Speaker 1: This is kJ Live with Chris john S Allen and
Speaker 1: Chris is having conversations with influencers in the sports world
Speaker 1: and entertainment in a strain. Now here's Chris Johnson. You're
Speaker 1: not coo then to kJ Live. Today's guest on the
Speaker 1: show was a five time and be a All Star,
Speaker 1: the first winner of the John R. Wooden Award. One
Speaker 1: of the most classy individuals that we all have ever known.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Let's welcome my dad, Marcus Johnson to
Speaker 1: the show. What's up, m J? Well, I thank you
Speaker 1: for that that positive introduction. Good classiest guys. Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: take it. I'll take all of it. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: You've always been one of the classiest guys. And everywhere
Speaker 1: I've traveled around the world, man, whether it be basketball
Speaker 1: journey or wherever I was, and and people got wind
Speaker 1: that I was your son, Marcus john Today just have
Speaker 1: this thing about your brother all over the globe. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: People light up, they remember you, they love you, and
Speaker 1: they they always talk about how you represent yourself. I
Speaker 1: want to know m J about how your week started,
Speaker 1: because I know that we're supposed to find out some
Speaker 1: very important information this week, some very important news from
Speaker 1: some very important people. Talk to me. Well, I'll let
Speaker 1: I'll let this recording kind of do the talking initially
Speaker 1: that we can follow up and talk more about it.
Speaker 1: So this is how my week started off on Monday.
Speaker 1: Let me let me queue it up here and here
Speaker 1: we go. I'm Mr Johnson. This is John to Leiva
Speaker 1: at the National Memorial Basketball or Fame calling. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to call and tell you today that you did not
Speaker 1: receive the amount of required boats to be elected a
Speaker 1: member of the However, you remain eligible for a future
Speaker 1: of consideration, but I did want to reach out to
Speaker 1: you and let you know that unfortunately, Uh, it's obviously
Speaker 1: the number of US necessary this year. We will look
Speaker 1: forward to your consideration next year, and I wish you well.
Speaker 1: Take care. All right, So that's my week started. I
Speaker 1: got that phone call. That was interesting, Chris, because I
Speaker 1: was actually doing one of my recovery meetings UM at
Speaker 1: nine am specific standard time. Uh. This call came in
Speaker 1: about that morning, and so when the when the name
Speaker 1: Springfield flashed across the screen, I knew what it was,
Speaker 1: but I didn't I didn't I didn't answer. I stayed
Speaker 1: in my meeting, just trying to get my head right.
Speaker 1: I didn't know which way it was gonna go. Your
Speaker 1: mind kind of racing at that point. Did I make it?
Speaker 1: Did not make it? Is this the years? It's not
Speaker 1: the year? And so I said, well, I listened to
Speaker 1: this message after the meeting is over. Now. I don't
Speaker 1: know if your phone ever does this to you, but
Speaker 1: sometimes my phone delays voicemail messages for hours. You got
Speaker 1: to clear some memory up on your phone, your memory,
Speaker 1: clear memory, bro. Yeah, I got that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I got all kind of issues going on, and I've got, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I could I can tell you right now,
Speaker 1: I've got us eight three sixty three voicemail messages and
Speaker 1: thirty seven some kind of something else. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: me go to the uh to the I think that
Speaker 1: the emails is something like I don't know, it's it's
Speaker 1: like up about thirty thousand, third thousand, right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so anyway, so, uh so I didn't I was not
Speaker 1: able to retrieve the message from this gentleman who has
Speaker 1: called me in the past. This is my second or
Speaker 1: third tongue. I forget getting this phone call. But the
Speaker 1: at the point is I couldn't find it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: I couldn't retrieve the message, and so I thought, maybe
Speaker 1: he didn't leave a message. But I thought that was
Speaker 1: really unusual. So my mind is going to work. I
Speaker 1: got one of those minds. So it's like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: because he didn't leave a message, maybe he want to
Speaker 1: tell me the good news in person. Maybe he didn't
Speaker 1: want to leave, you know, the rejection message message like
Speaker 1: he's done the last couple of times on a voicemail.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking because of that made you know, so
Speaker 1: I'm going all over the place with it. Then. But
Speaker 1: then finally, so I tried to call the number back,
Speaker 1: no answer, called it back. You know, I get obsessive.
Speaker 1: So called it back about twenty times, and doing the
Speaker 1: course of the day, I would catching one of these times, uh,
Speaker 1: no answer, Not really twenty, maybe five or six times,
Speaker 1: but it still upsets, but still says I want to
Speaker 1: if I want to find out, I want to know
Speaker 1: for sure what went on. So finally that afternoon, about
Speaker 1: four or five o'clock in the early evening, I looked
Speaker 1: at my voicemail messages and that message popped up, that
Speaker 1: number popped up. Then that's when I actually listened to
Speaker 1: um the rejection message. So it was just it was
Speaker 1: just a kind of a weird day. But hey, you know,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. What are the great ones
Speaker 1: like yourself, people that have really cemented their place in
Speaker 1: basketball history? Okay, because you have, and you can talk
Speaker 1: to your peers, you can talk to anybody that knows
Speaker 1: the game or had followed you. There's no question you're
Speaker 1: one of the greatest to ever play the game. Why
Speaker 1: is it so important to receive the validation of the
Speaker 1: end of the Basketball Hall of Fame for you? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, actually it's really interesting. Um. One thing that
Speaker 1: I realized is that you're in there. Well, well no,
Speaker 1: but with the passing of my mother, your grandmother, grandmommy,
Speaker 1: my mother of Medea is what we called it when
Speaker 1: I was really young, and I got embarrassed about how
Speaker 1: country sounded that name was when I was about six
Speaker 1: years old. So I went diametrically opposed to that polar
Speaker 1: opposite to the mother from Medea to mother. The six
Speaker 1: kids were t me in the first good grades media.
Speaker 1: What is that way? Ware yaf you? Anyway, So the
Speaker 1: thing that I realized, Chris, is that you know when
Speaker 1: she had her stroke October seventeen and was that Daniel
Speaker 1: Freeman Hospital, Marina del Rey. I'm sitting in the emergency
Speaker 1: room with her. She's teetering on the brink. The beepers
Speaker 1: going on. Sometimes it's the you know, elongated beep that
Speaker 1: gets me thinking that maybe it's over with. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things I'm doing with her, Man, I'm
Speaker 1: praying with her, and I'm praying like an old country
Speaker 1: Louisiana Cozie preacher. You know, that's her side of the family.
Speaker 1: All these Couzins, my grandfather a Couzine, my cousin Richard
Speaker 1: Lee Arthur, they're all great preachers, and my mother's all
Speaker 1: my grandmother and my mother will always say, you should
Speaker 1: you should have been one of those preachers, and and
Speaker 1: so we'll get more into that later. But I tried
Speaker 1: to do everything. They say, well, you know, God has
Speaker 1: calling you, but like, well, I got the phone off
Speaker 1: the hook. You know, I'm not doing all kinds of
Speaker 1: stuff not to but anyway, so I mean, I'm in
Speaker 1: the room with her right because I'm preaching. I'm like,
Speaker 1: come on, you got to hold on, you got to
Speaker 1: hold on. We got one more trip to make. We
Speaker 1: got a trip to Springfield, Massachusetts to make together. You
Speaker 1: came with me to Milwaukee a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: to get that number eight put up in the raptors.
Speaker 1: We got one more trip to make. Ma dear, hold on,
Speaker 1: please hold on, And she would like lift her hands
Speaker 1: up in a semiconscious state and say hold on, hold on.
Speaker 1: And so this is this is the interaction between her
Speaker 1: and all in this emergency room when she's she's teetering
Speaker 1: on the brink between life and death. My point is
Speaker 1: is that she died January, and it's almost like I
Speaker 1: wanted to have her experience me being selected as a
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer that was so important to her. Whenever
Speaker 1: we have a conversation about it, Chris, I'd always tell her,
Speaker 1: I'm cool with where I am in my life. I'm
Speaker 1: almost twenty years sober. I got, you know, real solid relationships.
