Speaker 1: This is kJ Live with Chris john Sallie and Critics
Speaker 1: is having conversations with influencers in the sports world and
Speaker 1: entertainment in this trade. Now Here's Chris Johnson. This is
Speaker 1: kJ Live. Today's guests in the show is the Senior
Speaker 1: India Writer, film producer and Folmic Chair the National Association
Speaker 1: with Black Drummers as the NBA Senior India Radical Undefeated,
Speaker 1: ESPN's digital platform, the focuses on the intersection with race,
Speaker 1: sports and culture. Spears regularly breaks NBA news and publishers
Speaker 1: long form content pieces on some of the lead's most
Speaker 1: intriguing subject subjects. Our Guests has also covered the NBA
Speaker 1: for more than twenty years, including eighteen NBA Off Our
Speaker 1: Games and the two thousand and eight Beijing Olympics. The
Speaker 1: San Jose State and l s U gradually has also
Speaker 1: produced Katuna Cop in the Superdome, an award winning documentary
Speaker 1: chronically the experiences of New Orleans police officer Reck Charles
Speaker 1: and other city residents during their state in the Louisiana Superdome.
Speaker 1: After Patrina. Please welcome to kJ Live. The legend Mark
Speaker 1: Jay Spears is in the building. Y'all up, What's up, Bro,
Speaker 1: what's up? Man now? Chilling Man like, yeah, y'all Bruins
Speaker 1: hurt my heart the other day. Man, we had to
Speaker 1: get you. And you see, I didn't even like I
Speaker 1: just said you gottas you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: didn't even like, well, I have to act tough about it. Well,
Speaker 1: that was our super Bowl, man. Any time you get
Speaker 1: a chance to play like an L s U to
Speaker 1: kind of get your season catapulta. Bro, we came, all
Speaker 1: the stars got a line. Man. It was just a
Speaker 1: testament to like us really being up for the game. Bro.
Speaker 1: But you know your coach was talking stuff too that,
Speaker 1: you know what he Yeah, he did that, but he's
Speaker 1: a trojan head. He got some trojan ties, So I
Speaker 1: didn't you know he Yeah, he was felling himself a
Speaker 1: little bit. I didn't too much like that, but know
Speaker 1: when I got it was interesting that day in l A.
Speaker 1: My two schools sound they stay lost, the USC gave
Speaker 1: it with their coaches last win before he got fired,
Speaker 1: and then L s U lost. And I was supposed
Speaker 1: to go down there because you hit me. You're like yo, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I like, nah, man, that's too many people to
Speaker 1: be around right now. And I blame COVID, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I ain't go oh man, No, it was good.
Speaker 1: A would have fun seeing y'all, y'all, I would have
Speaker 1: fun with y'all. Man, it was good times. Man. You
Speaker 1: just came back from the Hall of Fame where you
Speaker 1: you know, you you kind of hosted the whole situation
Speaker 1: out there. Man. Talk about how special it was. This
Speaker 1: is your second time doing it. Talk about how special
Speaker 1: the opportunity was, and how special this Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: class that's gonna inducted is well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: these guys are our eraor right, these are dudes like
Speaker 1: we we might have played against, you know, and perhaps
Speaker 1: it's getting to the end of our era. So it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's certainly been a special year because you gotta remember
Speaker 1: the class of was delayed because of COVID. So I had,
Speaker 1: you know, the honor the hosted in the spring. That
Speaker 1: was Kobe you know, I just I missed him, man,
Speaker 1: I wish he was here, just I could only imagine
Speaker 1: what kind of Hall of Fame speech that was. But
Speaker 1: to be able to be the host of that conference
Speaker 1: press conference in the spring, and I covered Kevin Garnett
Speaker 1: when he played for the Cultic, So KG gave me
Speaker 1: this like like like you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: that was from him. That's a lot of respect, you know, um,
Speaker 1: And then you know it was just Tim Duncan was
Speaker 1: in that class too, So that was certainly a special class.
Speaker 1: And I think even with this class, these were guys
Speaker 1: that I knew even better. Like I've spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time with Ben Wallace recently doing this piece. Man,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you got to see it with
Speaker 1: The Undefeated. Our video team didn't. We went back to
Speaker 1: Alabama and went deep with him, and so like Ben
Speaker 1: during the press conference, man, he came up to me
Speaker 1: and hugged me before he answered questions and he was
Speaker 1: in tears. He was emotional. Man, he was emotional the
Speaker 1: whole weekend. See Webb came up to me, gave me
Speaker 1: some lug, gave me a hug. You know, I remember
Speaker 1: being that arco interviewing him with the Kings when he
Speaker 1: was probably at the height of his career. And then
Speaker 1: Pierce I covered him when he won a championship, and
Speaker 1: you know, me and him been friends for a while.
Speaker 1: And that's that's my dude. Man, He's he's crazy he's
Speaker 1: that crazy dude. Did a good way though, man, Like
Speaker 1: you know know how Paul feels asked, you want to
Speaker 1: know what's going on? And if you ass people, he
Speaker 1: loved you, man. So that was it was. It was
Speaker 1: beautiful to be a part of that class. I think
Speaker 1: my only thing that was kind of sad was when
Speaker 1: they said that Russell was gonna get um in for
Speaker 1: coaches and getting going to Hall of Fame for the
Speaker 1: second time. I was so excited about the opportunity to
Speaker 1: interview Russell in the press conference, but because of COVID,
Speaker 1: he counseled a couple of things, and he one of
Speaker 1: the things he counseled was not doing the press conference,
Speaker 1: so that I was like, I missed, obviously missed Kobe
Speaker 1: and I got I didn't get the chance to interview Russell,
Speaker 1: But the rest of the press conference was amazing. The
Speaker 1: weekend was amazing. You know. It was good to see
Speaker 1: Lebron in the building during the Hall of Fame and
Speaker 1: show respected Chris Bosh. It was. It was great to
Speaker 1: see Jordan in the building and then also to see
Speaker 1: Russell on stage, Like when how often do you see
Speaker 1: you know, Lebron, Jordan's and Russell all in the same place,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what happened behind the scenes. I
Speaker 1: would I would assume that as soon as Jordan was
Speaker 1: done sitting next to Tony Kukoach, he was in the
Speaker 1: pj or or the springfield right afterwards? What are the two? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And and like Lebron, just if I was a betting man,
Speaker 1: the reason why Chris Bosh was last and Paul Pierce
Speaker 1: wasn't who's like a Celtics legend. It was because I
Speaker 1: think there were time in Lebron's arrival, because all of
Speaker 1: a sudden he just showed up like, oh, Lebron's here
Speaker 1: at the end. I didn't know. I didn't know that, okay,
Speaker 1: so he just like, why was Bosch last? Like Lebron
Speaker 1: showed up, Like come on man, like Lebron is pretty powerful.
Speaker 1: Uh Brown again, my boy Rob? You know, Robb the
Speaker 1: security guru from the Lakers was there. So I was like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I know what's happening tonight. But you know, how often
Speaker 1: do you get to see those three guys in the
Speaker 1: same room. And that's what I was gonna kind of
Speaker 1: touch on, Mark when you when you take us back
Speaker 1: man to the origins of everything? When you first wanted
Speaker 1: to be a sportswriter, did you ever think that you
Speaker 1: was gonna be in a room with Jordan Russell Brown
Speaker 1: on the stage introducing folks at all the things like
Speaker 1: talk about the foundation of it all, how it started
Speaker 1: for you? And you know what I'm saying, it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting you say that because I knew I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a sportswriter since I was in the seventh grade.
Speaker 1: But you gotta remember, like, bro, when we were coming up,
Speaker 1: like the internet was wearing diapers, like I remember what
Speaker 1: I was that sold. They stay and they're like, yo,
Speaker 1: we gotta give you this email. What the hell is
Speaker 1: the email? And they're like, so you could send somebody
Speaker 1: a message on the computer. I'm like, why not just
Speaker 1: call them? Like I have a cell for that. I
Speaker 1: got page them page to me. Baby. My point is,
Speaker 1: like I really got into this to be a print reporter.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't go to school for television. I
Speaker 1: didn't go to school for radio. I thought it was
Speaker 1: dope to just have my name in the newspaper internet
Speaker 1: going around, But you know, I first started dreaming about
Speaker 1: being a sportswriter in the seventh grade, we had a
Speaker 1: career day at sylvan Dale Junior High School and Saint
Speaker 1: Jose and Bro, I swear the guy one of my
Speaker 1: teachers must have been dating some dude from the Warriors, right,
Speaker 1: because San Jose is like a good like forty miles
Speaker 1: from Oakland. Their traffic bad in the morning from the
Speaker 1: Warriors came to our Junior high and spoke, and he
Speaker 1: was one of the people that spoke. So I went
Speaker 1: to listen to him. I'm like, I'm gonna get a
Speaker 1: free jersey, free tickets, bumper stick or something. Basketball. Ain't
Speaker 1: that nothing? Right? So when I speak to kids, I
Speaker 1: try to give himself down because I remember that. But
Speaker 1: for some reason, he pointed at me and he goes, well,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do when you grow up?
Speaker 1: And this is bro, this is what I said. I
Speaker 1: want to play for y'all. And he said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say that you can't, but if you don't
Speaker 1: make it to the NBA, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I don't know. And I remember
Speaker 1: because I was reading Sports Illustrated in elementary school. My
Speaker 1: dad got me a subscription because how much I love sports,
Speaker 1: and I remember seeing this stat that said less than
Speaker 1: two percent of all college basketball players made it to
Speaker 1: the NBA. And I was as real as the kid now,
Speaker 1: like like, hey, let's a two percent that that ain't
Speaker 1: my mind would be playing in college, not playing in
Speaker 1: the NBA. But that's that was in my mind. But
Speaker 1: the guy turned to me and said, well, my advice
Speaker 1: to you, young man is if you can find a
Speaker 1: career where you combine what you love most in life
Speaker 1: with what you do best in school, you have a
Speaker 1: job that you will be happy to be in every day.
