1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,440
I love it.

2
00:00:10,720 --> 00:00:13,920
All right, cool. So welcome back to another episode of Entirely MBA,

3
00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:17,600
hosted by Entirely Media. I'm your host, Darion Robinson.

4
00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:19,120
Sir, my name is Kyle Murph.

5
00:00:19,120 --> 00:00:23,120
And today we have a special guest with us, Chris Lucey. How you doing, bro?

6
00:00:23,680 --> 00:00:28,640
I'm doing great, man. Thanks for having me, guys. Love your show. And I'm honored to be here.

7
00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:33,920
We've been talking over the last three, almost a month now, three weeks, almost a month now.

8
00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:38,080
And just podcast aside, I know we had a conversation last week that I really enjoyed.

9
00:00:38,080 --> 00:00:42,240
So I'm really liking you as a person. And that was the big thing I told you. Like,

10
00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:46,880
even if we didn't do the pod, man, it was nice to have a connection like this with you. So I

11
00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:52,640
appreciate it. I want to give some background information on ABCD, because, you know, even the

12
00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:55,520
younger generation, that's before that time, they're hearing in the night, we don't know what the

13
00:00:55,520 --> 00:01:00,320
hell that is. Right. So I want them to understand how reputable this program that you were part of

14
00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:05,680
really was. So when we just look at just the beginning of that. So the way I see it is

15
00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:09,920
initially was a sponsor by Nike, right? And Converse took it, then Adidas, and then ended

16
00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:14,720
up being with Reebok. So right there for the largest brands touch this program, correct?

17
00:01:15,520 --> 00:01:16,480
That is correct.

18
00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:20,640
Perfect. Now, then when you talk about just players that came through this program,

19
00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:24,960
I made a little list, right, that I need to get out there just so people understand the players

20
00:01:24,960 --> 00:01:29,200
that came in. I'm sorry if I'm leaving some people off. Trust me. But when we talk about this, we're

21
00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:34,720
talking about Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal, Trace McGrady, Kwame Brown, Eddie Curry,

22
00:01:34,720 --> 00:01:40,640
Sebastian Telafer, Gerard Green, then we talk about Marbury, Rashad Lewis, Mo Williams, LeBron,

23
00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:47,120
obviously, Sean Limitsing, Josh Smith, Brandon Rush, Danny Green, Greg Oden, Kevin Love, OJ Mayo,

24
00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:53,760
Drew Gooden, DeAndre Jordan, Monte Ellis, Charlie Villamene, Dylan Nueva, Lenny Cook, like, come

25
00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:59,920
on, that's talent at its highest form of it. And it went through the program that you're involved

26
00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:04,720
in. How did you even get involved in that? Academic Betterment Career Development, ABCD.

27
00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:10,400
So this is Sonny's baby, right? This is this is all Sonny, right? He's the genius. Sonny came up

28
00:02:10,400 --> 00:02:16,240
with the ideal of having a camp. Let's get the top 100 or so players. And let's give them life

29
00:02:16,240 --> 00:02:21,200
skills. Now everybody has adapted to this. But it was Sonny's creation. It was his baby. He's the

30
00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:30,160
one created this. Started in Princeton. And so I got involved because I had a player that didn't

31
00:02:30,160 --> 00:02:39,920
make Sonny's round ball classic. Okay. And I called Sonny has a 23 year old kid complaining,

32
00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:46,960
fighting for my kid that didn't make the game. And so he started. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

33
00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:53,680
wait. I'm gonna stop you there. Yep. You said you were 23 at that time. I was 23. Just finished up

34
00:02:53,680 --> 00:03:01,280
in Michigan State. And I was coaching high school, Southfield, Latham High School, we ended up

35
00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:05,680
finishing 15th in the country had a really good year. Although we lost the state championship to

36
00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:10,000
Saginaw High School shot on Saginaw High School, Marsha Thomas kicked our button the championship.

37
00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:16,880
But, you know, I'm gonna keep it real. Ain't nobody gonna have no takes coming back. Hey,

38
00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:24,400
hey, hey, you left out this. I'm gonna go and shut people out. Yeah. So I had a player, Mike Chappelle,

39
00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:29,120
who was a parade all American and all American everything, but he didn't make the round ball

40
00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:33,760
game. And at that time, it was called the magic round ball classic. And it was in Michigan.

41
00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:41,360
We're in Michigan. And so he explained to me that Michael didn't come to ABCD. He chose to go to

42
00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:50,080
Nike. And we needed to alleviate that issue moving forward. And so from there, I started being a part

43
00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:56,640
of ABCD. And when I started, it was just coaching. You know, I was just a coach. And then quickly,

44
00:03:57,360 --> 00:04:03,280
you know, shout out Gary Charles out of New York. Shout out Gary the seizure also out of New York.

45
00:04:04,160 --> 00:04:09,920
These guys were the directors at the time. I wasn't a director initially. I eventually became

46
00:04:09,920 --> 00:04:13,600
a director. But at that time, the first year or two, I wasn't direct. I was just a coach.

47
00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:20,080
And it was that. That's how I met Sonny. That's how we built a relationship. He started sponsoring

48
00:04:20,080 --> 00:04:24,720
my high school team, Southfield-Lathrop. And that's when that relationship grew on the

49
00:04:24,720 --> 00:04:32,080
grassroots side as well. So the ABCD and grassroots and high school was all simultaneous, right? I'm

50
00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:37,280
coaching high school, Southfield-Lathrop. You know, I'm coaching AAU, Michigan Mustangs,

51
00:04:37,280 --> 00:04:44,400
Michigan Hurricanes. And I'm working with the ABCD camp. And then eventually, the round ball

52
00:04:44,400 --> 00:04:49,760
classic as well. You know what made it really, really good? This is the thing. This was the

53
00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:57,280
difference. So players that were, you know, no disrespect to shoes and all that, because it's

54
00:04:57,280 --> 00:05:01,440
just sponsorship, right? Sponsorship can change, right? So you had Nike. Really, it was just Nike

55
00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:08,160
and Adidas at that time. And then you may have guys that were non-affiliate. Players would be on the

56
00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:18,480
other circuit, but still come to ABCD camp. Because at ABCD camp, we lined them up, right?

57
00:05:18,480 --> 00:05:25,920
So Lenny Cook and LeBron, that face off, we line them up. Lenny Cook and Carmelo and LeBron,

58
00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:34,080
line them up. That was the thing that, you know, at ABCD, we always made sure the top guys matched

59
00:05:34,080 --> 00:05:40,880
up. Because Sonny would say to them, listen, you want to crack at LeBron? You want a shot at

60
00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:47,680
Sebastian Telfer? You want a shot at Kobe Bryant? Come to camp. We'll make sure that happens.

61
00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:56,560
That happens. It just was different, you know? And so a lot of other camps, if you will,

62
00:05:56,560 --> 00:06:02,880
they wanted to protect the integrity of guys' rankings. So often they wouldn't line them up so

63
00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:06,640
that, hey, you'd be the judge of character. What do you think? You think he's better or he's better,

64
00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:11,360
but they're not playing against each other. At ABCD, we look, man, you got to put up or shut up.

65
00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:17,200
And so it was different. And then it being in New Jersey, you got the crossover from New York.

66
00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:23,680
I mean, the flavor, it had flavor. It was different. Did you ever have, was there ever a

67
00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:28,000
situation, because you've seen Liny Cook, he talked about, you know, he's better than Bron,

68
00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:34,080
or like how he felt that he was. Was there ever a moment where they did clash? Not clash in a bad

69
00:06:34,080 --> 00:06:37,440
way, but where they went against each other and it was real just like, it was real gritty when

70
00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:43,600
they went against each other? Liny actually had a good camp at ABCD. The problem is when he matched

71
00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:50,720
up with LeBron, LeBron didn't have the stronger team. Liny Cook had Paul Davis on that team. He

72
00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:57,440
had some others. LeBron had, and then Liny was a grade above him as well, and like two years older

73
00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:01,680
than him, two or three years older than him from an age standpoint. But when they matched up,

74
00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:07,600
Liny had a better team. He had a subpar game. It was solid. It wasn't like he was very bad,

75
00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:18,160
but LeBron played very well. And when everything was on the line, they're down two points.

76
00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:23,040
Everything is on the line. LeBron could easily go to the basket and score, you know, try to maybe

77
00:07:23,040 --> 00:07:28,080
take it into our sudden death overtime, and you will. LeBron stops, pulls up a three, all the

78
00:07:28,080 --> 00:07:34,720
pressure. The entire camp now has surrounded it, right? So all of the players, you know, you got

79
00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:40,720
people in the stands, but the players in the camp, they have surrounded the entire court. So

80
00:07:40,720 --> 00:07:47,040
everybody's there, right? And LeBron is a rising junior, right? So he's not even going into his

81
00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:54,080
last year of AAU. His last year of AAU, he didn't even play. He broke his wrist. But with everyone

82
00:07:54,080 --> 00:08:00,080
there, and back then all the scouts, so you got all the NBA guys, all the NBA scouts, we were the

83
00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:07,360
first to have NBA executives coach the players. So now you're being coached by NBA executives as

84
00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:12,880
well, right? He got an opportunity. Hey, LeBron, go create, go make something happen. Get to the

85
00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:18,240
lane, get fouled. Nope. What does he do? Stops, reigns, pulls a three. Yeah, this is my court,

86
00:08:18,240 --> 00:08:24,000
my house, my game, game, everything. And then, you know, guys just go crazy. So it was, yes,

87
00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:31,200
he outplayed them. But it was also the atmosphere with it that was like, hey, man, this is a big

88
00:08:31,200 --> 00:08:38,400
dog shot, right? This is a big dog right here. So in that, it just kind of hovered over Lenny,

89
00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:43,360
right? That right there just kind of hovered over him the rest of the camp because that was,

90
00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:48,000
it was brewing. I mean, he had maybe a better game against Carmelo when they matched up.

91
00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:53,760
And obviously, Mello continued to do great things, but it almost like it's like it took the soul of

92
00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:59,040
Lenny Cook, if you will, after that experience. No disrespect, because Lenny was a good player.

93
00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:03,200
Right. Yeah, yeah. No, that's an excellent way to put it because we know as Hoopers, when someone

94
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:07,680
gets the best of you, especially in an environment at that high level, man, that sits with you for a

95
00:09:07,680 --> 00:09:12,480
long time. If you never get your get back, that sits with you for a long time. No question.

96
00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:16,640
Absolutely. Who's the one player that you can think of that surprised you the most from coming

97
00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:22,000
through the ABCD camp? Looking back now. All right. So I'm going to talk about two guys,

98
00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:28,400
right? The first one is Tracy McGrady. People don't understand T-Mac essentially was not

99
00:09:28,400 --> 00:09:35,440
originally invited to the camp. Okay. T-Mac went to Mount Zion. Elvis and those guys kind of pushed

100
00:09:35,440 --> 00:09:42,480
and pushed Sonny. And it's always like this, right? We always had 50 guys, oh man, he should be in the

101
00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:48,560
camp. He's best. He deserves it. And maybe Sonny with his big heart, 10 of those guys will get in.

102
00:09:48,560 --> 00:09:56,400
Right. So Tracy McGrady gets in the camp. He's unranked. Like we don't even know who this guy

103
00:09:56,400 --> 00:10:03,440
is. Okay. Now the players got the jersey numbers. Like it goes up to like 218, right? So he's like

104
00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:11,440
218 or whatever his jersey number is, right? So you're like flipping through the books. Who's

105
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:16,560
this guy? Who's 218 or whatever his jersey number is. Who is this guy? Oh, I never heard of this guy.

106
00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:24,160
So first of all, he has a fantastic camp. His explosiveness, his aggressiveness, he's attacking

107
00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:34,160
the rim, so on and so forth. The player in that class was Lamar Oden. Lamar Oden was the guy.

108
00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:40,560
Okay. Right. Six foot 10, handled the ball, got it on the string, out of New York, doing everything

109
00:10:40,560 --> 00:10:46,320
here. Here's this kid coming from Florida, right? Not a whole lot of exposure. The all-star game.

110
00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:52,320
There is the dunk. Tracy McGrady comes through. First of all, to make the all-star game is

111
00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:59,360
incredible, right? 20 guys. He comes through with the most explosive dunk. Comes down the lane.

112
00:10:59,360 --> 00:11:04,880
There's Lamar Oden. There's all these athletic. Zenden Hamilton. There's all these bigs. All these

113
00:11:04,880 --> 00:11:10,800
athletic guys. Tracy comes through with a windmill dunk. Boom! And it just sets the... See,

114
00:11:10,800 --> 00:11:18,400
that's the thing. It was the atmosphere at ABCD. The whole arena just erupts, right? It just erupts.

115
00:11:19,120 --> 00:11:26,880
And so seeing a guy coming from that far, unranked, to being some had him either one, two, three,

116
00:11:26,880 --> 00:11:32,400
four, whatever, essentially number one player in the class, that's never been done. So that'd be

117
00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:39,440
the first one. That was like the most exceptional, right? T-Mac. The second, Sean Livingston.

118
00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:47,040
Oh yeah. People talk about him a lot. Listen, Sean Livingston. You had Sebastian Telfer. I mean,

119
00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:54,560
you had the guards in that class. You had five exceptional point guards. And here's the thing,

120
00:11:54,560 --> 00:12:01,360
now. It's New Jersey. So it's East Coast. So it's East Coast flavor. Everybody has

121
00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:07,920
their crew there. Their AU coach, right? I'm there with my guys. So when my guys come, I'm there. I

122
00:12:07,920 --> 00:12:14,720
might have five guys in camp. Sean Livingston is the only player from his team in camp. He's the

123
00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:22,000
only one rated and ranked, right? So Footsui, I think was the name of their AU program. So coming

124
00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:29,520
out of Peoria, right? He's not a Chicago kid. He's Peoria. So he doesn't have friends. He doesn't

125
00:12:29,520 --> 00:12:35,520
have anyone like, you know, moving around with him. So me as the director, I ended up being the guy

126
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:42,640
that kind of, I would say kind of mentored him, if you will, for that week, right? I spent a lot

127
00:12:42,640 --> 00:12:47,040
of time with him because he didn't have anybody to lean on. So I noticed that. I noticed that he was

128
00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:54,160
by himself. And do you know how crazy it was around Sebastian Telfer? Like, can you guys

129
00:12:54,160 --> 00:12:59,920
understand the fanfare around Sebastian Telfer at that time? I mean, it was second only.

130
00:12:59,920 --> 00:13:01,040
And in Jersey too.

131
00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:09,360
Everywhere. I mean, Sebastian's notoriety was second only to LeBron, who was a year above him,

132
00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:13,680
right? So LeBron is now gone. Now we're talking about Sebastian. We're talking about that aid

133
00:13:13,680 --> 00:13:22,080
group. Livingston left the camp, the number one point guard in the class, with all of the hype on

134
00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:31,360
Sebastian and others, which was exceptional. I mean, like for him to come in and then not have a

135
00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:35,920
cheering section. Like he didn't have a cheering section, you know, to go with him during that

136
00:13:35,920 --> 00:13:45,520
week. And yet he dominated and he left the guy. And so obviously his career stamped his performance.

