March 2, 2021 • 48 mins
After a memorable 2003 NBA draft that included four eventual iconic champions that would enrich the 2008 Redeem Team including LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, three of these young stars are thrust into the spotlight at the 2004 Olympics. The experience is anything but golden and the U.S. Olympic program arrives at a crossroads. On this episode you'll hear from Dwyane Wade (Redeem Teamer, 3-time NBA champion with the Miami Heat, 13-time NBA All-Star), Carmelo Anthony (Redeem Teamer, 10-time NBA All-Star and current Portland Trail Blazer), Deron Williams (NBA champion, former Utah Jazz point guard, and Redeem Team member), Grant Wahl (Former senior writer for Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports correspondent, host of podcasts including "Fútbol with Grant Wahl" and "American Prodigy: Freddy Adu"), Craig Miller (USA Basketball's Chief Communications Officer extraordinaire, headed PR for the 1992 Dream Team and the 2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team), and Sean Ford (USA Basketball's National Team Director).
FROM THE EPISODE:
JACK MCCALLUM: Ladies and gentlemen, Darko Miličić went 2nd to the Detroit Pistons before Carmelo Anthony, who was 3rd before Chris Bosh, who was 4th. And before Dwyane Wade who was 5th. So that is fully, as we said before, that is 1/3 of the kids who five years later would be on The Redeem team. But that draft interestingly gave us those guys. I think that's probably ranked among the greatest drafts of all time. Do you have any memories of other great drafts?
J.A. ADANDE: It’s right up there. To me, I think the standard has to be the 1984 draft. If nothing else it gave us Michael Jordan, but also Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, John Stockton's in there as well. So if you think about stocking Olympic teams, you've got Barkley, Jordan, and John Stockton. So there's a third of the 1992 Dream Team comes out of that one draft, similar to the way that the 2003 draft stocked the Redeem Team of 2008.
JACK MCCALLUM: Yeah. Another great draft was your guy: Kobe Bryant in 1996. You got Kobe, you got Ray Allen, you got Steve Nash. You got —
J.A. ADANDE: Allen Iverson at the top of that —
JACK MCCALLUM: AI was right there, Peja Stojaković, Marcus Camby, Stephon Marbury, a bunch of guys… Derek Fisher, who watched for a hundred years
J.A. ADANDE: Won five championships with Kobe.
JACK MCCALLUM: …making jump shots out in LA. But 1996 was a great NBA draft. What's to me is why — I don't remember, maybe because nobody gives too much of a damn about Cleveland, but was there ever an examination of how LeBron James got to Cleveland? You remember Patrick Ewing and the New York conspiracy? Good ol’ LeBron only had about a 22% chance of going to a Cleveland, but nevertheless, there he was. I don't think there has ever been one athlete — correct me if I'm wrong — who has ever brought more of a renaissance to one city. When Michael Jordan went to Chicago, Chicago was already a pretty damn great city, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Kobe later. LA was a pretty good city, too; they had other stuff going on. LeBron James to the Cleveland Cavaliers? That set things off, man.
J.A. ADANDE: That was everything. There is that great YouTube video. The Cleveland Tourism Board or something like that, it was like a mock Cleveland promotional video which really pointed out all the things that were *wrong* with Cleveland. But one of the lines in there is, “Our economy is built on LeBron James.”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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
(00:26):
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 it
to be in this position now here we don't represent
our country, especially especial Lebron James. We look for an
(00:47):
opportunity of the weekend on a flam and being the
best in the world. I guess the Redeem Team is
it is right, We're the best team in the world.
We're the best team in the world. We put Basketball
America Basketball Wheal defeat, which is at the toime. I'm
(01:19):
Jack mccalluman. Welcome to episode three of The Dream Team
Tape Season two, Kobe Lebron and the Redeemed Team. This
is a sequel to my podcast last year called The
Dream Team Tape, but it's about another kind of dream team,
the one that followed the Michael Magic Larry Immortals by
sixteen years, the one that earned a gold medal in
Beijing after our international basketball fortunes had fallen so drastically
(01:45):
in the early part of the century. Now, in our
last episode, co host j Dandie talked about Kobe Bryant alone,
both who became part of the pack that one goal.
This episode is about the Redeemed team's other alpha dog. That,
by the way, is the term by Jason Kidd, who
became the veteran leader of the team. Team. It's about
(02:05):
that other alpha dogs. Eventful high school career, is eventful
drafting into the NBA, and his eventful and disappointing adventure
with the two thousand four Olympic team. We're calling it
the Future King and the Greek Tragedy. Now, we've alluded
several times to Kobe being a kind of lone wolf.
The song Solitary Man would fit him. The song I'm
(02:27):
choosing for Lebron is going back in time a little
bit to the Shangra Laws, a great girl group from
the early sixties, which was before j A was born.
But I remember him, of course. I wonder j D
have any idea about who the Shangra Laws are. I'm
not really up on the same laws. I love sixties music, right,
especially motown Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gay, Beatles, Only Stones. I'm
(02:51):
not too up on the same Glas though, well there's
no reason you should be. I'm not really. But they
had this one memorable song called the Leader of the Path,
and you know, had the motorcycle booming in the beginning,
and I assume that's the one, you know, you know,
the leader of the Pack. Yeah, I do know that,
so I just didn't know who's saying. Well, that's probably
the only thing that Shining Laws ever did. But I
(03:12):
think of that, and it brings me around to Lebron
and how he differs from Kobe. Lebron was a leader
of the pack. He always had his guys around him.
He was an inclusive guy. There's a lot of charming
clips of Lebron from his high school days going up
to the podium after he scored thirty five points and
got twenty eight rebounds, and always he drags along the
(03:34):
other four starters to the podium with him for a
press conference. He looks like their father in some ways.
But I found it very endearing and a real contrast
with Kobe, who was not at all like that exactly.
And of course a big part of the lebron story
goes on to become how he empowered his childhood friends, right,
guys like Maverick Carter, Rich Paul, Randy Mimms. They all
(03:56):
became big players in the NBA world. Now. Maverick Carter
became a big orketing guy. Ridge, Paul's an agent, very
powerful agent. And Lebron always craved the group and the inclusiveness,
and that was very different from Kobe. Kobe was off
on his own, as we talked about in the last episode,
and at times that was viewed as a detriment for Lebron,
that he was too deferential. For example, I think especially
(04:19):
earlier in his career during the two thousand and seven playoffs,
when there was a critical moment a playoff game and
instead of taking a shot, Lebron passes to Danielle Marshall,
and Marshall takes and mrs the three pointer. And I
was thinking, if that had come along a couple years later,
in the heart of the social media era, Danielle Marshall
would have been trending all because of lebron is and
people saying how could Lebron pass to Danielle Marshall there?
(04:40):
But Lebron always wanted to make the right basketball play
right even if that meant had passed. And he also
wanted to make sure that everyone is a part of
his family, his extended family, including his friends, that they
were all included. Going back to Lebron's early days, before
the America really truly knew him, the hoop Heeds did,
(05:01):
Let's take a listen to this story about Lebron's early career.
So it was early two thousand two when I pitched
doing a Sports Illustrated feature story on Lebron, and Lebron
was in his junior year in Akron in high school
and had really made a name for himself the previous
(05:22):
summer at the ABC D camp in New Jersey, and
that's when he basically became the number one player in
his class, but also in the class that was a
year older too. He was the best high school prospect
anyone had seen essentially in a very long time, and
(05:43):
so the timing seemed right to do a story on him. Now.
That was the voice of Grant Wall, who was a
writer colleague of mine at Sports Illustrated. Grant was a
soccer specialist who nevertheless had been intrigued by tales of
this superstar kid. Now, I was kind of like I
(06:04):
was the old fashioned painting the ass back then. I
didn't think we should put young kids on the cover.
I was busy covering the NBA, and though I had
heard about Lebron, I didn't scour the internet like a
lot of people. And I'm going, what do we We
have a lot of good NBA stories, Why are we
doing this? High school could plus, over the years, Sports
(06:25):
Illustrated had wrecked the careers of so many phenomens. We
had a whole series of kids from high school we
put on the cover. They were the next somebody, and
we publicized them until they became the next nobody. Never
never mind college kids. Felipe Lopez, Sebastian Telfair, Johnny manziel
Toald Burinovich, Ryan Leaf. There were a whole bunch of
(06:46):
these players. I'm guessing, though, J you looked at it differently.
You probably said, I want to read more about this
kid from Akron exactly, Jack, And you know what, I'm thinking.
Part of that could be the influence of the ESPN
magazine that they came out in the mid nineties, and
their whole thing was next right on the cover of
their first issue was Kobe Bryant, among others. Rik Lynn
(07:07):
Ross was another one. I think Cordell Stewart, and one
didn't quite work out as well as the other ones.
I think a right alixid Reagus was another one. But
ESPN magazine came along and they were emphasizing next, next, next,
the next thing, and I'm wondering. Jack of Sports Illustrated
got caught up in that a little bit and said, Okay,
we'll show you next. This is gonna be the next superstar,
(07:28):
the chosen one. We're gonna put a high school player
on the cover of Sports Illustrated at a time when
the cover of Sports Illustrated was probably the most premium
real estate in the sports world. Yeah. But even as
Grant wall is about to tell us, even he was
worried about that phenomenal factor. I mean, I covered Treddy
It Dude as well, so on the soccer side, and
(07:49):
so I was part of that tradition of screwing up penoms.
If you couldn't quite think that. Grant was talking about
Freddie a Do who Sports Illustrated had had managed to
put on the cover when he was fourteen, proclaiming him
the next Pelee. He was not the next Pale. I'm
not sure who he was the next one off, but
(08:09):
I did check. By the way, Jay and Freddie has
three d and thirty thousand Twitter followers, though I'm not
sure what they're following. But anyway, j what do you
remember about hearing about this kid from Akron, about the
young Lebron, about the next I don't know who we
said he was. He was so physically manifest and developed
(08:32):
that we he wasn't. He wasn't painted as the next Magic,
for the next Jordan. He was really in his own class.
But I think those Jordan comparisons came though, because if
you were going to talk about someone destined to be
the greatest, well, Jordan was still hanging over the league,
even though I think he just had a second retirement,
(08:52):
but it was still Jordan was the standard, right, So
if you're gonna be the next in basketball, you're gonna
be the next Jordans. And I wanted in on the hype.
