Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - JJ Redick on Lebron James Podcast, Rapping in College, & Untold Kobe Bryant Stories

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

YERRR NBA veteran and analyst JJ REDICK had to come through and discuss his new podcast with LeBron James, who were the best players he played against at all levels, how NBA analysis is changing, Coach K and what's going on with college basketball and much much more. INDULGE 00:00 Intro 00:48 Hezzy beating Jay Williams + Andrew can take JJ? 04:02 Caitlin Clark would destroy Andrew + we have to stop racism 05:24 JJ recorded raps in college + always been woke 07:20 Duke represents elitism, the hate JJ received + writing raps 10:43 Reading JJ’s lyrics 13:29 College basketball has changed 18:18 Funniest heckle JJ laughed at + rising to the occasion 25:04 Friction when he first got to NBA + hazing 31:05 Getting hot + getting into flow state + Steph Curry 33:46 Athleticism, brakes are important + Doncic is king 41:39 “Plumbers and firemen” + smear campaign against MJ 44:20 Larry Bird isn’t top 5 3-pointers + defies a definition 46:08 JJ was a catch-n-shoot + JJ cross-upped LeBron & Steph 49:40 Steph killed the White Boy Shooters + being slow is new fast 50:24 Luka’s rizz + Flagrant breaking barriers + CPT v IST 57:05 Establishing yourself in the NBA + “shorter and harder” 1:03:13 Journey to the Clippers + wanting to be Ray Allen 1:07:03 “Rivalry” with Jamal Crawford + being built for roles 1:09:09 Having good “touch” + compensating for injuries 1:13:08 Players’ incredible recall + can’t turn off his brain 1:19:10 Calling games are TOUGH + learning to “layout” 1:23:00 How would YOU pronounce this player's name?? 1:23:38 Players getting mad + KG “threatening” JJ 1:25:50 NBA Finals v the Lakers + getting to guard Kobe 1:27:40 Greatest players JJ played against + Kobe was always learning 1:30:52 Extreme work ethic, “Mind the Game” is incredible + selfish pursuit 1:38:32 JJ is changing basketball analysis 1:41:07 How NBA players go broke + Watch dealing 1:46:10 Paranoia that it could all go away 1:50:36 Coach K = exceptional leader + “you weren’t worthy to be a champion” 1:57:43 NBA should allow a couple blow-ups per year 2:00:30 Who’s a great leader on the court? 2:03:11 Jimmy Butler’s strengths + blow-up with Doc Rivers 2:04:43 Will JJ coach at some point? Retiring is like a death 2:06:48 Retirement life + JJ would love to coach Luka 2:10:34 Starting the podcast with LeBron + we need some sugar 2:15:22 Baiting LeBron into GOAT talk

How did the pod with LeBron come to fruition? I've known Bron now like 24, 25 years. We saw each other in December with the folks on his side, had a conversation, and that got the ball rolling. So he picked you or you picked him? There's no good answer to that. Seems like there's a great answer. Is there any heckle that you laughed at?

During warm-ups, I had noticed there was a group of students sitting front row, and they had t-shirts with my picture on it. On the picture, it said, when I grow up, I want to name my kid JJ Redick. So I went over before the game to get a closer look my picture on it. On the picture it said, when I grow up I want to name my kid JJ Reddick. So I went over before the game to get a closer look and then they turned around and it said, and beat him every day. Did you know that I recorded rap songs in college?

Is this a bar from you? I was the inspiration for Martin Luther King. I'm the reason Ray Charles can sing. That's bars, JJ! Was that you That's barf, JJ. Was that you? I wrote that. White Chocolate was on the spot? Yeah.

White Chocolate was on the pot. He fucking killed it. He played Chocolate Chocolate. Yeah, I played Chocolate J. Will. One on one. The Duke J. Will. Yeah, Duke J. Will. Yeah. One on one.

And who won? Come on, bro. You won? Yeah, of course. Oh, you don't know the story? I don't know the story. I've never lost to an NBA player at basketball. I'm just telling you.

I've never lost. Spotted him six in a game. Listen, we had to play until seven. But listen, he gave me six. I didn't ask for six. He gave me six. His hubris got the best of him. And then, you know, I had to beat him.

I had to hit him with a little crossover, teardrop, no big deal. How many would you take from me? How many do I need to spot you? In one-on-one? Yeah. No, I'll beat you straight up one-on-one. I'll beat you straight up one-on-one. Because think about it, like J. Will is, you know what I mean?

He's the best player to come out of Duke ever, man. No, no. Okay, what would I do? How would I handicap you? Okay. No, you can't shoot threes. Oh, you're getting destroyed. How?

Bro. Going to the basket? I remember my going into my... What if I cook you? Going into my... Oh, fuck. It was going into my junior year. No, going into my senior year of college okay i had my girlfriend was uh she lived in minneapolis and so we were going to go to big sky for july 4th

weekend so i went to minneapolis first and so i grabbed her little brother he was in like sixth grade at the time i was like i need to rebound her so we went to her local get them shots up la fitness whatever it was i don't't remember. Get my shots up. And there's this guy fucking lurking over on the sideline. And I get done with my workout. And he comes up to me and he's like, man, I know you could shoot, but I played D2. I bet I can beat you one-on-one. I need to see you take me off the dribble.

And I beat him 11-0. With no threes. It's like that Wayne Gret no threes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like that Wayne Gretzky clip we just watched. You have no idea how athletic I am. No, no, no. This is the thing that I'll tell you. You're comparing me to LeBron and Ja Morant? This is the really funny thing.

Is it like, you're an elite, elite athlete, but because you have to play against LeBron, sometimes guys look at you and they're like, yeah, I can get a few points on JJ. Rightj right right but that's not even close to the case no that's racism that's what we call racism dude you're a victim of racism no this is all the time you think you mean because he's no no no because i had a roommate dude you're such a victim you think you've been your lack of privilege dude for real what's the what's the scowl thing the scowl quote what is that some

guy some fucking numbnut challenged him to a one-on-one and he said yeah yeah he's like dude i'm closer to lebron than you are to me yeah destroyed the guy yeah yeah yeah no no obviously i think that you would smoke me i mean with jason williams with black with chocolate chocolate with chocolate chocolate jason williams you know he did have like his foot was hanging off or whatever because of the motorcycle accident. Sure. He has what's called a drop foot. Yeah, I mean, the way you said it though. Why? Because I said it was hanging off.

And it seemed more severe than it was. Drop foot is pretty severe actually. It was really severe. And I was going at that foot. I was targeting the foot. Kind of as an animal. Yeah, come on. I'm a competitor.

Do you still think you can beat Kaitlyn Clark one-on-one? Yeah. Well, I do think I could beat any female basketball, but think you can beat Kaitlyn Clark one-on-one? Yeah. Well, I do think I can beat any female basketball, but I don't want to take down the sport because they're doing so great and I love what's happening

in female basketball, but I don't think... And I have a daughter. I have a daughter. Do you think that's true? Do you think you could... Jay, they keep it a buck. Mind it a game, bro.

Mind it a game. Mind it a game. Listen, just mind it. You're not beating Kaitlyn Clark. Did you see my paddle skills on my dragon net just up there? Are you telling me? You don't think I could beat?

Why? Because she's such a good shooter. You know, me agreeing to come on this show. I knew I was going to get roped into some shit. I knew I was going to get roped into some shit. I'm looking over here for me. I'm like, I think I get a point on it. It's so racist.

My roommate in college swore he could beat Eric Snow one-on-one. Remember Eric Snow from the Sixers? But he was like, I got Eric Snow. I was like, you're out of your fucking mind. Eric Snow, I don't know if I could beat because he's so dense. And you mean black by dense. Oh yeah, he's black.

No, but it is fucked up. We gotta stop that. We gotta stop what? Racism. Do you agree with that? JJ, we have to stop racism in America. Do you agree with that or not? Now that it's affecting us, we got to do something about it. Oh, my God.

Do you agree or no? Do I agree? We should stop racism? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Jesus, that's a fucking softball question. Did you know that I recorded rap songs in college?

No We have to hear these Okay, we might need to bring back some racism Hold on, hold on We knew about the poetry Well, so, the poetry was really just rap lyrics, right? This is so interesting How racism turns into poetry

When a black guy's a poet he's a rapper when a white guy's a rapper he's a poet okay break it down break it down again it wasn't it wasn't good stuff like it wasn't good i actually have some i just want to point out okay it's because they can't catch from you i have one of your raps um but anyways so i like i didn't have any of the tracks right yeah and the guy that i recorded with, who was black. That was the issue. Oh, thank God. He was black. Yeah, yeah.

Thank God. But we would be in dorm rooms. It was literally a headphone and a mic, right? Were you allowed in the same dorm rooms down there? Yeah, we were. They did? Wow. That was like 1920.

They got rid of that. Oh, didn't they? Oh, even at Duke? Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. But anyways, so a couple years ago, he's like, dude, I found the songs. And I'm like, send them to me.

So he sends them to me. And this was 2003. Okay. And me and him did a song. It was an anti-racism song. JJ. I was A. People accuse me of being. Jack J. I was, hey, people accuse me

of being this woke guy. I'm the woke guy on ESPN. I'm like, nah, man, I've always been like that. Do you have it? Can we listen to it? That one,

I don't have on my phone. That one, I don't have. That one, you don't have. Wait, there's other raps that you have?

There's somewhere on my files, somewhere on my phone. Hello? You've been in that license day one, dude. That's awesome. I actually have to go find, because somebody did find some of F.A. who does phenomenal my files somewhere. Hello? Yeah, changing. You've been in Alaska since day one, dude. That's awesome.

I actually have to go find, because somebody did find some of, F.A., who does phenomenal research for us, found one of your poems, which might be a rap, so maybe we even say it. Some of them were more poetic. But here's the thing that I need to understand, because you were getting through, like, you were getting heckled, like, an insane amount when you were at Duke, right? Like, you just become this, like like poster child for all the hatred. And I think Duke kind of represents, it's not only like a race thing. I think Duke represents like elitism.

For sure. We look at them. We're like, oh, this is where all the money is, the power, the control. Yeah.

And your face matched up with it. Even though you're like a homeschooled kid from Virginia. He does point when you say, when he pointed, it made it way more aggressive. No, I'm just saying it did. Wow. Coming from the guy with that haircut. yeah he does point when you said when he pointed made it way more okay but i do have one of the so here's the thing they're calling you gay non-stop and then in order to combat that you start writing poetry take us through that

take us through that line of thinking uh it wasn't just like were you like so weird maybe i am so you know nba players college players high school players when you you hit a shot, sometimes you hold your follow through. And there was this guy at NC State who publicly, in an article, said he holds his follow through like he's gay or something. That's a good one.

Nothing happened. Nothing happened. There was no like, hey, we need to cancel that guy. It was just like, we need to we need to cancel that guy or like it was just like oh that's what he said he does hold it yeah he's kind of getting away it was just different time different time the worst though was like it wasn't it wasn't there was some stuff i was sensitive about like i had bad shoulder acne in college oh yeah and so like i remember going to a uva game and they had all these these fake Duke number four jerseys.

And they painted like red dots on the shoulders, right? Damn. And then like the shit at Maryland was like, you know. And Florida State too. Those two places were like talking about raping my 12-year-old sister. No. Annually raping her.

Like all this stuff about my older sister and my mom. So like there was a lot that wasn't just like, oh, this dude's a dou that wasn't just like oh this dude's a douche it was it was like really targeted stuff and i i think i may have done it i think i did a thing for espn where i was like to combat this i started writing poetry the reality is i was writing rap lyrics from the time i was like 14 years old okay we used to go to like we i remember vividly you would wouldn't say basketball camp. We'd get done with the camp

and we've got like six hours till like everybody's going to go to bed and everybody's flying out the next morning. We're like, hey guys, should we go like cypher in the room? Like we just fucking freestyle in a battle rap. You were saying this to other dudes. Yeah, yeah.

At Duke? Oh yeah. So I was in a fraternity my first two years we couldn't be in a real fraternity so we came up with pdf which was five drink of 40 okay five drink of 40 it was like nine of us we had like we had like sick gear yeah hoodies and shirts basically the fraternity's activities consisted of playing beer pong getting drunk going out to uh chris duhan's car turning on like an instrumental beat and then freestyling oh

you're a better rapper than chris could chris spit he was fine but you had him though yeah i had him okay is this a is this a is this a bar from you? Just tell me if it's a bar, okay? A sharp thorn once cut my soul. The blood flowed, but no bandage would ever cover the wound. Is that rap or poetry? I don't know. I don't know either. I asked the Lord, what am I to do? said son i made the sky blue the rain falls because of me

leaves change colors on a on a fall tree i was the inspiration for martin luther king i'm the reason ray charles can sing i'm giving the strength to others through and through and my son i'll do the same for you. That's bars, KJ. That's kind of fun. Yo, you're like a white DMX. Yo. KJ. Was that you?

I wrote that. You stuck the landing. I wrote that. I got to be honest. You stuck the landing. I was really uncomfortable. You stuck the landing. That religious one is fire, bro.

So diplomatic. I wrote that. I wrote that. The MLK one. You don't have to answer that. You don't have to answer that. Come fire, bro. So diplomatic. I wrote that. I wrote that. The MLK one. You don't have to answer that. You don't have to answer that. Come on, man. God can do all things.

It's very simple. If DMX spit it, you'd be like, you'd have a few more N-words in it, and you'd be like, that's hot. Was it me? I contributed to the racism by laughing that he's rapping. Dude, that's bars right there, bro.

I'm telling you, man. That's bars. That's bars right there, bro. I was telling you. That's bars right there, bro. I was very uncomfortable. I'm the reason Ray Charles can sing. I get to strike the others through and through. And my son, I'll do the same for you. I won't take away that back knee.

