The Herd with Colin Cowherd - All Ball - Pt. 2 Former Knicks and Grizzlies HC David Fizdale on Big 3 Heat Years, Memphis Break, Firing, Marc Gasol Clashes

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

In this episode, Doug touches on l Anthony Davis' return, pushes back on Steph Curry hate , and is joined by former Knicks and Grizzlies Head Coach David Fizdale joins the pod - for the second installment of a two part interview . He recounts his climb up the NBA assistant coaching ranks working with Mike Woodson in Atlanta, and rejoining Spoelstra in Miami with the Heat, LeBron's Decision, what happened inside the devastating 2012 Mavs Finals loss, the Game 6 Ray Allen miracle in 2013, and his relationship with LeBron. He also looks back at his head coaching break with the Grizzlies, his clashes with Marc Gasol, what he would do differently, and what he sees in his future. 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.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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'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 IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it.

With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

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Get the 18-stem enchanted rose medley for $3999 or upgrade to 24 red roses for $10 more. Go to 1,800flowers.com slash tune in. That's 1,800flowers.com slash tune in. Hey, welcome in. Doug Gottlieb here on All Ball. All Ball. And if you've been listening to this podcast, we've had some good ones, and I've had a lot of pressure by a lot of you on social media,

my buddies on texts, Facebook where we post this as well. Get me, Part 2. David Fisdell, Part 2 coming your way in just a scosh. I did want to discuss, I did want to discuss one thing before we, actually two things, before we get to the pod. By the way, we really appreciate you, downloaded, subscribing, rating, and listen to the Doug Gottlieb show daily, 3 to 6 Eastern, 12, 3 Pacific, IHeartRadio,

Fox Sports Radio, or Fox Sports Radio.com as well. Wherever you download podcasts, you can download like this one, you can download that one as well. Every day it pops out. But look, the transfer portal has become a big part of college basketball. Look, I'm a transfer. I transferred everybody knows why. The other part, too, it was.

I was thinking about transferring beforehand. And I think of the transfer portal kind of like, I'm not going to minimize COVID, but it's a little bit like waves. You have the original transfers, guys that aren't happy. then you have the and you always had you know guys at a lower level now recently have wanted to transfer up now they don't have to sit out

one of the things lost this is a big thing one of the things lost in the sitting out when you transfer is you get better you get better you need a year to figure out your new school your new system to get better a lot of guys are leaving places they weren't playing that much

so you think if you transfer even transferring down like you're going to play immediately like, and what we've done. This is the most fucked up part of the whole thing. Excuse my language, but not really. It's a podcast.

The most fucked up part of the whole thing is we're so concerned about these kids that are leaving their programs to get to play right away. You know who are not concerned about? We're not concerned about at all about the kids who are in the program. That's bullshit. That's to all of you who are out there like, they should play right away. The coaches can lay the what?

Like, no, that's not how it works. If you want to compare a coach, coach to a player, you can't. They're not the same. From the, you have a buyout in your contract. Okay. Plus, if it's a head coach, remember, you're having to move all of your assistance and your

staff and figure out all that. You're responsible for everybody. You've, these head coaches who we talk about moving jobs all the time, doesn't happen nearly that much. Like coaches moving job to job doesn't happen that much. And most people defend those coaches, the players ability to move from school to school. But you know what doesn't happen? A coach doesn't go take a job.

where there's currently a player there. You're like, what? Like, yeah. Imagine your student athlete at, pick the school, pick any of the school. There's no coaching change. And now a sudden a kid can transfer in and play right away.

Now, you might say to yourself like, well, well, you know, you just got to get better. You just got to get better. You just got to be better than the guy that's coming in. And you should have sweat equity.

And there's probably a reason that, but coaches are also like, They'll take advantage of any loophole they can. But if we're really into protecting the student athletes, why the fuck are we not protecting the student athletes that are actually on campus? Not the guys that want to transfer. And I'm not talking about the transfers when you're coach leads. I'm not talking about the transfers like that at all.

You're on probation. I'm talking about just anybody can transfer and play right away. And we do not care at all about the guys that are actually loyal to the program. None. We don't teach anybody the values. you of loyalty. We teach you it's better to leave and go to a spot where you can play right away. That's what we teach people.

And that's wrong. And everybody in the sport knows it's wrong. Everybody. And I like, this is not a personal attack on any of the people who are in my position or even above my position, right? Like one of the reasons that where I am, where I am is because I've always been an honest salesman. And you know, I'm not like what I've said about the sport that I love.

but I try and do it from a place of honesty. Like I got fucking idiot dukies. You're like, oh, why do you remember we wasn't national championship when you said we were alarmingly unathletic? Like, hey, dumbass,

guess what they were. And you know what they did? They changed from pressuring defensively to loading up in the basketball and playing more pack line. And they put Brian Zubek in the starting lineup. Didn't make it more athletic, made it bigger.

It became the best rebounding team in the country. Like go and look at how they played. It was against Arizona State at the start of the year. when they tried to extend and Mason Plumley didn't play. Then go watch them at the end of the year when they played in the national championship game. And you'll realize that it's a completely different team. Look, you look back on the national championship team.

And by the way, they had, I think, seven players that played in the NBA. But you had John Shire, you had Kyle Singler, you had Brian Zubek, Miles Plumley, Lance Thomas. I mean, even Andre Dawkins and Ryan Kelly, who end up, you know, when I freshman became a, like, it's not an athletic team. It's just not. So, yeah, they were alarmingly, then they figured out a minute when I make it. So I've made this job because I may, I just say what I think. And usually it's, it's at least by my estimation, the truth of, of the sport.

And what's amazing about the transfer portal is no one has said like, hey, what about the guys that say loyal to their school and they get recruited over and a kid doesn't have to sit out for a year? Like, that's bullshit. And no one has defended that at all. Those kids don't matter. What matters is the kids that leave. I have one thought for you on the NBA, which you might find interesting now with Anthony Davis tonight.

Again, this is dropping the night of his first action back in the NBA, which I'm going to be fascinated by. Anthony Davis is not a fitness nut. He plays on pure God-given ability and a love for basketball. It's not he doesn't love basketball. He does. It's he ain't, he's not LeBron. and LeBron, the second he hurt his ankle, and they said four to six, he's like, I'll be back in two weeks.

Like, LeBron is all about his body, his career, him playing as much as possible. That ain't Anthony Davis. And David loves to hoop. He just doesn't do all that other stuff. That's why you never see him shirt off in the locker. He always seen him with one of those tank tops. Not the, not the, he doesn't have the LeBron body. So it's going to be interesting to see when he comes back after the substantial amount of time off.

how his body adjust and if he can get it up and running in time for the playoffs. I have this thought that the clippers are probably better. You know, I like Sir Jabaka. Obviously, that's worked out better. And this pod, by the way, wait to hear the story about Marcus Saul and what ultimately led to David Fisdell's firing. But I'm going to be interested to see exactly how Anthony Davis

Anthony Davis adjust. The last thing is I've seen people kind of defaming the name of Steph Curry and his inability to carry a franchise and what suffers when he scores, you know, 41 a game over the last 10 games. And I'll only point this out. Now, he's the best plus minus in the NBA currently,

but that was a last place team last year. Last place. Have they added some other pieces? Yes. One of the big pieces they added was the number one pick in the draft. He's not playing. So they don't have the number one pick in the draft in their starting center.

