Latest / Giant Ideas / NBA Champion, Rick Fox: How to Lead Maverick Geniuses like Kobe and Shaq and Win

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NBA Champion, Rick Fox: How to Lead Maverick Geniuses like Kobe and Shaq and Win · Giant Ideas

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If things went down, are you gonna wilt, fold, and run away?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you gonna stand with me and fight?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if you won't fight me, and I'm the biggest, baddest animal as they would feel they are in the jungle, then how'd I know I can you got my back?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, and welcome to Giant Ideas with me, Cameron McLean, and me, Tommy Stanlin.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: We're co-founders of Giant Ventures, which builds and backs purpose-driven companies.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: At Giant, we're lucky to meet extraordinary people with giant ideas that are changing the world.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast brings you behind-the-scenes access to those ideas and the inspiring stories of the people behind them.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: We explore how one giant idea can kickstart a billion-dollar company, shape culture, and transform life as we know it.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to season two of Giant Ideas.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: We're back with an incredible lineup of interviews for you over the coming months.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: We'll be speaking to pioneers of AI, legends of sport, and the entrepreneurs who are building tomorrow's world.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Today on the podcast, we're joined by Rick Fox, a CEO, an actor, and a three-time MBA champion, captain of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryan at the LA Lakers.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Elite Sport was part of Rick's life from an early age.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: His mother was an Olympic athlete.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Rick's own MBA career went on to span 13 seasons, from the Boston Celtics in 1991 to becoming captain of the LA Lakers, winning three consecutive championships from the year 2000 to 2002.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Then Rick made a different kind of pivot.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: He decided to leave basketball entirely and join the acting and producing world, securing roles in major film and television series from He Got Game, slurring alongside Denzel Washington, to the villainous lone shark on One Tree Hill.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: He's worked across virtually every major TV network with over 30 years in front of the camera and behind the camera.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Ten years ago, he moved into business, starting an esports franchise, and most recently joining the climate tech world as the founder and CEO of Partana, a pioneer of green cement.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Rick, you and I met a couple of weeks ago in the bush in South Africa.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: And we're in a slightly different habitat here in King's Cross in London.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: But welcome.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Great to have you.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Tommy.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be here.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: You were telling me some extraordinary tales in South Africa of your various acts in your life.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought we've got to bring this to the giant ideas audience.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for joining us.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um let's start by talking about your beginnings and this kind of amazing journey you had as a teenager from the Bahamas to the Midwest, right?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: In the US.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: How did that all come about?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: A big idea.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: A big idea that a little boy from the islands of the Bahamas could make his way to the United States with a dream of becoming an NBA player.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: That dream was supported by a blueprint from Michael Thompson, who came before me.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Happened to actually live in my neighborhood.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So defying the odds for him to become the first ever Bahamian in the NBA was an example set for me.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then doing it a second time from the same neighborhood was probably even more imaginable.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know Michael growing up?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew of him.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: You knew of him.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew of him.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I knew riding my bicycle by his house that he was a real person.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that's an example of a blueprint where an idea uh that's been realized can become your idea as well.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then you mirror yourself in a starting capacity towards that direction.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: In my case, I had great mentors, great coaches.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: I listened exceptionally well, and I was fortunate to have good talent.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so you had Michael Thompson as this shining light, but also your mother was an Olympic athlete, right?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sure was.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: 1964, Tokyo Olympics, high jumper.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I come from uh uh interracial marriage where my mom was an Italian-Canadian out of Western Canada and Vancouver.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: My dad was a Bahamian.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: They met in Toronto and he was up there as a car salesman.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they got together, uh, got married, and they had me.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's right after the Olympics for my mom.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And was it a question of you just witnessing her go off and be an Olympian and sort of see that as somehow normal and it just rubbed off on you?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Or was she actively pushing you and saying, look, we've got to get you into sports and this is how you become an elite athlete?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, my mom had uh had a way of communicating excellence, and it was always the constant push for more.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: That, you know, just evolving, becoming a better version of yourself, not being complacent in your own success.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had that as a through line in my life as a kid.