No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 550: JJ Redick

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

JJ Redick recently retired after a 15 year NBA career, and he's got a hobby. He joins the pod to chat about his new golf obsession, where the game has taken him so far, where he finds joy on the course, places he still wants to visit, playing inside the bubble, and a ton more. We also chat some Duke basketball, the evolution of his NBA career, and a fair amount of other hoops talk. Thanks to JJ for the time, look for him in some of our content in the future for sure.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most! Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the No-Lang-A podcast. Sully here, I am stoked to bring you this interview today with J.J. Reddick. I'll tell you if you flash back to college me, he would be very very very confused and we would be interviewing Mr. Reddick on a golf podcast with the guys in absolute sicko.

You get into his background how he got into the game. Somewhat recently, you can see the passion shining through it. I won't spoil anymore of it. Talks about a lot of hoops in this one, which I think is understandable. Mandy's a great storyteller and has a lot of great experiences that I will get to shortly. Knowing up is brought to you, of course, by our friends at Woopth personalized digital fitness and health coach and official fitness wearable of the PGA and LPGA tours my I will get to you shortly. No, Lingup is brought to you, of course, by our friends at Woop, the personalized digital fitness and health coach and official fitness wearable

of the PGA and LPGA tours. My Woop absolutely hates me right now. It has to be so confused as to what the hell happened this past April. A lot of travel, maybe a few beverages here and there. That is reflected in the data. That is showing that I'm not getting enough sleep as soon as I'm done recording this.

I'm going to hit the pillow for about 10 hours consecutively. It tells you what your sleep need is, what your dead is, if you've had over a couple weeks, you know, traveling or doing whatever. I find it extremely helpful. It is telling me how my body is responding to my habits. The new 4.0 is smaller, smarter, and designed with biometric tracking, includes skin temperature, blood oxygen, and more. It's got anywhere technology you can wear it.

The Woop Body Sensor with enhanced technical garments, boxer shorts, compression tops, bra lets leggings, you name it. The all new waterproof device is free when you sign up for Woop 4.0 membership. For any members, if you have six months left of membership on your account, you can upgrade now and get the 4.0 for free.

And right now, Woop is offering 15% off when you use code NLU15 to check out. Go to woop.com, whop.com, enter NLU15 at checkout to save 15%. Here is JJ Redick. I always enjoy, you know, it's funny. I always, I always enjoy going on other people's podcasts more than I like. For sure. For sure. It's way easier. There's no prep. Like I'm watching O506 highlights getting ready for all this. Like I got a whole, do that whole thing. It's a weird thing.

There's an element that I can, can sort of associate with that feeling you get pregame. Yeah. Because I get it even like dude, I've done, and you guys have done a ton as well. Like I've done, I think I'm at like 213 total now, since I started in 2016. I've done a million interviews.

I've done a ton of TV appearances. I get nervous before every single time. I go on the SPN. I get nervous before every single pot. I'll do a podcast with Chris Paul. Like he's one of my best friends. And I get nervous before it. It's like that performance anxiety.

It's always lingering. That's super refreshing to hear because I feel the same exact way. Like the first time I'm getting ready to talk to somebody, I don't know kind of what that rapport is going to be like and whatnot. And yeah, that anxiousness before a game, obviously you've computed much higher levels.

But like, it's just that uncertainty, that same kind of, especially with live stuff. Like if you do live stuff on ESPN, that's a whole different level than PODs can feel kind of easy because you're the only two people in a room, but like live stuff, cameras, and people watching, that's where it gets me. I find that I'm, it's weird. I find that I'm less nervous when it's on set versus doing that I'm less nervous when it's on set versus doing like a green screen behind me. There's something about, you know, people being in the room and now that I've got to know everybody, it's like it's it's almost like you're chatting with your friends a little

bit, you know, it's like it's not as nerve-racking, but I did I did a my third game recently. I did a game three of the heat, a Hawk series in Atlanta and in the next day I did my third game recently. I did the Game 3 of the Heat Hawk series in Atlanta. And the next day I did the NBA countdown on ESPN live from Barclays pre-game. Those two are varied. When you're in the arena, oh, it's a different feeling. I felt like a player. I literally, the nerves and the performance anxiety,

it existed the same way it existed before a game as a player. I was playing on starting with golf with you, but I think we can kind of run there. You were kind of one of the first people to do media do podcasts, doing a podcast while you were still playing in the NBA. When I was always curious when that started,

it was like how often are you like screening what you're saying? Because you don't want to give away secrets too. Like you don't want like the dude that's getting ready to guard you to be like, oh yeah, I could beat him off the dribble. What was that like kind of doing that while you were still playing versus now doing it, you know, that you're no longer playing the NBA? You know, the nature of the podcast format that I've done has always been interview. And it wasn't until really I retired that Tommy and I, Tommy Alter, my co-host, that we started talking about the NBA in our intro. So

prior to that, it was a quick intro on the guest, maybe some administrative stuff, whatever, you know, go subscribe. And then it was right in the interview. And, you know, I'm not responsible for what my guest says. If my guest wants to talk trash about someone by all means, you know. So, I still have to balance that, even though I'm retired, I still have to balance that line because I'm always gonna take the sort of angle of being pro player. I'm always gonna support my peers, my generation of players. But the thing I got more as a player was like after a bad game, you know, stop podcasting you suck.

Yeah. You're podcasting too much. It's like, no, dude, like literally people don't understand how obsessed I am with basketball. Like when I played, it was all I thought about it was all I did. The podcast was very much a quick you know hour of prep hour show in and out And it's an exercise of the mind too like you can't spend all day in a gym You can't spend all day training you need to be resting in some way yet at the same time But it's fun. I was funny because I remember I listened to your interview with with Jason Hare about the last dance And I was like I thought about I couldn't tell if this was after you had retired already.

I don't think you were retired yet, but it's like you told a story about Carmelo like locking you out of an all-star game. And I was kind of like, man, I just wonder how that goes, right? About current NBA players kind of telling a story about other NBA players. If anything, I've ever got back to you. We had, so we did that with Jason.

I think between, I think it was between episode five, six release on Sunday night and episode seven, eight release the following Sunday. And so it was very much in the middle of the show and it was very topical. I believe I had told that story about Cormello at least once before publicly. And we had Cormello on the old man of the three very early in our launch. He was within one of the first 10 or 12 episodes and I brought it up and we hashed it out with them. And the thing I didn't quite like connect the dots on is we had played the McDonald's

game in New York City, which of course, mellow, you know, expensive time in his childhood in Brooklyn. And I had got MVP. Mellow had a really good game. He was on my team. He had a really good game. He didn't get MVP. So then we go to DC the following week for the Jordan Classic.

