Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Vinnie Goowill on Why the 1996 USA Team was WAY better than you remember | 07.21
Transcript
- 0:09Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original.
- 0:13Speaker 1: My name is Beaumont Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
- 0:15Speaker 1: get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
- 0:19Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
- 0:21Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe. You are
- 0:24Speaker 1: a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesday. Coming to us live,
- 0:28Speaker 1: we got our man from ESPN covering the NBA, Vinny Goodwill,
- 0:32Speaker 1: joining us to talk about Dream Team 3.
- 0:37Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, I didn't know if
- 0:39Speaker 2: you referred, I don't know if you referred to that
- 0:42Speaker 2: as Dream Team 3 because some people referred to the
- 0:45Speaker 2: 96 team as Dream Team 2 and the 94 World
- 0:50Speaker 2: Championships team as Dream Team 2.
- 0:53Speaker 3: It's a weird thing. It all depends on branding.
- 0:56Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing for me. I was there for it,
- 0:59Speaker 1: and I remember when the 94 team came around, we
- 1:01Speaker 1: called it Dream Team 2. Making the 96 team Dream
- 1:06Speaker 1: Team 2 is.
- 1:07Speaker 4: Acting like that didn't happen.
- 1:08Speaker 1: We were here. And I actually wanted to bring that
- 1:10Speaker 1: up because part of what's interesting about this is the
- 1:13Speaker 1: first Dream Team obviously had an unreal level of star
- 1:17Speaker 1: power and, of course, a level of talent. But it's
- 1:21Speaker 1: Magic Johnson hadn't played NBA basketball for a year. Larry
- 1:24Speaker 1: Bird was on the verge of retiring. One might argue
- 1:30Speaker 1: that there were two Hall of Fame centers on the team,
- 1:32Speaker 1: but not the best center in the NBA because Olajuwon
- 1:35Speaker 1: was not on that team. It was Ewing and Robinson.
- 1:38Speaker 1: Isaiah Thomas was not there. John Stockton was. Chris Mullen,
- 1:43Speaker 1: in retrospect, is like, huh, isn't that interesting? But as
- 1:47Speaker 1: good as that team was, USA basketball for the next
- 1:51Speaker 1: couple of runs kept putting together really strong teams. And
- 1:55Speaker 1: the first one was the 94 world championship team that played.
- 1:58Speaker 1: I think that was in Canada that year. Yeah. I'm
- 2:00Speaker 1: looking at this roster. I know this isn't going to
- 2:03Speaker 1: sound like it to people, but Derek Coleman, who if
- 2:07Speaker 1: we're just talking about talent, Derek Coleman was out of
- 2:11Speaker 1: this world. Like the 1994 version of Derek Coleman is
- 2:14Speaker 1: actually a really good play. Yes.
- 2:17Speaker 3: No, Derek Coleman is the prototype. Isn't he the.
- 2:21Speaker 2: Prototype of what you want, even today, what you want
- 2:24Speaker 2: a power forward to be?
- 2:25Speaker 3: Finish at the rim, ambidextrous, can shoot, can move.
- 2:29Speaker 1: Handles.
- 2:32Speaker 3: And he was a lefty.
- 2:34Speaker 1: Yeah. He's even more of a prototype than Rasheed Wallace
- 2:38Speaker 1: because Wallace was not giving you the handles and the
- 2:40Speaker 1: wiggle that Derek Coleman was. We strictly think of Derek
- 2:44Speaker 1: Coleman as wasted potential, but he was also a really
- 2:48Speaker 1: good player.
- 2:50Speaker 2: Dude, it's hard to, like, it's one of those things
- 2:53Speaker 2: where you kind of have to be there. And luckily
- 2:55Speaker 2: for me, like, growing up in Detroit, and he's a
- 2:58Speaker 2: Detroit import, so to speak.
- 2:59Speaker 3: Like, he grew up in Alabama. He kind of started
- 3:01Speaker 3: off in Alabama, then came to Detroit.
- 3:02Speaker 2: But he hit that sort of Detroit game. Like, you
- 3:05Speaker 2: see Derek Coleman and Chris Webber. Like, you see it
- 3:09Speaker 2: in the, you don't see it in the athleticism, because
- 3:11Speaker 2: Chris was just a freak. But you see it in
- 3:13Speaker 2: the skill and the fact that there was legit, Nothing
- 3:17Speaker 2: he couldn't do to the fact that if the man
- 3:20Speaker 2: didn't show up to practice, that's why he gave us
- 3:22Speaker 2: the greatest single quote of all time.
- 3:27Speaker 3: Well, whoop-dee-damn-do.
- 3:28Speaker 1: Whoop-dee-damn-do. Well, there's that quote, and this is some of
- 3:33Speaker 1: the most disrespectful shit of all time, and it's especially
- 3:36Speaker 1: disrespectful because he did it to the brother man. It's
- 3:39Speaker 1: him coming at the beginning of the NBA season and
- 3:41Speaker 1: giving Butch Beard a blank check saying, just fill it
- 3:44Speaker 1: out with my fines.
- 3:47Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 3:47Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a tough break. That was a tough break.
- 3:50Speaker 1: Hold on. We got Joe Dumars.
- 3:51Speaker 2: All this butch beard wanted him to show up with
- 3:52Speaker 2: a suit coming on the flights and stuff.
- 3:55Speaker 3: He just wanted to dress. That's it.
- 3:57Speaker 1: That's it.
- 3:58Speaker 3: That's it.
- 3:58Speaker 4: Nobody asking that much, to be perfectly honest. Joe Dumars, who.
- 4:05Speaker 1: Joe Dumars, he looks so old. That was the thing.
- 4:09Speaker 1: It feels like Joe Dumars is too old to be
- 4:11Speaker 1: on this team, but he really wasn't. This is about, what,
- 4:14Speaker 1: year 10 Dumars or year 9?
- 4:17Speaker 3: Year nine.
- 4:18Speaker 2: I think Joe spent four years in college.
- 4:21Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 4:21Speaker 3: But even if you look at young Joe Dumars. Yeah.
- 4:26Speaker 3: If you look at young Joe Dumars, and that wasn't young.
- 4:29Speaker 2: That was sort of like right tail middle of his prime.
- 4:32Speaker 3: Even young Joe Dumars looked like old Joe Dumars.
- 4:35Speaker 2: When he was the young guy on the team, he
- 4:37Speaker 2: looked like a dude that had just headed with everybody's
- 4:40Speaker 2: shit at that point. You know what I mean? That's
- 4:43Speaker 2: just where he was. And he was the veteran presence.
- 4:47Speaker 2: so to speak, on a team full of the rascals. Like,
- 4:50Speaker 2: that team was just full of rascals and rapscallions.
- 4:53Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we go to Kevin Johnson, Larry Johnson,
- 4:56Speaker 1: great what-if case, Sean Kemp, whoo! That's a had-to-be-there all-star, right? Like,
- 5:02Speaker 1: at least it comes up in the YouTube videos, but still,
- 5:04Speaker 1: you just kind of had to be there. Like, he's
- 5:06Speaker 1: the rare guy that... People are like, oh, you're just
- 5:08Speaker 1: getting nostalgic about dudes. He's one where that might be
- 5:11Speaker 1: the case, right? At his best, he was very good,
- 5:13Speaker 1: but he is not quite as good as we remember
- 5:15Speaker 1: because in that Hall of Fame that lets everybody in,
- 5:18Speaker 1: none of us have been like, where is Sean Kelly?
- 5:20Speaker 2: Well, the weird thing is he's the one guy who
- 5:25Speaker 2: can say, I had a better NBA finals than Michael Jordan.
- 5:30Speaker 2: You could make the argument that two years later in 96,
- 5:34Speaker 2: when he put it all together and and Seattle went
- 5:37Speaker 2: from being the team that was perpetually disappointing to getting
- 5:40Speaker 2: to the Finals, he took Dennis Rodman to the woodshed
- 5:44Speaker 2: that entire season. We forget about it because Seattle went
- 5:48Speaker 2: down three games to none.
- 5:49Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
- 5:50Speaker 2: And that was the Bulls' 72-10 season, and the Bulls
- 5:53Speaker 2: tricked off those two games in Seattle in that 2-3-2 setup.
- 5:56Speaker 3: But look at those numbers in that series. Sean Kemp
- 5:59Speaker 3: was a freak. That was Jordan's worst Finals. all things considered,
- 6:05Speaker 3: like if we're saying.
- 6:06Speaker 1: Jordan was still dominating their whole backcourt, like he was
- 6:09Speaker 1: outscoring Peyton and Hersey Hawkins combined in those games.
- 6:13Speaker 2: That was a weird, that was a weird series, but
- 6:16Speaker 2: you put Sean Kemp in 96 up against any other
- 6:21Speaker 2: guy at his peak against Michael Jordan in the finals.
- 6:25Speaker 3: He matches up with all those dudes.
- 6:27Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 6:27Speaker 1: I mean, who else is on this team? Dan Marley's
- 6:29Speaker 1: on this team. Reggie Miller's on this team. Alonzo Mourning
- 6:32Speaker 1: and Shaq are on this team. Mark Price, the rare
- 6:39Speaker 1: phenomenon of the underrated Caucasian. Love Mark Price. That's another
- 6:44Speaker 1: had-to-be-there guy. Mark Price is 6'1, 170 pounds, and made
- 6:48Speaker 1: first team All-NBA.
- 6:51Speaker 2: Is... Is Mark Price analogous to like, is he like
- 6:55Speaker 2: the prototype before Steve Nash?
- 6:58Speaker 1: The difference is Nash is so much bigger than him.
- 7:02Speaker 1: And I feel like Price was a more willing scorer.
- 7:06Speaker 3: Yes. He was.
- 7:09Speaker 2: He was more willing to shoot. And because of the
- 7:11Speaker 2: way the league was, he had to go down there
- 7:13Speaker 2: and take that contact.
- 7:14Speaker 1: He did.
- 7:15Speaker 2: He was catching concussions and things like that. When we
- 7:18Speaker 2: talk about teams that were kind of lost to time,
- 7:21Speaker 2: to the Michael Jordan Bulls, the Cleveland Cavaliers caught the
- 7:25Speaker 2: Blues the most. Like they lost to them in 89
- 7:27Speaker 2: on the shot when they had beaten Cleveland, when Cleveland
- 7:30Speaker 2: had beaten the Bulls all six times during that regular season.
