Tupac’s “Brenda’s Got a Baby” Was REAL - and We Found Him (EXCLUSIVE)

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back season two of Unplugged Man. It's been a good off season, needed to refresh, but we got a great one today to kick season two off. Obviously, with the NBA season right around the corner, we will touch on that this show. But first we are joined by New York Times bestseller Jeff Pearlman and Devon Hodge. You're probably asking who Davon Hodge is, and once we start talking, you'll know exactly who he is. But let's get to it. Jeff, only God can judge me. Tell us about that book and when is it out comes.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: Out October twenty First we can get everywhere now. It's a biography of Tupac. Shakur worked on it for three years, interviewed six hundred and fifty people. Dove Deep, Deep, Deep Deep. It's kind of the book I always dreamed of writing. I've been a sports writer my whole life. It's my first non sports book, and that's what led me to Devon, which is this incredible journey I went on, and he was probably the most incredible part of it.

00:00:51
Speaker 1: We'll speak speak to us because again I want the world to know who he is. And once he starts telling you who he is you'll understand why.

00:00:58
Speaker 2: Okay, So basically you're obviously a Tupac Diehard. Brenda's Got a Baby to Me is a really important song in the Tupac. They kind of sent him on his way after same song with his underground and he was he he was filming Juice Back, his first movie, and one day he gets an article. He reads the daily news because he got the newspaper every day.

00:01:19
Speaker 1: Give me the year. This is ninety, This is ninety.

00:01:22
Speaker 2: And he's reading the New York Daily News because his mother and Fanny raised him reading the newspaper every single day. So Pa brings him the newspaper and there's a there's an article Cries in the Night, Cries in the dark, and he reads it and it's about a twelve year old girl in the Noble Duelle public housing in Brooklyn who was raped by a cousin, gave birth to the baby on the floor, wrapped the baby up in an odd job plastic bag, threw the baby down a trash heap. It was disposal day, so it is the day the incinerator was going to go off. A guy downstairs, here's a baby crying, and saves a baby. They take the baby to the hospital, and they later take the mother to the hospital. And Tubac reads this article about this and he says to Omar EPs, holy shit, his coach star, holy shit, goes into his trailer. He says, leave me alone for a little bit. Comes back out truly on a piece of paper. Brenda's got a baby, Brenda's barely got a brain. A damn shame. The girl can hardly spell her name is inspired by it. I work with a great, great genealogist named Michelle Sooley, where I actually graduated high school with Weirdly, and I said to her, it would be amazing, amazing if we could find the baby who inspired this song. And she's like, give me a few days, and she gives me one day. She's like, I think I found him. And she sends me a phone number, and you know, you can't just call people anymore because nobody answers her phone. Like, if I just called, there's no way he's answer. So I sent him the most disturbingly clumsy text ever, which is basically which is basically, hey, my name is Jeff Pearlman. I'm writing a book about Tupac. By any chance, is this you? And I've sent the article attached to a text.

00:03:09
Speaker 1: But he at this time he has no idea.

00:03:11
Speaker 3: This is no well a little bit, a little bit, so now you want to chuse me? Thank you?

00:03:19
Speaker 1: You would know?

00:03:19
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, So I sent him a text and he writes back and he basically says, give me a call tomorrow. And a couple of weeks later, not even a couple weeks, maybe a week later, Las Vegas sitting with Davon and he is the baby from the article that inspired the song Brandon's Got a Baby, And that is how I lead off the book, this story Dave, and he's one of the best people you will ever meet.

00:03:44
Speaker 1: I felt when he came in when he said, I wanted to smoke with you. We're gonna do that, but tell me. I mean, obviously you were telling me a little bit about the journey when we were down there, because again I'm a huge Tupac fan, and obviously that was one of his biggest in early songs. To just point kind of, you know, steered his career. How did you learn that you were the baby from Brenda Man?

00:04:08
Speaker 4: You know, who would have thought, you know, a ninety nine dollars ancestry DNA tests were literally unlocked, you know, a whole Tupac. You know, Red Revelation of a song that was one of his first hits, and I had no.

00:04:23
Speaker 3: I found out a little bit before Jeff.

00:04:26
Speaker 4: As soon as I did the ancestry test, I reached out to the closest family members is on there. You know, when you do an ancestry test, you never know what's going to pop up. I wasn't really doing it for the family side. It was more of the diasporas side, where you're from your ways.

00:04:42
Speaker 3: Why I do this? So you do that?

00:04:45
Speaker 4: You know after you know, I had lost my parents literally a year before that. My mom and dad died ten months apart. And you know, when things like that happened, you kind of you know you rein discovery mode. You know, you're trying to reinvent yourself and find find your way. And uh that led me into this. And uh as soon as I called one of the people that was within the close range of my family member, she knew exactly who I was and put me on the phone with about ten different people that's sharing the stories Brooklyn, Brooklyn, North Carolina.

00:05:21
Speaker 3: Uh, South Carolina.

00:05:23
Speaker 4: It's telling me to showing me the newspaper clips of back in the day and was telling me about what happened, and.

00:05:30
Speaker 1: I didn't even kind of followed. You were able to keep tabs on you or you kind of just popped up on them like here I am.

00:05:36
Speaker 3: They it was, it was it would have been hard for them to find me.

00:05:39
Speaker 4: Uh, to be honest with you, my last name changed even though I was still in Brooklyn. I was raised in Crown Heights. Uh, we was, you know, not so far apart from each other. But you know, my mom did a good job by sheltering me from that exposure.

00:05:56
Speaker 1: Well back up a little bit, because you were adopted at how old newborn?

00:06:00
Speaker 3: Probably about five.

00:06:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, when my mom when they found uh me, uh down there, we went to the hospital.

00:06:08
Speaker 3: My mom actually went to school.

00:06:09
Speaker 4: Uh the song of what Tupac said for her going to school after it's true, you know, after she did it, she walked right to school. And after that it kind of transpired into a big thing. And they took her to the hospital.

00:06:24
Speaker 3: And uh.

00:06:26
Speaker 4: Uh, due to the magnitude of the situation, they wouldn't let me stay with her. So, by the graces of God, I was, you know, blessed in to the family that I was raised in. Me and my mom had visitation rights, so I was around two.

00:06:44
Speaker 3: No, I was probabably first second grade.

00:06:46
Speaker 1: Is your birth mom's name Brenda?

00:06:48
Speaker 3: No?

00:06:48
Speaker 1: Okay? What's her? Could we say her real name? Or would you rather? Okay, I want to make sure. I want to make sure I'm you're talking about birth mom and then adoptive mom and dad as well.

00:06:57
Speaker 3: Right, I refer to Brenda as Brenda. I don't want to.

00:07:01
Speaker 4: She doesn't want to be on this and I respect her to the respect her wish.

00:07:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:07:07
Speaker 4: Uh so, Uh, me and Brenda had a close I wouldn't say a close relationship.

00:07:12
Speaker 3: We was on vegetation rights.

00:07:14
Speaker 4: For around until I was about first second grade, so I changed my last name and uh the courts actually stopped us from uh seeing each other. So after I was like one or two.

