Speaker 1: People don't realize the size of some of these guys
Speaker 1: that are moving around. That's that's the number one thing
Speaker 1: that people tell me when they see me, when they've
Speaker 1: never met me before and they recognize me, that oh wow,
Speaker 1: I didn't know you were that tall. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm six four, six ' five and I'm the small guy.
Speaker 2: That's you look small to me. Yeah, you look small
Speaker 2: to me, So I could take it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got that guy. Give him my fade away
Speaker 3: fade away jumper. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Alex Caruso and I am a professional basketball player,
Speaker 1: golf savant, an overall good guy.
Speaker 3: Hi everybody, thanks for joining me today for another episode
Speaker 3: of Off the Beat. This is your host, Brian Baumgartner,
Speaker 3: And as you just heard, today's guest is none other
Speaker 3: than NBA star are Alex Caruso, or maybe you know
Speaker 3: him by one of his many many nicknames, Bald Mamba,
Speaker 3: Bald Eagle, Caru Show, or as Lebron James likes to
Speaker 3: call him the Goat. And even if you don't regularly
Speaker 3: watch the NBA, you're missing out by the way, you
Speaker 3: have undoubtedly seen Alex as well a meme, an internet meme.
Speaker 3: He's a presence to say the least. Alex in college
Speaker 3: was a part of one of the most memorable comebacks
Speaker 3: in March Madness history, a game I still remember when
Speaker 3: his Texas A and m aggis defeated Northern Iowa in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen. He then went on to sign the first
Speaker 3: ever two way contract in NBA history with the Los
Speaker 3: Angeles Lakers. Now this means he played for both the
Speaker 3: NBA and the Development League at the same time. Alex
Speaker 3: slowly worked his way onto the NBA roster, and he
Speaker 3: helped the Lakers take the championship back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: After that, he moved to the Bulls and just this
Speaker 3: year he was named to his first NBA All Defensive
Speaker 3: First Team. Today, we're going to dive into Alex's career,
Speaker 3: from his high school days in college station to his
Speaker 3: taste of victory with the Lakers, to his well social
Speaker 3: media popularity and his favorite nickname. He's been called an
Speaker 3: underrated player, but well, he's one of my favorites. Here.
Speaker 3: He is the goat Carusio Alex Caruso.
Speaker 4: Bublon Squeak, I love it Bubl and Squeagano, Bubble and
Speaker 4: Squeaker cook it every month left over from the ninety.
Speaker 2: Four what's up, hey, Ry, what's going on?
Speaker 3: What's up? White Mamba?
Speaker 2: Not much? Not much. This is the this is the
Speaker 2: calm before the storm part of the year for me.
Speaker 3: Calm are you where are you right now?
Speaker 2: I'm back in Chicago.
Speaker 3: Are you working out? Are you preparing? How does this
Speaker 3: work right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, most professional athletes will say, like,
Speaker 1: the work never really stops.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: It's been a long summer because we didn't have a
Speaker 1: great year last year. But we just started getting in
Speaker 1: the gym for a couple of weeks, been working out
Speaker 1: here at the facility, like you said, just getting ready for.
Speaker 3: We are moments away from your first preseason games for
Speaker 3: the twenty three to twenty four season. Have you started
Speaker 3: officially practicing together yet or no?
Speaker 2: No, not yet. Monday we leave.
Speaker 1: We're actually doing training camp in Nashville this year, which
Speaker 1: is you know, absurd destinations. You're obscure, I guess not absurd.
Speaker 1: But we'll start practicing on on Tuesday next week.
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Are you excited? Excited for the season to start.
Speaker 1: I'm always excited for the season to start. But training camp,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a different. That's a different question.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Those things takes you back to college practices where it's
Speaker 1: two two and a half hours and you're getting after
Speaker 1: it every day.
Speaker 3: That's actually what I was just about to ask you.
Speaker 3: Is it like a lot of running, Like do you
Speaker 3: do they still have you do that? Are you still
Speaker 3: doing the what is it called where you have to
Speaker 3: touch the back suicide? Do you have to do suicides?
Speaker 2: No, No, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not quite to the level of that, right, But
Speaker 1: I mean most of it, like we it's we're working out, right,
Speaker 1: so we're playing pick up a couple of times a week.
Speaker 1: We're having one day where it's just running conditioning. But
Speaker 1: that's kind of the that's kind of like the expectation
Speaker 1: as you come into camp and in a certain kind
Speaker 1: of shape. That's like the professionalism of it. Okay, but yeah,
Speaker 1: thank god, dude, I hated those. Those Those were never
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a single person like it was
Speaker 1: a coach his favorite thing just to make you run suicides,
Speaker 1: and all the players just hated it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I know, well they because they don't have to
Speaker 3: do when they just are watching you run suicides. Dynamic,
Speaker 3: it's just like exactly. Yeah, go run all right, Well,
Speaker 3: let's go back to your childhood. Now, your dad, I learned,
Speaker 3: played basketball at Creighton College ball and was still is
Speaker 3: associate athletic director at Texas A and M. Is that right?
Speaker 1: What was was he's retired now, okay, good for me
Speaker 1: and my two sisters graduate from A and M all
Speaker 1: within a six year span and then once we once
Speaker 1: all the kids are gone. Him and my mom both
Speaker 1: couple of years shortly after retired. But yeah, he was
Speaker 1: at A and M for thirty years working in athletic department,
Speaker 1: and my mom worked in human resources at A and M.
Speaker 1: And still she still does some office of admission stuff
Speaker 1: on the side now just to stay busy. But yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: we're we've been drinking the kool aid from a young age.
Speaker 3: Right, So growing up there, because not only did you
Speaker 3: go to A and M for college spoiler alert, you
Speaker 3: went to A and M consolidated high school as well. Now,
Speaker 3: so basketball, this was a part of your DNA from
Speaker 3: the very beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, sports in general was just because, like I said,
Speaker 1: my dad was one of the associate athletic directors and
Speaker 1: he basically ran all the home sporting events from the
Speaker 1: big hitters from football and basketball down to like track
Speaker 1: and field, equestrian, like the ones that have just you know,
Speaker 1: even a couple hundred to a thousand fans, And I
Speaker 1: would tag along anytime I could. And obviously basketball was,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of the main stay, and then football
Speaker 1: just growing up in Texas. But yeah, I mean for
Speaker 1: the most part, growing up, I was I was heavily
Speaker 1: involved in sports and just kind of outside at any
Speaker 1: given time of the day.
Speaker 3: Were you was basketball always the sport that was like
Speaker 3: your sport or did it start with something else?
Speaker 2: No, that was always the one. I want to say.
Speaker 1: I started playing in first or second grade, you know,
Speaker 1: just like city league kind of competition stuff like everyone
Speaker 1: gets a trophy at the end of the year. The
Speaker 1: type played flag football fifth and sixth grade, and then
Speaker 1: you know, regular school tackle football from seventh to ninth grade.
Speaker 1: And then after my ninth grade year, I made I
Speaker 1: made varsity as a freshman basketball, and once I got
Speaker 1: a taste of that, I was kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I liked playing basketball a whole lot more than I
Speaker 1: like waking up at six am and putting pads on
Speaker 1: and hitting people in a hundred degree heat, So I
Speaker 1: was I hung it up. I retired, But then I
Speaker 1: just got bored later in high school and I would
Speaker 1: do I did high jump and track and field my
Speaker 1: junior and senior.
Speaker 3: Year because it was that at the end of the year, it.
Speaker 2: Was in the spring and I had nothing to do.
Speaker 3: I was getting nothing out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was playing travel ball, but other than that,
Speaker 2: just bored.
Speaker 3: You just mentioned you made varsity basketball your freshman year.
Speaker 3: I assumed you were never cut from the team. So
Speaker 3: four years, at the end of your high school you
Speaker 3: were a four star recruit, a top one hundred national recruit.
Speaker 2: Yeah fringe, but yeah.
Speaker 3: Well third best shooting guard in Texas and fifteenth best
Speaker 3: shooting guard in the nation according to ESPN and ninth
Speaker 3: according to scout dot com. So you probably like them better.
Speaker 3: Were you recruited to multiple schools or was it just
Speaker 3: a done deal that you were gonna go.
