Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to Club sha Shade. I am your host.
Speaker 1: I'm also the proprietor Club Shade Shade. The guy that's
Speaker 1: on my should that stopped by a few minutes. Today
Speaker 1: there's a twelve time All Star, two time All Star MVP.
Speaker 1: He's the Finals MVP, a two time champion, a national champion,
Speaker 1: most outstanding player in college, one of the fifty greatest
Speaker 1: players in NBA history. Isaiah Thomas. All my life, running
Speaker 1: all my life, sacrifice, hustle, back, pricing, Want a slice?
Speaker 1: Got the bron dice to swath all my life. I've
Speaker 1: been grinding all my life, all my life. The running,
Speaker 1: all my life, sacrifice, hustle, baggy, pricing, Want a slice?
Speaker 1: Got the bronic swath all my life. I've been grinding
Speaker 1: all my life. Isaiah, how are you today? I am good, brother,
Speaker 1: and thanks for having me on your show. Thanks for
Speaker 1: coming on. In all my years i've known you, Isaiah,
Speaker 1: I've never not seen you in a suit. Do you
Speaker 1: wear jean? Do you wear shorts? Do you wear anything
Speaker 1: other than suits? You know what? One time, one time
Speaker 1: I remember I went to do uh, we did a
Speaker 1: little thing at NBA TV that open court set. Okay,
Speaker 1: on us all to come casual, right, So I put
Speaker 1: on jeans in the shirt and Steve Smith grabbed me, right,
Speaker 1: he goes, n No, no, you always wear a jacket.
Speaker 1: So this is this is like this is like my
Speaker 1: grade school Catholic boy. You know, okay, Asaiah, you grew
Speaker 1: up on the West Side of Chicago, nine brothers and sisters. Obviously,
Speaker 1: normally when families come from big family like that, the
Speaker 1: parents are very disciplined, very strict. How were you upbringing
Speaker 1: in Chicago, just as you just described it? My my
Speaker 1: my family, you know, six brothers, two sisters. We were
Speaker 1: a big family. Mom and dad were very Uh, I
Speaker 1: guess you would say strict. But you know when we
Speaker 1: when we talk about being strict and disciplinarians at that age,
Speaker 1: they only telling you to do the right things right.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're young and your teenagers, you always
Speaker 1: want to veer off the beaten track, and they just
Speaker 1: had a way of keeping you on the right track
Speaker 1: and giving you positive messages. And even though we were
Speaker 1: extremely poor, uh, you know, there was that poverty line
Speaker 1: and then there was the line below poverty. We were
Speaker 1: at right, you know, a couple of times we were homeless,
Speaker 1: set out, you know, living from just place to place.
Speaker 1: But when I look back on on growing up and
Speaker 1: how we lived, h somehow my mom and my dad
Speaker 1: always found a way to make a smile with a
Speaker 1: song or or do something just to take your mind
Speaker 1: off the pain that you was really going through. So
Speaker 1: I give them a lot of credit for just I
Speaker 1: don't know how they navigated us, you know, through the
Speaker 1: path that we were we were on at that time,
Speaker 1: but somehow they they did it and made sure that
Speaker 1: you know, I got through. Asaiah, you mentioned you have
Speaker 1: nine brothers. It's nine of you guys. You're the youngest
Speaker 1: of the nine. So how would your parents were your parents?
Speaker 1: Like I'm talking about the difference between I think the
Speaker 1: thing if you grew up in the sixties and early seventies,
Speaker 1: and I know what strict back then meant as opposed
Speaker 1: to what strict is now. There are two different types
Speaker 1: of strict. There are strict in the sixties and seventies
Speaker 1: and they're strict in the twenty first century. So those
Speaker 1: are different. So explain to our listeners if you were
Speaker 1: what strict meant to you growing up back then, it
Speaker 1: then really just there was a there was a respect
Speaker 1: for your elders that you always had to give us. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was always mister and missus, yes sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am.
Speaker 1: It was never hey, beatty, how you doing? And and
Speaker 1: just that that that that type of respect in terms
Speaker 1: of dignity for yourself, dignity for your fellow man or
Speaker 1: person that you were dealing with. That's what I mean
Speaker 1: by by strict and in terms of being disciplined. You know,
Speaker 1: the way child rearing was back then and the way
Speaker 1: it is now a two totally different things. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're going to jail now for what they did back then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my my mom right now she would not be looked at, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and and loving eyes right out and nowadays
Speaker 1: as she was back then, right, you know, I would
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, the way the way things
Speaker 1: were and the way we had to come through to survive.
Speaker 1: Has she not been able to corral us all in
Speaker 1: and keep us focused on education, keep us focused on
Speaker 1: doing the right things. And even though she only had
Speaker 1: a third grade education herself, she always made sure that
Speaker 1: somehow we we had a meal. Uh, and you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we would have to beg and I remember one
Speaker 1: time we were standing in uh, the food line, and
Speaker 1: you know you when you're standing in the back, then
Speaker 1: you just called it the soup line. Okay, we're standing
Speaker 1: in the soup line, and we had just got out
Speaker 1: of school. And so at four o'clock we're standing in
Speaker 1: the soup line and kids still coming from school. And
Speaker 1: I never forget, this little boy walked by and he
Speaker 1: was teasing me, and I tried to get out of
Speaker 1: line and get him. Man, my mother snatched me so hard,
Speaker 1: so hard to put me back in line, because you know,
Speaker 1: if you lose your place in line, you gotta go
Speaker 1: all the way back, went to the back. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: and I never forget she snatched me so hard. But
Speaker 1: you know when she snatched me, you know how they
Speaker 1: snatched you by your ear, they pull you back in Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so but you mentioned it was yes, sir, no sir, yes, ma'am. No, ma'am.
Speaker 1: That just wasn't for your your parents. That was for
Speaker 1: anybody age that you had to show the ultimate respect towards. Yes,
Speaker 1: I had to show the ultimate respect for him. And
Speaker 1: then when the older person that's older than you, yes,
Speaker 1: coming down the street, you had to stop, let them
Speaker 1: walk by, and and and and keep going and and
Speaker 1: I grew up in some I grew up in the
Speaker 1: roughest neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago that you
Speaker 1: can imagine. But that type of respect for your elders
Speaker 1: and people who were older than you, that was always there,
Speaker 1: and to a certain extent, that's still there a little
Speaker 1: bit today. I think you're growing up West side of Chicago.
Speaker 1: What did you Obviously that's not I mean, how your
Speaker 1: parents were you Like, I want something better than this.
Speaker 1: Obviously you had to imagine that there was something better
Speaker 1: than this that on the West side of Chicago. So
Speaker 1: how did your upbringing help you? Like I can get
Speaker 1: I need to get up out of here, and I
Speaker 1: can get out here. You know, That's what sports kicked in.
Speaker 1: So being being involved in sport allowed me to be
Speaker 1: on a travel team. Okay, you can go outside of
Speaker 1: your your your four block radius that we all were
Speaker 1: confined to. Uh you would you would travel outside of that,
Speaker 1: you know, with your team and you would get to
Speaker 1: see other communities. Right. Not only would you get to
Speaker 1: see other communities, you would meet other people and you
Speaker 1: would see that there's a different way of life other
Speaker 1: than what you saw on television. There was a different
Speaker 1: way of life because you saw it on television, but
Speaker 1: you didn't know that it was maybe five miles away
Speaker 1: from you, right, And and that that allowed you to think,
Speaker 1: think bigger, That allowed you to aspire to be more.
Speaker 1: But a lot of that, really, you know, it comes
Speaker 1: back to, you know, the messages that's being reverberated in
Speaker 1: your household about Hey, you know this isn't the last
Speaker 1: stop and the only way we were we would take.
Speaker 1: The only way you're going to get out of here
Speaker 1: is not with this basketball, but with these books. Right.
Speaker 1: Without these books, you can't play with this basketball, right,
Speaker 1: because they went hand in hand. And Shannon, you remember
Speaker 1: when we were growing up, Hey, the bad guys couldn't
Speaker 1: be on the team, right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And one no such thing as oh he can give
Speaker 1: me twenty points and Tim rebounds a bad guy. But
Speaker 1: we're put up with it. No, no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: the bad guys. You know, in terms of your personality,
Speaker 1: your personhood as a teammate, can you can you be
Speaker 1: with this group? But if you were a bad person, right,
Speaker 1: you got kicked off the team and they didn't care
Speaker 1: how many points and rebounds you can get. Nowadays, the
Speaker 1: bad guy can be on the team, right, which is
Speaker 1: which is different than the way we grow up. So
Speaker 1: did you really, okay, you're good at basketball, you're on
Speaker 1: the traveling team. Did you feel that this was going
Speaker 1: to be your opportunity, this was going to be your
Speaker 1: way out. This was a way that Isaiah was going
Speaker 1: to take care of his family and his and the
Speaker 1: family that he grew up with. No, So, when you know,
Speaker 1: the narrative around us as as professional basketball players is
Speaker 1: that we grew up wanting to be NBA players. Know,
Speaker 1: the NFL was on television, but NBA one no television,
Speaker 1: it was not no. So, so when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: it was never like, oh, the NBA dream, You're gonna
Speaker 1: make all this money, because there were that wasn't there
Speaker 1: for us, even though you knew it was an NBA.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like, you know, the NFL. And so all
Speaker 1: my goals were geared towards law school, trying to go
Speaker 1: to law school, trying to be a lawyer, come back
Speaker 1: to the community, you know, be a criminal defense lawyer helped,
Speaker 1: you know, help my community. That that's where everything was
Speaker 1: geared towards Now then, you know, as basketball started to
Speaker 1: get more popular and I was looked at as a
Speaker 1: good basketball player, you know, then you got scholarships and
Speaker 1: everything else. But that wasn't the childhood dream because it
Speaker 1: wasn't on television. As a matter, I dream more about
Speaker 1: playing football than because, as you mentioned, only the game
Speaker 1: of only the game of the week was live, and
Speaker 1: even the NBA Finals, Magic Johnson's NBA first year in
Speaker 1: the championship that was tape delayed. People say, oh, basketball
Speaker 1: has been this, this this behem of all the years. No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't finals were tape delayed. They were played and
Speaker 1: then you you already knew who won, but you watched
Speaker 1: it anyway because you wanted to see the game exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, that behemoth has always been an NFL, yes,
Speaker 1: and and that the NFL has, uh, you know, in
Speaker 1: spite even though we played basketball, and that's why you
Speaker 1: see a lot of basketball players now still, you know,
Speaker 1: gravitate to football because football, to me, it is the
Speaker 1: sport in terms of okay, everything is real, you know,
Speaker 1: and everything's about you know, being in your position, working
Speaker 1: together as a team. And if you don't do your
Speaker 1: job as a left ta tackle or right tackle, or
Speaker 1: a guard or a sinner. Somebody getting hurt, right, somebody
Speaker 1: getting right. So you know, if if we don't do
Speaker 1: all jobs on the basketball court, okay, you there may
Speaker 1: be a turnover somebody, you know, somebody gets scored on.
Speaker 1: But but in football, really, if that person doesn't do
Speaker 1: his job, somebody is going to get hurt. So the
Speaker 1: trust that you that you build on the football team
Speaker 1: that you played with as teammates, and that that's it.
Speaker 1: That's different than than you know, what you have on
Speaker 1: the basketball team. And that's why I always gravitated if
Speaker 1: you look at all my teams that are played on
Speaker 1: and that I was captain of, we always played with
Speaker 1: a football mentality, right, you know the bad boys at
Speaker 1: Detroit Pistons we were wearing football jerseys. Ers, yeah, all that.
Speaker 1: That's that's what we brought a football mentality the basketball.