Speaker 1: That was hell of an advice, right, So my teacher,
Speaker 1: Miss Thompson, the next day she said, we had a
Speaker 1: write somebody, uh, write a letter. There were no email yet, right,
Speaker 1: we had actually write a letter anybody we're in UM,
Speaker 1: interested in UM and the field that we're interested in.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a calmness by the name of Mark
Speaker 1: Party from the Sounds and Mercury News and asked them
Speaker 1: how can I be a sportswriter? He wrote me back,
Speaker 1: sent me a letter and told me how to be
Speaker 1: a sportswriter in the seventh grade. He gave me basically
Speaker 1: a bible a roadmap from seventh grade through college on
Speaker 1: what to do to be a sportswriter. So let me
Speaker 1: ask you this smart for people out there aspiring sportswriters
Speaker 1: right now, can you share some of the secrets of
Speaker 1: this bible or just the basic foundation of it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know he he told me to write. This was
Speaker 1: on the letter right on the school paper. Now, so
Speaker 1: if you score in the Silverdale Junior High library somewhere.
Speaker 1: My first job, I tell people is I covered the
Speaker 1: sylvan Dale Junior High Bears eighth grade flag football team.
Speaker 1: I was going to their practice. I was writing stories
Speaker 1: for the school paper while I was in the seventh grade.
Speaker 1: He said, when you go to high school, take all
Speaker 1: the typing classes you could take, which probably was the
Speaker 1: most valuable thing I did in high school was take
Speaker 1: typing classes type took Type of one, two and three.
Speaker 1: He said, either joined the school yearbook or the school newspaper.
Speaker 1: I joined the school newspaper. We had a guy from
Speaker 1: the Sounds of Mercury News who ran our school paper,
Speaker 1: came in once a week. His name was he was
Speaker 1: a writer named McK van Balcomburg. So I got to
Speaker 1: touch an actual writer in the Sounds Mercury News. And
Speaker 1: then Mr Purdy said at the end, he said, when
Speaker 1: you go to college, take as many internships as possible,
Speaker 1: and also, you know, right on the school paper. So
Speaker 1: I chased the college basketball dream. I went to three
Speaker 1: different schools, but you know how crazy art lies are.
Speaker 1: I still wrote on the school paper every single year.
Speaker 1: I did internships every single year San Jose Metro for
Speaker 1: Free Grand Rapids Press, Dallas Morning News. Was an intern
Speaker 1: with the National Association and Black Journalists. So I wasn't
Speaker 1: drafted in the NBA, but by the time I graduated
Speaker 1: from Santa State, I felt like I was a first
Speaker 1: round draft pick and being a sportswriter and a lot
Speaker 1: of that. I give credit to Mark Party for writing
Speaker 1: me that letter that you know, basically gave me a
Speaker 1: road map and lit a fire. So at what point,
Speaker 1: because you hoop in college, at what point did you
Speaker 1: just say, you know what, I'm not tripping on hooping
Speaker 1: no more. It's literally I'm literally gonna focus on my
Speaker 1: intention of becoming a sportswriter or what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Both from the day I showed up, so you got this?
Speaker 1: Did you get a scholarship? Mark? Are you? So this
Speaker 1: is we'll go back. I graduated from Andrew Hill High
Speaker 1: School in San Josey. I was, I'll say as I
Speaker 1: was pretty damn good school basketball player. Um, I wasn't
Speaker 1: kJ you know what I'm saying, But but I did
Speaker 1: get the better one of your guys, Chris Demon. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: six six six six posts. He was. He used to
Speaker 1: go to Bellman College prep for the schools in Sunday
Speaker 1: called Santa Teresa. I was a senior. He was a junior,
Speaker 1: and I heard about this bad white boy with hops.
Speaker 1: He was bad. Kevin was bad before he heard his back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he had like a big top chef down he go.
Speaker 1: Hear the story, he's gonna be mad. But the first
Speaker 1: time we played him, I turned into the post and
Speaker 1: I put the ball in the glass and he batted
Speaker 1: my my shot off the glass. Bro, And I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this dude can play these for real, Like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I started body on my body and we beat him.
Speaker 1: I think we beat them twice again like the body, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't hang it. He didn't like too much physical
Speaker 1: and I was that kind of player. I was like,
Speaker 1: you were physical boy, Like sixteen and fifteen in high school.
Speaker 1: I think my best game I had, Um, Piemont Hills
Speaker 1: at thirty two points in two rebounds or something like that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah game. Um, but my grades were bad.
Speaker 1: Um I had I broke my my leg my sophomore
Speaker 1: year in high school, so that held me back a lot.
Speaker 1: At two great players when they were seniors my junior year,
Speaker 1: so I was like behind them. So it wasn't until
Speaker 1: a you, um, before my senior year that people even
Speaker 1: really knew who I was. But the one thing that
Speaker 1: really you know, and I was like all leagues, Um,
Speaker 1: I was third and them. I remember I was third
Speaker 1: in m VP vote and I was really proud of
Speaker 1: that because the two guys ahead of me, a guy
Speaker 1: named Terry Martin who played at IONA and a guy
Speaker 1: named Brian Bell who played a Chico. They were on
Speaker 1: the team that won the league. In our league finished
Speaker 1: in fifth. So I was like, if I'm third in
Speaker 1: m v P and our team finished in fifth in
Speaker 1: our league, that's that's the compliment from the compliment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I played in what it's called the Central
Speaker 1: Section Central Coast Section All Star Game and with UH
Speaker 1: which basically is from San Francisco through the Peninsula through
Speaker 1: San Jose, Automa way to Monterey um and that was
Speaker 1: a big honor for me. I played in the Pump
Speaker 1: Classic Unsigned Seniors Classic. Um um Brent Berry played in that.
Speaker 1: I remember that. Um. But I Columbia University wanted me.
Speaker 1: Ivy League school, best journalism program in the country. Now
Speaker 1: your grades, now, could you say you had bad grades?
Speaker 1: But then you had worked on them to get to
Speaker 1: the point where Colombia was rocking? What you no? This
Speaker 1: is danc transcribe yet Oh I said they wanted me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a coach from sound They state that I
Speaker 1: went and become an assistant there. Uh sny um Eric Sawney,
Speaker 1: and I got a good a call to He reached
Speaker 1: out to be recently and he wanted me to come
Speaker 1: at a two point to g p A man at
Speaker 1: a two point through g p A and at east
Speaker 1: Side and the Ivy Lea School. And that's when I
Speaker 1: woke up. That's when I woke up. I'm still crushed
Speaker 1: by that. Yeah, I mean I didn't get a good
Speaker 1: I got bad advice going into like I went to
Speaker 1: a high school where there were a lot of kids
Speaker 1: who were like section their kids to live across the street.
Speaker 1: Um My family was I call it lower middle class
Speaker 1: like I always had. I didn't have the newest, but
Speaker 1: I had clothes, I had food, right, you get it. Um.
Speaker 1: But I didn't realize that I needed a certain g
Speaker 1: p A to go to college. Nobody told me that
Speaker 1: in the beginning, and so when I found out it
Speaker 1: was too late. Man, I had all these seeds because
Speaker 1: they said you had needed a two point oh to
Speaker 1: be eligible, and so Colombia wanted me. I didn't have
Speaker 1: the grades. I got recruited by several different schools, sound
Speaker 1: they stayed at that time. I was trying to get
Speaker 1: me to walk on, but I ended up going to
Speaker 1: junior college, and I went to Foothill College and Long
Speaker 1: South those Hills, California, which was called the Harvard on
Speaker 1: the Hill because their academics were really good, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the UH students there ended up going to
Speaker 1: Stanford or even Ivy League schools. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I was woke up then realized I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: the NBA I needed. I was using college to pay
Speaker 1: for school and I love basketball, um, and I just
Speaker 1: I just remember, man, that first day of class they
Speaker 1: brought us in. They like to set person to your
Speaker 1: right and left, they're not gonna graduate, like I got
Speaker 1: scared straight I was. I think I was on the
Speaker 1: Dean's list of first semester. I never made the Dean's
Speaker 1: list again because I figured out that Yeah yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean, I was just always that when I played
Speaker 1: UM went there for two years, Foothill College, and I
Speaker 1: went to a Division two HBCU. I was supposed to
Speaker 1: go to Tuskegee, committed there, and then the coach got fired,
Speaker 1: so I ended up going to another HBCU and DC
Speaker 1: called the District of Columbia played their first season. The
Speaker 1: academics were horrible. UM. I ended up having a great
Speaker 1: second half of the season, scored thirty two and what
Speaker 1: would be my last college basketball game. But the coach there,
Speaker 1: I remember him at as got rested. So he told me, man,
Speaker 1: if you cared about basketball as you much as you
Speaker 1: do that goddamn journalism, you be a hell of a player.
Speaker 1: M And I'm like, coach, if the NBA was interesting me,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be here making up as think about it.
Speaker 1: I was realistic, man, like I wouldn't be playing at
Speaker 1: UDC coach, and I ended up leaving there and transferring
Speaker 1: the Salley State and then it got crazy. Then you
Speaker 1: got crazy, and so you graduated from San Jose State.
Speaker 1: You what was your first gig as far as being
Speaker 1: a sportswriter professional? Very first. My first job, I covered
Speaker 1: Arkansas's football and basketball team for the World. Wow. I
Speaker 1: think y'all just beat them? Yo? Yes, they just won
Speaker 1: a championship in right, right? No, I think it was
Speaker 1: because they beat no. No, yes, they wanted to and
Speaker 1: they lost to y'all. Yeah. Yeah, right, So that's the era. Okay.