Speaker 1: To A Yeah, that's a great question, because it was.
Speaker 1: It was really kind of wacky the way it happened,
Speaker 1: Like I was a late bloomer as far as like
Speaker 1: college recruiting, Like I played on varsity all four years,
Speaker 1: but my freshman sophomore year we weren't very good, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of what helped me stay on the team.
Speaker 1: Was just like I was good enough to be on
Speaker 1: our average teams, and then I kept getting better and
Speaker 1: kept getting better. And then after my junior season, going
Speaker 1: into that spring between junior and senior year was like
Speaker 1: the last year that you play AAU basketball. And I
Speaker 1: had a couple really really good tournaments in Vegas and
Speaker 1: in Denver, kind of the same same way I play now,
Speaker 1: where I had a couple of highlight dunks, and then
Speaker 1: the rest of my game was just really like based
Speaker 1: on heart and playing hard and making the right plays,
Speaker 1: and nobody really knew who I was, and so I
Speaker 1: got I mean, I got calls from just about everybody,
Speaker 1: and that was the big question a lot of them had,
Speaker 1: was you know, is it worth our time with a
Speaker 1: you know, nine months left in this guy's recruitment to
Speaker 1: even even call him because he's from college station, dad
Speaker 1: works and Flake department. But I tell people all the time,
Speaker 1: I was really really close to going somewhere else, and
Speaker 1: the only other places I considered was Colorado, Okay. Tad
Speaker 1: Boyle was the head coach, Mike Rohan was an assistant
Speaker 1: coach who was at A and M previously when I
Speaker 1: was in middle school, and I had actually played basketball
Speaker 1: with him at the park before, like we'd played one
Speaker 1: on one, like three drouble one on one and seventh
Speaker 1: grade and then he moved on. But I just got
Speaker 1: a great vibe from you know, the coaching staff, and
Speaker 1: then they took me to Old and like, you know,
Speaker 1: the beginning of September when it's perfect and you know,
Speaker 1: there's snow, and it was like, you know a college
Speaker 1: scene out of a movie where there's just you know,
Speaker 1: people playing frisbee in a big field and people like
Speaker 1: laying on panky. Yeah, yeah, yeah, real American pie vibes.
Speaker 1: It was just like, yeah, this is great, but yeah
Speaker 1: that that was it.
Speaker 3: How close was it?
Speaker 2: It was close?
Speaker 1: I think I think just at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I had grown up such a big fan of A
Speaker 1: and M. Like, I don't think I was gonna be
Speaker 1: able to look back on it and not regret passing
Speaker 1: up the opportunity.
Speaker 2: I thought. I thought I'd had to take it, whether.
Speaker 1: It was you know, the right decision or wrong decision,
Speaker 1: just to have the have the chance to go to
Speaker 1: A and M. For me, it was was a pretty
Speaker 1: special thing. But Colorado was close. Man, I really liked Colorado.
Speaker 3: You and Dion apparently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a I was the first one. You know,
Speaker 2: I set the trend.
Speaker 3: You mentioned AAU ball. I know you played for the
Speaker 3: Texas Ambassadors, So talk to me a little about this.
Speaker 3: And I know basketball is so nuts with these side
Speaker 3: camp and the tournaments and the AAU ball on all
Speaker 3: of the traveling, I mean, all of that investment that
Speaker 3: these parents are are putting in that may or may
Speaker 3: not work out. Do you feel like for you playing
Speaker 3: high school basketball versus the AAU stuff, what what for
Speaker 3: you was more valuable or what do you think is
Speaker 3: more valuable?
Speaker 1: I think the AAU is more valuable just from an
Speaker 1: aspect of like, if you're not a top forty recruit
Speaker 1: in the country, I don't think coaches really come to
Speaker 1: your high school games.
Speaker 2: Like if you you.
Speaker 1: Know, you're not one of these heralded guys that that
Speaker 1: people already know about. You have to go to these
Speaker 1: tournaments and you have to play against good competition or
Speaker 1: the guys that they say are the guys right in
Speaker 1: front of these coaches and in front of these people
Speaker 1: who run you know, the websites, the Scout dot com,
Speaker 1: the ESPN dot com, just to write, you know, gain
Speaker 1: some favor, some attention.
Speaker 3: And when you're there because you see, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I feel like I've seen, you know, the video on
Speaker 3: the ESPN or Fox Sports or whatever of some of
Speaker 3: these games and you look up in the stands and
Speaker 3: there's like Shashchevski and Patino and all of the old
Speaker 3: school coaches are like, are like taking a look. Did
Speaker 3: you experience that? Like, were you suddenly there and seeing
Speaker 3: some of these coaches at these universities that you respected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely that was part of the experience for me.
Speaker 1: That was kind of cool. It was just like I
Speaker 1: told you, I jumped onto the scene late. So I
Speaker 1: had a couple of those tournaments where I played in
Speaker 1: this one called the Eastern Classic in Vegas, which was
Speaker 1: a big one which had a bunch of the big
Speaker 1: Power five schools, and whether it was the head coach
Speaker 1: or one of the assistants, I knew who these people were.
Speaker 1: And they all wear a team polo, so you know
Speaker 1: who they are.
Speaker 3: They want to make sure you know, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And it was one of those things where like the
Speaker 1: more tournaments and games I played in and played against
Speaker 1: these really good players. I was holding my own and
Speaker 1: I was just as competitive in doing things that I
Speaker 1: maybe didn't even know I you know, had the capability
Speaker 1: of doing, and that you know, kind of helped me
Speaker 1: break out of my shell to just be who I
Speaker 1: really am, which is a really competitive guy at the
Speaker 1: end of the day.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, and it only gets more and more.
Speaker 1: Went to these camps and then got invited to a
Speaker 1: camp called the Pengos All American Camp, Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: like a big, big West Coast one. And then I
Speaker 1: got invited to the NBPA Top one hundred camp, which
Speaker 1: is like, you know, the one that the NBA puts
Speaker 1: on to host people. And I got to see NBA
Speaker 1: guys coaching me and like have this interaction and just
Speaker 1: have like my foot in the door to this space
Speaker 1: that I never thought was possible. And then from there,
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm just wildly competitive and you know,
Speaker 1: almost naive to the fact that like these guys are
Speaker 1: supposed to be better than me and just go out
Speaker 1: there and play.
Speaker 3: You go to a and m your dad's there, your
Speaker 3: mom's there. You grew up a fan. Is this a
Speaker 3: college career. Is this a college activity or when did
Speaker 3: you begin thinking about life.
Speaker 2: Beyond professional sports.
Speaker 3: I know you studied sports management, or did you just
Speaker 3: feel like you wanted to be involved in sports and
Speaker 3: maybe following your dad's footsteps and you know, be at
Speaker 3: college or professional working in management.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I you know, the entry to college
Speaker 1: was like I had no idea what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: you know, I was just excited to go play basketball. Like,
Speaker 1: if I'm being completely honest, school has never been a
Speaker 1: very high priority for me, whether I was going to
Speaker 1: be a professional athlete or not. My sisters still make
Speaker 1: fun of me to this day because I was the
Speaker 1: kid in high school like didn't put stuff in binder
Speaker 1: and folders. I just like put loose papers in my
Speaker 1: backpack just enough to get by and like made it
Speaker 1: work and kind of just freeballed it. But once I
Speaker 1: got to college, man, I was just I was like
Speaker 1: I knew, I knew my dad did the whole sports thing,
Speaker 1: and sports management kind of fell into that same realm.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like I said, growing up, I played
Speaker 1: many different sports and saw so many different sports being
Speaker 1: played that I was always just I was always kind
Speaker 1: of pulled towards it, so I kind of thought I
Speaker 1: would start there and from there I just kept doing
Speaker 1: it because it was something that got me by and
Speaker 1: something I was somewhat interested in. But throughout the course
Speaker 1: of my college career, it just I kept getting better
Speaker 1: and kept getting better. And then one of my assistants,
Speaker 1: Kyle Keller, who was head coach at SFA, he was
Speaker 1: the one who recruited me to A and M, and
Speaker 1: he sat me down one day he like, did this
Speaker 1: really cheesy kind of mock up on a on a
Speaker 1: piece of printer paper, and like half of it was
Speaker 1: like video games and like hanging out with my friends
Speaker 1: and you know, stuff that was distracting from basketball. And
Speaker 1: then one side was like you know, a private plane
Speaker 1: and a big house and like other stuff that was
Speaker 1: like basically like if you take this seriously, like you
Speaker 1: can make a living off of it, and you can,
Speaker 1: you can have a really good career. And he asked me,
Speaker 1: it's like, what do you want to do with basketball?
