Speaker 1: H m.
Speaker 2: Hmmm mm hmm. Welcome back all the smoke, Jeff. We
Speaker 2: got a good one today, man. Some of who's been
Speaker 2: a legend for a long time.
Speaker 1: Man, some of we grew up looking up to and
Speaker 1: got a chance to play against one of the most
Speaker 1: name drop the show. Yeah, one of the time, one
Speaker 1: of the greatest athletes I've ever seen. Welcome to the show, Shawk.
Speaker 1: Appreciate check appreciate you, long time color bro. Got a
Speaker 1: chance to check your dock out. Uh in your duck.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote jack He had the body of Lebron,
Speaker 1: athleticism of m J left handed with the attitude to
Speaker 1: run our test and Steven Jackson. When you hear people
Speaker 1: who went on to have long, successful NBA careers, you
Speaker 1: played against some of the best the game has ever seen.
Speaker 2: And when when.
Speaker 1: You hear those kind of guys giving you the love
Speaker 1: and praise you deserve, how does that make you feel.
Speaker 3: On some level mission accomplished? And then you know, it's
Speaker 3: like a bittersweet because like I got almost all the
Speaker 3: way to the finish line, and I think that's the
Speaker 3: that's the thing that I have to live through in
Speaker 3: this life.
Speaker 2: Like the part that.
Speaker 3: Didn't work at the end that I was doing everything for,
Speaker 3: you know, and I still deal today. I tell people,
Speaker 3: you know, the mental health is real because I battle daily.
Speaker 3: You know, every day is different, but I start my
Speaker 3: day parting to myself, so I can, you know, uh,
Speaker 3: expel a lot of that negative, negative vibration.
Speaker 1: Well let's let's let's dig into that, because I you know,
Speaker 1: obviously I think you know, mental health when we were
Speaker 1: coming up with and something that was talked about, it
Speaker 1: was tough enough and do what the fuck you gotta do.
Speaker 1: And I think athletes over the life last five years
Speaker 1: have kind of brought that mental health conversation to platforms
Speaker 1: and allowed other people to say, like, hey, I'm not okay.
Speaker 1: You know, athletes to make millions of dollars. People who
Speaker 1: didn't make it, we all have some sort of struggle.
Speaker 1: Where are you at with that? Like I said, it's
Speaker 1: daily battle. Are you at peace with it? Some days
Speaker 1: you are, some days you are like walkings through that process.
Speaker 1: I think, as the most on a daily basis, I'm
Speaker 1: good with where I am in my life. I'm comfortable
Speaker 1: with my skin.
Speaker 3: You know, I've been through my toughest challenges after finishing
Speaker 3: up player. You know that transition is like a whole
Speaker 3: nother life. It's like a rebook, you know. So I
Speaker 3: had to let the old me die. I don't have
Speaker 3: those basketball conversations with people unless they ask those questions.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: My whole life now is about service, helping the community,
Speaker 3: giving back to our kids and beyond. And that's more
Speaker 3: rewarding than the money that I received. And it's like,
Speaker 3: because I know that I'm impacted making people better underneath you, younger.
Speaker 1: Generations with such a historical start, how hard is that
Speaker 1: to put that all behind you? Like I see when
Speaker 1: you feel like it wasn't finished.
Speaker 3: Right, It's a daily battle with the mind. Right, It's
Speaker 3: how we feel about ourselves. It's not what everybody else
Speaker 3: says about it. So I always say I got to
Speaker 3: check my ego at the door every day when I
Speaker 3: leave and when I come home again. But home is
Speaker 3: a sextuary. You build yourself up so you can battle
Speaker 3: when you leave. So the whole thing for me today
Speaker 3: is about my service and helping kids so they can
Speaker 3: avoid some of these stays that I had to go
Speaker 3: through because in my career I felt like I was
Speaker 3: exploited rather than being built up, you know, and supported.
Speaker 2: Inglewood growing up in Inglewood.
Speaker 4: You talk about not having a childhood, I know firsthand
Speaker 4: you didn't have a childhood. I mean the big to
Speaker 4: be a good star and the worldwide national kick player.
Speaker 2: He was at twelve years old.
Speaker 4: I'm being on a Sports illustrator as a freshman in
Speaker 4: high school. That's kind of hard for anybody to understand.
Speaker 4: So talk about, you know, being a start at such
Speaker 4: a young age and not really having a childhood.
Speaker 3: That's a great, great point. I mean it was like
Speaker 3: basically a traveling rock band. You know, I'm a rock star,
Speaker 3: where my team was the rock group. Everywhere we went,
Speaker 3: you know, we sold out games. I mean twelve thirteen
Speaker 3: years old, I was already known on ESPN, Scholassic Sports America, SSA,
Speaker 3: and Sunk his Kids.
Speaker 2: That was pre social media era.
Speaker 3: With all this stuff today, people got to realize that
Speaker 3: it's been diluted now because it's everywhere. Back then, it
Speaker 3: was only a few outlets, you know, Street and Smith, ESPN,
Speaker 3: Student Sports Magazine, Cal High Sports, you know, Parade Magazine.
Speaker 3: There was only a few platforms that we were aiming for.
Speaker 3: When I got to Sports Illustrated, it was like, I'm
Speaker 3: fifteen years old, where do I.
Speaker 2: Go from here?
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. And everybody else has grown
Speaker 3: up to around and I'm a kid. My dad didn't who,
Speaker 3: my mom didn't who. It was just me and my brother,
Speaker 3: my Aulmos played football. The rest of them was in
Speaker 3: the streets. And I'm like, they graduated to the NBA
Speaker 3: and in the streets, and I'm working on this thing
Speaker 3: in the basketball room, and I'm saying to myself, I've
Speaker 3: been to I don't know, twenty different states, timeout sixteen,
Speaker 3: all from player basketball.
Speaker 1: But what's different is when we came up, there was
Speaker 1: only a handful of names you knew. Like now you
Speaker 1: know everyone because it's social media, but there was only
Speaker 1: certain names you knew, and most of the time you
Speaker 1: didn't know how good people was until you got to
Speaker 1: play with him. You know, Now social media you got
Speaker 1: highlights with kids that are losing games and still putting
Speaker 1: up highlight. But Shade was one of the names you heard,
Speaker 1: like Shae and you know Lester Earle, and you know
Speaker 1: the handful of dudes you would hear about. But but
Speaker 1: you were definitely one of them. Like he said, it
Speaker 1: wasn't there wasn't a ton of outlets to have that
Speaker 1: kind of exposure at that time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely a lot of other guys. I think about Ronnie Fields.
Speaker 3: Ronnie feels out of Chicago. You know, Zion's a great leaper,
Speaker 3: but Ronnie, he jumped grace from that and with y'all too,
Speaker 3: with y'all to, he had a fifty, never worked on
Speaker 3: his legs. So I talked to him. We got close
Speaker 3: to the Boston shootout after he had his h his accident,
Speaker 3: he was putting the Halo and came back and played
Speaker 3: again and was dunking with the Halo on exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Halo World was still dunk it just a different breed,
Speaker 3: you know. Paul McPherson another one in Chicago than two guys.
Speaker 3: Those are some high flyers. So every city at that
Speaker 3: time when we was coming out as Thoroughbridge, probably three
Speaker 3: or four guys that could play at the highest level.
Speaker 3: But it's a numbers game. Everybody's not gonna make it.
Speaker 3: And you know, I didn't foresee this part of my
Speaker 3: career and then like this, But I'm glad I was
Speaker 3: afflicted because I wouldn't be the man that I am today.
Speaker 3: He started off with Easton Washington, they moved initially start
Speaker 3: with PTI.
Speaker 2: What made pt I so good? Great? Question yourself. Well,
Speaker 2: after I.
Speaker 3: Dropped forty on them playing with the Crito's Jaguars, shout
Speaker 3: out to Joe Perry. Pat Barry had to have me
Speaker 3: and we were practicing. I came down to a workout.
Speaker 3: He invited me to a Woodbridge High school where Chris
Speaker 3: Burgers went there, and it was just fell like home.
Speaker 3: And I had the training opportunity with Marvar Enovich rest
Speaker 3: in Peace tis Dad, and I just propelled to another level.
Speaker 3: I took my athleticism and my commitment with their training
Speaker 3: in that system, with the program, and it just went
Speaker 3: to all.
Speaker 1: And what age were you training? Because he got I
Speaker 1: think Marve got a lot of slack or flack the
Speaker 1: way he tried to train his son. But when I
Speaker 1: was watching your dow con saw that you worked with him,
Speaker 1: it started to make sense. I'm like, oh, that's what
Speaker 1: he was working with. So at what age was that
Speaker 1: and how fast did you see results?
Speaker 3: I started at twelve and took off. I locked him
Speaker 3: with Marv until I was about sixteen years old, so
Speaker 3: a good four year run. And I mean I just
Speaker 3: I put everything I had at it, you know, and
Speaker 3: he was a no nonsense and I like my mob.
Speaker 3: So it worked good for me because it was a
Speaker 3: good culture and it was more of a one on
Speaker 3: one It be me, Edo Bannon, my brother, Charles Oband
Speaker 3: and Todd Ridovich, guys like that. I see Troy Polamalu
Speaker 3: at different times. I mean he was training the elite guys.
Speaker 3: So everybody talked about Grover and what he did with Jordan.
Speaker 3: I said, the best trainer to me is mart Ridovidge.
Speaker 3: You know, Michael Jordan made Grover at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, Marv turned athletes in the specimens.
Speaker 2: Of them for the name man Child.
