August 14, 2025 • 42 mins
Seth and Tray discuss the big men that shaped the NBA during the 90's, from Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing to David Robinson and Shaquille O'Neal. They rank the Top-5 Centers of the time, and describe why Vlade Divac was "born in the wrong era." Seth talks about his family connection to Alonzo Mourning and how he memorized 90's players free throw routines, plus Tray remembers the incredible swag of the Dikembe Mutombo finger wag and why it changed the rules in the league.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Going through all these topics and reminiscent on some of
these players, like and looking at their numbers and how
they played. Like if the systems were what they were
today and they were incentivised to do certain things, dribble, shoot,
whatever it is, they could have done it, Like, they
could have added anything they wanted to their game, no problem.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Imagine you come back in a time traveling machine as
a trainer, right, you just show up and you say, hey,
I know you averaging twenty four and twelve, but I'm
gonna show you one move that nobody could stop. Trusts me,
You're gonna make a lot of money. You're gonna be
a first one hundred million dollar player. And you just
break out like something. You're like, man, it's travel.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
They could have figured it out.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
They gonna work on it, and they're gonna be unstoppable,
and they're gonna average forty, gonna average like because it's
just be too crazy. It'd be cheating. So you know,
I never get caught up in the thing. Like I
really like watching Yo kich. I really like watching them be.
I think all those dudes are talented, but like adding
the three all to the back to the basket stuff.
(01:03):
I don't. I don't know how you stopped that. Man.
We're back. We're back. Welcome to another episode of Greatest
of their era. It's good dot.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Manno another episode, Let's jump right into it. The greatest
Cinders of the nineties, greatest nineteen nineties centers is.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's some good names you're talking about today?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Oh yeah, man, Battle the low block man. And honestly,
obviously we're in a different era. Sinners actually ran the show,
you know, I mean, not too much say so from
the guards. Obviously the guards were shooting guards kind of
do they had in the ring. But it was very
center driven, you know what I mean. Even the draft
draft was held up by centners. You know what I mean,
(01:48):
if you were seven feet you're most likely going to
come off the board before guard. And you know that
was that was the big thing. Being able to defend
and having a low post presence, you know what I mean.
Like most of the centers had offensive game and defensive game,
and our was the franchise cornerstones.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, I mean the nineties, like outside of MJ your team,
most teams were like synonymous with a with a big
time big man like you had to, Like you talk
about the Knicks, you you know they had they had
a big name center and paston Ewing or other teams,
and even that's probably why MJ didn't even go number
one in his draft, because most teams felt like they
had to have a center to compete and to win
(02:28):
in the league. So that's just a different era, a
different time in our league, a different style of basketball
was played back then. And we're gonna dive into who
was the best ones, like who was the greatest ones
of the EIR.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, you I like that you mentioned in MJ going
you know, like third and not going number one, and
most people revision is history. Obviously we know how it
ended long term. But when you think about how good
Sam Bowie was at the particular time and how tall
he was and effective and skilled, he would have wowed
a lot of people coming out. We would have probably
been on him coming out of this air and saying, well,
(03:02):
look he's sixteen and can do this, and he can
move this way. And you're looking at Michael Jordan like
there's so many six to six guys in this league.
A diamond does and what does he do? Great? And
obviously he had to go out and prove night and
night out. And he had, you know, maybe six or
seven years before he actually tasted the champagne.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So not only that, it was style of play, though
yes it was slowed down. It was multiple people in
the paint at all times. You could really have sets
drawn up every time down the floor, especially in the
half court, and you just dump it down and you
knew if you had a center who could create, who
could score one on one on the block and even
get fould you had the double team, and that created
(03:39):
shots for everybody else on the perimeter. Like it was
the opposite of today's game, where you had playmakers running
pick and roll and they are the ones who who
you running through and they create shots for everybody. They
create shots for the bigs and for all the wings.
And like I said, back then, it was the bigs
who needed if you had somebody that could draw a
double team. Like all the names we're gonna talk about today,
(03:59):
that really that really what your office revolves around.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
So let's jump into it.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, man, a lot of personality, a lot of branding
going on. All these centers had individual games and special moves.
Those things were kind of individuality. No one really played alike.
No one wanted to play together over my dead body
was kind of the strategy, you know what I'm saying,
And as you mentioned, we're gonna jump right into it.
In the first one man Aqima Loadjawanta he was. He
(04:27):
was Aquen to Hakem, you know what I mean a
lot of people don't understand that he was Aqum first
and then he went Hakeen and just one of the
most skilled bigs man like footwork. Some people used to
think he traveled a lot, you know what I mean.
He was an absolute nightmare for Shaquille O'Neill when he
matched up with him. The most dominant had trouble with
(04:47):
this guy as a young guy too. At the peak,
you think about Shaq just being unstoppable, but Aqm used
to give him a real headaches on those matchups. A
two time NBA Champ Hall of Famer, had a great
career spanning from the eighties all the way into the
nine and then kicked off the decade with a twenty
four point per game, fourteen rebound and four point six
blocks per night. Also one thing I wanted to highlight
(05:09):
he played you know during Ramadan fastest. Yeah, you know
what I'm saying, Like you know, modern day we think
about Kyrie and how you know, guys on the bench
would let him know when the sun sets so he
can eat. This dude was just doing it just off
of just pure faith man and going crazy right when
you know, And he could have easily used that in
his excuse, but he showed up every time cooking.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, you said it lead footwork.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's what I think about when I think about Haken
and his game had a lot of flair, but like
his I don't think his personally. He didn't talk a
lot on the floor when talking junk. His personality wasn't
like a lot of flair. He had teammates to do
that for him and Sam Cousel and all the guys
over there in Houston who had that personality and would
talk for him.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
But like he was a killer man.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
He would dominate on the block on the post, two
time MVP, two time Defensive Player of the Year, both
of those awards in the same year, which is I mean,
we ain't doing that.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
That's special.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That's in the Janni's realm and m Jay guys like that,
like you're you're dominant on both ends of the floor,
and that's what the King brought to the game. Like
and obviously back to back championships is it's a big
time that puts you in rare air.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Also, but before your time, he was one of the swaggies.
Man had the Jerry currow with the goggles like he
was doing it, you know what I'm saying. And then
you know he ditched the goggles and you know, got
the haircuting and still killing. Man. The next player which
we mentioned who actually has some trouble with him with
Shaquille O'Neill Neil, you know what I mean, Shaq four titles,
(06:39):
but you know during that that Orlando Magic era, man,
he running the court, what I'm saying. His rookie his
Rookie of the Year campaign, twenty four points per game,
fourteen rebounds, three and a half blocks, Like think about that,
Like we just named off Hakeen, but he did that
his rookie year. So yeah, I'm pretty sure Gods was
just kind of like, yo, this is a from kid
(07:00):
that's entering this league, you know what i mean, you know,
and and watching him at LSU, I'm pretty sure some
of those those vets were like he's not that good
until you had to face him, man, And you know,
over the years he was just gaining weight and becoming
a little bit harder to guard. And you know they
had to implement the hacking and all that other stuff.
(07:20):
And you know, for his weakness to be a free throw,
he really had no other weaknesses in his game.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, think about this.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
He so after his fourth ye in the league, he
was he was named for the top fifty all time,
like greatest players in the league. Like he came in
right away, was dominant, He had to ask like she
still had to athleticism. He was big as hell, nobody
could stop him, and like people were crowning him as
one of the best to ever do it after his
fourth year in the league. Usually you got to come in,
(07:47):
you got to go through some adversity, You got to
prove it for eighteen years to get that respect from
the media and your peers. But everybody knew right away
who Shaq was, So that tells you a lot about
what he was. Like he had got the off the
court flair with it too, Like here's a personality and
that was part of like that, some people said I
hurt his game. He wasn't as focused as he needed
(08:08):
to be a lot of people said back then and
taking his game off the court and working on stuff
and getting back coming back in shape. But think about
Shack if you really if he had that lock in
mentality that like a Kobe did or I don't know, however.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So I'm gonna be Devil's advocate and push back. A
lot of you guys now currently have endorsements, you guys
going on sneaker tours, you guys are acting, you guys
have your own businesses. This guy was doing this at
a time where it was just the highly critiqued pave
the way, paved the way, Like it was kind of like, yo,
(08:45):
what are you doing? You know what I mean? You're
not focused. It's kind of like a shut up and
dribble kind of situation for him. How does Kobe handle
y'all in that back then and saying, you know, like, oh,
you're not focused when you are like a lot of
other stuff going on.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You bring up a good point because he, like Kobe did,
he did endorsements, did all the stuff off the floor too.
But part of his his his brand and his and
the media in the way night he was pushing him,
was I work harder than you. Right, So he doing
the commercial saying he works hard. H Shaq was doing
the same type of stuff party having for doing this thing,
(09:20):
endorsements and trying to get as much money as he
can off the floor.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
But it's in a different if.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
It's in a different sense, and he's bigger, sometimes it's
easier for him to game weight, which is it's tough.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
That's what I was gonna say. I think optics hurt him. Yeah, yeah,
you know what I mean from a perspective of like, oh,
he's immature. He doesn't take care of his body like
he had one. He played on a bad wheell for like,
and they still was winning. They still won chips on
a bad wheel. He still got it done despite having
(09:50):
a bad will. But the idea was Kobe was like, Yo,
if you locked all the way in, we went five,
we went six, and it's show fault, you know what
I mean, because you not locked in. But I just
think it wasn't gonna how his body was, how he played,
wasn't going to work in his factor to be just
dominant from twelve to sixteen years. It just wasn't set
(10:11):
up like that. And if you look at all the tapes,
and how he was fouled and how he was defended.
You're just not gonna hand you ain't not gonna be nobody.