Speaker 1: It's like I'm a play in the NBA. And he's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's like you have to be more concrete about it.
Speaker 1: And I told him I was like I want to
Speaker 1: play ten years in the NBA, and I want to
Speaker 1: have a decade long career, Like I feel like that'd
Speaker 1: be a really good goal to strive for. And looking
Speaker 1: back on it now, about to go into year seven,
Speaker 1: and you know, knock on wood, you know, stay healthy
Speaker 1: for as many years as I can and play like
Speaker 1: it looks like an attainable goal.
Speaker 2: Just a really really kind of cool, full full circle moment.
Speaker 2: But yeah, towards the end of my career, I mean
Speaker 2: they were starting. It was kind of like high school.
Speaker 1: It was crazy how it the two kind of parallel,
Speaker 1: where I just kept getting better and kept getting you know,
Speaker 1: being competitive with myself. And then into my junior year,
Speaker 1: I have a really good game in the SEC tournament
Speaker 1: where we played Missouri, and I had like a career game,
Speaker 1: like I was like twenty eight points, seven rebound, seven assists,
Speaker 1: like five steals.
Speaker 2: It was nuts, played like the whole game.
Speaker 1: Then some discussions started happening from pro scouts the same
Speaker 1: way it happened with the high school scene, and kind
Speaker 1: of turned the same thing. I went through my senior
Speaker 1: year and now it was you know a real possibility
Speaker 1: to where I was going to be able to play professionally.
Speaker 1: Maybe not the NBA, but at some level, right there
Speaker 1: is interest. And for me that was music to my ears.
Speaker 1: Like you tell me I can I can just play
Speaker 1: basketball and I don't have to like actually, you know,
Speaker 1: work work, like I don't have to do a real job.
Speaker 2: That sounds sounds pretty good to me.
Speaker 3: I know your senior year, you guys were pretty darn good.
Speaker 3: You end up getting a three seed in the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 3: What game do you remember the most from that senior year?
Speaker 1: I think it's a two part answer, because there's one
Speaker 1: answer that is the two Kentucky games. Honestly, we played
Speaker 1: Kentucky at home and we won on a tip in
Speaker 1: and I think it was an overtime, and that basically
Speaker 1: that win like got us a share of the regular
Speaker 1: season SEC title, so we all got a ring and
Speaker 1: got to cut down the nets on senior night.
Speaker 2: That was really cool.
Speaker 1: And then we played them again in the tournament and
Speaker 1: it was like a redemption game. We're playing in Nashville,
Speaker 1: I believe, you know, Kentucky's got like eleven thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred of the twelve thousand seats and we got like
Speaker 1: two hundred. And then there's like a mix of random people.
Speaker 1: And it was another one. I think we went to
Speaker 1: overtime or double overtime, and it was just there're such
Speaker 1: good games that I'll always like, I still have photographic
Speaker 1: memory of certain plays and certain events just because those
Speaker 1: games are so cool. And then, you know, first NCAA
Speaker 1: tournament game, we had the comeback against Northern Iowa that
Speaker 1: to this day, you know, is one of the most
Speaker 1: asked questions people asked me about. It's like, dude, you
Speaker 1: remember that game you had. It's like, yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: remember we had Remember that time, remember that thing you did.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that was my life I lived.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that comeback game to get us into the
Speaker 1: sweet sixteen. It was probably probably those two events.
Speaker 3: For those of you listening who don't remember or remember
Speaker 3: the specifics. Forty four seconds left, they're down twelve points
Speaker 3: and end up coming back with a layup and a
Speaker 3: free throw at the buzzer.
Speaker 1: Basically people forget to just interject we went to double
Speaker 1: overtime after that? Yeah, no, I know, yeah, we didn't
Speaker 1: win the game, Like, we just got to overtime and
Speaker 1: then they kept throwing.
Speaker 2: It was just the Haymakers Haymakers.
Speaker 1: Haymakers, and then finally they missed a couple of shots late.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was just nuts.
Speaker 3: The NCAA tournament is it gets so much attention, it's highlighted,
Speaker 3: and that game, for you, I still remember what an
Speaker 3: amazing game it was, what a just an improbable comeback,
Speaker 3: and you're you're obviously your play in that game. Do
Speaker 3: you think that game got people's attention?
Speaker 1: The broad answer is like, of course, Like that's it's
Speaker 1: just such a crazy turn of events. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's the greatest comeback, mathematically greatest comeback in NCAA history
Speaker 1: for sure the tournament, if not the entire history of
Speaker 1: college basketball. So like that's just insane to start with.
Speaker 1: But for me, I mean it's it's kind of looking
Speaker 1: back on the NCAA Tournament, I thought I played decent
Speaker 1: in the first game. I thought I played really well
Speaker 1: in the Northern Iowa game kind of kind of helped
Speaker 1: us carry us to get to the end. And then
Speaker 1: a couple of other guys, Daniel House and Jayleen made
Speaker 1: some place in the overtimes, and then even then I
Speaker 1: thought I played good. The next the Sweet sixteen game
Speaker 1: against Oklahoma, we just didn't play well as a team
Speaker 1: and came up short. But that's actually where I met
Speaker 1: or at least my parents were introduced to my current
Speaker 1: agent and agent i've had, Craig Lawrence since I've been
Speaker 1: a professional, was in Anaheim at the sweet sixteen. So
Speaker 1: I mean that might be the answer right in itself,
Speaker 1: like that that might have been enough to be like, well,
Speaker 1: we might as well talk to the kid and talk
Speaker 1: to his parents and see what's see what's going on.
Speaker 3: But I feel like that, I don't know, it feels
Speaker 3: like the embodiment for me of like you and your identity,
Speaker 3: that it's like we're gonna work hard, We're gonna come
Speaker 3: back and manage to win an exciting fashion. It feels
Speaker 3: to me like that has to be a part of
Speaker 3: it in people's minds, whether they remember the specifics of
Speaker 3: that game or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's I don't think you're off base
Speaker 1: at all. I think I think a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: like you're like, you're alluding to me getting to professional basketball,
Speaker 1: even it's based off of me, you know. Kind of
Speaker 1: that same attitude I had when I said I was
Speaker 1: almost naive to the fact that like these high school
Speaker 1: kids are supposed to be better than me, and I
Speaker 1: go in there and just compete and dig my way into,
Speaker 1: you know, a spot in divisional basketball. It's kind of
Speaker 1: the same thing. Like I just always have had this
Speaker 1: wildly competitive, you know, never say die, like you the
Speaker 1: game's got to end before you're gonna beat me attitude,
Speaker 1: and some of that I think I can attest to
Speaker 1: watching some A and basketball games growing up and just
Speaker 1: like I said, drinking the kool aid, Like I think
Speaker 1: I think this saying is like we didn't lose the game,
Speaker 1: like time just ran out, you know, we ran out
Speaker 1: of time right right, And that was that was always
Speaker 1: my mentality, was like I'm gonna I'm gonna fight and
Speaker 1: even if you know you might you might beat me,
Speaker 1: but but as long as there's time on the clock,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make you work.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: That's just kind of how I've always been.
Speaker 1: And I don't even think I really tapped into that
Speaker 1: until I got out of college to like have the
Speaker 1: awareness that I was that competitive and then almost to
Speaker 1: like lean into it and make it my advantage.
Speaker 3: You get some attention obviously because of that and because
Speaker 3: of your play your last couple of years. You don't
Speaker 3: get spoiler alert. I don't know if you remember what
Speaker 3: happened to you. You didn't get drafted out of college,
Speaker 3: research research you you went played for the seventy six
Speaker 3: years in the summer league.
Speaker 1: Then play is a generous word. I was on the team.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, then you get a contract. How about that
Speaker 3: with the thunder and then get way.