Be the reason Ray Charles can see. Why would you help him do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a good point. Okay. I shouldn't have done this. The first thing Ray Charles can see. Like, why would you help him do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a good point. Okay. I shouldn't have done this. Okay, so listen, you're coming off of,

right now you've got the biggest podcast on the planet. You know, of course, you came on here, so it won't see a second episode. But it's good. Okay, so. Go, go, go. is something very funny about those lyrics. You don't know why? I can't stop laughing because of your delivery. Should I deliver it like you?

No. Let me deliver it. Do more emo. I'm going to deliver it like you back in the day. Like a white boy. Hey! Hey!

I asked the Lord what I'm about to do. He said, son, I made the sky blue. Okay, that was a rough one. That was a rough one.

The ending was good. You can't focus on the individual lines because then it really pops out at you okay what was the funniest heckle you ever got was there ever a heckle I want people to understand there's going to be younger people probably watching this you were arguably

the most you were the most famous non-NBA player in the world at the time indisputably who else non-NBA player in the world at the time. Indisputably. Who else? Who else? Who else?

Non-NBA. I'm sure there was somebody. I'm sure there was somebody. I'm sure there was somebody. Great answer, dude. Do you not remember what was happening at this time? It was insane. I remember it vividly. No, non-NBA basketball player.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, basketball player. Basketball. Like, and one of the most recognizable figures. And this was at a time, I don't think it's as much much now the college game doesn't seem to like maintain the start you went four years yeah and my my draft class was the first year you couldn't come out of high school so like i was like the end of i was the end of college basketball not me personally but like i was like the last guy to come out before everybody started the one and done thing.

Kevin Durant was right after me. One year, then he went out to the NBA and he wouldn't come out of high school, right? He was good enough to come out of high school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was part of it. It was still college basketball then. Now I don't know what it is.

Yeah, what is it now? I don't know. Did you watch the UVA game last night? No. Why? They had 14 points in the first half they went nine minutes without scoring and then 10 minutes later on in the game without making a this is the women's game no this was this was like a play-in game 210 seeds no yeah

bad man and what do you think it is it's just there's there's no reason for the talent to to stick around they're not even thinking about it maybe uh I don't think it's his G League as much. I think, truthfully, the one and done creates an environment where the best players are now one and done guys. And they never unpack their bags.

Coach K, you should always talk about unpacking your bags, right? Being all in. Their mind's somewhere else. You don't get any continuity. The transfer portal now. Like Duke, you should always talk about unpacking your bags, right? Being all in. Their mind's somewhere else. You don't get any continuity. The transfer portal now. Like Duke, you know, we've gotten a couple transfer portal guys, but we still are playing like 18 and 19-year-old kids.

And then NC State, like the guy that starred for NC State in the ACC tournament is 24 years old. Ah, he's a full-grown man. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just, it's a weird game right now. Well, have you spoken to Coach K about it at all? About the NIL and the transfer portal stuff? Yeah.

Or just in general, college basketball. And like, is he like this new? I don't think he's a fan. Yeah. I don't think any coach is a fan. Yeah, that makes sense. How do you feel? They all have to re-recruit every year.

Every year. I got a kid. I recruit him in high school. He comes in. All right, now I got to re-recruit him so he doesn't accept a bag from whatever school. Yeah. Totally different now. Announcements.

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Let's get back to the show. College basketball back in the day was so much more interesting, especially your era. So you get all this scrutiny. It's insane. They're saying all this crazy stuff. Is there anything funny that people say to you is there anything that like a heckle that you laughed at so the the probably the worst not the worst because i didn't think it was that bad but the same game that there were signs talking about uh anally being my sister she was 12 that was the same game where at the end of the game

the entire arena i'm at the free throw line we're up five i've got basically like the game ceiling free throws the entire arena is chanting fuck you jj right fuck you jj jj like that during warm-ups i had noticed there was a group of students sitting front row, right at half court, and they had t-shirts with my picture on it. Okay. And on the picture, it said, when I grow up, I want to name my kid JJ Redick. So I went over before the game to get a closer look, and then they turned around, and it said, and beat him every day. I would never condone any sort of child abuse but that's clever yeah that's clever and so i make the free throws and i i go over them at the end of the game and i'm

like talking shit like i need a t-shirt give me a fucking t-shirt like that and coach was he was furious they did it fire you up when they were talking the shit or did yeah was that part of you that wanted to melt under the pressure of it? No, I didn't want to melt at all. It was like my first 10 games at Duke. We had a bunch of home games. We played UCLA in Indy in like the Farmer's Classic. I don't remember what the fuck it was called.

Then we played Ohio State in Greensboro in the Big Ten ACC. And then we played all home games. So we come back from Christmas break and we go to Clemson. It's our first real road game. It's our first ACC game game and I come out for warm-ups and it's like oh this is how okay I I'm the guy that they've now chosen I'm the next Duke guy they're gonna hate and it I mean I had 22 and 6 that game it was not about melting it was like all right you're you you want me to be an asshole immaturity but it was like you want me to be an asshole i'll be an asshole what i don't understand some of it was deserved i mean i i look back there's a there's a moment that's why i want to ask like why were you getting so much i

i'm uh we're playing illinois this is the year before they made the final four we made the final four and oh four they made it in oh five so we're playing illinois in the sweet 16 and i hit a couple shots in the second half on luther head And I'm like doing weird shit with my head. I'm bobbing my head. I'm doing this. I'm smiling and laughing. But you're not allowed to enjoy yourself because you're a white man playing basketball? I think Steph changed it for us.

I'm serious. Steph does that shit all the time. Yeah. Like, and everybody's cool with it, right? It annoys me a little. No, there used to be, I mean. There's not a single person who would say Steph Curry is annoying. Yeah, I don't find him annoying.

You don't like him. I love Steph. What? What are you talking about? You hate his game. You've said this many times publicly. You hate Steph Curry's game? You love Kyrie's game?

This is blasphemy. I don't understand what this role reversal is. Did I say that? Did I say that? I'm going to have to check it. Back in the day, but. I'm going to have to check it. We just have it. I don't understand what this role reversal is. Did I say that? Did I say that? I'm going to have to check it. Back in the day, but. I'm going to have to check the clips. I don't know.

Back in the day. Back in the day when we talked sports on the podcast. Yeah, you used to hate us. What did I say? What did I say? I probably had a good argument. Go. No, you just didn't like his game, that he was just all shooting and nothing else.

Oh, yeah, but the argument for me was that I can't shoot. Yeah. It was sarcasm. I can't shoot, so I don't like the fact that the game is now three-point shooting. I just go to the basket and I get buckets. So I like the guys who go to the basket and get buckets like Iverson, because that was how I played the game. Like Allen Iverson more.

Wow. But you did hate on him. I just love LeBron, and he's in the way of LeBron. And so I'm like, well, you kept LeBron from getting four more championships or whatever. So I've chosen to root against him. I'm sure he's an amazing guy. I love, I love. And he's good at every single thing he does.

Yeah. I just get annoyed that the guy that I want to be the greatest ever could have probably eight championships if it wasn't for the Warriors. But you're saying he made celebrating okay. Yeah. Got it. Okay. I'm wondering if there's anybody before him.

No, I feel like a lot of people. Yeah. Before him. Like all the. No, but. You had to be dunking and shit like that, I think is his point. Like, being a shooter

wasn't ever cool in our childhood. Name a cool three-point shooter. Reggie Miller wasn't cool. I loved Reggie. Reggie Miller was hated. I hated him. Reggie Miller did all the shit.

Yeah, he was hated. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. But people hated Reggie. Yeah. So shooting wasn't cool in Telstan.

I loved Reggie. But where do you get the confidence, though? That's what I'm trying to understand. Like, where do you get the confidence to handle that kind of what I'm trying to understand. Where do you get the confidence to handle that kind of hate and scrutiny? When you're 19 years old. I would say it was

not confidence. There was the competitive part, which was very much easy. I'm in the arena. I'm on a court doing what I love. That was easy.

The confidence part, we haven't fully developed our egos at 18, 19 years old. I don't think it was confidence at all. It was actually insecurity. And I mean, I had to start seeing it there. I saw a therapist every week for three years at Duke from my sophomore year on. And it was because of like this whole notion.

Like I grew up a Duke fan. I wanted to go to Duke. Seven years old. I watched Leitner hit the shot. Mom and dad, I'm going to go play at Duke, right? I want to go to Duke. And I get to Duke and I'm like, oh, this shit's fucking hard, right? It's hard.

Not only that part of it, the scrutiny, but playing at Duke was hard. Yeah. It was a mental fuck people get their their they bring their a game every like i had i got tested every single day for oh for whatever body language chewing gum you're chewing gum oh my senior year i i set the acc scoring record against temple and i they played a box in one on me this they had a guy Marty Collins who I'd played USA basketball with the season before and Marty was like he's like hey man John Chaney said you're not getting the record today we're throwing the whole fucking kitchen sink at you we're gonna play box in one

I needed like 11 points right so I ended up scoring like 13 or whatever it was they played a box in one the whole game we win the. We go to film session the next day. And occasionally in my career, when I would have like an okay first half or a bad first half, I'd put a piece of gum in my mouth just to like change things up. It's like a superstition, right?

And coach, the next day in the film session, stops early in the second half. And he's like, what the fuck are you doing? Chewing gum. Your head was not right. And I was like, was it that or was it the box one yeah yeah that um so it's like shit like that it was just like it was just constant right so through that process i think ultimately it prepared me for the nba because the nba ended up being easy did you what was what was, oh, sorry, go. Yeah, what was your reception

when you first got to the NBA? Coming from this school. The NBA wasn't easy. I shouldn't say that. The NBA was easier. Right. Was there any friction with other players who were like,

oh, that's this fucking cocky kid. I'm going to humble him. Yeah, yeah, for sure. My teammates. Did they call you milk? Were they like, milk? Did they milk check you? That sometimes happens in football. Did they milk check you? That sometimes happens in football.

Did they milk check me? What is that? I never heard of that. So if there's a white player out there, they're like, milk. And then if there's a white DB, for example, you yell at your quarterback, you go, milk check. And then the quarterback looks and sees the guy guarding you is white. And then you just go long.

No, I didn't get that. You never got milk checked? No. I mean, I got targeted. Yeah. On defense? Yeah. Every single play?

No, not every single play, but early in my career and then late in my career. I got targeted a lot. Yeah. And are your teammates going beyond normal Ricky Haysing because of your U, or is it just like, and what are they doing? It was all normal. I was late for a couple practices and the second time uh they they tied me to a chair normal uh with my clothes on and shoved me in a cold shower and

left me there this is in orlando yeah this is in orlando who who did dwight stay in the shower shower with you? Oh, God. I shouldn't have told you. Shower with Dwight! Dwight's like, I have a great idea. Honestly, strip him naked and throw him in a shower. The reason I say that it was easier, though, was because

the Duke experience, whether it was just the scrutiny and the hatred, whatever you want to call it, and playing for Duke and the intensity of that day-to-day,

it was like, you get to the pros and it's like okay i know how to navigate these things now yeah i'm well equipped to navigate the pressures and the competition and all the shit that comes with it and i guess you're not the biggest name in the nba you're the biggest name in the ncaa but in the nba they got lebron i didn't expect to be i didn't expect to be i remember didn't expect to be. I remember I was doing the 21 Underworld Championships in Argentina going into my senior year, and Hoops Hype wanted to talk to me. And one of the reporters wanted to talk to me. And so the USA Basketball comms person was like, can you get on the phone with this person?

And I remember them asking me about my expectation level for the NBA. And that was the same year I started taking Italian at Duke because I'd be like, it'd be cool to go play overseas. I didn't know expectation of like a long NBA career. And I was like, yeah, if I get to the next level, I don't expect to be a star. I'll be a role player. Okay. So you knew that going in. I want to talk about NBA for in a second, but I first want to talk about high school. You're playing basketball in high school, and I imagine it feels like you're a superhero, right? Like you score whenever you want.

I just need to understand what that's like. Every single time the ball's going to you, every single time you put it up, nobody's upset about the shot. Is it the easiest game? Is it exciting? Does it get boring? What is high school when you are the best? It's interesting.

So high school and AAU are two different things. Okay. Right? So my freshman year, I played varsity. Yeah. And I averaged like 17 a game. Wow. And then I went and played 17 and under.

So that's all rising seniors. I went and played 17 and under with Boo Williams's all rising seniors. I went and played 17 and under with Boo Williams, which was the other side of the state. Didn't know any of the guys, didn't know Boo. I had a person who had reached out to Boo and was like, hey, do you need a shooter for the summer tournaments? So I meet them in Atlanta. That experience, that was hard

because I'm going against DeJuan Wagner. I'm going against Tyson Chandler, D i'm against tyson chandler d way dairy smiles like those all those guys are rising seniors yeah so that was hard i went to a public school in southwest virginia yeah so like game to game yeah it was like i wasn't say i was ever on cruise control because it was like but it was easy you could do it ever the fuck you wanted yeah but i couldn't because i had a great high school coach. Okay, so the coach is limited. But if you wanted to put up 50 a game, do you think that...

The most I scored in high school was 43. Yeah. That was the most shots I took in a high school game was 25. It was the state championship my senior year. Wow. The most shots I took in high school was 25. I was not like... Let's say you were like DeJuan Wagner

where they're basically just going every single play, do whatever you want. 50 easy? I'm just trying to understand how easy high school basketball is when you're a superstar. Again,

I think it's like night to night. If I said to myself, I'm going to get 30 tonight, I'm going to get 30. That easy? Yeah, easy. Okay. Yeah, especially junior junior senior year yeah by

that time like i'm grown i'm fully developed as like a high school player nobody could bully you yeah i was like that was that was easy okay but i also like the other thing but again billy hicks my high school coach like we played a very specific like motion system he had gotten this like we i think we called it thumb up it was like four across uh the the elbow and the free throw line like so wings two guys at the elbow and it was just a movement set like a stanford offense or whatever that is oh that princeton princeton that's like back doors okay this was more like curls into pin downs curls into pin downs so like i learned how to play off the ball in high school we didn't run like high pick and rolls or iso basketball and so we all kind of ate in that

system it wasn't like it wasn't geared toward yeah exactly there were i had a couple plays like i would get an iso on the left block if they need a buck and then if i got hot i would just kind of like give my coach a look i remember like my my senior night, Coach K came. I was coming off an injury. We were playing at one of our rivals in our district. And I got hot in the first half and I kind of like looked at him and he's like, let him go, which was basically my clearance to get a heat check in. Okay. So this is one of the questions I have. And I do want to talk about NBA stuff. And there's tons of people I want to talk about in the nba but is getting hot real yes because i'm sure you've spoken to the analytics guys and they say there is no such thing as getting hot momentum whatever blah blah blah

but you felt it i'm sure you remember the times in your career where you feel it what is getting hot do you know what flow state is yes Yes. Yes. It's just flow state. So it's no thinking. Yeah. Doing. Your body, it's every shot, every motion. It's just like perfect muscle memory. There were games, I'm being serious when I say this.

