Speaker 1: M h and welcome back to another edition all the
Speaker 1: Smoke Jack. We got a good one today, Bro Legendary,
Speaker 1: got a good one today. Someone I've been harassing trying
Speaker 1: to tell you, but on his asphalt town them we
Speaker 1: need you, we need you, and we keep passing each other.
Speaker 1: But he finally came out here for something. I found
Speaker 1: out he was coming out here for something, and he
Speaker 1: blessed us with his time, two time NBA Champ, twelve
Speaker 1: time All Star, one of the greatest point guards slash players,
Speaker 1: the original Z to ever play this game, the real
Speaker 1: zke Yes, the one and only, one and only Isaiah Thomas.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the time, man, Thank you for coming
Speaker 1: through ways always. Uh. There was a rumor just recently
Speaker 1: that you were going to sign with the Suns on
Speaker 1: the management side. It came out and then what's the
Speaker 1: latest with that situation. So I'm on the board of UWM,
Speaker 1: which is matt ishpe is little scolding company. And you
Speaker 1: know it's crazy. You have the two biggest mortgage companies
Speaker 1: in the US in Detroit, UWM and Rocket Mortgage. So
Speaker 1: I'm on the board. He and I've been friends for
Speaker 1: a long time. Advise him on a couple of things.
Speaker 1: He advised me on a couple of things business wise,
Speaker 1: and we have been you know, really looking for a
Speaker 1: team since uh twenty twenty one. NTT wanted to get
Speaker 1: into the business. Um, his brother wants on the baseball team.
Speaker 1: Matt wanted to own the basketball team. So you know,
Speaker 1: when the story came out, it was only natural that
Speaker 1: they put us together. You know, advising, still talking, still consulting.
Speaker 1: I don't have any plans of being in a front
Speaker 1: office position ever. Again in terms of running basketball operations. Now,
Speaker 1: when you talk about advising, consulting, ownership, those type of things,
Speaker 1: that's probably where I fit in a you know, not necessarily.
Speaker 1: I got too much going on. I don't see myself
Speaker 1: sitting in the office day to day running basketball ops again.
Speaker 1: But from an advising consulting standpoint, that is on the table,
Speaker 1: and you know, we'll see what happens. Just obviously basketball
Speaker 1: is what you're known for, but now you're known for
Speaker 1: just your entrepreneurialism is that a word, or entrepreneurial ship.
Speaker 1: I mean doing very well mogul, Yeah, cannabis space, champagne space,
Speaker 1: real estate, private equity. Business of basketball wasn't very big
Speaker 1: you played, because it wasn't very big when we played,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Now it's it's the norm.
Speaker 1: But you've been able to really capitalize off the court
Speaker 1: with investments and in the business space. Can you walk
Speaker 1: us through, uh, first and foremost your champagn because you
Speaker 1: said that's what's keeping you youthful. So um, fortunately enough
Speaker 1: for me. Uh. You know, basketball in sport has given
Speaker 1: me the opportunity to really, you know, expand globally. Um.
Speaker 1: And the name of my firm is Isaiah International, and
Speaker 1: we do a lot of business outside of the United States.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about the champagne space, Um, we
Speaker 1: got two hundred acres over in the Old region of Champagne,
Speaker 1: which is the oldest region of Champagne, with the largest
Speaker 1: black owned champagne company in the US, largest first pressure
Speaker 1: of champagne in the US. And there's three presses of
Speaker 1: the great first press, second press, third press, and as
Speaker 1: you know, the first press is the best press. We
Speaker 1: also are known for of zero and low sugar champaigns.
Speaker 1: Why did we want zero and low sugar champagne's being
Speaker 1: former athletes? Right, Most people who drink champagne immediately complain
Speaker 1: of a headache. So you ask the question why, right,
Speaker 1: it's the high sugar content in the high soul fites, right,
Speaker 1: So we wanted to bring something back to the US,
Speaker 1: not only back to the US, but back to you know,
Speaker 1: all people who love champagne, drink champagne, promote champagne, but
Speaker 1: it's not theirs. So what we wanted to do is
Speaker 1: bring you the best of the best. And my ECON
Speaker 1: teacher told me a long time ago that you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you got the highest quality and you
Speaker 1: can give it to the customer and consumer at the
Speaker 1: lowest price, then long term you're gonna win the game.
Speaker 1: So it's not the best marketed, it's the you know,
Speaker 1: the most, it's the best, highest quality. And we're out
Speaker 1: here now getting ready on board and a couple of
Speaker 1: the Hyatt hotels. That's why I'm out here. So Crilon
Speaker 1: Champagne the number one rated zero low sugar, first person
Speaker 1: great champagne in the United States, Black owned and also
Speaker 1: supported by the four hundred and fifty NBA players on
Speaker 1: the NBPA side. So shout out to the NBPA for
Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know, helping and sticking with former
Speaker 1: players and marketing anybody else in marketing. Now we got
Speaker 1: some black black owns, so it's good to get that
Speaker 1: in there. They might have the all time most successful
Speaker 1: backcourt ever Microwave, super successful, Zeke and Joe d them three. Like,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to model yourself about some basketball players
Speaker 1: that took after bandage of their career and after basketball,
Speaker 1: y'all might have the top basketball I mean backcourt in
Speaker 1: history as far business wise. Thank you that seriously, if
Speaker 1: you think about it, you ain't lying if you think
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, I hadn't thought about it that way.
Speaker 1: But that's why we own this show. Ye that's y'all.
Speaker 1: That's why y'all. Can you think about that? Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for that. And you know, and you know we
Speaker 1: if you notice when we was describing ourselves when we
Speaker 1: were playing um, the media always gave us the physically
Speaker 1: tough label, but we always described ourselves as mentally tough.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like, you know, you you win with
Speaker 1: smart people. You know, you win with people who don't
Speaker 1: make mistakes. Uh, you know who I understand how to
Speaker 1: you know, operate, work within the system, game plan, you know,
Speaker 1: make sacrifices and then you you try to go out
Speaker 1: and win the basketball game with it, and fortunately enough
Speaker 1: for us, we had a lot of players that that
Speaker 1: wanted to do that and did it at a very
Speaker 1: high level. You talk a little bit about the cannabis space.
Speaker 1: That's something that Jack and I are both in and
Speaker 1: and and it obviously, you know, this push was supposed
Speaker 1: to be the push for the minority population in that space,
Speaker 1: and we're still very small percentage of the population that's
Speaker 1: making that up. But can you talk to us, but
Speaker 1: what you guys are doing in the cannabis space. So
Speaker 1: I'm chairman CEO of a publicly traded company called One
Speaker 1: World Products where we cultivate and grow in Colombia. Now again,
Speaker 1: my firm is Isaiah International, and we do a lot
Speaker 1: of business, most of our businesses outside of the United
Speaker 1: States because outside of the United States, I classify as
Speaker 1: an American. Inside the United States, classify as black, and
Speaker 1: you get the minority tax. And we got a lot
Speaker 1: of white folks in here today who travel, you know,
Speaker 1: and when you travel outside of the United States your passport,
Speaker 1: you know, you white folks say they they're American. But
Speaker 1: the only time they say they're white is when they
Speaker 1: come back into the United States. The only time we
Speaker 1: say we black is when we come into the United States.
Speaker 1: Outside of the United States, there are no minority classifications
Speaker 1: in terms of business so one world products. Why do
Speaker 1: we choose to cultivate and grow in Colombia the same
Speaker 1: reason we chow was France for Champagne, the soil, the sun,
Speaker 1: and also the farmers and the workers that you work
Speaker 1: with in terms of the indigenous farmers and growers Columbia.
Speaker 1: Right now we've partnered with the Afro Columbia community. There
Speaker 1: been granted one point two million acres of land to
Speaker 1: grow industrial hymp. So when industrial hemp space and we're
Speaker 1: also in the THHC in CBD space there also when
Speaker 1: a process I got a couple of confidentiality agreement signed,
Speaker 1: so I got to keep my fingers a cross. But
Speaker 1: when a process of onboarding two of the larger brands
Speaker 1: here in the UA in the US who sells CBD
Speaker 1: and THHC products. Now we can't distribute THHC products across
Speaker 1: the across the border yet, but internationally, as you know,
Speaker 1: the borders have opened up in other countries, so we
Speaker 1: can move THHC and CBD products into other countries. The
Speaker 1: US will open up th HC wise, it has opened
Speaker 1: up CBD Y, so we're able to move product into
Speaker 1: the into the US and the CBD and the CBD
Speaker 1: oils standpoint. The industrial hemp side, we work with the
Speaker 1: automotive industry. Just signed an agreement with Stilantis and Flexingate
Speaker 1: to produce a part on the jeep Wrangler that they've
Speaker 1: given us that we in the automobile space they want
Speaker 1: to reduce their carbon footprint. Hemp is the natural carbon
Speaker 1: sync so it takes carbon out of the air. And
Speaker 1: what we've done in that company one world product is
Speaker 1: that we position ourselves not only to be the largest
Speaker 1: supplier of industrial hemp, but if you if you think
Speaker 1: of how can I put it. Most companies are set
Speaker 1: up to deal with corporations. We set ourselves up to
Speaker 1: deal with industry changes. So as as plastics are moved
Speaker 1: out of the industry, you're looking for the next raw
Speaker 1: material that will be infused into the industry. And we
Speaker 1: see industrial hemp being the replacement for plastics and also
Speaker 1: reducing the carbon footprint. UM you both of you know
Speaker 1: the discovery of the indocannabinoid system that was discovered in
Speaker 1: the nineties. Had we known about it when we was playing.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we would have treated ourselves much differently. You
Speaker 1: know they when you talk about CBD and THHC. The
Speaker 1: two things that it does for athletes, right, reduces inflammation
Speaker 1: and help you sleep. That's all we need. No swelling,
Speaker 1: no pain. I can go to sleep, you know. So,
Speaker 1: I think you know the plant is going to change
Speaker 1: the way medicine is prescribed. They're now teaching in medical
Speaker 1: school now about the indocannabinoid system CB one, CB two receptors,
Speaker 1: and the more we discover the benefits of the plant,
Speaker 1: the more it will be used. Now you hit an
Speaker 1: important topic in terms of you know, classified as black
Speaker 1: in this country getting business opportunities. We didn't get it
Speaker 1: on the first blush, to first go around. Now that
Speaker 1: federal and state still having come together in terms of
Speaker 1: their laws. In the dispensary model that's set up here
Speaker 1: in the States, you can only cultivate and grow from
Speaker 1: You can only buy from the cultivators within the state,
Speaker 1: but you can cross state lines. So it's a it's
Speaker 1: an antiquated business model that's been set up here. We
Speaker 1: do believe that it will have to expand and open
Speaker 1: up and once it expands like any product, and it's
Speaker 1: you can globally by it, buy it, and supply it.
Speaker 1: We see ourselves in Columbia being a unique trade partner
Speaker 1: with the US, probably the biggest trade partner with the
Speaker 1: US on this side of the equator. Uh. Most of
Speaker 1: your flowers that you get come from Columbia here in
Speaker 1: the US. Your coffee or bananas, a lot of fruit.