Speaker 3: Uh, I'll give him, I'll give him, Yeah, I'll give
Speaker 3: him Marshall. Yeah, some of that I gotta have to
Speaker 3: you know who your mother have to the Good Lord.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. And that work you know
Speaker 3: in that DNA my props gave me so rest in peace.
Speaker 3: It's just a combination of things. It takes a village,
Speaker 3: you know, And at that time, I think our opportunities
Speaker 3: were scarce, so we took it more seriously appreciated the gift.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of guys now take it for
Speaker 3: granted and they play like they got tomorrow and that'll
Speaker 3: always work out.
Speaker 2: Don't work out like that.
Speaker 4: Regardless how much success you have. At some point in life,
Speaker 4: something's gonna hit you to make you understand it. I
Speaker 4: don't care what you're going through, how rich you are.
Speaker 4: Something that everybody deal with life, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: And something in life is gonna make you sit back
Speaker 4: and have to either sit down and just and just
Speaker 4: wait to guard reveal something to you, or uh change
Speaker 4: change your life in the drastic way. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, because it could go south for anybody. Case
Speaker 4: Swiss game.
Speaker 3: Talk about that against Pete with Paul and Kin about it.
Speaker 3: I was in summer school. I wasn't even at the tournament.
Speaker 3: I got a call and you coach hit me. It
Speaker 3: was like we need you, you know.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: They was flying KG in. You know, Paul played with
Speaker 3: I think Baron was on a younger team. So Tremaine
Speaker 3: Term was on that team, and they had a couple
Speaker 3: other guys, but you know, Paul and KG was the attraction.
Speaker 3: I flew in, caught a flight I think that night,
Speaker 3: came in. We played that next morning. I can't remember
Speaker 3: what time the game was. Jim was packed, you whatever,
Speaker 3: North Gym. It's probably almost three thousand people, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. I saw every D one main coach
Speaker 3: from Roy Williams to lud Olsen, Jim Harrick, John Thompson,
Speaker 3: all the biggest in the game at that time was
Speaker 3: front row. So to me, it was about I just
Speaker 3: got to shorting prove I was already locked in, you know.
Speaker 3: It was I knew the calling that I had, the
Speaker 3: gift that I was playing with, and I understood the
Speaker 3: terms that I was under. There was a lot of
Speaker 3: adults hovering around me, and I didn't have no nights off.
Speaker 3: I couldn't, so when I was hurt or I wasn't
Speaker 3: feeling good, if I'm lacing up, I gotta I gotta
Speaker 3: lay it out there. And that was my own mentality.
Speaker 3: I can't save everybody, but I'm gonna come and play
Speaker 3: my game and then hopefully the rest of my team
Speaker 3: rise to the occasion. Well, that night, the rest of
Speaker 3: the squad was kind of flat. I think I dropped
Speaker 3: almost forty. I had about thirty eight, So I felt
Speaker 3: like I did what I needed to do. If I
Speaker 3: would have got a little healthy probably would have won.
Speaker 3: And think we lost by like eight. But I mean
Speaker 3: that night I saw a guy play against my guy
Speaker 3: and do thanks to him that I hadn't seen nobody
Speaker 3: else do. And that's Kevin Garnett playing against our big
Speaker 3: And I'm saying to myself, like, this dude is special
Speaker 3: two you know. I mean he's blocking cook shots and
Speaker 3: mid air, you know, cuffing it, yelling at the wall
Speaker 3: like and he loose too, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So it was one of those things. But you know,
Speaker 3: shout out the big ticket. That competitive drive, that's what
Speaker 3: I miss more than anything in that era.
Speaker 2: There's a golden there. I don't know if we've ever
Speaker 2: seen anything like that again.
Speaker 3: I think it was the last of the realness in
Speaker 3: basketball with people laid it on the line. There was
Speaker 3: professionals and we didn't make excuses count.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Dogs, it was dogs in every state. What do
Speaker 4: you we came up here the AA you seying together?
Speaker 4: What do you think of the AU see now very
Speaker 4: watered down. I think people are unrealistic. Parents live too
Speaker 4: much through their kids, make it a job too early.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they need to parents stop trying to be
Speaker 3: coaching parent, Let the coach do this thing. Just be
Speaker 3: a parent, come support the kid. And if you haven't
Speaker 3: done where you're kids trying to go, then just be
Speaker 3: quiet and put somebody in place that has done it
Speaker 3: to help them and let them do their job. I
Speaker 3: think that's part of it. It's too much hovering over
Speaker 3: the kids. They're making them a commodity, way too young,
Speaker 3: and they don't know what they're setting them up for,
Speaker 3: setting them up for failure. Everybody's not gonna be able
Speaker 3: to rebound. I'm blessed to be here. I almost took
Speaker 3: my life and it's real. People see me and they
Speaker 3: see me smiling, put a new fit on, gain the cut,
Speaker 3: and they think I'm good, But I'm really dying inside.
Speaker 3: It's how we handle the hell. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: That's where you know who you are. When everything falls
Speaker 3: apart around you, what are you doing? Then you're still
Speaker 3: showing up, coming early, staying late. That's what I'm about.
Speaker 3: You know, when the bottle's falling out, you're still doing
Speaker 3: your thing, or you point blame and making excuses.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, I got a Tupac quote on me
Speaker 1: that says dying inside, But outside, I'm looking fearless, and
Speaker 1: I think so many people live that way. You can't
Speaker 1: tell that I've been through hell because I'm still here.
Speaker 1: I'm standing here, I'm smiling, I'm doing my job. Also,
Speaker 1: I think another thing in AU, because I'm coaching my
Speaker 1: kids now, is when we came up in AU, it
Speaker 1: was only the best players. Now, if a kid doesn't play,
Speaker 1: his dad can start his own AAU program. And that's
Speaker 1: where there's just there's the Gold Division, the Bronze Division,
Speaker 1: the Silver Division, the pending, like there's so many different
Speaker 1: divisions instead of so like you said, it's really really
Speaker 1: really watered down, and then these false expectations that every
Speaker 1: parent think their kid is going, and now every kid
Speaker 1: thinks they're going. So it's just like it's a thin
Speaker 1: line between reality and truth when it comes to AU now,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely unfortunate.
Speaker 4: But they don't they don't they didn't know how well
Speaker 4: today they don't know how to separate being cool off.
Speaker 2: The court and on the court.
Speaker 3: Like we we was together off the court doing everything,
Speaker 3: but on the court we did not know each other,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, And we understood it.
Speaker 2: It could be something.
Speaker 3: It could be some disrespectful things said, some elbows or something,
Speaker 3: but on that court, that's all we knew. Even though
Speaker 3: our fuck with you, you're not feeling embarrassed me out here.
Speaker 3: I got to get the best of you, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. And we did that with a passion. Bro.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. I think that's what's lost
Speaker 2: today of the competitive spirit, the.
Speaker 3: Attitude of it's me or nothing, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I gotta take advantage of this opportunity. They are too
Speaker 3: small and it's too many situations where if they don't work,
Speaker 3: it's okay, you still can make it. Just like in music,
Speaker 3: you don't have to make a dope album to get
Speaker 3: dope album money, you know what I'm saying. And that's
Speaker 3: just in basketball. You don't have to work harder be
Speaker 3: that player. You can just have to have ten great
Speaker 3: highlights on social media. Now you're one of the best
Speaker 3: players in the country, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 3: I hate that aspect of it. Now, the work part,
Speaker 3: the actual grind part, to really come from it part,
Speaker 3: it's not respecting no more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they don't show you that. They only want
Speaker 2: to show you the beginning of the end. People don't
Speaker 2: show the process, and if they showed the process of
Speaker 2: how the elite get to become the elite, they would
Speaker 2: respect the game a lot more. You see a lot
Speaker 2: of these kids today. They watch everything here. They're good
Speaker 2: on the phone, the computer, but communication skills, lacking the art,
Speaker 2: lacking accountability, lacking like you know what I mean, I
Speaker 2: queue the whole deal, the hunger, lacking what you're gonna do.
Speaker 3: When somebody chug you real quick, they put some wood
Speaker 3: on your chest, bust you in, them out what you're
Speaker 3: gonna do. Then it's a real fight. When you get hit, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's when you know what you got. So I came
Speaker 3: up in that era. I was getting beat up by
Speaker 3: my brother every day, two and a half years old,
Speaker 3: always playing against his peers, having to hold my skills.
Speaker 2: I couldn't complain, I couldn't call no. I was lucky
Speaker 2: to be on the court. Now, fast forward fifteen, I'm
Speaker 2: playing with magic and you sell a man's north men's
Speaker 2: gym and I'm the only high school guy in the gym.
Speaker 2: Everybody else the NBA players. Grant Healing is prime.
Speaker 3: Eddie Jones and his prime Kenny Anderson is prime magic
Speaker 3: and he still had a lot of fuel your tank
Speaker 3: and I'm running with on his team. I'm walking to
Speaker 3: Jim Helan magic holl that I got cont I like, man,
Speaker 3: I'm on my way in my head, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. So forth the rug to be, you know,
Speaker 3: pooled like that and I land on my face. And
Speaker 3: that was probably the hardest thing because the embarrassment, the disappointment,
Speaker 3: and the level of betrayal that I felt, you know,
Speaker 3: from the people that I trusted in that exposed me
Speaker 3: and explored me for money when I wasn't getting paid.
