Former Hofstra Star Charles Jenkins on NYC Upbringing, College Ups/Downs, NBA Draft Experience

In this episode, Doug gives his key impressions of the NBA Draft, and is joined by former Hofstra star Charles Jenkins discusses avoiding pitfalls during his NYC upbringing, dealing with the sudden loss of his brother, why he chose to play ball at Hofstra, navigating the ups and downs of his college career, and his NBA Draft experience. Make sure you download, rate and subscribe here to get the latest All Ball Podcasts!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, what up. Welcome in on Doug Golliman. This is
all Ball. We got a great guest for you the
next couple of episodes. UM. Charles Jenkins is a fantastic player.
He played for Olympiacos last season. We'll get his part
of this pod. You'll find out what it was like
to play UM under kind of quarantine, covid in Grease,

(00:26):
this plat past year. There's so much good stuff on
this pot from his upbringing the um A tragedy which
took place when he was in eighth grade, UMM bouncing
around high schools, to how he made his way to Hofstra,
to becoming a star at Hofstra playing really for two
coaches but sort of three coaches at Hofstra, and what

(00:47):
happened UH to being drafted in the NBA, to what
it's like to play with Steph Curry too, when when
Monte Ellis was traded. Like all this stuff, it's all
on here, so you're gonna love it. UM. I'm not
gonna do a draft recap and go through guy by
guy by guy, but I do think what's fascinating is

(01:09):
UM some of the makings of these teams, right, these
are the because if you look at the NBA. The
teams in the NBA Finals, you know, I whether they
tanked or they were just bad and then they went
for the full tank. Gusto Phoenix was really bad a
couple of years ago. Milwaukee in two thousand thirteen, they

(01:31):
were terrible. And the building blocks of NBA Finals teams
starts in the draft. Right, that's a long time, since nineteen,
since two thousand and thirty, I think the two thousands
their team with Milwaukee, and it's not that long for Phoenix,
But um, I mean I like the Devin Booker uh
draft pick. He was the youngest guy in the draft

(01:51):
that year, and you know, I've I learned from that
and the Tobias Harris and so many of these guys
that you're like, they're really good, but they're only he's
only how old? Oh that's that's that's different. So let
me just give you a couple of things that I
find interesting. I thought Houston did a really good job. Um,
you get Jalen Green, who I personally like, Kate Cunningham

(02:15):
better all around, but you do need guys that can score,
and this guy can score and he is he has
improved during his year with the g league. I knite
like he's a bucket freak athlete who's becoming a better shooter.
I don't know about decision makings in big games. You're
not gonna play in a big game for a couple
of years with the Rockets. Doesn't matter. You got the
second best prospect on the board, a wing score who's

(02:37):
a freak athlete. I like it. But then they got Senguin,
who Alpert Seguin, who's eighteen years old, was a machine
scoring in Turkey at a very very high level. I
thought he should have gone sooner, you know, And then
you look at what else they I like their whole draft. Um,

(02:57):
the interesting one is Oklahoma City where they got Josh
Giddy and Giddy left handed, kind of a one to three,
not really a four, tremendous passer. He's kind of got
that funky, unorthodox smart not Joe Ingles. He's more of
a playmaking guard, but he's not crazy athletic. But here's

(03:18):
the thing, Like those guys work in the NBA. They do.
Luca don Check is not a great athlete, but he's
a great basketball player. And I know I sound like
I'm contradicting myself. You like, well, you got Jalen Green,
Like they're different. Jalen Green has one. Defensively, he should
be able to lock you up and make some plays
with athleticism. Offensively, he should be able to score. But

(03:41):
Giddy is a guy who can score something, can make
everybody else better. Like he's a for a young kid,
really skilled, really smart and big. And it's just interesting
what Oklahoma City chose to turn down in order to
take Josh Giddy. I think those are the Houston and
Oklahoma City both in rebuilding. Really interesting. And then Troit

(04:02):
Kate has a chance to be special. He is uh
Penny Hardaway two point oh to me and people who
remember how good Penny Hardaway was. That is a supreme compliment.
And Penny um prop forty eight his first year, whereas
obviously KAYE came out of its first year. So in
terms of development, I would say Kage's probably ahead of

(04:23):
where Penny was at this time during his life, during
his career, not life. He's still alive, he's coaching anyway.
All right, let's get to this Charles Jenkins interview, and
then I'll give you a couple of thoughts um on
the rest of the NBA draft and on Russell Westbrook
with the Lakers without further ado. The superstar at Hofstra

(04:44):
former draft pick of the Golden State Warriors, Charles Jenkins. Um, okay,
so your your first memories of playing who? All right,
first memories playing whop are are a where in Brooklyn,
New York with my older brother and my dad. You know,
Brooklyn's fascinating, right because my dad grew up in New

(05:07):
York and we used to go back every summer and Brooklyn.
Growing up in Brooklyn, Brooklyn now is crazy, crazy, nice
and expensive and everything's redone not everything, but a lot.
I mean it is. You want to talk about a
place that has done a complete transformation. But that's for
people who are thinking of Brooklyn. Now, what was Brooklyn

(05:29):
like when you grew up? Uh? Well, I lived there
for a short amount of time so that but that's
when I began playing. Brooklyn was pretty rough. We lived
in the Brownsler area. Um, it was a lot of crime.
Um the games where we started to form that time.
So oh, I want to say, like maybe the first

(05:51):
couple of years playing I played in Brooklyn, but my
dad was so paranoid about where I would end up
if I stayed there, so we ended up moving to
Queens But at that time it was a very tough
neighborhood to live in. It was a lot of you know, shootings,
you know, often drug dealing, and a lot of my
friends were turning into gang members at a really young age.

(06:13):
So it was it was a pretty tough experience for us.
So what's that like? Like, what's what's it? What's it
really like? We have people who don't grow up in
an area where their friends are becoming, you know, members
of the gang. How how old you like, let's let's say,
how your last year there? You how old were you? Well?
Last year I was seven, okay, so you're seven years old?

(06:36):
You just you know, fun, I mean I just seven
year old usually have no cares in the world, right,
they're just boys and they just play and whatever. Um.
But like seven year ol kids will before getting into gangs.
I mean most I mean most neighborhoods there are gangs
affiliated to each neighborhood. So and I have a lot

(06:57):
of older cousins that shows that path. So I was
around it for I mean too much for someone to
be that young and understand it. I mean I was
just noticing the other day I was with my nephew
and he lives in Brooklyn as well, and at his
age he can tell you which gang is from what neighborhood,
which is too much information. I would rather him be

(07:19):
able to name all the presidents that we had rather
than to be that informed about his neighborhood. But unfortunately,
out there you have to be aware you're surrounding. So
when I was young, I was able to, you know,
understand what was going on, just because I was exposed
to it when of course, which is a young age.
But my dad was very adamant about us not being

(07:41):
there long enough to see you know, a lot more
that we experienced at that time. Okay, so what would
your dad do for a living? My dad was, yes,
do you remember the conversation or was it were you
too young to that conversation? Too young for the conversation.
I just remember that we lived in like a small
complex and there was like a big murder that happened

(08:04):
where it was like multiple people being like laid out
on coming out on stretchers. It was a lot of
news coverage, and shortly after that, I remember my dad,
you know, letting us know that we won't be living
there much longer, so you moved to Queens, which is
like a completely different like is it was there a
community center or are you out of the park when

