlete, the primary link in a
Speaker 1: long chain of dependency. His performance on the court and
Speaker 1: his comportment off it bear consequence for take a deep breath,
Speaker 1: a city of franchise, a coach, a general manager of
Speaker 1: a league, several corporations, and extended family bound to get
Speaker 1: even more extended. But I remember, you know, vividly, sitting
Speaker 1: down for Lebron for this interview, and uh he comes
Speaker 1: in his physical presence, you know, filling the room. But
Speaker 1: he's a young he's still a young looking kid. It's interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, as we get older, when you see shots
Speaker 1: of these kids when they were young. My god, you
Speaker 1: ever wonder God was I ever that young? Anyway, Lebron
Speaker 1: is the first guy I ever sat down with who
Speaker 1: I thought. This was eighteen years ago. I remember thinking
Speaker 1: for the first time, I'm not only old enough to
Speaker 1: be his father, I'm old enough to be his grandfather.
Speaker 1: So I'm here with Sports Illustrated, the great photographer water
Speaker 1: yos who in a line of immortal s I photographers
Speaker 1: maybe at the top. And Waller takes about three hours
Speaker 1: just to set up as lighting and Lebron comes in.
Speaker 1: I can't remember who who. He came in with the
Speaker 1: public relations people, there was probably a cadret of them,
Speaker 1: and they announced, okay, you have fifteen minutes for the
Speaker 1: interview and you have ten minutes for the picture. And
Speaker 1: you know, Waller just about like falls dead over man.
Speaker 1: This is not how we did sings at how old
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated. But Lebron, you know, it was was fine
Speaker 1: during the interview, but you know, it was the first
Speaker 1: time I realized he didn't really give a shit about
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated. Right, different generations and this is a different air.
Speaker 1: I mean, he comes in with a ninety million dollar
Speaker 1: contract with Nike. He's got the full package, right, He's
Speaker 1: as complete a player that's entered the league in a
Speaker 1: long time, if possibly ever. But he's also prepackaged, and
Speaker 1: I think people had to learn the rules that, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was not this is even different from Kobe who Kobe,
Speaker 1: you could kind of his rookie year he's out there,
Speaker 1: he could approach him before the game, sit down next
Speaker 1: to him as he's out on the court warming up,
Speaker 1: and and talk with him. Jack is fair to say
Speaker 1: Lebron wasn't quite as approachable even as a rookie, even
Speaker 1: as a high school kid coming in. No. Absolutely, and
Speaker 1: he was a little just because of that physical presence.
Speaker 1: He was intimidating. But you do have to be careful
Speaker 1: about generalizations and stereotypes because Lebron wasn't one of these
Speaker 1: kids who didn't understand history. I mean, he understood, you know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't like his mind wasn't a blank slate about basketball.
Speaker 1: He understood basketball history. And that's one of the things
Speaker 1: we're later going to hear when he got around people
Speaker 1: like Shasowski and Jerry Colangelo, they understood what this guy knew.
Speaker 1: He just as part of his culture. You know, Sports
Speaker 1: Illustrated just it wasn't it, and Kobe it might not
Speaker 1: have been it either, But Kobe was always smart enough
Speaker 1: and kind of canny enough that he had to play
Speaker 1: with Slam, but he also had to play with Sports
Speaker 1: Illustrated on ESPN in the l A. Times, and Kobe,
Speaker 1: I think was the last line that had understood. He
Speaker 1: needed to maintain a relationship with the local newspaper columnists
Speaker 1: and he needed to always have at least one on
Speaker 1: his side, and that was a Kobe thing. And I
Speaker 1: think again that difference, it's it's really a generation in
Speaker 1: the NBA, from the ninety draft to the two thousand
Speaker 1: three draft. That's a full NBA generation, and Lebron's generation,
Speaker 1: like like, Lebron didn't really have guys that felt like
Speaker 1: in the Cleveland local media. I think he came in thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with national onely, whereas Kobe still had people
Speaker 1: that he talked to locally, and that was a big difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't say I broke much news during that interview.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether I was the first one to
Speaker 1: mention his affinity for fruity pebbles, which is how he
Speaker 1: began each morning and later had a fruity Pebble's line
Speaker 1: of nikes. I'm not sure that you uh that you
