December 11, 2024 • 21 mins
Cavaliers guard Ty Jerome sits down with Serena Winters, the host of "The LANDscape", to talk about his strong season and return to the court with the Cavaliers.
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome into the landscape presented by Hospitality Staffing Solutions. I'm
your host, Serena Winters and joining me today one of
the most talked about players in Cleveland right now, Ti Jerome.
Thank you so much for sitting down and taking the time.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It's fun because when I know I get to sit
down with the player, then I get to kind of
walk around and ask some of your teammates about you
and say, hey, what's just just give me one word
you'd use to describe ty Jerome. I have heard let's
see jokester, I have heard troll, I have heard competitive,
I have heard charismatic. But it all kind of goes
back to just your personality and who you are. So
(00:59):
as we sit down here, we kind of want to
get to know more about you. What's your initial reaction
to some of those.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Descriptions expected, Yeah, yeah, for sure, I think Yeah. I
like to keep it light. It's a long season, you
know what I mean. I think a lot of times
you can get caught up in the wins and losses,
the good performances, the bad performances, and I just think
keeping it light, having a good time, obviously, getting your
work in but you know, the plane rides, the bus
(01:27):
rides off the court, just making sure that people are
you in good spirits and having a good time, and
you know, I just think joking is a great way
to do that. Well.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
A lot of times our personality also comes from like
who we are and how we grew up and what
we grew up around. Right, So I'd love to get
to know a little bit more about that. Talk to
me just about kind of your first memories growing up,
what family life was like. I know you were around
basketball from not even just a young age. The reports
say that your dad had a basketball in your crib
the day they brought you, right, he does telling a
(01:57):
few times, but the point being like this has always
always been around.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, it has. Both my parents played in college. I
was kind of born into it. So as soon as
I was born, my dad was coaching high school, my
mom was still playing in the adult leagues, and yeah,
it was like they bonded over it. They played on
teams together like in adult leagues, and yeah, I was
just always around it. I always had a ball in
(02:22):
my hands. Yeah. It was definitely my first love, whether
I wanted to be or not.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You know, It's interesting because a lot of people have
one parent that played basketball, and typically it's the dad, right,
Like you usually hear those stories, but both your mom
and dad played college basketball. Your mom's name Melany, right, yeah,
so it's amazing that she was playing in adult leagues.
That that's true love, Like that is true passion for
the game, right, So not just having one parent, but
(02:47):
getting to grow up where that was a passion for
both of your parents. Was it almost just inevitable that
that was going to be something that you were going
to do?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, y. I I don't know what would
have happen if I didn't like it, but I always
loved it, Like you know, when you're two. I'm literally
two years old running around trying to dribble a basketball,
sometimes two basketballs, you know what I mean. So like I,
I always loved it. I wanted to be around it
all the time. So I don't know what would have
happened if I didn't like it, But it was never really,
it never really came to that cause I always just
(03:20):
loved it. Like there were times where I might not
have wanted, like work out at eight, nine, ten years old,
and you know, my dad was like you have to,
you know, I mean that happened, but I always loved
to play games. I always loved to play the game.
I always loved to be around the game, even from
a a very young age. So I think they introduced
it to me and I kind of just ran with it.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Did you ever think about doing anything else?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I was a pretty good little league baseball player, okay,
but then the field got big and I I I stopped.
Uh my, my love for baseball went away fast.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So you mentioned being eight nine years old, and Donovan
Mitchell tells the story because Donovan happened to be on
your AAU team coached by your dad Mark. And it's
funny that your facial expression right there, because he was
saying the other day that he still has PTSD from
being cussed out at eight o'clock in the morning. You
(04:13):
know what he's laughing about it like those are memories
when your kids, like, what are your memories of those days?
Because eight and nine years old is very young. So
when you look back on it now and think about
how intense like some of those moments were, what.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Do you think about a lot of fear? A lot
of fear at eight years old? For sure, just you know,
you make a bad play, it's just like where is he?
You know what I mean? Like, but definitely made me
more mentally tough. Definitely made me mentally tough for sure.
We definitely had a really good group when when we're
that age, you know, Donovan, myself, Eric Pascal played in
(04:50):
the NBA. We had a lot of other guys played
Division One. So we had a really you know, unique
group for like eight and under nine and under. My
dad was definitely super intense for sure, probably a little
too intense.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So you guys were playing in some of the best
leagues for that age group, right throughout New York City. Yeah,
we went, we traveled nationals, all that, and I heard
that that the environments were pretty tough, like pretty hostile environments.