They don't have Clay Thompson. and yet there are four games over 500. Why? That guy. This is the Dick Bennett argument. Like what Dick Bennett did at Wisconsin, getting them to a final four and then rebuilding Washington State, that is Hall of Fame worthy. You just can't do much better than that, especially considering where they were when he got there and where he left both programs. It's the same thing for, to me, for Steph Curry.

Like, this is not a championship of caliber roster. It's the West. It's loaded. and he has gotten them to far exceed anybody's reasonable expectations, considering they don't have clay. All right, let's get to David Fisdell. This is part two. Part one was amazing.

Initial foray into the NBA. Moving boxes at, was it FedEx or was it UPS? I can't remember. You can download that. Download this, subscribe rate, write a little review. Here's part two of my talk with David Fisdale. You're with Moss with the Warriors. Okay.

What next? So I did that for a year, and we got fired. After being the year before, Musk had his team had made the biggest jump in all in the league history and wins. That year, at the end of the year, he and Chris Mullins just, they didn't see eye to eye, so we got let go. And I was like, oh, crap, what do I do now? Because here it is, I only got a year under my belt back in the league.

you know, I really didn't want to go back to college. I was like over it at the time. I was just like, you know, the recruiting and all of that stuff. I just wanted to coach. And I go back home to L.A. And I just, you know, I had some money saved over the year. And I stayed with my mom for like a month. And just kind of stay patient and didn't get into anything.

And I got the call from Chris Grant. Might have something for you. I'm like, okay. what I got to do. And at that time, Chris Grant was the assistant GM in Atlanta. Mike Woodson gets the head coaching job, and Chris Grant basically laid it out

so that by the time I got to the Utah Summer League to interview, Woody basically gave me the job on the spot. And, you know, there so began a whole other relationship and a group of people who I really, you know, had a huge impact on me. me. What's what's what's what's what he like? Because I don't know whaty well. I know some people that know Woody and everybody that knows Woody likes Woody. Yeah. If you don't like Woody it's

something wrong with you. That's how I always looked at it. Like but like give me the give me the like you you're going to give me a couple sentences on Mike Woodson having worked for him and you guys were terrible. Right. Oh, we went through the worst. We went through the work. That's why the whole New York thing I went through as a coach just going through losing part of it, I think going through that where Woody was actually preparing me for something that I would have to face as a head coach at some point myself and have to face my own ego down that way. But working for Woody was a joy. He didn't police you. He told you what he expected, and then he let you go to work. And you just like working with him because he was so fun.

Woody, one, I'm just the type of person. I love people that can laugh at themselves. And Woody had an incredible infectious ability to just, you know, he could play this serious guy, but boy, could he laugh at himself. And could he take ownership of a screw-up or like, I remember once he said, we read an ATO, and he read great out of time on stuff. And it was, and he came over to me, he said, I can't believe you let me run that terrible. and I said it looked good on the board. He said, let's throw that one in the trash fit. He said, he said, we ain't never running that crap again. I just, it was just so, he was so humble about it.

Like he could play and he was like, he was like, he was like, that was the worst crap I could ever draw up. But he could laugh at it. And it just made it so fun, even through the losing. And we got better. We just kept getting better. You know, we won 13 in the first year. I think it was like 20 something the next year.

And then we got up to like, 32 maybe or 30, I don't know, but I know we made the playoffs by the skin of our teeth because of Joe Johnson and Al Harper, the additions of them to the Hawks. And then we just went on, we had a crazy playoff series that fourth year with Boston, where they were the number one seed and they won it that year. We were the eighth seed and we pushed them to a seven-game series. And if you look at the scores in that series, He's every game at home was like a three, three or two point game.

And every game at Boston was like a 30 point blowout. They just crushed us. So it was a great experience. And I just love Woody. I'm so happy he's back at his alma mater. And those kids are going to benefit big time because he's, again, he's just one of the coolest guys who's extremely innovative and thoughtful and real. No, it's interesting because when he got the job, I heard people say like, I don't get it.

Like, what don't you get about it? Like, okay, first of all, every. kid that goes to college wants to go to the league. Who knows more about the league than Woody? Hey, plus you come off a guy who, and I don't know much, you know, Archie, like Archie's wound super tight. So you always do the opposite, right? Archie's young, tight, you know, Woody's older, black, chills, cool, cool, chill, like makes total sense to me, right? Archie's outsider, Mike's a connection to the university, plus he's bringing everybody back. That's all I, you guys. Like, all that stuff, all that stuff makes that. I don't know if it means that. I don't know if it means

National Championship, I just know I totally get it. And I've literally never heard anybody say, not one human being go like, you know, I don't like Mike Woodson. Like, that's an amazing thing because the old coachingism is like every year you coach you make an enemy, right? Like, I never heard anybody go like, I don't like Mike Woodson. They might go like, well, he does too much ISO stuff. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But everybody loves to do. You know, the one thing about Woody that, I mean, he really taught me this. Out of all of the stuff, Mike Woodson was incredible, and still is, I'm sure, because I haven't worked on a recent, but still had the incredible ability to move on, to get over it. And what I mean by that is I'm talking, Josh Smith was probably the most difficult person to coach in the history of my career. he was tough to coach.

And I love him and he knows that. So if he's listening to this, so what, take it like a man. You did it. He was super young at the time, right? 17 and a half, 18. He gets drafted in the first round into his own hometown. He's super raw.

But he has an ego. And so it was him and Woody was like oil and water. Woody's coming from the Larry Brown school. Just want a title in Detroit. you coach and Rashid Wallace and Ben Wallace and men, Chauncey Billups like. And so now when I watch Woody and how he handled all of that, the thing I kept taking away from it is every time he and Josh would get into these,

I mean personal spats. Well, Josh were making more personal than Woody. But personal spats, Woody could come back the next day and coach Josh like it never happened. I mean, and that's not easy. That is a very hard thing to do to keep your own ego out of it and to be able to come back and say, come on, kid, let's get right back in the trench.

Yesterday is over. Let's do better. Most people in our league can't do that. They have a hard time with it. They make they personalize so much. They get attached to this deal that, you know, this conflict. I think we want to win games, but you also want to win arguments, right?

Everybody wants to be right. Right. Everybody wants to be right. It's the competitiveness of what you do in your profession leads over into your ego into the side things. Like you want to be, you want to win everything. Like, you know, again, kind of that wiring of we're taught, the winning is the only thing.

And so you want to win an argument too when sometimes, I'm not, that honestly the hardest thing that I've had to deal with in my profession is like sometimes you got to lose an argument. Right? Sometimes you got to be like, you can't always come back. You know what I'm even, I'll even take it further, Doug. Like what I've learned in this whole roller coaster is sometimes, sometimes we don't have to judge it as an argument. Sometimes you ain't even got to apply judgment to the situation. Here's a point of view.

