December 20, 2022 • 17 mins
John Lucas II takes us inside his journey that started with him growing up in North Carolina, and then led to him playing and coaching in the NBA. John talks about being drafted #1 overall and his 24 assist night (in only 24 minutes). John shares memories of playing with George "the Iceman" Gervin and then he dives into how he became the head coach for the Spurs in 1992-93. John finishes discussing the legacy of the San Antonio Spurs.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Back away from Nixon. I was little Christian and he
touch it back at the Lucas with the clock at
five shot clock gun to five chicks, and he pumped
it in and I didn't stand the sex and Lucas
has got four. Welcome to Santo Spurs Podcast presented by
(00:21):
h G B. This is episode number eight. We have
a very special guest today, John Lucas, currently an assistant
coach with the Houston Rockets. A fourteen year NBA playing career,
He's been a coach in the NBA for a long
time now. He's been with the Rockets since sixteen in
this capacity as an assistant coach, first as development coach,
and we're gonna talk about his time with the San
Antonio Spurs. Is both a player and as the head coach.
(00:41):
John Lucas, thanks very much for joining us. You look great,
I gotta tell you because uh, I know you take
care of yourself, don't you. Well, I'm trying. I'm excited.
First of all, when we played in San Antonio, I
was looking at the court anniversary. Yeah, I remember when
the first year of the merging, I was actually going
to side with Bob Bass and then lost Drosses before
(01:04):
the draft because Jane Silas's knee had gone out and
they didn't know what was going to happen. So I
flew in two days before the draft. And then yeah,
I was the first pick in the draft. I was
pretty close to the side of the Spurs. Then, I've
had a long history with San Antonio. Yeah, but did
you not also get drafted by the New York Nets
(01:26):
in the A B A right after that or not?
I got drafted by the A B A, But because no,
the merger hadn't gone through, the Spurs were getting ready
to kind of claim before the marching. That's a good member. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
they were doing things like that back then, right with
the A B A NBA. Well, what do you remember
about the whole A B A NBA thing. Actually, my
last year seventy six seventy seventy seventy five was the
(01:48):
last year of both the A B A and the
N B A, and the Spurs were one of the
favorite A B A teams of the way they got
up and down the floor and the fans and deal. Yeah,
of course, And we'll get into that. I want to
get with your history a little bit, John, because you
grew up in Durham, North Carolina, right where Duke University is.
(02:08):
What was it like to grow up in Carolina in
the fifties and sixties. Well, you know, I played both
tennants and basketball, so a lot of the ten the
tennants back then, I couldn't use a lot of the
facilities because of the things that were going on with
the racism at the time. And my father was my
high school principal. My mother was my junior high school principal,
(02:30):
and my father now has a school named doctor called
Lucas Middle School or the integration of North Carolina public
school systems. History with that would have gone to Duke,
but I was so afraid of it academically that I
chose to go to the University of Marlon, which was
the first year freshman could play varsity basketball, so I
(02:54):
was really excited. Duke wasn't a very good team then,
and at that time my college coach at Arland was
a guy by the name of Left futrezl who was
trying to build the u c l A of the East.
I became All americt for two of my four years
in college. And guess where I had my tennis tournament?
Where were that Where was that? Was? CHRISTI texts? How
(03:17):
about that? Another connection the a TV butts tennis I
got you would say it, yeah, yeah, it San Antonio
and Texas overall. You mentioned the University of Maryland. You
were the number one pick overall in the draft, which
is just an amazing deal by the Houston Rockets. What
was it like to move to Houston and did you
go through any kind of culture shop when you move
(03:38):
south for the first time, not south but Southwest. Yeah.
I really loved Houston when I first were Ever since,
I've coached the Cavaliers seventy six is the Rockets, I
mean part of the Rockets and the Spurs, and I
end up always back in Houston. I never left in
my entire career. This was always my summer whole on
(04:00):
my home when I was between jobs. So I've always
loved Houston. It was a fun place for me. Moses
Malone and I came together because you know, Moses went
to college for one day and he went to and
so we all both ended up playing. Because the guy
who scouted us was a guy named Tom Nossaukee. He
(04:21):
was a scout for the Milwaukee Balls, and the day
before the draft he got the head coach jobs, and
he trained to make me the first pick in the draft.
