November 22, 2022 • 30 mins
Matt Bonner takes us inside his NBA journey from playing overseas to winning championships with the San Antonio Spurs. Matt explains why he played college basketball at the University of Florida and then he shares how playing basketball overseas was the most memorable time of his career. Matt shares what his first impressions of San Antonio were after being traded there and then he dives into what separates San Antonio's organization from others. Matt finishes up discussing how he wants to be remembered as a player and his own unique flannel retirement ceremony.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bonner's ten for Momo. Look at the Red Rocket blast
off with the two head tongue. Why not rocket got it? Roome,
(00:21):
that's down another trouple. Welcome to episode four of the
Sound of Spurs podcast. I'm your host, Bill shown in
the long time radio Voice of the Spurs. The podcast
(00:41):
is presented by Frost Bank. For episode four, we have
the Red Rocket, the Red Momba, the Sandwich Hunter, coach
b Mr New Hampshire Basketball. I've actually done a little
research on you, even though I've known you for a
long time. Matt Bonner is with us and welcome to
the podcast Sound of Spurs. Pump to be here and
slot number four bat and clean up. And what they
(01:04):
don't tell you is when you win Mr Basketball in
New Hampshire you get a lifetime supply on maple syrup.
So let me know. I had no idea. All right,
that's good. We've had nicknames so far on the podcast.
We opened up with the Iceman, then Bones, Brent Barry,
former teammate of yours, Captain Layton was number three, James
Silas out of Stephen F. Auston State University, and now
(01:25):
the Red Mamba, the Red Rocket. We know about the
Red Rocket origin from Toronto. You actually did take public
transportation the Red Rocket to the arena, correct, that's right.
That was the nickname for the streetcar subway system into
Toronto because all the cars, carts or cars or whatever
you wanna call them were painted red red Mamba. Did
it really come from Kobe Bryant? Give us the origin
(01:47):
of that? Yeah, I did. I was on the Raptors
team when Kobe had his one, and on the tenth
anniversary of that game, the NBA did this thing where
he was live tweeting watching the game and at some
point I hit a shot and he tweeted out the
red Mamba for three or something like that, and then
(02:09):
Twitter ran with it, and it's stuck. People got you
and Bryan's Gallabrini mixed up. But he was the white Mamba. Correct,
that's right. He was the white Mamba. And you know,
one one important distinction between our two nicknames is I
don't know if his was given to him by Kobe.
Mine was so that you've always had that. That's like
one of those things that might be in your epitaph.
(02:30):
Can we spell epitaph? Do we know? Yeah? I mean,
what languages that I don't know. Well, I'll tell you
one thing. I didn't realize until I was doing the
research that you were the valedictorian of your high school class. Yeah.
I should know what it means too, you know, But
that's okay. Um, you had a very good academic career,
so you had a probably a lot of choices. And
(02:50):
I would think that being from New England, maybe some
Ivy League schools recruited you. No, because back then the
Ivy League was terrible at basketball, jen really speaking, so
good at academics, good at academics. But you know I
was I'm a basketball player. I'm gonna I'm gonna have
basketball in my life the rest of my life. And
(03:11):
when I was getting recruited, yes I was valatorian. My
mom was an elementary school teacher, so academics was always
very important growing up and to this day, if I
ever get the opportunity to speak to kids or a camp,
I always bring up academics and tell the kids how
important it is. Regardless of what your passion is outside
the classroom, you still got to do your work in
(03:32):
school and get a grades. It's important for your future.
But I took visits to Providence College, Boston College and
Yukon And for basketball, you take your visits in the fall,
so it's senior year or fall. Um. I go to
those three schools in New England. It's dreary, dark, cold.
(03:54):
Neither one of those schools has like a great football program.
I guess Boston College kind of, but you know people
at the game. And then I go to the University
of Florida and slip first week in November and everyone's
in shorts and a T shirt and I go to
an SEC football game with nineties some thousand people, huge
(04:15):
party they had. Mike Miller was recently committed to go there,
actually was his freshman year, because it would have he
was a year ahead of me. So they had Mike Miller,
they had Udonis Haslem, Teddy Dupe, they had all these
up and coming recruits. Was coach Donovans like second or
third year there, so he's trying to build this nationally
(04:35):
prominent program and he wanted me in on the ground floor.
And after that visit, it was like, all right, see
you in New England. I'm good. We're going down to Florida.
There's probably a little bit of a culture shot for
you going down to uh, the state of Florida, and
Billy Donovan is a New England guy, right, he played
at Providence. So did he have to twist your arm
do a little New England talk to get you down there? No,
I mean he's from Long Island. You're right. He did
(04:57):
go to Providence, so he was kind of a legend
around New England when they made that final four run
in whatever year was in the eighties. Uh, But he
was a Patino guy. He was a Patino disciple, played
for him at Providence and then was in a grad
assistant at Kentucky and really embraced the open style offense,
(05:18):
full court press, and he's like, look, you're you're gonna
eventually be the head of the press, and we're gonna
we play a stretch for And you gotta remember back then,
stretch four as were rare most nights in the SEC.
And in my NBA career, I'm lining up against someone
like six nine to sixty that's trying to knock your
block off every single play. And I wasn't that. I was.
(05:40):
I wanted to shoot threes, I wanted to play more
on the perimeter, and he said, your role on this
team will be that and my freshman year I got
to every day in practice go up against Udonis Haslem,
Mike Miller, this guy Brent Wright from Liberty City, my
amy toughest nails, had a really long, high level European career,
(06:04):
and Donald Harvey first round draft pick, physical freak of nature.
It was my roommate actually my freshman year, and so
my freshman year I wasn't playing a ton, maybe fourteen
fifteen minutes a game. It slowed that role slowly increased
throughout the year, and he kind of peeked in the
n c A tournament. We went to the championship game,
lost to Michigan State, but I was in the rotation
(06:25):
playing minutes in the n c A tournament. And a
lot of people, especially nowadays with the transfer rules being
laxed with the transfer portal and you don't have to
sit up, sit out if you're not playing, They're like,
I'm out of here, I'm gonna transfer. But I just
remember thinking to myself in the big picture, this is
the place where I'm gonna become the best player I
(06:47):
can be because these are the guys I'm going against
every single day in practice, and I know eventually some
of these guys are gonna graduate, They're gonna go to
the n b A, and I'm gonna move up the
pecking order and I'm gonna be ready because of going
through this process. Let's get to the process where you
turned professional and you get drafted in the second round
by Chicago, but you don't go to the Bulls. Take
(07:09):
us through that whole thing. Yeah, I got drafted during
a commercial. My dad's a mailman and he was a
mailman for I don't even know thirty forty years in
the city of Concord, New Hampshire. And he's a very gregarious,
outgoing social person and makes friends with everyone everywhere he is,
(07:30):
so put that personality into a mailman. He knows the
whole city. And I remember I did all the draft process.