Speaker 3: Everybody thought I was getting paid. I just had a
Speaker 3: direct line of Nike. I had everything they made, but
Speaker 3: I wasn't getting no money. But now in today's ere
Speaker 3: with nil, I think it's great what they're doing, but
Speaker 3: they don't realize who helped make that possible, right. A
Speaker 3: lot of guys in our generation right made this nil
Speaker 3: thing possible. Things that was mishandled in my career with
Speaker 3: Dan C two A made a lot of this possible
Speaker 3: stuff that happened with Ed being exposed with his jersey sales.
Speaker 2: And things like that.
Speaker 3: So certain players helped pave the way for the nil
Speaker 3: now and I'm glad that they're getting this. This should
Speaker 3: have happened a long time ago.
Speaker 1: You know. Obviously now being older and wiser, you feel
Speaker 1: you understood that you were being exploited. How old were
Speaker 1: you when you understood it in the moment that you
Speaker 1: were being kind of taken advantage of and paraded around
Speaker 1: And it wasn't necessarily about you, but it's about what
Speaker 1: you can do for someone else, an older person.
Speaker 3: Great question. I think sportsially straight ahead, that was like
Speaker 3: the good grade. Yeah, that was the pinnacle. I mean,
Speaker 3: I was already nationally known before that, but that was
Speaker 3: just kind of like, where else do I go from here?
Speaker 3: This was our biggest platform, And I'm looking around like
Speaker 3: I gotta stay humble. I gotta stay closer to people
Speaker 3: that loved me, and that's going to tell me what
Speaker 3: was best for me, rather than what I want to hear,
Speaker 3: because everybody wants to stroke you at that point just
Speaker 3: to say they know you can get close to you
Speaker 3: and all that. So that was a challenge. But my
Speaker 3: father did a good job of keeping me humble because
Speaker 3: I did construction with him in the summer.
Speaker 2: Me and my brother you know.
Speaker 3: I value a dollar and I treated people with empathy
Speaker 3: and compassion.
Speaker 2: One thing I.
Speaker 1: Got from your documentary was your foundation with your family.
Speaker 1: How instrumental was your mom And like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: rest in peace to your pops. And then your big
Speaker 1: brother had already kind of set the you know, paved
Speaker 1: the way somewhat in the basketball space for you. But
Speaker 1: what was it like with having a solid foundation around you,
Speaker 1: because you had so much shit in then early age
Speaker 1: to speak to how your family kept you humbled and
Speaker 1: you touched on in a second ago.
Speaker 2: That was big.
Speaker 3: I mean my mother was more about you know, education
Speaker 3: and taking care of our responsibilities, treating people with you know,
Speaker 3: respect and dignity, look at people in the eyes, stuff
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: And my father was stern. He was more of a
Speaker 2: leader by example. He didn't talk as much.
Speaker 3: I always felt he was a little closer to my
Speaker 3: brother because of the age gap, and I think the
Speaker 3: similarities with personality, and come to find out, when he assed,
Speaker 3: I was his eyes and he shared that with me
Speaker 3: before he closed his eyes. So that hit me and
Speaker 3: it moved me in a different way. But the component
Speaker 3: of mom and dad at home at night made all
Speaker 3: the difference in the world because I had a cousin
Speaker 3: I grew up with. When I became one of the
Speaker 3: top players in North America, he became one of the
Speaker 3: most infamous gang bangs in the street and did probably
Speaker 3: fifteen years, you know, maximum prison, four yard, and got
Speaker 3: a name in the street still today that ring bells,
Speaker 3: just like I did in the basketball world. So and
Speaker 3: that's just choices we grew up. We was doing a
Speaker 3: lot of the same things. It came to a fork
Speaker 3: in the road. I said, well, I got a choice
Speaker 3: to make. I know, if I go over there, this
Speaker 3: basketball thing could change real fast. So I loved the game.
Speaker 3: I made sacrifices and I said, you know what, you guys,
Speaker 3: go do that. I'm gonna do this. And that's part
Speaker 3: of being a leader, you know. And that came in
Speaker 3: my house. My father taught me and my brother be
Speaker 3: a man, you know, be accountable me and what you're saying,
Speaker 3: say what you mean. And that's something that is a
Speaker 3: lost dark I think today. The integrity, the accountability aspect,
Speaker 3: and you know, just with mother and father in the
Speaker 3: house for black males makes all the difference in the world.
Speaker 3: If you're lucky to have that, or if you got
Speaker 3: one parent that's investing in you and that's got your back,
Speaker 3: you still may have a chance. Without that, it's hard.
Speaker 3: All the pressures, you know, the pure pressure you got,
Speaker 3: the disappointment you got, everybody pulling at you. I mean,
Speaker 3: when I'm fifteen, sixteen years old, I could have been
Speaker 3: driving any car I wanted. You know, I had offers
Speaker 3: to get a brand new house, going into high school
Speaker 3: as a freshman with two cars.
Speaker 2: Paid for all, a brand new house as what as a.
Speaker 3: Freshman going into high school with two pink slips on
Speaker 3: the cars, okay, with the deed to the house, not like, oh,
Speaker 3: you're gonna be paying rent. No, we're gonna gift this
Speaker 3: to you. I'm saying to myself, I don't come from
Speaker 3: this world. My parents didn't teach me how to just
Speaker 3: take for people. It was all about earning your keep.
Speaker 3: So I always looked at it like, well, if you
Speaker 3: give me something for nothing, there's yeah, there you go,
Speaker 3: there's strings of that motive. Yeah, And I don't wanted.
Speaker 3: So I'm glad that I was afflicted. I hate that
Speaker 3: I had to go through all of these channels to
Speaker 3: be here, because it almost took my life, right, But
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm here today to help a lot
Speaker 3: of other people save their lives too. Touch on the
Speaker 3: men's gym. We're actually doing a doc on the men's
Speaker 3: gym UCLA Men's Gym. But you're coming in there fifteen
Speaker 3: years old, running with Magic, Penny a King, who's who
Speaker 3: used to come to LA in the summertime?
Speaker 2: And Ron.
Speaker 1: But as a young teenager, what were some of those
Speaker 1: games like and how did you stand?
Speaker 2: How did you feel against those guys? Man?
Speaker 3: I used to look forward to it. I mean, I
Speaker 3: didn't care how much I had to train, workout. I
Speaker 3: couldn't wait the group. I knew it was gonna be
Speaker 3: a test. Every time we got there, it'd be a
Speaker 3: different NBA guy. And I'm gonna be facing in my position.
Speaker 3: I'm mean, you talk Eddie Jones and his prime with
Speaker 3: the Lake Show, with Magic Sadel, Three's that whole team,
Speaker 3: Nick Van Exel, Elden Campbell and that's right. And then
Speaker 3: you had like grand Hill with his prime before he
Speaker 3: had the knee injuries. You know, Kenny Anderson, he was
Speaker 3: still playing at a high level. I'm facing all these
Speaker 3: guys and I'm like, I can remember running the running
Speaker 3: the wing. I think Magic had the rock in the middle.
Speaker 3: He kicked it up to me. It was me and
Speaker 3: Grant Hill the foot race, and I was closing it
Speaker 3: from the left side, and I think he thought I
Speaker 3: was gonna let it up, so he tried to like
Speaker 3: swipe it. He tried to run by me and cut
Speaker 3: me off and swipe it low. I just wrapped it
Speaker 3: with around his body and dunk that thing. He kind
Speaker 3: of looked at him, you know what I'm saying, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm here. Yes, it It's just one of those
Speaker 3: things I had to show a prove because I was
Speaker 3: the only high school player in the gym.
Speaker 2: Everybody else's NBA guys, and I'm playing with Magic.
Speaker 1: Because you're speaking high school like you're a young high
Speaker 1: school like you're fifteen years old, right, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Like we played a sixteen year old eighth
Speaker 1: grade of this this year in au You know what
Speaker 1: I mean, You're a fifteen year old freshman playing against
Speaker 1: grown as he looked.
Speaker 2: Too, Yeah what I mean. He actual he's a baby though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're really a baby in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 1: and to get out to really do your thing, do
Speaker 1: you ever get a chance to work with any of
Speaker 1: those guys outside of themnstam any pros and you worked
Speaker 1: with coming.
Speaker 3: Up or coffee with KD a little bit early with
Speaker 3: KG Yeah, kdran he came out and worked with him
Speaker 3: a little bit behind the scenes, but Harrison Bards a
Speaker 3: little bit. A lot of college guys behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: you know, at all different levels, and hand pick high
Speaker 3: school players because I don't like dealing with all the
Speaker 3: guys because the energy, if it's not right, if your
Speaker 3: mind is up here, I'm not even gonna waste my
Speaker 3: time because in my mind, like you have no idea
Speaker 3: what it was like when I was playing it would happen,
Speaker 3: and how humbling it can become.
Speaker 2: So you can be here and they built you up
Speaker 2: to do what to tear you out, So stay in
Speaker 2: the middle. Summer ninety five, you play against Code? What
Speaker 2: was that like? What was that game? Like? Man?
Speaker 3: Rest in peace? First and foremost NBA players can't priss
Speaker 3: in New Jersey one of the first they did a
Speaker 3: NBPA top one hundred. Heard a lot about him going
Speaker 3: into the camp. I was already nationally known. Kobe was
Speaker 3: rising at that time. I think he was a junior
Speaker 3: that summer and we really we really went at it.
Speaker 3: We had a meeting that night before in the mess hall.
Speaker 3: Everybody sat down and ate in the cafeteria and you know,
Speaker 3: everybody's kind of sharing stories and we started drawing back
Speaker 3: and forth. The East West thing. You know, it was
Speaker 3: at a high at tension with Biggie in Pox. So
Speaker 3: Kobe was feeling good. That's a choice words for me.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm staying and you know the big
Speaker 3: boot that I am, I've been right back and you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to get in all that part of it.