00:07:26
Speaker 3: Uh come.

00:07:26
Speaker 4: My mom also adopted other children as well, so you know, it was getting kind of strange and and you know, when you're trying to raise a family, you know, and my mom is a very big family woman. You know, she's like she was the big mother of the house of the family, you know, So my mom liked to keep it tight knit and loving.

00:07:49
Speaker 1: Understanding, you know, once you did the ancestry test and and all these things kind of start happening, and you go back and listen to the song with the new ear. What was your first thought when you heard Brenda had the baby? Knowing damn.

00:08:02
Speaker 3: To be honest with you, I cried, man.

00:08:03
Speaker 4: You know, I was on the phone with my best friends, and I'm reading the newspaper, and you know, I grew up, you know, you know, you grow up so long and you're not understanding a tragic story is about you, and now you're reading it, and now it's you know, you're.

00:08:19
Speaker 3: Opening your eyes to what actually happened, you know.

00:08:23
Speaker 4: So I start replaying the conversations that me and my mom had when I used to ask her about Brenda and all that. And my mom was NYPD at the time of this happening, and when the news broke, I was in the newspaper for about, I'll say a month and a half up around New York. And she did her best to keep me within her to keep me within her arms. And what she did a great job. I think she sheltered me from a lot of the story growing up. She never told me that my mom was raped in anything. She was just like there. You know, your mom was very young. Something had happened and she had to give you up.

00:09:07
Speaker 1: For Have anyone from Park's side, family or a state or anyone reached out. Have you met anyone on that side?

00:09:15
Speaker 3: No?

00:09:15
Speaker 2: No, I don't think they would know about it. Yeah, comes out really Yeah.

00:09:20
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody really because I didn't. I mean, just like I said, you know, I've lived thirty two years without knowing, you know, listening to this song my whole life, you know what I'm saying, you know, and and now listening to it in this light, it is something.

00:09:35
Speaker 3: It's something different.

00:09:36
Speaker 1: We're not going to hold you that you're a Biggie fan against you a bigger.

00:09:39
Speaker 3: You know, from Brooklyn. So I will always be you know, Biggie will always be number one from New York. Yeah, yeah, but it's a Brooklyn thing.

00:09:48
Speaker 1: You told me. You told me something interesting though about Brownsville and and and once you started meeting your family and how Mike Tyson taught your family had a box like like you kind of started learning about the family and that that dynamic absolutely.

00:10:01
Speaker 4: So you know everybody knows bo the boxer from back in the day. He's from the same projects there as my family read it both. He never left the apartment, stayed in the apartment career.

00:10:12
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:10:13
Speaker 4: Absolutely, you can check it out the plazas in Brownsville. And these are stories that I'm listening to my family members that are there telling me what's going on. Mike Tyson didn't live that too far away from us, and you know, when you're from Brownsville, you're kind of from Brownsville.

00:10:28
Speaker 3: Everybody kind of know each other.

00:10:31
Speaker 4: And Mike Tyson always been big in the community, helping out the community and also making sure people could defend themselves, especially out there in Brownsville.

00:10:39
Speaker 1: It's interesting, interesting.

00:10:41
Speaker 2: Typing up one thing that crazy, even crazier than the story you just heard. I need him. And then we're like, we need to find the mom. Yeah, we should find the mom. Yeah, And this genealogist, Michelle Souley, who's a wizard, writes me back a few days later. She's like, I think I found the mom. She calls the mother. We'll call her Brenda. She calls the mom and she goes, hey, I'm working with this writer Jeff Perma. Basically blah blah blah, do you know where my son is? Do you know where my son is? She's screaming and crying on the phone. Do you know where my son is? I've been looking for my son for twenty something years. Do you know where he is? This is the craziest part. This is the craziest part of all I swear. She goes, I live in New Jersey, but I'm away from home right now. At a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert. Michelle says, well, where's the concert? She says, Las Vegas. They meet that night.

00:11:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right as a stylist right now.

00:11:31
Speaker 4: The man talked to us about that, Michelle. You know, Michelle is a great lady man. She does she she has a wizard. She knows her stuff.

00:11:41
Speaker 3: I tell you that.

00:11:42
Speaker 4: And prior to, prior to all this, I was also trying to, you know, find her myself. She's a very hard person. She don't want to be seen. Okay, she ain't gonna be seen. She called me, she was like, hey, uh, I got your mom on the other line. I said, excuse me. She was like, You're not about to believe this. And I was like, what's going on? She was like, she's in Vegas. I said, what, So two seconds later, she puts me on the phone.

00:12:12
Speaker 3: Brenda's crying hysterically.

00:12:15
Speaker 4: We exchanged contacts and I hopped in the shower, got dressed. I lived about twenty twenty minutes away from Caesar's Palace and we met, writing right in the writing the line yeah look alike, yes?

00:12:29
Speaker 3: Which is which is crazy looking at somebody that resembles you? You know it's crazy. She had a big she has a big dave on.

00:12:37
Speaker 4: She has my name, Taddy, she had it since she was fifteen sixteen.

00:12:44
Speaker 1: What's that first experience?

00:12:45
Speaker 3: Like?

00:12:45
Speaker 1: Obviously one and two. I don't know my earliest memory to probably four or five, So probably you don't even really remember the one in two do you at all?

00:12:52
Speaker 4: I do I do remember, because you know, I had to go from Brooklyn to Manhattan every week to meet her, and uh, and you know some of the I remember she used to bring these two little kids that we now we know each other, but we it's funny how we used to talk, how we used to play around with each other back in the when we used to meet up.

00:13:13
Speaker 3: And now they're the same age as me, and.

00:13:16
Speaker 1: So reuniting with her Vegas after possibly thirty years almost Yeah, what was it? What was that like?

00:13:21
Speaker 3: It was good?

00:13:21
Speaker 4: It was you know, it's as anybody could expect it. It's not all you know, shunshines and rainbows. You know, we're human. We're both taking the proper steps to create that great bond like we should have.

00:13:38
Speaker 3: But it's great.

00:13:39
Speaker 4: I won't take anything from it or I want, you know, I'll do it all over again.

00:13:43
Speaker 1: How'd you guys, relationship now as we talk?

00:13:48
Speaker 3: Yes, she moved. She moved to Las Vegas.

00:13:50
Speaker 4: She lives probably about thirty minutes away from me. We don't see each other as often, but we do communicate.

00:13:58
Speaker 1: Right, Jeff, you said the Paka State would obviously love this story. And it's crazy how he's working. You know, thirty years been removed and he's still doing magical work. Were you working closely with the estage or oh not at okay, so you just kind of were doing your own thing.

00:14:15
Speaker 2: I was doing my own thing.

00:14:16
Speaker 1: Talk to us about just this process in this journey.

00:14:18
Speaker 2: I mean, it's been the hardest just being blunt and obvious. I'm a white sports writer writing a Tupacs chore biography. I'm aware of the weirdness of that, but I you know, real quick.

