Best of the Bus: JJ Redick Almost Quit Basketball While At Duke & The Legendary Best Pizzas Tier Talk

00:00:00
Speaker 1: How'd you feel about that game of pay that just happened there? I didn't feel great about it. Yeah, courseweaty right now.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: We just played an intense game of pig, in tense game of pig, and JJ Reddick was the first man out.

00:00:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what I think? What obsessed me is number one the l for sure. Yeah.

00:00:16
Speaker 4: But I texted Will yesterday and I said, Will, what do I need to know? What am I walking into tomorrow? And he laid out a show plan, some Duke stuff, some NBA stuff. There was no mention of mini basketball pig.

00:00:32
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:00:33
Speaker 4: And had I known that, I would have I would have came more prepared. I would have my whole day would have been different. I'll put it that way. So you're blaming me a little bit.

00:00:41
Speaker 3: Well, here's and let me have Will side for a second. Mid game.

00:00:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, you guys probably got at least I don't.

00:00:47
Speaker 3: Know, ten to fifteen warm up shots. Why why? What?

00:00:50
Speaker 1: But but usually when people play Pig and someone comes in middle of the game, they usually have to take a letter.

00:00:55
Speaker 3: And you didn't have to come in mid game. Well that's because my driver took me to Well, I'm not.

00:01:01
Speaker 4: Going to say you don't want to see the address, but he took me to different a different address that started with a seed, not a K.

00:01:08
Speaker 3: And then on the way over here we got stuck behind a train.

00:01:10
Speaker 1: So just shit happens, man, A lot of adversity when you're coming to and during the podcast on the bus.

00:01:15
Speaker 3: But just to argue with you a little bit more.

00:01:19
Speaker 1: When you and I were sitting in the corner of there and we were like kind of first meet each other, you did whisper to me, I play this game with my kids exact hoop exact ball every single day.

00:01:27
Speaker 3: Did you not say that? Was that? Is that a comment you made? Exact hoop oh ball? You actually the ball is bigger and harder to make it.

00:01:34
Speaker 4: Yes, you know the there's like a men's basketball, women's basketball, youth basketball, and then there's like the mini basketballs.

00:01:41
Speaker 3: They're like three times the size that the ball you guys used. That's what I'm used to.

00:01:46
Speaker 2: Are you always aware when you walk into like a situation like that, like they all expect me to win this game, and when you do lose in that kind of fashion, because it was pretty quick. Is it something where you're just like, damn, these boys like really think they got me for real.

00:02:00
Speaker 4: I mean, if you guys really think you got me in basketball, I actually feel bad for you.

00:02:06
Speaker 3: Let them finish. Let them fish and finish. Nobody laugh.

00:02:09
Speaker 4: No, but I'm just saying if we, if we, if we all of a sudden like did a NERF football competition, we probably win that like throwing it at a target, like I would probably beat you, guys. I wouldn't say to myself like I got you in football. I would just say, like I won this specific random event.

00:02:24
Speaker 3: Okay, it's pretty straightforward. It'd be better. It'd be better.

00:02:28
Speaker 1: And easier for us to stay based on because there was no like real basketball there.

00:02:32
Speaker 3: We're just better shooters than you are.

00:02:35
Speaker 4: Again, like at this particular dress outside of this particular bus, I'm that particular hoop you guys got me today, and I again, the competitive side of me is pissed off, and I wish we could move on past this because now I'm getting angry.

00:02:49
Speaker 3: It's going to be it's gonna be a few minutes before we leave. Trust me, we do not want to see first take JJ reddick. Really yeah, have you not.

00:02:56
Speaker 1: Seen the ways A couple of first takes I've seen you lose your temper.

00:02:58
Speaker 3: I don't think it's anything we can't hit. I don't know if I've lost my temp Well, I've been animated.

00:03:05
Speaker 2: You can tell because your vein will start coming out of your neck a little bit, you start leaning a little bit more in your seat and.

00:03:10
Speaker 3: Does the seat lean is a big giveaway?

00:03:12
Speaker 4: The producer said that to me the other day, really, because I know when you're about to get really engaged because I leaned forward.

00:03:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't even realize I'm doing it. Yeah.

00:03:21
Speaker 1: I think I've got to be better at I've exact. This exact video is about Luca and Curry.

00:03:27
Speaker 3: Uh. Now, this one was about Steven A calling Jimmy Butler a permitter shooter. Yeah, and he's not a premier perimeter shooter at all. Jimmy Butler's a fantastic player, He's you know, superstar? Who als are? Who all are fantastic players? Well, Pat Beverly, I'm just beverly pressed. On the other day, you got a fantastic player? What does that mean? And I'm like, I don't know, fifty fantastic players.

00:03:49
Speaker 4: The hierarchy of the NBA is really hard to figure out At any given time. But generally speaking, there's like five guys that are it. They are him, and you can win a championship with that player. And beyond that, you know, there's probably five more guys that on certain nights look like a top five player.

00:04:07
Speaker 3: I's sort of like the top ten or fifteen.

00:04:10
Speaker 4: Then it becomes very circumstantial for the next twenty to forty guys, you know, and like Draymond he's a great example of that, because where do you sort of place him in the hierarchy of the NBA. If we're talking about someone who can go off the dribble and score on his own, like, that's not Draymond, but we're talking about impact on winning. Well, shit, he's top fifteen, top twenty. So it's it's hard to rank players. I hate doing it. I hate you know, they make me do it? Make you Have you seen Draymond Green try to play football?

00:04:43
Speaker 3: I haven't. Oh, there's a video FAMI if you can pull it up. Pull it up. Draymond Green spring football, Michigan State.

00:04:51
Speaker 4: What's like a good like for an average quarterback in the NFL average actually, let's go not NFL average, FBS college quarterback. How far can they throw football on the flop yards eighty yards?

00:05:07
Speaker 3: Like, what's good? Oh, so that's a you think like you think sixty? Yeah, fifty to sixty would probably be basically I could average D one quarterbacks.

00:05:16
Speaker 1: Well, that's assuming that what you just said means you can throw the ball fifty or sixty yards on the run accurately.

00:05:21
Speaker 3: On the run. I mean I could just do it standstill.

00:05:23
Speaker 1: You can throw a fifty or sixty yards standstill? Yeah, how long you feel somewhere to go? Because we can go right to the field if you want. I mean, I'm gonna you didn't give me warm up here? We can go out to the field. Well, after we finish, I have nothing to do the rest of to day. We'll play pay again, just you and me, and you can warm up as long as you want.

00:05:40
Speaker 4: My ongoing joke is basically that if I had not quit baseball, I would have been a big league pitcher.

00:05:46
Speaker 3: You think so I had a heater? Man? Were you a beast? I had a heat? I'll tell you six or four? Yeah, we for it.

00:05:53
Speaker 4: Well, I quit in seventh grade. That's the thing my dad made me choose. But here's the thing I was that is like the point where you have. I was the beast then, and I hadn't hit my growth spurt yet. I was five six and then all the kids that I played against that were on the same level as me, they all either played you know, double A, triple A baseball, D one ACC baseball.

00:06:14
Speaker 3: I feel like I could have had a I could have had a chance. I mean, are you hitting like low seventies as a seventh grader? Yeah?

00:06:19
Speaker 1: Oh easy, I mean, that's that's just I feel that's those seventies. Yeah, I feel like that's pretty to mid sixties. You're like, holy shit, right, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, like it's even sixty two.

00:06:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. If you mound that clothes back to the dug out.

00:06:32
Speaker 2: And you're in like middle school and you, hey, this kid can throw seventy two miles an hour, You're like.

00:06:35
Speaker 3: Fuck, I don't think I ever even heard of that.

00:06:37
Speaker 4: Honest with you, your listeners know this, this is mores us getting to know each other.

00:06:41
Speaker 3: Where Where are you from again? From Arizona?

00:06:43
Speaker 1: From area I grew up, grew up in Asa, born in California, grew up, grew up in Arizona, went to Michigan, and I've been here.

00:06:48
Speaker 4: So okay, and then so Bontare, Missouri. Is that that's a real place. Oh, I've been there. That's a real Actually I've driven past there with Willie people.

00:06:58
Speaker 3: It's a real place. Yeah, Baco lead okay. Cigarettes.

00:07:02
Speaker 4: For a long time in my life, I'm out of conspiracy, there's But for a long time in my life, I was like, man, I'm not sure Missouri and Nebraska actually exists. Like I don't know if they were real places or if it was just like we're going to put them on a map. Because I didn't know anybody. You know, you never I'd never like Nebraska because they don't leave. Nebraska people don't leave.

00:07:18
Speaker 3: It's weird. I'm pretty sure Missouri people don't leave either. You're talking about where I am right now.

00:07:22
Speaker 1: No, but you like you like made it out kid, Yeah, I mean you told me all the time people from your town like don't really leave that town.

00:07:29
Speaker 3: That's fair. Yeah, that's accurate.

00:07:31
Speaker 1: Like Nebraska, it's a similar it's a similar conversation we've had.

00:07:35
Speaker 2: I feel like most people if you're in a small town, though, not a lot of people really leave.

00:07:40
Speaker 3: I think that's a great point, you know what I mean.

00:07:42
Speaker 2: No, and I agree with that, Like cities like you like, yeah, I don't know what makes We were an hour away from Saint Louis when I was growing up, so there really wasn't no city there.

00:07:52
Speaker 3: There was like nothing around us.

00:07:53
Speaker 2: So you just get used to the community aspect, I guess of a small town, like when you're growing up and when you're younger like my area, and say, you're like good at sports, you like picture yourself being like a head coach of that high school team when you grow up, or like a gym teacher, you know.

00:08:07
Speaker 3: What I mean.

00:08:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm always coach pe and I'm gonna I'm gonna teach pe and I'm gonna coach football.

00:08:12
Speaker 3: What was a big city for you? Saint Louis. Saint Louis Lewis is huge.

00:08:15
Speaker 2: When I went to Link in Nebraska, I felt like it was big for me and everybody else from like Texas and Cali, and they like just shit on it.

00:08:22
Speaker 4: Like like when I went to Orlando my rookie year, I thought I thought Orlando was a city.

00:08:26
Speaker 3: It's clearly not a city. It's not a real city. Well, Atlanta's a weird place place.

00:08:30
Speaker 1: Every time I go to Orlando, I'm like, I feel like everything's fake here because it's like the Disney the Disney World, and it's like, oh, there's a castle right there, or like this extravagant billboard, like it's so insane. But really it's just like fake. Nothing's real there. It seems like to me, I've.

00:08:45
Speaker 3: Only been there like three times in all three of those years. I don't know.

00:08:47
Speaker 4: I wouldn't call it like all of it fake, but it's a transient place. So a lot of people in and out, a lot of tourists.

00:08:54
Speaker 3: Google transient for me. Well, he's I mean, he can probably define it for you'll be.

00:09:00
Speaker 4: That'll be the easiest word to translate that I'll use today.

00:09:04
Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah, what is it? Short lived? Okay?

00:09:09
Speaker 4: I keep always changes moves around, you know, people in and out. Yeah, nobody's from Like, who's from Orlando? Who's like I like, Yeah, I grew up in Orlando, and I stayed in Orlando. It's the same thing here in Nashville.

00:09:20
Speaker 1: The first six months I lived in Nashville in twenty fourteen, I didn't meet one person from Nashville.

00:09:25
Speaker 3: I grew up in this area at all. Everyone's transplants.

00:09:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, come from New York, come from Florida, come from all over the place.

00:09:31
Speaker 2: What you're you know, you're touching the local boys back there?

00:09:34
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, is that not true?

00:09:35
Speaker 1: Is there's so many people from out of town. Yeah, I'm not trying to come out the boys. I'm just trying to say, like it's a transient place.

00:09:42
Speaker 3: The book. You know, read a book, boys, and it's just a transient place. You know, are you stick to be un bust on the boys?

00:09:51
Speaker 4: I am stoked. I mean shit, man, Like I gotta be honest with you all. The last eight or nine months has been kind of crazy for me because I always envisioned this year of bliss and quiet when I retired, and I was very hesitant to do ESPN, and uh, I agree to do like a short one year deal and I was still obligated to do the podcast.

00:10:15
Speaker 3: For another year. So I was like, yeah, I'll fuck it, I'll do I'll do ESPN.

00:10:18
Speaker 4: But getting into the media space has been way busier than I expected, and so I get asked to do podcasts probably three or four times a week. That's our exaggeration, like literally three or four times a week. So for me, when I got like the ask from your crew that was like, hey, did he come down to Nashville to do this? I was like absolutely, absolutely, no hesitation. I'm super excited to be here.

00:10:43
Speaker 1: What about bust One the boys is if there's three or four a week coming to you saying hey, come on our podcast? What about busting?

00:10:48
Speaker 3: Was like, so was it? The bus was a will?

00:10:51
Speaker 4: It was mostly well, yeahs usually great follow up follow on Twitter, a great phenomenal teeth. Yes, he's hilarious. He had one of the need to body back somebody for JJ.

00:11:01
Speaker 2: Somebody was coming at him really the guy named Chip and then JJ JJ gave like a good response to me, and it was one of those things where you kind of like read through the bulls.

00:11:09
Speaker 3: You'll like, hey, JJ, do you need do you need me to ask him for a favor? Yeah.

00:11:13
Speaker 4: I was so scared to clap back at people on Twitter when I was a player, and then I was off of social media for like two years.

00:11:18
Speaker 3: It was it was an awesome time.

00:11:21
Speaker 4: But then when when we started doing the podcast again, I was like, I kind of gotta be on. But in retirement, I have zero problem clapping back. And I used to think about Kevin Durant I'd be like, why is Kevin Durant? Why is Kevin Durant? Like clapping back, Well, he's the top five player. The guy's worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Like why does he find the time. But the reality is when you have the app on your phone and you check on it, it's human nature. You're gonna look at the mentions and like why not. It's very satisfying. Yeah, very satisfy.

00:11:50
Speaker 3: And it's a super that.

00:11:51
Speaker 4: Guy in a body bag the other day with the you put him to put him in the Yeah, So like, how's your swaddle game right now?

00:12:00
Speaker 3: My swallow game?

00:12:01
Speaker 2: Well, now we're kind of, you know, we kind of we're kind of cheating now because we got the Ali swaddle because it's like voo that exists, Yes, that exists, and it is a good it's a very good swaddle. But before we got the Ali, my swaddle was was actually getting pretty good.

00:12:14
Speaker 3: I was like in mid season four before we got the Ally, that's good.

00:12:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, my wife only let me do the swaddle. She couldn't do it really for both our kids. Yeah, I was and I went tight.

00:12:23
Speaker 3: I went tight.

00:12:26
Speaker 1: Well, that hands has poken out when when you first start, then that hands starts creeping, they start scratching their face, the nails, there's nothing, it's it's it's a wild thing. The swallow was something that took very seriously get competitive.

00:12:37
Speaker 2: Yes, Like when they're kind of tugging, You're like, all right, I'll fucking show you you.

00:12:41
Speaker 3: Wanna we want to play games like that, you know what I mean? From there, and I didn't really fight back too much.

00:12:45
Speaker 1: Makes you feel kind of bad after, but while you're in it, you definitely like think, oh, this baby's trying me.

00:12:50
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. I absolutely get it.

00:12:53
Speaker 2: But yeah, I was telling Taylor like, uh oh, stoked that you were coming on because every every white kid in America when you're playing college basketball, they want to be able to shoot a ball like JJ Reddick. And I was more fired up now that you're coming on the bus because I was telling Taylor that you're legitimately one of the first ogs like in the in the active athlete world that was doing a podcast like you did yours for like five years. Now you did it with like Yahoo and Ringer before you had to do your own thing. But just the fact that you're podcasting in those five years, like when we started Busting with the boys, like low key to give your flowers a little bit, like you helped give me like confidence and like courage you like do Busting with the boys kind of like a Pat McAfee and some of those guys who have kind.

00:13:32
Speaker 3: Of like pioneered the space.

00:13:34
Speaker 2: And so that's like, that's actually like a that's a huge reason like why I was fired up because I would look at old man in the three, and you're obviously in the in the basketball space.

00:13:43
Speaker 3: So I never really like there's some out there.

00:13:45
Speaker 2: You look and you're like all their kind of like competition and stuff, but you like you were since you were in the.

00:13:48
Speaker 3: Basketball side of it.

00:13:49
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, let me see like what JJ's doing, like how he does his stuff. You've retired on your own platform, like you own you like own your voice, you control your narrative. You give a platform for athletes, and so that's like why I'm so fired up that you're on the bus.

00:14:02
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. I never thought about that.

