The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Gottlieb – All Ball - Case for keeping the East/West NBA Playoff format; Zion as a small-ball NBA 5; Guest: Athlete financial advisor Mike Haddix, Jr. talks business

Episode Date: February 8, 2019

Subscribe here to the All Ball with Doug Gottlieb Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-ball-with-doug-gottlieb/id1358843497?mt=2.  This week, Gottlieb makes the case for keeping the Eastern and Western Conference NBA Playoff format, why he thinks Zion is a great fit for today's NBA as a small-ball 5, and  talks with former D1 baller turned pro athlete financial advisor Mike Haddix, Jr. on his strategy to help pros manage their money, and player development specialist Nick Graham on teaching techniques and how he would rehabilitate Markelle Fultz.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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You have the skills it takes, and CareerBuilder.com has the jobs to get you hired fast. Visit Carebuilder.com. Hey, welcome in. I'm Doug Gottlieb, and you have downloaded, subscribed, and, hopefully you'll rate the all-ball podcast. If you like this stuff or even some discussions about football, other live interviews, live radio show, you can check me out every day.

3 o'clock Eastern Time, 12 o'clock Pacific. We're on 100 stations nationwide. You go to foxports radio.com. We're also on Sirius XM or the IHeartRadio app. Check us out. Of course, the all-ball podcast is fun. This week, we have two interesting guests that are different than any other guests that we've had.

One is Nick Graham. Nick Played. at Washington State for his dad, Paul's long time, a long time assistant coach in college and a head coach in college as well. And he's now the head coach. His dad's the head coach at Dallas Skyline. But his head coach at Wazoo and was my assistant coach when we were at Oklahoma State. Nick was just a kid at the time, but was like all of our little brother.

Now he's kind of a workout guru. He was the developmental coach as a GA for Iowa State most recently. and I want to get his kind of perspective on if you're a parent, how to raise an athletic son, if you're a workout guy, how long you should be going, a lot of different stuff to get to. Also, Michael Haddock's Jr. is going to join us. His dad was a pro football player.

He was a basketball player at Sienna, but an interesting path after playing for Sienna into the world of first Wall Street and now helping the finances of athletes. in a unique way, advising athletes, how to make them kind of connectors with others in the real world so that they can manage their own financial portfolio without getting shaken down. It's an interesting discussion. I can't wait for you to hear it.

Let me get to some of the news of the day, some of the things that I have seen. I'm going to start in college basketball because now I'm going to start in the NBA because we're coming off of the NBA trade deadline. And here's something which you have not heard, and I did both on pod and on radio tell you this was going to happen. Over the end of last season, there's a healthy discussion by some people's estimation over whether or not they should do away with the Eastern and Western Conference playoffs. That because now you can get anywhere with, you know, a charter plane, the idea of East West when the West is so utterly and thoroughly dominant, is kind of a joke. What we should have is seated 1 through 16.

Now, at the time, there was a couple of things that the reality of sport, the reality of the business is it shouldn't and likely, very, very likely won't be done. The first thing is this. You are going to do away with the historic rivalries, right? Historic rivalries. And the historic rivalries are such where, you know, the Lakers, Celtics, NBA finals, That's going to help build a number. That allows us to yearn for days of yesteryear.

And just because Cavs, Warriors, doesn't feel all that sexy, you still want East versus West. It's the best way to engage more of the country. Otherwise, you run the risk of what college football has, which is a regional sport. You don't want that. You don't want Clemson versus Alabama, two schools that are divided by a four or five-hour drive. You don't want that. That's not good for business. You need as much of the country engaged

as possible. And I think that's the first thing, the history and the overall national engagement. The second part is it makes it really hard. As much as ratings will suffer when the east was down, think about the eastern

market, right? I mean, if you have the Celtics going on the road to take on the Portland Trailblazers, Boston, which is a vital market, and has a great fan base in terms of TV viewership with the Celtics. I'm going to stay up until 10 o'clock and watch that thing. There's no chance. You have to protect those home markets and allow them to watch games at a reasonable hour.

Mountain time zone is hard enough. And the last thing is this. Water finds its level. When we were kids, or at least when I was a kid, the East was better. It was just better top to bottom than the West is. And then there's been periods of times in the 90s when the West was far better in the East. And I know that the East has had a part of it is, you know, the Celtics were bad and the Knicks have seemingly been bad forever. And when you, those year two and the Sixers were bad for a long time.

So when your three signature and the Bulls have been bad. But even when the Bulls had, remember the Bulls had number one seed one year, didn't they? And then they went down to Miami and that didn't work out so well for it. The fact, though, is the Eastern Conference now, the Celtics, And I guess part of it is you have to say if Gordon Hayward was who he thought he could be, but is not yet. The Celtics should still be considered an elite team. The Bucks have proven to be an elite team and seem to have gotten better with Nicola Miritich. And honestly, getting rid of Jabari Parker, I thought, I think helped them.

You know, I really think it helped them. Help them defensively, and now they have a stretch four in Nicola Muratich to go along with the stretch five and Brooke Lopez, who would have thought he's a stretch five. Three years ago, didn't shoot threes. now that's all he does. I think the 76ers got better. At least their starters got better. I don't know about their chemistry,

which has been off or their bench, which is not nearly as good. They shed it to get those big four. And the Toronto Raptors got better. The Toronto Raptors are substantially better than last year. If you take out Valanchunice, you put in Marcosal, who's the better player, Marcosal.

If you take out Demar de Rosen and you bring in Kauai Leonard, who's the better player, Kauai Leonard? Like the Raptors have been good and they added a former defensive player of the year and an NBA finals MVP. Like that's a, those are pretty good additions.

And so now when you look at it, are the Warriors still the favorites? Yes. But their ages, they have age problems in their bench. And they got to figure out if we're going to play big down the stretch or small. If we play small, that means we're going to sit, DeMarcus cousins. And so even if you take out, if you take out the Warriors, though, tell me somebody in the West who's far and away better or even marginally better than those top of those other four teams in the East.

And that whole idea of we don't need, we don't need division, we don't need East and West. We should have, one, it will never happen because of TV because of how hard it is to follow your team when they're playing three hours away, time zone wise. And two, if you thought it was because the West was dominant, just take a breath. Now the East appears to have better teams at the top, at least in their top four. Let me get you to college basketball. you know, I've heard people say, Mike Francesa said that Zion Williamson's game

doesn't transfer to the NBA. Now, I'm like anybody else. I'm cautious about 285 pounds. And the pounding of 100 games, 100 games, workouts, practices, what that'll mean to his hips, his knees, his back, it's a lot of weight. And as they tell you, it's not the going up

that wears down your body. It's the coming down every time you land. Every time you go up to dunk, it's when he come down. But what changed in the NBA is that this is a couple years ago, Derek Williams came out. Derek Williams was playing at Arizona, and he was playing the five. They moved him essentially to center. Remember is Derek Williams and Momo Jones? And they only got Derek Williams and Momo Jones because Tim Floyd's staff got fired.

