The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - 362: Tim Hardaway Had to Ban Dad from High School Basketball Games | HoneyDew Podcast #362

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

SPONSORS: Uncommon Goods -To get 15% off your next gift, go to https://www.UncommonGoods.com/HONEYDEW Aura Frames -Visit https://www.AuraFrames.com and get $45 off Aura's Carver Mat frame using promo code HONEYDEW Brunt -Get $10 Off at BRUNT with code HONEYDEW at https://www.bruntworkwear.com/HONEYDEW My Honeydew this week is former NBA player Tim Hardaway! Check out Tim’s new book, Killer Crossover. Tim joins me this week to Highlight the Lowlights of the fallout that came with his controversial comments back in 2007. We dive into the background that led Tim to his original views, the moment he realized the gravity of his mistake, and the steps he continues to take to right the wrongs and pain he caused. Tim also opens up about his background growing up in Chicago with an abusive dad, and shares some stories from his time playing, like the time he took a bet against Michael Jordan for a Louis Vuitton jacket, and Kevin Johnson gave him his ‘Welcome to the League’ moment! SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE and watch full episodes of The Dew every toozdee! https://youtube.com/@rsickler SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON - The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I Highlight the Lowlights with Y’all! Get audio and video of The HoneyDew a day early, ad-free at no additional cost! It’s only $5/month! AND we just added a second tier. For a total of $8/month, you get everything from the first tier, PLUS The Wayback a day early, ad-free AND censor free AND extra bonus content you won't see anywhere else! http://patreon.com/RyanSickler What’s your story?? Submit at [e-mail] Get Your HoneyDew Gear Today! https://shop.ryansickler.com/ Ringtones Are Available Now! https://www.apple.com/itunes/ http://ryansickler.com/ https://thehoneydewpodcast.com/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE CRABFEAST PODCAST https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crabfeast-with-ryan-sickler-and-jay-larson/id1452403187

Guys, I want to say thank you very much. We hit over a million views on Live and Alive. Thank you for supporting it. Thank you for watching it. If you haven't yet, go watch it. Share it with your friends, comment, like, all that stuff. Live and Alive streaming now on my YouTube. Thank you guys so much for your support.

The Honeydew with Brian Sickler. Welcome back to the Honeydew, y'all. We're over here doing it in the Night Pants, I'm Ryan Sickler. Ryan Sickler.com, Ryan Sickler, on all your social media. Look, I'm going to start this episode like I start them all by saying thank you. Thank you for not only supporting this show, anything I do. Thank you for supporting a special.

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on show, The Honeydue with y'all. It is this show with y'all, and y'all have the wildest stories we've ever heard in our life. We've been doing this for years now, and I promise you, it's five bucks a month. It's never going to be more than five bucks a month. All right. So if you or someone you know has a story that has to be heard, please submit it to us, Honeydewpodcast at gmail.com. We'd love to hear your story. That's it. That's the biz. You know what we do here. We highlight the low lights. I always say these are the stories behind the storytellers. And I am very, very, excited to have this guest on with us today. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, Tim Hardaway. Welcome to the honeydew Tim Hardaway. Thank you. Thank you. We were fired up to have you here, Tim Hardaway.

Right up to be here. Before we get into your story right there, please promote your book and anything else you'd like. From the street of Chicago to basketball, Rorty to crossover. My book that just came out. And, you know, if you want to know what I, what made me why I was, that guy on that court and, you know, my upbringing and the Chicago background, yeah, you need to get this book and you need to read it. It's a must read, and I think you will enjoy it. And it helps you out with your kids, too, about AAU basketball or sports in general about how parents should be calm and cool and collective. So first of all, congrats on the book. Is there anything else you want to put?

Where can they find you on socials? The original crossover king on Instagram and Facebook. Is there a dude out there that's got Tim Hardaway won't give it to you? No, I still have Tim Hardaway. Yeah, yeah. It's not about holding Tim Hardaway hostage out there on Instagram. I heard of people holding people hostage. They come on this show all the time.

They've got to be the or whatever. Right, exactly. I'm the Tim Hardaway. Right. I want to say this real quick, too, is I got to give a shout out to one of my daughter's teachers. She's 11, but this dude has been around for a minute. He coached her brother, my daughter's brothers, my stepson in basketball when he was younger. They're 11 years apart.

And he was always a good coach. And I just said to him the other day, I didn't dawn on me. I was like, I go, how do you know Derek? He goes, I used to coach him in basketball. I was like, wait, you're the coach I talk about it. He goes, you talk about me on the podcast? I said, yeah. So he goes, what do you mean?

I said, well, he was always loud. But everything he was saying was positive. And that disturbed some parents. And there was an episode where a dude ran out. We thought it was, you know, you assume it's the, let me back up. Guys always like, great hustle, great hustle. Get down the court. Where you shoot.

It was loud. It was loud. Right. But it was always positive. It was never, like, what are you doing? It was just loud. And I think a lot of people, it, it, It confused them.

They're like, this guy's being loud with these kids. And there's a lot of soft-ass parents out there too today. Yes. Especially out here in Santa Monica. And they had a kid on our team. They called him Baby Shack. And he was big. He's wearing a 12 when he was in like sixth grade, you know?

And this kid decided he was going to try to take the charge. And Baby Shack ran him over like a freight train. And they're children. Right. Baby Shack was up. The kid got hurt. Baby Shack was crying because the kid was crying. They're emotional children.

Right, right. This dude runs out of the stands and gets up in the coach's face. Now, we all assume it's the father of the boy that just got trucked by baby shit. It's not. It's just some dude that was tired of the coach. You coached me, dude, they had to throw him out of the gym. I'm looking around like, what the fuck's going on? Wow.