I remember watching on ESPN when It's high school games
were shown on ESPN, and I'm someone that doesn't like
to see young people, teenagers and even preteens showing on
national TV. I'm really opposed to the televisition of the
(09:14):
Little League World Series. I don't think we should see
those little kids on national television, especially if they're crying,
you know. But with Lebron, I wanted to see what
the hype was about. Yeah, I don't want to see that. Well,
the thing was Lebron was unlikely to cry, and he
came and played in Polly Pavilion. It was it was
an event Lebron played Sebastian Telfare was in that. It
was a high school. Remember, they played all over the country,
(09:38):
and I was a little more uncomfortable with that. The
fact that they were taking these kids and traveling them
all around the country. I was a little more uncomfortable
with that than the fact that they were actually showing
their games on television. Why was Lebron from Akron, Ohio
playing a game in Polly Pavilion in Los Angeles? So
Graham talked about a number of things in that story
about Lebron at St. Vincent St. Mary Why away, I
(10:00):
wonder a high school that uh is lucky enough to
have Lebron? Why they need two saints in their nickname.
But anyway, it becomes clear to Grant that wherever Lebron
goes his boys the Lebron Airs, if you want to
call them, they're going to go. And where they went
was to a Cavalier basketball game, where of course the
(10:20):
soon to be king meets the reigning king who was
then in his final season, and Grant picks up that
story so literally the first day that I arrived in
Akron and went to his team's practice and talked to
him briefly after that practice, it was clear that he
(10:43):
and his buddies, including Maverick Carter, We're gonna go up
an hour from Acron to Cleveland that night for the
NBA game between the Cavaliers and Michael Jordan's Washington Wizards.
And I'm looking for good access, and so as part
of my pitch to Lebron, I was like, can I go?
Can I drive you guys in my crappy rental car
(11:06):
up to Cleveland and just be a fly on the wall,
And thankfully they said yes. So we end up going
to Akron, stuffed about Lebron and Maverick and a couple
of other friends in my rental car and we watched
this game. Lebron is rooting for Jordan's big Jordan guy
(11:28):
not reading for the Cavs and Jordan hits a buzzer
beater to win, which is pretty great. And so I
remember after the game, Lebron and Maverick said, we're talking
about this guy that kept calling Uncle West. I'm like,
whose Uncle West? And it turns out it's William Wesley
(11:48):
Worldwide West. My first ever experience with the guy, this
amazingly well dressed, bald guy who brings Michael out. And
it was clear also that Jordan was in recruiting mode
because he was trying to get Lebron to sign for Nike.
(12:08):
UM got to build a relationship with Lebron, and Maverick
ended up going to Lebron's apartment in West Akron where
there was a a on the TV. There was a
fake Sports Illustrated somebody had made for with Lebron on
the cover. Is like, is he the next Michael Jordan's
You know that ends up in the story. UM. I
remember Lebron communicating with Sebastian Telfare on his two way
(12:31):
pager in the car on the drive, and I remember
Lebron bringing this big notebook full of CDs out, so
he was like the DJ and it was just a
lot of good stuff. Nothing much has to be explained
in that j A except you're the one better than
me to explain Worldwide West to everyone. But I'm not
(12:53):
sure Worldwide West is explicable. I can't tell you how,
where or when I got to know him. I just did.
And that fits his profile because he kind of just is.
He's there, And by there, I mean everywhere wherever you go.
It seems like world Wide West would show up. So
NBA Playoffs, you're in Miami, or you're in Chicago, and
(13:16):
there's West. Of course, with full access everything that you
get with the media credential West has and and West
is somebody that I think he first got into the
basketball world through Milt Wagner and Louisville. I think Rip
Hamilton he was a Rip Hamilton connection too. No, but well,
but it goes, it goes way earlier than that. And
also he was hanging out in Miami with like the
(13:36):
Michael Irvin and the you back in the days that
the Miami football team, and so through that he got
to hang out with the Dallas Cowboys like you'll see
him on the sidelines or in the stands or courtside
throughout all these periods at the infamous Malice in the Palace,
he's there helping get guys off the court. There's where
(13:57):
like West is everywhere. Um, he's a confidante. He's an advisor.
You know you're Lebron called him Uncle West. He's a connector,
I'd say a facilitator. Those are some of his greatest assets.
Is that he's so plugged into everyone and so he
can help you get from this place to that place,
help this person meet that person. And he's just someone
(14:18):
who's everywhere and yet nowhere because you can't pin him down. Um,
he's really I think something that could kind of only
exist in the NBA. Is one of my favorite NBA figures,
even if he's one of the least understood NBA figures.
He's like so many people. He manages to be famous
for being famous, you know, which is pretty good to
art anyway. So that this was all during his junior year,
(14:39):
Lebron turned to his senior year just keeps getting better
and better. And here's one of his future Redeemed team teammates,
Darren Williams, who himself was a high school star back
when Lebron had acorn rolling for something other than Goodyear tires.
Of course I had already you know, heard heard all
the hype and you know, had read about him and
(14:59):
you know, seen highlights on the internet, but I never
played against him. Um, and then I saw him. I
think the first time I saw him was in l A.
He's playing for like the Oakland Soldiers, and uh, it
was like him and Leon Poe on the same team
and they were just dominant, and I was definitely impressed.
And then I went to ABC D camp that summer
and and saw him again there and saw him and
(15:21):
Carmelo go against each other, Lenny Cook, um, all the
guys that you know, they were they were talking about
this being the next ones and so um, that's kind
of my my first experience with him. Well, when you're
a good player, also, do you look at it the
same way we do, like, oh that is the next one?
Or do you go not that? Where do you see
something with Lebron? Like right away? That pretty much I
(15:42):
think I saw some with him. You know, you could
tell that he was gonna be special. Of course, nobody,
nobody knew this. Who could have predicted, you know, he
was gonna be this, you know, especially at thirty six
and I don't think anybody could have predicted this this
type of future. Interestingly, Darren mentioned two other players in there,
Leon Powell and Lenny Cook, who were in some quarters
considered as good as Lebron. They turned out more to
(16:03):
be cautionary tales. You're listening to Kobe Lebron and the
redeem Team. We'll be back in a minute. So by
the time Lebron is a senior even you know, I've
come around and say, this guy is marvelous. This guy
(16:26):
is the number one. This guy I thought projected as
clear a number one pick as anyone since Magic in
nineteen seventy nine. Remember, Bird had already been selected territorially
back in and maybe shack in two ahead of Latener.
(16:47):
But Donde tells me that that's not really the case.
There was some debate, and I remember speaking to at
least one and then probably even two uh NBA executives
who would have taken Carmelo Anthony if they had the
number one pick. And the thought behind that was we'd
seen Carmelo succeed at the highest level available to him,
(17:08):
which was the Antila Bay Tournament. Re member one year
at Syracuse, he leads Syracuse and Jim Beheim to its
first his first national championship. Despite all the great teams
Beheim had had, he never had a national champion until
Carmelo comes along. And we'll hear the pride that Beheim
takes in Carmelo throughout this uh this podcast series. There
forever bonded. But Carmelo was somewhat of a made man
(17:31):
because of that, and there was some thought that, well, Lebron,
as great as he is, he's playing against high school guys.
We don't necessarily know what he can do if you
asked him to step up another level. We've seen Carmelo
succeed at the highest level available to him. So there
was some thought. I'm trying to think of examples. I'm
sure sure there were. Lou El sind Or at u
c l A. But that guy dragged Syracuse to the
(17:53):
n c A championship. Man, I mean, he was a
serious guy during there. But nevertheless, comes a moment in
New York with the late great David Stern announces with
the first pick in the two thousand and three NBA Draft,
the Cleveland Cavaliers select Lebron James. By that time, Lebron
(18:19):
and Carmelo they played against each other in high school.
They recognize that they are, you know, the next two
big things in whatever order that might be. And they're
both in New York ready to go one too in
the draft and create a new storyline and a kind
of rust belt rivalry between Cleveland and Detroit. And here's
Carmelo talking about it. There's a picture of like me
(18:41):
and Lebron. I'm laying over tell you at the chip,
like Lebron, we're facing like each other. But with that
conversation was you know, you're about to go to Cleveland
and he's like, man, you're about to go to Detroit.
Like you You're about to be right there next to
It's like we're gonna be right next door to each other.
This is the new game. You know, We're the new
magic Bird. Like you know what I'm saying, Like that's
how we was thinking at that at that point in time,
(19:03):
because this we I mean, we had the hype coming
out of you know, me coming out of college, him
you know, being a number of high school player being drafted.
So we had that hype around us. And then as
he gets called, I get the call, my agent is dead,
just like Man's like Detroit is up next. You're like, Detroit,
chaking Darker. I'm like, what, yes, ladies and gentlemen, Darko
(19:26):
Milichick went second to Detroit, before Carmelo Anthony who was third,
before Chris Bosh who was fourth, and before Dwyane Wade
who was fifth. So that as fully as we said before,
that is one third of the kids who five years
later would be on the Redeemed team. But that draft, interestingly,
(19:51):
j A, that that gave us those guys. I think
that's probably ranked among the greatest drafts of all time.
Do you have any memories of other great drafts? It's
right up there. I mean, to me, I think the
standard has to be draft if nothing else, they gave
us Michael Jordan's, but also a Chemo La Juan h
Charles Barkley, John Stockton's in there as well. So if
(20:14):
you think about stocking Olympic teams, you've got Barkley, Jordan's
and John Stockton's. So there's a third of the two
Dream Team comes out of that one draft, similar to
the way that that two thousand three draft stocked the
Redeemed team. In two thousand eight, Yeah, another great draft
was your guy though, was was Kobe Kobe in nineties six.
(20:36):
You've got Kobe, You've got Ray Allen, You've got Steve Nash,
you got Iverson At the top of that A I
A I was right there, Pages Stoyokovic, Marcus Camby, Stefan Marbury,
a bunch of got Derek Fisher, you know who played
out and you watched for a hundred years when he
was in five championships with Kobe making jump shots out
in l A. But it was, it was a great draft.
(20:57):
You know What's funny, by the way, to me is
why maybe there was, but I don't remember, maybe because
nobody gives too much of a damn about Cleveland. But
was there ever examination of how Lebron got to Cleveland?
