Isiah Thomas 12x NBA All Star on Detroit Bad Boys, Magic Johnson & Feud with Michael Jordan

FOLLOW THE PIVOT PODCAST: MERCH | https://pivotpodcast.com YOUTUBE | https://www.youtube.com/thepivotpodcast INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/thepivot TWITTER | https://twitter.com/thepivot TIKTOK | https://tiktok.com/@thepivot FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/thepivotpodcast FOLLOW HAPPY DAD: https://www.instagram.com/happydad FIND HAPPY DAD: https://www.happydad.com/find Ryan, Channing, and Fred sit down with one of the most iconic athletes who just happens to be their long time idol, NBA hall of famer, Isiah Thomas. The original Bad Boy of Detroit Pistons is opening up and talking everything from his relationship with Magic Johnson to Detroit Pistons changing the game to sharing his side of the infamous Michael Jordan feud. Isiah starts the show saying very simply that he is going to state facts and you can’t argue facts and that it’s one thing to win a championship in the NBA but it’s another to win a championship at every level ever played. Growing up on the West Side of Chicago, Isiah shares how his upbringing was shaped by his mother’s guidance and a family first mentality where his mother cared more about the type of man he’d become vs the money and opportunity being offered. His mom’s influence was so great, it became her decision where he played college basketball and also who he played for. The West Side of Chicago is home to many activists and organizations such as Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King Jr, and The Black Panther Party. Isiah grew up in this environment and recalls marching alongside his mother with Dr. King. Spearheading change at the national level, Isiah used his local groundwork in Detroit to advocate for Black journalists covering the team, more rights for Black NBA players leaving a greater impact with his legacy not just on the court but in culture. Isiah makes his case known for why so many people overlook Detroit Pistons as transcending the NBA and shares what the team really did for the league and how they were the firsts to do many things back then setting the example of how teams should be and move. Known for his historic rivalry with Michael Jordan, Ryan asks what were his thoughts on the way his character was portrayed by Jordan in The Last Dance. Isiah provides The Pivot with an exclusive inside look to his true relationship with MJ and goes on to say that he always looked out for Michael and that their families were even close. He also speaks about how rules within the NBA were changed to protect Michael Jordan. Isaih doesn’t hold back as he shares his thoughts on while he was deemed the a-hole of the NBA when in fact he was the nice guy. Lastly, Isiah lets the guys in on the history of his and Magic’s close relationship and what led up to their legendary interview. He gives credit to the current legends playing the game such as Lebron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant, and says they’ve transformed the game in a way we may never see again. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY) 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/LA/MI/NJ/PA/TN/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MI/NJ/NY/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Void in ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply. Valid 1 per new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Min. $5 pre-game moneyline bet. Bet must win. $150 issued as six (6) $25 free bets. See terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com/footballterms. Ends 12/30/22 at 11:59PM ET. Sponsored by DK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:30Ryan Clark?

  Isaiah Thomas on the court can do so much more than like a Fred can just do at run.

• 0:34Channing Crowder?

  Man, fuck that. You don't miss about 20 pushups, man. I need 4 sets of 5, man.

• 0:41Speaker 03

  I need 4 sets of 5, man.

• 0:44Channing Crowder?

  I need goddamn pushups, huh? We ain't got no fines. Shit, we need some pushups, man. I'm out here in the rain.

• 0:52Fred Taylor?

  Look, look, he stuck. He say 4-5 pushups.

• 0:56Speaker 03

  Y'all did that to do somewhere else trying to make me do pushups.

• 0:59Ryan Clark?

  Oh, man. You good, man?

• 1:01Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had the charity event in Austin. It was one good call, brother.

• 1:05Ryan Clark?

  Nah, I understand. Merry Christmas.

• 1:07Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, that's my Christmas shirt.

• 1:09Ryan Clark?

  Man, you mic'd up?

• 1:09Fred Taylor?

  Get mic'd up, man. Get it mic'd up.

• 1:12Channing Crowder?

  Aw, she was sitting down.

• 1:13Speaker 05

  You got a Merry Christmas shirt on with Mike Tyson?

• 1:15Ryan Clark?

  Merry Christmas.

• 1:16Speaker 05

  Christmas.

• 1:20Speaker 05

  That's perfect.

• 1:21Fred Taylor?

  I've already discovered we are also dealing with two guys who have won championships in their respective sports.

• 1:27Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:27Fred Taylor?

  So we're the odd man out.

• 1:29Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, and they gonna talk bad to us. Talk bad to us.

• 1:32Fred Taylor?

  We just talked about it. What was the question?

• 1:34Ryan Clark?

  He said, "Who has won a championship on every level?" He's like, "So many people, like even superstar basketball players didn't win in high school, didn't win one in college, didn't win one in the league, but he won one in high school, college, and the league."

• 1:48Speaker 05

  It's hard to win. No, no, the point I was making is, is like, we... We take winning championships for granted. But when you, when you look at like how many people have really won championships, it ain't a whole lot of them at any level, right? So whether it be high school, college, or pro, you know, it ain't out of the whole group. It's only a small group of people that have really won at any level.

• 2:18Channing Crowder?

  Even when you win multiples? At different levels, you win multiples like you did. The second one, the third, it's still that excitement?

• 2:26Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, and even-

• 2:27Channing Crowder?

  I don't know. I played one playoff game and got hellbeaten out of me by Ed Reed alone.

• 2:32Speaker 05

  Well, imagine how Ed Reed felt. To win and to be at the highest level of winning, it, it is the most, for me, it was the most intoxicating feeling ever. You know, it's like when you can, when you can look out at everybody, at every team, and know that, okay, my team is better than your team, your team, and your team, no matter where we play at.

• 2:58Speaker 05

  That, that's a hell of a feeling.

• 2:59Fred Taylor?

  Chan, they gotta [bleep] you group chat.

• 3:05Fred Taylor?

  The Bad Boys.

• 3:06Ryan Clark?

  That's the most Bad Boys thing ever, right? That's all it is. I'm a part of it now too, by the way.

• 3:11Channing Crowder?

  To this day.

• 3:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, let me, let me-

• 3:14Channing Crowder?

  Oh, that's hard, that's hard. I thought you was joking, that's hard.

• 3:17Speaker 05

  Let me show you how we get down.

• 3:19Ryan Clark?

  Chan, you can be a part of that group chat. That's like the perfect group chat for you.

• 3:23Channing Crowder?

  Oh, I'm sure it's not PG 13.

• 3:25Speaker 05

  No, it is, you know, you can scroll, scroll up and down.

• 3:29Ryan Clark?

  That's the whole group chat though.

• 3:35Channing Crowder?

  And these some names right there.

• 3:37Ryan Clark?

  Some dogs, right?

• 3:40Ryan Clark?

  Them boys got some dogs, man.

• 4:05Ryan Clark?

  Man, well, listen, welcome to the Pivot. You need no introduction, but I would like to give at least a little bit. First off, my father's favorite player to ever touch a basketball. That was the first thing, that was the first thing I ever told you when we finally met. I was starstruck, to be honest. It was one of those times, even with all the people I'd met in my life, it was like, when you're a kid and I didn't realize that you weren't just on TV, that you were an actual human, that was able to do all the things you were doing. That, that day kinda solidified it for me. I was like, man, that's mother effing Isaiah Thomas. You know, and so, basketball, Hall of Famer.

• 4:44Ryan Clark?

  Now we know, I didn't even know this, champion on every level, two-time NBA champion, one of the greatest players to ever touch a basketball, and I know you know that, but every time the top 50 or the top 75 rolls around, I'm glad the world gets to be reminded. And even more than that, man, just been such a gracious human to me and OG, and I think that's the one thing that matters most whenever I get an opportunity to speak of you. So, welcome to the Pivot. Got my boy Channing and his Merry Christmas, his Merry Christmas shirt.

• 5:19Channing Crowder?

  I know we love Mike.

• 5:19Ryan Clark?

  It's the holidays, you know. Freddie T, he brought out a new pair of dunks for us today, the Draft Kings. Happy Dad. Thank you guys so much for your sponsorship and your partnership. Also to everybody who's subscribed, we're now over 600,000 subscribers, that's extremely important to us. We don't take it for granted how much you guys support us. And this finna be a Hall of Fame, almost championship episode, this way. This way, it's championship episode.

• 5:47Channing Crowder?

  Hey, let's, hey, fellas, talk about being All-Americans, though. Let's talk about it.

• 5:52Channing Crowder?

  Over on this side of the room.

