Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Phil Jackson

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

In this episode, Rick speaks with Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson is the head coach with the most NBA titles. His holistic approach to coaching, influenced by Eastern philosophy, led to his nickname, "The Zen Master,” and later to his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Tetragramaton. I'm interested in coaching. I'm a fan and I'm not a fan of basketball, but I'm interested in coaching and I'm interested in people doing their best. It feels like that and I wanted to compare notes. Good enough. That's a perfect entry. Do you play an instrument, Rick?

Barely. What's a barely that you do? Guitar barely, like, punk rock level, you know. What music did you like growing up? First was the Beatles, from Young Childhood. Beatles in the Monkeys, British Invasion, that whole, and you know, and I'm three years old to, I don't know, seven or eight years old, that that was the music that spoke to me.

And whatever singles, like whatever seven and singles were coming out at the time that were hits on the radio, some of them spoke to me. And then it was comedy albums for a period of time. I only listened to comedy albums like George Carlin and Cheechin Chang and Bob Newhart Rodney Dangerfield. It was just a whole wave of comedy that I really got into and then it was Hard Rock, was next which would be

like Eris Mithaic, DC, Ted Nugent. Then it was punk rock, and then it was hip-hop. Where did you grow up in Llan? Long Beach. Oh. I was like an hour outside of Manhattan. Oh, no, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Long Beach very well. I mean, you know, one of my best friends, Danny Rudolph, grew up in Long Beach. Good friends with Billy Crystal and uh, his brother. His brother was my art teacher in school in uh, junior high school. I read his book.

He was a bookie. Yeah, I read his book. He has a book that he wrote. Jolded. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. He was my art teacher.

He sent it to me. But I used to go out to Long Beach and play because Larry Brown and Doug Moe were basketball players from that era and age and they're a little older than I am, but we used to play out there in Long Beach High School. No, no, in the open courts on the outside. Oh wow. Yeah. Amazing. It's a group of guys that will go out there. They're nuts and nicks that would get together in the summertime Nice and play. Yeah, yeah, it's nice with the Sierra. It's a great place to grow up. Yeah, great place I have a friend named Jake He coaches soccer in New York cities one 19 championships

soccer He's out here now. He comes out to California in February, March. And he grew up in Long Beach. And his friend, Danny Rudolph, my buddy that was the past way a couple years ago. And has great stories. Still goes out there in the summertime. And my coach, Red Holesmanman lived in Sears, you know, which is right there. And Cabana or whatever along Beach, you know, Nessa County. Everybody, everybody was at the beach in July and August. So the other question I wanted to ask you was that you went to NYU. Did you aspire to go to NYU?

Did you want to go in the city and go to college? No, I wanted to, I knew I wanted to go to the best school I got into and the best school I got into was University of Chicago. And I thought that's where I was going to go. And then I'm an only child, very tight with my parents, like tight knit family. And it just felt like NYU was a better choice because it was closer. And it changed my life really

because I happened to be in New York when hip hop was starting. Had I been at the University of Chicago, my life would have been very different. So again, crazy, because my parents were all about education, yet they were cool within why you instead of the University of Chicago, which was not obvious. Yeah, University of Chicago is a great school.

Great school. From the beginning of seeing the game till now, what had been the biggest changes you've seen? Well, the three-point line changed the game dramatically. When did that happen? The unification of the American basketball, ABL, ABA. There wasn't ABL at one time, but the ABA and the NBA. When the two leagues united, the three-point line came with the ABA and there were maybe six times that would be

shot. Sometimes there was not a three-point shot taken. Then Houston and have a team with guys that could shoot three-pointers towards the end of Rick Perry's career and Rudy Tom Johnovich's career. So they started exploiting it a little bit and then it took off where they're you know but in the finals even in the 90s when we played Utah they were the least three-point shooting team in the league. They took 13-14 a game. Now teams take 30. It might be as small.

Just because culturally they never got into it. There was a good shot. It wasn't high percentage shot. Yeah. They also had a terrific interior player named Malone, Carl Malone. So there was there was that part of it. But at some point, you know, the Europeans kind of exploited it, and people bought into the fact that, me, two or three point shots of six points, takes three of those baskets to make six points. It's a difference that makes sense. So that's the way it started and it continued.

And it was good. It was a good deal. But what happened that bothers the basketball people that join the game is the rest of the game kind of fell apart. So guys walk and travel and don't know how to pivot. They can't dribble the ball correctly. And all these things that you see also are happening baseball and happen in football. You know, they lowered the mountain and baseball. That was back in the 60s because they started hitting. Guys were not hitting 300.

So they dropped the mound. And then the fences were like, Pullo Field was like 460 in New York City. The fences now are smaller than I, that the baseball field I grew up in when it had 306 at center field, 298 down the lines. Some major league teams are like, those are high flies.

They're not going to allow the power because the, the game seems more exciting for the fans. If there's more, right, more points. I don't know. I don't know if it's true or not, but you know, a three point shooting. Yeah, I went to game this week. I go to the game a year. I went game a year. Well, I went one last year. I don't know if I went one year before. I don't think I went one the COVID lockdown.

Typically, one year. Yeah. There's something that will bring me there. So I went to the game. And one team had made a three-point shot in like eight minutes And I was there with my grandkids and the boys were like wow, they can't shoot at all. They're not shooting at all I said they'll get it no find a way there's someone to get hot and then they'll get going at some point They'll start making them but yeah, it was a Dirt and so they're casting up these long shots.

And the rebounds are long rebounds. So then the opponent then can run because unfettered because there's no defense back. And so it's blown the game kind of wide open. And it's become difficult for people and players that have watched the game evolve to enjoy this form of the game a lot. Some of the guys I coached, they're talented, Phil.

They're really talented players. I know, but I'm not enjoying the games. That's too bad. There's a new generational like it. They'll like the game. Do you still watch a lot of basketball? No, I don't. Tell me about that. When ended you stopped immediately from the time you stopped coaching?

No, I didn't. I watched some of the game evolve and decided, and they went into the lockout year and they did something that was kind of wanky. They did a bubble down in Orlando and all the teams that could qualify went down there and stayed down there, no audience. And they had things on their back like, you know, justice and, you know, I I mean a little funny thing like you know justice just went to the basket and equal opportunity you just knocked him down and somebody I had another name for Guy Wiz Jersey in the back of a Jersey at some other slogan

so my grandkids thought that was pretty funny to play up those names. So I couldn't watch that. And then Lakers won, actually. They won that year. And you feel like it just made little of the game. Like it made it like a side show. What do you think it was that turned you off? Well, it was, it was, they even had slogans on the floor, on the baseline. It was catering. It was trying to cater to an audience, or trying to bring a certain audience into play. And they didn't know it was turning other people off. People want to see sports as non-political.

We've had a lot of different type of players that have gone on to be, like Bill Bridey is a senator, number of baseball players, been representatives and senators and political, but their politics stay out of the game. Yeah, it's that- No, it doesn't need to be there. Yeah.

Tell me about competition and the difference between playing to win and playing your best. Okay, so we have the term, we have the term, play beyond your opponent and play beyond the referring. So you're not trying to understand the scoring and what the opponent is doing. You're just playing for your guys that are with you on the team and doing the things that create the best feeling for your group of guys. And when there's a bad call or there's something that goes against you in the referees, no mind. That's not part of what you're doing. You're just playing. So you're not involved in that.

So some guys, I actually got them to get like a rubber band and put around there and just snap the rubber band, bring you so back. Presumably. I this statement one mind, one breath type of thing that we used to sit as a team, you know, before days of shoot around or, you know, sometimes even previous to a game, we just sit in quiet space.

We know what we had to do. There was no need to talk. Just be quiet and sit and get centered. So yeah, just trying to get guys to get centered and to leave all that noise behind, sometimes really important. And were some more receptive to that than others? Oh yeah. You know, there's a lot of kids that have grown up in this generation, the last couple generations, that deal with the tension deficit there's, you know,

Asmons and other thing, you know, they're just Proving people from just being what be really clear and they have quite quite space Sometimes I've taken player out and sent them down and just say, you know, this is time just to be quiet. Don't out and send them down and just say, you know, this is a time just to be quiet. Don't get yourself centered. Call a time out. There's a certain role. It's a first minute yours. Go to the bench, towel off. Your teammates will talk to you. You can communicate among yourselves. When I step in, get up off the bench, join me in a circle, we'll talk about the next.

We'll go out and do it. Give them a space to get themselves back and centered and whatever. And then I'd step in and they'd be up and ready to go after it and teammates would be around them. And I could spend a minute with my staff and talk about what's going on and we had one guy that was plotting everything, you know, just like your board there, you know,

a line sheet of paper and do you know nine by eleven or whatever. And there are 25 plays in a quarter, what's happened in the last six or eight between the time outs. Is there any trend that you want to talk about. And you know, give input because my coaching staff, they each had a team. And so with, you know, 30 teams and three coaches, 10 each, usually there's some teams you play for, some teams in the east you play too, but kind of balanced it off so they weren't overwhelmed. So they would do the prep and they would do the pre-game preparedness. And then during the game they would talk about what's going on with the other team when they bring in the subs.

the, when they bring it in the subs, what's their post timeout thing that they like to go to? What do they do? So yeah, kind of get some information. Anything like this, this is something that worked against this player in the past. This is a weakness, like pointing out things like weaknesses of other players. Yeah. Yeah, there's a certain frame to that. And you know, one of the very difficult games that we had to play, seventh game in the series against Sacramento in 2002. Rick Fox, who is an alternate captain, came over and said, yeah, Shaq and Kobe

been carrying the load. It's, I got a guy I can take, you know, then get the wall to be in home. I'll see if I can't break some defense down or get some baskets for us. With a little easier. So yeah, he took three possessions, six points, and we gotta get the momentum going.

So yeah, I like it when players volunteer and help. My coach Red Olsman, timeout. All right, you motherfuckers. You've been lazy out there. You're not getting out on the deep fizz. You're letting guys catch the ball. You're not putting, you're not contesting shots. Let's get some bodies on bodies out there and down, down, down, down. Okay, what do you guys want to run? Dave, what do you want to do out there to you? Well, let's see, got someone you want to take. What do you guys want? Well, let's go inside the will, let's see, I hadn't touched the ball a couple of times, I don't know. So you know, that was a, gave a lot of freedom to the team. Defense.

Now, this is us doing everything together. This is a five-man operation. Off-hits. Who could you, you know, someone take off. So, when I came to the Lakers, I was like, basketball's kind of like a jazz quintet. You know, I riffs off another guy and someone gets to play a little bit of a lead or whatever. That's kind of what happens in basketball. There's a lot of times in the

offense I run. It's whoever gets open, it's going to end up with a ball. It's not always going to be just so-and- so, that's gonna have a, one of the guys is a, is a jock on jazz. How about Coltrane? Nope, not Coltrane. Coltrane, he wouldn't put that ax down. He had to play 40 minutes, sometimes all by himself. We don't wanna have that happen.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a famous thing with Miles Davis. Coltrane, put that fucking ax axe down you've been playing 40 minutes That was That was maybe Miles Davis's best group though Quintet with John Coltrane in it I remember hearing you say that you like the team to play in 4-4, like to play in rhythm, explain that to me.

I want to picture that. Okay. So, there's a certain beat that we like to play in. If you have the ball longer than two counts, you're holding up the team. You either activate the ball, shoot it, trouble it, or pass it. But once you're beyond that level, something's stolen the organization out. Because the players are all in concert moving together. And so if it gets beyond that tube and the third beat, now they're

spacing is disoriented, they're timings off, and there's a certain rhythm that has to go with it. So the passing was really like a rhythm thing. I call it communication. You communicate with each other by passing them all. And it opens up new opportunities every time the ball's passed. Everybody resets. So yeah, there's a certain format that we organized and it's called an overload because we overload

one side of the floor, which gives an open area on the other side of the floor because there's not enough defenders over there. So we use an overload to set it up. So the overload, you have to fill that corner and fill the space. So it takes a couple of seconds to get into that. So in the process of doing that, you have a certain activity. You do footwork, you do motion, you do penetration, whatever. You might start a passing operation that's going. But then if it's not activated within two seconds and you're all things up,

people are on the way. They're on the move and they're ready to go. Yeah. Is there any preconceived idea in coaching? Or is it all in the moment based on either the person in front of you or the situation you're in? So going in, there's a certain, okay, this is what we're gonna work on here with this particular thing.

And if I had a player that was an outstanding scoring, which is a talent, a lead singer, a scoring guard, scoring forward, what do you see? What have you visualized? Because we talk about visualization a lot. What have you visualized will work against this team? For myself, after morning shoot around maybe a little salad lunch or whatever it when we work out maybe to take a 45 minute nap at 3. Get up put on my

suit suit and get ready for the bus at 5. During that 45 minute thing. It's a whole process. I see new leaning back here, eyes closed, headphones on, full of whatever that sound is that you're trying to feel it out. So the same thing, I'm doing similar thing in a situation. What does a visualization look like here? What is the activity level that's going to disrupt what this team is planning to do? We certainly know what their strengths are on the other end of the floor, how they score. But what are they going to try and do this? Stop, they can take all the way from Michael to... So it's almost like ESP that you're doing. You're trying to imagine what's gonna happen tonight. That's right. So we got in that Donnie Brook game one time in San Antonio. It's like one of these games that you know the crowds going nuts and you know the San Antonio fans and notorious and

We're playing our Balls to the wall game and it's it's fun and I keep telling we're playing our balls to the wall game and it's fun and I keep telling them we're gonna win this game but I just got that feeling this is our game to win. Things go wrong. Tim Duffett, it's a three-point shot or an out of balance shot. We're down by one point. I don't know if there's a second left on the clock. I think it's less than a second.

So I light them up. There's what we're going to do. Go out on the floor. Out of bounds, Guy Gary Paid's taking them all out of bounds. He's a good passer. Calls Tama. Okay. The guy that's guardian played for us for three years. Robert Ory. He knows exactly what we're going to do. You're going to have to go to the guy that's guardian played for us for three years, Robert Ory, he knows exactly what we're gonna do. You're gonna have to go to the guy that's open here. He's gonna be boating on Shaq or Kobe or whoever else. He just has to hit the open guy. So we'll break out and do it again, okay? Do it again.

