Speaker 1: Welcome to the Sports Bubble, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio Entree Fork Media. My name is Jensen Carp and
Speaker 1: I'm a sports fan, and yes we've hit some roadbumps,
Speaker 1: but here we are in August with MLB, n h
Speaker 1: L and NBA games on TV, MLS set with their semifinals,
Speaker 1: UFC events, NASCAR races, p g A, and Pro wrestling
Speaker 1: all moving along. This is hands down the busiest August
Speaker 1: in sports history. Sure we thought Yo n s A
Speaker 1: Spatus was dead for about twenty minutes, and Terrence Davis
Speaker 1: is walking around the Disney World bubble with a hole
Speaker 1: in his mask as a political statement. But for now
Speaker 1: we're k I T keeping it together with Scotch tape
Speaker 1: and some Elmer's glue. And I know this because I'm
Speaker 1: still interviewing athletes and sports industry professionals to find out
Speaker 1: how they're doing during this very weird time, because someone
Speaker 1: has to. This is the Sports Bubble with Jensen Carp.
Speaker 1: Sean Elliott is the perfect athlete to talk to in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. He knows firsthand what it's like to do
Speaker 1: two very relevant things. One win a championship during a
Speaker 1: short and somewhat criticized season and to play the game
Speaker 1: of basketball while juggling the extreme fear of getting sick
Speaker 1: and dying. So I couldn't be happier about having this
Speaker 1: chat with the former member of the San Antonio Spurs
Speaker 1: and one of the greatest modern day college basketball players
Speaker 1: to step on the court. He was a two time
Speaker 1: All American and would an award winner at the University
Speaker 1: of Arizona, where he broke llewell Senders all time pack
Speaker 1: ten career scoring record and still holds the school's record
Speaker 1: for most points. He was the number three pick in
Speaker 1: the NBA Draft, where he was a two time All
Speaker 1: Star and was an essential member of the NBA championship
Speaker 1: Spurs in a season that got a late start thanks
Speaker 1: to a players strike. Go ahead and google Memorial Day
Speaker 1: Miracle to see his truly insane buzzer beater against the
Speaker 1: Portland Trailblazers, and keep in mind he did all this
Speaker 1: while battling a crippling kidney disease, something that got worse
Speaker 1: every year, while somehow his stats got better. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until late in his twelve year NBA career that he
Speaker 1: finally slowed down and his ailment caught up with him,
Speaker 1: and that's only because he needed a kidney transplant, something
Speaker 1: he miraculously recovered from fast enough to join the Spurs
Speaker 1: for two more seasons, one where they had the best
Speaker 1: record in the league. The dude knows hardship and he's
Speaker 1: an inspiration. During these times. We talked about his health struggles,
Speaker 1: the difficulties with announcing from home, and his terrifying experiences
Speaker 1: with racism growing up and playing in Arizona. Today, it's
Speaker 1: a candid talk with Sean Elliott in the sports book
Speaker 1: from Sean Elliott to accept Press one. Well, I wanted
Speaker 1: to start off by saying, you know, because people obviously
Speaker 1: are at like varying degrees of going outside these days,
Speaker 1: so I want to know where you've been laying low
Speaker 1: and staying safe these last few months. For me, I've
Speaker 1: been laying low at the house. Honestly, I've been really
Speaker 1: careful about who I've come in contact with for the
Speaker 1: first four months or so of quarantine. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know we're around the four months five month period, I
Speaker 1: went into maybe one or two other buildings besides my
Speaker 1: my house. Uh, and I wore a mask when I
Speaker 1: was going in, so most I've done is walk the
Speaker 1: dogs around the neighborhood. I'm not trying to go into
Speaker 1: any type of public places. I'm considered a high high
Speaker 1: risk because of my kidney transplant that I had ninety nine,
Speaker 1: So I take immuneal uh suppressing drugs every day, and
Speaker 1: so my doctor's basically it told me just to you know,
Speaker 1: keep my distance and be smart and be aware of
Speaker 1: my surroundings. Yeah, I mean I was going to get
Speaker 1: into that obviously, with quarantining in a high risk situation,
Speaker 1: like for you, you don't listen to sort of what
Speaker 1: other people are suggesting. You have to go at it
Speaker 1: with a completely different set of protections. I mean, my
Speaker 1: wife and I uh don't have any pre existing conditions
Speaker 1: and still find ourselves like, why do I need to
Speaker 1: go sit in a restaurant? For you, it's a completely
Speaker 1: different fear. Yeah. No, I haven't sat in a restaurant
Speaker 1: since March eleventh, And that was the day that the
Speaker 1: NBA season was suspended, And so we were actually sitting
Speaker 1: down at dinner and it started, you know, the tweets
Speaker 1: or Twitter started going crazy, and we saw that the
Speaker 1: NBA season was canceled. You know, we go home and
Speaker 1: a few days later. We're kind of in lockdown. So
Speaker 1: I haven't been in a restaurant again, I mean since
Speaker 1: since that day. So I can't afford the risk to
Speaker 1: put myself in a situation where, you know, people are
Speaker 1: three or four feet away from me and I end
Speaker 1: up being sick. Yeah. Absolutely, I did want to talk
Speaker 1: to you a little bit about your battle with kidney disease,
Speaker 1: which I know you celebrated recently. Congratulations a twenty year
Speaker 1: anniversary of the procedure last year. I believe, while doing research,
Speaker 1: it was insane for me to think about the pain
Speaker 1: and discomfort you had during your basketball career, especially in
Speaker 1: the nine season with the Memorial Day miracle. I mean,
Speaker 1: how were you able to play with this stuff going on?
