Phil Jackson

28:50Eventually you're going to have to learn how to shoot these three. He's the jumper. That'll be a time that'll I'll be ready for that time. But right now I'm going to basket. He became a great three point shooter. Absolutely. Amazing. Would you ever see a player that you thought could be Michael. Could be Kobe. But for whatever reason it just never came together. Like you saw the promise. But it didn't happen. Yeah, there's a couple. There's a couple players that were actual contemporaries of theirs. Carter. Vince Carter is one of them. And he was really good. He won the dunk contest. And you know, he had a long career.

29:31He played until he was 40. He had a really good. But he just didn't have that X factor. And it's the X factor. A desire to win or something different than that. I think a lot of these guys like to compete and they like to win. But inciting it, it's kind of like the drummer. If he can get the whole band playing together. If somebody can carry not only his end of the bargain, his scoring, but also excite his teammates and get them involved in it too. You know, that's the that's the real thing that makes teams click. Come on guys. I mean, the first year I was a head coach with the Chicago. We'd be playing Detroit.

30:18And Michael been knocked down on the floor five times. I go in there. Half time I go like coaches. Let's meet outside the locker room. I know. Michael's probably going off in there. He's probably I rate because these guys are playing scared. They're afraid they're going to get knocked down and he's got to go in there. Now, to be fair, when I was a sister coach, we had an all -out brawl with this team. The bad boys, they call them the Detroit bad boys. And I had a clipboard on my lap. And I sat there, and of course, you know, my knees are up to my chin when I'm sitting on those kind of seats they have.

30:58They sit below the court and the court says that this much higher than the chair. So I'm sitting there. And my colleague, Johnny Bach, runs out of 65 years old or more. Runs out there and grabs a guy that's, you know, 6 ,000, 300 pounds. And the guy takes his hand and removes his hand. And tears the ligaments in his wrist and his thumb. I said, Johnny, what did you think you were going to do when you went out there? These aren't just normal people. These guys are extremely strong and extremely big. Doug Collins went out there. He was a coach at the time. And he threw him onto the scorers desk.

31:42Literally took him in the room on the scorers desk. Now he was like 195 pounds or 200 pounds. He wasn't a big guy. 6 ,4. But you know, that's, you know, how big and how the effort, you don't want to go out there and get yourself in a mess, you know. So some of these players played intimidated. Well, that year's Gotti Pamping got a concussion from a blow he got from one of the players on Detroit. During the playoffs, he couldn't play the second half. And, you know, the final game, he had a migraine the next year. And that was a pressure, you know, his mom had died. There's a bunch of stuff that got into him.

32:26But he had a migraine. He couldn't play. So everybody's like, what's with Scottie Pamping? Is he a winner or not a winner? What's going on with this guy? You know, he can't, he missed the game last year with a concussion that was a final game this year. He get that all went under the bridge under the water. He started winning. And he was like, came back from the Olympics, the dream team in Olympics in 92. Michael Jordan came down to the office and we were getting ready to start the scene. He said, Scottie Pamping is the second best player in the NBA. I said, oh, who's the best? Come on, you know who's the best.

33:04That's so funny. That's so funny. Yeah, I was revealing for him because he was Larry Bird and Charles Barkley and all these guys that were... Do you still keep in touch with players or not so much? I don't. Any reason or just... Well, I'm not a phone guy. Kind of left guys alone. I've never kind of been on their case. When I get them on the court or get them in the team, film room or whatever in my office. I really like to have conversations. But I haven't chased down any players. And this week they retired a number for Pogasal, one of our key players here. We liked him. He was a television really smart guy.

33:48He spoke Spanish, not Mexican Spanish, which he says is considerable difference. I had to learn Mexican. But he speaks Germany, he speaks French. They retired his number 16. And I went to the game. I didn't go the pre -game post -game parties that were afterwards. And like six of my players were there. And I was like, I missed out on that. But you know, I was like, there's too much. I got a little knee issue going on. And it was just. I have a feeling I don't have any issue going on. And I don't go to those things either. And I don't know why there's something strange about it where I don't know.

34:30I think if we're people who live in the present moment, we're in the present moment. I hate routes. I saw you at the Abbott concert. It's Ryan. Whether it's Ryan and you were in the audience. Yeah. That's the first time I saw them. Might have been the first time I saw them. Maybe five years ago or something. More and more. Yes. When they played the show, it was probably 10, 12, 15 years, a long time ago. Right. That was their hearts, those boys. They're unbelievable. Beautiful people. The nicest people I know. They had nice spiritual background. Their fathers, they've been brought up right now.

35:08I asked there, when I met their father, I said, what did you do? I never met anyone like these kids. And he said, I'll tell you what I do. I back them. I back them. Whatever they say. I back them. And he said, if someone came to me and said, one of my kids killed someone, I would have said, they must have needed killing.

35:31Yeah. Amazing. What's the range of coaching styles? What would be the opposite of the way you coach? Well, I wrote something about it. It was once transactional, the other's transformational. So when I went to graduate school, in the off season of my first couple of three years as an MBA player, you know, you're making 12 ,000 a year, you're going to be playing the game you love. And then what are you going to do? Yeah. What did you study? Psychology. Two guys, Ellis and Maslow, were the prominent psychologists at the time. They were doing group therapy a lot at the time. And they both had this school that became known as transformational psychology.

36:17You can imagine what it means, obviously. Tribal, my way, the highway type of thing, you know, more like Pat Riley's coaching style. And that's a terrific coach. Terrific coach in a different way, in the opposite way. Demanding. Yeah. You'll get the job done, whatever. Transformation, I learned this when I was there. In fact, was really interested in the dynamics of my Nick team because of that bonding that we had as a group. We really bonded. It was like, you know, we're toast to the town. Go to a party here, go to a party there. How it goes, Ellis, right behind us. I'm going to be around these guys.

37:04There's so much fun to be around the type of thing. The next sequence of guys that we had in at 73 weren't like that at all. We had a group of guys that respected their professional capabilities. But they had grown into different paths and married and whatnot, you know, things like that happen. So I had a couple of different types of teams that I saw were extremely successful. But I knew that from my background with my dad being a pastor, my mom being a caregiver and a minister of hers, her own, that this is what they were, this is their message. This is a community. We love you. We support you.

37:52God willing your life is going to be blessed and honored and will help you on your way. And giving people that kind of solid base or understanding and then having a standard, you have to be able to meet the criteria that we have. These are, this is a system that we all have to play with. And then, and you have to learn this system. But, Joe, that you want to learn it. You want to learn it. You have a chance to play. And then we'll see how you do. And once you kind of get the feeling of this thing and you can play without thinking about it, it's a date you're in. How hard is it to learn? We say it takes a month.

38:35I used to say Thanksgiving will know about this team. And that's maybe 14 games in or something like that. But, you know, usually it's, we teach people how to catch the ball, how to pivot, how to use footwork, how to get to a position where you can receive the ball, how to pass to the open side, so the passing drills, dribbling drills, footwork drills. And some people take to it faster than others. Yeah, they've had the training. So we look for players that have good coaching. None of that works in basketball now. None of that applies to basketball. They're still footwork for pivot, for big guys.

39:12Tell me about how teams get assembled. So when you get hired to coach a team, the teams are already assembled. You have no... Not really. I mean, we brought in two players the first year I was here in Jerry West, who was extremely good at that. I was a general manager. We brought in one of my former players from Chicago named Ronnie Harper. And we brought in... I think I named Sally, John Sally, who was a backup to Shack. I met him on the beach one time. He seemed like a great guy. You know, he's really awful. He seemed like a great guy. And he came into my office or my dressing room or whatever and he's saying, Coach, Shack has worried that you don't like what he's doing.

39:56What do you mean? You never give him any praise. Oh no, he's doing exactly what I expect him to do. Does he need praise too?

40:07Or... That's great. This story that I like to tell, Shack is always overweight after his first couple of seasons. He's got huge... Now he's over 300 pounds, right? So we go to training camp and everything. Shack, you got to lose some weight whenever... You know, we have to get a great scale the way the guy right. You can't win him on normal scale. So... Well, the first game's regular season. He's coming off the floor. It's early in the ball game. And I walk up and I... Shack. What's the greatest thing Well Chamberlain ever did? Ah, he averaged 50 points a game and 40 rebounds, 30 rebounds a game.

40:46So that's great numbers. But you know the real thing that's the greatest? He played every minute of every game. He played over 48 minutes a game. Do you think you can do that? If you did it, I can do it. Two weeks later, John Sally comes into my... You know, well, Shack's feeling like he's getting pretty tired, you know. He's taking... I said, yeah, he said pretty good shape though, is he? It's so funny. It's so funny. It's just like the right challenge for the right guy who needs the challenge. Yes. Amazing. That's the only year one MVP title, or an MVP award. He was terrific. He was really great.

41:29He had a toe from having feet, I'll grow his shoes. So his big toe was like this. So when he pushed that's the one you push off of, when he pushed off this joint, got worse and worse and worse, it does so arthritic, he was like, oh man, my feet are killing me. Good operation. M -Fix, belly dancers do this all the time. Weight in, weight in, weight in. And I can remember September 11th following the big dance of September 11th. There's still celebrating September 9 -11. He had the operation at UCLA. I went down to CM at UCLA. His statement was, my time is playtime in the summertime. I'll get the operation on the team's type.

42:23Well, Kobe took that as a direct insult. I'm like, you didn't want to win. So that's where they're fued really kind of, you know, they had a little kind of issues about that one. That was a really tough one for him across. I was like, yeah, I know the big guy doesn't want to play any two games. Kobe, it's, it gets tiring after a while. And then he's hauling that big body around. Whatever. Taking off, you see takes guys whacking on him like he's a, you know, man of steel. Say other lot of things to make up for. But they're still at innate desire in Kobe that checked and have weight. They have that same killer instinct.

43:06Well, he didn't need it because he was shocked. He had a different, he brought something else. Right. And he was just bully. But he could bully. Yeah, but he wasn't a bully. I know guys have played bully ball. Yeah, they've asked well. Yeah. But he really wasn't a bully. But he'd test y 'all. He'd give me that children the chest thing. How do you like that? That was hard on my chest. Yeah. I had a, he used to play me for the hack a shack thing. Because when I was a coaching in Chicago and they were in Orlando, I had three centers. I'd say you guys have 18 miles. Wow. And when you knock him down, make sure he goes down.

43:49So he has to pick himself up. But just do it if he gets an offensive rebound. Yeah, I don't, I don't go for that other stuff. I've just whacked him a guy. Yeah. But if he gets his own rebound or an offensive rebound, he can't let him put it back. He's unstoppable that way. And don't let him complete. So I had the three headed monster. That's what they call it. And I had the three heads of the centers on a t -shirt. You're talking the book about the right way to play the game. What does it mean? I see Steve Stil says the basketball gods, that's the term we used. You know, hit the open man. That's my coach's statement.

44:26Basketball is a pretty simple game. You hit the open man and you see the ball on defense. That's the right way to play. Yeah. You hit the ball up, set a pick, whatever. Do the thing that comes naturally in basketball and everything will work out. Where's the line between gamesmanship and cheating? Well, baseball, I, baseball, all baseball's history. They've been stealing signs and doing stealing base running signs. You know, whatever did been using pine tar. They've been using cork bats. They've been using whatever. So baseball is rent with that. It's just part of the game. It's kind of a gamesmanship thing.

