Part 1 - Peace God, Carmelo Anthony

On Part 1 of Episode 5, Dwyane sits down with his close friend, and 10-time NBA All-Star, Carmelo Anthony for an intimate conversation. They cover Melo's family and childhood growing up in Brooklyn and Baltimore, how he learned about his late father's interesting life, becoming friends with LeBron in high school and why Melo got stranded at Oak Hill.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:17):
All right, everybody, welcome to the podcast. I have the
pleasure of sitting here with my brother. I'm gonna roll
off a couple of numbers that you guys may know.
He's a ten time All Star, he's a three time
Olympic gold medalists. We'll talk about the other one as

(00:38):
we go on. He's an n C Double A champion.
He's one of the coolest mofos that I know. Everybody
call him Carmelo Anthrey. That don't know him, but if
you do know him, he's the Peace God. Everybody, welcome
my brother Mellow to the podcast. Yes, yes, sir, Peace,

(01:00):
Peace God, Please God.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
You know that love man anytime.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
So I wanted to start this podcast because I wanted
to have conversations with people that I admired, people that
I love to learn from, people that are my friends,
are my brothers. So I appreciate you taking the time.
You know you've had many conversations.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Easy money right here, but easy. But I think you
know you do.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
We do a lot of interviews and some of the
questions could be the same. But when you're talking to
someone who knows you or see you in certain situations
in life, the answers are different facts. And so to
start this this podcast off, I want to go back
to the beginning. I want to go back to the
mellow that I didn't get to meet. I want to
go back to young Mellow.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
So who is who was.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Like young Mellow, like that that mellow that was in
b More, that was in Brooklyn for the basketball that
we all knew.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I was just a kid, you know what I mean.
I was a kid in red Hook. You know red
Hook at that time was we're talking eighties, you know,
mid eighties, late eighties, early nineties, so that you know,
it was very community oriented, right. It was the projects,
you know, it was gatherings, it was everything was every

(02:21):
building did things together. Like it was a real, real
community oriented and as a kid, you look you looked
up to that. You look forward to that, you know
what I mean. Every year every summer you have your
Red Hook Day, your Paradise Day and everybody coming together
and his music in the park and his cookouts and
his food and his basketball games, and so that became

(02:41):
what I was looking forward to, Like you wanted to
be known for that at that point in time, Like
I got to be known for the best in the
games on Red Hook Day and things like that. So
as a kid, I already had that mentality. My brother played,
you know, my cousin's played. My brother was a real
deal man. And now I'll give me always always, yeah,

(03:02):
I always give him his credit.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Man.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
I like always give him his flowers, you know what
I'm saying. Because my brother was the he was the
heart and soul of Red Hook, you know what I mean.
In Brooklyn. So my family we lived as soon as
you walk in the building, seventy nine of Range Street one. See,
we was the first apartment that you had to go
through to get to any other apartment in the building
and to the steps, so we really ran the actually

(03:25):
you had. We was the gatekeepers of the actual building.
But my family was big in the projects, you know.
We was like one of the staple families in the project.
So it was always just love community and that's that's
what I grew up in. And then I moved to
Baltimore the summer of ninety two, and I thought the
grass was green on that side. Well, my mother, you're

(03:45):
born in what eighty forty? I was born in eighty four.
Nineteen eighty four, I moved to Baltimore summer of ninety two,
and I was hurt. Yeah, hurt you.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
So we have you were raised by your mother. I
was raised by my mom.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
My dad passed when I was two, right, So I
was raised by my mom, my brother's sister, that side
of the family. But I was always involved on my
other side of my brothers, I mean with my sisters
on my dad's side. So they used to take care
of me. But my dad had a blended family's Puerto
Rican man. He was like everybody's under one roof over here,

(04:25):
you know what I'm saying. Sense of family. Yeah, but
even though him and my mom wasn't together, we still
had that. It was just that family, Like he come
to the door with my sisters and what we're doing. Yeah,
meda with what we're doing. So that was the environment.
But that was that was the environment. And then we
have family in Baltimore that we used to go down
there in the summer, you know, take those trips down

(04:47):
in summer in the South and things like that. And
then my mom was like, Yo, we're going down there
and to spend this summer. It never came back and
back I was hurt.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Man, It's like you know when you're a kid, right
and you gotta move, if you gotta uproute, you gotta go.
It's the little things you're like, Man, my bike, my homies,
you know, my this, my dad. You know, you feel
like everything is like they're just taking everything away from you,
everything that you.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Knew, you know, I was. I was just thinking about friends. Yeah,
I was thinking about like growing up in that environment,
Like who I was going to bed, you know, friends
with growing up? This was gonna be my crew growing up,
Like you know what I mean as a kid, you
eight nine years old, these are the things you just
starting to find out. You're starting to gather your friends.
You fail and you realize who are your close friends

(05:35):
and we're friends? You know who does what? And putting
the team together. That's when all of that that mindset
actually starts. So I was just leaving that at that
point in time going to Baltimore. So I was established.
I already established it, but I didn't get a chance
to play it.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Out in Red Hook. And was it because of or
was it because of like a career? Was it your
mom moving because of careering?

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Hell? No, I was like you know what Red Hook is? Crazy? Listen,
we're gonna shoot down there for the summer and just
get away from from from Brooklyn for four minute okay.
And she loved it, you know what I mean. She
had aunts and sisters and brothers out there already down there.
You know, my brothers was already moving, you know, back

(06:20):
and forth down there. Anyway, So at that point, it
was like, man, I'm the I'm the hind. I don't
got a voice. I gotta go. No, I ain't going.
I'm not going.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
So outside of basketball, which we're gonna get to, we'll
cover a lot of basketball, But tell me something else
that young Mellow did, Like you know, I've heard a
little bit. You know, you said a couple of things
like you know, I've watched you. I've watched you when
you got paper.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
In front of you do to a lot of course,
Like what else the young Mellow?

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, I was called My name was Cello, right, Okay,
that's never Nobody knows that Cello. That was my name
in Red Hook. Everybody called me Cello, right, you know,
I guess it was Mellello. Good, you know what I mean.
Hip hop was big back then, so they called me Cello.
People in Red Hook called me Cello. So I was

(07:14):
Cello to people in Red Hook if you went back
and be like Mellows like yeah, this is right. Yeah,
you never. I never understood where that name came from. Anyway.
I was in Baltimore and I was known as Little
New York. Okay, right, so you know I came down
with the you know, with the Anthony Mason in the

(07:36):
back like New York, little Little New York in the
back of my head, in my headcut you know what
I'm saying. So that's what I was on. I was
into graffiti and all right. And I used to get
in trouble in school for drawing sneakers on the desk
and cartoon characters and trace and I had tracing books,

(07:56):
so I used to I used to do all that
I was a kid. I did everything a kid did.
I play with toys, you know, uh you know my
buddies a black My buddy was one of my one
of my black My buddy was my man. Like you
know what I'm saying. I had the wrestling, the w
w F the wrestlers. I used to I love wrestling.
My mom. My mom is a die hard wrestling fan.

