Jamal Mashburn on His College and Pro Career | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Russillo is joined by former NBA player Jamal Mashburn to discuss working in media as a former player, what the highlights of his career were, and what it was like to go up against Michael Jordan.

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As soon as we saw this we were really excited uh this was my dude back in the day at ESPN the early years it is Jamal Mashburn Kentucky Legend NBA legend and uh and at one point like he was my dude back in the day so what’s up I’m doing

Good man it’s good to see you man um it’s been a it’s been a long time uh life has been good man I remember when we had our radio show we were The Cutting Edge at the time man you know three hours on a Sunday or a Saturday I

Can’t remember it was but man I love you man it’s good to connect with you again man so here’s here’s what’s funny about um Jamal you know for me especially too because like I just started working at ESPN and I’d been around you know guys that played at that point because I been

Working in Boston for a few years so I started at the very beginning of ‘ 06 and then yeah they gave me this NBA show Jamal where it was early uh Sunday mornings and then I would do the baseball show I go back to the hotel and

Then I come back and do the baseball show the same day and I look I loved it but we would always be at the residence in in sington yeah okay because that was like the sneak tip upgrade if you were like oh give me the residence in um because

It used to be the Clarion that smelled like dead people that was directly across the street but that’s been upgraded I think it’s a a Double Tree now so Jamal and I would be like sitting around in these New England winners with just time to kill because like I did a

Show on a Friday I would just stay because I didn’t want to drive to Boston and come back and then you guys are usually there two or three days so we were bored one day and I decided I was like Hey I’m going to start bringing my

Xbox but I only had one controller so Jamal and I jump in the car and we drive to Walmart yeah and Jamal grabs the remote and we’re at the checkout line and I was kind of like it was obvious I was going to be keeping the controller

Yeah and Jamal turns to me he’s like I got this yeah not a big deal man not a big deal it’s only 80 bucks we’re good yeah cuz then you know you were always kind of funny because we’d always talk about like the contracts and all that stuff

You were just sizing me up in the reality of this situation that I think I was a $100 an hour guy then and that’s just when you were on the air and you were like I’ll I’ll pay for this man I you that was still that was going to be

A hit for me and then we would sit there in our sweatpants and play video games all day waiting to go back over so you were one of the original guys that I I connected with more so just because we were stuck there so long so yeah we were

Stuck there for so long and then also too you know go if people never been to ESPN they had the studio side and you had the radio side you know what I mean and we were always bump each to each other especially the late what was that

NBA show at like one o’clock in the morning or something and I’ll be coming through there and stuff like that um I I I really enjoyed you’re one of the highlights for sure of me working up there at ESPN you know there’s only a couple and you’re one of them okay so

That’s a good transition because you know Jamal is an incredibly smart dude has had a lot of su success off the court as well was was always planning you know there was a lot of stuff that you told me then that I didn’t quite understand but it was like always

Thinking about your options and planning your next move it’s not so much planning your exit but when your exit happens having these other moves yeah knowing you then and looking back on it did you even like being in the media you know um no yeah um I think so

It was um you know I was a communication major in college at the University of Kentucky and um when I retired in 2005 from the NBA Turner was TNT was the first person first group to reach out to me and I didn’t want to do anything

After that first year um so then ESPN reached out to me the following year and I decided to go ahead and do it to try to put that communication thing to work um the thing that I didn’t enjoy about the media was the production meetings

You know um and how they wanted you to shape the conversation you know what I mean it always felt like uh drama it always felt like we were even talking about LeBron or something else and there was so much much to offer other than just talking about LeBron but as you get

Involved in the business you understand why you know that you have certain draws and different things like that and it seemed like the content and everything that I was saying became repetitive throughout the whole day you know what I mean you know it’s just like you know

It’s just const the same thing the same conversation and you know a light bulb went off in my head when they wanted to add I think it was 50 more dates I had a 50 dat 50-day contract with them and after my third year they wanted to add

50 more dates so that would have been a 100 and that that I would have to travel from Miami to Hartford and I pitched them on early on hey let me find a sponsor and I can do this remotely and um they didn’t they didn’t want to buy