45:12And there's a lot of whining, especially here in LA, after the Houston Astros won the World Series. They beat both the Yankees and the Dodgers. And that's that year. Basketball. My coach is used to say, we go down to North Carolina, North Carolina State, not Dean Smith in the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State. And the coach there would have a great dinner, steak dinner for the referees and maybe company later after the meal. So I get a couple calls the next day on the floor. You know, the referees are coming in. That's kind of how you get out of in basketball. It's to try and change that.

45:55But the Celtics used to have nets that were like flush the ball through. And other people had nets that would hold the ball. They all had to take the ball out of the rim so the teams couldn't run. But the league got to it and they said, we're going to make the nets down. So the league stopped that. One of the equipment I carried on the floor was a needle that lets the air out of the ball. We played basketball. We won the ball that you could put your thumb in the skin of the ball. We didn't want rebounds bouncing all over the place. It could be over if it was overfilled. It would change the game.

46:37Bounce too much. So we wanted to box out so we could get the rebounds by the basket. We didn't want that ball bouncing the free throw light. The league stopped allowing that to happen. Even though it says on the ball, this ball can be inflated. Seven to nine PSI, Hansper Square Edge. So you prefer to close it to seven than nine? We added seven. And the league now has the referees and they mark the balls. So they've tried to take that out. The rims used to be a little bit wanky. They're called tossback rims. And you can pull them down and they go back up so that they don't break the backboard. So some of them are tighter than others.

47:23And so the ball hits. It doesn't go in. It just knocks the ball off the backboard now. Oh, here's something I used to do. The league and its infinite ignorance has M .E .A. Finals. It had a great big plastic decal at half court. And they put it on half court. So when the camera's on the game, there it is. 1995 or 2015 M .E .A. Finals on both sides of the court. Those things are, slipperys can be a fit. If there's a wet spot on that thing, go and play full court defense against your opponent. Because they can't stay up in their feet. It's like a skating rink. They're slipperys can be especially if they're wet.

48:11And everybody's sweating so they get wet. Yeah, they can't help you grow it. When it goes to Puerto Rico, I had a guy, Taurus, when he ran, there'd be the footprint of sweat right through where his tennis shoe was. And all squish out. And there'd be a puddle of in Puerto Rico. They call them mappos. Hey, mappos. Get this. But there's a number of things like that. Oh, here's one that was great.

48:44Red R back, who's one of the great competitors. And a fine coach, Boston Celtics, one nine championships. As a coach, one a couple as a general manager. They had the home court advantage that year because they had won 68 games. They had a great year. And the rivalry was tremendous. We were there four times two of our home court, one, one and one seventh game. Every game we played, there was a different locker room. We had the visitors hockey room. We had another different. Just make you uncomfortable. Just anything. Anything to make you into the seventh game. We had to sit outside the ring and in Boston, they had this grandstands.

49:30And then they had a ring where all the pedestrians would hang out during a half time. And so to get off the court, we walked through all the pedestrians to get to this. I call it janitors closet. Yeah. It was like a janitors closet. We got beer thrown on the sweat now, going out that thing. But that was, that's a red R back special. And the other thing you do is that he wouldn't send the tickets down. The players get two tickets each. So there's, you know, like 24 or 30 tickets, maybe for all team. Coach, trainer, et cetera. He'd send the tickets down half hour before the game. So players are going out to the court to start their warm -ups.

50:11And they'd say it's a trainer, Danny. Danny, I put the ticket envelope for, you know, Will Smith. Distraction. Distraction. On my locker. So when the tickets come, put the, right. And mind off the game. Amazing. And the Celtics used to play them all the time. The Lakers all the time. The Lakers would say, that old building, they crank up the heat. It's 105 degrees in the locker room. And it'd be on the middle of June. Yeah. So yeah. Amazing. Those are little things that go on in the game. When you're playing in the heat of the moment, and the ball gets thrown to you, tell me what goes on inside.

50:56Is it thinking? Like, how do you know what to do in the heat of the moment? It's happening. It's fast. Yeah. What happens? Tell me the process of what it feels like and what you think is going on inside you. Right. Well, the first thing we taught, and I am part of this for having experience, is how close am I being guarded? Do I have a shot? Should I be passing the ball? Is there a passing sequence? Are you aware of this even before you have the ball in your hand? Right. What's my situation? Is there a body on body right now? Okay. I have to help a guy off to get to the basket. Okay. How am I catching the ball?

51:36That's the first rule. Yeah. How far am I away from the basket? And what's going on in the game? What's the game situation? And we tell a guy, those are your two seconds. Shoot or pass or penetrate. So you look for the shot if you're wide open. You look for a pass if your teammates are open, hit the open man, or then you penetrate and you get... So you only have three, you're only picking from three. Yeah. Before you pick, you're seeing whether you're guarded or not, because if you're guarded, it makes the shooting less of a chance. Is that correct? Yeah. So you're more likely to eat what you have to either penetrate.

52:18First rule of a sound offense must penetrate the defense. Yeah. First rule. You must get the penetration. Yeah. And you can penetrate by three ways. You can penetrate by a dribble, by pass, by offensive rebound. Offensive rebound is the most dangerous of all of them, because you've rebounded the basket. You're right there. Now, as soon as you rebound close the basket, there are two three -point shooters that are standing out there. All their lives, these three -point shooters, have hired people to catch the ball they shoot and pass it to them from the basket out to where they're standing. So they are used to the ball coming from this direction and shooting it back where it came from.

53:01And that's Dennis Rodman is good at that, getting the ball. Dennis, we get on... He lift weights to activate himself. Then he get on a bicycle, he ride a bicycle for an animal, 50 minutes so he get a sweat. All the time he's riding a bicycle, he'd be watching the opponent. He watched where the opponent's shots came off. Does this guy shoot long? Does he shoot short? Does this shot go off the backboard? Do they... Does he shoot from the corner in the ball? Skips this way or that way. Okay. Now he's got an idea of what he's playing against, what to go... Now he goes into the shower. He showers. The meeting started, because it's like, I don't know, 25 minutes to the game.

53:41We go out at 50 minutes before the game. Guys have been out shooting, getting themselves ready, come in, maybe put on a new jock strap, dry shorts and a shirt and they're jersey and whatnot. They're all sitting in their chairs. Dennis walks out of the shower, but as naked with a towel over his head, goes sits down and is locker. There's 10 minutes left before the game, before he's dressed. All the players are coming. We're going to get Dennis, we've got to go out. Dennis, we have to go out. Leave him. Just leave him, go on shoot. No, no, we've got to go out together. We've got to go, okay. Dennis, get out there and get there.

54:19Ten minutes is enough to shoot. These guys have shot before the game. Of course. I mean, he's always making these shooters. They're waiting, they're antsy, waiting in the hallway. Get your ass out of your Dennis. But it doesn't like the perception of him, is that he's a screw up. But what you're describing is not a screw up. Not at all. He seemed methodical about the game. He did all of the practice that he needed to do to do his job. And he studied the other team and was diligent about his job. I don't know if anybody rebounds at the level. He rebounds even today in this sport with guys that are, you know, whatever.

55:00I think the best height for basketball like 6 -10. I think 7 foot is a little bit too tall for the game. But he's not 6 -10. 6 -8, no, not even that 6 -6. But he knows where the ball is going to go. He knows trajectory, knows where it's going to go. There's a picture of him perfectly perpendicular to the floor, diving for the ball like this. In front of Roger Ebert, yellow guy that used to be the film on. He's on the front row seat. And he's got the ball in his hand. And he's ready to get it out and throw it. But he's perpendicular, like laid out fully. Yeah, that's, he's been a lot of time on the floor.

55:41A lot of time getting knocked down and banged around. Loved it. Just the love. It's like a rubber ball bouncing up and down. There's a cartoon character like that. I can't remember who it is. When you're on the sidelines watching the game, do you ever pray? I pray before the ball game when they're doing the national anthem. Beautiful. Let me be a vessel. Yes. Beautiful. Yeah, you know, my dad was a minister. My mom was a minister. Both. Both of them. They did the same Bible school in Winnipeg, Bana Toba, back in the 20s, dates, 100 years ago. And they were moved by this charismatic movement that went across the country in the United States.

56:34My dad was a dairy farmer. My mom was young. She just came out of a teaching one -room school house teaching in Montana. So I was born into this family, sister and two brothers, four of us. And where were you in the four? I was youngest. Youngest. So I was a war baby at the end of the war baby in 45, not a baby boomer in 46, but you know, it was, you know, an interesting time. People coming out of depression, out of poverty that came out of the depression. And the West was, you know, hamstrung really by dust bowl and lots of jobs and farmers losing their land and so forth. People don't know about the dust bowl anymore, but it was, was it three years where basically the sun didn't shine essentially?

57:35Well, it was just drought and wind. My mom grew up there. My dad didn't grow up in the West by that grew up in Ontario, Canada. Really on the Quebec border, Ottawa River, and migrated out to marry my mom. And even though they both gone to seminary in Winnipeg, Manitoba, that was by chance and choice because they weren't a whole lot of charismatic seminaries at that time. So anyway, he came out West and loved it, loved Montana and the open spaces. His family had migrated from what was Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War. They were Tories, Loyalists. And they went to Nova Scotia and then they got a land grant for losing their land in what became do hamstrung, portspins through hamstrung.

58:33But that time the Commonwealth of Massachusetts incorporated that land, portspins. But my mom growing up had shoots from men and night faith. Her parents had migrated in 1902 from Minnesota to Saskatchewan. And she was born there in 1907 and then they had the epidemic that was devastating the flu, our Spanish flu, which it was called, which took three of her five cousins. They went together as a married couple. My grandpa Funk and my uncle Rimer, their German men and nights. The Rimer's lost three of their five kids to this epidemic and they gave it up and they went back and homesteaded in Montana.

59:30But the story I was going to tell my mom would tell about the locusts coming through and would strip the clothesline of clothes and take the tails off the horses and the means. And just eat everything, strip the land and they were, they called them the rocky mountain locusts in invasion and that's wild. I know it's like it's biblical. I mean, really is. Yeah. And they felt that way. It was devastating and you know people were stripped of land and stripped of an income and you know maybe it was a hard hard like my mom and her siblings. When they're old enough, they left the homestead in Oswigo.

1:00:14There's an Oswigo New York to Oswigo Montana, which is about 35 people and went into a town called Wolf Point and their pop got a tarp paper shack for them to live in. They had a coal burning stove, some traps and a bag of potatoes and four of them went to school junior high or you know secondary school and they ended up you know giving an education in a very rural area in the town about three thousand five hundred people and a little town. But that's that's kind of hard. Scrabble life that they came out of. So it was interesting to be born into a family that was do it yourself people. Yeah, they do it.

1:01:03They could do whatever necessary to survive. So they left the midnight faith is a is like Amish similar very similar and so it's a it's a strict faith in. And very much outside of the mainstream. Very disciplined, you know farmers. Yeah. And they were historically I know the background they were dikers and they left the lowland devilence at the behest up to the great and went to Prussia which was owned or run by Russia at that time. And down to river that they created or you'll create the land of the swamp of a river that was there and eventually moved down to Moldova where they did the same for a big lake large lake down in Moldova and then Catherine ran them out the program ran them out in 1850.

1:02:02In 1555 or so and they came to Minnesota. Wow. The migrated to Minnesota. My mom went back there during the migration from Canada Saskatchewan to Montana. She went back to Minnesota with her grandparents and went to German school. German speaking school. Men and nights were there. But then after the tragedy they left their faith and then they found faith again. Well they when they moved out of the men and I community in Saskatchewan which was really a movement of a number of young people. They were just 21 and 20 my grandparents when they moved up there and this charismatic men and I guys said let's build a community of our own.