I just want to say, as far as coaching and everything, because I've had some really good coaches. There are some that are just, they're loud. But as long as the message is positive, I don't have any issue with that, man. Get up their ass a little bit. But he's not, it's never, it was never negative ever. And the energy wasn't either. It was positive. I just don't think people are used to hearing loudness always with positive message behind it.

You know, loud these days seems to be a negative voice. I don't know why loudness should be a negative voice. I know coaches today, they do camps. They do basketball camps and they need to be loud. You know, sometimes you blow a whistle and then you have 300 kids. If you saw, if you're talking soft, the kid behind the three, the 2999 kid, it's not going to hear you. So you got to be loud and you got to make sure the people, that the kids hear you and understand you. I've been knowing coaches that was loud.

We called him Rockmore. He was real loud. And it was only 10 of us in the gym. And he had, you know, he's very positive. But he had talked to you and make sure you understand what you were saying loud to everybody. He didn't care who was listening to him. He's very positive, but he understood that you needed to hear him. And he wanted you to hear him.

And he wanted you to understand what he was saying. So, yeah, I mean, I mean, some, you know, a lot of these parents or not parents, you said this guy coming out of this stands, he just was tired of it. You know, I've been, I'm going to tell you this. I've been to a friend of mine, what I want to say, practice. Okay. And he was like, I want you to evaluate my son. And why the practice was going on, I was just evaluating his son.

I was like, yo, you need to, I say, you need to chill out. Stop it. He's going to be all right. I said, your son can play. He just, he just don't want to play. If he wanted to play basketball, he could play basketball. He just don't want to play. He out here for recreational reasons just so he get out the house and do something because y'all want him to do something.

But he can play. If he had nothing else to do, he would be able to play this game with no problem. But he don't like the game. He just coming out here, recreational. And he's having fun with his peers and doing this. He's not going to dive on the ball. He's not going to do this certain amount of move. He's not going to play defense the way you want to play defense.

He's not going to, I mean, he's just going to go out here and play basketball the way he wants to play basketball. I said, you need to calm down. But this other parent on the other end just on his kid. Ah, I mean. negatively. You're talking about loud. He's probably louder than the coach was that you're talking about. And he was on his son, negative, negative, negative.

And when I was about to go down there and talk to him several times, my buddy was like, Tim, we're going to be in here fighting. We're going to be in here seriously fighting. He said, Tim, do not go down there. I say, I can't take it enough more. I said, I just want to tell him, dude, shut the fuck up. Please. His kid and all of us were going to leave in me. Your kid, I said his kid is going to be at school fighting every day.

His kid is going to be at school. Taking it out on everybody else. Like taking it out on other people, taking it out on teachers. And where he going to get it from, he going to get it from you. That's what I want to tell his dad. You need to leave your son-law. And he's actually doing what you ask him to do and doing more out there. And you still not satisfied.

So I'm like, that's what I wanted to go down there. Tim. My friend was like, Tim, no. No, Tim, no. So, I, I, I, I, I, man, I was fiddling my thumbs. I was, I was, I was down there. Lord, help me, help me. I was like, give me courage so I won't go down here.

Because my buddy don't want me to go down there and talk to him. And then. So I was on my way out. Same thing. I was on our way out. He's steady into his son. I mean, dude, practice Zoe. You stand in to him.

You should have saw his son's face. It was dismal. It was like, he was like, I can't do nothing to make this man happy. And I said, this kid is going to end up, you know, really hurting himself or hurting somebody. And it's going to be because of his fault. Now, I feel really bad for the kid. Now, look, I want to get into this. Yeah.

Because the timing of you being here. But you got into that first. So, you know. I know. But I want to ask you another question. because you let into, you mentioned about coaching, helping all this stuff. At your level, who's the coach that you respected the most that you also know had to come in and had to put ego aside? Like, Tim Hardaway, Kobe, whatever.

You're fucking up here. Like, who's the man that can come in? Is that a John Daly, a coach K? Who's the guy that has to come in and say, like, look, I know every one of you motherfuckers is a Hall of Fame or here. But I got a coach and I got to tell you when you fuck up. And you got to be open to hearing that and being able to be coached and vice versa. Who's the man that you worked with that you feel did the best job of dealing with the Hall of Fame men and figuring out how to, you know, organize that? I'm going to tell you.

So I respected all my coaches. I never had a problem with none of my coaches. Grandma school coach taught me all the fundamentals, told me how to play, taught me how to have confidence, taught me how to post up, told me how to take care of my body, told me how to run a team. And it started from there. High school coach, same way.

But I listened to them. They was always candid. They was always, well, I'm going to say, honest with me. They was honest with the team. And, you know, always told me or us, who had to work on that game. I probably worked on my game the most

because I just love playing the game of basketball. Then I went to college with Don Haskins. Great, great coach, Hall of Fame coach. I played with three Hall of Fame coaches, you know, and Don Haskins. And he taught me, um, would you go to college, U-TEP? Yeah, U-TEP. Where was your high school? Carver High School. Where is that? That's in, uh, Argyll Gardens. Okay. Um, like suburban, but still in Chicago, but we're right outside of the city. And, um, but yeah, um, and my grandma school coach, Cohn. elementary Donald Pittman taught me everything and I still revert back to him when I was

like having slumps I called him up say hey you know he said just go back to the basis just go back to the base go back to your roots and I did that and you know you and then you get back into the swing of things but you know Don Haskins taught me a lot just maturity just maturity as I got older and play for him but you know you get to Don Nelson and um Pat Rowley two other Hall of Fame coaches that played in the NBA that, you know, one rings as players and as coaches. You know, Don Nelson didn't, but, you know, Pat Rowley has. And but all those coaches instilled in me, just run the team.

Do what I was supposed to do. Run the team. Here's the keys to the car. You're captain of the car. You're taking us to that promise land. You're taking us to that next level. You're making sure that everybody is on board, ready to go. And, you know, I don't think – I taught myself how to understand coaches.

