" Bout that Life Podcast" AAU Basketball and Life talk Episode 58 Christian Terrell From Hardship to Hoops: The Path of Perseverance

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Turn it up! From the YBA Phoenix Fitness 24-7 Basketball Facility in Rockland,
California, it's About That Life Podcast with your host, Coach C. Collins and Coach MJ.
Music.
It's time. Three, two, one, let's go.
Hey, how you doing? It's Coach C. Collins. Welcome to About That Life Podcast

(00:20):
where we talk a little bit of basketball, a little bit of life and everything in between.
But the biggest thing we try to do is stay away from politics.
But, you know, if you are listening on the audio side, thank you again. Very appreciated.
I have recently looked at the analytics and we have hit seventy five thousand a listen.
So thank you again. Much appreciated. Many, many, many thanks. Thanks.

(00:45):
I don't do this show to get rich. I don't do this show to get famous,
but I do this show for the people out there that are working at the grassroots
level to help their young these their young athlete son or daughter achieve success.
Hopefully, you know, people been coming to me. They've been saying,

(01:06):
hey, man, like I go to you tournaments.
They're like, bro, I listen to your show, man. I see you on I.G.
I love what you're doing again. Again, it's much appreciated if you want to
follow along and, you know, get the notifications, hit that notification bell,
hit follow on the audio side.
Every time I drop a new episode or a coach's rise time, you'll you'll get that
hit and you'll you'll know what's going on.

(01:26):
I got a really good guest for you guys. Just a quick promotion from for the
sponsors and then we'll get right to it.
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(01:51):
If you want your kid to survive in this game nowadays, you have to have an ability to shoot.
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(02:14):
Also, if you're looking for good AU tournaments, rec leagues,
all-around good basketball experience, please go check us out at Hardwood Palace.
As for Steve or Grant, they have tournaments every single weekend.
Pretty much West Coast Takeover runs his tournaments out of there.
They're a good friend of the show, good sponsor of the show.
Please go check them out. They're very consistent. Schedules come out on Thursday.

(02:36):
Steve and Grant really try to run a really good program there.
So go check them out if you're an AAU program looking to get your feet wet.
They got different levels, you know, from, you know, really strong top tier
talent to kind of competitive rec, if you want to call it that.
Go check them out and let them know about that life sent you. Same with Dr. Dish.
With all that out the way, let me get you guys into it. Let me give you guys

(03:01):
a quick intro to my guest.
He is a hometown kid.
Just for you guys, if you checked out the Jordan Ford episode,
obviously I'm always trying to get Sacramento guys who grew up out here,
who played out here, who understand the culture out here.
I want their stories to be shared. Yeah, I'm biased. Go get over it.

(03:22):
I'm going to want their stories out, their journeys out.
This young man is a very talented basketball player. I've seen footage,
you know, seen highlights. Mediocre, mediocre.
Don't be modest, man. You're better than I was. But no, good dude.
Seems to have a good head on his shoulders.
We planned on doing an episode before. I think, I really think it was last year. Yeah, right.

(03:47):
You hit me up and said you wanted me to come on. And we were talking.
We was getting it down. Something just fell through. I know, man.
And life happens that way. That's the basketball world.
It's never ending. But you're here now, so I appreciate it. But without further
ado, let me introduce Christian Turek.
How you doing, man? I'm good, man. What's up with y'all? Thank you for having

(04:10):
me. No problem, man. I appreciate you being here.
So like we talked about before the show, and most people know who have been
listening and are currently listening on the show,
a lot of this is going to be talking about your journey and you
know obviously we're going to talk about the basketball culture and
community as it presently sits your opinions on it of course i want to hear
from people who are you know still in the heart of it plant oh technical difficulty

(04:36):
sorry y'all that's that california life sometimes the lights just go out curtain turned it off.
See we got we got the tiny curtain we got everybody worried out here man,
filmographer was worried host was worried guess was guess was common collection

(05:00):
though i live in the dark okay there we go and we're not ending that at all that's going in the show.
I love it no but like i want you to well those first things first like i always
said we talk Talk about the same premise on the show. Get the information out there.
Tell the people about yourself, your basketball journey, you know,

(05:22):
your AAU team, your college career, you know, give a general rundown of who
you are and your basketball journey.
I mean, like you said, Christian Terrell grew up in Sacramento,
the Sacramento area, more so on the North Natomas side.
But I played AAU basketball growing up for the Sacramento Yellow Jackets.
And like you said, we did tournaments all the time out here at Hardwood.
We travel all up and down the West Coast. A few times we hit the Midwest and the East.

(05:45):
I've played for pretty much every shoe companies league in their circuit from
there had a Pretty decent college career played at the d1 level was blessed
to do that and not have to pay for school All right And then you know God blessed
me again and gave me a shot to be a pro and I took it and ran with it And now
it's the rest is history.
You don't get paid to play the sport I love and every day is just a blessing

(06:07):
to wake up and you know not have to go into office Yeah.
And just for, for those listening, uh, what college college is,
because I know you played for two, did you play for just so they know?
So I did my first three years at UC Santa Barbara and then I transferred right
before COVID where the year that COVID.
I was in my redshirt year. Oh, okay. So then I was able to play during like

(06:28):
the COVID year. Yeah, the COVID year. Where you couldn't have fans and all that stuff.
No, that was like, so that wasn't even my extra year. Oh, that wasn't your extra
year? Yeah, I could have went back for another one. Okay, okay.
But school really not my thing.
I was ready to be a pro. Yeah. No, no doubt. I was ready.
And then you ended at Sac State, right? Yep, ended at Sac State.
Okay. And then as far as professionally thus far, what have you done?

(06:49):
This far I've played for the Stockton Kings G League team.
I've done summer league with the Kings and the Warriors
okay nice and this past year I just did about half a
year in Finland okay and overall I mean obviously you got a chance to play some
great basketball what if you can real quick speak on like your overseas you're
that experience for you you know playing in another country being in that environment

(07:12):
how how how was that for me it was,
exactly what I needed it to be that was my first time out of the country for
anything for work, for pleasure.
So it was really eye-opening to experience a different culture that's completely
different than what I'm used to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
Yeah, Finland's different than the U.S., no doubt about that.

(07:32):
And then just at the basketball aspect, I think it really helped me blossom
into being a more controlled player because the rules out there are totally
different. The style of play is different.
And for me, I had no buzz around my name going out there.
So i went to what most would consider like a
a smaller country to play in yeah still the

(07:53):
top league in that country in a respectable league right and it
really just you know helped me grow as a player nice did well enough to create
a little bit of buzz out there in europe so hopefully just build on that momentum
yeah but it was perfect for what i needed to be like i said i never never played
out of the states before i went straight from college to the g so just getting to experience.

(08:16):
Their dynamic, like different culture, different people. Yeah, yeah, no, no doubt.
And then obviously, you know, being an import player is, you know,
it comes with a lot of perks and some fun, but, you know, you're required to do your job.
It was kind of a win-win situation for me. The team I went to was in last place

(08:38):
when I joined them. Oh, okay, okay.
So I got to just go in there, be the man, play freely.
They you know saw my film and like hey you're exactly what
we need we just need you to come out here and be you you know
so i didn't have to conform to a role that
was given to me that might not have fit my game which is what
i had to do in the g like my first year i was playing the four yeah and
you know that that's crazy yeah yeah yeah you're not you're not a four yeah

(09:02):
and then from there it just kept getting different roles okay so it was it felt
great just to be out there and just to play freely and play my game and not
having to have to look over my shoulder And that's the cool part with like overseas
ball that and I talk about it.
We've talked about on the show in different episodes, but just mentioning it.
I tell a lot of young guys like the cool part with overseas ball.

(09:23):
It does give you a lot of room to always progress up.
You know what I mean? As opposed to like, obviously in the US,
it's kind of, you know, a one stop shop.
I mean, you really, you really have the NBA and like I said,
the jelly at a hundred percent, like, you know.
Like overseas basketball you always potentially have
a market to keep going it's just over there exactly it's a

(09:45):
business but they don't they don't put the business before who
too much yeah of course end of the day everybody has to
make their own money yeah yeah yeah everybody has to get you got to get revenues
sponsors have to be happy fans got to be happy right but at the end of the day
it's just who yeah no and i love it that's why some people really thrive you
know what i mean in those countries and why wouldn't you go out there and go

(10:06):
get go experience something different on somebody else's dime.
Yep, 100%. I want to talk, well, I do want to talk on the AU side.
Like you said, you play for Yellow Jackets. Shout out to Mickey and those guys.
You know, that's a program we've mentioned plenty of times on this show.
I remember some of those big battles against YBA.

(10:26):
We used to go out. And then, so, not just,
well, we'll speak about your AAU experience too, But I want you to kind of speak
now that you're on the outside looking in, because I always I always like you.
You got you younger guys that are playing, you know, now that you kind of step back from it.

(10:47):
You're outside looking at, you know, at the whole entity of a basketball.
And there's a bunch of debate about it. You know, there's some people that love
it. There's some people that, you know, they you we talk about all of it on
this show and all my all my social media. I talk about it, you know,
but people say, oh, well, it's a scam or, you know, it's daddy ball or no, it's great.
Or, you know, you need it to get to this level. You need it to,

(11:10):
you know, I mean, like it's a whole bunch of discussion about it.
What is your overall take now being on the outside of it?
What do you think of AAU, where it sits, pros, cons, any input you got to it?
I mean, I don't think it's a scam. I think it has got a lot more saturated since I've been playing.

(11:30):
Because, I mean, when I was playing AAU, we would see YBA in Sacramento.
We would see them in LA. We would see them in all the tournaments.
So it was more like you had to be a really good player at a young age to be
on an AAU team. Whereas now it's, oh, I can just go join any team I want.
If I don't like it out here, I can just go join a team or go make a team. Yeah, make a team.

(11:50):
And I think that's where people are seeing the daddy ball because,
I mean, obviously, if my kid isn't happy, I'm going to put him in a situation
to make him happy and chase his dreams and be able to experience things I've experienced.
So I can see why parents are doing that. So I never want to take away from a kid's experience.
Experience i just think the the aau scene
now has taken more of an adult approach right

(12:13):
tournament directors are these insane fees
yeah yeah insane entry fees or even
now i was just talking to uh devon jones who used to run the yellow jackets
when i was there he said there was a tournament he went to where the the uh
entry fee you had to buy the weekend pass yeah no they're yeah even if you only
want to go watch one game one game you need to buy the whole weekend i know

(12:36):
the one of of the circuits that was doing that was, and they made a joke about it.
There's a new circuit. It was either Puma or New Balance. And yeah,
because this is New Balance's first year, they created a circuit and their entry
fee was $75 for the weekend fee.
And somebody put under it, they said, y'all shoes ain't even worth the entry fee.

(12:56):
Like y'all shoes ain't even worth the entry fee y'all charging.
I was laughing my ass off when I saw it, but that's, they were talking to me and they
told people like even if you want to come from one day it's like
75 or 60 i think those are the problems where it's
getting too political and too business-minded but
i mean at the end of the day it's just kids having fun wanting to
play with their friends wanting one to experience something different

(13:18):
than maybe their team ball or just what they've
heard or seen on social media so exactly i don't
have any ill will or ill feelings toward the au
life right now okay and then i
know you mentioned when you played au you know you played on you
know the higher the highest levels right you
know the shoe circuits things like that which which shoe circuit were

(13:39):
you were you playing eybl or was i started like i said i played for during when
i was playing it was only nike adidas and underarm yeah so i started with adidas
okay we had a team which actually we were not sponsored okay i had a team it
was me marquise chris josh jackson solomon young Yank.
A bunch of these guys are going to be future pros and we took

(14:03):
this just small town team out of dixon that's where we were based and we hit
the au circuit and we were just killing everybody there you go so an adidas
team took notice a dream vision yeah vegas no dream vision and they said hey
we'll you know bring your guys under our wing and you guys can be a part of our of our team but,
we want to split some of your guys up so some of you guys are going to play

(14:24):
17 and some of you guys I was going to play 16.
Okay. I ended up playing 16s, and it wasn't bad.
You know, you're still on the Adidas circuit. You're still in front of college
coaches, but you're not that elite level.
Right. Okay. And that's what I wanted to be. Right. Of course. Of course.
So I just, I've always made the best decisions for me. I seen that I probably
really wasn't going to get to play that much on their 17s team.

(14:45):
So I ended up going to Team Superstar in the Under Armour League.
Okay. With my friend and teammate, Stevie Matthews. Nice.
So we killed that circuit. had a great time.
And then after that year, the soldiers called me and said that they wanted me
to join their team. So then I played in the EYBL for my junior year.
We made Peace Jam. I did very well in Peace Jam. I averaged a double-double.