And I, Mellow grew up in Baltimore. Like Mellow was trying to show out for the home crowd, you know? And he jacked that game. And I think I, I think I took like six shots. And it got back to me afterwards that he had told some of the guys on our team. He was like, yeah, JJ's not going MVP. We're not going to let JJ shoot. Now he would not confirm that when I brought it up with him. But you know, it's funny. Melo and I, we

played against other high school. And this was why the bubble in so many ways was a terrible experience for so many guys, but it was a cool experience because there was nothing to do but hoop. And that's where I repicked up golf as well, but it was nothing to do with hoop. And then at night, after games are done, everybody's staying in the same hotel. We're all wine drinkers in the NBA and we'd open a couple bottles of wine for five of us and we'd stay up till 2 a.m. trading stories. And so Mel and I sort of got to reconnect during the bubble, which was really cool. So help me with explaining this. I see LeBron always open and wine on his Instagram doing all that. I get hung over his shit when I drink wine. Now, maybe you guys are drinking

more quality stuff that I'm drinking, but like, how do you balance drinking with like balancing playing basketball? Is there ever any any, kind of correlation with those things? Moderation is key. Moderation is always key in anything in life unless it's, you know, viciously attacking a goal, basically, you know, like setting a goal and then working your ass off to do it. But, ah, yeah, it's just most Americans, most Americans are drinking swill.

And price point aside, I'm not even talking price point here. Cause you're a wine guy. Yes, I'm not listeners. I am not talking price point. I am talking about the amount of additives that goes into most American made wine that's made for mass consumption. There is so much shit in that wine.

And so, yeah, you're going to be hung over the next day because your body's not only trying to process the alcohol, it's trying to process all the chemicals that were added to the wine after the wine maker made it. Okay, that must explain my hangovers a little bit. I might need to continue. Have you, have you, you just talked about, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, You just talked about we offer you were just in Scotland. I'm sure you've traveled to Europe and you've you know

You drink a I do I'll go to Italy and I'll have a $20 bottle of a white wine and no hangover No hangover nothing the next day. Absolutely nothing. I traveled around Europe for three years basically and like I could I think I got one or two Wine hangovers after that but you come back here and it just hits you in a totally different way But so you're talking about the bubble and things like that. And you talk about you're kind of reconnecting with the game of golf there. What has been your golf journey? For the listeners that aren't familiar with your current

obsession, which we are going to dive very deep into. But how did it get to this point? Yeah. So the background is I didn't play any golf growing up. I didn't swing a golf club through high school, through college. I came back to Ron golf club through high school, through college. I came back to Ron Oak, maybe my first or second year, to run a basketball camp at my high school,

and I went and played around, and obviously, I didn't keep score because I couldn't score. And when I got back to Orlando, my brother came and lived with me, and he had gotten into golf. And we lived in a golf course community, and I met this guy, Brian Thompson. You know, at the time, he was a chubby guy, very unfit, non-athlete. And I would go play golf with this guy and he would hit 330 yard baby draw bumps.

And I was like, how is this possible? Like, I'm the athlete. And so I played with Brian for a couple years there, probably my second, third in the NBA. We would play. Again, I wasn't scoring. I didn't take any lessons. I had a set of clubs. And I'd play with them, probably played like 30 rounds.

I started my wife. I moved out of that community. I didn't play again till 2013. So probably had a five-year gap from playing, moved to Austin in the off season, and got into it a little bit there. But didn't have like, I tried to join Austin Country Club and the wait list was three years.

Didn't get my fucking membership till I moved until I could get the non-resident membership. And it's funny, I got that in 2016 when we moved and I still have yet to play around there as a member. That's a shit. Yeah, I'm still a member. I'm not giving that up. This is where the Dell match play is held.

The World Golf Championship match play is held. Then in 15, my son was one years old. My wife gets pregnant with her second son, and I just stopped playing. And from 15 until the bubble in 2020, I didn't play any golf. I still have the same set of clubs. I took him down to the bubble because I knew I was going to be bored. I didn't want to be in a hotel room all the time.

I played three rounds in the bubble. I got back that fall, played a couple rounds in the New York area. Got some invites, awesome invites, Sabonic, the bridge, Hudson National. And I knew going into the 2020-2021 season. I knew it was gonna be my last year. And I was like, I think golf should be my thing. Like I need some sort of competitive outlet. There's also the simple process of trying to master something that has always really interested me. And I got a, you know, fitted for clubs. I got back to New York in June, took my first lesson at the end of June, and

June took my first lesson at the end of June and played 50 rounds that summer. I was literally, my wife wanted to kill me. I wanted to kill me. I've taken some more lessons since then. And yeah, I mean, every trip, if I leave the New York area, it's just like, what golf course can I play? I was down in Atlanta. I was down at Atlanta, as I said, for game three. And when I got the call earlier in the week,

I was kind of like a fill in for somebody, because I wasn't contractually obligated to do games this year. And they're like, do you want to do the Hawks game on Friday? I was like, absolutely. Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta. So I texted some people like, who do you know at Peach Tree? I knew it, I knew it. And so I played Peach tree first thing in the morning

and then got back to the hotel and went to the game. But yeah, I mean, it's like you guys, you know, it is such an addicting sport. And I've gotten completely bit. Yeah, I'm obsessed. What is it though? What is it about golf, you know, and is it weird to kind of go from a sport that, you know,

you've as close to really mastering as you can get you played at the highest possible level to something that you're from what I gather average at but improving that kind of take us to what your game is like and what your what you get out of trying to, you know, improve at this game. Um, so it's your quotes on it are like exactly why I love golf like talking about that that flush shot Yeah, there's a there's a few things on it So number one it's for me. It's competitive and it's probably in terms of a competitive scale It's it to me. It's like as competitive as any sport because you're competing against yourself You're competing against the course. You're competing against the weather that day I love to play matches. I love to gamble on the course and I so you're you're competing for money You're competing to beat whoever I had a duke lacrosse player that we were tight in college

We reconnected on Long Island out east two years ago and we played like six matches together We were six and oh last summer like it's just that competitive part is a huge part of it as I mentioned the the task of trying to get better at something, it's why I love basketball so much, is that I could sort of have these measuring sticks of feeling like I was getting better at something, and golf reflects that as well as anything. And then the third component, and I'm not trying to sort of

like hyperboleize this, but golf really is a spiritual experience to me. There is something about being outside, being in nature. There's this idea that like we all have something in our lives where we feel closest to God. And for me, it's always been nature. And so I spent most of my fucking life in hotel rooms, gymnasiums, buses, airplanes,

waiting around to go play a sport indoors. So there's something that's very amazing about just being outside and walking around for four and a half hours and, and, you know, having 90 swings. That's exactly it. It's like it's my closest connection with nature, right? And like the more style of golf, you can play that. I don't think it's coincidence for me, the more golf you can play along the ground, like the more I enjoy it, the more I feel closer to nature using the contours of the Earth

to move the ball around instead of flying it through the air has been like, has been. Have you played any links golf yet? Yeah, I mean, I guess you could describe some of the courses I've played as a link. I have not been to Scotland or Ireland and I tried to book Band-In for this coming fall and that was a no-go. So I called back, this was in September, and I was gonna book for, this was last September, I was gonna book for the following September,

and they were like, we can't get you till late November. It was a 14-month wait, and I was like, I don't really wanna go to Band-In and late November, so I said, okay, when are you opening up for next summer and then I call back in December? So I call back in December, left a message, sent multiple emails, filled out the form on the website.

