TRIGGERnometry - NBA Champion: Players Hide Their True Feelings About Social Justice - Andrew Bogut

Episode Date: September 10, 2023

Andrew Bogut is an Australian former professional basketball player. Born into a family of immigrants who had fled Croatia to escape socialism, he worked his way up to the National Basketball Association (NBA). The 7-foot center was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the first overall pick in the 2005 NBA draft. He earned All-NBA Third Team honors with the Bucks in 2010. He was traded to the Golden State Warriors in 2012, and was named NBA All-Defensive Second Team in 2015, when he won an NBA championship with the Warriors. SPONSORED BY: Shopify - Go to https://www.shopify.co.uk/trigger/ to sign up for a £1/month trial period and take your business to the next level today! Become a Premium Member to receive exclusive benefits https://triggernometry.supercast.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube:  @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was sort of thinking, why has Andrew been so outspoken on a few recent issues? And then right at the beginning of the interview went, oh, son of Croatian parents who left communist Yugoslavia. Yeah, okay, I see that now. I know what they say in the locker room is a 180 to what they're saying publicly. Especially when it comes to public mantra and stuff that the mainstream is pushing. You can't disagree with that. I got put through a critical race theory seminar while I was. an NBA player.

Wow. Shit. Really? I was that guy asking questions during it, which was not very well received. I lose out on marketing business. I lose out on making a bit more cash on marketing and promos and speaking gigs. People like, we just don't touch it just in case someone protests us or gets mad at us or whatever.

So I'm going to continue to speak out on stuff that's just utterly ridiculous. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. And this is a show for you, if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest today is an NBA champion all the way over from Australia. Andrew Boga, welcome to Trigonometry. Thanks for having me. Actually, I have a listener.

I'll listen to one of a few of your shows. I appreciate you having me on. Well, brother, right back at you, I was a huge fan of the Golden State Warriors when you were winning the championship there and playing with some of the greatest players in the world. And before we get into, we want to talk to you about both politics and culture and the world. sport as well. We wanted to touch on the sport side. So for people who are not basketball fans, briefly tell everybody who are you, how are you where you are, what has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us. Yeah. I'm born and raised in Australia, Croatian immigrant family that migrated, left communist Yugoslavia many years ago. So a similar

story yourself. And went over to the US and the collegiate system. as a young fellow. I've got a scholarship to the University of Utah. We're there for a few years. Got drafted as the first number one draft pick, overall, overall pick from Australia ever. So that was a really cool thing for our country and we weren't really a basketball nation to see where we are now. And then played in the NBA for 14 years, played in Australia for two years towards the end of my career and play for the national team. And that's kind of what I'm primarily known for was sport and basketball.

Yeah, absolutely. And you sort of, you touched on being the first number one draft pick. Sorry, I haven't had enough coffee this morning. You touched on, you kind of glossed over the fact that you were the number one pick. That is a huge achievement. I mean, the players who have been the number one draft, even Michael Jordan was in the first picked first. That's the kind of level of honor that it was. And you said the first one from Australia. But one thing that occurs to me, Andrew, is an number, is an number, you know, Australian, you being in Australian, is Australia massively outperforms, punches above its weight in so many sports compared to the size of population. So if you think the NBA, for example, there's so many Aussie players there compared to Britain, which has a much bigger population, you guys are crushing it. Why do you think that is? Yeah, I mean, we do to rule our 25 million odd people. I think we have nine or ten NBA NBA players from Australia right now, which is just, you know, her capital is amazing. But we, thinking it was an 80s, 70s, 60s, 70s, you know, we didn't do it too well at the Olympics. And the government had implemented this, a kind of a precinct,

which was called the AIS, Australian Institute of Sport. And they threw a lot of tax money at, hey, we're going to be there. Olympics, we don't want to come back empty-handed. And they invested in sport. They put a world-class. living in Canberra, which is the nation's capital where politicians live. And, you know, I ended up up going there for a year and a half. It was sensational. It was a 16, 70 year old. I went there, taught you everything about food, diet, sleep, weight, root, all that kind of stuff that you need to do outside of your primary training. And they invested a lot of that. So there was swimmers, there was water polo, there was volleyball, and then to no surprise, we started doing well at Olympics.

Now we're on the other side of that. Now we're on the other side of, you know, that they're starting to dry up a lot of that funding now. just because it's, you know, the topical for politicians to do that, all these gritty sports stars, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And at times I've seen a bit of a dwindling performance. So it'll be interesting to see what happens in this next couple of years. We've got the Olympics, of course, in 2013, in Brisbane.

So hopefully we've got a good performance. That would be the biggest change for the Australian sporting landscape as to why I think we punch above our weight. It's a really interesting point that you've made in about the investment. It's so important, the investment in sport, and in young people. Andrew, you were very young when you got traded into the NBA. You started your career in the NBA. You didn't even finish college at that point. What was that like as a young lad?

Yeah, I went to the University of Utah first. Did North Seoul in the USA, landed on the plane and just knew who my coach was because he had the logo on his jacket. And then when I got drafted at the NBA, two years later, I wasn't able to have legal drinking age in the US. So I was on a February, $6 million contract at the time, US, and I couldn't go to the bar and have a drink. So, my teammates snuck me in to a few places before I turn, and then halfway through the season, I finally turned to where you want.

So look, it was eye-opening. I mean, my journey, I was a real late developer. I was not that kid that was picked first. I was not that kid that was the man all throughout junior basketball, like, you know, 11, 12, 30, 40, and I had a kind of a tough journey. A lot of people said I meant to make it, all that kind of stuff, which fueled me, which was great. look back at it. I wouldn't change it for the world. And then within like a three-year period,

I went from nobody to the number one peak, literally. I'm not exaggerating. I went, I went, you know, about six months before college. I put my name on the world map kind of, but the world junior championships and then two years in college, and then I was drafted. So it just happened so quickly that, to be honest with you, I didn't know what to expect because I was, I was just sort of the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, but once you get to the NBA, all the distractions of being a pro off the quarter, probably the hardest adjustments, finances, money, agents, women at times, all that kind of stuff that you got a kind of, you know, business dealings, shady people, you know, fraud attempts, theft attempts, all that kind of stuff. There's a lot that goes on that people don't

understand and realize, and you kind of have to have your head on a swivel. I grew up in like a lower, so much, economic area for the most part, and that was huge for me kind of navigating. I knew where not to go. I knew which people to avoid. I'm on the. public bus. That guy looks like he's high on something. I'm going to go see it over here. So I felt like that helped me on a later journey once I've got finances to try and make sure that, you know, my family could have wealth for at least the rest of the time while

I'm alive and hopefully their kids are their grandchildren. Andrew. And look, comparing it. So I really enjoy basketball. Constantin and I and the rest of the guys went to a Miami heat playoff game. It was so much fun. We loved it. But I'm my main sport is football soccer.