I did seventeen workouts in nineteen days leading up to
the draft at Chicago pre draft camp everything. I had
great workouts and thinking like, all right, I'm definitely gonna
(07:51):
get drafted. Uh, someone's gonna draft me. And so I'm like,
there's this restaurant right across street from the State House,
the Capitol Grill. I don't think. I don't even know
if it's still there. Anymore. But I'm like, I told
my dad, I'm like, hey, I'm going with some buddies
down to the Capitol Grill that it's like like a
sports bar in the basement. We're gonna watch the draft,
(08:12):
eat some food, hang out. So, oh, you mind if
I invite a few people, And I'm thinking, like a
few people. Sure. I walked down there. It's like it's
like hundreds of people packed into this place to watch
the draft. It was yeah, I'm like, oh, of course,
Like thanks dad, you know. And so we're down there
and the whole first round comes and goes. I don't
(08:34):
get drafted, not super surprised every I feel like most
people that enter the draft, if you ask them where
they're where they think they'll get drafted, They're like, oh,
I'm a late first rounder, you know. But obviously not
everyone could be a late first rounder. I wasn't second
round comes Nick's had three picks in the thirties, and
I did two workouts for the Knicks and crushed it. Uh.
(09:00):
I thought, this is the Nicks are going to use
one of these picks to take me. All three of
their picks come and go, they don't take me, And
now we're hitting in the forties and I'm like, oh,
this is this is not good. This might be embarrassing,
Like half my hometown's here to see this, and I
might not get drafted. Like forget that. You see the
(09:20):
guys that get stuck in the green room, like this
is worse. And you know, forty forty four not me,
not mean, not mean, not mean. Go to commercial. We
got the sound turned way up. Come back from commercial
and they're doing the forty six pick, but no one
really you don't even think like, oh they what about
(09:40):
They go to forty six pick and like you can
hear in the background, like a tech or or assistant
producer some you hear something like map on Or in
the background, and like one guy in the bar is
like did they just say Matt Bonner. They do the
FORTI pick and it's not me. So everybody's like, okay,
thought it might have been you, and they do. So
(10:01):
they announced forty six pick and then real quick they
go back and they're like, oh, while we were at
break with the Chicago Bulls selected map on Or you
very see a Florida and everybody's like, did you get drafted?
It's like the whole like yeah, because like it was
like did you get drafted and not get drafted? So
very anticlimactic in that regard that they I didn't get
(10:23):
any you know, they usually show highlights and talk about them.
I didn't get that because that time slot happened during
the commercial, but still ended up getting drafted. If you
were a lottery picked though, you probably would have rocked
one of those pink suits or something right. You would
have been just go all out with that. I would
have had a plaid flannel suit. Yeah, I gotta represent it.
By the way, the plant has been retired by the
San Antonio Spurs. I don't want to jump ahead here,
(10:43):
but we want to talk about that for a moment.
The name of the show is the Sound of Spurs Podcast,
so we want to get to your time with the Spurs,
but we have to talk briefly about your time in
Europe because it was a very unique time for you,
and you were talking earlier about being a stretch four
and really, when you think about guys like Dirk Navitski
and guys that can step outside and shoot bigger guys
Patristyokovitch was six ten, you kind of fit that European
(11:03):
prototype and you end up spending a year of Europe. Yeah,
that was the most memorable year of my career, which
is crazy because I go to Messina Sicily, our teams
owned by the mafia. Can I say that I gonna
put a hit out on me? I feel like it's
open knowledge there. I got paid about half my money
(11:25):
I was supposed to, which wasn't a lot to begin with,
and the team ended up going bankrupt and getting kicked
out of the league at the end of the year.
But the year I was there, they were in the
top league in Italy and I'm going against NBA guys
every single night. But the basketball was phenomenal. Uh. The
(11:47):
teams were well coached, the style of play, guys knew
how to play like like you mentioned, a lot of
teams utilized stretch for is over there more perimeter oriented,
which is funny because our ironic because when I got
to Italy. Yeah, I still shot threes and all that stuff.
But I used to be able to go down on
the block and pound guys over there, like that was
(12:09):
my bread and butter. I could I go post up
and just beast guys down on the block. It was
I mean the mid too, early mid two thousands was
a physical brand of basketball to begin with, but then
in Europe it was even more physical, so you could
like really mix it up and get away with it
if you had a physical advantage. Is that where you
developed your jump stop, face up hook shot, the Kareem
abdul Shabana that is it? Probably is You're right, because
(12:32):
I would get the ball on the block or a
little off the block, and if I could get ripped
through and get middle and get to my spot and
get to that jump book, it was game over. Two points.
Now the Bulls owned your rights, are correct? And you
ended up with the Raptors. Yeah, well, actually the Bulls
drafted me for the Raptors. So the Raptors had my
rights right away. Like everyone's like, oh, you're you know,
(12:53):
this is oh three, it's not that long after Jordan
left the Bulls. So people are still like all sick,
you're gonna go in Chicago where Jordan played, you know,
And literally two minutes after the draft, Uh, my name
got called, my agent called and it's like no, no,
it's actually the Raptors pick. They picked him for you.
So to your point, the Raptors held my rights. There's
(13:15):
no G League. Back then, I was the second round pick.
They had a full roster, so they said, go play
in Europe for one year. When you come back, some
of these contracts will expire, we'll put you on the team.
So I I go over and I'm playing in Sicily.
I'm not getting paid. My living conditions are crazy, Like
I had my electricity cut off in my apartment twice
(13:36):
because they weren't paying the bill. And I called the
GM to complain and he'd send a plane clothes person
over who would break into the fuse box in the
apartment and reconnect the wire. Yeah, and uh, I got evicted.
I got evicted once because they weren't paying the rent
on my apartment. And I don't know what they did.
(13:58):
But when I called and complained and I came home
from practice, the super who lived on the top floor
would have like bloodshot eyes like he had been crying,
and like gave me the because they switched the lockout,
gave me the key to the new lock. And he
didn't speak an English. Just like apologizing, he like kissed
the top of my hand. So I don't know if
they gave him the vanilla ice treatment and hung him
(14:19):
off the top of the building. But I didn't have
any issues after that. There was some communication made apparently,
but your friends and the dozens of stories about that
year and all this is going on, and I'm just
saying at Florida, I'm like, all right, I'm not playing
a lot right now, but I'm going against these guys
every day. My goal is to become the best player
(14:40):
I can be. This is the right situation. I'm in Italy.