(08:18):
So I used to tape my bunk beds like the
ring and jump off the top bunk to my brother
bed and while he's sleep, you know what I mean, Like.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
It's oh, you got a lot of weapons, then bro
your mama.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I stayed in the room with my older brother. He
had his own bed. It was bunk beds. My other
brother just was on the top and then me and
my cousin on the bottom bunk. So it's four of
us in the in the square. We gotta make something happen.
Like I'm I'm the one that's just living there. You
know what I mean, I'm jumping from bed to bed
to better bed. But I was when I got the

(08:49):
Baltimore To answer your question, man, I just love I
used to love drawing paint.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
You know, I ain't never paint. I just never understood painting.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Everybody showed me out to paint, but I know drawing
and being creative, like understanding just taking something and being
able to break it down and put something around it
and tell a story.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
But I had that, so it was an outlet. It was, yeah,
it was an outlet.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
I had that as a as a little kid, like
I always had the vision of like damn if I
was to do that, and I would do it like this,
Like I was always thinking like that as a kid.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
So you were you were storytelling.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
I was storytelling like I already had in my mind
things that I would do when I was playing Little
league football. You know, it was already like in my
mind that story was already told. If I did it,
and if I didn't do it, yeah, I had a
story for that too, you know.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
I think that's one thing that's important for let's just
say athletes or young young individuals that definitely come from
the same community as a jungle where we come from, right,
is understanding that we are storytellers because we have to
create our own our own life in our mind. We
had to close our eyes and put ourselves somewhere or

(09:58):
envision ourselves somewhere. We have we create our own stories,
and so we have a skill set of storytelling that
we never tap into naturally. Naturally to be able to
accomplish the things that we accomplished to get to where
we are, we have to see it and we have
to tell ourselves that story.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
No one getting. No one told us we're naturally gifted, right,
We're naturally gifted. Right to your point, we are storytellers.
Everything that we ever lived experience is a story. We
tell those stories. So naturally we're storytellers. We can look
at somebody and understand the story without us even having
any dialogue. You can look at somebody's eyes and understand

(10:34):
what they're going through. Right, you can see somebody dispositioning
or and energy and understand what they're going through. So, yes,
we are naturally storytellers. But because nobody ever compounded on that,
hey you can be oh, so you can be that. Right,
we got shot down, Well get out, I got it.
Nobody Why you drawing that? It's like you got d

(10:55):
you know, you got penalized for being creative. You know.
Back then and when I said to black my buddy,
if you ain't had a right you know what I mean,
toy or black my buddy like you was looked upon
as as as a certain person or a certain kid. Right,
So even the thought of that is being a storyteller,

(11:16):
like I'm able to get this, I'm able to have
my story around this, Black my buddy, that you don't
have right because you don't see the vision you laughing,
you laughing at me? Right, y'all got the white. But
you know my buddy, and I got the blackest. I'm thinking,
I know I'm cool as black, my buddy, bro, I
know I'm cool. I'm only saying that. I'm only listening.
I know the black my buddy. Things don't go somewhere

(11:37):
after this. But I'm only saying that because when you
asked a very specific question of who was mellow, who
was Cello? At that at that moment of seven eight
years old, this is the things I was into, Climbing
up the window, trying to see my brother play outside,
and trying to understand what's going on. Why I can't

(11:58):
go outside, that's big bro plan, why I can't go outside?
Not understanding the environment, the community right right. So it
was like a lot of things as a kid man
at that time. What music did you gravitate towards?

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Not not you know, I'm sure you heard a lot
of things because you had older siblings and so you
had to listen to what they listened to.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
But what music did you gravitate to us? What artists
was that that spoke to you? To me, it was
like at the time where I can really understand that
the impact that a lyric is having. It was it
was rock Kim, my brother used to play rock Kim.
It was Biz Marquee. You know what I'm saying, Like

(12:46):
Biz was Biz was heavy and now in my household.
So I always understood kind of had the sound of
music just based off of you know, those type of artists.
They wasn't like everybody else. So I gravitated towards those
type of artists. But as I got to Baltimore, it was,
you know, it was more like you know, some of them.
It was purple tape like it was you know what

(13:08):
I mean, It was fu tang. It was what's purple tape?
So listen, we used to call it the purple that
came into purple tape cassette tape. Okay, so we used
to call it the purple tape. You know what I'm saying. Nah,
But it was you know, I used to call it
the purple tape though, So you know that was the
only built for Cuban links, right. So it was like

(13:28):
I grew up on on that type of music that
was like the music that was like my soundtrack to
my background, my backdrop. They was I was hearing as
a kid, everything that I was dealing with. They were
speaking right to you. They were speaking directly to me
right to what you've seen, what you experienced speaking. All
that I got is you, like you know what I'm saying.

(13:48):
That song was like played over and over and over,
Like watching that video when the day and the projects
and seven am pluck and roaches out the cereal box.
It's like I had a big ass cockroach come out
this cereal box out here, you know, so you relate
to what you're seeing. So that was that was like
my backdrop. Yeah, you know ghost Face, Ray Kwon, Wu

(14:10):
Tang and Nas like early Nas.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
You know, it's a lot of people even in my
life today that when we share stories like that, right,
cockroaches coming out of the cereal box, they don't understand
that we lived that life. That's you know what I mean,
Like we like literally cockroaches coming out of cereal box.
That's that was the life we live of roaches. Whatever
you had in your community, they came out of every day.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
You see what's up? You know what I mean? Soday
just off the wall, like it was. I hated them,
but you know I hated them things, but that's we
had no choice.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
So those individuals that you know that you listen to
were storytellers once again sellers. They told stories that you
can identify with, that made you feel seen, that made
you feel like you won alone, right, which is important. Right.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
We don't say kids, if you don't see something or
someone that's.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Doing something or doing a certain act the way that
you you know you do them or you've seen them,
then it feels foreign. But these artists are telling your
story straight to you. You like, yeah, I guess speak
just coming out of cereal box speaking.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
They speaking to you like to that point, like I
was used like music while he was talking about music
and what music was doing for me, like you know
me personally, like I need music. You know what I'm saying,
I need anything I do. I need music. It's I'm
just the moods of mellow like it's going at, going

