This week, Gottlieb makes the case for keeping the Eastern and Western Conference NBA Playoff format, why he thinks Zion is a great fit for today's NBA as a small-ball 5, and talks with former D1 baller turned pro athlete financial advisor Mike Haddix, Jr. on his strategy to help pros manage their money, and player development specialist Nick Graham on teaching techniques and how he would rehabilitate Markelle Fultz.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, welcome in. I'm Doug glib and you have downloaded,
subscribed and hopefully you'll rate the All Ball Podcast. Do
you like this stuff or even some uh discussions about
football other live interviews, live radio show. You can check
me out every day three o'clock Eastern time, twelve o'clock Pacific.
We're on Hunters stations nationwide. You got a Fox sport
(00:26):
Trader dot com. We're also on Serious Sex or the
I Heart Radio app. Check us out. Of course, the
All Ball Podcast is fun. Uh. This week we have
two interesting guests that are different than any other guests
that we've we've had. One is Nick Graham. Nick played
at Washington State for his dad, Paul's long time uh
long time assistant coach in college and a head coach
(00:47):
in college as well. Um and uh. He's now the
head coach. His dad's the head coach at Dallas Skyline,
but was head coach at at Wazoom with my assistant coach.
When we're at at Oklahoma State. Nick was just a
kid at the time, but was like all of our
little brother Now he's kind of a workout gurgu. He
was the developmental coach as a g A for Iowa
State most recently. And I want to get his kind
(01:10):
of perspective on if you're a parent, how to raise
an athletic son. Uh, if you're a workout guy, how
long you should be going. UM, A lot of different
stuff to get to. Also, Uh, Michael Haddocks Jr. Is
going to join us. His dad was a pro football player.
He was a BASKETBA player at Sienna. But an interesting
path after playing for Sienna into the world of first
(01:32):
Wall Street and now UM helping the finances of athletes.
UM in a in a unique way, advising athletes how
to make them kind of connectors with others in the
real real world so that they can manage their own
financial portfolio without getting shaken down. It's it's a it's
an interesting discussion. I can't wait for you to hear it.
(01:55):
Let me get to some of the news of the day,
some of the things that I have seen. UM, I'm
gonna start in college basketball because now I'm gonna start
in the NBA because we're coming off of the NBA
trade deadline. And here's something which you have not heard,
and I did both on pod and on radio, tell
(02:16):
you this was going to happen over the end of
last season. There's a healthy discussion by some people's estimation
over whether or not they should do away with the
Eastern and Western conference playoffs that because now you can
get anywhere with you know, a charter plane. The idea
of East West when the West is so utterly and
(02:37):
thoroughly dominant, is kind of a joke. What we should
have is seeded one through sixteen. Now, at the time,
there was a couple of things that the reality of sport,
the reality of the business is it it shouldn't and likely,
very very likely won't be done. The first thing is this,
(02:57):
you are going to do away with the historic rival race, right,
historic rivalries, and the historic rivalries are such where in
the Lakers Celtics NBA Finals. That's going to help build
a number that allows us to yearn for days of yesteryear.
And just because Calves Warriors doesn't feel all that sexy,
you still want East versus West. It's the best way
(03:20):
to engage more of the country. Otherwise you run the
risk um Otherwise, Otherwise you run the risk of what
college football has, which is a regional sport, and you
don't want that. You don't want Clemson versus Alabama to
schools that are divided by a four or five hour drive.
Like you, you don't want that. That's not good for business.
(03:41):
You need as much of the country engaged as possible.
And I think that's the first thing, the history and
the overall national engagement. The second part is it makes
it really hard. As much as ratings will suffer when
when the East was down, think about think about the
Eastern market, right, I mean, if you have the Celtics
(04:02):
going on the road to take on the Portland Trailblazers Boston,
which is a vital market and has a a great
fan base in terms of TV viewership with the Celtics,
I'm gonna stay up till ten o'clock and watched that thing.
There's no chance you have. You have to protect those
home markets and allow them to watch games at a
reasonable hour. Mountain time zone is hard enough. And the
(04:25):
last thing is this water find this level. When we
were kids, or at least when I was a kid,
the East was better. It was just better top to bottom.
Then the then the West is and then there was
a There's been periods of times in the nineties when
the West was far better than the East, and I
know that the East has had. Part of it is,
you know, the Celtics were bad and the Knicks have
(04:46):
seemingly been bad forever, and when those year two and
the Sixers were bad for long time, so when your
three signature and the Bulls have been bad. But even
when the Bulls had remember the Bulls had a number
one seed one year, didn't they um? And then the
and down to Miami and that did that didn't work
out so well. For the fact though, is the Eastern
Conference now the Celtics, And I guess part of it
(05:08):
is you have to say, if Gordon Hayward was who
he thought he could be but is not yet, the
Celtics should still be considered an elite team. The Bucks
have proven to be an elite team and seemed to
have gotten better with Nicola Meritis um and honestly, getting
ready to Bartie Parker, I thought, I think helped them,
you know, I really think it helped them, helped them defensively,
and now they have a stretch four in Nicolamritich to
(05:30):
go along with the stretch five and Brook Lopez, who
would have thought he's a stretched five three years ago,
didn't shoot threes. Now, that's all he does. I think
the seventies six years got better. At least their starters
got better. I don't know about their chemistry, which has
been off, or their bench, which is not nearly as good.
They shed it to get those big four and the
Toronto Raptors got. The Toronto Raptors are substantially better than
last year. If you take out Valentinis, you put in Marcresol,
(05:52):
who's a better player, Marcusol. If you take out um
To Marta Rosen and you bring in Leonard, who's a
better player Kawhile Leonard, Like, the Raptors have been good,
and they added a former Defensive Player of the Year
and an NBA Finals m v P like that's a
as are pretty good additions. And so now when you
look at it, are the Warriors still the favorites, Yes,
(06:15):
but their ages there there. They have age problems in
their bench, and they gotta figure out if we're gonna
play big down the stretch or small. If we play small,
that means we're gonna sit DeMarcus Cousins. And so even
if you take out if you take out the Warriors, though,
tell me somebody in the West, who's far and away
better or even marginally better than those top of those
other four teams in the East. And the whole idea
(06:38):
of we don't need we don't need a division. We
don't need East and West. We should have one. It
will never happen because of TV, because of how hard
is to follow your team and they're playing three hours
away time zone wise, and two if you thought it
was because the West was dominant, just take a breath.
Now the East appears to have better teams at the top,
at least in their top four. Let me get you
(07:01):
to college basketball. You know, I've I've I've heard people
say Mike frances said that Zion Williamson's game doesn't transfer
to the NBA now. Umlike anybody else, I'm cautious about
pounds and the pounding of a hundred games, a hundred games, workouts, practices,
what that will mean to his hips, his knees, his back.
(07:24):
It's a lot of weight. And as they tell you,
it's not the going up that wears down your body.
It's the coming down. Every time you land, every time
we got to dunk, that's when he comes down. But
what changed in the NBA is that This is a
couple of years ago, Derrick Williams came out. Derrick Williams
was playing at Arizona and he was playing the five.
(07:45):
They moved him. Essentially the center remembers Derrick Williams and
and Momo Jones, And they only got Derrick Williams and
Momo Jones because Tim Floyd's staff got fired. Tim floyd
staff got blown up because of the O. J. Mayo investigation.
So they get Derrick Williams and they play Derrick Williams
during his last year at Arizona at the five. So
he's being guarded by college centers and he's shooting an
(08:07):
unreal percentage from three, and he was drafted by Minnesota
to be a two three. And if you go back
and look at my old draft rundown when I was
at ESPN, you'll notice that I wasn't a buyer new
Derrick Williams because I didn't think he could shift down
a position. Fast forward to now, and Derrick Williams could
be a stretch forward in the NBA. I still don't
think he would fit in because he wasn't much of
a reboundary, doesn't move that well athletically. But that's essentially
(08:31):
what he is Zion Williamson ten years ago would be
too small to play power forward or small ball center
in the NBA. Now I kind of think he's perfect. Yeah,
he's gonna shoot the ball better, but he plays hard. Um,
he can make a shot. He competes on the boards,
competes defensively and if you've watched him move loudly when
(08:55):
he's playing hard. He can guard five positions. So did
he fit Does he fit the nineties mold of the NBA? No,
but this is in the ES, this is two and
he's perfect for the league. Does that mean will be
a superstar? No? I don't. I don't know, but I'm
willing and excited to find out what he becomes. All
Our first guest is Mike Haddocks Jr. Um. He was
(09:18):
a very good player at Sienna. His dad played in
the National Football League. And what he's doing now I
think will intrigue you because it's about not just financial
literacy for athletes, but also about UH being a connector
meeting people how to the real way to survive and
(09:39):
succeed in business. And he's had an unbelievable life end.
It's not han't been living very long. Myke Havocks Junior was,
like I said, star player at Sienna. UM tried to
play pro football after college and then went into the
business sector, went to Columbia for his master's degree. And
(10:00):
you'll you'll be fascinated to hear the rest. I want
to welcome to my cadoxs Jr. Who was an helm
of player at Sienna and now doing something which I
think is uh not only important and um and and
interesting at the same time, but I think it's it's
fascinating and how he's learned from his his own father's
career and trying to help others not make some of
(10:23):
the stay mistakes as dad made, and trying to help athletes,
uh put their financial house in order. But but I look.
I first became aware of my Cados joints us now
in the All Ball podcast. I don't know if you
know this, UM, I had no idea, Like I grew
up in something California, and I felt like I knew
a ton about college basketball. I had never heard of Sienna,
the capital district, the passion for basketball there until I
(10:46):
was recruited by Marquette. Marquette's coach was named Mike Dean
uh Dino had come from from Sienna to Marquette, and
he showed me old videos of one of his point guards.
And that's how I became like I had no idea
about seeing about anything. And then, of course you fast
forward when Frane McCaffrey was the head coach there. He
had recruited me to Notre Dame, and now he's the
(11:07):
head coach obviously at Iowa, and I was already kind
of a fan of the program, already kind of knew
about it. Um, you grew up your dad was a
pro football player, and a good one. Um, but your
body type feels like you could have played in the
NFL as a left tackle, like four years when when
you came out of high school? Why Sienna? Um, So
(11:29):
it's funny. So you grew up in in in California
and didn't hear much about Seanna. I didn't know much
about Pianna. And I grew up in South Jersey, right
out of of Philly, So I grew up watching college basketball,
and I remember kind of being like, all right, maybe
I go to u c l A. May I go
to Duke, And then you know, I'm a sixth big center.
So I changed a bit. Um. But you know, I
had a guy recruited me by the name of Steve
Seymour and he was at Drexel. And then another guy
(11:51):
by name of Rob Jackson was at Seton hall Um
when I was a sophomore in high school, played at
santagus In Press in South Jersey, and and then you know,
they ended up at Sienna and they'd reached back out.
You know, my junior year, I don't know anything about it.
I was like, okay, you know, cool up state New York.
And I first thought it was New York City or
right outside of it. Um, And then he started to
(12:11):
kind of do some research and there was Um. There
was a guy that I that I looked up to
when I was younger that played at Santy Gustin also
who was really probably the best player I've ever seen
the six nine. You know, guy could handle the ball.
He end up going to see it and I was like, okay,
let me check it out. And then my teammate, who
was a point guarden to playing the Princeton Um, I'm
the name of Scott Greeman. He was Scott's an assistant American.
(12:34):
I know him really really well. Ahead Yeah, Scott's my guys.
So we played high school together. He was like, you
should check out Sienna. Man, they're obsessed with basketball. And
I was like, all right, I will take a look.
Get up in a get in the car. We dropped
five hours and they playing like this beautiful twenty thousand seed,
a ringing, a righting downtown Albany. And it was like,
you know, we go to a game and there's you know,
a bunch of news cameras outside of the game. So
(12:55):
I was like, wow, this is like it's like a
pro team in the Capitol region and they won. Know
my my senior high school, they went to the tournament.
I was like, okay, cool, give it a shot. At
The head coach at the time was the guy Rob
Lanier who's at Tennessee now, who's a great recruiter. And
I was like, cool, this is this is home. I
got there. I started playing right away. I played. I
started every game but like two or three my whole career,
and I was like, you know, never looked back and
(13:16):
met some great people there and it was a really
cool afferience. By the way, why was you know what?
When Rob took over, he did recruit well and obviously
he's I think the nephew is a nephew of Bob Lanier.
I think he's a nephew here. Um And and I
know Rob Wells as well. You know, he went back
to being a Texas assistant and tend now at Tennessee
(13:37):
is doing a great job. Why didn't it work? You guys?
Kind of there was a two year stretch before the
coaching change where was bad? Why was it so bad? Um?
I think it's one of those things that's, um, you know,
we have some injuries, um and and it's just you know,
we we actually had a really good team, but you know,
we had some bad luck. I never forgave its. My
junior year. Um, we played Oregon State the first game
(13:59):
of the seed and and and it was a back
and forth game, and we were like up by two
or three with a minute or so less and and
and we end up like turn them all over and
losing the game. And it just kind of snowballed. It's
one of these people got hurt. You end up periing
with my knee and a bunch of guys got hurt.
It was like, you know, just we had some bad luck.
And it was I do think it's sort of the
noormal really think just some moments in the season or
(14:21):
in games that kind of flipped and change things. I mean,
we almost bet a Pack twelve team that was I
think it's packed in the time, we won't be the
Pac twelve team. In the first game of season, we
lose that game at the very end of the game.
The next game we come out the torn re member
really sluggish where you losing New Orleans and kind of snowball.
So we just had some bad luck. Um And and
you know, kind of wanted to change, so so they
(14:42):
moved on to fran McCaffrey came in and then you know,
and and that went really well. But I think it's
one of those things where you know, there's there's a
couple of moments in the season or a game that
when you hit a rough patch and it all sort
of turns around. Mike Haddock Jr. Joining us for anyone
who doesn't know about the Albany Sienna rivalry. Um And
but of teams, obviously Albany struggle and really struggling. Obviously,
(15:02):
you know, their best player transferred to grad transferred to Villanova.