Speaker 1: The good story to tell actually that yeah, people probably
Speaker 1: don't know is I went to So I went to
Speaker 1: Summer League with seventy six series and I went to
Speaker 1: Summer league, didn't play a lot, and even when I played,
Speaker 1: didn't play very well. Just a completely new new world,
Speaker 1: new you know, new basketball as far as systems and
Speaker 1: schemes and all that.
Speaker 2: So I had a learning curve you go through.
Speaker 1: And there was a week in August before that season
Speaker 1: that I had gotten an offer to go to Poland
Speaker 1: and play. Okay, that was like Monday, and then like Wednesday,
Speaker 1: my agent called me. It was like there's a there's
Speaker 1: a euro Cup team, there's a German team, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I talked to the coach, this Canadian coach.
Speaker 1: I talked to him on Wednesday, and then Friday I
Speaker 1: get another call from an agent and he's like, Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City wants you to play on their g LE team.
Speaker 1: You can sign an exhibit in make some money here.
Speaker 1: Played the whole whole year in the G League and
Speaker 1: so like, in a week span, I went from Poland
Speaker 1: to you know, six hours north to Oklahoma City and
Speaker 1: I actually went up there, took a tour of the facilities,
Speaker 1: saw where I was going to live and all this.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is this is pretty good,
Speaker 1: Like I could its better than college. It's not great,
Speaker 1: but it's better than living in with four other guys
Speaker 1: in an apartment. And then from there I started my
Speaker 1: journey and that was just unparalleled. I feel like in
Speaker 1: a week span, I went through a lot of different
Speaker 1: thoughts and emotions to begin my professional career.
Speaker 3: For you, was it about playing basketball or was it
Speaker 3: about making the NBA? I mean, it has to be
Speaker 3: about making the NBA. But like, would you have been
Speaker 3: content playing in the G League or the Development League
Speaker 3: for an extended period of time?
Speaker 1: I mean I kind of did, even with you know,
Speaker 1: I played the first year with the Oklahoma City Blue
Speaker 1: and then signed a two way contract for two years
Speaker 1: with the Lakers. And majority of probably fifty percent of
Speaker 1: both years I was in the G League playing. So
Speaker 1: it's hard to give an accurate answer to what I
Speaker 1: think I would be if I was just playing the
Speaker 1: G League for three years without the two way contract
Speaker 1: and getting a taste at least, because once once I
Speaker 1: got a taste, it was kind of, you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, I have this weird there's these weird parallels
Speaker 1: from each kind of level of basketball in my life.
Speaker 1: And once I got to the G League, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just as good as all these guys. If not,
Speaker 1: I think I'm a little better than most of these guys.
Speaker 1: And then the next year I get into training camp
Speaker 1: again with the NBA team playing the Summer League, I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm definitely better than most of these guys.
Speaker 1: And then I get into actual NBA games and I
Speaker 1: have a couple of plays where I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 1: was like I could I could do this, Like I
Speaker 1: just gotta get a little bit better. I gotta get
Speaker 1: a little bit better. And then you know, now we're
Speaker 1: looking six years later, I'm first team All Defense, I've
Speaker 1: been on a championship team. I wish I had more
Speaker 1: words to describe it other than just it's not blind luck,
Speaker 1: because I put a lot of work into it. But
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of just there's a lot of
Speaker 1: me just ignoring noise, you know, and just just putting
Speaker 1: my head down and competing and working really hard, and
Speaker 1: you know, luck has found me in the process.
Speaker 3: I've read some common that you made about Sam Presti,
Speaker 3: who obviously greatly respected. Obviously you made relationships there in
Speaker 3: Oklahoma City and other places. When you sign for the
Speaker 3: Lakers summer league and end up with a two way contract,
Speaker 3: you're still playing down Is there something about the Lakers
Speaker 3: or the people there at the time where there was
Speaker 3: a shift for you that you began to feel like
Speaker 3: there may be a place for me here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the So the whole two way contract
Speaker 1: another another fun facts for anybody. I'm the first person
Speaker 1: I ever sign a two way contract in the NBA. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So put put that in your your next game night
Speaker 1: or you're yeah, there you go your.
Speaker 2: Sunday watching sports with somebody.
Speaker 1: The front the front office for the South Bay Lakers
Speaker 1: just had an, you know, unwavering love and appreciation for
Speaker 1: how I played basketball, and they they just they gave
Speaker 1: me all the confidence my uh my coach, and in
Speaker 1: South Bay Kobe Carl did the same thing where he
Speaker 1: kind of recognized how good I could be, and he
Speaker 1: tried to get me to think in different ways that
Speaker 1: I wasn't you know, I wasn't accustomed to, which I
Speaker 1: think helped helped my development as well. But the longer
Speaker 1: I played in LA, especially once Bron got there his
Speaker 1: first year, when I was on my second way or
Speaker 1: to my second year of the two way contract, and
Speaker 1: I got time to be around him in games and
Speaker 1: in practices, I started realizing that, oh, I'm seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that he's seeing. And then he
Speaker 1: kind of opened my eyes to other stuff that I
Speaker 1: wasn't seeing at the same time and understanding about the game.
Speaker 1: And then from there my confidence just grows.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I had some really good games at the end of
Speaker 1: my first year on two way contract, kind of got
Speaker 1: cut in mud when I didn't get my two way
Speaker 1: contract upgraded. But the time I didn't see the business
Speaker 1: of it. Why would you upgrade this guy when you
Speaker 1: can still get him for the same amount.
Speaker 2: You know, It's just the business of basketball.
Speaker 1: And I got caught in mud a little bit at
Speaker 1: the beginning of my second year on the two way,
Speaker 1: when I was in the g League, because I knew
Speaker 1: that I wasn't going to get any better playing in
Speaker 1: the GLEE, like I needed to play against guys in
Speaker 1: the NBA. I had gotten to that point where I
Speaker 1: was like, I need I need live reps at that speed,
Speaker 1: that physicality, that intensity to get better. And then, like
Speaker 1: I said, me, me and Lebron had really good chemistry
Speaker 1: at the end of that first year, and I think
Speaker 1: that helped, you know, kind of get me back in
Speaker 1: the same spot. And then even then, like I had to,
Speaker 1: I had to kind of earn my way on that
Speaker 1: championship team. I got a d n P the first
Speaker 1: night of the season, didn't play a minute against the Clippers,
Speaker 1: just being a good teammate. And then from there, like
Speaker 1: you know, kind of same thing I've always I've always done.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a broken record, but I was just
Speaker 1: competed really hard and then just worked my way. Took
Speaker 1: my five minutes in the game, turned it into eight minutes,
Speaker 1: turned that into ten minutes, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, we got to have this guy out
Speaker 1: on the court. He's helping us win games, and he
Speaker 1: is helping our best players have success. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: was it was a slow process, I think for me
Speaker 1: to understand it. But I think once I saw it,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, there's there's a place for
Speaker 1: me in the organization.
Speaker 3: You said something about Lebron helping you to see and
Speaker 3: feel and understand the game at that level in a
Speaker 3: new way. Is this is it? Are these conversations that
Speaker 3: happen often with Lebron and others about the game and
Speaker 3: how it's played.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think I wish I would have asked
Speaker 1: more questions, you know, looking back on it, I wish
Speaker 1: I would have tried to steal more more knowledge and
Speaker 1: more stuff about it. But the Lebron and Rondo, two
Speaker 1: of the smartest guys I've ever played with and probably
Speaker 1: ever will play with. Two basketball minds have been around.