And a lot of the time you see these young lads and they come from the same kind of, you know, area as you, they sign their big money contract in the Premier League and they go absolutely nuts. And you can't blame them. So how did you not go insane or did you go insane and you had a very good agent to keep it under wraps? Because I listened and I read statistics and I knew that, you know, over 80% of professional athletes go broke. within five years of retirement. I knew that from the start. I was like, I'm not going to be that guy.

I worked too hard to get to this point. And I knew how harder it was. Like our family was between middle class and lower class. My father had his own business. So it depended however the economy was going, was how we went. He had his own business. And there were ties where I remember, you know, we were eating the same meal in a big pot for five straight days, you know,

like reheating it, reheating it, reheating it, reheating. And then there were tires where we were eating out and having pizza. like we're good and bad. I experienced both ends of it and I just knew how hard my family worked or parents worked to pull through them the table. I was like, I don't want to lose that and squander that. So I always made sure that I was thinking about, you know, I invested in the right thing, bettering myself financially. You know, I took the class balls in the NBA, personal wealth management class at a university online. So just stuff like that trying to better myself and just being in those meetings. You know, I remember going to my first finance meeting with my financial

advisor my rookie year and I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I was using abbreviations, he's using this and yield and this. I have no idea what you're talking about. I just said, all I know is that money's not there. There's a playload of friends coming over from Australia. They're going to find where it is. That's kind of what I said. What I said to him and it bothered me. I was like, man, I don't, I can't really participate in these meetings with these smart people. So I've bettered myself and I've done pretty well. Like I'm doing okay and I've retired and I can, I can not have to work another day in my life and I'll be fine. Well, that's amazing, man. And one of the things you mentioned earlier was the fact that there were a lot of people doubting you and saying you're not going to make it. Why was that? Look, there was a mix of things. I was, you know, a non-angelo name. By that, I mean, both it's not a very Australian name. It's a smitherto or a darn. So I didn't, my family didn't fit in with the in-crow and junior sport. All that kind of stuff. My father had a lot of issues growing up. English was least first language and no word of it when he came over from Cross.

Croatia at 16. So our family had a chip on our shoulder as it is and more passionate people. The bulk is generally a very passionate people. You can say that again. Yeah. In Australian culture sometimes, but that was a part of it. And I just, I was always kind of must have been my drama. I kind of didn't really, I kind of was stuck on loving sport and playing sport. And I was passionate, man.

So, Paul, 13 year old, if we're team mates and you're not playing the right way. as a 30 year old, I was going to go out of you, as my teammate. Like, hey, pass the ball, dude. Like, your teammate was open, pass the ball. And other parents would see that and do that. I like kids who had an attitude problem. I look at him, look how badly behaved he is. And it was far point of, I want to play the game the right way.

It really means me off. You're not playing the game the right way. Oh, well, you know, don't be rude about it. No, no, I play the right way. So I got labeled as a kid with attitude problem. You know, and I look back at that time and I'm like, I coach kids now today. And I like kids that have an attitude problem.

I like kids that have a bit of oomph because I'm like, you know, every two or three weeks, you might need to pick them up and put them back on the trap because they fly off the radar once every now and then. I'll take that every day of the week because I know I don't have to motivate that kid every day every day every day have to come like, come on, Jimmy, let's go. Let's work hard, man. Come on, run a bit faster. Whereas a kid that's thing that actually, you know, once every now and then they blew up

and I always look back and like, it's a coach's job to figure that out, to figure out a psychology of different players and no one really figured that out of me or even attempted to which was really disappointing but anyway I progressed on and used it as fuel and like I said I wouldn't change the world I if I didn't have that journey of of not fitting in and maxing all the best teams of the young fella I wouldn't be told to you today oh yeah absolutely and that story actually I think is the story of many professional sports players that ended up making it they they had that drive and passion from a young age not always recognized do you think

that attitude is partly what made you as successful as you eventually became. Yeah, there's no doubt. I'm no doubt about it. I just put a chip on my shoulder and I literally felt like the whole at edge of me against the world. You hear that from everyone, but I felt like that. I really felt like the world was against me and I probably used it even more. I'm not going to be a victim, but I'm going to mentally, I'm going to say I am a victim, so I can fight even harder. you know, really every day was about that attitude with my shoulder every day, like ready to go, ready to fight,

ready to amp, really amped up, even just basic training sessions, I'm ready to go. And I think that's kind of the attitude you have to have. I think, you know, all the kids that were household names at 11, 12, 13, they all fizzle out because they don't have to continue to work as hard. You can kind of just coast through and still be the best. You know, your early developers and childhood are usually those kids that just don't make it while they ever rarely make professional.

It's usually kids that are, you know, beat it up by all those kids and then eventually they put more and more effort and timing and then all the side of that curve, you just say, and then it just goes like that, right? And then you're just absolutely dominating the talented kids and that was kind of my story. And Andrew, what percentage of your success is down to natural talent,

your physique, and how much of it is down to mindset? And what percentage do you think is luck as well? Look, I think I'm obviously very lucky to have the size being seven foot tall and long athletic, but I will say this, there's a lot of seven footers out there that can't even walk in a straight line, right? So I still had to work. I still had to put a lot of work in. I was growing at a rapid rate, and now every time I grew as a young fellow, I lost coordination.

You know, all of a sudden, I'm like, why am I tripping over my own feet? Or why is this not fuel right? Because I just grew three inches in a month or two inches in a month, right? So that was messing me up throughout adolescence and puberty. I was a super late developer. So I think a lot of it was work. People were saying, oh, we're you seven foot. But I can point you to a lot of seven footers that don't play basketball,

6-11 guys all around the world. All the college teammates that just didn't make it to the pros. So I put a lot of time in, a lot of effort. And I just love the game. I really, I didn't play basketball because I was tall. I played basketball first and almost because I loved it. I was tall as a young fellow 9, 10, 11, 12, stop growing. Everyone passed me.

I'm like, well, shit, this isn't good for a basketball future. It's past me. Then I had a massive spurt, like 14 to 16. I grew six and a half, seven inches. But I just love the game. I'd watch it on TV whenever it was on. I'd study it. I'd print the stat sheets back in the day off NBA.com

and just take them home from school. I'd use all the school printers. And I just love the game. I've been an English class drawing basketballs on my paper, even in high school. That's all I just loved it. I just hated Mondays because I knew Friday was far away. And what's got Wednesday, Thursday, Friday?

