Speaker 1: Hey, welcome in to All Ball. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This
Speaker 1: to the All Basketball Podcast and the Herd Podcast Network.
Speaker 1: My guest this week is my longtime friend in college
Speaker 1: and radio rival, Eric Chenoweth. Of course, EC was the
Speaker 1: Center of Kansas for a couple of years and I
Speaker 1: was at local state second round pick of the New
Speaker 1: York Knicks. He's a form McDonald's All American and he
Speaker 1: now sells a various allotment of insurance policies to both
Speaker 1: schools and athletes as uh as they get ready to
Speaker 1: either come back and play in college or prepare for
Speaker 1: the NBA NFL Draft. Anyway, EC will join us upcoming.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the story that that won't go away.
Speaker 1: All right, It's crazy because we're less than a week
Speaker 1: away from the NBA season beginning Clippers and Lakers at
Speaker 1: Staples Center. That's the marquee matchup on opening night. Right
Speaker 1: the the new grand theft auto uh font on the
Speaker 1: front of the Clippers jersey. I'm in. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see this kind of burgeoning rivalry in the City
Speaker 1: of Angels. That said, what a disaster week for Lebron James.
Speaker 1: I mean, not good, not good, and I do think
Speaker 1: that some of the things that he said are true.
Speaker 1: Many of the things he said are true, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know if Darryl Morey is truly educated on Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: On what there's a difference in Hong Kong, and then
Speaker 1: the practices of the Chinese government there is UM, I
Speaker 1: don't know why he said people could be spiritually harmed.
Speaker 1: The idea could be physically harmed financially harmed obviously perked
Speaker 1: everybody's ears. And then the idea that Lebron had to
Speaker 1: then have a statement on Instagram, not once, but twice. UM,
Speaker 1: So he had two statements on Instagram, and then he
Speaker 1: came out and made another statement a practice and another
Speaker 1: statement of practice, and then he said, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: talk about anymore because they all kind of went over
Speaker 1: the same. He's put himself in a couple of different corners.
Speaker 1: Lebron and many of his cohorts in the NBA who
Speaker 1: look up to him have um have criticized politically the
Speaker 1: right wing, not just the president, but also people who
Speaker 1: uh don't believe what he believes. And that's fine, Like
Speaker 1: he said, he does have freedom of speech, not free
Speaker 1: of ramification. The problem is that when he takes the
Speaker 1: stance that he's perceived to be taking on China, Well,
Speaker 1: you spent I don't know, the last four or five
Speaker 1: years pissing off the right, and now you're taking a
Speaker 1: crap on the left. So that's a hard one. Um.
Speaker 1: And then here's kind of to me the the the
Speaker 1: biggest hypocrisy is not getting mad because it's her, you
Speaker 1: in your wallet, and the idea that he is in
Speaker 1: fact selling out it's um because he's he's not wrong.
Speaker 1: You don't have to comment on everything, like even the
Speaker 1: idea of being more than an athlete, Like he didn't
Speaker 1: have to comment on everything, Like even in our newscast,
Speaker 1: how many times do we see there's a tragic accident
Speaker 1: only five Americans? Five Americans parish. No Americans parish, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: the accident is not that big deal because no Americans parish, Right,
Speaker 1: So we won't comment on it, we won't send relief
Speaker 1: effort forward unless it somehow affects us. He's not wrong there,
Speaker 1: and he's not wrong that so many are uneducated, um
Speaker 1: on what's going on in Hong Kong. But it hasn't
Speaker 1: stopped him from speaking out on things in the past
Speaker 1: that he might not be all that educated on right.
Speaker 1: I mean, and see a athletes, he didn't play in college.
Speaker 1: What does he know about the college experience? What does
Speaker 1: he know about the value of You know, it goes
Speaker 1: actually goes counter to his perceived and preach belief of
Speaker 1: the value of education for his I promised school. I
Speaker 1: think though, that the biggest issue is um is that
Speaker 1: Lebron James has been a leader to the idea of
Speaker 1: if you're not getting what you want, don't play, leave
Speaker 1: go to somewhere else, right, whether it's in his career
Speaker 1: NFL players Jalen Ramsey, I'm not gonna play, end up
Speaker 1: getting traded like that's great. You're in China. You knew
Speaker 1: about the controversy. Don't play, you don't have to play?
Speaker 1: Why not here Lebron James? So look the Lebron thing,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know you uh. He's done an
Speaker 1: amazing job his entire life or public life, which is
Speaker 1: like his junior year in high school on of seemingly
Speaker 1: saying and doing most of the right things. And of
Speaker 1: course the criticism of when he first left Cleveland was wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know why I needed to donate
Speaker 1: two million dollars to a boys club in Grandwich, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: You know, could have done the same to Akron back then.
Speaker 1: But now we're just kind of trying to fly in
Speaker 1: flaws with the supermodel. You know, there's been no talk
Speaker 1: of drugs, affairs of women. You know, it's been basketball stuff.
Speaker 1: Not liking coaches, some getting some of them fired, not
Speaker 1: loving playing certain organizations, and moving on wanting better players
Speaker 1: than he had last year with the Lakers. That's basketball,
Speaker 1: professional stuff, not personal stuff. I'm not saying the guy
Speaker 1: is flawless, but the pr of Lebron has for the
Speaker 1: most part, been flawless. But but here's I think what happens, Like,
Speaker 1: let's hit the nail on the head. What happens when
Speaker 1: you become so big and you keep your circles so
Speaker 1: small and people come in and all they want to
Speaker 1: do is kiss the ring. Nobody tells you you're wrong anymore.
Speaker 1: And they had a weeked, they had an entire week
Speaker 1: to figure out. Man, what am I gonna say with
Speaker 1: this China thing? Because look, anybody with the brain understands
Speaker 1: we're tapped out in the United States, right like Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo,
Speaker 1: You know, those are the Those are the companies I'm
Speaker 1: forgetting somebody. Those are the companies that have all the cash.
Speaker 1: Everybody else kind of tapped out, and you're looking for
Speaker 1: markets where there's growth Turkeys one. The other one is China.
Speaker 1: China has the people. China has the growth. China was
Speaker 1: suppressed for years because of how they were old school
Speaker 1: cap communists. Now they're like new school capitalist slas s
Speaker 1: last communist and everybody's trying to get in on China.
Speaker 1: They just are. That's why baseball wants to play there
Speaker 1: and football wants to play there. Basketball tready is playing there,
Speaker 1: Like that's it's no secret. It's about the money. It's
Speaker 1: about the people. It's about the financial resources to have
Speaker 1: more people have more money. But boy, for a guy
Speaker 1: who has done so many things, the right way to
Speaker 1: appear to be about the bottom line. And I don't
Speaker 1: even think it's about his bottom line. Like I don't
Speaker 1: think he's that ticked that his appearances were canceled, but
Speaker 1: he's mad. Kyle Kuzma lost a million dollars. But if
Speaker 1: you lose a million dollars for the right reason, right
Speaker 1: and by the way, you might lose a man. Now
Speaker 1: you might make two. On the back end of it,
Speaker 1: if you do things the right way, Hey, we're not
Speaker 1: gonna We're not gonna play. Where was the where was
Speaker 1: the stance? Where where's the stance of Unless there's some
Speaker 1: improvements of human rights, we're not going to play. If
Speaker 1: you're so bothered by one tweet, then maybe you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have us play basketball in your country because this is
Speaker 1: how we feel, and I do like I feel for
Speaker 1: the idea that it's a different country. It's a completely
Speaker 1: different government, completely different ideology than the one we grew
Speaker 1: up in or the one we grew up aiming to
Speaker 1: have America B. But if you're going to defend it,
Speaker 1: especially considering who you've aligned yourself politically with, this is
Speaker 1: what you're gonna be met with. Lebron James is an athlete,
Speaker 1: immensely talented one. But he's not more than an athlete,
Speaker 1: unless you consider being a capitalist more than athlete. Let
Speaker 1: me just give you this kind of real quick preview
Speaker 1: college basketball thought. As we creep creep closer and closer. Two,
Speaker 1: when we believe, we believe that high school players will
Speaker 1: be allowed to come out straight to the pros, let's
Speaker 1: appreciate the superstar freshman um that are going to be
Speaker 1: playing college basketball like Cole Anthony. Now, I saw Cole
Speaker 1: Anthony's Greg Anthony's son, Um, I saw him play several
Speaker 1: times in the past three years, and he's uh, he's
Speaker 1: got he's got a little asshole in him, right, And
Speaker 1: I mean that in an endearing quality, Like he's so
Speaker 1: tough and so kind of mean and so competitive that
Speaker 1: I feel like, and I know there are there are
Speaker 1: people who will tell you he's not great to play with.
Speaker 1: He can be a little selfish, he can be a
Speaker 1: little temperamental, Like yeah, I like I think Roy Williams,
Speaker 1: coach Williams will handle that. I just do. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised at all if he doesn't um when the
Speaker 1: Bob Cuzy Award. Wouldn't be surprised all if he becomes
Speaker 1: a National Player of the Year candidate. He's that talented.
Speaker 1: Caroline is pretty good as well. So, but they lose
Speaker 1: so much losing you know, Cam Johnson and and you
Speaker 1: know that uh kind of dynamic combination of two uh
Speaker 1: you know, old big guys that can really shoot the
Speaker 1: basketball and Luke may I saw I just got cut.
Speaker 1: But um, the teams that will win, for the most part,
Speaker 1: are going to be the older teams the way it is,
Speaker 1: although there's been this massive purge and massive turnover in
Speaker 1: college basketball, so many guys going to pros. But the
Speaker 1: things that we're gonna miss, we're gonna miss these top five,
Speaker 1: top ten high school americans because they'll all go pro.
Speaker 1: I think ultimately, if that happens, it'll work out. I
Speaker 1: think ultimately it will work out where too many guys
Speaker 1: go pro the first couple of years and then eventually
Speaker 1: they figure out, hey, the G League is not a
Speaker 1: great place. You're not gonna be a lottery pick if
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be on an NBA team, go to
Speaker 1: college for a couple of years. But I do think
Speaker 1: for several years we're gonna lose a lot of those
Speaker 1: high school americans. I'm excited about Cole Anthony. He's a
Speaker 1: different type of cat in terms of not just pedigree, toughness, fanasty.
Speaker 1: His shooting continues to improve, he defends, he's got size,
Speaker 1: he's got athleticism, he's really really good. You'll you'll enjoy
Speaker 1: watching him. But let's enjoy watching these talented freshman because
Speaker 1: we won't see as many have as profound an impact
Speaker 1: in the years to come. All right, let's let's welcome
Speaker 1: in my first guest. My guest, he's Air channeli's former
Speaker 1: star at the University of Kansas, former second round draft
Speaker 1: pick of the New York Knicks. Be sure to catch
Speaker 1: the live edition of The Doug Gottlieb Show weekdays at
Speaker 1: three p m. Easter noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
Speaker 1: and the I Heart Radio app. Let's catch up with
Speaker 1: the legend himself. He was McDonald's All American in at
Speaker 1: a Villa Park High School. Um who was in the
Speaker 1: McDonald's All American Game and at nineties seven. Wow, we
Speaker 1: had some guys Elton brand lamarrowed um Um, Brendan Haywood,
Speaker 1: Chris Burge's, uh Ronald Tests, we had Baron Davis, Collins twins,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of big I mean West
Speaker 1: Coast big dudes. Right, yeah, Yeah, it was like, I
Speaker 1: think it was kind of the last crop of real,
Speaker 1: you know, big guys. There was obviously the you know,
Speaker 1: Tyson Chandler and a couple of guys after that, but
Speaker 1: since then it's kind of been a lot of wings
Speaker 1: and guards coming out of Southern California, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys got beat badly. Um, you had Britain Johnson,
Speaker 1: Jason Collins, Jaren Collins, you burgess who did my potterly?
Speaker 1: And Marcus Griffin and Ryan Humphrey well Man hump uh
Speaker 1: all on the same team and you guys lost. Now
Speaker 1: the other team had other bigs Lamarrow to Melvin Eli
Speaker 1: and Brendan Haywood, Marcus Feiser. What do you remember about
Speaker 1: the game? Bad coaching obviously, you know, I mean you
Speaker 1: remember our fault. Um, you know, I just I mean
Speaker 1: I was kind of like starstruck the whole time. Just
Speaker 1: I was just so honored to be there, to be
Speaker 1: named mcdonalth American and then actually get there and you know,
Speaker 1: have a live game on CBS and you know, get
Speaker 1: to play as my future teammate Kenny Gregory. Um, it
Speaker 1: was really I mean I started to pinch myself the
Speaker 1: whole time. It was such a great experience. Um, but
Speaker 1: the game was kind of a work has just went
Speaker 1: so fast and everything everything was so intense. Now the
Speaker 1: game is like a you know, throw it up all
Speaker 1: star game. But back then we actually got after it
Speaker 1: and you know, played hard. Uh why did you remind me?
