From the Houston Rockets, it's Asst. Coach, Ben Sullivan!

This week, Johnjay is RIDING THE BENCH with Ben Sullivan! He's the Asst Coach with the Houston Rockets. They're chatting everything from college hoops to why they had to record so late! You're RIDING THE BENCH!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, thank you for tuning into my writing The Bench podcast, a
sports podcast. Now it's been abouta year or so since I did the
podcast, but I was fortunate enoughto sit down with assistant coach from the
Houston Rockets, Ben Sullivan. Wetalked about so many things. I mean,
his career from being like a videointern for the Spurs to becoming assistant

(00:21):
coach for the Rockets is unbelievable.He was also part of the team of
the Milwaukee Bucks when he beat thePhoenix Suns. So you're gonna hear his
journey. You're gonna hear how heworked his butt off, how he worked
for free, how what he hadto do to become and go where he
is now. You're gonna hear aboutwhat it's like working with toxic players.
Do coaches listen to you? Doesa head coach listen to you? All

(00:42):
kinds of cool stuff in this podcast, So thank you for listening. This
is my interview with Ben Sullivan,assistant coach for the Houston Rockets, and
you're riding the bench. It's theshow, after the show, about the
show. John Jean Rich presents afterwards. So I'll paint the picture. Your
friend Pat here. My wife Blakeis here because it's seven o'clock at night.

(01:03):
And by the way, I'm waylaid back with the podcast path,
so it's okay if your phone rings, but we might have to have you
okay. So the way this podcaststarted, just to give you a little
background is so I have three boysmy parents. My mom is from Mexico
and my dad's with Netherlands. SoI came out looking white like my dad,

(01:23):
right, But my mom was likeMexic Mexi, Mexican, and my
dad didn't have time to teach sportsto me, and he didn't know.
He only knew soccer right, andhe loved basketball. Loved basketball, so
I would shoot hoops with them everyonce in a while. We'd go to
the park shoots. But I neverlearned rules. I never did anything.
And then being an American citizen growingup here au Macley Junior High. In
high school, he played football.I didn't anything about football. I played

(01:44):
it. I sucked because I didn'tknow anything about football. So as I
grow up and I get married andhave kids, I never got into sports.
Never. But my first job inradio was at a sports radio station.
So I've been learning little bits andpieces right. So now I have
three boys. My oldest boy intoMMA and in to he was an Eagle
scout. He's into survival, shootingguns and that cars right. Second kid

(02:05):
got into basketball, Third kid gotinto basketball, got into all sports.
But they're all sports guys. AndI was always looking for way to connect
to my kids, and so Ithought I'd go sports. So I've been
trying to learn as much about sportsas I can. So them getting into
basketball, I didn't know anything.And when they got into AAU, I
really didn't know anything. So Ithought, how can I And I searched
everywhere and I couldn't find anything thathas meteor that had the questions I was

(02:28):
looking for. So I al asuddenI was like, wait a minute,
I got this radio show. Whydid you start interviewing people? And I
will learn and maybe there's people inthe same boat. And as I started
doing this podcast, I was gettingmessages from dads and actually basketball people and
all around the country tell me thatthis is the podcast. So got to
My son now plays basketball in college, and I've kind of the last interview

(02:49):
I did was with Javal McGee cameover to my house to interview there during
COVID and it was really cool,but it's kind of faded a little bit.
But I feel like the gods havepushed me back to the podcast,
so I'm gonna relaunch it with youand Sullivan assistant coach of the Houston Rockets.
That that's the title. Yeah,that's right, that's right, assistic.
So you're trying to do this retroactively, like your kids got into sports.
If you didn't know anything about sportsand now you're trying to learn afterwards

(03:12):
after a little bit. Yeah,okay, Like I was just talking to
myself last on the way here.He played last night. He didn't they
play, He didn't play for verylong. What position does he play?
Shooting guard? And they put himin at the end of the first half,
and this how old is he?He is twenty? Right? And
what school he goes to? HawaiiPacific D two And he got a block,

(03:34):
right, and it was a beautifulblock. And I'm trying to connect
with him, so I'm like hisin the past. I'm always like,
come, they didn't play longer,why aren't they playing you? Well,
you got to see this on TV. I saw it online and so they
broadcast their games online. Yeah,okay, cool, but it's three hours,
like it was eleven o'clock, andI would I went to the Houston
Sun's game last night. Yeah,and I came home and I watched him

(03:54):
live. That's great. Yeah.So I didn't go to bed till late
and I get up early. SoI thought i'd just, you know,
ask you a bunch of questions aboutstuff that maybe you're stupid, not stupid,
stuff about your career, just stuff, you know, stuff about working
with players that have egos that don'thave egos, to how you got to
where you are now, growing upin Portland, all that stuff. Yeah,
whatever you got, and let's doit. Okay, First, do

(04:15):
you know how I connect with you? How I met with I was telling
my wife this story with your aboutyour wife. Yeah, this is uh,
I'm here because of my wife,right. But I was on the
air telling a story about people namedBailey. I was like, I was
like, there's I'm watching this showon Apple TV and the girl's name is
Bailey and the husband calls her Bailsand it feels like it's forced. And
I was like, I don't thinkpeople call people bales. I do,

(04:36):
And she said I do all thetime. So she said, and the
show. I was like, noway. She was us me bails more
than anything. And then and thenalso she was telling me about you being
a coach. I was like,no way. And I was like,
you guys ever come to town.I love to interview, so thanks for
coming. Yeah I know. Shewas like, you have to do it.
So I was like, well,I want to do it. And
then she's like she got super excited. She's a huge fan. She has

(04:59):
a show on all the time.I'm especially when she's getting ready or you
know, doing stuff around the house. Listen to you guys, Like she's
she's a mega fan. I wouldsay, So, how's Houston. We
lived in Houston for a few years. I love Houston, you do.
I love living in Texas. Ilove the warm weather. Pat and I
were just talking about that. Youknow, places like Arizona, Texas,
Georgia where you get good weather eightor nine months out of the year where

(05:20):
it's nice and warm, the wintersare mild, like, I don't know,
it's hard to beat. Well.When we lived in Houston for four
years, and one thing I lovedabout it was the food. It was
crazy food there. Oh, thefood's incredible. I love the culture,
I love the diversity, I lovethe open roads. Like I don't know,
I've just I've really enjoyed it.I actually lived in San Antonio for
two years when I worked for theSpurs, but now I'm back in Texas

(05:42):
in Houston. So do you likepinch yourself that you're, like, you
know, on the on the comeup, like you probably got that you're
probably getting the next head coach jobsomewhere, don't you think? Oh,
I don't know, I do.Like there are moments in games and so
like you know, I've been veryblessed and fortune, and it's to be
a part of a lot of goodteams that have won a lot. I've
been to the finals four times.I've won twice, I've lost twice.