00:14:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of my producers. How do you feel like? I don't really mean he's you know, he's a great writer and he's at a bunch of sports. I mean if if the writing's great, doesn't matter. But I kind of got where you're saying, because some people probably feel a certain way. Course you are white writing about one of our heroes, A.

00:14:43
Speaker 2: One hundred percent get it, one hundred percent get it, And I think like the approach I took, and the approach I take, is like, nobody needs a white sports writer. You certainly don't need white sports writer to explain to you, well, here's a Tupac thought about this and that. So what you do is you interview six hundred and fifty people like I went to New Orleans, sat down with his sister sat She almost never talks to anyone, yasmine Fula who helped raise him former panther spent hours and hours with her, leylah Steinberg, who helped him get his career, money Bee and schop Master J and all the digital underground. So I just like it was a wide wide So I found the EMT who first got to him at Quad Studios. He'd never been interviewed before just NonStop, find them, find them, find them and let their voices speak.

00:15:24
Speaker 1: Were you a Pock fan going into this?

00:15:26
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:15:26
Speaker 1: So what was it? This is almost probably like a dream come true for you as you're talking to all these people and you said you never got a chance to meet him, but as you're kind of discovering his life and his journey through the closest people to through his eye, through their eyes, what was it like for you?

00:15:40
Speaker 2: First of all, right, here is the highlight of my career. And I'm not just saying that the highlight of my career, and this is thirty years in journalism. By far, the number one emotion I left this with is sadness, Like I don't and I actually think it's interesting. I would say, like, I actually think every white person should write a Tupox book because if you really, if you really want.

00:16:01
Speaker 1: To understand, put yourself in our place.

00:16:04
Speaker 2: Go to the rowhouse in Baltimore he grew up, and I knocked on the door and I'm looking inside and you could see where the rat you know, the places that set told me where the rats are running along the forward. Go to Marin City, knock on the apartment where Fenny was deep into crack addiction, and set was raising herself and Tupac is kicked out of the house and he's living with his friend to meet your's stripling, you know, go to these places and see what it is, and you realize, like what Tupac was rapping about was this shit he carried with him his whole life and this pain, And like again, it's easy to be a white middle class guy in Mayo, Pac New York and everything's great and haha, but when you see it and you travel it and you dig through it, I can't. Like again, you don't need me to tell you things about you, don't need me to explain Tupac to you. But I feel like the people in the book explaining it through me.

00:16:53
Speaker 1: Did you get a chance to either, you guys get a chance to see the Tupac Museum? Oh I did, No, he didn't, did you. My girl surprised me for my birthday, so like a whole I think some of the people in here came with us too. Yeah, it was a whole little surprise. It was amazing along your journey with writing this book and interviewing over six hundred people. Double question the probably the most intriguing person you sat down with and the hardest person to track down.

00:17:18
Speaker 2: All right, the most intriguing besides Dave on we Tupac had a girlfriend in high school named Mary, and everyone told me Mary will never talk to you. This is when he was a Baltimore School for the Arts. She was a white ballet dancer whose parents are Communists, and the family loved Tupac. And I reached out to Mary and I talked to her, and she lives in Nebraska, right in Nebraska, and she said to me, and this is one of those moments as a journalist.

00:17:44
Speaker 3: She goes.

00:17:45
Speaker 2: My mom recently found one hundred and fifty letters that Tupac wrote me under the bed. If you come out to Nebraska, I was shown to you.

00:17:52
Speaker 3: Wow, I'm like, I will.

00:17:53
Speaker 2: Be there tomorrow. I fly out to the middle of nowhere. Nebraska e't the worst big I've ever had thing Mike Orave the bagel on Nebraska. I don't even know what this is the Jewish New Yorker. It hurts me. But she has these letters in a folder and she brings them and just reading through them and his writing, I consider Tupac almost more poet than writer, Like his It was so good and it was like horny and angry and sad and excited.

00:18:20
Speaker 1: But it spelled it out so well. His writing was and this is teenage possible. It is a sixteen.

00:18:26
Speaker 2: Sixteen year old pock Tupac and he was a better writer than I ever even hoped to be. It was so good. So that was my joyful fine and getting his sister. I mean, there was one point I was in there.

00:18:38
Speaker 3: I was.

00:18:38
Speaker 2: I drove down to New Orleans and I sat down with Set and.

00:18:41
Speaker 1: Set does not talk, and that's big sister, no little sister.

00:18:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, he only has one sister, yeah, and and that's a Fenny's daughter and Matulu.

00:18:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:18:52
Speaker 2: So at one point I said to her, what was it like moving from Baltimore to California? And she said to me, right there, that's your white privilege showing. And I go, I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, we didn't move, we were relocated. And I actually thought, like I got shows just like that's the kind of shit I needed to hear, and the kind of like I mean serious, like that's when I say like I needed to hear that, because in my head it's like, oh, you move and She's like, we're moved, we're relocated, and she's like, I have nothing good to say about Marin City and living there. There's a most traumatic, harrifying experience in my life. And she just oohed this pain.

00:19:30
Speaker 1: So Davon, I mean, this book drops in a week. It's gonna change your life again. What do you thought? Have you thought about kind of what's coming ahead? Because this is this is a huge again, one of the biggest songs ever. And now they know who Brenda's baby is.

00:19:48
Speaker 3: It's you.

00:19:49
Speaker 1: You're a thirty three year old man living your life. Now have you kind of thought about what's on the horizon in the next six, eight, ten months for you?

00:19:57
Speaker 3: No, to be honest with you, I haven't.

00:20:00
Speaker 4: I'm still fascinated by the artistry of part I mean somebody that could literally sit there and read.

00:20:06
Speaker 3: A newspaper and put human.

00:20:10
Speaker 4: Value to it, you know, and paint a picture that nobody would would, you know? Nowadays a lot of people can't you know, read a book like that and spin out this poetry with Jeffer saying, I mean, beautiful writer and just a beautiful visionary is I'm still teething off the listening off the song, you know, and still breaking down the different dialects and stuff that he says in the songs that now I'm listening to the real stories, you know, mapping that out. I haven't, no, I haven't thought about what this could do or what this will do. You know, I'm an average guy from Las Vegas, you know that now lives in Las Vegas, and you know, I'm excited to see what what the journey brings.

00:20:53
Speaker 2: You're thrilled to come here, you know, I.

00:20:57
Speaker 3: Said, Matt Barnes and Stevens, what you talk about? He said, do you know all the smokes? I said, do I not know?

00:21:08
Speaker 1: Jeff? Obviously a Foene passed not too long ago. Through the talkings of you know, the people you spoke to, What did you learn about her and her in Pok's relationship.