He had a twenty two remember you ing and the
New York conspiracy. Good old Lebron only had about a
(21:19):
chance of going to Cleveland. But nevertheless there he was.
And I don't think there has ever been one athlete,
correct me if I'm wrong, who has ever brought more
of a renaissance to one city? I mean Chicago. You know,
mikel went to Chicago. Chicago was already a pretty damn
great city, you know, el Jin Jerry West, Kareem Magic,
(21:42):
Kobe Later l A was a pretty good city too.
They had other stuff going on. Lebron to Cleveland that
set things off. Man, that was everything. Well, there is
that great YouTube video Cleveland Tourism Board or something like that.
It was like a mock Cleveland promotional video which really
pointed out all the things that were wrong with Cleveland.
But one of the lines in there is our economy
(22:03):
is built on Lebron James, and it was true. I mean, Jack,
what reason did you have to go to Cleveland before? Now?
They had a pretty good team in the nineties that
Michael Jordan's ended with a couple of well placed and
well timed shots. So they were on the rise in
the nineties, but or the early nineties. But then the
football team leaves to go to Baltimore, right, and so
(22:25):
then they they're they're blessed with another team soon thereafter,
but they have to start from scratch all over again
with an expansion football team. The Indians went to the
World Series where a game away in ven I believe
it was from winning the World Series, but most of
the history of that franchise is won of utility. But
with Lebron. Cleveland was at the quickly became at the
(22:47):
center of the NBA. I was assigned, of course, to write.
I was on the beat then, and the big preseason
story was going to be Lebron, and I'm gonna tell
you about my interview session with him. But this is
what I wrote. One of the paragraphs I wrote in
the Lebron story. The Cleveland law firm that represents James
(23:07):
has pursued more than one thousand infringements on Lebron's name
and image. This was before he played a game, by
the way, already, he is an economic system as much
as he is an athlete, the primary link in a
long chain of dependency. His performance on the court and
his comportment off it bear consequence for take a deep breath,
(23:28):
a city of franchise, a coach, a general manager of
a league, several corporations, and extended family bound to get
even more extended. But I remember, you know, vividly, sitting
down for Lebron for this interview, and uh he comes
in his physical presence, you know, filling the room. But
he's a young he's still a young looking kid. It's interesting,
(23:50):
you know, as we get older, when you see shots
of these kids when they were young. My god, you
ever wonder God was I ever that young? Anyway, Lebron
is the first guy I ever sat down with who
I thought. This was eighteen years ago. I remember thinking
for the first time, I'm not only old enough to
be his father, I'm old enough to be his grandfather.
(24:12):
So I'm here with Sports Illustrated, the great photographer water
yos who in a line of immortal s I photographers
maybe at the top. And Waller takes about three hours
just to set up as lighting and Lebron comes in.
I can't remember who who. He came in with the
public relations people, there was probably a cadret of them,
and they announced, okay, you have fifteen minutes for the
(24:36):
interview and you have ten minutes for the picture. And
you know, Waller just about like falls dead over man.
This is not how we did sings at how old
Sports Illustrated. But Lebron, you know, it was was fine
during the interview, but you know, it was the first
time I realized he didn't really give a shit about
(24:57):
Sports Illustrated. Right, different generations and this is a different air.
I mean, he comes in with a ninety million dollar
contract with Nike. He's got the full package, right, He's
as complete a player that's entered the league in a
long time, if possibly ever. But he's also prepackaged, and
I think people had to learn the rules that, yeah,
this was not this is even different from Kobe who Kobe,
(25:18):
you could kind of his rookie year he's out there,
he could approach him before the game, sit down next
to him as he's out on the court warming up,
and and talk with him. Jack is fair to say
Lebron wasn't quite as approachable even as a rookie, even
as a high school kid coming in. No. Absolutely, and
he was a little just because of that physical presence.
He was intimidating. But you do have to be careful
(25:40):
about generalizations and stereotypes because Lebron wasn't one of these
kids who didn't understand history. I mean, he understood, you know,
he wasn't like his mind wasn't a blank slate about basketball.
He understood basketball history. And that's one of the things
we're later going to hear when he got around people
like Shasowski and Jerry Colangelo, they understood what this guy knew.
(26:01):
He just as part of his culture. You know, Sports
Illustrated just it wasn't it, and Kobe it might not
have been it either, But Kobe was always smart enough
and kind of canny enough that he had to play
with Slam, but he also had to play with Sports
Illustrated on ESPN in the l A. Times, and Kobe,
(26:22):
I think was the last line that had understood. He
needed to maintain a relationship with the local newspaper columnists
and he needed to always have at least one on
his side, and that was a Kobe thing. And I
think again that difference, it's it's really a generation in
the NBA, from the ninety draft to the two thousand
three draft. That's a full NBA generation, and Lebron's generation,
(26:44):
like like, Lebron didn't really have guys that felt like
in the Cleveland local media. I think he came in thinking, Okay,
I'm dealing with national onely, whereas Kobe still had people
that he talked to locally, and that was a big difference. Yeah,
I can't say I broke much news during that interview.
I don't know whether I was the first one to
mention his affinity for fruity pebbles, which is how he
(27:06):
began each morning and later had a fruity Pebble's line
of nikes. I'm not sure that you uh that you
purchased one of those. But but the story, there was
so much to write about. I remember carried a great
headline it said you got to carry that weight, which
is a you know a song, you know, a great
Beatles song. But it was just the stuff on Lebron's
(27:29):
shoulders when he went into the league. And look, we're
gonna talk more about this as we go on, but man, Lebron,
if there's anybody that could have taken a bunch of
fatal bad steps concluding some of the tough things about
his background, the pressures that were on him on and
(27:50):
off the court, the people that wanted in on Lebron world,
I would argue, the guy has done it better than
anyone who ever lived. And I always say that to
the Lebron critics, I don't know how you could have
been any better than this kid. Yeah, Jack, despite all
that attention, despite all that scrutiny, I think the worst
trouble he's been in with the law was moving violation
(28:13):
with this hummer. That was another story. He had his humpy,
his hummer in high school, but he got a moving
violation in it, and that was the extent of his
run ins with the law. Right, the biggest criticism of
him was he went on television to announce his free
agency decision and that set people off, and you know,
how could he do it? And it was betrayal and
(28:34):
all this. He went on television to announce his free
agency decision, and that was the biggest criticism. That was
his greatest mistake they ever made. And if that's his
biggest mistake, I think he's lived a pretty good and
a pretty clean life. You know, that phrase to taking
my talents, I can't remember now, but I had heard that.
Kobe said it. Kobe said it. That's who said. Kobe
(28:55):
said it. When he announced he was he was going
from high school to the NBA, he said, I've taken
my talents. I didn't know that until I I looked
that back up. So somewhere in Lebron's brain, I bet
you that phrase from Kobe was cemented somehow, you know,
taking my talents. But Lebron has a great rookie season. Interestingly,
(29:17):
he's a runaway winner for the Rookie of the Year
and tying us back into the two thousand and eight
Redeemed Team. Number two is Carmelo in the voting. Number
three is Dwayne Wade. Number four is Kirk Heinrich, who
was a guard with I think Chicago had a pretty good,
pretty good player, and Chris Bosh was fifth. So four
(29:38):
fifths of that draft class is in the top five
of the rookie voting. But what I had forgotten is
how good Carmelo was during that season, and it's sort
of touched off. Maybe what could be a trend of
Lebron overshadowing Carmelo. Carmelo took us evan team win team
(30:02):
to a forty three win team and the playoffs where
he got there, he did lose in the first round.
Do the other grade high school are going on? Then?
KG KG in the Minnesota Timberwolves Jack quick thing on
Lebron's rookie season. He averaged twenty points per game that year.
Not bad, right, only time in his career he averaged
less than twenty five points. And then he starts this
(30:24):
record setting run of averaging points per game more surpasses
everyone will kareem everyone, So uh, a really amazing breakthrough.
And to think that that was it's really by far
his worst season, and he still comes in the league
average points per game. And part of that was that
personality we talked to that Lebron probably paid more. How
(30:47):
was I going to put it more attention to the
idea that the rookie shouldn't complete? His quotes are filled with, oh,
this is uh Ricky Davison and Z's team. You know
it's not mine. Remember his coaches Paul Silas, right, an
old school, hardline guy who's not gonna let some rookie
come in and just get all the Well, Lebron got
(31:08):
all the attention, but he wasn't going to get all
the shots and have the ball all the time, not
under Paul's appo. Well, I've had a great interview with
Paul Silas, and I remember he was talking about Lebron's
many talents, and Silas said to me, well, I had
one talent. You gotta have one NBA talent. Mine. Whooping ass,
that was mine. That's what Paul Silos said. So one
(31:34):
of the things is Carmelo came in after one year.
But you know, with the ease with which Lebron players
like Lebron, Kobe and Garnett did this Carmelo. Anthony had
one year of college, and Carmelo reflects a little bit
on this kind of that, hey, this isn't the easiest
thing in the world to do when you come out
(31:54):
of high school. You gotta learn on the fly, like
you gotta get it right away, and that that is
the difference between the guys that are very successful coming
out of high school and the guys that it takes
a long time to figure it out. It's a it's
a small group of guys that come out of high
school and they have it. They have it right away,
you know, the Lebron, the Kgs, the Kobe's, like those
(32:15):
guys come out of high school, they had it right away.
They got it. And then you have a long list
of gods who come out of high school that don't
take a while for them to figure it out. They
didn't have to be the man when they came in,
and neither one of them started right away. You know,
Kobe comes under the team with Shack. You know, kg
had a lot of veterans. Lebron came in and he
had to be the man in the face of a
(32:36):
franchise and even the face of the league. To some
extent right away. And you know, as someone who knew
him going in and as someone who's good friends with them,
I just wonder what your perspective or your appreciation is
for somebody to come out of high school and take
on all of that responsibility right away. You have to
be committed. It's a different type of commitment that you
(32:57):
have to have a different type of dedication. You have
to have the right people around you. You know, it's
it's it's Lebron is a blueprint for that. You know,
he came out, he had the right team around him,
I mean as far not basketball, but just the people
to write people around him that the blueprint was already
laid out. All he had to do was stay on
(33:17):
that track and follow that blueprint, and it was dead
for him, whereas other other guys, it's not laid out
for guys like that, you know, And I think, you know,
it's a testament to Lebron and and his people because
they saw previous people coming out of high school and
what that did, you know, they I'm sure they saw
what what what what it did with Kobe and what
it did, you know, with KG and just other guys
(33:40):
that came out of high school. It takes a lot.