Speaker 1: purchased one of those. But but the story, there was
Speaker 1: so much to write about. I remember carried a great
Speaker 1: headline it said you got to carry that weight, which
Speaker 1: is a you know a song, you know, a great
Speaker 1: Beatles song. But it was just the stuff on Lebron's
Speaker 1: shoulders when he went into the league. And look, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk more about this as we go on, but man, Lebron,
Speaker 1: if there's anybody that could have taken a bunch of
Speaker 1: fatal bad steps concluding some of the tough things about
Speaker 1: his background, the pressures that were on him on and
Speaker 1: off the court, the people that wanted in on Lebron world,
Speaker 1: I would argue, the guy has done it better than
Speaker 1: anyone who ever lived. And I always say that to
Speaker 1: the Lebron critics, I don't know how you could have
Speaker 1: been any better than this kid. Yeah, Jack, despite all
Speaker 1: that attention, despite all that scrutiny, I think the worst
Speaker 1: trouble he's been in with the law was moving violation
Speaker 1: with this hummer. That was another story. He had his humpy,
Speaker 1: his hummer in high school, but he got a moving
Speaker 1: violation in it, and that was the extent of his
Speaker 1: run ins with the law. Right, the biggest criticism of
Speaker 1: him was he went on television to announce his free
Speaker 1: agency decision and that set people off, and you know,
Speaker 1: how could he do it? And it was betrayal and
Speaker 1: all this. He went on television to announce his free
Speaker 1: agency decision, and that was the biggest criticism. That was
Speaker 1: his greatest mistake they ever made. And if that's his
Speaker 1: biggest mistake, I think he's lived a pretty good and
Speaker 1: a pretty clean life. You know, that phrase to taking
Speaker 1: my talents, I can't remember now, but I had heard that.
Speaker 1: Kobe said it. Kobe said it. That's who said. Kobe
Speaker 1: said it. When he announced he was he was going
Speaker 1: from high school to the NBA, he said, I've taken
Speaker 1: my talents. I didn't know that until I I looked
Speaker 1: that back up. So somewhere in Lebron's brain, I bet
Speaker 1: you that phrase from Kobe was cemented somehow, you know,
Speaker 1: taking my talents. But Lebron has a great rookie season. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: he's a runaway winner for the Rookie of the Year
Speaker 1: and tying us back into the two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: Redeemed Team. Number two is Carmelo in the voting. Number
Speaker 1: three is Dwayne Wade. Number four is Kirk Heinrich, who
Speaker 1: was a guard with I think Chicago had a pretty good,
Speaker 1: pretty good player, and Chris Bosh was fifth. So four
Speaker 1: fifths of that draft class is in the top five
Speaker 1: of the rookie voting. But what I had forgotten is
Speaker 1: how good Carmelo was during that season, and it's sort
Speaker 1: of touched off. Maybe what could be a trend of
Speaker 1: Lebron overshadowing Carmelo. Carmelo took us evan team win team
Speaker 1: to a forty three win team and the playoffs where
Speaker 1: he got there, he did lose in the first round.
Speaker 1: Do the other grade high school are going on? Then?
Speaker 1: KG KG in the Minnesota Timberwolves Jack quick thing on
Speaker 1: Lebron's rookie season. He averaged twenty points per game that year.
Speaker 1: Not bad, right, only time in his career he averaged
Speaker 1: less than twenty five points. And then he starts this
Speaker 1: record setting run of averaging points per game more surpasses
Speaker 1: everyone will kareem everyone, So uh, a really amazing breakthrough.
Speaker 1: And to think that that was it's really by far
Speaker 1: his worst season, and he still comes in the league
Speaker 1: average points per game. And part of that was that
Speaker 1: personality we talked to that Lebron probably paid more. How
Speaker 1: was I going to put it more attention to the
Speaker 1: idea that the rookie shouldn't complete? His quotes are filled with, oh,
Speaker 1: this is uh Ricky Davison and Z's team. You know
Speaker 1: it's not mine. Remember his coaches Paul Silas, right, an
Speaker 1: old school, hardline guy who's not gonna let some rookie
Speaker 1: come in and just get all the Well, Lebron got
Speaker 1: all the attention, but he wasn't going to get all
Speaker 1: the shots and have the ball all the time, not
Speaker 1: under Paul's appo. Well, I've had a great interview with
Speaker 1: Paul Silas, and I remember he was talking about Lebron's
Speaker 1: many talents, and Silas said to me, well, I had
Speaker 1: one talent. You gotta have one NBA talent. Mine. Whooping ass,
Speaker 1: that was mine. That's what Paul Silos said. So one
Speaker 1: of the things is Carmelo came in after one year.