They call me back seven days later. And I was like, I want two of the four bedrooms on three consecutive nights and they're like, we can get you in at the end of June 2023. So I was like, great. I'll take it. I'll book the trip. So I'm going, I'm going there.

This was kind of like my sort of like, you know, we do a guys trip every year, but because I wasn't playing golf, we never golf. So this year, we booked Pebble, Cypress, Pasitimpo, Spyglass, and we ended up while we were there getting invited to Monari Peninsula and played the Shores course there. So that was to me my first real golf trip.

And it was obviously, it was like the greatest thing ever. It was the greatest thing ever. So what is your handicap, when you get back into it, what was it, what are you at now, what can you realistically get to? Are you seeing the trend that you need to be seeing to get to where you wanna be? I inserted some, like I said,

I played a few rounds in 2020 fall. I played a few times while I was in New Orleans when they would actually let us, that season, I don't know if you knew this, but there's two months of the season where we couldn't leave our hotel room or leave our apartment. This is pre-vaccine and guys started getting vaccinated at the end of March. So there's a couple of months there where I couldn't leave my room, but I played a few rounds in New Orleans. So when I got to, when I got to Sag Harbor last summer,

I was like a 20.2. The end of the summer, I was a 14.3. Again, I've lived in New York, so after everything closed in October, I've probably played like five or six times, and I only hit balls on a simulator. So I'm like a 15 right now, and it sucks to say that,

but like my goal is the end of 2022, I just, want to be a nine point something that is the goal. Like I you know my best rounds in 86 like you know I'm I'm capable it's just the best way to describe it is like I'm a below average three point shooter in golf. So I'm somewhere below 36%. So let's say I'm a 33 or 34% 3 point shooter. And I will literally have a five for 10. I'll have a 50% front nine or a 50% back nine. But then I'm one for 10. I'm like, it's just I have like every, you know, high handicap golfer. I have my, my absolute blow polls. The frustrating thing about, you know, trying to improve in golf is learning how much it's not about your good shots. It's just about how bad your bad shots are.

And I play with some players that get it in the hole better than I do that I look at. And I'm like, I have better physical skills than you do, but you just don't hit the dumb shots that I hit. And that's where it's just like repetition. It's so much of its repetition and going from and you understand mathematics, just putting it out there right there. Like the best guys on the PGA tour, they're not capable of better shots than corn fairy guys.

They just do it more frequently. Like much more on the scale that they're at. And it doesn't really look like that much on TV, but that's where it's just like, when it's a diminishing return thing, a tighter and tighter you get, closer you get to scratch, the harder and harder it is to scrape out those shots.

I don't know if you felt any of that. For sure, to that point to Brian Scalabrini, I can't remember where he said this, but he had this quote, he was getting interviewed, and there's a viral video of some guy challenging him at a YMCA or a local gym. Some guy, some random dude, and he beats the guy 11-0. And afterwards, he got asked about the video.

He's like, I told the guy, I'm like, I'm much closer to LeBron James than you are to me. And I felt that, of course, it's a professional athlete. Like, I knew how good I was. I knew how good my peers were relative to the rest of the basketball world. And I've seen that in golf. You know, I played a course in Westchester County

last fall with a guy who had just qualified for Q2. And it was, we played Winkfoot East. And like the motherfucker had a par putt on 18 that he missed. So he had his first bogey of the day. If he had made the par putt, he would have shot a 62 and said he shot a 63. He dudes out on the course. He smoked six heaters. He had two tap and eagles on the par five. Like, I'm like, this guy and you didn't qualify in Q2. He didn't qualify. I didn't make it through the next weekend. And I'm like, these motherfuckers are

unbelievable. They're unbelievable. It'll blow your mind. And that's where it's like on a, you know, wing foot east is not It's not the it's not the championship course there and that's where it's like those dudes will just rip it up And it's hard to tell the difference between those guys on that But then you take them to stretch it out three four hundred more yards little tighter fairway As little tighter pins and that's where like the dudes that just separate themselves every every weekend That's why I have you played much golf with? And I'm curious what that's like for you

as a professional and a different sport to see others in that craft. And what do you see and appreciate about that? I don't think I've played with any PGA guys. I know a bunch of them though. Of course, living in Orlando, a lot of them live down there. And I would go to the Tavis.Cup and walk and watch them play. And so I've gotten to know Adam Scott and I had column work out on the pod last June,

and we've stayed in contact. But yeah, I'm looking like an ideal round for me. I love Discovery Properties, so an ideal round for me would be to go out to Vegas and play Summit Club with Colin. That would be sort of like a dream golf scenario at this point. Sounds like you're making some of your golf dreams come true already with some of these trips, but what have been, you named off some of them, but what have been some of the highlight places you've been?

You know, I learned this. I did an interview with golf.com and I mentioned a few of the courses that I'd played and one of the courses, I got back to me that they were pissed that I had at one point tweeted about being there. I don't know why. This place has 800 members. It's not like it's like I don't know anyways So I'm like alright whatever but like I like I play like Some of this is is just like the competitive side is like I when I got back into golf in 2020 I learned that there was like golf rankings and I was like oh they rank the courses This is amazing. So I've got it to do list.

I prudent off the sheet. Somewhere in my desk or somewhere in my office here. And yeah, I just started crossing them off. So probably eight of the top 20, working my way through. The one I would really like to play this year that I haven't is San Hills. And again, it goes back to that nature. I've watched the golf digest every whole lat series they do. I've watched that San Hills video probably five or six times.

And I got invited there a couple of weeks ago. We haven't got a date on the books, but that's sort of the goal for this year is to get out there. No laying up is brought to you by our friends at Precision Pro Golf, the official rangefinder of NLU. Having doubt before any shot is never a good thing, whether you're stepping off distances from sprinkler heads or guessing based on the 150 stick, getting the exact distance makes a big difference for your confidence and your results personally.

I think actually seeing the number visually through there helps hammer something into your mind subconsciously. At Precision Pro Golf, you can choose from a family of rangefinders to fit exactly what you need. Choose from the Lighting Quick NX9 Slope or the R1 Smart Rangefinder with advanced features like Wind Assist, GPS distances, and MySlow technology we've all used. Both the NX9 and R1 Smart Rangefinder both are great option for you on the course. With every Precision Pro product, you get this same excellent service. When you call a fellow golfer is there to answer and make sure you're taking care of with industry leading customer service and lifetime battery

replacements, you know, precision pro always has your back. So go to precisionprogolf.com, save $20 with code no laying up. That's all one word. Again, $20 with code no laying up at precisionprogolf.com. Swing with confidence, hit more greens. Let's get back to JJ Redick. So on the list, of course, as you're not allowed to talk about playing, is one of them located, you know, was there a tournament there somewhat recently? Or... There was a major, there was a major, yeah.