It takes a lot in a different type of person
to come out of high school, jump right into the
big leagues and be and have an impact the way
that Lebron has done. Uh, like you said, Kobe came
and he you know, came up the bench and he
had to Hey, that's a really forced his way, improved,
(34:03):
you know, proved to everybody and have this certain type
of chip on his shoulder that he was here to state.
So not only is their rookie pressure, but this is
an Olympic year and the Olympic team, the Olympic program
is in flux. As Sean Ford, a respected USA Basketball
executive who's now the national team director, as he tells
(34:24):
us over that time, injury and you know the situation
of the world, guys weren't able to play. Jason was hurt,
Ray was hurt, Jamine was hurt. You know, it just
um just it was wasn't working you know, out the
way we wanted it to. And uh, you know, we
went a little bit younger. So there's a lot of
things going on. There's injuries, there's worries about terrorism. So
(34:48):
they can't fill a team, they can't get exactly the
guys they want for various reasons. Kevin Garnett's not gonna play,
Tracy McGrady is not going to play. So who do
they call on? They call on the kids, and even
for kids as towns as talented as Lebron Carmelo and
Dwayne Wade. This is a tall order in a world
(35:08):
that has gotten increasingly better since the Dream Team devoured
everyone back in. This is Dwayne Wade. We really had
not a clue what was getting into. We was just
happy to be named to the living team and be playing.
And this is how Carmelo saw it. I think things
could have been different, but we didn't. We never had time.
I mean we came at the last minute, me and
(35:29):
Lebron and did we We We got the calls at the
last minute, and the way that we looked at it
was like ship. We we just were all here for
the roster Phillips. You know we're part of We're gonna
come into roster Phillips. They really calling us, That mean
they really want us to play. The world was different.
The world did not look at United States basketball teams
the same way they did in two and I suppose
(35:52):
in and reflecting on that as Craig Miller, who headed
up USA Basketball's public relations, still does, but he was
there since before the Dream Team. Here's how he put it.
The stigma of playing against NBA players have faded because
the international players are now ingrained in the NBA and playing,
and so you started to see the gap really closed.
(36:14):
So that gap really closed. It slam shut. The most
stupefying game happened, of course right away, the initial mind
boggling to seventy three loss to Puerto Rico. I'll never
forget Jay. Tommy Shepard, who's now the general manager of
the Washington Wizards, so he has to watch his tongue
a little more. But Tommy was just he was working
(36:36):
for USA Basketball over there. Always a funny guy. I'm
sure you know Tommy. Tommy goes by by after the
nineteen pointless he goes, well, we were in it till
the tip. You know. It was just this indescribable loss
that was led by this point guard. Hey, nice NBA player.
Carlos Arroyo was in the league for probably is in
(36:56):
the league for ten years, played for seven or eight teams,
and he destroyed the United States And it was kind
of a lesson. Isaiah Thomas told me a long time ago, Ja,
it sounds elementary, but there are certain things I remember,
and he goes. Isaiah said, if you have a point
guard who gets where he wants to go, he can
(37:17):
give a team trouble. You know, there were guys like that,
like Bobby Hurley, Steve Nash. You didn't know how they
got there, but they got themselves in the position where
they could either shoot it or feed to somebody. And
this is what a royo did. Yeah, and it's funny
because the point guard on the United States team was
Alan Iverson, who wasn't that classic point guard player, right,
(37:37):
So Alan Iverson could be an unstoppable force, but that
doesn't necessarily work in international basketball, and that that team
really struggled more than most to adapting to international rules,
which include the ability you can knock the ball off
the rim right after it hits the rim. It's got
the wider it had the wider trapezoid lanes, so you
couldn't post up as close to the basket and him
(38:00):
Duncan really seemed to struggle under those rules and just
never acquired a taste for it. Also, the thing I
remember with that team is that they didn't get the
calls that they're used to getting from NBA referees. You've
got international refs and they called the game differently and
you didn't get those superstar calls. So it so it
felt like that team was constantly in foul trouble throughout
(38:21):
the Olympics and was grapping about the officiating. Yeah, and
there was a there was a lot of things going
on it. The essence of it goes back to them
being a team that was formed kind of in haste,
and we're going to talk about how the program changes
specifically because of this Olympics. But Genobly one of the
(38:41):
great argenteam player who they won the gold medal. I
remember man who talking during the Olympics and he said,
the rest of them, I wish I could do a
Genoble accent. I'm not going to try. The rest of
the world is getting better, the US is getting bored.
But I'm not sure that's what it was. I just
think it was a mismatched team. And I wrote a
story for SI after the first game, the loss to
(39:03):
Puerto Rico, and one of the funny things I'll never
forget this Lebron. I don't know why he said it,
but here's my paragraph. The one bright spot was Lebron
James's scholastic acuity quote. Some Americans might say, this is
embarrassing losing to Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States.
Lebron I would have said, I want to guess territory, man,
(39:25):
but I looked it up. You know it's still a
commonwealth anyway. What I detected through this Olympics. Throughout it,
and I remember I did an interview with Brian Williams,
who was then becoming the NBC New NBC Star, and
he was kind of positioning himself as not the basketball
player Brian Williams, the news anchor Brian Williams. No, not
(39:45):
that guy yet, the the kind of the NASCAR loving
liberal that was kind of And I did this interview
with him, and the level of hatred that was leveled
against this team, not just because they were losing, but
I really detected a really kind of racist attitude toward it.
(40:08):
A lot of it directed towards Iverson, who did not
deserve it, not for the way he played and comported
himself during this Olympics. Yes, so, as genobally suggested, maybe
Americans and even the players are becoming a little bit disinterested,
and I would say the fan base was becoming even
more than disinterested, disconnected. And it started in ninety six
(40:29):
and certainly through two thousand. Also notable development in two thousand,
that's the first time the United States Olympic basketball team
is all African Americans on the roster, and it had
been declining. In ninety six, you had John Stockton was
was the only white player on the American team um
by two thousand and with this two thousand four roster
(40:49):
it's all black. So you have to wonder if that
accelerates to disconnect among white Americans. But there was this
feeling almost like almost like people were against them, like
they wanted to see the American team lose, almost as
if well, they don't represent me and quote unquote us,
and I almost want to see them lose. That You
(41:13):
had that sense like people wanted to see them get
their come uppance. And yes, part of that was Iverson,
who was a very controversial figure, a very threatening figure
to some people. It's just because younger people of all
races adored Iverson and he represented that rebellious figure that
(41:33):
I think any teenager looks up to and wants to
emulate in some regard. But for old Americans, and that
included even older black basketball players, he represented such a
threat to the status quo, uh that I think they
wanted to see him fail because for him to succeed
would be to turn around and upend everything that they had,
(41:55):
that they become accustomed to, and that basically that they
had built up right, And and I we go to
comments throughout these Olympics, he must have said this seven
or eight times. When you talk to some guys, they
were piste off. They behind their back and in public
they trashed Larry Brown, who, by the way, let's face
(42:15):
it was entirely the wrong coach to be coaching this team.
That was problem number two, right behind the disorganized nature
of the organization of the team. Larry being the wrong
coach was number two. Alan would say, here's the quote.
Just understand once again, I'm not gonna attempt to do iverson.
Just understand it first and foremost. It's an honor to
(42:36):
be selected to this team. I feel like a special
basketball player to be selected to a team like this.
And I stand behind no man in my respect for
Tim Duncan as a player, I think he as an
offensive and defensive player combined, he could be a top
ten player of all time. But man, he was terrible
during this Olympics, and he could not figure out how
(42:58):
to seize the reigns of the team. You know, he
could always figure that out, and him and Pop were
both on this team. And whether or not they couldn't
get by Larry, or whether they were too disgruntled from
the beginning, or whether they read the handwriting on the wall,
we're just not as good as Argentina at this point,
(43:21):
all those things. You know, Tim just did not do
what he should have. And before we comment some more
on that, here's Sean Ford again to respect the basketball official,
just reflecting a little bit on Iverson. He took the
hit you know, with the media a lot when we
did lose. Allen's got a toughness about him, and because
there's so much goal that goes on around his life,
(43:41):
he has a way of when he gets when it
comes to basketball, he was able to focus and and
leave some things, you know, elsewhere. And I think because
he does that on a regular basis, um the players learned,
you know, he brought the other players that way, and
the people that were doubting them and people were criticizing them,
you know, and again there wasn't social media back then,
(44:02):
there wasn't as much. But he kept the team focused on,
you know, what was next, and so Jack I'll say
that in some ways though, the two thousand four Olympics
where Iverson's finest moment because from everything that I've heard,
I wasn't there, but everything I've heard, he really rallied
them after their shot at the gold medal was gone
(44:25):
and they had this, you know, essentially the consolation game,
right like the old in double A final four consolation
game UH to win the bronze medal. And none of
them came there to win the bronze medal. That's not
what they're interested in. But Iverson said, hey, we're here,
let's do it. Let's not go home empty handed. Let's
go out and win this game and win this bronze medal.
And he inspired them and had an inspired performance and
(44:48):
they won. And to some observers, they've told me that
that was Irison's finest moment, that he he salvaged what
there was to be salvaged out of the Olympic Games. Absolutely,
I mean I covered those Olympics, and I remember talking
to Doug Collins before the bronze medal game and we
both just kind of said, I, you know, there's just
(45:09):
no way they went. First of all was Away. He
was very good. They were the early kind of Golden
State Warriors. I mean, they just bombed up three point
shots and for Iverson was really good in that game.
Shawn Marion was good in that game. And I'll tell
you when somebody else who was really good, I almost
hesitate to say his name because we could do a
(45:30):
forty minute podcast on him, and that was Lamar Odom
that when Lamar had your back, when he was like
the fourth guy or something that you needed him not
to score, but maybe you get nine, ten, eleven, get
your rebounds. Locked somebody down. Sometimes even the you know,
the shooting guard, he could go out and defend on
(45:51):
pick and rolls, he could go back and get rebounds.