(15:39):
at the moods the medals of you know what I'm
saying that keep that in the pocket, going out. But
you know I was just always you know, my mom
was soulful. My uncles and aunts they were soulful. You
know what I'm saying, Nine, ten, eleven, twelve people in
three bedrooms. You get so much information as a kid,
so you start gravitating to sound. You start guaranteeing it

(16:01):
to who don't like what you know as a family,
what we like, what we don't like, So you take
all of that. So by time I got to ninety two,
ninety three, ninety four, that only built for Cuban links
was my backdrop, you know, And I'm actually understanding it
better now.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
It's like, man, I just went I went through that.
So I wanted to beat them.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
I wanted to be no, not you know, be like
nas as a kid, like damn because he he talking
to me as a as a kid. But I wanted
to they inspire me as a kid. I didn't want
to beat them like I was smart enough because I
grew up with uncles and aunts who really held things down,
you know what I'm saying, who was had morals and
standards and stood tall on their square.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
So I never wanted to follow nobody.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
It was just I would take little pieces of information
and you know, I see how he moving, I see
how he talking. I say, you know what I mean,
like what's what's making it work and what's not One
of my uh I.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Mean, I've probably shared this with you before, but or not,
but one of my favorite moments even over our twenty
years of relationship that we've had was connecting over music.
So if you remember this moment, we were on vacation
and you play the most Jada kiss I've everst I
ever listened to my life. But we set up, we

(17:21):
had some wine, yep, we set up for hours as
you and I and you played me music from your
from your upbringing, from your community, from your hood. And
I got a chance to do that music to understand
my friend a little bit better. You know what I'm saying.
You speak to you spoke to me, and I can
and I can see your your expressions and see what
you when you know, when when that music here, you
be like, listen.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
To this, listen. And I was sitting there listen, and
I got a chance.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
To the music of you know a lot of the
you know fabulous and you know all the things that
you had you had me listening to some fabulous that
I never kiss, I never heard were.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
The New York Bad. It was cool though, you know,
because I was We was learning each other, mean, so
it ain't like we knew everything about each other. Like
now we could talk of thirty years of experience, twenty
years of experience like then we was dealing with little
pockets of each other. So at that moment, it was
the energy, it was the environment that we was in

(18:16):
that it was no judgment zone, right, and we was
all filling each other out, like you know what I'm saying,
as far as like what are the likes of each person?
Were still sizing each other up in the in the
in a in a wonderful way as far as like
or what do he like? What do you like? What
he don't like? What is he into? What he not into?
We know certain tidbits about each other. But that I

(18:37):
think that moment was a was a very critical moment
and the growth of a friendship because music was like
at that point we was vibing like we were just
on that vibe. We ain't had no again first we
couldn't go nowhere. It's like the middle of the water
is just the vibe that you asked for, you know
what I'm saying. So I think the music also enhanced

(19:01):
you know what I mean, The backdrop enhanced the music.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
The music enhanced our conversation and that energy. If someone
is asking me in an interview about about you, I
always go back to that moment because you know, when
you compete against someone and you know, obviously we're friends.
You know, we get to see each other when we
play each other, or we get to talk, or we
get to you know, see each other awsar game, but
you ain't really getting in depth relationship building. And at

(19:26):
that moment that bonding, that was bond bonding and also too,
I don't know if you remember, that was the first
time where I, uh, I talked about my intro, like
when I was getting into the wine industry.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
M hmm, well, yeah, it was that where we were.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
It was twenty fourteen, it was like twenty It was
like twenty fourteen, twenty. It was somewhere around that time
I had I was just getting into the wine industry.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
It was was it New York? It was a New
York on Star weekend.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
That was twenty twenty fifteen, But when we were on
a vacation, I was I was just getting into the
wine industry.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Okay, okay, so it's coming back. Okay, Yeah, I don't remember.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Actually I had some of my wine that I poured,
I poured for you.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah. Yeah, I didn't tell y'all I tasted it.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, I just had some just and I was just
trying to see what y'all thought about it or whatever
the case, because it was it was me, U, c
PM and Brin just all drinking wine pour some wines
that I had brought.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
That's dope. That's the way you do it. Yeah, just
to see that's the way, but that's the way you
do it. Like I'm doing it that way, you know
what I'm saying. I'm here, Yeah, it was early on.
I love that. I love that memories, you know what
I mean, perspectives and stories and storytelling.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, I mean, because it was important for me even
like I was into this this industry of wine which
we both were in, which we would get to a
little later, but it was important for me that you know,
my you know my journey you were then beginning when
I didn't drink. Yeah, hell no, he didn't even drink,
And so it was important for me that, like I
was like, I don't want to see what mellow mellow
face looking because I don't know.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
I don't I don't really know what I like yet.
I'm just entering this industry and crazy, it's crazy, the
flip side of it. So the flip side of that story,
while you don't know what you like, right. I only
know what I like right, Meaning I wasn't as open
to exploring other vineyards and regions and grapes, and I

(21:17):
didn't want to. I was so like, avid on, I
gotta have a first growth board up. I got to like,
I'm not drinking nothing else. So I got stuck in
that first growth Bordo New York mindset that I'm like, yeah,
so no. So it wasn't that. It was just like
I wasn't introduced to anything else. It was like, once

(21:38):
I went from you know, Cali Napple to first Growth
on my journey, I'm not I'm not doing nothing else.
So I was on that journey at the same time
I was on that journey. So it's crazy, that's dope,
you know.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
So being a kid man and I think we all
know that pivot, that pivotal moment in our life. And
we looked at that ball and we was like, I
love that ball. I wanted not I want to do
this for the rest of my life. You're not thinking
that at that time, but you know, when you're going
to sleep, you you're thinking about it when you're waking up.
You think about it when you're in class. You're thinking
about it. What point in your life do you remember

(22:17):
early on where basketball became like the thing that brought
you your confidence, the thing that brought you joy in
the midst of the chaos of growing up in the jungle.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
High school. So it was in high school. It was
high school when I was Baseball was my first love. Okay,
there we go. I under what you what talk to
me about baseball. I just love baseball. You know, maybe
it's the Puerto Rican Jean, like you know what I'm saying, Like,
I just love baseball. And when I was in Red Hook,

(22:48):
we had a court right outside in the right outside
the window of the projects, right, So yeah, I love
you know, I loved playing basketball. I loved going out
there on the court. I love watching my brothers and
family playing friends play. And I love playing on the
monkey bars and jumping off the you know, you know,
imitating being a kid. But I didn't know it. I

(23:09):
just knew it was an activity. When I got to Baltimore,
I got a chance to play little league baseball, you know,
you know, baseball and football season. I can play football
and old basketball. I can play basketball too. It was
like basketball was like third on the list at that point,
But I can play it. I just had something about it,

(23:32):
a different style of game that they were seeing down
there in Baltimore. Right, So I bought that New York
flash and that, you know what I mean, that grit,
that toughness down there to where I was at on
top of the grit and toughness that was already there
right as I said, be more basketball, Be more basketball.
Is as tough as it come, great tough, get to it.