1:02:48But it was still a men and I the new version was men and I as well. Rastram I see Saskatchewan is still a men and I community interesting. So anyway when they came back to the States and homestead they went to the closest thing to the religion which was Luther and it was just you know Protestant church. But then in the roaring 20s when the jazz age came through and everybody was Charleston and Jitterbug and all those things were going on and jazz became really. There was a whole kind of similar movement to the 60s maybe and the charismatic wave came across the country and people had these revivals that spiritually renewed them.

1:03:32And both my parents were caught up in that my dad was a Methodist and they eventually developed a church that was developed in the mid 20s 27 or 28. Called the Sambles of God and Church of God there were two of them that formed and some of the goddess which my parents were part of it. So my dad was moved every five years built a church built a barcinage knew all the things to do and then eventually became the superintendent of the state of Montana. Which is a massive state and you know I grew up there and then after he spent his four years there he went back to being a pastor and moved out of the state and so the new guy could have whatever he had to do and they moved the headquarters from grade falls to buildings.

1:04:26And so I grew up in high school in junior high and high school in Tonka, Williston, or Dakota where the Williston oil basin is which is a big thing now. And what was life like in your family being the youngest and both of your parents ministers was it would you consider it strict upbringing? Oh my god. It's the strictest. We didn't have a television I mean just to let you know that you know everything's secular we have newspaper. What else do we get? Readers digest my dad bought world books and psycho be the it's I was an avid reader. What subjects did you like to read about? Well I read the classics you know what you were given as a kid you know what to read literature.

1:05:12Yeah literature and I started off with you know Natty Bumpo and you'll let the last of the Mohicans and Pathfinder. Hawthorne's books and you know things that are interesting the boy Chipper Hilton the athletic prowess of a guy who played all the sports in New York actually Long Island Long Island. What's what's the college out there that L .I .U. was the name of the school Claire B was the coach and he wrote these books about Chipper Hill that were in all the junior high school libraries. You know playing basketball playing football playing baseball. Anyway you know I played all the sports and I excelled at sports and and you excelled at all sports you were just a good athlete.

1:06:05Yeah I played quarterback until my best friend went up got a try out with the Green Bay Packers took over as a quarterback and they moved me to end to split in we had a pro offense. And but I was you know developing all the way through I mean I was six foot as a sophomore in high school I made the varsity team. And the next year I six five is just you know was like that. So yeah I did stop growing till I was a sophomore in college or more maybe junior is one of those things but the home life my brother who was six years older and I brought in. Rock and roll music he had a little out record player 45s and if he played it in his room my dad mom were okay with it but it wasn't allowed in the house that type of thing.

1:07:01It's cool though that they let him here like the event shut him down right. The dancing alcohol smoking etc were you know off limits those those were your off limits so even dancing. Yeah dancing was you know any thought behind what did they explain why dancing was not okay is erotic you get a rouse dancing I close to you know you in contact I see well how about a jitter about mom well I know I you know that I did the child's in back of the 20s when I was a kid growing up but you know literally that's kind of frenetic and maybe too exciting. Yeah but people dance in the Holy Spirit in the church you know and they get under the power of the Holy Spirit.

1:07:47So we went back and forth my mom was a great debater she loved to listen and she liked to hear us you know challenge so that was good deal. You feel like even though you ended up leaving your parents faith behind it still had a big impact on your life the fact that you had it when you had it. Oh that out there's such a you know there's such a feeling of emotion that rolls through a congregation and my mom spoke in the evening service which is more of a evangelical service and my dad spoke in the morning as more of a pastor. But yet there there was these emotional surges that will go through the audience the congregation various speakers will come in and you very much got a feeling of the move of the Holy Spirit and that was a term used.

1:08:47And my early years I heard about the Shakaina glory when the Old Testament the Elijah and Elijah were moved by so that was a big part of our experiences to be emotionally involved with religion to have a personal relationship with God. And so it was it was impressed upon us to the point where my dad used to say well the Catholic Church says that if we can have a child tell he's sick he'll be a Catholic his whole life. He said we feel the same way about our faith that if we can have a child to the age of six or seven it'll influence their whole life. So it did even though I went to college and you know immediately was assaulted by things that challenged my belief evolution.

1:09:41You know the variety of things that we were taught in science and elsewhere and you know ended up leaving a pre law type of direction for philosophy psychology and religion. Those were my major minors and I had a composite major because I was still you know a searcher and I continued to be. I was a philosophy major and then I switched film and television just because I was also on the track to go to law school and it didn't matter what your undergraduate degree was in. Right. And all of my friends were in film and television and it just seemed like more fun so if it didn't matter to get where I was going I might as well have more fun that's why switch I've a degree in film and television with a minor in philosophy.

1:10:29But was a searcher as well same. The department in North Dakota where I went back and got an honorary doctorates you know a few ten years ago or so. They took me to the place where Benjamin Ring my advisor had left and they dropped the philosophy department that's how far liberal arts have fallen from choice. Philosophy still air philosophy department psychology department obviously but you know the religious department is gone in philosophy department is limited to just one guy. No more department so. The changes from liberal arts are from seeking has been more specific to technological training or whatever scientific training it's interesting.

1:11:27Yeah it's I think the big ideas are still just as interesting as they were when we were younger. Well you know the idea that you know you were given this introduction of Western civilization when you went to freshman year of college. And you know you learned about you know Plato and Socrates and know thyself was the you know that was the whole goal about this pursuit you know as to know yourself and the idea that that's still pursuit that we're on as individuals. Is is really would never ending pursuit for us the people of our seekers and people that want to evolve. Would you say for the most part even though it has changed has your spiritual life continued from childhood to now an equally strong way.

1:12:26Yeah the morning we had what was called devotions and we had to be downstairs at 7 30 if we left school at 8 30 and we were downstairs at 7 30 and we read a scripture the Bible we usually were pursuing some former fashion of a storyline in the Bible and then we prayed. And we got underneath to pray we didn't sit at the table and fold our hands and bow our heads. We got underneath to pray because that was you know how we did it to this day I said in the morning and meditate so it's the same thing basically. Yeah and I think I think it might be fair to say that the it doesn't really matter the path you take to get there they all can share the same power.

1:13:16We're all looking for the same thing regardless of which stream we choose to get there. I don't know if there's a right way to do it. No doubt. You know I have a brother that is barking since he's in a care facility now who's a Sufi? Beautiful. Yeah and that was a typical of you know kind of where the petty cost of faith was because a lot of it is about music and about being rhythm and about the emotional aspect in Sufis. The same function within the Muslim faith or Islam faith and the dancing and the twirling. Oh yeah oh bell. So yeah beautiful to watch I know in there the years in it's so beautiful.

1:14:05Yeah really something. So yeah he's a shaker eventually in the Sufi faith which is a healer he was a therapist in real life which he carried into his therapy. But yeah my oldest brother who passed away a couple years ago well two years ago this April became an agnostic. He got Hodgkins non -Limfoma Hodgkins and went through a period where he lost like 40 pounds and went through a whole thing that revitalized him and lived another 10 years afterwards. But during that period of time he lost his faith he lost his belief in God he found that he couldn't find his pathway there. And he was a guy that was Don Juan Carlos Castaneda that whole Seth speaks that group of seekers that were you know looking more for spirits, more evidence of supernatural spirit.

1:15:16And you know we're sitting here doing this and you know I was thinking on my way down to see you or op I should say to see you. I'm sad with the number of people therapists and film people and we've talked about the flow about being in the spirit being in the moment. And that is really what is the joy that brings people together and that's the binding force that makes these religions happen and that's terrific. Can capture it's impossible I have to say you can't make a film about this this is not going to happen. So as you turn that on it doesn't translate. Yeah it's in the moment. In fact my teacher would say it's before the moment it's the moment before the moment.

1:16:11You can almost anticipate it because it's there before it happens. So would you say that the unity of a team playing well together is a spiritual event without a doubt. It hooks you on sports when you're a kid you know all of a sudden you just have that feeling and I was fortunate because almost everything I did was successful and I had great teammates and great experience playing sports in both the high school and college level and professional level two. Having been on three teams that went to championships to the one the finals in the NBA and then they all having the experience as a mentor coach teacher you know for all the championships that the balls and the Lakers were able to win.

1:17:04So you you sit there and enjoy. You know people always ask you why aren't you up in the bow like a lot of coaches are up and down the floor and you're yelling and I said well you kind of learned that if you teach and coach you trust the players to do what's supposed to be done on the floor. Then you can sit back and join that feeling that they're experiencing out there and you'll know the time when the time is right to say time let's let's get together talk. So it was it was a bicarious experience not playing not in the band but still participating in a different way. Yeah that's again that's closer to my experience I usually don't play in the band I'm usually on the sidelines but it feels great to feel that energy I feel like I'm part of that circle when it happens.

1:18:04And it's it's a miraculous thing because it it can be not happening for a while and then all of a sudden it starts happening and no one involved knows what changed. You know that's the interesting thing about it I was thinking about coming back the final year for my they be has to players that were leaders on the team just this to one more time but we could do it one more time. Something just wasn't right it just could click we had a moments here and there but it wasn't just inflow the way it's supposed to flow and you know I kind of figured out what happened it actually flowed exactly the way it's supposed to flow but it wasn't the way you walked in it to flow.

1:18:55Exactly this is the end of whatever it was but it was it was a it was interesting feeling of hmm it's going on here how can we make this better so that's one of the things that I think it's kind of a pivotal point of my existence now is when you know coaches call or get information about what should I do about. How to sit back you have to be there you have to be in it you can't be about it you're not running it you're being part of it but you I'll tell you I'll tell you something that I haven't I rarely have told anybody this that I'd line the players up the players know this I line the players up the first day of camp usually we're going to be in the first day of camp.

1:19:54We we used to have this extended number of guys that would come in the NBA wanted us to have like 20 players maximum command and then you know case there's an injury or case someone goes down you could still have practices and then you keep cutting three days you cut players five days later you cut players so you're finally down to your 12 now the NBA has 15 guys on the team they just keep expanding but yet 12 guys so in the 12 were finally formed. And is a week before the season started I'd line them up on the baseline and then tell them the Lord the owner of this team the NBA has given me the authority to coach this group of guys and we're it.

1:20:42By your own admission by your own actions if you agree that I will be coaching you and you'll accept my direction I want you to step across the line is a physical way of expressing your obedience or you're following to what we're going to do and I I wanted to do that in one of my mentors one of my I see my coach's assistance who was 35 years older and I was when I started coaching it was 65 now he's 30 years older. Gave me that story from a freshman team that he played on at Fordham University and Vince Lambert was the coach of the freshmen basketball team I was like this is a party coach basketball you said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said I said there's been.

1:22:07Yeah it inside I said there's documents out there I had to afford here but there are some comments about you guys me Talk like I said yeah I said yeah I said yeah I said yes yeah I said no you guys You guys got it lots and I said you guys know I said yeah friends did you guys were like that you guys alright? happy about not playing from the guys that are partially or bench players so they don't form a union and get a whatever you're in good shape because the starters are all happy they're out there playing they could not like their role but that was kind of the going thing. I played everybody.

