March 16, 2021 • 44 mins
We unlock the secret of why players like Carmelo Anthony, Jason Kidd and Chris Bosh buy into the coaching style of Mike Krzyzewski. Why, Coach K’s not some gentleman from Duke; he’s a swearing machine from the mean streets of Chicago.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Dream Team Tapes season two. Kobe Lebron and the
Redeem Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association
with I Heart Radio Diversion Podcasts. The players selected for
(00:27):
the honor of representing the United States in the two
thousand and eight Beijing Olympic Games are Kobe Bryant. We
look forward to this for a while, you know, to
be in this position now here we don't represent our
country venus especially special Lebron James. We look for an
(00:47):
opportunity of the the weekend on Athlama being the best in
the world. I guess the Redeem Team is as it
is right, We're the best team in the world. We're
the best team in the world. We put fast football
America basketball wheels beat, which is that time? Welcome to
(01:20):
episode five of Kobe Lebron and the Redeemed Team. I'm
J Dande and we're calling this episode Coach K's ways
to look at the strategies and the tactics that Mike
Shook used not so much in the games, not the
XS and oose, but it's about his approach to leading
this team and getting the most from this group. It's
about identity and community, but First, I have a quick
(01:42):
quiz from my co host Jack McCallum. Jack, can you
spell Sewsky without hitting your keyboard and googling or any
other cheating like that, You just spell for me k
R g y z e w s k I no
prom at all? Right, And that might be the easiest
difficult name for me A spell as well, And it's
it speaks to just how prevalent he's been for the
(02:04):
last four decades that if you've covered basketball professional or college,
you've written that name so many times that it comes easily.
It shouldn't make sense. The fact that we all know
how to correctly pronounce Schefski, which looks nothing like the
way you say it, really speaks to his imprint in
(02:25):
his stamp on the world of basketball. And Jack, now
that you've passed through spelling tests, I want to know
if you can give us a brief rundown of the
role of the coach in USA basketball, because you were
there from the first time NBA players came into international basketball,
and how the role of the coach has changed from
Chuck Daily leading the dream team to when Suzewski was
(02:47):
called upon to coach this two thousand eighteen that's a
good question. Mike's name, by the way, always reminded me
of the character in the Superman comics. Mr mix Plexis,
did you ever did you ever read that if you
had to get him to spell his name backwards to
go back into the third dimension or wherever the hell
he was from. But anyway, the coaching role j and
(03:07):
I think it's gonna speak to what happened in two
thousand five when they finally decided we gotta get a program,
you know, we gotta get like a thing with one
coach and and a multi year commitment from players, because
before that it was very Catches, catch Ken after Chuck Daily,
and they gave the job, as they should have, to
Lenny Wilkins, who was a loyal assistant on the ninety
(03:30):
two team. Lenny had a bunch of guys. As Charles
Barkley put it, the knucklehead factor was very high on
that team. I'm sure Lenny was just glad to get
the hell out of Atlanta with a gold medal two
thousand The coach a little bit forgotten we talked about
these Olympics was Rudy tom Janovic. And I'm gonna tell
you why he coached this team. J And it's a
quick quiz for you. He coached the world championship team.
(03:56):
I'm gonna give you a hundred dollars for every starter
you can name on that team. We don't want to
take too much time, but go ahead, Carter. This is
the World championship team. Here you go, Kevin Garnett, not
even close. Here it is Jimmy Oliver, Jason Sasser, Michael
(04:19):
not Hershey Hawkins, Michael Hawkins, David not Leon Wood, and
Gerard not Bernard not, Albert not bb King. That was
a team that Rudy coach to a bronze medal in
the World Championships. They were having labor problems at the time,
(04:41):
you know, it was before the lockout. They couldn't get
anybody to play, and that's the team they put on
the court for the bronze medal, and Rudy coached that team.
Believe it or not, it's looked upon as like a
really great moment in USA basketball that they managed to
win the bronze. So Rudy got the job in two
thousand and then the two thousand two team we talked
about that a little bit. Coach by George Carl had
(05:03):
a sorry sixth place finish two thousand three was an anomaly.
They put this great team together. That was was the
Olympic qualifying team, who starters were Tracy McGrady, Jason Kidd,
Duncan was on that team. Iverson was on that team,
Jermaine O'Neill, Ray Allen, and Vince Carter off the bench,
(05:24):
and Larry Brown coached that team. And that was largely
the reason Jay that he coached the two thousand four
Olympic team. And I will have to admit that covering
those games in Puerto Rico in two thousand three, myself
and a couple others had this idea, Hey, let's get
a program, let's have one coach, let's make it kind
(05:44):
of organized. And the guy, I said, Larry Brown, would
be perfect. And then and then he had all this
criticism for the way they coached in two thousand four
when they got the bronze and Athens. And that led
us to what we talked about last week, the higher
of Jerry Colangelo and his move to talk to hire
the guy we're going to talk about today, and what
(06:06):
struck me when we were interviewing Seki and also Jim Beheim,
who was routine deem redeem team assistant coach. We're gonna
hear a lot from him in this episode. But when
you look at those guys, just seeing them on our screens,
is that these guys are institutions, right has been a dupe.
Be has been at Syracuse since I started watching basketball
in the early nineteen eighties. I don't know if you
(06:28):
have memories of those programs before those guys were at
the Helm. I'm sure you do, But to me, they're
inseparable Duke basketball and Mike Schowski, Syracuse basketball and Jim Beheim.
And there's something reassuring about that. I'll tell you what, Jay,
here's how scary it is. I remember Jim as a
player at Syracuse. I mean he was a very good player,
(06:51):
and Dave Byng was there then, and I think Jim
graduated obviously I should have looked us up, I think
in nineteen sixty six. So we're now in the year
twenty twenty one. There was about a half a year
when Jim was not at Syracuse University. Went there as
a player, got his master's degree there. I can imagine
(07:12):
he did a hell of a lot of studying to
get that became the freshman coach, the j V coach
got the varsity job, has never been absent from the
bench since then. And like you said, you know, look,
there's been some criticism of Jim recently, and there's some
things that I wish he wouldn't say. But if you're
talking about a guy that has shown loyalty to an institution,
(07:34):
the two guys you would bring up would be Jim
Beheim number one, and obviously Mike Showsky number two. And
like I said, there's something reassuring about that type of
loyalty longevity, especially now when it seems like nothing was
the same like it was at the start of last
year or two years ago or five years ago. And
these two guys have been in the same places for
forty plus years. And what was interesting, though, is that
(07:56):
Sky didn't lean into that when he coached USA basket Ball,
when he stepped away from the hallowed halls of Duke.
And at that time, as he was coaching his two
thousand and eight team, he'd already made ten trips to
the Final four, he'd won three n C Double A championships,
so he knew that gave him a little bit of
credibility with the NBA players, but maybe not necessarily cash
(08:16):
with them. And again, since this is about identity and community,
he decided that, if anything, he was going to be
more like the guy from the Polish neighborhood on the
northwest side of Chicago and the guy who played basketball
under Bob Knight in the Army Academy at West Point.
And it reminded me of a story that Dan Bickley
did for the Chicago Suntimes in December. I was just
(08:39):
starting there, just starting off my career. Bickley was working there. Bickley,
of course was the author as well of Return of
the Gold, which is the book about the two thousand
eight Olympic team that really proved useful in our research
for this podcast. But the time he wrote an article
about how She's SFETI was this guy from Quartz Street,
the Polish neighborhood on the north weside of Chicago. His
(09:01):
buddies had nicknames like Twam's and Mo and Porky. He
gatting fights playing basketball against teams from outside the neighborhood.
And in the first meeting that Mike Sasefski had with
this group that would be the two thousand eight Olympic team.
That's the neighborhood that Ski went back to. And he
starts talking the way that he's used to talking, but
(09:21):
it's not the way that they were used to hearing him.
I know, I probably have to follow them out, but
they don't expect me to say, motherfucker all right, and
you know when you're talking, just come on your motherfucking like,
we gotta get this gold medal. And all of a sudden,
I wasn't this uh guy from Duke in West Point,
(09:42):
you know, it's more of the guy from the inner
city of Chicago. And one of the people that uh
it definitely made an impression on was Jason Kidd, the
veteran leader of the redeem team. First meeting, we got
to hear coach k Couss right and I could believe it.
I was like, oh, like, this is the same guy
(10:03):
that's on TV, and like, I think he said the
whole the tone, the whole mood kind of like relaxed
and everybody was, you know, not on edge now. And
Coach again, he hit it out of the park when
he first cussed, and I couldn't believe it. I was like,
just got cusses and they go He's he's got a
filthy mouth, and I'm like, oh, this is gonna be fun.
(10:25):
So another unexpected move was that Shefsky contradicted the Godfather
Jerry Colangelo, and he didn't quite take sides against the family,
but still Collegelo told the team one thing, and then
Sky immediately told them the opposite. He talked to him,
he said, and leave your egos at the door. And
I got up and I said, you know, the only
time I'm gonna probably disagree with Jerry, but don't leave
(10:48):
your he goes at the door. Lebron, you be Lebron Kobe.