Here's your point of view. I'm cool. I don't need, it's not about winning or losing it. I respect where you coming from. This is where I'm coming from. And can you get to that place, you know, with folks where it's not a thing of like, because we all come into a situation with baggage. We all come into a situation thinking we know it.

We got the answer. It fuels our ego. It makes us feel more superior when we're right, right? Listen, listen, you're actually, you made the point, and it's a brilliant point earlier when you're talking about when you first played for Hank Egan. Right. like because of your situation with your own father, you came in with the baggage of that.

Yeah. Egan was a long time old school head coach. He comes in with the baggage of this is how we do it, right? This is how we're done. You break down a freshman and you build them back up. Like, hey, but this is a different cat now. You got to, you know, and you take that, that's everything. We don't have that, what's called emotional intelligence at times where we understand

what the other person is going through. We're only focused on ourselves. And you know what you're saying in a nutshell, Doug, is what we don't do because of this baggage we bring in. We don't give the other person space because we fill up the room with our own baggage, our own judgments, our own prejudices, our own idea about what is. And we don't even, we don't allow the space for a person to express themselves to even without just, we go into it already building up answers, right? Think about if we just took a step back and we didn't go into a with any answers with the idea of, I don't know shit, and you gave people space, we would build relationships a lot, get past the garbage a lot faster. But what ends up happening is we clash, right? Me and Hank and I

clash, Brad and I clash. We suffer. And then we come to a place where we start to give each other space because we start to see ourselves. 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'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 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 what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford 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. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger.

So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and and a 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.

I'll bet you a parameda apostle chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be with Deanna Maria Riva, 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 on my own. I was like, what the hell is that?

I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that nest was going to be. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How high can it be getting naked at 50 with the new guy? That one's kind of hard. 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 IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, it's Ryder Strong and Wilfredel from PodMeets World. And now the Pod Meets Twirled podcast. We're two men who were completely clueless to reality TV,

who now have covered Dancing with the Stars, Traders, and we're gearing up for the season finale of Survivor. So yeah, now we're experts. I know we annoyed a lot of our listeners by our severe lack of survivor knowledge. That is the point of the show. I'm just going to remind you. I have watched some survivor. I obviously haven't watched enough.

Did people not like it? Like what was just because we? Yeah. We'll be recapping the big conclusion of the 50th season from the final attempts at gameplay to the desperate pleas of finalists to a bunch of, ha, hoo. Again, we are experts. So make sure to tune it to PodMeet, twirled for all our Survivor 50 takes.

Listen to PodMeets Twirled on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Other person. We see the insecurities. We see the ego. We see all of the stuff that makes us connected as humans. Forget race and that. I'm talking about just human beings.

We start to see that after we go through the suffering with each other. But until we get to that, we just keep talking past each other. I'm right, you right, you're right. you're always trying to be right. Always trying to. We're always in that moment of ego. And it's either trying to be superior. The ego is either trying to be superior or it wants to feel miserable.

And when we can get to a place where we suffer enough and we surrender to people, and we just say, man, I just love you. I appreciate you. You know, if you need anything, I'm here. I'm open to you. When you start doing that more with people, you start to see a beautiful thing happen. You start to see people become. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.

Catch all of our shows at Fox SportsRadio.com. And within the IHeard Radio app, search FSR to listen live. When was the last time you seriously considered your dream? Did something never thought you would do. How about live the van life in a totally customized Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van? You could tour the country, whatever you want to dream up. And we're talking about Mercedes-Benz van here. Expect innovative safety features like crosswind assist and blind spot assist.

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our sense of wonder. And our family bonds grow too. Because when we disconnect from this and connect with this. We reconnect with each other. The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest near you and start exploring at Discovertheforest.org. Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the Ad Council. Adoption of teens from foster care is a topic not enough people know about and we're here to change that. I'm April Dinwiddie host of the new podcast, Navigating Adoption, presented by Adopt U.S. Kids.

Each episode brings you compelling real-life adoption stories told by the families that live them with commentary from experts. Visit adoptuskids.org slash podcast or subscribe to navigating adoption presented by Adopt U.S. Kids. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families and the Ad Council. This is the Hawks question. Your first thing, you had, Tyloo was young. Yeah. Okay. And you had Kenny Anderson was older.

Yeah. Right. And then you had like Kevin Willis who, I mean, I'm sure if you, I don't even know where Kevin Willis is now. I've been told the legislative willis is he never spent a penny of what he earned, right? So he's probably still in shape and got $100 million in cash in the bet, right? So and like the gun show is. Oh, yeah. But the arms was only this long. The arms was. Yes. He had the T-Rex thing going. Okay. Yeah, the T-Rex is, you know, everybody's played with the T-Rex do before. Okay, so, but how do you, and as you're still young, right, you're like 30th? Yeah. Okay.

How do you deal with the older guy who doesn't have it like he used to, the younger guy who doesn't can't do it yet because it hasn't know it. Like how do you, and trying to coach people is very different from coaching college. Yeah. And luckily, I went to Golden State first. Right. And I had, I had Cliff Robinson, rest in peace. Best of peace. Ben Axel.

Avery Johnson, Popeye Jones, Calbert Cheney, Eric Dampere, and the young guys were Speedy Claxton, Mike Dunleavy, Michael Petrus,

Jason Richardson, Troy Murphy. Those was the kids. So I had a veteran group who a lot of those guys ended up being coaches who was really patient with me and really taught me the league.

Avery and Nick Van Neckso. That's why Nick ended up being on my staff in Memphis. They literally took me under their wing as players and said, all right, young coach, you are a workout guy because we don't need to get better. We just need somebody that can be there to rebound and get us shots. Yeah. And while we're going through this, we'll kind of tell you what's worked for us.

And it was a wonderful experience. I mean, I can't even tell you the value in what they taught me that year. So give me one thing that like Nick Van Exo, for example, because like boyhood, I don't mind, lefty, I remember going to Minneapolis when he's in the Final Four. One thing that you learned from Nick. Nick taught me, regardless of just the post-up game on the court, guard post-ups,

Nick taught me off the court what it meant to when a player and a coach has a relationship and how to keep that between you and when things are to be disclosed to the head coach and how they're supposed to be disclosed to the head coach. So instead of me going to the coach and say, hey, man, Nick Van Neksa said, we got to start running more floppy. I learned real fast from Nick. Nah, you just tell coach word from the underground.

You tell coach, he and Keith Smart taught me this whole new language of how to communicate veteran ideas. Okay, okay, so work from the underground? What else you got? And then, and so the biggest thing Nick taught me was really taught me how to stay out of the way of veterans when it's heated. You don't want to be that young guy

trying to tell a guy something to do in the heat of the battle when his mind is on something else because he will bite your head off in front of everybody. And then you lose all the kind of standing. And so I never had to go through that. And Nick taught me that. Actually, Nick and every, they say, hey, look,

they used to call me young people. Fizzle. Oh, Fizzle. Hey, we say, Fizzle, Fizzle. Come here. Let me tell you something, Fizzle. And they say, listen, listen, you know, you don't have to be the loudest guy in the room. You just watch, just watch and see what's going on and be patient. Your time won't come. You know, if we ask you something, had the information ready, but this might, you know, know your place. And it really helped me to understand that. And guess who they always came to for information? they called me Staples because Must used to have me hold up these big poster signs where I would have to draw the plays and I'd hold up these big poster signs and shoot around. So my nickname was Staples.

