April 3, 2025 • 25 mins
On episode eight of the third season of the Between Bites podcast, Nina Compton and Larry Miller are joined by New Orleans Pelicans TV color analyst Antonio Daniels.
Antonio opens up about the heartbreaking loss of his brother while in college and how it shaped his purpose and drive to go from a 250th ranked prospect at Bowling Green to becoming the #4 overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft.
Antonio talks about the people that inspire him in today’s NBA, the challenges of breaking into broadcasting, and his love of New Orleans culture.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
And welcome to another edition of Between Bites with Nina
Compton and Larry Miller. Today we are joined by the
man with the Velvet voice, Antonio Daniels, color commentator for
the Pelicans and thirteen year veteran of the league. Welcome Antonio.
Thank you guys for having me the real A d
in New Orleans. We're not doing this on We're not
(00:40):
starting out. We are starting off that way. What Antonio,
what is the best part of your job?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh man, where do I start?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We gotta say Joel, just because he's probably listening to Joel. Yeah,
right out of the way. We got that out of the.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Way, honestly.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
To be honest, Larry, it's the fact that I love
the sport like I wake up every day and I
am blessed to do something that I love to do.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Not a lot of people can say that, right.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Basketball is not something that I enjoy, It's not something
I like.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's something I'm passionate about.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
And the fact that I get an opportunity to go
and watch NBA basketball games court side, have a relationship
with players, see guys that I have played against, see
guys that I have played with, see coaches that I
have coached to maintain relationships. I've always been told that
(01:44):
there's nothing more important in life than relationships, rather vertical
or horizontal, That's the most important.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thing you'll have.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
And I'm passionate about the sport, but I'm also passionate
about the relationships that I have within the sport.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
How tough is it for you?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Obviously you love game and a passion for the game.
There are folks out there who can play the game
and then not watch it. There are folks who can
play it and watch it, but then to play it
and now analyze it nightly. How was that a challenge
when you first started broadcasting?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
No, I think the biggest challenge for me broadcasting was.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Knowledge is one thing, Wisdom is something else. Because wisdom
is the application of knowledge. You can know something, but
articulating it to people who may not know what you
are talking about, it's something completely different. So in the
analyst business, I had to learn not everybody's on the
same tier as far as basketball knowledge is concerned.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So I don't want to use the term dumbing it
down because that just sounds bad. No, I know exactly
if it sounds bad.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Though I don't like the way that sounds, but in
a way trying to make the game fun, entertaining and
knowledgeable for everyone that's watching our broadcast me with Joel
and Andrew.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
And it's tough because if you're a if you build bridges,
if you're an engineer, you have to explain that to
someone like me who's just going.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
To drive across the bridge.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And for you to have that knowledge of every single
move that's happening on the court. Was there coaching or
mentoring early in your analyst career?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
It just came naturally too.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
No, I don't remember a tongue quite a bit, right,
If I had to hold your tongue quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah, well, I mean that's a part of the job though,
that's always a part of the job.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I mean I went to why I was still playing.
I went to.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Sportscaster University, Okay, which is in Syracuse, so it was
through the NBA Players Association. I did a coaching internship
and then I did the sports caster you now, I
remember I went there for five days and they put
you through a ton of things. Radio TV. They put
(04:10):
you on a set and say, hey, you know what,
Larry and Nina, we need you guys to talk about
why the New Orleans Pelicans are going to be successful
next year. You got two minutes to do it, you know,
and when it's something that you've never done before, it's uncomfortable,
but you know, that's how you grow. So when I
left there again, I left there and I went back
(04:31):
to playing in the NBA, and I remember, like.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
There's no way I'm doing this. There's no way I'm.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Doing because you didn't enjoy those five days or you know,
because it.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Was you know, you don't realize someone else's craft until
you actually have to do it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You know.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Quite often you hear people say I can do what
he can do or I can do what she can do.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, you don't know what that entails, and sitting.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
On the outside and looking it's like, oh, it looks
really easy.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
But things are never as they say.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
So every time that you're talking on set, you may
be talking to a particular camera, but what people don't
see is as you are talking, as you're trying to
express your point why the Pelicans are going to be
successful next year, your producers in your ear talking to
you at the same time.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So to actually try and hold all this together.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
At the same time and to make your points without
saying uh and.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Like it just it was a challenge. It was a challenge.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I left there thinking there was no way I would
do that, And then you know, three years later, I
had a radio show in San Antonio and things just
kind of took off from there to bing the color
elements of the New Orleans Pelicans now for six years
and having my own national radio show on Serrus XM
five days a week.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
What a blessing man.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, I mean that's saying, how do you do the
SIUs Show with your travel do you? How do you?