Speaker 1: Most of the people that I'm close to in my life. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I love what I'm doing, my job, the
Speaker 1: creative stuff that I'm doing as a writer, as an actor,
Speaker 1: as a all that stuff. Man, I'm so cool with
Speaker 1: right now that if I don't make it, I tell her,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm okay. And she would always say, don't
Speaker 1: put that out there. You know you're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 1: make it. This is gonna be She was always so positive,
Speaker 1: you know how she was. So My point is, man,
Speaker 1: is that that I don't really feel like I need
Speaker 1: to trust me. If it happens, I'd be ecstatic, I'd
Speaker 1: be really happy. But I'm at a point now, man,
Speaker 1: where you know, my initial reaction when I got to
Speaker 1: this phone call was actually like, you know, I need
Speaker 1: to you know, I wouldn't even be objectionable to saying,
Speaker 1: you know, take my name off the ballot. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean that that was my initial reaction. Now, your
Speaker 1: brother just side, Josh and other people have talked to
Speaker 1: be sent and and they're like, no, no, Dad, don't, don't,
Speaker 1: don't do all that. Don't do all that. But what's
Speaker 1: the point, Because think about it like this, If there's
Speaker 1: a lot of there's a there's a humiliation associated with
Speaker 1: your name being on the ballot for thirty something years.
Speaker 1: You feel like every year they're just gonna put you name.
Speaker 1: Your finalance to say no, so I don't and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say there's there's humiliation I'm gonna ask you,
Speaker 1: is there some sort of like, you know, I won't
Speaker 1: call a humiliation, but it's like they put you in
Speaker 1: the ballot every year and they never select you, and
Speaker 1: it's thirty years down the line, will you ever be selected? Like?
Speaker 1: Did you do something to Jerry co Angelo? Like what
Speaker 1: is going on? Well, outside of sweeping the Phoenix Suns
Speaker 1: in the first round of the playoffs, you're Walter Davidson over.
Speaker 1: I hope we forget I hope we've forgotten about outside
Speaker 1: of that. No, no, but but but it's funny you say.
Speaker 1: I mean, so, first of all, I mean I love
Speaker 1: my been on the battot. I mean I just found
Speaker 1: out that I was kind of eligible to be on
Speaker 1: the battot. It was maybe ten fifteen years ago ago.
Speaker 1: Maybe Okay, if you're retired, Okay, you're right. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: don't have they don't automatically put you on. You've got
Speaker 1: to you have to apply and and and and send
Speaker 1: in your credentials. And it was this whole process that
Speaker 1: I had to go through just to get on the ballot.
Speaker 1: So so you know, I didn't even I waited around.
Speaker 1: I retired about nineteen nineties or so, so I waited
Speaker 1: around fifteen years and I was wondering why I never
Speaker 1: got any consideration. Well, you you have not because you
Speaker 1: asked not. And finally somebody told me it's like no, man,
Speaker 1: you got you got to call him up and say, look,
Speaker 1: I want to be placed in nomination. And when you
Speaker 1: do that, they send you a form. They have some
Speaker 1: people that look over your form, make sure that you're
Speaker 1: worthy in terms of what you did five All Star
Speaker 1: games in ten years, twenty points seven rebounds forces the game,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the first team All Pro you know,
Speaker 1: one of top five in the world my second year
Speaker 1: in the league in three years old. So so they
Speaker 1: were automatically like, oh, yeah, you're more than worthy of
Speaker 1: being placed the nomination. So that was about about about
Speaker 1: ten twelve, about ten twelve years ago that that happened.
Speaker 1: And so in the process I've been a finalist. I
Speaker 1: want to say, this is my second or third time
Speaker 1: I forget. But and so it's not so much the humiliation,
Speaker 1: you know, to me, that wouldn't describe it aptly, I don't,
Speaker 1: you know. It's more like you feel like you're at
Speaker 1: the mercy of people that you don't know if they
Speaker 1: have a good sense of what you really did as
Speaker 1: a player, if that makes sense. I'm not sure who
Speaker 1: the voters are, who the voters are, what their context
Speaker 1: is it pre Michael Jordan there was no real basketball
Speaker 1: but being played, or do they give the short trip
Speaker 1: to that era of basketball. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's the case. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: the case, because they all year to year they put
Speaker 1: in guys. You know what I'm saying from you, So
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the case. I really, you know,
Speaker 1: And I've had this conversation with other basketball people about
Speaker 1: you specifically not being in the Hall of Fame, and
Speaker 1: it's sort of one of those things like they're bringing up.
Speaker 1: There's a Sean Mirian the other day got in trouble
Speaker 1: on I believe it was the Twitter spaces. He jumped
Speaker 1: in on a conversation and brought up the fact that
Speaker 1: his career totals were as something like twenty one points
Speaker 1: eleven thousand rebounds, and he gets no talk of Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame yet. Chris Weber career total seventeen thousand and
Speaker 1: eight thousand boards. You know, everybody's pumping that up and
Speaker 1: they're talking about Chris's career averages and this and that.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 1: who your contemporaries in the league were at that time
Speaker 1: and how people are judging you against those guys, and
Speaker 1: so I think there's a disconnects somewhere with the voters
Speaker 1: and actual data about how dominant or how or the
Speaker 1: impact that you had on the game. Okay, well, a
Speaker 1: couple of points to that observation. First point, my second
Speaker 1: year in the league, and you know this by road,
Speaker 1: you know, average twenty points to six at um. One
Speaker 1: of my advanced analytics was one of the tops in
Speaker 1: the league. I don't know if it was the you know,
Speaker 1: replacement player thing or the war thing. One of them
Speaker 1: was like up there, one of the tops in the league.
Speaker 1: First team All Pro bump, dr j Off, the first
Speaker 1: team up ros me, Elvin Hayes. I think George Gerban
Speaker 1: got a Kareem or somebody Moses below and somebody if
Speaker 1: to get the other guys. Okay, that was my second year,
Speaker 1: and so I was on the trajectory George Gervian and
Speaker 1: I and will be Free. We were topped three scores
Speaker 1: in the league. We had conversations together. On one occasion,
Speaker 1: it send up, you know, doing what we do, talking
Speaker 1: about who was gonna leave the league and scored that
Speaker 1: next year, who's gonna at And I'm like, I'm coming
Speaker 1: with thirty. Y'all better be bringing thirty or better. Right,
Speaker 1: So this is this is the mindset. And so I'm
Speaker 1: twenty three years old. I'm coming off a twenty six
Speaker 1: points a game. We went into my third year. Uh.
Speaker 1: Don Nelson, the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, brings me
Speaker 1: into the office, sits me down and says, m j U,
Speaker 1: great year last year, before this, this is before my
Speaker 1: third year. Uh, you know, what do you think? What
Speaker 1: are you looking forward to this year? Or something to
Speaker 1: that effect. I'm like, I'm played on the average a thirty. Coach,
Speaker 1: I'm that's gonna be my goal to get out there
Speaker 1: shoot you know, good, solid percentage and average thirty. And
Speaker 1: He's like, no question in my mind that you can
Speaker 1: do that. I know you can do that. That's the
Speaker 1: score is not a problem for you. But here's what
Speaker 1: I want you to do. I want you to average
Speaker 1: between twenty and twenty one points a game, seven rebounds,
Speaker 1: play solid defense, and that's kind of the vision I
Speaker 1: have for my team with Brian Winners and Bobara Near
Speaker 1: hadn't gotten there yet. But we had Junior Bridgeman in
Speaker 1: Sydney Mono Creep and you know, just a lot of
Speaker 1: guys that could score, you know, between fifteen and eighteen
Speaker 1: nineteen points a game. And so my quandary was, well,
Speaker 1: do I accept this request, do I ask for a trade?
Speaker 1: Do I just tell him no? And and and rocked
Speaker 1: the boat. But you know me, my dad was a coach.
Speaker 1: I played for Willie West to Crinchhall High School. The
Speaker 1: greatest coach in in high school basketball history who was
Speaker 1: also in the Hall of Fame nomination and should be
Speaker 1: in the Hall of Fame, played for John Wooden. You know,
Speaker 1: tend You know, I've got great coaches in my background,
Speaker 1: and I always respect to a certain point. And Don
Speaker 1: Nelson I respected a lot back in those days because
Speaker 1: he helped me a lot um just just with the
Speaker 1: little work that he put into my game. Helped me
Speaker 1: go from you know, twenty points a game as a
Speaker 1: as a rookie to twenty six with adjustment in my
Speaker 1: jump shot. And so I went along with it. Now,
Speaker 1: So that's that's that's number one. So so the point total.