1:22:52Maybe I wouldn't get the 12th guy in but then at the end of the game I go around the locker room and say, guys, sorry, good kids in the ball game. So they all want to play. Absolutely. Not knowing anything about basketball which I said to you earlier, can you tell me a little bit about the hierarchy of a team like there's the owner of the team and then there's the general manager and then there's the coach and then there are the players. Did I miss any steps? There's a myriad of also's in between there. An owner has to be compliant with what you're going to do and fortunately for me I had owners that stepped aside.

1:23:39Owners when coming to the locker room they address the team at the end of the season or a Christmas party and that was it. I had to remove general managers from the locker room occasionally because there was something intimate that was going on in the group that had to be discussed. Would the general manager be the person who originally hires you or no? Well in some cases the owner does. Some cases the owner. It was forced around in the Laker organization. The owner was the one that dictated who to hire. The other situation, my other team, there's with the Chicago Bulls. It was the general manager that went to the owner and said it's time that we hired this guy.

1:24:19And when you were a Nick how did it how did the hierarchy work? Well our general manager Eddie Donovan, Eddie was hired as a coach but he didn't have success so they made him a general manager because he was a really likable guy and he had pretty good direction. And he had two colleagues that were coach and scout. And the scout would stay with the team as assistant coach until college basketball started. And my first year in New York in 67 we had three players that were first year players on that team in well -frazier and Bill Bradley. Bill Bradley had to serve in the reserves before he could come.

1:25:09He'd be been in a road scholar and when he signed up he was under 66 which was the BACS 65. And so he had to serve in the Vietnam War so he went in the reserves and they put him in a six -month or whatever training. So he did start with us. And the coach was replaced two weeks after Bill finally got back and joined the New York Nick team in December which was deeper in the season than it is now. It's like 25 games now and that time we started in the middle of October. Baseball had no playoffs. Baseball was over in October. So anyway the replacement coach was the scout. His name was Red Holstmann and Redd had scouted all of us.

1:26:05So he knew all of us intimately in our game. And so it was, we took off running for best record the next part of the year from that point on. However the next season we did get off to good start. So the General Manager at the Donovan came to our training camp. Our practice facility and he fined everybody like $250. A lot of money. I was making $12 ,500. So what was first round pick he probably made $15 ,000. So there was a lot of money but anyway it was like fill you and wall. You guys don't pay the fine because you got bandages on your knees because you've been on the floor fighting for the ball or whatever.

1:26:53And he was going off about how guys are hustling and you know that's how we got to it. And our players association representatives Walter the Bell Bellamy said Mr. General Manager, sir. We have no showers that'll last after the second shower. It turns cold. There's a hole in our practice facility floor in the corner over there. We're playing on wooden backboards in the Mosque Battalion Armory on 52nd Street in Queen's Boulevard. What do you expect from us? I mean we don't even have double bags. We have crocusacks. Well you know crocusacks is what the cotton pickers put the cotton balls in. We have crocusacks to carry our, that did it for a Donovan.

1:27:41He turned into a fountain of spittle and inductors and eventually in a month Walter Bellamy was gone to another team. There are a couple of instances that created that because he didn't get off the bench to fight in an overall brawl that we had. Someone later in that initial season. So in fact we're fighting more common than also. Yeah. Wow. That changed during the whole franchise around because we had a player named Dave DeBoucher. It was named Dave DeBoucher. I always call him. And Dave came and all of a sudden our Willis Reed who was forward became the center. And for seven years we had high success.

1:28:27We were on the flow in the moment. And because of that Eddie Donovan moved on and went to the new franchise about Flow New York, which was just starting out expansion team. And our coach Red Holtzman became the general manager. So he became both the general manager and the coach. And was he the person who scouted, he was the person who scouted you and brought you in and ends up coaching you. That's great. How much influence did the coaches you've had over the course of your life impact you as a coach? Everyone has. I have two coaches that are Hall of Fame coach at Bill Fitzgerald College who ended up winning with the Boston Celtics in the NBA.

1:29:12He was a charismatic guy. And Red Holtzman is a Hall of Fame coach. More than anything I lend to kind of recite some of the things about Red Holtzman that I learned. Red carried a low worth watch in his shirt pocket. And he'd say, see this watch this is a $2 .95 watch. I have to wind it every 24 hours. And this is our time. This is our time keeper. If you're five minutes late, we'll hold the buzz. You'll get fined. But if you're more than five minutes late, the bus will be gone. The plane will be gone. The practice will have started. And you'll be fined more than just a silly fine, which was the first five minutes, which could be $10, whatever.

1:30:05Little thing, little thing. So when he'd have an issue with you, said something the paper he thought wasn't team oriented or whatever. He'd step into my office and we'd step into the bathroom. This is my office. Okay, anybody in here? Okay, let's talk about what you just said or whatever and what's going on. So there's a certain demeanor. Don't get too high. Don't get too low. So we started off in a bang the next year. We won 18th in a row. The 19th game we lost. Red, what are you going to do? You lost. Well, under the same thing we do, what we won last night, I'll go home. Tom will cook me a steak.

1:30:55I'll have a scotch. Sit down. Watch tonight, Joe. And go to bed. Get up in the morning. Go back to work. Don't get too high. Don't get too low. Middle path. He was a Buddhist. Wow. Yeah. Was he really a Buddhist? Or he just was a middle path guy. He was a middle path guy. But he was a pleasure to work with. His demeanor was, let me give you an example, Cassey Russell, famous player, Cassey Russell. College Play of the Year, 1965 or 1966. Bill Bradley, college player of the year, 1965. Based off against each other not only in the holiday tournament in Madison Square Garden, but also in the final four in the NCAAs.

1:31:46And they subbed in for each other. Bill started and Cassey came off the bench, which is a hard thing for Cassey. But he struggled with it. But he had a great demeanor. He wanted to win. And he was, he sublimated his hard feelings. He's a minister now. And 30 years afterwards, he came to Bill and said, Bill, I had really hard feelings about you starting. You had to be one of the newer player. And I want to ask forgiveness. Bill was like, oh, Cassey. I knew it was hard. I knew about it. But we got along. We won and we were, we replaced each other. We did a good job and have no fear. I had no grudges against you.

1:32:34So that was great. So anyway, the story's going to tell about demeanor of Red Hallsman. Cassey had a couple of incidents. And Red wanted to everybody to be together. We go to the games together. We ride the bus together.

1:32:55We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We go to the game together. We didn't want any part of that. So we're playing in Philadelphia. Be the Madison Square Garden. Take the bus. Be the off. Dolly Batson. Cafe rest stop on the way down. Have a little something pre -game meal. Drive the rest away. The Philadelphia go to the game. Get dressed in the locker room.

1:33:35Cassey shows up. Oh, Cassey, you drove down? Yeah, I did. How much were the tolls in Benjamin Franklin Bridge? Yeah, I think it was 450 something. It deducted from the $100 fine that I'm going to give you.

1:33:54It's so funny. Yeah, that was his way of kind of... This is your punishment. Were the punishments really about the punishment or was it something else? It was something else. Tell me just about being called out and being like, you weren't on this thing as a teammate. You weren't joining in. You weren't part of this. And putting your whole self involved in this thing. So it was a subtle way of doing it. So it was very impressionable for me. It was, you know, 22 -year -old, 23 -year -old kid. And, you know, then I had an injury that kept me out for a full season. And then I was like going to the games, but not able to play the game.

1:34:44What does that feel like, psychologically? It was awful feeling. But the thing that happened was red was like, come on, hang out with me. We'll talk before the game. And we'll talk about it. And in the process, he was like, Phil, what would you suggest we do against this team and further the team? Oh, yeah. I thought we should step out hard on that screen, Roller, whatever. You know, he started to rely on me as a person that could express it as a player. Because I think he didn't want to have to do that. This is a guy who never drew a diagram. Yeah. He had no boards, no chalk, no nothing. He might be in a restaurant.

1:35:23He might move salt -sellers and never -safeers around. But he never did any of that process. There's a guy named Digger Phelps that coached for Notre Dame for a long time. But he started out at Fordham. And there's a holiday tournament in Madison Square Garden during Christmas. They had major teams come in. But, you know, later on, it was less insightful. And Fordham was at the tournament. They were waiting to get on the court. Very little practice time in Madison Square Garden. Because it's busy all the time. And so we got to practice in the morning. Be there at 10 o 'clock. We got 10 a .m. at noon.

1:36:04At noon, Fordham had the court. So we were doing something at the end of practice. And Digger Phelps was young 33, 34 -year -old coach, said to Red Holesman, Oh, I saw you running a play like we were on. Did you see us run that play on TV or something? And Red said to dig of this game, it's been almost 90 years old. Every play that's ever been thought of has already been run somewhere in some school yard or some YMCA or whatever. I don't think there's anything in this play. It's go. We don't have that. We don't do that. So he would say to us, if you have something you think really works, bring it to practice, show us what you think will work, and we'll work on it.

1:36:49If we like it, we'll keep it, and we'll give it a name. So we got something. I can't remember who got it, who brought it. But the next day or next game, I can't remember whether it was a game or just after a game in practice, he said, remember that play that we ran the other night? The end of the game? That sequence of things, options for everybody? Yeah. What should we call it? What the fuck should we call it, he said? Oh, that's what we'll call it. What the fuck? So I coach the Lakers, they have great success. I run this play. I run this play with a bolt, I run this play with a Lakers, coaches that comment on the silence, they say, why can't anybody stop this play?

1:37:33What's going on? Christmas 2004, my mom, San Francisco, Shack's been trading a big deal. He's been trading Miami. Miami's playing the Lakers for a Christmas Day game. Games closed on the end of the game. Timeout's called six seconds, eight seconds to go in the ball game. Kobe's coming to the bench, he's going, Frank, tell the coach what the fuck? Tell him what the fuck, he doesn't know it. You got a show to him. So the owner's daughter who I was in a relationship with, Jeannie Bus, called me up and said, what's he talking about? Said that's the name of the sequence of actions, what the fuck? So he's just calling it that, without be read, he just find a name for something and just throw it out there.

1:38:25Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Let's talk about Jeannie for a minute. I read in the 11 rings book that you just moved to the lake. You just came to California, new job, and you meet essentially the boss's daughter, and you're the new guy, and you had the confidence to start dating her, and it worked out great, obviously, but tell me about the mindset of that, because many people would think this is not the smart thing to do in this situation. Yeah, appropriate workplace relationship. I have my staff, the NBA used to have a pre -season collective. Everybody in the NBA, maybe 1 ,800 people would go to a whole meeting that had General Managers, and Trainers, and ticket people, and everybody, the coaches, and etc., the referees, and the administration staff would come up.

1:39:30It was in Vancouver, and I flew up there. I still hadn't, I wasn't moving into a house that I bought in Playa del Rey until October. So it was still, you know, whatever, training camp was going to start. We'd be on the road, and then, you know, sometime in October, I'd move into this home. The collective has a big meeting on Friday morning. Everybody comes in, and they break down into their groups, and so forth, and we had this whole thing about race that was talked to us about how we, you know, the media is making it look like they're more crime with the black community, and the players, and the pro sports, and NFL, whatever.

1:40:17So we get through with that, and then we break up into meetings, and then the evening, each individual club takes their staff out for dinner. So, I don't know, go to the dinner, right over with my staff. I have two of my three coaches with me, and I go in there, and Jeannie is hosting the dinner, and she said, you know, it's nice to meet you. I was at your press conference a month ago. To be honest with you, I was hoping that Kurt Rammus would get the job, but my dad insisted on you. I'm a charge of operations at the forum, and now moved into another job as a vice president, and I'm a charge of operations.