Fish catches the ball, Derek Fisher catches the ball. Back to the 6-1 guard, shoots a turnaround jump shot and hits it with less than a second. Well, there's only a second to start with. Catch and shoot is all he can do. Catch, dribble, that turning and shoot the ball goes in, we win the game. Wow. Unbelievable. Yeah, was unbelievable. How does it happen? You know, you talk in the book that you talk a lot, there are many examples of a miraculous shot. That sounds like a miraculous shot. We've just described what goes into a miraculous shot. Well, I think the impossibility of the situation, you know, the one that Michael made,

it finished off the last dance. That was all program. They scored with 40 seconds to go. They were up by three points. I called the timeout. And I said, we're gonna do this. And you're gonna have this opportunity. But I know the coaches are not going to call a timeout

for the other team. Jerry Sloan will not call a timeout. He'll expect his team to come down and score. And they'll do the same thing that you guys know. They'll run a post-play inside, cross-picked by the guard. Michael, you'd come back and steal a ball from Malone right there. And we'll go down and run the same situation.

But we'll have a, you just make a adjustment on it. No timeouts. You won't see that ever in this day and age. After Michael scores this incredible shot where he, well I told him during the timeout, you've been shooting the ball and you've got tired and now your hands dropping. So when you shoot your shot, make sure you follow through with your hand. So he follows through, the ball goes in, we are up by one point, now they call it timeout. Now there's like, I don't know,

listen whatever, four seconds or whatever. Now they call it timeout, but that's, you don't see plays like that, where there's no timeouts. There would usually be like three timeouts. Yes, day of age coaches would want to control my counterpart down there. Jerry Sloan had a similar background as I had about their team knew what to do and when to do it. They're really intuitive to each other. So I mean it was a miraculous shot

but yet we knew what was going to happen yet we knew what was going to happen. And he knew what was going to happen. He knew what to do. There was a situation similar to that the year before, in the final game of the year before, where John Stockton had been leaving his man and coming over and trapping Michael and they stole a ball from him. And in the next game, there was a final game in the series, the sixth game.

I said, Michael, you know what's gonna happen? John Stockton, as soon as you turn your back or you move into that position, he's coming. So Steve Kerr is gonna be right behind you. Just put it on his hands. Steve made the shot. And you know, then he told a funny story at this, you know, Grand Park ceremony they had for the team afterwards that was down in the

areas as I told I told Michael I'm gonna be opening this whole bit which is funny which is definitely a Steve type of thing. It's interesting to see Steve in that that whole sequence he's like really excited about doing he's like a six-man you know he didn't play starters or minutes, but he was a dead-eyed shooter. And at one time, had the best 3. shooting percentage of any player in the NBA. Now his player, Steph Curry, has passed him by with the highest percentage 3. point shooter. So it's funny. How much of three point shooting is practice? Well, when Steve came to us, we knew he was a good shooter. My colleague, Tex Winner and I, gone to watch him play his final college game.

And he had a knee operation in between then and coming to the Probe, so he sat out of here. So he came to the NBA a year out of college without playing. It had no opportunities, very few opportunities to play. Old here and a little there. But we kept an eye out, and when he became available, we went and got him. His high school predecessor at his high school in Pacific Balacese right down the street here, was going to law school at deep-ball in Chicago. I played against him in the Philippines.

It's a funny thing. He was in the Philippines. He went to Duke. He was in the Philippines playing, you know, exercising in basketball, Jones or whatever, getting it out of his system. And he said, you know, exercising, basketball, Jones, or whatever, getting it out of his system. And he said, you know, this is it for me. I'm going to go to law school. And he called me up and said, Steve Kerr wants me to come and help him shoot before practice. Is there a way I can do this?

You can have a court until ex-monetized. You can have it from 930 to 10. He said, I'll be there. We're going to do it. And he was like three years, they had a Steve Kerr Pacific Ballad Sates. They both went to say my school. So Steve really respected his shooting. He's now 15 years with San Antonio.

Maybe 20 years with San Antonio. He's become the quick to San Alchulli coach in the NBA. But so he went and started shooting with Steve. And then Steve brought some of his teammates in and they started shooting together and it became like a, well let's shoot together and do this type of thing. So they shoot like 50 shots, 100 shots,

three point shots, which is, you know, take some work. By the time I got back to the NBA after taking a high-atiss and being off for a year, they had a lockout that year. I came back. The teams were now playing a game. Players on the team were playing a game called Cat. So they go to four or five different spots on the corner, top of the key, angle, three point lines in the other corner. And they shoot knockout. They play a game called Knockout. So, player makes it in front of you.

You got to make it, or else you get knocked out of the game. So then it starts over. Then you try to make the shot and knock the out behind you. So then they get down to the final two guys. And so then's he do this there? Still, Coach don't start practice yet. We're still not done with the game. Okay, I'll give you guys a five minutes to do it. Kobe, why don't you ever shoot with these guys? I'm not a three-point shooter. I want to go to the basket. I

want to take it to them inside. It'll be my boy Kobe. He was like, my boy, Kobe, he was like giant killer. You're gonna get knocked down. Eventually, you're gonna have to run out of shoot these three. He's the jumper. That'll be a time that'll, I'll be ready for that time. But right now, I'm going to basketball. He became a great 3.2. Absolutely. Amazing. Would you ever see a player that you thought

could be Michael, could be Kobe, but for whatever reason, it just never came together. Like you saw the, the promise, but it didn't happen. Yeah, there's a couple, there's a couple of players that are actual contemporaries of theirs. Carter, Vince Carter is one of them. And he was really good. He won the dunk contest and he had a long career.

He played until he was 40. He had a really good career. But he just didn't have that X factor. And it's the X factor, a desire to win or something different than that. I think a lot of these guys like to compete and they like to win. But inciting it, it's kind of like the drummer. If he can get the whole band playing together, if somebody can carry not only his end of the bargain, his scoring, but also excite his teammates and get them involved in it too.

You know, that's the, that's the real thing that makes teams click. Come on guys. I mean, the first year I was a head coach with the Chicago, we'd be playing Detroit, and Michael had been knocked down on the floor five times. I go in there, half time I go like, coaches, let's meet outside the locker room, I know Michael's probably going off in there.

He's probably high rate because these guys are playing scared, they're afraid they're gonna get knocked down and he's gotta go in there. Now, to be fair, when I was a sister coach, we had a normal brawl with this team. The bad boys, they call them the Detroit bad boys. And I had a clipboard on my lap and I sat there, and of course, my knees are up to my chin when I'm sitting on those kind of seats they have.

They sit below the court and the court says that this much higher than the chair. So I'm sitting there, and my colleague, Johnny Bach, runs out of 65 years old or more, runs out there and grabs a guy that's, you know, 6,000, 300 pounds. And the guy takes his hand and removes his hand, and tears the ligaments in his wrist and his thumb. I said, Johnny, what did you think you were going to do when you went out there? These aren't just normal people.

These guys are extremely strong and extremely big. Doug Collins went out there. He was the coach of time and he threw him onto the scorers desk. Literally took him in the him on the score. Now he was like 195 pounds or 200 pounds. He wasn't a big guy, 6'4", but you know, that's, you know, how big and how the effort, you don't want to go out there and get yourself in a mess, you know.

So some of these players played intimidate. Well, that year's Scottie Pamping got a concussion from a blow he got from one of the players on Detroit. During the playoffs, he couldn't play the second half. And the final game, he had a migraine the next year, and that was a pressure. His mom had died. There's a bunch of stuff that got into him, but he had a migraine, he couldn't play.

So everybody's like, what's with Scotty Pippin? Is he a winner or not a winner? What's going on with this guy? You know, he missed the game. Last year with a concussion that was a final game. This year he got, that all went under the bridge under the water, he started winning. And he was like, came back from the

Olympics, the dream team in Olympics in 92. Michael Jordan came down to the office and we were getting ready to start the scene. He said, Scotty Pippins, a second best player in the NBA. I said, oh, who's the best? Come on, you know who's the best. That's so funny. That's so funny. Yeah, I was revealing for him because they're Larry Bird and Charles Barkley and you know, all these guys that were... Do you still keep in touch with players or not so much? I don't.

Any reason or just... Well, I'm not a phone guy. I've kind of left guys alone. I've never kind of been on their case. When I get them on the court or get them in the team, film room or whatever in my office, I really like to have conversations. But I haven't chased down any players. And this week they retired a number for Pogasol, one of our key players here. they retired a number for Pogasol, one of our key players here. We liked him. He was a television really smart guy. Spoke Spanish, not Mexican Spanish, which he says is considerable difference I had to learn Mexican, but he speaks Germany, he speaks French. They retired his number 16 and I went to the game.

I didn't go the pregame postgame parties that were afterwards and like six of my players were there and I was like, I missed out on it, but you know, I was like, there's too much. I got a little knee issue going on and it was just, I have a feeling, I don't have any issue going on and I don't go to those things either

and I don't know why issue going on and I don't go to those things either and I don't know why there's something strange about it where um I don't know I think if we're people who live in the present moment We're in the present moment. I hate grouts. I saw you at The Abbott concert it's Ryan. Well, they're trying and you were in the audience? Yeah. That's the first time I saw them. Might have been the first time I saw them. Maybe five years ago or something. More and more.

Yes. When they played the trends, probably 10, 12, 15 years, a long time ago. Right. That was their hearts, those boys. They're unbelievable. Beautiful people. The nicest people I know. They had nice spiritual background.

Their fathers, they've been brought up right here. I asked there, when I met their father, I said, what did you do? I never met anyone like these kids, and he said, I'll tell you what I do. I back them. I back them, whatever they say, I back them. And he said, if someone came to me

and said, one of my kids killed someone I would have said they must have needed killing. Yeah, amazing. What's the range of coaching styles? What would be the opposite of the way you coach? Well, I wrote something about it was once transactional the other's transformational. So when I went to graduate school in the offseason of my first couple three years as an MBA player, you know, you're making 12,000 a year, you're going to be playing the game you love and then what are you going to do? Yeah.

Would you study? Psychology. Two guys, Ellis and Maslow, were the prominent psychologists at the time. They were doing group therapy a lot at the time and they both had this school that became known as transformational psychology. You can imagine what it means, obviously. Tribute sexual and my way, the highway type of thing, you know, more like Pat Riley's coaching

style. And that's a terrific coach. Trificoge in a different way, in the opposite way. Demanding, you'll get the job done, whatever. Transformation, I learned this when I was there, in fact, was really interested in the dynamics of my Nick team because of that bonding that we had as a group. We really bonded. It was like, you know, we're toast to the town.

Go to a party here, go to a party there. Howard Codsell was right behind us. I'm going to be around these guys. There's so much fun to be around them. Howard Codsel was right behind us. I'm going to be around these guys. It's so much fun to be around the type of thing. The next sequence of guys that we had in in 73 weren't like that at all. We had a group of guys that respected their professional capabilities, but they had grown into different paths and married and whatnot, you know, things like that happen. So I had a couple of different types of teams that I saw were extremely successful. But I knew that from my background, with my dad being a pastor, my mom being a caregiver and a minister of her own,

that this is what they were, this is their message. This is a community. We love you. We support you. God willing your life is going to be blessed and honored and will help you on your way. And giving people that kind of solid base or understanding and then having a standard, you have to be able to meet the criteria that we have. These are, this is a system that we all have to play with. And then, and you have to learn this system. But, Joe, that you want to learn it, you want to learn it, you have a chance to play. And then we'll see how you do. And once you kind of get the feeling of this thing

and you can play without thinking about it, it's a date you're in. Yeah. How hard is it to learn? We say it takes a month. I used to say Thanksgiving will know about this team and that's maybe 14 games in or something like that. But you know, usually it's,

we teach people how to catch the ball, how to pivot, how to use footwork, how to get to a position where you can receive the ball, how to pass to the open side, so the passing drills, dribbling drills, footwork drills. And some people take to it faster than others. Yeah, they've had the training. so we look for players that have good coaching None of that works in basketball now. There's none of that applies to basketball They're still footwork for pivot for big guys Tell me about How teams get assembled so when you get hired to coach a team the teams already assembled you have no

Not really. I mean, we brought in two players. The first year I was here in Jerry West, who was extremely good at that. I was a general manager. We brought in one of my former players from Chicago named Ronnie Harper. And we brought in, I think I named Sally, John Sally, who's a backup to Jack. I met him on the beach one time. He seemed like a great guy. He always really happened to be a great guy. And he came into my office or my dressing room or whatever and he's saying, coach, Shaq is worried that you don't like what he's doing.

What do you mean? You never give him any praise. Oh no, he's doing exactly what I expect him to do. Does he need praise too? Or with... story that I like to tell, Shack is always overweight after his first couple of seasons either. It's got huge. Now he's over 300 pounds, right? So we go to training camp and everything. It's a shock. You got to lose some weight whenever you have to get a great scale the way the guy right, you can't win on normal scale.

So, well, the first game's regular season, he's coming off the floor, it's early in the ball game. And I walk up and I ain't Shaq. What's the greatest thing WellChain blood ever did? By average, 50 points a game and 40 rebounds, 30 rebounds a game. So that's great numbers. But you know the real thing that's the greatest, he played every minute of every game.

He played over 48 minutes a game. Do you think you can do that? If you did it, I can do it. Two weeks later, John Sally comes into my, you know, well, Shaxx feeling like he's getting pretty tired I said yeah, he said pretty good shape though is me. It's so funny It's so funny. It's just like the right challenge for the right guy who needs the challenge Amazing, that's the only year one MVP title, earned MVP award. He was terrific. He was really great.

He had a toe from having feet, I'll grue his shoes. So his big toe was like this. So when he pushed, that's the one you push off of. He pushed off this joint, got worse and worse and worse. Tudd saw our threading, he was like, oh man, my feet are killing me. Good operation. Helm fix it. Ballet dancers do this all the time. Weight in, weight in.