That didn't help them. Um, Sienna obviously has gone through
a coaching change, so they're still they're in kind of
rebuild mode. But you've played in that game. What's it like? Um,
it's cool. I mean, it's it's like a it's a
unique college atmosphere because we're you know, we're not in
the same conference, but we're around the corner. We played
(15:22):
pick up with those guys in the summertime. Um. And
it is the capital reason is a unique place where
you know, most people that graduate from CNA are already
they stay in the area, so there's just years and
years and years of alumni that live in the town
and that that game is people at a college game
on a Saturday night and it is and it's just,
(15:44):
you know, kind of a battle. So it's a cool
atmosphere that doesn't happen a lot in college basketball. Um.
And it's also like, you know, what what happened is,
you know, we would beat Albany, but they would win
the American East and then you know, the year they
almost beat Yukon in the first round, and then we
got to hear all summer that they're better because they
played in the torn We didn't make it, and it
was like, you know, some of that stuff that just
went back and forth. So it's just a unique place
(16:04):
that I don't think. I think just all the fact
that sort of line up to make it a really
cool and special game that you can't really replicate. Why
didn't you play football? So I grew up so growing
up in so My dad's from small town Mississippi, and
it's like, you know, you get have it when you
play football. I grew up in South Jersey and it was,
you know at that time, you know, Philly in South
jersey's really big time in football now, but at that
(16:26):
time it was it was all basketball. And I you know,
I grew up I played and playing and uh and
middle school was really good and I went to a
really good high school, and I it never crossed my mind.
I just had some success and basketball and just was like, Okay,
I'm gonna keep this thing rolling. But interestingly, interestingly enough,
the second I got done, my senior year, coach McCaffrey
(16:46):
called me. He's like, hey, you don'ta play football. I'm like,
you're talking about man. He's like, hey, you wanna play football?
And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like the
Vikings called me. They said, you have good hands, the
good feet, you can be a tight end, you know.
I was like, all right, I'll give it a shot. Um.
And then I had like five or six teams on
to the Giants and the Eagles and kind and worked out,
uh for a bunch of teams, And it was a
really cool experience. But I also realized that football is
(17:09):
one of those games where toughing I had they're playing
high school, were growing up, so it's a bit tough
to pick up um, but it was it was kind
of a cool experience. I think about a little more
time at it, and I might might be a football
player right now. Yeah. It's It's interesting because I've talked
to a bunch of gms and NFL gms and they
said they're like, hey, find me, find me a basketball player.
But and they're they're prerequisite as always. He has to
(17:30):
have played football in high school, has to play football
growing up. Like that, you look at guys that have
been successful, the Tony Gonzalez, the Antonio Gates is of
the world. They played football. The idea that that you
can just hey, I'm just such a good athlete that
you can learn a sport in your twenties is really
really hard to believe. Yeah, it's it's it's a really
(17:50):
technical game. And I never forgets. I was working on
for the Giants and they were telling me, you John
playing hand played me and rolling hips and all this stuff,
and I had no clue. Sort of had a move
like a football player and it was, you know, comeing
up the line, all these things that were you know,
second nature. I just didn't have a clue. And I
think I knew it, but I knew they knew it
before I knew. Okay, so you you get the football
(18:12):
dream goes away? Yeah, then would you do? So? I
was saying as going overseas. UM was going back and
forth for a while. Uh, I didn't know if I
wanted to continue playing basketball or when I was pre
men in college, I was thinking about going to med school.
I just didn't know. UM. And then I decided just
you know, to to join the workforce. UM, so I
kind of figure out my way, you know. It was
(18:34):
just studying a little bit too to go to medical school.
And then my father in law who's the doctor, was like, listen,
man um and take some time, do some other things,
kind of experience some stuff out there gott in the
sales and then was like, you know, I wanted more.
I moved down to New York City. Um and then yourself.
I was selling medical devices. So I worked for a
(18:55):
company called covidian Um. We told the I don't get
to second. We told these devices that help you, like,
you know, do these do these resections and do these surgery.
So I go sitting surgeries and I sold and then
I sold stints um for Boston Scientific. So I did that.
I thought it was really cool. UM one a little
bit more within the city, met a bunch of New
York City, met a bunch of people end up getting
the Columbia for Business school, and I was like, you know,
(19:17):
this is kind of a cool world. And I like,
you know, I was the first, you know, guy in
my family and anybody that I knew that was going
to an Ivy League school and then going to to
grad school. So I was like, it's kind of cool.
And it kind of opened up this world of you know,
these jobs and careers that I didn't even know existed.
It was a really cool experience. So you get you
get out of Columbia. Now now you have an Ivy
(19:39):
League master's degree, which is incredibly impressive. You've worked a
little bit, you've worked in in medical sales, then what
you do. Um. I went to work in Wall Street.
I was an investment banker. So I was you know,
I know, I thought, you know, this was a cool
field that that that's another field that no one that
I ever even heard. I've never heard of this job
because I got there. I went working on Wall Street.
(20:00):
I was an investment banker. I was doing mergers and acquisitions,
shirt and tie every day from the death building models,
working for twenty hours a day, you know, living living
the Wall Street dream. Um. But also realized I missed,
you know, you know, being out and about and and
a little bit of sales, which is kind of being
around and and being entrepreneurial. So I did the Wall
(20:23):
Street thing. It was cool. It taught me a lot, um,
but it kind of clicked when I was there because
you know, candidly, a lot of people on Wall Street,
you know, didn't look and feel like me and and
and and I say that meaning we're a lot of
guys you know that I grew up with. Theyre playing
basketball or just people that I knew that were in
those circles. This was like a different world that was
(20:44):
you know, kind of country club, and I just uh
and and I felt like there was a lot of
cool things I was learning, but I wanted to use
those skills to work with people that were similar to me. Okay,
so before we before we get to that, UM, as
somebody who look, you don't make it at Sienna. You
don't have the career you had unless you have a
(21:04):
tremendous work ethic. Right, you would have obviously got into
You wouldn't have been premed and graduated or gotten into
Columbia or graduate columb unless you have work ethic. But
compare and contrast the lifestyle you mentioned twenty hour weeks,
which is harder being a basketball player or being an
investment banker? Um. I think I think being an investment
(21:27):
banker is harder, UM, because I think that when you're
a basketball player, you know, you have a love for
the game, and it's one of these things where the
things that you're doing are all sort of building to
you know, playing a game, or even you know you're
running sprints, but you know it will make you better.
You know, when you're you're playing pick up, like all
these things you've done for so long, and it's all
(21:48):
sort of built out of this loving playing basketball and
a lot of times you're putting the ball through the whop.
You also are built towards these things. Um. But as
an investment banker, it's just a it's a different world
as you go sit at the desk and sort of
waiting for it's sort of reactionary. So for me, it
was like I knew basketball. I loved it. I work
because I knew that, Like there was like this drive
(22:10):
in me. I think, you know, when you're in the workforce,
it's just a little different. You know that motivation is
a little different. Um, And I do think that's harder.
I think mentally, I think physically, you know, the basketball
thing is you know, it's it's it's hard, and it's
you know, it's hard work. But I do think that,
in my opinion, the investment banking things a little bit harder. Yeah.
I always thought, you know, we always think of ourselves
(22:32):
as athletes, like, look, we get up and we work out,
we work hard, we you know, and um we we
we worked so hard on our craft in order to
be great. And you do, but there's a limit to
how much you can you can do per day like
these guys like, well, I spent all day in the gym,
Like no, you didn't write, Like you can go hard
for an hour and then you gotta take time and
(22:52):
they can go lift or whatever. You get something to eat,
you hang out, love it, and then you can go
hard for an hour. You can play for a long time.
But that's not as you said, you know, putting in
of teen sixteen hours days. When you're grinding, it's a
different sort of grind. And it doesn't I'm not trying
to diminish what it takes to be an athlete, but um,
but it's a it's almost the rewiring of it there.
But on the other hand, you have to have the
mental toughness of an athlete to push through fatigue, which
(23:15):
I don't know if you know, every civilian in the
workforce kind of naturally has, whereas in athletics, Um, you
gotta push through, right, That's that's why that's really why
you run for conditioning. It's not because you really need
to run for conditioning. It's because it teaches your mind
kind of the mental the mental approach to pushing through
(23:36):
when your body says I'm done, not truly being done. Yeah,
we completely agree. It's it's you know, different stokes for
different folks. I guess right, you know, we all have
this sort of makeup. And I think that and when
I even when I went to the workforce, it was
one of those things were like, cool, you play you
know you played athletics. That's sort of a step up
because it's it just shows that you can sort of
(23:56):
grind through something or get through things even when you
think you can't do it. So I do think it's
you know, you know, it does you know that there
is some sort of mental toughness that everyone just can't do.
And there's you know, there's people that remember Kyle's all
time it was like, hey, you know I wished out
of scholarship. I'm like, no, you don't because you go
home for Thanksgiving to Christmas and I got, you know,
six am practice. And I know for a fact that
the the they say you can become get up and
(24:17):
six they am and walk across the snow and come
work out, you're gonna be like, I don't want to
play anymore. Um, it's I want to. I want to
get to them what you're doing now. But before I
forget there has been North Carolina States scored twenty four
points last week. What was the worst loss you can
ever remember taking? So? Um, the worst loss that I'll
(24:40):
never forget is is my senior year and then Matt Championship. Um,
And it wasn't he because we didn't score. It was
just like, you know, we were winning the whole game
and kind of got away from it. That was like
the worst lass that it's things, But I remember a
game we've played Penn my junior year at Pain and
we just got absolutely blitzed. Like it was you know,
(25:02):
one of those games that's a few days before Christmas
break and everyone wants to go home for a day
or two. And we we got out of the locker room,
I think it was like twenty to two at some point,
and we kind of looked up from like what's happened?
They were hitting shots, We were half sleeping, and by
the time we woke up, you know, we were getting
blown out in that game, like we just like we
didn't have a shot, and it was it was one
of those games were like that was probably the worst
(25:23):
lost that I had in my career, you know, other
than the championship, because like we could have went to
the tournament that year. But but that was just like, uh,
you know, you walk out and you're not prepared to
play and someone who's hitting on all cylinders. It was
it was a wake up call and the game was
over for started all right, here here's mine. Well, we
had some bad ones when I was a Notre Dame.
We only won nine games or seven games. I remember,
(25:43):
I kind of deleted that party. I think we're nine
and eighteen, so I tried, I try to not remember, uh,
some of those some of those losses. Um. I remember,
like one time there was a huge snowstorm. This is
in nineteen winter of early massive snowstorm. We had to
fly into all the me and then bust to Boston
to play Boston College. Game was supposed to be on ESPN.
(26:04):
Stead they they they canceled a bunch of games. We
played like three hours later on ESPN to nine o'clock
start conte for him, and we were down like twenty
four and a half. And John McCleod, who just he
didn't have the voice to yell at people, like started
yelling at halftime and then the second half. He literally
had no voice and you couldn't hear him and it
was the gym was empty and he was trying to
(26:26):
get his point across and he was over there talking
like and you couldn't hear him at all on the
on the floor. But the most I don't know, to
me personally, the worst one was my sophomore year at
Oklahoma State. We were picked last in the Big twelve
and we had a we we had a soft schedule,
we played we were really pretty good and we're playing
Texas down at Texas that this is Tom Pender's last year,
(26:48):
and they just blitzed us. They had Luke Axtell and
Chris mim Um and you know both. Luke Axtell shout
a ton of threes and this was the day that
he was making all of them. And I remember being down.
I don't know, we got caught him a bad switch
or something and we weren't playing well and we were
down and we're down like eighteen and he he took
(27:08):
me out and it wasn't I didn't feel like it
was my fault for why he took me out. And
I switched on like a handoff of a like so
like we we switched on any handoffs of like size guys.
And even though Luke Axtell was like six ft nine,
like technically he was a he was a two or
he was at three, and so that was an auto switch.
So I auto switch, and we doubled the ball and
(27:30):
to make one extra pass and they hit it three.
He takes me out and I came over and he's like,
I said, what why did you take Why did you
take me out? I switched and he said, you know,
he started yelling at me, and I said, well that's
some bullshit, and he's like, you just sit there watched,
and and I had to sit there the whole time.
And to you know, sometimes with the blowout games are bad,
(27:51):
but you also can get your stats and you can
get to where you can kind of recover and feel
pretty good. And we actually did make a little bit
of a comeback. We're down like twenty, I think it
ended up being eleven or something like that. But to
be benched into watch, I thought that was that was
the hardest one on me. All Right, So you get done,
Columbia lost Columbia As a masters, you go to work
in Wall Street and you're like, it doesn't really fit,
(28:13):
but I'm learning a lot. What was the next step? Um?
The next step is that actually went to. So I
reached out through a friend to friend and I met
with Troy Vincent, who you know works in the NFL
and play with the Eagles, you know, have the PA
for a long time. And I met with him and
I basically told him and sort of what I was
doing now, what my passion was, and I wanted to
(28:34):
sort of take all these lessons and how he helped.
You know, these guys are you know, like my dad
or like the current the guys I played with it
in the making the NBA. How do we fix this? Um?
And he was like, you know, it's just kind of cool.
I think you got a unique background to help me
do this. You know, the NFL as a personal finance camp.
So I started doing that, UM and it was like
(28:54):
that was like a once a year thing for two
or three days. UM. But while I was doing that,
I started to I was the financial advisor four players.
I work for and work with the NBA and NFL
players and makes you manage their finances. So I did
some teaching on the side, and then I worked directly
with players and and helped them you know, big bills
and and financially playing and save and invest in and
(29:16):
all that. So so that was you know, the transition,
like taking what I learned on Wall Street and trying
to apply it, um, you know to a bunch of players.