• 5:55Ryan Clark?

  Speaking of being an All-American, though, Isaiah, you know, you...

• 6:00Ryan Clark?

  Your kid from Chicago.

• 6:02Speaker 05

  West side of Chicago.

• 6:03Ryan Clark?

  I'm sorry, west side of Chicago. And people think of Chicago, and they only think of the NBA team that is there. Not the countless Hall of Famers, not the countless great basketball players that all seem to have a level of toughness about them that's extremely different. And you made the decision to go play at Indiana with Bobby Knight. What was that decision like for you? How much did that help you grow into the man today?

• 6:33Speaker 05

  First of all, you're giving me a little bit too much credit saying that I made the decision. Because my mother made the decision. You know, you know how kids put their head on and say, hey, I decided to go to, you know, X university? My mom called the press conference and said, my son has made his decision. He was eating lunch. I was sitting right next to her like this. She said, my son has decided that he's going to Indiana University to play for Bob Knight. And I was like.

• 7:13Ryan Clark?

  Yes, I am, mama. Yes, I am.

• 7:16Speaker 05

  You know, it's a different era back then. Like, you know, you, kids nowadays, they can make their own decisions. Back then, no, you weren't making no decisions. And, you know, I was heavily recruited. And I was one of those kids in one of those families. We were extremely poor. We got offered a lot of money. And we wanted to take the money, my brothers and them. And we wanted to get paid to go to college. And I'll never forget, you know, this, and I won't name the name of the school. This one man came in, put, you know, he said it was $50,000 in the briefcase. I opened the briefcase up, it was cash. Now, we had never seen that kind of money before in our life. So it could have just been $100 in there.

• 8:00Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 8:00Speaker 05

  But he said it was 50,000. We don't know, right? And so we, we jumping up, we, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, time to get. Now, mind you, we ain't got no lights. Ain't no food in the refrigerator. Okay, we have roaches too, right? You know, it's like, so, and all my recruiting visits had to be in the daytime because we ain't had no lights. So, so now, everybody's happy, you know, one no high five and then, but we was giving each other five, right? And, and I'll never forget, you know how you look at that one person and they looking like you right now? They ain't smiling, they ain't doing nothing. And that was my mom.

• 8:43Ryan Clark?

  Wow.

• 8:44Speaker 05

  My mom got up, went over to the briefcase, closed it, and looked at the guy and said, "My son's not for sale." At that time, all we had in the refrigerator was a jug of water, and it wasn't sugar water.

• 9:05Speaker 05

  It was just, just a straight jug of water. That was it. No food, no nothing, and you know, my brothers and everybody was mad. You know, now that I'm older, I understood what my mom was saying and what that meant. But back then, we was like, "Hey, I'm, we for sale." Like, you know, "We need some money, mom, ain't, ain't nothing in the refrigerator." So Coach Knight came, and when he came, he said, "I'm offering your son three things." Ah, that's me sitting there. He said... He knew you weren't making a decision at this point. He's like, "Hey, Miss Thomas, I'm after you, I'm offering your son three things, right?

• 9:50Speaker 05

  A, he's gonna be a gentleman. B, he's gonna graduate from college. And C, I'm gonna teach him everything about the game of basketball that I know." And me and my brothers, then, we were sitting in the room, we was like, "This, this ain't gonna work, we ain't, we ain't going to Indiana. It's nice seeing you, Coach," you know? And that was it. My mom said, you know, you, you going to Indiana.

• 10:16Channing Crowder?

  Is, is that why? You're just reading some stories back then. And Bobby Knight, I'mma call him crazy. You correct me if I'm wrong. Cause slapping people, punching coaches, choking out soccer. Or was it wrestling coach? He choked out some wrestling coach. I read a bunch of stories, but you and him had some problems.

• 10:31Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 10:32Channing Crowder?

  Is that, is the pushback of you not wanting to go there? Y'all personality differences? Why did you, why did he kick you at a practice? Why did y'all, I heard y'all got into aggressive arguing?

• 10:41Speaker 05

  All of that, right? All of that. Everything that you just said, all of that happened. Now, here's what I'mma say now that I'm older.

• 10:54Speaker 05

  I'm so happy and glad that Coach Knight had the courage to coach me. And to have confrontation with me, right? He wasn't trying to be my friend. I didn't know the talent that I had. And I didn't know the type of person that I would grow to be. But I knew at 17, I wasn't the person that I wanted to be or the type of player I was going to be. My mom and my brothers and them, you know, they was like, okay, you gotta do right. But at the same time, yeah, we had those confrontations. But all of us as players,

• 11:38Speaker 05

  we didn't have friend coaches. Like the coaches now, they want to be your friend. They don't want to coach you, right? And to be, to really get the best out of what you have, you know, somebody's got to pull it out of you. And it's gotta be a little confrontation.

• 11:55Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 05

  And Coach Knight, I appreciate him because he wasn't afraid to have confrontation with me. And, you know, did that make me better? Yeah. A lot of times he was wrong. And I wasn't, I wasn't the type of guy you can holler and scream at. And like I said, I'm from Chicago. So it's like, you get up in my face, hollering and screaming. That mean, okay, we, we getting ready to do something, right? And so I would just say to him, hey, look, just, just tell me what you want me to do. All that other stuff, that ain't necessary. I'mma do what you want me to do. But all the other stuff, you can't talk to me that way because now that make me feel like I gotta do something back, right?

• 12:37Ryan Clark?

  Like, we got a real issue. If we talking like that.

• 12:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:40Ryan Clark?

  This ain't practice no more.

• 12:40Speaker 05

  No, no, no. If you run up on me like that, my reaction is, okay, we getting ready to do something. And unfortunately, I grew up liking to fight. And I said, I'm not one of them guys who say they won all their fights.

• 12:57Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 05

  Because I didn't, you know? But growing up, you know, the first thing you gotta do is you gotta learn how to take a, excuse me when I say this, you gotta learn how to take a ass whipping.

• 13:06Ryan Clark?

  No, you say what you want, yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, you, and you, you know, you gotta take some to give some, right? And then, and, and, and, you know, so you don't win all the time. But then you get to liking it. So I grew up liking to fight, and then I learned how to fight like really, really good. So, you know, when he would talk like that, I wasn't backing down, and I wasn't afraid. And he was looking at me like, man, you act like you wanna do something.

• 13:34Ryan Clark?

  Like, I do.

• 13:36Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 13:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, but then people would realize like, like my friends would be like, man, you let him talk to you like that? Because at the end of the day, you realize like, okay, Coach Knight wasn't no little dude, man. He was 6'6", you know, and he would get all red when he started screaming and hollering, it was like, okay, this gonna be, this gonna be a long battle.

• 14:00Fred Taylor?

  You said your mom made the decision for you. And I've heard some stories, well, I looked up some stuff. Is it true that she was packing that heat?

• 14:09Speaker 05

  Oh, my mom was a straight gangster, absolutely. My mom carried. Like, they got these metal detectors and stuff now. My mom couldn't have got in the game.

• 14:22Speaker 05

  She couldn't be one of the clear bag moms. Oh, no, no, no, no. She had the heat on in the game. At the game, and then my aunt, she had a switchblade up in her wig. So she, and so real. Wait, what? Yeah, so my aunt always had a switchblade. And my mom, you know, she had a switchblade too. So when I was little growing up, your mom, you know, they could do tricks with them switchblade. So your mom be talking to you, and they be sharpening their blade. And then they started doing tricks with that, Junior. Carry your ass to school now, you know, did you do your homework today, son? With the blade? And they sharpen their switchblade, but back then, they could do tricks with them switchblades, man. They can. Boy. What you saying, the wig though?

• 15:07Speaker 05

  We didn't have nothing, right? So I remember like the first couple of games, they would fry chicken, they would, you know, they would bring food to the game, and they would bring their drink to the game. And so they sitting in the front row, and you know, people come by, hey, can I get you some popcorn? And they going in their purse, nah, we good, you know? And they sitting there watching the game, because we had never been to like NBA games and stuff like that. And by the third quarter, I'll never forget, this referee, God bless his soul, his name, Earl Strom, right? About third quarter, you know, my mom had a little drink. She drink about third quarter, it was like, she's cursing everybody out.

• 15:50Speaker 05

  So Earl Strom came by me, and he said, Isaiah, can you, can you tell your mama like to, you know, kind of calm it down? I said, nah, man.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  You got to talk to her.