There was a major. I actually, it's funny, I hit the two best golf shots of my life at that course. Two approach shots. One was like 110 on seven. I was underneath the tree branch. I was on the left side in the rough. My ball rolled through the fairway,

and I don't even know how I did this, but I hit a little knock down wedge. And it was like, it spun back. It was two feet away. And then I buried 11. That was like an eight know, it spun back, it was two feet away. And then I, and then I birdied eleven. That was like a eight, that was like an eight iron from about one fifty six. And it landed like 12 inches and just died there.

It rained in the morning. So those, those two birdies are the highlight of my life, for sure. Highlight of your life, the highlight of, no, highlight of my life, my sporting life. I want to be clear. Holy shit. You're, when you're walking on that sort of course, and you're able to execute shots.

That, to me, was the biggest thing that I saw for someone that, again, I'm fully self-aware how bad I am at golf, but to go from like a 20, or I probably was worse than that, to basically be unable to execute on a golf hole. And that was sort of the transformation that I saw over the past year from actually working at golf and working with an instructor and a teacher and playing enough rounds where you feel like, okay, I just executed a golf hole.

I hit my T-shot where I'm supposed to hit it. I hit it on the right side of the green or wherever, made it up to the upper level, whatever it was. You execute on a hole and you're like, wow, I've never done that before. That feels pretty fucking amazing. And as much as that flush shot, that flush shot is awesome. Don't get me wrong.

That flush shot is awesome. When you see the ball flight that you're trying to execute and you see that ball flight And you're like, oh man, that was great But for me, it's like the execution of a hole that is a task and I and I executed that task to perfection That's that's the feeling for me that I love you have so many years ahead of you of finding it Losing it finding it and losing it never gonna hit another bad shot never gonna hit another good shot Like it's yeah, it's that's's, that's what's amazing about it.

It's still no matter how good you get month to month. It's like, I'm the same way you are. As soon as you think about a course, you go back to the two shots you hit that, you go to sleep at night and you're still thinking about carving that shot in there or whatever you executed. Like, that's exactly how my brain works. And that's where I get a thrill

out of seeing like especially former basketball players. I feel like there's a huge force coming from NBA players. I feel like Steph Curry is a big leader in this in terms of just like talking about a JR Smith going back to school and playing you know college golf now and Andre Aguadol is big golfer, Ken Bayesmore is big golfer and it feels like it feels like there's very real momentum in other sports driving athletes. former athletes and current athletes towards golf, and I'm curious if you have any perspective on that. It was interesting when I first got in the NBA and got introduced to the game in Orlando, I had a few teammates that played, and

after they sort of either retired or left the team, this was like, you know, 2008, 2009-ish. None of my other teammates played. Then I went to the Clippers. Chris Paul was the only, Chris Paul and Willie Green actually who coaches the sons, the, sorry, the Pelicans now. They were the only guys that played and it didn't feel like that momentum you're talking about. It didn't feel like it was there in the NBA. And I think some of it is like, we are, most most professional athletes are, but certainly in NBA, we are all copycat. Like it's a copycat league.

You just do what the, it's why wine is what it is now. Because a couple guys are like, wine's awesome. Now everybody's like, oh, I got to find out. I got to get the best bottle of whatever. I got to get the, the, you know So when you get introduced to it by your peers, and it's something you can do on the road, then it becomes, again, it's like the community building aspect. It's like then it's something you can really enjoy

with other people. And then I think NFL, there's momentum in that sport as well. Travis Kelsey, Patrick Mahomes, those guys they play in the American Set Your Championship. I know a bunch of boxers are into it now. It's always been baseball and hockey. That's always existed in those things. But I think it's good that these other sports and these other athletes are starting to pick this up and introduce it to each other. You talked about going to sleep, by the way. When I was a kid, my mom said

she used to come into my bedroom after school and I would be like laying in my bed with my hands up and she'd be like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm thinking of moves. I was thinking of basketball moves, you know? And I did that my whole life. And you know, whether it was like in the off season, I would visualize and think about my deck's days workout and what I wanted to get accomplished. And pre-game or game days, I thought about the shots I was gonna make, I thought about who was guarding me. I've always been that way.

And now, like I'll lay down to go to sleep. And I could literally have just gotten done watching six hours of basketball. And I'll lay down to go to sleep. I could literally have just gotten done watching six hours of basketball and I'll lay down to go to sleep and all I'm thinking about is my golf swim. And if I had played that day, I'm thinking about the bad shots, I'm thinking about the good shots, I'm thinking about the feel, the feel, you know, and it's just it's madness, it's madness. Well, just reading that golf.com article and just about thinking about it with some of your hobbies, you're talking about wine, about watches, now golf. There are huge community elements to those things, right? Like once you kind of get into

it, like golf might look like this on the surface, but then you open up the door and it's like, oh, there's golf course architecture, there's equipment, there's all these things. I'm curious kind of once that door opened for you, what have you discovered there beyond what you thought was maybe there? Golf course architecture. Yeah, that's open for you? What have you discovered there beyond what you thought was maybe there? Golf Course Architecture. Yeah. That's it for me. What is it about it that interests you?

You know, like the equipment stuff, I haven't even gone down that rabbit hole yet. That's a deep one. That's a scare. I haven't nerded out. And I've done, you know, the simulator I use uses Trackman and I've, you know, done enough lessons now, you know, with the visual component, the video, and the track man stuff. That there's an element of getting to a place

of understanding of all that stuff and all the data. The equipment I haven't done yet, but then the golf course architecture stuff is like, that to me is the rabbit hole. I don't know why. The wine for me is like, some of it is memorization, but some of it is sort of connecting those dots.

Why one thing is done here, why it tastes a certain way, and golf course architecture, it's like, especially the golden age, early 1900s, is like, number one, the amazement of how these guys were able to build these courses with no modern equipment, but also just using the land. And there's been this huge push, of course, since Tom Doe, Koryn Krenshaw, where we've gotten back to that now. All these new courses are getting back to that.

And for someone that grew up, not grew up, but for someone whose entire existence early in their golf adventure was on really shitty Florida courses. That all sort of played the same. Like to get to experience a place like Mary and East or Shinnecock, like it's just fascinating. I'm noticing every single detail,

I'm being hosted by a member, I'm asking them questions about the history. When was the last time you guys did a renovation? What did they do? Well, you know, what's the philosophy on bunkers here? Like, those are the things that I sort of have nerded out about on with golf. You're gonna lose your freaking mind

when you go over to the UK and Ireland. Like, it just some of the weirdest, most, like, shit that you wouldn't, if you did it on a modern course, it wouldn't make sense at all. Yeah, it's like, I'm thinking of the first T. at Ely and Scotland, we were just at. they have a periscope that sees over the hill for the first, you go straight up a hill over this ridge,

but like, what you can do to the other side, it's wide open, but it's totally blind t-shot. Like, if you started an American golf course like that, people would lose their mind. But for people that appreciate, like, fun stuff like that, there's so much of that over there. And if that's what interests you,, you're going to lose your mind. So I haven't played national yet, but I've played a couple of CB McDonald courses.