There were games where I would shoot like eight for 12 and I'd be like, man, my shot didn't feel good tonight. And then there could be a game where I shot eight for 16, and I was like, I was in the flow state tonight. Wow. Because it's like, again, at that level in the NBA, your margin at my size is like... That's why the analytics guys don't get it, because they're looking at the data.

I did a senior project in stats on the idea of the hot hand the hot hand yeah and at the time it was very much undisputed there was no such thing yeah and so i do the project and i came to the same conclusion and of course now i think pretty much that has been debunked there was a there was a book about it a few years ago um about the theory of the hot hand and it was pretty much debunked it was debunked that there is no such thing as no there is there is a hot they actually can but no the idea that there isn't a hot yeah the idea that idea was got there is a hot hand yeah sure so we believe it there is data to back it up was there when you're on when you're on stage man 100 like 100 on stage you know the connection you know exactly when you're killing it yeah know

it yeah yeah yeah you're not operating in the deficit you're not worried about what's going wrong you are fully present and you are locked in was there a way for you to access it frequently or was it just random um there were ways to try a lot of it became about like the prep the routine even going back to high school i was always like a visualization person so i had this free period and I would walk through the gym. And I don't know why, because we had an auxiliary gym. I don't think there was really ever like gym class by the time you were like a junior or senior. So like I would walk through the gym on game days

and I would like picture the spots on the court and I'd leave the gym. And then for the rest of the day, I'm visualizing coming off of pin downs. I'm visualizing my footwork. I'm visualizing like the angle with which I want to release the ball, where the defender is. I always had the ability to do that.

And so that was one of my sort of like preps to get into the flow state. That was one of the preps. Even at like 16, 17 years old, you're doing that? I was probably doing it at like 15, yeah. Wow. But Steph is able to access better than any basketball player. It's kind of miraculous.

It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. You know something that's interesting about like the Steph? I got to watch Steph up close when we were in San Francisco doing shooting shows. And I don't think his speed translates on TV. When you see him up front, he is by far the fastest. It's like, no one's even close. But on TV,

it seems like the game is operating in slow motion. It's the same thing with Brunson. I'm watching Brunson be so fucking effective. Get to whatever position he wants to get to, but I don't see him as a freakishly fast dude. So I'm trying to understand what creates game speed.

All right. So I'm going to actually grab this real quick. If you don't mind. Yeah, you got something for us? He's got to take a call. No, no. I got something for you. I just got to find it.

You got some more lyrics for you, bro. You got bars for us? Can you explain this in a run? No, I just want to get all this stuff in here. So this idea of like an athlete in basketball, basketball athleticism. So what goes into that? So historically, or traditionally, I should say, we think of basketball athletes as being vertical and linear, right?

Fast and up. All right. So these are the things that go into being a great basketball athlete. Change of direction, balance, coordination, change of pace. We talked about the deceleration before we started, which is the most fascinating thing in today's NBA. Strength, vertical plane, pliability, which is just flexibility, mobility, reflexes, stamina. And then the cognitive side of that is pattern recognition, spatial awareness, which is an easy way to say court mapping. Nikola Jokic, court maps, anticipation, and then cognitive load.

That's the mental bandwidth piece. How many things can you process at once? At the same time, yeah. Right? So it goes back to what you said about me as an athlete when we first started. Like, I am not a great athlete in the NBA. I'm not. Relative to the average person, I'm a great athlete in the nba i'm not relative to the average person i'm a great i'm in the one percent but i'm not in the one percent of the one percent of the you

know what i mean yeah so all these guys that you're like how do you explain it it's because they have all of this shit maybe they don't have vertical maybe they don't have linear luka donchic is not a vertical or linear athlete. But he's got the best brakes in the fucking world. And can you explain why brakes make it so effective? Well, so what he does, actually, this is what I wanted to talk to you about. All right, so what he does is like there's a constant change of pace. He's on balance. He's trying to get you off balance.

Once you're off balance, he's still on balance. He's trying to get you off balance. Once you're off balance, he's still on balance. He changes his pace. He has created an advantage at that point. So now he's got you on his hip. Potentially he's blown by you. Maybe you reach in, he goes through, he can draw the foul, whatever. But let's say you catch up to him.

You're now going in acceleration full speed and he goes into deceleration you fly by so on his drives his ability to decelerate yeah is special yeah there's uh and he he's very effective without having to create immediate acceleration like i remember and i'm not in any way comparing myself to him but i remember me, in order to have any competitive advantage when I was playing, I had to make a commitment to going to the basket after one move

and put everything into it because I didn't have that extreme, I had a maybe decent first set, but I'm committed 100%. Now, at that commitment 100%, I didn't have the brakes to stop if the guy was with me. But that was the only way that i knew

and when i started to play at higher levels and guys could stay with me it was a little bit it was way more difficult for me to score to see him do it at like medium speed it feels like and the second you're on his hip it's over right so it's like it doesn't it's not like he needs to blow by you he just needs you here and he gets you off balance and he's and he's six eight yeah that's it yeah yeah 30 depending on the day seems incredibly strong yeah his lower body is insane okay so what about our body is insane wait wait wait what do you mean like all it's all legs it's oh yeah it's strength so that's the brakes yeah what i was gonna say about brunson and lucas in this category and I put Kyrie in this category, is I was thinking last night before I went to bed, because I watched some of the Mavs game against the Spurs, and then once the Nuggets game came on, I really wanted to watch that game.

So I watched the full Nuggets-T-Wolves game, and I was laying in bed, and I was thinking about how we break down certain players and what a scouting report is on a certain player. we break down certain players and like what a scouting report is on a certain player and for some guys it's like i was at a very simple scouting report right but for some guys it's like what was yours what was what was yours uh you have to be aware of where he is at all times he's in constant motion i like to turn over my left shoulder if you could force him out to the right side where he turns over his right shoulder turn over your left shoulder means you're you're getting the ball so the basket's that way i wanted to turn this way over my left shoulder so you're coming around defenders on this side yeah my right hand is here you can't get to the ball but if i turn the other way right i'm short arms alligator arms negative wingspan um but i was thinking about certain guys where it's like

all right this guy in isolation he likes to go left um this guy uh if he's you know playing and pick a roll he wants to come to his right if he's playing to pick a role, he wants to come to his right hand. He's going to shoot a one-two dribble pull-up. This guy's better finishing right. There's some guys that just defy breakdown. Luka defies a breakdown. Like, what is his scouting report?

Jalen Brunson, by the way, I've watched him over the last two years. I played with Jalen. I knew he was good. I did not know he was going to be this good. Jalen Brunson, it's like, is there an answer for him I because he can he can score going right he can score going left he can shoot threes off the dribble yeah he can shoot catch and shoot what makes Jalen so good going back to that he's got a lot of those qualities right

I don't think he's the fastest guy certainly not a vertical athlete yeah he's always on balance yeah and he he does everything every trick the footwork the body shifts yeah the handle he does everything to get you off balance but he's never off balance the handle is underrated too that's another thing incredible control of the ball yeah and ability to change directions and he has that comma almost like you know remember it's dribble oh yeah you know where it's like he kind of lull, you know, remember IT's dribble? Oh, yeah. You know, where it's like he kind of lulls you to sleep almost. And then first step, see you later. I feel like Jason's got a little bit of that.

Do you know what a keep action is? No. A keep action. So Draymond Green does this a lot. So you throw him the ball and you go to chase it. Or he goes into a dribble handoff on the other side. A dribble handoff is just meaning you dribble at somebody and you hand it off, right?

So when you keep action is you dribble at somebody, your guy then tries to help and you just keep it and go, right? So Jalen Brunson will bring the ball up on the right side of the floor and he will go to a dribble handoff with the other guard and he'll do this and just keep it right yeah i'm i'm at a game i have a friend who has courtside seats so he invited me and we're at we're at a game and i'm sitting courtside across from the knicks bench and looking at tibbs knicks are going that way everyone is sort of backpedaling near Tibbs. And Tibbs calls seven keep or whatever they call their keep action.

Audibly. Anyone sitting there can hear it. Hear exactly the... And I'm like, Jalen Brunson, keep action. Here we go. And Jalen Brunson drills to the right side, does his thing. Keep action. Wide open layup.

I'm like, how? Yeah. How? Memphis was playing a bunch of g league guys so that was part of it but also like you know what's coming yeah the best players you know what they really want to get to and you can't stop and they still get to it they still get to it michael jordan wanted to get to his right hand and it's gonna go have you seen this shit what we've done with the 90s so it's i hate this. Who's paying for this?

This is your podcast co-host. There's a media smear campaign out there for Michael Jordan. And there's all these people that are like taking these clips and saying how like how trash basketball was in the 90s as if we didn't fucking watch it. You thought it was trash? No. MJ does whatever he wants now and they tried to say mj doesn't have a left hand and then they broke it down and it's like he's goes to the left just as much as he goes to the right now like this is a smear

campaign this is a smear campaign i don't love this is i i i i you know because of uh some things that have happened on first take and uh the old man on three which is my other podcast because of some things that i've said yeah i get that i have this reputation as like destroying the older generation and it's like what did you call them janitors plumbers and firemen there we go but here's everything i've ever said no it's even smeared in fact what are the facts here the michael jordan's a fireman in the night no i was talking specifically about the players that Bob Cousy played against in the 1950s. Okay, this is different. In the 1950s, nearly every professional athlete in every sport—

Was white. Don't get me started on the quota. Talk to us about the Utah Jazz, go. No, don't get me started on this. But every professional athlete—not every professional, but most professional athletes had a summer job. They didn't train year-round like we did. They literally were plumbers and firemen and welders and farmers. Oh, I don't know.

So it was a matter of fact that he was playing against. Yeah, but you also say that I think the implication is they're less athletic, they're less good. Well, they were less good in the 1950s. But that's just a matter of what they got paid and they had to be. They weren't like, hey, I want to be a plumber and I'll play basketball on the side. You know what I mean? Like they're very good basketball players who had to make ends meet, as was Bob Cousy.

I can absolutely. I've been so consistent on this. And yet people are like, you trash prior generations. I've been consistent on this. But Bob Cousy. The first time I ever commented on any of this was right after the top 75 list came out. Yeah, and you were pissed that fucking Dwight Howard wasn't on it. And all I said was, we should absolutely celebrate the greatest players in every era.

What they accomplished, who they were as players. We should celebrate that. But you can't tell me that Dolph Shays was a better basketball player than Tracy McGrady or Kyrie Irving or Klay Thompson or Dwight Howard. It's not based in any sort of fact. Now, relative to the competition, you could make an argument, right? Relative to the competition, which is what I've been consistent on. Celebrate what players were able to do in their era. So I get knocked for, you know, I trashed Larry Bird. Dominique Wilkins has been on like 19 different podcasts talking about how stupid I am for saying that Larry Bird is a top 10 player of all time and one of the greatest shooters ever.

But objectively, he's not a top five three-point shooter. He's just not. And the argument against that is, oh, well, if he had played in today's era, he would be a top five. What? That doesn't even make sense. That's not based in reality or fact.

Wait a minute, but was there a three-point line early in his career? Three-point line was 1979, 1980, I believe, was the first year of the three-point line. Chris Ford made the first three-pointer ever. But when does he come in the league, Bird? He was the class of 79, wasn't he? Okay, so right, so he's in it. So the game is a little different.

But you're saying the data doesn't show that he's a top three-point shooter. Yeah, he shot like three a game or something. Yeah, I mean, 37% for his career. It was a different game. Draymond Green just passed him in the all a top three-point shooter. Yeah, he shot like three a game or something. Yeah, I mean, 37% for his career. Draymond Green just passed him in the all-time three-point list. In total three-point, yeah. I believe Richard Jefferson is right above him, too. I'm going to say Richard Jefferson's one of the best three-point shooters. So what was Larry Bird good at?

Larry Bird was one of the greatest players ever. Yeah. He was a great shooter, first of all. He was a great shooter. Yeah. all, he was a great shooter. Yeah. Incredible passer. Yeah. Insane passer.

He's also, to me, like when I watch, because I watch full games and then I watch, of course, I watch the highlight montage that we all watch. I love watching full games on YouTube. It's one of the greatest gifts ever of YouTube. Yeah. But he's another guy who like defied a definition to me. Yeah. He defied a definition. Yeah. Jordan defied a definition. Yeah. But he's another guy who defied a definition to me. Yeah. He defied a definition.

Yeah. Jordan defied a definition. Yeah. He defied a definition. They're transcendent players. Yeah. Transcendent. That's how I look at him.

But not a good three-point shooter. No, he was a good three-point shooter. But one of the best shooters ever? But Mad Dog that day said to me, but Larry Bird won a three-point contest. I'm like, are you serious? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's been a lot of guys that have won three-point shooter. But one of the best shooters ever? But Mad Dog that day said to me, but Larry Bird won a three-point contest. I'm like, are you serious? There's been a lot of guys that have won three-point contests. Did you ever win three-point contests? Nah, I fucking never made it past the first round. Wait, why?

