NBA Hall of Famer Andrew D. Bernstein: Capturing Legends

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can I use I can use bad las? Yes, so
he called him. There he goes, he says, Kid, He goes,
what the fuck is wrong with you? He says, every
fucking gage you're trying to get in my fucking huddle,
I fucking tell you to get the fuck out of
my huddle, and you keep fucking doing it over and over.
It got to the point with Phil Jackson, like after
the second championship in Chicago. You know, Phil kept a

(00:22):
pretty tight ship too, and after that second championship things
had died down a little bit in the locker room.
He goes, so, is were we going to make a habit
of this? I said, what, what, coach? He says, You're
going to be the first guy in every time I
win a championship. I said yeah, he says, great. And
that's how it lasted for eleven championships. Literally before Kobe

(00:42):
became Black Mamba Vicious Snake. This guy just would size
you up, not me, but his opponents. I'm also a
great trash talker too. People don't realize, but he backed
it up just like Bird could. It's the trash talkers
in the league. I couldn't really back it up, but
Mike Michael could and be able to get Magic and

(01:03):
Michael in the same shot. These two guys fierce competitors,
you know, two different kinds of players, of course, but
both fierce competitors and a lot of respect towards each other,
but also wanted to tear each other's heads off.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Welcome back to the Sino Show. Today, we have a
true legend behind the lens. If you've ever seen an
iconic sports photo Jordan Mindair, Kobe's intensity, Lebron's rise, chances
are it was captured by this man. He's not just
a photographer. He's a storyteller, a Hall of Famer, a

(01:51):
visual historian of the NBA. His work has shaped how
we see the game, how we feel its energy, and
how we remember its greatest moments. From shooting the Dream
Team to being Kobe Bryant's personal photographer and co authoring
The Mamba Mentality, his career has been a master class
and dedication creativity and capturing history in real time. Today

(02:16):
we dive into the art of photography, the mindset of champions,
and the stories behind the shots with the one and only,
my brother from Another Andy Bernsey. Welcome brother, So.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
You know what a great intro. You like that? Can
I leave now? No, that's a good one, that's all.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's good though. I never learned that one brother.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
You and I man spend a lot of time on
this couch with you, and it's good to be talking
now face to face about this is interesting, good stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, we've been in spiritual partnership. How many years?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
August first, it'll be twenty four years. Wow, And I
remember that date very well, my friend, first meeting you
and the journey started.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Then the journey. We'll talk about that journey. We'll talk,
but let the seriously, this is a real blessing. Man.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Thank you for me too, Pal, This is great. I
love what you're doing. You know that. I know if
I get to talk to you, I don't care if
there's a mic or not. I'll talk to you.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, but yours. You know. You know what inspired this.
I was talking to Harris and we're talking about you
and kind of going through your history of what you did.
And Harris has been to the office here and he knows.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Actually I wanted I'm gonna get right into this.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, I have a photo here. We'll pull it up
for folks to see. The Derek Fisher shot and you
can tell maybe a little about how you captured that shot.
And I have that shot because I always remind clients
there's enough time.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, barely, barely, Yeah, but yeah, that was. I mean
every picture that you know, we'll talk about as a
story behind it, but that one was. It was just
a moment that I was very fortunate to capture. I mean,
I it's the end of the game was I think
it was Western Conference Finals game Lakers and Spurs at

(04:04):
San Antonio, and the ball came into Derek with zero
point four on the shot on the shot clock, which
is really the minimum amount of time they have to
get a shot off and make a count before the
buzzer goes. And he he got he did it, he
got the ball shot it. But if you look at
that picture, Kobe is is just to the right of Derek,

(04:27):
and he for the millisecond when Derek caught the ball,
Kobe was in the way and somebody up above kind
of moved the mamba to the right a little bit
and I was able to get that shot. Which that
that whole scenario of shooting those last second shots really
started with Jordan's shot in the finals. Where he faked

(04:48):
out Byron Russell and took the game winner with zero
point six on the clock. So it was it was
a great moment. It was a testament to quite honestly,
me being locked in and ready and focused, I mean
not in a photography sense, but in a mental sense,
and not getting distracted by the significance of the moment

(05:09):
because I don't get a do over, you know, I
don't get.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
There, and we're going to get into that. Yeah, I
think we should probably let folks in a little bit
where you came from when you realize you wanted to
be a photographer.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Us A little backstory, brother, Well, I came from Brooklyn,
New York. I was a huge sports fan growing up,
but I was always the shortest kit of my block.
So when we played stickball or touch football or tackle football,
we played on concrete in the school yard in the winter,
played roller hockey. I was always like, I donuld say
the last guy picked, but I wasn't. I wasn't the

(05:44):
first guy picked. But I love sports, and there was
the way my dad and I really the only way
my dad and I bonded was over sports. My dad
was a clinical psychologist and we had very busy practice
hit There's a whole other stuff going on in the family,
and going to Ranger games, especially New York Ranger hockey games,

(06:06):
was our thing. So from eight or nine years old,
I would get dressed in a jacket and tie to
go to a Rangers game, usually on a Wednesday or
a Sunday, religiously on Sundays, a lot of times on Wednesdays,
although it was you know, school night, and you know,
we lived and died with the Rangers. As a Mets

(06:27):
fan growing up. Gil Hodges, who was the legendary Brooklyn Dodger,
became the Mets manager in sixty nine when they won
the World Series, so you know, the miracle Mets, amazing Mets.
I was eleven years old when they won the World
Series and Gil Hodges literally lived around the corner from me,
so we made a big parade, all us kids in
the neighborhood. So big sports fan growing up, played sports,

(06:51):
and then my dad introduced me to photography when I
was fourteen, bought me a camera and we made a trip.
He and I made a trip to the western United States.
I had never really honestly been west of New Jersey,
so I thought the Western United States was kind of
like going to Jupiter, and we ended up going to
almost all the national parks, you know, from me and

(07:12):
my dad. Yeah, it was a road trip that started
in Calgary and bamf Alberta. Because we were friends. My
dad became friends with Glenn Sather, who was a journeyman
hockey player who then became the legendary coach of the
Edmonton Oilers, and he and my dad, through a whole
series another podcast circumstances, became friends. Glenn had invited me

(07:35):
to his hockey camp to participate as a camper that
summer my fourteenth year. On Mother's Day, I busted my
nose in like three places trying to practice hockey stops
and I shouldn't have been practicing without gloves, let's say.
And so my hockey career was over. But Glenn said, well,

(07:57):
why don't you guys just come out and you know,
hang out, and guys could camp out on my property,
this gorgeous property, you know, outside of Banff. And so
my dad said, yeah, we'll make a trip out of it.
You know, we already earmarked that time and all that stuff.
So instead of putting on hockey skates, I had a camera,
and anyway, we shot all this all the national parks.

(08:19):
And in those days you might remember, and people in
your audience might remember. But when you should shoot film,
obviously pre digital, you shoot codochrome film, and you could
buy codochrome. The film canister came with a mailer, prepaid mailer, right,
so you shoot a roll of film wherever you are
in the country. You could stick the film in the mailer.

(08:40):
It goes to Rochester, New York. It's the only place
in the planet that developed codochrome film, and then they
would send it to you like a couple of weeks
later in the mail in your mailbox. You get a
little yellow box. Do you remember that?

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Wow, So we bought I think we bought like sixty
rolls of film, and my dad is half and I
take half and I'm shooting. He showed me a couple
of things in the camera, very simple, and how to
work it. I taught myself everything, and I really fell
in love with excuse me. The creative process of seeing
a beautiful vista like Grand Tetons or Yellowstone and then

(09:18):
translating it through the camera onto film was just a
you know, incredible experience for me. And then so anyway,
long story show, we get home and there's all these
yellow boxes piled up that you know we're coming in.
My mom was taking a mid every day, and we
start rifling through the boxes. You know. My dad's looking
at his and I'm looking at mine, and he's like, ah,

(09:40):
this picture Yellowstone is unbelievable, seventy is incredibly this picture
I shot of the Grand Canyon. Then we get to
Mount Rainier and he goes, look at this these incredible
shots that I that he took of Mount Rainier. And
I said, Dad, let me see that box for a second.
And I started looking through and I said, but Pop,
you're in these pictures like that's my role. And he

(10:04):
looked at me goes, yeah, I guess I taught you something.
I gave him the credit. But I really fell in
love with photography. So long story short, I married my
two passions love sports, love photography. Why not trying to
make a career out of it. Ended up coming out
here to go to Arts Center, which did not actually

(10:25):
promote my love for sports photography. But by working for
Sports Illustrated as an assistant, all the wheels started moving
for me to have a career here and you know
it's lasted forty six years now.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, when did you start working for the Lakers.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
So my first gig from the NBA was the eighty
three All Star Game, which was a game. It was
not a weekend. It was not like you know it
is now. It was literally a game on a Sunday
afternoon in February at twelve o'clock. That was the very
famous Marvin Gaye sang the anthem at that the most
iconic anthem in the history of anthems. And there I am.