(06:08):
And there are times when you're youknow, in the playoffs or in a
finals game. I was most recentlywith the Celtics before here, and we
were in the finals and it's BostonGarden and you know, you're playing a
game. They do the intros andI'm getting actually goosebumps thinking about it right
now, and like the crowd's chanting. They're playing this song and like it's
it's just a truly incredible environment.And I'm standing there on the floor and

(06:31):
sometimes I'm like, I can't believeI'm here right now in this moment.
Yea, And that doesn't happen allthe time, because I've been doing this
now this is my I think twelfthyear, and so those moments happened almost
every day the first two three fouryears, where you're like, that's you
know, so and so and soand so, here comes Shaquille O'Neal walking
across the court. You know,like you're like, oh my god,

(06:51):
all these people you watch growing up, but they still do happen to this
day. That's great. I meanthe Boston Garden. Did you watch that
show on HBO called Winning Time?I watched the first season for sure,
maybe halfway through the seconds. Yeah, they canceled it, but I thought
it was so epic. I thoughtit was such a great show. I
liked it a lot, and itgot a lot of backlash and stuff in

(07:13):
the hoops world about like this guywasn't portrayed correctly and that thing. I
don't know. I was like,I thought it was a dramatization was of
events. It wasn't like a itdidn't try to sell itself. This is
a documentary of like this what actuallyhappened? This is for entertainment purposes,
right, But then the Lakers wentout and they put out their documentary on
all that stuff to the real lifethink. Yeah, so that's a documentary

(07:35):
of like what actually happened? Yeah, which seemed pretty similar to the show
I thought Winning Time was like,we're a show that you can watch for
entertainment, right, right, Soare your parents still around? Yeah?
And do you ever like call yourdad? I mean, like I'm assuming
you're a little growing up your dad. Shoot, who was to teaching basketball.
So my dad is from Boston.I was born in Boston and so

(07:58):
actually going there was like a nostalgicthing for me. So I was born
in nineteen eighty four. The Celticswon the title that year, we were
in Boston, and so like tobe able to wear the Celtics logo and
coach there after having been born thereand my dad being a Celtics fan,
that was a special. That's incredible. Yeah, your dad had to be
on a whole another level. Yeah. And he was a hockey, baseball

(08:20):
guy, and so you know,he you know, New England or hockey,
baseball, all that, and sohe he dabbled a little bit in
basketball, but like I just keptkind of growing and growing and like basketball
kind of called to me. Iremember being around eight or nine, and
then I think it was like seventhgrade I stopped playing other sports and then
it was just basketball full time.Nobody made me do anything. It was
just the one that I was like, I love. This is your dad

(08:43):
tall, your mom tall dad,six' five, Mom is like five
to five. Oh wow, areyou the tallest in your family? Yes?
What are you? Six' tensix' nine, six' nine.
And so then you played Where'd youplayed collegeball? I started at calcad
Northridge my freshman year. That's inthe San Fernando Valley, and then I
transferred and went to the University ofPortland and I played there for three years,

(09:03):
one recher year, so I wasthere for four How'd you get into
coaching? So it's funny. Thisis a story that I've told a few
times, and I actually hated coachesgrowing up. And there's a number of
different reasons. One, I playedlike a shooting big, Like I wanted

(09:24):
to be outside the three point lineand shoot threes, which is totally common
now, but at the time thatI was a player, it was not
common. And a lot of coacheswere like, hey, you're tall,
you should be near the basket.And they were kept saying, you know,
post up, go down there,rebound, duck in, be around
the basket. And I was alwayslike, I'll do that some but I

(09:45):
don't want to only do that.And so there was a constant kind of
butting of heads with a lot ofdifferent coaches, and not all coaches.
Some coaches I played for they sawwhat I did and how I played and
then let me do that, andother coaches wanted me to just be around
the hoop. And that's where alot of came in. And then the
second thing was that I didn't realizethis until I became a coach, was

(10:05):
that I wanted to semi coach ateam when I was a player, like
we should do this, we shoulddo that, like that. I was
just strong willed, stubborn. Youknow, I wasn't the greatest. I'm
sure to work with always either asa player, but was there an opening
and you put a resume in orif somebody called you. So the way
that coaching actually started was I finishedplaying overseas. I was twenty four.

(10:28):
I was with Bailey. We werejust dating or together. I don't know
what the grown up word is forgoing steady. I don't know. And
so I was working a regular job. And this was right around that recession
in like eight maybe yeah. Andso I had a degree and I thought
I could get a job with that, but the job market was really tough

(10:50):
around then. I did a doublemajor in finance and accounting, and I
was just trying to get like afinancial advisor job or an investment analyst job
or something boring I would have endedup hating. And Bailey suggested to me,
She's like, why don't you trycoaching? And I was like I
thought about it for a little bit, you know, day, two,
week, whatever, I can't rememberexactly, and I was like, you

(11:13):
know what, I'm going to giveit a try. And so I called
my old high school coach and likeUS we Go, and was like,
hey, I think I want totry coaching. Do you have anything and
he's like, yeah, I needa sixth grade boys coach. And so
the way it worked in Portland,Oregon, well like US we Go Oregon,
was that the high school coach kindof figured out who the coaches were
in the younger level so it couldlike feed up because those kids that are

(11:35):
going to be sixth grade will bein seventh grade and then eighth grade and
then be part of their program.So they want good coaches around the youth
players so they could develop fundamentals andgrow the game. And I started with
sixth grade, and funny enough,do you remember Terry Porter, his son
was on the team. And thenso I remember it's late at night or

(11:58):
around six o'clock. I have myfirst practice. I decided to coach his
boys team. And I have abag of balls and like some cones,
and I have no plan that goingin there, I have no idea what
I'm about to do. I haven'tworked with kids, I haven't done anything.
And so I pull up and I'mlike, all right, we're gonna

(12:18):
I'm just gonna figure out what thesekids can and can't do and see what
level they're at. And I justremember, after five minutes, I was
absolutely in love with what I wasdoing, like just getting them organized,
helping them grow. We're working onlayups, passes, jump stops, all
these things, and like the itwas a sixty minute practice. It felt
like it went by like five orten minutes. So how's it go from

(12:39):
sixth grade to the Houston Rockets,right? So I remember calling my wife
right after I'm on the way home, and I'm like or not. She
wasn't my wife? Wife? Nowmy girlfriend at the time. And I
was like, this is what Iwant to do. I want to be
a coach. And so the firstgoal was I want a coach to pay
the bills. I was like,I don't know what that looks like,

(13:00):
high school, college, whatever.I just want to be a coach.
And so I just started working atit. So I coach sixth grade boys,
and I have a day job atthat point working for a construction company.
So I work from like seven pointthirty to three on a salary.
I'm an office manager for a smallconstruction company, which really means I'm the
VP, I'm the payroll, i'maccount receivable, I'm doing everything. It's

(13:22):
a small company. It's like threepeople in the executive branch, the president,
the GM, and me, andso I'm doing that job during the
day. Then at night I coachedsixth grade boys. That whole year goes
by. Then in the summer,I coach AAU the following year. I
am still doing this day job.But my old college coach here is that

(13:43):
I'm coaching and I'm talking to youknow, coaches, saying I want to
coach and all that, and justtrying to get feelers out and he invites
me to be his video coordinator atUniversity of Portland. And he's like,
I have no money for you.I have nothing in the budget and I
have nothing, and I'm like,I don't care. I have a day
job. I can pay the billswith that. And so that was in

(14:03):
Portland. So my job was inVancouver or Washington. I would go to
there until about two thirty or three, then drive down back to Portland,
set up my video, go upin my little nook and record practice,
cut up all the video for thecoaches and everything, and I would get
done by about eight or nine anddrive home and I would do it all
over again. I did that fora whole year for free. Yeah,
for free, just being there's acommed denominated with people I've interviewed that busted

(14:26):
their butts for free. Yeah,that's the thing they had. There's like
a year of busting your butt forfree. Mine's three. That's year two.
Then year three, I get anoffer to go actually be a coach
and it's at a Division II programcalled Lewis and Clark. So I'm still
working my day job. I goto Lewis and Clark where now I have
to recruit. I have to wehave games at night, like we have

(14:46):
scouting plans and like real coaching stuff. But money too, a little bit
of my I think I got likefive grand or ten grand, I can't
remember exactly, so a little bit, but not nothing you can live on.
You still need another job to dothis job. So I'm like paying,
I'm like financing coaching by working adifferent job. And so I do
that, and I'm coaching AAU inthe summer. And then after the third

(15:09):
year, I got an offer togo to a JUCO to be the head
assistant. I was a second assistantat Lewis and Clark a D three,
and then I got an offer tobe a lead assistant at a JUCO.
And I'm like, okay, wehave a we just bought a house.
I'm a lead assistant out of juniorcollege. I'm a coach of an AU
program that's growing, like I'm setup here to just kind of figure out
my next move. By the endof that summer, I got a call