00:14:05
Speaker 4: When I first started, WOJ was launching a platform called the Vertical at Yahoo, and he asked me to write articles for him, and I got this like weird flashback to college, being like stressed out and then having to stay up all night till six am to write a term paper. I was like, fuck that, waj, I don't want to do that. And then he came back six months later it's like me and Chris Mannix are doing the pod Do you want your own pod? And I legitimately had never listened to a podcast before. My wife had listened to Cereal the season one about the love triangle and the murder and stuff. Oh, I never I was like, I listened to it and I was like, I don't know what to do, Like, this is not what I'm going for. And you know, when I started it, it was I thought at the time it was weird. I thought at the time, I was like, I'll just get some reps in case I want to do media. But then I realized that it like satisfied this curiosity in me, Like because I go to dinners or you know, I meet people and I'm like, I'm genuinely.

00:14:57
Speaker 3: Curious about people.

00:14:58
Speaker 4: I'm very interested in the human psych and it's given me this like amazing ability to to like interact with people. And then on top of that, as you mentioned, there's nothing better as an athlete than like having your own platform and being able to control the narrative. And I've used it in some ways, probably positively and probably probably negatively to do that, but like I just I enjoy having it. If there's anything that happens in my life, you know, it's as a player, and even as a retired player, I can just go on the pod and talk about it.

00:15:28
Speaker 1: When you were first starting your podcast, was there like that then in security that like, oh man, once I put the start putting this out there while I'm playing, am I going to be like, oh yeah, judge did My coach is going to think this way? My team is going to think a certain way, Like how does you deal with that situation?

00:15:42
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:15:43
Speaker 4: I was fortunate because the clip the Clippers at the time that I get asked that question a lot. The truthful answer is anyone who is around me as a professional knew that my number one priority was basketball, even more so than my family. And I hate admitting that, but that's the truth. My entire day was structured around trying to be great at basketball. So no one that I worked with, whatever question whether or not I was making the podcast a bigger priority than basketball, I think for me, and it's still this way. I still get a little bit of performance performance anxiety when I record a pod, because like, I just want anything I do, I want it to be good. This is why I'm so mad that I lost to you guys in many basketball. No, I'm serious, like, I just want it to be good. And so it took twenty to thirty episodes where I like, legit wouldn't have to chug a beer before I started, just to calm myself down.

00:16:39
Speaker 3: Really, I would chug.

00:16:40
Speaker 4: I would chug it was I was living at La so it's the North Coast Pilsner. I would chug a North Coast Pilsner, and and just to calm myself down, like okay, all right, you're gonna be all right. And I used to fucking keep I mean age like fifteen to twenty pages of notes on each person, and I would like have every question I've had a flow chart.

00:16:59
Speaker 3: I mean I overdid it.

00:17:01
Speaker 4: And now it's like I record and not do my notes, and I research and I work hard on it. But generally speaking, now it's just like it's natural, it's flows. I'm sure you guys have experienced the same thing. One hundred some episodes in it gets easier.

00:17:13
Speaker 1: It's way easier because you can't understand, like the more you do episodes like it took us about twenty episodes. Every once in a while too, like we'll do an episode somebody, we'll call each other in the car. But that was like our go to in the beginning was do an episode driving away college other like, hey, what do you think? And then we go back and forth on what we thought we both could have done better, or like hey, if I do this, maybe you say that, or like go off it this way.

00:17:34
Speaker 3: And it was.

00:17:37
Speaker 1: A difficult, trying time because you're just kind of in this world that you know nothing about, and then you don't know if people are really gonna enjoy it. And then as you do it more, it kind of just becomes like, you know what your audience likes and wants, you know, like it much. It's probably easier for me and Will because we're best friends, so it's easy for us to come up here, and because what we do in the podcast we literally do outside, right, So if it's just us too, it's never a difficult thing. Having a guest on is not a difficult thing for us because at the end of the day, we can bounce back off each other, you know, and we wait.

00:18:08
Speaker 3: But it took us time in reps to learn that.

00:18:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think with Tommy, I think that was part of the reason that I wanted Tommy as a co host, which our last season of The Ringer, he was trying to get me to do it, and I was like, I could. I'll be honestly, I don't really want to do it anymore. So we did it for a few months together, and then COVID hit Pandemic, hit World shutdown. We have both simultaneously discovered Zoom and we're like, oh, we don't have to do these in person. We can do them, you know, over the internet and put some content out during COVID and then we you know, Bill wouldn't let us own the podcast, so we were like, all right, we're gonna leave. But I think having like that was my motivation for involving Tommy and just having somebody like as a backup bounce ideas off to give me a pause during it.

00:18:54
Speaker 3: It's helpful.

00:18:55
Speaker 4: It's helpful, by the way, even this year working for ESPN and kind of having a real sense of the landscape of sports media, like being in it and getting to understand it a little bit better. Like we are in the first wave of athlete driven content, the first wave, and like you mentioned you like I was a pioneer.

00:19:20
Speaker 3: Like I think all of us are.

00:19:21
Speaker 4: I think all of us in this first inning, first couple innings, are pioneers in it. I don't think this is like a novelty something that's going to be a short lived thing. I think the future of sports media is going to be athlete driven. Not to say that traditional journalists won't have their place in it, but honestly, people are starved for this, Like we have been fed sandy and soda for the last fifteen or twenty years. And being able to peel back the curtain a little bit and offer someone a three course meal with a leafy green salad.

00:19:53
Speaker 3: I think people eat it up. Man, I really don't. I agree.

00:19:55
Speaker 1: I think not just that, but like the suit and tie like to be super proper all the time.

00:20:01
Speaker 3: I think for us is we're kind of learning.

00:20:03
Speaker 1: Like people want to feel like, oh, these guys are just like me, that type of vibe, Like we might play sports, but I mean we're sitting here in.

00:20:10
Speaker 3: Shorts, T shirt, Barstool does one of the best parts about hanging out Barstool, one of the best parts with You've.

00:20:16
Speaker 2: Mentioned Bill not letting you own the podcast during that time.

00:20:21
Speaker 3: You said that was during the COVID that was during this was so our contract was running up.

00:20:28
Speaker 4: I think it ended like July thirty first or August first, so it's basically two weeks into the bubble. And I told Bill in June, I was like, hey, you know, just so you know, like we are like going to other companies and being like, do you want to help us sell ads on our podcast? I'm you know, I want to be transparent with you that this is happening, so please make an offer. And you know, they made an offer, but they were the only company that was like, you can't own it. And this was right around the time of the Ringer sale to Spotify and so and.

00:21:01
Speaker 2: Not to mention Barstool with color Daddy, like there was a lot of IP conversation.

00:21:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, And so that was just it wasn't even it wasn't even a money issue because it honestly, honestly, the Ringer offered us more guaranteed money than anyone else. But it was just like I just wanted to own the ip, even like simple stuff that you want to do down the line with you know, conversations or episodes. It's like, well if I don't have control of that, like what good is it?

00:21:29
Speaker 3: You know?

00:21:29
Speaker 4: And so it really just became bottom line, like are you gonna let me own it? And he said no, And I said, okay, no hard feelings, that's fine, We're moving on. No, what was it called before the JJ Ready podcast? He wouldn't let yeah, yeah, And and they so we lost.

00:21:47
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the same thing that barstool with McAfee. Yeah, is a Pat McAfee showing us Pat McAfee two point zero.

00:21:52
Speaker 3: Correct for sure, But you just almost think like, man, it's we lost.

00:21:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we lost kind of crazy, right, We lost our subscriber base obviously are gonna be the biggest thing, right. And I had done it twice already because I lost it when I left the Ringers O Yahoo, I love I lost mine then, so I've had to restart three times basically, which.

00:22:12
Speaker 2: Well, what's huge, But I think speaks so good to your audience. It was like very like intriguing when like learning about you when we were doing busting with the boys.

00:22:19
Speaker 3: Was that.

00:22:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys amassed one hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube within six.

00:22:24
Speaker 3: Weeks on on our old Man. Yeah.

00:22:29
Speaker 4: I mean that's the thing that we realized early on. It was like an epiphany moment we had. My last year with the Ringer, we did Zion in person in LA and it was his first long form interview. And we did Jimmy right before the literally two weeks before COVID and March eleventh and the you know, the world shutdown. Basically we put that on YouTube and those are still the two most watched videos on the Ringer YouTube channel.

00:23:00
Speaker 3: So is this a fifty moment?

00:23:01
Speaker 4: We're like, oh, not only is it audio, Like podcasts should be audio, they should be video, and then we should probably put stuff on social and so like all of those things helped just grow the brand and grow the audience. And you know, I talk with people all the time that either want to do business with a podcast or you know, our contract is up, and so you know we're talking about potentially, you know, doing deals with other people. But it's like, I don't care about anything else. I just want to grow the audience. I just want people to appreciate the content. When I have a guest on, I want people to walk away and be like, hey, I'm a fan of that guy now. Like Pat Beverly is a great example of that, Like he is a divisive player because of whatever however you view his antics on the court. But the greatest compliment I can get is like I have Pat Beverly on the show, and people like I used to hate Pat Beverly, I like him now.

00:23:54
Speaker 3: That to me is like, that's it. That's the juice for me. Yeah, pretty impressive. And you said yeah, and I was like, oh, no, you on this. Yeah.

00:24:09
Speaker 1: The juice for me is basically coming on YouTube mostly and like seeing like subscribers, seeing people commenting and like just loving what we're doing. It's it's still a crazy thought process to me that we're sitting here on mics on cameras and you when you play a sport your whole life, and you think, oh, this is all really ever be good at. This is my this is my one crack at the the big whatever I'm supposed to do in this world. And then you go branch off and do something like this and it's like you don't know if it's gonna work. Then all of a sudden, like it's kind of blowing up in a way that you're like, I can't believe people like this because it's so natural and easy for us to do. So it's just fun. I do love it when people come on this this say hey, I thought I didn't like this guy, but I do like this guy. But for me, it's just like it's given me I feel safer in my own life after doing a pod.

00:25:00
Speaker 3: Yes, as far as like like.

00:25:01
Speaker 1: We're doing a therapy session, yeah, but it is, Uh, it's actually thing I think about all the time. There used to be a point in my life where I was like football, that's like the only main income I have. Like, yeah, I've made a lot of money in football, but like what if this and what if that? Like, am I gonna ever be able to you know, I'm not gonna have to go work a nine to five job or something like that. And then once we started doing this and I started really making money, I was like, oh, like I'm gonna be okay no matter what, Like, no matter what I do in my life, I'm gonna be fine. Like this was like that step, that little piece for me to be like Okay, I'm gonna be all right and thing's gonna work out.

00:25:32
Speaker 4: I knew going into my last year of my contract with the Pelicans that it was gonna be my last year, and.

00:25:41
Speaker 3: The other side of that was so terrifying. It was so scary.

00:25:45
Speaker 4: And I and I had had a podcast, but I again it was like it was podcasting my future.

00:25:51
Speaker 3: I didn't know, And.

00:25:53
Speaker 1: It almost feels weird to say podcasting is my future. Tstory're like, is that even a thing? But I, oh, yeah, it's the thing.

00:25:58
Speaker 3: I know. I know, but like, well, you were like yeah, but if you first kind of started like is this really a deal?

00:26:02
Speaker 4: And like the last three four years, I called into all my parents, Actually, my parents called me because they were worried about me because New Year's morning, we had played a road game in Oklahoma City.

00:26:13
Speaker 3: I think the night before I got in late.

00:26:16
Speaker 4: I went to bed at like three am, woke up at eight, had a miscall for my mom. So I called my mom back and she was like, you know, we're really worried about you. My family was in Brooklyn and I was living on my own in New Orleans, and I was like super emotional because on Christmas morning, we were in Miami and my my wife had sent me a video of my now yeah, five year old running down the stairs to the Christmas tree, and I basically checked out at that moment, Like I was like, I just want to be home. I don't want to do this, and my mom, I told my mom, was like, I just want to get in my car and drive from New Orleans back to New York City. I just want to be home. And she's like, why don't you? And I said, because I'm fucking terrified, Mom, Like, I'm so scared of what the rest of my life is. Like, think about you guys play U sports. I'm guessing I started at seven years old. I'm thirty seven now, I retired at thirty seven. Thirty years of my life. I'm not great at math, but I would guarantee that's probably high eighty percent of my life. Eighty nine percent of my life has been wrapped up in sports. My identity, my ego, structure, everything is so ingrained in being a basketball player and like letting go of that, letting go of that thing, Fuck dude, it was terrifying. But I can say to your point about like feeling safe about it, Like, no, I can. I can do other things and maybe it's maybe it's this for a while, maybe it's something else, But I'm it's a weird place to be, you know, basically a year out of retirement to be like, Okay, I'm gonna be fine, my life's gonna be.

00:27:49
Speaker 3: Okay, everything's gonna be all right.

00:27:51
Speaker 2: It's gonna be all right, getting to that other side of it, because you're right, like it's that example. We spent, however many years of our life just doing one thing, and I feel like like you're probably the same way. Like even when you're in it, you have interests, and every kind of player and athletes feels like they have something they're kind of lining themselves up for. They have a curiosity or I'm gonna do this afterwards, everybody feels confident. But when those like for me, it was just like three years ago, I thought that could potentially have been my last year.

00:28:17
Speaker 3: And you're just like I was getting into real estate.

00:28:19
Speaker 2: I was, I was journaling up the podcast what it could look like, but I was just terrified. I'm like, man, I'm not playing a whole lot this year, Like this could be it, Like I truly have to. I've always been the guy that felt comfortable and be like, oh, I'll figure something out, Like I already have a few things going blah blah blah, but man, I really have to figure out like what I enjoy because this could be coming faster than what I realize.

00:28:39
Speaker 3: And and for me with.

00:28:40
Speaker 2: The podcast stuff, like it's it's like like when you were saying it like scratches that curiosity that each that you have, Like I love like talking to people. I feel like if I get to learn something about somebody, like we've had on like Darren Waller, Max, We've had on a lot of incredible people, but a couple of those stories staying now where Max is talking about his sobriety, Darren Waller's talking about his sobriety and just going in depth and like like giving athletes kind of a platform to talk about stuff, and like you said, like I'll you'll have people call and be like, yo, I didn't fuck with that guy, but that's really cool, or it's just like yo, I like this person, but man I did not know he fucking went through that.

00:29:13
Speaker 3: And it's like really cool that you guys are able to like peel back layers.

00:29:16
Speaker 2: Because they feel comfortable sitting in front of you, because we're all athletes. Because a lot of stuff that you'll give a microphone or the reporters or something you're either in the locker room when you're you're your backup or somebody that you're competing with sitting next to you, Like guys are around there.

00:29:29
Speaker 3: You're not gonna, yeah, everything's up.

00:29:31
Speaker 2: You're not gonna you're not gonna actually give reporters and talk about stuff.

00:29:34
Speaker 3: Not because you won't give it to the reporter.

00:29:36
Speaker 2: One you won't give it to a reporter, but also like the environment you're in, you're just not your guards up, like you said, egos are going and like when you're on something like this, I just feel like everybody feels more comfortable when they're talking with like athletes, or there's more of like an unfiltered approach, like being for the boys. We tell everybody if there's something that you don't like, let us know. We'll take it off. Like we've talked about jerk off stories that somebody's wanted theirs off.

00:29:57
Speaker 3: We kept ours on. But so where it's like, yo, just be your talk about that soon. Yeah, yeah, like yo, just let it fly and be yourself. And if you're yeah, yeah, yeah, and you're driving very much. You want to take it up, We'll take it off.

00:30:08
Speaker 1: People ask me all the time what this podcast is about. I literally go, I think it's just like a bunch of guys in the locker room talking. Yeah, it's like the conversations you would have. But another thing to what you were saying is, like we talk about all the time, like how you have like these blinders on here. You are so zoomed into the world that you live in, and like not only let's say, besides the podcast, like football, Like I go and play football, and then I spend time in the off season watching free agency, and then I spend time watching the combine. Then I watched the draft and see you the guys I'm gonna go again soon, what they're gonna be like, and then the like shortly after that, the schedule comes out, and then you're in OTAs and then you have that six weeks break where you're just so focused and in like your fight camp, going into camp.

00:30:45
Speaker 3: It's a year round thing.

00:30:47
Speaker 1: And what this has allowed us to do, or especially myself, because I get super caught up in like thinking like everyone is so focused and dialed in on Tennessee Titan football when really, if I just like zoom out for a second, it's like there's a there's a bunch of people that are but for the most part, like, ain't nobody gives a shit what I'm doing.

00:31:07
Speaker 3: You know.

00:31:07
Speaker 1: It's like I'll be in camp and it'll be the middle of August and it's I'm right in the middle of the start is too far to see and the and the end's not close enough, and you're just kind of like fucking in it. And you have a day off and you go drive home and you say, you know what, I'm gonna go cruise.

00:31:24
Speaker 3: Down Broadway real quick and see what's going on.

00:31:25
Speaker 1: And you go down Broadway and you see every type of person walking up and down, drinking, having a good time going.

00:31:32
Speaker 3: They don't give two shits.

00:31:34
Speaker 1: At the Tennessee Times had practice today, or we were watching film or who We're gonna play, And it allows you to be like, oh, like I'm gonna be It's gonna be all right. It kind of comes down to is like, oh, this isn't as overwhelming consuming to everybody as you think it is.