- 7:34Speaker 2: Lost to them again in the 92 conference finals, got
- 7:37Speaker 2: swept in 93. And then by the end, that was
- 7:40Speaker 2: kind of like the end of it. But that was
- 7:42Speaker 2: like the run, like their window was kind of 89
- 7:44Speaker 2: to 93. And Detroit was better than them. And then
- 7:48Speaker 2: Chicago kept beating them. So they never were like really able.
- 7:52Speaker 2: But I don't hold that against Mark Price. I hold
- 7:54Speaker 2: that against other dudes on that team. Yes.
- 7:57Speaker 1: Also, this team has Steve Smith and a little lifetime
- 8:00Speaker 1: achievement award for Dominique Wilkins, who is still a good player.
- 8:03Speaker 1: Like that was the year that the Hawks decided they
- 8:05Speaker 1: didn't want me to root for them no more. You know,
- 8:08Speaker 1: and so that's the 94 team. They were cold. Like,
- 8:12Speaker 1: you know, like. Shaq, after two years in the NBA,
- 8:15Speaker 1: was unreal. Alonzo Mourning, we forget about if Shaq had
- 8:20Speaker 1: not been what Shaq was when he first got there.
- 8:22Speaker 1: Alonzo Mourning still walked in the door, 20-10, hit that
- 8:24Speaker 1: big shot to win the playoffs in 93 against Boston. Like,
- 8:28Speaker 1: he was an immediate impact player. Like, this was a really, really,
- 8:33Speaker 1: really good team, and the 96 team blows this team
- 8:38Speaker 1: out of the water.
- 8:40Speaker 3: Yes, like.
- 8:42Speaker 2: If you think, if you just, the part is we
- 8:44Speaker 2: put Dream Team on such like a pedestal, right? And
- 8:46Speaker 2: you kind of broke down where Magic was, where Bird was,
- 8:50Speaker 2: the fact that.
- 8:50Speaker 3: You didn't even have the best center in the league.
- 8:53Speaker 2: The only person that you were missing from 96 is.
- 8:56Speaker 3: The greatest player to ever play.
- 8:58Speaker 2: But when you take that away, and that's no small feat,
- 9:02Speaker 2: but think of the fact that you had Elijah Wan, Shaq,
- 9:07Speaker 2: and David Robinson. Legitimately, you could make the argument, That,
- 9:13Speaker 2: let's see, one, two, three, four. The seven best players
- 9:16Speaker 2: in basketball, minus number one, was on that team in
- 9:20Speaker 2: the NBA, in the Dream Team.
- 9:22Speaker 3: Like, period, point blank.
- 9:24Speaker 2: From Penny Hardaway, the best of Penny Hardaway, to the
- 9:26Speaker 2: best we were going to see of Grant Hill.
- 9:28Speaker 3: Well, hold on, hold on, hold.
- 9:29Speaker 1: On, hold on. Let's take a minute, let's take a minute,
- 9:30Speaker 1: let's take a minute. Let's give them to people in
- 9:33Speaker 1: a digestible format, because you're about to run away. You're
- 9:35Speaker 1: about to run away with us, okay?
- 9:36Speaker 3: My bad, my bad, my bad.
- 9:37Speaker 1: No, no, no, you're good, you're good, though. It's a
- 9:39Speaker 1: good preview, it's a good preview. So to me, the
- 9:41Speaker 1: thing about this team that is easy to forget is
- 9:45Speaker 1: how many guys came back. Right. This is quietly for
- 9:50Speaker 1: David Robinson, his third straight Olympics because he was on
- 9:54Speaker 1: the 98 team because uh he had been the 98
- 9:57Speaker 1: olympics came after he had finished college but while he
- 10:00Speaker 1: was still on the boat 88 88 so it's while
- 10:02Speaker 1: he was still yeah 88 so it's while he was
- 10:04Speaker 1: still on the boat so he got to well he
- 10:07Speaker 1: had the privilege regarding our venus and bonus uh in
- 10:10Speaker 1: 1988 and that did not go as well as he
- 10:12Speaker 1: would have preferred, but he was on the 92 team.
- 10:14Speaker 1: He was on this one, Charles Barkley, who prior to
- 10:18Speaker 1: like Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony really had a claim to
- 10:20Speaker 1: be in like the greatest USA Olympian ever. Cause he
- 10:23Speaker 1: was the leading scorer in both of those Olympic teams.
- 10:25Speaker 1: But he would, would people try to get on that?
- 10:28Speaker 1: Like a Draymond Green messed up on that. Houston Rockets,
- 10:31Speaker 1: Charles Barkley. The 1996 version of Charles Barkley was still
- 10:34Speaker 1: the leading scorer on the Olympic team. Like, Houston Rockets'
- 10:38Speaker 1: Charles Barkley was still a very good player. Like, Houston Rockets'
- 10:42Speaker 1: Charles Barkley is like late 70s James Brown. No, dog,
- 10:45Speaker 1: he was still jamming. Believe it or not. Sounds crazy,
- 10:48Speaker 1: but he was.
- 10:49Speaker 3: No, here's the crazy thing.
- 10:51Speaker 2: And if you think about it, and this is something
- 10:54Speaker 2: I literally thought about maybe in the past couple of
- 10:56Speaker 2: weeks just because my brain goes weird. The fact that
- 11:00Speaker 2: all Charles Barkley needed to do in the summers was
- 11:02Speaker 2: play high level basketball. And then he'd go and have
- 11:05Speaker 2: a great season the next year because he was in
- 11:08Speaker 2: shape and then had to play himself in the shape. 92,
- 11:11Speaker 2: he was arguably the best player on that team with
- 11:13Speaker 2: Michael Jordan. Then 93, he goes and wins MVP with
- 11:16Speaker 2: Phoenix because the man's in shape and then he got traded.
- 11:19Speaker 2: In 96, he's on his way out of Phoenix, headed
- 11:23Speaker 2: to Houston. Go look at 97 Barkley. He was still
- 11:28Speaker 2: an absolute monster. He might not have led the league
- 11:32Speaker 2: in rebounding, but he might have been at least 20
- 11:33Speaker 2: and 14.
- 11:34Speaker 1: No, Dennis Rodman was still around, so he did not
- 11:36Speaker 1: lead the league in rebounding, but he was still that guy.
- 11:40Speaker 3: Yes.
- 11:40Speaker 1: Let me stop. He was not that guy. He's not
- 11:44Speaker 1: 1993 Charles or 1990 Charles, but he was probably the
- 11:48Speaker 1: best number three player anybody had on their roster.
- 11:52Speaker 3: I mean, was he the second best player.
- 11:55Speaker 1: On the roster? He was probably better than Clyde, but
- 11:58Speaker 1: he was the third option. He took that role on. Right, right, right.
- 12:02Speaker 3: And I remember him saying, I can't be the best
- 12:04Speaker 3: player on the team.
- 12:05Speaker 2: I have to go and do these other things, the
- 12:08Speaker 2: rebounding and everything else. You know, I'm going to control
- 12:10Speaker 2: the glass. And then, like, you know, you go to
- 12:13Speaker 2: the other power forward on the team.
- 12:15Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
- 12:15Speaker 1: Yeah, Karl Malone comes back. And look, at this point,
- 12:19Speaker 1: Karl Malone was eight. if nothing else, an incredible regular
- 12:22Speaker 1: season basketball player. Like, there's no way around it. Nobody
- 12:25Speaker 1: likes to say nice things about Karl Malone. I mean,
- 12:28Speaker 1: I sure as hell don't. Maybe you like to say
- 12:30Speaker 1: nice things about Karl Malone. Not you. I'm talking about, like,
- 12:32Speaker 1: just the other kind. I don't like to do it.
- 12:34Speaker 1: But Karl Malone was a bad motherfucker. Like, there wasn't...
- 12:37Speaker 1: The thing with Karl Malone is the only person that
- 12:39Speaker 1: could stop Karl Malone was Karl Malone. And lucky for
- 12:42Speaker 1: the rest of the league, Karl Malone was good at
- 12:44Speaker 1: stopping himself. But he and Stockton back on the Olympic
- 12:48Speaker 1: team again. Those two dudes. And by the way, we've
- 12:52Speaker 1: talked about, I don't know if I've talked about this
- 12:53Speaker 1: on this show, but the most amazing thing ever about
- 12:57Speaker 1: John Stockton and Karl Malone, they are easily the most
- 13:01Speaker 1: durable players ever. in the history of the NBA. Like there's,
- 13:04Speaker 1: I think Will Chamberlain played every game, but these dudes basically,
- 13:08Speaker 1: I think Stockton had that one injury that one year
- 13:11Speaker 1: early in his career.
- 13:12Speaker 4: And then after that, them.
- 13:13Speaker 1: Boys played 82 every year, unless Carl Malone elbowed somebody
- 13:18Speaker 1: in the face or something that got suspended. They basically
- 13:21Speaker 1: went like 16, 17 years of playing every night, including
- 13:26Speaker 1: playing these Olympics.
- 13:28Speaker 2: Well, I mean, Stockton, I want to say Stockton had
- 13:31Speaker 2: a knee surgery in 97.
- 13:34Speaker 1: Going into 98.
- 13:35Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, in the offseason. Right.
- 13:38Speaker 1: Right.
- 13:38Speaker 2: And he missed like the first maybe 20 or 30
- 13:41Speaker 2: games of that season. And they still want to make
- 13:42Speaker 2: it to the finals. And Karl Malone didn't miss significant
- 13:45Speaker 2: time until he got to L.A. And that was in 2003, 2004.
- 13:48Speaker 3: He was 40 years old. Yeah. And they start like
- 13:49Speaker 3: 18 and one.
- 13:53Speaker 2: And I want to say, you know, he tore up
- 13:55Speaker 2: his knee or something like that. And then, you know,
- 13:57Speaker 2: missed the big part of that season. But they were
- 14:00Speaker 2: legitimately indestructible. And it was partly because John Stockton was
- 14:05Speaker 2: a low-light maintenance player. Like, it wasn't a whole lot
- 14:08Speaker 2: of variance and gravity. He wasn't taking a whole lot
- 14:10Speaker 2: of risks. Like, he was setting, like, the dirty screens
- 14:13Speaker 2: and everything else. But he wasn't, like, flying through the air,
- 14:16Speaker 2: initiating a lot of collisions. He was just a tough bastard.
- 14:19Speaker 2: And I say that with the most sort of respect
- 14:23Speaker 2: that I can have about him. Now, if I say
- 14:25Speaker 2: that about Karl Malone, trust me, I'm not saying that
- 14:27Speaker 2: with the utmost respect.