Into that um but they actually wound up doing it in Co essentially you know of taping people remotely and that’s when I just decided to leave they weren’t thinking very entrepreneurial and I I just had so much other stuff going on I started to look at my calendar and say

Well I’m spending 50 days a year including travel and prep in order to prepare to go and talk on it it’s too time consuming you know and I don’t enjoy it that much and then also one of the philosophies live by is what does it

Lead to right you know what what am I gon to you know and at the time I was there with jayen rose and I can see jailing how he wanted to be there you know what I mean he would he would do any and everything and I was a little

Bit more structur with my time you know what I mean I mean you know how it is up there at that place it’s a free-for-all and if you don’t set boundaries they won’t care about you but I I didn’t see myself doing that long term at all I

Just wanted to put that Communications uh uh work and see what it looked like on the other side but what I will say is the benefit that came from that was it allowed other people to transition along with me outside of basketball and that was important to me because now people

Weren’t just asking me at that time for my autograph because of my career they were asking me about my opinion on the game because they see me on television talking about it so that allowed and help me transition Beyond just being an athlete that just W Jersey to a person

That can actually communicate things above and beyond sport so I do credit um that ESPN time for allowing people to catch up with my transition so to speak what I really liked about what we did is you know I was trying to you know I was always enamored with anybody that was

Successful and wanting to know more about him but I also really just wanted I wanted honest opinions on players and and it’s hard you know it’s hard for some former players because you look at the media and you’re like all right even though I’m technically with

The media I don’t like align myself with you guys like you’re just a bunch of nerds who never played right so um I could understand if I had been a pro athlete I would not like the media because I’d be like you got this wrong this isn’t accurate you know but I don’t

Think you want to be somebody who’s just a complete jerk to everybody all the time yeah but there would be players that would come in and say this happen with coaches probably more so than even with players that would come in acting like they weren’t really working there

When they worked there and what I always liked about you is that you didn’t have any Hang-Ups like if I asked you a question about a player you were going to tell me exactly how you felt you weren’t going to play this role of like

Hey I’m a former player so I always have to stick with all these guys so the reason I bring that up is that when you see the content now that is so different and how fast this has moved and all these former NBA players with podcasts

Uh and you see it now like I know you don’t feel left out but no are are you surprised how often like let me just put it this way there’s so many times where I’m like even though I can put all this time into it I can’t really know if I’m

Right about everything what’s going on with the team because I’m not around it every day I’m not actually on the staff or any that kind of stuff but then I’ll see guys that used to play say [ __ ] and I’m like well I’m okay like now now I’m

Not that worried about it because I can’t believe how crazy some of the opinions get from the guys that actually played yeah I think you know um I actually saw the transition when we were up at ESPN when they were talking about cable and how expensive cable was and

People were cutting the cord um and getting away and they were going to be streaming packages and different things like that um um so I started to notice that players also along with social media Instagram Twitter and all these different things they want wanted to control their voice and their narrative

And they didn’t want it usually that voice was controlled by the beat writer of the team right you know or the marketing agent or whatever it may be or the sponsor would contribute to that as well so you know once social media um started to arrive and now you can have

Direct access to the player and he can have his own opinion um I think it had at that time is a little bit more authentic now it’s a little bit more commercialized at this particular to point where people are just getting people on their podcast or creating these podcasts they really don’t have

Any structure you know they they they don’t really don’t have uh the best thing that they do have is their contacts and um their relationship with current players that’s the currency that most of these guys have and and you can be a little bit more outlandish and I

Think the pro athlete has recognized nowadays that you know with with the with the cable channels and the news channels have always recognized that drama and Outland just talk sales you know that click sales so the further and further you can be outside of the norm you’re going to draw people to your

Particular landing page or to your particular platform um I think the one thing that they have to be conscious of and if I were them um getting involved in in media you know I I would have a background in journalism and and structure it in in in a way to make

Yourself unique to ask the right questions uh to be thoughtful uh uh to to pull the right information because sometimes I watch guys and I’m like well dang why you ain’t span on that why you ain’t ask a follow-up question you know what I mean or or take them down this