(15:31):
from email Udoka, who's now thehead coach of the Rockets, and he's
like, hey, we have anopening in our video room in San Antonio.
Do you know him at all oranything? Yeah, So from the
Portland basketball scene, I've known himfrom playing against him and working out with
the same people. Like we justkind of ran in the same circles.
And so I've known him since Iwas young fourteen, fifteen thirteen, I
don't remember exactly, but like theway basketball works in Portland is that it's

(15:54):
a small community. So like whereverthe pickup runs are, wherever the proram
games are, wherever it is,kind of the same group of people just
migrate there and go play. Okay, And so we all know each other
and like you know, play againsteach other for years, still play against
each other like the old timers,still get get up and down. And

(16:15):
so he calls me to go toSan Antonio. And the line that I'll
never forget was I called Michael Wolfe, who's now the head coach at Westview
High School in Oregon. He wasone of my assistants at University of Portland,
and I said, Hey, sanAntonio called me to go be in
their video room. And I waslike, the NBA had never been on
my radar. I was never like, oh, I want to be an
NBA coach. That I've never thoughtabout that. I guess I just didn't

(16:40):
dream of it or whatever. Itwas just not time I thought about.
And the line that he told methat stuck in my brain is he goes,
Hey, if san Antonio wants youin their video room, He's like,
I don't care if you have totake out a personal loan, Like
you need to go and do that. That would be the best thing that
ever happened to you. And hewas one hundred percent right. Isn't that
also kind of the same path thatthat Eric Spolstro was Like, wasn't he

(17:00):
a video guy for the Team Pro? Yeah? He started in video with
the Miami Heat. Yeah. There'ssomething about that, you know, when
you get into your foot in thedoor, that way you got to get
you foot in the door. Yeah. But what it helped me, and
this is what I tell people allthe time, is like the job that
you want, like you have todo the job that you have and be
a star at that, and thatwill prepare you for the next thing.
And so, like I coached sixthgraders. That helped me understand what coaching

(17:23):
kind of looks like. Then Iwent to University of Portland. I got
all these video technical skills that nowwhen I get to San Antonio, I
already know all the stuff. They'reusing the same software, the same platforms,
and so when I got there,I had the video technical skills.
I was still I think I wastwenty eight years old, and I was
able to get on the court andrebound and help guard and do all stuff.

(17:45):
So I could help the Spurs onthe court, I could help them
in the video. I got thejob, and you know, I've been
in the NBA ever since. Sonow your title is what assistant coaches head
assistant coaches. So when I gotthere, I was an intern. Oh
okay, I was a video intern. And so my job is to help
assistant coaches with whatever they want.Like literally, if they wanted me to

(18:07):
go get coffee, I would goget it. If they want me to
go do whatever, like cut thisgame up, go pick up my dry
clean, go do this stuff,and go do whatever. I was just
anything they wanted. I was justmy job. Was there to make their
lives easier. But you got tobeet like Papovich and all those dudes.
So when I was my first year, Mike Budenholzer was the lead assistant,
Brett Brown was the second, ande May was the third assistant, and

(18:27):
so all future head coaches. Wow, And Chip England was head of he
was the shooting coach, and Chadfours Here was the I think headed player
development was probably the title. Soat this time, is there anybody coaching
you and how to be a coach? Yeah? And so that was the
amazing thing. All those guys pourinto the video room. They help you
understand like why do you do things? Why are we doing scouting reports like

(18:49):
this? Why do we do practicelike this? Why am I teaching player
development like this? So you're soakingin everything from all these great future leaders,
for sure, And that's why Itell everyone going to San Antonio and
being in their video room was likegetting a massive's degree in basketball, and
so like I got to learn howto be a coach, how to be
a professional coach while I was there. I feel that similar type of thing,
like Steve Kerr being such a greatcoach because he was around loude Olsen

(19:11):
right then he was around Michael Jordanand Phil Jackson, and he was like
around all these he soak Yeah,so he learned all this stuff from these
people. You soak it in likea sponge, Right. That's why I
think, like, don't you thinkthat? And you probably want to say
this soon, but I would assumein the next five years there's gonna be
a head coaching job open and they'regonna come to you. That's just what

(19:32):
happens. I mean, I'm gonnasay this tape. That's the little place.
That's the dream. You know,you hope, but there's only thirty
of those jobs, and there's alot of deserving people, and you know,
you just hope to put yourself ina position to where you're one of
those people that they want. Seethat's the right answer. So I they
jump around and jump around from backthen to now. Like so last night
I was at the Sun's game.You were there last night Sun's Rockets game.
When the game's over, and you, guys, it wasn't a lot

(19:53):
it was it wasn't a win foryou guys. What happens is everybody just
get on a bus and go tothe hotel. Like what happens that ten
o'clock at night when it's over.So when the game's over, the players
go in the locker room, thecoaches go in the coach's room. We
talk about the game, what weliked and like, saw whatever, and
then we give our input to thehead coach and he goes out and gives

(20:14):
his message to the team. Ohso you give it to head coach.
He goes to the team and it'snot all of you. Yeah, well
we all go with him. Hegives a message to the team. We
break it down, you know,we shake hands and you know, like
win or lose, we stay together, high five and you know. But
then you go to the hotel andeveryone has an eye off or does everyone
stuff to be checked in? Andyou ever's bend. Oh that's that's college's
college. Yeah, this is aprofessional. These are grown men. Like

(20:37):
this is not that's your job.If you're go out and you party till
four in the morning and you're hurtingthe next day, you're hurting the next
day. Yeah, I don't know, right. What about recovery, Like
is that something that you guys pushon these players. Yeah, it's something
like if you work with the playerone on one, especially a young player,
you can kind of like teach himabout the importance of recovery, getting
in the ice bath, getting massages, lifting weights, eating right, getting

(20:57):
enough sleep, all those things.You talk to them about those stuff,
but like, at the end ofthe day, it's up to them to
kind of figure out what works bestfor them. Have you ever given a
player advice and they didn't take itand you get upset? Like are they
hungry to learn? Do they haveattitude? I mean every guy's different,
you know, Like some guys aresuper hungry. They're like, I want
to be the best possible I couldever be, and they're willing like everything,

(21:21):
They're soaking it all up like asponge like you said before. And
then some guys they you know,they're not as interested in certain aspects or
whatever. But you know, it'sup to east individual guy to figure out
what works for them. I wasat I was fortunate enough to be invited
to go to USA Basketball camp inColorado Springs one time with Phil Beckner,
you know Phil Beckner. Yeah,And so I was there and he was
introduced me to everybody, and wehad dinner with all these coaches and all

(21:42):
these people. But during one ofthe workouts, there was a kid there
that I didn't know anything about,these high school kids, and I was
like, this kid is unbelievable.Said I have to go talk to him.
So I went over and I talkedto him, and he was so
polite and he was so amazing.And I text myself, I said,
Hey, I just talked to soand so my son was like I can't
believe it, like he was embarrassedand I wouldn't talk to this kid and

(22:04):
it was Jalen Green. Oh reallyyeah? And I watched last night when
the game start, I saw youguys have that You're high five? Yeah?
Do you have a special high fivefor every player? I don't.
I don't have one with every player, No, but if a guy wants
to have one, I will doone. So how does that happen with
you and Jayleen Green? And howdo you did we talk about it or
whatever? And like, does hego I'll do this, you do this?
Yeah, I know we talk aboutit. He came up with it

(22:26):
and now we do it every time. That's you. But did you did
you ever mess up or do youget it all? We mess it up
sometimes, but you know we didmost of it right. I have to
tell you it looked really cool.Yeah, I was. I was trying
to film and I missed it andI was like, Dawn, I should
have got that. My son has. Two of my boys have the same
thing. They have. They havea different handshake for every player. Yeah,
and I think the players all haveone with each other. I don't

(22:49):
know, it's it just depends.It's like a connection thing. It is
a connection because I think it takesyou to a whole new level of different
relationship. I think it's something that'sa bond you have never shit. Yeah,
like if you see Jayleen Green thirtyyears so now you might have the
same handshake one hundred percent. Yeah, that's totally great. Man. You
being a young dad. Hold areyour kids seven and five? What's it
like And how hard is it beingon the team and traveling and being gone

(23:11):
a lot? Oh man, that'sthe hardest part, just being a way.
So I learned early on if you'regonna have a family in this business,
like you're just signing up to missstuff. You're just gonna miss certain
things. You're gonna miss first things, like the first time they do something,
it's gonna happen. What it teachesyou is a couple of things.

