The Jail Blazers Finally Tell The REAL Story | Rasheed, Damon & Bonzi

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back All the Smoke Unplugged ahead of the Netflix untold jail Blazer documentary What Drops April fourteenth. Man, I wanted to welcome in my brothers, Rashid Wallace, Damon Stodomar and Bondzie Wells Fellas. What's happening man, and be there, rubbed than birdman hands, Let's get let's get to it.

00:00:22
Speaker 2: What do it do?

00:00:22
Speaker 3: What it do?

00:00:23
Speaker 4: Man?

00:00:24
Speaker 1: I can't call him man. I got a chance to check the doc out yesterday, and I love this type of shit because this is what I was watching trying to come into the league. This is high school for me, college for me, and being able to see I think the biggest thing I took from was the misconception of what the jail Blazers were, because I think this happened in a time where you guys didn't have voices. Now, if this shit would have happened now, y'all could have hopped on your own show, somebody else's show, hopped on your phone and cleared your name immediately. But this happened in a time where it was the paper or it was one of these major ports outlets, and it was never our side of the story. It was always their side of the story. So first and foremost, what did you guys? How did this project come together?

00:01:09
Speaker 5: Well, I speak on the real fast. We appreciate you having us on, but yeah, this is for me. This was something that I really wanted to do. Even when we got into the podcast in Space, I always wanted to talk about our story and people needed to hear the real And even when you see the doc, you're going to know you know, She's story, Damon story, even my story and how it was nothing. And I've always even when I was in the moment, I was like when stuff was happening, I was like, man, this is nothing, what the And I really wanted us to have a voice. And then you know, going on through life these last few you know years or whatever, you always kind of get judged when people see you, kind of always get called these things in that narrative or whatever. So I just wanted to kind of put it out there and just tell our stories. So I kind of been kind of floating around these last few years, just trying to figure out how to connect the dots, and it finally came together and when she Da Gonna Greed, it just kind of just avalanche to where we're at now.

00:02:04
Speaker 1: Damn? What was your thoughts on the project?

00:02:06
Speaker 3: I thought it was good, you know for me just to kind of piggyback what Bondzi said. I mean, I did it more so for closure because I wanted I just kind of wanted to, you know, there's a lot of things that I talked about in the Doctor that I just really hadn't talked about, you know what I mean, And so you know, I just thought it would be a good way to just kind of, you know, talk on it and to be closure. And then I kind of it's crazy as it sound, you know, I thought that it would be closure for the organization too, man, because they've been carrying that cloud too, and it's like it is a misconception, you know. And it was just like you know, and you said it, so I don't got to repeat it in Today's Today in twenty twenty six, we could have told our story. Yep, Like they had cams on police office, you know what I mean, like stuff that they was doing. You could have been here what guys are saying, all the different things, and so it's just, you know, it's so much and we were all and we were young, we were immature. I think that there were things that obviously we knew that we did. But at the same time too, you know, it was just good to be for me. It's good it was. It was closure and being able to talk about those things and just kind of put it the rest and just kind of, you know, move on with life, she I felt.

00:03:30
Speaker 1: I mean, I always feel your passage and energy when you speak. But when I think about the greatness of your career, obviously you start in DC, you win a championship in Detroit, but I think when I think RARESHI was I think Portland Trailblazers. What was this like for you to speak on this because you're not really someone that really addresses too much shit, you know what I mean? You let it go, which is crazy to me, especially because I know how animated you are and you are very opinionated, but you be letting shit go. So for you to jump on this, what was it like for you?

00:04:02
Speaker 4: Just so I wouldn't hear Bonzie and my fucking messages every day.

00:04:07
Speaker 2: That's what it was like for me.

00:04:08
Speaker 4: I got tired of hearing his ship and my damn messages and on my phone message.

00:04:13
Speaker 6: Come on, she chexting me and ship like, uh.

00:04:19
Speaker 2: Honestly, for me, just accept the story straight.

00:04:23
Speaker 4: You know it was it was so many other reporters on both narratives, you know, the Black Side and the White side, that came out with their own opinions about that whole jail Blazers team and and everything that we did and this and that. But the funny thing that I've always told Bonzie and Damon because as Bonzi mentioned before, it took it took took a while for him to get this going. You know, I would have to say Bonzie was the one that spearheaded the project, and he told me about this a long time ago, and now I know he's finally happy to see it come to fruition after all these years. But for me, yeah, just to set our story straight. And one thing I've always said to him and Damon, like, yo, let.

00:05:03
Speaker 2: Everybody else tell they shit. They could tell it. I don't care for the simple fact they're telling it from their point.

00:05:08
Speaker 4: Of view, and nobody really going to buy this shit, this and that once they find out what it is, no matter if you're doing documentaries, paperbacks, you know, all this other stuff, but telling it on their podcast.

00:05:19
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. They don't have Bonzie voice.

00:05:21
Speaker 4: They don't have Damon voice, they don't have my voice, they don't have Pitt voice, they don't have the Bonus voice, you know, the guys who actually been through it.

00:05:29
Speaker 2: You don't have a voice. So it actually discredited your story.

00:05:34
Speaker 4: Or your documentary or your book in my opinion, and then so for us just to set the reconstrate with it.

00:05:40
Speaker 2: You know, as Damon mentioned this, this has.

00:05:42
Speaker 4: Been a I guess some sort of a cloud. I wouldn't necessarily say a black cloud, but as it goes in Portland, I would say somewhat of a gray, gloomy cloud that hangs over the organization a little bit from this. And it's good that is finally getting out and possibly hopefully it'll put it the rest. We know it's going to be a little hot topic, you know, maybe for the summer, but after that, you know, I know the organization will probably happy, like, look, all right, we got this done with, let's go, let's move on.

00:06:12
Speaker 1: I mean, I think she before you jumped on, we talked about I mean, just the misconception of the whole narrative. Bonzi never got in trouble, says some shit you know in the magazine, which we'll get to, and y'all got in trouble for some shit that's legal now, So like what we like? What are we really talking about? What's the narrative? So I think my next question is, obviously the jail blazer tag gets thrown on you guys. When did it become on your radar? Did you see it on TV? Was it in the paper? And a two part question once they kind of stuck that on you guys, how did it make you feel?

00:06:44
Speaker 5: I mean, I know for me when you know, I was young, and I kind of it started chirping like maybe my first or second year, maybe for sure my second year. And honestly, for me, I liked it because you know, I grew up in the Midwest, you know, Detroit bad boys.

00:06:57
Speaker 7: So I always know how this.

00:06:59
Speaker 5: I kind of figured at all, right, we're the bad boys in the NBA, and it's okay. And I thought it was something cool at first, and then when you look at the big picture, obviously you don't want jail and all that associated with your name in terms of, you know, culturally and narrative where we're from.

00:07:13
Speaker 7: But just being like a bad.

00:07:15
Speaker 5: Boy, I thought that's kind of what it was, and I thought it was cool, and I held it with a badge of honor every time I played, every time I went out there, because I was like, Okay, I want to be a warrior.

00:07:22
Speaker 7: I want to be this type of gail mentality where that's what.

00:07:25
Speaker 5: I want them thinking that coming into the game, and that's gonna give us some type of advantage just coming in and they thinking that we are on, so we might shank you type shit, you know what I mean like that? So yeah, so that's what you know, and that's what it became, you know, And we maybe said it amongst ourselves that we felt comfortable going in every game. We was up ten to fifteen points just going into the game because people didn't know what the fuck was gonna happen, you know what I mean.

00:07:45
Speaker 7: So I think I myself personally held it with a badge of honor.

00:07:50
Speaker 2: I'll see my guy rocking to the day Blazer.

00:07:54
Speaker 3: Political but she you know, they.

00:07:57
Speaker 7: Invited us back, they gave us a little swag.

00:08:00
Speaker 2: Man.

00:08:00
Speaker 4: I'm appreciated. I had the red form today. Like I said, for me, it didn't matter. I knew, I knew what my teammates thought of me personally. I knew what my family and friends thought of me personally, So I mean, and I've heard it, you know, amongst our friends that we had out there in Portland. But I never really read the local papers because I knew all they was doing was just talking shit about us. So it's like, I don't want I don't want to sit up here and read this all the time about people talking about it. No matter what type of game you had, Like shit, damn can go out there.

00:08:39
Speaker 2: He could have.

00:08:39
Speaker 4: Had like ninety with like thirty five assists and fucking eight blocks and all that, right, But guess what, somehow, some way for them, their silver lining is opposite. They're going to find something negative in there about the performance, you know what I'm saying.

00:08:57
Speaker 2: They go out there like God can have a perform of.

00:09:00
Speaker 4: His lifetime, but they'll oh, well, he gave up the time bucket or you know, why can't we see this person every night and blah blah blah blah. They gonna find some type of negative feed about it. And that's what it always was as far as the media goes, as far as the organization, in my opinion, I.

00:09:17
Speaker 2: Mean, shit, they loved us.

00:09:19
Speaker 4: We never got no real like bad feedback from anybody, from the higher ups in the organization to the people who was in the front office every day.

00:09:29
Speaker 2: You know, people were still, hey, what's up, cheery if we see.