I've got a basketball game tonight and then I'm playing all week and I was in heaven. So I really truly love the game. And what is the difference, Andrew, between a good player in the NBA? Because let's be honest, to get to the NBA,

I mean, you're an anomaly. Most people never get to that elite level of sport, even the most talented, as we've just acknowledged, for whatever reason. But you get players who are good players at that elite level, but then there's that level above, the Steph,

Curries, you know, the Kyrie Irving's, Michael Jordans, Shaquille O'Neals, all of these people. What separates him? Is it a physical thing or is there something else on top of that? I mean, Steph's a mix of, Steph just, Steph Curry just has it. Like, he's one of those guys that, you know, I can, let's try to throw this pen in that cup over there

and he'll just two or three shots and then got it. He's one of those guys. And it gets, even just random, dumb stuff that he'd have done before. but he also has the work ethic match with that, right? So, ever rarely these days you see natural talent

be that dominant. It's not going to be, you're going to have it, but you also need to mix it in. And you see, your Bron's a little bit different just because he's a physical specimen, like he's athletically and physically

and strongly and strong with everyone and partisan everyone. Steph's just, he's one, he's a game changer. He's a generational player that's actually a changed game. Yeah, he's death lies.

He's physique, what he does. And he's just, a great guy as well you know really good the warrior's just lucked out i mean they got step step and clay thompson are just both nonchalon superstars like you they're just they still eat with their teammates which is rare for superstars these days they slang out on their teammates you know and to have that is unbelievable but those guys are just you know and karee's the same kairi's just got the ball on a string and just things that he can do he's a magician so it's fun watching those

guys up close and try to scheme and stop him and how do you stop him and i'm usually the last line of once they've got through half a team on the last guy standing so that I try to block their show and make it make a tough shot. But what you learn in that business is you can play perfect defense. Sometimes there's just better offense. That's right. That's right. And Andrew, I want to ask you a couple more sporting questions

before we move on to sort of politics and culture. But you mentioned there that often the superstars now would be sort of separate from the rest of the teammates and stuff like. I actually didn't know that, but it's sort of not that it makes sense. I mean, it sort of feels weird, but for people who don't know, that you might have somebody who's making $30 million a year on a team playing with someone who's making less than a million dollars a year, let's say.

And how does that work now? How does that feel? What's it like? How do you manage a team of people with that level of disparity in terms of status and wealth and so on? Yeah, and disparity continues to grow. It's probably your max guys are down and making 50 to 60 year. Oh, wow.

then rookie deal is under a mill, right? So for some guys, anyone where you drafted, so disparity is growing, but that's the challenge. The NBA and professional sports, I mean, back in the 70s and 80s and 90s, a head coach's main priority was schemes, what offense are you running, what defense are you running, can you draw plays up quickly late game?

That was probably 80% of it, I would say 20% was people management, man management. I think it's split now. I think there's not a lot of schemes that are secrets these days. The Copycat League, whoever wins the championship teams, will try to read to all like they did, and then copy what they're doing. So you're not really running anything that's super innovative. Like, wow, look at that play.

I've never seen that before. We're past that. So it's flicked now where I've seen coaches that are Hall of Fame, X's and O's coaches, X's and O's meaning growing up plays, style of offense, a style of defense, but they could not communicate with their players, or they were hard-headed, by the way they went about,

things that are lost. Whereas you can get away with being average at that stuff, but if you've got a real good rapport with your players, if you can kind of relate to them, if you're not too disciplined,

but you've got to have a good balance of all that. You know, you take player feedback as well. You're engaging. You'll have a job forever. So it's kind of flipped out. I think it's probably gone too much to the player side of things. I think it's too player protective now.

Players, no, I'm running 16 million as a player, let's say. I'm a max guy. I'm earning 16 million. million and we just signed a new coach but I don't like him when he's earning five million. Who do you think they're going to get rid of first? Like it's common sense, right? They're going to move the cheaper commodity to keep the big star happy and that's what we see a lot in the NBA. Andrew, when I look at football and I look at other professional sports, now we're about the same age.

When we grew up in the 90s, if you look at, you know, soccer and if you look at basketball, you had the talented Maverick, the guy who was a little bit out there at times, but he was brilliant. He didn't play by the rules, but he was so talented that it didn't really matter. And he was kind of magnetic. I really enjoy Alan Iverson, for example. Alan, to me, was one of those guys. Do you think professional sport has kind of got rid of that type of guy because it's now so professional and there's no room for it, or is there still room for that type of person?

Oh, the media love those guys because they're not as, they're not as common as they once were. As soon as you get someone that's not going to get into their box and they're not PR prepped about what they need to say on things, I love those guys because I'm like, at least that's them. You know, you know it's them, right? So, but yeah, they are, they are much rarer because marketing, money's at stake, sponsor-shoots are at stake, you know, good press, makes you more money long term, you know, say the right thing, do the right thing. There's a lot of players that just say and do the complete opposite of what their ideals and morals are. And I know for a fact because I've been around many of them.

And that's our future reality. But I agree with you. I love those hard on your sleeve. Look, everyone can make a mistake. You make the same mistake over and over. It's hard to forgive you, but everyone makes a mistake and we forgive or we move on, right? So that's your ability depending on what you've done, obviously. But yeah, sports started to become very, watered down and robotic. We always laugh here in the Australian rules football league whenever they interview.

They do an interview after a game. How do you think things went to that? Yeah, you know, the boys did it. The boys did well. We did it for the boys. It was all about a team. Everyone says the same thing. You just like,

might as well just play the same sound clip after every game. You know, whereas there's a few rare ones left that will actually give some personality and some cheek and some humor. But then the media said, what they said was sexist or what they said was this or what they said was that, or they shouldn't have said that, or that's inappropriate.

And then athletes kind of don't want to do it. So you can't blame them on the other hand, right, because they get reprimanded by their clubs and the media for having any ounce of personality. Andrew, final basketball question, and this is very much about your own game. You were what I would say, an old school center. You play close to the basket, get the rebounds, get the tap-ins, you know, all of that putbacks, et cetera. But the game has changed now.

You talk about the way Steph changed the game by taking the three-point shot, being able to shoot from further away, being able to shoot threes off the dribble, stuff that people didn't really use to do. But the center game has changed now too, where you've got these young kids coming through who are taller than you,

and they can shoot the three, they can shoot off the dribble, they can, you know, it's incredible. Are you excited by that? Or you're one of those guys that's like, no, they're ruining the beautiful game of, you know, back to the basket from six foot away.

Yeah, look, I think as an individual, you want to have as much of a skill set in different facets of the game as you can because you become a more water commodity. If you're one-dimensional, you're easier to guard and you're just like a crack rotations a minute-wise as much. I still think there's a place for big burly centers at rebound and block shots.

We saw that in the playoffs. I mean, Yokic, he has the three ball, but he's not a three-hungry big man. Like, he's not going to just sit out of the three-inched-tree all game. That's the danger when you become a big you should play a living in the pain but it's nice to go out every now and then but we're seeing the opposite now. A lot of these

tall guys with nice shooting, touching not just living on the three point line. I find the game a little bit boring in the NBA just because everyone runs the same stuff and has the same scheme. It's basically a game of who could hoist up the most threes and whoever has a better three point shooting percentage wins.