137
00:13:45,520 --> 00:13:50,880
But yeah, Livingston, that one was kind of special because I think all of the guys in the

138
00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:55,600
team was kind of special because I think all the odds were against him and he just bust right

139
00:13:55,600 --> 00:14:00,080
through it. Yeah. I don't think a lot of people even know about his story too. Like he's a big,

140
00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:03,600
like when people say like, what if they never got injured? Like he's one of those people that are

141
00:14:03,600 --> 00:14:08,880
kind of like a slept on what if, if he never got that injury that he had. I mean, he's had a great

142
00:14:08,880 --> 00:14:13,920
career, but people sleep on him. They need to do their research. Yeah. I agree. Absolutely. Sean

143
00:14:13,920 --> 00:14:21,120
Livingston, obviously it worked out, you know, when he found the, the warriors, it was a fantastic fit,

144
00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:25,600
but prior to that, his career hadn't reached the level of, of what the expectations were,

145
00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:30,720
you know, when he was coming out of high school, you currently hold one of the longest streaks for

146
00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:34,960
like a successful AU running program. Like talk about how that, how that started, how you started

147
00:14:34,960 --> 00:14:41,440
that journey. So I was a coach of the Michigan Mustangs and the founder of the Michigan hurricanes.

148
00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:46,400
And so if you go back some years now, I'm dating myself a little bit here,

149
00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:57,840
but from, from 96 to 2005, we had a tremendous streak, you know, of all Americans. And in that

150
00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:06,160
streak of 10 years, we had 17 all Americans. Now there's multiple all Americans, right? You know,

151
00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:11,040
we like to look at, obviously because I was a part of the round ball classic. So there's the round

152
00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:17,680
ball classic all American, right? There's the, you know, a lot of people know about the McDonald's

153
00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:27,040
all American, right? There's the parade all American. There is now ESPN all American. And

154
00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:34,800
in the past there was the rivals all American. So I could name 17 guys that were that. I mean,

155
00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:41,120
um, and so that, that, that success trait, you know, being rated, you know, back in the 90s,

156
00:15:41,120 --> 00:15:48,400
they started rating AU programs. So during that time we was always one, two, typically three,

157
00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:52,720
you know, occasionally we might've been five or something like that. That was uncharacteristic,

158
00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:58,400
but we were always essentially in that top five and, um, not to bore you, but if I would name

159
00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:04,080
those guys, think about this, right? So we started with Mike Chappelle, all American, went to Duke,

160
00:16:04,080 --> 00:16:12,400
Greg Graves, uh, Charlie Bell, Antonio Gates, football player. People don't know that Antonio,

161
00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:15,840
shout out Antonio. He was an all American in basketball. He played in the round ball.

162
00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:20,960
Brent Darby, who passed rest in peace. Jason Richardson, a lot of guys, obviously you guys

163
00:16:20,960 --> 00:16:27,680
know Jason Richardson. Desmond Farmer went to USC. Then I had a unique year. I had Robert Whaley

164
00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:34,080
and Kelvin Torbert who were number one and five in the class. So Robert Whaley and Kelvin Torbert.

165
00:16:34,640 --> 00:16:40,720
From there went Anthony Roberson, Matt Tranon, Murray Sager. All three of those guys are in

166
00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:48,320
the same class. All three of those guys were top 25, as well as Paul Davis, who was top five.

167
00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:55,600
Then, you know, next year we went Olufamil Timi, Dion Harris. From there, Alex Legion,

168
00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:59,120
and I want to mention one kid, there's going to be a point to this, Dar Tucker.

169
00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:07,840
And then Anthony Crater. Now Anthony Crater was the number two rated point card behind

170
00:17:07,840 --> 00:17:16,720
Brandon Jennings prior to John Wall going on that tear. Which is, I know there's been a lot of

171
00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:22,080
discussion about John Wall and Brandon Jennings, but at that time Anthony Crater was the number

172
00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:27,200
two. So during that time we had, you know, we had 17 guys, you know, that were all Americans. So it

173
00:17:27,200 --> 00:17:31,600
was a great streak. It was a great time, you know, and a really good accomplishment. I could talk

174
00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:37,040
about that for an hour straight. You know, it just depends on how much I want to go into it.

175
00:17:37,040 --> 00:17:44,320
I got all the time in the world. So when we talk about having that many all American players over

176
00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:49,680
that span of time, how do you personally deal with, and we've seen it, obviously we've been a part of

177
00:17:49,680 --> 00:18:00,480
it, how do you deal with egos of players like that? So for me it was different back then. Okay.

178
00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:06,240
All right. So let's, let's dive in that a little bit. Things have changed a lot. These kids,

179
00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:09,680
I don't know how successful I could be with running the program right now because things are

180
00:18:09,680 --> 00:18:16,960
different, right? They have so much more exposure, so many more things to deal with, to overcome.

181
00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:21,760
First of all, social media. We didn't have social media in the nineties and early two thousands,

182
00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:26,640
and it definitely wasn't, you know, at the level it is now. So that's number one. We had rankings

183
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:33,840
and we had things like that. For me, I strictly was state of Michigan. And, you know, the thing,

184
00:18:33,840 --> 00:18:39,840
I always would find a player that had a certain characteristic, right? He was the type of player

185
00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:44,800
in today's game, LeBron. He was a guy that people wanted to play with. You know what I mean? There

186
00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:50,320
was always somebody like that, Antonio Gates, or, you know, or I might've had a football player. By

187
00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:56,000
the way, I had several football players as a part of my team, which typically brought toughness.

188
00:18:56,880 --> 00:19:01,680
But in regards to egos, obviously you got to have them in different positions, right? You

189
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:07,280
don't want to have two point guards, you know, and maybe a point guard, a wing forward, a three,

190
00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:15,760
four, if you will, and maybe a big. You're selling them on an incredible goal of obviously moving up

191
00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:22,240
the rankings collectively. In Michigan, we had unique dynamics because in the state of Michigan,

192
00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:27,840
players can't travel like they can everywhere else. You guys hear about the tour that LeBron

193
00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:32,560
took in high school where they went around and he played in California and he played in all these

194
00:19:32,560 --> 00:19:37,840
different events as a high school team. Well, in the state of Michigan, essentially you can only

195
00:19:37,840 --> 00:19:43,520
play schools from the neighboring state and it's a, you know, about a couple hundred mile rule

196
00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:50,800
with that. The other thing is a lack for kids in Michigan was they couldn't play in all-star games.

197
00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:54,880
So when guys played in the summer and they played an all-star game, Michigan kids couldn't do that.

198
00:19:55,760 --> 00:20:01,120
So for me, selling with the Michigan kids, it was an opportunity for you guys to have the exposure

199
00:20:01,120 --> 00:20:07,840
that you missed during the season. So now put egos aside and let's move up the charts together.

200
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:13,600
And, you know, it's a day-to-day thing. There's no science to it. I couldn't tell you that there's

201
00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:20,160
one thing that I did that worked, but obviously it was about relationship, you know, that family

202
00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:25,280
atmosphere, you know, doing some things outside of basketball, right? I'll give you an example.

203
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:30,720
We'd go play in California or we'd go to Orlando or something like that. We would go

204
00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:36,800
to Disney. We would do things outside of basketball. A lot of kids or a lot of teams,

205
00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:41,920
you know, they grab the players, they plan the tournament, they stick the kids in the hotel room

206
00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:46,400
and they say, hey, do what you want to do, right? They just give them freedom. We were playing stuff,

207
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:50,560
right? We would go eat together. We would go formally have dinner together, similar to what

208
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:55,440
it would be like when they got to college. We would do something fun. We'd go go-kart racing.

209
00:20:55,440 --> 00:21:00,640
We'd go to an arcade back in the day. We, you know, maybe go to an amusement park. We would try to.

210
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:05,840
We'd go to the movies. We'd go to a basketball game if it was in season during the spring when

211
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:11,120
you have, you know, tournaments in April and May, take them to a NBA game as well. So we would do

212
00:21:11,120 --> 00:21:18,080
things like that together at the same time of playing in the tournament. So I think we had a

213
00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:22,560
little bit different dynamic than most. So two questions with that. So why couldn't kids from

214
00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:27,360
Michigan play an All-Star game? Is that just a rule that just randomly popped up or?

215
00:21:27,360 --> 00:21:34,480
No, man, a Michigan high school association is different. It's been grandfathered in forever.

216
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:43,200
Really old school mindset. And it's just, it's just a rule. They just believe in

217
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:49,440
their thing is, you know, the player that wins a state championship, that guy, you know, they

218
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:54,640
put an emphasis on the state championship, which is the Final Four held at Michigan State University.

219
00:21:56,400 --> 00:22:02,960
They believe, you know, they want to keep things, as they say it, pure. And so in their mind, if you,

220
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:09,280
I'm just telling you with, you know, their legislation, but something that should be changed

221
00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:15,520
still hasn't been changed. And that had a lot to do with strategy. You know, if we get to talking

222
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:20,480
about strategy, some of the things I did different during the area, you outside of the things that

223
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:26,880
I've shared so far. You think it kind of holds some of the talent back or you work around as

224
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:31,440
being a coach and having different strategies to give them more exposure? It hurts them drastically.

225
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:37,440
And so over the years, especially since I have stopped coaching at AU, during my time, I had a

226
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:42,640
solution for it and I'll share that with you. But now you get a lot of kids that leave, they leave

227
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:48,000
the state, they go to prep schools, they look for different opportunities. So over the last 10 years,

228
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:56,800
the best players in Michigan, most of them have left, you know, so, you know, it's hurt,

229
00:22:56,800 --> 00:23:02,880
you know, it's hurt the state, you know, the, the, the university, the Michigan, Mr. Basketball

230
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:08,080
is not the same as it used to be. You know, the Mr. Basketball in the state of Michigan used to be,

231
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:14,480
you know, that top 10, top, you know, top five, top 20 guy, Chris Weber, Jalen Rose, you know,

232
00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:21,200
Jason Richardson, guys like that, Maurice Taylor, Mateen Cleese, others, but it's different now.

233
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:26,480
The thing that I did that was different is this. And it's probably a good strategy, maybe for some

234
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:33,680
of you guys. So I was the first one to really take young guys and play them up. So what do you mean?

235
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:39,360
So what do you mean? You got your 17 and under team. You have a 17, your 16, and maybe a 15,

236
00:23:39,360 --> 00:23:44,720
if you have an AAU program, right? Typically you take your best players and you put them in the

237
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:49,200
age bracket that they're in. So me, I looked at it totally different. I said, you know what,

238
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:56,880
17 is, is the age group that gets the most exposure. It is the one that the sponsors,

239
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:00,480
shoe companies and things of that nature brands really focus on and care about.

240
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:08,400
So I took my best player in the ninth and 10th grade and I played them up. So that meant I had

241
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:15,840
less spots for your traditional rising seniors, your traditional juniors. And so what that did

242
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:22,640
is that gave those players an opportunity to be on the circuit for three years. So that gave them

243
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:28,800
an opportunity to get some national exposure prior to their senior year. So case in point.

244
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:35,520
Case in point. Mateen Cleaves. Mateen Cleaves, McDonald's All-American. That class had great

245
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:40,560
players. Winford Wogg, who just passed, Mike Chappelle, really good class. Three guys that

246
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:50,160
were really, really good. Those guys had to really perform at ABCD camp or at that time,

247
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:55,760
the Nike camp. And that was essentially what they had to move up the charts, right? So

248
00:24:55,760 --> 00:25:02,160
Mateen Cleaves, shout out Mateen. Mike Bibby. Mike Bibby was a player that was heavily rated.

249
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:08,480
At the Nike camp, when they matched up head to head, he tore off into him. Well, Winford

250
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:13,040
Wogg played for a coach that was a legendary coach. I mean, he played for a coach that was legendary.

251
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:18,720
And so played at Detroit Persian High School. So tons of exposure just for that high school.

252
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:25,600
So my approach by taking Kelvin Torbert when he was in the ninth grade and taking him to

253
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:30,400
and Robert Whaley in the ninth grade, allowing them to play with Jason Richardson and Brent

254
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:36,560
Darby and those guys on the 17 under circuit. By the way, champions of the big time, 98.

255
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:43,360
Championship game three years in a row at the big time, 96, 97, 98. But just tooting my horn

256
00:25:43,360 --> 00:25:49,200
a little bit there. But as we continue, I think that philosophy was what I used. I used that with

257
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:57,200
Anthony Roberson. I used that with old time teaming and others. And that was how I was able to

258
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:03,280
alleviate that issue with rankings for kids in Michigan. Okay. Did you get any pushback from

259
00:26:03,280 --> 00:26:09,760
bringing kids up? No, because it was an incredibly unique opportunity for those players. Those guys

260
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:15,760
that played there when it ended up happening is some of you teams started to kind to entice that,

261
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:19,760
you know, with some of their players and maybe allow them to play up for a tournament,

262
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:23,920
but they were kind of still stuck in their ways, stuck in their style. Now you're going to play

263
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:28,880
15 and under, but you're going to play this tournament 17 and under. But for me, it was like

264
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:33,520
Anthony Roberson was, I mean, the ball was bigger than him at the time. It was like he 13 years old,

265
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:40,880
five foot, whatever, man, come on out of you started point guard. Let's go. So I didn't get a lot of

266
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:46,160
pushback. I think it changed, you know, you know, because of the success, I think some people

267
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:52,320
changed, but not a whole lot of pushback because I only did it with the top top guys. You did it

268
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:55,840
with the people that you knew would get some playing time in the like on those tournaments if

269
00:26:55,840 --> 00:27:03,360
they went to a higher level. Yeah. So I made a decision. I said, okay, let's take the number one

270
00:27:03,360 --> 00:27:08,080
point guard in the junior class. I would say, okay. And then let's say Anthony Roberson was the

271
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:14,000
number one point guard as a freshman. How much better is the junior than the freshman? Maybe he's

272
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:22,320
better, but maybe it's this much. That player and he'd be this much better than he's gone. Or I can

273
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:28,240
take that freshman, bring him here and look at the jumps that he's going to make over the next two

274
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:33,680
years by allowing him to gain this experience right out the gate. So what are the stories

275
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:40,880
regarding that a stretch? Have you not shared so far? Well, let's talk about tone gates. So tone

276
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:51,600
gates man was six, four, very athletic, had that like Draymond green type mentality, you know,

277
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:58,320
understanding of the game made everybody better. We just gave him the ball. We had another player

278
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:02,000
that was really good on the team named Deandre Hewlett. We have some other guys that were good.

279
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:10,800
But he, you know, being a football player as well, his toughness, his tenacity, his will to win,

280
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:18,480
that by itself was able to take us to a different level. We ended up losing in the championship to

281
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:29,280
DC assault that year in the big time. Back then the big time had 250 teams participating. So

282
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:34,000
nothing like that exists today. And it was wide open to every shoe. You know, it didn't matter

283
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:41,280
who you were sponsored by. Everybody participated in the big time then. So tone gates, as good as

284
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:49,760
he was in football, we know him, he's a hall of famer, incredible tight end. Antonio was exceptional

285
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:57,520
as a basketball player. It just in that, at that time, they weren't ready for that type of a player,

286
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:03,200
you know, a player that was undersized. And so he didn't fit the mold as a six foot four shooting

287
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,920
guard, if you will. In today's game, he could play because Draymond Green is, you know, a four time

288
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:14,560
world champion. Antonio would be the same. The other thing that I know I've never shared is

289
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:24,400
Matt Ischvia, the owner of the Phoenix Suns, Matt was on that team with Antonio. And just to give

290
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:29,680
you a characteristic. So Matt and Antonio had a very good relationship, very close at the time.