Speaker 1: And people think it was a physicality, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: a physicality. It was a mentality in terms of trust,
Speaker 1: people coming together, taking care of each other and looking
Speaker 1: out for each other. So you're growing up your underside soul.
Speaker 1: Who are some of when you're growing up? Who are
Speaker 1: some of the NBA stars that you like. Okay, I
Speaker 1: kind of like him. I like his game, I can
Speaker 1: because boy's not a whole at all. But you heard
Speaker 1: about guys that anybody that you wanted to be like,
Speaker 1: you idolized. They were all in my neighborhood and my
Speaker 1: older brothers. And again, you gotta remember, it wasn't on television, right,
Speaker 1: so we we you know, up until I guess, I
Speaker 1: guess nineteen eighty. I was nineteen eighty, nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: that's when the NBA started getting on television. But I
Speaker 1: was a senior, you know, senior freshman in high school
Speaker 1: right within you're a freshman in college, right, So growing
Speaker 1: up I always wanted to be like guys in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: You always dated somebody's move. My older brother always tried
Speaker 1: to imitate him, still a lot of his moves. And
Speaker 1: then there was a guy out of name a Sam Puckett,
Speaker 1: who actually was my brother's rival at another school. Okay,
Speaker 1: I tried to imitate some of his game too. So
Speaker 1: coming obviously coming from Chicago, I mean normally, when you
Speaker 1: hear about basketball players, you hear about Chicago, you hear
Speaker 1: about New York, you hear about the big cities. So
Speaker 1: you go to Indiana. What was the thought process of
Speaker 1: going to Indiana. I'm sure you had heard some of
Speaker 1: the stories about Coach Knight. And then it's reported that
Speaker 1: your brother and Coach Night get into it when he
Speaker 1: comes to recruit you. Well, all that's true. And by
Speaker 1: the way, here I'm scratching. That's my dog behind me,
Speaker 1: So I saw I saw it walk in. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that most people probably think I got a big dog.
Speaker 1: But that little fellow he tough. Now. But you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't make the decision to go to Indiana. That
Speaker 1: was made by my mom. And and again back then,
Speaker 1: remember remember you your mom and your dad, they they
Speaker 1: had to hammer, right, I never forget. You know, my mom,
Speaker 1: you know, called the press conference and she said, my
Speaker 1: son has made his decision. He decided to go to
Speaker 1: Indiana University and play for coach tonight. And I was
Speaker 1: like that and and yeah, here and my brother they
Speaker 1: got into it, and they got into it. They got
Speaker 1: into a you know, a pretty big fight. And you
Speaker 1: know the reason why. What was it about? Well, coach
Speaker 1: and I was recruiting me to come to Indiana in Bloomington, Indiana, right,
Speaker 1: and and the next town over from Bloomington was Martinsville, Indiana. Okay,
Speaker 1: plan started at her. Plan is is, you know, as
Speaker 1: a big presence in the state of Indiana, right, And
Speaker 1: and so my brother, you know, uh he asked Coach Tonight.
Speaker 1: He said, uh, well, you know when juniors down there,
Speaker 1: because that's what they called me in the family. They said,
Speaker 1: when junior's down there, if if something was to go
Speaker 1: down with the clan, who's gonna take care of him?
Speaker 1: And you know, I thought it was I thought it
Speaker 1: was kind of a funny ass. So Coach Knight said, well,
Speaker 1: if we're winning, they will. We just kind of laughed
Speaker 1: it off, right. A brother didn't think that was funny, right,
Speaker 1: So so he's like, oh, you know, you know, he
Speaker 1: went into his thing and you know, and so they
Speaker 1: got into, you know, a little back and forth, and
Speaker 1: then my brother said, well, hey, we can take this outside.
Speaker 1: And Coach Knight stood up, took his jacket off, rolled
Speaker 1: up his sleeve. It's like, yeah, we could take this outside.
Speaker 1: And you know, everybody in the house we were panicking,
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, you know our households all right, Oh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: Now now Shannon, you know, let me let me paint
Speaker 1: the scene. So we at that time we got no lights.
Speaker 1: We always poor, so all our meetings have to be
Speaker 1: in the in the daytime, right right. So it's about
Speaker 1: four o'clock and you know, again we got you know,
Speaker 1: it's actually it was a big roach crawling behind Coach
Speaker 1: Knight's head, oh man, you know, and it was like
Speaker 1: we were sitting there like cool away, cool away, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't come out, do you have company? I feel
Speaker 1: right right and sorry by my dog. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: now it's getting to be a little dusk and I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, so the the scuffle you know, started happening,
Speaker 1: not a scuffle, but the back and forth. Coach and
Speaker 1: I took off his jacket and we was all no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: And you know it's that one person in the room
Speaker 1: who ain't moving, ain't doing nothing right with my mom.
Speaker 1: My mom was looking at him like shaking her head,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, she liked him. And so
Speaker 1: that's that's how I went down and my mom and
Speaker 1: my mom and my sister. You know, he he came in,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm off of your son. Three things. Hey,
Speaker 1: he's gonna graduate from college. D he's going to be
Speaker 1: a gentleman and see everything that I know about basketball,
Speaker 1: I'm a teacher. And that was it. I said at
Speaker 1: the time that you went to college, were your father alive?
Speaker 1: My father was alive. Now. The interesting thing about my father,
Speaker 1: my mother and my father, and and again, you know,
Speaker 1: people who were coming up in the sixties, you would notice,
Speaker 1: you know. So we had to go on welfare. So
Speaker 1: when you go on welfare, I mean the US government
Speaker 1: was really breaking up your family because the man couldn't
Speaker 1: be inside the household, right And so my father had
Speaker 1: to leave so we can get on welfare, get the
Speaker 1: welfare check. And then they started having titchen and everything else.
Speaker 1: But my mom my dad, when he looked at Indiana,
Speaker 1: he did not like me playing basketball. Okay, my father
Speaker 1: didn't like nothing about entertainment. My father was everything about books, learning,
Speaker 1: getting educated, because this is the way you're going to
Speaker 1: make it in this world, right done. If you think
Speaker 1: you're gonna make it in this world bouncing a basketball,
Speaker 1: that's not how you're going to make it. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna be you know. And and his beliefs was, you know, entertainment,
Speaker 1: you know, wasn't wasn't the wasn't the door or the
Speaker 1: avenue for you to make it. It was the education
Speaker 1: and those were his beliefs. I think the reason why
Speaker 1: I asked you that because I don't know how many
Speaker 1: people know this, but we know this because we come
Speaker 1: from black families. The older brother took on the role
Speaker 1: as the father if the father wasn't in the house.
Speaker 1: And because you said your brother, your older brother, had
Speaker 1: this conversation that led me know, okay, when somebody when
Speaker 1: the father was absterlent, he's the man of the house.
Speaker 1: He took all that responsibility. Yes he did. And and
Speaker 1: they and even though and it's well documented, you know,
Speaker 1: my my brothers after after the Vietnam War, everybody fell
Speaker 1: into you know, heroin and cocaine, and my brothers, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of them died, you know, one of them
Speaker 1: had HIV and you know, so it was it was
Speaker 1: a very difficult time during that period of time. But
Speaker 1: the messages that they were always giving me or their
Speaker 1: hard times was hey, don't don't do what we're doing right,
Speaker 1: can do something else. And Shannon, I never forget you know, uh,
Speaker 1: now you got me going down memory lane because when
Speaker 1: we started, when we were talking about my brothers. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody got to hand me down, right. Oh? Yes, so
Speaker 1: me being the youngest, right, oh you got you got
Speaker 1: three four deep, hand me down three four deep. But
Speaker 1: I couldn't think my brother's So you know who's clothes?
Speaker 1: I could fit sister's clothes. I got my sister's clothes.
Speaker 1: So you're butting up on the left side too, wearing
Speaker 1: I wearing a jeans and you know we knew Mando
Speaker 1: was a girl jeans. So I'm having the fire on
Speaker 1: people in elementary and junior high because they talk about
Speaker 1: I'm wearing girl jeans. So I got the fire on them.
Speaker 1: I said, I got no choice. That's how I got
Speaker 1: good with my hands. That's how I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well go on graduation day. I had on my sister's
Speaker 1: black pattern leather boots, and I had on her flowered
Speaker 1: red blows with a hood on the back. And I
Speaker 1: had on her privateence Saint Mao blazer. That was my
Speaker 1: graduation outfit in eighth grade. So you go to you
Speaker 1: go to Indiana. What was it like playing for Coach Night?
Speaker 1: I mean, we hear all these stories, but I've never
Speaker 1: taught to anyone that I played for Coach Night. You
Speaker 1: hear these stories about guys that played for him, but
Speaker 1: I've never actually talked to someone that actually played for
Speaker 1: Coach Night. So what's that like. So the stories that
Speaker 1: you that we all heard about him being a strong disciplinarian,
Speaker 1: I was waiting for that. But what I found was
Speaker 1: that in our style of play, the way we played,
Speaker 1: there was great freedom. But with that great freedom came
Speaker 1: a great responsibility. So, Shannon, we never had an under
Speaker 1: out of bounds play. We never had a play. There
Speaker 1: was no We never came down and said, hey, twenty
Speaker 1: two out. You know, we never It was it was
Speaker 1: all about reading and reacting, knowing your teammate, understanding your teammate,
Speaker 1: and making the right decisions every single time. So we
Speaker 1: the way we played it was it was very free flowing,
Speaker 1: and it was hard to scout because he believed just
Speaker 1: like I believe that pattern offense. And you notice from football,
Speaker 1: when I can scout your pattern and and I understand
Speaker 1: your tendencies, then as a defensive player, I got a
Speaker 1: good chance of stopping you right. But but if if
Speaker 1: if I don't if and in basketball, what he gave
Speaker 1: us his ability to always go left or right, and
Speaker 1: you had to make the right decision. Now he would
Speaker 1: come back and then we would watch it on film.
Speaker 1: And if you went left and it was the wrong decision,
Speaker 1: it was it was always hell to pay taking the
Speaker 1: wrong decision. Well, if he getting in the game, what
Speaker 1: was practice like? Because practice got because for someone to
Speaker 1: have back Cann trusting you in the game, you the
Speaker 1: practices have to be held Azaia. The practice were intense,
Speaker 1: so the intensity and the concentration uh in the energy
Speaker 1: that you had to bring the practice every single day.
Speaker 1: You know, you you got taught to always be at
Speaker 1: your maximum, right, got taught to always think at your maximum,
Speaker 1: and you got taught to always concentrate at your maximum.
Speaker 1: There was there was never let down, and when there
Speaker 1: was a let down, again that was held to pay
Speaker 1: for a let down. So being able to sustain that
Speaker 1: level of intensity, that level of concentration, that level of energy,
Speaker 1: whenever you played against your opponent, it was just a
Speaker 1: matter of time before he wore down. And and being
Speaker 1: a smaller player, I have to depend on the bigger
Speaker 1: player to make a mistake, right, because if you're bigger, faster, stronger,
Speaker 1: then in sports athletically you're gonna beat your opponent nine
Speaker 1: times out of ten. Right, the only way that smaller
Speaker 1: player has an opportunity to win is when you make
Speaker 1: a mistake, and now I can capitalize on your mistakes. Right,
Speaker 1: So what I pride in my cell phone is mentally
Speaker 1: wearing people down. So if it's a two hour game,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mentally exhaust you for two hours, and some
Speaker 1: people will get mentally exhausted. Shit in fifteen minutes. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: get exhausted in fifteen minutes. So I may get exhausted
Speaker 1: in a half hour. And I'm talking, I'm not talking physically.