Speaker 1: Why did you pick Kansas because you wanted to go
Speaker 1: there really badly, and coach didn't want to recruit you,
Speaker 1: so I thought I'd went up and go there instead.
Speaker 1: So as as so fucked up, I just want you,
Speaker 1: why did you do? Once you point out I wanted
Speaker 1: to go to Duke, but they had taken Woe Joe
Speaker 1: the year before. I did always love Kansas in the
Speaker 1: way in which they played, and they took Robertson early. Um,
Speaker 1: they took Robertson Ryan Robertson early, and you know he
Speaker 1: was local and he was he was a McDonald's American
Speaker 1: my senior year, which um, I'll never get anyway, but
Speaker 1: but yeah, he didn't. But no, but seriously, why did
Speaker 1: why Kansas? I mean, if you'm obviously you've played the
Speaker 1: game there, I mean once you stepped foo him that arena. Uh,
Speaker 1: all the history and the mystique to be to have
Speaker 1: a chance to play there, you know, it's it was
Speaker 1: beyond my further dreams. I remember when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I used to do yard with my dad and we
Speaker 1: listened to games as we did work at the house.
Speaker 1: And remember listening to like the A D eight championship
Speaker 1: game over a radio with my dad and like idolizing
Speaker 1: Danny Manning and then he went to the Clippers and
Speaker 1: I kind of got to know him through some friends
Speaker 1: and it just came it was always Kansas and everybody
Speaker 1: else for me. And then I mean, really honestly, remember
Speaker 1: our Sunday workouts at Tustin High School. We're in high school,
Speaker 1: and remember one day you came in and you were like,
Speaker 1: I know, you were eating something and you were like,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, uh in between buys, You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're going to Kansas fall down sixteen thou three hundred,
Speaker 1: and I was like, and it's really weird, but I
Speaker 1: think at that moment I kind of like conceptualized that, like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I think that is the right spot
Speaker 1: for me. And then I committed early as well. So
Speaker 1: I committed Argust first, which was Coach's birthday. After the
Speaker 1: recruiting period, and I wanted to have a fun senior year,
Speaker 1: not to deal with all the recruiting and stress and
Speaker 1: who's going to where I knew where I wanted to go,
Speaker 1: and I went there, and I mean I had great experience,
Speaker 1: won a lot of games, and you know, I still
Speaker 1: have really really, did you take the university. Did you
Speaker 1: take a visit there before you committed? I took. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I took unofficial So I did all unofficials. Junior visited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Notre Dame. Yeah, I saw you saw coach McCloud. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, went to I went to Indiana. Uh, Kansas obviously,
Speaker 1: Uh we did. Duke, I did Utah. I went to
Speaker 1: Majaris's big man camp, So I went there. Um, you
Speaker 1: hit all the big, big white guy spots. That's what
Speaker 1: you did, because we like because Duke had like Tamon
Speaker 1: Demzowski's big you know, all those big guys, Mark Acres
Speaker 1: and Laterner right, and then you know Indian always had
Speaker 1: big white guys, and in Notre Dame big white guys
Speaker 1: like do you have a big white guy? Sure, I'll
Speaker 1: come visit your campus. That was basically a recruiting philosophy.
Speaker 1: Yeah you said it. But yeah, I mean, luckily, my
Speaker 1: you know, my dad could afford to take us on
Speaker 1: his unofficial trips because, like I said, I really wanted
Speaker 1: to have a care for refunds a year. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be missing football games on Fridays. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be traveling everywhere. I wanted to just get
Speaker 1: it done with and then you know, have my senior
Speaker 1: year to myself. So um, but you know, the unofficial
Speaker 1: trips are as great as official trips. Obviously I did
Speaker 1: take an official trip to Kansas, but um, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: glad I got it done early. Okay, So you show
Speaker 1: up at Kansas in the fall of nineteen. Uh, that
Speaker 1: team had Paul Pierce and Raith of friends. What do
Speaker 1: you what do you remember? What was your first impressions
Speaker 1: of being a k on campus playing pickup ball, what
Speaker 1: the whole experience was like. I just remember the level
Speaker 1: of intensity the step up from high school to college was.
Speaker 1: It was it. It was I mean I can't even
Speaker 1: think a word to express it. I mean it was
Speaker 1: just so much more intense, so much more physical. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, coming in all of SuDS, the McDonald's American Die,
Speaker 1: the are gonna go at you to see what you've
Speaker 1: got and and really challenge you remember Race like going
Speaker 1: right at me right away day one and just kind
Speaker 1: of letting me know, like, Hey, this is how it's
Speaker 1: gonna be, this is the level we play at. Especially
Speaker 1: you know, even t JP. I'm sure you remember him,
Speaker 1: who was just a you know, really intense player and
Speaker 1: really good defender, and so just day one was like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's on. And then I just remember being in awe
Speaker 1: of how good Paul was. I mean, I played against
Speaker 1: Paul in high school. Obviously we did, and we knew him,
Speaker 1: and I knew how special he was. But he had
Speaker 1: you know, improved his body and he gotten stronger and
Speaker 1: you know, extended his range. And I just remember he
Speaker 1: would absolutely dominate every single day and take up um,
Speaker 1: you know, and then once you know, uh we did
Speaker 1: our conditioning test and all that stuff. It's just you
Speaker 1: didn't have any time to get bored or homesick because
Speaker 1: you're so busy just in the grind of everything that
Speaker 1: started literally on day one. When when during this process
Speaker 1: did you fall in love with Dave Matthews Man. I
Speaker 1: always like Dave, even when I was in high school.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want my buddies. We used to you know,
Speaker 1: go see him and in concerts and stuff. And then
Speaker 1: you know, it's unfortunately that story kind of took a
Speaker 1: life of its own. It's funny our r s I
Speaker 1: d Dean Bucking, who I'm still friends with, Like every
Speaker 1: time he sees me, he cringes because he feels horrible
Speaker 1: about that story, you know, just taking off and getting
Speaker 1: out of control, because it was funny. I think. I
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, what what did you do
Speaker 1: in your summer vacation. It's like, well, I you know,
Speaker 1: I went, woke up, go to the lift weights, and
Speaker 1: then go play pick up and then go to the beach,
Speaker 1: and you know, I saw Dave Matthew's fand and it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, you saw Dave, and I'm like you,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan. And two shows in southern California,
Speaker 1: and then I went to my buddies and then you know,
Speaker 1: we road tripped it up, you know to see him
Speaker 1: in the Bay. So I saw him up there, and
Speaker 1: then they were in Kansas. When I was in Kansas,
Speaker 1: I saw him four times last year. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it turned into Eric's not focused, he's
Speaker 1: a he's a he's an ex Bill Walton, you know,
Speaker 1: Dave Head, you know, just traveling with the band. He's
Speaker 1: a groupie. I saw him on the stand. It just
Speaker 1: it turned into its complete, you know, out of control story.
Speaker 1: And it was he coincide with me having a really
Speaker 1: good sophomore year and then going to my junior and
Speaker 1: struggling and then having two really really good players and
Speaker 1: Nicholisman Drew good in coming in the minutes, get you know, share,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: love basketball, and it's you know, Eric Socks and the
Speaker 1: whole deal. It really spouted out of control quickly, and
Speaker 1: you know, we've all had you know, public struggles and
Speaker 1: so you know, and it was funny. I just saw
Speaker 1: Mark Stante was talking about it yet the other day
Speaker 1: on sports about losing your starting position and how painful
Speaker 1: that is, and I remember, I mean it was really
Speaker 1: really hard, you know, losing my starting spot. And then
Speaker 1: you know, obviously it was happening for Nick and Drew
Speaker 1: for succeeding. But I couldn't even listen to Dave Matthews
Speaker 1: then for a while because people kind of asked me
Speaker 1: about it. I'm like, dude, it's just a band. I
Speaker 1: like to see him, you know, in the summer with
Speaker 1: I thought, he's you know, it's not like I'm you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, loading up in Winni Bay and traveling all
Speaker 1: of all of the country, so uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: funny like to this day, like I'm still I still
Speaker 1: like the music, and uh, you know, I still go
Speaker 1: seeing one they're in town and stuff. But that story,
Speaker 1: you know, just took a life of its own. Um okay,
Speaker 1: so let's let's go back to because you were you
Speaker 1: and and Kenny Gregory with a two freshman that played
Speaker 1: a bunch. You had another guy people forget you guys
Speaker 1: had Lesser Earl, who was like as highly talented high
Speaker 1: school player as there ever was. I went to l
Speaker 1: s U and he just freak athlete but just no
Speaker 1: real no, no real position. But you guys had this
Speaker 1: unbelievable in terms of name talent, right, like to have
Speaker 1: Paul and Rafe to basically NBA All Stars Top five picks, BT,
Speaker 1: Billy Thomas who became an NBA player, just a great shooter.
Speaker 1: Ryan Robertson McDonald's All American who became an NBA player
Speaker 1: who was a junior that year, right, he wasn't young.
Speaker 1: You had you and Lester Earl and t J. Pugh
Speaker 1: and Nick Bradford and Kenny Gregory. How the fund did
Speaker 1: you guys not get to a final four? Katina Mobile
Speaker 1: and Tyson Wheeler. I mean literally we only lost, you know,
Speaker 1: we were thirty found four that year, we lost at Maryland.
Speaker 1: I remember early, Um, we just didn't play well. And
Speaker 1: then we lost at Missouri, which is always tough to
Speaker 1: play at. And then um, you know, just I don't know,
Speaker 1: they just can I can, I can? I tell you,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this happened in the Rhode Island game.
Speaker 1: But let me tell you about our game. So we
Speaker 1: played you guys only once that year. You guys won.
Speaker 1: The league has won thirty five games. Guys want but
Speaker 1: the league back then was separating the North and South,
Speaker 1: and we tied to in the South or whatever we
Speaker 1: picked lasting the South. Anyway, so you guys play, Um,
Speaker 1: we're getting ready to play it. It's the last game
Speaker 1: of the year. It's on ABC, and coach that swear
Speaker 1: to God. He walks and he goes, listen, Kansas come
Speaker 1: in here with lester Row, Kenny Gregory and Ryan Robertson
Speaker 1: and t J. Pugh and Channing with brother they're good now.
Speaker 1: When they got Paul Pierce and rape the friends on
Speaker 1: the court. At the same time, there betterness about eight
Speaker 1: to ten points betterness. It's like, but you know, our
Speaker 1: coach against Royal a long time and he ain't gonna
Speaker 1: take one of them out. He's gonna take both of
Speaker 1: them out at the same time. And brother without rape.
Speaker 1: The friends and Paul Pierson that court were better to them,
Speaker 1: and basically our game plass where to got. Our game
Speaker 1: plan was like, hey, let's just stay close, just stay close,
Speaker 1: and then at some point and both of those two
Speaker 1: big motherfucker's are gonna come out of the game, and
Speaker 1: that's when we go. If you go back and watch
Speaker 1: the tay, we lost that game by four points. You
Speaker 1: guys were probably twenty points better than. Part of it
Speaker 1: was we started my boy time and we started the
Speaker 1: seniors on Senior Day, which is stupid, right, It's like
Speaker 1: one of those that's great to do when you're when
Speaker 1: you're playing, you know, yeah, but it come out at
Speaker 1: the first dead ball, dude, we were down like, we
Speaker 1: were down like eight nothing like we don't need to
Speaker 1: spot Kansas eight points, all right, We don't need to
Speaker 1: We don't need to spot Kansas a points. That is
Speaker 1: not a good idea. It's just don't remember you you
Speaker 1: know our place better than we did, I think, and
Speaker 1: we were running secondary break and you turned your head
Speaker 1: to bait me to swing it and then you popped
Speaker 1: back out and stole the swing path. I'll never forget that,
Speaker 1: you guys do. Here's a camp so I know all
Speaker 1: the Kansas ship because we we loved it. So um
Speaker 1: you with that box set that goes into like still shuffle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one. Yeah, one that the cutters come across. It's
Speaker 1: a steal every time because you guys are like robots, right,
Speaker 1: because the big guys pop out and then the big
Speaker 1: guy and then you know, the point guard passes and
Speaker 1: then screens away for the other big guy becomes a
Speaker 1: shuffle cut into a post up, right, And I mean
Speaker 1: it was a layup, but yes I do. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what's called you one, but thank you. I'll drop
Speaker 1: that down. B one, B two, B three Okay, So
Speaker 1: which one is the one? And then then you fake
Speaker 1: that right, you fake the pass, trouble to the middle,
Speaker 1: reverse dribble and dug it duck into the big guy.