Particular path so I think we’re at a Crossroads now and I think with gambling and and and all the promotion that is behind that you’re going to see a lot more podcast platforms pop up with former players but then I think you’ll have the uh slimming effect where the

Ones that are serious about it and really work on that craft they’ll be the ones that’ll be standing the longest let’s talk some hoops you’re down in Miami obviously you played for the heat you get traded there from Dallas um I imagine you’re not even remote I was

Going to ask like who are you more surprised that’s still in the game your college coach Rick patino or Pat Riley still running this organization back when you played for him uh coming up on 30 years here but I don’t think it’s surprising that either are this still

Plugged into the game you know what I I knew when the first time I met uh Rick patino um when I first got a hold of him was Five-Star Basketball Camp when he was the head coach of Providence College and he used to do these motivational things and teaching clinics at five star

Camp where all good players would go to it’s like a write of Passage almost you know um he’s a lifer man you know he’s he’s he’s a lifer man he’s he’s a um he’ll be coaching I don’t think he’ll ever retire you know what I mean um um Pat Raleigh little different

The way he’s positioned himself with the Miami Heat he can’t afford to retire you know I mean so he is the Miami Heat you know what I mean so when people think of the Miami Heat it’s a very unique situation where just like San Antonio when you think of San Antonio you think

Of Greg papovich you know ever since Tim Duncan and David Robinson monel job and Tony Parker have left have moved on you think of Greg papovich uh same thing with Pat Riley you think of the Miami Heat you think of Pat Riley and those guys are life for wealth of knowledge um

I’m a Heat season ticket holder I sit right there on the floor right in front of Pat Raley so I come in and say hello to him all the time um he’s a lot more calmer and milder than he these days now that he’s not coaching me okay but let

Me let me what was what was the immediate wakeup call of like okay I’m not with the Dallas Mavericks anymore you know um you know interesting story um so this is how I knew I was with the Dallas Mavericks um when I got to the Dallas Mavericks in

1993 from the University of Kentucky the Dallas Mavericks were the only team was the last remaining team not to have a chartered plane or a private plane we flew commercial and at the University of Kentucky we flew private so this is how I first let’s lay with that one you know

What I mean and then when I got to the Miami Heat and no no shade on the Dallas Mavericks when I was there because they went through a ownership change uh they went from Don cter to um Ross perau Jr um a lot of things happen um different

Coaches different things like that the one thing noticeable difference with the Miami Heat was they were a Professional Organization it felt like professional basketball you know the accountability uh um what’s the expectation was laid out for you uh the work ethic all that stuff you were immersed in that heat

Culture at that particular time and it was all about winning at the end of the day and that’s what Pat Riley cared about as you know Ryan um not a lot of teams are all about winning in the NBA they talk about it but they’re not really about it going through their

Actions and Pat Raleigh and the Miami Heat are all about winning it’s all about the front of the Jersey rather than the back of the Jersey even though in the NBA you need stars to win games you have to buy into that heat culture in order to be

Successful when you were there um you ended up facing off you get through two rounds you take on Jordan and the Bulls and the Easter Conference Finals they’d won 69 games that year so it was about the 96 97 season correct um I remember just being super locked in in college

And just kind of watching all those Bulls teams it wasn’t like I was rooting for him but you didn’t I mean if you were a basketball fan right yeah uh when you know you can’t win what’s that feeling like yeah you know I think there’s a lot of people

Throughout Michael Jordan’s career who feel going to going to understand this feeling it’s almost like um how do you say that you almost have to take the approach like you’re running a marathon second’s not bad you know I mean it’s like when place a draw you

Know what I mean it’s it’s kind of it’s kind of one of those things where you realize and especially for us when we played the Chicago Bulls and the Eastern Conference Finals I think we won one game it was 4-1 yeah it was and what was interesting was

You know Michael Jordan played golf during the day before he played us so it’s kind of like you know um this dude ain’t even really thinking about us that much he going out in the golf course but that was just his Mo they were just he

They were just so great all around with Scotty Dennis Robin and Phil Jackson and dalden and Michael Jordan being the greatest of all time in my opinion um you’re always playing for second with him I mean aaim alijan I’m sure he loves Michael Jordan because if if Michael Jordan didn’t retire Houston Rockets