Kobe was never defended like that. MJ. You can't say
about the bad boys, but they weren't defending them like
Shaq bro like he was taking them up with them
just doing teams.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I brought this up in the past, but teams were
literally hiring dudes and signing dudes off the street. Just
you fouled all their files. You got six files because
we're gonna play Shaq.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
That's literally it.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
You're gonna place fifteen minutes, bang with him, foul him,
send them to the line, and come sit down like
you're not. It's that's a special type of talent right there.
On top of that, a lot of the guys were
talking about he said, like you sed to Chemologama. For example,
they swept Shaq in the Magic and the Finals in
ninety five I think it was. And that's that young Shacks.
(11:03):
That's like baby Shack just coming into his own here thing. Yeah,
so say Shaq, him and King met up in two thousand,
two thousand and one, Prime Prime Shaq and Prime I
Kim who gets the best of that matchup.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
What do you think I'm gonna.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Say, Shack, probably just because he just understands the game.
He's not gonna he's gonna be disciplined. He gonna know
a little bit more. It's like us going to the
park Man and thinking we're gonna beat like the older group,
but they're sharing the ball. We're working way harder. We're
playing the outside of what we know. Our best are strengths,
Like you're gonna lose games like that. And I just
think that him and Penny tried to beat them off
(11:37):
pure talent, like you know what I mean, like, Yo,
we weigh, we got this, We're gonna we're gonna get them.
And like they had real hitters at Sam Sell coming
off the bench, Robert Ory, you know what I mean,
like young, they were young. Those dudes are like rookies. Dude,
that's like Kenny Smith, Marrie Ellie, the list goes on.
You know what I mean That we're able to contribute.
And they had an actual championship team put together. Everybody
(12:00):
knew their role. Mad Max all right, I'm a defend bat.
I'm gonna be physical. Are I'm gonna getting these guys
here I'm gonna use all my files. I'm gonna make
these threes. I'm gonna do all these things that's supposed
to do, you know what I mean, Like those are
things that you can't really like go and find, like
God's gotta be willing to like alright, buy in and
when when that happened, you end up as a champion.
And I think, you know, no, no knock at the
(12:21):
supporting cast that the Magic had. But I just think
they were very young and kind of like took their
opponent lightly and just got punched in.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I think one more thing. I think young Shack was
underrated defensively too. Like he he can move his feet,
you come up with block shots.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Oh he was.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Falling on you.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
He literally leaped blocked and you gotta like kind of
like move because he he was diving for the rock.
Like just a different mentality, different emotor, you know what
I'm saying. I don't think we'll ever get a more
marketable big like him again. Obviously we got Winby, but
Wimby's kind of more of a like skilled wing player
a little bit. He has a little bit more intangibles
than freedom to do that. But like Shaq made big man,
(12:59):
like really cool. Actually, I don't want to say. I
don't want to say Kareem couldn't do it, but he
probably did. But Shaq had like candy bars, video games, movies, haircuts,
you know, sneakers, whatever you possibly could think at the time,
collaborations with like PEPSI, you know what I mean. Like
(13:21):
the list goes on as like endorsement wise of like
what he was doing and like being able to just
like touch a culture in a way that only Michael
Jordan could do.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
And on top of that, he was one of the
first to actively like leave a smaller market to go
to a bigger market. Yes, like he could have stayed
in Orlando for as long as he wanted to. He's like,
I want to go to La for all. I mean,
I'm to be a bigger brand on the floor, Like
more people gonna be tuned into what I'm doing on
a daily basis than I can do my stuff off
the floor. At the same time, he was ahead of
(13:53):
the he was definitely ahead of the curve as far
as a lot of a lot of people are doing
now as far as taking what they do on the
floor trying to go to a bigger market you gotta
give him credit for a lot of the stuff that
goes on today.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, absolutely, all right. David Robinson, two time NBA Champ.
We got him in scoring champ. We talk about that
seventy one point game against the Clippers where you know
what I mean, he's kind of duking it out. But yeah, man, dude,
you know, just just really you know, obviously the Admiral,
he was just one of those dudes, you know what
I mean, coming out of the Navy and ten time
(14:25):
All Star. He had some some ailments and stuff like that,
but you know it was was willing to able to,
you know, get his championship at the end of the
decade and then ended up getting another one, you know
what I'm saying, and shouts to a tremendous career he's had.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, he was a constant and as far as in
the MVP talks all NBA talks, he one of those
that just fell victim to being in the league at
the same time as MJ and hat Keem and Shaq,
Like he was always the same way we talked about
Chris Webber right where you're like, very good, but you
(14:59):
would be number one if Shaq and Akeeman didn't exist
exactly always always just second tier, but he could compete
with them and his team like he he also like
he was in that Spurs system at the end of
his like run, playing for popping and just all focused
on winning. Really sacrificed some stats and some accolades to
(15:20):
win championships. And obviously he ended up linking up with
Tim Duncan at one point.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
So, uh, I think he's a.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Criminally, criminally underrated skilled guy and big when it's all
set and done for this era, for sure, Like a
lot of the kids don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Shopper sweet too, he would have shot a lot of
threes in this era, he would have shot. I don't
think he would have been posting up as much, you
know what I'm saying, because he could put the ball
on the ground, he can drive, he gonna dunk on you,
he gonna chase you down.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
And block like he could really run.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah. So, I mean you mentioned there's two players that
I see a shadow of is akem Olajuwan and it's
you know, David Robinson.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, I think he Yeah, he might be the best him,
and I mean outside of Keem he might be the
best offense defense, Like combo together like the best two
way center in the era. Obviously a Keem won MVP
and depot in the same year. It's just ridiculous. But
David Robinson right there with him as far as I'll
(16:23):
do it on both ends equally as good.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, absolutely another finesse big right again, all these bigs.
That's why we're like, yo, I know, we like to
like make fun of the nineties and high looks perception
wise because a lot of that stuff. The only reason
why it looks so like as it is things just
didn't exist.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
We had a luxury.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
We had a luxury of seeing things happen, so it
all looks normalized.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Going through all these topics and reminiscent on some of
these players, like and looking at their numbers and how
they played. Like if the systems were what they were
today and they were incentivized to do certain things, dribble, shoot,
whatever it is, they could have done it. They could
have added anything they wanted to. They game no problem.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Imagine you come back in a time traveling machine as
a trainer, right, you just show up and you say, hey,
I know you averaging twenty four and twelve, but I'm
gonna show you one move that nobody could stop. Trusts me,
you're gonna make a lot of money. You're gonna be
a firste hundred million dollar player, and you just break
out like something. You're like, man, there's travel.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
They could have figured it out.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
They gonna work on it, and they're gonna be unstoppable,
and they're gonna average forty, gonna average like because it's
just be too crazy. It'd be cheating. So you know,
I never get caught up in the thing. Like I
really like watching Yokich, I really like watching them be.
I think all those dudes are talented, but like a
hat adding the three all to the back to the
(17:48):
basket stuff, I don't know how you stop that. Man.
And Patrick, you want, is just one of those dudes
that just had a sweet twenty foot jumper, you know
what I mean, like fade, he had the side faith
that he did with the kick, you know, I mean,
had a soft touch run the floor and he defend
man and like again, he's another guy that if Shack
(18:10):
and a chem olajuwan not there, he's one or two
easily easily.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Pat, I love his game. Solid as
they come, Like you said it all that needs to
be said. But I ain't love his swag. I'm not
a big risk band knee pad type guy. But I
couldn't look about this individuality though that.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I think that's the thing right where you got pipping
elbow pad, you got MJ. Lesleeve, you got certain guys
that were just trying to what else, what's the name
to do that? All right, I'm gonna go opposite. It
might not even look great, but it's gonna look great,
all right. Oh he wear that number, all right. I'm
gonna wear forty one, all right, I'm gonna wear thirty
all right, I'm gonna wear six. Like just certain ways
to just find some type of individuality, because maybe that
(18:52):
first guy probably kickstarted off like Chris Webber talking about
Derrick Coleman, guys talking about Shack, guys talking about you know,
Dwight Howard talking about how Shaq was. I wanted to
be like that. Like it's just certain people that just
kind of influenced that thing. And I think the funny
part about Patrick Ewing is they used to have to
call a TV time out to wipe the sweat up.
(19:12):
That's why you were those those bands, right, It wasn't
the best. It wasn't by like design of like, yo,
we're gonna do this.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
He just sweat.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
He just sweat a lot. So they had to extend
the wristbands enough to like sop up the sweat and
then kind of go about it that way.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
That dude just constantly it was functional. It was functional.
You needed it. And then people, I mean obviously the
kids and you see all over the gym people doing
it for.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Dude, they already have uh you know like obviously you
look at the stone cold knee brace, right, they had
volleyball knee braces where it just was the path. Yeah,
I wore I remember just like kind of copping and like,
oh you know this is the brace. It's just a pad.
Like you fall on it straight, kneed to floor like
(20:00):
it ain't hurt. It hurts. It really hurt. Like. It
wasn't like nothing like oh okay, now you got the McDavid,
y'all got the protection. Sh No, it wasn't nothing like that.
It was simple swag. Can you make this in orange?
Can you make this in blue? Can you stitch my
number on this so I can have Yeah, I gotta
have it. This is my lucky thing because I had
a good game in it.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Another thing, a lot of these bigs, like they were
so iconic even in that time. They had signature shoes. Today,
you know, bigs don't sell shoes. No, yo, kids, every
player we had on the signature shoes.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Listen the players that we've covered, Hakeem Olajuwan, Spaulty Shack,
Rebok Patrick, Ewing you in athletics, Alonzo Morning, Nike. We
can keep going down the line of like just signature stuff, man,
And I want to jump right into Zoe, Like I said,
you you know Zoe, you know what I mean. He
was a teammate of your dad's. Man, How was it
(20:53):
being around Zoe? You know what I mean? Like obviously
they got that infamous clipper you and Steff with.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
One of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah, but he was there. Yeah, he showed us love,
Yeah he was. He helped raise us growing up. I
mean they got stories as my dad. I mean obviously
Zoe came in. He was a rook, the young fella,
my dad asking him the babies for us, uh and
watch us at different times. And Zoe always showed us
love even to this day. So I mean, one of
the best ever. And we always looked up to him.
