First, Doug gives an update on the latest with his Green Bay hoops program, building the roster, what he’s learned since taking over, and how he’s getting his squad ready for the regular season.’
Then, Doug is joined by his Green Bay Assistant Coach - and former West Virginia Point Guard - Jordan McCabe to discuss the drama surrounding Jayson Tatum being benched for Team USA’s opener, why the ascent of Wisconsin High School rival Tyrese Haliburton to NBA stardom is so surprising, how Jordan’s rapid rise from relative obscurity to a social media sensation changed his life, why he decided to commit to Bob Huggins at West Virginia, and if he has any regrets about the decision.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, what a welkoman. I'm Doug gottlie This is All Ball.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
We've been doing all ball now for like five years.
I even have players like Dude, I listen to all Ball.
So we'll continue with the storytelling. We're gonna start pumping
out a greater volume of these. Obviously now there's a
video component to it as well, So we want to
thank you for your patients and getting everything kind of
up and running here in GB. A reminder of The
(00:33):
Doug Gottlieb Show is daily three to five Eastern twelve
two Pacific.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
He continues on, there's a podcast for that as well.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
A lot going on in international hoops, not as much
NBA hoops, and obviously some in college hoops.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
I'll just kind of.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Give you an update of where I am, where Green
Bay hoops is. We have.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Twelve twelve committed scholarship players, nine of whom are on campus,
and then we have a gaggle of recruited walk ons
as well, and it's been fascinating. You know, do I
I don't have experience, but I do have a lot
(01:11):
of kind of athletic talent, maybe some basketball talent, and
trying to kind of mold that and matriculate it towards
getting getting it ready for November fourth, when we play
our first game. It has been a challenge and it's
really interesting, right Like people tell you all the time
the challenges of being a college basketball coach.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You know, I've heard different ratios.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Seventy five percent is not coaching, ninety percent is not coaching.
I would say it's in the sixty percent is not coaching.
But again, what I feel like is if you as
coaching isn't just the basketball thing, it's the managing people.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's the managing their time.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It's the getting them, you know, blending the how much
time do I have them in the gym, how much
time do I have them in the workout in the
weight room? How much time do they put into workouts?
And then how do we blend it with school as well?
But there is definitely challenges at this level because you
just don't have the numbers of people helping you out,
so you have to do things on your own, which
I love, but as somebody who never says no to anything,
(02:09):
it does become a lot. But it's been incredibly enjoyable.
I like my group, like I love my group as
human beings.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I like my group.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I know, I think we've pretty much identified our weaknesses
and some of our strengths, and I think trying to
highlight our strengths and minimize our weaknesses is kind of
the challenge of the next couple of months. But we've
we have one week left of workouts, and what I've
(02:37):
committed to doing is playing a full game today and
playing a full game next week as well, just so
guys get the feel of competing for for informative wars.
Understanding TV timeouts, understanding locking in at a timeout, and
how you know what we're going to run, how we're
going to defend out of a timeout is incredibly important.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And really we spend time trying to.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Teach everything, and my thought on teaching everything, and this
really comes from coaching youth basketball, and I'll fully admit
my younger group, so they were I started coaching a
fourth grade B team, and then the next year I
had another fourth grade team, which my son was he
(03:17):
was playing out before, and then he was playing at
the right level. I would get upset at things that
I had lightly coached, but I hadn't really taught them
in a practice, and like, here's The biggest challenge I
think for coaches is you can't hold players accountable for
something you have not told them when I try and
coach the way I want to be coached, Like, hey,
(03:39):
if you don't listen and pay attention, that's on you.
But if I don't coach it and then I assume
that you can do it in the game or you know,
in a.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Situation, that's on me.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So we've tried to go through the summer and teach
as many little things as possible. You know, don't take
the ball out underneath the basket. Where are the hashmarks
on the floor? You know, where's the alley, where's the slot?
Where's the top of the key? Why do we want
the ball at the top of the key? Because there's
no help side all of these different things. And it's
it's fun, like it's it's incredibly fun. And to answer
(04:11):
the the the question how good do you think you'd be?
I have no idea zero, And honestly, I don't care.
I don't I want my team to play good basketball.
I want my team to get better. I want them
to look better next week than they do this week.
And I think we've accomplished it. Every week, we've looked better,
and you know, then we'll figure out when we throw
(04:33):
them into the deep end with somebody's guaranteed games and
even some of the non guarantee music are games, hard games.
And I do this where I look at our schedule, like, dude,
we're going against really good coaches. So it's going to
be hard for me first year. But I'll learn and
we'll adjust and we'll get it right. So my staff
(04:54):
continues to grow, and I want to welcome in Jordan McKay. Now, Jordan,
we'll have him tell the entirety of his story over
the next couple podcasts, but the first part of his
story is he's on my staff.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Obviously, been on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Superstar for years. Started really he was the guy who
made Ball of his life something you had to go
and watch, like, who is this kid from Wisconsin? Holy shit,
he can handle the baldy pass it and he's got
some shit to him right. He was like the new
Jason Williams. And he is the only holdover from Sundance
Wick's staff. Now, Sonny had just hired him like a
(05:30):
week before I got the job, and the.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Whole thing made sense to me.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And he's not on the recording yet, so I'll just
tell you he's super impressive, Like he's twenty five going
on forty, just has a good balance about him, good
understanding of him, you know, still a little impulsive, as
so much of us are in our youth. There was
a player who when I first got here, he's like,
(05:57):
we got to take this kid, coach, And I have
total faith in my assistance, like they tell me I
got to take somebody.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
So it's like, let me watch every Synergy clip we
have on him. So he watched and I was like, like,
what don't you like.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I was like, well, here's what I value and here's
how what he does. And after that it's been a
great relationship. And part of it is you have to
tell people what you're looking for, what you want, and
again like I have no doubt that some of the
guys that I want that we brought in that I
(06:31):
personally evaluated, may not fit, may not be good enough,
or may not fit. So it's all learning and evaluating process.
But Jordan star in any business, but especially in this business,
he'll be a star. I think he'll be a head
coach within two three years. Because one obviously every kid
(06:53):
that we go recruit knows him. He's really good with
the players, at coaching him mentally, emotionally, beating the shit
out of him, but also like that kissing their ass
just there was a realness to it.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And his youth is a strength and he's like me,
he's up with the crack of ass.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Now he does go to bed early, which I don't
really understand, but that's what happens when year twenty five. Anyway,
let's welcome in. He's Jordan McCabe. We'll talk about Jay
five's nickname.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
He joins me. Now an all ball as we bring
in my guest for today.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
He's also one of my assistant coaches and he's he's
an ig icon as well.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
He's the one and only j five.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Jordan McCabe joins me, and I just want to get
your opinion real quick on the I guess it's a
controversy which has now kind of been muted a little
bit with Jason Tatum not playing in the first game.
Terry's Alburton also didn't play in the first games, Like
no one.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Even mentioned that, right, and I get it.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
He wasn't first team All NBA's team didn't win an
be a championship, but Terry's Alberton was an star and
literally didn't play a minute and no one said a
word about it, which brings me to a bunch of
other stuff. Additionally, Game two, Jason Tatum starts and Joel
Embiid doesn't play a minute, and again very little chatter
(08:17):
about as they dominate South Sudan. Let me just first
get kind of get your thoughts. You watched, I know,
both games. What do you think of the fact that
that Steve Kerr didn't use Tatum, didn't use Haliburton in
Game one?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
So I think there's two ends of every spectrum, right,
Like I think you coach pee wee basketball and you're like,
I just need two or three guys who can make
a basket, and then you have USA Basketball where it's
like I have way too many guys who can wait
make way too many baskets, and I don't know how
I'm gonna make this work. So anybody who you know
wanted to be a Twitter coach on Game one, I
(08:51):
don't think realizes, you know, the actual challenge there is
on that end of the spectrum with having World Cup
class basketball players all the way down here. Last guy
and it's like any other team. It's like any other game.
There's only so many minutes and so many rotations that
make sense.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Totally true, you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So when I coached Maccabi games in Israel, and again
I'll start with the premise, I think everybody knows.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I'm in no way comparing.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
My guys for Maccabi USA with Jason Tatum and Terry's
Halberd and Joel embiid okay, but the issue still remains
the same. You have twelve guys you want to get in.
They're of similar competent talent levels, and you have forty
minutes in a FEBA game. And oh yeah, by the way, like,
(09:40):
here's the biggest similarity in the two right, the trying
to play everybody thing is a big thing. But the
only thing worse than not getting guys in is losing. Like,
if you lose, it's the end of the world. It's
everybody's caught us, You're an idiot. No one blames the players,
everybody blames the coach. So the first and most important
(10:01):
thing is to understand when you're coaching, here's how I feel.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And this is going to be.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
A challenge for us going forward, going to your bench
can be a great thing, but it's a lot like
every time you go into surgery, every time you open
somebody up, there's the chance of something going wrong, of
changing momentum.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
For the worse.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Right, It's it's like that's what they say about guys
that have had ten knee surgeries.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Right, It's like, look, every.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Time we want to fix something, but every time you
going to fix something, you know you can get a
bacterial infection, you can screw up something else. You know
you can get scar tissue. Like there is a good
to fixing it, which you can with subbing. Guy gets tired.
But you also you change the matchups, you can change momentum.
And I'll just tell you I love the feeble rules.
(10:48):
But it's a much more free flowing game. There's a
lot less stoppages, and there's four less minutes and a
half eight less minutes a game. And then the last
part is like as embarrassing as some people make it
out to be to not play. Jason Tatum and tyres
Halburton also consider the you get to the fourth quarter,
you're up twenty, and you know it's more embarrassing than
that is putting them in garbage time, like it's actually
(11:11):
worse to go and like, hey man, you want to
go get five minutes like namm good. You know, especially
when a guy has never done that in his life
and they all feel like they're going to get hurt,
They feel like they embarrassed. It does embarrass them and
it feels like it embarrassed themselves. Whereas if you just
go like, hey, this is part of our plan. Kevin
Durant played way better than we thought and we just
went with a ten man rotation, like, got it understood.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
So the good news for Steve Kerr is that, you know,
unlike AU, I don't think John Haliburt and ty Reese's
dad called Steve Kerr and flipped out on him. You know,
That's that's what happens in AAU is that dad calls
and little little Timmy didn't play, and hey, you start
little Timmy next game, or maybe you won't get the
fund in for your jerseys next year, so Steve doesn't
(11:54):
have to worry about that.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And like you said, it's the hardest shit, the hardest shit,
and you're like or the or the hey my kid
came to every practice.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, like Yeah, your kid's not as good as you
other kid.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
He needs five times more practices than we actually hold.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
His four or your kid.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Every time he came in, he shot the ball, you know,
because he is you know, he actually made it worse
and made it made it, made it better. Speaking of which, uh,
how how close in age your same age is, tyres
aren't you?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah? Tyrese and I grew up playing in the same
conference in Northeast Wisconsin high school basketball. You can, uh
if you even believe that?