Tim Floyd's staff got blown up because of the O.J. Mayo investigation. So they get Derek Williams and they played Derek. William's during his last year at Arizona at the five. So he's being guarded by college centers, and he's shooting an unreal percentage from three, and he was drafted by Minnesota to be a two, three. And if you go back and look at my old draft rundown when I was at ESPN, you'll notice that I wasn't a buyer into Derek Williams because I didn't think he could shift down a position. Fast forward to now, and Derek Williams could be a stretch four in the NBA.

I still don't think he would fit in because he wasn't much of a rebounder. He doesn't move that well athletically. but that's essentially what he is. Zion Williamson, 10 years ago, would be too small to play power forward or small ball center in the NBA. Now, kind of think he's perfect. Yeah, he's going to shoot the ball better. But he plays hard.

He can make a shot. He competes in the boards, competes defensively. And if you've watched him move laterally, when he's playing hard, he can guard five positions. So did he fit, does he feel? fit the 1990s mold of the NBA? No, but this is in the 1990s.

This is 2019, and he's perfect for the league. Does that mean he'll be a superstar? No, I don't know, but I'm willing and excited to find out what he becomes. All right, our first guest is Mike Haddix Jr. He was a very good player at Siena. His dad played in the National Football League. And what he's doing now, I think, will intrigue you because it's about not just financial literacy for athletes, but also about

being a connector, meeting people, the real way to survive and succeed in business, and he's had an unbelievable life end. He hasn't been living very long. My Academy's Union was, like I said, star player at Sienna, tried to play pro football after college, and then went into the business sector, went to

Columbia for his master's degree, and you'll be fascinated to hear the rest. I want to welcome him Mike Haddock's Jr., who is a hell of a player at Sienna, and now doing something which I think is not only important and interesting at the same time, but I think it's fascinating at how he's learned from his own father's career and trying to help others not make some of the same mistakes his dad made and trying to help athletes put their financial house in order. But look, I first became aware. Mike Adix joins us now in the All Ball podcast.

I don't know if you know this. I had no idea. Look, I grew up in Southern California, and I felt like I knew a ton about college basketball. I had never heard of Sienna, the Capital District, the passion for basketball up there, until I was recruited by Marquette. Marquette's coach was named Mike Dean.

Dino had come from Sienna to Marquette. and he showed me old videos of one of his point guards, and that's how I became, like I had no idea about Sien about anything. And then, of course, you fast forward when Fray McAfrey was the head coach there, he had recruited me to Notre Dame, and now he's the head coach, obviously, at Iowa. And I was already kind of a fan of the program, already kind of knew about it.

You grew up, your dad was a pro football player and a good one. But your body type feels like you could have played in the NFL as a left tackle, like, for years. when you came out of high school, why Sienna? So it's funny. So you grew up in California and didn't hear much about Sienna. I didn't know much about Tiana. And I grew up in South Jersey right off of Philly.

So I grew up watching college basketball. And I remember kind of being like, all right, maybe I go to UCLA, may I go to Duke. And then, you know, I'm a big center. So I changed a bit. But, you know, I had a guy recruit me by the name of Steve Seymour. And he was at Drexel. And then another guy by name of Rob Jackson was at Seton Hall. When I was a sophomore in high school, I played at St. August and Press in South Jersey.

And then, you know, they ended up at Sienna and they'd reached back out, you know, my junior year. I didn't know anything about it. I was like, okay, you know, cool upstate New York. And I first thought it was New York City or right outside of it. And then started to kind of do some research. And there was a guy that I looked up to when I was younger that played at St. Augustine also who was really probably the best player ever seen, like six-nine, you know, guy can handle the ball. ended up going to CNN.

I was like, okay, let me check it out. And then my teammate, who was a point guard in the plane of Princeton, I'm named Scott Greenman. He was like, by the way, Scott's an assistant American. I know him really, really well. Go ahead. Yeah, Scott's my guy. If we played high school together, he's like, you should check out the Indiana man.

They're obsessed with basketball. And I was like, all right, I'll go take a look. Get up in a car, we drop five hours. And they play in like this beautiful 20,000-seat arena right in downtown Albany. And it was like, you know, go to a game. and there's, you know, a bunch of news cameras outside of the game. So I was like, wow, this is like, it's like a pro team in the capital region, and they won.

You know, my senior high school, they went to the tournament. I was like, okay, cool. Give it a shot. The head coach at the time was the guy Rob Lanier, who's at Tennessee now, who's a great recruiter. And I was like, cool, this is home. I got there. I started playing right away.

I played, I started every game, but like two or three, my whole career. And I was like, you know, never looked at. Met some great people there. It was a really cool experience. By the way, why was, you know, when Rob took over, he did recruit well, and obviously he's, I think, the nephew, is it nephew of Bob Lanier? I think he's the nephew of Bob Lanier. And I know Rob Wells as well, you know, went back to being Texas assistant in Tennessee,

and he's doing a great job. Why didn't it work? You guys kind of, there was that two-year stretch before the coaching change where it was bad. Why was it so bad? Yeah, I think it's one of those things. You know, we have some injuries. And it's just, you know, we actually had a really good team. We had some bad luck.

I never forget this. My junior year, we played Oregon State the first game of the season, and it was a back-and-forth game, and we were, like, up by two or three with a minute or so left, and we end up, like, turn the ball over and losing the game, and it just kind of snowballed. It's one of the things people got hurt. You know, I ended up hearing my knee,

and a bunch of guys got hurt. It was like, you know, we had some bad luck, and it was, I do think it's sort of, you know what I really think there's some moments in the season or in games that kind of flipped and change things. I mean, we almost beat a Pac-12 team. I think it's a peck in the time. We don't beat a Pac-12 team the first game of season.

We lose that game at the very end of the game. The next game we come out on the tournament were really sluggish. We lose in New Orleans, and it kind of snowball. So we just had some bad luck. And, you know, kind of wanted to change. So they moved on, Fran McCaffrey came in, and that went really well. But I think it's one of those things where there's a couple moments in a season or a game that when you hit a rough patch, it all sort of turns around.