291
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:36,880
And when we would throw Matt in the game, Antonio and Dante Darlin and other those guys, and their

292
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:43,920
game would go to another level. I wouldn't say to protect Matt, but to make sure, hey,

293
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:50,720
we don't want to be blamed for, you know, having a duck off, you know, because Matt's in the game.

294
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:57,520
So they would take their game to another level. So by the way, at that time, our coach,

295
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:03,200
you know, of that team, it was a friend of mine who passed a few years ago, his name was Daryl Ellis.

296
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:10,480
So shout out to Coach Ellis and his son Bear. So that would be one story, obviously, you know,

297
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:19,040
Matt Ischvia played for us. Man, the battle between, you know, two guys on the team at

298
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:24,640
the same time would be Jason Richardson and Kelvin Torber. Here we got DeAndre Hewlett. Here's three

299
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:31,120
players that are Pogo sticks, right? Both of them jump out the gym. DeAndre Hewlett was six foot

300
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:36,800
seven. He ended up being drafted by Toronto Raptors. Kelvin Torber was graceful. He was in the air. He

301
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:42,800
had hang time. He's, you know, just hanging out like Jordan, if you will. And Jason Richardson was

302
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:50,560
kind of like Dominique Wilkins, like power just boom, right? So it's funny because at that time,

303
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:57,840
I was with Adidas and I was with Sonny. We'll talk about Sonny. But I wasn't one of the main guys,

304
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:01,680
right? I wasn't, you know, one of the main guys. Our team wasn't one of the main teams.

305
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:10,800
And so back then you would play three games the last day. So the championship day was three games

306
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:16,960
and the day before that you'd play two. So our last five games, we had to go through all of Sonny's

307
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:24,240
darling teams, which was, you know, Long Island Panthers out in New York. Shout out Gary Charles.

308
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:32,960
It was the Atlanta Celtics based out of Atlanta. You know, Wallace Prather. It was the New Orleans

309
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:42,480
Jazz. It was at that time coached by Thad Fouché. Who else did we end up having to play? Well,

310
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:47,680
DC Assault was our nemesis, but they ended up getting knocked out the game before we would

311
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:52,800
have played them. So we had to go through. We lined them up. And so it was, it was just kind

312
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:58,880
of fun, like just knocking each one of the so-called darling teams out as we went through and

313
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:04,720
through the championship. But we had a lot of fun, man. I mean, we had a lot of fun. I mean,

314
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:09,120
I guess one of the stories, the biggest story, I guess, we would tell. Here's it. Here's the cake.

315
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:16,160
You know how Kendrick Perkins always talks about me and LeBron played together. We played AAU

316
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:21,520
together. You know, he brings that up, right? Always. Let's talk about that story, right?

317
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:26,320
Because they're not giving the actual story. So Kendrick played on a team in Texas. I don't

318
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:31,040
recall the actual name of his AAU team. So he played with them throughout his career, right?

319
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:36,480
LeBron played for his coach, Drew Joyce. You know, that was his team predominantly,

320
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,520
which ended up turning into almost like their high school team, right?

321
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:45,120
And then there was a gentleman by the name of Leon Powe, who was a top five player,

322
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:51,200
great athlete, went to Cal, I believe. And he played for the Oakland Soldiers.

323
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:56,800
So LeBron's high school coach had a relationship with the Oakland Soldiers.

324
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:02,880
And so he ended up playing with them every year in a tournament. It was like the elite eight

325
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:10,240
in California every year, all right? So when this tournament is held in Houston, Texas,

326
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:16,240
which would make sense why Kendrick, you know, would figure some things out. So everybody comes

327
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:21,520
to this tournament. You know, it's the Texas Classic, great tournament, Sebastian Telfer,

328
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:25,600
you had teams from everywhere, New York. It was a heavy, heavy tournament, right?

329
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:30,240
And so we're there, of course, we're there to Michigan Hurricane. So they have taken

330
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:39,040
LeBron James and Kendrick Perkins are playing with Leon Powe on the Oakland Soldiers AAU team.

331
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:44,560
So it's like, okay, we know who's going to win this damn thing. They got three guys.

332
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:50,080
Five top 10 worst case scenario playing on the same team. All right. So ironically,

333
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:58,080
we would play, let's say on court A at nine o'clock, they would play on court A at 10 o'clock.

334
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:03,040
So we kept, you know, we would always play on a court. They would always see the second half

335
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:07,680
of our game. All right. And LeBron, you know, he's, you know, he's an Ohio kid. He knows,

336
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:12,480
you know, we're in Michigan. He knows our guys has relationship with some of our guys, so on and so

337
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:19,440
far. So we go through that tournament and Aaron Brooks had a great game against LeBron and those

338
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:26,880
guys, you know, Seattle Rotary shot out to those guys. They end up losing. Now, they lost.

339
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:36,240
They ended up losing. Yeah, they lose. I believe they lost to the DC Assault team. Okay.

340
00:34:36,240 --> 00:34:43,600
I'm telling you that DC Assault was a powerhouse too. Listen, Curtis Malone, DC Assault. Listen,

341
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:48,640
that was like my favorite team outside of our team. DC Assault has always been my favorite team. We

342
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:54,880
had a great time. Those, you know, Illinois Fire also great relationship with those guys. A lot of

343
00:34:54,880 --> 00:35:04,400
really good teams coming up, but DC Assault, good team. So they lose. That tournament. They lose.

344
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:10,560
They lose that tournament. And so, like I told you, typically back then it was tournaments. Now

345
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:15,040
they just kind of just have games. They don't, they build it all up for the end. Back then,

346
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:22,880
every weekend was an actual tournament. So we're in that. So the final eight teams are the next day.

347
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:27,520
So we come in the next day, LeBron and them are, you know, they're done. They, you know,

348
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:37,520
they're, the team has lost, but LeBron is in the stands at our games. So the elite A game, we win.

349
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:44,000
The final four game, we win. The championship game we're about to play, LeBron is there.

350
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:51,040
And, you know, in a joking way, he's like, yo coach, let me get one of them jerseys. Ain't y'all

351
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:55,280
coming to Cleveland in two weeks? We're like, yeah, we come to Cleveland. Let me get one of them

352
00:35:55,280 --> 00:36:00,800
jerseys. I'm like, boy, I'm trying to, you about to mess my head up. I'm trying to coach a team.

353
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:09,200
You're talking about playing. You know, like what? Wait, what? Right. So hurricanes win this

354
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:13,920
tournament. So tell Kendrick Perkins, if you're going to keep talking about me and LeBron played

355
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:19,120
together, that's when they played together. The Texas classic, they didn't win. The Michigan

356
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:27,040
hurricanes win that tournament. Now we're going to the airport and, you know, we ended up winning.

357
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:32,640
We're running through the airport. Who do we see in the airport? LeBron. So all the kids run up

358
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:38,400
to LeBron. We won, man. We won. So on and so forth. And not to spoil it, make a long story short. That

359
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:43,280
was the first time I had a conversation with LeBron about potentially playing with the Michigan

360
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:48,640
hurricanes. That, that, that would be the unique story with that from the standpoint of Kendrick

361
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:52,720
Perkins always talking about, yeah, me and LeBron go way back. Yeah, but tell the whole story.

362
00:36:54,320 --> 00:37:00,720
Y'all just win that tournament. You're going to shout out. What is one characteristic or trait

363
00:37:00,720 --> 00:37:06,320
that's important for a coach to have in order to be successful specifically in the AAU space?

364
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:11,280
I think one of the biggest traits is motivation. You got to be able to motivate the kids because

365
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:17,920
it's not your traditional setting, right? You are playing possibly in a different city and

366
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:24,000
a different state. You may be playing on a court that doesn't have the fans circling the court.

367
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,760
You might have multiple games. So I think motivation is one of the biggest things because,

368
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:35,120
you know, as an AAU grassroots coach, you might play multiple games in that day. So you got to

369
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:39,760
be able to get guys fired up. You might have an eight o'clock AM game, a nine AM game at these

370
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:46,080
tournaments where traditionally you plan at home 7 30 PM on varsity. So that to me is kind of the

371
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:50,960
biggest trait. And then outside of that, I think you kind of got to be a parent, you know, because

372
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:56,640
you're taking someone else's child on the road, traveling with them. They're leaving them in your

373
00:37:56,640 --> 00:38:00,400
care. Like you said, there are there is some criticism when it comes from that, when people

374
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:05,280
are playing AAU. So what do you think are major advantages for them playing AAU? Overall, I think

375
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:11,840
it's toughness. AAU is going to put you in an environment. It's unusual. Some things you got

376
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:19,520
to do on the fly, style of play, location, the dynamics surrounding the tournament or the event

377
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:25,680
that you plan in. So I think one of the greatest advantages of kids that play AAU, they're really

378
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:30,720
tough. They're strong. They go through some adversity. Typically, you don't have that even

379
00:38:30,720 --> 00:38:36,880
with the European, you know, style of basketball from the standpoint of practicing, which I think

380
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:44,320
is great. I think you should practice. But AAU allows you to, you know, challenge that top guy,

381
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:49,040
right? You know, today's game, you got the rankings, you got, you know, rankings change every other

382
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:55,360
week, every month, every quarter, you know, ESPN, rivals, whatever it's a B, you know, and now you

383
00:38:55,360 --> 00:39:01,280
have an opportunity to go after that guy that's rated above you. How often would you get that,

384
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:07,120
you know, in a just playing games once a week or practicing several times a week? Yes, you're

385
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:11,520
getting better with your team. Yes, your skill level is increasing. But being able to get that

386
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:17,120
toughness, that dog, as we like to call it. I think a lot of that is established with AAU basketball.

387
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:23,520
I agree with you 100% on that because Kyle and I both played AAU as well. But I want to talk about

388
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:28,480
one advantage I think, well, at least I thought that people would feel would be the just the

389
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:33,840
exposure aspect of it. So toughness is an inner character inner characteristic. I get that. But

390
00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:39,920
I think the exposure itself just goes unnoticed in most cases. What do you think about that?

391
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:46,160
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, you know, you have those rankings. Typically, you know, the guy

392
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:52,000
that's rated top, you know, number one, top five, top 10, you got a bullseye on your chest. So

393
00:39:52,720 --> 00:39:58,000
you want to maintain that. It's harder to maintain it than it is to kind of climb and

394
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:03,360
chase you down. Right now you know, you got these predators coming after you, you know, and now you

395
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:08,640
trying to hold on to it. So it serves its purpose on both sides. Those that are trying to climb the

396
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:12,480
ranks that think man, I'm better than this guy. They got this guy tough. I'm better than him.

397
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:18,400
Okay, go prove it. You can prove it on the circuit. You know, you have an opportunity to prove it on

398
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:22,560
the circuit. The other thing is you top five, you might think you need to be number one,

399
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:27,040
and you want to sustain that. Well, guess what? You got to prove it every time you play it.

400
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:32,160
Right? Because every time somebody's on the floor, you have to maintain and have that separation

401
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:37,360
that I'm here and you're here. And so yeah, from an exposure standpoint, you get that.

402
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:42,240
Obviously the coaches, you know, they like to travel and go to these AU tournaments that are

403
00:40:42,240 --> 00:40:49,840
typically at nice warm weather, you know, great cities, you know, they do a little bit of work.

404
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:54,800
They may do a little bit of play, if you will. So from an exposure standpoint, you get a collection

405
00:40:54,800 --> 00:41:02,080
of all of these great players in one facility. How often can you get that? Hey, what's up guys,

406
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:06,400
hopefully you're enjoying this video so far. Don't forget to like the video, subscribe to the channel

407
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:11,360
if you're not already and comment below with some of your favorite parts so far. Chris has been an

408
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:16,320
amazing guest, the perfect guest, I must say, but not everything in life is perfect. Unfortunately,

409
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:22,480
we did lose some of the footage from this, just video, we still have the audio. So you're going

410
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:27,440
to see for the next second part of this where he kind of cuts out, but we did our best to to still

411
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:31,760
make it work. Still an excellent interview. And thank you guys for tuning in. Let's continue on

412
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:38,080
to the next part. What actually happened with John Warren, Brandon Jennings that day? You know what,

413
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:44,640
I'm gonna be short and sweet guys on this. So at that time, I wasn't the director. I had moved on.

414
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:51,920
So I must save that one for Gary Charles. Hopefully you guys end up getting him on. I'm gonna

415
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:58,560
leave that one for Gary. Let Gary comment on that. But like I said, at that time, Anthony Crater was

416
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:05,920
number two. Branding Jennings was definitely number one. And we didn't really know John Wall.

417
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:13,280
And so John Wall obviously made that leap. But what I can say this, right? I can say this,

418
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:19,680
you only played two points and the most amount of points ever scored in an ABCD game was by

419
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:26,640
Kobe Bryant, which was 40. And that was tied by Olufamu Timmy, which was also 40. So you got

420
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:30,560
to understand that them guys had to really, really be putting it in. So you only play in two quarters.

421
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:39,440
So really, really destroying someone hard to do that. But because even in the LeBron matchup,

422
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:46,800
like it wasn't like LeBron scored 40 points. So I'll leave it at that. But John Wall established

423
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:52,240
himself, but I wasn't the director. So I don't want to comment as the director because at that time,

424
00:42:52,240 --> 00:42:59,280
I wasn't. I get it. And I love the answer. I'll take it. Okay. So transitioning, when you talk about

425
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:05,680
moving into something that's not only good for you, but good for, I guess, your resume and career

426
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:11,840
going forward, how the heck did you become an MBA scout? Well, shout out Mark working team,

427
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:18,640
Cray working team, and Moe working team. So Mark working team who recently passed was the general

428
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:25,600
manager of the Portland Trail Blazers at the time. His daughter, Cray, works for the Minnesota

429
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:30,400
Timberwolves now. And Moe is his wife. Great people. So I wanted to shout them out because

430
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:38,800
Mark was my man and a great human being and just a brilliant mind. So Mark was different. And so

431
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:46,000
and so he I met Mark and when he hired me just quick story, it was very simple.

432
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:53,200
We were in California, right? We're at a Marriott hotel and I bump into him and I'm like,

433
00:43:53,200 --> 00:44:00,880
Hey, Mark, how are you doing? He's like, Chris, Greer, Lucy is like, I got your resume upstairs.