I'm playing in the top league. Yeah, I'm having to
deal with some stuff off the court. Yeah, like getting
a victed, not getting paid exactly, but I wasn't married
and have kids. It's just me, like, I know I'll
be okay, and and and I'm not getting getting Yeah
I'm not getting paid, but I'm in the league where
(15:01):
I'm playing thirty six minutes a night against arguably the
top competition outside the n b A. This is gonna
get me better. So I stuck it out the whole season,
and towards the end of the year are at the
head coach and GM for the Raptors who drafted me
got fired. It was Glenn Grunwald was the GM, and wow,
(15:23):
I can't even O'Brien no, not Jim O'Brien, Kevin O'Neill.
Kevin O'Neill. There you go. Kevin O'Neill got fired. I
can't believe. I couldn't think of his name. That man.
It's been a long time, n I remember Kevin O'Neill.
I think at Marquette. So so I go, I go
back a long way. So they got fired, but to
your point, they had they still held my rights. So
(15:44):
it's not like, oh, these guys that drafted me got fired.
Let me call every other team and see if if
I can get in training camp or get a chance
with another team. I had to go back to the
Raptors and I go to summer league and I don't
know how it is now, but back and you go
to summer league, there'll be twenty two guys on the
roster and they're all fighting for three camp training camp invites,
(16:08):
and you gotta beat them all out. So I go back.
Sam Mitchell's the head coach, Rob Babcox the new GM.
They have no allegiance to me. They didn't draft me.
I'm like, hey, you said i'd be on the team
this year, and they're like, we didn't say that, Like sorry,
you know, so I had to go to summer league
and just make get invited to training camp, which I
(16:29):
was able to do, and then go to training camp
and make the preseason roster and then beat out two
or three other guys for the last roster spot in
preseason to make the real roster. Matt going through all
of that just to get on an NBA roster, all
the dudes you're paid overseas, Does that make you appreciate
all the success that you had later on, especially with
(16:49):
the Spurs. Yeah, no, I've absolutely I've never taken one
second for granted in the NBA, being a part of
the NBA, even now in retirement. I grew up a
very humble childhood. I mean we weren't like in poverty,
but my mom was a teacher, my dad was a maleman.
(17:11):
We had three kids, and uh my parents worked their
butts off and always preached hard work. And then you know,
having to climb the ranks at Florida scratch and claw,
and then when I went through in Europe and then
just making the Raptors. The story I just told and
there's more to that, but we don't have time. Just
overcoming all that adversity once you finally make it, that
(17:34):
appreciation never leaves me. I I I free food. That's
always people ask what's the best part of being in
the NBA. It's the free food. Ask any ask you
probably say the same thing. It's free for it everywhere,
and it's all amazing. It's the freshman fifteen too. If
you're not too careful, right, it's easy to gain weight
in the end. You hit the fitness center at the
hotel for sure, or take a long walk like you'd
(17:55):
like to do. All right, you go to the Spurs.
Obviously there's a trade mate and O six rash on
Us Trevi, who I really like. Drasho was a fun guy. Uh,
he gets traded and you come to the Spurs. I
got a phone call that day from Chuck Spursky, who
was the television voice of the Toronto Raptors at the time.
He's now the radio voice of the Bulls, and he
told me flat out, you're gonna dig this guy, Matt Bonder,
(18:15):
You're gonna get along with him. You guys have a
lot in common. You like independent music and and he
was exactly right. But when you first came to San Antonio, Oh,
I'm sure that you sense the different culture because here
you are going into a championship team basically because this
was a team that contended every year. Uh man, who
was really getting his footing. They had won the O
five Championship, in the OH three Championship, this particular group obviously.
(18:38):
Uh So, what were your first experiences when you first
went to training camp and saw the climate and the
culture of the San Antonio Spurs. Well, first of all,
I got here in mid August, and I'm like, holy crap,
is it hot here? And I went to University of Florida,
but like it was worse for some reason, worst, but
(19:00):
just so hot. My first day in the practice facility,
they have what's called open gym, and I'm thinking, open, Jim,
You're just gonna show up and play and pick up Yeah,
Like yeah, you're at Green Street Community Center or something.
And I show up and it's like like the process
(19:23):
from in August when open gym starts, until you either
win or don't win. The championship is like so defined
and embraced by everyone, not just Tim Duncan, Tony Parker
and Monta Genobli, but all the way down the line,
every player on the roster, every coach, every support staff person,
(19:48):
like everyone's all in team first on this process and
everyone knows what it takes. They've done it, they had
done it before, and we're gonna go through this process
to the best of our ability and hopefully win a championship.
You know, when I was in Toronto, it was a
brand new coach, brand new GM. The team was kind
(20:11):
of a mess from the couple of years before, and
it was way more like willy nilly, like leading up
to the season. No one worked out in Toronto at
that time because of the tax stuff. So we'd go
to Bradenton, Florida, and like guys would be in and out,
but we're also working out with like uh tylu and
(20:32):
Chauncey Billups, John Wallace like all these like other random
NBA players would be down there and it was great
workouts and it was you you. It was structured and
all that, but like it wasn't the same as being
in your own practicability with your own coaches, um developing
that chemistry that rapport from August. Starting in August and
(20:56):
Tim Duncan set the tone, Manu at the tone. Tony
set the tone, Like the first day I get there,
like I said, I thought we were playing pickup, and no,
we're doing weights. It's like they've already like looked at
your body and they know, like, all right, we need
to work on this and this is out of whack,
and sports science is involved, and I'm doing different exercises
(21:20):
to work on my weaknesses physically. Then we're then we're
doing shooting drills, structured shooting drills, all based out of
the offense and the sets that coach Pop plays. So
everything you're working on in these drills will translate seamlessly
on the court in live game action based on your
position within our offense. Then we're playing pick up, but
(21:42):
it's it's not willy nilly pick up. There's like refs,
there's a score clock, there's situational stuff. We're all right,
for the next five minutes segment, we're gonna work on
this this offense. So we're integrating our offense into that.