(23:55):
Did y'all play twenty one? Like what was playing? Twenty one?
Could play fifty? You know what I'm saying. We played
one on one. We played you know, you drive around
somebody if you're calling them out, Yo, me bet it.
You know what I'm saying. Like that was the culture
this neighborhood got. They basketball player, We got out, you
know what I mean, Let's go play. And a lot

(24:15):
of that happened outside. It didn't happen in therection No, no, no.
So I was intrigued by that part of the game.
Getting to it. I knew how to get to it.
As a kid. I knew I had to fight. I
knew I put I got to push somebody into the
fence when I score I got to you know what
I mean, Like it was like you got to exert

(24:38):
that energy as a kid. You learn that as a kid.
So in Baltimore, coming from New York with that flashiness
and you know, I ain't know the hell I was
doing at eight, at nine years old, but when you
get down there, it's like, oh, I can take my
toughness on top of this grittiness and this environment that

(24:58):
I'm in. This is this is a win win situation. Right.
So I had that mentality young. But baseball it was
like I'm playing baseball. I remember just I was first base.
So you played first base? You were you a hitter?
Were you a home run hitter? Where you were talk
to me about what kind of better you were? I
was the I was the basketball the baseball version of

(25:19):
me as a basketball player. Oh you went for it? Yeah,
I was. I was. I was going. I was, I was.
It wasn't fun if I wasn't, you know what I mean.
Like I was young. I was young, so it wasn't
fun for me to get it to second base like
I'm going. But I say that I loved baseball because
I really was excited about baseball, right, I was excited

(25:42):
about doing the essays to pass the essays so you
can go play and you know play make the team
and doing your book reports.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
And I was excited about that. I wasn't excited like
that about basketball.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Now, what's base Now?

Speaker 1 (25:54):
We know baseball is, especially growing up, a white sport,
and be more when he was playing baseball.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Now, so the Latino side, okay, it's what we know.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
You understand. The Puerto Rican side is what we know that.
But you know what I mean, that's baseball. And even
in New York it was baseball like it was, you know,
hitting rocks and you know, playing t ball and you
know baseball in the streets, you know, and a car
is every car is a base like you know what

(26:30):
I mean, Like this was this was the sport that
we had. Definitely, every car is a you know what
I'm saying. We had to figure figure it out. But
you know, home base with somebody stoop, so you know
what I'm saying. These are these are things that I
remember vividly, you know. So when I got to Baltimore,
I had a rec center where I can do all
of these things. I can go right after school, I

(26:52):
can sign up for baseball, basketball, football, they had a
soccer team. Oh yeah, I'm signing up for soccer. I
get to get out the hood and I get to
get out of my blocks.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Latinos and no, no, it's no Latina, It's no.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
I was. I was a sore thumb on Baltimore. I'm
coming there as a little Puerto Rican, right, you know
what I mean. I'm looking Puerto Rican. You know what
I mean. They looking at me like, oh, he's a
Puerto Rican from New York. Oh shit, like little New York,
you know what I mean. So I had to I
had to fit in. I had to find a way
to fit in. I have no friends. I moved in

(27:25):
there in the summer of ninety two. In June of
ninety two. It was the worst summer Baltimore has ever
had in my neighborhood. An what where killings, drugs, homicides, everything,
And that was better than real hood. And it was

(27:46):
like at least, brother, you was in a building like
you was in the one building. You know what I mean.
You had six floors in the buildings. So everybody Baltimore
was like who. But it was community. I learned what
it meant to stand with your community and owner your
community and represent those stripes of your community. I learned
that even though it was rough it whatever happened, you

(28:08):
just you immune to that. Some of that stuff you
just be immune to.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
So growing up that way is your mentality at this
time when it comes to basketball, is it's an individual
mentality like we know now as we sit here, it's
a basketball as a team sport, but early on today,
but more so like to win and to do the
things that people say it's five, but it's other players
out there. But did you have a mentality like I

(28:32):
gotta go get it and it was Was it more
than individual mentality or was it like, oh, I'm gonna
pass and I'm gonna get this guy a shot, or
was you like I'm going to get this bucket.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Now, I just had an understanding of who I was
right as a kid and what I can do. I
know I can score, like you know what I mean?
Like I knew that, like I eight nine, ten years old,
I knew I can score it. I'm gonna get a
bucket some way, some help. I gotta hang court. I'm
gonna get a bucket. Right. So that came from playing

(29:04):
as I got older outside because you have to do
whatever you have to do to win that one on
one game. I don't care what you gotta do, back down, foul, hit, bully.
I gotta get this bucket. So that was my mentality.
So when I went to play on the team sport,

(29:27):
that was what I was known for. Being tough, being
a bully, being strong, you know what I mean, hanging court,
trying to get easy back. You know what I mean.
Sai like just he wanted to get he won a
bucket because I knew that win games at that age.
You know what I'm saying, Because that's my mentality that
I had outside playing one on one, five on five
to two on two under the lights on the crates,

(29:48):
you have to get a bucket, and that always stuck
with me. Go get a bucket. What about the other side,
what about the defensive side? It was more pride. It
was more pride of it, just like someone that's scoring
on you. Yeah, it was like I got too much pride,
like I can't go back to the block and he
talking about he you know what I mean, Because then
that conversation leads to other things. You get what I'm saying.