Would not have two championships for sure I don’t know if Jordan gets eight straight though he may have been exhausted from that um I don’t know man I don’t know man I mean I mean to put it like this have you ever seen a guy leave

A sport play another Sport and come back and then five games later get 55 I mean there’s a possibility he might have got eight in a row man I I can’t rule it out but just knowing how exhausted they were in the third season of the second three Pete but then you go

Okay but what if you threw in two more prior to this that it’s just automatically like eight in a row like I don’t I don’t like suggesting that he’s incapable of doing something on a basketball court but going back and watching the beginning of the third

Season of the second repeat it felt like they were kind of like mentally on fumes but just the toughness of that team like and I I think that was one of the things about your heat run that I liked I didn’t think you were more talented you

Had those battles with the Knicks but you you certainly were tough enough and I’ve always wondered like when I’m watching great teams now and I don’t like the dismissive like everything’s soft now and there’s no hard fouls I mean the guys are so much more talented when it comes to just individual shot

Making that we’ve ever seen it’s the evolution of athletes I’ve given this speech probably too many times but getting to that point where it’s like hey we actually have a toughness about us that makes us a tougher out despite the Gap in Talent like I know

Part of it’s the heat thing that we’ve already touched on and Pat Riley but like is it is it Lonzo is it all the guys like how do you build that with it being a real thing as opposed to just something up on a t-shirt or a whiteboard you know it actually starts

With um uh the head guy um starts with Pat Raleigh at the end of the day and it doesn’t start in training camp it starts with uh pre like conditioning throughout the summertime you know back in the day um I would say few years before I got

Into the NBA a lot of guys would get in shape during training camp but when you play for the Miami Heat you had to be in shape because you had a conditioning test you had to do so it the the mental toughness part uh to me was instrumental during the

Summertime of when you’re preparing for the season so everybody had to buy in and when you hit the training camp you had to run 5 17s and hit your time and then you’re off the practice I will say though that the toughness part especially the mental part is more

Harder than the physical part and it does grind on you throughout the season you know and especially in the NBA season with 82 games it grinds on you so to me it’s it’s one of those things where you have to have a coach who knows

How to pull a lever to take some time off throughout the middle of the season and one of the things that Pat Raleigh did and I think the NBA doesn’t allow it now is I remember one year we had won like I don’t know it was like 16 in a

Row or something like that and then we had lost a game and he just jumped off a cliff and the captains had to go to Pat Ry like dude we won 16 in a row you acting like we were 0 and 16 we just lost one game so that following year Pat

Riley changed his Mo a little bit was still tough on us but he would throw in like little perks like he would uh we were in I forgot where we were at we were playing somewhere on the west coast and we had a two days in between and mid-flight that dude was

Like we’re going to Vegas and he rerouted the plane to Vegas took us to the hotel everybody has their own Villa do what you got to do for 24 hours we’re practicing get back on that plane off she wrote and um I think the NBA outlawed that perk after they heard that

Part of it um but um um he understood by listening to his players and especially a veteran group of guys of you can can’t have the gas pedal all the way down to 90 miles per hour you can back it off to 65 sometimes and let the guys kind of

Recover a little bit and just that that mental grind but it wears on you after a while and especially back in those 90s and early 2000s it was uh defensive basketball it it was half court basketball at its best it was physical not to say it’s not

Physical now just a different type of physicality now but you know you had to be on your p’s and q’s and we were all about winning the championship that was the focus it wasn’t getting to the Eastern Conference Finals it wasn’t making to the playoffs it wasn’t about the Atlantic division title anything

Like that that was a part of it um and goals you had to reach in order to get to the ultimate goal of winning the championship but unfortunately for that group that we had we Michael Jordan was in that era what was Alonzo like as a teammate um Alonzo one thing about

Alonzo Alonzo as a teammate he was tough um Alonzo he could be he could be difficult to deal with sometimes you know what I mean he could be moody and stuff like that but that’s just a part of it I mean but when he got on that

Court there was nobody else that I wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with he came to play every night and his motor at that size 611 what he can do shot blocking wise um you know I enjoyed him as a teammate when we get on the bus he

