Speaker 1: Hi Legends, Welcome back to the Mason Cox Show. Now
Speaker 1: today we've got a special guest. This guy has got
Speaker 1: plenty of experience behind him. His resume is massive. He's
Speaker 1: played in the NBA, he's played in the NBL, He's
Speaker 1: been all over the world playing basketball, and now he's
Speaker 1: one of the head commentators for the NBL here in Australia.
Speaker 1: He's a man with a lot of golden nuggets in life.
Speaker 1: He's a person that you can learn a lot from
Speaker 1: in This chat is going to be amazing, But as
Speaker 1: we always do, start off with the seven platforms. We
Speaker 1: got Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Like, heart, share, comment,
Speaker 1: everything else. Thanks so much everyone for getting this podcast
Speaker 1: where we're at and we're so excited for where it's going.
Speaker 1: But without further ado, I will introduce the great man
Speaker 1: that is Corey Homicide Williams, a person who's got a
Speaker 1: hell of a resume.
Speaker 2: I must say I will roll through some of it.
Speaker 1: Freshman nineteen ninety five ninety six help him value in
Speaker 1: the NJCAA Men's Division two basketball Championships. JUCO First Team
Speaker 1: All American is a sophomore player Alabama State Montgomery, Alabama
Speaker 1: won d League Championship. Criminal Justice Degree NBL Commentatory, you
Speaker 1: might start to understanding who this guy is on NBL
Speaker 1: Overtime Creative Director of the Basketball sorry basketball for Footlalck
Speaker 1: or Pacific.
Speaker 2: Hey man.
Speaker 1: He even dropped twenty six points on Ronald Test one time.
Speaker 1: He's won the twenty ten NBL MVP for the Townsville Crocodiles. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is one of the greatest team names I've ever
Speaker 1: heard in my life. And to be honest, I've got
Speaker 1: a whole list of the teams he's played for, but
Speaker 1: I think it's about three pages long, and it's Jamaican roots. Man,
Speaker 1: the great man, the myth that is Corey Williams. Thank you, homicide.
Speaker 1: Good to have you here much love man. How you doing, man,
Speaker 1: I'm great. Oh I'm better now. I feel like we've
Speaker 1: got this story.
Speaker 2: Hey man.
Speaker 1: I I was reading up on you, a was doing
Speaker 1: all this research. Man, there's it's hustle man. You're a hustleman.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: You make the most of empor every opportunity.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to dive deeper into it. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: dive deeper into it.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, man, That's why I wanted to come here.
Speaker 3: I'm obviously a fellow American who we now both you know,
Speaker 3: call Australia home where we reside. And obviously you in
Speaker 3: the game. I'm in the game in a different way.
Speaker 3: But we're here. You know, we're doing it.
Speaker 1: We're making a life away from home, no doubt, which
Speaker 1: is good.
Speaker 2: I mean it's not easy. There's not always an.
Speaker 3: Easy road, but not always an easy road.
Speaker 2: You're going to make the most of the opportunities given
Speaker 2: to you in life.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that we've done pretty well. Brother,
Speaker 1: we are a lot to come. Man, I'm here now.
Speaker 1: I want to I know a lot about yourself. I
Speaker 1: know some of the listeners probably need to get a
Speaker 1: little bit of background on your right.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about it. You grew up, man, you grew
Speaker 2: up in New York.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm from the Bronx, New York born and raised.
Speaker 1: Now we say the Bronx right now, I know what
Speaker 1: the Bronx says, but you need to tell people what
Speaker 1: it's like.
Speaker 2: It was a daily life in the Bronx.
Speaker 3: Like the Bronx is a dangerous place. That ain't a
Speaker 3: place you would want to grow up if you had
Speaker 3: a choice. I put it like this. If you are
Speaker 3: traveling and visiting New York, that is the borough they
Speaker 3: will tell you do not go to. The only way
Speaker 3: you go to the Bronx is if you're going to
Speaker 3: watch the Yankees play. That's the first stop in the Bronx.
Speaker 3: From Manhattan. You're on the train. The first bridge you
Speaker 3: cross that you stop in the Bronx first, that's the
Speaker 3: stop Yankee Stadium. You go there. All the white people
Speaker 3: get off the train, go to Yankee Stadium, go watch
Speaker 3: the Yankees, and when that game is over, they get
Speaker 3: their back. The ass is back on that train and
Speaker 3: it's expressed all the way back to Midtown fifty ninth Street.
Speaker 3: That's true story. Yeah, I'm from there. Yeah, I'm from there.
Speaker 3: You know it's serious where I grew up. A lot
Speaker 3: of violence, a lot of drugs, lack of education, lack
Speaker 3: of resources will have people do whatever it needs they
Speaker 3: need to do to feed their family and take care
Speaker 3: of themselves. And unfortunately that happens in a lot of
Speaker 3: communities where there's lack of education and life of funds
Speaker 3: and lack of employment. So these things happen. But lucky
Speaker 3: For me, I had a loving mother. My father died
Speaker 3: when I was three. She pushed education hard and accountability,
Speaker 3: gave us responsibility. We knew if we messed up, we
Speaker 3: getting our asses beat when we got home. So between
Speaker 3: her disciplining her two sons and her daughter, I also
Speaker 3: fell in love with basketball. So basketball saved my life.
Speaker 3: You know a lot of young athletes, boys and girls.
Speaker 3: When you come from certain communities, you need direction at
Speaker 3: a young age, you need discipline at a young age,
Speaker 3: and you need to be busy. That's why it's important
Speaker 3: whether you come from a tough community or not. If
Speaker 3: you have children, keep them busy because idle time is
Speaker 3: the devil them. With less time, you have to be
Speaker 3: sitting on your behind thinking of other nonsense to do,
Speaker 3: the better off you'll be. So with all of that said,
Speaker 3: just all of you out there that's listening. If you
Speaker 3: have children, put them in sports, keep them busy, because again,
Speaker 3: if you are My daily regimen was wake up, school, study, hall,
Speaker 3: after school, practice, go home, shower, eat, sleep, so I
Speaker 3: had no time to really be hanging out in the
Speaker 3: hood getting in any trouble. A lot of my friends
Speaker 3: didn't play sport, so they had idle time. A lot
Speaker 3: of them got in trouble. So I'm telling you sports
Speaker 3: and basketball specifically saved my life.
Speaker 2: Your mom was a nurse.
Speaker 3: My mother was a nurse. God blessed dead. My mother
Speaker 3: died four years ago. My pride enjoyed my buddy cancer.
Speaker 3: Man can't listen, Man, Kanser is no joke. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm very proud that you know the things that I
Speaker 3: was able to do for her. And she's traveled the world.
Speaker 3: She saw a sunplay multiple countries, and she saw a
Speaker 3: sun transition to life after the game. So she's rested
Speaker 3: and having proud of all her children, no doubt, Heather Party,
Speaker 3: She's been with me with street ball bounds, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, in the parks. She's real. Listen, this
Speaker 3: story is this is not like the typical story. This
Speaker 3: is real. Yeah, we used to be in those playgrounds together.
Speaker 3: It was real.
Speaker 2: So what was a lot?
Speaker 1: I mean, you got a single mother, yep, growing up,
Speaker 1: you got two brothers, one brother and sister and sister. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now what was the luck on day? Like you were
Speaker 1: allowed to leave the house. I mean we talked about
Speaker 1: you know, being a very a place you don't want
Speaker 1: to be out at night. Yeah, you know, like in
Speaker 1: the day and were you allowed, Like what was the
Speaker 1: what was what was the what was the life like
Speaker 1: for you? What was the rules around the house living
Speaker 1: in that kind of place.
Speaker 3: My father died when I was three, so my mother
Speaker 3: a young mother, raising in schools, still in college, raising
Speaker 3: her two sons, and it was a very rough environment.
Speaker 3: I mean, like it could have gone either way.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Man, you'll do like sometimes, like till this day, I'm
Speaker 3: so far from where it began. But I sometimes sit
Speaker 3: back and I just laugh at myself, like, yo, dude,
Speaker 3: it could have gone either way. Like I'm just chilling
Speaker 3: on my balcony in Australia, just catching a vibe, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, looking in the city, listening to
Speaker 3: noises and traffic you know, and all of this, you know,
Speaker 3: just life over here and just sitting back and it's like, yo, man,
Speaker 3: could have gone either way. But growing up in New York, man,
Speaker 3: it's like you got on this corner, you'll have like
Speaker 3: the drug dealers on this corner. You got like the
Speaker 3: stick of kids and the killers. Right, real talk this corner,
Speaker 3: you know, you might just have like the bums. That's
Speaker 3: not really about nothing. The guys that and the girl
Speaker 3: and the ladies that aren't going to amount to nothing.
Speaker 3: So this is just bad news to just hang with,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, drinking, smoking, the losers, and
Speaker 3: then you'll have like a handful of people that's attempting
Speaker 3: to try and get out. You know, it's literally amazed,
Speaker 3: you know, growing up in the Bronx, it's amazed. So
Speaker 3: what I do when I go home. I have friends
Speaker 3: and I have families still in New York, and I
Speaker 3: have some that are in the Bronx. And just because
Speaker 3: like my life is different, doesn't mean I'm any better
Speaker 3: than them. So I actually to get balanced, I go
Speaker 3: back and chill and see them, right, I go see
Speaker 3: them in the daytime. I can't be in the hood
Speaker 3: at night. That's just stupid. But I go see them,
Speaker 3: and I just sit back in amazement and just say
Speaker 3: to myself, like, dude, like you couldn't script where you
Speaker 3: are today based off where it began, because those odds
Speaker 3: to be where I'm at today based off of where
Speaker 3: it began. There there's no bedding line on that because
Speaker 3: it just doesn't happen, just doesn't happen. So it was
Speaker 3: tough just just know man likes to basketball. Saved me
Speaker 3: because of the fact that I represent my neighborhood with sport.
Speaker 3: I was one of the guys and my brother, we
Speaker 3: were one of the guys that two of the guys
Speaker 3: that they didn't bother us. They almost protected us, like, look,
Speaker 3: you know, you got a chance, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: So we'll hold you down. Just don't be caught up.
Speaker 3: You know what, Tima at what time of the night,
Speaker 3: you don't need to be out here because of what
Speaker 3: goes on. So just it's that type of environment because.
Speaker 1: I always kind of think like it's almost like it's
Speaker 1: a real community feel. Yeah, so the streets going to
Speaker 1: look after certain people, you know, that's a bit like that.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I was thinking that I wonder
Speaker 1: if he was one of those that, you know, someone
Speaker 1: sees you at the wrong time and I said, nah,
Speaker 1: your mom, we're gonna as.
Speaker 3: No doubt, you don't need to be out here. What
Speaker 3: are you doing? That type of So they protected us
Speaker 3: in a sense because we represented the hood.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, and you would you would represent getting
Speaker 1: out of it too, no doubt, and you go back
Speaker 1: now and you'd be like, Okay, I'll look at you'd
Speaker 1: probably go back.
Speaker 2: You'd look at the people and create me.
Speaker 1: If I'm wrong, you probably go back, look at the
Speaker 1: people and say, look, my journey is insane. I'll go
Speaker 1: back to the States and I'm like, I'll talk to
Speaker 1: people and that, man, how soccer going.
Speaker 2: I'm like, shit, it's good, but no idea. I'm just thinking.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, man, I've come a long wife from
Speaker 1: grew up, and that was nowhere comparatively to like what
Speaker 1: you've had to go through going out.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Man, so that's just my neighborhood. Then you know that's
Speaker 3: so as bad as you don't know how bad it
Speaker 3: is if you're in it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: If you're sitting in ship, you don't really know how
Speaker 3: bad shit is because you've been sitting in the ship
Speaker 3: from the gym, you know what I mean. So once
Speaker 3: basketball has it is evolved me with my travels, the
Speaker 3: ability of the game, what my talent and the scholarship
Speaker 3: said I've gotten, and these opportunities that I've gotten forget
Speaker 3: playing pro just to go see other things. So then
Speaker 3: you can understand that fuck, I'm really sitting and shit,
Speaker 3: this is not how it's supposed to be. So that's
Speaker 3: where the motivation began. That's where it begins. All right, cool,
Speaker 3: I see this more. I see there's green and passions.
Speaker 3: I see how people are living different. All right, How
Speaker 3: am I gonna help get myself out of this situation? First,
Speaker 3: thing's up, start working out right now. I got a
Speaker 3: hoop at a junior level. I gotta start getting good
Speaker 3: quick because I started at thirteen in New York. New
Speaker 3: York's the mecca. Everybody's good. So I'm already behind the
Speaker 3: eight ball, right, So it's like, all right cool. My
Speaker 3: process was literally I'm looking at everything step by step.
Speaker 3: I can't look all the way down the road. I
Speaker 3: literally got'ta be like, all right, cool, I'm here. I
Speaker 3: gotta get to hear right now. I give the process, yo,
Speaker 3: the process, man, Like.
Speaker 1: We're gonna jump too far because I want to kind
Speaker 1: of step through this because there's a lot a lot
Speaker 1: to cover here now. I like to talk about moments
Speaker 1: that change people's lives in whatever way, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it be good, bad, ugly, whatever it is. Now I
Speaker 1: think and listening to you and doing a bit of research,
Speaker 1: there's you going to Catholic school in Harlem, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that was a massive change of direction for your your
Speaker 1: life direction where the path was gonna go. Let's sorry
Speaker 1: about that, well man, because your mom was all about
Speaker 1: this is mom too on.
Speaker 3: What you're making and education is huge to us in culture.
Speaker 3: So if nothing else, you're gonna go to school and
Speaker 3: you're gonna get a job. You definitely gonna get the degree.
Speaker 3: You're gonna get a job, You're gonna work, and you're
Speaker 3: gonna go to school. So I'm in middle school at
Speaker 3: this point. This is your success is yes, success, I'm
Speaker 3: like school things. You know, I'm like twelve, eleven twelve,
Speaker 3: right thirteen. You start high school eleven twelve, So I'm
Speaker 3: like the class clown because I'm not the flyest dude.
Speaker 3: I don't have the best clothes on, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not smooth, I don't have I'm none of these things.
Speaker 3: At this point.
Speaker 2: You are now though, yeah, got.
Speaker 3: A little you know that.
Speaker 2: We moved on up.
Speaker 3: So my grades were bad. This is an era where
Speaker 3: they will grade you on behavior versus if you're close
Speaker 3: to a C or a D, they'll behave you on
Speaker 3: your they'll grade you on your effort. That's what if.
Speaker 3: So if your f it's bad and you in your
Speaker 3: class clown. We're gonna give you a D. So my
Speaker 3: report card was all read I was such a bad
Speaker 3: kid in school, trying to be a class clown. In
Speaker 3: junior high school, which is middle school. They told me
Speaker 3: you can't even graduate. We're going to give you your
Speaker 3: graduation papers. You can't go to the ceremony. I mean,
Speaker 3: you can graduate, You're not going to ceremony to the gown.
Speaker 3: The most embarrassing moment in my life. That's the first
Speaker 3: and last time I ever embarrassed my mother. I never
Speaker 3: forget that. And I didn't get accepted to the schools
Speaker 3: in high school that I applied to. How could I
Speaker 3: My grades weren't didn't reflect or warranted me getting into
Speaker 3: these schools. So the only school I was able to
Speaker 3: get into was the Zone school, which is your local
Speaker 3: high school. That's where all the killers, everyone bombs, losers
Speaker 3: go to. So what what what route am I going?
Speaker 3: If I go to that school, I'll be one of those.
Speaker 3: I would have been one of those, my mother said.
Speaker 3: So there was a school that I actually got accepted
Speaker 3: to in the village Washington, Irvan High School. We get online,
Speaker 3: but we go to orientation. I'm a kid from the Bronx.
Speaker 3: Now I'll go to the village. Right, I'm online for orientation.
Speaker 3: It might have been about fifteen people in front of us.
Speaker 3: Ten of them are girl. I said, oh man. My
Speaker 3: mother said, oh you think, so let's go. We leave.
Speaker 3: I don't even get my ori into my school. I
Speaker 3: d I'm like, where we going? She said, let's go.
Speaker 3: The next day we go to Harlem Infamous Harlem one
Speaker 3: twenty fourth Street, Lenox Avenue. There is a small rectangular building.
Speaker 3: Class of their senior classes eighty people. That's what graduates,
Speaker 3: eighty to ninety people. It's how small a school is.
Speaker 3: Catholic All Boys School, Rice High School is the name
Speaker 3: of this school. Goes in, we see the dean all boys.
Speaker 1: First thing, I'm thinking, what is this?
Speaker 3: What is this? Go in? We see the d Dean
Speaker 3: looks at my transcript says there's no way we can.
Speaker 3: We can let him in. Academically, he will fail, he
Speaker 3: can't keep up. My mother begged the dean, please let
Speaker 3: my son in. Dean looked at my mother, looked at
Speaker 3: me and said, here's what I'll do. We'll let him in.
Speaker 3: We'll put him on academic probation for the first half
Speaker 3: of the year, and if those grades pan out, we'll
Speaker 3: keep going. If not, he has to leave done. She
Speaker 3: found a way, found a way, found my mother found
Speaker 3: a way. That school changed my life, gave me discipline.