Mike Haddix Jr. joining us. For anyone who doesn't know about the Albany-Sienna rivalry, and both teams obviously, Albany is really struggling, obviously, their best player transferred to grad-transferred to Villanova. That didn't help him. Sienna, obviously, has gone through a coaching chain, so they're still in kind of rebuild mode. But you've played in that game.

What's it like? It's cool. I mean, it's like a unique college atmosphere because we're not the same conference, but we're around the corner. We play pickup with those guys in the summertime. And it is, and the capital region is a unique place where most people that graduate from CNN are already.

They stay in the area. So there's just years and years and years of alumni that live in a town. And that game is 22,000 people at a college game on a Saturday night. And it is just kind of a battle. So it's a cool atmosphere that doesn't happen a lot in college basketball. And it's also like, you know, what happened is, We would beat Albany, but they would win the America East, and then a year they almost beat Yukon in the first round,

and then we got to hear all summer that they're better because they played in the tournament. We didn't make it. And it was like, you know, some of that stuff that just went back and forth. So it's just a unique place that I don't think, I think it's all the factors sort of line up to make it a really cool and special game that you can't really replicate.

Why didn't you play football? So I grew up, so growing up, man, so my dad's from small town Mississippi, and it's like, you get out of when you play football. I grew up in South Jersey, and it was, you know, at that time, you know, Philly and South Jersey, it's really big time in football now, but at that time it was all basketball. And, you know, I grew up, I played in middle school, was really good,

and I went to a really good high school, and it never crossed my mind. I just had some success in basketball and just was like, okay, I'm going to keep this thing rolling. But interestingly enough, the second I got done in my senior year, Coach McCaffrey called me, like, hey, you don't play football? I'm like, what are you talking about, man? He's like, hey, you want to play football? And I'm like, eh, what do you mean? He's like, the Vikings call me.

They say, you got good hands, a good seat. You can be a tight end. And I was like, all right, I'll give it a shot. And then I had like five or six teams, I went to the Giants and the Eagles and worked out for a bunch of teams. And it was a really cool experience. But I also realized that football is one of those games where tough. I had never played in high school growing up. So it's a bit tough to pick up.

But it was kind of a cool experience. I think I had a little more time at it. I might be a football player right now. Yeah, it's interesting. because I've talked to a bunch of GMs and NFL GMs and they're like, hey, find me a basketball player. But, and their prerequisite is always, he has to have played football in high school, has to have played football growing up. Like that you look at guys that have been successful, the Tony Gonzalez, the Antonio Gates is of the world. They played football.

The idea that you can just, hey, you're such a good athlete that you can learn a sport in your 20s is really, really hard to believe. Yeah, it's a really technical. single game, and I never forget if I was working out for the Giants, and they were telling me, you're trying to play hand placement and rolling hips and all this stuff, and I had no clue, sort of had to move like a football player, and it was, you know, coming off the line, all these things that were, you know, second nature, I just didn't have a clue. And I think I knew it, but I knew they knew it before I knew. Okay, so you get, the football dream goes away.

Yeah. Then what did you do? So I was thinking I was going overseas, was going back and forth for a while, I didn't know if I wanted to continue playing basketball or, when I was pre-med in college, I was thinking about going to med school. I just didn't know. And then I decided just, you know, to destroy the workforce. So I kind of figured out my way, you know, to study a little bit to go to medical school.

Then my father-in-law, who's a doctor, was like, listen, man, and take some time, do some other things, kind of experience and stuff out there, got to sales, and then was like, you know, I wanted more. I moved down in New York City. And then I was going to meet a bunch of people. What were you selling? I was selling medical devices. What medical devices?

So I work for a company called COVIDian. We told me, I don't get to take. We told these devices that help you, like, you know, do these resections and do these surgeries. So I go sit in surgeries. And then I sold stents for Boston Scientific. So I did that. I thought it was really cool.

One a little bit more within the city. Met a bunch of Newark City. Met a bunch of people. End up getting to Columbia for business school. And I was like, you know, this is kind of a cool world. And I was the first, you know, I was the first, you know, guy in my family and anybody that I knew that was going to an Ivy League school and going to grad school. So I was like, all right, it's kind of cool. And it kind of opened up this world of, you know, these jobs and careers that I didn't even know existed.

It was a really cool experience. So you get out of Columbia. Now you have an Ivy League master's degree, which is incredibly impressive. You've worked a little bit. You've worked in medical sales. Then what you do? I went work in Wall Street. I was an investment banker.

So I was, you know, I thought, you know, this was a cool field that that's another field that no one that I ever even heard. I never heard of this job until I got there. So I went work on Wall Street. I was an investment banker. I was doing mergers and acquisitions, shirt and tie every day, sitting in the desk, building models. You're working for 20 hours a day, you know, living the Wall Street dream. But also realized I missed, you know, being out and about. and a little bit of sales

which is kind of being around and being entrepreneurial. So I did the Wall Street thing. It was cool. It taught me a lot. But it kind of clicked when I was there because, you know, candidly a lot of people on Wall Street,

you know, didn't look and feel like me. And I say that meaning where a lot of guys, you know, that I grew up with, they're playing basketball or just people that I knew that were in those circles.

This was like a different world that was, you know, kind of country club. And I just, and I felt like, There was a lot of cool things I was learning, but I wanted to use those skills to work with people that were similar to me. Okay. So before we get to that, as somebody who, look, you don't make it at Sienna.

You don't have the career you had unless you have a tremendous work ethic, right? You wouldn't have obviously got into, you wouldn't have been pre-med and graduated or gotten into Columbia or graduate Columbia unless you have work ethic. But compare and contrast the lifestyle, you mentioned 20-hour weeks, which is harder being a bit? basketball player or being an investment banker? I think being an investment banker is harder. Because I think that when you're a basketball player, you know, you have a love for the game. And it's one of these things where the things that you're doing are all sort of building to, you know, playing a game or even, you know, you're running sprints, but you know it'll make you

better, you know, when you're playing pickup. Like all these things you've done for so long, and it's all sort of. built that of just loving playing basketball and a lot of times, you know, putting the ball through the hoop, you all sort of built towards these things. But as an investment banker, it's just a different world. If you go sit at a desk and you're sort of waiting for, it's sort of reactionary. So for me, it was like, you know, I knew basketball. I loved it.