So so then would you do so? Then you know,
I did that for a few years, um, and then
I basically I started to think, and I it's great
to work with work with guys directly, and I work
(29:37):
with probably you know, work with a ton of guys,
you know, big name NBA players that everybody knows and
NFL guys. Um. But I wanted to sort of create
this this sort of macro solution because what I what
I realized was I would go sort of pitch of
players and here's why you should work with me. And
there were ten other guys saying the same thing. But
the nineteen year old or twenty year old player and
(29:58):
their parents, we're making these this visions, you know, sort
of blind. So they were picking me because my story
sounded good. And just like I came in there there
was none other guys behind me, and if they felt
the person behind me stories sounded great, they chose them
and they just but it was sort of you know,
the blind leading the blind. And if I was a
bad guy, I said the same thing as a good guy,
(30:18):
and there was you know, just no one knew how
to decipher that. So what I decided um was this
sort of if we can create this system that doesn't
manage players, So we don't manage guys, we don't manage
their finances, we don't advise them. We create this system
where players can learn and understand how to assess, how
to assess the right people to work with, and then
get connected to the right people. So we So what
(30:40):
I basically realized it was at Columbia. You know, you
pay a bunch of money and you learned a lot,
but it's also about the network. The most important thing
is the network, and the same thing I was a
golden tack. It was about the network, and that was
the thing that was so important. I was like, you know,
if we can take that network of really smart people
and create a network with at leads and connecting these
(31:01):
two worlds where really smart people are teaching athletes and
the people that are not chasing them down that they
don't necessarily need athlete money. So you know, the guys
that I work with loved would love to be in
the room with the people that are richer than them
that made it in finance or real estate, and saying,
if we can bring these worlds together, then everybody benefits
because the the hundred million dollar real estate guy is
(31:22):
not gonna take you know, a million dollars from this
player and disappear, and that player is going to want
to be in the room with that real estate guy
because that real estate guys none their dams or their
Instagram or chasing them down and trying to get them,
you know, trying to Nickel and Diamond. So just to
create an eco system where everyone can benefit and sort
of learned together. It was really something I was passionate
(31:43):
about it, so you know, I left my my job
about a year ago and being kind of creating this world,
um for for players. And we did something really cool
down at the super Bowl. And I don't know if
you can call Super Bowl a big game or whatever
they call now um, but did that down down last
week in Atlanta where we had a room with your
twenty thirty NFL guys and then we had you know,
a panel with a guy like Justin Tuck who is
(32:05):
now vice president of Goldman Tax and some other successful
people in business. Closed the door and the guys, let's
talk about career transition and finding the right people and
investing and all these cool things that you guys want
to learn from people you actually want to learn from. Okay,
so here's here's a here's a question. I have a
Basketball is generally the city game, right, I mean, like,
(32:26):
look you you you played like the only way to
really play it is like you said, you grew up
in Jersey. Football wasn't even a part of the conversation.
And a lot of a lot of guys, whether white
or black, are in different. You don't come from a
ton um, you know, the Steph Curries and and and
Clay Thompson's or the exception. The norms are more even
(32:46):
the k Ds of the world. But there's there's lots
of parents or advisors or AU guys or college coaches
and kid's gonna go overseas and make fifty seventy five
hundred first gig out of college. What would you how
would you advise them? What what's the what's the type
of discussions you would have with a kid who just
(33:09):
came out of college not an NBA player. They all
think they're gonna be NBA players, but they're gonna make
their first foray into playing overseas. Yeah, I think you know.
The first thing we talk about, we we actually don't
you know, don't talk about finance. We talk about you
have a you've got an opportunity to make some money
playing ball, and that's great and budget and say, but
the most important thing is use an opportunity. If it's
(33:31):
a it's if it's sort of a free you know,
if you're going to play in Italy, they'll go experienced life.
They meet people. If you're playing into the G League,
you know, meet people in that town. I think being
a being a professional basketball player. There's a ton of
ex professional basketball players are ext basketball players, you know,
me and you on this podcast, but to be a
current basketball player is a really unique and small group
(33:52):
of people. So while you're playing, meet as many people
as possible. Even if you play in Italy, when you
come back home for three or four months, you're like, hey, yeah,
I'm from a basketball player. Don't meet the you know,
the richest person in your town. Sit and meet somebody.
Stay hello. So the first thing we teach guys are,
you know, use the basketball the way it uses you.
You know, people are you know, people invite you places,
and people want to do things for you. Pussy lay
(34:13):
basketball and take advantages of opportunities and meet people. Because
if you build a network, by the time you're thirty
or you're you know, you may not not lebron and
you're not staff, You're not gonna have three hundred million
dollars in the bank. But if you have twenty people
you can call a better successful and different things, then
all of a sudden, like you can build these connections
and get a leg up opposed to coming back and
(34:33):
starting and trying to figuret how to do a resume.
So that's sort of the first thing. I just Mike,
I just want to hop in, Mike, I just wanna
hop in real quick. See this is it's it's brilliant,
your your your philosophy, and it's one of the reasons.
And look if you feel differently, it's it's fine. Like
it's a discussion we've had in this podcast. It's it's
one of the reasons that I one of the things
I think people miss on about college athletes in how
(34:55):
the benefit of playing college athletics, where people always said, well,
the school makes this, and the school may said and
My point is, like, look, forget about the fact that
you get into a school that most of us, a
lot of us couldn't have got, Like I couldn't have
gotten in a Notre Dame on my own in a
high school. Um okay, But I do think that's a
portion of it. I think the training and the books
and the and the and the tutors and all of
(35:15):
the other ball all the gear and all the promotion
you get is a part of it. But the doors
that it's open in terms of the people that you meet.
I never forget my first year and Notre Dame. We
had somebody who came in I don't remember what it was,
and they spoke to us and they said, hey, look,
I know you think. So we asked, why Notre Dame
do we have to live with another student our first year?
Like why can't we live with basketball players because that
(35:37):
way we're on the same schedule and we kind of
you know, and they said, look, you can live with
basketball players the rest of your career, the rest of
your you know, whatever you want, but get to know
the rest of the students because those are the people
that you're gonna work with, or work for or or
try and you know, work, have a have a business
relationship with for the rest of your life. Like Notre dame.
(35:58):
People are going to be successful. You want to know
all those people, and like you said, build a network.
And I think sometimes we get we get jaded by
like a thousand bucks here, five bucks there, that that's
not going to change anything. Relationships that are created in
college those last lifetime, and those benefits you way more
than any monetary amount that you can make off the school. Yeah, look,
(36:21):
not completely agree, you know, Like you know, we have
the discussion not talk about this all the time with
my teammates and and and it's like, yeah, we should
get paid and blah blah blah, and it's like I
don't want like you know, you know, I go back
and forth with that, but I do think, um, you know,
some of the best times I had, you know, we're
being broke in college and I got to do some
cool things that no one else got to do. And
(36:43):
like you said, you got to meet some cool people.
But you know, you you've got to travel places and
do cool things, and you have the school makes a
ton of money. Um, but you're, like you said, use it.
So like you know, I tell everybody that I go
speaking different schools, and we go to these schools and
I sit in the room and I go, like, go
to the alumni directory and fine, like the twenty rich
people that went to your school, and just call them
phones they play in the basketball team, Can I come
(37:03):
hang out with you? And it's like, if you call
and say I'm a student, maybe that call, maybe you
get a call back. Maybe you don't. If you call
and say I'm an alumni, they probably think you're looking
for for a job, and they probably don't call you back.
If you're a current guy, it's like, cool, you don't
want anything for me, so come hang out. And it's
all those things that think are important. But it's you know,
I say this all the time. It's like, but a
(37:23):
lot of times when you have people sort of advising
you on what to do, you know, their incentives are
for you know, for them to make money or for
them to feel good, and it's not necessarily always the
most beneficial to the player. Um. Last thing here, Um,
obviously you're you talk now with some of the biggest
and brightest stars in professional sports in terms of managing
(37:45):
managing their money. Are are we still in a place
where guys can lose it all or are they making
enough money where um, you know, like it's just so
much crazy. I'm more. I'm more talking Anthony Davis turning
down two forty million dollar ours. Have we crossed over
into the it's funny money now? And uh we won't.
We won't see the days of the broke athlete. Um,
(38:08):
So I think that so like I don't know, I
don't manage guys anymore. I steped away from us so
I do more of the kid things. But I do
think that, um, and you'll still see some stories, they'll
be fewer and we're hoping to sort of help change that.
But I think it's it's not just because the money
is so so big. I think players are seeing these
examples in a negative way that you know ahead of
(38:30):
that there were before them, but also in a positive way,
like you look at you know, the guys like Magic
or guys like Junior Bridgeman or Lebron and like they're
like wow, like those guys made it cool to think
about your business. And even like jay Z, it's like
you's got like often it's like yeah, it's not cool
to just you know, blow up your a bunch of money.
Let's think about being being a business and in creating
(38:51):
these generational opportunities for you know, for people beneath you.
So I think, you know, social media, you know, all
the Instagrams and in Twitter and all these things, and
players just like sort of speaking and being more openly
about it has made it cool to to care about,
you know, creating a legacy and all these things. So
I think that's one people where I think, like, listen,
the bigger the money gets, the smarter the scam artists
(39:13):
will get. So I think we're still going to see
you know, broke guys out there because I think it's like,
you know, people will always find ways to say, like
you know, back in the day, it was like give
me a hunter grand and it's good. You know, in
a couple of years was like, hey, give me twenty
million dollars to develop this hotel. In times where so
they'll always these scam artists who are who are trying
to be one step ahead, but I think they're you know,
the percentages is getting lower and lower. Give me this
(39:35):
one of the smartest cats that nobody knows. Like you,
I don't want to obviously, I don't ever wanted you
to talk about anybody else's money. But somebody who you
mentioned bridge been buying all those Burger Kings. I know
Jamal Mashburne, who of course has bought a ton of stuff.
I think Papa John's as well as as as Lexus
dealer ships. Um obviously magic and people point out Lebron.
(39:59):
Is there somebody you met along the path here these
last couple of years or even this last year, and
in advising people and and teaching them about financial literacy
and connecting connecting the dots, You're like, man, here's a
guy who nobody knows that quietly completely gets how to
how to handle and expand their their financial portfolio. Yeah,
I think you know there's a guy you know, I'm
(40:21):
we sat down last week, Um, Mason Plumbling played for
the Nuggets. He is and like, you know, I hate this,
you know, the duke thing is everybody he jumps on
the dude. But I'll give you a second one after that.
But but he's a guy that is really smart in
his business and also has a lot of interests and
sort of you know, smart enough to know kind of
how to handle different things and how to you know,
(40:41):
be smart. But he you know, he is a really
really sharp guy. I'll give you a couple more. Um,
Josh Hart, there's going the Lakers super smart you know
in l A. You know for now hopefully to go there,
um in l A. But has a lot of interest
and it's sort of thinking I think even before Lebron
got there, you know, the you know the process or
even you know before either for lam after the start process,
(41:03):
being like I'm in l A, Like how do I
how do I sort of you know, take the next step?
M and I take a third person that a lot
of people don't think about. It's actually really smart of
their businesses and Dominican too. So he's a guy that's
involved with a lot of different things, but also as
you know, connected to a lot of different owners in
the league and that sort of does his business at
a level that is the same way that owners of
(41:24):
teams do business. So those guys are out there and
like you know, they're you know, they're not few and
far between. It's just you know, you the big name
guys are the ones you see. But there's a lot
of guys that are getting smarters smartess after doing cool stuff.
My glass thing, how can somebody get ahold of you.
Um yeah, I'm so so yeah. Feel free to you know,
sort of shoot me. Shoot me an email for my
(41:44):
our companies called Verify Sports and Entertainment um so for
free shooting email m haddocks so m H A D
D I X at Verified s ese SO Sports Entertainment
dot com or just you know, hit me up on Instagram,
um you know had eight two three or Twitter athletes
Advisor one. It's a it's a really important thing that
(42:06):
you're doing, uh for for other athletes, and obviously your
background is incredibly impressive. I really appreciate you spending some
time with me and look forward to catching up in
the very near future. Definitely had a great time, thanks
for having me, and look more doing to get to him.
As many of you know, I played at Oaklahoma State.
(42:27):
I played for head coach name Eddie sutton Um. His
longtime assistant was Paul Graham. Paul Graham's nickname is the Judge.
The Judge because the Judge would tell you good or bad.
Most of the time it was bad. The Judge, who
was went on to be a head coach at Washington State.
He would do this thing. He would snort all the time.
(42:47):
And you know, if you go into the basketball offices
back when the judge was there, you would you would
hear mhm. And one of these isstant coached, like hey,
hey man, get get that, get that shipped out. It
was bad, but Paul Graham was always a kind of
no nonsense, in your face, old school, do what I
(43:12):
tell you sort of coach. An excellent recruiter as well.
I'll never forget this. I I've told many people. I
think I got a handful of comments from Eddie Sutton
during my time playing for him. I got one compliment
from Paul Graham. Ever. One we we played Texas Tech
down in Lubbock, and I think it was my senior year.
(43:34):
Uh no, no, he he wasn't there. He wasn't with
He got the head coaching job in my senior year,
so it was my junior year. My junior year, we
go down there. We played in the old place and
it smelled like horse maneuver because they had the circus
in there before UM before the year before they opened up.
It was a United Spirit Arena or whatever it's called
UM and I played really well. It was it might
(43:59):
have been on uh NFC Championships Sunday, and I threw
a lobed dozen Mason, which, uh, it was a great
little inbounds to play a lot of you guys know
I have an infinity for you know underneath out a
bound sideline and bounds. Well, you know you're downstream into
the your leaper who kind of loops around you throw
it to the rim and I threw it a little
(44:20):
bit too high, a little bit too far, but doesn't.
Mason's a freak athletic caught, he finished it. I just
made the right plays, the right reads. I probably had
ten points in thirteen assistant. We never lost the tech
when I played. And I remember that the next day
the coaches were great in the film. And I just
popped in the office and he called me. She had
judged Blair all right last night played pretty good, but
(44:42):
pretty good. Now. That was it. That was all I
ever got from him, as far as the compliment. His son,
Nick was like our little brother, you know, like any
assistant coach's son. He was always around the program. We're
playing video games. He was hanging out with us. Uh.