Speaker 1: They know everybody's tendencies in the league. They know who
Speaker 1: likes to go left, they know who likes to go right,
Speaker 1: they know they know everything. And that was something to
Speaker 1: me that I was like, Oh, there's a level of
Speaker 1: detail that you can go into that I'm capable of
Speaker 1: knowing as well. But I need to learn it, and
Speaker 1: I need to I need to have, like I said,
Speaker 1: the reps in the years to gain it and then
Speaker 1: to solidify it so it's just second nature, but then
Speaker 1: just live action in game. There was a play I
Speaker 1: remember specifically we played against Toronto in Toronto and I
Speaker 1: ran a ball stream where he set it open side
Speaker 1: on the wing and I came off and I think
Speaker 1: it was Jeremy Lynn guarding me and I don't know
Speaker 1: who was on him, but he got clipped a little
Speaker 1: bit and I came off hesitated and then just walked
Speaker 1: to the front of the rim, made a layup, got
Speaker 1: an in one, and he immediately like, we're not making
Speaker 1: a playoff. So we got our two way guy playing
Speaker 1: with Lebron. Lebron's just playing because he loves to play
Speaker 1: basketball at the end of the season, and the intensity
Speaker 1: of him telling me, like, you see what they're doing,
Speaker 1: They're not coming off of me. You can just walk
Speaker 1: to the front of the rim and shoot layups. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you're right. Like that, that's an
Speaker 1: in game read where it's like just learning how teams
Speaker 1: are playing against you, how they how they played him.
Speaker 1: And then once I realized, you know, the gravitational pool
Speaker 1: that he has on the basketball court. From there, it
Speaker 1: was it was easier for me to decipher and make
Speaker 1: reads and make plays and put guys in positions before
Speaker 1: the play happens, to take advantage of stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm asking because I'm truly, truly curious, because you mentioned
Speaker 3: and you mentioned Lebron and these guys with one great
Speaker 3: basketball minds and experience in the league. How is the
Speaker 3: insight that they give you better or different than what
Speaker 3: a coach can see by studying film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's just it's just experience, you know,
Speaker 1: being in the fire being Yeah, because there's a certain
Speaker 1: there's a certain difference of what you're thinking about how
Speaker 1: you're physically moving through the play and through the action
Speaker 1: then than just what you know the coach sees on
Speaker 1: the sideline and can tell you what to do. It's
Speaker 1: not to say that the coaches aren't more than capable.
Speaker 1: We have a we have a great staff. But there's
Speaker 1: a difference between being on the court and seeing it
Speaker 1: and feeling it and understanding, you know, how fast you
Speaker 1: know the desperation this guy has to not let me
Speaker 1: get the ball. It's like, Okay, I'm gonna come up
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna tell him, Hey, next time, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: fake and I'm gonna go back door and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be wide open. Coach might not be able to see
Speaker 1: that or feel that, versus you being in the in
Speaker 1: the in the heat of the battle and you know,
Speaker 1: feeling the momentum of the court and how the game's moving.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of discussion, I feel like in football
Speaker 3: about schemes, how an offensive coordinator works, what their plan
Speaker 3: is defense the same thing having to make that adjustment.
Speaker 3: Is that similar? Do you think in basketball? I mean,
Speaker 3: I feel like what people think about in basketball is
Speaker 3: like you've got game or you don't, and you can
Speaker 3: more easily walk into another system. But how have you
Speaker 3: found or watched with other guys coming in and trying
Speaker 3: to learn a different offense or a different a different
Speaker 3: way of approaching the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think I think to the untrained eye,
Speaker 1: it looks like basketball is just go out there and
Speaker 1: make more shots or.
Speaker 2: Put up the other team right than the other team.
Speaker 3: But that's just the All star games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's at your local lifetime. There's so much detail
Speaker 1: in timing go into the schemes of basketball that that
Speaker 1: people just they probably don't see as much because there's
Speaker 1: less players, you know, which which is kind of a
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of almost backwards. You think it'd
Speaker 1: be easier to see with less players. But football they
Speaker 1: have such defined roles too, Like you know, the linemen
Speaker 1: are gonna block, and there's different schemes for them to move,
Speaker 1: you know, you know with the quarterbacks that they're going
Speaker 1: to do with the timing and the receivers and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But for basketball, it's just it's so free flowing.
Speaker 1: You have to understand what you're trying to do to
Speaker 1: such a such a high level that you're not thinking
Speaker 1: while you're out there playing. Because if you're out there
Speaker 1: thinking while you're playing in the NBA, you're you're getting
Speaker 1: beat because guys are too good, they're too fast, they're
Speaker 1: too athletic, they're too smart. It's the peak of professional basketball.
Speaker 1: It's so detailed people don't really understand, and it's probably
Speaker 1: hard to have that conversation unless you have a certain
Speaker 1: level of basketball intelligence because there's just you know, you'd
Speaker 1: have to break down so much and talk about so
Speaker 1: many things, and it just moves so fast.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: People don't realize how fast the NBA game moves. You know,
Speaker 1: it looks slow on TV, and the guys don't look
Speaker 1: that big. They're monsters out here that are moving.
Speaker 3: Oh it's oh, it's yeah. You get in the building
Speaker 3: and you see it instantly. How fast? How physical?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the speed of it is.
Speaker 1: How fast, how physical? And people don't realize the size
Speaker 1: of some of these guys that are moving around. That's
Speaker 1: that's the number one thing that people tell me when
Speaker 1: they see me, when they've never met me before and
Speaker 1: they recognize me that oh, wow, I didn't know you're
Speaker 1: that tall. Yeah, I'm I'm six four six ' five
Speaker 1: and I'm the small guy.
Speaker 3: That's you look small to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks small to me, So I could take it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got that guy, give him my fade away
Speaker 3: fade away jumper. When you're watching a game on TV,
Speaker 3: are you breaking it down? Are you looking and watching
Speaker 3: at what they're trying to do to the other players. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't watch for like pure entertainment anymore. I just
Speaker 1: my brain doesn't work like that. Like I've lost the
Speaker 1: ability to just sit down and watch a basketball game.
Speaker 1: All I do is see the flaws of what they
Speaker 1: should be doing, knowing actually like what teams like to
Speaker 1: run in certain plays and being like defense didn't push
Speaker 1: them to the right spot. It's very analytical, but that's
Speaker 1: kind of my job.
Speaker 3: So I do you put yourself there, like, are you like, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm him and imagine yourself moving within either an offensive
Speaker 3: or a defensive play. Do you go that far?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: For the most part, Yeah, especially defensively, just because that's
Speaker 1: kind of how my brain's wired. I get really upset
Speaker 1: watching certain guys in the league because they do their
Speaker 1: patent move whatever it is.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I know that if they're in their left hand, they're
Speaker 1: gonna go between the legs and step back, or it's
Speaker 1: in their right hand, they're gonna go downhill.
Speaker 2: And I'm like calling it out.
Speaker 1: I'm like, he's gonna go right, he's gonna go right,
Speaker 1: and then the guy gets blown by right. It's just
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to watch, but that's that's the perfectionist
Speaker 1: and the competitor in me was like, I just don't
Speaker 1: see anything else.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: By twenty nineteen, you're playing pretty damn well. You are
Speaker 3: the only other Laker besides mister James to get a
Speaker 3: game thirty points, ten rebounds, five assists. Did you feel
Speaker 3: walking into Staple Center how much everybody loved you? Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure?
Speaker 3: Why did they? Aside from the fact that you're good.
Speaker 2: Just to start?
Speaker 1: Staple Centers is like Staple Center in the Garden, those
Speaker 1: two places. It's it's different than everywhere else because they
Speaker 1: it's almost like the court is lit up, you know,
Speaker 1: like like a like a like a performance, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's a stand up comedy special or it's a
Speaker 1: it's a concert. Like it's dark. It's dark in the crowd.
Speaker 1: All the lights are pointing towards there, and there's this
Speaker 1: atmosps fear about it that that just makes it special
Speaker 1: to begin with, So that that already you know, gets
Speaker 1: the juices flown as a basketball player in general.
Speaker 2: And and then.
Speaker 1: I'm fighting for my life at this point, right I'm
Speaker 1: on I'm on two way contract. And the way that
Speaker 1: I viewed it, like a lot of guys, you know,
Speaker 1: they might get a two way contract or they might
Speaker 1: get you know, the even the first deal I got
Speaker 1: in LA it was a two year, five and a
Speaker 1: half million dollar deal.
Speaker 2: I had.