Speaker 1: I mean that's such a basic question, but you were
Speaker 1: an All Star and a champion and you were kind
Speaker 1: of weeks away from needing surgery. Did did you not
Speaker 1: feel that kind of horrific you know, kidney pain? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, my whole sauga started way back in season
Speaker 1: where I had an injury and my back was really
Speaker 1: hurting and bothering me for the second half of that season,
Speaker 1: and I was taking a lot of nonsteroidal anti inflammatory.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was taking everything under the sun,
Speaker 1: even taking a drug. Now that's outlawed. You can't even
Speaker 1: give it to people anymore. And so, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I was doing whatever I could to play during that season.
Speaker 1: And it was after that season that my kidney disease
Speaker 1: was discovered. But I did have at that point, I
Speaker 1: did have a lot of pain my mid section. Everybody
Speaker 1: thought it was back spasms and that's how it was treated.
Speaker 1: Then later on that summer was you know, again my
Speaker 1: kidney disease was discovered. But you know, I played with
Speaker 1: elevated creatning, which is uh indication of your kidney function.
Speaker 1: I played with elevated crattening for the rest of my career,
Speaker 1: so the last seven years. And so there were time
Speaker 1: many times, especially when I was in Detroit, I had
Speaker 1: just come off of two months of high doses of
Speaker 1: prestic zone therapy, which really weeks havoc on your body.
Speaker 1: And many times when I come up that like when
Speaker 1: I was going to walk into half court to start
Speaker 1: the game, I would feel like my legs were water balloons.
Speaker 1: I had so much watery tension in my body and
Speaker 1: in my hands, and as the game progressed that a
Speaker 1: little bit of that would go away. But you can
Speaker 1: see after Jensen, like, you know, everybody gets taked up
Speaker 1: before the game around your ankles, and so when I
Speaker 1: would cut the tape off at the bottom where my
Speaker 1: ankles were, it looked like I used to call it
Speaker 1: a pirate's leg my calf, you know, my eyes and
Speaker 1: my calf would be swollen. And then where my ankles
Speaker 1: were taped, it was incredibly skinny, like it stopped the fluid.
Speaker 1: So I'm running down into my ankle and my feet.
Speaker 1: So it was something that I played with four pretty
Speaker 1: much over a twelve year career. I played with any
Speaker 1: disease for seven or so for a majority of my career.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable the statistics you were able to put up with that.
Speaker 1: I mean, did your did your teammates know that you
Speaker 1: were battling this stuff. I think people started to find
Speaker 1: out after I had sailed my physical when I tried
Speaker 1: to get traded from Detroit to Houston. When I failed
Speaker 1: that physical, h then you know, it became pretty public
Speaker 1: knowledge that there was something going on with me, and
Speaker 1: players didn't quite know that. They thought, well, I had
Speaker 1: something going on with my kidneys. But you know, no
Speaker 1: one really knew to what extent, and even at that point, Jensen,
Speaker 1: I didn't know because my diagnosis early on was something
Speaker 1: called minimal change disease, and that meant they went in
Speaker 1: I had a kidney biopsy. They went in and they
Speaker 1: take out a piece of your kidney and then looking
Speaker 1: at it under a microscope, and they had minimal change.
Speaker 1: But later on the disease was actually it was early
Speaker 1: signs of vocal scurosis. And so later on when the
Speaker 1: disease started to really ramp up and really start to
Speaker 1: damage my kidneys, then it became apparent what was really
Speaker 1: wrong with me. Well, I'm so happy to talk to
Speaker 1: you because no one knows what it's like to play
Speaker 1: through adversity more than you. So let's talk about the
Speaker 1: NBA bubble. We have a few games under our belt now.
Speaker 1: The process seems to be working against coronavirus. What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts about what you've seen so far? Oh? Wait, man,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of positive signs. I gotta tell
Speaker 1: you a lot of things that really made me feel
Speaker 1: proud to be an NBA long of obviously a former
Speaker 1: player and the member of the Spurs, organization. First off,
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that the NBA is leading the
Speaker 1: way when it comes to all sports leagues. They've been
Speaker 1: extremely conscious of the players, of the fans, of personnel.
Speaker 1: They've done a first class job of presenting the games,
Speaker 1: protecting everybody involved. I wasn't sure how they'd be able
Speaker 1: to pull it off. One of my main concerns was,
Speaker 1: how do you actually play games without fans? Fans matter.
Speaker 1: Fans to me are there everything, and you can put
Speaker 1: the fans in the stands. They provide the environment to
Speaker 1: give players adrenaline and a huge boost for the home team.