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Did you did you see this? Did you know this
was was coming from him?
Speaker 4 (12:33):
No? And I would tell him that too, And I
think that's what he'd probably smile when he heard me
say no. If anybody knew that he had this level
of capability was him and only him, especially when he
was young in high school. He was super lanky, he
was kind of positionless. His shot was funky, but you know,
(12:53):
it went in just like it it does now, And
he knew that but didn't care like that was theful
thing about Tyreese. The best thing about Tyreee is not
like the level of basketball player he is. The level
of human being that man is is unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
He's always like, like me, give me example.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Yeah, so, like, I don't think I've ever seen him
not smile during a game of basketball, and we were
in some of the most heated competitive games high school
games in the area. I don't have a specific example,
but oh, actually I do. So I had a nonprofit
organization that we tried to help out some families. We're
going to do another one here soon in Wisconsin, and
(13:34):
it was a skills clinic for little kids, and we're
going to raise money all this stuff. The first person
I called was Tyrese Alberton because at the time, like
I was close with him, he was a big name.
He was starting to kind of gain momentum towards the
end of his high school career, and he was all in,
Like he was like, you can take my whole Saturday Sunday,
let's go do this thing. Ended up raising over like
fifty grand as some high schoolers just for a family
(13:58):
that was in need. So that's one one example of Tyres.
But yeah, he was unbelievable, especially when he got to
the right spot at Iowa State. Like that was the
decision maker that in USA basketball took him to a
completely different level. He was Gatoraye Player of the Year
in the state. He was really good. Not trying to
discredit his high school career, but the Olympics, like I don't.
(14:20):
I don't think anybody from our area when he was
a sophomore, and I think Tyree would agree, would say
that's an Olympic basketball player right there. He's a top
you know, twenty guy in the world, like I never
not at that time, not at that time.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It's the whole thing is fascinating. Okay.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
So, and I want to circle back to your story
as well, but just on Ontario.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
So when you you guys are exact same year in
high school, correct?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Correct? Yep?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Okay, So, who was at Marquette as their point guard?
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Went on visit? I think Howard was that towards the
end of my career.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Marcus Howard not because then you're a college career, high
school career, my high school career, right, So Marcus Howards
is starting point guard, so and he's not going he
wasn't going anywhere, right And then do Wisconsin offer you both?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Oh? Good question on tyresee, Wisconsin did all not offer me?
And I committed after my sophomore year, going into my
junior so they did not offer me.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Why so early?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
You know what, I was always like a super impulsive kid,
like I think this is one of the ways, like
the whole prefrontal cortex thing like seven years ago is
not that far from me, but completely different processing system
up top. Now I had a big twelve offer. I
was stoked about it. All I could think about was
(15:47):
I could get to play Kansas. I didn't think about, Hey,
you know they're a defensive minded program, right, and you
don't play defense that well, if at all, in high school, right,
So all I could think about was the level and
the lights and all that stuff. And I always tell
people like I was going to make it fit. Every
(16:08):
recruit we talked to on the phone is like, oh,
what are you looking for? I'm looking for the right fit. Well,
the problem is when you're sixteen and seventeen and you're
a square peg in West Virginia's a round hole, you're
so stubborn. I'm so call it egotistical. I'm like, I'll
make it work, I'll make it fit. And it did it,
you know so I just made a very quick and
(16:28):
rash decision, but maybe it was the best one. I
met my fiance. I have lifelong friends and relationships in
West Virginia. I'll go back to Morgantown whenever I can.
My first job was there, Like sure, from a plane perspective,
horrible idea. I can admit that now, and I tell
Hugs to his face. Pretty sure I have told him
at some point. But I love him to death, and
(16:50):
I love the city to death. And I'm here where
I am now. So that was kind of the decision.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk line up
in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports
Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR
to listen live. Did you did you play any other
sports growing up? Because I know you hate baseball. You
made that abundantly clear.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You have no time for baseball. Do you play anything
else going up?
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Nobody has time for baseball? Like that's the biggest thing,
is the time, contrade. So I played little league baseball.
Didn't love the whole like you know, thirty five percent
is good. I was crying a lot, throwing stuff. Remember
prefrontal cortex not all the way there yet, So quit baseball.
Stuck with football through Pop Warner got reprimanded and Pop
(17:41):
Warner had a meeting with the commissioner for swearing at
that age. Wasn't okay.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I thought, what age?
Speaker 4 (17:51):
What is Pop Warner? I would have been probably like
eight eight ish seven eight nine, But I mean, I
mean just bad routes and lack of communication among our
whole group. And you know, when we got back in
the huddle, I'd let people have.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
It reprimanded by the commissioner. I played, I played, it
was it was junior American. I played Pop Warner just
my eighth grade year.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I played all growing up. I love football.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
What position, mostly quarterback, a little running back. My first
year though, playing when I was seven, I played on
the Orange Raiders the eighties, and I played like I
was like the littlest kind of team. I played like noseguard,
and literally that my job was like the ball was
snapped and I would even try and dive underneath the
(18:39):
legs of the center to tackle the quarterback to just
get a foot, you know, just kind of like sneak
in there.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And I never got the ball.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
And then my second year, I was swear to god,
I got pictures to back it up.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I was on the Orange Packers and I was the
I was the quarterback and it was awesome. I got named.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Larry Powers was my coach and the seven to eight
year olds, which is this youngest division. They always played
the nine AM games. Nine AM games had eight AM wayans,
so he'd pick me up from my house. This is
probably so my dad was either still coaching or they
had just gotten fought when. It's probably the year they
goten fired at at Yeah, it was probably the year
(19:22):
they got fired at Lombey State, so he went up
to Oregon State for a year. I was like a
volunteer assistant, so I didn't you know. My mom had
two other kids at home, and Larry Powers would pick
me up at seven o'clock. We go to the donut shop,
have donuts and talk game plan strategy, and then we
go to the weigh ins and then play. And then
I'd sit around the football field all day and then
(19:42):
wait for my brother to show up. My brother played
in a later game, watching cheer for his game, and
then my mom would takes all home where we'd go
to like a.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Pizza party, you know, all that kind of stuff. So
I love football. I did love playing baseball.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
The funny thing about football was my dad was convinced
that I would be too small to play back, which
at that in that era I was, and I was
a late growing up that I grew to be huge.
But the funny part was like, I'm going to play
basketball and not play football because I was too small,
which is again that's the old basketball coach is mine.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
So when did you specialize in hoops?
Speaker 4 (20:19):
It was around probably like ten nine, ten years old.
I kicked. I kicked all of them. I remember vividly
having a conversation with Jason Otter, who I attested pretty
much all my player development stuff. The only reason I'm
able to I was able to have a college career
at the level I did was because of Jason Otter.
(20:40):
And he came out. We were living in Seattle, and
we sat down in the living room and he looked
at me and he said, how bad do you want this?
He's a psycho, by the way, like complete. He's talking
to a ten year old right now. He's like, how
bad do you want this? I was just sitting there
watching MTV on my what He's like, how bad do
you want basketball? And I said I want really bad.
(21:02):
He's like, well, I need you to do a couple
of things for me. Number one, no more football, You're done.
And I was like, okay. He's like, you're gonna need
all year. You're too small. He's like, you're not fast,
you can't jump. You're gonna need all the time you
can get, so you have quit football. Said all right,
and he goes, your dad told me you have a girlfriend.
(21:22):
I said, uh, yeah, I mean yeah, and uh it's
a girl from Issaquo, Washington. Maybe one of my first loves,
Olivia would be upset if I said this, But Jason said,
it's it's done, it's gotta go. No more girlfriend. I
was once again ten years old, so I walked, am
I allowed to wear on here? No? I walked my guess.
(21:45):
I walked my happ yess to the garage and I
sat on those like two steps right by the garage door,
and I called her. But I called her and I said, look,
it's not you, it's me, and I need all the
time I can get. The old saying I I need
to just focus on basketball. I don't have time for
a relationship. So I killed it right there, ten years old,
(22:07):
at ten at ten, and then I watched like all
the Rocky movies that night and I was ready to
roll in the morning.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
You know, it's interesting because I I'm trying to think
and I remember when I went all in on basketball.
It wasn't It wasn't until like I was right before
high school my dad did was I mean, obviously I
stayed back. I held back in eighth grade and years.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Did you reclass too? Yeah, I didn't know that I
did a seventh grade.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, And like my first eighth grade year was such
a fucking disaster because like they told me, I was
holding back, right, So.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
You know, I literally like never went to school.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
So all your friends went to high school and you.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
This is the first so the first year, it wasn't
the first year I was with. It's like a confluence
of things, right, So this eighth grade year, I was
a lot like my son, although he's still has he's
still just now starting to grow, whereas some five feet
tall eighth grade, you know, not a hair on my body,
(23:15):
and you know, all my friends are growing and I'm
already being told I'm staying back. You know, And in California,
there is no real middle school sports.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Like we didn't even have a gym. We all the
middle school teams played outside.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
It was so bad, you know, Like I was my
my favorite story, which is a terrible story, but it's
still a favorite one, which is at the end of
the first semester, I had awful grades.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
And the report cards used.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
To come in the mail and they had like the
I don't know what that that that black ink paper
on one side and then you peel it. Often than
the grades be right there. So what we found out
you could do is if you got your report card early,
you could open up and you could just take a
simple raser and erase the grades. And then and I
(24:10):
know you've probably never seen when you're life, there is
something called a typewriter, okay, and you could put that
thin layer of paper back down, roll in the typewriter
and type in. You put dots on the paper where
you needed to type, and you could type in other grades.
So like I wasn't greedy, I didn't put straight a's,
but I definitely changed my grades to be way better. Right,
(24:34):
So my first semester I probably put down I had
like three a's, two b's in a.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Seat, you know. So second semester I get in trouble.