I worked because I knew that, like, there was, like, this drive in me. I think, you know, when you're in the workforce, it's just a little different. You know, that motivation is a little different. And I do think that's harder, I think, mentally. I think physically, you know, the basketball thing is, you know, it's hard and it's, you know, it's hard work. But I do think that, in my opinion, the investment banking thing is a little bit harder. Yeah, I always thought, you know, we always think of ourselves as athletes. Like, look, we get up and we work out, we work hard, we, you know, and we work so hard at our craft in order to be great.

And you do. But there's a limit to how much you can do per day. Like these guys, like, well, I spent all day in the gym. Like, no, you didn't. Right? Like you can go hard for an hour. And then you got to take time on. Then you can go lift or whatever, you get somebody to eat and you hang out a little bit.

And then you can go hard for an hour. You can play for a long time. But that's not, as you said, you know, putting in 15, 16 hours days when you're grinding. It's a different sort of grind. And it doesn't, I'm not trying to diminish what it takes to be an athlete, but it's almost a rewiring of it.

But on the other hand, you have to have the mental toughness of an athlete to push through fatigue, which I don't know if, you know, every civilian in the workforce kind of naturally has, whereas in athletics, you got to push through, right? That's really why you run for conditioning. It's not because you really need to run for conditioning. It's because it teaches your mind kind of the mental approach to pushing through when your body says I'm done, not truly being done. Yeah, completely agree.

It's, you know, different shows for different folks, I guess, right? I just, you know, we all have this sort of makeup, but I think that, and even when I went to the workforce, it was one of those things we're like, cool, you play, you know, you played athletics. That's sort of a step up because it just shows that you can sort of grind through something or get through things, even when you think you can't do it. So I do think it's, you know, it does, you know, that there is some sort of mental toughness that everyone just can't do. And there's, you know, there's people that I remember in college all time. It was like, hey, you know, I wish I had a scholarship. I'm like, no, you don't because you go home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. and I got 6 a.m. practice.

And I know for a fact that the day they say you come get up at 6 a.m. and walk across the snow and come work out, you're going to be like, I don't want to play anymore. I want to get to what you're doing now. But before I forget, there has been North Carolina State scored 24 points last week. What was the worst loss you can ever remember taking? So the worst loss that I'll never forget is my time. senior year in the match championship. And it wasn't because we didn't score.

It was just like, you know, we were winning the whole game and kind of got away from it. That was, like, the worst ball that it stinks. But I remember a game, we played Penn, my junior year at Penn, and we just got absolutely blitz. Like, it was, you know, one of those games that's a few days before Christmas break and everyone wants to go home for a day or two, and we got out in a locker room. I think it was like 20 to 2 at some point, and we kind of looked. up and was like, what's happening? They were hitting shots. We were half sleeping about the time we woke up, you know, we were getting blown out.

And that game, like, we just, like, we didn't have a shot. And it was, and one of those games were like, that was probably the worst loss that I had in my career, you know, other than the championship because, like, we could have went to the tournament that year. But that was just like a, you walk out and you're not prepared to play. And someone who's hitting it all cylinders, it was, it was a wake-up call. And that game was over before it started. All right, here's mine. Well, we had some bad ones when I was in Notre Dame.

We only won. nine games or seven games I don't remember I kind of deleted that part of it I think we're 9 and 18 so I try I try to not remember some of those some of those losses I remember like one time there was a huge snowstorm this is in 19 winter of early

1996 massive snowstorm we had to fly into Albany and then bus to Boston to play Boston College game was supposed to be on ESPN instead they they they canceled a bunch of games we played like three hours later on ESPN 2 9 o'clock start Conte Forum and we were down like 24 at the half.

And John McLeod, who just, he didn't have the voice to yell at people, like started yelling at halftime. And then the second half, he literally had no voice. And you couldn't hear him. And it was the gym was empty and he was trying to get his point across. And he was over there talking like, and you couldn't hear him at all on the floor. But the most, I don't know, to me personally the worst one was my sophomore year at Oklahoma State, we were picked last in the Big 12.

and we had a soft schedule. We played, we were really pretty good. And we're playing Texas down at Texas. This is Tom Penders last year. And they just blitzed us. They had Luke Axtel and Chris Mim. And, you know, both, Luke Axtel shouted a ton of threes.

And this was the day that he was making all of them. And I remember being down, I don't know, we got caught on a bad switch or something. We weren't playing well. And we were down like 18. And he took me out. out and it wasn't I didn't feel like it was my fault for why he took me out and I I switched on like a handoff of a like side like we we switched on any handoffs of like size guys and even though Luke

Axtel was like six foot nine like technically he was a he was a two or he was a three and so that was an auto switch so I auto switch and we double the ball and they make one extra pass and they hit a three takes me out and I came over and he's like I said what why did you take me out I I switched and he said you know, he started yelling at me and I said, well, that's some bullshit. And he's like, you just sit there, watch. And I had to sit there the whole time. And to, you know, sometimes those blowout games are bad, but you also can get your stats and you can get to where you can kind of recover and feel

pretty good. And we actually did make a little bit of a comeback. We were down like 20. I think it ended up being 11 or something like that. But to be benched into watch, I thought that was the hardest one on me. All right. So you get done. Columbia loss.

Columbia as a master. you go to work in Wall Street and you're like, eh, doesn't really fit, but I'm learning a lot. What was the next step? The next step is I actually went to, so I reached out through friend to friend, and I met with Troy Vincent,

who works with the NFL, and played for the Eagles, you know, have the PA for a long time, and I met with him, and I basically told him, sort of what I was doing now, and what my passion was, and I wanted to sort of take all these lessons

and how we helped, you know, these guys are, you know, like my dad, like the guys I played with in the making the NBA. How do we fix this? And he was like, you know, it's just kind of cool. I think you got a unique background that helped me do this, you know, the NFL as a personal finance camp. So I started doing that. And it was like that was like a once a year thing for two or three days.

But while I was doing that, I started to, I was a financial advisor for players. So I worked for, work with NBA and NFL players and basically manage their finances. So I did some teaching on the side. and then I work directly with players and help them, you know, pay bills and financially plan and save and invest and all that. So that was, you know, the transition, like taking what I learned on Wall Street and trying to apply it to a bunch of players. So then what did you do? So then, you know, I did that for a few years. And then I basically, you know, I'm trying to think, and it's great to work with guys directly.

and I work with probably, you know, I work with a ton of guys, you know, big name NBA players that everybody knows and NFL guys. But I wanted to sort of create this sort of macro solution because what I realized was I would go sort of pitch of players and here's why you should work with me. And there were 10 other guys saying the same thing. But the 19-year-old or 20-year-old player and their parents were making these decisions, you know, sort of blind.