434
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:07,600
Like, I want to talk to you. You got time? Yeah. We sit down and talk and he tells me essentially

435
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:13,360
like, look, scouts are different. You know, they move around a lot. And I think you're unique. And

436
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:19,120
I think you're intelligent. And I think you're, you know, brilliant in some ways, young, aggressive,

437
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:24,560
you know, and can do some things. And I'm going to give you your first, which ended up being my only

438
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:30,320
your first job in the NBA. And he said, you ain't gonna get rich off of it. Let me tell you right

439
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:36,000
now, you ain't gonna get rich, but you're going to always look back and say, Mark working team

440
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:42,320
gave me my first opportunity. And so he hired me literally on the spot in the lobby of the Marriott

441
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:49,680
hotel, the LAX airport Marriott hotel. And yeah, I'm so grateful for that. So you just do, where

442
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:55,280
do you get your resume from? Where is that? So just from following you? Yeah. So I, you know,

443
00:44:55,280 --> 00:45:00,000
I guess I sent it to him. I didn't even realize that I sent it to him, but I guess I actually

444
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:04,960
sent it to him because in my discussions with my mentor, Sonny Vicarone about, you know, things

445
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:10,320
moving forward and what you're going to do next, because I was a manager at Ford Motor Company. So

446
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:15,120
I went to school for engineering and materials management. So I was working at Ford and then

447
00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:19,680
coaching, but basketball was taking over my life. Sonny Vicarone wanted me to be everywhere and do

448
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:25,440
so many different things. So, you know, so we talked about maybe, you know, working in the NBA,

449
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:30,480
which was a little bit untraditional for a grassroots guy, you know, to work with an NBA team.

450
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:34,960
But I think he was the first one that encouraged me to kind of reach out. And so, you know, so Mark

451
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:40,160
hired me, Mark hired me. And now listen, if we get to talking about that role, it was a very,

452
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:47,120
very small role. And I can explain that role. We can dive into that at any point, but it was a very

453
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:54,160
small role. It was a unique opportunity. And, and it was him just thinking outside of the box saying,

454
00:45:54,160 --> 00:46:00,080
this guy got I for some things. He's a good judge of talent and potentially maybe of character. I'm

455
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:03,760
gonna give him a chance. He can help me. Obviously, you know, it was to help him. He wasn't just doing

456
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:09,440
it as a favor. You can help me in the unique strategic things on how I think as a general

457
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:15,840
manager. And so, so he hired me. So what were some of the biggest challenges that you face as an NBA

458
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:20,160
scout? I'm gonna talk about the challenges and the role. So the role, again, we didn't have like

459
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:24,240
internet, we didn't have social media and you didn't have as many tools as you have now.

460
00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:30,880
Look what I did. Mark said, I want you to go see live every big time small college player

461
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:38,080
in the entire Midwest. Go to NAIA games, go to division two games, go to small college games,

462
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:44,560
go everywhere. So I was essentially, I'm going to see all these kids that never think that they

463
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:49,840
have a chance in the NBA. All of these kids that are playing at small schools that are dominating.

464
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:55,440
And essentially it would be Chris, go watch the player and determine if the Portland Trailblazers

465
00:46:55,440 --> 00:47:02,080
need to spend more time and money evaluating this player. So that was the role. I mean, Mark was

466
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:08,320
always thinking different. You know, he, you know, he taught me as a, you know, as a, as a manager,

467
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:13,040
you guys look at the draft and he always talked about this, get the assets and what do you mean?

468
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:19,920
At one time Portland Trailblazers had Jermaine O'Neal, Zach Randolph and Rashid Wallace. They

469
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:24,960
all played power forward. I think that was Zach Randolph's what rookie year or the beginning of

470
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:29,600
his career. The beginning of his career. Yeah. First couple of years. So it was always like,

471
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:34,160
man, Portland needs a shooting guard. They need a small forward. They need a whatever.

472
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:41,280
His thing was I got all the assets. So now prior to the trade deadline, every team that wants to

473
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:47,360
make a move in the playoffs, they're all calling me because I have the assets that they need to

474
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:53,440
get to another level. So now I turn that into multiple draft picks. I can turn that into the

475
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:58,960
point guard I need, et cetera, et cetera. So in the draft, his thing was get the best asset.

476
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:04,240
Don't draft a player that, oh, we need a shooting guard today. Things change, get the best asset.

477
00:48:04,240 --> 00:48:08,560
But going back to your question, challenges, I mean, the challenge, the biggest challenge I would

478
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:15,840
say with scouting is probably don't know this. Scouts don't typically have long term contracts.

479
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:23,760
So scouts move around. They're always potentially, you know, typically it's a one or two year deal.

480
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:27,280
So you could be with this team for two years, let's say, and then you could be out of the

481
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:32,720
business completely or you're with another team. So the greatest challenge I think is,

482
00:48:32,720 --> 00:48:38,240
you know, do you have somewhere to go next? And for me, after Mark, I didn't move to another team.

483
00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:42,000
So that would be the greatest challenge. I certainly understand that. That uncertainty

484
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:49,840
is very wary on anybody. So I get him. Now, one of the greatest things that you've ever

485
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:56,880
done, accomplished or started CGL sports and consulting, what was the mission and vision

486
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:05,280
behind that? Wow. So, you know, I started off prior to CGL with SFX sports. So in order to

487
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:13,040
mention CGL, I got to, of course, mention SFX. So SFX sports is the largest sports firm that's ever

488
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:21,440
existed. Right. So all of the majors, CAA, United Artists, WME, Wasserman, it would be maybe two of

489
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:28,240
those put together. Right. To give you an example, we represented 25% of the NBA just in one firm.

490
00:49:28,240 --> 00:49:34,800
And there was 10 agents there. And I worked with, I think, the greatest two basketball agents that's

491
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:39,920
ever existed, which is David Falk. People would recognize him as Michael Jordan's agent. And Arne

492
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:46,320
Tellum, who had everybody, you know, T-Mags, Man O'Neal, so on. And so Joe Johnson, et cetera.

493
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:49,920
Also with that group now, you have Bob Myers, everybody knows from the Warriors.

494
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:56,000
Yep. Rob Palinka, who obviously everybody identifies with as Kobe's agent and obviously

495
00:49:56,000 --> 00:50:03,920
with the Lakers. So huge firm. But my experience there, what kind of created CGL in the large

496
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:10,560
firms, which you end up having is multiple agents, often competing. They're working together,

497
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:16,000
right? They're one family, one group, but often they may be competing with one another for the

498
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:22,800
same players. So you're your own identity within that firm. And so somebody has to always be the

499
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:27,920
tiebreaker. And that can be tough. Now at SFX, it was the toughest. We had 10 basketball agents,

500
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:34,000
along with football, baseball, soccer, golf, tennis, et cetera. But just speaking to one sport.

501
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:39,680
And that wasn't, you know, you have to be built for that, meaning you have to enjoy that. You

502
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:44,560
have to want to be in that space. And for me, I was always being going, you remember, now I'm

503
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:50,960
a grassroots guy. I want to use the platform to help the little guy, right? I want to overcome

504
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:56,800
some things. I want to use this grand, docious, huge platform to do some, you know, un-customary

505
00:50:56,800 --> 00:51:04,000
things. And so eventually I left and started CGL Sports, wanted to be boutique. You know, I guess

506
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:10,560
the purpose of CGL is literally just maximizing our clients' potential, right? Specific to their

507
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:15,360
goals. What happens when you're with a large firm, no disrespect, because it's, you know, it fits

508
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:21,280
wherever you want, whatever's your desire. But for me, it was about maximizing an individual's goal

509
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:27,360
and being specific to them, because you run into cookie cutter situations often with a big firm.

510
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:31,840
And so I wanted to go different. And I wanted to, to be quite honest, which I wanted to get back to

511
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:36,880
Michigan. I wanted to get back to helping kids that I knew their families coming up. I knew them

512
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:40,960
when they played, you know, grassroots. I knew them in middle school. So I wanted to be able to

513
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:47,120
help kids initially from Michigan. And then it evolved a little bit into kind of the Midwest.

514
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:52,320
How do you approach the recruitment and management of the clients for CGL Sports?

515
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:57,360
Yeah, good question. So now, different organization, right? Different company,

516
00:51:57,360 --> 00:52:02,000
different goals, right? Most people want to get in it to get as many clients as possible,

517
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,920
to make as much money as possible, so on and so forth. I'm a grassroots dude, right? So I'm

518
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:10,800
community. So a little bit different. So for me, criteria is always character. It's going to start

519
00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:16,160
with character. And I know that's, you know, kind of maybe cliche and easy to go to. But when your

520
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:24,320
boutique, every move affects your overall business. Because your boutique, you only have so many guys.

521
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:31,920
So you want guys that you can manage their career. You want guys that have a sense of loyalty,

522
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:36,720
guys or girls, you know, he or she. You want athletes that just live by a certain type of

523
00:52:36,720 --> 00:52:41,840
code. So for me, it starts with the character because I don't, I don't really recruit. Like,

524
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:45,920
most people really, really are active recruiting. Over the years, most of the clients that I've been

525
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:52,080
involved with have come from like a relationship. I know their coach and know a family member. You

526
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:56,080
know, one of my players know the players specifically, and they like what they were doing.

527
00:52:56,080 --> 00:53:00,240
So for me, it goes back to that, you know, that character. That's kind of the biggest thing for

528
00:53:00,240 --> 00:53:04,560
me. When you talk about comparing how you do business versus how big businesses do business

529
00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:10,640
or corporations do businesses, that aspect right there is enough to draw in the players, the ones

530
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:15,440
that want something like that to you, which means it's going to be an excellent relationship going

531
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:20,400
forward. Kind of like you've established with Wilson Chandler. How, what's been, simply put,

532
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:24,720
what's been the greatest highlight that you've had in your time with him? You know me, man. You

533
00:53:24,720 --> 00:53:30,720
ask these questions and I can never give you a direct one single answer, right? So forgive me.

534
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:37,280
That's okay. So I've known Wilson since Grassroot. He came out of my AU program. And so Wilson has

535
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:43,440
seen me at my all time low and as well as some highs, but I'm gonna give you four things that

536
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:50,080
were really, really unique. Number one, Wilson was with me when my fiance was murdered. Some that I

537
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:54,800
don't talk about often, but I had a, I had a fiance. I was engaged. That kind of ended the AU run.

538
00:53:55,520 --> 00:54:01,600
He was with me when we lost her and we lost her doing the Spies tournament. It was in May. It was

539
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:08,720
a big tournament that we played in, in Indiana. And I got news while coaching those guys in the

540
00:54:08,720 --> 00:54:13,120
tournament, you know, on a Saturday and with that tournament ending on Sunday, still have all these

541
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:18,640
kids, you know, that I'm responsible for at this tournament. So that's one. So he's, he was with me

542
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:25,680
at a very low point, high point. I got Wilson Chandler drafted 23. He came out without my advice.

543
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:30,240
I advised him to go back to school to be quite honest after his sophomore year, after going to

544
00:54:30,240 --> 00:54:36,160
the NIT at DePaul, after having a solid year, you know, 14 points, maybe six rebounds a game,

545
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:39,840
but he didn't make all anything. He wasn't all American, all this, all league, all big East,

546
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:45,200
none of that. But he was a solid player and he had potential and he just, he just was ready to get

547
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:51,520
out, man. I'll just say that. So I'm telling them, are you ready to go overseas? That's where you

548
00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:57,360
go on. Cause if you, you coming out, you're on no boards. Nobody had him on a draft board. You're

549
00:54:57,360 --> 00:55:04,000
going overseas. And so long story short, my trainer at the time, guy by the name of Rodney Hurd,

550
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:07,040
he, you know, he called me and he's like, man, you got to look at this thing different, man.

551
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:10,800
This kid is a little bit better than you think. And I'm like, I've known him since he was 14.

552
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:16,560
What do you mean? And he pointed out a thing. He said, the kid makes shots tired. And that's a

553
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:21,760
gift. That's a skill. And he pointed that out to me and I didn't recognize that. And he saw that

554
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:26,240
in the workouts and the training in the early going on. So Wilson Chandler goes 23,

555
00:55:26,240 --> 00:55:32,080
shout out Isaiah Thomas, hall of fame, Isaiah, Detroit piston, Isaiah, who was the president

556
00:55:32,080 --> 00:55:38,080
of the New York Knicks at the time, who flew into Atlanta and had a conversation with me. We agreed

557
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:42,800
that he would take Wilson 23. He only had a first round pick at the time. And I sold him on some of

558
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:47,280
the traits. The only player that I told him that Wilson wasn't better than in that position was

559
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:52,560
uncle Jeff. We called him uncle Jeff. Everybody called him Jeff Green. Jeff Green. I was like,

560
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:56,880
that one might be a problem, but I'm saying all these other wings, you know, Corey Brewer and all

561
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:01,200
these other guys, I'm like, Wilson, he'll dominate those guys. He's just more physical. He's, he

562
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:07,440
plays both sides. He has a skill set. He rebounds. Isaiah obviously did his own work. Obviously the

563
00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:11,840
kid played at DePaul. Isaiah's from Chicago. So he did his own work there. And you know,

564
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:17,040
Wilson went 23, which was, I mean, that was an incredible jump guys, right? Undrafted to 23,

565
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:21,840
first round and to a major market. And then outside of that, obviously we went to China

566
00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:26,240
and we can talk about that. We got back from China. He signed an extension and that extension

567
00:56:26,240 --> 00:56:32,000
was 40 million. And today's game, that extension would be about 150 million based on the Clem

568
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:38,960
Byrd agreement at this point. And lastly, he did 14 years and he was able to leave the game on his

569
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:46,400
own terms. Like the game didn't retire him. When he left, he just was like, I'm done. I don't,

570
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:49,280
you know, I don't want to be injured anymore. I want to spend time with my kid. So speaking

571
00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:54,000
of China, you played a major role in the China CBA option deals in 2011. How did you actually

572
00:56:54,000 --> 00:57:00,000
manage to do that? Great question. Not to bore you. Essentially what happened is it was the NBA

573
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:04,160
lockout, you know, guys were trying to, they were scrambling. Everybody's trying to scramble. Where

574
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:10,160
am I playing? And so Europe took advantage, right? That was the destination for most guys. Europe

575
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:13,760
took advantage. They were going for the high level guys. You know, it was reported Darren Williams

576
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:20,480
went to Turkey for like $2 million. But a lot of guys were being, you know, they were offered

577
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:26,400
five, 10, 15,000 a month, which they weren't used to, but guys needed jobs. They didn't know how

578
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:32,400
this thing was going to go. So they needed money. And so I had, you know, young in the game, young

579
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:36,640
guys. So I had all these young guys that were like, yo, what options are available for me? And I'm

580
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:42,240
like, there's not a lot of options because they can take veterans, you know, before you guys. So

581
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:50,560
I had Epey Udo, Allen Anderson, Anthony Roberson, Wilson Chandler, a few other guys that wanted to

582
00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:59,360
play. I was able to get Epey Udo in Israel. There was this quote that Kobe Bryant, that, you know,

583
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:04,480
that China was offering Kobe Bryant several million dollars to come, but there was a hitch.

584
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:11,360
You would have to stay the entire season. And so of course, oh, Kobe's entertaining it. Now,

585
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:16,320
had Kobe gone, it would have changed the landscape of anything. It would have might have crushed

586
00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:22,800
that NBA season, right? But obviously he didn't. And, but he was, you know, considering it,

587
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:29,520
at least in the paper. Well, long story short, you know, I'm sitting here and Wilson Chandler,

588
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:33,280
like, bro, I want to play. I'm young. I'm trying to, you know, I'm on my rookie deal. I want to

589
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:37,360
play somewhere. So I had two options for him. I had an option for him to go to Italy

590
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:42,080
up until Christmas. It would be, you know, you got to stay to Christmas, no matter what happens in

591
00:58:42,080 --> 00:58:47,680
the NBA. And then there was the opportunity to consider China. We get together, we're like,

592
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:53,360
man, let's spend the weekend and let's just, let's talk through it. So we talked through it.