You know. All I know is the Gasols are gonna
be the Gasols. Geno believe will leave be even better
if you guys, aren't you We're not gonna win. We
are not gonna win. And for most of them, it
was the first real test of Coach K and something
I found really interesting. But Jay, there was something Beheim
(11:09):
told us that the fact that Coach K wasn't an
NBA coach and didn't have history with most of these
guys was a big plus because that was the polar
opposite when they picked the first coach who was going
to lead NBA stars into the Olympics. The idea was, oh,
it can't be a college coach, you know, it's got
(11:29):
to be an NBA coach. And here's what Beheim had
to say. But having a college coach, you have no friction.
I don't care what pro coach takes it. He said
something bad about somebody or somebody or something during the
course of his career that somebody won two or three
NBA players, they're gonna say, I don't like that guy.
(11:51):
So we had none of that. You know, we had
no issue. And I think that in in only that,
But I remember Lebron coming to me and when I
said something about Zecia's coach, don'tor you tell me something.
I'm gonna listen to you. You've been doing this a
long time. And so I think they were really listen,
(12:13):
would listen to whatever we said. And we were college coaches.
We had never beaten them in a tough game or
said something about him. So I think that was good.
I think that's important. I think that's a I think
that's a benefit. So that doesn't mean that no players
had a history with coach k So, for example, Chris
Paul and Chris Boss had gone up against him in
(12:34):
their days playing at the in the A. C. C.
Bosh went to Georgia Tech, and here's his memories of
seeing Coach K and the sidelines in those games. I
only had one year in a sec, but I mean
he always had that intense intenseness, intense nature a boy himself.
So those couple of times on um, you know, playing duke,
(12:57):
I mean you could hear him. He's right, you know,
right there, he's yelling at his guys, encouraging them to
play harder, play better, and they are and man, we're
down twenty now. So when those things are happening, you're
super competitive. You know, you tend not to like that person.
But I came into the situation, of course, he's you know,
Coach K, and you know I came into the situation
(13:19):
with an open mind. And and um, we all had
to find ourselves in over six and o seven, But
by two thousand and eight, I think we all had
a pretty good uh rhythm to what was going on
and how important it was for everybody. Of course, and
also if you played in college as long as a
guy like Darren Williams did, and you had success going
(13:40):
through the n C Double A Tournament. Sooner or later,
you're gonna run across Coach K during the n c
Double A Tournament. I think Coach K was perfect for us.
You know, he was I feel like the right person
at that at that time, I felt like he was
even though he was a college guy. All the NBA
guys respected him, you know, his body of work and
then you know his work ethic and you could just
see the passion he he had for the country and
(14:02):
for representing the USA basketball And so I thought I
thought he was perfect. And he did such a great
job of of you know, talking to guys, motivating guys.
I mean, you really have to motivate us. Honestly, we
were pretty motivated as it was, you know, once we
made that commitment. But you know, he just was. He
just did some such a great job of coaching and
motivating and bringing us together. And um, you know, it
(14:25):
was really awesome to play for him, even though I
hated him up to that point. Why would that be
what what would you connect? You just do? Yeah, they
beat us. Uh, my sophomore year in the n ct
A tournament, got got some really questionable calls. So clearly
he was able to get over it. And Kate did
have one player that he coached in college on the team,
Carlos Boozer, and I was curious how close coach k
(14:49):
had to having another Dukey on the squad, and that
was Kobe Bryant. Now there's some alternate timelines where Kobe
goes to college instead of straight to the NBA from
high school. We've always assumed that he went to college
that be Duke. Someone asked him on Twitter which school
he would have chosen. He replied Duke. But in he
also did a charity fundraising interview with Jimmy Kimmel in
(15:09):
which he said he would have gone to North Carolina.
So who knows how it would have gone, which which
alternate timeline. Of course we know what ultimately happened. But
Jack you around in Philadelphia, and Rashid Wallace had gone
from Philly to Carolina a couple of years before. Now
I'm wondering what was the speculation in Philadelphia about what Kobe,
who went to high school at Lower Merion on the
(15:31):
main line, what Kobe was gonna do once it was
time to move on from high school. Well, the one
thing good about Kobe then that I don't remember, and
even did some research on it. He never played footsie
like a couple other guys with Oh, I'm gonna stay
in Philly. You know, everybody praised the Philly coaches. John
Cheney's a genius. We love that guy, Fran Dunfie, you know,
(15:54):
Phil Mark Tully, all these real Philly guys. And then
nobody went to school there. Rashid Rashid Wallace left, Pooh
Richardson left, Bo Kimball left, Hank Gathers left, Scoop Jardine,
Eddie Griffin. There was a couple of guys that stayed, Uh,
Kyle Lowry, Aaron McKee, Uh, Lionel Simmons actually, who was
a really great player with sal Kobe didn't do that.
(16:17):
But as I recall it, Jay, he did do a
little bit of foot see I I had He had
said at one point that North Carolina stopped recruiting me. Well,
what he meant was Dean Smith said to him, Dean
wouldn't talk like this, but he ain't coming to college.
You know, he's going to the NBA. And I think
(16:40):
he kept the dance on a little bit longer with
with Mike, with Shoski. But you know, and it's funny,
you know, because of all the kids that jumped into
college that that didn't go to college, excuse me, Kobe
would have been, you know, really perfect college guy, you
know what I mean. He was a really smart kid.
(17:00):
He would have enjoyed the classes he could have gone
in there and you know, spoken Italian to some people,
but really in the you know, from the beginning, his
m O was I'm going to go to the NBA,
and I think that was clear to most people. Well,
here's what coach Ka told us about his recruitment or
lack there of, of Kobe. You know, I never thought
(17:21):
he would go to college. We recruited him, but it
no one recruited him to any deep level because you knew,
you know, like I never saw Lebron play in high school.
But when I saw Kobe play, He's the best high
school player I've ever seen. And when he walked into
a gym, he walked in like Jordan's at a high
(17:44):
school level. Like the place stopped, you know, like he
not only could play the role during a game, he
played the role before and after the game. He looked
that good, he leave, he was that good and he
was that gud but I knew he was never gonna come.
(18:07):
So of course, when Kobe did make his announcement, here's
what he had to say. No, I have decided to
skip college and take about towns to the NBA and Jack.
I wonder what that Coach k Kobe relationship would have
been like if Kobe had gone to Duke, and he
would have arrived on campus with that natural teenage rebellion
and and Coach k would have been the authority figure.
(18:27):
And it feels like there would have been an inevitable
class just like Kobe had with Phil Jackson that we
detailed in the second episode of this series. But instead
they don't collaborate until they get together on Team USA,
and maybe they were even peers at that point. Yeah,
sort of. I can't imagine if he would have gone
to college, Kobe would have been a one year guy
(18:49):
and then talking to us. You know, he he got
his lesson about dealing with the pros when he was
an assistant on the Dream Team back in ninety two,
when he was all eager, Hey, what should I do?
What should I do? Coach? What should I do? Chuck?
Tell me what to do? You know, him and p J.
Car Lesimo are really excited, and Chuck looks at them
and goes learn to ignore, meaning don't look at everything.
(19:11):
You know, Barkley is gonna screw around and throw the
ball at a wall, or he's not gonna, you know,
run hard in every drill, you know take you know,
just don't have to notice everything like you do with Duke,
and Showski even admitted that even after that experience when
he go went back to his team, it changed them
a little bit. But you can't be the same guy
(19:33):
coaching college that you are in the pros. And one
of the great things we found out Jay was how
good coach K was at dealing with pros. You know,
nobody had one bad thing to say. And these were
the biggest stars in the game on that Redeem team. Absolutely,
and uh Jim Beehi, I've talked about that with us,
about the difference in Coach K the college coach and
(19:55):
coach K coach and the Redeem team. The key with
Mike is that he is different in college. What he
does in college and what he did with those guys.
I mean, he was like a pro coach. He's a
master psychologist master. It really the mental aspect of coaching,
(20:16):
getting the players to contribute, getting them to show that
they're part of the that they got we're saying in
what we're doing, uh, and in getting them to accept
their roles. And they were good. The NBA players were great.
You're listening to Kobe Lebron and the redeem Team. We'll
be back in a minute. So one thing that had
(20:42):
to have helped was that coach k wasn't acting like
the coach of Duke, and he was obsessed and i'd
say even repressed with coaching USA basketball. And we talked
to him. I was amazed at the details that he
remembered from his time with that team, and we'll hear
several of them over the course of this podcast series.
Also the emotions that reservice, how he was getting choked
(21:03):
up at times telling us about some of the moments
that he shared with this group. And it's not like
he was tired of Duke and that he was going
through the motions. I mean, after this two thousand and
eight experience, he won two more national championship at Duke
and he sort of got with the times and started
recruiting these one and done players. So it wasn't like
he was finished with Duke. But those championships might even
(21:24):
be more impressive than the earlier ones, right, because he's
older and there was a bigger generation gap of the players.