Speaker 1: But you know, shining from from playing football, that the
Speaker 1: level of concentration that you get to run that pattern
Speaker 1: every single time, run it with intensity, run it with concentration,
Speaker 1: run it with speed, and you may only get thrown too,
Speaker 1: maybe six times or four times that game because you
Speaker 1: can run that route with intensity and speed and concentration
Speaker 1: every single time, because I gotta think I'm getting the ball.
Speaker 1: But see the difference between basketball and football, izeah, is
Speaker 1: that in football, all I have to do is worry
Speaker 1: about what I need to do offensively. You also got
Speaker 1: to worry about defensively. You got to worry about the
Speaker 1: back pick. You got to worry about all this other stuff. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm running the offense. I'm in charging the offense. But
Speaker 1: I also got to make sure that Rodman and Salad
Speaker 1: and Mahorne and Lambert, all these guys here come to here,
Speaker 1: come to back pick, here, come to down screen. So
Speaker 1: you gotta call out all those signals. Also, yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is and this is where, this is where. Now
Speaker 1: everything that you just described, now when you and my opponent, right,
Speaker 1: I am gonna make you hit every one of those
Speaker 1: screens every play for the eight minutes. Now, right, you're
Speaker 1: gonna that's what we call tap tap, Right, You're gonna
Speaker 1: get tapped offensively in defensively every time you move right,
Speaker 1: and and that frustrates players right who wants to get
Speaker 1: a back pick? Right, and then you're gonna get it.
Speaker 1: Then you're gonna get another screen. Then you get another screen,
Speaker 1: and then offensively when you got the ball, when you're
Speaker 1: going through the lane, Okay, we're not gonna let you run.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna let you run your route the way
Speaker 1: you want to run your rope. All right, you may
Speaker 1: want to run it down and out now, you. You
Speaker 1: ain't gonna everybody come through the land. They're gonna catch
Speaker 1: a hip from the horn and Lamb Bear Ronnie Lott
Speaker 1: is in it. So so if you want to go
Speaker 1: over that middle, hey, go ahead. I feel I gotta
Speaker 1: be honest with you. The first time that I saw
Speaker 1: saw you, I was watching the eighty one that the
Speaker 1: final four, and you guys will play in Carolina. So
Speaker 1: I was a Carolina So I kind of wanted Carolina,
Speaker 1: and I thought they were gonna win because they had
Speaker 1: a really good team that Jimmy Black had Al Wood,
Speaker 1: they had James Worthy, and I was like, they ain't
Speaker 1: got nobody but this little guy. They kn't beat damn
Speaker 1: a k beat Carolina. May y'all blew the doors off them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we I think we ended up beating them by U
Speaker 1: thirteen points. Yeah, but if I'm not mistaken, that was
Speaker 1: also I think the day that day, Uh, there was
Speaker 1: an attempt of assassination on President Raygan. Do you remember that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do. We We were we were actually in uh
Speaker 1: in our hotel room. We were watching all my children
Speaker 1: and uh and I never forget, you know, we all
Speaker 1: sitting around and we're watching you know, the stories of
Speaker 1: the soap proper at that time that what they called
Speaker 1: him the stories. That's what they called him, the story.
Speaker 1: And I never forget that. They said, you know, we
Speaker 1: interrupt this program and Steve Ridgley, you know, he was
Speaker 1: always sarcastic and everything he goes, not again the President's
Speaker 1: been shot and and they came on and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we interrupted this program and you know President's
Speaker 1: been shot and and Ridgley was like, wow, I knew,
Speaker 1: and and and all of us at that time was
Speaker 1: just like, you know, in a state of shock watching
Speaker 1: what we what we were seeing, and we we didn't
Speaker 1: at that time, it didn't dawn on us that the
Speaker 1: game was even potentially being thought about being canceled. And
Speaker 1: this is the beauty of Coach Night. Coach Night was
Speaker 1: able to keep us focused and while all the talk
Speaker 1: was going on about where the should the game be played,
Speaker 1: should the game not be played, we were always singularly
Speaker 1: focused on the game is getting played, It's getting played
Speaker 1: at this time, and this is what we have to do.
Speaker 1: That was our only focus. So going into the game,
Speaker 1: League two powerhouses UH Indiana had won the seventy sixth
Speaker 1: National Championship game that was the undefeated season. That was
Speaker 1: the last time a team had gone through gone through
Speaker 1: a season undefeated. Carolina is a blue belooved powerhouse going
Speaker 1: into the game. What's your thought process? So my thought
Speaker 1: process was that all those players you just named, so
Speaker 1: they had James Worthy, Sam Perkins, I was on the
Speaker 1: eighty Olympic team with our would that got boycotted? So
Speaker 1: their back line was the best back line in basketball?
Speaker 1: How would James Worthy? Uh, Sam Perkins and and I
Speaker 1: and and I knew that, Okay, we were good enough
Speaker 1: basketball team defensively, but talent wise, they just had more
Speaker 1: talent than we did. Right, So my my game plan
Speaker 1: was to just try to keep it close. And I
Speaker 1: understood Dean Smith's substitution pattern, you know, he he he
Speaker 1: would they would platoon. They they had five guys in
Speaker 1: and out. And so when he took Worthy and our
Speaker 1: would out, I was like, okay, when the second team
Speaker 1: came in, okay, yeah, now we can catch up. Because
Speaker 1: if you remember, we were down early in the game, yes,
Speaker 1: and and it, and it looked like they was going
Speaker 1: to blow us out. And then when they made that
Speaker 1: substitution and we stayed in, that's when we came back
Speaker 1: and we was able to you know, get it, get
Speaker 1: it close at the half. We were coming out the
Speaker 1: third quarter that we had to jump on a quick
Speaker 1: I think I made two steals in the row that
Speaker 1: got us up, and once we got up defensively, I
Speaker 1: just thought they would have a hard time because at
Speaker 1: that time I thought, well, well, history says we were
Speaker 1: in the tournament. I don't know if there's been a
Speaker 1: team as dominant and the tourminant as we were that year,
Speaker 1: because every single game we won by double digits. And
Speaker 1: actually Carolina was the closest game we had and we
Speaker 1: beat them by thirteen. So we did you know going
Speaker 1: into the game, what was the determining factor of you
Speaker 1: leaving Indiana after your sophomore season? Did you know going
Speaker 1: into the game when losing drawer, I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: I had no money. We came back from Hawaii from
Speaker 1: the Christmas tournament, okay, and I came back and there
Speaker 1: were no lights in my house. Now this is dead
Speaker 1: a winner. No lights, you know, the gas turned off.
Speaker 1: My family, you know, was all in different places, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know where anybody was because we didn't have
Speaker 1: a phone. You know, you couldn't call and find out, right,
Speaker 1: and I never forget, just trying to figure out where
Speaker 1: to go. And lucky enough for me, my girlfriend who's
Speaker 1: my wife now, she had dropped me off at the
Speaker 1: house because she had a car. Of course I did,
Speaker 1: and she drove off and for some reason she turned
Speaker 1: around and came back. And has she not come back?
Speaker 1: You know, I'd probably end up, you know, walking to
Speaker 1: my aunt's house and trying to find a place where
Speaker 1: everybody was. But you know, we would. We was extremely poor.
Speaker 1: And when they when they said, hey, man, you can
Speaker 1: make some money by going to the NBA, and I said,
Speaker 1: just playing basketball. I was like, for real, say yeah,
Speaker 1: all you gotta do is declare hardship. I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm hardship. It's really hard over her while. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: so we talk about Chicago basketball players, yourself, A D. D. Wade,
Speaker 1: d Rolls, Antoine Walker, more Re, Cheat, Tim Hardaway, Senior,
Speaker 1: George Mike and Mark wil Terry Cummins. Hey, y'all got
Speaker 1: a back. Y'all got a man, little little stick out there,
Speaker 1: I said, he we we we've done all right, we
Speaker 1: we we we got I'll tell you my my so,
Speaker 1: my my high school graduating class. These are the These
Speaker 1: are the NBA players in NBA champions Okay, myself, Mark Acquire,
Speaker 1: Doc Rivers, Craig Hodges, Uh, Daryl Walker, and I'm miss
Speaker 1: I'm missing I'm missing one more. Oh, I'm missing one more.
Speaker 1: But we had six out of my high school class
Speaker 1: that went on to win NBA championships. So you and
Speaker 1: Mark guy with the same year, we know he was
Speaker 1: a year ahead of me. Nine. Oh, I'm sorry, Eddie Johnson. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: so you declare you go? I think if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: Mark Alguire was the first pick in your draft, right
Speaker 1: number two. I was number two. So did it matter?
Speaker 1: I mean, because now you know guys, guys either yeah,
Speaker 1: I would end up matter as long as I get drafted.
Speaker 1: But guys deep down really want to go to Team
Speaker 1: X or Team you know, Team why didn't really matter
Speaker 1: where you were going to. You just like I'm going
Speaker 1: to the bed. I'm gonna be getting a check once
Speaker 1: a month, twice a month, however it's gonna be, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have some money in my pocket. So I'm
Speaker 1: a Midwest boy and I wanted to go back home
Speaker 1: to Chicago. Right, and Mark Alguire and I both were
Speaker 1: trying to you know, rig the draft. We both can
Speaker 1: get to Chicago because Chicago had the fourth pick in
Speaker 1: the sixth pick, okay, and we were trying to drop
Speaker 1: all the way down to four and six. So every
Speaker 1: interview we did, you know, with the teams that were
Speaker 1: above us, right, and we just blew the interview. Nah,
Speaker 1: you know, And I never forget when I when I
Speaker 1: interviewed in Detroit, it was Jack McClosky and Will Robinson, okay,
Speaker 1: and and Jack McCloskey. Uh, you know, every question that
Speaker 1: he asked asked me, I would you know, I would
Speaker 1: ask it wrong. And you know, I'm trying to you know,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to drive. I'm trying to give people not
Speaker 1: to like me. And I'll never forget. He looked over
Speaker 1: at me, goes, I know what you're doing. I just
Speaker 1: want you to know it ain't gonna work. Number two,
Speaker 1: I'm taking you because the gigs up. So you you
Speaker 1: you go, you go to Detroit, and so what are
Speaker 1: you thinking, You're like, man, how are we gonna turn
Speaker 1: this around? I mean Detroit? Uh, I mean because at
Speaker 1: that time, basically the Eastern Conference really it was like
Speaker 1: a free conference team, but it was really too. It
Speaker 1: was the Sixers, it was the Celtics, and you're sprinkling
Speaker 1: a little of the Bucks, but basically it was the
Speaker 1: Sixers and the Celtics, and you knew that's what you
Speaker 1: and they were young Celtics, they were young. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I never looked at I never looked at we couldn't
Speaker 1: do it right. The question I asked myself is how
Speaker 1: long would it take for us to do it? Okay?
Speaker 1: And what did I have to learn? Because you know,
Speaker 1: winning in high school is one thing, then winning in
Speaker 1: colleges another. Coming into the NBA, there's there's always an
Speaker 1: education occurred. Okay. What I had to do was I
Speaker 1: had to go to school, and I really went to
Speaker 1: the school of the Celtics and the Lakers. Fortunate enough
Speaker 1: that I was friends with Magic Johnson, doctor Bus, Jerry West, Kareem.
Speaker 1: All of them let me into their their inter sanctuary
Speaker 1: in terms of how they win, how they lose, how
Speaker 1: they prepare, what their tradition was all about, how organization works.
Speaker 1: Because in Detroit we had we had none of that right.