Would sit at the last row and I would sit right in front of him so we would have conversations and different things so I got to know him on a a much uh deeper level um great teammate would do anything for you um always has a a great

Advice for you I remember Lonzo would drink like these gallons of water man he like you got to drink water man I’m like well you like a I mean okay Miss a fitness guy you so but he was he was awesome he was awesome to be around I

Still see him he sits right next to Pat Raley because he’s with the with the heat um staff or organization and stuff like that and what’s interesting is all those players that I played with from Tim Hardway Alonzo Morning just PJ Brown vwn Leonard I’m watching I’ve no Timmy

Jr since he was a little little ball kid at our practices with the where his head was bigger than the basketball you know and I know also uh Trey morning and I see him at the games went to Georgetown played a little bit of professional basketball but what’s special is that

How old you’re getting and all the kids that have grown up that you watched since they were small become men awesome time well that’s a good transition uh your son’s at New Mexico uh I know he started at Minnesota so it’s his his fourth year in I know he’s a Brewster

Academy too like what was this experience like for you now look when you were recruited it was it was it was a different level of attention was also a different era but what’s it like for you watching your son hope to have NBA aspirations and all of it man yeah he

He’ll get an opportunity um don’t know if it’s NBA or overseas but he will be playing for money at some point you know uh we haven’t decided if he’s going to uh take a fifth year they’re still in the hunt for the tournament so I of let

That kind of play out a little bit um you know what’s been interesting is his trajectory and how much he’s improved um Jay um you know I had him in a school down in South Florida you know he played varsity as a 8th grader and different things like that his sophomore year he

Averaged about 28 points a game and I challenged him I said son I love you man but you ain’t that good you know what I mean uh so now did he think look if you’re 15 and you’re scoring 28 and he’s got your last name like there’s there’s probably a time

There where you know it’s it’s it’s a balance of I want him to be confident but I also like hey your dad was taller so yeah yeah he’s 6’2 and you know one thing I do give him credit for is that you know I TR to keep him away from the

Game as as long as possible he started I want to say at 10 years old which now is late for a lot of kids a lot of kids are starting at three you know what I mean dribbling the ball I put him in everything else for besid basketball he

Came to me and said he wanted to play it and um we took that journey and one thing I will say about him he’s very competitive and the thing that I kind of stress to him is that we are going to seek out the best possible competition

And we’re always going to play up so when it was the opportunity for him um when he was at that school in uh Miami it’s called Gulliver and I challenged him I said I think it’s time for you to go to a prep school outside the uh outside of Florida because basketball is

A little different in Florida it’s much more of football state especially in Miami down in day County and Broward County much more football um so I said you want to go to Brewster Academy we looked at IMG we looked at Mount verie and he said yeah he seeks out

Competition you know what I mean he I had him playing you know when he was 15 he played 15s on a under armoured circuit and then I moved them up to uh 17s on the Under Armour circuit then he jumped to the Nike circuit at 17 years

Old as a 2020 kid learned so much and you know I think for me I have to strike the balance between being a dad and also a guy that has a resume that played college basketball at a high level and played professional basketball at a high level so I approach it from the

Standpoint where I’m here if you need me I’ll help guides you along the journey but you’re the guy in the driver seat and this is your journey and you know don’t compare yourself to me he never does he just has to be the best version of himself he’s probably a better scorer

Than I was and a better shooter than I was as a kid because I had nobody to teach me the game on mechanics I worked strictly with him on his mechanics when he was a young kid so he had some advantages that I didn’t have but you

Know I also grew to be 68 and he 6’2 yeah that’s it I mean you know 68 blame his mother blame blame my ex-wife don’t blame me there’s a little tone in there may just move on to the next question uh one of the things that I always like

Was I was asking you about like the business side and you know I know had all these Investments and everything you didn’t have like a straightforward agent right no no I had a uh how’ you handle that so when I first got um was about to leave early one of the mandates that

Coach patino had he was like okay Jamal we’re going to uh research or interview four agents by the way told you to leave right he told you you can’t come back to Kentucky yeah yeah it it’s not that he didn’t want me to come back yeah you