And so when I'm thinking about that and picturing it,
it's almost hard for me to picture because growing up
(05:24):
and playing basketball that age, like in a normal gym,
for me, it's like, yeah, you hear about the parents,
but from what I'm hearing, like the environments were pretty
intense at that age.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, so you picture it was definitely more intense than
in regular season game for sure. So you picture like
a small gym pack, bleachers, parents running on the court,
fights occasionally breaking out.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Excuse me, fights, occasionally breaking stands, okay, the stands.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It was like you would have thought, like you're at
the end, like you would have thought, winner is getting
I don't know, you win, you go to the NBA finals.
Like this was like live or die? Do or die
at eight years old in New York City. You know,
it was just it was super intense. It was yeah,
it was fun though it was it was cool.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Any of any of your family members ever involved in
those fights?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
My mom one hundred Yeah, my mom was oft been
involved in those Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
When we return on the Landscape presented by Hospitality Staffing Solutions,
Tye tells us how his moments as a youngster prepared
him for the competitiveness of the NBA.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Of someone's always gonna have something to say, good, bad,
and different, and it just becomes about you and your
goals and enjoy it, you know what I mean. You
get pulled in so many different directions and you forget
that you're playing basketball for a living. Like how cool
is that?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
When you think about then, like like who you are
as a person and how you grew up and somebody
else described you to me as this is a guy
who does not lack competitiveness or confidence. Like ever, how
did some of those moments when you were a kid
possibly shape that part of you?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, that's something my dad and still to me from
a young age, you know what I mean, he always
coached me, and then when he didn't, he would always
just preach like, don't let anyone take your confidence away.
That was the kind of message that he preached throughout
my whole life. Like that was the one constant that
I always heard. Only to your confidence. I only went
to your confidence away. Cause over this journey of playing basketball,
(07:21):
like there's so many highs and lows. You know, there's
games you might not play. There's games you would have
a bad game. You might have played ten minutes, you
might play thirty minutes. Like from high school at college,
it was that was the same message, don't anyone take
your confidence away. And that's all I heard. So yeah,
just trying to stick with that, and and it's it's true,
you know, I mean through highs and lows, you kind
of just try to stay even and then stay super confident.
(07:41):
That's all the best players do.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Did you feel like there were people that tried to
tape the confidence away.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I think it just happens naturally. Every coach you have
is not gonna like you. And I don't even think
it's like a personal vendetta against was a personal vendetta
against me. It's just you can't let you know, one
coach maybe not liking your game impact your confidence or
your ability to fight through adversity. A lot of people do,
and I think, you know, it might stop them from
(08:07):
reaching their full potential as a player and just as
a person.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
What were some of the I guess negative things that
that you heard people say about you or your game.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Since I was in high school. You know, I could
committed to Virginia my sophomore year in high school and
it was, oh, you can't play at that level. He's
too slow, he's not strong enough, won't translate, and then
you know I did that, and then you can't play
in the NBA. Same thing. You know who's he gonna guard?
You can't get a shot off against these guys, and
then you just keep going, You keep going, and you're
always gonna hear that stuff. So I think at first
(08:41):
you use it as fuel kind of, and then after
a while, you just tune it out because of someone's
always gonna have something to say, good, bad, and different,
and it just becomes about you and your goals and
in the everyday life. And that's why I go back
to try to be that charismatic person, because I just
try to be myself and enjoy it, you know what
I mean. You get pulled in so many different directions
and you forget that you're playing basketball for a living,
(09:02):
Like how cool is that? You know?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
You mentioned the highs and lows, right, And you've had
to to face a lot of adversity, especially through injuries
throughout your career, which You've had hip surgery? Did you
have groin surgery? Have you had ankle surgery? Am I
missing anything? No?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
That's it just those three.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So when you think about some of those challenges, like,
first of all, what what do you consider as the
biggest test or the biggest challenge that you've faced so far?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
The toughest part about those surgeries is that I'm sidelined
for four or five plus months without basketball, So they
just like kind of your my my getaway, you know
what I mean, Like that's what I love to do.
It's my job now and you don't get to do
that for four or five six months, so you don't
get to try. I'm you know, that's nothing bad against Cleveland,
(09:54):
But when you're stuck here by yourself, when the team
is traveling all winter and you can't play and and
you can't try, it's just it takes a toll on you.
But I truly think the toughest part about the NBA
and about this journey is the highs and lows when
you're healthy. Because when you're hurt, it's simple, you know
what I mean, Like you don't really have a choice.
It's kind of outlined. I think. You make a plan,
(10:15):
you stick to it. This is my rehab today, this's
my rehab tomorrow, this Marie has the next day. And
you're just following a plan. And when you can wrap
your head around that, you know, you just follow. You
keep it light at the end of the tunnel and
you push through. But when you're healthy, the highs and
lows of like, all right, I had a bad game.