And I'm wondering perhaps this experience helped him connect with
the new generation or new generations of players from this
this Olympic odyssey that he went on. But I just
got the feeling that these Olympic gold medal teams, remember
he coached in in twelve and sixteen as well, they
(21:45):
just meant something more to him. And Jack, did you
notice that when he talked to us, he was wearing
a USA Basketball shirt and not a Duke shirt. Oh yeah,
he probably made it. He had just come from practice.
I think he probably did one of the quick change artists,
you know. Okay, but you know it isn't hard j
for him to get into that mode. He goes way
back with USA Basketball. He was an assistant to Bob
(22:09):
Knight on the infamous nineteen seventy nine Puerto Rico Pan
American game when uh, when coach Knight put a Puerto
Rican policeman in a in a trash can. So he
goes way back and he always wanted his guys to play.
You know, Christian Latner was one of those guys. As
much of a pain in the neck as Christian could be.
(22:29):
He was one of those guys playing on the Junior
USA national teams over there, you know, where the toilets
wouldn't flush very well, and the and the water wasn't
always warm, and so he always had this kind of
soft spot. And the fact that he goes all the
way back to nine seventy nine and still, as you mentioned,
(22:50):
he's still coaching gold medal teams in two thousand and sixteen.
At the same time, he's keeping up a duke basketball
pro ram that's one that has remained one of the
tops in the nation over the last three decades. That
is pretty extraordinary. And uh, Jim Beheim talks about Mike
Sassky in that respect. Mike literally worry about this three
(23:13):
d days a year. Literally when he was gonna do
Renny for n C double a term game, he was
watching tape of you know, Spain. He did. He really
did that. He brought into this is this is it?
I mean, he wouldn't admit to it, probably, but this
was the most important thing for him. I think of
all the things. I mean, let's see, won five n
(23:33):
C Double A championships, but he worried and thought and
stressed on this every day. He liked kneel on because
the staff like me along because I try to get
him the ease up a little bit. Here, Let's take
a few minutes off here, let's get away, let's go
to dinner, let's come down. It's just funny to me
this notion of Jim Beehive as the chill guy, right,
(23:56):
That's not how we think of Jim Beheim. Is the
guy to be like Mike, calm down, settled down, lacks.
That's not the popular impression that we have a Jim Beehive.
And one of the things I found out being around
him for for his practices is he kind of lets
everything go. You know, they're screwing around. The music is
playing loud, and Jim kind of looks up at the booth.
They turn off the music, and he strolls into the huddle,
(24:18):
and for whatever reason, everybody shuts the hell up and
you can't hear what he's saying. Now you get him
into a game, you know, then he kind of turns
into that whiney, gesticulating Jim Beheim that we knew, but
in this kind of atmosphere, Jim kind of understood that
(24:39):
as the other college coach, you know, and coach K
is gonna be watching film at four o'clock in the morning,
we're gonna be hearing about that. Later in the podcast,
Jim thought, now, I'm not gonna be that guy, you know,
I'm gonna be kind of the as you said, the
chill guy. And he did have that in him. It's funny.
I remember at the Final four, uh five, the one
(24:59):
that was in New York that the last non dome
Final four actually, and in the off day, they have
a media availability at the Merritt Marquis Hotel in this ballroom,
and Jim Beeheim's up there, and he was so good
and so loose and relaxed they actually had to cut
off his mic so that they could go on. I mean,
he could have stayed up there all day. He was
having a great time dealing with the media in this
(25:21):
in this ballroom, in this New York City hotel room.
But uh, you know, on this two thousand and eight staff,
the Redeemed Team staff, keep mind, it wasn't just the
college coaches. So It's not just Schowski in Beheim. You
had Mike Tantoni and Nate McMillan, who are the NBA
coaches on this staff, and D'Antoni met with us and
he told us how adept coach k was that managing
(25:42):
this team. He was really good at He understood exactly
how how much to give them. You know, we always
kept saying, you want to be uh prepared, but not
over over prepared. You know, I think we we did
a lot of film work, we watched games up games,
but he he really took care of the players. He
knew how exhausting it was playing the NBA season, and
(26:04):
he had a good field of the team. And that's
what you know, besides the exes and ohs, which he's
really good at and uh, there's a lot of coaches
like that, but his is one of his best things
that he does is the filling the pulse of the
team and how much he needs to talk to him
or give him, give him freedom or you know, I
have like you said, have selected hearing. Having selected hearing
(26:26):
is huge and he didn't miss the beat on that.
I think one of the overlooked guys in this Jay
is is Nate McMillan, and it kind of speaks to
you know, it's almost an extension of his playing career.
He was an All defensive team guy, I think second
team All Defense three years and he was the one
(26:46):
that sort of reinforced the seriousness of purpose of of
Shasky and you know, you have to play. Everybody would
laugh and say, oh defense. You know, there was nothing
you had to d up in this for the Redeemed
team in two thousand and eight, you were playing against
prose who from Spain, who shot threes. You had to
(27:08):
play the whole game. And I think that's what Nate supplied,
that kind of intensity and defensive philosophy that Showski wanted
to incorporate. Mike D'Antoni, on the other hand, was sort
of the guy that, you know, I think Chris Bosh
told us off handedly, well, you know, coach D'Antoni will
(27:29):
go We'll just outscore him, you know, And that that
was Mike. And is it a positive or a negative?
Would his son's teams, which I was around in the
early aughts, would they have won a championship if Mike
had a little more Nate McMillan or Mike Showsky and him.
I know what D'Antoni would say, you're full of crap. Uh,
(27:51):
you know, you gotta be the way you're gonna be.
But they were a great pairing. I think Mike for
a little bit of the hey, let's play loose offensively,
let's to be ourselves, and and Nate would say, hey,
we gotta locked down once in a while. You know
this isn't this is two thousand and eight when we
got the Gasol brothers and uh guy shooting NBA three pointers.
(28:15):
So they were a good match. Yeah, And you know,
Sezsky would turn to them for not just philosophy but
also specific play calls, right and in in a huddle,
he was more than willing to turn over the clipboard
and let those guys diagram plays. And also he'd get
advice from them on not freaking out if the players
appeared to be preoccupied with other things. During his pregame speech,
(28:38):
I relied tremendously on Mike D'Antoni and Nate tell me
what a pro grat like. Even as scouting reports and
things like that, a big thing for me was talking
to them before a game and what the hell they
were doing. I'm used to a team just sitting there
and doing I mean, they're doing all kind of crap.
(28:59):
You know, they're they they're putting their feed on tennis balls,
they're rolling their bodies, they're stretching, they're whatever. And that's
happened the first time. And Nathan Mike said, don't worry.
They're paying attention. And I said, makes me nervous, And
they said, don't be nervous. In other words, don't try
to change their environment in certain things, and you change
(29:24):
your way of looking at that environment. And I've benefited
greatly from having that pro influence and any side out
of bounced play, I let them diagram too, because the
NBA has only six thousand, four hundred and thirty three
side out of bounce place. And uh, I just relied
(29:44):
on them a lot. So I call all those guys
like our co coaches. Really they were. We really worked
well together as a as a group, you know. And
also it was better for them to hear more voices
than mine, and they knew how good MICUs and Nate
and you know, for me not not to let them
(30:07):
do their thing would be numb. I mean, Mike is
one of the most brilliant offensive minds. He would always say, though,
don't worry, we'll outscorm I said, no, let's play some
different sounds like, let's let's play. I'd be more comfortable
if he's played some. So Nate was big obviously is
(30:29):
one of the great defensive players. Uh in the n
b A. I said, don't let him influence you. Let's
get a good balance. You're listening to Kobe, Lebron and
the Redeem Team. We'll be back in a minute now.
One of the things that that Sky did which was
(30:52):
very smart, was take input not just from the assistance,
but also from the players. And a lot of coaches
are slow to understand. And you're talking about two thousand
and eight Redeem Team, as was the case with the
two Dream Team, you're talking about some of the smartest
players ever to play the game. I mean, Lebron James's
basketball like you, I don't know where do you put it.
(31:15):
It's on a level certainly with with Larry Birds, Oscar
Robertson's you know magics and coach k took input from
them as well as the assistance. Before we ever had
a practice, I met with those my leadership team. It's
kid Dwayne Kobe and Lebron and I said, well, you know,
we got a short period. We've gotta have two practices
a day. And they looked at me and said, you know, coach,
(31:38):
we can't do that. So I don't know if they're
punking me or whatever. That's what he means, says, we
all have our routines in the morning, pilates, whatever it is.
We have a team meeting, will practice, some of us
will want to work after practice, some of us will
want to come at night. Let us have our routines,
(31:58):
and you don't have to do any condition. Shinning will
be in condition. That's what we do in our routines.