(11:03):
I'm standing there at center court, the Forum at noon
on the Sunday, and I got the East team over
here with Bird and Isaiah and all those guys and
Magic and Kareem and all those guys over there, and
Marvin gay sing and the anthem, and I honestly see
I looked around and I just said, this is fucking cool.
Like were nervous, No, I was excited. I wasn't nervous.

(11:26):
I had a lot to do because I was the
only guy covering it. But it wasn't nervous. I was excited.
It was like, this is what I dreamed of. And
it was the start of my career. But it's what
I had worked myself, you know, really hard as an assistant,
especially to get to that point.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
So you did the All Star Game, and that led to.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
That open doors because the NBA, because of the Bird
Magic era, Showtime, all that stuff. I was in the
right place at the right time. Obviously, the NBA really
needed a lot of photography on a regular basis. Back then,
all the teams dependent on their team for their local
team photographer for their photography. So if you're you know,

(12:09):
if you're in Philadelphia, you're only getting the Sixers at home.
You're not getting the Sixers when they go on the
road if you're you know, in New York or LA
or whatever. So it was very limited as to there
was no sharing of photography. There was no real mechanism
to do that. So in nineteen eighty six we I
was a co creator of NBA Photos, which became kind

(12:32):
of the sort of the early model for Getty and
all the other leagues was the World six It was
eighty six, and at the same time I helped, I
helped to create the position of official NBA photographer. They
had never had one before, and at that time I
was also working for the Dodgers as their team photographer
and building my photography business, you know as a whole

(12:56):
with the Kings and everything else I was doing. So
it was a busy time in the eighties.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Well, we have a lot of Lakers found on the show. Yeah,
I hope. So walk us through show time. Walk us
through like Riley coming there. Walk us when you realize
Jack's on the floor. Yeah, something, there's something happening here.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
It was just such a special time to go to
the Forum. First of all, for me, I lived out
in Pasadena, so you know, there's a trek to get
to the Forum for games, and once I would, you know,
I would get to the games at noon one o'clock
for a seven thirty game, and the Forum was just
a special place. You know. It's it's like literally was

(13:39):
in the middle of nowhere. All of a sudden, you
see this this forum in the middle of nowhere in Inglewood,
and nothing else was around it. Back then, you know,
there was no soapy stadium, there was no anything except
private houses and some businesses. And then once you walked in,
it was just incredibly special place. I mean, even the

(14:00):
way it was lit. It was lit kind of like
a like a theatrical show if you see old video
and my photos right, And even when the team moved
to Staples in ninety nine, the Lakers wanted to emulate
copy that lighting from the Forum. So instead of using
like the arena lights that you would see and most
of all arenas actually where they're using basically the hockey

(14:22):
lights and just turn off some for basketball, Lakers brought
in their own lighting to kind of simulate what they
had at the Forum because it was that kind of
you know show, the only team to wear yellow instead
of white at home they had gold jerseys. And then
when you know, I came in and Riley was already coached,
it was that season and it was magical. I mean

(14:45):
I had to earn my way in. You know, Pat
was was was very strict about who was allowed in
the inner circle of the team. Longtime trainer, my great
friend Gary Vetti has a saying that back then it
was twelve plus two plus one, so twelve players, two coaches.
I was Riley and Bill Burka one trainer, and Riley

(15:08):
would always say everyone else was a peripheral opponent. So wives, girlfriends, photographers,
media people worked in the front office. He looked at
everybody else as a peripheral opponent. Was he able to
control the environment, It was, Yeah, he controlled it with
pretty much an iron fist. I mean there was a

(15:29):
lot of respect for Ryle's I had to earn my
way in. Like I said, you know, I tell this story,
but I don't think I've told you this story that
here I am this young photographer trying to make my way.
And one of my things was I was trying to
get into his huddle.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
You know.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
I was trying to work my way every time out
or pregame or after halftime, and just work my way
into the huddle. And every single time he'd see me
out the corner of his eye like this, get out,
get out, And they start using some really colorful Schenectady
language because he came from a hard scrabble upbringing in Schenectady,

(16:09):
and there are a lot of f bombs, you know,
And I just I got frustrated, honestly. I mean this
happened game after game after game, and Gary Vet would
just kind of give me the side. I like, haven't
you like learned yet, Like he's not let you in.
So before a game, I'm setting up my stuff and
the team comes out to warm up, and then you know,
Riley comes out a couple of minutes before tip off

(16:32):
and he sees me, and I caught his eye. Didn't
want to catch his eye, but I caught his eye.
And he gives me one of these like deals, you know,
like going to the principal's office. And I'm thinking, well,
it was a nice young, you know, quick career. I
have to think of something else to do. He's gonna,
you know, throw me out, and he, uh, can I

(16:53):
use I could use bad like yes, So he called
him and I was like, shirk over there like this
my tale between my lady goes. He says, kid, He goes,
what the fuck is wrong with you? He says, every
fucking gave you trying to get in my fucking huddle
and I fucking tell you to get the fuck out
of my huddle, and you keep fucking doing it over
and over and get He goes, is something fucking wrong

(17:15):
with you? You don't get it? I said, coach, And
this is a moment of truth. This is like the
first real moment of truth, well of my career. I
would say I could have just, you know, just shirked
away and just gone off into the sunset. But I
just said, I said, coach, you're in there with Magic
and Kareem and you're drawing up plays with Bill Burden.

(17:36):
I'm a fan. All these fans, they want to see
what you're doing. You know. I want to go on
the inside. He wouldn't even let TV in the huddle,
and I just want to be able to tell the
world and show what you're doing from you know, from
the inside. And he looked at me, and he just
looked at me for a second. He goes, all right,
I'll tell you what I'm going to fucking let you
do it one time, but if you fuck it up,

(17:58):
you're never coming back. He said, okay, okay. So the
game was I remember this like it was yesterday. The
game was on a Sunday. That next Tuesday is the
next game. I go to his office. I got a
Manila folder a prince to put it on. I don't
even say hi. He's sitting at his desk, drawn up whatever.
Put the Manila folder on the desk. He opens it up,

(18:20):
and this prince and he's going through these eight by
ten prints, one after the other. And then he looks
at him and he goes, you were my fucking huddle,
I said, mission accomplished. Turned around all and so when
we had we had the Showtime reunion a couple of
years ago. That that Magic and Riley invited everyone from

(18:40):
the Showtime era who had won a ring with the
team from the eighties and then you know, they won
five rings, invited them all to MAUI. I was the
only non player invited my wife and I probably because
they would needed pictures taken, but I like to think
this as part of the family. And we all had
to tell a story during that week together. Every single

(19:01):
person had to get up and tell a story. And
I told that story. That was the story. I told
story and Pat Pat says, now you know why you're
here today this thing because that happened. And I said,
you're right, You're right. And I owe a lot of
my I don't know, my Brooklyn Moxie to him. I

(19:21):
probably owe that more to my dad and where I
was brought up, but my self confidence and never say,
you know, never listening to the noise and all that
and just moving forward. I get I get a lot
of that from Riley and from Magic and from Phil,
but you know, I point back to that moment as
a real key moment in my career. It was really

(19:42):
a moment of truth. I mean it's like anybody gets
called into the boss's office. You either got to stand
up for yourself if you know what you're doing is righteous,
or or just take responsibility or give up. Giving up
was not an option, right. I didn't gotten to that point.
I'm gonna just going to give up. Well, so let's
got There's.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
So much to talk about, man, I'm so inspired right now.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, you know what else too? Why I wanted to
have you on the show, and because the reason why
I connect with clients, I believe you'll tell me is trust.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah. Oh, trust, that's the main word.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
And had to you know you look at I just
want to put this up there. This is a absolute must
book to get for anybody who wants to know about
sports and what Andy does and Kobe and it's just incredible.
I'm gonna get into this, but to take the picture
of the athlete, whoever it is, after the injury, after

(20:44):
the championship, or when something horrific happened and they allow
you in, you had to earn the trust. Can we
talk about earning trust of some people with very big
egos and a lot.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Going on, and absolutely, I mean, you use the right
word earn. Nobody gives you the trust, right So trust
depended on with me like that moment with Riley, like
I had to earn my way in to prove to
him that I'm worthy of him letting me in again.
You know that I didn't screw it up, And with

(21:17):
me was always about keeping my ego in check, never
making it about me always being a fly on the wall,
piece of furniture, never ever, ever being a distraction in
any way. I mean, the word distraction is, you know,
is poison in my life and my career. I can
never be distracted. But I don't want to be a distraction, right.