Lamar was really great in that game. And I agree
that if they wanted to get one positive note out
of those Olympics, it would have been that third place
game against Lithuania. However, uh, they didn't jay and the
the result of that was big changes to the Olympic system. Yes,
(46:15):
sometimes Jack could takes something this drastic to to wake
you up and to shake you up. And that's what happened.
And as we'll get into in the next episode, big
changes were coming and the biggest, probably the biggest first
change was when they went to the ultimate man behind
the Man, the great Jerry Colangelo, who for some reason
(46:39):
had not been called upon to offer his his executive
no at all to previous Olympic teams, and David Stern,
who sometimes got involved in the Olympic movement and sometimes
did not, But in this case, David was going to
call the man behind the Man, and he placed a
call to Jerry Colangelo and ask him if he wanted
(47:02):
to take over. And this is a hint of what
we're gonna get in the next episode, which is episode four.
He says, Jerry, look, I know you were just as
unhappy as me and everyone else regarding the showing in
Greece and all the things about it, and there needs
to be some change. Would you be willing to take
on the responsibility for USA basketball? And I'm instinctive and
(47:26):
I basically said, yeah, I'll do it, but I have
a couple of conditions. So that's it. For this episode,
I'm Jack McCallum, Thanks for listening. I'm Jay dot Day
because that next time on Kobe Lebron and the Redeem Team.
The Dream Team Tapes Season two. Kobe Lebron and the
Redeemed Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association
(47:51):
with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. This season is written and hosted
by me, Jack McCallum and j A. Dande. Executive producer
Scott Waxman and Mark Frances for Diversion podcast and Sean's
(48:12):
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 Frances. Verna Fields is
our technical producer, and our director of Marketing and business
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
(00:26):
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 it
to be in this position now here we don't represent
our country, especially especial Lebron James. We look for an
(00:47):
opportunity of the weekend on a flam and being the
best in the world. I guess the Redeem Team is
it is right, We're the best team in the world.
We're the best team in the world. We put Basketball
America Basketball Wheal defeat, which is at the toime. I'm
(01:19):
Jack mccalluman. Welcome to episode three of The Dream Team
Tape Season two, Kobe Lebron and the Redeemed Team. This
is a sequel to my podcast last year called The
Dream Team Tape, but it's about another kind of dream team,
the one that followed the Michael Magic Larry Immortals by
sixteen years, the one that earned a gold medal in
Beijing after our international basketball fortunes had fallen so drastically
(01:45):
in the early part of the century. Now, in our
last episode, co host j Dandie talked about Kobe Bryant alone,
both who became part of the pack that one goal.
This episode is about the Redeemed team's other alpha dog. That,
by the way, is the term by Jason Kidd, who
became the veteran leader of the team. Team. It's about
(02:05):
that other alpha dogs. Eventful high school career, is eventful
drafting into the NBA, and his eventful and disappointing adventure
with the two thousand four Olympic team. We're calling it
the Future King and the Greek Tragedy. Now, we've alluded
several times to Kobe being a kind of lone wolf.
The song Solitary Man would fit him. The song I'm
(02:27):
choosing for Lebron is going back in time a little
bit to the Shangra Laws, a great girl group from
the early sixties, which was before j A was born.
But I remember him, of course. I wonder j D
have any idea about who the Shangra Laws are. I'm
not really up on the same laws. I love sixties music, right,
especially motown Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gay, Beatles, Only Stones. I'm
(02:51):
not too up on the same Glas though, well there's
no reason you should be. I'm not really. But they
had this one memorable song called the Leader of the Path,
and you know, had the motorcycle booming in the beginning,
and I assume that's the one, you know, you know,
the leader of the Pack. Yeah, I do know that,
so I just didn't know who's saying. Well, that's probably
the only thing that Shining Laws ever did. But I
(03:12):
think of that, and it brings me around to Lebron
and how he differs from Kobe. Lebron was a leader
of the pack. He always had his guys around him.
He was an inclusive guy. There's a lot of charming
clips of Lebron from his high school days going up
to the podium after he scored thirty five points and
got twenty eight rebounds, and always he drags along the
(03:34):
other four starters to the podium with him for a
press conference. He looks like their father in some ways.
But I found it very endearing and a real contrast
with Kobe, who was not at all like that exactly.
And of course a big part of the lebron story
goes on to become how he empowered his childhood friends, right,
guys like Maverick Carter, Rich Paul, Randy Mimms. They all
(03:56):
became big players in the NBA world. Now. Maverick Carter
became a big orketing guy. Ridge, Paul's an agent, very
powerful agent. And Lebron always craved the group and the inclusiveness,
and that was very different from Kobe. Kobe was off
on his own, as we talked about in the last episode,
and at times that was viewed as a detriment for Lebron,
that he was too deferential. For example, I think especially
(04:19):
earlier in his career during the two thousand and seven playoffs,
when there was a critical moment a playoff game and
instead of taking a shot, Lebron passes to Danielle Marshall,
and Marshall takes and mrs the three pointer. And I
was thinking, if that had come along a couple years later,
in the heart of the social media era, Danielle Marshall
would have been trending all because of lebron is and
people saying how could Lebron pass to Danielle Marshall there?
(04:40):
But Lebron always wanted to make the right basketball play
right even if that meant had passed. And he also
wanted to make sure that everyone is a part of
his family, his extended family, including his friends, that they
were all included. Going back to Lebron's early days, before
the America really truly knew him, the hoop Heeds did,
(05:01):
Let's take a listen to this story about Lebron's early career.
So it was early two thousand two when I pitched
doing a Sports Illustrated feature story on Lebron, and Lebron
was in his junior year in Akron in high school
and had really made a name for himself the previous
(05:22):
summer at the ABC D camp in New Jersey, and
that's when he basically became the number one player in
his class, but also in the class that was a
year older too. He was the best high school prospect
anyone had seen essentially in a very long time, and
(05:43):
so the timing seemed right to do a story on him. Now.
That was the voice of Grant Wall, who was a
writer colleague of mine at Sports Illustrated. Grant was a
soccer specialist who nevertheless had been intrigued by tales of
this superstar kid. Now, I was kind of like I
(06:04):
was the old fashioned painting the ass back then. I
didn't think we should put young kids on the cover.
I was busy covering the NBA, and though I had
heard about Lebron, I didn't scour the internet like a
lot of people. And I'm going, what do we We
have a lot of good NBA stories, Why are we
doing this? High school could plus, over the years, Sports
(06:25):
Illustrated had wrecked the careers of so many phenomens. We
had a whole series of kids from high school we
put on the cover. They were the next somebody, and
we publicized them until they became the next nobody. Never
never mind college kids. Felipe Lopez, Sebastian Telfair, Johnny manziel
Toald Burinovich, Ryan Leaf. There were a whole bunch of
(06:46):
these players. I'm guessing, though, J you looked at it differently.
You probably said, I want to read more about this
kid from Akron exactly, Jack, And you know what, I'm thinking.
Part of that could be the influence of the ESPN
magazine that they came out in the mid nineties, and
their whole thing was next right on the cover of
their first issue was Kobe Bryant, among others. Rik Lynn
(07:07):
Ross was another one. I think Cordell Stewart, and one
didn't quite work out as well as the other ones.
I think a right alixid Reagus was another one. But
ESPN magazine came along and they were emphasizing next, next, next,
the next thing, and I'm wondering. Jack of Sports Illustrated
got caught up in that a little bit and said, Okay,
we'll show you next. This is gonna be the next superstar,
(07:28):
the chosen one. We're gonna put a high school player
on the cover of Sports Illustrated at a time when
the cover of Sports Illustrated was probably the most premium
real estate in the sports world. Yeah. But even as
Grant wall is about to tell us, even he was
worried about that phenomenal factor. I mean, I covered Treddy
It Dude as well, so on the soccer side, and
(07:49):
so I was part of that tradition of screwing up penoms.
If you couldn't quite think that. Grant was talking about
Freddie a Do who Sports Illustrated had had managed to
put on the cover when he was fourteen, proclaiming him
the next Pelee. He was not the next Pale. I'm
not sure who he was the next one off, but
(08:09):
I did check. By the way, Jay and Freddie has
three d and thirty thousand Twitter followers, though I'm not
sure what they're following. But anyway, j what do you
remember about hearing about this kid from Akron, about the
young Lebron, about the next I don't know who we
said he was. He was so physically manifest and developed
(08:32):
that we he wasn't. He wasn't painted as the next Magic,
for the next Jordan. He was really in his own class.
But I think those Jordan comparisons came though, because if
you were going to talk about someone destined to be
the greatest, well, Jordan was still hanging over the league,
even though I think he just had a second retirement,
(08:52):
but it was still Jordan was the standard, right, So
if you're gonna be the next in basketball, you're gonna
be the next Jordans. And I wanted in on the hype.
I remember watching on ESPN when It's high school games
were shown on ESPN, and I'm someone that doesn't like
to see young people, teenagers and even preteens showing on
national TV. I'm really opposed to the televisition of the
(09:14):
Little League World Series. I don't think we should see
those little kids on national television, especially if they're crying,
you know. But with Lebron, I wanted to see what
the hype was about. Yeah, I don't want to see that. Well,
the thing was Lebron was unlikely to cry, and he
came and played in Polly Pavilion. It was it was
an event Lebron played Sebastian Telfare was in that. It
was a high school. Remember, they played all over the country,
(09:38):
and I was a little more uncomfortable with that. The
fact that they were taking these kids and traveling them
all around the country. I was a little more uncomfortable
with that than the fact that they were actually showing
their games on television. Why was Lebron from Akron, Ohio
playing a game in Polly Pavilion in Los Angeles? So
Graham talked about a number of things in that story
about Lebron at St. Vincent St. Mary Why away, I
(10:00):
wonder a high school that uh is lucky enough to
have Lebron? Why they need two saints in their nickname.
But anyway, it becomes clear to Grant that wherever Lebron
goes his boys the Lebron Airs, if you want to
call them, they're going to go. And where they went
was to a Cavalier basketball game, where of course the
(10:20):
soon to be king meets the reigning king who was
then in his final season, and Grant picks up that
story so literally the first day that I arrived in
Akron and went to his team's practice and talked to
him briefly after that practice, it was clear that he
(10:43):
and his buddies, including Maverick Carter, We're gonna go up
an hour from Acron to Cleveland that night for the
NBA game between the Cavaliers and Michael Jordan's Washington Wizards.