So okay, that's what we did, and I'll tell you
what they did that. We added more court coaches because
we found that me or Beheim running the drill was
not good, and even D'Antoni running the drill was not good.
(32:19):
Nate pretty good. And so we had assistance like Wojo
Chris Collins, assistants in the NBA. We had so we
had a bevy of guys around. So whenever these guys
needed something, they would go to the gym with them.
And sometimes even during the competition pool play, we would
(32:41):
not have a practice. We would we'd call it a
spa day, but it was more of a day for you.
And they would we would go to the gym and
they would do all their individual stuff and I weren't.
And you know what, by them doing it, they saw
each other and how they herod. It really was a
(33:02):
tutorial really for all of them. Whatever they show on
TV is one thing. What they do in private, they
have their own stuff. And uh, that was a big
thing for me. Yeah, because you're as a college coach
or a little bit more of a micro manager, you know,
in that regard. So we've talked about identity as a
theme here, and one thing to keep in mind is
(33:22):
that Mike Saschefki is a graduate of the United States
Military Academy at West Point, and from the moment that
he first gathered this team for meetings and training camps
in Las Vegas, he really tied the national basketball team's
preparation for the Olympics into the Armed Forces. The team
visited military bases, they invited service members and their families
to watch practices and scrimmages. He had veterans and high
(33:45):
ranking officers speak to the team, even had camouflage warm
ups made up for the players and coaches and even
Jerry Colangelo when they visited a military base ahead of
one of the tournaments, and h Chris Boss spoke to
the military theme that was so pervasive throughout the preparation
for the Olympics. We met men and women who served
(34:06):
who got We met one gentleman he fended off a
bomb and the debris got in his eyes, blew up
and got in his eyes. Was blind. He re enlisted,
you know, um, hearing hearing stories like that, and always,
I mean they always, like damn here every day we
would meet someone talking to two and three star generals
(34:29):
and at the same time as well then telling you
about leadership and what it means to wear that flag
on your chest and how important it is. I mean,
it was intense, man, it was intense. And then before
we you know, we didn't even um, we hadn't even
left Vegas yet, you know, So it was just you
saw how important it was to represent America, to represent
(34:52):
the United States of America and who's watching and what
it means to a lot of people, and so we
wanted to reciprocate that energy and show them, Okay, it
means a lot to us too. But it started with
Coach K, you know, with Coach K and uh Colangelo.
You know, those guys. They showed how important it was,
you know, by by setting the tone of having the
(35:13):
military men and women in Vegas, I mean, as soon
as we got there, you know, And and it was
always a part of the process. Sometimes it would be
you know, Coach K telling some story when he was
a basketball player at West Point or something like that,
and you know, it was always ingrained. It was in
pretty much ingrained in UH in the narrative the whole time.
(35:35):
And Ski told us that was all very intentional. We
used to military like crazy to help us feel being USA.
And the first group that we had talked to our
team Bob Brown, one of my former players at West Point.
It's a Colonel Pint just retired as a fourth star general.
(35:57):
He brought three wounded war years sent to speak to
our team about selfless service. One of them was blind
Scottie Smiley, who became the first blind officer in the
United States Army, and two other non commissioned officers who
had lost limbs, and all three of them had no
excuses and they wanted to serve. Again, two thirds of
(36:21):
those guys were crying listening to them. And you know,
you don't own something by just hearing and seeing, you
own something by feeling. And the military helped us immensely feel.
That's why we always did things with the military, so
that our guys got it and they all, we all
(36:44):
became better people from being in there. And really that's
the essence upon which that team and then the future
teams built on that. That was the culture, and God
bless those guys for being able to feel that way.
You mentioned you really leaned on that military connection. And
(37:05):
for some people it's it's a little it's such a subject, right,
mixing sports and military, and they wonder about the appropriateness
of that. But I would figure if anyone had the
license to do that, it was somebody who went to army.
And I'm wondering what you learned at West Point about
and and and how the West Point culture uh equated
sports and military and how how those two things could
(37:27):
be compared and mixed. Yeah, well, a couple of things. One,
every cadet is an athlete. That that's one of the
other words. There's not a cadet there that doesn't participate
in sport. It either the company level, intermural club, or varsity.
And that was the Thayer model of education that sport,
(37:51):
you know, pond the fields of friendly st all those
great quotes that they we all believe in it because
we we see that it actually happens. The other thing
with sport. It put the guy who might be the
number one guy in his class and engineering and whatever,
but who could hardly catch a ball be on the bench.
(38:13):
You know. It put you in different roles of and
and so in all these things. By being in sport,
you learned h different roles, but you weren't learned empathy,
you know. And you learned how to be a member
of a squad. We also learned how to be a
squad leader. So you know how we did that in
(38:34):
leadership and training. And we take an oath. Every cadet,
every West Point graduate is the same. And the fact
that we've all taken the same oath, and that's the
lifetime of service to our country, whether it's in military
or civilian. And so even with the Redeemed team, uh,
we we took an oath of playing for our country.
(38:57):
But those standards, you know, I said, you guys. At
some other time during that summer week, I said, uh,
you guys are used to signing a contract, and I said,
if you believe in this shop, I want you to
sign the standards. But Coach K was smart. You know,
it wasn't just West Point, it was also Motown. And
(39:20):
Coach K used that soulful Marvin Gay national anthem from
the three NBA All Star Game in Los Angeles. He
used that to motivate the players as well as the
military stuff. As Carmelo Anthony alludes to here, Coach K
did a great job of making us understand what we're
playing for. He did a great job of letting us
(39:41):
know you're playing for. You have USA on your on
your chest. That means a lot. You know. Like even
when we when we change the national anthem, right when
we we we put in you know, we we started
listening to the Marvin Gay national anthem. That was Coach
K doing, you know. That was his way of like, listen,
this is bigger than you, guys, this is bigger than us.
(40:04):
And when you hear that that Marvin Gay, you know,
national anthem, you get goose bumps. And Coach K would
just play it, play it play and play it so
we understood, you know, what we was up against. And
here's Darren Williams again to tell us how it all
came together to instill this sense of national pride in
the team. It was our way of serving the country.
You know. We we didn't go to war. We didn't
(40:24):
go you know, like like our military does. We don't
go and fight for our country. That was kind of
our way. I feel like I'm representing the country of
of giving back. And I think there was a level
of pride because of where USA basketball had had gotten to,
you know, with what happened in OH four and things
like that, and so I think that's what made it
(40:44):
it's so special. Was was you know, the reason it's
called the Redeemed Team, you know, because we were able
to redeem what happened in for kind of put USA
basketball back on top. So ultimately, what Coach k was
able to do was created a shared environment, a community
that they could all inhabit and we stay at equal
rights and input, and ultimately they were all rewarded for that.
(41:06):
And he shared with us a conversation he had with
Kobe Bryant after the twelve gold medal game in London,
which was Kobe's last with the Olympic team. Yes, it's
not to make the details public, so we'll honor that.
But it was obvious that those type of exchanges were
as valuable a part of this whole experience as anything
else was for him. These guys gave you a lot
of private moments that they wouldn't give other people. And
(41:33):
I think that environment it was a good neighborhood to
live in. So that's it for episode five. Remember we're
not even in Beijing yet, so we're gonna be hearing
a lot more about coach ks tactics, about his interactions
with Kobe and Lebron and Wayne Wade and everybody else.
But remember what's happened. Now we have Gary Colangelo's in charge,
(41:54):
the Godfather, he has his coach, Mike Sky. Everybody's in
love with everybody. Ye, so an episode six, the team
comes together and everything is instantly wonderful, right, Well, not
really Remember the episode we called the Greek Tragedy when
we won the bronze medal in two thousand four. Well,
an incident involving the Greeks, not the ancient ones but
(42:17):
the modern ones occurs in two thousand six, and we're
going to talk about that in episode six. But here's
a little tease of how important a loss was in
the two thousand six World Championships to the Redeemed Team.
