The Point God, Chris Paul

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Today, I am honored to be joined by somebody I
call a brother, but you guys may know him as
a two time Olympic gold medalist, a twelve time All Star,
and one of the dopest nicknames you can ever have
in the game of basketball, the point God. Chris Paul,
Welcome to the pod. Brother, Yes, welcome to the me.

(00:33):
I appreciate my brother, Yes, sir, so, I always like
to start when we have a relationship. I always like
to start when it was the last moment that we
were together, and you and I were together in la
at so far the football game.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
It was the day before you went.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Off and got your hand surgery, and we also was
talking to my nephew, little Chris, about his injury and
about not rushing back.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
From his injury.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
How do one as a father who's dealing with injury
at that time, and dealing with a son who loves
to play the game of basketball just like you and
I who just want to be out there, who's dealing
with an injury, how do you talk to him about patience?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Man, First and foremost, this is super dope. Appreciate you
having me here. This is for what shits and giggles
or we can drink.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
Oh this is for us, Oh, okay, okay, But little Chris,
it's been interesting, especially to watch him get older, right
obviously watching your kids grow up, you know, watching male
kids grow up and all the different guys.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
It's crazy because it seems like it goals really fast.
And with Chris, when he got hurt, he got hurt
early in the summer and when he rolled his ankle,
just like any other parent, I was at the game
and he rolled his ankle and.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I was like, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
I was like, you heard or you're injured, right, you
know you play you can't And then he finished that game,
played the next day and then you know, the next
day is when mom when Jada seen him and took him,
got an X ray and it actually ended up being
pretty bad. So he was out for a long time,
for six months. And that's hard, you know, especially as
a kid, because we always just used to playing. And

(02:15):
so I was trying to explain to him about how
hard rehab is.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
But a lot of times, I'm just dad.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
It was cool for you to talk to him, and
I definitely think that helped me.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
We were in the corner where the football game was
going on. We were in the corner like having that
like that Hooper discussion, and you were. And what I
love about is because we all have only hoopers who
have kids, it's hard to necessarily communicate with them the
way people on the outside may think, Oh they're hoopers,
they got the answer to the test, right, but they
don't want the answers to the test from you, especially.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Not from dad. They don't want it from you.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
So Seep sitting there like get them up, and we
all do that. We all have moments where there's been
times where Zaire, I'm like, Cep Zaya gonna be down there.
I need you to talk to him, yep. And those
moments are needed. And so the conversation was more so about, yeah,
you have a long career. You don't want to be
out there, you know, limping around. You're not one hundred percent.
You know you in condition, you know your win ain't right.

(03:10):
You don't want to get out there and get embarrassed.
Like we're talking like straight up and real. And last
time I seen him, he actually brought it up. I
was like, huh, He's like, I'm back playing and I
heard you. I took your advice type you stuff and
I was like.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
It's crazy because I went to school one day, went
over there school, and he knew he wasn't supposed to
be hooping.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
And I walked on campus and I seen him out
there playing.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
And it's crazy because when it's your own kids, because
it's like he was playing and he turned and looked
at me, and I just looked at him like all right,
all right, that's on you, that's on you.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
But he coming along. He just touched the rim the
other day for the first time, like what like a
little low grade. That's yeah. I told him that his
fingernails was a little short.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
He wouldn't have got it, but I'm gonna tell you,
especially living away from them. Man, it's so crazy because
it came through obviously as a text and as soon
as I seen it, and I give him a heart
time right all the time, just because life gonna be
hard on him, so I always give him a hard time.
But when the text came through in a group chat

(04:07):
with me and Jay, I like got excited, Like my
stomach got tense. I was like, what the hell going on?
How he doing this? And I called him right away
and he was so excited.

Speaker 5 (04:18):
So it's cool.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
So that dynamic, right, that father son dynamic dad. It's
hard for a lot of us. You heard me of
the Hall of Fame talking to my dad. Yes, my
story with my Hall of Fame speech was a love
letter to my father who put the ball in my hand.
But we had our journey, and it was a hard
journey because he was the guy who had to be
tough on me.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Your dad was in your journey?

Speaker 1 (04:41):
How was that relationship early on when it came to
basketball and the relationship with Pops.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Man growing up?

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Just like anybody, I felt like my dad didn't like
me and.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
My brother the same thing because it was hard.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
It was hard, but you get older and you realize
that it's out of love, and you know my mom
my dad so well, and they my dad used to
always say.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
I ain't your friend, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be old school with it,
old school with it, And that's what I That's how
I am with my kids, with little Chris and with
Cam because they live a very abnormal life. You know,
we know, uh, the fact that he get to say
uncle Dee, uncle Duwayne, like that's very abnormal. And so
I try to be as strict as possible or whatnot,

(05:25):
and just but love them for sure.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
I was hugged a lot, you know, as a kid,
and so while I'm being hard on my kids, I'm
definitely hugging them and giving them that love, but trying
to make sure they understand sort of what grind is
in this abnormal life.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, you and I have been knowing each other nineteen
years now. We met in O five when you were drafted. Yeah,
because we shared a brotherhood with you know, the relationship
with Mellow, the relationship with Brin. We all have our
separate individual relationships and so we all became brothers because
of it. But I didn't get a chance to get
to know North Carolina Chris Paul, who was he well

(06:05):
first and foremost.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Coach Creane put us on the phone one time when
I played on the College us A team. You probably
don't remember that. I was just remember that young fellas
forget you too. But it was crazy, uh, growing up
in Carolina.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I mean I was a regular.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
I mean I came from a middle class family. Mom
and dad worked.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Shut off to Charles and Robins. Shout out to the
Paul mister and missus Paul.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, they somewhere.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Ain't no telling, uh, I think my dad here. I
don't know where my mama at, but.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
They'll be a space event, you know. You know that,
you know your mom would be a space event.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
We grew up having spades tournaments. You know, shout out
to my mama. I don't remember what year it was,
man about we want me and my mama won the
annual d Wade Space Tournament.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Was before we start counting the winners. We got a
trophy in the critics know that we got a trophy.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
But it was cool. I grew up. I was a
church for four days a week. I was an ushered church,
played football and basketball. My parents said me and CJ
could only play two sports. They said that's what they
could afford and that's what they could get us to.
But I grew up around all my family, right, and
I think obviously anytime you know, we talk about stuff,

(07:19):
or people see me somewhere talking about that means a
lot to me. Is I got a chance to grow
up around all my cousins, my aunts and uncles.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
So as great as this NBA.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Journey has been, that's the biggest thing that I missed
is my family.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah. I was thinking about that, you know, when I
was preparing for this interview, and the word that kept
coming to mind, because it's not a negative word to
me when I say this is I kind of envy
that a little bit is watching these nights and years,
watching how big of a family you have, and how
connected you guys are, and how you guys do so

(07:56):
much together, and how much of a family person you are.
I don't have that necessarily. My family doesn't. We're not
We're not like that. But I try to do that
with my immediate family, try to keep close. But growing
up with a big family like that, have you ever
felt like have you ever felt any expectations to be
anybody that you didn't want to be, to do anything

(08:17):
you didn't want to do, or you always felt protected
and safe. I think we all sort of battle with that.
You know, at times, I definitely felt protected and safe
because my family they're different.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Now you know, they're gonna ride for me, nothing else.
They're gonna ride for me. I don't care what it is.
And I love that about my family, you know what
I mean, because we roll deep. But it is tough
sometimes because it's somewhat of a disconnect. You think about,
I'm in my nineteenth NBA season, so a lot of
my family I don't get a chance to see.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
You know, you you went through that too, and so.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
It gets tough because you got these little cousins, right
who they go to school proudly and they say that
they're your cousin or your family, but they don't really
know you like that, right, because you've sort of been
gone for so long, and uh.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
The second third cousins you're talking about, how you know,
you know what we are. We got second third, second
third cousins, but your cousins.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
But even some of them, like I grew up going
to my family reunions, you know what I mean. So
some of my closest cousins you know that we grew
up with. I've just been gone for so long that
you know, you still keep in contact. Everybody sort of
has their life going on now. But uh, just life
change so fast, and I really cherished the moments when

(09:34):
I get a chance to be, you know, around my family.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, I mean, obviously we're gonna well hopefully we get
into it, because this interview can go anywhere. Uh wait,
shout out to uh what we're drinking right here? Brother?
This is this is yours. We're drinking rose, yeah somewhere. Yeah,
enjoy that, my good brother. Thank you. Man, you're the
white business now, yeah, how you hold it? Because man,

(09:58):
like this real is on where I'm at? Okay, when
you would have asked me food and wine? How you
just like that? Yeah? Just like that your brother CJ,
Big Bro.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Now I didn't notice once again because I met CJ
at a certain time and life.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
He didn't look like he was.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
He looked like he was nice basketball. But I heard
that CJ was actually really nice. Did you like, did
you want to be like big Bro growing up?

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (10:28):
I did, because well I was better at football than
CJ was in football, but in basketball, CJ was nice.
And it's the funny part about it, too, is depending
on what your game was like when you hooped determines
whether or not that game ages. Okay, right, okay, So
if you was super duper athletic and that was only

(10:49):
your game as you get older, that might not age always,
you know what I'm saying. Into like your forties and
fifties and stuff. CJ could shoot. So it's funny even
now like people see CJ and be talking crazy to him,
like man like AJJ always talking crazy to CJ. Little Chris,
always talking. CJ can shoot the hell out the ball, right.
He might not be able to run up at that court,

(11:10):
but he was shoot the hell out the ball. And
so CJ played four years of varsity basketball. I played
two years at JV, so he was always who I
looked up to. And me and CJ only got a
chance to play fifteen seconds.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Together in the game.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
What yeah, So my freshman year, I got moved up
to varsity for the holiday Christmas tournament, right, But the
championship game, CJ fouled out, so I got to go in, right,
So we didn't get to play together. Then my sophomore year,
I got moved up to varsity. We was playing Grimsley.
That's crazy. I remember that we was playing against Grimsley

(11:50):
and coach put me in fifteen seconds. That was it,
Me and CJ. Fifteen seconds. Yo, got the video of
the you know, my daddy got it somewhere. They got
they got a photo, photos, videos. And then my sophomore
year in college, we played against DJ.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Did you know that? No? I did not know that,
So what collegees CJ go to.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
CJ played his freshman year at Hampton University, and then
he transferred to University of South Carolina Upstate since Spartanburg
that's the college that Toy Craig went to. Okay, so
my sophomore year, we played cj M in a preseason game.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Talk to me what happened. The game was in Winston.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
We played that way for us, and my whole family
was at the game with you know, my mom and
them had t shirts made, hats made said Paul Ball
on it, you know, and we beat the ass hunting
to fifty seven.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah. I got my first dunk in college in that
game too. So did you get to match up with him? Like? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (12:48):
So we started the game, I was guarding him, he
was guarding me. Man boy had about three fouls.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Five minutes somewhere he took to the playground.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, all that hacking he was doing in the back,
y'all because when we was growing up, when I finally
did get to where I could beat him in one
on one, say he is playing the ten if I
got nine.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Now he's used a strength debo. He just s backed
me down and then we started fighting. Now we got
to get our butts well. Now everybody on punishment. It's
just as you can see, it's a spiraling so too.
And like I said, we're gonna get hopefully more into it.
But to have that big brother, to have him on
his journey with you, you know, throughout obviously your whole life,

(13:29):
but really in his NBA journey throughout your entire career,
right by your side.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
When you see CP, you see CJ. How has that been?
How confident has that been?

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Man?

Speaker 3 (13:38):
It's funny because I don't talk about it too much
just because I couldn't imagine not having it right, and
I realized how blessed and lucky I am and fortunate
because to be in this business for so long and
in sports and whatnot, we have sort of chosen family, right,

(13:59):
Like for sure, who maybe work with us or whatnot,
but become family, you know what I mean, Like Lisa
vib caring and everybody, like we've all been together so
long that we become family. But it's nothing like having
my brother right, my brother who seeing everything, I mean everything,

(14:19):
And it's crazy because growing up, just like any other sibling,
we fought, we did all that we fought over the
front seat and all this stuff. But we really got
close when he went away to college. When CJ went
away to college, I cried, like I cried, like real tears.
We was in my mama's minivan riding back from Hampton,
and I just realized, like friends, straight up, I ain't

(14:42):
got nobody play the video games with. Going outside in
the backyard is just shootings shooting. It's just different when
I ain't got somebody to play one on one with.
So to gett into the NBA and everything that we
didn't learned or know now we didn't did together that
first day in the NBA, like when I got draft
after that night, like we got drafted, you know what

(15:03):
I mean. And so still to this day, like it's
people who might have been in my brother's class, in
his grade or something, and maybe we go home, we
somewhere and that person or something will come up and
say what's up to me? And I'd be like, you
is tripping? You know, my brother, you don't know me,
you feel me like, don't ever try to acknowledge me

(15:23):
without acknowledging my brother. You know what I'm saying, because
through the business, through all of this stuff, he know
this game, right, you might see him.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
I know that he used to hoop or whatnot.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
But my brother is I mean, last night our team
was playing in Utah, CJ texting me. We talking about
what the team doing and all that, and that ain't
never changed.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Now walking into because you guys are business partners at
the same time, how was that early on walking into rooms? Well,
even just the walking into a room with your brother, right,
the respect that had to be built, right because when
someone see you coming room, they like, oh, this is
easy money.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
He got his brother with him. They don't know this business.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
The first and foremost, you had to get him to
the room, right. I'm gonna keep it the honey with
you straight up. Now, that's my brother. But it's cool
because you get to a point where you can have
them conversations and we laugh about it now, but you
know it. Like so when I got drafted to Oklahoma
to New Orleans, the Katrina happens. We go to Oklahoma.
So me and CJ was roommates, right, So we lived together.