00:09:31
Speaker 4: Him out and about somewhere, because Portland's so small, Hey, what's up, it's cheery, as you know. It was never no no bad blood with the actual organization, to be honest, not for me, Not.

00:09:42
Speaker 3: For me, I I thought. I thought it was disrespectful. And so from the perspective that I came from, these two dudes were her, you know, we had her that we had to hurt her. And I was and I was the guy. I was from Portland, you know, so I knew the streets, I knew the pulse of everything, so I would all. I was like the connected, you know, somebody if we got a new a teammate, whatever that happened, like everybody, hey man, don't go over there, like come on there, you ain't do that, Like hey man, I heard, I heard, man, man, I heard you was over it. Then you can't go over there. Dog, Like I know it's Portland, but it's real up here too, now, Like you know what I'm saying, so, you know, and so I felt like I felt like with our team, we had the pulse of the streets. And so in Portland, like it's northeast Portland, north northeast Portland. Then in the southwest southeast, yes, then it's south southwest southeast, and so my whole thing and with the whole jail Blazer Moniker man. And it was like, to me, that's like a it was almost like it was an undertone. It was a it was an undertone of being racist without being without directly being raising. I just.

00:11:03
Speaker 1: You know, wanted to ask that because I kind of felt a little there was a little racist undertone.

00:11:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that and so I was saying, and so me being from Portland, I didn't never want to believe it, you know. I you know, there's you got pockets everywhere in this in America, right, you know, so I understand that. But it was just like a lot of people that I've seen in the audience in the in the games, the crowd, I mean, if I didn't know them, I knew to face.

00:11:30
Speaker 8: I seen the face, you know, whatever that might be.

00:11:33
Speaker 3: So I just thought from the perspective of that part, you know, because the one thing that wasn't alluded to. And I thought the doc was good. It's so good you could probably make two to three other parts. But I didn't think the thing that was alluded to the most. Bonzie was younger, but with me and she right, I felt it was disrespectful for everything that I was actually doing for the Portland community. So how y'all gonna sit up here and say X, Y and Z when I'm I'm doing stuff like you know, she was doing stuff. See she'd had coach drives. You know. I used to. I used to. I used to. I used to do a lot of stuff for single for single moms, being and my mother was was was a single mom. You know. I'm the one that helped build the health head Start building, you know, with the help of all out and everybody, which at the time was was the biggest head start building in the country.

00:12:28
Speaker 8: And so for me, that's why.

00:12:30
Speaker 3: I'm saying, like, man, y'all sitting up here talking about that, about Jerald Blazer man talk about this? Where where is the articles on this?

00:12:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, damn, I want to back up a little bit because obviously getting a chance to go home and play you you win rookie of the year and then you you know, you make your way back home to a very talented team. What's your initial thoughts when you're coming to this club?

00:12:57
Speaker 8: Man, I was excited, you know, I uh, you know, I I'm.

00:13:02
Speaker 3: Just looking at the roster, looking at the team, and you know, the makeup of it, and it was you know, it was you know at that time, it was it was you know sheet, it was BG.

00:13:14
Speaker 1: J R.

00:13:15
Speaker 3: J R.

00:13:17
Speaker 8: Uh Stacey Bonus.

00:13:21
Speaker 3: I came with Walt Low jail Jo was there.

00:13:25
Speaker 1: That's a young jail, young jail, right.

00:13:27
Speaker 3: Young jail. But but but the funny, but the funniest thing though, and I know this ain't even the topic, but I just got to talk about it because this man, it was so funny. So man, I was so excited. I was so excited to get to the team.

00:13:40
Speaker 1: Man.

00:13:41
Speaker 3: And I remember we flew all night and so first of all, we get on the plane on Paul's plane, and I'm like, yo, this is the plane. Yo. It was a wet bar. You know.

00:13:53
Speaker 8: We was we was watching B E T. Now this is ninety eight.

00:13:56
Speaker 3: Now we're watching satellite on the plane and I'm like, and we turned were turning up the music. Man we we got we we got we got three course meal and then we and then we we get to Portland. Man, we go to practice, Man, I bullshit you not. I don't think nobody had on the uniform at practice. Man, what the westad side out Jersey factors? Man, somebody else had on a food boo shirt. I was like, I was like, okay. I was like okay. I was like, okay, this is this is I said.

00:14:36
Speaker 1: Interesting.

00:14:37
Speaker 3: We had and we had we had some. We had some characters, Dinny, ask you John Crotty, Now more names are coming. We still had Rick Brunson, Rick Brunston was it, you know what I mean? Gary Grant. So we had some. We had that Tonio Wingfield at the time. We had got and so you know, so so that was I just had to add that. But I was really you know, I was excited though, being a hometown boy coming and everything. But you know, the one thing that I will say about that, though, Matt, that everybody that that I had to endure and people don't understand is right. And it's like, coming to that team, you had to make a lot of sacrifice. So I had to kind of tone my game down and change my game and a lot of respects, which was fine, you know, but when you don't win it, right, when you don't win it and you don't get the ultimate prize, you start to reflect on what could have been if you would have stayed where you was at and then so sometimes you know, I would get in my moments, I'm like, damn man, I was in Toronto, we had Matt, we drafted Vince. I was like, you still have markets there, but they end up trading Marcus obviously, but you still had a good team and you had a nucleus right there. So that's the only thing I think about the regret because it wasn't the money, right, because the money was gonna be the same either place, But it was just more so like you start to have a regret because at that time, once you feel once you got to sacrifice for the numbers and do what you gotta do because you know the individual accolades aren't gonna be there. You gotta make sure that you you get that ring at the end of the day. And not getting that ring, that's just like the biggest, the biggest thing that that I just that I look back on with regret.

00:16:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, the doc really focused on you know, four or five season stretch. Damn, you get there the year of the lockout bonds and you're drafted to Detroit and get there the same season. She you had been with the team for a few years.

00:16:32
Speaker 3: He go ahead the timeline.

00:16:34
Speaker 8: I actually came.

00:16:37
Speaker 3: I came in. I came in ninety eight before the lockout. Okay, midseason though it was a misdseason trade okay, and then the lockout came. So that's when I signed my new deal.

00:16:48
Speaker 1: Yes, And that's when was that when he was out fucking with us? You see a la versus Arizona that time?

00:16:54
Speaker 3: Yes, So that during that lockout, that when I came down to to see y'all, y'all was crazy as hell. Well, I was like, man, I mean, hey, hey, I was like these young boys.

00:17:08
Speaker 8: Why But it was good amen.

00:17:14
Speaker 3: On that team. Maybe I probably had.

00:17:17
Speaker 1: I think like six or seven pros off that team. Yeah, easy, and probably one of our best players, Jeron Rush, never made it. He was Yeah, which was crazy. What was your thoughts with that season?

00:17:30
Speaker 3: Strike? Short season you're talking about?

00:17:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you guys played the Spurs in the conference finals. You guys lose uh that year, But obviously you're still putting everything together, but you guys have a loaded roster.

00:17:43
Speaker 3: I thought we were good, but I thought that in my mind, I thought we got we got there year. We got there year early. So I didn't have that in my timeline. I'm not gonna lie. I didn't.

00:17:55
Speaker 8: I thought it was gonna take another year.

00:17:58
Speaker 3: So I thought in two thousand and actually was gonna be the year that we took off. But we but we got there a year early, and so in getting there a year earlier, the expectation changed. And then that's when they made the move and brought in Pip and brought in uh Debt and brought in Smith's going into that next year.

00:18:19
Speaker 8: But it's just I thought I thought that we were on our way though.

00:18:22
Speaker 3: Man, we was like the nucleus of our team was like twenty four to five, you know what I mean. So that's all I was thinking about, like, man, we got this window, and man, we got it. You know, it's about to be on. I mean to go to the conference finals. And I mean, like I said, I was me and she fourth year. Literally it's a fourth year. Like you couldn't have told me. You couldn't have told me that we wouldn't win a chip, and you couldn't have told me that we wouldn't make deep, deep runs, deep playoff runs.

00:18:52
Speaker 1: BONDI, what are you? I mean, you're young, you're fresh in you're fresh in the league. And obviously what Dame said, you know, he walks into practice and nobody's wearing no kind of practice uniform. It's just a different type of vibe and you're throwing in the fire. So what are you thinking as a kid fresh out of college.

00:19:11
Speaker 5: Honestly, I remember walking in the gym for the first time and realizing that I probably won't play. I realized, like, may you're coming, you know, when you're coming from college and you the guy, and you know from Indiana, you the guy. And I walked in that gym when I saw the first practice and I was like, man, I don't know how I'm going to get on this court.

00:19:31
Speaker 7: And it just let me know how it really was.

00:19:33
Speaker 5: It was a real culture shock for me at first, and that's kind of how it went my rookie year. But you know, just appreciate guys like Dame and She and all the other wizzo and this all the vets just keeping my mind right.

00:19:42
Speaker 7: It's like, man, just keep working, keep working. Something happened for you. And I remember making that run and just really just remember how.