Know what I mean I think me and Rick struck a relationship up on honesty and that was the main thing that I wanted to kind of as the laying foundation for me and his relationship was honesty whatever it is let’s sit down and have a conversation about let’s chat about it

And that’s unique for a kid that’s 17 years old going to college to have a coach that’s willing to have that type of relationship with you and one of the things when I got you know was about to sign with the University of Kentucky I

Said hey you got to let me know when it’s my time to leave if I’m a four-year player I’m a four-year player all good but if I can leave early in that let me know and he held his word and he always looked at it as what’s the best interest of the

Player the program was going to be the program when I came we were rebuilding and we established it so he understood that he can get other recruits to come in and everything like that to replace me and Antoine Walker came in later and different things like that but cotino

Sat me in his office after I came back from the first Dream Team experience and we worked out against them and beat them the first day and they kicked our butts the rest of the six days and he said Jamal you’re going to be no less than

The fourth overall pick in the following year’s draft which is after my junior year and he said after that we’re going to sign uh an agent we’re going to do a business manager so after we lost in the final four to the Fab Five in New Orleans coach patino flew back with us

And a whole team on that I think it was that Monday or Tuesday because we actually watched the championship game and we had interviews set up um I chose a business manager who’s today is still my business partner he’s no longer my business manager after two years of that

We became partners and we grew a portfolio of businesses from carb dealerships Waste Management to f food restaurants and different things like that um and then I went through the agent process I hired an agent and um he came to me and was like um well what do

You think you want I was like you know I want 30 million and he looked at me like 30 million then he went to the Dallas Mavericks and negotiated with them and came back with 19 and a half Ryan and I’m like well we’re a little bit far

Apart and that previous year Jimmy Jackson was selected fourth overall by the Dallas Mavericks and he got 19 so I’m like dude you know you GNA give me $500,000 more than Jimmy Jackson I mean there supposed to be a significant bump from that so I let him go and then my

Business manager at the time I said can you go in there and represent me he wasn’t an agent or anything like that and he came back with 33 and a half yeah because there was no rookie scale back then correct correct there was no rookie scale you can sign a like

A 10-year deal but you would have options you know what I mean Robinson thing like the Glen Robinson one was I think the last one where they were like okay this is this is out of control correct uh which you know whatever we can debate it all we want but one of my

Favorite parts of of your story is is the last extension yeah yeah want tell that one okay so so I’m in I’m in Charlotte right and um with Miami three years they trade you they trade me and they trade me in the uh in the summertime and I’m actually headed to a

Concert called the up and smoke tour with uhh Dr Dre and all those guys they were performing in Fort Lauderdale and um comes across the ticker that I’ve been traded to the Charlotte Hornets and I’m like wow okay um that’s interesting didn’t get a phone call or anything and

Eventually Pat Riley called me and different things like that and said to me you know what I think I’m going to regret this down the road and he actually did because we swept him in the playoffs the following year um so I get to Charlotte you started scoring again

Too yeah yeah well I had freedom then you know what I mean I wasn’t no longer the third uh the third whe on a team that only can score 88 points you know what I mean so so yeah you’re scoring it jumps a little bit um so I um I get in

There and you know how you working out in the in the preseason and stuff like that a lot of guys coming back I’m playing pickup basketball Paul salz tells me he’s like Hey listen you got the handcuffs off let’s play now I start playing two weeks go by I walk into uh

Bob bass’s office and at the time he was the president of basketball operations he said hey Jamal how you doing what do you want to talk about I just knocked on his door I’m still in sweat gear like you know just sweating go off the court

I said Bob you like me he’s like yeah I was like I like you he’s like yeah I want maximum years and maximum dollars and he said okay that was it and then uh I called my uh business partner at the time 24 hours it was

Done did you pay a commission on that no no he’s my partner man here’s here’s the other one um were you hurt when you asked for the max deal no I wasn’t I wasn’t hurt at that time um I had gotten my first micr fracture surgery

Was on my left knee and that was my second year no my third year Dallas yeah my third year is the Dallas Mavericks I was I was healthy I really got healthy um with the Miami Heat that’s where I got healthy Pat Raley was instrumental