00:31:50
Speaker 4: I experienced that at Duke because I felt like I feel like they all wanted it there. Like I was in a fishball at Duke and I got on the other side of it. I was like, oh, you know, like Duke basketball, Like it's well known, but it's not actually like that important. But at the time, it felt like every single thing I did was live or die. It felt very intense to me. I did to ask you guys a question because I was my best friend he works in television LA and I had lunch with him yesterday and I was talking about the other side of sports, you know, being retired and whatever, and he's like, you know, you used to used to say this shit all the time when when you were a player, Like used to say you wanted to quit, used to say you wanted to retire. And I'm like, I'm curious if you, guys, in your career, even if it was a great season, that moment you're talking about when you're driving down Broadway and you're like, people are just having a normal good time. Like there's so many things that I felt like I miss missed out on, like Christmas being an example. I think I think I played on Christmas Day twelve times in fifteen years, and I carried I carried like a little bit of resentment about that, Like I don't know what it was, And there were moments where I was like, you know, I could do something, why don't I do something else? Like I started thinking about that actually was right after I had my first kid, because I could change my perspective about my time basically, and I, I don't know, it's like I was. I was definitely still into it, and I was definitely still committed, even more so at the end of my career. I was a fucking psycho, But like I still carried like a little bit of resentment about all the things that went into it that prevented me from doing other things.

00:33:28
Speaker 3: Did you guys, Do you guys feel that at all?

00:33:31
Speaker 2: If I feel like me feeling it, it was probably if anything, in the last couple of years, like when I know, I'm kind of like I have a foot out the door, like I kind of know what I want to lean into and do when I'm done now with busting with the boys and everything else, and so you think about it a lot more like when I'm in the season. But I would say like the first large the first like seven years, I more so think like I can't wait to do this when football's over with, like.

00:33:53
Speaker 3: Because it would be the same thing like with Thanksgiving.

00:33:55
Speaker 2: You don't get to do any of the holidays like during the season, like Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, all these things. New Years, it'd be more so like I can't wait to do this, like when I get done.

00:34:05
Speaker 4: Playing complaining not complaining. No, but it's because it's a great life and I'm I was. I never felt any sense of like ingratitude. I was always grateful. I was always you know, I would still like even my fifteen year super frustrated, like dude, I have fucking thirty six and I'm in the NBA, Like how fucking cool is this?

00:34:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I mean. Like I loved it every day, but still there were there were moments. There were moments.

00:34:29
Speaker 1: Everyone goes through the grass is greener. And the thing is there's so many different lives you can live on this world. Yeah, and so everyone always daydreams to think about what if. I always I remember being in college and like having to get my weight up because I came into college super underweight. I remember thinking to myself, like, man, when I'm done playing football, I'm gonna be so like jacked and skinny, and like I still to this day, I'm like, man, I cannot I can't wait to fucking lose sixty pounds, you know, and I can't wait to do this and this, and there was I mean we talked about it. We talked about all the time, Like during the season last year, the season I was having I had him over the houses like I'm I'm gonna retire. I'm done, like and you kind of but that's when you're like so in it, and then you start to realize, like, hey, you're in the NFL.

00:35:06
Speaker 3: How cool is this?

00:35:07
Speaker 1: Regardless, Like it's just hope you're living every kid's dream has to be a professional athlete at like it's some position. We did it, we made graduations, made it, and it's just cool. It's a cool vibe. But yeah, there are there's always something that you want to do other than what you're doing at that moment.

00:35:25
Speaker 3: YEA, yeah, I think I've retired with the last three years.

00:35:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, every year, this is it, this is known will. Every single year he's been like this is the last one, this is the last one. And now we're talking about your ten. You know, it's just crazy. Do you think, like I'm curious too, do you.

00:35:41
Speaker 2: Think there's a difference in basketball and football like doing the media stuff and having personalities? But I think because I think it's like it's wild that Draymond has a podcast. I think it's awesome, but I'm like, damn, like he's got some stones. When you go do a podcast like right after a game and talking about the game, do you feel like there's a difference there because you obviously did the pot for like five years, Like what's the sense? Like, what's the sense like when you're around all the guys, Because when I went to Vegas last year, like everybody kind of knew about the podcast.

00:36:08
Speaker 3: I know everybody liked this, so it was all good.

00:36:10
Speaker 2: But when I was in the building and seeing guys work and appreciating kind of like, damn, like these dudes like fucking they love like I.

00:36:18
Speaker 3: Love ball, but I'm like they love ball way more than the spot that I'm at in my career right now.

00:36:22
Speaker 2: To where you almost you almost feel bad bringing up any of the stuff because you don't want to seem like you're like not in it as much as they are.

00:36:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, I go back to that point.

00:36:32
Speaker 4: I don't I go back to like any teammate I've ever been around, like saw the dedication and work I put in, So I never sort of worried about that. On the basketball football side, I mean, that's probably part of a larger conversation just about the empowerment that NBA players have right now, the player empowerment era that we're in the middle of right.

00:36:55
Speaker 3: Now, relative to the NFL.

00:36:57
Speaker 4: And I don't think the NFL has gotten to the level that the NBA has. And probably some of that is are guaranteed contracts are the way the more you know, again it's you get the right guys.

00:37:11
Speaker 2: You can not predict, like it's a lot more competitive now, but it's a lot easier to predict what Lebron.

00:37:15
Speaker 3: And these boys on this team, like these teams are going to see each other in the final.

00:37:17
Speaker 4: There's also just inherently because of the way your cap works, there's there's like more parody in the NFL and because it's a two way sport like.

00:37:32
Speaker 3: In the NBA.

00:37:33
Speaker 4: It's like, if you're one of the five best players or ten best players like.

00:37:36
Speaker 3: You, you fucking run it. You run it.

00:37:38
Speaker 4: Some guys don't take advantage of that. Some guys do but there's just more. I just believe inherently there's more power. If you are Lebron James, or you're a Kawhi Leonard or Kevin Durant, there's you just carry more than even a great All Pro NFL player does. It's just the way the sport works.

00:37:57
Speaker 1: Plus, guys probably when you say run at your I mean like they run practice and meetings and they say, we're fucking this is what we're doing.

00:38:03
Speaker 3: There's input on everything. You haven't put on everything.

00:38:05
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys like Aaron Rodgers are like Peyton Manning pay There's very few guys.

00:38:11
Speaker 4: Kind of but I think every team in the all thirty teams probably you could probably name five guys in the NFL.

00:38:15
Speaker 3: Ten guys.

00:38:16
Speaker 4: Maybe they could name the best wide receiver in the NFL and yeah, but then he's not he's not having input on like who they should draft, right, they should trade? Yes, where in the in the NBA, the top two guys on pretty much every team. I mean I had that with the Clippers, and I was like the fourth or fifth guy you know I had. I would talk to Doc, I would talk to l Frank, I would talk to Steve Balmer, like I had that. You know, I had that with Philly when I went there, Like I wasn't even one of the best players, and I just I just think that because of I don't know if it's less guys or it's just like, you know, we're on the court the whole time. You know, in the NFL you're playing offense or you're playing defense. And to a degree too, it's like the NBA, a great player can impact the game more than a great NFL player because I don't want to no, I agree make brodg gener rallies, but in general, like in the NFL, like on a play, you have a specific task.

00:39:13
Speaker 3: In the NBA, it's it's.

00:39:14
Speaker 4: A little more organic where a player's talent can sort of shine in a bunch of different right, does that makes.

00:39:21
Speaker 2: Sense that you guys make the mannings thereon Rodgers the Tom Brady's like, if you play, if you play good offense, like running the ball, and you can keep them off the field, like you can keep those guys off the field, like those quarterbacks need the defense. I mean the special teams in literally everybody just as much as.

00:39:36
Speaker 3: They feel like they can affect basketball.

00:39:37
Speaker 1: It seems like, well it seems like not knowing basketball, but like it seems like you have two or three dudes you can take over and do whatever the fuck you want.

00:39:44
Speaker 3: Almost yeah, you know what I'm saying.

00:39:45
Speaker 4: Pretty much like when Lebron as long as those dudes were like good in twenty twenty two and not the last time they were good was like twenty sixteen, Like the Lakers this year, right, they built a team around guys that were good six.

00:39:57
Speaker 1: Years now as h is that?

00:39:59
Speaker 3: Why then? Is that? Though? Yeah? Yeah, he still is. I mean where would you rank him in the top ten today? I mean he's in the top ten. I don't know, he's to five. Though.

00:40:10
Speaker 4: It's hard to judge based on this year just because of how bad that team was and how badly that roster was constructed. You know, I probably to a degree, the Brooklyn Net's not as bad of a roster, but also equally bad because it's the NBA has changed, and it's very recent the NBA has changed.

00:40:31
Speaker 3: Like I really believe.

00:40:32
Speaker 4: You need homegrown talent like you have the draft. Well, that's that's the inefficiency in the marketplace. You have to draft well, you have to have homegrown talent, you can't buy championships anymore because you need all the ancillary pieces. You can go get two or three great players that are super max or max players. You need really good players three through seven, three through eight. And if you're going to have two or three Max guys, those guys have to be on rookie contracts or you have to be really good with finding bart players and free agency.

00:41:01
Speaker 1: But if you okay, So if you're the La Rams. They went and they didn't do anything in the draft, and there's fifty three guys on a roster in the NFL, how come the you can't do that in the NBA anymore. It seems like it'd be way easier to go pay seven or eight guys and then and then have them be a super team. You say, you think that can't happen anymore once when the Rams just did that with way more guys.

00:41:23
Speaker 3: You know what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I don't see what I'm saying.

00:41:25
Speaker 4: I'm not again, I haven't put my GM hat on to be an NFL GM. Yeah, I have put it on to be an NBA GM. Right, it's just the general way our our cap works. So there's a there's a cap, and then there's a luxury tax, and there's a there's a hard cap, an apron, there's a you know, the difference between the luxury tax and the hard cap is like an apron. So once you get into like two max players, then it's like, all right, we have thirteen roster spots we need to fill out with. Essentially, the supermaxes are so high now, essentially like forty million dollars, so on average, you're going to pay guys three million dollars a year, which is what the Lakers did this year. They signed you know, Avery Bradley, Trevor Reza, DeAndre Jordan, like all these guys on minimum contracts. Well, if you're a free agent and you're trying to get paid and another team has let's say the mid level, which is ten million dollars a year, you're probably gonna go take that versus two point five, you know what I mean. So it's just the nature of the salary cap. So unless you have those guys that you drafted and they're still on their rookie contract and you're able to pay those players once they become free agents because you have their bird rights.

00:42:36
Speaker 3: But that's the challenge the right bird rights? Bird rights? What's the bird rights? Bird rights?

00:42:41
Speaker 4: Basically, if you're drafted by a team and then you're you're a free agent, and that team is over the the what the salary the what's the thard cap? Yeah, salard cap. If you're over the star cap, you can resign them. Came in with Larry Bird. So like if when I signed with Philly on the one year deal, they didn't have my bird rights the fallowing summer, So when Lebron didn't sign there, they sign me on another one year deal. Had I resigned there, they could have gone over the luxury tax because after two years you have early bird rights, after three you have full bird rights.

00:43:12
Speaker 1: And this is all because of Larry Bird. It's all because of Larry Bird. Do you care to explain that situation to me at all?

00:43:17
Speaker 4: I Again, I'm not a complete basketball historian, but my general knowledge of the situation is that the salary cap came into place sometime in the nineteen eighties and Larry Bird's rookie contract was over and the Celtics wanted to resign him, but they couldn't go over the salary cap to re sign him. So there was a rule put in place in the collective Barging Agreement that you could resign your own free agents to go over the salary cap as long as you had bird rights.

00:43:42
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, it was a good explanation. That's a great explanation. The well, not a historian, but here's exactly what you need to know.

00:43:49
Speaker 2: In the for the Rams question, I feel like they've been kind of cooking that team up for a couple of years.

00:43:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:43:53
Speaker 2: I mean like each year they've kind of added a different place. And mind you, they drafted Aaron Donald. They drafted they've had it. They had Aaron Donald. He realized like, okay, they missed, they're missing a qbpiece. They were able to trade Mats Stafford and they probably feel like got Stafford, they got Obj. They were close enough if they just needed if they got like the Obj and the von Mill and they probably sat there and they're like, hey, fuck these draft picks, like let's try to win the Super Bowl this year.

00:44:15
Speaker 4: I was made it fascinating with the NFL, like how you guys can sign a contract and then like two years later, like a new contract happens. We're like we you know, we sign a contract like we can't renegotiate our contract if we're going to make let's say a guy's gonna make twenty million dollars and a team wants to go sign another player. They're not going to go to that player and be like, hey, will you take ten next year? You know, it's like yeah, no, it's just like guaranteed, like that's what you get.

00:44:38
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then also it's a real issue on.

00:44:40
Speaker 4: Harry Beard is like it's like this guy's cat he's gonna make thirty seven million dollars, but his cap hits thirteen.

00:44:45
Speaker 3: And it all.

00:44:46
Speaker 1: It really depends on that ship. To me, it depends on teams and how much like money they have. Yeah, like if you're if your owner has lots of money, and really the cap doesn't really matter, right because we'll be making ten million dollars and his cap it's going to be seven. Yeah, we're gonna say, allright, hey, well we're gonna give you nine million dollars in a signing bonus right now. So now your capit's one and you're making minimum this year. It's just a crazy concept. Yeah, it really doesn't matter. And we have a lot of tenders.

00:45:10
Speaker 3: We have a lot of like the tenders are wild.

00:45:12
Speaker 1: The fifth year, there's a fifth year option where if you're first you're a first round draft pick, it's a four year contract with an option for the team to pick up a fifth year option. Mind you, you can get franchise tag twice too, because you can literally play seven years on one deal.

00:45:25
Speaker 3: Basically.

00:45:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you're out playing your contract, your rookie, we're about to get paid, they can put a fifth year option on you. And the fifth year option is like you make an average of what the top ten guys are making or something like that, which is usually top three or four guys make a lot of money and there's a big there's a big difference in the bottom, so you kind of average out position at your position, and then you can get actually get another I think you can put another option on the guy.

00:45:51
Speaker 3: Again.

00:45:51
Speaker 2: No, that's a fresh eye stack. That's fresh eye stack. It's the average of the top three. Right, Yeah, they have the top three players. But yeah, you get this crazy on these one year, one year deal and they have your rights for like Taylor said, like up to seven years if they actually wanted to. But rookies nowadays, like if you start out performing your deal, like going into that fifth year. If like they try a fifth year option, you guys are getting a lot. You know, guys are like holding out or saying that they won't play like that.

00:46:13
Speaker 3: You guys will hold out.

00:46:13
Speaker 1: And usually what teams do is they'll pick up your fifth year option and then they'll negotiate as you're going into your fourth year or your fifth year. It doesn't really it doesn't really matter anymore, but it just gives them more time. Just in case, I signed my second contract going into my fourth year, but they already picked up my fifth year option.

00:46:29
Speaker 3: They have to pick it up by what your third year, like by like may or may or third year. It's it's a wild deal. It's a wild deal. The it's it's.

00:46:39
Speaker 1: Crazy when you when you're an NFL player and you guys are we're all sitting here talking about money and stuff like that, and then we look at the NBA.

00:46:45
Speaker 3: It's like, Yo, it's fucking wild. How these guys kind of just run the show.

00:46:48
Speaker 1: It really is just like like mother fuck like these yous are just making like I think Derek Carr literally play that much right right right million dollars dude. Derek car signed his contract, not this most recent one, but the one before that. And somebody tweeted him it was like one hundred and twenty million dollars country or something like that, and he's like, hey, congratulations, you make as much as a sixth man in the NBA.

00:47:10
Speaker 3: Now not true. Well that someone says like that, and I was like, that's just fucking wild. That's nice, But the money, stra have you been a non start and made a nice little baggy?

00:47:21
Speaker 4: My two year deal with the Pelicans was nice. Yeah, I mean I made like thirteen and a half or something a year and you were in the top five. And I wasn't a sorry, Yeah, that's crazy, that's wild.

00:47:30
Speaker 3: It's good for you. I'm thinking, that's crazy. Like I didn't play either, give me that. That's crazy. If you're not a starter and a half million dollars different, it's different. I don't know how different. How is it? What do you I played my first year.

00:47:42
Speaker 4: At the twenty eight minutes a game and scored over fifteen points and was second the league in three point percentage.

00:47:48
Speaker 3: Go off game. All right, okay, we listen.

00:47:50
Speaker 4: A guy, a guy in the NFL who's not a starter might play ten snaps a game, like there's a dip.

00:47:54
Speaker 5: That's my point. There's a difference. So you're still getting I'm right here on the bus, look at me. You might not play stuff in the NFL. He's just like, just look at me.

00:48:07
Speaker 3: Man. I didn't say it. You know what I'm saying. You're you're paid.

00:48:11
Speaker 4: You're paid in the NBA based on production, and so you don't have to be a starter to produce.