(23:32):
One, be present when you're there, h So make sure you're one hundred
percent there when you're with them,when you're home, you know you're there.
And then two, appreciate all thefirst and all the moments that you
do get. So like I wasable to go to my son's little league
game. I think it's probably stillT ball. It's kind of like a
hybrid. They throw a few pitcheswith the machine and then they get off
a tee if they can't hit it. And so I was able to be

(23:55):
there when he got his first hitoff the machine. So they pitch it
live and he got a hit,and he was so excited, and I
ran with him next to him,like on first but he's running first.
I'm running next to him, youknow, because the dads are kind of
out in the field. The kidsare five. They don't know what they're
doing, right. Baseball is complicatedto a five year old. So he
runs and he gets the first base. He's like, Dad, I've never
done that before. And I lifthim up in the sky and give him

(24:18):
a big hug, and it wasjust like it's a super special moment,
one that I'll never forget, andlike you have to just soak those up
when you do get them. Well, like, how long are you gone?
And I tell you one of thereasons, I say, is because
a friend of mine became the Idon't know his title, but he's the
trainer for the Suns, right okay, And he's a new dad. I'm
like, he's baby six months old. And I was like, hey man,
how's it going. So he's onlybeen doing this for about three or

(24:40):
four months, and I go,how's it going so far? He goes,
it's crazy, he goes, Buttomorrow we leave for fourteen days on
the road. And he's like,and that's so tough. He goes,
it's so tough. Like, no, so are you gone for fourteen days
too? Like what's the longest?Sometimes like there's probably I want to say,
two, maybe three of those,like double digit trips per year,

(25:00):
and it's tough. That's one ofthe unherlded things about the league is that
the moms, the moms that stayhome with the kids, they're single mothers
a lot of the time, andlike I wouldn't be able to have the
life that I have and do whatI do without my wife. Like she's
the one, she's the rock thatholds the whole house together. Do you
ever think she's the reason you're here? I mean, she's the one that

(25:21):
said you said she wanted to bea coach, Go do it. Yeah,
I mean I know she thinks thatshe's the reason that I'm here,
and she for sure is a huge, huge part of it. And I'm
definitely lucky to have her. Butit's a joint effort. We talked about
all the time, like how we'rea team, and like we cover for
each other at certain times, likeyou know, you're you're married with kids,

(25:42):
Like you know, you don't alwayshave your best day or she doesn't
always have her best day, andthen you cover for each other in terms
of, you know whatever, yougot to get each other's backs. And
we're no different, right and thenand then at the last minute, you
guys adopt a puppy. Oh god, I know. We We lost our
dear Sully Boy about a year ago, and it was Bailey's first dog.

(26:04):
She didn't want a dog and wewere just dating at the time and I
was like, I'm getting a dog, and so that's happening, and so
I get the dog. She's nota dog person, she's a cat person
growing up, and she falls absolutelyin love with this dog. And now
she's a huge dog person. Andafter a year, she's just been kind

(26:26):
of feeling like she wanted one.And we were out and we were supposed
to go to my daughter's game,and she's like, let's just stop at
the Humane Society. I saw thisdog. I want you to see it.
And then we get there and thenlike she falls in love with this
dog. It's a breed I've nevereven heard of. And we're driving away.
We look at the puppy. We'redriving away and she's like, oh

(26:48):
my heart, I just feel aconnection with this dog, Like I don't
know, I just feel like he'sthe one. I'm like, well,
then let's just get it, likeyou're clearly this is something that you want,
and so we turn around and getit. Turns out a couple was
right behind us saw us playing withthis dog, and they they grabbed his
adoption sheet. So we go backand like, we can't get him,

(27:12):
and so they're sitting in the waitingroom of the Humane Society, and the
way it works is like you getthe sheet, you take it, and
you wait to fill out the paperwork. And I'm like, I asked the
people who's working on I'm like,who grabbed that dog? And so they
point to me and they point himout, and I'm like, Okay,
my wife is gonna be devastated ifshe can't get this dog. And he

(27:32):
only caught. I think he costsone hundred and ninety five dollars his a
rescue, right. So I goup to them and I said, hey,
I think we were the ones lookingat this dog before you. And
they're like, yeah, you know, we saw you playing with the dog
and then we were just like,oh, he seems like a great dog.
We want to get him. AndI was like, I was like,
I gotta be honest with you,guys. My wife is like in
love with this dog. And Iwas like, is there anything I can

(27:55):
do? They're like, I don'tknow. I really like this dog and
everything, and I was like,all right, how about this? I
was four hundred dollars sound and thenthe the dad or the grandpa or whatever.
It was an older guy and ayounger lady could have been father and
daughter, Grandpa daughter, I don'tknow. And he just looks at me
and goes, well, money talks, dang, And then he gave me

(28:19):
the sheet. I gave him thecash and we just walked away. So
did you so did you have toYou didn't have to pay the Humane Society
as well? No, I didhave to pay the man. He gave
him four hundred and then you hadto pay the one ninety five of the
main society. Yeah, well,baby wants, baby gets and then and
then you left two days later forthe road or were you there? Did
you have the dog for a while? Oh yeah, it was like two

(28:40):
days and then and I'm out,and he's like, we didn't think this
through very well. I was like, well, honey, you have the
dog that you wanted. So,oh you guys, that's good people.
He has good people. Hey,let me let me ask you about height
and how important heights in basketball.And I say this because you know,
I'm six four, my wife's five. Son, you're a tall guy.
But I thought I thought that,you know, genetically, i'd have taller

(29:00):
kids, but of course I don'tknow if they're done growing. I didn't
grow much until until I was incollege. But my my son's like six
feet right now and he's twenty,right, so I don't know if he's
done growing, but you know,I grew. And then my youngest son's
about six feet and he's seventeen.So I always get you know, like,
man if he was six or four, the way this kid plays with
heart, you know, but he'sgot so much heart and great and he's
such a great player. But youalways see people that are six ten seventh.

(29:23):
They got a kid on my son'steam who's seven to four right on
the D two team. Yeah,seven seven for white kid. He's yeah,
unbelievable. He's like he just standsthere, puts it in. Yeah
right, but he's six feet SoI'm at the game last night and it's
like I get this hope sometimes becauseI saw Van Fleet is like six feet

(29:44):
tall, and then you have thisother guy holiday right, he's like six
feet tall. It looks like it, at least for me, they look
out shorter. So is there anylike any words of advice or does it
matter? Like why why are arethese six footers on a pro team when
everyone's seven feet tall six five?Well to make up for a lack of
height. You can overcome it witha few different things. One is toughness.