Speaker 1: That's B three three? Yeah. So B one is the
Speaker 1: standard scoring cut where you know rape would come through
Speaker 1: and get it lay up every time, which Carolina ran
Speaker 1: really well with U with Tyler, you know, on that
Speaker 1: championship team and whatever year it was. And then B
Speaker 1: two is a backdoor double basically fake it and backdoor
Speaker 1: the one guy and then Billy Thomas comes off the
Speaker 1: double screen the other side, and then B three is
Speaker 1: where you dribble um. You known you reverse pivot and
Speaker 1: that's when the backcutter hooks is defended. Anyway, you stole
Speaker 1: the ball, and I remember you got a breakaway and
Speaker 1: I found you pretty hard because obviously you can't sto
Speaker 1: creato to save your life. And we went it was
Speaker 1: just like get the ball back. It was just a
Speaker 1: waste time. It was a turnover on me, a steal
Speaker 1: for you, and then we just got the ball back.
Speaker 1: I think I made one or two, but I don't remember. Actually,
Speaker 1: my the next year might ordered the two years Sally,
Speaker 1: my senior year, uh, when we kicked the dog shit
Speaker 1: out of you guys that I made. The guys started
Speaker 1: found me early and I started making making all of
Speaker 1: my making, all my free throat. Do you remember what
Speaker 1: the locker room was like when you lost to land
Speaker 1: oh Man, that was bleak because you remember the year
Speaker 1: before they got upset by Arizona. And in my opinion,
Speaker 1: I thought that nineties seven team was one of the
Speaker 1: best teams in college basketball history that never won. They
Speaker 1: had that team gone through won the championship, they had
Speaker 1: have been forty and one, and I would hang my
Speaker 1: have them staying they're the best team in college basketball history.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could really honestly say that lose the
Speaker 1: Arizona So there was a ton of pressure on us,
Speaker 1: and then you know we're a one seed rode on
Speaker 1: into an eight seed, and I remember like in the
Speaker 1: second half it kind of set in. We're like, we're
Speaker 1: in a game here, worked down four or five. This
Speaker 1: is not going well. Coach starts freaking out in time out.
Speaker 1: He's getting on his hands and begging Ryan Robertson to
Speaker 1: change the sides of the court bringing the ball up. Um,
Speaker 1: It's just stuff was rapidly out of control. Then Katino
Speaker 1: and Entyson wore on fire, so like you thought, coming
Speaker 1: to the the last couple of minutes, and then when it's
Speaker 1: over to get the locker room, it was just going
Speaker 1: through those emotions again. I mean I was close to
Speaker 1: the team as the high school. Seeing like now being
Speaker 1: in the locker room, it was like, God, this sucks.
Speaker 1: You know, I knew Race was done obviously he's a senior,
Speaker 1: and we knew Paul was going to go and it
Speaker 1: was just I'm her. Remember Matt already being just piste off.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like we were he was said, I remember
Speaker 1: our managers were like falling in tears. I mean I
Speaker 1: was kind of in shock. I looked over inside my
Speaker 1: locker was next to CB. I looked at the CB
Speaker 1: and I was he was just like on the ground
Speaker 1: with his head down. It was like I told people
Speaker 1: this a lot like if you you played a program
Speaker 1: like Kansas, if you don't win the Nation Championship, your seat,
Speaker 1: your complete season as a failure. And I don't care
Speaker 1: if you go if you go to the final four, Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: that's fine. We get a banner, we get a ring, gray,
Speaker 1: But like, what if you don't win the championship, it's
Speaker 1: a complete failure, it really is. And that's the standard
Speaker 1: that Kansas has set, you know. And so it's it's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. It's too much pressure a lot
Speaker 1: of times for the players. And there's a few programs
Speaker 1: like that, do Kentucky, Kansas. You know, if you don't
Speaker 1: win it, it's it's a total failure, you know. So
Speaker 1: but that's the that's the goals that we set, and
Speaker 1: that's the pressure we put upon ourselves. But I just
Speaker 1: remember how horrible that locker room was. It was. It
Speaker 1: was nowhere you wanted to be. It was awful. So
Speaker 1: you had a very good sophomore year in your junior year,
Speaker 1: and that's when Gooden Collison Heinrich, I'll show up, Um,
Speaker 1: why why why did you lose your start in in
Speaker 1: like and like Roy is gonna cut you out the family? Now,
Speaker 1: why did you lose your starting spot? I mean part
Speaker 1: of it I think was like a self pulphion and
Speaker 1: prophecy for him. I mean, I really think it was
Speaker 1: like I, you know, I was the preseason all everything guy.
Speaker 1: I had come back, and you know, I'd gotten on
Speaker 1: as nervous about a few things. And I remember like
Speaker 1: practice starting and and Nick and Drew really good, and
Speaker 1: I was doing my thing and we're doing fine. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, like I remember, coach Holiday
Speaker 1: was gone for a practice or two, and I was like,
Speaker 1: as coach, I mean, w's Coach Holiday. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's he's going to uh watch Cincinnati's practice and coach
Speaker 1: Huggins for a couple of days because he's learning how
Speaker 1: to we're gonna implement a press and I'm like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about it? Because well, yeah, we're gonna start.
Speaker 1: You know, we're gonna speed up tempo. We've got so
Speaker 1: many guys are so deep. We're gonna just you know, uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna press and change our style. And I remember
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, like, that's not what I kind of
Speaker 1: signed up for to come back for whatever. And then,
Speaker 1: like I said, it just spiled out of control. There
Speaker 1: was you know, there was a lot of I mean,
Speaker 1: Kampus has five beat writers, like the Yankees have five
Speaker 1: beat writers. Like you know, every article was you know,
Speaker 1: channel with stocks and then it was you know, Jason
Speaker 1: Whitlaw's out there saying you got a bench channel. I mean,
Speaker 1: it just it was public, it was private. It just
Speaker 1: and then and I'll tell you what it is like
Speaker 1: in every player knows this, Like confidence is is everything
Speaker 1: in sports. I don't care who you are, what sport
Speaker 1: you play. If you have confidence and you believe you
Speaker 1: can get something done, you can get it done. Like
Speaker 1: what John Wooden said, what do you whether you believe
Speaker 1: you can do you can't, You're probably right right. I
Speaker 1: lost my confidence. I mean I just I didn't coach,
Speaker 1: don't believe me anymore. And and so I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really go ahead, No, what do you think happen to me?
Speaker 1: Like you and I grew up together, Like I can
Speaker 1: shoot a basketball right, and then you get you get
Speaker 1: to this and you work all offseason and you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, I got this, I got this ship. I
Speaker 1: got this ship right, and then you know, and then
Speaker 1: you're in practice and you take one shot in your
Speaker 1: coach like no, no, no no, Like I remember with no Dame.
Speaker 1: And when I was in high school, we played kind
Speaker 1: of how people play now right, a lot outside and
Speaker 1: eyeball screen, come down, shooting, transition, come off a ball
Speaker 1: screen and shoot, or get get to the basket to score,
Speaker 1: get to the basket, kick off. And he was like,
Speaker 1: now you have to develop a mid range game. We
Speaker 1: had no secondary break. There was no transition threes like
Speaker 1: he took I made a transition three. He took me
Speaker 1: out late in the season, and you just start to
Speaker 1: go like, funck, he doesn't think I can make it.
Speaker 1: And then and for me, I think my problem would
Speaker 1: be I would work my ass off in the off
Speaker 1: season and really work, work, work, work, and then I
Speaker 1: get in the regular season, and it was so it
Speaker 1: was so emotionally and mentally taxing to go through practices
Speaker 1: and everything that I got beat up a little bit
Speaker 1: in terms of how much I would work regular season,
Speaker 1: and so it would become kind of like first I
Speaker 1: would miss, I'd have a bad practice, miss some shots.
Speaker 1: He'd say something about me trying to prove to everybody
Speaker 1: I could shoot. I get down on myself. I would
Speaker 1: work a little bit less, and the less I worked,
Speaker 1: obviously the results weren't is good. And it it just
Speaker 1: kind of snowball, right, So I totally get it, like
Speaker 1: it's it's really kind of amazing thing. And I think
Speaker 1: the other thing that's interesting is both you and I,
Speaker 1: like we're kind of ship talkers, right. We grew up
Speaker 1: and we talked shot on each other on on Rome
Speaker 1: Show back in the day. I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: if our coaches, because I do think that Eddie said
Speaker 1: and he would tell me, like you're my whipping boy,
Speaker 1: You'll be my boy to day you finish you right, Like, hey,
Speaker 1: that's actually not the way to coach me in terms
Speaker 1: of my offensive game, right, Like I actually when you
Speaker 1: when you yeah, and when you learned that it's too late,
Speaker 1: like you learned that late in the season or late
Speaker 1: in your career. It's like because like I played for
Speaker 1: a really really good high Storming, a great high school
Speaker 1: coach who wrote me and you know, m asked me,
Speaker 1: I'll be down the court and everything. But but at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, like I played every minute
Speaker 1: and then he had he had confidenced me to get
Speaker 1: the job done. And so it was it was a
Speaker 1: two way street, whereas at the next level it's different
Speaker 1: because and I'll tell you this, you said, what point
Speaker 1: did things are wrong? I remember it was like two
Speaker 1: or three games into the season, and coach always made
Speaker 1: us run after practice and we were doing sprints, and
Speaker 1: like I didn't make us one time because we had
Speaker 1: a two and a half hour practice and then we're
Speaker 1: doing thirty threes and he just singled me out and
Speaker 1: made me wrong until I threw up in everything. And
Speaker 1: I remember you stood over me one time when I was,
Speaker 1: you know, puking in a garbage trand and he said
Speaker 1: it very clearly and very loud that he said, Eric,
Speaker 1: we don't need you, you need us. And when he
Speaker 1: said that, you know, now, looking back, I probably should
Speaker 1: have had a conversation with my dad and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what I need to like hire an agent,
Speaker 1: go to the draft or transfer or something, because this
Speaker 1: is him clearly saying that we've moved on from you,
Speaker 1: you know, and that obviously when you're nine team playing
Speaker 1: a KU and having a blast, like you don't want
Speaker 1: to leave that program. But that's now looking back at
Speaker 1: something I probably could have done and should have done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I actually actually here it would be my Here would
Speaker 1: be my as I look back at my own because
Speaker 1: because coach hapth me like, you can't trans because back
Speaker 1: then you couldn't transfer twice, you know, like I could
Speaker 1: have graduated early in transferred night after my junior year,
Speaker 1: I let the country and assist playing only twenty eight
Speaker 1: minutes a game because I was bench for like eight
Speaker 1: games um and and barely played anyway, the transferring would
Speaker 1: have been. But honestly, if I could go back, I
Speaker 1: would have just had an honest conversation with him, right like,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you were able to have
Speaker 1: that with with Coach Williams, but just the idea of
Speaker 1: going to coach set and like, look like again I
Speaker 1: have these imaginary conversation with coach Sutton had I just
Speaker 1: walked in and gone like, hey, listen, man, if you
Speaker 1: will just let me fire up six or seven threes
Speaker 1: a game, I'll make a couple. I'll make a couple
Speaker 1: like right, and and just not take Promise me you're
Speaker 1: not gonna take me out. I'll take good shots because
Speaker 1: they're all good shots, because nobody's sucking guarding me. Right Like,
Speaker 1: you just let me take a couple, everything else will
Speaker 1: open up. Like I know how to play back. You
Speaker 1: don't have to tell me. You can yell at me
Speaker 1: all you want, just don't. I I just hated coming out.
Speaker 1: I felt like I'd never get back in. And we
Speaker 1: had other guys on our team, Joe Atkins and Adrian
Speaker 1: Peterson be like, funk, I'm taking have to take me out.
Speaker 1: You can't win without me, and they come back in
Speaker 1: fire it. I just mentally couldn't do it, so I
Speaker 1: would shut down a little bit, and it was just
Speaker 1: kind of snowball I got. I'll remember clear as day.
Speaker 1: We played North Texas my senior year and all through preseason.
Speaker 1: I'm going against Victor Williams, a kid who was really
Speaker 1: good player. After I finished, he read he transferred his
Speaker 1: red shooting from Illinois State, and he was, I mean,
Speaker 1: he was hard for me. He was. He's quick as ship.
Speaker 1: He's a AU coach workout guru in Kansas City now,
Speaker 1: and I'm I had a really good preseason shooting the ball,
Speaker 1: but I was the only guy going against the legit
Speaker 1: high level D one player was guarding me because we
Speaker 1: didn't we we played. We didn't even up the sides
Speaker 1: when we played in because coach didn't anyway. So we
Speaker 1: come out, We're playing North Texas and they're like not
Speaker 1: guarding me at all. Guy at at the free throwing.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, funk it, I'm gonna shoot every time.
Speaker 1: I'm I understand, And I hit a couple against you guys,
Speaker 1: and and so and and slow he started guarding so.