And he had been studying Moses the whole time and
scouted me the whole year. So he promised that we
would get Moses there. And we went from losing fifty
(04:43):
games to go into the conference finals that year, losing
to the seventy sixers with Dr ja Uh, Bobby Jones, Uh,
Doug College, Julius Irvan. They beat us and eventually the
Portland Trailblazers won the championship. That's exactly right, because the
Portland beat Philly in the finals that year. Dr Jack
(05:05):
was actually coaching the Trailblazers. I think Bill Walton had
a really good series if I recall, yeah, really really
good series. Dr Jay. It was like the first year
of the merger. And I'll tell him this all the time.
Dr Jay saved our league. He was the first guy
who saved the first merger. We won't take the l
a t V. The finals were like eleven thirty at
(05:26):
night up out of the game have been played, and
so Dr Jay first came in and the merger really
saved both Lee the six teams that merged. It really
saved us saved Lee until Magic and Bird and then Michael.
That was just a few years later. That was the
seventy eight season with with Magic and Bird. I want
(05:48):
to get back to your time of the Spurs because, Uh,
you still have the all time record for assists in
a single game for the Spurs, twenty four assist night, John,
all those guys that all the time, but was in
twenty four minutes. In twenty four minutes. It was the
last game of the season and we were playing our
last game and everybody was going to play a half,
(06:10):
and so I said, I'm gonna do something special and
try to And we had such good shooters and scores
on that team, and my job was to distribute the ball.
That was against the Demper Nuggets, and I do remember
that and I did have That was Doug bo coaching
the Deer Nuggets back not known for his defense, Right, John,
(06:32):
You had some awesome teammates that you play with, Ice Artists, Gilmore,
Johnny Moore. Um, what was it like to play with
that group of guys and what are your memories to
playing with Ice Especially George was one of the best
that I've ever played with. He Uh could score at
all levels. In fact, I was that the ninety had
the thirty three points against the Golden State Warriors, and
(06:55):
he was the king of bank shots and he could
finger who that was. And I was just a great
teammate along with the he's passed, but Mike Mitchell artist
Gil move Here, probably the biggest hands and always had
the balls messed up, had all this stick him on
his hands. You had another guy on that team. There
(07:17):
was a guy that I didn't grow up with, but
he grew up right around me West Philly High. The
best high school player I've ever seen, Gene Banks, who Yeah,
game was that. Jane's been a guest on this show
and he's got fond memories of course in the early
eighties in San Antonio, and he played one year with you.
I guess right. Jane was the ultimate trail man on
(07:38):
a fast break and can guard anybody. He was a
perfect compliment team. Yeah. Now let's talk a little bit
about your coaching with the Spurs, because that came on
the heels of the Jerry Tarkanian deal. Whetherd you first
find out that you had a chance to become the
head coach of the Spurs during that three season Early
in the season, because I think Tark only coached twenty games.
(07:59):
Bob Bass and become friends because I had come to
the Spurs twice. And then I bought a team in
the usb L because as you know, my drug use,
I had to also ended up writing the policies or
anti drug programs, and so we had our league had
a heavy youth and drug use. So I bought a
(08:19):
team and put it in what they called Summer League,
which is now the Submerleague, and they would play for
three months. And all of those guys were really good
players at the time. So he saw me coach against
him and he asked me if I wanted to coach.
I said absolutely, and we talked about two or three days,
and I never realized that it was like an end
of you. And then I became the coach of the
(08:41):
Spurs and he told me I couldn't change the staff.
I could only add one guy, and that one guy
was George Girl And I told George, I said, George,
you're not gonna follow the coyote and the more you're
gonna coach. And George we had a great year that year.
We ended up winning twenty three of our first twenty
(09:03):
four games. We beat Portland in the first round of
the playoffs and then we lost to pix Phoenix. Right
we closed the arena blows the Hemisphere, So I always
tell people in Sanatorio, I was the last coach to
coach in the Hemisphere and the first coach to coaching
(09:24):
the ALUMO. Though. You know, we've got this podcast going on,
we also have some documentaries going on, and I just
watched one about the water cannon on opening night there.