When we lost in two thousand six. The Redeemed Team
really has its origin from what we learned in two
(42:39):
oh six was that you can't It's kind of like
the US military in Vietnam. You can't just send people
over there and think because you're good, that you're gonna
You have to train together, you have to learn about
their game. You know you you can't be arrogant and
I'm prepared are and remember Season one of the Dream
(43:03):
Team Tapes, which talks about the Dream Team in Barcelona,
is still available on the I Heart Radio app or
wherever you get your favorite podcast. So I'm Jack McCallum,
thanks for listening, and I'm j Dande will catch you
next episode The Dream Team Tapes, Season two. Kobe Lebron
(43:28):
and the Redeem Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts
in association with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for
my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
where wherever you get your podcast. This season is written
and hosted by me, Jack McCallum and j Adande. Executive
(43:49):
producer Scott Waxman and Mark Frances for Diversion podcast and
Sean's High Tone for I Heart Radio. Our editorial director
is John Tuttle. Supervising producer Brian Murphy, legal producer Freddie Overstegen, Editing,
mixing and sound designed by Mark franztz. Verna Fields is
our technical producer, and our Director of Marketing and business
(44:12):
Development is Jacob Bronstein Diversion Podcasts
The Dream Team Tapes season two. Kobe Lebron and the
Redeem Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association
with I Heart Radio Diversion Podcasts. The players selected for
(00:27):
the honor of representing the United States in the two
thousand and eight Beijing Olympic Games are Kobe Bryant. We
look forward to this for a while, you know, to
be in this position now here we don't represent our
country venus especially special Lebron James. We look for an
(00:47):
opportunity of the the weekend on Athlama being the best in
the world. I guess the Redeem Team is as it
is right, We're the best team in the world. We're
the best team in the world. We put fast football
America basketball wheels beat, which is that time? Welcome to
(01:20):
episode five of Kobe Lebron and the Redeemed Team. I'm
J Dande and we're calling this episode Coach K's ways
to look at the strategies and the tactics that Mike
Shook used not so much in the games, not the
XS and oose, but it's about his approach to leading
this team and getting the most from this group. It's
about identity and community, but First, I have a quick
(01:42):
quiz from my co host Jack McCallum. Jack, can you
spell Sewsky without hitting your keyboard and googling or any
other cheating like that, You just spell for me k
R g y z e w s k I no
prom at all? Right, And that might be the easiest
difficult name for me A spell as well, And it's
it speaks to just how prevalent he's been for the
(02:04):
last four decades that if you've covered basketball professional or college,
you've written that name so many times that it comes easily.
It shouldn't make sense. The fact that we all know
how to correctly pronounce Schefski, which looks nothing like the
way you say it, really speaks to his imprint in
(02:25):
his stamp on the world of basketball. And Jack, now
that you've passed through spelling tests, I want to know
if you can give us a brief rundown of the
role of the coach in USA basketball, because you were
there from the first time NBA players came into international basketball,
and how the role of the coach has changed from
Chuck Daily leading the dream team to when Suzewski was
(02:47):
called upon to coach this two thousand eighteen that's a
good question. Mike's name, by the way, always reminded me
of the character in the Superman comics. Mr mix Plexis,
did you ever did you ever read that if you
had to get him to spell his name backwards to
go back into the third dimension or wherever the hell
he was from. But anyway, the coaching role j and
(03:07):
I think it's gonna speak to what happened in two
thousand five when they finally decided we gotta get a program,
you know, we gotta get like a thing with one
coach and and a multi year commitment from players, because
before that it was very Catches, catch Ken after Chuck Daily,
and they gave the job, as they should have, to
Lenny Wilkins, who was a loyal assistant on the ninety
(03:30):
two team. Lenny had a bunch of guys. As Charles
Barkley put it, the knucklehead factor was very high on
that team. I'm sure Lenny was just glad to get
the hell out of Atlanta with a gold medal two
thousand The coach a little bit forgotten we talked about
these Olympics was Rudy tom Janovic. And I'm gonna tell
you why he coached this team. J And it's a
quick quiz for you. He coached the world championship team.
(03:56):
I'm gonna give you a hundred dollars for every starter
you can name on that team. We don't want to
take too much time, but go ahead, Carter. This is
the World championship team. Here you go, Kevin Garnett, not
even close. Here it is Jimmy Oliver, Jason Sasser, Michael
(04:19):
not Hershey Hawkins, Michael Hawkins, David not Leon Wood, and
Gerard not Bernard not, Albert not bb King. That was
a team that Rudy coach to a bronze medal in
the World Championships. They were having labor problems at the time,
(04:41):
you know, it was before the lockout. They couldn't get
anybody to play, and that's the team they put on
the court for the bronze medal, and Rudy coached that team.
Believe it or not, it's looked upon as like a
really great moment in USA basketball that they managed to
win the bronze. So Rudy got the job in two
thousand and then the two thousand two team we talked
about that a little bit. Coach by George Carl had
(05:03):
a sorry sixth place finish two thousand three was an anomaly.
They put this great team together. That was was the
Olympic qualifying team, who starters were Tracy McGrady, Jason Kidd,
Duncan was on that team. Iverson was on that team,
Jermaine O'Neill, Ray Allen, and Vince Carter off the bench,
(05:24):
and Larry Brown coached that team. And that was largely
the reason Jay that he coached the two thousand four
Olympic team. And I will have to admit that covering
those games in Puerto Rico in two thousand three, myself
and a couple others had this idea, Hey, let's get
a program, let's have one coach, let's make it kind
(05:44):
of organized. And the guy, I said, Larry Brown, would
be perfect. And then and then he had all this
criticism for the way they coached in two thousand four
when they got the bronze and Athens. And that led
us to what we talked about last week, the higher
of Jerry Colangelo and his move to talk to hire
the guy we're going to talk about today, and what
(06:06):
struck me when we were interviewing Seki and also Jim Beheim,
who was routine deem redeem team assistant coach. We're gonna
hear a lot from him in this episode. But when
you look at those guys, just seeing them on our screens,
is that these guys are institutions, right has been a dupe.
Be has been at Syracuse since I started watching basketball
in the early nineteen eighties. I don't know if you
(06:28):
have memories of those programs before those guys were at
the Helm. I'm sure you do, But to me, they're
inseparable Duke basketball and Mike Schowski, Syracuse basketball and Jim Beheim.
And there's something reassuring about that. I'll tell you what, Jay,
here's how scary it is. I remember Jim as a
player at Syracuse. I mean he was a very good player,
(06:51):
and Dave Byng was there then, and I think Jim
graduated obviously I should have looked us up, I think
in nineteen sixty six. So we're now in the year
twenty twenty one. There was about a half a year
when Jim was not at Syracuse University. Went there as
a player, got his master's degree there. I can imagine
(07:12):
he did a hell of a lot of studying to
get that became the freshman coach, the j V coach
got the varsity job, has never been absent from the
bench since then. And like you said, you know, look,
there's been some criticism of Jim recently, and there's some
things that I wish he wouldn't say. But if you're
talking about a guy that has shown loyalty to an institution,
(07:34):
the two guys you would bring up would be Jim
Beheim number one, and obviously Mike Showsky number two. And
like I said, there's something reassuring about that type of
loyalty longevity, especially now when it seems like nothing was
the same like it was at the start of last
year or two years ago or five years ago. And
these two guys have been in the same places for
forty plus years. And what was interesting, though, is that
(07:56):
Sky didn't lean into that when he coached USA basket Ball,
when he stepped away from the hallowed halls of Duke.
And at that time, as he was coaching his two
thousand and eight team, he'd already made ten trips to
the Final four, he'd won three n C Double A championships,
so he knew that gave him a little bit of
credibility with the NBA players, but maybe not necessarily cash
(08:16):
with them. And again, since this is about identity and community,
he decided that, if anything, he was going to be
more like the guy from the Polish neighborhood on the
northwest side of Chicago and the guy who played basketball
under Bob Knight in the Army Academy at West Point.
And it reminded me of a story that Dan Bickley
did for the Chicago Suntimes in December. I was just
(08:39):
starting there, just starting off my career. Bickley was working there. Bickley,
of course was the author as well of Return of
the Gold, which is the book about the two thousand
eight Olympic team that really proved useful in our research
for this podcast. But the time he wrote an article
about how She's SFETI was this guy from Quartz Street,
the Polish neighborhood on the north weside of Chicago. His
(09:01):
buddies had nicknames like Twam's and Mo and Porky. He
gatting fights playing basketball against teams from outside the neighborhood.
And in the first meeting that Mike Sasefski had with
this group that would be the two thousand eight Olympic team.
That's the neighborhood that Ski went back to. And he
starts talking the way that he's used to talking, but
(09:21):
it's not the way that they were used to hearing him.
I know, I probably have to follow them out, but
they don't expect me to say, motherfucker all right, and
you know when you're talking, just come on your motherfucking like,
we gotta get this gold medal. And all of a sudden,
I wasn't this uh guy from Duke in West Point,
(09:42):
you know, it's more of the guy from the inner
city of Chicago. And one of the people that uh
it definitely made an impression on was Jason Kidd, the
veteran leader of the redeem team. First meeting, we got
to hear coach k Couss right and I could believe it.
I was like, oh, like, this is the same guy
(10:03):
that's on TV, and like, I think he said the
whole the tone, the whole mood kind of like relaxed
and everybody was, you know, not on edge now. And
Coach again, he hit it out of the park when
he first cussed, and I couldn't believe it. I was like,
just got cusses and they go He's he's got a
filthy mouth, and I'm like, oh, this is gonna be fun.
(10:25):
So another unexpected move was that Shefsky contradicted the Godfather
Jerry Colangelo, and he didn't quite take sides against the family,
but still Collegelo told the team one thing, and then
Sky immediately told them the opposite. He talked to him,
he said, and leave your egos at the door. And
I got up and I said, you know, the only
time I'm gonna probably disagree with Jerry, but don't leave
(10:48):
your he goes at the door. Lebron, you be Lebron Kobe.