I mean, you talk about the sweatbands on both hands.
(21:21):
I remember me and Steph being out in the backyard
practicing Zoe's iconic free throw routine. He used to do
the pat pat pat with both hands before he shot.
Spin it all that before he shot the free throw.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Like it was.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Think about free throw routines and how important it was
in the nineties, Like you didn't even have to be
a great player, you had a cool free throw tine.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
You probably don't.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Get a commercion. He's probably gonna be just that influential.
Like Harol Meyer. He ain't had the best NBA career,
but he had the longest right He's gonna wrap around
between the legs, use his whole ten seconds man before
he shot the free throw. Man. And you know, Zoe
obviously had some you know, he he's true adversity warrior.
Man has some health issues with his kidney. Yeah, bounce
(22:04):
back ended up getting the title, you know. I mean
everybody was very happy for him when he you know,
won with Miami. But like just overall, like the way
that he showed up on the court. Man, Like, you know,
he was one of my favorite NBA jam guys man.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, a real rim protective shot blocker, and I could probably.
I mean, it's funny, I can live. I can run
you off. Probably everybody's free throw routine right now. If
you ask me to shocks David Roberson's pat ewings and
definitely Zo's, like I can give them to you right
now if you ask me for this. It's crazy to
think about the spin. You gotta padd it three times
(22:42):
on the top one of the bottom spin it. You
got a little bounce to it to it right into
your shot. So, I mean, there's a lot of those
in the backyard practicing and hoping to be there one day.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
The Kim Babe Bumbo you know what I mean, recipes
that the Kim Babu tumble Again. We talk about how
important these bigs were. He had the signature finger wag
like he made block and cool, you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
just the no no note, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
It was so iconic, and he would do it so
much they ended up like banning it, like they I
remember the year he could. They told him he couldn't
do it no more. He started to giving him text
for it. He would, and he started how to do
it to like the crowd. He had to do it
away from the player because if he did it on
towards the court, towards the player, it would be a tech,
which is crazy in and of itself. But he would
(23:31):
block the shot, start to break and wouldn't even run
down the floor. He doing the celebration, the finger wag,
which which is hard.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It's also like a rights of passage, right. Everybody wanted
to dunk ONU Tombo like yeah, you know what I mean,
Like he made it so point, like yo, he a
bad boy, Mountain Tombo. You're not getting in there, you
know what I'm saying. Of respect, And then when he
got duncked on him, he saw the highlights. But it
wasn't like you weren't ashamed of it.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
He was just part of it because he's gonna block
for every time you get dunked, and he's gonna block
you two or three times.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah, And I think that was the cool part about it,
because you know, you block somebody. You know, most people
shooting to a basket, they say Kobe. Most people stick
their tongue out when they shoot with Jordan's when you
block something, I don't care if it's a paper ball.
Maybe it's something like laundry. You're gonna wag that finger
and it's mu Tumbo. It's like, you know what I'm saying, So.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
What about George, Like we gotta talk about Georgetown when
we talk about Tumbo and all these oh.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Man, John Thompson had it going bro like thing about
the centers all that man, just and it was like
really a right of passage, Like hey, I'm gonna I
know what to do with anybody sixteen and above, like
Zoe six, pat Ewing seven feet, you know what I mean?
Like you think about all these guys coming from the
same place, like you're just like what how? And you
(24:53):
know that tradition continue. Roy Hibbert ended up going there,
and a couple other bigs, you know what I'm saying.
That just Greg Moreau, Greg Monroe, you know what I mean.
So you know you knew you were in good hands
if you were going to Georgetown. That's a big I'm
sure his pitch was you see what I did for
such and such? You see what I did there he
got there, Yeah, coached him, I taught him all that stuff,
you know what I mean? And I think you know
(25:13):
they spoke really high of coach Thompson during that during
that tenure of playing for him. Yeah, all right, this
next player, man, you know, uh Serbian, I remember when
he came to the league, man, and uh it was right. Uh,
you know, he got to the finals, They got to
the finals when they got bro you know what I'm
saying against the Bulls. And then obviously you know he
(25:35):
finally broke out after Magic retired, you know what I mean,
was forced to retire because he had a little bit
more freedom. But he showed off a lot, man. And
also I had tipped to him man for going with
accepting the trade. Man to go to Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
About to say, he's infamous around these parts and Charlotte
and North Carolina because he he is in the Kobe trade.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Like like who he takes me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
One time All Star Man.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
He was that good.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
He was that good. Also the first European player to
play over a thousand games, you know what I mean,
and kind of just established and played paved the way
for guys like Dirk and Jokic, you know what I mean.
Like he was really skilled. Think about how Bloy gets
down in this era, you know what I mean. He
could push the ball. He had great vision, he could
shoot the ball. He had a nice little skyhook that
he had learned from the coaching staff and magic. So
(26:23):
you know, yeah, man, I think he would have cracked
in this this this era too.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Man. You know, yeah, he could do it all he had.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, he like you said, I mean player, he could
highly skill, coming from from Europe, play with a lot
of energy and a lot of flair too. Like he
wasn't scared to do the behind the back passes, behind
the head, all that type of stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And I see a lot of Alfred sing Goon in him.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I'm not mad at that. I think it was a
little bit bigger.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Maybe Yeah, he was definitely a footer, But I'm not
mad at the Alphlin Segon comparison. But I was about
to say, I always got love for Bloody because he
was when he was a gen with sack. He was
the first one that gave me a guaranteed deal and
got my career started.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Oh wow, Yeah, bad thing about it was it was
it was good as a kid.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
You remember gonna say, was you around him with the hornets?
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah, he was definitely around. We were around.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I mean I don't I mean I remember Spidey's also young,
but he definitely remember me in Steph growing up.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
And we can remembin this on the on the.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
On the back old days back here in Charlotte when
they had the high high jumping and they asked some
good teams in Charlotte before they left.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
But it was good to be around him.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I like I said, you ain't gonna hear me say
a bad word about him, because helped me get started
in this league and it was off and running from
there in Sacramento.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Man, that's crazy full circle man, when you really think
about it that way, you never know where a player
or you know, somebody ends up coaching or in the
front office. Man, And just a full circle moment. So
definitely appreciate those. All right, So this next player man
or bonus man basketball game, you know what I mean,
Like he didn't come to the league to thirty one.
(28:01):
But how I hear about the stories, right, It's how
like they be talking about wil You know what I'm saying,
because you'd be like, where's the footage or really or
over his overseas career, Yeah, his overseas career and you
like Dad was great, but I wanted to see him
get out during this era, and they like, but if
he but if he would have came, you know what
I mean. Like and it's like, obviously was dealing with
(28:23):
some injuries by the time he got to Portland. But
they say, man, he probably one of the best playmaking
in passing big man of all time.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, you know, we talked to the old heads. They
they swear bar via this bonus. If he would have
came over here when he was twenty four to twenty five,
like they said, he would have been one of the
best to ever do it. He would be on the
top of this list for sure, that's what they're saying.
But he and that Vlady diva realm of being a
high IQ passing, playmaking first type of big that you
can run the offense through outside of the post, like
(28:51):
on the elbow or top of the key or whatever.
You see a lot of his game and his son,
you could tell he from that tree he wanted to
be a passer.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
You want to be a playmaker.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
He want to be a basketball player.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
That's what you want to be. Yeah, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
And I think again it's a difference. I could use
that for most of the people that are playing right now,
but I still think that they're taking plays off in
certain other aspects, you know what I'm saying. Like I
can say yourself, you're a basketball player. You defend, you shoot,
you do this, you do that. In third you're doing
whatever it takes for your team to win. I think
some guys are abusing it in this era because it's
(29:27):
kind of like you want me to do offense or
you want me to do defense, you know what. You
know what I mean, Like I use this type thing,
and I don't think they had the luxury in that way.
But when you say, oh, you're a basketball player, you
look at Yolkic, you look at Lebron.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So you're saying so you're saying young Sabons don't guard.
That's what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Not he tried, he tried, decent, He's decent. He decent,
you know what I mean. And that's not a knock
on him, because again, guys are more skilled. The offensive game,
you know, works in that favor. It's hard to be
a defender in this era league. You can't touch them.
So I don't want to just be like you know,
but it's also maybe a frustrating situation of like I
(30:04):
don't want to pick up my third or fourth to
get me off the floor because my off my team
needs me on offense. So I'm gonna do my best,
or are we gonna scheme it enough for me to
you know, get help. I'll never just say, oh, nobody,
he can't guard a shadow. I don't do all that,
you know what I mean. Like, but there's effort in
certain things where you're gonna trade off a little bit more.
Because my team needs me to score thirty, you know
(30:26):
what I mean. My team needs me to be available
on the floor. And you got those guys you know
what I mean that that are showing up purely for defense.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yeah, that's the league these days. You gotta if you're
good enough in once sense, they're gonna give you. Coaches
with like it or not, the fans, the league, they're
gonna give you some slack. On the other end, if
you're good enough to carry a team offensively or even
the same thing goes defensively. If you if you guard
and play the guard the best offensive player on the
other team every night, and you go down and sit
(30:53):
in the corner on the other end, they're gonna give you.
They're gonna cut you some slack like we only that's
that's a different I think that's the specialist in today's era.