(30:08):
If you're the toughest player out there, like if you always box out,
if you guard your guy, ifyou execute on defense, if you're
where you're supposed to be, ifit's a loose ball and a rebound,
you're the one that gets in thereand gets it. Like, there's a
toughness and a very real toughness thatyou can feel and see when you watch
a game that some guys have.And there's also IQ like if you study

(30:29):
the game, if you play alot, you start to understand, like
you can think ahead of other playersand be in the right spot before you're
supposed to be. That's partly whatI had to do. I was very
slow physically, and so I hadto think the game in order to be
effective against players that were much moreathletic than me. But could you shoot
too, Yes, because now you'reweren't you also like you would help with

(30:52):
shooting. You're like a shooting coach. Yeah, it was a shooting coach,
and so to become a shooting coachyou had to be one heck of
a shot. I don't know this. There some debate about that like,
you know, I don't know what. Like if you think about all the
great coaches, were they all greatplayers? No? I don't think so.
Yeah. Right, So, like, in order to be good at
teaching something, do you actually haveto be good at that? Like?

(31:14):
I debate about that all the time, Like, do you actually have to,
you know, be elite at askill to teach that skill at an
elite level? No, you don't. I mean I have coaches that have
never been on the radio before.They tell me how to do my job.
Yeah, And I mean I listenedto them, and then when they're
wrong, I go hack. No, I list No. I would say

(31:36):
that my love for shooting, mypassion for shooting. I would shoot for
hours growing up as a kid.I love it, and so my passion
for it helps me teach it.And I was good at it. I
wasn't elite or special like some ofthese players are. So you never like
change someone shot, No, I'vedefinitely done that. I've built. I
built shots from the ground up.It's basically like, think of a building
that somebody's shot. I've taken itto where we've knocked the whole building down

(32:01):
and started from the ground up andjust built a new one. I've taken
it where it's like, oh,let's add an edition here, or oh
let's knock down this wall and buildthis room this way, where you know,
some some people need an upgrade,some people need an adjustment, some
people need a complete redo. Somepeople just need a little tweak and then
they're fine. But like a proplayer, you did that with a pro
you took that. Wow. BecauseI saw the I thought you see that

(32:22):
Steph Creed documentary on Apple. Ihave not watched it. I've seen it.
It's so good. It's so good, and in it because he's here's
a guy that's I don't know,he's like, I don't know, tell
he is six two maybe six,I don't know, I tell you,
but here's a guy and he hadto rebuild this whole shot and they get
into that and I was just likeblown away. I've definitely heard that story
before. It's a great Are theredocumentaries that you or books that you tell

(32:44):
people when you see you recruit anew player and you're like, hey man,
do me favor watch this, thisand this and read this book.
Well, it definitely used video toteach. So like a lot of times
we use sell video, So like, show the guy what he looks like.
And there's a term called feel versusreal, where it's like you feel
like you're doing this, but thisis what it really looks like. And
when players watch themselves on video,they can see it a lot easier.

(33:07):
I haven't gone as far as books. I've heard stories of Phil Jackson like
leaving books on players las and allthat. I have talked to different players
about books, and every guy isa different learning style, So like some
people are more tactical, they needto feel it and do it. Some
people need to see it and they'remore visual. Some people are more conceptual,

(33:27):
and you talk about it, andso like learning how people learn is
more important than saying like this ishow I teach, that's so good.
Learning how people learn that's so bad. And so that's where I've read a
lot of books on and studied moreon how people learn best, right,
and so like, for example,it's my personal belief through experience and reading
and studying that people don't learn fromjust being in Jim's hours and hours a

(33:52):
day, like dedicated learning, focusedlearning, like if you want to get
better at a scale, if youwant to get better at shooting right now.
We would go to a gym.We would work on it for thirty
minutes to maybe an hour until Iwould kind of kind of feel like if
you're losing focus or not, andthat's it. And then we would do
that four or five times a week, and after you stack weeks up,

(34:15):
you would get better and better.You could get better right now. So
you don't do You don't say giveme five hundred shots a night. No,
once a player. I don't dothat until a player gets to a
certain point. Once they got it, their shot is grooved, they like
how it feels. I like howit looks and feels, how the energy
flows, the transfer from their feetto the release and all that stuff.
Once it's like in its good place, then you can wrap it out to

(34:37):
really groove that muscle memory. It'skind of like a remember those old time
like wagons, how they would havewagon ruts like in the road and you're
just grooving it over and once it'slike in its groove, then you can
really hit the repetitions hard to reallylike hammer it home. But if it's
not in that state, shooting forhours at a time and a shot that
is not formulated correctly, only reinforcesbad. Okay, So that's so stated.

(35:01):
Do you think working out or trainingfor a high school kid, like,
what's a good routine if you're inhigh school? Well, high school's
a different animal than professional because,like, these kids are at an age
where they're developing so much physically mentallyin a lot of different areas. And
so I would advise a high schoolkid to make sure that his body is

(35:23):
in a good place. You gotto lift weights, you got to make
sure cardiovascular you're in a good place. You got to run, and then
I make sure you're working on yourgame. And at that stage, they
need to work on everything passing,dribbling, shooting, They need to play
basketball and understand like conceptually where youneed to be on offensive defense. You
need to get game time, youneed to get out there, do open
run. Yeah, you need toplay. You need to play. I
think that's what's kind of lost inmy personal opinion of like in America today,

(35:46):
these kids get into skilled training soearly they don't play a lot.
And in my era, I don'tknow exactly when that would be, but
it was kind of on the cuspof like skills training. So skill training
was individual skill training. Skill developmentwas a thing when I was around seventh
or eighth grade, but until thatpoint, I basically only played, and

(36:08):
I played against adults or older kidsor wherever we would still go to the
playground and play. I would justplay wherever you could play basketball. And
then that just continued. So Iwould do the skill development in seventh starting
around seventh grade, and then Iwould just play as much as humanly possible.
So I was at this function,you know, and being in the

(36:28):
business that I'm in here in Arizona, I get to go to all these
things and meet all these people,and I've kind of become friends with Tommy
Lloyd, you know, you ofa coach, basketball coach. And I
was at a dinner and my sonwas there, who's seventeen, and I
said, hey, he was askingmy son questions where he plays and everything,
and I said, well, yougot the advice for him, and
he goes, he goes, don'tget a trainer, just playball, is

(36:49):
what he said. So essentially whatyou just said, Yeah, He's like,
don't get a trainer. But Ido think there's something good about having
a trainer as far as like accountability, and hey, I'm going to meet
this guy at this time. We'regoing to train and that. But then
he also, I think more portly, is you got to play ball?
Yeah, I would advise a hybrid, like if you get a you know,
if I would advise you, Iwould say, you need to get
your son a coach that can teachhim some things, but he also needs

(37:12):
to play a ton of basketball,like the playing the game, the game
within the game, understanding little anglesand things like. You only get that
from playing. You can't real youcan't simulate basketball to one hundred percent in
just a skill drill environment. Whenyou were the helping out the D three
school was it hard to recruit highschool kids. So D three recruiting kind

(37:36):
of does itself. So like Done kids are clearly going D one,
and then by the end of thesummer, if they're not going D one,
they might go D two, andthen the kids that are left are
going D three or naia juco andall that. So the pool kind of
weeds itself down to a certain pointto where you know, and there's also
mostly D three' I don't know aboutall D threes. They're really good academic

(37:57):
schools and so like they have tohave good grades and then they have to
want to play there because pretty muchall D three is that I'm aware of,
and all of them probably aren't likethis, but like you have to
pay money out of your own pocketto some degree, and so you got
to want to play the game,and so recruiting was different but not difficult.
When you're coaching, Now, doyou do you like during the game,

(38:20):
are you actually talking to the headcoach and giving him your advice and
he's listening, or does everybody havea different job during the game, like
you're saying, hey man, soand so is doing this, we need
to do this. Uh yeah,I mean I'm talking mostly to the head
coach, so he's listening and appreciatingwhat you're saying, or you don't ever
really no, Yeah, we disagreed, like you know, but it's a

(38:40):
working environment, like we don't haveto agree all the time, right,
But he has the final I'll belike, you know, I think we
should play this guy, and he'slike, you know, and then I
want to play a different guy.Or I'll say we should play this guy
and then he'll say yes. Duringthe game, you'll say put in put
in Smith and they'll be like he'slike nah, He's like no, I'm
not feeling that right now or whatever. Really wow. So our job is

(39:01):
to arm the head coach with asmuch tools, knowledge, observations, analysis
during the game to help him becausehe's the one that ultimately decides who's in
the game, what are we runningon offense, what are we doing on
defense, and so like giving himobservations on what's happening out there, what's
working, what's not working on bothsides of the ball, who's playing well,

(39:21):
who isn't playing well, who's playedfor? How long are they getting
fatigued? All that kind of thing. Lineup combinations, do you want to
go big, do you want togo small? How many guards do you
want to have? All those kindsof things. There are conversations that are
happening during the game. So youprobably saw, like I get up and
walk to him like constantly watching.So I go up and I tell him
something that I'm seeing or whatever,and he sometimes I be like yeah,
and then other times he's like,yeah, man, get out of here.