Speaker 3: But we really got after it when we played each other.
Speaker 3: In my head, I was like, he's the one that's
Speaker 3: standing in front of me right now. Everybody else. I
Speaker 3: feel like I was doing what I need to do.
Speaker 3: I wanted to really show him that he wasn't better
Speaker 3: than me because I felt like the East Coast always
Speaker 3: got the knock in the West never really got to respect.
Speaker 3: So for me, I had like the coast on my back.
Speaker 3: It was me and I think the Collins twins one
Speaker 3: of those guys that was there. Nobody else was from
Speaker 3: California in the whole camp. I left the camp with
Speaker 3: a lot more respect than I did when I got
Speaker 3: there and me and Kobe went at it. It was
Speaker 3: my best one on one matchup I probably ever had,
Speaker 3: next to Metoworld piece as far as from a competitive aspect,
Speaker 3: coming every play, every possession, I taking, no playoff, playing
Speaker 3: it all the way to you know, I go with him,
Speaker 3: he coming right back, and then yeah, it was no accident.
Speaker 3: I said, man, this is what it's about. This is
Speaker 3: what you trained for, prepare for it to be played
Speaker 3: at that that high.
Speaker 2: School and crazy talking.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, non stop, yeah, non stop. I'm going out
Speaker 3: now what yeah yeah, uh huh yeah. The West coast
Speaker 3: can go too, you know what I'm saying. So it
Speaker 3: was about that.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 3: It wasn't oh, I'm from the western from the East.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, it don't matter where you come from.
Speaker 3: You gotta show me right that I'm from Missouri, from
Speaker 3: the show me state. You know, you gotta you gotta
Speaker 3: line it up. So in that aspect, would NB he
Speaker 3: ate top one hundred. I think Bobby Dantriss was there.
Speaker 3: He was running at Darnielle Valentine was my counselor and
Speaker 3: he happened to play with the Clippers. And I grew
Speaker 3: up watching them in the sports run before they built
Speaker 3: the Staples, And I told him, I said, man, that
Speaker 3: crew you guys played with, you guys was tough as nails.
Speaker 3: It was a different era. So I learned a lot
Speaker 3: of tricks from that era too. So when I played
Speaker 3: against Kobe, I was a lot stronger than he was.
Speaker 3: He was more of a jump shooter at that time,
Speaker 3: and I would mix it up. I go inside and out,
Speaker 3: and it was just physically. I think it was too
Speaker 3: much for him. Over time, I got the better hand
Speaker 3: of him. We had a hell of a matchup, but
Speaker 3: on that day I was better.
Speaker 2: Did you guys stay in contact after that?
Speaker 3: Every time we see each other in the summer. We
Speaker 3: always somehow see each other in the summer, like at
Speaker 3: Venice or you know, around La and stuff. He would
Speaker 3: always acknowledge make time to chop it up. So he
Speaker 3: never big timing, which I respected him. I think that
Speaker 3: was a bond that we shared. He never really spoke
Speaker 3: on it. He stayed quiet, but people would always ask me.
Speaker 3: That's the only reason why I would talk about it,
Speaker 3: because my whole thing is I'm not into showing people up.
Speaker 2: But I got to tell the truth. When somebody asked
Speaker 2: a question.
Speaker 1: The Nike All American Camp big names, Alan Iverson, Esteban
Speaker 1: we were the name a few. What were those matchups?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Great question? Also as the Bonn Weaver Columbus O House
Speaker 3: supposed to have been the main guy out there, six
Speaker 3: or four point guard. You know, he could do a
Speaker 3: little bit of everything, like a like a magic throwback
Speaker 3: more or less. Uh. We played each other at Nike Camp,
Speaker 3: and I remember playing against him, went right around like
Speaker 3: he was standing still. I remember one of the clipses
Speaker 3: in the tape, top of the key hit him with
Speaker 3: the right jabb.
Speaker 2: Anderewverdonald lame Boom dunked it like he wasn't even standing there.
Speaker 3: So at that point I think he knew, like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I can't guard this dude.
Speaker 2: So he was switching off and doing some creative defensive
Speaker 2: taxis and created it, you know, from that end. But
Speaker 2: we still talk to this day.
Speaker 3: You know, good people shout out there, esterbon In some
Speaker 3: of these other guys you mentioned another another name. I
Speaker 3: missed him. Freshman year, my math teacher coach ikes that
Speaker 3: modern day gave me a gave me a d had
Speaker 3: to had to repeat a class. Really, so I had
Speaker 3: to go to I had to go to summer school
Speaker 3: as a freshman. I would have been at that Nike
Speaker 3: camp with a I on TV Elujimi Lujami Man played
Speaker 3: in that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who yeah, it's another one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the That was the guard before Beard,
Speaker 3: before Jason Hard Yeah, illugim Man was the guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you talk about mother and father in the
Speaker 2: house doing right by your kid.
Speaker 3: If they would have had him buckled down academically, he
Speaker 3: would have played the U C l A. Things might
Speaker 3: have been a lot different because LA offered him like
Speaker 3: seventh eighth grade. So I want people to understand that. Yeah, Elluximi. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but this is a game that people don't talk about Vegas.
Speaker 3: You would get Mike Baby shout the mount You had
Speaker 3: about fifty Mike had about forty five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a crazy game. I was okay, we
Speaker 2: playing that time. Oh you remember?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that was crazy and a lot of people
Speaker 3: that was a game that people need to talk about more.
Speaker 2: Mike was a problem.
Speaker 3: He scored so many different ways. Hell of a competitor
Speaker 3: just kept coming. We didn't have an answer for him
Speaker 3: at the guard position, and they couldn't hold me at
Speaker 3: my spot.
Speaker 2: So we were just going better than now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean this is I think a holiday
Speaker 3: Classic in Vegas around Christmas time and it was one
Speaker 3: of the biggest tournaments at the time of year. So
Speaker 3: the gym was four thousand people passed. I mean every
Speaker 3: gym we played in it was sold out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: At MO day freshman year, I think we lost one
Speaker 3: game with thirty three and one lost to Krinshaw and
Speaker 3: going to go to state. Should have won that game,
Speaker 3: got cheated. That's a whole other thing. Followed me out
Speaker 3: two three phantom calls. I love you, Chris Johnson. You
Speaker 3: know they cheated, you know, but just the erab, I
Speaker 3: missed the bond, the brotherhood that we had. You can't
Speaker 3: capture that nowhere. And I would always say, what's life
Speaker 3: going to be back after basketball? What it's challenging because
Speaker 3: you feel disconnected from the world some level speak.
Speaker 1: To at a young age. The one thing I heard
Speaker 1: when everyone talked about you, you get a chance to see
Speaker 1: you play, seeing film, you showed up every game. The
Speaker 1: consistency for you at a young age, where some guys
Speaker 1: are going like this, you were consistent and speak to
Speaker 1: what you contribute that to.
Speaker 3: Just to work at facing facing my fears, daring to
Speaker 3: be great, you know, uh, coming early, standing, like training
Speaker 3: with my brother, training with Marv, doing stuff on my own,
Speaker 3: you know, jump a rope, running the dunes. Uh donkey
Speaker 3: calf phrases. Uh, me and my brother, what's donkey calf raising?
Speaker 3: Put someone on your back? We put somebody, Put somebody
Speaker 3: on your back, and you lean over like you you
Speaker 3: did them.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but you got.
Speaker 3: To go all the way up and all the way down,
Speaker 3: all the way up on the tippies back down. You
Speaker 3: got to get those fires at the end where it
Speaker 3: feels like it's cheering, so you get that fast, twisted united.
Speaker 3: So it was things I was doing at a young age.
Speaker 3: And then you know, calisthetic training to pull up, push up,
Speaker 3: dip circuits and doing stuff for my cousins, getting locked up,
Speaker 3: coming home, showing me a little tactics to get stronger,
Speaker 3: get bigger, faster without having to take creat team and
Speaker 3: all these things. So I attributed to the work ethic
Speaker 3: man and I just had the discipline and encourage to
Speaker 3: show when I got on the court. A lot of
Speaker 3: people play well in practice and then training, but they
Speaker 3: getting the game and another translator reason, Yeah, the lights
Speaker 3: get big all of a sudden, the lights the lights
Speaker 3: is the same whititch, but all of a sudden, you
Speaker 3: can't hit the shot, you can't hit the front throw,
Speaker 3: You're missing layers.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I can't teach that part of now, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like at a young age, which is hard especially to do.
Speaker 2: Now you fell in love with the process.
Speaker 3: I did, Yeah, And I love the game because I
Speaker 3: didn't want to do construction. I hated that so much.
Speaker 2: I understand was that part.
Speaker 3: But I knew my father was teaching me at the
Speaker 3: same time he was teaching me work, ethic and accountability.
Speaker 3: You know, I love them to death, you know, God
Speaker 3: bless rest his soul. But I see now this helping
Speaker 3: me in my fight in this thing we call life,
Speaker 3: you know, with the hardships and the travesties I had
Speaker 3: to endure to help a lot of other people. And
Speaker 3: I did the hard work on myself, pouring into me.
Speaker 3: Instead of being bitter than scarred, I chose to be better,
Speaker 3: you know, because after I chose not to take my life,
Speaker 3: I started thinking about what do I want to do now?
Speaker 3: What is the next phase in my life going to
Speaker 3: look like. You know, I don't want to be the
Speaker 3: guy talking about what I used to do at the
Speaker 3: barbershop and things like that. So you know, I took
Speaker 3: a different approach. I said, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 3: to help the kids coming up so they don't have
Speaker 3: to go through what I went through, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to do right by then work wrong was done by me.