But they always came to Staples for a Staples. What play is that? Who they're running that to? What are they going to come out without a time out here? And that became how I learned how to have an impact on the team just by being knowledgeable but staying in my lane. And Nick and Avery really had, and Cliff Robinson, God, he was so good at making me understand the league and how it worked and, you know, how people's egos worked in the gym. And I didn't even realize what kind of education I was getting. So when I got with Woody, Kevin Willis and Kenny Anderson and John Barry and those guys were, I was already prepared, I think, to coach still.

You know, I was with a great staff of Larry Drew and Bob Bender and Herb Brown. and Greg Ballard. So and Woody. So it was a veteran group of guys who I didn't have to be coach Fizz or whatever, you know, this persona that people have created. But just I could just be and learn and, again, take the same lessons of, hey, I need to know everything so that if any of these guys come to me,

I got the right information. Because, again, who do you go to for your information? and the guy that's always going to give you the right stuff right so i just learned how to be that guy i learned how to put together the film in a way to help the coaches so i could spare them some work you know i just started playing you know diving in the service more because of how avery and nick taught me how my role should be and it ended up helping me big time you get back to miami okay and spos the head coach right when you got there spow was the coach right it wasn't it wasn't They came back.

Yeah, Spoh was the head coach that brought me back. Yeah, it wasn't Stan when then Pat took over, right? So you get there, but now you, you, like, when you were last there, they barely knew you. Now you go, you go back to college, you go to Fresno, you go to Golden State, you go to Atlanta. Now you're a dude, you're an assistant coach. What's that like to go back? Now you can afford a car, right? All these good things.

Oh, I got a car. I'm good. I'm good. Okay. And this is a guy that you're in the video room with, a, almost a decade ago. It was surreal, to be honest with you, Dee. It was like, I'll never forget the day.

He called me because obviously we stayed in touch. I mean, the cool part about the experience with the heat is I never lost touch with people that were really deep ingrained. So Spow, Steve Stowe, Steve Stowe, who's vice president of their charitable of their fundraising department and all that, as really best friends in my, Andy Ellsberg, Randy Fon. And the day I left to come back to San Diego, they stayed with me. You know, I didn't know Pat.

I wasn't close to Pat. Pat was this Superman. I knew Stan, but I didn't build, I didn't have enough time with Stan or Bob McAoo to really become close to him. And so those other guys stayed in touch with me. And so we were playing Boston in that series, Atlanta, Boston, and we were in Boston. And we sitting in a locker room before the game watching the TV and Larry Drew. nudges me. And I'm like, what's up? He said, look, look, look at T's like, look, look, look. Eric's posture, new head coach in the Miami heat, Pat Riley to steps down, blah, blah, blah, blah,

I'm like, oh my God. Like, I'm just thinking like from a friendship standpoint. Hey, excited for your friend. I'm, Woody's moving me up in Atlanta. So it's already going great. I got moved to the front of the bench already, more, a little more money. I'm starting to pick up, you know, get a little sting. We're in the playoffs, you know, it's going great. Well, by the way, I want to hurt your train and thought. What is that like, though, to go to front of the bench? It is a real self-sup accomplishment. It really is.

You call you in. He was in the phone. Do you remember the discussion? Yeah, I remember the conversation clearly. He brought me in to his office. And he closed the door. He said, kid, he said, I'm moving you to the front of the bench. And at first, I'm kind of like, okay, who's leaving?

and he was like, I'm going to move Herb to the back of the bench, and I said, Woody, I don't like it. I said, I'm just telling you right now. I know, I played for Herb, by the way, in Israel twice. Herb was a tough nut. I love him. I love that. Oh, he knows. I squeeze his old head off his body, but he's a tough nut and prideful.

And with every reason, he's a genius. I mean, that dude knows basketball. He can write books on it. And so I said, I don't like it, Woody. he said, Fizz, this ain't about you from the standpoint of you and Herb or any of that. He said, you're ready to make this move. And Herb was going to understand. It's time for Herb to sit behind the bench.

It doesn't change his status or his career. He said, but this is time for you to make this move. And it's going to get you more money. It's going to get you on your path. And I never felt good about it until Herb came and talked to me. I think Woody and Hurd talked. And I think whether he wanted to it. Now, Herb came to me and said, kid, I've had my run.

You're going to be a heck of a coach that doesn't challenge the fact that I'm here to keep my foot up your butt. But it's time for you to take that step forward. And it was just to get those signoffs, you know, you look back on your career. Those are moments that, you know, those are the things that moved you along, man. And so, yeah, getting that promotion was huge. And then, you know, getting the call from Spow's call basically was, man, you guys are fucking battling. Hang in there.

I don't know how you doing this with your team against that Boston team. He said, but as soon as your season is over, pack your shit. It was like the ticker was going, the phone rang. That's how it happened, literally. You're sitting there with Larry Drew. I'm showing Larry Drew the phone. I'm like, so we're screaming because Drew knew Spow, you know, through me and we was, you know, we all have friends and we hung out. We haven't gone to dinners when we play them and stuff.

So, you know, he hears Spote and Spoke goes, as soon as you're done, pack your shit. And that's just how he said it. And I'm like, what? He said, you heard me. He said, now go win a game. Click. And that was it. Played the series.

We battled seven games, you know, incredible, just incredible run for that kid. for those kids and Joe became I so Joe and it was cool you know and I packed my bags and I was supposed number two assistant you know in a matter of a month and you know the rest is history like it just Pat still didn't know who I was hey man that's what it's so humbling and awesome it's I love the humility of it you know and I hope more kids I hope if any kid is listening to this for you. Just know it's a good dose of humility is always good for you. But I remember literally walking back into the gym into the new arena because we were in the old arena. We walked into the new arena. They're showing me around, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. Some guys are working out.

I'm with Spoe. Adam Simon, who had been there when I was an intern there with me. You know, a lot of the same people were still there from when I was an intern in 97. So I had these relationships. But these people, you know, the heat don't change. they keep the same people. So I walk in the gym, all these people are hugging me and all of us, and then finally I get the pat. And he looks at him and he goes, oh, I remember you.

You were the pretty, oh, God, I never talked to. And I'm like, hi, coach. I'm like, yeah, that's me, blah, blah, blah, blah. Took me into his office, sat me down, basically gave me the clear, hey, this is who we are, you know, stay in your lane. We're all, no one's bigger than the heat. We're all a part of this.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said, you know, and I was walking out the door. I'm walking out the office. And he's such an ass. He goes, hey, he goes, kid. And I turn around and he goes, like, in his voice, he goes, don't fuck it up. Pat Riley, right?