Speaker 3: A woman can never teach a boy how to be
Speaker 3: a young man, how to be a man again, my
Speaker 3: father was gone at this point. She needed help to
Speaker 3: help her son.
Speaker 2: Yep, she's got work.
Speaker 3: Pays her tuition, pays my tuition. Little did I know
Speaker 3: this was the number one high school in the nation
Speaker 3: for basketball. Felipe Lopez went to Rice High School, so
Speaker 3: this school was a basketball factory. I didn't go for basketball.
Speaker 3: I went for disciplinarian reasons. We need to straighten this
Speaker 3: little one out to give them a chance. So once
Speaker 3: I ended up going to the number one high school
Speaker 3: in the nation, Oh my god, basketball and all I
Speaker 3: gotta do is act right. Oh I'm good. I had
Speaker 3: to be average all the way through for four years.
Speaker 2: Be average.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't about academically if I was able to
Speaker 3: handle it, it was about discipline again. Accountability breedze responsibility.
Speaker 3: You want to hoop, pass these classes and act right done.
Speaker 3: Structure was what I needed. So again I said it earlier,
Speaker 3: wake up, go to school. After that, you got study hall.
Speaker 3: After that, you got practice, back home on the train, shower, eat, sleep, repeat.
Speaker 3: Midweek and weekends you got games. I have no time
Speaker 3: for trouble, and I'm laser focused because now I'm seeing
Speaker 3: more exposure leads to expansion. I'm starting to expand more.
Speaker 3: I'm not just in the hood anymore. I'm around some
Speaker 3: of the illest people in New York City that ended
Speaker 3: up going to this school. Some of them have become
Speaker 3: multi millionaires because of hip hop. Hip Hop is in
Speaker 3: our community. I'm a Jamaican growing up in the Bronx
Speaker 3: that play basketball. Do you know how many things that covers?
Speaker 3: Hip hop is the number one genre in the world.
Speaker 3: So we got sports, we got fashion, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, we got music, We created the culture. Everything
Speaker 3: we did shifts the culture in the world. This is
Speaker 3: where I'm coming from, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 3: it all comes from poverty. So it's like there was
Speaker 3: a gift in being born into poverty. It is created
Speaker 3: in my DNA certain things you can't even teach.
Speaker 1: So grind opportunity as as it exposure leads to opportunities,
Speaker 1: leads to expansion. Expansion, sorry, exposure leads to expansion. I
Speaker 1: like that, so you get to that's the first intro
Speaker 1: into basketball, no doubt. Now what made you fall in love? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have friends that were doing it too at the
Speaker 1: same time, and like it kind of just got into
Speaker 1: it with him. Is that because I feel like that's
Speaker 1: how sported. What happened was it was my brother. My
Speaker 1: brother was the hooper, but he started having too much
Speaker 1: issues with his knees, so he didn't love it like
Speaker 1: I did. He more loved the lifestyle of it at
Speaker 1: a young age. Right, So I was bored one day
Speaker 1: because usually in my summers, like I told you where
Speaker 1: we're from, it's crazy. So in the summers, my mother
Speaker 1: would send me to Jamaica. So I would be in Jamaica.
Speaker 1: Oh some family your mom.
Speaker 3: From man big big, big, big up, Jemmy cun Pete brothers,
Speaker 3: no doubt, no doubt. So you know I would to
Speaker 3: give my mother a rest because I energy wise, I
Speaker 3: was all over the place. She was this close to
Speaker 3: putting the lesha like I'm I was disclose, So to
Speaker 3: to give my mother rest. Sometimes my my father, my
Speaker 3: father's family, my aunts, uncles, grandparents, they would take when
Speaker 3: it's during the school week obviously with her, but on
Speaker 3: the weekends, my brother would go hang out with the
Speaker 3: grandparents and the aunts and all of that, and I
Speaker 3: would just she would have one of us during the weekend,
Speaker 3: right because obviously work week us going to school, it's
Speaker 3: a lot. But in the summers, I would go to
Speaker 3: Jamaica with her family, like my aunt's and ugins down
Speaker 3: now right, Yeah, definitely, So I'm at Jamaica all summer.
Speaker 3: So I never followed really American sport at a young age.
Speaker 3: I was kicking soccer balls in Jamaica, hanging out, going
Speaker 3: to dance hall like I was partying since a little kid. Like,
Speaker 3: you know, Jamaica. You know it's different, right, It's different.
Speaker 3: So I would just go with my uncles and stuff
Speaker 3: like that and hang out with them. And one summer
Speaker 3: I didn't go to Jamaica. I ended up seeing my
Speaker 3: brother going to play basketball. So I was like, yeah, what.
Speaker 2: You doing today? Man?
Speaker 3: Man, I ain't got nothing going on. What you're doing today?
Speaker 3: He's like, I got a game. I was like, can
Speaker 3: I come with you? He's like, yeah, come on. So
Speaker 3: I went love it first sight. It wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 3: even love. It was an obsession. Oh my god, I
Speaker 3: don't know how to play this game. I gotta play it.
Speaker 3: So that's where it started. This was like at eleven.
Speaker 1: This is like you go to a basketball court in
Speaker 1: the community there, it is the place to be.
Speaker 2: Is what connects everything.
Speaker 3: Rucker Park back in the day, which is just an infant.
Speaker 3: If you're in Melbourne, you know, paran summer gen paran
Speaker 3: basketball court, right, just that that's done one weekend in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: That's a weekend in the summertime. We do what you
Speaker 3: see that weekend every day for the whole summer. It's
Speaker 3: almost like seventy five basketball tournaments in New York City
Speaker 3: in the summer. It's the mecca of basketball. So that's
Speaker 3: where you wanted to be. That's we didn't care about.
Speaker 3: We couldn't afford tickets to go to the Knicks, so
Speaker 3: streetball would be that was our NBA is entertainment. That
Speaker 3: was entertainment, you know what I mean. Then on the
Speaker 3: side of that, you got the DJ's playing music, you
Speaker 3: got people out the break dancing. It's the culture. That's
Speaker 3: what we grew up and this is what we created
Speaker 3: in the hood. That was all entertainment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. What's the weirdest thing you've seen?
Speaker 1: This is going off track, but what's the weirdest thing
Speaker 1: you've seen one of those basketball courts? I mean, because
Speaker 1: they got like the hype man on the mic, you
Speaker 1: got like everyone running around, someone dunks, everyone just like
Speaker 1: collapses into the court. Like I think people have kind
Speaker 1: of seen it, but they don't quite understand how just
Speaker 1: crazy it is. Like I love that you shout out
Speaker 1: France Summer Jam.
Speaker 2: That was really cool. I went to it last year
Speaker 2: and unreal. Did the dunk contest to my family?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely my family. Yeah, I'll judge the dunk contest.
Speaker 1: Some of the guys are wildness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it's actually good competition.
Speaker 3: It's dopes. So that's the biggest and best street ball
Speaker 3: tournament in Australia and they're actually so dope. They just
Speaker 3: had their tenth anniversary. Jordan is sponsoring it this year.
Speaker 3: You know, Jordan brand doesn't touch anything if it's not elite.
Speaker 3: So for from where they started to where it is
Speaker 3: today and Jordan is sponsoring that, that is huge. That's huge.
Speaker 2: So what's what it is.
Speaker 1: So, so we go from you finding out through your
Speaker 1: brother you kind of follow your brother in the footeps Dawson,
Speaker 1: wha did that growing up into? You know, just you
Speaker 1: follow the older brother what he does? You answered them
Speaker 1: because you have an idolization towards the old older brother Thoms.
Speaker 1: Now you get into how do you get into this
Speaker 1: whole nj NJCAA men's Division two basketball championship.
Speaker 2: So because this is not this is ninety five ninety six,
Speaker 2: right right?
Speaker 3: So I ended up going to Rice High School ninety one,
Speaker 3: graduated ninety five.
Speaker 2: At this point, did you have people looking at you hit?
Speaker 3: That's a good question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so at this point I know how it works,
Speaker 1: like you're going to recruit it from there and then
Speaker 1: it goes on.
Speaker 3: So what happened was because I'm at the number one
Speaker 3: high school in the nation, I had to work my
Speaker 3: ass off to attempt to make a team.
Speaker 2: Did you play in high school? Yeah? I played ice,
Speaker 2: So you played.
Speaker 3: I played freshman and I played JV junior varsity. I
Speaker 3: got MVP of Junior varsity, which means I should go
Speaker 3: to varsity for my junior senior year. We were so
Speaker 3: stacked with talent in that school. They made a varsity
Speaker 3: B team. A varsity B team. Who does that? That's
Speaker 3: how much talent there was at that school. So I
Speaker 3: ended up my junior year playing varsity. By right, they
Speaker 3: went city in state. Felipe Lopez, he has the ESPN
Speaker 3: thirty for thirty, The Dominican Dream. He was Lebron before
Speaker 3: Lebron in high school. Go check it out The Dominican Dream.
Speaker 3: ESPN thirty for thirty. Now we all know those thirty
Speaker 3: for thirty documentaries are the real digit. Okay, then that's
Speaker 3: the high school. That's the kid who was at our
Speaker 3: high school, who put the high school on the map.
Speaker 3: It's out balled out. So from there I played my
Speaker 3: senior year varsity A. So obviously I had a lot
Speaker 3: of development to do. So I wasn't even my best self.
Speaker 3: I wasn't the best guy, wasn't all city, wasn't all state,
Speaker 3: none of that. Far from that, still developing. So after
Speaker 3: I graduated high school, what the coach did was there
Speaker 3: was a my varsity be assistant coach knew a JUCO
Speaker 3: coach looking for talent. JUCO is a two year university.
Speaker 3: It's a community college. Usually it's for guys that are
Speaker 3: getting second chances, think like Last Chance. You You ever
Speaker 3: saw a documentary or the docuseries on Netflix called Last
Speaker 3: Chance You check that out. They're usually at junior colleges
Speaker 3: where there's really talented guys that messed up at a
Speaker 3: young age, and to give them a second chance, they
Speaker 3: got to go to JUCO. Show they can handle the
Speaker 3: curriculum and get theirselves together and with a chance, if
Speaker 3: they play well, they'll have a chance to go to
Speaker 3: a four year university for their last two years.
Speaker 2: The comfeter system basically.
Speaker 3: So or if you are a talent that's not fully
Speaker 3: developed and still needs more developing, you go to a
Speaker 3: junior college like myself at that point, I needed to
Speaker 3: go to JUCO. You think I could.
Speaker 1: Hell No, get me to hell about that Bronx anyway,
Speaker 1: bosure leading to expansion.
Speaker 3: Okay, So now I go where Kansas City, Missouri? I
Speaker 3: go to junior college. Yeah, that is city from the Bronx.
Speaker 2: Dude, Come on, man, the day you would have rocked
Speaker 2: up there?
Speaker 1: God, Yo, what this is Kansas This is a city exactly,
Speaker 1: No disrespect to Kansas City.
Speaker 2: We love Kansas City, right, but if you're comparing that story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can't.
Speaker 1: You compare that to the Bronx. That is literally the
Speaker 1: opposite end of the spectrum. Yo.
Speaker 3: Just just to have that opportunity for school to send
Speaker 3: me a ticket to go visit that was incredible in itself.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yo, man, like, I'm really gonna go see
Speaker 3: a school they want me to. You know, they're interested
Speaker 3: in signing me to go to the school. My mind
Speaker 3: was already made up. I don't care what it looks like.
Speaker 2: I'm out of here. I'm taking the ticket first there
Speaker 2: and just.
Speaker 3: Needs to start. The process needs to start. So went.
Speaker 3: I agreed. I signed my letter of intent right there.
Speaker 2: You have the train or anything with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I played, I played and all that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: A couple of the recruits that came from all over
Speaker 3: America that went, we all played different positions. I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: I signed best there. No, I wasn't the best there,
Speaker 3: but I showed what I can do either way. I
Speaker 3: signed while I was there. Right there, You ready to go? Done?
Speaker 2: Done?
Speaker 3: I got a school, because that's a proud moment. That's
Speaker 3: a huge achievement to get a scholarship. I had a
Speaker 3: full ride, room and board, you know, so the process begins,
Speaker 3: went home, told my mother signed she said, I graduated
Speaker 3: high school and went to the ceremony.
Speaker 2: He got an invite.
Speaker 3: I got the invite and through the Kapan and the
Speaker 3: journey began. Yeh off to Kansas City, Missouri. One would
Speaker 3: have been super proud, super proud, super crowd. Yeah. So
Speaker 3: year one we win the championship stacked and at Juco.
Speaker 3: Here's the funny story. See, in junior college there's really
Speaker 3: no age limit to players. Yo, dude, dude. The guy
Speaker 3: I was playing behind, I'm eighteen. The dude was twenty seven.
Speaker 1: That's yo, twenty seven seven For those out there, twenty
Speaker 1: three is when you graduate.
Speaker 2: Twenty seven is old man's status, Like twenty seven.
Speaker 1: Is like you should have a legit job, settled down
Speaker 1: with a family.
Speaker 2: But now what are you doing starting ball a Juco?
Speaker 3: Yo, dude.
Speaker 2: So I'm like you going in there going, I'm yo
Speaker 2: fresh meet.
Speaker 3: Just like, we end up winning the chip though I
Speaker 3: literally got no burn, I got little to no playing time,
Speaker 3: and I couldn't be mad because these guys was getting
Speaker 3: it done. So all it did was continue to motivate
Speaker 3: me more. When I left high school. These guys were
Speaker 3: so good that I played with the high school. I
Speaker 3: said to them in class when they like we sitting
Speaker 3: down like this, I said, look, I ain't that good
Speaker 3: right now, But one day I'm gonna be good. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna catch up with y'all and I'm gonna bust all
Speaker 3: of y'all ass. And that's exactly what they did. They
Speaker 3: all laughed, you know what I mean, Because it's funny
Speaker 3: when you're not for good and you tell somebody who
Speaker 3: who's really good, that you're gonna bust they ass and
Speaker 3: be better than them. Of course you're gonna laugh at
Speaker 3: them because you can't see it, right. But that's the
Speaker 3: type of desire or motivation that I have within me, right,
Speaker 3: that's just in me.
Speaker 2: Right. It's a hustle.
Speaker 3: So fast forward. I get the juko, we win the championship.
Speaker 3: First year fresh first year, we win the championship Division
Speaker 3: two juco. Never forget this moment the coach. We're up
Speaker 3: literally like but winning the game. The game is one.
Speaker 3: We might be up like I think maybe twelve points.
Speaker 3: It might be like, I don't know, ten seconds left
Speaker 3: in the game. I didn't play all day. He puts
Speaker 3: me in the game.
Speaker 2: Why would you do that time.
Speaker 3: Why would you do this?
Speaker 4: And you hear it, you got she said, Corey, Corey, Yo,
Speaker 4: you know how humiliating that is, Like you might as
Speaker 4: well don't put the kid in.
Speaker 3: There's no reason to put the kid in. And I
Speaker 3: wanted to transfer. I wanted to transfer. After that, I
Speaker 3: was like, Yo, but where could I go? I had
Speaker 3: no options right, but in my mind, I'm like, anywhere
Speaker 3: got to be better than here if he's not playing me.
Speaker 3: And what happened. He got a head coaching job somewhere else.
Speaker 3: And the new assistant that came in said, be ready
Speaker 3: to the belief it's going through you this season coming up,
Speaker 3: because all of those guys were seniors on that team,
Speaker 3: so they were like, be ready because we're giving you
Speaker 3: the ball. All I ever wanted in my life was opportunity.
Speaker 3: I've never gotten a fair opportunity, and not kill it.
Speaker 3: If I ever gotten an opportunity fair, I've exceeded expectations
Speaker 3: and no one gives no one puts more pressure on
Speaker 3: me than me. So when I get these expectation, these
Speaker 3: these opportunities, I don't care about the expectations you have
Speaker 3: because it's not going to be higher than the expectations
Speaker 3: I have, right, so if I exceed my expectations, I
Speaker 3: don'et blew yours out the water.
Speaker 2: Now worried about you.
Speaker 3: I've even worried about.
Speaker 2: You, you know.
Speaker 3: So when I got that opportunity at JUCO a sophomore year.
Speaker 3: That year, I wrote a list down, because this is
Speaker 3: what I do. I write down my.
Speaker 2: Goals, break it down.
Speaker 3: I said, I'm gonna win the championship. I'm gonna be
Speaker 3: reaching sixteen MVP, I'm gonna be first team All American,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna lead the nation and scoring top five at least,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna be the man on his team. And
Speaker 3: I achieved all of those things and we lost year
Speaker 3: two at a buzzer in the championship.
Speaker 2: It's a crush.
Speaker 3: I hit every target and I had I had several offers,
Speaker 3: and I went to a HBCU because that's where I
Speaker 3: want to go to. I went to Alabama State Montgomery,
Speaker 3: and I graduated. I had my associate's degree in arts
Speaker 3: and my favorite class was art history one on one
Speaker 3: and one on two. I loved art, just learning about art.
