The Herd with Colin Cowherd - All Ball - George Mason HC Kim English on Baltimore Hoops, Mizzou Success, NBA Experience

Episode Date: May 15, 2021

In this episode, Doug is joined by George Mason Head Basketball Coach Kim English, who discusses his Baltimore hoops background, his grandfather's influence, transferring to four different high schools, his battle to overcome a childhood stutter, playing under Mike Anderson and Frank Haith, trying to stick it in the NBA, and his overseas experience. Make sure you download, rate and subscribe here to get the latest All Ball Podcasts! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

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Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The story I've told myself can then shape my behavior, and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast Deeply Well with Debbie Brown.

If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was funny. You just understood. That's how personal it got.

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Hi, I'm Doug Gottlieb, and this is Ball. We tell great stories. This is a pod that's popular to grow, grow, and grow, and we are so happy that so many of you have shared it with your friends. We have a pod that we dropped a day or two days ago. Me, a couple of my buddies that play with at Oklahoma State. What is like to really play for Eddie Sutton and Oklahoma State. Again, that's all ball. Brian Montan, I, Desmond, Mason, Adrian Peterson,

great players, great dudes, and some of my best friends in life and in sport. And I hope you listen to that one. This one, our guest is Kim English. Now, Kim and I have become friends. I covered him when he was at Missou. and obviously he's like, I don't know, 12, 13 years younger than me, but, you know, like, you just, when you meet some people,

you just know, you're like, that guy's going to be successful. Like, I don't know, make a long term of the NBA, but that guy's going to be successful. And what I found to be particularly kind of mind-blowing and awesome is his admittance of, and I think a lot of athletes are really more this way. some superstars are not you know like shack to this day will never admit to the fact he couldn't shoot free though i made him would have mattered you know right whereas the rest of us i think most guys know who

they were and are comfortable with who they were even if their flaws and wait to hear what kim had to say kept him from sustaining his spot in the NBA and why he couldn't play overseas and i been listening to him and maybe his own words, maybe his own words, he admitted that the success he had at times was a detriment to long-term success where his failure at times and to end up in him being more successful. It's a, I don't know, just the ability at his age to look inside himself and understand himself is amazing. There's stuff about, he went to four high schools in a prep school, his pop pop, his dad, their relationship. His last high school game finally playing with his buddies.

They grew up with a little bit of Baltimore, D.C. hoops that I didn't know about. Showing up in Missouri what it took for him, playing for two different coaches in college, Mike Anderson and Frank Hath. And then playing in the NBA, there's just a lot. It's really good. And you're going to enjoy it. We're a couple days away. seems like from the end of the NBA season.

And, you know, like, look, what's the thing that's going to be tested in the East is, does defense really win championships? Because the Nets, when they have KD and James Hardin and Kyrie Irving, I love James Hardin's response when he's asked about how quickly in his first game back, how good he was, is like, I'm kind of good at this game. Like, you think he's amazing at this game. They're amazing. But does defense win championships or just like, hey, you have three dudes, one who really likes to pass and James Harden. Kevin Rantes bought into passing. Harry can pass, but I just thought the whole, those three offensively are remarkable to watch. I didn't Joe Harris and Gondre Jordan or somebody at the big and it's pretty fun.

But can they guard anybody? And or it doesn't matter. Then you have the Sixers who can really guard. but can you play through a big and can you win the NBA playoffs that way? We'll find out. I think the playoffs are going to be faster. Milwaukee, who I think is a smart bet in terms of money-wise to come out of the east, but are we buying Indiana who most people still don't think can shoot?

And can you win the NBA when your best player can't shoot in the biggest of games? I don't know. I guess we will soon learn. We'll soon find out. And then the downfall of the Boston Celtics, I don't think there's any way it costs Brad Stevens' job, but something is amiss with the chemical makeup of this team. That's got to be solved.

In addition to the fact they haven't been healthy for most of the markets. Mark didn't heard of Yale Brown most recently getting hurt. Those are valid explanations. But the lack of chemistry, something doesn't work. Something doesn't work. And then out west, I said in the last spot, I'll say it again. Suns want no part of the Lakers. No part of the Lakers.

That's a bad matchup for the Sons. And while we can sit here and go like, well, the seventh seed, so, and they're probably going to be a favorite, they wouldn't be a seven seed of LeBron and AD didn't get hurt. And then Dennis Schroeder didn't get COVID. I mean, come on. So it's really hard to tell what's what, especially with Denver not having Jamal Murray. I think Utah is better than people think, not just because of the record, but how they'll play in the postseason. I think Portland, their bounce back this year has been really impressive. So I'm excited about the playoffs.

I'm excited about the playing game. We'll talk about them a little bit more in the next podcast. Let me get to this. Kim English is a young head coach. He just got his first job of George Mason. In this part of the pot, we didn't really even get to the George Mason part just yet, or the coaching part just yet, a little bit.

At the end, he kind of tells you when he wanted to get into coaching and how it actually worked. I didn't share with him a story. Well, I'll share with him the start of the part two that I think he'll really enjoy. In the meantime, you'll enjoy this. This is the new head coach. of George Mason.

Remember the team that Jim Laroniaga took to the final four and that if you looked, should they even gotten the NCAA term in that year? I don't know, right? But they did. They went all the way in the final four, and they might have been the second best team in that final four. They lost to Florida, Florida won.

That was part of their back-to-back national championship program. Here's my conversation with Kim English. Obviously, this is amazing that you're the head coach of George Mason. Before we get to all that, let's the first place you played hoop at, the park you grew up playing at was where? Man, that's a great question. I'd have to say it's Cloverdale, Cloverdale basketball court on the west side of Baltimore. My granddad has a mechanic shop and a tow company right there in an alley right across the street from the park. And I'd just be down there all day in a shop in the summer. And I just used to venture across the street and try to play, try to get on at Cloverdale.

I get on. That's perfect. That's a great. What's your granddad's name? Alexander Folks. Okay. So what was Al? Was Grandpa Al, what did you call it?

I called him Pop Pop. Okay. People in the neighborhood called him Mr. Al. People really knew him called him Hot Rod because he used to race cars. But so, yeah, no, I mean, he'd not know where I was. He'd be in the shop working, you know, making money doing what he's supposed to do. And I'd be my first place plan was across the street in Cloverdale Park in West Baltimore. Tell me more about about Papa.

Okay. So like, if you close your eyes, you said this is what he was like to me. Because my, my grandpa wanted nothing to do with sports. He was old New Yorker who was, he put himself. through school to be an accountant. And then he, through accounting, he got a part of a car dealership and he became the owner of a car dealership. So there was a year my dad was at EW Milwaukee, kind of like what happened in Hartford.

