OTB Sports: JJ Redick

Basketball legend JJ Redick joins the podcast today to muse with Brian over the many ways our decisions impact our futures. They talk about the influence his big sisters had over him, the pinch-me moments in his career, and his podcast, The Old Man and the Three.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I mean, one of these days, you and I are
going to have a not a three point shooting contest,
but a free throw shooting contest, all right, because let
me just say this, I can shoot the rock. I
can shoot I can shoot the rock. In case you're
not aware, I know, I know you're a basketball fan.
I I don't know your level of skill, but you
are saying you want to challenge the ninth best free

(00:20):
throw shoot of all time. I just want to put
that out there. I just want to know. I want
you to know what you're getting into here. Brian, Hey,
this is JJ Reddick, fifteen year NBA vett, former Duke player,
host of The Old Man in the Three podcast. I
go on TV sometimes to talk about basketball, and I'm

(00:42):
here to tear the show up. Hello everybody, and welcome
back to Off the Beat, another sports edition today with
me your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today's guest, as you just heard,
is none other than professional baller, sportscaster and podcaster extraordinaire

(01:06):
J J. Reddick. Now. JJ started his unbelievable career at Duke,
where to this day he is the all time leading scorer,
and when he graduated, he went on to play in
the n b A for the Orlando Magic, the l
A Clippers, the seventies Sixers, among others, for an insane

(01:29):
fIF teen seasons. He's a true A C C legend,
and during his career, he even broke the record for
most points in the conference. Now, funny enough, j J
and I have something else in common. I'm not talking
about just our basketball skills. During JJ's playing years in

(01:52):
the NBA to this day, he has hosted his own
podcast called The Old Man and the Three, all about
the NBA. He's also an analyst for ESPN, and so today,
well I'm going to help the sports analyst analyze himself.
Might as well get started. Everybody here. He is the

(02:13):
very funny and always insightful j J. Reddick, Bubble and Squeak.
I love it Bubble and Squeak, Bubble and Squeaker cooking
at every month, left over from the nut before. J J,

(02:45):
how are you? I'm great. I had a it was
a rainy day here in sag Harbor, but I had
a great golf lesson this morning and then beat some
balls for about forty five minutes afterwards. So now, but
I just worked with with one of your people here
on a project in Los Angeles. And I understand you

(03:06):
were taking up golfing. This has become a new, a new,
fairly new passion for you, right yeah. I mean I
had golfed, I had played, I had played rounds of
golf prior to last summer. But I got into it
shortly after my last season ended. I started taking lessons
and I knew that it was going to be the

(03:26):
thing in retirement. Like I I got bit and I'm
an obsessive person. I like to deep dive on everything.
And I mean, we can talk about golf for an
hour and a half here if you want. But but
it is you have to understand I I spent so
much time in gymnasiums and hotel rooms and planes and

(03:51):
buses for the last twenty years of my life, and
so for me to be able to go walk for
four and a half hours outside, it's it's a spirit
chill experience. I I just there's nothing I mean other
than you know, bad shots, But there's nothing I I
don't enjoy about about the game. It's it's just incredible. Well,
it's interesting to hear you say that. I haven't specifically

(04:12):
ever heard someone say that in the same way that
I do. I started very similarly. I was doing theater
at the time, right, so in dark rooms with no windows,
you know, either rehearsing or performing at night. And yeah,
for me, it was a reason, an ability to get
outside and just smell the grass and be outside and

(04:34):
walk and and try to compete with myself in a
new way. And that's how I fell in love with
it too. So that's interesting. You you don't really think about,
you know, you as a as a college and professional athlete,
not getting to be outside. But I guess basketball is
kind of the same play, Yeah it is. And and
even in the off season, I I just was so

(04:57):
regimented and so diligent about my work that most of
my day, you know, I was I was. I was
a Monday to Friday, Saturday off, Sunday. Back in the gym.
I didn't like to take more than a day off
at a time. So even in the off season, so
much of my day was spent inside. And I would
mix it up in the in the summers, I'd go
find a turf field and do conditioning, or I'd go

(05:19):
to a high school track. But you know, by and large,
I'm working inside a gymnasium. I'm working inside a weight room,
hours and hours and hours of doing that. And so
when I got done with that, I didn't have I
didn't have four hours to go play around a golf
I wanted to spend that time with my wife and
my kids, and it just all of a sudden, this
new world opened up for me where I had I

(05:42):
had time to actually and by the way that this
this summer, I've actually gone to the driving range, which
is a new thing as well, because last summer getting
into the game, it was more just I want to
play as much as possible, and I got some incredible
invites that I got to play some great courses, but
it was more about just playing. And now it's like

(06:02):
it's back to the mentality I had as a player,
where you're trying to master a craft, and so I
really really enjoyed just days like today where you don't
play around and you go you take a lesson and
then you go work on a specific thing for forty
five minutes or an hour. That's interesting. I just like
to play, I'll be honest with you. I'd just like

(06:22):
to play. I'll figure it out out there. But I, yeah,
I I love it Now? Are you still you're you're
retired now? I mean we're starting at the end. We're
gonna go back in a second. But are you still
working out? Are you still going to the gym? Are
you still shooting shots on Sundays? Are you you're really

(06:43):
you're relaxing that a little bit. I made it a
point to give myself a break over the last year,
and it's been liberating to not feel obligated, like I
have something hanging over my head every day that I've
got to be in the gym. So I've I've not
gained any weight, but I've lost a lot of muscle tone,

(07:04):
if you know what I mean. I actually my wife,
my wife, I've I've done pilates. Plot is the one
thing that I've been consistent about because I started doing
that when I was in college and I maintained that
throughout my career. But I went and did a reformer
class with my wife, and I generally do classical pilates,
but this was like a very ab intensive, lunge intensive

(07:25):
reformer class on Saturday morning with my wife and my
two sisters. And I'm still very sore from that because
I have not activated those muscles in quite some time. Well,
good for you. Just you and the ladies working out now. No,
there's no more testosterone. It's just you and the ladies
doing reformer pilates. We should mention. I just want to mention.

(07:47):
I want to get this out of the way at
the top, so that the colleague of mine that you,
uh you mentioned a few minutes ago that that was
Jason Gallagher, who worked with you on I believe a
commercial you had just shot in Santa Monica. And you know,
we call it we call we call them, we call
them branded shoots. We don't call them commercials. We call
them branded shoots. It sounds yeah, that's fine, that's fine.

(08:09):
So my colleague was doing a branded shoot with you
a couple of weeks ago, Jason Gallagher, who is our
head of production at our at our company, and I
don't know if he conveyed this to you, but he is.
I'm sure you get this all the time. He is
the biggest office fan in the world, and it was
it was such a thrill for him. I was just

(08:30):
with in Vegas last week. We were shooting some stuff
while I was at Summer League, and it was just
such a thrill for him to work with you, so
hopefully he did all right, hopefully, Well, thank you know.
He was great. It was I could not have been easier.
In fact, having a branded shoot and an hour early
is something that is very rare and that happened. So yeah,

(08:52):
I was very I was very happy with it. He
was a great guy, was great, and I think I
think the spot is gonna be great. But I'm not
going to talk about right now what it was war,
all right, j J. Let's go back. You were born
in the great state of Tennessee, moved shortly thereafter to Virginia,

(09:12):
So you grew up in Virginia. You were a big
baseball fan, I understand, and a baseball player. In fact,
you baseball was your first love. Is that right? It was?
And and some of that has to do with the
fact that I have older twin sisters and I basically
did whatever they did. And so one of them, Katie

(09:33):
was was with me this past weekend in sag Harbor,
and we had this long conversation on Thursday night at
dinner about just our childhood in general. And it's so
funny because so my sisters rode horses, they competed, they
you know, in equestrian or whatever the sport is called.
And so I learned how to ride a horse because
they rode horses, and they saved up. They'd work summer jobs.