I played thirty minutes tonight. I played eight minutes tonight,
and it's just like that's when it becomes a real
(10:35):
mental challenge to keep the confidence, stay in rhythm and
just not care about anything else around you and just
keep being who you are.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Coming up, Tie shares the tools he uses to deal
with the ups and downs of the league, this and more.
When we return to the landscape presented by Hospitality Staffing Solutions,
Is there anything that you do to help better deal
with all of those emotions that you have to face
(11:08):
on a daily basis's not knowing what those emotions you're
gonna be until after the game.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I think it's embrace them like I usually try to,
like I spend the night after the game. It's embracing
the emotions like we're human. And I think a lot
of times people say don't get too high, I don't
get too low, like you're not supposed to feel, And
I think we are human. We do feel. That's what
makes us human beings. So I think, you know, if
I'm upset, I'll be upset for the night, and then
when I wake up, I try to recenter myself. I'll meditate,
(11:34):
I'll go I think, and then I pour back into
the work, like my daily habits. That's what I kind
of that's my foundation. You know what I do on
a daily basis, and then I try to, you know,
then I let let the game the night before go.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
When did you start meditating college and you've been doing
it ever since?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Interesting? So when you first started meditating. Tell me the
reasons behind why you tried it and kind of how
long it took you to get into it and how
it's become a part of your routine now.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
So my sophomore year in college, we were number one
in the country and we lost to the sixteen seed.
We're the first to ever do it. And then the
following year, I was so caught up and getting back
to the tournament. I wasn't really enjoying the regular season
at all, like just the moments and college is unbelievable,
you know. I mean, like you'll never be around the
group of guys, especially the connection we had at Virginia,
(12:23):
the coaching staff, the players, like those are some of
my best friends still, and I wasn't enjoying it. I
was just so like, R, we gotta get back to
the tournament. We gotta we gotta kind of get our
r we gotta avenge our loss, you know what I mean.
And finally I sat down with a sports psychologist and
I was just like, this is not healthy. This is
not good, Like I'm not in the moment at all.
And that's when he kind of introduced it to me.
(12:43):
I just started to do it every day and it
makes a big difference, just kind of being in the
moment and just pulling your attention back to the moment.
Any time you get ahead of yourself or think about
the past. It's all we have, you know what I mean,
the present moment.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, that's incredible. So you mentioned college and being I
guess you could say on the wrong side of history
right your sophomore year and then you completely flipped to
the right side of history, you know, winning the championship,
but kind of full circle moment with these highs and lows,
you know throughout your career, How did being on the
(13:15):
wrong side of history the year before help fuel you
for that next year?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah? It one hundred percent did. Our coach Tony Bennett,
who recently retired, he we watched the Ted Talk together.
He pulled up a Ted talk and it said, and
the moral of the Ted Talk was adversity can buy
you a ticket to a place that you can have
gone without it. And that's what that loss kind of
did for us, because, like I said, we're all humans.
(13:43):
So we're riding this high of like we started the
year unranked and we went thirty one and two or
something like that, and you ride this high of like wow,
we're great, and then boom, now it's just oh, now
you're a rock bottom, you know what I mean. So
and we're college kids still, so we're still kids, Like
we're still you know, getting caught up in the highs
and the lows and to have that bottom and it's
(14:06):
just like, okay, now you have two choices. You can
use this and it can fuel you and you can
be oh, wow, I'm nowhere close to where I want
to be as a team individually all the above, and
you double down on the work. And that's kind of
what he preached to us. That's what we did. And
that summer was rough, like a lot of anxiety, a
lot of like, you know, I couldn't really enjoy like
(14:27):
downtime at all. It was just so much about like,
you know, work, staying you know, I mean, just getting
back to that next year. But I mean it paid off,
and I think that's sometimes that's what it takes.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Did you feel like you got to really enjoy the
college part of the college experience I did.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
We had fun. We had fun obviously not like a
regular student because we were chasing something and we had
a goal. But I think that's what also made our
experience so unique, is that when you chase a goal
with a group of people like that, it's you know,
you have relationships for life automatically. And I think that's
what makes our experience unique. We might we might not
(15:06):
have been able to go out as much, but you know,
you have a group of fifteen eighteen people, not including
staff who I love a lot of those guys you
know so much. It's just it gives you relationships that
you really can't you can't replicate.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Speaking of that, I was going back through some photos
good posted on your Instagram account. Came across one of
you when DeAndre looked like you probably having a good time.
I think you weren't an Atlanta Hawks jersey.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
H know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, so obviously you know you got a good relationship
with him as well. What is that that photo that
I bring up? Like, what memories does that invoke for you?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
So? I think come not mistaken. That was when we
both came in together, both left together. After that championship.