(08:24):
you when you're now now you're starting to play your
eight nine, ten years old. My mom, my mom went
to the grocery store when we first moved here and
there was like, um, just like brochure for a basketball
league that they had. It was ages from there was
like from six to nine and then they had another
league from ten to thirteen where you can play. And

(08:46):
she brought she brought home the pamphlet. We spoke about it,
and I think that next Saturday I went down to
try out for one of the teams. And I've been
playing you know whatever since organized ever since? Were you
always good? Was it something like? Nah? I wasn't. Honestly, um,

(09:06):
when I was really young, for my from my age,
I was exceptionally exceptionally well. I played really good in
this league. But when I like traveled around the city,
you know, I was when I like, if I went
to Brooklyn, we played against Brooklyn teams, I didn't do
fairly well all the time. Or if we went up
to the Bronx and played against the shows, you know,
I had some some problems with them, or if we

(09:28):
played against teams like Riverside that was big in New
York at that time. No week, I wasn't with the
best thing on the floor at Riverside Church. So okay,
so you get ready now now you're now you getting
middle school in the high school school, what program did
you play with? Well, I played for my dad, and

(09:50):
my dad had a team that we put together. We
were just like literally going around and finding kids and
we managed to put it put the get that team
for two years, and then I played for the Panthers
and Long Island Lightning for about two years. What was
it like to play for your dad? It was it

(10:11):
was good. I mean he when I played, I was
always like a really like big kids. So when I
played in other leagues, I played like the four or
the five. Even though I was pretty short, I was
as bigger than everybody. So I always played the four
to five And my dad with, well, tell me, like,
you know, you're not gonna be that tall when you
get older, and this is like the average side for

(10:31):
a guard. So I want you to play for me
and like learn how to you know, be a guard
instead of you know, you're not gonna get it. You're
not gonna have a chance to get a scholarship being
a six three power forward. So he would always say that.
So playing for him was fun, and it was also
tough because he had to like go to distance too
show other parents that there was no favoritism even though
I was his son. So I learned a lot playing

(10:52):
from him. But it's hard. It's super challenging. Like I
played for my dad and now I coached my son,
and it to like when he has a great game
or he's really kind of improving and getting it, it's
the best. But you also you have to manage. You
can't play favorites. You gotta subbount sometimes. You know, you

(11:12):
gotta get into him. You know, you have a deeper relationship.
You'll talk, you'll talk back to you some as well,
because he does no more than some of the other kids.
Like it's a it's a completely different thing than having
your guy your kids played for somebody else. Yeah, I
didn't understand it at the time. I thought he was
just trying to make an example of me. But as
I got older and I just reflected on it, I

(11:34):
was I was thinking about like man, if I if
I coached my son and the team that we had,
all the parents were involved, they were after, they were
at all the games, and of course you want to
see your son do well, so that if there's one
kid playing for his dad, you definitely don't want your
son to be out of some sort of disadvantage. So
I think he did a good job that I was
just too young to understand at the time. Um, high

(11:56):
school was your high school experience? Like, um, well, my
my brother. My brother passed away when I was in
the eighth grade towards the end of my eighth grade year.
So high school my first year. I ended up pulling
the Holy Cross for one year, but I was so
like depressed for the majority of that year that I
didn't even play. I was so so take take me

(12:18):
through what happened, how it happened. And my brother, Yes, oh,
my brother was a street was a street dude. Um.
He was heavy in the crime. He loved it, he thrilled,
he thrived in that. He loved like, uh, putting fair
into people, robbing people at times, and he just loved

(12:41):
that lifestyle. So I mean, unfortunately, that lifestyle only ends
two ways. Either you go to jail or you or
someone catches up to you, and unfortunately that happened to him. Um.
I remember I was going to pick up my cousin
and we stayed in the car for a little while
because it was a lot of shots going off in Brooklyn.
We heard like a lot of shots. It was maybe

(13:02):
about like like ten minutes, like back and forth shooting.
So we waited in the car for a while before
we went upstairs and then want to stop. We went
upstairs and I'll never forget my cousin opened the door.
He said, I'm surprised y'all alive. I just heard about
forty shots outside And we were like, oh no. We
were just waiting in the car for it to finish.

(13:24):
And then we were coming upstairs. So that happened. We
were just all like hanging out for a little bit
and then the phone rang and I could hear my
mom like scream, like she got she got a call
from my brother's my niece's mom, my brother's girlfriend at
the time. She called, and I can hear my mom
scream and told us to like get like Verry, like

(13:47):
we gotta go, we gotta go. So we jumped in
the car my mom is driving insane like through the
busy like New York streets to get to the hospital.
So we were outside the hospital for about one hour,
I think, and then doctors, you know, like the doctor
kept coming out saying, you know, he's in critical condition,
but he's still breathing, of trying our best to kept

(14:08):
coming out maybe like every fifteen minutes. And I want
to say about the last time he came out, I was,
I was standing outside and I didn't know like that
he that he pronounced my brother, you know, dad after
a while, but like I just remember my aunt like
jumping and my sister just passed out, and then it

(14:32):
was like a wave of emotion around like just a room.
It was like an unbelievable feeling. With me being young,
I was eleven, it was like, uh, it was hard
for me to like understand what just happened, because like
my aunt was hysterical and my sister was like she
was like passed out on the ground. She was like

(14:53):
they had to put her on the stretcher. So I
was kind of hard for me like really feel that
emotion because it was so much other things going on.
Until you know, later that night, we drove home after
my parents saw his body and things like that, and
I was able to really understand that my brother is, uh,
I'm gonna call me tomorrow. You know, big brothers. Big

(15:16):
big brothers are like you know, it's like your dad's
like your your hero. So but what was it? But
you also said that life and putting here in people?
So I mean, did you idolize him? What were your
before that? And this is hard now obviously because there's
still the emotions of him dying, But before that, what

(15:39):
what did you think or feel about your brother? Like
what was your when people would say say say, oh
I know your brother or whatever, like what was your
opinion of But the thing, the thing is, he never
was like that around me. So the personality he had
when he walked outside and he was on the streets,
it's totally different from what what I saw on a

(16:01):
daily basis. Of course, you know, he was a big
I was fan, so we anytime there was a TNT
game in the six rout playing we Will, he would
make sure that he was around so we could watch
it together. Um, he always spoke about hoops, and of
course I've seen times where he got into confrontations with
people he handled the situation, not with like guns or anything,

(16:21):
but like maybe a fish fight or you know, something
that's not that like like how it ended for him.
But right, I was I never saw, you know, the
kind of person he was on a consistent basis he
was outside. I've only heard stories, you know, after he
passed away about the things that he was. Fox Sports
Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.