Speaker 1: And then fortunately enough for me, himl Car was in Boston,
Speaker 1: mL and then Kevin McHale, who I played on the
Speaker 1: PanAm team with, was friends with him. So when when
Speaker 1: Boston in LA was competing, I was in one of
Speaker 1: their locker rooms all the time taking notes, and I
Speaker 1: was at every every finals game, just learning and educating
Speaker 1: myself on how to win, how to be a champion,
Speaker 1: and understanding what the pressure would be like in those
Speaker 1: buildings because I knew at some point in time I
Speaker 1: was going to come there and beat them, and that's
Speaker 1: what I did. That's that's that's never happening. There's no
Speaker 1: way a team will allow a person, a player from
Speaker 1: the opposing team, regardless of who you then not allow
Speaker 1: you the locker room. Now, literally they know, did they
Speaker 1: know what you were doing? They just thought you would
Speaker 1: be a friend of No, absolutely, they knew. I told him,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's why I say I was fortunate.
Speaker 1: I was fortunate that they they allowed me to come
Speaker 1: in and learn. And this is where I give the
Speaker 1: Lakers and the Celtics credit, because they were great champions.
Speaker 1: Not only were they great champions, but they were great teachers.
Speaker 1: They would teach you, you know, they would tell you,
Speaker 1: you know what you did wrong, what you what you
Speaker 1: need to do, you know, you know it was like
Speaker 1: you know, it's like when Muhammad Ali was fighting, you know,
Speaker 1: uh lea sphinx, you know, and he would grab them
Speaker 1: you go, which, yeah, it's it's it's so. So they
Speaker 1: were great teachers, they were great mentors and everything. If
Speaker 1: you look back at the Detroit Pistons and all bad
Speaker 1: Boys in terms of all trajectory, you can you can,
Speaker 1: you can chronicle it. Everything that the Celtics and the
Speaker 1: Lakers did, we emulated, we implement it and also acted.
Speaker 1: Uh So they were great teachers. We were great students also.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned when you came in, Okay, you come
Speaker 1: in in eighty one Bird in a riding, you know,
Speaker 1: seventy nine, and so they got a young dominant team
Speaker 1: Bird Chale Parish. They had Nate Archibald. Then Nate Archibald
Speaker 1: leave and they come in with Dennis Johnson and then
Speaker 1: they bring it. You know, they have Bill Walton. They
Speaker 1: just had a cast of characters. They're like did You're like,
Speaker 1: when is this gonna happen? No? So so again, you
Speaker 1: my training has always been you know, you know, mentation
Speaker 1: the physical okay boys to one Okay, So I was
Speaker 1: taught and trained how to take the physicality out of
Speaker 1: a game. Okay, Oh so, so people who are bigger, stronger, faster,
Speaker 1: jump higher than you or black with the genetic gene,
Speaker 1: I'm going to eliminate all of that. And now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make you play basketball. Okay. So and and once
Speaker 1: you make them play basketball, then there's a certain frustration
Speaker 1: that that comes along with that. Unfortunately for myself at
Speaker 1: that period of time, Bird Magic, Kareem McHale, Dennis John
Speaker 1: you can talk man, you talking basketball, IQ. That's just
Speaker 1: off the charts, right. Not only so, there was there
Speaker 1: was no wearing those guys down mentally, It was only
Speaker 1: can you can you understand what they're doing and gain knowledge?
Speaker 1: Right then put it on the rest of the league. Right. So,
Speaker 1: you know, as as time went on, the Lakers got
Speaker 1: a little older, two Celtics got a little older. And
Speaker 1: you know, we were we wanting to come, and we
Speaker 1: were young going to come. But not only were we
Speaker 1: young gonna come, we had an intellect and intelligence that
Speaker 1: was coming along with that which which made us extremely dangerous.
Speaker 1: It's like when you look at that Celtics team that
Speaker 1: the eighty six eighty seven Lakers Celtics teams. Those are
Speaker 1: those are looked at us two of the best teams
Speaker 1: to ever play, two of the top five teams ever
Speaker 1: played great basketball in the NBA. Well, in eighty seven
Speaker 1: we had the Celtics beat. In eighty eight, we had
Speaker 1: the Lakers beat. That's how good a basketball team we were.
Speaker 1: So once the play you made to play Birds there
Speaker 1: unit we know the call birds, the all eight pass,
Speaker 1: the DJ DJ lays it up. Obviously that had to
Speaker 1: hurt because you like, we got him dead to write,
Speaker 1: we got him what what I've been trying to accomplish
Speaker 1: since eighty one, since I arrived here in Detroit. It's
Speaker 1: about to happen. Yeah, what what's going through your mind
Speaker 1: that offseason when you knew you had him and you
Speaker 1: let it slip away. I got one more lesson to learn.
Speaker 1: The next year, I'm gonna beat him right, because because
Speaker 1: I had him right, I had him and and and
Speaker 1: you saw the next year we came back and beat
Speaker 1: him right. And and that game five that I made
Speaker 1: the mistake in Boston. Go back and look at the
Speaker 1: next year, my Game five in Boston what I did.
Speaker 1: Just go back, how money your stag gas go back
Speaker 1: and look at the next year, Game five in Boston. Oh, y'all,
Speaker 1: y'all gave him at work, because I hold on, did
Speaker 1: they y'all? They took one game. They might have took
Speaker 1: what was a four one or four two? Uh? Four two? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was it was I think they were mentally done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they you know, they they were. They were a champion,
Speaker 1: they were they were mentally done. And you hit the
Speaker 1: right word. You know that there's only so long that
Speaker 1: you can sustain that concentration. But again, what I love
Speaker 1: about Boston is they were great teachers, right, they were.
Speaker 1: They were great teachers. I said, I don't think people
Speaker 1: understand the mental and the physical toll it is to
Speaker 1: start playing in October and finish your season every year
Speaker 1: in June, because that's what the Because you remember, like
Speaker 1: in the early part of the eighties, it was Celtics
Speaker 1: every year representing basically in the East. Before you guys
Speaker 1: came over, it was the Celtics balanced the sixers to
Speaker 1: represent the East and they were going against the Lakers,
Speaker 1: and it was that every single year. So if you
Speaker 1: go back like from eighty what eighty three, so basically
Speaker 1: it was it was the Lakers in eighty it was
Speaker 1: the Lakers in eighty two, it was the Lakers in
Speaker 1: eighty three, the Lakers in eighty five, it was the Liking,
Speaker 1: the eighty seven, eighty eight. It's the finals. We're talking about,
Speaker 1: no first round, We're talking about the NBA Finals. And
Speaker 1: then it was you guys. You guys were battling the
Speaker 1: Celtics every year in the Eastern Conference finals and then
Speaker 1: you go you represent the Eastern Conference in the finals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: year after year after year, and it takes the ground.
Speaker 1: We saw the grind that it took on Golden State
Speaker 1: last year, Kevin the Red and that was only three
Speaker 1: for KD. The other guys had gone to five. And
Speaker 1: you see the toll that it took. It took on
Speaker 1: them physically. Yeah, it's a you know, the when when
Speaker 1: you're the champion and you're the best, and you you
Speaker 1: prepare every night to be the best, there's an opponent
Speaker 1: that's bringing his best every single night to right, so
Speaker 1: there really are no nights off. And then when you're
Speaker 1: the best player, there are certain standards that you have
Speaker 1: to bring to the game every night because now only
Speaker 1: are you a good player, but now you're a performer also,
Speaker 1: so the audience is paying money to see you play,
Speaker 1: So not only do you have to play, but you
Speaker 1: also got to give give a good performance. And this
Speaker 1: is you know, so magic and I you know, we
Speaker 1: you know, we're very friendly with the Jacksons. And this
Speaker 1: is what we learned from from watching the Jacksons and
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson that that summer and that whole two years
Speaker 1: that we toured with them, is that the energy that
Speaker 1: they brought every single night and the performance that they
Speaker 1: gave no matter who was in the audience, no matter
Speaker 1: where they were playing, you got the best out of
Speaker 1: them every single show. And it was like, Okay, there
Speaker 1: are some people that can give a concert, but then
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson concert, it's different. Now he got to perform. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he can't have it off night, that's right. So I
Speaker 1: when you start the basketball team, when you start of
Speaker 1: a team, you can't have it off night, off night.
Speaker 1: So that's what I tried to bring to my game.
Speaker 1: I tried to bring that that well, Michael Jackson can
Speaker 1: can make a person in a twentieth row feel an
Speaker 1: emotion that he was feeling when he would move walker.
Speaker 1: He would hit a move and the guy in the
Speaker 1: twentieth row would be like, oh, well, I wanted to
Speaker 1: make that fan right feel that whenever I would like
Speaker 1: hit a good move, I would want that that person
Speaker 1: in the stand to feel that emotion that I was
Speaker 1: given off in that energy because it felt good to me.
Speaker 1: I wanted them to feel that good too. I know
Speaker 1: it's hard, but you played and arguably the greatest era
Speaker 1: the eighties that we've seen. How would you rank Bad
Speaker 1: Boy Pistons, Showtime Lakers, the Big Three, Celtics, the Bulls
Speaker 1: at the tail end although they didn't win, they were
Speaker 1: on the they did to you what you had did
Speaker 1: to the sel thinks in the Lakers they were stalking
Speaker 1: from an outside position. How would you how would you rank?
Speaker 1: How would you rank the dynasties of the eighties? So
Speaker 1: uh you you'd have to rank the you know, the Lakers,
Speaker 1: Celtics arguably one or two, you know, one eight one
Speaker 1: b depending on you know, do you like vanilla ice
Speaker 1: cream or chocolate ice cream? Still ice cream? You know?
Speaker 1: And in Philly that period of time with with Moses
Speaker 1: and Doctor Jay, you know, in the eighties, you know,
Speaker 1: you got to give him their their respect too. I
Speaker 1: think we would probably be, you know, in the eighties,
Speaker 1: we would be somewhere in there as a basketball team. Now,
Speaker 1: talent wise, the Lakers, the Celtics, the seventy six ers,
Speaker 1: we cannot compete with their talent. But as a basketball team,
Speaker 1: as a young I would venture to say that our
Speaker 1: basketball team as a unit was just as good as
Speaker 1: their teams. Okay, However, if you're just breaking it down
Speaker 1: by talent, we did not have the talent that any
Speaker 1: of those teams had. But not having a talent, it's
Speaker 1: really what made us even more special because we didn't
Speaker 1: have the luxury that they had, right, you didn't have
Speaker 1: all those I mean, the Lakers are littered with Hall
Speaker 1: of Famers. They got six and seven, you got. We
Speaker 1: know about Kareem and Magic and James Worthy and Jamal
Speaker 1: Wilkes and Bob McAdoo. We know about those guys. And
Speaker 1: Norm Nixon was Norm Nixon was a heck of a
Speaker 1: player also, and you know about the Big the Big
Speaker 1: Three Celtics. But people don't realize Dennis Johnson was a
Speaker 1: Finals MVP and a Defensive Player of the Year. Bill Walton.
Speaker 1: Bill Walton was an MVP. He was a Finals MVP.
Speaker 1: People don't realize just how good those teams were. And
Speaker 1: you took him down, and then everybody gonna say, well,
Speaker 1: you know they got nold, but you still beat them.
Speaker 1: Nobody else beat them and they were getting old. No, no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It wasn't that they were getting old. We
Speaker 1: were that good. So and so I gave you eighty
Speaker 1: six eighty seven. Those were teams. In eighty seven we
Speaker 1: had them beat you did. In eighty eight we had
Speaker 1: the Lakers beat So we were that good. Right now, now,
Speaker 1: when you look at Philadelphia, the Lakers, and the Celtics,
Speaker 1: every one of those teams that we just named in
Speaker 1: eighties that were champions, all of them had three or
Speaker 1: four top fifty players on their team. Yes, not not one.
