Speaker 1: Welcome back to All the Smoke, New York City. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: our last and final show today. Man, we got a
Speaker 1: good one. Jack.
Speaker 2: I'm happy. This is somebody who I idolize. I've been idolized.
Speaker 2: I tell him all the time. But I'm gonna let
Speaker 2: you introduce him.
Speaker 1: Before I introduced him. I when I thought of this show,
Speaker 1: he was one of the first people I hit like,
Speaker 1: g I need you, and he's like that's when he
Speaker 1: first started working on the book three years ago, years ago,
Speaker 1: three years ago, and we finally got him. You see,
Speaker 1: the book is out now, make sure you pick it up.
Speaker 1: But we got the one and only, my god big brother,
Speaker 1: Rent Hill.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you. Money is an honor and a privilege.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you all. Patience, Come on the book. It
Speaker 1: took you five years to write. This would have waited
Speaker 1: for you. It's just an honor to have you on.
Speaker 1: Let's get right to it. Talk about the book. What
Speaker 1: it's about.
Speaker 4: It's by my life and my journey, you know, going
Speaker 4: back growing up Duke years Detroit, the injuries, going through
Speaker 4: that whole ordeal. I felt like getting in the Hall
Speaker 4: of Fame. That's a moment when you're going to be
Speaker 4: naturally reflective. You know, we go through life and as
Speaker 4: an athlete, you gotta go and just like like next
Speaker 4: you gotta just you don't get a chance to really
Speaker 4: reflect on what you're doing. But that moment, that celebration,
Speaker 4: it was like, you know, I need to do this.
Speaker 4: I need to write a book. And then you know
Speaker 4: it took a minute and the process and in COVID
Speaker 4: and you know, whatever the case may be, but it
Speaker 4: was it was an incredible exercise. I think everybody should
Speaker 4: go through the process. We all got a story. I
Speaker 4: think we get older, we go back and look at
Speaker 4: our lives, we learn the lessons. We can see things
Speaker 4: from an older perspective. I think it's about being vulnerable,
Speaker 4: it's about being introspective. Like it to me, the process
Speaker 4: of the book, like I learned. It might sound crazy,
Speaker 4: but I learned more about myself. And I think we
Speaker 4: spend so much time, you know, we play, and you
Speaker 4: got to stay in the moment and you keep every
Speaker 4: day you fighting, you know, every day somebody's trying to
Speaker 4: take your spot. And then you retire and you're like, hey,
Speaker 4: what's next. We're all hustling trying to figure things out
Speaker 4: and so we don't look back and we don't look
Speaker 4: back all the time and live in those moments. And
Speaker 4: so anyway, I don't want to get too deep on that,
Speaker 4: but like to me, it exceeded my expectations of what
Speaker 4: I learned about myself and my growth and to share
Speaker 4: that and to be comfortable putting it all out there
Speaker 4: was you know a lot.
Speaker 1: It's opening that door, right, really opening that door. And
Speaker 1: like you said, y'all got the right. Yeah, y'all both
Speaker 1: stories down the pipeline. Yeah, how do you think you
Speaker 1: would be in this era your game?
Speaker 4: You know, I think, I think with the spacing and
Speaker 4: then now they've taken a little bit of the physicality
Speaker 4: out of the game, I think I could. It's just
Speaker 4: more open. You think about it. Back in the day,
Speaker 4: you have big guys in the paint clogging up and
Speaker 4: I like.
Speaker 1: That you were still dunking on them though. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you know, g is so nice.
Speaker 1: You already know that like spacing, Like when you look back,
Speaker 1: like we were in Detroit, we were having an eighty
Speaker 1: one A game like we didn't run, we played methodical,
Speaker 1: we didn't get up and down like it is now.
Speaker 3: So yeah, man, and the money.
Speaker 1: And the money sit the money crazy.
Speaker 4: So but you know, I enjoyed my time. It was
Speaker 4: it was a different league. The games evolved, the shootings.
Speaker 4: But I mean there's a lot of things that are better.
Speaker 4: There's some things I don't like about the current league.
Speaker 4: But yeah, man, I mean, y'all right here in this era,
Speaker 4: I would have had some fun, no question.
Speaker 1: Five.
Speaker 3: Man. You know, look, I'm sorry. I know you play
Speaker 3: with Draymond.
Speaker 4: Every time I see Draymond, I say this, but I'm
Speaker 4: like Draymond, you checked in the game, I would have
Speaker 4: been dropped three posted you.
Speaker 3: I don't know how he like.
Speaker 4: He's like a rim protector and he's in there big man.
Speaker 4: How tall is he?
Speaker 1: Six six?
Speaker 3: But he gets it done? Man, I don't you know.
Speaker 4: But anyway, it was a different league, man, But yeah,
Speaker 4: i'd have done all right.
Speaker 1: One player you think one player you would want to
Speaker 1: play with today?
Speaker 4: I mean right now, obviously he's getting up there and
Speaker 4: things are a little bit crazy in l A.
Speaker 3: But I would have liked to play with Lebron. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and nice.
Speaker 4: I don't know Lebron like that. I mean, we've always
Speaker 4: been good, but I don't I'm not in his circle
Speaker 4: like that, but I think everybody that plays with him,
Speaker 4: he's like a glue guy. The guys that play with
Speaker 4: him love him like he's inclusive. You know, he he
Speaker 4: thinks the game at a high level. I also think
Speaker 4: no one's endured as much hate.
Speaker 1: We talked about that, Yeah, the hype and.
Speaker 4: The hype and what he's done. But just you think about,
Speaker 4: like Jordan didn't have to experience that when we played
Speaker 4: in the nineties. It was talk radio, maybe the newspaper,
Speaker 4: but you didn't hear the noise.
Speaker 3: You didn't hear the slander.
Speaker 4: And now for someone like him, the face of the franchise,
Speaker 4: who's been so good, man, he's got to endure so much.
Speaker 4: Just I mean, all we all get it. I'm sure
Speaker 4: you guys. So I just I got sorry about math.
Speaker 4: So I'm sorry, man, I'm getting off. So when Twitter,
Speaker 4: when Twitter first came out, I think we were in that.
Speaker 4: Maybe it was Instagram, I can't remember. So Mad. You know,
Speaker 4: somebody might say something slick to Mad on Twitter, and
Speaker 4: Matt would come back at.
Speaker 3: Him like full speed.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, let me tell you we're gonna be
Speaker 4: in your city on this day And we're staying at
Speaker 4: this hotel, meet me at seven am in the lobby.
Speaker 1: He pulled me to the side one day, like, Matt,
Speaker 1: you stop that.
Speaker 3: So he wanted all to smoke, but like literally, like
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, but you know.
Speaker 4: Just it was around that time. The game is changing.
Speaker 4: But we hear all that and we're adults, we're older,
Speaker 4: we're you know, I'm almost be fifty this year. But
Speaker 4: these young kids, man like, I think it does affect
Speaker 4: them a little bit when they hear all that, and
Speaker 4: it's still impressionable, still trying to find their way.
Speaker 3: So I don't envy that.
Speaker 4: And I think Lebron has been sort of the poster
Speaker 4: boy of that, and so I admire that he's been
Speaker 4: able to just you know, he don't always win. It
Speaker 4: doesn't always do you know, but he he handles all
Speaker 4: that and handles it well very well.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh. Born in Dallas, Texas. Uh, your dad was
Speaker 1: a Pro Bowl Super Bowl champ with the running with
Speaker 1: the Cowboys that the last time they won the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: Do that? Don't do that? Mom was successful business.
Speaker 3: Only child.
Speaker 1: Football, you're always in the mix as a youngster.
Speaker 3: Football.
Speaker 1: Talk about those times growing up as an only child
Speaker 1: in that environment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I was the only child of two only children,
Speaker 4: and so it was just us. And but you know,
Speaker 4: football was my first love and grew up around it.
Speaker 4: I was I was named by Roger Starbach. So my dad,
Speaker 4: my mom and dad were expecting a girl, and obviously
Speaker 4: I'm not a girl. So my dad can't make up
Speaker 4: his mind. And so I was baby boy Hill for
Speaker 4: like three days and Starback came to the hospital and
Speaker 4: you know, came up with the name Grant, named after
Speaker 4: my paternal grandmother's maiden name.
Speaker 3: And so we moved to d C.
Speaker 4: And you know, that rivalry, particularly in the late seventies
Speaker 4: early eighties, it's always been intense, but it was the
Speaker 4: Redskins were good cowboys coming off the seventies. So I
Speaker 4: was a die like. I'm a cowboy fan like die Hard.
Speaker 4: That was tough being in DC and being he's he's
Speaker 4: not a come on all teams. That's our nemesis right there.
Speaker 4: But look, I was on the I was on the
Speaker 4: parade on the float when the Redskins won I think
Speaker 4: it was eighty two eighty three, they beat the Dolphins.
Speaker 3: So I was on the float. Dave Butts, who was
Speaker 3: the Aligneman.
Speaker 4: I went on the float with him and his family,
Speaker 4: and I remember how proud I was because underneath my
Speaker 4: jacket I had a Cowboys shirt off, and so that
Speaker 4: was But but football was everything, man, and my dad
Speaker 4: wouldn't let me play. He wouldn't let me play till
Speaker 4: I got the high school and so that killed me.
Speaker 4: And you know, I resented it and uh and so
Speaker 4: I kind of got away from it. And by the
Speaker 4: time I was in high school, you know, I wanted
Speaker 4: to play. I was in basketball.
Speaker 3: I was all in. But football was my first love,
Speaker 3: no question.
Speaker 1: When did you realize basketball can take you places?
Speaker 4: I first I first fell in love with basketball. Eighty
Speaker 4: two Final four Jordan hit that shot, Jordan North Carolina Georgetown.
Speaker 4: We bought a Beta Max. We taped that game, and
Speaker 4: so that was when I fell in love. And then
Speaker 4: a couple of years later, my dad and I started
Speaker 4: going to Final four US. So when Georgetown won in
Speaker 4: eighty four and we went every year from eighty four
Speaker 4: to eighty eight, that was our little you know, father
Speaker 4: son bonding or whatever. And so I think for me
Speaker 4: it was probably like AAU. I was thirteen and we
Speaker 4: went to Saint Louis. First game we played, we played
Speaker 4: Weber Jalen super Friends, and I talk about it in
Speaker 4: the book, Like my dad he was he saw all
Speaker 4: these guys, he saw us, and he was like, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna get my speech ready for in case they lose.
Speaker 4: And we smacked them. We beat them a BYuT twenty
Speaker 4: five thirty. And so then that tournament we won the
Speaker 4: national championship. And so at that point, I'm like, you
Speaker 4: know what, like seeing myself gaging myself against other kids.
Speaker 4: Alan Henderson was at Jamal Mashburn and these guys all
Speaker 4: made it to.
Speaker 3: The NBA like thirteen year olds.
Speaker 4: You say we were thirteen, But here's the thing I was.
Speaker 4: I was young for my grade. So I started college
Speaker 4: or high school at thirteen. I started college at seventeen.
Speaker 4: I should have been probably a webinar, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. But I was going into high school and
Speaker 4: so I played varsity as a freshman. Well, those guys
Speaker 4: were tenth grade, and so when I came back the
Speaker 4: next year, I was like, I was, I had surpassed
Speaker 4: all of them. We lost in the finals. I still
Speaker 4: got the MVP. And so that was when around that time,
Speaker 4: it was like, Okay, I got a chance to I
Speaker 4: wasn't thinking the NBA, but I got a chance in college.
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Speaker 1: What was your recruiting process? Like, you know, it was good?
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean for me, it was it was.
Speaker 4: It was Carolina Georgetown. Those were the two schools that
Speaker 4: I loved. Dad wanted you to go to UNC. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna wanted you to go to Georgetown, man, that's right.
Speaker 4: So we had we had we had, we had season
Speaker 4: tickets so we would go to Georgetown games. And I
Speaker 4: don't know if you remember, Michael Jackson played it with
Speaker 4: point guard, so he went to my high school. He
Speaker 4: used to work for my mother in the summers. My
Speaker 4: mom introduced Pat Ewing to his wife. So I was
Speaker 4: so I was entrenched with Georgetown, like I was all in,
Speaker 4: like we all were. I think at that time black
Speaker 4: I thought it was I thought it was HBCU back then.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize it was like eleven, you know, I
Speaker 4: didn't realize it was a private school. But so Georgetown, Carolina, Michigan,
Speaker 4: Virginia and Duke and I made my first visit and
Speaker 4: it was to Duke, and Coach K just kind of
Speaker 4: blew me away. And I knew right then that I
Speaker 4: wanted to be there. And the genius of coach K
Speaker 4: and I know, you know, love hate Duke and all that.