And then I'm like, all right, we're done. I'm about
to die here. No, we're going out back and they
(22:02):
got this huge man made hill and by then you
know you're pushing eleven noon and so and it's August
and it's so hot and you're tired from all the
other stuff, and it's like, no, we gotta do all
these sprints up this giant man made hill. And the
first day I just remember like running up and halfway
through him, like getting lightheaded from being dehydrated or whatever.
(22:25):
And I remember like wavering and feeling like I was
gonna fall backwards down the hill. In this hand just
grabs my jersey and starts pulling me up the hill.
Tim Duncan there day one set in the tone. Even
at this point he's multiple m v P S championships, everything,
He's there day one with everybody going through the whole thing,
(22:45):
leading by example, and that that story kind of sums
up what the experience was coming to the San Antonio
Spurs and seeing that Spurs culture and what it's all about.
Thanks for sharing that story, because that is as ample
of a teammate. And when you talk to guys who
played with Tim for extended period of time and you
played with him for ten years, uh, that's one of
(23:06):
the things they say is that he was a great
teammate and not just the guy that went out and
got it done on the floor, but supporting everybody in
the locker room. Yeah, on and off the court. That's
what separates Spurs culture, I think from a lot of
other teams is you've got everyone genuinely cares about everyone else,
Coach Pop, all the way down the line. And when
(23:29):
you have that level of trust, then you can really
hold each other accountable on the court. And guys don't
take it personal, they don't go in the jar. They
know that it's about winning and accomplishing something together as
a group, and they have your best interest at heart.
You were with the Spurs for a decade, you resigned
(23:50):
several times during that period of time. Did you ever
get tempted to go somewhere else or look somewhere else,
or you're just so happy with your role in San
Antonio and knowing that you're going to be part of
this amazing run, this championship caliber team during that entire period. Yeah,
that that's ultimately what it was. I was really happy
here living here, playing here. The consistency on and off
(24:11):
the court, it's a it's a great town. I got married,
had my kids in San Antonio, all three, and it's
a great town too to have a stable home life too.
And the Spurs do a great job supporting families off
the court. So there was one time I was a
free agent many times. How do these guys getting extensions now?
(24:32):
They're spoiled. I had to deal with the stress of
the contract year like eight thousand times. But if you're
playing now, you'd have some old teammates reaching out to
you to form a super team and you'd be part
of that. Yeah, I guess as a shooter, you know
that's these guys would want valuable commodity. Mr Bonner. By
the way, you're you're very self deprecating all the time,
(24:55):
but I want to throw some numbers out. Forty one
is your career average from beyond the arc. And that's
pretty amazing. Uh. And of course, uh, you did it
and you knew your role. But you would mix things
up a little bit too. You weren't just a shooter.
You wanted to be a complete basketball player. And when
when people look back on your career, I think ultimately
they're going to call you the Red Rocket and the
shooter from Downtown. But how would you like your career
(25:17):
remembered as a player someone who gave it every time
on the court and put the team first. And I
mean that's that's what the Spurs way is all about.
That's what you're seeing this team do, regardless of talent,
who's healthy, who's in the lineup, who isn't, how the
game's going down thirty and the fourth for forty eight minutes,
(25:41):
these guys are out there doing exactly what I just said,
buying into that philosophy. We're gonna leave it on the court,
give it and and we're gonna play for each other.
This is the fiftieth anniversary of this franchise, and it's
probably a little more difficult now to answer this question
because you've been to the franchise for so long now
(26:02):
over a fifth of those years you've been part of
the team, whether as a player now is a broadcaster.
But when you think about the Spurs and the legacy
they have in the NBA, taking yourself kind of a
part away from that mix, what would you say that
would be respect? Honestly almost reverence, like they've reached that
reputation professionally as an organization and how they play on
(26:26):
the court. It's both and in the community. You know,
Spurs culture is real in San Antonio. It's bigger than basketball.
Even if you're not good at basketball, maybe you don't
even fully understand basketball. But if you grow up in
San Antonio, the Spurs are ingrained in your dna um,
and I think that's a really cool dynamic. But uh,
(26:50):
around the league, like it's like, if you go on
the Spurs, you know it's gonna be a first class experience.
They're gonna really care about you on and off the court,
and you're gonna play for a legendary coach who's gonna
get everybody to buy in and play the right way.
It's not about your highlight reel. It's about reaching new
(27:14):
heights each and every day. It's not about if he's
sit in the nosebleeds a courtside. It's about showing up.
It's not about wins. It's about winning over others by
treating them right. It's about more than money. Frost the
official bank of the San Antonio Spurs. One of my
(27:40):
favorite tweets of all time was garnished nobody when they
retired your flannel shirt there in the locker room. There's
a problem with shot, but he actually had taped with
one five. Not sure if that was all Mono. Maybe
Patty had something to do with that flannel Friday's Worth thing.
For a while, take me back to that and then
the ceremony in the lock room with guys like Mono
(28:01):
and Patty honoring your flownel shirt. I don't know how
many years in a row. At some point I gave
up jeans. I said, I'm done with jeans. Jeans are
overplayed there. At the time, they were just all blue,
Like what if I don't want to wear blue pants? Uh?
So I was just sick of jeans. They're everywhere, like
(28:23):
I was done with them. So I stopped wearing jeans
and I basically shifted to chords. So for like the
last seven years of my career, every single time, every
single game. Back then, now that guys can wear anything,
you can wear like a blondie T shirt with a
winter hat if you want. Back then, there was a
dress code had to be collared, business cash college shirt.
(28:47):
Um gee. If it would wear jeans, they had to
be nice jeans whatever that means to be. Yeah, I
guess no holes. I shifted, it got away from jeans
and I shifted, and I have a Warn jeans. Since
I have a Warn jeans and twelve years I don't
own a pair of jeans, so just chords. I have
some khakis, some chinos if it's if it's a little
(29:07):
hot out, very New England of you, by the way.
So for basically for like seven years straight, I wore
a flannel and chords to and from every single game,
and it became my uniform off the court, and guys
got to kick out of it and like to have
some fun with it. Hence Flanny Friday's Patty start that. Yeah,
Patty started that to honor me upon my retirement, and
(29:29):
then Monu did the flannel shirt retirement Matt. We go
on and on. It's so much fun to visit with you.
I'm so happy that you're part of the broadcast team.
Now we got to travel and have some fun on
the road me too. It's I tell people, this is
the funnest job I could possibly ever have, because I'm
still around the game I love, and I'm around the
team and the organization I love with some of my
(29:52):
some of my best friends in life for the last
seventeen years. So it's great spending time with everyone that
bond or two time NBA champion and of course the
NBA A leader one year in field goal percentage from
three point range, and that was back in the ten
eleven season. This has been episode for the Sound of
Spurs podcast presented by Frostbank. I'm Bill showing radio voice
the Spurs. Thanks for joining us.