Speaker 3: And I failed it the first time and I enjoyed
Speaker 3: taking retaking it.
Speaker 2: It was my favorite class. Loved Juco. This is why
Speaker 2: you're such a fashionable fellow.
Speaker 3: I don't know, man, I think it's just the New York.
Speaker 3: The New York like really man like. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of pressure growing up in New York. It's the fashion
Speaker 3: capital of the world. And you can't leave your house out.
Speaker 3: You can't leave outside your house without like looking cool,
Speaker 3: yeah or else. The jokes on you. You know what
Speaker 3: I mean, And it's an expression, and it's a form
Speaker 3: of uh extension of your personality. Before you talk, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. Your style introduces you before you
Speaker 3: even you even talk, introduces yea, what I'm saying. I
Speaker 3: don't like as much as I like talking, I don't
Speaker 3: like talking too much. I'd rather let the swag do to.
Speaker 2: Glasses. I'm looking.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you something about your youth before
Speaker 1: we get into the basketball side. Things were gonna talk
Speaker 1: about Rocker and everything else. But now your born name
Speaker 1: was Carrie.
Speaker 3: Carrie. Yep, let me tell you what happened. So my
Speaker 3: government name is Carrie because it is a lot of Jamaicans. Yeah,
Speaker 3: my government I'm still going to day. I've never officially changed.
Speaker 3: I would never officially change it. But what happened was
Speaker 3: as a Jamaican would say Carrie, Carrie, but in America
Speaker 3: they would be like Carrie. I'm like yooo. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 3: my name is Carrie. They like teacher Carrie Williams. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 3: my name is Carrie. How many times can you correct? Everybody?
Speaker 3: It's just like, yo, all right, man, my name is Carrie.
Speaker 3: So this is kindergarten.
Speaker 2: You want to come out You've been like, let's say good,
Speaker 2: let's see it.
Speaker 3: So from kindergarten all the way from five years old,
Speaker 3: all the way to middle school. When's middle school start eleven,
Speaker 3: eleven and thirteen, right, so five to ten carry carry, carry,
Speaker 3: carry care. They tease me my ball you carried, carry
Speaker 3: my bag? You know, kids a mean man, kids a meaning.
Speaker 3: So so then I get to middle school, grade eleven
Speaker 3: through thirteen, right, I'm sorry, age eleven to thirteen. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the first day teachers doing attendance carry Williams. I said,
Speaker 3: there's been a mistake. It's Corey changed the eight to Oh,
Speaker 3: it's been Corey over since you reinvented yourself.
Speaker 2: The day you got there, you were prepped right.
Speaker 3: Doing this shit again. We are not. We are stopping
Speaker 3: the new people in this room that don't know who
Speaker 3: I was before.
Speaker 1: We're gonna fix this shit before it starts now. So
Speaker 1: from then on, Corey, Corey just and Corey love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the only person that knew.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you. You wanna hear funny story?
Speaker 2: I hit it.
Speaker 3: So let me tell you. Uh So, back when Bogan
Speaker 3: was playing in the league.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, uh Bogan.
Speaker 3: One day we were having because you know, Bog and
Speaker 3: I used to go back and forth something right.
Speaker 2: He likes to be a big controversial.
Speaker 3: Both We're gonna tell you what you feel straight and
Speaker 3: I respect it, you know, as I'm gonna tell you. So,
Speaker 3: I just feel in the space that I'm in like
Speaker 3: any other commentator, if you have an opinion and you're
Speaker 3: going to talk about it, you better be able to
Speaker 3: take it, so you know, it's all good. So I
Speaker 3: we're at MBL awards night, so I see him like
Speaker 3: some big fella. He was like, how you doing Carrie.
Speaker 2: Research?
Speaker 3: I was like, fuck this, I gotta go on the
Speaker 3: something on him.
Speaker 2: You gotta go do some research on his ass.
Speaker 3: Now, I said ship. So when he said it, I
Speaker 3: kind of planned it, like you know, like have a
Speaker 3: good night, walked off. I was like, funk, I gotta
Speaker 3: get on the front foot of this. I can't have
Speaker 3: Boget say it. So then I think the next day,
Speaker 3: I uh, I had to do MBO overtime, I think,
Speaker 3: and next day okay, yeah, So I just pulled it
Speaker 3: up there.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I was like, uh, yeah, man, I want to tell
Speaker 3: you guys something. Man, I'm gonna tell you all the story.
Speaker 3: And I brought up like an old story about my name.
Speaker 1: So at least on the now you now you're back
Speaker 1: in first fluch. Now you're back in first notice. Oh
Speaker 1: so he did his hed. I'd be I would be
Speaker 1: gobsmacked if someone did that. I was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: Buget Man, Bugets good man, bug is good the best.
Speaker 3: He got a podcast happening too.
Speaker 2: M m. He's doing a lot, Man doing a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now you so you graduate? So you sorry, We're going
Speaker 1: to Alabama State. Now yeah, we've kind of a verge
Speaker 1: a bit. We're going to Alabama State. Now tell me
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 3: So we get into is D one Division one. I
Speaker 3: wanted to go to Historical Black College University HBCU.
Speaker 1: Can you tell people a bit like that? Because I
Speaker 1: don't think people understand kind of the history behind it.
Speaker 3: So what an HBCU is is back in the day,
Speaker 3: a long time ago, when obviously civil rights movement was happening,
Speaker 3: and there was a lot of segregation in America. Blacks
Speaker 3: African Americans could not go to schools where it was
Speaker 3: predominantly white schools. So what we did was make up
Speaker 3: our own colleges and universities, and it was historically black
Speaker 3: colleges and universities and real rich and culture and history,
Speaker 3: and a lot of our grandparents and great grandparents went there.
Speaker 1: Now I kind of think about this. A lot of
Speaker 1: people have seen the movie Great Remember the Titans.
Speaker 2: Uh huh? Now, I think once that was Alabama, Obama?
Speaker 2: Talk about that one, You know that I went to
Speaker 2: Alabama State. Yeah, it was the same area. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of history here with the Civil Rocks and anything else.
Speaker 3: The Civil Rights movement was in Montgomery, Alabama. But like,
Speaker 3: why I went to an HBCU is because Bill Cosby
Speaker 3: had produced a show called The Cosby Show where it
Speaker 3: portrayed the black American family in a positive way. Because
Speaker 3: back in those days, there weren't anything on. There wasn't
Speaker 3: any positive portrayal of the black family on television. All
Speaker 3: we saw was a show called good Times and they
Speaker 3: were living in the projects and it was all bad.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It was a negative depiction of a loving African American family.
Speaker 3: So what Bill Cosby did was flip it. He was
Speaker 3: a doctor on the show, his wife was a successful lawyer,
Speaker 3: and his kids all were incredible young kids. Right then
Speaker 3: they lived a fruitful life in Brooklyn, living in a
Speaker 3: very very nice brownstone. So again it made you see
Speaker 3: a positive black family on television doing incredible things, role models.
Speaker 3: So then the spin off to that show was a
Speaker 3: different world where his alma matera is Howard University, which
Speaker 3: is basically like the best HBCU in America. Right as
Speaker 3: far as it's pretty much like an uh, it would
Speaker 3: be like the Harvard or Yale of African American universities.
Speaker 2: HBC Grambling States one of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of HBCUs. But Howard
Speaker 3: is like Jordan just sponsored Howard, so that lets you know,
Speaker 3: yeah legit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So because of this TV series where they were showing
Speaker 3: the African American college experience, I was like, wow, all
Speaker 3: black college, man, this thing it looks beautiful. So I
Speaker 3: always wanted to go to an HBCU and they did
Speaker 3: a poll many many years ago why students ended up
Speaker 3: going to HBCUs, and a lot of them was because
Speaker 3: of the show bill Cosmic, So it just had a positive,
Speaker 3: a massive positive influence. So I wanted to go there
Speaker 3: and play basketball, and I had the opportunity to, so
Speaker 3: I took it. My junior year, I played because Okay,
Speaker 3: now for those listeners, when you lead junior college and
Speaker 3: you get an opportunity to go play at a four
Speaker 3: year UNI, you only have two years left.
Speaker 1: But these four years of eligibility is how we kind
Speaker 1: of So you have four years eligibility, first two JUCO
Speaker 1: and then you get opportunity to go up in the leagues.
Speaker 1: You go up to a better league and you get
Speaker 1: into Alabama Stike. Now, this is D one. This is
Speaker 1: legit Vision one. Legit is where it's at.
Speaker 3: This is where it's at.
Speaker 2: You've got two years of eligibility, got two years to.
Speaker 3: Try to make something happen. My dream is the NBA.
Speaker 3: My dream is the NBA. So I go in there
Speaker 3: and I my junior. First of all, I'm major in
Speaker 3: criminal justice and I specialize in juvenile justice. The reason
Speaker 3: being is because again I wanted to catch and not always.
Speaker 3: There's something in my eye I'm very passionate about till
Speaker 3: this day. I always want to catch. Wanted to catch
Speaker 3: that high school age thirteen to like eighteen nineteen, both
Speaker 3: male and female. This is a dangerous time for a
Speaker 3: lot of youth in the world, let alone in a city,
Speaker 3: let alone black and brown children kids. Period. Here's why
Speaker 3: one mistake can alter your life for the worst. One mistake.
Speaker 3: So my whole thing was if I can come from
Speaker 3: where I come from and have become whatever I've morphed
Speaker 3: into right at that moment, I should be able to
Speaker 3: go into any community, regardless of his mind or not,
Speaker 3: and talk to these kids because of my real life
Speaker 3: experiences based off of the past, they instantly will be
Speaker 3: able to relate to me, you understand. So that's why
Speaker 3: I specialized in juvenile justice. And okay, I just want
Speaker 3: to explain it. Education.
Speaker 1: I wanted to promote education. You want to get that
Speaker 1: one hundred.
Speaker 3: Percent, my mother told me. I said, ma, I want
Speaker 3: to play pro. She said, look, son, do whatever you want,
Speaker 3: just make sure you get that degree. I said, done. Smart,
Speaker 3: So junior yeah, I averaged sixteen. By the way I
Speaker 3: looked at it was this is not a big university.
Speaker 3: So for me to really get a shot, I got
Speaker 3: to average twenty. I got to average twenty. If I
Speaker 3: average twenty again, I got a chance somewhere. Hopefully an
Speaker 3: agent would be able to see some potential and get
Speaker 3: me a shot somehow, bring me into like those spring
Speaker 3: combine camps and let me just go from there. This
Speaker 3: is how I'm thinking. Senior year comes, last year old
Speaker 3: really last year senior. This is it. Average sixteen, So
Speaker 3: two more buckets. I'm at a dub. I'm at twenty.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: You know, with them small schools, what we start doing
Speaker 3: first we start playing against the Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State,
Speaker 3: Oklahoma states of the world. Right, So what y'all do
Speaker 3: to those small schools.
Speaker 1: Y'all beat us about forty and fifty boys like me
Speaker 1: or playing in those guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's like I can't even make a basket
Speaker 3: around this guy, you know what I mean. So it's
Speaker 3: like we getting smacked.
Speaker 2: Favorite games.
Speaker 3: Alabama of course, just beat up on the little guys.
Speaker 3: So we lost literally of course we lost all of
Speaker 3: those games. Those are non conference those are non conference, right,
Speaker 3: so we lose me obviously, we lose all five of
Speaker 3: them six seven. Wee gets smacked because.
Speaker 1: Like universes like Oklahoa said, would pay you exactly to
Speaker 1: come be our homegun right, play exactly exactly get the
Speaker 1: refinancial thing.
Speaker 3: So with all of that, the coach says, man, we
Speaker 3: ain't gonna do shit this year. I might as well
Speaker 3: get the young guys ready. He pretty much splits time
Speaker 3: with the freshmen and sophomorees. I go from sixteen a game,
Speaker 3: I didn't average ten. My senior year is done. That's it.
Speaker 3: Dream is done.
Speaker 2: Where's Jamanda? At this point?
Speaker 3: Dream is done? I'm just like man, I gotta I'm
Speaker 3: still gonna make it. It's just not this way.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be harder.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be definitely harder. I don't know how I'm
Speaker 3: gonna make it, but I'm gonna make it. Here's what happens.
Speaker 3: I'm in the dor on one day, I never forget
Speaker 3: on the couch, and I'm on the bed reading Slam magazine.
Speaker 3: Slam is the Bible street ball, Okay, talking about guys
Speaker 3: getting opportunities from the playground to go to college. What
Speaker 3: it is you know so much talent guys that NBA
Speaker 3: players play in these parks. I'm like, well, I gotta
Speaker 3: go to the NBA. I gotta I gotta go kill
Speaker 3: street ball and get a shot to the NBA. Swear
Speaker 3: to god, how naive was I to actually believe that's
Speaker 3: all I had to do? No, one's never done that before.
Speaker 3: Here's the wild thing. How many teams in the NBA?
Speaker 2: Four thirty something thirty?
Speaker 3: How many players on each team? Fifteen fifteen, fifteen times thirty?
Speaker 3: Four hundred and fifty, four hundred and fifty players active
Speaker 3: in the NBA. So it's still a little mad old bless.
Speaker 3: Cut the four fifty and half, that's two twenty five.
Speaker 3: That's your top eight rotation, your top eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ridds are in games minutes, top eight, no matter what.
Speaker 3: Yep, two twenty five left. Cut that in half's two twelve,
Speaker 3: one twelve and a half, right, that's the next generation
Speaker 3: that's going to jump into this two twenty five. So
Speaker 3: that's like the new the Stars coming next. Because the
Speaker 3: top eight those are like the stars they set right,
Speaker 3: But some of those guys are on their way out.
Speaker 3: So that one twelve and a half is jumping in there.
Speaker 3: Right out of that one, twelve and a half left.
Speaker 3: You cut that in half fifty six, right, that's the
Speaker 3: draft class that just came in fifty six left, right
Speaker 3: out of that fifty six. How many billion people playing
Speaker 3: this game? How many people in the world billions.
Speaker 2: Playing seven to eight?
Speaker 3: Right? The world is big? The game now is now
Speaker 3: what not domestic? No more? Right, it's international, which means again,
Speaker 3: people everywhere want to get into that fifty six. College
Speaker 3: kids don't even know those numbers. You don't even know
Speaker 3: what you're fucking up against. Let alone a guy thinking
Speaker 3: he's gonna just be in the dome talking about getting
Speaker 3: in from street ball. No, one's never done. That's not
Speaker 3: even dude, you can't it's not you can't even fathom that.
Speaker 3: That's not even an angle. This is not to the world.
Speaker 3: This is garbage basketball. This is not organized. There's no structure,
Speaker 3: there's no coach where these guys from. You understand, this
Speaker 3: is not a credible source to go find talent. You
Speaker 3: understand this is where I gotta try to begin from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dominate that to even be looked at.
Speaker 3: You're not even gonna get a look because it never happens. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I gotta figure this shit out. From the Park Graduate
Speaker 3: College back to New York. That's where it begins. It
Speaker 3: starts where Rocker Playground. So here's what I have to
Speaker 3: do again.
Speaker 2: So you're you're your back of my mom.
Speaker 1: Now I'm back home, back home, off first summer home,
Speaker 1: and you go, shit.
Speaker 2: I don't need to sort this out.
Speaker 3: Because I'm not coming back in this house.
Speaker 1: Were you one of those people was like, I'm never
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sort some shit out. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: live here for the rest. I'm not going to want
Speaker 1: to find a way no matter what I don't see.
Speaker 3: I don't see more. I saw more, went to college.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. I started from the bronx.
Speaker 1: You don't want to take it up. You want to
Speaker 1: take a step back.
Speaker 3: I'm not going back to the hood. I went back
Speaker 3: to Kansas. I went to Kansas City. Then I went
Speaker 3: to Alabama. Right so, I'm got New York East Coast.
Speaker 3: Then I went to the midwest Kansas City, Missouri. Then
Speaker 3: I went down south to Alabama. Right now I'm back
Speaker 3: up top to New York. Okay, summer time. I'm way
Speaker 3: more developed than I was when I left high.
Speaker 2: School for four years in the gym, proper training, proper guys.
Speaker 3: Focus discipline in the weight room with a death wish list.
Speaker 3: If your name is on that list, I have to
Speaker 3: kill you. I have no choice. I have no choice.
Speaker 3: I got no choice. This is it. This is it.
Speaker 3: You ever play against somebody that got no choice? Move
Speaker 3: the fuck out their way, Move out their way. So
Speaker 3: I was on that kind of mission right get to
Speaker 3: the park. I got a list of names. They don't
Speaker 3: know I'm coming for him. They number one. These are
Speaker 3: the best guys that play the point guard, shooting guard,
Speaker 3: the wing position, right the top, on the wing, on
Speaker 3: the perimeter. These are the guys I'm going for and
Speaker 3: I'm looking for. I don't want to go up the ranks.
Speaker 3: That's gonna take too long, yep. I want to go
Speaker 3: for the top guys. I cut your fucking head off.