And I can remember September 11th, following the Big Dan September 11th, following the big dance of September 11th, there's still celebrating September 9-11. He had the operation at UCLA. I went down to CM at UCLA. His statement was, my time is playtime in the summertime. I'll get the operation on the team's time. Well, Kobe took that as a direct insult.

I'm like, you didn't want to win. So that's where they're fued really. Kind of, you know, they had a little kind of issues about that one. That was a really tough one for him across. I was like, yeah, I know the big guy doesn't want to play any two games. Kobe gets tiring after a while. And you're hauling that big body around, whatever.

Taking off, you see, he takes, he's whacking on him like he's, you know, smad a steal. So the other lot of things to make up for it, but there's still that innate desire and Kobe that Shaq didn't have. Wait, they have that same killer instinct. Well, he didn't need it because me the Shaq didn't have quite that same killer instinct. Well he didn't need it because he was Shaq. He had a different, he brought something else.

Right. And he was just bullied. But he could bully. Yeah, but he wasn't a bully. Yeah. I know guys that play bully ball, play basketball. Yeah, yeah. But he really wasn't a bully.

But he test shoud he give me that children-the-chest thing. How do you like that? That was hard on my chest. I had to play me for the Hacker Shack thing, because when I was a coaching in Chicago, and they were in Orlando, I had three centers. I'd say, you guys have 18 miles. Wow.

And when you knock him down, make sure he goes down. So he has to pick himself up. But just do it if he gets an offensive rebound. I don't go for that other stuff. I've just whacked him a guy. But if he gets his own rebound or an offensive rebound, he can't let him put it back. He's unstoppable that way.

And don't let him complete. So I had the three-headed monster. That's what they call it then. The three heads of the centers on a t-shirt. You're talking the book about the right way to play the game. What does it mean? I see Steve Steele says,

the basketball gods, that's the term we used. You know, hit the open man. That's my coach's statement. Basketball is a pretty. You know, hit the open man. That's my coach's statement. Basketball is a pretty simple game. You hit the open man and you see the ball on defense. That's the right way to play. Yeah. You hit the ball up, set a pick, whatever. Do the thing that comes naturally in basketball and everything will work out. Where's the line between gamesmanship and cheating?

Well, baseball, all baseball's history. They've been stealing signs and doing stealing base running signs, whatever. They've been using pine tar. They've been using cork bats. They've been using whatever. So baseball's rent with cork bats, they've been using whatever. So baseball is rent with that. It's just part of the game. It's kind of a gamesmanship thing. And there's a lot of whining, especially here in LA

after the Houston Astros won the World Series. They'd be both the Yankees and the Dodgers. And that's that year. Basketball, my coach is used to say, we go down to North Carolina, North Carolina State, not Dean Smith and the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State, and the coach there would have a great dinner, steak dinner for the referees, and maybe company later after the meal.

So I get a couple calls the company later after the meal. So I get a couple calls the next day on the floor. You know where the referees are coming in. That's kind of how you get out of Embasca ball is to try and change that. The Celtics used to have nets that were like flush the ball through and other people had nets that would hold the ball and they all had to flush the ball through. And other people had nets that would hold the ball,

and they all had to take the ball out of the rim so the team couldn't run. Well, they got to it, and they said, we're gonna make the nets down. So they'll at least stop that. One of the equipment I carried on the floor was a needle that lets the air out of the ball. We played basketball, We won the ball that you

could put your thumb in the skin of the ball. We didn't want rebounds bouncing all over the place. We wanted to be over if it was overfilled. It will change the game. Bounce too much. So we wanted to box out so we get the rebounds by the basket. We didn't want that ball bouncing free throw light. The leg stopped allowing that to happen. Even though it says on the ball this ball can be inflated, seven to nine, PSI, Hansper Square inch. So you preferred it closer to seven than nine. We added seven, yeah. And the leg now has the referees and they mark the balls. So they've tried to take that out.

The rims used to be a little bit wanky. They're called toss back rims, or you can pull them down and they go back up so that they don't break the backboard. So some of them are tighter than others. And so the ball hits, it doesn't go in, it just knocks the ball off the backboard now. Oh, here's something I used to do.

The league and its infinite ignorance has, Emmy A Final is in a great, big, plastic decal at half-court, and they put it on half court. So when the cameras on the game, there it is 1995 or 2015 NBA finals on both sides of the court. Those things are, slipperys can be a fit. If there's a wet spot on that thing, to go and play full court defense against your opponent Because they can't stay up their feet. It's like a skating rink. Their slipperys could be especially if they're wet. And everybody's sweating so they get wet.

Yeah, they can't help it. They're growing. You know, when it goes to Puerto Rico, I had a guy, Torres, when he ran, there'd be the footprint of sweat right through where his tennis shoe was. And all squish out. ran, there'd be the footprint of sweat right through where it's tennis she was. And all squish out.

And there would be a puddle of, uh, in Puerto Rico, they call them mappos. Hey, mappos, get this, uh, but there's, there's a number of things like that. Um, oh, here's one that was great. Red our back, who's one of the great competitors and a fine coach. when that was great. Ha were there four times, two at our home court, one, one, and one. Seventh game. Every game we played, there was a different locker room. We had the visitor's hockey room, we had another different, just make you uncomfortable. Just anything. Anything to make you uncomfortable. The seventh game, we had to sit outside the ring and in Boston, they had this grandstands and then they had a ring where all the pedestrians would hang out during a half time. And so to get off the court, we'd walk through all the pedestrians to get to this.

I call it janitors closet. Yeah. It was like a janitors closet. We got beer thrown on the sweatknife, going out that thing. But that's a red ar-back special. And the other thing he would do is that he wouldn't send the tickets down, the players get two tickets each. So there's, you know, like 24, 30 tickets, maybe, for a whole team, coach, trainer, et cetera.

He'd send the tickets down half hour before the game. So players are going out to the court to start their warm-ups and they'd say it's a trainer, Danny. Danny, I put the ticket envelope for, you know, Will Smith to distract you. Distraction. On my locker. So when the tickets come, put the, right and you mind off the game Amazing and the Celtics used to play them all the time the Lakers all the time the Lakers would say That old building and they crank up the heat. It's 105 degrees in the locker room And it'd be on the middle of June. Yeah, so yeah amazing those are little things that go on in the game. When you're playing in the heat of the moment and the ball gets thrown to you, tell me what

goes on inside. Is it thinking? Like, how do you know what to do in the heat of the moment? It's happening. It's fast. Yeah. What happens? Tell me the heat of the moment, it's happening, it's fast. Yeah. What happens? Tell me the process of what it feels like and what you think is going on inside you. Right. Well, the first thing we taught, and I am part of this

for having experience, is how close am I being guarded? Do I have a shot? Should I be passing the ball? Is there a passing sequence? Are you aware of this even before you have the ball in your hand? What's my situation? Is there a body on body right now? I have to help a guy off to get to the basketball. How am I catching the ball? That's the first rule. How far am I away from the ball? Basket. And what's going on in the game what's the game situation and we

tell a guy those are your two seconds shoot or pass or penetrate so you look for the shot if you're wide open you look for a pass if your teammates are open hit the open man or then you penetrate and you get. So you only have three, you're only picking from three. Yeah. Before you pick, you're seeing whether you're guarded or not, because if you're guarded, it makes the shooting less of a chance. Is that correct? Yep.

So you're more likely to eat while you have to either penetrate. First rule of a sound offense must penetrate the defense. Yeah. First rule. You must get the penetration. Yeah, first of all, you must get the penetration. Yeah. And you could penetrate by three ways. You could penetrate by a dribble, by pass, by offensive rebound. Offensive rebound is the most dangerous of all of them, because you rebound it right there. You're right there.

You're right now. As soon as you rebound close the basket, there are two three-point shooters that are standing out there. All their lives, these three-point shooters, have hired people to catch the ball they shoot and pass it to them from the basket out to where they're standing. So they are used to the ball coming from this direction and shooting it back where it came from. And that's Dennis Rodman is good at that at getting the ball. Dennis, we get on a he lift weights to activate himself then he get on the bicycle He ride a bicycle for an old 50 minutes, so I get a sweat

All the time he's riding a bicycle. He'd be watching the opponent He watch where the opponent shots came off. Does this guy shoot long does he shoot short? Does this shot go off the backboard? Do they? Does he shoot from the corner? And the ball skips this way or that way. Okay, now he's got an idea of what he's playing against. So, what do I go? Now he goes into the shower. He showers. The meeting started because it's like, I don't know, 25 minutes to the game. We go out at 15 minutes before the game. Guys have been out shooting, giving themselves ready, come in, maybe put on a new

juxtap, dry shorts and a shirt and their jersey, whatnot. They're all sitting in their chairs. Dennis walks out of the shower, but asks naked where the towel over his head goes goes sits down in his locker. There's 10 minutes left before the game before he's dressed. All the players are coming in. Dennis, we gotta go out.

Dennis, we have to go out. Don't leave him. Just leave him. Go on, shoot. No, no, we gotta go out together. Gotta go, okay. Dennis, get out there and get there. Team it.

10 minutes is enough to shoot. These guys have shot before the game. Of course. I mean, he's always making these shooters They're they're waiting their antsy waiting in the hallway get your ass out of your dentist But it doesn't like the perception in him is that he's a screw up But what you're describing is not a screw up not at all. He seemed is not a screw up. Not at all.

He seemed methodical about the game. He did all of the practice that he needed to do to do his job. And he studied the other team and was diligent about his job. I don't know if anybody rebounds at the level. He rebounds even today in this sport with guys that are, you know, whatever. I think the best height for basketball, like 6'10. I think 7'10 is a little bit too tall for the

game. But he's not 610. 6.8. No, not even that 6.6. But he knows where the ball is going to go. He knows trajectory. He knows where it's going to. There's a picture of him perfectly perpendicular to the floor diving for the ball like this. Front of Roger Roger Ebert yellow guy that used to be the film on the front row seat and he's got the ball in his hand He's ready to get it out and throw it, but he's perpendicular like laid out fully. Yeah That's he's been a lot of time on the floor a Lot of time getting knocked down and banged around, loved it, just loved it. It's like a rubber ball bouncing up and down. There's a cartoon character like that.

I can't remember what it is, but... When you're on the sidelines watching the game, do you ever pray? I pray before the ball game, when they're doing the national anthem. Beautiful. Let me be a vessel. Yes. Beautiful. Yeah, you know, my dad was a minister. My mom was a minister. Both. Both of them. They did the same Bible school in Winnipeg, Banna, Toba, back in the 20s, dates us, 100 years ago. And they were moved by this charismatic movement

that went across the country in the United States. That was a dairy farmer. My mom was young, she just came out of a teaching one-room school house teaching in Montana. So I was born into this family sister and two brothers, four of us. And where were you in the four? I was youngest. Youngest. So I was a war baby at the end of the war baby in 45, not a baby boomer in 46, but you know, it was, you know, an interesting time. People coming out of depression, out of poverty that came out of the depression. And the West was, you know, hamstrong really by dust bowl and lots of jobs

and farmers losing their land and so forth. People don't know about the dust bowl anymore but it was at three years where basically the sun didn't shine essentially. Well, it was just drought and wind. My mom grew up there, my dad didn't grow up in the West by that grew up in Ontario, Canada. Really on the Quebec border, Ottawa River,

and migrated out to marry my mom. And even though they both gone to seminary in Winnipeg, Manitoba, that was by chance and choice because there weren't a whole lot of charismatic seminaries at that time. So anyway, he came out west and loved it, loved Montana and the open spaces. His family had migrated from what was Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War, they were Tories, Loyalists. And they went to Nova Scotia and then they got a land grant for losing their land in what became do Amshire, Port Smith, do Amshire.

But that time the Commonwealth of Massachusetts incorporated that land, Port Smith. But my mom growing up had shoot some men in night faith. Her parents had migrated in 1902 from Minnesota to Saskatchewan. And she was born there in 07. And then they had the epidemic that was devastating, the flu, or Spanish flu, which it was called, which took three of her five cousins. They went together as a married couple. My grandpa, a funk and my uncle, Rhymer, their German men and knights. The Rhymer's loss, three of their five kids to this epidemic and they gave it up and they went back and homesteaded in Montana.

But the story I was going to tell my mom would tell about the locusts coming through and would strip the clothes line of clothes and take the tails off the horses and the mains and just eat everything, strip the land, and they were, they called them the Rocky Mountain Locust in invasion, and that's wild. I don't see like eighth biblical. I mean, really is. And they felt that way.

It was devastating, and people were stripped of land and stripped of an income. And maybe it was a hard, hard like my mom and her siblings. When they're old enough, they left the homestead in Oswigo. There's an Oswigo New York to Oswigo Montana, which is about 35 people. And went into a town called Wolf Point. And their pop got a tarp paper shack for them to live in. They had a coal burning stove, some traps, and a bag of potatoes, and the four of them went to school.

Junior High or, you know, secondary school, and they ended up, you know, getting an education in a very rural area in the town, about 3,500 people in a little town. But that's kind of hard, scrabble life that they came out of. So it was interesting to be born into a family that was do it yourself, people. They could do it.