Speaker 1: But this is early in the year, so they're playing
Speaker 1: off me. I take eighteen shots, I make six. Now
Speaker 1: I come in the locker room, and now I should
Speaker 1: point out, I had, uh eighteen assists or something in
Speaker 1: like something crazy in the game like I had. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, like fifteen points and sixteen assists and like
Speaker 1: two turnovers or whatever. So I come in and I've
Speaker 1: always grabbed a stat statuet as soon as I come in,
Speaker 1: because like, my brain is, what's everybody else doing? You know,
Speaker 1: I do want to see my numbers, but anybody who
Speaker 1: plays basketball at a high level usually knew you know
Speaker 1: your own numbers for the most part. Right, You're like,
Speaker 1: I know what I shot from you. So he just
Speaker 1: rips the ship out of me and says, you know,
Speaker 1: all you care about your status and as sists and
Speaker 1: points and you sixteen or I don't know, eighteen shots.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? I've never had a point guard
Speaker 1: in my life take eighteen shots, right, So it's like
Speaker 1: ringing in my head, like, look, they were all good shots.
Speaker 1: I was open, you know, and like his whole thing
Speaker 1: is like, don't take anything you can't prove to me.
Speaker 1: You can make seven or eight or ten unguarded in
Speaker 1: the gym, and I would like I'd make these shots
Speaker 1: in the gym. Anyway. We play which to a state
Speaker 1: the next game, and I'm so petrified to shoot and
Speaker 1: now they're like not guarding me at all, and it
Speaker 1: just made life really So I totally feel for you
Speaker 1: with the confidencing, you know, you just kind of lost
Speaker 1: your confidence, Like how bad was it for you, like
Speaker 1: what was what was what was that? Like? How bad
Speaker 1: was it for me? I think it was about as
Speaker 1: bad as you get. You know, um, you know the
Speaker 1: blood don't damage starts setting in because I was, you know,
Speaker 1: projecting to be like a lot of a pick and
Speaker 1: all those different things and that was instantly taken away.
Speaker 1: So you see that go away with all the potential
Speaker 1: millions of dollars, which you know, you even know about
Speaker 1: when you're a young kid in college. It was just
Speaker 1: it was a really tough time. I remember, like losing weight.
Speaker 1: I remember we were on a losing streak and we
Speaker 1: all rallied together to shave our heads and solidarity, and
Speaker 1: so I looked, I looked gaunt, and I'm just awful.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a really really bad time in
Speaker 1: my life, I remember. And so yeah, and so I
Speaker 1: just remember after the season we are we lost to
Speaker 1: we lost to do UM in Puston, Salem, and after
Speaker 1: the game, coach was addressing the team and he singled
Speaker 1: me out and called me out and said, you know, basically,
Speaker 1: you know there's still a player there and you have
Speaker 1: a chance to redeem yourself, and I'm gonna challenge you
Speaker 1: to take it upon yourself too, you know, have a
Speaker 1: summer where you can become the player you were once
Speaker 1: before and and you know, come haven't come back. And
Speaker 1: it really inspired me. And I had one of the
Speaker 1: best summers anybody had in the history of summer workouts.
Speaker 1: Remember j Billis did an article on my summer workouts
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, I was working out with
Speaker 1: Tim Gurgerich and in Bob Thornton and at U c
Speaker 1: l a Men's Jim. I mean, I had a personal trainer.
Speaker 1: I did everything I could do to get back to
Speaker 1: where I was. But you get back there, you played
Speaker 1: ten games and then things, you know, the damage is
Speaker 1: obviously still done. So I then obviously slipped to the
Speaker 1: second round draft of the Mixed and started my professional career.
Speaker 1: But that that will call infidences is the most valuable
Speaker 1: thing any athlete could you ever have. I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: I mean, help number one and confidence number two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting, it's um I think that in real sports,
Speaker 1: especially in basketball, confidence and and maybe conditioning um uh,
Speaker 1: and and kind of culture kind of all those are
Speaker 1: three cs that I don't think in broadcasting or in
Speaker 1: fandom people understand, right, They just they don't get it.
Speaker 1: And you know that that there are times where you know,
Speaker 1: guys just you just run out of gas. Your coach
Speaker 1: may have. And I wanted to ask you about coach
Speaker 1: Williams in terms of practices in a second um where
Speaker 1: you you leave your you know, you leave your game
Speaker 1: on the practice floor or your confidence. You know, sometimes
Speaker 1: coaches just don't know how to coach kids. Sometimes kids
Speaker 1: go through these swings and confidence. Some kids are are
Speaker 1: not that good, but they believe they are that good,
Speaker 1: and some they just make shots to be like. That
Speaker 1: was Desert Mason's thing his senior year was coach would
Speaker 1: just feel him full of confidence and talk about how
Speaker 1: great he was now hard he played and like that
Speaker 1: dude can't shoot, and damn if he didn't make shots.
Speaker 1: And he became a great shooter just because he believed
Speaker 1: he and he and he would work more because it
Speaker 1: were as some of the rest of us we got
Speaker 1: beaten down because he was. He never praised us, like
Speaker 1: literally never. Um uh okay, I got a funny. It
Speaker 1: wasn't I'm sure funny from your perspective, but let me
Speaker 1: shouldn't share my perspective. So my senior year this is
Speaker 1: your junior year right where you're suffering through I think,
Speaker 1: or sophomore you're suffering through the malah It was your
Speaker 1: your junior year. You're suffering through the malaise. We were
Speaker 1: only a year apart, but in high school we were
Speaker 1: four years a part of huge thought out and transferred
Speaker 1: and red shirted and repeated, no, no, what year? What
Speaker 1: year did you? What year did you graduate high school?
Speaker 1: Ninety seven? Kay, that's not four years? Should yeah no, yeah, sure, yes,
Speaker 1: but but you said in high school we were four years. Differently,
Speaker 1: in high school, we weren't in eighth grade. We would
Speaker 1: have been eighth grade. Light Look, dude, when I was
Speaker 1: in eighth grade, this trustow when I was eighth grade.
Speaker 1: I finished eighth grade at Santiago Middle School. Okay, I
Speaker 1: was five ft tall one and five pounds, so so
Speaker 1: my and my dad had told me, like, you're not ready.
Speaker 1: I wasn't emotionally, physically anything ready for high school. So
Speaker 1: during during that year, okay, during the fifteen months between
Speaker 1: June of whatever that was nineteen ninety and September of
Speaker 1: nineteen nine, one game, fifteen months when I entered high
Speaker 1: school at Tustin High School, uh in n. I was
Speaker 1: roughly like five nine five nine and a half a
Speaker 1: hundred in like twenty five pounds, right, that's like how
Speaker 1: much I had grown during that time period. And that
Speaker 1: year was a total total wash, like athletically everything, like
Speaker 1: I I understand that, like red shirting, and it's it's
Speaker 1: gotten to the point of being ridiculous. And we copied
Speaker 1: kind of the Mirnovich model a little bit um but
Speaker 1: but there will actually what when you graduated high school? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so anyway, so we're anyway, so so my my senior year,
Speaker 1: so my junior year, we lose to you guys. The
Speaker 1: only time I played a fog and that was the
Speaker 1: short time backwards game. But what people don't know about
Speaker 1: that game was a couple of things like one, I
Speaker 1: had a couple open shots in the last possession that
Speaker 1: I turned down and we end up kind of getting
Speaker 1: no shot and Fred Johncey didn't missed the front of
Speaker 1: like we should have beaten you in regulation, we didn't
Speaker 1: and coached never one up there and then and then
Speaker 1: we lost. Uncle Rico comments, we beat you. Hold on, dude,
Speaker 1: Robertson catches the ball in overtime him he got fouled.
Speaker 1: He did, he did not foul. I mean, we can
Speaker 1: put the video out. It is. It's one of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, like when when vital who you know, it's all.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most calls of sued anyway. So
Speaker 1: this is junior year. We lose up in in Lawrence
Speaker 1: and later and we have to stay overnight in Lawrence,
Speaker 1: and so we go out to the village in to
Speaker 1: get something to eat. And who's there but Ryan Ryan Robertson,
Speaker 1: who I'm jealous of because he's the starting point guard
Speaker 1: in Kansas and that's one of the places I wanted
Speaker 1: to go. Plus he gets his fucking bullshit call on
Speaker 1: senior night to save him because he didn't play well.
Speaker 1: Plus he didn't like me because in Sports Illustrated, I said,
Speaker 1: Kansas is really good except for their guards, right, And
Speaker 1: it's true. Our guards were better than your guards. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, Bush's a good, good dude and a good coach,
Speaker 1: and he as good as Joe Atkins, and nobody was
Speaker 1: as good as Adrian Peterson and Desi Mason technically as
Speaker 1: a garden and you know, I thought I was better
Speaker 1: than Ryan. So like, like Louie had some dudes in
Speaker 1: the backcourt anyway. So I go up to Ryan. I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, man, congrats, but god, that was a
Speaker 1: bullshit called h bullshit way to end a great game.
Speaker 1: And he's like, what are you talking about? It's sucking
Speaker 1: foul were you talking like? He was so defensive about
Speaker 1: it that it was so fast forward to my senior
Speaker 1: year and we don't play you guys until I think
Speaker 1: later in the year. You're you're not playing very much.
Speaker 1: He's going with the younger dudes with Heinrich and Collinson
Speaker 1: and Gooding, and we kick the fucking dog shit out
Speaker 1: of you guys. We're up so many points in the
Speaker 1: second half. We went to delay game. We just started
Speaker 1: running our delay game stuff. Coach calls the time. I
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, I gotta go to Lawrence next year.
Speaker 1: Take it easy. We're not no fast breaks to take
Speaker 1: it easy anyway. So here's the here's the big question.
Speaker 1: So we're up, like we're seriously up forty and coaches,
Speaker 1: you know, doing everything he can to like actually it
Speaker 1: was eighteen in the first half and Bosh hits like
Speaker 1: an NBA three before break, like deep three. Somebody doesn't
Speaker 1: guard him, and we come in and guys are screaming
Speaker 1: at each other like who the funk left him open?
Speaker 1: Or you and coaches like I'm don't you're there coming brother?
Speaker 1: At that three, like we were so petrified that all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you guys wake up and and you know,
Speaker 1: second half starts and Desmond goes crazy and I make
Speaker 1: a couple of shots and like when I make shots
Speaker 1: that the ship is over. I made free throws that night,
Speaker 1: and so we're in delayed, so it's probably I'm again
Speaker 1: my memory is really good, but this part I don't remember.
Speaker 1: It felt like it was like eight minutes to go
Speaker 1: in the game, and you guys start fouling me right
Speaker 1: to get to to get to the bonus to make
Speaker 1: me shoot free throws and Bowshee fouls me, gets his
Speaker 1: fourth foul and the this the staff turns up, sums up.
Speaker 1: It's like, don't foul you have four. The ball comes
Speaker 1: in bounds the very next play and he fouls again
Speaker 1: and he's like fuck this and he goes and sits down,
Speaker 1: and Coach Williams didn't stand up. Okay, so do do
Speaker 1: you guys, like there is a lot of pumbling wins
Speaker 1: you guys have. Do you remember it felt like it
Speaker 1: felt like you guys gave up. Well I didn't give up.
Speaker 1: I remember my minutes were really short at that time,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't I didn't really have a chance to
Speaker 1: contribute to do much. But I remember that game was
Speaker 1: over before it started. It was like within the for
Speaker 1: the first TV time out, it was like we were
Speaker 1: down twelve. And like I said, that was a part
Speaker 1: of the season where you know, we hated practices, we
Speaker 1: were you know, losing games. It was I mean we
Speaker 1: lost ten games that year and so and I don't know,
Speaker 1: that was towards end of the season, so we had
Speaker 1: lost you know, eight or seven games something like that,
Speaker 1: and coach had tried everything. He canceled practice and we
Speaker 1: go bowling. He he ran us he, I mean, we
Speaker 1: did everything, and it just we just couldn't. We just
Speaker 1: wouldn't click, you know, just I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: there was that that was just a tough time of
Speaker 1: the year. So that was one of those situations where
Speaker 1: I've never given up, but it was just I mean
Speaker 1: I remember I vividly remember you know, Jeff can foul
Speaker 1: and kind of walking up the court and I'm tucking
Speaker 1: his shirt and like plopping down. I remember that, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was not a fun night. I'm sure it was
Speaker 1: for you guys. Actually, actually, go ahead, good tell me
Speaker 1: a funny story. I have one to go ahead. But
Speaker 1: my my parents had seen a million games that I
Speaker 1: was good out, so they were like, hey, we want
Speaker 1: to start going seeing games like in these other big
Speaker 1: twelve towns. So my parents were that game and I
Speaker 1: remember I don't if you remember this, but I think
Speaker 1: it was my actually my senior we were playing there,
Speaker 1: but my mother was no senior. You didn't play there.