Well, the first year... The first year I shot... Because the rack is not on the right side. if you had the rack on the right side what drives me crazy though is like yeah you again like you need people talking to you while you're shooting that's the problem and then there's like backs yeah you have you have like cameras in the arenas now yeah track everything i can tell you that uh when binyama's release point is at 9.4 feet i can tell you that lebron james this year on catch and shoot threes his right shoulder is turned six degrees more to

the right so he's more square you would know three's very well so my point is are you a catch and shoot i was for like no of course i was but i was also one of the top off the dribble jump shooters in the nba i knew that i knew that was one of the best mid-range shooters in the NBA for years. It wasn't just like, when people say spot up, I'm like, I didn't even practice spot up three. Yeah, you didn't even practice it. No, I didn't practice spot up three. I didn't practice it. Why would I?

Why would he? Why would he? He's putting it on the floor. What am I getting? What am I getting this? He's putting it on the floor. No, I'm moving. I'm moving.

Also moving, dickhead. Yeah. Come on, bro. Yeah, dude. You see how these Browns try to fucking take us down,head. Yeah. Come on, bro. Yeah, dude. You see how these Browns try to fucking take us down, man? It's fucked up, bro. You don't have to take this. I think this is what your senior thesis was about, actually, is you not being...

Yo, did you ever cross anybody up in the league? Is there anybody that you put on the floor? On the floor? No. I mean, I had one on LeBron. You crossed him up? Yeah, but I missed the shot, so it doesn't count. Damn. Hold on. You went right... No, Steph was off a jab step, though. I mean, I had one on LeBron. You crossed him up? Yeah, but I missed the shot, so it doesn't count. Damn.

Hold on. You went right. No, Steph was off a jab step, though. I mean. That was like a. You hit the deck? Yeah. You made Steph hit the deck?

Yeah. Is this early ankle Steph or late ankle Steph? No, this was game seven of the 2014 playoffs. Jab step. That one hurt a lot. No, so like he was in help. Yeah. Chris swung it to me, and the angle he closed out on me yeah i would always when especially on the left side so i get to my right hand when

guys would close out that way i would i would drive against the closeout i would drive against the closeout wait do we have oh there we go oh my god look at this Hold on Hold on Wait here we go Bye Dropped him That one hurt me I'm not sure I'm not sure how he fell though That one hurt me

It was not like a special move That was the most basic move ever Hold on Hold on But you faked what I didn't fake I just drove away from his His body like angle

But because he was terrified Of you putting it on the floor Right No he was trying Let's watch it on the floor, right? Let's watch that again, dude. Yeah, let's watch that again. Because he read the scouting report, he's like... He's a catch-and-shoot guy. He's a catch-and-shoot guy.

That is fucked up that they use that against us. They really do. Okay, so you drop, you put Steph in the dirt. You cross the fuck out of LeBron. I don't know. Who do you not take down?

Why do you try to take down this generation's heroes? You try to take the last generation's heroes. I'm not taking anyone down. Bro, Larry Bird, you said couldn't hold your jock straight. You said Steph is on the ground when he plays D against you.

Like there's, there's obviously there's, you know, there's some ego here. You know? Yeah. You sent Mark the clip before the pod. You're like, yo, bring this up randomly. I don't know why you texted me that. It's a Google YouTube right now. It's from our town.

I think Steph killed the white boy shooter. I think that i think that area because that used to be us yeah except for me i never was a shooter i would go to the bathroom explain that further all right so back in the day and i know sounds crazy but whenever there was a white boy on the court we would just assume he's a shooter and most of the time they weren't a shooter yeah and so now that he's turned the game into shooting everybody's's a shooter now. So it's like, he took away the one thing I had left. He took away the one thing. He took away our superpowers.

Him making shooting cool made black people be like, oh, I'll shoot too. And now, what place is there for you guys? You know what I mean? They're taking your jobs, dude. They really are.

Sorry. That's because you dropped them. He's like, oh yeah? So what should we take back? What should we take back? Deceleration. We're good at that. Oh, yeah.

We don't have acceleration. We just had a 15-minute conversation on the part of, you know, the coolest thing to play is slow down. That Luca guy is really good at getting slow out there on the court. Dude. So good. But being out there on the court. Dude. So good. But being slow is the new fast. Yeah, it's the new fast.

It's the new fast. It is the new fast. If you can do it like Luka, then it's cool. But, like, you can't. But also, don't you think that Luka, like, gets away with stuff because he's so charming with the female refs? I've never noticed that. Oh, you didn't know? There's a great clip of him.

Oh, he's just so suave, dude. He's got that Balkan suave. I love that what you put in the Google bar was Luca Riz. I'm not my brain. But it's the first video, right? Gen Z Google. It's the first. Look at this.

Look at him Riz this girl up. She can't even control herself. Look at this. Oh, him riz this girl up. She can't even control herself. Look at this. Oh, what's up, shawty? Oh, yes, I fell. Oh. Oh. That's what we can take back, flirting.

Yeah. We're good at flirting. Yeah, we can take that back. Yeah. White guys are the best at flirting. I mean, you saw his co-host the other day on a bench, but... Wait, what happened? What happened?

Why are they giving LeBron so much? LeBron can't even be friendly with the owner of the team he's on without everybody making a big deal of it. It's a shame. That's... What do you call that? Sexism. Yeah.

That's sexism. You know what I realized just coming on the show? What is that? You guys are here. You guys are here for the right reason. You're here to just break down fucked up institutional barriers. Yeah. Just like you, dude. You would do it through rap.

We do it through podcasting, man. We're trying to break the ceiling, bro. We're allies. Exactly. We're one of two. You're not late to practice. You are an ally. What were you doing? Why were you late to practice. You are an ally. What were you doing?

Why were you late to practice? What do you think that was about? You were on CPT? What is that? Shut up. That was great. They don't teach you that at Duke, bro. That was great.

CPT? Chinese people time? No, no, no. Alex is the one who can only tell you. Color people time. We're known to be a little late. Indians are too. We call it IST, which is weird. Indian Standard Time.

But white people, we always show up on time. You were 15 minutes early. That is true. You got here before me? I was 19 minutes early. I was 19 minutes early. I was 19 minutes early. You know what's's crazy he's supposed to be 30 minutes early but cpd nah he was later to meet up i'm snitching sorry all right guys we're gonna take a break for a second because some of y'all want to be chef extraordinaires okay i don't know if you're

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unless you win. That's important. So I'm going to repeat it. Their fee is free unless you win. So for more information, go to forthepeople.com slash flagrant or dial pound law. That's pound 529 from your cell phone. That is forthepeople.com slash flagrant or pound law, pound 529 from your cell. This is a paid advertisement, but that don't mean I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Let's get back to the show. Okay. So you're going into the NBA going, I know. How long do you think your career is going to be? I know you're learning Italian. You're like, I might play overseas, but you get drafted. How long do you think you're going to play one? And two, are you just thinking about, okay, this is my chance to make generational wealth. And then I'm out of here. Are you going, I'm winning an NBA championship. What is going

through your mind when you go to Orlando? Um, the first thing was like, can I get on the court? Which that took a while. So there's a process. I mean this, there's a process for every NBA player. It was like, can I get on the court? Can I get playing time? Can I like show that I'm good? Can I get paid? And a lot of times, for me, early in my career, I played on the Greater Orlando team. It was about winning a championship. I played against the Lakers in 2009,

which was my third year. I was still on my rookie contract. In terms of longevity, I stayed four years. So I turned 22 right after the draft. So I played the four years. I'm 26 in 2010, first time being a free agent. And I really thought I was going to get a five-year deal from Boston for the full mid-level. Were you guys talking? No, no.

I did not think that. But I played well against them two straight years in the playoffs. So they're like, okay, we won this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Perk gets hurt in game six of the finals against the Lakers. So they used the mid-level on Jermaine O'Neal because Perk was going to be out that season. And so I sat there for 10 days and I had to wait on LeBron.

So a bunch of guys signed. And then there was like a few teams that still had cap space that were waiting on LeBron. Milwaukee. Chicago was one of them. So I signed with Chicago, but it was a three-year deal. And I remember thinking at the time like, all right, 29, maybe I could re-up. But the but it was a three-year deal and i remember thinking at the time like all right 29 maybe i could re-up but the reason i wanted a five-year deal because i was

thinking 31 i'm i'm an undersized shooting guard with a negative wingspan i'm like likely this is going to be my last real contract so you're already looking at yeah and then mortality and then i made more money in my last four years than i did in my first 11 years okay so take us through that what is the you're going from orlando i thought you go orlando milwaukee they uh i was a restricted free agent so i'm on my honeymoon so i spent 10 days stressing out on my honeymoon i finally signed with chicago i'm in florence i signed with chicago i've got to wait um we then go to barcelona and the entire we didn't even like, we didn't do shit in Barcelona, but walk around and talk. Cause we were like, are we going to Chicago? We don't know any Chicago. Should we, should we move to Chicago? Should we live in

Chicago? Should we have an off season home? Should we like, what do we do? Like we need a home base. Like it was just like this really uncertain period. So I didn't really even enjoy Barcelona to be honest with you and then the last day there orlando had seven days to match yeah so on the seventh day they said we're matching the contract you have to go back right so i then went back to orlando the big thing for me was my last year in orlando was our sort of our rebuild dwight left got traded to la stan stan was let go but you're hooping they bring bring in Jacques Fon, and Jacques came to me in preseason,

and he's like, I don't want you to start, because if you start, it's you, Aflalo, and Jameer. We're super undersized. We're going to start more heartless. So you're going to come off the bench, but I want you to be my Ginobili. I'm going to literally, it was the first time in my career,

where it was like, we're going to run plays through you. When you're on the court, we're running offense through you. So I play well, and that was like, to me, that was the turning point in my career. So we're gonna run plays through you when you're on the court we're running offense through you so i play well and that was like to me that was the turning point of my career so i signed with la and the the summer after my first year in la i'm season ends i'm 29 i'm getting ready to turn 30 i'm getting ready to have my first kid steve nash lived like two blocks from me so i keep running into him and i didn't really know steve but he was always super kind to me and i one day i ran into him and i was like hey can i can i have coffee with you so we had went and had coffee and i just said to him dude you're one of the few guys at

that point that had gotten better in their 30s he was an all-star in dallas like it wasn't like he was a bad but he when he went to phoenix he better in his 30s. Yeah, it was very Jalen Brunson-like. And he gave me some advice. What did he say? Shorter and harder. You don't need to shoot 800 shots. I know. I know what you're going to say.

Can you not be a child for five seconds? He cannot. What do you mean? Dude, I didn't do anything. You know, what? Okay, I didn't do anything. You know, what? Okay, I'll reword that for you. The two white basketball players, what's the best thing, short and hard?

Be more efficient in your training. Meaning like, and I'd always worked and I'd always worked in my game, but it wasn't about volume. It was about every specific thing that you were going to do on a basketball court, do it at game speed. And you don't need 20 reps.

Do 10 perfect reps. So my workouts ended up being the same amount of time, hour to an hour and 15 on the court every day. But they were more taxing. Is that a better word for you? Yes. They were more taxing. Thank you.

Okay. So you started working out- I really feel there's a Jewish side. Yeah. More taxing. you started working out his jewish side yeah more taxing you started you started working out harder or you have more taxing workouts and you found that that benefited you more you weren't like tired for the games you didn't feel like your body would be i actually i ran like ran like on a track yeah or like i would go run like five miles at a specific speed to like build a base level heart rate. I did that throughout my twenties. By the time I got to like 30, 31 and all my off season workouts, I, my basketball workout was so difficult

that I didn't need to supplement it as much. Now, two weeks before the training camp started, I would go find a turf field or I'd go find a track and I would get, I would do those cardio workouts. But my basketball workouts were so difficult that like by the end of it I've lost five pounds in water weight I've built up my cardio and so being able to like play and move at that speed all the time that was essentially what created an advantage for me okay so you go to the Clippers you're already balling before you go to the Clippers though you're already showing the league that you can score yeah Dr. Rivers didn't save my career if that's what you're asking me I wasn't gonna ask it but it's funny okay

what's up with you and Pat Bev going at it our boy Pat Bev my guy man okay good that's my guy I don't know okay so so you go there you're already hooping you go there do they bring you there specifically for that is this just a good match do you get a conversation where they're like hey we see what you can do you're gonna get to get a lot of touches here and make it happen? Well, I get traded at the end of my last year. My contract is expiring. They trade me for Tobias Harris, who was a young player at the time on Milwaukee,

who wasn't playing a lot. So I go to Milwaukee. We lose in the first round to the Miami Heat. And I thought I was going to go back to Milwaukee. And by the time it got like three, typically like the team, your incumbent team can have some contact with you right before free agency. They can, you know, it's not like a full negotiation, but they'll like, they'll check in with you or whatever. So it's like crickets for like two months. And I'm like, okay, Milwaukee's

not going to happen. So my agent calls me in, I was on vacation for my birthday anniversary i'm in napa my agent calls me he's like can you be in la in two days um the t-wolves and the pistons want to meet with you so i'm like okay so i'm gonna meet with flip i'm gonna meet with joe dumars so we we decided to rent a car we rented and all they had at the time was like this two-door nissan nice yeah it was great drove literally it's my first time doing that drive yeah all the way from napa all the way to la we made stops in big sur we made stops in santa barbara it was awesome get to la i meet with flip i meet with joe flip offers a contract and on our way down there uh chris rivers doc's wife at the time had texted texted Chelsea because Chelsea had taught her in Pilates. She said, can JJ have Doc's number?

So Doc reaches out that night when free agency starts. Can you have dinner tomorrow? So I've now met with the Pistons and the Wolves. I go have dinner with Doc. And at that dinner, he said, I think you've been used wrong. I want to use you like Ray Allen. Now, I don't know if that was a recruiting pitch because i had talked a lot and ray knows this so i just had him on my podcast ray knows this like

ray was the guy i wanted to be i wanted to be ray allen i didn't want to be a white shooter i wanted to be ray early ray or late ray early Early Ray. JJ? Early Ray. JJ. I know. JJ. He was dunking on people. I know. Yeah. I'll never forget in high school

that when they would do like the rankings, you know, and they would give comps for players. Like my comp, you know, was always like a catch and shoot guy. Yeah. One time. You got.