(21:40):
So I earned my way in pretty much at that moment.
And then I became very good friends with Gary Vetti,
who's still my DearS, one of my dearest friends. And
Gary was always great, you know. The trainer, the head
trainer is the gatekeeper to the locker room and especially
to the inner inner sanctum, which is the training room.

(22:00):
Like nobody goes in the training room. Media media is
not allowed in the training room. Wives and girlfriends are
not allowed in the training room. It's really for the players, coaches, trainers,
that's it. You know, PR guys very rarely to even
see team personnel in there. And you know, Gary and
I just became good friends. I mean, similar kind of
backgrounds with our dads, and we just like being together.

(22:23):
And I would just go in and honestly without a
camera and just shoot the shit with Gary before a
game and just hang out. I was bringing the camera in.
I would always ask him was it cool? And need
to be fine? And then the guys got used to
seeing me. I mean this is during the showtime era,
so they got used to seeing me. My stature with
the NBA kept going up and up. So I was

(22:44):
I was the guy in the inside at the All
Star game, at the locker room, I was the guy,
you know, first guy in after a championship. Always for
forty years, I was the first photographer in the locker room.
It got to the point with Phil Jackson, like after
second championship in Chicago. You know, Phil kept a pretty
tight ship too, and after that second championship, things had

(23:08):
died down a little bit in the locker room. He goes, so,
is we're going to make a habit of this. I said,
what what coach, He says, You're going to be the
first guy in every time I win a championship. I said, yeah,
he says, great, and that's how it lasted for eleven championships. Wow,
so you earn that trust, you only have one shot
at it. There's no do overs in my world, so

(23:30):
I can't give them any reason not to trust me
and believe me. Over the years, there have been people
who have been trying to get info out of me,
like Shaq and Kobe are in the locker room getting
taped up during the heyday of their quote unquote feud.
You know, people would want to know what I'm not
going to tell anybody. Plus the fact what really helped

(23:51):
me was I'm I was there to make them look good.
If you know. The bottom line of my job working
as the official NBA fetire but also for the team
was to make them look good. Right, is to show
them even behind the scenes, even if they're rehabbing or
during a difficult moment after an injury. It was always

(24:12):
in a positive, optimistic way, like no gotcha moments. In
my right there were a few moments that I could
have picked up a camera and shot, but then that
would have been the end of the trust that I
had built. So I didn't and that wasn't my job.
And I'll never regret that.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Why did Kobe trust you?

Speaker 1 (24:29):
So when Kobe came in in ninety six, he was
you know, he just turned eighteen. The kid turned eighteen
in August. Here we are October at Media Day, and
I probably told you this story, but I love telling
this story because it really shows the kind of person
he was. And it's media Day, which is the first
day of training camp. All the teams are obligated to

(24:53):
have a cycle of different sets that the players have
to go from one set to the next, courting things
that doing videos, they're doing photo shoots, whatever. But the
whole idea is that every team gets to bang that out,
you know, the first day of training camp. So this
is the first time I'm going to meet him. It's
the first day of training camp, first time he put
on a Laker uniform officially, and you know, get certain

(25:17):
players that come in into my set doing a headshot,
and here he comes, He's coming into my set. I'd
never met him before. I heard the hype, but I didn't,
you know, didn't really buy into it. I'd never seen
him play, and he comes into my set, and like
any new player, anybody I hadn't met before with the team,
I pay the respect to go in before I pick

(25:38):
up a camera and just make a little contact and
I put my hand out. I say, hey, Kobe, I'm
Andy Bernstein. I'm your team photographer. And the kid looks
me right in the eye, shaking my hand, doesn't let go.
He goes, well, I know who you are, man, And
I'm thinking that's a pretty smart ass comment for the kid,
like I never met this kid before. And I said,

(26:00):
because we've never met before, and he looks still looking
in the eyes, still shaking my hand. He says, yeah,
but I had all your posters in my room growing up.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
So that was such a telling moment, and now you know,
so many years later that I mean for somebody to
say that and have the presence of mine. But then
you're thinking, like, who on the planet looks at photo
credits on a poster, honestly except us fellow photographers. Because
I'm jealous that you've got a poster, you know, your

(26:30):
photo that I didn't get. And it didn't really gel
until honestly, really fully until we started doing our book
together about how his mind really worked at eighteen years old.
So I had built by that point. I was thirteen
years in the league, I believe at that point when
he came in, and I had built a lot of

(26:51):
trust and a lot of cachet with the Laker organization especially,
so it's kind of like a natural thing. And I
had also had a relationship with Shaq who came co
rookie year. So, like I said, as long as they
didn't screw it up, I was good and he trusted me.
But there's trust and then there's like trust, right, And

(27:14):
I don't want to say he walled himself in, but
he was very very careful as to who was in
the inner inner sanctum, and his inner inner sanctum was
his private workouts, is one on one with his trainer,
his meditation sessions that he would do sometimes on the road.
He would have to find like a janitor's closet to meditate,
honestly in some of these old arenas. His family, as

(27:38):
you know, he and Vanessa, when after they got married
they started to build their family. I was the only
guy that he would allow to take personal family photos
of and there was just tremendous trust, and we liked
each other. I liked him. He reminded me of me.
You know, he had this kind of chip on his shoulder,
something to prove. I was twenty years older than him

(27:58):
when we met. He was a teen. I was thirty eight.
But he had this this sort of drive, this insatiable
desire to a prove a lot of people wrong. He
came in as a scrawny teenager that honestly, I don't
think anyone in LA even heard of. Guy came out
of you know, suburban Philadelphia high school. Lakers had traded

(28:21):
away one of their most beloved players in Vody Devots,
So there's a lot of I would say, I don't
want to say negativity, but it was a lot of like, Okay,
now you got to prove yourself. And unfortunately he came
into a situation with Del Harris's coach, and Dell was
very old school, wouldn't play young rookies. So he's like
this race sourse. It's like trying to get out of

(28:41):
the gate. And I remember being like that too at
the beginning of my career, like seeing other people get
magazine assignments or other jobs. I knew I could do, like,
just give me a shot to do it. And so
there was a lot of unsaid kind of I don't
know the way. We just we just gelled from the

(29:04):
first day. And again, I just love being around him.
I loved watching his work, ethic, the joy he got
from playing, how he pushed himself and he made me
better at the end of the end of the day.
His greatness and desire, an insatiable, relentless desire to be
great and greater and the best, pushed me to want

(29:25):
to do the same.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Well he h he picked you to do his book,
so he must have. I mean, only this only one book.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Well, the book was my idea.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, let's talk about the book.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
So the book, the whole idea for the books, you know,
came from November twenty fifteen. You remember he announced his
retirement through the poem he wrote, Dear Basketball, which ended
up actually winning an oscar for that's a whole other story.
But he released it on Players Tribune and it was
his twentieth season, so everyone expected at some point he's

(29:57):
going to retire. He could have retired in the sixteenth
season when he busted his achilles, and most people would
have walked off the court at that point, but in
true Kobe fashion, he would never let an injury define
when he left the game. So we're all at this
press conference, and it was it was really sad. I mean,

(30:21):
I was happy that I was there and had experienced
this twenty years of this guy in front of my lens.
But it's also sad that whenever this season would end
in April or whenever that was going to be the end,
like huh, I would never see him in front of
my camera again as a player. And he was such
a gift as a subject I mean as a person, yes,

(30:43):
but as a subject for twenty years to shoot this
guy you know, at home and away and everything behind
the scenes and all the Olympics stuff and you know, endless.
So I was a little bit bummed. But then I
was thinking, you know, I had created this mountain of
photographyrobably maybe close to a million images of this guy

(31:03):
over his career really if you think about it, and
a lot of it had been published, a lot of
my favorite shots have been published, but a lot hadn't
been published that I wished had gotten out there. And
my idea was to do kind of a greatest hit
my greatest hits of his career, but sprinkle in some