Speaker 1: But you know, with the ease with which Lebron players
Speaker 1: like Lebron, Kobe and Garnett did this Carmelo. Anthony had
Speaker 1: one year of college, and Carmelo reflects a little bit
Speaker 1: on this kind of that, hey, this isn't the easiest
Speaker 1: thing in the world to do when you come out
Speaker 1: of high school. You gotta learn on the fly, like
Speaker 1: you gotta get it right away, and that that is
Speaker 1: the difference between the guys that are very successful coming
Speaker 1: out of high school and the guys that it takes
Speaker 1: a long time to figure it out. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a small group of guys that come out of high
Speaker 1: school and they have it. They have it right away,
Speaker 1: you know, the Lebron, the Kgs, the Kobe's, like those
Speaker 1: guys come out of high school, they had it right away.
Speaker 1: They got it. And then you have a long list
Speaker 1: of gods who come out of high school that don't
Speaker 1: take a while for them to figure it out. They
Speaker 1: didn't have to be the man when they came in,
Speaker 1: and neither one of them started right away. You know,
Speaker 1: Kobe comes under the team with Shack. You know, kg
Speaker 1: had a lot of veterans. Lebron came in and he
Speaker 1: had to be the man in the face of a
Speaker 1: franchise and even the face of the league. To some
Speaker 1: extent right away. And you know, as someone who knew
Speaker 1: him going in and as someone who's good friends with them,
Speaker 1: I just wonder what your perspective or your appreciation is
Speaker 1: for somebody to come out of high school and take
Speaker 1: on all of that responsibility right away. You have to
Speaker 1: be committed. It's a different type of commitment that you
Speaker 1: have to have a different type of dedication. You have
Speaker 1: to have the right people around you. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's Lebron is a blueprint for that. You know,
Speaker 1: he came out, he had the right team around him,
Speaker 1: I mean as far not basketball, but just the people
Speaker 1: to write people around him that the blueprint was already
Speaker 1: laid out. All he had to do was stay on
Speaker 1: that track and follow that blueprint, and it was dead
Speaker 1: for him, whereas other other guys, it's not laid out
Speaker 1: for guys like that, you know, And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a testament to Lebron and and his people because
Speaker 1: they saw previous people coming out of high school and
Speaker 1: what that did, you know, they I'm sure they saw
Speaker 1: what what what what it did with Kobe and what
Speaker 1: it did, you know, with KG and just other guys
Speaker 1: that came out of high school. It takes a lot.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot in a different type of person
Speaker 1: to come out of high school, jump right into the
Speaker 1: big leagues and be and have an impact the way
Speaker 1: that Lebron has done. Uh, like you said, Kobe came
Speaker 1: and he you know, came up the bench and he
Speaker 1: had to Hey, that's a really forced his way, improved,
Speaker 1: you know, proved to everybody and have this certain type
Speaker 1: of chip on his shoulder that he was here to state.
Speaker 1: So not only is their rookie pressure, but this is
Speaker 1: an Olympic year and the Olympic team, the Olympic program
Speaker 1: is in flux. As Sean Ford, a respected USA Basketball
Speaker 1: executive who's now the national team director, as he tells
Speaker 1: us over that time, injury and you know the situation
Speaker 1: of the world, guys weren't able to play. Jason was hurt,
Speaker 1: Ray was hurt, Jamine was hurt. You know, it just
Speaker 1: um just it was wasn't working you know, out the
Speaker 1: way we wanted it to. And uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: went a little bit younger. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things going on. There's injuries, there's worries about terrorism. So
Speaker 1: they can't fill a team, they can't get exactly the
Speaker 1: guys they want for various reasons. Kevin Garnett's not gonna play,
Speaker 1: Tracy McGrady is not going to play. So who do
Speaker 1: they call on? They call on the kids, and even
Speaker 1: for kids as towns as talented as Lebron Carmelo and
Speaker 1: Dwayne Wade. This is a tall order in a world
Speaker 1: that has gotten increasingly better since the Dream Team devoured
Speaker 1: everyone back in. This is Dwayne Wade. We really had
Speaker 1: not a clue what was getting into. We was just
Speaker 1: happy to be named to the living team and be playing.
Speaker 1: And this is how Carmelo saw it. I think things
Speaker 1: could have been different, but we didn't. We never had time.
Speaker 1: I mean we came at the last minute, me and
Speaker 1: Lebron and did we We We got the calls at the
Speaker 1: last minute, and the way that we looked at it
Speaker 1: was like ship. We we just were all here for
Speaker 1: the roster Phillips. You know we're part of We're gonna
Speaker 1: come into roster Phillips. They really calling us, That mean
Speaker 1: they really want us to play. The world was different.