00:19:49
Speaker 5: Good we were and how good we were across the board, even though we had a little bit of dysfunction. Everything was happening fast, you know, the fifty game season. But guys, you know, no matter what happened during the day, when seven o'clock hit, guys always locked in. And that's what the most respectful part for me was that guys did their fucking job every night.

00:20:06
Speaker 7: They you know, they didn't miss practice.

00:20:07
Speaker 5: They played hard, even though we might have a back to back to back, you know, five games and six nights or seven nights.

00:20:13
Speaker 7: It was crazy back then, but it just.

00:20:15
Speaker 5: Made me want to work even harder to getting that rotation and just and then I knew if I got in that rotation, I was gonna be pretty good because these guys are really good tough.

00:20:22
Speaker 1: Hell yeah. So she the next season ninety nine, two thousand, you got the second best record in the NBA, fifty nine and twenty three. You add Pip, you add Schmidty, you add that left. She's looking good. You guys are heading to the playoffs. What's your thought process?

00:20:39
Speaker 4: That shit was looking great, especially you know, with with having success in the playoffs ever since I first got to Portland, and you know, on that team, it was uh, you know Uncle Cliff and Aaron McKee, Sabonis, Gary Trent.

00:20:56
Speaker 2: You know, it was a good squad and they were on a rock.

00:21:00
Speaker 4: But again, you know, they were still kind of sort of fresh off of the finals with Clyde and you know Terry Border that that whole team. So but they still had a good team. And my first year there, I was like, all right, you know, we're gonna do something. And then just learning things under Uncle Cliffy And each year it seems for me it seemed to get like better and better, tighter and tighter. I knew guys were coming in and out, you know, I know that's part of the business. And and our our wins got more and more. And then when we ended up rolling into that whole first conference finals against the Spurs, you know, with the team that we had right there, I was like, man, this is this is a good team right here. My biggest thing was to take it per per series.

00:21:47
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. It's like, yeah, we.

00:21:50
Speaker 4: All think about championship when you first start the playoffs, but damn to get to that championship, we gotta beat this team first. And that's where I pretty much was at, like, you know, just looking at each and then when we made it to that conference championship against San Antonio, I'm like, all right, and you know, we're battling with them, going back and forth, back and forth, and then man, this motherfucker hits this great fucking shot.

00:22:15
Speaker 2: Sean Elliott hits a great shot. I'm not even gonna lie. It was a great game, but.

00:22:19
Speaker 4: He had a great shot, and you know, of course that's what put them ahead. And I think from there it was like, okay, I was thinking, okay, we only got about maybe one, no more than two years to actually get this done before.

00:22:34
Speaker 2: They do what all teams do, start breaking the team up.

00:22:37
Speaker 4: So that was my thoughts, like, all right, we fell short that year with San Antonio, Like all right, we got to go back out here this next year and do it, and then damn do it and get to another conference finals against the Lakers. Then you know, that had them on the ropes and for us to come up short, you know, I would say, for me personally when it happened, then I was mad as shit. I was angry. I was I was so fucking heated after that series. But as I look back and dweller on it, you know, later in my career, I was.

00:23:08
Speaker 2: Like, man, I said, yeah, it was part of it.

00:23:10
Speaker 1: You know.

00:23:10
Speaker 4: It's it's the ups and downs of if somebody got win, somebody got to lose.

00:23:14
Speaker 2: But I was like, damn, it would have been great if we would have.

00:23:17
Speaker 4: Came out on top of that shit at least one of them times against them Lakers, and you know, they were always our achilles heel, you know, the Lakers and damn Spurs.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: That that was the ones that always put me out.

00:23:28
Speaker 1: I want to back up a little bit. When you guys are able to get piped, because word is he wants to go to Lakers and be with Phil, Shaq and Kobe, you guys are able to get someone with that experience Six Rings and the documentary, you can kind of feel the energy and the excitement when you guys get piped. Dang, what was your first thoughts when you guys are able to get someone like Scotty.

00:23:47
Speaker 3: We basically we knew who Pip was the basketball player. We wanted to see what was he gonna come in and try to be one of us. So he was gonna try to big times, you know. So you know I had I had personally never been around Pip. I had been, you know, around a lot of people, but Pip was like at that time, one of the only you know, superstars that I just I had never been around and experienced. So I didn't know, you know, how he's gonna be.

00:24:13
Speaker 8: And you know, talk about it in the documentary.

00:24:15
Speaker 3: But from that after that, from that point forward, man, he was one of us. And you know, I thought that Pipple was he kind of reminds me. He reminded me of that, oh so, and he always gave wisdom and he always you know, talked about the mental approach to the game. And you know, it was funny, man, because you know when Pip when when when Pip was, when Pip wasn't hurting and a lot of people don't know his back was probably worse than what he ever let on to be. But when he was, when he when he was writing, you knew when he had pop because you could tell from the shoot around to this man, he was really good man like he like he could impact games. You know, I remember we played he when we came back and played the Houston Rockets. Uh, his first time back playing the man dude took like a charges y'all remember that charges and like the impact he had on the game. So we so when he came in, he was exactly for me. He was exactly who who who we thought he would be, you know, as a as a leader, because at that time, the only thing we needed was season So we just needed somebody that this this, this the stir that di sturd of stuff up, give us some seasoning, and we felt like we could compete.

00:25:33
Speaker 8: But he and he gave and he gave us that when he when he came in.

00:25:38
Speaker 1: Any funny off the court stories, obviously in the doc they speak on him having a security the first couple of days and y'all made fun of him. But any any funny locker room playing, any any funny pip stories y'all got, y'all had the old man wearing braids and ship come. He wasn't he wasn't that old. He was just old to y'all at the time.

00:25:57
Speaker 3: But so you know that it's it's it's no, it's no funny pips. It's no funny pip stories. I can tell.

00:26:04
Speaker 1: Camera, but I respect that.

00:26:08
Speaker 8: But what I will say is, man, I'll never forget it.

00:26:11
Speaker 3: Man. We played, we played Milwaukee, and we was we was about to go. We were we were we we beat Milwaukee. We were going to the to the airport. And man, he was like, yo, Man, Mike stopped by the liquor store. We stopped by liquor store. Dude, don popped a little the thing up on the bus stars smoking cigars.

00:26:30
Speaker 4: Now.

00:26:30
Speaker 3: Was the first time I ever been a part of that one.

00:26:33
Speaker 8: I hadn't been a part of that before.

00:26:35
Speaker 3: But Pimples just Pip was just Pip man, Pimples, Pimples, cool, Pimples. Piples and I and I'm pretty sure that that Bond's and she just share their story. But I, you know, I had fun. You know, people, Piple was old school man. He's from the South and so like it's just so it's a lot of stuff that he did that you just didn't know because he country, you know, but but he's a good country But he was just you know, Pip was just Pip was just one of them dudes man that like honestly, you know, he gave you a lot of game.

00:27:07
Speaker 8: You got a lot of free game from dude. Man, he was really you.

00:27:10
Speaker 3: Know, he had been through a lot in his career, He had been through a lot off the floor. Like he shared those experiences with you man, and you know that was you know, he had to do that ship. But I thought that was real cool and some of some of it might relate to, you know, what's going on the floor.

00:27:25
Speaker 8: Some of them might relate to what's going on off the floor. But he was really good from that standpoint.

00:27:31
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, he definitely shared a couple of Chicago Bulls stories with us and stuff like that. But I would say my my funniest pit story was we was on the plane and we were either coming home or going off to a game, and so just so happened who had on the same shut Hit and Greg Anthony about these same exact suit.

00:27:55
Speaker 2: Now, man, all right, same exact suit.

00:27:57
Speaker 4: So you know what I'll say about the first maybe half hour forty minutes.

00:28:02
Speaker 2: You know, you got the card.

00:28:03
Speaker 4: Table they over there playing cards, so nobody never really noticed it. Right, So then here it is both of them. They sit in caddy corner from each other. So both of them got their suit jacket on the back of the chair right, and so you know, I'm sitting.

00:28:19
Speaker 2: Across, I'm like, whoa.

00:28:22
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, okay, y'all decide to be like Twen's big brother, little brother, you.

00:28:27
Speaker 2: Know, Arras Schwarzenegger and DUDEO and So was like, man, what you talking about?

00:28:33
Speaker 3: Said?

00:28:34
Speaker 4: You know, you and Ga got on the same suit. And he was like, oh man, you already know you know what mine is. I'm like, I don't know, I said, So Pitt showed me the inside of his his joint was like Mavsace had his name in his Scottie fifth and you know this.

00:28:48
Speaker 1: And that right.

00:28:49
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, I'm like, gee, whats your joy said? He was like, man, I ain't got approved nothing to y'all. And this bit of that, I'm like, well, from the looks of it, from what I saw, one suit was made in Italy and one suit was made in Tally Like, oh, ship, you know my record, you better check it. You know how you know how I get down. I'm just saying, Pitt, somebody gotta gotta knock on suit. Somebody got a fork piece on it.

00:29:25
Speaker 1: Shut he shout out for.

00:29:28
Speaker 3: He definite. He definitely looked Greg definitely looked at like he had that.

00:29:38
Speaker 4: Ever since that day, that's when we started calling Greg little Pitt little Hey.