I got Ray Allen as my comp. Wow. And it was like a dream come true. I was like, I've made it. Wow. I've made it've made it ray is my comp anyway so when i went to la like i got all the boston stuff that doc ran for ray i got all that shit yeah it was great and he was he was forthcoming with this he was like listen we really want you to cook go out there shoot but i didn't even know i was going to start like that's the thing like i remember uh first day of training camp we went to san diego that year and jamal crawford was still there right and willie green had started the year before they'd used jamal as like a bench player or not six man whatever and i remember having a conversation with jamal i was like do you know who's

gonna start he's like no i don't know you asked jamal yeah so then i go to t lou who was an artist at the time i go to t lou and i'm like i was like who's who's starting who's starting like i want to have some like headspace as i go into my first practice with the clippers and he looked at me and he goes you motherfucker no like that and i was like okay so that was like a big i mean i did that and i was there an ego issue with jamal no he was with fam. He's the man. No. Him and I are, yeah. Also, I love him coming off the bench.

Yeah, that's what I think he knew. Just give him the ball. It's great because Doc also liked having all bench, at the time at least, had liked having all bench units. Yeah. So Jamal just got to cook when he was out there. Did you ever try, like in practice,

just try to stay in front of him? Jamal and I will never forget this one practice. It was probably Glenn Davis was there. Shout out to Glenn. I think he's doing porn. Yeah, he is. Filming. Yeah, filming.

Filming it for now. That's how it starts. But we were working on like some player we were playing against was going to play ISO. So, you know, I'm on the starting team. Jamal's on the second unit. So Jamal gets to be the ISO guy.

And he like scored on me once and I like, Jamal carried the ball. Let's be honest. So Jamal carried the ball. The hate. So then like, by the way, so he scored on me once.

So everybody's like fucking gassing him up, gassing him up. And then, so then I get a couple of stops or whatever. And I'm'm like yeah all right now it's my turn like give me the ball yeah so i'm like kind of going to him and i score a couple times talking shit how do you score on yeah who would pass you across i crossed him over hit a little floater in the lane like that sort of thing come on so it's like literally a we're on the right quadrant high right quadrant everybody's cleared out we're just like dancing yeah we don't you don't gotta lie here yeah

anyways baby baby gassed me up after practice yeah what he said he's like yo he can't hold Everybody's cleared out. We're just like dancing. Yeah, you don't got to lie here. Yeah. Anyways, baby gassed me up after practice. Yeah, what he said, he's like, yo, he can't hold you. No, really. He can't hold you. Jamal and I never once had a rivalry. Really? No, from day one. He's like the greatest teammate.

He's the man. He's the man. I've heard he's like, he takes incredible care of his body. Greatest teammate. Super smart guy. Doesn't smoke, doesn't drink. Yeah. Yeah, gets to sleep.. Doesn't drink. Yeah. Yeah. Gets to sleep.

Handles the basketball. Unbelievable. Never done a ball handling drill in his life. Get the fuck out of here. Wow. That's what he claims. So a guy like that, what does he just have? Like incredibly fast wrists or whatever that is?

Or it's just super long? He can get to the ball. So he's got it on a string. I think that's part of it with Kyrie too. Really? I don't know his wingspan relative to like his body. Like everybody's shaped different. I remember DeAndre Jordan, I'm like, dude, you have no torso.

He's all legs. No torso. He's all legs. Vince Carter and I, Vince is like 6'6". I'm like 6'4". So if Vince Carter and I sat next to each other like this, I'm like two inches taller than him. Oh, he's all legs too.

He's all arms and legs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't and i i don't know i feel like maybe i don't know his wingspan but i feel like kairi's like you know anatomically is just like built so that he can handle the ball yeah he's obviously worked at it too yeah and just unbelievable touch like finishing ability what is that what do you think that would be touch to describe it like technically yeah did you oh here's a better question did you think you had good touch prolific shooter but did you think you had good touch around the rim a few years where my float game was pretty good okay um my finishing numbers were pretty good like prime of my career um i had a shoulder issue in summer of 2016 um it was right after season i led league in three

point shooting that year i used to do the walk away you know the steph walk away where you shoot like that year i had a few of those where like i'd shoot and i'd turn around up court it felt good i'm not gonna lie it felt pretty good but we go to my wife and i went to santa barbara after after the season and i've got i've got a horrible soon- be one year old and i'm throwing them in the pool and i like fucked my shoulder up i got an mri like there was nothing like structurally wrong structurally wrong with it the rest of my career my shoulder was fucked up so you know how mark off faults when he shoots his shoulder goes like this yeah so the rest of my career i did that it really actually affected me the most on floaters and layups like even i coach my kids and i'll be demonstrating a drill

and like sometimes like i'll go shoot an uncontested right-handed layup and i'll miss it because my shoulder just like i can't activate my scapula correctly i have a bad scapula movement yeah same exact thing yeah and you make up for it by just moving your entire shoulder instead yeah instead of doing this rotation yeah i used to when i when i would shoot free throws at the end of my career so normally i would just shoot free throws like this right but at the end of my career i had to put the ball out and keep your shoulder down activate my otherwise this thing would come up and i'd be shooting like this okay so what happens with the three-point shooting then i compensated how i'd sometimes shoot like that and then i just compensate for the angle of my

shot what does that mean well again i wasn't a catch-and-shoot guy. Spot on. On the move. You're not actually shooting at a moving target, but you are. So if you're coming off a pin, or I remember there was one shot I made, you can pull it up if you want.

I'll go on the text. I'll go on the text. White boy. I'll find it on the text. I'll go on the text. White boy. I'll find it on the text. There was one shot I made. We were playing. It was LeBron's first year in L.A. So it was my second year in Philly.

We were playing LeBron on like a Sunday ABC game. Ben gets a long rebound. I'm over in the right corner in front of their bench. And I'm on a dead sprint to the right corner. Ben's doing his little thing, and he throws it to me, and I'm on a dead sprint, and I look down to make sure I'm inbounds. I catch the ball, kind of turn all in one motion, and I shoot it behind the backboard.

And the shot did not feel good because my shoulder did the thing. It wasn't like I would occasionally get to shoot a pure shot where my shoulder didn't do it, but my shoulder did the thing it wasn't like i would occasionally get to shoot a pure shot where like my shoulder didn't do it but my shoulder did the thing so i'm like behind the backboard reggie bullock fouled me it was a four-point play he's in my lap and so i'm like literally like all right i've got to you know in the split second i'm like i gotta shoot it and point at that moving target and the ball went in and i turned to t.j mcconnell and i go that was tough like that and i still think to this day that was the greatest shot i ever made in my life okay what would we put in to get this shot i don't know who are you playing lakers jj reddick four point play lakers and uh i had 21 points that game

wait i still don't understand what you're doing to compensate for the shot so shoulder goes up. If it happened? Yeah. My point is, if it happened, which it did, no, that's a different one. That's, you know, that's just a normal four-point play. Wait, here's the question. I see why they hate you.

I see why they hate you. She was justified. I thought it was wrong until right now. Actually, while we're pulling this up, basketball players have crazy... Is that all basketball players have recall like that? I've always heard LeBron remember any play from any time in his career.

What about Bill Russell, too? A lot of players do. A lot of players do. What do you attribute that to? Someone... Can you do this with stories your wife tells you? I remember a lot of players do. What do you attribute that to? So, someone... Can you do this with stories your wife tells you? When I first... I remember a lot of shit.

Really? Yeah, I remember a lot of shit. Yeah, that's it right here. Let's go, let's go. Is it right here? Oh. Simmons passed it to you. Bang.

Great shot. That's ridiculous. Wait a minute, hold on. But I don't see your shoulder coming up. Go back, go back, go back. If you... I can get the zoom in. Oh, look right there. It's up. It up it's oh oh you're saying you're up here before you even bring your arm up

yep yep and then oh wow i'm curious with the team aware of this there oh i agree oh wow it is look at activation i do it all no but oh i see it yeah yeah yeah look at it look at it yeah you can see the slant that's not how you should shoot a basketball. Yeah. But did you hide it because... I wouldn't hide it because I shot 43% from three. So it works. So it helps you. It's kind of a rookie of the year situation.

It's kind of a... Yeah. The injury makes it better. Rookie of the year, bro. This is brilliant. So why didn't you try to do more catch and shoots? Because that was actually really good. No.

It seems like you're really good at it. No, I did a lot of catch and shoots. I was a good catch and shoot player. It's funny you say that. Yeah. The way you said it, though, it was like spot on. It's like he called you a honky.

I was going to say the recall thing. So when I first started calling games. Like when you recall when I called you a catch and shoot. Yeah. When I first started calling games i remember i had a warriors game and we were in the green room and uh we were talking about my recall so raymond who's their head of pr yeah and steve kerr walk in and uh whoever was i think it was ryan ruka but he was like hey steve do you have recall he's oh yeah i recall yeah i'm getting

older now blah blah blah he's like apparently jj has crazy recall so raymond's in the room i've called 12 warriors games since then every single time he has a question for me about a specific game so i'm like 11 for 11 no wow comes to me on saturday night and he's like what's the biggest lead your team has ever lost and and to lose a game and i was like i think it was the lockout year and he's like do you remember who anything about it the opponent the thing and i said i i can't and it was the first time i didn't wow but then once he said the game i was like were you right about lockout year it was a lockout year the boston celtics each one more came off the bench had five threes avery bradley just complete we were up like 24 and we lost yeah i remember the game so what do you attribute that to because it seems like a thing a lot of maybe pro athletes but nba in particular have is that something that helps

you as a pro like what i just don't know where it comes from um if i could turn my brain off i would uh it's not necessarily like it's not a good thing yeah it's not a good thing i think a lot of room today at first take and kimberly martin who does nfl i didn't even know i was doing it and she was like what is going on in your brain i've met like what is that face you're making what is going on you're staring at her feet no i was literally i was looking out the window i was looking at the fucking East River right like this She's like what's going on in your brain? And I had had one of my friends that still plays in the NBA and said I want to come stay with you this summer and Work on some catch-and-shoot stuff, and I was literally going through the drills

What did he want to work with you this summer like movement shooting movement shooting oh I was kidding to work with you this summer? Like movement shooting, movement shooting. Not spot up shooting. Oh. I'll do that on the show. Okay, okay. I want you to know I was kidding and I was trying to jab you. But you hit a nerve. It's confirming. Your brain is just like this.

So like, you know, it's a good thing but then it's like you're constantly being reminded of every, like, I'll have shit,

and I'll like literally some days I'll be like, man, that one shot. No. Game five against the Boston Celtics in 2018. If I make be like man that one shot no game five against the boston celtics in 2018 if i make that shot we probably win game five we go back to philly maybe we force a game seven like how open were you what how open were you i was wide open yeah t.j mcconnell drove baseline i was on the left wing they helped on him we had a cut

maybe side's been on the pass in defense but and my shoulder did the thing and my shoulder did and i was short damn yeah yeah but do you overthink sometimes like because you're always on constantly like calculating does that ever happen in game this is occasionally but no i i don't occasionally want to compare that but there's a similar comic too fast that's the thing i love it happens on the golf course right that's the thing the golf course for sure it's all static sport basketball's freedom yeah it's dynamic it's no it's freedom from your brain yeah you need to be present every single second of the day because you're slow and white so So, you know what I mean?

Like in high school, you could check out. You could think about all these different things. But no, no. Remember Coach Collins. Chris Collins came to a high school game. I committed to Duke at this point. Came to a game. And I had 28 points, 12 rebounds.

Recall, dude. And he called me after the game. We played Salem. And he called me after the game. And he's like, bro, I was so disappointed in your performance tonight there were so many possessions that you took off so your point yeah in high school it was I could go get 28 and 12 but the league is perfect for you because for what is it an hour a night two hours a night your brain actually shuts off yeah I think people feel that way about like surfing, definitely paddle, boxing.

As a comic, crowd work. I have a similar, my brain doesn't shut off. It's not always a good thing. I can't sleep a lot. My brain is just going. But part of the reason I think I'm good at crowd work

is my brain just gets to listen and react. I don't have any time to overthink anything. What do you say? What's a clever response? That's it. First take is like that for me.

Yeah. Gotta stay in the moment. It's live. live yeah it's live yeah you're just in the moment i remember calling games is like that too oh yeah games for sure calling games is the hardest thing yeah it's the hardest why it's because like even first take you have the you have the um the topics ahead of time you can prepare i learned my first year i was like i gotta be on every production call so i i every time i'm, I got to be on every production call. So every time I'm on first take, I get on the production call at 7.30 in the morning, do the production call,

then take my kids to school, come back home, get ready, go. So I know ahead of time exactly what we're going to talk about. Now sometimes, Mad Dog may say something, Stephen A may say something

that you react to in real time, but you're prepared. A game, I don't know what's going to happen in the game and i've got to talk about it in a way that's not repetitive or redundant it's not like okay i know yokich is going to get post-ups well i can't just keep saying he's posting up so you have to think like on the fly all the time about what's happening and how you want to say it plus i've worked a lot of three-person booths. So last year, this year,

I worked a lot with RJ. Now I'm working with Doris and Mike. And that is a challenge. It's more of a challenge? Versus a two-person booth. Really? Because probably there's less time to talk. You have to do everything quicker.

Like explaining things that could take, you have unlimited time here. The game is so fast now too. The game is, like, it's not the NFL. It's not baseball. Yeah. Where there's 15 seconds between a pitch. Or NFL where you have two different replays after every single play.