(15:08):
And from there, just having fun. That experience of EYBL, I talked to Jordan
about it too when he was on the episode.
What was your experience with that? I mean, obviously, like you said,
you had a season you did well, But just the, you know, really paint a picture
because that's what I try to tell these kids. You know what I mean? Yeah.
It's, they call it the league for a reason. Okay. Because if you,

(15:31):
most likely if you play there, you're going to be a bro.
If you perform well there, if you're an elite player in the YBL,
you can write your ticket anywhere you want to play basketball.
It's no joke. Okay. All right.
And I mean, we had everywhere we went, every session, that's what they call them.
When you go play in the tournaments, it's like four sessions per year and then
you have peace jam. Yeah. Every session is sold out.

(15:52):
Teams bringing in whoever they want, fans in stadiums. It's filled up all the
way up to the nosebleed to come watch high school kids play.
So that, and then the talent level,
ridiculous i mean like i said it's colleges plenty i
know probably like hundreds of cars you know
i know back then for sure playing against malik monk darren fox
man i played against some jason tatum

(16:14):
yeah i played against all those guys so just to be able to say that i played
against those guys too is an experience in its own and even then like when you
you know when you were young and you guys were all young and playing again you
played against him and you just you know you saw the ability level and obviously
you're there for a reason too you ain't no slouch but you see it and And you're just like, man,
were you kind of, you know, in awe but anxious and really enjoyed that,

(16:38):
you know, competitive atmosphere?
I wouldn't say I was in awe and like, I'm not a guy who's nervous.
Okay. Because at the end of the day, like I said, it's just basketball and I
love to play basketball. Okay.
So I think for me, I took it too, I don't know if it's too serious or too lightly, really.
I just wanted to play. So I was just happy to be there playing basketball.
That's a great outlook to have, honestly. So I think I could have taken a little

(17:00):
more serious in the aspect where, oh, I'm playing Malik Monk tonight.
Let me lock in a little extra because I know he's going to bring 20 college
coaches to come watch. And you're like, if I can go at him.
I don't have to have 50 and all this, but if I can just play well and hold my
own against him, then those college coaches will notice.
I think if I took it more serious from my future aspect, seeing the future,

(17:23):
then I would have done a lot better.
Okay. In hindsight, it's 50-50. I mean, we all got, it's like,
we wish we could like tweak that, but no, but I mean, that that's a great experience.
So then in your younger AAU experience, you know, I'm speaking like,
oh, well, when did you start?
I, let me not assume, let me ask, like, when, or when did you,
were you, you know, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, when do you roughly remember?

(17:46):
I think I remember, I actually remember the first day I joined the Yellow Jackets,
we were out in the Folsom Sports Complex.
And I want to say I was maybe fourth grade, fifth grade. Okay. Probably fifth. Okay.
And, I mean, I was at a kid's birthday party. We were hooping.
Devon had came over and seen me play. Yeah. You know, he looks like a basketball

(18:09):
player. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably the tallest kid there.
And so they just gave me the invite. And then from day one, it was just a gel with the guys.
Nice. They took me in. And even as little kids, it's like, that's kind of rare.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For kids to immediately bond. Yeah, yeah. No, no doubt.
And welcome a newbie. Yeah, especially if you're the new great kid because it's
kind of that trial through trial by fire.

(18:30):
It's like, man, who are you? Their families are the one who started it.
So I kind of expected that, but it wasn't that at all.
So that was from a younger aspect.
Now, me looking at it now, I can see how AAU was considered an elite level of
playing because we were actually like very good.
We were nice. We were smart basketball players.

(18:53):
We played hard, had athletes, had high IQ point guards, had great bigs.
So I think playing that AU circuit from a young age is what gave me the confidence
to just continue to push through each wall that was in my way.
Okay. And I mean, like, obviously in combination of playing and practicing and

(19:15):
putting in work and all that, we, I mean.
And again, in case parents and kids don't understand this, or if you guys think
we're bullshitting you when we tell you this, like every athlete puts in a certain amount of hours,
you know, Gilbert said it on his, like when he was talking about Iverson and
I don't know if it's his podcast, but I think it was a guest on someone's,
but he said, you know, he said like Iverson practice, you know,

(19:37):
cause it was this whole thing.
Like Iverson never, but like he practiced every athlete clocks in a certain amount of hours.
That's, that's inescapable. You know what I mean? That that's just generally understood. Yeah.
It's it's just the the nuances along the way. Right. Like you said,
the team chemistry. I'm not saying you got to go put in. Yeah.
Six hundred shots as a third grade. Right. Of course. Yeah. Go out there and roll the ball out.

(20:00):
See what you can do. And then from there, maybe in the next year as a fourth
grader, you say, OK, I wasn't as good with my left hand as a third grader.
Now, when I go to my team's practice, I will work on my left hand.
You don't have to have a trainer, a dietician, a lift coach,
and all this other stuff as a middle schooler.
Hoop isn't that serious. It's gotten a little insane. I think that's another

(20:22):
problem where kids in social media are seeing all these guys working out with
different players and high school kids working out with NBA players.
So they're like, oh, I got to start now.
I got to put in 10 hours today to just hoop. I tell the kids you do have to
put in work, but you don't have to be you don't have to forget being a kid.
Exactly. You know what I mean? That's where it comes in. That's where you learn,

(20:44):
really. And your creativity grows as a player.
If you're just training and working out all the time and you don't let your
creative mind take over. Yeah, you're a robot.
You're not going to get better. Actually, you're just going to plateau.
Exactly. You need to have those everyday, those life experiences to help you
on the court and build your basketball instincts.
Things i will say that's one thing in my generation i think we benefited from

(21:05):
because you played it we played at
parks yeah we played you know i played outdoor a lot and like i remember,
having to walk to my friend's house knock on his door ask his dad hey can he
come hoop today that was that was you know and i know nowadays it's kind of
non-existent you know kids play it you know cow fit 24-hour fitness lifetime
fitness you know you got all these gyms i mean shit i got a Like,

(21:27):
you know, and, and no knock on it.
Cause again, I like, we talked about for sure. I love the basketball Renaissance
we're living in, you know, cause it seems like, you know, it's just more and
more of the sports growing.
Oh, definitely. I think in the Renaissance aspect, like that you're talking
about is kids are getting more.
Like they're introduced to more now with the social media and all this all the

(21:51):
games televised they could watch overseas basketball even so i think that's
helping their kind of skill.
And i think like it's just going to keep growing and changing no it will but
but that's why i i encourage the kids like i coach and you know the kids i coach
i tell them you know obviously come to you know come to practice we practice

(22:13):
two days a week hour and a half right three three hours
out of your life and but and then i train to so
i tell the kids you know you could i say let's put like this let's say you train with
me three days a week an hour that's three hours and you come to practice at
six hours you put in with me right like and it's like let's say
one of my fifth or sixth graders and say okay i you know
i'm telling you put in one extra hour a day right that's 10 hours in the week

(22:35):
right that that's enough that you will still see growth you'll get better but
it won't it won't kill you from the rest of your life you can still go be a
kid That hour could be playing at recess, playing on the weekends,
or doing whatever you want to do. That is your sports emphasis.
And then I'm big on encouraging multi-sport athletes, right?

(22:58):
I tell them you have your primary and your secondary sport, no doubt about that.
But I know we've kind of gotten to a point where I watched this one YouTuber.
He did a great analysis and research on this. But, you know,
currently, we do have a lot more kids choosing basketball and only playing basketball year round.

(23:19):
I'm actually against that. I'm not a proponent of that. There are some that
that's what they believe.
And it's all subjective, right? Some people it's going to work for some it's not.
But he did what he presented was a really good case study.
And he and he used the three goats, if whoever, you know, the goat debate,
the three goats as an example.
So he pulled up an interview of LeBron and LeBron said, you know,

(23:43):
he's he really started playing basketball and taking basketball serious when
he was like 12, 13 years old.
But before that, he was a football kid. You know, he played football his whole life.
Kobe Bryant was the same deal. They pulled up an interview after he retired,
one of his many interviews. And he said, yeah, he said, I, he was like,
I didn't really start playing until I was 12 years old. And he told the story about how he sucked.
He was like, I played in the league and I didn't score one point.

(24:05):
Cause I was trash. Right. And then Michael Jordan, same thing.
He said he didn't start till he was like 12 or 13. So there's kind of this correlation
of like, these guys didn't start when they were eight years old,
seven years old, whatever.
They didn't do all the crazy drills and stuff that you see now.
They played other sports. Kobe Bryant did soccer.
Jordan did baseball. ball LeBron did football right all

(24:27):
those sports yeah help you in basketball exactly soccer you
get your footwork right football get you playing through contact
and get your speed up you know baseball get your speed up get your you know
your hand-eye coordination hand-eye coordination your your mobility yeah you
got to have hips to play to play baseball so that that's something I'm a big
proponent on I tell a lot of my um my hoopers I'm like okay if you're like I have um this really

(24:52):
good seventh grader or he's eighth grader now his name's ken this kid's
really really good high potential you know
he plays volleyball during because he's he's super skinny
so he's not gonna play football but he's doing volleyball and you
know his dad is great i love his dad he's really cool one of the one of the
best au parents that you're gonna ask for and that's tough to come yeah and

(25:12):
he's even in my video it's tough to come by and he's like you know he's like
he's he's like chris you know he's doing volleyball right now you know is that
cool i was like yeah like that's It's great.
Reaction time. Exactly. He's going to get hops. He's going to get more bounce.
He's going to come back more bouncy. So I'm big on that.
And I would definitely, if you're listening or checking the show out on YouTube,

(25:34):
I definitely encourage you guys, let your kid do multiple sports.
Obviously, if basketball is still their main sport, that's great.
There's nothing wrong with that. They can still keep a ball in their hand once
or twice a week, but let them do another sport.
Parents, that was the next question I was going to ask you. Thank you.
When you played au and obviously you're a kid at the time so you don't really

(25:56):
see how crazy necessarily parents could get but now that you're an adult i'm
sure you could see in the art of.
I saw it and so
like what if you could talk to parents if you could sit down as as a pro athlete
right now former high level uybo a you got you know a kid who went through the

(26:19):
journey if you You can sit down and have some parents,
a group of parents listening to you right now.
What are some key advice or some things you would tell them?
I've actually had parents, like groups, and sat around and talked to them.
And I always tell them, you know, the biggest thing you got to do is listen to your kid.
And if they say they don't want to do something, they really don't want to do it.

(26:41):
And I get, you know, you saying, oh, you know, you haven't tried it yet.
At least go do this and that. but they know
what they want to do and what they don't want to do so you got to
listen one and then two i would
always say just be there to support you know good or bad support okay that's
the biggest thing kids they see everything right so if you if my kid is i know

(27:06):
of quarterback you know whatever he throws interception the first thing he's
gonna do look up at me yeah if i'm right man,
or he see me yelling, now he sees that, it's not gonna help his game.
It's not gonna help him get better.
You gotta just give your kids the energy to help them succeed.
And I, well, a key thing I try to tell parents too is be patient, right?

(27:28):
We talk, and we talk about this as hoopers and what, the process,
the process, the process. I'm like, I tell parents, that's a real thing.
You do got to give it time, right? Like, and every kid has a different race.
Some kids are going to, you know, go right away. Some it's going to be steady.
You know what I mean? Steady and slow. And you just got to be patient.
Obviously, height plays a factor. I mean, it's a tall man's sport.

(27:51):
It is what it is. Height plays a factor.
Athleticism, speed, all that stuff. But there are plenty of stories and examples
of guys, you know, with the odds against them still figuring it out and thriving, right?
Best player in the world right now, Steph Curry. Yeah, right?
Undersigned a major school. Did not pass the look test when he, you know what I mean?

(28:12):
Had a dad in the NBA. Could have easily just been a nepotism baby.
And they said, nah. Made his own way. Made his own way. Changed the game.
Yes, that's what I want a lot of the parents to understand.
You know, I do agree with you saying listen to the kids. I definitely agree with that.
The only way I give you a little pushback is, yeah, Yeah, sometimes you got

(28:36):
to push the kids a little bit because kids nowadays, and again,
I'm just telling you because I got young kids myself, they're a little fucking lazier.
So, you know, you got to be like, you got to be like, come on,
man. I don't want to go practice. Like, no, get your ass up.
You're going to practice.
But I know what you meant, though. I know what you meant. If you're already
into something and your kid told you, you know, you want to do that.

(28:56):
Yeah. And then they change their mind. Right. Nah.
You're going to stand by this decision that you made. Exactly.
And you're going to go to practice.
All right. Right. Cause I just, um, I think, uh, and, and that's, well,
that, that was one of the questions I was going to ask you, but I think about
it now, like, you know, the argument right now is how overseas is becoming way

(29:17):
and way more skilled and obviously caught up to the U S I mean, and, and.
A lot of it comes from the conversation of how they teach the kids overseas.
I got to see that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Did you get a chance to see
that? So my, the team that I was on, the club, that's what they call them.
Yeah, the club teams, yeah.
They have kids in that club who will be in that club until they're adults.