Bonner's ten for Momo. Look at the Red Rocket blast
off with the two head tongue. Why not rocket got it? Roome,
(00:21):
that's down another trouple. Welcome to episode four of the
Sound of Spurs podcast. I'm your host, Bill shown in
the long time radio Voice of the Spurs. The podcast
(00:41):
is presented by Frost Bank. For episode four, we have
the Red Rocket, the Red Momba, the Sandwich Hunter, coach
b Mr New Hampshire Basketball. I've actually done a little
research on you, even though I've known you for a
long time. Matt Bonner is with us and welcome to
the podcast Sound of Spurs. Pump to be here and
slot number four bat and clean up. And what they
(01:04):
don't tell you is when you win Mr Basketball in
New Hampshire you get a lifetime supply on maple syrup.
So let me know. I had no idea. All right,
that's good. We've had nicknames so far on the podcast.
We opened up with the Iceman, then Bones, Brent Barry,
former teammate of yours, Captain Layton was number three, James
Silas out of Stephen F. Auston State University, and now
(01:25):
the Red Mamba, the Red Rocket. We know about the
Red Rocket origin from Toronto. You actually did take public
transportation the Red Rocket to the arena, correct, that's right.
That was the nickname for the streetcar subway system into
Toronto because all the cars, carts or cars or whatever
you wanna call them were painted red red Mamba. Did
it really come from Kobe Bryant? Give us the origin
(01:47):
of that? Yeah, I did. I was on the Raptors
team when Kobe had his one, and on the tenth
anniversary of that game, the NBA did this thing where
he was live tweeting watching the game and at some
point I hit a shot and he tweeted out the
red Mamba for three or something like that, and then
(02:09):
Twitter ran with it, and it's stuck. People got you
and Bryan's Gallabrini mixed up. But he was the white Mamba. Correct,
that's right. He was the white Mamba. And you know,
one one important distinction between our two nicknames is I
don't know if his was given to him by Kobe.
Mine was so that you've always had that. That's like
one of those things that might be in your epitaph.
(02:30):
Can we spell epitaph? Do we know? Yeah? I mean,
what languages that I don't know. Well, I'll tell you
one thing. I didn't realize until I was doing the
research that you were the valedictorian of your high school class. Yeah.
I should know what it means too, you know, But
that's okay. Um, you had a very good academic career,
so you had a probably a lot of choices. And
(02:50):
I would think that being from New England, maybe some
Ivy League schools recruited you. No, because back then the
Ivy League was terrible at basketball, jen really speaking, so
good at academics, good at academics. But you know I
was I'm a basketball player. I'm gonna I'm gonna have
basketball in my life the rest of my life. And
(03:11):
when I was getting recruited, yes I was valatorian. My
mom was an elementary school teacher, so academics was always
very important growing up and to this day, if I
ever get the opportunity to speak to kids or a camp,
I always bring up academics and tell the kids how
important it is. Regardless of what your passion is outside
the classroom, you still got to do your work in
(03:32):
school and get a grades. It's important for your future.
But I took visits to Providence College, Boston College and
Yukon And for basketball, you take your visits in the fall,
so it's senior year or fall. Um. I go to
those three schools in New England. It's dreary, dark, cold.
(03:54):
Neither one of those schools has like a great football program.
I guess Boston College kind of, but you know people
at the game. And then I go to the University
of Florida and slip first week in November and everyone's
in shorts and a T shirt and I go to
an SEC football game with nineties some thousand people, huge
(04:15):
party they had. Mike Miller was recently committed to go there,
actually was his freshman year, because it would have he
was a year ahead of me. So they had Mike Miller,
they had Udonis Haslem, Teddy Dupe, they had all these
up and coming recruits. Was coach Donovans like second or
third year there, so he's trying to build this nationally
(04:35):
prominent program and he wanted me in on the ground floor.
And after that visit, it was like, all right, see
you in New England. I'm good. We're going down to Florida.
There's probably a little bit of a culture shot for
you going down to uh, the state of Florida, and
Billy Donovan is a New England guy, right, he played
at Providence. So did he have to twist your arm
do a little New England talk to get you down there? No,
I mean he's from Long Island. You're right. He did
(04:57):
go to Providence, so he was kind of a legend
around New England when they made that final four run
in whatever year was in the eighties. Uh, But he
was a Patino guy. He was a Patino disciple, played
for him at Providence and then was in a grad
assistant at Kentucky and really embraced the open style offense,
(05:18):
full court press, and he's like, look, you're you're gonna
eventually be the head of the press, and we're gonna
we play a stretch for And you gotta remember back then,
stretch four as were rare most nights in the SEC.
And in my NBA career, I'm lining up against someone
like six nine to sixty that's trying to knock your
block off every single play. And I wasn't that. I was.
(05:40):
I wanted to shoot threes, I wanted to play more
on the perimeter, and he said, your role on this
team will be that and my freshman year I got
to every day in practice go up against Udonis Haslem,
Mike Miller, this guy Brent Wright from Liberty City, my
amy toughest nails, had a really long, high level European career,
(06:04):
and Donald Harvey first round draft pick, physical freak of nature.
It was my roommate actually my freshman year, and so
my freshman year I wasn't playing a ton, maybe fourteen
fifteen minutes a game. It slowed that role slowly increased
throughout the year, and he kind of peeked in the
n c A tournament. We went to the championship game,
lost to Michigan State, but I was in the rotation
(06:25):
playing minutes in the n c A tournament. And a
lot of people, especially nowadays with the transfer rules being
laxed with the transfer portal and you don't have to
sit up, sit out if you're not playing, They're like,
I'm out of here, I'm gonna transfer. But I just
remember thinking to myself in the big picture, this is
the place where I'm gonna become the best player I
(06:47):
can be because these are the guys I'm going against
every single day in practice, and I know eventually some
of these guys are gonna graduate, They're gonna go to
the n b A, and I'm gonna move up the
pecking order and I'm gonna be ready because of going
through this process. Let's get to the process where you
turned professional and you get drafted in the second round
by Chicago, but you don't go to the Bulls. Take
(07:09):
us through that whole thing. Yeah, I got drafted during
a commercial. My dad's a mailman and he was a
mailman for I don't even know thirty forty years in
the city of Concord, New Hampshire. And he's a very gregarious,
outgoing social person and makes friends with everyone everywhere he is,
(07:30):
so put that personality into a mailman. He knows the
whole city. And I remember I did all the draft process.