Nick went on, he had an outstanding high school career,
went on and played in college, played for his dad,
and he's been an assistant, he's been a mentor, he's
(45:02):
been he's actually writing a book um uh kind of
from the Christian perspective, thoughts and and um. It's like
a devotional message. Really amazing. He's a fascinating guy. He
should followhim on Instagram. Fallom on Twitter will tell you
all about his social media following. And he's had workout
programs in Dallas and in Denver, Colorado. He's helped me
(45:24):
with my program. Most recently, he was with Iowa State
as a g A but as their developmental head coach,
and he joins US now in the All Ball podcast. Nick. Look,
most recently, you were obviously at Iowa State and you
and I were talking off air about Iowa State, Case State,
Case State. Of course, just be Kansas. I always stayed
to split with Kansas. This year kind of interesting. They
don't play him late in the season. Who do you
(45:47):
think is more likely if Kansas doesn't win the Big Twelve?
And it's it's hard because obviously you know those guys
that Iowa State so well, who do you think is
more likely to win the league? Case State or i State?
I mean, I'd think I'm gonna go. I'm gonna I'm
probably a little bisable. I had to go Iwa State.
I think the Kansas State is one of the best
defensive teams in the country. But I mean, I was
(46:08):
stay just so versatile and how they can guard you,
and I thin I just think they're skilled enough, um
to outscore people. I just think that they can can
outscore their opponents better than State. Alright, now, k S
they beat him at in Hilton right by one point,
slowing the game down. Of course they still had to
play in the octagon, and we'll see. I mean sometimes sometimes,
(46:29):
you know, like k States thing in the past has
not been um. Sometimes these these games with with their
big opponent, it's been the you know that they'll lose
going to a you know, a bottom feeder in the league,
whereas you know, Iowa State, it's been more the beating
the Kansas is of the world, even on their own
home floor, although this year obviously they took care of
business and they lost it at their place. Um, all right,
(46:50):
let's let's let's get down to we we're talking. You
and I were discussing this. Uh. Dean Wade preseason Big
Twelve Player of the Year he's an NBA player, Why man,
I just think he's versatiles. He's super skilled, Um, I
mean he can step out on the perimeter. I think that.
I think that he's more athletic probably than you do.
(47:10):
I think he's sneaky athletic. Um, he's tough, super skilled. Uh,
play with his back to the basket, has all the finishes.
But really he can really pick and pop and get
his get his feet that step into a shot. I
mean his shot and his footwork on the perimeter is
food like a guard to me, He's not like this big,
clunky big that needs a lot of time to get
(47:31):
his shot off. I think he truly is a mismatch problem.
I don't think that he's a first round talent. I
don't think that he's somebody that can start, But I
think he I think he's on the NBA roster next
year for sure. Yeah. I guess the question becomes, can
he guard your position? Right? That's really and and if
he's gonna be a stretch five. Um, he's not a
rim protector, but he can put his body. Like in college,
(47:53):
he takes a lot of charges, so he gets his
body and that that part doesn't concern me. The shooting
doesn't concern me, you know, because you can, you guys
will stretch their range. I mean, look at brook Lopez.
He never shot threes until like three years ago, and
now he's a That's all he does is shoot threes.
And I know Brooks a lot bigger than him. But
the point is that you can improve your shooting range
through through hard work. Which but my Mike Kenny Guarden,
(48:13):
anybody if he switches on a ball screen against an
NBA guard Kenny guard laterally, Yeah, no, I think he
may struggle with that. I think that, you know, I
think that he can the high end guards he's gonna
struggle with UM. But I think some of the other guards,
I think he can at least keep him in front
of him and make them work and just make them fake.
(48:34):
Challenge to UM. Texas got a big win. Going back
to last night, I'm interested in your take. They have
a young, big guy who I don't know. I mean,
I feel like Jackson Hayes who's just kind of come
into his own and I know that he'll be told
to leave and will probably a lottery pick if he leaves.
I still think he needs another year. UM what do
(48:55):
you think of Jackson Hayes in terms of who he's
most likeing what what ultimately could be. Um, yeah, I
think he has a huge upside. Um, I don't. I
think he's more athletic then skilled right now. Um, but
I think that he's gonna go. I mean that's just
what they do right and try to develop on the run. Uh,
(49:18):
drawing a blank on the comparison. I just think he's
super athletic. Um, he needs to polish up his skills.
He doesn't really have a face up game. He's more
of a rim runner, offensive, rebound, paint protected kind of guys. So,
but yeah, I think that I think that he's I
think he's gonna leave. I think that, you know, with
this team in Texas, I think that, say, for example,
if you put him around players like I would stay,
(49:40):
he would actually look a lot better. I think the
way Texas is is like Texas. We were talking the
other day. The thing about Texas is is I feel like,
you know, they don't have people that can space before. Um,
they kind of have the same type of players. So
you can just you can just clause, you can just
pack it in claud the paint and uh, there's not
really any driving lays, there's not any room for him operating.
(50:00):
So UM, I want to ask you about training, Um,
your guy. You've worked with some of the best UH
with pros, obviously with a guy like Jimmer who is
continues to light it up in China, and with other pros,
with some of the elite college players, and with high
school players, with us in Dallas or in Denver, Mark
hell Folds was just traded to Orlando, Okay. And I
(50:23):
don't know how much of it is mental, how much
of his physical. I do think there's a good portion
of it which is mental. If you were to train
Marquel Folds, what would you do? Man? I agree with
I think it's you know, I say, all the time
we're doing kids, were doing players in this service, because
everybody tells you that sports is eighty percent mental and physical.
(50:46):
But us, as guardians of the game in terms of
coaches and teachers and stuff like that, we probably focus
next and tempt a cent not being generous on a
mental You know, you watched him. He had a fluid
jump shot. It wasn't great, but it was completely different.
He had a fluid jump shot, and UM, when he
was at Washington and all of a sudden he can't
shoot a free throw, and you know the world's against
(51:08):
him and all that, and sometimes we failed to forget
that this is an eighteen year old kid that probably
has not been through a lot of adversity in his
adult life. It's a hell of a thing for your
first true Um takes of adversity to happen on the stage,
and which is happening to him, you know, living with it.
I don't want to be a number one draft pick
bus So my first thing with him, I mean before
(51:29):
we even stepped on the court, or as we stepped
on the court, it wouldn't even be about improving anything
with this his game. It would be kind of developing
the connection, developing the trust and getting him, getting him
to open up and try to figure out where that goes.
I kind of took that page um from Chauncey Um who,
as you know, as a mentor of mind uh, as
(51:51):
a leader and obviously with development, but a lot of
times every now and then when he works out with
younger NBA guys, he'll jump him to work out with them.
And he told me his strategy for doing that is
not to really work on the basketball, but kind of
gets them comfortable, you know, just opening up and just
talking the game and talking about their vulnerabilities and insecurity.
(52:13):
So that's probably the approach I would take to see
if we could could really help him mentally. Um I mentioned,
I mean, like like a guy like Jimmer. What's it
been like to work with him? Why? Why has I
have my own feelings as to why he didn't make
it in the league, and um, but but he obviously
is is exceptionally successful playing in China. What's he like
(52:37):
to work with? Um, He's amazing, He's he's the most
genuinely nice guy. Tell people all the time. Uh, A
great player, but a much even greater person. Um My.
The reason I respect to him so much is, you know,
were when we work out. You know, I would work
him out and it may be kids in the gym
(52:59):
and maybe a youth work out before his workout or
after his workout, and even you know, I remember one
time he came and spoke to the kids and somebody
called him a bust like question and answer somebody you know,
said that he was a bust and I just kind
of paid attention to how he handled that with humility,
he has a lot of a lot of character. He
doesn't shot away from that. Um, but he's just I
(53:20):
think that allows him because he's a great person, that
allow him to be a great player. But he's smart
in terms of offensive he is one of the smartest
one on one offensive players I've ever met. You know,
I get it's not fair to say you're Jimmish trainer
because I pretty much just him a big cheerleader and
just watch him. But just how he understands the game.
Obviously his limitations are, you know, his athletic makeup in
(53:43):
terms of what you said earlier, keeping people in front
of him. Um, But just how smart he is. Um,
whatever the defense does is wrong. Um. I've seen him
score on anybody, bigger guys, quicker guys, whatever. He always
has a recipe in that one on one set it.
So it's been a fun it's been under watch him,
um work in the off season the last four years
(54:04):
and then turn on the TV and see him do
it Like, yeah, it's not the NBA, but you know
a guy's going to get seventy five points. That says
a lot about his offensive skill set. I don't want
to ask you quickly about about your method in terms
of training. UM, let's say it's a high school kid
or high school or college college age kid. Is there
a is there a reasonable amount of training? And some
(54:25):
guys they say, well all day in the gym, and
I'm like, look, I always felt like five to an
hour max. In terms of shorter uh that way and
more and more intensity. Um. Obviously there are ways, you know,
you can get on the on the machine, you know,
on the on the gun and shoot a ton just
to get reps. But in terms of working with a
(54:45):
guy get getting the quality workout, is there an optimum length? Yeah? No,
I completely agree with you. Um. And again I'm so
fortunate that I would say not a lot of people
that do what I do get to have somebody like
Chauncey Billups take them under a wing for three or
four years. And we talk about that all the time.
And that's one of my biggest takeaways from working out
the NBA guys. You know, all these guys that that
(55:07):
are trainers that want to train NBA guys that you know,
you see it all the time. They put a million
cones on the floor and they think they're gonna go
work out super hard for an hour and fifty minutes, Like,
that's not gonna happen. When I worked out with Jim
Or we never worked out longer than let's say, an
hour and ten minutes, between forty five minutes and an
hour in ten minutes. Um. I think that it may
(55:28):
be longer with older it may be a little bit
longer with younger guys, just because you have to get
their skill set up to the point where they can
work out efficiently. A lot of times when you have
the longer workouts with younger players, it's because they make
so many mistakes. I mean, you may have to teach
a high school kid. There's a lot of high school
kids that are averaging twenty points. They can't dribble with
their eyes up so you so you may have to
(55:51):
take twenty minutes to break that down. But once you
get past that point, it's about being as efficient as possible.
It's funny. I was working out with some kids is
in Colorado, and you know, they want to tell me
what I want to hear, and I said, you don't
want to be in the gym all day, do you?
And he's like, no, I want to be in here
four or five hours, Like no, you don't. Man, we
live in Colorado. You know you want to go maybe
(56:11):
you have a girlfriend, you want to go hang out
in the mountains. There's nothing wrong with that, but let's
learn how to be efficient and developed the i Q
because ideally, like you said, uh, you shouldn't work out
longer on an individual or even a small group workout.
If you're working out longer than ninety minutes, then you're
probably not going hard enough and or your risking injury. Um. Okay,
(56:33):
how how about this? Um, what's the breakdown of of
play like actual you know, you know, if you have
a group of play to skill development. Yeah, So, like
that's a good point. The thing that I've realized and
I've really had to pay attention to him the last
year and a half is we went from no skill trainers.
(56:54):
Like when you and I came up, there wasn't a
sub school, was a player development guy. They were very rare.
We just played a lot and maybe if we would
have had a little piece of that that would have
been great. But now today's player it's all training and
they're not playing. So like I think that you know,
maybe the first you know, fifteen is just really developing
(57:15):
skills just really kind of isolating skills for the high
school uh, you know probably high school and junior high kids.
You know, we're doing working on ball handling, or working
on footwork, We're working on pivots, We're working on being
able to make lead passes with your left hand, passing
off the bounce and all that kind of stuff. Then
the next stage, which is about another fifteen I would say,
(57:37):
is taking those drills and and developing multi skilled drills
where you're taking you're scoring off the bounce, or you're
working on your moves and your counter modes, getting a
high volume or reps. So that's thirty percent of the workout.
Then the next my approach is almost like a boxing
guy with the focus mits working on the combos and reactions.
I'm kind of forcing them to develop their actions and
(58:00):
instincts of certain moves catered to how they play, how
their high school wants them to play, or college who
wants them to play. That's another fifteen and so now
when we play, I want to see them play for
maybe and really focus on applying to things that we've
worked on. So that would probably be my for me. Um. Uh,
(58:22):
last thing, um is there is there one thing that
you would tell parents. A lot of parents listen to
my podcast A lot. One thing you tell parents of
a young kid in terms of how they should how
they should handle being a parent and and allowing their
kids to grow. Yeah, well that's it. Be a parent,
don't be a basketball you know, don't be a basketball coach. Um,
(58:45):
take the same approach as you would if if your
kid was you're trying to get your kid a tutor
for the A C T test. You're not gonna go
over there and and and teach. You hired the tutor
for that, or I think the doctor. You know, your
job as a parent is to make sure you do
your homework to find a doctor that you can trust.
(59:05):
You know, you ask other parents. You know, you go
look at reviews, you make sure they are creditated and
all those type of things. And then once you put
your trust in that doctor, you let that doctor be
the doctor to your child. You're not gonna go second
guest that doctor. You're not gonna step in while that
doctor is talking and then going there and just say
what you have to say. It's the same thing I
had to tell a parent earlier this week. He's a
(59:27):
set he was the seventh grader UM playing in front
of his high school coach. Halftime comes Dad walks on
the court and gets on his kid for not shooting enough.
And I had to tell him, I said, you're doing
that in front of the high school coach. That's a
bad look. He's already that's not fair to your kid.
Now that high school coach is like, man, this kid
has some potential. But I don't know if I want
(59:47):
to deal with this parents, that's gonna be a headache.
So just be a parent. How can people get ahold
of you or follow you on on I G or
on Twitter? Yeah, so my I G and Twitter is
a say culture or die culture. And then just the
work our die. And then my my website UM, which
is a resource for parents and athletes. We have breakdowns,
(01:00:11):
we have inspirational messages, we have clinics and California, Denver
checks or wherever is my website's Nick Graham Player Development
dot Com. Awesome stuff, Nick, I look forward to Senior Night.
Thanks so much for joining me on the pod. All right,
sounds good man. Thanks for having all Right, that's it
for the All Ball Podcast. I'm Doug Galling. If you
have any questions, any comments, you need anything, comment, We'll
(01:00:34):
get you ready for March Badness, more stories, more more thoughtfulness.
You can also follow my radio show that's three to
six Eastern Time, twelve to three Pacific on Fox Sports Radio,
Fox Sports uh dot Fox Sports Radio dot Com, the
I Heart Radio, Apple or Serious x M. It's like
two seventeen for one and two oh three for the other.