1:41:04Great. So we have dinner, I'm with a group of trainers and personnel that are more associated with the team, and there are three tables, probably 30 people. The next day I go to a meeting, which is meeting with the coaching staff, and I go to the airport, fly down, because I have a daughter coming in to meet me in LA. I get to the airport, typical Vancouver thing, training, plays a bend delayed, and there's Jeannie bus sitting in the lobby waiting for her plane. Oh, well, what happened to your plane? The counselor, actually, I've got the plane that you must be on if you're flying down there, and I said, yeah, okay.

1:41:48Is it delayed? Yeah, it's delayed. So we have about an hour to sit, so we sat and talked for about an hour. She was going to a Bertie party, and I think it was turning 38 at the time. And I said, you know, do you want to sit together in the plane? She said, you're in first class, and I said, yeah, I don't fly first class, I finally coached. I said, okay, how come? She said, well, you know, I'm the boss's daughter, and I don't want to do bad. I don't want to show what people do. My girl, it's the type of thing I like. So that's great. Monday comes, she's at her party on the weekend, and it's lunchtime, and she said, it's not a piece of cake.

1:42:41A Bertie cake. So I went by her office on my way out, a bit interviewing people and getting associated with the organization. Thank you for the Bertie cake. And when I walked in and said, hi, thanks for the Bertie cake. She blushed and I was, oh shoot, I'm lost it now. So I said, you know, I'm by myself, do you want to go out to dinner? And she said, yeah. And so anyway, I started out at a romance, and we had a great run of, you know, 15 years or so together. And we used that old phrase that Hepburn used, lived close and visit often, but don't live together. So that became kind of a deal. But we ended up actually living together about three years, while one of her houses was being, you know, built in the model home that she bought into.

1:43:39But that was it. And business -wise, she was a really big help because she kind of conferred out some of the things that go on that I would have to deal with was like, why isn't the commissioner coming to our championship ceremony? Well, 9 -11 happened. He's got to be in the city. He wants to be there to support New York City and what. I've never seen a commissioner that has an army out the rings, and Dr. Ophi's never, well, don't make any issue of it. Okay. I won't. So, those are the kind of things that she would, I'm always kind of bucking against the establishment. I've always kind of been anti -establishment, but she really helped me in that regard because she is politically astute.

1:44:30Would you say part of your job was an advocate for the team against everyone else, meaning the management, the press, anyone who wasn't on the team, even if they were associated with the team, were you that buffer? Yeah. And I think that's the reason why Michael Jordan and I had such a great relationship. I didn't ask him for anything. I didn't. You weren't a company man. You were a bullsman. You were for the team. And, you know, I think I'm signed ten issues or bring people to meet him or doing anything. It was just we have a player of coach relationship and this value more than anything else.

1:45:11So, that was a big deal. And I saw how he'd been held before, you know, that it was, and we end up a lot of times on the same floor, executive level of floors, you know. And I'd see, you know, like, eight hotel employees are parked outside his room, waiting for an opportunity to give the signatures always on him, always on him. I don't know if anybody has been probably Tiger Woods, I would say has been highly sought after. But that Tiger Woods group was entirely different than a group that were looking to find audience with Jordan. Yeah. I had a crazy conversation a couple of weeks ago with Andre Iguedawa.

1:45:54And it blew my mind that the powers that be within the organization that he plays with, and this is not the case just for the team he's on for all the teams, that there's so much pressure on them to spend their time doing social media, and to be on camera all the time. And he said, and it's a complete distraction from the game. And it really gets in the way. And we want to win. And they're concerned about us doing all this other extra stuff that really gets in the way. It sounds amazing that that could be the case. So much so that it became like an issue for me. I'll tell you what, one of the episodes, for example, you have shoot rounds during the mighty times in the playoffs when they get tight.

1:46:49And you go through a conference final and then you go through the NBA final. Your shoot round is designated. Holmtea has their option 10 or 11 in the morning and you have to take whatever they don't take. So we're playing in New York and we're playing the next and next are really good team. They've come up through the ranks. We've traded our best power forward for their center, Bill Cartwright, who is twin towers with Patrick Guing. And given up a guy named Charles Oakley because we have a young stud named Horace Grant coming along, who's happy can do his job can replace him. So anyway, it's loaded, loaded stuff.

1:47:36But we are pressed a little bit because we've lost both games to initiate the series. So we're down to the seven game series. The next game coming up, rather than going to shoot around, I take the players to the Staten Island Fairy. Amazing. So they take the fairy over and we just have a cat. Psychstein. They bite us up on the top level of the fairy or whatever. So the league find me for not being there, which is okay. I'm all right. You know, I'll observe the fine. The only problem was it didn't make it run smoothly. It's clinton flew in, helicopter, and then every traffic, you know how the traffic goes when the president's in town.

1:48:22So we had to wait a half hour extra anyway, but we got it done. We won the game. We won four straight after that to win that series. But those are the minor things that go on all the time. You have six various meetings during the course of the year that are added on. You have physical urine specimens that are taken four times at the various times. The surprise your team and there'll be three or four guys that are picked out on the team that have to do the specimens. One time, I think we had to wait an hour and a half post game because. Come could find anything to urinate because he's. You sweat everything out.

1:49:09So much of the game. Of course. And then, you know, we're just depleted and then you had to drink like three bottles of water before you can find it. Anyway, we left in the bus and eventually came on on his own in a cab. You know, the amount of stuff they ask, you know, at one point, David Stern, who is a strong leader, pulled me out and said, I want you to meet Adam Silver to his down the commissioner. He has a proposition that at the end of the first quarter, the visiting team will meet with the press, the TV announcer, and give a little rundown. And in the between the third and fourth quarter, the coach of the home team will meet with an on court reporter to give an assessment of what he sees during the course game.

1:50:08Well, I would send my sister coaches out to do that. I didn't want to be part of that because I said that's a distraction. Absolutely. It doesn't need to have that going on. But then they eventually reeled me and said, no, we have to have you. You have to be there. That's the oversight that they overbearing thing that they do. And I was like talking to a coach recently and I said, you know, the guys have played, I don't know what, 65 games, they're 68 games, something like that now. They're bored of each other. They're in a pecking order that they maybe don't like all the time. He's like members of the band to go off, you know, it's the same thing.

1:50:51I said, take them out to the movie, take them to a comedy show, take them, can't do that anymore. I said, why? Because whatever you spend on them is against the cap. I said, that's crazy. I used to give my credit card to the team and say, go have a pre -series dinner out together. So anyway, when the other, I used to do. So the silly finds, I told you about the finds that you do. So now we, here we are with players making up to 25 million, 35 million a year. So if you come late, five minutes late, choose our tideward, center court, in a circle. You don't have your jersey on. You're not ready to do what we're ready to do.

1:51:37That silly find incrementally goes from 50 until three strikes and then it goes to $100. And my sister coach may run to pick up the money from your pridium when you get your pridium. And we'll shoot for that money next week or two weeks from now or whatever. And so how much is in the pot, Frank? $100, $300, $1 ,000. Okay, winners get $250 each and we'll shoot for them. We have a shooting game. Wow. So the league said, you can't do that because that's giving players money. I said, that's crazy. This is like peanuts. This is like spending away. It's such a great idea to turn a fine into an opportunity to get it back.

1:52:19It's such a great idea. Yeah. It was, it was one of those other hanging fruits. They said, you know, we just want to, we want to take this because it's just, I said, if you knew how much was made in these shooting games and how was, so that when you set in your syllabus or whatever you want to call for the season, you have to expressly designate what your finds are. And I would go like, okay, my finds, some guys finds are $500 for being late or $1 ,000 for this. My finds are $100. But they hate it. They're like, quining about losing $100. You get it back if you win the shooting game. I'll put you on a good team.

1:53:06But yeah, just to keep it lively and light is hard to do now because it's over, overlord. And the players, you know, have rebelled against it in some way. But they have also complied in other ways to kind of let the league take over. But it's, I think creativity is something I picked up from your book that you're searching for creativity and as a leader or as a mentor. You're always looking for what can I give that's a spark to help. So, you know, in the process, you know, I think about the players and at some point we take using two -week trip. You play the other conference. There's 78 teams in the other conference.

1:53:57You may play six or seven of them on the road trip. You're gone for two weeks. So, I'll get on the plane. I'll have a book for everybody. And the book gives the batches something about who you are. Dennis Robman, picture book of motorcycles. There. Feast on that. And then the art of motorcycle maintenance was one of them that I gave away that there was a book in which someone got a compendium to Zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance because it was difficult to read. It simply, in person, the writer of that book was a co -author of the great books, which the University of Chicago put out in the 60s.

1:54:42I still have the copies of all the great books. But storyline about basically about how do you get totally focused on the direction you want to go? And he wrote it as, you know, a parable of writing with his son who was a strange 13 -year -old teen, young teen kid from like Minneapolis to Boseman, Montana. And that's where he had to stop. And he had to have his bike worked on. And the guy was playing rock and roll music. And he couldn't do the right job. And he was talking about all these things, the technology that goes into that particular point. He was writing instruction manuals. And now, as you probably have noticed, a lot of times the instruction manuals, he called like, what?

1:55:37Someone didn't have anything to do with this technology, wrote this instruction manual that they aired on the way, you know, and he'd say, the guy that can't usually do the technology is like, I want you to just go write the instruction booklet and get out of our hair. But it was a book that I wanted, one of my leaders of my team to read, because he grasped the idea of what we were doing. Like you talk about craft in your book, that's basically one of the chapters or one of the notations that I just recently read. We spent a lot, lot of time basic skills when I came and coach the Lakers, one of the players, Rick Fox, Ram by where the coaches stand on the sidelines and said, Coach, I feel like I'm in the seventh grade.

1:56:32I said, yeah, I know. That's what you are. You're getting back to those fundamentals that we had to learn when we were kids. So we had something to call skills and drills and teaching players how to do the various skills that they could operate inside of the function of our office. So it wasn't complicated. In fact, the brighter people were, sometimes the more they thought. And that's not what you're trying to do. You're trying to get people instinctively react so they're not the idea of going through thought process before you can act too much. You just have to act. How much of being a great athlete is purely physical versus the mental and emotional side?

1:57:25One of the great scores in the NBA, Elvin Hayes, great battle between Elvin Hayes and Lou Halsender at the time, was the largest crowd to ever watch a college basketball game at the AstroDome, University of Houston versus UCLA. Elvin Hayes came in the league at number two pick or maybe first pick behind Wesley Uncelled in 68. And Elvin Hayes shot, the turnaround shot, that was almost unstoppable. He got the ball in the post, tremendous skill of leaping, and he turned his right shoulder and he banked it off the backboard. And it was just like a money maker. He could make this shot. One of my assistants inherited the university, or the narrative, the Houston job when they moved from San Diego rockets to the Houston rockets.

1:58:23He inherited that job. He had hoped to be coaching the San Diego rockets. It is the first time to pro coaching and he ended up in Houston. But Elvin Hayes was there and the skills and drills that we used, Elvin could perform. And so, Techs would take him off the court and teach him individually some of the skills. And eventually got so frustrating for Elvin that they traded him. They traded him to the Washington Bullets and he wanted a championship there, actually one year. But I told the coach, I never thought Elvin could win a championship because he just had this one phenomenal thing he could do because he's such a great athlete.

1:59:09He had a little hook shot, I shouldn't say one thing. But that was his money maker, that job. We beat them in a playoffs one time with a player that was one of the great players I played with named Jerry Lucas.