Speaker 1: Senior didn't play there. Okay, well then it was my
Speaker 1: junior or my mother was battling cancer and um, and
Speaker 1: she you know, she was stage three, but she was
Speaker 1: she was gonna make it. And I remember, um, you know,
Speaker 1: your fans there was a section right behind our bench
Speaker 1: and they would chirp at us, which is fine, but
Speaker 1: then one guy said something like, yeah, go home and
Speaker 1: cry to your Mommy channel with and so the subject
Speaker 1: of my mother was so delicate at the time. And
Speaker 1: you know, my dad us the ex college football players
Speaker 1: six to you know, three bills at the time. I
Speaker 1: looked back and all I saw was my dad going
Speaker 1: straight forward this guy and I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: you know this is gonna be national news. This is
Speaker 1: like and luckily, uh there was a state trooper that
Speaker 1: we had behind the bench and he heard and saw
Speaker 1: the whole thing and grabbed my dad and basically said,
Speaker 1: don't do this. This isn't worth it. They kicked the
Speaker 1: guy out, and now is it. But I remember, like
Speaker 1: just one thing after another. That was just a horrible,
Speaker 1: horrible year, horrible time. My mom was dick, I was
Speaker 1: losing my my you know, my draft spot, and I
Speaker 1: was falling in second round. We were losing games. It
Speaker 1: was I mean, I lost one of my best friends
Speaker 1: um at home and passed away, you know, in a
Speaker 1: motorcycle accident in the summer. It was the pits. It
Speaker 1: was awful and so um you know, just talking about
Speaker 1: it now brings back all those emotions, I know. But
Speaker 1: you know what the good news is my mother, uh
Speaker 1: you know, she's twenty years passed. She's made it through, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and and I ended up getting to play
Speaker 1: pro and things are going well now. So we made
Speaker 1: it through. But it was it was a really dark
Speaker 1: tough time. Yeah, I mean, like I get my junior
Speaker 1: was crazy dark too, like I led to leave the
Speaker 1: country and assists. But I went through this thing where
Speaker 1: I got I got thrown out of I got a
Speaker 1: tea and we lost to Florida Atlantic, and I got
Speaker 1: a bad tea and and we lost this game to
Speaker 1: a shitty team. I actually played had eighteen assists and
Speaker 1: played well, and and then and then and then we
Speaker 1: played U C l A at the Pond and I
Speaker 1: get two teas in the first half and we lose
Speaker 1: by three, and so I'm like, and then Glenn Alexander
Speaker 1: gets eligible, so I'm I'm the odd man out and
Speaker 1: he benches me for like eight games. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: petrified to shoot to do anything other than like be
Speaker 1: a robot out there. And and we massively under a tea.
Speaker 1: We were a top. I mean, if we would have
Speaker 1: played all our small guys and played small all the
Speaker 1: way that we played small before everybody else played small
Speaker 1: with Mason at the four. We played Mason at the
Speaker 1: five one time against Texas and came back and made
Speaker 1: it a close game, but he just wouldn't do it
Speaker 1: like we. We could have won the whole thing playing
Speaker 1: small anyway. My point is, like my junior was the
Speaker 1: ships too, like it was. It's really really hard, and um,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine, like one of the great things about
Speaker 1: being me, I look in still Water, I was a
Speaker 1: pretty big thing. Whatever. But I'm still a six ft
Speaker 1: white guy who can throw on a hat and a
Speaker 1: hoodie and disappear like you're a seven footer. At Kansas
Speaker 1: and anywhere you go, everybody knows you. What is What's
Speaker 1: that I've always wondered, like, what's that existence? Like when
Speaker 1: you literally cannot hide? It was awful, man. And I remember,
Speaker 1: like there's some the KU has a school paper of
Speaker 1: the ud K, and you know, they pile it on
Speaker 1: the campus, so everybody reads the sting and in the
Speaker 1: in the u d K, the University Daily Cancer, there's
Speaker 1: a actually called the Free for All and you can
Speaker 1: call into an eight hunter number and say whatever you
Speaker 1: want and they will print it in the free for
Speaker 1: All section of the ud K. And so literally, for
Speaker 1: about two months straight, every every time, the first comment
Speaker 1: was Chenowa sucks, and then it was I mean literally,
Speaker 1: these are drunk frat boys or whatever calling in and
Speaker 1: they would print this. And so you know, obviously all
Speaker 1: school papers have the crossbrod puzzles. You always want to
Speaker 1: get to that. But like I remember, just I grab
Speaker 1: it every day, sit down and boom, it's right there.
Speaker 1: And then you look around and you're in a classroom
Speaker 1: with maybe it's the lecture hall there's two hundred people
Speaker 1: and there people are kind of looking back at you.
Speaker 1: And then maybe you're in a smaller class there's forty
Speaker 1: people and they're reading it and looking up at you.
Speaker 1: It's like you cannot escape it. In Lawrence, Cansas, there's
Speaker 1: a hundred thousands people in the city. There's students everywhere
Speaker 1: you go, every you walk, and it was it was
Speaker 1: really really odd, really awful time. The one saving grace
Speaker 1: was my groommate and teammage, Jeff Carry, who became one
Speaker 1: of my best friends in the whole world. And we
Speaker 1: would you know, he was just incredibly supportive of me
Speaker 1: and such a good friend and we I don't know
Speaker 1: what I would have done without him because he was
Speaker 1: a big guy, and so we'd go through practice together
Speaker 1: and he saw all the stuff that was going on,
Speaker 1: he saw me loose, support from every different angle, and
Speaker 1: he was really incredible. And I had I had a
Speaker 1: really nice girlfriend of time. She was she was really
Speaker 1: helpful to but like if it wasn't for those two people,
Speaker 1: like I don't, I can't explain. It was really dark times,
Speaker 1: it was really really hard. So if you could, if
Speaker 1: you if you could go back and do it again,
Speaker 1: you would have left after your left when he kind
Speaker 1: of when I would have left after my sophomore year.
Speaker 1: So I listen to this. So my sophomore year, I
Speaker 1: was the third player in Kansas basketball history at the
Speaker 1: average a double double in conference play, will Chamberlain, race
Speaker 1: La Friends Eric chenwith the only three players at that time.
Speaker 1: There's been players to do it since, but in that time,
Speaker 1: it's only three players in Can history to average a
Speaker 1: double double and conference play. And then I think I
Speaker 1: averaged like fourteen and ten or something like that. Had
Speaker 1: a really good year. I mean I showed all my
Speaker 1: strengths and all those different things. And I remember, like
Speaker 1: I when when you get recruited they go to Kansas,
Speaker 1: they coach gives you this like four year plan. Okay,
Speaker 1: freshman year, you're all freshman set. You know, Alvera mentioned
Speaker 1: all conference, and then sophomore year you're gonna be all conference,
Speaker 1: and then and then junior or you're all American and
Speaker 1: the Senior Player of the Year, and and so you
Speaker 1: had all these different goals that set out that you
Speaker 1: wanted to attain. And I saw Rape stay all four years.
Speaker 1: I saw Scott Polit's day for all four years. I
Speaker 1: saw Paul's day three years back there, guys just didn't
Speaker 1: leave that early. Remember Elton brand left and it was like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know he's only a sophomore. Well, so I had
Speaker 1: a meeting with coach and he was like, yeah, Eric,
Speaker 1: you know, you can go out and be a top
Speaker 1: fifteen pick, but you can come back and be a
Speaker 1: number one pick, you know. And I'm like, yeah, Coach,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come back and be a number one pick. Well, people,
Speaker 1: what I what I know now, and especially when I
Speaker 1: do for a living now, A window to get in
Speaker 1: the NBA is very very very small, very small. And
Speaker 1: some guys can trick the system and sneak in the
Speaker 1: first round and get four years in the league and
Speaker 1: wash out. Some guys, you know, can can can have
Speaker 1: a different path to get to the n b A.
Speaker 1: But but for the most part, your window to get
Speaker 1: there is very small. So if anybody ever tells you, hey,
Speaker 1: you're the top fifteen pick, you have to go. You
Speaker 1: can buy all the insurance in the world, you can
Speaker 1: do everything you want, but there's too many different variables
Speaker 1: that can happen when you come back. And so and
Speaker 1: think about this when you come back or the combine
Speaker 1: or whatever, it's a devaluation period. When you're playing in
Speaker 1: the games, you're playing well, you're doing things supposed to do.
Speaker 1: It's an evaluation period. So when you come back after
Speaker 1: a really good year, all scouts are gonna do is
Speaker 1: try to pick apart what you can't do. Right. So
Speaker 1: I remember talking about it. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: I don't know if I totally agree with that. I'll
Speaker 1: give you a give example. And look, this is a discussion.
Speaker 1: This is not we're not we don't have to go
Speaker 1: into you feel free to hop in. Okay, but you
Speaker 1: take I remember Harrison Barnes, okay, and um he got
Speaker 1: to the Warriors and didn't how to play. I talked
Speaker 1: to the people of the Warriors and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know how to play. I understand, but but
Speaker 1: but wait, you're you're you're telling me, but you're you're
Speaker 1: saying what you're telling me? What saying one thing and
Speaker 1: then saying the opposite, Right, you're saying that Harrison Barnes
Speaker 1: should leave, should leave after his freshman year. Um, but
Speaker 1: he didn't know how to play, right, So it's like
Speaker 1: from though, that's different, like he well, well here, let
Speaker 1: me let me share with my my perspective here. Okay,
Speaker 1: So again, and I don't I don't echo everything that
Speaker 1: every NBA scout says, um, because everybody has a different
Speaker 1: system of evaluation. Right. But but for me, you know,
Speaker 1: I watched him. He played two years at North Carolina,
Speaker 1: and obviously the second year he average like a point
Speaker 1: a half more UM. He shot roughly, he shot like
Speaker 1: two percent points higher from from the field. He shot
Speaker 1: I think one percent or two percentage points higher from
Speaker 1: three Okay, but the game was much easier. But like, look,
Speaker 1: he I thought he got better. Now he would have
Speaker 1: been a top ten pick if he came out his
Speaker 1: first year, he would have been top ten pick came
Speaker 1: out a second year. But there's the this do you improve?
Speaker 1: Do you like? My? I I understand the idea that
Speaker 1: all they do is pick you apart. All they do
Speaker 1: is pick you apart. My my thing is I try
Speaker 1: and pick apart, like, hey, has he improved? Is he
Speaker 1: getting better it? What's his body? Like? I think, honestly,
Speaker 1: you need two years of college because one, I want
Speaker 1: to see you the second year when you're more comfortable
Speaker 1: in the system, because, as you said earlier in the party,
Speaker 1: like your first year, ships moving so fast and you're
Speaker 1: just a robot and you're just and they're not really
Speaker 1: you know, look, we did this at Okahoma State, like
Speaker 1: my first year, even as a transfer, Like, they don't
Speaker 1: really coach you the first half of the year because
Speaker 1: they don't want to freak you out and they don't
Speaker 1: want and then all of a sudden, like January comes
Speaker 1: and they start streaming at you and film like what
Speaker 1: the funk are you doing here? You're like, well, sorry,
Speaker 1: you didn't yell at me last week. What happened? Um?
Speaker 1: Whereas you're like your second year, now you the road
Speaker 1: games don't bother you, coaching doesn't bother you. You can
Speaker 1: just kind of be like your second and third years
Speaker 1: when you kind of find your your and and I
Speaker 1: think for scouts, you need that second year to see,
Speaker 1: all right, has this guy figured out Kenny running offense?
Speaker 1: Canny figure out scatter reports? Has he improved from your
Speaker 1: one year two. What's his body look like? Because guy's
Speaker 1: bodies changed dramatically between eighteen and and twenty one. UM,
Speaker 1: And so like you're you're kind of you're kind of saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you should go right away, but then saying, like a
Speaker 1: Harrison Barnes, like he got there and he didn't know
Speaker 1: how to play basketball. You didn't know if my NBA basketball.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. That he didn't know how to
Speaker 1: play in the NBA type system, in the Carolina system,
Speaker 1: which you know, secondary break, the one, D two, B three,
Speaker 1: which we discussed and all these different things. But he
Speaker 1: didn't I'll not go to name the name, but someone
Speaker 1: from the Warrior said he did not know how to play.
Speaker 1: You know how to play and so but now, no,
Speaker 1: there's no exact formula across the board. Every situation is different,
Speaker 1: and I'm just saying in my situation, I played two years, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I remember and I know Mark working team very well.
Speaker 1: I've known him forever and I've known since I was
Speaker 1: fifth sixth grade. He told me. I remember two years
Speaker 1: later I saw him. He said, Eric, we were gonna
Speaker 1: he was in Portland's time. He said, we were gonna
Speaker 1: trade up to get the six team to pick you.