I did I did some I was. I kept going
to the bathroom in the teacher's bathroom, and.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Like, again, my son just graduated from this middle school,
and the juxtaposition of bathrooms is like it was fucking gross.
And so I kept like sneaking into the teacher's lounge bathroom,
going to the bathroom, you know, and getting out of there.
And I kept getting among other things, my grades were bad,
my attitude wasn't good, and I was going and crap
at wherever I wanted to crap, right, So they called
(25:15):
my mom into the the vice principal's office and she's like,
I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
He's got good grades. He's got They're like, what are
you talking about.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
He's like, well, he's you know, he's got he's got
one C that we're you know, we talked about. But
he's got all a's and b's. Missus Gottlieb, here's your
son's grades. And she was like what And.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, I got the ass whooping of my life.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
But there was like a month there where they didn't know,
maybe even two months there where they didn't know. And
I was like, this is the best ever. This is
I don't have to do shit. I'm doing school next year.
So anyway, so I held back, and then the next
year I played with a team called b ball in
LA and named Sam Minor was the coach, and my
(26:00):
dad would take me up to stay mister Minor's house,
drop me off on Mondays and Wednesdays, I believe, and
I would do my homework at his house with his family,
have dinner, and then we'd go to basketball practice, and
you know, I was the only white guy whatever.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
His family was incredibly kind.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
And then I think it was Wednesday nights, we'd play
a game in an LA like city, like middle school
level league, and I really started to like love it.
I was still playing baseball, I played tennis, I played
football as well, and so we got ready for high
school and I was starting to get pretty good and
my dad was like, okay, like you want to do this.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I was like, yeah, we really want to do.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
This, and so we took out a I'm still searching
for it because my mom is a bit of a
pack ratch keeps everything, so it exists somewhere in her house,
which is a like a red spiral notebook. And I'll
never forget this because in order for me to go
to Tustin High school. We had to rent an apartment
in Testin, even though we lived in Orange. He was
like ten minutes part. So we got this apartment. It's
(27:04):
like a five minute walk to Tutin High School. And
we're sitting there and he's like, write down your goals
and I was like, what do you mean. He's like,
write down what you want to accomplish. And I wrote
down like everything I want to accomplish, and he's like,
is that everything.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
It's like, yeah, that's what I want to do. Say, okay,
turn the page. Now, let's write down how we want
to do it.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
And you know, like from that moment forward, it just
my whole brain kind of changed. And I was I
was fifteen, and I was solely focused on becoming the
best player in Orange County, which I became, becoming a
high school American, which I became playing in a high
major level, which I did. I wanted to play on
(27:50):
TV for some reason, like everybody plays on TV. But
again back then, that was the thing, like I want
like dick by Taw to call one of my games.
I want to have my number of times, which it was,
and I wanted to play. I want to play in
the NBA I want to play in a Final four
playing in the NBA, and then I want to broadcast basketball,
and I want to coach vision I and I have
(28:12):
literally checked every box except for playing in the Final
four and playing the NBA. So but it's interesting, right
because a lot like Tyresee and again like I don't
profess to have had the career Tyrese had and you
don't profess to as well. But it's amazing to me
on how I think people lose track of, like for me,
(28:36):
regards whether I got this job or whether I I
broadcast to the level that I've been on a broadcast,
Like just the fact that I found that motivation that
got me to college, that made me lifelong friends, Why
are you talking about West Virginia right? Like Oklahoma State
is still that's my place, that's my heart. You know,
(28:57):
changed my life. And I think that we do lose
track of what the process of deciding you want something
does for, especially for young guys, because we're all kind
of scattered and we all need purpose and focus and
and you learned so much along the way, right, you know,
(29:20):
learned so much along the way. So wait, you were
in Seattle. Take me to where you lived before you
got to Kakanna.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
So I was born in Wisconsin. We moved to North Augusta,
South Carolina. My dad worked for Kimberly Clark. Before I
say this preface by not saying he's not in the military,
because it kind of sounds like we bounced around like
he was North Augusta, South Carolina. Then we moved to Marinet,
just on the border of the up in Wisconsin. And uh,
(29:50):
these each stint is like a few years, you know,
a handful, never never anywhere for more than five except
for Wisconsin, Marinette, you know, the Fox Cities again, and
then out to Seattle. We you know, we did two
and a half years in Seattle, and then that was
around what was it, fifth through seventh grade, Yeah, fifth
(30:14):
through seventh grade in Seattle, and then I did seventh
grade again, which is when I was you know, held
back seventh grade again when I got back to Wisconsin,
which was a weird transition for a kid at that age,
as you as you know. And then I stayed from
you know, seventh grade all the way through my high
school career here in Wisconsin, then West Virginia to Vegas,
(30:36):
back to West Virginia. Now to Wisconsin, so traveled a
little bit at this point.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, how are you making friends?
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Probably good? Probably too good. When I was young and
in school, because I think that was where my main
focus was and not in school, we had a sounds
like we had a very similar school experience. I didn't
have a typewriter ever, and by the time I was
in college, I had chat GPT, which was it's a
little bit more efficient than a typewriter. They can talk
(31:06):
to you. Uh So we definitely had a similar experience.
But I was good at making friends.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And here's a honest question, okay, and like we deal
with this. We're gonna deal with this.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
With our players. You and I talked about chat GPT. Okay,
do you know anybody anybody? I know one person, unequivocally
I know who did who never ever cheated ever?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Do you know anybody who never cheated.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
For my teammates in the high school or in college.
I'd like to plead the fifth but no, no, I don't.
I don't. It's crazy, right, well, no, hold on, there's
varying degrees, right, so great degrees like like out and
now cheating. Yeah, yeah, if you are copying and pasting
an entire thing from chat GPT into a paper and
submitting it. That's cheating, that's wrong. But like Olivia would
(31:58):
get upset. What I'm serious. Olivia would get upset because
if I would talk to chat GPT about this book
that I definitely did not read, and I had a
day to turn a paper in, so I'd ask you, like,
give me the cliff Notes. Now, let's talk about how
it applies to the real world now, okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
And then our toss it does that. I had no idea.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Oh man, I don't think you really realized how the
power of this thing.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
No, I mean I realized it, but don't realize it
right Like we had We literally had a book that
you had to buy called cliff Notes, and I always
just found it stupid, Like, wait, so I don't read
a book, but I have to read a book about
a book.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I didn't read. Like that, that doesn't just tell me
what it's about.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Glypt Notes was a physical book, yes, before it was
a website.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yes, it was a yellow book.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Wow, typewriters, cliff Notes was a book. I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
We had maps too.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
We have these physical things you'd open up called a map,
I mean and that's the great the greatest, the greatest
map ever was called a What the fuck is that called?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
It's in LA.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
It's uh that people in southern California had, which were amazing,
that every physically had. Now like there's no business for
It's like phone books, Like did you ever have to
use a phone book?
Speaker 4 (33:11):
I've seen a phone book? And I've seen uh, map
Quest staple all the papers together.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
No, not before map Quest was I know?
Speaker 4 (33:19):
And then I've seen the garment, the first GPS is
I've seen the solo GPS that you did a suction
cup to the to the to the windshield. But yes,
I've seen a notebook.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yeah, okay, So you're ten and you decide I'm all in.
When you're back in Wisconsin, you're getting ready for high school.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
You're a freshman. How big are you?
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Well, hold back freshman? I was probably five ten, about nine?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Okay, And did you play varsity your freshman year?
Speaker 4 (33:57):
I did? Yep, yep. Start Like what's that?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
What were you like as a player your freshman year?
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Freshman year? I was terrified, completely, you know, shell shocked
and like not sure if I could do it. I
think I remember our first game, our first game. Ever,
we played down in Milwaukee, I believe, and just didn't
play well, you know, had the whole thought process of
like I'm not good enough to do this, like I'm
(34:24):
not at this level, And spent kind of the whole
freshman year just figuring it out, like single digit average score,
decent distributor, but young, making a lot of dumb mistakes.
And I just had a coach who was like, you know,
like mckill up with with Curry, like just let them
let him figure it out, right, instead of the natural
instinct of the coaches just like get them out of
(34:44):
the game. So coach Shallow was amazing for me at Takana.
But that was my freshman year just figuring it out.
And then sophomore year is when when we hit a
little bit of a launch pad there.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
So my freshman year I played for a guy named
Tom McCluskey Penn State, and they were coming off of
state championship and the best player was a guy named
David Bielstein, who was a tremendous, tremendous high school player.
And so when I came aboard, they still had like
three guys and they were all perimeter players from the
state championship team, but they were all kind of secondary
(35:18):
tertiary Optionsjenshymore was our best player. He was going to TCU.
But the first game, we're getting ready to play in
the Tribuco Hills Tournament, and I like, to.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
This day, I will die on this hill.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
And mccluskoll watched this at some point he just retired
from teaching and coaching.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
That he should have.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Played me more that year, just because not just it
would have helped me in the future, but I think
I could have helped. We lost, like in the semi
finals of I think we lost to camer Murray and
Adam Jacobson Seem and Glendora we lost to anyway. But
my first game, I remember, I was I played varsity
and JV all summer and was we because you know,
(36:00):
I didn't know anybody, and I transferred into the school.
And at that time most public schools in California, guys
didn't really transfer in.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Maybe for football they did, but not for basketball.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
You either went to Modern Day if you're really good,
or maybe one of the other private schools otherwise, or
you just sucked it up and went to your high school.
So I didn't know a soul. Most of those guys,
they weren't really in the AAU world, which I was,
and so I didn't grow up playing with any of
these guys, didn't know anybody. So I was kind of
toggling between both. And I'll never forget our we played.