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it helped to know that she had reached the highest heights in sports.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I saw the medals, I saw, saw the photos, made me proud.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and my dad, as an entrepreneur in the business world, uh, showed me an example of what was what it was to show up in in a day-to-day capacity in the community.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I had great examples.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: My mom athletically, my dad professionally as a businessman, uh, that set the stage for a belief that I could do things that would pop into my mind from time to time and believe they could, they could be realized.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: And how did it happen that you, as a teenager, suddenly landed this opportunity to move to high school in the U.S.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: on your own?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: A great coach, a great college coach, happened to be in the Bahamas with his team.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those players stayed at our house uh in a kind of boarding capacity over a week time.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: They had a high school basketball clinic at my high school where they showcased uh basketball and introduced it to us firsthand.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was very athletic.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was very uh gifted in that regard.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think they recognized in me the ability to potentially develop into something that might be a basketball player.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the skills at the time, but my mom had the vision of me getting a college scholarship, going off and being able to get an education at the next level.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so she was the one that pushed the idea forward to the coach over a dinner at our house before they left.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And before you knew it, I was invited to come to a summer basketball camp in Warsaw, Indiana.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: In Indiana.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you go from the Bahamas to Indiana, a high school.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: What was that like?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Is that you were 16 or so?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was at the time, I was 14.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: 14.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was super uh young.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And uh my first trip alone, I spent three weeks in in a camping, a camp setting among kids that were from a different uh country, and I stood out obviously.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I was welcome, though, and received and experiencing basketball for the first time with the type of coaching that would get me excited about the idea of becoming a better player every day.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's one of the things I've always done in my life is been uh blessed enough to have been set with a foundation of constant beginner mentality, always looking to learn something daily, to become better, a better version of whatever it is I'm doing each time I I show up.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I advanced rather quickly the first three weeks, enough so that they sent me back to the Bahamas with a blueprint and a plan to come and live with a family there, play high school or try out for the high school basketball team.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And two months later, I was on my way back.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, my parents weren't initially excited about the delivery of the message of uh I want to go back and live with this family and I want to play for this coach.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: They'd never met any of them.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, and so in that regard, uh it took a leap of faith on their part to sign away guardianship.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: They signed they signed me away to a family they they eventually met uh a few months later, they went and visited.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that was a big deal.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It took a lot of love and trust and on both sides.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: And for you, this was the start of realizing your dream.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: But that period of when you've gone to live with this random family in Indiana, did that period feel like essentially sacrifice which was worth it to get to your goal?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: Or actually, did you enjoy life in Indiana or did you have a good time?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was the process.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was in the process.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I had a clear vision of the steps I needed to take.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had a clear uh understanding that the people that were willing to put me in a position to succeed and to show me the tools that it would take to become the type of player to gain a scholarship, that I had those people at my disposal.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So a high level of respect for them, a high level of attention to the details of what they were saying to me, implementing that on a feverish pace uh that I had.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, every second of the day I was either thinking about uh becoming a better player or out practicing to become a better player.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it became my whole life.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So there wasn't much, there was not much time for me to think about the joys of teenage life in, say, Warsaw, Indiana.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was all about getting this next step, which was the scholarship.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I took every second of the day to be working towards that.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: At what age did you say I'm gonna become an MBA player?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, probably that that three weeks in Warsaw, the first three weeks of camp.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was around other young, young men who had that dream.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I I saw and learned more about the game of basketball.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the first the first time I went to a basketball game was in the Hoosier Dome.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: That uh that on that trip, the high school basketball coach and the math teacher that who I would end up living with, their family, took me down to see the world's largest basketball game.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was 73,000 people in the Hoosier Dome.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: The Hoosier Dome had just opened up.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's where the Indianapolis Colts play today.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they had the 1984 Olympic basketball team, U.S.