Is a just a set number of hours during the day.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Well, no, No, it's every day.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
It's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from twelve to three
Central Standard Time and Thursday from one to three Central
Standard Time, And it's all basketball, that's it, and no
matter where you are.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
No matter where I am.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So the good thing about that is you know, preparation,
you know, is where the knowledge comes from. So I
have to be prepared and know about all thirty teams
in the NBA, not just the New Orleans Pelicans. But
that pays dividends for me and helps me to do
my job. When the New Orleans Pelicans are playing someone
else because I've already done my research because i have to,
(06:40):
because I'm doing fourteen fifteen hours.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Of radio on the NBA every week.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It does help, It helps, and it pays.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Now let's go back to school. You went to Bowling Green.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yes, tell us about your time at Bowling Green. Was
it culture shock? Was it enjoyable? You hated school? I
love basketball? It was it was heaven and hell yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
All in my four years it was the best of
times for me, and honestly it was the worst at times.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I went to Bowling Green.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Because Jim laher Nega, who for me, is the coach
that I played for throughout my entire basketball career.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
That got me wow, that understood me.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
And my relationship with coach l started because he recruited
my brother right who was two years ahead of me,
six foot eleven, two hundred and fifty pounds. So when
my brother went to Bowling Green for his official visit,
I went with him, and I was he was a junior.
(07:51):
I was a freshman, five foot two, one hundred.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And twenty pounds.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Nice flat top, you know, And so I I was
a relationship with coach El then and then my brother
ended up going to the University of Dayton. I ended
up going to Bowling Green now three years later because
of my relationship with coach la Enega and his son, Jay,
who I ended up playing with for four years, who's
(08:17):
now an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers. February eighth,
nineteen ninety six, my junior year in college.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It's about five o'clock in the morning and coach.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Laernega Stan Heath, who are the two coaches that I
was like this with, came to my dorm room at
about five o'clock in the morning and I woke up
and I saw them standing over my bed and I'm
sitting there and I'm looking at both of them.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
We had a game the night before and I played awful.
I played awful the night before, but.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Thinking like, okay, well I played bad, but did I
play It's bad enough for you to be in my hotel,
I mean my dorm room at five thirty in the morning.
And coach Lernege at the time said, Antonio, your mom's
going to call you. And my phone rang and I
answered the phone and it was my mom and she
said she calls me Tani. Still to this day at
(09:20):
fifty years old, she still calls me Tony and she said,
your brother died last night. Oh no. And at the
time when he passed, he was playing basketball at the
University of Dayton leading the nation, and field goal percentage
was on NBA draft boards. And that was the hell
part for me.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
That was.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I remember going hitting rock bottom at two points in
my life, and that was definitely the first devastating He
was the person in this world that I was closest to.
We were sixteen months apart. Life was different from then.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That was my junior year in college.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I wore number ten all the way up to that point,
every stop junior, high school, high school, my first three
and a half years of college, two and a half
years of college, I was number ten. From that point on,
I wore number thirty three and for him, and a
year later in June, I was the fourth overall pick
(10:25):
of the draft.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
That was the heaven part.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Is that would be a heaven part. It's a devastating hell.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Heart.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
When did you first during your senior year know that
you were going to go that high or go fairly
high in the draft.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's a wild story and talking to scouts after I
was drafted. At the time, they said, is the quickest
rise that they've seen. And I remember going into coach
Laernega's office my senior year and he told me, every
week we are going to go over this draft board
and see where you are really. So at the start
of my senior year, I was like two hundred and
(11:03):
fiftieth and I went in there every week. Every week,
every week we would sitting talk. So it was two fifty,
then it was two fifteen, then it was two hundred,
then it was one seventy five, then it was one
seventy until the end of the year. Last game of
the year we played West Virginia n IT in Morgantown,
and I had one of the best games of probably
the best game of my college career. You were like
(11:25):
twenty NBA scouts at that game. And as soon as
that game was over, we were riding back to Bowling
Green on the bus and he told me you're going
top five in NBA draft. So we started at two
hundred and something and by time my senior year was over,
we were in the top five. So it was it's
not like when the year started, I thought, well, you
(11:46):
know what, I'm going to the NBA. Right. It was
always a dream and something me and my brother used
to talk about all the time. But to kind of
sit back and watch it happen. And it's wild because
I don't know if my brother wouldn't have passed, if
I would have had that same motivation, I don't know.
(12:08):
I can't honestly sit here and say that once he passed,
that dream that we talked about growing up, of getting
mom out the inner city, that was all on my shoulders.