• 16:05Speaker 05

  This is what my mom said, and I truly understand this, right? She used to always say this, she said, baby, it ain't always good when the white people got all the gun.

• 16:21Speaker 05

  I was like, alright.

• 16:23Ryan Clark?

  You gotta respect that, though.

• 16:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:25Ryan Clark?

  Because in those, in those buildings, right, you come in, that's what the security was.

• 16:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:29Ryan Clark?

  The security, the, the cops and all those people. So your, her, her mindset was, one of us gotta have some heat too.

• 16:37Speaker 05

  My mom is from Vicksburg, Mississippi, and she got ran out of Mississippi at 14. And she never let us go back. When her sister died, she didn't even go to funeral.

• 16:47Fred Taylor?

  It's safe to say your mother's your, your, your best, your best and favorite coach.

• 16:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, my mom and dad, straight, you know, yeah, absolutely. But my mom, you know, if I had to pick one out of the two, I, I have to pick my mom. My dad used to call my mom Joe Louis. That was his nickname for. That was his nickname for, he called her Joe Louis.

• 17:10Channing Crowder?

  Was your dad sitting there with his head down too, like you?

• 17:14Channing Crowder?

  It's more mama talking, more be quiet.

• 17:17Ryan Clark?

  Eventually, your mom being at the games in Detroit and the referee coming up to you saying, hey, man, get your mom to chill. When you do make that transition, and obviously you go to a place, you know, Chicago and Detroit were much alike. High African-American, uh, black communities and, you know, communities that, you know, back in those times where, you know, people thought that that's where the violence was. And you became really active in the community, just in, in reading about you. Aretha Franklin becomes someone you get close to and you ingratiate yourself into Detroit. When you got there, was becoming a man away from the court, was that something that was extremely important to you?

• 17:59Speaker 05

  It was, but it was scary.

• 18:02Speaker 05

  Because I, I left home at 17. When I left to go to Indiana, I was 17, not knowing that I would never go home again. So, when I, when I was at Indiana, played on the Pan Am team, then played on the Olympic team that got boycotted. So I was away from home the whole summer, went to both sessions, summer school. And now I'm, I'm in the pros, right? And I had never been on my own, had never handled a checkbook or anything. So when I got to Detroit.

• 18:35Speaker 05

  I didn't know this, but this how gangster my mom was. She had called the mayor Coleman Young. You know, whatever conversation they had, I don't know what they said, but I know the way he welcomed me and brought me into Detroit as if to say he one of us and then said, "I spoke to your mama."

• 19:01Ryan Clark?

  You knew what the conversation was like.

• 19:02Speaker 05

  I knew it. And so we come from a family of activism. Like activism is, you know, that's the family business. My mom worked with Fred Hampton, marched with Martin Luther King. On the west side, I always say I'm from the west side of Chicago because on the west side of Chicago, you had the Black Panthers, you had the Vice Lords, you had, you know, Noble Drew Ali in terms of Moore's and Moore's teachings. And when Martin Luther King moved into Chicago, he literally moved four blocks from my house. So my mom, you know, would take us to all the marches and, you know, there was no babysitters. So, you know, we walking down the street.

• 19:45Speaker 05

  But that's, it's a street name that my mom in Chicago now, on Holman and Jackson. And that's, you know, that's who she was. So when I got to Detroit, that's what Detroit was all about. So getting involved in activism, getting involved in, you know, standing up for who we are, beating back stereotypes and what Detroit was being portrayed as, as, you know, every stereotype that you labeled or put on black men and women, that's what they were saying about Detroit. And so fighting and beating it back and then coming into the NBA,

• 20:29Speaker 05

  you know, it was. It's definitely different.

• 20:33Channing Crowder?

  And you talk about activism now in sports and you know the Colin Kaepernick, when that happened a couple of years back and now every league is, you know, to stop hate, they're wearing stuff, putting it on the court, WNBA, NBA, NFL. Coming from a family of activists, did you feel open to articulate that when you were playing? Because I was, bro, you, I'm not going to call you old IT, but that was back when it wasn't acceptable for athletes to speak their minds.

• 20:55Speaker 05

  Absolutely, and we, we and I were speaking our minds in Detroit, which made us controversial. You know, when you talk about race, class, gender, culture, that's what the Pistons was talking about, right? So, you know, when you, when you look at the things that we were stepping on the stage, talking about like, I think it was in 83 or 84, which made it, you know, real controversial. I said, at that time, the only people who were covering our sport were white males. There were no females.

• 21:37Speaker 05

  There was only one black editor at that time in the United States.

• 21:41Channing Crowder?

  Wow.

• 21:42Speaker 05

  Only one black editor. And everybody who was covering the sport were white men. And I said, I did, what was my quote? I said, I do, I do not want to be judged or perceived through only the gaze of the white male. That became like, you know, crazy. And then I was vice president of the Players Association at that time. And then I became president of the Players Association. And I said to David Stern, you know, back during that time, I said, hey,

• 22:23Speaker 05

  my, my team's not going to play until we get, you know, some, they call it diversity now. I said, until we get some black people covering our team. David Stern was like, all right, okay, okay. Now, to this day in Detroit, and if you go back and you look at the Detroit Pistons then, we were the first team that had two African Americans on the beat.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 23:23Speaker 05

  One, two females covering our team. And every beat writer became a columnist. From Terry Foster to Drew Sharp, Brian Burwell, Matt Clifton. And even, even when you look at the Pistons now in Detroit, I think they still have two black beat writers covering their team. Now, that became really controversial. I became controversial. And by the way, a lot of other writers didn't like me.

• 24:00Speaker 05

  And today it's cool to talk about diversity, but back then it wasn't. But Detroit, that's what we, that's what we represented. And I, and I'll say this to you. We, we talk about Lambier, right? The first time Lambier was ever called a thug in his life. Lambier ain't never been called a thug in his life. Is when he played with the Detroit Pistons. Right. Now, think about that. Right? So these labels that they were putting on us, we were fighting and pushing back against those labels. And because we were fighting and pushing back, and then calling them out, we became controversial. And when Nelson Mandela got out of prison in 1990,

• 24:45Speaker 05

  the first city he visited was the Detroit, was Detroit. And the first team that he took a picture with was me, John Sally, and the Detroit Pistons. And that spoke volumes to the league because we have been pushing back on this whole black male thug, the way you talk about us narrative. And, you know, so race, class, culture, you know, that's where I come from on the west side.

• 25:12Fred Taylor?

  Say your mother is from Mississippi. I'm sure she experienced some racism down there back in her time, back in the day. You moved to Chicago, inner city, on the west side. I want to ask you later, I don't know the differences of the size of Chicago, but we can talk about that in a few.

• 25:27Speaker 05

  The south side get all the food and all the money.

• 25:30Fred Taylor?

  Okay, so that's the food and the money on the west side. All right, that's enough.

• 25:34Ryan Clark?

  Hey, man. Listen, basically, these are facts. You know what I'm saying? Yes. And also, another fact is that DraftKings Sportsbook, DraftKings wants to help you win, and we want to help you have some fun. So any new customer using the promo code PIVOT, any pregame money line wager bet of $5, you hit it, you get $150 in bonus bets, and they got more for you.

• 25:56Channing Crowder?

  And with the bonus bets, play the same game parlays. I wish I could have parlayed some IT overs when he was back there playing, but same game parlays, multiple bets on the same game, and you could even have a chance of winning more money.

• 26:08Fred Taylor?

  And no matter where you are, DraftKings has something for you. If you don't have the sportsbook in your state, don't worry. DraftKings Daily Fantasy, you still get paid.

• 26:17Ryan Clark?

  Listen, get your mobile device out, download the DraftKings Sportsbook app, and remember, any new customer using the promo code PIVOT, a pregame money line wager on any football game, you hit it, that's $150 in bonus bets. Now, back to the show.

• 26:37Fred Taylor?

  And then you go to Indiana. And I'm sure that probably has some similarities to Mississippi, you know. Did, making those transitions, did that make you more of an activist?

• 26:50Speaker 05

  It made me more of an activist, and it also gave me more knowledge, experience and all that, because there was a fight that my, that my brother and Coach Knight got into on the recruiting trip when Coach Knight came to the house. Because my brother asked Coach Knight, he said, going down to Indiana, you know, you have a lot of the clan in Indiana. And, you know, if something jump off, you know, they call me junior. They's like, who, who gonna take care of junior? And I thought this is a great answer by Coach Knight, but my brother didn't like it.