So I'm like, and I got like, like, immediately I must have turned like white, like clear white. here he goes, I'm just fucking with you. And I like walk out of the office and I'm just like, and his secretary was the same lady Karen, who I loved there. All other people were the same.

So I walk out his office and she's crying laughing. And she goes, welcome back, husband. And, you know, here we go. And none of us expected to happen what happened, but. Okay, so July 2010, okay. So here's, I'll give you where I was. So I'm at, I'm at ESPN at the time. Yep.

And I did a show. show. I think I might have done an earlier show. I can't remember yet. I was, my show was four to seven, but for some reason, I want to say, I wasn't done at seven. I want to say I was done earlier. I'm walking across campus with Scott Van Pell. We run into Chris Carter. And I'm flying out to Orange County to come back home, but to do Jim Roma's burning. Yep. And, and we run into Chris Carter. and Chris Carter, he's like, hey, he's going to Miami. This is like two or three days before, maybe even a week before.

I'm not really sure. He was like Miami wasn't really on the list. We didn't really like, it was like Miami like, but in New York. So I joined forces then. No one joined up with people. Right. And so he was like, no, man, I talked to Wes going to Miami. So me and Scott are like,

Scott's like, all right, I'm going to check this thing out. So I fly to L.A. And the way Rome's show is, you have like writers write these like kind of opening rants. So I think I did the first show was like July 7th or no, it was July 8th. And then after the show is the announcement. So I go back to the hotel and I go over to the force bar at the, it's like the Huntington Beach Hyatt. And I go look and damn if he does go to Miami. and I was like, oh my God, I knew this a week ago.

Why didn't I tell somebody? Like, I just thought it was Chris Card like, who fucks Chris Carton? Right. You're like, how does he know this football guy? Right. He knows World Wide West and World Wide West told him. So, okay, take me through. Where were you?

When did you know? What was your reaction? So I was with D. Wade. I knew the possibility was super real. In his heart, he thought it was happening. and obviously he and I were really close. We were probably closer to anybody there. And we went to dinner at Prime 112.

And we went to a private room. The Miles, the owner there, set up a private room for Dee Wade, his family, and his closest friends to eat and watch the announcement. And so Dee Wade is at the head of the table, and I'm sitting right next to him. And we're all around the table. And these guys, a good friend of ours, Bob, who is Dee White's photographer, videographer is filming the whole thing. And D. Wade, like, flashes his phone to me right as the Brazzles before he's going out

to announce. And I look, and he goes, and it's, I'm coming. Like, I'm on my way. I'm coming to Miami. And I'm like, you know, I can't really react at the moment because it's like, oh, crap. Like, this dude is, we really about to make this happen because Chris Bosch had already committed. And we're watching it.

And sure enough, he said he don't take his talents to South Beach. And we jumped up and screamed and went crazy. And we had a party that night there. The whole city of Miami was a party that night when LeBron James said he was coming to South. Could you imagine? Like, you know, we're right there. They've done it a couple years before, right, before they won the title. So Shaq had done it and they had the big diesel trucks, right?

And that was cool. But this was like a complete. This is a whole other deal. This is another deal. This was, this was, this is unheard of. Like this is, you never saw a team come together because Shaq got traded. Jack was a part of a trade. You never saw star players voluntarily join forces to try to win a title.

And so after that night, it immediately shifted to LeBron's a bad guy. And the decision, the way he did, the decision was low class. and was wrong and he became his villain, you know, and I will say this. And he can probably, I can't speak for him, but I would say probably the hardest year of his life. Yeah. Arguably, you know, personally, professionally, just the amount of just weight that he carried, you know, really molded him. You know, that was the hammer and the anvil and the fire.

that motored them into what we see was that year because the suffering that he dealt with after losing the doubts, I can't explain it to you, really. I get an emotional thing about how painful it was for all of us. Spoh and I cried. We got back in the office. He beat me into the office that next morning after losing to them.

He was in there probably like 4.35. He might not have left. I came in about 4.35. And as soon as I sat down, we both looked at each other and started crying. Right. Because, you know, you got your chance right now to be in that group of people. And it was just like the lowest moment for me and my friend that I think we had felt ever. You know, it was just like, oh, my God, we just lost with the big three.

What happened? I mean, like, what happened? I'm telling you, suffering happened. When you go through that kind of a game. Because look, I don't think anybody has, and Mike Bibby was a great player, but people forget that he was not good that series. No.

He started one through five. You didn't play him, game six. What happened to lose the series? Yes. Because everybody focuses on LeBron at the end of the series. It was on us. It was me and Spowe. Spone and I would take full in the staff.

We take full blame. For responsibility. It wasn't LeBron. It wasn't any of those guys. Now, they all say it was them, right? LeBrona owner and say, I didn't play well. I settled too much. But systematically, we weren't there yet.

We hadn't changed into what we needed to be to beat Dallas. Meanwhile. So offensively, we were still running the Miami Heat offense from Shaq. when we ran the strong, the big to the strong side post and occupied the strong side post in early offense, that was immediate death. Yeah, because it had a guy at the rim. They had Tyson Chandler at the rim. And these put them on the weak side of the key, right?

And we wasn't there yet. We wasn't there. So now LeBron James and Duane Wade, every time they came down to court, they're looking at a strong side block field. It's Joel James, not a guy you want to even want to throw to. No, you got Joel Anthony, you got you guys that's not necessarily post up players. And so that's one huge thing that we ended up. You know, we burnt our hand that one time and that was it.

We changed that morning meeting. What we were full of tears was when we got on the board. But then defensively as well, we institute a switching. And we really, because the heat way was like, you do it how we do it. And if it's not working, you do it harder. It wasn't, oh, we're going to not trap now and we're going to start switching. So Dallas, the best ball movement team in the league next to the Spurs that year, understood that if they could get to the ball and move it,

their shooting would take over from there. And that's what they did. They beat us with the past. That was their mantra. Beat the heat with the pass. So those two things ultimately was the death of us that year. but boy, what we took from that when we were just honest about, see, we would have never got to that as far

and I was trying to point the finger at LeBron. Right? We would never kind of the realization that we have to fix something. And so instead of blaming him, we owned it that morning. We said, we have to do something different. The staff, the system. We can't just rely on what Pat and Stan and all these people put together, which is a great system, but it didn't fit what we had now.

We got two super attackers. and a big that can space the floor. Let's drop kick that shit out the door and let's get to running with an open floor. And, you know, it just changed the way we played. And you saw that next year after that, you know, and what really, really made us vicious. We were like wild animals that next year

because it was a lockout year. So not only did we lose to Dallas, but we couldn't get back in the gym until Christmas. And they put us in Dallas. for them to raise the banner. And it was like, we didn't have to say anything. We didn't not have to, it was not knowing, it was no fun in games, it was no big time scouting report.

It was, we just took that leash off and those guys, they just attacked. And we jumped on, I think the score ended up being a little closer later, but we must have had them down 30 that game. But it was just from that point on, that team had, had, a system now that highlighted their true gifts and it allowed them to flourish and take off.