And those are, to me, that's like, for a fun golf experience, the template holes are just they're so cool to me. And I just have it really enjoyed those experiences. Yeah, gosh, if you're already on template holes, you're gonna, yeah, that's further than I thought you'd be. That's really impressive. Because that's what, you know, people can think that golf course architecture can be very snobby or can be very off-putting,

but I just relate it to strategy. I consider it, it's really about strategy with the golf course. And I think bad architecture just promotes like an execution golf course, like, hey, hit it here and hit it here. And good ones, like, make you think about so many different routes and make you play strategic golf. And that's where I get so much joy out of it. Just come back from band and a little randomly placed bunkers where like exactly where you want to hit it, make you change the way you're going to play the whole. And that's,

that's golf to me rather than just like, hey, hit it between this water and this OB stake in Florida, because I know and this OB stake in Florida. Because I know you've seen that in Florida. Like that is where you lose your mind. I lost more golf balls playing the Valley course at Sawgrass. Right before we left on our trip, then I lost in Scotland and Ben and combined. It's just insane how that can separate.

The thinking part of golf, I'm really interested in, but I'm not good enough yet to really fully grasp it. And when I play with a good golfer, that's all I'm really interested in, but I'm not good enough yet to really fully grasp it. And when I play with a good golfer, that's all I'm thinking about. It's like, if I could be that and have the options that that guy has, you know, like I would love to have those options. My thing is like, I just want to make solid contact and hit the ball straight. Like we're not straight because I don't try to hit it straight. Generally I'm trying to hit a little draw but you know

that's like I'm like when I get to that level and I will get to that level I'm telling you right now we'll get to that level. I can't wait for that the thinking part of it. Yes well that's a thing too good architecture is going to make it easier for a higher handicap or in more challenging for a lower handicap. And I feel like golf is trying to get like the guys you're talking about to are trying to do that. And you can you can feel that in a lot of places. But looking back on your NBA career, do you feel like you missed out on some great golf

opportunities? Not, you know, not playing as much back then? Or is it is it a lot to try to squeeze in on road trips? Do many guys do that? I think again those clippers years from my first two two and a half years there. I played a couple times on the road. We had the house in Austin so like whenever we would go to San Antonio or Houston, I would figure out a way to get home for at least a night. And so I played a couple times on the road there. And then one time we had a game in Portland didn't have a couple games for, till we played on Portland on Wednesday night

and didn't play till Saturday. So we had Thursday off. So Balmer let us fly on his PGA up to Seattle. He was going home to Seattle and I had a teammate at the time, Spencer Hawes, who is a member of the Seattle Golf Club and we went and played. But it is hard because you're not, a lot of, you're getting to a city at five or six PM. You play the next

day. You, nowadays, you stay over. When I first got in the league, you would fly out and you get to the next city at four a.m. But nowadays you stay over and you leave, you know, nine or ten in the morning. There's really not enough time unless you're in a city for three or four days to really get it done. And the other problem, of course, is the season we play. There's maybe five or six cities that have good golf

that you're actually able to play during the winter season. But I would say the thing I look back on is my LA years. And again, that was when I really first started playing because I don't count Orlando. Like, it was not real golf. It's not real golf. And so, but when I was in L.A., Doc was a member at Bel Air.

And so, I got to play Bel Air a few times. My agent was a member at RIV, and I got to play that once. I didn't know what Riviera was. Somebody told me it was like one of the better courses in LA. I didn't realize it was one of the better courses in the whole fucking world. I just thought, I'm just like I showed up and played.

I didn't, and I do nothing about golf course architecture. So like for me, that's the, that's the last opportunity. Like I would love to go back and play Riviera because it was, I don't even remember the whole that has two fairways. That's literally the extent of that round that I remember. You have to be in the right phase of your love of golf to fully appreciate all the things that something like that would offer.

That makes a ton of sense to me, actually. I think I only play, I've ever played Riviera. I was 22 years old, played it out of nowhere, and also had no idea. I mean, I knew it was amazing, but didn't know that like, I would die to go back there now. And I, it's killing me that I kind of wasted that, that trip at that time. We're going to figure this out. We can get, we can make it happen. We're, we're going to figure this out. We're going to make it happen. So I have not been the biggest NBA fan. I golf has sucked up a lot of my sports energy over the last 10 years, but I really want to talk to you about the evolution of the NBA and how it kind of it has

kind of gone with your career, right? Because hand up here, this is a lot of my college buddies. I know we're going to listen to this because in college, 05, 06, I could not have been a bigger JJ Redic fan. Like I have no Duke affiliation at all, but I just saw like a very cocky three point shooter and I was like, that's my guy. And so like we would have arguments back in the day like who was gonna be a better pro like JJ Redic

or Adam Morrison and I was like, I'm redic, redic, redic, redic, redic, redic. And I'm looking at just looking at your basketball reference page, looking at the evolution of your career. I'm really curious to see, you know, going from Orlando and going to LA really seems to be a transition as to when you blossomed. And I wonder what you credit that to because see, you know, going from Orlando and going to LA, really seems to be a transition as to when you blossomed. And I wonder what you credit that too,

because if we are coming out of, even as a big supporter of yours coming out of college, I would not have predicted a 15 year MBA career like you had, could you have predicted that at that time? Hell no. Okay, good. Hell no. And not only that, like my best years were in my 30s.

I know. I know. And not only that, like my best years were in my 30s. I know. No, when I was, when I was, I would have killed for a 10 year career coming out of college. And I, and I, after those first two years, I would have killed for a four year career. I mean, I was, I was on the ropes there after year two. And I actually thought you were going to say I was the biggest Jager reticator in the 506. So I appreciate there's a lot of those, but like I was the guy that was hootin' and hollerin' when you're draining the NBA threes and I'll get some air in the back of the day.

I think some of it, the evolution, some of it is just, some of it is confidence. I mentioned hanging on by a thread there my first couple years. And my third year I I transformed my body, and I always worked hard. It was more just like, all right, now I'm gonna focus on my body, which I did the rest of my career, in addition to working on my skills. And, but that third year, I still didn't play every night.

And some games I would play five minutes, some games I would play 22 minutes. And so I wasn't like, I wasn't in it. And then, we, in the first round, Courtney Lee broke his face. And I got to start game six, a closeout game on the road in Philly, hit five threes, we win the game. And then Stan comes to me and he's like, you're going to start, you're going to keep starting against the defending champions, Boston Celtics, and you're going to guard Ray Allen. And I guarded Ray Allen for seven games, which was an exhausting experience.