Speaker 1: You know, three fans mean everything, and so how are
Speaker 1: you going to pull off you know, the same type
Speaker 1: of excitement without those people in the stands. And they
Speaker 1: the way they stage the games, the way they're they're shot.
Speaker 1: I think they've done a treminute job. Even you know,
Speaker 1: piping in fake crowd noise, it actually actually works. You know,
Speaker 1: we've called three games so far and they've been a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. We've you know, the games have been exciting.
Speaker 1: I think the fans are enjoying the product, and so
Speaker 1: in that regard, I think the NBA has a huge
Speaker 1: feather in the cap especially if they can get all
Speaker 1: the way to the finals and actually pull this thing off.
Speaker 1: And and the other part that I'm just extremely proud
Speaker 1: of is the way that they've helped push along the
Speaker 1: social justice issues. They didn't censor their players. In a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, they encourage their freedom of speech. They
Speaker 1: enhanced the guy's platforms, and and and the and the
Speaker 1: players have been to me, they've been very responsible with
Speaker 1: their message, and they've been tolerant. I mean I said
Speaker 1: last night or telecast the players right now that they
Speaker 1: said of a great example for society. You know, they
Speaker 1: have guys that stand for the national anthem, and you
Speaker 1: have guys that neil for national anthem. No one's being
Speaker 1: pressured to neil. No one's being pressured to stand Myers.
Speaker 1: Leonard stood the other day and after the nation anthem,
Speaker 1: you on his house when he gives him a fist
Speaker 1: bump and says, hey, you know you're you're still our brother,
Speaker 1: We're still we stand with you too, you know. And
Speaker 1: the guys are extremely tolerant of each other's stands and
Speaker 1: they understand each other. And so to me, that's a
Speaker 1: great lesson for society. And these guys are just been
Speaker 1: great examples. Yeah, and you you brought it up a
Speaker 1: little bit. How has announcing from home been for you?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that everyone's used to being there
Speaker 1: on the core, being able to see what's going on.
Speaker 1: Is it different for you? I mean, I've seen some
Speaker 1: of the clips of you know, local broadcasts where the
Speaker 1: kind of zoom vibe of the boxes on top of
Speaker 1: the screen. I mean, well, is it difficult? Is this tricky?
Speaker 1: It's a little trickier. It's harder to even call the game.
Speaker 1: You know, some of these arenas nowadays, they're taking away
Speaker 1: announcers from the first couple of rows and they're putting
Speaker 1: up high in the arena. And I don't like that
Speaker 1: because if you take away the nuances of the game,
Speaker 1: you don't get to see interactions between the coaches and
Speaker 1: the players, or the players on the court. You miss
Speaker 1: a lot of that and to me kind of sterilizes
Speaker 1: the game. And so if you want to get the
Speaker 1: best kind of seal across to the viewers, and so
Speaker 1: it is a little bit more difficult. There was even
Speaker 1: times last night where I know, misidentified a player because
Speaker 1: I'm watching it off the screen, you know, fifteen feet away,
Speaker 1: and so you know, sometimes that's going to happen, and
Speaker 1: that's okay. I mean, we we understand what it is now,
Speaker 1: and sometimes those mistakes are gonna be made. But that's
Speaker 1: not a big deal. As long as you can still
Speaker 1: get your point across, get your message across, I think
Speaker 1: we'll be just fine. But yeah, I mean, it still
Speaker 1: is a little tricky because we can't see exactly what
Speaker 1: Pop is gesturing or what what's he's saying to some
Speaker 1: of the players out there in the court of the
Speaker 1: interaction between the players. If the past and missed or
Speaker 1: decase of Simon is blown, you can see the communication
Speaker 1: between the players a lot clearer when you're on the
Speaker 1: first or second run, you're actually there. This past week
Speaker 1: we saw games like the Rockets Mavericks where the final
Speaker 1: score was a hundred and fifty three. It went into
Speaker 1: O T. But the truth is this game would have
Speaker 1: been I don't know, ten points less if they didn't
Speaker 1: go into OT. Are are we to believe these games
Speaker 1: are part of the cannon of NBA we know and love.
Speaker 1: Are they playing defenses? I mean, it just seems there
Speaker 1: was another high score this past weekend as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: is this normal basketball? Should I Should I be watching
Speaker 1: it with the same I. Well, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: tricky question there because, uh, you know I've been saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a long with the fenders in this league. Now
Speaker 1: are handcuffed? I mean you're you're defenseless. You're absolutely defenseless
Speaker 1: as a defender. When I first got in the league
Speaker 1: in eighty nine, you know, the veterans would always talk
Speaker 1: about using the arm bar on defense. And you know,
Speaker 1: the kiss of death as a defender was if an
Speaker 1: offensive player was able to get his body into your body,
Speaker 1: if it was torso, the torso he got you, and
Speaker 1: so you could use that arm bar to keep his
Speaker 1: body from getting into you. Because if you know as
Speaker 1: an offensive player, if you know how to use your
Speaker 1: body and pull your arms through, you can get physical
Speaker 1: with the defender and there's nothing you can do with
Speaker 1: you if you get body to body with him. Well,
Speaker 1: nowadays that's the only way that you can guard anybody,
Speaker 1: and you can't put up that arm bar. You see
Speaker 1: guys that are moving and sliding their feet with their
Speaker 1: hands in the air like a splaye kind of chicken.