(36:36):
We played in the Tribuca Hills Tournament, and I think
we might have played Tribuca the first night. I can't remember,
but I just remember like we're getting two things. One
I got my jersey the day of the game, which
was awesome, and I remember getting it and going back
to that same apartment which I talked about and laying
it on the bed and just like looking at it
and freaking the fuck out. And it was terrible number
(37:01):
number thirty one, which is my brother's number, which is
just I have I still I have to have him
on the pod to explain why he chose thirty one,
terrible basketball number. But it was thirty one, and I'm
like staring at it and putting it on and looking
in the mirror and trying to flex my muscles. I'm
like five nine buck twenty right. And and then I
(37:23):
come back to the gym before getting ready to get
on the bus and they were like, hey, I think
you're starting tonight, Like what And what had happened was
the day before the night before they we had two
guys arrested and our two starting wings were arrested. They
(37:45):
were at a party and it got broken up and
they like refused to leave, like stupid shit, got mouthed
with a cop, got thrown into the clink.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
And so we go.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
We play in this tournament, and I'm fucking tight, right,
And we had a guy named Derrick Roach, and we
basically ran every play for Derreck Roach, and we were
you know, they were suspended the first two tournaments. And
so I played a ton and you know, kind of
like a little bit like college, like kind of scared
to shoot, just run the team whatever.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
And every time we take the court, our fans would be.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Like free more Reice, Free more Reese because he was
in jail.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It was amazing.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
It was at that moment that I learned about, you know,
always stay ready, to be ready, you know, and and uh,
and then I played mostly JV and that was really
good for me because otherwise I never would have looked
at the basket with varsity, you know, And in JV,
I just tried to fucking score every time I got
the ball, which I needed because with my dad's AU teams,
he always had such good talent that I didn't really
need to do shit except for the team because he
(38:45):
was like kind of old school, traditional point guard type coach. So,
uh yeah, that's that's that's fascinating. So when did it
take off? When did you sort of like when did
it blow up?
Speaker 4 (38:57):
Well, I mean it was it was gradual and it
was kind of twofold. When you talk about takeoff, Like
my sophomore year, I definitely took a step. And the
big thing was is like during my development. I believe
it was between my freshman and sophomore year during an
AAU event. We were playing a Chicago team and a
(39:19):
guy that I still know to this day. His name
is Scott and he worked for Ball's Life. Happened to
be watching somebody else. He was covering just Chicago high
school basketball with his camera and Ball's Life was small,
and anyways, he filmed the game and I knew he
(39:39):
was there. I wasn't stupid. I saw it, and I
you know, I did a little bit more than I
probably needed to on most plays, just with the handle
and you know, passing and just the extra shit. Right.
I did it and I had fun doing it. Didn't
think anything would come out of it. And then that
video went out and it did really well, and then
videos just followed behind and that now you know, it
(40:01):
kind of became every tournament there was more and more
cameras over time popped up this whole, this whole movement
of like mixtape basketball was growing as I was just
kind of hitting my stride. This was like during the
Austin Rivers, Like I think I've watched Austin Rivers Ball's
life or Whop mixtape actually sorry, his who mixtape probably
(40:24):
a thousand times, just like every other kid my age.
So that culture was building and I was hitting my stride.
So that's when the social media side of stuff really
started to take off. But from the on the court stuff,
like I said in the beginning, I didn't really take
a step until I went to Jason Otter. Like I
could handle the ball, stationary dribbling, I could do all
(40:47):
that stuff. I couldn't do any sort of game application
stuff until I met Jason. Like that's just what it was.
And I think I met him when I was ten
or eleven. But it took and he told me, he
was like, it is gonna take years for you to
get to a point where you even got a shot
at this right. So that was kind of the playing.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Did you play a lot of pickup?
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Uh? Yeah. My dad in Seattle would drop me off
at a twenty four hour fitness and say I'll see
you at eight and it was like, you know, three o'clock.
So and he was like playing with all the older guys.
At the time, I was in middle school.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
So here's good, dude. You know, underwear, but the air there,
the flow is fucking good.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
So in middle school I spent half my time of
twenty four hours. If I was at twenty four our
fitness for five hours, two and a half was walking
around the gym, probably trying to flirt with girls that
were way too old for me. The other half was
in the gym playing against guys who were also way
too old for me to be playing with and they
would bust my ass. So that was my That was.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
My world was. We had a place called Raquetball World. Rocket.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Here's what's amazing about Rackball World. There were only two locations.
One was in Santa Ana, one was in Fullerton, My
best friend growing up was Miles Simon. Miles grew up
playing at the Fullerton One. I grew up playing at
the sant Ana One. Literally like ships, we were friends.
We're like we became friends like fifth grade we started
playing together. Sixth grade we started like sleepovers and everything whenever.
(42:08):
And I think, like I can count on one hand
how many times I went to his rackball world. I
don't think he ever went to mine. And the courts
were side. We played sideways, and it might have been
four on four. And I was just that fucking annoying
little kid that would just sit up there and try
and play ball. And then my dad would be playing
racktball and I go downstairs and watch him, and I
go to the stack bar or whatever. I bullshit around
and come back and play. It was kind of same thing,
(42:30):
same thing.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
How do we?
Speaker 1 (42:32):
How do we get?
Speaker 3 (42:33):
I mean, I guess twenty four now, one of the
twenty four is great because there's a gym everywhere with those.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Things and there's always some level of basketball in it.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
But twenty four is bad because I think it's killed
any sort of outside playground basketball, Like it just doesn't
happen anymore.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Yeah, it doesn't. I was blessed. My grandpa has a
full court in his backyard, like at one point, it's
right down the street and Kakano, I'll take you over
to see it. It's really cool. And yeah, I played
out there all the time when I was when I
was really young. But yeah, the whole like playground culture
is gone, which is sad because that was like, you know,
(43:10):
also parallel to the end one culture in the street
ball and all that was huge for the game of basketball.
Moved it forward. But yeah, definitely definitely killed it, you know,
but it's better twenty four fitnesses, a real gym with
real hardwood, with an ac like you know, it's better
in some ways. You know, playing outside is cooler. But yeah,
(43:33):
my dad would just drop me off, kick me out
of the car and say see you, you know, for dinner,
and we.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Did that at Mile Square Park as well.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Or my dad would drop me off, helped me get
in the first game, and then you give me five bucks.
And there's something called a payphone, and if you really
needed him, you could call collect and then he wouldn't
accept and then they call you back at that number
or whatever, or they come get you. But for the
most part, they never came in. I don't remember ever
(44:02):
getting picked up early. I remember wasting a lot of
saturdays just sitting around there waiting for a game whatever,
and no phone, right, like, no phone, just occupying yourself,
just shooting hoops or going and hopping in hopping in games.
Last thing, and then we'll I want to get to
next one. We'll get to your college career, and then
(44:22):
we'll get to coaching. But if you had a kid
getting ready for high school, Yeah, you get a kid
get ready for high school, how do you balance, Like
we're in getting into August, this will drop in August.
You have August, and most high school start end of
August early September. Obviously we know when the season gets going.
(44:43):
How would you balance workouts now with pickup ball now
as you're getting ready for a high school season.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Yeah, it's a it's a great question. I think it
depends on like the agent level obviously of the kid,
but from like a general standpoint, kids don't play enough.
I think this conversation has been had a number of times.
But I do also think, like you know, getting ten
to play pickup is tough in some small towns. It's
(45:11):
just a fact, like, especially nowadays with a million other
options of freaking Fortnite college football video games, girls, Like,
there's a lot of other options for these guys, and
getting ten to play pick up at a high level
is tough. So what I've really started to do now
and what I would suggest that high school kids, cause
you might not be able to find ten, you can
(45:32):
probably find two or three or four and play small
sided one on one games. And I was just talking
to a trainer who trains Hyjerome and Max Shrews and
some guys in Chicago, and that's what they do, is like,
we'll do a ton of skill and this is what
we're doing with our groups here at Green Bay is
like a ton of skill work. Early, we'll do game
application on top of that skill, and then at the
(45:54):
end for fifteen to twenty minutes, like you know, a
third of your workout should be live reads because like
everybody knows a guy who can do drills at a
different level than everybody else. He doesn't miss, it's clean,
it's crisp, he's got rhythm, and then you throw a
body in front of him and he loses his damn
mind because he's just not making those live reeds enough
(46:16):
and he doesn't have any sort of creativity. He has
the rigidity of skill development and drill work and that's it.
And that's great if that's what you're trying to do.
But we're trying to play basketball, so I would say
you threw a number on it just for fun. Thirty
percent of your workout should be live reps against somebody
(46:38):
whoever you can get to just play dummy d You know,
your younger brother hears ten bucks guard me at the
end of this workout and rebound the rest like that's
huge because kids nowadays do so many drills. Because here's
the great thing about drills. Nobody freaking wins or loses
a drill and it doesn't hurt as bad. But if
(46:59):
you play one egos getting bruised. Somebody says and they
hate it. I hated it. There's definitely points, you know
where I hated that, that confrontation and competition. But it's
just like any other muscle. If you if you flex
it enough, by the time you get in the game,
you're not as afraid of losing as the guy across
from you, and that gives you ample more opportunity to win.
(47:22):
This game or win the matchup or whatever. But you
got to play. You have to play.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
That's it for for for part one. Jordan McCabe also
known as J five. Now are we not doing the
J five thing anymore? I mean, do we want to
put that to bed? Do you want to continue?
Speaker 4 (47:41):
I think we put it to bed. J five was
definitely the playing name I do like Coach Archibald calls
me Mac, and my grandpa was his nickname was Mac.
So if I'm going to have a nickname, coach Mack
is fine, or just Jordan works as well.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
You don't want to be called J five at all.
Speaker 4 (48:00):
No, No, it's like a player tag, you know.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
I know, but there's still like a rep to it,
kind of cool, Like if I had some shit like that,
I would I would Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:11):
All right, I mean you might be right, we can
we can keep this.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Only this is a lot like Eric Sanders, whose nickname
is eighth grade, right, like it's one of the great
nicknames of all time.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
He's like, yeah, I don't be eighth grade anymore.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Like, bro, if I had a nickname as good as
eighth grade, why would I didch eighth grade?
Speaker 4 (48:26):
We talked about transitioning in the beginning of the show.
Everybody's got a transition, right.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
We did, we did.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
It's so it Honestly, the super weird thing is being
called coach all the time. And as you know, Arch
has a tendency to say the word coach a lot,
like I think he'd leave the country a coach. Coach, coach,
coach that.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Was that was really good coach, which I was really.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Good coach, I dude, I just that's a weird That's
a weird transition for me.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
I just imagine being twenty five and a twenty three
year old COVID senior having to call you coach, which
was my position last year. That's a weird one. That
feels really weird. No matter how you slice it, it's weird. Weird.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
That is weird and weird has been a big talking
point this week. All right, that's it for me and
Jordan McKay Part one. We'll do obviously complete kind of
his story and more. Yaki Yak on hoops throughout the year.