Speaker 1: The world did not look at United States basketball teams
Speaker 1: the same way they did in two and I suppose
Speaker 1: in and reflecting on that as Craig Miller, who headed
Speaker 1: up USA Basketball's public relations, still does, but he was
Speaker 1: there since before the Dream Team. Here's how he put it.
Speaker 1: The stigma of playing against NBA players have faded because
Speaker 1: the international players are now ingrained in the NBA and playing,
Speaker 1: and so you started to see the gap really closed.
Speaker 1: So that gap really closed. It slam shut. The most
Speaker 1: stupefying game happened, of course right away, the initial mind
Speaker 1: boggling to seventy three loss to Puerto Rico. I'll never
Speaker 1: forget Jay. Tommy Shepard, who's now the general manager of
Speaker 1: the Washington Wizards, so he has to watch his tongue
Speaker 1: a little more. But Tommy was just he was working
Speaker 1: for USA Basketball over there. Always a funny guy. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know Tommy. Tommy goes by by after the
Speaker 1: nineteen pointless he goes, well, we were in it till
Speaker 1: the tip. You know. It was just this indescribable loss
Speaker 1: that was led by this point guard. Hey, nice NBA player.
Speaker 1: Carlos Arroyo was in the league for probably is in
Speaker 1: the league for ten years, played for seven or eight teams,
Speaker 1: and he destroyed the United States And it was kind
Speaker 1: of a lesson. Isaiah Thomas told me a long time ago, Ja,
Speaker 1: it sounds elementary, but there are certain things I remember,
Speaker 1: and he goes. Isaiah said, if you have a point
Speaker 1: guard who gets where he wants to go, he can
Speaker 1: give a team trouble. You know, there were guys like that,
Speaker 1: like Bobby Hurley, Steve Nash. You didn't know how they
Speaker 1: got there, but they got themselves in the position where
Speaker 1: they could either shoot it or feed to somebody. And
Speaker 1: this is what a royo did. Yeah, and it's funny
Speaker 1: because the point guard on the United States team was
Speaker 1: Alan Iverson, who wasn't that classic point guard player, right,
Speaker 1: So Alan Iverson could be an unstoppable force, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily work in international basketball, and that that team
Speaker 1: really struggled more than most to adapting to international rules,
Speaker 1: which include the ability you can knock the ball off
Speaker 1: the rim right after it hits the rim. It's got
Speaker 1: the wider it had the wider trapezoid lanes, so you
Speaker 1: couldn't post up as close to the basket and him
Speaker 1: Duncan really seemed to struggle under those rules and just
Speaker 1: never acquired a taste for it. Also, the thing I
Speaker 1: remember with that team is that they didn't get the
Speaker 1: calls that they're used to getting from NBA referees. You've
Speaker 1: got international refs and they called the game differently and
Speaker 1: you didn't get those superstar calls. So it so it
Speaker 1: felt like that team was constantly in foul trouble throughout
Speaker 1: the Olympics and was grapping about the officiating. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there was a there was a lot of things going
Speaker 1: on it. The essence of it goes back to them
Speaker 1: being a team that was formed kind of in haste,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about how the program changes
Speaker 1: specifically because of this Olympics. But Genobly one of the
Speaker 1: great argenteam player who they won the gold medal. I
Speaker 1: remember man who talking during the Olympics and he said,
Speaker 1: the rest of them, I wish I could do a
Speaker 1: Genoble accent. I'm not going to try. The rest of
Speaker 1: the world is getting better, the US is getting bored.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure that's what it was. I just
Speaker 1: think it was a mismatched team. And I wrote a
Speaker 1: story for SI after the first game, the loss to
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, and one of the funny things I'll never
Speaker 1: forget this Lebron. I don't know why he said it,
Speaker 1: but here's my paragraph. The one bright spot was Lebron
Speaker 1: James's scholastic acuity quote. Some Americans might say, this is
Speaker 1: embarrassing losing to Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States.