Speaker 4: And obviously now he's had he had great success at
Speaker 4: the end and coached the Olympic team. But his ability
Speaker 4: to get people to buy in. He wasn't a great,
Speaker 4: excellent old coach, but like if he sat, he looked
Speaker 4: you in the eye like you believed in him. And
Speaker 4: that was his genius, getting everybody to kind of like
Speaker 4: buy in to him and buy into one another. And
Speaker 4: so Duke Duke really wasn't my fate, but like you know,
Speaker 4: it just felt right, and you know, made that decision,
Speaker 4: and you know, fortunately we made history.
Speaker 2: You win titles in ninety one and ninety two, right, uh,
Speaker 2: the famous Christian Layton shot.
Speaker 1: How big was that moment?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 4: It's crazy, you know, it's crazy to think that was
Speaker 4: thirty years ago and people still people still talk about it.
Speaker 4: But Christian was a great college player. I mean Alonso Shaq,
Speaker 4: I mean everybody he faced, he dominated Shack twice and
Speaker 4: he and we had a good team. I mean Bobby
Speaker 4: was a great college point guard. I was you know,
Speaker 4: I was a good player. He had three he had
Speaker 4: three guys in the College Basketball Hall of Fame and
Speaker 4: so so those moments were incredible. I don't think we
Speaker 4: realized while we were doing it the significance of what
Speaker 4: was happening.
Speaker 3: We were just trying to win.
Speaker 4: We were I was nineteen, I was a kid, and
Speaker 4: but that passed the Layner. That shot Laydna didn't miss
Speaker 4: a shot the whole game. Layden was cocky, lighten. It
Speaker 4: was like he talked trash. He also had a He
Speaker 4: was a great teammate as well. I remember we had
Speaker 4: a game I talked about in the book. We had
Speaker 4: a game we went to Buffalo to play Concious and
Speaker 4: it was a game for him going back to his hometown.
Speaker 4: And halftime he had like one or two shots, and
Speaker 4: Coach k Is like, like, Christian, what's going on, Like
Speaker 4: this game's for you.
Speaker 3: You act like you.
Speaker 4: Don't want to play, and he's like, I want my
Speaker 4: hometown to see how good my teammates are. And so
Speaker 4: you know, you you coming back home, college player of
Speaker 4: the Year, you wanna try to show out. But he
Speaker 4: was trying to show us out and so you know,
Speaker 4: you don't hear about that side of Christian You just
Speaker 4: hear the you know, the crazy, and there was a.
Speaker 3: Lot of craziness.
Speaker 4: But but he was he was a great competitor, you know,
Speaker 4: he he he and he did his work.
Speaker 2: He did his thing with all the noise and knowing
Speaker 2: how everybody feel about Duke, is the brotherhood tight enough
Speaker 2: to block out the noise and stay strong?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean it's funny, man, because I don't think we
Speaker 4: were aware of what people's perceptions were back then a
Speaker 4: Duke and I looked at Duke different than I looked
Speaker 4: at Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Georgetown. These are pwy's that
Speaker 4: have good basketball teams, and so I get it with
Speaker 4: the you know us beating Vegas and the Fab five
Speaker 4: and obviously Jalen's documentary and how they felt towards us.
Speaker 4: But I wasn't aware that, like honestly, like we we
Speaker 4: got along with every like, you know, web was my guys.
Speaker 4: I talked some stories about Weber and there when we
Speaker 4: were in high school. He used to come visit me
Speaker 4: in Virginia. You know, we didn't have social media and
Speaker 4: read the newspaper back then, so we were in Durham.
Speaker 3: We'd go to Durham, we go.
Speaker 4: To cookouts, barbecues, barbershop. Everybody showed love. So I don't
Speaker 4: think I was aware.
Speaker 1: That there was this stigma.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like this now, I should have known better, because
Speaker 4: I didn't like the Celtics for the very reason people
Speaker 4: didn't like us. I was a Laker fan, and I
Speaker 4: identified with the Lakers.
Speaker 3: But I think.
Speaker 4: Because we had really good white players and had a
Speaker 4: fairy Latner pearly, maybe I fit this, like you know,
Speaker 4: my parents, and you know, people thought what they thought
Speaker 4: about me. I think that might have contributed to the narrative.
Speaker 4: But at the time, like I was totally oblivious to
Speaker 4: that narrative. And and not until years later I even
Speaker 4: thought the hate towards Duke later on was because Duke
Speaker 4: has success, like the Yankees or like you know, the Cowboys.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize. I didn't really realize that you.
Speaker 1: Could have used a better example. But I feel you
Speaker 1: over the.
Speaker 4: Forty nine ers, you know, you know, and so but
Speaker 4: I get it now, like I understand, and it was
Speaker 4: an interesting time and you know, and so I you know,
Speaker 4: I get the but had a brotherhood strong, coach k
Speaker 4: moved on. You know, Shires recruited, well, you know, we
Speaker 4: hope to stay relevant.
Speaker 3: Man. That's that's that's the main thing.
Speaker 1: Ninety four draft, you go number three overall to Detroit.
Speaker 1: What are you hearing leading up to the draft? I mean,
Speaker 1: Glenn Robinson, Jason Kidd, You're self, what are you hearing
Speaker 1: leading up to there? You hear one, two, three?
Speaker 3: So this was this was crazy. So Glenn, Glenn was.
Speaker 4: Glenn was incredible in college thirty a game, like I mean,
Speaker 4: he was. He was unreal, man, and I think he's underappreciated,
Speaker 4: like people don't. He came into twenty one his first
Speaker 4: first year in the league, scoring twenty one a game.
Speaker 4: So at the at the draft lottery, Mike Dunleavy, who
Speaker 4: was the coach at GM, puts up his jersey, So
Speaker 4: that's the sign they gonna take him. So I figured,
Speaker 4: you know, Dallas had the number two pick, they had
Speaker 4: Jimmy Jackson, Jamal Mashburn, so they gonna they're gonna take
Speaker 4: Jay Kidds, which was the right, right decision. So Detroit
Speaker 4: to me, they had Lindsay, they had Allen Houston. That
Speaker 4: felt like the right fit. But Milwaukee wanted me to
Speaker 4: come in and work out for him. I didn't want
Speaker 4: to go, and my agent was like, that's the number
Speaker 4: one pick. You got to go out of respect. So
Speaker 4: I went there. I didn't want to be there. I
Speaker 4: didn't want to be in Milwaukee.
Speaker 3: Yep, I don't blame I dogged the workout. Mike Dunley.
Speaker 4: He put me through this like he was. I was
Speaker 4: doing laps and suicide, like he was killing me. And
Speaker 4: then he wanted to play me one on one. Mike
Speaker 4: did coach Dunley and so I'm like, so we checked
Speaker 4: ball and I'm standing under the basket. He said the
Speaker 4: free He said, you're not gonna guard me. I said,
Speaker 4: I don't think you can make that. And man, he
Speaker 4: hit like ten in a.
Speaker 3: Row on me. Man, like I would.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't garden him, and uh, and I was like,
Speaker 4: what is he doing? Like you know, but he wanted
Speaker 4: to see me compete against him, which I didn't get.
Speaker 4: But did you No, I didn't guarden. I didn't even
Speaker 4: want to be there, and so, you know, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 4: But but Detroit was where I wanted to be and
Speaker 4: I felt like they had won recently and you know,
Speaker 4: the colors red, white, and blue. I felt was good,
Speaker 4: you know, good for my feelers.
Speaker 1: So I mean, right, you had a nice catalog of
Speaker 1: Nikes over at Duke. What made you choose Felix because
Speaker 1: they were obviously a lesser known brand.
Speaker 3: An get that bag? So let let me say what happened, man?
Speaker 3: So it was crazy.
Speaker 4: So I'll go out to Nike and you know, you
Speaker 4: go out there for your recruiting trip to take it
Speaker 4: through the store. You get all this stuff. So Phil Knight,
Speaker 4: we obviously know his his genius. He was thinking about
Speaker 4: the Far East in nineteen ninety four and he was like, man,
Speaker 4: if I can go into China and penetrate that market
Speaker 4: and there's a billion plus people that I can get
Speaker 4: shoes on them, Like he was talking about this in
Speaker 4: this meeting, and he wanted me to be via satellite
Speaker 4: at the Great Wall of China for the draft and
Speaker 4: like that would be a way to break into that market.
Speaker 4: And I was like, I want to be. I want
Speaker 4: to be. I want to be with David Stern. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. Like that's a dream. We all
Speaker 4: dreamed that to getting drafted and that whole thing. And
Speaker 4: so but I tell that story, like that's where his
Speaker 4: head was at. But when it's starting negotiating, the money
Speaker 4: wasn't like it wasn't fit in the vision, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. And so I went on over reluctantly
Speaker 4: over to meet Fela, and I knew they had mash burned,
Speaker 4: but I know, we went through, we toured the facility
Speaker 4: and we sat in the boardroom and they had this
Speaker 4: this like proposal and on page two was the money.
Speaker 4: And I turned that page and I was like, oh
Speaker 4: my god. I was like, you know, it was the
Speaker 4: money that they were offering, like the guaranteed base salary
Speaker 4: and the royalty.
Speaker 3: I was like, like, you said, get that bag.
Speaker 1: You're not the type of person to talk about this,
Speaker 1: but I just kind of want to have context because
Speaker 1: it's nineteen ninety four. Can you explain like what kind
Speaker 1: of money it was at that time compared to maybe
Speaker 1: what some of the guys maybe getting today.
Speaker 4: So Nike was offering me about five hundred thousand, and
Speaker 4: Phela was basically it was a five year, fifteen million
Speaker 4: dollars deal, Go get that bag, So you know, like
Speaker 4: fifteen million dollars a lot. It was more money in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety four, so that was a guaranteed royalty, and
Speaker 4: the shoe ended up exceeding I think everyone's expectation. But
Speaker 4: I was like, hey, you know, to this day, still selling,
Speaker 4: I still get a royal teacher.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, first impression, it's in Detroit. It's the end
Speaker 1: of the bad boy era, and now you were coming
Speaker 1: in to be the face of the franchise.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it was crazy, man, because the team
Speaker 4: had won twenty games.
Speaker 3: I came in.
Speaker 4: There was a void in the league. MJ had retired.
Speaker 4: I think the league was looking for a face. I
Speaker 4: played in one hundred and twenty some of my games
Speaker 4: at Duke, and all but five of them on national TV,
Speaker 4: so people, I think knew who I was, and I
Speaker 4: came out the gate and I was like, I came
Speaker 4: out to Gate, Like, oh, I came out to gate.
Speaker 4: I think I got twenty five ten and five my
Speaker 4: first game against the Lakers, and like my first ten
Speaker 4: to fifteen games, I was twenty more than twenty a game,
Speaker 4: calling my boys like, man, the NBA is easy, man like,
Speaker 4: and like, you know, until they get a scottery report
Speaker 4: on you and figure you out.
Speaker 3: But one thing that that helped.
Speaker 4: Me was that that summer before my freshman or my
Speaker 4: rookie year, you played pickup ball and then pick up ball,
Speaker 4: and you know I used to I used to play
Speaker 4: with it. You know, I'd come down. My My favorite
Speaker 4: guy was the Pearl Duane the Pearl. Kenny Anderson had
Speaker 4: gray handles. I used to try to be like Tim
Speaker 4: Hardaway Chris Jackson. So I would play with the ball,
Speaker 4: but when I played in the games, I would turn
Speaker 4: my back like like magic and big guard and big guard,
Speaker 4: and so Quinn Snyder was like, man, you need to
Speaker 4: play like this in the league, like what you're doing
Speaker 4: out here and pick up You need to play this way,
Speaker 4: not turning your back. And so I didn't, you know,
Speaker 4: I didn't because I didn't see big guys doing that.
Speaker 4: So when I came in at six ' eight, I'm
Speaker 4: playing small forward. You didn't have guys doing that, and
Speaker 4: so they weren't used to having like Pippin could handle
Speaker 4: the ball with pipping.
Speaker 3: Didn't you come at you like that?
Speaker 1: You couldn't go full exact, couldn't go full spring across you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that that I think the ball handling. I
Speaker 4: was never a great shooter at least early on. You know,
Speaker 4: I became a decent mid range, but the ability to
Speaker 4: get to my spot and at the small forward position,
Speaker 4: I think that's really helped me early on, and they
Speaker 4: weren't you see more of that now, guys, you know
Speaker 4: everybody does that, but back then you didn't have a
Speaker 4: lot of threes playing like that.
Speaker 1: As a rookie, you made the All Star Game and
Speaker 1: one cold Rookie of the year averaged twenty six and five.
Speaker 1: After that first year, if you said you called your
Speaker 1: homies after the first handful of games, were you surprised
Speaker 1: that the actually what you did fresh out of college
Speaker 1: in the NBA?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I was surprised, And then I was
Speaker 4: surprised at all the fans, Like I was like, because
Speaker 4: they kept trying to make me like the face and
Speaker 4: I'm thinking, like I still like, like I'm trying to
Speaker 4: We won twenty eight games, my frint like, I you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. I'm still got a lot to learn.