Like like in the nineties and eighties, you had three
points specialists, you had guard bigs, you had just just passes,
playmakers who couldn't shoot or whatnot. But today you got
all my offensive specialists. Yeah, I'm a I'm a defender
(31:16):
only I'm gonna sit in the corner.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But also think about the shot attempt y'all getting two
you know what I mean? Like it ain't. It ain't
to a point of like, hey, hey you need to
chill out. No, go ahead, get it going. You know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
If the office is efficient enough, if you if you're
doing enough, it's a right yeahol you worth it?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
You worth it? You know what I'm saying. We talking
about this one player. Man, his career was cut short
at twenty eight, which is kind of crazy now looking
at it. I didn't know that, but Brad Doherty chronic
back issues three of his five All Star appearances during
the nineties. Man, uh you know he had that. He
was forced to retire in ninety three. Obviously got into
(31:54):
you know, NASCAR and became a great broadcaster. But man,
that dude just wanted the all time greats man when
you really think about his game, how skilled he was
and what could have been you know what I mean.
And even for that that microwavable size of a career
that he had, Man, he left then impact, especially in
that cav franchise.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, he one of those who his story needs to
be told because he was he was talented, but he didn't.
You don't hear about him a lot because he obviously
never won a championship or didn't have a long career.
But I mean when you mentioned this era, he gets
a lot of respect from his peers, and a lot
of these bigs will tell you that if you had,
like I said, if you asked them, man, you got
to you got to bring up those names.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
That's what we're here for.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, absolutely, man, That's why you know the unsung heroes
and even the heroes if even if they were sung,
I wanted we want to keep the name, uh, you know,
floating around and in respectful conversations. A couple of honorable
mentions Rick Smith's and Duncan Dutchman Ronnie great DJ by
the way, and then uh, you know Tim Duncan Draft
(33:00):
ninety seven. He's on the back end.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
I ain't doing Tim Duckckant. That's a power for it. Man.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, I mean, you know, interchangeable. But I think later
in his career he became a center. So yeah, you
know Ronnie Cyclee, NBA jam legend, and then you know,
hopefully Rick Smiths gets his number lifted into the raptors.
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back,
we're gonna give our top five greatest centers of the nights.
(33:43):
All right, dot you know how it goes. Man, we
went through a ton of talent. I'm interested to see
who's in your top five. Maybe somebody I didn't mention
that that creaks in, but this is always fun. Let
us have it, all right.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Let's get it.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Number five, top five goat centers of the ninety I
got number five. I got my man on Alonzo morning
I head close to home.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
That's my guy.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Number four to Kimbay, the best and most fear rim
protector of the ara easily.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
I got number three. I got David Robinson doing it
on both things.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I got Hakeema number two, and I got my favorite,
maybe my favorite big of all time Shock number one. Man,
that's my guy. Love watching them play growing up. But
that one two spot tough. It was a tough one.
But I mean Shaq one a key two.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Okay, all right, here we go, all right, just how
I'm gonna get down, man, I'm gonna go at five
to Kim Bay at four, Patrick Ewing at three, David
Robinson at two, Shack and at one Hakeem olajuwon just
(34:55):
because Hakem got the best of him in the matchup. Man,
you know what I mean. Obviously you know Shock going
to get four, but uh.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
The shot kind of that twiner for that's the tough one.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Man.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I still got shocked one.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
But yeah, most people probably would say that. Most people
say the.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Most dominant was late ninety around the two thousands, so
he could go any era.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
But I'm still I'm a shock. I got a shock bias, man,
that's my guy.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
It's all good, man.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I got a quick question you got I didn't have
Pat Ewing on my list.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
You put Patt in there, I think three or four
whatever whatever you had him having for you think he
got the New York by, like the big market New
York bias. That could have either hurt him or helped him,
Like obviously he's playing on that stage and you hurt him.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Okay, talk why.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So I think the expectations the media, you know what
I mean, then when he was getting killed, like you
think about social media era, now he was getting that
in a real time every night, you know what I mean,
Like you know who he had to face four times.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, but also if he gets to the first round
of the playoff, second round, if they win a series,
it's like they won the championship.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
In New York. They so happy, like he the best
to ever do it.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
So that's that's and they made it to the finals
in ninety nine. You know what I'm saying. I'm still
talking about that, and they still talk about it to
this day. So when you really think about just what
giving the team is all Terran's achilles, you know what
I mean. Like when you think about knicks, you think
about Patrick Ewan outside of you know, wal Clyde Frasier
(36:23):
or on my Road, but you know modern day, if
you weren't alive, he's the closest thing to one of
the greatest Knicks to ever do it.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
You know, imagine he won a championship in New York,
he'd be.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Oh, and he's right, you know Jamaica. Like Bro, he
the truest, the true.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Now he has some big meltdown and some some rough,
rough moments when it matter most. But if you want
a champion, if you want a championship and got it done,
he'll be He'll be up there with the greats.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
They would put it over most, multiple number of championships.
Just yeah, they would say, Yo, he's the goat. Like
I don't, I don't care what you're talking about. Yeah,
to get that in Yeah, No, it's a lot of
gas on it, man. But you know I got a chance.
I was fortunate to meet him last year. Man, and
he just actually had a birthday, uh yesterday, so you know.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Happy birthday his song as they come. He's still around
the game a lot. I mean he was, he used
to come.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
He was.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, he was all around their team during during the playoffs,
so you know what I mean, Like, you know, he
a big fan of the game. And you know, obviously
he was the head coach too at Georgetown, and you
know his son he you know, was hooping and stuff
like that. So you know, I got nothing but respect
for that, for the for O g like that. All Right,
We're gonna take one more break and when we come back,
we're gonna do our favorite segment, Born in the Wrong here,
(37:48):
all right, God, I'm gonna kick this one off. Man,
I gotta jump right into it. Man, I was anxious
to say this one. Man, but my Born in the
Wrong Era pick is blivak. Oh you know, lad, just
gonna just get right to it. Man. He gonna push
the pill, he shoot the three, he gonna din you up,
he gonna dunk on you. You know what I'm saying.
He gonna be a little animated. He probably would have
killed the social media era. Man, being bilingual, you know
(38:10):
what I'm saying, he probably would have got it going.
You know, he probably would have had it cracking two
in feb you know what I mean. So you know
he would have been a global, global star man, honestly,
and I think he would have been more All Star
votes wise, just just just cracking it all off however
you want it.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Man.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, Man, you stole my pick. We're on the same wavelength,
so I love it.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I'm man. You jumped out there first. But I'm a pivot.
I'm a pivot.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I had too for you had David Robinson my board
in the wrong airpick because you took mind. Because just
his speed and his athleticism without the ball would be
great in today's era.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
As far as spread, pick and roll, he could be.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
That five Who could stop him in this era?
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I don't know, Like I mean, he'd be a tough
match for anybody because he got shooting.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
He shoot the mirroringe he could shoot it and he
could I mean, like we said he could. I know
he could extend that to three if you wanted to.
But like if say you put a Draymond on him,
who was quick enough to stay in front of him
and strong, but he's just too big, like he's a
seventy seven one whatever he is. If you put somebody tall,
he gets you know what I'm saying, he gonna gonna
outrun you. In transition he could probably extend you and
(39:15):
face up you give you a jab and put it
on the floor. And then like spread pick and roll,
put him with a playmaking point guard. He could he
could roll and pop and finished catch it catch picking
pop probably crazy, Yeah, he can.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Do it all.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Like he would be perfect in today's age of five
out pick and roll and like I said, give you
all you want, like like I mean, I don't want to.
He's a better player, but like a Deon J. Jordan
type on the roll where he could just keep a
simple pick and roll if you wanted to do that,
and then you obviously throwing the ball in and you
can get to it too.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
So David Robinson.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Man, David Robinson be mad because he ain't getting the
ball enough. He ain't get enough touches guards you want
to off the piel. I think he'll be mad. I
then he'll need to peel a lot, like, hey.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Do you throw it to him?
Speaker 1 (40:04):
That's the other thing about the bigs and throw me
the rock like they had no shame. I'm not just
no other big today a they do the fake post
up where they go to the blocks hand up, but
they don't really want it.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
If you don't throw it to him. They cool.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Nah in the nineties, if I post and I got
a spot and you don't throw me in the rock,
you're gonna hear it for a couple of possessions, I'm
not gonna They're not happy. So that's a different day
and age, and I think David Robinson one of those.
He'll get the ball truck, He'll get his twenty shots.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And he's gonna be a leader in the locker room.
So great, you know, great dude gonna get after it,
you know what I mean. So yeah, man, I think
this is a great topic. Great episode man, good reflection man.
You know, sometimes these episodes are gonna overlap. We're gonna
talk about some people, especially when he's focusing on errors.
We're glad that we got to, you know, address some
(40:51):
of these greats. A lot of these guys are all
Hall of famers, you know what I mean. So yeah,
they deserve to sit at the table and be discussed
the way we do. There was a lot of big
men that played in this you know, in this era
that probably could have been mentioned, but only a few
seats at the table man to be discussed as the greats.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
You know, it's fire to all these bigs we talked about,
especially in our top five, are synonymous with great teams.
Like That's what I said, if you got a great
big in this era, you you had a chance to
win a championship like all these all these big is
gonna come up when we talk about the best teams
of the era, and things like that so this is
a fun topic.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yeah, absolutely, all right, man, Dot, Where can they find you?
Speaker 3 (41:32):
That's Doc Curry everywhere y'all know what it is.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Can find me at Trey and at travaughn on x.
Also followed goat pod. Be sure to rate, subscribe, review,
tell a friend, and tell a friend. I Heeart partners.
You know what I mean. Check us out on goat h.
See you next episode, Goat Goat. This has been a
(42:05):
Unanimous Media original Ghost was produced by iHeart Podcasts and
Unanimous Media. It was hosted by me Travon Edwards and
Steph Curry. Executive produced by Stephen Curry and Eric Katon.