Speaker 1: Lebron I would have said, I want to guess territory, man,
Speaker 1: but I looked it up. You know it's still a
Speaker 1: commonwealth anyway. What I detected through this Olympics. Throughout it,
Speaker 1: and I remember I did an interview with Brian Williams,
Speaker 1: who was then becoming the NBC New NBC Star, and
Speaker 1: he was kind of positioning himself as not the basketball
Speaker 1: player Brian Williams, the news anchor Brian Williams. No, not
Speaker 1: that guy yet, the the kind of the NASCAR loving
Speaker 1: liberal that was kind of And I did this interview
Speaker 1: with him, and the level of hatred that was leveled
Speaker 1: against this team, not just because they were losing, but
Speaker 1: I really detected a really kind of racist attitude toward it.
Speaker 1: A lot of it directed towards Iverson, who did not
Speaker 1: deserve it, not for the way he played and comported
Speaker 1: himself during this Olympics. Yes, so, as genobally suggested, maybe
Speaker 1: Americans and even the players are becoming a little bit disinterested,
Speaker 1: and I would say the fan base was becoming even
Speaker 1: more than disinterested, disconnected. And it started in ninety six
Speaker 1: and certainly through two thousand. Also notable development in two thousand,
Speaker 1: that's the first time the United States Olympic basketball team
Speaker 1: is all African Americans on the roster, and it had
Speaker 1: been declining. In ninety six, you had John Stockton was
Speaker 1: was the only white player on the American team um
Speaker 1: by two thousand and with this two thousand four roster
Speaker 1: it's all black. So you have to wonder if that
Speaker 1: accelerates to disconnect among white Americans. But there was this
Speaker 1: feeling almost like almost like people were against them, like
Speaker 1: they wanted to see the American team lose, almost as
Speaker 1: if well, they don't represent me and quote unquote us,
Speaker 1: and I almost want to see them lose. That You
Speaker 1: had that sense like people wanted to see them get
Speaker 1: their come uppance. And yes, part of that was Iverson,
Speaker 1: who was a very controversial figure, a very threatening figure
Speaker 1: to some people. It's just because younger people of all
Speaker 1: races adored Iverson and he represented that rebellious figure that
Speaker 1: I think any teenager looks up to and wants to
Speaker 1: emulate in some regard. But for old Americans, and that
Speaker 1: included even older black basketball players, he represented such a
Speaker 1: threat to the status quo, uh that I think they
Speaker 1: wanted to see him fail because for him to succeed
Speaker 1: would be to turn around and upend everything that they had,
Speaker 1: that they become accustomed to, and that basically that they
Speaker 1: had built up right, And and I we go to
Speaker 1: comments throughout these Olympics, he must have said this seven
Speaker 1: or eight times. When you talk to some guys, they
Speaker 1: were piste off. They behind their back and in public
Speaker 1: they trashed Larry Brown, who, by the way, let's face
Speaker 1: it was entirely the wrong coach to be coaching this team.
Speaker 1: That was problem number two, right behind the disorganized nature
Speaker 1: of the organization of the team. Larry being the wrong
Speaker 1: coach was number two. Alan would say, here's the quote.
Speaker 1: Just understand once again, I'm not gonna attempt to do iverson.
Speaker 1: Just understand it first and foremost. It's an honor to
Speaker 1: be selected to this team. I feel like a special
Speaker 1: basketball player to be selected to a team like this.
Speaker 1: And I stand behind no man in my respect for
Speaker 1: Tim Duncan as a player, I think he as an
Speaker 1: offensive and defensive player combined, he could be a top
Speaker 1: ten player of all time. But man, he was terrible
Speaker 1: during this Olympics, and he could not figure out how
Speaker 1: to seize the reigns of the team. You know, he
Speaker 1: could always figure that out, and him and Pop were
Speaker 1: both on this team. And whether or not they couldn't
Speaker 1: get by Larry, or whether they were too disgruntled from
Speaker 1: the beginning, or whether they read the handwriting on the wall,
Speaker 1: we're just not as good as Argentina at this point,
Speaker 1: all those things. You know, Tim just did not do
Speaker 1: what he should have. And before we comment some more
Speaker 1: on that, here's Sean Ford again to respect the basketball official,
Speaker 1: just reflecting a little bit on Iverson. He took the
Speaker 1: hit you know, with the media a lot when we
Speaker 1: did lose. Allen's got a toughness about him, and because
Speaker 1: there's so much goal that goes on around his life,
Speaker 1: he has a way of when he gets when it
Speaker 1: comes to basketball, he was able to focus and and
Speaker 1: leave some things, you know, elsewhere. And I think because
Speaker 1: he does that on a regular basis, um the players learned,
Speaker 1: you know, he brought the other players that way, and
Speaker 1: the people that were doubting them and people were criticizing them,
Speaker 1: you know, and again there wasn't social media back then,
Speaker 1: there wasn't as much. But he kept the team focused on,
Speaker 1: you know, what was next, and so Jack I'll say
Speaker 1: that in some ways though, the two thousand four Olympics
Speaker 1: where Iverson's finest moment because from everything that I've heard,
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, but everything I've heard, he really rallied
Speaker 1: them after their shot at the gold medal was gone
Speaker 1: and they had this, you know, essentially the consolation game,
Speaker 1: right like the old in double A final four consolation
Speaker 1: game UH to win the bronze medal. And none of
Speaker 1: them came there to win the bronze medal. That's not
Speaker 1: what they're interested in. But Iverson said, hey, we're here,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Let's not go home empty handed. Let's
Speaker 1: go out and win this game and win this bronze medal.