(29:42):
Right. So that means they're running the same offense we're running,
the same drills, the same style, the same team culture.
They will be pros at that by the time they're in high school. Yeah.
So that way they don't have to worry about, you know, their IQ,
their IQ, their they don't have to worry about somebody else coming up and taking

(30:03):
their spot because it's just level based. You just move on to the next level.
Right. And then obviously, if you're advanced, they just bump you bump you up.
Like if you're a Ricky Rubio or a Luka Dodger, you'll go play the 17th or 16th.
So that is, I think, the biggest factor that's helped a lot of overseas teams
catch up to us is because they just pour so much into the youth.

(30:24):
Even if the kid decides he doesn't want to play anymore, they're fine with that.
Or if the kid wants to leave, like you said, if a Luka Doncic grew up playing
for Real Madrid all his life, right?
He could have easily said, I don't want to go play in the NBA.
I just want to stay here and play with the team that showed love.
It would have been great with that.
But he said, no, I want to go play in the NBA. And they said,
hey, we're going to get you there.

(30:44):
I mean, it's a win-win, right? And then, like you said, that's truly pouring
into the youth, in my opinion.
Right and how many how many days a week did they practice did you get a chance
to see that i didn't but our facility open every day and every day i swear kids
in finland didn't go to school,

(31:06):
every day there's kids in there hooping wow whether they just get in there i
saw a kid in there he's probably just turned 13 yeah he's in there shooting
not even threes and hooking up He's form shooting.
He'll get in the corner, roll the ball to himself. Corner three.
And imagine that level of discipline.
Like, you know our kids. Kids in the U.S. ain't good.

(31:30):
I'm not good. Let's just go do something else. Right. This guy came and took
my spot. All right. Like, isn't that cool?
And that's one thing I'm trying to, with what I'm doing with my teams, specifically my teams.
You know, YBA, we got like 80 teams here. But so just so you well, you don't know.
So my branch is the YBA elite branch, right? I do the the kids that want to

(31:54):
do the travel balls, that want to be high level varsity guys that potentially
want to be college guys and pros, I get those group of kids,
you know what I mean? Because let's be real, the majority of kids.
They just like basketball and that's okay yeah point zero one
percent of the kids exactly playing the nba so i try to
i'm the coach that tries to foster those
kids you know what i mean now will they go pro or with it who fucking

(32:17):
knows i don't know but i do know that their their mentality is
coach i want to play against the best i want to compete against the best i want
to work my butt off and i want to try and that's it it's like okay you want
to try okay you're in the right And that's another thing I think parents have
to start doing is if your kid is obviously if he's in the if he's a young kid

(32:37):
and says, I want to be in the NBA,
like, OK, yeah, maybe.
But if you have a kid who's on an elite program, you can see your kid might
be able to do something with basketball.
And if they say, hey, mom, dad, I want to go play in the NBA.
Your first response shouldn't be, well, you know, you got to have a plan B. Yeah, I agree.
I hate that. I agree with you on that. You got to support 100% your kids.

(33:02):
Especially if they're like, I would say by age 13, 14, because they're old enough
to really understand what they're saying.
And if they, like you said, I agree with you on that. If they say,
if my son, because he's 10 now, but let's say 13 years old and he says,
hey, dad, I think I really, really want to try to make it. I really want to try to go pro.

(33:24):
Yeah, I 100% agree with you. We're looking for trainers. yeah
we're looking for the best i'm gonna say this is the roadmap son here's
the blueprint we can follow and it's like okay are
you ready to do this you know i mean because that would be the next question like are
you really ready to put in this level of work because it's hard
it's gonna take it but i think like you said they know that they see it at that
age that it's gonna be hard but it's what they want right so if you even if

(33:48):
you support them 100 and they're they're giving their best and it doesn't work
out that's fine okay all of that work is gonna open so many more doors for them than you saying,
oh, you need to have a plan B and allowing them to focus on something else.
Because then they're just going to lose interest in it. Yeah, I agree. I like that.
I mean, it's just, I want to try to bring some of that overseas culture with what I'm doing.

(34:13):
Like for like in december so i kind of take a brief break in september let my
youth teams everybody get back
to school i get my like seventh and eighth grade guys back in december,
they're they're those two classes of teams i have are gonna they're really talented
kids very really a really good group of kids oh and and the families are really
cool but i'm i'm gonna try,

(34:34):
we'll see how we'll see how it works out but my theory is i want to try to implement
some of the overseas philosophies in terms of more emphasis on practice, less on games, right?
And taking a little bit of Utah's playbook, because all those damn Utah teams
are super, like, you know, fundamental, shoot threes. I got a buddy of mine. He runs the Utah Gold.

(35:00):
He played D1. His name's Dalton Nixon, and I've been talking to him and just
kind of been picking his brain about, okay, what drills do you do?
Like, like every time I play against y'all damn Utah teams, like you guys run
five out, kids are backdoor.
I mean, you got 11 year olds backdooring, you know how hard that is for me to
get with some of these kids.
Like, so I'm trying to do a little hybrid of that. So my kids are going to practice three days a week.

(35:23):
And obviously in AU, that's like unheard of. Usually it's like one day,
two days, if you lucky, but the way the practice is going to be,
it's going to be one day is going to be high intensity workout,
working on their bodies, right.
You know, doing everything Everything fast, aggressive, fast,
aggressive, fast, aggressive.
The second day will be a heavy emphasis on fundamentals, shooting,
shooting and fundamentals, shooting and fundamentals.

(35:45):
And then the third day will be like game preparation, right?
Working on plays, working on sets and things like that.
I'm curious to see how that plays out.
That's a pro practice schedule. Oh, okay. Well, it's good.
That's a pro practice schedule. Yeah, that's what I want to try to do and see.
The biggest difficulty, if you want to call it that, is...

(36:07):
Commitment from parents because that's i gotta have a meeting with those parents
and say listen you gotta drive your kids out you gotta bring them here an extra
day yeah no you know i i get it,
life happens i say listen if there's 12 practice in
the month because that's really what i'm talking about 12 12 yeah 12
practices a month i need them at least a 10 at
least you know i mean i need them at least a 10 nine's pushing

(36:29):
it to me but you know at least that's where that support and and
commitment from the parents comes in yeah if you are serious about
wanting your child to be be good at the sport that they're playing you
will get them to those practices that's my parents were like that they were alternating who's
driving who to practice they're sitting at the team meetings
they're doing scoreboard not only for me but they also wanted to be involved

(36:49):
right in the life yeah and now look at it my mom she's probably one of the most
known non-basketball people in the basketball world nobody in Sacramento can
right goes around without knowing because like you said She was ingrained in that culture.
And I mean, you can't, you know, let me ask you this.
So do you still think a you is is an important component to make it,

(37:16):
you know, to the highest levels in in combination?
It's kind of a two part question, too, because this is always kind of a debate as well.
Is high school ball still important? I think both are important.
Yes, but they go hand in hand in their importance.
So of course, it's important to play a you ball so you can travel get in front
of different teams different coaches because I mean, let's be honest teams coaches

(37:40):
in the east aren't traveling. They're not coming out.
They're not traveling out west two three times a month to come watch you play.
They might come once might.
So if you can get out there and go play in front of them, that's that's even better.
Yeah but if you're an elite aau player and you go to your high school team and you don't perform,
they're gonna see that yeah and then now that hurts your stock so you have to

(38:04):
perform at both levels okay do you think or what what high school did you go
to i went to sacramento high school okay and do you think let me let me try
to phrase well let me quit i could dive into sac No, I'm kidding.
That's my. Oh, no. Yeah, no. Sac High and the culture there.
I mean, you know, well, you know, they won sections back to back.

(38:25):
That's where I get my kind of play style and who I am as a player.
That's where I got it from. Shout out to Sac High, man. I love that.
Shout out to Sac High. I don't like how they did my boy, Matt Johnson, man.
Shout out to Matt. That's my guy, man. I love Matt, man. Tough, tough way to go.
But still, no knock on Sac High. And high school season, I mean,
high school just started this week.
So, you know, basketball season's coming up. So shout out to you kids out there

(38:47):
and best of luck to you this 2024-2025 season.
The question I'm trying to articulate to you is, like you said, they both are needed.
I don't, I agree with you. I don't think one's more important than the other.
I think both just culturally have, you know, uh, what they need.
I've been asked the question by parents, you know, if, if my kid didn't play

(39:11):
high school ball and only played a, you could, he still play college or could he still make it?
And yeah, exactly. I know the answer to that, but I, but I think that's what
worries me is that speaks culturally to kind of, unfortunately, where I think parents'
minds are shifting, where they think, where they're putting more emphasis on

(39:33):
the, the, the, the non-scholastic ball than they are.
And they're not, they're not, they're not valuing what that does and what that
is. So I guess I wanted you to speak on kind of guess your your.
Yeah, I guess your high school, you know, career to a degree in terms of just
the culture of it and learning, you know, practicing five days a week and just

(39:54):
going to class and just, you know, that's a part of your makeup. Right.
Like, so, you know, speak on that. I think the biggest thing that I could say
is college is more like high school than it is AAU.
AAU is just rolling the balls out. Let's go see who's the best team.
High school team, like I said, you're going to practice five days a week,
sometimes six. That's what we did. We did six. You're going to run plays.

(40:17):
You're going to hate it sometimes.
People don't realize that. You're not going to see eye to eye with your coach.
And you can't leave your high school to go play for another high school.
So you can't you
can't play college ball without playing
high school ball because you need the structure and
the foundation in college it's even worse yeah you're gonna you're gonna run

(40:40):
this play for 34 seconds and shoot the ball at the last second if you have an
open layup great we'll take it in open three you better be one of the shooters
who this coach said can shoot right so So, you know,
like it's just, it's the way that, like you said, the culture is brought up.
Your college and high school coach are going to talk way more than you and your

(41:03):
AU coach. Now, of course, there's exceptions.
Of course, yeah. When you have AU coaches who have been through the world and
kind of have, you know, different players in different places,
they can, of course, put you in different aspects and in different doors.
There's always going to be exceptions to the rule. Yes. You know,
if you're, again, let's say you're a Ben Simmons, you're a 6'10 point guard,
left-handed. You could probably get away. Like he did. He did.

(41:25):
He was in Elizabeth Warren College, didn't play. Still a lottery player.
Right. That's what it's like.
Just how it works there, of course. But that's why I try to speak to you.
But for your average hooper, yeah, you have to have structural...
Yeah in order to make it in any level because it
just keeps getting worse honestly i'm right no i agree
it's it's bad it's not bad yeah i know

(41:47):
i know what you mean though it's not bad when you're a
player and you're there doing it it's bad you don't want
to we call it vegas closeouts did it every day didn't
matter the practice didn't matter if it was going to be light a heavy
practice or what i was doing before or at
the beginning of every practice for 15 minutes just the
defensive drill no balls on the court we're just running at

(42:07):
our coaches hands up two slides yeah and that's
it and then the second part of the drill two people you're in
a help spot you swing the ball to your man
yeah you close out to your man and then you swing get back to
the help spot and then it's the next people like you're gonna do that every day
so let's say you have like you say you practice six times
a week for what six months yeah

(42:28):
that's what how many practices almost 300 something like
that maybe like you're gonna get tired of it but
that's where your high school and that
culture can come in and help you because you've already been used to it you've
already been practicing for this long you've already been doing the same amount
of repetitive drills and that's where you come and talk about like trust the
process it's a process and you have to trust it well and again a lot of and

(42:52):
i and i put criticism on us as au coaches.
And directors because i do think
it comes down to kind of the the culture and the coach
and what what's your what's your
morality what you're willing to stand on when you when you
have a group of let's say high level fifth graders right high level sixth graders
right because we're doing that nowadays right we're fucking ranking 12 year

(43:15):
olds and 10 year olds and this is number one number one first grader in the
country like what type of shit Got 30 cameras on his game watching him play.
Watching his highlights on YouTube.
There's coaches that are doing the roll the ball out shit. You know,
that they're, here, just be a stud. Be more athletic than everybody, bigger than everybody.
I don't. I'm just, so you get a little insight into me. I actually still stick with, I have a system.