Speaker 1: So as a trade partner, Columbia is one of your
Speaker 1: biggest trade partners. Columbia is projected to to supply forty
Speaker 1: four percent of the world's cannabis supply only because of
Speaker 1: the geography and also because you can turn your land
Speaker 1: over three times a year. So again that's that's what
Speaker 1: we do in one world products in terms of So
Speaker 1: I'm in the champagne space, uh, and I'm in the
Speaker 1: cannabis space and my kids love it. Hey, that is
Speaker 1: the plug. That is as though, let's go back man,
Speaker 1: I'm a west side of you. No, you're a west
Speaker 1: side absolutely. Uh. Talk about young Zeke growing up on
Speaker 1: the West side of Chicago. It was it was, it
Speaker 1: was hard and as a matter of fact, you would
Speaker 1: you would just uh there. I think about a year
Speaker 1: ago he was running around and old block. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got the calls, right, I was like, nah, I call,
Speaker 1: I said, I'll let him know that I was out there. Row.
Speaker 1: But no. But growing up on the West side of Chicago,
Speaker 1: and we we emphasized west side. And and here's why because,
Speaker 1: uh my mom worked for Fred Hampton and I was
Speaker 1: one of the kids that got the free breakfast, uh
Speaker 1: you know, learned martial arts and all that. And and
Speaker 1: the Black Panther headquarter was right there on Madison and Western.
Speaker 1: The Chicago Bulls the stadium was two blocks from Madison
Speaker 1: in Western where we you know you go to the
Speaker 1: United Center now, or what we called the stadium, It
Speaker 1: was two blocks from there. So as a kid, I
Speaker 1: was standing outside the stadium begging for shoes, you know.
Speaker 1: And then they would throw the popcorn out after the game,
Speaker 1: and they would put it in the trash bend. So
Speaker 1: we would always you know, wait and get the popcorn
Speaker 1: and take it home. But growing up on the West side, right,
Speaker 1: you had Noble Drew our lead teachings Moorish Americans. And
Speaker 1: at that time it was about nationality, right, and you
Speaker 1: and I've had some conversations about you know, nationality and citizenship.
Speaker 1: That's what we were all about on the West Side
Speaker 1: of Chicago. When Martin Luther King moved into the West
Speaker 1: Side of Chicago, lived four blocks from my house. There's
Speaker 1: a street named after my mom in Chicago. My mom
Speaker 1: was she was a gangster, you know, a real deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Homing and Jackson, you will see Mary Thomas Way
Speaker 1: and you know, named after my mom. You know, we
Speaker 1: marching all the civil rights movements. Um. You know when
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King moved in, you know, we didn't have babysitters.
Speaker 1: It's nine of us, so she you know, she would
Speaker 1: take us and you know, we had to go where
Speaker 1: her and my pops went, you know. And so that's
Speaker 1: kind of the neighborhood that that I'm from. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: the first original game that started in the United States,
Speaker 1: the Vice Lords. Um, when you talk about the Vice
Speaker 1: Lords and and and all these games that really started.
Speaker 1: You know, they if they go back and they read
Speaker 1: their original charters, right, the original charters were set up.
Speaker 1: They was supposed to be community base. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: was protecting the neighborhood, and it was protecting the neighborhood
Speaker 1: from the police, right, because there was a lot of
Speaker 1: police brutality and and and we were fighting not to
Speaker 1: be colorized. We were fighting not to be putting an apartheid,
Speaker 1: colorized system. And when you go back and you look
Speaker 1: and you know those signs that they was running in
Speaker 1: Memphis that I am a man. You know, we were
Speaker 1: fighting not to be dehumanized and taken out of all humanity. Right.
Speaker 1: We wanted to be and remain human. But now we've
Speaker 1: accepted and we've adopted this colorized system. But but those
Speaker 1: were the teachings that were taught on the West Side
Speaker 1: of Chicago. So that's where I come from. That's what's
Speaker 1: ingrained in me, That's what I carry, that's what I
Speaker 1: still fight for today. And you know, there's no there's
Speaker 1: no pure anything. We're all living on a hyphen right,
Speaker 1: you you you know your Italian American And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say this, right, when we were growing up, we grew
Speaker 1: up with Italians, we grew up with Greeks, we grew
Speaker 1: up with Polish, we grew up with Irish right, and
Speaker 1: they were proud to call themselves Greek, Italian, Irish. Right.
Speaker 1: When did everybody become white? I mean, they don't say
Speaker 1: I'm I'm Greek anymore. They don't say I'm Italian anymore.
Speaker 1: They don't say, you know, um Jewish that everybody it's
Speaker 1: either white, black, green, purple, blue or horne. My mom
Speaker 1: I used to you know, what, what are You'm black
Speaker 1: and white? And my Mom's like, no, you're Italian. You're
Speaker 1: you're Italian. You're not You're not white? Right, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And and and and by the way, the Italians, you know,
Speaker 1: come from the Moors, right, you know, so you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you, all of us are human beings,
Speaker 1: right and and if we can get back to being
Speaker 1: human beings and get away from this colorized apartheid system
Speaker 1: that we're operating in, then we got a chance to
Speaker 1: make it, you know. And that's what the fight has
Speaker 1: always been about in this country, right, Those who are
Speaker 1: who have been classified as black have always been trying
Speaker 1: to get out of black status. So when immigrants come in,
Speaker 1: they quickly say what's your status? And they tell you
Speaker 1: what this status is, right, And you know, so nationality, birthright,
Speaker 1: citizenship status, those are the things that we need to
Speaker 1: be talking about. That was the conversation on the West Side,
Speaker 1: and that's the conversation I still carry today. One quick
Speaker 1: one question. You said, you and your mom used to
Speaker 1: take you out to the marches and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I got a chance to experience that with George Floyd.
Speaker 1: Did any of that change you experience that? Like, did
Speaker 1: that have like any type of hold on you to
Speaker 1: be able to experience that as a youngster, because I
Speaker 1: experienced as a grown man, and it definitely changed me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and so two things that I noticed dramatically, So
Speaker 1: when we were marching, you know, in the sixties, my
Speaker 1: first ten years of life, right, Martin Luther King's assassinated,
Speaker 1: Fred Hampton's assassinated, the Kennedy's are assassinated, and we're talking
Speaker 1: sixty three five, then the Cicero riots, Chicago Rights sixty six,
Speaker 1: sixty seven, So this is my first ten years of
Speaker 1: lights on the West Side. So I like seven riots,
Speaker 1: you know, all in all community, right, and it was
Speaker 1: just the community in the city marching. Right. George Floyd
Speaker 1: gets killed, and I watched all the pain that you
Speaker 1: was going through, and we all cried for you and
Speaker 1: fell for you and saw your heart on display for
Speaker 1: your brother. Right. But the thing that that was so
Speaker 1: different about George Floyd and us marching for voting rights
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm saying this. In this country, we
Speaker 1: still marching and trying to get voting rights. Think about
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, right, classified as white in this country,
Speaker 1: they ain't never had to march for voting rights right,
Speaker 1: equal rights, keyword, civil rights. I just need you to
Speaker 1: be civil to me. So I'm and these are these
Speaker 1: are these are terms, these are labels, right, These are
Speaker 1: labels civil rights, equal rights, voting rights right. So George
Speaker 1: Floyd gets you know, gets murdered in watching all the
Speaker 1: pain that you was going through, but then seeing the
Speaker 1: whole world. That's different. It's different. Not the whole world
Speaker 1: stood up and was marching those who were classified as black, white,
Speaker 1: different countries of the end. And what they were saying is, hey,
Speaker 1: United States of America, these people that y'all have classified
Speaker 1: as black, please stop doing this to them. Change these laws,
Speaker 1: let them be human right, give them their nationality back,
Speaker 1: let them be a part of the system. Right. And
Speaker 1: And that was different. You know, where the world stood up,
Speaker 1: and not only did the world stand up, but you
Speaker 1: had black folks, white folk, green folks for everybody, I
Speaker 1: mean everybody, And in the sustained movement of the young folk,
Speaker 1: the young folks in this country, was like a I
Speaker 1: don't know what y'all talking about it, but I like snoop,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, I you know, it's like
Speaker 1: you know this my brothers and and so the young folks,
Speaker 1: what they've done in this country, and I hope they
Speaker 1: keep it up, is putting the pressure on to to
Speaker 1: to let us become a part of the United States,
Speaker 1: American fab brick and and we don't need no no, no.
Speaker 1: You know, we classified as a minority when you look
Speaker 1: these terms up in the dictionary, right, hey, these words
Speaker 1: have meaning, right. So hey, I'm not a minority. I'm
Speaker 1: a grown man, right right, take care of myself, pay
Speaker 1: my own bills. You know, I'm not a handicapped individual,
Speaker 1: and don't classify my business as handicap. You know, treat me,
Speaker 1: you know, level the playing field. We come from sport
Speaker 1: and all we ask for is hey, man, just the
Speaker 1: referees don't cheat like they chalk for the Lakers. No,
Speaker 1: no call, you know that a chance? So sorry went
Speaker 1: off on that. That's why I asked, That's why you
Speaker 1: had me. I was about to let them down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw them tears coming, but you're saying, man, but
Speaker 1: that's some deep stuff. Man. Y'all did it. I mean
Speaker 1: y'all and y'all doing it, and we need y'all to
Speaker 1: keep doing it. Appreciate it. You know. Let's stay on
Speaker 1: the west side. Let's talk about Lord Henry. How how
Speaker 1: big was he in your life and how nice was he? Man?
Speaker 1: So my older brother, Lord Henry, right, um, and so
Speaker 1: I think he may still hold of the Catholic schools
Speaker 1: scoring record went to Saint Philip's and um, you know
Speaker 1: when we talk about George Gervin, right, I didn't know
Speaker 1: George Gervin back then. And back then the NBA one
Speaker 1: on TV like the NBA's on TV now. So you
Speaker 1: only admired your your the people in your neighborhood or
Speaker 1: your older yeah, the locals, and every night and then
Speaker 1: you may you may hear about doctor J. And then
Speaker 1: your imagination you this is doctor J. Move but you
Speaker 1: ain't never really seen him, right, Um. But my brother,
Speaker 1: Lord Henry was so smooth man. And the name alone,
Speaker 1: you had to be called the name. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: my mom and my dad they had high hopes and
Speaker 1: of course of the place that we was living in.
Speaker 1: That's That's that's how it was. But um, but now
Speaker 1: and and and he got turned out though you know
Speaker 1: you got turned out on Heroin. Um ended up dying, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, several years ago. But but man, you're talking
Speaker 1: about a pretty jump shot. You know, between the leg
Speaker 1: dribbles behind the bag and the way I was taught
Speaker 1: to play the game and the way he taught me
Speaker 1: to play the game, it was all spiritual. You know.
Speaker 1: It was like and I can't I can't remember him
Speaker 1: and my older my my second oldest brother, my third
Speaker 1: oldest brother, Larry. You know, it's like Junior, you know,
Speaker 1: you you just can't play the game. You gotta feel it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you gotta when you shake, you you gotta
Speaker 1: feel it. Man, you just can't. You just dribbling. But
Speaker 1: the fun is that you dripping. Yeah, you gotta feel it, man.
Speaker 1: And so you that's how you know you tried to play.
Speaker 1: You tried to put that spirituality into the game where
Speaker 1: you tried to make that person who's watching you play
Speaker 1: feel what you feel. Right. And so brother Lord Henry,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, he died a Heroin. But
Speaker 1: the one thing, you know, he kicked right, and I
Speaker 1: remember when he kicked, you know, and he said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go back to school. And and while he kicked,
Speaker 1: he was like, damn, you know it was it was
Speaker 1: it was easier when I was on drugs, you know,
Speaker 1: because now now you got to get back into the system.
Speaker 1: You've been out of the system for a long time.