I did seventeen workouts in nineteen days leading up to
the draft at Chicago pre draft camp everything. I had
great workouts and thinking like, all right, I'm definitely gonna
(07:51):
get drafted. Uh, someone's gonna draft me. And so I'm like,
there's this restaurant right across street from the State House,
the Capitol Grill. I don't think. I don't even know
if it's still there. Anymore. But I'm like, I told
my dad, I'm like, hey, I'm going with some buddies
down to the Capitol Grill that it's like like a
sports bar in the basement. We're gonna watch the draft,
(08:12):
eat some food, hang out. So, oh, you mind if
I invite a few people, And I'm thinking, like a
few people. Sure. I walked down there. It's like it's
like hundreds of people packed into this place to watch
the draft. It was yeah, I'm like, oh, of course,
Like thanks dad, you know. And so we're down there
and the whole first round comes and goes. I don't
(08:34):
get drafted, not super surprised every I feel like most
people that enter the draft, if you ask them where
they're where they think they'll get drafted, They're like, oh,
I'm a late first rounder, you know. But obviously not
everyone could be a late first rounder. I wasn't second
round comes Nick's had three picks in the thirties, and
I did two workouts for the Knicks and crushed it. Uh.
(09:00):
I thought, this is the Nicks are going to use
one of these picks to take me. All three of
their picks come and go, they don't take me, And
now we're hitting in the forties and I'm like, oh,
this is this is not good. This might be embarrassing,
Like half my hometown's here to see this, and I
might not get drafted. Like forget that. You see the
(09:20):
guys that get stuck in the green room, like this
is worse. And you know, forty forty four not me,
not mean, not mean, not mean. Go to commercial. We
got the sound turned way up. Come back from commercial
and they're doing the forty six pick, but no one
really you don't even think like, oh they what about
(09:40):
They go to forty six pick and like you can
hear in the background, like a tech or or assistant
producer some you hear something like map on Or in
the background, and like one guy in the bar is
like did they just say Matt Bonner. They do the
FORTI pick and it's not me. So everybody's like, okay,
thought it might have been you, and they do. So
(10:01):
they announced forty six pick and then real quick they
go back and they're like, oh, while we were at
break with the Chicago Bulls selected map on Or you
very see a Florida and everybody's like, did you get drafted?
It's like the whole like yeah, because like it was
like did you get drafted and not get drafted? So
very anticlimactic in that regard that they I didn't get
(10:23):
any you know, they usually show highlights and talk about them.
I didn't get that because that time slot happened during
the commercial, but still ended up getting drafted. If you
were a lottery picked though, you probably would have rocked
one of those pink suits or something right. You would
have been just go all out with that. I would
have had a plaid flannel suit. Yeah, I gotta represent it.
By the way, the plant has been retired by the
San Antonio Spurs. I don't want to jump ahead here,
(10:43):
but we want to talk about that for a moment.
The name of the show is the Sound of Spurs Podcast,
so we want to get to your time with the Spurs,
but we have to talk briefly about your time in
Europe because it was a very unique time for you,
and you were talking earlier about being a stretch four
and really, when you think about guys like Dirk Navitski
and guys that can step outside and shoot bigger guys
Patristyokovitch was six ten, you kind of fit that European
(11:03):
prototype and you end up spending a year of Europe. Yeah,
that was the most memorable year of my career, which
is crazy because I go to Messina Sicily, our teams
owned by the mafia. Can I say that I gonna
put a hit out on me? I feel like it's
open knowledge there. I got paid about half my money
(11:25):
I was supposed to, which wasn't a lot to begin with,
and the team ended up going bankrupt and getting kicked
out of the league at the end of the year.
But the year I was there, they were in the
top league in Italy and I'm going against NBA guys
every single night. But the basketball was phenomenal. Uh. The
(11:47):
teams were well coached, the style of play, guys knew
how to play like like you mentioned, a lot of
teams utilized stretch for is over there more perimeter oriented,
which is funny because our ironic because when I got
to Italy. Yeah, I still shot threes and all that stuff.
But I used to be able to go down on
the block and pound guys over there, like that was
(12:09):
my bread and butter. I could I go post up
and just beast guys down on the block. It was
I mean the mid too, early mid two thousands was
a physical brand of basketball to begin with, but then
in Europe it was even more physical, so you could
like really mix it up and get away with it
if you had a physical advantage. Is that where you
developed your jump stop, face up hook shot, the Kareem
abdul Shabana that is it? Probably is You're right, because
(12:32):
I would get the ball on the block or a
little off the block, and if I could get ripped
through and get middle and get to my spot and
get to that jump book, it was game over. Two points.
Now the Bulls owned your rights, are correct? And you
ended up with the Raptors. Yeah, well, actually the Bulls
drafted me for the Raptors. So the Raptors had my
rights right away. Like everyone's like, oh, you're you know,
(12:53):
this is oh three, it's not that long after Jordan
left the Bulls. So people are still like all sick,
you're gonna go in Chicago where Jordan played, you know,
And literally two minutes after the draft, Uh, my name
got called, my agent called and it's like no, no,
it's actually the Raptors pick. They picked him for you.
So to your point, the Raptors held my rights. There's
(13:15):
no G League. Back then, I was the second round pick.
They had a full roster, so they said, go play
in Europe for one year. When you come back, some
of these contracts will expire, we'll put you on the team.
So I I go over and I'm playing in Sicily.
I'm not getting paid. My living conditions are crazy, Like
I had my electricity cut off in my apartment twice
(13:36):
because they weren't paying the bill. And I called the
GM to complain and he'd send a plane clothes person
over who would break into the fuse box in the
apartment and reconnect the wire. Yeah, and uh, I got evicted.
I got evicted once because they weren't paying the rent
on my apartment. And I don't know what they did.
(13:58):
But when I called and complained and I came home
from practice, the super who lived on the top floor
would have like bloodshot eyes like he had been crying,
and like gave me the because they switched the lockout,
gave me the key to the new lock. And he
didn't speak an English. Just like apologizing, he like kissed
the top of my hand. So I don't know if
they gave him the vanilla ice treatment and hung him
(14:19):
off the top of the building. But I didn't have
any issues after that. There was some communication made apparently,
but your friends and the dozens of stories about that
year and all this is going on, and I'm just
saying at Florida, I'm like, all right, I'm not playing
a lot right now, but I'm going against these guys
every day. My goal is to become the best player
(14:40):
I can be. This is the right situation. I'm in Italy.