Speaker 1: And he inspired them and had an inspired performance and
Speaker 1: they won. And to some observers, they've told me that
Speaker 1: that was Irison's finest moment, that he he salvaged what
Speaker 1: there was to be salvaged out of the Olympic Games. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I covered those Olympics, and I remember talking
Speaker 1: to Doug Collins before the bronze medal game and we
Speaker 1: both just kind of said, I, you know, there's just
Speaker 1: no way they went. First of all was Away. He
Speaker 1: was very good. They were the early kind of Golden
Speaker 1: State Warriors. I mean, they just bombed up three point
Speaker 1: shots and for Iverson was really good in that game.
Speaker 1: Shawn Marion was good in that game. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you when somebody else who was really good, I almost
Speaker 1: hesitate to say his name because we could do a
Speaker 1: forty minute podcast on him, and that was Lamar Odom
Speaker 1: that when Lamar had your back, when he was like
Speaker 1: the fourth guy or something that you needed him not
Speaker 1: to score, but maybe you get nine, ten, eleven, get
Speaker 1: your rebounds. Locked somebody down. Sometimes even the you know,
Speaker 1: the shooting guard, he could go out and defend on
Speaker 1: pick and rolls, he could go back and get rebounds.
Speaker 1: Lamar was really great in that game. And I agree
Speaker 1: that if they wanted to get one positive note out
Speaker 1: of those Olympics, it would have been that third place
Speaker 1: game against Lithuania. However, uh, they didn't jay and the
Speaker 1: the result of that was big changes to the Olympic system. Yes,
Speaker 1: sometimes Jack could takes something this drastic to to wake
Speaker 1: you up and to shake you up. And that's what happened.
Speaker 1: And as we'll get into in the next episode, big
Speaker 1: changes were coming and the biggest, probably the biggest first
Speaker 1: change was when they went to the ultimate man behind
Speaker 1: the Man, the great Jerry Colangelo, who for some reason
Speaker 1: had not been called upon to offer his his executive
Speaker 1: no at all to previous Olympic teams, and David Stern,
Speaker 1: who sometimes got involved in the Olympic movement and sometimes
Speaker 1: did not, But in this case, David was going to
Speaker 1: call the man behind the Man, and he placed a
Speaker 1: call to Jerry Colangelo and ask him if he wanted
Speaker 1: to take over. And this is a hint of what
Speaker 1: we're gonna get in the next episode, which is episode four.
Speaker 1: He says, Jerry, look, I know you were just as
Speaker 1: unhappy as me and everyone else regarding the showing in
Speaker 1: Greece and all the things about it, and there needs
Speaker 1: to be some change. Would you be willing to take
Speaker 1: on the responsibility for USA basketball? And I'm instinctive and
Speaker 1: I basically said, yeah, I'll do it, but I have
Speaker 1: a couple of conditions. So that's it. For this episode,
Speaker 1: I'm Jack McCallum, Thanks for listening. I'm Jay dot Day
Speaker 1: because that next time on Kobe Lebron and the Redeem Team.
Speaker 1: The Dream Team Tapes Season two. Kobe Lebron and the
Speaker 1: Redeemed Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. This season is written and hosted
Speaker 1: by me, Jack McCallum and j A. Dande. Executive producer
Speaker 1: Scott Waxman and Mark Frances for Diversion podcast and Sean's
Speaker 1: High Tone for I Heart Radio. Our editorial director is
Speaker 1: John Tuttle. Supervising producer Brian Murphy, Legal producer Freddie Overstegen, Editing,
Speaker 1: mixing and sound designed by Mark Frances. Verna Fields is
Speaker 1: our technical producer, and our director of Marketing and business
Speaker 1: Development is Jacob Bronstein. Diversion Podcasts