What do you remember about that incident? You know, I
was inside. I don't remember the water Canada. I just
remember the forty almost forty thousand people at the game,
(09:45):
and it was one of the biggest arenas and it
was like unbelievable. I think that, Uh, what's the book
bounder Bob Bass and those guys, Bob Coleman. Now this
season all did a great job, and we lost to
We bought in Dennis Batman, and we lost to Utah
and everybody that we lost to in my two years coaching.
(10:08):
Went to the NBA Follows and lost to the Chicago Bulls.
H g B has two big game changes in their
playbooks this basketball season. Curbside pickup and home delivery check
out the fancy footwork of the h g B Personal
Shoppers that make it all happen. First they staged the
chips and dips. Then they pivot to the meat section
for your h GB natural burghers and steaks. They bring
(10:30):
the heat with Grand Champion charcoal and Texas Tough Boil.
That it's hip with the assist as they take it
to your car front door. Just go to h GB
dot com, choose curbside pickup or home delivery and don't
miss a single play. You got to coach some pretty
(10:58):
good guys on those two teams. The one of our
favorite colleagues, of course, to Sean ali At, the television
guy for the first what do you remember about Tell
you you talked to Sean, You tell him I'm still
the only coach he made the whole start team for
mad about that, because you know what I got there
was all Ar Brown Brown And eventually, you know, because
(11:23):
I really brought to a great place in space when
they first got David Roger Strickland, Sean and those guys,
and then the Vista they changed the team and Sean
was just so good for us that year, and then
he got sick and we made that trade to get
Dennis rock And of course Sean doesn't like cold weather
(11:45):
at all. He's from Tucson, Arizona. So even now as
the television guy, he'll cherry pick games, right John war Oh,
I'm not gonna go to Minnesota see the game in Minnesota.
I can see that. But overall, your experience as a
coach and two years and like I said, you guys
had some success. Unfortunately lost. Like you said, Utah, very
good Utah team that made the finals. That team went
(12:07):
fifty five and twenty seven. John, that the fourball club
we would have gotten better. Dale ellis towards Planti Fascia
and that really hurt us with some of the shooting.
David was m v P and one hour RIB. Because
I played with the Rockets and Rudy tom Janovich was
the coach of the Houston we made sure that we
(12:29):
had a good game them because that was personal in
the regard. Rudy is a really good friend. But David
and Keen. I got to put coach David, but played
with a Keen. I knew exactly how to guard a
keen David, and the first year he really locked him up.
Second yeah, I left it wasn't as much. Ke was
pretty hard to guard, Let's be honest. He had a
(12:51):
lot of moves and Sean Elliot always talks about how
strong he was. Yeah he was. But I'm a David
Robinson fan all the way through before his back that
it was the absolute best. I used to teasing, tell
you a good quick story. So he just really did
not understand Dennis Robin try and I used to always
(13:11):
tell he's gonna get all the rebound. You don't get
to shoot all the balls. Don't have a lot in common.
He says, what's that? I said, where did you go
to school? He said to enable again, I said, Dennis,
come here? Oh you sure? Though? What you got a
neighbor ring look? David both y'all got to say. He
did not think that was funny at all. I'll tell
(13:34):
you a quick story, John. I saw Dennis Robin play
at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. How about that. Not many
people can say that. Yeah, an AI school. He was
South oak Cliffe and Dallas and he went to Southeastern Oklahoma.
The Savages, that's their name, the Savages. And I saw
him play in mid western state. So he was real skinny.
He didn't you know I hadn't put the weight on yet,
no tattoos, you had no ear rings. He was just
(13:55):
a skinny six eight kid from but he could rebound
and say that he could always do that. You know,
we had Terry Cummins on that team to you're talking about,
and TC used to get mad because, uh, then it's TC,
what do you want me to do? You played thirty
four minutes, you get eight and nine rebounds. He plays
thirty four minutes, he gets thirty two ReBs. Who would
(14:19):
you play? Not personally? No, Hey, when you mentioned earlier, John,
that's the fiftieth anniversary of the Spurs, uh, And of
course that's when they started in the ABA, when the
Dallas Chapparals moved to San Antonio. When you look at
the history of the team a half century now of history,
what are your thoughts on the legacy of the San
Antonio Spurs in the NBA. I think that it is
(14:40):
one of the more elite franchise. Always has been well run,
always had high attendance, not only because it was the
only game in town, just because they were always a
step ahead of the cutting age from the business side
with tickets and promotion to game day operations all the way.