I taught myself how to make coaches understand me as a basketball player. You know, as a player, you got to know what a coach wants out there, but you also got to do your own thing while you're out there because you're out there playing and you got to instruct the guys what you see and how you see and what's going to make you y'all excel and win the game. So like I said, I had Hall of Fame coaches, and I think that we all. Who coached your Olympic team? Who was that?

Oh, it was Rudy Tom Johnnivins. Tom Donovus. Yes, Rudy time. Another Hall of Fame. I forgot. And Larry Brown was our coach before that. And what's that, the Trials in Puerto Rico. And he was another Hall of Fame coach.

You know, so I've been all around Hall of Fame coaches on my life. I know how to deal with them. They know how to deal with me. Show them respect, go out there, you know, do what they want you to do. But you go out there and do your own stuff too, you know, and make it happen. That's how you fall in love with one another. So I never had a like coach that, you know, I had to go back and forth with or we didn't like each other, anything like that. Of course you got to adapt.

Of course you got to have conversations. Both people got to have conversations and dialogue. And we move on and we get better like that. Well, the timing having you on here right now. I always tell everybody, nobody knows timing better than comedians and drummers. And this is just lucky timing here. So while we're sitting here, our current episode out right now is John Amici. I've had other athletes on.

I've had Orlando Brown Jr. We've had Tony Hawk. Never had NBA guys. All of a sudden get two. And then somehow you two are directly sort of related in the story he told. And you have here in this book as well. Yes. So let's talk about it.

John was the first post career, first openly gay. NBA player. And you were outspoken about that. Is that correct? Yes. And then tell us like you've had what happened and you have a change of heart now. Well, you know what I had, I had to deal with a lot of pain, a lot of suffering. You know, my kid. What made you speak out? What made you were you asked the question? I was asked a question. You know, I was asked question, you know, and I grew up in a different background. Dend, DEN. Religious background. Yeah, religious background. You know, we walking away from, you know, what you want to call it, LGBTQ now, you know, we didn't know what to call them then. You know, you just, you just, you just like, you know, dyke or or bull dagger or, you know, you go like this and you go like that, you know.

And then I went to church and the church should be talking about it too. You know, you go to. Oh, they would. Oh, yeah, they would. You know, you're not supposed to be this way. You're not supposed to be that way. You know, you're supposed to be a boy. You're supposed to be a girl.

You know, you're not supposed to wear your hair like this or do that type of stuff. So, I mean, and you go to church because you back then, I don't care what you say. You went to church. Yeah, and you also, you're a kid. You believe what you're being told and what everyone around you was telling you. Right, exactly. You're being told, and that's the way it was. And then when you go out and see it and you see it, and you see.

as we call them back then that as you see them walking down the street and you know doing whatever you you say things but we I really didn't say nothing I just just moved away from them and walked a different way and you know you know people always make a joke oh you better not mess with them they're they strong and they have you over here and they be kissing on you stuff, all type of stuff, you know, making fun and stuff. So, yeah, when Dan Larpart asked me the question, I said something cruel. I said something very, very bad. I said something that has stuck with me since that time and it's going to stick with me.

And I understand that. And I have to deal with it. And the only way I can deal with it is talk about it and make people understand that you can change and you can't. You can not only change, but help what you made the wrong with. And what I said was I hate gay people, and I think they should be, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. And I took on this with that. And you got to understand my background and how I grew up.

I never, my parents said if you do something wrong, You got to make it right. If you, if you, you got to correct it. You know, you have to correct it. And that's all I wanted to do was try to correct it. Oferrinfrey wanted me to come on. She would have crucified me. I wasn't ready to come, go on there.

And she, and then she, you know, she bad mouthed me. I got a lot of bad things to say about her because she went to the city of Chicago and did nothing for the city of Chicago. So I got a lot of bad. shit to say about her if I wanted to. So, but I keep it, you know, I keep it, you know, low key and stuff like that. But she crucified me and said that, you know, for every other reason, you would have crucified me.

You know, I wasn't ready to come out and speak to you and talk to you about that right then and there. I had to go get some counseling. How old were you at the time, too? How old was it? How old was it? How old was it? How old was about, what, 40?

Okay. Forty one, somewhere around there. All right. And, yeah, so I saw you apologize. I saw John acknowledge the apology. Well, yeah, I apologize. But, you know, I wanted to go a step further. I wanted to help, you know.

Before you go a step further, let me ask you this question. I do understand your upbringing and where the mindset comes from and everything. What made you realize, oh, I fucked up. Like, I get why, but what made you finally and when do you go, oh, I did do the wrong thing? When does that happen? So my, first of all, when you come home, you see. your kids face. How old are your kids the time?

Oh, it was right. No, they was in what? Grammar school. Okay. They were still in grammar school going into high school. How many kids? Three kids. So my youngest one really didn't know.

She was still young. About five, six years old. But my other two oldest one, 34, 34, 33, now 32. They, they was looking at me. dad, you know, they, you know, do you know what you did? You know, we got friends that are gay. We got, you know, we know friends that are gay, you know, you see how they're looking at us and talking to us in a bad way and everything. I was like, yeah, I know. And damn, you know, I have relatives too that again, I get. Everybody. Yeah, yeah. There's one family out there that does. Right.

Right. And I got friends that are gay. And, you know, they told me, they all, they all told me this. They said, you fucked up. Not right. You fucked up. But we still behind you. Okay. We still love you. And we know that you are the type of person that's going to turn this around because we know you. We know the kindness in your heart. We know where your head is at. We know how you tick. You know, you could talk a good game and this and that, but you, we know that you're going to go out there and do what's right. And, um, but, and they, they knew that. But, and they knew that. But, But what the message was is we got your back. Whatever you need us for, we got you.