(31:24):
of this never before seen stuff. So in true Andy fashion,
I didn't do it half asked. I actually created a
prototype of a book. It's a tash In book, so
you know the tash and those giant books, the Shi
of your coffee table here, I actually created one. I
mean it cost me a fortune. I created a prototype,

(31:47):
made one copy for him, one copy for me, made
an appointment, went down, had somebody, a very good friend
of mine, design it. Actually all hands stitched, hand printed
the whole thing, and went down to meet with him.
This is right after All Star weekend, and anyway, he
went through this whole kind of thing and he looked

(32:07):
through it and it's very respectful, and went through every
page and every page, and he finally closed the book
and his big leather bound and boss cover. He closed it,
and I had given him white cotton gloves, which he
thought was kind of fun, and he just tapped. I
never forget he tapped on the book three times like this.
He goes, he looks up at me. I'm standing above him,

(32:29):
and he says, and he got some good news for you.
I got some bad news. I said, well, I got
to tell you, mister Mamba, that I came down here
pretty optimistic. So give me the good news first. He goes, well,
the good news is we're doing a book together. Bad
news is not going to be this book. So if
you go back in time to that first meeting to

(32:52):
this day twenty years later, he knew exactly what he
wanted to do. You know, Kobe, I don't think it
was a moment where he hadn't calculated exactly what needed
to happen in that moment. So he paid me the
respect just like he did that first meeting of allowing
me to go through this entire ritual with obviously this

(33:15):
thing that I had spent a lot of money and
time on, knowing full well, this is not the book
that he wants to do. Given thought to the book
he wants to do ended up being the Mama Mentality book,
which he wanted to tell his story through his own words,
not told to anybody, not interpreted by anyone else, in
his words, what it meant to be the Black Mamba, Like,

(33:37):
why did he take that moniker, that sort of superhero
kind of character, and what does the Mamba mentality mean
to him? What does it mean. And that extends now
to bringing the Mama mentality really into your life, into
your world. So since we lost him, that's been my

(33:58):
sort of marching orders keep his legacy going through our book,
through the teachings of his wisdom really of how to
conduct yourself in life. And you can be anything. You
can be a CEO, a soccer mom, you know, a policeman.
Mama mentality is a way of life. It's it's really

(34:19):
taking the four pillars that he outlines in the book,
and I use that when I talk. It's it's the
first pillar is being obsessed. Is obsession, you know, as
you and I know, there's a dark side of obsession,
but there's also a very productive side of being obsessed.
But just just you know, in totally taking over your

(34:43):
life what your life's mission is. His life's mission was
to be the greatest basketball player of all time, So
you're obsessed with that twenty four to seven. Second pillar
is curiosity, always being curious about your craft. You know,
me as a photoghographer, him as a basketball player, so
learning through looking at posters. By the way, he wouldn't

(35:06):
put a poster of Michael Jordan up on his wall
in high school just to say it's a nice, pretty
picture of Michael Duncan. No, he would break that poster
down to every element of Michael's you know, muscle tone,
how he's where he's looking, where his body is going,
you know, tongue hanging out, all that stuff, How you

(35:29):
know what his body look like. And then curiosity is
also bringing mentors into your world, people who can help
you get to the point the level you want to
get to. So Kobe had this incredible habit of calling
people of greatness who as great as he he was,

(35:50):
but in different fields. So he would call Oprah Winfrey,
or he would call Denzel Washington or President Obama. You know,
he'd get their phone numbers and call them on the
way home to Orange County after a game or after
a road trip or whatever. And one of the people
he called was John Williams, who he loved John Williams' music.
John Williams is a very kind of private guy, didn't

(36:14):
do a lot of interviews, but he picked up that
phone call.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Let the folks know who John Williams.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
So John Williams wrote every great score. I don't want
to say every because I don't want to slight, especially
my brother in law who's a film composer, but almost
every recognizably great score that's ever been written for movies,
Star Wars and Close Encounters and everything, and he's been
a great Kobe is a great admirer, and he they

(36:40):
had a great conversation. Next thing, you know, John Williams
invites him to the studio and they're scoring his deer
basketball poem that he wrote. They brought in one of
the great animators in Hollywood, Glenn Keene, And at the
Academy Awards, they won the Oscar, the only professional athlete

(37:02):
in the history of the Oscars to win the Academy Award,
you know, and that happened because he was curious, right.
Third pillar, Mama mentality's relentlessness is just never stopping. It's
just you're just going full bore all the time to
get to that level and then beyond that level. And Kobe,

(37:23):
the word Kobe hated the most, I think was probably potential.
You know, you hear about athletes they've reached their potential
or academically that they've reached their potential as a threshold.
Kobe never believed there was a threshold any the people
didn't have a threshold that you could become greater than
you even thought you could become. And case in point

(37:46):
was Pau Gasol, who came to the Lakers in two
thousand and eight, one of the great players, I mean
really of the era, truly, one of the probably in
the history of European basketball. It's got to be wore
the top ten ever. Sure comes to the Lake and
he's a great player, right, But when pow Gasol played
next door next to Kobe, he learned what greatness really was.

(38:09):
And if you look at listen to Pawl Gasol's Hall
of Fame speech, he said, I wouldn't be making this
speech today if that guy didn't push me to be
greater than I even thought I could be. Right, And
the fourth pillar is strength is being able to overcome,
in Kobe's case, a lot of adversity, naysayers, noise as

(38:30):
we talked about, but also injury. As your professional athlete,
you get injured, right, you have to have the strength
to overcome that injury. And he did that with his
achilles as we saw. I mean, first of all, when
it happened, dude goes out and shoots two free throws.
You know, and then comes back stronger than he was
when he left the game, drops sixty points, drops the

(38:53):
mic mamba out, you know so and then you know
strength now continues with Vanessa, his widow, who I mean,
I I don't know anyone on the planet who wasn't
absolutely just gasping at the strength it took for her
to make that speech. Oh my god, you know, two
weeks after the tragedy, to get up there in front

(39:15):
of the world and speak as eloquently as she did it.
I mean, I get emotional just even thinking about it.
But every time I'm with her, I just marvel at
the strength that she's had with the tragedy you know,
she and her family have to endure. So that was
really what It's incredible nutshell mentality was so through the
through the book, he talks about all those pillars and

(39:38):
everything else, and it was my job to illustrate that
with fun my.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
God, did you And it's whose idea was it to
talk about opposing players and the opposing player's mindset in
Kobe's mindset? Whose idea was that.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Well, that was it was part of it because defense
was definitely part of it. And uh, we got we
got to that section about his defensive nemesiss like the
guy I asked him, I said, who played you the hardest? Like,
give me the top three or four guys and we'll
try to find photos of those guys. And Tony Allen
was one, Shane Battier was one, Rajah Bell, But I

(40:15):
think the guy that and I don't think I know
he said, the guy who played him really the hardest
consistently was Bruce Bowen. It was great, you know, battles
that the Spurs and Lakers had, and Bruce was just relentless,
you know, and would never back down to Kobe and
one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, but together,
you know, when they were on the court, and so

(40:38):
you know, my job was to illustrate all of these
points in his career and all the points he's trying
to make through my photos. And keep in mind, half
of his career was in the film Days. Wasn't digital.
You can't go to a hard drive and like type in,
you know, Bruce Bowen, Kobe Bryant somewhere. You have to
actually go into the file which is in the archive

(41:00):
NBA Photos in New Jersey and look through games and
games of photos to illustrate exactly what he was looking for.
So for Bruce, he said, well, he said, Andy, you
remember that game. I think it was two thousand and
one Western Western Conference Finals, third quarter. I had the

(41:22):
ball down on the block and I fake Bruce left,
went right and dunked on his ass. He looks at
me and goes, you have that picture, right? I said,
I don't know. Yes, I mean the answer was yes,
I have that picture.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
It's always yes.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
So the good news was we found we found as
a group, we found probably ninety something percent of the photos.
He wanted some of them. We just couldn't find some
of them. Like I think he made up in his
mind that it happened, and maybe it didn't. But we
were able to We as a group and NBA Photos
were able to find everything.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yet, perhaps my fair part of the book. Yeah, incredible
introduction by coach Jackson. Weren't getting him a second?