(15:04):
And I think that when Bob Bass left and Great
Poppa Bitch came in, one of my biggest mistakes was
leaving and not giving Pop a chance to help me
grow as a coach. I left to become general manager
and head coach of the Sixes, but I wish I
had to stay and got some better quality advice from
him instead of looking where he came from, except looking
(15:28):
at what I could gather. So that was a mistake
on my part. But he did a great job. You
look what he's obviously done with the franchise and where
it is, and he's been He's been a call of
stone in basketball the last twenty five years. Hey, job,
Before I let you go, I wanted to thank you
for all the work you're doing for the folks who
have had drug problems. I know that you felt a
(15:48):
lot of players, a lot of folks that aren't even
involved in sports. You've taken a lot of time and
put a lot of effort into helping a lot of
people turn their lives around. I think that's a very
commendable on your part, and um it's it's one of
the gonna be one of your legacies. I believe well.
Thank you know. One of the things I learned is
that I got the gift of desperation March fourteenth, nineteen
(16:11):
eighties six, and from that day on, I've been living
life one day at a time and appreciating the opportunity
to be of service to us. And I always call
it honestly that the how honestly open manity and my
worst my self worth. So you know that I'm grateful
(16:32):
for a whole lot of people whose last names I
don't even know. Mm hmmm, well, John, thank you so
much for taking the time to join us and uh
talking about your story and then your history with the
Spurs and continue success with you and your time now
with the Houston Rockets. And congratulations for the anniversary and
the celebration of fifty years to all the people who've
ever been a part of the Spurs organization. Thanks very much.
(16:56):
That's John Lucas, the head coach of the Spurs back
in eighty three, are d two, ninety three and nine
and also played for the Spurs and three eighty four. John,
thank you very much. This has been the South of
Spurs podcast presented by h g B. I'm Bill Schuldening
until Next time we'll see it
Back away from Nixon. I was little Christian and he
touch it back at the Lucas with the clock at
five shot clock gun to five chicks, and he pumped
it in and I didn't stand the sex and Lucas
has got four. Welcome to Santo Spurs Podcast presented by
(00:21):
h G B. This is episode number eight. We have
a very special guest today, John Lucas, currently an assistant
coach with the Houston Rockets. A fourteen year NBA playing career,
He's been a coach in the NBA for a long
time now. He's been with the Rockets since sixteen in
this capacity as an assistant coach, first as development coach,
and we're gonna talk about his time with the San
Antonio Spurs. Is both a player and as the head coach.
(00:41):
John Lucas, thanks very much for joining us. You look great,
I gotta tell you because uh, I know you take
care of yourself, don't you. Well, I'm trying. I'm excited.
First of all, when we played in San Antonio, I
was looking at the court anniversary. Yeah, I remember when
the first year of the merging, I was actually going
to side with Bob Bass and then lost Drosses before
(01:04):
the draft because Jane Silas's knee had gone out and
they didn't know what was going to happen. So I
flew in two days before the draft. And then yeah,
I was the first pick in the draft. I was
pretty close to the side of the Spurs. Then, I've
had a long history with San Antonio. Yeah, but did
you not also get drafted by the New York Nets
(01:26):
in the A B A right after that or not?
I got drafted by the A B A, But because no,
the merger hadn't gone through, the Spurs were getting ready
to kind of claim before the marching. That's a good member. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
they were doing things like that back then, right with
the A B A NBA. Well, what do you remember
about the whole A B A NBA thing. Actually, my
last year seventy six seventy seventy seventy five was the
(01:48):
last year of both the A B A and the
N B A, and the Spurs were one of the
favorite A B A teams of the way they got
up and down the floor and the fans and deal. Yeah,
of course, And we'll get into that. I want to
get with your history a little bit, John, because you
grew up in Durham, North Carolina, right where Duke University is.