I had to chase him around. We won the series and I had some really good moments in the series. And that little stretch was it for me. Like that gave me the confidence that I felt like I belonged. We go to the finals. I got to guard Kobe Bryant a little bit. Got some stops. I mean, he made some shots on me too, but I got a couple stops on him and that experience gave me the confidence and then

it wasn't even the transition from Orlando to LA. It was that seventh year. We trade Dwight stand gets fired after after my sixth year stands fifth year there and they decide they're gonna rebuild and they kept me around. I think some of it was because they needed somebody in the locker room, but Jocfon came to me in preseason. He's like, look, you're good enough to start on our team. We got a rookie mode, mode, moharkless. We're going to start him and we're going to bring you off the bench, but I need you to be, he was coming from San Antonio. He was like, I need you to be my monogenobly. And he empowered me and he allowed me, which, and this is not a knock on stand because it was a very different system, but he allowed me to play to my strengths, which is, I got a fucking move.

You may catch me once, you're not going to, you're probably not going to catch me twice, you're certainly not going to catch me the third time I come off the screen. And so Jacques had this system and it benefited everyone where I just got to play my game. And Doc had been trying to get me to Boston forever. So when I became a free agent that summer, he had gotten traded really. He had gotten traded to the clippers like five days before free agency. And his wife had taken Pilates classes for my wife. So we're driving down, we've done our anniversary trip in NAPA, we're driving down the coast to LA because I was gonna meet with the T-wolves and the pistons

and Chris, Doc's wife at the time texted and said, hey, can I give Doc JJ's number? He's gonna call him tonight. This was out of the blue and I was like, oh, fuck. This is gonna be the greatest thing ever. So then I do the meetings with Minnesota the next day. I do the meetings with Detroit and Doc and I had dinner that night and he was like You've been used the wrong way. I'm gonna use you like Ray Allen like I use Ray Allen in Boston and I was like God, I gotta figure out a way to get to LA. Well, they didn't have any cap space.

They didn't have any money to give me. The only way to get me was to trade Eric Bledso. Attach Karan Butler's contract to it and free up the cap space to sign me. That whole next day, that Tuesday, was like fucking torture. At one point, I was at Martha's in Hermosa Beach with my agent and we got the call. The Clippers were like, we're not going to trade blood. So, you know, it's not going to happen. We don't have any money for you.

So I called Minnesota and I was like, I'm coming to Minnesota. My agent in the span of like an hour, my agent starts negotiating a trade kicker. We get a call back. It's like, Lon Babby who is in Phoenix at the time. It's like, Lon Babby, who was in Phoenix at the time, he's like, Lon Babby wants to trade for blood, so they're trying to make it work right now. And, you know, I'm getting ready to get on a flight to go back to Austin.

Flip Saunders calls me, he's pissed off. He takes the deal off the table that I was gonna sign in Minnesota. They signed Kevin Martin, 10 minutes later. We're getting ready to leave for the airport. I still have no confirmation that I'm gonna sign with LA as we're sort of getting in the Uber. It's like, all right, deals done, you're good, sweet.

I think everything's great. I don't hear from anyone for like three days. And I get this random call, where it's July 4th weekend, I've got all these friends in town in Austin. We're getting ready to go to Austin Country Club to watch the fireworks. And I get this call from Doc and he says, you better play for me, motherfucker. And I'm like, yeah, Doc, that's the plan. What are you talking about?

And he starts sort of saying all these vague things. And I realized something's wrong. So I'm calling my agent two more days. Go by my agent does not pick up my phone call. Finally, he calls me Saturday. And he tells me that on July 4th, Donald Sterling woke up and he decided that he didn't want to pay me because I was white.

And he had just paid Chris Cayman because he was white and Chris didn't work out. So he's not going to pay me because I'm white and he took the deal off the table. So then Doc threatens to quit. This all happens over these two days that I'm getting radio silence from everyone. Anyways, they finally got Donald Sterling to agree to do the sign and trade with me. I ended up in LA and it was the best thing

that ever happened in my career. Being in LA for those four years, getting to play with DJ and Jamal and Chris and Blake. And also for me, growing as a person, I had lived a very sheltered childhood, I homeschooled, I lived in a small little bubble outside Ronec, Virginia. I went to Duke, that was very much a bubble, spent time in Orlando for seven years, but that was very insulated as well. And then going to LA was like this very much eye-opening experience. And it's the reason I'm doing what I'm doing now because I went to LA. It really is. I wouldn't have, I'm an introvert by nature. And if I hadn't gone to LA and gotten to experience that

with those guys and lived in that city, I wouldn't be who I am. What was, I mean, is the NBA a huge kick in the ass in terms of like your talent level, obviously in college. Like you could just kind of run circles around guys. You could hit shots. You know, that a lot of guys couldn't. NBA is a much, you know, you're playing a different role.

What was that? Like, I can't imagine you'd be surprised by a town in the NBA, but I'm wondering about that physical transition. You can talk about the year three, your body. And that contributes to you becoming a really strong defender in the NBA. What contributes to you being, again, a 15 year player,

which I was not in the original projection. And I'm just wondering if like, you got out there, got your ass beat, and decided, like, OK, this is not going to fly. I got to change this stuff. I was a terrible defender early on, and I was probably, no, I was, a terrible defender, very late. I admit that. Like, my last year to half before I got hurt last season, my last year and a half in New Orleans, I was not a great defender.

But those years in between, I was at least good and I was at least very solid and I wasn't a liability, and I can play on the court, late in games and all that. So some of it was the body transformation, but the other thing is like, it was a different league talk about. There was no high volume three point shooter. There was not a lot of movement. My rookie year, we played the Princeton offense with Dwight Howard as the facilitator in the high post. There was no analytics. It was not a thing.

And even with Stan, who again, my career was because I played for Stan. I had my career because I played for stand. He demanded so much out of me and for me to see the floor, I had to be a defensive guy. But even that, like, it was a four out spread, you know, four out one in spread pick and roll offense. There was no, there was no movement. It was a lot of standing in the corner or standing in the high quadrant. There wasn't a lot of movement.

And so I think some of it was like, you didn't know how to use me, you know, because again, I'm like a psycho. So like, I'm obviously distraught and discouraged that I'm the butt of all these jokes and I'm not playing my first two years. But if you came to one of our practices, you'd be like, how the fuck is this guy not playing?

Because I just played in practice, and I would kill in practice. And so I knew to some degree, it's not the skill. I gotta get over a little bit of the mental block, and I gotta get better defensively. And now this evolution we've seen really in the last decade, Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Kyle Corver, myself, not saying I'm just gonna shoot those guys,

but there's been a lot of, you know, those guys, but there's been a lot of, you know, Duncan Robinson, like there's been a lot of guys now, where it's like analytically, of course, like the best offenses in the league historically ever are gonna get you 116 points per possession, per 100 possession, right? Well, a 40% three point shooter, if you can get that guy to shoot 10 threes, that's 120 points per 100 possession.