Game six, the second championship year. Game six, the second championship year. Fans are leaving. A couple of dudes did interviews outside of the arena. Like, man, it's a great year. It's tough loss, right? What's it like on that bench? It was like everything your mind could possibly hypothetically go through. What does this mean for the team, our future, for LeBron,

for Dwayne, for Spawn, every possible negative thought of what this means, if we lose, was going through our head. And to Eric Spoustra's credit, he put the board in front of the guys.

We were down five, like 28 seconds or whatever it was. He just kept banging the board. And I was looking around the huddle. The guys, their eyes were just darting because it was like, what do we do? And Spoh just kept hitting the board saying, one play. Execute one play. That's all I'm asking you to do. basically be present.

Get all of the other crap out of your head and focus on the play. He drew up a great play. We end up hitting a three. And Kauai Leonard, I think, missed the free throw when we followed him. Yeah. Come back, we run a play because we had timeouts. We come back, we run a play that we have been running in practice. At every shoot around, pistol hammer, which a lot of teams run now.

We ran it every shootaround, never used it. We run it to perfection. LeBron gets a great look, and everybody closed out on LeBron. And Chris Bosch gets a clean run at the rim. 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.

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I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clever 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,

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your podcast. 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. I'll bet you a Paramedipausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How Hard Can It Be with the Adamaniarriva, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood

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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. Hey everyone, it's Rider Strong and Will Ferdell from PodMeets World. And now the Pod Meets Twirled podcast.

We're two men who were completely clueless to reality TV, who now have covered Dancing with the Stars, traitors, and we're gearing up for the season finale of Survivor. So yeah, now we're experts. I know we annoyed a lot of our listeners by our severe lack of survivor knowledge. That is the point of this show. I'm just going to remind you. I have watched some Survivor.

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Listen to PodMeets Tworl on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The awareness to know Ray Allen was backpedaling, all of that stuff that happened. I mean, and then when it was going to Ray, I knew we were good. I didn't have any doubt at all. Joanne Howard was calling it before it even hit his hands.

That's good, baby. That's good. That's good. That's good. And that thing went back. What's that feeling like to go from, holy shit, we could get fired, right? It's emotionally, I can't. I don't know how to put it in to describe it, but it's a roller coaster.

How you feel internally on a roller coaster of us, one of the old colossus like we used to ride Magic Mountain Badgers, right? You get to the top of that 100 foot and you do, and that's what it is. It's just like this wave of just like, it's so bad. I've told the story before, but it's the truth. It's so bad that when we won game seven and we went out and we celebrated and our faces off and all of the good stuff we did that night. The next morning, I jumped out of the bed in an absolute panic,

in a defensive stance, looking for my backpack, thinking I was late for practice. Yeah. Because we had to get ready for Pop and Tony Parker. And I'm thinking, we got another game. And my wife is in bed. She sat up in bed. She don't say nothing. She's watching me.

And she goes, babe. And I'm like, what, what? I'm like, I can't right now. She goes, babe, y'all won the title last night. I mean, so think about that. I was that gone. And so not only was I that crazy, I called Spoh immediately, just to say, hell yeah, we did it. He answers the phone.

I said, dude, you won't believe what I just did. He said, man, I jumped out of bed. I thought we had another game. And we're both in this mode of emotion and just competition And it's just our minds. You know, you're playing chess against Bobby Fisher. You know, Greg Popovich is Bobby Fisher. And you're trying to play chess against this guy.

And so you can only imagine the sleepless nights in the video and the data that you're taking in and the numbers and just trying to figure out any little adjustment to beat this guy. And so, yeah, it was an incredibly emotional way. But I tell you, you learn a lot about yourself in those moments, you know, and you want to, I think that's when you want to compete at the highest levels of whatever you do, what you get from just putting yourself in those competitive moments is the best part of it. It's not necessarily the fact that you hold the trophy or it's just what becomes of you and what you learn from it, which is really invaluable. Becoming a magician takes thousands of hours, right, Ashley?

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Find a forest near you and start exploring at Discovertheforest.org. Brought to you by the United States. States Forest Service and the ad council what the let me just give him my takeaway from game seven which you experienced it so I just watched okay this is my thought okay the spurs were daring him to take mid-range and long-range jump shots entire series and he he would hesitate sometimes right

he just he would get in the he gets in this mode back then now not as much where he wouldn't trust his jump shot some and he he he you know About Brown, right? I'm talking about Brown. Yeah. Game seven, no one had anything in the tank except for one guy. And he hit a couple early, and so he had all of a sudden his confidence was back. But it wasn't just the mental.

It was the, he's literally the only guy. Everybody else you can just tell is falling down tired, right? It's the end of an NBA, NBA, NBA finals. The series was over. Like, just everybody's emotionally spent. and his ability to dial up energy that no one else has, considering all the weight he has to carry, that was the part that I will remember about game seven.

His preparation for what a championship season, like he doesn't prepare for NBA, normal NBA season. Right. This guy is preparing for the long war. And so his body, you know, is a machine. And it's not just because he was born with it, because he really, really takes every possible advantage of nutritional science, sports science, whatever it is, sleep.

He is on top of all of that stuff. And what it told me, Game 7 really to me was what I took from it was I had just participated in what was arguably the greatest NBA series of all times. It was definitely in the top five. And if you look at the last play, Tim Duncan missed the chippy over Shane Badiere to take the lead by one, I think. And he missed it and we got it and they had to foul us. But it literally went down.

No, no, we got it. And then we end up, Bron ends up coming off a pick and roll to his right hand, seals the deal with a little 15, 17 footer like you're talking about. But I'll tell you the other thing that really helped us in that series was Dwayne and LeBron. one shoot around after, I want to say after game four, maybe. They stayed an hour after and they shot pull-up jump shots until the cows came home. Every kind of pull-up coming off of every angle pit to roll, every single thing, they just drilled it and drilled it where it was that.

Because it was there. What you're talking about is true. There was a hesitation. If you watch them, they were never in rhythm coming off because it was almost like, it was like that shot I told you I took against Pepperdine. Right. He wasn't ready to shoot it. Can't believe you're that might open.

Yeah, and they were like, damn, are they really leaving me this open? And so it took them out of rhythm. I mean, they were going under the damn near the baseline. And so once they got to the point where they just shot it and those things started falling, especially was how hard it was to score in general in that series, that really opened up things for us. You take the Memphis job after the next year, right? And your first year went pretty well. If you could go back and grab David Fisdale and go like, hey, man, you should go this way instead of that way.

What would it be? I would shake myself stupid in how I coached Mark Dussaud. I wasn't patient enough with Mark. And I brought baggage of my own into that of what I heard about Mark. and people that had had the coach Mark before and all of this other stuff of, you know, ain't the easiest guy to coach and he's got a certain type of attitude about himself.

And so I came into the relationship already with this idea that I'm going to break Mark into the guy I want him to be, right? So you came in, this is what is it? You come in as Hank Egan. Make Mark the captain on purpose so I can hold him to a higher standard. literally trying to push him out of his comfort zone.