(43:37):
I run a college system defensively. I run a college system offensively.
I do a Vance Walburn's dribble drive, four out, one in, and then we reincorporate five out.
I do Gonzaga's five out. Kind of a hybrid of them and the Bucs,
what they did when they won the championship.
Because, you know, you had Brook Lopez, big spot-up shooter,

(43:58):
center spot-up shooter. And then when Gonzaga, they had Chet.
So Chet was essentially like their point guard, and they ran through him.
And I do that, and I teach my kids IQ.
I teach my bigs how to dribble. I teach my guards how to post up.
Like, we do all that. But what I will say is like for some parents and stuff

(44:19):
when they first come to me or they try out because people look on the outside
and they're like, oh, Chris teams win his YPA league team. They don't know what it took to.
And it's, and in the beginning we lose in the beginning, get our ass kicked,
you know, especially because I'm teaching the kids man to man defense.
We run a pack line, man to man defense.

(44:39):
And when you're trying to teach a group of nine year olds, 10 year olds, how to run the pack line.
You imagine trying to teach, you know, grown men who have been doing their own thing for forever.
And so that's, that's one thing I'm trying to tear away from AAU culture.
I don't like, um, the roll the ball out. You know what I mean?
And I get it to a degree because it is because you do have to let the kids experiment.

(45:04):
You do as a as a I've had to learn that tolerance to kind of let some of my
guys experiment because because you can see the sparks of, OK,
this kid needs this. Right.
But it's all about balance. That's why I say with everything,
it's all about balance. If it's if I let them do too much and just,
you know, let the leash go.
Now it's chaos. Right. But if I if I'm too tight on the leash.

(45:27):
Right. Then it's militant. Right. Now they're not even like a trickle down to trickle down.
Yeah. Yeah. If you're too loose with one kid now, three other kids,
parents and that those kids are are upset. Yeah. And may leave.
Right. And now you're down three kids. Exactly. Or now if you're too tight on
the kid, him and his parents, they're not feeling it.
So now they leave or they're upset as well. So, like you said, I agree.

(45:50):
It's a balance. and the last thing before we
move on to hot takes and stuff like that i wanted to i wanted you to speak on
just the car the your discipline
like how you know you obviously i keep your body in shape you gotta you know
eat right you gotta do those things i'm enjoying my retirement because i don't
have to worry about those things anymore i still play my little men's leagues

(46:11):
and stuff but i ain't gotta worry about none of that shit i love that i could
just sit back and not worry about it now,
but, you know, just wanted you to speak on that.
Like, you know, the, the, the mental preparation, the workouts,
the, you know, how, how do you keep, how are you keeping yourself motivated?
How do you, how do you keep yourself going?
For me personally, I had to hit.

(46:32):
I had to hit rock bottom of rock bottom to find my discipline. I was in college.
I was, like you said, a highly recruited high school kid.
I get to college, and the year doesn't go as planned. My freshman year, we went six games total.
Best player tears his ACL. We have one senior. It's kind of the load is on his
back now. Yeah, that's right.

(46:54):
And it was kind of just, you know, for me.
It was kind of like we're talking about a roll the ball
out situation where it would just throw throw this freshman into
the fire and we'll just see how he does and then it
took another coach coming in my sophomore year
to tighten that leash on me right and sit
me on the bench i wasn't playing and i

(47:15):
hated that right because i love to play i'm a
competitor and the future and
vision that i saw for myself wasn't this so then my
sophomore year i went up to the coach and i said hey what do i have
to do to be the head dude on this team like i
want to be top dog dude you're going
to for everything told me what i had to do i did

(47:36):
it and one of our other better players
end up getting hurt just kind of how the game goes so i was
able to step up into an even higher role
yeah and things were going great we i
was on all the the pictures i was doing all the interviews all
the posters yeah on the little ticket stuff I was on
that right and then that player comes back after

(47:57):
injury and it's like the reverse he gets thrown right
into the fire not even like a warm-up and now I'm back
on the bench so I had to really look
at myself outside of basketball because of because of basketball my life was
in shambles I wasn't you know going to class as much I wasn't yeah hanging out
with my friends as much I would literally go to practice come home close the

(48:20):
curtains living in the dark close the door Or you're angry, frustrated.
Turn on the TV and just lay in bed for hours.
Some days not waking up to go to class.
I mean, smoking a little weed in college, of course, you know,
just going out partying when I probably should have been in the gym or could
have just been chilling.
So it really took me not getting what I wanted and saw for myself to be like,

(48:44):
OK, what needs to change?
And what do I need to do? Not what needs to happen.
What can others do for me? What do I need to do to make myself into the player
that I want to be? And that's when I turned to the Sac State.
And they kind of helped me and told me, like, this is what you need to do and
improve on. And this is how we will help you.
So once I saw that I had another coach believing in me and wanting to see me

(49:07):
succeed as well, that gave me a little more confidence in myself.
So now when they're teaching me and trying to give me criticism,
I'm not looking at it though as oh this coach is just picking on me or he doesn't
trust me or believe in what i'm trying to say yeah i looked at it as they're
trying to help me become the player that i want to play,
so then after that it was just like okay how
can i keep this up by myself how can you be it's called a

(49:29):
24-hour pro how can you be a professional for 24 hours out of
the day i like that was a good term that was going
that was going up to school that was making sure
i was on top of all my responsibilities at home
that was going some extra work doing
whatever i needed to do going extra lift doing
a little extra rep if your rep count is 10 do 11 do 12 so just finding my lane

(49:53):
in what i wanted for myself and staying in that lane okay is what kind of keeps
me disciplined and in focus and i'm not sometimes i do step out of the line
well of Of course, but you're human.
That's called being human. So just finding your reasons why and sticking to
those reasons is what really can keep players disciplined. All right.

(50:15):
Great answer, sir. Let me go. So let's go into hot takes.
So a lot of good basketball news that obviously we're going to talk about.
The biggest thing we're for sure going to talk about is congratulations to the
Team USA for the men's and women's.
Both coming home with the gold. Yeah, right. Coming home with the gold.

(50:35):
Obviously, there's not enough said of Steph Curry, those last two games.
What he did was just, yeah, it was great.
It was great to watch but you know
and then of course the debates of like you know who's mvp you
know who's should have got this blah blah blah look man
i ain't getting it i don't really care it's it was
it was just cool to see the best players play

(50:59):
usa basketball do their thing go out there and kill it for me that was that
was the funnest thing for me to see for you and obviously again like I said
you're a young man still playing and things like that how how did that feel
for you what what what was that like looking at you know seeing this it almost took me back to,

(51:19):
my early teenage years because that's when these players were starting to blossom
of course LeBron you know Steph,
KD, Book was in college
so getting to see all those
players and especially like the the OGs and
the greats come together and be you know

(51:40):
together for one purpose yeah it was crazy to see because these guys are on
their last legs of their career day much yeah so to see them kind of carry the
torch but also pass it along in the same sentence or in the same sequence yeah
it was it was amazing to see I mean I'm really excited for.

(52:02):
Yeah, man. And it does look good. I mean, obviously, LeBron, KD, Steph.
Yes, their era is coming to a close, right?
We're still going to be previewed to, I think, a few more years.
I might give it like two. Two, maybe three.
Oh he is for braun what for braun braun

(52:23):
is gonna be yeah because i'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen what's gonna
happen he's already playing with brownie yeah of course so you've seen what was
his contract he took the two years with the third for
the player option right yeah that third year you know who gets to come out and
be a pro is oh right yeah yeah he's gonna play he's gonna play with both sons
for one season right that'll be wild and then he'll be done that'll be wild

(52:43):
And I tell people when Steph's career becomes like Ray Allen's, you know,
like when Ray Allen was on kind of his way out with the Miami Heat,
when he's just kind of more catch and shoot guy now,
that's when I think we'll start seeing Steph on his way out.
But we still got some time.
He's still running around. Yeah, he's got a long time before that happens.

(53:04):
If you guys think it's crazy to watch him on TV, it's crazier to watch him in person.
That's what I was going to ask you. and it's even crazier to play with him or
against him as i was gonna ask you like what your stint with you know like you
said the warriors and and the kings and things like that like you know.
Seeing him you know being around him i

(53:26):
mean i'm like i said i'm sure you practice with him like just what
what's that experience like i can't even
tell you like as a fan of basketball yeah you know you're giddy yeah you see
steph in the gym you're like oh shit yeah like that's and he seems like a and
again on the side no he does really seem like a legit i don't know if you've

(53:48):
seen the clip came out here and did it yeah with marcus with Shout out to Marcus.
No, I did see that. I thought that was so cool.
But he just really seems like one of the more genuine superstars, just being honest.
No one has more fun playing basketball than him. That's what I would say. Good. No one.
Well, like in practice. He just really be shooting like that?

(54:10):
I'm talking about he. So we're in the summer league training camp.
He pulls up, and I see him in the gym or on the training table.
I'm thinking, you know, he's not about to step out here with us.
He's just in here probably getting a little workout while he's in town.
Sure enough, he walks in with a practice jersey with the FIBA ball, too.
You know, we're all about to go play with an NBA ball. He's like,
I'm about to go play Olympics. Fuck y'all. We about to play with this FIBA rock.

(54:34):
And first, like, three possessions. Ball just in his hand. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
Corner and a corner. Double team. Double behind the back. Quick little small step back.
So, and you're not saying nothing. You're just sitting there watching like, hey, I'm open.
That's wild man because again like even i played i would i'm a shooter you know

(54:56):
i was my but man like he's a fucking shooter like it's just we'll take it a
step lower wiggins came and played with us too oh yeah so i mean obviously he's
still a great player yeah no doubt but he's not on level.
Wiggins is out there like it's easy work, just catching the ball mid-post,
two dribbles, jumping over you, putting the ball in the rim, just plop.

(55:18):
And I mean, that kind of circles back to the second part of my question,
which is after speaking about the Olympics.
But can you describe, you know, because I just don't think kids and people from
the outside really just understand the levels of play.
Now, obviously, there's politics and fucking basketball and the business side of it.

(55:40):
But taking that outside of it, there are just some of those guys who are just,
like, extremely talented that I'm sure you've seen or played against or played with and whatnot.
Can you speak to that and, like, what's that like? Like, you know,
like, if you're trying to tell these kids, like, listen, you could put in all
the work, but some people are just special.

(56:01):
You know what I mean? You can shoot 20,000 shots a day. You're never going to shoot like him.
You're never going to shoot like Steph Curry. and it's just you know
what what is that journey felt like for you
or that experience been like for you luckily that was
like something i was introduced to
early is that you're never gonna be like one other player you may have aspects
of your game that resemble but you're never gonna completely be that player

(56:25):
okay so i would say just like i said finding your own niche and lane and sticking
to it that's what the nba is yeah steph is a scorer so he goes on his team to score Draymond,
rebounds, runs the point guard, and is a leader. And chokes some people sometimes.
It's all about what can you do to help a team win.
That's all that matters because at the end of the day, if you're not winning, no one cares.

(56:48):
Yeah, and it's funny you mention that because it's just you saying that got
me thinking of Pat Bev and he talked about it on his podcast.
I saw a reel or clip where he was saying he doesn't want to play his role anymore.
He was like, no, knock on it. I obviously made a career in the league doing that.
But he's like, I want to go back to where – you know, cause he was the man overseas

(57:10):
when he was, when he's like, you know, I want to go back to that.
I want to get back. Not many people know Pat averaged 30 in high school. Yeah.
And that, and that's what's crazy to me. I have to tell the kids sometimes cause
they'll see role players in the NBA or even brothers like yourself,
G league players, things like, and they, and they, you know,
they think like, Oh, he sucks. Are you all that?

(57:31):
I'm like, go look up that fucking guy's resume. Yeah.
Like, no, he doesn't suck.
He, You just understand there's roles and there's levels and there's things
you as a young kid can't comprehend right now.
I would say look at James Wiseman. He was the second pick in the draft. Right.
But he couldn't find his niche. Yes. And he just didn't fit with the Warriors team.

(57:53):
Then he spent a year in the G. That's kind of unheard of. You're a second pick
in the NBA and you're playing in the G League for a year.
But that's why role is so important. And that's where he found it.
And he realized that I can't just, at least with the Warriors,
I can't just run and jump.
I need to be able to shoot a little bit. I need to be able to step out behind
the three and run the offense for the team.

(58:13):
So I think now in his situation in Detroit, he can play a little bit to the
basket now. So it's a little better for him and easier for him to find a groove.
And that's all it is. It's just being comfortable with what you're comfortable at.
What how much importance would you put on iq when
it comes to the game if you had a hierarchy you
know what i mean like we're talking about with levels it depends on the level

(58:36):
you're playing at okay so obviously if you're a pro
it's probably one of the top two things because if you can't
think the game of basketball you definitely can't play at the
speed the the nba is at right at college
you kind of have you know guidance so
you can get away with being a little more careless and
i'd say frantic playing a little

(58:57):
more frantic because you might just be better than everybody right
right and then it just goes though the further down
it goes kind of the less you gotta be like high school for sure
but on the flip side if you can be a high iq guy in middle school high school
it just does wonders that's what helped me a lot i wasn't the best shooter i
was just an athletic run and jump guy who get on the open court run the offense

(59:22):
at the point guard spot but
I knew what everybody on the court had to do.
So in our playbook, I knew everybody's position and what their role was in a certain play.
So I could get off the ball and go play the five, and you wouldn't have to go
to your drawing board and draw it up for me. You could just be like,
Christian, you're at the five. We're running this play.