- 14:29Speaker 3: He got, he got like skins on.
- 14:31Speaker 2: The wall of people he done elbowed in the face
- 14:35Speaker 2: on purpose, including giving Zeke.
- 14:37Speaker 1: Tell the people where you're from. Tell the people where
- 14:39Speaker 1: you're from. Tell the people where you're from. Tell the
- 14:41Speaker 1: people where you're from. Or did you already just do it? Okay.
- 14:44Speaker 1: You've taken care of it.
- 14:48Speaker 3: I am from Detroit.
- 14:48Speaker 1: I'm sorry, y'all. Now, look, you see that where Kenny
- 14:51Speaker 1: Martin talks about, because Kenny Martin, who's from Dallas when
- 14:54Speaker 1: he was born in Saginaw, talks about the first time
- 14:56Speaker 1: he played Carl Malone.
- 14:57Speaker 4: He stole off all of it in the game and
- 14:59Speaker 4: said that was physique.
- 15:02Speaker 3: That's how we feel.
- 15:03Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 15:04Speaker 4: Y'all take that one seriously.
- 15:07Speaker 1: Seriously. By the way, speaking of that 94 team, Isaiah
- 15:10Speaker 1: was supposed to be on it, but that's when he
- 15:13Speaker 1: had the Achilles chair.
- 15:15Speaker 2: I mean, if there's one person, and this is not
- 15:17Speaker 2: the Detroit Vinny coming out, but if there's one person
- 15:21Speaker 2: who's gotten royally screwed in terms of USA basketball, like
- 15:25Speaker 2: go back to the 1980 Pan Am Games, the boycott
- 15:28Speaker 2: that prevented him from going over there and getting a
- 15:32Speaker 2: gold medal.
- 15:32Speaker 4: Oh, no, those aren't the Pan Am Games. Those are
- 15:34Speaker 4: the Olympics.
- 15:35Speaker 3: Those are the Olympics. I'm sorry, not the Pan Am.
- 15:36Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 15:37Speaker 2: He doesn't get a chance to go to the Olympics.
- 15:39Speaker 2: He would have been on that Olympic team. let's assume
- 15:42Speaker 2: they would have gotten gold because that's all the U.S.
- 15:44Speaker 2: did until 88. Like, and then 92, we don't got
- 15:47Speaker 2: to talk about that. He got screwed by everybody. Everybody's
- 15:50Speaker 2: hands is on that knife.
- 15:52Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
- 15:52Speaker 2: And then in this, in the Worlds, he pops his
- 15:55Speaker 2: Achilles on the very last game, his last home game
- 15:58Speaker 2: against the Orlando Magic on April 15, 1994. Like, we
- 16:02Speaker 2: knew he was retiring, but we thought, like Bird, like Magic,
- 16:05Speaker 2: that he would at least get, like, the farewell and
- 16:07Speaker 2: be able to get some type of gold medal.
- 16:09Speaker 3: And he doesn't get that. He gets screwed.
- 16:10Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 16:11Speaker 1: Although I will make this point about 80. It would
- 16:12Speaker 1: have been interesting because the only time the U.S. did
- 16:14Speaker 1: not win the gold was in 1972, and it definitely
- 16:17Speaker 1: looked like they was out here cheating. And the 1980
- 16:20Speaker 1: games would have been in Moscow. Just throwing it out there.
- 16:23Speaker 1: Just throwing it out there.
- 16:24Speaker 4: Doug Collins, 50 however many years over it. He ain't
- 16:27Speaker 4: been right since.
- 16:28Speaker 1: No.
- 16:31Speaker 3: No, no, Doug is, and Doug ain't wrapped too tight anyway.
- 16:34Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but I mean, I don't know what he
- 16:35Speaker 4: was before that.
- 16:36Speaker 1: I feel like the Russians might have fucked around and
- 16:38Speaker 1: broke him, but he ain't been right since. But who
- 16:40Speaker 1: else we had? Scottie Pippen was on this team. Like,
- 16:43Speaker 1: it's actually interesting to think that players of that level,
- 16:47Speaker 1: they came back for this team because after this is
- 16:49Speaker 1: when guys kind of stopped going, right? And that kind
- 16:51Speaker 1: of leads you to 2004. when it's not really a
- 16:54Speaker 1: roster to speak of. But they brought all these guys
- 16:58Speaker 1: back onto the team, and then we're adding the 1996
- 17:02Speaker 1: versions of Grant Hill, Penny Hardaway, and Mitch Richmond. Reggie Miller,
- 17:10Speaker 1: who by now has established himself as superstar is unfair,
- 17:14Speaker 1: but as a superstar, I'll put it like this, he's
- 17:18Speaker 1: a playoff superstar.
- 17:19Speaker 3: Yes.
- 17:20Speaker 1: He has established himself as being a for-real deal somebody,
- 17:23Speaker 1: and he is the best player on a team that
- 17:25Speaker 1: is now a very regular contender at this point. It
- 17:30Speaker 1: makes more sense that Reggie Miller's on this team than
- 17:31Speaker 1: Chris Mullen was on the last one, but they needed
- 17:33Speaker 1: some white boys.
- 17:34Speaker 4: This time, they were like, John Stockton?
- 17:36Speaker 1: Good enough.
- 17:39Speaker 4: Then we add Shaquille O'Neal.
- 17:42Speaker 1: Then we add Gary Payton, who is the biggest John
- 17:45Speaker 1: Stockton fan of all time. That's also a fascinating thing
- 17:48Speaker 1: about the NBA. Gary Payton called him Mr.
- 17:51Speaker 3: Stockton. Yes.
- 17:52Speaker 1: Right? You see that clip of Baron Davis and him
- 17:54Speaker 1: talking about that? I forget who it was, but it's
- 17:56Speaker 1: like Gary Payne's going to be like, when you show
- 17:57Speaker 1: that Mr. Stockton, respect when he shows up here. Baron
- 18:01Speaker 1: Davis is talking about that. I just out here watching,
- 18:03Speaker 1: whoever it was, was like, man, I'd be just watching
- 18:06Speaker 1: John Stockton just walk people down wherever he goes. He
- 18:09Speaker 1: ain't about to do that to me. And then Baron
- 18:10Speaker 1: Davis pops up, and next thing you know, he's just
- 18:13Speaker 1: walking you down. You're like, it ain't going to happen
- 18:15Speaker 1: to me. And it happened to everybody.
- 18:18Speaker 3: You think it don't happen to you? Till it do.
- 18:20Speaker 1: Till it do. Till it do. But Gary Payton, and then, then,
- 18:25Speaker 1: somebody went and got his paperwork, and Kim Olajuwon was
- 18:30Speaker 1: now playing for the United States. And I wonder if
- 18:34Speaker 1: that happened now because they got enough cats, if he
- 18:36Speaker 1: would have played for the Nigerian team, and then it
- 18:39Speaker 1: would have got very interesting. out there. But for now, no.
- 18:43Speaker 1: Olajuwon is on. You're bringing Shaq off the bench. And
- 18:49Speaker 1: David Robinson, who time has underrated in large part because
- 18:53Speaker 1: of what Olajuwon did to him in 95. If you
- 18:57Speaker 1: drop David Robinson into today's NBA, you know.
- 19:02Speaker 4: What David Robinson is in today's NBA?
- 19:05Speaker 1: What you would like him to be.
- 19:08Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
- 19:10Speaker 2: I wonder if you drop David Robinson in today's game,
- 19:14Speaker 2: if he's not a seven foot small forward. Because remember,
- 19:18Speaker 2: he grew. He was a six foot. He was a
- 19:21Speaker 2: six six dude on the boat. And then all of
- 19:23Speaker 2: a sudden came back a seven footer. So by that
- 19:26Speaker 2: point of basketball training and the basketball industrial complex and
- 19:29Speaker 2: everything else, he's a ball handling. He's a basketball handling.
- 19:33Speaker 2: And he was like the dude who was the physical specimen, too.
- 19:37Speaker 2: He would have been... There's no prototype for him, is it?
- 19:40Speaker 1: That's why I said Embiid. I'm just thinking about somebody
- 19:45Speaker 1: seven feet.
- 19:47Speaker 4: Robinson wasn't 270 pounds, but like.
- 19:50Speaker 4: Seven feet but.
- 19:52Speaker 1: Built like that faced the basket, had a handle, had
- 19:56Speaker 1: a J. So one, he would have had more range.
- 19:58Speaker 1: It's the same thing with Olajuwon. Olajuwon would have had
- 20:02Speaker 1: a much different range if he played. Olajuwon, ultimately, he
- 20:06Speaker 1: wasn't as athletic as John Smith, but you could put
- 20:10Speaker 1: the dreams of what John Smith could be. Think about Olajuwon,
- 20:13Speaker 1: who's really like 6'9 1⁄2. who had handles, who had
- 20:18Speaker 1: all those moves, great rebounder, the best pound-for-pound shot blocker
- 20:23Speaker 1: that ever played in the league. And you put him
- 20:28Speaker 1: in today's paradigm.
- 20:31Speaker 2: The question becomes, and this is so weird that we
- 20:34Speaker 2: land here, the question becomes, can he develop as a
- 20:37Speaker 2: basketball player with those soccer skills.
- 20:40Speaker 3: At the same time?
- 20:41Speaker 1: Yes.
- 20:42Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? Because, you know, today everything's specialized.
- 20:45Speaker 2: So he gets the footwork.
- 20:46Speaker 4: So you're asking, is it possible for him to show
- 20:48Speaker 4: up late to basketball?
- 20:50Speaker 1: Right.
- 20:51Speaker 4: This is my read on that.
- 20:53Speaker 1: And I don't know exactly how things work in Nigeria.
- 20:58Speaker 1: But he was going to be playing soccer. You understand
- 21:00Speaker 1: what I'm saying?
- 21:03Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 21:03Speaker 1: Let's get just straight right now. He was going to
- 21:06Speaker 1: be playing some soccer. And then at some point, somebody
- 21:10Speaker 1: going to roll the ball to him. And then from there,
- 21:12Speaker 1: we get that figured out. But that's a good question.
- 21:13Speaker 1: How many of these do we have any guys left
- 21:15Speaker 1: who just show up to basketball late? Like, does that
- 21:18Speaker 1: happen anymore? Like Amari Stoudemire, who didn't show up to
- 21:20Speaker 1: basketball late, but he showed up to organize basketball late.
- 21:23Speaker 1: You don't hear much about that. He didn't play ball
- 21:25Speaker 1: until 10th grade guys anymore.