You know. All I know is the Gasols are gonna
be the Gasols. Geno believe will leave be even better
if you guys, aren't you We're not gonna win. We
are not gonna win. And for most of them, it
was the first real test of Coach K and something
I found really interesting. But Jay, there was something Beheim
(11:09):
told us that the fact that Coach K wasn't an
NBA coach and didn't have history with most of these
guys was a big plus because that was the polar
opposite when they picked the first coach who was going
to lead NBA stars into the Olympics. The idea was, oh,
it can't be a college coach, you know, it's got
(11:29):
to be an NBA coach. And here's what Beheim had
to say. But having a college coach, you have no friction.
I don't care what pro coach takes it. He said
something bad about somebody or somebody or something during the
course of his career that somebody won two or three
NBA players, they're gonna say, I don't like that guy.
(11:51):
So we had none of that. You know, we had
no issue. And I think that in in only that,
But I remember Lebron coming to me and when I
said something about Zecia's coach, don'tor you tell me something.
I'm gonna listen to you. You've been doing this a
long time. And so I think they were really listen,
(12:13):
would listen to whatever we said. And we were college coaches.
We had never beaten them in a tough game or
said something about him. So I think that was good.
I think that's important. I think that's a I think
that's a benefit. So that doesn't mean that no players
had a history with coach k So, for example, Chris
Paul and Chris Boss had gone up against him in
(12:34):
their days playing at the in the A. C. C.
Bosh went to Georgia Tech, and here's his memories of
seeing Coach K and the sidelines in those games. I
only had one year in a sec, but I mean
he always had that intense intenseness, intense nature a boy himself.
So those couple of times on um, you know, playing duke,
(12:57):
I mean you could hear him. He's right, you know,
right there, he's yelling at his guys, encouraging them to
play harder, play better, and they are and man, we're
down twenty now. So when those things are happening, you're
super competitive. You know, you tend not to like that person.
But I came into the situation, of course, he's you know,
Coach K, and you know I came into the situation
(13:19):
with an open mind. And and um, we all had
to find ourselves in over six and o seven, But
by two thousand and eight, I think we all had
a pretty good uh rhythm to what was going on
and how important it was for everybody. Of course, and
also if you played in college as long as a
guy like Darren Williams did, and you had success going
(13:40):
through the n C Double A Tournament. Sooner or later,
you're gonna run across Coach K during the n c
Double A Tournament. I think Coach K was perfect for us.
You know, he was I feel like the right person
at that at that time, I felt like he was
even though he was a college guy. All the NBA
guys respected him, you know, his body of work and
then you know his work ethic and you could just
see the passion he he had for the country and
(14:02):
for representing the USA basketball And so I thought I
thought he was perfect. And he did such a great
job of of you know, talking to guys, motivating guys.
I mean, you really have to motivate us. Honestly, we
were pretty motivated as it was, you know, once we
made that commitment. But you know, he just was. He
just did some such a great job of coaching and
motivating and bringing us together. And um, you know, it
(14:25):
was really awesome to play for him, even though I
hated him up to that point. Why would that be
what what would you connect? You just do? Yeah, they
beat us. Uh, my sophomore year in the n ct
A tournament, got got some really questionable calls. So clearly
he was able to get over it. And Kate did
have one player that he coached in college on the team,
Carlos Boozer, and I was curious how close coach k
(14:49):
had to having another Dukey on the squad, and that
was Kobe Bryant. Now there's some alternate timelines where Kobe
goes to college instead of straight to the NBA from
high school. We've always assumed that he went to college
that be Duke. Someone asked him on Twitter which school
he would have chosen. He replied Duke. But in he
also did a charity fundraising interview with Jimmy Kimmel in
(15:09):
which he said he would have gone to North Carolina.
So who knows how it would have gone, which which
alternate timeline. Of course we know what ultimately happened. But
Jack you around in Philadelphia, and Rashid Wallace had gone
from Philly to Carolina a couple of years before. Now
I'm wondering what was the speculation in Philadelphia about what Kobe,
who went to high school at Lower Merion on the
(15:31):
main line, what Kobe was gonna do once it was
time to move on from high school. Well, the one
thing good about Kobe then that I don't remember, and
even did some research on it. He never played footsie
like a couple other guys with Oh, I'm gonna stay
in Philly. You know, everybody praised the Philly coaches. John
Cheney's a genius. We love that guy, Fran Dunfie, you know,
(15:54):
Phil Mark Tully, all these real Philly guys. And then
nobody went to school there. Rashid Rashid Wallace left, Pooh
Richardson left, Bo Kimball left, Hank Gathers left, Scoop Jardine,
Eddie Griffin. There was a couple of guys that stayed, Uh,
Kyle Lowry, Aaron McKee, Uh, Lionel Simmons actually, who was
a really great player with sal Kobe didn't do that.
(16:17):
But as I recall it, Jay, he did do a
little bit of foot see I I had He had
said at one point that North Carolina stopped recruiting me. Well,
what he meant was Dean Smith said to him, Dean
wouldn't talk like this, but he ain't coming to college.
You know, he's going to the NBA. And I think
(16:40):
he kept the dance on a little bit longer with
with Mike, with Shoski. But you know, and it's funny,
you know, because of all the kids that jumped into
college that that didn't go to college, excuse me, Kobe
would have been, you know, really perfect college guy, you
know what I mean. He was a really smart kid.
(17:00):
He would have enjoyed the classes he could have gone
in there and you know, spoken Italian to some people,
but really in the you know, from the beginning, his
m O was I'm going to go to the NBA,
and I think that was clear to most people. Well,
here's what coach Ka told us about his recruitment or
lack there of, of Kobe. You know, I never thought
(17:21):
he would go to college. We recruited him, but it
no one recruited him to any deep level because you knew,
you know, like I never saw Lebron play in high school.
But when I saw Kobe play, He's the best high
school player I've ever seen. And when he walked into
a gym, he walked in like Jordan's at a high
(17:44):
school level. Like the place stopped, you know, like he
not only could play the role during a game, he
played the role before and after the game. He looked
that good, he leave, he was that good and he
was that gud but I knew he was never gonna come.
(18:07):
So of course, when Kobe did make his announcement, here's
what he had to say. No, I have decided to
skip college and take about towns to the NBA and Jack.
I wonder what that Coach k Kobe relationship would have
been like if Kobe had gone to Duke, and he
would have arrived on campus with that natural teenage rebellion
and and Coach k would have been the authority figure.
(18:27):
And it feels like there would have been an inevitable
class just like Kobe had with Phil Jackson that we
detailed in the second episode of this series. But instead
they don't collaborate until they get together on Team USA,
and maybe they were even peers at that point. Yeah,
sort of. I can't imagine if he would have gone
to college, Kobe would have been a one year guy
(18:49):
and then talking to us. You know, he he got
his lesson about dealing with the pros when he was
an assistant on the Dream Team back in ninety two,
when he was all eager, Hey, what should I do?
What should I do? Coach? What should I do? Chuck?
Tell me what to do? You know, him and p J.
Car Lesimo are really excited, and Chuck looks at them
and goes learn to ignore, meaning don't look at everything.
(19:11):
You know, Barkley is gonna screw around and throw the
ball at a wall, or he's not gonna, you know,
run hard in every drill, you know take you know,
just don't have to notice everything like you do with Duke,
and Showski even admitted that even after that experience when
he go went back to his team, it changed them
a little bit. But you can't be the same guy
(19:33):
coaching college that you are in the pros. And one
of the great things we found out Jay was how
good coach K was at dealing with pros. You know,
nobody had one bad thing to say. And these were
the biggest stars in the game on that Redeem team. Absolutely,
and uh Jim Beehi, I've talked about that with us,
about the difference in Coach K the college coach and
(19:55):
coach K coach and the Redeem team. The key with
Mike is that he is different in college. What he
does in college and what he did with those guys.
I mean, he was like a pro coach. He's a
master psychologist master. It really the mental aspect of coaching,
(20:16):
getting the players to contribute, getting them to show that
they're part of the that they got we're saying in
what we're doing, uh, and in getting them to accept
their roles. And they were good. The NBA players were great.
You're listening to Kobe Lebron and the redeem Team. We'll
be back in a minute. So one thing that had
(20:42):
to have helped was that coach k wasn't acting like
the coach of Duke, and he was obsessed and i'd
say even repressed with coaching USA basketball. And we talked
to him. I was amazed at the details that he
remembered from his time with that team, and we'll hear
several of them over the course of this podcast series.
Also the emotions that reservice, how he was getting choked
(21:03):
up at times telling us about some of the moments
that he shared with this group. And it's not like
he was tired of Duke and that he was going
through the motions. I mean, after this two thousand and
eight experience, he won two more national championship at Duke
and he sort of got with the times and started
recruiting these one and done players. So it wasn't like
he was finished with Duke. But those championships might even
(21:24):
be more impressive than the earlier ones, right, because he's
older and there was a bigger generation gap of the players.