Make sure you follow him on Instagram, but most of
you already followed him on Instagram in the meantime, reminded
(49:24):
the Doug Gottlieb Show airs daily three to five eastern
twelve two Pacific on iHeartRadio, Foxsports Radio dot Com. There's
a podcast for that as well, and for this edition,
I'm Doug Gotlieb.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
He's Jordan McKay. This is all bo
Hey, what a welkoman. I'm Doug gottlie This is All Ball.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
We've been doing all ball now for like five years.
I even have players like Dude, I listen to all Ball.
So we'll continue with the storytelling. We're gonna start pumping
out a greater volume of these. Obviously now there's a
video component to it as well, So we want to
thank you for your patients and getting everything kind of
up and running here in GB. A reminder of The
(00:33):
Doug Gottlieb Show is daily three to five Eastern twelve
two Pacific.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
He continues on, there's a podcast for that as well.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
A lot going on in international hoops, not as much
NBA hoops, and obviously some in college hoops.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
I'll just kind of.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Give you an update of where I am, where Green
Bay hoops is. We have.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Twelve twelve committed scholarship players, nine of whom are on campus,
and then we have a gaggle of recruited walk ons
as well, and it's been fascinating. You know, do I
I don't have experience, but I do have a lot
(01:11):
of kind of athletic talent, maybe some basketball talent, and
trying to kind of mold that and matriculate it towards
getting getting it ready for November fourth, when we play
our first game. It has been a challenge and it's
really interesting, right Like people tell you all the time
the challenges of being a college basketball coach.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You know, I've heard different ratios.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Seventy five percent is not coaching, ninety percent is not coaching.
I would say it's in the sixty percent is not coaching.
But again, what I feel like is if you as
coaching isn't just the basketball thing, it's the managing people.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's the managing their time.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It's the getting them, you know, blending the how much
time do I have them in the gym, how much
time do I have them in the workout in the
weight room? How much time do they put into workouts?
And then how do we blend it with school as well?
But there is definitely challenges at this level because you
just don't have the numbers of people helping you out,
so you have to do things on your own, which
I love, but as somebody who never says no to anything,
(02:09):
it does become a lot. But it's been incredibly enjoyable.
I like my group, like I love my group as
human beings.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I like my group.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I know, I think we've pretty much identified our weaknesses
and some of our strengths, and I think trying to
highlight our strengths and minimize our weaknesses is kind of
the challenge of the next couple of months. But we've
we have one week left of workouts, and what I've
(02:37):
committed to doing is playing a full game today and
playing a full game next week as well, just so
guys get the feel of competing for for informative wars.
Understanding TV timeouts, understanding locking in at a timeout, and
how you know what we're going to run, how we're
going to defend out of a timeout is incredibly important.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And really we spend time trying to.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Teach everything, and my thought on teaching everything, and this
really comes from coaching youth basketball, and I'll fully admit
my younger group, so they were I started coaching a
fourth grade B team, and then the next year I
had another fourth grade team, which my son was he
(03:17):
was playing out before, and then he was playing at
the right level. I would get upset at things that
I had lightly coached, but I hadn't really taught them
in a practice, and like, here's The biggest challenge I
think for coaches is you can't hold players accountable for
something you have not told them when I try and
coach the way I want to be coached, Like, hey,
(03:39):
if you don't listen and pay attention, that's on you.
But if I don't coach it and then I assume
that you can do it in the game or you know,
in a.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Situation, that's on me.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So we've tried to go through the summer and teach
as many little things as possible. You know, don't take
the ball out underneath the basket. Where are the hashmarks
on the floor? You know, where's the alley, where's the slot?
Where's the top of the key? Why do we want
the ball at the top of the key? Because there's
no help side all of these different things. And it's
it's fun, like it's it's incredibly fun. And to answer
(04:11):
the the the question how good do you think you'd be?
I have no idea zero, And honestly, I don't care.
I don't I want my team to play good basketball.
I want my team to get better. I want them
to look better next week than they do this week.
And I think we've accomplished it. Every week, we've looked better,
and you know, then we'll figure out when we throw
(04:33):
them into the deep end with somebody's guaranteed games and
even some of the non guarantee music are games, hard games.
And I do this where I look at our schedule, like, dude,
we're going against really good coaches. So it's going to
be hard for me first year. But I'll learn and
we'll adjust and we'll get it right. So my staff
(04:54):
continues to grow, and I want to welcome in Jordan McKay. Now, Jordan,
we'll have him tell the entirety of his story over
the next couple podcasts, but the first part of his
story is he's on my staff.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Obviously, been on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Superstar for years. Started really he was the guy who
made Ball of his life something you had to go
and watch, like, who is this kid from Wisconsin? Holy shit,
he can handle the baldy pass it and he's got
some shit to him right. He was like the new
Jason Williams. And he is the only holdover from Sundance
Wick's staff. Now, Sonny had just hired him like a
(05:30):
week before I got the job, and the.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Whole thing made sense to me.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And he's not on the recording yet, so I'll just
tell you he's super impressive, Like he's twenty five going
on forty, just has a good balance about him, good
understanding of him, you know, still a little impulsive, as
so much of us are in our youth. There was
a player who when I first got here, he's like,
(05:57):
we got to take this kid, coach, And I have
total faith in my assistance, like they tell me I
got to take somebody.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
So it's like, let me watch every Synergy clip we
have on him. So he watched and I was like, like,
what don't you like.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I was like, well, here's what I value and here's
how what he does. And after that it's been a
great relationship. And part of it is you have to
tell people what you're looking for, what you want, and
again like I have no doubt that some of the
guys that I want that we brought in that I
(06:31):
personally evaluated, may not fit, may not be good enough,
or may not fit. So it's all learning and evaluating process.
But Jordan star in any business, but especially in this business,
he'll be a star. I think he'll be a head
coach within two three years. Because one obviously every kid
(06:53):
that we go recruit knows him. He's really good with
the players, at coaching him mentally, emotionally, beating the shit
out of him, but also like that kissing their ass
just there was a realness to it.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And his youth is a strength and he's like me,
he's up with the crack of ass.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Now he does go to bed early, which I don't
really understand, but that's what happens when year twenty five. Anyway,
let's welcome in. He's Jordan McCabe. We'll talk about Jay
five's nickname.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
He joins me. Now an all ball as we bring
in my guest for today.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
He's also one of my assistant coaches and he's he's
an ig icon as well.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
He's the one and only j five.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Jordan McCabe joins me, and I just want to get
your opinion real quick on the I guess it's a
controversy which has now kind of been muted a little
bit with Jason Tatum not playing in the first game.
Terry's Alburton also didn't play in the first games, Like
no one.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Even mentioned that, right, and I get it.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
He wasn't first team All NBA's team didn't win an
be a championship, but Terry's Alberton was an star and
literally didn't play a minute and no one said a
word about it, which brings me to a bunch of
other stuff. Additionally, Game two, Jason Tatum starts and Joel
Embiid doesn't play a minute, and again very little chatter
(08:17):
about as they dominate South Sudan. Let me just first
get kind of get your thoughts. You watched, I know,
both games. What do you think of the fact that
that Steve Kerr didn't use Tatum, didn't use Haliburton in
Game one?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
So I think there's two ends of every spectrum, right,
Like I think you coach pee wee basketball and you're like,
I just need two or three guys who can make
a basket, and then you have USA Basketball where it's
like I have way too many guys who can wait
make way too many baskets, and I don't know how
I'm gonna make this work. So anybody who you know
wanted to be a Twitter coach on Game one, I
(08:51):
don't think realizes, you know, the actual challenge there is
on that end of the spectrum with having World Cup
class basketball players all the way down here. Last guy
and it's like any other team. It's like any other game.
There's only so many minutes and so many rotations that
make sense.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Totally true, you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So when I coached Maccabi games in Israel, and again
I'll start with the premise, I think everybody knows.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I'm in no way comparing.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
My guys for Maccabi USA with Jason Tatum and Terry's
Halberd and Joel embiid okay, but the issue still remains
the same. You have twelve guys you want to get in.
They're of similar competent talent levels, and you have forty
minutes in a FEBA game. And oh yeah, by the way, like,
(09:40):
here's the biggest similarity in the two right, the trying
to play everybody thing is a big thing. But the
only thing worse than not getting guys in is losing. Like,
if you lose, it's the end of the world. It's
everybody's caught us, You're an idiot. No one blames the players,
everybody blames the coach. So the first and most important
(10:01):
thing is to understand when you're coaching, here's how I feel.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And this is going to be.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
A challenge for us going forward, going to your bench
can be a great thing, but it's a lot like
every time you go into surgery, every time you open
somebody up, there's the chance of something going wrong, of
changing momentum.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
For the worse.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Right, It's it's like that's what they say about guys
that have had ten knee surgeries.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Right, It's like, look, every.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Time we want to fix something, but every time you
going to fix something, you know you can get a
bacterial infection, you can screw up something else. You know
you can get scar tissue. Like there is a good
to fixing it, which you can with subbing. Guy gets tired.
But you also you change the matchups, you can change momentum.
And I'll just tell you I love the feeble rules.
(10:48):
But it's a much more free flowing game. There's a
lot less stoppages, and there's four less minutes and a
half eight less minutes a game. And then the last
part is like as embarrassing as some people make it
out to be to not play. Jason Tatum and tyres
Halburton also consider the you get to the fourth quarter,
you're up twenty, and you know it's more embarrassing than
that is putting them in garbage time, like it's actually
(11:11):
worse to go and like, hey man, you want to
go get five minutes like namm good. You know, especially
when a guy has never done that in his life
and they all feel like they're going to get hurt,
They feel like they embarrassed. It does embarrass them and
it feels like it embarrassed themselves. Whereas if you just
go like, hey, this is part of our plan. Kevin
Durant played way better than we thought and we just
went with a ten man rotation, like, got it understood.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
So the good news for Steve Kerr is that, you know,
unlike AU, I don't think John Haliburt and ty Reese's
dad called Steve Kerr and flipped out on him. You know,
That's that's what happens in AAU is that dad calls
and little little Timmy didn't play, and hey, you start
little Timmy next game, or maybe you won't get the
fund in for your jerseys next year, so Steve doesn't
(11:54):
have to worry about that.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And like you said, it's the hardest shit, the hardest shit,
and you're like or the or the hey my kid
came to every practice.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, like Yeah, your kid's not as good as you
other kid.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
He needs five times more practices than we actually hold.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
His four or your kid.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Every time he came in, he shot the ball, you know,
because he is you know, he actually made it worse
and made it made it, made it better. Speaking of which, uh,
how how close in age your same age is, tyres
aren't you?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah? Tyrese and I grew up playing in the same
conference in Northeast Wisconsin high school basketball. You can, uh
if you even believe that?