Real quick, what are they saying your responsibility is in the booth? Celebrate the game. It's about the game. But they're not saying that you have to do play-by-play. That's Mike Breen, Hall of Famer. Exactly. So they're basically, you're doing color commentary color commentary right exactly so what does that exactly mean are you describing what that player is feeling in the moment what play they should do

why they did that play hopefully it hopefully it's a mix of technical and conversation got it um you know particularly in a in like a three-person booth you you want to have like chemistry with the people when there's camaraderie it's awesome for sure yeah um so then the other responsibility a lot of times is is timeouts going to timeout they typically you get one or two replays um and then something called pod busters which are essentially uh within a quarter at the end of a quarter they may show like a two or three play highlight package of lebron scoring in transition or whatever it may be um porzingis spotting up from three right and you have to sort of cover that but the play-by-play i mean that's like a skill that you have to go to school for practice yeah it's like i didn't practice to be a color no no totally i'm just wondering what they say your

responsibility it's like what do the producers when they hire you for it say that you have to bring to the broadcast uh my insight to basketball got it yeah got it yeah yeah yeah i remember my boss said to me he was like as much as you can share, share. But you have to do it in a way, something called laying out. Yeah. You have to be able to lay out too, which means laying out means you shut the fuck up. So like Tony Romo at the end of the Super Bowl didn't lay out. He didn't let Jim Nance set the stage, right?

Yeah. Apparently, I heard a few people talking about this. It's a game-winning play in the Super Bowl. The announcer makes one line and then you just let the crowd speak. Yes.

The noise. And Tony Romo started talking. Even after a big moment. So that was the one piece of advice I got. So I never called a game. I begged my first year

at ESPN. I was like, can I please call a game? Can I please call a game? So they were like, fine, you can call Philly, New York, and I think it was

New York, Miamiami or philly miami so my first two games were regular season games in march and the only piece of advice they said was like you just got to lay out sometimes don't over talk joel mb texted me after the first game he's like dude you didn't speak in the first quarter i'm curious if one of my favorite young up-and-coming players makes it to the league, how would you pronounce his name? It's a good thing that you don't announce football, huh? Yeah, but I'm just saying. You want another water?

Did you see this guy? Did you see this story? I know. This poor guy, right? We're not going to see that name in any of your poems, are we? Okay. Have you ever had a player get mad for your commentary? Yeah. These are your friends, your contemporaries what do you mean by that like you say something and you're like oh he did this

thing wrong and someone hits you up and they're like no that's not what happened i did it differently you you didn't see it properly um not on a game on some commentary yeah yeah yeah and how do you handle that i just talk to them like we're friends and then they understand well no so i try to understand them right i try to understand them yeah it's happened it's happened a few times i can think of two off the top of my head for example can you share no private stuff ever been threatened no no no ever been threatened on the court uh yeah where um kg oh kg kg came at me a few times wait what'd he say i don't remember exactly what he said so in 09 i didn't play a lot at the time and so uh courtney lee broke his face dwight howard like hit him yeah teammates yeah hit him with the double he's a

starter so game six against philly closeout game in Philly. I start, play well. So we then play the defending champs, Boston Celtics. And Stan comes to me. He's like, you're going to chase Ray Allen for the next however many games. He's like, you have no help responsibilities. Just chase Ray. Real quick, what's that like?

This is Ray. That's your guy. Hell. Okay. Okay. But fucking cool, probably. It was the coolest thing ever. Yeah.

Okay, so you're chasing him so i'm chasing him so anyways kg was hurt that series yeah so he's on the bench and but he's still kg you know what i mean he's still animated talking and it was like every time i would go by their bench he's got a comment you know and then i remember one time we were playing him when he was back in minnesota this was like 2015 ish whatever i was with the clippers and he he tried me like you know what i mean he tried to get me going try to get me to respond to something and i didn't and then i hit a big shot and he told sam cassell after that game he was like yeah i knew that white boy was gonna hit something i knew i had to try to get him out of the game i mean it's kg man so the finals that year you make it you play the lakers

it's kobe yeah i mean it's disrespectful he's probably thinking on some level oh i got to avoid the celtics who beat me last year kg was hurt what's that whole situation like you're playing the finals the first time you're're playing Kobe. What is that like? It was interesting. So I started seven straight playoff games. And then we played Cleveland in the conference championship. I didn't play in game one. I played nine minutes in the second quarter, had seven points.

Did not play any of the other games. So go into the finals, did not play. Why though? In game one, it's a blowout. I get it at the end. And the Lakers filled it and take his starters off. So Kobe's still out there. So I'm guarding him at the end of this game.

And I hit a three and I think I got like, I'm going to be not generous, but factual here. I think I got two stops against Kobe late in the fourth quarter. They're going to win the game. Two stops. But it was like, I battled them. You know what I mean? Felt good about it.

So then I'm like, oh, so then I played in game two. We lose. We go down 2-0. I don't play in game three. Game four, I play a lot. Game five, I don't play until the end of the game in the fourth quarter. So it's a very like up and down thing i always tell people

this it wasn't like a highlight because we lost and it fucking hurt so bad and it was the closest i ever got but truthfully like the high point of my career was getting to guard i guarded kobe bryant yeah in the nba finals yeah there's like you know i have multiple pictures saved of like me and him there are pictures of him and i'm in the background but it's like that's something that you know that's how you're my grandkids for sure greatest player you've ever played against you're gonna put you're gonna put it there i'm really curious. He's the greatest player I ever guarded.

I had to guard. I didn't have to guard LeBron. I didn't necessarily have to guard Steph. But those three guys. And I'll put KD in there too. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow.

Those are the four. And did you feel like when you were going up against him, outside of natural gifts uh extreme preparation did you feel like he just knew what was happening on the floor at all points in time yeah i'll i've told this story once before so my senior year of college was the first year that they did a pool for usa basketball they they they do this now all the time. They say there's 40 names or 25 names, whatever it is, that are being considered for these 12 roster spots. At the time, it was the 06, it was World Championships.

So me and Adam Morrison get named as pool players. That first summer, I had a herniated disc at L5-S1, so I didn't do Summer League, I didn't do USA Basketball, but I got to go out and watch. The next summer, because they didn't win, they had to qualify. So this was like a 12-day training camp prior to qualifying. So I got to spend time around everybody.

Two stories from that. Number one, first day I get there, I land at whatever, noon Vegas time. I hit up Coach Collins and Coach Wojo who were helping Coach K out. And I said, I need to get in the gym. So I get in the gym. Coach Dawkins comes. He looks haggard. Like he looks exhausted. I'm like, JD, what the fuck's going on? He's like, Kobe, man. He had me in

here at 6 a.m. He was in here for three hours. He was working on the counter to the counter to the counter. And he had to make 10 shots in a row. Like this was the type of dude. All those stories about Kobe being a psycho worker, they're all true yeah so that was cool end of the first practice comes and kobe is like hey do you want to shoot and i'm like yeah yeah i'll shoot and at the time i'm thinking he wants to shoot with me because he's being a good guy yeah and then we shoot like 15 minutes into it i realize he's watching how i shoot so watching how i'm catch the ball watching my footwork wow he's trying to pick something up and i'm not saying like i've oh he's picking it up but he was just always trying to learn he was always trying to get oh i was

thinking to defend you i thought he was trying to i thought he's trying to demoralize you like you think you could shoot he was watching no he was watching my form yeah i had you know a reputation from duke like he was literally watching to try and pick something up. And do you think that he caught anything? No, probably not. Probably not. I wasn't that good. I wasn't that good.

One of my favorite parts of the, what is it, the Redeem Team documentary is when everybody's talking about, Kobe told everybody, we're up at six in the morning. Everybody's like, so we started getting up at 6 in the morning. We're working out. And then it cuts to Melo and he goes, I'll be honest, I ain't waking up at 6 in the morning. Bosh and D-Wade have told the story where they all go out.

They all go out. They come back. They get back to the hotel. Kobe's like, they're back at 6 a.m. He's at the breakfast table with ice on his knees because he just got done working out yeah this fucking psycho shit are there any are there any people that can excel in the nba at that level without an extreme work ethic no you just can't do it no right no so like explain what bron and i were bron and i were talking about this on episode one of our show, Mind the Game. Also, if you haven't watched the game. No, no.

Let me plug. It literally is because we said it the other day. If you haven't watched it, it is the best podcast out right now. If you are a casual fan of basketball, you will be obsessed. And if you're obsessed with basketball, forget this is everything you want. They're not trying to water down the game. Yeah. well forget this is everything you want they're not trying to water down the game yeah there are two basketball nerds geeking out over basketball and don't give a flying fuck if you understand it

or not and it actually like what you did in the beginning where you explained a few of the plays i thought that was really important and then bringing it out during it was very helpful you get the graphics because i showing replay i saw a social clip and and it didn't have it the little clip i saw. You know what's funny? It was the only thing we couldn't find something for after the fact.

We found it on WNBA and we found it on college basketball. That coverage of the baseline out of bounds play, we couldn't find it in the NBA.

It's interesting. And now people have posted shit on, this was the thunder in 2019. Motherfucker, I couldn't find that clip. But I remember

seeing that clip before I watched the episode going, ooh, it'd be so nice if they had like graphics or something so we would understand. And then the beginning of the episode, you're explaining these few plays. Anyway, it's fucking awesome. I'm sure all of you already watch it. If not, go watch it.

And they're continuing to release episodes. So you were sick. Anyways, the only reason it popped in my brain is because we put the social clip out today where he talks about this. The idea of being elite in the nba and not working to an extreme level right it's impossible and the thing he says which i laughed at and i think it's hilarious is he said what does discipline mean discipline means you sacrifice loved ones yeah that was crazy

but and it's like it's actually yeah i thought what you said was great too which is like you're like i've said to my wife and family this is a selfish endeavor i had so much guilt over that and and my wife my wife met like i'm traveling all season yeah i'm traveling all season right we have 41 road games playoffs i'm locked in there was a time i had to guard james harden a lot when i played for the clippers and he was on the rockets and we had a sunday abc game and her family was in town her parents and her her aunt and we went to this little mexican place in um in manhattan beach and i was fucking zoned out. Of course. Kimberly Martin in the green room today. I was zoned out thinking about,

what am I doing with my footwork when James goes to this move, right? I'm thinking about this shit. We get home, Chelsea's like, where the fuck were you at dinner? And I was like, I'm literally thinking about guarding James Harden tomorrow. I'm sorry, I couldn't be there.

So not only when I was in season, when I wasn't like on the road, I wasn't there all the time. And so I had this tremendous sense of guilt. And I found this quote about striving for greatness is the stupidest thing, but it wasn't the quote. But it's like, that is a selfish pursuit. And I had to accept it and live with it. Yeah. And the people that love you also have to accept it and live with it yeah yeah and the people that

love you also have to accept it yeah and chelsea has yeah god yeah thank god it is but it's a good perspective to have because it's very easy to like flip it and frame it as hey i'm a provider and that's all i do and it's like no no we do this for ourselves too yeah and the people that love us understand that it you know feeds our souls as. And we also happen to provide a pretty awesome life. And that's great. People benefit. But once you got that $23 million from the 76ers, you could have taken it off a little bit. But you're like, fuck it.

Send me to Dallas. This is my problem in life. It's a good thing and a bad thing. Okay. So I was very routine oriented. And it wasn't just the routine of like, oh,'m going to put my socks on i meant the work the work was very routine and so what happened throughout my career is this is my baseline level of work and once it became manageable this is my baseline level of work and once it became manageable this is my baseline and the

same fucking thing is happening right now. I can see it. In media. You got three podcasts. It's like, last year I added a second show on Monday, right? I started calling games full time. It was a little bit of a trip. And then I got to the point, I was like, okay, I figured out how to manage this.

And also it's like, all right, let's do a LeBron show. And it's, I don't think there's anything beyond this for me i can't i don't know if i can add anything else but at the same time you're filling your plate i imagine you're not the guy who's just gonna be able to sit back relax and sip a mint julep you need a cook all right guys we're gonna take a break real quick because we got to talk about the world's largest smart wallet brand right here this bad boy extra i actually that's ours it's a flagrant extra that they made that they sold out of, but obviously that's the one we use. This is an innovative solution designed to improve everything

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I'm not being hyperbolic. I think you are truly changing the way basketball is analyzed. I think a lot of it before was guys kind of like me, who were not really athletic, just saying things. And then to have a basketball player who played at a high level, wasn't just a catch and shoot guy, but then talking about like, unapologetically, here is what my opinions are

at the highest level. I think it sets a precedent now for what this starts to become. Basketball analysis, maybe sports analysis. And I'm not being hyperbolic. I really think you are changing the trajectory of what a sports analyst is. That's really interesting

because before maybe the basketball guys weren't skilled at the analysis part and then just speaking on camera part. The communication part. Yeah, the communication part is hard. It's an art also, right? And people are doing that, you know, dedicating their whole lives to do it.

But now you have an expectation where not only should you be able to communicate effectively, you better have also played the game. Yeah. I want to respond to what you just said, and I appreciate that. And it's like, truly, I mean this, it means something to me to hear you say that. It doesn't mean a lot, it just means something.

It does. Because you recognize, I think, what is important to me. I want to be clear on this, though. I don't want to change anything. I want to fill a void. Because there are always going to be people that want to be entertained in a certain way. Sports is an escape. Fandom is an escape.

And that's important. How am I taxed as an NBA player? I'm taxed as an entertainer. I know what I'm providing. Fandom is part of people's identity. It's an escape. And in some ways, sports media is that too. So I'm not trying to change anything.

I'm trying to fill a void for what I see. When you first came on the air, I remember thinking, oh, this has been missing. And now I'm looking at you and like, oh, I don't know. It's not a Pandora's Boxing only parallel. But now that we've seen this. Maybe there's another way to add to the ancillary coverage of sports. Yes. And the ancillary way we talk about sports.

It kind of feels like when Tony Romo started announcing. And he started breaking down the game a little bit more. Less just trying to entertain. And that's what I feel. And he was guessing breaking down the game a little bit more and less just like trying to entertain. And that's what I feel. And he was like guessing plays. And it was really exciting to watch because he'd be right. And the difference here is when you hear guys who comment on sports, like broadcasting,

they will say Romo seems to have gotten lazier, for lack of a better word. I don't think anybody's ever going to say that about you. It's constant prep. It's constant knowing the game in and out and just like obsession. How do NBA players go broke? They don't anymore.