(59:42):
All right, bet. So coaches would see that and be like, I like your IQ.
I like this and that. And then you just got to keep building on that. Watch more basketball.
Study that. Break down your own film. Watch yourself.
What could you have done better? What could your teammates have done better?
What could your coach have done better?
You know, just being able to talk basketball with the more people you can see

(01:00:04):
and the more you can talk about it, the higher your IQ will be. It did.
How how much did film help you film helped
me a lot in college okay in high school I
really wasn't the best at watching film I would watch it just so
I could see what maybe I could I've done better yeah did I miss this shot because
of that did I miss this play because of that but in college it really helps

(01:00:26):
me find my niche and that was being a defender being able to knock down shots
and then playing open court so I'm always guarding the players best defender or best
offensive player yeah so in order to do
that i have to know what he's gonna do in order
to to defend him so i'm watching
him all bleeding the whole week leading up to

(01:00:46):
the game and he's scoring spots and things like he likes to move does he like
to go over his right shoulder more what are his percentages at this swing does
he does he drive left and spin right at all the time and you'll find those nuances
and players and be able to build your iq off the film nice on both ends of the court. Yeah.
Film's always been a great tool for me. I have my teams, even my youth,

(01:01:10):
like my youth teams, we watch film at least once or twice a month.
So, you know, cause we'll, we'll do like a high level tournament.
So I'll usually get two really good games out of it.
And if it's on ball or TV, I'm like, Hey, we're going to go upstairs.
We're going to watch film, you know?
And that's again, like that's another thing I want to do on top of what I was
talking about from next year.
I'm going to have at least two film, two film sessions per month.

(01:01:32):
So we're going to have the 12 practices.
With two and fail sessions. And like I said, we'll see how it plays out.
I want to bring up women's basketball because obviously, like I said, they won as well.
And clearly with the Kaitlyn Clark, the Kaitlyn Clark, Angel Reese,
that rookie class and all that's, the attention that's brought.

(01:01:54):
Me as a OG basketball purist, I like it. I love it. I love to see it.
I hope it continues to thrive.
Just curious on your outlook on it, you know, from, you know,
just like I said, a professional who's kind of seeing that side of things evolve.
What do you think? I was I'm actually a bandwagon. So I really was kind of like, oh, women's sports.

(01:02:17):
I wasn't like, you know, writing them off. I was kind of just like,
it's nobody like a lot of people are watching.
I see like, yeah, these girls are are nice.
Yeah, they're only getting better. yes and as i think as
the game grows for them and becomes a global
sport for them it'll just take off from there
and you'll see you'll see a catch-up to the men's like that

(01:02:40):
yeah i agree and i mean it's you know
i do i still think from a business standpoint the wmba
has got to fix some things absolutely if they want to make they want
to generate the type of revenue they really want right that's just being
real like you know i don't be on
this show and i'm very candid about that i've had wmb a
former wmba player sit here and talk to me about it but

(01:03:01):
it's like i i say the same thing to them if you want the
business to thrive you do have to make adjustments that's just
how business works yeah you know like if clear you i used i talked about i said
the nba is an example i said the nba is not the same as it was in the 90s why
do you think that is because they're trying to generate a new thing the end
season tournament yeah different tv deals they're doing they're testing things

(01:03:23):
out and seeing how it is the rule changes right like.
That's why scoring is what it is if
you even think about like how everybody says they should lower the women's yeah
yeah i'm pretty sure yeah all the women who are playing
find it as disrespectful but if you just take take
a step back yeah and see the bigger picture of what it could do
for not you but your sport yes i

(01:03:43):
think it'd be amazing and you might think you get to go to a wmea game
somebody's getting dunked on me though so the people will watch that
and that's i've had yeah i've i've died on
that hill with some of my female hooper friends you know what i mean they're
like oh no you just like that wouldn't i was
like yes it would like it you go into nine feet
how is it how is it not disrespectful for them

(01:04:03):
to play with a smaller ball yeah but not a smaller
hoop exactly like you guys are okay with that it's like
it's just predicating the game to fit
your needs but also entertain the
people watching it so you know all that's obviously
always going to be a point of contention but i like where
women's basketball is going i think it's going in a great spot

(01:04:25):
i think in three in three years it'll be just as global as the men's probably
not as lucrative or like as entertaining as we're talking about but it'll definitely
take off i want to go back to a little bit of well go back to a you with you for a second.
So in AAU news, right, there's a bunch of shoe circuits now.

(01:04:48):
Like I kind of joked with it earlier. So you got New Balance,
stepped in the game, Puma, they have their own circuit.
You have basically the three circuits.
The three forefathers, the pioneers, right, Adidas, Under Armour,
and Nike, they basically all have two branches now because you have. I've heard of that.

(01:05:08):
It's like the CYVL for Nike, right? E-Y-C-L.
E-Y-C-L? Yep, E-Y-C-L. Is that for younger kids or is it for the less talented?
No, it's for high schools for the less talented, basically.
It's like the, it's if you want to give it, I say it like this, it's varsity and JV.
Okay. That's essentially what it is now. You have varsity and JV.
You have some kids who are in the like EYCL or like for me, I did Adidas gold, right?

(01:05:31):
They have the Adidas three SSB and they have Adidas gold.
They have UAA and UA rise, right? They have a JV and a varsity bracket.
Basically each one has its pros and cons because,
but good part is it gives programs and kids that think they could compete with
some of those EYBL teams or those UAA teams or those

(01:05:54):
three SSB teams, oftentimes they'll play each other. They do cross and play each other.
And I will say more times than not, those teams get their ass kicked,
but it really shows them a perspective of like the gap in the level, right?
Because like, so for instance, not this year, but last year,
my team won the gold. We did this gold circuit and we won.

(01:06:16):
So we got an invite to the three SSB championship.
Only, I think seven teams got picked and we were one of the seven.
So we were in Rock Hill and my team, good group, group I have for a very long time.
Good kids, good basketball players, got their ass kicked.
They, we, we went 0-4, 0-4 or 0-5 and, and, and two of the games,

(01:06:39):
I would say we could have pulled it out, just a few things didn't go away,
bad call, bad shot, whatever you want to call it, but.
But we were competitive. I
give my boys credit in that. They were competitive, but they saw the gap.
You know what I mean? They really saw it. And you could see in the atmosphere.
I mean, the atmosphere was great. Colleges all over the place. The arena was amazing.

(01:07:03):
The atmosphere, all of it, really cool. I just didn't like being in the middle
of nowhere, I guess, because I was in Rock Hill.
But other than that, it really exposed the gap.
And so what you're having now kind of is you have you do have a lot of teams
trying to compete and get to those top spots through those quote unquote JV spots.

(01:07:25):
So it's making it's making the AAU market pretty saturated. Kind of what we
were we were talking about earlier.
It's just now it's more like JV teams.
That's what I think that's where the business aspect comes in for the shoe companies.
They realize that these parents have kids who probably can't play EYBO,
but they could play EYCL, like you said.

(01:07:47):
So why not bring in that revenue in that stream and maybe help some kids along the way?
Like I said, maybe they find a gym or two and can bring them up to the EYBO
and he becomes the next Kobe Bryant or whatever.
So it's never a bad thing to have.
But yeah, like we're talking about, maybe it's a little oversaturated.

(01:08:07):
And it's tough. of pride you know it's tough like one
thing i was going to ask you in your opinion in au so one thing i
have to bring up we talk about and i have talked about a
lot in au is um loyalty loyalty is kind
of dead in au now you know what i mean these kids i
mean they they're all over the place man you and i mean i'm
talking youth i'm not even gonna like the high school side i

(01:08:30):
get it to a degree because you are trying to
fight for something right there's a reason you had to go to
an eybl team because you're fighting for something right like you're trying
to get a spot out of college makes total sense but i'm
talking about like you have fourth grade kids that are playing for like seven
different teams you know what i mean and and are this one coach who held the

(01:08:52):
kid accountable this one time you know said hey you're playing like crap or
you're not listening you're being insubordinate so they sat him on the bench for 10 minutes right.
That mom is now kicked, you know, we're leaving this fucking team, we're going over here.
Yeah, you know what I mean? And it's like, it's.
It's like. That's just hurting the, it's hurting the competitive nature of AAU,

(01:09:14):
but it's also hurting the kid's competitiveness.
Because now he's going to get into high school thinking, oh,
well, if I'm not playing on my high school team, I could just go to another high school.
That's not the case. CIF especially is not letting that fly.
I mean, I think the rules have changed maybe a little bit now.
I mean, you could transfer, but you have a mandatory sit. You have to sit for a 30-day sit.

(01:09:35):
And so you're losing time. You're losing seasons, basically,
you know, To say, oh, I want to play where I want to play, right?
So I just wonder, I'm just curious your thoughts on it. Because to me, loyalty is a big thing.
I think you should be, if the coach, and this is where I always say to Kevin,
if the coach is doing his job, his or her job, they're developing you,

(01:09:59):
they're there at practice, they're there at the games.
And keep in mind that person's sacrificing their time too, right?
Time with their family. Yeah, right. They're investing in your kid just the same way.
And the kid is progressing, that's also the key part because,
again, it's development.
I firmly believe, and I said this in the previous episode, but Jordan,
10th grade and below should be focused about development.

(01:10:20):
Junior, senior year, even sophomore year, I guess you could say,
to a degree dependent on the kid, but sophomore, junior, senior year,
yeah, it's about get exposure, show what you can do, get in front of the right people.
But let's say at least for sure, definitively in my opinion,
freshmen and below should be focused on development. And if you have the coach
that's developing your kid, coming to practices, investing the time,

(01:10:42):
doing their job, the club is doing its job. Mm-hmm.
What more do you want? You know what I mean? And it's still never enough sometimes. Right.
And, and, uh, I, I still just, it just bothers me. You know what I mean?
I just, I'm just curious, I guess, your thoughts on it.
I would say with, there definitely needs to be more loyalty and accountability,
but for parents watching, like if there's something on the court that makes

(01:11:05):
you uncomfortable, that's probably the best situation for your kid.
They're going to grow, learn from that, use it for life and become just a better player in general.
If you want to just take it in the small world for just basketball right
if they can push through that adversity they're going
to be 10 times a better player than the kid who just
decided to leave the team and give up right so i

(01:11:27):
mean i agree with you i think for me i would probably say a little bit more
like middle school down needs to be just fundamentals skill base getting people
to learn to play the right way and then once you get into high school if you
can make varsity as a freshman yeah so So then you can start to,
you know, pick and choose where you want to be at and where you want to put

(01:11:50):
yourself out at it. I have.
So I have like an overall dream I would wish I could make happen in Sacramento.
So, you know, and I'm sure you some of the programs I'm about to mention,
you probably have heard because they've been around a long time,
like Play Hard, Play Smart.
Of the the pharaohs the sack pharaohs obviously
us yellow jackets you know just some

(01:12:13):
of these staple programs have been here and doing this a long time but the unique
thing that kind of still bothers me is sacramento does not have a shoe circuit
team as big as we are as good as big as a mark as we are some of the players
we obviously have and produced and and and seen
thrive we don't have an eybl team we don't

(01:12:34):
have a 3ssb team we don't have a uaa team you know
and and when now we have phps went to
new balance but again it's such a new
shoe circuit nobody really knows yeah it's not you know i mean yeah exactly
and shout out to duane because that the sacramento team actually won shout out
to duane and his success on that new balance circuit because they won but you

(01:12:57):
know it's still so new like i don't you know i don't know if colleges were there
Don't know if those kids are getting recruited.
I would imagine they are but still obviously is sustainable Yeah,
keep it up exactly 10 20 years and then and then Puma there This is there.
This was their second year and
I've heard kind of a mixed bag I've heard some people say it was great.
I've heard some people say it was terrible like so I You pick right?

(01:13:20):
I want for one season and,
A couple of seasons, actually. If you have a class of kids that we see and we
notice, they're like, man, this group is going to be really fucking good. This class.
I wish we could get all these programs to come together, work together,
to go out there, beat the hell out of those top circuit teams.