I'm playing in the top league. Yeah, I'm having to
deal with some stuff off the court. Yeah, like getting
a victed, not getting paid exactly, but I wasn't married
and have kids. It's just me, like, I know I'll
be okay, and and and I'm not getting getting Yeah
I'm not getting paid, but I'm in the league where
(15:01):
I'm playing thirty six minutes a night against arguably the
top competition outside the n b A. This is gonna
get me better. So I stuck it out the whole season,
and towards the end of the year are at the
head coach and GM for the Raptors who drafted me
got fired. It was Glenn Grunwald was the GM, and wow,
(15:23):
I can't even O'Brien no, not Jim O'Brien, Kevin O'Neill.
Kevin O'Neill. There you go. Kevin O'Neill got fired. I
can't believe. I couldn't think of his name. That man.
It's been a long time, n I remember Kevin O'Neill.
I think at Marquette. So so I go, I go
back a long way. So they got fired, but to
your point, they had they still held my rights. So
(15:44):
it's not like, oh, these guys that drafted me got fired.
Let me call every other team and see if if
I can get in training camp or get a chance
with another team. I had to go back to the
Raptors and I go to summer league and I don't
know how it is now, but back and you go
to summer league, there'll be twenty two guys on the
roster and they're all fighting for three camp training camp invites,
(16:08):
and you gotta beat them all out. So I go back.
Sam Mitchell's the head coach, Rob Babcox the new GM.
They have no allegiance to me. They didn't draft me.
I'm like, hey, you said i'd be on the team
this year, and they're like, we didn't say that, Like sorry,
you know, so I had to go to summer league
and just make get invited to training camp, which I
(16:29):
was able to do, and then go to training camp
and make the preseason roster and then beat out two
or three other guys for the last roster spot in
preseason to make the real roster. Matt going through all
of that just to get on an NBA roster, all
the dudes you're paid overseas, Does that make you appreciate
all the success that you had later on, especially with
(16:49):
the Spurs. Yeah, no, I've absolutely I've never taken one
second for granted in the NBA, being a part of
the NBA, even now in retirement. I grew up a
very humble childhood. I mean we weren't like in poverty,
but my mom was a teacher, my dad was a maleman.
(17:11):
We had three kids, and uh my parents worked their
butts off and always preached hard work. And then you know,
having to climb the ranks at Florida scratch and claw,
and then when I went through in Europe and then
just making the Raptors. The story I just told and
there's more to that, but we don't have time. Just
overcoming all that adversity once you finally make it, that
(17:34):
appreciation never leaves me. I I I free food. That's
always people ask what's the best part of being in
the NBA. It's the free food. Ask any ask you
probably say the same thing. It's free for it everywhere,
and it's all amazing. It's the freshman fifteen too. If
you're not too careful, right, it's easy to gain weight
in the end. You hit the fitness center at the
hotel for sure, or take a long walk like you'd
(17:55):
like to do. All right, you go to the Spurs.
Obviously there's a trade mate and O six rash on
Us Trevi, who I really like. Drasho was a fun guy. Uh,
he gets traded and you come to the Spurs. I
got a phone call that day from Chuck Spursky, who
was the television voice of the Toronto Raptors at the time.
He's now the radio voice of the Bulls, and he
told me flat out, you're gonna dig this guy, Matt Bonder,
(18:15):
You're gonna get along with him. You guys have a
lot in common. You like independent music and and he
was exactly right. But when you first came to San Antonio, Oh,
I'm sure that you sense the different culture because here
you are going into a championship team basically because this
was a team that contended every year. Uh man, who
was really getting his footing. They had won the O
five Championship, in the OH three Championship, this particular group obviously.
(18:38):
Uh So, what were your first experiences when you first
went to training camp and saw the climate and the
culture of the San Antonio Spurs. Well, first of all,
I got here in mid August, and I'm like, holy crap,
is it hot here? And I went to University of Florida,
but like it was worse for some reason, worst, but
(19:00):
just so hot. My first day in the practice facility,
they have what's called open gym, and I'm thinking, open, Jim,
You're just gonna show up and play and pick up Yeah,
Like yeah, you're at Green Street Community Center or something.
And I show up and it's like like the process
(19:23):
from in August when open gym starts, until you either
win or don't win. The championship is like so defined
and embraced by everyone, not just Tim Duncan, Tony Parker
and Monta Genobli, but all the way down the line,
every player on the roster, every coach, every support staff person,
(19:48):
like everyone's all in team first on this process and
everyone knows what it takes. They've done it, they had
done it before, and we're gonna go through this process
to the best of our ability and hopefully win a championship.
You know, when I was in Toronto, it was a
brand new coach, brand new GM. The team was kind
(20:11):
of a mess from the couple of years before, and
it was way more like willy nilly, like leading up
to the season. No one worked out in Toronto at
that time because of the tax stuff. So we'd go
to Bradenton, Florida, and like guys would be in and out,
but we're also working out with like uh tylu and
(20:32):
Chauncey Billups, John Wallace like all these like other random
NBA players would be down there and it was great
workouts and it was you you. It was structured and
all that, but like it wasn't the same as being
in your own practicability with your own coaches, um developing
that chemistry that rapport from August. Starting in August and
(20:56):
Tim Duncan set the tone, Manu at the tone. Tony
set the tone, Like the first day I get there,
like I said, I thought we were playing pickup, and no,
we're doing weights. It's like they've already like looked at
your body and they know, like, all right, we need
to work on this and this is out of whack,
and sports science is involved, and I'm doing different exercises
(21:20):
to work on my weaknesses physically. Then we're then we're
doing shooting drills, structured shooting drills, all based out of
the offense and the sets that coach Pop plays. So
everything you're working on in these drills will translate seamlessly
on the court in live game action based on your
position within our offense. Then we're playing pick up, but
(21:42):
it's it's not willy nilly pick up. There's like refs,
there's a score clock, there's situational stuff. We're all right,
for the next five minutes segment, we're gonna work on
this this offense. So we're integrating our offense into that.
And then I'm like, all right, we're done. I'm about
to die here. No, we're going out back and they
(22:02):
got this huge man made hill and by then you
know you're pushing eleven noon and so and it's August
and it's so hot and you're tired from all the
other stuff, and it's like, no, we gotta do all
these sprints up this giant man made hill. And the
first day I just remember like running up and halfway
through him, like getting lightheaded from being dehydrated or whatever.