Really that's what the analytics say the more threes you hoist up you got a better chance of winning a game long term or game by games or course of the season. I find that boring. I really liked you know, Phil Jackson's Triangle versus the Knicks bruising physical, failure, hard, all the pistons versus the lake because I like different start. I also boosted and a week. This team likes to run up and down. This team likes to hold on grab. We don't really see that as much anymore in the NBA game. International game we do. I think our national league here in the NBA, which is Fever,

the Fiber League, the Euro League, you still see that. I think that's what makes the battles fun because you've got to coach with one wacky wild system and another one and you're like, okay, David versus Goliath, who's going to win? Whereas the NBA, it's kind of pretty predictable for the most part.

And it's also, just from a player perspective, I imagine it's much more enjoyable playing in a team where the ball moves as opposed to just get it to a guy who can shoot the three very well. But anyway, moving on. I was sort of thinking, why has Andrew been so outspoken on a few recent issues? And then right at the beginning of the interview went, oh, son of Croatian parents who left communist Yugoslavia.

Yeah, okay, I see that now. Is that basically what it's about? You just see a lot of the stuff that we talk about on the show being from that background. Then you're just like, no, this is too far now. Yeah, I think it's exactly that. I listen. I listen to my grandparents who were. my grandmother passed away a few years ago now and grandfather a few years before that and they

migrated from that and talked to them a lot at times about what they experienced they didn't even tell me 95% of what they experienced because they thought of traumatized you know and um they had they had some stuff they had to deal with that you know neighbors taken by they called them the udba utba police which was the communist police um for as much as just singing a Croatian song for as much as just you know engaging in Croatian nationalism because you were allowed to say you were probation back then. So I heard and experienced that pain from them throughout their child. They were constantly trying to move and fire employment. They went to Germany. They went here. They went there and

ended up settling in Australia and it was a godsend. It's a beautiful place to live and it gave our family a new life. But that is why we're our family in general and Croatians in general are a stubborn fighting type people. But then they'll have a drink with you after you're both battered and bruised with that kind of people, right? You know, you throw some punches and then you'll have some beers. That's kind of the mentality that I kind of have.

And yeah, I listen to, you know, what my grandmother spoke about. And then she was alive during most of this COVID stuff and which we'll get into shortly, I'm sure. And she was, you know, she was having PTSD with some of this stuff. And she's like, I saw this. So this is what I left. this kind of stuff. You know, she was in a nursing her over the time.

You had to visit her through a bloody glass window. You couldn't, it was like caught at the love window. You couldn't go in the nursing home to touch a few your loved ones. Let's go through a bloody windowed it. So, yeah, talking to her about it, she had some real, real unique experiences linking the COVID era and the era of her childhood. Tell us more about that, Andrew, because I think most people in Western countries won't have any idea what you're really talking about. When you say she was having PTSD and saying she'd

seen it before, what did she mean? Well, to the extent of neighbors telling on neighbors, neighbors telling, you know, in Australia, we had neighbors telling on neighbors that they put it in, in Victoria at least, they put it in, you do one hour of exercise a day outside your house, right? And I had a friend in Victoria, his neighbor came out and was like, you've already done your one hour exercise today. You can't go out again. He's like, call the police. I don't care. I'm going to do another, because he had a dog, walk the dog. dog and then you want to take his bed in the stroller. But that kind of stuff. Coming to visit your grandmother through a love window, you know, not being able to eat together in the nursing

with everyone you've eaten with for the last, you know, however long you've been there. Can't eat together anymore. Got to eat by yourself in solitary confinement. Hang on. I remember this. You know, you can't go out at certain times. Can't go out there. Oh, you can go out just to get food, rations. You can go get your rations, make sure you go back home. So you link all that and people think you're crazy. I mean, you know, I was getting called, conspiracy theories, the like kind of stuff. You're an idiot. You're just like, I'm speaking to someone who would live in that era that's

saying it, not me. I'm relaying the message, but people didn't want to hear that at the time. But there's a lot of links you can just go on and on and on and on curfews and this and that. And government's always right. The government's got your best interest in, well, we care for your health. We have your

best interest in mind. We would never do you wrong, you know, and she heard that whole spiel in, albeit you know, a different language and probably strategically told her a different way, but it all ends up sounding the same when you've been short. Look, Andrew, everybody here at Trigonometry is a massive fan of your glorious leader, Dan Andrews. Good guy and very moderate policy.

Right, before everyone gets triggered, he's being sarcastic. Right. Well, I looked at what was happening in Australia, particularly in Victoria. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. why did you go so demented? I have no idea. I mean, look, there's numerous different theories. One is we've had a real conflict in Australia

where our government's horrid issues for the people to be, you know, for the people to always be kind of wary, like, oh, trust the government, but not all the way. Here people are like, yeah, the government's always where they're this interest in mine, you know, and there was no reason not to think that. And we're a very kind of by the book nation, like, you know, the example I'd give you is you could be in the middle of a desert and not see anyone in sight. And if there's a pedestrian crossing, most people here will push the button and wait for the light to go green. Because the sign on the side of the road said, you got to push and wait for it to go green. That's, we have arrows and things everywhere. Don't park here. You can't stand there. You can't do this. And people have been conditioned to that, you know. And another example I give is, you know, is, you know, our news has just bombarded us with this without us even knowing it.

And we grew up, you know, my father worked, you know, seven to five, five, thirty-six. And I remember my father would come home from work just before six, dinner would be on the table. We watched us six o'clock news in the background while we ate as a family generally. And we ingest whatever was to run at us, right? And then you think now, when you look back, you're like, man, I could have taught us anything. because it taught us the skies turning green and you said it's true and the example like gibbies we had you know we had water restrictions uh in victoria when i was a young fella um we had a bit of a drought the government put all these mandates on you can't wash your car in your driveway you can only water

your garden certain times and blah blah blah blah blah blah and i remember my mom the neighbor was watering their garden outside of in a lot of time zone and my mom's like what's the neighbor doing you should have been watering your garden and I'm going to call and I'm just like listen to yourself like no like why what does it matter who cares they want to water their garden a little water their garden but that's I don't blame my mother for that it was ingrained it was ingrained from the TV don't job your neighbor anything if they're doing something that's illegal by the gutton you know car water your garden outside of between 8 and 10 in the morning it's 10 30 or I'll call

a council get a fine and and that's a long winded reason why we're we were so extreme with COVID, you know, and they scared so much people to the misery, you know, like, you got to catch it, you're going to do this and you're going to do that. And, you know, we had all kinds of crazy stuff going on here. Like, you know, I couldn't, like, dobb it on, telling our neighbors, you know, there was a state that was basically saying if you're out in public, even in your car by yourself, you get to wear a mile. Like, it was just, it was insane. It was absolutely insane. And I was thankfully in a place that I moved up to the place. The Gold Coast during it or up here for most of it.