They could do whatever necessary to survive. So they left the midnight faith is like Amish, similar. Very similar. And so it's a strict faith in very much outside of the mainstream. Very disciplined, y'all, farmers. Yeah. And they were, you know, historically, I know the background. They were dikers, and they left the lowland devilence at the behest of Peter the Great and went to Prussia, which was owned or run by Russia at that time,

and dammed a river that they created or created the land, there was swamp of a river that was there and eventually moved down to Moldavia where they did the same for a big lake, large lake down in Moldavia and then Catherine ran them out, the pogrom ran them out in 1850, V or so, and they came to Minnesota. Wow. They migrated to Minnesota. My mom went back there during the migration from Canada, Saskatchewan to Montana. She went back to Minnesota with her grandparents

and went to German school. German speaking school. Men and knights were there. But then after the tragedy, they left their faith, and then they found faith again. Well, when they moved out of the men and night community in Saskatchewan, which was really a movement of a number of young people, they were just 21

and 20, my grandparents. When they moved up there and this charismatic men and I guy said, let's build a community of our own. And it was still a men and I, the new version was men and I as well. Rastram, I see. Saskatchewan is still a men and I community. Interesting. So anyway, when they came back to the States and homestead, they went to the closest thing

to the religion, which was Luther and it was just, you know, Protestant church. But then in the roaring 20s, when the jazz age came through and everybody was Charleston and Jerobog and all those things were going on and jazz became really, there was a whole kind of similar movement to the 60s maybe. And the charismatic wave came across the country and people had these revivals that spiritually renewed them. And both my parents were caught up in that. My dad was a Methodist and they eventually developed a church that was developed in the mid-20s, 27 or 28th, called the Sumblies of God and Church of God. There were two of them that formed, and the Sumblies of God is which my parents were part of.

So, my dad was moved every five years, built a church, built a barcinage, knew all the things to do, and then eventually became the superintendent of the state of Montana, which is a massive state. And, you know, I grew up there and then after you spent his four years there, he went back to being a pastor and moved out of the state and so the new guy could have whatever he had to do and they moved the headquarters from grade falls to buildings. And so I grew up in junior high and high school in Tungal, Williston, North Dakota, where the

Williston oil basin is, which is a big thing now. And what was life like in your family, being the youngest and both of your parents and ministers, would you consider it strict upbringing? Oh, my God. It's the strictest. We didn't have a television. I mean, just to let you know that, you know, everything's secular. We have newspaper.

What else do we get? Readers digest my dad bought world books and psycho-beadiants. I was an avid reader. What subjects did you like to read about? Well, I read the classics, which you were given as a kid. One to read. Literature. Yeah, literature.

And I started off with, you know, Nadi Bumpo and last of the Mohicans and Pathfinder, Hawthorne's books, and you know, things that are interesting, the boy Chipper Hilton, the athletic prowess of a guy who played all the sports in New York, actually Long Island, Long Island, what's the college out there, that's a L.I.U. was the name of the school.

Claire B. was the coach, and he wrote these books about Chipper Hill, that were in all the junior high school libraries, playing basketball, playing football, playing baseball. Anyway, I played all the sports, and I excelled at sports. And you excelled at all sports? You were just a good athlete. Yeah.

I played quarterback until my best friend, who ended up got a try out with the Green Bay Packers, took over as a quarterback and they moved me to end, split in, we had a pro offense. And, but I was developing all the way through. I mean, I was six foot as a sophomore in high school. I made the varsity team. And the next year I was six-five.

It was just, you know, it was like that. So, yeah, I did stop growing until I was a sophomore in college or more. Maybe junior. It's one of those things. But the home life, my brother, who was six years older and I, brought in rock and roll music, he had a little record player, 45s, and if he played it in his room, my dad, mom,

were okay with it, but it wasn't allowed in the house, that type of thing. That's cool though, that they let him him here like they even shut him down right the Dancing alcohol smoking etc. We're you know off limits those those are new to off limits So even dancing yeah dancing was you know any thought behind what did they explain why dancing was not okay? Is erotic you get a rouse dancing. I close to, you know, you're in contact. I see.

Well, how about a jitter about mom? Well, I know. You know that I did the Charleston back in the 20s when I was a kid growing up, but, you know, literally that's kind of frenetic and maybe too exciting. Yeah, but people dance in the Holy Spirit and the church, you know, and they get under the power of the Holy Spirit in the church, you know, and they get under the power of the Holy Spirit. So we went back and forth. My mom was a great debater. She loved to listen. And she liked to hear us, you know, challenge. So that was a good deal.

You feel like even though you ended up leaving your parents' faith behind, it still had a big impact on your life, the fact that you had it when you had it. Oh, not at all. There's such a feeling of emotion that rolls through a congregation. And my mom spoke in the evening service, which is more of a evangelical service and my dad spoke in the morning as more of a pastor. But yet there was these emotional surges that would go through the audience, the congregation, various speakers would come in and you very much got a feeling of the move of the Holy Spirit. And that was a term used. And my early years, I heard about the Shakaina glory when the Old Testament, the Elijah,

and Elijah were moved by. So that was a big part of our experience, is to be emotionally involved with religion, to have a personal relationship with God. And so it was impressed upon us to the point where my dad used to say, well, the Catholic Church says that if we can have a child tell he's sick, he'll be a Catholic his whole life. He said, we feel the same way about our faith that if we can have a child to the age of six or seven, it'll influence their whole life. So it did, even though

I went to college and, you know, immediately was assaulted by things that challenged my belief, evolution, you know, the variety of things that we were taught in science and elsewhere and ended up leaving a pre-law type of direction for philosophy, psychology, and religion. Those were my major minors and I had a composite major because I was still a researcher and I continued to be. I was a philosophy major and then I switched film and television just because I was also on the track to go to law school and it didn't matter what your undergraduate degree was in. And all of my friends were in film and television and it just seemed like more fun. So if it didn't matter to get where I was going, I might as well have more fun.

That's why I switched. I have a degree in film and television with a minor in philosophy. But was a searcher as well, same. The department in North Dakota, where I went back, I've got an honorary doctorate, you know, a few, 10 years ago or so. They took me to the place where Benjamin Ring, my advisor, had left and they dropped the philosophy department. That's how far liberal arts have fallen from choice. Philosophy is still there.

Philosophy department, psychology department obviously, but the religious department has gone in philosophy department, is limited to just one guy, no more department. So the changes from liberal arts are from seeking has been more specific to technological training or whatever scientific training. It's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. Because I think the big ideas are still just as interesting as they were when we were younger. Well, you know, the idea that you were given this introduction of Western civilization when you went to freshman year of college.

And you learned about Plato and Socrates and know thyself was the whole goal about this pursuit, to know yourself and the idea that that's still pursuit that we're on as individuals is really will never ending pursuit for us that people that are seekers and people that want to evolve. Would you say for the most part, even though it has changed, has your spiritual life continued from childhood to now, in equally strong way. Yeah, the morning we had what was called devotions, and we had to be downstairs at 730 if we left school at 830. And we were downstairs at 730, and we read a scripture of the Bible. We usually were pursuing some former fashion of a storyline of the Bible, we usually were pursuing some former fashion of a storyline

in the Bible, and then we prayed. We got underneath to pray. We didn't sit at the table and fold our hands and bow our heads. We got underneath to pray because that was how we did it. To this day, I sit in the morning and meditate, so it's the same thing, basically. Yeah, and I think it might be fair to say that it doesn't really matter the path you take to get there. They all can share the same power. We're all looking for the same thing, regardless of which stream we choose to get there.

I don't know if there's a right way to do it. No doubt. You know, I have a brother that is Parkinson's disease in a care facility now. Who's a Sufi? Beautiful. Yeah, and that was a typical of, you know, kind of where the petty cost of faith was,

because a lot of it is about music and about being in rhythm and about the emotional aspect. And Sufi's is the same function within the Muslim faith, or Islamic faith, and the dancing and the twirling. He does the twirling, yeah. Oh, wow. So, yeah, it's beautiful to watch. I know, and they're there.

The Yusin, it's so beautiful. Yeah. I know in there. The unison. It's so beautiful. Yeah Really something So yeah, he's a shake eventually and the Sufi pig which is a healer. He was a therapist in real life Which he carried into his therapy but yeah my oldest brother Who passed away a couple years ago, well, two years ago, this April, became an agnostic. He got Hodgkins, non-Limphoma Hodgkins,

and went through a period where he lost like 40 pounds, and went through a whole thing that revitalized him and lived another 10 years afterwards. But during that period of time, he lost his faith, he lost his belief in God, he found that he couldn't find his pathway there. And he was a guy that was Don Juan Carlos Castaneda, that whole Seth speaks, that group of seekers that were looking more for spirits, more evidence of supernatural spirits than, and we're sitting here doing this,

and I was thinking on my way down to see you, or op, I should say to see you, that I've sat with a number of people, therapists, film people, and we've talked about the flow, about being in the spirit, being in the moment. And that is really what is the joy that brings people together and that's the binding force that makes these religions happen. And that's terrific. Can capture, it's impossible, I have to say, you can't make a film about this,

there's not going to happen. As soon as you turn that on, it doesn't translate. It's in the moment. In fact, my teacher would say, it's before the moment. It's the moment before the moment. You can almost anticipate it because it's there before it happens. So would you say that the unity of a team playing well together is a spiritual event? No, without a doubt.

It hooks you on sports when you're a kid. You know, all of a sudden, you just have that feeling. And I was fortunate because almost everything I did was successful. And I had great teammates and great experience playing sports in both the high school and college level and professional level two. Having been on three teams that went to championships to the one, the finals, and the NBA, and then they all have in the experience as a mentor, coach, teacher, you know, for all the championships that the Bulls and Lakers were able to win.

So you sit there and enjoy, you know, people always ask you, why aren't you up in the bow, like a lot of coaches are up and down the floor. And you're yelling and I said, well, you kind of learned that if you teach and coach, you trust the players to do what's supposed to be done on the floor, then you can sit back and join that feeling that they're experiencing out there. And you'll know the time, when the time is right to say, time, let's get together and talk.

So it was a bicarious experience, not playing, not in the band, but still participating in a different way. Yeah, that's, again, that's closer to my experience. I usually don't play in the band. I'm usually on the sidelines, but it feels great to feel that energy. I feel like I'm part of that circle when it happens.

And it's a miraculous thing because it can be not happening for a while. And then all of a sudden it starts happening and no one involved knows what changed. You know that's the interesting thing about it. I was thinking about coming back the final year for my... The B has to flares that were leaders on the team. Just this two or one more time, but we could do it one more time. Something just wasn't right. It just could click. We had moments here and there, but it wasn't just in flow the way. It's supposed to flow. And you know, I kind of figured out what happened. It actually flowed exactly the way it's supposed to flow,

but it wasn't the way you walked in it to flow. Exactly. This was the end of whatever it was. But it was it was a it was interesting feeling of hmm, it's going on here. How can we make this better? So that's one of the things that I think is kind of a pivotal point of my existence now is when you know, coaches call or give information about what should I do about? How to sit back, you have to be there, get information about what should I do about?

How to sit back, you have to be there, you have to be in it, you can't be about it, you're not running it, you're being part of it. But you, I'll tell you something that I haven't, I rarely have told anybody this that I'd line the players up the players know this. I line the players up the first day of camp. Usually we used to have this extended number of guys that would come in. The NBA wanted us to have like 20 players, maximum command, and then you know, case there's an injury or case, someone goes down, you can still have practices, and then he keep cutting. Three

days, he cut players, five days later, he cut players. So you're finally down to your 12th. Now the NBA has 15 guys on the team. They just keep expanding it, but yet 12 guys. So in the 12th, we're finally formed and is a week before the season started. I'd line them up on the baseline and then tell them the Lord, the honor of this team, the NBA has given me the authority to coach this group of guys. And we're it. By your own admission, by your own actions, If you agree that I will be coaching you and you'll accept my directions, I want you to step across the line as a physical way of expressing your obedience or your following to what we're going to do. And I wanted to do that in one of my mentors, one of my coaches assistants who was 35 years

older than I was when I started coaching. He was 65. Now he's 30 years older. Gave me that story from a freshman team that he played on at Fordham University and Vince Lombardi was the coach of an freshman basketball team. I was like, this is a Lombardi coach basketball. He said, yeah, freshman coach. And that's when he said, God, Fordham and the president of this college, it's such a funny list.

And I said, you know, it's a perfect thing because you want the players to follow and to be able to submit to coaching. If you get resistance and then it becomes a thing, it falls apart. But if you're like, okay, we're in this together. You know, you've agreed to do this. And I'm going to hold you to it. In the years of doing it, did anyone not step over the line? No. There's a force of, you know, like, okay, I'm in hold you to it. In the years of doing it, did anyone not step over the line? No.

There's a force of, you know, like, okay, I'm in with them. But there were definitely guys that had trouble. You know, they used to say, if you can keep 10, 11, and 12 from associating with 67 and 9 on the bench so they don't form a unity, that was, that was a baseball player actually named Lints. Said that about the Yankees. You can keep those guys that are unhappy about not playing

from the guys that are partially or bench players so they don't form a union and get a, whatever. You're in good shape because the starters are all happy they're out there playing. They could not like their role, but that was kind of the going thing. I played everybody. Maybe I wouldn't get the 12th guy in, but then at the end of the game, I'd go around the locker room and say, guys, sorry, it could get you in the ballgame. So they all want to play.

Absolutely. Not knowing anything about basketball, which I said to you earlier, can you tell me a little bit about the hierarchy of a team, like there's the owner of the team, and then there's the general manager, and then there's the coach, and then there are the players. Did I miss any steps?

There's a Myriad of also's in between there An owner has to be compliant with what you're gonna do and fortunately for me I had owners that step to side owners when coming to the locker room They address the team at the end of the season or a Christmas party and that was it. I had to remove general managers from the locker room occasionally because there was something intimate that was going on in the group that had to be discussed. And would the general manager be the person who originally hires you or no?

Well, in some cases, the owner does. Some cases the owner. It was forced around in the Laker organization. The owner was the one that dictated who to hire. The other situation, my other team, there's with the Chicago Bulls. It was the general manager that went to the owner and said, it's time that we hired this guy. And when you were a Nick, how did it, how did the hierarchy work? Well our general manager Eddie Donovan, Eddie was hired as a coach but he didn't have success so they made him a general manager because he was a really likeable guy and he had pretty good direction. And he had two colleagues that were coach and scout.

And the scout would stay with the team as assisted coach until college basketball started. And my first year in New York in 67, we had three players that were first year players on that team in Welfraiser and Bill Bradley. Bill Bradley had to serve in the reserves before he could come. He'd been in a Rhodes Scholar and when he signed up he was under 6'6", which was the Bax 6'5".