(39:42):
I'm not trying to hear that.I tell my wife, I go
that guy over there on the farright. I've seen him on a state
farm commercial. I can't remember that. He's seven, the big Boban.
Yeah, Bobon, that's it.Yeah, Boban's a movie star. Man.
The guy's like a worldwide He's beenin john Wick and all kinds of
things. Right, does he didhe does? He not play very much.
He doesn't play for very much forus right now, but he you
know, he's played in the leaguea long time, and he is such

(40:05):
a special human being really, likehe's a bright light. He's a you
know, he's always got a smileon his face. He's always working hard,
staying ready. Like the guys lovehim. We all love him.
Like he's just been a tremendous personto have around in our program. Oh
that's cool. So the game lastnight was at seven. My wife and
I talk about stuff all the time, like what time, But just like
I get I like to like behindthis, like what time do you guys

(40:27):
get there? You and your wifewere talking about what time we get to
the game. Yeah, yeah,I'm telling you, I'm dead serious,
Am I right? We're trying tofigure out. Yeah. I've become friends
with Devin Booker's dad, and I'mI asked him to him, like what
time he was he was on thispodcast? I'm like, what time did
they get there? What time?Like you know what I mean? Like,
I'm curious, is it like youknow, at work or is it
like like like the game was atseven? Are the first bus the bus

(40:50):
that I was on left at threefifty? How many buses are there?
Three buses all? And so theyleave at different times? Yeah, they
stagger him. Okay, so threefifty. So like if a player's workout
time is sixty on the clock,he doesn't need to be there three hours
before the game, okay, butif a player like it kind of staggered.
So we have the players come outand work out on the court and

(41:10):
staggered intervals. And so the playersthat need to be on first they get
on the first bus, second,second bus, so on and so forth.
They don't go back to the hotel. They stay there. Yeah,
they stay there, and they'll doother things. They might lift weights,
they might get a stretch, theymight do activation. There's a lot of
downtime then too, for sure.Wow, and then when it's over,
the game's over, ten, whattime did you get back to the hotel?

(41:30):
Oh? God, what time didI get back. I don't know,
eleven maybe saw some people in thestands afterwards, friends whenever that come
to the game, and you knowthem again in the bus and get back.
I asked my son. I toldhim I was going to talk to
you, and I said, Isaid, do you have any questions?
So he said, what's Dylan Brookslike? Dylan? Dylan's the best.

(41:51):
The guy is the ultimate competitor.He he's so locked in to the game
plan, to the scouting report,to the little details how people like to
shoot, how they like to getto their shots, the type of game
that they play, what they like, what they don't like. And he's
very into the details of all thestuff that the opponent does so that he
can be as prepared as possible togo out there and guard. And he

(42:14):
he'll guard the best player on everyteam every night, whether it's a point
guard, a center, a wing. Like he put it hard. Yeah,
man, the guy brings it everynight. He works out in the
summertime, he works out here atExos. Oh does it really? Yeah?
And my son saw we saw himand seeing him, you know,
because you see him every day,but for me to see him across him
in the Hallway. It's like he'shumongous. Yeah, the guy's maniacal about

(42:37):
his body and his diet. Sothe guy works really hard, he eats
really well, he trains really hard, he recovers, he does all the
stuff, ice batstubs all the things, and he's just a true professional in
every sense of the word. Ilike the way I think he plays mind
games with people, like in thepress. I think I think it's genius

(42:57):
if he's really doing it. Youknow, like when he gets in Lebron's
head and he's like Lebron's got toprove himself to me or something like that.
You do what I mean, Likethat gets pressed and I think that
I think that screws with other people'shead. I think it's genius. Yeah,
that's very Kanye West. That's definitelyDylan doing this thing. Then he
said, my son said Fred vanFleet Drake comparisons. Is that a thing?
I think I heard about that becauseFred played in Toronto for a long

(43:21):
time and Drake is from Canada andso like a lot of people comment that
they have a similar look. That. Yeah, ask him about working on
shooting with players that have difficult personalities, big ego, bad at listening.
Yeah, so it's interesting. Therehasn't been a lot of that in the
league. So, like, alot of these guys they really care about

(43:44):
getting better. They want to getbetter because the better they are, the
better they can be for their team, the better their contract will be,
the more they can win, thebetter they can perform. And so most
of these guys are in a positionwhere like they're trying to get better and
so like, I haven't really runinto a lot of that stuff, So
you haven't coach a toxic player.I didn't say that. I was just
saying that it has it's way lesscommon. The majority of the players really

(44:10):
want to get better, and someof the guys that don't. Like there's
an old saying I heard once andapplies a lot where it's just like you
can lead a horse to water,but you can't make them drink. And
so like, some of these guysthink they're a certain way and want to
do things a certain way when youapproach them and they don't want to do
it, like it's really up tothem. They're the ones playing, that's
their career. You're there to helpthem, and if they want to do

(44:31):
something a certain way, like atsome point you're like, okay, when
the season's over, like whenever thatis, let's say you won that,
you're in the finals, you winthe finals, it's over. Are you
done for three months? No?Basketball is now is a three hundred and
sixty five day of year job.So like, the season's over. Then
you got offseason workouts, you gotthe draft, you got summer League.
There's really kind of one month wherelike everyone kind of goes their own way.

(44:53):
And even then, depending on whoyou're working with, you might be
busy as a coach. Hey,wait, in the Summerleague, didn't you
have a really came that won thewhole thing? No, I made it
to the championship game and lost.Which team was it last year? Houston?
Oh it was Houston. Oh youmade the champ Wow. But and
that was just you? And doyou have coaching staff too? So some
of the coaches that I'm coaching withnow were on the staff also. But

(45:14):
you're the head coach of the GLeague. At the time, I was
the head coach of the Summer leagueser League sorry sumiar League. Yeah wow,
but some of the coaches are onstaff. We all we all got
to coach together, and it wasa great bonding experience because we could go
through like how we do scattering reports, you know, terminology, what do
we call things? And uh,you know, also go out to dinner
and hang out and you know,get to know each other valuable stuff.
Oh for sure. It was greatand so we got to spend a lot

(45:36):
of time together and so once youknow, the season rolled around, we
were able to hit the ground runningbecause we all knew everybody and it was
great. Are there other coaches forother teams that you hoped to meet or
talk to in the future or maybeyou already met them all? Like,
is there a coach you look upto? There's a There's a ton of
coaches I respect, right, likea lot. There's a lot of really
good coaches in this league. Haveyou met them all? I don't think

(46:00):
I've met them all yet, Butyou know, I've always admired Spolsha And
you know, he went to Universityof Portland where I went, and he
started in the video room, andI just think the way he does things
and is the ways his teams play, like, I've just always admired him.