Speaker 1: It's funny Eddie Johnson I did did his uh serious
Speaker 1: radio show, and uh he had the he had the
Speaker 1: he brought up the comparison status. Chris, Yeah, Marcus. I
Speaker 1: was looking at me and you head the head, and
Speaker 1: guess who came out of head when we, uh, when
Speaker 1: we matched up, like the fifty and twenty times we did,
Speaker 1: I actually outscored you by three ten to a point
Speaker 1: or whatever it was. And so I didn't get into
Speaker 1: the context of way like Eddie, look, you know I
Speaker 1: was asked in that score were you asked? And not score?
Speaker 1: And the other point that that I should have put
Speaker 1: up with him. And so after that I looked up
Speaker 1: me and Larry Bird and we played against each other
Speaker 1: like I don't know, fourteen sixteen times and some of
Speaker 1: those games with the Clippers when when when you know,
Speaker 1: my my deal was way off. But I think I
Speaker 1: outscored Larry Bird and he had to hit matchups between
Speaker 1: just being him. So anyway, so that's number one. I mean,
Speaker 1: so so the point total. So instead of just under
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand points, if I would have been allowed to
Speaker 1: let my natural scoring proactivity manifest itself like it was
Speaker 1: on the trajectory to do so easily get another six
Speaker 1: thousand points, that's what that's twenty thousand points. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: number one. Number two. I got hurt. You know, at
Speaker 1: thirty years old. November twentieth, nineteen eighties six, I would
Speaker 1: just turned thirty, so I had another five years. You know,
Speaker 1: you never know. Back then in the league, you guys
Speaker 1: played a little longer two you know, adjustment to games five,
Speaker 1: six years, seven years. Maybe that I could have been
Speaker 1: one of those guys who would have gotten traded to
Speaker 1: a contender after a couple of years. But the Clippers
Speaker 1: and and you know, come off the bench at average
Speaker 1: fifteen sixteen and be that guy for another five or
Speaker 1: six you know what I'm saying. I mean, very easily.
Speaker 1: So you never know what could have happened and what
Speaker 1: might have happened. But the point is my career was
Speaker 1: cut short. So I played just about ten years. So
Speaker 1: everything I did five all started games in ten years
Speaker 1: is based on a ten year period as opposed to
Speaker 1: I think the official amount of years. Because I was
Speaker 1: actually on the Clippers active roster two years I didn't play,
Speaker 1: they give me twelve years which is which is beauty,
Speaker 1: which is beautiful? For for for pension and you and
Speaker 1: your service service and all that. But actually I don't
Speaker 1: even play, so that's always my response to that. But hey,
Speaker 1: you know, like it is what it is. It is
Speaker 1: what it is. But I mean, it's a very intriguing coundrum,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times we don't get to hear from,
Speaker 1: you know, the guy that's being read Jack, and we
Speaker 1: always hear from the guys that have made it and
Speaker 1: have reached the pinnacle. But thank you for sharing sort
Speaker 1: of where your mindset is at with this NBA Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame thing. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports
Speaker 1: talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows
Speaker 1: at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live.
Speaker 1: I had a question though, while you were talking about that,
Speaker 1: when you George Gervin world be Free. You know, that
Speaker 1: era of the eighties, that era of basketball, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's been a lot has been said about it, you know,
Speaker 1: like like, look, let's talk about this for a second
Speaker 1: winning time. The HBO series they're depicting, they're depicting sort
Speaker 1: of this wild wild West kind of a wild wild West.
Speaker 1: That's sort of an interesting thing because Jerry West has
Speaker 1: been you know, the butt of all this negative the
Speaker 1: negative depiction. But was it really like that back then?
Speaker 1: MJ was the league in the eighties, really you know,
Speaker 1: dominated by drugs and just lack of organization and just
Speaker 1: craziness throughout. Is that a lot of this what they're
Speaker 1: showing us on winning time and the things we've heard,
Speaker 1: is there a lot of sensationalism going on? What's a
Speaker 1: combination of both, Man, It was definitely a period um
Speaker 1: in this country in the eighties. We're cocaine you starting
Speaker 1: in the late seventies through the eighties and probably even
Speaker 1: to today for what I understand, but it kind of exploded.
Speaker 1: I mean, snowfall was real. That's what I like to say.
Speaker 1: That that the serious snowfall of ef fact that I
Speaker 1: love talking about my boys sat but but that that
Speaker 1: stuff that was going on in the eighties, the c
Speaker 1: i A just you know, pouring cocaine into the inner
Speaker 1: cities of Los Angeles and Detroit and you all these
Speaker 1: places and taking the money that the that that was
Speaker 1: made and the buying arms for the for the countrys
Speaker 1: of the Sandinistas, or whoever it was they were supporting
Speaker 1: back down in there. I guess that was real Oliver,
Speaker 1: straight Ali North, it was. It was straight Maxine Waters,
Speaker 1: who was a dear, dear uh mentor and friend. Her
Speaker 1: son he had and I have been best friends since
Speaker 1: nineteen eight at out of Bond Middle School. And he's
Speaker 1: a coach of crunchy'all right now. But she she brought
Speaker 1: it to the forefront back in the eighties when it
Speaker 1: was happening. But everybody thought she was just you know,
Speaker 1: chicken little, just just you know, just trying to make
Speaker 1: excuses for for the weaknesses of the black community because
Speaker 1: they couldn't stay await I'm telling you, man, where where
Speaker 1: where you grew up? Where we lived in the Beau
Speaker 1: Park Windsor Hills area. I mean I went to school
Speaker 1: with you know, Ray Charles as kids, and I could look.
Speaker 1: But you know, man, it was real snowfall, that whole
Speaker 1: dynamic and and to that point, I know of a
Speaker 1: lot of players, look that I got high. I went
Speaker 1: back in those days. I know coaches Chris that have
Speaker 1: admitted to me long after the fact that they were
Speaker 1: doing cocaine back in those days. I'm not gonna name
Speaker 1: any names. But there's been coaches that I know we
Speaker 1: talked about this, that we're doing cocaine. So that that
Speaker 1: that that this gives you an idea. Now everybody wasn't
Speaker 1: doing it. I mean there are some guys who were
Speaker 1: able to do it, not do it anymore, didn't like it,
Speaker 1: turn it down. I've got this wiring, this addictive mindset,
Speaker 1: obsessive mindset, type of wiring that that serves me well.
Speaker 1: It makes me want to um do everything I can
Speaker 1: go overboard in terms of working out to be the best.
Speaker 1: I mean, it made it drives me. It's a perfectionist mindset.
Speaker 1: So if I'm in college and i go twelve or
Speaker 1: fifteen in the game, I'm not celebrating the twelve shots
Speaker 1: I made. I'm just feeling on the three shots I missed,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So it's it's a different
Speaker 1: kind of and I'm sure you can relate to that.
Speaker 1: But so so it makes me work out harder, it
Speaker 1: makes me just want to get to a certain place
Speaker 1: in my professional But also there's the dark side of
Speaker 1: that that that that needs to be fed also, if
Speaker 1: that makes any sense, And so drugs, alcohol, the ability
Speaker 1: to not have to feel a lot of that pressure
Speaker 1: that I put on myself to be a perfectionist, to
Speaker 1: be one of the best. The drugs and alcohol are
Speaker 1: nesticize a lot of those feelings and made it so
Speaker 1: that I could I could what's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: I could exist without driving myself crazy. It's probably the
Speaker 1: best way to put it. And the beauty of this
Speaker 1: is that we're seeing with the open gooid crisis, with
Speaker 1: this gentleman Taylor Hawkins, the drummer for the Food Fighters,
Speaker 1: and and and what happened with him down and in Bolivia.
Speaker 1: He had attended a different drugs. You know, we're seeing
Speaker 1: that this is this is not an issue that was
Speaker 1: just uhies issue or nineties. This is something that continues
Speaker 1: to plague our society. I'll say this about the seventies, eighties,
Speaker 1: in the nineties to a certain extent. You know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of set the foundation for today because you have
Speaker 1: so many people that are curious nowadays that have you know,
Speaker 1: in my generation, you know a lot more people use
Speaker 1: cocaine than you you could believe in my generation, and
Speaker 1: I was always shocked to find it out that so
Speaker 1: and so was doing it, and it was doing and
Speaker 1: people were doing it back and when I was in college,
Speaker 1: they were doing it pro overseas and it's been throughout
Speaker 1: So this is so, but you just don't know because
Speaker 1: it's one of those unspoken things like unless you're getting
Speaker 1: unless you're getting down, you really don't know who is
Speaker 1: getting down unless you get round too, And so it's
Speaker 1: one of those things. But but I think at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it's remarkably fascinating, a remarkably fascinating
Speaker 1: discussion to talk about what if what if a drug
Speaker 1: that was proven to hamper physical performance wasn't being taken
Speaker 1: at the time, what what your career might have looked like?