That's that's league best offense. So if you have those guys, they're incredible weapons. And I was fortunate to have that year with Jacques in Orlando and then to be able to play for Doc where they just sort of unleashed that. Is what is what Steph did coming into the league? Did that help kind of exacerbate the need for a skill like yours, right?

I mean, coming into the NBA, it was not like, all right, we need this guy, hoisting five, six, three, it's a game, right? Your first few years in Orlando, you were averaging under three, three's attempted per game, yet analytics kind of showed exactly what you just said, and that skill becomes a lot more valued. And now when I flip on an NBA game,

I feel like the shooting is just out of control. So good. Like, you know what I mean? I didn't feel like, you know, I. No one was shooting step back threes in 2007. I wrote it here. No one was shooting set in the face. And dudes are just draining them.

And I, maybe I was watching, you know, booby Gibson playpoint guard for the cast in that era. Not everyone was draining threes. I should say Eric snow. He everyone was drained in threes. I should say Eric snow. He was definitely not drained in threes. But I'm wondering if that, you were there pre-analytics and post-analytics. What exactly all those things taught you?

So on who deserves credit for this? There's an evolution here. So it definitely started with the seven seconds or less Phoenix Suns and Dantone. Our Orlando teams were all of a sudden we were playing you know a shooting stretch for that changed. Staff of course Darryl Morrian Houston basically going all in on trying to generate layups, free throws and threes you're not like legitimately guys were not allowed to shoot mid-range jumpers.

So that all kind of happened. Those four teams and people, they deserve a lot of credit for this shift. But I think the philosophy about how to generate a three changed as well. Because when I got on the league, it was like, well, we have Dwight Howard, so we need a shooter to pair with Dwight Howard, because Dwightight's gonna get doubled in the post. And by year four or five, teams were like, oh, wait a minute. So if Dwight shoots a bunch of twos and we don't double him and we don't allow them to shoot 33s, mathematically speaking, like we got a better chance to win.

So his team stopped really doubling in the post unless it was a huge mismatch or you're guarding Joel and Peter, you're okay. It's like teams really don't double in the post. Teams don't really play through the post. So it became more about getting threes through movement, pin downs, dribble handoffs, step up pick and rolls, and then of course, hardened just fucked everything for everybody. Because now it's like, all right, let's put the ball on the hands of the greatest shooter and let's let him operate and shoot step back threes. And then it's like the evolution of that. It's Damian Lillard, it's Lucodontia.

There's Bradley Beale, like how threes are generated is a big component of this evolution as well. Because if you're relying on standing still and swinging the ball around the perimeter to shoot threes, teams are too good, they didn't just don't allow that now. How is the evolution too? You mentioned earlier about the flying schedules have changed really in the NBA,

and I'm wondering, rest and nights off or load management or whatever it's called now, was that a thing when you got into the league? Is that something we've seen evolve over the years? Where does that come from? And what's it like truly trying to compete like on the second night of a back-to-back? It's a test and mental fortitude.

You know, and there were nights where you look at the schedule ahead of time and you're like, the fucking NBA did what? Like, we got a game in Sacramento at 7.30 and we play the next day in Denver, but we're gonna lose an hour. It's a long flight. Have you ever flown in in Denver?

Just yesterday, yes. Takes an hour from the airport. Yes, you know, it's that and flying into Dallas and DC. It's like the longest flights ever. So I remember there times like C.P. and I would look at each other, we'd get in at 4 a.m., we'd get to the arena the next day and we'd be like, dude, wherever you got tonight, man. I'm rolling with you, just give me whatever you got.

Because it was hard. On the load management thing, this is maybe hard for people to understand how the game has played has changed so much from the 90s. So when people talk about, well, guys didn't take off in the 90s. We were like, well, guys didn't have to cover as much space in the 90s.

The amount of space, the amount of cutting, the amount of movement, the amount of close-outs you have to do defensively, it's completely different than then. People talk about hand checking and you're like, yeah, that's great. But like in the 90s, you had a legal defense. You literally had to guard your man. So if you were ice-sowed on the wing, Michael George's ice-sowed on the wing, you either had to guard your man like literally next to him or you had to go and double.

If you did something in between, it was a legal defense, it was a technical foul, you got a free throw. Now, it's like, I'm gonna be in a dig position, but I still gotta get out to my guy, and I'm gonna go double. So you're just every possession, you're covering more ground. There's more miles, it's just- Sounds good. That's the evolution of the game.

And so that's partially why load management exists. And it's another reason that I think that, you know, we've seen all these injuries, man. And so that's partially why load management exists. And it's another reason that I think that we've seen all these injuries, man. It's like the game's harder to play. It's just more space to cover. And that's where it's like, you know, just same with the analytics thing.

It's like when you have a team that starts to lead the pack in terms of load management or managing how the guys are spending their minutes, then like the rest of the, you know, you're losing strokes to the field to use a golf analogy in terms of if you're not doing that, right? So then it all kind of starts to trend that way. So maybe every, you could say,

oh, no one was doing that in the 90s, but maybe everybody was doing it wrong in the 90s too. Like, there seems to, there's gotta be something to that. The other part of that is the amplification of ring culture. And so if, you know, I grew up, look, I grew up watching 90s basketball. It is my golden age of the NBA. It always will be because there's some nostalgic factor.

The players that I grew up trying to emulate and all that. The moments that, you know, you got the NBC, NBA, NBC songs stuck in your head just like everybody else who watched it. Yeah. And those Sunday afternoon games on NBC, like, there's something about it. I loved it. But like, the game just changed. It just completely changed.

What you talked about going to bed thinking about the golf shots you've hit. What are some of the basketball shots you've hit in your life career that have the ones that stick with you the most? It's a good question. The three I hit in front of our bench against Miami, my senior year that broke Johnny Dockin's record. That one sticks out. For a number of reasons, Johnny was such an important part

of my journey at Duke and just had so much respect for him. And that was a goal of mine that I set when I signed with Duke. I wanted to be the all-time leading scorer at Duke and to have him three feet away from me and he stood up and clapped and then there's a picture coming from the baseline where I'm in that left corner and I'm sort of facing the camera and behind me is my parents and a few of my former teammates at Duke that had graduated and left that were back at the game. So that moment sticks out. There's a couple game winners I hit that stick out, but honestly I think more about the shots I missed. You know, those are the ones that it sucks. Those are the ones that

stick with you. I don't lay up at night thinking about games I won. I think about opportunities lost. And whether that was a Duke or the NBA, like I want to, I want a bunch of national championships and AAU growing up. And I wanted my state championship in Virginia at my senior year. And I won ACC's championships. That's, that's, it's not the same. You know, it's like, it's like national championships at Duke and NBA championships. That's all I ever wanted to do. That was the agenda. You know, there was the agenda was to try to win a championship. And because I didn't get to

experience that, I think more about I think it more about losses and I think more about missed opportunities, miss shots, then I then I do the good stuff. That's towards zero points in my final high school game and I still like sometimes wake up and I oh my god, I was over 18 or whatever it was, it was bad. Are you really over 18? No, no, I wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad. It was over several, but it wasn't quite that bad. Some of the rather vulgar heckles and chance you got at you are well documented.