I have two older sisters, and my two older sisters
were gone and they live on their own, They have
their own lives, and this is something that me and
(12:29):
my brother constantly talked about. And once he passed on
and God the Lord called him home, that was on me.
So I had a completely different motivation, a completely different
work ethic. Coach Lair and Neega gave me a key
to the gym and I literally locked myself in the
gym with my best friend, who was going to school
in California, came back to Bola Green to go to
summer school with me, and that's where the transformation started
(12:53):
to happen.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Wow, And what was that day like when you finally
got drafted. My gosh, walk us through that moment of man, where.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Was the draft that Charlotte?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
It was in Charlotte, and it is it's it's crazy
because you know it's coming. You know you're in the
you're in the green room and you have your table
with you know, my mom and my sisters and my
grandparents and my best friend and coach lere Naga and
my agent and everybody's at the table and it's on TNT.
(13:25):
And what I've what I've come to realize is the
best times can also be the worst of times because
I don't get an opportunity to share that with him, right.
And That's how I think of a lot, whether it's
you know, when I was drafted, or when I graduated college,
or when I got married, or when we had our
me and my wife, we had our three children.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
All of these times are great, but in the.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Back of your mind, you're thinking, like, gosh, I wish
he was here to share this with me. And I
remember going up there with my mom after I was drafted.
And when you get drafted, you do it interview with
T and T. Right, So I'm sitting there and we're
doing the interview, and I just got tears running down
my face. No I can't, I can't talk, I can't articulate.
(14:11):
I can't because like inside them like oh my gosh,
I get just drafted to the NBA. But on the
other side, like my brothers should be here with me,
you know. So again, it was the best of times,
but also also the worst of times.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Now, I'm an older brother, so I know that older brothers.
The only time we ever lost was when we let
our little brothers win. When you and your brother went
up against each other with a size difference shoots, but
you had you had the the uh what do you
call it? The skills of and the footwork that he
(14:47):
let's go with that. So whatever works, did you ever
beat him?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
No?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Really?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
No?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
The thing is, my freshman year in high school, I
was five to one hundred and twenty pounds. Right my
sophomore year high school, I was about five six. Then
I slowly began to grow. But as I began to grow,
he continued to grow too. And he went on to
play basketball at the University of Dayton, And then it
got to the point where we kind of stopped playing
one on one and start playing together on.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
The same neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, so I can honestly sit here and tell you
I have never I have never been. I would love
to lie to you right now. I would love to
lie to you, but I've I've never beaten.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Is there somebody in the league that you wish you
played with with on the team?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
There are guys that.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
You mean today at any point in the present.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
There are guys that.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I watched play today and because of the way that
they play, they actually make you want to put a
jersey back on, you know what I mean. Like it's
something like I can sit there and love my job.
I can sit there and love my job and call
the game and I'm good, Game's over, let's go home.
But there are certain guys that it gives you those goosebumps,
(16:09):
you know, to watch Jose Alvarado turn a game around.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Oh yeah, you know, to watch him turn a game
around and.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Bring energy to the crowd, like it almost it makes
you want to.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Well, there's as a viewer when I watch games on TV,
there's two sides of it. Because when you just said
Jose Alvarado, I hear it exactly as you say it.
As he comes into a game and you feel the
energy from Jose, but you also pick it up from you,
which is pretty neat that and some of your other
calls on sit down, young man, and just just when
(16:43):
you get so excited, it's very refreshing to see that
you are acknowledging an admiration almost of that player it's
or what they're doing out there.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It's easy to.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Get excited about something that you're passionate about, you know.
And the thing I love about this city and this
fan base is they share that passion. Like you may
have different views and different perspectives, but everybody wants the
same thing. Everybody wants the same thing. Every It's like
being a team. You know, you may be on the
(17:15):
team and everybody is different. Everybody has different personalities and
different perspectives. But in the grand scheme of things, you
would hope that everybody wants to accomplish the same thing, which.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is simply to win.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And all of us, myself and Joel and our production
and our media department, everybody and Andrew, everybody wants to.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
See this team succeed. That's it. That's it. That's the
bigger picture of anything.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
That's a beautiful thing. So speaking, about living in NaNs
What is what do you do in your off time?
What do you enjoy the most about this city?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
That the people? Yeah, the people. The people are awesome.