(09:56):
They were a little bit of entrepreneurs. They worked summer
jobs from like eight years old, bond so they could
save up and buy a horse. And we bought a horse,
and for all of us, all the kids on one
of five, we all were faced with a decision around
the age of twelve or thirteen, where our parents came
to us and they were like, choose something. You can't

(10:16):
do everything. There's too many kids, so every kid can't
play three sports, so choose something. And I didn't know this,
but my I knew. My dad came to me when
I was going into seventh grade and said, you gotta
choose between baseball and basketball. But he said the same
thing to my sisters. You gotta choose. You gotta choose
between softball, which is why I started playing baseball. You
gotta choose between softball, basketball or horse riding. And they

(10:39):
chose basketball. Had they chose something else, my life path
may have been very different. I'm going to be completely
frank with you. I was. I was decent at basketball,
but I very much wanted to play because they played,
and I want to do everything they did, and and
you know, we would go play games of twenty one
out in the backyard and they would beat the ship
out of me. But I was always like, I gotta

(11:01):
get to the point where I can beat my sisters.
And then, you know, for me, that came at a
pretty early age. But you know, they they were they
were like my role models. And so some of the
baseball stuff was just because they started playing softball and
I got into trading cards. That was my very first obsession.
I talked about obsessions a few minutes ago, but that
was my very first obsession was baseball trading cards, and

(11:23):
that that's what really got me to the sport, was
them and being able to collect. Right, how much older
were they than you? I like to joke that they're
five years older, but they they they really are four
and a half years older. If you're being technical technical, Okay,
well that makes sense. So they're so you're like kind

(11:44):
of a whole high school behind them, right, so that
you would look up to them and think that they
were cool and that their friends were cool, and that
makes sense. So they chose basketball, and so then you
chose basketball, and then baseball was everything else was done.
Dad made you choose. Yeah, I mean, and I did
think they're cool. Their friends were cool. They came back

(12:05):
for fall break their freshman year and I was in
eighth grade, and that was the first time I was
ever served a beer, and and their friends came over
and we had a few, a few pops, and I was,
I was, I couldn't believe that I was having a
beer with you know, Lauren and Robin. I thought they
were the coolest kids in the world. You know, they're friends,
So I think I just don't the whole sense was,

(12:25):
you know, I was just like I idolized my sisters
and and I don't know if you know the background,
but I don't have initials that equal JJ. It's Jonathan Clay.
So they said everything at the same time as kids,
and so everything came out j J. What's his name?
J J? Who's your brother? J J? Hey? J J.
And that's really what stuck my summer. Before my seventh grade,

(12:48):
I was a really good baseball player. I was a pitcher,
and that was the first year my my local AU
team had qualified for the National AU tournament. So we
flew out to Salt Lake City for two weeks we
competed out there. I flew back on Sunday, and I
don't know, I don't know how knowing me, I don't
know how I forgot this. But my baseball team, my

(13:10):
literal leagal star team, was in the middle of the
state tournament. And so I flew back Sunday and my
Dad's like, your coach's daughter is going to drive you
out across the state four and a half hours to
Portsmith to play. And I was like, okay, whatever. So
we drove through the night. I get there at three
am in the morning, and um, luckily we had a
rain out the next day. I pitched Tuesday morning. I
had thirteen strikeouts. We went extra innings. I had to

(13:32):
I had to pitch the extra two extra innings. We
won the game. And I got back from that tournament
and I was just exhausted, and my dad was gave me.
It wasn't an ultimatum. It was just like, Hey, here's
the situation with our family, and I don't think it's
fair to your teammates in basketball or your teammates in baseball.
You're good at both, but I don't think it's fair

(13:55):
for you to just basically be distracted and not be
all in on one or the other. So please choose.
And to be honest, it was a fairly easy decision,
and I did yet to hit my growth spurt. I
was about five six at the time, But I often think,
you know me now at thirty eight years old, what
it would have looked had looked like had I stuck
with baseball. Would I have crapped out in single A

(14:17):
but I've made the big leagues? Would I be working
on my third Tommy John surgery. I don't know. I
don't know your life path. Your life's path could go
in so many different directions based on one decision that
you make as a as a twelve or thirteen year old. Yeah,
that is so fascinating. It's like that movie. I've talked
about it a couple of times, and I think I
need to go back and watch this movie because I

(14:38):
keep referring to it. You ever see the movie Sliding Doors.
I mean I've seen it, it's been a long time,
but that that the idea of it refers to my
recollection is is like the sliding doors of a subway,
and what might happen to your life if you if
you made it through before the doors closed, or if

(14:58):
you're still stuck right there, and that those little decisions
how they impact you. Now, I think for most people
those decisions in terms of their life and career might
not be quite as catastrophic. So you go all in
in basketball. Now, I'm gonna tell you a story I was, um.
I mean, one of these days you and I are
going to have a not a three point shooting contest,

(15:20):
but a free throw shooting contest, all right, because let
me just say this, I can shoot the rock. I
can shoot I can shoot the rock. In case you're
not aware, I know, I know you're a basketball fan.
I I don't know your level of skill, but you
are saying you want to challenge the ninth best free
throw shoot of all time. I just want to put
that out there. I just want to know. I want
you to know what you're getting into here. Brian one

(15:43):
one take thirteen in a row free throw line extended
wearing work shoes and a sport coat on national television.
That's even more impressive. Now, let me just say I
I don't think you can do it. I don't think
you could do it one take thirteen in a row.

(16:03):
We're gonna try. One of these days. We're gonna try.
That's my challenge to you. So back in in my
younger days, when I was focused on basketball, and I
read a story about the hoop that you had in
your yard and it's not the grounds, not always even,
and there's trees in the way. And I remember for
myself one summer between years of playing basketball, I dedicated

(16:27):
myself to it. And I remember those nights being out
getting called in for dinner and it's basically dark outside,
and I'm still trying to hit shots. I'm still trying
to work on stuff. I can only imagine for you
the time and effort in dedication it put in. Was

(16:49):
that fairly instantaneous once you make the choice that it's basketball,
that you give yourself fully to basketball. It was, but
it also had more to do with love. It wasn't
just about something I was good at. And I I
think we all have talents, and some talents we don't nurture,

(17:11):
and maybe some of the reason we don't nurture them
is because we don't love it as much. And basketball
and baseball even because We had a little shed in
the backyard, and I painted a square at the bottom
of the shed where the concrete was, and the hill
adjacent to the shed naturally rose like a mound. So
I could go out there by myself and try to
throw strikes. I can go out and shoot a basketball

(17:33):
by myself. I I I've always enjoyed autonomy. I've always
been self motivated to do things. And so basketball in
the backyard was very much like a singular personal pursuit.
And and because of the love the dopamine hit you
get from watching you know this, watching you watch the
ball switched through the net, and you get a little

(17:54):
dopamine hit. Now you do that five times in a row,
ten times in row, fifteen times in a row, all
of a sudden you just you love it. And and
so for me, it was about the love. And it's
funny you bring up shooting in the dark, and I
would go. I would shoot all day in the backyard.
And I was homeschooled, so a lot of times I
would get done with my work at eleven or eleven