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Did you did you see this? Did you know this
was was coming from him?
Speaker 4 (12:33):
No? And I would tell him that too, And I
think that's what he'd probably smile when he heard me
say no. If anybody knew that he had this level
of capability was him and only him, especially when he
was young in high school. He was super lanky, he
was kind of positionless. His shot was funky, but you know,
(12:53):
it went in just like it it does now, And
he knew that but didn't care like that was theful
thing about Tyreese. The best thing about Tyreee is not
like the level of basketball player he is. The level
of human being that man is is unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
He's always like, like me, give me example.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Yeah, so, like, I don't think I've ever seen him
not smile during a game of basketball, and we were
in some of the most heated competitive games high school
games in the area. I don't have a specific example,
but oh, actually I do. So I had a nonprofit
organization that we tried to help out some families. We're
going to do another one here soon in Wisconsin, and
(13:34):
it was a skills clinic for little kids, and we're
going to raise money all this stuff. The first person
I called was Tyrese Alberton because at the time, like
I was close with him, he was a big name.
He was starting to kind of gain momentum towards the
end of his high school career, and he was all in,
Like he was like, you can take my whole Saturday Sunday,
let's go do this thing. Ended up raising over like
fifty grand as some high schoolers just for a family
(13:58):
that was in need. So that's one one example of Tyres.
But yeah, he was unbelievable, especially when he got to
the right spot at Iowa State. Like that was the
decision maker that in USA basketball took him to a
completely different level. He was Gatoraye Player of the Year
in the state. He was really good. Not trying to
discredit his high school career, but the Olympics, like I don't.
(14:20):
I don't think anybody from our area when he was
a sophomore, and I think Tyree would agree, would say
that's an Olympic basketball player right there. He's a top
you know, twenty guy in the world, like I never
not at that time, not at that time.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It's the whole thing is fascinating. Okay.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
So, and I want to circle back to your story
as well, but just on Ontario.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
So when you you guys are exact same year in
high school, correct?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Correct? Yep?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Okay, So, who was at Marquette as their point guard?
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Went on visit? I think Howard was that towards the
end of my career.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Marcus Howard not because then you're a college career, high
school career, my high school career, right, So Marcus Howards
is starting point guard, so and he's not going he
wasn't going anywhere, right And then do Wisconsin offer you both?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Oh? Good question on tyresee, Wisconsin did all not offer me?
And I committed after my sophomore year, going into my
junior so they did not offer me.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Why so early?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
You know what, I was always like a super impulsive kid,
like I think this is one of the ways, like
the whole prefrontal cortex thing like seven years ago is
not that far from me, but completely different processing system
up top. Now I had a big twelve offer. I
was stoked about it. All I could think about was
(15:47):
I could get to play Kansas. I didn't think about, Hey,
you know they're a defensive minded program, right, and you
don't play defense that well, if at all, in high school, right,
So all I could think about was the level and
the lights and all that stuff. And I always tell
people like I was going to make it fit. Every
(16:08):
recruit we talked to on the phone is like, oh,
what are you looking for? I'm looking for the right fit. Well,
the problem is when you're sixteen and seventeen and you're
a square peg in West Virginia's a round hole, you're
so stubborn. I'm so call it egotistical. I'm like, I'll
make it work, I'll make it fit. And it did it,
you know so I just made a very quick and
(16:28):
rash decision, but maybe it was the best one. I
met my fiance. I have lifelong friends and relationships in
West Virginia. I'll go back to Morgantown whenever I can.
My first job was there, Like sure, from a plane perspective,
horrible idea. I can admit that now, and I tell
Hugs to his face. Pretty sure I have told him
at some point. But I love him to death, and
(16:50):
I love the city to death. And I'm here where
I am now. So that was kind of the decision.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk line up
in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports
Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR
to listen live. Did you did you play any other
sports growing up? Because I know you hate baseball. You
made that abundantly clear.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You have no time for baseball. Do you play anything
else going up?
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Nobody has time for baseball? Like that's the biggest thing,
is the time, contrade. So I played little league baseball.
Didn't love the whole like you know, thirty five percent
is good. I was crying a lot, throwing stuff. Remember
prefrontal cortex not all the way there yet, So quit baseball.
Stuck with football through Pop Warner got reprimanded and Pop
(17:41):
Warner had a meeting with the commissioner for swearing at
that age. Wasn't okay.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I thought, what age?
Speaker 4 (17:51):
What is Pop Warner? I would have been probably like
eight eight ish seven eight nine, But I mean, I
mean just bad routes and lack of communication among our
whole group. And you know, when we got back in
the huddle, I'd let people have.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
It reprimanded by the commissioner. I played, I played, it
was it was junior American. I played Pop Warner just
my eighth grade year.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I played all growing up. I love football.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
What position, mostly quarterback, a little running back. My first
year though, playing when I was seven, I played on
the Orange Raiders the eighties, and I played like I
was like the littlest kind of team. I played like noseguard,
and literally that my job was like the ball was
snapped and I would even try and dive underneath the
(18:39):
legs of the center to tackle the quarterback to just
get a foot, you know, just kind of like sneak
in there.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And I never got the ball.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
And then my second year, I was swear to god,
I got pictures to back it up.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I was on the Orange Packers and I was the
I was the quarterback and it was awesome. I got named.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Larry Powers was my coach and the seven to eight
year olds, which is this youngest division. They always played
the nine AM games. Nine AM games had eight AM wayans,
so he'd pick me up from my house. This is
probably so my dad was either still coaching or they
had just gotten fought when. It's probably the year they
goten fired at at Yeah, it was probably the year
(19:22):
they got fired at Lombey State, so he went up
to Oregon State for a year. I was like a
volunteer assistant, so I didn't you know. My mom had
two other kids at home, and Larry Powers would pick
me up at seven o'clock. We go to the donut shop,
have donuts and talk game plan strategy, and then we
go to the weigh ins and then play. And then
I'd sit around the football field all day and then
(19:42):
wait for my brother to show up. My brother played
in a later game, watching cheer for his game, and
then my mom would takes all home where we'd go
to like a.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Pizza party, you know, all that kind of stuff. So
I love football. I did love playing baseball.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
The funny thing about football was my dad was convinced
that I would be too small to play back, which
at that in that era I was, and I was
a late growing up that I grew to be huge.
But the funny part was like, I'm going to play
basketball and not play football because I was too small,
which is again that's the old basketball coach is mine.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
So when did you specialize in hoops?
Speaker 4 (20:19):
It was around probably like ten nine, ten years old.
I kicked. I kicked all of them. I remember vividly
having a conversation with Jason Otter, who I attested pretty
much all my player development stuff. The only reason I'm
able to I was able to have a college career
at the level I did was because of Jason Otter.
(20:40):
And he came out. We were living in Seattle, and
we sat down in the living room and he looked
at me and he said, how bad do you want this?
He's a psycho, by the way, like complete. He's talking
to a ten year old right now. He's like, how
bad do you want this? I was just sitting there
watching MTV on my what He's like, how bad do
you want basketball? And I said I want really bad.
(21:02):
He's like, well, I need you to do a couple
of things for me. Number one, no more football, You're done.
And I was like, okay. He's like, you're gonna need
all year. You're too small. He's like, you're not fast,
you can't jump. You're gonna need all the time you
can get, so you have quit football. Said all right,
and he goes, your dad told me you have a girlfriend.
(21:22):
I said, uh, yeah, I mean yeah, and uh it's
a girl from Issaquo, Washington. Maybe one of my first loves,
Olivia would be upset if I said this, But Jason said,
it's it's done, it's gotta go. No more girlfriend. I
was once again ten years old, so I walked, am
I allowed to wear on here? No? I walked my guess.
(21:45):
I walked my happ yess to the garage and I
sat on those like two steps right by the garage door,
and I called her. But I called her and I said, look,
it's not you, it's me, and I need all the
time I can get. The old saying I I need
to just focus on basketball. I don't have time for
a relationship. So I killed it right there, ten years old,
(22:07):
at ten at ten, and then I watched like all
the Rocky movies that night and I was ready to
roll in the morning.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
You know, it's interesting because I I'm trying to think
and I remember when I went all in on basketball.
It wasn't It wasn't until like I was right before
high school my dad did was I mean, obviously I
stayed back. I held back in eighth grade and years.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Did you reclass too? Yeah, I didn't know that I
did a seventh grade.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, And like my first eighth grade year was such
a fucking disaster because like they told me, I was
holding back, right, So.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
You know, I literally like never went to school.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
So all your friends went to high school and you.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
This is the first so the first year, it wasn't
the first year I was with. It's like a confluence
of things, right, So this eighth grade year, I was
a lot like my son, although he's still has he's
still just now starting to grow, whereas some five feet
tall eighth grade, you know, not a hair on my body,
(23:15):
and you know, all my friends are growing and I'm
already being told I'm staying back. You know, And in California,
there is no real middle school sports.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Like we didn't even have a gym. We all the
middle school teams played outside.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
It was so bad, you know, Like I was my
my favorite story, which is a terrible story, but it's
still a favorite one, which is at the end of
the first semester, I had awful grades.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
And the report cards used.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
To come in the mail and they had like the
I don't know what that that that black ink paper
on one side and then you peel it. Often than
the grades be right there. So what we found out
you could do is if you got your report card early,
you could open up and you could just take a
simple raser and erase the grades. And then and I
(24:10):
know you've probably never seen when you're life, there is
something called a typewriter, okay, and you could put that
thin layer of paper back down, roll in the typewriter
and type in. You put dots on the paper where
you needed to type, and you could type in other grades.
So like I wasn't greedy, I didn't put straight a's,
but I definitely changed my grades to be way better. Right,
(24:34):
So my first semester I probably put down I had
like three a's, two b's in a.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Seat, you know. So second semester I get in trouble.
I did I did some I was. I kept going
to the bathroom in the teacher's bathroom, and.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Like, again, my son just graduated from this middle school,
and the juxtaposition of bathrooms is like it was fucking gross.
And so I kept like sneaking into the teacher's lounge bathroom,
going to the bathroom, you know, and getting out of there.