Speaker 4: But that first year was crazy, man, Like it was
Speaker 4: you know, you shoot, you got commercials endorse. They would
Speaker 4: try to call me the next Jordan, but I thought
Speaker 4: it was foolish. But I leveraged that. And what I
Speaker 4: mean by that is I monetize. I got turned down
Speaker 4: the deals. But you know, it was hard because we
Speaker 4: were losing and you go in college where every year
Speaker 4: you feel like you have a chance to win a
Speaker 4: championship and and now all of a sudden, you're losing
Speaker 4: more games than you've you know, lost in a lifetime.
Speaker 4: So that that first year was kind of bittersweet. But
Speaker 4: I felt like with Allan Houston, with Lindsay that we
Speaker 4: had a promise in future and you know, just wanted
Speaker 4: to get better the next year.
Speaker 1: What was your welcome to the NBA moven Obviously a
Speaker 1: lot of success your first year, but what was your
Speaker 1: kind of your welcome to the league moment? Was it
Speaker 1: a team? Was it a player? Was it a play?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I just think out the gates, man, like just you know,
Speaker 4: coming in and like establishing myself, being able to do
Speaker 4: what I wanted. I felt like it was easier than
Speaker 4: the college game. I think making then All Star Game
Speaker 4: my first year like that was probably like like man,
Speaker 4: like I'm here, you know, But there wasn't like one
Speaker 4: signature play or moment or game or anything like that.
Speaker 4: I think just out the Gate, coming in and putting
Speaker 4: up work and having success.
Speaker 3: It's like a dream come true. You know, I didn't
Speaker 3: you understand.
Speaker 4: I talk about it in the book, like I lacked
Speaker 4: self confidence, Like I didn't have great confidence in myself.
Speaker 4: And I also didn't want to stand out growing up.
Speaker 3: And I.
Speaker 4: Had to get comfortable stepping into greatness. I had to
Speaker 4: get comfortable with that kind of responsibility. And my last year, Duke,
Speaker 4: I think I really kind of got to that point,
Speaker 4: which helped me when I got to the league. But
Speaker 4: so all that attention, like that wasn't something that I
Speaker 4: that I coveted, you know what I'm saying. And so
Speaker 4: it was a little bit you know, now you got money,
Speaker 4: you got fame, you're young, you got a.
Speaker 3: Little bit, you know.
Speaker 4: So it was it was a little it was a
Speaker 4: little wild that first year, and but you know it
Speaker 4: was it was fun though.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't lie. You know.
Speaker 1: You recall your first game against so MJ was retired
Speaker 1: your rookie year, right, he was. That was the year
Speaker 1: he missed.
Speaker 3: He came back through the end of the year.
Speaker 1: End of the year. Yeah, so what was your first
Speaker 1: match up with him?
Speaker 3: Like, man, I just wanted to go at him.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: I played against him with the Dream Team, but I
Speaker 4: didn't really go against him, and I crossed him up.
Speaker 4: I remember, I was like geeked about that and we
Speaker 4: lost the game. But you know, to go against Jordan
Speaker 4: like that was that was. I'll tell this man, Jordan was.
Speaker 4: It has always been good to me, like he always would,
Speaker 4: you know, we go out, we go eat, you know.
Speaker 3: He he.
Speaker 4: I think because he lost his dad, and I think
Speaker 4: he liked my dad, my dad, and so you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was me or what, but
Speaker 4: he always and he talked trash about Duke Carolina and
Speaker 4: all that, but he was always was good to me.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you know, I mean I try to go
Speaker 4: at you. I didn't guard him a lot. I'll tell
Speaker 4: you it was funny. So the summer after my rookie year,
Speaker 4: you you weren't at u C l A man, y'all
Speaker 4: Chris Johnson man, they ran ran LA after y'all.
Speaker 3: Won the championship.
Speaker 4: So I'm out in l A and I'm filming Living
Speaker 4: Single and they created that bubble and I go over
Speaker 4: there to play against Jordan's and I played the first
Speaker 4: day and I'm giving him the business like I am killing,
Speaker 4: Like I'm not a shooter, but everything I'm shooting is
Speaker 4: going in. I'm like, I'm crossing him up. So we're
Speaker 4: on the lot. They built this bubble. He's got a
Speaker 4: cord and I'm going at Jordan's and I'm giving he
Speaker 4: wants to guard me, I'm giving him the building.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: In fact, it was I had the shoes on my
Speaker 4: my g H two's and he had his Jordan tens.
Speaker 4: But the pattern we both had patent.
Speaker 3: Level and up.
Speaker 4: Man, I'm killing them like I mean, like like after
Speaker 4: I'm calling my boys afterwards, like, man, I'm killing George,
Speaker 4: like he's too little, like all this stuff. And so
Speaker 4: the next day I come over and I'm confident now
Speaker 4: you know, I'm man. He gave me the bit like
Speaker 4: it was like the next the next day and I
Speaker 4: couldn't get a shot off. He was all that footwork
Speaker 4: and you know, he was just But that was the
Speaker 4: best runs, I mean not just in LA. Maybe the
Speaker 4: best runs in the country were in that bubble. And
Speaker 4: you had Reggie, you had Reggie Miller, you want Howard,
Speaker 4: you had a bunch of Dennis Robman, All the U c.
Speaker 1: L a.
Speaker 3: Guys were there.
Speaker 4: Toby Bailey might have been the biggest celebrity in LA
Speaker 4: this summer. And but yeah, Jordan's that was that was
Speaker 4: a fun, fun summer right there. And had had my
Speaker 4: moment against him, Jay I'm talking about I'm talking about
Speaker 4: giving him business like yeah.
Speaker 1: Y'all, yeah, yeah, I know you Monest too, so you
Speaker 1: was really probably given him that ship. But he's not
Speaker 1: gonna talk like that.
Speaker 2: We want to go in nineteen ninety six in the
Speaker 2: Atlanta Olympics, How was it traveling and being with those
Speaker 2: guys with that team Let's name that team because that Barkley,
Speaker 2: Penny Keen, Reggie, Pippin Stockton, all those guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of personality, Shack, Reggie, GP, Charles like
Speaker 4: it was. It was, but the best part with the
Speaker 4: practices and we didn't do much. We discrimmaged. So I
Speaker 4: got a chance to go against Scotty every day and
Speaker 4: you know that was that was crazy, Like Scotty was great,
Speaker 4: but I got I got confident playing against Scotty and
Speaker 4: to me, he was the gold standard.
Speaker 3: At that point.
Speaker 4: But it was crazy, man, Like it was. I was
Speaker 4: there with Shaq when he left to go to LA
Speaker 4: and they had the article in the Sentinel on Orlando.
Speaker 4: We were in Orlando practicing and they basically had a
Speaker 4: survey s should they pay Shack or not. I was
Speaker 4: on the bus for Shack and he was in the
Speaker 4: back and he was like, I can't believe that they
Speaker 4: don't want me. And I was like, man, go out west,
Speaker 4: go to La Man, like, you know, we're trying to
Speaker 4: get that big one out the east, you know. But
Speaker 4: I couldn't believe that they would let Shaq go because
Speaker 4: he was so dominant at the time.
Speaker 1: And they really voted not to pay him. They didn't
Speaker 1: pass that was I know they didn't pay him, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying there was a there was.
Speaker 4: The paper did a survey, right the Magic paid Shack
Speaker 4: or not?
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be the first hundred million dollar
Speaker 1: deal or something like that or.
Speaker 4: And Shaq's big thing was Alonzo got like one hundred
Speaker 4: and ten, and he was like, if Alonzo's a BMW,
Speaker 4: I'm a Porsche. And so if he's getting one hundred
Speaker 4: and ten, I should get one hundred and twenty five.
Speaker 4: And so fans there voted, I don't know the survey whatever,
Speaker 4: but it was unanimous no. And and so that was crazy.
Speaker 4: But so just being with those guys, man, it was good.
Speaker 4: I remember, you know, we went out a couple of times.
Speaker 4: It was a little wild and you.
Speaker 1: Know, pre camera phones and pre camera so y'all was safe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I look, I'm gonna just say that Scottie
Speaker 4: I went out with him one night and they threw
Speaker 4: a party in all Lando. Now I didn't drink at
Speaker 4: this point. I didn't drink till I met my wife.
Speaker 4: But true story. But so I wasn't drinking and so
Speaker 4: we went out. We went to a Scotty's Hammer. You
Speaker 4: know he's drinking. We go back to his Uh we
Speaker 4: go back and play cards all night until about six
Speaker 4: seven blu Ray till like six seven in the morning.
Speaker 4: We got practice at ten. I get there. I'm the
Speaker 4: youngest guy on the team.
Speaker 3: I have nothing. Scotti is like this dude.
Speaker 4: Like I was like, I don't know how, but he
Speaker 4: and MJ that's the roll man. So I had a
Speaker 4: lot to learn.
Speaker 3: But no, it was great.
Speaker 4: It was you know, we went a gold medal and
Speaker 4: play with those guys was was was a big thrill.
Speaker 1: What international players caught your eye run the time.
Speaker 4: Oscar Schmidt, he was older at that time, but he
Speaker 4: was giving me the business. You know, he was tall,
Speaker 4: he about six y nine and could shoot a quick trick,
Speaker 4: big dude, and so he could play. But you know, man,
Speaker 4: look we dominated everybody. I mean, it was a true story.
Speaker 2: Did you play against Andrew Gays, Yeah, Australia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wasn't worried about him. He was older at
Speaker 3: that point.
Speaker 4: But in the Olympics, true story. Nobody wanted to be
Speaker 4: the leading scorer because you got drug tests and so yep,
Speaker 4: the only person that got drug tested every game was
Speaker 4: Karl Malone. It was Karl Malone and whoever the leading
Speaker 4: scorer was. We figured it out after a couple of games.
Speaker 4: So at the end of the games, everybody's passing to
Speaker 4: each other because nobody wants to shoot, and it looks
Speaker 4: like we're being like real unselfish, but nobody wanted to
Speaker 4: score because it took, you know, another hour of drug
Speaker 4: testing and all that.
Speaker 3: So but it was crazy. It was crazy.
Speaker 2: I would have dodged that too. How and where did
Speaker 2: you celebrate your goldmelo?
Speaker 4: You know, that's when to me and I started. That's
Speaker 4: when we kind of met before that. So after the
Speaker 4: gold medal, I got a suite at the Bell Air
Speaker 4: for five weeks and that's what we were for five weeks.
Speaker 4: She was living in l A. And five weeks before
Speaker 4: the season, now I was in la at the bell
Speaker 4: Hotel telling had you open?
Speaker 3: She had? I had her.
Speaker 4: The books called game Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ninety six the gold medal team or the Dream Team?
Speaker 1: Who win it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean we had six guys from that original team.
Speaker 4: We didn't have MJ.
Speaker 1: You practiced. Did you practice with the Dream Team as
Speaker 1: a son two?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: We been right, Web me Web Hurley, Penny Mash Rodney Rogers, Montrosse,
Speaker 4: Allan Houston. So we played him the first game in
Speaker 4: ninety two and La Joya Alan hit about ten threes.
Speaker 4: Bobby was getting wherever he wanted. Penny and I were
Speaker 4: dunking everywhere. In transition, where was a beast?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Where was just.
Speaker 4: Killing them dudes, Like to the point where Larry Bird
Speaker 4: was like, if that's what's coming in the league, I
Speaker 4: need to get out, damn. But then the next day,
Speaker 4: the next two days they smacked us. We had no
Speaker 4: But that to me was a was a great gauge.
Speaker 4: You know that I could play at that level. But
Speaker 4: I like that you know, look, man, we competitors. Man,
Speaker 4: you always feel like you can win, man, Like that.
Speaker 4: That's the thing about sports man. You always feel we
Speaker 4: had shocked. What were they gonna do with Shack? Yeah,
Speaker 4: Penny was like right. People don't realize and appreciate how
Speaker 4: good Penny and Shack alone, and so we you know,
Speaker 4: we Veggie Mitch.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know we would have held on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: definitely held on.
Speaker 1: Your run from ninety four to two thousand was unprecedented,
Speaker 1: five consecutive of all NBA selections twenty one, eight and
Speaker 1: six over that span. Did you feel personally, and you
Speaker 1: just said, you're a competitor, you felt like you were
Speaker 1: the best player in the league at that time.
Speaker 4: Every time I stepped on the floor, probably after like
Speaker 4: around ninety six, I felt like I was the best player.
Speaker 4: And I think, I don't think that's unusual. I know,
Speaker 4: every time this guy stepped on the court, you felt like.
Speaker 2: You were the best player, even if I if I
Speaker 2: even if I knew I wasn't you finna see it
Speaker 2: all on me here, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Like you have like to me, like I went against MJ.
Speaker 4: Like I'm thinking he got to guard me, and you
Speaker 4: have to have that mentality.
Speaker 3: You have to have it.