And so he had to serve in the Vietnam War. So he went in the reserves and they put him in a six-month or whatever training. So he did start with us. And the coach was replaced two weeks after Bill finally got back and joined the New York big team in December, which was deeper in the season than it is now. It's like 25 games now and that time we started in the middle of October. Baseball had no playoffs. Baseball was over in October. So anyway, the replacement coach was the scout. His name was Red Holstman and Red had scouted all of us.

So he knew all of us intimately in our game. And so it was, we took off running, we're best record the next part of the year from that point on. However, the next season we did get off to good start. So the General Manager at Adoneman came to our training camp, our practice facility, and he found everybody like $250. A lot of money, I was making $12,508. So, Walt was first around picky, probably going to get $15,000. So there was a lot of money, but anyway, it was like, Phil, you and Walt,

you guys don't pay the fine because you got bandages on your knees because you've been on the floor fighting for the ball or whatever. And he was going off about how guys are hustling and that's how we got to it. And our players association representatives, Walter, the bell, Bellamy, said, Mr. General Manager sir we have no

showers that'll last after the second shower it turns cold there's a whole in our practice facility floor in the corner over there we're playing on wooden backboards in the Moss Battalion Armory on 52nd Street in Queen's Boulevard. What do you expect from us? I mean, we don't even have double bags. We have crocusacks. Well, you know, crocusacks is what the cotton pickers put the cotton balls in. We have crocusacks to carry our... that did it for any of the dominant. He turned into a fountain of That did it for any of the time, but he turned into a fountain of Spittle and invectives and

eventually in a month Walter Bellamy was gone to another team There a couple of it since it created that because he didn't get off the bench to fight in an overall brawl that we had Someone later in that initial season. So in fact, we're fighting more common than also. Yeah. Wow. That changed during the whole franchise around because we had a player named Dave DeBoucher. It was named Dave DeBoucher, I always call him.

And Dave came and all of a sudden our Willis Reed who has was forward, became the center. And for seven years we had high success. We were on the flow in the moment. And because of that Eddie Donovan moved on and went to the new franchise about Flow New York, which was just starting out, expansion team. And our coach Red Holtzman became the general manager. So he became both the general manager and the coach. And was he the person who scoured you and brought you in and ends up coaching you? That's great.

How much influence did the coaches you've had over the course of your life impact you as a coach? Everyone has. I have two coaches that are Hall of Fame coaches, Bill Fitzgerand College, who ended up winning with the Boston Celtics in the NBA. He was a charismatic guy, and Red Holstmann is a Hall of Fame coach. More than anything, I lend to kind of recite than anything, I lend to kind of recite some of the things about Red Holstmann that I learned. Red carried a low-worth watch in his shirt pocket. And he'd say, see this watch, this is a $2.95 watch.

I have to wind it every 24 hours. And this is our time, this is our timekeeper. If you're five minutes late, we'll hold the bus. You'll get fined. But if you're more than five minutes late, the bus will be gone, the plane will be gone. Practice will have started and you'll be fined more than just a celly fine which is the first five minutes, which could be $10, whatever, little thing, little thing.

So when he'd have an issue with you, said something to the paper he thought wasn't team-oriented or whatever, he'd say step into my office and we'd step into the bathroom. This is my office. Okay, anybody in here? Okay, let's talk about what you just said or whatever. What's going on? So there's a certain demeanor. Don't get too high, don't get too low.

So we started off in a bang the next year. We won 18th in a row. The 19th game we lost. Red, what are you going to do? You lost. Red, what are you going to do? You lost. Well, under the same thing we do, what we won last night. I'll go home. Tom will cook me a steak. I'll have a scotch, sit down, watch tonight's show, and go to bed. Get up in the morning, go back to work. Don't get too high, don't

get too low. Middle path. He was a Buddhist. Wow. Yeah. Was he really a Buddhist? Or he just was a middle path guy. Here's a middle path guy. Okay. But he was a pleasure to work with. His demeanor was, let me give you an example. Cassey Russell, famous player, Cassey Russell. College Play of the Year, 1965 or 66. Bill Bradley, college play of the year 1965. Based off against each other now, only the holiday tournament in Madison Square Garden, but also the final four in the NCAAs.

and Square Garden, but also the final four in the NCAAs. And they subbed in for each other. Bill started, and Cassey came off the bench, which is a hard thing for Cassey. But he struggled with it, but he had a great demeanor. He wanted to win, and he was, he sublimated his hard feelings. He's a minister now and 30 years afterwards he came to Bill and said, Bill, I had really hard feelings about you starting enemy when you were a player and I want to ask forgiveness. Bill was like, oh, Cassie, I knew it was hard. I knew about it, but we got along and we won and we replaced each other and we did a good job and have no fear. I had no grudges against you. So that was great. So anyway, and Red wanted everybody to be together. We go to the games together, we ride the bus together, prove point.

Will Chamberlain lived in New York City, played for the Philadelphia Warriors. They moved to Golden State and became the Golden State Warriors. But before they moved west, he was a Philadelphia warrior. He lived in New York City and drove to the games. Which is like 90 miles or whatever, it is 85 miles or something. But that would be well. He was just by himself.

He was a loner. Red didn't want any part of that. So we're playing in Philadelphia. Be the Madison Square Garden, take the bus, be it off, dolly bats and cafe rest stop on the way down, have a little something pre-game meal, drive the rest away to Philadelphia, go to the game, get dressed in the locker room, Kazy shows up. Oh, Kazy, you drove down? Yeah, I did.

How much were the tolls in Benjamin Franklin Bridge? Yeah, I think it was $450 something. I did. How much were the tolls in Benjamin Franklin Bridge? Yeah, I think it was $450 something. Did you duck that from the $100 fine that I'm going to give you, okay? It's so funny. Yeah, that was his way of kind of, this is your punishment. Were the punishments really about the punishment or was it something else? It was something else.

Tell me just. It was just about being called out and being like, you weren't on this thing as a teammate. You weren't joining in. You weren't part of this and putting your whole self involved in this thing. So it was a subtle way of doing it. So it was very impressionable for me,

who was, you know, 22-year-old, 23-year-old kid. And, you know, then I had an injury that kept me out for a full season, and then I was like going to the games, but not able to play the game. And what does that feel like, psychologically? It was awful. It was awful feeling, but the thing that happened was red was like, come on, hang out with me.

We'll talk before the game. And we'll talk about it. And in the process, he was like, Phil, would you suggest we do the unsanstieming for the team? Oh, yeah, I thought we should step out hard on that screen role or whatever. You know, he started to rely on me as a person that could express it as a player, because I think he didn't want to

have to do that. This is guy never drew a diagram. Yeah. No boards, no chalk, no nothing. You might be in a restaurant. He might move salt-shelters and pepper-safeers around. But he never did any of that process. There's a guy named Digger Phelps that coached for Notre

Dame for a long time, but he started out at Fordham. And there's a holiday tournament in Madison Square and Garden during Christmas. They had had major teams come in, but later on it was less insightful. And Fordham was a determined, they were waiting to get on the court, very little practice time in Madison Square Garden, because it's busy all the time.

So we got to practice in the morning, be there at 10 o'clock, and we got 10 a noon at noon, Fordham had the court. So we're doing something in the end of practice. And Digger Phelps was young 33, 34 year old coach said to Red Holesman, oh, I tell you, running a play like we, we run, did you, did you see us run that play on TV? And Red said to dig of this game, it's been almost 90 years old. Every play that's ever been thought of has already been run somewhere in some school

yard or some YMCA or whatever. I don't think there's anything in this place. Go. We don't have that. We don't do that. So he would say, though, us, if you have something you think really works, bring it to practice, show us what you think will work and will work on it. If we like it, we'll keep it and we'll give it a name.

So we got something, remember who got it, who brought it, but the next day or next game, I can't remember whether it was a game or just after a game in practice, he said, remember that play that we ran the other night? Into the game. That sequence of things, options for everybody. Yeah. What should we call it? What the fuck should we call it, he said? Oh, that's what we'll call it. What the fuck? So, I coach the Lakers. They have great success. I run this play. I run this play with a bolt. I run this play with the Lakers, they have great success. I run this play. I run this play with a bolt. I run this play with the Lakers.

Coaches the comment on the silence, they say, why can't anybody stop this play? What's going on? Christmas, 2004, mama, San Francisco, Shack's been trading, big deal. He's been traded Miami. Miami's playing the Lakers for a Christmas Day game. Games closed on the end of the game.

Timeout's called six seconds, eight seconds to go in the ball game. Kobe's coming to the bench. He's going, Frank, tell the coach what the fuck? Tell him what the fuck. He doesn't know it. You got to show it to him. So fuck he doesn't know it you got a show to him So the the owner's daughter who I was in a relationship with Jeannie bus called me up said what's he talking about?

Said that's the name of the sequence of actions what the fuck So he just he's just calling it that without be ready. Just find a name for something and just throw it out there. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Let's talk about, about Jeannie for a minute. I read in the 11 rings book that you just moved to the lake. You just came to California, new job. And you meet essentially the boss's daughter, and you're the new guy and you had the confidence

to start dating her. And it worked out great, obviously. But tell me about the mindset of that because many people would think this is not the smart thing to do in this situation. Yeah, appropriate workplace relationship. I have my staff. The MBA used to have a preseason collective. Everybody in the MBA, maybe 1,800 people

would go to a whole meeting that have general managers and trainers and ticket people and everybody, the coaches and etc. The referees and the administration staff would come out. We was in Vancouver and I flew up there. I still hadn't, I wasn't being moving into a house that I bought in Playa del Rey until October. So it's still, you know, whatever. Training camp was gonna start. We'll be on So it's still, you know, whatever training camp was going to start,

we'll be on the road and then, you know, sometime in October, I'd move into this home. The collective has a big meeting on Friday morning, everybody comes in and they break down into their groups and so forth. And we have this whole thing about race that was talked to us about this whole thing about race that was talked to us about how we, you know, media is making it look like there's more crime with the black community and the players and the pro sports and NFL, whatever. So we get through with that and then we break up into meetings and then the evening, each individual club takes their staff out for dinner. So I don't know, go to the dinner, and ride over with my staff. I have two of my three coaches with me.

And I go in there, and Jeannie is hosting the dinner. And she said, you know, it's nice to meet you. I was at your press conference a month ago. To be honest with you, I was hoping that Kurt Ramis will get the job, but my dad insisted on you. I charge of operations at the forum, and now moved into another job as a vice president, charge operations.

Great. So we have dinner. I'm with the group of trainers and the personnel that are more associated with the team. And there are three tables, probably 30 people. Leave. The next day I go to a meeting, which is meeting with the coaching staff.

And I go to the airport, fly down. Because I have a daughter coming in to meet me in LA. I get to the airport, typical Vancouver thing, it's raining, blades have been delayed, and they're Jeannie Bus sitting in the lobby waiting for her plane. Oh, well, what happened to your plane?

The counselor, actually, I've got the plane that you must be on if you're flying down there. And I said, yeah, okay. Is it delayed? Yeah, it's delayed. So we have about an hour to sit. So we sat and talked for about an hour. She was going to a Bertie party and I think was turning 38 at the time.

And I said, you know, do you want to sit together and play? She's in her universe class. And I said, yeah, I don't fly for a class. I finally coached. I said, okay, how come? She said, well, you know, I'm the boss's daughter. And I could, I don't want to do that. I don't want to show what people do. It's a type of thing I like. So that's great. Monday comes.

She's at her party on the weekend. And it's lunchtime and she said it's not a piece of cake. Pretty cake. So I went by her office on my way out, a bit interviewing people and getting associated with the organization. Thank you for the birthday cake. And when I walked in and said, hi, thanks for the birthday cake. She blushed and I was like, oh, shoot, I'm, I've lost it now. So I said, you know, I'm by myself, do you want to go out to dinner? And she said, yeah.

And so anyway, I started out at a romance. And, you know, we had a great run of, you know, 15 years or so together. And we used that old phrase that Hepburn used, lived close and visit often, but don't live together. So that became kind of the deal. But we ended up actually living together about three years. Well, one of her houses was being built in the model home that she bought into. But that was it. And business-wise, she was a really big help because she kind of

could fared out some of the things that I would have to deal with. It was like, why isn't the Commissioner coming to our championship ceremony? Well, 9-11 happened. He's got to be in the city. He wants to be there to support New York City and what I've never seen a commissioner that hasn't handled out the rings and trophies, and I don't make any issue of it. Okay. So, those are the kind of things that she would, I'm always kind of bucking against the establishment. I've always kind of been anti-establishment, but she really helped me in that regard because she is politically astute. Would you say part of your job was an advocate

for the team against everyone else, meaning the management, the press. Anyone who wasn't on the team, even if they were associated with the team, were you that buffer? Yeah, and I think that's the reason why Michael Jordan and I had such a great relationship. I didn't ask him for anything. I didn't.

You weren't a company man. You were a bullsman. You were for the team. And, you know, I think I'm signed tennis shoes or bring people to meet him or doing anything. It was just we have a player-culture relationship and this value more than anything else. So that was a big deal. And I saw how he'd been held before, you know, that it was, and we end up a lot of times on the same floor, executive level of floors, you know. And

I'd see, you know, like, eat hotel employees or park that side of his room, waiting for an opportunity to give the signatures always on him, always on him. I don't know if anybody has been, probably Tiger Woods, I would say has been highly sought after, but that Tiger Woods group was entirely different than a group that were looking to find audience with Jordan. Yeah. I had a crazy conversation a couple of weeks ago with Andre Iguadawa. And it blew my mind that the powers that be within the organization that he plays with, and this

is not the case just for the team he's on for all the teams. That there's so much pressure on them to spend their time doing social media and to be on camera all the time. And he said, and it's a complete distraction from the game and it really gets in the way. And we want to win. And they're concerned about us doing all this other extra stuff that really gets in the way and we want to win, and they're concerned about us doing all this other extra stuff that really gets in the way. It sounds amazing that that could be the case. So much so that it became like an issue for me.