We you know, were both first round picks and we
were having in the fall of that year before our
rookie year we had you know, we came back and
our team got honored, and so we spent the weekend
going around in each other's jerseys and yeah, that's my
(16:06):
best friends to this day. Like we went three years together.
We took every class together. It was a whole joke.
Abc one of them the other is going to be
right behind. Yeah. So that's one of the relationships that
you know, you can't replicate for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And now you both made it to the NBA.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It's pretty neat, pretty sure. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
When we come back, we talked to Tie about his
path to becoming a cavalier and the people that helped
him along the way. When the landscape presented by Hospitality
Staffing Solutions returns. Right, So, you were a cavalier at
Virginia and now you've made it to be a cavalier
here in the NBA. Before we get to that, I
think it's interesting that fans might not know that Kobe
(16:48):
Altman has known you since you were fourteen years old.
If I have that right, talk to me a little
bit about the relationship that you have with him and
how your pathway kind of started, like back when you
were even a teenager.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah. So he was an assistant coach at Columba University
and he saw me play when I was in eighth grade.
I think I was playing up. I was playing in
the high school AU tournament, and he talked to my
coach and he invited our whole team to Columbia cause
we were in New York City AU team Riverside Church,
which was back in the day, it was like a
premier AU team in New York City, and so he
(17:23):
was trying to build that build a relationship with our
you know, our team, and try to get guys to
stay home and go to Columbia. And they they had
a good program at the time, and I was the
only one that showed up, and I would just go
back every day the gym was open. I would go
play pick up with the guys, go work out, and
I just wanted to be around it. And so we
kind of built a relationship that way. And then uh,
(17:44):
I think a year later he left and came here,
so we obviously I didn't get to really see him anymore,
but we just built relationship like that because I was
the only one that showed up and just loved basketball
and always wanted to work out. If they, you know,
said hey, we got something that could work you out
at this time, I'd be there and that's our relationship started.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
So did you know then back in twenty nineteen when
you were drafted that the Calves even had an interest
in you?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Then i'd had a draft interview. I actually I came
out here right before the draft, but I was two
picks before before they're well, they had five and twenty
six and I went twenty four. DG went five and
I went twenty four.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So yeah, So then you become a Calve and you
have to go through the same thing again in terms
of hitting adversity and being on that side. And then
this season hits. You're healthy again and everyone's been talking
about you since training camp, just the competitive fire, going
back to everything with your personality, and then you're showing
(18:44):
it on the court in every way that you can
possibly imagine. Is there any sense of satisfaction gratification in
that or for you? Is it kind of like you
just know this is what you have to do going back?
Do you have to to do this every day you
wake up.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I think it's a few things. One I think this
is why I've always been I just finally have a
a little more of a platform to show it. If
I look back on some of my years in the NBA,
like I've had multiple stretches like this, it's just either
I was on a team nobody cared about, or we
were losing, or you know what I mean, it was
just I was behind Steph Curry and Jordan Poole. Like
I think this is always It's just sometimes you are
(19:25):
someone and you have to, you know, be that person
for so long until we finally get to show it
finally comes to the light. But then it goes back
to like, all right, it's been twenty to twenty three games,
and like at the end of the day, who really cares,
you know what I mean? Like, like I said, it's
every day you have to keep doing it, keep doing it,
keep doing it. And you know, we obviously our goals championship,
and even if we accomplish that goal, we want to
(19:46):
come back the following year and we got to run
it back, you know what I mean. So, like you said,
it's just every day you have to keep getting better.
You don't really ever get to rest mentally or physically,
and that's why you got to kind of find ways.
Now we're going full circle to the beginning of interview.
That's why I like to keep it light because you know,
on the court, it's just it's never ending. So you know,
I try to enjoy myself off the court.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Last one, speaking of keeping it light, it sure seems
like as a team you all understand and have a
good time keeping it light, right, And now that we
know that's part of who you are, just give me
one sense of, like what it's really like to be
on a team that enjoys not just each other this much,
(20:28):
but enjoys being on the court with each other as
much as you guys do.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
This is not an exaggeration or a joke or a
statement because we're in an interview and the meet. You don't
find this in the in the NBA often. This is
my fourth team. I have a lot of friends with
other teams, and I hear stories, and you don't find
a team where you don't have any guys stepping out
of line. We don't have any guys l late. We
(20:54):
have all high character guys, and we all like each
other and you just you don't find that. So it's
not something that I'm taking for granted. I don't think
anybody's taking for granted, and aouncing that's helping us keep
it like, that's helping us stand the moment because a
lot of guys are you know, in contract years or
you hear this and you hear that, and not taking
(21:14):
that for granted is huge because you know the future
is always uncertain and when you have a situation like this,
you want to really enjoy it because this is this
is rare at the NBA level.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
TI Drome really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Thanks for joining us. Absolutely
Welcome into the landscape presented by Hospitality Staffing Solutions. I'm
your host, Serena Winters and joining me today one of
the most talked about players in Cleveland right now, Ti Jerome.