Speaker 3: Everybody else falling to play. My first game playing street ball,
Speaker 3: my name was Sea Homicide.
Speaker 2: Talk about a couple people's head off since.
Speaker 3: My second game. First game, I had forty something. Nobody
Speaker 3: knew me, and the guys that knew me, they're like,
Speaker 3: that's Corey from Rice, which means what I wasn't good
Speaker 3: back then, and what I told him in class, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna get good and I'm gonna come back and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna bust your ass. They laughed, never forgot till this
Speaker 3: day out of Let's see me see, let's see what's
Speaker 3: up now, because now it's even You know, why ain't
Speaker 3: no coach sweating you giving you all the minutes and
Speaker 3: at that time he needed to. Shit's even now now
Speaker 3: let's see what the fuck you about? That's that homicide. Shit,
Speaker 3: Let's see what's up. Second game thirty eight, they dropped
Speaker 3: to see it's been homicide. Since that's summer two thousand,
Speaker 3: twenty three years I still had that name. That shit's
Speaker 3: still reign fucking supreme. We don't have sneaker deals.
Speaker 2: You're the first ever street ball against sneaker deal.
Speaker 3: Sneaker deals, And let me tell you the sneaker deal,
Speaker 3: because there's many of them that had them before me,
Speaker 3: because there's the whole signature. I had a signature sneaker
Speaker 3: deal with K one next in Germany when my sneakers
Speaker 3: sold in foot Locker Global.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 3: All right, So when you see Lebron's Jordan's mellows, the
Speaker 3: one A SEVENS was there, which is the police cod
Speaker 3: for homicide. That's the name of my sneaker loyalties on
Speaker 3: it and all that even give you even more. I
Speaker 3: was balling in the NBL and got MVP of the league,
Speaker 3: balling in my own shoe. Come on, bro, come on man,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say that again. I'm gonna say that again.
Speaker 3: I was in the NBL that got MVP of the league,
Speaker 3: balling in my own shoe, solding foot locker in Australian footlocker,
Speaker 3: global with billboards all over the world. Who the fuck
Speaker 3: did that? Who did it? I'm a I'm a humble person,
Speaker 3: you understand. But I'm just telling you some real shit.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. I'm definitely happy with it.
Speaker 3: But we having a real conversation where this shit begins.
Speaker 3: You understand what I'm saying, Like, come on, man, we
Speaker 3: don'e did this. There's nothing I've never done with this ball.
Speaker 3: They ain't not nine done. I've been in films, I
Speaker 3: have five magazine covers. I just said, sneak, I've been
Speaker 3: all over the world doing this.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. I'm very grateful for where
Speaker 3: this journey began. But I know the kind of work
Speaker 3: that this shit takes. You know what I mean. I
Speaker 3: don't play with my work. I don't play of my life.
Speaker 3: I know what it's take, what it takes to get
Speaker 3: to where I gotta get to. A lot of this
Speaker 3: ship was done no fucking help.
Speaker 2: None on the scenes know have real works done.
Speaker 3: So I have no problem doing what I need to do.
Speaker 3: I know how to do it. Sometimes it might take longer,
Speaker 3: but I'd rather go longer without help than with help.
Speaker 3: And in this bullshit help and it's people acting like, yeah,
Speaker 3: if it wasn't for me, he wouldn't be here and
Speaker 3: all that nonsense. So you know, I just I just
Speaker 3: do the work, you know what I'm saying. The results
Speaker 3: come how they come, But I do to I've been
Speaker 3: putting in work for a long time, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. And I'm I'm very grateful. Based off of
Speaker 3: street Ball, I got a shot funny enough, you win
Speaker 3: a rapt this Jersey own.
Speaker 2: That's a story.
Speaker 1: We'll get to the store now. It's not in is
Speaker 1: more to the professional side things. We're still in the
Speaker 1: street Ball state.
Speaker 3: Street Ballman on the super Ball it was it was
Speaker 3: really like some serious battles.
Speaker 1: The only I said home, saw the name and was
Speaker 1: this who gave it to you? Do you remember the
Speaker 1: actual person? So the MC and he just randomly said
Speaker 1: one day again.
Speaker 3: What happened was this, they gave me a name based
Speaker 3: on my style of play. It didn't start with that.
Speaker 3: In the first quarter, it was nothing. It was just
Speaker 3: a couple of buckets. Then it was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: like this dude is killed. He's a hard worker. We
Speaker 3: call him the hard Worker. Then the buckets just kept
Speaker 3: getting harder and harder. I was just buckets after buckets,
Speaker 3: three dunk mid range to the rack, layup left hand right.
Speaker 3: It was the names just get kept getting They like, yo,
Speaker 3: we gotta get this dude to name. We gotta give
Speaker 3: him a name.
Speaker 2: There's any others that floated around for it.
Speaker 3: It was like it was like the killer because he's
Speaker 3: killing them because we give like in New York, we
Speaker 3: give a name based on your style of play. Right,
Speaker 3: So the harder I kept going. The heart of the
Speaker 3: name kept going. So they kept like, as as I'm
Speaker 3: playing playing in this game, they're thinking of names to
Speaker 3: give me. As the buckets continue to keep piling on
Speaker 3: and on, so They're like, Yo, what should we call them?
Speaker 3: So there's people in the crowd screaming out names. So
Speaker 3: they're like, yo, what y'all think about this? And there's
Speaker 3: like another then another guy. So the names just kept
Speaker 3: getting harder and harder, like harder mean tougher, like stronger
Speaker 3: and stronger. Then a guy was like see murder. It
Speaker 3: was like, nah, see murders the rapper, We're not gonna
Speaker 3: call him at it. So the dude was like, see homicide.
Speaker 3: They was like, we like that, we like that. I'm playing.
Speaker 3: This is happening as I'm playing, but it's your hood.
Speaker 3: It wasn't even the hood. I was in Hall, I
Speaker 3: was in Harlem. It was Rutger. Rutgers in Harlem. Mild
Speaker 3: Is the Bronx. But these people didn't know me, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. It's like, who's this unknown dude
Speaker 3: killing like this? But that's how it happened.
Speaker 1: You brought up, you said Rutger. Now, I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to play Rutger, always wanted.
Speaker 3: That's the Madison Square guard in the street ball call.
Speaker 1: I get absolutely fucking embarrassed, But one of these days
Speaker 1: will be the tallest white guy out there, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: My brothers played there. My brother played one day. He
Speaker 1: all he brought was a Subway card. There was no
Speaker 1: no credit cards, no cast.
Speaker 3: No nothing.
Speaker 2: It can happened the Metro card in a pair of
Speaker 2: basketball shoes.
Speaker 1: They were out there for a day and played and
Speaker 1: balled out and they called him white Chocolate or something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: Was just throwing all oops to him. Though white Dude
Speaker 2: dunk like that.
Speaker 1: I haven't been there yet, but it's all my It's
Speaker 1: on my bucket list, on my bucket list. Can you
Speaker 1: explain to people because Rutger has changed, Like, Rutgers become
Speaker 1: a lot bigger than what it was back in the day.
Speaker 1: Now it is internationally known. It is a place that
Speaker 1: NBA players go.
Speaker 2: It is nice.
Speaker 1: Is it's a lot nice than it probably was back
Speaker 1: in the day. They've got proper courts there and proper
Speaker 1: tournaments in the Drew League and everything else we're gonna
Speaker 1: get into. I want to talk about Rocker. Can you
Speaker 1: give me an explanation of what Rucker Park is?
Speaker 3: So Rutger Park is basically the most famous street ball
Speaker 3: court in the world. It's in Harlem. It's been epic
Speaker 3: from back in the day. See the history stems from
Speaker 3: Doctor j was out there playing, Wilt Chamberlain was out there,
Speaker 3: Tiny Archiball, two time MVP in the NBA. So these
Speaker 3: are legends from New York or from Philly that would
Speaker 3: come up to play because they knew like he's like, man,
Speaker 3: he's some bad We hear them. There's a park in
Speaker 3: New York where there's some bad dudes getting down. So
Speaker 3: it's like, yo, man, you need to come up. That's
Speaker 3: just what it was word of mouth back then, like
Speaker 3: this park, this park, this park. Then you had the
Speaker 3: legends like Pee Wee Kirkhlan system. Then you had the
Speaker 3: street So here's the mixture and combination of players that
Speaker 3: play at Rocke Park. You got the street baller who
Speaker 3: is not playing pro, has no inspirations of being in school.
Speaker 3: He's just a talented player who's in the park. Then
Speaker 3: you have the high schooler who has a promising future
Speaker 3: but he plays in there too. Then you got the
Speaker 3: guy in college that's a stud. Then you got the
Speaker 3: guy that plays overseas. Then you got the NBA guy.
Speaker 3: So when you put again, you got a pot of
Speaker 3: food and you seasoning it up. You have so much
Speaker 3: talent from so many different levels coming from so many
Speaker 3: different places. This is how you make up teams, and
Speaker 3: this is where the tournament, This is how the tournament
Speaker 3: is good, and this is how the competition is elite
Speaker 3: when you get there.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So, now a guy might think you rock up these guys.
Speaker 3: Ain't that good? You know this whole shit. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: in the NBA, I got a shitload of money, I'm
Speaker 3: better than you guys, and blah blah blah. Come up
Speaker 3: there and get your ass busted. You come out there
Speaker 3: and get your ass come out one like, don't come
Speaker 3: out there if you really ain't that because again we
Speaker 3: was talking about it earlier. If you take the top
Speaker 3: seven players off of an NBA team, a lot of
Speaker 3: everybody else, a lot of those players are specialty players.
Speaker 3: You might be a hell of a shooter. Can you
Speaker 3: shoot off the dribble? Or are you great coming off
Speaker 3: the screen? Which means you can't create your own shot?
Speaker 3: If you're great coming off a double curl? Right? Different?
Speaker 3: So can I put him in an unstructured environment and
Speaker 3: can he get busy?
Speaker 2: Probably not?
Speaker 3: That shit ain't for everybody, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: So the playground basketball, it's art, That's what it is.
Speaker 3: It's poetry in motion. Is that's where you really express
Speaker 3: yourself with God got handles behind the backspin of a
Speaker 3: guy who's super athletic, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 3: more free flowing, it's a little organized, it's a little structure.
Speaker 3: It is more free flowing and it's freestyle play. So
Speaker 3: that's why what makes it beautiful.
Speaker 2: You're not running, Yeah, run running. Horns come on.
Speaker 3: And the crowd will lets you know, like, yo, we
Speaker 3: ain't come to see that ship the fuck out of here,
Speaker 3: they'll tell you. So then you have the crowd atmosphere
Speaker 3: that brings it to a whole other level. And they're
Speaker 3: right on top of the So you're gonna get an
Speaker 3: NBA feel, not in an NBA arena. That's the best
Speaker 3: feel you're gonna get in the summertime. That's why the
Speaker 3: competitive guards and forwards and players love to play in that.
Speaker 1: Now you you play the street balls, we'll go back.
Speaker 1: So now you've given us an idea of Rucker. Now
Speaker 1: what kind of people are coming to Rutger? Yo, So
Speaker 1: tell me some stories here because I want I've heard stories.
Speaker 1: I want to hear them from you because you've actually
Speaker 1: lived and breathed this. Yeah, what are some stories of
Speaker 1: to give people a better idea? Because I feel like
Speaker 1: people we can say this all day, but if you
Speaker 1: get some like some stories, it's like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: the extent of how bad it can get, and this
Speaker 1: is an extent of how good.
Speaker 2: It can get.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what I'm gonna do. And I'm gonna start
Speaker 3: with the good. So on a good day, depending on
Speaker 3: who's playing. You know, back in those days, record labels
Speaker 3: used to own teams. So what they would do is,
Speaker 3: you know, with music with hip hop, the streets gotta
Speaker 3: love you, so you need the grassroots. You need the
Speaker 3: the urban communities and grassroots to fuck with you. They
Speaker 3: gotta fuck with your music. They really got to like
Speaker 3: your music. You would do is sign new and up
Speaker 3: and coming artists, bring them when your team plays and
Speaker 3: have them perform. And if they it's like it's like
Speaker 3: the Apollo, Like if you come out and you do well,
Speaker 3: all right, cool, we really might sign you. If you
Speaker 3: come out and do bad, a bad look for you.
Speaker 3: So that's how labels would It was like a feeder
Speaker 3: program for talent.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: They would also have a budget, get really good players
Speaker 3: and stack their team. So Rockefeller had a team, jay Z,
Speaker 3: bad Boy had a team Puff right, Terror Squad had
Speaker 3: a team one of three years in a row. Fat Joe.
Speaker 3: All right, so they also they're rock they're superstars, right,
Speaker 3: they're millionaires. These are culture leaders and innovators right of
Speaker 3: music and hip hop culture. So jay Z's coming with
Speaker 3: Beyonce to a game at Rutger to a game at Rucker,
Speaker 3: Fat Joe's coming with j Lo in their prime the
Speaker 3: prom you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So Clinton was there one I played the.
Speaker 3: Game when Bill Clinton was there. He was sitting next
Speaker 3: to Steph Marlberry and uh David Stern god by the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, every post in the commission watching it, and
Speaker 1: the a TV sponsored Roker.
Speaker 2: Oh we'll get to that. Yeah, we'll get something.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, sorry, So we got gosh the good story.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Poters showed up. I ain't got to
Speaker 1: say nothing else. Okay, let's go to the other Potus
Speaker 1: wasn't here for this day? Was security. I just yeah,
Speaker 1: take the day off. He said, we're gonna go back
Speaker 1: to the White House. Now, you guys do what you
Speaker 1: do on the daily.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So it was one game I played and uh, at
Speaker 3: the time I was dating female. I had to sit
Speaker 3: in court side and we were playing. I played for
Speaker 3: the home team, which was the Polo Grounds, the big
Speaker 3: Project tall building. So it's you have no problems with
Speaker 3: our team. You don DIVA magazine, one of the biggest
Speaker 3: shout out magazine. That's that's like the street Bible, you know,
Speaker 3: So you don't want no problems with that team. We
Speaker 3: the home team, and the commission Houses is right there.
Speaker 3: So at our game, we easily got like one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty people in the crowd. You don't want no
Speaker 3: problems with that team. Just come and play ball. You're good,
Speaker 3: You'll leave in one piece. We played a team that
Speaker 3: was from Westchester. So Westchester has a chip on their
Speaker 3: shoulder because in New York City we don't really respect
Speaker 3: Westchester because you have the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island.
Speaker 3: That's the five boroughs that make up New York City,
Speaker 3: west Chester, Yonkers, outside of the Locks and DMX, we
Speaker 3: don't really respect them because that doesn't count to us
Speaker 3: as New York City. So we look at you like corny,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like you ain't down, you corny.
Speaker 3: So they came deep, maybe like forty to fifty people.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Cool. So now when the crowd, you got guys drinking,
Speaker 3: you know, guys might be smoking, and marijuana is legal
Speaker 3: in America, so you know they smoking or whatever, and
Speaker 3: it's a different type of environment. Right, trash talking ensues.
Speaker 3: This game is a good game. So there's some serious
Speaker 3: trash talking going on between the home team's crowd fans
Speaker 3: and they're fans. Yeah, something happens. I'm just subbing out
Speaker 3: of the game playing. I'm on the court. I'm on
Speaker 3: the court. I tell the woman I was with, I
Speaker 3: was like, yo, grab your bag, we out. It's about
Speaker 3: to go down. You could feel it. There's a certain energy.
Speaker 3: Something's about to happen. I have a third eye and
Speaker 3: a sixth sense. I can feel it. I can feel it,
Speaker 3: and I never go against my third I feeling and
Speaker 3: my sixth sense, and I never ever go I don't
Speaker 3: second guess it. I grab her. I'm like, yo, come on,
Speaker 3: we out. They start fighting. It was like maybe two
Speaker 3: on two. Then the fight went to like eight on four,
Speaker 3: and it was like twelve on fifty. Yo, there's two exit,
Speaker 3: three exit to get out.
Speaker 2: A rutger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one exit was closed off anyway, so it's mainly
Speaker 3: two exits. Now I grab her, we start running that way.
Speaker 3: The whole crowd start going that way. I'm like, gotta
Speaker 3: get her out of here. We start going back that way,
Speaker 3: the whole crowd start going that way. We start going
Speaker 3: this way again. Everybody's going this way because the fight
Speaker 3: is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And by the
Speaker 3: time they went that way, we shook. We went this way.
Speaker 3: As soon as we got out those gates, you just
Speaker 3: start hitting gunshots. A couple of my teammates got shot.
Speaker 3: They wasn't shooting after them, at them, but a bunch
Speaker 3: of people shoot you shoot. They just shooting Lindley trying
Speaker 3: to hit whoever they was trying to hit. That's the
Speaker 3: other side of the park.
Speaker 2: How often do you think that happens?
Speaker 3: Not a lot, Not a lot now because now with
Speaker 3: these parks, there's too much money on the line, so
Speaker 3: they beef up security heavy. So after that had to happen.
Speaker 3: Nate Robinson was there. Yeah, okay, he was there after
Speaker 3: that incident. Nothing like that has ever happened again.