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: basketball team, playing against an NBA All-Star team.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And down on the floor was Michael Jordan, who played at the University of North Carolina, where I went, ended up going to university to play for Dean Smith, Steve Alford, Bobby Knight, and a bunch of other NBA pros that I I were I was recognizing in name, but couldn't see.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I couldn't see them was because we were in the last row of this dome.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you're talking about 100,000 people, you're in the last row, and all I could think of is I want to be down there on the floor.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and from there on, uh, that was my goal.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna come back to Michael Jordan in a minute.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna skip over an incredible college career, all of the sacrifice.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: You ultimately made your dream of becoming an NBA player.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: You have this great career at the Boston Celtics, things are going well, and they offer you a contract, right?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: A pretty lucrative contract.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: What happened?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I turned it down.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I had a I had a dream of making it to the NBA.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And on draft night, I actually got booed.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was uh I didn't have the greatest uh final game in the NCAA tournament for my team.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: We were in the final four and we lost a championship uh and I didn't play so well.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was a low a low light in my career.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: But uh Red R back, the guy if you know who that is with the cigar, famous general manager of the Boston Celtics, uh, the franchise with the most championships in the NBA, saw something in me and drafted me.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: But in that time, uh in 1991, you didn't have social media.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the players and a lot of the fans in Boston didn't have an idea who I was.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so they booed.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted a big East player.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that first uh that first uh interview with the reporters, I'd made it to the NBA now, and the reporter asked me, Well, what do you want for your career?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, uh, I want to play play 12 years and win three championships.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I got that because of Larry Bird.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: He had played 12 years and won three championships at that championships at that point, so that was my next blueprint.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but unfortunately, the first six years, Larry didn't play the whole six years, and so we didn't have as great a run as we would have liked to have had in that sixth year.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: We only won 15 out of 82 games.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And never won a championship.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And never won a championship in those six years.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had a commitment to win three championships in 12 years.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was running out of time.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And no money, no amount of money was gonna stop me from finding the best scenario and the best teammates and the best coaches to play with going forward.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that was when I moved to LA.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: And what did the Celtics offer you?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: They offered me$33 million.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: They offered me$33 million for six years to be the captain and to continue on.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we didn't have the right team.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it was Rick Pertino had just come in.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he had a vision of where he wanted to go, but I knew that was gonna take some time.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that the Los Angeles Lakers with Shaquille O'Neal at that time, a second-year player coming up, Kobe Bryant.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the Phil Jackson wasn't there at the time, but I knew that Jerry West recruited me.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's the logo for the NBA, he's the guy on the logo.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I knew that the Lakers were committed to championships as well.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they said I was the glue.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: They said I was the missing piece.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And they could only pay me a million dollars.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to look at 33 million or one million, and uh it looks like a smart move today, uh, but didn't make my agents and and managers happy when I turned down 33 million dollars.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you had an offer of 33 million dollars, yeah, six years, guaranteed income, yeah, versus one million at the Lakers for one year, right?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you went with the one million or one year.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Your fr your friends and family tell you you were crazy?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone thought I was crazy.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was a giant idea, Tommy.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was a giant idea that I could be a champion and that I could win three championships, and that, and that the sacrifice in that moment would be rewarded uh once the excellence arrived in the room.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I I bet on myself.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And more importantly, I bet on what I saw, which was greatness in Shaquille O'Neal and an organization equally like the Celtics that were pursuing championships at all cost.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I always say you put yourself in the room and and and surround yourself with the the type of people that are uh championship mindset driven and will sacrifice at all costs to get there.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you will find yourself at some point at the top of the top of the heap.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: You ended up winning three championships, the three P.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it was yourself, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, with this amazing coach eventually, Phil Jackson.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: And Phil makes you the captain of all these legends.