593
00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:58,240
And what I did, nobody had really paid attention to the Chinese market. I'm looking at the Chinese

594
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:09,840
market. The regular season ends around February 15th, which is typically the same time as NBA

595
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:15,680
all-star weekend. All-star break. Yeah. Right. So I'm saying, okay, hold on. Now, obviously if you

596
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:19,760
win the championship, you're going to go a little bit farther. So I say to Wilson, listen, bro,

597
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:26,960
the absolute worst case scenario, you're stuck in China to February, close to March, but you're

598
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:32,960
going to play in the NBA. Right. It's just a matter, like if we signed today and then tomorrow,

599
00:59:32,960 --> 00:59:37,680
the lockout ends, now you're going to be struggling getting on that plane going to China. Right.

600
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:44,640
So I ended up taking Allen Anderson, Anthony Roberson and Wilson Challenger there. Right.

601
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:49,440
And I told Wilson, listen, we're going to do it this way. Nobody wants to be the first one,

602
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:54,960
but it's best for you to be the first one because you have all the options. You can choose all the

603
00:59:54,960 --> 01:00:00,480
teams. You have all the resources. You can figure out what's the best fit for you. Then it's going

604
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:04,240
to kind of flow, you know, and guys are just going to be taking deals, but not knowing what they're

605
01:00:04,240 --> 01:00:09,920
getting themselves into. So we researched all the options that he had. We ended up going to Guangxia

606
01:00:09,920 --> 01:00:18,560
team in Hongzhou, China. It was a beautiful city, big lake, a bullet train ride from Shanghai,

607
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:25,840
which is one of the best cities. There was an American coach who was the assistant for Phil

608
01:00:26,640 --> 01:00:33,520
over the years. And so he won championships, American coach and great city. Now, after that,

609
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:38,080
the flood gates over here come Jarrod Smith, here come Kenyon Martin, here come Aaron Brooks,

610
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:43,840
you know, and five other NBA guys. The only difference is those guys didn't know what they

611
01:00:43,840 --> 01:00:48,080
were getting themselves into, you know, when they were choosing to go to China. They had no idea

612
01:00:48,080 --> 01:00:54,000
what the cities were like, and so on and so forth. And so I still see I still see some of your posts.

613
01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:59,440
How heavily invested or active are you still in that Chinese market? So obviously, I got three

614
01:00:59,440 --> 01:01:04,960
guys going over there and they're all mid 20s. Right. And they're basically they're my organization,

615
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:11,040
right? They're my business. So I flew to China with the intentions to stay two weeks. I said,

616
01:01:11,040 --> 01:01:17,280
guys, I'm coming with you. Let's go. Go to China. Right. So we take a pitch and go, we out. Let's go.

617
01:01:17,280 --> 01:01:22,800
We're in China. I got two weeks worth of clothes packed. Let's do it. I'm really locked in. I got

618
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:28,320
over there and I saw how difficult the preseason was. Right now, just overseas period. Them guys

619
01:01:28,320 --> 01:01:33,760
practice twice a day. NBA guys ain't ready for that. They're ready for that. Wait, twice a day.

620
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:39,280
Oh, OK. We're doing that for the first week. Right. Training camp. Got you. Right. Right.

621
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:44,880
The first month, maybe even further. So I see the guys in there are like they're going through these

622
01:01:44,880 --> 01:01:50,000
two days and they're like, oh, man, oh, man, this is like slavery, man. This is crazy, man. This is

623
01:01:50,000 --> 01:01:54,240
they're like freaking out. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to stay a little bit longer.

624
01:01:54,240 --> 01:02:00,240
Guys, I end up staying in China six and a half months. Oh, my goodness.

625
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:07,920
Who? Why? Why? I did the whole bag. Right. Because I felt like in the early going,

626
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:13,440
when I go home, airplane right behind me, they're coming home and it's too much at stake. Right.

627
01:02:13,440 --> 01:02:18,240
They you have to stay here for the season or you won't get what they call a letter of clearance.

628
01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:24,080
So FIBA governs all the basketball, NBA included. So in order to leave, you know,

629
01:02:24,080 --> 01:02:29,440
go from league to league, you have to always get a letter of clearance. So I'm like, if I if I leave,

630
01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:35,280
one of them just can't hack it and come home and Wilson decides, man, I'm right behind you. Then

631
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:41,280
now it is going to be negative. Now it is going to be, you know, a bad look. And we took our time

632
01:02:41,280 --> 01:02:45,600
before we went. One of the things that we did, I guess I didn't mention, say, OK, we're going to

633
01:02:45,600 --> 01:02:50,480
China. All right. Let's control the media. What do you mean? We're going to contact them. We're

634
01:02:50,480 --> 01:02:55,760
going to give them all of our reasons. We went with Adande, J.A. Adande, who was with ESPN at the time.

635
01:02:55,760 --> 01:03:00,480
He did the stories on all of his platforms. So, yeah, there was going to be criticism,

636
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:06,000
but we were able to lay out this is why we're going. This is what we're doing. We're excited

637
01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:11,440
about it. So we were able to get our message out so that we wouldn't get destroyed from a media

638
01:03:11,440 --> 01:03:16,240
standpoint with that decision, because everybody was against all you crazy. Go to China. You're

639
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:22,480
going to miss the NBA. No. So I'm like, but if I go home and these guys come home beforehand

640
01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:26,880
and don't get that letter of clearance, that would be a negative story. That's why I stay.

641
01:03:27,840 --> 01:03:32,800
That's the story that we wanted right there when we looked at this as an overview was one of many

642
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:36,640
stories, but that one in particular, because it shows the devotion that you have towards your

643
01:03:36,640 --> 01:03:42,480
players. And you don't see that at least on the forefront with a lot of agents. It's I might go

644
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:46,480
over there. I might not. Or if I do go over there, I'll stay for a couple of days and I'm going back

645
01:03:46,480 --> 01:03:52,080
just to get you a little acclimated. And you were heavily invested. You again, six months.

646
01:03:52,080 --> 01:04:00,800
Only packed two weeks worth of clothes. Right. Right. I can say it's easy to get

647
01:04:00,800 --> 01:04:06,960
clothes in China. I'm sure you could imagine. But yeah, no, I was, I mean, they were my guys.

648
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:11,840
And so like I want them to be successful. I don't want them to, because I'm a mentor at first

649
01:04:11,840 --> 01:04:16,080
before I'm an agent, I'm a mentor first. Right. So I don't want you to screw up your life. I don't

650
01:04:16,080 --> 01:04:21,360
want you to screw up your financial stability. So yeah, let me go over here with you. I'm going to

651
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:26,160
learn some things and you are as well. So since that, you know, obviously since I was over there,

652
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:32,240
I'm like, well, what am I going to do? So I met with every brand. So every shoe brand in China,

653
01:04:33,120 --> 01:04:40,400
you know, Chow Dong, which is Chinese Jordan, peak, and rigor or didn't exist at the time. But

654
01:04:41,280 --> 01:04:46,560
Lee Ming, who D Wade is with, I met with all these brands. And when I said I met with them,

655
01:04:46,560 --> 01:04:53,920
I physically flew to their factories. I went to their headquarters. I met with them. So I

656
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:58,320
spent time with them. I got to know them. You know, I've built relationships with them. And so

657
01:04:58,320 --> 01:05:03,200
since then, you know, there's been a few opportunities here and there where they may call me or ask some

658
01:05:03,200 --> 01:05:09,200
opinion on some guys, or it may be a player that may reach out to me and say, I have interest in,

659
01:05:09,200 --> 01:05:13,520
you know, an Asian shoe. If they know, most people don't know, right? Cause I don't broadcast it.

660
01:05:13,520 --> 01:05:18,720
So if they know, they'll reach out and then I may make the connection and, you know,

661
01:05:18,720 --> 01:05:24,160
and connect the dots between those, those brands and those athletes that might be a good fit from

662
01:05:24,160 --> 01:05:28,480
a marketing standpoint. And then obviously I've continued to have guys to go over there to

663
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:35,840
participate in playing the CBA, Chinese CBA, mentor different agents on that process, help maybe

664
01:05:35,840 --> 01:05:40,800
connect some of the dots and then take some players over there for like, you know, exposure

665
01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:46,560
or marketing opportunities, things of that nature. So mostly just connecting the dots to resources

666
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:52,160
that I was able to establish, you know, during 2010, 2011 that I've maintained.

667
01:05:52,160 --> 01:05:56,960
And I'm glad you brought up the, especially when you talk about shoe brands, because I thoroughly

668
01:05:56,960 --> 01:06:02,480
just enjoy and love what ANTA is especially doing with Kyrie right now. They have a strong shoe,

669
01:06:02,480 --> 01:06:06,800
a strong campaign. It's working and I love to see that.

670
01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:08,880
I agree. I agree. Yep.

671
01:06:08,880 --> 01:06:13,360
All right. So we're moving into one of our last sections, but before we do that,

672
01:06:13,360 --> 01:06:18,400
when we talk about your company, your roles, is there anything left on that particular list

673
01:06:18,400 --> 01:06:24,400
that you want to touch on? Yeah. I mean, so I like, you know, one of the things I've been doing

674
01:06:24,400 --> 01:06:33,760
just started most recently is working with young agents, right? Young agents that are just starting.

675
01:06:35,200 --> 01:06:42,320
I have a gentleman by the name of Juan or Reg Bay, a young lady named Janine, we call her Chica,

676
01:06:42,320 --> 01:06:47,760
a young lady named Shira. She was actually the youngest agent to ever be certified in basketball.

677
01:06:49,200 --> 01:06:52,960
Kudos to her. And I'm having some discussions with some other young

678
01:06:53,520 --> 01:06:59,440
young agents because here's the thing, there's 800 agents certified in basketball in the NBA.

679
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:06,640
There's 450 NBA basketball players, right? So the odds are against most agents with,

680
01:07:07,920 --> 01:07:11,840
you know, attaining a client, recruiting a client, being able to serve as a client.

681
01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:17,600
And so what I've done is offered myself to a lot of young agents with helping them in that process.

682
01:07:17,600 --> 01:07:23,200
Hey, you're not able to work at, I'm not gonna name all the agencies, right? Large agency, right?

683
01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:27,600
They haven't offered you, they haven't come after you, or you don't desire that, right? And so, hey,

684
01:07:28,240 --> 01:07:35,040
come over here to CGL, let me mentor you, assist you, help you grow. And then look, I'm not looking

685
01:07:35,040 --> 01:07:40,400
to build this huge agency and hold on to you, send you on your way, right? So I've been

686
01:07:40,400 --> 01:07:47,440
been mentoring some agents now and really trying to help them navigate the space so that they're

687
01:07:47,440 --> 01:07:53,120
not just out here with all these sharks, if you will, by themselves. I would say that's kind of

688
01:07:53,120 --> 01:07:56,560
something I'm working on. I'm enjoying I'm really enjoying that right now.

689
01:07:56,560 --> 01:08:01,040
If you were to have people reach out to you, especially young and upcoming agents,

690
01:08:01,040 --> 01:08:03,680
is that something that you'd be willing to take more on?

691
01:08:03,680 --> 01:08:09,280
Yes, absolutely. Because, you know, it's crazy, I had a couple of agents where there's, I have,

692
01:08:09,280 --> 01:08:14,400
obviously, several friends that are, that came up with me, we were all scouts or whatever it is at

693
01:08:14,400 --> 01:08:20,080
the same time, give you a case in point. Messiah Usery, he was when I was doing grassroots,

694
01:08:20,080 --> 01:08:25,200
he was a volunteer scout for the Orlando Magic. Maybe that's not even on his resume, right? But

695
01:08:25,200 --> 01:08:30,560
he was a volunteer scout at that time, right? I was a, what you would call a part time scout

696
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:36,800
at the time. I told you the scouting thing is different. So a lot of these guys over the years,

697
01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:42,320
reach out, my boy Frank Ross, you know, with the Wizards. And they may have just, you know,

698
01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:47,280
come into contact with individuals, young guys. And so they forwarded individuals to me, you know,

699
01:08:47,280 --> 01:08:52,000
and I may mentor them or give them advice. And sometimes I don't even remember, it might be a

700
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:57,920
conversation, it might be a couple of conversations, it might be a text. And then I might have one or

701
01:08:57,920 --> 01:09:03,040
two agents come up to me in Vegas and be like, yo, yo, yo, Chris, what's up? I'm like, hey,

702
01:09:03,040 --> 01:09:09,040
how you doing? Oh, you don't remember, do you? Like, no. My boy Frank put us on the phone,

703
01:09:09,040 --> 01:09:13,360
my boy John put us on the phone. I'm like, wait, you're the guy? Yeah, man, I had a top 10 pick

704
01:09:13,360 --> 01:09:21,040
this year. Are you kidding me? Yeah. So it's just been something that I've always done. Like I

705
01:09:21,040 --> 01:09:26,400
answer all emails. If you can believe that it doesn't matter who it is. The kid does division

706
01:09:26,400 --> 01:09:32,160
two NAIA that wants to go pro. I answer the email because I give him the information. Hey, listen,

707
01:09:32,160 --> 01:09:37,200
do you want to play overseas? Okay, do you understand what level you will start, etc,

708
01:09:37,200 --> 01:09:42,400
etc. So I always answer all emails and all calls and try to do my best with mentoring and giving

709
01:09:42,400 --> 01:09:47,520
back. I like that. So speaking to our audience, if you're a young agent, even a player, and you

710
01:09:47,520 --> 01:09:52,640
have aspirations of working in this industry or being in this industry, this is your guy.

711
01:09:53,920 --> 01:10:00,560
I promise. Listen, listen, don't flood it. But we'll make sure that the email address that's

712
01:10:00,560 --> 01:10:05,120
associated with him one that you know, you guys just can't go crazy with will be down in the

713
01:10:05,120 --> 01:10:08,480
description below. But seriously, after everything you've heard today, why wouldn't you give him a

714
01:10:08,480 --> 01:10:16,720
chance? Right? So I like that. Now, basketball, specifically talk basketball, guys, just straight

715
01:10:16,720 --> 01:10:22,640
hoops, right? Just straight hoops. Kind of like rapid fire, a little rapid fire. But we like to

716
01:10:22,640 --> 01:10:27,840
ask everybody this very so much but like, who are your top five NBA players of all time? All

717
01:10:27,840 --> 01:10:35,360
right, so I'm a Michigan State guy. So Magic Johnson, right? Start with MJ. Okay, meaning magic.

718
01:10:36,160 --> 01:10:43,840
We go with the other MJ, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron, right? Right. So these are probably

719
01:10:43,840 --> 01:10:51,360
most people's top four, right? And then it gets tricky, I guess, at least for me, because you go

720
01:10:51,360 --> 01:10:55,760
in top five, are we going, you know, the best players, the best talent, the best whatever.