(16:28):
We had a little house that we rent at seven
hundred and fifty dollars a month.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, Oklahoma was good to us.

Speaker 6 (16:34):
Man.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
It's a little different than the Bay right now.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
But it's crazy because you know you're getting up early
to go to practice, right And well I was about
ready to kill my brother because I would get up
and go to practice, come home from practice.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
As he's still the thing.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
I used to be so mad at CJ. Like see
they hooping up the street. Dog, you at least go hoo,
go do something, Go do something so early. It's this
this sort of learning curve. But it probably had to
be different for him too, right, because we're trying to
figure all this stuff out, right because you're like, yeah,
be my business manager.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Well he probably like you got to have some business, right,
you know what I'm saying, like straight up, straight up.
And I couldn't imagine going through that process with anybody else.
Oh man, all right, So the things that I didn't
know anytime we went in the rooms, he was learning
and I tell you d and it's so crazy. Over

(17:35):
all these years, there.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
Have been many of times where people have even came
to me and been like, hey man, I can do
a better job for you than your brother, for sure,
know what I'm saying, Or like hey man, look this
could take off, you know what I'm saying, But I
need you to need you to, you're gonna have to
fire your brother. And listen here, let me tell you
what's not gonna happen. Now we get into it. We

(17:58):
will argue, we will do all of these things. But
at the end of the day, after all of this,
that's gonna be there.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
My brother is smart, intelligent, all of the things. So
if there's something that he's not doing well, we're gonna
learn it. We're gonna learn it, we're gonna fix it.
Because this ain't just one of the homies that I'm
about to kick to the curve.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
This is my brother, you know, my only one.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
And so I think that's something that I'm probably most
proud of. And when I see my parents, and my
dad is very emotional every time something happens or it's
an event, it's a birthday or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
My dad, I can see it in him.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
My brother turned forty last year and we did a
birthday party for him in LA and my dad couldn't
keep it together, right, he just can't ever keep it together.
But I get it because through all of this stuff,
we're still together, you know, the fights, the all of this,
Like the fact that he get a chance to see,
you know, his two sons still always together.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
I think that's straight up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
As a parent, that's all you won't you want your
kids to have each other, you know what I mean,
no matter what, because the world is going to try
to tell you a part, no question. Yeah, yeah, I
bet you. That's amazing. Let's go to the draft. So
fourth pick in the draft? Was that where you thought

(19:21):
you was going talk to me about your draft journey?
How did you get to a fourth pick? Was that like,
oh my god, I can't believe I'm the fourth pick?
Or how he picked them three over me?

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, I'm laughing because so I spent my entire pre
draft in DC. I was working out with a guy
named Adon Ravine used to work out Mellow That's when
I used to work out with Gilbert Arenas every now
and then. But the draft, it was crazy, man, because

(19:56):
at the time, Milwaukee had a number one pick, right,
the Hawks had the number two pick.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
I remember this now, Yes.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
I think Portland had the three pick or whatnot. New
Orleans had the fourth pick, Charlotte had number five, right,
Charlotte had five and twelve right. They had the number
five pick and the twelve pick So what happened was
Atlanta needed a point guard, right, Atlanta needed a point guard.
So I'm in the draft and I'm like, man, Atlanta,

(20:26):
that'd be nice because you know it's part of me
that wanna stay home. But then you know it's like, ah,
maybe I don't need to be home, right, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 2 (20:35):
That's just a little bit too close. It looked good, Yeah,
you think about it.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Jada was at UNC Charlotte, right, I think about Okay,
I want to be drafted to Charlotte or not. Atlanta
would have been close enough to home, but not at home?

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Right, So man, I go work out. Who was my
first workout? I don't know.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
I worked out for a couple teams. I only worked
out for a couple teams. I worked out for the
Milwaukee Bucks, and that's gilbertked out with me. When I
worked out for the Bucks. It wasn't like at the
Bucks facility. They came to watch watch me in DC
and I do this whole workout and I'm killing it,
and after it's at the end, the GM for the
Bucks said, yeah, that was a great workout.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
TJ.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Ford would be back next season, so yeah, we would
you couldn't watch me work out for you got a chance, right?

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (21:22):
So that was that. So then who did I work
out for? I went worked out for Charlotte.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
And this was.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
A crazy workout because did you work out against a
lot of people?

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:35):
I had like about three other guys and a lot
of my workout in your workouts.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
But you know, when your top pick, your agents don't
let you work out against people.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
I wasn't supposed to be a top pick. Right way
to go, Boy, do your thing, feel me talk that talk.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, but it's about you.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
So look, I'm in Charlotte. I'm in Charlotte. I go
downstairs to get in the limo. Right back then, it
wasn't escalated limos. So I get in a limo to
go to my workout for Charlotte. And I opened the
door and Tony Douglas is in there, right And so
I knew Tony already.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
I don't know if he was Tony real good dude.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Harry and his dad used to do an AU tournament
in Atlanta. But I opened up the door and he
in there. I'm supposed to work out by myself. So
I call my agent. I called Lance, I said, Yo, Lance,
such in the car. Lance was like just like he
was like, get out the car. They know you're supposed
to work out by yourself.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
I said, man, hell nah, I've been working out every
day by myself with I don I want to work
out against somebody else. Man went and I went in
there and it was a good workout. It was a
good workout. So after the workout, they take me into
an office like a bunch of people with Charlotte. They
take me into an office and they sent me there

(22:56):
and they was like, what you hearing about the drift.
I was like, well, y'all got the picking the twelfth pick.
If y'all want me, y'all need to trade those two
picks and trade up to get me. It's you, you said,
this is me.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
I told them that, you know, because I was like
I knew I wasn't gonna drop the five, right, So it's.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
A different draft process than I have.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah you in that like that, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
I ain't gonna yeah because I was hooping.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
I was hooping.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
So then I go work out for the Hawks, right,
and it's supposed to be my last workout, because you know,
when you got all them workouts whatever, You're like, man,
I ain't at home, and forever I've been staying in DC.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
I'm about to work out for the Hawks and I'm
going back home. Your three workouts is like, y'all get it?

Speaker 3 (23:41):
So because I'm excited about going home because now too,
I'm basically in the NBA and I'm going home.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Right, you know this that's a different type of love. Yeah,
but you took you back. I started smiling.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
So I work out for the Hawks against Air and
Miles Aaron Miles, assistant coach with New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Now, you played at Kansas, right, Oh yeah?

Speaker 5 (24:06):
Ok?

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Yeah, yeah nice nice, So kill that workout. I just
know I'm going to the Hawks. No, I'm going to
the Hawks.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Man.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
New Orleans called that night. While I'm at the hotel.
They called my agent. My agent said I needed to
come to dang, it's crazy New Orleans. My agent said
you got to go to New Orleans to work out
for them tomorrow. And I was like, I ain't doing
that because they got the number four pick, right. I
was like, if I dropped that low, then I'd rather
go five.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Charlie.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah, they said you better come here and work out
for us, or we're gonna pick you anyway.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Hmm. Right.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
So I ended up flying up there right because I'd
never been to New Orleans, didn't know nothing. A bottom
there went eighteen and sixty four. So I was like,
if you if I'm gonna go four, I'd rather go
five and stay home. I flew up there. You know,
I usually get you go to the night before and
stay to night. I just flew up the day they

(25:04):
picked me up b Scott and this guy named Alan
Bristow who was the GM. It took me to TGI Fridays,
sat in them little tall tables, you know what I mean.
Then then then I went and worked out, and you
you heard like people say they like throw a workout,
like try to miss shots, and I don't know how

(25:24):
to do that.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
So I did the workout.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
I killed.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
I killed the workout, and I got a big shot
who still worked for the team. He was taking me
to the airport, and I just said, can I see
Bourbon Street right quick? He took me seeing Bourbon Street
and I went to the airport. Right So all of
that happened draft night. Come I'm sitting there. You still
think you're going number two to the Hawks. In your mind, possible.
I'm hoping. You're hoping, you yeah, I'm hoping. I'm thinking,

(25:50):
you know, they need a guard. Already got like Josh Smith.
I think they had got jo the Childress. I think too.
They had wings, they had all these wings.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Marvin Harris, so that's the same store boom.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Marvin Williams. There you go. Football football.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
But yeah, so I'm at the draft. U tie ended
up trading up getting the three pick. They got the
third they traded Portland.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
I think it was.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
So first pick of the draft was Andrew Bogen. So
now we have the dravet about it. They said number
two pick the Atlanta Hawks. I started getting up, like
literally like I just knew because I'm men, tell you this.
The basketballs that I was working out with was Atlanta
Hawks basketballs.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Right. I knew I was going to the Hawks. He
was winning the gear and everything.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Basically I found a house and all that. I thought
I was going to the Hawks. They said Marvin Williams.
I was like, oh oh man.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
So then they said that number three pick Utah Jazz offense. Yeah.
I had my fingers crossed. Don't say my name, please don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't do that on my podcast. Just move on
to the store. It was then it was that was
that was too far west for me. Man, I'm East Coast.

(27:17):
You want me out there? No, that's out. That's out.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
So then they say, now it's coming to the fourth pick. Now,
mind you, I forgot to tell you this part of
the store. When I went to go eat it Fridays
with be Scott deal and be Scott is my man,
Like all day long, I'm not where I'm at without
be Scott, you know. So that was my first time
meeting him when I went to eat with him, and
he was like, yeah, what you thinking?

Speaker 2 (27:42):
I told him straight up.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
I was honest with him because he was like, they
said you you didn't want to come work out. I
was like, look, no disrespect, but I'm from North Carolina.
I'd rather go to Charlotte or whatnot. So the night
of the draft, they said an no fourth pick the
New Orleans Hornets.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
They said my name right.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
But when I tell this story, people be like, damn
was you Like damn No? This was still a life
changing experience. So I was so excited. My family was
going crazy, crying, you hugging, and I went right to
the back and I called B Scott and he was like,
your workout was just too good. I couldn't pass up,
couldn't pass up on you.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah, wait, so you got Let's go back to the
second pick in the draft moment. So you got out
to So you didn't you didn't like When I got drafted.
I was told right before the pick that I was
going fifth, so I had about twenty seconds to kind
of get my get myself together.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
No one said anything to you about Nah. I really
thought I had a chance to go to the Hawks.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
I got to go back and watch that draft because
I want to see you get up a little bit.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
I'm sure I had that little move, Yeah, that little
because it was I don't know it. It was like
I said, close enough to home. But it ended up
being the best thing.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
What they always say, uh, try to make plans and
you know, God to show you, you know. And then
I got drafted and the train to happen, and.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Then you spent your first season in Okay two years
first two years years. I remember coming up that plan.
You guys, the crowds was un lay. It was like
you'all home court advantage. Okay see. It was crazy and
we've never been, never been okay see before and like
y'all was rocking up there to the point where y'all left,
I was like, man, they had a little home court

(29:29):
advantage up there.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
They might should have stayed. And we went back to
New Orleans and it was cracking.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
It was crack because that was that seven or eight
year when All Star Game was there and all that
it was the Saints was nice.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
It was crazy. I'm gonna throw the ball.

Speaker 5 (29:53):
I know.