And I'm looking for good access, and so as part
of my pitch to Lebron, I was like, can I go?
Can I drive you guys in my crappy rental car
(11:06):
up to Cleveland and just be a fly on the wall,
And thankfully they said yes. So we end up going
to Akron, stuffed about Lebron and Maverick and a couple
of other friends in my rental car and we watched
this game. Lebron is rooting for Jordan's big Jordan guy
(11:28):
not reading for the Cavs and Jordan hits a buzzer
beater to win, which is pretty great. And so I
remember after the game, Lebron and Maverick said, we're talking
about this guy that kept calling Uncle West. I'm like,
whose Uncle West? And it turns out it's William Wesley
(11:48):
Worldwide West. My first ever experience with the guy, this
amazingly well dressed, bald guy who brings Michael out. And
it was clear also that Jordan was in recruiting mode
because he was trying to get Lebron to sign for Nike.
(12:08):
UM got to build a relationship with Lebron, and Maverick
ended up going to Lebron's apartment in West Akron where
there was a a on the TV. There was a
fake Sports Illustrated somebody had made for with Lebron on
the cover. Is like, is he the next Michael Jordan's
You know that ends up in the story. UM. I
remember Lebron communicating with Sebastian Telfare on his two way
(12:31):
pager in the car on the drive, and I remember
Lebron bringing this big notebook full of CDs out, so
he was like the DJ and it was just a
lot of good stuff. Nothing much has to be explained
in that j A except you're the one better than
me to explain Worldwide West to everyone. But I'm not
(12:53):
sure Worldwide West is explicable. I can't tell you how,
where or when I got to know him. I just did.
And that fits his profile because he kind of just is.
He's there, And by there, I mean everywhere wherever you go.
It seems like world Wide West would show up. So
NBA Playoffs, you're in Miami, or you're in Chicago, and
(13:16):
there's West. Of course, with full access everything that you
get with the media credential West has and and West
is somebody that I think he first got into the
basketball world through Milt Wagner and Louisville. I think Rip
Hamilton he was a Rip Hamilton connection too. No, but well,
but it goes, it goes way earlier than that. And
also he was hanging out in Miami with like the
(13:36):
Michael Irvin and the you back in the days that
the Miami football team, and so through that he got
to hang out with the Dallas Cowboys like you'll see
him on the sidelines or in the stands or courtside
throughout all these periods at the infamous Malice in the Palace,
he's there helping get guys off the court. There's where
(13:57):
like West is everywhere. Um, he's a confidante. He's an advisor.
You know you're Lebron called him Uncle West. He's a connector,
I'd say a facilitator. Those are some of his greatest assets.
Is that he's so plugged into everyone and so he
can help you get from this place to that place,
help this person meet that person. And he's just someone
(14:18):
who's everywhere and yet nowhere because you can't pin him down. Um,
he's really I think something that could kind of only
exist in the NBA. Is one of my favorite NBA figures,
even if he's one of the least understood NBA figures.
He's like so many people. He manages to be famous
for being famous, you know, which is pretty good to
art anyway. So that this was all during his junior year,
(14:39):
Lebron turned to his senior year just keeps getting better
and better. And here's one of his future Redeemed team teammates,
Darren Williams, who himself was a high school star back
when Lebron had acorn rolling for something other than Goodyear tires.
Of course I had already you know, heard heard all
the hype and you know, had read about him and
(14:59):
you know, seen highlights on the internet, but I never
played against him. Um, and then I saw him. I
think the first time I saw him was in l A.
He's playing for like the Oakland Soldiers, and uh, it
was like him and Leon Poe on the same team
and they were just dominant, and I was definitely impressed.
And then I went to ABC D camp that summer
and and saw him again there and saw him and
(15:21):
Carmelo go against each other, Lenny Cook, um, all the
guys that you know, they were they were talking about
this being the next ones and so um, that's kind
of my my first experience with him. Well, when you're
a good player, also, do you look at it the
same way we do, like, oh that is the next one?
Or do you go not that? Where do you see
something with Lebron? Like right away? That pretty much I
(15:42):
think I saw some with him. You know, you could
tell that he was gonna be special. Of course, nobody,
nobody knew this. Who could have predicted, you know, he
was gonna be this, you know, especially at thirty six
and I don't think anybody could have predicted this this
type of future. Interestingly, Darren mentioned two other players in there,
Leon Powell and Lenny Cook, who were in some quarters
considered as good as Lebron. They turned out more to
(16:03):
be cautionary tales. You're listening to Kobe Lebron and the
redeem Team. We'll be back in a minute. So by
the time Lebron is a senior even you know, I've
come around and say, this guy is marvelous. This guy
(16:26):
is the number one. This guy I thought projected as
clear a number one pick as anyone since Magic in
nineteen seventy nine. Remember, Bird had already been selected territorially
back in and maybe shack in two ahead of Latener.
(16:47):
But Donde tells me that that's not really the case.
There was some debate, and I remember speaking to at
least one and then probably even two uh NBA executives
who would have taken Carmelo Anthony if they had the
number one pick. And the thought behind that was we'd
seen Carmelo succeed at the highest level available to him,
(17:08):
which was the Antila Bay Tournament. Re member one year
at Syracuse, he leads Syracuse and Jim Beheim to its
first his first national championship. Despite all the great teams
Beheim had had, he never had a national champion until
Carmelo comes along. And we'll hear the pride that Beheim
takes in Carmelo throughout this uh this podcast series. There
forever bonded. But Carmelo was somewhat of a made man
(17:31):
because of that, and there was some thought that, well, Lebron,
as great as he is, he's playing against high school guys.
We don't necessarily know what he can do if you
asked him to step up another level. We've seen Carmelo
succeed at the highest level available to him. So there
was some thought. I'm trying to think of examples. I'm
sure sure there were. Lou El sind Or at u
c l A. But that guy dragged Syracuse to the
(17:53):
n c A championship. Man, I mean, he was a
serious guy during there. But nevertheless, comes a moment in
New York with the late great David Stern announces with
the first pick in the two thousand and three NBA Draft,
the Cleveland Cavaliers select Lebron James. By that time, Lebron
(18:19):
and Carmelo they played against each other in high school.
They recognize that they are, you know, the next two
big things in whatever order that might be. And they're
both in New York ready to go one too in
the draft and create a new storyline and a kind
of rust belt rivalry between Cleveland and Detroit. And here's
Carmelo talking about it. There's a picture of like me
(18:41):
and Lebron. I'm laying over tell you at the chip,
like Lebron, we're facing like each other. But with that
conversation was you know, you're about to go to Cleveland
and he's like, man, you're about to go to Detroit.
Like you You're about to be right there next to
It's like we're gonna be right next door to each other.
This is the new game. You know, We're the new
magic Bird. Like you know what I'm saying, Like that's
how we was thinking at that at that point in time,
(19:03):
because this we I mean, we had the hype coming
out of you know, me coming out of college, him
you know, being a number of high school player being drafted.
So we had that hype around us. And then as
he gets called, I get the call, my agent is dead,
just like Man's like Detroit is up next. You're like, Detroit,
chaking Darker. I'm like, what, yes, ladies and gentlemen, Darko
(19:26):
Milichick went second to Detroit, before Carmelo Anthony who was third,
before Chris Bosh who was fourth, and before Dwyane Wade
who was fifth. So that as fully as we said before,
that is one third of the kids who five years
later would be on the Redeemed team. But that draft, interestingly,
(19:51):
j A, that that gave us those guys. I think
that's probably ranked among the greatest drafts of all time.
Do you have any memories of other great drafts? It's
right up there. I mean, to me, I think the
standard has to be draft if nothing else, they gave
us Michael Jordan's, but also a Chemo La Juan h
Charles Barkley, John Stockton's in there as well. So if
(20:14):
you think about stocking Olympic teams, you've got Barkley, Jordan's
and John Stockton's. So there's a third of the two
Dream Team comes out of that one draft, similar to
the way that that two thousand three draft stocked the
Redeemed team. In two thousand eight, Yeah, another great draft
was your guy though, was was Kobe Kobe in nineties six.
(20:36):
You've got Kobe, You've got Ray Allen, You've got Steve Nash,
you got Iverson At the top of that A I
A I was right there, Pages Stoyokovic, Marcus Camby, Stefan Marbury,
a bunch of got Derek Fisher, you know who played
out and you watched for a hundred years when he
was in five championships with Kobe making jump shots out
in l A. But it was, it was a great draft.
(20:57):
You know What's funny, by the way, to me is
why maybe there was, but I don't remember, maybe because
nobody gives too much of a damn about Cleveland. But
was there ever examination of how Lebron got to Cleveland?
He had a twenty two remember you ing and the
New York conspiracy. Good old Lebron only had about a
(21:19):
chance of going to Cleveland. But nevertheless there he was.
And I don't think there has ever been one athlete,
correct me if I'm wrong, who has ever brought more
of a renaissance to one city? I mean Chicago. You know,
mikel went to Chicago. Chicago was already a pretty damn
great city, you know, el Jin Jerry West, Kareem Magic,
(21:42):
Kobe Later l A was a pretty good city too.
They had other stuff going on. Lebron to Cleveland that
set things off. Man, that was everything. Well, there is
that great YouTube video Cleveland Tourism Board or something like that.
It was like a mock Cleveland promotional video which really
pointed out all the things that were wrong with Cleveland.
But one of the lines in there is our economy
(22:03):
is built on Lebron James, and it was true. I mean, Jack,
what reason did you have to go to Cleveland before? Now?
They had a pretty good team in the nineties that
Michael Jordan's ended with a couple of well placed and
well timed shots. So they were on the rise in
the nineties, but or the early nineties. But then the
football team leaves to go to Baltimore, right, and so
(22:25):
then they they're they're blessed with another team soon thereafter,
but they have to start from scratch all over again
with an expansion football team. The Indians went to the
World Series where a game away in ven I believe
it was from winning the World Series, but most of
the history of that franchise is won of utility. But
with Lebron. Cleveland was at the quickly became at the
(22:47):
center of the NBA. I was assigned, of course, to write.