Speaker 1: They had three or four top players on yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Detroit Pistons. And this is this is why I say
Speaker 1: we were great team. I was the only one as
Speaker 1: as a top fifty player on my team. That's how good,
Speaker 1: that's how good a unit we had become to compete
Speaker 1: against teams that had three or four top fifty players
Speaker 1: on their team. Yeah, I think the celt has had
Speaker 1: like five because the Big three DJ and Bill Walton
Speaker 1: yea couple of times we're gonna talk about you call people.
Speaker 1: You called a lot of criticism, and people say, well,
Speaker 1: he just hating, he just upset. You said, Michael wasn't
Speaker 1: my competition. I never chased Michael. I was chasing Larry
Speaker 1: and Magic. I was chasing the Celtics and the Lakers
Speaker 1: because they had what I wanted. Michael never had what
Speaker 1: I wanted. He was chasing me. I wasn't chasing him.
Speaker 1: Explain what you mean by that. You know, just had toad.
Speaker 1: You know I was dominant over him, right, you know
Speaker 1: when we when all teams met. You know, when you
Speaker 1: go back and you look at until ninety one, when
Speaker 1: I when I when I basically had career in the
Speaker 1: risk surgery, right up until then, you know, my record
Speaker 1: against against against him and his team, you know, it
Speaker 1: was it wasn't It really was a competition there, all right.
Speaker 1: And you know, you know, and and most people think
Speaker 1: like we're you know, I'm five years older than him,
Speaker 1: but we only a year apart, year, two year and
Speaker 1: a half apart. So but you know, he just wasn't
Speaker 1: my competition. Now, Bird didn't have anything that you wanted.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a profit, no and like I said,
Speaker 1: my my focus was Bird, Magic, Doctor Jay, Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
Speaker 1: Those were the guys, right. You know, I don't care
Speaker 1: what anybody saying. You can go back and look at history.
Speaker 1: Those were the guys. They were Moses Malone, Larry Bird,
Speaker 1: Robert Parrish, Kevin McHale, Kareem, Magic, James. Those were the guys, right.
Speaker 1: Because back then the Celtics were putting four players on
Speaker 1: the All Star team. They have their three big guys
Speaker 1: and Dennis Johnson. I'm like, the East would look like
Speaker 1: the Celtics. I'm like, hold on, wait a minute, if
Speaker 1: there anybody else in the East. Yeah, well there was
Speaker 1: Milwaukee because we remember mill Walker was good, that Jerry Cummings,
Speaker 1: they had a Bobliner, they had Alvin Robinson, Monfree. They
Speaker 1: would they would lose, they would lose to Milwaukee, would
Speaker 1: lose to Philadelphia or Austin. Ye seven games, yep. And
Speaker 1: that's how good that Milwaukee team was. Yep. I remember,
Speaker 1: I remember, like yesterday. Yeah. So Chicago, I mean, and
Speaker 1: I'm and I'm from Chicago and I'm from the West Side.
Speaker 1: But you know, Jordan, Jordan was you know, he dominated
Speaker 1: a different era right, you put Jordan in our era,
Speaker 1: you know, he lost a lot in our era. Right,
Speaker 1: Who would you say, are the five toughest players that
Speaker 1: you've had to face again? You know, and you can
Speaker 1: just go by to winning records, right, you know, right,
Speaker 1: Magic Kareem, Okay, Bird Bird, Doctor Jay. And then I
Speaker 1: would say, Jordan, look, I believe knowing you the little
Speaker 1: bit that I do. You're speaking like you have to understand.
Speaker 1: When I came in and eighty one, the Lakers and
Speaker 1: the Celtics basically dominated. Michael was great, had great highlight reels,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't winning anything. See, people look at what
Speaker 1: he did in the nineties and they try to transport
Speaker 1: that back to the eighties. But that didn't happen in
Speaker 1: the eighties. No, And you gotta understand, I play a
Speaker 1: different kind of game. So, as I said to you earlier,
Speaker 1: your genetic gifts, right, I'm going to eliminate all of that,
Speaker 1: And now we're gonna play basketball, and it's going to
Speaker 1: be about a mental stammina. You know, because I can't
Speaker 1: I can't jump higher than than than some. I can't
Speaker 1: I can't out hight, I can't outwait some. But I
Speaker 1: can outthink a lot, right, So what I'm trying to understand, Isaiah,
Speaker 1: is that people you said you learned from the Lakers,
Speaker 1: from the Celtics, and you implemented that to the bad
Speaker 1: Boy Pistons, So you brought a mentality. So why do
Speaker 1: people criticize you for the type of basketball that your
Speaker 1: team played? Do they not remember the Celtics and the
Speaker 1: Lakers snatching each other out this guy? Do they not
Speaker 1: remember them knocking each other in the front row? Why
Speaker 1: is it that the bad Boy Pistons get this label
Speaker 1: but pretend like the Lakers and the Celtics, who playing
Speaker 1: such beautiful basketball when they were just as physical, and
Speaker 1: you learned that style of play because you felt the
Speaker 1: only way that you could beat the bullet was the
Speaker 1: bully the bully. Well, what what the bad Boy Pistons
Speaker 1: also did was we stepped out of the sports arena
Speaker 1: and we started critiquing society from a race, class, gender, sport.
Speaker 1: So we we we started talking about race, We started
Speaker 1: talking about all the things that the champions talk about
Speaker 1: when coming from from all from all community. When the
Speaker 1: champion gets the mic, he or she has to speak
Speaker 1: for what's going on inside the community. So you have
Speaker 1: the voice, so you speak for the voiceless. Were the
Speaker 1: things that I was saying at that particular time about
Speaker 1: critique in all industry, about we wanted we needed more
Speaker 1: more officials who were of color like us. We needed
Speaker 1: more coaches who were colored like us. And and by
Speaker 1: the way, the media that was covering us at that time,
Speaker 1: if you remember, females weren't allowed to even cover the sport.
Speaker 1: It were just breaking into the sport it was. It
Speaker 1: was really all white male men who covered all sport,
Speaker 1: and the perspective that they had of us, of me,
Speaker 1: was all the public read. Now, I grew up on
Speaker 1: the West Side of Chicago, and we just chronicled my
Speaker 1: whole you know, childhood and everything else. The first time
Speaker 1: I was called a thug, Listen to me close to
Speaker 1: me when I say this, Shannon. First time I was
Speaker 1: called a thug, and we know what that means, was
Speaker 1: when I was in the NBA plan for the Detroit
Speaker 1: Pistons by a white Caucasian male who described me and
Speaker 1: my play as a thug and thuggish. I've lived my
Speaker 1: whole life and I've never been called a thug. But
Speaker 1: now I get to this arena and this plan field
Speaker 1: and now the and what I talked about then was
Speaker 1: the labeling theory. I said, all the negative labels that
Speaker 1: are attaching to us. When Mandela came to visit us,
Speaker 1: everyone everyone knew in the NBA what we stood for
Speaker 1: and what we were speaking about. In Detroit, my No
Speaker 1: Crime Day March, all those things were happening, and so
Speaker 1: you know, there was a certain backlash because I was
Speaker 1: pushing that we needed more people of color covering all sport.
Speaker 1: So the Detroit Pistons today still have two African Americans
Speaker 1: covering their beat. I'm proud of that, right, Okay, every
Speaker 1: every beat writer that covered our team became a columnist
Speaker 1: because we were giving them access. So when you look
Speaker 1: back at what we were doing in the sport, and
Speaker 1: then me being a president of the Players Association, deregulating agents,
Speaker 1: putting in an agent certification and giving the players back
Speaker 1: their money. Because if you remember, Shannon, remember all them
Speaker 1: stories are, oh this player went broke, what happened to
Speaker 1: all their money? You don't read those stories no more
Speaker 1: that often, right, Because the agents were taking twenty percent
Speaker 1: of the players money off the top, and then they
Speaker 1: were taking fifty percent of endorsements tax free. So when
Speaker 1: when you started the certifying agents started putting an agent regulations.
Speaker 1: So you know, the story around the Pistons and myself
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with agents, media perception, right,
Speaker 1: media talk about us, and so we kind of get
Speaker 1: pushed to the side because you can only hear it
Speaker 1: about there. That's very false about us. Right, because because
Speaker 1: the person that's writing the story about you and the
Speaker 1: person that's reading it, if they don't know you, well,
Speaker 1: this person is right writing about him. This is what
Speaker 1: he's saying about him, it must be true. At that time, yeah,
Speaker 1: because there was there was no zoom right Internet, that
Speaker 1: was the only way you could get your voice out
Speaker 1: was to sit and talk to someone who had to
Speaker 1: interpret what you were saying, right. Then they would write
Speaker 1: it right, then it would get edited again, right, So
Speaker 1: depending on what the editor on the writer wanted you
Speaker 1: to say, that's exactly what you said. Your agency as
Speaker 1: a person, your ability to communicate, that was all sectioned off.
Speaker 1: So when this thing came along Internet, zoom technology everything, Okay,
Speaker 1: now you can you can speak for yourself. Right. You
Speaker 1: got social media, so now you got acts that you
Speaker 1: can you got your own platform you don't need someone
Speaker 1: else to tell your story. I can tell my own,
Speaker 1: or I say, before we move on, Uh, you caught
Speaker 1: I think maybe in your playing days. One of the
Speaker 1: greatest guests, if you want to say, Turmoils that you
Speaker 1: got caught up in was the nineteen eighty seven and
Speaker 1: you talked about that game. And they went to Dennis
Speaker 1: Rodman and they asked Dennis Rodman the question, and Dennis said,
Speaker 1: if lad Berry would just black, he would be another player.
Speaker 1: They asked you. You answered, you were chuckling. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: be properly right. That was we'd had up until that point.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we'd had anything. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't remember now. Maybe you go back a little further
Speaker 1: than I do, but I hadn't heard anything. And you
Speaker 1: had to come out in an NBA Finals game, sit
Speaker 1: on the podium next to Larry and explain your side
Speaker 1: of the story, elaborate for the people that that's younger
Speaker 1: than Shannon, that don't that doesn't remember that well. Race
Speaker 1: and and and controversy around race in this country has
Speaker 1: always been a conversation. Yes, I've always been trying to
Speaker 1: elevate and get ourselves out of this race box that
Speaker 1: they put us all in. Yeah, And in that period
Speaker 1: of time, I was having a conversation because it was
Speaker 1: it was I think it was the twenty fifth anniversary
Speaker 1: of Jackie Robinson breaking the colored area in baseball, and
Speaker 1: and that week all we were talking about with stereotypes
Speaker 1: to stereotypes, what might have been a might have forty seven,
Speaker 1: It might have been the fortieth. It was the fortieth
Speaker 1: anniversary Jackie came into forty seven, and that was eighty seven. Ok, well,
Speaker 1: thank you for correcting me. I know it was one
Speaker 1: of those anniverses. Yes, And so we were talking about stereotypes, race,
Speaker 1: everything else. And I was having a conversation about how, yes,
Speaker 1: these stereotypes that that you have stuck on us as
Speaker 1: athletes and also in society they still exist. And I
Speaker 1: was using the black quarterback as an example of how
Speaker 1: the black quarterback in the NFL at that time still
Speaker 1: wasn't perceived to have the knowledge the capability of leading
Speaker 1: the team quarterback and the team and running the team.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was all for debate, and I'm saying
Speaker 1: that was the same in sport. The Magic Johnson has
Speaker 1: given credit for being a great athlete, but he's not
Speaker 1: given credit for being the smartest player in the sport.
Speaker 1: Kareem the same thing. And now Bird had just dropped.