You're going to shoot threes. You're going to do this. You're going to do that. But while I'm doing it, I never took a step away from it to empathize with Mark and where he was at. And so I got lost in that, that idea of that. And we ended up, you know, and he had a hell of a year. You know, you're talking about, you're talking about. Quality defensive team.

A team that's established. You're talking about a guy who had already played at a high level, who had this career in Europe. And here I am, this guy coming in with this heat culture. They already got the grit and grind. It was a lot of stuff already kind of building up. And he came in with his own baggage and his own stuff like we talked about. So that when he and I clashed that and could not find our way back to alignment, that was the beginning of the end. And if I could just go back as a more mature coach now, more mature man and talk to that young coach, it would be take a deep breath, take a step back and look at the whole picture.

And look at how the dominoes fall when you look at the whole picture. And, you know, the best part about it, again, you know, no one wants to get fired. And the worst part about getting fired for me is the people that end up losing their jobs with me. You never want that And that always kind of haunts you But the best thing out of that was Mark When I got the New York job Mark was the first guy to hit me

And sent me the most beautiful text That made me cry Like I broke down so bad Sitting in the office in New York Because of the text he sent me And it was just like Everything I wanted him to get what I was trying to get him to get, he got it.

But it's after your gun, yeah. Yeah, and he, and not only did he get it, he forgave me. Yeah. And I had been begging for us forgiveness before that, because I had apologized to him multiple times about just where we were, you know, trying to clean it up. Right.

We're together still, you know, not to save my job, but for the benefit of winning and team and being able to own when I screw up. But Mark at the time, Mark, you know, he was like, dude, I ain't hearing you right now. And that's how it gets. It gets that way because everybody's got their own life. But for him to come back and say that stuff.

And then now we have, we're literally, we're better off than where we even started in the very beginning because our wives and friends, we keep up with his kids. He's in L.A. now. And that's the beauty of basketball and how it coordinates, you know, really coordinates with life. And like, you know, there's a bigger people. picture to all of this. And so, yeah, I would take, I would shake myself by the shoulders.

How do you coach the two things. When you know that your relationship with him, like, this is on a much, much smaller scale, right? Like, when you're coaching kids, sometimes you'll, sometimes you'll have a dad and the dad's driving you crazy, but you have to process like, that's just the dad. And I got to just coach the kid fairly. Or even the kid drives. crazy, but you got to worry about the team and how it all kind of affects it. How do you coach an NBA team and you're trying to win and not and kind of compartmentalize the, the struggles in your relationship with your star player? How do you do that? It's a very difficult dance. And at some point, again, it all comes to a head because it's not, it takes too much energy to not to not

be on the same page you know because at a certain point even if you say it's over but you know the beef is still there and all of that just that air of energy will be a disruption it'll be a disruption in the locker room

it'll be a disruption it's just gonna not be right and so you just for me it was like trying and this is why I'm where I am now personally going back into it I think I got a much clearer picture of who I am

is you really got a it's a tussle not with the player it's a tussle with your ego it's a tussle with yourself and can you can you step away from this identity of me and put that on the back burner for what's best for the group

as hard as out you know because you all of us are our ego is a survivor it's always trying to survive survives and so to real That's human nature. The human condition is that our ego leads us around everywhere. So in that type of situation, you've got to try to suppress it as much as possible

and just try to be as, you know, can I just give this team what they need? But at the end of the day, the team knows better than everybody. When it ain't right, it ain't right between certain people, especially the star and the coach. anybody knows it's the players everybody else on the outside could be shocked by it but the players are never caught off guard they know what's up

and so it's very difficult to navigate you try to lean on your staff as much as possible the hardest part is like how do I coach this guy without overcoaching him or making the same personal because now we have this

trauma right and so I just try to keep it to where it was literally technical coaching. I stayed away from things that can be deciphered as bad attitude, bad body language, any of that stuff. And I stayed really close to technical. So did you set the screen? Did you time up the execution? Did you sprint back on defense?

Did you execute your role technically? And that's how I coached him. and I you know this bullshit rumor kind of oh he lost the locker room bullshit that team loved me at the end of the day when it doesn't work you get fired

but it just couldn't be sustained the way we were we were supposed to be the bookends but here we are fighting against each other yeah and so it's just not a sustainable thing but a locker room right they can't sustain

they can't hold us up and so at some point you know it just got to that place where we couldn't coexist the way it was working. And then how do you manage the owner? You know, I didn't really have a relationship with that owner, unfortunately. Is that a mistake at the time? It wasn't out of, let's just say it wasn't out of a, it wasn't because of a lack of effort.

He just wasn't the type of owner that was around a lot and he had other stuff going on. I'm not knocking them or whatever. And, you know, and maybe having a better relationship with them would have helped. But this is the league. And at the end of the day, he still would have had to make a tough decision. Right. Like, it was at that place where Mark had to get traded or I was getting fired or both. And, you know, and that's what it got to, unfortunately.

And so I just kept coaching the hell out of Mark the way I could to show the team that I'm not letting them off the hook because he got a bad attitude. but I'm going to keep coaching him. And as long as he's doing his job, that's where we got to keep it, you know. And Mark and I made a pact that we would coexist that way, even though we both knew we couldn't. And, you know, it boiled over. And eventually they had to make a decision.

And I was the fall. I was the guy, not the fall guy, but I was the guy that they said, we're going to keep going with Mark. We'll move on with J.B. And that's fine because that's the business. Did they call you in? Did you get a, like, what, It was actually awesome.

Chris Wallace came to my house that next day after we lost in Brooklyn, I think. I didn't put Mark back in the game. Mark was obviously pissed. You know, that, again, we were here. I didn't feel like he was trying. He didn't think I could coach. And it was all fair. And we were both, you know, here.

And the ultimate power is, you know, I don't have to play you. and his ultimate power was well I'm a star so it just went back and forth then but but to Chris Wallace's credit as he and it's the Faski tried to work with us to come back together and figure this whole thing out Chris came to my house and so as I opened the door he said uh he reached out his hand I shake his hand he said got to let you go coach and I said come on in and I brought into the house and we sat there, we drank a glass of wine and talked and, you know, I apologize for my lack of maturity in leading them and, and my, you know, really owned my part in it as much as I possibly couldn't thank them and just told them, you know, I'll be happy,

you know, whatever you need from me, I'm here. And please just give J.B. Bicker staff every opportunity to be the next head coach and give him a chance to run his own program and don't hold my behavior and my actions over his head. You know, that was my big talk to them and trying to look out. You know, I still had J.B. Keith Smart, Nick Van Nets, all of those guys were there. Bob Bender was still there. So I really wanted to make sure I didn't do anything to jeopardize their situation either.

But they were first class about it, you know. And I think they even said quality stuff to the teams that called up about me after that. So. See, I thought they did you a favor in terms of the timing, because it got you on TV and what everybody knew in the league, now the rest of the world kind of figured out, right? But there also is that you talk about the human element to it, right? Where, you know, you get fired and you're like,

I'm never going to get another chance. Like this was my... I'm done. I'm cooked. He walks out. Your wife's there. What would you, like, We're selling that out.