Speaker 1: But he went back graduated from college, and I never forget,
Speaker 1: so you've been on the West side, right, we his
Speaker 1: grad The night before graduation, I rented a bus and
Speaker 1: the bus was me know, fifth Avenue in Jackson, right
Speaker 1: and and he was graduating from UH school in Detroit
Speaker 1: Universe with Phoenix University, you know that, yeah, that online thing.
Speaker 1: So um. So I rented a bus and I had
Speaker 1: the bus, you know, show up on Fifth Avenue and
Speaker 1: Jackson at four in the morning, three in the morning.
Speaker 1: Want everybody to be there at three in the morning.
Speaker 1: Bus gonna leave at four going down to Detroit so
Speaker 1: we can watch Lord Henry graduate at four Field. And
Speaker 1: I never forget bus driver calling me up like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you you shoot I got the right address. You shoot
Speaker 1: him in the right Okay. I'm like, yeah, man, you're
Speaker 1: in the right location. So anyway, all the Lord Henry's friends.
Speaker 1: You know, some are still addicts. Um, then some you know,
Speaker 1: you know, I've kicked and everything. So we load up
Speaker 1: the bus and as the bus gets loaded up, now
Speaker 1: a drive down to Detroit. I meet him in Detroit
Speaker 1: and we had his graduation and I never forget. Man,
Speaker 1: like my brother walking across the stage, had his cap
Speaker 1: and gown on. He didn't know what he was gonna
Speaker 1: be there, and and all his friends started holly, Lord Henry,
Speaker 1: Lord Henry. And man, he broke down on the stage
Speaker 1: and just started crying, like crying like a little baby. Man.
Speaker 1: That was That was one of the most beautiful days
Speaker 1: that I remember. So when you talk about Lord Henry
Speaker 1: as basketball playing, but the fact that that dude went
Speaker 1: back to school and then he just died a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. You know, oregons just shut down all
Speaker 1: of the heroin and stuff. It just body just collapsed.
Speaker 1: But yeah, thanks for bringing him up. Thank you. Man.
Speaker 1: I just lost my little brother. I lost my older
Speaker 1: brother when I was young, So I know the feeling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know the feeling. Yeah, Chicago Pipeline all especially now
Speaker 1: all the young players that's coming out of Chicago. Man, Um,
Speaker 1: what's in the water though. You got d Wade, Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: Kevin Gardner, Derek Rose, Tim Hardaway into our walker yourself,
Speaker 1: uh will buying them? Patrick Beverly, you got so many,
Speaker 1: so many hoopers come from there. All dogs, Yeah, all
Speaker 1: dogs talking about what's in the water. Well, it's in
Speaker 1: Detroit water not too so, I claimed Chicago, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and but you know for us, right, it's
Speaker 1: so we always say the south Side like them south
Speaker 1: Side guys, you name, they all got haircuts, you know,
Speaker 1: they pretty what I mean, they and they and they
Speaker 1: can shoot right west Side We d n up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we Patrick Beverley, We Tony Allen, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean like we, I mean we we were picking
Speaker 1: you up ninety four feet, were getting in your face.
Speaker 1: Tim Hardaway, you know them south Side dude, the Wayne Way.
Speaker 1: They can score, Yeah, I mean they can they can
Speaker 1: score the basketball. So it's it's like we and then
Speaker 1: they got a lot of food over there too. We
Speaker 1: have it food. But but I would say, just what's
Speaker 1: in the water again, it's the spirituality of you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to be the best and wanting to compete. And
Speaker 1: the guy that we probably the most proud of out
Speaker 1: of Chicago is Derek Row. I mean, hey, man, he
Speaker 1: he lived all of our dream all of our dream right,
Speaker 1: and then he plays for the Chicago Bulls, right, and
Speaker 1: then he becomes the youngest MVP he of the league
Speaker 1: at twenty Oh man. I mean, I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: everybody's like, you know, when d Rose walk into the room,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, theme music be playing. I mean,
Speaker 1: so you know, again, it's just a I think it's competition, right,
Speaker 1: we want to compete. A lot of us really like
Speaker 1: to fight. Don't say we went all our fights, right,
Speaker 1: nobody does. Yeah, Like I grew up fighting. I had
Speaker 1: to fight like twice a week. I didn't win all
Speaker 1: my fights. But then you just start like fighting, right,
Speaker 1: and you just be like A you know part of it, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think it's Chicago. That's that's part of like
Speaker 1: the get down now in Detroit. So I you know,
Speaker 1: when you look at what I the way I grew
Speaker 1: up and the way I learned how to play in Chicago,
Speaker 1: what I tried to do is take that to Detroit.
Speaker 1: So when you look at the Chris Webber, as you
Speaker 1: look at the Derek Colemans, you look at the Jaalen Roles.
Speaker 1: You look at the Steve Smith, you look at you
Speaker 1: know them. We all bring that same like okay, we
Speaker 1: we come in with it. And if you don't like it,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. You know, Ronnie Fields, man, if he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have gotten an accident, bro, Yeah, people don't remember, like
Speaker 1: so KG, Right, people talk about Kevin Garnett, but in Chicago,
Speaker 1: they say, Kevin Garnett played with that time. It was
Speaker 1: like he played with man and and you talk about
Speaker 1: somebody jumping high. Right, So when KG first got to Chicago, right,
Speaker 1: you know, KG like to talk, and you know he
Speaker 1: really animated, right, and he wanted to play everywhere, like everywhere,
Speaker 1: and and so he growing up in the gym and
Speaker 1: and and so everybody like, man, who is this dude?
Speaker 1: Mane He kind of talk a lot. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like nah, man, he good Man, he good likely Liam
Speaker 1: And so KG like went all over Chicago playing. But
Speaker 1: as you say, he's the guy that played with Ronnie
Speaker 1: run And it's like Dwayne Wade in Chicago, right, Dwayne
Speaker 1: Wade get mad love, but he don't get the the
Speaker 1: the Ronnie Fields kind of loved because in Chicago, it's
Speaker 1: what you did in high school. Yeah, if you if
Speaker 1: you was the man in high school, you're the man
Speaker 1: for life in Chicago. Chicago, Yeah, we don't have a
Speaker 1: more decorated athlete that come out of Chicago than Dwayne Wade.
Speaker 1: Dwayne Wade is like the gold standard, you know, Olympics,
Speaker 1: gold medal championships, everything. Nope, no one has got more
Speaker 1: you know, decorations than Dwayne Wade. But in Chicago, oh, man, man,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, that's how I go. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like what you did you know in high school
Speaker 1: is what matter? That's crazy? Uh, you end up chooting
Speaker 1: Indiana for college? Who else was on your list? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't choose Indiana Indiana. We'll talk to us about
Speaker 1: where you're who was recruiting you, and where you wanted
Speaker 1: to go. So, um, of course I wanted to stay
Speaker 1: at home and go to Paul uh. And then my
Speaker 1: second choice was Iowa with Lude Osan And um, you know,
Speaker 1: so coach Rosboro was the assistant coach at Iowa and
Speaker 1: he actually coached my brother Lord Henry and Gregory at
Speaker 1: Our Lady of Sorrows. So if you go back and
Speaker 1: you look at Iowa, Lude Osan always has Chicago guards,
Speaker 1: you know, from Ronnie Lester, Kenny Arnold. I mean, so
Speaker 1: he had that Chicago or pipeline, Kevin Boyle, Jim Stack,
Speaker 1: and he was able to get all him because he
Speaker 1: had Rossborough who had coach on the West Side. So, um,
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to De Paul, wanted to stay home.
Speaker 1: And at that time we were we were poured and poor,
Speaker 1: you know, no lights, no gas, no food, you know,
Speaker 1: struggling every day. And you know, at that time people
Speaker 1: was offering you money to come to school. And I
Speaker 1: never forget, you know, had had I stayed home in Chicago,
Speaker 1: things would have been really nice for the family. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I would be alive to day though,
Speaker 1: if I would have stayed home in Chicago. And and
Speaker 1: y'all can understand this, and I've never really said this,
Speaker 1: but growing up in the neighborhood that I grew up
Speaker 1: in and growing up the way we grew up, my
Speaker 1: mom made the wise decision and said, you know, you're
Speaker 1: going to go to in Indiana. M had I stayed
Speaker 1: in Chicago, I don't know, if you know, running the
Speaker 1: running around doing the things that we were doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So but she chose Indiana for me. You know, legend
Speaker 1: has it that when Bob Knight showed up, the whole
Speaker 1: neighborhood showed up, The whole neighborhood showed up, and and
Speaker 1: then there was a fight almost that broke out to
Speaker 1: so my so, my uh so, my two older brothers,
Speaker 1: you know, all my brothers were there. Um and my
Speaker 1: second oldest brother, Gregory. Um, I'm sure you heard about
Speaker 1: my second older brother, Gregory. Uh so. He so, he
Speaker 1: asked Coach Knight the question. You know, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, Coach, like, if if Junior was to you know,
Speaker 1: go down to Indiana. You know, we we know the
Speaker 1: clan is right there, and if something was to go down,
Speaker 1: you know, who's gonna look out for Junior? And I thought, coach,
Speaker 1: and I gave a you know, a pretty slick and
Speaker 1: so you know what I mean, He's like, you know, well,
Speaker 1: if if we're winning, then they're gonna look out. And
Speaker 1: he said if we lose it, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: everybody kind of laughed off, but my brother he didn't
Speaker 1: like that answer. Now and so so back up, So
Speaker 1: Coach Night when he come to visit me, he walked
Speaker 1: in with Wayne Embury and Quinn Buckner. Now Quinn Buckner,
Speaker 1: you know, undefeated, you know at thorn Ridge, undefeated at
Speaker 1: Indiana and in Wayne Embury first black general manager, you
Speaker 1: know in Milwaukee. Now he walked in, he flanked with him, right,
Speaker 1: and he coming to recruit me. So Dick respect walking
Speaker 1: through the door. So my brother didn't like his answer, right,
Speaker 1: And and so my brother, you know, my brother was
Speaker 1: lit at the time. I mean he was you know,
Speaker 1: that's just how they was, right. And so my brother
Speaker 1: was like, hey, man, I you know, I don't like that.
Speaker 1: You know that, what you mean they gonna take care
Speaker 1: we we take care of junior, you know. And and
Speaker 1: so the conversation quickly got heated, and you know, I
Speaker 1: you know, the voices raised and everything else. And and
Speaker 1: so everybody's like, na, no, y'all calm down. No Eve did.
Speaker 1: And so coach and I stood up. You know, my
Speaker 1: brother's like, well, we can take this outside. So Coach
Speaker 1: Night stood up and took off his jacket and started
Speaker 1: rolling up in sleeves like it's like, yeah, we could
Speaker 1: take this outside. And everybody's like no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: And so I look over there and my mom, right,
Speaker 1: my Mom just sitting there, real quiet, kind of nodding
Speaker 1: her head, doing like this, And I'm like, oh, she
Speaker 1: liked it. To dude, she liked it all. She's falling
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, man, I'm glad they
Speaker 1: didn't go outside, as you gonna get jumped. Oh. He
Speaker 1: wouldn't have made it back in, but he thought it's
Speaker 1: just gonna be a one on one thing. Nah, he
Speaker 1: wouldn't have made it back end, as a matter of fact.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, he would have got stuck
Speaker 1: up first. Yeah, stuck. Yeah, but he wouldn't have made
Speaker 1: it back in, you know, for sure. I remember I
Speaker 1: remember Bob Knight called me my senior year. Um, he called.