Speaker 4: And I think when you're top, when you just enderly,
Speaker 4: you gotta like even me, man, you didn't score twenty
Speaker 4: thirty points a game. But then when you're getting out there,
Speaker 4: you competing, you gotta feel like I'm gonna shut this
Speaker 4: guy down. I'm gonna bus is that like, you have
Speaker 4: to have that mentality. So I did, and when I
Speaker 4: got hurt, and in those four years, I lost that
Speaker 4: and y'all never got a chance to really see that
Speaker 4: that player in person. But you go four years of hurt,
Speaker 4: you know, I know we'll get in to it. We
Speaker 4: get four years of injuries, you start to question yourself,
Speaker 4: your abilities, your body's ability to stay healthy. And instead
Speaker 4: of feeling like I'm the best player, I'm just happy
Speaker 4: to be out here, which is a beautiful thing to
Speaker 4: have that appreciation.
Speaker 3: But I lost that edge.
Speaker 4: I lost that like and physically I lost a whole
Speaker 4: lot as a result as well. So four years it
Speaker 4: just you know, you're like, I remember during that time,
Speaker 4: it was back maybe an four.
Speaker 3: I went.
Speaker 4: I was at Duke and Coach k it was a
Speaker 4: year I sat out. He was like, who are the
Speaker 4: top five players in the league, and I was like,
Speaker 4: shag kobe A, I'm naming guys. He said, okay, who
Speaker 4: the next five? And I go through, I give me
Speaker 4: the next ten, and so I started naming all these
Speaker 4: guys and he's like, you name twenty guys. You didn't
Speaker 4: name yourself. And so I didn't quite at the time
Speaker 4: like understand. But looking back at it, like I had,
Speaker 4: it was so demoralizing, like going through that that when
Speaker 4: I came back, it was like, let me just like
Speaker 4: get in where I could fit in. And like I said,
Speaker 4: I enjoyed it. I was grateful to be able to play,
Speaker 4: but I lost that mental that mental side.
Speaker 1: Explained because like I said, it happened a while ago,
Speaker 1: like you really explain your injuries and how bad your
Speaker 1: ankle situation really got, because I don't think people understand
Speaker 1: the extent of your injury.
Speaker 4: And he came back still dunking on people barely. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's a long story and I get into it in
Speaker 4: the book, but you know, I I got hurt in
Speaker 4: Detroit and it was a comedy of errors, like it
Speaker 4: was just it was mismanaged, the whole thing, and you know,
Speaker 4: I got heard we didn't diagnose it correctly, I think,
Speaker 4: and it was probably a hairline fracture. Got worse and
Speaker 4: worse until I broke it, and then when I went
Speaker 4: to Orlando.
Speaker 1: Was see it. So that was the season before Orlando.
Speaker 1: Correct that was my last year in Detroit.
Speaker 4: Had surgery, But the surgery shouldn't have been It wasn't
Speaker 4: a big deal, like every team was still coming after me.
Speaker 4: I was healing when I got to Orlando. I was
Speaker 4: supposed to be out till December January, but they brought
Speaker 4: me back in September, and so there was some miscommunication.
Speaker 4: I ended up getting what was called a non union.
Speaker 4: So the best way to explain that is that if
Speaker 4: these two fingers are one bone and they break, doctors
Speaker 4: put the bones back together. They put plates in there
Speaker 4: to hold it to let it heal. And what happened
Speaker 4: with me. They healed, but they healed as two separate bones.
Speaker 4: That's called a non union. That becomes a problem. That
Speaker 4: took three years to heal so and three more surgeries.
Speaker 4: And so if we had just followed the protocol that
Speaker 4: was established, maybe that would have been avoid I can't
Speaker 4: say that with absolute accuracy, but so that's kind of
Speaker 4: what happened now the fourth surgery in total, I got septic.
Speaker 4: I thought I almost died. I had a hold of
Speaker 4: my ankle from a staff infection. You've seen the ankles nasty.
Speaker 4: The doctor said, if the if the skin the free
Speaker 4: flap surgery, they took skin from my arm and sort
Speaker 4: of used it as a patch over my ankle. If
Speaker 4: it didn't take, they would have had to amputate the
Speaker 4: leg and.
Speaker 1: So not the ankle of the leg, yeah, like the
Speaker 1: lower part of the leg.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 4: We didn't have social media, we didn't have the ability
Speaker 4: to tell what was going on. So I think a
Speaker 4: lot of people didn't know how big it was, how
Speaker 4: serious it was. And so I go through all of
Speaker 4: that in the book. It was four or five years
Speaker 4: of just craziness. But so that's why you lose that,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. You just like man, I
Speaker 4: almost died, Like at one point I didn't want to
Speaker 4: come back, But you just like man, I'm just I'm
Speaker 4: just happy to be.
Speaker 1: What age are you? Not to cut you off? What
Speaker 1: age are you at that time?
Speaker 4: Two thousand, I'm twenty seven, damn righting your prime? And
Speaker 4: you know what's crazy? Man, like writing this book, like
Speaker 4: going through it all. And I talked to you earlier
Speaker 4: about like you got to stay in the moment, like
Speaker 4: you can't. I didn't deal with with all of the
Speaker 4: baggage mentally, emotionally. I was just trying to fight to
Speaker 4: keep playing, getting into the hall of fame in that
Speaker 4: moment you reflect, you reflect writing your story. I dealt
Speaker 4: with it then, and so like a lot of that,
Speaker 4: like you know what I'm saying, A lot of that
Speaker 4: that's heavy.
Speaker 3: It was dark.
Speaker 4: Even the hall of fame. The hall of fame should
Speaker 4: be like the you know, the icing on the cake.
Speaker 4: The ultimately, regardless of what happened or didn't happen, it
Speaker 4: validates you.
Speaker 3: And I was mad.
Speaker 4: I was bitter because I'm thinking, y'all only got six years.
Speaker 4: Y'all didn't get I didn't get a chance to see
Speaker 4: this all the way through, right, And so I didn't
Speaker 4: deal with that until after my career because you I'm fighting, man,
Speaker 4: I'm just trying to stay on the court.
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 4: You're not gonna really look back at the good and
Speaker 4: the bad while you're in the midst of.
Speaker 1: I say this because you are a big brother, like
Speaker 1: you're the biggest what if ever, like we all look
Speaker 1: like you were the next prototype. They were fitting you
Speaker 1: to be the next MJ because that's how talented you were,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And it's just like to
Speaker 1: hear you kind of explain your story on what you
Speaker 1: went through, like you were robbed, We were robbed, Like
Speaker 1: you were going where no one has really been for
Speaker 1: your size, your position and what you brought to the game.
Speaker 1: So I always wanted to know, like, obviously we're cool
Speaker 1: and I've known you for years and my big brother,
Speaker 1: but we've never got that in depth, right, Like I
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine, like you said, you finally unloaded that baggage
Speaker 1: twenty plus years later. Yeah, because like you were on
Speaker 1: pace to be want to be if not, you know what,
Speaker 1: who knows one of the greatest players of all time
Speaker 1: and to have injury derail that, Like it's just I
Speaker 1: always That's why I'm definitely gonna read this, but just
Speaker 1: to as fuck the basketball site. The mental side had
Speaker 1: to be not only on the court, but off the
Speaker 1: court in your personal life and all it just waited
Speaker 1: on you.
Speaker 4: It did, it did, and you know, everybody's got something
Speaker 4: and everybody goes through something. And sometimes I don't want
Speaker 4: to equate this because there's people who have far more
Speaker 4: traumatic things in their life. But sometimes we suppressed that.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you suppress it to survive, but ultimately you get
Speaker 4: through it by acknowledging it and dealing with it. And
Speaker 4: so I never unpacked it, and I didn't realize. I
Speaker 4: didn't realize how much of it impacted me. Man Like
Speaker 4: I didn't think that, like because I used to say
Speaker 4: to myself, like coming back from the injury, playing nine
Speaker 4: more years, that's far greater than anything I did privor
Speaker 4: because I know what I went through, but I don't
Speaker 4: think I really unpacked like how how hard that was
Speaker 4: for me and how difficult that was to go through that,
Speaker 4: and you know, genetics, hard work, whatever, But like I
Speaker 4: had a chance, you know, you have a chance to
Speaker 4: leave a legacy, and I and I think I did.
Speaker 4: I mean, I had a great career, but I had
Speaker 4: a chance to be really really special. And it's interesting, man,
Speaker 4: Like I'm being honest here, Like when the NBA seventy
Speaker 4: five came out, yes, thank you, tam mag you know
Speaker 4: the events. I mean, there was a bunch of Dwight
Speaker 4: come on to white man like Carrie, No, No. So
Speaker 4: I kind of like and maybe this is a way
Speaker 4: to like protect myself. But I was like, you know what,
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 3: I got hurt.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't have I didn't see it. All
Speaker 4: the way through the Hall of Fame is college and NBA.
Speaker 4: So my college helped get me in. So my body
Speaker 4: of work wasn't enough. So I kind of justified it.
Speaker 4: But just tell me, I'm being honest. So I'm at
Speaker 4: the All Star Game in Cleveland and I'm working that night,
Speaker 4: I'm working the pregame, that the post game and all
Speaker 4: that goes on, and it hit me then and that
Speaker 4: was I got. I was emotional, and it was I
Speaker 4: was surprised. I was emotional. You know, you're trying to
Speaker 4: protect You're not trying to show it, but you're feeling like, like, fuck,
Speaker 4: I should.
Speaker 3: Be out there.
Speaker 4: And I remember twenty five years ago, I was in
Speaker 4: that building for the fiftieth and it was All Star
Speaker 4: weekend and I said, you know what, if they ever
Speaker 4: do this again, I'm gonna be on the next team.
Speaker 4: And when I was there, and no disrespect to these
Speaker 4: guys because they deserving to be on it.
Speaker 3: I'm fans of this their brothers of mine. I love
Speaker 3: them to death.
Speaker 4: But when I saw people like you know, guys from
Speaker 4: my era like Ray and Reggie, and I used to
Speaker 4: be like, man, I used to get him the business,
Speaker 4: like that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 3: And so I had, you know, and and they're deserving it.
Speaker 4: So I'm not trying to so that it like it
Speaker 4: hit me and so like this still baggage, Like it's
Speaker 4: still you know what I'm saying, and so, but it
Speaker 4: kind of triggered me a little bit.
Speaker 3: But you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Look, I mean, you're better than Danny Shad's bro. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry man, when you said Shades, you're better than Dolph Shades.
Speaker 2: I want to I was nicer than Dolph Shades. Look,
Speaker 2: you got given respect for his time.
Speaker 4: But look, I want to say something about y'all man,
Speaker 4: because I know y'all interviewing me, but.
Speaker 3: I played.
Speaker 4: First of all, I remember, Matt, I watched you play
Speaker 4: during the lockout and U c l A and I
Speaker 4: remember hearing you a football player. And then fast forward,
Speaker 4: I think it was old seven y'all had y'all running
Speaker 4: at Golden State, and I'm like, who is this light
Speaker 4: skinned crazy motherfucker ran the court and chaid Devin somebody,
Speaker 4: and I was like, Yo, this dude is crazy, Like
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. But then I played with
Speaker 4: you and and people get to see the different sides
Speaker 4: of you guys now. But the thing that that showed
Speaker 4: me a lot about you was when our teammate Barbosa
Speaker 4: and his mother passed and your mom had unfortunately from
Speaker 4: can I'm not trying to bring it up, but like,
Speaker 4: and I know that was hard for you, but to
Speaker 4: see you there for him and he's crying, he's going
Speaker 4: through it, and like I didn't know how to be
Speaker 4: supportive because I hadn't really gone through it. But I
Speaker 4: was like, Yo, this dude like mad, like all that
Speaker 4: other stuff and all the stuff that you've gone through.
Speaker 4: I played with you with the Clippers. You come into
Speaker 4: the aid of a teammate, always all your stuff, all
Speaker 4: your smoke. It was defending a teammate. And then this
Speaker 4: dude right here, the same thing in the palace. You
Speaker 4: come into the to the aid of coming to the
Speaker 4: aid of a teammate. Everybody I didn't play with you stacked,
Speaker 4: but everybody that's played with you that I know thanks
Speaker 4: to the world of you, and so I was like,
Speaker 4: like as teammates and guys like I could be in
Speaker 4: the trenches with these two. Right here, I was with Mad.
Speaker 4: I didn't you know I played one. We was a
Speaker 4: little messed up in Phoenix, but in l A, I
Speaker 4: didn't play.
Speaker 1: I watched you imagined that real quick. In the Phoenix shit,
Speaker 1: they fired Terry Porter at All Star break, that was
Speaker 1: our coach. First of all, I'm going, I'm so, I'm
Speaker 1: going to come out that we believe season Nelly Mad
Speaker 1: I don't sign a three year deal, so he gets
Speaker 1: rid of me. I'm going in there and geez there
Speaker 1: and I'm telling I tell him, remember yo, Honor, You're
Speaker 1: my favorite play. I don't know if I made him
Speaker 1: feel old at the time, but I'm.
Speaker 4: Going to tell him that during the game Grant Hill,
Speaker 4: first of all, first of all, it was crazy and
Speaker 4: they fired him, and and yeah, we had too much
Speaker 4: town man. That was that we had so much. We
Speaker 4: should have been remember stat Cockta Cock, superhero Ja.