Speaker 2: You mentioned taking your life a couple of times already,
Speaker 2: and I saw in your dog you had called your
Speaker 2: girl and you told her this time and explain for
Speaker 2: those who haven't seen the doc, what she told you
Speaker 2: and how that kind of flipped your switch. We had,
Speaker 2: we had a moment.
Speaker 3: I called her, handed three fifty seven up, pointed up
Speaker 3: to my head and I was just tired. Man.
Speaker 2: I didn't have no feeling at what it was now.
Speaker 2: I was probably.
Speaker 3: I was in Juco. I believe just finished Lovely City.
Speaker 3: I think I was going to Alabama. I was probably like.
Speaker 2: Twenty one, yeah, something like that, and.
Speaker 3: I just didn't want to feel no more. And I
Speaker 3: called her. I said, listen, I can't do this. You know,
Speaker 3: time is now. You know I can't do this life.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take my life. I don't I don't want
Speaker 3: to I don't want to live no more. And she said, well,
Speaker 3: if you're gonna do it, come get me. And it
Speaker 3: moved me in a different way. And I'm saying to myself, man,
Speaker 3: she got that much love for me where you'll sit
Speaker 3: there and.
Speaker 2: Go out with me.
Speaker 3: At the same time, I said, how many people would
Speaker 3: actually do that? So that hit me in a different way,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, well, maybe there's something else to this.
Speaker 3: And it kind of grabbed me like I don't know,
Speaker 3: like I don't know, like God just grabbed me at
Speaker 3: that time, like, don't do it. Put the pistol down,
Speaker 3: you know. I broke down, was crying. I was in
Speaker 3: my father's truck at the time, and then I wound
Speaker 3: up driving back to the house and I just sat
Speaker 3: in the front for some time. Nobody knew. My mother
Speaker 3: didn't notice for years. I mean, I think she found
Speaker 3: out during the film one of the screenings, you know,
Speaker 3: the details of what my mental health experiences was like.
Speaker 3: So but after that, I started thinking about reasons to live.
Speaker 3: So I tell people today, you gotta fight to live,
Speaker 3: you know, because it gets hard out here.
Speaker 2: You know, you leave your.
Speaker 3: House you're in a good mood, get on the freeway,
Speaker 3: somebody cut you off.
Speaker 2: You got a choice to make.
Speaker 3: You're gonna let them get your energy, or you're gonna
Speaker 3: keep your vibration high, or you're gonna try to run
Speaker 3: him down, and you know, get even and all of that.
Speaker 2: So I learned.
Speaker 3: I said, I have to focus on meditation, I gotta pray,
Speaker 3: and I gotta pour into myself with something positive. Every morning.
Speaker 3: I listened to Jim Rohn a lot. I was listening
Speaker 3: to Wayne Dyer this morning. A lot of people like this,
Speaker 3: doctor Miles Moreau rest in peace. Jim Ron passed away too,
Speaker 3: but he talked Tony Robbins, who's the biggest motivational speaker
Speaker 3: in the world. I mean a ton of knowledge. It
Speaker 3: reverts a lot of stuff back to the Bible, where
Speaker 3: it makes it real for me because I know how
Speaker 3: God showed up for me in the mental shootouts and
Speaker 3: people pulling pistols and things like that. And I remained
Speaker 3: calm under pressure because you have that reassurance that you
Speaker 3: know everybody's not gonna live forever. And sometimes bad things
Speaker 3: having to good people, but it's what you do after
Speaker 3: them is what's most important. It's not what happens, it's
Speaker 3: what you do.
Speaker 4: You were just talking about like things could happen and
Speaker 4: you could just leave your house with somebody can signs up.
Speaker 3: You've been through that, yep. A lot of people don't know.
Speaker 3: Can you talk about that? You talk about that? Yeah,
Speaker 3: last two and a half years. I mean, I got
Speaker 3: a bad accident. Got hit by a diesel, driving in
Speaker 3: my lane, minding my business, driving the speed limit, doing
Speaker 3: everything right. It was a decent pull in the water
Speaker 3: truck eighteen wheeler didn't even see me, clip me. I
Speaker 3: got hitched to his bumper, I mean, lifted my car
Speaker 3: up completely off the ground. I mean it was surreal,
Speaker 3: and I remained calm because God had his wings around
Speaker 3: me at that time, and I was able to regain
Speaker 3: control of the car, pulled the car off his bumper
Speaker 3: and pulled it to the shoulder, flagged him down, and
Speaker 3: then you know, I was in shock. They had to
Speaker 3: call the ambulance, went to the er. They told me, look,
Speaker 3: you're lucky about a half inch closer you did. It
Speaker 3: took about a year and a half two years to recover.
Speaker 3: I did a ton of physical therapy and aguculture, A
Speaker 3: lot of stretching and just going through my circuits and
Speaker 3: my training and being in the sauna a lot in praying, man,
Speaker 3: because it was scary when I couldn't really move, I'd
Speaker 3: stand up and I could barely walk. You know, you
Speaker 3: feel your joint, your back just felt locked up. You
Speaker 3: don't really understand the value of your faculties until certain
Speaker 3: things are taken away. So I tell people, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm upright, I'm whole, I'm healthy. That's a blessing in itself.
Speaker 3: Say you play anymore. I've exhausted my reperence.
Speaker 2: I mean it was crazy. You still look like you
Speaker 2: can play though, right down my REPERTI that's a good
Speaker 2: I'm gonna use that motherfucker. You got to think though, man,
Speaker 2: like we didn't.
Speaker 3: We done went through all kinds of ship through his
Speaker 3: his high school basketball career, right, and he experienced more
Speaker 3: stuff in high school. People experience lifetime of basketball. And
Speaker 3: we're talking here at twenty one. He's so he's dealing
Speaker 3: with so much pressure at twenty one and want to take.
Speaker 2: His life from basketball.
Speaker 3: That's why I say, it's nobody that I ever knew
Speaker 3: that went through so much was bigger in high school
Speaker 3: than this guy dog because nobody else was on the
Speaker 3: colose course this right as a pressure name somebody else right,
Speaker 3: So that that just it just it just bogged my
Speaker 3: mind when when we talk, we got through all that
Speaker 3: and he's talking about take your life, but he was
Speaker 3: just twenty one. Yeah, that's crazy, all this stuff you'd
Speaker 3: been through in that short time. Yeah, the pain, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, we're competitors, so you want to see a result.
Speaker 3: You want to see a return on your investment, and
Speaker 3: we don't get to return that you thought you was
Speaker 3: looking at. And now it's like, okay, well somebody got
Speaker 3: to pay. So how do you channel that frustration, that energy?
Speaker 3: You know, there there was an anger there. It was
Speaker 3: a rage inside of me for years and I had
Speaker 3: to deal with that. You know, nobody else could help me,
Speaker 3: No woman could help me through that. My parents could
Speaker 3: help me through that. My brother I said, man, this
Speaker 3: is tough. I got to a point in my life
Speaker 3: where I don't know what to do and everybody was
Speaker 3: looking at me like I had all the answers. And
Speaker 3: finally I got to a point, that breaking point where
Speaker 3: I could go this way completely or I could just surrender.
Speaker 3: So I chose the surrender, gave my life to the Lord,
Speaker 3: probably twenty years ago, wholeheartedly. Never looked back since, and
Speaker 3: my road has been more challenging, but it's worth it.
Speaker 3: And that's what I stand on college.
Speaker 4: He initially was trying to go to school with your
Speaker 4: brother at long Be Staate shot at James, that's the
Speaker 4: homie tool ended up Like you said, at Alabama, how
Speaker 4: all that happened? You're supposed to go to UCLA, like
Speaker 4: talk about that role to trying to get in school.
Speaker 3: Great question started at lower State my brother. We had
Speaker 3: some financial hardships at home. So my brother found out
Speaker 3: that he'd be mid lay first round kick idea if
Speaker 3: he was to come out.
Speaker 2: So we had a meeting. He had an agreement and
Speaker 2: he said, you.
Speaker 3: Know, we wanted to turn pro to help the family
Speaker 3: and achieve his dream, which he did, and I revisited
Speaker 3: my commitment. At the time of Lowry State, I felt
Speaker 3: like I could go bigger and I knew my talent
Speaker 3: deemed that opportunity and I always wanted to play at UCLA.
Speaker 3: I felt like it was the west coast, North Carolina,
Speaker 3: so it was an easy one for me and they
Speaker 3: were open arms you know. So when that happened, barren
Speaker 3: and early, and everybody had already committed and signed, so
Speaker 3: I was like the last one. So I was excited
Speaker 3: because I felt like we were a good team and
Speaker 3: we was final four boundary year and everything was all good.
Speaker 3: Went to u LA, enrolled in freshman FSP. We're doing workouts,
Speaker 3: getting ready for the quarter system. We go through our classes,
Speaker 3: getting my last my last in grades. One of my
Speaker 3: proctors came and handed me a newspaper and see twelve
Speaker 3: validates Cotton, say the score out the blue. You invalidated
Speaker 3: a score that was okay for Long Beech State. We
Speaker 3: wasn't okay for you, seal A. You tell me what
Speaker 3: hap And everybody looked at me like I was dumb,
Speaker 3: Like I did something that I wasn't supposed to be doing.
Speaker 3: Oh that's good for him. See that's that's what he gets.