Speaker 1: He called my house. My mom asks the phone. She
Speaker 1: was talking to him. She's like, I'm gonna put you
Speaker 1: on speaker pall. This was his exact words. Do you
Speaker 1: want to come to Indiana? Not? Right? Straight up? Bro.
Speaker 1: I'm like, huh, I'm like I'm gonna. Mom like I
Speaker 1: don't know. She like, excuse me, Yeah, do you want
Speaker 1: to come to Indiana? Not? And she was like, well,
Speaker 1: we'll have to give you a call back. She wasn't
Speaker 1: expecting to be so blunt. And that's all he said. Bro, yeah,
Speaker 1: never heard from again, recruiting trip. Do you want to
Speaker 1: come to Indiana? Not yeah, that's it. No, he was
Speaker 1: straight game with it. He walked up in the house
Speaker 1: and say, look, I'm off for your son three things.
Speaker 1: Miss Now this me sitting here right, He's like, Miss Thomas,
Speaker 1: I'm asking I'm off for your son three things. He's
Speaker 1: gonna be a gentleman, graduate from college, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: teach him how everything I knew about basketball. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: well that ain't enough where the money at, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. He's like, and but you know, that's
Speaker 1: how he recruited. And the thing that the thing that
Speaker 1: that my mom and I would say my sister that
Speaker 1: they really loved that. I didn't understand at that time
Speaker 1: what coach Knight was doing in the seventies and a
Speaker 1: little bit of the eighties, taking young classified as black
Speaker 1: in young boys in the United States of America, taking
Speaker 1: them down to Bloomington, Indiana, booking by a clan. Right,
Speaker 1: everybody graduated from college, everybody's doing well, everybody won championships.
Speaker 1: And he didn't cheat, and he didn't cheat, and he
Speaker 1: didn't cheat, and that was unheard of during that period
Speaker 1: of time because going to college, he was gonna take
Speaker 1: basket weaving. You know, you didn't have to go to class.
Speaker 1: Somebody's gonna be doing your homework. Everybody who graduated from
Speaker 1: Indiana you went to school, You did your homework, and
Speaker 1: you got a real grade. Yeah yeah yeah. How long
Speaker 1: did it take for you to buy in? Though? I
Speaker 1: mean he compromised, he I had, you know, it was like,
Speaker 1: hey man, this Hay's gonna be like, you know, one
Speaker 1: no place to go. You know, I got kicked off
Speaker 1: the team a couple of times, and and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, I'm going home. But then I remember one
Speaker 1: of the lights at home, when no food at home,
Speaker 1: when no gas at home. So and you weren't getting
Speaker 1: no sympathy from your mom. Your mom was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta stay there. So But the thing that I
Speaker 1: the thing that I loved about Coach Night now that
Speaker 1: I'm older, is that he had the courage to coach me.
Speaker 1: He had the courage to have confrontation with me. He
Speaker 1: had the courage to make me do right when I
Speaker 1: wanted to be wrong right. He didn't let me slide,
Speaker 1: He didn't let me get by. And it would have
Speaker 1: been easier for him to do that now that I
Speaker 1: was looking back, because I was pretty good at the time,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know how good I was as a player, right,
Speaker 1: so he let me, you know, he he basically was like, no,
Speaker 1: you you you gotta go to class. Man. If you
Speaker 1: don't go to class, you can't come to practice. You
Speaker 1: can't lay in your bed all day and think you're
Speaker 1: gonna come to practice and didn't go to class. That
Speaker 1: that that ain't happening. Now. Of course, that's what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. That's what we all wanted to do.
Speaker 1: So and then in terms of freedom, right like we
Speaker 1: had no plays at Indiana, we didn't have out of
Speaker 1: bounds to play. We weren't coming down calling played twenty
Speaker 1: two up, thirty two out, you know one. It was like,
Speaker 1: now you gotta get to know your teammate. And once
Speaker 1: you get to know your teammate, then you'll know if
Speaker 1: he's going left or right. But we played this this
Speaker 1: game they call passing games, similar what Golden State does.
Speaker 1: Now that Steve Kirk from the you know, he comes
Speaker 1: from the coaching tree, right lude osan Um. You know,
Speaker 1: when you look at Ludosan when you look at pop
Speaker 1: you know, all of them really have you know, similar
Speaker 1: coaching trees and thinking philosophies, very similar to the night right.
Speaker 1: So that passing game, that that that that that uh
Speaker 1: that know your teammate, understand what your teammate's gonna do.
Speaker 1: Uh you know how we're going to attack the opponent,
Speaker 1: how we're gonna dissect him. Uh some some teams only
Speaker 1: entered the ball on the left side of the court,
Speaker 1: or tonight you're gonna entered it on the right side,
Speaker 1: you know. Um So that was the way he made
Speaker 1: you think and play. Uh so, Yeah, And he always
Speaker 1: says to thinking man's game, mental is the physical as
Speaker 1: for as to one, And you know, if you can't think,
Speaker 1: then you you you got no shot against playing against me.
Speaker 1: Mental is too physical as for as to one. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, it's a thinking
Speaker 1: man's game and you you have to think your way
Speaker 1: through the game, and you're gonna have him thinking about
Speaker 1: that analogy the whole. Yeah. Yeah, two year pit stop
Speaker 1: you win a champion National Championship in eighty one dropped
Speaker 1: twenty three verse, Sam Perkins and James Worthy over North Carolina.
Speaker 1: What was your favorite on the court moments in college? Was? It?
Speaker 1: Was it that championship? Two favorites. The first favorite was
Speaker 1: February fourteenth in Iowa Mike Woodson's return because my freshman
Speaker 1: year he had back surgery. We were ranked number one.
Speaker 1: Woodson goes down, Whitman goes down, Bushi goes down, and
Speaker 1: we like, you know, we foll turing. Right, Woodson comes
Speaker 1: back and that's his first game and it's in Iowa City,
Speaker 1: and it's my freshman year and my whole my whole
Speaker 1: time now, you know, playing for coach Night. I'm waiting
Speaker 1: for this genius moment, right, I'm waiting for him to
Speaker 1: grab the clipboard, you know, and draw up some stuff.
Speaker 1: And but I ain't seen no clipboard and like, you know,
Speaker 1: I ain't seen the clipboard like since I got there. Right,
Speaker 1: So we down, we down one in Iowa. It was
Speaker 1: what his first game back in and we called time
Speaker 1: out and now I'm like, okay, this this is the moment.
Speaker 1: Something gotta happen. I know. We get ready to draw
Speaker 1: up a play now, right, this was the play he said, Whitson,
Speaker 1: can you make a shot? What he said, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: knock it down. Coach, he said. He called me Peewee. Say, okay, Peewee,
Speaker 1: I want you to move the ball around October. I
Speaker 1: want you to set the screen for what'son. What'son? I
Speaker 1: want you to get open, Peewee. When he gets open,
Speaker 1: I want you to hit it. Would he knocked the
Speaker 1: shot down. I'm like, on the left side, the right side,
Speaker 1: where where's what's gonna be. I'm scared. I'm like scared.
Speaker 1: I'm like walking down on the floor. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: how are we gonna get the ball in right? He
Speaker 1: wants you to put everybody in place. I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: just all I'm doing. So I passed it, didn't I
Speaker 1: run over there getting check and so I'm waiting for
Speaker 1: wood to wood. He come off tober sets of down screen, what'son?
Speaker 1: Comes off on the left side. I hit him boom boom,
Speaker 1: and he banks it right off the glass. And to me,
Speaker 1: that was the most That was one of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful moments I have experienced because what he recruited me.
Speaker 1: That was my senior year. He had back surgery. You know,
Speaker 1: he's coming back, you know, and so I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: second best moment was, you know, be North Carolina in
Speaker 1: that final game. So two things happened in that game.
Speaker 1: In the first half, North Carolina got out to a
Speaker 1: good start, and I knew we didn't had a talent
Speaker 1: to play with them, right talent for talent, they were
Speaker 1: better James Worthy, Sam Perkins, al Would that's the back line.
Speaker 1: Worthy was a number one pick. I think Perkins was like,
Speaker 1: you know, five or six and al Will was like
Speaker 1: ten or something. But North Carolina they played that platoon system.
Speaker 1: So I was just they got up and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: we just got a hold home, fellas, because five minutes
Speaker 1: they're gonna take Worthy out. They're gonna take Worthy and
Speaker 1: Perkins out. And when they took them out, that's when
Speaker 1: we was able to come back. But one of the
Speaker 1: biggest plays I thought in that game, clock's running down.
Speaker 1: We got the last shot out a half and Whipman's
Speaker 1: in the in the in the right corner and I'm
Speaker 1: standing there were you know, I'm dribbling the ball, trying
Speaker 1: to you know, make sure like everybody is set doing
Speaker 1: what they're supposed to do, trying to stall time and
Speaker 1: whopmen and I make eye contact and you know, we
Speaker 1: run the clock down, kick it over the whipmen. He
Speaker 1: knocks down the shot the in the in the first half,
Speaker 1: they gave us crazy momentum going in because I think
Speaker 1: we either went up one or was down one. We
Speaker 1: come back out the third, uh to start the second half,
Speaker 1: and then I take over. So you know that, But
Speaker 1: I thought that shot was one of the biggest moments
Speaker 1: in the game. Yeah, nineteen eighty one draft, you go
Speaker 1: number two overall to the Pistons, probably the worst team
Speaker 1: in the league. Before you got there, you knew what
Speaker 1: she was walking into though, Right, No, I didn't. You didn't,
Speaker 1: he said, I understanding. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, when you hear the worst team, you know
Speaker 1: you you don't. You have no idea what the worst team?
Speaker 1: That's like, you know what they really mean, right you? So?
Speaker 1: Um there, So there was no culture, there was no Now,
Speaker 1: I come from every place I've been, I've won, right
Speaker 1: and and so there there's rules, there's there's there's discipline,
Speaker 1: there's a way of acting, there's a way of being,
Speaker 1: there's a way of doing things. Um and and so
Speaker 1: when I get to Detroit, those it was like, what
Speaker 1: are we doing like, how are we going to win?
Speaker 1: That's all I'm trying to figure out, is how are
Speaker 1: we going to win? And so I had to go
Speaker 1: to school, right, and where I went to school. I
Speaker 1: went to the Lakers school and I went to the
Speaker 1: Celtics school. So I started following them around. And fortunately
Speaker 1: enough for me, Magic Johnson who had just come off
Speaker 1: winning the NBA Championship and being the MVP of the
Speaker 1: championship game. Now he like, he's like, come on, man,
Speaker 1: you with me? And I'm like, really, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, so we So now I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: watching the Lakers. I'm watching him, and I'm watching how
Speaker 1: how they train, how they practice, how they come together.
Speaker 1: Kevin McAll and I were friends, uh, you know since
Speaker 1: high school, played on the PanAm team together. So now
Speaker 1: I get to you know, I watch how Boston do things.
Speaker 1: mL Car you know, still talk with him today, you
Speaker 1: know Maxwell. I mean so, so the Celtics and the
Speaker 1: Lakers really like, let me like, in their locker room.
Speaker 1: You look at all the championship celebrations in the eighties,
Speaker 1: you will see Isaiah Thomas in them locker rooms watching
Speaker 1: them celebrate. Right, Um, you know, on their exit meetings.
Speaker 1: I'm with Magic at the exit meetings, you know, when
Speaker 1: they lost to Boston in the room, in the fucking room,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm listening to pat Riley, you know, give
Speaker 1: his thing. Jerry West, Who's steal my man the day? Right,
Speaker 1: Jerry West. They let me in to the sanctuary. I
Speaker 1: was one of them, right, And and so I learned.