Speaker 1: I had the awareness to understand, like this isn't a
Speaker 1: guarantee into the league, like this is still like you
Speaker 1: get you gotta you gotta prove it contracts. And so
Speaker 1: every time I played, like I already have the mindset
Speaker 1: of being super competitive just because I like to play
Speaker 1: like that and I just love basketball. But now I
Speaker 1: have like almost a back against the wall mentality going
Speaker 1: into it as well, to where it's like, all right,
Speaker 1: I have to perform or else I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be here, like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna have
Speaker 1: a job. And you mix those two things together and
Speaker 1: you just had you had me playing it at a
Speaker 1: high level that I think a lot of NBA players
Speaker 1: don't play yet every night, and I was taking advantage
Speaker 1: of guys taking plays off. And then even once you know,
Speaker 1: I had the reputation, I think it was still like
Speaker 1: a there was a lot of guys in the league
Speaker 1: that didn't believe that I could play a little bit,
Speaker 1: and it was still one of those okay, you got
Speaker 1: to prove it things, And so my motivation just kept
Speaker 1: moving and changing, and I think, you know, Lakers fans
Speaker 1: are one of the more spoiled fan bases in pro sports.
Speaker 1: With as much success as they've had you know, but
Speaker 1: they they have high expectations and they just we talk
Speaker 1: about A and M.
Speaker 2: We drink the kool Aid Lakers fans drink the kool
Speaker 2: Aid hard.
Speaker 1: And and they are they if you go out there
Speaker 1: and you play to win, and you play and you
Speaker 1: play hard, they just have a certain appreciation for it.
Speaker 1: And this was you got to remember the time this
Speaker 1: was for the franchise, right, this is coming off of
Speaker 1: after Kobe left. There wasn't a lot of success. They
Speaker 1: had young players and they were trying to find teams.
Speaker 2: It was it was a really low period.
Speaker 1: They're bringing big names Bronze in a, DSN, Rondo's and Dwight,
Speaker 1: all these guys, the whole the whole team. And then
Speaker 1: you had me that was just you know, kind of
Speaker 1: sprinkled in there on top, and it's like who's this.
Speaker 1: Who's this crazy white guy that's out here just running
Speaker 1: around dunking on people, getting steals, like playing with this
Speaker 1: fiery energy. In my opinion, I think I represented, you know,
Speaker 1: what a winning culture and winning is about, and I
Speaker 1: think that they recognize that and appreciated it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was it was certainly fun. You win the
Speaker 3: championship in twenty twenty with the Lakers, unfortunately not in
Speaker 3: front of the Stable Center crowd.
Speaker 1: Still mad we didn't get a parade.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: That's it's probably good to be honest, that's probably that's probably.
Speaker 3: Yeah. What was that feeling like for you?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Man, I haven't experienced anything like it. It's just the euphoria,
Speaker 1: the relief. I think those two words probably describe it
Speaker 1: the most. But you know, the sense of accomplishment, like
Speaker 1: there's there is nothing quite like it. And I didn't
Speaker 1: understand it. Like I had guys on the team, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously Brown and one Rondo and one Danny Green, a
Speaker 1: couple other guys, and they just talked like, there's nothing
Speaker 1: like winning the championship.
Speaker 2: There's nothing like win in a championship, and.
Speaker 1: Like you hear it, but you don't know until you're
Speaker 1: present in that moment and you've been locked in for
Speaker 1: four series in a row, which is just such an
Speaker 1: emotional and stressful toll on you mentally, you know, and
Speaker 1: then you get to the physical part where it's just
Speaker 1: such intense, fast, strong, physical basketball.
Speaker 3: I mean going through all those rounds, those playoff rounds
Speaker 3: of high intensity, no plays off are you in pain,
Speaker 3: Oh for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. But that's I mean, that's that's part of
Speaker 1: like like what you said, like when I said there's
Speaker 1: relief in euphoria. It's that sense of relief of like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it's over, and oh my gosh, we
Speaker 1: did it because it's like I don't have to I
Speaker 1: don't have to try and block out this. You know,
Speaker 1: this wrist injury and my knee hurting that that's been
Speaker 1: that's been bugging me for the last two weeks. You
Speaker 1: just got to turn a blind eye to it and
Speaker 1: just act like it's not there because you're trying to win.
Speaker 2: I think we won.
Speaker 1: And then afterwards we all there was like a little
Speaker 1: restaurant in the middle of the Disney property that that
Speaker 1: we hosted everybody that was still.
Speaker 2: In the bubble.
Speaker 1: And I remember walking around and I was my legs
Speaker 1: were so tired, so tired, and I was so excited.
Speaker 1: It was just such like I was just battling myself.
Speaker 1: But man, nothing nothing like winning the championship, Nothing like
Speaker 1: being the last person standing that you know, nothing else
Speaker 1: anybody can say like you you've won, nothing like that,
Speaker 1: And I'm chasing that desperately now. It's something that I
Speaker 1: need to get need to get that feeling back again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's it's interesting too because in a way, I
Speaker 3: think for that Lakers team who you mentioned, there had
Speaker 3: been a number of years since Kolbe had left and
Speaker 3: the last few years he was there, where there had
Speaker 3: not been a lot of winning. It felt like the
Speaker 3: joy was back, both at Staples Center and from the
Speaker 3: team itself having won, and you being a two way
Speaker 3: G League player, you know, who has come in and
Speaker 3: made such a meaningful contribution to that is a huge
Speaker 3: part of why there was joy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm sure everyone that's won a
Speaker 1: championship or won a championship, like your phone afterwards just
Speaker 1: blown up with people congratulating you from every walk, every
Speaker 1: walk of life. And that was something for me that
Speaker 1: was just really cool that I remember being really present
Speaker 1: for was so many different walks of life and people
Speaker 1: that you know, had no expectation of me making it
Speaker 1: to the NBA and winning a championship that were just
Speaker 1: so happy for me. And it was just so cool
Speaker 1: to see, you know, even people from from high school
Speaker 1: to you know, au college, people that family friends, family
Speaker 1: friends we had grown up with that that I that
Speaker 1: I know, just that were so happy for me. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't like you could tell. It wasn't oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: so happy for your you know, basketball accomplishment. It was
Speaker 1: just like, we're so happy for your success, you know,
Speaker 1: as an individual, and and that made it, you know,
Speaker 1: that made it even a little more a little more
Speaker 1: special for me.
Speaker 3: You mentioned before that it's a business. Why do you
Speaker 3: feel like the Lakers after that championship didn't just try
Speaker 3: to bring it all back?
Speaker 2: You know, that's a good question. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever actually thought, like tooking
Speaker 1: the time and sat down and thought about it, because
Speaker 1: like you said, it's just, you know, everything's on go
Speaker 1: where you've got to move. And like you said, once
Speaker 1: I left, I was all in in Chicago and trying
Speaker 1: to focus on that. But we had a couple of
Speaker 1: older guys on the team. But the amount of people
Speaker 1: that didn't come back was probably more surprising to me,
Speaker 1: just because I thought they were I thought they were
Speaker 1: still really good pieces that you know, you need on
Speaker 1: a championship team that that I thought they could they
Speaker 1: could use from that team. But that's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's I think it's more uncommon for teams to
Speaker 1: stay together like that just because of, like you said,
Speaker 1: the business of it. Once you win, everybody gets paid.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how it is an NBA Like winning,
Speaker 1: winning gets you paid. So I know, I got a
Speaker 1: new deal out of that. I want to say Rondo
Speaker 1: got a deal out of it, that Javail Goat got
Speaker 1: more money out of that. Everybody got somewhat upgraded, you know,
Speaker 1: for whatever point in time they were in their career.
Speaker 1: I think that was just kind of the move that
Speaker 1: that management decided to make. I wish, I wish that'd
Speaker 1: be a great fly on the wall question for for
Speaker 1: them if anybody ever gets to interview them to to
Speaker 1: figure out why. But yeah, we were obviously bombed too
Speaker 1: because we we had such we had such good team chemistry.
Speaker 1: Like we did multiple team events where you know, one
Speaker 1: through fifteen were there, and that's that's not as uh
Speaker 1: not as common in the you know, current NBA landscape
Speaker 1: with just how many different moving pieces there are and
Speaker 1: people and interests. So it was it was unfortunate to
Speaker 1: see because you know, we were all excited because we
Speaker 1: just won. Two months later, you know, we didn't even
Speaker 1: get a full off season to enjoy it, and then
Speaker 1: it's new team, new season, go. So that was a
Speaker 1: little disappointing. But you know, I think i'd you know,
Speaker 1: I trade the championship and being on on that team
Speaker 1: then you know, four more years with no championship.