Speaker 1: So when I came in, Corlos was gone. Scottie Thurman
Speaker 1: was like all these dudes that left of the NBA
Speaker 1: and then and I used to be on campus and
Speaker 1: people be like corre less, correlets. I'm like, I'm not corless, Williamson,
Speaker 1: you know, you say by you know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: it say kind of Bill like, you know, like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm prettier than like stop. But you well, AULSA was
Speaker 1: because I basically lived in Tulsa and I just went
Speaker 1: up for football games and practices. So I lived in Tulsa.
Speaker 1: Actually Tulsa it's closer to Fedville, Arkansas than it is Norman, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: University of Oklahoma is so I would. I would drive up,
Speaker 1: I go to all the football games, which was I mean,
Speaker 1: like I covered the sec out of college, which is
Speaker 1: not normal kids out of college, especially at that time,
Speaker 1: especially a black kid for that matter. And um, but
Speaker 1: I got no one Richard and man, my first job
Speaker 1: I was covering Nolan, which was to this day one
Speaker 1: of the the greatest things I've ever done in my
Speaker 1: career to spend two years with Nolan Richardson, and he
Speaker 1: took me under his wing man and really looked out
Speaker 1: for me. And um, it was like after that, why
Speaker 1: why do I need to be intimidated covering any coach?
Speaker 1: I covered Nolan. He was the strongest personality as anybody
Speaker 1: at any coaches that that I've ever been around, Right, Mark,
Speaker 1: let me ask let me ask you this, particularly about Nolan.
Speaker 1: Do you think that that time covering him, um for Tulsa,
Speaker 1: for the Tulsa world, do you think that that shaped
Speaker 1: sort of like the direction you would the direction you
Speaker 1: went with things you were interested in, Like so like
Speaker 1: Prince is the Undefeated. Some of the things that you
Speaker 1: cover in the long form content that you present or
Speaker 1: I won't say taboo subjects, but they're of the racial,
Speaker 1: racial nature and their stuff. Do you just don't see
Speaker 1: know where else really people talking about ever Dirk on
Speaker 1: this Dirk and Whiskey's interracial marriage. I mean, you just
Speaker 1: touch on things that you know kind of people will
Speaker 1: think about. Do you think the time of Nolan Richardson
Speaker 1: kind of helped shape that narrative or where you are
Speaker 1: ready that way? I mean, look, I'll give Nolan as
Speaker 1: my guy, but that started from childhood, man like just
Speaker 1: dealing with racist racism. My family dealt with um. Like
Speaker 1: my mom she couldn't go to nursing school in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: uh that she wanted to go to because and this
Speaker 1: was a Catholic school because she was black. So she
Speaker 1: ended up having to go to a nursing school in St. Louis, Missouri,
Speaker 1: where she met my father, because to go to all
Speaker 1: black nursing school so she could follow her dream of
Speaker 1: being a nurse. My dad in the nineties early nineties
Speaker 1: worked for New United Motors Um, which was basically where
Speaker 1: Tesla Dealership, Tesla Manufacturers and and Fremont, California in the
Speaker 1: Bay and one of racism lawsuit because him and a
Speaker 1: bunch of other black managers, we're training white people, and
Speaker 1: the white people were getting promoted over him after they
Speaker 1: learned the trade. Um. So you know, as a kid, um, sadly,
Speaker 1: I dealt with a lot of racism um from people
Speaker 1: of all races. I grew up around a lot of Mexicans,
Speaker 1: I grew up a lot of around around a lot
Speaker 1: of Asians. Um. I had a basketball coach who um
Speaker 1: my freshman sophomore year, who we took me to a
Speaker 1: Mexican restaurant. He goes, you know, they ain't fried chicken
Speaker 1: in there, right, you know there, you know, watermelon in there.
Speaker 1: And this is my coach and talking to a kid
Speaker 1: like that. I remember I went into a Vietnamese restaurant
Speaker 1: once it's on a hot day to get a soda
Speaker 1: and the man went in the back and gave me,
Speaker 1: came back and gave me a couple kiss like. So
Speaker 1: it was there was stuff I was dealing with like
Speaker 1: my whole life. But you know, my mom used to
Speaker 1: be a part of this Black Nurses Association in San Jose. UM,
Speaker 1: and we used to go to the Afro American Center
Speaker 1: in San Jose, and I had to find time to
Speaker 1: waste time, so I would go into the film room
Speaker 1: I'm like ten and eyes on the Prize Zone that
Speaker 1: that amazing award winning documentary where it basically talked about
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement, and I learned everything about Martin Luther, King,
Speaker 1: Malcolm X, black folks getting bit by dogs, the white fountains,
Speaker 1: the Black fountains, um, the civil rights marches and all
Speaker 1: that stuff and all these you know, horrible deaths and lynchings.
Speaker 1: And I'm like ten years old learning all this stuff,
Speaker 1: watching these movies, and it just had an impression on me.
Speaker 1: And I think what was valuable about my college at
Speaker 1: cation is it allowed me to It's one thing to
Speaker 1: speak out, but it's nothing to know what you're saying
Speaker 1: and you don't know how to say it eloquently. And
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, college certainly helped prepare me
Speaker 1: and and helped me to think out my thoughts before
Speaker 1: I say them and be more factual and less emotional.
Speaker 1: And so I think all these things when when this
Speaker 1: job opened with The Undefeated, like there were some black
Speaker 1: journalists that were scared to have that job. Like this
Speaker 1: is like several years before George Floyd like, do you
Speaker 1: want to go out there and talk about race? You know,
Speaker 1: this is pre Trump, right, and you still got people
Speaker 1: then like, ain't no racism? What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Ain't no racism? And there were a lot of people
Speaker 1: that didn't like what I was writing. I'm writing about
Speaker 1: the you know, there's so many stories about the lack
Speaker 1: of black people playing baseball. Okay, I'm gonna write about
Speaker 1: the lack of white players in the NBA, which is factual.
Speaker 1: Like UM talk about racists issues, talk about what it's
Speaker 1: like to be black playing for the Utah Jazz, Um
Speaker 1: talk about the elephant in the room. And I've enjoyed
Speaker 1: that this road. I've enjoyed working there. And obviously when
Speaker 1: the previous president was there, there was probably a lot
Speaker 1: more fire that it showed that the racism issues in
Speaker 1: this country, the pain black people, the pain of people
Speaker 1: of all colors, and people like yo, because they were
Speaker 1: hating on the undefeated at first, but now they're like,
Speaker 1: we should have had this long ago, this is necessary.
Speaker 1: Then you've seen places like the New York Times and
Speaker 1: l A Times, different websites, Uh, New York Times like
Speaker 1: follow up and get some kind of undefeated kind of
Speaker 1: like jobs. And so I'm honored that Kevin Merida UM
Speaker 1: and Rain and Kelly hired me to be a part
Speaker 1: of this because this is like the greatest job that
Speaker 1: I've ever had, because it's it's bigger than basketball and
Speaker 1: writing about who's traded or you know, the next trend
Speaker 1: on your jump shot. No, I'm like telling stories about
Speaker 1: real life and pain and racism that these players have
Speaker 1: dealt with and telling their stories, like having just told
Speaker 1: the Ben Wallace story recently and he used to pick
Speaker 1: cotton and go to school with no shoes on, Like
Speaker 1: Ben Wallace been out of the league for over five
Speaker 1: years and Ben Wallace started playing this in the league
Speaker 1: in NINETI but you never heard that story, you know.
Speaker 1: So I'm blessed with the ability to have a job
Speaker 1: and comfort from a lot of NBA players that they
Speaker 1: will open up and release their pain to me. And
Speaker 1: I take a lot of pride and and um, I
Speaker 1: take a lot of care in that. Yeah, as you
Speaker 1: should Mark when you when we talk about the subject
Speaker 1: of black coaches and black executives in the NBA, it starts,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of one of those topics where
Speaker 1: it's like who do you who would you rather have
Speaker 1: a black executive or a black head coach? Because the
Speaker 1: exect the black executive, you know, may be more likely
Speaker 1: to hire a black head coach, etcetera. When you look
Speaker 1: at that conversation, what are your thoughts on that isn't
Speaker 1: what's the level of importance of hiring a black executive
Speaker 1: in the NBA versus a black head coach. I want
Speaker 1: a black owner. The black olders or the older is
Speaker 1: the one that controls all of that, right, because even
Speaker 1: if you're the general manager or the president or whatever,
Speaker 1: ultimately it's the ownership that decides what you wanna do.
Speaker 1: You can have a bunch of great ideas, but if
Speaker 1: the owner of the company says, nah, hey what about
Speaker 1: this guy James Garfink, I like him, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like, you know, it's important that even if
Speaker 1: you're in a position of power, that you're able to
Speaker 1: implement what you want to do. And so I do
Speaker 1: think though sadly being realistic, you know, Michael George's only owner.