Thank you so much for sitting down and taking the time.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It's fun because when I know I get to sit
down with the player, then I get to kind of
walk around and ask some of your teammates about you
and say, hey, what's just just give me one word
you'd use to describe ty Jerome. I have heard let's
see jokester, I have heard troll, I have heard competitive,
I have heard charismatic. But it all kind of goes
back to just your personality and who you are. So
(00:59):
as we sit down here, we kind of want to
get to know more about you. What's your initial reaction
to some of those.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Descriptions expected, Yeah, yeah, for sure, I think Yeah. I
like to keep it light. It's a long season, you
know what I mean. I think a lot of times
you can get caught up in the wins and losses,
the good performances, the bad performances, and I just think
keeping it light, having a good time, obviously, getting your
work in but you know, the plane rides, the bus
(01:27):
rides off the court, just making sure that people are
you in good spirits and having a good time, and
you know, I just think joking is a great way
to do that. Well.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
A lot of times our personality also comes from like
who we are and how we grew up and what
we grew up around. Right, So I'd love to get
to know a little bit more about that. Talk to
me just about kind of your first memories growing up,
what family life was like. I know you were around
basketball from not even just a young age. The reports
say that your dad had a basketball in your crib
the day they brought you, right, he does telling a
(01:57):
few times, but the point being like this has always
always been around.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, it has. Both my parents played in college. I
was kind of born into it. So as soon as
I was born, my dad was coaching high school, my
mom was still playing in the adult leagues, and yeah,
it was like they bonded over it. They played on
teams together like in adult leagues, and yeah, I was
just always around it. I always had a ball in
(02:22):
my hands. Yeah. It was definitely my first love, whether
I wanted to be or not.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You know, It's interesting because a lot of people have
one parent that played basketball, and typically it's the dad, right,
Like you usually hear those stories, but both your mom
and dad played college basketball. Your mom's name Melany, right, yeah,
so it's amazing that she was playing in adult leagues.
That that's true love, Like that is true passion for
the game, right, So not just having one parent, but
(02:47):
getting to grow up where that was a passion for
both of your parents. Was it almost just inevitable that
that was going to be something that you were going
to do?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, y. I I don't know what would
have happen if I didn't like it, but I always
loved it, Like you know, when you're two. I'm literally
two years old running around trying to dribble a basketball,
sometimes two basketballs, you know what I mean. So like I,
I always loved it. I wanted to be around it
all the time. So I don't know what would have
happened if I didn't like it, But it was never really,
it never really came to that cause I always just
(03:20):
loved it. Like there were times where I might not
have wanted, like work out at eight, nine, ten years old,
and you know, my dad was like you have to,
you know, I mean that happened, but I always loved
to play games. I always loved to play the game.
I always loved to be around the game, even from
a a very young age. So I think they introduced
it to me and I kind of just ran with it.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Did you ever think about doing anything else?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I was a pretty good little league baseball player, okay,
but then the field got big and I I I stopped.
Uh my, my love for baseball went away fast.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So you mentioned being eight nine years old, and Donovan
Mitchell tells the story because Donovan happened to be on
your AAU team coached by your dad Mark. And it's
funny that your facial expression right there, because he was
saying the other day that he still has PTSD from
being cussed out at eight o'clock in the morning. You
(04:13):
know what he's laughing about it like those are memories
when your kids, like, what are your memories of those days?
Because eight and nine years old is very young. So
when you look back on it now and think about
how intense like some of those moments were, what.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Do you think about a lot of fear? A lot
of fear at eight years old? For sure, just you know,
you make a bad play, it's just like where is he?
You know what I mean? Like, but definitely made me
more mentally tough. Definitely made me mentally tough for sure.
We definitely had a really good group when when we're
that age, you know, Donovan, myself, Eric Pascal played in
(04:50):
the NBA. We had a lot of other guys played
Division One. So we had a really you know, unique
group for like eight and under nine and under. My
dad was definitely super intense for sure, probably a little
too intense.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So you guys were playing in some of the best
leagues for that age group, right throughout New York City. Yeah,
we went, we traveled nationals, all that, and I heard
that that the environments were pretty tough, like pretty hostile environments.