Speaker 3: Right. Your current team, the Bulls, you signed a contract with,
Speaker 3: You've been a force for them. NBA All Defensive First
Speaker 3: Team this year. Why is defense? You mentioned it before
Speaker 3: when you were watching games. Why is that so important
Speaker 3: for you? Are you just better than everyone else?
Speaker 1: Well, that's part of it is like I'm really good
Speaker 1: at it, Like it's it's it's kind of an it's
Speaker 1: it's a natural trade for me. I've always been, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty good at anticipation and seeing place before they happened
Speaker 1: in basketball. Okay, I think there's a big influence on
Speaker 1: it with like some of my early basketball coaches, Billy Gillespie,
Speaker 1: there's a name for you, that coach at Texas A
Speaker 1: and M yep, that his teams were just so tough.
Speaker 1: You know, that was back when college basketball games were
Speaker 1: like maxing out at fifty to fifty five points.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say it was like forty
Speaker 3: eight forty three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like when A and MB Texas, I want to
Speaker 1: say it was like forty six forty three. A claw
Speaker 1: hit this like final shot, and so that that kind
Speaker 1: of grit and toughness and defensive mentality I saw firsthand
Speaker 1: because I was a ball boy and I was like
Speaker 1: literally watching it courtside. And then my high school coaches,
Speaker 1: Russy Siegler and Rick Jermyn were both in the passing lane.
Speaker 1: We hold guys to fifty points, We're gonna win the game, coaches.
Speaker 1: And so for me, I always just kind of naturally,
Speaker 1: you know, fall followed obviously coaching, but I was trying
Speaker 1: to win games and that was the recipe they set
Speaker 1: up for, so.
Speaker 2: I went for it. Yeah, I mean there was a point.
Speaker 1: There was a point in time. I remember going to
Speaker 1: a Texas A and M Elite basketball camp when I
Speaker 1: was in sixth grade, for like sixth, seventh, and eighth graders,
Speaker 1: and I was so nervous. I was like I had
Speaker 1: never done anything like this and played with like really
Speaker 1: really good players, and I was still I was still
Speaker 1: I was a skinny kid. I hadn't really hit a
Speaker 1: gross sper yet. And I remember trying to guard guys
Speaker 1: and just just getting torched.
Speaker 2: It was bad.
Speaker 1: And I think from there that's when I kind of
Speaker 1: got really competitive with it, where I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't do that again, Like I can't have that feeling
Speaker 1: of embarrassment again.
Speaker 3: Have I ever told you my embarrassing basketball story.
Speaker 2: No, I'd love to hear it. I feel like it's
Speaker 2: gonna be a good one.
Speaker 3: It still sticks with me to this day. So I
Speaker 3: went to elementary and junior high school, but it ended
Speaker 3: in eighth grade and there was another school that I
Speaker 3: knew at that point I would be attending the next
Speaker 3: year for ninth grade high school. Now it went elementary
Speaker 3: school through high school by the way Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 3: And I'm playing the I am the starting center for
Speaker 3: I guess I. You know, when I talked to athletes,
Speaker 3: when when did you grow? When did you When were
Speaker 3: you one of the tall kids?
Speaker 1: I think starting in high school for me, Like I
Speaker 1: think I think my freshman year I had three months
Speaker 1: where I grew an inch, like September, October, November.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I I think I was. I think
Speaker 3: I must have been early because I was. I was
Speaker 3: the center. I mean, I am like six two sixty three,
Speaker 3: but I feel like I was that tall then. I
Speaker 3: don't know if that's true. I didn't dunk even then,
Speaker 3: let's be clear, but I was the center. I was
Speaker 3: playing against the school. So all the guys out there
Speaker 3: eighth grade there, you know, junior high team, and there's
Speaker 3: a free throw happening, and I'm I'm there in the lane.
Speaker 3: They're shooting a free throw and I don't know where
Speaker 3: my brain went, but he misses. I jump into the lane.
Speaker 3: I felt like, without even touching the ground, I put
Speaker 3: it right back up and in for them because they
Speaker 3: were shooting the free throw, and it was My memory
Speaker 3: is so clear still of like yes to like what
Speaker 3: did I just do? In like a millisecond, but I
Speaker 3: felt the yes at first, and then saw one face
Speaker 3: and then saw laughter from their team, and I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. And then just running back to court
Speaker 3: to go on offense, even though I just scored, just
Speaker 3: feeling like feeling like I imagine you if somehow one of
Speaker 3: those dreams right where you end up naked at school
Speaker 3: or something, just feel like running back down the court
Speaker 3: like what did I just do?
Speaker 1: That's probably one of the more common middle school basketball plays.
Speaker 2: I think that is it. I think that happens a
Speaker 2: lot more often than you think.
Speaker 3: Man, it feels like I'm the only one that I ever.
Speaker 1: Feel like I've seen plenty of those. That's a tough one.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. That's a tough one. I don't
Speaker 1: even have words for condolence. It's just you know, next play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's the only thing you can do is
Speaker 3: just keep going.
Speaker 2: Is it really is? You just have to ignore it.
Speaker 3: I did it home game laughter. I mean adults laughing
Speaker 3: at me as an eighth graders on the side, just laughing.
Speaker 3: It's awful, awful.
Speaker 1: If you play, you play the game long enough, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get embarrassed eventually.
Speaker 3: Really, what's the most embarrassed you've ever been?
Speaker 1: I mean, I've I've I'm pretty sure I airball a
Speaker 1: free throw in high school.
Speaker 3: That's not that.
Speaker 1: I don't really get embarrassed too much anymore, because there's
Speaker 1: kind of like that chip on my shoulder of like
Speaker 1: even if it's one play like last year, Jalen Brunston
Speaker 1: crossed me bad, like probably the worst one I've had
Speaker 1: in a while, like an break Yeah, yeah, like I
Speaker 1: touched Earth and and it was like the end of
Speaker 1: the game.
Speaker 2: It was like a dagger.
Speaker 1: Shot where it was just like that one sucked. But
Speaker 1: then I was just like, yeah, well, I'm guarding the
Speaker 1: best players in the league, and I know I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get embarrassed probably once a night. It might not be
Speaker 1: as bad as that, but like there's gonna be one
Speaker 1: play where it's like they make a really good move
Speaker 1: and the crowd just goes.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, like that.
Speaker 1: I got such short term memory now, like that stuff
Speaker 1: doesn't really even phaze me. It's more so just like,
Speaker 1: all right, let's make sure we don't compound these mistakes
Speaker 1: and get more oos and on us.
Speaker 3: The ones that I feel like elicit laughter ish in
Speaker 3: a stadium now, like when I'm there, would be would
Speaker 3: be if and if you've ever done this, and I'm
Speaker 3: not talking about one that's contested, that's that's different. And
Speaker 3: sometimes people laugh at that and I'm like, shut up,
Speaker 3: you can't even dunk is a wide open grim dunk? No,
Speaker 3: I could just just but I mean, like a break away,
Speaker 3: did you see it occasionally.
Speaker 2: And just as it go way too hard and.
Speaker 3: Background into the stands? Yeah, always like that would be
Speaker 3: have you done that.
Speaker 2: I haven't done that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna knock on a wood two because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: mess around and do this this year, I miss. I
Speaker 1: haven't done that professionally, I don't think. But I've had,
Speaker 1: I mean I've had. I've had something along those lines
Speaker 1: where like there's a game in college where I was
Speaker 1: actually had a really good game and this is like
Speaker 1: late in the game, I get a breakthrough steel and
Speaker 1: I'm going down and I just took off just a
Speaker 1: little too far away, a little too far away for
Speaker 1: what time of the time of the game it was,
Speaker 1: and I got hung and I was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: just you know, just immediate defeat. Luckily it was at home,
Speaker 1: so like I didn't get I didn't get clown too
Speaker 1: hard and we didn't win, and so I didn't with
Speaker 1: it like.
Speaker 3: A front a front rim jam jam job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I just I just babied it and didn't
Speaker 1: didn't finish it all the way and just like one.
Speaker 2: Of those ones where like it halfway rolls on the
Speaker 2: rim and rolls back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was not great.