(30:10):
So it's like no, no, And I also know what
I'm representing behind me, my community, my neighborhood, my block. Guys,
you know, I'm representing something bigger than me. So even
as a kid, I did whatever I had to do.
It wasn't about just scoring. It was like, I gotta
do what I gotta do to win this game. If

(30:33):
it's out there, I gotta, you know, go rebound, I
gotta go whatever it is. At that age, you gotta
go get it. Whether you need six, I gotta go
get twelve. Rebound, you gotta go get You gotta get
twelve to win the game. So I always had that,
like the fear of like losing or not fail I
don't want to say failure, just like losing and somebody

(30:55):
like you know what I mean. I had that as
a as a kid man, you know, so you just
you you build this mentality, this mindset of just like
a no bullshit mindset, and any situation that you're in
you have to go get it. So you have.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Brooklyn red Hooks, you have be More, but you also
got this Puerto Rican side of your Puerto Rico. Tell
me about how the story, right, how did that play
into this whole Young Melon.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
That's an interesting story. So my dad passed when I
was two. Uh, I just I remember going to a funeral.
I don't remember, you know nothing. I just remember being
being at a funeral. And as I got.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Older, my sisters on my dad's side always took kid me.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
You know. I went back and seeing them. I was
my oldest sister in Puerto Rico. No, they was in
New York. They were in New York. Yeah, my family
was in New York. Okay, right, So I would go
to Queens. I would go to bed you know, bed style,
you know, sisters over there. My grandmom on that side
was in bed style and in flat you know, in
Bushwick in Brooklyn. So I had family on the Puerto

(32:12):
Rican side all over Brooklyn. So I would go stay
over there and spend time with my sister and nieces
and nephews and and things like that. You know, I
was into that side. I didn't understand it. I just
knew this is fun. Like I come on, my sister,
I get to hang on my nephew, you know, since
taking care of me, I can get away from right

(32:35):
right right. So I had that duality that you know,
both sides of that. So as I got older, and
it wasn't until high school when I went to Puerto
Rico and they wanted me to play on the nation
like the junior national team representing Puerto Rico. I knew

(32:57):
I was Puerto Rican, I didn't know the tithes, and
I knew my dad was Portourrie. I didn't know how
deep it goes. And honestly, like that was a moment
of like, I have to go figure this out. I
gotta start asking questions because now I'm in this as

(33:19):
this this void of like haveing not having a dad, right,
It's like damn, like I'm about to make it to
the NBA, Like Dad, ain't you know? I think ain't here?
Like I wish he was here with my cousin. You
start having all of these moments, I'm doing it for him,
and I started to kind of like search, man, what
my dad was into. Like everywhere I would go in Brooklyn,

(33:41):
they were like, your dad. You act just like your dad,
You walk like your dad, you talk like your dad,
like you popped it, like like it's like your whole
ore is your dad. I'm like, yo, what was my
What he was doing? I would be wasn't no sucker?
Like you know what I'm saying, don't sucker man, please,
But you hear all these stories, man, I'm just like, yo,

(34:04):
your dad man curly. My dad name was Curly, called
my dad curly, curly, curly, and even like when I
got this cuse my dad was locked up up state
for a while. He's called him mister wonderful. Right. He
was average score like fifty something points upstate in the jail,
so he was known as flyer Puerto Rican fro you know, classy,
you know what I mean, tall, six six, sixty five

(34:26):
sixty six. But he hung with the blacks. So it
was always that that connection black Puerto Ricans. I always
knew that connection. So as I'm on this road of discovery,
lad gives me a picture for Christmas, and I'm in Denver,
and on the it's a painting, and on the painting
it's me as I think it's me as a kid,

(34:49):
it's my dad. But he like in the jail polls
white beatle on red bandana, but ray. So I'm like, oh,
other pictures I've seen, he got the black trench level
cold on you know, he got the camel level cold
on trench cold like he's turtlenecks, you know what I mean?
Fro fly and I'm like, nah, he this was every

(35:11):
day attire for him. That's something different. That's looking too powerful?
What is that?

Speaker 3 (35:17):
And as I started to discover, I realized, Okay, my
dad was a young lord?

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Right?

Speaker 3 (35:23):
The young lords are really basically the the you know,
the Puerto Rican.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Version side Black Pans, Black Panther. Right, it's the version
of the Black Panthers. Whoever depends on who you actually asks,
but yeah, that was it, right. So I started digging
deep into who is it? What is a young lord? Oh?
He look fly? So you start going out. I can
use the internet. Now, I start pulling up pictures and

(35:49):
researching and like, oh fuck, that's where I get it from.
It makes sense. That's my revolution, that's my shit in
every arm seeing that, and now I'm going Now I
can talk intellectually with the guys and the people and
the women sitting down with them, going to Spanish Harlem

(36:10):
and Brooklyn and sitting down and talking to the original
young Lords, and they're telling me stories. And as they're
telling me stories, it's just like.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
So you got your stories about your dad, not from
your mom sitting there telling you. You got it from
my mom told me, and that's probably the relationship she
ever told me. When you ready, I'm ready. M hm,
you ain't ready yet. I ain't ready.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
I'm mouth man. I've been too long, man. But now
she told me that, like when you're ready, and you know,
she said, you you gonna know where you're ready. When
you're ready, I'll be ready. It took a while, yo.
So I'm sitting here and I'm thinking.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
How awful two thousand and four Olympic loss to the
Puerto Rico.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Had to feel for you Ready, I'll be ready. I
even think about that.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
I didn't even think about that, losing the Puerto Rico
in the Olympics into the other for.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
All about bed objective man, it is that was oh man,
Now you see the stories that I'm telling you, it's
adding up to the moment of don't ask me. I
didn't play in four against Puerto Rico. Oh yeah, well
I know about that, but the world, the stories leading

(37:43):
up to that, nobody knows. Wow. Right, yes, you're right.
It's like, yo, like I ain't I could have. I
should have played with them, I should have played with
North a Rico. Yeah. And then I left, I left
PR I just was in p I left Puerto Rico
about to say yay, and then I'm like, I realized

(38:09):
that I plan on being in this league for a
long time. US A B is the pinnacle of this
So at the time, Puerto Rico basketball wasn't you know,
they was good at great players at good players on
the island. But it was like I want I want
USA basketball at that moment. Was it was It's the
prestige at that point at that time. Yeah, at the time,

(38:33):
it wasn't where we put it at. You understand, I'm
gonna break the game. I'm gonna break it down to
you from my perspective. Right oh four, I was gonna
play with Puerto Rico bay Uh to think about it, joll,
you ain't gonna have be able to play with USA B.
All right, cool? All right after that, I get the

(38:57):
call for oh four Olympics because all the players opted out.
Everybody opted out. So this is telling you where where
US A B was at at that point in time.
Everybody opted out, all the top dogs opted out. It
was on a couple of people left. They call us haul.

(39:21):
Hell yeah, I'm playing that mindset of I'm going to
get to it. I'm playing Olympics. I'm going to get it.
I don't care who out I'm going to get. This
is my mentality. Like, hey, I get to play USA
Basketball Olympics after my first year in the NBA. Damn okay,
Like this is what it is, Like I can establish myself.