• 13:36
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: What do you see in you to make you the captain?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'd have to probably rewind to a Christmas Day game, I think it was when the Chicago Bulls beat beat the pants off of my Celtic team.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was the captain of that team.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I had read Phil's book, Sacred Hoops.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I targeted uh an opportunity to go and talk to him after the game.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I told him, I said, Look, I read your book, Coach Jackson, and uh I have a similar background growing up as you did, and I hope someday to play for you.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I don't and this was before he we left the Bulls, and I just wanted to play for for him.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I thought he connected to his players, and he obviously was one of the greatest coaches at the time.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when he took the job, I got to LA before he took the job to be uh the Lakers head coach, but when he came in, uh it wasn't in the first year that he had me become the coach.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was in pivotal moments where where he saw me speak up, where he saw me um hold legends greater players accountable, where he saw me um not stand for any behavior that was losing behavior or and so I had a voice, I had a very strong voice.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: He could tell that I had sacrificed, he knew the history of me coming to the LA, that I was sacrificing for a championship.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the most important for thing for him as a coach that the the team dynamic was focused on the overall goal more than their individual goals.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was always the voice that held that intact.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: He was the obviously the seminal leader in our efforts and as the coach, but he made me an extension of himself and voice and leadership, and I was able to be successful at that with the respect of my teammates.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us about some of the tactics that you and Phil Jackson used to keep these star players enormous talent, but presumably quite big egos, to keep them in check and keep them pointing in the same direction for the team.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we are we weren't always pointed in the same direction individually, because we all had individual processes and uh uh and as human beings, a lot of emotion.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: You get a lot of grown men in a room making hundreds of millions of dollars and and uh with great status and visibility and ego, um, you're you're gonna ruffle each other's feathers.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and what Phil was good at was uh like an orchestra, a maestro playing an orchestra, he he was able to tune the instrument of the team more importantly than the individual.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I I picked up on that and I was able to study that as he moved as a coach to become a coach on the floor with him.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and and the great thing about legends like Shaq and Kobe, uh, they don't necessarily need to be motivated.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: They need to be poked and pushed and challenged, if anything.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Shaq wants to entertain, has always wanted to entertain.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and Kobe's always looking to evolve and and master.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, over those three years of of excellence and the last few years of of struggle, um, it was a balance of being attuned to what was important to each player at each time, each moment in the season, which the season is a long 10-month journey, but attentive to the things they're saying, the things they aren't saying.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a a strong listening muscle you have to develop.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then you have to have uh enough of an understanding of your own ego.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because Phil used to always say, you know, coaches have egos too.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to have an understanding of your power in each situation and your impact on a player.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And very quickly, I identified my role in a team, which was a facilitator, a defender, someone that uh was there to to not only motivate, but uh to serve.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that service and that defense and that facilitating and that enforcer role was I think what my teammates respected in me.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my my willingness to sacrifice, sacrifice my own individual goals, having the team goal be the most important thing.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to see them each succeed at the highest level they could possibly reach.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so in service, uh they respected me.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they trusted me.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I did ever speak up, they knew it must be something important.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: And would you necessarily confront directly?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because also you I remember you telling me you had this, you and Phil Jackson devised a very clever way.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you wanted to get a message to one of the stars, you'd actually tell the object.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, tell us about that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Phil was genius at that.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: If he needed to say something to you, he'd berade me or he'd push me.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or if he knew it it would irritate you if I if I celebrated you instead of someone else, he'd you know, he'd lift someone up uh publicly.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Kobe, you need to fight.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Kobe doesn't respect you unless you challenge him, like all the way up to fighting, physically fighting.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he and I had our share of fights and practice.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Physical fights.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that's how that was his basketball love language.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't back down to him, then he respected you.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people didn't didn't actually get that because he was Kobe Bryant.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you if he challenged you, the natural thing to do would be to wilt, right?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if you're a younger player coming up.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: But that was his way, similar to Michael Jordan, their way of testing whether or not they could trust you in the in the foxhole.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: If things went down, are you gonna wilt, fold, and run away?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you gonna stand with me and fight?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you won't fight me, and I'm the biggest, baddest animal as they would feel they are in the jungle, then how do I know I can you got my back?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: How do I know you're gonna cover my back?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Shaq being different, Shaq needed the attention.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted the he wanted the love and appreciation for being a benevolent king, which he was.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you respected him, if you acknowledged that it was his team, he was there to serve you.