Speaker 1: You know, I think he had a triple double on
Speaker 1: us and had went off. Now, all relationship with the
Speaker 1: Celtics was always a close relationship. Even though we competed hard,
Speaker 1: we played hard against each other, but we always had
Speaker 1: a close relationship. And and I can remember telling Bird, hey, Rodman,
Speaker 1: you know, first his first exhibition game, we were in
Speaker 1: and Hartford, Connecticut, and I was telling Bird like this,
Speaker 1: this one here can guard, he can defend. So forth
Speaker 1: and Song anywhere. Bird ended up, you know, giving it
Speaker 1: to him. But throughout the year, you know, Robin was
Speaker 1: getting a little better and a little better and a
Speaker 1: little better. Now we're all frustrated. Everybody's frustrated. And those
Speaker 1: of us now who have gotten to know Dennis Rodman.
Speaker 1: Back then people didn't know Dennis Roman. But you when
Speaker 1: you're a teammate, you know who this person really is,
Speaker 1: what upbringing is about, what his life is about, who
Speaker 1: his who his closest people in his life are about. Right,
Speaker 1: So Robbing makes the comment, we just got beat and
Speaker 1: you can yeah, you can see meet Chuckling kind of
Speaker 1: blowing off the comment like, yeah, you know, Robin if
Speaker 1: ha ha haha. And but here's the mistake that I made.
Speaker 1: The mistake that I made was that you're you're never
Speaker 1: supposed to repeat another person's quote. Right. So again, back then, Shannon,
Speaker 1: we didn't have media training and all that what we
Speaker 1: got right, Yeah, it was trial by five. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: now you know, Robin makes that and then I repeat
Speaker 1: this quote. Now it's like, oh, Isaiah said it. So
Speaker 1: everything that I was talking about in terms of stereotypes, labeling,
Speaker 1: theory and everything else that was going to be headlines
Speaker 1: and be talked about, now all of a sudden that
Speaker 1: narrative shifted and got changed, and we never really got
Speaker 1: to have the real conversations like we're still having today.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that at you and Magic Johnson are good friends.
Speaker 1: Is there a difference between Magic Johnson on the court
Speaker 1: and Irving Johnson off the court? Oh, Irvan Johnson, to
Speaker 1: give you anything, Matthew, put your throat. I mean that
Speaker 1: when when you're competing, and again, this is this is,
Speaker 1: this is what the general public failed to see about
Speaker 1: us as athletes in terms of competition. We can compete
Speaker 1: and be angry and and and and show all those
Speaker 1: emotions and passions and everything else that the sport brings
Speaker 1: out of us. That's what makes us good. But then
Speaker 1: when the game is over, we can go get the pizza, right,
Speaker 1: you know. And and that's to me, that's the compelling
Speaker 1: and fascinating thing about us as athletes. And I do
Speaker 1: think this is why a lot of athletes probably sometimes
Speaker 1: talk or reference themselves in the third person, because Shannon,
Speaker 1: you know the person that you are outside of the lines,
Speaker 1: the lines, you're a totally different person right now. You
Speaker 1: can't you can't you you can't carry you know, eighty
Speaker 1: four inside the lines? Howside lines you go? Absolutely not? Right?
Speaker 1: So who who did you love competing against the most
Speaker 1: of Magic? Larry, doctor j Kareem, whomever? Who is your
Speaker 1: Who did you love competing against the most? How? I
Speaker 1: have to say how? I have to say magic only
Speaker 1: because of the friendship, and then how smart he was?
Speaker 1: Right when you talk again, Magic Kareem, Bird doctor Jay,
Speaker 1: I mean them guys, I mean you, hey man, you
Speaker 1: you bring your books to school, you know, every day,
Speaker 1: and you coming too the classroom and you're taking notes
Speaker 1: because their intellect and they're understanding of play. Every time
Speaker 1: you made a mistake, they took advantage of it. So
Speaker 1: it'd be like if I was to give a football analogy.
Speaker 1: Now it's Tom Brady, right, you planning against Tom Brady.
Speaker 1: Ain't fast and everything. But you know what, every time
Speaker 1: you make a mistake, all right, you're gonna give me
Speaker 1: them five yards? Bam, I take them five? Right in?
Speaker 1: Five yards? All right'nna take them five. You don't give
Speaker 1: me them three yards? Okay, i'na take them three right. Oh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna give me them seven. I'm gonna take them seven. Right,
Speaker 1: So they pick you apart, and they're patient enough and
Speaker 1: discipline enough to do the right thing every single time.
Speaker 1: So learning from those guys, you know magic, I would
Speaker 1: say magic was because he and I played the same position,
Speaker 1: and he was eight inches taller and bigger, faster and
Speaker 1: everything else us. But the chess game that that we
Speaker 1: were played during the course of the game was always,
Speaker 1: you know, fascinating to me. So you're trying to make it,
Speaker 1: you're trying to make a person play the game from
Speaker 1: the neck up. I'm gonna take everything else. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take everything else. Oude of the equation, we're gonna play
Speaker 1: this basketball game. I know we gotta put the ball
Speaker 1: into whop, but we're gonna play the game between from
Speaker 1: the neck up, and we're gonna see who gonna win. Yes,
Speaker 1: your genetics are a nun factor. Okay, right, you're you're
Speaker 1: you're blessed with the genetic gifts of size, height, and
Speaker 1: jumping ability. Okay, I'm gonna take all that and number
Speaker 1: eliminate that and and now now let's let's now let's
Speaker 1: play so and and and that takes that takes a
Speaker 1: lot of mental skill to be able to to maneuver
Speaker 1: in a game like that and and eliminate somebody's physicality.
Speaker 1: And now we're gonna play a mental chess game. When
Speaker 1: you walked away from the game, I said, what did
Speaker 1: you miss? Did you miss the game? I was fortunate
Speaker 1: enough to go right into owning a team in Toronto.
Speaker 1: Right physically, I knew I was done. My body was shot.
Speaker 1: I had nothing left. I didn't I didn't miss the
Speaker 1: game as much because now I was able to, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you were still around it, you just weren't playing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would still able to think about it, be be
Speaker 1: around it, be about it. Did you hang out with
Speaker 1: many players in the off season. Obviously you say, you
Speaker 1: imagine we're very good friends. Did you hang out with
Speaker 1: players in the off season? Now, I was in school,
Speaker 1: so you missed it. I left. I left in eighty one.
Speaker 1: I graduated in eighty seven. I went to summer school
Speaker 1: double sessions every year until I graduated. Okay, and that
Speaker 1: and that that little dance where you see me dancing
Speaker 1: around out that makes a shot, right, that was mother's day.
Speaker 1: I was graduating. And that day we beat the Atlanta Hawks,
Speaker 1: and my mother, who only had a third grade education,
Speaker 1: got to walk across the stage and my cap and
Speaker 1: gown at Indiana and graduate. Wow, there was a beautiful day.
Speaker 1: And then after that, you know, you know, I had
Speaker 1: a family, I had it so so hanging out and
Speaker 1: all that that was never me. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: really Most people don't know that, but I'm really. I
Speaker 1: was a nerd. I read a lot, still read a lot,
Speaker 1: went back to school, got my master's at at cow
Speaker 1: In Education University of California at Berkeley, got a master's
Speaker 1: education from there. So I've been in school, you know,
Speaker 1: all my life, going to school, learning, trying to get better.
Speaker 1: How do you react when people call you a dirty player.
Speaker 1: I laugh, I smile. See that's what they call They
Speaker 1: call you smiling assassin because they look at he be
Speaker 1: smiling and all the time he got you. Well, here,
Speaker 1: here's what here's what I learned on the West Side
Speaker 1: of Chicago being poor. I am not going to give
Speaker 1: you the power right two to judge me or be
Speaker 1: put your perceptions on me. Right, I'm confident and myself
Speaker 1: and knowing who I am, what I'm about, and that
Speaker 1: really comes from my poor experience of being shamed, right,
Speaker 1: and so coming into the NBA. You know, I got
Speaker 1: food in my refrigerator every day, you know, and most
Speaker 1: people don't understand how important that is. Oh absolutely I do. Right. So,
Speaker 1: the fact that I got food in my refrigerator, I
Speaker 1: could put gas in my car, and I got a
Speaker 1: roof over my head. Hey man, I made it. Everything
Speaker 1: else is you know, you know, on top, right, I
Speaker 1: feel Look, I know it was painful because you were
Speaker 1: on the Olympic team. You were. Let me look at this,
Speaker 1: make sure I get the track. You were a Male
Speaker 1: Athlete of the Year for the nine in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1: You were gonna be on the Olympic team. It got
Speaker 1: boycotted the Soviet invaded Afghanistan. President Carter said, no, they're
Speaker 1: not going to show protests because and then, if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, it was in it was a it was
Speaker 1: a Moscow, That's where it was. Yeah, it was in
Speaker 1: my scout And so they boy we boycotted them. They
Speaker 1: returned to favorite eighty four when it was in La
Speaker 1: all indication. Everybody says, you poll all the all the
Speaker 1: great who's the second greatest? But most people ninety five
Speaker 1: percent of ninety nine percent of people gonna say Matie
Speaker 1: Johns is the greatest point guard ever. The other Isaiah Thomas.
Speaker 1: So when the greatest collection supposedly of basketball players, and okay,
Speaker 1: will I agree with that twelve? What eleven of the
Speaker 1: twelve went to the Hall of Fame and the probable
Speaker 1: and the Basketball Hall of Fame? How does that make
Speaker 1: you feel? With everybody keeps saying Isaiah Thomas is Thomas
Speaker 1: is the second greatest point guard ever? But for that
Speaker 1: one year he wasn't worthy enough for being on the
Speaker 1: Dream Team because, as you mentioned, you won finals MVP,
Speaker 1: you're the most outstanding player, You're All Star Game MVP.
Speaker 1: You got a lot of credentials, and I've heard you
Speaker 1: saying it's the only thing that's on your resume that
Speaker 1: you feel that hasn't been filled in. Yeah, so I was.
Speaker 1: I was disappointed, you know, I was hurt. I was
Speaker 1: I was all of those range of emotions that you
Speaker 1: could think of, you know, mad, angry, all of those things.
Speaker 1: But then after that, you know, you root for the team,
Speaker 1: right you know that that that's how I've that's how
Speaker 1: I've grown up. You know I didn't make it, so
Speaker 1: I rooted for the USA. Yeah, I'll route too, I
Speaker 1: bet you. I know you want to. But I was yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: no I'm not. I'm not trying to downplay it and
Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to blow past it. I do
Speaker 1: want you to know, Yeah, I went through all those emotions.
Speaker 1: But again, Shannon, where I came from, right, right, I came.
Speaker 1: I came from the dirt and less than the dirt.
Speaker 1: So so having disappointment all my life, being disappointed again,
Speaker 1: you know, dealing with death and everything. I mean, you
Speaker 1: know I was going to funerals and every week, so
Speaker 1: it one no more tears left, right, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? The way I was growing up. So now
Speaker 1: that I didn't make the Dream Team. You know, that's
Speaker 1: another hurt. But it ain't. It ain't. It ain't stopping
Speaker 1: my life, you know what I mean it? But yeah,
Speaker 1: did I want to be a part? Did I? Did
Speaker 1: I deserve to be a part? Yeah? All that is true,
Speaker 1: But the fact is I wasn't. And so now you
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta get up, you gotta get up. Watch
Speaker 1: did you watch the Last Dance? Yeah? I watched it.
Speaker 1: I watched it. I watched it with great fascination, and
Speaker 1: I watched it with great disappointment because because you heard
Speaker 1: a lot of the guys chime in and say, well,
Speaker 1: Isaiah did it to himself, and nobody wanted to play
Speaker 1: with Isaiah. But I've heard so many of these other
Speaker 1: players say, you don't have to be the best of friends.