Speaker 1: Do you ever think about that or reflect on that? No,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't because, like I mentioned to you,
Speaker 1: what I did at the point in time that I
Speaker 1: did it, where my where my head was mentally at
Speaker 1: that stage of my life. I mean, how do I
Speaker 1: articulate this properly? But you know, again, it was it
Speaker 1: was something that was done too, especially when you crossed
Speaker 1: what we called the invisible line of recovery. And now
Speaker 1: you're getting loaded because not because you want to recreationally
Speaker 1: and having a good time, but because you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're addicted, and so you're you're you know, you've got
Speaker 1: this this monkey on your back that you gotta be
Speaker 1: on a regular basis um. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, you just don't know. I don't know what
Speaker 1: might have happened. And to me, the point in speculating
Speaker 1: on what would have happened if that were not a
Speaker 1: part of things that were going on. It's been a
Speaker 1: big part. I grew up in I grew up in
Speaker 1: the an Eric Chris in the nineteen seventies, early were
Speaker 1: super Fly, the Mac, all these movies, I mean, drug
Speaker 1: used cocaine. It was glamorized and what you would you
Speaker 1: idolize It comes from the glamorization of those types of deals.
Speaker 1: And again everybody didn't do it. But I had this
Speaker 1: really fertile imagination. So you saw pictures of me going
Speaker 1: to my prom with your mom. I was super Fly,
Speaker 1: I was the Mac. I was that dude. I was
Speaker 1: bringing a little I was I was bringing a little
Speaker 1: ten of liquorice favorites that I bought that I bought
Speaker 1: it Donald Donald Michelle's boutique on Santa Barbara Boulevard now
Speaker 1: King Bulop, but it was, it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was no narcotic whatsoever. It was basic, harmless snuff.
Speaker 1: But I go to Crenshall High School and had a
Speaker 1: little spoon attached to the tent crisp, and I take
Speaker 1: out a little white powder in the class and I do,
Speaker 1: I do my I go through my superply thing. Can
Speaker 1: I tell you something? I can I tell share something
Speaker 1: with you that this to show you how stupid we
Speaker 1: are as individuals. Okay, so you're doing that, So listen
Speaker 1: to this. When I'm in Atlanta and when I was
Speaker 1: in the eighth grade where my mom went down, we're
Speaker 1: down there living with Glinda and her and we started
Speaker 1: we started off living in College Park in the hood,
Speaker 1: living with her sister and her kids. So we're there
Speaker 1: and I'm going to you know, Ronald need McNair kind
Speaker 1: of in the hood named after that astronaut. I'm going
Speaker 1: to school with like several members of the band Escaped
Speaker 1: there in my remember Escape the band, Candy Burgess and
Speaker 1: all that. So so I'm just trying to set the stage.
Speaker 1: This is who's in my class. You know, it's hood
Speaker 1: stuff going on. So I get involved. So a lot
Speaker 1: of the kids in my class were selling dope. We're
Speaker 1: selling weed, so so I had I had the bright
Speaker 1: eye there. You know, I wanted to get in on
Speaker 1: the game. So I started. I Glinda in her bathroom
Speaker 1: had these things like I guess pot pourri o that
Speaker 1: stuff that. So I started feeling them with bags like
Speaker 1: little dime bags. I started taking out of school and Dad,
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason I was kicked out of
Speaker 1: that school since we're down there too, because it was
Speaker 1: like a body of work. So it wasn't the exciting
Speaker 1: incident and that's another podcast. But it wasn't that exciting
Speaker 1: incident that you remember that got me kicked out. It
Speaker 1: was the body of work. Haven't getting this stuff and
Speaker 1: this but but but the glamorization of it. That that
Speaker 1: the rap music what I grew up on rap music video,
Speaker 1: they were glorifying this. It was glorified to be you
Speaker 1: having your your pants sag and selling dime bags with
Speaker 1: a wife beater or your hat to the back. That
Speaker 1: was what folks was really looking up to. Well, I'm listening, tons,
Speaker 1: if I ruled the world, he's talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the cocaine, and you know, cocaine is not ununcut bricks
Speaker 1: a row. Yeah. Yeah, And so that gives young people
Speaker 1: who have a proclevity for that kind of thing just
Speaker 1: a little bit more of a of a push to
Speaker 1: go into that kind of thing. And it's funny you
Speaker 1: mentioned that because at Crenshaw when I was snorting this
Speaker 1: snuff in the back of the class, this is one
Speaker 1: brother Tommy, I want to say his last name, but
Speaker 1: he was. He was one of those fast dudes, had brothers,
Speaker 1: older brothers that were that were into the life. And
Speaker 1: so he saw me doing He's like, like, you know, Marcus,
Speaker 1: let me get some of that. I said, yeah, non,
Speaker 1: go ahead, man. He took a little too, you know,
Speaker 1: He's like, oh man, this this nice man, this nice man.
Speaker 1: What can I get some of this? You know? And
Speaker 1: I didn't have the heart to tell him Dona Michelle's
Speaker 1: boutiques for the clinics for the canaster liquid. But but
Speaker 1: but I look back on the Chris and it was
Speaker 1: with the greats of guy. I mean, if I had
Speaker 1: got caught doing that, I mean I was a start
Speaker 1: after you that Crenshaw said. Thompson, the future future superintendent
Speaker 1: of schools, was our principal. He probably would have had
Speaker 1: a little leniency on me. But you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just by the grades of God that that
Speaker 1: kind of thing didn't blow up my face. But the
Speaker 1: point is I idolized those movie characters that I went
Speaker 1: to the ball with theater Saturday afternoon, Matinee's watching Superflyer,
Speaker 1: watching the Mac, watching all these hustler type uh black
Speaker 1: sploitation film uh protagonist watching. But the message was always
Speaker 1: good because they were always going against the white man.
Speaker 1: They was always trying to overcome with the with the
Speaker 1: corrupt police department. So it was all about corruption. They
Speaker 1: weren't the only ones that were doing corrupt stuff. They
Speaker 1: were usually battling a corrupt system and trying to make
Speaker 1: make a living and earn a living within a corrupt system,
Speaker 1: even though it was not the right way to go
Speaker 1: about it. So anyway, yeah, that's some great points. Um.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit about the Clippers
Speaker 1: because you posted something the other day and this was
Speaker 1: this was an interesting kind of a dark time. Well
Speaker 1: it could be looked at a couple of ways, but
Speaker 1: for me, it was sort of a dark time when
Speaker 1: you got traded to the Clippers. But I was happy
Speaker 1: on win end that you were home. So that part
Speaker 1: of it was like, oh man, my dad's back. But
Speaker 1: then the other part of it was you're with l
Speaker 1: A's other team, the Clippers. You posted the losing time
Speaker 1: Tales from the Graveyard. It was with yeah, losing time
Speaker 1: Tales from the NBA Graveyard. And I had a kid
Speaker 1: on here who was a die hard Clippers fan. His
Speaker 1: name is Dime Droppers, so he has no he really
Speaker 1: is not in team with what happened back then, or
Speaker 1: how you guys live and how you guys practice. Far
Speaker 1: younger listeners just talk about just to start contrast between
Speaker 1: ownership styles of a Steve Bomber and Donald's sterling well,
Speaker 1: and so then you gotta throw Jerry Buss in there too,
Speaker 1: because that's that was that was that was a contrast
Speaker 1: for us, how he was taking care of the Lakers
Speaker 1: first sterling training camps at Santa Barbara Resorts, Hawaii, MGM
Speaker 1: plane flying the games on the first team. You have
Speaker 1: private air travel. What we were doing when I got
Speaker 1: to the Clippers, we had training camp down in in
Speaker 1: hot ass Pomona, cal poly Pomona, Uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: we we were staying at and this is no exaggeration
Speaker 1: this is the actual truth. It was either it was
Speaker 1: it was either Motel six or Ecouno Lige. But it's
Speaker 1: one of those little it was her condo lodge with
Speaker 1: the papers in walls and everybody parked out front and
Speaker 1: every you know. It was that's that's that was our
Speaker 1: housing practicing at cal Poly Pomona. Our practice facility during
Speaker 1: the season was at the Wine Guard Y c a
Speaker 1: on on Central and and and Century and Vermont. That
Speaker 1: was it was a bible, a brand new why it
Speaker 1: was actually pretty nice. But but but but inside um,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the deep heart of south central Vermont
Speaker 1: and Central. But but but the court, great floor to
Speaker 1: jump off up. But one of the rims was probably
Speaker 1: nine seriously fine feat The other rims by nine and
Speaker 1: a half feat the realm weren't not the low rim
Speaker 1: but not not just the low rims, but the super
Speaker 1: low rims, the crazy low rims. This is where this
Speaker 1: is our practice facility. Donald Sterling at that point he
Speaker 1: had at least five or six, maybe more lawsuits against
Speaker 1: norm Nixon, Don Cheney, I believe, Michael Cage. But over
Speaker 1: five hundred dollar moving expenses, Norm I believe moved from
Speaker 1: San Diego with the Clippers to Los Angeles, moved his
Speaker 1: stuff up, build the Clippers four hundred dollars and moving
Speaker 1: stuff up. Donald Sterling took him the court, Donald Sterling,
Speaker 1: Donald Sterling, he had a he had a he had
Speaker 1: a just a bevy of attorneys on retainers. So it
Speaker 1: didn't cost him any more money to you know, find
Speaker 1: the lawsuit to the pay you four hundred. I'll pay
Speaker 1: you two hundred. Okay, let's settle this. It's go cost
Speaker 1: me more to you know. It was it was that
Speaker 1: kind of mindset and so just coming into that, not
Speaker 1: only that, I mean my first Christmas with the Clippers,
Speaker 1: we were at Donald Sterling's Malibu house where has his
Speaker 1: white parties, and this wasn't a white party. This was
Speaker 1: a of the Christmas party. But he had a Santa
Speaker 1: clause there and so we're all. I had my my, my,
Speaker 1: my black suit with the red pinch stripes, black shirt,
Speaker 1: red tie. I mean, I'm sharp. And the media relations guy,
Speaker 1: Josh to get his last name, he was a ball
Speaker 1: boy for the Lakers back in the day, so I've
Speaker 1: known him for a long time. But he's now the
Speaker 1: media relations guy for the Clippers. He's like, Marcus, uh,
Speaker 1: and we need you to sit on Santa claus His lap.