Speaker 3: Like I said, you building luck to do what to
Speaker 3: tear him down and praise you for a little while,
Speaker 3: But as long as you don't succeed for too long,
Speaker 3: the hate gonna come. So it's how you deal with it. Right,
Speaker 3: So at that point, it was kind of like something
Speaker 3: they right, why is everybody else get to stay and
Speaker 3: I gotta leave. So I went from UCLA to you know,
Speaker 3: evaluating all my options, and I said, well, I didn't
Speaker 3: really want to go to JUCO. I always would look
Speaker 3: down on that. You know, why would I have to
Speaker 3: go to JUCO when I'm good enough to play D one.
Speaker 3: So I looked at the prep schools, went back east,
Speaker 3: looked at a few schools settled on Saint Thomas Moore.
Speaker 3: They had a rich tradition, you know.
Speaker 2: Devin R.
Speaker 3: D's head Koda Aju Din, one of my teammates, played there.
Speaker 3: Andre Drummond played in the NBA as well, and a
Speaker 3: bunch of other guys that played at a high level
Speaker 3: D one.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to cut you off, but you
Speaker 1: didn't cheat on your sat not at all. Explain what happened.
Speaker 1: My guidance counselor MSS Goodman recipes. Vicki Goidman sat in
Speaker 1: on my test. She prompted it.
Speaker 3: We were in like a like a guidance counselor room
Speaker 3: and it was just me and her. She sat directly
Speaker 3: across the table. I'm at one end, she's at the other,
Speaker 3: and just sat there. I had larger print. You were
Speaker 3: given at a little bit more time for my test.
Speaker 2: That was all it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I was diagnosed to add didn't realize that
Speaker 3: until I was in high school, and they just made
Speaker 3: an adjustment for me because I would freeze up when
Speaker 3: it came to test taking when I had a timement,
Speaker 3: So they made some adjustments.
Speaker 2: I was able to take the test.
Speaker 3: I passed the test on my third time, I believe,
Speaker 3: And it was like I cheated, and I'm saying to myself,
Speaker 3: how's that possible. I got my guidance counselor here all
Speaker 3: by myself. Yeah, all by myself, and she spoke to
Speaker 3: it in the film. But the problem is my name
Speaker 3: had been slandered in the media for so long everybody
Speaker 3: just believed it. Believe yeah, And this film came out
Speaker 3: way later, so the information now it is like Luke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I had me to cut you off.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make it because it was a bullshit,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And I don't want people
Speaker 1: to think, oh, he really did cheating, not like nah,
Speaker 1: he didn't. They just tried to fuck him over.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm a fun guy.
Speaker 3: I mean, somebody had to be the one to set
Speaker 3: the example. I wasn't taking the money. See if you
Speaker 3: take the money and now I have levers to get
Speaker 3: you into this space over here. But that was the
Speaker 3: biggest thing, and nobody owned me. I wasn't under nobody else.
Speaker 3: It was like my family was running the show. My
Speaker 3: pops was the one so and nobody was gonna go
Speaker 3: against that. So it was kind of like, well, that's
Speaker 3: a threat. And you're black in America and you got
Speaker 3: all this power and you're not even in the NBA here,
Speaker 3: how we're gonna control him.
Speaker 4: It's bigger in the basketball party a too, So I
Speaker 4: know what she was going through. I had the same situation,
Speaker 4: but I just didn't pass. I should have asked that
Speaker 4: motherfucker some questions. He's sitting there the whole time. I'm
Speaker 4: just looking at him like, bro, you ain't gonna help.
Speaker 4: So I'm saying nothing because I really don't want to
Speaker 4: blow It's covered off mine, right, So I just abracadaba
Speaker 4: that motherfucker all the way through. I thought I was
Speaker 4: gonna do it. But yeah, so I feel that property
Speaker 4: some bullshit and it making a lot of black athletes,
Speaker 4: all young black basketball players coming up in our time.
Speaker 4: You know what, I'm saying, because the test is already
Speaker 4: cultured to buy a lot of that shit. I guarantee
Speaker 4: eight percent is on the test has nothing to do
Speaker 4: with a nigga being successful right now, you know, how
Speaker 4: do you expect me to know that shit when I'm
Speaker 4: really in the game and I'm in the middle of it.
Speaker 2: Explain what it is? Said? What is prop forty eight
Speaker 2: For those who don't.
Speaker 3: Know, Pro forty eight is is somebody that doesn't doesn't
Speaker 3: pass a test and you have to go a different route.
Speaker 3: You're not able to enter that university that you're trying
Speaker 3: to attend as a student athlete. So you got to
Speaker 3: shit out and get your academics in order in order
Speaker 3: to have the opportunity in any way any way possible.
Speaker 3: Ideally go to junior college or prep and then try
Speaker 3: to retake the test, which they had me doing at
Speaker 3: Samet Thomas More. I retook a test I already passed.
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is the dumbest stuff in history right here.
Speaker 3: So I had already been ran through the mud, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, how is one supposed to feel when you've
Speaker 3: done everything in your power to be in a position
Speaker 3: to succeed and done it.
Speaker 2: The right way rights, and it's just robbed from you.
Speaker 2: It's taken from you.
Speaker 3: So that's what I want people to understand that I
Speaker 3: survived that, and I thank god I survived that. But
Speaker 3: that's not the easy feet. A lot of these kids
Speaker 3: may not be that successful these days.
Speaker 2: Now. It's broken a lot of people. We know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what I'm saying. That's not here today.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. It's broken a lot of people.
Speaker 4: So our community, you broke it. We've seen so many
Speaker 4: go through it. You know what I'm saying. That wasn't
Speaker 4: strong enough to deal with it and didn't go with
Speaker 4: didn't go through half the stuff you went through, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So you land in Alabama with a ton of promises
Speaker 1: and they put you with the Power Forward.
Speaker 2: Told us about that experience. It was all good.
Speaker 3: When I was playing the three pre season, they couldn't
Speaker 3: hold me, you know, played the Arizona University of Delaware
Speaker 3: to the Arizona Tournament. I can remember it like it was yesterday,
Speaker 3: at thirty eight against them. It was easy too. I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be fun this.
Speaker 2: Season, you know.
Speaker 3: And SEC Conference started and our big fellow Jeremy Hayes
Speaker 3: went down towards me up, had a meeting with the coach.
Speaker 3: She said, look, you know you got college experience. You
Speaker 3: only one that could really play the fore position out
Speaker 3: of our guys and see the playout of position. Don't
Speaker 3: play at all. So that was the easy one. And
Speaker 3: they hit me like a ton of bricks. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. I got to see him.
Speaker 2: I fought two years for this reality and you told
Speaker 2: me that I had a point guard that was going
Speaker 2: to put the ball in my hands. And then you
Speaker 2: isolate me at the ford, don't run no place for me,
Speaker 2: and I still become All SEC second team. People don't
Speaker 2: understand what that's like. And you're the guy, You're not
Speaker 2: just a smoke on a wheel. You're doing this to me.
Speaker 2: Then it became like my ego. Then like how dare
Speaker 2: you take me away from my home, lie to me
Speaker 2: and my parents, get me out here. Then you do
Speaker 2: this to me.
Speaker 3: But you're using my status as a McDonald's All American
Speaker 3: to get Jerald Wallace and more William to come in
Speaker 3: the next season, to have less numbers than me, to
Speaker 3: get drafted, and I don't even get my name called.
Speaker 2: So the handwright was on the wall for me.
Speaker 3: When I saw myself being played out of position, I said,
Speaker 3: I gotta get out of here. I knew that, and
Speaker 3: I said, after this season, I gotta go wherever I'm going,
Speaker 3: I gotta go somewhere, and I'm going to get some money.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing this no more. It was three years, okay,
Speaker 3: it was like a big waste of time. And I'm
Speaker 3: saying to myself, if I would have known what I
Speaker 3: know now as a basketball mind, as a business mind,
Speaker 3: I would have probably never went to college. But I
Speaker 3: had to go through that to be right where I'm
Speaker 3: at today. So I can't change anything even if I
Speaker 3: wanted to. You know, that's the main dollar question, what
Speaker 3: would you change? I wouldn't change anything because I would
Speaker 3: be a different person. I may not even be here.
Speaker 1: Some other things that happened in the midst of that.
Speaker 1: But you get to the nineteen ninety nine draft. You're
Speaker 1: told by a few teams that anywhere from end of
Speaker 1: the lottery to end of the first round. Elaborate on
Speaker 1: that experience for you. I guess I didn't have a
Speaker 1: big enough agent. They had some of the most European
Speaker 1: players come out in that draft.
Speaker 3: That I had seen. Igor Rakosovich got rapped to the
Speaker 3: Minnesota Templeles. I thought they was gonna pick me. There
Speaker 3: was a lot of interest here. It was at eleven,
Speaker 3: I believe, so yeah, it was still like right in
Speaker 3: the top fifteen range. They told me I'd be somewhere
Speaker 3: from fifteen to maybe twenty five or thirty. I said,
Speaker 3: all right, cool, this is first round guaranteed money. Me
Speaker 3: and my brother went to Legends, which is a famous
Speaker 3: sports bar and long beach for the Buffalo Wings, and
Speaker 3: we did that, came back. I had my trainer there,
Speaker 3: ad my agent, Steve Kaufman, and my mother, father and
Speaker 3: I think my brother. That was That was one of
Speaker 3: my lowest points, probably, you know, next to almost taking
Speaker 3: my life and my father passing those three things right there.
Speaker 3: It was tough. It was tough. I mean I cried
Speaker 3: like a baby after that draft. To sit through that
Speaker 3: whole draft and to hear Kenny Smith talk about me
Speaker 3: a sleeper on the board, a guy that he thought
Speaker 3: would have been picked up, and nobody calls my name.