(18:15):
thirty in the morning and I'd just go outside for
hours and shoot. But it didn't matter if there was
a snow storm and ice storm. The the literally the
net could literally be frozen where I'd have to knock
the ball out after every make, and I would go
put on mits and the mits that I could still
feel the ball, and I'd go shoot, and i'd go

(18:36):
out after dinner. We didn't have like floodlights on the court,
so I would go after dinner. I would take my
dad's lawnmower and i'd put it at the top of
the key. And then he had this lamp with a
with a clamp on it, and I clamped the lamp
to the top of the lawnmower and i'd shine it
on the court. And we had an English Springer spaniel, Maggie,
and she would sit out there with me till ten

(18:58):
thirty eleven o'clock at night. And if my ball went
in the trees after a maker miss, you know, she'd
helped me go find it. So yeah, it was it
was more about the love. It wasn't like I knew
right away I was going to be great. It was
just I I loved playing and the other part part
of that I loved about it. And I'm curious about
your own experience as an actor and working on set

(19:19):
and working with different casts. What I loved about it
was a camaraderie. It wasn't so I got the autonomy
of work by myself, but when it came time to performance,
it was very much a collaborative effort. And the joy
that I got even as a ten year old, and

(19:39):
I certainly got that a lot as a thirty six
year old when I retired. That that experience of going
through something with friends and people that have the same
goal as you, that's what I really and really really
came to love about it, And honestly, it's what I
missed the most about it. Yeah, no, I very that's

(20:02):
very similar to me and my experience. I mean, I
think what what you may not know about me was
I had decided early on, just like you, I was
gonna be a professional baseball player. That was that was
my and very specifically, I was going to be the
first baseman for the Atlanta Braves. Um that was my
was my my singular goal. And it's so funny you're

(20:25):
talking about painting the the strike zone. I wasn't really
a picture, but I would I would pitch occasionally, and
I did the same thing as you marked it off
did the thing again, but mine was against the garage
and I don't know how old it was, but apparently,
you know, you get stronger as you get older. And
one one pitch that went into dented like put a

(20:50):
hole in the garage. That that was done for me,
I did. I never was able to do that again.
I couldn't find another spot. But yeah, that that team.
I mean, that's why I think teams boards specifically is
so important as a kid to have that experience, that
collective experience about working together to try to achieve some goal.
And I think that you know that for sure. As

(21:13):
I began doing theater, was a part of it. Loved
the ensemble nature of it, that collective experience, the idea
of going out and performing in front of other people,
but but really having each other's back. And I think,
you know, I've said many times for me, the reason
that The Office became so successful was the nature of

(21:35):
how the show was shot, which is very similar to
what you're talking about about being on the basketball court.
I mean, it was all of us in one room
by and large for hours and hours and hours together
and learning quite frankly, just like you know, you know
where a certain player likes the ball on the blocks

(21:55):
or on the post. You know, you're throwing it to
his left hand or his right, and and how he's moving.
You know that in terms of all the comedy styles
and all of the specific skills for the people who
were on the office, for example, just knowing I could
say something or give a look that was going to
elicit a certain response that was going to be successful

(22:16):
from somebody else. I think. I think they're very There
is very much a correlation between those those two things.
Idea of teammates. Yeah, the best the best teams I
was on. You could say things without verbalizing them, that's right,
whether whether that was body language or nod a wink,

(22:38):
you know, and and that that when you have that
level of connection in an arena, that's really special. You know.
I used to when you have those moments, I used
to get chills. I'd be on the court and I
get chills when we would execute something at that high
of the level. This is a random question. I I

(23:17):
don't want to date you. Were you were you a
Sid Bream fan? Were you were you? Think? Well, I
remember I certainly remember the moment where Sid, Yes, where
Sid slid across home base traveling at about eight, I
think rounding third in the playoffs there against the Pirates. Yes, yes,

(23:38):
I remember for sure. That was a that was a
big that was a big sports moment in my childhood.
I think that was the that was the second year
they made the world. That was ninety two was like
all of my first sports memories. So I don't remember
Jordan's versus the Lakers, but I remember Jordan's versus the Blazers.

(24:00):
I don't remember Duke beating U N l V in
the final four and then beating Kansas, but I do
remember them beating Kentucky and ninety two. So and I
remember that night actually when Sid Bream slid into home
plate to beat the Pirates on Francisco Cabrera's single. I
was told to go to bed and we we We

(24:23):
lived in a in a in a small house. Again,
it was seven of us. I think the house is
about eight square feet, and you could hear anything that
was going on. And there was one room that had
the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and a
wood stove. Because we didn't have central air, so everything
came you know, all our heat came from the wood stove,
so everybody would congregate in that room, and they were

(24:45):
watching the game that night, and I kept creeping over
the balcony to look down and listen in because I
knew it was a close game. And finally, in like
the eighth inning, my mom and dad said, fuck, just
come downstairs and finished watching the game. You're already up late.
So I got to watch that live, and I just
that's that's one of my earliest sports memories. That it

(25:08):
you you mentioned first baseman for the Atlanta Braves. That's
why I bring that up. Yes, well, my dad long
before you. My dad is a graduate of Duke University,
and I understand you're one of your first favorite You
just mentioned it. Later are hitting the shot against Kentucky

(25:30):
in the Elite eight game to move them to the
Final four. A big moment for you, A big moment
for me as well. I had it on tape on
a v CR tape for many many years and would
go back and watch the last seven minutes of that game.
Is just about as good as you can possibly get
of any basketball game. Ever. I'm told you knew very

(25:55):
early on that you wanted to go to Duke, and
in act, when you were sixteen years old before your
junior season of high school. If this correct, you committed
to go to Duke to play basketball, that's correct. Yeah,
at the time, I was the earliest commitment in Duke
basketball history. I I turned to my family when Latern

(26:18):
hit that shot and said I'm gonna play at Duke someday.
They all thought I was out of my mind, probably,
and I would get you know, starting in towards the
end of eighth grade, and you know, definitely by the
fall of my freshman year in high school, I was
getting recruited. I would get letters in the mail. My
first scholarship offer was from Wake Forest University my freshman

(26:41):
year of high school. But it was always about Duke,
and you know, the by my sophomore in junior year,
the FedEx guy and the UPS guy would come up,
you know, our our dirt road come to the top,
and I would be waiting for him after school and
he drop off thirty letters, forty lever letters, whatever it was,

(27:01):
and I would just immediately sift through them as fast
as I could, looking for that Duke logo. And Coach
k has a very specific and recognizable form of handwriting,
so I knew also the handwritten ones versus the stock ones,
and I would try to get to those handwritten run
ones as soon as possible. And I let all the

(27:22):
schools know. I you know, I was a hometown kid.
I had a sense of loyalty. I grew up in Roanoke,
but I also lived in Charlottesville from ages three to seven.
So I had a sense of loyalty to u v A.
And my high school coach was obsessed with Billy Donovan.
We ran a lot of the stuff that Florida ran
at the time that my my coach, Billy Hicks had

(27:42):
gotten from Marshall when when Billy Donovan was there, and
so I was very interested in Florida. I wanted to
go to UVA, but it was always about Duke. It
was like, if Duke offered me, how how can I
turn this down? I could never turn this down. So
I told all the schools in the fall, before my
junior year started, I said, I I'm gonna take some
unofficial visits. You should treat them as official visits. I'm