And so when I'm thinking about that and picturing it,
it's almost hard for me to picture because growing up
(05:24):
and playing basketball that age, like in a normal gym,
for me, it's like, yeah, you hear about the parents,
but from what I'm hearing, like the environments were pretty
intense at that age.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, so you picture it was definitely more intense than
in regular season game for sure. So you picture like
a small gym pack, bleachers, parents running on the court,
fights occasionally breaking out.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Excuse me, fights, occasionally breaking stands, okay, the stands.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It was like you would have thought, like you're at
the end, like you would have thought, winner is getting
I don't know, you win, you go to the NBA finals.
Like this was like live or die? Do or die
at eight years old in New York City. You know,
it was just it was super intense. It was yeah,
it was fun though it was it was cool.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Any of any of your family members ever involved in
those fights?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
My mom one hundred Yeah, my mom was oft been
involved in those Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
When we return on the Landscape presented by Hospitality Staffing Solutions,
Tye tells us how his moments as a youngster prepared
him for the competitiveness of the NBA.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Of someone's always gonna have something to say, good, bad,
and different, and it just becomes about you and your
goals and enjoy it, you know what I mean. You
get pulled in so many different directions and you forget
that you're playing basketball for a living. Like how cool
is that?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
When you think about then, like like who you are
as a person and how you grew up and somebody
else described you to me as this is a guy
who does not lack competitiveness or confidence. Like ever, how
did some of those moments when you were a kid
possibly shape that part of you?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, that's something my dad and still to me from
a young age, you know what I mean, he always
coached me, and then when he didn't, he would always
just preach like, don't let anyone take your confidence away.
That was the kind of message that he preached throughout
my whole life. Like that was the one constant that
I always heard. Only to your confidence. I only went
to your confidence away. Cause over this journey of playing basketball,
(07:21):
like there's so many highs and lows. You know, there's
games you might not play. There's games you would have
a bad game. You might have played ten minutes, you
might play thirty minutes. Like from high school at college,
it was that was the same message, don't anyone take
your confidence away. And that's all I heard. So yeah,
just trying to stick with that, and and it's it's true,
you know, I mean through highs and lows, you kind
of just try to stay even and then stay super confident.
(07:41):
That's all the best players do.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Did you feel like there were people that tried to
tape the confidence away.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I think it just happens naturally. Every coach you have
is not gonna like you. And I don't even think
it's like a personal vendetta against was a personal vendetta
against me. It's just you can't let you know, one
coach maybe not liking your game impact your confidence or
your ability to fight through adversity. A lot of people do,
and I think, you know, it might stop them from
(08:07):
reaching their full potential as a player and just as
a person.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
What were some of the I guess negative things that
that you heard people say about you or your game.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Since I was in high school. You know, I could
committed to Virginia my sophomore year in high school and
it was, oh, you can't play at that level. He's
too slow, he's not strong enough, won't translate, and then
you know I did that, and then you can't play
in the NBA. Same thing. You know who's he gonna guard?
You can't get a shot off against these guys, and
then you just keep going, You keep going, and you're
always gonna hear that stuff. So I think at first
(08:41):
you use it as fuel kind of, and then after
a while, you just tune it out because of someone's
always gonna have something to say, good, bad, and different,
and it just becomes about you and your goals and
in the everyday life. And that's why I go back
to try to be that charismatic person, because I just
try to be myself and enjoy it, you know what
I mean. You get pulled in so many different directions
and you forget that you're playing basketball for a living,
(09:02):
Like how cool is that? You know?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
You mentioned the highs and lows, right, And you've had
to to face a lot of adversity, especially through injuries
throughout your career, which You've had hip surgery? Did you
have groin surgery? Have you had ankle surgery? Am I
missing anything? No?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
That's it just those three.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
So when you think about some of those challenges, like,
first of all, what what do you consider as the
biggest test or the biggest challenge that you've faced so far?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
The toughest part about those surgeries is that I'm sidelined
for four or five plus months without basketball, So they
just like kind of your my my getaway, you know
what I mean, Like that's what I love to do.
It's my job now and you don't get to do
that for four or five six months, so you don't
get to try. I'm you know, that's nothing bad against Cleveland,
(09:54):
But when you're stuck here by yourself, when the team
is traveling all winter and you can't play and and
you can't try, it's just it takes a toll on you.
But I truly think the toughest part about the NBA
and about this journey is the highs and lows when
you're healthy. Because when you're hurt, it's simple, you know
what I mean, Like you don't really have a choice.
It's kind of outlined. I think. You make a plan,
(10:15):
you stick to it. This is my rehab today, this's
my rehab tomorrow, this Marie has the next day. And
you're just following a plan. And when you can wrap
your head around that, you know, you just follow. You
keep it light at the end of the tunnel and
you push through. But when you're healthy, the highs and
lows of like, all right, I had a bad game.
I played thirty minutes tonight. I played eight minutes tonight,
and it's just like that's when it becomes a real
(10:35):
mental challenge to keep the confidence, stay in rhythm and
just not care about anything else around you and just
keep being who you are.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Coming up, Tie shares the tools he uses to deal
with the ups and downs of the league, this and more.