(01:13:41):
Because that's how you get the contract.
That's how you get, like, you got to beat us holders. That's how that team in
Dixon was discovered. We were a non-sponsored team.
We did fundraisers. We had to pay our own fees and all that stuff.
But we would go out to these, you know, the like the tournaments that you can get different.
You have your team and Adidas team and an Under Armour team,

(01:14:02):
a team from wherever and just play. And we were going out there and beating the shit out of it.
And that's what I want, because we have the resources to do it.
Like, imagine if again, imagine if Farrell says, OK, yeah, we'll back.
We got a couple of really good studs. We'll financially cover them and back them.
Okay YBA we got like two or three really good studs we'll

(01:14:23):
financially cover and back them you know PHPS yeah we'll
do this you know imagine and then we have this team called Sacramento
United I don't know whatever whatever you want to call it and we take these
10 kids and we just go and you know uh Les was saying to me he said well yeah
part of the problem Chris is who's who's gonna coach it you know well who's

(01:14:46):
gonna handle it I said well yeah that's where
we have to sit down as fucking adults and have these conversations and
have these tough conversations but it's it's
trying to get people to think of the
bigger picture yeah that's what i always said if if
i got into coaching if i'd say i had kids and they wanted
to be at you i would first see if there were teams that i think they could play

(01:15:08):
on if they were good enough or if my kids were just super talented right the
out the wazoo yeah then we could you know sit down with the teams by well what
do you see and what can you do for my kid but if i could start an aau team.
I would take like you said a class yeah and that
would be it we wouldn't have an eighth grade team and a fifth grade team we

(01:15:30):
would have this one team i would ask all the parents to just trust me keep these
kids together yeah and watch them grow and develop together and see what could
happen and And I think that's how that could be formed is you have,
you know, start at fifth graders.
If you have them until they're 10th graders. Yeah.

(01:15:51):
World sky's the limit for them exactly and then obviously assuming they
all keep working hard they all keep the more comfortable they
get with you year after year the better they'll get
the more they'll want to come in yeah to work they'll trust you they'll probably
ask you questions they'll teach you something so if i got into au coaching it
would definitely be like i would just reclass and when that class graduated

(01:16:14):
i'm going right back to the bottom picking out some third graders and we're going to do it again.
No. Yeah. That's my, that's my goal, man. Cause I would like to see even, obviously I'm biased.
I would love for it to be YBA, but if it wasn't, I don't care.
I would still, I, my goal in the next few years is I would love to see a shoe

(01:16:35):
circuit team in Sacramento.
Now there are nuances to that because there's, this is the flip side of it.
This is just the, the, the behind the doors type stuff that people don't realize.
And, you know, Some directors and higher-ups get pissed that I talk about this
type of shit on the show. But this is the reality of it.
There's meetings and conversations that have that kind of prevent some of this stuff too.

(01:16:58):
Because you think like for 3SB, for example, you have Team Lillard, Jalen Green Elite.
And I think I'm missing one, but they're all in this area.
Their argument now is, hey, don't make a 3SB team at SAC because now we can't pull those kids, right?

(01:17:20):
Because now we can't get that kid because now he has a place that's only 10
minutes from his house as opposed to, no, we want him to drive down here to
Oakland and play for us, you know, comp to Magic or whatever.
They're like, no, you can't do that. Cause, and that's the, that's the tough part, right?
And what it really, what it's really going to take is it's going to take a kid

(01:17:40):
that's really high level or a few kids that are really high level that refuse to go somewhere else.
You know what I mean? Like when Lillard's calling, when the soldiers are calling
them saying no, like, Hey girl, I'm want to stick.
You can say YBA is that I want to stick with YBA, put YBA on that circuit.

(01:18:00):
Yeah if you if you really want me in your circuit you
really want you know i'm one of the top high school
kids in country and you want me on that
nike circuit you want me in eybl you got to bring my team you know i mean i
think that's what it or what it would take the likelihood of that happening
is slim to none but i'm just but i'm just saying like that's how extreme i think

(01:18:22):
it is the starting catalyst will be a kid who just is phenomenal it just says
i'm good where i'm at Yeah,
you know, and I and I and I know it's tough.
I just I know it's tough. I mean, I that's the biggest hard part for me.
And that that's the no, not the question I had on my list was,
um, there's this big debate going on right now about, you know,

(01:18:42):
me and Marcus fucking debated all the time on our Instagram live shows or whatever,
but about a AAU basketball should be free, right?
AAU should be free, free, free, free. We hear that term a lot.
High level parents think if their kid is high level enough, he should be free. You know.
I, I,
As a parent, even if my child was extremely high level, I do not think he's

(01:19:08):
just entitled to be free because he's high level.
I still would plan to pay if I signed him up for the soldiers or whatever.
It would take the soldiers to come to me and say, hey, no, no,
you don't got to pay us. I would plan for that.
But nowadays, but that's in high school. But I'm saying nowadays you have like

(01:19:29):
sixth grade parents, fifth grade parents, fourth grade parents.
They're like, oh, I shouldn't have to pay anything. My kids, my kids good.
Like, he's super good. He should be free. I don't think it should be talent
based, but I just I do think that it should be age based.
Like if you're going to watch the top high school players in the world.
Yeah, you should have to pay for that. Yeah.
You're about to go witness some great basketball. Exactly. Just like going to watch an NBA game.

(01:19:51):
But you know these tournament directors charging a hundred dollars to go watch
some fourth graders run around and scored 30 points Yeah, and then well and it's like.
When that when people say the argument of like, you know, hey you basketball
should be free, you know Marcus biggest argument with me is uh, well, it's for the kids.
It's for the kids. I said, well Marcus Private schools cost money,

(01:20:13):
you know that right like when you put your kid in private school,
you're paying for it Schools for the kids, right?
He's like, well, yeah, that's true I said, yeah, public school ain't free. Exactly.
I said, it's the state pays for public. So someone's always paying some someone's
paying someone's paying.
And someone is going to want that money. Yeah. It's like it might not be you, but someone's paying.
And so my I always say when people say this, like, hey, basketball should be

(01:20:38):
free for the kids. Just basketball should be free.
My question after that is always how how can it be? because when the referee,
referees, they need a paycheck.
When the scorekeeper's scorekeeping, they expect a paycheck.
When the lights are on in Hardwood Palace, Smud expects to get a fucking check.

(01:21:00):
Like what, I'm like, explain to me,
If we charge no one for all this that's going on, how does this maintain itself?
That's like life. You're not going to sit in your home saying, oh, I have kids.
Smug, can you keep my lights on for an extra month so my kids can't see?
Smug's going to go, I don't care. You don't care?

(01:21:21):
I always use the analogy. I say, so when you go grocery shopping and you get
to the cashier and they ring it up, do you go, I got kids, man. It should be free.
Or do you pay the fucking money and leave? You know, so do I think everything,
do I think things need to be overcharged?
No, I just don't understand. I don't understand where people think everything should be free.

(01:21:45):
I think you fundraise. I think you brainstorm.
I think you can, there's so many different ways to figure out how to get money.
You know what I mean? Today, if you can't raise $5,000 in a couple months,
something's got to be wrong.
Yeah fundraise you can just start a go fund yeah there's
going for me i got some kids we're trying to play basketball we don't they don't

(01:22:08):
have the means to make it like that can you help us out right you get 9 000
people to donate a dollar that's nine thousand dollars exactly exactly no that's
that's exactly what i always say wash right fry something black people love a fish fry.
Go post up in the hood right fry some
fish have some drinks have a little you

(01:22:30):
know like a barbecue yeah picnic for people right sell
plates there's so many ways to figure it out and
that's what i try to tell people now you know nowadays a lot of coaches
and directors are getting into running tournaments because tournaments is
a way to you know fundraise between your snack
bar your your entry fee and things like that
so i don't know man that that's gonna be

(01:22:51):
obviously a topic conversation i'm gonna probably fucking cut this and pay post
this so people can have the debate too but basketball can't be free people it
can't be 100 free it's just not possible nothing is free in this world yeah
never will be and especially in this country a capitalist country in this state,

(01:23:12):
go happy man i'm trying to think of my list of questions because i think i had
like three more then we're out of here we could rattle off i'm not doing nothing
i got a free day tomorrow Hey, look at you,
speaking more on AU or, you know, a couple of last things with, in terms of just AU.

(01:23:33):
I, outside of, like I said, the shoe circuits and the things like that,
it's seeing it's nepotism that that was the thing.
I obviously, um, that's become a big topic of conversation because I saw a statistic
not too long ago and it was from 2000 to 2014 or 11 could be wrong.

(01:23:57):
You guys can fact check me on this, but it said the juniors in the NBA.
Were only about 1.2 percent
and now it's like 40 yeah it's yeah
it's it's it's the junior the the oh and the nba it's it's it's i think it's
like 12 percent of the nba is juniors like you know gary you know gary payton

(01:24:19):
jr ron james jr yes yes scotty pippen jr so nepotism and then even like the
big uh conversation that happened when they picked the high school kids for the
usa team you know it was the boozer twins it was
carmelo anthony's son it was yeah it was
it was you know and the big debate is
and this is a two-parter thing is the the nepotism that

(01:24:41):
exists and basketball is no longer the
trend baby sport you know it's not coming out
the trends you've seen that the same that conversations yeah
a few people talk about this on their podcast so And I think that is coming
from is that these kids have the means to go work out and go to a strength and

(01:25:03):
conditioning coach and go have be on a already a crazy diet because their parents
are on a diet because they have the means to afford that.
Yeah. So I don't think that it's a bad thing that the nepotism is happening.
No, I don't. But it's it's something that we need to be mindful of. Yeah.
Because if I'm making a quarter million dollars every year, my kid can go train

(01:25:30):
with whoever I want them to.
I could send them to New York for a month to go train with Chris Brickley, and he can come back.
If he takes it serious enough and is serious about it himself,
he can come back an NBA player that summer.
I think that's all it is. It's just these kids having the means to be able to
get in front of these different trainers, these different players even.

(01:25:52):
Think of the players that Bronny has seen throughout his lifetime,
just sitting around the game, being able to talk to them. So that's all it is.
Like their dad is in the front office. Hey, my son needs to be there because I'm him.
They're actually good because they had the means to do it.
Now it just means that trench babies and everyday average people need to have

(01:26:12):
to work that much harder.
And if you really love it and are serious about it, you're going to do it.
You're not going to see this as a problem or a hurdle.
It's just more adversity you have already have to power over.
Yeah, because it's like and that that was that's the big outlook I have is,
you know, is basketball the Trent baby sport like it used to be? Not so much.

(01:26:33):
It's but again, it's because of how how the sport has evolved, what it's evolved into.
To of course having the influx of overseas players that
have really gravitated to the sport and can come into it
because i like when i was in college my center was from lithuania you
know what i mean like it's back then that was yeah
i heard it yeah exactly you know i mean that and that's and even that i mean

(01:26:55):
he was my first experience of playing with a european center like he could shoot
threes he amazing footwork you
know i mean like i never had seen that before you know And he was 7'1".
You know what I mean? It was like, what the hell?
They brought me on to rebound because I was a rebounding wing guard because

(01:27:16):
he kind of sucked at it, even though he wasn't that great of a rebounder.
But he was skilled and everything else. So they were like, Chris, you rebound.
You know what I mean? So that's why we need you here. So that's what I'm saying.
The nepotism doesn't bother me. And it the sport itself not being like hold

(01:27:37):
the kid from the hood that the the LeBron James stories the Donovan Mitchell
stories the you know, there's the single mom figuring it out like I.
Those stories are becoming less and less. That, to me, is not a bad thing.
But like you said, do you have to be, is basketball kind of evolving into the
tennis social club atmosphere or the soccer club atmosphere?

(01:28:01):
I don't think it is. I think social media is making it like that.
If you go look at all the social media posts, it's all of the nepotism babies
who get the notoriety, who get the posts, the shout-outs.
And you just look and you'll see like kyan anthony
sitting along his dad carmelo at the olympics right
how many kids were there with their dad exactly and then

(01:28:22):
i mean and then you think about it too it's like like you
said they might show that on social media but you go to a
cal fit there's still a bunch of kids in there working out training
hooping you go to 24 hour fitness it's still a
bunch of kids out there training hooping the difference i would
say between back then and now is they have those
24-hour fitnesses they have those cow fits that now
even the cow fit down the street has a shoot 360 built into

(01:28:45):
it really yeah now yeah they built a fucking
shoot 360 in that cow fit so now you
can go on your court and hoop and play pickup you can
go lift weights and you can get on a shooting machine and get a
fucking 2 000 shots up you know what i mean like nice yeah like that didn't
exist for me when i was younger you know even when you were younger you know

(01:29:05):
what i mean so that's that's where i say is the big difference like and of course
well the question is well if you can't afford that stuff what do you do okay well this is my.
My i thought about this question long and for a long for a while before i wanted
to answer it on this show okay if you don't have the financial means to those things.