And it's a coastal, coastal city, smaller kind of regional city. And people here, there was at least a bit of a balance. I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. Sorry, not doing it. And, you know, the beaches were full and had a few lockdowns, and I'll put a smile on my face. People were like, I'm still going on the beach. Like, there were surfers that were like,

you want to arrest me? Like, jump in the water and come and take me off my surfboard. You know, like, but then I went to Melbourne a few times to do it when there was like a green, past where borders were open within our own country. It was like every state then basically had borders that you couldn't get in out of during whatever color code they used. I'm sure you use a similar color code. Red was extreme. Yellow was okay and Greek was open. And I got stuck in Melbourne during one of the lockdowns and I couldn't believe it. It was it was insanity.

Like I went to the grocery store to get, I went and ordered some takeaway, chicken Shnitzel and I wasn't living in Melbourne at times so I didn't have tomato sauce or ketchup in the fridge so I'm like oh I need some tomato sauce of ketchup so I thought I'd just stop at the grocery store on the way I didn't have a mask on me I literally walked in for like 30 seconds I got abused like dude and I'm a big dude right straight away by actual abuse like you're putting this all at risk and I was just like wow this was like this is like you know 8 30 9 o'clock at night empty grocery store maybe 15 people in their max you can still kill people mate with that yeah I'm sure you can, but I'm not a close people person.

I don't like me. I kind of keep my distance. Even without COVID, I was always a, screw the 1.5. I'm a 5 meter guy. Like, I'm always kind of my distance because I just like my personal space and whatever and just growing up where I grew up. I just like keeping my space. I couldn't believe it.

And that was just a small, you know, little example of what I experienced. I was just like people and talking to family and friends at how scared they were and oh my God, we can't do this, we can't do that. we're not planning a holiday because the government, because of this, we can't plan this, we can't do this. Close kids' playgrounds. Outdoor kids' playgrounds got closed. And I went to whatever I saw, they actually got the lease type tape and taped up kids' playgrounds. So when I went for a walk with my kids, I'll rip it all down. I'm on record. I don't care. I was ripping down. Whenever I saw those things, they were covering park benches at parks, part of benches.

I said here because of COVID. I report off and forward in the bin. I'm like, you're kidding me? Like, and that was, that was every day here. Press conferences from the Premier, Dan Andrews at a bunch of the premiers here were like, everyone was tuning in to hear the numbers because they knew that would correlate to a lockdown.

Can we get to zero? Please, sir, let's get to zero so I can go outside and see some sun for more than an hour. And it was, it was crazy. It was a crazy time looking back. Like, absolutely crazy time. It was. it was crazy here, perhaps not as much as it was, certainly in Victoria.

You know, I get a very strong anti-authoritarian vibe from me, Andrew, which I really like. I mean, I think we've got the same attitude here. But I suppose what I'm hearing out of you more than that is, look, being anti-authoritarian is one thing, but so much of what we were being told and what we're being told to do just didn't make logical sense. That's, I think, what you were talking about there. I'm curious, you as a professional athlete, did you just think that the whole attitude we have to this notion of health is completely wrong? So it's like we've got a disease that kills people who are obese. So let's keep everybody in their homes.

Did that make sense to you? No, no. I mean, they close gyms. You know, they close gyms. We know sunlight, vitamin D could only go outside in Melbourne for one, you know, an hour a day or exercise one hour a day. When I was in Melbourne, I noticed a few things. I'm kind of a stupidly observant person where I'm just about done stuff. So, whenever they would announce a lockdown, so I'd say it'd be tonight, you know, it's 8 o'clock here,

they'd have their stupid little press conference. We're locking down tomorrow at 9 a.m., blah, blah, blah. Whenever they announced a lockdown, I'd notice I'd go out to the grocery store, get food or whatever. Do you know what was the most busiest thing when they announced a lockdown? Alcohol? That's one, yes. But no, fast-throughs drive-thrus. So right around the corner from where we're staying in Melbourne,

there's a KFC. And generally this KFC maybe as three to four cars in the drive-thru or any given time, even in peak hours, maybe it's the eight or ten. Like, it's not crazy. Whenever there was a lockdown analysis, this drive-through was to the highway. It was to the highway. Like, you couldn't get in there. You're waiting.

Wow, wait, get a minute's through. And I started to notice this and I'm just like, that can't be good for you, Al. like people are stressed so they're probably like I'm not going to cook I don't want to go to a grocery store because either I'm scared there's people there I don't have my car in a drive-through so I'm just going to feed my family and two kids a bucket of chicken and tries like hello you know so that's what I noticed but there was just no incentive for anything health related it was the only thing that was going to be healthy for you was to get to get a needle that

was it get the needle and you'll be healthy you'll be fine nothing about anything else and then the whole conversation around so you're telling me if I'm severely out of shape I drink alcohol every day I eat my diet's fast food on X amount of pounds or kilos overweight you're telling me the vaccine's going to save my life but it's a guy or a girl that's severely in shape eats right they're not they're going to be they have to get the the vaccine to live like I just didn't make sense to me I'm like hang on a second like this doesn't make sense to me so I kind of spoke out about it a little bit and ask some questions and then bang you know media was media was all over me with anti-vaxed i never once stated anything against the backs my whole thing was like can we we ask questions

i severely disagree with the green ass about being able to operate in everyday life by showing your papers everywhere you have to go hey look i had the i had the needle can i have my coffee now strongly disagreed with that so then obviously got labelled as anti-dacksner and i'm just like okay If you want to label me, I'm not going to push back. And the fact that I didn't push back against the labels, because I was like, if you've got to label me, you've lost the argument. That really bothers some people and still bothers them to this day. Even with everything we know today, there's people that still will not admit that they were

wrong with the bamboos on certain things. You made, before we started this interview, you made a very interesting observation where obviously you lived in California. And you were comparing California to, Melbourne and you were saying about, you know, the hyper progressives who their attitude is very similar in Melbourne as it is in California and that led to certain things happening. Let's say, let's talk about that. What did you notice? I just noticed, I lived in both places. I've said many times, Victoria is the California of Australia without the sun. You have Victoria's

for the most part, which they have the sun. That's the only difference. The policies are very similar, very socialistic, very, you know, the greater good. And, you know, Victoria's a very pro-Rambo and trans ideology and all that kind of stuff. Very, very big in Victoria, very, very big. And I don't know if it's because the further north you go in Australia, I get sunny, and people are outdoors more, streaming, this and that. Melbourne's a bit more of a colder city.