Speaker 1: We're not black folks ain't own them teams. People of
Speaker 1: color aren't really starting to own some teams, you know,
Speaker 1: nets kings Um. I think though that these owners are
Speaker 1: starting to realize that's kind of interesting. You're seeing this
Speaker 1: with like Dion Sanders too, Um, how black athletes are
Speaker 1: responding to black executives and black coaches right now? I
Speaker 1: think there's if I'm not mistake, in fifteen and seven
Speaker 1: team coaches a color in the league, more than half
Speaker 1: the coaches in the league of color now, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, we we have also have a Hispanic coach
Speaker 1: and Latin X coach in Charlotte and and Asian coach
Speaker 1: in Miami. We got to remember that too, like uh,
Speaker 1: and like when you hear Devin Booker and DeAndre Ayton
Speaker 1: saying that having a black general manager who used to
Speaker 1: play in the league, having a black coach they used
Speaker 1: to play in the league makeing it helps me out
Speaker 1: because I can feel like I could communicate with them better,
Speaker 1: right Like, Ultimately, I think change happens when I hate
Speaker 1: to say it, like when when the players players got
Speaker 1: to speak out more man like, I think if they
Speaker 1: are impacted by, you know, having more black coaches and
Speaker 1: executives and they got to say it, or like it
Speaker 1: won't happen. I remember having a conversation with an All
Speaker 1: Star who I leave nameless about are you involved in
Speaker 1: who your team is hiring for? President. Man, I don't
Speaker 1: want to get involved in that. I'm like, you're the star,
Speaker 1: they'll listen to you. You have power. Two. At least
Speaker 1: get somebody black in the building. I mean doesn't mean
Speaker 1: like the white dude ain't the best person for the job, right,
Speaker 1: but at least get us in the building and let
Speaker 1: us convince them that we are the best person for
Speaker 1: the job. That's that's what I think hopefully happens from
Speaker 1: now on, is a true ability to show that we
Speaker 1: are the most qualified, that we are the best fit.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean like it cancels white America from coaching
Speaker 1: the black player. If the white coach is the best guy,
Speaker 1: hire him. But if the black woman is the best
Speaker 1: person for the job, hired he. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And hopefully you know you got these mostly old school
Speaker 1: conservative owners in this league, but they want success in
Speaker 1: the same way. They don't look at color. The only
Speaker 1: color they see what money is great? Right, If that
Speaker 1: black dude is gonna help them win games and help
Speaker 1: their players respond, yeah, that that you know woman is,
Speaker 1: then I think they're gonna ultimately decide kind of like
Speaker 1: when Alabama started getting black football players, like you want
Speaker 1: to win I want to make money. So if the
Speaker 1: black man or this woman could get us there the best,
Speaker 1: and that's who I want to hire. And if that's
Speaker 1: the case, and hey man, bro, that's what all we
Speaker 1: should ask for, right is a a fair shape. Don't
Speaker 1: hire me just because I'm black. Hired me because I'm
Speaker 1: the best. And oftentimes we don't have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: show that we are the best for the job. But
Speaker 1: it's started to tie, it's starting to change a little bit.
Speaker 1: It is. I think the opportunity to show is the
Speaker 1: most important thing. The foot in the door I guess
Speaker 1: I wanted to get from you was And obviously the
Speaker 1: player that you mentioned remains nameless. But do you feel
Speaker 1: like some of the sentiment that he shared. You think
Speaker 1: most of all the all star caliber players in the NBA,
Speaker 1: outside of you know, obviously the outspoken ones that we
Speaker 1: know about, you think they a lot of them feel
Speaker 1: that way. They don't want to speak up in one
Speaker 1: offul Feathers, I think that a lot of them don't
Speaker 1: realize their power, right or um they're too young to
Speaker 1: really understand what influence that they could have. UM. A
Speaker 1: lot of times you don't realize it to your older
Speaker 1: in your career, and you don't have that power anymore.
Speaker 1: You don't have that kind of influence anymore. I mean
Speaker 1: obviously in Brooklyn, you know, Durant and and Kyrie had
Speaker 1: power to influence the hiring of Nash. Right, Um, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: respectfully I say this little lebron James had had influence
Speaker 1: on who gets on that staff, Like I'm sure he
Speaker 1: Fizdale is there for a reason, right absolutely, or but
Speaker 1: I'm sure he had influence on had who the head
Speaker 1: coach is gonna be like, but he understands his power,
Speaker 1: he understands his strength. Um, Chris Paul is close with
Speaker 1: you know, Monty and with James Jones, so that played
Speaker 1: an influence on him wanting to go to Phoenix and
Speaker 1: wanting to stage in Phoenix. You could have left, he
Speaker 1: could have left. Um, but I do think that oftentimes
Speaker 1: when you're year old dude, you and we're in this
Speaker 1: world where we got more money than we ever thought
Speaker 1: we were gonna make, you're not really thinking about how
Speaker 1: to you know, the bread is a and how you
Speaker 1: can influence that because you can't tell me that, Like
Speaker 1: if Steph Curry goes into a room that he can't
Speaker 1: tell the Warrior's front office. We need more black representation here,
Speaker 1: We need more people color here, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like every superstar has that ability to make an impact,
Speaker 1: and I do think that. You know, Hey, look, man,
Speaker 1: I could beat the ground all the time about the
Speaker 1: lack of black coaches and executives. You do the same.
Speaker 1: But ultimately we're just we're not making a decision. But
Speaker 1: I know, like when Lebron was in Cleveland, boy, they
Speaker 1: were walking on egg shells both times he was there.
Speaker 1: When it came time for him to make a decision
Speaker 1: about his future, he had power there. All these players
Speaker 1: have power, but will they exercise their ability to use it?
Speaker 1: But when they lose that power, And here's another thing
Speaker 1: that these guys got to think about. They think they're
Speaker 1: gonna play forever and they're not. But then when you
Speaker 1: look at a lot of these coaches, they're not former players.
Speaker 1: So if you fight for former players to get these jobs,
Speaker 1: now that pipeline, you open up the pipeline and potentially
Speaker 1: open up the ability for you to have that job
Speaker 1: when you're done. And that's what I'm saying. Then they
Speaker 1: don't they're not thinking like that. They're thinking today. The
Speaker 1: one best thing they have done, the players have done,
Speaker 1: I think in the last ten years in terms of
Speaker 1: the future, was getting medical insurance. Your father who played
Speaker 1: in the league over ten years, right, he and his
Speaker 1: wife and his young daughter. I mean, you're good, but
Speaker 1: they got the best of medical insurance, very very good,
Speaker 1: very good. Yes, the best of medical insurance. Right. So
Speaker 1: that's something that Chris Paul did that was amazing, Right,
Speaker 1: it was get that. But they got to remember, like
Speaker 1: the same way you wanna, which is good with the
Speaker 1: minimum contracts in terms of letting veterment veterans stay in
Speaker 1: the league longer by paying half their salary start getting
Speaker 1: we we shouldn't see Jerry Stackhouse at Vanderbilt. He should
Speaker 1: be coaching in the NBA, right, we shouldn't see but
Speaker 1: Jowan should be coaching. He played it, he paid his dues.
Speaker 1: How does Patrick you and not get a chance? Right?
Speaker 1: But you see a lot of coaches, and this is
Speaker 1: all due respect who never played one game in the league,
Speaker 1: who've got an opportunities. And I'm not saying they didn't
Speaker 1: pay their dues and get their opportunities. But the players.
Speaker 1: You gotta protect this league for you in the future too,
Speaker 1: and you I've seen players who have big names that
Speaker 1: can't get in. I'm remember Bro. I remember telling Robert Patt,
Speaker 1: my god, Robert pat we had this big debate about
Speaker 1: whether he should coach in the G League or not
Speaker 1: as an assistant, and I said, Rob, just get in
Speaker 1: the door, man, just get in the door and see
Speaker 1: what happens. And then Rob ended up getting in the door,
Speaker 1: ended up making it to the NBA. We gotta get
Speaker 1: him back in as a coach because he was at
Speaker 1: the Washington staff. But a lot of NBA players don't
Speaker 1: want to do that, don't know, they don't know, they
Speaker 1: didn't want to put their foot in the door. The
Speaker 1: start at the ground floor type of role. But do
Speaker 1: they send the ranks pretty quickly? Mark, I've seen the
Speaker 1: ones that are willing to grind. They raised the rise
Speaker 1: in the ranks pretty quickly. And then they might feel
Speaker 1: like like Kenyan Martin, who I think hasn't tremendous basketball
Speaker 1: mind all, he's too tough, too crazy, you know. God
Speaker 1: bless the Nuggets for giving the opportunity this summer, but
Speaker 1: he needs to be a coach. He's got a well now,
Speaker 1: Rashid Wallace and we'll let him go to Memphis. Bonds, wells,
Speaker 1: he'll go to some any like how did they were
Speaker 1: young guys with a lot of power. Who but you
Speaker 1: can't tell me that those guys can't come into the
Speaker 1: NBA and help somebody. What's interesting is that the guys
Speaker 1: you just named from Shed to bondsi Um to who
Speaker 1: else did you name? You name somebody but Martin kmart
Speaker 1: all three or like we're in the league where like
Speaker 1: fiery tough dudes didn't take no ship. You know, those
Speaker 1: type of cats. So it's like you think cats are
Speaker 1: afraid to bring a dude like that in at the
Speaker 1: helm or or bring you in on the staff because
Speaker 1: like that in any capacity. Like I think one of
Speaker 1: the great under the radar hirings this summer was Nick
Speaker 1: van Exell being hired by Atlanta. You know, I love
Speaker 1: it Quick Now Quick was an asshole when he played
Speaker 1: for the Nuggets, and I love him and he respects us.
Speaker 1: He will tell you that he can I say that
Speaker 1: I'm sorry he was asshole. He was. He was tough
Speaker 1: to deal with. He had a big ego, but he
Speaker 1: was a bad ballplayer. Now you saw it in l
Speaker 1: A he got buckets. And if it wasn't for like
Speaker 1: a guy named maybe John Stockton, uh, perhaps we would
Speaker 1: be and Gary Payton, we would be talking about Nick
Speaker 1: more Um. But Nick was an amazing dynamic score and passer.