00:48:16
Speaker 3: That's where the difference is. That's true. And you guys have like way like less guys. We have less guys.

00:48:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, and again it goes back if you're generally speaking, you have like a max guy or a couple of max guys. You have a couple guys that get salary cap which is what every time I was a free agent, I signed with cap space. I signed with to a team with cap space. Then you have like the exceptions, the mid level exception. Then if you're over the tax you have the tax payer mid level exception, which is about half of the mid level exception, and then everything else is like minimum.

00:48:47
Speaker 3: So it just depends on yours service.

00:48:50
Speaker 4: So like if you're a ten year guy, I think minimum is two point seven something like that.

00:48:54
Speaker 3: A nice man that's a nice little baggy.

00:48:56
Speaker 2: I was like, as a tenurey, I think it's one one front player is from the minimum.

00:49:04
Speaker 1: So now you're on our side. You see him change the tune a little bit. Yeah, that's minimum after you've played like eight or nine.

00:49:11
Speaker 3: Ten years. Mind, this pastor is based on like nine eighty maybe, I think that's what it is. How many guys?

00:49:16
Speaker 4: How many guys minimum? Guys though, that are like balling that are starting and producing. And I'm not saying they're like necessarily all pro players, but they're they're good.

00:49:29
Speaker 3: They're really good. Well, you've right out well in analytics, I see. I think analytics is a it's not not the move, but this is a yeah. Well yeah, I know you have a bad taste about like analytics and the peple.

00:49:48
Speaker 1: I don't think it makes a whole It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Styles like you can do it for quarterbacks maybe wide receivers. You can do it to an extent, I feel like extent, but it doesn't start the entire story. When people say numbers agree with you, the numbers of the entire story, I disagree with that whole, whole hearted, And I.

00:50:03
Speaker 4: Love analytics in basketball, there's the most beautiful synergy that I've you know, can witness and Synergy, by the way, is a name of advanced stats company.

00:50:13
Speaker 3: The most beautiful synergy that I can see.

00:50:15
Speaker 4: Like, when I analyze this stuff is my eye is telling me something and I'll hit up a couple of people I use for advanced stats and some of the stuff I check myself. But I'm not great on second spectrum. I don't really know how to operate it. So I'll be like, hey, it feels like this team is running way more ISOs this series and they don't run a lot of ISOs in the regular season.

00:50:33
Speaker 3: Can you look that up?

00:50:34
Speaker 4: And then it'll be like, oh, yeah, they're running forty percent more ISOs during this series than they do do it in the regular season. I'm like, oh, it matches up. Sometimes the eye test and the analytics they match up. Sometimes the analytics tell us stuff we can't see with our eyes, and sometimes the analytics lie to us with what we see with our eyes. Yeah, Like Devin Books are an example of this. He is I think third on he was like third on the Suns this year and wins right, he's going to be first Team All NBA. He was top five in MVP voting, like he was their best player this year, but because of how analytics great players out, he didn't fare particularly well. Like you're always going to in the NBA, You're always going to need volume shot creators, and he's great at that, and he does it at a fairly efficient level.

00:51:20
Speaker 3: And my eye can tell me that. But the analytics they lied to me. They lied to me. They don't tell me he's as great as he is. Very well spoken man, he is. Jevin Booker, you are sure sure?

00:51:31
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, I don't know, Devin Bucket answer your question about the minimum things.

00:51:34
Speaker 3: I feel like it probably happens more.

00:51:36
Speaker 2: For like defensive guys than offensive, Yeah, because if you're if you're if you're like on offense, I feel like when you're like when you're having a year like it's it's it's easier to see. Yeah, Like defense could be harder because there's a lot of variables that you sometimes need to go to your way, like as far as opportunity and everything else. So if you might see a minimum guy bawling on a minimum contract, I feel like it's probably like a vet that's on like a one your deal, probably defensively.

00:52:01
Speaker 3: So here's another question I ask for you.

00:52:02
Speaker 4: I'm glad I have you guys on my podcast right now, but I have another question for you. I'm curious about this seriously. I think about the NBA and like a guy who's a free agent who needs to put up numbers, Like in the NBA, it's a lot of it is like your points, your rebounds, your assists, field goal percent, all that stuff, like you.

00:52:22
Speaker 3: Need to put up numbers.

00:52:23
Speaker 4: And so there's a way for a guy to basically have goods counting stats, earn a nice contract, but have literally no impact on winning, either because he's playing on a bad team or because of his role and he just you know, he's able to just shoot the ball whenever he wants. Now, I wonder if the NFL, if you're able to do that, Like if a guy's a free agent, like, can you hide behind statistics or is in the NFL are you just exposed at all time if what you do doesn't impact winning.

00:52:53
Speaker 1: I think to another one that goes for defense, because you can hide behind statistics in a lot of way ways.

00:52:58
Speaker 3: If because a.

00:52:59
Speaker 1: Guy, say a defensive end, he can have a lot of sacks. You can look at him and be like, oh that you had twelve sacks here, Holy shit, And then you go watch his film and these he might not be beating guys one on one. The quarterback might be holding the ball really long, or he gets flushed out of the pocket the wrong way. It's an effort sack, a lot of wait, a lot of waste, which is one of the arguments I would have had with what's his name?

00:53:17
Speaker 3: Who loves t J.

00:53:19
Speaker 1: Watt Jersey Jerry is TJ. Wat's an ubelievable defensive end. He deserves everything he's getting, but a lot of his sacks or effort sacks as well, like he beats dus Don't get me wrong, he fucking murders.

00:53:31
Speaker 3: Cats out other statistics for that, like how many times you beat.

00:53:34
Speaker 1: You there are Yeah, yeah, that's where PFF comes in and play Pro Football Focus. The thing Will was kind of alluding to with me was with PFF, they gray everybody every single day, and they they have like these numbers come out and it's a very difficult thing to do for my position because you don't there's a thousand different ways to run one play, and based on how we run ours it's different than Washington does, or San Francisco does, or you know, and so when you go to grade it, you can't grate us all the same. And so you need to have somebody, let's literally in the building to know what to do. And that's where I kind of get off like a little upset with numbers, right, because there's times there's one I won't.

00:54:11
Speaker 3: To go back to this, the task part of it.

00:54:13
Speaker 4: You could do your task, but someone through their bias of how they think the task should be run right, grades you a different way.

00:54:22
Speaker 3: But internally the Titans could be like, oh, you did that perfectly right.

00:54:26
Speaker 1: And there was a point in twenty sixteen where I was the grade of the number one tackle for the first nine weeks of the season, and I said the same thing then too. It's just like they don't really know what they're talking about when it comes to offense lineman. Now, with quarterbacks, I think runn backs would be another difficult one to do. I think defenses will be very pretty hard.

00:54:41
Speaker 2: It depends, like with a O lineman that you could see it like if you're moving the guy out of the gap, like you could be doing the task, but are you are you moving him to the sideline. Like for me as a backer, like I could take a I could take an offensive lineman on in the hole. But if we're stagnant or I'm barely getting moved even though I'm doing the right thing, like I know, mom, leveraging the right side to our but all these guys don't know what to talk. Tower takes on more of a more of a thudder, Dante Hi. Tower takes on. Somebody puts the offensive lineman in the gap. You'd see why he'd get like a better grade because he's he's physically moving the guy more, which could play into.

00:55:16
Speaker 3: It a spill.

00:55:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so crazy because defense doesn't feel the same way when you're talking about some of the basketball Stuff'm like, I kind of don't know what that means.

00:55:24
Speaker 1: But he makes that shit sound great. It's crazy, right, and but yeah, that's a crazy world, more so.

00:55:28
Speaker 2: Defense, where you could hide behind staff like dbst who get a lot of picks. You have like you got a lot of picks, you made a lot of plays on the ball, you get a lot of sacks. He could be a bad run defender, like maybe he's rushing to get a sack every damn play right.

00:55:40
Speaker 3: That's a great point. Yeahb's too. It's like, if you get a lot of picks, that means they're throwing the ball on your side, right, or if you're a safety to safeties do like Kevin Byron.

00:55:50
Speaker 1: He's on the Titans. He had a lot of interceptions this past year and he's just in the right place at the right time.

00:55:55
Speaker 3: Again, full quarterbacks that type of thing.

00:55:57
Speaker 1: But if you're a corner one on one like drel Revis at one point when he was on Revis Island is like he it was like, you don't even throw to that area, Like he just lost.

00:56:06
Speaker 3: Dudes down the great.

00:56:07
Speaker 2: Ones, like they probably won't have a lot of stats because then the ball's not thrown to him, right, you know how it is?

00:56:11
Speaker 1: So it all comes down Who's who's the cornerback for the Dallas Cowboys. Keep going ahead and we'll keep going Stefan Diggs, No, the corner of his digs. It's the Trevon Diggson Diggs.

00:56:22
Speaker 3: He's a guy. I saw a stat. I don't know if this is true or not.

00:56:24
Speaker 1: He had the most interceptions in the NFL last year, but he also had the most yards given up by any cornerback too.

00:56:29
Speaker 3: But he was all pro. He would play aggressively.

00:56:31
Speaker 2: You could beat him on a double move because he's like looking to get a pick and he trying to get them.

00:56:35
Speaker 3: Pichy, he is a stud. But yeah, like like the great ones.

00:56:37
Speaker 2: But you know how it is, like all those numbers, all that stuff comes down to like trying to gain leverage, like in a negotiation.

00:56:43
Speaker 3: So some guys it does work out, you know, others you know it might not. But it all comes down to probably another thing. Another thing is too just like supplying demand.

00:56:50
Speaker 1: Like a lot of guys would going to free agency and you'll be like, he's not that good, but he gets broke off because this team needs there's let's say there's market.

00:56:59
Speaker 3: The markets.

00:57:00
Speaker 4: Many tackles missed out on twenty sixteen free agency by a year. I was a free agent twenty seventeen. I tried to get a player option for sixteen after the sixteen year. I didn't get it with my Clippers contract, and I missed out. Like that summer was bombers. That was the summer where you know Timothy Bosley and I've got sixty four million dollars from the Lakers.

00:57:19
Speaker 3: Holy shit.

00:57:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're gonna take a break from old man and three we're gonna get to bust with the boys right now.

00:57:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go with that.

00:57:27
Speaker 2: Dude, I want to talk about like I know you've talked about it openly, but like your Duke days, like you were one of the most hated players in college basketball like history, like obviously Duke as well, but like it just in college basketball in general, And there were times where you talked about quitting, and I've seen that you did.

00:57:43
Speaker 3: Is it true that you've changed your number at times? Like your cell phone number?

00:57:46
Speaker 4: Oh my god, So yeah, I mean my my sophomore year, I've probably changed it ten or fifteen times. There were so many nights that year where I don't know who was the culprit who from it was somebody from Duke that had a friend at another school that would pass along my number, and you know, it was un C fans mostly and Maryland fans mostly, And back then I had the Nokia, you know, and so like I don't know if you could do this maybe in like the upgraded model my junior and senior year, but early on, like you couldn't like an alarm and simultaneously have it on silent, so I would just get calls all night long, like thirty forty calls, you know, as soon as like the number shows up at a Maryland party or at a Maryland bar, like my shit's blown up, over and over and over again.

00:58:37
Speaker 3: So I, yeah, I had to deal with that.

00:58:39
Speaker 4: There were you know, there were times that Maryland fans would call me, they would call me the Antichrist, which just like what again, this is true?

00:58:48
Speaker 3: No, it's wonder but the watch it goes back.

00:58:53
Speaker 4: To why I sort I felt like, in a way, we're all the main character in our own story, right, We're all little bit in our stasistic I think inherently. Yeah, but you know, Duke felt like this this this fish bowl, and I was like the main character and everybody, everybody really hated me, and it was it was tough to deal with. So yeah, my sophomore year, and I may have told this story with with Dan and Eric on their pod, but my sophomore year, I called my sisters to campus. It was during the Christmas break. I told him to come over from Raleigh and they came over. There was this chicken place and we grabbed a chicken sandwich and I was like I'm done, like I want to quit, and they're like, what do you mean? I was like, I just I was like, I want to be a normal student. I want to go to class. I want to be a frat kid. I think I probably said I wanted to write poetry. I think that probably came poetry when you're depressed.

00:59:47
Speaker 3: That is the move. It is the move.

00:59:50
Speaker 4: And and then I didn't quit. Second semester, I went into what I would describe as a spiral. I was out every night nights before games. I would drink twenty five thirty beers nights before games. Yeah, show up the next day.

01:00:06
Speaker 3: Many beers I counted, really crushing, like the marker on the wrist.

01:00:11
Speaker 4: I moved after the season. There do you guys remember the OC? Please tell me you watch the OCA.

01:00:15
Speaker 3: I remembered it, but I did not watch it.

01:00:17
Speaker 4: That was the show when I was in college. That was like we would record it on VHS. We record it and like watch it later. So it was a Thursday and I was like, OC's on tonight, and I was like, I'm going to see how many beers I can drink tonight. And I started at eight o'clock when the OC came on and I got to like thirty nine by the next morning, and and it was just like that was my second semester at Duke. I was just I was out of control. And a little bit of it was immaturity and selfishness. A little bit of it was rebellion because I had my whole sporting life since I was seven years old. And watch Christian Latner hit the shot to be Kentucky, I was like, I want to go to Duke. I want to go to and it was like a dream come true. And then I get to Duke and I'm like, oh, everyone fucking hates my guts, Like this is not what I signed up for.

01:01:10
Speaker 3: Why did everyone?

01:01:10
Speaker 4: Why did anyone hate you so much? Because I was a Duke. I mean, if I had gone to Florida or Uva, like it would have been fine. I would just would have been a normal kid. I would have had that hate vibe home. They do they do, and it's like the white villain at Duke like that was that was definitely part of it. I was next in line for that because we I mean we had we had like eleven or twelve games my freshman year that we played at the beginning of the season. It was like home games, and then we played like UCLA in Indianapolis. We played Ohio State in Greensboro for the big TENNESSEEC Challenge. We'd have a road game till after the new year, and we go to Clemson. We come out for warm ups in the entire student sections chanting shit. Two weeks later, we go to UVA, my home state. There's all these students. I had really bad bacne in college and I had there's all these kids wearing like makeshift white Duke for Duke number four jerseys and they had painted like red dots on their shoulders.

01:02:04
Speaker 3: Hilarious. By the way, I thought it was hilarious. I was, you know, I was very sensitive. You think it was funny? I did, even though it was really sensitive about you know, my my shoulder acting. I was like, man, that's that's fucking creative. Why didn't you go t shirt unto the jersey then if you're so, if you're insecure about it.

01:02:18
Speaker 4: It was a rule, we couldn't do it. I convinced him onphomore year. I went into his office. I may have cried, and I was just like, you gotta let me know. Shit shirt under my jersey. Damn you may you say may have? I cried, Yeah, yeah, yeah we did. That's that's a real deal. So the end of my sophomore year, we lost in the final four. It was a it was a low point for me. We we lost to Yukon. We were up eight with like three and a half minutes to go and they came back and I had a chance twice, actually, once to take the lead with like ten seconds left. I got stripped and then I had a chance with like five seconds left to hit a three to tie us and I missed them both, and I just like that spiral that I was on went even deeper, and coach would like make me come in on Saturday mornings to his office and he would meet with me, and he told me during one of those meetings, he said, we didn't win a national championship because you weren't worthy to be a champion. It's like the meanest thing everyone's ever said to me. And it was true, it was true, but it was like so soul cutting right. That sent me further down. So I then my parents, because they knew I was having a tough time for Christmas had given me a toy airplane.

01:03:29
Speaker 3: I'm like, what the it was a ticket.

01:03:31
Speaker 4: Basically, They're like, wherever you want to go after the school year's out, you can go. So I'm like all right. I was like, Oh, I want to go see my buddy, duke soccer player. I want to go see my buddy in California. So I planned this trip. We went to Davis, California. We went to the Bay, we went to Santa Barbara, went to La drove back up.

01:03:51
Speaker 3: Well.

01:03:51
Speaker 4: By the time I got to the trip, my parents knew that I was in a really bad place. I had seven dollars in my checking account. They're like, we're not going to give you any money for this trip. We'll let you still go on the trip, not gonna give any money. I basically like bummed off people. For those like ten days I was out there. And I got back from the trip, and I was supposed to finish an incomplete because I had k not gone a class all semester either, so I was supposed to finish it and complete. So I'm hanging out my buddy's apartment for like two weeks, and I would wake up at like two pm in the afternoon, I'd start chugging beers. I'd have a burrito party through the night, wake up at two pm. I did that for two straight weeks. No one knew where I was. I told my parents I was in summer school. I told Duke I was back home finishing my incomplete. One day, I get a fucking wrap rap rap at noon on the door of the apartment and it's Coach Collins and Coach Wojo.

01:04:42
Speaker 3: So I walked downstairs. I've literally got by the way. I have one outfit. I've got. It's an ABC.