Speaker 3: We had.
Speaker 1: We had so much.
Speaker 4: But the crazy thing was with this dude right here.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you remember this. We played We
Speaker 4: played in Orlando, and I think after the whole thing
Speaker 4: in the past. That was O four oh five, and
Speaker 4: then six I got I had a it's Hernias. I
Speaker 4: don't know if we played against each other until six
Speaker 4: o seven and we're in Orlando and I'm guarding there
Speaker 4: and we're right on the sidelines and somebody yelled something
Speaker 4: slick out to you about you know too.
Speaker 3: I turned around and cursed him out. Yeah you remember that.
Speaker 3: I remember that I cursed him out. And I didn't
Speaker 3: know how.
Speaker 4: We didn't know each other, but because I'm I gotta
Speaker 4: guard this dude, and I don't need you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, But like, but I I and so and
Speaker 4: then we played the next year, I think at Golden
Speaker 4: State was in Phoenix, and.
Speaker 3: Man, y'all ran up and down the court like that year.
Speaker 1: I was like, I mean, I was fun.
Speaker 4: It was fun. But like I always said, he was
Speaker 4: top three four guys, I had to go. I could
Speaker 4: never figured him out. I couldn't figure Jack out. But
Speaker 4: I couldn't. I couldn't had a different game. You could
Speaker 4: shoot it, you played with it. You couldn't speed you up.
Speaker 4: You shot it, you know, behind your head it And
Speaker 4: I was I could not I could guard I had
Speaker 4: a you know, you couldn't guard guys, but you had
Speaker 4: a playbook for God, Like, Okay, I'm gonna you know, Lebron,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna try to do this, or Mellow, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't do anything with Kobe like I mean,
Speaker 3: I couldn't.
Speaker 4: You know. I'm out there with one leg and they
Speaker 4: gotta be out here thirty eight trying to guard Kobe.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at Matt like you was getting after it though.
Speaker 4: I mean, but but but I couldn't. It was I
Speaker 4: couldn't figure you out. Man. I pierced like I could.
Speaker 4: I had a game plan for and I actually did
Speaker 4: well against these guys. But people don't appreciate how good
Speaker 4: you were. I think those that know get a bucket. No, no,
Speaker 4: I've always told you that.
Speaker 1: I want to backtrack a little bit. So you go
Speaker 1: to Orlando. This is you T mac and a possibility
Speaker 1: of getting Tim Duncan at the time walk us through this.
Speaker 1: So you're going through injury and then and trying to
Speaker 1: get back on the court. You're teaming up with a
Speaker 1: young T mac uh and then there's whispers or rumors
Speaker 1: that you could possibly to get Tim So what.
Speaker 4: Happened was Tim and I went We had the same agent,
Speaker 4: so we went down together, and Tim, I think was
Speaker 4: more in at the time than I was. I was still,
Speaker 4: you know, I had New York, I had a couple
Speaker 4: of other teams I was looking at, but Tim wanted
Speaker 4: to be in Orlando if he were to leave. And
Speaker 4: so we were down there and they were hosting us,
Speaker 4: and they had just had a pretty good season Doc
Speaker 4: Rivers first year coaching. They were I think they were
Speaker 4: five hundred and so while we were there, like everything
Speaker 4: was going well, like it just felt like, Yo, this
Speaker 4: this could happen. And I know it's hard for people
Speaker 4: now to think of Tim Duncan anywhere else. He was
Speaker 4: after his thirty I think he won a championship in
Speaker 4: San Antonio. And I'm telling you, man, I remember it
Speaker 4: like it was yesterday. We're at dinner and Tim's girlfriend
Speaker 4: asked Doc a question, can wives and girlfriends travel on
Speaker 4: the team playing? And you got understand it back then
Speaker 4: that didn't happen. It happens now, but back then it
Speaker 4: didn't happen. So Doc said, no, it's a business trip
Speaker 4: that doesn't happen. I don't allow that now. I didn't
Speaker 4: know that San Antonio had started doing that.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, and so that's.
Speaker 4: Why because I'm thinking that's a bold question, Like I'm like,
Speaker 4: why is she asking that question? So but I didn't
Speaker 4: pay much attention to it. So we got back to
Speaker 4: the hotel that night, and it was funny because to
Speaker 4: me and I, we we're in the hotel almost like
Speaker 4: the hotel room was bugged.
Speaker 3: So we're whispering to each other, like you know, and
Speaker 3: she's like, he ain't coming. I said, what do you mean.
Speaker 4: She's like when she asked that question, her whole body
Speaker 4: language changed with that response, and I.
Speaker 3: Was like, nah, nah, no whatever.
Speaker 4: So anyway, we get back, we get back to Detroit's
Speaker 4: funny story. So it was too much I'm gonna crutch us.
Speaker 4: So I ended up saying, you know what, have the
Speaker 4: teams come visit me in Detroit? So New York comes
Speaker 4: in and they bring they bring Starr Jones, they bring
Speaker 4: like all these actors and actresses in. They got this
Speaker 4: tape they play, they got like Seinfeld brooksh she is
Speaker 4: and all these people like you know, you think you
Speaker 4: look at Orlando's like wait see, wait till you come
Speaker 4: to New York, like, and I always wanted to play
Speaker 4: in New York. So Leon, you know, the actor Leon talked,
Speaker 4: So I asked him about this. So he's on the video.
Speaker 4: He's like, gee, you think the women are nice in Detroit,
Speaker 4: wait till you come to New York.
Speaker 3: And so to me it was like, oh hell now.
Speaker 3: And so to this day we talked.
Speaker 4: She's like, man, you think that New York would have
Speaker 4: watched the tape and so anyway, you know, New York
Speaker 4: didn't happen. But and by then I was probably going
Speaker 4: to Orlando. But so then t Mac like the but
Speaker 4: there was a chance. As Tim was trying to figure
Speaker 4: it out, Tam Mac you know, he's from down there.
Speaker 4: So it just it was coming together that like all
Speaker 4: three of us might play together. And I didn't know
Speaker 4: how good t Mac was at that time, and so
Speaker 4: I didn't know. I didn't know until he got to Orlando.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god, this guy right here
Speaker 4: is incredible. So not being able to be healthy to
Speaker 4: play with Mac, it's something that we talk, he and
Speaker 4: I talk about all the time, just like wishing that
Speaker 4: we could.
Speaker 3: Have could have been could have done a t Mac
Speaker 3: and g.
Speaker 1: Despite all the injuries.
Speaker 2: You know how me and Matt feel about you, right,
Speaker 2: A lot of people, a lot of people feel the
Speaker 2: same way about you. And even though the injuries, you
Speaker 2: still had a Kobs career in our minds. The way
Speaker 2: we look at you, how when you go back and
Speaker 2: look when you go back and look at all that,
Speaker 2: what's your thoughts?
Speaker 1: Like? How grateful are you?
Speaker 2: You know, to make it through all that, the injury
Speaker 2: and still be able to come back and finish on
Speaker 2: a good note.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was special. I mean it was a good thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: On one hand, I didn't appreciate how good I was,
Speaker 4: and that sounds arrogant, but I didn't appreciate how good
Speaker 4: I was in Detroit because we went winning. And so
Speaker 4: the one thing I learned from this process of writing
Speaker 4: a book is when we have success, we got to
Speaker 4: celebrate that. There's a story. Two thousand All Star Games.
Speaker 4: So ninety nine we had a lockout, so we didn't
Speaker 4: have an All Star Game. Two thousand San Francisco, we're there,
Speaker 4: we play or I guess in Oakland the old old
Speaker 4: co arenas such as such a stupid story. So I'm thinking, Okay,
Speaker 4: Jordan's gone because in an All Star Game with Joe.
Speaker 3: We had to defer to him, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I mean just no one said it, but you just
Speaker 3: felt like unspoken, we.
Speaker 4: Got to get the ball, especially in ninety eight when
Speaker 4: Kobe was there, like they're going they had to like
Speaker 4: which I got issues with the whole the documentary. It
Speaker 4: was a great documentary, but it made it seem like
Speaker 4: I was scared, like we were on the bench, and
Speaker 4: what happened was in that game. Penny was hurt that year.
Speaker 4: He sat out the whole year, came back for two games,
Speaker 4: played in an All Star Game. He had GP Garden.
Speaker 4: It was it was Kobe and MJ. And then people
Speaker 4: forget Garnet was a three early in his career. So
Speaker 4: Garnett and I are matched up. So Penny didn't want
Speaker 4: to handle the ball because he's not healthy and he's
Speaker 4: got to go against GP. So I'm bringing the ball out.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was point forward, so I'm always back
Speaker 4: in transition. We're farting around. It's three on one. GP
Speaker 4: got Kobe and Garnet. He throwing lives. I'm back, so
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to be in the frame on these alleys.
Speaker 3: So and the time out. I'm like, yo, y'all got
Speaker 3: to get back because I'm out here on the island. Man,
Speaker 3: what he's doing these young boys, you know.
Speaker 4: And so the way it looked, it looked like I
Speaker 4: was like scared of and I had great respect for Kobe,
Speaker 4: but I wasn't scared of him. Then, you know, so
Speaker 4: two thousand All Star, so you know, the trainers always
Speaker 4: would carry your I had contacts then, so my trainer,
Speaker 4: Mike Abden, I are in Detroit, would always keep contacts
Speaker 4: so if I ran out, I would just go get
Speaker 4: something from him. So I only had one pair of contacts.
Speaker 4: In the day of the game, my one contact ripped
Speaker 4: and so I'm like, do I play with no contacts?
Speaker 3: I put one in and now I'm all screwed up.
Speaker 3: During the game, I threw a live to Vince. I
Speaker 3: promised you.
Speaker 4: I threw it over the backboard even like and so
Speaker 4: you know, and I remember something I told Chip England,
Speaker 4: who's you know, you know Chip from San Antoni. I
Speaker 4: told Chip, I said, oh man, it's always next year,
Speaker 4: like I'll wear you know next year.
Speaker 3: And so next year didn't happen.
Speaker 4: And so I say all that to say that you
Speaker 4: got to celebrate when we have success and life's not guaranteed,
Speaker 4: and we got to celebrate each other and celebrate yourself.
Speaker 4: I didn't do that when I was in Detroit because
Speaker 4: to me, I was chasing Isaiah and until we won,
Speaker 4: I didn't give myself permission to celebrate. And so being
Speaker 4: able to go back now and like you know what,
Speaker 4: I actually was all right because I don't. Here's the thing,
Speaker 4: you guys, remember that I remember trying to guard Kobe
Speaker 4: at thirty eight with a bad wheel. I remember like
Speaker 4: standing in the corner waiting for the ball to come
Speaker 4: to me. Like that's what I remember. I don't remember.
Speaker 4: I didn't remember those those those those years. And so
Speaker 4: the exercise of not just the dark, but also the light,
Speaker 4: the good, the positive, and and just appreciating that.
Speaker 2: As you said, a lot of people remember them full
Speaker 2: speed crossovers.
Speaker 1: Trust me, pull Steve coming at you.
Speaker 3: With the crossover.
Speaker 1: I remember when he got pippt and banged on it.
Speaker 3: Pippin was too light, man, he was like two fifteen.
Speaker 3: I could just you came right at it.
Speaker 1: Got For all you young people, google him, no, google him.
Speaker 1: What was the twenty ten playoff experience? Like with Steve Nash.
Speaker 1: That was the Western Finals round.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you played you? Was in you in Orlando?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, twenty we went to Orlando.
Speaker 4: We had a good year. You know, it was weird
Speaker 4: because we had as great as Shack was and his
Speaker 4: greatest Steve, where they didn't really mix. And so when
Speaker 4: Shaq left and Amari was healthy, and then Alvin Gentry
Speaker 4: was coaching us, we had a really good season. We
Speaker 4: were third seed and we beat Portland, we beat San Antonio,
Speaker 4: and then we faced that LA.
Speaker 3: They got us the first two games in LA. We
Speaker 3: beat him the first the next two.