Co executive producer Kelenna Maria Cutty. The executive producers at
iHeart Podcasts are Sean Tittone and Jason English. This series
(42:26):
was produced by Derek Jennings and Peter Cutter, co producer
Kurt Redd. Original music by Jesse Woodard. Special thanks to
Stephen Curry and Will Pearson. Goat is a production of
Unanimous Media and iHeart Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Going through all these topics and reminiscent on some of
these players, like and looking at their numbers and how
they played. Like if the systems were what they were
today and they were incentivised to do certain things, dribble, shoot,
whatever it is, they could have done it, Like, they
could have added anything they wanted to their game, no problem.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Imagine you come back in a time traveling machine as
a trainer, right, you just show up and you say, hey,
I know you averaging twenty four and twelve, but I'm
gonna show you one move that nobody could stop. Trusts me,
You're gonna make a lot of money. You're gonna be
a first one hundred million dollar player. And you just
break out like something. You're like, man, it's travel.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
They could have figured it out.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
They gonna work on it, and they're gonna be unstoppable,
and they're gonna average forty, gonna average like because it's
just be too crazy. It'd be cheating. So you know,
I never get caught up in the thing. Like I
really like watching Yo kich. I really like watching them be.
I think all those dudes are talented, but like adding
the three all to the back to the basket stuff.
(01:03):
I don't. I don't know how you stopped that. Man.
We're back. We're back. Welcome to another episode of Greatest
of their era. It's good dot.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Manno another episode, Let's jump right into it. The greatest
Cinders of the nineties, greatest nineteen nineties centers is.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's some good names you're talking about today?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Oh yeah, man, Battle the low block man. And honestly,
obviously we're in a different era. Sinners actually ran the show,
you know, I mean, not too much say so from
the guards. Obviously the guards were shooting guards kind of
do they had in the ring. But it was very
center driven, you know what I mean. Even the draft
draft was held up by centners. You know what I mean,
(01:48):
if you were seven feet you're most likely going to
come off the board before guard. And you know that
was that was the big thing. Being able to defend
and having a low post presence, you know what I mean.
Like most of the centers had offensive game and defensive game,
and our was the franchise cornerstones.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, I mean the nineties, like outside of MJ your team,
most teams were like synonymous with a with a big
time big man like you had to, Like you talk
about the Knicks, you you know they had they had
a big name center and paston Ewing or other teams,
and even that's probably why MJ didn't even go number
one in his draft, because most teams felt like they
had to have a center to compete and to win
(02:28):
in the league. So that's just a different era, a
different time in our league, a different style of basketball
was played back then. And we're gonna dive into who
was the best ones, like who was the greatest ones
of the EIR.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, you I like that you mentioned in MJ going
you know, like third and not going number one, and
most people revision is history. Obviously we know how it
ended long term. But when you think about how good
Sam Bowie was at the particular time and how tall
he was and effective and skilled, he would have wowed
a lot of people coming out. We would have probably
been on him coming out of this air and saying, well,
(03:02):
look he's sixteen and can do this, and he can
move this way. And you're looking at Michael Jordan like
there's so many six to six guys in this league.
A diamond does and what does he do? Great? And
obviously he had to go out and prove night and
night out. And he had, you know, maybe six or
seven years before he actually tasted the champagne.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So not only that, it was style of play, though
yes it was slowed down. It was multiple people in
the paint at all times. You could really have sets
drawn up every time down the floor, especially in the
half court, and you just dump it down and you
knew if you had a center who could create, who
could score one on one on the block and even
get fould you had the double team, and that created
(03:39):
shots for everybody else on the perimeter. Like it was
the opposite of today's game, where you had playmakers running
pick and roll and they are the ones who who
you running through and they create shots for everybody. They
create shots for the bigs and for all the wings.
And like I said, back then, it was the bigs
who needed if you had somebody that could draw a
double team. Like all the names we're gonna talk about today,
(03:59):
that really that really what your office revolves around.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
So let's jump into it.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, man, a lot of personality, a lot of branding
going on. All these centers had individual games and special moves.
Those things were kind of individuality. No one really played alike.
No one wanted to play together over my dead body
was kind of the strategy, you know what I'm saying,
And as you mentioned, we're gonna jump right into it.
In the first one man Aqima Loadjawanta he was. He
(04:27):
was Aquen to Hakem, you know what I mean a
lot of people don't understand that he was Aqum first
and then he went Hakeen and just one of the
most skilled bigs man like footwork. Some people used to
think he traveled a lot, you know what I mean.
He was an absolute nightmare for Shaquille O'Neill when he
matched up with him. The most dominant had trouble with
(04:47):
this guy as a young guy too. At the peak,
you think about Shaq just being unstoppable, but Aqm used
to give him a real headaches on those matchups. A
two time NBA Champ Hall of Famer, had a great
career spanning from the eighties all the way into the
nine and then kicked off the decade with a twenty
four point per game, fourteen rebound and four point six
blocks per night. Also one thing I wanted to highlight
(05:09):
he played you know during Ramadan fastest. Yeah, you know
what I'm saying, Like you know, modern day we think
about Kyrie and how you know, guys on the bench
would let him know when the sun sets so he
can eat. This dude was just doing it just off
of just pure faith man and going crazy right when
you know, And he could have easily used that in
his excuse, but he showed up every time cooking.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, you said it lead footwork.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's what I think about when I think about Haken
and his game had a lot of flair, but like
his I don't think his personally. He didn't talk a
lot on the floor when talking junk. His personality wasn't
like a lot of flair. He had teammates to do
that for him and Sam Cousel and all the guys
over there in Houston who had that personality and would
talk for him.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
But like he was a killer man.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
He would dominate on the block on the post, two
time MVP, two time Defensive Player of the Year, both
of those awards in the same year, which is I mean,
we ain't doing that.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
That's special.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That's in the Janni's realm and m Jay guys like that,
like you're you're dominant on both ends of the floor,
and that's what the King brought to the game. Like
and obviously back to back championships is it's a big
time that puts you in rare air.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Also, but before your time, he was one of the swaggies.
Man had the Jerry currow with the goggles like he
was doing it, you know what I'm saying. And then
you know he ditched the goggles and you know, got
the haircuting and still killing. Man. The next player which
we mentioned who actually has some trouble with him with
Shaquille O'Neill Neil, you know what I mean, Shaq four titles,
(06:39):
but you know during that that Orlando Magic era, man,
he running the court, what I'm saying. His rookie his
Rookie of the Year campaign, twenty four points per game,
fourteen rebounds, three and a half blocks, Like think about that,
Like we just named off Hakeen, but he did that
his rookie year. So yeah, I'm pretty sure Gods was
just kind of like, yo, this is a from kid
(07:00):
that's entering this league, you know what i mean, you know,
and and watching him at LSU, I'm pretty sure some
of those those vets were like he's not that good
until you had to face him, man, And you know,
over the years he was just gaining weight and becoming
a little bit harder to guard. And you know they
had to implement the hacking and all that other stuff.
(07:20):
And you know, for his weakness to be a free throw,
he really had no other weaknesses in his game.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, think about this.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
He so after his fourth ye in the league, he
was he was named for the top fifty all time,
like greatest players in the league. Like he came in
right away, was dominant, He had to ask like she
still had to athleticism. He was big as hell, nobody
could stop him, and like people were crowning him as
one of the best to ever do it after his
fourth year in the league. Usually you got to come in,
(07:47):
you got to go through some adversity, You got to
prove it for eighteen years to get that respect from
the media and your peers. But everybody knew right away
who Shaq was, So that tells you a lot about
what he was. Like he had got the off the
court flair with it too, Like here's a personality and
that was part of like that, some people said I
hurt his game. He wasn't as focused as he needed
(08:08):
to be a lot of people said back then and
taking his game off the court and working on stuff
and getting back coming back in shape. But think about
Shack if you really if he had that lock in
mentality that like a Kobe did or I don't know, however.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So I'm gonna be Devil's advocate and push back. A
lot of you guys now currently have endorsements, you guys
going on sneaker tours, you guys are acting, you guys
have your own businesses. This guy was doing this at
a time where it was just the highly critiqued pave
the way, paved the way, Like it was kind of like, yo,
(08:45):
what are you doing? You know what I mean? You're
not focused. It's kind of like a shut up and
dribble kind of situation for him. How does Kobe handle
y'all in that back then and saying, you know, like, oh,
you're not focused when you are like a lot of
other stuff going on.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You bring up a good point because he, like Kobe did,
he did endorsements, did all the stuff off the floor too.
But part of his his his brand and his and
the media in the way night he was pushing him,
was I work harder than you. Right, So he doing
the commercial saying he works hard. H Shaq was doing
the same type of stuff party having for doing this thing,
(09:20):
endorsements and trying to get as much money as he
can off the floor.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
But it's in a different if.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
It's in a different sense, and he's bigger, sometimes it's
easier for him to game weight, which is it's tough.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
That's what I was gonna say. I think optics hurt him. Yeah, yeah,
you know what I mean from a perspective of like, oh,
he's immature. He doesn't take care of his body like
he had one. He played on a bad wheell for like,
and they still was winning. They still won chips on
a bad wheel. He still got it done despite having
(09:50):
a bad will. But the idea was Kobe was like, Yo,
if you locked all the way in, we went five,
we went six, and it's show fault, you know what
I mean, because you not locked in. But I just
think it wasn't gonna how his body was, how he played,
wasn't going to work in his factor to be just
dominant from twelve to sixteen years. It just wasn't set
(10:11):
up like that. And if you look at all the tapes,
and how he was fouled and how he was defended.
You're just not gonna hand you ain't not gonna be nobody.
Kobe was never defended like that. MJ. You can't say
about the bad boys, but they weren't defending them like
Shaq bro like he was taking them up with them
just doing teams.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I brought this up in the past, but teams were
literally hiring dudes and signing dudes off the street. Just
you fouled all their files. You got six files because
we're gonna play Shaq.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
That's literally it.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
You're gonna place fifteen minutes, bang with him, foul him,
send them to the line, and come sit down like
you're not. It's that's a special type of talent right there.