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was for you.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if he felt you needed him, oh man, did he show up in big ways.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: He was if if you only asked him for help and he knew you needed him to show up in a big way, he'd turn it on.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, other than that, he needed to have fun.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: And and if you didn't show that love or show that need and and sort of make it clear he was the king, what happened then?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: He could be one of the nastiest you know, animals to run into in the jungle.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us tell us about that.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well I've I've seen both of my my dear friends and teammates uh you know physically take on people.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they've physically been, it's been documented, they've even fought themselves between the two of them.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where Shaq gained the respect for Kobe was that you know Kobe didn't back down to Shaq, and Shaq's a big guy.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but Shaq wanted and needed Kobe to be the little brother a little longer than Kobe wanted to be the little brother.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Kobe reached a point in his career after the first four or five years we'd won championships uh that he didn't want to be you know the little brother.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to be the leader.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the sh that was the challenge.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: There could only be one king of the of the team.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where they started to clash.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: But we still to this day survived even longer with the the friction uh in the midst of uh of our success.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: You also played against Michael Jordan a lot in your career.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: You've talked about the other two greats there.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us about Michael Jordan.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: How does he compare to the other two in terms of that psychological need?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Did he need to be the main man or how did that work?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, Mike Mike played a Carolina where I where I went.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a the the pleasure of having him as a mentor earlier on in my life, working his camp in the summer in Chicago and staying at the house and seeing him prepare and work out, and the intensity with which he worked out raised my level of understanding of what it would take.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but competing against Mike, it was very clear that uh Mike was competing with you even when you weren't competing.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that is on the court and off the court.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh every aspect of his his DNA was wired to to dominate and to to take out and not only just win, but literally annihilate the competition to induce fear, to induce uh a level of dominance that you would not challenge him.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: You did not want to challenge him.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he's but he sought that out.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: He he wanted the challenge because it would then test his level and push him to new heights.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um so he just needed to he needed to win at all at all costs at all times.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh didn't necessarily care to be liked, didn't necessarily care to be a collaborator at times.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was come on, follow me, we're doing it this way, and uh and that way it will be graceful or ungraceful, but we will win.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that was the most important thing to him.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: In in England, we have a history, a terrible history of not making room for sort of maverick geniuses who don't play by the rules.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: We tend to kick them out of our national teams in every sport.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Did you have room in your team for folks who just didn't play by the rules, who wouldn't adopt the team shit rules, but were just so good that you found a way of making it work?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: Dennis Rodman.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Played with Dennis Rodman.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a classic example of a talent that played at the highest level was on championship teams, uh, on multiple teams in different cities, and uh did not he beat to his own drum.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was his own way.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and you have to give Phil Jackson credit for allowing for that individuality without it sacrificing the team goal.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and you've heard Michael tell stories and Phil tell stories about, you know, having to let Dennis go off to Vegas for stretches when he when I played with him, you know, he had a rhythm of showing up at the last minute for the game.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he prepared uh when we were doing game plans, he would be in the shower.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's you know, he's just but he'd get out there and he'd perform.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere in his process, he was preparing himself equally as as as much as anyone else in that locker room, in some cases more.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end of the game, he'd lift his weights, he'd go in afterwards and lift weights, and then he'd be out in the club hours later.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: So was it your job to bring the rest of the team along with that and say, look, you need to understand it's there's a reason why I'm holding you guys to a different standard and allowing this Joker to go out and do what he wants to do because he's delivering.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I wasn't the captain of those of that team.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: We only played with I only played with Dennis for one year.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um Dennis and I did not clash, but we clashed.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's not, I don't subscribe to that.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: That year he was with us, we did not win a championship.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: We did not do well.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not blaming Dennis for that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't think we were good enough.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you I I'm not the teams that I've been on that have won didn't allow for that.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Although sometimes you have to allow for people's personality, their style, their communication process, uh, the way they um the way they travel, the way they like to be communicated to.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone has their their methods uh and processes, but anything outside the group dynamic is dangerous when you allow it to fester.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: It can it can take over.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: I want to ask you about managing maverick geniuses in the Hollywood context.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: But before we get there, tell us how you ended up in Hollywood and Denzel Washington in a cupboard.