Speaker 4: Games and in game five, man like we're right there
Speaker 4: on the ropes, ja Rich banks in the three to
Speaker 4: tie it. In overtime, Kobe gets a ball, a three
Speaker 4: pointer the one time he missed, the one time he missed,
Speaker 4: the shadow of me like in that situation, he air
Speaker 4: balled it. I'm right in his like, I'm right there
Speaker 4: in his face. He airballs it, but Metal World Peace
Speaker 4: gets the rebound. Jay Rich didn't box him out. He
Speaker 4: tip in and they win game five, and I don't
Speaker 4: know if emotionally we recovered. And then Kobe in game six,
Speaker 4: I mean he started cool, dude, and so here's the thing, man,
Speaker 4: so he you know he's doing he's doing this, and
Speaker 4: he always look with Kobe like like with Lebron. Like
Speaker 4: when I got it Lebron back then, my attitude was,
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna crash the offensive class and we shoot.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna find him. I'm not gonna let him get
Speaker 4: out in the open door full head of steam. So
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna let him turn the corner and go
Speaker 4: right and get to the rim. I'm gonna make him
Speaker 4: make contested jump shots. And I'm not gonna foul if
Speaker 4: he posts me up. Don't help because he beat you
Speaker 4: with his passing as much as so, like you know,
Speaker 4: he had a game plan and I actually did. Okay,
Speaker 4: I mean Lebron would have moments, but like you know,
Speaker 4: I didn't have a strategy for like, I didn't know
Speaker 4: what to do. And so sometimes man like I would
Speaker 4: just he go up a shot, I'll just hit his arm,
Speaker 4: like just hit his arm and just like you know,
Speaker 4: And the problem too is I couldn't go back at
Speaker 4: him because at my role, you know, in Phoenix, Nash
Speaker 4: had the ball in his hand. So I'm stuck in
Speaker 4: the corner and I'm not. You know, I'm not a
Speaker 4: spot up shooter, so he was hard to defend. But
Speaker 4: in that moment, man, like I a couple of times
Speaker 4: I guess right, Like, I'm like, like, he's gonna go right,
Speaker 4: he's gonna shot fake.
Speaker 3: I'm not, I know what he's gonna do. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: and then, you know, you know how hard it is.
Speaker 1: Saying this, and when you usually square it off agains him,
Speaker 1: you're saying that in your head as yours.
Speaker 4: I knew he wanted to go right, and I knew
Speaker 4: he had a great ball fake and I've seen him
Speaker 4: do it before. And so he at one shot right
Speaker 4: in front of our bench when he tapped Alvin on them,
Speaker 4: and so he hit a touch shot on me before that, and.
Speaker 3: I tried to denyme the ball, but he gets it.
Speaker 3: He goes right. I go with him. He shot faced.
Speaker 1: I don't go for it.
Speaker 4: I actually I get closer into him. I go up
Speaker 4: when he goes up. You know how hard it is
Speaker 4: to do a shot fate reload from.
Speaker 1: Three and somebody in your grip.
Speaker 3: And I couldn't be any closer to him without fouling. Man,
Speaker 3: this dude, Like I was like, I mean.
Speaker 4: I was actually proud of the defense I played, like
Speaker 4: I'm thinking I could have done anything other than just
Speaker 4: prevent him from getting the ball. But he was the
Speaker 4: best player I played against. And and I say this
Speaker 4: respectfully with Georgia, I didn't guard Jordan Pippen and I
Speaker 4: matched up, But the best player that I played against,
Speaker 4: hands down was Kobe. And one of my regrets, it's
Speaker 4: in the book and O seven. When I left Orlando,
Speaker 4: Phil Jackson called me three for him right, No, No,
Speaker 4: that was That was in Detroit. I don't know how
Speaker 4: true that was. I've heard that, but I don't know
Speaker 4: how true that was. But when I left Orlando, Phil
Speaker 4: called three times. I didn't call him back, and I'm thinking, oh,
Speaker 4: it's it's over in LA Kobe. You know, he's talking
Speaker 4: about buying them, and you know they you know they're
Speaker 4: imploding in the playoffs and all I got. I just
Speaker 4: thought the run was over in l A. And I
Speaker 4: ended up going to Phoenix in part to stay healthy.
Speaker 4: But I think Phil would have played me more more
Speaker 4: suited for my game. He liked tall guys that could handle,
Speaker 4: and I think he wanted me to come in and
Speaker 4: kind of be a primary ball handler or whatever. Me
Speaker 4: sitting in the corner was not my game, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. I mean I played it, I did
Speaker 4: my role, but like that wasn't who I was. And
Speaker 4: so I think now, like, man, if I had just
Speaker 4: that would have been interesting. We were number one in
Speaker 4: the West. But then they traded for Gasol and then
Speaker 4: later that that season and that was a game changer
Speaker 4: for the Lakers and they you know, you went on
Speaker 4: and had a great run.
Speaker 1: Yeah, played with some great teammates. Anyone, who's your favorite
Speaker 1: teammate during your.
Speaker 4: Career, Damn man, nineteen years, Man, that's that's you got
Speaker 4: a hell of a run. I think in Detroit, Lindsey Allen,
Speaker 4: those are my guys. We came in together, you know,
Speaker 4: and in Orlando was tough because I didn't play a
Speaker 4: whole lot.
Speaker 3: In Orlando.
Speaker 4: Jamior was good people, JAMMI you know, actually it's crazy,
Speaker 4: you know, you know who bonded and I bonded a
Speaker 4: lot because we were rehabing all the Damn time was
Speaker 4: Pat Garretty, Like we were hurt two years, so we spent.
Speaker 3: A lot of time together. You know, I enjoyed play.
Speaker 3: I mean, we didn't hang out. We didn't.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't partake, but I enjoyed bad man.
Speaker 4: Like that was I'm telling you, like just in terms
Speaker 4: of teammates doing whatever is needed, the ultimate teammates, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, Like people don't get enough credit
Speaker 4: for that. I'll give you enough credit for that, but
Speaker 4: like you should have started in that like with the
Speaker 4: Clippers that year, you know, but he came off the bench.
Speaker 4: You never never made a I remember seeing I remember
Speaker 4: seeing you at the facility, like you didn't have I
Speaker 4: don't think you had a.
Speaker 3: It was like late too.
Speaker 4: It might've been like August September and you were unsure
Speaker 4: where you were gonna sign, and you were in there
Speaker 4: just playing pickup ball every day and then you playing
Speaker 4: so well they brought you in. But like just like
Speaker 4: whatever's needed, you know what I'm saying, didn't complain, just
Speaker 4: did what he had to do. If something popped off,
Speaker 4: he was always in it, like he was there for
Speaker 4: your teammate. Like it's so but it's so many man,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, Nash was fun to play with.
Speaker 4: Barbosa was a good guy. Those Phoenish years were fun.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I had a favorite, but you know,
Speaker 4: Shack was fun man, Shack was crazy.
Speaker 1: Remember the Shack and lou Minton back and forth. Remember
Speaker 1: when Shack took his mouthpiece and put in his tights
Speaker 1: during shoot around.
Speaker 3: I was just talking with Shack about that last night.
Speaker 1: We talked about it on the show.
Speaker 3: It's the crazy man, Hey, man, Shock. I mean there's
Speaker 3: so many stories man, people.
Speaker 1: He writing on naked button naked, Remember writing on loose
Speaker 1: bike button naked.
Speaker 4: I'm an out of Shacked right here. But I remember
Speaker 4: one time week it's so bad man. Remember one time, man, Shack,
Speaker 4: It's so bad.
Speaker 3: Man. I don't even I can't repeat this. Man, Come on,
Speaker 3: you already started.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: You know we're in the showers after practice and he
Speaker 4: goes to Jay Rich, Ja, Rich, you got a fat
Speaker 4: ass man.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm like, how do you come back?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Like, what does j Rich do?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Shaq was just he was funny, He was nasty, crazy.
Speaker 4: He and we had poor Terry Porter.
Speaker 1: Man he had Remember we used to say the Bill
Speaker 1: Carr right average fifth what he used to break his status?
Speaker 4: So Terry Porter, we're in a film session and uh,
Speaker 4: we're watching film in the film room, and he stopped
Speaker 4: film saying shock, like, don't you think you could come
Speaker 4: over from the weak side and maybe block the shot
Speaker 4: right here? And Shaq would be like, TP, I'm top
Speaker 4: five all time in the NBA shot blocks. I think
Speaker 4: I know when I can block the shot.
Speaker 3: Like it was like the disrespect, the craziness, so calm,
Speaker 3: it's so calm. About a couple of times.
Speaker 4: He show up late. It's bad too, but he show
Speaker 4: up late for and nobody he was. It's just shot.
Speaker 3: It was shot.
Speaker 4: He shot late, and like, coach, I'm sorry, man. The
Speaker 4: passport truck tipped over on fifty one.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: They were Mexicans everywhere. That's why I'm late. He was
Speaker 3: just like he was sings man. It was it was
Speaker 3: constant humor, man, and and uh, he just kept it light.
Speaker 3: He was fun.
Speaker 4: It was crazy. We didn't make the playoffs, but you
Speaker 4: know he was in the time. I can't believe I
Speaker 4: told us stories, man, every day, every day. Every Bill
Speaker 4: Cartwright used to coach the bigs. Bill, I average so
Speaker 4: and so and so and so and so will go
Speaker 4: against you in this game. And my career number from
Speaker 4: high school to college and the pros. He would break
Speaker 4: off of Jim. I'm seventy percent lifetime from the field.
Speaker 4: Give me the damn ball, middle school, high school. I
Speaker 4: can't get in the car, right, I have thirty ten
Speaker 4: against him?
Speaker 3: Like he just just unbelievable. He was.
Speaker 1: All right, just like he was a mumble under his breath.
Speaker 3: Sha was funny.
Speaker 1: Fast forward co owner with the Hawks. How did you
Speaker 1: happen to land that spot? Congratulations?
Speaker 3: By the way, appreciate that when we were in LA
Speaker 3: I wasn't playing. I was hurt.
Speaker 4: Matter of fact, it was that December when you guys,
Speaker 4: when we were undefeated. We had a great month I had.
Speaker 4: I figured I was in l A. My family was
Speaker 4: in Phoenix. So once a month I would have dinner
Speaker 4: with this duke alum, a guy named Bruce Karsh and
Speaker 4: Bruce actually one of the partners with the Warriors, and uh,
Speaker 4: he's a Duke grad. So we were talking about the
Speaker 4: Clippers and I was like, you know, I think they
Speaker 4: might they might be in play. They may I'm here
Speaker 4: and they may have to sell the team for state
Speaker 4: tax reasons. So we kind of concocted this whole, this
Speaker 4: plan that we knew Adam was going to be commissioner.
Speaker 4: The next year, all three of us duke grads. Let's
Speaker 4: meet with Adam and see if we can get in
Speaker 4: through you know, maybe by peace to the team with
Speaker 4: the chance to buy it all later down the road.
Speaker 4: And then the next year everything in plubs. And so
Speaker 4: Bruce brought in a guy, Tony Wrestler, because he knew
Speaker 4: now it was going to be an open auction when
Speaker 4: the team was for sale, and we bid one point
Speaker 4: two billion dollars.
Speaker 3: And funny story.
Speaker 4: So I'm in New York with Bruce carrs Tony's in
Speaker 4: LA We're all on speakerphone and we're on the phone.
Speaker 4: They're gonna get mad that I told the story. We're
Speaker 4: on the phone and we're like, okay, one point two
Speaker 4: billion is gonna be our deal.
Speaker 1: That's that's for the Clippers.
Speaker 4: That's to buy the Clippers, which we were out bid
Speaker 4: by eight hundred million Steve Balmer.
Speaker 3: But we're on the phone.
Speaker 1: They're like all right.
Speaker 4: So Tony says, I'll put it in half a billion,
Speaker 4: and then Bruce says, I'll put it in half a billion,
Speaker 4: and then they look at me. So I swear I
Speaker 4: said I got five on it, like you know, just
Speaker 4: you know, I was being funny, but I told him
Speaker 4: my mount and they just want to know that I
Speaker 4: that I was going to put something in and you
Speaker 4: have to put something in. So but that didn't work.
Speaker 4: The Hawks came up right after similar circumstances, some racial overtones,
Speaker 4: some emails, so on and so forth, and I ended
Speaker 4: up getting Tony and convinced him on Atlanta. You know,
Speaker 4: I think the perception of Atlanta historically the franchise was
Speaker 4: just way off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just wasn't good.
Speaker 4: You played there, so it was, and so I felt
Speaker 4: like for me, my selling point was, we got a
Speaker 4: chance to come in in that value. You got a
Speaker 4: great city, international airport, quality of life. Guys liked to
Speaker 4: be in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: They love the living.
Speaker 3: Cost, the livings low. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: All of that, we got a chance to come in
Speaker 4: and change that narrative and build an emotional connection with
Speaker 4: the franchise. If you're from Boston and you're a basketball fan,
Speaker 4: there's a ninety nine percent chance you're a Celtics fan.
Speaker 4: But if you from Atlanta, you might be a Bulls fan.
Speaker 4: You might be so transient people really from there. So
Speaker 4: you know, we came in and you know, we do
Speaker 4: the arena practice facility, you know, try to create an atmosphere,
Speaker 4: try to understand Atlanta, embrace what Atlanta is. The previous
Speaker 4: ownership group, I thought it was too too much diversity,
Speaker 4: too black, you can say, I'll say too black. And
Speaker 4: so we've tried to embrace who we are. I love
Speaker 4: when you go to a game in Atlanta, you got
Speaker 4: people from all walks of life, you know, different political
Speaker 4: different ethnicities, different gender orientation, all there supporting the team.
Speaker 4: But we're building that. You know, we're trying to build it.