And we understand that you fucked up. But you got to correct it. But go make it right. Go make it right. And I said, okay, we'll do it. How long is the time from you saying making the comment to you saying, I am going to make this right? What? Probably two weeks.

Oh, quickly. Two weeks. And where your kids getting like, bullied at school or at least no no they wasn't getting bullied they they they friends were okay they um you know they still was um everybody was still cool with them and and and and everybody everybody knew it was me and it wasn't them it was just me and you know i was scared that you know that they was going to get bullied i was i was scared that they something was somebody was going to do something to them but nothing happened you know everybody was was real cool and yeah it

took me two weeks, but I didn't get no sleep for two weeks. I bet. Did not get no sleep for two weeks, you know, didn't go nowhere because, you know, I went to the grocery store one time, you know, you can feel eyes all on you, you know. These days with the social media. Man, man, it was tough. It was tough. It was very tough.

Can I ask you this, too, because you grow up a religious man? So now you got a couple of conunders. I got to turn my back on this religion and this way of life that I thought was right and all these people I trusted and value told me was the right way. So you got to give that up while going forward with this, which was harder, giving up this old way of thinking or adapting to a new way of thinking, which was scary? You got to get out of the old way of thinking. And it was your children really that started that. seeing your kids. It was my children. But you know, you got to talk to the Lord too. You know, you got to talk to the Lord. You know, you got to get a relationship and talk to him and, and, and, and he points

you in the right direction. He pointed me in the right direction. He had me talk to different organizations like the Yes, Institute, Big Institute. Yes, so tell me. So when you, after two weeks, you said you retract or not, you retract, you apologize. I apologize, but nobody took the apology, you know, really, really seriously. And so, but I knew what I had to do. So me and my crew, my people, we seeked out some different groups and which group was the best group for me to go to institutes that best can, you know, I can sit down and have an in-depth dialogue and talk with them.

And it was called the Yes Institute. And it was really, really, really right by my house. Like I could walk to it if I wanted to. And, I mean, I mean, I could walk. It was about a 40 minute walk. It was about a 40 minute walk. It didn't it funny though that answers 40 minutes away. Right.

I'll walk. Just a walk. But, you know, drive is like a 10 minutes. The answer is a walk away. Yeah, yeah. And I'm, you know, that's the story of life right there. And I'll tell you this. I used to drive because it was traffic on US 1.

I used to drive past there to get past traffic every day. Did not even know that that was a place where people come to get comfort for being gay or transgender or whatever. And I went there and they opened their arms to me. And we did a bunch of stuff for about, I say about four or five months. What are you doing with them? So we doing, so actually different groups are coming in. And we have in dialogue, we having seminars with different groups from Philadelphia,

another group from New York, some other groups from out in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, you know. And then we had one one young lady. She was about six, seven. And her name was Raj. And she was really, really, really in a bad place, really, really in a bad place. And we really helped her out. That's what it made. That's what made it so great.

You know, I was there to help help. You saw a different. Help. Yeah, I saw the difference. I made a difference. I saw the difference. And it felt great to, because the parents put him out. He was being bullied.

It was just a lot of things going. He wanted to commit suicide. But we talked to him. I talked to him. and, you know, just a dialogue and have an in-depth conversation with him. We pulled him out of suicidal. And it was just cool to be there and witness that and have fun. I really enjoyed it to tell you true.

I can see it in you. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. I really enjoyed it and I have fun. This is your first time even hearing these stories. Yes. Like, my own family threw me out because I'm gay. Yeah.

And that's when you're like, oh, holy shit. Right. I didn't even know that. And you know, he's getting bullied while he's out there. You know, people are bullying him. People are doing stuff to him that it's not right. You know, these are people. I mean, forget about being gay or transgender. These are people.

Yeah, they're human beings. And people are doing stuff to them that because they don't, like who they are and what they are. So I really got into it. And, you know, when I hear people talk, I was like, hey, man, a young lady, hey, that's nothing to joke with. You know, these are people's lives, you know, these are people that, I mean, they're struggling. And you don't want nobody to mess with you while you struggling, you know.

So same courtesy, be respectful, you know. So I can really talk to people and really. make them see or make them understand that that's not the road that you want to go down. So you say you have three children? Yeah, I have three children. Were you ever worried they would be homosexual, any of them? Was it ever a concern? No, it was never a concern.

And what about? But if they did, I wouldn't throw them out. Prior to the you thinking the way you think now, how would you have handled it? Prior, I still wouldn't throw them out. But what would you do? I would have been upset. I would have been upset. You're not kicking.

Your kids aren't going where you help these people. Yeah. No. They go there help to talk to. You know, and to. But they're not living there. They're not living there. They're living at my house.

They don't eat my food. You know, we still going to have a conversation. You know, it probably took me a while to, to get used to it. But I would have got used to it. Or, you know, but it took me a while. But you, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't outcast and have my kids out there alone and not knowing what to do and how to do it. You would have a house to live in, no question. Who, without naming any names or anything, who in your family was homosexual that first came to you?

And did you know, was this their first time coming out to let you know, hey, I'm gay and this really bothered me? Yeah. You know, I don't want to mention their name or whatever. But a relative. It was a relative of mine, very close relative of mine. And my kids knew he was gay. I didn't. And they guessed it or they knew.

They knew. They knew. They talked to them. Yeah, they having that dialogue. And they told me, I was like, what? So, oh, wow, you know. And I talked to him. And yeah, he told me.

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Now, let's get back to the do. Isn't it a while, though, you get taught all this shit when you grow up and then at some point. No matter where. Yeah. But also, kudos to you. Because you're not some 20-year-old man. No.