00:21:18
Speaker 2: First of all, I honestly think everybody it is a crime that more people in America don't know about the Panther twenty one trial, don't know about Ifenny shit court. I've been saying this all long throughout this process. I don't know what it's like to be a black kid in America. But if you're a white kid in America and you go to mostly white high school. They take one day in history to teach about civil rights, and it'll say Martin Luther King had a dream and we should all have a dream too. Next now we're moving on, you know, like it's the biggest garbage. And like her role with the Panthers, she was twenty one years old, pregnant with Tupac, on trial, facing a lifetime in presenting herself, she turned down a quarter pointed attorney to represent herself. She's going back and forth to every day moult nurse being treated like shit by the guards, and she wins. And to me, she is a historic figure who nodded up. There's a movie to be made about a Fenni Shakur And I would say her laser with Tupac, it was complicated. She was his hero. He would brag to everyone. My mom was a black panther, my mom, panther, twenty one, my mom. And at the same time she was a crack addict who is unavailable and really struggled. And I think Dear Mama obviously is one of his two or three most famous songs, But as Jasmine Foolish said to me, it's a little bit aspirational like it's not just this is who my mom is, but also this is who I want want to be. So I think that kind of is it?

00:22:38
Speaker 1: I mean, you wrote award winning sports pieces, you know, Bo Jacks and Walter Payton, a handful of the bad boys, Like what drew you to Tupac?

00:22:48
Speaker 2: I just think he's a culturally uber significant artist who never had Like there are great biographies about John F. Kennedy and MLK and Marilyn and a million different but I never felt there was the definitive understand this guy's life and full and also I want to take the journey like I wanted to understand Tupac's life.

00:23:09
Speaker 1: So so three years and six hundred interviews later, we're here.

00:23:15
Speaker 2: The book exists.

00:23:16
Speaker 1: I'm excited to to jump on.

00:23:18
Speaker 2: It is definitely the best Tupac book ever written by a Jewish sports writer.

00:23:23
Speaker 1: Is it the only one? But I know I'm definitely looking for this.

00:23:28
Speaker 4: I'll say one thing, Jeffers Jeffer, jeff is definitely a genuine reporter. He you know, in the old school movies you watch the reporters, the one that makes the phone calls, the one that doesn't try to, you know, get you by any means they actually genuinely, passionately want to understand.

00:23:48
Speaker 3: Jeff is one of those people.

00:23:50
Speaker 4: And when I sat down and you know, the first question we you know that came up.

00:23:54
Speaker 3: You know what it is a.

00:23:55
Speaker 4: White guy writing a book about Tupac and you're telling me something that you know. Yeah, family is now telling me. But I'm still like in shock, this book is done.

00:24:08
Speaker 3: The right way.

00:24:10
Speaker 1: Jeff, what did you learn about yourself writing this?

00:24:12
Speaker 2: I think I learned how much I didn't know, Like I really mean that. I'm not even that's not like that sounds like something.

00:24:17
Speaker 1: Like that's not about just overall, Yeah, but it is.

00:24:20
Speaker 2: It's kind of both. Like I just think, honestly, God Like, I think there are a lot of people. I think there are a lot of white people in America who like they feel like they understand black culture because they listen to hip hop and their favorite actor is Denzel Washington and blah blah blah blah blah. Right, and until you immerse yourself in it, I'm not saying I have a full understanding, obviously can't. But immersing myself in it gave me a PhD level of sort of education at least at least on what it was to be.

00:24:48
Speaker 1: You know, you're definitely invited to the barbecue now.

00:24:50
Speaker 2: I think, thank you because my mom my mom puts raisins in the potato South.

00:24:55
Speaker 3: Oh no, you can't come there. You gotta lean that out. Yeah, we got I've read the reasons.

00:25:04
Speaker 1: Dave Love. We appreciate you, man. Your journey's incredible. We're definitely going to continue to check on you and have you back out and have you come do some stuff with us. Man. But it was an absolute pleasure to meet you, Jeff.

00:25:14
Speaker 4: If you guys want to check me out, I'm on Instagram, TikTok, my name Davon Hodge, d A v O N N h O d G E brand new to TikTok, brand new Ticto and Instagram.

00:25:27
Speaker 1: Get ready, man. I think obviously, once this story really hits like it's supposed to you, it's going to be a whirl winning man. And you know, I asked you how you know, I briefly share with you. I just found out I had an older brother after forty two years, and like, although there's love, like we just missed so much time. We kind of check in from here to there and I asked you, like, how do you how do you deal with all this? And if you don't mind sharing, tell tell me what you told me. Smoking and working Now, that's it, you know, that's life.

00:25:53
Speaker 4: Taking it one step at a time, not rushing into anything, just letting it naturally occur occur.

00:26:00
Speaker 1: Uh.

00:26:02
Speaker 3: You know, it's still an eye opener.

00:26:04
Speaker 4: For me to be honest with you, even I'm pretty sure for you understanding that you know, you got a brother, you know, and you're.

00:26:10
Speaker 3: Like, wait, hold on, what happened exactly? You know? This is it something that I missed obviously?

00:26:19
Speaker 1: So we sat down for the first time. He was on all No, yeah, we had him at a NBA All Star last year.

00:26:25
Speaker 3: I bet he was good, right.

00:26:26
Speaker 1: He was good. But you know what's interesting is when you hear, like when you hear about players in their primer early on, and then you get a chance to meet him after, you're like, damn, because it's weird, because I feel like when I tell people like who my dad is now or who my dad was and who he is now, like yeah, right, no, he wasn't and people like don't believe me. But I kind of feel like when I hear certain athletes are a certain way, and then you meet him at the end, it's just like, damn, you're nothing like I heard you were.

00:26:48
Speaker 2: Do you know you're baseball of a huge base No, Sean Green.

00:26:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:26:51
Speaker 2: So Shann's a good friend of mine, Okay, And he said to me weirding lunch time. He's like, you know, we're always nicer after it done. He's like all athletes and this year, like athletes are just after they retire. And that's how he explained Bonds, because Bonds was the worse when you're not even so bad.

00:27:04
Speaker 1: How when when you're doing that, I mean, you've Barry Bonds, you know, rest in peace, Walter Payton, Bo Jackson. Are you working alongside any of them about this? Do you check it with them at all? Or you just kind of go and find their circle and dig into that.

00:27:18
Speaker 2: Well, I always try to talk to them, Okay. So, like I did a book about the eighty six Mets. I interviewed most of those guys. I did the showtime Lakers that became winning Time.

00:27:26
Speaker 1: That was amazing. I want to talk about that, but keep that thought but back to kind of how Yeah, so.

00:27:30
Speaker 2: Well, I'm like, so I try to and Bonds like Bond is one of the weirdest experiences in my life. So actually, Bonds and Brett fav are tied for weirdest. All right, Bonds he was always tough. I was a baseball writer for Sports Illustrated as I was working on that book, and Bonds was a standoffish tiptoe up to his locker.

00:27:48
Speaker 1: You know.

00:27:48
Speaker 2: I'm sure played with guys like that who people are just like. So I finally at the end, I have all my research done and I walk up to Barry bonds as locker and I'm like, hey, Barry, I'm Jeff Peerlan. I'm the guy working this book. This is uh oh fourish, so he's still active. He's with the Giants three maybe hey blah blah blah blah. He goes, and I was shocked. He turns around. He goes, hey, man, it's all good. He shakes my hand. He goes, I'm not going to talk to you, but it's okay, okay. He gets up and I go, and that's as nice as he could possibly be because he was tough. He gets up and he's starting to walk away, and he goes and I go, I even interviewed your cub Scout den mother Marlene Rossi.