Speaker 1: He said, there's no way in hell you would have
Speaker 1: Philip past sixteen. And if you look at that draft,
Speaker 1: the first big guy drafted was Elton Branded. I don't
Speaker 1: know what he went with. It was high. The second
Speaker 1: seven quarter picked wasn't. It was a European who was
Speaker 1: playing on a juco in Kansas, who went twelve, who
Speaker 1: never played in the NBA ever. I don't know the
Speaker 1: guy's name. I got to look it up, but I was.
Speaker 1: I remember sitting that watching the draft, and I was like,
Speaker 1: what the like? I was? I was? I had known
Speaker 1: at that point I made the wrong decision. I probably
Speaker 1: should have gone because you could get there. But on
Speaker 1: the on the flip side, I have goals of getting
Speaker 1: to a Final Four, being an All American, all those
Speaker 1: different things. So and I'll tell you what, Doug. I
Speaker 1: don't know when the trend started of one and done.
Speaker 1: But unless for Earls and other examples less, Earl should
Speaker 1: have never gone to college. He should have gone straight
Speaker 1: to the NBA out of high school and he would
Speaker 1: have played the league for ten plus years. He went
Speaker 1: to college. He transferred from Ellis, who sat out and
Speaker 1: kneeds knee issues, bad medical care, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden he's done and now he's, you know, starting
Speaker 1: a new life doing something, not playing basketball. When you
Speaker 1: look at the pass and decisions that people take and
Speaker 1: if they have the right guy and to make the
Speaker 1: right decision, it's amazing what can happen in your life
Speaker 1: and your career at such a young age. So here's
Speaker 1: the question about less Earle. Okay, there's a question about
Speaker 1: less Earle. I'm gonna disagree with you in terms of
Speaker 1: he might have. Yeah, like I that you talked about
Speaker 1: foll by the way, was Alexander Radovitch from Barton New
Speaker 1: Community College. Yeah. Uh. And then and then Cal Bold
Speaker 1: played bad caw caw Boulder went seventeen to Atlanta out
Speaker 1: of O d U. He played three years in the league. Man,
Speaker 1: it is a bad big guy draft, bad bad big
Speaker 1: guy draft. So that's the window. That's what I'm talking about. Right.
Speaker 1: So so even if I wasn't ready, at least you
Speaker 1: get there and you get washed out or whatever, least
Speaker 1: you make it. You know what I mean. And that's
Speaker 1: the right I would say though that it's like I
Speaker 1: think for the NBA, I think it's a mistake to
Speaker 1: take the guys out of high school because you can't tell.
Speaker 1: Like I remember, I remember Sebastian Telfare that was at
Speaker 1: oh four whatever the big or oh five whatever the big.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's so five the big. The last big high
Speaker 1: school draft was Dwight Howard was in and the McDonald's
Speaker 1: American Game was in Oklahoma City and I was broadcasting
Speaker 1: it for ESPN, and you know, you watch the workouts
Speaker 1: and every night we go to Beers, the place that
Speaker 1: became Durant's Bar, with some some other bar there. And
Speaker 1: I remember sitting around with a bunch of these guys,
Speaker 1: was like, which one of you guys is gonna lose
Speaker 1: your job over Sebastian Telfare, Like what do you mean?
Speaker 1: I was like, he can't play fucking basketball. Like he
Speaker 1: can't play. They're like, what do you mean? I was like, look,
Speaker 1: he can make the passes and but he he can't shoot.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know when to do what he just knows
Speaker 1: like if I get the ball, every time I get
Speaker 1: the ball, my job is to try and break the
Speaker 1: guy down, get to the get to the rim, and
Speaker 1: if help comes, kick off for a dunk like that's it. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: But it's not even just get buckets. It's just like
Speaker 1: every and that's not how you play basketball, Like you
Speaker 1: got to move sometimes the best play is just to
Speaker 1: pass the ball and and get the funk out of
Speaker 1: the way. And he like he had no idea how
Speaker 1: to play, and you could see in his interactions like
Speaker 1: he didn't really understand how to be a leader. Even
Speaker 1: though guys looked up to him, he was so interested
Speaker 1: in being Bassie that he wasn't like you just watched
Speaker 1: you like this is a disaster, this is bad. That
Speaker 1: kid needs college. He needs a coach, motherfucking for a
Speaker 1: couple of years. For every example like that, there's another
Speaker 1: example of someone who didn't make the right decision by
Speaker 1: going early or what happened. And so for him, I mean,
Speaker 1: his older brother played in the NBA, and he was
Speaker 1: he was, but his being to who he matched out
Speaker 1: at a young age, and Melvin Mel his brother mel
Speaker 1: he had a half brother step brother play the NA.
Speaker 1: Mean you mean Jamal Jamal Thomas. I don't think. I
Speaker 1: don't think Jamal ever played in the NBA. But I
Speaker 1: played with him in the A B A. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: played with him in Nick Summerwick, So I know he's
Speaker 1: a great guy. By the way, he is a great guy.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I just I mean and a and
Speaker 1: a good player. And he went by five. He I
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to come, so he played this true story.
Speaker 1: I played with Phoenix with him in the A B
Speaker 1: A UM. I think we were Actually this is a
Speaker 1: true story. I didn't even know until a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago that our nickname was the Eclipse, the Phoenix Eclipse.
Speaker 1: I played for a deem and I didn't know, and
Speaker 1: Mas track was my coach. How about that? So so
Speaker 1: Mass my coach and he goes and I just got
Speaker 1: the plane from Israel. I left my team in Israel
Speaker 1: to come play from mas and for the Phoenix team
Speaker 1: and they had um and and Jamal was there. And
Speaker 1: I played against Jamel in college at that Notre Dame,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I was like, what up, Mel,
Speaker 1: He's like, don't call me that. I was excuse me,
Speaker 1: Like I go by five, Like like Jamal is my
Speaker 1: government name. He was in this like that's my government name,
Speaker 1: and call me call me five, Okay, So I remember
Speaker 1: we're go ahead. Yeah. I was summarily with the Knicks
Speaker 1: and and uh Cliff and Tibbs and Jeff and the
Speaker 1: only called him out. They did. And I don't think
Speaker 1: it's gonna tell the coach now to call him oult
Speaker 1: what we call him out. Okay, So you get drafted
Speaker 1: in the second round the NBA draft. Okay, Um, what happened?
Speaker 1: Then immediately on a flight out to New York. Um
Speaker 1: you staying at the Marriott resident in on Parker Avenue
Speaker 1: and White Plains, New York. Uh. And then I was
Speaker 1: it was me. They drafted Michael Wright God rest his
Speaker 1: soul um after me, two picks after me, and so
Speaker 1: it was me and him, Steve Clifford, Tom Thibodeau and
Speaker 1: at Sunny purchased every day for six hours. I mean
Speaker 1: it was literally it was hot gym no A C.
Speaker 1: And we would do you know, workout starts at nine,
Speaker 1: so you get there at eight thirty or so, get dress,
Speaker 1: get out there, you stretched, loosen up. We do two
Speaker 1: hours literally two hours of spot shooting, shooting drills, ball,
Speaker 1: having different drills, whatever, um break, get launch, go back,
Speaker 1: lift weights for an hour, cardio for an hour. And
Speaker 1: mind you, this is in New York in the summer,
Speaker 1: which you lived up there, you know how it is
Speaker 1: it's brutal, but every day all the way leading up
Speaker 1: to camp, and I remember, um, you know, then obviously
Speaker 1: I was you know, I did on September eleven, Um,
Speaker 1: I had an appearance with fives of Pharmaceuticals were doing
Speaker 1: a healthy living promotion. So I was on a second
Speaker 1: and second at the part of the pharmaceuticals building doing
Speaker 1: a promotion there. When the two planes hit, I had
Speaker 1: to obviously walk up to the Upper East Side and
Speaker 1: take a train out of the city back up the
Speaker 1: white planes. But I remember, you know, going through that summer,
Speaker 1: going through that that event on September eleven, and then
Speaker 1: kind of feeling like I earned my stripes. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, I have a chance to make this roster.
Speaker 1: And I remember, like a week before camp, Jeff van
Speaker 1: Gundy pulls me in his office and he goes, hey, hey, Eric,
Speaker 1: I just want you know that you're not gonna make
Speaker 1: this team, so um, do whatever you gotta do. It's
Speaker 1: something of the sort like that. And so I was,
Speaker 1: like it was it was pretty hard pill to swallow,
Speaker 1: just because you know, I've worked so hard, I've been
Speaker 1: through so much. I was developing relationships with the guys
Speaker 1: on the team. And then all of a sudden, at
Speaker 1: the eleventh hour, when all camp spots are full, I
Speaker 1: get the rug pulled out and I now got to
Speaker 1: scramble to find a place to go, and so um
Speaker 1: and I and I later on I heard the backstory
Speaker 1: behind this where Scott Layden really liked me and wanted
Speaker 1: to pick me. Um. And so they're in the war
Speaker 1: room a draft night, and I guess guys were throwing
Speaker 1: out names and Scott Leyden kind of pounded the table
Speaker 1: and said, up, we're picking Channel with and everybody half
Speaker 1: the room was good with it. Half was like, oh God,
Speaker 1: here we go, and so um. It just obviously they
Speaker 1: kept Michael right until the very last second and cut
Speaker 1: him with forty hours left on the waiver line, and
Speaker 1: so um, you know it was it was a really
Speaker 1: I don't making excuses, it was at it. You know.
Speaker 1: I gave me an opportunity, which I appreciate, but it
Speaker 1: was a really difficult situation for me. I went to
Speaker 1: Camp A Sacramento, theready have picked in the guaranteed spots,
Speaker 1: basically went there to get a pair of socks whatever
Speaker 1: and go to camp, get the field and then it
Speaker 1: was off the D League and overseas, and my journey
Speaker 1: and career started from there. But um, I do remember
Speaker 1: being drafted and how good of a feeling that was
Speaker 1: and how exciting it was, and it was a really
Speaker 1: nice moment to share with my family and especially my
Speaker 1: mom who had just beaten cancer, and so um it was.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, a sign of a comeback, not
Speaker 1: a full comeback. Obviously I wish I had gone in
Speaker 1: the first round, but it was. That was actually a
Speaker 1: really good time in my life, opposed to two years before.
Speaker 1: You know, um uh okay, then you one year you
Speaker 1: had a I thought you were going to make the
Speaker 1: Lakers Like that one made sense to me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was interesting. So I remember I went to camp
Speaker 1: with like I said, it went with it. It was
Speaker 1: the Knicks, and then went to the Sacramento for camping
Speaker 1: D League and then in O two I went to
Speaker 1: camp with Seattle, got cut there and went to the
Speaker 1: D League, and um, I remember I was playing the
Speaker 1: D League and I got no members. Valentine's Day of
Speaker 1: two three, the coach he cut me on the tarmac.
Speaker 1: He's like, Eric, this isn't working out. We're gonna go
Speaker 1: lect you go and I said, okay. So Ajan called
Speaker 1: me with a bunch of different opportunities overseas and whatever,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what, I need to get
Speaker 1: back to the drawing board. And I remember I came home.
Speaker 1: I hired a guy named Todd Norman as a trainer,
Speaker 1: the Cutting Edge here in Orange County. So I just
Speaker 1: dedicated myself to improving my body, getting mentally, you know, strong,
Speaker 1: physically strong, rols, different things. I started working out with
Speaker 1: an individual coach named Jody Gardner, who's out here is
Speaker 1: a really good individual guy. And then when all the
Speaker 1: NBA guys came back for the summer, Shaan ro Shawn
Speaker 1: Marks and all those guys. You know, I just dedicated
Speaker 1: myself to getting becoming a better athlete, becoming a better player.
Speaker 1: And I remember the Lakers, um you know, invited me
Speaker 1: to the summer league team and I played really well
Speaker 1: on that team, and then they invited me to camp,
Speaker 1: and I remember, you know Phil, I felt like Phil
Speaker 1: liked me because Coach Jackson liked me because I, you know,
Speaker 1: challenged shack. At the time, I'd gotten up to two
Speaker 1: pounds and I was I was pretty well put together
Speaker 1: at the time because before I had been the little
Speaker 1: skinny and so I put my you know, I was
Speaker 1: benching three thirty pounds of squatting four hunder pounds, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't really really good ship and I was really strong,
Speaker 1: and so Phil like the fact that I could challenge
Speaker 1: shack and practice and so you know, I had that
Speaker 1: entire summer every day at the facility working out and
Speaker 1: um and then working out with coach Rambis and the
Speaker 1: whole staff there was fantastic. And so we get to
Speaker 1: camp and actually Phil started me in a couple of games,
Speaker 1: which was pretty crazy. We only we had a T
Speaker 1: and T game at at Staples Center and Phil wrote
Speaker 1: up on the board chennow with and I'm like I
Speaker 1: looked around and I was like, this is a shoot around.