01:04:47
Speaker 4: It's a blue Abercrombie shirt and Abercrombie cargo show.

01:04:52
Speaker 3: It was the time.

01:04:54
Speaker 4: It was the time, and I've and I've got these these flip flops that I had bought at the Gap in San Francisco, my last five dollars. They were on sale, and they're like, they're like, come outside. So I'm like, all right, So I'm two, I'm probably one ninety five. I'm two twenty five. Bro, I'm fucking fatty. I'm fat as fuck. I hadn't shaved in like three weeks. My hair is like sa frat boy hair, you know what I mean, a little wavy, little curently right over the years. They're like, you know, come outside. We get in the car, we drive all the way back to camp possible, like where's your anxiety?

01:05:27
Speaker 1: I when these dudes knock on the door ten out of ten, ten out of ten, which is debilitating.

01:05:33
Speaker 4: Debilitating. There was bongs everywhere as well, like it was bad. It was a bad scene, beer beer cans everywhere. In a way though, and I'll in a way, I was like, finally, really, yeah, someone came to get me. I was like finally. And so they we go to campus. We're getting ready to cook. This is a random part of the story. But we get we get ready to turn on campus and Wojo looks in the rear of community. He's like, nobody said a word by the way since come outside. Like I just followed them into the car. We get to campus and he's like, so, what have you been doing? And I was like, I don't know why I said this, but I was like watching movies.

01:06:15
Speaker 3: I was like, all right.

01:06:16
Speaker 4: So they took me up to Coach K's office. They dragged me through the through the fifth floor. He's on the sixth floor. They dragged me through the fifth floor to embarrass me and shame me, which I love that they did that because wo Joe and Collins are complete assholes and I love them to death. So they dragged me through I'm like looking like shit, and then we go up to Coach's office. We had a lot, like a long hour and a half meeting, and you know, they they basically it was basically an ultimatum. It was like, dude, we're not gonna kick you off the team. We're not going to kick you off camp, you know, out of school, but you need to get your shit together, and like we're gonna get you, you know, the help you need. So like I started seeing a therapist, saw a therapist the rest of my time at Duke that summer.

01:06:54
Speaker 3: I saw a psychiatrist as well.

01:06:57
Speaker 4: They put me on a fucking hourly schedule that sum and it was dude, I swear to god, I still have the sheet. Is eight am, wake up, nine am, check in, ten am class, you know, one pm, study hall, two pm, court, three pm, weights, four pm run, five pm, pick up, six pm, dinner, eight pm, you know, you're in your apartment, ten pm lights out. And I did that all summer with they check in your apartment to it was funny because it was two weeks into summer school, so I didn't have i'd have petitioned the dean to get back into summer school.

01:07:31
Speaker 3: They let me back in.

01:07:32
Speaker 4: I took a class on the Civil War and there's the start of my transformation as a student as well that summer.

01:07:39
Speaker 3: I got basically straight a's after that.

01:07:41
Speaker 4: But because it was so late in the summer, they were like, we don't like all the all your teammates, all the managers, everybody, you know that they already have roommates. So there was this random dude, I don't know his name. There's this random dude on Central campus. They were like, there's a person that has an extra bedroom in the two bedroom apartment on Central Campus. You're gonna live with this person. And he'd no affiliation to anyone I knew any affiliation of the team. And I walked in the apartment. I was like, hey, man, I'm going through some shit. I would appreciate it. I'm going to be friendly to you, but I appreciate it if you just like let me let me be for the next like six weeks.

01:08:18
Speaker 3: And he's like, what a first impression? Yeah? Yeah, So what did he say?

01:08:21
Speaker 4: To you, He's like okay, O, good, no worries, and I would like see him like later on, like my junior and senior.

01:08:26
Speaker 3: Year, and it was like it was like a passing, you know, sort of like I didn't know his name. No, he probably talks about you all the time. He probably talks about you all the time, dude, probably talking about he was instrumental and JJ reddick, jj reddick.

01:08:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, when I met him, he was going through it was done. Yeah, see what he's done that schedule. That was life changing because that became the rest of my life. And I wouldn't have done what I did in the NBA, or don't even done what I did. A duke had the length of career I had.

01:08:53
Speaker 3: I was. I mean, from that point on, I.

01:08:54
Speaker 4: Was a psycho. I was an absolute psycho. It was like diligent routine. My schedule takes precedence over everything. I need to get my work done, I need to get my sleep, I need to eat right. I'm going to go after it like that over and over and over again. And I did that for the rest of my career.

01:09:09
Speaker 3: Oh shit, dude, that's an incredible deal.

01:09:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, what do you think like discipline Discipline's the number one thing you need for success, is what you're saying. Well, I think obsession is I agree with that. I think because even with like a creative you don't necessarily need discipline if you're super talented. I know guys in the NBA that aren't as disciplined as I was. I know guys that probably are more disciplined than I was. Like I, it's obsession. It's like the true love, the stuff we were talking about earlier about like fuck, man, I want to go have a beer on Broadway, or fuck I want to go, you know, have Thanksgiving dinner with my family, all those things, like we have to be more obsessed with the other thing. We have to be more obsessed with what we're doing. And I always was. I was always more obsessed with it, and it's you know, so it was like the obsession on one hand. Then it was like learning how to be diligent, learning how to have a routine, you know. I I developed this routine as a pro player. It was like it was sick because my routines had routines, and it was like to the minute on a game day, to the minute starting at eight am whenever I woke up, it was like to the minute. All Right, it's twelve thirteen, I've got seventeen minutes till I need to lunch. It's one fifteen. I've got fifteen minutes till I need to take my nap. I'm waking up at four pm. I'm calling the room service at four thirt Like it was just everything was to the minute.

01:10:33
Speaker 1: When you do stuff like that, though, does it ever feel like if something messes with that schedule, like your kids are doing something, your wife does something, you can argue with somebody and at fuck super schedual where you're nothing, you're now off the minute? Yeah, it does it fuck up your game? Did it fuck up your situation? Because being that obsessive, it would fuck me up in the moment.

01:10:52
Speaker 3: I don't know.

01:10:52
Speaker 4: There was one example I can think of where it really fucked me up in the game, but it would fuck me at the moment.

01:10:56
Speaker 3: I'll give you an example of that.

01:10:58
Speaker 4: My first game with the Pelicans were in toront I know, and again they don't know that I'm like this, and so Jamel McMillan, Nate McMillan's son, comes in the training room and I started my routine ninety minutes on the clock. I'm in the training room, sixty five minutes on the clock. I'm in the weight room, fifty two minutes on the clock. I'm on the court thirty eight minutes. I'm finishing up my workout. I'm back in the locker room at thirty six minutes, like I'm starting that first game. And he comes to the locker room and he's like, hey, man, you're shooting it. He made he said some time that was not my shooting time, and I fucking lost it on him, and I really Jammel and I are cool like, but it was our first interaction that we had had, and I.

01:11:34
Speaker 3: Was like, what the fuck?

01:11:36
Speaker 4: What kind of operation is this? That's not my shooting top. I agree to this shooting time this morning, I told you, motherfuckers. Like then, I'm like, okay, I gotta go apologize like seven people right now.

01:11:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, But that was the game. That's the gaming, like all that stuff.

01:11:49
Speaker 4: The one time was I was in Indianapolis when I was with the Bucks and we were it was a different hotel than we normally stayed at, and I ordered my room service and it never came and I went, you know, I'm like I'm running out of time.

01:12:02
Speaker 3: Now I've got to go down. I canna take my bags under the bus. So I went down.

01:12:05
Speaker 4: I go to the restaurant like, hey, room serves never came, like whatever, they go get it. They gave it to me a minute before my bus time. So I'm eating like on the bus as I'm walking in the arena. And I was like two for thirteen that night and just couldn't I couldn't focus on the game. Was it because of the because of the food, because the food is bad?

01:12:26
Speaker 3: Like you're, yeah, what do you think about the routine?

01:12:28
Speaker 2: There?

01:12:28
Speaker 3: Me up messed up your day? Here's it?

01:12:31
Speaker 4: So it was all about control for me. You know, I get here's what I can control. I'm going to control this and like you're now you're now fucking with my control. The one thing I can control is my routine and now you're fucking with it. And I'm pissed.

01:12:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it fucked up? Looked yep, two for thirteen. Yeah.

01:12:48
Speaker 1: See, I've tried to be like that before during game especially in game day. But one thing I've realized for myself, when I do best when I had like I don't try to have control over anything as long as like in my head, I'm like, oh, I just need to feel before this game starts. I could show up four hours before the game starts. They show up two hours before the game starts, it does not matter to me anymore. But at one point I was like that right after like, wake up at this specific time, go get in the cold tubs, go from there, Go get a coffee at that Starbucks.

01:13:12
Speaker 3: Let you know, get the coffee, you go right to the stadium. That. I used to be like that, but then one thing would happen.

01:13:17
Speaker 1: It would fuck me up, and then I would tell myself after the game, like, oh, that's it's because you messed up your deal.

01:13:23
Speaker 3: Yeah. I got over that at Duke. Like by the end of my Duke time, I was like, I'm my performance on the court is not because I made three out of four on the last spot of my routine and didn't make four out of four. Like I just got over that part of it.

01:13:37
Speaker 4: I think it was more about just like it was like, here's what I need to do to peak at seven oh seven or seven thirty seven. Yeah, when that all goes up and it's tipped, like here's what I need to do to peak at that time.

01:13:52
Speaker 3: So it was that was was what it was about too. Besides the control, it was like there was a reason that I did everything.

01:13:58
Speaker 4: It wasn't like, well I did time, I shoes a certain way and put on my clothes my jersey in a certain order.

01:14:04
Speaker 3: But it wasn't about lit perstitious. It was whatever. But it was like everybody's got a few, everyone's got a feel. You have a thing. Do you have a precision?

01:14:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, not that I'm like thinking of, Like you know, I love a pregame latte. Yeah, but I wouldn't say it's like a superstition, like if I missed.

01:14:20
Speaker 3: It, I wouldn't like think a certain way.

01:14:22
Speaker 4: I mean, what if somebody said that we don't have lattes, We're just going to give you an espresso shot.

01:14:27
Speaker 2: That's like, oh, I'm good, you're not gonna take it. So it's not about the caffeine. No, no, no, it's not about the caffeine. It's just like the vibes going into the stadium. It's like about getting a latte. It's putting into the cup holder, it's turning up zz top, sharp dressed man, Lagrange, all this easy top, Cinderella Man, by eminem A lot of like old school bangers and like feeling.

01:14:47
Speaker 3: Good walking out the latte. What, no, Cinderella Man. That's a banger.

01:14:51
Speaker 1: You said the Eazy Top three times and all of a sudden it Cinderella Man.

01:14:54
Speaker 3: Eminem Oh this ez time.

01:14:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, sharp dressed man lagrange yet Yeah, like Cinderella Man. Another one, like if if I'm feeling like I got to have like a comeback game or a get back on track game in my head, I'm going to Sendereleman when I'm walking inside, because to me, it's like I'm sending Releman.

01:15:10
Speaker 3: I'm the fucking underdog.

01:15:12
Speaker 1: All that kind of So you know what, we're all telling ourselves our story. Yeah, you're always telling yourself what do you need to do?

01:15:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's kind of like I guess I think there's not is that because you listen to it one time before a game and you played well and then you're like, okay, that's my Yeah.

01:15:24
Speaker 2: Some of that yeah, yeah, like visualization, like running through the same reel in your head about like old plays that you've made, just to like see yourself do it and feel this and feel that. Yeah, it's like a kind of like a routine like that, and then if you have a baller game, you're like, yeah, I gotta go back to that kind of routine.

01:15:40
Speaker 3: But if it throws off, I'm not like flow state.

01:15:43
Speaker 4: It's it's like that's the lot the Superman talk about peak, getting to the peak, like hitting the peak at seven thirty seven.

01:15:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are the things I need to do to get into a flow state?

01:15:52
Speaker 4: Because as an athlete, like, if you're not in the flow state, you're okay, maybe you're shitty, but you're not like the best version of yourself your own head a lot.

01:16:00
Speaker 1: It's also one of the most difficult things to achieve is the flow state just be like nothing else matters. You're so present right now, you're not thinking about anything else.

01:16:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, for sure.

01:16:08
Speaker 2: One time in Tampa was like before the fourth preseason games, the first time I made the team out right, So I was in my second year, went through preseason my anxieties at a ten because I'm like, this is it, Like.

01:16:19
Speaker 3: I gotta make the fucking team. Yeah, And uh I had I had I had ice cream before the game.

01:16:25
Speaker 2: The night before the game, I made myself up ice cream M and MS had some caramels and fudge on that thing. Fuck and the boy ball like the boy played, well, you gotta let the team and tackles.

01:16:35
Speaker 3: That game the boy the boy had.

01:16:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so sometimes like that would be my reason for having like I I literally think back to myself, I'm like, it puts me in like a puts me in a good mood. Obviously, some ice cream puts anybody in a game. But I'll like, if everybody's like, why you eat that the night before a game, you just worry about yourself.

01:16:55
Speaker 3: You just yourself. There are dudes there everyone.

01:16:57
Speaker 1: I don't know every team you've been on, but Tians have a onunday station every night before a game.

01:17:02
Speaker 3: You're like, why the fuck is this out there? Makes sense to me, It's like, what are we doing here with this this thing?

01:17:08
Speaker 1: I feel you guys can agree, but we go back to the flow state thing. When you're in a flow state, it's like the game goes by so fast and it's over. But there's other games where you're not, like, you're the opposite of flow state. Don't know what that is unflow state and you remember everything, Like we played Michigan was playing Notre Dame. It was the night game when we came back. It was like a hundred a minute forty two left in the game. There's like five scores or whatever. That's when Denard threw it in the back of the end zone.

01:17:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we won it.

01:17:36
Speaker 1: Anti Flow, thank you and uh me and my girlfriend who I was dating at the time, Me and the girls the other time, like I choose on her or she cheose on something happened.

01:17:45
Speaker 3: Like two days before it happened. I cheated on her. There was there was like a discover there's something was going on. But it was like it was during that game, and all I.

01:17:56
Speaker 1: Could think about was trying to get her back. And I played the entire game, and I played all right but pretty good decent, but like the whole game, I was not ever invested in that game.

01:18:06
Speaker 3: I was just thinking, like, how do I make it up to this girl? Was she at the game? Probably it's one hundred and fifteen thousand? How can I tell? You?

01:18:13
Speaker 2: Know, sometimes you know where your girl sits and you feel like, no, I never knew anything like that at where they're sitting.

01:18:18
Speaker 3: No, I never. I never had that.

01:18:20
Speaker 1: And I not to think the NFL, where I knew like people whe people were sitting. Yeah, and my dad would always sit and want a certain spot, always kind of look up at him every once in a while.

01:18:27
Speaker 4: But my girl, every every game my dad ever came to, even youth basketball, yeah, I'd always like find him, find him. You're the flow state part is like when you're not in that state, you're thinking about what just happened. So it's like that you're carrying something to the next play. Yeah, And I always always be like, oh, should I have a turnover? Okay, that's like a tally. And then like I'd be like, all right, I made a shot. Okay, now we're even Oh I missed.

01:18:55
Speaker 3: A shoot you are teaching right now?

01:18:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just had a good pass. That's a like then all of a sudden, like, what are you playing? You're not actually in the game. You're like doing this tallies in your head.

01:19:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:19:06
Speaker 4: It's it was very detrimental to the the overall product that I was trying to put.

01:19:11
Speaker 3: Out on the court.

01:19:12
Speaker 1: There would be times where I'd be like so stressed out about games that I would do that on purpose, Right, But okay, all you have to do is just play well in this series and you play this would be okay, that was a good play. I could have been on that play, but like that won't be like a minus, that'll be like I play on that yeah earlier. Well, no that you start playing the like a lot of times the way the greatest like minus zero plus zero did your job.

01:19:31
Speaker 3: Minus you didn't do your job.

01:19:32
Speaker 1: Plus you did something extra, something extra there, And so I like go and I have like a couple of I have like zero across the board, one minus and a plus. Bag I'm up and even like a plus to me would be double what a minus was?

01:19:45
Speaker 3: You know in your head.

01:19:45
Speaker 1: But you're like playing this game so you can tell yourself I played good any way to tell yourself I did well.

01:19:50
Speaker 3: What about the feeling of.

01:19:54
Speaker 4: Being in the arena, being on the field, on the court, whatever, and just knowing that you shit, Like knowing that you are having September?

01:20:03
Speaker 3: What was the work again this year? Game of your life?

01:20:05
Speaker 4: Oh?

01:20:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, we and unfortunately we were all in and you're like, well.

01:20:08
Speaker 4: You can't escape it, and you feel like everybody knows that you're shit. Everybody knows you're terrible.

01:20:14
Speaker 3: What game was that?