When we return to the landscape presented by Hospitality Staffing Solutions,
Is there anything that you do to help better deal
with all of those emotions that you have to face
(11:08):
on a daily basis's not knowing what those emotions you're
gonna be until after the game.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I think it's embrace them like I usually try to,
like I spend the night after the game. It's embracing
the emotions like we're human. And I think a lot
of times people say don't get too high, I don't
get too low, like you're not supposed to feel, And
I think we are human. We do feel. That's what
makes us human beings. So I think, you know, if
I'm upset, I'll be upset for the night, and then
when I wake up, I try to recenter myself. I'll meditate,
(11:34):
I'll go I think, and then I pour back into
the work, like my daily habits. That's what I kind
of that's my foundation. You know what I do on
a daily basis, and then I try to, you know,
then I let let the game the night before go.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
When did you start meditating college and you've been doing
it ever since?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Interesting? So when you first started meditating. Tell me the
reasons behind why you tried it and kind of how
long it took you to get into it and how
it's become a part of your routine now.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
So my sophomore year in college, we were number one
in the country and we lost to the sixteen seed.
We're the first to ever do it. And then the
following year, I was so caught up and getting back
to the tournament. I wasn't really enjoying the regular season
at all, like just the moments and college is unbelievable,
you know. I mean, like you'll never be around the
group of guys, especially the connection we had at Virginia,
(12:23):
the coaching staff, the players, like those are some of
my best friends still, and I wasn't enjoying it. I
was just so like, R, we gotta get back to
the tournament. We gotta we gotta kind of get our
r we gotta avenge our loss, you know what I mean.
And finally I sat down with a sports psychologist and
I was just like, this is not healthy. This is
not good, Like I'm not in the moment at all.
And that's when he kind of introduced it to me.
(12:43):
I just started to do it every day and it
makes a big difference, just kind of being in the
moment and just pulling your attention back to the moment.
Any time you get ahead of yourself or think about
the past. It's all we have, you know what I mean,
the present moment.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, that's incredible. So you mentioned college and being I
guess you could say on the wrong side of history
right your sophomore year and then you completely flipped to
the right side of history, you know, winning the championship,
but kind of full circle moment with these highs and lows,
you know throughout your career, How did being on the
(13:15):
wrong side of history the year before help fuel you
for that next year?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah? It one hundred percent did. Our coach Tony Bennett,
who recently retired, he we watched the Ted Talk together.
He pulled up a Ted talk and it said, and
the moral of the Ted Talk was adversity can buy
you a ticket to a place that you can have
gone without it. And that's what that loss kind of
did for us, because, like I said, we're all humans.
(13:43):
So we're riding this high of like we started the
year unranked and we went thirty one and two or
something like that, and you ride this high of like wow,
we're great, and then boom, now it's just oh, now
you're a rock bottom, you know what I mean. So
and we're college kids still, so we're still kids, Like
we're still you know, getting caught up in the highs
and the lows and to have that bottom and it's
(14:06):
just like, okay, now you have two choices. You can
use this and it can fuel you and you can
be oh, wow, I'm nowhere close to where I want
to be as a team individually all the above, and
you double down on the work. And that's kind of
what he preached to us. That's what we did. And
that summer was rough, like a lot of anxiety, a
lot of like, you know, I couldn't really enjoy like
(14:27):
downtime at all. It was just so much about like,
you know, work, staying you know, I mean, just getting
back to that next year. But I mean it paid off,
and I think that's sometimes that's what it takes.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Did you feel like you got to really enjoy the
college part of the college experience I did.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
We had fun. We had fun obviously not like a
regular student because we were chasing something and we had
a goal. But I think that's what also made our
experience so unique, is that when you chase a goal
with a group of people like that, it's you know,
you have relationships for life automatically. And I think that's
what makes our experience unique. We might we might not
(15:06):
have been able to go out as much, but you know,
you have a group of fifteen eighteen people, not including
staff who I love a lot of those guys you
know so much. It's just it gives you relationships that
you really can't you can't replicate.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Speaking of that, I was going back through some photos
good posted on your Instagram account. Came across one of
you when DeAndre looked like you probably having a good time.
I think you weren't an Atlanta Hawks jersey.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
H know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, so obviously you know you got a good relationship
with him as well. What is that that photo that
I bring up? Like, what memories does that invoke for you?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
So? I think come not mistaken. That was when we
both came in together, both left together. After that championship.
We you know, were both first round picks and we
were having in the fall of that year before our
rookie year we had you know, we came back and
our team got honored, and so we spent the weekend
going around in each other's jerseys and yeah, that's my
(16:06):
best friends to this day. Like we went three years together.