They went D3. So he left and we stayed for a year at his house. And all I can remember about my grandpa, he passed, probably 15 years ago maybe, maybe 20. all I can remember about my grandpa was two things is he loved to play cards and I used to fix the sprinklers. I come home from preschool and we'd work on the sprinklers together. That was like my thing with him. What was your thing with your pop-out? Yeah, similar to my granddad, he didn't care much about sports.

He's just a quiet old soul from Baltimore, very humble beginnings, you know, dropped out of school in ninth grade, began working on cars, mechanic, and just, I mean, no formal education really, just educated in just growing up in the city of Baltimore and then a mechanic and eventually got to a point where he, you know, was in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Baltimore, Whitelock in West Baltimore. And he had no issues. He had a shot there. And, you know, now when the Ravens moved back to, to Baltimore. He then got into sports. But he,

very wise, very wise, man. I still go visit him about once a week. I'll just make the drive up and see him. My grandmother has since passed. You know, he's moved out the house. He's in a condo, but he's really funny. You know, he used to say, like when water bottles became

a thing, I felt like water bottles became a thing when I was in like the mid part of my childhood, like bottles of water, like spring water was thing. He was like, he used to say stuff like, man, I can't believe you guys are paying for water. And he used to say, man, one day you guys are going to be paying for air. And I was like, what are you talking about? I don't know that we're going to pay for air. No one's ever going to pay for air. And I was in Vegas at an AAU event. And I remember walking on the strip. And there were people

sitting at an oxygen bar and he popped in my mind. I was like, people are paying for air. So that's pretty funny. How'd you fall in love with the game? Man, you know, that's a great question. I'm actually in a, I go back and read this book called The Talent Code maybe three or four times a year and I read the culture code a couple times a year. And I'm actually at the part right now when it's, you know, it's talking about, you know, the love of the game being a very big factor in, you know, the development of really good players and talent hotbeds. And, you know, I just fell in love with the game, playing it. No, just planning it. You know, at that park, at other parks, when I eventually

got on a team, you know, I just fell in love with the game through every single. You know, I just fell in love with the game through every single time I was afforded the opportunity to play it. You know, it just became what we did. It was just the only thing. It was our only thing. Okay, high school. So you went to, you, you went to first to Ransdale, right? I went to a lot of high schools. I went to so many, I went to a lot of high schools. I'd say that Tauson Catholic. Okay, wait, so, okay, give me, I'm going to write this down. Okay, so your, your name. Well, you're an eighth part of it's not that easy. It's so many because of moving.

No, no, no, explain what's going on in your life. Explain the whole thing because it's a fascinating journey. Well, so at first I went to a school called Calvert Hall, which is a very prestigious high school in Baltimore. And I was a good player in my own mind, but not really. I didn't have any reputation in the city. I just applied to Calvert Hall. I got in just as a student.

And, and, and, uh, but it's a great basketball school. Like Mark Amitucci is a legend in Baltimore. Juan Dixon played there. Dwayne Farrell played there. Ricky Harris, Jack McClinton, Gary Neal, like great high school players have played at Calvin Hall. You had me at Jack McClinton. Yeah.

And Juan Dixon is not a bad one either. And, um, I'm not saying, but Jack's my guy. But I, um, so, okay, so I was there and I was there, but it wasn't because of basketball. I just knew it was a great bathroom. And I thought I was a good player. But they had no thing. Mark Amitucci had no clue who I was as a high school player. And so I went there and I had to go. But it's not as simple as that, right? You can apply. Like your family's like, cool, we'll send you. Like, what's the, did you have complete carte blanche over where you're going to high school? Like, how did that work? Because again, it's different for me. My dad was like, all right, we got to find you

the right high school. Yeah, I wanted to go to this thing. I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to to go to this high school because a lot of great basketball players went there. So I applied, I got in, I got some, you know, help, financial aid or whatever, and I went there. And I had to try out for the freshman team. And I thought in my mind, I thought I was a lot better than the freshman team. I tried out. I would have made the team, but I also had like detention at the time. And it was a, it was a, it was a Christian brother school, St.

John Baptist, a De La Salle Catholic School. And they were very disciplined and strict. So if you got detention, you served out your detention. A guy named Mr. Kern. He was the detention guy. So I had like 20 straight detentions for, I don't know, like a shirt untucked or talking in class or being late, whatever. And I had detention at the same time I had basketball practice.

So like, I chose basketball practice. And Mr. Kern marched over to the gym, got me out of the gym. Like, no, you got detention. Let's go. So I had to serve the detention all through tryouts. So I didn't, I couldn't play. So I couldn't play. So I ended up leaving in the middle of the year.

I transferred to another great Catholic school in Baltimore called Towson Catholic High School. And I got to play. I got to play on JV. And, you know, I was there. And then after that season, I was not a, I wasn't a bad kid, but I had some, I was normal, I had little behavior issues as a young person. Right. So, so I'll give you, I'll give you one.

So my son, he goes to, we put him in a private school mid year. So he currently has to do school at home for two weeks because he can't keep his mask above his nose. Yeah, that would be me. Right. It's like, and that is exactly me. And I'm like, I'm supposed to be mad at you. I was like, are you kidding me? I would have done the exact.

Okay, so you're at Towson. You play freshman, J.B. You get done with a year. Now, at the time, are you playing on an AAU team? Yeah, yeah, Mount Royal, me, Malcolm Delaney, Sean Mosley, who played at Maryland. We had some good players. And so get done there and I leave.

I got recruited to Montvert, Montverd Academy. me. A guy by the name, who's from Baltimore, his name is Eric Skeeters. Eric Skeeters was really close friends with Kevin Sutton at Montverd. They told me to come. Kevin was just getting the program started. I go to Montverd. I played there for a year. And I was asked to leave because, again, like, you know, it was my temper at the time. And as a 16-year-old, it was like, I got in a fight. I got to fight. I got to fight. with another, it was craziest story ever. So we're playing.

We're after dinner. If you ever been to Mont Verre, they have this beautiful big lawn in the middle of campus. And after dinner, the kids play games. So like, in Mont Verde is an international school. So it's, it may be 10 American kids in a whole school.

Everyone else is foreign. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all,

embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'll say.

Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show.

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And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time. You ladies know what I mean. me. I'll bet you a perimen apostle chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be with the Adamania Rivah, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess happening

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Well, that's lighting. They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears or tears of laughter, and dive into it, unfiltered and unbothered and ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of my Cultura Podcast Network available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed.

And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard

Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He run running the court, licking his fingers why he got the

ball, like, after you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So, listen to Point game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the kids were playing soccer. So I, like, jumped out there and played.