The people are awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
The way that they treat me and my wife and
our children like it is, it is.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I can't I can't even explain it. I love I.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Love the people of New Orleans like you know, you
always hear, oh, you know what, it's the culture.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
It is the culture. I get that. But there is
no culture without the people, that's right, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
And the people here they're just so down the earth,
you know, so welcoming, so hospitable, so kind, so humble, and.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I love them.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I literally like when I say this fan base, it's
not just the fan base of basketball to watch. To
go outside downtown on a Sunday during football season and
feel out of place because you don't have on the
same short.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Yeah, that is so true. Because we were living in
Miami at the time before we moved here, and when
we moved here, if you didn't know, oh what game
was on, you're blind because everybody is wearing a jersey.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Wearing and watching.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yep, everybody's wearing and watching and that's I think that's
my biggest thing here.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Like, you hear so many different things. Oh, you gotta
love the food, and you gotta love.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
The culture, and you gotta I love the people of
New Orleans because they're so genuine and authentic.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
And too many characters, that's what I say.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
That's a part of it. Yeah, too many.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I mean, there's just too many characters that you you
can't help but smile because they're so animated. And it's
not because they're putting on a show.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
That's just rh y and I.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Love like even just walking walking through the city and
talking to different people about the games. And you know,
yesterday in church, I'm walking out of church with my
wife and the lady stops me and my wife and
she's talking about me and Joel and like just everywhere
you go, just the love for this Pelican's team. And
(19:53):
I don't I don't hear it enough and I can't get.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Enough of it.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, when you were playing here and we were the Hornets,
what was it like walking around town?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Well, it was different. It was different for me because
I got traded here midway through the season. Okay, and
obviously for a role player, everything is a blessing for me.
I look at everything is a blessing. And you know,
again the relationships that I was able to develop at
that time, you know, playing with Chris and still maintaining
(20:24):
a relationship with him today and now he's in San Antonio,
which is home for me and my family. So and
that's where I kind of got a feel of what
the city was like. You know what I mean, You
get a feel of what the city was like. But
again I got traded midway through the season. But now
to be here six years, to be kind of ingrained
(20:47):
here in six years, to put roots down and to
watch the people of New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
What are those roots?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Your favorite city to travel to for work, San Antonio, Yeah,
just because you know, everybody into and it's home.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's home for me.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
So to actually get an opportunity to go home and
to do what I can do in front of my
wife and my daughters and my son who is six
years old, and for them to be sitting courtside and like,
it's just it's different. And to have the rapport that
(21:27):
I have in San Antonio with that organization and winning
the championship in nineteen ninety nine and still having a
relationship with so many different people within that organization and
a lot of times when you play, when we play the.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Spurs, I can just drive home after the game.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, you know, I may not fly back with the team,
depending on the schedule. I may just drive home after
the game and fly home. But it just gives me
more time at home with my family.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
That's nice. So you talk about your passion for basketball,
what would be you be involved and if you weren't doing.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Basketball, cool and.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Anything involved in children. That's that's My degree is in
elementary education. So before the NBA became a reality, you.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Would have been a great coach then teacher. No, but
I'm saying, NBA coach your elementary elementary school children. If
you're if you're managing the egos of everybody, kind of
kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Like I that's what I wanted to do. I wanted
to teach. I wanted to mow young minds. And still
to this day, like this year, I'll have my basketball
camp twenty four years and doing it done of twenty
four years and me and my family have done this
for twenty four years and there's nothing better that happens
for me in summertime to net, just getting an opportunity
(22:50):
from kids six to seventeen, just being there with them
the whole time, talking to them about basketball, talking to
them about life, talking to them about future and anything
involving children, and having an opportunity to kind of pay
it forward to the next generation.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I'm all in on it.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Now you're still in great shape. Do you ever jump
out there at practice?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
No.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
I used to play with the guys two years ago.
It's called stay fit. It's just stay fit, run after
practice for guys that didn't play a lot when I.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Was forty eight.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
My biggest fear, or should I say one of my
biggest fears now is getting injured. So I haven't played
in the pickup game now since I played with them,
because I just I can't. I can't like I am
no good to my six year old son who wants
to get shots up all the time, and I'm running
(23:47):
around on one of the little schools because right so
it's now, I basically do the peloton bike, do the
Peloton treadmill, lift weights, and I can't injure myself like that.
So I've kind of stayed away from pick up basketball.
So maybe I shouldn't say I'm passionate about the sport.
(24:08):
I'm passionate about everything except playing.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Or getting her to that too favorite city to eat.
And when you're on the.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Road, that's a question I would have to ask my wife.
Good answer, Yeah, because she she.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I'm okay doing absolutely nothing, literally like doing nothing, and
you know she likes to get out and move around
and you know, test the palette out.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And that's all right, as long as you got a
good guy like.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Probably probably I don't know, probably maybe La La, maybe La.