1:59:25That team was just feted in Madison Square Garden. By the way, I didn't go to their honoring their championship of 73. How many of that? 50 years ago? Yeah. 50 years ago. And Jerry was there. But anyway, Jerry was playing center because Willis Reed was hurt and had to have any operation and miss the rest of the season. But Elvin Hayes said, Jerry, what'd you do? He said, see that hand? He goes, great man, he's my size 68. But he got this huge hand like a bricklayers, I guess. He said, I just put it on his hip and I just turned up an extra two inches. So now instead of shooting there where he wanted to release point, he was shooting at a different release point.

2:00:12And he couldn't get it, couldn't find the way. But that's the intricacies of the game. That's where the smart guys really understand the game and the subtle things that go into it. And that's kind of players I was fortunate to play with. And the coach had understood that too. So I think it kind of rubbed off a little bit, especially when I had to sit out a year and I had to watch and I could see and I could wonder what was going on. It was different between this group of guys and that other group of guys which looks so talented. But somehow or other one, they're a collective group. They couldn't go into it.

2:00:56And I'm sure you've seen it many times. Great musicians come in, just can't find the beat, can't find the harmony, can't put it together. And what makes one group great, it's not always obvious right away. And if you take two different groups and analyze what makes them work. Or if you switch one member from one group, one great group to another great group and you just switch them, switch the drummers. Neither groups great anymore. Even though they're both great at what they do, there's something about this, I think as it relates to music, it has to do with rhythm the way we each hear rhythm in our own way.

2:01:37We hear it in general, but the way we feel it is either a little ahead of it or a little behind it or right on it. And it's different. And the great bands, the way the musicians play together, it's that tension between the guitar player who hears it a little ahead of the beat and the drummer who hears it a little behind creates the sound of that group. Or another group, it's the drummer's leaning forward and the guitars are playing straight and that's the sound of that group. And they don't know it. They don't know if there was a band that I went see Hollywood Bowl band that I liked. And their drummer quit the band and they got a different drummer who was probably better than their original drummer.

2:02:22And it was no good. It didn't work the way the band worked, even though they had a better drummer. I know the dead. I sat with the dead and I was invited to be on stage with them a number of times. And Mickey Hart and their other drummer? They call them Bill the drummer. I just know him as Bill the drummer. The two of them play together. And they drive that group and Jerry sometimes couldn't get into it in his later stages and then he finding kind of, I'm in it now and then he get in. I also am a friend of Bruce Hornsby and Bruce would say these guys, they're fucking LSD, brain dead sometimes.

2:03:12They just can't get them going. Yeah. Take some more while they get going. But they'll get going somewhere in the session one or two. Somewhere they'll get. You know Joe Smith is producer, cap record. Oh yeah. Joe Smith, he died two years ago. Yeah. I'm friends with the Mo Austin who is his old partner and Mo just died about two years ago. Oh, one year ago. I know they're great, great together. But anyway, Joe always told me he couldn't sell that great album. They're great bands. They are. They just couldn't put an album together. But you know, he also had Van Morrison who you'd say this guy come in.

2:03:51He'd be as loody as a nutball. You know, he'd be wanting to run my office and I'm like, what? Then he'd say something like off the one. Okay. Yeah. He went Van Morrison from gangsters in Boston. I think he said he had to pay $50 ,000. He had a check of $50 ,000. He was like 25 young and he went up there to their office, scared his hell walking up there because he said these guys are gangsters. But that was the music business back then, which is, well, music business switched a little bit. But Van Morrison has always been someone that I would always look to see, is he playing? Is he going to be somewhere where I can go see him?

2:04:40He's amazing. Amazing. The voice, the feeling in his voice is unbelievable. I don't know if he does arrangements, if he's part of the arrangements or who does arrangements with their notes. I don't know how it works, but he's made incredible albums. I saw him in 72 and the finals were playing the Lakers and Santa Monica used to be open. That used to be a venue, a music venue. And he had this Santa Monica Civic Center? Yeah. I don't know whether he helped me, he said he 500 or so. I think less. 2500 made. It might be. But he had this base on a court that must have been 50 feet long. And he would be rocking around the whole stage.

2:05:26This guy would go across the whole stage. He was kind of like Van Morrison just let him roll. And Van just, you know, he's like a statue. Yeah. He's pork pie hat now. Yeah. Got a cigarette smoldering behind him, drinking whiskey or whatever. He's got stage fright all the time. Amazing. Amazing. I saw him play at the Hollywood Bowl when he was doing the Astral Weeks album with the original players. And it was just, I never saw anything like it. So beautiful. I don't like the Hollywood Bowl, but I'm so glad to hear it. It was a good show. It was great. Yeah. I like the Hollywood Bowl because I like outdoor.

2:06:04I just like being outside. I like the great. Any outdoors. I was great for that. Yeah. I mean, I saw a cold play there and, you know, maybe they're not that great in, you know, a live situation cold play. They made a great album, though. But I've gone to the Philharmonic goods down there. I'm a classical music guy. Yeah. I had a conversation with Bob Weir. This was a mind blowing comment that he made where we talked about the two drummers. And there's a movie from the 70s, the Grateful Dead movie, where there's only one drummer in the movie. And I guess that's, I don't know whether one of the, whether Mickey Hart either left the band.

2:06:41No, he came late. He just came late, so he's not in the movie. And it was interesting. And it gave me a different understanding of the dead having one drummer. And one of the signatures of the Grateful Dead is the two drummer thing. And I can't think of another group who have two drummers. All the other drummers. They'll be it. That's true. And there are some bands where they'll have a drummer and a percussionist, but it's different than two drummers. And I asked Bob about the two drummer thing. And he answered this, it sounded like a joke answer. And he was dead serious. He's like, yeah, I'm still not sure if that was the right thing to do.

2:07:17And he was dead serious. He's like, I don't know if that was good. It just happened. And we stayed with it, but I don't know if it was good. I don't know if it was better. Yeah, Mickey, go off on that airspace or whatever you do back there for half hour. You know, let me play something up. Tell me about team personalities. When I say team personalities, I don't mean the group of players in a team, but the bulls versus the lakers versus the nicks versus the warriors. Yeah. Is there a regardless of who's on the team, it seems like teams have some sort of a style or personality. Is that true? Yeah, usually there's a driving force or a combination of things.

2:08:12We had a interesting kind of meeting of the team after we had this major brawl in Georgia Tech. We're playing the Atlanta Hawks their first year in Atlanta. They moved from St. Louis where they won 60 games a couple years in a row to Atlanta. And it had been a big change for them. They were really in the South. St. Louis is kind in the South, but Atlanta was really in the South. Now this is the first exploration as can the NBA survive in the South. So they weren't killing it. Georgia Tech, tough little arena underground. You walk down to level two stories probably below ground. Just one story above.

2:09:02You walked in, walked down to the floor. Had the old seating with the railing around. There's enough room for a court. And there's a little bit of extra stuff in case I don't know what else they would do there. So we got into game. Locker room was, you know, partition like kind of like that. It's just like a six and a half foot walls. It's all spacious up above. You can hear everybody in the whole building. Right before half time, I posted up a guy named Paul Silas. He hit me in the back of the head. Knocked me down. And got over the top of me and don't elbow me. And I just posted him up and done this.

2:09:40And I got really broad reach. You're a broad shoulder and broad reach. So we shot two free throws. Went up this tunnel. And there was some barking around. The guy was getting after Silas. What the fuck's going on? He was pulling. He punk. He hit me in the fence. And whatever. So we got up and getting locked room. And we're either side of this field house or this locker room. And the coach of the other team is banging the lockers around. You fucking guys are pussy. You're not ready to play as hard as I want you to play. And, oh boy, this is going to be something else. So we'll go out in the floor.

2:10:19And one of the guy named Sweet Lou Hudson turned around and slugged. Willis Reed on a screen. He didn't go to the screen. Turn around and hit him. Willis had this reputation of being, you know, like the biggest brawler in the game. He had taken on the whole Los Angeles Lakers team in 66. Broken two nose, one jaw. So everybody's off the bench. And guys are trying to hold each other back and whatnot. And there's Walt Bellamy sitting on our bench. He didn't get up. Next day we fly out. We're flying Detroit somewhere. I don't know. I think he's Detroit. And we'll have a team meeting while get a little conference room.

2:11:03We'll talk before we get on the plate. Okay. So we get in there. Walt, why didn't you get off the bench and join your teammates? I don't think there's anything worth fighting for in basketball. Well, I think you had to join your teammates out there. Even if you go out there and grab somebody and hold somebody back or whatever. They traded them. They brought in Dave the busher, the butcher. So Dave and Bill Bradley hooked up immediately. And it was like, Willis has got to be our guy. He's got to be the captain of this team. We're going to call him Cap, okay? So they started calling Cap. We had, you know, Walt Fraser, my eight second year, Dick Barnett was 33, kill his tear when he was like 32.

2:11:48Still playing, still terrific player. And, you know, then we had Cassey Russell and some guys on the bench that were great talented players, college talent players. But not starters. So anyway, that personality revolved around Willis as the enforcer. He took care of business. And things got too rough out there. Things happened. He protected guys that, you know, Rick Barry wanted to found on Bill Bradley. He did care of him. So it was kind of a strong man's game at that time. And Willis was like, you know, 245, 6 -9, 6 -8. He was a big broad shoulder guy, but he was not like the broad James. The broads like probably 270, you know.

2:12:41So the Bulls, when I went to their team as an assistant coach with just at the start of the year, they'd lost the coach who had gone to an expansion team. And they'd hired me right, tell you the story. Jerry Kraus, a scout for the Baltimore Bullets, and a baseball scob for the Chicago White Sox, lived by Scottie. He loved sports. He loved baseball most of all, but he loved sports. He brought himself on watching players and assessing them. He had noticed his team from Kansas, Kansas State. And the coach in Kansas State got his team to the final four couple times. And he won this conference that had really good coaches.

2:13:37I think there was really good basketball conference. And he won 17 out of 19 years that he coached in this conference. Incredible. What's he doing? And he doesn't have any, he's got all kids, farm kids, and so on. So he went down there, and this guy, Tex Winner, who became my associate, come on in, look at tape with me. His friendliest could be just an open -hearted guy. He had a system. So I was in Puerto Rico coaching, and I was coaching the minor leagues in Albany, New York. I've been called by their ownership because one of my teammates, Dean Memager, had been coaching the team and things hadn't gone well.

2:14:23They'd lost 15 out of the last 17 games. That's a pretty long, pretty bad record. And they were ahead. Hosting, they all start game, and they just couldn't find a way to win. And so they had to make a change. So I called Dean and said, you know, whatever. He said, now I feel like I've lost this team. Come on in. But I want to, I want to scream each against these guys. When you come, have an open scream each, I want to play against these motherfuckers. Okay. So that didn't work out. They all beat up on Dean, who's now 37 or 38 or something, right? And these are kids that are 22, 24 years of age.

2:15:01So I've coaching there, and my coach, Red Holtsman, had coached in Puerto Rico. And he always told me, if you ever get a chance to coach in Puerto Rico, go down there. It's pure basketball. You're playing the games every other day. Wow. You're down there for like, you know, whatever. You play 33 games in, you know, 70 days. And it's the biggest port in the island. They love it. It's a real challenge. So after I went to Albany, the next year I went back, it was out of business. I was doing a recreation business in Calispell, Montana. And my partner and I had put in, I don't know, $100 ,000 and we had a $50 ,000 loan to refurbish this place.