01:20:15
Speaker 1: Worst fucking feeling as an athlete? Brochember twelve, twenty twenty one. I So I tore my ACL in October of twenty twenty, I'll have the four right so, and in my head, I'm like, come back season. I'm with the boys, all these all these guys the whole year, telling like, hey, this would be a comeback here. I feel great, to feel amazing, and I wasn't feeling the best. I go into camp and I'm like, no matter, what is this better not be the film I want to see right now?

01:20:44
Speaker 3: Roll the tape. I'm like, I'm like, I have to start. I have to start a half to start.

01:20:50
Speaker 1: I go out to play. They announced the offense. I'm fucking women, crowds going wild. I gave up two sacks in that game, got dustin, Well, that's challenge Jones getting five sacks. This dude, Chileng Jones fit. He got five sacks in this game. I gave up two to him.

01:21:02
Speaker 3: This is me right here getting beat. But it feels like within the first three series, there's a there's some there's this is the next series. This is the next series. No chance.

01:21:11
Speaker 1: So I stop, stop, stop, stop stop it. So at this point I've given up two sacks. It's the first fucking quarter. Still and I'm like, I've never done that in my life. That's never happened to me ever in my entire life. We're in the first quarter of four. I'm having a horrible game, Like there's no way to come back from it. It's got and it just the rest of the game just got worse and worse and worse. I'll be seen on the sideline and like, you just feel like everyone's looking at you. I went and got an IV because I was cramping. Thank God, that's what this sack is.

01:21:40
Speaker 5: Go.

01:21:40
Speaker 1: You can go back the second. This is a Kendall getting beat for a sack. I go back into the game. I played the Tennessee Times my whole entire career. I go back into the game, and what do they say, Uh, the announcer love, the guy's name is Matt did a real fucked up movie.

01:21:55
Speaker 3: Go Tail.

01:21:56
Speaker 1: Lajuana's back in the game. The whole stadium, not the whole sam, but the stadium starts booing, and I'm just like, Will, Yeah, Will, I saw Will up there.

01:22:03
Speaker 3: Me and his wife are in the suite just fucking booming. Yeah. It was tough, dude.

01:22:07
Speaker 4: It was the worst, the worst feeling in the entire world as an offensive lineman, when you get a penalty?

01:22:15
Speaker 3: What's going through your brain? Dot care? Same thing? No, No, No, Old Man and the three. We're in the Old Man in the three podcast right now, he's potting you up. Well yeah, okay, go ahead, you know what. You guys have the four. You guys have the four. I was gonna say, what's the worst moment, what's the worst what's that situation for you?

01:22:34
Speaker 4: Game one, twenty nineteen playoffs against the Nets. I was some shit and they kept targeting me and isoing me, and I fouled out with like four minutes ago a blessing?

01:22:51
Speaker 3: Did you foul out? You're like, yeah, I'm gonna try and foul out.

01:22:53
Speaker 1: No, I was a foul out of the Cardinals game. I would have done it is a little bit of blessing, you know what I mean?

01:22:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is the great thing about it with other players that can produce, so like if you're having a ship game, sometimes they'll just be like, all right, we're gonna relieve him of his duties and we're gonna go with the other guy. Yeah getting benched, thank god, but yeah, I and then di'angelo Russell waved me off the floor, he drew the sixth file.

01:23:18
Speaker 3: He waved me off the floor.

01:23:19
Speaker 4: And as I'm walking off the floor, I was playing in Philly, the whole Philly, you know, crowd is booing me.

01:23:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, which there insane thing. Yeah, and like that was that was a low point for me. That was a low point.

01:23:32
Speaker 2: You know.

01:23:32
Speaker 4: The other part was like playing with Chris, and I love Chris, but like he demands so much of his teammates, and there were games where like I would not play well and I would feel like this overwhelming sense that I let him down.

01:23:47
Speaker 3: You know that I didn't.

01:23:48
Speaker 4: I didn't reach his level that night, and that that probably hurts more than like getting booed by a crowd, right, because it's to me, it was always about like am I accountable to my teammates? If I'm accountable my teammates, like fuck everybody else, you know what I mean. So that probably those those moments probably were worse.

01:24:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're the worst. It's the whole.

01:24:09
Speaker 2: Two thousand I'd say, two thousand and sixteen Thanksgiving game versus Dallas Cowboys. Like I've talked about it before on here, but when I missed two tackles in a row on Ezekiel Elliott. Not only that, but Dak would check at the line of scrimmage and I knew, like what the run plays were. He'd be like, he'd like step back and be like whether it be like Pope or Giant, Like I would know what plays were coming and what they were che copies, Yeah, and I wouldn't know what the play is and tell people. And fucking he broke a tackle from me. I like, leave my feet diving off the diving board. And the second mistackle the first one was in my head and I'm thinking, don't miss his tackle.

01:24:52
Speaker 3: And you know that that usually never works out for you. Universe doesn't hear negatives? Yeah, And then they come there.

01:24:57
Speaker 2: It is right there, right fucking there, dude, And it was a big back, go back. They drive, they drive all the way down again.

01:25:04
Speaker 3: I want him to hurt like I did earlier. They they drive all the.

01:25:07
Speaker 2: Way down and score and we get to the sideline and I'm sitting on the bench and those are that's a time for me when I yea.

01:25:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he had a hand on me too. And then he does the fat.

01:25:19
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, is he Elliott stole that from Don Robinson. And then they score and I go to the whole Your effort did not look great right there.

01:25:28
Speaker 3: That's a minus. That's a minus right there.

01:25:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we can go ahead and say that. And I'm sitting on the sideline and I'm wondering. I'm like, man, everybody like it's a Thanksgiving game. Everybody's watching the Cowboys play on Thanksgiving, yep. And I saw an articles like the most televised like football game that year and shit, and it's just I'm sitting there thinking like, well, I wonder what people are saying about me on Twitter. That's to me, that was a moment when I knew social media and other stuff was consuming my mind more than you know, forget the last play, move to the next one. It was more like, I can't miss this tackle because I'm on the big stage and everybody's gonna fucking think I'm trash or no, that I'm trash. And that game is one of those games You're like, man, just get me fucking home and off the field.

01:26:08
Speaker 3: It's a weird thing. As it's a weird thing as an athlete.

01:26:10
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever felt this way of feeling like you've made it like you're a starter in the NFL, or you're a start in the NBA, and you think to yourself, Man, I hope I don't get exposed.

01:26:20
Speaker 3: Everyone knows I don't belong here. There's a feeling. Yes, yeah, that's normal. That is Do you felt that? Oh yeah, that's normal.

01:26:28
Speaker 4: Okay, most I think most well it's years of therapy.

01:26:32
Speaker 3: Yeah I love that.

01:26:33
Speaker 4: No, but it's it's I think most high achievers in anything. If you asked, I don't know what the percentage is, but be a large percentage of actors, actresses, musicians, professors, like like, unless you're a narcissist like that has like delusions of grander like you, you really do think at times like I'm gonna be exposed.

01:26:54
Speaker 3: I'm going to be exposed as a fraud. That sucks.

01:26:57
Speaker 1: It almost be better to be a narcissist. Honestly, it sounds like it sounds like a nice deal. Like you just don't know. I agree with you that way.

01:27:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, like ignorance, I was, Yeah, I'm that. I'm that dude.

01:27:07
Speaker 1: Everyone's like, no, you're not. You're like you guys are haters, But it's just fucking your narcissist. I'm I gotta become a narcissist twenty twenty two, Like shit, narcissist, Taylor.

01:27:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go.

01:27:20
Speaker 2: Hey, I do want to ask about your therapy. Do you feel like the therapy stuff is where that started to help you make your shift mentally in basketball? Like what did you learn from therapy about yourself that was holding you back?

01:27:36
Speaker 4: It's a great question. I think I I I learned, I learned who I was. I think I became more comfortable with who I was. And do you guys ever take personality tests?

01:27:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, with the enneagram or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so.

01:27:55
Speaker 4: You know I've done. I did a bunch of college I did him in the NBA. I took one recently. My wife with me take one, and like fifteen twenty years ago, if I'd taken one, like on the introverted extroverted scale scale, I would be like ninety five percent introverted. And if it took one now, like I'd be like fifty five sixty percent introverted. So I'm still introverted, but I like have gotten enough comfortable enough with who I am and myself and enough confidence and like the person, not the player, but the person because I was confident as a person. I could navigate NBA locker rooms. I could be a great teammate, I could be liaison between the coach and the player. It helped me on the court, you know, I'm just like I think it gave me a sense of perspective about who I was and my value as a human being. Again, it's like I'm nineteen and everybody's like, fuck you. You know, you drink your own pea. The best T shirt I ever saw I was at Maryland my sophomore year and these guys had these white T shirts done and my picture was on the front. So I went a little closer to see what it said. And on the front it said when I grew up, I want to name my kid JJ Reddick. And so when I got close enough, they turned around so that I could see what was written on the back and it said and beat him every.

01:29:14
Speaker 3: Day, which is.

01:29:19
Speaker 4: You know, that's savage, savage right, So like here again, I'm nineteen, I'm like, fuck dude, you know, so I think you drink your own piss.

01:29:26
Speaker 3: No, I never have. I never have. But it was a very clever, So it was I think it was.

01:29:32
Speaker 4: Like becoming like just just confident, like it's not it's I don't think it's egotistical to be like sure of yourself, you know what I mean. You could still be sure of yourself and be self aware enough to know when you're wrong, know when you fucked up, to know that it's not all about you, Like my dad.

01:29:51
Speaker 3: That was the greatest piece of advice I've ever got in my life.

01:29:52
Speaker 4: You tell me that every day as a kid, I'd complain about something like JJ, not always about you, not always about you. That helped me, you know, is a as a basketball player in a team sport. It helped me help me navigate everything. But I think I think that's what it came down. That's that's that's the real benefit Later on in life, you know, as I became confident in who I was, I you know, I still see I've seen a therapist that lives on the West Coast and comes into New York like once a month, and I talked to him on the phone. But you know that more is like almost performance coaching, you know what I mean by that, Like, and he was the guy along with my wife really you know, but he kind of helped me get that last one percent to retire. It was like, but ninety nine percent of the way there for like a year. It was such a hard thing to let go of. And so him and I like met a couple of times. We did a bunch of these like time value proposition exercises, and we worked through some things why I want to play, why I don't want to play, And by the end of the second meeting, it was like, oh dude, it's crystal clear, like it's not even as not even a question about whether or not I should retire. I should retire, Like it's it's time, and I was very comfortable with doing it.

01:31:04
Speaker 3: So damn.

01:31:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you guys, you guys, don't you guys aren't in therapy see therapists.

01:31:10
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, therapist every week? Yeah, absolutely well.

01:31:12
Speaker 2: I first started doing couples therapy before we got married, and then we like fell in love with the whole therapy aspect, like emotional intelligence all that stuff, Like I'm I like love like looking into that stuff because I feel like you're psyche.

01:31:24
Speaker 3: It's like everything right, like losing control.

01:31:27
Speaker 2: Of yourself in a moment, like figuring out like why am I reacting to this? Or why am I getting upset? Or losing control or what am I scared of? Like being in therapy and actually talking about like it's like it's like you get the dead ends, like when you're in conversations with friends or buddies or something else and you don't nearly you'll nearly go as far as what you would in therapy, like there's nowhere to go and you're in a safe place, and then they ask those extra questions that actually get you talking about.

01:31:52
Speaker 3: Like the underlying thing that like breaks you, and then you're in tears for.

01:31:56
Speaker 2: Whatever reason, and then you come out of it and you're like, you know, you start learning about your stuff a lot more.

01:32:00
Speaker 3: So I'm glad that I'm glad that this is a safe space for us. Yeah, this is this is definitely a safe space. You work with what's the dow's name. You work with Armando.

01:32:09
Speaker 1: Armando he's part of cheat Code and it's like supposed to do a bunch of things he does like sound waves and different songs and stuff like that, and you put those on. He talks you through stuff and it's pretty cool because you talk about what's what's bothering you in this moment. It's like a present feeling like what's what's the thing that's bothering me the most? And they'll be like, all right, look forward, like how do you feel when you look forward and think about it? You're like, well, I feel this way. And then you look right and look left, and if you're really present, you can notice like when you look whether it's right or left or middle, like some areas feel worse or better than others, so whatever is worse. He'll be like, all right, let's start there, or sometimes we'll start what's better, and then you just work through He's all right, now fixate on a spot. And then every sixty seconds, but what are you thinking about right now? And then he you start talking to him, and then at one point while you're talking, it'll be rambling him like stop stop right there and go with that, and then you just kind I keep working through it, and I'd say majority of the times ends in tears because you're just trying. Yeah, you're just trying to figure out. You're trying to figure out, you know, why do I you do certain things so that other people approve of you when you can't just approve yourself, Like what is that from from being a child or whatever?

01:33:16
Speaker 3: And like how do you get to a.

01:33:18
Speaker 1: Point where you're the only ones trying to prove some too yourself. And it's just it's like you said, like the whole growth thing is it's super it's the most important thing. It's probably it's the most important thing as a human to do. And we talk about reading like we're both like trying to read more.

01:33:32
Speaker 3: And when I go to read, I'm.

01:33:34
Speaker 1: Like to look at a fiction book, like a book that's not real. It's not a self help with like it's so hard for me to go and read that because I could go find something that's going to help me like be a better person, you know. And so that's that's something definitely, And it's like you say it all the time, it's the most important thing, like with whether it's sports, being a father, being a husband, all that stuff.

01:33:56
Speaker 3: On the emotional intelligence, he's doing it again. No, I was not a question. And there's a comment to Will's comment is that Okay, that's right, okay, Kerry. Immediately we start talking it, No, I would say this is a.

01:34:07
Speaker 4: Little bit of a call back to what we were talking about earlier about what will I ever be good at anything else? And I think what I realized at the end of my career, and what I've realized over the last nine months is like when you develop that side of your personality and developed that side of your brain, you can fit anywhere. Being able to like what we do, what you guys have done for a long time, what I did for fifteen years and prior to that at Duke in high school, AAU, all that stuff, like what you do in a locker room and being able to navigate that year in year out, like that is building a skill set, and by building your emotional intelligence, like you can fit anywhere, you could do anything. I really believe that I'm not going to develop a rocket. It's going to take us to Mars. I'm not saying.

01:34:55
Speaker 3: But there's other like that that's like almost like a like a skill set that is overlooked.

01:34:59
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, i'd agree with you. Have you read emotional intelligence two point zero?

01:35:04
Speaker 3: No? I haven't. Where do you get the emotional intelligence thing?

01:35:06
Speaker 4: From the first time I heard it was actually uh is now become a good friend of mine. David Solomon who now runs Golden Sacks. I met him he was not running Golden Sacks. It was not the CEO him. Yeah, it's a little flex but no.

01:35:19
Speaker 3: But it was like the first time. It was the first time I'd ever heard the phrase. I spoke at this.

01:35:24
Speaker 4: This was like in twenty sixteen, I spoke on this panel at this retreat that Golden Sacks was having for like tech and media CEOs.

01:35:32
Speaker 3: I have no idea why I was invited. I really truly don't know.

01:35:35
Speaker 4: But I spoke on this panel with Maverick Carter and Casey Wasserman and David and I spent some time together at the dinner that night, and it was the first time that he brought it up. Was like, you have good emotional intelligence, you could you know, you can work on Wall Street if you want it. Like, oh, so then I started reading about it. Then I started thinking about like how it relates to my own life, Like it's it goes back to like anything we do as an athlete, like our routine, visualization, all that stuff. It's like it's like that constant flow state, and so like being able to check in with yourself, what am I projecting on other people? What is that person projecting onto someone else? Like I'm constantly thinking about that, you know what I mean. That's why it's been so enjoyable for me to have you guys in my chair and ask you these questions.

01:36:19
Speaker 3: Be very special. It's been a very special time. Are we doing tier talk? Oh, we get some tear talk. You have some tear talk. We can have some tier talk. Let's do some tear talk.

01:36:29
Speaker 2: Now my question, so tier talk, you guys are getting familiar with tiar talk. Everybody out there in the audience is something newer that we've done, but it's we have a tear system. We have our audience. There's tier ones out there, Tier twos and tier threes. Now we bring it into a segment where we rate things. Most notably recently has been the burger thing. That's one out there a couple of times where we rate.

01:36:46
Speaker 4: It in and out, which, by the way, what's your favorite fast food burger? I saw all that my favorite fast food burger Man. It's definitely not in and out.

01:36:53
Speaker 3: Okay, cool. All we need is the questions over. When the question is now over, like it's fine, it's not like, but you watch my thing and you're like, yeah, like I totally co signed with you. I'm like, it's like fine, dude, this is great. I'm having a blast. Okay, God, we'll talk about you know, let's see what his favorite fast food burger is. Uh, I'm actually a guy.

01:37:19
Speaker 4: I would probably say what a burger because I lived in Austin and that's probably like I think it's I think it's good. I don't what about we are like solid burger, Like are we doing like it's five guys fast food? Is that not fast food? That's that's a that's a big question people are saying right now. Yeah, because there's no drive through.