(39:44):
This is dream team. And we go play that game
and four get the ship beat out of us and
the rest is history, you know. And as it because
I'm not playing, I'm hearing I'm seeing this the slow
death like just unraveling. Puerto Rican is getting louder and

(40:09):
louder and louder and louder and louder, and the game
just start opening up.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Oh man, you're starting to make so much more sense.
I thought you were just pissed at you won't playing
because you were you were that guy.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Bro. I was like, no, Bro, so this is why
I don't speak. You understand this is you know, it's
a time for everything. But no, I wasn't pissed off
because I wanted to play. I knew what I was
up against. But I also was a little bit tight
because we were killing on the exhibition. The young guy.

(40:45):
We were hooping. So when we get to the Olympics,
in my mind, I'm like, oh, this is our role
on the team, bringing energy. If we down, bring it
back up, if we up, keep it up. That was
my mentality. And then it's like we get to match
up with Puerto Rico, like, man, like I was about

(41:06):
to play. That's the team I'm about to play with. Ya.
We gotta get there. I gotta play today. Shut out
to colors the world, Shout out the man, I gotta
I have to play in this game. And then you
don't play, okay, and then you you know, at the end,
you get caught as a nineteen twenty year old what
you're thinking about the Porto Rico. Shout out to Porto Rico. Yeah,

(41:27):
shout out the Rico. Shout out the Puerto Rico. Yeah, Like,
I'm not about to say nothing bad about Puerto rican Yeah,
shout out the Puerto Rico. That was a great game
about Puerto Rico. Yeah, what do you? I don't know.
Don't ask me. I didn't play. Was in there. I
wasn't in there, don't ask me. But I wasn't saying
it like disrespectful. I was just saying it like a

(41:48):
teenager will say it right, I don't know, man, there like,
I ain't playing gonna ask him.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
It's the image, just the it's the no shirt on.
It was crazy and then you have the backwards head on.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
It was it was. It was crazy, man. It was
the image that they put out there and sat on
the sideline. I know that image. I have the image
in my in my crip, just on the sideline. I
look at it every time. That's whe shit started.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Really, So stand on that same wavelength of your father.
Let's talk about fatherhood, right, and so I know it's
we You know how we are man. We whether we're

(42:35):
raised by our father or we're not raised by our father,
we always want to be better. Right, I'm gonna do
a different I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna be a
better father, whatever the case may be. So how did
you approach early fatherhood when it came to being a
young parent with Cayenne.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
I didn't know.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
I looked at it as yo, dang, I got my son,
like you know what I mean, Like I got a son,
like we don't.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Have fun together. I was projecting what I was missing,
meaning not half of my dad around at two and
growing up in Baltimore, Red Hook. I'm projecting shit that
I used to stay, Like, damn man, where is my dad?
Can see this? This game want? My dad would have dead?
You know what I mean? He came out signing and
seen me fighting, you know what I mean? Like little

(43:19):
things like my dad ain't never teach me how to
ride a bike? Like those things is like damn as
you get older. So when Kay came, It's like, holy,
I could do this all over again. They got you
about to ride a bike at three months. You know,
that was the actual excitement. Like I was. It was
more like a little brother to me at that point

(43:39):
in time because I was always the little brother, and
I always craved for a brother, like not a younger
brother like that. I wish I had a younger brother
that I can be a big brother too. So when
Coy came, I was still in that like, damn man,
I get to I'm gonna take all the game. I'm
taking them over here. We're gonna do this, and I'm
a dressing like this, and I'm like all the things

(44:01):
that you wanted to do. He was my black mother
and yo. But that's so real right when you really
put it into perspectives, right. It was a void of
It was something that I was wanting, that I was needing,
that I was yearning, which was my buddy to be
around to have. He was my little brother. Now that

(44:21):
I put the you know, the knowledge to the to everything,
it's like that was my little brother. That was the
the part I was yearning. So I felt good with
the black, my buddy. With Kai, it was the same.
He was my black, my buddy at that point in time.
And that's a that's the true fact. And I carried
it like that. He going everywhere with me. It's my son,

(44:44):
this is my number, what's my first born, this is seed,
this is this is me.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
I'm gonna do what I didn't have with my dad.
I'm gonna do it all.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
House. I ain't ever been to hard the house going on, yeah, yeah,
hell yeah, we going to heart. We wanna go three,
come on, it's whatever you want to do, you know
what I mean. So it became I was able to
have some type of standards in the morals that he
can look up to as a little kid growing up

(45:15):
one two, even though he probably didn't understand it. He
saw my dad wake up, boom head boom, there like
he's going to work. So as he get older, he understands,
all right, dad, you're going to work, like I go,
get to it. I get it. You start having that
type of report with him, you know, you start having
that type of report with him to the point where

(45:37):
now it's like we could sit here just like this
and have that report and you would still be my son.
But I also feel like that void is filed of
the black man, buddy, because I got you. Know what
I'm saying, I got you that void. That void is

(45:59):
phil that's real. I know, I know about it.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
I would say I had Zaire when I was nineteen
twenty years old. Let's go to hoop bro. So Now
high school was when you you start having We was
in b Moore in high school?

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Yeah? What made you leave be More and go to
Oak Hill? How did that? What happened at Force? I
was forced out. You gotta get out of be More.
You gotta go, Okay, you gotta go for Stout, you
gotta go. I ain't no, you gotta go. Don't even
play around with this. Yeah, I'm not going nowhere. I
was hiding the day they came to get me to

(46:35):
drive me to Oak kill and my man crib and
the peas like in the projects, like you bet not
answer the phone, don't somebody come to the door.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
You haven't seen me. I'm not going to okill, Bro,
I'm not going to okill.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Why okkill? So let me go back to your question though.
So it was a point in time. So I went
to high school to Townsend, Catholic. You know, gotta get
to school. I have a way. You gotta get to
school two hours, one hour and a half, train somewhere, whatever, cabs,
people in the block, whatever.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
I was always late because of you move a little
slow though, bro, you you know you?