You're 40s. 40. Yeah. You could easily just stood 10 toes down and be like, no, that's just the way I feel and fuck it. Right. You know,

that's a lot of old people's way. Oh, yeah. A lot of old people's way. I don't do it yet. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

But for you to see pain in your own kids and your own family and then then going and helping and seeing like, holy shit, this is happening to these people just because of a sexual preference. And, and what I see. said and and you know Tim Hardaway what Tim Hardaway said it made it seemed like it made it for people to go out there and continue to harm folks and and you co-signed

yeah I co-signed their way of belief and and and and and when I when I truly found that out I was like oh no that that no I don't want no I don't want I don't want I don't want I don't want that to happen. I don't want people to say, well, Tim Hardaway said it was all right. So, yeah. At the shit, there's like, too. Too Hardway's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. Not at all. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I did not want that. Yeah. That would be terrible. Yeah. Oh, my God. So now do you continue, do you have your own organization? You, do you continue to work with the community? I always worked with the community.

in Chicago. I do a lot of stuff in Chicago. You still go back and like talk or... Yeah, I always go talk. I always go talk to kids. I always, you know, make it known, you know, if you have something wrong with you and you need to talk to somebody, talk to them. Because, you know, I tell them, I said, we didn't have nobody talked to. We were scared to talk to somebody.

I'm parents, like, if you bet not tell nothing what's going on in this house, I'm 59. I'm 52. And I always say we were the walk-it-off generation. Yes. Ain't anybody to talk to? Ain't anybody make you feel better, no, the motherfucker. Walk it off. Yeah.

Walk it off. I got used it now. Walk it off. That's what we did. That's why you play sports. You ran track or you play basketball, you play football. You had to get that off your chest. You had to get it off your back.

And a lot of, and I said, you know, it wasn't mentally ill when we was growing up. Nobody said you mentally ill or somebody's mentally ill. It was like you was fucked up or you wasn't fucking. up. Yeah. You know, and that was that. But, but there was nobody to talk to and you had to, you had to just have it all in. And now I tell kids, hey, if you, if you got something to talk about to somebody, talk to somebody.

Yeah, find a good person to talk to. Yeah, find somebody that you trust. I don't care who it is, but you talk to. I have my mom. She was like my mom. And I was like, man, thank God. Because I have parents. She's there listening to me.

And she would also, a really good thing she did for me, and I still talk to her. She's 80 now, thinking she'll be mad at me if she's 78. But either way, she would always take the other side on purpose and then or have me do it and argue the other point. Okay. So if we were to, if I had said what you said, she would have made me argue now, why do you support them? Right. And I would have to make me think, well, this. And it really did start to open my mind up and I'm, well, shit, damn, there are.

There are other sides. is all this. Not my way and the only way and, you know, two middle fingers up to everybody. Right, right. So tell me about your upbringing. Are you from the Chicago area originally? Yeah, I'm from Chicago, born and raised on the south side of Chicago. Is your dad an athlete or mom an athlete? Yeah, my dad was a playground legend. Everybody knew him, Donald Hardaway. I just go watch him play all the time. And the only thing I could do at that that particular time was sitting on a basketball. And then, yeah, you know, my mom, she was You know, both of them worked.

Both of them was together until all the way up to sixth grade. And that's when she decided to leave him because he was abusive. You know, he was abusive, domestic violence, you know. You see that, witness in that too. Are you the only child? No, I'm the oldest. Of how many? I mean, two of us.

Two of you. And my brother. And he's seven years younger than me. And, yeah, I saw it. He was an alcoholic. You know, alcoholic is definitely. a disease and it can help hamper your living. You just said it's a disease.

It is a disease. I had David Kekner on here recently saying the same thing. And the comments on that particular promo blew me away because there's so many people arguing that it's not a disease. Oh, it's a disease. And I'm not an alcoholic, but I've sat across them enough of I'm on this show and in my life that I firmly believe it is too. No, it is a disease.

I've seen it firsthand. The alcoholism is a disease and you have to hit rock bottom before you can start controlling it. You know, you have to come to a realization that I ain't got nowhere else to go except up and I got to stop this. Or I'm going to go deeper down. You know, so. So when they split, you go with mom or dad? Or are you back and forth? Mom, no, no, no.

It was mom. Dad was, you know, still an alcohol. Once we left, you know, he was still drinking and carrying on for a while. And I had to literally have him not come to my games in high school. I had to, you know, and I was scared to tell him. He was drunk or something. Yes. And, you know, yelling and stuff.

And I had to. He's that guy. We're talking about. Right, right, right. And I had to tell him. The wonder you wanted to go down and tell that dude for real also. You had a little extra sauce on that. I'm sure.

It's not because of that. I'm saying. It was in. Yeah, but no, it wasn't that. But, yeah, I had, you know, that was the hardest thing for me to do. So you'd have to tell him. I don't want you to come. Yeah, you can't, unless you stop drinking, you can't come to my games anymore.

And I, you know. Would that anger him or upset? See, as I'm telling him, I don't know. I don't know. But as I'm telling him, I'm like scared, shaking, ready to cover up, ready to run, ready to do whatever I need to do to get away from him. so I won't get beat up. But he took it.

And now that was very surprising of them. And he didn't come? And he didn't come until he got himself together. Okay, so he got himself together. Yeah, he got himself together. But you know, they missed them. But you know, they relaps here and there. But he didn't come to the games anymore being an alcoholic.

I mean, drinking. How was he when he passed? My dad is still living. He's 82, 82 years old. 81. Oh, yeah, he's seen me in the NBA and Ben, the games. He's been sold for about, what, 35 years?

Oh, wow. Yeah, maybe 40 years. Yeah, I stopped keeping up with it long. But that's impressive. Yeah, it's very impressive. Yeah, it's an older man from a different era who changed. You yourself changed. Yeah, yeah.