I was playing around and I, like, jumped up naturally and I, like, slapped the ball. And this German kid named Ali was like, hey, handball, handball. And I was like, all right, it's turn over, your ball. Like, I use my hand. He said, no, I get to slap you in the face for using your hand. And I was like, all right, we ain't, we ain't. He ain't slapping me in the same piece, but like, you had to always say, no, I slapped you. I was like, no, you're not.

So, Ali insists on slapping me, so we fight. And I like, I beat them up pretty bad. It kicked out. I got kicked out of a moment. Did you play that season? I did. I played that up until that point. Yeah, I did.

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And it's my last year of high school, 2007. We win the state championship with all my friends from growing up, which was great at the University of Maryland, which was my dream school at the time. But I didn't have the grade. I didn't have the SAT score to pass the NCAA clearinghouse at the time. You had the sliding scale, your GPA, and your SAT score had to match. Mine wasn't high enough.

So I had to do a year of prep school. I went to Notre Dame Prep and Fishburg, Massachusetts. And that was a big, big year in my basketball development. You know, in the book, The Talent Code kind of talks about it. And that in talent hotbeds, it's, It's usually not the most beautiful places. It's usually the places that have some character, for lack of a better term. You know, and Notre Dame Prep was that.

If any coach has ever been there, he knows it's not beautiful. The gym is cold. We used to sneak in the gym at night. We had a little wave of, like, sneaking and breaking into the boiler room just to turn the heaters on to heat up the gym so we could shoot at night. You know, and it was, we used to, we played one of the room. on one every single night. My roommate was Tony Allen's little brother, Ryan. So we used to take the train down to Boston, watch the Celtics play.

We were there the year they won the finals. I probably went to 25 or 30 Celtics home games that season, all because of Ryan. And I had to leave to go to Missouri for summer school. And I was in Columbia watching the Celtics beat the Lakers in 2008. and Ryan Allen, my roommate, was in the locker room celebrating with the team. Like, I would have been in the Celtics locker room throwing champagne around if I didn't have to go to summer school by freshman year. And all those things, all those moments kind of built and created this obsession I have with the game.

You know, and I mean, you know, so many AAU moments thrown in there that we didn't talk about. but no man it's a beautiful game um you used to stutter pretty pretty yeah i still stutter i still i'm still a very bad stutterer still i just have uh i have control over it how when did how do you how does that work how does it work well first let's let's go bit like into high school and in yeah well in elementary school i mean preschool i stuttered my whole when i i can stutter i stutter for as long as I can't remember. And it, I hate to bash on Baltimore public education, but the speech pathologist had not a clue what they were talking about. Like, you know, they used to have me come in. I get taken out of class. I'd go to sit with my speech pathologist and I'm sitting

and she'd be, or he'd be having me reading. But like, I could read till I'm blue on the face in like a one-on-one setting. Like, I don't stutter when I read. Like, it's not that I stutter when spoke when I speak. So I went through the speech pathology process in Baltimore all the way up into private high school when I just stopped. I said, I'm good. I'll figure it out like sometimes I start or sometimes I don't. You know, when I got into college, I took a couple of speech pathology classes.

And I kind of, but I was always quiet at the zoo. I just kind of on my own listen to what was being said. I don't even know if anyone in a class knew that I started. I just took the classes for my own gaining of knowledge. And so I had taught myself, it's really cool. I had taught myself strategies that are actual speech pathos. Like what? Like what?

You're teaching yourself to avoid. So you don't stutter when you sing. You don't stutter when you sing. So just learning that kind of helped my brain a little bit start sentences. So if I was about to speak, I may start a small hum like in my own self inside of me. And then I would start my sentence because it would kind of would just help me start. You know, I had to like right now I'm kind of like bouncing my knee when I speak. I don't need to do that right now.

But that helped me. That rhythm of a bouncing knee helped me quite a bit with my speech. A the source. the Staurus helped me a bunch. If I was just struggling with the word, I would just switch the word. I know when a stutter is about to come like eight words before it's going to come.

Really? And I would just, as I'm getting up to that word, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, I would switch the eighth word to something else. I, lastly, though, there was a movie called the King's Spears. speech. And I recommend it to any stutter, any kid that stutters. And I speak to kids all over the world.

You know, kids all over the world that stutter, I speak to them and try to help them. But Colin Firth was the actor. And we had just lost a game in 2011 or 2012 to Kansas State in Manhattan. And we had got back to Columbia and it was just, I was bored. And the movie had just come out. And I was like, I'm going to go. I'm just go check this movie out. No one was in the movie theater. I sat in the back. It was empty. And I just watched it.

And they did an amazing job. Like, it's obviously a true story. They obviously did that research. What he went through is as accurate a depiction as I've ever seen in film. And the strategies that he used, I was in porn and myself. But the person that helped me the most with my stutter was Barack Obama. Never met him. but listening to the cadence in which he speaks helped me greatly.

It slowed me down. It made me realize it. A big problem with stutterers are stutterers try to speak at the same pace and tempo of everyone else, but they can't. You can get there. Like I can get there now. Like, you know, you could say I overcame my stutter, but I still stutter at times. Like my close friends and family and players, my players see me stutter, but they just know, like, if it's a heated moment in practice or a scout,

I'll have a, I'll slip up in a word and they'll just kind of like, and if it's like a new player, he's like, some guys don't see it for a couple of years. And some guys like, yeah, coach stutters. Like, so they'll see it sometimes. But stutterers have to speak at a certain cadence to be fluent. And Barack Obama speaks at like the perfect cadence. So any stutterer, listen out there,

go listen Barack Obama speak and mimic him. What was your, what was your dad like with all of this stuff right like you in your own i think all of us in our own mind think we have talent we can play but you got to stutter getting sent out all these high schools you're moving around like what what what was your relationship with your dad like at the time my dad god bless him um he's still still my closest friend to this day he is old school old school very very very rough upbringing in west baltimore born and born and raised in the projects. Very tough, very hard, very rugged, hard work in. He's done construction.

Poor concrete, his entire life. A very tough guy. So he didn't have the best patience with the stutter. You get it out. What are you trying to say? He was, and that's that's not the best way to be. Of course, it's the opposite, but it's out of frustration, right? It's him. He is as tough as they come. the toughest person I know without a doubt is my father, you know, and was a good player in his own right growing up from the stories I've heard. But he thought he was very hard on me as a player, very hard on me as a player. To the point where I didn't like him coming to my games at one point because he was so hard on me. those rise home used to be really, really tough. But, you know, when I got good, it flipped, you know,

and he thought that I was like the best player in the world. And, you know, when you hear that confidence from someone that you know is so tough, it can, it really, it means a lot to you. It can take you a long way. But players all over the world, they need to be able to honestly block out their parents' opinions of them as basketball players in my mind. I had to do it. My parents in college and professional, they thought I should be average in 20 plus. I should shoot more. My teammates, they look you off. You need to be able to be respectful to your parents and hear that

information and know that they only care about one thing. And that's not the team, not the team success. So, and I'm speaking from experience, right? I'm on. I'm on. I'm on. good teams. I never missed the NCAA tournament. Played the elite eight, one big 12 championships. I got drafted. I had to say my parents like thanks, but no thanks. I know you love me. I love you, but let's not talk about our team. You know. It's interesting because so not like I'm running like an AU program, right? But it's kids. So it's 11th to 14s. And I have this kind of new tact where I just said, like, listen, if you want to talk about your son, just ask me about your son, how is he doing?