- 21:27Speaker 3: Wasn't that Embiid?
- 21:28Speaker 2: Wasn't Embiid the guy who showed up to basketball late?
- 21:32Speaker 4: But he showed up early enough to go to Montverde.
- 21:35Speaker 1: For high school. You know what I mean? So, I mean,
- 21:38Speaker 1: you're right. It's possible.
- 21:39Speaker 4: I'm not exactly sure when.
- 21:42Speaker 1: But that archetype, because I've long been of the belief,
- 21:45Speaker 1: and I still think it holds despite all of this.
- 21:48Speaker 1: The number one thing that matters is natural physical endowments.
- 21:51Speaker 1: And if you walk in the gym and you show those,
- 21:54Speaker 1: they're not going to be like, but he hadn't been
- 21:56Speaker 1: coached up.
- 21:56Speaker 4: They're like, no, we found something.
- 21:58Speaker 1: These kids is too close to the ceiling. We might
- 22:01Speaker 1: be able to make something happen here.
- 22:03Speaker 3: Right.
- 22:05Speaker 2: That's the weird thing, because like you said, Elijah Juan
- 22:08Speaker 2: at 6'9, but with the great hand-eye coordination, the great, like,
- 22:13Speaker 2: he kind.
- 22:14Speaker 3: Of, the touch developed. Good shooter.
- 22:15Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. The touch developed more as
- 22:20Speaker 2: he evolved in Houston. Like, I feel like he was
- 22:23Speaker 2: more big man, running the floor, head touch around the rim,
- 22:27Speaker 2: but then he started to extend it out in the
- 22:28Speaker 2: early 90s, just when his game started to change a
- 22:31Speaker 2: little bit more. But, yeah, like, David Robinson, you build
- 22:35Speaker 2: him in a lab. You can't build Elijah Juan in
- 22:38Speaker 2: a lab, and you damn sure can't build Shaq in
- 22:40Speaker 2: a lab.
- 22:41Speaker 1: The problem with Robinson, to me, was all those growth
- 22:45Speaker 1: spurt guys are just a little bit weird. Right?
- 22:49Speaker 4: They like Neo in the Matrix. Like, they just stumbled
- 22:52Speaker 4: into what it is.
- 22:53Speaker 1: Like, they didn't necessarily come up with that, like, love
- 22:55Speaker 1: the taste of blood type situation. Anthony Davis being an
- 22:59Speaker 1: example there. Marcus Camby, that was another growth spurt guy.
- 23:03Speaker 1: But when you go through and you find the guys
- 23:05Speaker 1: where it's just like out of nowhere, this happened like
- 23:06Speaker 1: those big dudes there.
- 23:08Speaker 4: The thing with Robinson was he was absolutely not a killer.
- 23:11Speaker 3: Right.
- 23:11Speaker 1: And he can't say he was soft. He was in
- 23:13Speaker 1: the Navy. Right. We can't go there. But Olajuwon played
- 23:17Speaker 1: with a fury that David Robinson just did not have.
- 23:20Speaker 1: That's just not the kind of guy he was. The
- 23:22Speaker 1: very nice guy who was really, really good at basketball.
- 23:25Speaker 3: Some guys just can't go to that place.
- 23:28Speaker 2: It's the top of the top. It's some dudes that
- 23:31Speaker 2: cannot act. Maybe the difference between Clyde Drexler and Michael
- 23:34Speaker 2: Jordan is that Michael Jordan was always going to go
- 23:37Speaker 2: to that place, and Clyde just wasn't built like that.
- 23:41Speaker 1: It's the difference between Tim Duncan and David Robinson, because
- 23:44Speaker 1: if you were to ask me which of them in
- 23:46Speaker 1: some total was a better basketball player, I would tell
- 23:49Speaker 1: you David Robinson.
- 23:51Speaker 3: Really?
- 23:51Speaker 2: Really.
- 23:51Speaker 1: I mean, look, so the thing about Tim Duncan is,
- 23:53Speaker 1: one might argue Tim Duncan could have been, prior to
- 23:56Speaker 1: Victor Wimbanyama, the most impactful team defender of all time.
- 23:59Speaker 4: Like, that's his thing. He's just such an incredible defender.
- 24:03Speaker 1: Tim Duncan was even, you could say, okay, he didn't
- 24:06Speaker 1: take that many shots or whatever, but David Robinson was
- 24:08Speaker 1: a guy that could give you 30 in a way
- 24:09Speaker 1: that Tim Duncan wasn't the guy to give you 30.
- 24:12Speaker 1: David Robinson, I think, was more skilled, and Tim Duncan
- 24:15Speaker 1: was incredibly skilled. But, like, some of the things we're
- 24:17Speaker 1: talking about with facing the basket and taking dudes to
- 24:19Speaker 1: the bucket, he was stronger defensively. All of those things.
- 24:22Speaker 1: But for those who were not here for this, speaking
- 24:24Speaker 1: of people, Carl Malone is elbowed in our late regular
- 24:27Speaker 1: season game in 1998. Carl Malone elbowed David Robinson and
- 24:33Speaker 1: gave him a concussion. This is rookie Tim Duncan. Tim
- 24:36Speaker 1: Duncan was furious and put 38 on him. And it
- 24:40Speaker 1: was an angry 38. And it's what we're talking about.
- 24:44Speaker 1: You didn't really see from David Robinson. Right? That's where
- 24:48Speaker 1: the difference is, and that difference is the part that
- 24:50Speaker 1: matters probably more than the skill part.
- 24:53Speaker 2: Well, not just that, but think about all the growth
- 24:56Speaker 2: spurt guys that you kind of mentioned. Scottie Pippen, also
- 24:59Speaker 2: a growth spurt guy. He was 6'1, and then grew
- 25:01Speaker 2: to 6'7, I think, during college, right?
- 25:04Speaker 3: Yes.
- 25:05Speaker 2: Tim Duncan, you couldn't move him. Like, you could move
- 25:08Speaker 2: David Robinson. You could move Anthony Davis. You could certainly
- 25:12Speaker 2: move Scottie Pippen. Once... Tim Duncan planted his foot one
- 25:16Speaker 2: foot right outside the box, or he basically said, you're
- 25:19Speaker 2: not getting any deeper post position.
- 25:21Speaker 3: You're not moving. That helps in terms of a lot
- 25:25Speaker 3: of other stuff.
- 25:26Speaker 2: Like just the fact that if you can't move a guy,
- 25:29Speaker 2: you can't start fearing the guy as opposed to David Robinson,
- 25:31Speaker 2: where not muscles for free, but you felt like he
- 25:35Speaker 2: was big and strong, but maybe didn't like, he wasn't
- 25:37Speaker 2: like intimidating in a way that you feared him. Like
- 25:40Speaker 2: you had to make sure you knew where he was,
- 25:42Speaker 2: but it wasn't like this. Audible fear of what Tim
- 25:46Speaker 2: Duncan could actually do if you got Tim Duncan mad.
- 25:50Speaker 1: Right, right. Now, coming up next, we're going to talk
- 25:52Speaker 1: about what this team did in the Olympics and the
- 25:55Speaker 1: big question, is this the real dream team? The Right
- 26:01Speaker 1: Time is brought to you by FanDuel. Baseball fans, think
- 26:04Speaker 1: you know who's hitting a homer today? Well, FanDuel is
- 26:07Speaker 1: giving you a free chance to call your shot with
- 26:10Speaker 1: daily dingers. Joining the action is easy. Just make your
- 26:14Speaker 1: free pick on who's hitting a home run in their game.
- 26:16Speaker 1: And if you're right, you'll get a profit boost to
- 26:19Speaker 1: use on your next bet for a chance at extra winnings.
- 26:22Speaker 1: You've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain.
- 26:25Speaker 1: And don't forget, you can make a free pick every
- 26:28Speaker 1: day during the MLB season. It's just another reason why
- 26:32Speaker 1: FanDuel is the home for home runs. So are you
- 26:35Speaker 1: ready to play your game today? Join all the action
- 26:38Speaker 1: at FanDuel.com slash Bomani. That's Fanduel.com slash Bomani to play
- 26:45Speaker 1: daily dingers and make your free pick on who's hitting
- 26:48Speaker 1: a homer. Play ball and swing for the fences at Fanduel,
- 26:52Speaker 1: an official partner of MLB. 21 plus states. For Kansas,
- 26:56Speaker 1: in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. 18 plus, D.C., Kentucky, Wyoming.
- 27:02Speaker 1: Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777. Visit ccpg.org slash chat, Connecticut.
- 27:16Speaker 1: Visit mdgamblinghelp.org, Maryland. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org. Call 800-327-5050, Massachusetts. Call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY.
- 27:25Speaker 1: Text HOPE-NY, New York. Call 1-877-770-7867.
- 27:42Speaker 3: Louisiana.
- 27:44Speaker 1: Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry.me. Let me ask you something.
- 27:49Speaker 1: Are you where you want to be in your career?
- 27:51Speaker 1: Or are you waking up every day knowing you're capable
- 27:54Speaker 1: of more, but not sure how to get there? Listen,
- 27:58Speaker 1: often on the show, I've talked about the importance of
- 28:00Speaker 1: finding a professional to do the job right. Success doesn't
- 28:04Speaker 1: just happen. And the most successful people in the world
- 28:07Speaker 1: don't figure it out alone. They have mentors, coaches, and
- 28:10Speaker 1: people guiding them every step of the way. That's where
- 28:13Speaker 1: Strawberry.me Career Coaching comes in. Career Coaching gives you the clarity, strategy,
- 28:20Speaker 1: and accountability needed to turn your goals into reality, whether
- 28:24Speaker 1: it's landing a new job, advancing in your current role,
- 28:27Speaker 1: or transitioning into a field you love. With expert guidance,
- 28:31Speaker 1: you'll identify obstacles holding you back, Develop a step-by-step plan
- 28:36Speaker 1: and take action with confidence, knowing you have a dedicated
- 28:39Speaker 1: coach supporting you every step of the way. Instead of
- 28:43Speaker 1: relying on guesswork or waiting for the right time, professional
- 28:47Speaker 1: coaching helps you take control of your career trajectory, ensuring
- 28:50Speaker 1: you make intentional strategic moves towards success. Go to strawberry.me
- 28:56Speaker 1: slash Bomani and get 50% off your first coaching session.
- 29:01Speaker 1: That's strawberry.me slash Balmani. It's like therapy for your career.
- 29:08Speaker 1: One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels.