In that uh he was like Jamal I know your knee is bothering and different things like that you know let’s get the proper rehab for you so he was very instrumental in that he was actually the first person to introduce me uh to a personal trainer that traveled with me

You know Pat Raley was ahead of his time you know on that part of it so I took that trainer with me to um Charlotte and he traveled with me and he was basically my rehab guy so I wasn’t hurt at that particular time uh and then actually if you look it

Up 11th in MVP uh at 30 years old and your first Allstar yeah you know uh and that’s after micro fraxa surgery man and um that was my 10th year that was my 10th year yeah and people don’t realize how that impacted my game if you watch

My games when I got drafted I would attack the basket and different things like that but once I had that surgery it was just I had no explosiveness so I had to become more of a mid-range guy uh back you down Fade Away different things

Like that and be able to use my ball handling to get around people because I couldn’t I could no longer just explode by people so you know guys that have had that surgery from Amari stmy to Penny Hardaway they’ll tell you that you’re you have to become a different player

You have to become a different player I I think people be blown away uh although it’s a super popular sort of Beat to Death content intro of kids don’t remember but your three-point shooting I mean touching on 40% over 40% the last year there were Miami like there just

Weren’t it wasn’t like you were taking one a game either you know like yeah these are impressive three-point numbers for somebody who started off is just murdering The Rim Yeah you know what you know what I found was is that when I had that microact surgery and also getting

Down in the Miami Heat and being the third scoring option I had to figure out where my spots were going to be where I can be effective and what I figured out was was Alonzo Morning was going to get double teamed in the post so I used to

Always shoot to the other side of the corner so I worked specifically on Corner threes because you know as the ball swung they’re GNA be running out at that corner man and that’s probably the easiest three-point shot uh to take and make uh in the NBA because it’s actually

A little bit closer than when you get around the The Arc part of it so um that that’s where I established that so um you know for me I was very dialed in into the detail and the specific part of it because I couldn’t do a lot of

Physical too so I had to be mentally uh mentally on it and really figure out how can I adjust final thing before we let you go um March is CRC month this is a big part of your media availability uh it’s a cancer that I know that you are

Um definitely passionate about so tell us more about what you’re doing yeah so I partner with exact Sciences to to Really spread awareness for people that are 45 and older um to get to get search to get understanding get get their screening done um you can go to box

Outon cancer.com for more information and why it’s near and dear to my heart and I don’t you know you know me better than anybody in this media World Ryan I don’t do a lot of things you know what I mean I’m not readily available and not

Really a big media guy but this touched me from the standpoint that my mom dealt with colon cancer and that was my 2003 all-star year and um my mom was in remission for 18 years um passed away not from colon cancer but from a heart issue preo so I’ve always been on the

Mission ever since she passed to honor her and spread the message of things that we experience together that can help other people that’s what what she would want me to do I’m an only child and I was raised by a single mother and Helen Mashburn so anything that I can do

That shares her experience what we went through and if we would have detected early she probably wouldn’t have to deal with some of the had to deal with some of the health care obstacles meaning like uh you know feeling like when you’re in the hospital and she was

Dealing with colon cancer she felt like she was just a chart she didn’t feel like a human you know um and I think a lot of people experien that in our Health Care system so I want people to get screened earlier if you’re 45 and older because it’s a preventable uh

Disease you know um and I think we often as men need to have more conversations about our health and our awareness of health and and really chat about it and not being so taboo F because I’m under the impression that you know you want to be around here as long as possible for

Your loved ones watch your grandkids grow up or or have more of a time with your your wife or girlfriend whoever it is so if there’s things that are preventable so that’s why I partner with exact Sciences to um to talk about the screening process so box out colon

Cancer.com if you want some information my friend right and on Twitter uh exact Sciences uh and at Blue Hats for cins and that is the number for hey this was far too long man it had been it’s been years I don’t know how that happens it’s just what happens but we’ll stay in

Contact and thanks so much for doing this Jamal appreciate man thank you Ryan man I appreciate you man you got the number man use it man all right sounds good we’ll be in contact soon all right man have a good one talk to you later