And I kept getting among other things, my grades were bad,
my attitude wasn't good, and I was going and crap
at wherever I wanted to crap, right, So they called
(25:15):
my mom into the the vice principal's office and she's like,
I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
He's got good grades. He's got They're like, what are
you talking about.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
He's like, well, he's you know, he's got he's got
one C that we're you know, we talked about. But
he's got all a's and b's. Missus Gottlieb, here's your
son's grades. And she was like what And.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, I got the ass whooping of my life.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
But there was like a month there where they didn't know,
maybe even two months there where they didn't know. And
I was like, this is the best ever. This is
I don't have to do shit. I'm doing school next year.
So anyway, so I held back, and then the next
year I played with a team called b ball in
LA and named Sam Minor was the coach, and my
(26:00):
dad would take me up to stay mister Minor's house,
drop me off on Mondays and Wednesdays, I believe, and
I would do my homework at his house with his family,
have dinner, and then we'd go to basketball practice, and
you know, I was the only white guy whatever.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
His family was incredibly kind.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
And then I think it was Wednesday nights, we'd play
a game in an LA like city, like middle school
level league, and I really started to like love it.
I was still playing baseball, I played tennis, I played
football as well, and so we got ready for high
school and I was starting to get pretty good and
my dad was like, okay, like you want to do this.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I was like, yeah, we really want to do.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
This, and so we took out a I'm still searching
for it because my mom is a bit of a
pack ratch keeps everything, so it exists somewhere in her house,
which is a like a red spiral notebook. And I'll
never forget this because in order for me to go
to Tustin High school. We had to rent an apartment
in Testin, even though we lived in Orange. He was
like ten minutes part. So we got this apartment. It's
(27:04):
like a five minute walk to Tutin High School. And
we're sitting there and he's like, write down your goals
and I was like, what do you mean. He's like,
write down what you want to accomplish. And I wrote
down like everything I want to accomplish, and he's like,
is that everything.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
It's like, yeah, that's what I want to do. Say, okay,
turn the page. Now, let's write down how we want
to do it.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
And you know, like from that moment forward, it just
my whole brain kind of changed. And I was I
was fifteen, and I was solely focused on becoming the
best player in Orange County, which I became, becoming a
high school American, which I became playing in a high
major level, which I did. I wanted to play on
(27:50):
TV for some reason, like everybody plays on TV. But
again back then, that was the thing, like I want
like dick by Taw to call one of my games.
I want to have my number of times, which it was,
and I wanted to play. I want to play in
the NBA I want to play in a Final four
playing in the NBA, and then I want to broadcast basketball,
and I want to coach vision I and I have
(28:12):
literally checked every box except for playing in the Final
four and playing the NBA. So but it's interesting, right
because a lot like Tyresee and again like I don't
profess to have had the career Tyrese had and you
don't profess to as well. But it's amazing to me
on how I think people lose track of, like for me,
(28:36):
regards whether I got this job or whether I I
broadcast to the level that I've been on a broadcast,
Like just the fact that I found that motivation that
got me to college, that made me lifelong friends, Why
are you talking about West Virginia right? Like Oklahoma State
is still that's my place, that's my heart. You know,
(28:57):
changed my life. And I think that we do lose
track of what the process of deciding you want something
does for, especially for young guys, because we're all kind
of scattered and we all need purpose and focus and
and you learned so much along the way, right, you know,
(29:20):
learned so much along the way. So wait, you were
in Seattle. Take me to where you lived before you
got to Kakanna.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
So I was born in Wisconsin. We moved to North Augusta,
South Carolina. My dad worked for Kimberly Clark. Before I
say this preface by not saying he's not in the military,
because it kind of sounds like we bounced around like
he was North Augusta, South Carolina. Then we moved to Marinet,
just on the border of the up in Wisconsin. And uh,
(29:50):
these each stint is like a few years, you know,
a handful, never never anywhere for more than five except
for Wisconsin, Marinette, you know, the Fox Cities again, and
then out to Seattle. We you know, we did two
and a half years in Seattle, and then that was
around what was it, fifth through seventh grade, Yeah, fifth
(30:14):
through seventh grade in Seattle, and then I did seventh
grade again, which is when I was you know, held
back seventh grade again when I got back to Wisconsin,
which was a weird transition for a kid at that age,
as you as you know. And then I stayed from
you know, seventh grade all the way through my high
school career here in Wisconsin, then West Virginia to Vegas,
(30:36):
back to West Virginia. Now to Wisconsin, so traveled a
little bit at this point.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, how are you making friends?
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Probably good? Probably too good. When I was young and
in school, because I think that was where my main
focus was and not in school, we had a sounds
like we had a very similar school experience. I didn't
have a typewriter ever, and by the time I was
in college, I had chat GPT, which was it's a
little bit more efficient than a typewriter. They can talk
(31:06):
to you. Uh So we definitely had a similar experience.
But I was good at making friends.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And here's a honest question, okay, and like we deal
with this. We're gonna deal with this.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
With our players. You and I talked about chat GPT. Okay,
do you know anybody anybody? I know one person, unequivocally
I know who did who never ever cheated ever?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Do you know anybody who never cheated.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
For my teammates in the high school or in college.
I'd like to plead the fifth but no, no, I don't.
I don't. It's crazy, right, well, no, hold on, there's
varying degrees, right, so great degrees like like out and
now cheating. Yeah, yeah, if you are copying and pasting
an entire thing from chat GPT into a paper and
submitting it. That's cheating, that's wrong. But like Olivia would
(31:58):
get upset. What I'm serious. Olivia would get upset because
if I would talk to chat GPT about this book
that I definitely did not read, and I had a
day to turn a paper in, so I'd ask you, like,
give me the cliff Notes. Now, let's talk about how
it applies to the real world now, okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
And then our toss it does that. I had no idea.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Oh man, I don't think you really realized how the
power of this thing.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
No, I mean I realized it, but don't realize it
right Like we had We literally had a book that
you had to buy called cliff Notes, and I always
just found it stupid, Like, wait, so I don't read
a book, but I have to read a book about
a book.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I didn't read. Like that, that doesn't just tell me
what it's about.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Glypt Notes was a physical book, yes, before it was
a website.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yes, it was a yellow book.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Wow, typewriters, cliff Notes was a book. I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
We had maps too.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
We have these physical things you'd open up called a map,
I mean and that's the great the greatest, the greatest
map ever was called a What the fuck is that called?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
It's in LA.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
It's uh that people in southern California had, which were amazing,
that every physically had. Now like there's no business for
It's like phone books, Like did you ever have to
use a phone book?
Speaker 4 (33:11):
I've seen a phone book? And I've seen uh, map
Quest staple all the papers together.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
No, not before map Quest was I know?
Speaker 4 (33:19):
And then I've seen the garment, the first GPS is
I've seen the solo GPS that you did a suction
cup to the to the to the windshield. But yes,
I've seen a notebook.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yeah, okay, So you're ten and you decide I'm all in.
When you're back in Wisconsin, you're getting ready for high school.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
You're a freshman. How big are you?
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Well, hold back freshman? I was probably five ten, about nine?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Okay, And did you play varsity your freshman year?
Speaker 4 (33:57):
I did? Yep, yep. Start Like what's that?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
What were you like as a player your freshman year?
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Freshman year? I was terrified, completely, you know, shell shocked
and like not sure if I could do it. I
think I remember our first game, our first game. Ever,
we played down in Milwaukee, I believe, and just didn't
play well, you know, had the whole thought process of
like I'm not good enough to do this, like I'm
(34:24):
not at this level, And spent kind of the whole
freshman year just figuring it out, like single digit average score,
decent distributor, but young, making a lot of dumb mistakes.
And I just had a coach who was like, you know,
like mckill up with with Curry, like just let them
let him figure it out, right, instead of the natural
instinct of the coaches just like get them out of
(34:44):
the game. So coach Shallow was amazing for me at Takana.
But that was my freshman year just figuring it out.
And then sophomore year is when when we hit a
little bit of a launch pad there.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
So my freshman year I played for a guy named
Tom McCluskey Penn State, and they were coming off of
state championship and the best player was a guy named
David Bielstein, who was a tremendous, tremendous high school player.
And so when I came aboard, they still had like
three guys and they were all perimeter players from the
state championship team, but they were all kind of secondary
(35:18):
tertiary Optionsjenshymore was our best player. He was going to TCU.
But the first game, we're getting ready to play in
the Tribuco Hills Tournament, and I like, to.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
This day, I will die on this hill.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
And mccluskoll watched this at some point he just retired
from teaching and coaching.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
That he should have.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Played me more that year, just because not just it
would have helped me in the future, but I think
I could have helped. We lost, like in the semi
finals of I think we lost to camer Murray and
Adam Jacobson Seem and Glendora we lost to anyway. But
my first game, I remember, I was I played varsity
and JV all summer and was we because you know,
(36:00):
I didn't know anybody, and I transferred into the school.
And at that time most public schools in California, guys
didn't really transfer in.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Maybe for football they did, but not for basketball.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
You either went to Modern Day if you're really good,
or maybe one of the other private schools otherwise, or
you just sucked it up and went to your high school.
So I didn't know a soul. Most of those guys,
they weren't really in the AAU world, which I was,
and so I didn't grow up playing with any of
these guys, didn't know anybody. So I was kind of
toggling between both. And I'll never forget our we played.
(36:36):
We played in the Tribuca Hills Tournament, and I think
we might have played Tribuca the first night. I can't remember,
but I just remember like we're getting two things. One
I got my jersey the day of the game, which
was awesome, and I remember getting it and going back
to that same apartment which I talked about and laying
it on the bed and just like looking at it
and freaking the fuck out. And it was terrible number
(37:01):
number thirty one, which is my brother's number, which is
just I have I still I have to have him
on the pod to explain why he chose thirty one,
terrible basketball number. But it was thirty one, and I'm
like staring at it and putting it on and looking
in the mirror and trying to flex my muscles. I'm
like five nine buck twenty right. And and then I
(37:23):
come back to the gym before getting ready to get
on the bus and they were like, hey, I think
you're starting tonight, Like what And what had happened was
the day before the night before they we had two
guys arrested and our two starting wings were arrested. They
(37:45):
were at a party and it got broken up and
they like refused to leave, like stupid shit, got mouthed
with a cop, got thrown into the clink.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
And so we go.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
We play in this tournament, and I'm fucking tight, right,
And we had a guy named Derrick Roach, and we
basically ran every play for Derreck Roach, and we were
you know, they were suspended the first two tournaments. And
so I played a ton and you know, kind of
like a little bit like college, like kind of scared
to shoot, just run the team whatever.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
And every time we take the court, our fans would be.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Like free more Reice, Free more Reese because he was
in jail.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It was amazing.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
It was at that moment that I learned about, you know,
always stay ready, to be ready, you know, and and uh,
and then I played mostly JV and that was really
good for me because otherwise I never would have looked
at the basket with varsity, you know, And in JV,
I just tried to fucking score every time I got
the ball, which I needed because with my dad's AU teams,
he always had such good talent that I didn't really
need to do shit except for the team because he
(38:45):
was like kind of old school, traditional point guard type coach. So,
uh yeah, that's that's that's fascinating. So when did it
take off? When did you sort of like when did
it blow up?