So they were picking me because my story found it good. And just like I came in there, there was nine of the guys behind me, and if they felt the person behind me story sounded great, they chose them. And they just, but it was sort of, you know,

the blind leading the blind. And if I was a bad guy, I said the same thing as a good guy. And there was, you know, just no one knew how to decipher that. So what I decided was just sort of, if we can create this system

that doesn't manage players. And so we don't manage guys, we don't manage their finances, we don't advise them. We create this system where players can learn and understand how to assess, how to assess the right people to work with, and they get connected to the right people.

So what I basically realized, you know, was at Columbia, you know, you pay a bunch of money and you learn a lot, but it's also about the network. The most important thing is the network. And the same thing, I was at Goldman Sachs. It was about the network.

And that was things that were so important, I was like, you know, if we can take that network of really smart people and create a network with athletes and connecting these two worlds where really smart people are teaching athletes. And the people that,

are not chasing them down that they don't necessarily need athlete money. So, you know, the guys that I work with would love to be in the room with the people that are richer than them that made it in the finance or real estate and saying, if we can bring these worlds together, then everybody benefits because the $100 million real estate guy is not going to take a million dollars from this player and disappear. And that player is going to want to be in the room with that real estate guy because that real estate guy has none of their DMs or their Instagram or chasing them down and trying to get them, you know, trying to nickel and dime them.

So just to create an ecosystem where everyone can benefit and sort of learn together was really something I was passionate about it. So, you know, I left my job about a year ago and being kind of creating this world for players. And we did something really cool down at the Super Bowl. I don't know if you can call Super Bowl or big game or whatever they call now. But did that down last week in Atlanta where we had a room with, you know, 20-30 NFL guys.

And then we had, you know, a panel with a guy like Justin Tuff. who's now a vice president of Goldman Sachs and some other successful people in business, close the door and to guys, let's talk about career transition and finding the right people and investing and all these cool things that you guys want to learn from people you actually want to learn from. Okay, so here's a question I have. Basketball is generally a city game, right? I mean, like, look, if you played, like, the only way to really play it is, like you said,

you grew up in Jersey, football wasn't even a part of the conversation. And a lot of guys, whether white or black or indifferent, you don't come from a ton. You know, the Steph Curry's and Clay Thompson's are the exception. The norms are more, even the KDs of the world. But there's lots of parents or advisors or AU guys or college coaches. And a kid's going to go overseas and make 50, 75, 100 first gig out of college. how would you advise them? What's the type of discussions you would have

with a kid who just came out of college? Not an NBA player. They all think they're going to be NBA players, but they're going to make their first foray into playing overseas. Yeah, I think, you know, the first thing we talk about, we actually don't talk about finance. We talk about, you have a, you know, you've got an opportunity to make some money playing ball.

And that's great and budget and save, but the most important thing is use that opportunity. If it's sort of a free, You know, if you're going to play in Italy, go experience life and meet people. If you're playing in the G league, you know, meet people in that town. I think being a professional basketball player, there's a ton of ex-professional basketball players or ex-basket players, you know, me and you on this podcast. But to be a current basketball player is a really unique and small group of people. So while you're playing, meet as many people as possible.

Even if you play in Italy, when you come back home for three or four months, you're like, hey, yeah, I'm a professional basketball player. go meet the richest person in your town sit and meet somebody. Say hello. So the first thing we teach guys are, you know, use the basketball the way it uses you. You know, people invite you places and people want to do things for you because you play basketball, take advantage of those opportunities and meet people

because if you build a network by the time you're 30 or you're 25, you know, you may not, you're not LeBron and you're not Steph, you're not going to have $300 million in the bank, but if you have, you know, 20 people you can call that are successful in different things, then all of a sudden, like, you can build these connections and get a leg up, opposed to coming back and starting and trying to figure how to do a resume. So that's sort of the first thing we talk about.

Mike, I just want to hop in real quick. See, this is, it's brilliant your philosophy. And it's one of the reasons. And look, if you feel differently, it's fine. Like, it's a discussion we've had in this podcast. It's one of the reasons that I, one of the things I think people miss on about college athletes in how the benefit of playing college athletics where people always say, well, the school makes this and the school makes that. And my point is like, look, forget about the fact that you get into a school that most of us, a lot of us couldn't have got, like I couldn't have gotten into Notre Dame on my own in high school.

Okay. But I do think that's a portion of it. I think the training and the books and the and the tutors and all of the other, all the gear and all the promotion you get is a part of it. But the doors that it's open in terms of the people that you meet. I'll never forget. My first year at Notre Dame, we had somebody who came in. I don't even remember who was. And they spoke to us and they said, hey, look, I know you think.

So we asked, why at Notre Dame do we have to live with another student our first year? Like, why can't we live with basketball players? Because that way we're on the same schedule. We kind of, you know, and they said, look, you can live a basketball player's the rest of your career, rest of your, you know, whatever you want. But get to know the rest of the students because those are the people that you're going to work with or work for or try and, you know, work, have a business relationship with for the rest of your life.

Like, Notre Dame people are going to be successful. You want to know all those people. And like you said, build a network. And I think sometimes we get jaded by like a thousand bucks here, 500 bucks there. That's not going to change anything. Relationships that are created in college, those last a lifetime. And those benefits you way more than any monetary amount that you can make off the school.

Yeah. I completely agree with. You know, like, you know, we have a discussion. I talk about this all the time with my teammates. And it's like, yeah, we should get paid. and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, I don't want to, you know, I go back and forth to that. But I do think, you know, some of the best times I had, you know, were being broke in college.

And I got to do some cool things that no one else got to do. And like you said, you got to meet some cool people. But, you know, you've got to travel places and do cool things. And you have to school makes a ton of money. But, like, you say, use it. So, like, you know, I tell everybody, like, I go speak at different schools. And we go to these schools. And I sit in the room, and I go, like, go to the,

alumni directory and find like the 20 richest people that went to your school and just call them on phones. They're playing a basketball thing. Can I come hang out with you? And it's like, if you call and say I'm a student, maybe that call, maybe you get a call back. Maybe you don't. If you call and say I'm an alumni, they probably think you're looking for a job and they probably don't call you back. If you're a current guy, it's like, hey, cool, you don't want anything for me. So come hang out. And it's, you know, all those things I think are important, but it's, you know, I think it's all the time, it's like, but a lot of times when you have people sort of advising you on what to do,

you know, their incentives are for, you know, for them to make money or for them to feel good. And it's not necessarily always the most beneficial to the player. Last thing here. Obviously, you're, you talk now with some of the biggest and brightest stars in professional sports in terms of managing their money. Are we still in a place where guys can lose it all?