(28:04):
gonna make my decision before my junior season starts. I
went to u v A. It was a great visit.
I go to Duke the next week, Coach K gets
me in the room. It's a it's a room adjacent
to the locker room where he basically closes the door,
no parents, no other coaches, and he lays it out
for you and he said, you can commit. We're ready
for you to commit. You have a scholarship. And uh,

(28:27):
I went home. I thought about it for a couple
of days. I was supposed to go to floor to
the following weekend with my sisters who older sisters and
not my parents, and it was gonna be a good time.
And and uh, it got to like Tuesday night, Wednesday night,
and I just I said to my mom and dad,
I was like, Wow, I don't want to waste anybody's time.
I don't want to waste Billy Donmond's time. I don't
want to waste their assistant coaches time. I know where,

(28:48):
I know where I want to go. And it's funny
thinking back, because we we talked about that decision that
I made at twelve or thirteen to give up baseball
and focus on basketball, but even more so the decision
him to go to Duke For me. At the time,
it was very much about wanting to play for coach K.
And wanting to be a Duke basketball player. And now

(29:11):
that was in two thousands, so twenty two years later.
I had no idea of the life benefit that I
would get from making that decision other than marrying my wife.
Going to Duke University was the best decision that I've
ever made, bar none. And I made that decision. It's
sixteen years old. It's fascinating to think about that. When

(29:32):
talk to me a little bit, you know, I said,
my dad went to Duke. I grew up in Atlanta,
and our next door neighbors actually the ones the basketball who,
quite frankly, was theres that I'm sure I annoyed the
hell out of them, dribbling it late at night. He was.
He had season tickets to Georgia Tech, but every year

(29:52):
we would get the Duke tickets when they came into town.
We saw Duke play quite a bit. I went to
one of the final four. Is that was before you
with my dad as well? The first time you meet
coach k was that in the room? Was that there
when you did your visit or had you met him
prior to that? So he he had come to my

(30:14):
high school that September, And I want to say, my
uv A visit was around September twenty three, give or take.
My Duke visit was around September thirty, give or take.
And I committed in October five. So prior to me
going to Duke, he had driven up from Durham There's
about it's about a two and a half hour drive

(30:35):
with Chris Collins, who I was his first recruit. He
had played at Duke but was at Seton Hall had
coached the w n B A and and gotten the
job that summer, and they came up and my coach
used to do this thing on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Billy
Hicks used do this thing on Tuesday and Thursdays where
we would have open gym, but we would start with
sixteen stations and the stations would be like wall sits

(30:57):
or defensive slides with the forty pound played on you,
or you know, thirty seconds of as many rim grabs
as you can do. So I did that whole workout,
and then we played open gym, and then coach watched
me work out individually right after, and there was such
a buzz in the school because it got out that day.
So I'm sitting you know, I'm in whatever class I'm

(31:18):
in at that time. I don't know. I think I
took physics senior year, so I'm probably in chemistry junior year. Yeah,
chemistry junior year. Im in chemistry class. And everybody's talking
about Coach K coming to visit that day. It was
a big deal, you know, for our high school to
have Coach K there. And we we chatted briefly at
the time. I don't know what the rules are now,
but the time you could basically say hello and that's it.

(31:42):
And you know, they were very strict back then about
contact with recruits prior to their senior year. So I
didn't get a lot of time with him that day,
but if I was on campus, I could spend time
with him. So really it was that room because Battier
and Dunlevy had taken me to the football game that
Saturday when I went to visit, and then it was
after the game that I went and got in the room,

(32:02):
and that was really my first sit down with him.
And what was so striking about that, and what is
held up now for twenty two years, is just how
brutally honest Coach K is. He's He's a truth teller,
and you need truth tellers in your life, and he's
always been that to me. He's somebody that, you know,
outside of my father. Um, he's someone that I've leaned

(32:23):
on as much as anyone whenever I'm making life decisions.
You know, when I retired, and there were really two
people outside of of course, I called my agent and
I you know, I told my best friend, and I
told my wife, and I told my kids. But you know,
outside of those people I called made two phone calls.
I told Coach k Uh and I told Chris Paul.

(32:46):
Those are the only two people I told before I announced. Um,
that's just the level of relationship that I've had with
him for over two decades now. Yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean,
his legacy, I don't I don't need to go through
it is. How shitty is it, though, Brian? How shitty
is it that I can't you and see fan can't

(33:08):
Will forever be able to hold this over us. I
can't because they win his last game in Cameron and
then they win his last game period. It's just it's disgusting,
that's what it is. Makes me want to puke. It's disgusting.
Before you go to Duke. I just heard the story.

(33:29):
You're playing for the state championship and you're hurt, and
your doctors say you're about to go to do simmer down,
young young buck, you need to sit out. You know
this game, and you don't want to. You go to
a doctor at Duke. Is this right? Who gives you
the go ahead to be able to play? It's it's

(33:51):
partially right. So there there's actually two injuries. So about
about I don't know. Ten games into my senior year,
we had played in a bunch of national tournaments where
we're playing nationally rank high schools. We were a small
public school in Virginia. So we we get off to
a slow start. We you know, we're losing against Christ
the King from Queens and Oxen Hill from Maryland, and

(34:13):
Mercer Island from Seattle. We're losing against these teams cal
Poly from Long Beach, and we start winning some district games.
Once we get back home after January and it's a
tie game. We're playing Halifax County. We're at Halifax and
I grabbed the ball on a on a my my
bottom of my feet have been killing me for weeks.

(34:33):
I grabbed a loose ball in the corner and I
turned to run up court and I feel this pop
in my foot, And initially I thought somebody had thrown
a battery and hit me in the back of the foot.
So coach calls time out, draws up a play, and
I'm in the huddle and I'm realizing what just happened.
I'm like, oh, ship, like something just popped in my foot.
My senior years over. I'm devastated. I wanted to win

(34:54):
a state championship and we had had a shot the
year before and and come up short. I'm like basically
crying in this huddle. Everybody's looking at me like what
are you? What are you doing? Randomly, I go out
and I hit a game winning three with like three
seconds to go and get back on the bus. I
tell coach what's going on. So I go see a
doctor in Roanoke and he's like, look, you should boot

(35:16):
it up. Uh, it's sixty eight week recovery. You've got
a full tear of the planner fashion was right at
the literally middle of my bottom of my foot. It's
full tear. And I'm like, all right, So I think
my senior season is over. The Duke coaches advised me
to go see Dr Mormon, a duke. So I go
down there. He tells me, let's be aggressive with this thing.