00:29:44
Speaker 3: Man, you said it too, man, shout out for man where shout out.

00:29:48
Speaker 1: He's still there, Bro, He's still It's not it's not even called it's not even called Fox heals Thom. I don't even know what it's called. But it's not called said. But fu is sure in that bitch.

00:29:58
Speaker 7: Still he's still in there.

00:29:59
Speaker 1: It's yes, I think yeah. I think Young Mouth might have moved on, but he got a couple of his partners in there. But he's definitely. I was probably winning there last year and didn't even need nothing. But I was just like, yo, is this for real? Spot, Hey buddy, he's still there.

00:30:25
Speaker 3: Bro.

00:30:26
Speaker 1: I want to talk about real real quick because this is the time and and unfortunately the game today doesn't have it. But I know practices were motherfucking wars with the amount of talent y'all had. What were some of the first team versus the second team practices like during this time.

00:30:43
Speaker 5: I mean from my point of view, from my point of view to my point earlier, that's what I said my rookie year, if I could just make it in these practices, I can play against anybody, and it seemed like and I know, damn she to say the same at times, and a lot of teams might say this, that I practiced seem harder than the games, because back then, if you missed a practice, if you missed a game, you were at risk for your spot.

00:31:07
Speaker 7: And you know, and you know how hard that was. And guys took pride in their spot.

00:31:11
Speaker 5: And if you on that bench mob that we might have called it or whatever you want to call it, those five guys, and then you might be on that third unit. You had something to prove, and you want to prove that you was on that second unit, that you was better than the first and third and vice versa, and those matchups meant something. And I remember my rookie year, my matchups at the two spots were Jail Rider and Jimmy Jackson. And I knew to myself, if I can compete with these big, strong, thick leg motherfuck you know what I'm saying, strong ass veteran, if I can learn their stuff and try to stop, and I'm going to be a better person, and then just on down the line, walk William Stacey Augman. You know those guys are just elite players. And I was like, man, if I could just get anything off on these guys.

00:31:49
Speaker 7: Consistently, I'm gonna be better.

00:31:50
Speaker 5: So I look forward because the practices were my game, and a lot of times that's a lot of people's games.

00:31:56
Speaker 7: It's practicing, so you take pride in it.

00:31:58
Speaker 1: Shade you couldn't shade, you couldn't get no t he's in practice. What was your mindset during practice?

00:32:03
Speaker 2: Hold on practice? We got that shit on? You know it was.

00:32:08
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say it was never no regular like all right, first unit winning all the time. No, that No, especially depending on you know how back then we used to have like little situational games like oh, you're down three with forty seconds left, you know, and you don't have the ball, get the ball back, things like that. But no, the second you do would god our ass and then like shit. In my opinion, when I first got there too, that next year we drafted Jermaine. So you know, Jermaine was the young skinny kid out of South Carolina. But he had heart and he had dog in him, and he was talented athletic. He was going at us, he was coming at me. Some the Bonus and Brian Grant and you know, guys are just.

00:32:48
Speaker 1: A young zebo. You had young ze Bo too, right at some point.

00:32:51
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, we drafted it on, but that later on.

00:32:54
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, later on we drafted a young slow mouth later on. But no, we had Jermaine and it was just a young team and you had a lot of dogs. And the practices a we walking out of there limping, definitely, everybody putting some ice on, hot tubbing it, cold tubbing it, all that stuff. Man, Like, ain't nobody on that team that whole time when it was real practices. Nobody just went back there showered and bounced. You know what I'm saying, No, you back there getting treatment.

00:33:26
Speaker 3: They Matt, They're one hundred percent right. I won't even add to it because they said everything. But you know, I got I got reflective stories. So we were in training camp and it was the last day. It was the last day they had to make cuts, probably at two o'clock, you know, put in the roster two o'clock. So we're doing We always finished practice with like a three man three man weave type layup drill. I mean, uh, lay up lay up drill, you know, get a certain amount of layer whatever, whatever the hell we did, right, and so we had, you know, fifteen spots, but we had like seventeen guaranteed contracts. They were waving a guaranteed to guaranteed contracts. And so, man, we in we in the we in the drills, I mean we in the we everybody clapping up. Yeah, we finished your practice. Clapping it up. Our boy. Will purduees on the team, right, Will Purdue? Man, you must it looked like he got shot by schneiper Man. He came up lame. I was like, Will last he want to get cut?

00:34:29
Speaker 1: Man?

00:34:29
Speaker 3: He and sure he wasn't gonna.

00:34:30
Speaker 1: Get cut because they can't cut you when you get hurt, right, you can't shut it hurt. Yeh Yeah, I remember that.

00:34:36
Speaker 3: Man. That's one of the funniest things I ever seen. Now now to this day, Now to this day, I would love to see Will so I can just ask him, be like, man, that you really hurt? Did you really hurt? Are you? Are you? Are you? Are you trying to say that roster positions and didn't want to be possibly one of them dudes, because man, I've never seen nothing like that in my life. We had Wim because we had we had like we had Will, we had Joe Klein, we had we had Harvey and all.

00:35:07
Speaker 2: These dudes the team.

00:35:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, all these dudes were on the team for Shaq. So we had bows. That was only reason, you know what I mean, Like we had extra bike. And then like she said, we still had Jamaine. I ain't named Jamaine, like we had so many business at RPG.

00:35:25
Speaker 8: I ain't even named I ain't named.

00:35:27
Speaker 3: Him, dudes. So it was just great of this. That was That's that's the story I want to tell Will ford Man. That was so funny.

00:35:34
Speaker 4: Sniper was in the ba hill like he made he made sure too that everybody saw and heard him.

00:35:41
Speaker 1: He went to the he went to.

00:35:44
Speaker 2: The first one right, and you know he was, I'm.

00:35:47
Speaker 1: Living a little bit, a little build up.

00:35:49
Speaker 2: So he went to the back of the line. You know, he back.

00:35:52
Speaker 7: There leg and.

00:35:55
Speaker 2: You get this hem and cheese together. So you know, you seen struction out on the side of a little bit right. So now he next up in line.

00:36:03
Speaker 4: So now he's on that outside wing, I mean at middle line where you definitely got a sprint, right, you're getting a layup down on the other end.

00:36:10
Speaker 2: So he did I think he did the shit on purpose.

00:36:13
Speaker 1: Big.

00:36:13
Speaker 4: He got in that middle line man and do that first pass and started to get on that horse, and he yeah, what a snap wreck.

00:36:29
Speaker 2: Down, Down goes Frasier, Down goes Frasier. The funniest thing I saw. I'm like, yo, what.

00:36:36
Speaker 4: At first, I'm like, damn, Like is he really hurt? You know, like I'm concerned.

00:36:41
Speaker 2: But then when youre in.

00:36:41
Speaker 4: The locker room listening to the other Vets and Ship, They're like, yeah, that's you know what he's doing.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: That was a good.

00:36:49
Speaker 1: O G O G move. I want to talk about r vedas the bonus. Uh So when you hear you hear legendary stories about him over the water, he came to you a little bit later in his career, but still super talented. What was he like as a teammate and and what kind of personality did he have?

00:37:07
Speaker 4: I'll say through my three quick things about Stopvist one best passing Big I ever seen or played with two. I don't know no other person walking on two feet that that could out drink him. I'm not sure if he still drinks now or not, but I know I'm talking about back then, nobody I knew could out drinking.

00:37:28
Speaker 1: He said two feet.

00:37:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm telling you, and then and then the third one. I have always heard stories about him in his younger days, and I just hated the fact that, like, man, if we could have gotten maybe like one one.

00:37:46
Speaker 2: Last good year or those.

00:37:48
Speaker 4: That young, like all right, I'm gonna go out here, I'm still dunking and all this other shit like he was, you know, over there overseas back home, then I think we would have been better. But no, overall Stop is a good dude, though, the good dude man. And you know, he's funny as ship too. He's funny as he's funnier than what he puts. So everybody think, oh, he can't speak English. He's in the locker room and you reporters asking him this, and he like reporters of leave go somewhere else. He's like, I just didn't want to talk to that guy.

00:38:24
Speaker 1: Good like.

00:38:27
Speaker 3: Depending on how on the day on the plane, because me and she didn't gamble, so they had the card table so they didn't just be like me and she and then we'll be up in the front watching the TV. But then when it's time to stretch out. I used to go back there where sabist was, you know, because it was more room. And so I spent a lot of time with him on the plane. And like she said, man he was. He was a funny dude. He actually was funny. I agree with number two what she said about drinking. What to drink? What the drink? You know. But the biggest thing that but the biggest thing, and and and but the biggest thing that I see about that I say about our veatus is, man, the stuff he was doing on one leg, I wish.

00:39:13
Speaker 8: I could have seen it on two, because.

00:39:17
Speaker 3: Man, he just you know what he the way, the way he can pass, the way he could shoot. You know, you just didn't. You didn't see that, you know. And it's just unfortunate that he had had the injuries that he had. I would have loved the benness, like she said, I would have loved to have been his teammate when he was right, because man, dude, dude, dude was nice. Now he he he was not. And then and then Matt, I tell you this, every time his homeboys came to town from overseas, he got busy.