721
01:10:55,760 --> 01:11:02,560
But I lean towards Kareem, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I think he gets, I get I think he gets, for lack

722
01:11:02,560 --> 01:11:09,680
of better term, crapped on all the time. And in my area, like, he was the guy, right? So he was,

723
01:11:09,680 --> 01:11:16,080
Kareem was the guy, you know, people forget about what he done as Lou Auscender, prior to Kareem,

724
01:11:16,080 --> 01:11:22,480
right? He was heavily rated and ranked as a high schooler. He was what we saw with LeBron,

725
01:11:22,480 --> 01:11:28,480
what we saw with LeBron, take away the magazines and some of the TV and some of the things that

726
01:11:28,480 --> 01:11:34,240
were available to you. So he was all of that. So I would say Kareem, you know, would be my fifth.

727
01:11:34,240 --> 01:11:39,040
I think a lot of people, I don't want to say discredit or forget about those before because

728
01:11:39,040 --> 01:11:43,200
they were trailblazers. And so I guess like you always hear like, you know, what's the new thing,

729
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:48,000
done with the 90s. There was nobody they were playing against back then. But somebody had to

730
01:11:48,000 --> 01:11:52,640
start, somebody had to do it. And Kareem did it at such a high level. So I feel like he has to be in

731
01:11:52,640 --> 01:11:59,760
the top five. Yeah, nah, Kareem, we like, I mean, and he held this record for what, 40 years, I

732
01:11:59,760 --> 01:12:06,800
believe it is. Like, how we just keep stepping over Kareem to get to whoever it is that, you know,

733
01:12:06,800 --> 01:12:11,280
nothing wrong. I'm sure there's, there's a lot of guys that could be on that list, but those are my

734
01:12:11,280 --> 01:12:17,360
guys. To me, Magic is the best point guard that's ever played. Regardless of, you know, Steph changing

735
01:12:17,360 --> 01:12:21,840
the game in a way, but like, think about where the game was at when Magic came into the game,

736
01:12:21,840 --> 01:12:29,600
right? Say thank you. Say thank you to Magic and Larry Bird, you know, everyone. So I don't think

737
01:12:29,600 --> 01:12:34,720
that you can, I don't think, you know, Steph or anyone else has caught into past Magic. And

738
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:40,480
remember, his career was cut short because he detect, you know, he, you know, got the virus

739
01:12:40,480 --> 01:12:47,440
that can cause age, HIV. So, you know, Magic to me is the best. So in my opinion, how could you go

740
01:12:47,440 --> 01:12:52,720
wrong with those five? You know, LeBron can play anywhere, right? So if you go on position basketball,

741
01:12:52,720 --> 01:12:58,320
you can put those guys in positions as well. For sure. Okay. All right. Now listing your top five

742
01:12:58,320 --> 01:13:05,360
and then building a seven man roster is a little different in some cases. So I like your five,

743
01:13:05,360 --> 01:13:11,920
but if you had to build a seven man roster, including one coach to play 82 game season

744
01:13:11,920 --> 01:13:18,000
and win a title, who's on your team? My coach is Chuck Daly. I'm a piston. So I'm going with Chuck.

745
01:13:19,520 --> 01:13:23,920
I know everybody want to go with field. I hear you on field, but I'm going Chuck, right? Because

746
01:13:24,640 --> 01:13:30,480
he took the Isaiah Thomas Detroit Pistons one, two back to back championships, almost got three.

747
01:13:30,480 --> 01:13:35,440
You know, if, if, if bird don't steal the ball, you know, the play that's always in, you know,

748
01:13:35,440 --> 01:13:43,600
in, in, in garden, but it was three in a row. So I'm going Chuck and that Pistons team was like

749
01:13:43,600 --> 01:13:49,600
a bunch of dysfunctional personalities that came together. Rodman, Sally, Rick Mahorn,

750
01:13:49,600 --> 01:13:54,400
they're all misfits. If you will, Joe Dewar's coming out of McNeese state. Boom, they win the

751
01:13:54,400 --> 01:14:02,320
title. Right. Yeah. Two of them. So I'm going, I'm going to daily out of my five. I'm keeping four.

752
01:14:02,320 --> 01:14:12,560
I'm keeping the magic. I'm keeping MJ Jordan and I'm keeping Kobe. I'm keeping LeBron. Okay. I knew

753
01:14:12,560 --> 01:14:16,640
he's going to call off that list. I knew it. I'm coming off that list for the seven. So that's

754
01:14:16,640 --> 01:14:24,560
four. So now five, I'm sliding in Bill Russell. Oh, what? Okay. So listen, because look how good

755
01:14:24,560 --> 01:14:29,760
the team is, right? Seven man roster. Everybody ain't going to be able to shoot. Yeah. Bill Russell

756
01:14:29,760 --> 01:14:35,600
shows that he could play with hall of famers and he could win. So you gotta have someone that's a

757
01:14:35,600 --> 01:14:42,880
leader, someone that has the personality to be able to manage these egos. Bill Russell did it as a

758
01:14:42,880 --> 01:14:47,280
player and as a player coach, right? He's the only one that really did the player coach thing,

759
01:14:47,280 --> 01:14:51,360
right? Which was mentioned that somebody threw that out, you know, let LeBron be the player coach

760
01:14:51,360 --> 01:14:58,400
of the Lakers. Right. At one point, right? So Bill Russell, that's five. Then I'm going Steph Curry

761
01:14:58,400 --> 01:15:02,960
because the game is different now. So you need somebody to stretch, stretch the floor. Yeah.

762
01:15:04,160 --> 01:15:09,680
And then my seventh is going to be a little bit of an unorthodox pick, you know, and I would go

763
01:15:09,680 --> 01:15:18,320
between two guys, but I think you need a dog. Like, hey man, bring the, bring the, I don't want to

764
01:15:18,320 --> 01:15:26,160
curse, but bring the after the house, right? Kevin Garnett. I knew it. I'm going KG, bro. So my seven,

765
01:15:26,160 --> 01:15:30,320
right? You got, you got, you know, let everybody debate who's the best, you know, whether it's

766
01:15:30,320 --> 01:15:36,400
Michael Jordan, is it LeBron? Is it Colby? Cool. Y'all argue that. Okay. What would the best point

767
01:15:36,400 --> 01:15:42,160
guard do? You know, come on now, Magic Johnson, right? The fast break, right? You know, he see,

768
01:15:42,160 --> 01:15:48,400
he got eyes everywhere, right? Michigan State alumni. I'm going with the, the camp Bill Russell,

769
01:15:48,400 --> 01:15:55,040
right? The greatest, right? The most winning is athlete for basketball. I'm going with Steph,

770
01:15:55,040 --> 01:15:58,000
who's stretching the floor and I'm going with that mother effort. You know, I'm going with KG,

771
01:15:58,000 --> 01:16:03,520
that kid bull that's coming in there. So, so that way, I think that's seven. I think we can line up

772
01:16:03,520 --> 01:16:09,200
with anybody. You ain't throw Shaq in there ever? Now look, Shaq was the one guy that would have

773
01:16:09,200 --> 01:16:16,160
been that is it Shaq or KG? Now look, don't be mad at me, Shaq, cause you know what I mean? I'm

774
01:16:16,160 --> 01:16:22,480
mad at you, I think you're mad. Shaq, I love you, baby. You my man, 100 grand. But I just, would,

775
01:16:22,480 --> 01:16:27,120
would Shaq make the team a better, like more dominant? Yes. But you got to have some

776
01:16:27,120 --> 01:16:34,800
personalities. The seven dudes and I think Shaq and Kobe, right? Yeah, true. Maybe depending on

777
01:16:34,800 --> 01:16:40,560
what timeframe this team was put together, where they're at, you know, egos. I think KG would maybe

778
01:16:40,560 --> 01:16:46,080
fit a little bit better with this team because he would take a more of a defensive role. I mean,

779
01:16:46,080 --> 01:16:50,480
you could have put Duncan, there's other guys, right? I mean, I love Duncan and others,

780
01:16:51,040 --> 01:16:57,040
but for me, I'm going with the pit bull and KG, and I'm going with the, the, the, the, the,

781
01:16:57,040 --> 01:17:03,040
you know, Steph to stress the floor. I'm adding Bill Russell so that, you know, we make sure we

782
01:17:03,040 --> 01:17:07,680
win. And then I'm going with the four guys that I think are the best. No, I like that. Your team

783
01:17:07,680 --> 01:17:12,400
literally from top to bottom has everything on it. And I, I was second guessing that Bill Russell

784
01:17:12,400 --> 01:17:17,840
decision until you brought up the leadership aspect, someone to rein in that team. And that

785
01:17:17,840 --> 01:17:23,280
right there goes unnoticed more than anything else on a championship team. So I like that. Absolutely,

786
01:17:23,280 --> 01:17:29,040
man. Like they always talk about like all star teams win games and teams win championships. So

787
01:17:29,040 --> 01:17:33,120
it's like, you gotta, you gotta have somebody to kind of keep, you know, keep the team, a team,

788
01:17:33,120 --> 01:17:38,400
keep the main thing, a main thing. Yeah. And then, you know, even so not having Shaq coming in,

789
01:17:38,400 --> 01:17:43,360
I like that you put at least a power forward in there. Cause then if you take Coby or Mike out of

790
01:17:43,360 --> 01:17:47,440
that equation and just have a two, you move a Bron up to three, then you got a power forward coming

791
01:17:47,440 --> 01:17:52,400
in to compliment the three, four, and then Bill, I like it. I love it. Absolutely. Hey, you know,

792
01:17:52,400 --> 01:17:58,720
I mean, ain't everybody's team, but it's mine. The other day we had an interesting take when it came

793
01:17:58,720 --> 01:18:03,280
to the ball brothers. I personally liked both of their games. I liked both of their games.

794
01:18:03,280 --> 01:18:07,200
And then, so I was saying if healthy, you know, in the perfect world, cause like the point guard

795
01:18:07,200 --> 01:18:12,160
position is so heavy right now, I think it's very plausible that they can be top five in the next

796
01:18:12,160 --> 01:18:17,600
season if both healthy. How do you feel about that? Now, now listen, a lot of people, a lot of people

797
01:18:17,600 --> 01:18:22,000
said this man over here was crazy. They said, no, they can never be, even if they were healthy,

798
01:18:22,000 --> 01:18:26,880
you still got Brunson, Dan, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Even Halliburton now is thrown in there.

799
01:18:26,880 --> 01:18:31,760
So I'm loving, I love to hear your opinion on this. Cause ours is a little, I guess different.

800
01:18:31,760 --> 01:18:38,400
Man, this is always difficult. The health thing is always tough, right? Because it's always that

801
01:18:38,400 --> 01:18:45,920
unpredictable situation. So I see LaMelo not as a point guard. I see Mello kind of more as a

802
01:18:45,920 --> 01:18:54,080
untraditional, like point forward type of a player, right? So Lonzo, man, Lonzo has speed,

803
01:18:54,560 --> 01:19:05,120
quickness. He's strong. He's a good athlete and Lonzo has that vision. Now think about this now.

804
01:19:05,760 --> 01:19:12,320
Lonzo, you know, he took a team, he took a UCLA team that they weren't that good and they had great

805
01:19:12,320 --> 01:19:19,360
success. He made everyone better. I remember years ago, man, it was an issue about discussing kids.

806
01:19:19,360 --> 01:19:24,000
And one of my players, Jason Riches, I'll just tell you, Jason Riches, he was talking about,

807
01:19:24,000 --> 01:19:29,760
back then the college kids would play, they would have a scrimmage against the USA basketball team.

808
01:19:29,760 --> 01:19:30,160
Right.

809
01:19:30,160 --> 01:19:38,240
Okay. And Jay Rich talked about, you know, at the time, I think it was Jay Will, Jason Williams,

810
01:19:38,240 --> 01:19:42,000
was the point guard of that team. And he's like, man, he's holding onto the ball a little long.

811
01:19:42,000 --> 01:19:48,000
He's getting the assist, but by the time he get it to me, like I got to make a, like a difficult

812
01:19:48,000 --> 01:19:53,520
play. But if he would just trust me and get it ahead early, then I could make a play, you know

813
01:19:53,520 --> 01:19:58,480
what I mean, and have better results on my end, especially in transition. He wouldn't necessarily

814
01:19:58,480 --> 01:20:04,160
get the assist because I might have to put it on the deck. So you have a lot of traditional point

815
01:20:04,160 --> 01:20:10,240
guards now, not to name names, because so much has changed. They hold onto the ball and like,

816
01:20:10,240 --> 01:20:15,280
all right, shoot it now. Right. Right. Like, all right, shoot your time. Right. To me, that's not

817
01:20:15,280 --> 01:20:20,080
your traditional point guard. I think like, you know, Isaiah Thomas did, Magic Johnson,

818
01:20:20,080 --> 01:20:27,920
they passed it ahead. Lonzo Borg gave the ball up. And so being a point guard that, that, that

819
01:20:27,920 --> 01:20:34,720
moves it, like you can't run faster than the ball moves. So, you know, why was Golden State so good?

820
01:20:34,720 --> 01:20:39,520
Because the ball doesn't stick, right? It's always moving. You can't outrun the pass.

821
01:20:39,520 --> 01:20:47,600
Yeah. So taking that, I believe Lonzo ball would be, could be an excellent point guard. And then

822
01:20:47,600 --> 01:20:54,000
ranking him top five would not be out of question. Now, speaking in LaMelo, I think he's, you know,

823
01:20:54,000 --> 01:20:59,040
different. I think that's another subject. He would go to more of your, you know, your scoring

824
01:20:59,040 --> 01:21:03,200
lead, you know, type guards where you essentially giving the ball to your best player and say,

825
01:21:03,200 --> 01:21:11,280
hey man, we're going to play off you. But Lonzo is your old school, great lead, team leading

826
01:21:11,280 --> 01:21:17,520
point guard. And had he, if he could come back and be, you know, healthy, I think he would

827
01:21:18,080 --> 01:21:24,880
climb the charts very fast. LaMelo, what'd he do? 20, like 20 and eight. It looks like,

828
01:21:24,880 --> 01:21:29,120
my biggest thing is that he looks like he's having so much fun out there more than actually like,

829
01:21:29,120 --> 01:21:33,280
like these are grown men that you're playing against and he did not have a traditional way of

830
01:21:33,280 --> 01:21:37,280
getting to the league. And he looks like it's so much fun out there and he's putting up these

831
01:21:37,280 --> 01:21:41,280
numbers. So as soon as he starts to reel it in and really just like focus on basketball,

832
01:21:42,240 --> 01:21:47,440
I feel like he's going to be a problem if he's having. Now, LaMelo's incredible, right? Now,

833
01:21:47,440 --> 01:21:52,960
let's do this. Let's shout out they dad because the dad has got criticized a lot and man,

834
01:21:52,960 --> 01:21:58,720
to have two players go top five in the draft, bro, that's incredible. I don't care what you call it,

835
01:21:58,720 --> 01:22:03,760
what you want to label, brilliant is what I call it. That's brilliant, right? So shout out to him,

836
01:22:03,760 --> 01:22:08,560
you know, for working their ass off and still in the talent in them, you know, holding them

837
01:22:08,560 --> 01:22:13,520
accountable. You can question it, the business decisions and all of that, but shout out to dad

838
01:22:13,520 --> 01:22:21,280
for that. You know, that's a mark that maybe might not be repeated anytime soon. But that being said,

839
01:22:21,280 --> 01:22:25,280
I love LaMelo. I'm just saying that it's different. It's, you know, kind of goes with the

840
01:22:25,280 --> 01:22:32,640
Highland burden. I think there's room for guys to, you know, kind of jump in and take off.