- 29:11Speaker 1: The days are a little more relaxed and I find
- 29:14Speaker 1: myself reaching for the same comfortable go anywhere pieces again
- 29:17Speaker 1: and again. That's why I keep coming back to Quince.
- 29:21Speaker 1: They focus on well-made essentials that naturally become those everyday
- 29:25Speaker 1: staples you actually live in all season long. Quince's 100%
- 29:30Speaker 1: European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on,
- 29:34Speaker 1: and the summer upgrade your rotation needs starting at just $ 34.
- 29:39Speaker 1: Their tees are soft enough to live in all day,
- 29:42Speaker 1: and the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want
- 29:45Speaker 1: when summer nights cool down. Everything at Quince is priced 50%
- 29:49Speaker 1: to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with
- 29:53Speaker 1: ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you're paying
- 29:56Speaker 1: for exceptional quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing.
- 30:01Speaker 1: Quince has become a trusted favorite for everything from home
- 30:04Speaker 1: to travel to everyday essentials. Make your summer wardrobe easier.
- 30:09Speaker 1: Go to quince.com slash TRT for free shipping on your
- 30:13Speaker 1: order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's
- 30:19Speaker 1: Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash TRT for free shipping and 365-day returns.
- 30:28Speaker 1: quince.com slash TRT. Look, if you're serious about performance, you
- 30:35Speaker 1: want products you can trust. GNC was built for athletes
- 30:38Speaker 1: and has been trusted by athletes for 91 years. They
- 30:42Speaker 1: review every product against the restricted list of more than
- 30:44Speaker 1: 150 no-go ingredients and their experts test products for quality, taste,
- 30:50Speaker 1: and performance. They also offer products that go through strict
- 30:54Speaker 1: third-party banned substance verification and which matters if you're competing
- 30:57Speaker 1: at any level. Whether you're looking for energy, recovery, better sleep,
- 31:02Speaker 1: or just trying to be ready on game day, GNC
- 31:05Speaker 1: has something for every athlete, every fan, and every goal.
- 31:10Speaker 1: With more than 2,000 locations and 24-7 shopping at GNC.com,
- 31:15Speaker 1: it's easy to find what works for you. Discover why
- 31:18Speaker 1: millions trust GNC. Shop athlete-tested, science-backed picks today at GNC.com.
- 31:27Speaker 1: All right, we're back with Vinny Goodwill talking about the
- 31:29Speaker 1: 1996 USA men's basketball Olympic team. I was sitting here, man,
- 31:35Speaker 1: looking at the results and really looking at the teams
- 31:38Speaker 1: the team USA played. There's literally nothing to talk about.
- 31:42Speaker 1: They ain't even like with 92, you had like that
- 31:45Speaker 1: Croatian team.
- 31:46Speaker 2: Right?
- 31:46Speaker 1: So you had like Drazen Petrovic, Tony Kukoc, Dino Raja,
- 31:50Speaker 1: like it was kind of a glimpse into the future, right?
- 31:54Speaker 1: And I guess in the gold medal game, they did
- 31:56Speaker 1: play the old Yugoslav cats. You know, I think they
- 32:00Speaker 1: put a team together, and that's who they played against. Yeah.
- 32:04Speaker 1: But bruh, they was just out here smoking. They was
- 32:07Speaker 1: smoking countries I didn't even know had basketball teams. They
- 32:09Speaker 1: went against Argentina. They got to play Angola again.
- 32:13Speaker 2: The.
- 32:14Speaker 1: Charles Barkley quotes that we can say in public now
- 32:17Speaker 1: about Angola. I don't know anything about Angola, but I
- 32:20Speaker 1: know Angola's in trouble.
- 32:23Speaker 2: The thing about 96 was that like 92 would just
- 32:27Speaker 2: blow you away from the start. Like there was no,
- 32:29Speaker 2: you know, the whole Chuck Daly thing. He was never
- 32:31Speaker 2: calling the timeout. He never called a timeout. In 96,
- 32:35Speaker 2: there were a couple of games where two-point game at halftime.
- 32:38Speaker 2: And then they just come out and just blow their
- 32:40Speaker 2: doors off to start the next quarter or the next,
- 32:42Speaker 2: you know, next half or whatever it was. It was just,
- 32:45Speaker 2: it wasn't the same approach as 92. 92 was, you know,
- 32:50Speaker 2: we're on a mission to show everybody what this team
- 32:52Speaker 2: is and what American basketball is and everything else. By 96,
- 32:55Speaker 2: it was kind of like, oh yeah, this is cool,
- 32:57Speaker 2: let's go out here and hoop. Because we're in Atlanta
- 33:00Speaker 2: and everything else that came with that and Atlanta being
- 33:02Speaker 2: a huge backdrop of this whole 1996 experience of everything. Like,
- 33:07Speaker 2: it felt a lot closer to home bowl. I don't
- 33:09Speaker 2: know if it's just because maybe I was older at
- 33:12Speaker 2: the time where I could more so feel it, just
- 33:15Speaker 2: the whole Olympic experience, maybe just seeing it in Atlanta
- 33:18Speaker 2: and knowing that I had never been in Atlanta before.
- 33:20Speaker 3: But I just felt like it was closer.
- 33:22Speaker 2: So I felt like there wasn't the mission of bringing
- 33:25Speaker 2: basketball to the world. It just felt like, oh, man,
- 33:28Speaker 2: the best players in the United States is going to
- 33:29Speaker 2: go hoop and just blow everybody's doors off. And that's
- 33:31Speaker 2: by and large what they did. Like, Oscar Schmidt gave
- 33:34Speaker 2: them 31 games.
- 33:35Speaker 1: I want to say.
- 33:36Speaker 4: I mean, but somebody had to score. You know what
- 33:38Speaker 4: I'm saying?
- 33:38Speaker 1: Like, in that game where he gave them 30, they
- 33:41Speaker 1: beat them by 23. Like, these are the scores. Argentina
- 33:44Speaker 1: in the first game, 96-68. Angola, 87-54. Lithuania, 104-82. China,
- 33:51Speaker 1: 133 to 70. They have never figured this thing out.
- 33:55Speaker 1: Chide in the Philippines. Love basketball so much. And it
- 33:58Speaker 1: ain't never going to get so good. Croatia, 102 to 71. Brazil,
- 34:02Speaker 1: 98 to 75. Australia in the semifinals. I don't even
- 34:08Speaker 1: know who was on that fucking team.
- 34:10Speaker 2: I think Andrew Gage was on that team.
- 34:12Speaker 1: I'd say the dude with the Jakey Seton Hall situation.
- 34:17Speaker 3: Yes.
- 34:19Speaker 1: 101 to 73. And then the Croatia minus, I mean,
- 34:22Speaker 1: Yugoslavia minus Croatia. I think it might've been minus Serbia too,
- 34:25Speaker 1: but 95 to 69, they were still destroying people. I
- 34:31Speaker 1: think the difference probably was more than anything else is
- 34:34Speaker 1: the other teams weren't nearly.
- 34:36Speaker 4: Just as happy to just be there.
- 34:39Speaker 1: Like that Dream Team documentary, the thing that I didn't remember,
- 34:43Speaker 1: these cats was in the middle of the games stopping.
- 34:46Speaker 4: And being like, yo, can you take a picture right fast?
- 34:49Speaker 1: Not at halftime. Not between quarters. Not during timeouts.
- 34:53Speaker 4: Like, hey, right fast.
- 34:54Speaker 1: Like it's a pickup game. Hey, hold up a second.
- 34:56Speaker 1: Hold a shot. Hold ball.
- 34:57Speaker 4: Hold ball. All right, let's go.
- 35:01Speaker 1: It was it.
- 35:03Speaker 2: You know, the most memorable thing to me about 96.
- 35:05Speaker 2: I don't see if you remember this. Remember, like in 92,
- 35:09Speaker 2: they were doing.
- 35:11Speaker 3: The Tournament of the Americas thing.
- 35:12Speaker 2: And I was in Portland in 96. They were going
- 35:16Speaker 2: to NBA arenas playing college teams. They played Marcus Camby
- 35:19Speaker 2: and Tim Duncan in those games. And that's where I
- 35:22Speaker 2: first saw Tim Duncan because Marcus Camby was the guy. Yeah.
- 35:27Speaker 2: You know, everybody knew Marcus Campbell was the guy because
- 35:28Speaker 2: he went to UMass.
- 35:30Speaker 1: And he gave Tim Duncan that work that year.
- 35:34Speaker 3: Yes.
- 35:35Speaker 2: But by the summer, it looked very clear to me. Oh,
- 35:41Speaker 2: this Wake Forest dude, he's something because he was giving
- 35:45Speaker 2: these pros fits. And they were going on a tour
- 35:48Speaker 2: like that. I remember, Bo, they went to Indiana. Now,
- 35:51Speaker 2: this is another backdrop that I'm not sure people remember.
- 35:54Speaker 2: 96 was the biggest NBA free agency in history at
- 35:59Speaker 2: the time.
- 35:59Speaker 3: Michael Jordan was a free agent. Gary Payton was a
- 36:02Speaker 3: free agent. Shaquille O'Neal.
- 36:05Speaker 2: Shaq, Shaq, Shaq, the biggest free agent at the time
- 36:08Speaker 2: that was gettable. Like, all those dudes were free agents,
- 36:11Speaker 2: and none of the guys had signed at that point. Like,
- 36:13Speaker 2: Shaq wound up signing during the Olympics, but during the tour,
- 36:17Speaker 2: it was almost like, and Reggie Miller, like, these teams
- 36:20Speaker 2: were being recruited by the home crowds, like they did
- 36:23Speaker 2: a game in Indiana, where Reggie Miller... was like the
- 36:26Speaker 2: king in Indy and he was a free agent and
- 36:28Speaker 2: people thought he was actually going to go and play
- 36:30Speaker 2: for the New York Knicks so they were showing all
- 36:32Speaker 2: this appreciation while playing against the college teams while watching
- 36:37Speaker 2: them prep for the Olympics like it was all this
- 36:39Speaker 2: other richness in the air before we even get to
- 36:42Speaker 2: Atlanta and everything like that's what I remember remembered most
- 36:46Speaker 2: and then also seeing Grant Hill and Penny Hardaway on
- 36:49Speaker 2: the same team Like that to me was the most
- 36:52Speaker 2: freaky thing ever. Like seeing these two dudes who are
- 36:55Speaker 2: the future, like those dudes are next, like they're now
- 36:59Speaker 2: and they're on the same squad. And like, to me,
- 37:02Speaker 2: that was just like, I'm almost like speechless about it.