Speaker 1: I like, Josh, fuck you man, I'm not sitting on
Speaker 1: Santa's lap and I'm not growing ass fan. What do
Speaker 1: you He's like, Marcus, I'm gonna lose my job. Donald's
Speaker 1: gonna fire me unless I get all the players to
Speaker 1: take an individual picture with Santa Claus. And so I
Speaker 1: felt for Josh. I went I was saying, I sat
Speaker 1: on his lap. I think I kicked his hat off
Speaker 1: and palmed his head. Find that Find that picture. I
Speaker 1: think I palmed his head and gave a little sarcastic look.
Speaker 1: But I did it, you know. But that was just
Speaker 1: the That was the the guys coming into the locker
Speaker 1: room after games looking at our private parts. That part,
Speaker 1: So that part is that part. No no, no no, no
Speaker 1: no no, that part because you hear so much that
Speaker 1: you hear so much, did you at any time like
Speaker 1: Donald Sterling was racist or had racist tendencies, or did
Speaker 1: you feel like at any time that you know, you
Speaker 1: guys were really being treated in some voyeuristic type of
Speaker 1: you know, the type of fashion where they were the
Speaker 1: owner ownership group comes in after the game, you guys
Speaker 1: are showering. Then they're just staring looking around at your
Speaker 1: dicks and ship like that for for thirty minutes after
Speaker 1: the game. Did that really? Is that real stuff? Or
Speaker 1: is this sort of I don't know, it's just like, dude,
Speaker 1: why didn't nobody say nothing? Why didn't nobody say nothing
Speaker 1: at the time? Because of the bread Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: who you gonna say something too? I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: good point, you know. Um. And it wasn't like they
Speaker 1: were touching you or or or making overt kind of
Speaker 1: passes that they were just googling and looking and just
Speaker 1: happy to be there, you know. And and and and
Speaker 1: and I remember Donald Sterling in the in the l
Speaker 1: a Times magazine interview that he did back in the eighties,
Speaker 1: and they asked him if he thought of his players
Speaker 1: that were one of the Clippers as his sons, and
Speaker 1: he's like, oh no, oh gosh, no, I think of
Speaker 1: them as like racehorses. If they get injured, then the
Speaker 1: one gets injured, you replace them with another. So in
Speaker 1: terms of actually just blatant overt racism, that wasn't the feeling.
Speaker 1: But when you look back on it, Chris, it was
Speaker 1: this abject humiliation of an atmosphere that was created where
Speaker 1: you never felt like you were appreciated for the gifted,
Speaker 1: elite level athletes that we were back in those days.
Speaker 1: Now they're Dr Buzz. On another hand, he made his
Speaker 1: players feel appreciated and he showed him that appreciation through
Speaker 1: how he paid him, how he treated them their travel
Speaker 1: first class, this, first class that, and so that may
Speaker 1: not only them want to play for him, but also
Speaker 1: made it easier to attract free agents to come in
Speaker 1: because his reputation was so excused upun sterling, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of how he treated his players. And so
Speaker 1: that's why I got a problem with with the with
Speaker 1: the with the with the winning time. And look at
Speaker 1: John c Riley, he's doing a remarkable job playing John
Speaker 1: c Riley. As as as as Jerry Bust, He's not
Speaker 1: Jerry bus b at all. Not Jerry Buss had a
Speaker 1: level of humility the I to see Jerry I see
Speaker 1: Dr Bus on several on two or three occases, not
Speaker 1: several two or three at at the at the bridge
Speaker 1: and this is the bridge just built later. I'm not
Speaker 1: even sure if he was still ownership of the Lakers.
Speaker 1: I forgot what his position was, but he'd come in
Speaker 1: there with like he comeing like twenty of the most
Speaker 1: South central little black kids that you can imagine, running
Speaker 1: all over the place. You know, he's by And I said,
Speaker 1: Dr Buss, what's you know? Dr Bus? What's going on?
Speaker 1: You know? My markets? Yeah know, this is something that
Speaker 1: I do every weekend. I take a group of kids
Speaker 1: from this one particular uh spot. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I forget where it was exactly of a boys club,
Speaker 1: maybe one of the boys clubs or something the inner city.
Speaker 1: But he would do this every weekend. He take them
Speaker 1: to him Matt nay and and and treat him to
Speaker 1: you know, popcorn, you know, just show him a good time.
Speaker 1: And nobody ever knew about that. That was the never
Speaker 1: publicized but but that's who Dr Buss was, and that's
Speaker 1: why the other but but the other side of Dr Bus.
Speaker 1: We're hanging out at the Trupidor nightclub on mail Rose
Speaker 1: with the hottest spots in l A. And it's me
Speaker 1: and Warren Moon and James Shack Garrison and all these
Speaker 1: top notch local athletes of the day. Dr Bus walks
Speaker 1: in Chris with two of the finest blonds you've ever
Speaker 1: laid your eyes on about twenty years old, and he's
Speaker 1: in his sixties maybe then fifties, sixty, whatever he is.
Speaker 1: He comes in with the open shirt, the jeans and
Speaker 1: the sport coach. So the to the blonds come in
Speaker 1: and they're and they're being sociable. They're talking to all
Speaker 1: of us, and we're like, you know, we're doing our
Speaker 1: thing to try and get numbers and all that. And
Speaker 1: as soon as he walks out the spot, they just
Speaker 1: dropped us cold, like, oh, Jerry's leaving, we gotta go
Speaker 1: foo and we're like, hey, hey, wait, hey, hey, owner
Speaker 1: money is a little different than player money. And then
Speaker 1: they don't changing new what time it was. Look the
Speaker 1: look Dr Buss was the man. Okay, look look look
Speaker 1: when I was a dog, I was nine, when I
Speaker 1: was in eighteen nineteen, Uh, I was young. I can't
Speaker 1: remember the age. But I had a babysitter. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember, but she was she was dealing
Speaker 1: with Dr Buss and I would hear about all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff about Dr Buss and these parties. But just
Speaker 1: how nice of a man that he was. And I
Speaker 1: haven't and this thing with winning time, dude, like this
Speaker 1: whole thing about Jerry West really bogged bugs me. Like
Speaker 1: I get portraying someone as complicated and you know, has
Speaker 1: a lot of demons inside of him, But I feel
Speaker 1: like this portrayal of West, or at least in the
Speaker 1: first in the early part of the series, was unfair.