841
01:22:32,640 --> 01:22:40,160
Yeah. I think LaMelo is as definitely as talented as Highland Bird and several others, right? He has

842
01:22:40,160 --> 01:22:44,640
so much in his package. He gives you those untraditional passes, right? He gonna give you

843
01:22:44,640 --> 01:22:50,080
that flash and razzle dazzle with his game. And he will pass the head. LaMelo will as well.

844
01:22:50,080 --> 01:22:57,040
But I think also there's a burden on LaMelo to score that could potentially, you know, maybe take

845
01:22:57,040 --> 01:23:01,760
away from his attributes as a point guard, because I think they need him to do that. And obviously

846
01:23:01,760 --> 01:23:07,040
he can do that as well. All right. So what do you like with JJ ready to become an Lakers head coach?

847
01:23:07,040 --> 01:23:11,280
There's been a lot of questionable decisions because they think there's other people out there

848
01:23:11,280 --> 01:23:17,200
that have better accolades or better resume than he does. Like, how do you feel about that? First

849
01:23:17,200 --> 01:23:23,840
of all, Sam Cassell is a great coach. I mean, he's one as a player, which you're talking about. He's

850
01:23:23,840 --> 01:23:30,000
one of the players, one as a coach. He's paid his dues. He's been in different organizations.

851
01:23:30,000 --> 01:23:36,160
He's always been a leader. He's always been someone that has overcome obstacles, whether it's

852
01:23:36,160 --> 01:23:43,840
career wise, so on and so forth. So Sam Cassell deserves an opportunity. Now, the Lakers is

853
01:23:43,840 --> 01:23:52,160
different. It's LA, it's the Lakers. It's a different story program. There's a look,

854
01:23:53,200 --> 01:23:59,920
there's a level of pressure in all of those things that come with it. So, you know, just being thrown

855
01:23:59,920 --> 01:24:06,480
in anybody as a first time coach is going to be difficult. So JJ Reddick, JJ Reddick has been

856
01:24:06,480 --> 01:24:12,160
through the fire from the standpoint as he does media. There's pressure with that, right? You guys,

857
01:24:12,160 --> 01:24:16,720
you know, entirely media, right? You guys have your own podcast. You know what I mean? Like,

858
01:24:16,720 --> 01:24:21,840
there's pressure being able to answer questions and be able to think on the fly. So that, you know,

859
01:24:21,840 --> 01:24:28,320
I think JJ has experience with that. JJ has, you know, he's played, you know, played a Duke coach.

860
01:24:28,320 --> 01:24:34,080
Okay, he's had a number of coaches in the league. So I would imagine that he has a philosophy in

861
01:24:34,080 --> 01:24:41,120
different strategies that he would be able to deliver. Nothing beats experience, right? He

862
01:24:41,120 --> 01:24:45,280
doesn't have experience. He's never coached in the NBA. So anybody that says he's going to be great

863
01:24:45,280 --> 01:24:49,760
or he's going to be terrible or whatever, we're all just taking a wild guess. You know what I mean?

864
01:24:49,760 --> 01:24:57,520
I think we're all taking a guess. But I worked with Rob Pelinka and I like Rob and Rob is different

865
01:24:58,240 --> 01:25:04,480
and people don't always get him or understand him. But Rob Pelinka is different. He thinks,

866
01:25:04,480 --> 01:25:13,680
you know, thinks different. He has his own process of evaluating. And so I would believe in, you know,

867
01:25:13,680 --> 01:25:19,840
in Rob's decision, right? We go back. So I would think that he did his due diligence in making that

868
01:25:19,840 --> 01:25:28,000
decision. It's not just coaching. It's culture, right? It's culture. It's, you know, the Lakers

869
01:25:28,000 --> 01:25:34,800
are always under the microscope. So there's, you know, people are talking about the look, right?

870
01:25:34,800 --> 01:25:35,360
Yeah.

871
01:25:35,360 --> 01:25:41,440
He has the look. Can he deal with the pressure? Can he carry himself a particular way?

872
01:25:42,000 --> 01:25:47,360
And I don't think that it is the pressure of necessarily judging him specifically on winning

873
01:25:47,360 --> 01:25:54,880
today. I believe that they're preparing for just life after LeBron. Like him learning with LeBron,

874
01:25:54,880 --> 01:25:58,560
you know what? Give him an opportunity to coach with LeBron so he can pick up some things

875
01:25:59,120 --> 01:26:06,320
and then be prepared, you know, to move the Lakers into the future thereafter LeBron. So I think

876
01:26:06,320 --> 01:26:12,560
they're kind of, in my opinion, giving him the opportunity to coach with a guy at LeBron's level

877
01:26:12,560 --> 01:26:18,080
so that when we have the next one, you have some experience with a megastar or a superstar.

878
01:26:18,080 --> 01:26:22,160
That's an excellent viewpoint. Again, Lakers, whole different animal when you talk about teams

879
01:26:22,160 --> 01:26:28,080
and bringing a coach in, right? And so I think having, I agree with you there, having him in

880
01:26:28,080 --> 01:26:32,800
that position where you're looking at these next few years as a learning experience rather than

881
01:26:32,800 --> 01:26:38,000
we must win now should change the perspective on how I guess in four years when his contract

882
01:26:38,000 --> 01:26:43,120
negotiations happen, might be looking at that a little differently, or at least they might

883
01:26:43,120 --> 01:26:45,360
be looking at that a little differently than how the world will.

884
01:26:45,360 --> 01:26:50,080
I definitely wish nothing but the best for anybody in their ventures. I guess that's not what I'm

885
01:26:50,080 --> 01:26:53,440
saying when it comes to like, JJ, I just feel like what you said kind of hit on the head,

886
01:26:54,240 --> 01:26:59,520
the nail on the head earlier. Like you can't coach experience. Like I feel like Sam Cassell,

887
01:26:59,520 --> 01:27:03,120
just specifically that one, that's when I saw the most recent, but like Sam Cassell, his resume is

888
01:27:03,120 --> 01:27:08,720
so crazy and on the teams he played for his basketball career plus his coaching career for

889
01:27:08,720 --> 01:27:15,440
like the past 10 years, most recently Celtic. So it's just like, and he was the Clippers

890
01:27:15,440 --> 01:27:19,840
assistant coach. So he's had those big environments and everything, especially even being in LA.

891
01:27:19,840 --> 01:27:24,560
I just feel like, you know, maybe it is the look and everything's about money. Everything's about

892
01:27:24,560 --> 01:27:32,240
money. Everything's about marketing. So I do feel like as JJ is more marketable than Sam Cassell.

893
01:27:33,120 --> 01:27:36,560
But now I was like, sheesh, when you put it side by side, I'm like, dang.

894
01:27:36,560 --> 01:27:40,560
Yeah, side by side is not going to compare, right? You know, if you just traditional thinking.

895
01:27:42,720 --> 01:27:47,040
I am a little bit surprised that they went with a player again though, because,

896
01:27:47,040 --> 01:27:52,560
you know, having Darvin Ham was a player. I was a little bit surprised that they went

897
01:27:52,560 --> 01:27:57,600
with a player again and not a heavily experienced coach, but they thought outside the box.

898
01:27:57,600 --> 01:28:02,000
So I think they're thinking different. I think in my opinion, they may have felt

899
01:28:02,000 --> 01:28:09,600
Cassell is similar, could be similar to Darvin Ham. Darvin Ham has been an assistant for a long time,

900
01:28:09,600 --> 01:28:14,240
won a championship with the Bucks, always been that, you know, right-hand guy and boom,

901
01:28:14,240 --> 01:28:18,800
we gave him a chance. That would probably be similar with Cassell. So you know what,

902
01:28:18,800 --> 01:28:23,200
we're going to change this and mix it up a little bit. We're going to go outside the box. We're

903
01:28:23,200 --> 01:28:27,840
giving a guy a first chance, but a little bit different. So I think they just kind of

904
01:28:28,560 --> 01:28:32,720
switched gears a little bit and went a little bit more unique in their decision process.

905
01:28:32,720 --> 01:28:38,960
I'm saying definitely credible. All right. So then taking our last question back home for you,

906
01:28:38,960 --> 01:28:46,880
when you look at the Detroit Pistons, what is one piece of advice that you would give them

907
01:28:47,440 --> 01:28:52,720
to make their next season a better one? Wow. Put me on the spot here. I got a lot of relationships

908
01:28:52,720 --> 01:28:57,760
with the Pistons now. Work for R and Tell them who's the chairman. Trajan Langdon,

909
01:28:58,640 --> 01:29:02,400
they just hired. I love that hire. I think that's fantastic. Trajan's going to be great.

910
01:29:03,200 --> 01:29:08,640
But if I was to give advice, right, it would be locking into the city. What do you mean? Now,

911
01:29:08,640 --> 01:29:13,200
marketing and NIL, they've done a lot of good things and I'm sure they'll continue to do.

912
01:29:13,200 --> 01:29:18,160
But matching that blue collar might think about when the Pistons were good.

913
01:29:18,160 --> 01:29:23,920
Chauncey Billups, Rashid Wallace, right? Blue collar type dudes, right? Isaiah Thomas,

914
01:29:23,920 --> 01:29:33,600
Joe Dumar, Sally. It's always been with like a gritty, hardworking, match the energy of the city

915
01:29:33,600 --> 01:29:39,760
type of a roster. A Hollywood roster, it just won't mix in Detroit, right? It just won't be

916
01:29:39,760 --> 01:29:44,960
well received by the community, won't be well received by the media, won't be received by the

917
01:29:44,960 --> 01:29:49,680
fans. So I think that they need to continue. I think they're on the right path. I think they're

918
01:29:49,680 --> 01:29:55,680
going to do a great job. I would just say that, you know, from a coaching standpoint, the culture

919
01:29:56,320 --> 01:30:02,240
and as they continue to add, you know, to the roster, you know, to continue to add guys that

920
01:30:02,240 --> 01:30:10,560
match that blue collar energy, that hardworking mentality. Guys that are not pre-Mandanas,

921
01:30:10,560 --> 01:30:16,400
guys that also healthy, guys that can give you, maybe they can't give you 82 games,

922
01:30:16,400 --> 01:30:23,760
but guys that have the desire to play 82 games, right? Especially when you're looking at free

923
01:30:23,760 --> 01:30:28,800
agency, like instead of getting a guy that may be a name, you know, whatever, who's a guy that's

924
01:30:28,800 --> 01:30:34,320
durable? Who's a guy that is, you know, that's going to be with us every night? I think, you know,

925
01:30:35,040 --> 01:30:39,440
obviously it's a mix in the match, but I think that would be an area that if I was giving any

926
01:30:39,440 --> 01:30:45,760
advice and I'm not, even though there was an article that came out that suggested, you know,

927
01:30:45,760 --> 01:30:50,480
me being in the front office over there, I'm not. I got great relationships over there. I love those

928
01:30:50,480 --> 01:30:57,040
guys. Aaron Tellem has been a mentor and a friend a long time. So that would be my advice. So just

929
01:30:57,040 --> 01:31:05,600
keep the bad boy Pistons vibe when it comes to Detroit. Yes, I think you have to. You know, who

930
01:31:05,600 --> 01:31:09,760
probably might have done well over there if he wasn't so tied and to go and stay would have been

931
01:31:09,760 --> 01:31:17,040
Draymond. Absolutely. He went to Michigan. And he's in Michigan. He went to Michigan. Yes, Draymond

932
01:31:17,040 --> 01:31:21,920
would be great as a Pistons. And that may even happen. That may not, that might still be something

933
01:31:21,920 --> 01:31:27,600
that potentially may be happening. You never know. Free agency and the trade deadline things,

934
01:31:27,600 --> 01:31:33,280
you know, things happen. He would definitely fit. Yeah. Kevon Looney would fit. That's a going to.

935
01:31:33,280 --> 01:31:39,840
Looney's gritty. A guy that plays 82 games, right? Yeah. But he would fit. I like that. I like that

936
01:31:39,840 --> 01:31:43,920
a lot, especially because of the talent there. I mean, it's not when you look at the Pistons,

937
01:31:43,920 --> 01:31:49,360
it's not a talent deficiency that they have. They have the talent. I think, at least it's just like

938
01:31:49,360 --> 01:31:54,400
you were saying, like you need that mentality and obviously a coach that supports that mentality that

939
01:31:54,400 --> 01:32:00,640
you're talking about. So yeah, I mean, it just was a whole, you know, they had to make changes and

940
01:32:00,640 --> 01:32:06,720
the changes that they made, I think, you know, hopefully moving forward, different vision,

941
01:32:06,720 --> 01:32:12,720
you know, different leadership, I think, you know, different coaching. I think, I think things will

942
01:32:12,720 --> 01:32:18,240
get better here moving forward. I think they got a great piece in Cade. So yeah, he's tough. He's

943
01:32:18,240 --> 01:32:24,640
tough. Yes. And then they got those surrounding pieces. So yes, I kind of switch it up real quick.

944
01:32:25,280 --> 01:32:31,520
If you could go back in time to like your 18 year old self, what would be some advice now looking

945
01:32:31,520 --> 01:32:37,920
back that you would give yourself? One piece. One piece of advice. It would just be one sentence.

946
01:32:37,920 --> 01:32:44,080
It would just be like, it's going to be all right. And I think when you're younger, right, so I'm a

947
01:32:44,080 --> 01:32:49,520
believer, right? And so being a believer, you know, as you go through trials and tribulations

948
01:32:49,520 --> 01:32:56,800
and things change and different dynamics, you know, your emotions often may get you into trouble

949
01:32:56,800 --> 01:33:03,920
with your decisions because often we make emotional decisions. So I would just, you know,

950
01:33:03,920 --> 01:33:08,640
try to give myself a level of calmness. And just I would say to myself,

951
01:33:08,640 --> 01:33:13,520
stay the course is going to be all right. And that would obviously I would, you know, change some

952
01:33:13,520 --> 01:33:23,120
things, but I think decisions that I made that I would might want to adjust would be because of

953
01:33:23,120 --> 01:33:30,320
emotions. And so simply just everything's going to be all right. Stay the course, be calm, think

954
01:33:30,320 --> 01:33:35,840
things through. Staying on the course of life. I think that during the duration that we spend here

955
01:33:35,840 --> 01:33:43,120
on earth, you can always look at certain people that kind of shaped your life, made you pivot,

956
01:33:43,120 --> 01:33:47,440
put you on the right path, whatever it may be. I want to talk about three people that in your

957
01:33:47,440 --> 01:33:54,240
current life up until today have been the most influential for you. And how did they actually

958
01:33:54,240 --> 01:34:01,920
impact you? Three people. I can't name 10, right? Three. All right, three. So the first one would be

959
01:34:01,920 --> 01:34:10,160
would be my pastor, Edward Lucas, New Faith Tabernacle Church of God in Christ out of Detroit

960
01:34:10,160 --> 01:34:18,640
Bishop, right? He is the first one that, you know, helped me along with I had another uncle as well,

961
01:34:18,640 --> 01:34:25,680
Bishop Bogan, both of them passed. But Elder Edward Lucas was the first one to, you know,

962
01:34:25,680 --> 01:34:35,760
to instill that love for Christ, that love for having a relationship with the Lord, you know,

963
01:34:35,760 --> 01:34:42,800
and enjoying having a relationship with the Lord and trying to have him be involved in as many

964
01:34:42,800 --> 01:34:46,800
things as possible. Everything. But come on now, we're all sinners and we all make mistakes.