- 37:05Speaker 2: Like how excited I was to see that at the time.
- 37:07Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 37:07Speaker 1: And especially now, cause Penny Hardaway, you don't, you don't
- 37:10Speaker 1: have this happen that much anymore. I guess Gilbert Arenas
- 37:12Speaker 1: is a similar case, but not exactly the same, but
- 37:15Speaker 1: these comments, right? Like when we're talking about Penny Hardaway,
- 37:19Speaker 1: We're really talking about three years. It's like 93 through
- 37:25Speaker 1: 96 is really what we're talking about. But it was
- 37:28Speaker 1: an indelible one, right? He was your favorite player. He
- 37:32Speaker 1: is a no-brainer choice to be on this team, right?
- 37:36Speaker 1: Because he was so big. He had this creative game.
- 37:40Speaker 1: He was like a true combo guard. I would not
- 37:43Speaker 1: truly classify him as a point guard, but he was
- 37:46Speaker 1: too much of a point guard for them to keep
- 37:47Speaker 1: Scott Skiles. You know what I mean? Like it was
- 37:49Speaker 1: just a, it was, it was a comment on that squad.
- 37:52Speaker 1: So you had these old school, these old heads, the team,
- 37:55Speaker 1: the young guys, they have a great Hill, less of
- 37:58Speaker 1: a comment because we had a little bit of a
- 38:00Speaker 1: longer time period, but still very similar, man. Where it's
- 38:02Speaker 1: just like, Hey man, that felt like that happened so fast.
- 38:05Speaker 1: Then that going along with a key melange one, like
- 38:08Speaker 1: you said, Shaq dream and Robinson. And the thing is
- 38:14Speaker 1: you could truly play any two of them together.
- 38:17Speaker 3: Dude, think about this.
- 38:19Speaker 2: I want to say in 96, Michael won MVP, of course.
- 38:24Speaker 2: I want to say David Robinson might have been second.
- 38:28Speaker 2: And maybe Penny was third or fourth in MVP voting
- 38:33Speaker 2: in 96. And then in 97, Karl Malone won fraudulently.
- 38:37Speaker 2: Michael was second and then Grant Hill was third. But
- 38:40Speaker 2: you could legit make the argument that the three best
- 38:43Speaker 2: players in basketball at that time was Michael Jordan clearly
- 38:48Speaker 2: without Pierre, and then Grant Hill and Penny Hardaway. Like,
- 38:52Speaker 2: the fact that, like you said, Penny Hardaway was an
- 38:54Speaker 2: evolution of Magic Johnson at the time.
- 38:57Speaker 3: It was like Magic Johnson with more athleticism.
- 38:59Speaker 1: More hops. But not as big. That's the one thing.
- 39:02Speaker 3: Not as big. Not as big.
- 39:04Speaker 2: He was 6'7, not 6'9, and he couldn't hold weight. Like,
- 39:07Speaker 2: Magic was 225 and could hold all of it.
- 39:10Speaker 3: Penny was more not super skinny.
- 39:13Speaker 2: Like as he was when he first came into the league,
- 39:15Speaker 2: he just started to put on weight and he was
- 39:16Speaker 2: trying to figure out the balance between the weight and
- 39:18Speaker 2: the athleticism. And he never really did because his knees
- 39:21Speaker 2: started to go as soon as he put on his
- 39:23Speaker 2: grown man weight, which is God, that's the worst thing ever.
- 39:26Speaker 2: Like you got to see to me, you got to
- 39:28Speaker 2: see the best of Grant Hill. It was just a
- 39:30Speaker 2: matter of how long he was going to sustain that
- 39:33Speaker 2: into the 2000s. We never got to see like the
- 39:37Speaker 2: fully actualized Penny Hardaway that could control the game, that
- 39:41Speaker 2: could score 40 like he did in that one series
- 39:43Speaker 2: against the Miami Heat when he shifted from point guard
- 39:46Speaker 2: to shooting guard. He scored 40 points in two straight
- 39:48Speaker 2: games and his team didn't score 80. Like that's how
- 39:51Speaker 2: great he was and how necessary he was in those series.
- 39:55Speaker 2: But that's, to me, that's the biggest what if. Like
- 39:57Speaker 2: people talk about, you know, the Derrick Roses and maybe
- 40:00Speaker 2: Blake Griffins or Brandon Royce or Bill Walton or Greg Oden.
- 40:04Speaker 2: To me, the number one what if with that dude
- 40:07Speaker 2: at that time was Penny Hardaway.
- 40:09Speaker 3: It is not even close.
- 40:10Speaker 1: And speaking of Penny Hardaway, you mentioned it a little earlier.
- 40:13Speaker 1: Can you imagine in our current day and age, our
- 40:16Speaker 1: current media cycles, what it would have been when Shaq
- 40:19Speaker 1: signed to go to the Lakers during the Olympics and
- 40:22Speaker 1: Penny found out the same time as the rest of us?
- 40:27Speaker 2: Dude, he found... I think in one of those documentaries,
- 40:31Speaker 2: someone asked Shaq a question. They had on the headphones
- 40:33Speaker 2: to try to get it translated. I think it was
- 40:36Speaker 2: someone foreign asking the question. And it said something about, Shaq,
- 40:39Speaker 2: you're signing with the Lakers. And they showed Penny's face.
- 40:41Speaker 3: He was like.
- 40:43Speaker 1: What? Hey, keep it down. Keep it down. Keep it down.
- 40:49Speaker 4: Say that again, homeboy.
- 40:52Speaker 3: And then here's the other thing. And this also came
- 40:54Speaker 3: to mind.
- 40:55Speaker 2: At the beginning of the 95-96 season, Shaq had a
- 40:58Speaker 2: broken wrist or a broken thumb. So he missed like
- 41:01Speaker 2: the first 20 games of the season. You know who
- 41:04Speaker 2: led the league in scoring?
- 41:06Speaker 1: Penny! Yep.
- 41:07Speaker 2: That dude. Like, this is what we were, this is
- 41:10Speaker 2: what we missed because his knees, and he had, you know,
- 41:14Speaker 2: that microfracture surgery before we found out. Hey, that ain't
- 41:16Speaker 2: exactly the fix that you think it is.
- 41:18Speaker 1: Yo, all those guys. Him, Kenya Martin, Amari Stoudemire with
- 41:21Speaker 1: terrible timing.
- 41:23Speaker 2: The worst, the absolute, like Amari's the only dude to
- 41:26Speaker 2: come back from the micro fracture and be himself. But
- 41:29Speaker 2: even then, that was like a ticking time bomb. And
- 41:32Speaker 2: that blew up basically by the time he got to
- 41:33Speaker 2: the Knicks, like three or four years later. But man, like,
- 41:36Speaker 2: like you said, in the media climate, figuring out the
- 41:39Speaker 2: Woj bomb happening right in front of you. Hey, Shaq,
- 41:43Speaker 2: you're the biggest free agent in NBA history. And your
- 41:46Speaker 2: team just allowed you to go to the Lakers. Because
- 41:50Speaker 2: the Orlando Sentinel put out a poll and said, can
- 41:52Speaker 2: we pay Shaq $ 100 million?
- 41:54Speaker 3: Yes or no? And people in Orlando said, nah, we straight.
- 41:58Speaker 1: Look, it's just a newspaper poll, but as if it's
- 42:01Speaker 1: your own money. That tell you everything you need to
- 42:04Speaker 1: know about fans. It ain't even your dough. That man
- 42:08Speaker 1: gonna sell enough Amway to make this happen, I promise you.
- 42:13Speaker 3: Oh, that was incredible. Like, it's crazy, Bo. Do you
- 42:17Speaker 3: think that people understand.
- 42:20Speaker 2: what Shaq was, or has Shaq like Barkley become such
- 42:23Speaker 2: a caricature of himself in this inside the NBA world,
- 42:27Speaker 2: in this social media world, that we haven't properly contextualized
- 42:32Speaker 2: that the best of Shaq from 96 to like 0-2?
- 42:38Speaker 3: Might be the best player we've ever seen.
- 42:41Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a little easier for people to
- 42:44Speaker 1: get because the proxies are there for Shaq in a
- 42:47Speaker 1: way they're not there for Barkley, four championships, three finals, MVPs.
- 42:52Speaker 1: So I think that there's a little bit of... You
- 42:55Speaker 1: can't grasp the physical singularity of Charles in the way
- 42:58Speaker 1: you can easily grasp the physical singularity of Shaq. What
- 43:03Speaker 1: I don't think people realize is that he used to
- 43:06Speaker 1: be much slimmer. And when he was, it was, he's
- 43:10Speaker 1: the most physically perfect basketball player that anybody put together.
- 43:13Speaker 1: Like young Shaq, like seven foot 295 Shaq. No problems.
- 43:22Speaker 1: Now you can do it.
- 43:24Speaker 3: I mean, look, yeah, foul him. That's about it. Foul
- 43:27Speaker 3: him and put him on the line and call it
- 43:28Speaker 3: a day.
- 43:29Speaker 2: But everything to me, it was almost like all the
- 43:33Speaker 2: things that we think about from 96 on kind of
- 43:35Speaker 2: began in 96. Like Karl Malone hit his MVP season
- 43:39Speaker 2: after that. Grant Hill had the best season of his
- 43:41Speaker 2: career going into year three of that.
- 43:43Speaker 3: We got the best of the rest of Penny Hardaway.
- 43:45Speaker 2: And then Shaq begins this tour of domination after that,
- 43:50Speaker 2: where he wasn't better than Michael Jordan, like for the
- 43:52Speaker 2: last few years of Mike. But the most dominant player
- 43:56Speaker 2: we've ever seen, that took place during that six-year stretch,
- 43:59Speaker 2: like where he was in shape, took it seriously, both
- 44:02Speaker 2: ends of the floor. All you could do was follow
- 44:05Speaker 2: him and maybe follow him 20 times and hope to
- 44:07Speaker 2: God that he didn't get on the road making free throws.
- 44:10Speaker 1: It was unfair. Now, this leads us to the fun question.
- 44:14Speaker 1: When you really stop and think about it, could this
- 44:20Speaker 1: team be better than the 92 team?
- 44:27Speaker 3: Is that a rhetorical question?
- 44:28Speaker 1: No, no, no. That's a serious question. So here's what
- 44:32Speaker 1: I throw out there. For example, the 92 team had
- 44:35Speaker 1: Larry Bird, but we're not talking about an all-NBA caliber
- 44:38Speaker 1: player in the version of Larry Bird that they had there.