Is that right? Why is that? Shocked, bro. I'd be shocked. Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me. All right. So I'll tell you how it happens. Yeah.

Happened more. So I don't know what the average, but during my career, the average NBA career was like four and a half years roughly. Okay. So if you play four and a half years, that means you're not getting to a real second contract. You're likely making 750, 1.2, 1.5. Maybe you get an exception, 2.9.

Okay. So you've made $8 million over four and a half years. Let's call it you've made $10 million over five years all right you've got five million dollars to spend you're in the nba you're gonna get a nice car you're probably gonna buy a nice house but you're gonna take care of your parents before you spend another dollar you're like you gotta pay your agent right so you're you're now that how is that supposed to last you the rest of your life? Yeah. There were guys that I played with that I felt at the time, oh, you played 10 years and you made $35 million. All right, do the math on that.

Do the math on that. Add in the spending. Add in the spending. That's how it happens. Like my financial advisor, he told me that from day one. It's all about spending. It's not all about the intake. It's the outtake too.

It's what you go spend money on, right? Now, i say it's it's just not going to happen as much now is have you fucking seen these contracts yeah they're making big money yeah even the rookies what's a rookie contract they they change the rookie scale okay they change the rookie scale so like my my rookie contract was four years 8.9 which was i mean i was broke we were did not have money that was a shitload of money right very grateful for every dollar i made the 11th pick now i i don't know the exact number he's probably making 20 okay so even with reference most of my career the mid-level exception was around $5 million a year. And now-

Which was like, you're a rotation player. Yeah, yeah. What is it now? The average- It's 12 and a half. So a max contract, think about coming out of the lockout, coming out of the lockout,

there were a few guys that were on their rookie deals that went and signed a max contract, right? And it was like four years, 58. Vince Carter and Chauncey Bill billups when you're signed max contracts four years 64 jaylen brown just signed a max contract five years 304 million dollars jeez it's a there's a difference wow okay so even those guys that are just getting that rookie deal are probably making life-changing money zion williams the number one pick he made's going to make, he made $44 million on his rookie deal.

On his rookie. And if you get to that second contract, forget it. But you, it was your third or your fourth that where you actually really made money? I did, were you pocket watching here? Yeah. Son, I got the notes. I got the notes. Because I know about the big-

The Philly deal, yeah. The Philly deal was- So I did a three-year deal with philly deal was so i i did a three-year deal with chicago that was good money um i did a four-year deal with la that was good money those were both around like six or seven a year yeah you know and then philly and then i did another one-year deal with philly and then i did a two-year deal with new orleans what'd you get for yourself when you did the uh when you got that philly deal because i know that that's that's a nice real special thing you had to get yourself something nice uh i that was 2017

yeah for like five years i was obsessed with vintage watches oh obsessed okay okay like i'm a i'm an obsessive deep diver no yeah yeah so i like i collected whatever i had one point i was like am i a dealer am i a watch dealer is that okay what'd you get yourself so i'll tell you so 2017 my parents were fucking stressed to the nines they'd been retired for a few years but like not enjoying it so i called them up to to um to new york i had all my i'm one of five we'd all the siblings come in and we're basically like pick a city where you have grandkids. So you can live in New York, you can live in Denver,

you can live in Raleigh. But you got to pick a city. I'm going to buy you a house. And I'm going to, you know. Take care of it. Yeah. I'm going to take care of you. Take care of it.

So that's essentially what I did with, not all the money. Man, I thought you were going to tell us a watch story. Did you sell the watches? I didn't have a car when i moved to new york yeah because i had like a deal where i had a free tahoe so i had this tahoe and i moved to new york i'm not gonna have a tahoe new york so i gave it back to the dealership in la and i get to new york and i'm like what's the cheapest nice car i can lease? This was after I signed my deal. I've got to get a Range Rover Sport.

So I'm driving that to Gainesville River. You're driving a Philly. I forgot you lived in New York. The valet guys at the arena, Ben's pulling off in his shit. Joel, the townie of a license. But everybody's got like nice cars. And I remember them saying to me like,

why don't you have a nice car? I'm like, it's a Range Rover don't you have a nice car how did you not let the money affect your desire to be great like have you seen that with guys where they make that first check and they go let me kind of let me coast a little bit uh i found a great quote at one point in my life. It's so corny. I'm going to say it anyways. You've never arrived. You're always becoming, right? Yeah.

That's fine. I remember there were guys. So my McDonald's All-American game was in Madison Square Garden. Okay. First time I ever played on national television, right? I remember being there and getting the sense like everybody, all anybody was talking about like I'm going to the league. I'm going to the league.

I'm going to the league. That was not my mindset. My mindset was like I want to destroy these motherfuckers this week. And then I got the Capitol Classic next week in DC. I want to destroy them. I want to get ready for Duke. There was never like this sense of I've made it. Even like late Mike, there was a paranoia.

You know what I mean? I'm sure you feel that. A paranoia about what? You guys don't feel that? No, no, we might. Just explain what you're saying. A paranoia that somebody's You guys don't feel that? No, no, we might. Just explain what you're saying. A paranoia that somebody's going to take your shit.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That everything you work for isn't really going to work out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't want to call it imposter syndrome, but there's a, like, I think people that are just like, I want to be great at this thing. Yeah. It's, there's, I guess what? There's a lot of people that want to be great at basketball.

There's a lot of people. You know be great at basketball there's a lot of people and you know young guys would come in every year there's 30 first round picks there's 30 second round picks there's guys coming over from overseas you're like all right my my job like everybody wants my job i'm gonna i'm gonna have to do everything i can to keep it it wasn't it wasn't i wanted to make money Don't get me wrong. Is it hard? I wanted this suit, but is it hard to separate that? Like you have to be on a team. You have to congeal. You have to believe in these guys. They have to fight for you. They have to support you. But at the same time, their ability to provide for their families could be affected by you and your ability to provide for your family. It could be affected by them. They're trying to come for your spot. Can you ever really love one another

and really get on the same page? That's always underlying in professional sports. I really believe this, particularly in basketball. Baseball, you bat every nine times. You play a position. You're specialized. You don't know when a guy's going to hit a grounder to the shortstop, right?

Pitchers, they pitch every five days. Football, same sort of deal. I'm sure there's internal competition for a position. But again, there's a job that the left tackle has to do. There's a job that the tight end has to do. In basketball, it's like everybody has a job for sure but there it requires a lot soccer's a similar thing it requires a lot and typically the people that score the most get the most right there's a finite amount of resources so it's always underlying

but i i never felt like at least the locker rooms i was in, there was this competition to like, if I get this, you don't get this. I never felt that. There was never anybody coming for your spot. When you're starting with the Clippers, you never felt, well, I guess Jamal would be the one coming in, but like there was never at any team where you were starting to get more minutes

and you were taking them, quote unquote, from somebody. My first year in Philly, we made the conference finals. I was the second leading scorer on the team and we um our five-man starting lineup had the best it was the best five-man starting lineup in the entire nba that year um turns like net rating per 100 possessions or whatever and they come to me my second year and they said uh we want to start mark markel fultz and have you come off the bench and i said okay, okay, that's fine. No. No, because I... Because you just made 23 minutes.

No. No, it wasn't that at all. It was like, I remember Brett Brown, he got like a six minute recording from Manu Ginobili talking about, Manu was talking, it was to me. Manu was talking about, you know, his emotional experience of pop telling me

he was going to come off the bench and not start. And we got done with the recording. I was like, like i love manu he was one of my favorite players ever i was like brett you didn't have to do that i literally don't care that's kind of nice because i knew no because i knew like i was gonna i was gonna play 30 minutes a game i was gonna i was gonna get two-man action with joel i was gonna be on the break with ben simmons doing catch and shoot threes like it was like well one of y'all was gonna happen why do i why do i i don't care about fucking starting it was important at one point in my life yeah to be like i'm a starter in the nba yeah once that happened i didn't fucking care okay so once you check that

off that wasn't there okay coach k oh yeah exceptional my understanding is an exceptional leader. That's what I've been told by people. Maybe not the X's and O's or offensive genius like Mike D'Antoni, but in terms of his ability to get people on the same page and lead, exceptional. Was that your experience with him? Yes. Okay, and what makes him so exceptional? I'll say three things about coach. Number one, my dad is like my hero. Coach is the next guy. And then it's like everybody else. And I've been

around some fucking phenomenal people and had some great mentors and some great coaches. But those two guys, they're just, they're special um second thing is i never saw him have a bad day did he make mistakes sure he made mistakes like a substitution or a game plan like he made mistakes but i never he put every single thing into every day there right thompson wrote this article on him during his last season. It's this notion like coach would light himself on fire. And we, what we all saw that we all saw that we get back from Blacksburg, Virginia after a loss. And we have a two hour meeting at 3m in the morning and come to practice the next day. Coach was in here at 6am watching film. You know, he went home, showered and said hi to Mickey, said hi to his dogs, came back. He was fully invested at all times.

It was an incredible lesson to learn when you're 19 years old, what that looks like. And I got to see it. The other thing I would say is when people talk about him, the good qualities, the leadership qualities, the communication, the motivation qualities, they're all true and then some. They're all true. And how would he motivate you? Did he lock in specifically to a part of your personality and coach you in a unique way? There were certain guys that required a little nudging. I was not one of those guys, but I still got tested a lot and sometimes it was just

like a word you're being catch and shooty no you're being yeah you're being this a bitch yeah like that oh really he would use curse words no i mean not like i'm not using that word like yeah yeah or something it was like that it was like that or um you're like i remember one time i was you're being a brat i was like fuck you're a fraud you're you're an entitled prick like it was stuff like that so he would play into yeah what he thought maybe your insecurities were and then some of that came from coach collins too but i you know yeah they obviously talked so it's like yeah yeah it was just like that stuff you know the worst thing that any coach has ever said to me was came from coach k and it was after my sophomore year really

struggled that year wanted to quit that was like the height of like everybody hates jj yeah everybody hates me tried to quit in december my sisters talked me out of it uh really struggled second semester i played well for most of the season, but I really struggled. Started taking antidepressants, started seeing a therapist. And I was a fucking knucklehead. I was out.

I was like living the frat life and trying to play Duke basketball. And like they knew that this was happening. So the season ends. So for four straight Saturdays, he made me come in at 8 a.m to meet with him and in one of those meetings he's we lost to yukon in the final four that year and in one of those meetings he said to me we weren't you we didn't win a national championship because you weren't worthy of being a champion and that fucking crushed me and it changed my life also how no one no coach

could ever say that about me again in In that you are always prepared, always dedicated. Yeah, great teammate, all that stuff. Now, does Coach K know, this is what I'm assuming, he knows that you have the constitution to handle criticism like that and that that is a motivator? Where some people that might kind of crumble them. I think that's one of his gifts. I think that's one of his gifts.

As to what measure of character? No, no. Just like knowing what is required with each player. I coach my kid's triathlon team. And some of that is like, I can talk to this kid this way. I can coach a kid this. It's not just like verbal confrontation. It's how you coach a kid.

Trying to figure out how they're motivated uh what their triggers are like getting them to get by and like all that stuff he just he has a gift with figuring that out for each individual guy that was that was part of his gift i think would he like would he set aside time to figure out each one of you so there would be non-basketball activities. You guys would just meet in the office. Like what? Two meetings that stand out.

As soon as I got on campus, I just turned 18 years old. And he met with every freshman. We were doing summer school before our freshman year. And he had me in there and he said what do you hope to accomplish at duke that's the framework so he holds on to that going into my second year we had the same sort of meeting what do you want to do this year and i i had written down these goals i tell him the goals and he goes and what exactly have you done this summer to accomplish that? Like, I think to going back, we're going to go full circle here, going back to high school,

I always practiced and I always worked. I didn't miss games. Like I was always in it. Going back to high school because it was easier. There was this, it was wrong to think this way but it's the truth in high school it's like well i'm gonna grow i'm gonna get stronger i'm gonna you know get a new level of testosterone and i'm gonna be better than i was last year and i'm gonna be better than i was the year before and then it's and then you get to your senior year like okay i'm really good i'm better than i was as a freshman and it the older you get it just doesn't work that way yeah you step up a level of competition and it's like so you know i had a good freshman year and and my mindset was like i did what they asked me to do but i didn't do extra i didn't go above and beyond here's a conditioning okay i'll do the

conditioning workout but i didn't try to win the conditioning workout. That's the difference. And so once I, and it was really between my sophomore and junior year, once I got that in my brain of like, what are you willing to do that no one else is willing to do? Okay, now I can like actually write down some things on a piece of paper and try to go accomplish that. What did you write down that year? I never wrote down another goal in my life.

Why? Why would I? I can't control the goals. I really believe that. I learned I can control what I can control. And that is the work. That is my approach. That is my preparation. I can control how I interact with people. I had like a couple of blowups in the NBA. I joke all the time with like people. I'm like, NBA is so competitive and so high stress. Everybody should be allowed to blow up seats. You know what I mean? What were your blowups?

So like, I just remember like a couple of them. There was one that I had in Milwaukee and one that I had in my last year with the Clippers and both were with coaches. Honestly, I don't think I ever had a blow up with the teammate. I certainly like certain teammates we would be direct with each other, but it was never, never like a blow up. Right. To coach in Milwaukee I was guarding Ben Gordon

and they were running a dribble handoff on one side and the big would dribble handoff with him and he turned the corner and it's Ben Gordon I can't go underneath the dribble handoff because he's got insane shooter so I would chase over the top

and obviously I'm chasing so I'm behind him now the big wasn't providing help and he scored a couple times on floaters so we go to a timeout and uh the big was Josh McRoberts who I played with the Duke insane passer so they're like top lock him which means basically get on the high side of him deny him from coming off the dribble handoff and I said to him but he's just gonna back door and get a layup why would I play the defense that way and that led to one thing to another and I blew up and I regret that. I do regret that. And then Brennan O'Connor, who's one of my favorite coaches I've ever had,

we tried to implement a defensive coverage against the Pistons mid-game that we'd never practiced before. And we went over it in film afterwards it didn't work in the game we it's actually a good concept that we just never practiced it and so i was kind of like when you're unsure in the nba on coverage you're gonna get fucked you're like the split second you hesitate you're done yeah so we talked about it in the film session the next day and i like pushed back a little bit on the coverage and one thing led to another. And then he said to me, just shut the fuck up and do your job. Whoa.