Speaker 2: Now you talk about a bit of money on the line. Now,
Speaker 2: I had a little assistant coach. I won't say names here.
Speaker 2: He loved the place a little bet.
Speaker 1: I've got a feeling we'll talk about his name after,
Speaker 1: but I feel like he might have been in one
Speaker 1: of these games. He locked to throw down a bit,
Speaker 1: he locked to put money on the line. Was there
Speaker 1: a lot of that going on?
Speaker 3: There was definitely a lot of those side bets, side bets.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of live side bets, like cash on
Speaker 3: the like. Look, man, these environments aren't aren't easy environe. Again,
Speaker 3: it's no different than like where I grew up. It's
Speaker 3: just it wasn't specifically these tournaments were in my hood.
Speaker 3: They were in different hoods. And his hood's way worse
Speaker 3: than my hood. And you know guys that you know
Speaker 3: threatedon you and be like listen here bee, it's fifty
Speaker 3: grand on this game. Yeah, stop playing around and win
Speaker 3: this game straight up in our timeouts, coming in money
Speaker 3: really on the line, like you don't want to lose,
Speaker 3: Like these games are serious, serious man, So just go
Speaker 3: out there and handle your business and if you post
Speaker 3: a win, you win, straight up. I've never been on
Speaker 3: the bad end of one of those.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the thirty for thirty one about the
Speaker 1: referee and taking bribes and everything else and best. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that guy is kind of crazy. Oh my goodness, that
Speaker 1: was wild. Well I ask you this so we'll keep
Speaker 1: going the street books. I want to ask you in
Speaker 1: one tour. I know you've got a bit of animosity
Speaker 1: towards the end ones I do. I've seen a few
Speaker 1: videos of you.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: I'm big on it.
Speaker 3: I'm not big on it at all, and I'll tell
Speaker 3: you why, go ahead. Yet, I didn't want to take
Speaker 3: the street ball route to attempt to jump start a
Speaker 3: career that didn't even exist. That was the only choice
Speaker 3: that I had. And unless you are really and truly
Speaker 3: from that type of culture, you'll you get how you
Speaker 3: want to understand that there's really talent. There's talent there,
Speaker 3: right if you're not from that. What anyone did was
Speaker 3: market themselves as the best street ball players in the world.
Speaker 3: Incredible marketing playing. That's why the tour was incredible, because
Speaker 3: gods are like, oh, they think they the best, we
Speaker 3: want to play against them. So when they would go
Speaker 3: to that city, guys would do the open run and
Speaker 3: play against them, and they're doing moves that aren't even legal.
Speaker 3: So when you got a guy whose name homicide streetball legend,
Speaker 3: how does the masses look at a guy like me
Speaker 3: without even seeing me? I must be one of them,
Speaker 3: so I would get looked. I would. I wouldn't get
Speaker 3: looks because I'm sorry, he's an and one guy because
Speaker 3: you know and one look again. The business model of
Speaker 3: what they did was incredible. They they had it. They
Speaker 3: had it, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
Speaker 3: And a bunch of my friends at my basketball street
Speaker 3: ball brothers, a lot of them played in one like.
Speaker 3: I know them all, So it just it was very
Speaker 3: difficult for me because I had to myself, man, man bro,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to make it to the NBA.
Speaker 1: Because they all were done. You talk about like Professor
Speaker 1: Hot Sauce. They're because of the nickname, but legally a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff they were doing they didn't care.
Speaker 2: They just wanted to entertain that. They wanted to entertain
Speaker 2: the crowd.
Speaker 3: That's what they were there for what they were and
Speaker 3: I love them all, trust me, I love them all,
Speaker 3: but they were glow trotters. They're like street ball hall
Speaker 3: and glow trust versus a real hoopa. Some of them
Speaker 3: could hoop. But that role they were playing, that's globe trotters.
Speaker 3: So you were known for being a globe trotter. Right,
Speaker 3: It's like WWE and a real wrestler. It's like, dude,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm a real wrestler, but you're putting me
Speaker 3: with WWE like that. I just hated it. So we
Speaker 3: played against them. Like I lived in Denver. I was
Speaker 3: married and lived in Denver, right, but nobody knew I
Speaker 3: was living in Denver because they would always see me
Speaker 3: in the summers playing street ball all the time. So
Speaker 3: whenever I would come from playing overseas, I go to Denver.
Speaker 3: But then teams would fly me in to play tournaments.
Speaker 3: I would fly into New York. I would play my
Speaker 3: games at Rucker. I would play my games at Dykeman.
Speaker 3: So like you know, back in those days, you know
Speaker 3: they would they would pay you. They would take care
Speaker 3: of everything and pay you when you get there. Like
Speaker 3: if you were an elite street baller, you can make
Speaker 3: a good you can make some good money in the summer.
Speaker 3: So and one came to Denver. So my guy, because
Speaker 3: you know, the opposition, the opposition coach, they would always
Speaker 3: have to get a team from that city. Whatever they
Speaker 3: the city they went to, they come to them. But
Speaker 3: my man was like, they was talking shit on the
Speaker 3: bus and just like this, they were talking sit on
Speaker 3: the bus. My man, Mike was the coach. Mike was like, Yo,
Speaker 3: y'all keep talking that shit. Don't let me put the
Speaker 3: bat signal out. They like whatever, like who We're going
Speaker 3: to Denver next? Like who you got them? He's like,
Speaker 3: y'all keep talking that shit. I'm gonna put that bat
Speaker 3: signal out. It was like yeah, he said, you don't
Speaker 3: want me to say his name? It was like yeah, whatever. Who?
Speaker 2: He said?
Speaker 3: Homicide bus got silent. He's like, yeah, that's what I thought.
Speaker 3: Puts the bat signal out. Hit me up. I said, yo.
Speaker 3: He said, listen. I was just going to mini camp
Speaker 3: to go to Boston a couple of days before that
Speaker 3: and the Celtics, and I said, look, I don't know
Speaker 3: if I'm even gonna be there when y'all there. I said,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell y'all something. Y'all be picking them bums
Speaker 3: in the crowd, and that's why they be beating these teams.
Speaker 3: I said. The only way I'll play against an one
Speaker 3: is if you allow me to put my boys in
Speaker 3: the crowd, and you picked who I send. We set
Speaker 3: it up that way, so I had real ballers come
Speaker 3: to it, and you checked in and text them Mike
Speaker 3: before they got there, like, Yo, I'm the great shirt
Speaker 3: green shorts, this is me. So they picked it. It was like,
Speaker 3: all right, cool, we'll pick him, him, him, and one
Speaker 3: had no idea who these guys were. And if I
Speaker 3: was playing, yeah, I could pick three four guys straight up.
Speaker 3: So I picked up my whole crew that played overseas
Speaker 3: that lived in Denver. We played that game, beat them
Speaker 3: by twenty five. That's on YouTube. I'm saying, yeah, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. That's when I was talking as shit.
Speaker 3: I said, listen, man, we gonna separate today the real
Speaker 3: from the bullshit went out there and beat the ass
Speaker 3: by twenty five. I love them all, but it's just
Speaker 3: real shit. I mean, it's what it is, and.
Speaker 2: This is a part of it.
Speaker 1: So then you're doing the street ball, right, So anyone's there,
Speaker 1: it's like, that's that's not really basketball, that's just entertainment.
Speaker 1: Holland someone had nothing to do with what I was doing,
Speaker 1: And you're over here with your own shoe lines and
Speaker 1: boys you know, check it out. I want to ask
Speaker 1: this actually before we go dream shoe, what do.
Speaker 3: You got my dream shoe?
Speaker 2: Because I know you are fashion out. We're gonna get
Speaker 2: into fashion for.
Speaker 3: Basketball, for lifestyle, lifestyle right now now the d Or
Speaker 3: Jordan's the d or Air Jordan ones. I got my pair,
Speaker 3: I got.
Speaker 1: My alright, so you're going to your street ball right
Speaker 1: at this point you're playing now, I want to ask
Speaker 1: you about this circumstance that now has probably led you
Speaker 1: to getting the opportunities NBA level. Right, so street ball,
Speaker 1: everything's gonna happen. It's kind of crazy, and you say,
Speaker 1: you know a bit of sliding doors moment, you know
Speaker 1: what was it again?
Speaker 3: Experience leads to exposure. Exposure leads to expansion.
Speaker 2: So exposure leads to expansion. I remember that one.
Speaker 1: But you get this opportunity to play against some bad
Speaker 1: dudes about our tests of the world. Now, tell me
Speaker 1: about this experience.
Speaker 3: Everybody gets an opportunity, whether they can identify it or
Speaker 3: not as on them, but you get an opportunity to
Speaker 3: elevate yourself one step closer to whatever right I am
Speaker 3: killing on this street ball circuit. For a couple of summers.
Speaker 3: It didn't all happen in one summer, right, So I'm
Speaker 3: killing I go to a playoff game at Rutger, this
Speaker 3: team I played against regular season. We lost to them,
Speaker 3: but I had about thirty seven. They had nobody for me.
Speaker 3: So they like, we got to get somebody to stop
Speaker 3: this motherfucker if we want to advance in the playoffs,
Speaker 3: I want to lay up blind. Who shows up the
Speaker 3: true warrior, not meta? World Peace on tests Indiana Pacer
Speaker 3: before this is this is Defensive Player of the Year.
Speaker 3: He just got This is August. It would have been
Speaker 3: he just got that in June, the defensive Player Year.
Speaker 3: So this is who I'm playing against. I'm not playing meta.
Speaker 3: This is the most dangerous defender. This is Queen's Bridge.
Speaker 3: One of Queen's Bridge. It's finest in his prime, the
Speaker 3: biggest test in my life because at this one, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna lay up line. I'm like, oh shit, I'm like,
Speaker 3: he only hit it. Call one person. I said to myself,
Speaker 3: I am a fucker. Will you claim you that guy?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's the confidence man, I'll give you.
Speaker 3: Are the moment here it is chump ball and get
Speaker 3: the possession on the wing, go to the rack. Little body,
Speaker 3: body contact, I put it up, blocks that ship. Get
Speaker 3: that ship out of here. Fuck out here with that bullshit,
Speaker 3: I said, motherfuck, I'm coming right back. Get the ball again,
Speaker 3: sweet through one dribbled floor to bucket. I needed that
Speaker 3: basket bad because again I'm six three. Ron test a
Speaker 3: six to eight, crazy wingspan, super strong, and comes from that.
Speaker 3: He comes from that that street shit. So I'm he's
Speaker 3: playing against a small version of him. I'm playing against
Speaker 3: a bigger version of me. With that. Ronald Tess is
Speaker 3: the type of guy. After that game, he would have
Speaker 3: jumped on the train and went home multi millionaire. That's
Speaker 3: ron He's just different. That's how he works. I finished
Speaker 3: that game with twenty seven. That was the hardest. Twenty seven.
Speaker 3: He ripped me. He blocked my shots a couple of times.
Speaker 3: And that game they started double teaming me because one
Speaker 3: on one, the defensive player year couldn't stop me. In
Speaker 3: that game, we lost by two, but I won personally.
Speaker 3: What it did for me was if he couldn't stop
Speaker 3: me one on one, nobody.
Speaker 2: He's the best.
Speaker 3: He's the best. And the next and then I went
Speaker 3: overseas then I came back and that next summer they
Speaker 3: were still talking about all these regular other bullshit guys.
Speaker 3: I said, you know what, I'm gonna show these motherfuckers.
Speaker 3: I averaged forty that whole next summer and it was
Speaker 3: called the Summer Homicide. And after that rugg A Park game,
Speaker 3: they gave me MVP of the league. I got that,
Speaker 3: gave me MVP. That was the game changed the moment
Speaker 3: in my mind for me. But the game the game
Speaker 3: that changed everything. It's three games that changed my whole life.
Speaker 3: That was game one, runal Test. So that's the first game.
Speaker 3: Two next summer opening Day, Rucker Park. Jada Kisses Team
Speaker 3: Jada Kiss the Rapper, Dante Smith, Cleveland Cavaliet Champion j Smith.
Speaker 3: J Smith is Kenny Sadafield was a starting point guard
Speaker 3: with the Denver Nuggets that year. That's their one two
Speaker 3: and three one team.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Four position was a guy named Ali Mo. He played
Speaker 3: within one New York streetball legend God Bless the Dead
Speaker 3: and the five Man. He got cut by the next
Speaker 3: couple of years before that big Strick legend. That's their
Speaker 3: starting five, forty five. I gave him forty five. That
Speaker 3: was on NBA TV. That game got me a shot
Speaker 3: to the NBA Scout assistant coach from the Raptors heard
Speaker 3: about that, and what was the difference between him anybody else.
Speaker 3: He coached at a college in New York City. Hmm,
Speaker 3: so he understood playground culture. He got it. He comes
Speaker 3: comes watching me play a Dykeman third game, final game,
Speaker 3: then we finished with street ball. Calls me that morning,
Speaker 3: how musid, what's going on? I'm like, yo, coach was happening?
Speaker 3: Coach Jim Todd? How you doing from Boston? No, I'm good, man,
Speaker 3: I'm good. What's going on? I'm in Jersey. I got
Speaker 3: a got a camp I'm doing and we got a
Speaker 3: golf a little bit. You got these street ball games today?
Speaker 2: I was like.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He's like, you're playing that Rutger Like nah, he
Speaker 3: said you're at Pro City. I mean, I said where
Speaker 3: you at? I said, I'm at Dykeman today. He said
Speaker 3: what time? Says seven? He's like, all right, I beat it.
Speaker 3: I see you later. I said, all right, coach, hung
Speaker 3: the phone up. NBA Scott NBA assistant coach. Yeah, now
Speaker 3: here you go, fork in the road. I don't give
Speaker 3: a fuck about the run on test. Shit that's in
Speaker 3: the past that led me to be confident to play
Speaker 3: against Jaye Smith and Dante Jones and them, right, get
Speaker 3: them the forty something. Shit don't matter.
Speaker 2: That's now.
Speaker 3: I'm here. Here's your moment. Guys like me don't get
Speaker 3: multiple chances. So these opportunities, you gotta do what exceed
Speaker 3: my own expectations because this shit don't happen again. Remember
Speaker 3: the dorm conversation, Remember the conversation and the dorm that
Speaker 3: I had with myself. Well, this gotta happen. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: make it to the NBA. This never happens. No one's
Speaker 3: done this before. Is your shot? Comes typical white dude,
Speaker 3: about six nine, golf shorts on polo, fresh from fresh
Speaker 3: from God or I'm just sitting there.
Speaker 2: I'm like, by god, who the hell what is he
Speaker 2: doing in there?
Speaker 3: He's hitting out the cage, out of the out the court,
Speaker 3: he's on the fence. They had just they just drafted
Speaker 3: Charlie Villa Nueva in the draft, right, so Charlie's next
Speaker 3: to them. They're just sitting there, just sitting watching like rag.
Speaker 3: Everybody just regular, like nobody did just walk down the
Speaker 3: streets just chilling. I didn't tell nobody he was gonna
Speaker 3: be there. Why. I didn't want nobody thinking they get
Speaker 3: any bright ideas, thinking this their chance. Fucking this opportunity. Yup.
Speaker 3: I had twenty five at I had twenty seven at half.
Speaker 3: In that game. They gave me a standing ovation at
Speaker 3: Dykeman Park. That's a big deal too, twenty seven. Dykeman
Speaker 3: is the best street ball tournament in the world right now.
Speaker 3: It's not Rock anymore, it's Dykeman. Yeah, I get a
Speaker 3: standing ovation second half. I know God was with me
Speaker 3: that day because at halftime usually in the beginning of
Speaker 3: any game, I get doubled. I had no double teams
Speaker 3: in that first half. Now I knew he gonna double
Speaker 3: me in the second half. Here's what you do, Pass
Speaker 3: it open man. For the whole game. I finished with
Speaker 3: thirty one. I only scored two baskets in the second
Speaker 3: half because they double me. But you know what, Jim
Speaker 3: Todd comes in after that game. He comes to me.
Speaker 3: He said, THEO game homicide. You know what impressed me most.
Speaker 3: I'm like, tell me, coach, he said, when they double team,
Speaker 3: you pass it open man. Have a good night. I'll
Speaker 3: be in touch role player. I wasn't dumb. Here's the
Speaker 3: difference between a typical street baller and me coming from
Speaker 3: organized basketball, knowing what my role would be had I
Speaker 3: made this team. I'm gonna be a twenty twenty player.
Speaker 3: You know what that is when you're in the game.