00:39:52
Speaker 1: He was he was, he.

00:39:53
Speaker 3: Was gonna he was gonna give you that work. That night he won that what made what made what made and what made him a self teammates man. He didn't he didn't have to play every game because we didn't need him, you know, like that every game, and so that was that was always good for him. But but but dude was he It's unfortunate for us we didn't see him. They see it overseas, but for us, it's like what if because he I mean, you know, and you know you can say this, but I don't know. Even if he would have came in with Clyde and him, he they might have got one. I mean, I'm just saying, like, dude was nice.

00:40:28
Speaker 2: I think so it was.

00:40:29
Speaker 3: Dude was nice.

00:40:30
Speaker 1: Man.

00:40:30
Speaker 3: He was different though.

00:40:32
Speaker 2: He was he was different.

00:40:34
Speaker 7: He was different.

00:40:35
Speaker 1: You see you see young him running up and down the court, dunking on people, blacking shots, hitting jumpers, passing the ball like a point guard. He was tough. Let's go back to this two thousand playoff series Game seven with the Lakers. I mean, you guys all, but haven't you have a nice lead? And then the fourth quarter hits thirteen thirteen straight And it was crazy because I'm in college at you CLA this time in my dorm room with my homeboy Ray, who's here right now, and we're watching this game kind of going crazy. I'm a Laker fan at heart from a youngster. But again, I was fucking with you guys just because of the mantra. I didn't know it, but it seemed cool to me. I was at UCLA smoking weed on the Rick trail by myself, so I just felt like I was. I felt like you guys would have fucked with me if you would have known me. I kind of felt like it, So I kind of had a I had a little special place in my heart for you guys. But walk us through obviously being down, fighting back and getting to that game seven, and then just what happened in that fourth quarter. B Scott hits off the backboard, three hits, another three later, and then you guys just can't get the ball in the basket.

00:41:39
Speaker 2: Sought on me.

00:41:41
Speaker 3: I let them go, But I want to just say two things that was stand out to me in that run, other than the fact that we couldn't make a shot. We couldn't. We just couldn't stop that momentum. But there was another three that was right in front of our bench, and I can't remember if it was b Shaw or Rick five maybe maybe it was it was one of those two man. The ball hit the cushion and went in like it was like it wasn't like like like it was like it was gonna hit the side of the backboard. But then all of a sudden, it's like the sixth man.

00:42:15
Speaker 8: Came out, moved, moved the ball over.

00:42:18
Speaker 3: And and and it went in. I remember that vividly. And then the last thing is after shack, after Kobe threw the live the shack. And I'm not I'm not from l A, so I haven't watched the Laker game as a fan, so I have no clue, but I would want to know from Laker fans because for me as an opponent, I don't think. I don't think that if Staples, then I don't think Staples has gotten as loud as it was at that moment there.

00:42:47
Speaker 8: I thought it was I thought it was an earthquake.

00:42:50
Speaker 3: Man. It was so loud up in there, and and and and everything was shaking.

00:42:56
Speaker 2: Damn.

00:42:58
Speaker 1: You know.

00:42:58
Speaker 7: For me, the craziest part of that the end of the third quarter.

00:43:01
Speaker 5: The guy that hits the shot is Brian Shaw, who we just cut or I think we just he just left us like either the year before or whatever. And he hit the big Banker three to kind of cut it. I think it was thirteen. And man, just sitting on the bench because I didn't really play as much in the fourth, but just sitting there watching it.

00:43:17
Speaker 7: Usually you know how the clock goes, it goes fast as hell.

00:43:19
Speaker 5: It was going so slow and you just watching it, and you watching it and everybody just missing all the shots that we had hit for the last three and a half games. We hit all these shots and they just started and I was like, man, it's just not our It's just fate or something.

00:43:33
Speaker 7: And just and then me. I'm from Indiana and I'm just sitting back in my mind thinking.

00:43:38
Speaker 5: About damn, I'm gonna throw a hell of a party finalist party at home when we play the Pacers for the finals.

00:43:43
Speaker 7: My mind's all over the place. I'm like, man, we're going home.

00:43:45
Speaker 5: We're gonna beat the shit out of the Pacers, like we kill them because we I feel like we got them. I'm looking at the crowd, they all got that look. I'm looking at the body language of the players. They all defeat it.

00:43:56
Speaker 7: And then you just see like a purpose coming like they go from this and just inflated like ah this type shit.

00:44:02
Speaker 5: It was just the craziest moment and just that that that play right home.

00:44:06
Speaker 7: I remember how somber.

00:44:08
Speaker 5: It was just like man, just man, like everybody kind of felt it was kind of over a little bit in the sense, you know, and I know Dame spoken earlier about we can probably we had a window. But just after that game, it was like so deflating.

00:44:20
Speaker 1: She you said, you put the blame on yourself.

00:44:23
Speaker 4: Tell me why, oh yeah, because out of them thirteen shots, I missed like six or seven of them, and they and they was they was dummies too right there in front boom yo jump shot boom jump boom right there. I missed all that ship. So I put a majority of it on on myself. And and I also I think for me, in my opinion, where all that shit started going downhill was when Bonzie Homie called the time out after we was telling him not to call the time out.

00:44:52
Speaker 2: It was a bold on the floor.

00:44:54
Speaker 4: He's he's trying to he's trying to call the time out, and were trying to distract the rest like no, no, no, this and that telling them so Bonzie Homie up.

00:45:02
Speaker 2: Mike Dumbley.

00:45:05
Speaker 4: Senior, Junior is my guy. Junior's my guy. But but we're telling you when we hear them want to call the time out before it was called.

00:45:18
Speaker 2: So we're like, no, no, no, we got.

00:45:20
Speaker 4: Him on the roads, were up sixteen. We got him on the roots. Guys over there on the berch like this, they're looking in the stands, this and that, and we're looking at this on film, right, so we're like, no, no, we got him, we got him. So what I didn't realize at that moment when the referee when Dumbleavy called timeout and the ref gave it to us.

00:45:39
Speaker 2: All right, we're upset, we're hot.

00:45:40
Speaker 4: But what I really didn't realize at that moment I really had to think about it. Probably didn't come to me maybe about a years so later. We didn't win that because it was the basketball guys. And in my opinion, I say that because you know, Dunleavy used to be the coach with the Lakers and they want to the finals and I think they lost with Magic, right it was I think it was his one.

00:46:04
Speaker 2: Of them years.

00:46:05
Speaker 1: No I think I think I think I think you're thinking about West said right.

00:46:10
Speaker 3: No, no, they beat the they beat the So I know she because I was graduating from high school. It was it was the year. It was the year it was. It was nice the Blazers. The Blazers had the best record in the NBA, I think, and they were they were. That was the year they were supposed to go to the finals. And you know, they had just got through the Detroit had lost to Chicago.

00:46:33
Speaker 8: So it ended up being with m J first title.

00:46:37
Speaker 1: So it would.

00:46:40
Speaker 3: Have been so it would have been. It was supposed to be Portland against It was supposed to be Portland against Chicago. But what happens is magic interrupted that and they beat the Blazers in six games. And Duneley he was the coach.

00:46:56
Speaker 4: Coach so and that right there, in my opinion, with the basketball guys, he wanted to prove since the Lakers fired him, he wanted to prove to.

00:47:04
Speaker 2: Them like I'm a good coach. I got y'all now.

00:47:07
Speaker 4: Wanted to sit back and gloat about it, like tell me, tell me who in their right mind, if you're up sixteen with the ball, who's calling the time out?

00:47:18
Speaker 2: I don't give a fuck with.

00:47:19
Speaker 4: My leg broke, No, don't call time out, yo, I'll hobble up and down this motherfucking court because for me.

00:47:26
Speaker 2: The way I felt, man, it took us.

00:47:28
Speaker 4: So long, It took us so long against these Lakers to get to this point where we got them on a brink, like yo, like we can.

00:47:36
Speaker 2: Actually, you know, put this team away.

00:47:39
Speaker 4: Because in that West Coast, they was the only team them in San Antonio, was the only teams giving us problems.

00:47:45
Speaker 2: So I'm like, oh, we got them. We got like, MMM called the time out.

00:47:50
Speaker 4: I come out, brick, I come out another brick, brick and then Smit smitty Smitty did this. He put a shot up post move Rick, he did his move. Rick Dame miss some BONDI missed some damn a Sabonus miss something like it was like yeah, thirteen. And then looking at that game later that night when I got home, I'm like, I'm like, damn.

00:48:15
Speaker 2: I'm like, it wasn't in our favor to win that game. I don't know why. I mean, people might.

00:48:22
Speaker 4: Say I'm crazy because we were up sixteen, but it wasn't in our favor.

00:48:24
Speaker 7: You look at it.