Good for you. But, you know, we had a conversation when I was in Miami, actually, we had a conversation that came out. And he said, I didn't know you felt that way. I said, well, you know, we never had a conversation. conversation about it, but since we're going to have a conversation, this is how I really feel about it and what you did and how you did. And I let them know that, you know, I wasn't cool with it. I'm still not cool with it. You're my dad. I love you. But I'm, you know, it's still hard for me to, uh, uh, you know, not accept you, but, but, but forgive you. I can, I, you know, it's hard. It's still hard for me to forgive you. I can't, I, you know, it's hard. It's still hard for me to forgive you. I still love you and everything, but you know, what you did was, was tough. It was tough. And it, you know, it's still, you know, I still remember a lot of things.

I'm saying, like, I hear what you're talking about to. I'm sure you mean overall in general, too. Right. But I'm also sure you're talking about you seeing him put hands on your mom. Yeah, of course. Of course. And the aftermath of that. Of course.

Yep, of course. And, you know, and that was tough. And, you know, when you, and I asked them, I said, yo, I'm going to put certain things in this book. I need for you all to tell me yes or no. And once I got through it that segment, I gave it to them. Both of them said they couldn't read it. They got to the first.

Tell my mom and dad. Yeah, mom and dad. I said, well, y'all got to read it so you can let me know. What should I exclude? What should I keep? what what what and they never told me nothing so I just left it as is and you know in some things that um you have to say the right way and and put it on paper the right way and once I read it um you know Jacob Utley Uttie he did a great job at putting it in the way

that I was saying it and not how I was meaning it. Because you you can hear what I'm saying, but you know what I mean. You know, so he put it down exactly how I said it and he understood. I was like your voice.

My voice. Right. And I said, look, you know, you, you, this is kind of tough because I don't want both of them to feel ashamed about anything, which they still are. My mom's going to feel ashamed

that she should never let that happen. She left him early. And then my dad's going to feel ashamed that, you know, he did that tour. And, you know, and everybody's going to know that. So it, but, you know, I try to put it as mildly as I could. Well, this is the other thing, too, you know. It's a lesson in life to just be a nice person. Yeah.

Because you don't know who the fuck your kids going to turn out to be. Right, right. If he's going to publish a book, if they're going to have a podcast, there's a thing called the internet. What are you talking about? Oh, yeah, we get to tell all the shit you all did. You know what I mean? So now it's just like, man, cameras are everywhere. Microfronts are everywhere.

But, you know, he was there when my mom needed him to straighten us up. You know, my mom called. So he was there. So if you all were getting out of line, my mom was like, I'm calling that. He was like, yeah, whatever. She called him up the first. time he came by and got us real quick and we found out that, yeah, he, he's going to come. Santa's real.

Bad Santa's real. He's going to come. You know, you got to test your mom. Yeah, yeah, you test your mind. Yeah, right. He ain't coming by. Right. Whatever.

That dude came back. Knocked on that door. I was like, oh, Lord. Yeah, we get right. We got right. We got right. And then she's like, you want me to make that phone call? No, do not make that phone call.

No, we don't want to see that. No, no, no, no. That we cool. My bad, I'm sorry. Yeah. And every time you want to do something or talk crazy or something like that, be like, oh, yeah. Nah, no, no, no, no. Well, what made you want to write this book?

What, what? Well, you know, everybody, you know, I talk about a lot of stuff. Dad, basketball. ball growing up in Chicago gangs. What made me, what made Tim Hardaway to be Tim Hardaway, why was I this type of player? Why did I have that type of mindset? And everybody's like, yo, you should write a book. You should write a book.

And everybody kept saying it, kept saying it. You should write a book. And so Jacob called. He was like, no, he calls him. he calls Tim Donovan, Miami Heat guy. Miami Heat, a PR guy. Me and Tim Donovan, great, great Pete. One of the best in the business.

And Tim hit me and it went on and Jacob called me up and it just went from there. And I just said fine. And every week, every week, every week for about what, six months. We was just talking for about two, two and a half hours. But I mean, then when I started reading it, I was like, wow, this really about to happen. You know, I'm really about to tell everybody my story and everybody want to hear my story. And growing up in the city of Chicago was tough, man. It was tough.

You mentioned gangs. Gangs. Did you run with gangs? No, I did not run with gangs. I stayed away from gangs. I knew about gangs. I knew personnel on gangs. I've been to meetings and seen what happened in meetings.

What do you mean? Like a gang meeting, like a gang, like warriors. If anybody ever seen warriors, yeah, yeah. I mean, throwing up gang signs and wearing your hat this way, that way. And it's like a meeting? It's like a meeting at the headquarters. Are you trying to recruit? No, no.

These are already established numbers. I was just dead. I was just dead. I was just, no, I just knew some people. You were a gang members plus. I was just looking. You know, I was just looking. I was like, this was going on.

Wow, this was happening. Wow. You got to know the literature. You got to know this. You know, I mean, because if you want to be coming the gang, that's what you got to do anyway. You got to go there and look at everything. And then you'd be like, no, I'm not going to go. But I mean, but they knew I wasn't going to be in the game.

So I just went just to see what's happening. I was like, oh, yeah, this is, this is very different. This is very different. And, you know, the arrow rookers, the disciples, the vice lords, you know, the traveling vice lords, this person, it's crazy. It's crazy. And the way we grew up, you had to know where you was at, what territory you was at, how to weigh your head.

I stopped wearing hats. You had to know, what do you mean by how, like the color or the way? You can't tilt it or backwards. And you had to wear straight because if it was one way either or that meant something else. That meant something else. Backwards probably means something else. No, backwards. And if it was backwards, it is one way or the other way that means something else.

So that's why I stopped wearing hats. Yeah. I would too. God forbid you sweat and take it all, but it's just crooked a little bit. Cockney out over here, you're getting shot. That's wild. No, you wasn't getting shot. You was getting beat up.