We took every class together. It was a whole joke.
Abc one of them the other is going to be
right behind. Yeah. So that's one of the relationships that
you know, you can't replicate for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And now you both made it to the NBA.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It's pretty neat, pretty sure. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
When we come back, we talked to Tie about his
path to becoming a cavalier and the people that helped
him along the way. When the landscape presented by Hospitality
Staffing Solutions returns. Right, So, you were a cavalier at
Virginia and now you've made it to be a cavalier
here in the NBA. Before we get to that, I
think it's interesting that fans might not know that Kobe
(16:48):
Altman has known you since you were fourteen years old.
If I have that right, talk to me a little
bit about the relationship that you have with him and
how your pathway kind of started, like back when you
were even a teenager.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah. So he was an assistant coach at Columba University
and he saw me play when I was in eighth grade.
I think I was playing up. I was playing in
the high school AU tournament, and he talked to my
coach and he invited our whole team to Columbia cause
we were in New York City AU team Riverside Church,
which was back in the day, it was like a
premier AU team in New York City, and so he
(17:23):
was trying to build that build a relationship with our
you know, our team, and try to get guys to
stay home and go to Columbia. And they they had
a good program at the time, and I was the
only one that showed up, and I would just go
back every day the gym was open. I would go
play pick up with the guys, go work out, and
I just wanted to be around it. And so we
kind of built a relationship that way. And then uh,
(17:44):
I think a year later he left and came here,
so we obviously I didn't get to really see him anymore,
but we just built relationship like that because I was
the only one that showed up and just loved basketball
and always wanted to work out. If they, you know,
said hey, we got something that could work you out
at this time, I'd be there and that's our relationship started.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
So did you know then back in twenty nineteen when
you were drafted that the Calves even had an interest
in you?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Then i'd had a draft interview. I actually I came
out here right before the draft, but I was two
picks before before they're well, they had five and twenty
six and I went twenty four. DG went five and
I went twenty four.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So yeah, So then you become a Calve and you
have to go through the same thing again in terms
of hitting adversity and being on that side. And then
this season hits. You're healthy again and everyone's been talking
about you since training camp, just the competitive fire, going
back to everything with your personality, and then you're showing
(18:44):
it on the court in every way that you can
possibly imagine. Is there any sense of satisfaction gratification in
that or for you? Is it kind of like you
just know this is what you have to do going back?
Do you have to to do this every day you
wake up.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I think it's a few things. One I think this
is why I've always been I just finally have a
a little more of a platform to show it. If
I look back on some of my years in the NBA,
like I've had multiple stretches like this, it's just either
I was on a team nobody cared about, or we
were losing, or you know what I mean, it was
just I was behind Steph Curry and Jordan Poole. Like
I think this is always It's just sometimes you are
(19:25):
someone and you have to, you know, be that person
for so long until we finally get to show it
finally comes to the light. But then it goes back
to like, all right, it's been twenty to twenty three games,
and like at the end of the day, who really cares,
you know what I mean? Like, like I said, it's
every day you have to keep doing it, keep doing it,
keep doing it. And you know, we obviously our goals championship,
and even if we accomplish that goal, we want to
(19:46):
come back the following year and we got to run
it back, you know what I mean. So, like you said,
it's just every day you have to keep getting better.
You don't really ever get to rest mentally or physically,
and that's why you got to kind of find ways.
Now we're going full circle to the beginning of interview.
That's why I like to keep it light because you know,
on the court, it's just it's never ending. So you know,
I try to enjoy myself off the court.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Last one, speaking of keeping it light, it sure seems
like as a team you all understand and have a
good time keeping it light, right, And now that we
know that's part of who you are, just give me
one sense of, like what it's really like to be
on a team that enjoys not just each other this much,
(20:28):
but enjoys being on the court with each other as
much as you guys do.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
This is not an exaggeration or a joke or a
statement because we're in an interview and the meet. You don't
find this in the in the NBA often. This is
my fourth team. I have a lot of friends with
other teams, and I hear stories, and you don't find
a team where you don't have any guys stepping out
of line. We don't have any guys l late. We
(20:54):
have all high character guys, and we all like each
other and you just you don't find that. So it's
not something that I'm taking for granted. I don't think
anybody's taking for granted, and aouncing that's helping us keep
it like, that's helping us stand the moment because a
lot of guys are you know, in contract years or
you hear this and you hear that, and not taking
(21:14):
that for granted is huge because you know the future
is always uncertain and when you have a situation like this,
you want to really enjoy it because this is this
is rare at the NBA level.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
TI Drome really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Thanks for joining us. Absolutely
Host
Serena Winters
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