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, I do. I do a little mellow I do
so imagine six am, six thirty melow. It's like at
that age. But nah, I just but I couldn't be
slow because I had to meet my times. I had
to This bus is is based off of this train
is based off this. Yeah, so you gotta be you
gotta be on it. So every time I was just

(47:38):
always like walk in the door time, so I step
foot the bell ring, all right, cool, I ain't late
go to class. But I wound up my transcript started
being crazy because I was enrolled in two schools. Coming
out of eighth grade, I was going to another high
school with my man, Kenny Kenny right, so he was

(48:01):
going to Dunbar High School, which was the prestige high school,
one of the powerhouses of high school basketball. I was
going to go there. I was about I started to
go that was enrolled in Dunbar High School. Me and
my best friend with Ko were the only two from
West Baltimore going to school in Eastboth. It was just like,
what are we doing? But anyway, as I'm going to school,

(48:24):
stepping foot into the classes that sometimes, like two weeks
into school, I get Towson Catholic saying the financial aid
goes through, so now I can go to Townson. Originally
I want to go to Townson Catholic. That's the Catholic
League was the best thing. And you know what I mean,
like Cathole League. At first, I had to wait for

(48:45):
financial aide, which is a whole another store. I never
even knew my mom was paying to findance. You get
what I'm saying, Like this is I thought I had
a scholarship. That's a whole nother beef. I got with
with that, So I'm like, oh cool, Towson Catholics. I'm
going like, I just I boogie. I just go to
tell I was a Catholic. I don't unenrolled, if that's
the word. I didn't under roll from from. I didn't roll,

(49:08):
you know, on this product. I didn't unen roll from dumbbar.
So my transcript never was closed on that side. So
by time I got to my junior year, number one player,
it was what am I gonna do next year? You can't.

(49:29):
You can't come back here. You can't come back. You
called it too much trouble. You called it too many problems,
bring it too much attention to the Catholic, to the
you know what I mean, to the archdiocese. It's like, nah,
you don't want to cut your hair. You know what
I'm saying. It's like, oh, I'm dealing with all of this. Yeah.
I had the tensions because it wasn't I was like bad.

(49:52):
It was my tie wasn't straight, my head was a
certain length. I could wear this this type of boot,
but I can't wear that, like you know what I me.
So they was really like he was on your first
Prince of bel air. They was picking with me, like
you know what I mean. It was there was really
picking with me, and they used to give me detentions,
and I used to get detentions and add on. So
after the after the school, yeah, my junior year, they

(50:15):
tell me, I have to make my detentions up. I
gotta come down summertime, summertime, right deep in summer, and
I gotta get back up there too. I never want
to come back up here in the summertime. Two hours,
get on the train. I don't got no ride up there,
and you want me to come do detentions. So I say,
you know what, I'm gonna go up there do do

(50:35):
like two three days were sitting there clapping chalk, you know,
chalk powder and shit like that, washing the desk, and
I'm not doing this no more. Man, this is crazy.
Just to get my transcript, just to pass and go
to my senior year, you bucking just kick me out.
My transcript was so bad because I was enrolled at

(50:55):
dumb Ball High School, so I couldn't get my transcript.
I had to go to summer school. I had to
go to night school that summer before I went to
Okill to get my grades up. So now I'm in
lean on Me, like the movie Lean On Me, night school.
I'm coming through it in the craziest high school in

(51:16):
Baltimore City, Douglas Knight Frederick Douglas High School night from
four to eight, from four to seven, anything and everything
you can imagine. It's happening at night school. But I'm cool.
I gotta do it, get myta get my grades. My
transcript is messed up. So I did all of that
to go back to Townson Catholic for them to tell me,

(51:36):
y'all can't come back. So at that point it was like, oh, y'all,
fuck you. I'm going back to Dunbar. We're gonna be
the top dogs. And now I'm who I am? No
one player, you know, one player at this time, like
in the state, so that the state is mine at
this point, ye know what I mean? The city of
State is mine. Me and my man Kenny, we running
the whole city at this point in time. So I

(52:01):
get a call. I had committed to Syracuse my junior
year on my birthday. That was like my own my
birthday gift to me. I committed that summer happens, somebody
call and say, Yo, you're getting out of Baltimore. Not
to somebody call. Somebody call you know what I'm saying.

(52:25):
I don't know if he really wants me to somebody call.
Somebody called and was like, Yo, you're going to Old Kill.
You're getting the fuck out of Baltimore. You better not
go to some more. You can't go to You can't
spend your senior year. You can't. It's impossible. You already

(52:47):
on that path of going left. Like, no, we're getting
you the fuck out of Baltimore. And he had a
real conversation with me. If you don't go, man, like,
you're really putting a lot of things at jeopardy. All right, cool, yeah, right, man,
Like I'm sitting outside and on my steps on my block. Man,
all right, cool man, alright, man, whatever, Yo, Kenny, Look

(53:09):
they call you, do answer, they come to the crib.
Don't answer. You ain't see me in a couple of days.
I'm not going to Okill. Bro. I went down there, like,
let's go down there to visit. Go down there the visit.
We drove down there in the middle of the night.
Let me out. They peeled off, left me Old Kill,

(53:31):
and the rest is history. I called my mom, you
my I don't know where I'm att Please send me
a bus. Ticket, send me the Greyhound ticket. When you did, Son, like,
don't call me, man like, figure out it out. That's
how Mellow got to O Kid. That's the old Kill story.
So I had to do summer school like O Kill,

(53:53):
so I couldn't go to no camps my junior year
going to that summer in between junior senior, I had
to get my grades right, so I had to go
to That's why Son even Carol allowed me to go
to Adidas and I was at a Jordan school because
Nike had me on the waiting list, on the honorable
mention or wait, whatever it was back then in the

(54:15):
way to.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Nike to go to Nike camp. You still feel a
way about that. I just seen it in your face.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
What a cool. So I'm mad I can't go to
camps that summer. That's I'm just mad because I'm missing Nike.
You wouldn't go who or you? Or I can't go
to Adidas ABCD because I'm at Okaill which is a
Jordan school. So it's like I can't do that. I'm
missing Eastern Invitation. You knew I'm missing five Star. I'm

(54:42):
missing like the this is my summer going to my
senior year, and I'm sitting at O killing trees and
woods and cows and this your life, bro.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
So at this point, so your junior all right, now
you're the number one player in the state.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Is NBA? Never? Like why not?

Speaker 1 (55:04):
I've heard you say this so many times? Why not
that it just seemed too far fetched?

Speaker 2 (55:09):
It was it was NBA to me was like the Wiz,
like the Wizard of Odds. Like it was like, no,
that's impossible to make it, Like you get so hammered
down and you would never make it. You would never
make it. You would never make it. Statistics right, you
become one out of every five thousand, Like when you

(55:31):
hear that, Bro, you hear that I was saying, that's
in eighth grade. So canceled on basketball dreams and cancel them. NBA.
They not coming to West Baltimore to Myrtle Avenue to
come get you. So get that dream out your head,
like it'll be a fire man man. Them dreams is washed.