Speaker 3: You're only gonna be in the game when you're up
Speaker 3: twenty or you're down twenty. And what are you there
Speaker 3: to do? Steady that motherfucking shift. You go in there,
Speaker 3: you pay the trade, You kicked it open, man, you
Speaker 3: get a ball of Chris Bosh, you hit the ball,
Speaker 3: you get a ball to Jail and Rod. That's what
Speaker 3: you do. Play defense. That's it. This is how you're
Speaker 3: going to make this team or not. He went up
Speaker 3: there and he fought for me, and he told him
Speaker 3: because everybody else was looking at me, like, come on, man,
Speaker 3: fuck you talking about the street ball guy. What is
Speaker 3: he going to do in here? Come on, man? He said,
Speaker 3: I don't give a funk who you bringing here? How
Speaker 3: muside of bust stay ass. He fought for me With
Speaker 3: the presidents of Toronto. They was like, all right, let's
Speaker 3: just bring this guy in, just see how it goes,
Speaker 3: so we can shut his ass up or talk shit
Speaker 3: about him if he fails badly, right, and that's what happened,
Speaker 3: and get to Toronto. Now this shit is real, like
Speaker 3: like I give my shot.
Speaker 1: So we're in bed now, but I want to go back,
Speaker 1: so I want to talk about your confidence you had.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play this audio clip because this audio clip,
Speaker 1: this thing is peak confidence.
Speaker 2: I feel like, I mean hit it.
Speaker 3: Corey Williams aka Homie MVP of last year, Corey, what
Speaker 3: do you gotta say about this year?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: I got to say that I'm gonna finish Alley more
Speaker 3: at the end of this game, I should have thirty
Speaker 3: if he stays in this right here. Don't mistake if
Speaker 3: any boat caught me NBA TV. But just know that
Speaker 3: this is hard work out here. I had to score
Speaker 3: twenty six points on runod test to get it. You
Speaker 3: might not believe it. The tape ain't on the NBA
Speaker 3: TV to show it. What I'm telling you, That's how
Speaker 3: I got MVP ash It's not a game out here,
Speaker 3: trust me. I work hard. Ain't not being in the NBA.
Speaker 3: But that don't mean I'm not a good player exactly.
Speaker 3: He's out of NBA TV. That's like like nation Ward.
Speaker 3: Listen that that was on the NBA TV. That was
Speaker 3: the game halftime when I had forty five on Jo
Speaker 3: Smith and IM and Dante Jones, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, that's all Tom called.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: You can hear the voice though.
Speaker 1: It's like, Man, put anyone in front of me, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kill him.
Speaker 3: Listen, when your back is against the wall, your.
Speaker 2: Truest self shows.
Speaker 3: When your back is against the wall, your truest self shows.
Speaker 3: It reveals whether you know it or not. So you
Speaker 3: know I worked hard, man, and you know I had.
Speaker 3: You got to back yourself. Ain't nobody backing you. You
Speaker 3: got to back yourself, man. Supreme confidence is something that
Speaker 3: I've always had. And I haven't won every battle, you know,
Speaker 3: but that's how I've learned. And but I've never lost
Speaker 3: my confidence, you know what I'm saying. And again, as
Speaker 3: I said, in my life, every time I had a
Speaker 3: legit opportunity, I exceeded expectations. I know what I can
Speaker 3: do when I get the opportunity with whatever I really
Speaker 3: am sorting after straight.
Speaker 2: Up, at this point, you're shorting after the NBA.
Speaker 3: I'm shorting after the NBA in Toronto, Toronto. I'll have
Speaker 3: the experience. Here's how the ship went, and.
Speaker 2: Then you would be hyped right now, Man, I've done it.
Speaker 3: You talk about.
Speaker 2: Finally coming.
Speaker 3: I was training on some rocky ship. I was on
Speaker 3: the beach running. I'm talking about like like this is it? Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, this is it. I signed the
Speaker 3: deal and I get up there. I signed the deal
Speaker 3: to go to training camp, and I go to camp,
Speaker 3: and now here's how the opportunity came even about. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: there was three point guards. They had Jose calderone they
Speaker 3: just signed from Spain. They had Mike James, and they
Speaker 3: had a point guard who's been like a from Philly
Speaker 3: named Alvin Williams. He was dope villanova. Alvin Williams official
Speaker 3: Alvin Williams. Knees was bad, Like he hadn't played in
Speaker 3: the last year and a half and they didn't know
Speaker 3: if he was going to be able to play this
Speaker 3: upcoming season.
Speaker 2: So he's coming in half injured.
Speaker 3: He's coming in already, yeah, more than half injured. Let's say,
Speaker 3: so you have a leg up on him, but just
Speaker 3: caught that. So they bring in three point guards just
Speaker 3: in case doctors say he can't play. Yeah, one of
Speaker 3: these three, Phil Spot myself. I'll go last. They bringing
Speaker 3: Tier Brown, who played with the Lakers the year before.
Speaker 3: They're bringing Robert Pack. Old school Robert Pack. He used
Speaker 3: to play with the with Sean Kemp and GP with
Speaker 3: Seattle Minnesota. Trusty Vet, a young young gun in Tier Brown.
Speaker 3: Let's just bring this street ball cat in. So it
Speaker 3: just shut Jim Todd up because we really gonna go
Speaker 3: for one of these two with experience in the NBA
Speaker 3: one hundred percent. So I'm in there and I'm sizing
Speaker 3: up this competition, and I'm like, if I go with
Speaker 3: this homicide shit, I'll be out here on the first
Speaker 3: thing smoking That plays into more Tier Brown because Tier
Speaker 3: Brown was like a homicide. He from Texas, Like he's
Speaker 3: a bucket ghetter and he played in the NBA last year.
Speaker 3: Legit right, Robert Pack too old, There's no way. But
Speaker 3: he's a VET because he's played in the league ten
Speaker 3: twelve years. So I'm picking up Robert Pack full court.
Speaker 3: I'm turning them three times before we get to half.
Speaker 3: Your whole ass gonna work. This ain't the matchup you
Speaker 3: want either side. Tea Brown. I know he gonna shoot
Speaker 3: his way out of this job because every time he
Speaker 3: touch it, it's going up. Now me, on the other hand,
Speaker 3: I'm understanding the dynamics again. I know I'd be a
Speaker 3: twenty twenty player.
Speaker 2: You know what the coach is looking for.
Speaker 3: I know it. So I'm like, let me just pick
Speaker 3: up full court. When I get the ball, run the
Speaker 3: offense and swing it. Go to the other corner. If
Speaker 3: it swings back, then I make a play. Look to create.
Speaker 3: That's how you do it. Shot clock going down, Look
Speaker 3: to create, that's how you do it. I stuck to this. Now,
Speaker 3: mind you, preseason starts. First game, I might have played
Speaker 3: outn't know, maybe five minutes ain't much you can do
Speaker 3: with this time. You can't try to go score forty
Speaker 3: five minutes. It's gonna go back and it's like yeah,
Speaker 3: So I'm like, fuck man, I hope I get a
Speaker 3: real opportunity play against Maccabi Tel Aviv. What happened today
Speaker 3: with Phoenix, that's what happened with Toronto. Mccaby beat us
Speaker 3: really in Toronto, right, so oh man, big deal. That
Speaker 3: might have been the first team that beat an NBA
Speaker 3: team back then. Tell you mccaby, And that's when they
Speaker 3: were super stacked winning euro League Championships back to back,
Speaker 3: like they were a big deal. They were a big deal.
Speaker 3: Then the third game we played against Boston, I got in,
Speaker 3: did not play well, didn't play well. So I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 3: I feel it in the air because they ain't making
Speaker 3: no cuts yet, you know what I mean. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: if you're gonna cut anybody, you're gonna cut the low
Speaker 3: hanging fruit. This is the easiest person to cuts me.
Speaker 3: So we are at dinner, I said, y'all put You
Speaker 3: don't even have no ego or pride at this point,
Speaker 3: so all you can do is go to the coach.
Speaker 3: I went to the coach, Sam Mitchell. I said, coach, listen,
Speaker 3: I know I haven't been playing the way I played
Speaker 3: in practice. Just don't give up in me on me,
Speaker 3: give me another shot. I'll be ready. He said, well
Speaker 3: you're still here, ain't you. I said yeah. He's like,
Speaker 3: all right, go eat, you have a good night. I said,
Speaker 3: good looking, coach.
Speaker 2: It's a little just like security. Okay, we're on where
Speaker 2: it alight. I got another shot.
Speaker 3: I got another shot coming.
Speaker 2: We play.
Speaker 3: The final moment, fourth one fourth, Yet we play New
Speaker 3: Jersey nets. This is the year Vince Cardi gets traded
Speaker 3: to New Jersey. Yeah, in that off season is when
Speaker 3: I got the opportunity. This the year he goes to
Speaker 3: New Jersey, comes back plays Toronto, New Jersey versus Toronto
Speaker 3: in Toronto. In that offseason when he gets traded, there's
Speaker 3: a guy named Lamar. Murray says to the media, if
Speaker 3: this organization is dumb enough to trade their franchise player,
Speaker 3: trade me too. Yeah, they trade him to New Jersey.
Speaker 2: See ya right, going to New Jersey.
Speaker 3: Right, he's out of there. We're down ten points. Vince
Speaker 3: works us easy twenty five minutes and like twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five points in like twenty minutes, balls out. We down
Speaker 3: ten points five minutes left. Back of them days, game
Speaker 3: is over. Back in those days, like you just you
Speaker 3: just lay down. It's done. It's pretty's over. Let me
Speaker 3: just roll. The guys that don't get no playing time out,
Speaker 3: they call, they say time out. They sub me Robert
Speaker 3: pack Tear Brown in three point guards yea together together.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, I feel it in the air.
Speaker 2: This is it. It's the opportunity.
Speaker 3: One shot and they didn't make no cuts yet. It's
Speaker 3: like three games left. You gotta start making cuts. So
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is it, man, time out, Take everything off,
Speaker 3: go in the game. Take the ball out.
Speaker 1: We all three of us can't run to the ball
Speaker 1: as point guards, right, So I'm like, man, let me
Speaker 1: just run the left wing, bring it up half court.
Speaker 3: Coach goes time out. I'm like, yo, you just caught
Speaker 3: time out. Yo. We sit down. It was a twenty
Speaker 3: second He said, whoever Lamar Murray's garden, give him the
Speaker 3: fucking ball and run run display what I forgot the
Speaker 3: play name? Who Lamar Murray was Guarden?
Speaker 2: You I want to payback. Looking straight at years, I.
Speaker 3: Said, oh shit, I'm about to get the ball. Oh
Speaker 3: what's on? Ran to play, got the ball, went went
Speaker 3: to the rack right because he's like six seven six
Speaker 3: eight again waste lower than Ron Ron's height. So I'm
Speaker 3: out here. I'm on the key and I ripped first,
Speaker 3: went to the basket, kick it to the corner. Charlie
Speaker 3: three down seven, bucket, went back the other way, steal,
Speaker 3: go back this way, foul, go to free throw line,
Speaker 3: split them down six. They come back, score time out.
Speaker 3: Something happens, We come back out. Long story short, we
Speaker 3: go to overtime, We win the game. You on him
Speaker 3: the rest of the game. I finished. Yeah, I finished
Speaker 3: with eleven points three. I'll never forget this stat line.
Speaker 3: Eleven three rebounds, two steals, three assists. You win the game.
Speaker 3: The next day, I go into practice, first guy in there,
Speaker 3: last guy to leave. This is just how I am.
Speaker 3: This whole experience. I go in there and I'm like,
Speaker 3: tear Brown named plate gone. I was like, the fuck,
Speaker 3: So wait a minute, Robert Pack named plate gone. They
Speaker 3: got cut.
Speaker 2: I said, on shit, we're going to start shoes that.
Speaker 3: There. I'm like, what the fuck? I said, let me
Speaker 3: look at what? You know? You pull up this little thing.
Speaker 2: Let me see if they shoes in it?
Speaker 3: Gone? I said, oh shit, you know what. Calm down,
Speaker 3: put your shit on, go upstairs, get on the shooting machine,
Speaker 3: start working. What happens Robert Pack? Now Robert Pack. Alvin
Speaker 3: Williams trying to play, couldn't even barely move. But back
Speaker 3: in those days, he probably had like twenty five million
Speaker 3: left on his deal. He's trying to play. Doctor said
Speaker 3: he could play. That's how I get waived.
Speaker 1: There wasn't There wasn't a lot of training trading back
Speaker 1: and forth as much as there is now.
Speaker 3: It wasn't no, you know what, we'll just wave the contract.
Speaker 3: You get paid to sit down. That's how I didn't
Speaker 3: make the team. I left there so happy, you know why,
Speaker 3: better for the experience. I beat out the competition that
Speaker 3: I was in. Robert pact Brown was my comp I
Speaker 3: have no NBA experience and I didn't get waved that
Speaker 3: that New Jersey Net game saved me. But my point
Speaker 3: is it wasn't because I wasn't good enough. It just
Speaker 3: wasn't the right It wasn't no spot available or Rose
Speaker 3: that will have been my spot. So that was my
Speaker 3: Toronto experience. Then I went to the minor league. Then
Speaker 3: I went to the Summer league. I did that whole circuit, right.
Speaker 3: I did the minor league, then I was it wasn't
Speaker 3: the D League. Then I went to the CBA right
Speaker 3: and then like I let it in triple doubles, like
Speaker 3: I was Rondo before Rondo, that type of player there.
Speaker 3: Then I went to Summer League with Indiana. Then I
Speaker 3: went to training camp with Denver, got waved. Then from
Speaker 3: there I went to the D League, won the championship.
Speaker 3: Then I went to some I'm a leagal gold in
Speaker 3: State and at that point, how does my resume look,
Speaker 3: I'm a fringe NBA player, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: At that point, you can get a better agent. You're
Speaker 3: gonna get better money overseas, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Your resume now, like nobody's going to pay you money.
Speaker 3: You're not getting quality. If you work at McDonald's, if
Speaker 3: you work at a Fortune five hundred company is not
Speaker 3: going to hire you. If you work for a fast
Speaker 3: food company you have experience or retail, it's not gonna happen.
Speaker 3: You gotta have experience. So when I was having shit
Speaker 3: jobs in the beginning, I was having shit jobs, but
Speaker 3: again I knew where I started was where I wasn't
Speaker 3: going to end up. I knew I was going to
Speaker 3: be better. But at the end of the day, you
Speaker 3: got to start, you know what I mean. And you know,
Speaker 3: when you are the underdogs, you gotta work your ass.
Speaker 3: So if that's just what it is, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. And if you ain't built like that, go
Speaker 3: get you a regular job. This shit ain't for the week,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. Like people can look at
Speaker 3: me today and blah blah blah. They don't even know
Speaker 3: the work that I put in exactly. They have no
Speaker 3: idea what nor should they. But don't think this shit
Speaker 3: is overnight success. You know what I mean. Very grateful.
Speaker 3: Everything I got I earned. I put my work up
Speaker 3: against anybody starting from where I started, No handouts, no nothing.
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of where this shit begin and I
Speaker 3: know what it takes. As many people would have quit.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, taken my route. So you know that's how
Speaker 3: you know, I'm very grateful should be part of the journey,
Speaker 3: no doubt.
Speaker 1: People look at a different waymen, no doubt. Say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty proud of where I come from.
Speaker 2: Well, I've been able to do.
Speaker 3: No doubt from the BX all day. I weigh at
Speaker 3: like a badge of honor. I've been all over the world.
Speaker 3: I lived all over the world. You know, I'm very
Speaker 3: grateful that I have an opportunity now to help build
Speaker 3: help a brand, build themselves out of the rubble. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. That's the NBO was dead. He
Speaker 3: was dead, Larry Kesselman. Grateful for his vision because without
Speaker 3: his vision, I wouldn't be here. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Offer me the opportunity. I was like, Yo, just blow
Speaker 3: the ship up.
Speaker 2: I want to.
Speaker 1: I want to look at this because I've actually written
Speaker 1: down some of these teams still. Now I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna you talk about resume rot We're gonna go through
Speaker 1: these teams. Dakota Wizard, he's manging off, Dakota Hey, Harlem
Speaker 1: Globe Trotters.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, let's get this.
Speaker 2: Now, we're gonna go back. We're gonna go back to,
Speaker 2: go back to. You're part of the tour. You're on
Speaker 2: the bus.
Speaker 3: I was on the circuits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Club San Carlos, Brooklyn Kings, South Korea prorem Pro
Speaker 1: team tryout, and then you go to Brazil do minyas Uh,
Speaker 1: Sweden eight Stockholm, and then you go Denver Nuggets rookie
Speaker 1: for agent Cam.
Speaker 2: You got Chinese Basketball Association. I might pronounce this wrong,
Speaker 2: Union Hung Hung Hey.
Speaker 1: New Jersey Flyers, west Chester Wildfire, Toronto Raptors, Austin, Toro's
Speaker 1: shout out to Austin, Texas, sell Betold Baskets.
Speaker 3: Numburg, Noomburg and Germany.
Speaker 1: Yep, Yeah, Sioux Falls, sky Forest, South Dakota sou Falls,
Speaker 1: Venezuela for fock. Can you name this one? Something to Mageria, I.
Speaker 3: Forgot the name of.
Speaker 2: Goutais. I don't even know.
Speaker 3: Guaya Caries or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Indiana Pacers, France for call it basketball Schule, I
Speaker 1: mispronouncing everything, Golden State Warriors, Townsville, Crocodile's kk Uha, Russia
Speaker 1: until Night, Trotemundo's Day, Carabobo and.