00:48:25
Speaker 4: We lost by thirteen, unlucky number. I mean, excuse me, we missed thirteen straight shots. Unlucky number. So I'm like, and then they would point blank I could see if you know, all the shots we put up with threes, like like in today's game, you know you could go oh for thirteen with threes. But yo, were talking about layups. Be we talking about layups? We talking about elbow jump shots, turnarounds like and like Damon said, the shots we normally would make, and that's that whole joint just always fucked me up with them. But you know, hey, you look back on those memories now. I know for me and I always think of it like, hey, it's a good game, we played in a good series. So you know, I just take it for what it is to that I don't get upset over it no more. I used to, but I don't know more.

00:49:16
Speaker 1: The summer, the postseason, and I think obviously this happened to you guys, but I think it happens often where management thinks that certain guys because maybe for whatever reason, their numbers aren't explosive on the court, but they're glue guys, their chemistry guys, their locker room guys. They start making moves to try to obviously up the roster. So you guys fall into that same situation. You trade BG Brian Grant for Sean Kemp, which was didn't go very well. You trade a young Jermaine O'Neil for Dale Davis. You got over here giggling. What I mean when that stuff kind of starts happening, and you spoke on the documentary about it, what's just the thought process? Because I think she you said at the very beginning, you have a quick window. Some people think you have a four or five year window. But when you have that special team and there's sometimes management will get to my point, will trade some of these guys that they think are expendable, but actually they're integral parts to some part of what makes the whole machine go.

00:50:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's how I think, that's how That's how it was with us. You know, we had a great group of gods. Were they fan favorites? No, you know, we all weren't fan favors. I think to be honest, during the whole time, the biggest, the biggest names or the guys had the most accolades on the team was uh Pitt, some Bonus and Damon. So you know, it wasn't like if you take Pip out of the picture. Ship We didn't have no perennial all stars, you know, we didn't. We didn't have that that always seeing them on TV face type dudes and all. We was just just getting it grinding from the gutter. So with us and and and that was our whole team philosophy. We know, we weren't the favorites, you know, we weren't on media darlings or whatever. We come from a small town where the media in our town felt like it was it was it was bigger stories if they were negative, opposing to positive.

00:51:17
Speaker 2: Because I mean, like Damon said.

00:51:18
Speaker 4: Shit, he just mentioned something that I didn't even know. After thirty years, I ain't even know he had something to do with the with the healthcare center being built there back then.

00:51:28
Speaker 2: I don't even know that myself.

00:51:30
Speaker 4: So but again you don't that's not uh it's positive energy for our community, but for the country, they don't want to hear that.

00:51:39
Speaker 2: They want to hear more than negative stuff than juicus.

00:51:42
Speaker 4: But I think, you know, I commend my guys, my brethren. I think overall we handled it pretty well. Yeah it can be irking, but I think we overall we handled all that shit pretty well.

00:51:54
Speaker 3: The one thing, one thing meant that me that they didn't take into account when I say they management you know Bob, and it's like, you know, and I think that, you know, he would probably even admit this because one thing about it not I even said it in the documentary. For me, Bob Woodson was fair. I liked Bob Whitson like I felt like people didn't understand Bob. I felt like Bob was was good at what he did, and he was fair and if he had an issue with you here, he'll come to you say. The realness for me was always that I loved him. But the only thing that I never understood is when he traded Jermaine and when we traded Brian. And I'm gonna tell you nobody talks about this, but I think that the biggest thing in the trade, it wasn't actually the players itself, even though we knew, we knew that Jermaine, you know, you shouldn't have traded him because that's like, that's like, you know, we burped him. You know, he crawled with us, you know, and then he gonna walk and run with somebody else, like you you can't do that. But the biggest thing about that trade was that to play on our team, you had to fit a roll, and so now we had we had to get two new dudes into different roles that they weren't accustomed to. And I'm like, man, y'all not getting them shots like them them came up an All Star season, you not starting like you're not starting here. And so I think that that was the thing that took into consideration, the one thing, the one thing through the whole time in Portland that I thought nobody understood. They used to be like our best team money could buy and all that. No, we were the first team where you had five, six, seven guys making at least ten million dollars a year, which was unheard of at that time. But it was the chemistry that we had off the floor, and so to me, the next year we still got away with it. But then it started to hurt us when we when we when we got to and we ain't got to talk about it right now because that you might even mention we got We played a game against the Vancouver Grizzlies, and I'll never forget it. It's like I remember, like it was yesterday. We were forty one and eight, forty one and nine, we were rolling so Del and Sean they had finally fell into their role. And then we bring Dela shrimp back. I'm gonna say it again, we bring Deathlan shrimp back. That look that looked had retired. We brought Debt back. That came back, practiced for two days and was damn in the first sub off the bench. It threw our team off dog. And then and then what happens is and what I would say is that before I even go any further, it ain't even a knock on Debt. I'm not even blaming debt. This don't happen to do it Debt. So then what happens is we get Rod Strickland. Rod got bought out by the Wizards. And again this ain't Rod fault. But like we had, our record was our record, and I always remember Rod. It's funny because Robles, Man, I didn't know I was walking into this, That's what right.

00:55:15
Speaker 8: And so then what happened is is Rod came.

00:55:17
Speaker 3: Rod came to the team and then next thing, you know, ga like man, I'm going back to New York. We didn't see Greg no more. And so those were those were the things with the chemistry that I think this just for me and and I'm saying that about Dat and I'm saying that about Rod. Not in a bad way, because it wasn't those guys. It was more so management. I just I didn't understand those moves because at that time we were man we were we had came, we were on pace again, we were going right back. And then even to the documentary they had lude to, we lost fifteen out of seventeen games. Now think about this, Matt, think about this. We lost fifteen out of seventeen games and still won fifty plus games. Think about that. We was forty one and nine. So I thought that that's that to me, was was it was the chemistry piece with that group. After we lost in two thousand, we never we never got that. We never got the synergy back.

00:56:20
Speaker 2: Nope.

00:56:21
Speaker 8: I never see it though.

00:56:23
Speaker 1: You see the one championship that Milwaukee got and they go and trade role players away they were integral to the team. You see the championship that the Nuggets got, and then they go trade role players and again it's you see maybe a name or guys with accolades that you're able to get in management wants to jump on that instead of understanding what you're speaking to right now, Dame, is the chemistry within that locker room and how important that is and everyone falling into their role. I want to take it off the court real quick and talk about your guys's neighborhood, Lake No Negro. What do you guys remember about that? I mean, you guys, this is and I thought that was dope. I never seen how beautiful that was when they're showing the lakes and all the houses on the lake, and you guys are all young with a little bit of money in your pocket, and you all eventually get to the same neighborhood. But this is where that racial undertone starts to really starts to show his face and my point of view from watching the documentary, what do you remember about that neighborhood? And then, Dame, I want you to talk about how they made up a fake story and broke into your crib.

00:57:22
Speaker 7: Ahead, no no, no for me.

00:57:24
Speaker 5: You know, when I first got there, you know how this is when you first get to a team, they kind of point you in the direction of what neighborhood you probably should you know, live in, and they pointed me to Lake osway Go and I was like, okay, cool, you know I'm fresh out of college. I never had my own home. I'm just excited. I don't know where the hell I'm at. And as soon as I moved there, I tell Dame and all these guys I'm living at, they all get that look like, hey, hey, you know what they call this place?

00:57:47
Speaker 3: Man?

00:57:48
Speaker 5: They call it, you know, Lake No Negroes, And I'm like, it rhymes it sounds good. But I'm from Indiana, so I'm kind of used to kind of like, okay, you know, you kind of tread that way anyway. And I'm talking about when I started seeing how the stuff was shaken, I was like, oh, lord, you can't.

00:58:02
Speaker 7: Do nothing around here.

00:58:04
Speaker 5: I mean, and if you have a nice car, you know, back then, you know, we were driving Mercedes and she had this big, crazy looking hummer, damn had I mean, these people had nice shit. And you would get pulled over so much it just didn't even seem real. And it was just like to the point where you'd be like, man, I don't even want to go nowhere. And that's kind of my introduction to Lake Oswega. My first week there, I think I got pulled over twice at least.

00:58:25
Speaker 1: That's crazy.

00:58:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was lucky. I was lucky. I lived right outside of the lake. No negro.

00:58:35
Speaker 1: Dag what you gonna say?

00:58:36
Speaker 3: No, you know the thing about it, you know, the thing about it for me is again me being from Portland, right, so I never used to go to Lake oswego at all.

00:58:48
Speaker 8: I didn't have no I just didn't have no reason to, you know what I mean.

00:58:52
Speaker 3: You know, but obviously growing up you're like, man, you get some money like this where you're supposed to go, right, I mean, you know, it's it's different now. You know, it wasn't no such thing as gentrification back then. They didn't have gentrification back then. So you know, my thing was, you know, I made it, you know, go get me a crib out here, and I guess, man, the thing that bothers me and go back to the whole jail blazer piece man and just everything. And I just was like, man like, damn, like you know, we ain't nothing's going on. Man, Like I got stopped three times in one day, Like it was really weird. I got stopped and I never forget that day because the last time I got stopped, I was just like, man, what I do now? I said, I know you already ran my tags. I said, I know, you know whose car it is. I know, I know on dispatch they probably said, we don't pulled them over before. Like I don't even know what's up, man, Like this is just it just started to get irritating. And so for me, man, it's kind of you know, it was kind of crazy. But I was still out there becau. The thing about it is I actually knew people that lived out there, so it.