Speaker 1: So now, how can we bring Trey Young to the
Speaker 1: next level? They brought Quicken and I think Quick perhaps
Speaker 1: was held back as a coach a little bit because
Speaker 1: of the past. Man, He's a totally different dude. This
Speaker 1: dude is more worried about his coffee, how much sugar
Speaker 1: he got in it, because he liked cold brew coffee.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, he no more. Quicks basketball mind is brilliant,
Speaker 1: and Atlanta was smart enough to realize that maybe Travis
Speaker 1: Slink knows them from quicksdays and Golden State, the quick
Speaker 1: time he had with the Warriors. How could I bring
Speaker 1: Tray up? Let me bring somebody in who was bad
Speaker 1: like Tray that could just work with him and make
Speaker 1: him better, which is under so many former players now
Speaker 1: that even if you use them in an assistant coach
Speaker 1: role like can help teams, could help young stars right now.
Speaker 1: And also you teach them the perils of how your
Speaker 1: your immature young mistakes could be held against you. Young fella.
Speaker 1: Let me. You know how the young fathera back learn
Speaker 1: from me. Young They need more of those guys in
Speaker 1: the locker room, those old heads, no quote, hey, no
Speaker 1: question about it. That's how you learn and figure out
Speaker 1: how to move in these rooms and these circles of
Speaker 1: these pros. You know, it's the young fella. They put
Speaker 1: the arm around you, start talking and stuff, and they
Speaker 1: just try to give you some game. Here's here's the
Speaker 1: thing that I wanted to ask you, and it kind
Speaker 1: of goes along in this same sort of will house.
Speaker 1: It's about mental health, do you think like so, mental
Speaker 1: health can kind of take on a bunch of different
Speaker 1: faces and shapes. It can be an issue that's personal
Speaker 1: or a larger or whatever. But I feel like we
Speaker 1: define it as a negative too much, right as far
Speaker 1: as it in terms of our athletes, where positive mental
Speaker 1: health isn't necessarily focused on. So just like this point
Speaker 1: about having a mentor that will be in your ear,
Speaker 1: an old head that's trying to teach you positive ways
Speaker 1: to deal with stuff, cope. Whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: guys are talking about. How come that's not sort of
Speaker 1: pushed more or talked about more In particular in the
Speaker 1: NBA mentorships that have to do with mental health, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean starting with mentoring. Want one thing
Speaker 1: that Pikey Vandoy actually Acknowledgy made a mistake on was
Speaker 1: Mellows rookie Year. You'll you'll laugh at this story. Mellows
Speaker 1: rookie Year. Canby was on the team. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: roster was a lot of young dudes and a lot
Speaker 1: of dudes that trying to hang on right, and so
Speaker 1: after one of the practice Canby goes yo, Julie's junior
Speaker 1: hearing goes birthday. I don't know if you remember Junior.
Speaker 1: Bro I was out there, Mark Mark I went to
Speaker 1: a mini camp. So I remember, Junior. This is when
Speaker 1: mc dice raith after this is after them, Okay, okay, no,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is Mellows rookie year. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is oh oh three, this is oh three. So
Speaker 1: when did you go to mini camp with the nugget?
Speaker 1: So I think I think it was so Kiki Clyde, Drexel,
Speaker 1: Louis damp I was an assistant. So I was there too.
Speaker 1: Bro I went for like a little mini camp busted. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Croke was around. He was on the bike was on
Speaker 1: the bike. You don't remember me. I know you was there,
Speaker 1: but that's dope, that's dope. I need to see some
Speaker 1: some preseason stats. Yeah we do. We were in the
Speaker 1: Powder Blues. But so Mellow comes in Junior Harrington's birthday
Speaker 1: and after practice can be goes all right, I need
Speaker 1: all the rookies to sing Happy birthday, Okay, Mellows like
Speaker 1: I ain't singing. And this is when they used to
Speaker 1: let us in practice, Like we used to be able
Speaker 1: to go to like practice the whole time and like
Speaker 1: show up when the players were starting. And I loved it.
Speaker 1: I hated it. I loved it because we had to
Speaker 1: be there for three hours. But then I started learning
Speaker 1: so much more and why guys, certain guys who weren't playing,
Speaker 1: who had a great or ethic, who was lazy, right,
Speaker 1: and Mellows like I ain't, I ain't, I ain't singing.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking if Mellow had gotten drafted by Detroit,
Speaker 1: and if you would have said that the bench she
Speaker 1: chaunce ripped, Hey, they would have been on his head.
Speaker 1: Canby was by himself, right, because there was really like
Speaker 1: a lot of veterans of the team, and he's like
Speaker 1: all right, man, And all of a sudden, so the
Speaker 1: other rookies are saying a happy birthday, Mellow was beatboxing. Okay,
Speaker 1: he was beatboxing happy birthday. Right. So the point of
Speaker 1: the story is at that point I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: Mellows running the team. He's running the team. Like if
Speaker 1: he's basically saying I ain't doing this and the Vets
Speaker 1: let it go, then he was running the team. And
Speaker 1: that was like the biggest mistake that Nuggets had Because
Speaker 1: Camby was a starter, he didn't have time to worry
Speaker 1: about Mellow, right, but they they Kiki almost signed Lofonso
Speaker 1: Ellis to basically be in the locker room and keep
Speaker 1: an eye on him on Mellow, and Mellow said he
Speaker 1: wished that he had had some VET that he respected
Speaker 1: that had that time to kind of like be in
Speaker 1: his tail, make sure he got in early left leg work,
Speaker 1: kept an eye on them when they went out because
Speaker 1: you know, the team players typically went out together. He
Speaker 1: didn't have that, and I think that's why I had
Speaker 1: a lot of struggles early in his career. And I
Speaker 1: told him that Lofonso Ella stories like, man, I wish
Speaker 1: they would have did bring somebody like that in. So
Speaker 1: I do think it's important for teams, especially with young stars,
Speaker 1: to have some older player at the end of their
Speaker 1: career that could be in there and help and got
Speaker 1: him and have time. Camby didn't have time. Camby was
Speaker 1: trying to live his life. He was in the peak
Speaker 1: of his career, right. He didn't have time to worry
Speaker 1: about mellow. Same way being Kobe, Like luckily he had
Speaker 1: a Byron Scott. But I was around that team a
Speaker 1: little bit because I was at the l a daily
Speaker 1: news man checking them. Dudes didn't have time for Kobe
Speaker 1: at the practice back then it was in the Century
Speaker 1: Club bro the Gate Guarden. Yeah, like quick, your dad
Speaker 1: time for him. You know what I'm saying. Dudes are
Speaker 1: still there. They was like we had we had these
Speaker 1: streets he was and you know, tally they look at
Speaker 1: your age. Now they ain't sneaking you in there. You
Speaker 1: can't get the licensed. So but think it was good
Speaker 1: for the Lakers that they did have Virus Scott there,
Speaker 1: and so it's important that every NBA team, I think
Speaker 1: which helps a young player stick around has an old head.
Speaker 1: To the other part about mental health, I actually think
Speaker 1: there is better mental health help than there ever has
Speaker 1: been in the NBA when you were coming up, when
Speaker 1: you were trying to make the Nuggets, that didn't exist. Remember,
Speaker 1: like the Nuggets did have this guy who was like
Speaker 1: the brain doctor or something like that. Yeah, l A,
Speaker 1: he could tell your personality. Yeah, but but did he
Speaker 1: really help you? Did he did he understand what a
Speaker 1: black young black man was going through? Right? It was
Speaker 1: just it was it's identification. But it wasn't any type
Speaker 1: of solutions that were offered, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But but but no. But my point is every team
Speaker 1: now they don't publicize it, but pretty much every team
Speaker 1: now has their own on call or full time UH psychologists.
Speaker 1: Several of them are black, UM, which I think is important.
Speaker 1: So like several more black females, which I think the
Speaker 1: players open up to more. It's like they're talking to
Speaker 1: their mom, their sister. There aren't. Yeah, And so I
Speaker 1: think they have resources now that when you were, you know,
Speaker 1: getting in the NBA working on getting an NBA did
Speaker 1: not exist. I don't think they really existed ten years ago,
Speaker 1: but they do exist now. There is help now if
Speaker 1: they wanted, UM, and that some teams do a much
Speaker 1: better job than others. But there. I do think that
Speaker 1: there is an ability to get help quietly that uh,
Speaker 1: we probably don't see. I've been wanting to write a
Speaker 1: story about it, but a lot of these teams don't
Speaker 1: want their people to talk. M Well, it's it's a
Speaker 1: delicate subject probably, you know, as far as that type
Speaker 1: of thing. But I do. I do like the fact
Speaker 1: that they are making steps to address and at least
Speaker 1: there's resources because if you remember back in our day
Speaker 1: when we hooped, it was a major stigma associated with
Speaker 1: mental health and it was something that you know, you
Speaker 1: guys wouldn't want to talk about, especially going through stuff
Speaker 1: like black black men in particular, like we you know,
Speaker 1: because we already yeah, you already, don't you know how
Speaker 1: many of us have PTSD from just like they saw
Speaker 1: growing up. Yes, man in the streets. It's a real thing, man,
Speaker 1: And and to cope on our own, to be able
Speaker 1: to cope without this stuff. It speaks to the characteris
Speaker 1: I can see it, like, you know, we still be
Speaker 1: trying to do the right thing. That's the craziest part
Speaker 1: of it. And laugh and tell these stories now, but
Speaker 1: oh man, they had this drive by or I was
Speaker 1: in this club and he's dudes fighting. Man, it sounds
Speaker 1: funny to talk about it down or some of the
Speaker 1: gang stuff you saw growing up in l A. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was wild, Like shoot, man, I remember being in
Speaker 1: high school and getting chased five five dudes from East
Speaker 1: Palalto and had that like hide in the gas station
Speaker 1: to keep from getting beat up, like the funny the
Speaker 1: funny story Bob Myers always talks about. Tells us back
Speaker 1: at u C. L A. Was like, yeah, man, my
Speaker 1: dad dropped me off at this court in East Palo
Speaker 1: Alto and I had to go hoop and it was
Speaker 1: like one of the craziest experience he had. He gave
Speaker 1: some he gave some respects, So I understand what East
Speaker 1: Palo Alto is all about. Bro. There was one time
Speaker 1: we got you know, because we used to drive around
Speaker 1: the different parks, you know, five us at a time,
Speaker 1: two cars. You know what I'm saying, Get yo. You
Speaker 1: had to be deep. You had to have a lot
Speaker 1: of people with you, and you had to be you know,
Speaker 1: you couldn't really run your mouth like that because you
Speaker 1: never knew who has some moan what you know she was?