Speaker 1: If you will, your hands are up there and their
Speaker 1: backs and you show the official and you're not touching
Speaker 1: the player, and the fact that everybody's shooting three balls.
Speaker 1: So when you look at the court and I made this, uh,
Speaker 1: I told my producer other day when I was watching
Speaker 1: the Rockets game. Actually watching the Rockets game, to me,
Speaker 1: because everybody is so spread on the court, it almost
Speaker 1: looked like there weren't ten guys out there, right because
Speaker 1: everybody's guarding the three point line. If James Harden beats
Speaker 1: initial defender, he may have one health of fender that
Speaker 1: rotates over and if he can sides at tilm, it's
Speaker 1: it's an easy lay up. It's almost like a drill
Speaker 1: right now. On the offensive end of the flour. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're an offensive player, you're gonna score the ball, uh,
Speaker 1: because the defender is just gonna have a nightmares time
Speaker 1: trying to stop you. So it's kind of twofold as
Speaker 1: to why everybody's scoring so many points. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I've been like you said, I guess the three point game.
Speaker 1: It's so NBA involved now, like when we you know,
Speaker 1: when I watched you coming up, and when you know,
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties, it was such like a
Speaker 1: slam dunk game. You know, it was like we we
Speaker 1: gravitated towards Shack and Barkley and David Robinson obviously with you,
Speaker 1: like guys who were big men who were driving underneath.
Speaker 1: And now I assume every kid coming up wants to
Speaker 1: be Steph Curry. Every kid coming up wants to be hard,
Speaker 1: and so they're almost shooting from the half court line
Speaker 1: at times. Yeah, it's insane. I mean you get to
Speaker 1: guard a lot of people right when they come over
Speaker 1: half court. I mean the one that comes to minds
Speaker 1: Damian Lillard, and he's got in the gym range, and
Speaker 1: as soon as he comes across the half court line,
Speaker 1: you have to guard him. And so it's just it's
Speaker 1: spreads everybody out. And if you watch an old eighties
Speaker 1: or nineties game, or even early two thousands, the court
Speaker 1: looks condensed. Every everybody is within the three point line.
Speaker 1: If you penetrate, it's not beating just your defender. You
Speaker 1: might have to beat two or three other other guys
Speaker 1: back there because there's so many people in the paint.
Speaker 1: Now it's just the wide open freefall, and three point
Speaker 1: ball is largely responsible for that. You have a rare
Speaker 1: perspective on this whole thing because you were part of
Speaker 1: the championship spurs a season cut short by the labor strike,
Speaker 1: and you faced all the asterisks. Talk back, then, what's
Speaker 1: your answer to that criticism? Then? And now I guess
Speaker 1: you know, obviously you guys had that, and now whoever
Speaker 1: wins this championship is gonna hear the same thing. Can
Speaker 1: can this be defended as a serious championship? Yeah? Can be,
Speaker 1: It can be for sure. And you know, we won
Speaker 1: a ninety nine. We heard the talk after, and to
Speaker 1: me it was puzzling because the people that were criticizing
Speaker 1: were the same people that we went through and the
Speaker 1: fact that if they had one, they wouldn't have asked
Speaker 1: for an asterisk next to the championship. And it's not
Speaker 1: like we played a shortened playoff schedule. The season was.
Speaker 1: The season was shortened, but the playoffs were exactly the
Speaker 1: same amount of games. If you said, oh, you only
Speaker 1: got to win eight games winning championship, that's completely different.
Speaker 1: But we had to win the required amount of games
Speaker 1: that everybody else had played previous years so previously, so
Speaker 1: I don't get the asteric talk. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: have to play the same playoff format, and so it's
Speaker 1: going to be the same thing here. You're you're still
Speaker 1: taking the best teams. The only thing is that you're
Speaker 1: you're not gonna have really, to me, any kind of
Speaker 1: home court advantage because you're not gonna have the fans
Speaker 1: behind you. So I almost think it's gonna be tougher.
Speaker 1: I almost think it's gonna be tougher for a team.