Check us out every day and by the way, tell
(01:00:56):
a friend, download, subscribe, rate our pod guest. Tell him
I'm Doug Gottlie. This is all but
Hey, welcome in. I'm Doug glib and you have downloaded,
subscribed and hopefully you'll rate the All Ball Podcast. Do
you like this stuff or even some uh discussions about
football other live interviews, live radio show. You can check
me out every day three o'clock Eastern time, twelve o'clock Pacific.
We're on Hunters stations nationwide. You got a Fox sport
(00:26):
Trader dot com. We're also on Serious Sex or the
I Heart Radio app. Check us out. Of course, the
All Ball Podcast is fun. Uh. This week we have
two interesting guests that are different than any other guests
that we've we've had. One is Nick Graham. Nick played
at Washington State for his dad, Paul's long time uh
long time assistant coach in college and a head coach
(00:47):
in college as well. Um and uh. He's now the
head coach. His dad's the head coach at Dallas Skyline,
but was head coach at at Wazoom with my assistant coach.
When we're at at Oklahoma State. Nick was just a
kid at the time, but was like all of our
little brother Now he's kind of a workout gurgu. He
was the developmental coach as a g A for Iowa
State most recently. And I want to get his kind
(01:10):
of perspective on if you're a parent, how to raise
an athletic son. Uh, if you're a workout guy, how
long you should be going. UM, A lot of different
stuff to get to. Also, Uh, Michael Haddocks Jr. Is
going to join us. His dad was a pro football player.
He was a BASKETBA player at Sienna. But an interesting
path after playing for Sienna into the world of first
(01:32):
Wall Street and now UM helping the finances of athletes.
UM in a in a unique way, advising athletes how
to make them kind of connectors with others in the
real real world so that they can manage their own
financial portfolio without getting shaken down. It's it's a it's
an interesting discussion. I can't wait for you to hear it.
(01:55):
Let me get to some of the news of the day,
some of the things that I have seen. UM, I'm
gonna start in college basketball because now I'm gonna start
in the NBA because we're coming off of the NBA
trade deadline. And here's something which you have not heard,
and I did both on pod and on radio, tell
(02:16):
you this was going to happen over the end of
last season. There's a healthy discussion by some people's estimation
over whether or not they should do away with the
Eastern and Western conference playoffs that because now you can
get anywhere with you know, a charter plane. The idea
of East West when the West is so utterly and
(02:37):
thoroughly dominant, is kind of a joke. What we should
have is seeded one through sixteen. Now, at the time,
there was a couple of things that the reality of sport,
the reality of the business is it it shouldn't and likely,
very very likely won't be done. The first thing is this,
(02:57):
you are going to do away with the historic rival race, right,
historic rivalries, and the historic rivalries are such where in
the Lakers Celtics NBA Finals. That's going to help build
a number that allows us to yearn for days of yesteryear.
And just because Calves Warriors doesn't feel all that sexy,
you still want East versus West. It's the best way
(03:20):
to engage more of the country. Otherwise you run the
risk um Otherwise, Otherwise you run the risk of what
college football has, which is a regional sport, and you
don't want that. You don't want Clemson versus Alabama to
schools that are divided by a four or five hour drive.
Like you, you don't want that. That's not good for business.
(03:41):
You need as much of the country engaged as possible.
And I think that's the first thing, the history and
the overall national engagement. The second part is it makes
it really hard. As much as ratings will suffer when
when the East was down, think about think about the
Eastern market, right, I mean, if you have the Celtics
(04:02):
going on the road to take on the Portland Trailblazers Boston,
which is a vital market and has a a great
fan base in terms of TV viewership with the Celtics,
I'm gonna stay up till ten o'clock and watched that thing.
There's no chance you have. You have to protect those
home markets and allow them to watch games at a
reasonable hour. Mountain time zone is hard enough. And the
(04:25):
last thing is this water find this level. When we
were kids, or at least when I was a kid,
the East was better. It was just better top to bottom.
Then the then the West is and then there was
a There's been periods of times in the nineties when
the West was far better than the East, and I
know that the East has had. Part of it is,
you know, the Celtics were bad and the Knicks have
(04:46):
seemingly been bad forever, and when those year two and
the Sixers were bad for long time, so when your
three signature and the Bulls have been bad. But even
when the Bulls had remember the Bulls had a number
one seed one year, didn't they um? And then the
and down to Miami and that did that didn't work
out so well. For the fact though, is the Eastern
Conference now the Celtics, And I guess part of it
(05:08):
is you have to say, if Gordon Hayward was who
he thought he could be but is not yet, the
Celtics should still be considered an elite team. The Bucks
have proven to be an elite team and seemed to
have gotten better with Nicola Meritis um and honestly, getting
ready to Bartie Parker, I thought, I think helped them,
you know, I really think it helped them, helped them defensively,
and now they have a stretch four in Nicolamritich to
(05:30):
go along with the stretch five and Brook Lopez, who
would have thought he's a stretched five three years ago,
didn't shoot threes. Now, that's all he does. I think
the seventies six years got better. At least their starters
got better. I don't know about their chemistry, which has
been off, or their bench, which is not nearly as good.
They shed it to get those big four and the
Toronto Raptors got. The Toronto Raptors are substantially better than
last year. If you take out Valentinis, you put in Marcresol,
(05:52):
who's a better player, Marcusol. If you take out um
To Marta Rosen and you bring in Leonard, who's a
better player Kawhile Leonard, Like, the Raptors have been good,
and they added a former Defensive Player of the Year
and an NBA Finals m v P like that's a
as are pretty good additions. And so now when you
look at it, are the Warriors still the favorites, Yes,
(06:15):
but their ages there there. They have age problems in
their bench, and they gotta figure out if we're gonna
play big down the stretch or small. If we play small,
that means we're gonna sit DeMarcus Cousins. And so even
if you take out if you take out the Warriors, though,
tell me somebody in the West, who's far and away
better or even marginally better than those top of those
other four teams in the East. And the whole idea
(06:38):
of we don't need we don't need a division. We
don't need East and West. We should have one. It
will never happen because of TV, because of how hard
is to follow your team and they're playing three hours
away time zone wise, and two if you thought it
was because the West was dominant, just take a breath.
Now the East appears to have better teams at the top,
at least in their top four. Let me get you
(07:01):
to college basketball. You know, I've I've I've heard people
say Mike frances said that Zion Williamson's game doesn't transfer
to the NBA now. Umlike anybody else, I'm cautious about
pounds and the pounding of a hundred games, a hundred games, workouts, practices,
what that will mean to his hips, his knees, his back.
(07:24):
It's a lot of weight. And as they tell you,
it's not the going up that wears down your body.
It's the coming down. Every time you land, every time
we got to dunk, that's when he comes down. But
what changed in the NBA is that This is a
couple of years ago, Derrick Williams came out. Derrick Williams
was playing at Arizona and he was playing the five.
(07:45):
They moved him. Essentially the center remembers Derrick Williams and
and Momo Jones, And they only got Derrick Williams and
Momo Jones because Tim Floyd's staff got fired. Tim floyd
staff got blown up because of the O. J. Mayo investigation.
So they get Derrick Williams and they play Derrick Williams
during his last year at Arizona at the five. So
he's being guarded by college centers and he's shooting an
(08:07):
unreal percentage from three, and he was drafted by Minnesota
to be a two three. And if you go back
and look at my old draft rundown when I was
at ESPN, you'll notice that I wasn't a buyer new
Derrick Williams because I didn't think he could shift down
a position. Fast forward to now, and Derrick Williams could
be a stretch forward in the NBA. I still don't
think he would fit in because he wasn't much of
a reboundary, doesn't move that well athletically. But that's essentially
(08:31):
what he is Zion Williamson ten years ago would be
too small to play power forward or small ball center
in the NBA. Now I kind of think he's perfect. Yeah,
he's gonna shoot the ball better, but he plays hard. Um,
he can make a shot. He competes on the boards,
competes defensively and if you've watched him move loudly when
(08:55):
he's playing hard. He can guard five positions. So did
he fit Does he fit the nineties mold of the NBA? No,
but this is in the ES, this is two and
he's perfect for the league. Does that mean will be
a superstar? No? I don't. I don't know, but I'm
willing and excited to find out what he becomes. All
Our first guest is Mike Haddocks Jr. Um. He was
(09:18):
a very good player at Sienna. His dad played in
the National Football League. And what he's doing now I
think will intrigue you because it's about not just financial
literacy for athletes, but also about UH being a connector
meeting people how to the real way to survive and
(09:39):
succeed in business. And he's had an unbelievable life end.
It's not han't been living very long. Myke Havocks Junior was,
like I said, star player at Sienna. UM tried to
play pro football after college and then went into the
business sector, went to Columbia for his master's degree. And
(10:00):
you'll you'll be fascinated to hear the rest. I want
to welcome to my cadoxs Jr. Who was an helm
of player at Sienna and now doing something which I
think is uh not only important and um and and
interesting at the same time, but I think it's it's
fascinating and how he's learned from his his own father's
career and trying to help others not make some of
(10:23):
the stay mistakes as dad made, and trying to help athletes,
uh put their financial house in order. But but I look.
I first became aware of my Cados joints us now
in the All Ball podcast. I don't know if you
know this, UM, I had no idea, Like I grew
up in something California, and I felt like I knew
a ton about college basketball. I had never heard of Sienna,
the capital district, the passion for basketball there until I
(10:46):
was recruited by Marquette. Marquette's coach was named Mike Dean
uh Dino had come from from Sienna to Marquette, and
he showed me old videos of one of his point guards.
And that's how I became like I had no idea
about seeing about anything. And then, of course you fast
forward when Frane McCaffrey was the head coach there. He
had recruited me to Notre Dame, and now he's the
(11:07):
head coach obviously at Iowa, and I was already kind
of a fan of the program, already kind of knew
about it. Um, you grew up your dad was a
pro football player, and a good one. Um, but your
body type feels like you could have played in the
NFL as a left tackle, like four years when when
you came out of high school? Why Sienna? Um, So
(11:29):
it's funny. So you grew up in in in California
and didn't hear much about Seanna. I didn't know much
about Pianna. And I grew up in South Jersey, right
out of of Philly, So I grew up watching college basketball,
and I remember kind of being like, all right, maybe
I go to u c l A. May I go
to Duke, And then you know, I'm a sixth big center.
So I changed a bit. Um. But you know, I
had a guy recruited me by the name of Steve
Seymour and he was at Drexel. And then another guy
(11:51):
by name of Rob Jackson was at Seton hall Um
when I was a sophomore in high school, played at
santagus In Press in South Jersey, and and then you know,
they ended up at Sienna and they'd reached back out.
You know, my junior year, I don't know anything about it.
I was like, okay, you know, cool up state New York.
And I first thought it was New York City or
right outside of it. Um, And then he started to
(12:11):
kind of do some research and there was Um. There
was a guy that I that I looked up to
when I was younger that played at Santy Gustin also
who was really probably the best player I've ever seen
the six nine. You know, guy could handle the ball.
He end up going to see it and I was like, okay,
let me check it out. And then my teammate, who
was a point guarden to playing the Princeton Um, I'm
the name of Scott Greeman. He was Scott's an assistant American.
(12:34):
I know him really really well. Ahead Yeah, Scott's my guys.
So we played high school together. He was like, you
should check out Sienna. Man, they're obsessed with basketball. And
I was like, all right, I will take a look.
Get up in a get in the car. We dropped
five hours and they playing like this beautiful twenty thousand seed,
a ringing, a righting downtown Albany. And it was like,
you know, we go to a game and there's you know,
a bunch of news cameras outside of the game. So
(12:55):
I was like, wow, this is like it's like a
pro team in the Capitol region and they won. Know
my my senior high school, they went to the tournament.
I was like, okay, cool, give it a shot. At
The head coach at the time was the guy Rob
Lanier who's at Tennessee now, who's a great recruiter. And
I was like, cool, this is this is home. I
got there. I started playing right away. I played. I
started every game but like two or three my whole career,
and I was like, you know, never looked back and
(13:16):
met some great people there and it was a really
cool afferience. By the way, why was you know what?
When Rob took over, he did recruit well and obviously
he's I think the nephew is a nephew of Bob Lanier.
I think he's a nephew here. Um And and I
know Rob Wells as well. You know, he went back
to being a Texas assistant and tend now at Tennessee
(13:37):
is doing a great job. Why didn't it work? You guys?
Kind of there was a two year stretch before the
coaching change where was bad? Why was it so bad? Um?
I think it's one of those things that's, um, you know,
we have some injuries, um and and it's just you know,
we we actually had a really good team, but you know,
we had some bad luck. I never forgave its. My
junior year. Um, we played Oregon State the first game
(13:59):
of the seed and and and it was a back
and forth game, and we were like up by two
or three with a minute or so less and and
and we end up like turn them all over and
losing the game. And it just kind of snowballed. It's
one of these people got hurt. You end up periing
with my knee and a bunch of guys got hurt.
It was like, you know, just we had some bad luck.
And it was I do think it's sort of the
noormal really think just some moments in the season or
(14:21):
in games that kind of flipped and change things. I mean,
we almost bet a Pack twelve team that was I
think it's packed in the time, we won't be the
Pac twelve team. In the first game of season, we
lose that game at the very end of the game.
The next game we come out the torn re member
really sluggish where you losing New Orleans and kind of snowball.
So we just had some bad luck. Um And and
you know, kind of wanted to change, so so they
(14:42):
moved on to fran McCaffrey came in and then you know,
and and that went really well. But I think it's
one of those things where you know, there's there's a
couple of moments in the season or a game that
when you hit a rough patch and it all sort
of turns around. Mike Haddock Jr. Joining us for anyone
who doesn't know about the Albany Sienna rivalry. Um And
but of teams, obviously Albany struggle and really struggling. Obviously,
(15:02):
you know, their best player transferred to grad transferred to Villanova.