(55:53):
They kill your dreams before you even have a chance
of dream that's real. And we don't even know that.
We just oh, that's tough, be tough, be tough. No,
you constantly tell somebody and you ain't gonna make it.
You ain't gonna make it. You ain't gonna make it.
You ain't gonna make it. Stop thinking like that, you
ain't you killer kid, And you get what I'm saying,
So you becoming men too. I'm not gonna make it,

(56:15):
damn right. Then you're right like, and then you start
seeing stories of how hard it was for guys to
make it to the NBA and videos that ain't wait,
I can't do that, that's impossible.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
It's different today every kik they're gonna make it right.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
So for me, it was like and I think it
was a fleeing thing for me, like just to kind
of like, I ain't gonna make it. So let me
stop thinking about that. I don't cool. I'm moving on
to something else, like block that out. Because of those
statistics and just the people saying that you ain't gonna
do shit, you ain't gonna be nothing. Biggie was right, man, Yeah,

(56:49):
a snigger cracked rock or you gotta wick a jump shot.
You know what I'm saying. Your teachers are telling you.
You hear these from your teachers. These are the leaders,
these are the the educators. Scholars is telling you put
that ball.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Do you do you understand why they were saying that
or do you feel like they shouldn't say that period
to kids?

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Do you understand? I understand why they say it now now,
but you still don't right the way that they said
and how they right is right? Wrong is wrong? Right
was wrong? You know what I'm saying. And those cases
like you got to encouraged kids, like if that's your dream,
right boom, then this is what you need. I'm gonna
do my part as a leader, as a scholar, as

(57:31):
an educator to help you get to that, not shut
the door on you when they tell you to write
your goals and your dreams on the little index card
and you write it down and they're like five basketball
player out of here, Well you and be right over
there in a couple like it's so that's the well
going into the next year.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
I mean, I see images, I see video, and I
didn't know the story beforehand, but I do know when
I got introduced to Carmel or Anthy, and a lot
of it was because Lebron James right for me, because
there was these two powerhouses and I didn't even know
nothing about neither one of y'all because I ain't got.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
You know, a different times. Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
But was it ok Hill when you and Brian got
introduced to each other or was it before oak Hill
that you knew?

Speaker 3 (58:21):
So it was, I mean, I'm a year older, great older, right,
So I was a We go to USA camp.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
You're at this crazy. It's the irony of I just
came back from that with Cayenne the same thing. Yeah,
Like it's crazy. I'm sure you will get to that,
but that's crazy sitting there. I was there in two
thousand and one doing the same. That's the same damn
sitting there Like he's like, yo, Dad, why you so

(58:54):
serially that you don't understand what's going on in my
mind right now? But that's that's enough. But so we
meet really at USSA. I want to invite where they
invite everybody and they break the teams down to northeast south,
you know what I mean. So and this is what

(59:14):
you're this is I want to say, oh one, okay,
two thousand, I want to say around two thousand or
old one. And we're there and it's like you just
catch the energy of in those type of environments when
you're around all the players like good players. You all

(59:37):
the guys automatically gravitate towards each other without you even
saying nothing. And slowly, by the time that camp is over,
y'all gonna be by. And slowly we was building that.
You get what I'm saying. We was slowly building that.
We ain't know when we was building it, but it
was like, yo, I he seemed cool, Like you got

(59:59):
good any She's like, all right, cool. We hang out
after the courts, you know, after practice, go outside that night,
everybody outside the girls team, guys team, we just you know,
we were all there having a good time outside talking
ship and playing with USA Basketball. And after that boom,
it wasn't like no communication, you know how to communicate.

(01:00:20):
It's a whole different You're all back over there. I'm
going back to be more. I might I never see you.
You're going to be I might not never see you
ever again. But it was real, you know what I'm saying.
If we do meet, it's real. And go to oak Kill.
The year before I went to oak Kill, they play Oakill,
Saint Vincent, Saint Mary's play ok Kill. They look they lose.

(01:00:42):
Saint Vincent's lose to o'kill. Yes, if I'm not mistake,
I come to next year. So now they already got
a two year deal of playing each other this year
and next year. You know, it's to get back. I'm
not thinking about this is to get back for him,
you know what I mean, Like this is the second
time he's playing ok kill. They just beat them, Like

(01:01:05):
oh oh, now the hype. I get it. So that's
when we met, Like now we like meet at the
hotel boom and it's like, damn, you mean similar situations.
You going with your mom, going over with my mom,
Like you know what I mean, Like I'm telling him

(01:01:28):
my story, telling me his story, and it's like we
connected on little little pieces and little brother Damn yod
was I had a little brother too, you know what
I mean. Like it's a friend. You know, it's like, oh,
like okay, and then you became interested in his story.
I became interested in his story. But by the time

(01:01:48):
I'm interested in his story, I got to run out
on the court and playing. So it's the build up
of all of this. I just I'm sitting here. I'm
a senior, he's a junior. So we're sitting there and
then it's off Star weekend in Philly. I'm hype about Philly.
I ain't thinking about the game. I'm hype about man
who coming to the game. Like over there, I'm the

(01:02:12):
number one player, So I'm trying to get to Philly.
The hype is in Jersey. So we play. You know,
the game happens, and the build up to that was
so astronomical, like for high school basketball at that point
in time, And to be honest, I had no understanding
of what it was. I was just like, man, I

(01:02:35):
get I get to play against bron like this, this
is big time, you know what I mean. I'm to
be nice. Let's go. That's it. I gotta get to it.
That's the only thing I'm thinking. Man, you can't get it.
He can't get best of me today, you know what
i mean.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
Like everyone, it was a game until the game was
in Jersey. Game was in Jersey and Jersey.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Yeah, the primetime shootout in New Jersey. They put that
game together, you know, the son of a you know
what I mean. You know, and the workers of all
that work. It's it's it works, you know what I mean.
It's Air, the movie Air. You know what I'm saying.
I was a part of that experience on his behalf.
Just so happened. I was older, but a year older.

(01:03:14):
I had already committed to go to Syracuse and that
was the game that was marked on the schedule for
O Kill. That was the game, and just so happened.
I was a part of that. If I wasn't there,
that game would have still been marked on the schedule.
So me coming into that fold, it's like, now we
really got some action you and heighten it, like we

(01:03:36):
got motion that whole other level. Yeah, we got motion now.
Oh now this week I put it on TV. Now
the TV game. Yes, you get what I'm saying. This
is where all of that down it started, was that
the first TV game? Was that the first big TV game?
I want to I want to say that, but I
don't want to be you know what I mean. You
know they fact checked out here now, but you know,

(01:03:58):
I want to say that, but I couldn't received They
keep receipts, they can re seats. You gotta be careful.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
This convo with my brother Mellow, it started to get
really long. So we're gonna cut off part one right here.
Coming up in part two, we talk a lot about
the drama surrounding his time with the Knicks, why he's
still upset over our two thousand and three draft, and
behind the scenes info about why he left Syracuse