Or are they making enough money where, you know, like it's just so much. I'm more talking Anthony Davis turning down $240 million. Have we crossed over into the It's Funny Money now, and we won't see the days of the broke athlete? So I think that, so like, yeah, I don't manage guys anymore. I stepped away from it, so I do more of the educate thing.

But I do think that, I mean, you'll still see some stories. They'll be fewer, and we're hoping to sort of help change that. But I think it's not just because the money is so big. think, you know, players are seeing these examples in a negative way that, you know, ahead of that, that were before them, but also in a positive way. Like, you look at, you know, the guys like Magic or a guy like Junior Bridgman or LeBron. And, like, they're like, wow, like, those guys made it cool to think about your business. And even like, Jay-Z, it's like these guys, like, often it's like, yeah, it's not cool to just, you know, blow through a bunch of money.

But the thing about being a business and creating a generational opportunities for, you know, for people beneath you. So I think, you know, social media, you know, all the Instagrams and Twitter and all these things. And players just, like, sort of speaking and being more openly about it has made it cool to care about, you know, creating a legacy and all these things. So I think that's one people where I think, like, listen, the bigger the money gets, the smarter the scam artists will get. So I think we're still going to see, you know, broke guys out there because I think it's like, you know, people will always find ways to say, like, you know, back in the day it was like, give me $100 grand. And it's good, you know, in a couple years, we'll be like, hey, give me $20 million. to develop this hotel in Times Square. So there'll always be these game artists who are trying to be one step ahead.

But I think the percentages are just getting lower and lower. Give me this one of the smartest cats that nobody knows. Like, you obviously, I don't ever want you to talk about anybody else's money. But somebody who, you mentioned, you mentioned, near Bridgman buying all those Burger Kings. I know Jamal Mashburn, who, of course, has bought a ton of stuff. I think Papa Johns as well as Lexus dealerships. obviously magic and people point out LeBron.

Is there somebody you've met along the path here these last couple years or even this last year in advising people and teaching them about financial literacy and connecting the dots? You're like, man, here's a guy who nobody knows that quietly completely gets how to handle and expand their financial portfolio. Yeah, I think, you know, there's a guy, you know, we sat down last week. Mason Plumlin, play for the Nuggets. He is, and like, you know, I hate this, you know, the Duke thing is everybody, probably jumps on the Duke, but I'll give you a second one after that. But he's a guy that is really smart in his business and also has a lot of interest and sort of, you know, smart enough to know how to handle different things and how to, you know,

be smart. But, you know, he is a really, really sharp guy. I'll give you a couple more. Josh Hart, because of Lakers, super smart, you know, in L. L.A., you know, for now. Hopefully he's still there. in LA, it has a lot of interest in this sort of thinking, I think, you know, even before LeBron got there, you know, the thought process, or even, you know, before, you know, before

LeBron got there, the thought process being like, I'm in L.A., like, how do I, how do I sort of, you know, take the next step? And I think a third person that a lot of people don't think about that's actually really smart in their businesses, and Dominic, too. So he's a guy that's involved with a lot of different things, but also is, you know, connected to a lot of different owners in the league. And last night, a blown call changed the game. This This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host and your favorite therapist, Kier Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase

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Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. What's up, guys? This is Clever Taylor the 4th. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff, like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of the first. the game. This linebacker walks up to me, he goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her.

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American soccer is about to explode. The World Cup is coming. I'm Tad Ramos. I'm Tom Bow. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, you'll get the real storylines. I'm not worried about Policic. I'm not worried about Balligan. I'm not worried about McKinney.

My only concern is what happens in the back. The biggest decisions. If you're going to look at stats and numbers, he has no shot at making this World Cup team. And the truth about the U.S. national team. It wouldn't be a huge surprise. if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals.

The World Cup is almost here. Experience it all with us. Listen to Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. It's business at a level that is the same way that owners of teams do business. So those guys are out there and, like, you know,

they're not few and far between. It's just, you know, the big-name guys are the ones you see. But there's a lot of guys that are getting smarter and smarter that are out there doing cool stuff. Mike, last thing, how can somebody get a hold of you? So yeah, feel free to, you know, sort of shoot me an email. Our company is called Verified Sports and Entertainment. So feel free to shoot me an email, M-H-H-A-D-B-I-X, at VerifiedS-E,

sports entertainment.com, or just, you know, hit me up on Instagram, you know, Haddx A-2-3 or Twitter, athlete-advisor 1. It's a really important thing that you're doing for other athletes. And obviously, your background is incredibly impressive. I really appreciate you to spend some time with me and look forward to catching up in the very near future. Definitely. Had a great time.

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His longtime assistant was Paul Graham. Paul Graham's nickname is the judge. The judge. Because the judge would tell you good or bad most of the time it was bad. The judge, who went on to be a head coach at Washington State. He would do this thing. He would snort all the time. And, you know, if you go into the basketball office,

back when the judge was there, you would hear, and one of the assistant coach would be like, hey, man, get that, get that shit out. It was bad. But Paul Graham was always a kind of no nonsense in your face, old school,

do what I tell you sort of coach, an excellent recruiter as well. I'll never forget this. I've told many people. I think I got a handful of compliments from Eddie Sutton during my time playing for him. I got one compliment from Paul Graham ever. One. We played Texas Tech down in Lubbock

and I think it was my senior year. No, no, he wasn't there. He wasn't with him. He got the head coaching job in my senior year. So it was my junior year. My junior year, we go down there. We played in the old place. And it smelled like horse manure

because they had the circus in there before. the year before they opened up, it was a United Spirit arena or whatever it's called. And I played really well. It might have been on NFC Championship Sunday. And I threw a lobbed Desmond Mason, which was a great little inbound play. A lot of you guys know, I have an affinity for, you know,

underneath out of bounds, sideline in bounds, where, you know, you downscreen into the, your leper who kind of loops around, you throw it to the rim. And I threw it a little bit too high, a little bit too far, but Desmond Mason's a freak athlete. He caught it. He finished it. I just made the right plays, the right reads.

I probably had 10 points and 13 assists. We never lost the tech when I played. And I remember that the next day, the coaches were great in the film, and I just popped in the office, and he called me, and she a judge? He played all right last night. Played pretty good, pretty good. That was it.