(46:20):
I think he's a hell of acoach. My wife had a question
for you, and I told hershe could only ask it on this podcast.
Can you come up here and askit. This is going to be
random, but it might not berandom. Okay, okay, asking in
my micros. Okay, So Idon't know if you know this, but
we have a dog rescue here intown. We have we have a dog
rescue here called Love Pup. Andthat's why we were so interested in your

(46:45):
story about the humane society. Like, that's amazing that you rescue and what
a great example you are to alot of people for rescuing. So thank
you. But I wondered if doyour kids like a caricature named Bluie you
know who Blewe Yeah, they loveBlue because we're considering having Blue at an
event. And as I'm asking people, our kids are too old for that,

(47:07):
and they're like, oh my gosh, it would be amazing because he's
a dog and we have dog event. Yeah, but did you have a
little kids, She'd be asking.Everybody has the little kids. Everybody goes,
yes, my kids love Blue.Oh dude, they watch Blue all
the time. They love it.That's nuts. Yeah. So, like,
because like the Blue, we wantto have Blue at this event.
And first of all costs a lotof money, right. Second of all,
it's a mascot, it's a guyin an outfit. It's not blue.

(47:31):
But you definitely get kids and thekids with my families and a thousands
of kids. Yeah, they loveBluey turned kids away. Yeah, I
guess over the weekend they had theywere ready for three thousand people and they
got like nine thousand kids. Itwas totally crazy. Yeah, no,
our kids love it. We haveblue toys. We watched the show like,
okay, yeah, just chield thedeal in those bringing Blue. Also,

(47:53):
I didn't get to finish the story. Well I could have, but
I forgot this part. So Ipaid the guy four hundred dollars is for
our dog, who we renamed him. He's now called Rocket, And they
went and got another adoption slips,so they were able to adopt two puppies.
Oh wow. And so I toldmy wife because she was kind of
feeling like, oh, we stoletheir dog or whatever. I was like,

(48:14):
honey, they never even had it, like it was never in their
possession, and they you know,it was a fair deal, Like we
offered a deal and they took it, and they were able to get two
dogs with the money we gave him, so they were able to get two
dogs for free and we got thedog that we wanted, so it was
like a win win win, andthen the shelter got bit three dogs sent
home, so I was like,everybody's happy, nobody's hurt here, right,

(48:36):
hey, real quick? Before wefinished, though, I want to
talk about injuries and players and recoveryof an injury again, right because I
know, like like a do youever look at players and if they get
injured, You're like, that's it, we can't we gotta let them go?
Or can you recover from an aclterear meniscus terror? And it's no
big deal? So one that's notmy area. Okay, I don't know,
did you ever get hurt you personally, not badly, not come with

(48:59):
it's probably coming. Right. Istill play basketball, so I'm like one
one day, I'm just waiting forsomething to happen. But I don't know.
I think with with modern medicine andscience and like the way stuff is
now, like these guys recover fromall kinds of things and they have surgeries
and procedures and they're able to getback on the court, and it's it's
pretty amazing, right, No,because there's there's a couple of players from

(49:22):
other teams and tour their acl atsurgery, come back eighteen months later,
win a championship. And I've alwayspaid attention to injuries and watch how they
recover. And I don't know ifyou had an insight on that. No,
that's not it's not my area,right. What about recruiting? The
college kids are getting out? Likeare you aware of them right now?
Like, I know, you gotto worry about the season you're playing.

(49:42):
We gotta win. We gotta win, we gotta win, like draft,
yeah, upcoming. Yeah, Sothat's different probably for every coach. I'm
not. I don't pay super closeattention to college basket so they don't run
anything by you. You don't youhave, you don't have. You'res about
the game when the season's over.I've been a part of different organizations that
do things different. I have notbeen here for a full year, so
I'm not one hundred percent sure howit's done here. I've been in part

(50:06):
of organizations where I'm very involved,and when the season's over, I'm watching
college games, I'm watching tape,I'm watching guys. Shoot, I'm watching
all kinds of stuff. I gowatch draft workouts to go to the combine,
and I've been very heavily involved inthe draft process. And I've also
been in part of organizations where they'relike the front office does it. They
do all their own stuff and theydon't want coaches input. Wow, which
is fine because like they watch ayear round right and they're smart, capable

(50:30):
people, Like they do a tremendousjob. They don't like imagine somebody coming
in at the you know, theeleventh hour and being like, no,
we should get this guy. Andit's like, dude, we've been watching
this guy for three years and youwatch for five seconds. Are you happy
with your team? You like yourguys? Oh? I love our guys.
Like we're young, we're growing,we're learning, And I've been really

(50:52):
impressed with a lot of growth ina lot of different areas from a lot
of guys, and you know,we're just changing how we play, our
standards and what it means in Houston. Are there any go to restaurants so
far that you're in? Your familyis like, are that we got to
go here? Oh, it's Tuesdaynight, let's go here. All the
kids stuff we've been going to Mastrosa lot. You ever been to Mastros?

(51:13):
Yeah, they have, They usedto have them here. Yeah.
So our our owner owns a lotof restaurants. He owns the Landryes,
which is a lot of restaurants.Oh, they just bought my friend's restaurant
chain. They bought Tokyo Joe's thereyou go and so been trying a lot
of his stuff, and Houston hasa lot of great restaurants, but we've
been going to a lot of his, to be honest. What is he
a Landry? Is his name?No, his name's Tilman for Tita.

(51:37):
Oh I've read that. Well he'sYeah, that's a very famous name,
isn't it. Yeah? Yeah,have you met him and everything? Yes?
Have you met other owners? Uh? Yeah, I've definitely met other
owners in Milwaukee and Boston, Atlanta, everywhere actually, because uh, you
know, in different places, youknow, across the league owners are you
know, involved at different levels.Atlanta, did you meet Jesse it'sler.

(52:00):
I love that guy. Yeah,I know Jesse, you do? Him
and I DM each other every oncein a while. Yeah, you tell
Jesse that we talked. He's agreat guy. We actually had a coaches
retreat at one of his house,Hill on the Hill. And yeah,
at that house, did you Iran the hill? You did? Yeah?
One time? One time I heardit's a mofa Yeah, they run
it. I don't know a hundredtimes I ran it. I don't know,

(52:22):
maybe eight ten times. I waslike, I'm exhausted. I have
a cold plunge in my house.He's supposed to come into my cold plunch
because it's kind of a become athing where it's like thirty doing that.
I've been cold plunged to two thousandand seven. Really, I do it
twice a day, sometimes three timesa day. I did before I came
here. Wow, I've been doingit now. Yeah. And how long
do you go for? So Itry to go like five minutes up to

(52:42):
my neck. That's tough. Doyou go ever submerge yourself all the way?
Yeah, but I can only dothat, and I just try to
count for as long as possible.I get like ten twenty seconds. Maybe
I can't believe you with that,Jesse. It'sler's house. That guy.
I love that guy. Yeah,he's a great guys. One hundred mile
races like for fun, Okay,it's fascinating. Well, good I'll send
him a picture. I'd love thatguy. Well, thanks man, thanks

(53:02):
taking time to come out and beon our podcast and stuff and relaunch.
The podcast is called right in theBench because I never played Oh my writing
the bench podcast? Right thank youBen something? Yeah, well, thank
you for having me. It wasit was a lot of fun. Oh
my god, we're almost an hour? Has it been an hour? Who
has more questions? Well, thenget over here. I don't do infrareds

(53:30):
on it, but I definitely goin the sauna, steam room, hot
tub, like I don't know.So the way, and I've talked to
my wife about this is like,once you get to a certain age,
you realize like your body is athing that allows you to do your job,
and so you're like, I needto start taking care of this body.
So I was actually I just toldmy friend Pat this story. So

(53:52):
have you guys sort of a Dexascan. So our nutritionists gets a Dexa
program to come out and they bringa van, it's a mobile unit,
and they scan all the players forall the fat, get all the bone
density, all the stuff, andthey have some more time and so she's
like, hey, do you wanta dexas scan, and I was like,

(54:13):
well, I don't really want toknow the exact degree how fat.
I am like, I don't needto know to the exact percentage. And
she's like, well, there's morethan body fat. It can tell you
muscle mass and bone density. AndI didn't know anything about bone density and
how important it is, especially asyou get older and all those things.
And so she's like, why don'tyou get it so that you have a
baseline for your bone density, soyou know, And I was like okay,

(54:36):
And so I get it and Iget my body fat and I'm just
like, this is embarrassing, Likeit was really bad. What was it?
Twenty nine point nine to five yourbody fat? Wow? And so
from that day I changed my dietcompletely, and you know, through changing
eating habits and exercise, I'm downlike twenty eight pounds. Oh wow.