So you're indoors more, you're on Netflix, the TV, the internet. I don't know if it's that, but it's very, very similar to California in that aspect. I just started to notice it. I've been in both places, it was very, very similar to me. So, yeah, just a head scratcher. I mean, I was, I'm born, bred in Melbourne, Victoria, was going to retire there and blew a beautiful home and lay my roots there. And I ended up getting out because of it. I just didn't want to deal with that.

Even COVID aside, I started to notice these things that it was just very, very, there was a group of, you know, a progressive fringe there that dictate what the state does, really, through the government. I just wasn't a fan of it, do what to raise my kids in that environment. And, Andrew, you've obviously, you were someone who's retired now, but you've been talking about cultural and political issues. You've been expressing your opinion, and I love to see it. I think it's really important for people like you to speak up and say what you think and take the flag that you've had to take.

But I'm curious about the principle of it. You're clearly a very, very smart guy. And there is a debate going on, particularly with regards to the NBA, where on the one hand, someone like Ennis Cantor, he expresses his political opinions and his freedom. We've had him on the show about what's happening to the Uyghurs in China and speaking up against President Erdogan, et cetera. And he was essentially forced out of the NBA as a result. And people say, you know, quite reasonably some people will say, well, look, let's keep politics out of sport. Except when BLM happens, then it's obviously a massive wave that goes through the NBA. And it just seems like there's a lack of consistency.

What do you make? Do you think athletes like yourself while you're playing should be getting involved in these cultural and political discussions? I mean, Kyrie Irving, another one of your colleagues, he got into trouble because he wasn't vaccinated and he had his views on that. Like should athletes get involved in these discussions or should they just play the game?

Here's where I stand on it. I stand on with sport. if you're in the game and you're coming off the field of the court and you get an interview, I think keep it a sport. So how do you think you played? I'm not going to go legal rant after I'm asking that question. In your personal time and your personal forums, by all means go for your life. That's for you to do whatever you want, whatever you're passionate about. I think in that two hours, we all are a society, you're so ingrained in politics and what's going on here, your local, your state, your federal world politics, Russia, Ukraine,

train. We're also ingrained in every single moment of the day, social media. I think the beauty of support has always been it's a two to three hour out release to get away from that. Now we're bombarded with every commercial break and jerseys and, you know, people are not standing for the anth and all that kind of stuff. I think it's too much. That's my opinion on it. But I think, you know, it's IRA or even Angela Bogart wants to be political. Once you're outside of that little bubble and you want to go on your social forums and you want to do, you know, podcasts like this, by all means, I'm all for it. But the big. You're just seeing with the NBA and the NFL at sporting leagues all around the world is,

if it's a right kind of politics, we'll help you promote it. So, right. That's a free week and, you know, if it's the LM or if it's this or it's that, all for it. But if there's someone that's got a different view and has legitimate reasons for it, you know, in his tenure, I knew as soon as he wore those shoes, he was in some trouble. You know, he was obviously getting older. Is he a superstar player? know, but should he still be a vet min guy for another three or four years? Of course he should.

But the team looks at it like, hey, this is going to be a guy who's paying two to three, four, five million in the year, and he's probably going to be a bit of a distraction. We'll just move on, right? That's the way our team would look at it. Where the NBA tap those teams on the shoulders, probably so, who knows? But it's just, it just always bothered me that it was, you know, if you're, if you're a mainstream, you know, agenda that's being pushed, yes, we'll hold you up. But as soon you go against that, you must be some sort of est or east or whatever it is, right?

And that really bothered me. And on top of that, just to finish that, on top of that, I know, like, this isn't something I'm guessing. There's a lot of playing in the NBA that don't believe the shit they're promoting, period. And I've been with them, locker to locker, played with them, against them, with them, whatever. I know what they say in the locker room is a 180 to what they're saying publicly. Like, I had teammates that was super religious, really conservative Christian religious, right?

And they're out there, you know, saying some things that are completely opposite to what they're, they are in a locker room with their families. Do you blame them? Who knows? I mean, there's money to be made. They're trying to meet their family as they'll go. But I draw the line on, you know, when you're preaching to the masses, you better be living the life that you're preaching. And I know for a lot of guys, that's not the case. It's really interesting you make that point because I know it's a different sport,

but you're an Aussie, so you'll know this guy. It's the case of Israel Falau, who is a devout Christian. And he came out and was honest about what devout Christians think about gay people. And that wasn't accepted. Yeah, you're going to go play the season base. And yes, that's all. If we're going to allow freedom of speech and freedom to be whoever you are, if that's his point of view.

Look, as long as he's not condoning violence or saying that, you know, they should be shuddered or stoned or shunned from society, you know, that's not right at all. And that's where we draw the line. But it wasn't that. My beliefs are marriage is for a man and linton, you have to respect those beliefs.

You know, they're his beliefs and he has a rightful right to those beliefs. You don't have to disagree or disagree with him, but I, you know, I'm all for having different points of view. There's many people that I greatly respect that I disagree with, that's fine. That's what you're supposed, when you become a child to a teen to an adult, that's supposed to be an attribute that you have as an adult. Someone disagreed with me. That's fine. Take a deep breath. We have a discussion about it. And you might learn something new and vice versa, but you can, it's okay to disagree. Today's society, it's not, especially when it comes

to public mantra and stuff that the mainstream is pushing. You can't disagree with that. I've been a big, I don't know that here in Australia, with the trans ideology, and there's a big issue here in Australia with men infiltrating women's sport and women's spaces. I'll be the advocate for that for young girls in sport, because I have people reaching out to me, like, that I don't have a voice. I'm scared to say anything, but, you know, my daughter just got knocked out by a guy in the under 16s rugby who's playing in the women's league. What can I do about it?

I'm trying to help these people, and I feel really bad. And people are thinking, I'm doing this to some side hustle, or gain or whatever. It's like, well, let me give those people some news. I lose out on marketing views. I lose out on making a bit more cash on marketing and promos and speaking gigs. People like, we just don't like touch it just in case someone protests us or gets mad at us or whatever. So I'm going to continue to speak out on stuff that's just utterly ridiculous. And would you have been as vocal, Andrew, if you were still in the NBA or were you more kind of, you know, career focused at that point where you were like, I just.

need to do and I need to be on the court and everything else is secondary to that. That's a great question. I can't be hypocrite to say that if I was in the midst of my career and I had that decision to make, I don't know what decision I would have made. I'm definitely not going to tell you that, yeah, I would have been all in, screw the system or establishment. I can't be a hypocrite and say that. But early on in my career, I didn't follow politics at all. I didn't follow social issues to probably year nine or 10, so I had no idea it was gone on the world. that was I wish I would go back to that time where I was that ignorant in the world. Yeah.