(02:08):
What was it like to grow up in Carolina in
the fifties and sixties. Well, you know, I played both
tennants and basketball, so a lot of the ten the
tennants back then, I couldn't use a lot of the
facilities because of the things that were going on with
the racism at the time. And my father was my
high school principal. My mother was my junior high school principal,
(02:30):
and my father now has a school named doctor called
Lucas Middle School or the integration of North Carolina public
school systems. History with that would have gone to Duke,
but I was so afraid of it academically that I
chose to go to the University of Marlon, which was
the first year freshman could play varsity basketball, so I
(02:54):
was really excited. Duke wasn't a very good team then,
and at that time my college coach at Arland was
a guy by the name of Left futrezl who was
trying to build the u c l A of the East.
I became All americt for two of my four years
in college. And guess where I had my tennis tournament?
Where were that Where was that? Was? CHRISTI texts? How
(03:17):
about that? Another connection the a TV butts tennis I
got you would say it, yeah, yeah, it San Antonio
and Texas overall. You mentioned the University of Maryland. You
were the number one pick overall in the draft, which
is just an amazing deal by the Houston Rockets. What
was it like to move to Houston and did you
go through any kind of culture shop when you move
(03:38):
south for the first time, not south but Southwest. Yeah.
I really loved Houston when I first were Ever since,
I've coached the Cavaliers seventy six is the Rockets, I
mean part of the Rockets and the Spurs, and I
end up always back in Houston. I never left in
my entire career. This was always my summer whole on
(04:00):
my home when I was between jobs. So I've always
loved Houston. It was a fun place for me. Moses
Malone and I came together because you know, Moses went
to college for one day and he went to and
so we all both ended up playing. Because the guy
who scouted us was a guy named Tom Nossaukee. He
(04:21):
was a scout for the Milwaukee Balls, and the day
before the draft he got the head coach jobs, and
he trained to make me the first pick in the draft.
And he had been studying Moses the whole time and
scouted me the whole year. So he promised that we
would get Moses there. And we went from losing fifty
(04:43):
games to go into the conference finals that year, losing
to the seventy sixers with Dr ja Uh, Bobby Jones, Uh,
Doug College, Julius Irvan. They beat us and eventually the
Portland Trailblazers won the championship. That's exactly right, because the
Portland beat Philly in the finals that year. Dr Jack
(05:05):
was actually coaching the Trailblazers. I think Bill Walton had
a really good series if I recall, yeah, really really
good series. Dr Jay. It was like the first year
of the merger. And I'll tell him this all the time.
Dr Jay saved our league. He was the first guy
who saved the first merger. We won't take the l
a t V. The finals were like eleven thirty at
(05:26):
night up out of the game have been played, and
so Dr Jay first came in and the merger really
saved both Lee the six teams that merged. It really
saved us saved Lee until Magic and Bird and then Michael.
That was just a few years later. That was the
seventy eight season with with Magic and Bird. I want
(05:48):
to get back to your time of the Spurs because, Uh,
you still have the all time record for assists in
a single game for the Spurs, twenty four assist night, John,
all those guys that all the time, but was in
twenty four minutes. In twenty four minutes. It was the
last game of the season and we were playing our
last game and everybody was going to play a half,
(06:10):
and so I said, I'm gonna do something special and
try to And we had such good shooters and scores
on that team, and my job was to distribute the ball.
That was against the Demper Nuggets, and I do remember
that and I did have That was Doug bo coaching
the Deer Nuggets back not known for his defense, Right, John,
(06:32):
You had some awesome teammates that you play with, Ice Artists, Gilmore,
Johnny Moore. Um, what was it like to play with
that group of guys and what are your memories to
playing with Ice Especially George was one of the best
that I've ever played with. He Uh could score at
all levels. In fact, I was that the ninety had
the thirty three points against the Golden State Warriors, and
(06:55):
he was the king of bank shots and he could
finger who that was. And I was just a great
teammate along with the he's passed, but Mike Mitchell artist
Gil move Here, probably the biggest hands and always had
the balls messed up, had all this stick him on
his hands. You had another guy on that team. There
(07:17):
was a guy that I didn't grow up with, but
he grew up right around me West Philly High. The
best high school player I've ever seen, Gene Banks, who Yeah,
game was that. Jane's been a guest on this show
and he's got fond memories of course in the early
eighties in San Antonio, and he played one year with you.