(16:42):
Catch all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot
com and within the I Heart Radio app search f
s R to listen live. So your home and it
kind of all sinks in and hits you that he's
not he's not coming home. Um, and you know your

(17:03):
parents are a mess, right as any parents would be
obviously your your sister, How did you? How did you
deal with it? How did you how did you process? Um?
I mean it was it was hard. It took it
took a long time. I want to say it took
about a year a year and change for me to
like to kind of wake up. You know, Um, my brother,

(17:26):
my brother was My brother used to always call me,
like when I came home from school, he would ask
me questions like, you know, um, Howard school today? What
did you learn or are you are you going to
practice your ball handling? Or he'll mentioned something about like
hoops and then like we'll have jokes. And he also
had his own apartment at a young age, and I

(17:47):
would like go see him on the weekend sometimes and
we would just like hang out. Of course, he was
eleven years older than me, and it was always like
a great time for me. So, you know, when I
got to high school, of course, my first day I school,
I'm around, you know, a different group of people. I
was looking forward to that call. You know. There were
sometimes where I had, you know, confrontations with people, and

(18:09):
I would always want to call my big brother, but
it was bigger than what it should have been and
I couldn't. So those are the times where I had
a relationship with him where I could share things that
were him that I didn't want to share with my dad.
So once the other things that was happening and I
didn't really have anyone that I wanted to I was
comfortable enough sharing with That's when I started to Philip

(18:30):
the most. But I really woke up when my freshman
year finished and I was I got kicked out of school.
What did you get a man? I was academically, I wouldn't.
I was non existent. I was just going to school,
but I wasn't. I had zero desire to be there.
Why did you go to Holy Across the beginning? Like

(18:51):
what was that your parents picked up? Like? How did you?
It was when I played for the Panthers. I played
for this coach, Lloyd Davin. And the night before or
maybe like two three days before high school was gonna start,
I was gonna go to this public school that I
ended up going to anyway, Springfield Gardeners. Springfield Gardeners, Yeah,
which had a really bad reputation. And I saw Lloyd

(19:13):
then maybe a couple of nights before school started, and
he was like, where are you going this year? And
I was like, I'm going to Springfield and he was like, man,
like you can't go there? Like that's that school is terrible?
Is this is that? He's like, you know what, I'm
gonna make a call and you know, i'll call you tomorrow.
And it happened fast like that. He called me. The
next day. I had to like, you know, find a

(19:34):
shirt and tie. I went. I sat with the principal
and like the dean and a couple of days later,
I was like, holy Cross, but you didn't play sports,
not at all nothing. So your academically ineligible, you flunk
out of school. You're you're you, and I'm I'm picturing

(19:55):
and telling from like your whole family, like there's a
fog over all of you guys because your brother. Yeah,
and so you you had to go back to Springfield
Springfield gardens. Um, what do you and you're you're playing
like you like what was your dad like you with
your grades being go ahead? Now? That was That was

(20:16):
a tough summer for me. Of course I had to
make I had to go to summer school. Um. I
had to have the conversation with him about you know what,
what paths I can go down if I continue to
um living this way, about waking up, uh, about being
able to agrieve and still live your life. Really big

(20:37):
conversation I had with him. My dad worked at a
group home for over twenty years where there were a
bunch of kids who parents didn't want him, and he
would he would take me there, show me how do
these kids live, Compare my life to theirs, and what
what they did or what what this kid? You know,
how many times this kid was in trouble with the law,
where what past He's gonna go down? And it was

(20:59):
it as I opened it, because I was I was
blind to that. I didn't know anything about like like
just that group home. So he was telling me like,
this is where I worked, this is my second job.
These are the kids I'm around, this is where they're
involved in this, this is what I have to deal
with on a consistent basis. Now look at your life.
Is your life anything like this? And I was like, no,
it's not. And I think he one time he told

(21:22):
me that he would let me slay the weekend up
there with them, just to see how it is. And
I was like, no, this is enough for me. And
then you know, I started to get myself together. Um, okay,
So this whole time, like were you six three early?
Like did you early? No? No, I was I was

(21:42):
maybe like by ten, Maybe when did you When did
your game start to come together? Because I know about
your senior year you were star when your game started
to come together my junior year that just at the
end of my sophomore year, I had to really this summer, um,
I played for a local team in New York City's

(22:03):
Finance and the coach gave me the opportunity to play
with at the time like like fifteens, and then I
played on his team with the guys that were getting
ready for college. I mean, I didn't play that much
on that team, but I got to practice with them. Um,
I got to learn. I got a chance to feel like,

(22:26):
all right, I'm young, but I have to food myself.
Like I felt like I had to proove myself all
the time when I played with the older team, and
I started to get accepted by them, like maybe like
towards the end of the summer, right going right into
my junior year, and I just had like an amazing
amount of confidences, you know, getting ready for public school basketball,
and you know, I started to play really well. By

(22:47):
your senior year, You're one of the best players in
the city. Right, Um, this is this is two thousand
and six, So who who else is? Who else is
big in the city that year? Man Edgar Sosa was
the best guard in New York at that time. You
think back, you ere a think back, and it's pretty
pretty awesome, right Like now you're a superstar, uh international

(23:11):
basketball player, right, and you think of all of those
guys who at the time, we're being judged as as
good as you are better than you and guys you
thought of it, like again, I don't know what Edgar
Socia is doing, but I know he's not not doing
what you're doing. Like it is pretty amazing the snapshot
of when we're seventeen. Like I was thinking about this,
I think probably this when I was twelve years old,

(23:34):
I joined the team and we won the national champion
like the AU national championship, and like I went back
in track all and I didn't play very much. And
I went back in track and I was like, oh,
I had a better run than that guy and that guy,
that guy, that guy. Okay, so it's Edgar Sosa. Who else?
Malcolm Grant? He ended up. He went to Villanova, the
transferred to Miami. Um, there was a guard Larry Davis.

(23:58):
He went then I think, I mean I was still playing.
I was still playing really well in Europe. The White
Hardy he still plays. He was really good. Eugene Harvey,
he went to see the hall. Sure was the was
the guy man and he was a guy. Did you

(24:19):
play against him? Did you play against him? And Au? Nah?
He played? He played on the I played on the
Adidas mark. When I did play, I played for the
Student Athlete Broncos and we played Adidas. I don't know
where to where the gout shows played. I think they
were a Nike team. Yeah, no, we had that when
I when I came out two where you just you
didn't play against Nikes. He didn't he didn't play against

(24:42):
Nike teams or he didn't go to play Nike events.
Here's two thousand six. You ready, Yeah, Curtis Kelly was
considered the best player for sure, and your sosa okay,
um bizarre Heyward yeah, Antonio, Antonio Pinion, yeah right, Labor

(25:07):
Larry Davis, John Mitchell, Yeah, Austin Wallace, Brad Sheehan who
went to Georgia Tech, apparently from Lake. I never heard him.
Let's see here, Vernon til Vernon twos in two thousand six.
I think he reclassed though classes he was he was

(25:28):
older than me. Uh. Antoine Pearson went to Manhattan, they
went the St. Domes Um, Tim Burns, okay, Andre Tarver,
I'm I'm asking this because I went back and looked
and like you were ranked yeah, best player in New York.

(25:53):
All right, okay, so why hofstra uh at the time
I was this is the this is my absolute truth.
I tell your story all that. That's it. That's what
this is. By the way, that's what we don't need.
There's there's no reason you're not hurting anybody's feelings years
after the fact, right, okay, okay, perfect, okay, so um

(26:17):
go after as well as I played UM my junior
my junior year, I didn't have one division division one
offer at all. Nothing. Was it because of your great
or freshman year or I don't know. I don't honestly,
I don't know, and I didn't. I didn't have any

(26:39):
I didn't I didn't even get any any letters from
any big time schools. I don't even think there was.
There was one school that I knew if if all failed,
I would go to. That's because of this relationship that
I had, and it was Kentucky State. There was a
guy named Charlie that I grew up playing around and
he always, you know, gave me, you know a lot

(27:00):
of praises. He watched me grow out that he was
involved with that school. And it was also a school
Long Island A DELFI a high school coach. I played,
I played high school, so I played against their head
coach was involved with that university. His name was A Pittman.
So those are those are my guarantees of all fALS,
like there's a possible chance that I can go there.