2:15:47And it was interest rates in the early 80s were like at 15, 16%. We're talking about 6%. We're really suffering back then with, you know, trying to bring inflation down. So it's a good deal for me to take this job for six weeks in Albany and, you know, make whatever $5 ,000 or whatever they're going to pay me. And get it off the payroll of this, this sports facility. And I came back the next year at their behest to coach the team who won the championship in Puerto Rico, offered me the job. So I went to Puerto Rico. So now I'm coaching two teams. I'm coaching like 80 games a year. And when the championship in Albany, I go to the finals in Puerto Rico.

2:16:33And Jerry Kraus gets hired by the Chicago Bulls to run the Chicago Bulls. He had got, uh, Scott at me in college, who was a big fan of my coach Bill Fitch and came out and watched me in North Dakota. I went 20 below the weather. So he calls up and said, come on in. I want you to be part of this. And so I flew up for Puerto Rico. And there's friction between the coach that he chose. I didn't even stand all back. And Jerry. And they had a black ball. If you wanted a black ball guy, that was your choice. The coach and the general manager had to agree on what the staff was going to be. And Jerry had already black balled the guy that he wanted to bring in.

2:17:18I mean, John Killily and Stan was unhappy. And so when I came in, and it was his first choice, he blackwelled me. So I went back to the minor leagues again in coach. And the next opportunity, Jerry Kraus, gave me another chance of being part of this organization. So this time I came in and I shaved my beard. I wore a sport coat and I looked the barred and the coach that was there named Doug Collins, who's a couple years younger than I am. But we were competitive, again, competing against each other in the NBA. Wanted me on the team because the other two coaches, one was the Olympic coach that he had played on in 19, the one that lost 72.

2:18:05And the other one was Tex Winner, who Jerry Kraus hired immediately because this is a guy that has a system of basketball. So I walked in there, one guy, Johnny Bach, played in the NBA on the Providence Boiler Makers, was the name of the team, Providence Rhode Island. And it had been a betting practice catcher for the Yankees after he came out of the service. They both served in World War II. Both of them were in the Navy. Tex Winner was a pilot. Johnny Bach was a gunnery, Ensign, Lieutenant, actually, he ended up there both bets. One coach in the East for like 25 years and the other coached in the West for like 30 years, 35 years, and they were in their 60s.

2:18:56And they were just a great combination. Johnny Bach, Irish Dutch, Irish, penmanship award, New York City boy, Born and Bread and Brooklyn went to Fordham, part -time artist, knew all of the things about Eastern basketball, zone defense, tough games or like 50 to 48 and whatever. Tex Winner was born in Texas, emigrated to California, and went to service and ended up, well he was a pole vault, he vaulted 14 -6 with a steel pole or whatever they had before they had. The highest vault took third in the national track, but he was this athlete and then played at USC for this guy who was one of the West Coast group.

2:19:56And it was entirely different. The West Coast had run and gone and played. They had games in the 80s and the other coast had games in the 40s and 50s. Two different styles, before television. Tex had gone from college, which after he was in the Navy obviously he's 23 or so when he got out of college. His coach recommended he go to Kansas State and work as an assistant coach for a coach that wanted a system of basketball. And so he brought this system, which was called an overload. We call it the triangle. He called it the triple post offense so there are a variety of names. But he had been sent out to scout young coaches that could take over the bowls by Jerry Kraus who trusted this guy with all his intelligence of basketball and his knowledge.

2:20:55And he hired a young guy named Doug Collins who was from Illinois to come coach a team. And Doug was a radic and bright, really charismatic in a way. It's good. Except he's emotional. You have a very emotional guy. So when I came in and joined the staff, Kraus had to fill a spot and he needed to fill a spot with someone that was younger because he's too 60 or older. And he was like, okay, Doug is 36 or something. I'm 40 or 37 and he has done maybe three years younger than I am. I'm 40 when I go there. One of my friends who was an actress and missed my birthday in middle of September. And her brother, who was a sports fan, said, one of my friends is an agent and he knows Jerry Kraus and Jerry Kraus knows Phil Jackson and he talks to him on the phone.

2:21:57So he said, I'll get the number for you. So he called Jerry Kraus and said, I need Phil Jackson the number. And Jerry gave him the number. My friend called me and wish me a happy birthday. It's like September 20th. She missed my birthday by three days. So great. Good to hear from you. Whatever. What are you doing? Well, I resigned from my coaching job here in Talkrose Basketball Association, the CBA. And I actually went to unemployment this week to see if I could qualify for unemployment insurance. My wife has a job with hospice setting it up in the county, Ulster County, Kingston. And Chelsea just started junior high school and my kids are in high school and Woodstock.

2:22:42Her and grade school and Woodstock. Oh, great. You like it? And it's so okay. I mean, I like to have a job, but I'm not, you know, I get interviewed. I didn't get the job with the next whatever. So I'm going to do the best I can here. I've had a couple of things that it offers. Next day this guy Jerry Kraus calls up and said, Phil, we got an opening here. I want you to come in and interview for this job. She said, how did that? Why just so happened to have your number and name on my desk with this guy walked in and told me that he was leaving. And he's our only young coach that we have and we have two older gentlemen that are coaching the team.

2:23:21So that's how he ended up with the job. It's there's a series of these events that event is the circumstance without you're at the airport. And Jeannie happens to be there and your flight gets canceled. Yeah. It's like, this is not by your planning. This is just, it's just happening in front of you. Just being open, just you'll be an open or having the. So I go there and it's all about Michael Jordan. It's Michael Jordan and the Jordan airs. And Scotty Pippins a rookie and horse grants a rookie and Charles Oakley's in this third year. They have to not even know they have Michael Jordan. They've never won a ring.

2:24:10It's this correct. They did. They almost got to 500. They were 38 and 42 or something like that. 30. Yeah, they almost got to 500. And the year that I came in, we won 55 games and lost like 35 or 37 or whatever. Big change. Yeah, but when still when you came in just trying to stand the lay of the land, is it accepted that Jordan is the best player? Not just a bat team in the league. He won every award player, defensive player, scoring title MVP, but the team is not the winningest team. They're not winning. Okay. So anyway, we had, you know, text winner who's supposed to be helping him coach. You know, it's like, okay, we've got through three point guards, Doug.

2:25:02It's not about the point guards. It's about not having a system. You've got to get the ball to Michael Jordan all the time because he's getting 38, 40. So he's a double teamed also. Yeah. And you got devised a play a day, basically, because everybody's scouting and when you need to have a system of basketball. You don't have to run my system, but you need to system a basketball. So it's organized. So anyway, we went through three point guards that year. But in the next year, things didn't go quite as well and Doug had it. And he was like, Texas got a goal or whatever. So Texas had to go sit in the stands during the game and have to sit on a chair during practice and take notes because Kraus was adamant that he stayed.

2:25:52But that process spoiled the deal for Doug. And we didn't have as good a year and things kind of fell apart. And so they gave me the job. Amazing. I happen to like order. I like the process of organization. And I like the idea that you have to fill a certain standard before you can play. So we had this process in which we went through these things. This process work before you tell me about that. My coach, Red Holzman, coached in Puerto Rico. He succeeded text winner at a town called Ponce in Puerto Rico. And he learned some of this action. And so I played some of this action. My coach in college had gone to Kansas State to learn this offense.

2:26:51And it taught us this offense when I was a senior in college. So it all fell in place. So you were ready. We're aware of it. And you saw the potential that this thing, it can really work. You know, I've got Michael in and say, Michael, you're not going to have the ball all the time. You're not going to get 37 shots again, which is not what he wants to hear. You're not going to get 37 points again. We have to share the ball. We have to distribute the ball. And everybody's just playing for you. They're just going to defend you. He says, is this an equal opportunity offense? It's a kind of... He said, I could still win the scoring championship.

2:27:36That's not a big deal. You only have to get eight points a quarter, 32 points. You'll still win the scoring title. Oh, I told him this. Nobody that's won a scoring title is won a championship since Rick Berry. That's interesting. And that's almost 20 years ago. That's interesting. That's a good stat. That doesn't happen. That's a good stat. So he thought about it and I could win a scoring championship anyway. Which would be typical of him to say. That's a great challenge, though, as like known instead of for 20 years. Let's see you do that. So then the next involvement was to put Scottie Pippin, who is a forward at the top of the floor as a guard, and put him with our stabilized guard.

2:28:26The guy that gave him the motorcycle maintenance, John Paxon, and put Michael in a forward position. You got explained to me what a guard is. I really know what that is. Top of the floor, bringing the ball up, organizing the team. Okay. Forwards down below the free throw line or free throw line and extended. Yep. And recipients of the ball organizing, having to deal with whatever goes on. But not initiating. Understood. And which are the ones that have to be the best shooters from the team? Doesn't matter. Really, really doesn't matter. Okay. Forwards historically kind of were, but then guards became dominant with the ball.

2:29:09And they started being scores. Okay. And at that particular time, point guard had evolved into the game. So everybody was searching for a point guard. Isaiah Thomas, magic Johnson. Didn't matter what size you were, you had to have a great point guard. And tell me what a point guard does. He handles the ball. He's the point offense. He runs the team from his ball -handling skills. I see. Text winner like, we don't know point guard. We have two guards. We have two guards out front. We don't rely on one guy to organize our offense. We have everybody is part of this organization process, which brought everybody in.

2:29:49Michael's still the leader. Scottie Pippas now has a prominent role. Bill Cartwrights, our big guy who's laying hardwood on people if they get too feisty here. So that's kind of dynamic in that team. That group went three championships. And then they move on. They retire, Paxton, Cartwright, Retire, Jordan goes to play baseball, horse grant, ops out. And you know what motivated Jordan to want to play baseball? If you had your ear to the urban level, they would say the commissioner saw his gambling. Maybe he was doing on the golf course and his, and told him, step away from basketball. It's not true at all.

2:30:36His father was murdered that summer. His father always wanted to play baseball. It was a really good baseball player. Wow. So he had like almost like an emotional crisis with a dad dying. That's fascinating though. It's wild. Terrible. Terrible. Yeah, it was a terrible situation. He was close with his dad. Yeah. His dad came all the games. Wow. He was there all the time. And he called Pop and it was unexpected to dad dying. His dad was driving in North Carolina. He pulled off side of the road and went fell asleep. He needed a reservation in North Carolina. Guys came by and took his car and killed him.

2:31:20Wow. Murdered. Yeah. So he came in and you know the owner, who I respected, Jerry Reinsdorce, his name. He also owns the White Sox, but he said, Phil, Michael wants to retire.

2:31:39He wants to go play baseball. He's asked me if he could be part of the White Sox baseball organization. I said, what's the process here? I told him he has to talk to you before he didn't all agree to it. So he made me over at the arena and the facility. So we go over there and I'm like a silly. I just lost my thirst for the game. I've done everything and we won three championships. No one's done that since Bill Russell. I said, Michael, you don't understand. You're Michael Angelo. You are beyond what standards of basketball belong to. So anyway, he goes and plays baseball. He stays in touch and the next year he comes back and plays the last 17 games.

2:32:31Teams totally changed. The only two left in that team are Pippin and himself. We get Dennis Robben, we get Ronnie Harper and we have some Tony Kuhn. And Dennis Robben was a strong rival before this. Yes, he was with the bad boys in Detroit. Actually, it threw Scottie Pippin into the stands. It was the one of the unperposed. He went in for a layup and he was running and trying to catch up with me. We swept him in a tournament in the finals in the East. And then I had to go through those guys. They were cocaptors. I like to have cocaptors. I didn't want Michael to carry the load all on his own. And I called him and I said, I guess with the Dennis.