Speaker 1: I knew he was somebody that you looked up to
Speaker 1: as a young ster. You but you're a big ye.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember being young, you talked about Jerry
Speaker 1: West making Um, what was that he made? The What
Speaker 1: shot did he make back in the finals? Yeah, sixty
Speaker 1: three forter gets to know whatever, But I just I
Speaker 1: just remember, I just remember you telling me the story
Speaker 1: of best shot. Well, yeah, but but that was just that.
Speaker 1: But even with that shot that, it's more the he
Speaker 1: got the nickname Mr Clutch because you're watching him on
Speaker 1: local TV and l A. Chick Hern is doing the broadcast.
Speaker 1: I must have watched him knocked down. I'm probably exaggerated,
Speaker 1: but doesn't seem like it. Fifteen to twenty game winners,
Speaker 1: you know, that's in the game and overtime, the wins.
Speaker 1: Jumpers at the jumpers in the last three seconds, five
Speaker 1: seconds at the But he was he was a guy
Speaker 1: that just never missed that game winning shot, and so
Speaker 1: growing up in l a El jib Baylor because of
Speaker 1: his hang time and his athleticism and the great spins
Speaker 1: all that. I mean, he was a guy really related to.
Speaker 1: But I idolized Jerry West because of his ability to
Speaker 1: step up in the clutch and hit hit those game
Speaker 1: winners the way he was capable of doing. And so
Speaker 1: I got to know him. You know, I've got to
Speaker 1: do him a bit over the years. And to me, again,
Speaker 1: I'm on a different level because of who I became
Speaker 1: as an athlete, NBA All Star and all that, So
Speaker 1: I'm sure he relates to me differently than some other people.
Speaker 1: But he's always crisp, been one of the most self effacing, kindest, nicest.
Speaker 1: I just saw him this past season. I took a
Speaker 1: photo of him and that and that Red Clipper switter.
Speaker 1: So I can't get used to him in Red. But
Speaker 1: he's still my guy. But but but you know, we
Speaker 1: I told him that grandma had passed away. We played
Speaker 1: the uh we played the Clippers whenever that was get
Speaker 1: in February whatever it was. So my mom had just
Speaker 1: died and he sat me down and he talked to
Speaker 1: me a good We didn't have a lot of time
Speaker 1: five or seven minutes about how when when his parents died,
Speaker 1: how he felt, how long it took him over there,
Speaker 1: you know, just just spent time with me, and I
Speaker 1: just so appreciate over the years. Uh, Jerry was he
Speaker 1: was actually going to sign me with the Lakers when
Speaker 1: I was after that hurt my neck. My boy Morloc
Speaker 1: and I were working out every day at U c
Speaker 1: l A. I got in great shape, and the Lakers
Speaker 1: had an open spotter on nineteen eight six and I
Speaker 1: got hurt eighties seven, got hurt in eighty six or
Speaker 1: nineteen seven, and he was gonna sign me. Came down
Speaker 1: and watched me work out. But I believe that the
Speaker 1: Clippers had a had a had a spy in the
Speaker 1: mix that came and saw me work out and asked
Speaker 1: me what I was doing working out too hard? And
Speaker 1: and my boy Miley kind of let the cat out
Speaker 1: the bag. Yeah, Jerry Winns is interested in markets. Man.
Speaker 1: They don't Lakers go side markets. And then the Clippers,
Speaker 1: who were really open to allow me to get out
Speaker 1: of my contract with them, Uh, they reverse course and
Speaker 1: will not allow me to get out of my contract.
Speaker 1: I believe they found out. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how what when highway down. But do you think
Speaker 1: you would have been signed by the Lakers and finished
Speaker 1: your career as a Laker that it would have boasted
Speaker 1: your chances to get in the Hall of Fame? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, but you know, look, you know God willing,
Speaker 1: I got this shirt on for a reason. Why in
Speaker 1: sha whatever God's plan was, it happened. So you don't
Speaker 1: know I could have got to the Lakers, you know,
Speaker 1: you know I just had went through the drowning death
Speaker 1: of your brother uh in n seven Marcus jr. Um
Speaker 1: um uh in in May. I mean, you just don't
Speaker 1: know what might have happened. Despite of the nine eight,
Speaker 1: Tony Cabell was the guy that wild up getting signed
Speaker 1: by the Lakers. Who it might have been? You can
Speaker 1: you can see when he won they won a championship
Speaker 1: ship that year. You know, the Forum was right by
Speaker 1: the Inglewood Cemetery where your where your brother was buried,
Speaker 1: and I was there at his his grave site when
Speaker 1: the Lakers won the championship and everybody comes storming out
Speaker 1: of the Forum. I'm sitting there at the grave site
Speaker 1: watching all the excitement at the forum. But you know,
Speaker 1: just I mean, it was one of the you know,
Speaker 1: one of the most down moments of my life, just
Speaker 1: watching that, knowing that I could have been a part
Speaker 1: of that championship. But so anyway, but but but but
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, handspace, Maybe the pressure of being
Speaker 1: a Laker would have gotten to me, you know, and
Speaker 1: maybe who knows, you know, drugs may have become a
Speaker 1: factor in that situation. You just don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know why I didn't work out like that, but I
Speaker 1: gotta believe and trust that there was a good reason
Speaker 1: behind it, behind it not working out, even though at
Speaker 1: the time I was pissed because I really wanted to
Speaker 1: play with magics. I love magic man always had. I
Speaker 1: can imagine, Man, I can imagine it. I definitely think
Speaker 1: that you're at a stage and your career where you
Speaker 1: could have really contributed. If Tony Campbell or from these
Speaker 1: roster spots are the names of the guys, and you
Speaker 1: definitely could have played that role and excelled in that
Speaker 1: road and potentially win the championship. It's always it's always
Speaker 1: fun to sort of look back on what if you
Speaker 1: know this are basketball culture nowadays, everything's based really on
Speaker 1: that and they do that a lot. Yeah, Fox Sports
Speaker 1: Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.
Speaker 1: Catch all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot
Speaker 1: com and within the I Heart Radio app search f
Speaker 1: s are to listen live. A couple of days ago,
Speaker 1: what's the third of the anniversary of the release of
Speaker 1: White Man Can't Jump? A movie that you started as
Speaker 1: as Raymond and had one of the I truly believe
Speaker 1: seen seeling Steen scene stealing scenes of the time, see
Speaker 1: stealing scenes of all time. Now that character has talked
Speaker 1: about everywhere everywhere, will go growing up since since that
Speaker 1: movie drop. People know you better as Raymond than they
Speaker 1: do as a five time and be author. So first
Speaker 1: of all, I want to know about the inspiration behind
Speaker 1: the character and if they're doing a reboot of the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if not you, who do you think should play
Speaker 1: the role of Rings? Wow, that's a good question, man,
Speaker 1: Um Well, I mean the character Raymond Dickens was based
Speaker 1: on one of the first guys to go from high
Speaker 1: school to the prose guy by the name of Reggie
Speaker 1: Hardy out of Detroit. Uh. He was a guy that
Speaker 1: you heard, um this one particular story when you first
Speaker 1: got into the NBA. How he went into a neighborhood
Speaker 1: liquor store with a mask on the robin at seven
Speaker 1: ft tall, and the guy behind the counter said, you know,
Speaker 1: come on, Reggie man, and you know, I know that's you.
Speaker 1: Man just supposedly said this ain't met. And that was
Speaker 1: kind of how the story went. And so when I
Speaker 1: first saw the when I first saw the the dialogue
Speaker 1: the way it was written by by the great Ron Shelton,
Speaker 1: before I even auditioned, I knew exactly what they were
Speaker 1: based on the character on. And so when I went
Speaker 1: into audition with Ron Shelton and Wesley Snipes, there was
Speaker 1: a part in the in the in the in the
Speaker 1: in the partial script they give you call sides that
Speaker 1: talked about Raymond pulls out of blade. And so I
Speaker 1: went to your grandfather's Barbara box. He was a master Barbara,
Speaker 1: my dad Jeff and and and got one of his
Speaker 1: razors straight rangers and and practiced for like a week
Speaker 1: on opening up that thing with one hand. Because I
Speaker 1: saw that cool, that cool move with back in the day,
Speaker 1: like like what is that from the West Side story? No, No,
Speaker 1: that that that that particular move. I saw a movie
Speaker 1: called j D's Revenge and it was one actor, and
Speaker 1: I don't think it was Glenn Term. I think it
Speaker 1: was just the original j D. But as one actor.