(27:22):
But of course, like watching TV, you want to you
want to play in the big time schools. You want
to play the Division one basketball. But unfortunately that wasn't
what was going on for me as a junior. So
my my junior is when you start, you know, you
start taking the p S a t S. And my
best friend he was we were going to UM the
college office in school, and they called both of us

(27:44):
down there and they were like, you know, you got
a register for you know, UM, you know to take
your p S a t S. This is important and
this is about your future x y Z. And my
friend he said to this lady, I'll never forget. He said,
I'm not taking the p S A T. He said,
when I graduate, I'm going to trade school. I'm gonna
graduate in thirteen months and then I'm gonna start working.

(28:07):
Now in my head, I was just like, man's that
don't sound like a bad idea because he has not
He's he knows what he's gonna do. Yeah, he has
a plan, and he was so confident in what he said.
I was I was thinking, like in my head, like, man,
that don't sound like a bad idea. Of course, I

(28:28):
went on. I took the p S A t um
me and my dad spoke about, you know how important
it is, and we watched you know, basketball documentaries and
stuff about players. And I think lamar old Him at
that time had some something going on with his set
score that happened, so I always want to do he
flew out. He flew out, so so Lamar lamar Old

(28:48):
Him was supposed to go to uh U and LV
was U and l V, but I forgot where he
was originally going. Okay, but but he actually flew out
to l A. And there's this high school, Linwood High
School where he took the S A T and like
had the magic pen where all of sudden like he
killed and so it was I think it was invalidated

(29:11):
or something like it. Something like that. I believe that,
but in my in my mind at the time, since
I didn't have schools, and of course being in New York,
like I remember that time Edgar Edgar was already committed
to Louisville. Kirk Kelly was going to Yukon, you know,
and it was a league that that's big in New York.

(29:31):
The guy on the microphone always like he was big
up players that past scholarships, like the score. Sometimes he
would say like Edgar Sosa Louisville for free, like he
would always like say stuff like that, and I didn't
I didn't get that. Yeah, yeah, I didn't get one
of it, of course. But playing in Springfield, we didn't

(29:52):
really get the big time you know, recognition as like
other schools. So I guess that's why I flew under
the radar. But I didn't know just that until later.
At that time, I was thinking, like, you know, I'm
not getting the scholarships offers that I thought I would
from any school, let alone like D one, D two.
I didn't get anything. So I was thinking, like, man,

(30:12):
I'm this is probably a better option for me to
do the same as my friend I understay your six
three point guard. At the time, I don't could you
not shoot? Like what how do? Or was it were
just not events? Like how how is it possible? I mean,
I don't, I don't know, honestly, I don't. I don't

(30:33):
know how to okay, so so so okay, So who
the first contact you have with Hobstro was who? And what? Um?
David Dukes? Uh my my senior year, like and like
I want to say about in December my senior year,
we had um we had this Catholic school versus public

(30:55):
school like invitational tournament that we got invited to and
we played against st ray and I played really well.
We lost by four. Of course, Springfield versus St. Raizor
was supposed to lose by fifty in front of a big,
big crowd, but we ended up losing by four. We
had a chance to win the game, we missed the
last shot and found And I want to say we

(31:15):
played Saturday morning and Hofstra was at Springfield. David say,
Springfield Monday, like Monday, the Monday practice. He was there.
So that was the first time I met him. And
and what do you think when somebody comes up to
you and says, hey, like, like, what do you think

(31:36):
about about Hofstra? No? But the funny thing is my dad,
my dad, him and my dad know each other. So
my dad he my dad. My dad used to get tickets,
uh for his kids at the group home. He used
to take all the kids that behave well, he used
to take them to hoshow games. So Coach Dukes was
responsible for getting him the tickets. So he my dad

(31:57):
told me that he used to always tell like Coach
Dukes like, whenever you need him, there's a sixth three
guard that goes to Springfield. And he said, like, Coach
Duke's never paid it, you know, much attention. He just
was like all right, whatever and just you know, gave
him the ticket and you know, went about his business.
So when I first met him, the first thing he
said to me is can you shoot? And I was like, yeah,

(32:19):
I can shoot. He's like, well, let me see your shot,
and he just rebound a couple of shots for me,
and then we sat down we talked um. He uh.
He was telling me about the school, um, the opportunity
I have to play, and in my head I was like, whatever,
I know somebody I know St John's coming. Omark Cook
was my favorite player. I wanted to play for St.

(32:41):
John's really bad. Um. So eventually Marri's came on really strong,
and then I got a phone call from Norm Roberts.
Norm Roberts went to Springfield and he was showing some
interest in me, like you know, um, you know, we
heard about how you've been playing. You know, we're have
sent someone to come watch you, and you know we'll

(33:02):
keep in contact. But they wanted me to go to
prep school. When I was a senior, there was a
lot of my friends or chief guys I played against,
that was reclassifying and going to prep schools all over
the world. And I wasn't a fan of that because
I didn't like high school. So I was like, why
am I gonna one more year? And I don't like it?

(33:24):
So I mean I was. I was seventeen at the time,
and before like once I started getting like a couple
of schools, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and
that changed everything for me. Um how she was only
twenty minutes away. My dad at that time was working
three jobs. He worked at UPS at night, he did

(33:47):
the group home from ten to six, and on the
weekend he started him and his friends started like a
truck driving business. So I know that my mom was gonna,
you know, experience a lot of changes in her life.
And my sister and uh, we decided that we would
stay closer to home if in case she needed anything.
We wanted to be in driving distance of where wherever

(34:09):
she needed, and Hosh is right there. Of course, you know,
it's big East and all of that stuff is cool.
But you know, if my family is everything to me,
it's only it's only four of us that have a
really really tight bond, which is my mom, my dad,
my sister and myself. So how it made hash an
easy decision. It wasn't about, you know, basketball at the time.

(34:31):
It was about, of course getting a scholarship, which my
parents always pushed, and being around for my mom um.
As far as the basketball, we had to senior guards
that was Lawrence Stokes and Carlo Rivera and we had
one junior guy Antina Guya who And they were telling me,
you know, we're thinking about red shirt and new year.
First year, you know, you you get to learn learn

(34:54):
how things are in and then you know going into
your freshman year you'll be able to be an important
part of the team. And I was like you in
my head, I was more like, you know, the scholarship
is enough. But when I got to school, I was
really able to, you know, understand that what they were
saying was true. So so your first year you're sitting
there you're watching, right. That's hard, That's that's gotta be

(35:17):
incredibly hard because you had a great senior year and
you had choices to go to prep with Brandon. You
don't want to go to your high school, or maybe
you go to one of these other schools and play
right away, but you know your mom's dealing with stuff.
Um what what was that like to sit and watch
other guys play for the first time in your life.
I think it would have been easier if I went

(35:38):
to another school. I mean, if I went to school
out of town, because from New York, I've been here,
you know, all my life up to that point. Yeah,
so a lot of a lot of people were coming
to the games thinking that I would play. Now if
I was a rad shirt that um that I know,

(35:59):
I was in like a suit or something or like
team sweats watching the games, and it had been a
lot easier. But the fact that I was dressed, I
was on a layup line practice, you know, all the
punishment runs I was a part of. It was it
was hard to you know, watch a lot of games.
Of course, games where you know, we got blown out
and they cleared the bench on games were blown teams

(36:20):
out and everybody you know, got the chance to play
except me. So it was it was tough, but I
was also maybe like halfway through it, I knew that
there was no chance that I would play, like zero chance.
I was able to just you know, focus on what
I needed to do for the next season. Do you
do you remember how you guys did that year? I'm looking,

(36:40):
I have, I had the results. I think, I'm not sure.
I think we finished maybe first or second in the league,
I think. And you guys lost your first three games. Yeah, well,
I know we lost and uh we lost our first
three games. We lost that uh uh man, they had them.