Speaker 6 (29:53):
We talked about like the draft, you're getting drafted, but like,
what was it like playing I don't home for college.
You're playing, you're playing with Wake Forest and your family
can come see you right up the street.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
So when I went to college, it was interesting because
in C State, Herb Syndeck was the coach at n
C State and they had recruited me and they had
told me that I could come there and I would
start right from the jump right. They said they had
put the ball in my hands. I ain't got to
compete for a starting position. I ended up going to
Wake who already had some really good guards, some great

(30:31):
guards in Tehran Downey and justin Gray Gray, and so
they were to start in backcourt. And I always tell
people this crazy story of I wasn't supposed to start
right like I was. I came in as a freshman,
Jay Gray was a sophomore, Downey was a junior, and
I wasn't supposed to start. A week and a half
before our first game, TD Tehron had appendicitis or whatnot,

(30:54):
right his appendix that had ruptured or whatnot, So he
had to go on to the hospital. So I started
being with the first team at practice. He came back
maybe a day or two before our first game at
Madison Square Garden against Memphis, and they had a point guard,
Antonio Burkes, but because he had missed like a week,

(31:15):
coach said he wanted me to start right. And I'm
telling you, and Downy is super duper nice, super duper nice,
but coach.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Said that he wanted me to start.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
I'm nervous as hell, and it's crazy, like I remember
everything about Doris Burke did that game or whatever it
is at Madison Square Garden and I ended up having
a good game and we won. Second game came coach said,
we won the first one start, you know, So I
don't know what would have happened had that not happened.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
But playing at home was different.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
It was different, and that's why my first time leaving
home was going to the NBA. My family rode deep,
you know, so imagine every college game, my.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Whole crew, I already know deep every game. Then I
started dating Jada. I'll never forget that that type of
pressure because.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
And you and Jada met. Where we met. We went
to rival high schools. Yeah, we went to rival high schools.
So it was during Christmas break of my freshman year
in college. So the first time meeting all my family
was at a game. But I couldn't take her to
meet him.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
So she came to the game with all my crew
and all my family over there. I just had to
see her after the game. I was. I was just
glad that I did see her after the game and
they had She ain't leave early. I don't want no positive.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
Ronda aj and Coy your mama. Yeah, she don't play,
she don't play about us.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
So the first time that I got an opportunity to
hear about Chris Paul, I have two, not two first times,
but before the NBA, it was two moments that I
heard about you. The first one was sixty one point game,
and we want to get in that. It just came
out with a book shout out to you know, sixty one.

(33:04):
It was a sixty one point game, and then it
was a game versus in c State. We'll talk about that,
but let's go with the sixty one point game first.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
So I wrote, I wrote, I wrote.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
I've written two books, and my first book was about
my life, so it was very personal and going through
that journey for me, it was like therapy, right, going
back and talking about my life and talking about the hardship.
And you know, you sat down recently and wrote your
book sixty one talking about you know, your grandfather, sharing
me about won that game. I know you talked about

(33:38):
it before, but also about this journey of writing you know,
this book and letting some personal go out to the
world like that.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, man, it was tough.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
It was really tough to write the book because a lot,
like you said earlier when you talked about your Hall
of Fame speech, I remember like, just sitting there, I
could damn the recite part of it because I was
so locked in on everything that you were saying, you know,
and a lot of times, your family members are going
through these experiences with you, and you're saying some things,

(34:12):
but some things go unsaid, right. So through writing this book,
it was somewhat like I had messages all through my
book to some of my family members, some of them
to my parents, some of them to my brother or whatnot,
because it was about the relationship with my grandfather. But
through the process, I realized that the night that my
grandfather was killed, I know what I saw through my lens, right,

(34:41):
and so the heartache and everything that everybody felt through this.
I remember getting on the phone writing the book and
I was on the phone with my mom. Now I
was on the phone with my brother, and I was
like you because when you're dealing with it in real time,
you're not asking these questions. So I realized all this
time that went by and I was like, yo, see
what you was doing when he found out? Like, Mom,

(35:02):
how did you find out? You know what I'm saying,
He's like, questions that you don't ever ask. So I
know what my experience was because I was at a
football game. I was at a high school football game.
First of all, For anybody who don't know. November fourteenth,
two thousand and two, I signed my letter of intent
to go to Wake Forest.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
You know, that's like a big deal.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
So all my people at my high school, my grandfather
was there, and my grandfather had the first black owned
service station in North Carolina. It was a Chevron and
that's where I worked at every summer. So my granddad
came over to the gym. CJ drove back from college,
this big little event at our high school, and when

(35:41):
I signed on the dotted line, my grandfather took a
Wake Forest hat off and he put his hat on
me and gave it to me. So then that night,
Wake Forest had an exhibition game. You remember, like how
people used to play against athletes in action and all that.
So me and my granddad went to the game. And
that's still so crazy to me. Because CJ went back

(36:02):
to school, my parents must have went home, and it
was just me and my granddad, and it's just crazy
how the universe works. That night, just me and him
went to the game. After the game, my papa took
me home, and I never knew that I would have
been the last time I saw him. So November fifteenth,
I'm at our high school football game and CJ. Caused me,

(36:26):
and I'm very visual or whatnot. And I'm in the
crowd and I'm like, yo, what up? And he was like, yo,
I'm my way back home. And I said, what you
mean you on your way back home? You just got
back to school. It's like a three four hour drive.
He was like, Mama said, popa sick. I said, hold up,
what you mean popa sick? I was just with him

(36:47):
the day before. So I started walking out to where
my car was, and that's when I see one of
my cousins who grabbed me in the first thing he
said is they killed me? And so I started try
and like I said, I remember the Jay's I had
on right, I had the Jordan's on. They got the
copper on the back, they got the little snake skin

(37:07):
on them. And I remember kicking a fence and put
this big scuff in them and riding over to my
granddad's house. I remember in the car, I was like hyperventilating.
So I took my shirt off and so we get
to my granddad's exit because he lived probably about twenty
minutes away, and we get off the exit and turn
onto the street and it's it's for real, like a movie,

(37:28):
like you just see all the lights, and I just
jumped out the car and started running down the street
or whatnot.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
And because realm, yeah, it's real. And it was just
like drizzling a little bit, and it's.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Like yellow tape pulled everywhere, and I can't like unsee this,
you know what I'm saying. And so my uncle was
actually a police officer and he was there, and one
of my dad's brothers, they like stopped me before I
could get to my granddad's house, and all I could
see was a tart, you know, man. And then I just,
I don't know, like writing a book, started talking to

(38:06):
my brother. My brother thought he was coming back home.
He didn't know until he really thought he was sick.
He wasn't just saying that to you exactly. So my
mom to find out. My mom called one of my
brother's teammates, and I guess told him so that he
could drive my brother, right, so CJ didn't have to

(38:26):
drive itself, you know what I mean. And so my mom,
you know, I found out. My mom was on the
phone with my granddad. He walked in the house, said
let me call you right back. I'm gonna go get
the groceries out of the car. And that's that's when
it happened. So you started finding everybody else's finding out
everybody else's story. And I don't know, it's just crazy
writing a book.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Boy. And then did you did you do the audio book?

Speaker 3 (38:50):
I didn't do it, man, I did the audio book
for my book, and that was I was a whole mess.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
I can't imagine right now. I just just emotional sitting here.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yeah, and I think what it was crazy because to
get through it and talk like it's one thing to
you know, write things, but when you have to say
it and talk it. It took me a while to
do the audio book because it's it's pretty emoment.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
You're reliving it. Yeah, you're living therapy. Writing the book
was like therapy. Yeah, that's what you know.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
And that's the one thing I do know, Like you going,
you're going back through all you know, these moments that
you're talking about, which you're going, you're sharing them because
you you know, you want to whether it's for your
family or what it's for other families, or you know,
whatever reason decided to write the book. But it's therapy
in real time. Like I was crying through the process
of writing writing my book, thinking about you know, the

(39:43):
you know, the things that I was talking about that
was you know obviously you know private, but you know
it hurt me in so many ways.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
So you know, what really happened is like your kids,
Like man, even even for me knowing you as long
as I've known you, and to see dad exchange with
your dad at the Hall of Fame because I know
you and your mom, you know what I mean, I
know Treguill and everything, but I know how much you
love and care about your mom. And to see that

(40:11):
love you showed your dad, just to see the smile
on his face, you know. And so it always makes
me think about things because with my kids, they are
getting older and they've been getting old, but since they
were little, they've always known the story of me and
my grandfather, right, or what have you or just from
me from pictures or just our stories or whatnot. Because kids,

(40:35):
you know, they start asking questions. They'd be like, now,
now where's your mom and dad? You know, And so
you explain those things, and so Chris would see a
picture of my granddad, or they paying attention even when
you think they not. So maybe even like at five
years old. He might be in an interview and hear
me talking about my granddad. So my dad is the

(40:59):
key of all things. He's a hoarder. That's where I
get it from, right, But my dad used to video everything.
Last season, my dad sent some DVDs out to me
in Phoenix. He took them from VHS tapes and put
them on DVDs and I popped them in to see
some of them, some of my old high school games.
He got some of my Pop Warner football games from
when I was little, and then I put one in

(41:22):
and then I seen it. It was like at a
birthday party. It was a birthday party, right, so this
wouldn't fly to this day and age. But it was
one of the big cameras sitting in the back of
a party and it's just everybody walking by talking.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
You can hear everything everybody's saying. All that was not
going that would not go on nowadays. But seriously, for
three hour party you care just sitting there just getting everything,
getting everything, and so people talking about each other at
the party, oh for sure.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
So I'm watching it and I'm like, oh man, cause
this is like a little place where we used to
have events set, and so I'm looking at it.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
I'm like, dang, what's going on?

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Because we used to do that for all the time,
all the time somebody's birthday or anniversary we get together.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
So I'm watching it.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
I'm watching it, and so then I started fast forward
or something like that, and so then all of a sudden,
I see everybody start getting quiet, right, because it's like
a surprise party in walks my granddad, Right, my grandfather
walked in in this video, and everybody was like surprise.
And it was my granddad's sixtieth birthday. Mind you, he

(42:29):
died at sixty one. So I'm watching this and I'm
like having goosebumps and all this because I hadn't heard
my granddad's voice since he died. Man, I'm watching it.
Anytime you watch a video, I'm like, where am I?
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Where am I?

Speaker 5 (42:45):
Where am I?

Speaker 3 (42:47):
And my mom stands up, gives like a happy birthday Dad,
and all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
My aunt Ronda does it, some of the people from
the church.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
And then especially because I used to be with my
granddad all the time, I was like, I was probably
in the car with it to ride with him. Was surprising,
But I keep looking at this video and I don't
see me. So CJ stands up and gives his speech,
and CJ's talking and he's talking, and then during CJ's speech,
he said like, I'm the oldest grandchild, and then he said,
and I know Chris would say this if he was here.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Man.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
As soon as I heard that, I'm like, I burst
out crying right because I was like, where was I called.
I took a video of this and put it in
my family group chat. And I didn't realize that Jada,
because my wife had never heard my granddad's voice. My
kids had never heard my granddad's voice. And I didn't
mean to put my mom on that emotional roller coaster

(43:38):
because she hadn't heard his voice for so long.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
But it just showed me how much.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
I sort of missed, right, like, over all these years
and playing this game. You know, we used to talk
about it and he's still playing. You know that's the
thing that I battle with now. As much as I
love to play this game and provide, we just constantly
missed moments.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah, it shows you how precious moments are.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Boy, yeah, boy, But just remembering to have people because
I let little Christim here and he was like kind
of tripping.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
He was like, man, I done heard about him all
the time, but to actually see him is different. How
do you go perform?

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Like, I know you love the game, and I know
that becomes our sanctuary as athletes, and so I understand
wanting to go to your sanctuary place, your place of
you know, of joy and all the things that the
sport brings you.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
How do you go perform?

Speaker 1 (44:39):
And how do you perform at the level where you
score sixty one points? What was the most you rever
scored before that? Thirty six?