Speaker 1: And so I knew all day I was started for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. And I'll never forget Gennaro Pargo. We were
Speaker 1: walking through our cars and He's like, damn, and you
Speaker 1: started with the Lakers man, And he was like teasing
Speaker 1: me about it, and Kareem Rush was and Luke Walton
Speaker 1: and Brian Cook all those guys were like hey, like
Speaker 1: and I first split second thought, I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make this team. This is crazy. And then I
Speaker 1: remember Steve Kirk, who I was, you know, a buddy
Speaker 1: and I really respect him. He was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been monitoring Eric for his you know, short career
Speaker 1: so far, and I think he's good enough to make it.
Speaker 1: And I think Eric's gonna make this roster. And I
Speaker 1: remember my dad hearing that. I mean, everything was aligned
Speaker 1: to make the team. And then right towards the Brian
Speaker 1: Russell Uh hurt his knee and um he required surgery.
Speaker 1: He was gonna about for two months, and so Mitch
Speaker 1: called me in and said, Eric, we cannot cut someone
Speaker 1: if they're not healthy. You have to pass your as
Speaker 1: exit physical in order to be released. Well, he cracked
Speaker 1: his knee and had surgery whatever, and he says, we
Speaker 1: can't cut him, so we're gonna cut you. And that
Speaker 1: one really really stung because I've done so much to
Speaker 1: get to that point. I'd really developed a relationship with Shaq,
Speaker 1: Kobe even respected me. I felt like a little bit.
Speaker 1: We did the King's Drill where there's four big men
Speaker 1: of one on one on the post was me, Shaq
Speaker 1: car Malone, um Um Uh Sampson and another big guy
Speaker 1: Kimeron who was horse Grant one on one of the
Speaker 1: post to five and it Shack car all these names
Speaker 1: and I won the first one to five. I won it.
Speaker 1: It's called the King's Game. And when we came back
Speaker 1: to the center in like Phil was like one and
Speaker 1: and I didn't say anything. I just stood there with
Speaker 1: a mouth shut in Shack was like the other big
Speaker 1: order women. And Kobe looked at me and I gave
Speaker 1: me like a punch on the chest, like all right,
Speaker 1: o se because he comes from March kind of call.
Speaker 1: And that was like a feeling of like wow, I'm
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna make it anyway. And then Brian Russell.
Speaker 1: Fast forward two years later, I was in camp with
Speaker 1: the Nuggets. The same thing happened there too. I had
Speaker 1: a really good chance of making the team and he
Speaker 1: got hurt again and U and they had to keep him.
Speaker 1: So that was my fortune and that's how it goes.
Speaker 1: But that's you know. But still that month with the
Speaker 1: Lakers in camp was the best experience I've ever had
Speaker 1: in my life in any level. It was so funny,
Speaker 1: so that the thing I liked about and I was
Speaker 1: at the Lakers three different times in I did the
Speaker 1: I did Summer league? Was it oh one summer league?
Speaker 1: Oh one Summer league? This is when you were at
Speaker 1: the Knicks um and I played in the Summer league team,
Speaker 1: and the all three years I did, uh like they
Speaker 1: had a vet minicamp before you went to Hawaii and
Speaker 1: like the first the first year, I I literally flew
Speaker 1: back from Italy. I was, I was with the team
Speaker 1: in Italy, and I thought I had this shot to
Speaker 1: it was me and Mike Pemberty, and I did everything
Speaker 1: better than Mike Pemberty except that dude could fucking shoot, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, he could just fun he coaches with him now,
Speaker 1: I mean, he can fucking just shoot the fucking ball.
Speaker 1: And and I didn't really and like triangles a bad
Speaker 1: offense for me, but you know, Tex helped me get
Speaker 1: in there, and then they liked me and they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, go play overseas and come back. So I
Speaker 1: came back from Russia and now I was good. But
Speaker 1: they had also brought in Pemberthy and Joe Crispin, who
Speaker 1: can also fucking shoot, and both those dudes made it
Speaker 1: and I didn't. Then the third year, those guys, I
Speaker 1: think the third year those guys were both kind of
Speaker 1: embedded in the roster, and by then I was like
Speaker 1: I was good, Like I could hoop and I had
Speaker 1: gotten rid of some of the mental ship and I
Speaker 1: understood the offense. But you know, it's like, look, you
Speaker 1: like a limited shooter, as no matter how good athletically
Speaker 1: year off pick and roll, you are in that offense
Speaker 1: as a third point guard, like they don't really fucking
Speaker 1: need you. But what I loved about the Lakers was, um,
Speaker 1: they treat every dude like I even when I knew
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna make it like I'd come in, I'd
Speaker 1: get massages, I work out like. They treat you just
Speaker 1: like you're on the team. But there is something too
Speaker 1: that when you walk down that when we walk down,
Speaker 1: as you know, you check, you walk in, you say
Speaker 1: hi to the receptionists, you walk and then you see
Speaker 1: these pictures of all these incredible Lakers, like funk I
Speaker 1: could be on the Lakers. I'm like this close, and
Speaker 1: then Mitch comes in, He's like, hey man, we think
Speaker 1: you're great. You should really think about the D League
Speaker 1: and we'd think about calling you up. And when I'm like,
Speaker 1: wait that that I was just walking down thinking I
Speaker 1: was making the team anyway. Okay, so so what you
Speaker 1: do now is you have you insure you insure uh,
Speaker 1: some of the great athletes in college. Like how did
Speaker 1: you get into this and what do you actually do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Thank good questions. So obviously retired away got in the
Speaker 1: coaching for a couple of years. Made no sense. So umo, folks,
Speaker 1: job was finding a job and I almost took a
Speaker 1: job at a d g um Philip and Shoots is
Speaker 1: that you know? K you guys? So you fought to
Speaker 1: a resume and almost did something there and right before
Speaker 1: I did it? Wait wait wait, Philip and Shoots is
Speaker 1: a K you guy. I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: people understand this. Okay, this this is really really this
Speaker 1: is a big This is my big thing. Okay. And
Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying about going straight at a
Speaker 1: high school to to to to the pros if you can.
Speaker 1: The problem with it, by my estimation, is there'll be
Speaker 1: so many kids that go they'll end up in the
Speaker 1: G league. They don't understand. Everyone talks about the value
Speaker 1: of college and I pisses me off, and there's no
Speaker 1: value to college. First, like, there's lots of jobs you
Speaker 1: can't have without a degree. But the big thing you
Speaker 1: get in college is like you're part of that school
Speaker 1: and basketball programs family. And here's the perfect example if
Speaker 1: you wanted to get into coaching, I'm guessing coach Williams
Speaker 1: Carolina family. There's there's you could find NBA or college.
Speaker 1: Somebody would find a chair for you. Correct a very
Speaker 1: very small chair, grinder chair, but at least the chair, guys.
Speaker 1: Job offers I got was like thirty grand as a
Speaker 1: video coordinator in X Y Z, right, But but like
Speaker 1: but like look c b CB started there and look
Speaker 1: where he is now, and look at it like that's
Speaker 1: I mean, like I understand the coach Jared had I
Speaker 1: mean that's that's I mean, look, Coach Williams started as
Speaker 1: a manager and now he's you know, he's arguably the
Speaker 1: most successful coach you know, in the history of the sport.
Speaker 1: So um okay. The other part is like like you said,
Speaker 1: like Philip Manchew's can make a call for you because
Speaker 1: he's a Kansas guy. And I don't know if enough
Speaker 1: people understand like this is really the way it works.
Speaker 1: Is what you need college force? When should I needed?
Speaker 1: Like before Boone Pickens died and I didn't have I
Speaker 1: didn't I knew him. I didn't. We weren't like best
Speaker 1: friends or whatever. But if I really legitimately needed a job,
Speaker 1: I would have called Boone and said, hey, can you
Speaker 1: help me out? And he would have said, tell me
Speaker 1: who to call and I'll figure it out. Right. That's
Speaker 1: that is There is a value to that. And I
Speaker 1: talked about this all the time too. We can talk
Speaker 1: about you know, a million different things with the name
Speaker 1: image like the stuff, but network that I've tapped into
Speaker 1: and worked on a daily basis with KU has changed
Speaker 1: my life. So think about KU, which is an amazing institution.
Speaker 1: It's a great place to go to school and people
Speaker 1: to work with. I think if you went to like
Speaker 1: Stanford or I Presage School, like the value and those
Speaker 1: relationships with all those people in Silicon Valley about different things.
Speaker 1: That is dismissed so much and it's ridiculous and so
Speaker 1: really quick. So, like I, my full time job was
Speaker 1: finding a job. So I reached out to and Shoots
Speaker 1: as secretary, and he got to him and I said,
Speaker 1: here's my resume, and and I along with that resume
Speaker 1: was data Anderson who was the president and chairman of
Speaker 1: the board of the Main Switch Corporation, which is a
Speaker 1: massive uh strip mall company that he was chairman of
Speaker 1: board on who is a huge donor for KU, who
Speaker 1: helped me with the resume, helped me prepare for interviews,
Speaker 1: all those different things, you know, guiding me along, who
Speaker 1: was amazing in my you know, transition out of basketball
Speaker 1: into the professional world. You know, he said, here's you
Speaker 1: got a call to get to fill up, and so
Speaker 1: I got to fill up. So still literally said I'll
Speaker 1: float your resume. And that's all was is. This is
Speaker 1: coming down from the man and actually stud Heathcote, who
Speaker 1: you might know I was a reebok eye. You see
Speaker 1: that guy, he's now Global Partnership has picked it up
Speaker 1: and got me an interview, and he was gonna find
Speaker 1: out a way to get me in there, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's all because of the A and A E G.
Speaker 1: It really is. So that's what people need to think about.
Speaker 1: So and we can talk about how valuable colleges you know,
Speaker 1: down later. But but so I got so I was
Speaker 1: going to take a job there. And I grew up
Speaker 1: with the Boone family, Aaron and Matt. Matt's my best friend,
Speaker 1: my son's godfather, and so uh, Aaron's best friend is
Speaker 1: his partners A partner at a firm called Parker Visors
Speaker 1: in Beverly Hills, Ryan Straungswag, and so they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: before you take the job, you shoul gonna meet these
Speaker 1: guys in Beverly Hills. They do insurance for athletes. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well, I had a policy when
Speaker 1: I played at Kansas. I know how this works as
Speaker 1: a consumer. Let's figure this out. So we had a
Speaker 1: two hour meeting and they kind of hired you on
Speaker 1: the spot into this gal. So that was in two
Speaker 1: or September twelve is when I joined this firm. And
Speaker 1: so what I what was great for me was I
Speaker 1: was digging job coach for jobs for three years and
Speaker 1: immediately turned my hat and said, listening to coach, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna bug you about you know, um, you know,
Speaker 1: getting a job. Here's what I do. Now, here's I
Speaker 1: can help you. And every coach came back and said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I don't understand this stuff. I know you,
Speaker 1: I trust you like you're our guy. And so I
Speaker 1: was immediately plugged into you know, Carolina, Kansas, Well, Kansas
Speaker 1: took some time obviously, um but which is a side story,
Speaker 1: but uh, it was immediately I was like, here's your opportunity,
Speaker 1: like you know whatever, coaches recruiting me twenty years from ago,
Speaker 1: we're now saying hey, I got this guy, what did
Speaker 1: you qualify for? What should we do here? And my
Speaker 1: business model was simple and that I called coaches and
Speaker 1: I called compliance officers because I remember when coach, when
Speaker 1: I was a KU I had coached, My dad said,
Speaker 1: er kia policy, I want to talk to coach. Coach, Yeah,
Speaker 1: go to talk to Richard Conson down the home. Compliance
Speaker 1: was taken from there, so I knew all I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do is call compliance directors and developed willerships with them
Speaker 1: and so um so as soon as so. Now fast
Speaker 1: forward eight years later on my own firm now out
Speaker 1: and basically what happens is I monitor all the draft
Speaker 1: boards for college football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and as soon
Speaker 1: as guys have rolling school, I'm reaching out to the
Speaker 1: school saying, hey, here's the student app that just enrolled,
Speaker 1: here's what the qualified sports, what we can do for him,
Speaker 1: and then we go from there. If they utilize my services, great,
Speaker 1: If not, you know, it's fine, too. But what really
Speaker 1: took off in my career, which was crazy, was when
Speaker 1: I was like I had to get a loan and
Speaker 1: pay off a loan once it turned pro to pay
Speaker 1: for the insurance. Well, my second year in doing the
Speaker 1: in the business, the n c A changed the rules
Speaker 1: with the Student Assistance Fund, allowing them to have the
Speaker 1: schools have full autonomy on the s a F. So
Speaker 1: saf's designed for emergency revisit bills, you know, diapers and
Speaker 1: a player has has a child, you know, flights home
Speaker 1: for funeral suits, if you travel, things like that. Well,
Speaker 1: once they came full autonomy, Texas A and M said,
Speaker 1: well we got a big offensive alignment and head policy.