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (41:57):
OK, tough question, I know. Just give me your favorite
Kobe moment.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
Oh boy, that's a good one. I think my favorite
moment with Kobe had to be the twenty ten finals
when they won, because he you know, they lost a
heartbreaking finals in two thousand and eight. There was a
whole Lakers Celtic rivalry that went back to the sixties

(42:24):
with Jerry West, and so the whole losing to them
in two thousand and eight just stuck in his craw
like he I mean, he said at the time that
he would never retire until he beat the Celtics. They
won in two thousand and nine with Powell, it was
it was a great finals against Orlando, but the Lakers
was just so much better than Orlando that we kind

(42:46):
of all took it for granted, and then we had
to go through that whole season. It's like reminiscent of
the eighty five season, eighty four eighty five season, when
the Lakers had lost that heartbreaking finals in eighty four
to the Celtics. Oh my god, and then they had
to come back and play the whole year again just
to get them again in eighty five, which they won.
Was the first team ever to beat the Celtics on

(43:08):
the parquet floor in Boston. And so it was the
same for me, the same thing. I had been through
it before, but for him to win and there's a
moment in the locker room where he's just letting loose
and they're getting showered with champagne and he was so
joyous and happy. It was a beautiful thing.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yeah, we'll bring this photo up. It's one of my
favorite photos years.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Uh huh is.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Magic and Bird going up for the rebound?

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah? Well they were actually boxing each other out. Yeah,
so talk about that. The frustration of the Showtime era
for me as a photirepher was the fact that Magic
and Bird very very rarely were in the same frame.
Like I could never get them in the same frame
and the same picture. Because Magic is a guard, Bird

(43:58):
was a forward. Those guards and forwards didn't switch off
and like they do now, they really kept to their
sides of the court. So there are only two opportunities
with those guys to get them in the same frame, honestly,
and know that I could get something out of the game.
The first time was at the captain's meeting, so five

(44:19):
minutes before the game, captains from both teams come over. Now,
it's like the fourteenth guy in the bench as the
captain unfortunately, but in those days the actual real captains, right,
you know. So they would come and meet with the
referees and then there would be a handshake, and then
there probably would be a moment they would say something

(44:40):
to each other, or there be one would tap the
other something, the would be some exchange. So I was
I knew at least i'd have that, and then I
would pray for a free throw situation to happen in
front of me. You know, I'm sitting under the basket
on the baseline that somebody would be shooting a free throw,
and those guys would be lined up on the on

(45:02):
the free throw, you know, on the side facing me,
like they could be not facing me, or they one
could be on one side and the other. So the
few times I was able to get that, luckily we're
doing finals games. And the most iconic one was in
eighty seven at Boston Garden Birds in white Magics in

(45:24):
the purple. And what's really beautiful about that picture was
that neither guy is dominant over the other. They're like
intertwined almost like one body, but one isn't superior over
the other, and they're both looking up at the basket.
And David stern Play paid me the ultimate compliment when
he saw that picture. He said, you know, years later

(45:45):
he said that photo helped define the era for us
with the NBA that was the real burden magic era
because they never wanted to favor one over the other obviously.
And you know the picture lives on which which I love,
and I know both those guys love that photo too,
which means a lot.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
What did you learn from Larry Bird?

Speaker 1 (46:06):
The thing that comes to mind is not to piss
Larry off. So, like I said earlier, I get to
the arena. I would get to the arena at noon,
you know, one o'clock. Sometimes I get there at eleven
for seven thirty or eight o'clock game. You know, we
have a lot of cameras to set up, a lot
of schlepping of equipment. Then I have to be ready

(46:28):
once the players start arriving around four thirty five o'clock
to like be game ready. I had my remote cameras
all set up and my position set up and whatever
troubleshooting has to be done. So I was there super
early for a game at Boston Garden, Laker Celtic game,
regular season game. And you know the garden, the old Garden,

(46:52):
but the new Garden as well. The old Garden had
this iconic ceiling that had all the banners, Celtic banners,
retired players and championship banners hanging, and I get there
and you know, the team has shoot around. Both teams
come to do like shoot around, and they go back
to the hotel or home or whatever. Larry had a

(47:12):
habit of staying after shoot around, and I knew this,
that team would have shoot around, he would stay, get
some treatment, and then he'd go out and shoot for
like two hours by himself, just him and a ball boy,
empty Boston Garden. So as a photographer, he can't really
pass that up. And I had put my stroves in
the ceiling, you know, these big flash things, because the

(47:35):
lighting in Boston Garden was terrible, like it was in
every arena. So anyway, long story short, I see Larry
shooting on one side of the court. I make my
way around. I slink around and I'm kind of crouched down.
I remember this next to the front row behind the
basket cameras down on the floor, super wide angle showing

(47:56):
the banners and just Larry and the ball boy. And
I I pushed, you know, I just conchalantly tried took
myself and I hit a shot. Strobes go off and
I see him. I see him kind of look around
a little bit do it again. Strobes go off and
he looks and he sees me right and crouched down

(48:18):
like trying to be like invisible, slams the ball down
and I'm like down here, and he's up there and
he goes, not gonna fucking do that when the game's
going on, are you, I said.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Uh no, I won't.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Of course, they don't care once the game happens, right,
But that was the end of that. But I did
get the picture. I did get the picture, which is
still one of my favorite pictures of the empty Boston
garden with Larry shooting. But I also learned from Larry
that you don't have to have like the greatest athletic
skills in the world to be great. I was around

(48:56):
some great athletes. I mean, obviously Michael Jordan, Kobe were
won one a. Shaq was just an unbelievable physical specimen
that was just so huge and nobody could stop him.
But you know guys like Dominique Wilkins or Clyde Drexler.
Of course, Lebron is what he's doing at forty years old.

(49:18):
You know, Larry didn't possess all those skilled Maybe the
guy could barely get four inches off the ground when
he shot. But he was able to, you know, with
his mindset and just being so damn good and getting
into everybody's head. I mean, he was the biggest trash
talker in the history of the league, and he would
just get into people's I remember the three point contests

(49:42):
at NBA All Star Weekend and I think I'm pretty
sure Larry won the first one. But whatever one he
won one year and came to the next year he
was going to be defending this championship. I remember being
in the locker room when he came in. He goes,
which one of you the fuckers is going to be second?

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Oh? Wow?

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Hit that kind of confidence. Yeah yeah, and yeah he
did win. So yeah, it was pretty pretty amazing guy
to be around.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Can you if you remember the story? And I'm gonna
need some help on it. There was a documentary on
Bird and Magic. Yeah right, And in that documentary, Bird's
talking about when Magic announced that he was HIV and
they impact it had on him, and you really got
to saw a human side to Larry Bird. In that documentary.

(50:33):
There's some game Larry plays after the announcement where he
imitates a pass that Magic. Do you know what I'm
talking about. Yeah, yeah, I started bawling when I saw that. Yeah,
for sure.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
I mean he also talked about that for the first
time he didn't really feel like playing that night that
he was it was hit him so hard. Look, these
guys can can be competitors, want to tear each other's
head off, but the end of the day, there's so
much respect that they have for each other. And I
saw that firsthand with the Dream Team. You put these
twelve guys together who were the top of the game,

(51:08):
super competitive, but they also tremendously respected each other and
they knew that they had a mission once they were
put together as the Olympic team. But for that moment
you're talking about that he did pay homage to Master
behind the magic. It was a magic no look, which,
of course yeah, And you know, it was such a

(51:30):
shocking moment. Probably the second most shocking moment in my
professional career, after of course tragedy with Kobe and Gigi
was was when Magic they announ said he had hid
and had to leave the game.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Did you did you have to shoot that press conference? Well?

Speaker 1 (51:48):
I had to shoot it. I wasn't there though, unfortunately
I was in Salt Lake City with Commissioner Stern and
a couple of NBA people because he was commissioner, was
going to announce that the following year, the ninety three,
So the following year All Star Weekend was going to
be in Salt Lake City. He came to announce that,
and they flew me there to be part of the coverage,

(52:12):
and the story broke. I don't know what time it
was in the morning. We didn't have cell phones then,
and I got a call him from This was ninety one.
It's November ninety one and during the preseason, and I
got a call from Brian McIntyre, my dear friend, head
of NBA PR. He goes, Andy, we have to leave

(52:32):
right now. And I didn't have TV on I you know,
I have a phone. I getting alerts. So Brian, what
are you talking about? The press conferences until twelve? Oh no, no,
we have to leave it. We have to go to
La now. And I was in pack. I had taken
all my stuff out. I said, Brian, give me five.
He goes, no, we're leaving now, right now, and we're
in the lobby. He wouldn't tell me why, and so

(52:54):
I missed the plane to go with them, and I
believe I think they were flying commercial. The next flight
got me in too late. I went to the forum,
press conference was over. I was able to get in
touch with my assistant then John Sue, who rushed down
to shoot the press conference because it was all very

(53:15):
hastily put together, and David Stern made the press conference.
They might have actually delayed it a little bit to
make sure he was there. So if you see the dais,
you know he's right there with everybody.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
And of course that was a time a lot of
misinformation about HIV was very scary. Somebody like magic contacting
very scary. Yeah, walk us through magic and magic playing
opposing players not wanting to deal with him.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
It was a scary time in the world. I mean
here in la especially. You know, HIV was talked about
that it was a death sentence. That Honestly, when I
found out and I was talking to other colleagues and
people in the media, you know, we thought he'd be
dead by Christmas. I mean, this happened in November. That

(54:06):
get HIV, you get AIDS, and AIDS you die. I mean,
that's just what was happening. So there was misinformation, there
was lack of information. There were players in the league that,
you know, once David Stern sort of reinstated him for

(54:27):
the All Star Game, as you remember, which was that
following February in Orlando, there were players who didn't want
to play in the same court with him. There were
players who didn't want to be on the Dream Team
with him either. You know, I mean, I marvel every

(54:47):
time I see him that this guy survived. That became
the voice really he and other people to change the
narrative really about HIV and AI as that the world
needed to be educated, and he found a way to
do that. He said that that was God's calling for him.