Because what parents have a tendency to do is they want to give you all their thoughts. Like, look, you're basically paying me to coach your kid, to teach your kid basketball. So why would you do that? And then tell me what I'm doing wrong. Or tell me about some other kid, about like, no, no, no. The whole thing is about your son's development. How's my son doing? How's he developed?

help it. What can we do to help? That's it. That's it. And if you want to ask like, hey, how can he play more or how does he find more shots in the offense? That's fine. But what happens is they divert into all these other things because they want to create some like utopian environment for their kids. You know, they'll cut down this kid. They'll cut down that kid. You're like, you know, that kid's not very good. My son is. I saw it's it. The interaction parents and I'm, you know, my dad was a, you know, like he was a coach. And so you would have thought you'd know him better. But the same thing, you're blinded by, obviously blinded by love.

Some coaches don't like talking to parents. Some coaches say, I only talk about academics. I only talk about how they, like, I have no problem talking basketball with parents. Like, absolutely none. Because what they need to realize, and especially at this level, is there are no ulterior motives. There is no hidden agenda against your kid. If your kid is good enough that he can help us win, he'll play. And if he can really help us win,

and he'll play a lot. And if he's one of our best players, he'll take the most shots and he'll play the most minutes. So for me, I invite every one of my players' parents. You can come to practice whenever. Like, whenever, come sit and watch practice.

Like, if we want to talk about your son, like, we're going to have a group discussion. Like, I'm going to say, hey, what do we talk about? Like, tell your parents why you aren't playing. Like, tell your parents why I took you out the game right there. Like I am in my most comfortable state having those very real and honest conversations with I always have been. Well, at least in my seven years of coaching. Okay.

So you get to Mizzou, Mike Anderson is a coach. And you had a, obviously had a great year to go to lead eight that year. But when you first get there, it's summer school. Okay. What would you think? What was the experience? I was the worst player on the team. I was 13 out of 13.

I was the worst player on the team, which was no. different than I say this right now. Like maybe, maybe a few times in college, a few times in pick up in college. I've never been the best player on the court in my life ever, like, which is a great luxury to have. Like so many kids in the middle of the country, if you're growing up in the middle of Oklahoma or Kansas or Nebraska and you're on a elite player. On your worst day, you're still by far the best player on the court. And that's a tough place to be. I love the fact that growing up, I was on the court and it was Malcolm Delaney out there or Carmelo Anthony or Sam Cassell or Rudy Gay or DeWan Summers or Jamar Young or Mugsy Bowles

or I was never the best player on the court. In college, it was Damarie Carroll and, you know, Mark of them and a good player, Phil Presley and Jordan Clarkson and DeBarrison. And DeBarrant, Brown and Mike Dixon. Leo Lions is nice. I like Big Leo Lions. The Lions was a very talented player. Like, I was the 13th out of 13th. I couldn't make layups and pick up.

But it was great because when I got there, my struggles in our summer pickup made me really work hard. Like, so I stayed at the gym. Like, it became like where they set it on every single broadcast in college. But I slept in the gym. my freshman summer. Like I literally slept in our locker room. I shot late at night.

I ordered some pizza. I slept. I woke up. I shot before waits in the morning at 7 a.m. Because I struggled so bad. Struggled to score. Struggled to win. When you don't win,

it's hard to get on the court. If you're not playing well, the next team's not going to pick you up to play again. So it was like I really wanted to get. And through that, through those eight weeks of work, towards the end of the summer, I was about maybe,

I wasn't 13. I maybe went up to about maybe, maybe nine, nine or eight on the roster. One of our guys, Keon Lawrence, transferred out. So maybe I went up to number seven, right? Rest and peace, Keanu, he's passed now. And that kept happening to when we got to Big 12 play, I was starting. I started through all the Big 12th play,

and I finished in the rotation on the team that went to Elite 8 and 131 games. You know, so, no, it was a process and a journey, but it was, I'm really happy about it. Like maybe if I did have success when I first got to college, I wouldn't have worked as hard. I thought it was easy, maybe. Who is your roommate? That summer it was Miguel Paul.

It was Miguel Paul who transferred to East Carolina. Yeah. It gets interesting because so many kids, they would leave, right? You'd get there now, you'd get there and pick up wouldn't be good and you'd be out. Duceus, not even staying for first practice. I never, I mean, yeah, no, I never, never crossed my mind. I thought about leaving after my junior year. I thought about it for a second.

And my dad shut it down after one conversation. That was literally it. Okay. So I'm interested in that because after your junior year, right, Mike Leeds, he goes to Arkansas, right? And you're a guy who had been to one, two, three, four, technically five high schools, right? So leaving and changing isn't a big thing for you.

What was the decision like when Frank comes in and gets the job? to stay. Yeah. It was, I didn't think about leaving once Mike left. Mike and I, we've kind of retroactively, I am so appreciative of how much I learned from playing from Mike Anderson for three years. Like he had a huge impact on who I am as a coach. How I am as a man, who I became as a player, and who I am as a coach today. In what way as a man? In what way as a man? he is a very loyal and strong and serious coach and person. And I try to carry myself in that manner. Like I'm not going to flip-flop who I am based on what group of people I'm talking to.

Right. I'm the same way. Like, and that's who he was on the basketball court. Our practices were absolute, you know, I hate to. to use the word war, but they were battles. Our practices were absolute battles. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games.

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A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music.

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I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Deanna Maria Riva as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And, you know, it just, it shaped me. It shaped me. You know, the, like, here's a great way. For Mike Anderson, the first day of school, let's say September 1st, until about two weeks into practice in November. So like a good bit, a good bit. You have 6 a.m. workouts every single morning. 6 a.m. 5 days a week for two and a half months for two for two for about for for one and a half month until about the middle of October.

We practiced at 6 a.m. every single morning. And I think that was a huge lesson. in discipline. If you're practicing, you can't get, you don't even think about it. You are, you are calculating those hours of sleep.

I mean, if you're watching a late NBA on T&T game and that West Coast game, you're starting to look at that clock like, man, that game, first game went overtime. You're like, you know, you start weighing those opportunity costs. Like that is the worst, that's not the worst part.