Speaker 3 (44:45):
Okay, man, honestly, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
It was.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
It was crazy and it's like I was super duper
nice then.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
But it's to think about it. I was seventeen.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
I'm thirty eight now, and I think about how much
is like transpired since then. But like, my granddad was
for real my best friend, right, my best friend, because
I talked about how when CJ left school, you know,
I I mean I had my homies, don't get me wrong,
but it was a different type of love from my granddad, right,

(45:23):
Because my grandmother had died from lung cancer when I
was eight, and so my granddad was like everything for
my family. He was just like, if I want to shoes,
if I wanted something, Papa, they ain't gonna ask my
mom and daddy because they gonna they're.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Gonna tell me why they came to it. Right, So
if I know if I'm gonna ask Papa, right, Papa, Listen,
I knew Papa had the money for it.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
He's gonna make me work for it. But I knew
that he had it right. And it's crazy because I'm
processing all that now, you know, because Papa would be like,
you gotta come work at the service station. I'd be like, dang, damn,
d do it. But I knew Papa had the means
to do it. So you know, you can get the shoes.
You just have to do something to get Yeah, my
granddad would let me drive. He had he had a

(46:09):
Lincoln right. My granddad is long, long joint. And it's crazy.
I mean, my parents they was doing what they could.
They had it like regular cars.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
Well, but my granddaddy you could unlock his car by
pressing buttons. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
Like my granddaddy had a cell phone in his car.
Wanted big the bag, the big joint you know what
I'm saying. So, now that I think about it, my
granddaddy was doing he.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Was doing it, and I knew, I knew I could
go to the service station.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
He's wear a shirt tucked in too.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
With the belt. Oh absolutely clean. My papa, he was
a little bit taller.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
He he owned the service station. So if I wanted,
you know, some welches, you know, some some snacks, just
go over there to popa whatever, whatever. And so, like,
losing him was a big deal, and I just wanted to,
like I said, my kids now, to see how they

(47:09):
are with my parents.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
My parents, I don't know them.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
I don't know who them people is because the way
they be loving and all that on my kids, I
don't know, y'all.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
I don't know y'all. Now, they loved me and CJ.
But they was so hard on us, right, but straight up,
straight up.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
But I'm telling you, and I know you know this too.
Sometimes I literally sit and watch it, right, I literally
sit and watch and I just be like, man, I'm
so grateful for that because I checked my parents on
it sometimes too.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Because they offer the other side of the building.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
What you should have seen when little Chris was like
maybe like seven or something like that. He was in
the backyard shooting, breaking everything. I mean, couldn't make a shot.
And my mama was sitting out there, good job, bab
be good. I looked at her, I said, what is
wrong with you here trying to don't gass him up
like that. Don't do that. And she was looking at
me like what what I said? Don't you do that?

(48:09):
Don't do that. But I get it too. It's necessary
because when my parents would get on me and c
J Papa, papa, you know, so it's a different type
of love. And so I watched the way my dad, especially,
you know, with the kids and my mom like it's necessary,
but I will check them with the quickness too, like

(48:31):
all right, love on them, but you can't be hard
on them too.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
So tell me how you performed, man, Like, was it
out of body? Do you remember it?

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Like? Was it one of the moments you out of
the game. You're just sitting there like what just happened? Yeah?
So I was scoring? Crazy, I was scoring. I was scoring.
You're not a selfish player, so you never tried to score?
Right then?

Speaker 3 (48:52):
I used to just steal the ball all the time.
The only person that knew that I was even thinking
about doing this was my backcourt mate, dude named David Gillette.
My parents didn't know. But the game was packed by
this time. Every high school game that I played, the
crowd was packed. And so I'm in the game, I'm scoring,
I'm scoring, sort of get win. How many I got
I don't even remember how I was keeping track, But.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Oh, we can keep dragging points now, I know, I know,
we keep dragging about buckets.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
You know what's so funny is I and I mean,
it's for real. I never did I'd be so locked
into the game for real that like for most of
my career, I never knew how many points I had,
you know, But in this game, when I got to
fifty seven, then I got to fifty nine. So when
I got fifty nine, I remember this so clearly. I

(49:40):
remember getting the ball on the left side of the
court and I sort of slanted cut across the court
and sort of did like an in and out and
I shot a floater and I got filed. So that
gave me sixty one, and I just.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Made the because I remember seeing you at the free
throw line. Yep, that's what I do.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
And so I knew I had sixty one, and come
to find out after the fact, the state record at
the time I think was sixty seven.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Hell by MJ. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
It was probably I don't know, four minutes left in
the game, which I probably could have caught him, but
I just went to the free throw line and I
threw the ball out of bounds, and the next thing,
my dad was my assistant coach at the time, and
I just remember walking off the court, falling into my
dad's arms, just.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Because yeah, man, like that was a.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
Big hit for our whole city, for everybody, like losing
my granddad, and it just do you.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Feel like, did you feel like the crowd kind of
new started to know what was going on, Like as
you was getting closer to sixty one, do you think anybody?

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Yeah, if you look at the footage from it, you
can see people saw of start whispering, start whispering or whatnot.
And when I hit sixty one, the whole place went nuts.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
It went crazy, and so I still got that ball.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah, yeah, it's you know, one two. It's crazy how
life works. I remember, I don't know how, but I
remember seeing that that moment, not knowing that we would
be you know, life friends later in life. But I
remember seeing that moment, and I remember seeing you at
the free throw line, and it's very you don't see
someone go to free throw line and not try to

(51:16):
make the free throws.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
And so I remember seeing that and that kind of
got into.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
The story and I thought, you know, obviously, like how
incredible that was, and then hearing about the story, but
not knowing that later in life, like you know, we'll
be here. And so that was my first moment of
getting a chance to know who Chris Paul was. And
that's the hell of a moment to get a chance
to know the person, because one, you didn't make it
about you, right You took a moment that you had

(51:44):
and you made it about your family, made it about
your papa, and it was bigger than you. And so
like that for me, I was like, oh, I knew,
I knew who you were right there.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
Man. I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Hell of a shift to this next one though, Before
we shift, let me let me, let me, let me
make something about me, Let me make something.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
About to talk to me.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Just let me know who I need to talk to
about the naming rights of this podcast.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Why yeah, what you got some with the man I've
been calling you the why ain't Wade? I don't know
how long? Really, what man, I ain't never heard you. Listen,
let me tell you this because because the way my
name spelled.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
What absolutely, I don't know how long i'd known you
until I finally seen your name.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
I used to tell people. I used to tell people
all the time they were spelling it wrong. I used
to tell people. I'd be like, oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Listen, man, when I seen the name of this, I
was like, I was actually I used to say that
all the time. People used to write your name on stuff,
and I'd be like, no, you ain't. I ain't spell
that right. They'd be like, no, it's it's.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
Not right here, It's not it's not really Dwayne right,
Like yeah, so I don't know why you name call yourself. Well,
I'm the junior. So what is your name? I mean,
what ain't kind of look kind of what is your name? Dwayne? No,
it's not. My grandma said, tell granny we gotta talk.

(53:04):
We gotta talk.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
No, It's like yes, because the world needs to know.
You've been spelling this wrong the whole time. Wayan has
normally spelled d w A Y N E. And I
normally normally every time except for once twice because j.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Y know you're right.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
But obviously it became a great once the team put
it together, like I did it. I loved it too,
just like you probably seen it and loved it. I
loved it, and I was like, that's it. That's what
I've been trying to find my whole life, Like why.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
Does my name mean? Why? That is exactly? Why that is?
That is perfect? That is perfect.

Speaker 5 (53:44):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
So what you think you're supposed to get credit because
you saying don't worry about it. I get to check.
We'll work on it. Tune into the why y'all, why
ain't Wade?

Speaker 4 (53:57):
Bro?

Speaker 2 (53:58):
You never said that to me though, Why ain't way?
That is my that's probably my official name. Everybody the
why ain't Wade? It took me forty two years to
figure it out. That is funny.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Before we before we move on to the NBA, which
you know, we obviously want to talk about that career
the next time. And the reason I say this is
because as a young player, you got to learn how
to deal with the highs and you got to learn
how to deal with the lows. And so you know,
obviously hearing about your journey, you had a lot of highs.
You were very good at the game of basketball, very

(54:39):
loved and then you had to reach. You had to
you reached the low and you had to deal with
a low. And so the moment against NC State, I
was watching the game.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
You was watching the game Washington come out in real life.
I was watching the game when that happened. Yeah, I
was watching. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
This is my second real interesting story. That's what I
was saying, was my second time I was watching the game.
You were You became after that moment of seeing you
scored sixty one points, he became one of my favorite players.
I wanted to follow you. And so it was a
big game NC State wait for us YEP. And I
loved Julius Hodge. I loved him as a player. After
I loved this game. And so I was like, oh,
I get to watch Chris, Paul and Julius talk to

(55:17):
me about the moment. What moment did you see? Well,
I mean I only see you what the camera showed me.
So that's why I want you to tell me about
the moment, because I already seen you guys get into
a interaction and I saw a little.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Hot yeah hitting, That's what I saw. Now, how did
we get there? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (55:34):
So what's crazy is that was my last That was
the last game of the season, right last game of
the regular season, and it was probably probably one of
the toughest things that basically I had to deal with
because I don't remember what quarter, it was, half whatever,
but obviously we was getting into it or whatever. He

(55:57):
was talking crazy and shout out to one of my
assistant coaches because my college coach passed away my second
year in the league, Jeff Battle, And it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
If I didn't talk, I might have talked about this
one one other time or something like that. But in college,
anything goes. Right when I talk about like fans like
of course the NBA, but in college, anything goes. They're right,
your girlfriend's cell phone number down on the board and
hold it up and start chating. They did one of
my teammates. So we're playing at n C State and

(56:32):
it's a heated game. Your boy, he used to talk
junk during the games from New York. All that respect
that all that he talked junk elbow do all this stuff.
The point in the game whereas free throw is going
on and I can hear.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Some some students or.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
Whatever, chance and I killed your grandfather, right, So you
think I'm emotional now, I was emotional then. So I'm
there on the free throw line and I look over
at one of my coaches, Jeff Battle, who was like
you all right, I sort of got tears going down
my eyes whatever. Me and Julius had been into an
all game. So when I did hit him, right, I

(57:13):
hit him. I don't know what point of the game
it was, but that was before it was all the
reviews and all that stuff, right, so everybody go crazy,
Well he down, whatever the game going on. What was
most interesting about it was, you know today they would
go review and all that stuff and you'd be messing around,
kicked out, but they didn't have all the camera stuff
there all.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
I sort of vaguely remember.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
I remember, I don't know if it was his family
members or something like came down to the court, you know,
like talking like hey, we're gonna do this.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
And you know why, it's so funny.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
It's one game I played in my whole college career
where my family wasn't there. Guess what that game? It
was CJ Senior Knight. It was CJ Senior Knight. So
my mom, my dad. This was in Raleigh and State.
That's an hour and a half away from home. Nobody
in my family was at that game. So when that happened,

(58:09):
all this whatever. So the end of the game, you
remember what happened at the end of the game. I
hit the game winning shot. See I hit the game
winning shot. So I think we was down one or
it was tied up. I got to look at it
or whatnot. We had to take the ball length of
the court. I take the ball out, I inbounded, I
get it back. I do like an in and out

(58:29):
shoot a floater as a time run out. Boom, hit
the game winner. We go nuts, me Ja Gray, our teammates.
You can see it's on YouTube. You can see it's
run over, like to the crowd, like to the students
that were talking crazy, and we running back to the
locker room. And one of my teammates got jacked up
by like they athletic director. So then I didn't get

(58:51):
suspended till the next day. I remember that got suspended
the next day or whatnot for a game. And I
always hate this because and it just show you that
is how God works too. I got suspended for a
game and it was in the a CC tournament. We
lose the first game of the ACC tournament, so you

(59:13):
know how you're trying to see what seeding you get.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
We ended up getting the two seeds.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
Instead of a one seed because we lost the first
game of the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
I mean at the ACC tournament. Guess guess who.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
We played the first game of the ACC tournament n
C State and I ain't get to play.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
And I ain't get to play.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
So yeah, that's something that I hadn't always thought about
and remembering my college career because that right there was
like a big deal and it.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Was we lost. How did you deal? How did you
deal with it? At that time?

Speaker 1 (59:47):
I mean seventeen eighteen, seventeen, eighteen years old?

Speaker 2 (59:51):
It was tough.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Because I don't know, it was somewhat of a different time. Obviously,
everybody talking about it on the UH, ESPN, all this
different type stuff, you know. And then I think the
hardest part too, is, like I said, my family wasn't there,
and you know, everybody saying, oh you this you that

(01:00:11):
you that. I think what was crazy was and this
really startedating when Facebook came out, right, it wasn't but
a few schools that had Facebook, and Wake was actually
one of them. When I went to the NBA when
I declared it for the draft, me and my brother
was in DC and we got to email, like through Facebook.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
We got a.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Message from one of the students that was over there
in the student sections, chant at you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
It said like, you know, I apologize this, that and
the third whatnot, and I I hate the result of
what happened with my team. You know, But do I say,
do I regret I did it?