Back then, nobody was getting shot. You was getting beat up. And, but yeah, it was tough, man. You know, drugs, alcohol, it was tough. It was tough. You know, you playing basketball and the ball go out of bounds, somebody running the ball. You know, let me hit that. Somebody hit a joint, you know.

You know, somebody could take a squig of a beer or something like that and playing basketball. I mean, I mean, hey, that's the way it was. But nobody, you know, only gangs was, you know, beating up people. They weren't killing nobody. And then, you know, and just drugs. But yeah, you knew how to conduct yourself and everything. But yeah, it was tough. You, I didn't want to be either or because I knew I couldn't survive in that.

That wasn't my survival. Listen, I like, I'm from Baltimore originally. I like to, listen, I like the thing I'm tough. I wouldn't last two days in prison. The first day I'd be crying the whole fucking time. They kill me or whatever on the second. I am not built for that shit. None of that.

But it's not only prison, though. It's the way you got to go at for gang, the meetings and all that type of stuff. It's like the gangs are your family. So you going home, it's 15 people coming with you to the house. I see. Your mom, so-and-so here, it's 15 people in your crib and your mom's crib. Yeah, where the water is at? Where this is not cooking, you know, stuff like that.

They run the house. That's what they're doing. Then they leave out, I'm mom, I'll be back. You might have four or five people come back with you. They sleep there.

That gang is a family. That's what it's about. And your mom, either she's going to kick them out and she's going to let you do it. If she lets you do it the first time, it's going to happen. They run the whole house.

They run and everything. So yeah, so yeah, I knew my parents, my mom wasn't going for that. My dad wasn't going for that. So, yeah, I chose lead a gang's lonely.

And I knew. knew out drugs wasn't my thing. So you stay out of it. When do you realize you have something with basketball? Like something real, something real. Something real? Where you can go to the league, not I'm the best all-star and all that. I just wanted to go to college.

And the best thing for me was when I went to Texas L. Pazole. Really, you had no intention originally of dreams of NBA. You just wanted to get to college first? Well, I wasn't really thinking about it. Mm-hmm. I hear you. I was just thinking about basketball and getting to college and getting out of

Chicago and just doing something. And as I come back home for Summer League pro-am, you know, I know I was good. Then I became really, really, really good. Then I became really, really, really good. And then... But when are you seeing that? I'm seeing that every year. So you're able to tell yourself like, fuck yeah, we're getting better.

Yeah. All right. We're doing better this year. We're getting better. We're better at that now. Stronger at this now. Right, every year, every year. And, you know, I get to tell a story.

Guy was like, yeah, you know, MJ is coming tonight. I was like, okay, fuck MJ, you know. I don't know who MJ is. I'm like, shit, we got, we're about to win this thing, you know, and the summary pro am. He was like, no, it's like, man, fuck. He said, he said, Michael Jordan. I said, okay, Michael Jordan, y'all going to lose tonight.

So I'm in a layup line and this and that guy walks up. to me and he said, hey, Tim, I got a bet. I said, what's the bet? He said, well, you got to score within four points of Michael Jordan. I said, okay, cool. I say how much you get. And he said, honey. So let me, I want to understand this bet within four.

So Jordan puts up 30, you got to have at least 26. Easy. Okay. I said, that's easily done. I'm going to do that. If he had, he has 62. Now he has 64, I had 60. Mm-hmm.

So, yeah. So. I've never heard this within four. This is a new bet for me. Yeah, oh, they did. It was crazy bet. I said, okay, cool. And I said, what, um, how much is it?

He said about $100,000. I said, you go, so you're going to get $100,000. I said, what I'm going to get? He said, what you want? I said, I want that new Louis Vuitton jacket you got. He was like, I said, you got a minute and a half to tell me. Once they, no bet. He'd come back 20 seconds left bet.

I said, oh, and I need $10,000. My mom needs to pay bills. It wasn't that much, but, you know, we need. need some more. Yeah. You're doing the work. Right, right. You know.

He's just the contract guy. Right. Right. So he was like, all right, cool, cool, cool. So great game. Me, Nick Anderson, Kendall Gill, and Frederick Hughes, my buddy Donald, Bruce on the team, Byron Irvin. We're playing against Mike, Terry Cummings, Craig Hodges, and who else was it?

About three or four other college players, too. And, I mean, we hooping. We hooping. Jim is packed We're hooping Michael Jordan supposed to file it out twice But you know

That's Michael George So you Only thing they said was you You take your two free throws And then you get the You retain the ball He's like alright cool So he can stay

Because it's for the crowd It's for the fans There's no fee to get in Everything is free Oh okay So it's free So it's jam packed We already over capacity

I bet everybody's there The fire marshal and then they was in there. And then they said they saw Michael was playing. They stopped. They was like, look, we're going to get in trouble. So, yeah. So we lose the game and double overtime. And Mike comes up and says, good game.

That was a really good game. He looked at me and he said, you got a chance. And I was going until my junior year. He said, yeah, you got a chance. I was like, MJ said I got a chance. I was like that, you know how that window was up, that door opened up just the inch? I kicked that motherfucking end. I said, if I got a chance, I'm in.

I'm in. And it wasn't just anybody that fucking said you had a chance. No, no, it was Michael George. This is just an inspiration. Right, right. This is the guy. It's the guy. Yeah.