01:00:03
Speaker 8: Wasn't I'm not exempting.

01:00:06
Speaker 3: I always tell people because people talk about Portland, I'm like, man, this ain't no black white thing. I'm not prejudiced, but I got many white friends that I do black friends, so this don't had them to do with that. And that's what I tell people all the time. But then my alarm started going off all the time, and we were actually in Milwaukee, the same Milwaukee, the same story I told earlier about stopping at the liquor store on the way back as we were gonna go get on a plane. We come back and I was just like, man, something just not right. I remember it cause it was it was Sunday, but I waited till Monday and I and there was only two people that had keys to my place, and I was like, they don't even do stuff like this, like you know what I mean. And I'm like anybody that know me, No, I'm a creature habit man, like I know where everything is, you know, and I'm looking. I'm like, man, something don't seem right. And so then my package was missing, and so I was like, wait a minute, man, what like what's going like, what's going on? Okay, maybe somebody moved it, but that that would have been out of character too. So so then and this is crazy because again I never I never, I never even told this story, not the tea leave of the story. So on Monday, so it's my Sunday get back late Saturday, Sunday, Monday, my Auntie calls me and she says, you know, I'm down here. I'm down here at the Athletic Club and it's a couple of judges down here and they talking about something. Some type of paperworker came by, came across the desk and you know, da da da da da. I was like, what you know? So then I was like, okay, now I register right. So she was like it's all good. She was like my auntie, she quick on her feet, and so she was like, don't worry. I already you know, I already got When you hang up with me, call this number da da da dah, call my little who would end up being my lawyer, Stephen House. And so I talked to him. I get off the phone with him, and I promise y'all ten to fifteen minutes later, I get it knocket my door and it was a police and so now they asking me a bunch of questions. Now they're trying to incriminate me. They're trying to get me to incriminate myself. Excuse me. So I'm like in my head, I'm like, my lawyer already told me everything I said. Man in legal search and seizure. These boys are hustling backwards. Now they're trying to get me to tell on theself. I was like, what is like, Like, who y'all think I am? So I was like, man, I got to talk to my lawyer. So then that's when all the all the stuff started happening, and it was just like, man, I was just done with it.

01:02:55
Speaker 8: Then I was.

01:02:57
Speaker 3: I was done. Man, I was just so over it violated. You know you're talking about where you're talking about the alarm going off, or it could have been somebody up in this little in the place where I'm like, who was gonna be up in that spot? A five month old baby? Like this was like who gonna be in that spot? Like that? That spot was it was come on, man and so and so like man, truthfully when that happened, and then I had to go and do all old stuff and then they got me in, got me in you know, black ink, and you know, felony charges and da da da da da, and you know, it was just man, I was just like, you know what, man, I never even went back to that house. Most people don't know this. I literally just bought another house and never went back.

01:03:46
Speaker 1: I didn't go back to move nothing.

01:03:50
Speaker 3: I left it, man, and I had my people go and get it. I ain't won't, I ain't want to go back there no more. I was mad, like I was just I just felt so violating. I mean, I became paranoid and and in a lot of ways it's made me still paranoid. Like I you know, it's just like man, when I like, I'm like, man like that, just because that just threw me off, because I was like, man, it's that easy because I felt like I was getting set.

01:04:17
Speaker 8: Up and I was like, man, this is easy to set people up, you know what I mean?

01:04:21
Speaker 3: And I just it just and so and so anyway, I ended up getting off man.

01:04:26
Speaker 8: But it was just like, man, I was just done.

01:04:28
Speaker 3: I was like, man, this is crazy. Man Like.

01:04:31
Speaker 8: So that's my experience, you.

01:04:33
Speaker 3: Know, with with with with with being in Lake Oswego, and it's just crazy because again, man, like my neighbors was cool. Like actually, Elston Turner who we all know, his son, his son, you his homie live next door. So Elston used to always come and Louise and I would always and so you know, it's just I just hate for me, yeah, for me, for me, for me being that I'm from Portland. I was just hurt a lot because I never believed. I never wanted to believe that my city was like this at times. That's that's what. That's what, that's what, that's what. That's what hurt me because you come behind it, right, you come behind it, and it doesn't matter. You're still going to have young black males coming to the team. You're still gonna have different people coming to the team. And Portland is a place where you tend to struggle. Like man, I can't even tell you when I would come back to town. I remember when she got traded. She was over at at at at at a at a what club fitness or whatever it was called. I don't know what it was called costa at that time, she working out like I was the bond to the city. Aaron McKee used to drive in his beans all day and didn't do nothing. This is this is right hand to the man Randal Children's played in Portland. He drove in his beans all day. Dudes didn't know what to do. And so that's and so when I I'm trying to protect the city, it's like, this is what's happening In return, I'm like, man, it didn't sit right. Some of that stuff that I did, I brought on myself. But what I'm saying is, at the end of the day, well you don't have a lot coming from the city.

01:06:16
Speaker 8: Hey man, I'm one of your own facts.

01:06:19
Speaker 1: Protect appreciate.

01:06:22
Speaker 4: And I'll tell you this too, big that that second home you moved into, that ship was flying in that first crib.

01:06:31
Speaker 1: Had to make you feel better.

01:06:33
Speaker 2: Man.

01:06:36
Speaker 1: So I gotta go. So Bonzi when you're on the bus driving home from Seattle and you see the yellow hummer on the side of the road. What's your first thoughts?

01:06:49
Speaker 5: You know, it's crazy. I wasn't even on the bus, I was. You wasn't in the yellow hummer?

01:06:56
Speaker 1: Oh you were? You?

01:06:58
Speaker 5: So the story name like, you know, they let us drive home. So we was all so it was me, she Dam and Pip, Pip's brother, he drove up as well.

01:07:08
Speaker 7: So we stopped at the.

01:07:09
Speaker 5: VP to kind of get whatever it was, gonna ride back with whatever we needed.

01:07:13
Speaker 7: I was in the back of the hummer. You know, the hummers are kind of small back there.

01:07:16
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was like, man. So then Pip pulled up and I was like, man, I was just gonna jump into suburban with Pip them. Man, we going the same place. It ain't no problem. So she then was like, man, we got our shit.

01:07:26
Speaker 3: We gone.

01:07:26
Speaker 7: I'm like all right, cool'm'na just lay back here and back of the hummer. I got everything I need. I'm good. So they left five minutes before us. So as we're driving, we saw the police and all we all like, hey be cool.

01:07:36
Speaker 5: You know everybody. As you get to get closer, I think you have a hummer I'm like and when I saw him, I was like, oh, my goodness. And you know, a part of me was like fuck. I hated for my brothers, and a part of me was like, damn. I survived it, you know what I mean a little bit because I was supposed to be with them, but I was fucked up for them because I knew that the domino effect, but I was literally supposed to be in the car with them that night.

01:08:01
Speaker 2: Yes, that was wild. It was wild for me because when.

01:08:07
Speaker 4: When the bull pulled us over, right, so all it was was, you know, we had smoked the j and that's all it was, literally, right, So of course the smell lingered a little bit. So when he pulled us over, you know, he had a standing out on the side of the road, I was like fuck. And so you know, cars zooming by right, and then I just so happened to look to the left.

01:08:30
Speaker 2: I was like, I hit dangn. I telled down. I said, damn. I said, that's the bus right there.

01:08:35
Speaker 4: But the team was riding riding back on the bus from Seattle to Portland, and the bus rode by.

01:08:42
Speaker 2: I was like fuck.

01:08:43
Speaker 4: And then all you've seen with motherfucking noses on the glass, like right, So the bus had pulled over, the team security had got out, talked to the.

01:08:55
Speaker 2: Rookie cop tried to play big.

01:08:57
Speaker 4: Willie and so it sent sent the bus on and we was out there, dog, he's out there.

01:09:02
Speaker 2: But I mean me personally, I wasn't scared.

01:09:05
Speaker 4: I wasn't nervous as far as what they were saying, we did right, as far as oh, yeah we had this, we had that all this week. No, that shit was a joint. That shit was a joint. I smoked me a joint. He smoked the joint and that was it. You know what I'm saying. It wasn't like we had like a half a dip in our bag or something like that.

01:09:26
Speaker 6: So he's like, oh, I'll call it. Call the dogs, call the doll Were like, man, you can call a dog. You call a whole knine unit if you want, like telling you we ain't got nothing. It ain't nothing here.

01:09:38
Speaker 4: So he wants to call his superiors and a couple of other cars come out. So I'm like, man, we are here the side of the road, and so, long story short, the superiors talk to him. Boom ended up letting us go. So we riding home and Dame like, man.

01:09:58
Speaker 2: You think it's gonna be on a ESPN whatever. I'm like, man, I'm like, for what I said. It's a simple traffic stop. I said.

01:10:05
Speaker 4: We ain't get no no ticket for no type of marijuana, pephronilia, marijuana period.

01:10:11
Speaker 2: We got a speeding ticket.

01:10:13
Speaker 3: Right.

01:10:13
Speaker 2: So then.