Speaker 1: And so in learning, not only did it make me better,
Speaker 1: but it I was able to bring some things back
Speaker 1: to the Pistons in terms of, hey, if we want
Speaker 1: to win in this league, this what it looked say
Speaker 1: that again, what it looked like, right, because we had
Speaker 1: no idea. So so it's like, okay, how are you
Speaker 1: going to win in this league? You you you gotta learn,
Speaker 1: you gotta get educated, right, And and they let me in.
Speaker 1: And so so I'm there when Magic Johnson dribble out
Speaker 1: the shot clock and they're calling him Tragic Johnson, right,
Speaker 1: and I'm in his hotel room, me Mark and this
Speaker 1: dude laying on the floor bawling, I mean just hurt ring,
Speaker 1: you know, just you know that kind of cry, right,
Speaker 1: and and and we stayed up with him until you know,
Speaker 1: bus was leaving at five thirty in the morning, and
Speaker 1: he just laying on the floor, just bawling. Right, come
Speaker 1: down to escalator, get on the bus, go back to LA.
Speaker 1: So I get a chance to watch y'all at I
Speaker 1: get a chance to see James Worthy, right, take the
Speaker 1: ball out on the sideline inbounded Gerald Henderson steals it, right,
Speaker 1: he goes lazy. So I get to see all a heartbreak,
Speaker 1: but also get to see that bounce back. I get
Speaker 1: to see that bounce back. Right, and so when Magic loss. Right. Now,
Speaker 1: at summer, we were training, we're working out, and that
Speaker 1: dude shot me with so many bowls, right, And finally
Speaker 1: I just had to say, look, man, I'm not Larry Bird.
Speaker 1: You got cut this shit out. But I mean he
Speaker 1: was training so hard and so now Mark and now
Speaker 1: we're going through all all stuff. Right, that's summer. That
Speaker 1: dude shot maybe a thousand free throws a day, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, right, are you sing so many free throws?
Speaker 1: But come on, man, you know, work on your jump shot.
Speaker 1: You know, we gotta get your j right now, that
Speaker 1: dude went from being an eighty three eighty four percent
Speaker 1: jumped to ninety wow, jumped to ninety percent from the
Speaker 1: fire line, then became the MVP of the league, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So, so watching that and learning that,
Speaker 1: so when you say, now to Detroit Pistons, So we
Speaker 1: didn't have no culture, So what did I do? Right,
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, this is who we are. We need
Speaker 1: an identity. This is who we're going to become. This
Speaker 1: is how we're gonna dress, This is how we're gonna talk,
Speaker 1: this is how we're gonna look. Right, and and then
Speaker 1: bringing some stuff from the neighborhood. Right, um, you know
Speaker 1: that that that ten point program, right, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like we're gonna we're gonna instill, listen to
Speaker 1: our teams. Right, there's gonna be some rules. This is
Speaker 1: how we're gonna follow. This, how we're gonna act. This's
Speaker 1: how we're gonna march. Is how we're gonna beat. This
Speaker 1: is who we are in this NBA league and still today,
Speaker 1: this is who we are, this is what we do now.
Speaker 1: If we didn't establish that that culture, that language, that
Speaker 1: belief system, those values, you know, we we didn't have
Speaker 1: the type of talent that LA had. We didn't have
Speaker 1: the type of talent that Boston had, But we had
Speaker 1: a belief system that was so strong that it's gonna
Speaker 1: mess you up when I say this deal, Lamb Beier
Speaker 1: believed that he can compete every single night against Kareem
Speaker 1: Abtol a strong beliefship. Come on, work with me. Think,
Speaker 1: Think about what I just said, Think about what I
Speaker 1: just said. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean it's
Speaker 1: like that that in itself, right, Lamb Beier walking out
Speaker 1: on the floor with the belief and understanding that number
Speaker 1: thirty three in purple or number thirty three in gold,
Speaker 1: if I do what I'm supposed to do, I can
Speaker 1: beat you. M m. Nobody in the world would agree
Speaker 1: with him, and they didn't. They still don't believe it.
Speaker 1: I'm just glad the film Don't Lie, Film Don't Lie.
Speaker 1: We just have Barkley on. And Barkley was talking about
Speaker 1: around the time you come in, how Bird and Magic
Speaker 1: saved the league. Do you agree with that? I think
Speaker 1: Bird and Magic saved the league, and I think the
Speaker 1: league took off when the Detroit Pistons showed up on
Speaker 1: the scene. I think Bird and Magic. You know what
Speaker 1: the NBA was coming out of in the seventies, um
Speaker 1: and and how the United States was. I mean, we
Speaker 1: have to talk about that now, how the United States
Speaker 1: was for for black men in the seventies and then
Speaker 1: Bird and Magic being on the stage in the in
Speaker 1: the early eighties coming out of college and then you know,
Speaker 1: playing that you know that game again, Magic come to
Speaker 1: La Burger, going to Boston. You know, they walked into culture,
Speaker 1: they walked into a foundation, they walked into a way
Speaker 1: of being, they walked into winning. They didn't have to
Speaker 1: you know, get a piece of paper and go to
Speaker 1: school and get educated. They walked into it. Right now,
Speaker 1: that help. But what the ratings say and what the
Speaker 1: numbers say when the league took off is whenning bad
Speaker 1: boys from the Detroit Pistons showed up. Because we showed
Speaker 1: up with a totally different kind of crowd. We had,
Speaker 1: you know, people from all different walks of life, and
Speaker 1: we started putting fifty sixty thousand people in the Silver Dome.
Speaker 1: And then we had three rivalries. I think we're the
Speaker 1: only team that only had three rivalries, the Lakers, the Celtics,
Speaker 1: in the Bulls, right, so every time we played, every
Speaker 1: everywhere we moved, right, it was it was different. And
Speaker 1: then we didn't understand what we didn't know. So we
Speaker 1: met a gentleman about the name of Mike Orenstein with
Speaker 1: the La Raiders or the Oakland Raiders at that time
Speaker 1: what they called cross marketing. Today, we didn't know there
Speaker 1: was such a term as cross marketing. But all connection
Speaker 1: with the Oakland Raiders. Then let us start changing all colors.
Speaker 1: So we went from the red, white and blue to
Speaker 1: the silver and black, and then we had a second jersey,
Speaker 1: we had a second uniform, you know, in the NBA
Speaker 1: really didn't own any of that. So when we walked
Speaker 1: off the stage and the Bulls walked on the stage,
Speaker 1: that's when y'all got the shooting jerseys. That's when they
Speaker 1: started changing, you know, the different color uniforms and everything else.
Speaker 1: But the Pistons started all that. So the highest rated
Speaker 1: games in the eighties Pistons against Celtics, Pistons against Lakers,
Speaker 1: Pistons against Bulls, and they all have one thing in common.
Speaker 1: That's a Detroit Pistons to the attitude of energy, y'all
Speaker 1: brod first NBA game thirty one and eleven, crazy first
Speaker 1: Game thirty one eleven. Geez, you make the All Star
Speaker 1: Amage Rookie year two. Clearly the leader of your team.
Speaker 1: Did that come to you naturally or like when you
Speaker 1: when you showed up they knew you was leader, or
Speaker 1: did you have to fight for that. I never thought
Speaker 1: of myself as the leader. I never thought of myself
Speaker 1: as the captain. It's you know, leadership is given. You
Speaker 1: never walk into a room and be like, I'm the leader.
Speaker 1: You know, it's they vote on it. You know who's
Speaker 1: going to be the captain. Okay, you can be the captain.
Speaker 1: And and I was selected the captain and the leader
Speaker 1: only because they trust me, right and in that type
Speaker 1: of trust is earned, and then you have to honor
Speaker 1: it too. Like that means hold, Yeah, that means you
Speaker 1: can't go out when everybody else is going out, right,
Speaker 1: you can't. I mean, I don't know, meant that much. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't do the things that everybody else
Speaker 1: is doing it because you know that there's a certain
Speaker 1: amount of trust and respect that goes along with that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that that first game against Milwaukee, I'm playing against
Speaker 1: you know, not Quinn Buckner. I'm playing against him. It's
Speaker 1: my first time playing against him. You know, that dude
Speaker 1: was just in my house. He went undefeated. He went
Speaker 1: undefeated in high school and undefeated in college. Still the
Speaker 1: last undefeated team right now. I'm playing against him and
Speaker 1: he like, hey, junior, how you doing. This'll be a
Speaker 1: bad night, right, And and so I remember, like the
Speaker 1: first two or three plays, I get by them and
Speaker 1: I go down the lane. I go down the lane
Speaker 1: to make a layup. I come back down the lane again,
Speaker 1: and Bob Lanier literally I'm up in the air like this,
Speaker 1: and he goes, caught you in the air, caught me
Speaker 1: in the air and set me down and said, look,
Speaker 1: don't come down here no more. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: my jump shot got real good because when he when
Speaker 1: he called because when he called me, it wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: when them guys hit you, right, It wasn't like a
Speaker 1: gentle womb, you know. It was like yeah, and they
Speaker 1: put that force behind him, and yeah, you feel that, right, dude?
Speaker 1: Set me down, man. And you know, but I had
Speaker 1: a good game that night, but I was looking forward
Speaker 1: to the next night. So you talk about that thirty
Speaker 1: one in the level. The next night, then we go
Speaker 1: home to play the Chicago Bulls and I dropped thirty
Speaker 1: in that game. Now, that's the game that I really
Speaker 1: like because not all my boys, everybody, I mean everybody there.
Speaker 1: You know, Red Magic trip from Chicago to Boston. How
Speaker 1: long is that trip? Bust her car from Chicago to Detroit.
Speaker 1: Oh that's it's four hours and it's three and a half. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jack can get there three yeah, yeah, so straight down
Speaker 1: ninety four. So now you know, we go to Chicago,
Speaker 1: I can say Red Magic one, all my brothers them there,
Speaker 1: you know, all I mean everybody up in the stands,
Speaker 1: you know, and my my mom and my my aunt.
Speaker 1: Like back then they didn't have them, the metal detectors.
Speaker 1: So my mom she believed in the Second Amendment. Now yeah,
Speaker 1: Binky and my aunt got a switch blade. She carried
Speaker 1: switch blade and you and and I don't know if
Speaker 1: people remember this, but you know, like she would be
Speaker 1: sitting there talking, right and you remember tricks. They could
Speaker 1: do tricks with this play, you know, and she likes,
Speaker 1: you know, be talking to you and like twirling it
Speaker 1: all around and hitting it and them nice with it
Speaker 1: and close it up only when they finished. And so
Speaker 1: they would bring food to the game, so they bringing
Speaker 1: their chicken and everything, and you know, and so and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. So we um Ricky Sobers was the
Speaker 1: guard then one number fourteen. Sobers played at UNLV right,
Speaker 1: and and so we you know, I'm I'm going through
Speaker 1: my stuff. I went between my legs and that dude
Speaker 1: like hit me so hard. I damn right. You know,
Speaker 1: I folded up right because back then, you know, they
Speaker 1: didn't like when you try to show them off. Like night.
Speaker 1: You can just go through your legs and everything else
Speaker 1: for a long time. Then they stand up and so um,
Speaker 1: I say, Man, don't hit me like that no more.
Speaker 1: You know what you gonna do a little pump? I said, okay,
Speaker 1: And so you see all them people sitting up there,
Speaker 1: so you live here, So you hit me like that
Speaker 1: one more time, you won't live here no more. Straight up,
Speaker 1: that simple. And you know had a good game. You know,
Speaker 1: win it the year. Jordan's is the league at the time.