I guess right. Jane was the ultimate trail man on
(07:38):
a fast break and can guard anybody. He was a
perfect compliment team. Yeah. Now let's talk a little bit
about your coaching with the Spurs, because that came on
the heels of the Jerry Tarkanian deal. Whetherd you first
find out that you had a chance to become the
head coach of the Spurs during that three season Early
in the season, because I think Tark only coached twenty games.
(07:59):
Bob Bass and become friends because I had come to
the Spurs twice. And then I bought a team in
the usb L because as you know, my drug use,
I had to also ended up writing the policies or
anti drug programs, and so we had our league had
a heavy youth and drug use. So I bought a
(08:19):
team and put it in what they called Summer League,
which is now the Submerleague, and they would play for
three months. And all of those guys were really good
players at the time. So he saw me coach against
him and he asked me if I wanted to coach.
I said absolutely, and we talked about two or three days,
and I never realized that it was like an end
of you. And then I became the coach of the
(08:41):
Spurs and he told me I couldn't change the staff.
I could only add one guy, and that one guy
was George Girl And I told George, I said, George,
you're not gonna follow the coyote and the more you're
gonna coach. And George we had a great year that year.
We ended up winning twenty three of our first twenty
(09:03):
four games. We beat Portland in the first round of
the playoffs and then we lost to pix Phoenix. Right
we closed the arena blows the Hemisphere, So I always
tell people in Sanatorio, I was the last coach to
coach in the Hemisphere and the first coach to coaching
(09:24):
the ALUMO. Though. You know, we've got this podcast going on,
we also have some documentaries going on, and I just
watched one about the water cannon on opening night there.
What do you remember about that incident? You know, I
was inside. I don't remember the water Canada. I just
remember the forty almost forty thousand people at the game,
(09:45):
and it was one of the biggest arenas and it
was like unbelievable. I think that, Uh, what's the book
bounder Bob Bass and those guys, Bob Coleman. Now this
season all did a great job, and we lost to
We bought in Dennis Batman, and we lost to Utah
and everybody that we lost to in my two years coaching.
(10:08):
Went to the NBA Follows and lost to the Chicago Bulls.
H g B has two big game changes in their
playbooks this basketball season. Curbside pickup and home delivery check
out the fancy footwork of the h g B Personal
Shoppers that make it all happen. First they staged the
chips and dips. Then they pivot to the meat section
for your h GB natural burghers and steaks. They bring
(10:30):
the heat with Grand Champion charcoal and Texas Tough Boil.
That it's hip with the assist as they take it
to your car front door. Just go to h GB
dot com, choose curbside pickup or home delivery and don't
miss a single play. You got to coach some pretty
(10:58):
good guys on those two teams. The one of our
favorite colleagues, of course, to Sean ali At, the television
guy for the first what do you remember about Tell
you you talked to Sean, You tell him I'm still
the only coach he made the whole start team for
mad about that, because you know what I got there
was all Ar Brown Brown And eventually, you know, because
(11:23):
I really brought to a great place in space when
they first got David Roger Strickland, Sean and those guys,
and then the Vista they changed the team and Sean
was just so good for us that year, and then
he got sick and we made that trade to get
Dennis rock And of course Sean doesn't like cold weather
(11:45):
at all. He's from Tucson, Arizona. So even now as
the television guy, he'll cherry pick games, right John war Oh,
I'm not gonna go to Minnesota see the game in Minnesota.
I can see that. But overall, your experience as a
coach and two years and like I said, you guys
had some success. Unfortunately lost. Like you said, Utah, very
good Utah team that made the finals. That team went
(12:07):
fifty five and twenty seven. John, that the fourball club
we would have gotten better. Dale ellis towards Planti Fascia
and that really hurt us with some of the shooting.