(37:03):
It's a Green and White school Charlotte, Yeah, Charlotte. Yeah,
we lost shot and then Manhattan Schools Manhattan, and then
they were saying that we had a curse of the
Green and White. Yeah, yes, because then you lost to
Hawaii as well. Yeah, Green and White Schools. Yeah. Um,
so you get done with your first year, okay, and

(37:27):
now those guys are gone. Now you're gonna play. Um
and obviously like you're playing in the summer, and you know,
and and you hadn't like played, but how how different
was your game? Man? In high school and high school,
I was I was thinking everybody, so I was you know,
I got whatever I wanted. I was driving the majority
of the time. I rarely shot shot jumpers, and I

(37:50):
remember before when I got to to college, Cose Dukes
would say like, you know you, yeah, you can drive,
that's cool, but at this level they'll throw it in
the stands, so we need to work on your shot.
And that summer before my freshman year when I actually played,
I just stayed at school. I asked him, can I

(38:10):
stay in August, I keep my little room and just
continue to get in the gym, because I knew when
I came to Queen's I wouldn't have that kind of
access to a gym I could be in every day.
And we had a graduate assistant, Tom from l at
the time, who was known and when he was younger
as a really good shooter, and we just spent a
lot of time together talking. Um, I didn't know. I

(38:33):
didn't know how to step into a shot like left
right or right left. I didn't know I will always
hop then shoot. So it was a lot of like
muscle memory things that they used to do, Like Coach
would come like if I'm getting out of class. Coach,
I have a ball in his hand and sometimes he'll
say left right, tossed the ball in the air and
I had to like step in left right. So I

(38:54):
will always think about it and we will always practice it.
And once I was able to learn about the footwork,
I was about you know, fixing my shot, you know,
not cocking it back too far, shooting where I'm comfortable,
the right balance. It was a lot of that going
into it, so I worked so much on it. It
created a lot more confidence for me because I was like, okay, now,

(39:18):
UM comfortable enough to shoot it and I can drive
as well. So going into my freshman year, we had
Antoinea Gudio who was a really really good score, really
good shooter, and I was trying to just be the
best you know, robbing role that I could be because
I had the opportunity too. So once it got time

(39:39):
to to you know, play against those guys, coming into
my freshman year and practices, I was a lot more
confident than I was the year before because you know,
I worked a ton on my game. Okay, so do
you remember your first game when you actually played you
against against totally cross? Yeah, five points nine rebounds. Um,

(40:05):
so you know, like like, yeah, it's confidence. You're like,
oh this is I'm ready, I'm straight. And then you
go score five points your second game though you blew
up right game correct? Correct? Correct? Um? Which which one?
Which memory is more vivid? The Holy Cross of the
Manhattan I think the I mean, it wasn't the game.

(40:29):
It was the conversation I had with the assistant coach
after we play Holy Cross. That was. That's what I'm
thinking about the most we have we Um, you were
in the I went to his office. He called me
in there. It was I remember, so it was weird,
but it kind of changed. It changed my the way
I was, you know, my approach to the game at
that time. Of course, I was super hesitant because I

(40:52):
knew that Tom was the guy and I never I
never played with the guy before. You know, I've always
been the guy, like up until from like the last
couple of years from high school. So it was an
adjustment to me. And I was so dependent on him
that I was, you know, passing up a lot of
opportunities for myself. And the coach called me to the office. Uh,
coach Mac who coach at St. John's right now, and

(41:15):
he had the footage of all the possible chances I
could have shot the ball. Look, you passed this up.
You should have took this. Why didn't you take that?
Why did you make this pass? And I had to
explain and really tell him how I felt. And he
asked me, like, what are you afraid of? He said,
what do you are you afraid why? He said, look

(41:37):
at our bench. He said, if we take you out,
you're second best player on the team. It's not much
longer before you back into the game. So he said,
you got a dare to be great And I was like, man,
and I was kind of looking at him like is
this Like are you serious? Are you talking to me?

(41:57):
And he was like, yeah, you have to. And he
was like it's gonna start in practice, Like in practice,
we're gonna put you against torone and you have to, like,
you know, get comfortable and being more aggressive and you know,
the next couple of practices, I was, I mean, I didn't.
Of course, Tone would kill me all the time in
practice when I was a freshman, he would kill me.
He would get the best to me the majority of

(42:18):
the time. But I felt comfortable making mistakes and looking
at coaches reaction because it wasn't like I was just
taking wild shots. I was never like a wold shot
kind of player. It was just like overthinking mistakes I made.
So once I was able to get that amount of
confidence from this associate head coach at that time, the
next game I was way more comfortable, and you know,

(42:42):
taking more shots and and and playing like without without thinking.
And the Manhattan game I was. I was in the
right spots I made. I made all my open looks
and started to play a lot but a lot better.
And the kind of the lights which went on the
first time I saw the first time I saw you
play and like was like, oh, this guy can play.

(43:06):
Was your junior year you guys took on Yukon, right,
and Yukon had kemba, and I remember you and and
Jerome Dison, right, they had kemba, Jerome Dison and Stanley Robinson, Yeah,
and and you gave it to him. You had and

(43:26):
eight and and four. But your your teams weren't as successful,
so you weren't getting kind of the notoriety. But what
was what do you remember your college experience? You obviously
remember every conversation and and every game, like like all
of us do. What was that like to an noow,
like you're growing into being a star, and yet like

(43:48):
if it was now there's two tho one, everybody been
poaching you, trying to get you to transfer up level. Right,
what was it like at Hofstra? Right? What was it
like at Hofstra when when Twin leaves and now it's
kind of your our team and your team's kind of struggling,
but you yourself are getting better personally, And it was honestly,
it was fun just because I know how hard it

(44:11):
was for me to get, you know, to a Division
one club. You know, it was really hard to get
to a school, and it was even harder my freshman
year just just adjust to, you know, a different type
of game. So I was more so looking at it like, man,
I'm improving. I was more like noticing, of course that
we didn't have that good of a team, but individually

(44:34):
I was improving every year and giving our our guys
a better chance at winning almost every every time I
was on the floor, So that I was, I was
thriving in my my opportunity. My sophomore year, I remember
coach put an amazing amount of pressure on me, so
we had six seniors, UM, and I used to shoot

(44:56):
really early in the morning and Coach was like walking
to UM, like I don't know, he was going somewhere,
and he stopped in the gym and he was like,
I'm gonna announce today that you're a captain. And I'm like, man,
I'm a sophomore, Like why am I captain? Like there
still a lot of things that I don't know, but
him giving me that responsibility, and I'm starting to notice

(45:19):
that I was, you know, leading by example when I
was getting the respect of the older people. It changed
because then I felt that I have I had a
responsibility for my teammates. Obviously played from your senior year,
played for Tampacora before that, and now once you played,
once you played as long as you played, you played
for a lot of coaches, right, you played for a

(45:39):
lot of dudes. Um, what's the best part about Tampacora?
A guy who you, who recruit you, who you played. Yeah,
I mean I've learned. I've learned so much from Coach
core Um, not even from a basketball standpoint. I feel
like just as like a person. I mean, there was
so many at that time time before he went to Fordham. Uh.