On top of that, a lot of the guys were
talking about he said, like you sed to Chemologama. For example,
they swept Shaq in the Magic and the Finals in
ninety five I think it was. And that's that young Shacks.
(11:03):
That's like baby Shack just coming into his own here thing. Yeah,
so say Shaq, him and King met up in two thousand,
two thousand and one, Prime Prime Shaq and Prime I
Kim who gets the best of that matchup.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
What do you think I'm gonna.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Say, Shack, probably just because he just understands the game.
He's not gonna he's gonna be disciplined. He gonna know
a little bit more. It's like us going to the
park Man and thinking we're gonna beat like the older group,
but they're sharing the ball. We're working way harder. We're
playing the outside of what we know. Our best are strengths,
Like you're gonna lose games like that. And I just
think that him and Penny tried to beat them off
(11:37):
pure talent, like you know what I mean, like, Yo,
we weigh, we got this, We're gonna we're gonna get them.
And like they had real hitters at Sam Sell coming
off the bench, Robert Ory, you know what I mean,
like young, they were young. Those dudes are like rookies. Dude,
that's like Kenny Smith, Marrie Ellie, the list goes on.
You know what I mean That we're able to contribute.
And they had an actual championship team put together. Everybody
(12:00):
knew their role. Mad Max all right, I'm a defend bat.
I'm gonna be physical. Are I'm gonna getting these guys
here I'm gonna use all my files. I'm gonna make
these threes. I'm gonna do all these things that's supposed
to do, you know what I mean, Like those are
things that you can't really like go and find, like
God's gotta be willing to like alright, buy in and
when when that happened, you end up as a champion.
And I think, you know, no, no knock at the
(12:21):
supporting cast that the Magic had. But I just think
they were very young and kind of like took their
opponent lightly and just got punched in.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I think one more thing. I think young Shack was
underrated defensively too. Like he he can move his feet,
you come up with block shots.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Oh he was.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Falling on you.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
He literally leaped blocked and you gotta like kind of
like move because he he was diving for the rock.
Like just a different mentality, different emotor, you know what
I'm saying. I don't think we'll ever get a more
marketable big like him again. Obviously we got Winby, but
Wimby's kind of more of a like skilled wing player
a little bit. He has a little bit more intangibles
than freedom to do that. But like Shaq made big man,
(12:59):
like really cool. Actually, I don't want to say. I
don't want to say Kareem couldn't do it, but he
probably did. But Shaq had like candy bars, video games, movies, haircuts,
you know, sneakers, whatever you possibly could think at the time,
collaborations with like PEPSI, you know what I mean. Like
(13:21):
the list goes on as like endorsement wise of like
what he was doing and like being able to just
like touch a culture in a way that only Michael
Jordan could do.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
And on top of that, he was one of the
first to actively like leave a smaller market to go
to a bigger market. Yes, like he could have stayed
in Orlando for as long as he wanted to. He's like,
I want to go to La for all. I mean,
I'm to be a bigger brand on the floor, Like
more people gonna be tuned into what I'm doing on
a daily basis than I can do my stuff off
the floor. At the same time, he was ahead of
(13:53):
the he was definitely ahead of the curve as far
as a lot of a lot of people are doing
now as far as taking what they do on the
floor trying to go to a bigger market you gotta
give him credit for a lot of the stuff that
goes on today.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, absolutely, all right. David Robinson, two time NBA Champ.
We got him in scoring champ. We talk about that
seventy one point game against the Clippers where you know
what I mean, he's kind of duking it out. But yeah, man, dude,
you know, just just really you know, obviously the Admiral,
he was just one of those dudes, you know what
I mean, coming out of the Navy and ten time
(14:25):
All Star. He had some some ailments and stuff like that,
but you know it was was willing to able to,
you know, get his championship at the end of the
decade and then ended up getting another one, you know
what I'm saying, and shouts to a tremendous career he's had.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, he was a constant and as far as in
the MVP talks all NBA talks, he one of those
that just fell victim to being in the league at
the same time as MJ and hat Keem and Shaq,
Like he was always the same way we talked about
Chris Webber right where you're like, very good, but you
(14:59):
would be number one if Shaq and Akeeman didn't exist
exactly always always just second tier, but he could compete
with them and his team like he he also like
he was in that Spurs system at the end of
his like run, playing for popping and just all focused
on winning. Really sacrificed some stats and some accolades to
(15:20):
win championships. And obviously he ended up linking up with
Tim Duncan at one point.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
So, uh, I think he's a.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Criminally, criminally underrated skilled guy and big when it's all
set and done for this era, for sure, Like a
lot of the kids don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Shopper sweet too, he would have shot a lot of
threes in this era, he would have shot. I don't
think he would have been posting up as much, you
know what I'm saying, because he could put the ball
on the ground, he can drive, he gonna dunk on you,
he gonna chase you down.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
And block like he could really run.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah. So, I mean you mentioned there's two players that
I see a shadow of is akem Olajuwan and it's
you know, David Robinson.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, I think he Yeah, he might be the best him,
and I mean outside of Keem he might be the
best offense defense, Like combo together like the best two
way center in the era. Obviously a Keem won MVP
and depot in the same year. It's just ridiculous. But
David Robinson right there with him as far as I'll
(16:23):
do it on both ends equally as good.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, absolutely another finesse big right again, all these bigs.
That's why we're like, yo, I know, we like to
like make fun of the nineties and high looks perception
wise because a lot of that stuff. The only reason
why it looks so like as it is things just
didn't exist.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
We had a luxury.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
We had a luxury of seeing things happen, so it
all looks normalized.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Going through all these topics and reminiscent on some of
these players, like and looking at their numbers and how
they played. Like if the systems were what they were
today and they were incentivized to do certain things, dribble, shoot,
whatever it is, they could have done it. They could
have added anything they wanted to. They game no problem.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Imagine you come back in a time traveling machine as
a trainer, right, you just show up and you say, hey,
I know you averaging twenty four and twelve, but I'm
gonna show you one move that nobody could stop. Trusts me,
you're gonna make a lot of money. You're gonna be
a firste hundred million dollar player, and you just break
out like something. You're like, man, there's travel.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
They could have figured it out.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
They gonna work on it, and they're gonna be unstoppable,
and they're gonna average forty, gonna average like because it's
just be too crazy. It'd be cheating. So you know,
I never get caught up in the thing. Like I
really like watching Yokich, I really like watching them be.
I think all those dudes are talented, but like a
hat adding the three all to the back to the
(17:48):
basket stuff, I don't know how you stop that. Man.
And Patrick, you want, is just one of those dudes
that just had a sweet twenty foot jumper, you know
what I mean, like fade, he had the side faith
that he did with the kick, you know, I mean,
had a soft touch run the floor and he defend
man and like again, he's another guy that if Shack
(18:10):
and a chem olajuwan not there, he's one or two
easily easily.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Pat, I love his game. Solid as
they come, Like you said it all that needs to
be said. But I ain't love his swag. I'm not
a big risk band knee pad type guy. But I
couldn't look about this individuality though that.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I think that's the thing right where you got pipping
elbow pad, you got MJ. Lesleeve, you got certain guys
that were just trying to what else, what's the name
to do that? All right, I'm gonna go opposite. It
might not even look great, but it's gonna look great,
all right. Oh he wear that number, all right. I'm
gonna wear forty one, all right, I'm gonna wear thirty
all right, I'm gonna wear six. Like just certain ways
to just find some type of individuality, because maybe that
(18:52):
first guy probably kickstarted off like Chris Webber talking about
Derrick Coleman, guys talking about Shack, guys talking about you know,
Dwight Howard talking about how Shaq was. I wanted to
be like that. Like it's just certain people that just
kind of influenced that thing. And I think the funny
part about Patrick Ewing is they used to have to
call a TV time out to wipe the sweat up.
(19:12):
That's why you were those those bands, right, It wasn't
the best. It wasn't by like design of like, yo,
we're gonna do this.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
He just sweat.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
He just sweat a lot. So they had to extend
the wristbands enough to like sop up the sweat and
then kind of go about it that way.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
That dude just constantly it was functional. It was functional.
You needed it. And then people, I mean obviously the
kids and you see all over the gym people doing
it for.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Dude, they already have uh you know like obviously you
look at the stone cold knee brace, right, they had
volleyball knee braces where it just was the path. Yeah,
I wore I remember just like kind of copping and like,
oh you know this is the brace. It's just a pad.
Like you fall on it straight, kneed to floor like
(20:00):
it ain't hurt. It hurts. It really hurt. Like. It
wasn't like nothing like oh okay, now you got the McDavid,
y'all got the protection. Sh No, it wasn't nothing like that.
It was simple swag. Can you make this in orange?
Can you make this in blue? Can you stitch my
number on this so I can have Yeah, I gotta
have it. This is my lucky thing because I had
a good game in it.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Another thing, a lot of these bigs, like they were
so iconic even in that time. They had signature shoes. Today,
you know, bigs don't sell shoes. No, yo, kids, every
player we had on the signature shoes.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Listen the players that we've covered, Hakeem Olajuwan, Spaulty Shack,
Rebok Patrick, Ewing you in athletics, Alonzo Morning, Nike. We
can keep going down the line of like just signature stuff, man,
And I want to jump right into Zoe, Like I said,
you you know Zoe, you know what I mean. He
was a teammate of your dad's. Man, How was it
(20:53):
being around Zoe? You know what I mean? Like obviously
they got that infamous clipper you and Steff with.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
One of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah, but he was there. Yeah, he showed us love,
Yeah he was. He helped raise us growing up. I
mean they got stories as my dad. I mean obviously
Zoe came in. He was a rook, the young fella,
my dad asking him the babies for us, uh and
watch us at different times. And Zoe always showed us
love even to this day. So I mean, one of
the best ever. And we always looked up to him.