Speaker 1: The East has loaded yourself, m J Bird, Dominique, Moses Malone,
Speaker 1: Charles Barkley, doctor j Um. What was the Eastern Conference
Speaker 1: back in the middle of the eighties? Like every night,
Speaker 1: you see, I just took a simple war. All names
Speaker 1: you just named off. I was like Chevy, I'm sweating now,
Speaker 1: Like man, Philadelphia was so good back then, Mo Cheeks,
Speaker 1: Andrew Tony, Doctor Ja, Moses Malone, Bobby Jones. They don't
Speaker 1: get enough credit for what they was doing in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Back then. I mean that team was and then they
Speaker 1: got Barkley, right, It just unfair, right, Bird McHale Parish,
Speaker 1: you know a Milwaukee That Milwaukee team was loaded with
Speaker 1: Marcus Johnson and all of them. So we you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was hell, you know up in there.
Speaker 1: But what what we had and what we were developing
Speaker 1: was different than all the other teams, right, all those
Speaker 1: teams you just named. What we was developing was identity, culture,
Speaker 1: belief systems, you know, understand and you know those those
Speaker 1: those you know, those things that you carry with you
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life. Right, that's what we
Speaker 1: was building as a team. And talent wise, all those
Speaker 1: people that you just named, we didn't have that kind
Speaker 1: of talent. But what we could do is we could
Speaker 1: outscheme you and and we can adhere to a game
Speaker 1: plan and concentrate and do it for two and a
Speaker 1: half hours. Most teams, most players, they can't. They can't
Speaker 1: concentrate for two and a half hours, right, And so
Speaker 1: when when Jordan came in, you know, in eighty four
Speaker 1: eighty five, right, you know, he was mega talented. And
Speaker 1: not only was he mega talented, but we we had
Speaker 1: never seen an athlete like that. You got to remember,
Speaker 1: like in the NBA at that time, you know, doctor
Speaker 1: j still was the best athlete. And when Jordan came in,
Speaker 1: younger than doctor Jay, I was like, Okay, he's the
Speaker 1: next Doctor Jay. And you know when nobody jumping from
Speaker 1: the fire line and in the air and doing all
Speaker 1: the stuff around the rim that he was doing. Nobody
Speaker 1: you didn't have athletes like that, so he was. He
Speaker 1: was a fascinating watch. So due bars and that, right,
Speaker 1: you know, we would we would be I'll never forget
Speaker 1: every time Chicago played, you know, Joe and I would
Speaker 1: be on the phone and we'd be talking because we
Speaker 1: gotta we got to play against him, right, And they
Speaker 1: were playing New Jersey in Chicago, and Joe and I,
Speaker 1: you know, we were talking and and Jordan came down
Speaker 1: on the left side, caught on the left wing, went
Speaker 1: through a couple of dribbles and then he took off
Speaker 1: on the left box and dude floated all the way
Speaker 1: to the right box and then laid it up on
Speaker 1: the other side. That's where to God joined out on
Speaker 1: the phone and for about five minutes, Man, it was
Speaker 1: just dead, silent, dead silent. Do we just see Yeah?
Speaker 1: And then and then all of a sudden it was like,
Speaker 1: I man, I see you practice tomorrow to deal with
Speaker 1: I mean that dude jumped from the left box and
Speaker 1: was up in the air and went all the way
Speaker 1: over to the right box and laid it up. It
Speaker 1: was like we had Magic on the show um at
Speaker 1: the end of December, and your name came up, and
Speaker 1: Magic was talking about what you and him went through
Speaker 1: and how you guys were able to sit down and
Speaker 1: and patch it up, which is beautiful, by the way,
Speaker 1: Thank you. Everyone was big fans of that. But he
Speaker 1: also said he would like to see you, would Mike
Speaker 1: patch it up? You called me after that and we
Speaker 1: had a conversation on the phone about what was going
Speaker 1: You care to share any of that? Hey, man? You know,
Speaker 1: I just I just want some people to be honest.
Speaker 1: I got I got no problem sitting down talking with anybody,
Speaker 1: right And as you can see, you know, I'm your
Speaker 1: open book. You know I live with love, peace, truth,
Speaker 1: you know, honesty, courage, I'm you know, I stand on
Speaker 1: my square. I'm upright. You know, I'm independent, and I
Speaker 1: sit in any chair and I talk to anybody, right.
Speaker 1: But some people don't. They ain't been telling the truth
Speaker 1: right now, anywhere, anytime publicly, I don't. Don't. Don't don't
Speaker 1: call me behind the scenes, apologizing or asking your friends
Speaker 1: to apologize. Right, you got on national television and you
Speaker 1: call me an asshole, and then you said you hated me.
Speaker 1: You said that on national television. Now, if you didn't
Speaker 1: mean it, get on national television, say that and apologize
Speaker 1: for it. Now, if you meant it, let it ride
Speaker 1: as it is. But so I called you in that
Speaker 1: same day. You know who I call? I called Magic Johnson.
Speaker 1: Magic was on the plane. There was shooting a commercial
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. Him, Sam Jackson, everybody else. We were staying
Speaker 1: in the Four Seasons Hotel. We missed each other, right
Speaker 1: because he said he had to go, so he on
Speaker 1: the plane, right, I called him up. Magic didn't mention
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan. All right, So I'm still waiting. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody say this stuff publicly. Right, I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this. Somebody that all right, Well, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm the type of guy. I sit here, I talk
Speaker 1: to you, I talk to you. It ain't a person
Speaker 1: in this unit in the States of America that I'm
Speaker 1: not willing to sit down and have a conversation with
Speaker 1: and break bread with. But if you line and throwing
Speaker 1: stones from behind the scenes, okay, that's you. But if
Speaker 1: you're honest and you upright on your square, I'm willing
Speaker 1: to deal with. Yeah. You know, so that's all I know.
Speaker 1: Now where do we go from here? I mean, you
Speaker 1: told me something to see me. You have family that
Speaker 1: had stayed with him, and say, at one point, absolutely
Speaker 1: eight when when Jordan first came to Chicago. First of all,
Speaker 1: we were fans of his and to some extent still
Speaker 1: fans of his. My family, his family. Not only did
Speaker 1: they socialize, hang out, but as I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I little nephew that lived with him, and and everybody's
Speaker 1: still cool. Right, Ain't no, ain't no hate for Jordan.
Speaker 1: We just want some realness, right did you just you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, you you got on national television and
Speaker 1: at nobody ain't nobody nowhere has ever got on national
Speaker 1: television and called me an asshole and then publicly said
Speaker 1: you hate me. I ain't heard that from you. I
Speaker 1: ain't heard that from you. I ain't heard that from
Speaker 1: no NBA player. And so I'm and by the way,
Speaker 1: all them years that you supposedly hated me, you voted
Speaker 1: for me to be the president of your union. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I've seen a lot of pictures of All
Speaker 1: Star games and y'all laughing at joke and it didn't
Speaker 1: look like Yeah, I'm just saying, like, you know, if
Speaker 1: that you know now now maybe you felt like that
Speaker 1: privately and I didn't know, but now that I do know.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you didn't meet it that way,
Speaker 1: then publicly say it, don't privately say it. You know, magic,
Speaker 1: we don't need a private conversation. This man did this
Speaker 1: on national television internationally. I have to answer this question
Speaker 1: right in every interview that I sit down, and do
Speaker 1: you asking me this question right? So now now I'm
Speaker 1: the one who's looking like, oh, why are you talking
Speaker 1: about Jordan? Why are you saying it? When you to
Speaker 1: put that out there? And now you at home or
Speaker 1: on your golf course or doing whatever you do, and
Speaker 1: now I got to answer this BS question. So if
Speaker 1: you're mad enough and you and you and you. If
Speaker 1: you meant it, leave it as it is. But if
Speaker 1: you didn't mean it, didn't come out and clean it
Speaker 1: up the same way it came out, the same way
Speaker 1: it came out with the same intensity. You gotta respect
Speaker 1: that though. That's why I say I mean because if
Speaker 1: she was on the foot. I know I've been disrespected
Speaker 1: a lot, But if somebody dispected me on TV doing
Speaker 1: the game, but also at the end of the game,
Speaker 1: they sound like, you know what I remember I said that,
Speaker 1: let me clear this up. What we get off air,
Speaker 1: I gotta respect that. I can't hold it. I can't
Speaker 1: be mad at him no more because he corrected himself.
Speaker 1: Are you you said? Magic and I sat down and
Speaker 1: squash whatever we had publicly publicly, Magic Johnson apologize. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if I hurt you. When I hurt you,
Speaker 1: I didn't mean that all. I'm good with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got to accept that and we move on. But
Speaker 1: if you're gonna let this linger out here in this
Speaker 1: basketball world, and you got everybody else talking, but you
Speaker 1: ain't saying something, Matthew meant it, stand on it, stand
Speaker 1: on it. But if you didn't mean it, clean it up.
Speaker 1: You mentioned, uh, you know, obviously there's no secret that
Speaker 1: you and Magic were we best to friends at one point,
Speaker 1: and what did it mean to you, to you guys
Speaker 1: to be able to sit down and clear that air
Speaker 1: for you, it meant a lot, not only to me,
Speaker 1: but we didn't know, and I didn't know how much
Speaker 1: it would mean to all of us, to the world.
Speaker 1: I had no idea, you know, because when you when
Speaker 1: you're going through that, you're just thinking about yourself. You're
Speaker 1: not thinking about really how it's affecting other people. And
Speaker 1: I just had the same thing happened with Karl Malone
Speaker 1: and I right and by way, thank you, Ken, you
Speaker 1: love you, sacking all strong, um, But you don't realize
Speaker 1: what the other person is carrying, right you you're feeling,
Speaker 1: you know, yourself in your grief and you're hurt. But
Speaker 1: the other person who's carrying that guilt, when you have
Speaker 1: the opportunity and you can relieve them of that, not
Speaker 1: knowing that that's how much they carry in right that
Speaker 1: that that was a powerful moment not only for he
Speaker 1: and I, but it was a powerful moment for the world,
Speaker 1: which we didn't know. So it's like two moments we've
Speaker 1: had that we didn't realize what we was really doing.
Speaker 1: That ended up changing a lot of stuff like when
Speaker 1: he and I like first hugged and kissed, right, ah,
Speaker 1: oh you know what they It's like I can't I
Speaker 1: can't meet my brother and give him a hand shake.