The worst part is because we used to run at Oklahoma State, but only two days, two days a week at 6 a.m. the worst part is the waking up because like at four, four, 450 was my time, 450, 450,

four five, zero. But you'd, you'd wake up hours before, but like, I know, you're waiting. I know.

Just go off? Because you don't be late, because you're late, it's, oh, there's hell to, hell to pay. Yeah,

no, you know, but I will say this. This was always my thing with morning workouts. I hated them. But when you were done, it's great feeling. Oh,

it's the best. The best, if you, You could only remember that feeling when it's time to get out of bed. But the thing that was tough about it was you had an 8 a.m. class. You're an 8 a.m. class, you're, like, ready to crash and you're really tired. But again, those things help you as a man, build care. Like, that's why he did it.

That is why he did it. To this day, I need to ask him. Like, it builds some gumption in players, being able to do that and withstand that. And, you know, really value, you know, what it's like to get. knowing and just knowing like, man, it ain't too many teams up right now getting it in like we are. And we're going to come back and play, pick up this afternoon, you know? We used to do this thing. If you got in trouble, you got a five of five.

We got that. Oh, you did it? Five miles five in the morning? If you're, if, no, no, no, if you're late, if you're not, it's at 5 a.m. If you're late for anything in my program, you have a 5 a.m. conditioning. And it's going to be, it's going to be a bear. Now, who's the coach who has to do that? That's the worst one. It's our strength coach. It's our strength coach. And I want him to hate it. I want him to hate getting up at 5 a.m. I want him to let that be known. And if you're late again

for anything, your team has a 5 a.m. workout. Your whole team is a 5 a.m. workout. And if you're laid a third time for something, your team has a 5 a.m. IVM workout and you have to watch. You can't run. You have to sit in a chair while your team is running. And then if you're late again, you have a problem and you're probably going to leave our program. But that's our, that is who we, that's who we are. You know, that's who we are as a program. A story of the rose is a story of love.

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And they see you. Their fearless guide through this fascinating world. Find a forest near you and start exploring at discovertheforest.org. Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the ad council. Okay, so, yeah, the five of five is, it was great. And it happened a couple times. And everybody gets in a band. We got in trouble for like a party or something.

somebody got in a fight, paw in a van. And you've been to Stillwater, you've been five miles out to Stillwater. There's nothing. Like literally, start at the gym, set the odometer, drive down a little country road, right? Gets to five miles. Everybody get out. And they turn lights on.

They drive behind you as you're running, right? So we had this dude to Stell last year. Stell was really talented combo guard. He ended up transferring to TCU. And he was, he always literally never went through a practice. I could track it where he didn't come down with a rolled ankle, a hip, like, you just always hurt dude, right? So he steps in all, yeah, everybody knows that guy. So he steps in a hole, like two and a half miles in.

It's like, ah, he falls out. So they got a trainer in the van. It's like the tour de France, right? They put him in the band. So I'm sitting there running like, hey, he getting out of this shit? You know? So we get back and, you know, we're tired. So that afternoon we're playing pickup ball.

And Estelle comes like hobbling in. He's shooting a little bit. You know, he just got treatment. And like he wants to like hop in and run. And we're like, damn, that dude is smart. Like he got just rolling ankle and you're done. You're good. So flash to you the next morning, 5 a.m.

They come get up out about about a bed. Take back to the exact same spot where he fell out. Open the door. Good. Good. Good. Good for them. So, so Mike leaves, right? And did anybody ask your guys on the job? Like when they hired Frank, like, did anybody ask, ask you guys? No, they didn't. It was, no, it actually worked out. Frank recruited me out of high school. And I wanted to go to Miami. I was going to commit to Miami on my visit. Jack McClinton was there. Jack from Baltimore, I was going to go. play my freshman year with Jack his senior year. And it was done. I was, it was done. My visit was like September 17th, I think. I got a call on, I wasn't September 11th, but it was around there, Monday morning. And it was Frank saying that Dequant Jones had just committed. So basically, that was a spot. Yeah. So it then turned to Cincinnati, Tennessee, and Missouri.

And ended up at Missouri. But Frank and I, we didn't stay contact at all through those three. next three years, but he called me the same number. I have the same number till this day. And it was an unknown number called me and I answered it. And he was like, I told you I'd be your coach one day. And I was like, Coach, hey, he was like, yeah. And I was really excited. Because I always, always, always had the utmost respect for him as an offensive

basketball coach. He can coach, Muffin's a really, really, really good offensive basketball coach. And the rest is history. I mean, we were the number one rated offensive team in Kempom. We scored a lot of points, shot a lot of threes. We all were wildly efficient. I mean, I shot 46 from three. Ricardo Radliff led the nation and field bowl percentage.

Marcus Demand numbers were ridiculous. Phil Pressy broke Missouri's assist record in three years. Mike Dixon was a bucket getter. And it was, you know, I think, you know, he was the reason that Mike Bray did what he did at Notre Dame with Pat Connick, moving him into the four. We beat that Notre Dame team a year before by like 50. It was actually 50, I think. And the next year, or two years later, they were playing the exact same way.

Like Bill Self has given Coach Have credit when he had Wiggins and he put Wiggins at the four. Here's how far goes back. So when I got to OSU, this is 97, then we moved Desmond Mason to the four. And that was about as small as we could get coach to play. Because the next year, we had Glenn and Alexander as well. And our five best players were guards. We played small one half of one game. We lost in Texas, won the league that year.

It was Rick's first year. And the only way we could get close with them was by playing small. and just coach just couldn't we played small at the time but small was desmond at the four and even and even j right when he went with the four guards but like foy was still like for boy was a powerful four he was a but he was a brutal he was posting up still you know right even though he was a perimeter player but foy was he was a big strong post up four um even though he's a guard you know we we kind of i don't know what desman i know dresn was a freak athlete remember at seattle um but i don't um

I don't remember his college game, but I wasn't posting up at all, right? I was picking pop. He didn't really pose. I mean, he was a dunker. He could handle a little bit. He became a, he made shots. I would, I would never say like he was a shooter,

but damn, he made a lot of shots his senior year. But it wasn't like what you guys were doing. It had a huge impact on me as a player and a coach, and it really helped prepare me for life in the pros and understanding terminology and system. methodology, methodology. And it's made a big impact on me as an offensive coach.

And, you know. How do you, now years later, I don't know if you know this, I think you're the, the only team to shoot was like 50, 40, and 80. And loose. Right. And it was, I mean, Norfolk State was, they would, I mean, it was just running a fever. They were unbelievable. Yeah.

Yeah. But you guys had an unreal year and you lose. Whereas there's other teams that don't really have great years, don't really have great teams. And yet they find a way to put it together and get to an elite aid or a final. I mean, even George Mason, where you now coach, right, that team shouldn't have been in the NCAA tournament, really. I mean, it just shouldn't based upon how they always do stuff.