00:28:26
Speaker 3: Man.

00:28:26
Speaker 2: I talked to Marlene Rossi and he goes, dude, I was never even in the cub Scouts. And I literally have his cub stout photo of him in it. He's like, and that's how he did with us. He was just like, I think he enjoyed us having these nightmares with him. And I just want to say, Brett farre I talked to everyone in Farest family, like everyone, mom, sister, brothers, And one day I called his sister Brandy. I reached out her on Facebook and I was like, hey, I'm working this Brett fire By, a book about your brother. She goes, well, when if you come down to Mississippi, hit me up. I go down to Mississippi. I call her and she's like, why don't you just come to the house. My mom will be there, and Brett is not talking to me.

00:29:09
Speaker 3: For the book.

00:29:10
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, this isn't gonna go well. I go to the house, Mom, Benita, sister Brandy greet me. Mom goes, so is Brett talking to you? And I'm like I don't think so. And I'm like waiting. She goes, all right, well, come on in. And two hours of interview and then she sends me home with his scrap books. She literally says, just take the scrap books. You can send them back to me whenever. So I never talked to Brett Fire, but in my house I had bred Fire's scrap books. Whow she just never knows.

00:29:35
Speaker 1: Super weird Showtime Lakers obviously turned into Winning Time, and I really liked, like, why did I only get one season?

00:29:41
Speaker 2: Two seasons?

00:29:42
Speaker 1: Excuse me? Why did I only get two seasons?

00:29:43
Speaker 2: So, as far as I understand, it was as expensive to make as Game of Thrones, but didn't have Game of Thrones ratings. It was well, it had good ratings, but not amazing ratings. You don't put my kids through college.

00:29:56
Speaker 1: Like.

00:29:56
Speaker 2: It was a very great experience for me. I had cameos in it.

00:30:00
Speaker 1: And someone also said that it came at a weird time with the strike and right after COVID. Yeah, thing, so that may have played a little.

00:30:05
Speaker 2: It was insanely expensive at a time when HbA was cutting back. It cut my heart out that the season ends with the Boston Celtics winning, like that's how it ended. The Celtics win, and.

00:30:14
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the yeah, what was that? Like though, I mean you had a lot of great actors in it. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean that that was dope.

00:30:24
Speaker 2: The probably the biggest career throw of my life was they had a premiere a premiere party. I'm just a writer, Like I'm just a schlove writer, you know, And they had a premiere party at a movie theater, an old movie theater in la I forgot which one, and my wife is out of town, but my kids were with me and they call and they're like, we're going to send a car for you. And I tell my kids, like, they're gonna send a car.

00:30:46
Speaker 3: We get off.

00:30:46
Speaker 2: There's a red carpet, mister Pearlman. We want you to walk down the red carpet. Dad, they want you to walk down the red carpet. And it's this whole thing and all the stars are like, hey, Jeff, blah blah blah. And there was a moment when Adam McKay is on the stage, the creator of it all, and my kids are sitting next to me and all these actors around me and all these people, and he goes, Jeff Pearlman, stand up, and I stand up, and he goes, Jeff Pearlman is one of the great sports writers of all time, and none of this would have happened without him. Almost none of that is true. I do not consider by someone of the great arguments, but like my kids sitting next to or how that happened, Yeah, is maybe.

00:31:22
Speaker 1: The greatest moment of my life. I love that you got to do, Shaq, Kobe and Phil, Yeah, talk to us about that. I mean, you know Shaq, I know both actually yeah, no, all three.

00:31:34
Speaker 2: I would say, first of all, Shaq was awesome. I didn't get to Kobe would not talk. Shaq was amazing. And I would say, like the book came out after Kobe died, it was done before Kobe died, came out after Kobe died, and the book is not it's not incredibly kind to Kobe. And I remember sitting with Shaq, and one thing I said to Shaq was, this is before Kobe died. I said. One thing that always seemed weird to me is like you always had nicknames for yourself, right, Big Aristotle, Shack, Diesel, Superman. But it was always like with like a wink, like Shack always seemed like he was in on the joke. And Kobe nicknamed himself Black Mamba, and actually thought of himself as like literally the black.

00:32:12
Speaker 1: Mom gave hisself that nickname. Yeah, I didn't know that.

00:32:14
Speaker 2: And Shack goes to me in the deep voice. He goes, bro, now you know what I was dealing with. And then I went to Montana to see Phil Jackson. And the only reason Phil talk to me is because Genie put no word for me. And I show up and we needed a cafe and I go, man, thank you so much.

00:32:30
Speaker 1: You have sandals on?

00:32:31
Speaker 2: He did have santos on. Holy cow, he did have sand Yeah. He goes, I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for Genie. And I'm like, fuck, this isn't going to be good. I thought I get an hour. He's like, why don't we take a tour around the lake. He drives me around a lake for three hours. Let's stop for lunch here. You want to come back to my house hanging out up for you gave me eight hours?

00:32:49
Speaker 1: Wow?

00:32:50
Speaker 2: And he was awesome. It was like win. There's like some like heads fun douchebag wins the like spend a day with Phil Jackson trip. That's literally what I got.

00:32:57
Speaker 1: Amazing sweetness, Walter Payton.

00:33:01
Speaker 2: I mean, I love Walter Payton. Yes, hard book to write was very hard first off. So I interviewed Walter Payton one time. I was a very young writer at Sports Illustrated.

00:33:10
Speaker 1: He passed the what age early, like forty six.

00:33:11
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety nine. Man, yeah, a bioduct cancer. And I was a writer at Sports Illustrated, young writer at Sports Illustration. One day an editor said to me, do you have any interest in going to meet Walter Payton and talking to him? And he was dying at this point, but he was trying to raise money for a charity. And I said yeah, And I flew out to Illinois and I'm in an office and this old man greets me, old black man wearing like a taxi driver cap and a windbreaker. And I was about to say, I'm looking for Walter Payton. And it was Walter Payton and he was that decimated. And I sat across from him and his eyes were yellow and from jaundice. And it still remains the saddest interview I've ever done in my life. But it inspired me to write that book and crazy Life, Yeah, fascinating life.

00:33:55
Speaker 1: And you did Bo Jackson too, right, Yeah, Well, he's one of my he's my hero.

00:33:59
Speaker 2: Have you met Bo Jackson?

00:34:00
Speaker 1: Never got a chance to. I remember him from what Superstar? What was the cartoon? He was a superstar? Michael Jordan's Yeah.

00:34:06
Speaker 2: None of them voice themselves in that yeah cartoon. He's a tough guy, Bo Jacksley, he's he's he's an he's a prickly guy. And you know he ran a four to one three forty.

00:34:17
Speaker 1: He's incredibly the greatest athlete of all in my opinions, I don't even think there's a question about it.