(01:29:28):
What what do you do? You do you can't afford a membership to 25 Fitness.
You can't afford the the shoot 360 membership.
And to be quite honest with you, they are pretty affordable.
But let's just say because there are people really below that poverty line and
and kids still want to do it. OK, this is what I say to you.
You have something called the Internet. internet, you can type in ball handling drills.

(01:29:55):
You can type in shooting drills and hundreds upon hundreds of videos will pop up.
If you're in Sacramento, if you're in, and again, I know different people,
different places listen to the show.
So let's say you're in a rural area and you don't have, you're not in a major
city or, you know, where you have access to a bunch of AAU clubs or gyms or things like that.

(01:30:15):
You don't necessarily need a court to work on every aspect of being good at basketball.
Walking to school. If you walk to school, dribble the basketball.
Yeah. Go away there. Just dribble.
Like that's my, and of course, there's more nuances, more details I can obviously get into.
Maybe I'll do a quick, I do a side show called Coach's Rise Time where I talk

(01:30:37):
strictly about little general stuff.
Maybe I'll do a Coach's Rise Time talking about this in more detail,
but there is a way, irregardless of your financial situation.
And the truth be told, there's a lot of coaches out there, a lot of A.U.
Clubs like I know for me, for example, if a kid is dedicated,
if a parent's dedicated, we'll figure it out. We'll find a way.

(01:31:00):
You know, don't worry about costs on every single one of my A.U.
Teams. I have two to three, maybe four kids that financially their parents can't cover shit.
And I'm lucky enough that this club makes enough revenue that we can can scholarship
kids that we can help other kids.
But like I have one kid on my team, his dad just got out of prison.

(01:31:23):
He was locked up for, you know, I think like four to six years.
And he's back in his son's life. Great, great, great, great. You know, good dude.
Don't don't make this misconception. that's just because someone's in prison,
they're a bad person. Shit happens, life happens. That's the wrong decision at the back.
Exactly. Just had to make that disclaimer. But like, good man.

(01:31:43):
I coach both his sons. I tell him, man, like, don't worry about anything financially
because he's always bringing them to practice.
He works out. Many days they don't practice, he brings them here and they work
it. He's working them out on his own. Like, he's a very involved father.
You know, he's just trying to give his boys the best shot. That's what it's about.
And I'm not charging this man nothing. And I won't charge him or his sons anything.

(01:32:04):
Like, because I understand the bigger picture, right?
There are people out there like that all over this country. And I think sometimes
people give AAU such a bad rap that they think the guys that are corrupt,
the money scammers, the motherfuckers that do all this dirty shit.
Or, you know, once a kid gets injured, they don't care anymore.

(01:32:28):
Once a kid doesn't pan out to what they think, they move on to the next one.
There are those people, but I don't think they're the majority.
No, not at all. You know, so that's my soapbox moment, I guess.
I mean that's that's amazing like
that's always kind of been my my take
on my knowledge of the game and
just life if i can help you know a kid out here and there just even for the

(01:32:51):
time i don't have to change his life if i can change his mood yeah change his
insight that's a win for me what are what would you say is your top three things
that that like like i said you're talking to You're talking to youth.
They're listening to you right now.
What are the top three things they need in order to be a successful basketball player?

(01:33:14):
I'd say first, you've got to have heart. And that's not just playing sport.
You've got to have heart, period. You've got to be able to get knocked down and stand up every time.
Because the moment, especially in basketball, the moment you stay down,
everybody sees that as food. Now you're just food to them.
They're just going to tear you apart. So you got to be able to get back up after

(01:33:35):
getting knocked down, got to be able to handle any and all adversity that comes your way.
And I know it's tough, like you said, the kids, how old are they?
For the ones I just told you about, one is 12, the other is 10.
Those are, during the time that their father was in prison, those are prime
developmental years for them.

(01:33:55):
They could have easily just been like, man, my dad's in prison.
My mom's struggling or whatever.
I got to stop what I'm doing in my life to help them out.
But instead, they took that and was like, okay, I can make my situation better
and I can help my own situation by continuing to play basketball,
by continuing to do the right things.

(01:34:16):
And their parents saw that. And now their parents are supporting them.
Yeah. And it's like you said, it's not even a second thought with him.
He doesn't give an excuse that he just got out of prison or he did time that
he can't be around or he needs to get his life in order first.
He's a very active father. He realizes that his kids have potential to do something
and he wants to give them the best shot they can.

(01:34:37):
Yeah. And then the older one is really good. He's a really good defensive player on top of that.
The younger one, he's developing, but he's a big, strong kid.
And I think he's got good upside, too.
But no, that's I don't know. No, I just, I guess, you know, for when people
listen or, you know, check the show out or whatever,
I do want them to hear this part and really hear it that, you know,

(01:35:00):
if your kid really wants this, it can happen, right?
It can happen. You know, and I'm sorry, well, you said heart.
And dealing with adversity. Dealing with adversity, right? And did you say a
third thing or no? No, no. What's your third thing?
In order to be a good basketball player, just the worth ethic.
Okay. You know, you don't have to work out for three hours every day.

(01:35:24):
It's quality over quantity. If you can go put up 150 quality shots,
that's better than going to putting up 5,000 shots where you're just shooting
it at the rim because you want to be in the gym. Right.
So having the balance to see quality over quantity.
Now, of course, there needs to be times where you're in the gym three hours

(01:35:45):
at a time. Yeah. Or you're working out for an hour.
You'll go eat. maybe take a nap, you'll come back, do another hour.
There needs to be moments like that.
Heart, the way you deal with adversity, because you can deal with adversity
in negative ways, of course, and the quality of your work. Nice.
When you when you were you know

(01:36:08):
deciding to go down this path
you know what kept what
kept you from i guess well you talked briefly about kind of your darkest time
but you know what kept you from caving in what kept you you know from listening
to the naysayers because i'm sure you have plenty of people that might be like
oh you can't do this you can't do that like what But how did you push past that or keep going,

(01:36:33):
keep yourself motivated to keep going?
I always tell people this when they ask me this question is,
I don't know, I'm still doing it.
So I think once I'm done playing and I take a step back to look at my career,
then I'll figure out like it was
maybe a decisive moment where I just this switch finally clicked for me.
But I'm still figuring out there's still days where I'm down on myself and I

(01:36:54):
don't want to talk to people.
I'll lock myself in my room. There's still days where I get up and I'm like,
I don't want to work out today. And I'll go to my workout with a shitty attitude.
Maybe I don't have the best workout and I don't care. I'll just go home and
call it a day. So I'm still figuring it out.
But I would say if I could think of any moment that's helped me like start to

(01:37:17):
realize what it was, it would be.
Right before i transferred i had called my
parents and i had told them that i didn't even want
to play basketball no more i was i was just going to be completely
done my mom worked for the state i was like hey can you you can put me on with
the state she's like yeah of course but is this really what you want to do and

(01:37:38):
i was just like yeah like i'm done with this i'm tired of being recruited over
i'm tired of people not believing in me i'm tired of people not giving me the
due diligence that I feel like I've earned.
So it really took them sitting me down and saying, you know,
like, you can still do this. It's not out of your reach.
So that's good. Just that really. No, that's great. Like, and I'm glad I really

(01:38:00):
appreciate you opening up and sharing that because I do think a lot of kids
run into that, what you just said, the wall of like, you know, I'm done.
Like I'm done and feel like I'm not getting the validation.
I'm putting in the work, like, you know, Especially high school kids.
I see a lot at high school.

(01:38:20):
Because most high school teams have, let's say, 15 kids, right?
And you'll see number 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
You could see it game after game. It'd pull at them, eat at them.
I've seen it. It happened at my high school. I've had players who were,
I'll even go, we'll go, let's see, we'll go 8 through 11.

(01:38:42):
11 at my high school team one through 11 could have went d1 easy easy but i
think only one of us went or two of us went right out of high school to d1 one
or two went to d2 first and then.
One went to jc and then to d1 okay so the path was there yeah but you could

(01:39:05):
see it like you're You're talking about every day, just kids who are getting
beat up and don't see that it's not anything against you.
It's just the way the sport is. Right. It's a competitive sport.
It's a personal sport. You're constantly this far from somebody.
Yeah. So it's just natural. You're going to butt heads and talk shit.
And it's how you deal with those moments that turns you into the player you want.

(01:39:29):
And if you Tuck tail turn your head and you know,
just start pouting People see that and real competitors Will feed off your energy
and go pick on you even more to not only boost their confidence But to prove
to everybody that they're who they say they are and they eliminate a threat.
Yeah They're like, okay one less guy to worry about so you gotta be able to

(01:39:53):
take those moments and flip them.
Yeah Yeah. Okay. I got my ass beat today.
I'm going to come back tomorrow and I may get my ass beat, but it's not going
to be like it was today. Yeah.
It's not going to be as easy. You're going to have to work hard now for every
bucket. You're going to, I'm going to foul you for, you're going to have to
earn these, earn these points.
You got to pick yourself up and just keep going. I had to pick yourself up.

(01:40:16):
No, that's, yeah, I mean, it's kind of surreal when I see a lot of kids,
even that I've coached, you know, that I thought had enormous potential.
Maybe, okay, maybe not D1, but I think you could play D3.
I think you could go NAIA. I think you could play JUCO and work,
you know, change your body.
At any level, basketball can take you to amazing places.

(01:40:37):
There's JUCOs now, national JUCOs who go do overseas, like, games,
and they'll travel the country to play.
I try to tell these kids, I said, it's not. it can't
be d1 or bus this this is that mentality's got
to go away you know there's the there's what's
the statistic i think it's 4520 d1

(01:40:57):
scholarships or something like that and then an entire country right like percent
get it and i'm like you can't think i won't play unless i'm one of those four
thousand it's like do you know the odds you're putting against yourself just Just stay the course.
Like the analogy rings true to me. They say, you know, the man that loves the

(01:41:18):
journey will get further than the man that loves the destination.
Just one of my favorite quotes is T.S. Elliott.
He said, I don't know. I can't really remember that it by verbatim.
But it's like if you can travel and reach your destination and know who you
are for the first time, you've won.

(01:41:40):
Nice that means your journey has shaped you
you've learned from that you've taken those life lessons and applied them anybody
can learn something yeah it takes a different kind of person to apply yeah what
they've learned yep and i i've stuck with me ever since i've seen that people
clowned me for in high school the teacher who taught it to us was like a corny dude.

(01:42:03):
Some things stick with you i'm all for that like kind of corny like underdog
type of stuff yeah Yeah, man.
I want to talk to you about your experience with coaches and things like that.
Well, you know, the first question I'll say is, do you think coaches,
I mean, it's kind of an obvious yes, but I just kind of maybe you can elaborate

(01:42:23):
or, you know, talk on it more.
Do coaches, the coaches in your path, or did you have a hand,
you know, one or two coaches that really stood out and that really impacted
you and helped you progress on your path and your journey on who you are? Yeah.
First, I would say it was my dad. He was my very first coach.

(01:42:45):
He kind of gave me the confidence and blueprint to be a basketball player and show me what it takes.
And I mean, who doesn't like playing for their dad? Right. right it's it
sucks when you're doing it and you're
always like the hardest on you yeah but when you understand why
it's always the best feeling and even when you do that like my one of my favorite

(01:43:06):
basketball memories is playing in this rec league and i think we're either in
a game to go to the playoffs or in the playoffs yeah and we're just little kids
i steal the ball game Game winding down, make the game win and lay up.
Dad picks me up and does a lap around the court, just cheering his head off. More excited than I am.

(01:43:27):
That's one of my favorite basketball memories. That's a great memory.
So there's him. And then the second, I would say, was my high school coach,
Derek Swofford and Earl Allen, Ramon Burrell.
They're the ones who showed me that I can be a professional,
that I actually am a good basketball player. And they instilled their trust

(01:43:48):
into me and gave me their confidence.
And that, in turn, gave me my confidence, allowed me to be a leader,
grow in some bigger roles as a young kid.
Like, I was playing high minutes as a freshman at a loaded Sac High team.
We had probably seven seniors, all very, like, good players.
And they just put it out there that, hey, if you want to do this, we can show you how.

(01:44:12):
And, you know, obviously, you know, Sac High's culture and tradition,
especially with guards. So that was probably one of the reasons why I went to that school as well.
But just having that coach at a young age, trust you with so much.
Like as a freshman, I'm trusted with running an offense.
I'm trusted with being a leader and trying to tell essentially close to grown men what to do. Trust me.