That was all I ever got from him, as far as a compliment. But his son Nick was like our little brother, you know, like any assistant coach's son. He was always around the program. We were playing video games. He was hanging out with us. Nick went on, he had an outstanding high school career, went on and played in college, played for his dad. And he's been an assistant. He's been a mentor.

He's been, he's actually writing a book kind of from the Christian perspective thoughts and, and, it's like a devotional message. Really amazing. He's a fascinating guy. Follow him on Instagram, follow him on Twitter. He'll tell you all about his social media following. And he's had workout programs in Dallas and in Denver, Colorado. He's helped me with my program. Most recently, he was with Iowa State as a GA, but as their developmental head coach.

And he joins us now in the All Ball podcast. Nick, look, most recently you were obviously at Iowa State. And you and I were talking off air about Iowa State, K State. K State, of course, just beat Kansas. Iowa State has split with Kansas this year. Kind of interesting. They don't play them late in the season. season. Who do you think is more likely if Kansas doesn't win the Big 12? And it's hard because

obviously you know those guys at Iowa State so well. Who do you think is more likely to win the league, K-State or I State? I mean, I think I'm going to go have, I'm probably a little biased, but I have to go with Iowa State. I think that Kansas State is one of the best defensive teams in the country, but I mean, Iowa State is just so versatile and how they can guard you. And I just think they're skilled enough to outscore people. I just think that they can outscore their opponents better than Kansas State. So I have to go to Iowa State. Now, K State beat him in Hilton, right?

By one point slowing the game down. Of course, they still had to play in the octagon. And we'll see. I mean, sometimes, as you know, like K State's thing in the past has not been, sometimes these games with their big opponent. It's been the, you know, they'll lose one to a, you know, a bottom feeder

in the league. Whereas, you know, Iowa State, it's been more the beating the Kansases of the world, even on their own home floor. although this year, obviously, they took care of business, and they lost it at their place. All right, let's get down to, you and I were discussing this. Dean Wade, preseason Big 12 player the year.

He's an NBA player. Why? Man, I just think he's versatile. He's super skilled. I mean, he can step out on the perimeter. I think that he's more athletic probably than you do. I think he's sneaky athletic. He's tough, super skilled. play with his back to the basket.

It has all the finishes. But really, he can really pick and pop and get his feet set, step into his shot. I mean, his shot and his footwork on the perimeter is fluid like a guard to me. He's not like this big, clunky, big that needs a lot of time to get his shot off. I think he truly is a mismatch problem.

I don't think that he's a first-round talent. I don't think that he's somebody that can start, but I think he's on an NBA roster next year for sure. Yeah, I guess the question becomes, you guard your position, right? That's really, and if he's going to be a stretch five, he's not a rim protector, but he can put his body, like in college he takes a lot of charges, so he gets his body. So that part doesn't concern me. The shooting doesn't concern me, you know, because you guys will stretch their range. I mean, look at Brooke Lopez. He never shot threes

until like three years ago. Now he's a, that's all he does is shoot threes. And I know Brooks is a lot bigger than him, but the point is that you can improve your shooting range through hard work, which, but Mike, can he guard anybody? Can he guard anybody? switches on a ball screen against an NBA guard, can he guard laterally? Yeah, no, I think he may struggle with that. I think that, you know, I think that he can, the high-end guards he's going to struggle with, but I think some of the other guards, I think he can at least keep him in front of him and make them work and just make them take challenge, too.

Texas got a big win going back to last night. I'm interested in your take. They have a young big guy who, I don't know, I mean, I feel like Jackson Hayes, who's just kind of come into his own. And I know that he'll be told to leave and it'll probably be a lottery pick if he leaves. I still think he needs another year. What do you think of Jackson Hayes in terms of who he's most like and what ultimately he could be? Yeah, I think he has a huge upside.

I think he's more athletic than skilled right now. But I think that he's going to go. That's just what they do, right, and try to develop on the run. You're drawing a blank on a comparison. I just think he's super athletic. He needs to polish up his skills. He doesn't really have a face-up game. He's more of a rim runner.

Offensive rebound, pain protected kind of guy. But, yeah, I think that he's going to leave. I think that, you know, with this team in Texas, I think that, say, for example, if you put him around players like Iowa State, he would actually look a lot better. I think the way Texas is, is like Texas, we were talking another day, the thing about Texas is, I feel like, you know, they don't have people that can space the floor.

They kind of have the same type of player, so you can just, you can just pack it in, clog the paint, and there's not really any driving lanes. There's not any room for him to operate, so. I want to ask you about training. You're a guy you've worked with some of the best, with pros, obviously with guy like Jimmer, who continues to light it up in China,

and with other pros, with some of the league college players and with high school players, whether it's in Dallas or in Denver. Markle Fultz was just traded to Orlando. And I don't know how much of it is mental, how much of it is physical. I do think there is a good portion of it,

which is mental. If you were to train Markell Foltz, what would you do? Man, I agree with you 100%. I think it's, you know, I say all the time, we're doing kids, we're doing players in this service,

because everybody tells you that sports is 80% mental and 20% physical. But us as guardians of the game in terms of coaches and teachers and stuff like that, we probably focus less than 10% not being generous on the mental. You know, you watch him, he had a fluid jump shot. It wasn't great, but it was completely different. He had a fluid jump shot when he was at Washington, and all of a sudden he can't shoot a free throw,

and, you know, the world's against him and all that. And sometimes we fail to forget that this is an 18-year-old kid. that probably has not been through a lot of adversity in his adult life. It's a hell of a thing for your first true taste of adversity to happen on the stage in which is happening to him, you know, living with the, I don't want to be a number one draft pick, buts. So my first thing with him, I mean, before we even stepped on the court, or as we stepped on the court, it wouldn't even be about improving anything with his game.

It would be kind of developing the connection, developing the trust, and getting him to open up and try to figure out where that goes. I kind of took that page from Chatsy, who, as you know, is a mentor of mine as a leader and obviously with development. But a lot of times every now and then when he works out with younger NBA guys, he'll jump in to work out with them. And he told me his strategy for doing that is not to really work on a basketball, but kind of get them comfortable, you know, just opening up and just talking

the game and talking about their vulnerabilities and insecurity. So that's probably their approach I would take to see if we could really help him mentally. I mentioned, like a guy like Jimmer. What's it been like to work with him? Why has, I have my own feelings as to why he didn't make it in the league. But he obviously is exceptionally successful playing in China. What's he like to work with? I'm really nice guy.