I mean, you talk about the sweatbands on both hands.
(21:21):
I remember me and Steph being out in the backyard
practicing Zoe's iconic free throw routine. He used to do
the pat pat pat with both hands before he shot.
Spin it all that before he shot the free throw.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Like it was.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Think about free throw routines and how important it was
in the nineties, Like you didn't even have to be
a great player, you had a cool free throw tine.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
You probably don't.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Get a commercion. He's probably gonna be just that influential.
Like Harol Meyer. He ain't had the best NBA career,
but he had the longest right He's gonna wrap around
between the legs, use his whole ten seconds man before
he shot the free throw. Man. And you know, Zoe
obviously had some you know, he he's true adversity warrior.
Man has some health issues with his kidney. Yeah, bounce
(22:04):
back ended up getting the title, you know. I mean
everybody was very happy for him when he you know,
won with Miami. But like just overall, like the way
that he showed up on the court. Man, Like, you know,
he was one of my favorite NBA jam guys man.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, a real rim protective shot blocker, and I could probably.
I mean, it's funny, I can live. I can run
you off. Probably everybody's free throw routine right now. If
you ask me to shocks David Roberson's pat ewings and
definitely Zo's, like I can give them to you right
now if you ask me for this. It's crazy to
think about the spin. You gotta padd it three times
(22:42):
on the top one of the bottom spin it. You
got a little bounce to it to it right into
your shot. So, I mean, there's a lot of those
in the backyard practicing and hoping to be there one day.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
The Kim Babe Bumbo you know what I mean, recipes
that the Kim Babu tumble Again. We talk about how
important these bigs were. He had the signature finger wag
like he made block and cool, you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
just the no no note, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
It was so iconic, and he would do it so
much they ended up like banning it, like they I
remember the year he could. They told him he couldn't
do it no more. He started to giving him text
for it. He would, and he started how to do
it to like the crowd. He had to do it
away from the player because if he did it on
towards the court, towards the player, it would be a tech,
which is crazy in and of itself. But he would
(23:31):
block the shot, start to break and wouldn't even run
down the floor. He doing the celebration, the finger wag,
which which is hard.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It's also like a rights of passage, right. Everybody wanted
to dunk ONU Tombo like yeah, you know what I mean,
Like he made it so point, like yo, he a
bad boy, Mountain Tombo. You're not getting in there, you
know what I'm saying. Of respect, And then when he
got duncked on him, he saw the highlights. But it
wasn't like you weren't ashamed of it.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
He was just part of it because he's gonna block
for every time you get dunked, and he's gonna block
you two or three times.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah, And I think that was the cool part about it,
because you know, you block somebody. You know, most people
shooting to a basket, they say Kobe. Most people stick
their tongue out when they shoot with Jordan's when you
block something, I don't care if it's a paper ball.
Maybe it's something like laundry. You're gonna wag that finger
and it's mu Tumbo. It's like, you know what I'm saying, So.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
What about George, Like we gotta talk about Georgetown when
we talk about Tumbo and all these oh.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Man, John Thompson had it going bro like thing about
the centers all that man, just and it was like
really a right of passage, Like hey, I'm gonna I
know what to do with anybody sixteen and above, like
Zoe six, pat Ewing seven feet, you know what I mean?
Like you think about all these guys coming from the
same place, like you're just like what how? And you
(24:53):
know that tradition continue. Roy Hibbert ended up going there,
and a couple other bigs, you know what I'm saying.
That just Greg Moreau, Greg Monroe, you know what I mean.
So you know you knew you were in good hands
if you were going to Georgetown. That's a big I'm
sure his pitch was you see what I did for
such and such? You see what I did there he
got there, Yeah, coached him, I taught him all that stuff,
you know what I mean? And I think you know
(25:13):
they spoke really high of coach Thompson during that during
that tenure of playing for him. Yeah, all right, this
next player, man, you know, uh Serbian, I remember when
he came to the league, man, and uh it was right. Uh,
you know, he got to the finals, They got to
the finals when they got bro you know what I'm
saying against the Bulls. And then obviously you know he
(25:35):
finally broke out after Magic retired, you know what I mean,
was forced to retire because he had a little bit
more freedom. But he showed off a lot, man. And
also I had tipped to him man for going with
accepting the trade. Man to go to Charlotte.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
About to say, he's infamous around these parts and Charlotte
and North Carolina because he he is in the Kobe trade.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Like like who he takes me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
One time All Star Man.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
He was that good.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
He was that good. Also the first European player to
play over a thousand games, you know what I mean,
and kind of just established and played paved the way
for guys like Dirk and Jokic, you know what I mean.
Like he was really skilled. Think about how Bloy gets
down in this era, you know what I mean. He
could push the ball. He had great vision, he could
shoot the ball. He had a nice little skyhook that
he had learned from the coaching staff and magic. So
(26:23):
you know, yeah, man, I think he would have cracked
in this this this era too.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Man. You know, yeah, he could do it all he had.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, he like you said, I mean player, he could
highly skill, coming from from Europe, play with a lot
of energy and a lot of flair too. Like he
wasn't scared to do the behind the back passes, behind
the head, all that type of stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And I see a lot of Alfred sing Goon in him.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I'm not mad at that. I think it was a
little bit bigger.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Maybe Yeah, he was definitely a footer, But I'm not
mad at the Alphlin Segon comparison. But I was about
to say, I always got love for Bloody because he
was when he was a gen with sack. He was
the first one that gave me a guaranteed deal and
got my career started.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Oh wow, Yeah, bad thing about it was it was
it was good as a kid.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
You remember gonna say, was you around him with the hornets?
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah, he was definitely around. We were around.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I mean I don't I mean I remember Spidey's also young,
but he definitely remember me in Steph growing up.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
And we can remembin this on the on the.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
On the back old days back here in Charlotte when
they had the high high jumping and they asked some
good teams in Charlotte before they left.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
But it was good to be around him.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I like I said, you ain't gonna hear me say
a bad word about him, because helped me get started
in this league and it was off and running from
there in Sacramento.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Man, that's crazy full circle man, when you really think
about it that way, you never know where a player
or you know, somebody ends up coaching or in the
front office. Man, And just a full circle moment. So
definitely appreciate those. All right, So this next player man
or bonus man basketball game, you know what I mean,
Like he didn't come to the league to thirty one.
(28:01):
But how I hear about the stories, right, It's how
like they be talking about wil You know what I'm saying,
because you'd be like, where's the footage or really or
over his overseas career, Yeah, his overseas career and you
like Dad was great, but I wanted to see him
get out during this era, and they like, but if
he but if he would have came, you know what
I mean. Like and it's like, obviously was dealing with
(28:23):
some injuries by the time he got to Portland. But
they say, man, he probably one of the best playmaking
in passing big man of all time.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, you know, we talked to the old heads. They
they swear bar via this bonus. If he would have
came over here when he was twenty four to twenty five,
like they said, he would have been one of the
best to ever do it. He would be on the
top of this list for sure, that's what they're saying.
But he and that Vlady diva realm of being a
high IQ passing, playmaking first type of big that you
can run the offense through outside of the post, like
(28:51):
on the elbow or top of the key or whatever.
You see a lot of his game and his son,
you could tell he from that tree he wanted to
be a passer.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
You want to be a playmaker.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
He want to be a basketball player.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
That's what you want to be. Yeah, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
And I think again it's a difference. I could use
that for most of the people that are playing right now,
but I still think that they're taking plays off in
certain other aspects, you know what I'm saying. Like I
can say yourself, you're a basketball player. You defend, you shoot,
you do this, you do that. In third you're doing
whatever it takes for your team to win. I think
some guys are abusing it in this era because it's
(29:27):
kind of like you want me to do offense or
you want me to do defense, you know what. You
know what I mean, Like I use this type thing,
and I don't think they had the luxury in that way.
But when you say, oh, you're a basketball player, you
look at Yolkic, you look at Lebron.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So you're saying so you're saying young Sabons don't guard.
That's what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Not he tried, he tried, decent, He's decent. He decent,
you know what I mean. And that's not a knock
on him, because again, guys are more skilled. The offensive game,
you know, works in that favor. It's hard to be
a defender in this era league. You can't touch them.
So I don't want to just be like you know,
but it's also maybe a frustrating situation of like I
(30:04):
don't want to pick up my third or fourth to
get me off the floor because my off my team
needs me on offense. So I'm gonna do my best,
or are we gonna scheme it enough for me to
you know, get help. I'll never just say, oh, nobody,
he can't guard a shadow. I don't do all that,
you know what I mean. Like, but there's effort in
certain things where you're gonna trade off a little bit more.
Because my team needs me to score thirty, you know
(30:26):
what I mean. My team needs me to be available
on the floor. And you got those guys you know
what I mean that that are showing up purely for defense.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yeah, that's the league these days. You gotta if you're
good enough in once sense, they're gonna give you. Coaches
with like it or not, the fans, the league, they're
gonna give you some slack. On the other end, if
you're good enough to carry a team offensively or even
the same thing goes defensively. If you if you guard
and play the guard the best offensive player on the
other team every night, and you go down and sit
(30:53):
in the corner on the other end, they're gonna give you.
They're gonna cut you some slack like we only that's
that's a different I think that's the specialist in today's era.