Speaker 3: It's like something that something isn't right, you know, supposed
Speaker 3: to happen. I had to live with that. I had
Speaker 3: to live through that. Likes there's more education and insight
Speaker 3: in adversity than in success. So that's what I live
Speaker 3: with today. Like everything that I've learned, everything that I endured,
Speaker 3: I'm doing it for a better cause, a greater cause.
Speaker 3: I'm doing it for something greater than myself, and that
Speaker 3: releases the pain, that releases anguish and anything else, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's a blessing for me right there to be
Speaker 3: able to impact people today and have platforms like this,
Speaker 3: you know, tell your story, speak to it.
Speaker 2: I thought something that was really fascinating and relatable when
Speaker 2: you spoke in your documentary was all the young height
Speaker 2: you had growing up and accolades and stuff that happened
Speaker 2: and things not panning out and you kind of having
Speaker 2: to show your face back where you grew up and
Speaker 2: made your name map talk to us how hard that
Speaker 2: was for you? Mentally?
Speaker 3: That was probably the toughest thing, because you know, after
Speaker 3: rising to a certain level where you're almost at the
Speaker 3: top and he'll looking down like who's who's getting.
Speaker 2: Close to me? When you fall, it's like, well, how
Speaker 2: am I supposed to do on this? You know? And
Speaker 2: I didn't have no mentor.
Speaker 3: I didn't have no no coach on the side that
Speaker 3: was looking out for me.
Speaker 2: I was by myself. I just had my family. That
Speaker 2: was it. You know.
Speaker 3: My mom's the only woman that stayed down for me
Speaker 3: through the twists and turns and the peaks and valleys.
Speaker 3: Relationships was filled, friendships, you know. Burying my homiet fifteen,
Speaker 3: him getting murdered changed my life forever. I'm saying to myself.
Speaker 3: Then bullets wouldn't even for him. But he was in
Speaker 3: the wrong room at the wrong time. So choices in life,
Speaker 3: you know. So I got a chance to see coming
Speaker 3: full circle, showing your face, where you make your name,
Speaker 3: where you lay, where you lay your head. People can
Speaker 3: respect that because I shook shook hands and kissed babies
Speaker 3: when I was on top, and when I fail, I
Speaker 3: didn't make difference because it wasn't working out. And I
Speaker 3: think that's what people when this city respect that know me,
Speaker 3: respect more than anything because they know I never changed,
Speaker 3: no matter what the cause.
Speaker 2: Part of the state of the NBA today it's entertainment. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not really sported anymore. I think they've transcended it
Speaker 2: to a different space. They've adapted the European style into
Speaker 2: the NBA game. It's very technical. I liked it better
Speaker 2: when it was a little bit more physical and just
Speaker 2: more up close and personal. I felt like the fan
Speaker 2: fare was different. I feel like fans got too much
Speaker 2: say so and they too close to the players. They
Speaker 2: should be more secure around the players and the NBA
Speaker 2: experience and then let the spectators do them.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of stuff is getting out of
Speaker 3: hand because of the money. Guys have a little bit
Speaker 3: too much influence the players on specific teams where they
Speaker 3: need to stand they land and focus on being the
Speaker 3: best player.
Speaker 2: You could be.
Speaker 3: Either you're going to be in management or you're gonna
Speaker 3: be a player. You can't do both, you know. I
Speaker 3: think that's a big thing in the game today. You
Speaker 3: have a lot of favoritism going on and a lot
Speaker 3: of guys that have the talent are slipping through the cracks.
Speaker 3: Then where do they go what happens to them. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of basketball players and not enough hoopers. You
Speaker 3: got a few hoopers in the game, Kyrie kd Bron
Speaker 3: You got some hoopers, yeah, but it's more basketball players now.
Speaker 3: We have more hoopers right, A lot of guys that
Speaker 3: just grew up playing basketball.
Speaker 4: Now you got guys that didn't play basketball to the
Speaker 4: tenth grade. They get a trainer, be on the AU.
Speaker 4: That's a high name. The AAU team. Catch a couple
Speaker 4: of lives. Now you're getting a hundred million dollars. He
Speaker 4: wasn't no Hooper. He's just a basketball player, right, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. So that's the big difference that
Speaker 4: people don't understand that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the nil too, I mean that the value
Speaker 3: of how many followers you have. Do you have a
Speaker 3: blue check or not? I got eighteen thousand or something,
Speaker 3: whatever it is. I don't have no check. I don't
Speaker 3: care about that check. I'm him in the skin in
Speaker 3: real time. Yeah, you gotta send me, Oh you gonna
Speaker 3: send me this, to send me that, to make sure
Speaker 3: you're who you say you are later for this, I'm
Speaker 3: tired all of that. Where is the realness? The authenticity?
Speaker 3: It's gone? And how do you recoup that? I say
Speaker 3: this all the time, how do you manufacture toughness? A
Speaker 3: lot of talented guys. I see a lot of guys
Speaker 3: that can shoot, they can handle it like crazy, athletic,
Speaker 3: do all these things.
Speaker 2: But when you get tested in the fourth quarter. Where
Speaker 2: are you at?
Speaker 3: Then it's a different game in the fourth quarter, right,
Speaker 3: and the guys that step up then those are the elite.
Speaker 3: You know, I say it all the time. It's explosive
Speaker 3: as Ion Williamson is. They need to have somebody get
Speaker 3: him with a nutritionist and get his weight down. Why
Speaker 3: you can't get that weight down. You walked into the
Speaker 3: league of fifty million. Let them give me that bag.
Speaker 2: You hear me.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be coming early, staying late, yoga pilates, I'm
Speaker 3: doing everything out there to maximize my career.
Speaker 2: I don't think they look at that like we looked
Speaker 2: at it.
Speaker 3: I think it's the mentality is different with these guys
Speaker 3: and if they don't wake up, man, a lot more
Speaker 3: foreigners is going to be coming in.
Speaker 2: What's happening? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, at a young age age, your Nike bag was impeccable.
Speaker 1: Speak to the impact you feel at a young age
Speaker 1: you had on Nike at the time, I think it
Speaker 1: was huge.
Speaker 3: I think I was a poster child for Nike at
Speaker 3: a time when they had you know the likes of
Speaker 3: Andrea Agacy, guys like Deon Sanders, you know, Scottie Pippen,
Speaker 3: was emerging. Obviously you had Jordan's, you had some some
Speaker 3: guys that were really represented for the Nike brand. But
Speaker 3: on the high school level, I feel like I was
Speaker 3: I was somebody that that helped promote because I wore
Speaker 3: a different pier of sneakers every game, different Nike sneaker
Speaker 3: every game. And I was sharp who you wanted though, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: just maybe was asking for his shoes after after camps.
Speaker 3: We was asking for his shoes now for real, for real,
Speaker 3: just making calls, you know, and they sent boxes to
Speaker 3: the house. Now Modern Day's got a lifetime Nike deal
Speaker 3: plus Gator Ray. I had my own agreement with Nike
Speaker 3: at that time, aside from what I was doing with
Speaker 3: the high school. And when we went to Nike camp,
Speaker 3: everybody would fly in, you know, they bring us into
Speaker 3: a room, you get duffle bag and just load everything up.
Speaker 3: You go on the semi line, one after the other.
Speaker 3: Straffa Ganza. Yeah, So they did that with me, and
Speaker 3: then when we finished with that, they pulled me into
Speaker 3: another room.
Speaker 2: We got something. I'm going I'm going to my room.
Speaker 2: That's not get my bag. They send me.
Speaker 3: Upstairs exclusive right, and they hit me just don't tell nobody,
Speaker 3: Just don't say nothing, you know, but we got this
Speaker 3: for you. Yeah, we'll have somebody delivered to your room
Speaker 3: so they won't see you. So they play games, they
Speaker 3: make exception, but you got to pay a price to
Speaker 3: get that experience. And I tell people like you got
Speaker 3: to go through hell to become the elite. Everybody wants
Speaker 3: to go to heaven, but don't nobody want to die.
Speaker 3: And that's what I see in this generation, a lot
Speaker 3: of that entitlement, that sense itself entitlement.
Speaker 2: A lot of people said you were Lebron.
Speaker 1: Before Lebron, he was someone who was able to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, really live up to the hyphen that exceeded.
Speaker 1: How do you feel like he's handled because again he
Speaker 1: was on that after you. How do you think he's
Speaker 1: handled his journey up to this point.
Speaker 2: I think he's done great. I'm sure he's probably learned
Speaker 2: some stuff from mine too, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: low key, Whether he admits it or not, I'm sure
Speaker 2: he is familiar. He probably heard about the story.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: He had a guy in his corner, Rich Paul, which helped,
Speaker 3: which helped him a lot along the way. And I
Speaker 3: believe a family that adopted in high school. That that
Speaker 3: helped him also, that nobody talks about. But I've done
Speaker 3: my research. So I'm happy for him because he's been
Speaker 3: able to stay clean, he's been a family man business wise.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's far exceeded expectation. On the basketball court.
Speaker 3: I think he's exceeded expectation. But it's not really the
Speaker 3: lebroner for Lebron, just the one and only man child.
Speaker 3: That's it, Shaecott, That's it. Yeah, that doesn't do anything
Speaker 3: for me to hear that lebrona for Lebron. He's not
Speaker 3: doing anything to help my cause. So what good is that?