I was on the beat then, and the big preseason
story was going to be Lebron, and I'm gonna tell
you about my interview session with him. But this is
what I wrote. One of the paragraphs I wrote in
the Lebron story. The Cleveland law firm that represents James
(23:07):
has pursued more than one thousand infringements on Lebron's name
and image. This was before he played a game, by
the way, already, he is an economic system as much
as he is an athlete, the primary link in a
long chain of dependency. His performance on the court and
his comportment off it bear consequence for take a deep breath,
(23:28):
a city of franchise, a coach, a general manager of
a league, several corporations, and extended family bound to get
even more extended. But I remember, you know, vividly, sitting
down for Lebron for this interview, and uh he comes
in his physical presence, you know, filling the room. But
he's a young he's still a young looking kid. It's interesting,
(23:50):
you know, as we get older, when you see shots
of these kids when they were young. My god, you
ever wonder God was I ever that young? Anyway, Lebron
is the first guy I ever sat down with who
I thought. This was eighteen years ago. I remember thinking
for the first time, I'm not only old enough to
be his father, I'm old enough to be his grandfather.
(24:12):
So I'm here with Sports Illustrated, the great photographer water
yos who in a line of immortal s I photographers
maybe at the top. And Waller takes about three hours
just to set up as lighting and Lebron comes in.
I can't remember who who. He came in with the
public relations people, there was probably a cadret of them,
and they announced, okay, you have fifteen minutes for the
(24:36):
interview and you have ten minutes for the picture. And
you know, Waller just about like falls dead over man.
This is not how we did sings at how old
Sports Illustrated. But Lebron, you know, it was was fine
during the interview, but you know, it was the first
time I realized he didn't really give a shit about
(24:57):
Sports Illustrated. Right, different generations and this is a different air.
I mean, he comes in with a ninety million dollar
contract with Nike. He's got the full package, right, He's
as complete a player that's entered the league in a
long time, if possibly ever. But he's also prepackaged, and
I think people had to learn the rules that, yeah,
this was not this is even different from Kobe who Kobe,
(25:18):
you could kind of his rookie year he's out there,
he could approach him before the game, sit down next
to him as he's out on the court warming up,
and and talk with him. Jack is fair to say
Lebron wasn't quite as approachable even as a rookie, even
as a high school kid coming in. No. Absolutely, and
he was a little just because of that physical presence.
He was intimidating. But you do have to be careful
(25:40):
about generalizations and stereotypes because Lebron wasn't one of these
kids who didn't understand history. I mean, he understood, you know,
he wasn't like his mind wasn't a blank slate about basketball.
He understood basketball history. And that's one of the things
we're later going to hear when he got around people
like Shasowski and Jerry Colangelo, they understood what this guy knew.
(26:01):
He just as part of his culture. You know, Sports
Illustrated just it wasn't it, and Kobe it might not
have been it either, But Kobe was always smart enough
and kind of canny enough that he had to play
with Slam, but he also had to play with Sports
Illustrated on ESPN in the l A. Times, and Kobe,
(26:22):
I think was the last line that had understood. He
needed to maintain a relationship with the local newspaper columnists
and he needed to always have at least one on
his side, and that was a Kobe thing. And I
think again that difference, it's it's really a generation in
the NBA, from the ninety draft to the two thousand
three draft. That's a full NBA generation, and Lebron's generation,
(26:44):
like like, Lebron didn't really have guys that felt like
in the Cleveland local media. I think he came in thinking, Okay,
I'm dealing with national onely, whereas Kobe still had people
that he talked to locally, and that was a big difference. Yeah,
I can't say I broke much news during that interview.
I don't know whether I was the first one to
mention his affinity for fruity pebbles, which is how he
(27:06):
began each morning and later had a fruity Pebble's line
of nikes. I'm not sure that you uh that you
purchased one of those. But but the story, there was
so much to write about. I remember carried a great
headline it said you got to carry that weight, which
is a you know a song, you know, a great
Beatles song. But it was just the stuff on Lebron's
(27:29):
shoulders when he went into the league. And look, we're
gonna talk more about this as we go on, but man, Lebron,
if there's anybody that could have taken a bunch of
fatal bad steps concluding some of the tough things about
his background, the pressures that were on him on and
(27:50):
off the court, the people that wanted in on Lebron world,
I would argue, the guy has done it better than
anyone who ever lived. And I always say that to
the Lebron critics, I don't know how you could have
been any better than this kid. Yeah, Jack, despite all
that attention, despite all that scrutiny, I think the worst
trouble he's been in with the law was moving violation
(28:13):
with this hummer. That was another story. He had his humpy,
his hummer in high school, but he got a moving
violation in it, and that was the extent of his
run ins with the law. Right, the biggest criticism of
him was he went on television to announce his free
agency decision and that set people off, and you know,
how could he do it? And it was betrayal and
(28:34):
all this. He went on television to announce his free
agency decision, and that was the biggest criticism. That was
his greatest mistake they ever made. And if that's his
biggest mistake, I think he's lived a pretty good and
a pretty clean life. You know, that phrase to taking
my talents, I can't remember now, but I had heard that.
Kobe said it. Kobe said it. That's who said. Kobe
(28:55):
said it. When he announced he was he was going
from high school to the NBA, he said, I've taken
my talents. I didn't know that until I I looked
that back up. So somewhere in Lebron's brain, I bet
you that phrase from Kobe was cemented somehow, you know,
taking my talents. But Lebron has a great rookie season. Interestingly,
(29:17):
he's a runaway winner for the Rookie of the Year
and tying us back into the two thousand and eight
Redeemed Team. Number two is Carmelo in the voting. Number
three is Dwayne Wade. Number four is Kirk Heinrich, who
was a guard with I think Chicago had a pretty good,
pretty good player, and Chris Bosh was fifth. So four
(29:38):
fifths of that draft class is in the top five
of the rookie voting. But what I had forgotten is
how good Carmelo was during that season, and it's sort
of touched off. Maybe what could be a trend of
Lebron overshadowing Carmelo. Carmelo took us evan team win team
(30:02):
to a forty three win team and the playoffs where
he got there, he did lose in the first round.
Do the other grade high school are going on? Then?
KG KG in the Minnesota Timberwolves Jack quick thing on
Lebron's rookie season. He averaged twenty points per game that year.
Not bad, right, only time in his career he averaged
less than twenty five points. And then he starts this
(30:24):
record setting run of averaging points per game more surpasses
everyone will kareem everyone, So uh, a really amazing breakthrough.
And to think that that was it's really by far
his worst season, and he still comes in the league
average points per game. And part of that was that
personality we talked to that Lebron probably paid more. How
(30:47):
was I going to put it more attention to the
idea that the rookie shouldn't complete? His quotes are filled with, oh,
this is uh Ricky Davison and Z's team. You know
it's not mine. Remember his coaches Paul Silas, right, an
old school, hardline guy who's not gonna let some rookie
come in and just get all the Well, Lebron got
(31:08):
all the attention, but he wasn't going to get all
the shots and have the ball all the time, not
under Paul's appo. Well, I've had a great interview with
Paul Silas, and I remember he was talking about Lebron's
many talents, and Silas said to me, well, I had
one talent. You gotta have one NBA talent. Mine. Whooping ass,
that was mine. That's what Paul Silos said. So one
(31:34):
of the things is Carmelo came in after one year.
But you know, with the ease with which Lebron players
like Lebron, Kobe and Garnett did this Carmelo. Anthony had
one year of college, and Carmelo reflects a little bit
on this kind of that, hey, this isn't the easiest
thing in the world to do when you come out
(31:54):
of high school. You gotta learn on the fly, like
you gotta get it right away, and that that is
the difference between the guys that are very successful coming
out of high school and the guys that it takes
a long time to figure it out. It's a it's
a small group of guys that come out of high
school and they have it. They have it right away,
you know, the Lebron, the Kgs, the Kobe's, like those
(32:15):
guys come out of high school, they had it right away.
They got it. And then you have a long list
of gods who come out of high school that don't
take a while for them to figure it out. They
didn't have to be the man when they came in,
and neither one of them started right away. You know,
Kobe comes under the team with Shack. You know, kg
had a lot of veterans. Lebron came in and he
had to be the man in the face of a
(32:36):
franchise and even the face of the league. To some
extent right away. And you know, as someone who knew
him going in and as someone who's good friends with them,
I just wonder what your perspective or your appreciation is
for somebody to come out of high school and take
on all of that responsibility right away. You have to
be committed. It's a different type of commitment that you
(32:57):
have to have a different type of dedication. You have
to have the right people around you. You know, it's
it's it's Lebron is a blueprint for that. You know,
he came out, he had the right team around him,
I mean as far not basketball, but just the people
to write people around him that the blueprint was already
laid out. All he had to do was stay on
(33:17):
that track and follow that blueprint, and it was dead
for him, whereas other other guys, it's not laid out
for guys like that, you know, And I think, you know,
it's a testament to Lebron and and his people because
they saw previous people coming out of high school and
what that did, you know, they I'm sure they saw
what what what what it did with Kobe and what
it did, you know, with KG and just other guys
(33:40):
that came out of high school. It takes a lot.
It takes a lot in a different type of person
to come out of high school, jump right into the
big leagues and be and have an impact the way
that Lebron has done. Uh, like you said, Kobe came
and he you know, came up the bench and he
had to Hey, that's a really forced his way, improved,
(34:03):
you know, proved to everybody and have this certain type
of chip on his shoulder that he was here to state.
So not only is their rookie pressure, but this is
an Olympic year and the Olympic team, the Olympic program
is in flux. As Sean Ford, a respected USA Basketball
executive who's now the national team director, as he tells
(34:24):
us over that time, injury and you know the situation
of the world, guys weren't able to play. Jason was hurt,
Ray was hurt, Jamine was hurt. You know, it just
um just it was wasn't working you know, out the
way we wanted it to. And uh, you know, we
went a little bit younger. So there's a lot of
things going on. There's injuries, there's worries about terrorism. So
(34:48):
they can't fill a team, they can't get exactly the
guys they want for various reasons. Kevin Garnett's not gonna play,
Tracy McGrady is not going to play. So who do
they call on? They call on the kids, and even
for kids as towns as talented as Lebron Carmelo and
Dwayne Wade. This is a tall order in a world
(35:08):
that has gotten increasingly better since the Dream Team devoured
everyone back in. This is Dwayne Wade. We really had
not a clue what was getting into. We was just
happy to be named to the living team and be playing.