Speaker 1: Whenever I met family, it was always an embrace, right
Speaker 1: when we did when we did that in the eighties,
Speaker 1: two men, right, black masculinity, you know, and being called
Speaker 1: into question. You're not supposed to you know, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to have this, you know, this toughness about you and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Well, when we broke down that barrier,
Speaker 1: we didn't realize what we had really done. Now when
Speaker 1: we saw each other to day, first thing we did
Speaker 1: we hug you. I can't wait to hug you when
Speaker 1: I see you. Yeah, let me. And then then then
Speaker 1: we hugged for a minute because I wanted to feel you, right,
Speaker 1: And but back then that was so controversial. Right now,
Speaker 1: us coming together forgiving compassion, love, friendship, right, it's another
Speaker 1: powerful moment, not knowing that that's what we were doing, right,
Speaker 1: you know. So, and I'm glad that he and I
Speaker 1: got to share that. I mean, you mentioned and obviously
Speaker 1: this is going to come up to You mentioned you
Speaker 1: got a chance to sit down with Carl at this
Speaker 1: last All Star in Utah. What you know, how did
Speaker 1: that go? Man? For years, Man, I wanted to do
Speaker 1: something to call man. I know when you mentioned some
Speaker 1: people might have met, but Kmart told this story about
Speaker 1: how he was watching that game on TV when he
Speaker 1: was a youngster, and and and got him back for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying thank you. Yeah what I'm saying, so
Speaker 1: you said thank you for people might have but let
Speaker 1: me but let me say, let me say why I
Speaker 1: said thank you, and then let me let me go
Speaker 1: further with that because for years, I dude put a
Speaker 1: mark on me, man, And and for years I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna get my mark back. You know,
Speaker 1: you put a scar on me, and I'm get my
Speaker 1: scar back. And I get my scar back. We even
Speaker 1: but you know, not my though my scar back, believe
Speaker 1: you know, straight up. But and and so fast forward, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm carrying this around for years, years, for years,
Speaker 1: last dance come out and and you know every you know,
Speaker 1: the narrative was, you know, everybody hated I said, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody wanted him around, Nobody wanted him to be a
Speaker 1: part of it so far. So so that was what's
Speaker 1: being played. So now on the background, I'm getting calls
Speaker 1: from everybody. I'm getting calls from the Shock Hit, the
Speaker 1: Chicago Bulls team, teammates, people in the Chicago Bulls front office.
Speaker 1: I'm getting calls from people who was on the Dream Team, saying,
Speaker 1: hey man, that ain't me. You know how I feel
Speaker 1: about Okay? Cool? Then I don't get called from call
Speaker 1: and I'm like and he says, hey man, And this
Speaker 1: was years ago, saying hey man, I just want to
Speaker 1: tell you, like, you know, I hear all this stuff
Speaker 1: about the Dream Team. You know, I car talk. I'm
Speaker 1: a man, I'm a real man. I don't you know.
Speaker 1: I ain't handing behind nothing. You know, I I didn't
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with that. You're not making a team.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, you know, I'm speaking for Stockton.
Speaker 1: Then I we and he said this on camera. He said,
Speaker 1: if there was a secret meeting, me and Stockton weren't
Speaker 1: a part of those secret meeting trying to keep you
Speaker 1: off the team. That wasn't us. So now you know
Speaker 1: my next question is, you know so man, why you
Speaker 1: hit me like that? And this is what I have
Speaker 1: to respect. And and Kenyan, I hope you can respect
Speaker 1: this too, brother, because and and you know, and all
Speaker 1: my people in Chicago and in Detroit everywhere. I hope
Speaker 1: y'all can respect this about Karl Malone because what he
Speaker 1: said was, Hey, look, I I meant to hit you.
Speaker 1: That's how we played. You come down the lane, you're
Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna get some physicality. So I meant to
Speaker 1: do it, he said. But I but I didn't mean
Speaker 1: to do that. And I apologize because I didn't mean
Speaker 1: to do that. Hey, I have to accept that, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Because that now, if he would
Speaker 1: have been like, I'm a tough guy. You know, that's
Speaker 1: how we played, and yeah, I'm a lady blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, now now he gets emotional
Speaker 1: and he started crying. And you know when people started crying,
Speaker 1: Now you crying, yeah, yeah, So you never know what
Speaker 1: people dealing with. Yeah, And so I I was only
Speaker 1: looking at it from my point of view. I never
Speaker 1: knew the type of guilt that he was walking around carrying.
Speaker 1: And so by me saying, hey man, it's Okay, I
Speaker 1: love you, brother, We're good man. He said, you just
Speaker 1: took the whole weight off my show. Now, I never
Speaker 1: knew he was walking around with Wait. I just thought
Speaker 1: he was walking around like, yeah, I'm a tough dude.
Speaker 1: Look what I did to you and and somebody else.
Speaker 1: I'm a dude. But that ain't the way he was thinking.
Speaker 1: And when he said, yeah, I meant to hit you,
Speaker 1: but I didn't mean to do that. Now, that last
Speaker 1: part I got to accept, right, And that's you know
Speaker 1: that that was real. So I respect that mid eight
Speaker 1: is mid to late eight as you start winning, start
Speaker 1: going on the role. We clicked. We became one, everybody
Speaker 1: on the same page page, Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I
Speaker 1: don't care who you sit in this chair. If he's
Speaker 1: a piston, he's gonna tell the same story. He's gonna
Speaker 1: act the same way. He's gonna care himself the same way.
Speaker 1: We still got a group chat. John said, nah, nah, no,
Speaker 1: this this this is who we are from day one. Right,
Speaker 1: That's what clicked. It wasn't like we became better basketball players.
Speaker 1: We became like this as opposed to being five individuals.
Speaker 1: Right now, punch is more profit than the slap all
Speaker 1: the time, Bruce Lee talking too. And when you and
Speaker 1: when you put some when you put some energy in
Speaker 1: there behind that, and that's what we was walking up
Speaker 1: in there with, right, all force. Right, teams had no
Speaker 1: they had no shot, right because all allur togetherness, all force.
Speaker 1: It was intimidating. So when you say what made it
Speaker 1: come together is those sacrifices, those individual sacrifices that we
Speaker 1: all was making, that community, that communication, that crying, that breakdown,
Speaker 1: those heartaches, you know, all that that that that staying
Speaker 1: together and then you you become one. And when we
Speaker 1: became one, we we're probably we're definitely the most misunderstood
Speaker 1: team that's ever played in the NBA. And we're the
Speaker 1: most misunderstood team that's ever played in the NBA. And
Speaker 1: I say team because we were a team. The NBA,
Speaker 1: you know, wants to promote individuals. You know, my whole team,
Speaker 1: you know my you know, you know our team to
Speaker 1: the ninth tenth man name, yes, our team, right, And
Speaker 1: that's how we promoted ourselves, right. The NBA wanted to
Speaker 1: give you the individual we like, Nah were coming to
Speaker 1: the captains meant we came to the captains meeting one
Speaker 1: time and our whole team came to them, and so
Speaker 1: that that type of togetherness, that type of chemistry. Now,
Speaker 1: these are the facts our first championship in eighty nine,
Speaker 1: because they didn't understand us, and we got the best
Speaker 1: record in the league. But we don't have one All
Speaker 1: Pro on All Team. I didn't make first team. I
Speaker 1: didn't make second team. I didn't make third team. Joe
Speaker 1: didn't make first team, second team or third Robin didn't
Speaker 1: make first team, second team or third team. Lamb Beard
Speaker 1: didn't make first Now, we got the best record in
Speaker 1: the league, and we swept the Lakers, right, And they
Speaker 1: say the Lakers was hurt, but they don't never say
Speaker 1: I was hurt when they beat us, Right, you know that,
Speaker 1: But you know and and and the other point I
Speaker 1: want to make is the sacrifices in terms of team.
Speaker 1: Not only did we not have anybody make All Pro,
Speaker 1: but nobody averaged twenty points a game. I led with nineteen.
Speaker 1: This one had eighteen two, half seventeen from the half fifteen.
Speaker 1: That they're the balance. If we were a team, who
Speaker 1: are you gonna who are you gonna stop? One night?
Speaker 1: I get thirty five, right game five to go to
Speaker 1: the to the to to beat Boston the year before,
Speaker 1: I had thrown the ball away. Come back in eighty eight,
Speaker 1: we back in game five again, Junior, what you're gonna do?
Speaker 1: I got magic in my mind. I got James Worthy
Speaker 1: in my mind because I didn't seen them get up.
Speaker 1: Come back to that game five. At game five in Boston,
Speaker 1: I dropped thirty five, thirty six, had like a great game,
Speaker 1: come back Game six on the close out game you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, points I scored and close our
Speaker 1: game nine. You know who got hot? Benny Michael Wave
Speaker 1: Benny Benny got hot, and it was like, all right,
Speaker 1: go go Now if we was playing analytic basketball and
Speaker 1: playing selfish basketball, hey man, I gotta get my twenty,
Speaker 1: get my I gotta keep my average up right. And
Speaker 1: so that balance that you talk about. We can't beat
Speaker 1: the Lakers in the Celtics individually, but our team can
Speaker 1: we beat the team? Hell yeah? A lot of people
Speaker 1: say Boston Celtics, the team yeah you played against was
Speaker 1: the probably the most fundamentally sound team ever to play
Speaker 1: in the NBA. Um you was able to battle with them?
Speaker 1: How good were they? They were? That? They were that?
Speaker 1: Not not only were they that, but they were so smart.
Speaker 1: I mean Walton Bird with cal Parish Angel Dennis Johnson.
Speaker 1: One point in time, they had Nate Archiball, Scott Webman.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean they were just loaded with talent
Speaker 1: but extremely smart. In one year they went forty and
Speaker 1: one at home. How about that, it went forty and
Speaker 1: one at home. That's how good they were. Now, now
Speaker 1: that's how good we were. Okay, arguably they say that's
Speaker 1: one of the best teams to ever play in the NBA,
Speaker 1: if not the best one. That was eighty eighty six
Speaker 1: eighty seven, right, and then the Lakers, right they you know,
Speaker 1: one and two, those are the two best teams they
Speaker 1: say that ever play. Well, that's who we beat Random
Speaker 1: Both down. That's who we beat Random Both down. That's
Speaker 1: how good we were. Yeah, well, you know right, well,
Speaker 1: you know like like like like you say, y'all, y'all
Speaker 1: the only ones that beat all three of them, Mjo,
Speaker 1: Magic and Bird name somebody else will beat all three, y'all,
Speaker 1: all three of them. And let me let me put
Speaker 1: enough something to it. Yeah, let me add something to it.
Speaker 1: When we beat them, they were all MVPs of the league.
Speaker 1: Magic was MVP of the league. Jordan was MVP of
Speaker 1: the league. Bird was MVP of the league when we
Speaker 1: beat him. Is right there? Give me give me a
Speaker 1: little bit more about the LB though, lad bird man,
Speaker 1: give me a story man about LB Man. So I
Speaker 1: don't know if people, I don't know how this is
Speaker 1: gonna play with America, right, but let me just tell
Speaker 1: you what this dude told me one time, right now,
Speaker 1: all back line. At one time it was Kelly Tripuca,
Speaker 1: Bill Lambier, Kim Benson, three white dudes. Two of might
Speaker 1: have heard of all right. So we walked out on
Speaker 1: the court and he said who guarding me? And I said, well, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we both from Indiana. We're talking stuff. Me
Speaker 1: and his mom had a close relationship in college. His
Speaker 1: mom would write me like notes, was even writing me
Speaker 1: notes like when I was in the pros, like you know,
Speaker 1: good luck everything else. Right, So Larry's always called me cheesy, Right,
Speaker 1: He's like, cheesy, who guard me? And I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I got Kelly, got lamb I got I
Speaker 1: got Benson. He's like, you ain't got no brothers like you.
Speaker 1: He's like, you disrespecting me. That's what he said. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what he's saying, he said, hey man, you keep
Speaker 1: putting no white dude ony better straight disrespect right. Don't
Speaker 1: put no white dude though, So check this out. So
Speaker 1: the next year we come back, I got somebody for
Speaker 1: your ass, right, who you got Rob? He say? Okay,
Speaker 1: he's a little better, he say, but don't never put
Speaker 1: no white dude on me because that is disrespectful. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know how America's gonna feel about that, but
Speaker 1: I think he said in his Sports Illustrated too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can go get the quote I've heard. I heard
Speaker 1: other people talk about lad Bird and I had conversations
Speaker 1: with people like John Sally and he said the same thing.