Speaker 1: I think he was also in the Five Heart Beats,
Speaker 1: playing the barber and then running And when Robert towlenging
Speaker 1: and goes to the scafford, his uncle is, so, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about this work? It wasn't acting. They
Speaker 1: have a good heart to heart conversation, but I think
Speaker 1: it was that actor. But anyway, he does this move
Speaker 1: with this with this one handed moved with the straight
Speaker 1: ranger that I thought was the coolest thing. And in
Speaker 1: the world. You know you glamorized. You know what your idolized.
Speaker 1: You know you're with glamorized, you idolized. So I saw
Speaker 1: the way he opened up that straight ranger, saboom, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm gonna do in this scene. So I
Speaker 1: went into the to the audition having practiced that move,
Speaker 1: and got to that part. I pulled out the straight
Speaker 1: range out of my pocket from Grand Grandpaul's barber box,
Speaker 1: sharpest sharpest of the board of health, this razor and
Speaker 1: opened up in one hand. I'm chasing Wesley Snipes around
Speaker 1: the office with it. You know, motherfucker, I kill you
Speaker 1: this I get, you know, and acted all just crazy
Speaker 1: and ghetto and stuff, and so did. Ron Schalton's like, okay, cut, cut, cut,
Speaker 1: you got the arn't you got the part? But when
Speaker 1: we shoot this for real, leave that fucking razer at home.
Speaker 1: You're gonna kill somebody with that kind of laughing. And
Speaker 1: what's excite? Was like, yeah, hell you do what the
Speaker 1: all you're doing? Man? You know? And so but I
Speaker 1: got That's how I got the part. But but but
Speaker 1: it's one of the greatest experiences of my life. Wesley Snipe,
Speaker 1: why Harelson. I mean, you know, I run into them,
Speaker 1: especially Wesley Um over the years and and and that's
Speaker 1: always gonna be a bonding thing for me, and and
Speaker 1: Kevin Benton and Dave Robos and my teammate. We played
Speaker 1: golf together at Pinbour Golf Course over the over the years,
Speaker 1: two or three times a year. I mean, So, Nigiel Miguel,
Speaker 1: I mean, all the guys that you knew and grew
Speaker 1: up with you were in that movie you had on
Speaker 1: the green Baseball had with the with the great sweatshirt
Speaker 1: right at the at the big part. Jets, Jets, had
Speaker 1: a Warrior swist shirt. You were at that movie. And
Speaker 1: then and then my nephew, your cousin Carmpton is like
Speaker 1: watching The Juggler. They need some cute little you know,
Speaker 1: you know, cute little kids to kind of watch The Juggler.
Speaker 1: And he's like one of the kids kind of on.
Speaker 1: So you know, we we we we we parlayed that
Speaker 1: as well as we that of my family. Never forget
Speaker 1: um in between takes my hanging out with Rosie Peretz.
Speaker 1: So she just took a liking. She took a liking
Speaker 1: to me. You're fourteen fifteen, you know, she took a
Speaker 1: liking to me though, and so every single time she
Speaker 1: had a break, we're over there talking. I was sitting
Speaker 1: there talking to Road just about whatever. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm young, so it's that innocent conversation. But I made
Speaker 1: sure to kind of stay close to Rug and that
Speaker 1: that experience was amazing because just to be able to
Speaker 1: see like how movies are made, the magic behind it all,
Speaker 1: and you just to be on a set and understand
Speaker 1: the process. And then were there any I guess, was
Speaker 1: there any negative feedback that came out of that role,
Speaker 1: Like did people not understand like how good of an
Speaker 1: actor you were or did they think you really like
Speaker 1: I know a lot of dudes man like like I
Speaker 1: like my basketball peers. That duck didn't know you was like, man,
Speaker 1: I see why you so crazy, Chris. I'm gonna dude,
Speaker 1: this is roll. I'm like, dude, it's a roll really
Speaker 1: like but everybody but to be like Chris, I see
Speaker 1: you crazy? Your daddy man, Yeah, I'm like dog. That
Speaker 1: was that he was acting bro right right well. And
Speaker 1: the funny part about I actually started to take a
Speaker 1: really powerful acting uh class under Rick Edelstein, who was
Speaker 1: Barber stri Strikes Sands acting coach, and then the animal
Speaker 1: re Horsford and and and and Hill Harper and all
Speaker 1: these great actors he's worked with, Antonio Vargas, uh, Pat
Speaker 1: Marita from Karate Kid. All these guys started under Rick Edelstein,
Speaker 1: and so all I look at my scene and I know,
Speaker 1: after working with Rick for the twenty years I was
Speaker 1: with him, I would have done it differently. You instead
Speaker 1: of I'm gonna go to my car, get mother gun
Speaker 1: come back, Yeah, I'd have been like, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to my car. I'm gonna get mother gun I'm coming back.
Speaker 1: I'm shooting everybody's ass. I'm shooting you know, ide i'ld
Speaker 1: have done something different, you know, at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: and what I did work, But but I look back
Speaker 1: on announced. But but but you know, for me, um,
Speaker 1: the one thing, a couple of things. Lewis Price sing
Speaker 1: with the Temptations, he played the King and Duck with
Speaker 1: Freeman Williams, that final scene Lewis Price, and I was
Speaker 1: just thinking about this this morning. He came to me
Speaker 1: after watching my scene or I forgot what at what
Speaker 1: point it was, but exactually before I did the scene,
Speaker 1: and his suggestion to be was to not curse in
Speaker 1: the scene, don't use curse scores, no profanity. And it
Speaker 1: was the craziest suggestion in my mind that he could
Speaker 1: bring to me. And I'm like, you know, funk that
Speaker 1: you know, this character is perfect. But looking back on
Speaker 1: that now, you know, I wish I would have taken
Speaker 1: another look at how to play that scene, played that
Speaker 1: role without all the motherfucker this and mother you know
Speaker 1: all that, which is okay, I mean, it is what
Speaker 1: it is. But the other thing, Chris, is that Mark Gottfried,
Speaker 1: your assistant coach at U c l A. After the
Speaker 1: movie came out, he came up to me, Chris and said, Marcus,
Speaker 1: me and my wife saw the movie and we prayed
Speaker 1: for you. We prayed for you, man. We just you know,
Speaker 1: we got our needs and just prayed for you. I'd say, Mark, Man,
Speaker 1: it was a character, brother, that's all I mean. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's a character that's a hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty degrees different. But I understand what he was what
Speaker 1: he was saying, and a lot of it had to
Speaker 1: do with the profanity of the language, what was being
Speaker 1: projected on the screen again, you know, yeah, you idolized,
Speaker 1: was being glamorized, and so I think he was coming
Speaker 1: more from that perspective than anything. So yeah, it was
Speaker 1: some some interesting um uh, it got some interesting receptions
Speaker 1: for people. But but for the most part, everybody kind
Speaker 1: of understood that it was I got, I got, I
Speaker 1: got nominated for an espe that that was a year.
Speaker 1: That was the year that that Schefski they helped tell
Speaker 1: her about bottle up on the stage and I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in the front row and one of those kinds of deals.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's awesome, man. Um I don't know about
Speaker 1: Gottfried and the prayer thing like that, understanding not understanding
Speaker 1: that you know that ship ain't real, like come on
Speaker 1: and regardless, regardless, like there's been worse stuff. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get into that. But staying on the
Speaker 1: acting front, were you watching the Oscars when Will Smith
Speaker 1: walked up to Chris Rock and slapped the ship out
Speaker 1: of him? Oh? Yeah, I saw that. What was your
Speaker 1: initial thought on that? And and now that we know
Speaker 1: a lot of the details behind it, and we've read
Speaker 1: people like Kareem i'bdul Jabbar coming out and I haven't
Speaker 1: seen Kareem's Yeah, I just you know that that will
Speaker 1: embarrass the black community. It's just a bunch of stud
Speaker 1: a bunch of a bunch of sort of your generational
Speaker 1: type ideals that i'd expect to hear from like Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby and these types of folks, this new generation, like
Speaker 1: my generation. I'm not trying to hear that, Like we're
Speaker 1: not here to give a funk about what they think,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So it's like a different
Speaker 1: type of thought process, caring versus what they think versus
Speaker 1: not caring what they think. I want to ask you
Speaker 1: as someone from that generation, and what do you think
Speaker 1: about that? And do you think that what Will Smith
Speaker 1: did was an embarrassment to the black community as a whole? Man,
Speaker 1: um Man, that's a good question, you know, And I
Speaker 1: think it's hard to take what he did out of
Speaker 1: the context of what's the red table around what's this thing?