I'll tell you one of the episodes, for example. You have a shoot rounds during the mighty times in the playoffs when they get tight and you go through a conference final and then you go through the NBA final. Your shoot round is Desak David, home team has their option 10 or 11 in the morning and you have to take whatever they don't take. So we're playing in New York and we're playing the next and next are really good team. They've come up through the ranks. We've traded our best power forward for their center, Bill Cartwright, who is twin towers

with Patrick Guing and given up a guy named Charles Oakley because we have a young stud named Horace Grant coming along who's I think can do his job, can can replace him. So anyway it's loaded, loaded stuff, but we are pressed a little bit because we've lost both games to initiate the series, so we're down to the seven game series the next game coming up Rather than going to shoot around I take the players to the Staten Island ferry Amazing, so they take the ferry over and we just have a Bites up on the top level of the ferry or whatever They invited us up on the top level of the ferry or whatever.

So the league find me for not being there, which is okay. I'm all right. You know, I'll observe the fine. The only problem was it didn't make it run smoothly. It's clinton flew in, helicopter, and then every traffic, you know how the traffic goes when the president's in town. So we had to wait a half hour extra anyway, but we got it done when we won the game. We won four straight after that to win that series. But those are the minor things that go on all the time. You have six various meetings during the course of the year that are added on.

You have physical, urine specimens that are taken four times at the various times the surprise your team and there'll be three or four guys that are picked out on the team that have to do the specimens. One time I think we had to wait an hour and a half post game because Cole could find anything to urinate because he'd he sweat everything out during the game. Of course, the game. And then you know we're just depleted and then you had to drink like three bottles of water before you can find it. Anyway, we left in the bus and eventually came on on his own in a cab. You know, the amount of stuff they ask, you know, at one point, David Stern,

who was a strong leader, pulled me out and said, I want you to meet Adam Silver to his down the commissioner. He has a proposition that at the end of the first quarter, the visiting team will meet with the press, the TV announcer, and give a little rundown. And in between the third and fourth quarter, the coach of the home team will meet with an on-court reporter to give an assessment of what he sees during the course of the game. Well, I would send my sister coaches out to do that. I didn't want to be part of that because I said that's a distraction.

Absolutely. It doesn't need to have that going on. But then they eventually reel me in and said, no, we have to have you. You have to be there. That's the oversight that they overbearing thing that they eventually reeled me in and said, no, we have to have you. You have to be there. That's the oversight that they overbearing thing that they do. And I was like talking to a coach recently, and I said, you know, the guys have played,

I don't know what, 65 games, they're 68 games, something like that now. They're bored of each other. They're in a pecking order that they maybe don't like all the time. He's like members of the band that go off, you know, it's the same thing. I said, take them out to the movie, take them to a comedy show, take them, you can't do that anymore. I said, why?

Because whatever you spend on them is against the cap. I said, that's crazy. I used to give my credit card to the team and say, go have a pre-series dinner out together. So anyway, I used to do. So the silly finds, I told you about the finds that you do. So now we are, here we are with players making up to 25 million,35 million a year.

So if you come late, five minutes late, choose our tideward, center court, in a circle. You don't have your jersey on. You're not ready to do what we're ready to do. Silly fun. That silly fine incrementally goes from 50 until three strikes and then it goes to $100. And my sister coach may run to pick up the money from your pridium when you get your pridium. And we'll shoot for that money next week or two weeks from now or whatever. And so how much is in the pot, Frank?

$100, $300, a thousand. Okay, winners get two 50 each and we'll shoot for them. We have a shooting game. Wow. So the league said you can't do that because that's giving players money. I said that's crazy. This is like peanuts. This is like spending away. It's such a great idea to turn a fine into a opportunity to get it back to it's such a great idea. Yeah. It was It was one of those other hanging fruits. They said, yeah, we just want to take this because it's just,

I say, if you knew how much was made in these shooting games, so that when you set in your syllabus or whatever you want to call for the season, you have to expressly designate what your fines are. And I would go like, okay, some guys find their $500 for being late or $1,000 for this, my fans are $100. But they hate it. They're like, quining about losing $100. You get it back if you win the shooting game. I'll put you on a good team. But yeah, just to keep it lively and light is hard to do now because it's over, over Lord.

And the players have rebelled against it in some way. But they have also complied in other ways to kind of let the league take over. But I think creativity is something I picked up from your book that you're searching for your creativity and is a leader or as a mentor. You're always looking for what can I give that's a spark to help?

So, you know, in the process, you know, I think about the players, and at some point we take using two-week trip. You play the other conference, there's seven, eight teams, and you have the conference, you may play six or seven of them on the road trip, you're gone for two weeks. So I'll get on the plane, I'll have a book for everybody. And the book usually batches something about who you are.

Dennis Robin, picture book of motorcycles. There, feast on that. And in the art of motorcycle maintenance, was one of them that I gave away that there was a book in which someone got a compendium to Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance because it was difficult to read. It simply, in piercing the writer of that book, was a co-author of the Great Books, which University of Chicago put out in the 60s. I still have the copies of all the great books, but storyline

about basically about how do you get totally focused on the direction you want to go, and he wrote it as you're a parable of writing with his son who is a strange 13 year old teen, young teen kid from like Minneapolis to Boseman Montana. And that's where he had to stop and he had to have his bike worked on and the guy was playing rock and roll music and he couldn't do the right job and he was talking about all these things, the technology that goes into that particular point, he was writing instruction manuals. And as you probably have noticed,

a lot of times the instruction manuals, he was like, what? Someone that didn't have anything to do with this technology wrote this instruction manual that they aired on the way, you know, and you'd say, the guy that can't usually do the technology is like, I mean, he's like, why don't you just go write the instruction booklet and get out of our hair. But it was a book that I wanted, one of my leaders of my team to read because he grasped the idea of what we were doing.

Like you talk about craft in your book, that's basically one of the chapters or one of the notations that I just recently read. We spent a lot, lot of time basic skills when I came and coach the Lakers, one of the players, Rick Fox, Ram by where the coaches stand on the sidelines and said, Coach, I feel like I'm in the seventh grade. I said, yeah, I know. That's what you are. You're getting back to those fundamentals that we had to learn when we were kids. So we had something to call skills and drills and teaching players how to do the various

skills that they could operate inside of the function of our offense. So, it wasn't complicated. In fact, the brighter people were, sometimes the more they thought, and that's not what you're trying to do. You're trying to get people to just instinctively react so they're not the idea of going through thought process before you can act too much. You just have to act.

How much of being a great athlete is purely physical versus the mental and emotional side? is the mental and emotional side. One of the great scores in the NBA, Elvin Hayes, great battle between Elvin Hayes and Louhausen, or at the time, was the largest crowd to ever watch a college basketball game at the AstroDome, University of Houston versus UCLA. Elvin Hayes came in the league at number two pick,

or maybe first pick, behind Wesley Uncelled in 68. And Elvin Hayes shot, the turnaround shot, that was almost unstoppable. He got the ball in the post, tremendous skill, leaping, and he turned his right shoulder and he banked it off the backboard. It was just like a money maker. He could make this shot.

One of my assistants inherited the Houston job when they moved from San Diego rockets to the Houston rockets. He inherited that job. He had hoped to be coaching the San Diego rockets to the Houston rockets. He inherited that job. He had hoped to be coaching the San Diego rockets. It is the first time to pro coaching and he ended up in Houston. But Elvin Hayes was there, and the skills and drills that we used, Elvin could perform.

And so Tex would take him off the court and teach him individually some of the skills. And eventually, he got so frustrating for Alvin that they traded him. They traded him to the Washington Bullets, and he wanted a championship there, actually, one year. But I told the coach, I never thought Alvin could win a championship because he just had this one phenomenal thing he could do because he's such a great athlete. He had a little hook shot, I shouldn't say one thing, but that was his money maker, that job.

We beat them in a playoffs one time with a player that was one of the great players I played with named Jerry Lucas, who that team was just fitted in Madison Square Garden. By the way, I didn't go to their, they're honoring their championship of 73 as, how many is it? 50 years ago? Yeah, yeah, 50 years ago. And Jerry was there. But anyway, Jerry was playing center because Willis Reed was hurt and had to have any operation and miss the rest of the season. But Elvin Hayes says, Jerry, what'd you do? He said, see that, Ann?

He got great men. He's my size 68, but he got this huge hand, like a bricklayer, as I guess. He said, I just put it on a sipping, I just turned up an extra two inches. So now instead of shooting there where he wanted to release point, he was shooting at a different release point, and he couldn't get it, couldn't find the way. But that's the intricacies of the game. That's where the smart guys really understand the game and the subtle things that go into it.

And that's kind of players I was fortunate to play with. And the coach had understood that too. So I think it kind of rubbed off a little bit, especially when I had to sit out a year and I had to watch and I could see and I could wonder what was going on. It was different between this group of guys and that other group of guys which looks so talented. But some are rather when they're a collective group. They couldn't go into it. And I'm sure you've seen it many times.

Great musicians come in, just can't find the beat, can't find the harmony, can't put it together. And what makes one group great, it's not always obvious right away. And if you take two different groups and analyze what makes them work, or if you switch one member from one group, one great group to another great group,

and you just switch them, switch the drummers, neither groups great anymore. Even though they're both great at what they do, there's something about this, I think as it relates to music, it has to do with rhythm the way we each hear rhythm in our own way. We hear it in general,

but the way we feel it is either a little, a head of it, or a little behind it or right on it and it's different. And the great bands, the wave, the musicians play together, it's that tension between the guitar player who hears it a little ahead of the beat and the drummer who hears it a little behind creates the sound of that group. Or another group, it's the drummer's leaning forward and the guitars are playing straight and that's the sound of that group. There were another group, it's the drummer's leaning forward, and the guitars are playing straight, and that's the sound of that group. And they don't know it. They don't know if there was a band that I went see, Hollywood

Bowl band that I liked. And their drummer quit the band, and they got a different drummer, who was probably better than their original drummer. And it was no good. It didn't work the way the band worked, even though they had a better drummer. Yeah, I know the dad. I sat with the dad and I was invited to be on stage with them a number of times and Mickey Hart and their other drummer. They call him Bill the drummer.

So I just know him as Bill the drummer. Yeah. The two of them play together. Yeah. And they drive that group. And Jerry sometimes couldn't get into it in his later stages and then he'd find, you know, kind of, I'm in it now and then he'd get in.

Yeah. I also am a friend of Bruce Harnesby and Bruce would say these guys, they're fucking LSD, brain dead sometimes, they just can't get them going. Yeah. Take some awhile to get going, but they'll get going somewhere in the session one or two, somewhere they'll get. You know, Joe Smith is, producer, cap records. Oh, yeah. Joe Smith, producer, cap of records.

Oh yeah, yeah. Joe Smith, he died two years ago. Yeah, I'm friends with the Moas and who is his old partner. And Mo just died about two years ago. Oh, one year ago. I know they're great, great together. But anyway, Joe always told me, he couldn't sell that grateful man album,

the greatest band as they are. They just couldn't put now them together. But he also had Van Morrison who would say, this guy come in because Looney has a nut ball. He'd be wanting to run my office and they were like, what did he say something like, off the one? Okay, yeah, all right. He went Van Morrison from gangsters in Boston.

I think he said he had to pay $50,000. He had a check of $50,000. He was like 25 young. And he went up there to their office, scared his hell walking up there because he said these guys are gangsters. But that was the music business back then, which is, well, music business switched a little bit.

But Van Morrison has always been someone that I would always look to see, is he playing, is he going to be somewhere where I can go see him. He's amazing. He's amazing. The voice, the feeling in his voice is unbelievable. I don't know if he does arrangements, if he's part of the arrangements or who does arrangements with their notes. I don't know how it works, but he's made incredible albums. I saw him in 72 and the finals we were playing the Lakers and Santa Monica used to be open.

That used to be a venue, a music venue. And he had this Santa Monica Civic Center? Yeah. I don't know whether it helped me. Maybe 7,500 or so. I think last. 2,500 made. It might be.

But he had this base on a cord that must have been 50 feet long. And he would be rocking around the whole stage. This guy would go across the whole stage. He was kind of like, Van Morrison just let him roll. And Van just, you know, he's like a statue. Yeah. His pork pie hat now. Yeah. Got a cigarette smoldering behind him, drinking whiskey or whatever. He's got states fright all the time

Amazing amazing. I saw him play at the Hollywood Bowl with when he was doing the Astral Weeks album with the original players And it was just I never saw anything like it so beautiful I don't like the Hollywood Bowl, but I'm so glad to hear it was a good show. It was great Yeah, I like the Hollywood books. I like outdoor. I just like being outside. I like any Outro is great for that. Yeah, I mean I saw a cold play there, and you know, maybe they're not that great in You know live situation cold play they made a great album though But I've gone to the Philharmonic goods down there. I'm a classical music guy. Yeah I had a conversation with Bob where this was This was a mind-blowing comment that he made

where we talked about the two drummers. And there's a movie from the 70s, a grateful dead movie, where there's only one drummer in the movie. And I guess that's, I don't know whether Mickey Hart either left the band. No, he came late. He just came late, so he's not in the movie.

And it was interesting. and it gave me a different Understanding of the dead having one drummer and One of the signatures of the grateful dead is the two drummer thing and I can't think of another group who have two Drummers all day. They'll be it. That's true And there are some bands where they'll have a drummer and a percussionist, but it's different than two drummers. And I asked Bob about the two drummer thing, and he answered this, it sounded like a joke answer, and he was dead serious.

He's like, yeah, I'm still not sure if that was the right thing to do. And he was dead serious. He's like, I don't know if that was good. It just happened, and we'd stayed with it, but I don't know if it was good. I don't know if that was good. It just happened. And we'd stayed with it, but I don't know if it was good. I don't know if it was better. Yeah, Mickey, go off on that airspace or whatever you do back there for half hour.