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
No, souse, That's who That's how we That's how I'm
saying that. That's how I definitely don't. But I definitely
learned from that experience.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
But that was tough because then I'm I had a
Steve Harvey suit.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
I had a Steve Harvey.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
Suit sitting on the bench over there, had to watch
us lose the NC State.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
And that was your punishment yep, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
And somebody in this room came up with this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
I didn't thought it was very creative, but I think
that was the moment that started the what later became
the moments of everybody hate Chris, because you've had moments
where anything you do, that moment always gets highlighted.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
One thousand. It always goes back to that moment.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Any instance, any argument, anything that you get into in
the court.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Every time, it goes back to that. Every time. I
mean I even go back to the you remember the.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
Locker room thing where I was playing playing for Houston
way Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was playing for Houston and
the whole Clipper locker room thing when it was like
I did this secret tunnel or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
And all that stuff like that. It is a little back.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
That at that everybody know about, yeah, right, that everybody
know about.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
But it's just it's always something.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
It always, yeah, always, and it's like it follows you,
right for sure, all the good that you do, that
that moment still follows you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
It does.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
And that's why I think you always got to be
comfortable with who you are. You know what I'm saying,
whether it's I mean, I've been involved in a lot
of shit, d you know what I'm saying, and a
fight got fined.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Trying to think it's probably more stuff I'm leaving out.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got Yeah, your rap sheet. A
rap sheet is like a Christmas list.

Speaker 6 (01:02:47):
Now, how do you feel or is there about the
narrative because obviously this is a narrative that's been created
going playing in the game nineteen years and like d said,
it's kind of based from that that moment back state,
like when you hear the narrative and you see it,
like what does that make you feel?

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Like?

Speaker 5 (01:03:05):
What do you feel when you see it? And then two,
if you can change it or would you want to
do about it?

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Man, that's a real good question.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
I don't think you can change that, you know what
I'm saying, because people gonna feel how they feel. You
think about what I've learned. Okay, now I'm thinking about
what I said. If you're going to change that, then
you got to almost go meet everybody individually, right, And
I think I've been in too many situations now where

(01:03:33):
people be like I thought you were such and such,
you know, And probably the newest experience has been my
tenure now with.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
The Warriors, right. You know what I'm saying. By the way,
I love to sit down the conversation that you'll had
on Dre show.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Yeah, Hey, it's a strong word, and I think it's
perfect for how we felt about each.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
Other, you know what I mean. And I've heard that
word used a few times with your name associated with.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
It, right up, Yeah, no, no, for real and I
and I think I think what happens, I think listen,
no real talk and I think I think what happens is,
especially with with dre situation, is you don't really know somebody,
you know what I mean. Now, there's some people that

(01:04:20):
I've not like that I didn't met, and I still
ain't like they, you know what I mean, like for
real it is. But but I also know my personality
at times can be very very tough because I definitely
have a strong personality and the thing for me is
that I'm gonna say it, you know, not necessarily in

(01:04:43):
front of everybody, but if it's some weirdness or some
awkwardness going on, let's talk about it, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
And I don't know, I just I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
I don't really like weirdo activity, right, And I think
it's a lot of times where different reasons, whether it's basketball,
whether it's the union stuff, whether I don't know what
it is, you know what I mean, Like somebody else
say something to me and expect me not to react.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Then what the hell are you talking to me for? Then?
So you're saying you don't start it, but you finish it.
I mean finishing nothing something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
It just be all this, this, that and the third
like talking or whatever. I don't be doing all that right,
Like seriously, I'm yeah, man, you but it'd be funny.
It'd be funny to me too, though, d because, like
I say, get it out better, God god saying anything.

(01:05:42):
I was at a game the other day and I
walked up to the referees was reviewing something, and I
was just standing up there like I'm too old man,
ain't talking to nobody right, And the dude was like,
who you up here?

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Folk? I click out.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
I ain't gonna lie now now I get the tripping
as soon as soon as you do that because I turn,
I said.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
I looked around. It's like who're you talking to? Yeah? Right?
He was like, you ain't even playing? What you up
here for? Why are we talking? Why are we talking?

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
Because I'm zero to team real quick and we played basketball.
Everybody be out here acting like hey, Mike Tyson and audio,
keep it, keep it, keep it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Keep keep it who Yeah, I mean, it ain't a
lot of Charles Oakley's walking around this joint. It ain't.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Yeah, it ain't shout out and real talk. A lot
of that hate sometimes here and there just be I
don't know, Yeah, I don't know, shifting gears.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
So knowing all these relationships that you do have you
don't have, you were sitting in a very prominent seat
in the NBA for a very long time.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
He was sitting as a president of the m v
p A.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
You are deciding a lot of faith of a lot
of these players because a lot of players don't get
involved in it. A lot of players don't even know
what's going on, and we trust our president to handle everything.
And so this notion that oh I don't like Chris Paul,
I hate Chris Paul. Chris Paul is determining a lot
of the faith of the players. He's sitting in these meetings.
How did you handle that? How did players handle that?

(01:07:18):
With you been in that seat as the head man
to sit there and speak on behalf for the players.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
Well, the issue I had with a lot of people
in those situations is that people always got something to say, right,
They always want to get air opinion. But I would
always be like these meetings and all that are open, right,
you can't pick and choose what you want to be
a part of if you're not going to put the
time in.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Right, myself, along with the other eight guys on.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
The executive committee, we put ours time like and it's selfless,
like this stuff you don't get paid for, right, And
so I was grateful for all that I got a
chance to learn. But the thing that would make me
mad probably more than anything. And I would always just
channel how like mad maybe their own word, maybe disappointed

(01:08:03):
or whatnot, is how many guys would speak out or
I don't like this, I don't like that. Well, if
you don't like it, then jump on one of these calls,
you know, voice your opinion. I think that we've shown
that we have the.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
The most prominent league, right.

Speaker 3 (01:08:21):
So when the bubble was happening and we stopped playing games,
telling you, man like every other league was calling in
a shout out to them, not saying like they didn't
know what to do, but.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
Is a leader.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
So the guys from the NFL, from Major League Baseball,
from hockey, from all of this stuff like that, they
was calling asking me what we were going to do.
And so listen, I ain't perfect by no means, but listen,
I ain't want nobody's championship, right, I'm gonna keep it
honest with you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Right, did the Olympics twice.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
I'm not an NBA champion yet, but I've been fortunate
enough to be involved in business.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
This.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
Look, if you don't like me, you got to turn
your TV on and see this damn State Farm commercial
on all day every day.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
That's probably not fun. If you don't like me.

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
Right, NBA game and not see me on there, shout
out the State Farm too, y'all, y'all keep let's keep
it going, stupid going. There's a lot of that, like
why he get to do this, why he get to
do that?

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
Right? So all that? Hey, all that, this that and
the like. People would go out and say this, say
that right publicly, They might tweet, they might say this,
But guess what, even when I was in that seat,
and you know, when we have players meetings and I'm
a conversation, I'm a phone call away.

Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
I'm a phone call away, even as a union president.
And this is crazy, because this was the hardest part.
It is probably that I had to be so accessible, right,
I had to be, and I like to say I
like to think I did a pretty good job of
having open line of communication. Whatever it was, whoever, it

(01:10:03):
was like figuring out what's best for the players. And
so yeah, if I go somewhere, a great job.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
Bro.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
By the way, the guys who say that they don't
like me or something, guess what when they see me somewhere,
what they what a dog?

Speaker 5 (01:10:15):
What's up?

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Bros? Yeah, yeah, it's weird, it's weird.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Yeah, what did you what was I'm sure you learned
a lot of things in that seat. What was the
most important thing that you learned in that seed that
you when you go off and you speak to future
athletes or you think about you know where the game
is going once you leave the game. What is the
thing in that seed that you learned that it's important
for athletes to know about the business of basketball.

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
Sounds crazy, but communication, right. And then in leadership, you
also got to be able to delegate.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Right, So if I got to micromanage, you got to listen. Right.
Some people probably see me and they be like, man, man,
you talk all the time. You talk all the time.
But that's because I'm constantly listening. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
I noticed what most people say, like as employees or
people that work, they always say they hate somebody who
micro manage.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:11:10):
So if you hear people say that all the time,
you want to try to make sure that you know
that Michael man right, right, And you want to make
sure that people feel like they are part of the
whole and the part of the team. So I think
the biggest thing, especially from the union stuff, is making
sure a delegated and our executive committee think about it.
We had eight guys on the EC, four hundred and

(01:11:32):
fifty players, and I used to tell the EC. I
used to be like, look, man, if this is something
that's about to happen within our league, make sure we
get it out to the players as quick as possible.
Because everybody that you know, like might be different. Right,
Like you got a crew of people that you know,
and you know, like when I was doing that, if
something was about to come, if we was trying to

(01:11:54):
propose something for the league, whatever it may be, I
may be like, d YO, league think about doing this.
You know, look we think about doing this. See what
guys think. That's the only way it's ever gonna work.
And That's why it has worked with Adam because we've
always had that direct line of communication, because if you
try to do something without the players buy in, then

(01:12:14):
it's gonna be pushed back, right, And so the number
one thing is to make sure you not just communicate,
but over communicate.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Yeah, you you're nineteen years in the NBA. How long
did you sit in that seat as president? Eight years?
Eight years in the Union? You left that seat in
a way better place than the world before you got there.
You've done some amazing things in the game. Will your
career feel complete if you don't win a championship?

Speaker 3 (01:12:51):
Straight up, even though I think I'm going to win
a championship before I'm done, Yes, absolutely. You know I
can't even process not winning a championship right right now,
you know what I mean, just.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Literally how I'm built.

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):
But I love what I've been able to do with
my career absolutely, And I probably was a lot more
stressed about that once upon a time.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
But it's crazy how things change. Life changes, like.

Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
My kids and my family, you know, is extremely important,
But I don't know, man, Like it's just to still
be able to play the game right like a year.
It's crazy here you're nineteen, but a year twelve something
else might have been on my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
A year nineteen. Now I'm in the locker.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Room and I'm trying to give my teammates, like some
some of them, you know what I mean, just trying
to tell them about perspective of this and not taking
it for granted.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
When you dreamed up your career, right, we all to
get here, you have to dream about being here. I
don't know how far your dream went. But when you
dreamed of your career, what was that dream? And in
that have you accomplished what that dream was? When you
dreamed of your career. Man, I'm not talking about like

(01:14:11):
I want to win a check. No, I know that
everybody want to win a cha, but like that overall dream.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
Of being there, Man, I didn't did way more than
I had ever dreamed of, like straight up, because in
my dream it was about basketball, right, and throughout this
career I didn't learn so much more about life, about
being a parent, like like d like I remember when

(01:14:37):
you was leaving Miami or even you remember he was
on the boat.

Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
I remember he was on the boat.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):
And I remember just even when I came to the NBA, it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Was let's get that right, correct, because the boat is
a little.

Speaker 3 (01:14:52):
Smaller, right right, You're right said that said that it
was a nice one too. But we was on there
and I ever forget us talking about it, and we
was like, man, I don't appreciate you. They tripping like
you know, and I remember even just seeing your face
trying to even think about going to another team. You know,
you you let him up at one point, like giving

(01:15:16):
him a discount, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
But that's just because you straight Miami.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
And when I came into the league, I hope everybody
hopes that they gonna have like a.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
Dirk career or one team.

Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
And I'm gonna tell you, man, this dude named Eric
Housing who's been with the Warriors forever, right like since
he was a kid. He's like, you know, you say
the equipment guy, but he's a lot more than that.
And when I got to the Warriors, Uh, it's been
so dope to see how they operate and how they
do things, everything so first class. And Housing would say something,

(01:15:52):
he'd be like, see you ever did it such a
I'd be like, nah, eat, that's cool, we can do
it like that. And he said something to me. He
was like, Chris, I want to know, he said, I
only been here. I want to he wants to know
what other teams do or how we travel or how
I did this, And he said, Chris, I've only been here, right.
So what I've learned in this journey is that, yeah,

(01:16:15):
of course I don't love moving and changing teams and
all this stuff, but I've got a chance to learn
so much with the different teams and organizations that I've
played for. I've learned so many different leadership styles playing
for so many different coaches. I've seen that is not
one way to skin a cat, right Like, it's different
types of things that you may do for.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
These guys to get a motivated.

Speaker 3 (01:16:37):
This coach may be great at x's and o's and
might be a guy this guy right here might be
a great manager of people. So me, I've appreciated this
journey and what it's going to be able to do
for me and whatever the next chapter in life is
right because I don't get a twist that I still
like in my hot head, you know what I mean.

(01:16:59):
But I still understand things that are happening and why
there happening, and I'm paying attention to so much because
there was a point in time, like you know, when
somebody on your team will turn the ball over what
you're doing, you going nuts, and now you know sometimes
I will do that, but sometimes you just understand leadership
is that you know, maybe you don't get on the guy.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
These four or five times so that you can do
it later.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
Well, it sounds like you're more present now. Yeah, and
a point in our career early on, we're not really
present in it. Now nineteen years in appreciate it more. Yeah, right,
because you obviously have less time left than you have.
You're more president in all these moments and understanding that
that moment of maybe getting on this guy that maybe

(01:17:45):
that's not going to help him.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
Yeah, this will help him.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
And it's because you've seen a lot, because you know
what I mean, you've seen other leaders and you've seen
other and so that right there, all these journeys, I mean,
what six teams, six different teams you've played for, hold on,
I have to write them down, Walling, the Clippers, Clippers,
the Rockins, Thunder, Phoenix.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Stay yea, So six teams, six coaches, six communities. Because
you're a community guy, you've been in these communities all up.
So you've seen so much and so you're present and
you understand what these individuals need because of your experience.