(35:36):
Let's boot it for two weeks, get on some anti inflammatories.
When you're not in the boot, you should be doing
manual therapy rolfing, which I didn't know that was a thing,
and I discovered what rolfing was. I wouldn't recommend it
to anyone. The most painful thing in the world, especially
if you have a tear of of of fashional injury.
So I do that for three weeks, literally three weeks
to the night I play my senior night, I hit

(35:58):
nine threes, thirty eight points. Coach ks and house. I
have a dunk, which I wasn't known for dunking, but
it was. It was a good night. And we roll
through the playoffs. I mean, we're we're now like battle tested.
The team had to play games without me. We had
played all these nationally rigged teams, and I really feel like, oh,
we got a chance. So we get to we get
to the state semifinals that we're playing Hayfield, which is

(36:18):
from Northern Virginia, their number two team in the state.
And I'm killing We're up twenty at the end of
the game and I get a breakaway. I go to
I go to dunk it. This is off my left foot.
My right foot had been injuring. I go to dunk it.
My foot just gives out and I feel this terror
again in my left foot. And this is at the
insertion point. So this is on this side of the

(36:41):
foot where the planner fascia inserts to your ankle bone.
But that's torn. So I'm limping around after the game.
I'm limping around the next day. I don't tell any
of my teammates. The only person knew was coach Hicks.
I didn't want to put any doubt in my teammates minds,
like it's okay, we got it this far. JJ's hurt,
We're not, you know whatever. So I'm just like, I'm
not gonna tell anybody. So I go to our trainer

(37:05):
for the next twenty four hours and I'm like, let's
work on some tape jobs. So he figures out a
way to have this tape job that fully takes all
the pressure off my planner fascia on that side of
my foot, so I'm essentially pain free. When that tape
job is on, so he tapes it up before the

(37:25):
game and I go out and you know, I had
the state record at the time at forty three points
in the state championship. We win the state championship, and
I was naive to think that storybook endings happen in life.
But storybook endings apparently do happen in life, because this
this was about of an incredible experience. I mean, I

(37:45):
had watched Hoosier's fifty times as a kid, and to
have that moment at seventeen years old was just it
was incredible, Brian, it was incredible. That's so awesome. Yeah,
as you mentioned, forty three points, state championship, go out
on top? Now, was was this just random? Have you
had issues since then? So? I think part of part

(38:09):
of the issue was I was a sneaker head at
the time before they were sneaker heads, so I was
changing shoes. I wore the team shoes in the game,
but I was changing shoes every day in practice. I
would wear Rebox, I would wear Deeds, I wear Nikes. Sometimes.
I get ahold of the pair of shoes that were

(38:30):
a size twelve and I thought they looked cool, so
I'd wear them in practice, So I think it was
more about that, and I learned that from that year,
and then when I was in college in a pro
I would find one shoe that didn't hurt my feet
for that year, and I'd order if many pairs of
shoes as possible, and I just I'd wear those forever.
So it was more It wasn't random. It was more

(38:51):
about I think I was just switching shoes too much,
and so the the the insoles and all that stuff.
It just it didn't work for me. It didn't work
for physiology or anatomy or whatever. Yeah, you go to duke.
You described a little while ago at being the other
than your wife, the best decision that you you ever

(39:13):
made your freshman year. In the two thousand and three
a CC Tournament championship game, you you explode. You explode,
I mean the signature moment I would say of of
definitely your first season. You scored twenty plus points in
the last ten minutes the game, You hit a bunch

(39:34):
of threes. You end up crushing NC State and winning
the a c C Tournament. Do you feel like that
game is what is what really cemented you as as
well as a duke mainstay. Well, that game was a

(39:55):
game that you could dream about in the backyard because
I had played that tournament the backyard. I had played
the a SEC tournament. I had done three rounds. I've
been out there for three and a half hours, and
I'd go through every shot. So I had lived and
visualized that moment as a fantasy. To have it become
a reality was really special, and I think it be

(40:20):
it cemented my status in Duke because it it was
like a marker on my legacy. You know, to score
twenty three points, you're you're down fifteen with ten minutes
to go, and to score twenty three points in the
last ten minutes of an a CEC championship game against
a rival, hey, it's it. It It gave me a
mark on the legacy. And I was by the way

(40:42):
I was slumping. I mean, I had gotten off to
a great start my freshman year and had gone through
probably a four to five weeks stretch before that game
where I had I had struggled and hadn't played particularly
well going up to that ten minute mark, and then
I just I got a couple open looks back to
back possessions to cut it to nine. I had back

(41:04):
to back threes, and then it was like the flood.
The floodgates open, and it was I was hitting ridiculous
shots and running around the court, probably holding my follow through,
probably talking shipped to the n C state bands, probably
head bobbing, you know whatever whatever antics eighteen year olds do, right,
That's that's what I was doing. Your sophomore year, you

(41:44):
become well either next in line or at the top
of the list of of hated duke players. I mean
I was reading, when I was reading about you, I
think that my my sense is that Latener would hold
number one. I guess it's been said you you held
the number one position there as as being most hated

(42:06):
duke players. I mean, that's what sports fans, if you're
not a duke fan, you love to hate duke and
everybody seems to find a player. Do you think that
that a c C Championship game is what cemented that
for you? I didn't want to use the word hater before,
but do you think that that it was a response
to that and then your continued success your sophomore season.

(42:27):
You can you can label it however you want, Brian,
I've done enough therapy over the other years that I can,
I can talk about it openly. I actually don't think
it was that. That is that a Sency Tournament game
against AC State. No, because you know I I've said
this before. My freshman year, we played our first ten
or eleven games either at home or on neutral site.

(42:48):
So we had played U. C. L A In in
Indiana for the John Wooden Classic. We had played Ohio
State in Greensboro for the Big ten A CEC Challenge Challenge.
It wasn't until we go to Clemson for our first
road game and I walk out on the court and
I'm like, what is happening? I did I do something wrong?

(43:10):
Why is everybody getting on me? And then this is
my freshman year, and it got worse and worse and worse,
and then my sophomore year. You know, partially was probably
the bad haircut. I didn't take particularly good care. I mean,
I look like a frat kid. I look like a
fraud saying I look like a frat kid. I acted

(43:30):
like a frat kid, and I was given I was.
I was giving people buckets and and people didn't like that.
And I played for Duke on top of that, which
made it exponentially worse. My sophomore year was dark. Man,
it was dark. You know. I I thought about quitting
in December. I'll put it this way. You see Laterner

(43:51):
hit that shot against Kentucky. I'm three, three months before
my eighth birthday. I'm seven years old. I commit to
Duke at sixteen, I get on campus and for two years,
everyone hates me. People hated me after that too, Let's
be clear, but everyone hates me. And I'm like, this
is not what I signed up for. This is not

(44:14):
what I envisioned. This is not the joyful competitive thing
that I wanted for my whole childhood. It's it's a drag,
It's an energy drainer. I'm not secure enough in my
own ego at eighteen and nineteen years old to process
what is happening. So I starting in my sophomore year

(44:38):
and through the rest of my time in college, and
I go off and on. I've actually got a call
with my therapist after this, Brian. I've I've I've sought
out someone to talk to. And at the time at Duke,
from my sophomore year on, that was very intensive. You know,
that summer after my sophomore year, I had hit a

(44:59):
real low point, and I had told I had gotten
really bad grades. I didn't go to class. I had
gotten incomplete in one of my classes, the History of
New York, which, by the way, I live in New
York City. If I if I had any sense of
like normalcy at the time, I would have loved that class.