They have a lot of uh we love sushi, sushi, seafood, steak.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
The three sss got to cover.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Well. We thank you for your time today, Antonio. It's
a pleasure getting to know you a little bit. You
keep doing all the great things you're doing with the
peals you You make it. You and Joe and Andrew
make it a real treat to tune in and wise
than thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Thank you, make wait wait yeah, break wait, make wait.
Everybody wrong
And welcome to another edition of Between Bites with Nina
Compton and Larry Miller. Today we are joined by the
man with the Velvet voice, Antonio Daniels, color commentator for
the Pelicans and thirteen year veteran of the league. Welcome Antonio.
Thank you guys for having me the real A d
in New Orleans. We're not doing this on We're not
(00:40):
starting out. We are starting off that way. What Antonio,
what is the best part of your job?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh man, where do I start?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We gotta say Joel, just because he's probably listening to Joel. Yeah,
right out of the way. We got that out of the.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Way, honestly.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
To be honest, Larry, it's the fact that I love
the sport like I wake up every day and I
am blessed to do something that I love to do.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Not a lot of people can say that, right.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Basketball is not something that I enjoy, It's not something
I like.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's something I'm passionate about.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
And the fact that I get an opportunity to go
and watch NBA basketball games court side, have a relationship
with players, see guys that I have played against, see
guys that I have played with, see coaches that I
have coached to maintain relationships. I've always been told that
(01:44):
there's nothing more important in life than relationships, rather vertical
or horizontal, That's the most important.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thing you'll have.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
And I'm passionate about the sport, but I'm also passionate
about the relationships that I have within the sport.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
How tough is it for you?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Now?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Obviously you love game and a passion for the game.
There are folks out there who can play the game
and then not watch it. There are folks who can
play it and watch it, but then to play it
and now analyze it nightly. How was that a challenge
when you first started broadcasting?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
No, I think the biggest challenge for me broadcasting was.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Knowledge is one thing, Wisdom is something else. Because wisdom
is the application of knowledge. You can know something, but
articulating it to people who may not know what you
are talking about, it's something completely different. So in the
analyst business, I had to learn not everybody's on the
same tier as far as basketball knowledge is concerned.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So I don't want to use the term dumbing it
down because that just sounds bad. No, I know exactly
if it sounds bad.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Though I don't like the way that sounds, but in
a way trying to make the game fun, entertaining and
knowledgeable for everyone that's watching our broadcast me with Joel
and Andrew.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
And it's tough because if you're a if you build bridges,
if you're an engineer, you have to explain that to
someone like me who's just going.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
To drive across the bridge.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And for you to have that knowledge of every single
move that's happening on the court. Was there coaching or
mentoring early in your analyst career?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
It just came naturally too.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
No, I don't remember a tongue quite a bit, right,
If I had to hold your tongue quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah, well, I mean that's a part of the job though,
that's always a part of the job.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I mean I went to why I was still playing.
I went to.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Sportscaster University, Okay, which is in Syracuse, so it was
through the NBA Players Association. I did a coaching internship
and then I did the sports caster you now, I
remember I went there for five days and they put
you through a ton of things. Radio TV. They put
(04:10):
you on a set and say, hey, you know what,
Larry and Nina, we need you guys to talk about
why the New Orleans Pelicans are going to be successful
next year. You got two minutes to do it, you know,
and when it's something that you've never done before, it's uncomfortable,
but you know, that's how you grow. So when I
left there again, I left there and I went back
(04:31):
to playing in the NBA, and I remember, like.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
There's no way I'm doing this. There's no way I'm.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Doing because you didn't enjoy those five days or you know,
because it.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Was you know, you don't realize someone else's craft until
you actually have to do it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You know.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Quite often you hear people say I can do what
he can do or I can do what she can do.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, you don't know what that entails, and sitting.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
On the outside and looking it's like, oh, it looks
really easy.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
But things are never as they say.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
So every time that you're talking on set, you may
be talking to a particular camera, but what people don't
see is as you are talking, as you're trying to
express your point why the Pelicans are going to be
successful next year, your producers in your ear talking to
you at the same time.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So to actually try and hold all this together.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
At the same time and to make your points without
saying uh and.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Like it just it was a challenge. It was a challenge.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I left there thinking there was no way I would
do that, And then you know, three years later, I
had a radio show in San Antonio and things just
kind of took off from there to bing the color
elements of the New Orleans Pelicans now for six years
and having my own national radio show on Serrus XM
five days a week.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
What a blessing man.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, I mean that's saying, how do you do the
SIUs Show with your travel do you? How do you?