And I'm wondering perhaps this experience helped him connect with
the new generation or new generations of players from this
this Olympic odyssey that he went on. But I just
got the feeling that these Olympic gold medal teams, remember
he coached in in twelve and sixteen as well, they
(21:45):
just meant something more to him. And Jack, did you
notice that when he talked to us, he was wearing
a USA Basketball shirt and not a Duke shirt. Oh yeah,
he probably made it. He had just come from practice.
I think he probably did one of the quick change artists,
you know. Okay, but you know it isn't hard j
for him to get into that mode. He goes way
back with USA Basketball. He was an assistant to Bob
(22:09):
Knight on the infamous nineteen seventy nine Puerto Rico Pan
American game when uh, when coach Knight put a Puerto
Rican policeman in a in a trash can. So he
goes way back and he always wanted his guys to play.
You know, Christian Latner was one of those guys. As
much of a pain in the neck as Christian could be.
(22:29):
He was one of those guys playing on the Junior
USA national teams over there, you know, where the toilets
wouldn't flush very well, and the and the water wasn't
always warm, and so he always had this kind of
soft spot. And the fact that he goes all the
way back to nine seventy nine and still, as you mentioned,
(22:50):
he's still coaching gold medal teams in two thousand and sixteen.
At the same time, he's keeping up a duke basketball
pro ram that's one that has remained one of the
tops in the nation over the last three decades. That
is pretty extraordinary. And uh, Jim Beheim talks about Mike
Sassky in that respect. Mike literally worry about this three
(23:13):
d days a year. Literally when he was gonna do
Renny for n C double a term game, he was
watching tape of you know, Spain. He did. He really
did that. He brought into this is this is it?
I mean, he wouldn't admit to it, probably, but this
was the most important thing for him. I think of
all the things. I mean, let's see, won five n
(23:33):
C Double A championships, but he worried and thought and
stressed on this every day. He liked kneel on because
the staff like me along because I try to get
him the ease up a little bit. Here, Let's take
a few minutes off here, let's get away, let's go
to dinner, let's come down. It's just funny to me
this notion of Jim Beehive as the chill guy, right,
(23:56):
That's not how we think of Jim Beheim. Is the
guy to be like Mike, calm down, settled down, lacks.
That's not the popular impression that we have a Jim Beehive.
And one of the things I found out being around
him for for his practices is he kind of lets
everything go. You know, they're screwing around. The music is
playing loud, and Jim kind of looks up at the booth.
They turn off the music, and he strolls into the huddle,
(24:18):
and for whatever reason, everybody shuts the hell up and
you can't hear what he's saying. Now you get him
into a game, you know, then he kind of turns
into that whiney, gesticulating Jim Beheim that we knew, but
in this kind of atmosphere, Jim kind of understood that
(24:39):
as the other college coach, you know, and coach K
is gonna be watching film at four o'clock in the morning,
we're gonna be hearing about that. Later in the podcast,
Jim thought, now, I'm not gonna be that guy, you know,
I'm gonna be kind of the as you said, the
chill guy. And he did have that in him. It's funny.
I remember at the Final four, uh five, the one
(24:59):
that was in New York that the last non dome
Final four actually, and in the off day, they have
a media availability at the Merritt Marquis Hotel in this ballroom,
and Jim Beeheim's up there, and he was so good
and so loose and relaxed they actually had to cut
off his mic so that they could go on. I mean,
he could have stayed up there all day. He was
having a great time dealing with the media in this
(25:21):
in this ballroom, in this New York City hotel room.
But uh, you know, on this two thousand and eight staff,
the Redeemed Team staff, keep mind, it wasn't just the
college coaches. So It's not just Schowski in Beheim. You
had Mike Tantoni and Nate McMillan, who are the NBA
coaches on this staff, and D'Antoni met with us and
he told us how adept coach k was that managing
(25:42):
this team. He was really good at He understood exactly
how how much to give them. You know, we always
kept saying, you want to be uh prepared, but not
over over prepared. You know, I think we we did
a lot of film work, we watched games up games,
but he he really took care of the players. He
knew how exhausting it was playing the NBA season, and
(26:04):
he had a good field of the team. And that's
what you know, besides the exes and ohs, which he's
really good at and uh, there's a lot of coaches
like that, but his is one of his best things
that he does is the filling the pulse of the
team and how much he needs to talk to him
or give him, give him freedom or you know, I
have like you said, have selected hearing. Having selected hearing
(26:26):
is huge and he didn't miss the beat on that.
I think one of the overlooked guys in this Jay
is is Nate McMillan, and it kind of speaks to
you know, it's almost an extension of his playing career.
He was an All defensive team guy, I think second
team All Defense three years and he was the one
(26:46):
that sort of reinforced the seriousness of purpose of of
Shasky and you know, you have to play. Everybody would
laugh and say, oh defense. You know, there was nothing
you had to d up in this for the Redeemed
team in two thousand and eight, you were playing against
prose who from Spain, who shot threes. You had to
(27:08):
play the whole game. And I think that's what Nate supplied,
that kind of intensity and defensive philosophy that Showski wanted
to incorporate. Mike D'Antoni, on the other hand, was sort
of the guy that, you know, I think Chris Bosh
told us off handedly, well, you know, coach D'Antoni will
(27:29):
go We'll just outscore him, you know, And that that
was Mike. And is it a positive or a negative?
Would his son's teams, which I was around in the
early aughts, would they have won a championship if Mike
had a little more Nate McMillan or Mike Showsky and him.
I know what D'Antoni would say, you're full of crap. Uh,
(27:51):
you know, you gotta be the way you're gonna be.
But they were a great pairing. I think Mike for
a little bit of the hey, let's play loose offensively,
let's to be ourselves, and and Nate would say, hey,
we gotta locked down once in a while. You know
this isn't this is two thousand and eight when we
got the Gasol brothers and uh guy shooting NBA three pointers.
(28:15):
So they were a good match. Yeah, And you know,
Sezsky would turn to them for not just philosophy but
also specific play calls, right and in in a huddle,
he was more than willing to turn over the clipboard
and let those guys diagram plays. And also he'd get
advice from them on not freaking out if the players
appeared to be preoccupied with other things. During his pregame speech,
(28:38):
I relied tremendously on Mike D'Antoni and Nate tell me
what a pro grat like. Even as scouting reports and
things like that, a big thing for me was talking
to them before a game and what the hell they
were doing. I'm used to a team just sitting there
and doing I mean, they're doing all kind of crap.
(28:59):
You know, they're they they're putting their feed on tennis balls,
they're rolling their bodies, they're stretching, they're whatever. And that's
happened the first time. And Nathan Mike said, don't worry.
They're paying attention. And I said, makes me nervous, And
they said, don't be nervous. In other words, don't try
to change their environment in certain things, and you change
(29:24):
your way of looking at that environment. And I've benefited
greatly from having that pro influence and any side out
of bounced play, I let them diagram too, because the
NBA has only six thousand, four hundred and thirty three
side out of bounce place. And uh, I just relied
(29:44):
on them a lot. So I call all those guys
like our co coaches. Really they were. We really worked
well together as a as a group, you know. And
also it was better for them to hear more voices
than mine, and they knew how good MICUs and Nate
and you know, for me not not to let them
(30:07):
do their thing would be numb. I mean, Mike is
one of the most brilliant offensive minds. He would always say, though,
don't worry, we'll outscorm I said, no, let's play some
different sounds like, let's let's play. I'd be more comfortable
if he's played some. So Nate was big obviously is
(30:29):
one of the great defensive players. Uh in the n
b A. I said, don't let him influence you. Let's
get a good balance. You're listening to Kobe, Lebron and
the Redeem Team. We'll be back in a minute now.
One of the things that that Sky did which was
(30:52):
very smart, was take input not just from the assistance,
but also from the players. And a lot of coaches
are slow to understand. And you're talking about two thousand
and eight Redeem Team, as was the case with the
two Dream Team, you're talking about some of the smartest
players ever to play the game. I mean, Lebron James's
basketball like you, I don't know where do you put it.
(31:15):
It's on a level certainly with with Larry Birds, Oscar
Robertson's you know magics and coach k took input from
them as well as the assistance. Before we ever had
a practice, I met with those my leadership team. It's
kid Dwayne Kobe and Lebron and I said, well, you know,
we got a short period. We've gotta have two practices
a day. And they looked at me and said, you know, coach,
(31:38):
we can't do that. So I don't know if they're
punking me or whatever. That's what he means, says, we
all have our routines in the morning, pilates, whatever it is.
We have a team meeting, will practice, some of us
will want to work after practice, some of us will
want to come at night. Let us have our routines,
(31:58):
and you don't have to do any condition. Shinning will
be in condition. That's what we do in our routines.
So okay, that's what we did, and I'll tell you
what they did that. We added more court coaches because
we found that me or Beheim running the drill was
not good, and even D'Antoni running the drill was not good.