(55:10):
And to this day, I mean, I you know, every
time I see him, I'm just thankful that he got
through it. It's sad that he had to so abruptly
retire because of the misinformation.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Paul was sooner retired.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
You know, I don't really remember. He had to be
in his mid thirties, I guess, and then he came back.
Do you remember, like in ninety when did he come
back before Shaq and Kobe so had to be around
ninety four ish or something like that. So, you know,
to this day, I just I'm thankful he's still around,

(55:46):
but also that he changed the way that AIDS was.
You know, President Reagan didn't use the word AIDS as
you remember remember until Magic became part of the Presidential
Council on Age on AIDS and went out there and
was visible and talked to kids and went to clinics

(56:08):
and hospitals and really amazing work that he did.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Can you remember and can you walk the listeners through
the first game he came back after that? The first
game he played was the Alzeger What was it? What
was the energy like? What was he if you can
remember what was.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Yeah, well it's a little bit heavier when he came back,
as I remember, and he looked really, really nervous. I
remember him coming out for very early pregame shoot and
strangely enough, I remember the forum scoreboard was down. I
don't know why they brought it down. Maybe they had
to change something very rare for a venue. To bring

(56:48):
the scoreboard down, you know, you risk it not being
able to get back up to format this ancient scoreboard.
And I just remember him being out there shooting like
little junior skyhooks and getting his moves down. The scoreboard
was down. It was weird, and all of us media
people are on the side, and it was it felt

(57:09):
good to see him back out there. But in the
other sense, I'm thinking like that, I guess he had
to prove this to himself that he could still compete,
and he hung in there for a little while. You know,
it was good to see him out there throwing a
couple of no look passes here and there. I mean,
the team wasn't very good, so he didn't have you know,
Worthy and Byron and Kareem and all those guys to

(57:31):
throw the ball too. But it was good to see
him back in the mix. And he talked a lot
about missing the camaraderie in the locker room and the
traveling and just the routine of being an NBA player.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
All Right, you're with these guys, you're on the planes
with them, sometimes you're out hanging out. A lot of
interesting things going on. Yeah, well it's an interesting world.
Professional sports.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Has a little little bit of a vacancy when it
comes to sort of the real world. You know, these
guys live in sort of an entitled existence. So yes,
they all have to work really hard to get to
this level, to be these elite athletes. But the world
that surrounds them as this sort of cocoon of nobody

(58:22):
ever says no. There's a lot of you know, a
lot of Shenanigans going on the road. You know, the
NBA went through this terrible drug period if you remember
in the seventies, which almost shut the league down. Quite honestly.
You know, women, drugs, everything is all available to them,

(58:42):
and nobody says no. And there's a lot of hangers
on as people come out of the woodwork who become
part of the entourage, and there's not a lot of
a lot of education going. I mean, it's much better
now than back in the day when I was in
the sort of the heyday of my career, but there

(59:03):
wasn't a lot of people educating these guys how to
take care of their money, how to stay away from
certain kinds of women, how to avoid certain parts of town, gambling, whatever.
So it was a little bit of the wild wild
West out there. And you know, I'm on the road

(59:24):
a lot, and I got sucked into that sort of
I don't want to say that lifestyle, but I got
a little bit sucked into sort of the mindset of
you know, if I got a roll with these guys,
I have to sort of I just have to sort
of walk the walk a little bit so there would
be some acceptance, which looking back was you know, was

(59:50):
totally out of my insecurity of wanting to fit in
and feeling like I had to be one of the boys,
be one of the boys, which I really didn't I could.
I I had a lot of trouble back then really
understanding what my genuine self really was and just being
my genuine self would have been enough. But you know,

(01:00:10):
all that was necessary for me to get to the
point where I had to hit a bottom, and that
bottom led me to you almost twenty four years ago,
and I never would have met my wife, that my
beautiful wife's so sue now if I hadn't gone through
all that, and a lot of us in recovery talk

(01:00:33):
about the fact that this was all part of the
plan that we didn't know about. You know, God makes
a plan. It's my job to stay out of the way.
But as you taught me, I got to do the
work and I got to stay awake. And you know,
my program is at the top of my consciousness every day,

(01:00:55):
all day because without that, I wouldn't have all the
wonderful things in my life that I have now, Okay,
Michael Jordan, Yeah, yeah, he was that brotherlike he was intense,

(01:01:15):
but you know what he was.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Yeah, Hey, before you talk about it, I got to
flag the photo. I want to pull up the photo
I have my office here, Yeah, of Jordan's staring down magic.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
And I had that photo of my office because to me,
that says game on, motherfucker.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
Oh yeah, no, it's take no prisoners, prisoners. He was
a special guy, man. I when I first saw him play,
I mean I knew in eighty four when he came
in the league. I didn't follow him in college. I'd
heard of him, of course, But first of all, the
guy could fly, literally could fly, and was one of

(01:01:51):
the great dunkers, you know, the subjects to be able
to shoot just flying through the air. But he had
this intensity about him with the gum chewing and just
constantly be scanning and looking and analyzing. And I mean
literally before Kobe became black Mamba, vicious snake, this guy

(01:02:13):
just would size you up, not me, but his opponents.
Also a great trash talker too. People don't realize, but
he backed it up just like Bird could it's the
trash talkers in the league couldn't really back it up,
but Mike Michael could and be able to get Magic
and Michael in the same shot. These two guys fierce competitors,

(01:02:35):
you know, two different kinds of players, of course, but
both fierce competitors and a lot of respect towards each other,
but also wanted to tear each other's heads off. And
that photo you're talking about is one of my favorites.
I use that too when I do like motivational talks
to kids or schools whatever. And he, uh, look, he

(01:03:02):
guy won six championships people think about. You know, he
won six rings. All that took him seven years to
get his first ring. They killed him every single year,
to the point where they had rules they called the
Jordan Rules of that like how to take Michael out
of his game physically, until he just said, screw it,
I'm gonna I'm going to kind of beat him with

(01:03:24):
what they're coming with. And he hired Tim Grover, the
great trainer. Tim had him bulk up over a summer.
It was the same summer he was shooting space jam
and he made Warner Brothers build him a court, indoor court,
where all the guys would come big, you know, big
name NBA players, and he'd be working him out every
single day and came back stronger than ever and then

(01:03:48):
won that championship in ninety one.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
The first one, Wow, favorite Michael Jordan memory.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Oh, that's a good one. Favorite Michael Jordan memory. Well,
it's not a great one actually, because my first book
had him on the cover. So my first book was
called NBA Hoop Shots. It came out and I think
it came out in ninety five, and you know, it's
an NBA product, so the NBA has to prove all

(01:04:18):
the photos that are in it and the cover picture,
and it was my first book. I was super excited.
We as a group, myself and the publisher had picked
this particular photo and it's a photo of Jordan going
up against Magic, not the same one you were talking about,
a different one. And super proud of the book. I

(01:04:39):
got a whole box of them. I remember going on
the plane and having to pay excess baggage. I had
to bring all these books with me to Chicago. The
NBA assigned me to a game in Chicago and the
old Chicago Stadium had to go downstairs to the locker
room and I got there, I think eleven o'clock in
the morning, and I put a book on everybody's in
front of every by his locker, and uh. I go