(45:20):
Are you kidding me? Anyways, I got incomplete in that class.
So I tell Duke, I'm like, I'm going home to Roanoke.
I'm not doing summer school. I need a break. I
tell my parents I'm staying in Durham and going to
summer school to complete my incomplete. The reality was I
was hanging out on a buddy's couch for a couple
of weeks. This is early May. Finally the team tracked

(45:42):
me down and they brought me to Coach K's office
and we had this seminal moment in my life where
he said, you know, we're gonna get you the help
you need. You're clearly struggling, and we're gonna put you
on a plan. We're gonna surround you with people that
will assist stew We're gonna make it. We're gonna make
you great. And Coach Collins specifically said something that has

(46:06):
stuck with me forever, and that's, you know what really sucks.
We'll never know how good you can be. We'll never
see the best version of yourself. And that was two
years into my due career. I played two more years,
in fifteen years in the n b A. I can
honestly say, you saw the best version of me. I
couldn't have been any better than I was. And if

(46:27):
it wasn't for that conversation, it would never would have happened.
And so they I still have the sheet. There's a sheet.
It's in my basement down here. There's a sheet I
have with my schedule for that summer, hour by hour
wake up time, check in time, therapy times, class schedule, weights,
running basketball workouts, dinner, every meal I was. I was

(46:50):
required to carry a juggle water around at all time.
I got very serious about my nutrition, about what I
was doing about my sleep and all that. So I
end my sophomore year, I'm like two teen. I start
my junior season at one two and like four percent
body fat, and I'm winning every conditioning drill. And that
was the that was the change that made me who

(47:13):
I am because that carried over into my pro career tenfold.
I got more I got more strict, I got more regiment,
I got more detail oriented, and I just became obsessed
with the process. You know, I was always obsessed with basketball.
I got obsessed with the process of trying to become great,
of really putting everything into something. And if it wasn't

(47:35):
for that summer and for that meeting, whatever would happened.
And so that's also why I have such a strong
sense of loyalty and friendship with coach is because in
my darkest moment, and I had a dark moment my
last year in the NBA too, being away from my family,
being essentially quarantined in an apartment in New Orleans by myself,

(47:59):
hurt and all that. But in my darkest moment, like
he was there for me. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean
I can't imagine, as you know, as a young person
nineteen years old and the experience of being at the
absolute top level of college sports. But you're still a kid. Man,

(48:21):
You're still a kid, and you know what you have
to endure being in that spotlight. Just yeah, it felt
at the time, it felt like I was in a
fish bowl. Looking back, duke basketball in this grand scheme
of things professional sports and the gram scheme of things like,

(48:42):
there's way more important things, don't get me wrong, But
at the time, it was so important, and it felt
like I was being watched and viewed. And again I
go back to the ego structure. I didn't have a
healthy ego structure. I didn't know who I was. I
was comfortable with myself. I was trying to be somebody
I wasn't and I had to I had to work

(49:05):
through that. It was tough. Yeah, when you're the guy
catching the ship right when you're on the villain list,
Are you talking about that in the locker room? Is
it a part or is everybody trying to ignore it?
That's my that's my question, Like is it like I
don't know the picture, who's got a no hitter going

(49:27):
and you're not supposed to talk about Like are you
talking about it? And is it is? Is there banter?
I mean, obviously it had a deep effect on you,
which I'm not minimizing that at all. I just wonder
if it's being acknowledged or if everyone's just trying to
ignore it. At the time, my teammates and I didn't
talk about it, and again I, that's not a that's
on a knock on me not addressing it or them

(49:50):
not addressing it. It was more so Again, we're eighteen,
nineteen years old, twenty years old, and we've got our
own ship going on, and you know, uh, maybe one
guy's worried about his playing time. I'm maybe another guy's
worried about his shots. Maybe another guy's worried about going pro,
Like they're not worried about me. It wasn't until later
in my career when you get to the n b
A and you kind of see everything and everything if

(50:13):
if you're on a good team and you're a good
locker room, everything gets addressed. Now, Coach k would bring
it up. He would bring it up. He would bring
it up in in in team meetings occasionally, and he
would bring it up with me as well, Like we
talked about it a ton, but within our team he
was like, never discussed. And it's funny to think about
it now. Had I lived through that in an NBA
locker room, oh my god, the banter on that would

(50:35):
be fucking hilarious. It would be so good. It would
be so good because a guy like Blake Griffin. I
mean guy like Blake Griffin, Like he doesn't let anything go.
He sees everything, you know, Joel Embiid sees everything. So
those guys they you'd have to deal with the game
and the opposing crowd, and then you'd have to deal
with Joel in the locker room afterwards, you know, because
he's he's gonna give it to you too. Yeah. Uh,

(51:00):
you end up when you leave Duke after your four
years all time leading scorer in Duke history, and just
I didn't even realize this until I started looking at it.
Just one year later. You get your jersey hung up
there in the rafters at Cameron Indoor Stadium. You've talked

(51:23):
a lot about what Duke means to you in terms
of your life, but tell me a little bit about
the experience of going back there and seeing your jersey
hanging up there next to Latner and Hill and Ferry
and Dominski and Hurley and Jason Williams all the guys.

(51:45):
Tell me a little bit about going back there. You
have to take it back to when I was seven
and what Duke basketball meant to me and who meant
to my life and meant to my family, And I
remember the first meeting I ever had with coach k
on campus when I when I matriculated as a as
an incoming freshman, I started summer school when he met
with all the freshmen. We talked for an hour. But

(52:07):
one of the questions he asked me in that meeting
was what do you hope to accomplish individually at Duke?
And I said, this is my speech when my when
I got retired, but I'll say it again. I said
to him, I want my jersey to hang in the rafters,
and I want to be the all time leading score
at Duke. Because in my mind, I was like, I'm

(52:27):
I'm playing four years here. It wasn't I did it would.
I had no aspirations at the time to leave earlier
to play in the NBA. It was a pipe dream
at the time. And for me to do those two
things that was individually. Of course, I wanted to win
national championships and I didn't win one, and that that
still irks me to this day. But for me to
do those two things and to see that that jersey

(52:50):
and the rafters, it's special, man. And I take my
kids back now. And you know, we we walked through Cameron,
we see the jersey and the rafters. We go in
the back hallways up to the practic facility, or by
the locker room or by coach Ks and you see,
you know, I'm not going to say it's a shrine,
but you see a shrine for all the great players

(53:11):
that played at Duke and I'm one of them. It's it.
It never ceases to amaze me. It's still a pinch
me moment, and it's it's a pinch me moment when
I think about my relationship with Coach k. It's a
pinch me moment to think about the experiences that I
got to have on a basketball floor in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
It's really it's really remarkable. Like, you know, I hope

(53:35):
that you feel the same way in some sense. I
know you didn't end up being a first baseman for
the Atlanta Braves, but I hope in some way you
get the sense like I'm living out my dream. I
never took that for granted. Thirteen years into my pro career,
twelve years in fourt whatever, I never took it for granted.
I always was like, holy shit, this fucking idiot from

(53:58):
from the holler in tennis, you know, they grew up
with nothing like I'm doing this right now. It's it
was always special to me, and and those Duke years
and the accomplishments that I got to achieve their they
will always be special to me. And my kids now
get a sense of that. They just got into basketball.

(54:18):
They're eight and six, but they really have gotten into
basketball in the last year and they're starting to appreciate
who their dad was as a player, and it's so
it's so cool to me. It's so cool. Were you
there for Coach K's last game? Unfortunately? Yes, unfortunately did

(54:38):
you go? Did you I did not go. No, there
there was an opportunity. I did not go. I was
traveling at the time. But all of the guys, I mean,
I was just blown away with how many of the
guys showed back up for that for that game. That
was so cool. We uh we We had a room

(55:02):
in the back, which is basically the players lounge, and
so they had set up some drinks and waters and
and snacks before the game back there. We were all
supposed to meet back there before we went out of
the court together. There was ninety six of us, and
so we spent some time together back there. And there's
different generations. There's the early eighties, the pre Johnny Dawkins teams.