01:10:15
Speaker 4: I'm sleep, go home, sleeping, wake up that next morning at the time, I was married wife beating me up.

01:10:22
Speaker 2: I'm like, what's wrong, what's wrong? She's like, what y'all do last night? I'm like, what are you talking about? We came home from the game. They dropped me off. What do you mean? She turned the TV on and the joint. I'm like, ah, man, there's some bullshit.

01:10:37
Speaker 4: And they saying the first thing they saying is marijuana, this and that. Man, I swear, dude, dude, probably if you take the smallest piece of toast and you crumbled a little edge of it up, that's how much might have been on the floor or some shit.

01:10:52
Speaker 3: It's crazy.

01:10:53
Speaker 2: Man. That was wild. It was wild.

01:10:56
Speaker 8: It was it was It was crazy. It was crazy.

01:10:59
Speaker 3: And what and what made it what made it crazy is that you know he's just I just man, I'm telling you. I used to just sit there and I used to be like, man, this is you can't make this stuff up. Man, dude was on the Dude was on Dude, dude was on the on the dispatch and man, man, that's that's Damon's side of my Rashi Wallas. The trip.

01:11:22
Speaker 8: They ain't talk about who was driving. It didn't even matter.

01:11:25
Speaker 2: It ain't even because neither one of us was driving them.

01:11:28
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And so it was just everything, everything that was just going. And and then when I woke up in the next morning ad to what she said. I woke up in the next morning and I was like, damn, man. So I was like, man, I just went over she's crib. I went over there. I went over to his crib s. His ex was pussing me out like.

01:11:51
Speaker 2: I was him.

01:11:55
Speaker 3: See told y'all.

01:11:59
Speaker 1: This.

01:11:59
Speaker 3: Then we had to go to a press conference. We had to go to a press conference later that later that day, and uh. And then like it was it was the craziest thing because it was like, I don't know, they was probably tired of me, I guess, but man, I got put on punishment. Man, they just took me out the lineup and set me on the bench man, You just dude, Oh yeah, damn, damn, I said, damn, I got like thirteen to fourteen straight DNP.

01:12:29
Speaker 1: Really I didn't know that.

01:12:32
Speaker 8: Straight up and crazy, And that was what was the craziest thing.

01:12:37
Speaker 1: Man.

01:12:37
Speaker 3: It was just like, Man, it was just I was.

01:12:39
Speaker 2: Just like, bro, it's over, you know.

01:12:43
Speaker 7: Matter.

01:12:43
Speaker 5: That was my point on why I wanted to do this doc, man, because I'm like, man, this stiff was just unbelievable some of the reports and how the shit really was. And I'm glad to just even hear these dudes talk.

01:12:53
Speaker 7: Man.

01:12:54
Speaker 5: To be able to tell their side, I know, its therapeutic for them because they lived it. Yeah, you know, I kind of got unscathed through the whole situation. But these two took, man, they took some fucking bullets. Man, we took a whole lot of bullets.

01:13:04
Speaker 1: I want to talk about obviously. Sheet in the doc, you went to a point where you weren't talking to the media. Then they find you, then they find the team, and then you kind of had your career. Your commercial response, Bonzi, you said something about not caring if the fans whoop, Like, when did you guys kind of feel and earlier you said it wasn't an organization. You felt it was more the media slash fans. When did you feel that energy shift from damn, this is one of the greatest teams we've ever had to man. Fuck these dudes. They're not role models. They're not this, They're not that.

01:13:39
Speaker 2: When he's losing.

01:13:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean brol talk, that was it, because it wasn't none of these problems in effect when we was winning. As you know, Damon stated our record earlier, you know, and we had always had good record.

01:13:53
Speaker 2: We made the playoffs every year. We always was at least.

01:13:57
Speaker 4: Twenty five to thirty games over five hundred a. We always had good teams. But it was I just I know, that's how That's how I know. It wasn't the organization. Organization felt the pressure from the fans in the media, and then that's when they had to do the things that they did. But no, that's that's where it was coming from. In my in my opinion, it was the fans in the media. You know, we was losing. When we was winning, oh everything was good. You know, you still had the fans griping here and there. But you know, we losing a couple of games lose three out of four, you know, or lose four out of seven and something like that. Oh now, oh, what's wrong? This person needs to go, that person needs the less minage. Why is this person taking all the shots? You know, all that all that negative shit go when with losing. So I think if we would have been winning a majority of those games, as Damon mentioned earlier, oh yeah, it probably would have been a different outcome with the way that things were set up, because no matter what I mean a we still had one of the toughest home records, and we we were a pretty good, admirable routine.

01:15:03
Speaker 1: Boz, you said something that stuck with me, and you said something to the effect of an article that kind of stuck with you your whole career, a Sports Illustrated article that kind of stuck with you your whole career.

01:15:14
Speaker 5: Explain that, you know, it was funny because you know, during that time, everybody was looking for a line or something to make a go associated press. There was you know, all the reporters was coming around, they trying to interview people and just trying to just find something so they.

01:15:32
Speaker 7: Can go viral before viral was even a thing.

01:15:35
Speaker 5: So we was blessed enough to have sports information directors that always kind of gave us the heads up on who the type of reporters were gonna come around. So he was like sports illustrators coming to do an article on you guys. And at that time, one hundred percent of the articles was like she said earlier, it might start up with one percent positive that this guy played great, but they gonna pull it into the negative part of it to finish it, to kind of keep you, you know, keep the foot on your neck. And we kind of knew this sports illustrated god was coming around to do just that. So I'm young, and you know, he just interviewing me, and I'm I'm just talking because this is before it was my turn to kind of be the bad guy. I was still the love of with Bonzi, so you know, I was still loving with Bonzi or whatever. So and it was bad, it was going bad. It was after all the stuff was going on, and I remember we walked off the court and this is exactly what happened. I never told this story because we didn't have social media and I didn't really think I had to say it, but I remember the quote, and if this guy can show me this quote, that I said I hated the fans of the Beat.

01:16:35
Speaker 7: I would pay him real money.

01:16:36
Speaker 5: But he asked me when we were walking off the court, we were getting booed, and he asked me, how did I feel about the fans booing us? And I said, I hate it. I hate getting booed. Everybody does. But I said, if we played well, they'll love us again. That was my quote. He wrote something totally like Bonzie said he hate the fans and something here, And when I read that quote, I just said to myself, oh man, the Portland fans me. They won't believe that dumb ass shit. And the next game they bowed me so bad. It broke my heart so bad because I couldn't believe that I was getting booed the way I played. It is hard, you know, the type of dude I am in real life. It hurt me because they believed it. They let somebody on the outside come in and tell them about their family member.

01:17:18
Speaker 7: And that's what hurt me the most about that article, because this guy came in from nothing in the world just to write a bad article about us, and they took that line and they just he hated me, and it hurt me. So bad because they if anybody know anything about me, I leave with love.

01:17:34
Speaker 5: I'm not on that and that's what turned me and it just made me bitter. And if you look at my timeline, my technical files went up. I just wasn't the smiling boundary that I was because I felt like my family turned their back on me. And I'm not saying it was all of them, but just it just hurts to be booed. Every time you touch the ball, every time an article come up, they say bad stuff about you.

01:17:55
Speaker 7: Every time you call home, your parents are.

01:17:56
Speaker 5: Questioning you about stuff they're reading in the paper from weighing in the Apple, about how their child family members acting way in Portland. So it was a tough time for me because that's just what it was. They just wanted to keep their foot on our neck and keep us down and was nothing was good coming out of our camp about us as individuals.

01:18:14
Speaker 2: Bombie.

01:18:15
Speaker 4: I was booing you too that that article came from. That's that was the same time when I had the tree ornament drive and the coach drive out there in front of the Rose Garden, and so we were all out there early. We made it out there early, myself. Bonzie Damon Pitt, Brian Grant, the bonus that came out. You know, guys came to support and so we're out there early before the kids get out there. So once the kids starting to come, I think like they teachers or whatever just had them line up in different sections, so you know, until they're ready, we're still all over here just clowning around and and just having fun today ready, So they taking pictures of that and then and that article it also stated some things like, oh, we didn't care about the kids. The kids are over there waiting for us, and here we are over there joking and clowning. And they had a picture of me on the phone. That's back when the first little earbudd Do you remember.

01:19:15
Speaker 2: When the phone came with that Ben six hundred.

01:19:17
Speaker 4: The little black phone that was like about that big, and I had a little ear piece in there. So I was on the phone and they're like, oh, they're not even paying attention to the kids.

01:19:27
Speaker 2: It's disrespectful and blah blah blah.

01:19:30
Speaker 4: And from that day on, that's when I never fuck with Sports Illustrated again.

01:19:35
Speaker 2: To this day.

01:19:36
Speaker 1: Neither well Fellas Man, I appreciate you guys time. I know we could talk another hour about this, but thank you guys for your time. Everyone, make sure you check out The Untold jail Blazers on Netflix, drops April fourteenth. Man I appreciate you guys's time today, Fellas.

01:19:50
Speaker 2: No doubts, Hey Matt, doctor man

01:20:00
Speaker 8: Y