Speaker 1: If the common goal is about winning, well, the common
Speaker 1: goal was about winning the gold medal. Well, if the
Speaker 1: common goal is about winning the gold medal, who cared
Speaker 1: if your best friend with Isaiah? Hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I'm just using what Isaiah. I'm
Speaker 1: just using what they say. They say you do not
Speaker 1: have to be best friends with a teammate. You don't
Speaker 1: have to go out to dinner. We don't have to
Speaker 1: go to the movies. We ain't got to ring out
Speaker 1: wives and kids together. All we're trying to do is
Speaker 1: win a title. So you mean to tell me, even
Speaker 1: though you might not have liked Isaiah, you couldn't set
Speaker 1: that aside to win a gold medal. So now it
Speaker 1: matters if you get along, whereas before you're telling me
Speaker 1: as long as you win a championship. Because it's hard
Speaker 1: for me to bleed. I know I played the team sport.
Speaker 1: Everybody on a fifty three man roster ain't friends and
Speaker 1: they ain't friendly. So this notion that you need to
Speaker 1: be best of friends, hold on, y'all ain't known like
Speaker 1: y'all all hanging out. Oh you know, we're going overseas
Speaker 1: and so everybody's out every night together. I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: gonna have your wife and kids. Y'all probably would have
Speaker 1: been touring Barcelona and doing your thing just like everybody
Speaker 1: else was doing their thing. I don't That's that's one
Speaker 1: of the problems that I have because I followed the
Speaker 1: game for a long long time, Bailla, and I say,
Speaker 1: I don't care what y'all tell me. Isaiah was one
Speaker 1: of the twelve best players in the NBA at the time. Well,
Speaker 1: he ain't the all time assists leader, I said. John
Speaker 1: Stockton wasn't at that time either. He came that I'm
Speaker 1: talking about at that moment when they're making that selection.
Speaker 1: Isaiah Thomas was one of the best players. And you
Speaker 1: can't convince me otherwise. His resumes say so. But they
Speaker 1: let personal feelings get involved in this isilla. Well, after
Speaker 1: watching Last Dance, it just you know, and we won't
Speaker 1: dance around it here, Oh don't dance around me and
Speaker 1: let you do it. It seems like there was only
Speaker 1: one person that had a problem with it, right, and
Speaker 1: that was Jordan. Now I didn't at that time. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize and even even until I watched the Last Dance,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that he felt the way he felt
Speaker 1: about me, because again, Shannon, I, I had never had
Speaker 1: no no you know, dad words with him or anything
Speaker 1: like that. We played, you know, his team won and
Speaker 1: my team won. We went on home and they went
Speaker 1: on again. We didn't how to enter that and as
Speaker 1: you can see when I saw when I saw in
Speaker 1: terms of the Chicago Bulls, you know, all night life
Speaker 1: wasn't as good as we were, you know, we weren't.
Speaker 1: You know that that's not how we we we and
Speaker 1: I got down, you know, right, so most of and
Speaker 1: when I look at that dream Team, right I had
Speaker 1: I mean, we we we knew each other. But the
Speaker 1: only person that I really knew on the Dream Team
Speaker 1: what magic and personal relationship because again, you know, I
Speaker 1: was in school, you know, I was, I was married,
Speaker 1: I was doing my thing. I wasn't you know, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't hanging out like trying to be friends and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So there's nothing so and so you believe,
Speaker 1: you believe, I mean after watching that that the one
Speaker 1: guy that had a problem with you was the reason
Speaker 1: that you weren't on the team. I'm just going by
Speaker 1: what he said. I mean that that's what that's what
Speaker 1: the you know, that's what the tape said. That's what
Speaker 1: he said. And that's you know, and and you know,
Speaker 1: because a lot of a lot of people forget I said.
Speaker 1: They said, well, because when you had beaten them the
Speaker 1: previous you beat them four one, four two four three,
Speaker 1: and they finally broke through and they beat you guys,
Speaker 1: And they said that each time that you beat them,
Speaker 1: they shook your hand. But I don't know if people
Speaker 1: remember this. In eighty eight, when you beat the Celtics,
Speaker 1: they walked off the court and they didn't shake your hand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you remember that, I said, But yeah, I remember that,
Speaker 1: and so so. But nobody said hold on. Nobody said
Speaker 1: a word about that. It was only became an issue
Speaker 1: when you guys walked off the court and didn't shake
Speaker 1: And look, I'm not excusing what you did. But if
Speaker 1: you didn't have a problem with it three four years earlier,
Speaker 1: why you got a problem with it now? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and so yeah, when the Celtics walked off, Right,
Speaker 1: here's the difference. We as the Pistons, we never made
Speaker 1: a big deal, right, Celtics walking off not shaking all hands.
Speaker 1: They were champions and they deserved to to to go
Speaker 1: out how they want to. Yeah, and and and we
Speaker 1: were thankful and grateful for the lessons that they taught.
Speaker 1: And now we go on to try to beat somebody else. Right.
Speaker 1: We never we never sat around and said, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: Michael and Michael and I are good friends still today, right,
Speaker 1: And and before Dennis Johnson and all of them guys,
Speaker 1: before Dennis Johnson passed and you know, Larry and I
Speaker 1: we see each other today and it's still cool. But
Speaker 1: we never we never said wow, they didn't shake our hand.
Speaker 1: What poor sports and we never did that. It was like, okay,
Speaker 1: they were they were champions, they were ing and we
Speaker 1: moved on the The other thing that that I would
Speaker 1: say is the the night before, now we're down three
Speaker 1: zero in the series. You've heard me speak glowingly about
Speaker 1: the Celtics and the Lakers as champions and when we
Speaker 1: were getting ready to beat them, and we knew we
Speaker 1: had the better team and they were going down. We
Speaker 1: wasn't the day before talking about how they were bad
Speaker 1: and they were dead. So they were right, they're bad
Speaker 1: for the NBA, Yes, we gave them their respect. Right now,
Speaker 1: Jordan's before you know, before you know, they swept us,
Speaker 1: you know, the night before, you know, he has this
Speaker 1: big press conference where he annihilates our team. And the
Speaker 1: one thing that really, you know, hit us hard is
Speaker 1: when he called us undeserving champions. Now you won Super Bowls,
Speaker 1: you're in a champion. Yeah. Now imagine someone saying that
Speaker 1: what you earned and what you did you were undeserving
Speaker 1: of it. And by the way, it wasn't a coach,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a media person. It was one of your peers, right,
Speaker 1: what made why do you think you said that? What
Speaker 1: made you guys so undeserving? I don't know. These are
Speaker 1: questions that that that you have to ask him right now.
Speaker 1: All I can do is speak for us and speak
Speaker 1: for the Detroit Pistons. So you know when we when
Speaker 1: when we walked off and Lamber said, I'm not shaking
Speaker 1: their hands, and this is how we rolle. We rode
Speaker 1: as a team. We rolled a you know, it's one
Speaker 1: for all, all for one, you know, and Lamb Beer
Speaker 1: was like, this is what we're doing, so you fall
Speaker 1: in line, and that's right. I didn't None of us
Speaker 1: knew that, and that the camera would be on you.
Speaker 1: And this is supposed to be a passing at a
Speaker 1: torch shanning. That that is some bs ain't never been
Speaker 1: torch passed and glorious moment and all right, all that
Speaker 1: narrative around that was just total made up BS to
Speaker 1: make one team or one player look bad and another
Speaker 1: one looked good. That was it. I said, I know
Speaker 1: you you work for NBA TV, and I know you
Speaker 1: still follow the game. What player you think reminds you
Speaker 1: of yourself, who plays the game like Izaiah Thomas. I'll
Speaker 1: put to you this way. I like watching Kyrie Irving playing.
Speaker 1: That's what I like. I like watching Steph Curry play now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I play as good as there,
Speaker 1: but I like watching too, right. I always thought that,
Speaker 1: and I looked at I looked at our air, and
Speaker 1: I looked at myself as as very unique. I looked
Speaker 1: at myself as a player, you know, as a picasso,
Speaker 1: as as an original, right, And and so I'll I'll
Speaker 1: go back to those five players that we named earlier, Kareem,
Speaker 1: Magic Bird, Doctor j Michael Jordan. Okay, none of them
Speaker 1: played like each other. Everybody was kind of an original, right,
Speaker 1: And when I came into the NBA, I looked at
Speaker 1: myself as an original. So when I look at the
Speaker 1: NBA right now, I do see some guys carving out
Speaker 1: their originality in their own space. Right. I think Steph
Speaker 1: Curry has done it. I think Kyrie has done it.
Speaker 1: Other guards they're still they're still trying to get there,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm talking about now. Somebody says, oh,
Speaker 1: you don't like hard now that Nah, that ain't what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I'm saying when you look at you know,
Speaker 1: guys that have done things that I just haven't seen,
Speaker 1: Like some stuffing that Kyrie do with the basketball, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen that. Like you got on the screen at times,
Speaker 1: it's a little different. It looked like he looked like
Speaker 1: he looked like he dancing ready to something. Right. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you this because I find it sometimes in
Speaker 1: my profession and guys in my era, Why is it
Speaker 1: so hard from grades of one ever era to give
Speaker 1: credit to grades of another era? Oh he couldn't have
Speaker 1: played in my era. Oh he wouldn't have done that
Speaker 1: in my Why is it so hard? It's okay, It's
Speaker 1: it's okay. But some of it is true, Shannon. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of guys who play in the NFL
Speaker 1: right now. They run across the middle of free Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the rules are differ. Oh yeah, absolutely. And you know
Speaker 1: there are some guys who are runnings that middle right now. Yes,
Speaker 1: And when you was playing, ain't no where in the
Speaker 1: hell they was going across the middle. They would they
Speaker 1: would definitely think twice before going in there with no caution.
Speaker 1: Ain't no thing twice. But even as the case do, Izaia.
Speaker 1: You still will give credit when credits do you You
Speaker 1: don't you know, if a guy's good, You're like, you
Speaker 1: don't make it about the era. You say you could
Speaker 1: only do in the era what you're doing it in
Speaker 1: what you do, and and and so I look at
Speaker 1: this era, and I say, I see some of the
Speaker 1: most skilled, unbelievable shop makers. Yes, that I that I
Speaker 1: have ever seen. Yes, you know the stuff that Kevin
Speaker 1: I've never seen. There was no Kevin Durant in my era. Right,
Speaker 1: seven feet tall, shaking it, shooting it from the death.
Speaker 1: I ain't seen that, right. I'm gonna tell you who
Speaker 1: else this porzingis right? Ain't ain't no seven three dude?
Speaker 1: Then I've seen you is doing right? Okay, Steph Curry
Speaker 1: stepping out. I mean this is like pressure time in
Speaker 1: the game him they Klay Thompson put it from the
Speaker 1: hash mother. Yes, yes, hadn't seen it. So the step
Speaker 1: back three, Isaiah, it's I mean, because what used to
Speaker 1: be a bad shot, So don't take that shot. We
Speaker 1: can get a better shot. You're encouraging guys. Now, guys
Speaker 1: are taking two dribbles past half court and letting it fly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this now you've seen it before in the in
Speaker 1: the rect League, go in the park, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but in the real game, Yes, in the
Speaker 1: real game, it's like I hadn't seen it. You know,
Speaker 1: all Star games, Isailla. Guys, you put all your stuff
Speaker 1: on this play, you drill a little bit, you pull
Speaker 1: up from you for thirty three. They do this in
Speaker 1: a regular game. Yeah, but really they do this in
Speaker 1: a playoff game. Guy, letting hash mark three's goals in
Speaker 1: a playoff game. Yeah. So we the NBA right now,
Speaker 1: skill wise, it's the best skill I've ever ever ever seen.
Speaker 1: You know, right now, I'm not talking low post game
Speaker 1: because the low post game is the worst low post
Speaker 1: game ever. Yeah. Player, you gotta be able to shoot three. Yeah, now,
Speaker 1: this is the this is the best we've ever seen it.