2:33:18Oh, I don't know about him. No, we'll monitor it. I mean, we'll really stay attached to Dennis. Well, he's gone off the reservation. He's gotten into Madonna. She was in the locker room and the spurs. And he got into carrying a gun, talking about suicide and the parking lot. His teammates, they lost his wife to his teammates relationship with her. He's got some real... He's going to be all right. He needs to be challenged. He's going to be fine. Just trust me. We'll end on it. So they did. They allowed him to come in. And is it because they so respected him as a player? Like they saw what he could do?

2:34:10Amazing guy. Amazing guy. There's no conditioning. There's no level of tiredness in basketball for him. I was 28 to 32 -minute man. I was like, hands on knees. I'm tired. He was stronger at 45 minutes, so he was at five minutes. And it's just an inborn. That's a gift. That ability. Oh, yeah. Texas winner was a track guy. I would always say, this guy should have been a 440 guy. He had 400 meter guy. But so before Dennis came, the team went to practice. This season started. He came a couple days late. So I'm out of the teams. We'll have different rules. Normally, we have these rules. If you're late, this is.

2:35:02Dennis can't be on time. There's nothing there. So he's going to come an hour before the game. Everybody else has to be there an hour and a half. He doesn't shoot. He doesn't go out to shoot. He goes to list weights and rides a bicycle and watches tape. And is this what he wants or is this what you want for him? How does it come to that? This is how we met and talked before. Tell me about that conversation. It sounds great. So we, at a list, I had a list of five players that could help us out. We needed a power for. We lost horse. We needed a power for. We played without when Michael came back for 70 games.

2:35:44We got beat in the whenever. So the next year we're putting together a roster. And we go through the guys that we go and we bring guys in and so forth and so on. And then one of our one of Jerry Krauss' assistants says, I think San Antonio will trade Dennis Robbins who ran into problems with his team the year before. They had lost to Houston. Robinson, the admiral, they called him Dave Robinson. And not wanting to guard Elijah one. And Dennis had the guard Elijah one. Dennis is 220 pounds. Elijah one is 275. And Dennis is 666. He's not 680. He's not 670. He's 666. He's muscular guy. He's built like a brick shed.

2:36:34I was putting you know, Elijah one. And Dennis goes like, what are you talking about? This guy's a defensive player of the year. Dave Robinson is. And he won't guard Elijah one because he's a phrase going to get. Come on. He's got his balls in the refrigerator. He got his balls in the freezer. Whatever. So Dennis goes off on his teammate. That's enough for them to well, that's bad harmony. Let's get rid of him. So Dennis comes up to Chicago and I'm called over to meet him at Jerry Krauss' house. So I walk in. He's got a pull -point hat on and sunglasses. He's got nose rings, lip rings, earrings, studs.

2:37:21Stuts in his nose. Knowing he got rings in his nose. So I walk over and, hi, he says. So Dennis stand up at Shake hands. That's what you do when you meet someone. Stand up. Let's go outside and talk. Okay? So we go outside and talk and he's like, I need to get paid. Dennis, hear it, the wrong organization. If you say you need to get paid first thing out of your mouth, you have to produce. If you produce, they'll pay you. This is about doing the job and giving paid. But tomorrow morning, I want you to meet me over to Workout Center. We talk a little bit more about his problems and what happened to him in Madonna and his life.

2:38:08Is there really a deal cut where in success he would do well? Yeah. So that did happen. Yeah, he was running him. He was running him. He was running him. He was running him. He went from like two million to nine million dollars salary. Incredible. So we meet the next day in the team room. I have a spirit room in the team room. I have someone sent me from the comma Indians in New Mexico, a shield in a bow and arrow set. And they had met with me and I have this relationship with Native Americans. My member of the O 'Gala, Sue, Lakota Indians. And the response that I get from Native Americans has been credible.

2:38:54And they love bowls because the bowls are really resonated with them. But anyway, this is about a prayer. This arrow, we shoot into the arrow that's a prayer. And I had a bare claw necklace. I had a headdress. What else? I had a variety of Native American things that was kind of the motif of this room. Dennis said, see this necklace? I got the pompers gave me this necklace. They had doctor be in the tribe down in Oklahoma and I was going to school there. I said, ah, that's good medicine, Dennis, you know, whatever. Well, we really honor the Native American here. He said, oh, he said, that's great.

2:39:38But he became... You had an immediate connection just based on that. Just simple thing. Beautiful. Beautiful. So follow up story. Two years later. No, the next year. We have a successful season when more games than he teams ever won, whatever else. He's immediately, he fits in. Don't want to shoot. Don't need to shoot. Does everything else? Everybody has. All good. Next year, somewhere in the season, a little bit bored. He gets knocked to the ground. He's right under the baseline. And he lashes out with his foot and kicks him. Television guy, right in the groin. Black guy. Suspended. 14 games suspended.

2:40:26That's 14 games it like the whole month, a little more. So assistant trainer, first of all, he's got a little knee tear. That's great. We'll do that knee tear. You can go out to California and work on it. You don't need to stay in Chicago where you're going to get in trouble and work on it. So I call him and the assistant trainer into my office. I have an eagle feather. Dennis, I want you to have this eagle feather. This is between you and I. And this is a trust factor that we have now between us, okay? All right. Ten years later, we're at the Hall of Fame induction. I'm Dennis Robbins and the assistant trainer.

2:41:10So you want to hear what happened on that trip out to California? I said, yeah, I know it went pretty wacky because he wrecked the automobile out here. He was on tonight's show or somebody's show and you know, the Marion Astarlat in Vegas. They were partying a lot. But anyway, tell me what went on. So I get on the plane and the pilot said, this plane's headed for Dallas, Texas. And we'll be taking it. I'll get out of my chair and I'll walk up to Dennis. Dennis is, this plane's going to Dallas, not LA. Oh, it's okay, but it's all right. I got to go sign some papers. I bought my mama home in Dallas, she's remembered.

2:41:52So, okay, I go back to my seat, second class, we fly into Dallas. Walk out, there's a stretch limousine from one of those strip clubs in Dallas. And the girls are standing outside welcoming Dennis into the car. And so we go the strip club. And we're there until, I don't know, three in the morning or whatever it was forever. And eight o 'clock in the morning, Dennis is at my door knocking on my door. But let's go work out. Go work out. Okay, we go and work out. I'm doing my training routine. And I say, well, when are we leaving for LA? So we're not going to LA. What do you mean we're supposed to be going to LA?

2:42:39There's this Grand Prix race that's in Dallas now. We're going to go there. Dennis, there's a hundred thousand people going to this thing. Well, how are we going to get a helicopter? Don't worry about it. So we helicopter in. Dennis meets the queen of the whatever, the Dallas Grand Prix race. And he spends another night hanging out. And we finally get to LA, you know, three days later. It's like going to the Greek. He said every morning, Dennis was at my door ready to work out. So whatever he did didn't impact his ability to play. No. Then it seems like that's his business. I mean, if you show up and you can do your thing, and you can do it in a way that no one else can do it, seems good.

2:43:26Well, that was the whole thing I said with the team. I think this guy is going to be really great. But we're going to have to allow him. And you're not going to fall, can't fall into the same trap that he does. Yeah. And you can't live that life. But you see it doesn't screw him up. He's an anomaly. Yeah. Totally. So, finally year in that group, we won three, three again with that group. But the final year, Scottie Pippin had an issue because now he's paid 100th highest paid player in the NBA. He's also on the top 50 NBA players that have ever played the game. Yeah. So he's radically underpaid.

2:44:10Right. He's making like a million dollars. What they do is they frontload it in his contract. Yeah. Which is what they, in their financial assessments, frontload the contract. Yeah. And then when someone gets, you know, into the 30s, their value is going to decrease. And you could trade them. They're not going to have such a high margin. I see. That you won't be able to trade them. So, when we signed in, we told them this is going to be a frontload of the contract. At some point, you're going to be unhappy with it because it's going to have more money to start with. And less at the end. These are them.

2:44:44So he breaks the toe, middle toe. It is, look what, in the finals game, the year before we won, finals in the East versus Miami. Doesn't get it fixed. Doesn't get it fixed. Hope it's going to be okay. Plays in the game during the season. Has a better fight with Jerry Kraus. There in his agent or in arguments about getting him in here and get the operation in. He comes in for the assessment for the training camp starting tomorrow. And the doctors look at him and they say, you have to have this fixed. You can't play with this this year. So he's going to be out six weeks. So I bring tennis in and say, Dennis, you're going to have to pick up the load.

2:45:33And Tony Coocoach, we had another player to back him up, this terrific player. But you and Tony are going to have to back up and take over. And Dennis, you know, for the next two months, was like on top of it. Then he went a little bit wacky. But the identity story of the year before after he missed 14 games. His teammates came in to see me like the almost Steve Kerr and Judge Bushler. And said, you know, Dennis is coming back. He's been gone for almost five weeks. We need to, you'll kind of get together with him and have something. And his agents propose that we get a wrestler's bus when we're in Philly.

2:46:15And we'll drive to Atlantic City. And we can have a good time because we have two days off in between that. And we're going to New Jersey, which is just up the road and play the New Jersey nuts. Okay. So we play Philadelphia, we win the game. And I say, they'll be a practice tomorrow. It'll be a little later, noon or so. Get a little later practice. But we'll see you then. So next morning, my staff and I always have breakfast together. We're the four seasons in Philly and we're looking out the window. The window's right out there. And there comes their bus. And there those guys come off their bus.

2:46:55They're like children. They're acting like they're 15 years old, right? Oh, this is going to be an interesting practice. So I find I hear the story eventually that Dennis stopped in Camden, New Jersey, and had a tryout for who is going to be able to get on the bus with the team. They're only like eight of them. The whole group didn't go. Michael didn't go as kind of you know. Some of those guys didn't want to hang out with Dennis. So they had a velvet rope and then they had girls come instead by the bar. And they had a tryout for who is going to be able to go with them on the trip to Camden. We'll drop you off when we get back at four in the morning, five in the morning, six in the morning, when they got back at eight, thirty nine o 'clock in the morning.

2:47:39So that practice was like a practice that coach goes like, you know guys, I think we're going to call practice off. Now we couldn't even get through the lab line. So they were laughing. They were horse and round and everything else. And we went up and played New Jersey the next day, which was the worst team in the league in the lost of them. Wow. Wow. But it was worth the loss to have bring Dennis back into the crew. Yeah. But that was that group of guys. They really enjoyed each other's company. And I gave them a lot of leash, a lot of room to move. And we had a great time. And they kind of did the documentary last dance on that group of guys in that year.

2:48:27Amazing. Well, I'm about it. That's about it for me. That was great. Thank you so much for doing this. It's a pleasure meeting you, pleasure talking to you. I can talk to you forever. It's so interesting. And I feel like there is a great sympathy between our jobs. It's a connection to the flow. It's the connection to be an in the spirit to having that feeling. They're right on. They're right in the moment. It's such a great feeling. It's such a great feeling. I find it addictive. I find it like that moment of when I come to the studio and it's like not really happening. And I have patience and I'm willing to wait.

2:49:14But then when it happens, it's like, can you believe it? And it gets even a little scary. And like, will it stay? Yeah. You know, how long can we keep it going? Because it's out of our control. I used to say, well, did we peak too soon in this ballgame? Can we maintain it? Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Cool. Thank you so much for doing this. How are you, Beth? A pleasure.