(55:24):
Then there's you know, the Johnny Dawkins Final four team.
There's that those teams that had that stretch from eight
to ninety two where they make five straight final fours.
Then there's the late nineties guys, the two thousand guys,
all the one and done guys. Everybody's kind of mingling
with each other. And we go out on the court
and we form a line for Coach k and he
comes out and gets introduced, and we take a picture

(55:48):
and Woe Joe and I had seats next to each other.
See Wowsky and I had seats next to each other,
And we're walking up to our seat, and he's like, man,
how cool is this that we get to be a
part of this, were somehow a part of this man's legacy.
And again, I I hate to use the same word again,

(56:08):
but there's just such a deep appreciation I have. And
so while we did lose that game, that entire day,
that entire experience was so surreal um to be able
to celebrate coach, of course, but all also all the
teams and all the players that he has coached. Was
just it was remarkable, and we have like this. I

(56:31):
don't know if it's a recruiting tool, but you know,
we call it the brotherhood or whatever. I could honestly
say it goes back to what I was talking about
with my decision to go to Duke. I can honestly
say that that that is real. Like I have a
great relationship with so many different former players, whether that's
Quinn Snyder or Billy King, or Shane Batty or Mike

(56:55):
I didn't play with any of those guys. We have
this incredible shared experience that that immediately forms a bond,
and then of course all the other stuff is just
it's just added. Yeah, you end up getting drafted eleventh

(57:34):
to the Orlando Magic. There go to NBA finals. I
think this this status insane to me that for twenty
one years in a row, from high school to college
to the NBA, you make the playoffs, and oftentimes in
the NBA, by the way, with teams that are not

(57:56):
used to going to the playoffs. Let's be honest, um,
that is just such an incredible accomplishment. Obviously, you go
to the finals with Orlando lose to my Lakers. I'm sorry,
about that still, though I don't know why I'm apologizing
your time in Orlando there early in your career, before
you leave and startling traveling around a little bit, talk

(58:20):
to me about the experience there of playing in Orlando. Yeah,
I mean, at the time, Orlando felt like a very
big city. I didn't have neighbors growing up, and so
the first time I ever had a house next to
the house that I lived in. I mean college, you're
in a dorm, that doesn't count, but a house next
to the house I lived in was when I was
rookie in Orlando. Was the the first time I lived in

(58:40):
a neighborhood. Um was first time there was like a
real downtown with restaurants and UH clubs, and I was
on my own, and you know, I had to navigate
being a two year old douche bag along with UH,
along with like everybody I I talked about this with
Grant Hill in my podcast recently, Like everybody on my

(59:03):
team hated me because I went to Duke and I
got there and they gave me ship all the time.
So it was like it was a hard experience. Early on.
I think a couple of things happened. I think I
grew up as a person. That was probably most important.
I met my wife during that time. We started dating
in two thousand and eight, right before my third year started,

(59:24):
and we've been together, you know, ever since. And and
then I I just went into survival mode. And I
always loved the game. I always loved competing, but at
some point it became about survival and complete ownership of

(59:44):
what I wanted to do. And so I had to
cross a barrier. And I talked about this all the time,
like there are basketball players, and there are basketball fans.
They're basketball coaches and basket well front office people and
people that work in the media that talk about basketball,

(01:00:05):
and those people are fine, like they do find then
there's then there's sickos, basketball sickos, true junkies, true psychos.
And I had to become that to survive. And I'm
fucking glad I did. Uh. But you know, I look

(01:00:25):
back at my sophomore year somewhere between between my sophomore
of our junior year that it was a very similar
process between my second year and my third year in
the NBA, And it didn't pan out right away. My
third year, I still was in and out of the
rotation at times I didn't play every night, but it
was it was like a full commitment. I thought I
had made a commitment, and then it became no, I'm

(01:00:47):
gonna take it to the next level. And you know,
a lot of that was changing my body. A lot
of that was just all the extra work I did.
And so those early years in Orlando were about survive there,
about gaining stand Van Gundy's trust. If I look back
at the later years in Orlando, I sometimes think specifically

(01:01:09):
after my fourth year I signed a contract with the
Chicago Bulls to be a starter. I would have played
with Derrick Rose and Joke and Noah and Lull Dang
and that team that following year after I signed, Orlando
match my offer. So because I was restricted, so I
didn't get to go to Chicago, but that team won
sixty one games, was the number one seed in the East.
Like to me, I was ready to take that next step.

(01:01:30):
And so those later years in Orlando I was. I
was still coming off the bench. I'd spot start sometimes
if guys got hurt, but it was kind of like
two or three wasted years where I was ready to
take the next jump in my career. And thankfully you know,
I got to a perfect place for me after my
seventh year and I signed with the Clippers. I mean,
I didn't become a full time starter un till my

(01:01:51):
eighth year in the NBA. I really had I really
had to work. And it's crazy to think because I was.
I was twenty nine when I signed with the Clippers,
and I was hurt a lot of that year because
I I had gotten pushed out of the air and
I broke my wrist. I fell on my back out
of back injury, had to recover from the erist injury.
So I missed a lot of that year. But my

(01:02:11):
best years in the NBA were on the other side
of thirty and as a six four, what most people
think is a very unethletic person. To have my best
years in the n B A on the other side
of thirty, I think is is pretty It is pretty amazing.
And again that that's because I went into that mode
of just like, no one's gonna out work me, no

(01:02:31):
one's gonna be in better shape with me, no one's
going to study the game more than me, no one's
gonna talk more than me, no one's gonna, you know,
team dynamics like if I have to figure out a
relationship on a team, if I have to mend something
between two people, I'm gonna be that guy. And so
I just I just everything became all consuming, and I
feel bad at times for my wife, and it's part

(01:02:52):
of the reason I retired. It was because it just
it took up everything. You know, my entire day was
about bad sketball. And I've told this story before. I remember,
I think it was my second year in l A.
Her family came in town, her parents, and it just
so happened her aunts and uncles were visiting her cousin

(01:03:13):
who lived in Newport Beach, and we were in Manhattan Beach.
So we had a Sunday game nationally televised against the
Rockets the next day, and we go to this Mexican
restaurant and I don't think I spoke at the dinner,
and so we get home and Chelsea's like what the funk? Man, like,
why why are why are you acting like that at dinner?
And I'm like, huh, She's like, why are we You

(01:03:35):
didn't speak and I was like, oh, sorry, I was
just thinking about Garden James Harden tomorrow. Oh gosh, I
killed that was awful. I feel so bad for her,
but I also totally get it. You talked about your

(01:03:57):
relationship with Chris Paul earlier and him being one of
your calls other than coach k when you decided to retire,
um talk a little bit about why he's so important
to you or became so important to you through your
playing career. We're different people, but we're like minded. Chris
is a very intense competitor, and I think he's He's

(01:04:21):
probably not as abrasive now as he was with the Clippers,
but as a leader, he could be abrasive. And I
never had an issue with that because I could see
what his number one agenda was, and that was to
win a basketball game. And everything that he did materialized

(01:04:43):
out of that agenda. I want to be great and
I want to win, and so I saw the work
he put in. I saw his commitment to his family.
And he had had little Chris prior to me getting there,
and Cam at the time was was a toddler. But
you know, when Chelsea got pregnant, he was one of
the guys that, you know, gave me life advice about

(01:05:04):
being a dad. He was so great with Chelsea during
her pregnancy and so like it was just like this
this shared experience, but you know, a shared commitment to
our values, and so we bonded on that. And Chris
was a guy that I mean, in the middle of
a game, like I he could motherfuck me and I
could motherfuck him, and you know what, we were secure

(01:05:28):
enough in our relationship to go grab dinner after the game.
We were secure enough. At the time. There was a
TV show I think it was a scandal, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
scandal on on ABC, and like I'd go, we'd go,
Chelsea and I would go to Jada and Chris's house
every Tuesday night or whatever it was that it aired,
and we'd watch it together and like it didn't matter.