It felt like a bit of, I envy those people by the way. We all. You know, you bring up issues that are like pretty, pretty big issues socially. You bring it up to someone and they have no idea. I envy those people now. I really have to those people. But I don't know. It's a very good question.

I'm in a position where I can do it now because I don't need anything or want anything from anyone. I could still be silent and get my net worth at 2, 3X by being silent and just playing the game. But I don't know. I've got enough right now, right? So in the midst of my career, it would be a tough decision. It would be a tough decision either way. But I was outspoken throughout my latest stage in my career, even when I was still making big money on certain issues. And people can look it up online on different things and right, wrong sometimes, whatever.

But I was out spoken against the grain probably about two thirds of my career, especially while social media. starting getting a bit more out there, I could actually get my news out there on certain things. And that wasn't as well appreciated by some and it was appreciated by others. And that's just kind of the way things go. Well, Andrew, and that's really the thing, isn't it? Because I think we were similar age or a couple of years younger than us. But, you know, we all grew up in a world where I was like, you're allowed your opinion. I'm allowed my opinion.

You can think I'm a dick. I can think you're a dick for having that particular opinion. We can still be made. We can still go and have a drink together. we can agree to disagree. But weaving the sort of anti-authoritarian theme into this as well, it sort of feels like almost everywhere you go now, you are constantly forced to engage with political ideology of some form.

So you mentioned in the NBA, they will enforce a certain worldview, a certain set of principles. You watch a movie, it's infused with all of this stuff. You're being lectured to constantly. and if you don't accept the lecture, then you are the toxic one, you are the problematic one, you are the conspiracy theorists,

you are the anti-vax or whatever it is. It just sort of feels like from every angle now, the freedom of the individual to be who they are, even if other people don't like it, is just getting constantly constrained and we're less free to be ourselves. Would you agree with that? I was no doubt,

and that's what I'm trying to instill in my children. I've got two children at five or six and I'm just trying to steal them like, if you want to go that way and the whole group's gone that way, but you're passionate about going that way or you like that route, go that route. You know what I mean? You don't have to follow, I'm digging on not following the crowd, especially at a young age.

You know, kids are generally what I fit in and all that. I think I've got one of them going the right way and kind of know, like you can float off butterfly if he has to it. But it's tough. I mean, go back to your other point about, you know, following the doctrine. I mean, I was with the team. I got pulled through a critical race. theory seminar while I was an NBA player.

Wow. Shit. Really? I was that guy asking questions during it, which was not very well received in a locker room in an NBA players. I can tell you that. Imagine the color of your skin didn't help, mate. I was like, I'll like, I'll not take a to shit.

You're not telling me I'm racist just because I was born. And not only that, it was like, you don't even know my story. I'm an immigrant. It came from a migrant family that was. that faced rape, my father faced heavy racism. I got expelled from his high school for punching out his pediatric teacher and his principal for calling him racist epithets in Australian school as a 15 year old. He was out as a 16 year old working in factories.

I dealt, like our family dealt with it, right? So you're not going to sit there and tell me that I'm racist because my skin color. So I was pushing back on all that stuff and people were going to be like, I'm crazy and it kind of ended all funny. I couldn't believe it. This was before critical race theory kind of became a thing. this was in 16. So it kind of really started rearing about 70. Wow, that's early, man. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I was like, nah, I'm not, I'm not, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. You can be,

if you're a good person, if you're good to me, I don't care what you look like, who you are, what sexuality you are. If you're nice, I'm nice, you say good morning to me. I say good morning. No, that's how I treat people. I'm not going to ask you, I'm not going to say good morning to you, tell me your sexuality first or your race or this or that, right? And yeah, I push back on that. And I still remember it to this day. It was a very interesting time. Well, I was going to ask you about that, Andrew, because, you know, this isn't a stereotype.

It's a factual observation. The NBA is full of black dudes, right? I think we can say that. So how did that go down with your teammates and sort of did you start to get a bit of a bad rep as a result? Because you had a successful career after 2016. won your championship 2019, I think. Yeah, I mean, some, there's some people that thought I was racist or I was this or I was

that. And I got to a point in my career where I didn't care, I'm going to label me something without knowing me or talking to me, you're the ignorant of while. Like, it's, you know, and all my best friends still to this day and teammates are people from not only other countries, but African Americans. You know, like I still talk to our regular basis. And I've had some of my deepest conversations about these issues. Harrison Barnes, Harrison Barnes,

the United States Warriors, and we could actually have these conversations about different things. And I learned some things from here. You know, I learned. Like, we had the conversation about, hey, like, Harrison, like, you know, I face some racism growing up as well. I'm not sure, yeah, but he, that he laid, hey, but the difference is you kind of

have to talk to they know you're from somewhere else. Mine's just visual. And I was like, wow, that's actually pretty lightning point. You don't have to say a word and people can be racist to you. So that, you know, I'm learning, right? So we add those conversation. And that's what we should be, you know, that's what society should be about, right? We had great conversations. And yeah, but I mean, there's obviously people that are ignorant. And, you know, if you're just being with once again, the state-sponsored mantra or whatever's

in an NBA locker room, I was always, for the most part, I'd go logic, common sense. And I don't agree with that. It's how the guys do. That's okay. You know, I had a coach that was a little religious for the Golden State Warriors. He was, he was a, he was a, he was a pastor at a church in LA and whenever we went to LA, 90-some percent of the team would go to his church. I was a guy that didn't because I was like, I'm not going to your church just because I kind of have to. If I want to go, I'll go, but I'm not going to go because I feel guilty about playing time or fitting into the group. I'm not going to go. I was one of those guys that went my own way and did my own teeth. Andrew, very quickly moving on, I want to talk to you

about mindset because to achieve that everything that you've achieved is remarkable. What made you successful when there are other people who were more physically talented than you, more gifted than you, what separated you from peers who didn't get as far as you did? I think that like a love for what you're doing is very important. I think if you love, if you truly love what you're doing, I see kids pushed into sports because their parents want them to do it or pushing to things because go and do that job because it's going to make you money but they don't have a love for it. It's just different. It's much more clunky and hard. So I think love is the first thing. I think just being routine based.

I'm very routine. I'm OCD on things. I like my organization sit out like this. Like I have cleaners come clean the house and not move shit and I'm not losing my mind. Like, wait on a second. I know this was, you know, so I'm one of those guys. Not OCD where it has to be perfect, but I've got an order. about things in my brain, you know. So I think being organized and having a routine is really important. I had that as a young fella. You know, before school, I train, go to school, after school I train, come back at home, shooting the backyard. I just have a routine that I was just getting used to. So once you become professional, it's kind of easy. So they're probably the two biggest things.