Is a just a set number of hours during the day.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Well, no, No, it's every day.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
It's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from twelve to three
Central Standard Time and Thursday from one to three Central
Standard Time, And it's all basketball, that's it, and no
matter where you are.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
No matter where I am.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So the good thing about that is you know, preparation,
you know, is where the knowledge comes from. So I
have to be prepared and know about all thirty teams
in the NBA, not just the New Orleans Pelicans. But
that pays dividends for me and helps me to do
my job. When the New Orleans Pelicans are playing someone
else because I've already done my research because i have to,
(06:40):
because I'm doing fourteen fifteen hours.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Of radio on the NBA every week.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It does help, It helps, and it pays.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Now let's go back to school. You went to Bowling Green.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yes, tell us about your time at Bowling Green. Was
it culture shock? Was it enjoyable? You hated school? I
love basketball? It was it was heaven and hell yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
All in my four years it was the best of
times for me, and honestly it was the worst at times.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I went to Bowling Green.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Because Jim laher Nega, who for me, is the coach
that I played for throughout my entire basketball career.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
That got me wow, that understood me.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
And my relationship with coach l started because he recruited
my brother right who was two years ahead of me,
six foot eleven, two hundred and fifty pounds. So when
my brother went to Bowling Green for his official visit,
I went with him, and I was he was a junior.
(07:51):
I was a freshman, five foot two, one hundred.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And twenty pounds.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Nice flat top, you know, And so I I was
a relationship with coach El then and then my brother
ended up going to the University of Dayton. I ended
up going to Bowling Green now three years later because
of my relationship with coach la Enega and his son, Jay,
who I ended up playing with for four years, who's
(08:17):
now an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers. February eighth,
nineteen ninety six, my junior year in college.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It's about five o'clock in the morning and coach.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Laernega Stan Heath, who are the two coaches that I
was like this with, came to my dorm room at
about five o'clock in the morning and I woke up
and I saw them standing over my bed and I'm
sitting there and I'm looking at both of them.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
We had a game the night before and I played awful.
I played awful the night before, but.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Thinking like, okay, well I played bad, but did I
play It's bad enough for you to be in my hotel,
I mean my dorm room at five thirty in the morning.
And coach Lernege at the time said, Antonio, your mom's
going to call you. And my phone rang and I
answered the phone and it was my mom and she
said she calls me Tani. Still to this day at
(09:20):
fifty years old, she still calls me Tony and she said,
your brother died last night. Oh no. And at the
time when he passed, he was playing basketball at the
University of Dayton leading the nation, and field goal percentage
was on NBA draft boards. And that was the hell
part for me.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
That was.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I remember going hitting rock bottom at two points in
my life, and that was definitely the first devastating He
was the person in this world that I was closest to.
We were sixteen months apart. Life was different from then.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That was my junior year in college.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I wore number ten all the way up to that point,
every stop junior, high school, high school, my first three
and a half years of college, two and a half
years of college, I was number ten. From that point on,
I wore number thirty three and for him, and a
year later in June, I was the fourth overall pick
(10:25):
of the draft.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
That was the heaven part.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Is that would be a heaven part. It's a devastating hell.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Heart.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
When did you first during your senior year know that
you were going to go that high or go fairly
high in the draft.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's a wild story and talking to scouts after I
was drafted. At the time, they said, is the quickest
rise that they've seen. And I remember going into coach
Laernega's office my senior year and he told me, every
week we are going to go over this draft board
and see where you are really. So at the start
of my senior year, I was like two hundred and
(11:03):
fiftieth and I went in there every week. Every week,
every week we would sitting talk. So it was two fifty,
then it was two fifteen, then it was two hundred,
then it was one seventy five, then it was one
seventy until the end of the year. Last game of
the year we played West Virginia n IT in Morgantown,
and I had one of the best games of probably
the best game of my college career. You were like
(11:25):
twenty NBA scouts at that game. And as soon as
that game was over, we were riding back to Bowling
Green on the bus and he told me you're going
top five in NBA draft. So we started at two
hundred and something and by time my senior year was over,
we were in the top five. So it was it's
not like when the year started, I thought, well, you
(11:46):
know what, I'm going to the NBA. Right. It was
always a dream and something me and my brother used
to talk about all the time. But to kind of
sit back and watch it happen. And it's wild because
I don't know if my brother wouldn't have passed, if
I would have had that same motivation, I don't know.
(12:08):
I can't honestly sit here and say that once he passed,
that dream that we talked about growing up, of getting
mom out the inner city, that was all on my shoulders.
I have two older sisters, and my two older sisters
were gone and they live on their own, They have
their own lives, and this is something that me and
(12:29):
my brother constantly talked about. And once he passed on
and God the Lord called him home, that was on me.