Speaker 1: And he and Jada the business has been put out there,
Speaker 1: and that she messed around with his sons. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: if you can't not leave out the context where this
Speaker 1: guy's mindset is dealing with this woman. But we both
Speaker 1: know going through relationships with women, you know, when you
Speaker 1: get strong, it's no telling what you might do. You
Speaker 1: gotta look at it from from that perspective. More so
Speaker 1: than just Will Smith actor respectable guy. He just will
Speaker 1: Will has got some tumultuous type of of emotions going
Speaker 1: on in this relationship. This was I thought, and I'm
Speaker 1: just playing pop psychologists here, but hit his way to
Speaker 1: get some brownie points, because you know when he when
Speaker 1: Chris Rock first made the joke, We'll kind of laughed
Speaker 1: at it. And then you can see Jada and she
Speaker 1: just you know, and I told a friend of my
Speaker 1: life she might have told him he needed his ass whipped.
Speaker 1: You know, he might have said that under breath. You
Speaker 1: never know. Oh he needed his ass for that, you know,
Speaker 1: and so will Hey. You know, oh I got I
Speaker 1: got a chance to, you know, get some brownie points
Speaker 1: with my lady and and and show her that I
Speaker 1: could be as hard as Tupac, who was a good
Speaker 1: friend of hers back in the day. You know. You know,
Speaker 1: so he's got a whole lot of stuff that he's
Speaker 1: trying to live up to, and it just manifested itself
Speaker 1: with him walking up to Chris Rock and do what
Speaker 1: he did. Now, do I think he could have handled better? Yeah? Sure,
Speaker 1: at the at the whatever what the puff that is
Speaker 1: in the gold party of the Vanity Fair party wherever
Speaker 1: he was gonna see him later. You know, maybe that
Speaker 1: was a more appropriate time to do that, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the front of two or three dred million people
Speaker 1: around the world watching this thing. Probably, But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I understand Do I agree with it? No?
Speaker 1: Do I understand where he was coming from right at
Speaker 1: that moment, I understand completely. I'm not mad at him.
Speaker 1: You know, he came out with the apology and the
Speaker 1: Chris Rock and the apology and this and that, which
Speaker 1: you're supposed to do after the fact. But he got
Speaker 1: caught up in the moment. Who who of us not
Speaker 1: have gotten you know, caught up in the moment. Kareem
Speaker 1: got caught up in a moment with Kenn Benton, elbowed him.
Speaker 1: The first game of our rookie year, my rookie in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, Green took one Kareem like double over
Speaker 1: and then turn and I'm guarding Jamar Wilkes. I don't
Speaker 1: see it, but all I year is and I turned
Speaker 1: around and my boy Ken't Benton was stumbling and Kareem's
Speaker 1: standing over him. Get up, motherfucker, Get up, mother, I said, Kaem,
Speaker 1: He's not getting up. Back off, man, He's not getting up.
Speaker 1: But Kareem had this look like he wants you know.
Speaker 1: So my point is that the Kareem a bad person, No,
Speaker 1: he just you know, at that moment, he retaliated over
Speaker 1: what he perceived to be an injustice. Will Smith retaliated
Speaker 1: over what he perceived to be an injustice on a
Speaker 1: national stage, just like that Laker game. Not as national
Speaker 1: as the game rout today, but it's a public you know,
Speaker 1: it's a public forum where people say, violence is never
Speaker 1: the issue this America. We are our whole history is
Speaker 1: we you know, we assassinate that. That's the part. That's
Speaker 1: the part that so you know, as we continue to
Speaker 1: dive into this subject, it's the part that that really
Speaker 1: is just is amazing to witness. Just we're talking about
Speaker 1: America and people are talking about a slap and calling
Speaker 1: it violence and violence is an issue, but you're talking
Speaker 1: about the country with the greatest military budget in the
Speaker 1: history of mankind. So yes, it is always an answer.
Speaker 1: It's just not an answer when you don't want it
Speaker 1: to be like and think about what they think about
Speaker 1: the January six incident when you didn't have just a
Speaker 1: universal just you know, the crying of that thing, and
Speaker 1: people died, people actually lost their lives, people get a
Speaker 1: crushed lungs Bursted. I watched the whole documentary. It was
Speaker 1: a legitimate thing. So my thing is like, let's not
Speaker 1: just let's not pile on and generalize this incident that
Speaker 1: Will Smith had with Chris Rock as an embarrassment to
Speaker 1: the black community. And that's where it's see a lot
Speaker 1: of people posting, so you have like people of other
Speaker 1: racest white Latino Asian post posting this thing, Kareem said
Speaker 1: that sort of a thing to look black people. This
Speaker 1: is how you're making your people look. No, man, we
Speaker 1: gotta stay away from that type of language, that type
Speaker 1: of thought process, because if we started doing that to
Speaker 1: other races, then they're gonna call us racist. Then we're
Speaker 1: getting called out well well, and and then you're also
Speaker 1: I mean, people are individuals, and coach wouldn't coach me.
Speaker 1: Coach Kareem, He's always say, you know, he didn't treat
Speaker 1: all his players the same because they're not the same.
Speaker 1: And so Will's reaction, you know, sure, you like you
Speaker 1: know a union nanomy of a response to that situation.
Speaker 1: But his reaction was his reaction based on the context
Speaker 1: of his a Jada's relationship, where his mindset was at
Speaker 1: the time. You can't leave that part out of the
Speaker 1: total picture if you're doing if you do, you're doing
Speaker 1: a disservice to it. The other quick point, Chris is
Speaker 1: that and it reminded me of this free well uh
Speaker 1: p J callissimo choking into itent But you know, you
Speaker 1: know what, I wasn't there. I don't agree with it whatever,
Speaker 1: but I would hear one of our producers. Shortly thereafter,
Speaker 1: he just went on the soapbox saying, how there's no
Speaker 1: place for violence in sports whatsoever. You just can't do that.
Speaker 1: There's no place for violence of sports. So I said, John,
Speaker 1: what about hockey? He said, well, no, No, hockey is different.
Speaker 1: The fighting in hockey. That's kind of kind of that's
Speaker 1: a that's a different thing because that that's kind of
Speaker 1: kind of kind of kind of maked into you know,
Speaker 1: that's it either is or it isn't. You know, there's
Speaker 1: no exclusions to the no violence rule. You know that
Speaker 1: hockey players beat the crap out each other, but you know, anyway,
Speaker 1: and and so that's kind of I'll leave it at
Speaker 1: that yet No, I mean yeah, but it truly was
Speaker 1: a shocking moment. And whatever Will Smith was going through,
Speaker 1: whatever he you know, I was thinking, these are consequences
Speaker 1: that he has to deal with and only he has
Speaker 1: to deal with. So if you can live up, if
Speaker 1: you can eat the charge for whatever you do, brother,
Speaker 1: if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
Speaker 1: Right Absolutely not, absolutely not. But man, hey, MJ. I
Speaker 1: appreciate your time today. Brothers. I'm sorry about the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, but I thank you for for opening it up,
Speaker 1: sharing that voicemail and giving us some insight to what's
Speaker 1: going on. Also appreciate you being so transparent about the
Speaker 1: eighties and you know your your your recovery. That's that's
Speaker 1: that's true, fascinating well, and I'm always going to be that,
Speaker 1: especially now because in this this this era that we're
Speaker 1: living in again, the open goid crisis, especially in the Midwest,
Speaker 1: with with with with people other than African Americans. Now
Speaker 1: people are getting a real true sense of the scourge
Speaker 1: of drug addiction. And I went through it, Chris, and
Speaker 1: so for me again, I'll be twenty years sober in
Speaker 1: in a few weeks to be able to come out
Speaker 1: on the other side of this man and and to
Speaker 1: have my life be the best life that I've ever lived. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame would definitely be the cherry on top,
Speaker 1: But if it doesn't happen, I'm still gonna eat the Sunday.
Speaker 1: The Sunday is still gonna taste good. Bro, They're gonna
Speaker 1: be good strawberries, whipped cream, no cherry. I'm fine with that,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. Marcus Johnson