That didn't help them. Um, Sienna obviously has gone through
a coaching change, so they're still they're in kind of
rebuild mode. But you've played in that game. What's it like? Um,
it's cool. I mean, it's it's like a it's a
unique college atmosphere because we're you know, we're not in
the same conference, but we're around the corner. We played
(15:22):
pick up with those guys in the summertime. Um. And
it is the capital reason is a unique place where
you know, most people that graduate from CNA are already
they stay in the area, so there's just years and
years and years of alumni that live in the town
and that that game is people at a college game
on a Saturday night and it is and it's just,
(15:44):
you know, kind of a battle. So it's a cool
atmosphere that doesn't happen a lot in college basketball. Um.
And it's also like, you know, what what happened is,
you know, we would beat Albany, but they would win
the American East and then you know, the year they
almost beat Yukon in the first round, and then we
got to hear all summer that they're better because they
played in the torn We didn't make it, and it
was like, you know, some of that stuff that just
went back and forth. So it's just a unique place
(16:04):
that I don't think. I think just all the fact
that sort of line up to make it a really
cool and special game that you can't really replicate. Why
didn't you play football? So I grew up so growing
up in so My dad's from small town Mississippi, and
it's like, you know, you get have it when you
play football. I grew up in South Jersey and it was,
you know at that time, you know, Philly in South
jersey's really big time in football now, but at that
(16:26):
time it was it was all basketball. And I you know,
I grew up I played and playing and uh and
middle school was really good and I went to a
really good high school, and I it never crossed my mind.
I just had some success and basketball and just was like, Okay,
I'm gonna keep this thing rolling. But interestingly, interestingly enough,
the second I got done, my senior year, coach McCaffrey
(16:46):
called me. He's like, hey, you don'ta play football. I'm like,
you're talking about man. He's like, hey, you wanna play football?
And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like the
Vikings called me. They said, you have good hands, the
good feet, you can be a tight end, you know.
I was like, all right, I'll give it a shot. Um.
And then I had like five or six teams on
to the Giants and the Eagles and kind and worked out,
uh for a bunch of teams, And it was a
really cool experience. But I also realized that football is
(17:09):
one of those games where toughing I had they're playing
high school, were growing up, so it's a bit tough
to pick up um, but it was it was kind
of a cool experience. I think about a little more
time at it, and I might might be a football
player right now. Yeah. It's It's interesting because I've talked
to a bunch of gms and NFL gms and they
said they're like, hey, find me, find me a basketball player.
But and they're they're prerequisite as always. He has to
(17:30):
have played football in high school, has to play football
growing up. Like that, you look at guys that have
been successful, the Tony Gonzalez, the Antonio Gates is of
the world. They played football. The idea that that you
can just hey, I'm just such a good athlete that
you can learn a sport in your twenties is really
really hard to believe. Yeah, it's it's it's a really
(17:50):
technical game. And I never forgets. I was working on
for the Giants and they were telling me, you John
playing hand played me and rolling hips and all this stuff,
and I had no clue. Sort of had a move
like a football player and it was, you know, comeing
up the line, all these things that were you know,
second nature. I just didn't have a clue. And I
think I knew it, but I knew they knew it
before I knew. Okay, so you you get the football
(18:12):
dream goes away? Yeah, then would you do? So? I
was saying as going overseas. UM was going back and
forth for a while. Uh, I didn't know if I
wanted to continue playing basketball or when I was pre
men in college, I was thinking about going to med school.
I just didn't know. UM. And then I decided just
you know, to to join the workforce. UM, so I
kind of figure out my way, you know. It was
(18:34):
just studying a little bit too to go to medical school.
And then my father in law who's the doctor, was like, listen,
man um and take some time, do some other things,
kind of experience some stuff out there gott in the
sales and then was like, you know, I wanted more.
I moved down to New York City. Um and then yourself.
I was selling medical devices. So I worked for a
(18:55):
company called covidian Um. We told the I don't get
to second. We told these devices that help you, like,
you know, do these do these resections and do these surgery.
So I go sitting surgeries and I sold and then
I sold stints um for Boston Scientific. So I did that.
I thought it was really cool. UM one a little
bit more within the city, met a bunch of New
York City, met a bunch of people end up getting
the Columbia for Business school, and I was like, you know,
(19:17):
this is kind of a cool world. And I like,
you know, I was the first, you know, guy in
my family and anybody that I knew that was going
to an Ivy League school and then going to to
grad school. So I was like, it's kind of cool.
And it kind of opened up this world of you know,
these jobs and careers that I didn't even know existed.
It was a really cool experience. So you get you
get out of Columbia. Now now you have an Ivy
(19:39):
League master's degree, which is incredibly impressive. You've worked a
little bit, you've worked in in medical sales, then what
you do. Um. I went to work in Wall Street.
I was an investment banker. So I was you know,
I know, I thought, you know, this was a cool
field that that that's another field that no one that
I ever even heard. I've never heard of this job
because I got there. I went working on Wall Street.
(20:00):
I was an investment banker. I was doing mergers and acquisitions,
shirt and tie every day from the death building models,
working for twenty hours a day, you know, living living
the Wall Street dream. Um. But also realized I missed,
you know, you know, being out and about and and
a little bit of sales, which is kind of being
around and and being entrepreneurial. So I did the Wall
(20:23):
Street thing. It was cool. It taught me a lot, um,
but it kind of clicked when I was there because
you know, candidly, a lot of people on Wall Street,
you know, didn't look and feel like me and and
and and I say that meaning we're a lot of
guys you know that I grew up with. Theyre playing
basketball or just people that I knew that were in
those circles. This was like a different world that was
(20:44):
you know, kind of country club, and I just uh
and and I felt like there was a lot of
cool things I was learning, but I wanted to use
those skills to work with people that were similar to me. Okay,
so before we before we get to that, UM, as
somebody who look, you don't make it at Sienna. You
don't have the career you had unless you have a
(21:04):
tremendous work ethic. Right, you would have obviously got into
You wouldn't have been premed and graduated or gotten into
Columbia or graduate columb unless you have work ethic. But
compare and contrast the lifestyle you mentioned twenty hour weeks,
which is harder being a basketball player or being an
investment banker? Um. I think I think being an investment
(21:27):
banker is harder, UM, because I think that when you're
a basketball player, you know, you have a love for
the game, and it's one of these things where the
things that you're doing are all sort of building to
you know, playing a game, or even you know you're
running sprints, but you know it will make you better.
You know, when you're you're playing pick up, like all
these things you've done for so long, and it's all
(21:48):
sort of built out of this loving playing basketball and
a lot of times you're putting the ball through the whop.
You also are built towards these things. Um. But as
an investment banker, it's just a it's a different world
as you go sit at the desk and sort of
waiting for it's sort of reactionary. So for me, it
was like I knew basketball. I loved it. I work
because I knew that, Like there was like this drive
(22:10):
in me. I think, you know, when you're in the workforce,
it's just a little different. You know that motivation is
a little different. Um, And I do think that's harder.
I think mentally, I think physically, you know, the basketball
thing is you know, it's it's it's hard, and it's
you know, it's hard work. But I do think that,
in my opinion, the investment banking things a little bit harder. Yeah.
I always thought, you know, we always think of ourselves
(22:32):
as athletes, like, look, we get up and we work out,
we work hard, we you know, and um we we
we worked so hard on our craft in order to
be great. And you do, but there's a limit to
how much you can you can do per day like
these guys like, well, I spent all day in the gym,
Like no, you didn't write, Like you can go hard
for an hour and then you gotta take time and
(22:52):
they can go lift or whatever. You get something to eat,
you hang out, love it, and then you can go
hard for an hour. You can play for a long time.
But that's not as you said, you know, putting in
of teen sixteen hours days. When you're grinding, it's a
different sort of grind. And it doesn't I'm not trying
to diminish what it takes to be an athlete, but um,
but it's a it's almost the rewiring of it there.
But on the other hand, you have to have the
mental toughness of an athlete to push through fatigue, which
(23:15):
I don't know if you know, every civilian in the
workforce kind of naturally has, whereas in athletics, Um, you
gotta push through, right, That's that's why that's really why
you run for conditioning. It's not because you really need
to run for conditioning. It's because it teaches your mind
kind of the mental the mental approach to pushing through
(23:36):
when your body says I'm done, not truly being done. Yeah,
we completely agree. It's it's you know, different stokes for
different folks. I guess right, you know, we all have
this sort of makeup. And I think that and when
I even when I went to the workforce, it was
one of those things were like, cool, you play you
know you played athletics. That's sort of a step up
because it's it just shows that you can sort of
(23:56):
grind through something or get through things even when you
think you can't do it. So I do think it's
you know, you know, it does you know that there
is some sort of mental toughness that everyone just can't do.
And there's you know, there's people that remember Kyle's all
time it was like, hey, you know I wished out
of scholarship. I'm like, no, you don't because you go
home for Thanksgiving to Christmas and I got, you know,
six am practice. And I know for a fact that
the the they say you can become get up and
(24:17):
six they am and walk across the snow and come
work out, you're gonna be like, I don't want to
play anymore. Um, it's I want to. I want to
get to them what you're doing now. But before I
forget there has been North Carolina States scored twenty four
points last week. What was the worst loss you can
ever remember taking? So? Um, the worst loss that I'll
(24:40):
never forget is is my senior year and then Matt Championship. Um,
And it wasn't he because we didn't score. It was
just like, you know, we were winning the whole game
and kind of got away from it. That was like
the worst lass that it's things, But I remember a
game we've played Penn my junior year at Pain and
we just got absolutely blitzed. Like it was you know,
(25:02):
one of those games that's a few days before Christmas
break and everyone wants to go home for a day
or two. And we we got out of the locker room,
I think it was like twenty to two at some point,
and we kind of looked up from like what's happened?
They were hitting shots, We were half sleeping, and by
the time we woke up, you know, we were getting
blown out in that game, like we just like we
didn't have a shot, and it was it was one
of those games were like that was probably the worst
(25:23):
lost that I had in my career, you know, other
than the championship, because like we could have went to
the tournament that year. But but that was just like, uh,
you know, you walk out and you're not prepared to
play and someone who's hitting on all cylinders. It was
it was a wake up call and the game was
over for started all right, here here's mine. Well, we
had some bad ones when I was a Notre Dame.
We only won nine games or seven games. I remember,
(25:43):
I kind of deleted that party. I think we're nine
and eighteen, so I tried, I try to not remember, uh,
some of those some of those losses. Um. I remember,
like one time there was a huge snowstorm. This is
in nineteen winter of early massive snowstorm. We had to
fly into all the me and then bust to Boston
to play Boston College. Game was supposed to be on ESPN.
(26:04):
Stead they they they canceled a bunch of games. We
played like three hours later on ESPN to nine o'clock
start conte for him, and we were down like twenty
four and a half. And John McCleod, who just he
didn't have the voice to yell at people, like started
yelling at halftime and then the second half. He literally
had no voice and you couldn't hear him and it
was the gym was empty and he was trying to
(26:26):
get his point across and he was over there talking
like and you couldn't hear him at all on the
on the floor. But the most I don't know, to
me personally, the worst one was my sophomore year at
Oklahoma State. We were picked last in the Big twelve
and we had a we we had a soft schedule,
we played we were really pretty good and we're playing
Texas down at Texas that this is Tom Pender's last year,
(26:48):
and they just blitzed us. They had Luke Axtell and
Chris mim Um and you know both. Luke Axtell shout
a ton of threes and this was the day that
he was making all of them. And I remember being down.
I don't know, we got caught him a bad switch
or something and we weren't playing well and we were
down and we're down like eighteen and he he took
(27:08):
me out and it wasn't I didn't feel like it
was my fault for why he took me out. And
I switched on like a handoff of a like so
like we we switched on any handoffs of like size guys.
And even though Luke Axtell was like six ft nine,
like technically he was a he was a two or
he was at three, and so that was an auto switch.
So I auto switch, and we doubled the ball and
(27:30):
to make one extra pass and they hit it three.
He takes me out and I came over and he's like,
I said, what why did you take Why did you
take me out? I switched and he said, you know,
he started yelling at me, and I said, well that's
some bullshit, and he's like, you just sit there watched,
and and I had to sit there the whole time.
And to you know, sometimes with the blowout games are bad,
(27:51):
but you also can get your stats and you can
get to where you can kind of recover and feel
pretty good. And we actually did make a little bit
of a comeback. We're down like twenty, I think it
ended up being eleven or something like that. But to
be benched into watch, I thought that was that was
the hardest one on me. All Right, So you get done,
Columbia lost Columbia As a masters, you go to work
in Wall Street and you're like, it doesn't really fit,
(28:13):
but I'm learning a lot. What was the next step? Um?
The next step is that actually went to. So I
reached out through a friend to friend and I met
with Troy Vincent, who you know works in the NFL
and play with the Eagles, you know, have the PA
for a long time. And I met with him and
I basically told him and sort of what I was
doing now, what my passion was, and I wanted to
(28:34):
sort of take all these lessons and how he helped.
You know, these guys are you know, like my dad
or like the current the guys I played with it
in the making the NBA. How do we fix this? Um?
And he was like, you know, it's just kind of cool.
I think you got a unique background to help me
do this. You know, the NFL as a personal finance camp.
So I started doing that, UM and it was like
(28:54):
that was like a once a year thing for two
or three days. UM. But while I was doing that,
I started to I was the financial advisor four players.
I work for and work with the NBA and NFL
players and makes you manage their finances. So I did
some teaching on the side, and then I worked directly
with players and and helped them you know, big bills
and and financially playing and save and invest in and
(29:16):
all that. So so that was you know, the transition,
like taking what I learned on Wall Street and trying
to apply it, um, you know to a bunch of players.