Like my wife, so here's how I win. I'll tell you exactly how I went. So the night before, after the game, Chris Wallace came into my office. And we talked to him, I said, Chris, if I'm the issue and I got to be the weak link cut, a man enough I can take it. But what I see in a building that I tried to create where everybody feels valued and loved and a building where you get as close to family as you can, knowing that it's still business,

I'm seeing a bunch of miserable people. Everybody's miserable because of this relationship. And I said, so I'm just telling you, I'm going to coach this team with every drop of blood and sweat that I have in me. But if I'm the person that doesn't, that's not supposed to be here, and that's screwing this up, I understand the decision you have to make. And I know that's not easy.

I appreciate the relationship. we built all of that. So I'm driving home with my wife late that night from the arena. And my wife said, oh, my God, how did it go? And, you know, what do you think? And I said, well, I tell you one thing, if I don't get a call from them first thing in the morning, I'm fired. So didn't get that call in the morning. Kind of day kept going. I was talking to my agent. And we had lost eight in the row. We had started off seven and one. one, we were like the hottest came out and then Mike Conley got hurt and then everything just went off the cliff. And sure enough that afternoon, my agent called me said, Chris Wallace is on

his way to your house. And only time Chris Wallace had came to my house before it was for like Thanksgiving or something like that. So I think I'm cooked. And, you know, sure enough, I was and you're right. It was like, oh my God, I spent 20 years to get to this moment. You know, No, longer than that, because forget that. What we were doing as kids was getting us ready for all of this stuff because we were basketball people. I don't know how many, I don't know how everybody else's life went in basketball, but our community of basketball, you, myself, all of those kids in Southern California

during that time was getting lined up to do more. Kevin Olli won a national title as a coach. People forget that. We were being groomed. John Bond has been a head coach, is going to be another head coach again. and we were being groomed to be what we are, basketball people. Adam Jacobson, coach. You know, I can keep.

Mount Simon. Miles Bailey is the head coach of, I mean, we can go, come on, we can go forever with our crew of basketball. So it started for me then to be a head coach in the NBA. So when it was taken away and I knew I had a hand in it and I had to own that, It was tough, man. And it was, it was, you really, I really, I recommend it to everybody is be real with yourself, self-reflect, tell the truth to yourself. Don't be ass and blame and point fingers and all of this other crap.

It doesn't mean beat yourself down, but be real about your stake in the situation. And that's what I tried to do when I got away from Memphis. We came back to L.A. We hunker down. I just kind of wrapped my mind around what happened, took a lot of time by myself, self-reflected, and then I wrote down a hundred names of people in different things that I wanted to learn something from,

especially when it came to leadership building, all of this stuff. Because here it is, I'm coined the relationship coach because I got Bron and D.W. But here it is, I get fired because of my relationship A relationship. A relationship. So I just went into study mode and I would drive out of my little week.

We rented a little house in Beverly Hills. And it was big enough to hold me and my wife. We had an extra bedroom and that's where the dogs were. And it was just a small little house. And I can drive down and meet with every team that came in. I can meet with CEOs. I can meet with agents. I can meet with writers.

I was meeting with all kinds of different people. And I just tried to retool. myself and deal with what I saw as a weakness as something that really got in the way of me, you know, being able to be the coach that I can be to prepare myself for if I ever did, get another chance. All right. I know you got to go. I do as well.

Last thing. And I've been incredibly gracious to be your time. Oh, my God, man. You kidding? In 10 years, where's David Fisdow? In 10 years, hopefully I am being. able to decide if I want a coach or not and absolutely 100% invested in hanging out with my family. And I got a newborn son.

I'm dying for when I can coach him like you are and just be able to, you know, I'm just going to be, I can see where I'm going. The path I'm on right now is, one, I'll be a much more season wise. present coach. But I'll definitely be in a position where I can walk away from it if I want to. And I can just be a family guy if I want to. Kobe or Magic? Jesus Christ.

Where did that come from, Doug? We start. It's everybody does LeBron or Jordan. It's a bad conversation. Different players. So was Magic and Kobe. But Magic was like, Kobe's the greatest legger ever. Do.

Hold on. I was alive. So that's what I've said. It's strictly biased for me, but I'm a magic guy. Because Magic Johnson, one, he might as well have came out of high school. But he made a pit stop in college and dominated that. Dominated that. But then he came into the league and won a title.

He played center. it was like if it was like you know lebron his rookie year elgouskas goes down but not elgouskas karima dujabar goes down probably the greatest player to ever play the game and you take the whole thing and you put it on your shoulders at 19 and you win it so magic is my guy and i'm a laker Kobe you know it like all of us are but magic because i'm generational and i thought The other reason for me is for the reasons that people like Kobe because he was cold-blooded and could hit that shot, I love Magic because of what we love him for. He made everybody better. And people forget the baby Sky Hook.

Oh, he made the shot too. So he created an unstoppable shot. Kobe had to fade, Jordan had the fade, Kareem had the sky hook. Magic had the baby. And it was unstoppable. Couldn't get to it. Could not get to it. He was six. nine, he's over the top. He hit you with that big booty, hit your bang you back a couple of times that big butt. Then he getting to them little stutters across the lane. And he was roping you or diamond you, you know, as well as anybody. But I just always felt like magic, to me, okay, put it this way.

Magic changed basketball. And the way you looked at size, position, pace, magic transcended the game that way, I believe. Let's do this in person sometime soon. Congrats on your baby boy. I can tell you that when they get to four is when you're like, this is my best friend. This is the greatest thing I've ever accomplished. And it's awesome. It's hard, but it's incredibly rewarding.

You've been off. I appreciate you, brother. And look, man, seriously, I want to put this on air. People don't understand when people go through their life and meet people. But you and all those guys we talked about, you guys had a hand in me becoming who I am. And I hope that me sharpening your swords was getting y'all ready for what you did. But more than that, your father had a big impact on me and how I view myself and basketball in general. He always came to me and put his arm around me and said incredibly positive things to me.

And that always stuck with me. So when he passed, that hurt me too. and I want you to know that he'll be missed. Because I appreciate it, man. Absolutely, brother. My thanks to David Fisdale, that was awesome. Yes, you can retweet it. Yes, you can share it.

Yes, you can tell me how great it was, but because he was great, not because of me. It was, that was awesome. Remember, the Doug Gottlieb show is daily, three to six Eastern Time, 12-3 Pacific on the IHeartRadio app or Fox SportsRadio.com or if you download podcast as well, you can listen to it. I'm Doug Gottliebly.

My thanks to David Fisd, this is All Ball. Get right to the romance and find the way to wow this valentines with 1800 flowers.com. From classic roses and bouquets to decadent chocolate covered berries, gourmet treats, and more. Surprise your valentine with 1,800flowers.com. Right now, get the 18-stem enchanted rose medley for $3999, or upgrade to 24 red roses for $10 more. Go to 1-800flowers.com slash tune in.

That's 1800 Flowers.com slash tune in. 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. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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'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 IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying.

Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but the show. celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84's big to me. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.