00:34:22
Speaker 2: Runs a four one three forty at college, signs with the Raiders. Tom Flores is a coach of the Raiders, asked Bo Jackson to run a forty on grass. Doesn't in a four one nine. They don't believe it's accurate. They remeasure it, and he runs a four to one seven, which is think about Tyree Hill doesn't run thirty two twenty at that point, man.

00:34:42
Speaker 1: He could have been one of the greatest football players of all time.

00:34:45
Speaker 2: The funny thing is, I'll tell you one thing interesting. He You probably remember this from being a kid. He let off the All Star Game and seven run. Okay, crazy story about this. He leaves off the game with the home run. Nike is planning this enormous rollout of bo Knows for the All Star Game, and the stadium was papered with bonos bonos, and they're going to have this commercial air I think two innings after he leads off, but they have no idea how this is going to go. So all the Nike executives are sitting together and Mickey Manto's restaurant in New York City watching the game. Bo Jackson leads off with a homer, not just a home run, like a perfect home run dead center field. The guy runs on the black, he finds the ball, he builds it up. Bo Jackson, he looks like a god running around the basis, and the Nike executives are screaming and cheering in Mickey Manos restaurant. Ever, one's like, what the fuck is wrong with these people? And they're just going crazy. And that was the most serendipitous advertising moment ever.

00:35:36
Speaker 1: I want to say, both are Wade bogs bat a secondly? And what did Wade Box do you at home run?

00:35:42
Speaker 2: He sure did.

00:35:42
Speaker 1: Back wait, Tony.

00:35:43
Speaker 2: LaRussa came up to them, he was the manager. He comes up to them the day before the game because Bogs would usually lead off in that sense, and he goes, wait, I'm going to have bo lead off just for the effect. And it's the icon. Who is pitching? Do you remember?

00:35:55
Speaker 1: I don't remember.

00:35:55
Speaker 2: There's Rick Rushall who's forty years old and built like a beanbag, and he threw this like the allience.

00:36:00
Speaker 1: Yeah it was eighty seven. Yeah, your baseball was seven years old.

00:36:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, you remember it.

00:36:05
Speaker 1: But I remember the back to back because we went outside and played baseball after.

00:36:08
Speaker 2: And Vin Scully and Ronald Reagan were in the booth calling it.

00:36:10
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, yeah, hostly yeah yeah, yeahah yeah. Uh tell us about your YouTube page.

00:36:16
Speaker 2: So I have a thing called press Box Chronicles. It's a show. I do it every week. It's just a dive back into obscure, random like sports topics in the past. I didn't think anyone would care. Somehow people want to do I know, I don't even know what is it? Sports? Just people like sports stories.

00:36:31
Speaker 1: Would you say, well, I mean, I just think from your I mean, you know, we interviewed everyone under the Sun, and one of my favorite interviews is Jim Gray, and I think because you guys have been entrenched in it for so long, and you have the good, the bad, the in between. You just have so much information that just hearing you speak is like, oh shit, like you feel like you learned something. So that's probably why people are interested.

00:36:50
Speaker 2: Well, if you think about it, we're like paid not just to be there, but to record it and observe it. So I would probably remember some of your games better than you would because I literally am keeping it, rotating it. So yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been cool. It's been great.

00:37:03
Speaker 1: Real quick, before we get out of here. Pot you interviewed the EMT at the Quad City shooting and they said Poc shot hisself. Was he trying to pull his gun out? I was guessing.

00:37:14
Speaker 3: So basically.

00:37:17
Speaker 2: Nobody had interviewed this guy ever ever. Literally I called him and he's like, nobody's it's weird you're calling me. Nobody's ever called me, and I've always had this thing in my head. Basically, two had the gun in the waistband and I interviewed his his manager Watani, who said the gun he out the glockiad was easily dischargeable if not him correctly when the guy got up. So basically Tupac went upstairs and the EMT goes up to see him and Tubacs there. He said, I got shot in the box. He didn'ty shot himself. He never had, and the MT remembered that there was no entrance to the there's no entrance tear through the jeans or.

00:37:47
Speaker 1: Through the under deals underneath his waistband.

00:37:50
Speaker 2: So he had in his waistband went in. The ball then embedded in his leg.

00:37:53
Speaker 1: So he was getting shot at trying to pull the gun out and excellently shot itself correct. He also was shot once in the head and a crowd is how many time to get shot was three and.

00:38:01
Speaker 2: One in the hand. The other thing I'll tell you that was crazy. Tupac's mom is from Lumberton, North Carolina, and I went there because I want to see where she was from. And she bought a house years later, like maybe twenty tenish in Lumberton, her hometown, and she built this. She built a house on this property. And I found the guy who takes care of it, and he said, do you want to the estate owns it now? The way he's ever bought this house. Do you want to take a tour of the house now? If you're working on a Tupac book, and someone says, do you want to take a tour of a Feniship Court's house? You always say yes.

00:38:35
Speaker 3: Right.

00:38:36
Speaker 2: He goes, do you want to see you where Tupac's grave is. I'm like, I'm literally I don't even know what that means, because he was his ashes Malibu. He goes, no, she buried some of his ashes here. I'm like, what he's like? Come with me. Literally, on an abandoned lot in Lumberton, North Carolina, is Twupox the Court's grave. There's a tombstone, a thing over it. I don't know what you call that, and there it is. So I was literally standing above incredible.

00:39:05
Speaker 1: Because I want to say, one of the Hughes brothers told us the story about how some of it was let go in Malibu in the ocean. Yeah, and so that wasn't all of it though, Yeah, some of the ashes.

00:39:13
Speaker 2: And also some of the outlaws have said they smoked his ashes, but nobody believes that. So would you really want to you know, is that really? I don't know?

00:39:19
Speaker 1: I smoking the.

00:39:20
Speaker 2: Whole Would you smoke ashes?

00:39:21
Speaker 3: Would you smell?

00:39:22
Speaker 1: Probably? Would? That's what these That's what these whys are talking about. But I'm cool I'm a little too old.

00:39:27
Speaker 2: I'm gonna put in my will.

00:39:28
Speaker 1: Matt Barn, what's your message to young authors writing these type of books, from athletes to historical figures. What is your one message to them?

00:39:39
Speaker 2: Call everybody, Call absolutely everybody. Like if I were doing a book about you, right let's star, I was writing a Matt Barn. There are obvious teammates to talk to, but every ball boy was there, every team official was there, The Laker girls were there. When you're with Lakers, you know like everyone, and you just cat. This is why I always say I'm being serious about this. You may not remember the guy who is in training camp with you, who played basketball old Dominion and he was in camp for three weeks. You may not remember that guy, but he's gonna remember being in camp because that was the greatest moment of his life. So he's gonna have memories that you wouldn't have.

00:40:10
Speaker 1: Yes, that's it, man, Jeff. We appreciate you. Only guy can judge me. Many Lives of Tupac comes out October twenty first. You can pre order it now. Jeff. It was wunder Man. Yeah, thank you for coming out.

00:40:21
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.