Speaker 1: We're gonna spend fifty grand on his his policy and
Speaker 1: so it's a copycat everything. And so it kind of
Speaker 1: took off like wildfire, where two years I was helping
Speaker 1: these kids get loans to buy the insurance. Now was hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do this and we're gonna pay for it.
Speaker 1: And so it really took off from there. The schools
Speaker 1: schools can pay for these policies now correct correct yes,
Speaker 1: and they can pay for it out of what's called
Speaker 1: the Student Systems Fund based on U, cost of attendance,
Speaker 1: costs of living, a couple of factors. Each school gets
Speaker 1: to check from the n c a A for approximately
Speaker 1: two hifty three hundred thousand dollars that they can use
Speaker 1: for whatever they want. Some schools use the whole thing
Speaker 1: for insurance. Some schools used don't use it. But I'm
Speaker 1: you know, at a sixty schools I work with, I
Speaker 1: would say about use it is a portion of it
Speaker 1: for insurance and so and I'll talk about how great
Speaker 1: college is because of what it can do for you
Speaker 1: later in life. I want this. I have a client
Speaker 1: on a team in the big private school in the
Speaker 1: big Tent. So he's getting a scholarship. There's only one
Speaker 1: private school in the big ten. I hate to be well,
Speaker 1: actually no, it's not private now that I think about it. So,
Speaker 1: but it costs about forty five thousand dollars. You're gonna
Speaker 1: go there, Okay. So he's got a forty five scholarship
Speaker 1: between pale, grant, grant made all these different things. You
Speaker 1: get to check for five hundred dollars, which you can
Speaker 1: use it as a discretion for whatever he wants. And
Speaker 1: he's got a two million dollar policies of his career end. Um,
Speaker 1: he collects two million dollars to start in your life with.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good life, if you ask me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's a that's better than playing in the
Speaker 1: D League. That's better than you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how good it is a life of it's being on
Speaker 1: a practice squad in the NFL or the miners in
Speaker 1: NHL or the miners in Major League Baseball. That's pretty
Speaker 1: amazing to have for three or four years while you're
Speaker 1: on campus, and then to go to the next level,
Speaker 1: which kind of goes back to another composition. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we'll get too. So so yeah, so that's what I do.
Speaker 1: I work with you know, college athletes all over the
Speaker 1: country once they turned pro. I work in conjunction with
Speaker 1: their financial advisor or agent. If I'm really busy with
Speaker 1: it right now, because guys are in NBA training camp
Speaker 1: and um, they may have you know, a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty million on the table, but they want won seventy
Speaker 1: six or whatever they want over four or five years.
Speaker 1: So we'll bind them in a million dollar, fifty million
Speaker 1: dollar policy whatever they need uh to cover their firtual
Speaker 1: future earnings until they sign. Once they signed. Obviously the
Speaker 1: insurance has done its job, and then I follow up
Speaker 1: to sell them life insurance for a state planning purposes.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, so that's all I do. I just
Speaker 1: do insurance. I don't do investments or tax prep or
Speaker 1: anything like that. I just do insurance, which allows me
Speaker 1: to work with college and professional athletes and so doing
Speaker 1: many years and it's um, I love it and I'll
Speaker 1: do it forever. So that's what I'm doing now. Okay, Uh, last, last,
Speaker 1: I get to two quick ones. One. Has anybody actually
Speaker 1: ever executed one of these policies you being collected on? One? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had several claims plaid. I had a I've had
Speaker 1: a college football loss of value claim paid. I've had
Speaker 1: an NBA basketball player loss of value claim paid, and
Speaker 1: I've had a college football PTV claim paid. I don't
Speaker 1: name names, don't I'm not that guy that brokers out
Speaker 1: there that'll tweet allow that stuff. I keep it confidential.
Speaker 1: But so there's three products you get. There's permanently disability,
Speaker 1: which is career and in coverage whether you know you
Speaker 1: can't play your sport over again, you collect on PtD
Speaker 1: due to an injury or illness right, there's loss of value.
Speaker 1: We assess your your your draft spot, and we assess, okay,
Speaker 1: you're projected tent in the draft. We're gonna set a
Speaker 1: threshold at the end of the first round. If you
Speaker 1: get hurt or have an injury an illness, you fall
Speaker 1: out of the first round, you'll start collecting each pick
Speaker 1: you fall. That's loss of value in the nutshell. And
Speaker 1: then there's a new product called critical injury, which is
Speaker 1: two categories of injury. So if you category one being
Speaker 1: a major injury such as a torn a c l
Speaker 1: achilles uh, you know, rotator cup, Tommy John. If you're
Speaker 1: a picture um loss of cider cancer, you collect two
Speaker 1: or fifty thousand dollars. In the category too, would be
Speaker 1: a major muscle group tear so torn growing by sept
Speaker 1: tries to hamstring quads, your quadratp. You get a hunt
Speaker 1: of that not benefits. So those are uh. You start
Speaker 1: with the PtD and you add loss of value or
Speaker 1: critical injury. As a writer, law of eyes kind of
Speaker 1: going away. There's been a ton of claims paid on it,
Speaker 1: so they're only doing it for the top top guys,
Speaker 1: but most guys that they're a solid player are going
Speaker 1: to qualify for the critical injury. Um the writer that
Speaker 1: they can add to the p TWD policy. Um okay.
Speaker 1: And then and here's the last thing I'll get. I'll
Speaker 1: kind of give you the floor. But I mean, like, look,
Speaker 1: people know that I I value the college system for
Speaker 1: among the things that we've said. But but the name
Speaker 1: and likeness fight, which to me, it's gonna be pay
Speaker 1: for play, right, Like, guys don't really have and and
Speaker 1: and in fairness, I I when I tweet out that
Speaker 1: guys don't have a value, they don't have a huge value.
Speaker 1: But what you do is you pull together all your values.
Speaker 1: And that's how the coaches and the athletice departments had
Speaker 1: these local sponsorship deals, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I feel like
Speaker 1: people were we're operating on old news in terms of
Speaker 1: like you pointed out kid having twenty seven thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to spended his discretion tax free, you know, for a
Speaker 1: year to play in college. Like I don't like we've
Speaker 1: gotten this point to which like, look, we're good enough,
Speaker 1: is in fact enough And part of being in colleges
Speaker 1: you've got to manage whatever finances you have. You have
Speaker 1: to learn and you're never gonna starve because now you
Speaker 1: have unlimited meals and things like that. What's your take
Speaker 1: on the name and likeness, Well, it's I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: governors are signing it left and right, so it's gonna
Speaker 1: have to be something that's gonna be addressed before three.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, personally, like I think the perfect
Speaker 1: example is, like, you know, Zion Wing was a good example.
Speaker 1: So hoo this it was like last June or something
Speaker 1: like last may or June. I had a couple uh
Speaker 1: apparel companies reach out for quotes um for Zion because
Speaker 1: Zion had an offer from an apparel company for about
Speaker 1: forty million dollars on the table, right, So they're gonna
Speaker 1: say take this money and uh just work were out
Speaker 1: with the Cones and you go to the draft and
Speaker 1: then you know, we'll see what what what happens from there.
Speaker 1: So he's gonna get forty million dollars signed an apparel company.
Speaker 1: And so he wanted to buy Hi an assurance policy.
Speaker 1: And so I remember talking to on Gavanni, who I
Speaker 1: talked to a lot about you know, players and different things,
Speaker 1: and he and that we were like, well, if he
Speaker 1: doesn't play this year, he's not gonna prove himself. John
Speaker 1: was kind of like, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: quote John or speak for him, but he was like, well,
Speaker 1: if he does that, he's gonna want you know, he'll
Speaker 1: probably fall to like the twelve to twenty range because
Speaker 1: we don't know who he is. I mean, he can
Speaker 1: he can dunk on these small kids in South Carolina,
Speaker 1: but like, can he play? You know? And so, so
Speaker 1: you got forty million dollars from the Parel company, you're
Speaker 1: probably a twelve to twenty pick. Well, he made the
Speaker 1: right decision and went to college to play for Duke,
Speaker 1: which is probably one of the best three platforms in
Speaker 1: college to be on. So I had a great year,
Speaker 1: Player of the Year, Goes has a good run in
Speaker 1: the in the in the tournament, and then what's he do.
Speaker 1: He signs a near hundred million dollar deal with Jordan Brand.
Speaker 1: He's the number one pick in the draft signing for
Speaker 1: it's gonna be forty million over four years. And to
Speaker 1: look at it, he tripled his market value by going
Speaker 1: to college and having one year there and he and
Speaker 1: he's the he's the one percent where the rest of
Speaker 1: the kid have don't don't even have those offers. You
Speaker 1: know what I means like correct and which so I
Speaker 1: feel like you you you run the risk of destroying
Speaker 1: the entire system for a guy like Zion, and a
Speaker 1: guy like Zion ends up benefiting from every moment that
Speaker 1: he plays in college. Perfect. And I'm gonna add to
Speaker 1: this one more thing too. And you know this as
Speaker 1: a former student athlete. There's a sports we called non
Speaker 1: revenues track and field. You know, all these different sports
Speaker 1: that you know, wrestling would have you steams when they wrestling,
Speaker 1: but but they don't, you know, generate any income. All
Speaker 1: those sports are going to go away if they completely
Speaker 1: change the model and it's a full pay for play system.
Speaker 1: And that really bothers me because I had so many
Speaker 1: friends in college and I know about stories of people
Speaker 1: in horrible economic backgrounds and systems where they have their
Speaker 1: only chance to get out of what situation they're in
Speaker 1: is to get a scholarship playing a sport, to go
Speaker 1: to a school to get a degree, to better their
Speaker 1: life and move on into the workforce. And that vehicle
Speaker 1: is playing a non revenue sport at whatever school that
Speaker 1: is gonna go away. And that's what really makes me sad.
Speaker 1: Because just there's so many there's so many kids out
Speaker 1: there that I don't care what sport it it's golf
Speaker 1: or tracking or whatever, that those opportunities are gonna be
Speaker 1: gone because all the money's gonna be going too. The
Speaker 1: players that people say, by rights earn it because people
Speaker 1: are turning on the TV to see them, but the
Speaker 1: turn of TV see them because they're playing at Duke
Speaker 1: or Kansas, U c l A or Arizona or whatever.
Speaker 1: Nobody watches daily games like I played the dealing. It's
Speaker 1: a waist line of broken dreams the better players, but
Speaker 1: it's worst basketball. And it's like, you know, I think
Speaker 1: there needs to be some kind of common ground where
Speaker 1: they are compensated something. We've got to figure that out.
Speaker 1: But it can't just be you can market yourself, because
Speaker 1: then all the big schools are gonna have you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a million dollars from Longo to to
Speaker 1: play basketball at U c l A. And it's just
Speaker 1: that's just what's gonna happen, and so you can't regulate it.
Speaker 1: So they've got to just find out something that all
Speaker 1: parties can coexist. And with this beautiful thing of college basketball.
Speaker 1: College athletics isn't just wiped away or changed or or
Speaker 1: you know, unrecognizable after That's just my humble opinion. Hey man,
Speaker 1: I'm really happy that all the stuff that you went
Speaker 1: through as a player as a human being, now your
Speaker 1: dad a husband and you're making in life and glad
Speaker 1: to call your friend. I appreciate you join us. We
Speaker 1: gotta do this again. We gotta we gotta do the
Speaker 1: room at some point, we have to do the room discussion.
Speaker 1: We'll do some work, some hips discussion as well, but
Speaker 1: in the with time as the as the essence. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us, of course, appreciate it, Dog, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch the live edition of The Doug
Speaker 1: god Leap Show weekdays at three p m. Easter noon Pacific. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that great conversation. We've been long
Speaker 1: time kind of friends, uh no friends, long time friends,
Speaker 1: and we live close to each other. We'll do it again.
Speaker 1: Able to talk some ball after a big Kansas game
Speaker 1: or something like that. Um. You can listen to The
Speaker 1: Doug Gottlieb Show every day three to sixty Eastern twelve
Speaker 1: to three Pacific on Fox Sport trade of the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app um or you can download that podcast
Speaker 1: if you'd like. In the meantime, thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to download, subscribe rate tell a friend tweeted
Speaker 1: out whatever. Next week, I think what we'll do is
Speaker 1: we'll probably have a special guest in preview the NBA
Speaker 1: because the season gets on away on Thursday, but we'll
Speaker 1: preview kind of the whole league. Um some trends, some
Speaker 1: things to look at, and so on. So far. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, thanks for listening. I'm Doug Gollip. This is
Speaker 1: all ball