Speaker 4: And Trey Young having a young star is helpful. But
Speaker 4: but yeah, so we're changing that. We I don't know
Speaker 4: if you've been to a game in Atlanta, I know,
Speaker 4: I know you had. It's a party, man like man,
Speaker 4: it's a party at our game. We got concerts, we
Speaker 4: got to chains as a partner with the G League team.
Speaker 1: The food is unbelievable.
Speaker 4: For food, we got sweet sweet, we got amenity. We're
Speaker 4: trying to create an environment there. Barbershop we got to
Speaker 4: kill a mic. Got a barbershop. Let me tell you
Speaker 4: the genius of that. It's dead space that you could
Speaker 4: not sell. And so we said, let's make it a barbershop.
Speaker 4: We got a DJ in there. Just it's a whole
Speaker 4: energy in their whole vibe and so just embracing Atlanta.
Speaker 4: We try to reflect Atlanta and all that we do.
Speaker 4: And we got a lot more work to do, but
Speaker 4: excited about the progress we've made.
Speaker 1: Man, coming down the home stretch post career, you've been
Speaker 1: very successful. What are some other things you're into outside
Speaker 1: of ownership of that at Hawks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got a lot of my plate man, maybe
Speaker 4: a little too much, but I'm on this. I'm on
Speaker 4: the board of Campbell's Soup, so we you know, in
Speaker 4: our portfolio we have everything from Cape Cod Chips, Kettle Chips, obviously,
Speaker 4: Campbell Soup, Chunky Soup. I'm on the board of Empire
Speaker 4: State Realty Trust. We're on the Empire State Building. We
Speaker 4: love to have you guys come do a show Empire
Speaker 4: State Building. I personally host you that.
Speaker 3: We can make that happen. It's on me. We make
Speaker 3: that happen. We'd be honored.
Speaker 4: I managing director of USA Basketball, so I'll be picking
Speaker 4: the Olympic team. And you know, Steve Currz, our head
Speaker 4: coach for the next next cycle, what else am I doing.
Speaker 4: I'm on the board of Duke shoes coming back out,
Speaker 4: Shoes coming back out. Matter of fact, these this is
Speaker 4: a partnership right here with to State, So it's a partnership.
Speaker 4: These will be coming out. He wore these the g
Speaker 4: H two's on on all eyes on me. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: so so that really helped with the shoe. But yeah,
Speaker 4: just you know, keeping it busy man. We rebuilding downtown Atlanta.
Speaker 4: We're pointing four billion dollars into downtown Atlanta, and so
Speaker 4: trying to do like an l A live kind of
Speaker 4: in downtown Atlanta. So just staying busy man, you know,
Speaker 4: doing TV as well, trying to be.
Speaker 3: Like, y'all love it.
Speaker 1: Is it true? Anita Baker introduced you Intamya.
Speaker 4: Kind of yeah, yeah, kind of. So, so Isaiah has
Speaker 4: a jersey retired and Anita Baker sings the national anthem
Speaker 4: at the jersey at the game. So afterwards there was
Speaker 4: was a reception. I meet Anita Baker, so she and
Speaker 4: her husband. So she's like, you know, so I know
Speaker 4: you got a girl. I know you like breaking all
Speaker 4: the hearts and all this, and I mean I'm just like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I can't find you I'm struggling.
Speaker 3: I wasn't really struggle. I was like, I'm struggling. You know, this,
Speaker 3: that and the other, you know.
Speaker 4: And so so the next week she was at the
Speaker 4: Soul Train Awards and she met to Mia and to me,
Speaker 4: it was you know, from Windsor, which is right across
Speaker 4: the river from Detroit, big fan of Anita. So she
Speaker 4: was telling her this and he was, I got just
Speaker 4: the guy for you. So she kind of she planned
Speaker 4: at the seed I ended up connecting with to me,
Speaker 4: you know, a couple of months later. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: it's a good story to say Anita hook to say,
Speaker 4: it's largely true. Joy your oldest daughters.
Speaker 1: And as a father, what is that like watching your
Speaker 1: daughter punch people in the face and get punched in the.
Speaker 3: Dude, it's crazy. You have though you have girl? You
Speaker 3: two boys, but three boy? Excuse me.
Speaker 4: So she's you know, she started doing jiu jitsu, and
Speaker 4: as a parent, you think, okay, girl, young lady getting
Speaker 4: to go off to college learn self defense.
Speaker 3: That's a good thing.
Speaker 4: But that just kept going, kept going, and so right
Speaker 4: before COVID, she's like, Dad, I think I want to fight.
Speaker 4: So I got a buddy who's a general counselor at UFC.
Speaker 4: So I took her to a fight and we're sitting
Speaker 4: up close. I'm thinking, you know, she sees up close,
Speaker 4: she won't want to do it, you know. So we
Speaker 4: get this in North Carolina. We go to the fight,
Speaker 4: we fly home that night, we get into two am.
Speaker 4: I'm like, Milly, what do you think. She's like, Dad,
Speaker 4: I could be a champion.
Speaker 3: And I was like, backfight, like but play. It didn't work.
Speaker 4: But she kept going and she fought last. She fought
Speaker 4: last October. And I mean, she's passionate about it. And
Speaker 4: you know, like if somebody, if your parents tried to
Speaker 4: tell you couldn't play basketball anyway, you got to support
Speaker 4: your kids whatever they want to do.
Speaker 3: So let me tell you so to me and I.
Speaker 3: So she goes to the fight. She goes early.
Speaker 4: We drive from Orlando to Lakeland, Florida, by an hour drive.
Speaker 4: We don't say a word in a car. There's no music,
Speaker 4: no nothing on the rate. We're not saying it, but
Speaker 4: there's a nervous energy. We get to the fight. There's
Speaker 4: a bar man. We probably each had about eight rooming coaches.
Speaker 4: You just had to by the time she came on.
Speaker 4: She comes out her her walk out music was Rick Roksy'
Speaker 4: feeling good, The Devil was The Devil was a lie.
Speaker 4: So she comes out, you know, but we're like, now,
Speaker 4: we're like, this is your first time actually seeing it,
Speaker 4: first time seeing it.
Speaker 3: So she gets in the ring.
Speaker 4: She goes in first, the young lady she's fighting, who's
Speaker 4: fought before, who looks like she's been in some fights,
Speaker 4: you know, and so we're a little nervous about but
Speaker 4: like she gets she comes with studs in her ears
Speaker 4: and I said no, no, so they can't get him out.
Speaker 4: And so they're going through all this and trying to
Speaker 4: get him out. It's been ten minutes. So now we're
Speaker 4: kind of mad.
Speaker 1: It's the tactic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's stolling.
Speaker 4: So now to me, I won't repeat what to me
Speaker 4: it was saying, but it's what they say in Memphis
Speaker 4: a lot, and so and so anyway, she gets in
Speaker 4: the ring. She chokes her out with fifteen fifty seconds,
Speaker 4: and uh, you know, so she's into it, man, and
Speaker 4: you know, what do you do?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: You know, but she was flig and fliging.
Speaker 4: But she and she and she you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: she's quiet sweet kind, like the last person you would think.
Speaker 4: But dude, she goes six days a week, she teaches it,
Speaker 4: she loves it. She's a brown belt like she's she
Speaker 4: wants to fight, she wants to try to go for it.
Speaker 4: She wants to open up gems down the road. So
Speaker 4: she's got a plan and you know, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: You were always forward thinking in basketball, so much that
Speaker 1: you didn't have an agent.
Speaker 3: What did that?
Speaker 1: Where did that idea come from? And you were able
Speaker 1: to be successful.
Speaker 4: I realized early on that the NBA is a global
Speaker 4: marketing and public relations firm that's disguise as a league.
Speaker 4: We went to China, man, we went to China, and
Speaker 4: we were over there and people knew who we were.
Speaker 4: We go places recognize us, and that's because that's what
Speaker 4: the NBA does. And so I felt like I needed
Speaker 4: an attorney who could negotiate my contracts. But all the
Speaker 4: marketing opportunities I was coming from the league that was
Speaker 4: coming from different, you know, because the league's pushing young
Speaker 4: players and I was delivering early on. So why am
Speaker 4: I going to pay somebody ten and then why am
Speaker 4: I going to let them own that relationship? And leverage it.
Speaker 4: I want to sit with Coca Cola spray, I want
Speaker 4: to sit with Nestle, I want to sit with and
Speaker 4: talk about marketing plays, sit with the ad agency. A
Speaker 4: lot of times agents might leverage that, you know, for
Speaker 4: another car.
Speaker 3: So you know, I got hurt.
Speaker 4: All that momentum kind of went away, but it was
Speaker 4: invaluable experience, like having an office, having employees doing evaluations, raises,
Speaker 4: sitting in meetings talking about strategy like I'm doing all
Speaker 4: this while I'm playing, and it just helped, you know,
Speaker 4: helped me think about and learn about other things. So
Speaker 4: you know, it was fun and I had a good time.
Speaker 4: And you know, maybe if I had the muscle of
Speaker 4: a big time marketing firm, maybe things would have been
Speaker 4: a little different.
Speaker 3: But I had pretty well.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of deals real quick. Before we
Speaker 1: get to quick hitters. The spreading situation.
Speaker 4: I thought you were going to ask about, uh, like
Speaker 4: Biggie oh ship, Yeah, because you remember you asked me
Speaker 4: about that in LA Yeah, I talk about in the book.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the night did the night Biggie pass? Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk to us about that. Damn, I totally forgot about that.
Speaker 1: We just had we just had the photographer that go ahead.
Speaker 4: Were in La so here March eighth, because he died
Speaker 4: on the ninth, my birthday and night that's right, March ninth.
Speaker 4: And so we played the Clippers. We beat the Clippers.
Speaker 4: I did work, I did my thing, and so to
Speaker 4: MIA's label is throwing a party. So after the game,
Speaker 4: I go with Tamiya and I don't know if you
Speaker 4: know Jay Brown, so Jay was at the label. We
Speaker 4: get in the limo. We go back to Tomya's manager's house.
Speaker 4: First of all, I was the night that the first
Speaker 4: night that was the first time I heard hypnotized. It
Speaker 4: wasn't on the radio yet, but they had this and
Speaker 4: they kept saying Detroit players. You know, pick gators, mighty
Speaker 4: run that back run that back in the limo every time,
Speaker 4: you know, hearing that song.
Speaker 3: So we go to the party.
Speaker 4: Now I understand t and I have been together almost
Speaker 4: a year those first time we had been out publicly,
Speaker 4: and so we walk in and everybody turns like everybody's
Speaker 4: looking at us because they hadn't seen us out. But
Speaker 4: everybody was there. We saw Biggie, we saw Puffy.
Speaker 3: We went there long. We might have been there ten minutes.
Speaker 4: We might have left five minutes before they left, because
Speaker 4: when we left they were kind of near the door,
Speaker 4: and by the time we got back to tim Min's place,
Speaker 4: it had already circulated that he got killed, and so
Speaker 4: it was it was crazy.
Speaker 3: It was a little weird.
Speaker 4: Thinking that they were out there because it was still
Speaker 4: all that East coast West coast stuff. And shoot that
Speaker 4: even happened with Tamia, like she got caught up. We
Speaker 4: got caught up in a situation. She was in the
Speaker 4: studio working on her album. Stevie J. Produced one of
Speaker 4: the songs, and so before I got there, I'm with
Speaker 4: Jay Brown. We're Benny Hannahs and we're doing sock bombs,
Speaker 4: and so we come to the studio. So before we
Speaker 4: get there, they were in the commons room, Stevie J
Speaker 4: and his bodyguard and the outlaws or in the other studio,
Speaker 4: and so I guess they had words in the in
Speaker 4: the common area. Somebody pulled out a gun. So this
Speaker 4: all happens before we get there. So I show up,
Speaker 4: We get there, and ten minutes after we get there,
Speaker 4: police come in, rifles drawn, paint.
Speaker 3: We're all on the wall. I'm thinking like this R
Speaker 3: and B session, Like I'm like man this ain't rap.
Speaker 4: And so anyway, I found out what happened, and you know,
Speaker 4: we we I don't know what ultimately happened, but I
Speaker 4: say that that was that was probably the summer of
Speaker 4: ninety seven. So but it was just still tension, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. And so when we saw Biggie
Speaker 4: and them at the it was just like, I mean,
Speaker 4: I didn't think what happened would happen, but it.
Speaker 3: Was just it was it was weird. Energy was off. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was a weird knight. It was a weird knight.
Speaker 1: Five real quick before we get the quick hitters. The
Speaker 1: Grant Hill Drinks Sprite I mean to me, you know
Speaker 1: that and Little Penny are kind of what I remember
Speaker 1: growing up from, like athletes and commercials. So how did
Speaker 1: that come about? In the idea and behind the actual commercial?
Speaker 3: The idea it was kind of genius.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: It was basically, obey your thirst, don't let somebody tell
Speaker 4: you to drink it. And so we're making fun of
Speaker 4: Pitchment and uh and making fun of myself and so
Speaker 4: that was Sprite attaching himself, aligning himself with the NBA.