(01:05:04):
in there and I'm you know, after the guys show
up and they're all getting dressed, and I go in
and Michael's holding the book and he kind of looks over,
so he sees me, goes, fuck, gave you permission to
put my photo on the cover? And he was he
was serious, and I said, uh, you know, it's an
MBA product, goes, you should have asked me like I

(01:05:27):
should have asked him, and I said, you know what,
might you're right, I'm sorry, and he goes sorry. And
but you know, that was another moment of truth because
he just wanted he just wanted the respect paid to him.
And to even get to him, to ask him, you'd
have to go through layers of people. But I knew
his agent, David Fogg, I should have asked him, right,

(01:05:50):
Why didn't you? I think I was just I didn't.
I didn't think through the drink there a little bit. Yeah,
I didn't. I should have. It would have been the
respectful thing to do. I think he respected me actually
for copping to it. I mean, you're right, yeah, I
fucked up. Yeah, But then I think I I honestly,

(01:06:14):
you know, I think I had the guts to say.
But do you like it? Typical like Brooklyn fascists, like
all right, but do you like it? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
But he was always cool to me. I mean not
you know, the same relationship in any way like I
had with Magic or with Kobe, of course, but I
was around him every day with the Dream Team. I
still see him at Hall of Fame events. He's always gracious,
always nice, always usually asked me about my dad. And

(01:06:46):
my dad passed in two thousand and four, but my
dad spent half of the time we were in Monte
Carlo and Barcelona with the Dream Team, and so he
remembers that. He remembers my dad and his dad who
was tragically murdered. They sort of chopped it up a
little bit. They liked each other that it was cool.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
All right, let's talk about the Dream Team and let's
talk about coach Jackson. Yeah yeah, what was that? I mean,
what was the five at the Olympics, getting those guys together,
the energy, the egos.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
Well, I was more than excited when it was decided
that the ninety two USA basketball men's team was going
to be NBA players, because I kind of figured I'd
be the guy they'd asked to photograph them, but I
didn't realize this is going to be a seven week assignment.
I'd be embedded with these guys every single day from

(01:07:38):
the first meeting in San Diego. They had training camp
in San Diego, we went up to Portland for the
Tournament of the Americas, which was the qualifying tournament. From Portland,
we went to Monte Carlo for more I like to
say training camp, but they did train in Monte Carlo,

(01:07:59):
but was a little bit more of a vacation, and
then of course on to Barcelona and then there when
they got the gold medals, and it was just a
fantastic experience to be on the inside with literally the
greatest rock show of all time. I mean, these guys
were every one of them was a rock star. But
as a group, it was like if you took the

(01:08:21):
Rolling Stones and you two and Bruce and Taylor Swift
and put them all together and you did a tour
with these guys, like this is what it was. They
couldn't leave the hotel. We had our own hotel in Barcelona.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
The team bus was guarded twenty four hours a day
when we would go from the hotel to the venue
where the games were. It was a little bit outside
of town. The bus would be on the opposite side
of the highway with a police escort closing down the
other side of the highway so that they would it
wouldn't have any traffic. With helicopters in front and back

(01:08:56):
and motorcycles and the whole it was crazy. It was crazy.
Guys are on the court from other teams, stopping them
during the game to ask for autographs during the game,
taking team pictures like after the game with them. It
was like insane, but it was super fun. I mean,
like I said, I got to bring my dad and

(01:09:18):
it was kind of payback to my dad for all
those years of taking me to Ranger games and Mets games.
And yeah, he drove me a little crazy there, but
we had a lot of fun and it was a
great memory for us. In fact, they started calling him
around around the Dream Team. I forgot who. It might
have been Chuck Daly who started calling him Zelig because

(01:09:38):
my dad was like always around if I took a
picture of Chuck Daily or Magic or anybody like my
dad somehow was in the background of the photo. And
I have this great picture. I hope you show it.
We were at the palace of Monte Carlo. We were
invited by the Prince, Prince Sernier to come up for
state dinner, and I this picture of Magic and Michael

(01:10:02):
together at the pregame reception and there's my dad peaking
out from Behid. So this is a great memory for
me for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
Let me ask you this, But the guys that were
on the Dream Team, yeah, that won NBA Championships, what
do you think was a prouder moment winning the Olympic
medal or winning a national the NBA Championship.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
That's a great question. I would say probably, Well, at
the time, probably was winning the gold medal. Maybe now
they look back, maybe the championship was better. I mean,
Kobe said that winning an Oscar was greater than any
five of this championships. But I don't know if I
believe that or but it was just such a moment.

(01:10:46):
It was a foregone conclusion obviously, from when they announced
the team to when they got the gold medal. Months later.
I mean, there was no chance that any team was
going to beat them. Nobody even tested them. There were
games that they won by forty to fifty points, you know,
much different than, of course, the Redeemed team or even
the Olympic team last year, which was actually tested pretty

(01:11:09):
hard and had to prove that they deserved to win
the gold medal. They should have just given them a
gold medal. And I don't know, maybe exhibition games out
of the Olympics, I don't know. In ninety two, but
it was a proud moment for all of us to
be part of it, and then we were able to
do a book together. Then as a group, the entire
Dream Team got inducted into the Hall of Fame, which

(01:11:31):
was really cool to be part of that two And
I was there to shoot that. Yeah, it was cool.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Coach Jackson, Yeah, spent a lot of time with him. Yeah,
he did the intro hair yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
Let's talk about him.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Well, Phil, Phil was I remember Phil when he was
a player. I was a Knicks fan growing up. He
was on championship teams in the seventies. What I didn't
know about Phil was that he was a real photography
buff that he liked shooting pictures, but he also appreciated
his street of photography and the great photo journalists. And

(01:12:04):
he was just a different kind of cat to be around.
I mean, I loved his energy. Phil is also very
I don't want to say controlling, But you knew where
you stood with Phil. I did. I always knew that
Phil and I had this sort of unspoken kind of
choreography that we would do that if I'm in the

(01:12:26):
locker room or the training room pregame, and then Phil
would come out of his office, which he rarely did
before the game. He would come and give a speech
to the team before every game, but he wouldn't like
mill around in the locker room some coaches do. He
would stay in his office, which is a little anti
room there in the locker room. But I always knew

(01:12:47):
when Phil came in and his right eyebrow would go
up like this, that it was time for me to
get out. I just knew it. I just had a
sixth sense that was like, okay, any time to go.
But he never had to say it. I just knew,
and we actually joked about it years later, and he

(01:13:07):
knew I had a job to do. I remember we
were working on the book we did together called Journey
to the Ring. It was the journey of the team
in the two thousand and nine ten season, and he
and I had decided to shoot it in black and white,
that I would do it in black and white because
he was such a fan of old school photo journalism

(01:13:28):
and so was I. And we got to Game seven
of the twenty ten finals, which was at Staples, and
you know, it's a moment when the coach goes talk
to the team and then they run out to the
court for Game seven of the finals. And I had
asked him earlier that day. I said, Coach, I know

(01:13:50):
you know you could say no, of course, but I'll
kill myself. I don't ask you, can I just get
a shot of you talking to the team before game seven?
And he said, Andy, just be right here in the corner,
and I'm not even going to give you the eyebrow.
Just you get one shot and get out. Like I

(01:14:12):
was right in the edge, tucked in whoever's locker that was.
He came in, spoke to the team. I literally clicked
one shot and just slinked out. And that was one
of my great memories of working with Phil. That he
understood the the significance photographically of what was going on,

(01:14:33):
and he was great to work.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
With an artist.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Yeah, he was. I remember we you know, we co
authored that book together. And he made made it really
clear to me. He said, Andy, this is going to
be a book about the team. Everybody on the team.
Is not a book about Kobe the star player. He's
part of the team, not a book about me the coach.

(01:14:56):
But I want every player represented in the book. And
I said, oh, yeah, okay. I I'm traveling with them
all year, and naturally I'm going to get shots of everybody.
And we figured out as we were laying it out
where these photos would go. And uh, I was vacationing
with my family on marked his vineyard and I get
a it was a page. Those are the Pager days.

(01:15:18):
I get a page from him. It had to be
four o'clock in the morning, right. I recognize the number
and think, oh shit, this cannot be good. And I
call him and he reams me. I goes, where the
fuck is the photo of Josh Powell? And I said, coach,

(01:15:39):
what are you talking? He goes, I told you, I
want every player is on the team in the book.
Why isn't there a picture of Joe? Said, he's been
injured all year. Coach, He goes, you find a picture,
we don't publish this book. Wow, And I said, okay,
And we found I actually found a picture of Josh.
He was he was rehabbing or something something, and we

(01:15:59):
put it in the book.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
Why I love that? Why do you think he knew
that was so important to have Josh on.