I'm curious, was there ever like a really good heckle or chant or something that kind of made you laugh? Like kind of like, all right, that was a good one. Yeah, I mean, there was a sign at Maryland, my sophomore year, that was like peak, peak, JJ reticate my sophomore year. And there was a sign at Maryland that said JJ drinks his own pee. And I thought that was really funny. I thought that was clever.

You know, there was also signs that referenced a, a sawdemy with my little sister. So there, there was like two ends of the spectrum there. There was this group of students that game. They were sitting right behind. I think it was Mike Patrick and Dickie V that did the game right at center court across from the scores table. And during more ups, I noticed that they were,

there was a picture of me on their t-shirts. They all had matching t-shirts on. there's this lovely picture of Chubby sophomore JJ on there. I normally don't refer to myself in the third person, but I'm just trying to set the stage here. There's this picture of all these matching t-shirts. So I walk over and of course I'm getting heckled and I'm talking shit back and I look and the t-shirt as a picture of me and it says, when I grow up I want to name my kid J.J. Reddick. And at this point they recognize that I'm now looking at their t-shirts so then they all simultaneously turn around and on the back it says, and beat him every day. Which again, child abuse is a very serious thing,

but that shirt, I don't know, it's just like, I was like, that is fucking amazing. That's the amount of hate that you're gonna go to. You're gonna take the time to take the screen print that t-shirt. Were you okay with being hated? Like if I may say, even as a fan of yours at the time, it was kind of like, he is bringing a lot of this on. If I may say, maybe I'm not saying you deserved all

of some of the bad things that were said, but it was very much like you cut a steered into it. I felt like at times. You know, we didn't play a road game until my 10th or 11th game, my freshman year, we had like neutral site games. We played Ohio State and Greensboro. We played UCLA and Indianapolis and we played a bunch of games in Cameron. So our first road game was right after Christmas break. It was at Clemson and I come out for warmups

and it's just vicious and I'm like, this is weird. And then a couple of days later, we go to UVA and I had really bad back acting. My freshman in sophomore year at Duke. There's a group of students that had like these makeshift, Duke, number four jerseys, and they had painted red dots on their shoulders. And again, like, I'm 18 at the time, and 19 my sophomore year, you don't have the ego, that a healthy enough ego structure to properly deal with this.

And it goes back to me being an asshole and being competitive. I just decided to lean into it and essentially play a character. I was I was playing this villain and and yeah I kind of enjoyed it. I'd be obviously I kind of enjoyed it. But the the best thing that happened to me was really rough sophomore year. Basically behaved like a frat kid the entire second semester. I mean I would you know know, go have 20 beers the night before game and then go score 25 the next day. And I thought, I thought I was invincible and it eventually caught up to me and coach brought me into his office after we lost in the final 40 Yukon.

And he said, you know, we didn't win a national championship because you weren't worthy to be a national champion. And coached every yelled at me, but he would say things like that at times my first two years, and that really cut to my soul. I really hurt. We had a meeting about a month later, and he was just like, look, man, you can't keep going down this path. So he got me help.

I went and started, I saw a therapist. There was a period of time during that summer where I saw a psychiatrist. I didn't take any medication, but like I worked through all of these issues that I was having, not just being hated, but working through issues, like trying to figure out who I was and becoming comfortable with myself.

And at different times throughout my pro career, through issues, like trying to figure out who I was and becoming comfortable with myself. And at different times throughout my pro career, I sought mental health professionals. It was great for me. And if I'd gone to another school, I don't know that I would have had the NBA career I'd had. I don't know if I would have grown as a person, like that whole experience, while it sucked at times, it was great for me. It helped me become who I am.

Well, I think it's very, in today's day and age, it's way easier to talk about seeking mental health than it is. Maybe you would have been at the time, but I'm curious as to what specific takeaways you had from those experiences, what it taught you about yourself or what, why people, you hear people that have gone through, it speaks so highly of that experience.

You know, part of it is it's unbiased. It's different than talking to a friend, it's different than talking to a dad. But as an extension of that, for someone who, again, and I grew up, I grew up going to church and I grew up in what I would describe as guilt-based ministry. And so to be in a judgment-free zone, oh man, it was liberating. It was liberating. To admit mistakes, flaws, to work through those, to be able to sometimes get a pat on the back. Like that was important for me. You know, there's a guy, there's a guy I still see that helped me work through my retirement.

And I was, for a year, I was 99% of the way there and I couldn't let go. And so working through that with him and talking through time value propositions was extremely helpful. And he's able to handle a bunch of different fields in mental health, but I sort of use him now as a performance coach. And so again, it's all unbiased. This guy doesn't, I met him three years ago.

He doesn't know me from anyone else, but he's somebody I can sort of work through ideas with, work through feelings with. Like it's been great. So it sounds like you got your health, you're young, you've got resources. It sounds like you're gonna be playing a lot of golf in retirement.

Is that accurate? It's part of the reason that I decided, I really decided in the last six months that I'm like, you know, the media gigs, not that bad, because there's a lot of flexibility with the schedule. You know, I, the example we used of that course that's down south where there was a major like, like my buddy, you know, he works in finance, he's a Duke grad. He's older than me.

I met him when I lived in LA and we've kept in touch. You know, he texted me and he's like, hey, I heard you're into golf. I'm going to play and we're going to leave Thursday. We'll come back Friday night. And like, had I had a normal job, I guess I could just be like, yo, I'm out. I'm going to go play golf for two days. But, you know, my media schedule was clear that week.

So I think I worked on Tuesday and did a podcast. And I was able to do that. So it's crazy to think about how much golf I've played since last June and to admit that it able to do that. So it's crazy to think about how much golf I've played since last June and To admit that it hasn't been enough Dude, that's it takes like Five days in a row and like I've really bad weather day to make me be like okay need a day off I that's that's how much I could play it every single day

So we something we're gonna have to get out on the course Let's we'll have to make that happen now that the world is pretty much back to open travel, but appreciate you spending an hour with us and spending some epic stories. And like I said, it gets my juices flowing to see someone like yourself get the golf bug as strongly as you got it. So thanks a lot for coming on and we'll have to do it again sometime.

I appreciate the time. Let's figure out a time we can get together in person. We'll film some content. We'll have some fun, drink a couple beers, the good time. Better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different.