Speaker 3: Even called the most underrated player in the NBA, is
Speaker 3: that true?
Speaker 1: I don't think so I think I am probably a
Speaker 1: little underrated, But I mean there are guys that people
Speaker 1: don't talk about that are still my two. My two
Speaker 1: go to guys who were like most underrated before this
Speaker 1: last year, which I don't think I can count them
Speaker 1: as underrated anymore because they both got all NBA selections
Speaker 1: was Drew Holliday and Shay gild As Alexander m Hm,
Speaker 1: because man, those those guys just they they Drew Holliday is.
Speaker 2: Just a super complete basketball player.
Speaker 1: Like he he if he wanted to be, he could
Speaker 1: be First Team All Defense every single year. He just
Speaker 1: has to score twenty points and give, you know, dishout
Speaker 1: eight assists a nit, which he does right. And then
Speaker 1: Shay Man, I mean he he once he got traded
Speaker 1: to Oklahoma City. That almost like jump started his career.
Speaker 1: And you don't see a lot of news out of
Speaker 1: Okay See over the last couple of years, just because
Speaker 1: they've been kind of average and it's Oklahoma City, so
Speaker 1: it's as small market as it is. But he man,
Speaker 1: he doesn't predetermine anything. He just makes reids on offense
Speaker 1: and then sneaky good hands on defense.
Speaker 2: He's a really good player too.
Speaker 3: Last season you played more than you ever had, more minutes,
Speaker 3: more starts, more games. Do you think you're going to
Speaker 3: break that this year?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I do.
Speaker 1: I think I can do it pretty easily, to be honest,
Speaker 1: you know, I say easily easily is a relative term
Speaker 1: because it's a really really hard thing to do. I
Speaker 1: think I played sixty seven games last year, and I
Speaker 1: missed I missed a handful because of my foot, and
Speaker 1: then a couple others just from miscellaneous stuff. But I
Speaker 1: think I think a seventy plus game season is very doable.
Speaker 1: And then I mean the minutes and the starts kind
Speaker 1: of have to deal with how our season goes with personnel,
Speaker 1: you know, like if Lonzo is here, I probably don't
Speaker 1: have as many starts as I do now. But I
Speaker 1: mean all those all those things is just being prepared
Speaker 1: and being being ready with my opportunities is called and
Speaker 1: that's kind of what my kind of my whole career
Speaker 1: has been based on. Just when the opportunity is ready,
Speaker 1: heard arises that that that I'm ready to go.
Speaker 3: Caru show the bald eagle, bald Mama mamba.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Even Lebron called you the goat. Do you have a
Speaker 3: favorite nickname.
Speaker 1: I'm a really I'm a really big fan of Carus show.
Speaker 1: I think that one's I think that one is the
Speaker 1: most most fluid and also just I really like the
Speaker 1: I like the name.
Speaker 3: You and I we have something in common. We have
Speaker 3: a lot of memes, Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: Yours are a little more iconic, I think. But but
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm how do you feel about it? I
Speaker 1: I think it's fun, man, I mean hopefully you know.
Speaker 1: Now We've had a couple of conversations, like, I'm a
Speaker 1: pretty easy going guy. My uh, I got a group
Speaker 1: text with a handful of buddies from from when I
Speaker 1: grew up, and our love language is making fun of
Speaker 1: each other. That's that's how, you know, Like we're checked
Speaker 1: in and we care about each other.
Speaker 2: It's like they keep me very humble. We'll keep it
Speaker 2: at that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they still treat me like I'm you know, they're
Speaker 1: their friend from fifth sixth grade. But yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: we I mean, I'm I said this before, like I'm
Speaker 1: seeing the memes and and the videos. You know, they're
Speaker 1: sending them to the group chat before I even have
Speaker 1: a chance to see him firsthand. So they do a
Speaker 1: good job of keeping it light, but I also I also.
Speaker 2: Prefer it that way.
Speaker 3: How's a golf game, man?
Speaker 2: Golf games?
Speaker 1: Actually, it took a really really big step forward this summer.
Speaker 1: I got into I got into my club, Spanish Oaks
Speaker 1: in Austin. I got I got hot into June beginning
Speaker 1: of July, which makes me even more upset. I couldn't
Speaker 1: play in the tournament this year. I had had a
Speaker 1: buddy get married on that Saturday.
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2: Dude, just just it's still hard to talk about, because.
Speaker 3: Why did you go to the wedding? A wedding?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, looking back on it, maybe should have
Speaker 1: flipped a coin. But he's a good friend to me
Speaker 1: for a long time, so I felt I needed to
Speaker 1: represent him very well and be there.
Speaker 3: Did you stand up at the wedding?
Speaker 1: I had a good time. No, I wasn't in the wedding.
Speaker 1: I wasn't in the wedding.
Speaker 3: Oh you just attended?
Speaker 2: Yeah nice, I'm a nice guy. But golf game.
Speaker 1: And we had a stretch into June beginning of July
Speaker 1: where I think I got my handicapped down to a three,
Speaker 1: and it was it was, it.
Speaker 3: Was like it was it was.
Speaker 2: It needs to get updated because I played.
Speaker 1: In this live pro am event last Thursday, and I
Speaker 1: had a good day. But it wasn't it wasn't anywhere
Speaker 1: in three territory.
Speaker 3: Well, best of luck games starting in the association coming
Speaker 3: up here just about a month the end of October.
Speaker 3: Best of luck to you this year, Best of luck
Speaker 3: to the Bulls. You're gonna make the playoffs this year?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to, I have to not an option
Speaker 1: should have made it last year. We gave away a
Speaker 1: lot of games, so we we we should have a
Speaker 1: little bit of a chip on our shoulder and definitely
Speaker 1: get there.
Speaker 3: For not.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be I'm gonna be hibernating because I'm I'm
Speaker 1: just pissed and embarrassed and upset.
Speaker 3: So well, good.
Speaker 2: I don't want you hybrid playoffs.
Speaker 3: I don't want you. I don't want I don't want
Speaker 3: you hibernating. I'll see you in the playoffs. If not before,
Speaker 3: I'll uh, I'll try to make it there and see you,
Speaker 3: uh see you play a home game. Thanks for coming on,
Speaker 3: and seriously, good luck this year. Let's make uh let's
Speaker 3: make all NBA defense again.
Speaker 2: All right, that's always a goal, man. I appreciate it all.
Speaker 3: Right, Thanks bud Alex, thank you so much for coming
Speaker 3: on here and carouse showing me what you're all about.
Speaker 3: Not that great, uh. I can't wait to watch you
Speaker 3: this season as always, and here's hoping that you and
Speaker 3: the Bulls make the playoffs this year. Great news, everybody,
Speaker 3: breaking news here on off the beat. If you haven't heard,
Speaker 3: the writers strike is over. That's right. The WGA reached
Speaker 3: a deal with the studios. So now the writers of
Speaker 3: all of your favorite movies and television shows, they're now
Speaker 3: going to be back creating content while being fairly compensated
Speaker 3: for all their work. It is important to note, however,
Speaker 3: that my union sag after just yesterday, after two months
Speaker 3: on strike, it should be noted, began negotiations with the
Speaker 3: studios on their new contract. Now. My hope is that
Speaker 3: the two sides can come to a fair resolution in
Speaker 3: a timely manner. The time is now to get all
Speaker 3: of Hollywood back to work. So here's hoping that the
Speaker 3: studios take all of the issues seriously and they negotiate
Speaker 3: in good faith and that an agreement is close at hand. Now.
Speaker 3: I know we've talked a lot about that here on
Speaker 3: the podcast, so I wanted to give you that very
Speaker 3: exciting update with a word of caution that we're all
Speaker 3: not quite out of the woods yet. Stay tuned for,
Speaker 3: hopefully very soon more good news. Oh and one more
Speaker 3: piece of good news for you. I'll be back next
Speaker 3: week for another episode of Off the Beat. Until then, everybody,
Speaker 3: have a great week. Off the Beat is hosted and
Speaker 3: executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langlee.
Speaker 3: Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes,
Speaker 3: Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan
Speaker 3: Papa Zachary, and our intern is Ali Amir Saheed. Our
Speaker 3: theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and
Speaker 3: only Creed Bratton.