• 27:24Speaker 05

  Coach Knight leaned back and he said, "Well,

• 27:28Speaker 05

  if we winning, they gonna look out for us."

• 27:35Speaker 05

  But that's actually real life, though. That's real life. That is real talk. That is real life. He says, "If we winning, they gonna look out," right? And my brother didn't like that answer. So, this one, I knew it was gonna be real, because then my brother and him got up, and my brother was like, you know, saying what he say, right? And so, and then Coach Knight say, "Well, we can take this outside," right? And he stood up, dude. Coach Knight stood up, took off his coat, started rolling up his sleeves, and the whole house was like, "No, no, no. We can't fight." You know how it is in the crib, right? You're trying to break it up, and then everybody's like heated, like really heated.

• 28:19Speaker 05

  And then you look over there again, and my mom's sitting there like this.

• 28:24Speaker 05

  I was like, "She like this dude."

• 28:29Speaker 05

  What the hell, man? So, yeah, all that gave me knowledge, and it gave me understanding. So now, when you step on the stage in sport, right, and they walk into the locker room, and they put the mic in front of your face,

• 28:48Speaker 05

  and they asking you questions, and the people who are asking you questions, wanting you to respond a certain way, and if you don't respond the way they want you to respond, then they don't want to talk to you. Or, back in the day, it ain't like it is now. Think about this. Back in the day, they would interview you.

• 29:11Speaker 05

  Write down what you say.

• 29:14Speaker 05

  And then they would go back and the editor. Again. Will critique. What you say. And then they would put it in the newspaper. And that's what you said.

• 29:29Ryan Clark?

  Wow. And it never changed. Because because it's it's nobody's fact checking, nobody's going back and saying.

• 29:34Speaker 05

  The editor fact check.

• 29:35Ryan Clark?

  Wow.

• 29:36Speaker 05

  And and now I'm interviewing you now, I'm writing it down. Not saying that anybody was doing anything bad, but there were a couple of bad ones.

• 29:42Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 29:43Speaker 05

  We did have some bad ones.

• 29:44Ryan Clark?

  Recently, you uh, there's a quote from you and I'm gonna paraphrase.

• 29:50Ryan Clark?

  There was a very, very popular documentary that recently came out. That you were called an asshole on.

• 29:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:56Ryan Clark?

  And then you got the, as you watched the documentary, the person that the documentary was about. Was actually an asshole throughout the entire documentary.

• 30:04Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 30:04Ryan Clark?

  And so in in that, though, when you're mentioning about the perceptions of you and you say how different people didn't like you. Normally, because you say winning, right, if you win, they're gonna look out for you. Normally, when you do win, people do look out for you.

• 30:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:18Ryan Clark?

  There are there are things that are excused. From. Winners and champions that people who aren't very talented or people who aren't good at things, they don't get. How much did being on a team with Chuck Daly as a coach, who wasn't a pretty boy coach, who wasn't a coach that said what people wanted him to say and playing with the horns. And the Lambiers, you actually being tough, not only skilled, but a dude that was willing to fight. How much of that, though, goes into the way? People perceived and wanted to put out a negative narrative of you.

• 30:52Speaker 05

  A lot of that went into it.

• 30:55Speaker 05

  But also. You know, again, what we represented. You know, the way we. Came to the arena, the way we carried ourselves. And then what we stood for. Again, we. We had just changed the whole industry in terms of. How the game was gonna be reported and talked about just by bringing in some black males to cover our sport. And then the next thing we said is, oh no, we gotta upgrade our hotels, right? We were the first team to start staying in five-star hotels. And then we the first team to start traveling with our own private plane. Wow. Yeah, we upgraded all the standards in the league across the board.

• 31:40Speaker 05

  And check this out, to this day, you hear bad boys when you talk about the Detroit Pistons, right? Yep. We were the first team to introduce another color that we took from football, the Oakland Raiders, the silver and black. Yeah. We, y'all know Mike Ornstein, right? Okay, so Ornie was the one who kinda put the whole marketing thing together, putting us with the Oakland Raiders, the silver and black, intimidate, dominate, you know? Yeah. We go out for shoot around and we got on Raider football jerseys. And we, and that became our third color. Yep.

• 32:24Speaker 05

  One of third colors in the NBA. So all of this, all of this, you know, new color, third jersey, shooting shirt, hotels, travel, we changed all that, right? That was controversial. We weren't supposed to be doing that. Now, they give others credit. Now, I'm gonna say something else, cuz now y'all got me talking. That's what we got you here for. They like to give the Lakers and the Celtics, you know, they changed the league. They brought the league back, is what they always say. They brought the league back. Mm-hmm. Well, let me, this is, this is how I remember it now.

• 33:05Speaker 05

  When the league took off, is when the Detroit Pistons really showed up. Now, when we showed up, we was putting 50,000 in the stands, this is all documented now. 50,000 in the stands, 60,000 in the stands, 40,000, 30,000. Then they say, well, y'all was playing in the Silverdome. Yeah, but shit, there was still 50,000 people there, watching us play basketball, right? The highest rated games are the 80s. These are the highest rated games.

• 33:37Speaker 05

  Pistons against Lakers. Pistons against Celtics. Pistons against Bulls.

• 33:47Speaker 05

  Those are the highest rated games of the 80s. And they all have one thing in common. That's the Detroit Pistons.

• 33:54Ryan Clark?

  That's crazy.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  Now, you can, you can talk about all them other teams if you want.

• 34:00Speaker 05

  Those are the facts.

• 34:01Channing Crowder?

  To, to piggyback off RC's question. Cause it didn't seem like he was upset being called an asshole. I've been called an asshole. I don't think it's a problem.

• 34:08Speaker 05

  No, I was upset. I was, I was highly upset.

• 34:10Ryan Clark?

  Why? Is that, is that, is that, it's not negative. It was the Last Dance, The Last Dance documentary. We obviously know everything that was said about Isaiah throughout that. And that was one of the quotes. And in, it was quoted, and then he quote tweeted it and said, "Read the quote in its entirety. Don't cut it up. I meant what I said."

• 34:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. Now, now, here, here's why I'm, I was upset of watching a documentary of a guy being an asshole to everybody. But then called me an asshole. And I ain't been nothing but nice to this dude. Now, this is real talk. Go back and document it. You can go back on the west side of Chicago. I ain't talking about Michigan Avenue where they used to kick me off for shining shoes. I couldn't shine shoes on Michigan Avenue. I couldn't shine shoes on Rush Street. They kicked me out of there. On the west side of Chicago, that's where I'm from. Okay? Now, on the west side of Chicago, when Michael Jordan got to Chicago,

• 35:15Speaker 05

  I made it real easy for him to walk those streets on the west side of Chicago.

• 35:21Speaker 05

  My family took care of him.

• 35:26Speaker 05

  My sister and his brother hung out.

• 35:31Speaker 05

  As friends. My little nephew

• 35:36Speaker 05

  lived with Michael Jordan. I'mma say this again. My little nephew lived with Michael Jordan. Now, I'm being extremely good to this dude. I'm calling his house during this period of time. So all this, you know, Isaiah was an asshole. No, no, no, dude, I was looking out for you. Now, when we played, right? You ain't seen me hit Michael Jordan. As a matter of fact, you ain't seen me hit nobody. Lambert and Mahorn would hit somebody and what they would do. They would come hit me. Or say Isaiah hit. I said, no, no, no, no. Fight, that's the dude who hit you. Fight, fight him. Oh, well, you told him to hit me.

• 36:21Speaker 05

  So then they want to fight me. Okay, well, I know how to fight. So I ain't backing down. We can do that. Right? But in Chicago,

• 36:32Speaker 05

  during that period of time,

• 36:35Speaker 05

  watching that doc, here's the thing that I was most disappointed at. I talked to you about Chuck Knoll and how Chuck Knoll had like great respect, you know, as coach, right? During that period of time in the eighties, these were the five GMs.

• 36:57Speaker 05

  Red Auerbach,

• 37:00Speaker 05

  Jerry West,

• 37:02Speaker 05

  Jack McCloskey, Wayne Embry,

• 37:06Speaker 05

  and Jerry Kraus. Those were the guys. Right?

• 37:13Speaker 05

  The way I seen them treat Jerry Kraus. Now imagine you get on your bus, on your team bus.

• 37:23Speaker 05

  And the president of the team is sitting there. And you walk by the president of the team and you making jokes? And you treating him bad? And that's accepted? Now, we are athletes. Nowhere in the history of the game have I ever seen

• 37:41Speaker 05

  such disrespect for a president or a general manager, even if you don't like him.