Speaker 3: And you're in LA where I made my name, where
Speaker 3: I'm from, so that all that is weird to me,
Speaker 3: right Yeah, So for me, it's like the stroke is
Speaker 3: not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the community
Speaker 3: right now. You know, where's the support, where's the financial
Speaker 3: commitment to our mission? You know what I mean, like
Speaker 3: donations and things like that to our foundation. That's what
Speaker 3: I'm about. I'm after testimonies with my kids. That's what
Speaker 3: I really want. It's not about the money, it's about legacy.
Speaker 3: I want people to talk about me and how I
Speaker 3: help them become somebody in this world, and the time
Speaker 3: that we spend, that's what I'm after. The testimony is
Speaker 3: more important because you can't buy that.
Speaker 1: One of your dad's final words in the doc was,
Speaker 1: it will only be fitting, and I'm paraphrasing it'll only
Speaker 1: be fitting. You were the one that's going to deliver
Speaker 1: the next great player out of California. When you saw that,
Speaker 1: what that mean to you? It's heavy, man. I think
Speaker 1: about that every day. You'll say, well, I'm still looking,
Speaker 1: I'm still searching. He I got a young pupp you know,
Speaker 1: he's in training. He's like a Cane Corso puppy right now.
Speaker 1: But we get him together, get him up to speed.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be a problem. He Apollo Creed's bloodline, you know,
Speaker 1: Carl Wellers, the real Yeah. So you just never know.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: You throw enough ship against the wall, some of it
Speaker 3: is gonna stick. And that's my mentality with all this.
Speaker 3: But in this era it's a little bit more challenged
Speaker 3: because some people feel like I'm outdated, But in my
Speaker 3: head I'm spot on because the game is still the
Speaker 3: same and the stuff that I teach the player, I
Speaker 3: know it works.
Speaker 2: Because I did it right time if the knowledge is time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, and they look at it as oh, if
Speaker 3: you don't have a facility in the fancy equipment and
Speaker 3: a big name guy behind you, and there's no value there, right,
Speaker 3: that's this error.
Speaker 1: Everybody could have that and still not make it right.
Speaker 1: Who is Shake Cotton outside of basketball.
Speaker 3: Man, a lawyal servant, Uh, somebody that had taken short off,
Speaker 3: you know, shut off the back for you, that's gonna
Speaker 3: do whatever you gotta do to help make the community better,
Speaker 3: to to rise up the youth and teach them how
Speaker 3: to do it the right way. Somebody that's gonna continue
Speaker 3: to set the bar in his own way. You know.
Speaker 3: I'm a do it or die. That's my mentality. And
Speaker 3: you know, like I said, it's about legacy for me.
Speaker 3: Now that's what I'm chasing them testimonies. It's not about
Speaker 3: this is great. But I've been in darkness for a
Speaker 3: long time, so the cameras don't really do nothing for
Speaker 3: me either. I know, there's a time for everything, you know,
Speaker 3: and this has to happen because people need to know
Speaker 3: that I got here and it took a price to
Speaker 3: get here, you know, and take a major price and
Speaker 3: if you're willing to pay it, then you're gonna be
Speaker 3: successful in life.
Speaker 2: Everybody's not gonna play basketball. Some people are lawyers, doctors, whatever.
Speaker 2: But whatever you do, you have to focus on your process.
Speaker 3: You know, there's no I tell people all the time,
Speaker 3: there's no elevator to success.
Speaker 2: You got to take the stairs.
Speaker 1: Speak to your program that you're working with the youth
Speaker 1: right now and what you guys do in the community.
Speaker 3: The foundation nonprofit five Want to See three. It's called
Speaker 3: Academy of Ideas. We basically service the La Greater La
Speaker 3: County area, with the epicenter being Long Beach. We partner
Speaker 3: with the LBUSD Lunger Unified School District this year and
Speaker 3: we have a program running right now. Currently, I'm wearing
Speaker 3: a T shirt the clinic. It's every Monday and Friday.
Speaker 3: We actually have a session to night. It runs for
Speaker 3: about an hour and a half. We do an hour
Speaker 3: basketball and thirty minutes of mental health. So it's powerful
Speaker 3: because I give the kids a voice. I created this
Speaker 3: thing called a Circle of Trust and we put shares
Speaker 3: in a circle around the half court and everybody sits
Speaker 3: there and I sit right in the middle of them,
Speaker 3: and they get to write one question and it remains anonymous.
Speaker 3: We put it in a barrel and I shake it
Speaker 3: up and we go through them one at a time
Speaker 3: and remain anonymous. And we just dig into a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff. When I talk about life not just sport,
Speaker 3: how you dealing with academics, you know, what its home
Speaker 3: life look like? What are some of the peer pressures
Speaker 3: you're dealing with. I mean, we're just piling layers back
Speaker 3: a little by little, so the parents seem to love
Speaker 3: it and the kids seem to become more well rounded.
Speaker 3: So we're excited. We're just building.
Speaker 1: Beautiful make sure we get all that information because we
Speaker 1: want to make a donation on the half of all
Speaker 1: the smoke absolutely to your commitment and your movement.
Speaker 2: And if you need us, we're there. Let us not.
Speaker 3: So you talk about the doctor and what you do
Speaker 3: with the doc to research with the doctor. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: we uh, we're looking we're looking at doing some things
Speaker 3: with the documentary man. At this point, we're still in
Speaker 3: a contract with the ten ninety one Media out of
Speaker 3: New York City, so that's going to be finishing up
Speaker 3: pretty soon.
Speaker 2: You know, we're looking to get get it, wrap it
Speaker 2: up and get.
Speaker 3: It out, you know, on a large level, because there's
Speaker 3: a lot of people that don't know about me. That
Speaker 3: hasn't really hurt the story because of lack of marketing
Speaker 3: because were released during COVID, so that kind of had
Speaker 3: hurt a lot of our push because everything's shut down.
Speaker 3: But I think the timing now couldn't be better, you know,
Speaker 3: with the work being done. So the film is one engine.
Speaker 3: Then I got to speaking engagements that I do also,
Speaker 3: So typically we have a shakecout and experience. I showed
Speaker 3: the film and then we do a Q and A
Speaker 3: for about an hour forty five minutes after through, and
Speaker 3: they could ask any question And it is so powerful
Speaker 3: because you've got the subject of the film right in
Speaker 3: front of you and you've already been moved some people
Speaker 3: moved to tears or anger or whatever, right and they
Speaker 3: want to voice that. So we tap into that right after.
Speaker 3: This is powerful, So anybody looking to get that experience,
Speaker 3: they could tap in with us as well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, once you get the free let us know,
Speaker 1: we definitely line that up. All right, man, We appreciate
Speaker 1: your time. You know, we can't say enough about your journey,
Speaker 1: learning more about your journey and how you came out
Speaker 1: on the other side. You know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: that have been through the shit you've been through are
Speaker 1: here no more. And the fact that you are a
Speaker 1: speaking testament that you know you've been able to make
Speaker 1: it through the journey and continue to show love and
Speaker 1: build others up and and poor into that next generation.
Speaker 1: That really says a lot about your character and the
Speaker 1: way you were raised.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: So we just want to make sure you know that
Speaker 1: you loved, respected and appreciated, and you always got a
Speaker 1: home here.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you all, all right, quick hitters. First thing to
Speaker 1: come to mind, and let us know m J Kobe.
Speaker 3: Bron wrinkle, Uh, m J one, Kobe two, Bron three,
Speaker 3: my missing something, the same ship we say, top five.
Speaker 2: L A born who who's all time?
Speaker 3: Okay, Uh, I'm gonna have to go with myself, and
Speaker 3: I know that I agree with you. Raymond Lewis, I
Speaker 3: probably say high play Williams, John Hot Play Williams. Uh yeah, No.
Speaker 2: BD gotta be in there. You gotta be top five.
Speaker 2: One album you can listen to on repeat. Man, that's
Speaker 2: a good question.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's it's either Pocker Beig.
Speaker 2: I mean I listened to both of them probably equal't
Speaker 2: going wrong one second. My next question, how did he
Speaker 2: get the nickname hot plate? That boy could eat? I
Speaker 2: had to how do you get a big name called
Speaker 2: hot So he was a big boy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he was slimming high school and he put
Speaker 3: on some weight because his buddy died in the boat. Actually,
Speaker 3: and he went to a depression and you know something
Speaker 3: we eat for comfort. Yeah, and that's what he started
Speaker 3: to gain weight.
Speaker 2: Play. Yeah, he's still nice. Play.
Speaker 3: He was a bucket best basketball shoe all time. Not
Speaker 3: feelm show shoot shoot Jordan five?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Or the hirachi that the mission. Yeah, they came around. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they were doing they redoing the hirachis too nice.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Five dinner guests? You plus five people did? Are a lot?
Speaker 2: Was at your table? Wow? Profound? I'd have to say
Speaker 2: Jim Rong my dad. I would probably like to meet
Speaker 2: Mahatma Gandhi h Man. That's you got some goings. Let
Speaker 2: me see.
Speaker 3: Uh doctor milesman Row probably zig Zigglarig Yeah, big. The
Speaker 3: first time here is yeah, the first time here.
Speaker 2: A couple of people.
Speaker 3: If you can have if you can see somebody on
Speaker 3: our show, who would it be? But you have to
Speaker 3: help us get them on the show. Oh, somebody hasn't
Speaker 3: been on the show. Whatever you want to see on
Speaker 3: the show, you have to help us get them on
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 2: Though, on the show how it feels? Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: you know that's my got Yeah. I like that. That's
Speaker 2: a good call too, Shade Cotton.
Speaker 1: You can catch this on Showtime Basketball, YouTube, and the
Speaker 1: iHeart platform Black Effects.
Speaker 2: See y'all next week.