(22:25):
And I remember like wavering and feeling like I was
gonna fall backwards down the hill. In this hand just
grabs my jersey and starts pulling me up the hill.
Tim Duncan there day one set in the tone. Even
at this point he's multiple m v P S championships, everything,
He's there day one with everybody going through the whole thing,
(22:45):
leading by example, and that that story kind of sums
up what the experience was coming to the San Antonio
Spurs and seeing that Spurs culture and what it's all about.
Thanks for sharing that story, because that is as ample
of a teammate. And when you talk to guys who
played with Tim for extended period of time and you
played with him for ten years, uh, that's one of
(23:06):
the things they say is that he was a great
teammate and not just the guy that went out and
got it done on the floor, but supporting everybody in
the locker room. Yeah, on and off the court. That's
what separates Spurs culture, I think from a lot of
other teams is you've got everyone genuinely cares about everyone else,
Coach Pop, all the way down the line. And when
(23:29):
you have that level of trust, then you can really
hold each other accountable on the court. And guys don't
take it personal, they don't go in the jar. They
know that it's about winning and accomplishing something together as
a group, and they have your best interest at heart.
You were with the Spurs for a decade, you resigned
(23:50):
several times during that period of time. Did you ever
get tempted to go somewhere else or look somewhere else,
or you're just so happy with your role in San
Antonio and knowing that you're going to be part of
this amazing run, this championship caliber team during that entire period. Yeah,
that that's ultimately what it was. I was really happy
here living here, playing here. The consistency on and off
(24:11):
the court, it's a it's a great town. I got married,
had my kids in San Antonio, all three, and it's
a great town too to have a stable home life too.
And the Spurs do a great job supporting families off
the court. So there was one time I was a
free agent many times. How do these guys getting extensions now?
(24:32):
They're spoiled. I had to deal with the stress of
the contract year like eight thousand times. But if you're
playing now, you'd have some old teammates reaching out to
you to form a super team and you'd be part
of that. Yeah, I guess as a shooter, you know
that's these guys would want valuable commodity. Mr Bonner. By
the way, you're you're very self deprecating all the time,
(24:55):
but I want to throw some numbers out. Forty one
is your career average from beyond the arc. And that's
pretty amazing. Uh. And of course, uh, you did it
and you knew your role. But you would mix things
up a little bit too. You weren't just a shooter.
You wanted to be a complete basketball player. And when
when people look back on your career, I think ultimately
they're going to call you the Red Rocket and the
shooter from Downtown. But how would you like your career
(25:17):
remembered as a player someone who gave it every time
on the court and put the team first. And I
mean that's that's what the Spurs way is all about.
That's what you're seeing this team do, regardless of talent,
who's healthy, who's in the lineup, who isn't, how the
game's going down thirty and the fourth for forty eight minutes,
(25:41):
these guys are out there doing exactly what I just said,
buying into that philosophy. We're gonna leave it on the court,
give it and and we're gonna play for each other.
This is the fiftieth anniversary of this franchise, and it's
probably a little more difficult now to answer this question
because you've been to the franchise for so long now
(26:02):
over a fifth of those years you've been part of
the team, whether as a player now is a broadcaster.
But when you think about the Spurs and the legacy
they have in the NBA, taking yourself kind of a
part away from that mix, what would you say that
would be respect? Honestly almost reverence, like they've reached that
reputation professionally as an organization and how they play on
(26:26):
the court. It's both and in the community. You know,
Spurs culture is real in San Antonio. It's bigger than basketball.
Even if you're not good at basketball, maybe you don't
even fully understand basketball. But if you grow up in
San Antonio, the Spurs are ingrained in your dna um,
and I think that's a really cool dynamic. But uh,
(26:50):
around the league, like it's like, if you go on
the Spurs, you know it's gonna be a first class experience.
They're gonna really care about you on and off the court,
and you're gonna play for a legendary coach who's gonna
get everybody to buy in and play the right way.
It's not about your highlight reel. It's about reaching new
(27:14):
heights each and every day. It's not about if he's
sit in the nosebleeds a courtside. It's about showing up.
It's not about wins. It's about winning over others by
treating them right. It's about more than money. Frost the
official bank of the San Antonio Spurs. One of my
(27:40):
favorite tweets of all time was garnished nobody when they
retired your flannel shirt there in the locker room. There's
a problem with shot, but he actually had taped with
one five. Not sure if that was all Mono. Maybe
Patty had something to do with that flannel Friday's Worth thing.
For a while, take me back to that and then
the ceremony in the lock room with guys like Mono
(28:01):
and Patty honoring your flownel shirt. I don't know how
many years in a row. At some point I gave
up jeans. I said, I'm done with jeans. Jeans are
overplayed there. At the time, they were just all blue,
Like what if I don't want to wear blue pants? Uh?
So I was just sick of jeans. They're everywhere, like
(28:23):
I was done with them. So I stopped wearing jeans
and I basically shifted to chords. So for like the
last seven years of my career, every single time, every
single game. Back then, now that guys can wear anything,
you can wear like a blondie T shirt with a
winter hat if you want. Back then, there was a
dress code had to be collared, business cash college shirt.
(28:47):
Um gee. If it would wear jeans, they had to
be nice jeans whatever that means to be. Yeah, I
guess no holes. I shifted, it got away from jeans
and I shifted, and I have a Warn jeans. Since
I have a Warn jeans and twelve years I don't
own a pair of jeans, so just chords. I have
some khakis, some chinos if it's if it's a little
(29:07):
hot out, very New England of you, by the way.
So for basically for like seven years straight, I wore
a flannel and chords to and from every single game,
and it became my uniform off the court, and guys
got to kick out of it and like to have
some fun with it. Hence Flanny Friday's Patty start that. Yeah,
Patty started that to honor me upon my retirement, and
(29:29):
then Monu did the flannel shirt retirement Matt. We go
on and on. It's so much fun to visit with you.
I'm so happy that you're part of the broadcast team.
Now we got to travel and have some fun on
the road me too. It's I tell people, this is
the funnest job I could possibly ever have, because I'm
still around the game I love, and I'm around the
team and the organization I love with some of my
(29:52):
some of my best friends in life for the last
seventeen years. So it's great spending time with everyone that
bond or two time NBA champion and of course the
NBA A leader one year in field goal percentage from
three point range, and that was back in the ten
eleven season. This has been episode for the Sound of
Spurs podcast presented by Frostbank. I'm Bill showing radio voice
the Spurs. Thanks for joining us.
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