Speaker 1: Right now. This also is the worst defense I've ever
Speaker 1: seen in the NBA. Well, they don't want you to play.
Speaker 1: These people won't score now there. They don't want eighty
Speaker 1: five ninety game, you know, they want one, fifteen, one,
Speaker 1: twenty two. But I got a critique it now talking
Speaker 1: about the Pistons and you talk about the bad boys. Yes,
Speaker 1: we was putting up one twelve one team one oh seven,
Speaker 1: one h eight. The Lakers was putting it up. Seltis
Speaker 1: was putting it up, you know, not at ninety Again,
Speaker 1: everybody want to put the bad boys in the ninth
Speaker 1: That wasn't us. That was the New York Knicks with
Speaker 1: pat Riley in the Miami Heat and the Miami Heat,
Speaker 1: that wasn't us. Right, It's like everybody wants to be
Speaker 1: the bad boys and act like the Pistons. Teams can
Speaker 1: emulate us. We just can't be ourselves because they say
Speaker 1: it's bad when we're the Pistons. I've heard you on
Speaker 1: several occasions. He praised on Lebron James. How impressive is
Speaker 1: what he's doing at the age of thirty five and
Speaker 1: year seventeen, with all the miles, with all the minutes,
Speaker 1: with all the playoff games, with all the games under
Speaker 1: his belt, he's still playing as if he's the best player,
Speaker 1: which I do believe that he is still currently the
Speaker 1: best player in the NBA. How is he doing this?
Speaker 1: We have never seen in the NBA a player like
Speaker 1: Lebron James, and he breaks a record every single night.
Speaker 1: Just to remind you that you've never seen this before, right,
Speaker 1: Some people will some people will have a record and
Speaker 1: they've dominating one category. But this dude is dominating. He's
Speaker 1: in the top ten, Shannon and and everything that ain't
Speaker 1: that's never happened right in and in from the guard
Speaker 1: position or the wing position in our sport. Right, and
Speaker 1: it's all said and done, It's gonna be hard for
Speaker 1: people to look back ten years from now and say
Speaker 1: he wasn't the best, because you can have your emotional best, right,
Speaker 1: But what this guy's doing and what he's been doing,
Speaker 1: I'll put you this way. In football, right, remember when
Speaker 1: you first saw both Jackson, Yes I do okay, And
Speaker 1: imagine if both Jackson would have stayed healthy, it still
Speaker 1: kept getting better, right, Lebron James, And there's never been
Speaker 1: a freak in football. There's been similar, but they ain't
Speaker 1: never been a freak like Bo Jackson. No, well, we
Speaker 1: got a freak in basketball. And I ain't talking about
Speaker 1: the Greek win. I'm talking about the American and Lebron James.
Speaker 1: We have never seen this type of athlete, body performance,
Speaker 1: consistency from a guy this loan just haven't seen it.
Speaker 1: You're following again, you following the game closely. The Lagers
Speaker 1: about to play and playing a little while. Who do
Speaker 1: you like? Who do you gotta pick a team? You
Speaker 1: gotta handicap this. You know, I'm a fan of the
Speaker 1: little guys, so I still I still, you know, emotionally
Speaker 1: I'm tugged for, you know, Harden and West because I
Speaker 1: do want in the work. Yes, but like I've been
Speaker 1: saying throughout this show, when the guy's bigger, faster and stronger,
Speaker 1: that guy's gonna win. And you're the only thing you
Speaker 1: can depend on. The only advantage you may have is
Speaker 1: if that guy makes a mistake, right, Lebron James, he
Speaker 1: ain't making no mistakes right, So you know he's gonna
Speaker 1: beat the smaller player most of the time. Because the
Speaker 1: thing is that when you look at Harden, and that's
Speaker 1: a nice style of play, but so many things have
Speaker 1: to go right, I sail think about it. They made
Speaker 1: twenty two threes and they still only have a little
Speaker 1: over one hundred points. James, Harden and Russ Go both
Speaker 1: go for sixty over sixty combine and they barely and
Speaker 1: they barely have one hundred points. Well, when you playing
Speaker 1: that kind of basketball and you still not winning, They're like,
Speaker 1: what else can I do. That's how I used to
Speaker 1: come home some nights after playing against Magic a bird. Hey, hey, coach,
Speaker 1: we had twenty two threes, they still beat us by eight. Coach,
Speaker 1: we had two guys go our two stars go off,
Speaker 1: and they still beat us by double figure. What else? Now?
Speaker 1: What what are returning to now? Yeah? It ain't working
Speaker 1: of all. John Elway was my quarterback and talking to
Speaker 1: him Ozzy Newson, who was a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: He played the tight end position. He was a great
Speaker 1: exact for twenty years with the Ravens, drafted a lot
Speaker 1: of Hall of Fame players, won two Super Bowls, he said, Son,
Speaker 1: putting a team together is a lot harder than actually playing,
Speaker 1: he said, because when you play, you have some control
Speaker 1: of the outcome of the game. He said. When you
Speaker 1: put a team together, he said, you draft the best,
Speaker 1: you try to sign the best free agents, and it's
Speaker 1: out of your hands. Yeah. So I I remember when
Speaker 1: I when I first took the job over Toronto, and
Speaker 1: I visited you know a couple of people, so the
Speaker 1: and I actually I actually visit some of the football people, right,
Speaker 1: So I visited, Uh, Buddy Ryan, I remember Buddy Ryan
Speaker 1: talked to me and and he said, you know when
Speaker 1: you because I was talking about you know, drafting players
Speaker 1: everything where you look for And Buddy said, well, I
Speaker 1: just want you to remember this. That guy that you
Speaker 1: draft every time he's running up and down the court,
Speaker 1: he's got your paycheck in your in his mouth. Make
Speaker 1: sure make sure you pick wisely because that guy that
Speaker 1: you're coaching or that you're drafting, that guy is running
Speaker 1: up and down the field or down the floor, and
Speaker 1: that guy your paycheck in his mouth every night. So
Speaker 1: all which was harder playing coaching or building a team
Speaker 1: really absolutely well. When you when you're talking about winning
Speaker 1: the championship, yes, and then you, as small as I
Speaker 1: am in a big man's lead, right, all the rules
Speaker 1: are are geared against you, the small player, right, and
Speaker 1: they favored a bigger player. Right. There is no bigger
Speaker 1: mountain I had to climb right in my professional life
Speaker 1: than trying to win an NBA championship as a small
Speaker 1: person and then doing it back to back. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing to Isaiah, if we go back and look
Speaker 1: at it, really only you and step have one championships
Speaker 1: as the lead as guards, small guards, not magic, but
Speaker 1: magic with six nine you're talking about you and step
Speaker 1: six one six two. So as small guards, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: in a big man's league, to be out front, that's
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen. Now, Allen Irison did get his team
Speaker 1: to an NBA finals as a small guard, but to
Speaker 1: ultimately win that prize that's very unique in the history
Speaker 1: of the NBA. We're not just talking about in the
Speaker 1: last twenty years. We're talking about in the history because
Speaker 1: the game has always been dominated by bigs, from Mike
Speaker 1: and to Chamberlain, to Russell, to Kareem to Magic and
Speaker 1: Bird Jordan. I guess I mean, but Jordan. Jordan wasn't
Speaker 1: six one. Jordan was still six six. It was six
Speaker 1: six for the forty nine inch vertical, so he was
Speaker 1: just flying over everybody. Huh. I'm saying that genetic gift right,
Speaker 1: It's like I ain't got that, you know. But that's
Speaker 1: why that's why I admire Steph and I got mad
Speaker 1: love and respect for stuff because you know, Steph Kurr
Speaker 1: in his run, he had to be arguably the greatest
Speaker 1: player ever. MH doing doing my run, I had to
Speaker 1: be arguably the greatest four players ever at that time.
Speaker 1: You know, Magic, Kareem on the same team, right, and
Speaker 1: you know Doctor Jay, you know Jordan's. People don't realize
Speaker 1: like you know, back in the day, Doctor Jay was
Speaker 1: like you know, thought of as the doctor Doctor Jay
Speaker 1: with Jordan before Jordan was Jordan's exactly everybody you wore
Speaker 1: those weapons. So you remember the cars. If you didn't
Speaker 1: have a pair of colin Doctor Jay cars, exactly what
Speaker 1: you made, you weren't. You ain't have no shoes because Nike.
Speaker 1: You know, Nike became when Jordan, you know, they made
Speaker 1: the shoe for Jordan. They took off then, but be
Speaker 1: proud of that. Everybody wore come or Chuck Taylor. You
Speaker 1: probably had Chuck Taylor's in high school, but you but
Speaker 1: the cause the car was it. So I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, you know Steph Curry, you know winning against
Speaker 1: Lebron James. You know, to me that was a that
Speaker 1: was a huge feat or a small person to be
Speaker 1: able to defeat him. You've enjoyed success on a lot
Speaker 1: of different levels. You're a great college player, a great
Speaker 1: NBA player, you coached, you are an exact What would
Speaker 1: you say was the main reason why Isaiah Thomas was
Speaker 1: able to enjoy success? I would say, uh, being grateful,
Speaker 1: you know, having having gratitude and appreciating what I what
Speaker 1: I have, what I was able to accomplish, understand and
Speaker 1: how difficult it was, but truly being appreciative of, you know,
Speaker 1: the life that that I've that I'm leading and that
Speaker 1: I've led. I'm living a life that I never dreamed about.
Speaker 1: I never knew it existed, the type of life that
Speaker 1: I'm living, and I'm I'm truly grateful and thankful that
Speaker 1: I'm in this place, and I don't take it for granted.
Speaker 1: One more thing I said, Were you a trash talker
Speaker 1: on the court? Was I who a trash talker? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't have to talk trash unless somebody
Speaker 1: was talking trash to me. Now what I what I
Speaker 1: what I was? I was I would definitely mess with
Speaker 1: your mind. Okay, it's like I would. I would. I
Speaker 1: would always try to break your trust with with your teammate. Right. No,
Speaker 1: so a lot of times, you know you would know
Speaker 1: to play that's being called and you'd say to the
Speaker 1: person who your garden, I know your guy ain't gonna
Speaker 1: pass you the ball because he don't never pass it anyway.
Speaker 1: So this is what I'm going to do. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: leave you wide open if you know you the ball,
Speaker 1: and then I wouldn't be like I told you, he
Speaker 1: wouldn't pass you the ball. People say Larry Bird might
Speaker 1: have been the greatest trash talker in NBA history. How
Speaker 1: much did Larry talk on the court? Are talked a lot,
Speaker 1: I talk a lot. He backed it up. And and
Speaker 1: I've never seen a guy come back, come by our
Speaker 1: bench and look at our coach and tell our coach
Speaker 1: you gonna put him on me. Coach, you making a mistake.
Speaker 1: You sure you want this guy to guard me? And
Speaker 1: they didn't get the ball and scrow on. That's ruining
Speaker 1: your confidence. Yeah, yeah, that that's bad. I said, I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you taking time out today to stop and
Speaker 1: buy a club, Sha sha, giving me a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes of your time. I really appreciate it with you
Speaker 1: and your family, all all the blessings in the couple
Speaker 1: of minutes, I gave you a couple of hours. Uh,
Speaker 1: you gave me out forty five. But I ain't want
Speaker 1: to tell nobody. Hey, I said, I really appreciate it. Bro.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you too. All my life running, all my life,
Speaker 1: sacrifice hustle, bad pricing, Want a slice, Got the broner
Speaker 1: dice to swath all my life. I've been grinding all
Speaker 1: my life, all my life, and running all my life. Sacrifice, hustle,
Speaker 1: bad pricing, Want a slice, Got the brolla dice to
Speaker 1: swath all my life. I've been grinding all my life.