Speaker 1: You know, the Lakers have a home court advantage of
Speaker 1: the Bucks have home court I'm putting home court advantage
Speaker 1: in quotation fingers. If they have that, you don't really
Speaker 1: have it. You know, Milwaukee is not going to have
Speaker 1: their fans behind them, so it's gonna be much more
Speaker 1: difficult for them that they're facing the Lakers in a
Speaker 1: seven game series on really which is essentially a neutral court,
Speaker 1: as opposed to facing them at the arena where they
Speaker 1: have the fans getting behind them and ducing them up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I I'll tell you, the season did give me a
Speaker 1: lot of hope this last weekend when the Raptors did
Speaker 1: beat the Lakers, because it does seem okay, you know,
Speaker 1: with the level playing field, feels feels much better now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's really interesting. Uh, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot to talk about there because you know, for me,
Speaker 1: and I joked about it on our air, I wasn't
Speaker 1: the best practice player. You know. I played well in practice,
Speaker 1: well enough in practice, But for me, when the lights
Speaker 1: were on and people were there, it brought a heightened
Speaker 1: sense of focus for me, and so I felt like
Speaker 1: I performed much better when people are in the stands
Speaker 1: than just a practice or a script situation. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure that might that might hold true for some of
Speaker 1: the players that are playing. But again, the NBA has
Speaker 1: done such a great job kind of stage in the
Speaker 1: games that maybe it doesn't impact guys. Yeah. Well, as
Speaker 1: you said above and beyond your historic run with the Spurs,
Speaker 1: you're also now broadcaster for for the team, and Popovich
Speaker 1: has said that his main focus in Orlando as player
Speaker 1: development guys like Heldon Johnson, You Banks, Luca, Lonnie Walker.
Speaker 1: I when I heard that, I'm a god, I'm a
Speaker 1: Popovitch stand. I love the dude. I just am always
Speaker 1: nervous with him putting his health on the line, you know,
Speaker 1: because he's obviously in a heightened age group for just
Speaker 1: to get young guys reps. I mean, I bummed me out.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think it's still worth it to
Speaker 1: hear they're not going for the championship, they're just trying
Speaker 1: to get guys into the game. Well they see riding
Speaker 1: on the wall. I mean there's no LaMarcus Aldred he's
Speaker 1: out with the shoulder injury, no trade Lyles, So you're
Speaker 1: missing arguably your best player and LaMarcus. And yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know you look at it on the situation
Speaker 1: where you have to win a certain amount of games
Speaker 1: just to get in the playoffs situation and then you're
Speaker 1: probably are most likely to play the Lakers in the
Speaker 1: first round. You kind of have to understand and be
Speaker 1: realistic about your chances. And so, you know, I like
Speaker 1: what they're doing right now, playing the young guys and
Speaker 1: kind of seeing what you have going forward. And as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, it's paid off so far. I
Speaker 1: mean we've won the first couple of games. Uh, the
Speaker 1: young guys look good, and they're they're playing, you know,
Speaker 1: loose out there, and they're playing with no pressure. Uh,
Speaker 1: they know that they're gonna play thirty minutes tonight, that
Speaker 1: they know that they're going to be able to make
Speaker 1: mistakes and and Pop's not gonna pull them, And so
Speaker 1: you have guys right now they are just letting it flow.
Speaker 1: They've gotta sets the freedom out there, and it's paying
Speaker 1: off before us and we're getting a chance to see
Speaker 1: our young guys shine and see what you have going forward, Sharon,
Speaker 1: and you're one of the most storied college players of
Speaker 1: all time, University of Arizona's leading scorer still at this time, Uh,
Speaker 1: the n C double a season up in the air. Really,
Speaker 1: do you think there's any way they can make it
Speaker 1: work safely to have these kids in college and playing.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I I think right now, when I
Speaker 1: look at what's going on in all the sports, the
Speaker 1: only way that anything's gonna work is probably in a bubble.
Speaker 1: Because you know, you can control the variables, you can
Speaker 1: control the environment around the players. Can't do that in college.
Speaker 1: And furthermore, you know these guys coming in eighteen nineteen
Speaker 1: years old, how are you going to tell them the
Speaker 1: socially distance and not go to the frat party and
Speaker 1: and stay away from your girlfriend or other people. And
Speaker 1: that's just not going to happen. I think the players
Speaker 1: in the NBA, obviously, you know they've done a great
Speaker 1: job of respecting each other and respecting the mission or
Speaker 1: the goal and what the league trying to achieve. So
Speaker 1: they've done a great job with kind of policing themselves
Speaker 1: and staying uh in the quarantine. I don't think you
Speaker 1: can pull that off with a bunch of college kids. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: before sports did come back, fans clung onto the last
Speaker 1: Dance on ESPN. I think one of the big revelations
Speaker 1: that people took out of it was that Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: sure hated the Pistons. H you were the Detroit Piston
Speaker 1: that is the last in season. Do you remember anything
Speaker 1: from those matchups with the heated kind of feelings that
Speaker 1: he gave off during the dock? Well, I got there,
Speaker 1: and Michael, that was the year, I want to say,
Speaker 1: the first year that he had retired, and then he
Speaker 1: came back the next year halfway through the season. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Bulls were still good. There was still a good team,
Speaker 1: but the Pistons weren't the same Pistons. It was Isaiah
Speaker 1: Joe and Bill Lambier essentially that were left over from
Speaker 1: those bad boy teams. The rest of the guys, the
Speaker 1: rest of that roster wasn't there, and so you know,
Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of talk about it. I had
Speaker 1: watched those matchups. I was obviously not only a player,
Speaker 1: but a huge fan of just watching games, and so
Speaker 1: I've seen all that drama unfold. But but there wasn't
Speaker 1: a lot of talk about it, honestly in Detroit anymore. Wow,
Speaker 1: So you didn't hear any Isaiah talk about ordinance stuff
Speaker 1: while all that kind of is he coming back? Is
Speaker 1: he is? I mean, it was such a big deal
Speaker 1: in those seasons right before he came back. You didn't
Speaker 1: hear anything kind of going on. No, No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: But they didn't talk about it a lot. And I
Speaker 1: know why because it didn't end all of them, and
Speaker 1: so I'm sure they didn't want to rehash, you know,
Speaker 1: what Michael had done to on that last season. After
Speaker 1: this More with san Antonio spurs legend and current analyst
Speaker 1: Sean Elliott. Right now, Feeding America is working tirelessly to
Speaker 1: ensure our most vulnerable populations, like students who were out
Speaker 1: of school, the elderly individuals whose jobs are impacted, and
Speaker 1: low income families continue to have access to food and
Speaker 1: other needed resources. During the COVID nineteen pandemic, the Feeding
Speaker 1: America Food Bank Network is committed to serving communities and
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Speaker 1: now the rest of my chat with Sean Elliott. With
Speaker 1: the world finally waking up to a lot of the
Speaker 1: racial injustices for the past hundreds of years in our country.