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
That because there's no I in team. I mean, because
it's they were a team. They were a band of
brothers who went out and and won together. And you know,
Kobe ended up vicariously being on the cover. It's just
his hands holding the trophy, so you know we know
it's Kobe because he's got their wristbands on. It could
have been any player, but he he was all about that.

(01:16:29):
He was all about them, you know, the very zen
thing that we're all in this together. We don't win
where some of our parts, we don't win unless we're
all we all buy into this mentality. And I got
a lot out of that. I got a lot out
of of the the camaraderie, the mission statement that he

(01:16:49):
put out early in the year, overcoming the adversity that
they did, and you know, you remember that he and
Kobe had a little bit of a rocky relationship and
they got to that championship in two thousand and nine.
There's a photo that I shot of them embracing each other.
There's a very paternal father son moment. It's that one. Yeah,

(01:17:12):
that one, because you know, they had gone through so
much together, separately and together. The first championship that that
Kobe went without Shack. Everyone said he couldn't win without Shaq.
Coach Jackson actually called him uncoachable in his own book,
you know, so like typical Mamba fashion, he wanted to

(01:17:33):
go out and prove everybody wrong, especially the coach. So
it was just a great moment of everything coming together
and I was glad to have been able to actually
record that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
All right, well, I say, you and I have talked
privately about you know, your history and the NBA seeing
some extraordinary gifted athletes had addiction issues, attitude of issues,
ego issues that you know, struggled with that and eventually
it got left. I mean, walk through our listeners what

(01:18:07):
you saw mentioned names obviously and kind of knowing the
message of what we do here at Shell Yeah, yeah,
and kind of tie them together well.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
Throughout that's a big order to fulfill this, you know.
So throughout my career, I obviously saw a lot of
a lot of victories, and I saw some personal defeats.
I mean, we saw. Look, we're all conscious of great athletes,
if it's Mike Tyson or anybody else who who just

(01:18:40):
lost everything through addiction or whatever it could be. And
one of the moments that kept coming up for me
was that I would go to these great NBA events,
whether you know, in the US or overseas or whatever,
and the NBA started rolling out their legends. They'd bring
legend players to come out and mingle with the fans

(01:19:02):
or do events. But every halftime of let's say a
preseason game. I remember I was in I was in Munich, Germany,
and they had six or seven legends, and halftime they
would bring the guys out and they'd introduce them, and
you know, they would wave to the crowd and I'm
in the whole lineup of photographers and journalists at center court,

(01:19:25):
and the announcer says, and next the great Julia serving
doctor j and people are waving and he's waving and
they're cheering. The guy taps me on the shoulder, A
journalist taps me on the show. He goes, what's he
a doctor of? And I'm thinking, Wow, Okay, that's an
eye opener. And you know, these guys from that generation,

(01:19:49):
be it Spencer Heywood is one of my great friends
who almost killed himself through cocaine, getting his life back
together and back on track, and seeing many of them
fall from grace. You know, the spotlight has moved off,
and the ego can't really take the fact that they
are not in the public eye anymore, and whatever issues

(01:20:12):
they might have had while they played only get magnified.
These are guys who didn't make the big money. And
I just kept seeing that over and over and over again,
the horror stories and knowing people personally in the game,
not just NBA, but you know other sports that I
just started thinking about, you know, how can I how

(01:20:34):
can I pay that back? How can I be sort
of a messenger of trying to help in some way.
So about eight or nine, ten years almost, I guess,
two partners and I to very close friends in the
sports world, formed a company called Legends of Sport, where
our mission statement really is to bring the spotlight back

(01:20:54):
onto legendary athletes, but also teams. You know, I was
nine Mets fan growing up. What happened to all those
sixty nine Mets, you know, as a group or individually.
I want to be able to teach my kids about
the teams that I love when I was growing up,
and there's no central way to do that, even with

(01:21:14):
the Internet. So we want to be basically everything one
stop shopping in legendary sports, teams, moments, venues, even personalities
and sports of course athletes, and then we also want
to be able to give back. We also want to
be able to be to provide resources of professionals who

(01:21:35):
could help with financial issues or addiction issues, help people,
guide them to recovery places where they can you know,
go and seek help, and be able to bring mental
health into into the world of sports, which was really
pushed back way back.

Speaker 2 (01:21:54):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:54):
Jerry West was the first person that I know of
who really started talking about his struggles with mental health.
And that was like in twenty eleven when his book
came out and nobody really paid attention. It's a great
Jerry West. The logo talked about his abusive father and
his struggles with mental health and you know, God blessed
Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan and Simone Biles and all

(01:22:18):
the Michael Phelps and all the rest. I mean, it
warms my heart to see that and to have mental
health and what you've done with Mike to bring his
story out to the world. So that's our mission. You know,
I truly believe that we can. You know now that
I'm retired off the court, that I can do good
and do well and provide a service for people. And

(01:22:42):
and you know it fulfills my mission too, because I
want to keep the conversation going, and so with the
my podcast, I'm able to discuss these issues and educate
myself about them.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
Greatest thing you've learned and recovery.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
It's not my plan. I got to stay out of
my own way, really and I have to stay present,
you know, you and I a long time ago. See,
you know that was one of my biggest issues, was
being present and understanding that not to be distracted, and

(01:23:20):
distraction come in all different shapes and sizes. I like
talking about my three birthdays. You know, I have my
natural birthday April twenty fifth, nineteen fifty eight, came into
the world. I have my birthday when I got into
recovery with you, which was August first, two thousand and one.
But I have third birthday, which was January thirteenth, twenty eleven,

(01:23:44):
which is really a day that I woke up because
I was I was at a game, I was distracted,
missed one of the epic photos that I should have taken,
and realized that I got to change something here. I mean,
you know, it's already you and I had already worked

(01:24:04):
together for ten years at that point, but I hadn't
really figured out that this is like a twenty four
to seven proposition, Like I can't take a day off
or even a moment off or in this case, a
play off and be distracted. And I had that data
circle on my calendar every year, so it's it's it's

(01:24:27):
another you know. I like to say the day I
woke up is the day I met you and got
into recovery, but this is the day that I woke
up again.

Speaker 2 (01:24:37):
Last question, I promised Keithy, and I know this is
really hard one, but yeah, your favorite photo.

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
Oh my goodness. Well, you know, look you married us, right,
so you know this, Sue. We got four kids and
at any given time, I might like one of them
more than the others, Yes, But if I had to,
if I had to break it down, you know, it
would have to be the Michael Jordan holding the trophy,
as much as I pains me not to have Kobe

(01:25:05):
be my favorite photo or subject, just Michael holding that
trophy ninety one for the first time, crying his eyes
out there his dad next to him, and it was
a significant moment when it happened, is a very photojournalistic moment.
I'm I never really honestly considered myself like a hardcore

(01:25:27):
photo journalist, more of a sports photograph and action guy,
but that was a photojournalistic moment that what happened. And
then of course it's taken on, you know, crazy significance
in the history of the NBA because there are five
more trophies that came after it. But also on the
personal side, you know, his dad was killed, and shortly

(01:25:47):
after his dad was skilled, I got a call from
Michael's office that Michael would very much appreciate a signed
print of that photo. Wow, which you know, I hope
is hanging in his house or his office or somewhere.
So it's to mean that much to him. Yeah, to
reach out is a beautiful thing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
Your art makes a difference, man, Yeah, it really does.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
I think so. Look, sports brings us all together, and
it's it's a great unifier. And if my imagery in
some way can help people even within families or groups
or just transcend all the craziness were going on that's
going on in the world in our country right now.

(01:26:29):
You know, we all saw what sports did during the pandemic,
but we didn't have any sports, and we're all going
out of our minds at home. And then ESPN decided
to fast track the release of The Last Dance, which
thank god they did because we all needed some sports
in our life. So you know, I'm happy that my
photos will live on and I can keep the message

(01:26:52):
going that that I learned from the Mama himself and
be able to talk about it with you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
I love you, Thank you brother. Thank You Show is
a production of iHeart Podcasts, hosted by me Cina McFarlane,
produced by pod People in twenty eighth. Av Our lead
producer is Keith Cornlick, Our executive producer is Lindsey Hoffman.
Marketing lead is Ashley Weaver. Thank you so much for listening.
We'll see you next week.

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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Dateline NBC

All Episodes

NBA Hall of Famer Andrew D. Bernstein: Capturing Legends

On Purpose with Jay Shetty