You know, let me play something about that. Tell me about team personalities. When I say team personalities, I don't mean the group of players in a team, but the bulls versus the lakers, versus the nicks, versus the warriors. Is there a, regardless of who's on the team, it seems like teams have some sort of a style

or personality, is that true? Yeah, usually there's a driving force or a combination of things. We had a interesting kind of meeting of the team after we had this major brawl in Georgia Tech. We played in the Atlanta Hawks their first year in Atlanta. They moved from St. Louis Where they won 60 games a couple years in a row to Atlanta and It'd been a big change for them They were really in the South set St. Louis is kind in the South

But Atlanta was really in the South now. This is the first exploration as can the NBA survive in the South. So they weren't killing it. Georgia Tech, tough little arena underground. You walk down to level two stories probably below ground. Just one story above. You walked in, walked down to the floor. Had the old

seating with the railing around, there's enough room for a court and there's a little bit of extra stuff in case I don't know what else they would do there. So we got into game. Locker Room was, you know, partition like kind of like that. It's just like a six and a half foot walls. It's all spacious up above. You can hear everybody in the whole building. Right before half time, I posted up a guy named Paul Silas. He hit me in the back of the head, knocked me down. And got over the top of me and don't elbow me.

And I just posted him up and done this. And I got really broad reach. You're a broad shoulder and broad reach. So we shot two free throws, went up this tunnel and there was some barking around. We had a guy who was getting after a side of what the fuck's going on? He'd fall on, he'd punk, he'd be in the fun,

and went on, and went away. So we got up and getting the locker room and we were either side of this field house or this locker room. And the coach of the other team is banging the lockers around. You fucking guys are pussy's, you're not, you're ready to play as hard as I want you to play. And oh boy, this is gonna be something else.

So we'll go out in the floor. And one of the guy named Sweet Lou Hudson, turned around and slugged Willis Reed on a screen. Didn't go to the screen, turn around and slug Willis read on a screen Didn't go to the screen turn around and hit him and Willis had this reputation of being you know like the biggest brawler in the game He had taken on the whole Los Angeles Lakers team in 66 Broken two knows one job So everybody's off the bench and guys are trying to hold each other

back and whatnot and there's Walt Bellamy sitting on our bench and he didn't get up. Next day we fly out we're flying Detroit somewhere I think it's Detroit and we'll have a teaming while get a little conference from Motalk before we get on the plate. Okay, so we get in there. Walt, why didn't you get off the bench enjoying your teammates? I don't think there's anything worth fighting for in basketball. Well, I think you have to join your teammates out there, even if you go out there and grab somebody and hold somebody back or whatever. They traded them.

They brought in Dave the busher, the butcher. So Dave and Bill Bradley hooked up immediately. And it was like, Willis has got to be our guy. He's got to be the captain of this team. We'll call him Cap, okay? So they started calling Cap. We had, you know, Walt Fraser, my eight second year, Dick Barnett was 33,

Killy's tear when he was like 32, still playing, still terrific player. And you know, then we had Cassey Russell and some guys on the bench that were great talented players, college talent players, but not starters. So anyway, that personality revolved around Willis as the enforcer. He took care of business. And things got too rough out there, things happened. He protected guys that, you know, Rick Barry wanted to found on Bill Bradley. He did care of him. So it was kind of a strong man's game at that time. And Willis was like, you know, 245, 6'9, 6'8". He was a big broad shoulder guy, but he was not,

you know, like LeBron James. LeBron's like, probably 270, you know. So the Bulls, when I went to their team as an assistant coach with just at the start of the year, they'd lost the coach who had gone to an expansion team and they had hired me right, tell you this story. Jerry Kraus, a scout for the Baltimore Bullets, and a baseball scout for the Chicago White Sox, lived by scouting. He loved sports. He loved baseball most of all, but he loved sports. He brought himself on watching players and assessing them. He had noticed his team from Kansas, Kansas State. And the coach in Kansas State got his team to the final four a couple times. And he won

this conference that had really good coaches. Hank Iba, there's really good basketball conference. And he won a 17 out of 19 years that he coached in this conference. Oh, incredible. What's he doing? He doesn't have any, he's got all kids, farm kids, incredible. So he went down there and this guy,

text winner who became my associate. Come on in, look at tape with me. Friendly is could be just an open-hearted guy. He had a system. So I was in Puerto Rico coaching, and I was coaching the minor leagues in Albany, New York. I've been called by their ownership because one of my teammates, Dean Memager,

had been coaching the team and things hadn't gone well. They'd lost 15 out of the last 17 games. That's a pretty long, pretty bad record. And they were at it. Hosting, they all start game and they just couldn't find a way to win. And so they had to make a change. So I called Dean and said, you know, whatever.

He said, now I feel I've lost this team. Come on in. But I want to, I want to scream it against these guys. When you come, have an open scream, I want to play against these motherfuckers. Okay. So that didn't work out. They all beat up on Dean who's now 37 or 38 or something, right?

And these are kids are 22, 24 years of age. So I've coached in there and my coach, Holtsman had coached in Puerto Rico and he always told me if you ever get a chance to coach in Puerto Rico, go down there. It's pure basketball, you're playing in games every other day. You're down there for like, you know, whatever. You play 33 games in, you know, 70 days and it's the biggest port in the island. They love it. It's a real challenge. So after I went to Albany the next year I went back. It was out of business. I was doing a recreation business in Kalaspell, Montana. And my partner and I had put in, I don't know, $100,000 and we had a $50,000 loan to refurbish this place.

And it was interest rates in the early 80s were like at 15, 16%. We're talking about 6% we're really suffering back then with, you know, trying to bring inflation down. So it's a good deal for me to take this job for six weeks in Albany and DL make whatever $5,000 or whatever they're going to pay me and get it off the payroll of this sports facility. And I came back the next year at their behest to coach the team who won the championship in Puerto Rico, offered me the job. So I went to Puerto Rico so now I'm coaching two teams, I'm coaching like 80 games a year. And when I'm on the championship at Albany, I go to the finals in Puerto Rico.

And Jerry Kraus gets hired by the Chicago Bulls to run the Chicago Bulls. He's got to be in college. He was a big fan of my coach Bill Fitch and came out and watched me in North Dakota I would 20 below the weather So he calls up and said come on in I want you to be part of this and so I flew up from Puerto Rico and There's friction between the coach that he chose and even stand all back and Jerry and they had a black ball if you wanted a black ball, a guy, that was your choice. The coach and the general manager had to agree on what the staff was going to be. And Jerry had already black balled the guy that he wanted to bring in John Killily and Stan

was unhappy. And so when I came in, and it was his first choice, he'd blackweld me. So I went back to the minor leagues again in coach. And the next opportunity, Jerry Kraus, gave me another chance of being part of this organization. So this time I came in, I shaved my beard, I wore a sport coat, and I looked the part and the coach that was there named Doug Collins who's a couple years younger than I am. But we were competitive, competing against each other in the NBA, wanted me on the team

because the other two coaches, one was the Olympic coach that he had played on in the 19, the one that lost 72, and the other one was Tex Winner, who Jerk Grouse hired immediately because this is a guy that has a system of basketball. So I walk in there, one guy, Johnny Bach, played in the NBA, on the Providence Boiler Makers was the name of the team, Providence Rhode Island, and had been a batting practice catcher for the Yankees. After he came out of the service, they both served in World War II.

Both of them were in the Navy. Tex Winter was a pilot. Johnny Bach was a gunnery, Ensen, Lieutenant, actually, he ended up, they're both bats. One coach in the East for like 25 years and the other coached in the West for like 30 years, 35 years, and they were in their 60s. And they were just a great combination. Johnny-Bock, Irish Dutch, Irish, Pemman Shippeword, New York City, Boy, Bournem bread and Brooklyn went to Fordham,

part-time artist, knew all of the things about Eastern basketball, zone defense, tough games, or like 50 to 48, whatever, Tex Winter, Bordy Texas, Emma Gravy to California, and went to service and ended up, well, he was a pole vault, he vaulted in 14-6 with a steel pole

or whatever they had before they had, the highest vault and took third in the national track. But he was this athlete and then played at USC for this guy who was, you know, one of the West Coast group. And it was entirely different. The West Coast had run and gone and played they had games in the 80s and the other coast had games

in the 40s and 50s. Two different styles, before television. Text had gone from college, which after he was in the Navy, obviously he's 23 or so when he got out of college. His coach recommended he go to Kansas State and work as an assistant coach for a coach that wanted a system of basketball. And so we brought this system, which was called an overload. We call it the triangle. He called it the triple post offense so there are a variety of

names. But he had been sent out to scout young coaches that could take over the bowls by Jerry Krauss, who trusted this guy with all his intelligence of basketball and his knowledge. And he hired a young guy named Doug Collins, who was from Illinois, to come coach a team. And Doug was a radic and bright, really charismatic in a way. Good. Except he's emotional. You have a very emotional guy.

So when I came in and joined the staff, Kraus had to fill a spot. And he needed to fill a spot with someone that was younger because he's two, six-year-old as assistants were like, okay, Doug's 36 or something. I'm 40. Or 37 and he just got maybe three years younger. And I'm 40 when I go there.

One of my friends who was an actress and missed my birthday in middle of September. And her brother, who is a sports fan, said, one of my friends is an agent and he knows Jerry Kraus, Jerry Kraus, knows Phil Jackson, and he talks to him on the phone. So he said, I'll get the number for you. So he called Jerry Kraus and said, I need Phil Jackson's number. And Jerry gave him the number. My friend called me and wish me a happy birthday. It's like it's September 20th. She missed my birthday by three days. So great. Good to hear from you, whatever. What do you do? Well, I resigned from my coaching job here in the Talk Lurch Basketball Association and the CBA. And I actually went to unemployment this week

to see if I could qualify for unemployment insurance. My wife has a job with hospice, setting it up in the county, Ulster County, Kingston. And Chelsea just started junior high school and my kids are in high school in Woodstock, her in grade school in Woodstock. Oh great, you like it? And it's okay.

I mean, I like to have a job, but I'm not, you know, I get interviewed. I didn't get the job with the NICS, whatever. So I'm gonna do the best I can here. I've got a couple of things that it offers. Next day, this kind of Jerry Grouse calls up and said, Phil, we got an opening here and once you come in and interview for this job.

He said, how did that happen? Why just so happen to have your number and name on my desk, where this guy walked in and told me that he was leaving. And he's our only young coach that we have and we have two older gentlemen that are coaching the team. So that's how he ended up with the job. It's, there's a series of these events, that event is the circumstance without you're at the airport.

And Jeannie happens to be there and your flight gets canceled. Yeah. It's like, this is not by your planning. This is just, it's just happening in front of you. Just being open, just, you know, being open or having the, so I go there and it's all about Michael Jordan. It's Michael Jordan, the Jordan airs.

And it's got a Pippin's a rookie and horse grants a rookie and Charles Oakley's in this third year. And, you know, they're not playing. Even though they have Michael Jordan, they've never won a ring. It's a sclerk. They did. They almost got to 500. They were 38 and 42 or something like that.

30. Yeah, they almost got to 500. And the year that I came in, we won 55 games and lost like 35 or 37 or whatever. Big change. But when still when you came in just trying to stand the lay of the land, is it accepted that Jordan is the best player? Not just a that team in the league. He won every award.

Player, defensive player, scoring title, MVP. But the team is not the winning esteem. They're not winning. Okay. So anyway, we had, you know, text winner who's supposed to be helping him coach. You know, it's like, okay, we've gone through three point guards, Doug.

It's not about the point guards. It's about not having a system. You've got to get the ball to Michael Jordan all the time because he's getting 38, 40, 30, double teamed also. Yeah and you have to devise a play a day basically because everybody's scouting and when you need to have a system of basketball. You don't have to run my system, but you need to system a basketball. So it's organized. So anyway, we went through three point cards that year.

But in the next year, things didn't go quite as well and Doug had it. And he was like, Texas got a goal or whatever. So Tex had to go sit in the stands during the game and have to sit on a chair during practice and take notes, because Krauss was adamant that he stay. But that process spoiled the deal for Doug. And we didn't have as good a year

and things kind of fell apart. And so they gave me the job. Amazing. I happen to like order. I like the process of organization and I like the idea that you have to fill a certain standard before you can play. So we had this process in which we went through these things.

This process worked before. Yes. Tell me about that. My coach, Red Holesman, coached in Puerto Rico. He succeeded text winner at a town called Ponce in Puerto Rico. And he learned some of this action. And so I played some of this action. And so I played some of this action. My coach in college had gone to Kansas State

to learn this offense, and it taught us this offense when I was a senior in college. So it all fell in place. So you said, you were ready. Were you aware of it, and you saw the potential that this thing, it can really work

You know, I've got Michael in and say Michael. You're not gonna have the ball all the time You're not gonna get 37 shots again, which is not what he wants to hear Last thing he wants to hear you're not gonna get 37 points a game. We have to share the ball We have to distribute the ball and everybody's just playing for you. They're just going to defend you. He says, is this an equal opportunity offense? He said, kind of. He said, I could still win the scoring championship. That's not a big deal. You only have to get eight points quarter, 32 points. You'll still win the other scoring title. Oh, I told him this. Nobody that's won a scoring title is won a championship since Rick Berry.

That's interesting. And that's almost 20 years ago. That's interesting. That's a good stat. That doesn't happen. That's a good stat. So, he thought about it and I could win a scoring championship anyway.

Which would be typical of him to say. So anyway, that's a great, that's a great challenge though, is like, no one's done it for 20 years. Let's see, you do that. So then the next involvement was to put Scotty Pippin, who is a forward at the top of the floor as a guard and put him with our stabilized guard. The guy that gave us the motor, the art of motorcycle maintenance, John Paxon, and put Michael in a forward position. You got explained to me what a guard is. I really know what the floor. Top of the floor. Bringing the ball up, organizing the team. Okay.