Speaker 1: Uh really sparked by the murder of George Floyd. I
Speaker 1: thought about you a little bit when I was researching
Speaker 1: because I went to University of Arizona for a year.
Speaker 1: I went to Tuson, Arizona, then transferred to USC Why
Speaker 1: in the world to do that, I would listen. I'm
Speaker 1: from I'm from l A. You couldn't keep me there.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you other than Bison, which is that sandwich
Speaker 1: restaurant which I still think about once a week. I
Speaker 1: don't miss a ton there. Because I'll be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I did hear a lot of racism in Tucson, Arizona,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to know what your experience was like
Speaker 1: growing up there and playing there, especially because you played
Speaker 1: in Texas, which isn't necessarily known for its unity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of races. There was. That's the
Speaker 1: reality of it. There's racism everywhere, but there was racism
Speaker 1: in Tucson. And you know, I got called names plenty
Speaker 1: of times or got looks. And you know, my my
Speaker 1: mother grew up in Mississippi, Holly Springs, Mississippi, and so
Speaker 1: you know, I come home and tell her, Hey, mom,
Speaker 1: you know this happened today or this haping. She'd say, well,
Speaker 1: that's racist, and you don't have to stand for that.
Speaker 1: But I would, you know, I was still young and
Speaker 1: naive and say, oh, mom, come on, you know not
Speaker 1: at all that can be racist. And then as I
Speaker 1: got older, you know, lo and behold, my mom got
Speaker 1: a lot smarter in my eyes. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: there was just definitely that there's no there's no way
Speaker 1: to avoid it. And and Tucson is a lot more
Speaker 1: liberal than probably any other towns in in Arizona. So
Speaker 1: but I still love TUCSONA wouldn't trade my experience growing
Speaker 1: up there for anything, But yeah, I mean it definitely
Speaker 1: had episodes and times that were tough. I you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine, and a lot of people when
Speaker 1: I tell them miss to go no way. But literally
Speaker 1: in elementary school, I thought, almost every day, almost every
Speaker 1: single day, I got in some kind of scuff or
Speaker 1: a fight almost every day. And what percentage of that
Speaker 1: school was white? It was all white, I mean all
Speaker 1: white and hispanic, I think, coming up all the way
Speaker 1: until the sixth grade when I moved and I went
Speaker 1: to a school that had a lot more black students.
Speaker 1: And up until that time, I mean I was like
Speaker 1: I'd be one of the only two black kids in school,
Speaker 1: two or three black kids in school. And so you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, the one story that I that
Speaker 1: I tells when Ruth came out, you know, the teacher
Speaker 1: would I was talking about it in class, and like
Speaker 1: every time she would say something about the slaves, Everybody's
Speaker 1: turned around looking at me like I'm some kind of authority.
Speaker 1: And then when I the one instant that really got
Speaker 1: me in a lot of troubles, when I got off
Speaker 1: the bus one day and I had about twenty or
Speaker 1: thirty kids waiting for me when I got off the bus,
Speaker 1: and there were tenny Roots and so I just yeah,
Speaker 1: so I just got off the bus just ready to wing.
Speaker 1: You know, I was just already you know, it was
Speaker 1: already tense because you know, I was watching the miniseries too.
Speaker 1: So just what you did. It was only three television channels,
Speaker 1: not like you had, you know, five channels to watch,
Speaker 1: so everybody sat down at night and watched Roots. And
Speaker 1: so I watched it, and you know, I get the
Speaker 1: Kunta Kente's and the Toby or you know, people call
Speaker 1: you Chicken George, you know, thinking it's funny, and so
Speaker 1: it was. It wasn't the best time for you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it was the best time for a young black kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is brutal. I I it's weird because you think
Speaker 1: a school like University of Arizona is liberal arts to
Speaker 1: an extent, and I remember so vividly going there and
Speaker 1: being shocked. I guess may because it's such a feeder
Speaker 1: school for Scottsdale, which is like Snowtown. It's so white.