965
01:34:46,800 --> 01:34:54,800
So I'm not going to make it seem like I'm a bad boy, right? I don't do a lot of bad things, right?

966
01:34:54,800 --> 01:35:00,160
But I'm just saying like he instilled in me, you know, to repent, ask for forgiveness. And so that

967
01:35:00,160 --> 01:35:06,080
has been kind of the center of my life, right? All the mistakes that I've made in life, I'm always

968
01:35:06,080 --> 01:35:12,480
repent. So he'd be number one. Number two, I would say would be Sonny Vicarro. Sonny Vicarro has

969
01:35:12,480 --> 01:35:20,720
guided all of this, man. This guy has navigated for young athletes forever, right? It's not just

970
01:35:20,720 --> 01:35:29,040
ABCD can't. The round ball classic, our relationship with all of the shoe companies, the big time.

971
01:35:30,160 --> 01:35:36,160
But it's also he's the one that nudged me into the agent space. He's the one that introduced me to

972
01:35:36,160 --> 01:35:43,200
R&T. That's how I went to SFX. He's the one that is why I had a relationship with Mark Workinstein.

973
01:35:43,200 --> 01:35:50,560
He's the one who I established my first relationship with Coach Tim Gertridge, who

974
01:35:51,680 --> 01:35:56,000
doesn't get a lot of credit. You know, those old timers, they know him. The Gertridge camp,

975
01:35:56,000 --> 01:36:03,360
that's like the first like working camp where all of these guys, Paul Pierce and Baron Davis,

976
01:36:03,360 --> 01:36:08,960
all these guys over the years honed their skills. I started with Eric Snow when Coach Gert was

977
01:36:08,960 --> 01:36:17,040
in Seattle. So without Sonny, I mean, man, I mean, anytime I've been in any type of situation,

978
01:36:17,040 --> 01:36:21,280
first person I call is Sonny, right? Sonny, what do you think? You know, Sonny, what is your thoughts?

979
01:36:22,160 --> 01:36:27,920
So Sonny, Sonny has shaped pretty much everything for me from a basketball standpoint and a career

980
01:36:27,920 --> 01:36:37,840
standpoint. And then this one is, it's easy to say, but it's not. Tom Izzo. Now Tom has known me

981
01:36:37,840 --> 01:36:42,400
since I was an 18 year old kid coming to Michigan State University looking to play basketball. Okay.

982
01:36:44,480 --> 01:36:49,600
And he was assistant coach to Judd at that time and obviously became head coach and is, you know,

983
01:36:49,600 --> 01:36:56,720
still getting it done. But Tom and I have had like this roller coaster relationship because I

984
01:36:56,720 --> 01:37:02,640
dominated AAU. And at one point, I'm going to be honest, I pushed and almost suggested everybody go

985
01:37:02,640 --> 01:37:07,040
to Michigan State. And then there was a period where it was like, wait a second, everybody can't

986
01:37:07,040 --> 01:37:13,200
go to Michigan State. Like they got to go to other schools, which wasn't good business for Tom,

987
01:37:13,200 --> 01:37:18,480
because in his mind, I want them all. Right? So me like, well, hold on, they got to look at other

988
01:37:18,480 --> 01:37:23,040
spots. There was a little bit of a conflict. And so things got a little rocky for some time. But

989
01:37:23,040 --> 01:37:29,120
over the years, I mean, he's the one that I went to when Matt Ischbier wanted to play basketball

990
01:37:29,120 --> 01:37:35,680
in college and is like, hey, coach, I want to play. Tom, I want you to take this five foot nine kid

991
01:37:35,680 --> 01:37:41,760
and let him walk on your basketball team. Right. And so that whole dynamic opened up. So,

992
01:37:43,280 --> 01:37:48,240
so is this kind of been that one that holds me accountable? Like he'll just, he'll curse me out.

993
01:37:48,240 --> 01:37:54,640
Right. Because he knows that I'm 18, I'm 52. Is to this day will be, you know, my nickname is Cruz.

994
01:37:54,640 --> 01:38:02,000
Cruz, that's bullshit. Excuse my language. And he'll call me out on things. And so those probably

995
01:38:02,000 --> 01:38:08,400
have all impacted me, I would say the most throughout my life. Well said. And kind of just

996
01:38:08,400 --> 01:38:15,920
to wrap it all up. We've asked you a lot of questions today, but what was one question that

997
01:38:15,920 --> 01:38:20,800
you wish we'd asked and how would you have answered it? I wish you guys would have asked about NIL

998
01:38:20,800 --> 01:38:27,600
because I use this hashtag of father of NIL. Right. So everybody loves name, image and likeness,

999
01:38:27,600 --> 01:38:32,800
but a lot of people don't know the history of it. Right. And so it started, it just started,

1000
01:38:32,800 --> 01:38:37,520
it started because everybody was saying players should get paid. Chris Webber was, when he talked

1001
01:38:37,520 --> 01:38:42,480
about why he went pro, he's like, man, I see my Jersey, you know, in the student bookstore and

1002
01:38:42,480 --> 01:38:47,440
it's selling for a hundred dollars and I can't even buy it. I'm going pro. And you've had stories for

1003
01:38:47,440 --> 01:38:53,600
years about that. Well, myself, Gary Charles, we would discuss it at ABC camp every year.

1004
01:38:53,600 --> 01:38:59,520
And we try to do some things to help. And so we initially started with filing these lawsuits

1005
01:38:59,840 --> 01:39:04,480
that nobody knows about. We would file these, we try to create these class action lawsuits,

1006
01:39:04,480 --> 01:39:10,160
right? Small ones, different states, boom, boom, boom. And we're just with our guys. It would be

1007
01:39:10,160 --> 01:39:14,880
whoever I had, Eric Dievendorf, Anthony Robeson, whoever, whoever Gary had, you know, Lamar Oldham,

1008
01:39:14,880 --> 01:39:23,040
whoever. And we'd be filing and it wouldn't get all this traction. And so we even had

1009
01:39:23,040 --> 01:39:28,480
we even helped football quarterback at Northwestern, Ramugi and those guys.

1010
01:39:28,480 --> 01:39:32,960
They were trying to become unionized. So we introduced them to the Steelworkers Union

1011
01:39:32,960 --> 01:39:39,520
to try to file for union. And so we had all this stuff going on. And finally that magic bullet

1012
01:39:39,520 --> 01:39:46,000
came. There was always, well, this guy is filing because he didn't have a NBA career. He needs

1013
01:39:46,000 --> 01:39:53,360
money. So he's filing. Well, this guy, like nobody ever checked the boxes until, you know, Sonny on

1014
01:39:53,360 --> 01:39:59,040
his own, him and Pem, you know, decided to travel to all of these universities and just talk about

1015
01:39:59,760 --> 01:40:04,480
the differences with college athletes not getting paid. You know, for instance, Sonny would say,

1016
01:40:04,480 --> 01:40:09,840
he's at South Carolina University, he'd say, hey, it'd be regular students, student union. Anybody

1017
01:40:09,840 --> 01:40:16,480
here play the piano or an artist? Yeah, I play. Awesome. Are you on scholarship? Yes, I'm on

1018
01:40:16,480 --> 01:40:22,960
scholarship. Okay. Do you get paid to play anywhere else? Yes, I play for my church. Oh,

1019
01:40:22,960 --> 01:40:27,120
that's awesome. You play for your church, you get paid. Yes. You know, I'm also with an outside

1020
01:40:27,120 --> 01:40:34,480
group and we play and I get paid. Okay. Football players and basketball players can't do the same

1021
01:40:34,480 --> 01:40:39,440
thing that you're doing for your church. They can't go to the church and get paid. Why is that? So

1022
01:40:39,440 --> 01:40:44,560
I started opening up this awareness of like, well, why are you treating these guys different? What's

1023
01:40:44,560 --> 01:40:49,760
different from them than me and artists, me, whatever that you do that you're on scholarship?

1024
01:40:50,640 --> 01:40:59,200
And it got to one guy, Ed O'Bannon. Ed O'Bannon hears Sonny on the radio and he calls. And he was

1025
01:40:59,200 --> 01:41:07,680
the magic bullet. Why? Because Ed, the NCAA always had an argument, but Ed checked all the boxes.

1026
01:41:07,680 --> 01:41:15,200
What are the boxes? You had to play in the NCAA tournament. Okay. Ed played in the NCAA tournament.

1027
01:41:15,200 --> 01:41:20,640
The biggest part of the NCAA tournament is the Final Four. UCLA made it to the Final Four. I think

1028
01:41:20,640 --> 01:41:26,480
that was 92. Not only did they make it to the Final Four, they won the championship. Boom. So

1029
01:41:26,480 --> 01:41:33,040
that's the biggest darling of the NCAA, is the NCAA tournament. Okay. What else? Are you suing

1030
01:41:33,040 --> 01:41:38,560
because you ain't got no money? Well, O'Bannon played six to eight years in the NBA. So he had

1031
01:41:38,560 --> 01:41:45,600
a credible NBA career. So he can't go there. And then what was the last thing? Outside of the fact

1032
01:41:45,600 --> 01:41:56,800
that he was also the MVP. Ed went to an NCAA darling school, a blue blood, right? UCLA, Kansas,

1033
01:41:56,800 --> 01:42:04,720
Kentucky. He went to a blue Michigan. He went to UCLA. So he checked all of the boxes. And so

1034
01:42:04,720 --> 01:42:12,480
ultimately that's how we pushed through. And who led that charge was Sonny Vicarro, myself in the

1035
01:42:12,480 --> 01:42:18,800
background, Gary Charles in the background, others, so on and so forth. And so where we are today,

1036
01:42:18,800 --> 01:42:24,880
you have Naim Image and Lightness because of that charge, which was a 15 year fight

1037
01:42:24,880 --> 01:42:35,600
that opened up and established NIL today. So then it brings me to another question. Out of everything

1038
01:42:35,600 --> 01:42:40,560
that you've done in your career, right? Everything you've had your hand on, every decision that

1039
01:42:40,560 --> 01:42:45,600
you've made and every impact that you've had, out of everything that you summed up today,

1040
01:42:45,600 --> 01:42:50,880
what do you think your greatest impact was? I can't pick one of those things and say this was the

1041
01:42:50,880 --> 01:43:01,120
best. I have to say it like this. I have spent the last 30 years of my life helping kids. And that

1042
01:43:01,680 --> 01:43:08,960
I'm incredibly proud of. Like I can, if I don't do anything else in life, I mean, I love my children,

1043
01:43:08,960 --> 01:43:14,640
my family and things of that nature, but I've spent 30 years helping kids at some level.

1044
01:43:14,640 --> 01:43:20,240
And so trying to put them in order of which was more important, was it the camp, was it NIL? I

1045
01:43:20,240 --> 01:43:28,320
think NIL has had probably the greatest effect as of late, but it's not like my name doesn't hang

1046
01:43:28,320 --> 01:43:34,960
over. Chris Gryaluchi was the one, it wasn't me. It's been years of multiple individuals,

1047
01:43:36,000 --> 01:43:41,760
but helping kids for the last 30 years of my life, that I'm proud of.

1048
01:43:41,760 --> 01:43:46,560
Bravo, my man. I'll let you go rapid this. What's in the future for you?

1049
01:43:46,560 --> 01:43:50,800
People look at my career and they're like, what's going on? So I had a pause. Obviously, we didn't

1050
01:43:50,800 --> 01:43:58,960
dive into it a lot. I lost my wife at the time, Alicia Jones, when I'm in the early going. So

1051
01:43:58,960 --> 01:44:06,240
kind of started all over. Got married, my wife today. I have three kids. I have a 19 year old,

1052
01:44:06,240 --> 01:44:12,880
I have a seven year old and I have a four year old daughter. My four year old daughter is like

1053
01:44:12,880 --> 01:44:21,280
changing my whole way of living, everything in life. So I love my kids. So that is like number

1054
01:44:21,280 --> 01:44:27,200
one, my family, I would say. That, taking a step back on my wife, right? My wife is the queen.

1055
01:44:28,160 --> 01:44:34,800
So family is one. I like what I'm doing at CGL right now. I like what I'm doing at CGL right now.

1056
01:44:34,800 --> 01:44:42,080
I believe at some point there would be a level of working with an NBA team again,

1057
01:44:42,080 --> 01:44:46,480
at a different level, more of maybe an executive level or consulting level.

1058
01:44:47,680 --> 01:44:53,280
Probably would be future. But right now, I'm focused on what I'm doing right now and that's

1059
01:44:53,280 --> 01:44:58,880
helping young agents, helping players, helping athletes, helping kids, helping people, but

1060
01:44:58,880 --> 01:45:06,240
most importantly, diving to my own kids. I love it. Well, man, that is a wrap from us.

1061
01:45:07,120 --> 01:45:12,240
So for everybody that's tuned into this, where can they contact you? How can they find you?

1062
01:45:12,240 --> 01:45:19,280
What's the best route to reach you, Chris? You can reach me at chris.luchey,

1063
01:45:19,280 --> 01:45:31,600
l-u-c-h-e-y, at cglsports.co, not c-o-m, dot c-o. Just going back to what we were talking about earlier,

1064
01:45:32,400 --> 01:45:36,480
when it comes to character, that's something that I really admired from getting to know you a little

1065
01:45:36,480 --> 01:45:41,200
bit more. The whole time, you've been talking about, you never talked about a dollar bill.

1066
01:45:41,200 --> 01:45:46,560
You never talked about what? You never talked about that type of stuff. So I really, I think

1067
01:45:46,560 --> 01:45:51,920
that's very admirable when it comes to just staying in China for six months, when you could have just

1068
01:45:51,920 --> 01:45:56,560
stayed there for the time that you needed, all that stuff. I think that's something that's

1069
01:45:56,560 --> 01:46:03,360
kind of a lost trait in a lot of people. Just looking at people for just the opportunity to

1070
01:46:03,360 --> 01:46:07,680
have and a human element and just making sure that it's just like, I'm doing what's best for you,

1071
01:46:07,680 --> 01:46:12,800
us, and not, the money will come. Money will come regardless. And I just wanted to say,

1072
01:46:12,800 --> 01:46:16,880
I really appreciate you for all that and just listening to your story. It's definitely something

1073
01:46:16,880 --> 01:46:22,240
very admirable. Man, I appreciate that. Oh, I probably didn't even mention that. I'm running

1074
01:46:22,240 --> 01:46:27,360
for state office. I am running for the House of Representatives here in the state of Georgia,

1075
01:46:28,000 --> 01:46:36,960
District 103, Chris for Georgia, chrisforgeorgia.org. And it's really because not that I'm

1076
01:46:37,520 --> 01:46:42,400
really a political individual, but I just want to help change for the community, especially for our

1077
01:46:42,400 --> 01:46:49,840
kids. So that's kind of my mantra, if you will, and everything. I just want to try to make things

1078
01:46:49,840 --> 01:47:13,280
a little bit better than when I found them.