(46:02):
They made me a part of the sub committee. So
it was like I was a representative for you know,
all of the sports and school and we would have
you know, meetings about um, you know, how can we
get more fans to school, how can we you know,
improve things with the students, how can we make the
athlete life better? You know, things about study hall. So

(46:24):
I would go to a lot of meetings and confidence
calls and things with him, and on those rides that
we would have a lot of just conversations about life. Um.
He would talk to me about like being comfortable, being uncomfortable. Yea.
He would always like tell me a lot of like
little little things. I remember there was one time we

(46:47):
were at this like this this dinner and I didn't
know anyone, and he would say, like go introduce yourself,
make your presence known, tell them who you are, say
it with confidence. Or he would say, you know, there's
sometimes you gotta say hi to people you don't like.
And he would say watch this, And I would watch
him like go around the room and just network and

(47:07):
get people even though he had you know, personal issues
with them, and they I mean I learned that. And
I would be like and even like now when I'm
you know, in a situation where I'm in a room
full of people, I will always think about, you know,
those rides that I had with him, because I used
to be super super just like closed off, right, that's
very nor right, Like you're a college kid and these

(47:28):
you have nothing in common with these people, you know, desire,
but that's to me. It's a lot of things about
the college experience which people don't. We do a bad
job in the media of explaining, you know, like you know,
I remember It's like when I was in Oaklahoma State,
we we went on a road trip to uh like

(47:49):
my my first year there. We weren't supposed to be good,
so we didn't put We only went on like a
road trip to TCU and then we played Arizona State
in Okoland City. So we were at like spaghetti factory
and we're all messing around, and we had a dude
who who couldn't remember any place, so we all put
in all our pre diem and we're betting whether or
not he could he could drop all of our like

(48:09):
just our secondary sets, right, And anyway, we got like
super rowdy and there's food everywhere, and coach clocks down
to our table and he gets so mad that when
we get we go back. We actually had to go
to like these like finishing school classes. I squared to guy,
Like we had to go and everybody had to get
a coat and tie. We had to learn how to
sit at the dinner table. We had to learn like

(48:30):
proper like proper etiquette, and all these other things. Were like,
this is crazy. Why are we doing this so stupid?
Why are we doing this? And then you know, like
again twenty years later, you start to get that, like
the college experience isn't just about playing the games and
trying to become a pro. It's about all these other
things that you learned that like your parents. Don't that
not everybody's parents have time to teach them or have

(48:52):
the financial resources to teach them, right or or or
you're you're in a completely foreign environment, you know, and
you have to be able to use your basketball in
order to open up these doors to you. So it's amazing, Right,
that's crazy you said that. Now, now, be Coore, I
had those nice suits. Right, he's a jay, Right guy

(49:12):
like those guys always chids always look clean, yes, always clean,
clean shave, good ties, man I had so many like
good conversations. And it's so funny that you brought up
the the etiquette class because I remember going and I
remember seeing like soup for the first time, and yeah,

(49:34):
of course, like at home. If someone's eating soup at home,
they're sick. I've never seen you know, I yes, yes,
you're right. Yes, I didn't know they had. I didn't
know what they had soup outside of you know, supermarket
for Campbell's if you're not feeling well. So I remember,

(49:55):
I remember the etiquette class and the salad fork and
how to shake hands like because Allays tell me, look,
look a man in his eye, meet him at the
web when you shake his hand. So that's yeah, I do.
I learned the last Struss strong stuff. Okay, so um, okay.

(50:16):
So then but core leaves he goes to Hofstra two
obvious even talked to fordam, I'm sorry to goes goes
to Porta, like you're gonna be a senior and this happens? What? What? What?
What do you remember? What was going on in your mind?
I remember we had study hall and um one of

(50:36):
my closest friends to this day, Corne Leaves Fines he
was he was a senior, but he was like finishing
up his classes before graduation and he he there was
this um so the CIA CIA had this uh this
like this board. It was like a forum where like
a lot of each school had their own form and
it's just people right in their opinions on the season.

(50:59):
Sometimes I used to go there for motivation after I
played bad. There was always somebody talking crap about me
in there, And one time he showed me like it
was like an entire form about coach kora and it
was like coach Kora U is getting ready to go
to Ford him He's leaving HOS this year. For sure,
it was a whole form of different people talking about it,

(51:19):
but I didn't know if it was true or not.
And we were still having our our postseason workouts at
that time, so it was kind of hard to, you know,
understand if it was these were just rumors that was
true because I was seeing him a lot and everything
was pretty normal. And the next week we it was
like a Tuesday, I think, or maybe a Thursday. He

(51:40):
wasn't there the entire day, didn't see him. Office door closed.
I'm asking everyone, like where is two get like these
out he's out. And we had study hall and I
was like on the g A just asking where is coach?
Call his phone right now? I called him. He didn't answer,
where is he? Why he's not here today? And it
was on ESPN, like, uh, like the college corner of course,

(52:01):
you know, a small schools. We were always like in
the bottom left corner. Yeah, there was any news and
it was like Pokora question mark for them something like that,
and I clicked it and it was like Pocora's um
shouldn't there, should announce that Tom Pecorre is going to
be the new head coach of UM for them. And

(52:21):
I looked at the g A and I said, what
is this? Is this true? He's still telling me just
do your work, don't worry about it. That's not true.
I don't believe everything you read. All right, I let
it go. The next day we had our team banquets,
so of course he was there. This is like, you know,
you know, given our seniors their jerseys, let them give
that last speech, have nice dinner, and we all go
our separate ways. Uh. The entire team is meeting in

(52:44):
the in the locker room. We had our little players
lounge and we were getting dressed and at the bottom
of the screen and flashed Tom Pecora is the new
head basketball coach of Fordham University, and everybody was just
like super just like what, like how And I was
I took a personally because, like I said, I've been
a coach all the time. I've had many conversations with him.

(53:06):
I remember when I went on had a crazy shooter slump,
he called me and he gave He asked me if
I wanted to go to the movies. He actually if
my girls pregnant. He was super helpful at that time
to try to, you know, to help me and to
have a relationship with me. So the fact that that happened,
I was pissed because if he would have told me,
it would have been, you know, better for me to

(53:27):
just know rather than to find out watching them, you
know ESPN. So I remember being really upset about that.
Did they ask you about who you want to be
the coaches? They involved you at all? We had a
meeting um with the with the the athletic director Jack
Hayes at the time, and I wanted to then make
him to be the own coach just because he was there.