Speaker 1: But like the thing about about black kids that were
Speaker 1: at you have a it was it was mostly athletes
Speaker 1: and I went there in nineties seven. I mean, it
Speaker 1: didn't feel like a very diverse campus at all. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, most of the black kids that I went
Speaker 1: to school with an Arizona were athletes, maybe all of them.
Speaker 1: I had a funny instance. We were all of us
Speaker 1: were in freshman English or so my recruiting class six guys,
Speaker 1: five were black. The one white guy that was on
Speaker 1: our team was from Iowa. And the five of us,
Speaker 1: the five black freshmen, we all tuted into English one
Speaker 1: hundred I believe it was. And so all of us
Speaker 1: were taking the same class at the same time, and
Speaker 1: we had a black professor and we were discussing a
Speaker 1: book about a black musician, and a white girl raised
Speaker 1: her hand. We were fresh discussing this book, and the
Speaker 1: white gool raised your hand. And in class she asked,
Speaker 1: She said, if black people's bottom of their feet are
Speaker 1: white and their hands white, are their hands are white?
Speaker 1: Are their butts white too? And the yes, The class erupted.
Speaker 1: Bruce Wheatley was laying on the floor laughing. The teacher
Speaker 1: was chuckling. He he didn't know what to say. Some
Speaker 1: of the other students are like, going, my goodness, how
Speaker 1: didn't you ever seen like Nassal Geographic. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a time where you know, it was so funny,
Speaker 1: it wasn't offensive. It was just like, my goodness, like
Speaker 1: people really don't know. You don't know about black people, Sean,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this one. And I don't mean to
Speaker 1: dog you of a because I really I honestly, the
Speaker 1: education there was much better than than you would think
Speaker 1: based on the things you're hearing right now. I actually
Speaker 1: learned a lot of stuff that was I think I
Speaker 1: learned about HD television there for the first time in
Speaker 1: like nineties six. But but I will say I have
Speaker 1: a friend Adam Pally, great comedian. He showed up on
Speaker 1: this podcast once recently, and he has a story. We
Speaker 1: went there at the same time, and he has a
Speaker 1: story where he went on a date with a girl
Speaker 1: and she asked and he thought she was kidding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she asked where his horns were because he was Jewish,
Speaker 1: and he thought she was joking, so they laughed, and
Speaker 1: then she wasn't laughing and she had been taught by
Speaker 1: her parents that Jewish people have horns. Yeah. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: heard a similar story like that from one of our
Speaker 1: media relations people in Detroit. The same thing where one
Speaker 1: of her black girl friends went out actually with a
Speaker 1: white girl, and the white girl picked her up and said, hey,
Speaker 1: that's a cute dress. Where where do you hide your tail? Unbelievable. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, but you know that kind of thing. When
Speaker 1: I hear that, I don't get offending because I've heard so.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could sit here for an hour. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I could tell you this kind of story, and
Speaker 1: some people will think that all that they can't possibly happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah it happened. Yeah, it happened. And I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: to sum it up and not make people so sad
Speaker 1: about what we're hearing. The good news is in we
Speaker 1: have a great awakening that's going on. You see it
Speaker 1: with the NBA, with the you know, the social issues,
Speaker 1: like you said, they're facing so elegantly. And I'm happy.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to see where we're at this year at least,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm happy that the conversation is still going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll honestly against and I mean, I'm I've become really cynical,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering if a year from now, if we're
Speaker 1: just going to be in the same situation or everybody
Speaker 1: forgets about it, and it's going to take something else
Speaker 1: and where everybody's gonna start writing again. Are we, you know,
Speaker 1: really set up to make a change. A big part
Speaker 1: of me feels like we are because the younger generation there,
Speaker 1: they're woke, if you will, and they have trends that
Speaker 1: are different colors, different sexual orientation, and they're open about it,
Speaker 1: whereas you know, our generation wasn't. I was with a
Speaker 1: group of friends the other day. We were talking about
Speaker 1: the same thing, and I said, Hey, how many you
Speaker 1: guys went to school with a gay guy? And they
Speaker 1: were like, well, well, you know it was an older
Speaker 1: obviously an older group of people. And they're like, well,
Speaker 1: we didn't know they were gay, because they're gonna open.