Speaker 2: Venezuela, Melbourne Tigers, Lebanon.
Speaker 1: You played for Biblos Club, bejec Broops Club.
Speaker 2: Oh, you're just gonna just got have to roll with
Speaker 2: this one, al.
Speaker 1: Dad Tree, Tripoli and tadm On com On zook Zo
Speaker 1: and then Puerto Rican team called the Parts Day. Did
Speaker 1: you think you would played for those kind of You
Speaker 1: went all over, man, you traveled the world. Now this
Speaker 1: is me, So I'm gonna bring this back to my situation.
Speaker 1: Whenever I first came to IFL, I had no idea
Speaker 1: what the hell this thing was. Man, I thought it
Speaker 1: was these. I thought it was one of these where
Speaker 1: I've never heard of it. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: There's a good chance this thingm I fault on my
Speaker 1: land in some Venezuela town I don't know how to pronounce.
Speaker 1: And that's what I thought IFL was. Now you've been
Speaker 1: all over the world. Man, you've done it. You've played
Speaker 1: in some amazing places. You played for some crazy teams
Speaker 1: and all kinds of different places. Man, what's your favorite
Speaker 1: place that you've been? Because I love travel, what was
Speaker 1: your favorite place that you went? And you're like, man,
Speaker 1: I could live there. That experience was amazing.
Speaker 3: You know, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: Besides the home glop trotter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yo, the New York National was being shout out
Speaker 3: to them. That's how it started. I wasn't home, baby,
Speaker 3: I'll never forget where it started. All of these experiences
Speaker 3: that I've I've had, I've taken one thing at least
Speaker 3: from them all, and it's all shaped me. Like Iraq
Speaker 3: wasn't on there. I was in Iraq, play right, and
Speaker 3: the coolest thing about something like that. But the coolest
Speaker 3: thing about Iraq was that's where like I started watching
Speaker 3: Game of Thrones, you know what I mean, Like that's
Speaker 3: one of the illest TV series ever. I started watching
Speaker 3: Game of Thrones because I wouldn't dare go outside, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean? Like isis was really? It was
Speaker 3: really happening, you know So what Like I called myself
Speaker 3: a basketball mercenary, you know what I mean, that's what
Speaker 3: I was, and it's allowed me to see so many
Speaker 3: incredible parts of the world. You just it makes it
Speaker 3: made me a more well rounded individual. It made me
Speaker 3: just see how people live. You know, you see people
Speaker 3: living well, you see people not living well. Iraq was
Speaker 3: an eye opening experience. You know, I've seen like six
Speaker 3: year old kids selling cigarettes and phone credit. Parents can't work,
Speaker 3: so the money a six year old kid makes, its
Speaker 3: feeding the family. Just a different perspective on life, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. That's a rack. But I also partied,
Speaker 3: you know, in homes of sheikhs in Dubai. You know
Speaker 3: what I mean, like just just a whole nother. It's
Speaker 3: just two different ends of the size of the spectrum.
Speaker 3: You know, I've appreciated there's three parts, three places specifically
Speaker 3: that have played an incredible part of my life. Obviously,
Speaker 3: New York we know this. Australia played a significant role
Speaker 3: in my life when I played here in the NBL.
Speaker 3: I played here four years. But it was one thing
Speaker 3: I was really truly fighting for that I did not
Speaker 3: know I really needed it. Again, I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 3: plan on being like known for streetball, right I didn't
Speaker 3: plan on it. It's an incredible thing, but that wasn't
Speaker 3: the goal. It wasn't to be a shoot Bowl legend.
Speaker 3: I wanted to be a certified pro and obviously the
Speaker 3: ultimate thing you can do is win a championship right
Speaker 3: as a pro athlete. But the other thing that was
Speaker 3: equivalent was equivalent to that for me was when I
Speaker 3: got MVP of the league, because it then allowed people
Speaker 3: to know that this street ball is actually a professional athlete.
Speaker 3: So I would be It's kind of like if you
Speaker 3: didn't graduate college, like they would just look at you
Speaker 3: like a basketball or you know, whatever sport you played.
Speaker 3: It's like, y'a, I'm a scholar. I got two degrees,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. But you can't say that
Speaker 3: if you don't have them, right. So it really cemented
Speaker 3: me for me personally as a professional athlete because it's
Speaker 3: a professional league and you can't just call me a
Speaker 3: street ball player. I'm so much more than that. I
Speaker 3: just needed to use that platform to get to where
Speaker 3: I am att currently, you know, and now it's just
Speaker 3: not even a professional athlete anymore. You know, I'm a commentator,
Speaker 3: I'm an analyst, you know, I'm just a connoisseur of
Speaker 3: the game. You know, I'm not one thing. You know,
Speaker 3: I never wanted to ever be looked at as one thing.
Speaker 3: I'm many things. I've morphed into so many different things.
Speaker 3: And without this journey, man, I could not have been
Speaker 3: able to do any of this. Man, So I'm very grateful, man,
Speaker 3: I really really am.
Speaker 2: Then you talk about the first Australia everything, and you
Speaker 2: come over here and you play for the Townsville Crocs.
Speaker 2: At that time, you were rocking a hell of a haircut.
Speaker 2: Yeah you have.
Speaker 3: You had the the Spottle we like I had one
Speaker 3: eight seven in my head. Next, like I was really
Speaker 3: you know, I was really on my rock star ship. Man,
Speaker 3: you were really enjoying it? Like were you enjoying there? Like,
Speaker 3: I'm in a beautiful place in Australia. I guess this
Speaker 3: amazing after my place? I found my place? What made
Speaker 3: you fall in love with the Plus it was a
Speaker 3: style of play first of all, Like again, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm here for business first. I never lose sight of Listen, man,
Speaker 3: I could play in a shithold town or beautiful town.
Speaker 3: What am I here to do? Work? I never lose
Speaker 3: sight of that. I gotta get busy on this court,
Speaker 3: or it'll be short lived. Whether it's beautiful or it's shit.
Speaker 3: You understand, I'm there to do a job. Like I said,
Speaker 3: I'm a basketball mercenary.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: If you ain't adding value or producing, you're getting the
Speaker 3: fuck up out of there. They don't care if you
Speaker 3: love how beautiful a places you helping me win? Are
Speaker 3: you adding value to what the fuck I got going on?
Speaker 3: If you adding value, where you can stay the minute
Speaker 3: you don't a you can go. So I never lose
Speaker 3: sight of that, right. The best thing that happened was
Speaker 3: my agent knew with my style of play, what country
Speaker 3: would suit best at that point in time. A lot
Speaker 3: of times agents just treat talent like cattle and they
Speaker 3: get their commission and the kid's career is off to
Speaker 3: a bad start because they didn't place the kid in
Speaker 3: a position where he could shine best or have their
Speaker 3: potential to shine best. Systems are important and Townsville Crocs
Speaker 3: at the time, I fit right in the style of
Speaker 3: play in this league was my style of play, West
Speaker 3: Coast type of offense. We're running and gunning the team.
Speaker 3: We were underdogs. I mean we're in Townsville, you know,
Speaker 3: obviously now living here, I understand the layout. How if
Speaker 3: you're in a star started town like a Sydney or Melbourne,
Speaker 3: you're more coveted. And if you're in like a Queensland
Speaker 3: type of town, you know, people like your slow, right,
Speaker 3: But if you in them Townsville, it's like, man, we
Speaker 3: don't respect any type of basketball going on up there there.
Speaker 3: They can play tough, but we're gonna beat them eventually.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So my old thing was again, that's basically sleeping on
Speaker 3: this team, not respecting the players or the organization and
Speaker 3: think it's a walk in the park where under dogs.
Speaker 3: That fits perfect with who with me at the time, right,
Speaker 3: So okay, okay, listen, here's what we're building. Let's prove
Speaker 3: them wrong. So it worked out well. I was there
Speaker 3: for three seasons. I signed my first deal with them,
Speaker 3: and then after five games they wanted me to sign
Speaker 3: a two year deal.
Speaker 2: Wow. Four games, Yeah, that's a big deal. Big deal.
Speaker 1: So was there any team you specifically hated a bit
Speaker 1: more than others, Like, let's say, hypothetically, maybe Perth.
Speaker 3: Listen, Okay, so it was a love hate relationship. You know,
Speaker 3: it's kind of like, uh, Perth or stuff. They were
Speaker 3: really physical. I respected them, but like I was just like, yo, kay,
Speaker 3: none of y'all really guard me, you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 3: it's not I'm not worrying about the guy on me
Speaker 3: that's guarded me. I'm worrying about the other two guys
Speaker 3: that's helping. I'm gonna blow past you. But how can
Speaker 3: I get to the bus get with these two other
Speaker 3: guys they're waiting. So it was a good team and
Speaker 3: we had a love hate relationship. And you know, I'll
Speaker 3: tell you a quick story about that. Yeah, we lost, boy,
Speaker 3: maybe about forty forty against Perth, and the following week
Speaker 3: we played them in the single game elimination finals.
Speaker 2: It's in Perth.
Speaker 3: In Perth, so we lost by forty in Perth. Crowd
Speaker 3: gave it to me. Coaches like you stink. Sit down,
Speaker 3: crowd giving it to me, right, And I'm like, never
Speaker 3: forget this moment because you deserve it. You didn't show up.
Speaker 3: You didn't show up, You stink, you didn't show up.
Speaker 3: You'll be back in like five days. Refocus we go again.
Speaker 3: Came back. Obviously, if you just beat a team by forty,
Speaker 3: you think this is an easy win. John really ten
Speaker 3: to three points made broke history in finals history, the
Speaker 3: most three point is made in the playoff. I finished
Speaker 3: with like what twenty eight or thirty?
Speaker 2: Right? We win?
Speaker 3: I get it, We get a deflection, we get a steal.
Speaker 3: At the end, they throw it to me. I go
Speaker 3: down the court, dunk it, run around the arena, took
Speaker 3: my shirt off, run around the arena, got to the
Speaker 3: got to the camera.
Speaker 2: Now hold up talking off the flight right.
Speaker 3: Where with the jail man? Good night?
Speaker 1: For why how the sun Raims get It's what we
Speaker 1: have heard town.
Speaker 3: We knock off the Perth Cast Challenge stadium.
Speaker 1: That is exactly how we said, Hi, this is what
Speaker 1: we're about. This is what we fuck it about.
Speaker 3: Crock Nation was born right there, and they threw everything
Speaker 3: they could at me. They threw everything in that arena
Speaker 3: they could at me. Almost insinuated a riot. But you
Speaker 3: know it was just a great way to say the
Speaker 3: Perth man like, fuck you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, absolutely, just giving it to people. Absolutely, man,
Speaker 2: there's nothing better in life.
Speaker 1: Never be a hostile territory, beating him in the hostile
Speaker 1: territory and then give it to him after to let
Speaker 1: him know that, just toppened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like they were in disbelief. Is shocked. I don't
Speaker 3: think nothing like that has ever happened before in the sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like on my Westbrook shit, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like I was on my Westbrook shit. And you know
Speaker 3: it it worked well. You know, we lost game three
Speaker 3: to go to the Grand finals. So and the next
Speaker 3: year we lost game three to go to the Grand
Speaker 3: Finals and we were on the road. Obviously, you know
Speaker 3: how it is man home court advantages, it's a big deal.
Speaker 3: And we overachieved with the team that we had, so
Speaker 3: it still was like a win, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I didn't win a championship with them, but I still
Speaker 3: won the point, you know what I mean. Point. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we'll get into the NBA. Obviously your commentator for the NBA.
Speaker 3: Everyone knows this, you know. Let's get into a bit
Speaker 3: of I want to say, how far has it grown
Speaker 3: since plud Leaps and bounds.
Speaker 1: Since I've been here in the last eight years, I've
Speaker 1: seen a huge, huge difference. You talked about whenever LaMelo
Speaker 1: came over and started playing, how big that was on
Speaker 1: the international stage. Arjett Barrett, all these kind of people
Speaker 1: have come over. How much have you seen from your
Speaker 1: own personal perspective, how big of a change it's been
Speaker 1: in the NBL in the last twenty years.
Speaker 3: Like the biggest change in the NBL is Larry Kesselman visionary.
Speaker 3: I'm obviously a very successful businessman and went into his
Speaker 3: pockets getting invested. You know, you know how it is, man,
Speaker 3: Like a lot of people talk it, man, A lot
Speaker 3: of people don't back it up and walk it. You know,
Speaker 3: it's so many people, Ah, you should do this, you
Speaker 3: should do that, put your money up. He did. You
Speaker 3: know what I mean, There's so many people with opinions,
Speaker 3: but ain't nobody taken action? Right? He did? That was
Speaker 3: first and foremost, before I even I wasn't even here,
Speaker 3: you know, and ever since, I truly respect him. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm the kind of person man. I've been around billionaires.
Speaker 3: I've been around multi millionaires, dude's worth whatever. Like, I've
Speaker 3: been around around enough. Right, money don't impress me. How
Speaker 3: you treat people impresses me. And your work ethic impresses me.
Speaker 3: Like you can have it, But what's your work ethic?
Speaker 3: And how do you treat people? And that's why I
Speaker 3: truly respect him. He treats everybody with respect. He's super
Speaker 3: humble and he works his ass off. You know, I
Speaker 3: always tell the story, but his day is that he
Speaker 3: didn't even know I would see him early in the
Speaker 3: morning going to work. Billionaire going to work. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. He's full on, he's hands on, he's
Speaker 3: on top of it. He's passionate and cause you know,
Speaker 3: a guy like that, he can kick his feet up
Speaker 3: and just let it whoever he hires to run operations,
Speaker 3: you know, doing rightfully. So like he's earned the right
Speaker 3: to have a successful life, and he kicked back when
Speaker 3: he wants. But he's truly passionate about it. And I
Speaker 3: think that's really truly, to be honest with you, the
Speaker 3: biggest reason that I remain still working here with the
Speaker 3: NBL because it starts from the top, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. He's going hard, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: They offered me the roll, they offered me the job,
Speaker 3: and it was a successful I think that it was
Speaker 3: a great opportunity because I love Australia. It's dope, it's
Speaker 3: super dope. People are super cool, it's a it's an
Speaker 3: incredible vibe here. You know, I'm safe here. I don't
Speaker 3: have no problems. I literally have no problems here with nobody.
Speaker 3: It's been nothing beloved. You know, this is a place
Speaker 3: where just put your head down and do the work,
Speaker 3: you can become successful. You know there's opportunity here and
Speaker 3: you got to put the work in. But ah, you
Speaker 3: ask for his opportunity, right, That's all lot have asked for, right,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So Australia is dope. It
Speaker 3: has come a long way. So to sit back when
Speaker 3: we were there in the early days and it's like, Yo,
Speaker 3: here's what I need to do. I need to become
Speaker 3: a Hall of Famer within my role. I don't care
Speaker 3: about your role. That's for you to do. I don't
Speaker 3: care about your role. I'm going to do my role
Speaker 3: to the best of his ability every day. So whether
Speaker 3: it's I'm talking some shit to Perth and red on
Speaker 3: me and were going at it all right, that might
Speaker 3: be a part of it. Do I come out with
Speaker 3: some strong opinions? Yeah, but people are talking it ain't
Speaker 3: about me.
Speaker 2: So the conversations and credit headlines and anything else that
Speaker 2: comes with it.
Speaker 3: And on top of it, I'm believing what I'm saying though,
Speaker 3: But the thing is in Australian sport culture, they'll cut
Speaker 3: you down. I need to cut each other down if
Speaker 3: you start talking too much. So the best thing is
Speaker 3: I ain't Azzi outside who played in this league that's
Speaker 3: valid and certified, so they can't be like, yo, who
Speaker 3: the hell is this big mouth America? Where's he from?
Speaker 3: That's homicide. He was the MVP of the league. Validation
Speaker 3: right there. So if I'm saying like yo, step your
Speaker 3: game up, man, I ain't the stephen A. Steven Ain't
Speaker 3: never played. I love stephen A, but he never played.
Speaker 3: So that's why a lot of guys be on him
Speaker 3: because you never did this. I did it, so God,
Speaker 3: I have that credibility and validation there, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. So with me coming in, let's really turn
Speaker 3: this up to a million. Let's amplify this thing. You know.
Speaker 3: So again, I just always wanted to make sure I
Speaker 3: saw spots that needed filed all over this board. Let
Speaker 3: me be the ones feeling it, even if you can't
Speaker 3: see it. I know what needs to be filed because
Speaker 3: I know as a player what's missing and what could
Speaker 3: be done better. So let me do it.
Speaker 2: Being in the industry, you know, you know the back.
Speaker 3: End of the I know, I know it. So I'm
Speaker 3: just uh glad to be a part of the journey
Speaker 3: and seeing it come to fruition. You know, I really am.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful and what happened today is you know, a
Speaker 3: part of it, you know, I mean, it's it's it's incredible.
Speaker 2: What's the biggest opportunity for growth for the NBL.
Speaker 3: Exposure leads to expense. You know what I think needs
Speaker 3: to happen. It's time hit Asia Pacific, go get a
Speaker 3: team and in the Philippines, the n.