• 37:48Speaker 05

  That ain't never happened on your watch. That ain't never happened on your watch. That ain't never... And as a matter of fact, any team you played on, if a player would have walked on and been that disrespectful to the president of the team... The team, no. That's real talk. That's real talk. Or somebody gonna check it. Somebody gonna check that. Hey, hey, man, you can't act like that. Now, here's the other thing that was disappointing. The man is dead.

• 38:20Speaker 05

  His kids, his family. People are watching that. You ain't gotta do that. I can't respect that. I can't respect that. Now, the fans and everybody else, "Oh, yeah, Jerry was this, Jerry was that." Well, in the basketball world, Jerry Kraus won six championships, put together, you know, a nice squad. So, the Bad Boys, we was so bad, right?

• 38:50Speaker 05

  I want you to look at the Chicago Bulls championship teams

• 38:55Speaker 05

  that had Dennis Rodman, John Sally, James Edwards, Robert Parish. They took half our team. And then took some of the Celtics team. Now, they was bad for us, but all of a sudden, they good for y'all?

• 39:14Speaker 05

  As the girl say, "Come on, make it make sense."

• 39:18Ryan Clark?

  So, the other day, we were talking about, we were talking about Patrick Mahomes on, on air, on Get Up, and one, I just think it's amazing that Isaiah Thomas text me, first off. I'm just gonna be honest. I say that in the commercial. I'm like, "Oh yeah, Zeke just texted me, he said this." But anyway, I'm just saying. So I was talking about that Tony Romo called Patrick Mahomes Michael Jordan. And I was saying, "Well, Michael Jordan never had a Joe Burrow, a guy that beat him three times like that." And then I get the text message, he was like, "Nah, Michael Jordan had me." And I was like, "Damn right he did." When, when you are going through that and you guys are the champion, you are the, the premier

• 40:03Ryan Clark?

  point guard in the league along with Magic Johnson, and the people in the, the public, the, the league, they are rooting against you. They want that dude to win. What is that like? Feeling like, "Man, I've done all this work. I've been this not only for my team, for my community, for the league as the president, and this how you treat me for him?" What was dealing with that like in the locker room for the bad boy?

• 40:27Speaker 05

  I was great. It was great. You, y'all want him to win? Y'all changed all the rules so he can win?

• 40:42Speaker 05

  Wait a minute now, these are the facts, right?

• 40:48Speaker 05

  I go down the lane, I get my ass beat. You see pictures of Michael Cooper scratching Larry Bird's jersey off, right? You see Kevin McHale slamming Kurt Rambis to the floor. You see Dr. J, you know, buying on Bird, right? Everybody getting hit. "Oh, but he can't get hit?"

• 41:12Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 05

  "So we gonna change all the rules so he can dunk."

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:18Speaker 05

  Because they marketing the dunk. It used to be, how high you fly in the air? Can you dunk? Can you dunk? And everybody's like, oh, yeah, you can dunk. Okay, that's cool. Now you can jump all up in the air and do a 360 and everything. And everybody be like, yeah, that's cool. But is that Steph Curry? Go shoot that three. Go shoot that three. That's what we marketing now. So the bad boys, okay, we ain't gonna let you dunk. You know, just, you know, go on, take your two free throws. Oh, we can't sell that. So now, did it make us mad? Did it make me, did it make me mad? No, it, it made me want to beat you more. And even though all of that had happened, right?

• 42:01Speaker 05

  Dude, if I don't mess up my wrist, this is how I feel. They don't win. Now, they may feel different. And they supposed to feel different. But this is how I feel. Now, the other thing is, if they don't change the rules for you, so you can win. Yeah. It's different. It's different. Is that why y'all walked off? No, here's why, here's why we walked off, right? There was a lot of things that were going on. We down 3-0. Jordan and Phil Jackson, but mainly Jordan, has a press conference the day before.

• 42:46Speaker 05

  They getting ready to beat us. And he called us thugs, bad for basketball. You know, all that was being talked about. But then they still went and got half my team. All right, but. Look, it's a little something there. Yeah. It's a little something there. No, it ain't a little something. It's a lot of motherfucking something. It is a lot of something because, because it ain't, they just been lying. They ain't been telling the truth. And then called us undeserving champions. Now, we didn't beat the Lakers. We didn't beat the Celtics. We didn't beat y'all several times.

• 43:29Speaker 05

  Ain't nobody had a harder march to the NBA Finals than the Detroit Pistons.

• 43:38Speaker 05

  We didn't got cheated. We didn't got beat up. We have beaten the best of the best to ever play this game. If Jordan, they saying you the best. Beat your ass. Magic and Kareem. Beat you. Bird and Mikail. Beat you. Can't nobody else say that. We the only one that can say that. Now, when you say we undeserving and then we bad for basketball and you you throw these stereotype labels on the black community in Detroit. And then put them on all team.

• 44:22Speaker 05

  Now, you go back and you look at that clip. Yeah, we walked off. But the first person who was in front of us. His name was Terry Foster, who right for the Detroit News. It's a brother. And he walked.

• 44:40Speaker 05

  He was mad too. Yeah, the whole, the whole city was mad. Not because they beat us. But the way they had labeled. Keyword, the way they had labeled. And use the stereotypes against us as a basketball team. And then Detroit as a city.

• 44:58Ryan Clark?

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• 45:41Ryan Clark?

  That's ziprecruiter.com/dr-a-f-t-k-i-n-g-s. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.

• 45:50Fred Taylor?

  You said that they pointed fingers at you when the hard files happened. You also said that not until Lambert got to Detroit, they decided to label him a thug. How much of West Side Chicago that was in you? How much did you lead them or inspire the whole bad boy mentality?

• 46:09Speaker 05

  It came from us.

• 46:10Fred Taylor?

  So you were the leader?

• 46:11Speaker 05

  I was, oh absolutely, I was the captain of the team.

• 46:13Fred Taylor?

  I mean, you were the one that say, "Look, we gonna hit these." You ain't dunking.

• 46:18Speaker 05

  Hold on, no, no, no, no, no, wait. Keyword, right? "We have to hit back."

• 46:24Fred Taylor?

  Got it.

• 46:25Speaker 05

  That's how the game was being played then. We didn't change the rules. They changed the rules so he can win.

• 46:31Fred Taylor?

  Got it.

• 46:32Speaker 05

  Right? This how the game was being played.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 47:07Speaker 05

  It's all on film. You can go back and look. Robert Parish, Bob Lanier, rest his soul, took they fist and hit Lambier right in the boom and was punching him in the face. Right? Lambier never retaliated.

• 47:31Speaker 05

  Like, hey, they gonna get thrown out of game. Yeah, they getting thrown out of game, but all reputation, right? It's, we gotta, we gotta compete, right? When we go down, when we go down the lane, that's how it is in the NBA. It is physical. All y'all play football. I'll give you this analogy. Them cute wide receivers, they was running down and outs.

• 47:57Speaker 05

  They weren't running across the middle back in the day. When you ran across the middle, you knew it was hell to pay.

• 48:05Fred Taylor?

  They're gonna delete you.

• 48:06Speaker 05

  That's just how the shit go. That's how it went, right?

• 48:10Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 48:10Speaker 05

  Well, same in the NBA. When you came down the middle, that's how it was. The big guys were like, hey, man, you can't come down here. You need to stay out there and shoot your little jump shot, you know, and be pretty out there. But when you come down this middle, or you come anywhere in this paint, hey, man, there's a price to pay for that. And everybody was paying that price. That's how it was. That's how it was in football. They don't do it no more in football. So the wide receivers can come across the middle, catch them little, what y'all call them, the slants?

• 48:46Fred Taylor?

  Seams, slants. They doing that all day now. So do you think you guys' reputation?

• 48:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, run a slant in 1977.

• 48:59Fred Taylor?

  Whole mouth be busted out. Now, I also wanted to ask you, the 88 game six.

• 49:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:07Fred Taylor?

  Do you think you guys' reputation cost you that game? They called a tic-tac foul on Lambert against Kareem and sent him to the line.

• 49:15Speaker 05

  Dude, we felt in Detroit, we were straight getting cheated. Now, that's how we felt. In boxing, what you got, you got knocked the champ out. Can't win on no decision.

• 49:33Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 49:33Speaker 05

  If it go to 15 rounds, hey, man, you didn't knock the champ out.

• 49:37Fred Taylor?

  Still the champ.