So so then would you do so? Then you know,
I did that for a few years, um, and then
I basically I started to think, and I it's great
to work with work with guys directly, and I work
(29:37):
with probably you know, work with a ton of guys,
you know, big name NBA players that everybody knows and
NFL guys. Um. But I wanted to sort of create
this this sort of macro solution because what I what
I realized was I would go sort of pitch of
players and here's why you should work with me. And
there were ten other guys saying the same thing. But
the nineteen year old or twenty year old player and
(29:58):
their parents, we're making these this visions, you know, sort
of blind. So they were picking me because my story
sounded good. And just like I came in there there
was none other guys behind me, and if they felt
the person behind me stories sounded great, they chose them
and they just but it was sort of you know,
the blind leading the blind. And if I was a
bad guy, I said the same thing as a good guy,
(30:18):
and there was you know, just no one knew how
to decipher that. So what I decided um was this
sort of if we can create this system that doesn't
manage players, So we don't manage guys, we don't manage
their finances, we don't advise them. We create this system
where players can learn and understand how to assess, how
to assess the right people to work with, and then
get connected to the right people. So we So what
(30:40):
I basically realized it was at Columbia. You know, you
pay a bunch of money and you learned a lot,
but it's also about the network. The most important thing
is the network, and the same thing I was a
golden tack. It was about the network, and that was
the thing that was so important. I was like, you know,
if we can take that network of really smart people
and create a network with at leads and connecting these
(31:01):
two worlds where really smart people are teaching athletes and
the people that are not chasing them down that they
don't necessarily need athlete money. So you know, the guys
that I work with loved would love to be in
the room with the people that are richer than them
that made it in finance or real estate, and saying,
if we can bring these worlds together, then everybody benefits
because the the hundred million dollar real estate guy is
(31:22):
not gonna take you know, a million dollars from this
player and disappear, and that player is going to want
to be in the room with that real estate guy
because that real estate guys none their dams or their
Instagram or chasing them down and trying to get them,
you know, trying to Nickel and Diamond. So just to
create an eco system where everyone can benefit and sort
of learned together. It was really something I was passionate
(31:43):
about it, so you know, I left my my job
about a year ago and being kind of creating this world,
um for for players. And we did something really cool
down at the super Bowl. And I don't know if
you can call Super Bowl a big game or whatever
they call now um, but did that down down last
week in Atlanta where we had a room with your
twenty thirty NFL guys and then we had you know,
a panel with a guy like Justin Tuck who is
(32:05):
now vice president of Goldman Tax and some other successful
people in business. Closed the door and the guys, let's
talk about career transition and finding the right people and
investing and all these cool things that you guys want
to learn from people you actually want to learn from. Okay,
so here's here's a here's a question. I have a
Basketball is generally the city game, right, I mean, like,
(32:26):
look you you you played like the only way to
really play it is like you said, you grew up
in Jersey. Football wasn't even a part of the conversation.
And a lot of a lot of guys, whether white
or black, are in different. You don't come from a
ton um, you know, the Steph Curries and and and
Clay Thompson's or the exception. The norms are more even
(32:46):
the k Ds of the world. But there's there's lots
of parents or advisors or AU guys or college coaches
and kid's gonna go overseas and make fifty seventy five
hundred first gig out of college. What would you how
would you advise them? What what's the what's the type
of discussions you would have with a kid who just
(33:09):
came out of college not an NBA player. They all
think they're gonna be NBA players, but they're gonna make
their first foray into playing overseas. Yeah, I think you know.
The first thing we talk about, we we actually don't
you know, don't talk about finance. We talk about you
have a you've got an opportunity to make some money
playing ball, and that's great and budget and say, but
the most important thing is use an opportunity. If it's
(33:31):
a it's if it's sort of a free you know,
if you're going to play in Italy, they'll go experienced life.
They meet people. If you're playing into the G League,
you know, meet people in that town. I think being
a being a professional basketball player. There's a ton of
ex professional basketball players are ext basketball players, you know,
me and you on this podcast, but to be a
current basketball player is a really unique and small group
(33:52):
of people. So while you're playing, meet as many people
as possible. Even if you play in Italy, when you
come back home for three or four months, you're like, hey, yeah,
I'm from a basketball player. Don't meet the you know,
the richest person in your town. Sit and meet somebody.
Stay hello. So the first thing we teach guys are,
you know, use the basketball the way it uses you.
You know, people are you know, people invite you places,
and people want to do things for you. Pussy lay
(34:13):
basketball and take advantages of opportunities and meet people. Because
if you build a network, by the time you're thirty
or you're you know, you may not not lebron and
you're not staff, You're not gonna have three hundred million
dollars in the bank. But if you have twenty people
you can call a better successful and different things, then
all of a sudden, like you can build these connections
and get a leg up opposed to coming back and
(34:33):
starting and trying to figuret how to do a resume.
So that's sort of the first thing. I just Mike,
I just want to hop in, Mike, I just wanna
hop in real quick. See this is it's it's brilliant,
your your your philosophy, and it's one of the reasons.
And look if you feel differently, it's it's fine. Like
it's a discussion we've had in this podcast. It's it's
one of the reasons that I one of the things
I think people miss on about college athletes in how
(34:55):
the benefit of playing college athletics, where people always said, well,
the school makes this, and the school may said and
My point is, like, look, forget about the fact that
you get into a school that most of us, a
lot of us couldn't have got, Like I couldn't have
gotten in a Notre Dame on my own in a
high school. Um okay, But I do think that's a
portion of it. I think the training and the books
and the and the and the tutors and all of
(35:15):
the other ball all the gear and all the promotion
you get is a part of it. But the doors
that it's open in terms of the people that you meet.
I never forget my first year and Notre Dame. We
had somebody who came in I don't remember what it was,
and they spoke to us and they said, hey, look,
I know you think. So we asked, why Notre Dame
do we have to live with another student our first year?
Like why can't we live with basketball players because that
(35:37):
way we're on the same schedule and we kind of
you know, and they said, look, you can live with
basketball players the rest of your career, the rest of
your you know, whatever you want, but get to know
the rest of the students because those are the people
that you're gonna work with, or work for or or
try and you know, work, have a have a business
relationship with for the rest of your life. Like Notre dame.
(35:58):
People are going to be successful. You want to know
all those people, and like you said, build a network.
And I think sometimes we get we get jaded by
like a thousand bucks here, five bucks there, that that's
not going to change anything. Relationships that are created in
college those last lifetime, and those benefits you way more
than any monetary amount that you can make off the school. Yeah, look,
(36:21):
not completely agree, you know, Like you know, we have
the discussion not talk about this all the time with
my teammates and and and it's like, yeah, we should
get paid and blah blah blah, and it's like I
don't want like you know, you know, I go back
and forth with that, but I do think, um, you know,
some of the best times I had, you know, we're
being broke in college and I got to do some
cool things that no one else got to do. And
(36:43):
like you said, you got to meet some cool people.
But you know, you you've got to travel places and
do cool things, and you have the school makes a
ton of money. Um, but you're, like you said, use it.
So like you know, I tell everybody that I go
speaking different schools, and we go to these schools and
I sit in the room and I go, like, go
to the alumni directory and fine, like the twenty rich
people that went to your school, and just call them
phones they play in the basketball team, Can I come
(37:03):
hang out with you? And it's like, if you call
and say I'm a student, maybe that call, maybe you
get a call back. Maybe you don't. If you call
and say I'm an alumni, they probably think you're looking
for for a job, and they probably don't call you back.
If you're a current guy, it's like, cool, you don't
want anything for me, so come hang out. And it's
all those things that think are important. But it's you know,
I say this all the time. It's like, but a
(37:23):
lot of times when you have people sort of advising
you on what to do, you know, their incentives are
for you know, for them to make money or for
them to feel good, and it's not necessarily always the
most beneficial to the player. Um. Last thing here, Um,
obviously you're you talk now with some of the biggest
and brightest stars in professional sports in terms of managing
(37:45):
managing their money. Are are we still in a place
where guys can lose it all or are they making
enough money where um, you know, like it's just so
much crazy. I'm more. I'm more talking Anthony Davis turning
down two forty million dollar ours. Have we crossed over
into the it's funny money now? And uh we won't.
We won't see the days of the broke athlete. Um,
(38:08):
So I think that so like I don't know, I
don't manage guys anymore. I steped away from us so
I do more of the kid things. But I do
think that, um, and you'll still see some stories, they'll
be fewer and we're hoping to sort of help change that.
But I think it's it's not just because the money
is so so big. I think players are seeing these
examples in a negative way that you know ahead of
(38:30):
that there were before them, but also in a positive way,
like you look at you know, the guys like Magic
or guys like Junior Bridgeman or Lebron and like they're
like wow, like those guys made it cool to think
about your business. And even like jay Z, it's like
you's got like often it's like yeah, it's not cool
to just you know, blow up your a bunch of money.
Let's think about being being a business and in creating
(38:51):
these generational opportunities for you know, for people beneath you.
So I think, you know, social media, you know, all
the Instagrams and in Twitter and all these things, and
players just like sort of speaking and being more openly
about it has made it cool to to care about,
you know, creating a legacy and all these things. So
I think that's one people where I think, like, listen,
the bigger the money gets, the smarter the scam artists
(39:13):
will get. So I think we're still going to see
you know, broke guys out there because I think it's like,
you know, people will always find ways to say, like
you know, back in the day, it was like give
me a hunter grand and it's good. You know, in
a couple of years was like, hey, give me twenty
million dollars to develop this hotel. In times where so
they'll always these scam artists who are who are trying
to be one step ahead, but I think they're you know,
the percentages is getting lower and lower. Give me this
(39:35):
one of the smartest cats that nobody knows. Like you,
I don't want to obviously, I don't ever wanted you
to talk about anybody else's money. But somebody who you
mentioned bridge been buying all those Burger Kings. I know
Jamal Mashburne, who of course has bought a ton of stuff.
I think Papa John's as well as as as Lexus
dealer ships. Um obviously magic and people point out Lebron.
(39:59):
Is there somebody you met along the path here these
last couple of years or even this last year, and
in advising people and and teaching them about financial literacy
and connecting connecting the dots, You're like, man, here's a
guy who nobody knows that quietly completely gets how to
how to handle and expand their their financial portfolio. Yeah,
I think you know there's a guy you know, I'm
(40:21):
we sat down last week, Um, Mason Plumbling played for
the Nuggets. He is and like, you know, I hate this,
you know, the duke thing is everybody he jumps on
the dude. But I'll give you a second one after that.
But but he's a guy that is really smart in
his business and also has a lot of interests and
sort of you know, smart enough to know kind of
how to handle different things and how to you know,
(40:41):
be smart. But he you know, he is a really
really sharp guy. I'll give you a couple more. Um,
Josh Hart, there's going the Lakers super smart you know
in l A. You know for now hopefully to go there,
um in l A. But has a lot of interest
and it's sort of thinking I think even before Lebron
got there, you know, the you know the process or
even you know before either for lam after the start process,
(41:03):
being like I'm in l A, Like how do I
how do I sort of you know, take the next step?
M and I take a third person that a lot
of people don't think about. It's actually really smart of
their businesses and Dominican too. So he's a guy that's
involved with a lot of different things, but also as
you know, connected to a lot of different owners in
the league and that sort of does his business at
a level that is the same way that owners of
(41:24):
teams do business. So those guys are out there and
like you know, they're you know, they're not few and
far between. It's just you know, you the big name
guys are the ones you see. But there's a lot
of guys that are getting smarters smartess after doing cool stuff.
My glass thing, how can somebody get ahold of you.
Um yeah, I'm so so yeah. Feel free to you know,
sort of shoot me. Shoot me an email for my
(41:44):
our companies called Verify Sports and Entertainment um so for
free shooting email m haddocks so m H A D
D I X at Verified s ese SO Sports Entertainment
dot com or just you know, hit me up on Instagram,
um you know had eight two three or Twitter athletes
Advisor one. It's a it's a really important thing that
(42:06):
you're doing, uh for for other athletes, and obviously your
background is incredibly impressive. I really appreciate you spending some
time with me and look forward to catching up in
the very near future. Definitely had a great time, thanks
for having me, and look more doing to get to him.
As many of you know, I played at Oaklahoma State.
(42:27):
I played for head coach name Eddie sutton Um. His
longtime assistant was Paul Graham. Paul Graham's nickname is the Judge.
The Judge because the Judge would tell you good or bad.
Most of the time it was bad. The Judge, who
was went on to be a head coach at Washington State.
He would do this thing. He would snort all the time.
(42:47):
And you know, if you go into the basketball offices
back when the judge was there, you would you would
hear mhm. And one of these isstant coached, like hey,
hey man, get get that, get that shipped out. It
was bad, but Paul Graham was always a kind of
no nonsense, in your face, old school, do what I
(43:12):
tell you sort of coach. An excellent recruiter as well.
I'll never forget this. I I've told many people. I
think I got a handful of comments from Eddie Sutton
during my time playing for him. I got one compliment
from Paul Graham. Ever. One we we played Texas Tech
down in Lubbock, and I think it was my senior year.
(43:34):
Uh no, no, he he wasn't there. He wasn't with
He got the head coaching job in my senior year,
so it was my junior year. My junior year, we
go down there. We played in the old place and
it smelled like horse maneuver because they had the circus
in there before UM before the year before they opened up.
It was a United Spirit Arena or whatever it's called
UM and I played really well. It was it might
(43:59):
have been on uh NFC Championships Sunday, and I threw
a lobed dozen Mason, which, uh, it was a great
little inbounds to play a lot of you guys know
I have an infinity for you know underneath out a
bound sideline and bounds. Well, you know you're downstream into
the your leaper who kind of loops around you throw
it to the rim and I threw it a little
(44:20):
bit too high, a little bit too far, but doesn't.
Mason's a freak athletic caught, he finished it. I just
made the right plays, the right reads. I probably had
ten points in thirteen assistant. We never lost the tech
when I played. And I remember that the next day
the coaches were great in the film. And I just
popped in the office and he called me. She had
judged Blair all right last night played pretty good, but
(44:42):
pretty good. Now. That was it. That was all I
ever got from him, as far as the compliment. His son,
Nick was like our little brother, you know, like any
assistant coach's son. He was always around the program. We're
playing video games. He was hanging out with us. Uh.
Nick went on, he had an outstanding high school career,
went on and played in college, played for his dad,
and he's been an assistant, he's been a mentor, he's
(45:02):
been he's actually writing a book um uh kind of
from the Christian perspective, thoughts and and um. It's like
a devotional message. Really amazing. He's a fascinating guy. He
should followhim on Instagram. Fallom on Twitter will tell you
all about his social media following. And he's had workout
programs in Dallas and in Denver, Colorado. He's helped me
(45:24):
with my program. Most recently, he was with Iowa State
as a g A but as their developmental head coach,
and he joins US now in the All Ball podcast. Nick. Look,
most recently, you were obviously at Iowa State and you
and I were talking off air about Iowa State, Case State,
Case State. Of course, just be Kansas. I always stayed
to split with Kansas. This year kind of interesting. They
don't play him late in the season. Who do you
(45:47):
think is more likely if Kansas doesn't win the Big Twelve?