(01:44:36):
So they helped me become like the basketball player that I am today.
And then another coach would be the coach that I transferred from at Santa Barbara.
He helped me find out what it takes to be a winner and what it takes to be,
like I said, a 24-hour pro.
So before that, I was just like, yeah, if I'm playing, getting my stats,

(01:45:00):
don't really care if we win.
But when he came, it was just like, nah, we're going to do, like I said,
it's boom, boom, boom, every day, nonstop. You're going to do what I say.
And if you don't like it, you can leave.
And I didn't like it, and I left. But I took what he taught me,
and I took it to Sac State. Nice.

(01:45:21):
And I was trusting the process there. I didn't take his teachings or his philosophy
and try to change sex. Yeah.
I just took what it meant to listen to a coach, what it meant to understand
what he's telling you that, yeah, he may not want you to be the top guy,
but he wants you to get better and he wants to see you succeed.
So it really took Joe Pashnay. That's his name. Yeah.

(01:45:43):
It really took playing for him and kind of sitting under him to see what it
takes to be like a true winner.
So those are probably my top three. Nice. And obviously the impact of a coach
can make a significant difference on the trajectory of a kid.
Do you, are you a, so like for me, I'm a,

(01:46:04):
I believe at least anyway, I'm a combination of a coach with old school principles,
but my game system is adapted to the way the games play today.
Day i think that's what that's how it was at high and i think that's the way
it needs to be it needs to be gritty grimy foundation and we're gonna play my style of basketball but.

(01:46:29):
With your guys's flavor with your guys's culture because i mean like you know
again if you want to make example like kids are shooting three point shots i
mean clearly they're gonna shoot threes steph curry effect as a coach yeah you
kind of have to accept it okay kids are gonna learn threes However,
instead of scrutinizing them and saying,
you know, why are you shooting threes?

(01:46:51):
You know, fuck threes. What are you doing? Like, no, exactly.
I say, okay. I say, okay, well, this is what we'll do for every,
you know, I want you to attack and give me a two foot jump stop. Right.
If you can give me, you know, four made.
Jump stop layups in a game when that when you go ahead and spot up in that corner
when we drive we kick it to you there's your moment for that three right you

(01:47:11):
know you try to find different ways to,
you know entice these kids to want
to learn because eventually when he does enough jump stops and they see they're
scoring easily like that they're gonna be like oh well screw this three-point
shot i'm you know getting 20 points doing this you know i mean like that's the
the way as a coach you're trying to kind of trick your kids into playing the

(01:47:31):
right way and that's where i I say, but I still have very old school principles because,
you know, I'm known as a coach to light my kids up, you know,
getting their shit. I don't disrespect them.
That's the thing. I think some parents from the outside looking at some people
just think like, oh, fuck, he's crazy, but he's yelling. He's cursing. He's fucking terrible.
It's like it's worse. When you leave me, it's worse.

(01:47:55):
And that's what I try to tell him. I say you do realize more college coaches
and high school coaches are like me more than these,
I guess, coaches that you think are going to fucking hug you and,
you know, have a have a cuddle practice or whatever the fuck you think is about to happen.
Like that, there's no there's more coaches and I'm not and I'm just telling
you, hey, grab the fucking ball. Be strong.

(01:48:16):
Yeah, they might tell you stop being a bitch.
Go like, you know, I mean, they will cross the line maybe.
And it's like and again we understand as
we're older and we're men that that's how we're going to communicate to
a degree but i said i always make it clear to the parents
i never disrespect your child but i always challenge your child i'm going to
challenge your child definitely and if they don't like the delivery because

(01:48:40):
it's not a nice enough all the time then you gotta you gotta make a choice again
maybe i'm not the coach for you maybe i'm not the club for you right so i know
I think that comes from parents.
Parents have to understand that, especially with young kids,
coaches who do that, it comes from a place of love.
They want to see your kid succeed. They want to help your kid.

(01:49:01):
In college, you can get motherfucked, and then the next year, get recruited over.
And you'll be sitting the bench for the rest of your college career.
Or you'll be sent home now.
They're like, hey, you might want to think of that transfer portal. Even that's tough.
Why would I take a transfer portal if I could take an incoming freshman,

(01:49:25):
give him some NIL, or take what they call a grad transfer, somebody like that?
Even the transfer portal you got to be careful with now. I think last year they
had, what, thousands? That was a crazy amount. I think even right now,
yeah, like I think it's currently still like, at least for sure in basketball, I think it's like 1600.
Yeah. Just sitting there, like, you know, and who knows what their outcome is

(01:49:47):
going to be. That's another battle you got to put yourself in.
Instead of fighting it through, I went through it actually.
When I was in the transfer portal, and it definitely wasn't what it's like now.
It was way different. But even then, coaches were calling me,
oh, you have two years left of school, but one year on the court,

(01:50:07):
we can't really give you a scholarship.
We can't really afford to pay for that for you. Sorry.
I can bring in an incoming freshman who has four and four, and I'm getting my
money's worth, and I can build him up and trust him.
You're just going to be here for a year and be gone. Yeah.
And that's the business of basketball, right? That's the business of basketball.
Ball no it's um it it is going

(01:50:30):
to keep evolving yeah my my last
question was about the transfer portal which you know because obviously that's
the you transfer that's something you you know you were able
to kind of utilize or whatnot but it's um where do
you see that evolving to you know what i mean i see
it getting worse really because because of
how we talked about earlier the aau the the

(01:50:52):
daddy ball idea and ideology of it is
that these kids are going to be so used to just being able
to up and leave and go somewhere else that they're
going to do that in college so it's just going to make it that much
harder for them to get recruited out of the transfer portal because now like
you said you got to deal with hundreds of thousands of players a year for 4

(01:51:14):
000 scholarships worldwide if it's that so yeah so let's let's just go worldwide
so you got to deal with millions of players now for,
let's just call it even 5,000 scholarships.
Now, if you get that scholarship and you want to transfer, in five years,
you could be having to battle another 20,000 in the transfer portal.

(01:51:35):
And it's, again, I wonder if the NCAA or people are going to try to,
you know, regulate it somehow, right?
You know, obviously it's not going to happen anytime soon.
But, you know, it is going to be interesting to see how it evolves between that,
the NILs, the money, the nuances with all that. It's basketball is evolving.

(01:51:58):
Look how it came now. So before the transfer portal, if you wanted to transfer,
you had to forfeit a year of eligibility outright.
Right there's nothing you could do about it yeah now you
just transfer it's good yeah play right away i know
like i'm having i'm having a cam niles on
the show next and he he
he was at uc davis and left uc

(01:52:19):
davis and just did as you did a
juco year yuba and yuba did really well they
made it to like the final four and all that stuff i like
you yeah he was like philosophy absolutely coach corn
does a good job there with especially getting getting his
kids places and like that's one of the things i was going
to talk to him on the show i'm like dude you were you were at a d1 you're

(01:52:40):
at uc davis you went in the portal clearly didn't
get i guess to some places you pan out and you know
some would look at it like as you dropped you had to
go to a juco and work your way back up now clearly it worked
out he ended up getting recruited by i think my thing
is montana something like that but even he's going
to be on the show friday but i just i wonder if more

(01:53:01):
and more stories going to happen like that you know what i mean where guys go
in the portal might not work out then they might have to go juco but then now
it raises the the standard of making a junior college i think it has to deal
with your reasons for entering their portal if you're entering it because you
just want to leave the situation you're in it's going to be tough yeah.

(01:53:21):
But if you're leaving because, let's say, you know you can go to a higher level
because there's mid-major, of course, and there's high level like the ACC and
all that, the Power 5 schools.
If you know that you're going to be one of those players and you can get recruited
by those schools, absolutely.
Do your thing. If you produce that year and you enter the treasure portal,

(01:53:44):
most likely you're going to get some type of recruitment. But if you enter it
just because you want to leave a situation that you're uncomfortable in,
it's never going to work out.
I left because of my personal happiness.
Like I said, that dark time, I knew I wasn't going to make it at Santa Barbara
anymore if I kept going there.

(01:54:04):
If anything, I would have redshirted and then tried to transfer out to my redshirt year.
But I'm at the top two party school in the nation.
And now i don't now i don't gotta go to practice and
lift like that i don't gotta travel with the team to go to games
i don't have any real responsibility to basketball you
would have been your own self-destruction i would have i would have been out

(01:54:25):
i would have done nothing i would have barely had my degree probably would
have had no basketball nothing to fall back
on no idea of who i am or what i want to do yeah
so even if it's personal reasons for
why you want to leave the transfer portal that's a positive and good
reason yeah no you but it has to be for the right reasons
well credit credit to you for being self-aware to you

(01:54:46):
know realize these things shout out to my circle they're the ones that take
me grounded and help me realize that you know i could still play and that i
still did want to do this and it took them forcing me to still go play you know
you're i was playing but i was playing in a situation that i wasn't.
You know good at or that wasn't for me right when i was put in the situations

(01:55:10):
where i could play more I didn't have to worry about looking over my shoulder all the time.
You saw my ease and the stress literally just leave my body.
I think I didn't smile like genuinely for like a year and a half.
And then the minute I like started playing again and was happy playing,
happy with what I was doing, it helped my life completely. I had made more friends.

(01:55:34):
I became a more like social butterfly. Yeah. And now I'm just this goofy guy that everybody likes.
Like now people, they don't even care that I play basketball.
They just like that I'm a good vibe.
And that's, I mean, that's, and that's ultimately, but see, that's what you just said there.
That's, that's ultimately what I believe should be the outcome for all us athletes is,

(01:55:55):
you know, whether we're still in the midst of it, like you are,
or, you know, old and retired and yelling at kids like me, it's to be able to
take these experiences,
the good, the bad, and have an ability to keep moving forward because a lot of people don't.
And that's, that's what I think separates athletes from

(01:56:15):
everyone else we somehow learn
especially the ones that actually keep going playing college and whatnot yeah
you know we we learn how to apply that to our life because trust me there's
days when like when covid hit we didn't know if we still have this place you
know what i mean like and and we had to make a lot of adjustments and movements to make sure things

(01:56:39):
worked out, but that's kind of like what I mean is you, you, you just.
I think being an athlete helps us push through those nuances and things like that.
COVID was crazy for me. Like, like I said, I didn't have the best college career freshman year.
We won six games. So from here, I didn't, I was barely playing,
but more like spot minutes here and there, even though I was in when,

(01:57:02):
like when it mattered, I wasn't playing with how I wanted to.
And then my junior year, I didn't play at all. no okay
so transferred i'm red shirting
working out yeah i'm at a lesser leveled school
so i think i could have a chance of actually
like killing and growing well have high aspirations and then covid hits so i'm

(01:57:22):
just like man like it's another hill i gotta climb right but again shout out
to my circle just having that confidence behind me and having that trust and
belief behind me and support,
I was like, I'ma just make the best of it.
I'm going to just go to the elementary school. I'll shoot around for a little
bit or I'll sneak in and work out here and there. I'll do whatever I can.

(01:57:43):
And it made me like the game even more now because now I'm grateful that I could
still play this because this could have went.
COVID could have went completely sideways and we could have been shut down for forever.
And so I'm thankful every day for it. Well, let me see.
Well, first off, let me thank you again for coming in.

(01:58:04):
Thank you for having me. I know we've been talking and chatting a long time,
but, no, no, I always love talking basketball, as you can see.
I can talk basketball all day, man. I can talk life all day.
Did you have any shout-outs or anybody you wanted to mention real quick?
No, nothing crazy, man. Just shout-out to all the basketball people in SAC.

(01:58:25):
You know, Mickey, Devon, shout-out to the SAC Yellow Jackets.
Shout-out to you and YBA for helping all these kids. 80 teams, that's crazy.
Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot to deal with.
So shout out to you. Shout out to Johan out there putting this together for
me, my boy. We've been rocking for some years.
And then, of course, shout out to the family. Can't do it without them. Yeah.

(01:58:45):
Well, again, if you stayed and listened to the end, you are a real one.
Obviously, I know a lot of people, they break the episodes up into segments.
You got that life. You're definitely about that life.
Again, if you feel like it, please hit the subscribe, hit the like button.
Help me out with the algorithm. Help push this episode out on the YouTube side.

(01:59:05):
On the audio side, again, I'm seeing the Spotify numbers, the iTunes numbers,
the Pandora's, all that stuff, man. Keep listening.
I really, really, really appreciate it.
I'll keep trying to bring really good guests for you guys that can tell you
their stories and their journeys.
Again, Chris, really, really appreciate you coming through, bro.
Thank you. And y'all watching still, too, if you need any advice or want some.

(01:59:28):
Music.
More in-detailed conversations about something, I'm always available.
Feel free to hit me up. And I will have links to his social media in the description.
So you guys can click that, follow him, follow his journey and feel free to
reach out again for those who are on their basketball journey.
I wish you the best of luck. Keep fighting. Man, man, keep going.

(01:59:51):
Don't give up. Keep pushing and good things will happen with that. We are done and I'm out.
Music.

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