• 49:38Speaker 05

  That's how it was back then, right? So that foul that they called on Lambert, we felt that we had won that game.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  And if you go back and you look at that series in 88, we won every statistical category.

• 49:58Speaker 05

  But lost the series. That's how it was. So now we come back in 89. That mean we gotta be better. We just gotta be better.

• 50:08Fred Taylor?

  I was asking him, Chan, before you came in, and before we actually got started, I wanted to ask him which series motivated them the most? Because I know they lost in 88, right? 89, they won it. 90, they won it. But sometimes, well, I guess this is champion talk between these two guys here. But you had a different motivation for each one, right?

• 50:32Speaker 05

  I've always been motivated to win the championship. It's just a matter of how long is it going to take me? So I grew up fighting on the streets, right? So you gotta fight. It's like, like if me and you got into it right now, you gonna beat my ass. But, but, but I just want you to know, my mentality is, how long is it gonna take me to win? Right? I ain't, it ain't no give up. It's like, and I may lose 10 times. But that one time I win, it may take me 10 years. It may take me five years. It may take me six years. But that's, that's how I was built. So coming into the NBA,

• 51:17Speaker 05

  when we had heartbreaking losses. In 87, I threw the ball away. Now, in 87, they say the two best teams to ever play in the NBA, Lakers and the Celtics, 86, 87. Well, guess what? That 87 Celtics team, we had them beat. I throw the ball away.

• 51:38Ryan Clark?

  Dennis Johnson.

• 51:39Speaker 05

  Yes. Bird, Bird steal it, Dennis Johnson lay it up. We got them beat. We come back, we win in 88. Now we gotta play the Lakers. That was different.

• 51:53Speaker 05

  But we had them beat. Yeah, you. We had them beat. Right. Right? So 87, 88, we all up in the mix, you know? And we lose to what our people arguably say the greatest basketball teams ever. We got those teams beat and then we knocked them off. And then this dude sit up there and say, "Y'all undeserving? Y'all bad for the game? You got all the writers. We got all the little crew." Little crew. We got all the little crew in Detroit, trying to stand up for Detroit. But we can't fight the onslaught of the national media and what they was putting on Detroit.

• 52:37Channing Crowder?

  And talking about that, talking about how the game was changed for MJ. And he brought the receivers, my sport, which it made me think the sport as a business, and you a great businessman.

• 52:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:48Channing Crowder?

  The sport as a business benefited from people not getting their teeth knocked out coming across the media.

• 52:53Speaker 05

  100%.

• 52:54Channing Crowder?

  So you know what I'm saying? So can you look at it with your disdain for one side, look at it as that was a great move?

• 53:00Speaker 05

  I don't have a disdain. I got respect and I got honesty and truth. So don't mistake my honesty and truth for dislike or disdain, right? And don't classify or categorize it as hate or jealousy. It is honesty and truth. Now here's also the truth. What Michael Jordan did for the NBA, hey man, we all still eating off of that. At that time, being president of the Players Association, we was getting 53% of the gross. What no basketball related income. See, we weren't good at counting.

• 53:42Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 53:42Speaker 05

  So every dollar that came in, we got 53 cents on every dollar. And Michael Jordan was good for business.

• 53:50Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 05

  He was great for business. And what Michael Jordan did for the NBA and our league, he took it to a level that none of us could. We appreciate him for that. We honor him for that. Still getting paid off of that. So, business-wise, yeah, great move. Marketing-wise, great move. I mean, when he came in, he came in with a megaphone with Nike. And we ain't never seen nothing like that. Right. I mean, the megaphone that Nike had and the commercials and all that stuff, that stuff wouldn't happen. Hey, that's good for us. It's good for everybody. It was good for him.

• 54:35Speaker 05

  That's real talk. Yeah. Right? That don't mean I dislike him or hate him. Those are the facts. Michael Jordan made a lot of money for this league. Now, here's the next fact. It's only two players who've ever done this. What Michael Jordan has done and now what LeBron James has done, the monies that these two guys have made for the NBA and what LeBron James has done and the money he's made for the NBA, I don't know if they're ever... I don't know if it'd ever be done again. Guys making forty million a year. Yeah. This group, when it's all said and done, when they... They don't want to give them their credit now.

• 55:19Speaker 05

  But when LeBron James and Kevin Durant and all them walk out the door and you look back at what they just did,

• 55:27Speaker 05

  compared to what my generation did, man, these guys have taken it to a place that none of us could ever imagine. Yeah. You know, and they ain't getting no credit for it. They ain't getting no credit for it. Fifteen years from now, when people look back on LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and all it, hey, man.

• 55:50Ryan Clark?

  In your time, though, like you speaking about these dudes, all those dudes kick it, Isaiah, you know, like... Kevin Durant says great things about LeBron James and LeBron James and Steph Curry. Like, this is like the friendship league.

• 56:02Speaker 05

  A banana boat crew.

• 56:03Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, they're banana boat, they on a banana. I'm not sitting on the banana boat with like, if us four go on a trip, we not finna be riding behind each other like this. You sit, I mean, like, this is, this is different.

• 56:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:13Ryan Clark?

  But the one relationship you did have, which I always thought was intriguing, was with Magic.

• 56:18Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 56:19Ryan Clark?

  And when you guys sat down, it's kind of like, like what we do now is a forum of what happened with y'all two. Right, two, the, the, the fact that two black men.

• 56:29Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 56:29Ryan Clark?

  Sat across from each other and said, one, I love you.

• 56:32Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 56:32Ryan Clark?

  But, my bad.

• 56:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:34Ryan Clark?

  And they did it, and y'all did it publicly.

• 56:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:36Ryan Clark?

  What was that moment like for you? Because watching y'all walk out on the court, I'm be honest, I never, as a kid, I was like, these dudes kiss each other on the cheek before they toss the ball up every game. What was that like for you when you guys finally got to sit down, man, and really have that man-to-man conversation?

• 56:56Speaker 05

  I'm gonna have to go back a little bit.

• 56:58Ryan Clark?

  Please.

• 56:58Speaker 05

  To just bring you two, how we got there. We were the, the first that I can remember in our generation that really displayed love and emotion.

• 57:10Ryan Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:12Speaker 05

  For our brother, as males, right? So, back then, you know, you just used to be, hey, how you doing?

• 57:19Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 57:22Ryan Clark?

  Good, see, yeah, I see.

• 57:23Speaker 05

  Alright. But at home, with your family.

• 57:29Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 57:30Speaker 05

  You know, you were hug and embrace. So, Magic and I is friends, I was like, I mean, I can't, I, I can't, I can't do this no more. Right? I'mma hug you and kiss you like I do with my brother, when I see them. That's how we, that's how we get down.

• 57:47Speaker 05

  That was like so controversial back then.

• 57:50Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 05

  Right? They hug and they kiss. Fast forward.

• 57:56Speaker 05

  In any sport today, football, baseball, basketball, you see black men. Yep. Hugging, you know, giving each other love. Back then, they, they say you can't do that. So we broke that barrier. Fast forward, Magic and I ain't speaking for a long time. We get to the NBA Finals and Magic was my mentor. I was so lucky to come into the NBA. Magic had just came off of winning the NBA Finals MVP. By the way, that game won televised, taped delayed. So all this, yeah, they, they took it off.

• 58:41Speaker 05

  Well, the Pistons had a lot to do with that too. I'm just saying.

• 58:46Speaker 05

  All facts now. These are facts, these are facts, now. These are the facts. But, but I was so lucky because I got to hang out with Magic that summer, George Gervin, Dr. J, before my season started. And then Magic and I and Mark Aguirre, we became real tight. Now, I'm trying to figure out how to win. What better teacher to have?

• 59:17Speaker 05

  And he was so gracious in giving. You know, one had nothing. Dude, when the Lakers won the championship, I was in their locker room watching them celebrate. Then I knew Mikail since high school. So when the Celtics was in their locker room, you can go back and you get it on film. I was at every NBA Finals game taking notes. How can we win? Because it was just a party for the Lakers and the Celtics and the 76ers every now and then. Them was only the three teams who were playing. Well, I gotta learn, I gotta go to school, right? So Magic giving me like, like straight game.

• 1:00:00Speaker 05

  I'm watching him on his heartbreak. I'm watching him dribble after shot clock in Boston.