- 44:41Speaker 3: Right.
- 44:42Speaker 1: Magic, on one hand, Magic hadn't played for the whole year.
- 44:45Speaker 1: On the other hand, Magic was still that dude that
- 44:48Speaker 1: year before.
- 44:49Speaker 3: Right.
- 44:50Speaker 1: But it's still. Right.
- 44:51Speaker 2: He's MVP runner up in 91.
- 44:52Speaker 3: Right.
- 44:53Speaker 1: It's still a 13, 33 year old Magic that we're
- 44:58Speaker 1: talking about here. Right. He was still really good, but
- 45:00Speaker 1: it's not like the one thing about Magic when we
- 45:02Speaker 1: talk about athleticism. My brother always makes this point. Magic
- 45:06Speaker 1: had that knee injury. his second year. And that was
- 45:09Speaker 1: at a time where the medicine wasn't the same as
- 45:12Speaker 1: it was like, you look at the clips of magic
- 45:14Speaker 1: and college and before that, Oh, there's athleticism there. But anyway,
- 45:17Speaker 1: this is, this is a not very athletic version of him.
- 45:20Speaker 1: Now it is a better version of Charles Barkley than
- 45:23Speaker 1: the one I would say that this team had. That
- 45:25Speaker 1: team had Michael Jordan. I would say this team probably
- 45:29Speaker 1: had a better version of Scotty Pippen, a better version
- 45:33Speaker 1: of Carl Malone, about the.
- 45:34Speaker 4: Same version of John Stockton. That's just what it was.
- 45:37Speaker 1: A better version of David Robinson. Plus, we're adding Gary Payton,
- 45:43Speaker 1: Akeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Grant Hill, and Petty Hardaway, right?
- 45:48Speaker 4: Now, on the other side, like we said, a superior
- 45:51Speaker 4: version of Charles Barkley.
- 45:54Speaker 1: I think the other thing with this team, too, is
- 45:56Speaker 1: they weren't worried about how many white dudes were on
- 45:58Speaker 1: the team. Right. That's why this team does not have
- 46:00Speaker 1: a Christian Laitner, for example. No, this team does not
- 46:03Speaker 1: have a Chris Mullen. Mullen is a Mullen's one that
- 46:05Speaker 1: if you were there, it made perfect sense for Mullen
- 46:08Speaker 1: to be on the team in a world that.
- 46:09Speaker 4: Dominique Wilkins did not exist.
- 46:11Speaker 1: Right. But, you know, you could see it. But I
- 46:15Speaker 1: don't think Chris Mullen makes this team. Maybe he take
- 46:17Speaker 1: Mitch Richmond spot.
- 46:20Speaker 2: I mean, I understand the case for Mullen being on
- 46:23Speaker 2: 92 because of birds back. And if you're building a team,
- 46:27Speaker 2: and I bark back against, man, you got to have
- 46:31Speaker 2: all this on a team.
- 46:32Speaker 3: You're beating everybody by 60.
- 46:34Speaker 2: Like, the whole thing about Isaiah can't be on the
- 46:36Speaker 2: Dream Team because you need shooting. I heard Jackie McMullin
- 46:39Speaker 2: or somebody that I really respect say something like that.
- 46:42Speaker 2: I'm like, man, you worried about zone busters on a
- 46:44Speaker 2: 92 Dream Team?
- 46:45Speaker 3: All right, whatever.
- 46:46Speaker 2: You are carrying somebody's water, right? And we can just
- 46:49Speaker 2: leave it at that. But if you're going to say, hey...
- 46:52Speaker 2: if we got Bird on this team and we worried
- 46:54Speaker 2: about Bird's backup leaving because that's where we were in
- 46:57Speaker 2: the career of Larry Bird, then you go get Bird light.
- 47:00Speaker 3: You know what I mean? You go get left Bird.
- 47:02Speaker 1: How about this? Have any two guys been more similar
- 47:06Speaker 1: yet less similar than Larry Bird and Chris Mullin?
- 47:12Speaker 3: White.
- 47:13Speaker 1: Crew cut. Yeah, right. Crew cut.
- 47:16Speaker 4: And then they start talking.
- 47:19Speaker 2: Look, Chris Mullin, It's from, I forgot what borough he's from.
- 47:23Speaker 1: He's from Queens, I want to say. He's from Queens
- 47:25Speaker 1: or Brooklyn. I can't remember which.
- 47:27Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 47:29Speaker 2: Look, yeah, I don't spend too much time in Queens.
- 47:31Speaker 2: But the point is, that man grew up, like, in
- 47:35Speaker 2: New York.
- 47:36Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Chris Mullin had the
- 47:37Speaker 1: most New York accent. He was no white dude who
- 47:41Speaker 1: sounded like a black dude ever got more respect than
- 47:45Speaker 1: Chris Mullin. He's from Brooklyn.
- 47:47Speaker 2: Yes, and to your point, Here's what I will say
- 47:49Speaker 2: about Magic Johnson. And you're saying that Magic maybe wasn't
- 47:53Speaker 2: what he was. If Magic three years later comes back
- 47:56Speaker 2: to the NBA at age 35 or 36, I think,
- 48:00Speaker 2: and gives you 16, 7, and 6 for a dog
- 48:04Speaker 2: Lakers team, plus on 255 pounds, I think 92 Magic,
- 48:10Speaker 2: if we rewind it three years, I think 92 Magic
- 48:13Speaker 2: is still a really, really dominant player.
- 48:16Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
- 48:17Speaker 4: He'd still make that team.
- 48:19Speaker 1: Like, he did not make that team as a Lifetime
- 48:22Speaker 1: Achievement Award. He made that team because he was still
- 48:25Speaker 1: one of the 12 best players in the world. And
- 48:27Speaker 1: still the best player in his position, even a year after.
- 48:30Speaker 1: By the way, right fast with the Chris Mullen wiki page,
- 48:32Speaker 1: the early life goes like this. This is so all
- 48:35Speaker 1: over the place. Mullen was born in Brooklyn. As a
- 48:38Speaker 1: young player in New York, he studied the games and
- 48:40Speaker 1: Nick stars Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe while admiring Larry
- 48:43Speaker 1: Bird and wearing.
- 48:45Speaker 4: Number 17 in honor of John Havlicek.
- 48:48Speaker 1: As a youth, he regularly traveled to the Bronx and
- 48:50Speaker 1: Harlem and predominantly black neighborhoods to play against the best
- 48:54Speaker 1: players in New York City. Like it is very, like
- 48:59Speaker 1: all the racial coding in the Chris Mullen thing was
- 49:02Speaker 1: all over the place, but no white man has ever
- 49:05Speaker 1: been treated quite like black in the way that we
- 49:07Speaker 1: allow Chris Mullen. No, no, no.
- 49:10Speaker 2: I mean, look, we don't hold Chris Mullen in the
- 49:14Speaker 2: same reverence that we hold the Birdman.
- 49:16Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
- 49:17Speaker 4: Yeah, that would be crazy.
- 49:19Speaker 2: Yeah, but... you got to think, the fact that Chris
- 49:21Speaker 2: Mullen was able to bounce back from the alcohol and
- 49:25Speaker 2: everything else that he was going through to make it
- 49:27Speaker 2: to the Olympic team in 92 and still be out
- 49:30Speaker 2: there giving you 25, I'm with you.
- 49:32Speaker 3: So to your point, could 96 beat 92? I will
- 49:35Speaker 3: say this.
- 49:39Speaker 2: Penny Hardaway and Grant Hill was on that 92 select
- 49:42Speaker 2: team that gave the 92 Olympic team the blues.
- 49:46Speaker 4: That is true.
- 49:47Speaker 3: In that practice game. That is true. It's different, right?
- 49:53Speaker 2: And Michael Jordan, the 92 version of Michael Jordan, might
- 49:56Speaker 2: be the best version of Michael Jordan ever, right? Like,
- 50:01Speaker 2: go look at his finals against Portland, which we don't
- 50:04Speaker 2: really talk about aside from game one. He was like 35...
- 50:07Speaker 2: seven and six on 52-42 splits. Like, that was the
- 50:11Speaker 2: best of Michael Jordan that was to come. So maybe
- 50:15Speaker 2: he's the equalizer, so to speak.
- 50:18Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this. Do you think the
- 50:21Speaker 1: 1992 version of Patrick Ewing could make this team? The
- 50:25Speaker 1: 96 team? Because I don't think so. Ooh, no.
- 50:28Speaker 3: No, I don't think he makes it. That's crazy.
- 50:30Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
- 50:31Speaker 1: And 92, Patrick Ewing is a really, really, really good player.
- 50:34Speaker 1: I don't think that he could wind up.
- 50:39Speaker 1: Okay, I do think this. I'm going to say, does
- 50:41Speaker 1: the 92 version of Clyde Drexler make this team? I do.
- 50:44Speaker 1: Mitch Richmond is going home. The 92 version of Clyde
- 50:48Speaker 1: Drexler is sending Mitch Richmond home, is sending Reggie Miller home. Honestly,
- 50:55Speaker 1: the 92 version of Clyde Drexler, Grant Hill, we got
- 50:59Speaker 1: to have a talk.
- 51:01Speaker 3: No, no, we don't.
- 51:02Speaker 1: No, we don't.
- 51:04Speaker 3: No, we don't.
- 51:04Speaker 1: Grant Hill, you're saying that Grant Hill, after two years,
- 51:08Speaker 1: was better than peak Clyde Drexler?
- 51:11Speaker 2: I'm saying Grant Hill after two years was better than
- 51:13Speaker 2: Scottie Pippen. Scottie's going home.
- 51:21Speaker 4: Why did I not see that coming?
- 51:24Speaker 1: You were so ready.
- 51:26Speaker 4: The timing on that was so impeccable.
- 51:31Speaker 1: Scottie's out of here.
- 51:34Speaker 3: I knew you didn't see it. I'm like, oh, I
- 51:36Speaker 3: can't wait to land this plane.
- 51:38Speaker 1: No, because I was like, wait a minute. Are you sure?
- 51:40Speaker 1: I didn't even recall. That's Clyde Drexler, MVP runner-up. You're like, nah, Scotty. Sorry.
- 51:47Speaker 3: Scotty's out of here in 96.
- 51:49Speaker 1: Go home.
- 51:52Speaker 3: I'm with you.
- 51:53Speaker 2: Clyde's sending some people home.