You need a lot of the routine. You got to put the work. You know, everyone says, oh, it's all about hard work, but it really is. You know, the 10,000 hours, I think, to master of craft. Is that it? pretty sure that number it's 10,000 hours to master a craft of whatever you're doing so you know if you're a young kid and you're 14 and do the math how much are you spending a day times every day in every day in the year and you know you want to become a professional you got to be hitting that 10,000 mark closer to your 20s right so that's that's what it's all about and I think put time you know and also the other thing you know our society I think that that is to do is failure I think failure is a huge, huge key ingredient to success.

You know, most people, I know exactly your previous business journeys or how you came to what you're doing today, but like you have to fail. Fail is the most honest, brutal way to figure out what you've done wrong. You know, your friends and family aren't to tell you. Like, so if you do something wrong, then I'm going to tell you politically correct way or they're scared to hurt your feelings. When you fail when business goes under, you don't make a team, you get cut from the team, you fail a diploma, that's it.

brutal. There's no beyond end all. The smart people won't pout about that for three years and feel sorry for themselves and become a victim. I have a week where you might have a few too many drinks and you're mad at the world and get out of whiteboard and be like, okay, this is what I did and what do I need to do better to fix that? And a lot of the successful people in life fail, I think we should really embrace fail. Now there's a difference. If you're failing, doing it again, failing, do it again. There's an issue there. Like you do all the same thing over and over and get the same result is obviously a big undying issue. But I think on the general consensus, like, that failures to brew, I think we need to embrace that a little bit more just because

it's a really, really brutal learning curve for people. And I think that's so important, and it's such an important lesson for kids and why sport is so important for kids, because it's a safe place for them to fail. You know, you play your team, you do your best, you lose. All right, well, what do I learn from this? How can I improve next time? Yeah, and I'm going through it with my son. playing soccer at the moment and I'm not worried about goals scored. All I care about is effort. And, you know, kids look at goals score if they played well. They're going to release. I played while I scored goals, right? So he's playing soccer and he's a bigger kid. So it took

him a while to catch up to the speed, the footwork of the smaller, more stocking of the kids, which is great. But I put him in that for that very reason. And, you know, there's a few games where he wasn't at the ball past, too. You know, kids are a little selfish at that age, which is normal. well they lose and you know he's tear up and one game he basically you know somewhat quit you know he struggled for the last 15 minutes of the game and didn't want to be out there and I didn't let him play the next weekend just let him train didn't let him play in a big carnival that was looking forward to you unfortunately it's the hardest thing I did as a pair I said you're not playing in the carnival you'd fix this and then we came back to trading and doing a one-on-one drill and he and he kicked the goal

and it hit hit the in the training drill it hit the left the left the left the post and the right post, the VAR would have led it to be a goal, but the coach was like, no goal. And I could seem, you know, getting teary-eyed and about to shut down. And I just yelled, you're up.

And to be head up, he came out of the drill. And then by the time he got the front of the line again, he calmed himself. And that was the proudest thing I've ever done. I didn't care about the goal. I didn't care about everything else. He self-regulated himself as a six-year-old, got back in the drill and actually scored a goal.

So, like, I was like, man, Like, that's, that is, I was so happy with that more than anything else because I think it's very important. And he's used that failure, you know, the carnival and all that kind of stuff and figured out, okay, I've had a bad minute. I'm not going to let this turn into a bad five minutes, into a bad day into two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. So I'm a constant battle with out with my kids. And I think it's a very important lesson. They have to learn, no, they have to learn failure. They have to learn missing. They have to learn being supped out. They have to learn a coach not liking him.

They have to learn how a teacher doesn't like him sometimes. That's life. You have to deal with that. So if you can get that tool in an early age, data white, I don't know if you saw his interview from a little while ago. He said the kids that are brought up in that sense to be a little bit tougher and gritty, we're going to absolutely own the next generation once they're adults because it's totally very many of those kids.

Well, it's funny you say that because you will know who it was, but I remember reading about an NBA coach who said you never draft a player from a. house with a two-car garage. And that's that sort of like that grit and determination and drive and the willingness to keep going, even though things are difficult. I think that's really what separates in, I'm sure, in sport, but also in life generally, it separates people who make it from people who don't because that's what it takes. Andrew, it's been such a great interview. It's so good to have you. You're such a talented guy. I'm really looking forward to seeing what other stuff you're going to do with your life. You must have other projects. You're willing to

working on now and things that you're looking to build. Yeah, I play a lot of poker up, big poker. So I spend a lot of time playing poker, really enjoy it, just a lot of the mental battle of it. And it's a game that I get washed in with any of the Oscar in my life. Even when I was playing basketball, you get to a perfect table, you forget about it. So it's a perfect, you know, hobby for me. So I do a lot of that. I go my own podcast, called Rogue Vogue, we're in the process It's actually ramping it up and gone to video, just finished the studio, so getting that all cabled up, similar to what you boys out there, so hopefully we can outdo you a little bit.

So doing that, I'm also invested in a pro basketball team here, Australia, the Sydney Kings, two-time champions right now, going for a street peak this coming season, so a minority error in that club. And then I dabble in a bunch of startups, at kind of venture capitalist type stuff. So I dabble in all walks of life. I'm in health, health tech, healthcare,

yeah, FinTech, all kinds of stuff. And I kind of enjoy just being able to take some educated gambols on different things. And one just last week, thankfully, so there was a nice return on one. So I'm pretty pumped about that. A friend of mine, Phil Helmuth, actually, poker pro called me into with himself. So doing a bit of that stuff. And I just do it a little bit of everything. Strategically didn't want to have a 9-12-5 or have something that takes my day-to-day grind

because I want to, look, I've dropped my kids off to school. My wife and I alternate. I pick him up from school. I drive them to sport. I try to be around as much as I can because my parents didn't have that opportunity to do that because I're working so much. So I want to make sure I'm there as much as I can. And I have that laundry to be able to do that and still be able to live a very comfortable life financially. Well, that's awesome, man. I'm really excited for you. And we'd love to have you back on the show at some point. We're going to head over to locals for questions from our supporters. Before we do, we always wrap up with the same question as you

know, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be as a society? The one thing we're not talking about is that we're not talking. I think have an open, honest conversations and views that are not aligned. I would love, you know, I've reached out to people from my podcast that have different views to me, that are the anti-views are mine and I always get a rejection for the most part. It's funny. It's usually one side of politics that won't come on and talk to me. But that's what we need to do. We need to do. We need to. to be able to go back to having a conversation without getting our nickers in a twist and getting all offended and triggered and all that kind of stuff. And that goes for both sides. It's not just left

or right or dirt. It's all walks of life. I think having conversations and learning from each other, that's how human beings and evolve for however long you want to think we've been alive. So let's get back to that. Agreed. And head on over to locals, guys, where we continue the conversation. What's the one thing do you think about the NBA or playing in the NBA that most people don't know, but it is actually really interesting?