Forward, down below the free throw line or free throw line and extended. Yep. And recipients of the ball organizing, having to deal with the whatever goes on. But not initiating. Understood. And which are the ones that have to be the best shooters from the team? Doesn't matter. Really, really doesn't matter. Okay. Forward's historically kind of were, but then guards became dominant with the ball. And they they started being scores. Okay. And at that particular time,

point guard had evolved into the game. So everybody was searching for a point guard. Isaiah Thomas, magic Johnson, didn't matter what size you were. You had to have a great point guard. And tell me what a point guard does. He handles a ball, he's the point offense, he runs the team from his ball-handling skills. I see. Text winner like, we don't have a point guard,

we have two guards out front. We don't rely on one guy to organize our offense. We have, everybody is part of this organization process, which brought everybody in. Michael's still the leader. Scottie Peppas now has a prominent role. Bill Cotwrights are a big guy who's laying hardwood on people if they get too face to hear.

So that's kind of dynamic in that team. That group was three championships and then they move on. They retire, Paxon, Cartwright, Retire, Jordan goes plays baseball, Horace Grant, Ops out. I mean, you know what motivated Jordan to want to play baseball? If you had your ear to the urban level, they would say the commissioner saw his gambling, that he was doing on the golf course and he has and told him step away from basketball. It's not true at all. His father was murdered that summer. His father always wanted to play baseball. It was a really good baseball player. Wow, so he had like almost like an emotional crisis with a stab dying,

that's fascinating though, it's wild. Terrible. Terrible. Yeah, it was a terrible situation. He was close with his dad. Yeah, his dad came all the games. Wow. He was there all the time.

And he called Pop and it was unexpected to that time. His dad was driving in North Carolina. He pulled outside the road and went fell asleep. Needed to be in reservation in North Carolina. Guys came by and took his car and killed him. Wow. Murdered. Yeah.

So, he came in and the owner, who I respected Jerry Reinsdor, his name, he also owns a White Sox, but he said, Phil, Michael wants to retire. What? Michael wants to retire. He wants to go play baseball. He's asked me if he could be part of the White

Socce baseball organization. I said, what's the process here? I told him he has to talk to you before he didn't. I'll agree to it. So, meet me over at the arena and the facility. So, when we go over there, I'm like a silhouette. I just lost my thirst for the game. I've done everything, and we won three championships, no one's done that since Bill Russell. I said, Michael, you don't understand. You're Michael Angelo.

You are beyond, you know, standards of basketball belong to. So anyway, he goes and plays baseball, he stays in touch in the next year, So our beyond standards of basketball belong to. So anyway, he goes and plays baseball, he stays in touch and the next year he comes back and plays the last 17 games, teams totally changed. The only two left in that team are Pippin and himself. We get Dennis Robben, we get Ronnie Harper and we have some Tony Cougars.

And Dennis Robben was a strong rival before this. Yes, he was with the bad boys in Detroit. Actually, through Scotty Pippin' into the stands. It was the unperpissed. Yeah. He went in for a layup and he was running, trying to catch up with him in the stands. We swept him in a tournament in the finals in the East.

And then I had to go through those guys, they were cocaptains. I like to have cocaptains. I didn't want Michael to carry the load all on his own. And I called him and I said, I guess with the Dennis, oh, I don't know about him. Now we'll monitor it. I mean, we'll really stay attached to Dennis. Well, he's gone off the reservation, you know, he's he's gotten into Madonna. She was in the locker

room and the spurs and you know, he got into, you know, carrying a gun, talk about suicide and the parking lot is, his teammates, you know, they lost his wife to his teammates relationship with her and he's got some real, he's gonna be all right. He needs to be challenged, he's gonna be fine. Just trust me, we'll end on it. So they did, they allowed him to come in and is it because they so respected

him as a player like they saw what he could do. Amazing guy. There's no conditioning. There's no level of tiredness in basketball for him. Yeah. I was 28 to 32 minute man. I was you know, I was like pants on knees I'm tired He was like stronger at 45 minutes, so he wasn't five and it's just an inborn. That's a gift

Yeah, that ability. Oh, yeah, Tex-Winter was a track guy would always say this guy should have been a 440 guy You know, he had 400 meter40 guy, you know, a 400-minute-minute guy. Yeah. But so before Dennis came, the team went to practice. The season started. He came a couple of days late. So I'm out of the team, is it? We'll have different rules.

Normally, we have these rules. If you're late, this is Dennis can't be on time. Yeah. There's nothing there. So he's gonna come an hour before the game. Everybody else has to be there an hour and a half. He doesn't shoot. Doesn't go out shoot.

He goes list weights and rides a bicycle and watches tape. Yeah. And is this what he wants or is this what you want for him? How does it come to that? This is how we met and talked before and tell me about that conversation. It sounds great. So we, I had a list. I had a list of five players that could help us out.

We needed a power for we lost horse grant. We needed power for it. We played without when Michael came back for 70 games. We got beat in the whenever So the next year we're put together roster and we go through the guys that we go and we bring guys in and so forth and so on and then one of our One of Jerry Krauss's assistants says I think San Antonio will trade Dennis Robin who ran into problems With this team the year before they had lost to Houston

Robinson the admiral they called him Dave Robinson And not wanting to guard a light you on and Dennis had the guard a light you and Dennis is 220 pounds a Ligewon's 275 and Dennis is 6 6.6. He's not 6.80. He's not 6.70. He's 6.6. He's muscular guy. He's built like a brick shed. I was putting it, you know, he lied to one. And Dennis goes like, what are you talking about? This guy's a defensive player of the year. Dave Robinson is and he he won't guard a light you won, because he's a phrase going to get, come on, he's got his balls in the refrigerator.

He got his balls in the freezer, whatever. So Dennis goes off on his teammate. That's enough for them to, well, that's bad harmony. Let's get rid of him. So Dennis comes up to Chicago, and I'm called over to meet him at Jerry Krauss's house. So I walk in. He's got a pull-point hat on and sunglasses. He's got nose rings, lip rings, ear rings, studs, studs in his nose knowing that rings in his nose. So I walk over and

Hi, he says So Dennis stand up and shake hands. That's what you do when you meet someone stand up. Let's go outside and talk, okay? So we go outside and talk and then he's like I need to get paid Dennis hear it the wrong word of the relationship. You say you need to get paid. Dennis, here at the wrong organization, if you say you need to get paid for a thing on your mouth, you have to produce. If you produce, they'll pay you. This is about doing the job and giving paid. But tomorrow morning, I want you to meet me over to work out center.

We talk a little bit more about his problems and what happened to him in Madonna and his life. Was there really a deal cut where in success, he would do well? Yeah. He did that, that, so that did happen. Yeah, he was a friend of him. He was willing to bet on himself. He did. He went from like two million to nine million dollars out. He was incredible. So we meet the next day in the team room. I have a

spirit room in the team room. I have someone sent me from the comma Indians in New Mexico, a shield and a bow and arrow set. And they had met with me on this relationship with Native Americans. My member of the O'Gala, Sue, Lakota, Indian. And the response that I get from Native Americans been credible, and they love bowls, because the bowls are really resonated with them. But anyway, this is about a prayer. This arrow, we shoot into the arrow that's a prayer and I had a bare claw, necklace. I had a headdress. What else? I had a variety of Native American things that

was kind of the motif of this room. Dennis said, see this necklace? I got the punk that's gave me this necklace, they had doctor be in the tribe down in Oklahoma and I was going to school there. I said, ah, that's something that's good medicine, doesn't it, whatever. Well, we really honor the Native American here. He said, oh, he said, that's great. But he became, you had an immediate connection just based on that. Just simple thing, like beautiful. Beautiful. So follow up story, two years later, no, the next year,

we have a successful season when more games than he teams ever won, whatever else. He's immediately, he fits in. Don't want to shoot, don't need to shoot. It does everything else. Everybody's in this. All good. Next year, somewhere in the season, a little bit bored, he gets knocked to the ground.

He's right under the baseline. And he lashes out with his foot and kicks him. Television guy right in the groin. Back day. Suspended. 14 games suspended that's 14 games is like a whole month a little more so assistant trainer first of all he's got a little knee tear that's great we'll do that knee tear you can go out to California and work on you don't

need to stay in Chicago where you're gonna get in trouble and work on it. You don't need to stay in Chicago where you're going to get in trouble and work on it. So I call him and the assistant trainer into my office. I have an eagle feather. Dennis, I want you to have this eagle feather. This is between you and I. And this is a trust factor that we have now between us, okay? 10 years later, we're at the Hall of Fame induction of Dennis Robert in the assistant trainer. So you want to hear what happened on that

dripped out to California? Said, yeah, I know it went pretty wacky because he wrecked the automobile out here. He was on tonight's show or somebody's show and ended up marrying a starlet in Vegas. They were partying a lot. But anyway, tell me what went on. So I get on the plane and the pilot said, this plane's headed for Dallas, Texas, and we'll be taking it. I'll get out of my chair and I'll walk up to Dennis. Dennis says, this plane's going to Dallas Dallas not LA. Oh, it's okay, but it's all right. I got

to go sign some papers. I bought my mama home in Dallas. So, okay, I go back to my seat second class, we fly into Dallas. Walk out. There's a stretch limousine from one of those strip clubs in Dallas and the girls are standing outside welcoming Dennis into the car And so we go the strip club and we're there until I don't know three in the morning or whatever it was forever and He clock in the morning denises at my door knocking on my door, but let's go work out Go work out. Okay. We go work out. I'm doing my training routine. And I say, well, when are we leaving for LA? He said, so we're not going to LA. What do you mean we're supposed to be going to LA?

There's this Grand Prix race that's in Dallas now. We're going to go there. Dennis, there's a hundred thousand people going to this thing. Well, I'm going to have to helicopter, don't worry about it. So we helicopter in. Dennis meets the queen of the whatever, the Dallas Grand Prix race, and he spends another night hanging out, and we finally get to LA three days later. It's like going to the Greek. Amazing.

He said every morning, Dennis was at my door, ready to work out. He had to work out. So whatever he did, didn't impact his ability to play. No. Then it seems like that's his business. I mean, if you show up and you can do your thing, and you can do it in a way that no one else can do it,

seems good. Well, that was the whole thing I said with the team, I think this guy is going to be really great, but we're going to have to allow him, and you're not going to fall, can't fall into the same trap that he does. Yeah. You can't live that life. But you see it doesn't screw him up. He's an anomaly.

Yeah. totally. So finally year in that group, we won three again with that group, but the final year, Scottie Pippin had an issue because now he's paid 100th highest paid player, the NBA. He's also on the top 50 NBA players that have ever played the game. Yeah. So he's radically underpaid. Right. He's making like a billion dollars. What they do is they frontload of this contract, which is what they're in their financial assessments,

frontload the contract. And then when someone gets, you know, into the 30s, their value is going to decrease and you could trade them. They're not going to have such a high margin that you won't be able to trade them. So when we sign them, we told them, this is going to be a front load of the contract. At some point you're going to be unhappy with it because it's going to have more money to start with, unless at the end, he's on that. So he breaks the toe, middle toe. It is Loughwood in the finals game, the year before we won finals in the East versus Miami. It doesn't get it fixed. It doesn't get it fixed. Hope it's going to be okay. Place in a game during this season. As a better fight with Jerry Kraus, there in his agent or in arguments about getting him in here and get the

operation in. He comes in for the assessment for the training camp starting tomorrow. The doctors look at him and they say, you have to have this fixed. You can't play with this, is you? So he's going to be out six weeks. So I bring tennis in and say, Dennis, you're going to have to pick up the load. And Tony Cooco, we had another player to back him up

this terrific player. But you and Tony are going to have to back up and take over. And Dennis, you know, for the next two months was like on top of it. Then he went a little bit wacky. But the dentist story of the year before, after he missed 14 games, his teammates came in to see me like, you know, Steve Kerr and Judge Bushler and you know, and said, you know, Dennis is coming back. He's been gone for almost five weeks. We need to, you'll kind of get together with him and have something.

And his agents propose that we get a wrestler's bus when we're in Philly and we'll drive to Atlantic City and we can have a good time. Because we have two days off in between then and we're going to New Jersey, which is just up the road and play the New Jersey Nets. So we play Philadelphia, we win the game, and I say, don't be a practice tomorrow, it'll be a little later, noon or so, get a little later practice, but we'll see you then.

So next morning my staff and I always have breakfast together. We're the four seasons in Philly and we're looking out the window, the window is right out there and there comes their bus and there those guys come off their bus and they're like children. They're acting like they're 15 years old, right? Oh, this is going to be an interesting practice. So I find I hear the story eventually that Dennis stopped in Camden, New Jersey and had a try out for who is going to be able to get on the bus with the team. They're only like eight of them, the whole group didn't go, Michael didn't go, it's kind of you know, some of

those guys didn't want to hang out with Dennis. So they had a the velvet rope and then they had girls come and stayed by the bar and they had tried for who was going to be able to go with them on the trip to Canada. We'll drop you off when we get back at four in the morning, five in the morning, six in the morning, whatever. We got back at eight thirty nine o'clock in the morning. So that practice was like a practice that coach goes like, you know guys, I think we're gonna call practice off. Now we couldn't even get through the lab line.

So they were laughing, they were horse and round and everything else. And we went up and played New Jersey the next day, which was the worst team in the league in the lost to them. Wow. Wow. But it was worth the loss to have bring Dennis back into the crew. Yeah, but that was that group of guys They really enjoyed each other's company and I gave them a lot of leash a lot of room to move

and we had a great time and They kind of did the documentary last dance on that group of guys in that year amazing Well, I'm about it. That's about it for me. That was great. Thank you so much for doing this Pleasure meeting you pleasure talking to you. I could talk to you forever so interesting and I feel like there is a great sympathy between Our jobs there is a great sympathy between our jobs. It's a connection to the flow. It's the connection to being in the spirit

to having that feeling right on. They're right in the moment. It's such a great feeling. It's such a great feeling. It's such a great feeling. I find it addictive. I find it like that moment of when I come to studio and it's like not really happening, and I have patience and I'm willing to wait it,

but then when it happens, it's like, can you believe it? And it gets even a little scary in like, will it stay? You know how long can we keep it going? Because it's out of our control. I used to say, well, did we peak too soon in this ballgame? Can we maintain it?

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Cool. Thank you so much for doing this. A pleasure. you