Speaker 4 (38:57):
Well, I mean it was it was gradual and it
was kind of twofold. When you talk about takeoff, Like
my sophomore year, I definitely took a step. And the
big thing was is like during my development. I believe
it was between my freshman and sophomore year during an
AAU event. We were playing a Chicago team and a
(39:19):
guy that I still know to this day. His name
is Scott and he worked for Ball's Life. Happened to
be watching somebody else. He was covering just Chicago high
school basketball with his camera and Ball's Life was small,
and anyways, he filmed the game and I knew he
(39:39):
was there. I wasn't stupid. I saw it, and I
you know, I did a little bit more than I
probably needed to on most plays, just with the handle
and you know, passing and just the extra shit. Right.
I did it and I had fun doing it. Didn't
think anything would come out of it. And then that
video went out and it did really well, and then
videos just followed behind and that now you know, it
(40:01):
kind of became every tournament there was more and more
cameras over time popped up this whole, this whole movement
of like mixtape basketball was growing as I was just
kind of hitting my stride. This was like during the
Austin Rivers, Like I think I've watched Austin Rivers Ball's
life or Whop mixtape actually sorry, his who mixtape probably
(40:24):
a thousand times, just like every other kid my age.
So that culture was building and I was hitting my stride.
So that's when the social media side of stuff really
started to take off. But from the on the court stuff,
like I said in the beginning, I didn't really take
a step until I went to Jason Otter. Like I
could handle the ball, stationary dribbling, I could do all
(40:47):
that stuff. I couldn't do any sort of game application
stuff until I met Jason. Like that's just what it was.
And I think I met him when I was ten
or eleven. But it took and he told me, he
was like, it is gonna take years for you to
get to a point where you even got a shot
at this right. So that was kind of the playing.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Did you play a lot of pickup?
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Uh? Yeah. My dad in Seattle would drop me off
at a twenty four hour fitness and say I'll see
you at eight and it was like, you know, three o'clock.
So and he was like playing with all the older guys.
At the time, I was in middle school.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
So here's good, dude. You know, underwear, but the air there,
the flow is fucking good.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
So in middle school I spent half my time of
twenty four hours. If I was at twenty four our
fitness for five hours, two and a half was walking
around the gym, probably trying to flirt with girls that
were way too old for me. The other half was
in the gym playing against guys who were also way
too old for me to be playing with and they
would bust my ass. So that was my That was.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
My world was. We had a place called Raquetball World. Rocket.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Here's what's amazing about Rackball World. There were only two locations.
One was in Santa Ana, one was in Fullerton, My
best friend growing up was Miles Simon. Miles grew up
playing at the Fullerton One. I grew up playing at
the sant Ana One. Literally like ships, we were friends.
We're like we became friends like fifth grade we started
playing together. Sixth grade we started like sleepovers and everything whenever.
(42:08):
And I think, like I can count on one hand
how many times I went to his rackball world. I
don't think he ever went to mine. And the courts
were side. We played sideways, and it might have been
four on four. And I was just that fucking annoying
little kid that would just sit up there and try
and play ball. And then my dad would be playing
racktball and I go downstairs and watch him, and I
go to the stack bar or whatever. I bullshit around
and come back and play. It was kind of same thing,
(42:30):
same thing.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
How do we?
Speaker 1 (42:32):
How do we get?
Speaker 3 (42:33):
I mean, I guess twenty four now, one of the
twenty four is great because there's a gym everywhere with those.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Things and there's always some level of basketball in it.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
But twenty four is bad because I think it's killed
any sort of outside playground basketball, Like it just doesn't
happen anymore.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Yeah, it doesn't. I was blessed. My grandpa has a
full court in his backyard, like at one point, it's
right down the street and Kakano, I'll take you over
to see it. It's really cool. And yeah, I played
out there all the time when I was when I
was really young. But yeah, the whole like playground culture
is gone, which is sad because that was like, you know,
(43:10):
also parallel to the end one culture in the street
ball and all that was huge for the game of basketball.
Moved it forward. But yeah, definitely definitely killed it, you know,
but it's better twenty four fitnesses, a real gym with
real hardwood, with an ac like you know, it's better
in some ways. You know, playing outside is cooler. But yeah,
(43:33):
my dad would just drop me off, kick me out
of the car and say see you, you know, for dinner,
and we.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Did that at Mile Square Park as well.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Or my dad would drop me off, helped me get
in the first game, and then you give me five bucks.
And there's something called a payphone, and if you really
needed him, you could call collect and then he wouldn't
accept and then they call you back at that number
or whatever, or they come get you. But for the
most part, they never came in. I don't remember ever
(44:02):
getting picked up early. I remember wasting a lot of
saturdays just sitting around there waiting for a game whatever,
and no phone, right, like, no phone, just occupying yourself,
just shooting hoops or going and hopping in hopping in games.
Last thing, and then we'll I want to get to
next one. We'll get to your college career, and then
(44:22):
we'll get to coaching. But if you had a kid
getting ready for high school, Yeah, you get a kid
get ready for high school, how do you balance, Like
we're in getting into August, this will drop in August.
You have August, and most high school start end of
August early September. Obviously we know when the season gets going.
(44:43):
How would you balance workouts now with pickup ball now
as you're getting ready for a high school season.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Yeah, it's a it's a great question. I think it
depends on like the agent level obviously of the kid,
but from like a general standpoint, kids don't play enough.
I think this conversation has been had a number of times.
But I do also think, like you know, getting ten
to play pickup is tough in some small towns. It's
(45:11):
just a fact, like, especially nowadays with a million other
options of freaking Fortnite college football video games, girls, Like,
there's a lot of other options for these guys, and
getting ten to play pick up at a high level
is tough. So what I've really started to do now
and what I would suggest that high school kids, cause
you might not be able to find ten, you can
(45:32):
probably find two or three or four and play small
sided one on one games. And I was just talking
to a trainer who trains Hyjerome and Max Shrews and
some guys in Chicago, and that's what they do, is like,
we'll do a ton of skill and this is what
we're doing with our groups here at Green Bay is
like a ton of skill work. Early, we'll do game
application on top of that skill, and then at the
(45:54):
end for fifteen to twenty minutes, like you know, a
third of your workout should be live reads because like
everybody knows a guy who can do drills at a
different level than everybody else. He doesn't miss, it's clean,
it's crisp, he's got rhythm, and then you throw a
body in front of him and he loses his damn
mind because he's just not making those live reeds enough
(46:16):
and he doesn't have any sort of creativity. He has
the rigidity of skill development and drill work and that's it.
And that's great if that's what you're trying to do.
But we're trying to play basketball, so I would say
you threw a number on it just for fun. Thirty
percent of your workout should be live reps against somebody
(46:38):
whoever you can get to just play dummy d You know,
your younger brother hears ten bucks guard me at the
end of this workout and rebound the rest like that's
huge because kids nowadays do so many drills. Because here's
the great thing about drills. Nobody freaking wins or loses
a drill and it doesn't hurt as bad. But if
(46:59):
you play one egos getting bruised. Somebody says and they
hate it. I hated it. There's definitely points, you know
where I hated that, that confrontation and competition. But it's
just like any other muscle. If you if you flex
it enough, by the time you get in the game,
you're not as afraid of losing as the guy across
from you, and that gives you ample more opportunity to win.
(47:22):
This game or win the matchup or whatever. But you
got to play. You have to play.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
That's it for for for part one. Jordan McCabe also
known as J five. Now are we not doing the
J five thing anymore? I mean, do we want to
put that to bed? Do you want to continue?
Speaker 4 (47:41):
I think we put it to bed. J five was
definitely the playing name I do like Coach Archibald calls
me Mac, and my grandpa was his nickname was Mac.
So if I'm going to have a nickname, coach Mack
is fine, or just Jordan works as well.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
You don't want to be called J five at all.
Speaker 4 (48:00):
No, No, it's like a player tag, you know.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
I know, but there's still like a rep to it,
kind of cool, Like if I had some shit like that,
I would I would Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:11):
All right, I mean you might be right, we can
we can keep this.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Only this is a lot like Eric Sanders, whose nickname
is eighth grade, right, like it's one of the great
nicknames of all time.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
He's like, yeah, I don't be eighth grade anymore.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Like, bro, if I had a nickname as good as
eighth grade, why would I didch eighth grade?
Speaker 4 (48:26):
We talked about transitioning in the beginning of the show.
Everybody's got a transition, right.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
We did, we did.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
It's so it Honestly, the super weird thing is being
called coach all the time. And as you know, Arch
has a tendency to say the word coach a lot,
like I think he'd leave the country a coach. Coach, coach,
coach that.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Was that was really good coach, which I was really.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Good coach, I dude, I just that's a weird That's
a weird transition for me.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
I just imagine being twenty five and a twenty three
year old COVID senior having to call you coach, which
was my position last year. That's a weird one. That
feels really weird. No matter how you slice it, it's weird. Weird.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
That is weird and weird has been a big talking
point this week. All right, that's it for me and
Jordan McKay Part one. We'll do obviously complete kind of
his story and more. Yaki Yak on hoops throughout the year.
Make sure you follow him on Instagram, but most of
you already followed him on Instagram in the meantime, reminded
(49:24):
the Doug Gottlieb Show airs daily three to five eastern
twelve two Pacific on iHeartRadio, Foxsports Radio dot Com. There's
a podcast for that as well, and for this edition,
I'm Doug Gotlieb.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
He's Jordan McKay. This is all bo
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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