(01:05:48):
The day before we had yelled at each other. I
didn't care because I knew what he was about. And
uh I I called him when I retired, and it
was only only teammate I called, just like, hey, dude,
I'm retiring. I'm announcing tomorrow. And the reason why is
I called him because I'm like, I'm like, dude, I
I'm going through this and thinking about all the teammates

(01:06:10):
I had, all the opportunities on great teams to maybe
win and it never happened. And I know you haven't
won either, And I just want you to know. If
I could win a championship, there's one teammate that I
could win a championship with that I wanted it for
as bad as I wanted for myself. It would be you.

(01:06:32):
That's how I feel about him. So how I feel
about him, that's awesome. He and I have had the
opportunity to cross paths a number of times. I have
nothing but great things to say about him. You hold
another distinction, I mean, an amazing career, but clippers. Eventually,
then you you have a few runs there with the
seventies sixers, but you also become the first NBA player

(01:06:56):
with a podcast and the own the podcast that is
allowed inside the bubble. Once we hit well, once we
hit the bottom, once the bubble happened because of this
little thing called the coronavirus that's been going on the
last few years. Why why did you start the podcast?

(01:07:18):
What was your idea about it? Initially I will mention
called the JJ Reddick Podcast. Now it has morphed into
The Old Man and the Three. I'm wondering if you're
the Old Man or the Three now that you've maybe retired.
I don't know why. It's the old man of the three.
We should we should change it. Why Why was that

(01:07:39):
important to you? What was your idea about starting the podcast?
I had no idea what I was getting into, if
I'm being honest. So so Adrian Woodarowski was working at
Yahoo at the time, and he signed this deal with
Yahoo and he sort of got his own platform called
The Vertical and they were gonna they were gonna run
stuff online, you know, print online, and they're gonna do podcasts,

(01:08:00):
and so initially came to me it was very much
a player's tribune style format. Hey can you write eight
things during the season, What it's like to be traded
at the trade deadline, you're on a long road trip,
what it's like to be on a long road trip,
stuff like that, And I just I was like, whoas Like,
I'm getting flashbacks to uh that class of New York history.
Were like, I don't think I'm gonna be able to

(01:08:23):
deliver on this one. So he came back to me
a couple months later it was like, hey, well you
do a podcast. You can have your own podcast, And
at the time was a very novel thing. I think
there was one other active athlete that had a podcast,
and there were just a few people in general that
had podcasts that were there were former athletes, and so
I was the first active NBA player to have one.

(01:08:44):
And at the time it was such a novel thing
because I was I was peeling back at the curtain,
you know. It was You're you're gonna fly on the
wall and you're having a conversation with Kyle Korver about
shooting mechanics. You're having a conversation with Donald Foil about
finances when you're a pro athlete, and so we're like, oh,
this is new and different. And along the way, I

(01:09:05):
got really comfortable asking questions. And I was always curious,
but I got comfortable asking questions and I developed into
a better interviewer. And my last year with The Ringer,
so I did did the Yahoo thing for a year.
I did Ringer for three years. My last year with

(01:09:26):
The Ringer, I had a co host named Tommy Alter,
who's my business partner now and the old man in
the three and three or four two productions. But we
started discussing just ownership, like we why this is around
the time the Ringers selling to Spotify. Barstool Sports is
selling to the Churning Group and are out to pen
Sports and the Turning Groups in their investor. I'm sorry,
but uh so all this stuff is happening, We're like,

(01:09:47):
why why don't we just own it? Like, you know,
we shopped it around. Bill made an offer he wouldn't
let us own it, and and so we we started
our own thing. And it just so happened that our
contract with the Ringer ended on August one and Games
in the Bubble started August one, Like it was just
dumb luck so that we that we just so happened

(01:10:11):
to be the one podcast amongst current players that was
broadcasting out of the bubble. And on top of that,
we got really lucky because for our show, uh you know,
we can operate now we built up a decent audience
where we can operate just the two of us, or
we bring in our correspondence like Alex Caruso mckel bridges
like week to week it's fine, but you know, primarily

(01:10:34):
our our show is guest driven, and it just so
happened that we come out of the gates with Stacy Abrams,
Damian Lillard, Joel Embi, Jayson Tatum, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durray,
and it's like, holy fuck, this is awesome, and so
we just kind of hit. It was all timing and
we worked and I work at it, but a lot

(01:10:55):
of it was just dumb luck and timing, and so
we were able to get you know, whether it was
YouTube or audio. We were able to because we were
starting from zero because we restarted the podcast. We had
no RSS feed because we gave it, we gave it
to the Ringer. We had no YouTube subscribers because everything
else was on the Ringer, and so we started from zero,
and within two months we had built an audience. And
we've worked really hard over the last you know, basically

(01:11:17):
two years, uh to to continue to build that audience.
And I tell people all the time, I'm like, I
want to put out good content. I want to put
out great shows and great interviews, and I have a
built in sort of credibility with my peers and former
teammates and players I compete Pete against. The only thing
that matters to me is building audience. Because everything else

(01:11:38):
you could ever want from a show. I mean you
you know this from having worked in theater or television,
Like if you have an audience, good stuff will happen.
That's all that matters. No, You're absolutely right. I have
enjoyed your stuff for quite a long time now. By
the way, he's been doing this since twenty sixteen, and
as you mentioned, the first active player to have one.

(01:12:00):
Congratulations to you. Thank you for talking to me. You know,
I am such a duke basketball fan, have always been
a fan of yours. I appreciate your your form when
you're out there shooting. I am the challenges live, by
the way, and I think that's what it needs to be.
I could have a free throw shooting contest with the

(01:12:22):
ninth best free throw shooter in the history of the NBA.
But I think putting you in a coat and a
tie and and shoes and work pants thirteen in a row,
that's what that's that's the challenge. If can you do it,
I will accept that challenge. My only request, because I
am a big fan of Eric Anders laying in random

(01:12:45):
golf club, Okay, my only request is whether that's on
his channel or my channel. You and I have some
sort It could be a nine hole match, could be
an eighteen hold match, but we have some sort of
golf match. The shooting contest. You're debt. You're dead in golf.
You're dead in golf. There's no question about that. I'll

(01:13:06):
do that. I'll do that tomorrow. Are you kidding me?
Whatever you want, I've heard about your game. I'm ready.
Let's go. Let's coming. It's coming along, Brian, It's coming along,
It's coming along. Eric. Eric is a great guy. Always,
always love those videos with him. This is gonna be fun.
J J. Thank you so much for talking to me today.

(01:13:28):
Good luck in all of your future endeavors. And uh yeah,
let's do it. Challenge accepted. I love it and double Brian,
thanks for having me on man, I appreciate it. Wow.

(01:13:52):
J J. Thank you so much for joining me. This
was so great. And yes, I cannot wait for our
free throw competition golf. You have no chance. It's done
already before we even start. I can't believe it's Thursday already. Listeners,
I'm going to see you very soon on Tuesday again

(01:14:13):
for another episode of Off the Beat. I hope you're
enjoying these sports interviews as much as I love doing them,
so be sure to let me know your thoughts on
our Instagram page at Off the Beat and I Will
see you on Tuesday. Off the Beat is hosted an

(01:14:45):
executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner alongside our executive producer Langley.
Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and
Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and
our intern is Sammy Cats. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak,
performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode

(01:15:08):
was mixed by Seth O'landskip