I tell people all the time. a great player, but a much, an even greater person. The reason I respect him so much is, you know, when we'd work out, you know, I would work him out, and it may be kids in the gym, it may be a youth workout before his workout or after his workout. And even, you know, I remember one time he came and spoke to the kids and somebody called him a bust, like question and answer, somebody, you know, said that he was a bust. and I just kind of paid attention to how he handled that with humility. He has a lot of character.

He doesn't shy away from that. But he's just, I think that allows him because he's a great person that allows him to be a great player. But he's smart. In terms of offensive, he is one of the smartest one-on-one offensive players I've ever met. You know, I get, it's not fair to say you're Jim's trainer because I pretty much just am a big cheerleader and just watch him, but just how he understands the game.

obviously his limitations are, you know, his athletic makeup in terms of what you said earlier, keeping people in front of him. But just how smart he is, whatever the defense does is wrong. I've seen him score on anybody. Bigger guys, quicker guys, whatever. He always has a recipe in that one-on-one set it. So it's been fun to watch him work in the offseason the last four years and then turn on the TV and see him do it. Like, yeah, it's not the NBA, but, you know, a guy's going to get 75 points.

that says a lot about his offensive skill set. All right. I want to ask you quickly about your method in terms of training. Let's say it's a high school kid or a high school or a college age kid. Is there a reasonable amount of training? You know, some guys, they say, well, all day in the gym. I'm like, look, I always felt like 45 to an hour max in terms of shorter, that way, and more intensity.

Obviously, there are ways, you know, you can get on the machine. you know, on the gun and shoot a ton of just to get reps. But in terms of working with a guy, getting a quality workout, is there an optimum length? Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. And again, I'm so fortunate that I was not a lot of people that do what I do get to have somebody like Johnson Billups take them under a wing for three or four years. And we talk about that all the time. And that's one of my biggest takeaways from working out the NBA guys.

You know, all these guys that are trainers that want to train NBA guys, guys that, you know, you see it all the time, they put a million cones on the floor, and they think they're going to go work out super hard for an hour and 50 minutes. Like, that's not going to happen. When I worked out with Jimmer, we never worked out longer than, let's say, an hour and 10 minutes, between 45 minutes and an hour and 10 minutes. I think that it may be longer with older, it may be a little bit longer with younger guys, just because you have to get their skill set up to the point where they can work out efficiently.

a lot of times when you have the longer workouts with younger players is because they make so many mistakes. I mean, you may have to teach a high school kid. There's a lot of high school kids that are averaging 20 points that can't dribble with their eyes up. So you may have to take 15, 20 minutes to break that down, but once you get past that point, it's about being as efficient as possible.

It's funny, I was working out with some kids in Colorado, and, you know, they want to tell me what I want to hear. And I said, you don't want to be in a gym all day, do you? And he's like, no, I want to be in here four or five hours. Like, no, you don't, man. We live in Colorado. You know, you want to go, maybe you have a girlfriend, you want to go hang out in the mountains. There's nothing wrong with that.

But let's learn how to be efficient and develop the IQ because ideally, like you said, you shouldn't work out longer on an individual or even a small group workout. If you're working out longer than 85, 90 minutes, then you're probably not going hard enough and or you're risking injury. Okay, how about this? what's the breakdown of play like actual, you know,

if you have a group of play to skill development? Yeah, so like that's a good point. The thing that I've realized and I've really had to pay attention to them in the last year and a half is we went from no skill trainers. Like when you and I came up, there wasn't a sub-school

with a player development guy. They were very rare. We just played a lot. And maybe if we would have had a little piece of that, that would have been great. But now, today's player, it's all training and they're not playing. So, like, I think that, you know, maybe 20%, the first, you know, 15 to 20 percent is just really developing skills, just really kind of isolating the skills for the high school, yeah, probably high school and junior high kid, you know, we're doing working on ball handling,

we're working on footwork, we're working on pivots, we're working on being able to make lead passes with your left hand, passing off the bounce and all that kind of stuff. Then the next stage, which is about another 15 to 20%, I would say, is taking those drills and developing multi-skilled drills where you're scoring off the bounce or you're working on your moves and your counter moves, getting a high volume of reps. So that's 30% of the workout. Then the next, my approach is almost like a boxing guy with a focus mitts working on the combos and reactions.

I'm kind of forcing them to develop their reactions and instincts of certain moves, cater to how they play, how their high school wants them to play, or college wants them to play, that's another 15 to 30 percent. So now when we play, I want to see them play for maybe 30 percent and really focus on applying the things that we've worked on. So that will probably be my formula. Last thing, is there one thing that you would tell parents, a lot of parents listen to my podcast.

One thing you tell parents of a young kid, in terms of how they should handle being a parent and allowing their kid to grow? Yeah, well, that's it. Be a parent. Don't be a basketball. You know, don't be a basketball coach. Take the same approach as you would if your kid was, you're trying to get your kid a tutor for the ACT test.

You're not going to go over there and teach. You've hired the tutor for that. Or I think the doctor, you know, your job as a parent is to be. make sure you do your homework to find a doctor that you can trust. You know, you ask other parents, you know, you go look at reviews, you make sure they're accredited and all those type of things. And then once you put your trust in that doctor, you let that doctor be the doctor to your child.

You're not going to go second-guess that doctor. You're not going to step in while that doctor is talking. And then going there and just say what you have to say. It's the same thing. I had to tell a parent earlier this week. He was a seventh grader playing in front of his high school coach. half time comes, dad walks on the court and gets on his kid for not shooting enough. And I had to tell him, I said, you're doing that in front of the high school coach.

That's a bad look. He's already, that's not fair to your kid. Now that high school coach is like, man, this kid has some potential, but I don't know if I want to deal with this parent that's going to be a headache. So just be a parent. How can people get a hold of you or follow you on IG or on Twitter? Yeah, so my IG and Twitter is the same culture. Or, die, culture, and then just the word OR, die.

And then my website, which is a resource for parents and athletes, we have breakdowns, we have inspirational messages, we have clinics in California, Denver, Texas, or wherever, is my website. Nick Graham, player development.com. Awesome stuff. Nick, I look forward to seeing you tonight. Thanks so much for joining me on the pod. All right. Sounds good, man. Thanks for having me.

All right, that's it for the All Ball podcast. I'm Doug Gowley. If you have any questions, any comments, you need anything comment upon. We'll get you ready for March Madness, more stories, more thoughtfulness. You can also follow my radio show. That's 3 to 6 Eastern Time, 12 to 3 Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports. Fox Sports.com, the iHeartRadio app or Sirius XM. It's like 2, 17 for one, and 203 for the other. Check us out every day.

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