01:37:34
Speaker 3: Drive through, which I do like, I understand it's five guys. Is more on the fast casual side like Chipotle? Basically, Oh, I don't even think him a fast casual. It's the second time I've heard that. Charles said it about Shakeshack. She's like, Shakeshack, like Shakeshack, I think is awesome.

01:37:48
Speaker 2: She's like, but it's a little more fast casual because yeah, it's not fair there's no drive through.

01:37:52
Speaker 3: And I'm like, you fancy, yeah, yeah, you fancy you.

01:37:56
Speaker 4: Think the number one burger is because I'm sure you've talked about you guys, but it's not.

01:38:00
Speaker 3: That's not fast food. Yeah, take okay, so just drive throughs. I bet you I bet you. Ben and Out Burger makes it up. There doesn't. I was gonna say shake Shack, but shakes I mean Hartys. Wow. Okay, Yeah, Carls Parties is fire. What a burger is good? In and out is good? And I said any but you're thinking in and out burger is better than what a Burger? No, you know you're just saying. I'm lying in and out Burger is better than you. In and out would be your number two best fast burger. Carls Jr. One in and out too. I don't know, man, Once five guys has taken out for you kind of falla because I think shakeshack is good. Yeah, you kind of fall apart. This is a classy bitch, dude. You know what I'm saying. That's funny as fu Alright, So basically so tears off. Go ahead. You rattled me. You rattled me.

01:38:52
Speaker 2: I'm not even thinking about anymore. I'm trying to think of other fast foods.

01:38:54
Speaker 1: We just found out that everything really stiled themselves on the last two weeks.

01:38:56
Speaker 3: It's not really anymore.

01:38:57
Speaker 2: I think the spicy ketchup is overrated at what a Burger? M Okay because because Texas are big on that perfect the whole. The whole thing for me was coming from Missouri, like you'd be in the locker rooms and when you travel like a Texas game, or will you we go on the West Coast to play Arizona and the guys who are on your team or West Coast like, oh we got to go to in and Out and dudes from Texas immediate argument in the locker about what a burger in in and out? So I always look forward to going to these spots to try these both, all these different burgers, and now that I've had them a few different times each, I do think I wanted to like what a burger more because again I I'm more so like love to just argue against the West Coast people because they're so prideful about in and out burger. But I would say in and out burger is probably better burger.

01:39:39
Speaker 3: Than what a burger. Try fat burger too, Well, that's not all we drive through either, that's casual. Man, we learned something. Yeah, but on this tier talk we're gonna be doing should we do pizza toppings or pizzas.

01:39:51
Speaker 2: To where you can combine certain toppings and well, but some people like just a pepperoni pizza Orch's pizza or like whatever, we're not.

01:40:00
Speaker 3: We're not toppings themselves. Yeah, yeah, that'd be difficult to do.

01:40:05
Speaker 1: I don't know where i'd stand on that, But I don't know where you stand if I had to rank the number one topping.

01:40:10
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying, Like, are we gonna say if if Taylor says show, I don't know how the tear talk were. I think it's best pizza. I think best pizza.

01:40:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever is your best your number one favorite pizza tears? You know what, We'll do our three favorite pizzas and then you guys will tear it for us.

01:40:29
Speaker 3: No, what do you mean here for us? Because if we're doing tier talk, there's tier one, two, and three. Yeah.

01:40:34
Speaker 1: So JJ says my favorite pizza is X, and you say my favorite pizza is why? And I say my favorite peacha is Z. How are we gonna tear that? We can't because we'd al would say that our pizza is number one?

01:40:45
Speaker 2: Right, But that's what we did with Bert with the fast food Burger. We go one, two, three, like we quietly let JJ have the floor and he does this tier one through three.

01:40:52
Speaker 1: But if you're just making a pizza. There's no He's gonna make three pizzas for us right now.

01:40:57
Speaker 3: Off the top of my head. I can go. Let's go. I feel like everyone. Yeah, I can say three pizzas. Okay, I'll figure out way to say three pizzas. You can go, last, Taylor, you can go.

01:41:04
Speaker 4: I'm always going last. F Now on JJ, you have the floor, all right, Actually gonna go. I'm gonna go in an order of how I want to eat these pizzas. That makes sense, Well, I don't know a little bit. More so, I like, if you go to a great pizza place like lu Colli in Brooklyn, I would I would want to eat them in this order.

01:41:27
Speaker 3: Not the entire pizza. I'm not that gluttonous, but maybe a slice or two of each.

01:41:32
Speaker 1: What I'm saying gluttness is one of those seven deadly since I've been glats.

01:41:36
Speaker 4: So I would start with two toppings that you guys don't actually have on this graphic here, which.

01:41:43
Speaker 3: Your number one? This is your number one?

01:41:45
Speaker 4: This is I would say, this is my number one pizza, okay, number one? Like I just want like shallotts and hot peppers.

01:41:50
Speaker 3: Shalattes and hot peppers. Let's just let them have the floor, did it.

01:41:54
Speaker 4: Second pizza would be what I call a twin special, my wife's favored pizza. Along with her twin, I'll go pepperoni, white onion, green pepper. And then for kind of like a dessert, I would go with ricotta, sausage and maybe some some stage.

01:42:11
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. I fucked you guys up tonight. Yeah, I'll tell you what you did. Go chef special on us just now so my man knows it's pizzas well. You have the floor my Tier one.

01:42:38
Speaker 1: You already laugh because I just feel like you just had some artistic ship and you're gonna go on sausage.

01:42:48
Speaker 3: This is hard.

01:42:48
Speaker 2: My Tier one is very hard because there's a couple of pieces I'm thinking about. Well, either way, I got to decide how this Tier one. That's what the hard part is. But I think if I had to order pizza, I think I'm gonna go.

01:43:10
Speaker 4: Wait, he texted me this last night, so he's he's had twenty four hours.

01:43:14
Speaker 3: I thought about the entire I thought about my one. I know exactly what I have it.

01:43:19
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna go like a Sweet heat where you got pepperoni Halapao's I love onions, so you can just throw onions on them. That's not really part of it. But I do love onions. But you throw like a uh you get the red pepper flex. But you also drizzled honey over top. You drizzle honey.

01:43:36
Speaker 3: O hot honey. Yeah, MIC's hot honey. Yeah. I like that.

01:43:40
Speaker 2: My number two is Hawaiian. That's what battle for my number one. I'm a big Hawaiian pizza guy. I believe in pineapples on pizza. I am pro pineapple on pizza. And my number three.

01:43:53
Speaker 3: Big CPK guy.

01:43:55
Speaker 2: I love supremes, I love meat lovers, but I think if I had to order, I would go pepperonium bacon.

01:44:03
Speaker 1: My tier three, Taylor take it from here, brother, Okay. My Tier three is gonna be very basic, extremely basic. It's gonna be your Neapolitan cheese pizza. I think you can't beat it. You got a little bit of garnish on there, you got your cheese, your sauce, and I think it's fantastic with the fluffy crust, it's it's outstanding. That's my tier three. My Tier two is also the Hawaiian pizza, but with a spice. You gotta throw banana peppers on there or jalapinos. I like a little spice.

01:44:42
Speaker 3: I with you. I have the four.

01:44:46
Speaker 1: And number one is going to be. I almost said yes when you said sopk because I'm a barbecue chicken pizza guy. That's my number one barbecue sauce. Really yeah, a little onion on there.

01:45:02
Speaker 3: I think it's out.

01:45:03
Speaker 1: It's my favorite possible pizza I can make for myself. Barb cute chickens, roburcoe chicken. Now that we're done, what the fuck was that?

01:45:15
Speaker 3: Dude? Yeah? What did you say? What was your number one?

01:45:17
Speaker 4: Shallots and what shallots and Pepperoni's shallots? Shalots on pizza. It's a cheek coat. What's a shalat?

01:45:23
Speaker 3: A shallot is like like a little onion right between, like a red onion garlic. I like garlic, Yeah, I like onions. I mean I like both those cook a little bit shallat and sheldon what uh? Hot peppers? Hot peppers?

01:45:37
Speaker 2: How some of those are like terrible and grease. I'm just thinking you're Tier one. You're like, hey, JJ, what do you want to eat? They got some with the shallots and not peppers on it.

01:45:44
Speaker 3: Here's the fuck, man, I am not not a CPK hater.

01:45:48
Speaker 4: I think I think restaurants like CPK Chili's TJ Fridays like they have their place in America, and I respect them and I've ate a lot of meals at places.

01:45:58
Speaker 3: Like that, But you're better than them.

01:46:00
Speaker 4: That question where you guys are eating pizza based on you you guys saying Hawaiian pizza for both of you was number two, and a barbecue chicken, I said number one.

01:46:12
Speaker 3: I think question that.

01:46:13
Speaker 1: I think you can't touch barbecue chicken pizza if you have the right barbecue sauce on it.

01:46:16
Speaker 2: Brother, that's the one thing. Like I mean cheese to me. I was like, but everybody some people like like their cheese pizza.

01:46:23
Speaker 4: I don't want to sound like a coastal elite here. Yeah, but I'm going to sound like a coastal elite.

01:46:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get it.

01:46:27
Speaker 4: You like I live in New York. I live in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is the best pizza in the world. Like the sh is discussed, what do you mean the ship that we're talking about, so you would need a sweet heat. I think you ragged it, like, oh that sounds pretty good. Yeah, you said that, you actually did. I think you said that sweet heat sounded nice Hawaiian.

01:46:43
Speaker 1: Pizzazza fire bro Yeah, a coastal elite, you guys should just sit on the traditional ingredients and you guys just make the best pizza and that's it.

01:46:50
Speaker 3: That's how I think a coastal elite works.

01:46:53
Speaker 1: So I think by you doing, by you doing some special like challattes and hot peppers, does that make you a coastal leaders? Make you use your You're just a little fluffy. You're a Tji Frieders with some Fluff's what it sounds like to me.

01:47:04
Speaker 3: It's just what it sounds like. But I will agree on the barbecue chicken part. The barbecue chicken throws me off.

01:47:09
Speaker 1: Brokay, I'm not here to argue that part. I've gone downhill within an out burger. I've seen what the people have done. If feal will strw to do to me, I think it's fucking ridiculous. Chicken pizza is honestly shameful of you guys to handle you yourself the way you have. I think it's fucking ridiculous. I think barbecue chicken pizza is the best pizza. Baby cue chicken pizza. No, they wouldn't eat Barbie chicken pizza. We wouldn't feed that to.

01:47:27
Speaker 3: Y'all fucking up. We wouldn't feed that y're fucking up. You like a Barbie? My daughter?

01:47:32
Speaker 1: What's my daughter to mellow mushroom last Sunday? She wants to go back this, she wants to go back tonight. Why I probably go get one tonight.

01:47:40
Speaker 3: You know what I'm in order the barbecue chicken pizza. Nope, hang on, no, I'm like go half and half now.

01:47:46
Speaker 1: Look here, wine is fucking give a little little heat on it? Right, Yeah, I'll put a little sweet heat on it. Absolutely.

01:47:50
Speaker 3: I did like the sweet heat vibe.

01:47:52
Speaker 2: You want to know where you get that pizza at Ahead Midnight Oil. It's off of fifty first no free shouts to Midnight Oil. When you go to Midnight Oil and you order a sweet Heeatza pizza from min iaware with that, let him know the boy sent you.

01:48:04
Speaker 4: Okay, little something in there once, you know I sent me and uh, I wanted to just sweeteaed pizza. Please, It's it's phenomenal. Really, are you here until tomorrow?

01:48:13
Speaker 3: I leave tonight? Time? Uh ship a little bit? Yeah something like that? Yeah?

01:48:20
Speaker 1: Okay, is this one of those show up at seven thirty things? Are we getting there a couple hours early.

01:48:25
Speaker 3: To my flight? Yeah? No, I don't get I don't go to the airport early. Who does that? I'm not a But here's what.

01:48:29
Speaker 2: We're trying to ask. Driving there to fly out at seven thirty? Are you getting there at an hour hour and a half.

01:48:34
Speaker 3: Before we're going through TSA? Are we not going through Tessay?

01:48:37
Speaker 4: Oh? I see what you're asking. I see what you're asking. You guys flew me down like I'm like this this trip was not on me.

01:48:42
Speaker 3: We didn't. Oh, he's right now, you know what he is, right, bar barstol Fleet.

01:48:47
Speaker 1: You're our first guest that we've flown down to be on us. Yeah, we've just started kind of doing that. You should ask for some money, probably would have.

01:48:53
Speaker 3: Gave it to you. Yeah, it's just my pleasure to be on the show man. I love that your show. No, I don't. I don't think I'm not a I'm not. I'm not that level. You guys really don't like barbecue chicken pizza. I don't like what we're talking about. Are we not talking about We're not talking about people about private jets? Yes, are too extreme right now to be doing that. I don't think barbecue pizza is trash. I just don't order it or I don't like it. To me, it's like, what are we doing?

01:49:17
Speaker 1: I felt that way about Supreme. It's really just staple. But for me, I'm like, all the extra shit on it.

01:49:23
Speaker 3: Yours and I said it was solid.

01:49:25
Speaker 1: You have Barbie Chicken any Barbie CHICKI Chickens in the back there, Chicken Baking ranch. It's number one by far, Like it's not even fucking close that Hobbinaro cream pie. Holy fuck dude. Yes see, that's where it kind of throws me off when you start talking about pizzas, because there's like that's like a gourmet pizza, Like five Points is like Jack Brown's in a lot of ways.

01:49:47
Speaker 3: The burgers like you can't like just go like if I.

01:49:50
Speaker 1: Were to say to you, guys are like jalapenos, but the seeds carved out with cream, cheese on on it. Also, it just doesn't make any sense to be able to explain that pizza, you know, saying.

01:50:00
Speaker 3: I thought JJ's gonna explain something like that. Though he did, I think he did.

01:50:03
Speaker 1: I still we need an interpret to figure out what he said, Yeah, what was the Yeah, you said a little bit of stage.

01:50:08
Speaker 4: And that's where I was like, you guys have had like a fried sage leaf before, like a little bit little fried sage leaf on the sausage in ricotta pizza.

01:50:15
Speaker 3: That does sound like white sauce. Like I looked like a guy that had fried stage on my pizza in your life? You've never had fried sage? Did you have when you grew up? Fried stage? It's seven bucks?

01:50:29
Speaker 1: Is chicken count expensive? It sounds expensive? It just sounds expensive to me, York Like he's a very expensive place, is it is?

01:50:37
Speaker 3: It must be nice? But what was that? Why don't you move on in Nashville? What's up? Sorry? I got to do what's question first? Well again, what was the dry? I can get you explained? What what about it? What was what were the toppings? What else? Rikatta, cheese, sausage and fried sage? See, I think capable combo.

01:50:55
Speaker 2: It sounds like it's like a tasty pizza for sure. But if we're just like inking our pizzas, dude, and you're saying sage and Racanton sausage.

01:51:04
Speaker 4: I actually the best thing I heard from both of you was just a classic Neapolitan cheese pizza.

01:51:09
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think that's well, that's because I said garnish to you. Hear, I started sound fancy like you, I said garnish. So basically, what you just fucking said with all those fancy words is a sausage pizza with a little bit of age keys, a sausage.

01:51:23
Speaker 3: Pizza toast some that green ship on there. As what you said to the person on the counter. You like melow mushroom though I do melo pizza, I mean underrated pizza. I went with my daughter to a birthday party last week. Chuck E Cheese.

01:51:36
Speaker 1: Don't fucking at me, dude, That Chuck E Cheese is low key fire Peter Piper Pizza for those of you in the West, fired.

01:51:43
Speaker 3: Chuck E Cheese in a long time. So I'll when and I went that, When and I went there, it was the pretty money grown up so we couldn't go to Chuck E Cheese. That's crazy, that's crazy.

01:51:53
Speaker 4: We got the fried stage though, Huh, that's a lot of sausage and fried sage. He just said sausage and cheese pizza.

01:52:02
Speaker 3: I know he did. But he's also he's also like the only thing you guys said good was the cheese pizza.

01:52:06
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, like, bro stop anything like you didn't react and I said sweet heat.

01:52:11
Speaker 1: Yeah you did say I want that because I almost because when you said that's a well, I almost said, hey, we don't react here.

01:52:16
Speaker 3: We don't react on the t your talk, do.

01:52:18
Speaker 4: You know, I know, trying to keep it. That's why I was holding it in while he was going picture when he said the sweet heat. I'm pictured.

01:52:23
Speaker 3: There's a there's a place called Emily in Brooklyn. It makes a great burger as well as this guy. No, it's kidding. Good.

01:52:30
Speaker 4: Water's better up there, man, Like, what do you want me to say? The water's better for pzza? Why the bagels are so good?

01:52:35
Speaker 3: And bagels?

01:52:36
Speaker 4: No, Emily has like a like a sweet heat pizza that basically is the description of what you described, and they do a little MIC's hot honey on.