Speaker 5 (01:18:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:18:20):
That and I think that union aspect too, not just
union aspect, but the NBA life, right, So you get
a chance to see what the NBA looks like, but
you also get a chance to see what after.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
The NBA looks like.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
Right, Like, So when you talk about, like, what's lifestyle
like when you get done playing, because there's a void.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
There's a void, man.

Speaker 3 (01:18:43):
And so when you play long enough and you get
a chance to see some of your closest friends retired.
That's why whenever we get together, I'd be asking questions.
Even when you ain't around, I'm asking other people questions
about you. I'll be like, man, what you doing? Okay,
you're going?

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Where you going to Dubai? What you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
Like seriously, like, because I think there's a preparation for
a retirement that nobody.

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
Can prepare for.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
Speaking of friends, it's two moments I want to talk
about with friends. The second one would be Mellow the
Houston time. We'll get to that because I just had
Mellow on the pod. Shout out to Melo and may
I talked about that. We talked about it, and we
talked about you in the moment that you guys when
you came in the room. Y'all had your conversation. We're
going to talk about that. But the first one I

(01:19:34):
want to speak about. Do you remember in the Okay,
so everybody talks about the trade that did not happen
when you did not go to the Lakers, right, we
all that's one of the no one still understands it, right,
even though people have explained it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
Miami. But do you remember the call with Brian, you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
And I when we were thinking about when Rowley wanted
the trade to bring you to Miami?

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
Absolutely? Do you remember where us get on the phone.
I was sitting in my condo and CJ was sitting CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:20:01):
CJ was sitting on the couch, right, go back to
my brother always there. CJ was sitting on the couch
and we was talking about me coming to Miami.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
He was talking about me coming to Miami.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
We was talking about who's gonna have the ball in
their hands, how.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
It's gonna work. We're having a conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
Yeah, we're having a conversation, right, and then who was
it was it CJ? Was it CJ that said something
about who's gonna wear number three?

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
Bro? That's what I wanted to get to. We talk
about all this about who gonna have the ball?

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Okay, we can all play together and all cp I
could play off the ball.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
We didn't figured all that out. And somebody said, well,
who's gonna wear number three? Silence listen, that's the whole trade.
Let's trading happened. That's the whole trader. Because CP could
number three in Miami, that's the whole trader.

Speaker 3 (01:20:44):
I don't know what they was gonna do. Because you
was older, you probably could have just wor no, no, no,
I wasn't older.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
He was older than me, I know. But because you
older than me, you just wear thirty three? No, no, no.
And so this is the conversation we're having and I'm like,
that's my number. He's like, what else my number? Yeah?
What we're gonna what we're gonna do? Six? No? That
ain't it all number me that So you're saying, so

(01:21:10):
we didn't get a chance to see this trade because
of the number three. Man, I'm saying, Wow, I'm saying
the trade and go down and rally, then pull the
trigger because CPS gonna be number three. Let me tell
you we had talked for a while too. We had
talked about what the team. We started getting excited. We
had talked about what the team would look like, all

(01:21:31):
this different type stuff. And then I think it was
jan you gonna wear? Am I gonna wearer?

Speaker 5 (01:21:38):
He gonna wear?

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
And that the whole conversation. You know how the football team,
you guys be having a number. We're gonna have to
do something. We're gonna have to do something.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
That's that's why to go down. I remember when you
when that question was posed. I was sitting there, like, bro,
what are you talking about? Like just get another numbers?
Like no, Like I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
Whole trad is almost in Miami, whole trade. Want to sacrifice?
I want go on to DD. Do you want to
sacrifice everything else? He ain't want to sacrifice them number.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
I'll tell you listen, I sacrifice not getting touches. I
sacrifice not getting the articles read and not getting the
most money.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
But I'm not giving up my number. I'm not switching
my numbers. So it didn't happen.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
I just want to know if you remember that, bro,
because it's funny that no one knows that conversation happened,
but really, obviously a lot of things have to happen
for it to get right. But the fact that we
had that conversation about the number and it would that's when.

Speaker 3 (01:22:39):
All of us was like, well, my comrade in New Orleans,
I had like a couch or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
I was sitting on one side, c J was sitting
on another.

Speaker 1 (01:22:47):
Everybody that goes the story for y'all. Oh man, all right,
so let's get to the Mellow one. So you got
a chance to play, which her brother, right in the
midst of this career. For us to get a chance
to play with each other with a relationship we've had,
it's pretty cool. And you got a chance to play
with Mellow in Houston. Mello talks about it on the podcast.
Everything that happened in Houston is very public. What happened,

(01:23:08):
but he talks about.

Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
The moment where he felt the way about how it
went down and you being one of the top guys
on the team, you and James.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
He was like, I want to know cep knew about
this and he didn't tell me. Yep, talk to me
about your side, your version of that conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
Man, that's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:23:25):
So we just played the Clippers the other night, right,
and so Russ, right, you know, me and Russ pretty
close or whatnot.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
We talked and we actually talked about this the other night.

Speaker 3 (01:23:36):
And it's something that's interesting in the league with all
this different type stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):
And you know it like when.

Speaker 3 (01:23:42):
You quote unquote friends and you want to team up
and play on the same team with.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
Guys, it's hard, boy, It's hard. It's hard.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
And I think enough guys don't understand that, right, and
that if you do want to play with your like,
quote unquote friend, then at some point, if it ain't
work out, it's going to be some hard conversations. But
you better be willing to have them hard conversations because
if you not, it's literally going to destroy the friendship,
right it is. I feel like I've seen that time

(01:24:11):
and time again, and.

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
And most of the time people are not not willing
to have the hard conversation exactly. And some of that
has happened with me and teammate. If like there was
something real, I'd be like, well, let's talk about it, right, Like,
I can't just act like ain't nothing happening, but to
go to Mellow's situation. Mello told you, he told you,

(01:24:34):
like when Mello tell you, you know, yeah, man, version,
what is your version of the moment? So this is
what you're met in the room. Yes, all right, but
the way the hotel room?

Speaker 3 (01:24:52):
Yeah, so the way I got to the hotel room,
it's crazy. I had I had the family in town.
We was in San Antonio. I had Jada and the kids,
and we was at Andretti's or something like that, like
a race car place with Rudy Gay and his family. Right,
So we there my family, and I get a text
from Melo and it said, bro, did you know m hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
Hold on.

Speaker 3 (01:25:16):
I called Mellow and I'm gonna tell you the whole story.
And Mellow, I know how tough you are, but I'm
gonna tell you. He talked about it, right, I'm gonna
tell you. So I called Melo. I said that was
going on. He said, Man, he said, Darryl came to
his room, right, And if you know Darryl Moore, yeah,

(01:25:39):
he no people skills, real talk, you know what I'm saying, Like,
he don't really understand how to talk to people.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
And so.

Speaker 3 (01:25:50):
As soon as Mellow told me that I got Jada,
my kids, and we got up. I said, Rudy, I
gotta go. I went back to the hotel, right, called Mellow,
called Mellow, went to his room, knocked on the.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Door or whatnot.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
And I was in there with Mellow for a long time,
for a long time, a couple hours, and like Melo
was in tears, man like seriously. And I was right
there with him because I know how much he gave
to the game. But throughout the whole process of him
coming to Houston, me and Mello would talk, you know,
about the start and about all of this stuff. I

(01:26:23):
never you know, said this is what's gonna happen or
that that's not gonna happen. So he tells me what
happened with Darryl or whatnot, And I was like, what
what he said? He told me, come, came to his room,
told him he'd get him a flight back to New York.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
Yeah, trip. How you say this to this man?

Speaker 5 (01:26:43):
First?

Speaker 2 (01:26:43):
Almost so? Then he told him.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
So we played San Antonio the next day, Right, we
were going to play San Antonio the next day.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
Try to tell that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:54):
Man that he could get on the team playing and
fly back with us after the game.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
I ain't never you something else?

Speaker 3 (01:27:03):
Well, I never really told it's some of the most
disrespectful shit I've never seen.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
Right, So Melo said something of them told Himbout sit
behind a bench or something like that too.

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
Oh see, I don't know that he might have said that,
but I know it's coming behind a bench, and didn't
probably fly with the team.

Speaker 3 (01:27:16):
Planely on the team plane back to Houston right after
you just told the man you don't need his services
no more.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
In complete.

Speaker 3 (01:27:30):
So so right, I think I might have hit Darryl
or something like that too, and just told him how
worked up he was and how disrespectful that was. And
we played against San Antonio that next night. I got
a plane, I got a plane on my own, me, Jada,
and Mellow flew back to Houston. You was not gonna

(01:27:53):
do that and then expect him to get on the
team plane afterwards.

Speaker 1 (01:27:58):
Yeah yeah, Well also too, when Mellow told his side
of the story, it wasn't just Mellow in tears.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
I feel like you were too. Absolutely you left that
out when you said I said Mellow, I said me too,
you know, I thought, yeah, yeah, but it was an
emotional moment right now, straight up, I thought I said
I was too, I said, Mellows in tears. I said
me too.

Speaker 3 (01:28:21):
Well, I'm saying me too because I know him, I
know the type of work he had put into the game.
I knew being away from the family. You know what
I'm saying, seeing Kyenne growing up in all this and
it's crazy. And I think that's why even now, like
when I see him with Cayenne getting to show up,
getting to show up, just like when I see you

(01:28:42):
with your kids getting to show up. Because it's I'm
gonna tell you this real quick, not not to do
with that story, but this whole cycle, this whole NBA thing,
is the wildest thing because.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
This is my dream to make it to the NBA.

Speaker 3 (01:29:00):
Right, My kids, my wife and everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
They they know that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:07):
They they root for you, they support you, they do
all these things.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
But my parents.

Speaker 3 (01:29:13):
I'm not in the NBA without my dad, without my parents,
for sure, but out without my dad coaching me and
you know, giving me the tools that I need.

Speaker 2 (01:29:21):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:29:22):
And so then when we have kids who have these
same dreams and aspirations, it's the hardest thing because I'm
not getting an opportunity to be there and do for them.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
My dad.

Speaker 3 (01:29:38):
So it's dope to see y'all, and especially Mellow.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
Yeah, I mean obviously you will be you know, at
some point you would be there more because you know
he will continue to have basketball life and your basketball
life will have come to an end. Yeah, so you
would definitely have that moment. But one thousand percent it's
one of the dopest things that you can you can do.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):
But that Houston Mellow thing was wild, but throughout the
whole time, and Mellow, no, I tell him right now
if he was right here. So I don't get any
alerts right on my phone. I don't get no alerts,
notifications off, no notifications I'm talking about like like bleacher Report, ESPN.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Like I don't mean not.

Speaker 3 (01:30:19):
When I was union president, I cut all that off
because I was having to deal with real stuff, not
like speculation.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
You know what I'm saying. So a lot of stuff
I find out.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
People calling you because of speculation. You're like, no, this
is what's really exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:30:33):
I'm always having to tell somebody the real story because
that's what it is. So a lot of stuff I
find out is because Jaya tell me, you know what
I mean, It's like somebody got punched the other night
and somebody was like, yo, such such got punched.

Speaker 2 (01:30:46):
I was like, what you know? And then that was
that was how I operated, but not somebody got punched
the other night, Yeah they did. I'll be all right.

Speaker 3 (01:30:58):
When mellow It came to Houston, it was all these
things coming out about if he's starting coming off all
that stuff, like.

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
Right, So.

Speaker 3 (01:31:08):
I called Mellow right. I was like, look, if you come,
you come to Houston or whatnot. We sort of had
a start in five already, you know what I'm saying
with PJ and all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:31:18):
And it was crazy because.

Speaker 3 (01:31:21):
It was almost like when I was in college because
PJ got hurt. PJ got hurt like your point guard
in college. Yes, PJ got hurt in camp. And so
the first few preseason games mellow started.

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
I remember that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:35):
But throughout that whole situation, I don't never care what
they talking about in the media. Were doing real life.
You know what I'm saying, We're talking, we talking in
real life. And so if you're gonna let your homie
like I have to guess what's going on in the media,
then it ain't gonna work.

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
It ain't gonna work.

Speaker 3 (01:31:53):
But Mellow through and through because at the end of
the day, my relationship and my friendship with him was
more important to me than anything that would happen there
in Houston. So I made sure that I communicated with him.