And that was very hurtful to me because I'm like, that's all I do is my job. And I just, I went ballistic. I blacked out. I don't know what I said. And I went and sat on the bus while everybody else shot around for 30 minutes. No way. Yeah. And have you spoken to the coaches since? Wellim jim i never really came across again i would always be friendly with him yeah um

that was jim blend that not the coach from chicago but jim who was the older guy he ended up going to cleveland with t lou yeah um it was fine things happen it's all good brennan o'connor every time i see him we we joke about it about About it? Oh, yeah. He calls me Bubz because I called everybody Bubz because of white chocolate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Jason Williams is the man, dude. Who's the best player leader that you played with? Someone in the locker room. Congealed the whole group or you were like, I'll fucking go through a brick wall for this guy.

So CP was a great leader. Really? He had a very direct style of i thought everybody hates him no he had a very direct style of leadership okay and so that was that's a nice he does have that rep yeah yeah people don't like playing with him and hate it the honestly the probably the two best guys and they were very influential for me for how they led was early in my career i had i had richard lewis and i had jameer nelson and those guys for me were like the best and what did they do that that inspired you jameer was uh was a connector so jameer was big on like team dinners he would have everybody to philly for a week he would set up paintball he would set up a

philly's game we got batting practice with the phillies like he was just like a connector so it was that idea of like we're on a team let's be friends yeah like it's a very simple thing and we all had that probably in high school yeah you don't necessarily have that in the nba yeah and professional sports so like he was like a connector richard it's funny because i talked with ray about this on the podcast but like richard learned how to work from ray i learned how to work from richard i'll never forget like richard lewis first day he shows up after he signs his at the time the biggest contract in 80 100 million six years 123 million keep pocket watching Yeah. We got it. It's the only thing we can do. No, but he, I'll never forget. Again, I'd been around the league one year,

and he had that mentality that I talked about, where it's like, it's not, I didn't arrive, I didn't make it, I still got to do the work. And I'm watching him work out, and he's like hour and a half, full lather, working on every single part of his game, comes back the next day, does it again. And that's how he was the whole time I was his teammate.

It was like a consistency to him. And I think the best leaders are consistent. Consistent, yeah. The same guy every day. Best compliment I ever got as an NBA player. And I really mean this. Philly, my second year there, Philly wrote an article about

i don't remember this the angle of the article but there was a quote in there from jimmy and he was like i love i love being jj's teammate because he's the same guy every day and i was like fuck that's dope and it's an incredibly chaotic environment like the nba having that consistency is probably amazing you don't know if you're getting traded you don't know if you're getting minutes you don't know the defense are throwing at you. But there's a guy every single day that's going to show up and get to work. And that's probably helpful for a coach, too.

Jimmy Butler, what makes him different? He was not a highly drafted player. Second round, I want to say. And now he's... What makes him different? I mean, watching, his mentality seems different than everyone else's. He has a constant chip on his shoulder

and he's incredibly intelligent and he has a real belief in self. He has a real belief in self. It's unbreakable. It's unbreakable. Yeah. You mentioned you regret blowing up on those two coaches. Do you regret the low blow up you had with Doc?

I regret the tone. Not anything you said? No. What I said is what I believe. There's not an agenda with that. My job is to comment on the NBA. And that's one of the biggest stories in the entire NBA ecosystem this year.

I was just making a point. It's like, what had happened since he got the job? Even that morning, I'm driving into work and there was something in there about him, you know, basically taking credit for the James Harden trade. And it was like, I just was like, hmm, interesting. And then they played the sound and I was like, hmm.

And then Shannon didn't say anything. Stephen A didn't say anything. I was like, hmm. I regret the tone. You filled the void. The tone seemed too personal and I regret that. Okay.

And there was no person. And Doc, I assume, would get it. He was a commentator as well. You have to have something to say. Yeah, I've talked to him since. Okay, yeah. It's all good. How do you feel about,

oh, sorry. Well, when do we see you coaching? I know that we got to wrap this up sorry well when do we see you coaching i know that we gotta wrap this up but when do we see you coaching is that of any interest to you it is of interest um like not putting any time frame on it but that is something that given the opportunity it will happen yeah the one thing i'll say like so when i retired it was very difficult um i think for any athlete you that you can have a like secure sense of self and a secure ego and a secure identity it's inevitable that what you do becomes part of that identity and so letting go of, I'm not being hyperbolic here. It is a fucking death. It is a death.

It's very hard for me to let go of that. And my therapist that I talk to now, he was very helpful in getting, I knew I wanted to retire. Saying the words, I'm retiring, I'm done. I couldn't do it on my own. And so we talked about it. It was a very helpful session.

I was like, okay, I'm ready. So I did it. Very next session, he's like, all right, let's look forward. What are the, by looking forward, we need to talk about what are the things you loved about playing that you hope to get in the next phase? And it was competition, performance anxiety, and collaboration, being on a team, right?

Fast forward a year, and I realized there was a fourth piece that I loved, and it was particularly like fulfilling at the end of my career in Philly, in New Orleans, and that's leadership. And so when I think about coaching, it's like filling all of those things. And so coaching to me is about timing and it's about situation.

I love what I'm fucking doing right now. I'm good. I'm good. It's going to be hard to pull you out of it. Yeah, I'm good. But the right opportunity, maybe. I'm going down the rabbit hole right now in this thing. So it's like I can't be rabbit hole right now in this thing so it's like i i can't be pulled

out right now yeah okay just tell me real quick why retirement was so tough and the immediate sensation after you announce it why it was so tough um because i i i i i just genuinely loved it. It's like- Like, did you stop? My understanding is that you're still doing drills and you're still working out. You're still getting shots up. No, never.

My understanding is that you may or may not have a key to a gym out east and you get some shots up. No, I'm with my kids. I'm with my kids. That's my understanding is that you got guys rebounding for you out east and then you're getting shots. I swear, this is what I've heard. It's not true.

That's not true. It's not true. It's not true. Okay. The most shots I've ever taken at one time in retirement was like three weeks ago over All-Star break. I took my kids to Disney World for the first time. And the hotel had a really nice outdoor court. And so that's all they wanted to do.

Once we got back at like 12, 31 o'clock, the rest of the afternoon, they would just play. We're up in New York. It's freezing. It's nice out there. So they're just like, I want to be outside. I want to play basketball. So I'm like, great. So the first day, they were on one side of the court because they didn't want to do drills.

So I was just like, I'm going to grab a ball. And I started shooting and I probably took 50 shots. I worked my way out to like the NBA line of the NBA line. So just inside half court. And it was like, but I was like shooting jumpers. You know what I mean? And then I woke up the next day and I was like, fuck. Yeah. I'm so sore. And I probably took like 50 shots by myself. Like that was it. Wait, sorry, you said you want to coach. What player would you most like to coach in today's NBA?

Wow. Great question. Wow. I'm hoping. I'm going to actually, you know what, I'm going to go with an easy one for me. Yeah. And hopefully this is non-controversial, but he was my teammate, and he's also one of the best players in the world.

And to coach in the NBA, you need one of the best players in the world. It's Luka. I'm from Dallas. That's why I was hoping you'd say Luka. And you didn't actually really play for us, but you know. I didn't.

I didn't. I had a fucking partial tear in my Achilles. What do you want me to do? I was saying we could have used you. That's all. So does it heal? You just had it heal naturally? No, it's still there. So basically, I have something called Hagl used you, that's all. So does it heal? You just had it heal naturally? No, it's still there.

So basically, I have something called haglins in my right heel, which is an overgrown heel bone. So my heel bone looks like a golf ball. And so just through wear and tear playing for so long, the bone started pressing into the Achilles insertion. So when I went down to New Orleans that year, it had been bothering me all fall. They did like full tendon scans, knees, ankles, all that stuff. And the guy was like, you have a partial tear in your Achilles. And so I tried to rehab and I tried

to play through it. I did PRP in New York over All-Star break. That's right before I got traded to Dallas, which is why I didn't join the team for like a week because I was still rehabbing here. And the PRP didn't help. And that was part of retirement too, honestly. They were like, the surgery is not the same as a full Achilles repair, but it is like four to six months. They literally shave your heel bone down.

And then my bursa sac has inflammation. So they clean up the bursa sac and then repair the shredded part of the Achilles. But the Achilles part that's torn... That's part of the reason I don't play pickup, though. Oh, really? I'm terrified to tear my Achilles or my calves. That's what I was about to say.

So you can't even play paddle with this? Oh, I'm giving you buckets, bro. Half court, one-on-one. No, I'm not going to do this to you. I've already taken out one guy's ankle. You know what I mean? Every guy from Duke with a busted foot, you know, comes across me and it's bad news.

I mean, disrespect. Guys, I have other work to do. How did the pod with LeBron come to fruition? Yeah. And is it intimidating to sit across from one of the greats ever and talk the game, or do you feel completely comfortable? Greats ever in anything. game or do you feel completely comfortable great ever in anything yeah um it's not it's not intimidating um i've known braun now like 25 24 25 years wow uh we met when we were like 15 or 16 at usa basketball camp um

it's funny because i've like i've like never hung out with lebron like he's boy. Oh, I thought you guys were friends and that's how the pod came about. We've always had a mutual respect, great interactions. I'm not going on vacation with his family. I'm not going to his house for dinner. Oh, you don't have a tap with him? No, there's always been a mutual level of respect as players. as players. I mean, and so we

saw each other in December with the folks on his side and just had a conversation and that kind of just got the ball rolling. So he picked you or you picked him? Can't say. There's no good answer to that. Really? Seems like there's a great answer.

Okay, so this thing comes together i the first episode we've seen the first episode which is actually half of what has been filmed so there's another episode coming out the first episode do you know you have a hit like when 15 20 minutes into the conversation you're going oh this is the most fun and this is going to be crazy? Yeah. Or, okay, immediately. Yeah, immediately. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

And by the way, the second episode, so we recorded, the plan is to sort of record two episodes at a time. Yeah. The second part of the conversation was the part where

you're in the room and you're floating because it's so pure. Floating. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's funny, Jason Gallag i mean yeah uh and it's funny jason gallagher who's our head of production and has been with us since day one on the old man of the

three since we started this company he's listened to fucking i don't even know now 220 episodes of the old man of the three plus all the shit we do for draft kings um he's he's been in every conversation and he texts me afterwards and he's like dude he's like i was floating today that's the best shit you've ever recorded and i'm like that's far yeah i was like so by the time this is out episode two will most likely be out yeah it'll be out and you listen on all this in platforms but i would watch the youtube video i think is the most instructive i think you need to see the graphics to understand what you guys are talking about and i like how you're not watering it down yeah i love that like raise the level of intellect of the audience yeah is there anything that surprised you hanging with

him like you guys hadn't hung out a ton before but now you guys are face to face talking about the game is there anything that surprised you about the way i had the dinner in december is there anything the way he dissects the game that surprised you no nothing surprised me i think what is interesting is you know we we typically have seen lebron in a press conference right when he's talking and to get him in that setting it's just like he's he's awesome like you he's awesome at it yeah you're awesome at it yeah i think you're both excellent. And yeah, you guys don't have to explain yourself. When you talk to us about basketball, you have to. It's the same thing if we're going to talk like comedy to anybody.

We have to kind of dumb down what we're saying. You're talking to someone who knows exactly what you're talking about, probably specific plays. You can reference a play of his from some playoff game that you are watching, and he knows the exact play. There's way less fluff. And it's really, i i think you're gonna see a lot more of this in not just basketball but all average changing trajectory yeah yeah by the way there's nothing there's nothing wrong with the sugar i want to be like i was talking about it earlier there's nothing wrong with the sugar

there's nothing absolutely nothing wrong with that i'm not against the sugar i like sugar too i'm that's i'm on twitter like yeah i like the sugar sugar's fun sometimes but this is sugar for people who love basketball sometimes too much sugar becomes toxic right well said yeah what are we talking about now just like talking about sub super sub commentators that are super guys your sports like i'm a sports analyst where you're just kind of watching and just saying things but there's again But that's awesome, too. It's entertaining. They're so fun. You look at a guy.

It's amazing. I work with Stephen A. I was about to say, he's incredible. He's amazing. And you want that. I want that. Sometimes I just want to hear crazy hot takes. They might be true.

They might not be true. Who gives a fuck? I enjoy that as well. But there is a time and place when you see people who are obsessed with a thing. It doesn't have to be basketball. It can be two nerds talking about robots, but they're obsessed with the thing and they're just talking to each other about that thing and they don't care who's listening.

And that's what it feels like. It doesn't feel like you guys care who's listening. And because of that, I want to listen. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I don't know exactly what you're saying. Are you going to try to bait him into the goat talk about himself? I am feeling that. Literally in the setup, he's like, we're not talking about who the greatest is. I know, but episode three, it's top five. You know, there's an element of what has become not only the take industry, the second take industry everybody's chasing no no meaning like the reaction to the take oh it's all that's that's like and then there's the reaction to the reaction that's all youtube is like i don't want this to be reactionary i

certainly will react to what's happening on on basketball court. Yeah. But it's not. Your phone flashed. It will be reacted to. Yeah. But you want to create the source. The source material is always better to create than reacting to the thing or reacting to the reaction. Just like basketball. Yeah. Like outside of my kids and my wife, it's the thing I love the most.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go watch. Go watch. Everybody go now. Watch guys. JJ Reddick. Amazing. Thank you, my boy.

Thank you so much.