(53:51):
And you know, we will probably have this similar system.
Everybody loves coach mac and we thought that he would
get that opportunity. UM I saw Coach Mack. We spoke
the entire time. He told me that he had an
interview for it. I saw him get dressed and walk
into the office before and then he called me the
next morning and he said that they're gonna hire Tim

(54:13):
Welsh and I'm like, who the hell is that. I've
never never heard of him before. Um, I had no
idea who he was. And I remember just thinking like, man,
my senior year, why is this happening? Like why why
can't we just you know, keep what we had, you know,
after maybe leave when I'm gone. But you know, they

(54:37):
hired Tim much for about I think two months. I think, yeah,
he got it, he got a d U y right,
So I mean this, this something is crazy because we
look back now and you know, all you remember is okay,
Pakora leaves and he goes to Fordham Okay, and then
you think of Mocus Sarson. There's that two months. So

(54:59):
Tim Welsh comes in, right, and uh, previous to that,
he had been I think it at providences, so so
you have no relationship with him. He comes in What
did you think of coach Welsh when you met him?
I mean he was pretty cool. Um, we went out

(55:19):
to dinner, we talked a lot. He had me involved
in his personal life. I don't know if it was
like a plan or something, but he was always asking me, like,
where's a nice neighborhood to living out here? Um, I
don't want to be too far from the gym just
in case you guys need something. And I remember like
being in point luck out with him a couple of times,
or after practice having conversations or you know who he

(55:42):
thought would help us and you know, the opportunity the
team had to be better and things like that. It
was a short amount of time, but I felt like
I had some you know, like I say so on
with what was going on at the time, and even
even through that we were getting a new strength coach
and he had to, like the strength coach sit down

(56:05):
with me and I had a say song whether we
should hire the guy or not. So I felt really confident,
like man like. I mean, of course all of the
business stuff I wasn't involved in the coach Lacora, but
like for him to like do that and make my
my opinion so valued. I was like, man, maybe this
is gonna be, you know, something different. And I remember

(56:26):
we had I wouldn't to Haggy Award my junior and
they had like Coach Pacora like say great things about me.
And then Tim Welch was standing up there too, and
he said he said, uh. He said, um, you know,
thank you Coach Lacora. Um, you've been an amazing host,

(56:47):
he said. He said, you left me a great office. Um,
I opened up the I opened up your closet and
it was an amazing amount of ties that you left
for me. Thank you, he said. With the greatest gift
you left me was Charles Jenkins. And I was like, man,
I was that was a smooth line to me. Like

(57:08):
at the time, I was like, man, that was nice,
Like I didn't see it coming, Like it was super smooth.
And then you know, I was happy about it. I was.
I was confident on a lot of my my teammates
were hesitant. Some guys wanted to transfer. Um. They ended
up bringing in um Alan Griffin. Yeah. I know him
as Bird because when I lived in Brownsville, he was

(57:30):
he was getting ready to go to Syracuse. So I
knew him since I was a kid. So I was
really happy about that, Like, man, this is somebody I
know for real, Like he can come to my house.
My parents know him, they'll be happy to see him.
My families know each other. So I was super super
happy about him getting a job as as one of
the assistant coaches. So, I mean everything was looked promising

(57:51):
until what that Friday morning? Yeah, so he so Friday.
So there's a Friday morning right in the in the spring,
I think in the late spring. How did you found out?
And find out? We got like a we got a
message um from uh the graduate assistant at the time.
I met Steve race Fell and it was like um

(58:14):
mandatory meeting at I don't know, maybe eleven or something,
which was normally our practice time. Manly no practice today,
mandatory meeting. Okay, so we all walked in. I had
no idea, but we had this this Hungarian dude that
was graduating. His name was Miko Sabo, and he was
already like laughing because he knew what happened, but he

(58:36):
didn't share. He was just like, oh, you don't know
what happened, or you'll see, But he was kind of
like smirking about it and we uh. The athletic director
walked in and the president Stuart Robinovich, and he was like, um,
you know Tim Welsh resigned and we were like what.

(58:57):
I was like what how? How? What? What just happened?
And there that's that's that's how they presented it to us,
like you know, he resigned and then after like guys
were saying, you know, he fell asleep aout the light.
He was, he was extremely drunk, he's and he got
bailed out this morning by the when when he said it,

(59:17):
I was just like how how? Like I just I
just spoke to him the day before, like how how? How?
How did this happen? And it's still didn't register to
me until we got outside. So I was like walking
to my car and then it was like the News
twelve van was out there and they were like, oh,
you guys are from the basketball team. You want to

(59:38):
ask you questions about your coach, like how how do
you feel about him? Um getting a d U I
And I was just like telling the guys that. I
was really like, let's just get in the car, like
let's not go, let's not you know, entertain It's like,
let's just get in a car. So we got in
the car, we drove off and then like later that
night I watched the news twelve and they had like
their reactions from all the student and stout that was

(01:00:01):
so you know, big Hosship fans all of a sudden
because there was a camera in front of their faces
and I was like, man, he really was. They had
like his mug shot on TV. I was like, man,
like a coach, like, that's crazy. He was. He was
drinking and he got behind the wheel. That's kind of
like because it was like just the time of it
was like man like, of course there are people that

(01:00:23):
unfortunately drinking drive, but for him for that to happened
to him was like man, what what's the next? Like
what else is going to happen? So so so again,
now they could have hired from the staff or whatever
they bring in they bring in. Mo were you did
they ask you the second time around? You know, they
just they just asked me how how? Because after that

(01:00:47):
happened with Coach Welsh, we had we had one practice.
We had one practice before they decided to who was
going to be the coach, So we were still practicing
with the assistant coaches, just coach to us wasn't there,
and I sort of the president and he just asked me, like,
how's WORKOUP was going? And I said, oh, they're going
pretty good. But like just I don't want to say

(01:01:07):
things are awful here. I hated of course, Like I
was just like, no, it's okay, all right. And who
I met with the athletic director. I was trying to
get vanmaking, like this is a sign that making should
be here, and they were like, don't and I was.
I was in tears because I'm like, I'm a senior. Now,
I'm like, I have no idea who's going to come

(01:01:28):
in here? Um? How they were talking about Tim Cluse
and I heard Tim Cluse run his players to death.
I was like, man, I don't want to go through
that as a senior. Yeah, and we had that you
would have scored, you would have scored a bunch of
points probably, yeah. But oh. Then there was another meeting

(01:01:50):
and it was a little weird because the assistant coaches,
you know, they were in like street clothes, and coachm
walked in in the suit. So it looks super it
looks super weird because I never, honestly, I never spoke
to Coach Mo when he was when I first met him,
I was just going back there. I would talk to
coach Griffin or I would talk to you know, Tim Welch.
Of course, No walked in with the athletic director and

(01:02:12):
he said, we're gonna name Mocus Sarah the head coach
and m I had to start over, like, Hi, I'm Charles.
I know I wasn't really open to you in the beginning,
but it looks like you're the guy. So let's like
trying to build a relationship. Pass forward to your after
your senior year, You're getting ready for the NBA draft.

(01:02:33):
Hy Um, what do you think? What was your agent telling? Uh?
And my agent was telling me I'll get drafted. Um.
He didn't really have an idea where I know, I
worked out for about fourteen or fifteen teams. Um, some

(01:02:57):
workouts were a lot better than that. Some some work
I had. I really thought I was going to these
teams I worked off like like like what was your best?
Your your best? Like Charlotte was my absolute best? Uh,
what do you mean players? I know Marshaun Brooks was there.
Uh they were. I think his name is the Darius Done.