Speaker 1: Your dad taught us in the movie Man Catch Up
Speaker 1: about about even go get another gun and that was
Speaker 1: that was hilarious. But man, um, staying on that sort
Speaker 1: of mental health, I wanted to get your take. This
Speaker 1: is somebody that works in the league, public league for
Speaker 1: so long, so you've watched short of the evolution of
Speaker 1: this cannabis use amongst NBA players as a way to
Speaker 1: cope with different aches and pains when they're not comfortable
Speaker 1: to deal with traditional medicines, et cetera. I know the
Speaker 1: league they banded it in what nine and then along
Speaker 1: with the dress code to sort of re shift the
Speaker 1: image of the NBA, But now it's at a different place.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on the cannabis in the bubble? Oh?
Speaker 1: I heard, I heard. I think I went into the
Speaker 1: and uh towards the final days of the bubble when
Speaker 1: a lot of the team most teams were liminated. I
Speaker 1: swear it was a big old package of weed that
Speaker 1: was like a box full of weed that somebody just
Speaker 1: didn't pick up. Oh my good, it was just stinking
Speaker 1: up the whole that was just it was well packaged.
Speaker 1: You I mean, like you could have spell anything, but
Speaker 1: you do what it was. It's like, man, look, man,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not a h somebody that smokes weeds and
Speaker 1: I never have, uh, but I live in Cali and
Speaker 1: anybody that. But I love a glass of wine. I
Speaker 1: think you know that. Who am I to tell somebody
Speaker 1: not to smoke weed? Right? Like my weed friends, Wine
Speaker 1: is more dangerous. And I'm like, brothers smoking weed, I
Speaker 1: don't that makes you do it? Man like? And I
Speaker 1: think those we're in a progressive state, like we we've
Speaker 1: always liked so in the rest of the world, we
Speaker 1: we we We hadn't thought twice about weeds since in
Speaker 1: the nineties, bro, since Dr Dre came out, Like we
Speaker 1: don't care. So it's kind of like funny, like it's
Speaker 1: still a big deal now, Like it's funny because now
Speaker 1: it's called cannabis. You call it cannabis. They had to
Speaker 1: change the name, you know, they had to change it.
Speaker 1: Do you remember cannabis? Cannabis is cannabis. We we have
Speaker 1: cannabis delivery. I see these billboards. I'm like, no, y'all
Speaker 1: got some people. Y'all y'all to arrested all these brothers
Speaker 1: for selling weed on the quarter. We like Stephen A.
Speaker 1: Smith say, we all these brothers went to jail for
Speaker 1: selling weed. But now you legally can deliver cannabis to
Speaker 1: somebody house. Come on, man, come on and let them
Speaker 1: brothers out of jail. Right. But it's uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's uh it's funny because I actually you see,
Speaker 1: if you remember this, remember when Mellow got in trouble
Speaker 1: for bringing got usaid for bringing weeat on a plane
Speaker 1: when he was with Denver oh Man. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: had a backpack that has some weed in it, and
Speaker 1: he had this dude name Slim that took the rap
Speaker 1: for him because it was he said it was Slim's backpack.
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to talk about about this because this
Speaker 1: is like funny to be it's funny now, well it
Speaker 1: was like this big deal, but Melo had weed in
Speaker 1: his bag and some dude named Slim. I think Slim
Speaker 1: got a nice check. You know, it took the wrap,
Speaker 1: which is like now you think about it was just silly.
Speaker 1: It was stupid, like he had to weed in his bag.
Speaker 1: And then now he has a weed company, like like
Speaker 1: it's so but it was funny, Like fifty years ago,
Speaker 1: Mellow basically almost went to dang jail for having weed
Speaker 1: in this bag, and now he's haking money off. And
Speaker 1: it's amazing to see all the athletes that are involved
Speaker 1: on the Canada side, on the professional level that a
Speaker 1: making money off of it. Of a Harrington's Matt, you know,
Speaker 1: these guys advocates, their advocating for the right reason that
Speaker 1: when you hear him talk about it, man, you you
Speaker 1: really get an understanding that they really took take it
Speaker 1: serious and they're really concerned about, you know, the health benefits.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad they're making money off of it, man.
Speaker 1: And there they're experts, try it and test it. Okay,
Speaker 1: you had to go like learn about They don't need
Speaker 1: to get to those class they don't. They can tell
Speaker 1: you anything you want to know about Eddie ka. Oh
Speaker 1: that's so they know more about we did they do?
Speaker 1: Who just say a lot? That'd be the crazy part.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Harrington, who was way ahead of the game.
Speaker 1: He's been ahead of it. He's killing it. And I
Speaker 1: hope that any NBA player who decides to invest in
Speaker 1: something and invest in now, yeah, invest in one of
Speaker 1: your guys man, like absolutely, Like, hey I did, I'm
Speaker 1: glad AI teamed up with him. Yeah, yeah, Mark, I
Speaker 1: wanted to get an understanding of why you went back
Speaker 1: to school and decided to get your master's degree in
Speaker 1: sports management. I know you, you you graduate from LGU in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen. Why did you do that? As
Speaker 1: you're already established, you know, so why would you add
Speaker 1: that to your repertoire um? You know. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite things I got from former Nuggets head coach Jeffers
Speaker 1: Delic is always stayed two steps ahead of the posse hmm.
Speaker 1: And I kind of felt like, I don't like just
Speaker 1: standing still. I always want to better myself. My mom
Speaker 1: has a master's degree, my sisters has a master's degree.
Speaker 1: I don't like them being ahead of me either. I
Speaker 1: got an a a degree from Foothill College. I got
Speaker 1: a bachelors from Sante State, and I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: have one. But I wanted to better of myself. So
Speaker 1: how could I not only get my masters but better
Speaker 1: myself in the process. And I thought that in my
Speaker 1: line of work, learning more about the business and sports
Speaker 1: and I already did know certainly could benefit me. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's why I decided to go into sports business management.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, I actually tried to go to
Speaker 1: Columbia for a second, and uh, just the right a
Speaker 1: rug from high school and they got me in or
Speaker 1: but it was like I had to take the g
Speaker 1: R and it was expensive. And you know, my families
Speaker 1: from Louisiana. My parents live in New Orleans. I always
Speaker 1: had New Orleans ties and loved L s U and
Speaker 1: the Tigers spent summers and Bunny fram Park in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: and you know the Seventh Ward in the Night War.
Speaker 1: You know the gumbo and you know eating you onion,
Speaker 1: hucka puck is you know hucka puck is? No, I
Speaker 1: don't know what it's like the Dixie ups and they
Speaker 1: used to put kool Aid in them and freeze them,
Speaker 1: and the White Lady used to something tense cent. We
Speaker 1: used to go get the hunder parks. So like I
Speaker 1: have a lot of like a lot of people think
Speaker 1: I'm from New Orleans. I'm from the Bay. I can
Speaker 1: tell you how to get the Chopoltoola Street, like news
Speaker 1: is my second home, right, And so I just started
Speaker 1: talking to the L. S U people, and they had
Speaker 1: this great sports business program and they're like, yo, what's
Speaker 1: your experience. They waved to g R E for me,
Speaker 1: which was like cool, I love that's like that they
Speaker 1: wanted me to be up like they recruited me tell
Speaker 1: shoe like recruited me to be a part of it,
Speaker 1: to be a part of that program. And man, it
Speaker 1: was a great two years. Shout out to Professor Martinez.
Speaker 1: Man I learned a lot. And man, the football program
Speaker 1: is like embraced me. The basketball programs embrace me, they
Speaker 1: said me swag like the best. They stayed. Football has
Speaker 1: embraced me too, and they like they still love me,
Speaker 1: and they stayed. But I got in footy of college,
Speaker 1: they got some like all of them take care of you.
Speaker 1: But l s U like embraced me as a family um.
Speaker 1: And I learned a lot. So I thought that there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a day when perhaps I don't do this anymore.
Speaker 1: Maybe a team might want me to work for him,
Speaker 1: or a league might want me to work for him
Speaker 1: in a senior role, or I could be a professor.
Speaker 1: So as you know, like I can't teach it U
Speaker 1: c l A without a master's, right, I can't teach
Speaker 1: it Sundse State without a master. So it's me trying
Speaker 1: to stay two steps ahead of the posse. And that's
Speaker 1: why I wanted to get my master's degree and It
Speaker 1: wasn't easy. It was hard, but I was so proud
Speaker 1: when I got it, and you know, I ended up.
Speaker 1: I went to the ceremony even though I did it online.
Speaker 1: I went to Baton Rouge with my mom and she
Speaker 1: was really proud. And my now wife we went and
Speaker 1: you know it's funny, Like we get there, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you the story real quick, and I'm driving up in
Speaker 1: this brother comes up to the window and he goes,
Speaker 1: what's uping, man, how are you doing? Man? I'm like,
Speaker 1: hey man. He goes, Mark, you don't remember me. I
Speaker 1: met you at the All Star Game in New Orleans
Speaker 1: and you were really really nice to me. I was like, okay, good,
Speaker 1: good to see you. He's like, yo, I'm working the
Speaker 1: l s U Football um department. You want to come
Speaker 1: in and take pictures in your cap and gown in
Speaker 1: a in a in a locker room. Oh in the
Speaker 1: football He said, we got recruits and you know the recruits.