Speaker 4: You know, I got involved with that. So we had
Speaker 4: a We had a great run, did a lot of
Speaker 4: fun commercials. Even did a commercial with Kobe his second year.
Speaker 4: Crazy Story. We did a commercial together his second year
Speaker 4: during the season. I fly out to LA. Now I'm
Speaker 4: this point. I'm like, I'm the big you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. Yeah, He's like, it's like Midway, it's before
Speaker 4: the All Star break. But he's young, he's got a lot,
Speaker 4: he's having a great second year. I fly out to
Speaker 4: l A and we're gonna do this commercial where he's
Speaker 4: on He's on one shoulder, I'm on the other shoulder,
Speaker 4: and we're going back and forth with this kid. And
Speaker 4: and so when you do these commercials, you approve the
Speaker 4: script before you commit. So the script had been approved
Speaker 4: for a week. So I fly all the way out
Speaker 4: to LA on an off day. We get there and
Speaker 4: the director comes in and he says, Kobe wants to
Speaker 4: rewrite the script.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, he wants to what he wants to
Speaker 3: rewrite the script. I'm like all right.
Speaker 4: So they come back like thirty forty five minutes later.
Speaker 4: He got all the good lines. Now, he got all
Speaker 4: the good lines. And they're like and I'm like, look, nah,
Speaker 4: I said, man, look I come all the way out here,
Speaker 4: this is what I agreed to. If he wants to
Speaker 4: do this, I'm go looking back on the plane fly back.
Speaker 4: And so now meanwhile we're in trailers right next to week.
Speaker 4: You just could have gone and talked to each other.
Speaker 4: But that was cod Like, I kind of respect that
Speaker 4: he was bold enough to want to do that. And anyway,
Speaker 4: we went back. We did the script that we agreed to.
Speaker 4: But yeah, the Sprite stuff, man, that that was fun
Speaker 4: and and poking fun at people having pitchment was the
Speaker 4: whole premise behind the Spright campaign.
Speaker 1: So well, man, it's been a great interview. Quick hitters.
Speaker 1: First thing to come into mind. Let us know duke
Speaker 1: all time starting five including yourself, so you plus four
Speaker 1: all time dukes dukies.
Speaker 3: Man, I gotta go with Laden He did work, he
Speaker 3: was killed, a killer.
Speaker 4: He I think Lighton's top three, top five maybe all
Speaker 4: time in college just in terms of his accomplishments. Ladner,
Speaker 4: I gotta go with I gotta go with Johnny Dawkins
Speaker 4: because he kind of set it off. People don't people
Speaker 4: don't appreciate how talented he was. You gonna get me
Speaker 4: in trouble man.
Speaker 1: Two more.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna show the young fella some love. Jason Tatum.
Speaker 4: I think when it's all said and done, I think
Speaker 4: he's gonna be the best. And he might he might
Speaker 4: already be there. He I don't know if there was
Speaker 4: a more skilled guy coming in out of high school had.
Speaker 3: It all, you know, offensively that final spot. Kyrie, he was.
Speaker 4: Only there for nine days, and I know sometimes we
Speaker 4: claim him, sometimes we don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but talent, yeah he was.
Speaker 1: He was Kyrie, Kyrie Dawkins, yourself Latner Jason Tatum.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's nice five, nice five right there?
Speaker 1: What album can you listen to with no skips? Can't
Speaker 1: have your wife? No Brownie points here, Biggie's first album?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm ready.
Speaker 3: Born, No it born?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the little Baby on the front.
Speaker 3: Yep, that's my first. That's my favorite one right there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean you kind of already mentioned if you have
Speaker 1: a better story, but best Kobe or MJ's story off
Speaker 1: the court?
Speaker 4: Uh, Kobe probably like ninety eight. I go up one
Speaker 4: night to me is living. She's living on a wheelshow corridor,
Speaker 4: and I think we're engaged at this point and it's late,
Speaker 4: Like I go to the men's gym at u c
Speaker 4: l A maybe like midnight, and I'm I'm redoing my shots,
Speaker 4: so I'm changing my mechanics and I'm just going in
Speaker 4: there to douce, like just some set shots by myself.
Speaker 4: And I go in there and Kobe's in there and
Speaker 4: he's laughed up and he's got his guy, and so
Speaker 4: I'm down at the other end and he's like, you
Speaker 4: want to play one on one? And I didn't because
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm changing my shot, like I'm not, I'm
Speaker 4: not there yet, but I'm like, I got it.
Speaker 3: I can't. I can't say no. And so we played
Speaker 3: one on one and I'm telling you, it was like
Speaker 3: a game seven in like late July.
Speaker 1: Like it was.
Speaker 3: I don't think I played that intense in the summer.
Speaker 1: And he was like, he was me, you know what,
Speaker 1: second year's coming off? Second year ninety eight, he's ninety
Speaker 1: six draft a year.
Speaker 4: For the second year, and so like the work ethic
Speaker 4: and how hard like up until then, man like I
Speaker 4: didn't really work on my game and I just hooped
Speaker 4: to play pickup ball. And that summer was when I started, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna start like working and getting better and trying things.
Speaker 4: And that was the hard part because I did it
Speaker 4: in ninety eight, I did it in ninety nine, and
Speaker 4: then after that, I never I never worked on my
Speaker 4: game in the summer because I was hurt. I was
Speaker 4: trying to get healthy, and it finally got healthy, and
Speaker 4: now I didn't touch the ball in the summer. So
Speaker 4: those Phoenix years, I didn't know. I'm trying to preserve
Speaker 4: my ankle. So you know, going through having a strategy,
Speaker 4: working on stuff, all of that, Like, I enjoyed doing that,
Speaker 4: and a lot of it I got from being like
Speaker 4: watching this kid, his kid younger than me, grinding, like
Speaker 4: getting after it by himself. It's like a Friday night,
Speaker 4: I'm wiped up, I'm telling you know. You know, I'm
Speaker 4: just wanting to go get some shots up late at night,
Speaker 4: and he's in the gym going at it.
Speaker 3: And and so that was. That was a moment that
Speaker 3: that that I remember.
Speaker 1: That was I was like, man, this kid, I remember
Speaker 1: my freshman year ucl Is ninety eight, so he used
Speaker 1: to be on campus all the time. We see him
Speaker 1: normally during the day, at night working out playing.
Speaker 3: It was and and you know, he impacted a whole generation.
Speaker 3: Now that they do that work. They put that like
Speaker 3: you know, back in the day, you might go.
Speaker 4: In five spots, five makes I got some shots up,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But like he put the work in it. For sure.
Speaker 1: It's crazy question.
Speaker 2: But I know your game and I didn't seen you
Speaker 2: play so much and idolajah. Would you rather cross someone
Speaker 2: to dunk on someone? But I've seen you do that
Speaker 2: too many times in the same play.
Speaker 1: It go hand in hand. Yeah, for you to go
Speaker 1: in there, but put the questions say no, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: the favorite someone you crossed up and dunked on like
Speaker 1: that was your that was the ship, that was your
Speaker 1: patting the things. So you got a lot of people
Speaker 1: on that list.
Speaker 3: It was always it was always fun dunking on the Kimbag.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I got him a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Very few people got it.
Speaker 4: And he I used to tell him, I'm a clown,
Speaker 4: I'm anna climb Mountain Tumbo, I'm coming.
Speaker 3: And you don't know, you ain't gonna get me, and
Speaker 3: uh and so that back and forth.
Speaker 4: The thing about my Tumbo in morning, they jumped for everything,
Speaker 4: and even if they got jumped, a lot of guys
Speaker 4: won't won't come over shack. They won't come over, you know,
Speaker 4: they don't want to get posterized. But like the Kimbag,
Speaker 4: he came every time, every time, and he got got.
Speaker 3: He got got. You know, no question, no question for sure.
Speaker 1: Uh five dinners dead or alive? Was that five dinner
Speaker 1: guests dead or alive? You know what?
Speaker 3: You know? I was thinking, man, for my for my
Speaker 3: fiftieth to get five, like.
Speaker 4: Five rappers that like I grew up and having them
Speaker 4: over for dinner, like rock Kim Krs One Caine.
Speaker 1: People don't know you make beats, bro all you that
Speaker 1: grand is nice on the keys.
Speaker 4: I used to say about beats that I retired, man,
Speaker 4: because you know, to me it said I was. She
Speaker 4: called me quincy bones, called me pissed beats. She was like,
Speaker 4: you know, because you know, she she's like, where's the melody?
Speaker 4: Like you know, I'm like, look, look it's not it's
Speaker 4: R and B is a different you know. But her
Speaker 4: thing was, you're spending too much time doing it for
Speaker 4: not getting a check, you know. But I just I
Speaker 4: love it, man.
Speaker 1: I love music.
Speaker 3: And when I listened to a song, I don't listen
Speaker 3: to the lyrics.
Speaker 4: I listen to the music. Like what's the drum track,
Speaker 4: What's what's the bassline doing?
Speaker 3: What's so?
Speaker 4: You know I retired from making beats, but you make
Speaker 4: a beef for Rhapsody, Yeah, Rhapsody dunk. In fact, I
Speaker 4: went to the studio with nine Wonder back in the
Speaker 4: day and I was trying to I was trying to
Speaker 4: chop to Charalam Shalamar climax song, and I was I
Speaker 4: couldn't get what I wanted, So I put on to me,
Speaker 4: put on still, and I chopped up the beginning part
Speaker 4: and put some drums over it.
Speaker 3: And she heard it. She was in the studio, and
Speaker 3: she went in and put it on her mixtape before
Speaker 3: she before she blew up. And so but I always
Speaker 3: loved music.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna get five legends to come to your birthday?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I gotta.
Speaker 4: I gotta figure out to get five rappers that I
Speaker 4: grew up that were like and I know those three.
Speaker 4: I gotta figure the other two. But it'd be fun
Speaker 4: to bring them in and just just chop it up
Speaker 4: with them.
Speaker 2: Trick question, Uh, who would you like to see on
Speaker 2: All the Smoke? But but who would I like to
Speaker 2: see on our show? But you have to help us
Speaker 2: get your answer on the show.
Speaker 3: Get get that person on the show, Obama, I think
Speaker 3: that'd be cool.
Speaker 1: You heard what I said, though, right, you have to
Speaker 1: help us get that person on the show.
Speaker 3: Let me take somebody else.
Speaker 1: Think of somebody else, if anyone could probably get over,
Speaker 1: probably great to get it.
Speaker 3: Silver's been on right yet, Adam, Yeah, I think we
Speaker 3: can get that done.
Speaker 1: I want to ask him, can I get some of
Speaker 1: my money back now?
Speaker 2: He looked at everything that's going on and looked at
Speaker 2: the brawl, like, do you really think should have took
Speaker 2: my money?
Speaker 3: We was at work.
Speaker 1: I want to ask him that seriously.
Speaker 4: But Adam always says that I'm repeating what Alan Adam says,
Speaker 4: but he works for me. He says that, so I'll repeat.
Speaker 4: We appreciate that, but that'd be nice, that'd be good.
Speaker 4: I think he would do it too.
Speaker 2: Got something, bron they'll let you leave empty handed. All
Speaker 2: the smoke gear from my new line that's dropping, or
Speaker 2: can they get that? All the smoke dots store if
Speaker 2: you didn't know, now you know, go grab some. You
Speaker 2: might not look as good as us in it.
Speaker 3: But you can you can try.
Speaker 1: You can try. Well, gee, man, we appreciate you We
Speaker 1: want to make sure you know how important you were
Speaker 1: to us man as a as a mentor, as an athlete,
Speaker 1: the way you live your life off the court as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've just been that dude, and we really
Speaker 1: feel like you know you're still one of the greatest
Speaker 1: players of all time, and so we really appreciate your
Speaker 1: time stopping bib and chasing your ass for three years.
Speaker 1: You finally got you. Make sure you check out this
Speaker 1: book out now where and make it the book.
Speaker 3: Get everywhere Amazon bookstores. It's a good story man game
Speaker 3: out now. Happy you finally.
Speaker 4: I appreciate y'all, man, and I admire with y'all are doing.
Speaker 4: Y'all y'all killing it man, and the feeling is mutual.
Speaker 3: So when you here, like I.
Speaker 1: Said, the fact that you got to unload, that's a
Speaker 1: heavyweight to carry saying.
Speaker 4: If you read and you guys need to write books
Speaker 4: at some point when the time is right. Tell y'all
Speaker 4: got stories complete everybody.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. I'm telling you.
Speaker 2: Puzzle pieces together. G thank you man, appreciate sh me.
Speaker 2: This is how I know it's something some feelings expressed
Speaker 2: in here. You ain't getting no fresh cut on them
Speaker 2: on the cover. That was on purpose, trust me, I.
Speaker 4: Know, I know it was.
Speaker 3: It was a tension, you know, that symbolism with that.
Speaker 1: Yes, I can't wait for I'm telling y'a should write
Speaker 1: a book that's a wrap.
Speaker 3: See y'all next week. Period, Go get the book.