00:40:22
Speaker 1: Jeff Prowlman. The NBA season starts next week, and the producers came up with five big topics heading into this season. Obviously, wouldn't be right if we didn't start with Lebron. First off, it was announced recently that he has a sciatica issue and he will be out the first four weeks of the season. This is your twenty three King. James will be forty one in December, and I think the question everyone is asking, is this the last season? Very interesting? I think Lebron is gonna want to go out on his own terms. But what's made him great obviously is his ability to stay healthy, and there's no running away from father time. All the greats have eventually broke down, and hopefully this is just a situation they get control. But will this be his last year? The Lakers kind of handed the keys to Luca this offseason while he got hisself in shape, and now Brown will start the season on the sideline. I don't know if it will be his last season. I think it's safer to say that it's most like his last season with the Lakers. I don't know if it's his last season in basketball. Obviously, he has bryce over in Arizona, and I would think that he probably wanted to play, you know, play with him as well. So we'll see if that comes to fruition. Last year with Luca, the Lakers are eighteen or eighteen and ten. Luca averaged thirty four almost thirty five a game, eight and eight fifty wins last year for JJ in his first season. It's gonna be interesting seeing this is a very young Western conference. We all know that year twenty three for Bron, so you know, hopefully he gets healthy and we can see what the Lakers can do. I think they're more of a bottom of the playoffs slash play in. I think they're around the six seven to eight range, and that's no knock on the image. I just think it's more of a tribute of how strong the Western conferences and how young and youthful the Western conferences. So will it be Lebron's last year. I can't say anything wild like that because I don't know, But we'll have to see. Producer Nate Good good question. Lebron starts off on the side, and the Lakers get off to a hot start, and Luca's playing Luca ball and the team's gelling. I wonder what that transition is like. I've always wanted to kind of ask a superstar what it's like to kind of hand the keys to someone else later in his career, whether it be willingly or or or kind of just happens, you know. That's what they wanted to do. With Ad it didn't really happen, but I feel like with Luca, this is something that can happen. So it'll be interesting to see if Laser's experience some success out the gate and have great chemistry without Braun, how that will affect his mental and how it will affect him when he comes back to the team. Next up, Cooper flags expectations. He got a chance to start at point guard the other night. At six' ten is That i'll. Tall he is six' nine six Ten and i've been a huge Fan Of cooper flag since we've been talking. ABOUT him i got a chance to see him PLAY in au and, to me the one thing that impressed me the most about him And aj debansa who's at byu wiould most likely be a top two pick, next year is His MOTOR and, i, think obviously, you know being, so young there's a lot of game to. Work ON but i think on the, DEFENSIVE end i think he's going to be AN all nba. Defensive performer on the, OFFENSIVE end i think his game is definitely. Coming along and if you could put a kid six' nine six' ten at the point and him being able to distribute the ball, and run a team that is. GOING to be scary i Don't know What made god bless patrick dumont in that ownership after the Bullshit, They pulled with LUCA but somehow them nba lottery balls work their magic again to be able to have one of THE craziest trades in nba history and get rid of A franchise player like luca and then get the number one pick in the lottery and be Able to. Grab A cooper flag the lord is Definitely watching. Over that mavericks ownership their whole job is just not. To fuck it up kyrie's Timetable To, return Somewhere. January february possibly march he's recovering From A. Torn acl anthony davis he is going to be the. Key to this team he only played. Nine games last year he was at. Twenty ten and four he's coming. Back with, the, cream look now. Right he's wearing goggles he announce he's wearing goggles. Rest Of his, Career anthony davis alsander so we'll see how. He LOOKS this season but i REALLY like this team, i Thought initially obviously, trading LUCA is crazy but I felt like the dallas was the most ready to. Capitalize, on, that trade obvious see you know, they were injury ridden but if they can come back healthy this, year With You, Know The, cooper flags klay thompson he had, A Hot, Boys Summer, pj washington, derek lively the guy A Big. Fan OF jason kidds So i really like dallas to be a top Three Team in the. Western Conference This year if anthony davis can. Stay on the court so this is the team. To Watch. OUT for cooper flag i think the sky's. A liver for him look for Him To. Be an all star i'll probably say within. The FIRST Three Years definitely nba all defense in the, same amount of time and really excited to see how talented and where this. Kid can, take it Another storyline can the warriors be Favorites In? A stacked western conference they can, definitely NOT be favorites But i definitely think they're. Still in the mix the One THING about the warriors i feel like is they just have a lot of, miles on their body particularly their their Their core Guys. And steph and draymond steph, Is entering your seventeen draymond, Is Entering your fourteen jimmy. Butler's Entering your fifteen the west is a very Young conference With the okc's WITH, houston obviously adding kd but it's still. A Very. YOUNG team The minnesota's i think denver had. A Really good year is kawhi going to be healthy enough? To Contribute This year but golden state was twenty two And five With both jimmy and, steph on the court they won eighteen out of. NINETEEN at one point i think a big key to this team is going To Be whatever issue Steve. Kerr has with kaminga he's gotta let that shit go because They're definitely. GONNA need kaminga scoring i think he averaged what fifteen last. Year in minimum minutes, On the flip side kaminga's gonna have. TO lock in mentally i REMEMBER going To who i think draymond's wedding and, THEY were telling us i don't. REMEMBER who it was i. DON'T even want to i WILL tell, you IF i remember. But i don't remember we were smoking a lot of. Weed at that wedding someone was Telling Me how, good jonathan kaminga is but he's just it's not he has. Issues between, his ears super talented but between his ears. Was THE biggest issue and i think you See Probably that's what steve kerr has. Such AN issue with But i think with steph being as, old as he is let's not forget he pulled the hammy. And in the playoffs it's gonna take An incredible year from steph to get this team where, they need to go A big Year, from JIMMY and Dre but i think kaminga and some of these younger guys are gonna have to be able to have the freedom to step up this year to be competitive And hopefully stay save steph legs if they are able, to make the playoffs to be able to make a. Move in the playoffs so very interesting season in a Very top heavy young western Conference where this older. Warrior team fits in but you never want, to count out champions so we will. See Where They land the eastern. Conference is. Some shit this year i'm not even. Gonna, lie to You Obviously, the Devastated Boston, celtics Losing Jason, tatum Losing, al Horford. Losing porzingis losing holiday it'll be interesting Season To see what jaylen brown is able to. Do With His, guys the cleveland cavaliers they're always. A, mystery to Me Obviously. They added lonzo ball i'm hoping he can put a Healthy season together because i've always loved his. Ability in his game my dark horse who could possibly Come. Out of the east and this is gonna take a lot of praying and a lot of treatment and just a lot of stars to align. The Seventy Six ers if joel, embiid can stay healthy which he hasn't been able to do. HIS whole entire career i think he's missed over four hundred games and played just over four hundred and fifty games in, his career including playoffs probably five so he's played about five hundred games including playoffs and missed, almost four hundred games. Which is fucking unbelievable but what bothers Me about him is i'm such a huge fan of his but when you hear people say. He's not a, leader