Speaker 5 (01:32:06):
I have a question, so before that, so after this moment.

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
You clear, I told on my microphone, bad, my bad, bad?

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
What you eat? Go ahead?

Speaker 5 (01:32:19):
So you have so you had your own down more
experience right after that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:25):
Oh boy, y'all is something else on this joint?

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
Y'all have just.

Speaker 5 (01:32:31):
Saying because I don't think you ever had a chance
to get clear talk to me about that. You know that, yes,
you do. You y'all three had a conversation about that before,
but never never came out. Just yet.

Speaker 3 (01:32:40):
Listen to everybody here, don't ever go on your family's podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
Don't person.

Speaker 5 (01:32:47):
Let's just say it's the same space, man, it is
the same space.

Speaker 2 (01:32:50):
Everybody listening. Don't ever go on your family podcast that
they're gonna they're gonna ask you about stuff that safe space,
the safe space space for the world.

Speaker 5 (01:33:00):
This is your this is your I don't I don't
know if I know about this. What I'm gonna say,
how you want to say it?

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
Uh? Well, ship, We're here Now. Was this in Houston?

Speaker 5 (01:33:11):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:33:11):
Okay, oh man? Was this at the end of your
Houston tenure? UH were talking me? Yeah, do you want to.

Speaker 3 (01:33:20):
Talk about you want to move on? No, I tell
you so we can move on. I basically got myself
traded from Hoon. I basically got myself traded from Houston.

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
I called UH, I called Darryl, and I called uh
the coach d'An tona to tell him somebody could come
end up playing on the team with us. But what
happened was Darryl Daryl called Daryl called me while I
was in Vegas, right, And what's crazy is Shaye. I

(01:33:53):
seen Shaye in Vegas. I seen Shaye in Vegas.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
So the night it started everything is when Kawhi went
to the Clippers and then Paul George got traded to
the Clippers, right, and so Russ was still in Okay see,
and Shae went to the trade Yeah, for the trade.
So I actually talked to Rust that night. But then

(01:34:16):
I seen Shae in Vegas. When I seen Shaye, I
wapped up Shaye. I was like, shay Man, it's gonna
be good for you man. You're gonna get the hoop.
You're gonna get to do your thing, okay. See. So
then I go over to the gym to work out.
I'm in Vegas and Darryl called me. Daryl was like, hey, Chris,
I was just calling you to because we was trying
to figure out if we could possibly get Russ to

(01:34:38):
what's his name in Houston. He was like, I was
just calling you. What do he say, just to make
sure you wouldn't want to go to Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:34:44):
See.

Speaker 3 (01:34:45):
I was like, no, wow, I didn't moved fifteen people
to Houston. And he was like, okay, I was just
making sure. He was like, I would never trade you
to somewhere you ain't want to go because you chose
to come to us from the Clippers, right. I chose
to go to Houston from Lay So that's what he

(01:35:05):
had said to me. So then I go down to
Peach Jam. I'm in Atlanta at Peach Jam and you
know Colin Sexty. Colin had came down to Peach Jam
to work out with me, and I'm at the house
at the house chilling and I was on the phone
with Jada and next thing you know, Luke it said

(01:35:26):
that I was getting traded.

Speaker 2 (01:35:28):
And then my phone started ringing, and it was Darryl calling.

Speaker 3 (01:35:31):
You were getting traded to Okay. See, yeah, so I
ain't no, I ain't know. Then Daryl called me, phone
started ringing. It was Darryl called me, and Darryl like,
I told you, I'm very matter of fact. Daryl was like,
hey man, it just moved so fast, you know, that's
what he said, moved so fast. I said, it's all good.
I said, I just want you to tell me one thing.
You said, you weren't going to trade me right to Okay.

(01:35:53):
See he said, yeah, I said that, But I said,
that's all I needed to know. Yeah, well that's that. Yeah, okay,
but that happens, right, So unfortunately it has. But it's
part of the business. It's part of the business or whatnot.

Speaker 1 (01:36:09):
I think that's important to share because athletes who listen
to this podcast they need to understand, even Hall of
famers and future Hall of famers, it's a part of
the business for them as well. Right, do what someone
tells you probably ain't gonna be, probably ain't gonna hold true, right,
Like you know, I left Miami for a lot of
reasons because you buy into what people tell you, and

(01:36:31):
then when it doesn't show up in the way that
you wanted to.

Speaker 2 (01:36:34):
Now your feelings are hurt. Yeah, it's that.

Speaker 3 (01:36:38):
And I think when you've been playing for a while
or whatnot, and you sort of understand the business right
like you know, like when you played for a while,
like you know how to the trade calls happen. You
know how everybody always say it just moves so fast,
like we sort of know how it goes, you know
what I'm saying, Like we've got agents, we know the

(01:36:59):
phone calls happen, and then there's a whole trade call
that's got to happen. What Chris, Yeah, I think I
think it's just hard. I think it's hard conversations that
have to be had. And you know what they said,
Tom Heals you know certain things or whatnot.

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
But you you learn.

Speaker 1 (01:37:23):
Through your programs that you have and I don't know
you know exactly which one, but through your you know,
your your camp that you have through your AU program,
you have a lot of guys that's in the pros
from that right through your point guard you do your
your top point Guard camp.

Speaker 2 (01:37:39):
Thank you for letting my son come to that camp
one year.

Speaker 1 (01:37:42):
But through that you have a lot of guys who
are now in the pros and it's amazing, it's celebrated.
But is this a part of the conversations that you
guys have about the business of the game of basketball?
You know, because now they're there and they get drafted
by a team. Have you had these conversations with these
young guys about this side of it? Because you are
you know this side better than anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:38:03):
Right, Yeah, I try to, but you just never know
a different guy situation. You're saying, do I have these
conversations with the young with the young because you've been
around them for so long? You around a lot of
these star players now you've been around them, so they
were young. You know them when they were when they
was young jets, and so I just want to know,
in the process of not just talking about basketball the

(01:38:23):
relationship y'all have, do you give this veteran leadership to
them about the other side of the game about Yeah,
I try to as much as possible, because uh man,
I got fourteen our kids that came through.

Speaker 2 (01:38:34):
Our AU program. That's amazing. They're playing the NBA now.

Speaker 3 (01:38:38):
But it's crazy, I mean, Grant Grant Williams, because a
lot of these kids would come part of my family
right which they are. But you know, when they get
to the league, I try to give them their space too,
you know, I'm not trying to hover like Gg Jackson
is one of our kids. And yeah, yeah, Gg was
still calling me coach at one point, you know what

(01:39:00):
I mean. But he's such a great kid man and
to see his path, everybody's path is different. Gg played
Peach jam a couple of years ago, skipped his senior
year of high school, went straight to South Carolina. Now
he's in the NBA, you know, getting a chance. But
you try to tell them as much as possible, is
as much as they can digest. But I've almost also

(01:39:22):
took the approach of letting them go through their process
and just being I tell them all the time, I
ain't gonna because I know the pressure of when you
get to town, feeling like you got to come to
dinner with me, you know what I mean, or something
like that, And I don't ever do that. I don't
ever want to smother them. I don't never want them
to feel like they got to come see me or
something like that. There I don't care if my phone

(01:39:46):
ring and it's them, if it's a text message, I
don't care what's going on.

Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
I'm gonna see about it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
I think the one thing that as I look back
on my career, I look back at we have veterans
when we came in the league. It's a little different
now because the game has went a little younger and
we had like vets there, and I learned a lot
from my vets. A lot of how I moved through
life I learned from my vets. And so it's important
that you have that. And for all everybody who's out

(01:40:13):
there listening to this, it's important that you actually take
up guys on that. If you get a guy phone number,
if you got access to a guy who has done
it before, you, please please please take them up on
just information that they can give you about the business
of this game and about the game itself, how to
take care of your body and all these things. But
the business of the game is something that I'm learning

(01:40:34):
on the other side now, and it's things that I
was like, if I'd knew this, I would have done
this differently. I would have had different conversations in contract
negotiations because I know these things. And so please reach
out to guys so they can help you learn how
to do your career a little better than we've been
doing it.

Speaker 3 (01:40:50):
In a sence, You're exactly right, And that's what's been
cool about this whole process. Like, I mean, I the
Union presidency for a while. Yeah, it was stressed for
it was a lot, but it was learning. Like I've
been playing in the NBA, but I've been in a
business class on steroids for all these years, having direct
conversations with all these different owners, you know what I'm saying,

(01:41:10):
Like direct conversations and some of them being willing to teach, right,
But they was only willing to teach because I asked questions,
you know, and you think about you think about you
got family, you got business, you got you ain't got
a lot of time, right, So I try to tell
people all the time, I'm not really going out like
trying to seek people to give them this advice to right,

(01:41:33):
So you realize, you gotta it's got to be somebody
who wants it. They got they got to come to you.
You can't go tap them and be like, hey, young fellow,
you want me to teach you about some stuff?

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
You know? Like that?

Speaker 3 (01:41:45):
No, but if you like, hey, man, like that's That's
what happened with me and Shay, right, So when I
was in Okay see Shay and Dort and Bays, I'm
gonna tell you, man, it's gonna sound crazy. There is
basly was a rookie of mind when I played in
Okay See Bays had been in the G League this
past year or whatnot. And it was literally maybe like
two weeks ago, and I hadn't talked to Baze in

(01:42:05):
a while in a while. Baye just sent me a
text out to Blue and he was just like, Yo,
see hit me, I need to talk to you about something.
And I would never say this to him or whatnot,
but I like got excited.

Speaker 1 (01:42:17):
You know what I mean, you just said it to him.
What you just said it about?

Speaker 3 (01:42:21):
Yeah, no, probably paying attention to it. But guys like that,
who you know, you just have so much love for
and you sort of letting them go through their own experiences.
It's cool to know that, you know, if they really
just need some advice on something, they reach out to you.

Speaker 1 (01:42:39):
So I tell people all the time, it's not a
lot of people who call me your face timey that
I'm gonna pick up with el from texting me asking me,
can they call the face timey? But CP is one
of those people who would just FaceTime you, no question.
And I say that to say. One thing I know
about you is you are a relationship person. You really
take your relationships and you you mold the relationships you

(01:43:02):
you know, you reach out to these relationships and you
have relationships with you know, obviously in the basketball world,
but you have relationships with Bob Iger, Disney, President Obama,
Michael Jordan, like Jay Z, like the list goes on
and on. And those relationships that you have, how do you,
besides reaching out, how do you utilize those relationships.

Speaker 3 (01:43:24):
One of the biggest things I learned years ago, right
with some of the people that you name, is as
important as we all think we are in our heads,
we can get lonely at times too, you know what
I mean, Because most people don't call a Texas because
they like, oh, they're busy, they such and such.

Speaker 2 (01:43:44):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:43:44):
I learned that with Bob a long time ago. And
Jay you know what I'm saying. You know, you like
I I first like would talk to them. I would
text hm and be like, all right, that probably hit
me back tomorrow. And then you'd be like yo, and
then they'd be like, yo, what's up. You'd be like,
oh what right?

Speaker 2 (01:43:58):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:43:59):
You and you don't realize that people have downtime too,
and a lot of people ain't checking on them, you
know what I mean. So that's that's a real thing,
like because I know a lot of times, man, you
send voice notes or whatnot, and we spend most of
our lives providing and taking care of others. So when
you find somebody that will rarely every now and then

(01:44:21):
just check you in.

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
On you, man, right, you cherish that.

Speaker 3 (01:44:24):
You cherish that when you get back to your phone
after practice or something like that, because all you to
known is work right. We go out, have a great
night such and such, we're like, I've got to be
at the gym a seven. You just know, work right.
So when you find somebody that will just text you
cause they don't want nothing right, and they just like, hey,

(01:44:45):
I don't want nothing, just checking in on you. You know,
some people will say that to you and then you
be like, oh, appreciate it. Then they hit you with it,
but you know why.

Speaker 2 (01:44:51):
You're here it while you got you. I got you,
while I got you.

Speaker 3 (01:44:56):
So when you find them relationships like that where you
can just genuinely check on people. Man, you you cherish
and especially because there are a lot of relationships that
are surface level or transactional.

Speaker 2 (01:45:10):
And what's crazy is people don't realize.

Speaker 3 (01:45:12):
In the NBA, you have a lot of teammates and
stuff like that over the years, and you try to
cultivate those relationships.

Speaker 2 (01:45:19):
But like what you and UD is different, you know
what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:45:22):
Sometimes guys are just teammates and that is okay, it's
perfectly okay. But when you find them them relationships that's
real and genuine, you gotta shape it and mold it.

Speaker 2 (01:45:41):
Before I get to my last questions about you got
anything else?