(54:58):
It what about body fat? Sothe last scan I was down seven percent
body fat. Oh wow. Thatwas after three months, and we have
one more scan at the end ofthe year. So I've been staying true.
I'm trying to get under twenty percentby the end of the year.
Are you lifting weights? Oh yeah, that never changes. I've been lifting
for years. I do peloton,I run, I play basketball at golf.

(55:21):
You know, I do all kindsof stuff. But really for me
personally, it comes down to diet. Like if I don't eat correctly,
I just have one of those metabolisms, I'll just gain weight. And being
on the road, it's got tobe rough too. Yeah, we're up
late, right, you know,the game's over, say at ten o'clock.
And if we travel, we geton a bus, we get on
a plane, we get into aplace, it's two o'clock in the morning,

(55:42):
or awake forever. You know,it's food everywhere, and it can
be tough to be disciplined in thosemoments like today, you know, you
guys had a game last night.Today, do you have to get up
and do any kind of work stuffwith the coaches or is it free day
today? Off today? It canvary, so like on the road,
it can have you can have practice, you can have film sessions, you
can have an individual day, youcan have an optional day, you can

(56:04):
have a day off. You canhave it like a complete day off for
everybody. So like it could justexcuse me, it can just vary.
But so tomorrow's game day, sotomorrow is there like a group chat with
the coaches. Hey, let's meetat nine am in the lobby. Not
the lobby, but we meet asa coaching staff. We go over the
game plan, we go over theand since we played the last team,
we'll go over adjustments, matchups,what we liked, what we didn't like,

(56:25):
things we want to do differently,things we want to do the same,
and you know, come up witha strategy. And there'll be a
coach in particular, assistant coach whois takes the lead on that. He's
the scout coach and so he willhave come up with whatever he wants to
talk about. Other coaches will haveinput as well, present it to the
head coach. We go over itas a staff. We kind of pick

(56:45):
at it what we'd like and don'tlike, and then we we'll go over
to the gym. We'll watch filmwith the team and then we'll walk through
the plays and then we'll you know, have a shoot around and go over
all that stuff. Man, Solike tomorrow, I think they're saying that
Radley bial will be back. Doesthat factor in how you guys plan the
tomorrow's game for sure? For sure, definitely changes some things fascinating man.

(57:07):
All right, anything else, Blake? Oh yeah, yeah, I am
wearing an ORR ring. I starteddoing a couple of years ago, and
it was really to pay attention totwo things like sleep and then also recovery,
because like, I will work outevery day and then even on days
when I don't feel well, andso I've wanted to get it to be

(57:30):
like, Okay, if there aredays when you don't feel good, you're
supposed to recover on those days you'resupposed to rest. Rest is part of
the cycle of like workout, eat, sleep, recover, like you're supposed
to have that. And I wasn'tvery good at doing that, and so
the horr ring helped me with that, and then it also helped me just
kind of tracking my sleep, likehow good am I doing at that?

(57:52):
We have or rings as well,but like you're wearing yours right now,
I'm obsessed with mine, but Idon't wear it at daytime because I find
it's so annoying. So I wearit and I just monitor my sleep at
night. I don't monitor the rest, Like what did you get for deep
sleep last night? Like you payattention to that stuff, dude, my
deep sleep? So I don't know. Let me say. My overall score
was a sixty eight I think.And I've noticed this because I ate after

(58:16):
the game, which I tried notto do too often. When you eat
late, it ruins your sleep.Yeah, I noticed that last night.
I So my sleep score was aseventy. I slept for five hours and
forty minutes. But the reason mysleep score was so bad is because my
heart rate was elevated because I wasdigesting food that I probably shouldn't have eaten.

(58:38):
All right, I was, Uh, mine's a sixty eight and I
was about five hours and twenty threeminutes. Does it tell you about and
what was your heart rate? Myresting heart rate was a forty five,
which is high, bro, Minewas sixty four. I'm usually between thirty
nine and forty two. So mylast like, if I read it,

(58:59):
it's thirty thirty six, thirty eight, forty forty one, thirty nine,
forty one, thirty nine, fortyforty one, like I'm usually in there.
And so when I'm elevated or ringslike, hey, some something wasn't
right, isn't that fascinating? Man? Yeah? Yeah, And you notice
when you get when you're about toget sick. Yeah, your body your
body temp goes up and you don'tand you're like, why is that?

(59:19):
And all of a sudden you startnot feeling well. I've noticed it's a
huge indicator of when I'm about toget the like a flu. So what
do you do when you just knowit's coming. I don't know. Everyone
does something differently. I just workout more. Dude. When you start
seeing that happen, This is whenI do with my kids. That will
get them an ivy drip of vitaminC or whatever, and it knocks it
right out because you see it comingahead of time, just like you said,
like something's coming. Now. I'venever done that. I try to

(59:42):
every morning. I have two things. I have athletic greens and I put
in an electrolyte packet in there,and I try to have electrolytes and use
element T Yep. Yeah that's goodstuff. That's great. Yeah, we
use it too. Wow. Man, all right? What? Oh?
Yeah, I do the tag forthe workouts. No, I haven't done

(01:00:06):
that. What is that? Whatpart is that that's on? That's when
you go to like this little plusright here on the front page. You
hit the plus and then all thesethings pop up which just add a tag
and you add like, uh,did you do you have allergies? How's
the air quality? Sleep in adark room? Oh? No, I've
never done I've never done that,but it just kind of helps track.

(01:00:28):
But the ring is pretty good atlike picking up the workouts that I do,
and like it almost gets smarter.So like if I play pickleball enough
times. I didn't start playing pickleball until this year, And it's a
lot of fun. And uh,have you ever played? No? Yea,
we have all the equipment with it'sa black anyone can play. It's
it seems intimidating at first, butit's really not super easy and a lot

(01:00:49):
of fun. Like more injuries everin people that played pickleball. Yeah,
I don't know. I heard someonetold me this. I have no way
of verifying that this is true.But it's just because of the age of
people that are playing. Oh that'swhy. Okay, it makes sense.
That makes a lot of sense becauseI played it a bunch. It's not
yeah anyways, but the ring picksup like did you play basketball? Did
you lift weights? Did you run? Because you tell yeah, so it

(01:01:12):
can tell all this stuff. Soit'll be like I played basketball with the
coaches and then it'll I'll go checkmy thing and I'll say forty five minutes
basketball work out like that, andso like it has all the workout,
it doesn't annoy you. The ringNo, So I was able to find
a spot where I don't feel itvery much. And it's in the middle
of my left hand finger. Theytell you to wear it, I think
on this finger. I wear myring finger. I just and I think.

(01:01:35):
I don't know, man, it'sjust so, No, I can't
wear it. I've tried it onthe index finger. I've tried it on
the ring finger. The only placewhere I don't notice it is on the
middle finger. And yeah, Idon't. Good, that's where that's where
it goes. That's good. Wellthat's a wrap, brother, Thank you
so much. All right, thanksfor having me. Well do it again
when you're a head coach, whichprobably be real soon. All right,