(01:03:20):
He went to Bay Yeah. Him. Uh, Darius Morris was there,
and we had two bigs I can't remember. I think
one was Trey Tompkins and the other one was Nicola Busevich,
I think, and I just remember winning almost every drill.
I don't. I don't think I missed. When we played

(01:03:41):
the full court three on three, I don't. I played
really well in front of Paul Silason. So I was thinking,
like our worst case scenario, I'm gonna I'm gonna be
in Charlotte in the back of my mind. But they
didn't have like they didn't have a lot of picks.
I know they took Kimba and I think they had
like a late first, like in the fifties or something,

(01:04:02):
so we had he was getting feedback. Some teams wanted
me to come back, but I had other workout schedule
and I couldn't go to I can um see a
team again. I'm gonna work out really well for Detroit. Um.
I had a good meeting with him after, so I
would where I really thought I was gonna go if
I had to bet, was Detroit. I think it was

(01:04:23):
like thirty three they took. They took Kyle Singler. Yeah, Okay.
Draft Draft night, where were you draft knight. I was
in the w hotel with my family, okay, um, and
and just just your few four and your agent or no,

(01:04:45):
it was my mom, my mom, dad, sister, brother or
my brother in law, my best friend, college teammate and
one of my my childhood friends was there. So it
was about eight of us. Who's your who's your best friend?
Who was with you? Uh? The kwan Bats. We've been
friends since like four or five years old? Okay, so

(01:05:07):
what think was gonna happen? Like? Was he like mine,
I know you're doing. I mean he's more reserved. He's
not the kind of dude that's like in your air,
you know, he's really observant. Um, so he wasn't really
feeding me anything. It was my college teammate, Nathaniel Lester,
who who thought that I should have been a lot
of you pick if you asked him, like yeah, Like

(01:05:32):
every time a point guard goes like no, Nolan Smith
gets like, oh you better than Smith. Norris Cole was
the first round pick, Like you killed? Norris called Corey
Joseph goes Man, you kill. The move was going like
these guys are idiots, right, Yeah, that's that's that's that's
exactly who he was that entire night. He was that
because obviously to me, I knew, I knew I wasn't

(01:05:53):
a lot of you pick. So when the first round began,
I think we were at like the mall or something.
My parents was already in the hotel, my sister was there,
but we were like at the mall in Queens where
weren't even in the city yet. And I was saying, like,
all right, maybe like around like the seventeen pick, like
we should start making our way to the city. So

(01:06:15):
we drove, we got a parking spot, and then we
made our way upstairs, probably like around the time I
think Reggie Jackson just got picked. And then we started
to watch. But it was like it was tough because
I mean, my mom is there, Um she's being a mom,
very supportive, and she's also she didn't have much knowledge

(01:06:36):
of like what's going on. All she was waiting for
was to see to see me on the screen. And
you know, Jay billis have the best available you know,
picks and from after like the lottery, I was at
like ten and then I went from ten and then
I was me and Josh Shelby was like one and two.
So seeing that at the bottom, but my name is
still not being called. Was like, and I'm like, damn,

(01:06:59):
like what how? Like why is this going on? But
there's also an amazing amount of pressure around the room too,
So I want to like stay composed and look like
I'm not frustrated, but also want to like have my
own reaction to what's going on. But every any reaction
I had, someone in the room already expressed it, whether
it was like a or damn not yet, or what's

(01:07:24):
your agent saying? Like sometimes somebody were like questioning my
agent and stuff, and me and my agent were like
texting back and forth at the time, and I was saying, like, man,
I feel like you lied to me, like this is
this is not happening, like especially at at the forties.
I mean, I met with UM Golden State in Chicago,
but I didn't work I didn't get a chance to
work out for them, so I definitely didn't think that UM.
I didn't play that well in the Minnesota workout. I

(01:07:46):
know they took Malcolm Lee, and I wasn't like ecstatic
about that. I was just looking at the team's left
and I'm like, man, it's only about twenty picks. Left
like something's gotta happen. I knew a hundred percent I
wasn't gonna be a laker, but so much going on
at the time, I couldn't really like cast my own
emotion because my family was so animated the entire time.

(01:08:10):
So okay, So who did you get the call from?
I got the call from my agent. Uh he was.
He was on the phone. He was like, you know,
you had you gotta you have to prove yourself. Uh,
they made a mistake, and we're gonna prove that they
made a mistake. He young up the phone, and my
family was all like at that At that point, they
were all like dreamed. I'm just reacting to everything that happened.

(01:08:33):
And I was just like standing up and before, like
Adam Silver said it, I just had like a bottle
of champagne and I like I was I was so
mad though. I was so mad. I had a bothers
Jampa and I just like throw it on the ground
and they just exploded everywhere, and everybody was like a shock,
like like are you okay, Like it's okay, don't worry,

(01:08:53):
it's gonna happen. You're gonna get out of this. And
while all of this is going on at him. So
it was like with pick and call my name in
the room, just like when when crazy and my phone
went from probably five messages so like three hundred and something.
It was crazy. It's back when people left voicemails, left messages. Yes,

(01:09:18):
nobody a message that we know. Nobody listens to voicemails
that we returns voicemails. It's just a text it it'd
be back, all right. That's part one of my h
My talk with Charles Jenkins will drop apart two a
couple of days. We'll let this one kind of simmer
for a little bit. It's really really good stuff. Um.
I do want to say this in regards to Russell

(01:09:40):
Westbrook trade. I've talked to about NBA people that are like, look,
that dude is so crazy competitive. He pushes guys, pushes guys.
Lebron does the same thing. Um, so there's obviously an
attraction there, and he can make plays off the job.
We can create shots for other people. Russell Westbrook is
a tremendous player. But does he fit the Lakers. No? No,

(01:10:07):
He's a high volume, low make shooter who needs the
ball in his hands. We need Anthony Davis get the ball.
We need Lebron to have the ball. Yes, could could
he be given you know, the second quarter or whatever
to kind of do his thing, But they they're gonna
need so much more shooting around him. Now. The one
thing about Ross as opposed to Ben Simmons, is like,

(01:10:32):
at some point you do have to take these shots,
and um, there's a lot of good there. I just
I don't know how they're gonna get enough other pieces.
He's also older. He's had three knee surgeries. Lebron has
had his first couple of injuries he's ever had in
his career. Not because he's there's something wrong with him.

(01:10:53):
You just you get to your mid thirties and things
start to break down. Plus Anthony Davis is the youngest
of the three, and he breaks down all the time.
So I still want to see what they put together
around him, what they're able. They got a sign in
trade Dennis Shrewder and they got they got to find
a way to move some pieces around. But I don't
love that that mix. And and they're all friends and

(01:11:14):
we all think, well we're all buddies. They'll get like
when does that work? Didn't work with Westbrook and Harden
they were buddies. You don't have to love the guy
that you're playing. You had love playing with the guy,
but not necessarily love him off the court. I don't
I don't know. I just I don't love it. I
don't love it. It's very very interesting. You know, they
were gonna hire Scott Brooks as an assistant. They didn't,
So now you have a coaching staff that hasn't coached

(01:11:35):
to be there. That's really interesting. Are you will love
part two? Um? If you love part one? If you
didn't love part one, you'll love part two. I guarantee it.
You can listen to The Doug Otlip Show daily three
to six Eastern twelve three Pacific on these stations, on
on your Fox Sports radio stations, or on the I
Heart Radio app. You can also download that podcast and

(01:11:56):
that of course All Sports. Thanks so much for listening.
Don't forget to write a review. Downloads, subscribe rate tell.
A friend tweeted out that was pretty good thanks to
Charles Jenkins. We'll get to part two next. I'm Doug Gottlieb.
This is all ball m