But they put it together. How do you, how do you, years later, contextualize that in your mind, how good that team was, except for one team scored, one more bucket than you did. It was unfortunate. I had two points. I had two points. I averaged 15.

I was one for eight from the field. I took a knee to the quad and the Big 12 semis. And I just wasn't right. Some other stuff went on that I think kind of had us off that day. I put it like this. I wish I did not win the Big 12 tournament most out. standing player. I wish I didn't win it because we kind of in those games against the Norfolk States and those buy games type of opponents. Yeah. Guys on a team get going to win. Yeah.

So just go get your numbers, right? Go get your numbers. Every college basketball player in the world thinks they are one good NCAA tournament again to making themselves skyrocket up the draft board, right? And it's, ridiculous. But we had guys focused on that getting buckets because I wish I did not win the MVP of the Big 12th. I wish someone else won it. So our mind could have been where it was for the rest of that season. But here's how I conceptualized it. I know we were a good team. We're a great team. But people value the NCAA tournament. They value it a lot. You know, if you were the first four like UCLA, like VCU, 2000.

10 or 11 whenever they went, you go to the final four, like what UCLA did from the first four, it carries a lot of weight and value, and that's what people remember. I think that the people that matter remember us for what we were. And more importantly, I'm really excited as a head coach to try to create that same type of team now. I've been that team was a drug, man. The way we played offense, the way we got along,

the way we shared the ball was a drug. And it was a drug that I've been trying to find since 2012. And I've not found it on any team. I would think I, it was funny is I left, I helped rebuild it with a tad at Colorado. And then I left when they found that drug. Colorado has been living off that drug the last two years.

And I got to Tennessee just after they had lived off that, you for a drug. I had billed it and left it and just went and was in the process of rebuilding it, Tennessee. But, you know, it's tough with a couple of years. Here's the thing that's interesting about it. So I did a pod we recorded yesterday. And my team, we didn't get to the final four, right?

country did. John Lucas and the Graham twins did. We didn't. And I think it's because the way you described it is perfect, which I hadn't thought of, was we were that, we were that drug.

Right. We just, it was, we legitimately liked each other. We loved, and we had, we had figured, for the most part, I'd figured out how to, how to play for coach. Right? Like, just, it ain't easy. And if you're there, your first year just kind of spinning your first year or two doing it.

We'd all kind of figure it out. And we loved the town. We loved each other. But more than anything, how we played was like music, right? And it just worked. Everybody knew it, did what they would, Desmond with the dunks and the threes and the, and the celebrations. And we had all these other dudes that did all.

And I just passed and didn't shot, right? And that was just our thing. The drug is a, it's a perfect way to describe it because I was trying to figure out why people like our group so much when we didn't win shit we didn't win a big 12 we didn't win a big 12 tournament we didn't win a big 12 tournament we didn't get to a final four but it's because that does translate and your missouri team did translate that you like i just like to watch them play i didn't know a single kid at cabin that team you know i didn't know i'd done frank's games but i just enjoyed i enjoyed the two hours of watching you guys play together it was awesome yeah yeah it's it's it's

the way the game is meant to be played, man. You know, Pete Carrille has a quote. He says, you know, crisp ball movement, crisp and consistent ball movement relieves the tension in the offense. And this pounded, pounded, dribble, drive. It is tension, man. It is tension. And, you know, this is funny.

And ironic, the teams that we struggle with, we had four losses that year, Kansas State beat us twice. I was there. I know. I know you did do that again. You know, the team that didn't allow us to pass the ball. You know, we couldn't pass the ball. So the team that took that away beat us twice.

And, you know, so it's a, but no, it's a euphoric feeling, man. And it's a beautiful thing. Okay. So the NBA, Summer Lake. What was that experience like for you? Summer League was great. You know, it was an extension of college. And, you know, it actually, I will say this.

I just thought of this when you asked that question. Talking my summer league experience might be the reason I'm not in the NBA today because I had great success. When I explained first getting to college, first thing I said was I was 13. I was the worst team. You know, I worked really hard because we lost so early in the NCAA tournament, I had like a chip on my shoulder that was like unreal.

Like I dove right into, I took no time off. I'd go right into pre-draft. I signed with Leon Rose. I told him he could send me anywhere. I'd work out against anybody. I worked out for 22 teams, interviewed for 23 workouts for 22 teams. I had the Pacers twice. And I worked really hard.

And that work carried right in the summer league and I was ready. And I think I averaged like, might have averaged 18 points in Summer League. I played really well. I was all summer league. And that success and the thought of, I tell us to recruit so all the time, it was my dream to get to the league. I was obsessed about it. I was going to get to the league. Like, nothing was going to stop me from getting that. So I got there. I signed my rookie deal. I had success in Summer League. And I did the absolute worst thing you could do. I realized my dream. I thought I made it. I thought I was. everyone, everyone that I ever talked to was like, dude, you're a great locker room guy,

you're a shooter. You're going to play 15 years in the league, man. You're going to be like Mike Miller and James Jones. Like, you're going to play, you're going to be good, man. You're going to be a, so I lost my edge. I got done summer league. We were in Orlando. I got Summer League in Orlando.

And I'm like, man, I got some money in my pocket. Like, what? I went to Vegas. I went to Vegas to watch Summer League again and hang with my boys and my family. And I thought I. arrived. I thought I made it. And I didn't. I wasn't at the practice facility late at night like I was in college. I wasn't up early in the morning. I was still one of the first ones to the facility. I was one of the last ones to leave, but I wasn't doing. And I ain't got that type of talent, right? I ain't got

the just ridiculous. I have good talent. I'm a piece of talent. I got to work to maintain that. And I realized too late that my goal, my dream was wrong. And it was fatal to my career. My dream should have been not to get to the league, but to play 10 years in the league, stay in the league, to become a Hall of Famer, an all-star champion, you know, like a starter. And, you know, I started off the season in the rotation,

but I was on a bad team. We lost. Rotations change. And I was in and I was out like that. So as I transitioned to coaching, that is a story that our players know well. They know that story well. What is that like, though?

I, what is the feeling like? Obviously, you think you make when you sign your deal. Yeah. Your first game was against Houston. Yeah. Okay. On the first one you played in was against Houston. Halloween.

Halloween. And again, you had success. You had eight points, right? First of men, should have won. I mean, I had a chance to win the game. I had to win the game. Omar Sikh blocked my shot. I had a chance to win the game.

I took the shot to win the game. In your first in your first game. What's that like, though, to see walking a locker room and see your jersey and English on the back, Pistons. That late in, you've already played your preseason. You've already, it's, it's, you get over it. Honestly, you get over that during the draft process.