01:52:42
Speaker 3: The top and you've had it and I've had it. Fire, it's fire. It's a good pizza. You just don't I think you don't agree with pineapple and pizza. No it suns.

01:52:51
Speaker 4: I don't wake up you know, well, who's the morning and be like I'm going to think that I can't wait people tonight and I want to put pineapple on it. Like that's just a weird thing to me. It's that mush mushrooms. I eat everything, but mushrooms.

01:53:01
Speaker 3: I can't. I can't touch. I can't touch mushrooms. Not for me. Now, Italian truffles, I could.

01:53:12
Speaker 1: Whiplash. I'm turning looking at you so fast, dude. What was the second pizza you said, because you were kind of did a run like a run on sentence.

01:53:18
Speaker 3: The last special?

01:53:20
Speaker 4: Huh, twins specials just simple pepperoni, white onion, green pepper.

01:53:25
Speaker 3: We just got to start naming our shit cool so it sounds better.

01:53:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said white onion, like he said when he said the way when you I'm saying even out there, when he was talking like that, I legit talk to myself like we picked the wrong category that we're about to say sausage and ship.

01:53:37
Speaker 3: You know we're about to say basic ship. I believed in what I was about to say. I stay, I stay in tintoed down.

01:53:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he said twins pizza. He said ricotta. He used the word ricotta. It stayed cheese. And what's crazy is he been thinking about that since last night. Yeah, he's a homework guy. He's got fifteen pages on both of us.

01:53:53
Speaker 4: She forgot where I was from the only reason I thought of all those pizzas because when I saw the toppings, I was like, shot, it's not there. Can I ask you a heart went back to the the catalog in my brain. Can I ask you a hard hitting basketball question? Who's the greatest of all time?

01:54:08
Speaker 3: Man? Who's the go? I like that?

01:54:12
Speaker 1: Next second part question was Michael Jordan narcissist. I think it's like it's one A one B to me, I don't, I don't. I don't like that answer. I want you to take a strong, sting one A.

01:54:24
Speaker 3: Who's a.

01:54:27
Speaker 4: It's weird because Jordan is who I like, grew up watching, but then Lebron is who I played against, and it's hard for me to like pick either one. Kyle Korver once said to me, He's like, you know, like MJ. I know, the accompliment accomplishments are great, but like MJ had to take two years off. So like the discredit Lebron gets for making eight straight finals, I think is kind of insane. So I'm I had to say it. I'm just gonna say Jordan.

01:55:00
Speaker 3: One.

01:55:00
Speaker 1: Ah, that was your safe answer, because if you would have said Lebron, you'd got torched.

01:55:04
Speaker 3: Jordan is Jordan? Okay? Lebron's your two? Oh yeah yeah? What about Kobe? Great player? Great player? Oh you know what?

01:55:12
Speaker 4: Here's Here's the other thing I've learned, especially in the last year, is the you guys know what a stand is, right?

01:55:19
Speaker 3: Yes?

01:55:19
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, eminem callback This song is incredible, too, incredible song. What I've realized is that certain players stands are fucking insane on social media. And I said a bunch of nice things about Steph Curry the other day, and but the question was who do you want in the clutch? More Luca or Staph? I saw that video and I said, in twenty twenty two, I said Luca. And the amount of hate that I got from the Steph stands, do you.

01:55:50
Speaker 3: Think he deserved it? A little bit?

01:55:52
Speaker 4: Greatest shooter of all time? Again, that wasn't the question, no game in the line, who do you want the ball in their hands?

01:55:58
Speaker 3: The question, yeah exactly, And I said, look, who do you want with the ball?

01:56:01
Speaker 2: Who?

01:56:02
Speaker 3: Why? Dies?

01:56:04
Speaker 1: But if he if my man can just pull up at the logo and splash that thing into problem. Then we don't need size. Oh I sound like a basketball right now. Luca is big, he's a dominant player. He can't shoot like Steph. Everyone knows that no one can shoot like stuff. Okay, so why wouldn't you put Do you need a basket?

01:56:26
Speaker 3: Right? The whole concept of basketball is to put the ball in the hoop. The issue more is like how you go get the basket? You know what I mean?

01:56:32
Speaker 4: Like, so when I think about like watch, I think I look at statistics because they track those about your honest the best player in the world right now, you'd rather have Luca over him too?

01:56:45
Speaker 3: No, the question was the question that I got asked, was Luca or Steph? Well, and bus one of the boys WED like to throw in wrenches.

01:56:53
Speaker 4: You know what.

01:56:54
Speaker 3: There's like ten guys I'd like to have in the clutch with the ball in their hands. All right, but go on talk to me about Luca. Sorry, I did mean to throw you all this there.

01:57:01
Speaker 4: What I was when I think about, like, who do I want to have the ball in their hands in the clutch, It's guys like Luca. It's guys like Lebron who have size. Because they're going to create a shot. Whether that's against the double team, whether that's one on one, they're going to create a shot. There's nothing wrong with saying Steph in that answer, by the way, and he's made a ton of clutch shots. I was basing some of it on just this past season. Steph was ten for fifty one from three in the clutch this season. So like, some of that is recency bias, which is another thing I've learned in the media. We all have versus of the moment. I like to describe stephen A as that. It's another phrase that I see that way I use. Yeah, yeah, it sucks. It sucks.

01:57:42
Speaker 3: I can't imagine.

01:57:43
Speaker 4: I can't imagine getting the point where like you have a show every day and you're like, man, I got to fill two fucking hours with the same take, but in a different way.

01:57:52
Speaker 3: That's tough. I like to pop in and pop out, you know. Yeah, I loved what you love the clapping back you were doing on a mad Dog.

01:58:00
Speaker 2: I think every young generation athlete, young generation person was fairly hype about that.

01:58:09
Speaker 4: The one thing I'll say, and this is not in sort of any direction towards Matt Dog. The one thing I say is like I and I'm sure you guys have seen this too. I have witnessed and lived both in my own personal experience and my peers experience a lot of tired narratives around athletes. And you know, I remember going through the lockout and seeing articles written about athletes, and I'm like, why is everybody siding with the billionaire owners and not the athletes. It's there's something about athletes that people think we're entitled, that people think we're our only value is to entertain you on a basketball court or a football field, that we're not allowed to be intelligent and speak our mind or speak an opinion, or to protest or whatever it is.

01:59:01
Speaker 3: And it's so dehumanizing and so demeaning, and a lot of.

01:59:07
Speaker 4: A lot of the stuff that has gone viral on first Take has been in a direct response to some of those narratives. And that's one example of it. But you know, the other part of it I don't really want to talk about. Sure, the undertone I don't want to talk about, but you know, so much of that is like, hold on a second, Like the narrative is wrong, the narrative is tired. Let's let's start a new narrative that makes sense.

01:59:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, man, I do want to ask before I know. We've been We've had a long pot. We gotta play another game of pig. Is coach is Coach K a psycho?

01:59:46
Speaker 2: From the outside, When you watch a lot of situations unfold, it seems like a lot of things that he does seems very calculated.

01:59:53
Speaker 3: Huh and uh and yeh. So I'm wondering it's like, is coach K? I guess?

02:00:00
Speaker 4: I guess when? Because my version of a psycho, my definition of a psycho. I I also use the word sicko interchangeably about when I talk about people. Gotcha, And what's your sort of definition?

02:00:14
Speaker 1: Psycho is pretty hardcore, over the top, very much, really demonstrative on players. Hardcore makes you feel less than a lot of the time, arcissistic, narcissistic.

02:00:25
Speaker 3: Understand anipulative game that he can do with players. I mean, you played for him, There's been a lot I wouldn't. I don't. I think I think manipulative is the wrong word. I think.

02:00:41
Speaker 4: The word you use about calculative, I think that's probably more appropriate.

02:00:46
Speaker 3: I don't.

02:00:47
Speaker 4: He's definitely not, definitely not a narcissist. He's definitely not a psycho in sort of the traditional sense. He is very intense and he's very demanding, but he's a truth teller. He is always a truth teller. And you know, my four years with him, I say this sincerely, my four years with him, I never saw him have a bad day. Like not what he's on. He's on every day. We get back from Virginia Tech. On the bus at three am. He you know, we lose meeting. You know, we're in there for an hour. We got practice. The next day, he's on the bike at six am. He comes to practice, energize, ready to go, ready to coach. He's like that with every team he's ever been on. He's so invested in and takes such ownership you know, or did take such ownership of being a coach, being a duke basketball coach, like that program. He's phenomenal. And I get to a degree when someone sees him motherfucking a raft or motherfucking a nineteen year.

02:01:45
Speaker 3: Old, Like I get why people are like, oh, he's he's a psycho. He's a psycho.

02:01:49
Speaker 4: But like I actually would say, all the good shit that said about him is true. And then some like he's my dad is the greatest man that I've ever known. I didn't have to look far for a role model. Coach is the second. Like Coach is phenomenal.

02:02:07
Speaker 3: And I.

02:02:10
Speaker 4: Became friends with him my junior year and we've been friends now for whatever that is, seventeen years.

02:02:15
Speaker 3: He's like such.

02:02:17
Speaker 4: An important part of my life and it has been for you know, since two thousand when I committed, like, he's just he's the man.

02:02:24
Speaker 3: I love that dude.

02:02:25
Speaker 4: After your little stint your sophomore year when you were brought back and put on a big schedule, did you and him ever talk about it, like reminisced maybe a couple of years ago about it, like, hey, you were was worried about you there for a second.

02:02:38
Speaker 3: Do you ever give you that he didn't know if you're going to make it.

02:02:40
Speaker 4: We talked a little bit about it when he came on the podcast in the fall of twenty twenty. But actually the moment we became friends and the moment that I felt like he wasn't just my coach was that following spring we lost in the sweet sixteen to Michigan State in Austin War School.

02:02:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, terrible, And you know, I had I had gone.

02:03:03
Speaker 4: Through all that my sophomore year, and then I, you know, got a CC Player of the Year, ACC Tournament, Tournament, m v P First Team All American, I got one of the national Player of the Year awards.

02:03:13
Speaker 3: I got the Rough Award, and we yeah, let's give it context. Context matters. Yeah, no doubt high point, no doubt point. Uh.

02:03:25
Speaker 4: So he called he called me into where we lose at the arena. We're all emotional, I'm crying, and we're get on the bus. He's like, hey, come to my hotel room. We'll get back to the hotel and we went in there and we basically talked about that. We talked about that day in May of two thousand and four when he dragged me, when they dragged me to the office. Talked about that summer, everything I'd done. We talked about the season. He talked about how proud he was of me, like I was a lifer at that point, like I was a coach klifer.

02:03:53
Speaker 3: He was, he was a friend from that point on. Yeah, that is awesome.

02:03:58
Speaker 2: And then one last thing, another one last thing, the gambling story of you almost coming to blows with one of your teammates. Yeah, I heard you said it was one of the closest times. Uh yeah, I mean I ever came up fighting a teammate. Yeah, I mean I've got I've gotten hit by teammates before, Like you've gotten punched by teammate, Yeah, he did.

02:04:17
Speaker 3: Turculu used to hit me.

02:04:18
Speaker 4: He hit me a couple of times, a couple of times when I was like a rookie, and then once again my like my third year, he just like to fuck with me.

02:04:25
Speaker 3: But I like.

02:04:27
Speaker 4: He got into a little scrap with Carlos Arroyo, Me and Brian Cook got into it one time. Like I never like came to blows with a guy in practice, but like I was trying to fight find a place in the lead like in the league.

02:04:39
Speaker 3: So I was just scrappy in practice.

02:04:41
Speaker 4: And if you're a vet, like in his shoot around, I guess one of the times Turkuleu elbowed me in the in the eye and gave me a black eye. He's just like I was playing too hard to post defense when we were we weren't walking through players, we were running through plays and he just turns and he like noticed it was me and he caught me.

02:04:57
Speaker 3: In the elbow, got it with an elbow. The Justin Anderson story, basically, everybody in the NBA plays Boe Ray. Do you guys play bou Ray? In the Okay, everybody plays blue Ray.

02:05:08
Speaker 4: So there's a there's a player's cabin on we used Delta charter flight, so on the player's cabin there's always a table, and then there's a bunch of other seats. So the table is four card games and so playing bou Ray. And there had been some tension building between Justin Anderson and another teammate of mine. They were going back and forth. They sat next to each other, so their actions directly affected the other player's actions, right, whether or not the guy stayed in the game, whether or not a guy went for a boo or didn't go for boot like, it all affected each other. So they were kind of mouthing off, and Justin wanted a pretty big hand to not count because he felt like there was a discrepancy in how that particular hand had been played.

02:05:52
Speaker 3: And we had been drinking as well.

02:05:56
Speaker 4: There had been some wine on the flight, and so there was Amir Johnson, me, Jared Bayliss, Justin Anderson diagonal to me, and then there wasn't a fifth seat, so Joel would sit on the arm rest in the aisle.

02:06:10
Speaker 3: Joel and Vie would sit on the arm rest in the aisle, and UH.

02:06:15
Speaker 4: Basically got to the point where their bullshit was sabotaging the general flow and enjoyment of the cart.

02:06:21
Speaker 3: It was ruining the night. It was ruining the night. Yes, thank you. Yeah.

02:06:24
Speaker 4: So I got a little vocal and then he got vocal back with me, and then I said, you're a little bitch. And he said, what did you say? And I said you're a little bit. I doubled down, and ma'am, I'm not proud of this, Like I just said, I said you're a bitch. And he said, what did you say? I said, I said, you heard me. I said you're a bitch. And then he like stood up on the table and like you know, almost swung on me. Joel luckily like grabbed him, and then all these flight attendants that were on the plane like came, I don't know why they broke up this stuffle, but they broke it up. Had he swung on me like I'm sitting down, he's standing up on a table.

02:07:01
Speaker 1: He would have won that fight. But I want to know I will gone by the ankles, dude, give him a toss. I would have lost. Dude, those the tables are like here, like there's no leverage.

02:07:11
Speaker 3: I was stuck. I was stuck. I would have lost. You're a little bitch, dude.

02:07:16
Speaker 1: You gotta think if you're really going to fight somebody, well he's taking the time to get up on that table.

02:07:20
Speaker 4: You gotta make a move. Yeah, you know if you're gonna win. That fight was the flight attendants. They obviously fly with all the other teams. The word got around that that had happened, So I had a bunch of texts from buddies around the league that, like, I heard you guys got into a fight, you know whatever.

02:07:34
Speaker 3: I was like, No, there's nothing, It was nothing like what happened after you guys? Cool? Yeah, yeah, it's fine. I'd have to ask him. Jay's my guy.

02:07:45
Speaker 2: We appreciate you going on, man, Thanks been unreal to your flight. Hey Jack, is he doing the green screen?

02:07:54
Speaker 3: All right? Cool? Did I appreciate it? Man? Anything else? Anybody got anything? You trying to? Had the pig one on one? What pig? Uh No, I don't think so. I don't think so. He's scared.

02:08:07
Speaker 2: Is anybody better than you at the collegiate level of all time shooter Steph.

02:08:13
Speaker 3: Really yeah, it's Seph would have.

02:08:14
Speaker 4: I mean, there's other guys that have surpassed like the three point thing, but Steph would have shattered it.

02:08:21
Speaker 3: Had he played one more year, he would have shattered it. I think I was I don't know who I was having this conversation with. It was somebody the other day, like I think why. I think why.

02:08:35
Speaker 4: It's like, oh, oh it is omar omar from my house highlights Omar Omaraja now is sports Center. We were talking about this two days ago and I was telling him it's like part of the reason, like the Duke version of me is, you know, there's.

02:08:51
Speaker 3: A legacy to that.

02:08:52
Speaker 4: I think a little bit even though I didn't win a championship, and oh, there definitely is. Yeah, there's a there's a little bit of like if you were growing up in that area you watch college basketball. But I think the reason is number one because I played for Duke and like people hated Duke and there was divisiveness there. The second reason, though, is like my draft class was the last draft class before the one and done era, So I feel like my time in college basketball was like the time in college basketball that we all knew and we all grew up knowing. Now with the one and done, it's just different, Like you don't have that attachment.

02:09:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're in and out.

02:09:23
Speaker 4: Most people don't even pay attention till March Madness anyways. So now it's like back then, it was like you and Adam Morrison, Yes, yeah, and you know, and then you and c was awesome.

02:09:32
Speaker 3: When I was there, they want to know five.

02:09:34
Speaker 4: You know, we had some great games with them, So I and they were all upperclass when like all those guys left it, they were all my high school class, and they all left after their junior year.

02:09:42
Speaker 3: I decided to stay one more year. So I just think it was like part of part of it was like just the era we were in.

02:09:47
Speaker 4: It wasn't necessarily like I did anything that was that much special relative to other great college basketball players.

02:09:54
Speaker 3: I mean, you're pretty good, so I was. I mean I was, you know, you weren't decent eleventh overall pack, you're pretty solid. I was. I was good lem the rob it

02:10:04
Speaker 4: M