• 1:00:08Speaker 05

  And they call him tragic Johnson. And then the next year, he come back and he dropped a baby hook. Right. And they win it, you know, so I'm, I'm, I'm getting to see all of this. I'm getting to learn, right? I watched the pass that I threw out of bounds, Bird steals it. I watched James Worthy throw that same pass. Gerald Henderson stole it, lay it up. But I got to see the Lakers cry. I got to see Magic lay on the floor. We in his hotel room. Dude spread out on the floor crying, hard tears.

• 1:00:50Speaker 05

  Me and Mark just sitting there, aguire, like.

• 1:00:55Speaker 05

  We had never seen Magic Johnson fail. Right? And now he just, he just spread out on the floor. We stayed in his room. Till about 4:30, 4:45. They had a 5:00 AM bus because you take the first flight out. They weren't flying private. Yeah. Take the first flight out.

• 1:01:19Speaker 05

  That dude laid on the floor and cried that whole night. Wow. The whole night. Got up, washed his face, didn't even take a shower. Walked out of the room, got on the bus. They lost the series. So that next summer, so now I'm getting to see all this. So now I get to the NBA Finals.

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  Magic like. I used to stay at the house.

• 1:01:48Speaker 05

  He used to send the car to get me. We'd stay at dinner. First game.

• 1:01:55Speaker 05

  Nah, you can't come to the house.

• 1:02:00Speaker 05

  It's me, I can't come to the house.

• 1:02:03Speaker 05

  I see you at the game. Alright. So we beat them game one.

• 1:02:10Speaker 05

  Game two, after the game, we normally go out. Nah, I'm just gonna go on home.

• 1:02:18Speaker 05

  Alright, okay, you know. So me and Michael Orne, me and Ornie, like, we hang, we eating everything. Game two, we got them beat again. Go back and watch the film. We got them beat again. We up two, and we get a shot clock violation. Our D was good. We can D up. My high school team was the best defensive team. College team was the best defensive team. My pro team was the best defensive team. Okay? I was kinda good at that whole defensive scheme and stuff. Right? The shot clock run out. The referee says, "Oh, we made a mistake." And they put 14 seconds back on the shot clock. Gave it to Magic out of bounds.

• 1:03:02Speaker 05

  Magic drive to the basket, get a three-point play. That's how they win game two.

• 1:03:13Speaker 05

  Those are facts. Yeah. Now, we don't speak. You know, we leave. They come back to Detroit game three. Now, we got games three, four, and five in Detroit. They come back to Detroit game three, and, you know, my son Joshua is born. Magic don't come to the crib. Don't send no acknowledgement, nothing. I'm like, what's this all about?

• 1:03:39Speaker 05

  Anyway, so now game three, we walk out on the court.

• 1:03:45Speaker 05

  We walk out on the court. I got the hug, I got the kiss.

• 1:03:50Speaker 05

  But then I saw that look that they had gave the Celtics.

• 1:03:58Speaker 05

  I didn't realize it until I saw it, right? Like, ooh, that's how Kareem looked. You know, it just flashed back. I was like, oh shit, this is gonna be a hard game. I think they beat us 99 to 87 or something like that. But that's the game that I'm coming down the lane. And Magic, you know, knocks me out of the air.

• 1:04:21Speaker 05

  Now I jump up and I push him. Now they all know I like to fight. Now, when you hear Magic describe that, Magic say, oh, he got up and swung on me. That's the big difference between swinging on somebody and pushing them.

• 1:04:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:04:39Speaker 05

  Now, I didn't swing on him, but he knocked me down. I got up and pushed him as if to say, you know what? And you can read my lips, what the fuck's that all about? Well, fast forward, he's like, okay, Pat Riley had told him, we can't be friends. He got a stick of that, okay, cool. We don't talk for years. For years, you know, our relationship is different. So now we finally get to sit in the chair. And now we gotta be real with each other. And not knowing that being this real with each other, what it would do for the world.

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Speaker 05

  A simple act of hugging way back when, and then another act of forgiving, compassion, coming together, breaking down, crying, showing real emotion. And I was all right until he said, you know, I just, I want to apologize to you. And I broke. Because I knew what had taken place, but the fact that he was man enough to say I'm sorry, I had to accept that. And I broke.

• 1:05:52Ryan Clark?

  The thing about that is, is we try to do that here, you know? We've had those, those conversations. But as, as we get older, like we got OGs too. You know, every time I hit you, I'm like, yeah, OG or appreciate you, big bro. Just whatever it is, because you did teach us so much. Not only whether it was our fathers or our parents or the guys we grew up with. We got to watch you and you showed us how to live in a sense of, I can love this man. I can still be a dog though. Right? I can, we could go through things and then we could still forgive. And kind of, we got to watch you be an entire human. When you look back though, on some of the things that you have gone through, the things

• 1:06:34Ryan Clark?

  that you've accomplished, what are some of those moments that you always, that you mark is like, you know what? That's an Isaiah Thomas moment. That's something that people are gonna talk about for me and with me even long after I'm no longer here.

• 1:06:51Speaker 05

  The, the way I've been with my teammates and my family. The, the thing you'll notice about the interviews and the people that they ask about me, they don't never ask my friends about me. They ask the people that I beat. That, that's the opinion that y'all, that y'all have gotten over the last, you ain't got, you ain't got my, my teammates' opinions, right? So the thing that I'm most proud of is, I hope that when you look back, I was able to leave my family, which is what I'm still fighting for.

• 1:07:31Speaker 05

  Other than leaving them some newspaper clippings and a, and a jump shot, but a way that they can eat, right? Like how do, how do I take my family out of poverty? I was the, I was the first one in my family to have a chance. So how do I continue to uplift and bring my family out of poverty, this second and third generation? Cause I still got people back in Chicago that's suffering, suffering hard. I didn't make 30 million. I didn't make 40 million. I made my little 400,000 and I would've thought I was rich, man.

• 1:08:12Speaker 05

  Could tell me nothing.

• 1:08:13Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 1:08:13Speaker 05

  But, but how do I, that, that's what I want to leave behind. I want, I want to leave some food, right? I want to leave a, a place where you can go and get a paycheck. You know, if this guy down the street don't hire you, you can work here, right? Can't, can't work, you really got to work here, right? You got to put in some time, you can get a paycheck here. You can get a meal here, you know, I, I, that's, that's what I want.

• 1:08:42Channing Crowder?

  With all the success, man, and I brought the business stuff too. Your, your damn business resume is, you know, long as my jail resume, actually. But, uh, like all the success, the championships at all three levels, just all the great decisions you made. I'm in Florida and I remember your FIU.

• 1:08:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:58Channing Crowder?

  And then the other coaching ventures.

• 1:09:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:01Channing Crowder?

  Are you a good coach? Cause you keep trying, it ain't much coming out on the back end, big dog.

• 1:09:04Speaker 05

  No, no, no, that, that, no, that's, that's a good question.

• 1:09:07Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:08Speaker 05

  Here's what you should do. Go ask the players that I coached. Go talk to Ron Artest, talk to Jermaine O'Neal, talk to Reggie Miller, talk to Jamal Tinsley. Now, here's what happened to me in Indiana. I got my team rolling. I coached Michael Jordan's last All-Star game. I was the coach of that team. That mean my team was kind of good. Right?

• 1:09:32Channing Crowder?

  Get, get that by your record.

• 1:09:34Speaker 05

  I had some young, some young guys that I had put a little pepper in and, and they, they, we ready to win. Now that we ready to win, you know, they tapped me on the shoulder. Actually Larry Bird tapped me on the shoulder and said, you know, you've done a good job here. I like what you've done. And as a matter of fact, I like it so much, I'm gonna give it to my friend. And his name was Rick Carlisle. And Rick Carlisle took my team and went and won 61 games with and then had the malice at the Palace and all of that. Right?

• 1:10:16Speaker 05

  And I've said before, it wouldn't have been no malice at the Palace if I was coaching that team. Because I don't think the Detroit Pistons fans would have acted that way with me. And by the way, if I was up 15 in Detroit, I wouldn't have had my starters out on the floor at that time. I just wouldn't. I definitely wouldn't have had Artest in the game at that time. Because I knew my players, I knew my team. I think Rick was still learning those guys. So, I leave Indiana, and then I go to New York. Now, in New York, I have a, I have a bad run. My first year as a coach, I almost make the playoffs. Jamal Crawford, who I work with now at NBA TV, he had just dropped 50 on Miami.