Like, you stop. Do? Yeah, you stop. I stopped. being in all of NBA guys during the draft process. Like I started looking like Ben Gordon, like, competition. Like, I stopped having a ridiculous, like,

Juan Dixon to me is like, like, I don't mean this literally, but there's like, it's like Jesus, my dad, Juan Dixon. Like Jesus, my dad, Carmelo, Anthony, Juan Dixon. Like, that's my, like, everything. Marcus Haddon. When you're going through the draft process, you got to lose that quickly

because it's just so competitive. like you ain't got time man you ain't got like it's Kobe like yeah that's Kobe but you're guarding him tonight like you're like you're sitting there with your assistant coach for the game watching film with Kobe like so you lose that pretty quickly um yeah well at least I did I lost the awed oneness of the NBA pretty quickly what what was what was it like to check Kobe it was it was awesome you know it was our third game of the season they were o' and three at the time. Mike Brown was there. And I line up for the national anthem. And I'm standing on the other side as the bench of Staples and court side. And literally right

there who stands up by his seat is Antonio Banderas. And I'm like, okay. And then Kobe runs out just before the national anthem. And Kobe is standing there. He's right by the Lakers bench. And he's like just twirling his ankles. I'm just watching him. I'm not looking at the flag. I'm just watching him. Usually I pray during every national anthem. I, I just watched COVID. He was just twirling his ankles, like just, you know, and I had this thought popped into my mind at the first time. And I said to myself, like, as he was standing there for that national anthem, all I could think about was how many national anthems that year and year 15 or 16 maybe he had been through. I think it was year 17. How many national anthems he had been through? And I came up with the math quickly. that Kobe Bryant had been in the NBA for more days of his life than he had not. At that moment. Think about that.

Yeah. So from 1 to 17, think about your life. First of all, I just love the way. My mind works the exact same way. When you think of things like this at times, where everybody's like, what were you thinking? Like, that's actually what I was thinking. Think about from age, age birth to 17. No, I got it.

Yeah. From 97 draft until. So, like, he had done that more times than he had mowed his lawn, mode A long. He had, he had, he had ran back and transitioned more times than he'd taken out the trash. Like, and that was in my mind at that moment. But when the game started, it was good. We competed.

He had no respect for me. Like, I got, I scored because he just didn't know, like, he was like, I got, I scored wide open shots. I fouled him one time. I didn't. They called foul. He slapped me on the butt and say, say, good D, young fella. And, like, no, it was great. I actually, I took a picture the other day.

I screenshoted a picture the other day of me guarding them. I mean, it's one of my favorite pictures. I'm at the top, but it's at the bottom of my, I thought I screenshot it. Yeah. I took a screenshot. It popped up on my feet, but, like, That's a really cool moment. KD, a couple nights later, you guys played against KD.

Now, you mention all these Baltimore dudes, no mention of KD. He's not Baltimore. He's more D.C. He's more PG-QA. I understand, but we like, again, it's hard because, like, L.A. guys, we take everybody. We count everybody. We don't necessarily like everybody. We count everybody.

KD. from the same state. He's from Maryland. but it's it's not Baltimore. Baltimore is kind of like Memphis. Like Memphis is in Tennessee. Memphis is Memphis. Yes.

Baltimore is in Maryland, but no one from Baltimore says they're from Maryland. Like you're from Baltimore. C. Pleasant Maryland is a suburb of D.C. It's PG County. That's Mike Beasley, Taiwan, Lawson. I mean, ridiculous basketball, like great basketball. Yes. No, I mean, obviously, Katie's, I mean, great.

You know, yeah, we played him a few nights later. that was the night I was, that was like, I think that was like my last, I think it was more than a few nights later. I feel like it was a little bit later in the season. I feel like that trip was, yeah, that trip was Houston. No, we were home of Houston. It was Phoenix, L.A., Sacramento, then Houston. Yes. Yeah, it started the season.

Yeah, it was, you guys lost all of them. Houston, Phoenix, Lakers, Kings, Houston. in that second game of Houston, I had got taken out of rotation because of some bad defense the night before in Sacramento. I don't know why. I didn't think I went under a Jimmer Fredette screen and he like banged a bomb.

And yeah. What is the feeling like to lose that NBA game, right? It sucks. It sucks. It sucks. It really sucks. You know, you don't realize how much it sucks at the moment. There were a couple opportunities to stay in the league that I probably should have taken.

I had an opportunity to go to camp with Portland. I should have done it. I turned down a really big contract in Moscow, still with hopes of getting back in the league. I ended up with a good deal in Italy. But when you get out of league, it's really, really hard to get back here. And what people don't realize it is it's because when you've played, just one year, just one year in the NBA, the knowledge gained about the game and the understanding of how to play the game is so much. Like people that play two years and three years and four years, they have so much respect for, you know, how many reps they've got done doing it the right way, like 6,000 times the reps of anyone else. But here's the dilemma.

when you're trying to get back in the league, you're having to go back to Summer League. And Summer League is college basketball. And you're playing NBA basketball with college players that don't know nothing. So it's really hard to get back in the league because you're playing with guys that don't know nothing. I think here's the thing.

It's you actually nailed the whole thing in terms of you personally with the Pistons. and Summer League and and winning the Big 12 tournament MVP. It's all kind of the same. Like had you gone from Italy to Russia to France to the NBA, you know, you'd still be in the NBA. Once you've been in the NBA, you're like, are you kidding me?

You want me to do what? Once you're in the NBA. And you can't play in Europe. And you're having conversations about things. And you're not arrogant. You really do know. It's not arrogant at all. You just, when you're in the NBA,

yes. You understand, when you, when you've been in high major college basketball, you understand the standard operating precision, right? So I'm in the NBA and you're a professional. You land in L.A. Land in L.A. If you want to go to dinner and whatever, you want to go shopping, you do whatever you want to do.

You got a friend that works that you, so now I'm overseas. And I land in Paris. And my best friend Keith Ramsey lives in Paris. And I'm like, Like, we land. I'm like, I'm going to go, I'll see you guys. I'm going to go have dinner with Keith at on Shams de la Zay. And they're like, no, we have team dinner.

I'm like, what? Like, yes, where your team issued sweatsuit to dinner? I'm like, you're 36. Like, what? Like, so I'm like, okay, I'll go to dinner. All right, I'll wear the team sweatsuit. All right, I'm at dinner. And I sit down and I'm like, all right, texting Keith.

hey, after this dinner, hey, no phones. Like, what? Like, you get done dinner and, no, you got to wait until the captain says we can leave. I'm like, what? Like, I played my first game in the Italian league, and I had 29. I had 29 points my first game in Italian league against Bologna. And it's before you have a yearly game, the next game, against Galatasarai. I played Galatessori in the preseason, Carlos Arroyo.