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: So so much of uh of a basketball career at the highest level open doors for you.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in my case, I very quickly, through an internship with the NBA front office, learned that the average NBA player only plays three years.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so by my second year, I was thinking to myself, what's my life going to look like after basketball?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I got an opportunity to audition for a movie called Eddie, where I played a uh role for two months in the summer in Charlotte, North Carolina with Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Jenkins, a number of NBA basketball players, and uh learned about the craft of acting, learned about making movies, and fell in love with the process and knew that that's what I wanted to do after I was done playing.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the next uh the next uh season, I was courtside of a Knicks game and I saw Spike Lee over there, knowing that his excellence as a director and a basketball fan, I went over and thought he'd give me a bit of an audience at warming up at the at this at the halftime.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Hey, Spike, I'd I'd love to come work for you as an apprentice and learn about the industry more.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Ah, he said, I gave me his number and he said, I'll give you a call in a couple weeks when the season's over.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, we weren't good enough.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't going to the playoffs, so he could say that.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he did.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: He called, but he said, I have a role for you I want you to audition for.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now here I was.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was just gonna be carrying his bags for the summer.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he gave me an opportunity to audition for a movie in uh a role in the movie, He Got Game.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I showed up for the audition.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: I walked in and I was signing in, and behind me came an 18-year-old superstar actress now, Rosario Dawson.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, she was just off a movie called Kids, and she asked to borrow my headphones, so I lent her my headphones to know who she was.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Outwalked Mila Djokovic, and she'd just come out of the auditioning room.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and uh sure enough, we went in next, myself, Ray Allen, who ended up becoming Jesus Shuttlesworth in the movie, and another young man, Travis Best, who played for the Indiana Pacers at the time.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it was Spike and the casting director, and we did the scene, and uh the scene went, I guess, well, because someone started clapping.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking, and Spike's not clapping, and the casting director's not clapping, but I'm wondering where the sound is coming from.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I and uh out on the corner at a door in a closet, popped Denzel washing his head, and he says, Wow, that's really good.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's good, that was really good.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself, is this happening right now?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like Denzel at the time was a big, you know, big movie star.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: But his validation of the work that we'd done, the three of us as actors there, uh, Ray got the job, I got the job, and uh, we went on to be a part of uh a Denzel Washington spikely directed movie at a really young part in my career in my life.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And just uh being on being on set with those masters of of film and and and the craft of acting gave me a confidence to where I went on to do some television work, uh, some 250 episodes of TV and movies for the for the next 20-something years of my life, uh built the craft.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: But again, you know, it's it's having being in the right place and and having the type of uh teammates, as you would say, or coaches at the highest level, you know, show you the way.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: What did you say to Denzel when you saw him in the cupboard?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing in the closet?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and uh What did he say?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh you know, I just he just you know he didn't want to intimidate us.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think he wanted to hear without because you know, if you show if you show up and you see at the time in my career not being an actor, if you show up and you see Denzel Washington, yeah, you won't be in the moment.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you'll fan out.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Which these these movies were huge.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: I remember going down to Video City and renting the videotapes of kids and uh and he got game.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Great movies.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, these are all and you know what?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Fast forward 30 years later, almost 30, no, 25 years later, last April, Spike called me up again and said, Hey, I got an opportunity, I need you to do a role for me.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been doing this current uh business I'm in, so I I haven't been acting for the last five years.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Look, it's one day and it's with Denzel.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And in He Got Game, I had no scenes with Denzel.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I had been thinking, man, hopefully someday I get a chance to work with Denzel, like in a scene.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that would be uh a real, you know, a real moment in my career of 30 years as an actor, right?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, I did it uh April of last year.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: The movie's coming out this year.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, amazing! Yeah, highest to lowest.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, another Spike Lee Denzel piece of work, and uh I got to do that.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and so uh it's a it's a memory I'll cherish.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: How would you compare someone like Spike Lee's ability to manage great talent, big egos, compared to someone like Phil Jackson with with the Lakers?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, your your resume precedes you at this point in in time for Spike, right?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: But when when someone has a career of excellence, but you recognize the sacrifice and the detail they took to get there, uh, and the belief of being all in.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can hear Spike's tell stories about his his journey to becoming a director and what he's had to do, whether it's scrapping money together from his own family members to bring his dream of a film to life, uh, going forward even into uh areas of his career later on where he was making, I think, Malcolm X and had to go to stars and humble himself to ask for help.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but being so passionate and driven about your belief that that what you're doing is going to change the world in some way or have an impact, it will drive you to heights that you may not believe you're capable of, but you will, it'll mean enough to you that you will you will humble yourself uh and do whatever it takes, meaning sweeping the floor, servicing a customer yourself, you know, uh doing going to great lengths to make sure that the win is on the way and that you've done your part to get there.