Speaker 1: He was black. Yeah, I was like, man, he walked
Speaker 1: on the court, he was black straight, hey man. But
Speaker 1: that's who he played with, you know, that's what I heard.
Speaker 1: He played with the garbage So the garbage trust workers.
Speaker 1: Um in um story is uh in French lique. You know,
Speaker 1: he he grew up, you know him and Quinn Buckner, right,
Speaker 1: you know, so he grew up. You know even though
Speaker 1: French League. You know that's that's kind of Larry. You know,
Speaker 1: he he ain't in all that, but he like you know,
Speaker 1: did his own thing, but you better put somebody on
Speaker 1: me that. And yeah, he ain't got no melon tonight.
Speaker 1: He can't guard me. He can't guard me that you
Speaker 1: disrespected my game. And even if he got some melon,
Speaker 1: he go have a long night. But you know what though,
Speaker 1: But you know what though, I know he walked out
Speaker 1: on the court one time somebody said to get this
Speaker 1: white boy, and he can't guard me, and Larry served him,
Speaker 1: so I'm pretty sure he heard that before. And they
Speaker 1: they used to talk so much trash man. So I
Speaker 1: remember we were playing them, uh in the elimination game
Speaker 1: in Joe Louis Arena, and you know, end of the game,
Speaker 1: they up like eight to nine. They didn't won the series,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna try to take that last shot, right
Speaker 1: and and mchael said, I hope you make this last
Speaker 1: shot because it's your last one of the scenes. While
Speaker 1: I'm in the air the damn claim I missed it,
Speaker 1: you know. But they just talked so much trash man.
Speaker 1: And if you go back and you watch that the
Speaker 1: Lakers Celtic Um documentary, you will see how much trash
Speaker 1: they was talking to. I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: worthy or magic was at the fire line and and
Speaker 1: he missed the free though an mL car walked across
Speaker 1: the fire line. Yeah, man, And and I remember, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was eighty four eighty five. So
Speaker 1: I'm following this series back and forth. The the Lakers
Speaker 1: win in Boston and they just come up in there
Speaker 1: and they gainst the Boston like, you know, because Boston
Speaker 1: was supposed to be the physical team. The Lakers was
Speaker 1: supposed to be showtime. And you know, so Lakers came
Speaker 1: up in them just you know, boom boom, pounding and
Speaker 1: and you know, so Lair of Bird the next day,
Speaker 1: you know, he called my team, you know, called him
Speaker 1: sissies and everything else, you know, all the newspaper. Right. So,
Speaker 1: now they come back. I think it was game five here,
Speaker 1: and I mean it is. I think that's the game
Speaker 1: that McHale Grand Rabbits threw them out of there, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so now I'm watching all this right and I'm
Speaker 1: sitting baseline and they enter it in the Bird on
Speaker 1: the on the right side of the court, Bird on
Speaker 1: the baseline, and he dribbling down and Magic come to
Speaker 1: double team and I'm like, no, no, no, he ain't
Speaker 1: getting ready to shoot because now I'm studying, I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, now I know when Bird's gonna do a
Speaker 1: step back. I'm I'm like, no, I'm my mind like,
Speaker 1: don't come double, don't come double. And he came in
Speaker 1: double and he kicked it out to Dennis Johnson and
Speaker 1: Dennis Johnson knocked it down right from the foul line.
Speaker 1: Boom game and Boston beat La here. But those type
Speaker 1: of you know, rivalries going back and forth. I mean
Speaker 1: the way they was fighting, and and I I felt
Speaker 1: so sorry and bad for Bird because the way Michael
Speaker 1: Cooper was guarding him. Man, I mean, dude, you you
Speaker 1: can see Michael Cooper's fingernails all on Birds, like you know,
Speaker 1: one time he poured his his shirt and all you
Speaker 1: saw was Coops fingernails like and but man, they they
Speaker 1: was going at it. And so now they go back
Speaker 1: to Boston and Burr was real clever. So they have
Speaker 1: an out of bounds play where balls balls here on
Speaker 1: the right side, and he's coming up to set an
Speaker 1: upscreen as he comes, you know, instead of it being
Speaker 1: a pin down. Yeah, he said no, he comes up
Speaker 1: to set an upscreen. But when he comes to set
Speaker 1: an upscreen, now you're taking the ball out and that's
Speaker 1: the corner. And as he said in the upscreen, the
Speaker 1: defenders in front of him, and that dude flared to
Speaker 1: the corner money ball and caught it. And when he
Speaker 1: let it go, I was like, he ain't missing. It
Speaker 1: was hit the back of the rim, but it was
Speaker 1: it must the ball must have stayed in the air
Speaker 1: for about five seconds, I mean, just spinning perfectly right
Speaker 1: boom hit the back, bounced off and I was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: God was with y'all to day late, because I mean
Speaker 1: it was so clever of a play that that he
Speaker 1: was able to up slide ball there. Ball came in
Speaker 1: and he was able to just right in front of
Speaker 1: the Laker bench. And if you go back and you look,
Speaker 1: you'll see pat rity like everybody was playing, I mean
Speaker 1: every the whole gym. Man. When he called the ball,
Speaker 1: you know when some people catch the ball to right
Speaker 1: the whole gym, and when he missed, it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: give me something quick on Robin. That's athlete I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: probably in the NBA, not the highest jumping athlete, but
Speaker 1: just the best athlete. Like I've never seen anybody who
Speaker 1: he ran that fast and then quick jump like that.
Speaker 1: So my first time playing with him, literally he gets
Speaker 1: the rebound kick to me on an outlet pass, right,
Speaker 1: And so when I get on an outlet, now I'm
Speaker 1: dribbling into the middle of the floor to set the break.
Speaker 1: As I'm dribbling into the middle of the floor, Now
Speaker 1: this dude just threw it to me. He down there
Speaker 1: underneath the back waving for and I'm like, how the
Speaker 1: hell he gets So of course I kick it up,
Speaker 1: but adjusting to his speed was the first thing I
Speaker 1: had to do. And then I never saw anybody scientifically
Speaker 1: break down rebounding the way Dennis Robin did. So our
Speaker 1: first you know, our first couple of games, you know,
Speaker 1: we be in the layup line, and then he stopped
Speaker 1: and he just you know, standing under the rim, and
Speaker 1: you know, used to be you lay it up and
Speaker 1: then after you do your layups, then you start taking
Speaker 1: a little short pull up shots, right, And so whenever
Speaker 1: we started taking short pull up shots, he was stopped.
Speaker 1: And so finally, you know, like, what you're doing, man,
Speaker 1: get in line, like you know, likes He's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm counting. So Dennis was a little strange. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm like I ain't gonna even respond to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I'm counting, right, and and and and so my
Speaker 1: mind everywhere right, and so finally, you know, now we
Speaker 1: break up and he's still standing under basket, right, and
Speaker 1: he's just looking at everybody ball and I'm like, what
Speaker 1: you counting? Like I didn't, I didn't ask what you counting?
Speaker 1: I said, what you're doing? He say, I'm counting. I'm
Speaker 1: counting the spins on the ball. He said, when you
Speaker 1: shoot your ball, spend like three times. Joe sometimes spend four.
Speaker 1: This one spent. This dude was counting the rotations on
Speaker 1: the ball on every player. He knew how long he
Speaker 1: was gonna be in the air, how many times it rotated,
Speaker 1: where it was gonna hit, where it would bounds. I
Speaker 1: had never seen nobody breakdown rebounding like that. That was
Speaker 1: kind of insane. That was that he was. He was
Speaker 1: a genius man. Dennis Rodman was a flat out genius
Speaker 1: when it came to basketball. I remember when he went
Speaker 1: to Chicago and they said, well, are you gonna have
Speaker 1: a hard time learning the triangle? He goes, it's a
Speaker 1: triangle game. Five after the after the inbound turnover, yep
Speaker 1: um talk about this series and Louison and you say
Speaker 1: Bird wouldn't be all at if he was black. All
Speaker 1: that little stuff you know that went on. But and
Speaker 1: after that, y'all went on to win three finals. And
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that too, because two, I mean,
Speaker 1: excuse me, two it should have been three. Should have
Speaker 1: been three. Yeah, and talk about that too. That'll be
Speaker 1: the second question about do you believe that Pistons are
Speaker 1: a dynasty. We're not a dynasty because technically we didn't
Speaker 1: win three, right, So is that what que because there's
Speaker 1: no written rules. So we had a debate with Freddie
Speaker 1: Gibbs who said, you guys were three, that makes you
Speaker 1: with the several runs, that makes you well. To me,
Speaker 1: it's about your your dominance and your banners, right and
Speaker 1: even and even though you even though you there's reasons
Speaker 1: why you didn't get that third banner, right, we would
Speaker 1: have been the first team in all era to win three.
Speaker 1: Only two teams. If they say the eighties is the
Speaker 1: greatest basketball era, right, only two teams went back to back.
Speaker 1: It was Pistons in the Lakers as great a team
Speaker 1: as the Celtics, where they didn't go back to back.
Speaker 1: Only two teams went back to mack now um our.
Speaker 1: So are we a dynasty? We didn't get the third
Speaker 1: in Chicago was the first team to get three after
Speaker 1: the step. So Chicago, you can say, okay, what they
Speaker 1: did those three years and then came back and did
Speaker 1: you know, So that's when dynasty stopped. Dynasty talk starts.
Speaker 1: Lakers Celtics. You have to give them dynasty talk because
Speaker 1: of their historical relevance. What Magic and Bird walked into,
Speaker 1: they walked into ready made dynasties. Already they were already dynasties, right.
Speaker 1: Celtics were already a dynasty. Lakers was already a dynasty.
Speaker 1: What now what I would say, who's been the most
Speaker 1: impactful team on the NBA, It's a Detroit Pistons. When
Speaker 1: you look at our style of play, pick and roll basketball,
Speaker 1: stretched five in lamb beer, small guards, you know, shooting
Speaker 1: from the perimeter. We didn't have a post up player.
Speaker 1: The way we influenced the game look ays like myself.
Speaker 1: We weren't supposed to win championships. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: when I came into the league. All the point guards,
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson, Reggie Thiz, Paul Prescy, you know, everybody was
Speaker 1: six sixty nine. The dudes won. We weren't supposed to win, right,
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, I'm still the only
Speaker 1: one that's won this way. Now, Steph Right has won
Speaker 1: in Golden State, established the dynasty, but his playing style
Speaker 1: is different than mine totally. I scored and assisted, he scores,
Speaker 1: so two different ways of impacting. But so Golden State
Speaker 1: what they did dynasty. But the most impactful and the
Speaker 1: most fluential team that's played is a Detroit Pistons. You
Speaker 1: played D two. I still hold a record on both ends.
Speaker 1: And when you look at the playoff record in terms
Speaker 1: of steals, I think one year I had sixty six
Speaker 1: steals in a playoff run. Damn, I'm gonna say that again.
Speaker 1: It's a thief. Yeah, I was a real thing. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of defense right there. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think we've influenced the game the most from an offensive
Speaker 1: standpoint and also from a defensive standpoint. And then I
Speaker 1: would also say from a guard playing standpoint, the way
Speaker 1: guards played. Now every team they don't have a Magic
Speaker 1: Johnson type guard. They don't have a Michael Jordan type guard.
Speaker 1: They don't have a Dennis Johnson type guard. Every team
Speaker 1: right now has an Isaiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Vinnie Johnson
Speaker 1: type com. You may not like it, you may not
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge it. It is true, but those are
Speaker 1: the facts.