Speaker 1: You're taking all those pictures and stuff. He's like, you
Speaker 1: could take them with you're camping down, Like yeah, I
Speaker 1: was supposed to be standing in the line getting ready
Speaker 1: for graduation. Bro. I go on the Tiger Stadium, going
Speaker 1: the locker room. You know how like all the players
Speaker 1: take the recruiting like, I'm in the I'm in the lockers.
Speaker 1: I'm a body's footballs. It's like all the purple and yellow,
Speaker 1: you know. And then I'm taking all these pictures like
Speaker 1: I gotta go get ready for the graduation to go.
Speaker 1: You don't want to going to feel I'm like, what
Speaker 1: do you mean? He's like, you can take some pictures
Speaker 1: on the field, Dan so man, I came out this
Speaker 1: video of it. I hit the wind bar, I'm in
Speaker 1: my cap and gown. Yeah, I go on the field,
Speaker 1: that Tiger Stadium by myself. They take pictures on me.
Speaker 1: We walked back in. Guess who's standing there that that
Speaker 1: was wrong? Jeez. So, I mean, he had no idea
Speaker 1: of who I am. Probably it was just fine. You
Speaker 1: don't need to know who I am. He meets my
Speaker 1: mom and they start talking about um my mom. My
Speaker 1: mom is a saint. But I think she lied. She
Speaker 1: told that old drink I prayed for you before every game.
Speaker 1: Look at her like you do for L. S U
Speaker 1: Football before every game. That's funny. I would go with it,
Speaker 1: and she said, yeah, you dude. She's like, you're Christian.
Speaker 1: But he's like, yeah, they started talking religion at Odron
Speaker 1: and my mom walked onto the football field start having
Speaker 1: this long conversation about religion. I gotta graduate. Mom, come back. No,
Speaker 1: I left her at on the football field and took
Speaker 1: off and we and they ended up watching it everything.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I must love that she talked to him.
Speaker 1: Don't say nothing about it, old, no, No, that's a
Speaker 1: great story. That's a great sty But l you showed
Speaker 1: me a lot of love. But they showed me love
Speaker 1: with that the education, and I feel like I know
Speaker 1: a lot more about the business of basketball, about the
Speaker 1: business sports, and like it's funny when we talk about
Speaker 1: we wanted to get in the teams moving and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But I started breaking down to my friends,
Speaker 1: like why this makes sense, Why this doesn't make sense?
Speaker 1: TV markets and revenue sharing and all, like damn you
Speaker 1: on it, hey, come on, bro love it. I love
Speaker 1: to hear it. Mark Man. That was that's that was
Speaker 1: a great story. Um so, man, we're about an hour in. Man,
Speaker 1: I just got really one more one more comment from me,
Speaker 1: broh that that I wanted to grab and I and
Speaker 1: I and I asked everybody that I've interviewed over the
Speaker 1: last six months, the same question has been about seventy
Speaker 1: five different interviews. Um, if you could just share with
Speaker 1: us your most memorable story about Kobe Bryant. Huhm wow,
Speaker 1: Well that's something I can't put on the ones we
Speaker 1: can't share the ones we can can. I tell to yes, please, UM,
Speaker 1: please do One time I went to interview and he
Speaker 1: took care to take care of me. Chirst man like
Speaker 1: I would meet him talk via email, and I'm big
Speaker 1: on email because players change their phone numbers all the time,
Speaker 1: but they don't change their emails. That's that's a little
Speaker 1: gift for the journalism people listening. They don't change their email.
Speaker 1: So an email, Hey I'm coming to town, him coming
Speaker 1: to practice. I would go to media day and he
Speaker 1: would always he talked to everybody, but then he would
Speaker 1: put me on the side for ten minutes and I
Speaker 1: remember all the media people be looking at me, pissed
Speaker 1: and everything. I don't hate to player hate the game.
Speaker 1: Then used to take care of me. Man to break
Speaker 1: one on one interviews, and so one time he was
Speaker 1: with my man Nico Harrison. Shout out to Niko, congrats
Speaker 1: on the Dallas job him and Nico's Niko was always
Speaker 1: by his side. They're leven practice amount of practice that
Speaker 1: I go to interview being I said, cold, you got
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes before you leave, and um, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, not not for you today. I'm like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Bro? I had this beautiful Adida
Speaker 1: sweats and though, yeah, you know, we like big dude,
Speaker 1: so it's all just um that fit right, you know.
Speaker 1: But it was this school. It was this black Adidas
Speaker 1: sweat suit with the black shoes a match. I was
Speaker 1: looking good at that day and it fits right. It
Speaker 1: was almost like it was Taylor made it fit that good.
Speaker 1: He's like, I ain't interview. I ain't doing an interview
Speaker 1: what you're wearing. And I'm like why He's like really
Speaker 1: dog and he and he's Nike dripped. He had the
Speaker 1: toe and it hit me like damn. He did have
Speaker 1: a bad break up with Adidas. Like he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: just not doing that in and I needed to be bad.
Speaker 1: Like come on, man, He's like, look, this is what
Speaker 1: you're gonna do. I said, what's that you're gonna go?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you the interview, but when you go home,
Speaker 1: you're gonna throw all that away and you're gonna take
Speaker 1: a video of you throwing it away, and you know
Speaker 1: I wouldn't see it in the trash, that sweatsuit in
Speaker 1: the trash, and I need proof to you threw it away.
Speaker 1: Do you want the interview or not? I was like, yeah, bro,
Speaker 1: I want the interview. So I did the interview and
Speaker 1: literally when I went home, I had somebody videotaped me
Speaker 1: throwing it down. The trash shoot wasn't even had the
Speaker 1: trash can. It was a trash shoot because I lived
Speaker 1: in an apartment in jack London. That was it for
Speaker 1: It wasn't coming back, It wasn't coming back. It was
Speaker 1: in a trasho. You didn't want going in that trash.
Speaker 1: It was the apartment complex trash. How did that make Mark?
Speaker 1: How did but how did that make you feel? Was
Speaker 1: it worth it? Mark? Yes, at the end of the day, yes,
Speaker 1: any being interviewed at that time, yes. And what I
Speaker 1: learned from that is there's another little journalism tip. Anytime
Speaker 1: I interview a player, I either put my cold hands
Speaker 1: on because the co hands is like remember in South
Speaker 1: ceter of the hood, like East Side Saddle say he's
Speaker 1: pa you better know what colors are a different neighborhood.
Speaker 1: But if you wore a white, if some like blue jeans,
Speaker 1: you can probably get away anyway, right, blue jeans and
Speaker 1: blue jeans. Right. So my point is I would wear
Speaker 1: shoes or clothing that if I talked to Curry, I'm
Speaker 1: wearing under armor, like if I'm talking to Dame or
Speaker 1: where Adidas, And if I talk to Draymond Durant and
Speaker 1: wear a Nike, like, I wear it based on who
Speaker 1: I'm talking to because I learned about what lesson. And
Speaker 1: you if you think these dudes is not following that,
Speaker 1: you got another thing coming. You got another thing coming.
Speaker 1: So now that's that's the lesson I learned from that.
Speaker 1: Like I'm very like I interviewed CP yesterday, but I
Speaker 1: had Cohens, So that was I was neutral, right, stressed
Speaker 1: up them dudes, pay attention to that. Um. The only
Speaker 1: other story, I we got time when you gotta ruin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got plenty of time. Bro. So when he played
Speaker 1: his last game at Golden State, I was at the
Speaker 1: game and he saw me waiting for him in the
Speaker 1: locker room. And you know that Golden State locker room.
Speaker 1: You visiting locker room at that time was like the
Speaker 1: biggest in the league is huge, visiting team is huge,
Speaker 1: and he goes. Somebody came up to me said, Kobe
Speaker 1: said to come in the training room. I ain't never
Speaker 1: been a no chan like a media person, but if
Speaker 1: Kobe said to come in the training room, take your
Speaker 1: butt to the training room. So we be going there
Speaker 1: and we have like this long conversation. And the one
Speaker 1: thing about him, if you was one of his people,
Speaker 1: that I loved about him, is he he really cared
Speaker 1: about you as a person and care and and and
Speaker 1: cared how you're doing and how your family was doing.
Speaker 1: And I think the first time we really we're able
Speaker 1: to connect well was after Hurricane Katrina and he he
Speaker 1: played there's this if somebody wants to look it up,
Speaker 1: there's this great game on YouTube that you could probably
Speaker 1: find now. But it was a charity game for Hurricane
Speaker 1: Katrina that took place in Houston. All these NBA superstars
Speaker 1: played in it. Kobe Shock, Yeah, Yer played it like
Speaker 1: I was all almost in it. And that's when me
Speaker 1: and Kobe connected because he was. He actually pulled me
Speaker 1: to the side and was asked me about my family
Speaker 1: and my parents who had evacuated. Um, so we had
Speaker 1: this long conversation and he actually he actually asked you
Speaker 1: about that. He actually told and he heard my families
Speaker 1: in New Orleans and like literally asked me about and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So anyways, um, fast forward. At that time,
Speaker 1: kind of felt like something was changing with my career
Speaker 1: and the undefeated stuff was slowly starting to come up
Speaker 1: and I kind in the game of heads up on it,
Speaker 1: and um, after I got the job, he was one
Speaker 1: of the first people I emailed because we had a
Speaker 1: real I was actually worried about our conversation getting on
Speaker 1: air because that's when um, um, Spike Lee was filming
Speaker 1: all that stuff for his documentary and they were camera
Speaker 1: crew was in the room with me and him spoke. Now,
Speaker 1: I would love to have that video personally now if
Speaker 1: I could about that conversation. I which, if you ever
Speaker 1: run across somebody who worked on that doc I bet
Speaker 1: you they could probably find it deep deep in the archives.