So I had a completely different motivation, a completely different
work ethic. Coach Lair and Neega gave me a key
to the gym and I literally locked myself in the
gym with my best friend, who was going to school
in California, came back to Bola Green to go to
summer school with me, and that's where the transformation started
(12:53):
to happen.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Wow, And what was that day like when you finally
got drafted. My gosh, walk us through that moment of man, where.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Was the draft that Charlotte?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
It was in Charlotte, and it is it's it's crazy
because you know it's coming. You know you're in the
you're in the green room and you have your table
with you know, my mom and my sisters and my
grandparents and my best friend and coach lere Naga and
my agent and everybody's at the table and it's on TNT.
(13:25):
And what I've what I've come to realize is the
best times can also be the worst of times because
I don't get an opportunity to share that with him, right.
And That's how I think of a lot, whether it's
you know, when I was drafted, or when I graduated college,
or when I got married, or when we had our
me and my wife, we had our three children.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
All of these times are great, but in the.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Back of your mind, you're thinking, like, gosh, I wish
he was here to share this with me. And I
remember going up there with my mom after I was drafted.
And when you get drafted, you do it interview with
T and T. Right, So I'm sitting there and we're
doing the interview, and I just got tears running down
my face. No I can't, I can't talk, I can't articulate.
(14:11):
I can't because like inside them like oh my gosh,
I get just drafted to the NBA. But on the
other side, like my brothers should be here with me,
you know. So again, it was the best of times,
but also also the worst of times.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Now, I'm an older brother, so I know that older brothers.
The only time we ever lost was when we let
our little brothers win. When you and your brother went
up against each other with a size difference shoots, but
you had you had the the uh what do you
call it? The skills of and the footwork that he
(14:47):
let's go with that. So whatever works, did you ever
beat him?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
No?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Really?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
No?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
The thing is, my freshman year in high school, I
was five to one hundred and twenty pounds. Right my
sophomore year high school, I was about five six. Then
I slowly began to grow. But as I began to grow,
he continued to grow too. And he went on to
play basketball at the University of Dayton, And then it
got to the point where we kind of stopped playing
one on one and start playing together on.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
The same neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, so I can honestly sit here and tell you
I have never I have never been. I would love
to lie to you right now. I would love to
lie to you, but I've I've never beaten.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Is there somebody in the league that you wish you
played with with on the team?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
There are guys that.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
You mean today at any point in the present.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
There are guys that.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I watched play today and because of the way that
they play, they actually make you want to put a
jersey back on, you know what I mean. Like it's
something like I can sit there and love my job.
I can sit there and love my job and call
the game and I'm good, Game's over, let's go home.
But there are certain guys that it gives you those goosebumps,
(16:09):
you know, to watch Jose Alvarado turn a game around.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Oh yeah, you know, to watch him turn a game
around and.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Bring energy to the crowd, like it almost it makes
you want to.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Well, there's as a viewer when I watch games on TV,
there's two sides of it. Because when you just said
Jose Alvarado, I hear it exactly as you say it.
As he comes into a game and you feel the
energy from Jose, but you also pick it up from you,
which is pretty neat that and some of your other
calls on sit down, young man, and just just when
(16:43):
you get so excited, it's very refreshing to see that
you are acknowledging an admiration almost of that player it's
or what they're doing out there.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It's easy to.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Get excited about something that you're passionate about, you know.
And the thing I love about this city and this
fan base is they share that passion. Like you may
have different views and different perspectives, but everybody wants the
same thing. Everybody wants the same thing. Every It's like
being a team. You know, you may be on the
(17:15):
team and everybody is different. Everybody has different personalities and
different perspectives. But in the grand scheme of things, you
would hope that everybody wants to accomplish the same thing, which.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is simply to win.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And all of us, myself and Joel and our production
and our media department, everybody and Andrew, everybody wants to.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
See this team succeed. That's it. That's it. That's the
bigger picture of anything.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
That's a beautiful thing. So speaking, about living in NaNs
What is what do you do in your off time?
What do you enjoy the most about this city?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
That the people? Yeah, the people. The people are awesome.