he's, always late he's lazy he doesn't put the work. In to stay healthy this is, the product you see and there they're making him. A TON of money so i think this is Really to me, if i'm in management this is the make or BREAK. Season for drawl inmbiid if he can't get his, SHIT together this year i think you got to cut your. Ties at some point and then, On The flip side. PAUL george knee injuries i think he had. Two Procedures this summer, if i'm not mistaken can he find? Some sort OF glory and then i REALLY Like. THEIR core vja edgecom i REALLY like young athletic i think average about twelve To Fourteen. In the Summer league McCain a sacramento boy coming back. Off of acl meniscus excuse me for. McCain was A MENISCUS and then tyrese maxi. A great young cores but if you CAN, GET a healthy embiid i would probably say you need about sixty to SIXTY, five Games from embiid and i'd probably Say The same for paul george and then for them both to be. ABLE to Be healthy i know. I'm talking. CRAZY shit with now i, haven't Even smoked, today but i'm saying if that can Happen With The, DEPLETED west eastern conference i think they could. Possibly Be a representative but i'm probably Going, to pick the knicks to be, be honest with You First. Year coach mike brown mike has always had a great track record of being great. In his first year after the first year is where shit. Normally HITS the fan but i, think, this first year obviously with his new, fresh energy and style and obviously the vets they, HAVE on That Team i think new york will probably Come Out. Of THE eastern conference but i also. LIKE the Young, TEAMS i Like, ORLANDO i like detroit I. Kind of like atlanta on, THE back of that i look for all three of those teams to definitely be, in The playoff hunt with orlando. TAKING a big jump i Think That trade for bain bain. WASN'T the second option i think he was forced to be A. SECOND option in memphis i think he's a Great third Option Behind. Polo and ronz wagner i'm a big Fan Of both the polo paulo SHOULD be in the. MVP conversation this SEASON i, feel like i mean this guy's a career thirty pointy game. Score in, the playoffs, he's bigger he's stronger he, works His ass off so i'm definitely looking forward a big season From. Him and then detroit detroit came out of nowhere and have done, it the right. Way putting. Pieces together i'm? Glad what's his name did he? Ever get? His money the beasy really, no one signed him some weird shit man messed. The man's career up. If he didn't bet, if you Did bet but the, feds are off you so normally When, you beat the fed it means you. Did a good job there's a couple of very Few. People beat the feds very Few. People beat the fes but, Again, to my point, detroit good young. Core good young team interested to see what they do in Any Year that the. Eastern conference is down so my pick to Come out of. The EAST this year And i don't think i've Ever been alive when i've been able to say this or at least, paid attention To basketball but the knicks will most likely Come Out of the. Eastern Conference this year so i'm excited For The city Of New york and jayden. Brunton, and those guys, last But Not least will russell, westbrook find a team And Right now the houston rockets may be a Suitor Finding out the van fleet has. A season ending, injury fred get, better bro, rest up, but again you. Know injuries open doors they do. Need. A point guard now Obviously We know The Kevin durant and russell westbrook history hasn't been as pretty as. It NEEDS to be but i think they're both older in both past that and understand they're both, playing not borrow time but you know it's coming towards an end for Both of Their great. Hall of fame careers so it'd be Interesting to see if westbrook does come in. How THAT will Work but i mean westbrook had a. SOLID year last year i think he was at thirteen Six. And five for denver don't know why, he didn't go back but that's probably some teams are questioning why. He didn't go back but, kd IS coming over and i think this was The consistent score that houston. WAS missing Last year i think kadi was at what at twenty, seven game year eighteen still shooting fifty three from the field and over from, the three point line the most efficient score this. Game Has Ever seen the, Thompson twins over there. Jabbari Is over there sing. GOON is a goon i. Like Him a lot this houston team can definitely make some noise if they're able to stay healthy and solve. That point guard issue. I'm excited To See, BUT for, russell westbrook i Mean it's Been a. Hall of fame career obviously towards the end he's bounced. Around a little, bit but you. Know, YOU always hear unfortunately i think there's a tale of two stories when You Hear, a rus russell westbrook, because there's a media a story, that the media paints and then there's a story that teammates tell and their night and day they couldn't be. Further from each other you always hear he's such a dope dude and cool with a locker room. And a super vet but the media will paint him as the worst. Guy on the planet So we'll see if houston bias into that and if he's. Able To join Them If, i'm a RUSSELL westbrook if THE, nba IS an Nba and. I think, I'M done i mean i don't think. HE'S hurting for money i think he's still doing right off. THE court business wise i know for a fact he's doing great off, The COURT business wise so i don't even really think. IT'S about the money i think it's still about the love and the passion and wanting to finish his. Career ON his terms. The nba is crazy professional sports is crazy because rarely do you find guys that get to end their career the way they want to or walk away. On their own, Accord And to me russell westbrook should be a guy that's. Able to Do that First BOUT. Hall of famer mvp when you think of leaving it, All On the court russell westbrook is one of the first guys. That comes to mind so we will See. What happens with, russe best, OF luck but regardless I really like this Houston. Team in the west not sure Who's. COMING out the west i think, my top three teams just kind of guessing going into THE Season would be Okayc houston and Probably dallas with the. Denver right behind them those two teams can flip flop if. Doubts IS not healthy BUT i really Like I think this Kevin durant signing and houston puts them at the top, of the excuse me The Top, of the western conference and. It's gonna be, fun, we all know okay see paid, their top three guys so it to be interesting to see these next few years how that team is able to stay together because they they paid the whole bank For their. For their big three so that's a young team. Coming off a championship see how. They respawn this season but it's gonna BE a. Really fun nba season. I'm excited as normal and you gotta have a little bit of MONEY to watch, the nba this season and shit's going to be, all over the place so make sure you. Check your local listings but WE kick off The, nba SEASON next monday and i think we're Live streaming What the Warriors. And lakers on tuesday catch Our Live, Stream Me, stack burn rasheed wallace and a few other special guests you already know, we're gonna be doing so make sure you guys tap in All New season of unplugged season two is here with a bunch of. New twists and turns we kicked it off within an amazing story today by The Best, selling author jeff pearl dropping his, New Two Box Book Only God can judge. Me october twenty first you can pre order that now or catch. It On The, Date and, davon hodge brenda's baby got a chance to. Sit down with him he did a great job of just letting us know about his. Journey and his life so make sure you guys tap in. And check this out we'll have special segments, all throughout, the seasons special guests and we. ALSO have a hotline i want to, talk to you guys so you can leave us a voicemail at two seventy nine call ats or email Questions At all The. Smoke productions dot com tell, us what you're thinking whether you like me. Or, Don't like, me no i'm. PLAYING but tap in i want to really get interactive with. Our fans this year we want you guys to be. A part of it we may be live streaming at some point this year where you, guys can tap in so we want to make sure we give the fans their voice and their. Opportunity to tap in so you got the line two seventy nine call ats And Emails questions at. Alldosmoke productions dot Com that's, A wrap week. One season two unplugged you Can catch Us On all the smoke Productions YouTube And. The draft kings network we'll. See y'all next week