Speaker 1: But we talked about the teen minutes and but I
Speaker 1: sent him an email basically told him I got the job,
Speaker 1: and he sent me email back saying, a man, I'm
Speaker 1: proud of you. Continue to use your voice and if
Speaker 1: you need anything for me, man, don't hesitate. And I've
Speaker 1: been meaning to print out that email and like put
Speaker 1: it on this wall somewhere. You know, I need to
Speaker 1: do that at um. But the last time I saw
Speaker 1: him was about a year after I was in the Undefeated.
Speaker 1: He when he got his jersey retired. That was not
Speaker 1: the last time I saw him, but the last time
Speaker 1: we got to speak. I think you got the video
Speaker 1: there he came up to me. Is that big spirit?
Speaker 1: Is that big spirit? And he actually was congratulating me
Speaker 1: from my career and what I was doing with Undefeated.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, bro, you did you see me? I'm like,
Speaker 1: you just retired, like your jersey. This is about the
Speaker 1: saying about me. But that showed you what kind of
Speaker 1: man he was. That he hadn't seen me. We had
Speaker 1: the email or talk whatever, but and done in interviews
Speaker 1: and everything on, but we hadn't seen each other. And
Speaker 1: he was like, Amen, congratulations, and I was like, and
Speaker 1: even in this time of getting his jersey retired, he
Speaker 1: thought it was important to tell me congratulations. Man. So
Speaker 1: I'm still not there with it yet, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, I still haven't figured it out yet in
Speaker 1: my mind um, but no, I I was. I was
Speaker 1: sad when he retired. I think that was the only
Speaker 1: time when the player retired and I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: he was great, he was great to me, and and
Speaker 1: him being gone. I still haven't come to like a
Speaker 1: complete realization about that. No, that's one of the toughest
Speaker 1: things that we've had to do with. Man, Like, it's
Speaker 1: a basketball community, bro, that ain't going away. Oh no, man,
Speaker 1: it's deep. It's too deep. You go to l A
Speaker 1: and y'all got a reminder on every corner. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't even Yeah, you can't walk anywhere without thinking about
Speaker 1: any neighborhood in l A. That's love too, love any
Speaker 1: neighborhood in l A. You're gonna see a mural. Some
Speaker 1: are better than others. Some resembled to me a little
Speaker 1: more than others. Year. But man, it's funny though, when
Speaker 1: when you talk to people and how all these stories
Speaker 1: about Kobe's character, the unbelievable nature of his character and
Speaker 1: now starting to come out, it makes you realize that
Speaker 1: the Black Mamba, his own court persona, that whole thing
Speaker 1: that was that was just really what it was. But no,
Speaker 1: if that was work ethic, Yeah, actually that that was
Speaker 1: like work ethic um. But when you know when you
Speaker 1: saw Jordan the last dance like go to come to tears,
Speaker 1: like that was like the moment of the last dance
Speaker 1: I always remember because he wanted greatness so much that
Speaker 1: in order to get it out of the people, he
Speaker 1: felt like he had to be a jerk to get
Speaker 1: down to respond. And then a lot of that was
Speaker 1: in Kobe too, Like I could imagine the conversations that
Speaker 1: Jordan and Kobe had late at night because I don't
Speaker 1: know that anybody really had anybody else to relate to
Speaker 1: that mentality, that Mamba mentality, that jordan Esque mentality, like
Speaker 1: that I want greatness at all costs. I know you're
Speaker 1: not as great as me, but I'm a push and
Speaker 1: prode you to bring you to a place that you
Speaker 1: didn't think you could get to. And uh So it
Speaker 1: was funny because so many people thought that Being was
Speaker 1: a jerk and that, oh my goodness, he was one
Speaker 1: of the greatest people in the world, like smartest people
Speaker 1: in the world. Another thing he did behind the scenes
Speaker 1: that was brilliant, and I implore any NBA player, especially
Speaker 1: the stars, to do this. One of the reasons I mean,
Speaker 1: being in l a afford you treasures. Right, You're gonna
Speaker 1: meet people wearing that laking for your uniform afford you treasures.
Speaker 1: But when he would go meet with people after games,
Speaker 1: it was always these influential people. He would scout them
Speaker 1: in the same way he scouted their opponents. So if
Speaker 1: you were sowing so from Microsoft and you got to
Speaker 1: meet Kobe after the game, because the only people he
Speaker 1: was meeting after game were either people that you know,
Speaker 1: kid too, something to was happening with them, right, or
Speaker 1: somebody of ILK somebody of note like got to meet him.
Speaker 1: And you would see these people several times after Lakers game.
Speaker 1: You see these like very important people like nervous. He
Speaker 1: would come in and be like, oh, hey, so and so,
Speaker 1: pleasure to meet you. Meant, oh man, what you're doing
Speaker 1: Microsoft is amazing. Yeah, you guys did this this and
Speaker 1: this and this and that's like so he was like
Speaker 1: calming them down, taking away the nervousness because they would
Speaker 1: be shocked, like, damn, you know as much about me
Speaker 1: as as I do about you. And I'm sure that
Speaker 1: opened all kind of business stories for him because once
Speaker 1: he was meeting all these powerful people and showing them
Speaker 1: respect and knowing who they were. Hey, man, Kobe, whatever
Speaker 1: you want, you call me, have your people call me
Speaker 1: in that door open. There was so much great that
Speaker 1: he was going to do that I think us surpassed
Speaker 1: everything he did legendary already, like the book that these
Speaker 1: books that he had written he wrote about superheroes, like
Speaker 1: who writes about superheroes are different races? Because his kids
Speaker 1: were mixed, he wanted them to be able to read
Speaker 1: books about, you know, superheroes or or um mythical characters
Speaker 1: that were of different colors so they could relate to him.
Speaker 1: I wish we could have heard him talk about race today.
Speaker 1: I wish we could have heard them during all this
Speaker 1: hate and you'd have all these like the people that
Speaker 1: were are racist, but don't listen to Kobe Bryant, Like
Speaker 1: I think his best work would have been done now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately he didn't get a chance to do that. No,
Speaker 1: but yeah he didn't. But it's up to the next
Speaker 1: generation of men to kind of keep that up. I
Speaker 1: know for me personally, just being a dad and having
Speaker 1: daughters and just watching him with his little girls and
Speaker 1: just that whole side of him. I mean, it really
Speaker 1: just it's sort of just disarms you and assens because
Speaker 1: you know you're used to him as this certain dude,
Speaker 1: but you see him with you know, Natalia and Gianna
Speaker 1: and how he talks about him, and so it just
Speaker 1: makes you be like, man, I gotta be a better dude.
Speaker 1: And it's not a lot of people that inspire you,
Speaker 1: especially when you get to my age anymore. Like I
Speaker 1: don't have as many inspirations, but I will say that
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant is a man, not basketball player. He definitely
Speaker 1: was one of the most inspirational dudes that I had,
Speaker 1: you know, because I was awful them for a little bit,
Speaker 1: but then I just had no choice but to be like, man,
Speaker 1: this dude is just you know, sharp as attack always.
Speaker 1: He took a lot of things from Michael suiting and
Speaker 1: booted after the game. And you saw the love for
Speaker 1: his family because he was like one of the few
Speaker 1: players and perhaps it was because of his star too
Speaker 1: that he could do it. Like you would see often
Speaker 1: when he's leaving the game, his wife and kids would
Speaker 1: be sitting outside a lot we wait always and you
Speaker 1: know that the love for him because they were patient
Speaker 1: about it. It wasn't like they were waiting in the
Speaker 1: family room for him. They were waiting outside the locker
Speaker 1: room for him. Wow, that's dope, man. So I saw
Speaker 1: them little girls all the time because they were waiting there.
Speaker 1: They would sit there and wait for him for a
Speaker 1: half hour or whatever. You know, he was one of
Speaker 1: the last people to walk out. Oh the things you
Speaker 1: had to do. But yeah, man, that's uh yeah, there
Speaker 1: were so many beautiful chapters to be written that way.
Speaker 1: That was stolen from the world. Absolutely well, Mark, Man,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you your time today. We wait hold On'm
Speaker 1: gonna leave with this because we gotta leave on a
Speaker 1: good note. Let's good. Yeah. He used to always tell
Speaker 1: me I asked a lot of Doctor Seuss asked questions.
Speaker 1: What do you mean with the riddles? You come in
Speaker 1: as a compliment, man, because because you know, like I
Speaker 1: also like bighted in psychology, so by by question to
Speaker 1: have depth tool. A lot of times you always ask
Speaker 1: me all this, damn Dr Seuss asked questions, man. So
Speaker 1: I refused to think of it as a put down.
Speaker 1: I do think it was a complement, man. But that's hilarious.
Speaker 1: You always ask some goddamn Dr Seuss asked questions. One
Speaker 1: of the kind being man. Yeah, rest in peace, fars me. Brother.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, my man. Um, thank you for coming
Speaker 1: on kJ Live today and thanks for bringing on some
Speaker 1: you know, just journalists man. Like you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if anybody cares what I have to say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do, they do. You got a voice, You got
Speaker 1: a voice. Man. You're one of the most interesting dudes man,
Speaker 1: and I love your work. Keep up the great work, bro.
Speaker 1: I'm a big, big fan man, and it's been an
Speaker 1: honor to have you on the show. Love you, love
Speaker 1: your family, y'all, Basketball royalty. Keep doing everything you guys
Speaker 1: are doing on all platforms. Apreciate you, your brother, y'all. Y'all,
Speaker 1: y'all define what basketball means. Man. So I love you all.
Speaker 1: Love you can continue success, Bro, Thank you Mark. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you man, all right,