And this is how Carmelo saw it. I think things
could have been different, but we didn't. We never had time.
I mean we came at the last minute, me and
(35:29):
Lebron and did we We We got the calls at the
last minute, and the way that we looked at it
was like ship. We we just were all here for
the roster Phillips. You know we're part of We're gonna
come into roster Phillips. They really calling us, That mean
they really want us to play. The world was different.
The world did not look at United States basketball teams
the same way they did in two and I suppose
(35:52):
in and reflecting on that as Craig Miller, who headed
up USA Basketball's public relations, still does, but he was
there since before the Dream Team. Here's how he put it.
The stigma of playing against NBA players have faded because
the international players are now ingrained in the NBA and playing,
and so you started to see the gap really closed.
(36:14):
So that gap really closed. It slam shut. The most
stupefying game happened, of course right away, the initial mind
boggling to seventy three loss to Puerto Rico. I'll never
forget Jay. Tommy Shepard, who's now the general manager of
the Washington Wizards, so he has to watch his tongue
a little more. But Tommy was just he was working
(36:36):
for USA Basketball over there. Always a funny guy. I'm
sure you know Tommy. Tommy goes by by after the
nineteen pointless he goes, well, we were in it till
the tip. You know. It was just this indescribable loss
that was led by this point guard. Hey, nice NBA player.
Carlos Arroyo was in the league for probably is in
(36:56):
the league for ten years, played for seven or eight teams,
and he destroyed the United States And it was kind
of a lesson. Isaiah Thomas told me a long time ago, Ja,
it sounds elementary, but there are certain things I remember,
and he goes. Isaiah said, if you have a point
guard who gets where he wants to go, he can
(37:17):
give a team trouble. You know, there were guys like that,
like Bobby Hurley, Steve Nash. You didn't know how they
got there, but they got themselves in the position where
they could either shoot it or feed to somebody. And
this is what a royo did. Yeah, and it's funny
because the point guard on the United States team was
Alan Iverson, who wasn't that classic point guard player, right,
(37:37):
So Alan Iverson could be an unstoppable force, but that
doesn't necessarily work in international basketball, and that that team
really struggled more than most to adapting to international rules,
which include the ability you can knock the ball off
the rim right after it hits the rim. It's got
the wider it had the wider trapezoid lanes, so you
couldn't post up as close to the basket and him
(38:00):
Duncan really seemed to struggle under those rules and just
never acquired a taste for it. Also, the thing I
remember with that team is that they didn't get the
calls that they're used to getting from NBA referees. You've
got international refs and they called the game differently and
you didn't get those superstar calls. So it so it
felt like that team was constantly in foul trouble throughout
(38:21):
the Olympics and was grapping about the officiating. Yeah, and
there was a there was a lot of things going
on it. The essence of it goes back to them
being a team that was formed kind of in haste,
and we're going to talk about how the program changes
specifically because of this Olympics. But Genobly one of the
(38:41):
great argenteam player who they won the gold medal. I
remember man who talking during the Olympics and he said,
the rest of them, I wish I could do a
Genoble accent. I'm not going to try. The rest of
the world is getting better, the US is getting bored.
But I'm not sure that's what it was. I just
think it was a mismatched team. And I wrote a
story for SI after the first game, the loss to
(39:03):
Puerto Rico, and one of the funny things I'll never
forget this Lebron. I don't know why he said it,
but here's my paragraph. The one bright spot was Lebron
James's scholastic acuity quote. Some Americans might say, this is
embarrassing losing to Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States.
Lebron I would have said, I want to guess territory, man,
(39:25):
but I looked it up. You know it's still a
commonwealth anyway. What I detected through this Olympics. Throughout it,
and I remember I did an interview with Brian Williams,
who was then becoming the NBC New NBC Star, and
he was kind of positioning himself as not the basketball
player Brian Williams, the news anchor Brian Williams. No, not
(39:45):
that guy yet, the the kind of the NASCAR loving
liberal that was kind of And I did this interview
with him, and the level of hatred that was leveled
against this team, not just because they were losing, but
I really detected a really kind of racist attitude toward it.
(40:08):
A lot of it directed towards Iverson, who did not
deserve it, not for the way he played and comported
himself during this Olympics. Yes, so, as genobally suggested, maybe
Americans and even the players are becoming a little bit disinterested,
and I would say the fan base was becoming even
more than disinterested, disconnected. And it started in ninety six
(40:29):
and certainly through two thousand. Also notable development in two thousand,
that's the first time the United States Olympic basketball team
is all African Americans on the roster, and it had
been declining. In ninety six, you had John Stockton was
was the only white player on the American team um
by two thousand and with this two thousand four roster
(40:49):
it's all black. So you have to wonder if that
accelerates to disconnect among white Americans. But there was this
feeling almost like almost like people were against them, like
they wanted to see the American team lose, almost as
if well, they don't represent me and quote unquote us,
and I almost want to see them lose. That You
(41:13):
had that sense like people wanted to see them get
their come uppance. And yes, part of that was Iverson,
who was a very controversial figure, a very threatening figure
to some people. It's just because younger people of all
races adored Iverson and he represented that rebellious figure that
(41:33):
I think any teenager looks up to and wants to
emulate in some regard. But for old Americans, and that
included even older black basketball players, he represented such a
threat to the status quo, uh that I think they
wanted to see him fail because for him to succeed
would be to turn around and upend everything that they had,
(41:55):
that they become accustomed to, and that basically that they
had built up right, And and I we go to
comments throughout these Olympics, he must have said this seven
or eight times. When you talk to some guys, they
were piste off. They behind their back and in public
they trashed Larry Brown, who, by the way, let's face
(42:15):
it was entirely the wrong coach to be coaching this team.
That was problem number two, right behind the disorganized nature
of the organization of the team. Larry being the wrong
coach was number two. Alan would say, here's the quote.
Just understand once again, I'm not gonna attempt to do iverson.
Just understand it first and foremost. It's an honor to
(42:36):
be selected to this team. I feel like a special
basketball player to be selected to a team like this.
And I stand behind no man in my respect for
Tim Duncan as a player, I think he as an
offensive and defensive player combined, he could be a top
ten player of all time. But man, he was terrible
during this Olympics, and he could not figure out how
(42:58):
to seize the reigns of the team. You know, he
could always figure that out, and him and Pop were
both on this team. And whether or not they couldn't
get by Larry, or whether they were too disgruntled from
the beginning, or whether they read the handwriting on the wall,
we're just not as good as Argentina at this point,
(43:21):
all those things. You know, Tim just did not do
what he should have. And before we comment some more
on that, here's Sean Ford again to respect the basketball official,
just reflecting a little bit on Iverson. He took the
hit you know, with the media a lot when we
did lose. Allen's got a toughness about him, and because
there's so much goal that goes on around his life,
(43:41):
he has a way of when he gets when it
comes to basketball, he was able to focus and and
leave some things, you know, elsewhere. And I think because
he does that on a regular basis, um the players learned,
you know, he brought the other players that way, and
the people that were doubting them and people were criticizing them,
you know, and again there wasn't social media back then,
(44:02):
there wasn't as much. But he kept the team focused on,
you know, what was next, and so Jack I'll say
that in some ways though, the two thousand four Olympics
where Iverson's finest moment because from everything that I've heard,
I wasn't there, but everything I've heard, he really rallied
them after their shot at the gold medal was gone
(44:25):
and they had this, you know, essentially the consolation game,
right like the old in double A final four consolation
game UH to win the bronze medal. And none of
them came there to win the bronze medal. That's not
what they're interested in. But Iverson said, hey, we're here,
let's do it. Let's not go home empty handed. Let's
go out and win this game and win this bronze medal.
And he inspired them and had an inspired performance and
(44:48):
they won. And to some observers, they've told me that
that was Irison's finest moment, that he he salvaged what
there was to be salvaged out of the Olympic Games. Absolutely,
I mean I covered those Olympics, and I remember talking
to Doug Collins before the bronze medal game and we
both just kind of said, I, you know, there's just
(45:09):
no way they went. First of all was Away. He
was very good. They were the early kind of Golden
State Warriors. I mean, they just bombed up three point
shots and for Iverson was really good in that game.
Shawn Marion was good in that game. And I'll tell
you when somebody else who was really good, I almost
hesitate to say his name because we could do a
(45:30):
forty minute podcast on him, and that was Lamar Odom
that when Lamar had your back, when he was like
the fourth guy or something that you needed him not
to score, but maybe you get nine, ten, eleven, get
your rebounds. Locked somebody down. Sometimes even the you know,
the shooting guard, he could go out and defend on
(45:51):
pick and rolls, he could go back and get rebounds.
Lamar was really great in that game. And I agree
that if they wanted to get one positive note out
of those Olympics, it would have been that third place
game against Lithuania. However, uh, they didn't jay and the
the result of that was big changes to the Olympic system. Yes,
(46:15):
sometimes Jack could takes something this drastic to to wake
you up and to shake you up. And that's what happened.
And as we'll get into in the next episode, big
changes were coming and the biggest, probably the biggest first
change was when they went to the ultimate man behind
the Man, the great Jerry Colangelo, who for some reason
(46:39):
had not been called upon to offer his his executive
no at all to previous Olympic teams, and David Stern,
who sometimes got involved in the Olympic movement and sometimes
did not, But in this case, David was going to
call the man behind the Man, and he placed a
call to Jerry Colangelo and ask him if he wanted
(47:02):
to take over. And this is a hint of what
we're gonna get in the next episode, which is episode four.
He says, Jerry, look, I know you were just as
unhappy as me and everyone else regarding the showing in
Greece and all the things about it, and there needs
to be some change. Would you be willing to take
on the responsibility for USA basketball? And I'm instinctive and
(47:26):
I basically said, yeah, I'll do it, but I have
a couple of conditions. So that's it. For this episode,
I'm Jack McCallum, Thanks for listening. I'm Jay dot Day
because that next time on Kobe Lebron and the Redeem Team.
The Dream Team Tapes Season two. Kobe Lebron and the
Redeemed Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association
(47:51):
with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. This season is written and hosted
by me, Jack McCallum and j A. Dande. Executive producer
Scott Waxman and Mark Frances for Diversion podcast and Sean's
(48:12):
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 Frances. Verna Fields is
our technical producer, and our director of Marketing and business
Development is Jacob Bronstein. Diversion Podcasts
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