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess Hollywood in some ways is similar to basketball in terms of in in many ways it's a very individual pursuit.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: You've got this enormous talent, an actor or a or a star, but but you've got to coexist with other great talents.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: How did you see that work best in Hollywood in terms of onset two or three big stars, you know, leading man, leading lady, for example, and working together in a positive collective?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that I saw it work at a time that I didn't know what I was be what I was a part of.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: I really had no understanding what I was a part of.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was a show called Oz.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Oz was one of the first HBO shows that broke the barrier in cable television for you know really gritty content.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So what we see today on cable TV, where whether it be nudity or violence or or you know swearing or all that stuff didn't really exist in cable TV until uh HBO broke the barrier with the show Oz.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in the I was in the pilot in the first season of Oz some you know years ago, and it went on to become a hit.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: But on that set, if you go back and look at the list of actors that were in that show and uh the cast of from Rita Morano, who who was in West Side Story, I got to act in a scene with her.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what I was doing at the time.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: The legends of Ernie Hudson, Terry Kinney, to just the list is goes on and on.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're all Oscar-winning, Emmy-winning actors.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember being on the set in the last episode of the first season, we're all sitting around a table in the prison and we're about to burn the prison down, and and no one knew where it was gonna go, didn't know where the show was gonna go.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we're kind of talking about it.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: We made this piece of work, some eight episodes, and you know, there were theater actors there, there were there were top, top performing, talented actors, and I was this basketball player that was acting for the first time, you know.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: And man, boy, when I look back on that cast, every single one of them have gone on to be leading men of TV series, leading men in movies.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that's a that's an ensemble of excellence where the commitment to the work and telling the story was at its best in my in my experience looking back at it.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: So ensembles can be beautiful storytelling moments uh when you service the character and you serve service the overall narrative.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I got to see it at its best.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: Last question for you, Rick.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: You tying it all together, you have now made this extraordinary new career in business, and you're the CEO of this phenomenal green cement company, really pioneering the future of cement.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: How have you applied all the lessons we've just talked about in terms of leadership, in terms of bringing people together, making room for Mavericks as long as they remain part of the team and point in the same direction?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: How have you applied all those lessons now as a founder and a CEO?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that uh what served me again as an athlete or as an actor, which is the gift of an actor, is to be able to listen with all your senses, to be able to receive and react, to be able to feel the emotions across from the table, to understand on the court from a teammate, to know what they really are calling for, what they really need, to hear and understand the subtext when people are speaking, what they really are saying.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in the case of running a business, uh the career as an athlete has generated for me an understanding of discipline and stamina, the suiting up and showing up in the midst of whatever you may be feeling emotionally, physically, spiritually, it it doesn't matter.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: The mind over matter of a professional athlete will get you to go lengths and distances that you don't even believe your body is capable of to reach the ultimate goal of a championship.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the world of entertainment, I I learned how to, again, be of service to to the detailed craft of of being prepared, but also being able to serve and to emotionally connect so that you understand what your teammate needs and wants.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: I bring those physical and emotional gifts to this world of business.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and at the same time understand that I can't give a flagrant foul in the boardroom.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's not allowed.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to find new ways to to communicate.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can't allow, I have to allow my my teammates and my my team to have feelings and emotions, but I can't allow those feelings and emotions to have us as a team, as a as a company.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes those can run away.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh the whole end goal of any team I've been on has always been to serve a bigger goal that we collectively are aspiring to succeed at.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And keeping that mission at the forefront of everyone's mind uh uh is important.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh leading by example uh has been always the key, whether it's leading Kobe by example by showing him that I could stay on the treadmill a little longer than he could or lift a little weights more than he could, uh, you know, which pushed him a little further.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's in an acting scene, uh being there for another actor when you're not on camera, giving them the same level of response and attention to their scene, their side of the camera.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then in we're in a business environment where where you're understanding that we're all human beings and and some people have shares in a company, some people don't.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: But treating them like they're equally as much a founder in the company as you are, finding what's important to them.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Those are those are the things I've taken away to implement.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and this five-year journey has been a journey of discovery.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and uh it's equally as challenging as having won an NBA championship or being on a set with Oscar-winning actors on you know, in the pressure of delivering a TV show or a movie.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's equally all the same to me.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like we could do another hour on each of your three incredible careers.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: We barely scratch the surface, but time flies when you're having fun.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Rick, thank you for sharing your giant idea with us today.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Tommy.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
• 36:31
  unknown: Pleasure