And it's it's hard because obviously you know those guys
that Iowa State so well, who do you think is
more likely to win the league? Case State or i State?
I mean, I'd think I'm gonna go. I'm gonna I'm
probably a little bisable. I had to go Iwa State.
I think the Kansas State is one of the best
defensive teams in the country. But I mean, I was
(46:08):
stay just so versatile and how they can guard you,
and I thin I just think they're skilled enough, um
to outscore people. I just think that they can can
outscore their opponents better than State. Alright, now, k S
they beat him at in Hilton right by one point,
slowing the game down. Of course they still had to
play in the octagon, and we'll see. I mean sometimes sometimes,
(46:29):
you know, like k States thing in the past has
not been um. Sometimes these these games with with their
big opponent, it's been the you know that they'll lose
going to a you know, a bottom feeder in the league,
whereas you know, Iowa State, it's been more the beating
the Kansas is of the world, even on their own
home floor, although this year obviously they took care of
business and they lost it at their place. Um, all right,
(46:50):
let's let's let's get down to we we're talking. You
and I were discussing this. Uh. Dean Wade preseason Big
Twelve Player of the Year he's an NBA player, Why man,
I just think he's versatiles. He's super skilled, Um, I
mean he can step out on the perimeter. I think that.
I think that he's more athletic probably than you do.
(47:10):
I think he's sneaky athletic. Um, he's tough, super skilled. Uh,
play with his back to the basket, has all the finishes.
But really he can really pick and pop and get
his get his feet that step into a shot. I
mean his shot and his footwork on the perimeter is
food like a guard to me, He's not like this big,
clunky big that needs a lot of time to get
(47:31):
his shot off. I think he truly is a mismatch problem.
I don't think that he's a first round talent. I
don't think that he's somebody that can start, But I
think he I think he's on the NBA roster next
year for sure. Yeah. I guess the question becomes, can
he guard your position? Right? That's really and and if
he's gonna be a stretch five. Um, he's not a
rim protector, but he can put his body. Like in college,
(47:53):
he takes a lot of charges, so he gets his
body and that that part doesn't concern me. The shooting
doesn't concern me, you know, because you can, you guys
will stretch their range. I mean, look at brook Lopez.
He never shot threes until like three years ago, and
now he's a That's all he does is shoot threes.
And I know Brooks a lot bigger than him. But
the point is that you can improve your shooting range
through through hard work. Which but my Mike Kenny Guarden,
(48:13):
anybody if he switches on a ball screen against an
NBA guard Kenny guard laterally, Yeah, no, I think he
may struggle with that. I think that, you know, I
think that he can the high end guards he's gonna
struggle with UM. But I think some of the other guards,
I think he can at least keep him in front
of him and make them work and just make them fake.
(48:34):
Challenge to UM. Texas got a big win. Going back
to last night, I'm interested in your take. They have
a young, big guy who I don't know. I mean,
I feel like Jackson Hayes who's just kind of come
into his own and I know that he'll be told
to leave and will probably a lottery pick if he leaves.
I still think he needs another year. UM what do
(48:55):
you think of Jackson Hayes in terms of who he's
most likeing what what ultimately could be. Um, yeah, I
think he has a huge upside. Um, I don't. I
think he's more athletic then skilled right now. Um, but
I think that he's gonna go. I mean that's just
what they do right and try to develop on the run. Uh,
(49:18):
drawing a blank on the comparison. I just think he's
super athletic. Um, he needs to polish up his skills.
He doesn't really have a face up game. He's more
of a rim runner, offensive, rebound, paint protected kind of guys. So,
but yeah, I think that I think that he's I
think he's gonna leave. I think that, you know, with
this team in Texas, I think that, say, for example,
if you put him around players like I would stay,
(49:40):
he would actually look a lot better. I think the
way Texas is is like Texas. We were talking the
other day. The thing about Texas is is I feel like,
you know, they don't have people that can space before. Um,
they kind of have the same type of players. So
you can just you can just clause, you can just
pack it in claud the paint and uh, there's not
really any driving lays, there's not any room for him operating.
(50:00):
So UM, I want to ask you about training, Um,
your guy. You've worked with some of the best UH
with pros, obviously with a guy like Jimmer who is
continues to light it up in China, and with other pros,
with some of the elite college players, and with high
school players, with us in Dallas or in Denver, Mark
hell Folds was just traded to Orlando, Okay. And I
(50:23):
don't know how much of it is mental, how much
of his physical. I do think there's a good portion
of it which is mental. If you were to train
Marquel Folds, what would you do? Man? I agree with
I think it's you know, I say, all the time
we're doing kids, were doing players in this service, because
everybody tells you that sports is eighty percent mental and physical.
(50:46):
But us, as guardians of the game in terms of
coaches and teachers and stuff like that, we probably focus
next and tempt a cent not being generous on a
mental You know, you watched him. He had a fluid
jump shot. It wasn't great, but it was completely different.
He had a fluid jump shot, and UM, when he
was at Washington and all of a sudden he can't
shoot a free throw, and you know the world's against
(51:08):
him and all that, and sometimes we failed to forget
that this is an eighteen year old kid that probably
has not been through a lot of adversity in his
adult life. It's a hell of a thing for your
first true Um takes of adversity to happen on the stage,
and which is happening to him, you know, living with it.
I don't want to be a number one draft pick
bus So my first thing with him, I mean before
(51:29):
we even stepped on the court, or as we stepped
on the court, it wouldn't even be about improving anything
with this his game. It would be kind of developing
the connection, developing the trust and getting him, getting him
to open up and try to figure out where that goes.
I kind of took that page um from Chauncey Um who,
as you know, as a mentor of mind uh, as
(51:51):
a leader and obviously with development, but a lot of
times every now and then when he works out with
younger NBA guys, he'll jump him to work out with them.
And he told me his strategy for doing that is
not to really work on the basketball, but kind of
gets them comfortable, you know, just opening up and just
talking the game and talking about their vulnerabilities and insecurity.
(52:13):
So that's probably the approach I would take to see
if we could could really help him mentally. Um I mentioned,
I mean, like like a guy like Jimmer. What's it
been like to work with him? Why? Why has I
have my own feelings as to why he didn't make
it in the league, and um, but but he obviously
is is exceptionally successful playing in China. What's he like
(52:37):
to work with? Um, He's amazing, He's he's the most
genuinely nice guy. Tell people all the time. Uh, A
great player, but a much even greater person. Um My.
The reason I respect to him so much is, you know,
were when we work out. You know, I would work
him out and it may be kids in the gym
(52:59):
and maybe a youth work out before his workout or
after his workout, and even you know, I remember one
time he came and spoke to the kids and somebody
called him a bust like question and answer somebody you know,
said that he was a bust and I just kind
of paid attention to how he handled that with humility,
he has a lot of a lot of character. He
doesn't shot away from that. Um, but he's just I
(53:20):
think that allows him because he's a great person, that
allow him to be a great player. But he's smart
in terms of offensive he is one of the smartest
one on one offensive players I've ever met. You know,
I get it's not fair to say you're Jimmish trainer
because I pretty much just him a big cheerleader and
just watch him. But just how he understands the game.
Obviously his limitations are, you know, his athletic makeup in
(53:43):
terms of what you said earlier, keeping people in front
of him. Um, But just how smart he is. Um,
whatever the defense does is wrong. Um. I've seen him
score on anybody, bigger guys, quicker guys, whatever. He always
has a recipe in that one on one set it.
So it's been a fun it's been under watch him,
um work in the off season the last four years
(54:04):
and then turn on the TV and see him do
it Like, yeah, it's not the NBA, but you know
a guy's going to get seventy five points. That says
a lot about his offensive skill set. I don't want
to ask you quickly about about your method in terms
of training. UM, let's say it's a high school kid
or high school or college college age kid. Is there
a is there a reasonable amount of training? And some
(54:25):
guys they say, well all day in the gym, and
I'm like, look, I always felt like five to an
hour max. In terms of shorter uh that way and
more and more intensity. Um. Obviously there are ways, you know,
you can get on the on the machine, you know,
on the on the gun and shoot a ton just
to get reps. But in terms of working with a
(54:45):
guy get getting the quality workout, is there an optimum length? Yeah? No,
I completely agree with you. Um. And again I'm so
fortunate that I would say not a lot of people
that do what I do get to have somebody like
Chauncey Billups take them under a wing for three or
four years. And we talk about that all the time.
And that's one of my biggest takeaways from working out
the NBA guys. You know, all these guys that that
(55:07):
are trainers that want to train NBA guys that you know,
you see it all the time. They put a million
cones on the floor and they think they're gonna go
work out super hard for an hour and fifty minutes, Like,
that's not gonna happen. When I worked out with Jim
Or we never worked out longer than let's say, an
hour and ten minutes, between forty five minutes and an
hour in ten minutes. Um. I think that it may
(55:28):
be longer with older it may be a little bit
longer with younger guys, just because you have to get
their skill set up to the point where they can
work out efficiently. A lot of times when you have
the longer workouts with younger players, it's because they make
so many mistakes. I mean, you may have to teach
a high school kid. There's a lot of high school
kids that are averaging twenty points. They can't dribble with
their eyes up so you so you may have to
(55:51):
take twenty minutes to break that down. But once you
get past that point, it's about being as efficient as possible.
It's funny. I was working out with some kids is
in Colorado, and you know, they want to tell me
what I want to hear, and I said, you don't
want to be in the gym all day, do you?
And he's like, no, I want to be in here
four or five hours, Like no, you don't. Man, we
live in Colorado. You know you want to go maybe
(56:11):
you have a girlfriend, you want to go hang out
in the mountains. There's nothing wrong with that, but let's
learn how to be efficient and developed the i Q
because ideally, like you said, uh, you shouldn't work out
longer on an individual or even a small group workout.
If you're working out longer than ninety minutes, then you're
probably not going hard enough and or your risking injury. Um. Okay,
(56:33):
how how about this? Um, what's the breakdown of of
play like actual you know, you know, if you have
a group of play to skill development. Yeah, So, like
that's a good point. The thing that I've realized and
I've really had to pay attention to him the last
year and a half is we went from no skill trainers.
(56:54):
Like when you and I came up, there wasn't a
sub school, was a player development guy. They were very rare.
We just played a lot and maybe if we would
have had a little piece of that that would have
been great. But now today's player it's all training and
they're not playing. So like I think that you know,
maybe the first you know, fifteen is just really developing
(57:15):
skills just really kind of isolating skills for the high
school uh, you know probably high school and junior high kids.
You know, we're doing working on ball handling, or working
on footwork, We're working on pivots, We're working on being
able to make lead passes with your left hand, passing
off the bounce and all that kind of stuff. Then
the next stage, which is about another fifteen I would say,
(57:37):
is taking those drills and and developing multi skilled drills
where you're taking you're scoring off the bounce, or you're
working on your moves and your counter modes, getting a
high volume or reps. So that's thirty percent of the workout.
Then the next my approach is almost like a boxing
guy with the focus mits working on the combos and reactions.
I'm kind of forcing them to develop their actions and
(58:00):
instincts of certain moves catered to how they play, how
their high school wants them to play, or college who
wants them to play. That's another fifteen and so now
when we play, I want to see them play for
maybe and really focus on applying to things that we've
worked on. So that would probably be my for me. Um. Uh,
(58:22):
last thing, um is there is there one thing that
you would tell parents. A lot of parents listen to
my podcast A lot. One thing you tell parents of
a young kid in terms of how they should how
they should handle being a parent and and allowing their
kids to grow. Yeah, well that's it. Be a parent,
don't be a basketball you know, don't be a basketball coach. Um,
(58:45):
take the same approach as you would if if your
kid was you're trying to get your kid a tutor
for the A C T test. You're not gonna go
over there and and and teach. You hired the tutor
for that, or I think the doctor. You know, your
job as a parent is to make sure you do
your homework to find a doctor that you can trust.
(59:05):
You know, you ask other parents. You know, you go
look at reviews, you make sure they are creditated and
all those type of things. And then once you put
your trust in that doctor, you let that doctor be
the doctor to your child. You're not gonna go second
guest that doctor. You're not gonna step in while that
doctor is talking and then going there and just say
what you have to say. It's the same thing I
had to tell a parent earlier this week. He's a
(59:27):
set he was the seventh grader UM playing in front
of his high school coach. Halftime comes Dad walks on
the court and gets on his kid for not shooting enough.
And I had to tell him, I said, you're doing
that in front of the high school coach. That's a
bad look. He's already that's not fair to your kid.
Now that high school coach is like, man, this kid
has some potential. But I don't know if I want
(59:47):
to deal with this parents, that's gonna be a headache.
So just be a parent. How can people get ahold
of you or follow you on on I G or
on Twitter? Yeah, so my I G and Twitter is
a say culture or die culture. And then just the
work our die. And then my my website UM, which
is a resource for parents and athletes. We have breakdowns,
(01:00:11):
we have inspirational messages, we have clinics and California, Denver
checks or wherever is my website's Nick Graham Player Development
dot Com. Awesome stuff, Nick, I look forward to Senior Night.
Thanks so much for joining me on the pod. All right,
sounds good man. Thanks for having all Right, that's it
for the All Ball Podcast. I'm Doug Galling. If you
have any questions, any comments, you need anything, comment, We'll
(01:00:34):
get you ready for March Badness, more stories, more more thoughtfulness.
You can also follow my radio show that's three to
six Eastern Time, twelve to three Pacific on Fox Sports Radio,
Fox Sports uh dot Fox Sports Radio dot Com, the
I Heart Radio, Apple or Serious x M. It's like
two seventeen for one and two oh three for the other.
Check us out every day and by the way, tell
(01:00:56):
a friend, download, subscribe, rate our pod guest. Tell him
I'm Doug Gottlie. This is all but
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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