David was m v P and one hour RIB. Because
I played with the Rockets and Rudy tom Janovich was
the coach of the Houston we made sure that we
(12:29):
had a good game them because that was personal in
the regard. Rudy is a really good friend. But David
and Keen. I got to put coach David, but played
with a Keen. I knew exactly how to guard a
keen David, and the first year he really locked him up.
Second yeah, I left it wasn't as much. Ke was
pretty hard to guard, Let's be honest. He had a
(12:51):
lot of moves and Sean Elliot always talks about how
strong he was. Yeah he was. But I'm a David
Robinson fan all the way through before his back that
it was the absolute best. I used to teasing, tell
you a good quick story. So he just really did
not understand Dennis Robin try and I used to always
(13:11):
tell he's gonna get all the rebound. You don't get
to shoot all the balls. Don't have a lot in common.
He says, what's that? I said, where did you go
to school? He said to enable again, I said, Dennis,
come here? Oh you sure? Though? What you got a
neighbor ring look? David both y'all got to say. He
did not think that was funny at all. I'll tell
(13:34):
you a quick story, John. I saw Dennis Robin play
at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. How about that. Not many
people can say that. Yeah, an AI school. He was
South oak Cliffe and Dallas and he went to Southeastern Oklahoma.
The Savages, that's their name, the Savages. And I saw
him play in mid western state. So he was real skinny.
He didn't you know I hadn't put the weight on yet,
no tattoos, you had no ear rings. He was just
(13:55):
a skinny six eight kid from but he could rebound
and say that he could always do that. You know,
we had Terry Cummins on that team to you're talking about,
and TC used to get mad because, uh, then it's TC,
what do you want me to do? You played thirty
four minutes, you get eight and nine rebounds. He plays
thirty four minutes, he gets thirty two ReBs. Who would
(14:19):
you play? Not personally? No, Hey, when you mentioned earlier, John,
that's the fiftieth anniversary of the Spurs, uh, And of
course that's when they started in the ABA, when the
Dallas Chapparals moved to San Antonio. When you look at
the history of the team a half century now of history,
what are your thoughts on the legacy of the San
Antonio Spurs in the NBA. I think that it is
(14:40):
one of the more elite franchise. Always has been well run,
always had high attendance, not only because it was the
only game in town, just because they were always a
step ahead of the cutting age from the business side
with tickets and promotion to game day operations all the way.
(15:04):
And I think that when Bob Bass left and Great
Poppa Bitch came in, one of my biggest mistakes was
leaving and not giving Pop a chance to help me
grow as a coach. I left to become general manager
and head coach of the Sixes, but I wish I
had to stay and got some better quality advice from
him instead of looking where he came from, except looking
(15:28):
at what I could gather. So that was a mistake
on my part. But he did a great job. You
look what he's obviously done with the franchise and where
it is, and he's been He's been a call of
stone in basketball the last twenty five years. Hey, job,
Before I let you go, I wanted to thank you
for all the work you're doing for the folks who
have had drug problems. I know that you felt a
(15:48):
lot of players, a lot of folks that aren't even
involved in sports. You've taken a lot of time and
put a lot of effort into helping a lot of
people turn their lives around. I think that's a very
commendable on your part, and um it's it's one of
the gonna be one of your legacies. I believe well.
Thank you know. One of the things I learned is
that I got the gift of desperation March fourteenth, nineteen
(16:11):
eighties six, and from that day on, I've been living
life one day at a time and appreciating the opportunity
to be of service to us. And I always call
it honestly that the how honestly open manity and my
worst my self worth. So you know that I'm grateful
(16:32):
for a whole lot of people whose last names I
don't even know. Mm hmmm, well, John, thank you so
much for taking the time to join us and uh
talking about your story and then your history with the
Spurs and continue success with you and your time now
with the Houston Rockets. And congratulations for the anniversary and
the celebration of fifty years to all the people who've
ever been a part of the Spurs organization. Thanks very much.
(16:56):
That's John Lucas, the head coach of the Spurs back
in eighty three, are d two, ninety three and nine
and also played for the Spurs and three eighty four. John,
thank you very much. This has been the South of
Spurs podcast presented by h g B. I'm Bill Schuldening
until Next time we'll see it
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com