The people are awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
The way that they treat me and my wife and
our children like it is, it is.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I can't I can't even explain it. I love I.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Love the people of New Orleans like you know, you
always hear, oh, you know what, it's the culture.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
It is the culture. I get that. But there is
no culture without the people, that's right, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
And the people here they're just so down the earth,
you know, so welcoming, so hospitable, so kind, so humble, and.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I love them.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I literally like when I say this fan base, it's
not just the fan base of basketball to watch. To
go outside downtown on a Sunday during football season and
feel out of place because you don't have on the
same short.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Yeah, that is so true. Because we were living in
Miami at the time before we moved here, and when
we moved here, if you didn't know, oh what game
was on, you're blind because everybody is wearing a jersey.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Wearing and watching.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yep, everybody's wearing and watching and that's I think that's
my biggest thing here.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Like, you hear so many different things. Oh, you gotta
love the food, and you gotta love.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
The culture, and you gotta I love the people of
New Orleans because they're so genuine and authentic.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
And too many characters, that's what I say.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
That's a part of it. Yeah, too many.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I mean, there's just too many characters that you you
can't help but smile because they're so animated. And it's
not because they're putting on a show.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
That's just rh y and I.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Love like even just walking walking through the city and
talking to different people about the games. And you know,
yesterday in church, I'm walking out of church with my
wife and the lady stops me and my wife and
she's talking about me and Joel and like just everywhere
you go, just the love for this Pelican's team. And
(19:53):
I don't I don't hear it enough and I can't get.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Enough of it.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, when you were playing here and we were the Hornets,
what was it like walking around town?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Well, it was different. It was different for me because
I got traded here midway through the season. Okay, and
obviously for a role player, everything is a blessing for me.
I look at everything is a blessing. And you know,
again the relationships that I was able to develop at
that time, you know, playing with Chris and still maintaining
(20:24):
a relationship with him today and now he's in San Antonio,
which is home for me and my family. So and
that's where I kind of got a feel of what
the city was like. You know what I mean, You
get a feel of what the city was like. But
again I got traded midway through the season. But now
to be here six years, to be kind of ingrained
(20:47):
here in six years, to put roots down and to
watch the people of New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
What are those roots?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Your favorite city to travel to for work, San Antonio, Yeah,
just because you know, everybody into and it's home.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's home for me.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
So to actually get an opportunity to go home and
to do what I can do in front of my
wife and my daughters and my son who is six
years old, and for them to be sitting courtside and like,
it's just it's different. And to have the rapport that
(21:27):
I have in San Antonio with that organization and winning
the championship in nineteen ninety nine and still having a
relationship with so many different people within that organization and
a lot of times when you play, when we play the.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Spurs, I can just drive home after the game.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, you know, I may not fly back with the team,
depending on the schedule. I may just drive home after
the game and fly home. But it just gives me
more time at home with my family.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
That's nice. So you talk about your passion for basketball,
what would be you be involved and if you weren't doing.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Basketball, cool and.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Anything involved in children. That's that's My degree is in
elementary education. So before the NBA became a reality, you.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Would have been a great coach then teacher. No, but
I'm saying, NBA coach your elementary elementary school children. If
you're if you're managing the egos of everybody, kind of
kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Like I that's what I wanted to do. I wanted
to teach. I wanted to mow young minds. And still
to this day, like this year, I'll have my basketball
camp twenty four years and doing it done of twenty
four years and me and my family have done this
for twenty four years and there's nothing better that happens
for me in summertime to net, just getting an opportunity
(22:50):
from kids six to seventeen, just being there with them
the whole time, talking to them about basketball, talking to
them about life, talking to them about future and anything
involving children, and having an opportunity to kind of pay
it forward to the next generation.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I'm all in on it.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Now you're still in great shape. Do you ever jump
out there at practice?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
No.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
I used to play with the guys two years ago.
It's called stay fit. It's just stay fit, run after
practice for guys that didn't play a lot when I.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Was forty eight.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
My biggest fear, or should I say one of my
biggest fears now is getting injured. So I haven't played
in the pickup game now since I played with them,
because I just I can't. I can't like I am
no good to my six year old son who wants
to get shots up all the time, and I'm running
(23:47):
around on one of the little schools because right so
it's now, I basically do the peloton bike, do the
Peloton treadmill, lift weights, and I can't injure myself like that.
So I've kind of stayed away from pick up basketball.
So maybe I shouldn't say I'm passionate about the sport.
(24:08):
I'm passionate about everything except playing.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Or getting her to that too favorite city to eat.
And when you're on the.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Road, that's a question I would have to ask my wife.
Good answer, Yeah, because she she.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I'm okay doing absolutely nothing, literally like doing nothing, and
you know she likes to get out and move around
and you know, test the palette out.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And that's all right, as long as you got a
good guy like.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Probably probably I don't know, probably maybe La La, maybe La.
They have a lot of uh we love sushi, sushi, seafood, steak.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
The three sss got to cover.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Well. We thank you for your time today, Antonio. It's
a pleasure getting to know you a little bit. You
keep doing all the great things you're doing with the
peals you You make it. You and Joe and Andrew
make it a real treat to tune in and wise
than thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Thank you, make wait wait yeah, break wait, make wait.
Everybody wrong
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