Like like in the nineties and eighties, you had three
points specialists, you had guard bigs, you had just just passes,
playmakers who couldn't shoot or whatnot. But today you got
all my offensive specialists. Yeah, I'm a I'm a defender
(31:16):
only I'm gonna sit in the corner.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But also think about the shot attempt y'all getting two
you know what I mean? Like it ain't. It ain't
to a point of like, hey, hey you need to
chill out. No, go ahead, get it going. You know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
If the office is efficient enough, if you if you're
doing enough, it's a right yeahol you worth it?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
You worth it? You know what I'm saying. We talking
about this one player. Man, his career was cut short
at twenty eight, which is kind of crazy now looking
at it. I didn't know that, but Brad Doherty chronic
back issues three of his five All Star appearances during
the nineties. Man, uh you know he had that. He
was forced to retire in ninety three. Obviously got into
(31:54):
you know, NASCAR and became a great broadcaster. But man,
that dude just wanted the all time greats man when
you really think about his game, how skilled he was
and what could have been you know what I mean.
And even for that that microwavable size of a career
that he had, Man, he left then impact, especially in
that cav franchise.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, he one of those who his story needs to
be told because he was he was talented, but he didn't.
You don't hear about him a lot because he obviously
never won a championship or didn't have a long career.
But I mean when you mentioned this era, he gets
a lot of respect from his peers, and a lot
of these bigs will tell you that if you had,
like I said, if you asked them, man, you got
to you got to bring up those names.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
That's what we're here for.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, absolutely, man, That's why you know the unsung heroes
and even the heroes if even if they were sung,
I wanted we want to keep the name, uh, you know,
floating around and in respectful conversations. A couple of honorable
mentions Rick Smith's and Duncan Dutchman Ronnie great DJ by
the way, and then uh, you know Tim Duncan Draft
(33:00):
ninety seven. He's on the back end.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
I ain't doing Tim Duckckant. That's a power for it. Man.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, I mean, you know, interchangeable. But I think later
in his career he became a center. So yeah, you
know Ronnie Cyclee, NBA jam legend, and then you know,
hopefully Rick Smiths gets his number lifted into the raptors.
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back,
we're gonna give our top five greatest centers of the nights.
(33:43):
All right, dot you know how it goes. Man, we
went through a ton of talent. I'm interested to see
who's in your top five. Maybe somebody I didn't mention
that that creaks in, but this is always fun. Let
us have it, all right.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Let's get it.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Number five, top five goat centers of the ninety I
got number five. I got my man on Alonzo morning
I head close to home.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
That's my guy.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Number four to Kimbay, the best and most fear rim
protector of the ara easily.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
I got number three. I got David Robinson doing it
on both things.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I got Hakeema number two, and I got my favorite,
maybe my favorite big of all time Shock number one. Man,
that's my guy. Love watching them play growing up. But
that one two spot tough. It was a tough one.
But I mean Shaq one a key two.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Okay, all right, here we go, all right, just how
I'm gonna get down, man, I'm gonna go at five
to Kim Bay at four, Patrick Ewing at three, David
Robinson at two, Shack and at one Hakeem olajuwon just
(34:55):
because Hakem got the best of him in the matchup. Man,
you know what I mean. Obviously you know Shock going
to get four, but uh.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
The shot kind of that twiner for that's the tough one.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Man.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I still got shocked one.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
But yeah, most people probably would say that. Most people
say the.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Most dominant was late ninety around the two thousands, so
he could go any era.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
But I'm still I'm a shock. I got a shock bias, man,
that's my guy.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
It's all good, man.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I got a quick question you got I didn't have
Pat Ewing on my list.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
You put Patt in there, I think three or four
whatever whatever you had him having for you think he
got the New York by, like the big market New
York bias. That could have either hurt him or helped him,
Like obviously he's playing on that stage and you hurt him.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Okay, talk why.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So I think the expectations the media, you know what
I mean, then when he was getting killed, like you
think about social media era, now he was getting that
in a real time every night, you know what I mean,
Like you know who he had to face four times.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, but also if he gets to the first round
of the playoff, second round, if they win a series,
it's like they won the championship.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
In New York. They so happy, like he the best
to ever do it.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
So that's that's and they made it to the finals
in ninety nine. You know what I'm saying. I'm still
talking about that, and they still talk about it to
this day. So when you really think about just what
giving the team is all Terran's achilles, you know what
I mean. Like when you think about knicks, you think
about Patrick Ewan outside of you know, wal Clyde Frasier
(36:23):
or on my Road, but you know modern day, if
you weren't alive, he's the closest thing to one of
the greatest Knicks to ever do it.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
You know, imagine he won a championship in New York,
he'd be.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Oh, and he's right, you know Jamaica. Like Bro, he
the truest, the true.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Now he has some big meltdown and some some rough,
rough moments when it matter most. But if you want
a champion, if you want a championship and got it done,
he'll be He'll be up there with the greats.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
They would put it over most, multiple number of championships.
Just yeah, they would say, Yo, he's the goat. Like
I don't, I don't care what you're talking about. Yeah,
to get that in Yeah, No, it's a lot of
gas on it, man. But you know I got a chance.
I was fortunate to meet him last year. Man, and
he just actually had a birthday, uh yesterday, so you know.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Happy birthday his song as they come. He's still around
the game a lot. I mean he was, he used
to come.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
He was.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, he was all around their team during during the playoffs,
so you know what I mean, Like, you know, he
a big fan of the game. And you know, obviously
he was the head coach too at Georgetown, and you
know his son he you know, was hooping and stuff
like that. So you know, I got nothing but respect
for that, for the for O g like that. All Right,
We're gonna take one more break and when we come back,
we're gonna do our favorite segment, Born in the Wrong here,
(37:48):
all right, God, I'm gonna kick this one off. Man,
I gotta jump right into it. Man, I was anxious
to say this one. Man, but my Born in the
Wrong Era pick is blivak. Oh you know, lad, just
gonna just get right to it. Man. He gonna push
the pill, he shoot the three, he gonna din you up,
he gonna dunk on you. You know what I'm saying.
He gonna be a little animated. He probably would have
killed the social media era. Man, being bilingual, you know
(38:10):
what I'm saying, he probably would have got it going.
You know, he probably would have had it cracking two
in feb you know what I mean. So you know
he would have been a global, global star man, honestly,
and I think he would have been more All Star
votes wise, just just just cracking it all off however
you want it.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Man.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, Man, you stole my pick. We're on the same wavelength,
so I love it.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I'm man. You jumped out there first. But I'm a pivot.
I'm a pivot.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I had too for you had David Robinson my board
in the wrong airpick because you took mind. Because just
his speed and his athleticism without the ball would be
great in today's era.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
As far as spread, pick and roll, he could be.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
That five Who could stop him in this era?
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I don't know, Like I mean, he'd be a tough
match for anybody because he got shooting.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
He shoot the mirroringe he could shoot it and he
could I mean, like we said he could. I know
he could extend that to three if you wanted to.
But like if say you put a Draymond on him,
who was quick enough to stay in front of him
and strong, but he's just too big, like he's a
seventy seven one whatever he is. If you put somebody tall,
he gets you know what I'm saying, he gonna gonna
outrun you. In transition he could probably extend you and
(39:15):
face up you give you a jab and put it
on the floor. And then like spread pick and roll,
put him with a playmaking point guard. He could he
could roll and pop and finished catch it catch picking
pop probably crazy, Yeah, he can.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Do it all.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Like he would be perfect in today's age of five
out pick and roll and like I said, give you
all you want, like like I mean, I don't want to.
He's a better player, but like a Deon J. Jordan
type on the roll where he could just keep a
simple pick and roll if you wanted to do that,
and then you obviously throwing the ball in and you
can get to it too.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
So David Robinson.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Man, David Robinson be mad because he ain't getting the
ball enough. He ain't get enough touches guards you want
to off the piel. I think he'll be mad. I
then he'll need to peel a lot, like, hey.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Do you throw it to him?
Speaker 1 (40:04):
That's the other thing about the bigs and throw me
the rock like they had no shame. I'm not just
no other big today a they do the fake post
up where they go to the blocks hand up, but
they don't really want it.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
If you don't throw it to him. They cool.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Nah in the nineties, if I post and I got
a spot and you don't throw me in the rock,
you're gonna hear it for a couple of possessions, I'm
not gonna They're not happy. So that's a different day
and age, and I think David Robinson one of those.
He'll get the ball truck, He'll get his twenty shots.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And he's gonna be a leader in the locker room.
So great, you know, great dude gonna get after it,
you know what I mean. So yeah, man, I think
this is a great topic. Great episode man, good reflection man.
You know, sometimes these episodes are gonna overlap. We're gonna
talk about some people, especially when he's focusing on errors.
We're glad that we got to, you know, address some
(40:51):
of these greats. A lot of these guys are all
Hall of famers, you know what I mean. So yeah,
they deserve to sit at the table and be discussed
the way we do. There was a lot of big
men that played in this you know, in this era
that probably could have been mentioned, but only a few
seats at the table man to be discussed as the greats.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
You know, it's fire to all these bigs we talked about,
especially in our top five, are synonymous with great teams.
Like That's what I said, if you got a great
big in this era, you you had a chance to
win a championship like all these all these big is
gonna come up when we talk about the best teams
of the era, and things like that so this is
a fun topic.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yeah, absolutely, all right, man, Dot, Where can they find you?
Speaker 3 (41:32):
That's Doc Curry everywhere y'all know what it is.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Can find me at Trey and at travaughn on x.
Also followed goat pod. Be sure to rate, subscribe, review,
tell a friend, and tell a friend. I Heeart partners.
You know what I mean. Check us out on goat h.
See you next episode, Goat Goat. This has been a
(42:05):
Unanimous Media original Ghost was produced by iHeart Podcasts and
Unanimous Media. It was hosted by me Travon Edwards and
Steph Curry. Executive produced by Stephen Curry and Eric Katon.
Co executive producer Kelenna Maria Cutty. The executive producers at
iHeart Podcasts are Sean Tittone and Jason English. This series
(42:26):
was produced by Derek Jennings and Peter Cutter, co producer
Kurt Redd. Original music by Jesse Woodard. Special thanks to
Stephen Curry and Will Pearson. Goat is a production of
Unanimous Media and iHeart Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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