(32:19):
Nate pretty good. And so we had assistance like Wojo
Chris Collins, assistants in the NBA. We had so we
had a bevy of guys around. So whenever these guys
needed something, they would go to the gym with them.
And sometimes even during the competition pool play, we would
(32:41):
not have a practice. We would we'd call it a
spa day, but it was more of a day for you.
And they would we would go to the gym and
they would do all their individual stuff and I weren't.
And you know what, by them doing it, they saw
each other and how they herod. It really was a
(33:02):
tutorial really for all of them. Whatever they show on
TV is one thing. What they do in private, they
have their own stuff. And uh, that was a big
thing for me. Yeah, because you're as a college coach
or a little bit more of a micro manager, you know,
in that regard. So we've talked about identity as a
theme here, and one thing to keep in mind is
(33:22):
that Mike Saschefki is a graduate of the United States
Military Academy at West Point, and from the moment that
he first gathered this team for meetings and training camps
in Las Vegas, he really tied the national basketball team's
preparation for the Olympics into the Armed Forces. The team
visited military bases, they invited service members and their families
to watch practices and scrimmages. He had veterans and high
(33:45):
ranking officers speak to the team, even had camouflage warm
ups made up for the players and coaches and even
Jerry Colangelo when they visited a military base ahead of
one of the tournaments, and h Chris Boss spoke to
the military theme that was so pervasive throughout the preparation
for the Olympics. We met men and women who served
(34:06):
who got We met one gentleman he fended off a
bomb and the debris got in his eyes, blew up
and got in his eyes. Was blind. He re enlisted,
you know, um, hearing hearing stories like that, and always,
I mean they always, like damn here every day we
would meet someone talking to two and three star generals
(34:29):
and at the same time as well then telling you
about leadership and what it means to wear that flag
on your chest and how important it is. I mean,
it was intense, man, it was intense. And then before
we you know, we didn't even um, we hadn't even
left Vegas yet, you know, So it was just you
saw how important it was to represent America, to represent
(34:52):
the United States of America and who's watching and what
it means to a lot of people, and so we
wanted to reciprocate that energy and show them, Okay, it
means a lot to us too. But it started with
Coach K, you know, with Coach K and uh Colangelo.
You know, those guys. They showed how important it was,
you know, by by setting the tone of having the
(35:13):
military men and women in Vegas, I mean, as soon
as we got there, you know, And and it was
always a part of the process. Sometimes it would be
you know, Coach K telling some story when he was
a basketball player at West Point or something like that,
and you know, it was always ingrained. It was in
pretty much ingrained in UH in the narrative the whole time.
(35:35):
And Ski told us that was all very intentional. We
used to military like crazy to help us feel being USA.
And the first group that we had talked to our
team Bob Brown, one of my former players at West Point.
It's a Colonel Pint just retired as a fourth star general.
(35:57):
He brought three wounded war years sent to speak to
our team about selfless service. One of them was blind
Scottie Smiley, who became the first blind officer in the
United States Army, and two other non commissioned officers who
had lost limbs, and all three of them had no
excuses and they wanted to serve. Again, two thirds of
(36:21):
those guys were crying listening to them. And you know,
you don't own something by just hearing and seeing, you
own something by feeling. And the military helped us immensely feel.
That's why we always did things with the military, so
that our guys got it and they all, we all
(36:44):
became better people from being in there. And really that's
the essence upon which that team and then the future
teams built on that. That was the culture, and God
bless those guys for being able to feel that way.
You mentioned you really leaned on that military connection. And
(37:05):
for some people it's it's a little it's such a subject, right,
mixing sports and military, and they wonder about the appropriateness
of that. But I would figure if anyone had the
license to do that, it was somebody who went to army.
And I'm wondering what you learned at West Point about
and and and how the West Point culture uh equated
sports and military and how how those two things could
(37:27):
be compared and mixed. Yeah, well, a couple of things. One,
every cadet is an athlete. That that's one of the
other words. There's not a cadet there that doesn't participate
in sport. It either the company level, intermural club, or varsity.
And that was the Thayer model of education that sport,
(37:51):
you know, pond the fields of friendly st all those
great quotes that they we all believe in it because
we we see that it actually happens. The other thing
with sport. It put the guy who might be the
number one guy in his class and engineering and whatever,
but who could hardly catch a ball be on the bench.
(38:13):
You know. It put you in different roles of and
and so in all these things. By being in sport,
you learned h different roles, but you weren't learned empathy,
you know. And you learned how to be a member
of a squad. We also learned how to be a
squad leader. So you know how we did that in
(38:34):
leadership and training. And we take an oath. Every cadet,
every West Point graduate is the same. And the fact
that we've all taken the same oath, and that's the
lifetime of service to our country, whether it's in military
or civilian. And so even with the Redeemed team, uh,
we we took an oath of playing for our country.
(38:57):
But those standards, you know, I said, you guys. At
some other time during that summer week, I said, uh,
you guys are used to signing a contract, and I said,
if you believe in this shop, I want you to
sign the standards. But Coach K was smart. You know,
it wasn't just West Point, it was also Motown. And
(39:20):
Coach K used that soulful Marvin Gay national anthem from
the three NBA All Star Game in Los Angeles. He
used that to motivate the players as well as the
military stuff. As Carmelo Anthony alludes to here, Coach K
did a great job of making us understand what we're
playing for. He did a great job of letting us
(39:41):
know you're playing for. You have USA on your on
your chest. That means a lot. You know. Like even
when we when we change the national anthem, right when
we we we put in you know, we we started
listening to the Marvin Gay national anthem. That was Coach
K doing, you know. That was his way of like, listen,
this is bigger than you, guys, this is bigger than us.
(40:04):
And when you hear that that Marvin Gay, you know,
national anthem, you get goose bumps. And Coach K would
just play it, play it play and play it so
we understood, you know, what we was up against. And
here's Darren Williams again to tell us how it all
came together to instill this sense of national pride in
the team. It was our way of serving the country.
You know. We we didn't go to war. We didn't
(40:24):
go you know, like like our military does. We don't
go and fight for our country. That was kind of
our way. I feel like I'm representing the country of
of giving back. And I think there was a level
of pride because of where USA basketball had had gotten to,
you know, with what happened in OH four and things
like that, and so I think that's what made it
(40:44):
it's so special. Was was you know, the reason it's
called the Redeemed Team, you know, because we were able
to redeem what happened in for kind of put USA
basketball back on top. So ultimately, what Coach k was
able to do was created a shared environment, a community
that they could all inhabit and we stay at equal
rights and input, and ultimately they were all rewarded for that.
(41:06):
And he shared with us a conversation he had with
Kobe Bryant after the twelve gold medal game in London,
which was Kobe's last with the Olympic team. Yes, it's
not to make the details public, so we'll honor that.
But it was obvious that those type of exchanges were
as valuable a part of this whole experience as anything
else was for him. These guys gave you a lot
of private moments that they wouldn't give other people. And
(41:33):
I think that environment it was a good neighborhood to
live in. So that's it for episode five. Remember we're
not even in Beijing yet, so we're gonna be hearing
a lot more about coach ks tactics, about his interactions
with Kobe and Lebron and Wayne Wade and everybody else.
But remember what's happened. Now we have Gary Colangelo's in charge,
(41:54):
the Godfather, he has his coach, Mike Sky. Everybody's in
love with everybody. Ye, so an episode six, the team
comes together and everything is instantly wonderful, right, Well, not
really Remember the episode we called the Greek Tragedy when
we won the bronze medal in two thousand four. Well,
an incident involving the Greeks, not the ancient ones but
(42:17):
the modern ones occurs in two thousand six, and we're
going to talk about that in episode six. But here's
a little tease of how important a loss was in
the two thousand six World Championships to the Redeemed Team.
When we lost in two thousand six. The Redeemed Team
really has its origin from what we learned in two
(42:39):
oh six was that you can't It's kind of like
the US military in Vietnam. You can't just send people
over there and think because you're good, that you're gonna
You have to train together, you have to learn about
their game. You know you you can't be arrogant and
I'm prepared are and remember Season one of the Dream
(43:03):
Team Tapes, which talks about the Dream Team in Barcelona,
is still available on the I Heart Radio app or
wherever you get your favorite podcast. So I'm Jack McCallum,
thanks for listening, and I'm j Dande will catch you
next episode The Dream Team Tapes, Season two. Kobe Lebron
(43:28):
and the Redeem Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts
in association with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for
my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
where wherever you get your podcast. This season is written
and hosted by me, Jack McCallum and j Adande. Executive
(43:49):
producer Scott Waxman and Mark Frances for Diversion podcast and
Sean's High Tone for I Heart Radio. Our editorial director
is John Tuttle. Supervising producer Brian Murphy, legal producer Freddie Overstegen, Editing,
mixing and sound designed by Mark franztz. Verna Fields is
our technical producer, and our Director of Marketing and business
(44:12):
Development is Jacob Bronstein Diversion Podcasts
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