Speaker 6 (01:45:43):
Yeah, I want to talk a little bit more about
because you've been building out your your business porfolio for
quite some time.

Speaker 2 (01:45:48):
Production beyond meat and just a.

Speaker 5 (01:45:53):
Bunch of venture capital programs.

Speaker 6 (01:45:55):
Like how what was your foresight into that as you
were kind of shaping your like your career.

Speaker 2 (01:46:00):
Yeah, so that was a part of my last question.

Speaker 1 (01:46:03):
I mean, you you're very you know, you're very involved
to your foundation obviously everything you do with the HBCUs
and all those things. So you found time in the
midst of being one of the greatest players ever played,
you found time to build out these other ventures in
your life that it will prepare you for what's next.

Speaker 3 (01:46:21):
How have you done that and how have you found
time to do that as well? Man, It's funny because
I'm still learning, right. As much as people may think
I know whatnot, I know a lot about certain things,
but I'm still learning. And I think one of the
things that I always pay attention to, like I say
with guys who have retired, like yourself or whatnot, is

(01:46:43):
because and even Dre I'll say you this about dre
Igodala right doing the union stuff. Now, when I was
the president of the union, man, they would call me
with things or issues that was going on in the
office in New York, right, and I'm like, I'm in LA,
how can I manage this? And so I feel like
when you get done playing, you have a lot more

(01:47:05):
time to really dedicate to what's going on. Right, So
like Dre being in the office now, he gets an
opportunity to really see what's going on. So when it
comes to business, I think for me, I'm just always
asking questions, right, And when I came into league, I
do an endorsement deal because you're just trying to get
a check. It was kind of transactional. Now it's about

(01:47:27):
looking at the overall business.

Speaker 2 (01:47:29):
Right. So now with the NBA and knowing like what
the media rights deal, all this different type stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:47:35):
I've been on the Competition committee for fifteen years, right,
for fifteen years, I've helped beside the rules of the game.
So when you think about the play in tournament, the
n Season Tournament, I'm involved with the All Star Game rules,
all Star Game rules, like the business of the game,
and just seeing like the courts, right, Like everybody sees
the courts that the n Season Tournament games were on.

(01:47:58):
Now I'm a part of the calls where it's like, okay,
at some point these courts might be able to be
sold to companies, right, which is just more revenue. Right,
So when anything comes to business or whatnot, That's the
way my mind works, and I try to be as
involved as possible. Now because and I say this all

(01:48:20):
the time, Man and me and Adam have sort of went.

Speaker 2 (01:48:23):
Back and forth.

Speaker 3 (01:48:23):
This is for a whole other conversation, but we're at
I mean, everybody's not Hall of Fame. Shout out to
you and just prime time players or whatnot. But we're
usually our most valuable as.

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
A player for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:48:38):
Right, So, as exactly, my analogy is always like if
you play in LA or something like that for the
Lakers or something like that, and you call Noble mallebu
and you on a reservation, they probably gonna find you
a table. But if you call and say, yo, I
used to play for the Lakers, they hold one second, please,
you know, And it's just it's just one of those

(01:49:00):
things where as a current player, you got to try
to leverage what you can, you know, and that means
in business, that means you know this person who's the
CEO of this company, go do a meeting with him.
And you know, it's hard though, because you're trying to
be the best player that you can be, right especially
as a young kid.

Speaker 2 (01:49:21):
The coach is telling you to work.

Speaker 3 (01:49:23):
Out, you're trying to manage finance, you're trying to make
sure your mama got this, You're trying to make sure
all this. But if you can find time, go go
sit down and listen.

Speaker 1 (01:49:33):
Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is and I
tell people all the time, is you know, we've been
trying to get our master's degree and being you know,
the greatest athletes that we can become. We don't have
time to get our master's degree in business. But if
you actually do that, if you actually take these opportunities
to go sit and listen and learn, you get in
real time master's degree.

Speaker 2 (01:49:54):
Like right now, I'm in business school in life.

Speaker 1 (01:49:57):
And you know, that's the opportunity we have because of
the career we have. And so I tell people that
all the time. It's like, understand what you don't know.
And what you don't know is you don't know business.
But we are in business, like we all a lot of
us are getting in visibly, we're involved in it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:09):
We don't know it. And you don't always want to
allow others.

Speaker 1 (01:50:13):
To just tell you about your business, no question, you
want to know your business and tell them about your business.

Speaker 3 (01:50:18):
And when you do that, it's crazy because everyone talks
about everything except for business.

Speaker 2 (01:50:26):
Right. So we played in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago,
and we had another game in Philly. So instead of flying,
we drove.

Speaker 3 (01:50:34):
Right, you know, everybody get their iPads on the bus
and were like, oh we got man, we got a
two hour ride. We're gonna watch the show on the
back of the bus. It was the dopest thing ever.
I was in the back, Draymond was sitting on the
other side. Jerome Robinson was in the seat in front
of that, and Trace Jackson a couple of my younger teammates.

Speaker 2 (01:50:52):
Nobody watched the DVD A movie.

Speaker 3 (01:50:54):
We literally talked about the business things that we have
going on and being in the locker room for so long.
You know, guys in the locker room talk about everything
but business and money.

Speaker 2 (01:51:04):
Right, Nobody talking about it.

Speaker 3 (01:51:06):
They watches girls, music, all this different type stuff. But
we got to normalize that because guys don't talk about
that stuff because.

Speaker 2 (01:51:17):
They don't want to put their pride aside, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:51:19):
They scared to ask, you know, and when you find
a guy who wants to add even you know, even
some of the prominent guys. Right, some of the prominent
guys might be making the big money, but they still
don't know nothing about business. So we got to somehow
normalize those conversations.

Speaker 1 (01:51:36):
I always say, one of my favorite moments in my
career was sitting on the plane with James Jones, Mike Miller,
bron U, d CB, all of us sitting there and
we were talking about business, and normally guys.

Speaker 2 (01:51:51):
Don't talk about it.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
And while I was talking, we were talking about insecurities,
you know what I mean. I was talking about my insecurities.
I was like, man, I'd have went through it divorce.
I done lost this. I don't lost that. And Mike
was like, but you still you got you just signed
this deal. How much you got left? You got fifty
million left? You can do We start talking about it
and start telling me you should do this, you should
think about this, And bro I walked off that plane
that day and I was just like, Yo, that was
one of the greatest moments that we've had outside of

(01:52:15):
winning the championship, because we always helping each other, and
we've all been vulnerable with each other because we all
deal with the same things. Yeah, you know what I mean.
May look a little different, but a lot of it's
the same. And so those conversations, you know, obviously needs
to be had had more. But everyone wants to hold
their cars so close to their chest because they don't
want to look less than exactly right. They want to
look weak. And because we all got to be so

(01:52:36):
mancho and we got to be superheroes, and so these
conversations they definitely need to be had, they definitely be.

Speaker 3 (01:52:41):
Shout out, that's crazy. You just said that. Shout out
to Rudy gay Man.

Speaker 2 (01:52:44):
Rudy. Rudy has been like my brother for a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:52:47):
And I'm telling you, every time we talk's talk about
our family life for a second. But it's it literally
always goes to something business.

Speaker 2 (01:52:56):
Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:52:57):
It's dope because it just keeps your mind a sharp
on all the other things.

Speaker 1 (01:53:02):
So when I started an interview, I talked about you
as a dad. I talked about you as a dad,
but I talked about look, Chris and that dynamic. Talk
to me about the dynamic with your daughter, because that's
a whole different dynamic. Talk about being a girl dad,
and how you she's an athlete as well.

Speaker 2 (01:53:25):
You say.

Speaker 3 (01:53:27):
It's different, is very different. And I'm one of two boys, right,
So I wanted a boy, right, just because that's what
I knew. I knew me and CJ dynamics. I wanted
another little boy. So little Chris hasked somebody to wrestle
with and fight with. Come to find out, having a daughter,
he still had somebody, right, and I could not imagine

(01:53:52):
life without her, without her, and it's crazy how quick
things change and to see her. And I've always loved kids,
always love kids. So she's eleven, Chris is fourteen. I
always wanted like a daddy's little girl, right, But because
I was gone all the time, and like growing up,
you know, Chris was always with me at the gym

(01:54:12):
and I would ask Cam, like, come here, come here.
She's always been up under Jada, right, always been up
under Jada. And it's probably about four years ago, maybe
three yeah, maybe like four years ago that or three
years ago, whatever it was. But she really started to
like gravitate to me, like if she got sleepy. I
always wanted to be the one to hold her, but

(01:54:32):
she want to go to mama. She want to go
to her mama. And it's just been so cool to
see the relationship that we have. Like the days that
I would come home, because this is my fifth year
living away, so the days that I would come home
and I would take her to school, you know, I'd
be like, Cam, you want me to walk you into school?
And I was just prepared for her to say no, right,

(01:54:55):
because she's also like she don't want all that attention
going to her dad and whatever. And I remember I
asked her one day, I said, Cam, you want me
to walk you on the school? She said yes, and
I was like, okay, here we go.

Speaker 2 (01:55:08):
Here we got excited.

Speaker 3 (01:55:09):
Brox got out the car to walker into school and
she held my hands right And I'm not getting news
bumps over here now because it's just it's different. And
to see how sweet she is, like she is a
sensitive thug, you.

Speaker 2 (01:55:25):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (01:55:26):
But she.

Speaker 2 (01:55:29):
It's different.

Speaker 3 (01:55:29):
Like I said, I've always been like like all boy.

Speaker 2 (01:55:33):
So to see her and to see how.

Speaker 3 (01:55:39):
Like aren't seeing stuff she is like she gets up
in the morning, she usually makes up her bed, she
will open the blinds and all this stuff. And that's
what me and her got in common. She an early bird.
She wake up early. Jade and little Chris will sleep.

Speaker 2 (01:55:52):
To tomorrow, you know what I mean. But me and
Cam we get up. Me and Cam we get up.
We add it.

Speaker 3 (01:55:58):
And so now for the past five years is FaceTime
every morning on the way to school, right, which is hard,
but it's something. And to see how I always tell
her every morning when I see her, I'll be like, oh,
you have fried chicken this morning, because I still cannot
grasp around my mind that my little baby puts on

(01:56:18):
lip gloss or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:56:19):
She not the chapstick, I don't know. She calls it
mask before night they mask.

Speaker 3 (01:56:27):
Now she got her whole routine, all this stuff that
I ain't ready for. But I mean, she is the
most beautiful, gorgeous thing I've ever seen in my life.
So to see her and to see how competitive she is.
I remember we was in the NBA Finals and she
called me one day on FaceTime and sat up her
phone and she is like crazy competitive too, and she

(01:56:49):
was trying to dribble the ball between her legs, right.
She kept trying, and you know, as a dad, I'm
gonna just stay on there. You got it, keep going,
keep going. And so then I think I had to
go to like team meeting.

Speaker 2 (01:57:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:57:02):
It might have been like a couple of hours later.
She sent me along, but she sat there and tried
to learn how to driple between her legs forever, and
she did it, you know. But she's just she's very creative,
very thoughtful and.

Speaker 2 (01:57:17):
Right and soccer.

Speaker 3 (01:57:20):
She didn't did everything, but she she didn't pretty much.
I think got it down to like soccer and basketball.

Speaker 1 (01:57:26):
Okay, My last question is always what you think that
you own is the why. And so as we sit
here on your brother's podcast, what's your why?

Speaker 2 (01:57:40):
Yeah? My why. It's crazy because it changes, it evolves.

Speaker 3 (01:57:45):
At one point in life you think it's this, it's that,
you know, one point it was like, you know, I
just want to make my kids proud or whatnot, which
that's part of it. But I think at this point,
like my my family, and when I say that that's
like my extended family, I more say like my community.
I start to realize when I'm like happiest, right, And

(01:58:07):
once upon a time it was and it's still. Basketball
is still my happy place, But my happiest is when
I'm around like my community, right, the people that I love, Like,
I want.

Speaker 2 (01:58:17):
To see them thriving.

Speaker 3 (01:58:18):
It's like they always say, like, if you're thriving and
nobody else around you, then that.

Speaker 2 (01:58:22):
Ain't it at all. That ain't it.

Speaker 3 (01:58:25):
So I think for me, what I want to make
sure or try to help as much as possible, is
to make sure my people are like thriving, you know,
so that you able to go to dinners and all
this stuff like that and everybody enjoy themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:58:39):
And you going on these trips and vacations or.

Speaker 3 (01:58:42):
Whatever, and everybody is, you know, thriving and feel good
about themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:58:47):
And that is everybody to point God. Chris Paul bro

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2. In The Village

3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest

All Episodes

The Point God, Chris Paul

1. The Podium