Jamal and Gordon, I had 30, great, I had 30 and appreciate. Same team. 29 and whatever against Bologna, my first Italian, they have a meeting the next day with the president of the team and the general manager. And I'm like, hey, what's up, guys? He said, yes, good win last night. When you make threes, we want you to be more, you know, like tell the guys, get up, get up, you know, tell the fans.

I was like, what? like I don't celebrate baskets. That's not me. I've never did, though. I've never done that. I run back on defense. And there was like, you can't do that? I was like, no, I'm not going to, like, I'm here to, you're paying me to play basketball.

I'm not going to. And the next game, our Euro League game in Florence, Italy against Gallaud Tessori, I play seven minutes at 29 points. It played seven minutes of next game. And I'm like, is this, I'll call my agent, like, is this? real? Like, so you said it. If I would have never experienced the NBA and the professionalism, yeah, beauty of it all. And that's not everywhere in Europe. That's the thing about such a spectrum. There are places, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Cheska, there are places that do it at an incredibly

high level and I really, I just was unfortunate. Matthew experiences were a bit quirky. Like, I, we were so, and it's, it's, and it's in certain countries you have so much corruption. Like, so I had my contract. If we won our first Italian league game, the Super Cuppa, we, I got a 5,000 euro bonus for winning the championship, the first game, the Super Cup. So we win the game and it's like, like a couple months go by, I just told my agent, hey, hit up, you know, and just check on that five grand euro, see what they say. So he did. And the next practice, we're practicing and we're switching, we're switching ball screens, right? We're switching ball screen.

So my guy goes to set a screen and, no, no, no, no, no. Someone's guarding me is coming to set a screen, but I know it's coming. I really blow up the screen and I just like ride the guy over it, right? And the guy guarding the screen like still comes on me. So we're like two on the ball. And I'm like, so we like talking after it. I'm like, bro, it's no switch. Like I got him.

There's no screen, no switch. And he's like, no switch. I'm like, there's no screen right on the switch. And the coach said, no, Kim, get out of practice. I was like, what? He was like, disrespectful. I was like, what? Like, I was like, all right.

So I leave friends. We come down, I'm on the bus going to play play Pado, Pessaro, Italy. And I get an email from the club. I got a 5,000-year-old fine. I got a 5,000-year-old fine. I got a 5,000-year-old fine

for me and a teammate having a discussion about switch or no switch, which is like the thing in basketball, when the switch, when not to switch. It's a dispute, isn't it? Like, a very normal occurrence. So, like, just that level of, like, unprofessional.

and BS, quite frankly, your overseas basketball just wasn't for me. It just wasn't for me because I just, I knew. I'd seen the light. Like, I know, like, my time in the NBA was, I mean, I'm still, like Charles Clask and with the Nuggets and Steve Hetzel with the magic. Like these guys, Lawrence Frankie, these guys that I built these great relationships and bonds with,

just, it was just an incubator of such great knowledge. and information in the game in the most purest form and it was just that was a drug you know for me and so I got to I need one minute I gotta get my son up great yeah because I gotta go I gotta meet my AD here in a little bit

um do you want to do a part two we talk about coaching can you want to get it would that be right yes what is this is this a iTunes this is a pot this a pot so it gets it gets it gets No, it goes, I mean, it goes to, I get 250 to 350,000 downloads for each one of these.

It's really kind of taken out. It's nice. It's called all ball. And it's just people's stories about who. And we got all, and we got all kinds of them. And this is, you know, I want to do the coaching thing in a second. But, but let's, let's wrap the playing thing with this. What's the decision?

Like, you play in Venezuela. Everybody plays Venezuela. That's just to get some cash, right? You go down there, spring league. What am I going to make? 15, 20 a week? Like, whatever I can need to make some cash. But I'm sure, like, at some point, you're like, what am I doing here?

Right, because. No, it was different for me. It was. I was running it up. I knew I was, when I got one, my first experience in Europe, I knew I was going to get the coach. And I was trying to convince Frank Have to hire me for two years. I just thought it was going to be at Missouri.

he told me no, he just straight up denied me for two whole years and no, you know, you need to play, you need to make, because the money was great and you need to make as much money as you can, et cetera. I don't care about the money, man. I want to do this. Like I want to coach. So for two seasons in France, in Italy, I sent Frank Haidt scouting reports of every opponent that they had had. I'd go to practice, I'd get home, I'd dive into their opponent on Synergy, I'd make video edits,

I'd send him personnel, general thoughts, their offense, their defense, and a couple of keys to beat them for every single game that they played. And I sent it to him and their assistants. And I know their assistants, I know, like, looking back at it, I know the assistants, like, who's this dude? Like, what's he, you know, doing? And it was my alma mater. Missouri was a little bit different.

It was Dave Lado and, you know, good veteran staff. And I also began to immerse myself in the high school classes of 2016 and 17. I knew every kid in those classes. And any relationship that I could possibly have, are they from Baltimore or D.C.? Did they go to prep school? Are they from Missouri? Are they from Michigan? Like, what relationships do I have with these kids that I can tap into to kind of get to know these kids?

So it was the, I mean, Dwayne Washington. from OS, from Ohio State, who we were recruiting at Tulsa. Victor Bailey Jr., who I just coached at Tennessee, who visited us officially at Tulsa. Zaire Smith from Texas Tech who wanted to commit to us at Tulsa. Christian Bishop, who was at, like, these players that they're household names now, but I was kind of starting to track these guys as, high school freshmen and sophomores and build relationships with them when I had no recruiting

restrictions whatsoever. I was just a dude playing overseas. And I'm getting these is incredibly close. Now to this day, all those guys I just named ridiculously close relationships with these guys now from a relationship that was started seven years ago. And that kind of let Frank, hey, know how serious I was about this. Like, I loathe. the former player, that's a coach who rest on his laurels as a player. Oh, yeah, I did this. So, man, yeah, I got it. Like, just, no, like, I want to be good at every aspect of this profession, you know.

That's pretty awesome. All right. We'll catch up in terms of the coaching thing. I appreciate your time. It's an amazing story. Thank you, Ryan. Let me know. See you, peace.

All right. Well, look, if you didn't enjoy that, you don't enjoy people. especially really interesting ones. And I still don't totally understand people who have a stutter and the idea of a cadence, but a little bit more helps me. And if you listen to that, didn't think he's an incredibly intelligent man, like his recalls.

Oh, fascinating. Fascinating. So I could listen to a bunch more of Kim English. You will too, because that'll be in our next all ball. Remember on your list of the Doug Gottlieb show daily? 3 to 6 Eastern, 123 Pacific on Foxport, Trader, the IHeartRadio App, Series XM, 217 and 203. In the meantime, thank you so much to Kim English for all of that time, and thank you so much

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