Speaker 1: I'd say, exactly. You know, we went to school with
Speaker 1: all kinds of people, um that had to hide who
Speaker 1: they were, hide their their true self from us because
Speaker 1: we were, you know, so backward and intolerant back in
Speaker 1: the seventies, eighties and nineties. And now this new generation
Speaker 1: they're not like that. You know, my daughter and my kids,
Speaker 1: all our kids are now out of college. But when
Speaker 1: they were in high school, even a few years back,
Speaker 1: they had friends that they knew were gay or lesbian,
Speaker 1: and so you know, the whole way that they think
Speaker 1: and the way they brought up now different. They're ways
Speaker 1: more tolerant of each other than our generation and our
Speaker 1: previous generations were, And so that kind of gives me
Speaker 1: hope that the younger generation is gonna, you know, topple
Speaker 1: this thing and put us over the edge and and
Speaker 1: really really change hearts and change minds. Same I I
Speaker 1: depend on them. So let's end on a bit of
Speaker 1: a goofy note here. During this odd time in history,
Speaker 1: you've been hosting a show on zoom geniusly titled Between
Speaker 1: two Spurs. It's minute zoom interview with Spurs legends like
Speaker 1: Avery Johnson and David Robinson. I wanted to end the
Speaker 1: interview by me bringing up some past Spurs players, maybe
Speaker 1: some obscure ones you didn't think about, and you tell
Speaker 1: me if you think they'd make a good zoom interview. Yes, okay, First,
Speaker 1: he only played one season on the Spurs. But you
Speaker 1: blab blob, you say it better than I do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a big german guy, went to Washington. That's a
Speaker 1: good question because I can hardly remember Huve and even
Speaker 1: though I played against him, in college. So uh, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll hold off on that one. That's a
Speaker 1: good one. I'm not sure. Okay, well hold off. Maybe
Speaker 1: you'll hear the other ones and you'll you'll set up
Speaker 1: who you want to. He played one season seventies s
Speaker 1: seventy seven. I didn't even know he was a Spur.
Speaker 1: Mike D'Antoni. Mike D'Antoni. I think Mike D'Antoni would be
Speaker 1: a really good dream interview because he's been around but
Speaker 1: here and there, and he's got a good personality. I
Speaker 1: think he's just a generally he's a good guys. He
Speaker 1: would be good interview. All right. This one's an old
Speaker 1: teammate of yours. He played one season Sleepy Floyd. Uh,
Speaker 1: Sleepy Floyd. I missed Sleepy Floyd by a year. Um
Speaker 1: he was I think I missed him, but I admired
Speaker 1: him when he was in college. I loved his nickname
Speaker 1: and I was a big college basketball fan, So I
Speaker 1: would love the interview Sleepy Floor. Okay, moving on. Uh,
Speaker 1: This guy, at one NBA's largest personalities, played one season
Speaker 1: on the Spurs fifteen sixteen. Boban is the best. I mean,
Speaker 1: what a great dude. Yes, absolutely love Boban Marianovitch. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you said no, I would have been very mad. Alright.
Speaker 1: Two seasons on the Spurs oh nine through eleven. Antonio mcdice.
Speaker 1: Is he a good interview in h Yeah, yeah he is,
Speaker 1: because it's a cool, cool dude. I loved the way
Speaker 1: he played early on in his career when he played
Speaker 1: for the Denver No, he was a nightmare. He one
Speaker 1: of the only guys. He was the only one of
Speaker 1: the only guys that gave Tim Duncan problems. He he
Speaker 1: could jump out the gym too. Man. It was was
Speaker 1: an athlete. He could and he could shoot it. He
Speaker 1: could shoot it with decent range. I mean, he had
Speaker 1: a great low post game. He was He was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun to watch, all right. This one maybe
Speaker 1: didn't have his great of an NBA career, great in
Speaker 1: college one season with the Spurs O one, O two
Speaker 1: Cherokee Parks. He would be a great interview. Uh. Free spirit, yeah,
Speaker 1: free spirit. The tattoos and stuff. Now he's out of
Speaker 1: his mind. Yeah, yeah, it's a cool another cool just
Speaker 1: I mean down to earth guy that you could have
Speaker 1: a great conversation with. You sit down with anybody and uh,
Speaker 1: and have a good time to stall to the earth
Speaker 1: type of guy. I love it. Last one one season
Speaker 1: with the Spurs and again a guy didn't even know
Speaker 1: I'd see him as a nick. I guess I don't know. Oh,
Speaker 1: three oh four, Charlie Ward played on the Spurs. Charlie Ward,
Speaker 1: he would be a good interview. He eat on me
Speaker 1: any time because he's High Sman Award winner. Yeah, ends
Speaker 1: up playing NBA basketball. How many guys have done that? None? Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's got quite a as a mate. And you
Speaker 1: know he's he's been in some battles and and and
Speaker 1: watching Florida State in Miami back in the day. You know,
Speaker 1: those were the games that people would I mean clam
Speaker 1: around the TV set to watch. Guys were hitting each other.
Speaker 1: They were so exciting. That was some of the best
Speaker 1: football that was being played. Yeah, and Charlie Ward had
Speaker 1: had deep through some dimes even in the NBA. He
Speaker 1: was a pretty good assist guy. You did. He was
Speaker 1: fun to watch the quarterback. I mean, he could scramble,
Speaker 1: he could pay, had an arm. Yeah, he was fun
Speaker 1: to watch. Well, Sean, I appreciate the candid talk. And
Speaker 1: stay safe and healthy and We're excited for Spurs basketball.
Speaker 1: Yes there anytime. The Sports Bubble is produced and distributed
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Speaker 1: Kelly Garner, Lisa Ammerman, Matthew Coogler, and me Jensen Carr.
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