Speaker 2: Here we go. I went there once.
Speaker 1: They thought I was like just dirt to whisky, rolling
Speaker 1: duncan front of the whole town came out.
Speaker 2: It was wild.
Speaker 3: Exposure leads to expansion. I think this should be like
Speaker 3: an Apac league like you have euro League. Let's do
Speaker 3: a pac League. Let's get a team and Indonesia. Right,
Speaker 3: Let's get a team in the Philippines. Let's get a
Speaker 3: team in Korea. Let's get a team in Japan. But
Speaker 3: mind you you can get imports. Look this is what
Speaker 3: your league does. Like that's just me off the off
Speaker 3: the top of my head. Yeah, it's big, that's that's
Speaker 3: that's light. It's now with this league popping the way
Speaker 3: it is, you know how things are when you a startup.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants a part of it. Everybody watches from a
Speaker 3: fire that ain't gonna work, that ain't gonna work. Oh
Speaker 3: shit is working? Oh oh now I want to be
Speaker 3: on Okay, Well this is how you use this opportunity.
Speaker 3: Exposure leads to expansion. Everybody seeing it. Now we expand.
Speaker 3: I'm hitting a pack. That's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it. I think it's possible.
Speaker 1: All right, Larry Kesselman put the out there to take it.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens on our sets. Now, people from America. Ron,
Speaker 1: So you have Big God's graduating high school coming over,
Speaker 1: Lebron's kid.
Speaker 3: Bronnie, any chance there's a chance, Bill, there's a chance.
Speaker 2: You reguly might come to them NBL.
Speaker 3: Look Brownnie, here's what I believe. Obviously, our honest opinion,
Speaker 3: as always, the face of the NBA is Lebron Pops right.
Speaker 3: It would be a business decision for the NBA to
Speaker 3: not allow that to happen. So do I think it's
Speaker 3: gonna happen. No, But there's a chance because if the
Speaker 3: face of the league, first of all, a couple years ago,
Speaker 3: Adam Silva said, they've done a fantastic job there. If
Speaker 3: I had a kid, I'd send my kid there. So
Speaker 3: you got the president saying that, how ain't gonna tell me?
Speaker 3: The face of your league is saying that. Following suit
Speaker 3: to the president and then census on there, do you
Speaker 3: know what kind of wave and domino effect that would
Speaker 3: be way bigger than Mellow ball. Mellow set the tone
Speaker 3: with that, you know what I mean, because he solidified
Speaker 3: that platform as that's for real. And what they what
Speaker 3: Adam silver did as soon as Mellow did that and
Speaker 3: they got Rookie of the Year, you know what they did.
Speaker 3: G League I Knite we created you know why that's created.
Speaker 3: You know why overtime elites created. But more important league,
Speaker 3: G League I Knight. We're gonna stop our American kids
Speaker 3: from taking their ashes to Australia. That's the NBA n
Speaker 3: X Star event effect, that serious effect to a point
Speaker 3: where when them kids get drafted from the next Star's program,
Speaker 3: they don't even say where they just came from. They
Speaker 3: say the city they're from. They never did that before.
Speaker 3: They don't want to even give those three little letters
Speaker 3: props because what you're doing right there on the biggest
Speaker 3: stage when for your outside of the finals, draft day,
Speaker 3: you're validating another league. Someone can't do that. See what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. This is the type of ship going on
Speaker 3: that people don't even get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you think, okay, we'll go back to this.
Speaker 1: Now Tasmania. We love Tasmania. We love it, love Touzy,
Speaker 1: love it, big fantusty. Now last year, well we could
Speaker 1: probably say b breakout team of the year. I think
Speaker 1: everyone be agreeing on that. Easy, easy Ron. What's your
Speaker 1: you have? You been a supporter of them from day
Speaker 1: one day when I was I told him he's gonna
Speaker 1: win fourteen games. They would everybody like, look when I
Speaker 1: say these things.
Speaker 2: Are they? They must watch team this year? Now?
Speaker 3: I must must watch team this.
Speaker 2: Year because I love brus CON's my boy.
Speaker 3: It's King Cotton, King Cotton, That's what I thought, real
Speaker 3: King Cotton.
Speaker 2: Alright, you and your prom would you lock his eyes down,
Speaker 2: he'd be he'd be a guy that he's too little
Speaker 2: and he's a mosquito.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't even want to guard him till the fourth court.
Speaker 3: I would have to save some energy to guard him
Speaker 3: because he's gonna run all It's like Garden Steph Curry,
Speaker 3: like these guys just and I gotta go get mine
Speaker 3: over there. I'm gonna lock you up. I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: lock up with you the last five minutes, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. So that's when I would Okay, it's
Speaker 3: time to it's how the shit gonna go. I couldn't
Speaker 3: guard him for forty minutes and then still get it's
Speaker 3: too tired. I'll be too tired. I would look that's
Speaker 3: that'll be a guy prior me right now. Against Bryce,
Speaker 3: I would lose sleep over the night before.
Speaker 2: Wow, no one else in the lake, no one else,
Speaker 2: just Bross, just Bryce. You sleep over him, I'll.
Speaker 3: Be like no one else. I gotta god this guy.
Speaker 3: Mom fuck, I got it. You know what I would
Speaker 3: do all week? I get rest. I'm not going to dinners.
Speaker 3: Ain't no going out. You know. There's certain matchups that
Speaker 3: that you know, it's like this, ain't no walk in
Speaker 3: the park. I gotta get ready for this because the
Speaker 3: way I'm coming, he coming. But the other thing, the
Speaker 3: thing is he don't have to guard me. I gotta
Speaker 3: guard him exactly.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you this. This is another thing
Speaker 1: I'm really interested in I found. I'll do it research.
Speaker 1: I found an amazing story. Aaron Baines.
Speaker 2: Do you know him.
Speaker 3: I don't know Aaron Baines, but.
Speaker 1: His story and what he's gone through phenomenal and what
Speaker 1: he's doing now coming back. I'll wish him all the
Speaker 1: best because I love those just like no one gives
Speaker 1: me a chance and like life's on the line kind
Speaker 1: of thing and I'm gonna fought my way through to
Speaker 1: make it work.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Man, First of all, it's just glad to see
Speaker 3: him in the league, but glad to see him back
Speaker 3: playing basketball, you know what I mean. Obviously we love
Speaker 3: what we do. I saw him in preseason and he
Speaker 3: was smiling and he was so happy. You know, obviously
Speaker 3: after coming back from the things he's come back from,
Speaker 3: you'd be happy too to be playing the game again
Speaker 3: that you love. So I wish him the best and
Speaker 3: I look forward to covering him this season because once
Speaker 3: he shows he's able to play again, you know he'll
Speaker 3: be back to the Big Show next year.
Speaker 1: So good to see him back there, no doubt the
Speaker 1: Big Show. The boys in the Big Show, we got
Speaker 1: giddy and Mills with his fellows, which one would you
Speaker 1: want to have the.
Speaker 2: Most successful season this season? Only big Patty Mills. Guy.
Speaker 2: All love him.
Speaker 1: He's like from a his moral standards and everything like
Speaker 1: he does everything person like that. That man has represented
Speaker 1: his country better than any other person I've probably met.
Speaker 3: Yo, dude like me, Patty Mills is there needs to
Speaker 3: be a statue of him already, like it should have
Speaker 3: been built already. But it definitely have to get in
Speaker 3: the bronze. But what he stands for is like he's
Speaker 3: he's he's on some Martin Luther King type shit for
Speaker 3: this country, you know what I mean? Like I look
Speaker 3: at him like like that, like he's an incredible human.
Speaker 3: I would love to see him win another championship with
Speaker 3: Brooklyn because I rock with Brooklyn anyway. Getty young man,
Speaker 3: he got plenty of time. But Patty Mills time is
Speaker 3: running out, running out in the NBA, and I think
Speaker 3: that he'll retire at some point. You know, he's still
Speaker 3: going or whatever, but he has less time playing in
Speaker 3: the NBA than obviously Giddy. This is year too forget you.
Speaker 3: I would love to see Brooklyn winning chip and him
Speaker 3: winning chip.
Speaker 2: You think the Olympic team will ever beat America's Olympic team.
Speaker 3: No, we were ain't supreme. I don't even I don't
Speaker 3: even play the game.
Speaker 2: Everyone always asked me that he's not gonna like go
Speaker 2: for Australia, and I was like, yeah, he's doing that.
Speaker 1: I'm not stupid, all right, because I know the Women's
Speaker 1: World Cup was just here. Yeah, and you got Australia
Speaker 1: one third. Yeah, Jackson played the last game. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: drops a thirty p.
Speaker 2: Just literally just throw him to the post.
Speaker 3: I'll take care of the rest thirty piece.
Speaker 2: You watched the whole thing. Go.
Speaker 3: Actually I didn't watch that game. I was doing I
Speaker 3: was on foot locker. Dude, you're watching the US side
Speaker 3: win the championship after you know you as Yeah, we
Speaker 3: handed what we handle, you know, you know it is
Speaker 3: what it is.
Speaker 2: Oh man, you bet Brendan Stewart person like to be honest.
Speaker 3: Stewart, she's she's dope from New York, from Syracuse. Obviously
Speaker 3: went to Yukon. She's the best female player in the
Speaker 3: game right now, super humble, super cool. It was fun
Speaker 3: to work with her that Sunday at foot Locker. I mean,
Speaker 3: in the last ten years, there haven't been a signature
Speaker 3: sneaker out for a woman. She has that now and
Speaker 3: shout out to her man like women's we need to
Speaker 3: do a better job of backing women and everything. Really
Speaker 3: to be honest with you, but definitely in sports.
Speaker 2: Word yeah, foot locker stuff only get a little shutucks.
Speaker 2: I know, I know you've running the joint for foot locker.
Speaker 2: No no, no, I saw you in Sydney and you
Speaker 2: were just hi. You just you just kicked back this
Speaker 2: man so good in lots good, lots good. Tell me
Speaker 2: what's doing that.
Speaker 3: We're working hard, man, you working hard, You working hard.
Speaker 3: He's just storytelling. All we want to do is just
Speaker 3: push sneak of culture basketball culture forward and lifestyle forward
Speaker 3: using you know, the platforms that we have we are.
Speaker 3: Storytelling is big with a lot of the things that
Speaker 3: we do, and we just we just tell a story
Speaker 3: about products. You know, we do rollouts and products. We're
Speaker 3: more important. We're doing a lot of giving backs. We're
Speaker 3: doing collaborations where we partner with n b.
Speaker 2: L and NBA stars coming through too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have NBA stars. Dame Lillard came through. We
Speaker 3: got hip hop stars coming through. Working on something big
Speaker 3: right now. Actually with a New York artist might be
Speaker 3: coming through soon. So footlock of Fridays where we do
Speaker 3: install activations where we air drop and giveaway gift vouchers
Speaker 3: to you know, the patrons in the Star Just turn
Speaker 3: your air drop on, we play some music, we hire
Speaker 3: the DJs, and we just we vibe out. I think
Speaker 3: there's a lot of community activity happening more the last
Speaker 3: year and a half, we just sponsored Australian Junior Championships
Speaker 3: for the next five years. We announced that with Basketball
Speaker 3: Australia where under fourteens, under sixteens, under eighteens, under twenties
Speaker 3: and schools. We're sponsoring these national tournaments. So all the
Speaker 3: big players of Lauren Jackson's, Andrew Bogis, Patty Mills, they
Speaker 3: all played West juniors. I know, obviously we could both
Speaker 3: agree two important elements in basketball so to speak, let
Speaker 3: alone every other sports grassroots. That's where you find the
Speaker 3: love of the game and where you begin to elevate
Speaker 3: your play is junior level. So for foot Locker to
Speaker 3: be heavily sponsoring those two areas in basketball is huge
Speaker 3: and they're investing a lot in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's next for you? What's next? Brother?
Speaker 3: It's time for some ownership be ownership, Yeah, be trying
Speaker 3: to own some own some stuff. B I don't think
Speaker 3: does not.
Speaker 2: Think about that.
Speaker 3: I think, uh, it's just just ye different time to
Speaker 3: get a company is and ownership be like that's the
Speaker 3: next level, you know. I think in evolving as a human,
Speaker 3: first you gotta find your passion right, recognize your passion right.
Speaker 3: Become a pro add it right, become a rock star
Speaker 3: in that profession. You send the elevator down, You help others,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, and where you can, like
Speaker 3: you invest. So ownership comes, man said, listen. Exposure leads
Speaker 3: to expansion, and you know, when you do well, opportunities
Speaker 3: start coming your way. And you gotta find ways on
Speaker 3: how to we all get fifteen minutes. I'm telling you, man,
Speaker 3: we all get fifteen minutes. It's on you to how
Speaker 3: you extend your fifteen straight up?
Speaker 2: Would you call the team?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want a team to own MS.
Speaker 1: You're talking about this business?
Speaker 2: I like you, man, you go from the top.
Speaker 1: That s it.
Speaker 3: That's it, you know, Like as he say, I ain't
Speaker 3: here to fuck spider.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's my favorite.
Speaker 3: Say what the fuck of it?
Speaker 2: The first time I heard it?
Speaker 3: Use it all the top, you know, So it's just
Speaker 3: a matter of just again. Man, what I've learned is
Speaker 3: you have to identify your strengths, find spaces where you
Speaker 3: add value, and where you add value like amplify your value.
Speaker 3: Other people will begin seeing the value that you add
Speaker 3: and inquire about your services. Then it's on you to
Speaker 3: figure out what that package you look like for you
Speaker 3: to work with them or not, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And when you get at a stage where it might
Speaker 3: not be everything might not be transactional for cash, give
Speaker 3: me equity. I love this.
Speaker 2: It's all that stuff. Yet you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So you know again man, Like what I've learned is again, Look,
Speaker 3: you're not gonna be in that seat forever, now that my.
Speaker 3: This light ain't gonna be on you forever, now that my.
Speaker 3: So when when that seat is gone and the light
Speaker 3: is off, the fuck you got to show for yourself.
Speaker 3: You got a lot, man, that's the ship I'm on.
Speaker 1: You know you have more to go to Tho Sons
Speaker 1: of Scratch Baby were rolling bro unreal man. Well, I
Speaker 1: want to say this because I've mardy for a long time. Man,
Speaker 1: You've worked your ass off and like doing research on
Speaker 1: you talking to you here, Man, You're one of those
Speaker 1: people in life that just makes shit happen. And there's
Speaker 1: people that sit there and watch people do it, and
Speaker 1: there's people that actually do it. You talk about being
Speaker 1: in the mud and get yourself out and then be
Speaker 1: able to make something from opportunities and everything else.
Speaker 2: I feel like you're doing that to the max.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I have so much respect for those type of people
Speaker 2: in life.
Speaker 1: You bring others with you, your mentality, your positivity, everything else. Man,
Speaker 1: It uplifts everyone else too. You're saddest man. And I
Speaker 1: just want to say a massive thank you, bro, from
Speaker 1: myself to you. Apprecieople like you in this world man,
Speaker 1: that make us all better. So I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 1: I want to say a massive thanks man, and I
Speaker 1: appreciate you coming on the podton some some crazy stories
Speaker 1: and wacky stuff from traveling the world to the NBA
Speaker 1: in the street ball of New York. Now, I just
Speaker 1: want to say massive thank You've come a long way.
Speaker 1: You should be really proud of everything you've done. Man,
Speaker 1: thank you, But that sounds of it. Man.
Speaker 2: I'm even more excited for the future.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: I'm excited, man, you know, I just look, you help
Speaker 3: others when you can. This is what I want to
Speaker 3: leave y'all with. Help others when you can, especially when
Speaker 3: it costs you nothing. You know, I'm able to be healthy,
Speaker 3: happy in this world. My daughter's in college playing volleyball,
Speaker 3: healthy now and happy because when I can help others,
Speaker 3: I do it. The universe does not fuck around the universe,
Speaker 3: don't play. So when you can help others, and even
Speaker 3: sometimes it might cost you help, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: because at some point you needed help along the way,
Speaker 3: and somebody had I didn't get it by myself, you know,
Speaker 3: somebody at some point had to give me an opportunity.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. It's on me at that
Speaker 3: point what I do with it. So that's why I'm
Speaker 3: always willing to give my time when I can, because
Speaker 3: I understand the blessings that I have and that have
Speaker 3: come my way.
Speaker 2: Word, your mom, be real, fucking bro.
Speaker 3: Man, that's my lady. Be I talked all the time
Speaker 3: you here right now.
Speaker 2: Oh, I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Th much, love my bro much love, Thanks so.
Speaker 1: Much everyone for listening. Obviously amazing chat. Check it out
Speaker 1: seven platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Subscribe,
Speaker 1: like comments, share with everyone. This is an awesome, awesome,
Speaker 1: epic chat, so if you can share it, there's some
Speaker 1: absolutely golden nuggets out of this thing. I think you'll
Speaker 1: get in life and be able to use it in
Speaker 1: the future. So thanks again for listening everyone, and keep
Speaker 1: listening in for the rest of the episode.
Speaker 2: See I have a great day.