• 1:11:00Speaker 05

  Scored 16 straight jump shots. We was rolling. Channing Frye, David Lee, had a nice little crew. By the way, Channing Frye, David Lee, Trevor, Riza, all them guys went on to win NBA championships with other teams. Alright, these are the facts. Oh, I'm sorry, Eddie Curry won one, too. The one that they say couldn't play? Well, he won one with the Miami Heat. So I had four or five guys, young guys, that other teams and other players thought they was alright. Now, my second year coaching, I shouldn't have been coaching. I was, I was mentally messed up. My mom was dead, my mom was dying. I had just come out of a terrible situation.

• 1:11:43Speaker 05

  I, I shouldn't have been coaching. Shouldn't have been coaching. Now I go down to FIU.

• 1:12:20Speaker 05

  Have you ever heard of an FIU basketball program?

• 1:12:23Channing Crowder?

  No.

• 1:12:24Speaker 05

  Neither had anybody else.

• 1:12:27Channing Crowder?

  You were the talk of the town. Isaiah Thomas is down there.

• 1:12:30Speaker 05

  Now, I come down and I'm gonna make a basketball program.

• 1:12:35Speaker 05

  On my way to making a basketball program, my third year,

• 1:12:41Speaker 05

  after getting talent and after losing, now my third year, I'm ready to turn it around. I done got my players in, I done got my system right. I get fired. Rick Pitino Jr., he come and take my team. That fourth year,

• 1:13:01Speaker 05

  they win,

• 1:13:04Speaker 05

  and he bounced from FIU and go where?

• 1:13:06Channing Crowder?

  Where'd he go?

• 1:13:07Speaker 05

  He went to Minnesota and took Tubby Smith's job. After having my squad at FIU that I have there. Now, they give you my FIU record. But they don't tell you the foundation that I laid those three years. Now, all y'all done played, and you know, when you, when you take over a new, the new program, it take you about two, three years to get your stuff right, get people in, and, and now, I got talent coming in. So, he grab all my talent, win, stay there six months, and then he get the head job at Minnesota. That's what happened at FIU. And by the way, I, I graduated 26 out of 28 players. How about that?

• 1:13:51Speaker 05

  Those are the facts.

• 1:13:52Channing Crowder?

  I'm, I'm sorry, I T., I was looking at records.

• 1:13:56Speaker 05

  The, the, the records are,

• 1:13:58Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, no, I see what you're saying.

• 1:13:59Speaker 05

  They, they speak for themselves.

• 1:14:00Channing Crowder?

  But you do, you do have to build that pro, get the culture in. It's what all the, every good coach, you talk about that. Their, their system, their culture, their, the implementation of what they do.

• 1:14:08Speaker 05

  The young talent that I've had in the NBA across this league.

• 1:14:15Speaker 05

  I would hope that one day, somebody would go and ask the players that I've coached, the players that I've been with, y'all only had two opinions about me. And they all come from the same people.

• 1:14:31Ryan Clark?

  Over the last 20, 30 years, y'all only heard two people's opinions about me. The last thing I have for you is this. I went downstairs to get you. Obviously, I know who you are, but a lot of times when you see football players, they know the big guy. Right? Basketball, you know a dude hoopled because he long as hell. When you walked in, man, you had your little puffer coat on, you know, your cardigan, and he walks in, he just looks like, I know he's Isaiah Thomas, but I don't think that anybody else around is gonna know he's Isaiah Thomas. Dude walks by him, and I see him, I see him catch Isaiah, right? You know, he saw him too, so he tried to. You know how you do? You don't wanna lock eyes with the wolf, right? You don't wanna lock eyes with the wolf.

• 1:15:13Ryan Clark?

  And the kid comes over, man, you know, young white guy, and goes, "You're Isaiah Thomas?" And he goes, "I am. It's a pleasure to meet you." And he starts to cry.

• 1:15:26Speaker 05

  The kid?

• 1:15:27Ryan Clark?

  The kid's crying. The young man is crying. And he's like, "I watch you all the time. I watch your games all the time." And he's, and it wasn't one of those, "I'm faking or I'm acting." He was dead serious. He was that excited to me, and he was like, man, happy holiday, he's like, "Let's take a picture." And the kid was so excited, when you realize what you did has that type of effect on people still today.

• 1:15:58Ryan Clark?

  How does that make you feel?

• 1:16:01Speaker 05

  I am so blessed that I have been given the gift

• 1:16:08Speaker 05

  where you literally can make somebody's day

• 1:16:13Speaker 05

  just by being nice to them. But you can also ruin that person's day

• 1:16:22Speaker 05

  if you be mean to them. Now, that kid that you just described, what if our interaction with him would have been one of, we were dismissive to him?

• 1:16:37Speaker 05

  That would have crushed him.

• 1:16:39Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:39Speaker 05

  Right? So, understanding that gift and that power, I go out of my way every single day that when I meet someone, I'm trying to make that person's day. Because, remember, I was that little kid that they used to run me off of Michigan Avenue and off of Rush Street when I was trying to shine shoes. And I was that little boy who was walking around where they walk by you, but they don't want to look at you because you look bad, you ain't right. So I know that feeling of shame and embarrassment, right? So I don't, I don't ever want to put that on nobody. I don't never want nobody to feel that way.

• 1:17:22Channing Crowder?

  I got one more. And just here and now, hearing everything you told us now. And it's funny you just said, we've only heard opinions from two people in 30 years. Why is, but why is that? All the stuff you did on the court, on the court, we know, look at Wikipedia. Two-time champion, MVP, all that, multiple All-Stars.

• 1:17:38Fred Taylor?

  But you don't know he missed his first free throw his rookie All-Star game.

• 1:17:43Channing Crowder?

  What, what?

• 1:17:43Ryan Clark?

  Airball. I was so scared.

• 1:17:49Channing Crowder?

  But actually, off the court, what you've heard, the stories I've heard, you were one of the first guys, first teams, you were part, you were the captain of the first team that ever had alternative jerseys. You changed the diversity of Detroit media in a big market. The activism. You were 30 years ahead of people.

• 1:18:05Ryan Clark?

  That's true.

• 1:18:06Channing Crowder?

  But we don't know that story. Why don't we know that story? Why haven't I seen the documentary about your ass?

• 1:18:10Speaker 05

  You should ask that question. And don't ask me.

• 1:18:14Channing Crowder?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:16Speaker 05

  But why have you been fed that false narrative about me? Because somebody been lying.

• 1:18:23Channing Crowder?

  Yes.

• 1:18:25Speaker 05

  Like I say, you've heard two, three opinions about me from two, three people for the last 30 years.

• 1:18:30Channing Crowder?

  I know more about some two-way players than I know about you.

• 1:18:32Speaker 05

  Well, you know.

• 1:18:35Ryan Clark?

  Man, honestly, you know, we've been talking about getting this done. This was the first time I've sat here in a long time and I felt like I was watching somebody else's show. Listening to you tell those stories, man, and just the historical value of them, but also how new that felt to me. There were things you told us today, and we all do it, man. Like, he talk about Googling, and that's all we do before we get into the interview, because we don't ever want to get in an interview and not have a question, or have it be stale. And you taught us so much in this very short time about who you were. We didn't really talk about basketball. And it shows how much more a Hall of Fame basketball player, one of the greatest to ever live,

• 1:19:21Ryan Clark?

  how much more he accomplished as a man, as someone who was willing to give of himself to people he could remember being. And I think so many times we forget that. So, thank you so much. This has been amazing. And I would love a part two, if you ever got time for it.

• 1:19:38Speaker 05

  Hey, man, let me tell you something. I am a fan of all of y'all. And I love football. And that's my favorite sport to watch. But seeing y'all on the scene, and seeing how y'all career has taken off, and what y'all have done with this show, you know, it's just beautiful to watch. Not only is it beautiful to watch, but I've always said this, you know, I think the hardest sport to win in is football. And the reason why I say that is because, y'all used to have 52 people? Was it 45 now?

• 1:20:17Ryan Clark?

  It was 53, it was 47, you could dress out, yeah.

• 1:20:20Speaker 05

  Hey, man, the amount of material

• 1:20:25Speaker 05

  that y'all take in on a weekly basis, from an educational standpoint, I'm just blown away. And then shit happens so fast, it's like boom, boom, boom, boom.

• 1:20:42Ryan Clark?

  Hey, that's like playing the Pistons, though. That's what Mike felt like.

• 1:20:52Ryan Clark?

  Hey, Chan, that's what Mike felt like, though. Mike said, he was trying to go out there.

• 1:20:57Speaker 03

  We'll say the same about y'all's sport.

• 1:20:59Ryan Clark?

  The same, exactly.

• 1:21:28Speaker 06

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