The guy on the fucking shoe is telling you. He didn't say you was going to. Make it. He said, you got a chance. And that just means if you work at it and you do what you need to do, yes. You will be here. Right. I was like, good, good. So, you know, and I listened to folks, too. As I growing up, I say, you know, listening is a skill. It's not an art. It's a skill. People need to, young people need to listen to what people is saying and stop shooting off at the mouth, you know, right. Like when you get through talking, they write back at you, right back at you. Like they mean or they mad. about something. They don't want you to tell them anything. I listen to what people told me. And it helped me out in my life and the course of my life. And I tell people, it takes a village to raise a kid. It takes a village to raise a kid, but the kid has to listen. And if the kid don't listen, he's not going to make it. We had a bunch of guys that was better than me, Isaiah, Mark Gwyer, Terry Cummings, Nick Anderson, Kendall Gill, Dare Gere,

We had a bunch of people that was way talented than us, but they didn't listen. That's why they didn't make it. If they would ever listen and understood what people was telling them, they would have made it just like we made it. But we listened. And that's the difference between us and them. But I'm not saying that we was better than them. At basketball, they was better than us. You're coachable and you listened and you learned.

We listened. Yeah. So let me ask you this before we wrap it up here. Give me a welcome to the league moment. John gave us one. He put up 12 on the 90s bulls, but he said he went up and pip and blocked one into the fucking stands and said, welcome to the league.

Okay. What's the first time you got one? I'm going to give you one. All right. So we had Texas El Paso and my first rookie game, preseason game. So playing Utah Jazz. go out and Utah out there.

Are you a Golden State at the time? Golden State Warriors. And, you know, we're getting in the huddle. All right, yo, let's go have a good game. Bub, blah, blah, blah. It's okay, Tim, lead us out. So I'm in, I'm at home. I'm like, ah, cool, I get to lead the team out.

I run out there. And I see Utah Jazz looking at me like, they laugh and they don't know that they're looking at me, they're looking at me like he don't know that they're still up in the tunnel. And so, so the announcement. and Tim Hardaway and I looked around and I was like

oh they got me but I'm in El Paso so I raise up my hands I was like yeah I'm back home and they gave me a stand okay so it worked for you they were trying to clout you

but you flipped it back on they clowned me but I flipped it back on but it was good game we beat Utah that night and it was good game and but I'm going to tell you this first game against Kevin Johnson. Yeah, he fucked me out.

How? In each and every way. Offensively, defensively. He was in my hand. He crossed me over. He did everything. Everything. Jump shot in my face.

Everything. Everything. I couldn't do nothing right. He fucked me up. Yeah, I went back. I could not get no sleep that night. I'm like, damn, this dude fuck me up. I'm going to get him back.

I'm going to get him back. The next time we played him, oh, yeah, I got some guy back. You did? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But, no, he, I mean, I was, I had me turn around on defense and crossing me over, shooting in my face. I'm coming down, stripping, like, I'm about to shoot stripping the ball.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, but, I mean, that was probably. probably my, and that was like the first game, first to second game of the season. So that was like, and they played, the Warriors played them in the playoffs the year before. So they was like, so yeah, it was heated. So yeah, yeah, man. And, yeah.

Let me ask you the other way, because obviously you're a Hall fame player, killer crossover, all that. When is there a game or a moment where you were like, yeah, I got this, I'm going to be around. I'm going to, I'm going to be one of the best. You know what? You never, I don't, I don't think I would say. I don't mean in a bragging way or egotistical. But where you were like, this is going to be my job, I can do this. I can do it well.

How about that? My, my rookie year, I forget who we was playing and had a good game. It had a really good game against a really good team. I forget who it was. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be all right. I mean, I had like, I didn't have like 30 points. I had like 20 points, 15 assists, something like that, and about five, six steals.

And I was like, okay, yeah, I think it was against Seattle before Gary Payton got there. But I was like, yeah, I'm going to be okay. I'm, you know, this is, yeah, I'm going to be all right. And then went from there. The next year, you know, I was All-Star. Hell yeah. I forgot to ask.

Did you, it went double overtime? Did you get within four, Jordan? Yeah. You got the Louis Jack and everything. He got his money? Yeah, yeah, he got his money. No, Mike had 64. I had 60.

Damn! Yeah. That's a shitload of points. No, yeah, we was hooping. You really were going for. Yeah, no, no, I was going for the win. I know. I forget all the other stuff.

It just happened to be that way. I could, I could, now, now, now if I was over, like if I scored, say if I scored 40, he scored 36. then I still would have won. Oh, so you could have been four either way. Right. Outscoring them too. Right.

Or if I would outscored them more, you know, I could have still would have been good. But yeah, but no, it just happened to go that way. But yeah, man, it was a great game. It was a great game. Probably won the best pro-ams game in the city of Chicago that it was. That's awesome, man. Yeah. Listen, thank you for doing this.

I can't thank you enough for coming on. On my last question, advice you would give 16-year-old Tim Hardaway. Man, you know, the same advice people gave me, listen, listen, listen and understand. You know, there needs to be a lot more that going on right now. That's the truth. It needs to be a lot more going on right now. If you listen and understand and be quiet, everything to be, you know, all right. It's a lot of people that don't listen and don't be quiet, you know, just listen.

And the words are coming out. Shut the fuck up. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. Shut the fuck up and listen. A lot more that needs to be going on.

I mean, a lot more. And I think it would be a lot better. I agree. Because I did that and that's why Tim is in the NBA. If I didn't do that, I would have taught my family up and Tim wouldn't have been in the NBA. One more time. promote the book. Killer crossover from the street to Chicago to basketball royalty.

Go get it. It's everywhere. It's out now. It's everywhere. Go to Amazon. Everybody getting off Amazon right now. It'll tell you a lot about me. I grew up, where I grew up, you know, my mentality on the basketball court.

I, you know, as a father and just raising kids and being a husband. husband. So this is a must get. I must get, I must read. Thank you, brother. Go get it. Holidays are coming. Get on Amazon. Get the book right now. Go watch my special streaming on YouTube. And as always, Ryan Sickler and all your social media will talk to you all next week.