- 51:55Speaker 3: He's sending Pip home. You can leave the shoes, Pip.
- 51:57Speaker 2: Those Air Max up tempos was legit, especially those Olympic joints.
- 52:01Speaker 2: But Scotty's going to the crib because you got to remember,
- 52:03Speaker 2: 97 was the last great Scottie Pippen year. Correct, correct.
- 52:10Speaker 2: Scottie was cooked as a superstar player post-back injury, foot injury.
- 52:15Speaker 2: Clyde in 92, like you said, you can say what
- 52:18Speaker 2: you want about him getting torched by Mike, but everybody
- 52:20Speaker 2: would have got that work at that point.
- 52:23Speaker 3: So, yeah, there's the discussion. Clyde in 92 or Pippen
- 52:27Speaker 3: in 96. Not Grant Hill or Penny, please.
- 52:31Speaker 1: Oh, man.
- 52:34Speaker 4: You're totally correct. I am with you now that I
- 52:39Speaker 4: think about it.
- 52:40Speaker 1: This is also like 96 was the last great dream year. Yes.
- 52:45Speaker 1: 97 is a very good dream. 97 is a very
- 52:48Speaker 1: good Barkley. 97 is a pretty good Clyde. But this
- 52:51Speaker 1: was the end of just the 92 through 96 dream. Freak.
- 52:55Speaker 1: Nothing you could do.
- 53:04Speaker 2: Dude, remember, was it 91 that Cartwright got him in
- 53:08Speaker 2: the eye?
- 53:08Speaker 1: Yep.
- 53:10Speaker 2: Once again, at what point are we going to be
- 53:12Speaker 2: talking about the graveyard of body parts that Bill Cartwright
- 53:15Speaker 2: done claimed? I know that we don't put him in
- 53:19Speaker 2: the same boat as the Lambeers of the world, but
- 53:22Speaker 2: he got just as many body parts, if not more.
- 53:24Speaker 3: Like, y'all, when we going to have this conversation?
- 53:27Speaker 1: Hey, man, I was saying, I can tell you, y'all
- 53:29Speaker 1: need to be glad. If I was running the Spurs,
- 53:32Speaker 1: I'd send Victor to goddamn Bill Cartwright, big man camp.
- 53:35Speaker 1: Y'all be terrified to do anything with him.
- 53:39Speaker 2: But no, it's funny you said that because like you said,
- 53:43Speaker 2: the best of the rest of Elijah Wong, like the
- 53:45Speaker 2: drop-off was starting to happen with him. Like Karl Malone
- 53:49Speaker 2: was never going to be any better. Like he won
- 53:51Speaker 2: MVP in 97, but you could make the argument that
- 53:54Speaker 2: he had better years. Like he was in his early
- 53:57Speaker 2: thirties at that point. But that was during the time
- 53:59Speaker 2: where if you're in your early thirties, this is when the.
- 54:03Speaker 3: Drop-off starts to happen. If not like retirement, like we've.
- 54:07Speaker 2: Changed the paradigm on what early 30s, mid 30s basketball
- 54:11Speaker 2: looks like. So when people talk about Charles Barkley, you
- 54:14Speaker 2: went ring chasing in 96 to go, you know, to
- 54:16Speaker 2: go from.
- 54:16Speaker 3: Phoenix to Houston.
- 54:17Speaker 2: That's what dudes did back then. Like, like that, that
- 54:20Speaker 2: was what life was like back then. Like Charles Barkley
- 54:23Speaker 2: wasn't going to carry a team. It's just now that
- 54:25Speaker 2: because LeBron has changed it, Kevin Durant has changed it.
- 54:28Speaker 3: Steph has changed it.
- 54:29Speaker 2: We want to reevaluate what life was like back then.
- 54:32Speaker 3: No, no, no. That was the norm.
- 54:34Speaker 1: No, you go find, I mean, it makes sense. You
- 54:36Speaker 1: go find a good team and you play for them.
- 54:40Speaker 1: It's hard to figure out. Kevin Durant, it was just like, damn.
- 54:45Speaker 1: It's just not fair, right? He didn't do anything wrong.
- 54:48Speaker 1: It was weird, right?
- 54:49Speaker 4: I know why it hit people funny.
- 54:51Speaker 1: But yeah, no, you go find a good team to
- 54:53Speaker 1: play for, and then you go play for the good team.
- 54:56Speaker 4: That's what everybody does, right? This is just what it is.
- 55:02Speaker 3: Yeah, it's shifted. The whole thing, Charles Barkley spent nine
- 55:07Speaker 3: years in Philly.
- 55:09Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Dudes ain't giving no franchise nine years no more.
- 55:13Speaker 1: Yeah, you gave them eight. Well, no, you'll give them
- 55:15Speaker 1: eight because you give, well, it used to be you
- 55:16Speaker 1: give them eight because you give them two deals. But
- 55:18Speaker 1: now that nobody goes to free agency.
- 55:20Speaker 3: You give them seven.
- 55:21Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 55:22Speaker 3: And you get traded.
- 55:23Speaker 1: If you give them seven, right?
- 55:24Speaker 3: If you give them seven.
- 55:26Speaker 4: If you give them seven. But I tell you this,
- 55:28Speaker 4: you ain't get no answer.
- 55:33Speaker 2: That's why, like, we haven't, hopefully we have fully contextualized
- 55:39Speaker 2: like how freaky these dudes are.
- 55:42Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
- 55:43Speaker 2: Like hopeful, like Charles Barkley being the leading scorer in
- 55:47Speaker 2: 96 after.
- 55:48Speaker 3: Being the leading scorer in 92.
- 55:50Speaker 2: And you can see the downshift from 92 to 96,
- 55:54Speaker 2: but it still looks like a dream team. In 2000,
- 55:57Speaker 2: it don't look like a dream team. In 2004, damn
- 55:59Speaker 2: sure don't look like a dream team. Like that was
- 56:01Speaker 2: the last of the we are scared of, the world
- 56:05Speaker 2: is scared of the United States. Like, you could put
- 56:07Speaker 2: the best of the world against the United States and
- 56:09Speaker 2: the United States would kill everybody. Like, that's the last
- 56:12Speaker 2: time you could actually say that. Like, we didn't know
- 56:14Speaker 2: the world was catching up in 96. They were starting to.
- 56:19Speaker 2: In 2000, it was like, man, the world done caught up. Like,
- 56:23Speaker 2: they just happened to win, but the world had caught
- 56:26Speaker 2: up by 2000.
- 56:26Speaker 4: I mean, they won the final by like two points.
- 56:30Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 56:30Speaker 3: No, no, no. Like, like, We just didn't know any better.
- 56:33Speaker 1: Look, man, I'm going with the 92 team, and it's
- 56:36Speaker 1: for the reason that made the youngsters very upset. Mm-hmm.
- 56:40Speaker 3: Him.
- 56:41Speaker 1: Yeah, they got Mike.
- 56:43Speaker 3: Him.
- 56:43Speaker 1: Like, if this is at all close.
- 56:47Speaker 2: Him.
- 56:48Speaker 1: They got Mike.
- 56:49Speaker 3: Him. That's all.
- 56:50Speaker 1: That's it.
- 56:51Speaker 3: That black cat.
- 56:52Speaker 1: That's it.
- 56:52Speaker 3: That's it. They got him.
- 56:53Speaker 1: They got Mike. Mike and Magic and Peak Chuck. Yeah, man.
- 57:03Speaker 1: I can't bet. Okay, pick against that.
- 57:07Speaker 3: Like, think about this.
- 57:09Speaker 2: Peak Chuck was going to give you 28-14-5.
- 57:11Speaker 3: Yeah. And wasn't even in, like, the greatest of shapes.
- 57:16Speaker 1: It wasn't even that ball dominant. No.
- 57:20Speaker 2: Because he could get to the line, which meant he
- 57:23Speaker 2: could slow the game down.
- 57:25Speaker 3: Right.
- 57:25Speaker 2: Like if you're going on a 9-0 run, get the
- 57:28Speaker 2: ball to Chuck, get in the post. Either you get
- 57:30Speaker 2: in the bucket or you're getting fouled and you're getting
- 57:31Speaker 2: a chance to like you're getting a chance to recalibrate yourself.
- 57:35Speaker 2: Like that is something that's so underrated about like stopping
- 57:38Speaker 2: a 9-2 run or stopping a 10-2 run. Get a
- 57:41Speaker 2: ball to Charles for a couple of possessions. Settle things down.
- 57:44Speaker 2: Lose the variance. and then everybody gets their feet under him. Like,
- 57:48Speaker 2: that's how great Chuck was, man.
- 57:50Speaker 3: It was just.
- 57:51Speaker 2: And then we talk about Chuck like, man, you got
- 57:52Speaker 2: an MVP, you went to the finals once, but you
- 57:54Speaker 2: left so much on the table. This motherfucker was 6'5.
- 57:58Speaker 1: Sorry, Mr.
- 57:59Speaker 2: Paul.
- 57:59Speaker 3: Nah.
- 57:59Speaker 2: He was 6'5.
- 58:01Speaker 1: Nah, he the original KG. Should have got out of
- 58:03Speaker 1: there sooner. While you out there with Mike... No, Michael...
- 58:08Speaker 1: Mike Jemiski? Yeah, I was definitely thinking I was going
- 58:12Speaker 1: to get to Mike Jemiski.
- 58:13Speaker 4: Let me tell you.
- 58:16Speaker 1: I'll tell you that Mike Javiski story later. But yeah, nah. 92.
- 58:20Speaker 4: Sorry, 96. You have a grievance, but you don't. You do,
- 58:24Speaker 4: but you don't.
- 58:25Speaker 1: Vitty Goodwill, check him out. Covering the NBA for ESPN.
- 58:28Speaker 1: My brother, I appreciate you.
- 58:29Speaker 3: Yes, sir.
- 58:30Speaker 1: All right, now, ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for
- 58:32Speaker 1: joining us here on The Right Time. We do this
- 58:34Speaker 1: three days a week, sometimes less, sometimes more during the summer.
- 58:37Speaker 1: Ryan Brumley handled everything behind the scenes.
- 58:39Speaker 4: Thank you, sir.
- 58:39Speaker 1: Hit the voicemail line, 323-596-7767. Remember, follow The Right Time. Subscribe, like,
- 58:46Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
- 58:48Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
- 58:50Speaker 1: a hater. We'll talk to you guys in a couple
- 58:51Speaker 1: of days.
- 58:52Speaker 4: Take it easy.