# Howard Bryant on How the 1986 NBA Draft Changed the NBA Forever | 06.23

An episode of [The Right Time with Bomani Jones](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/982639043), 23 Jun 2026, 58 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/370fc844-36bd-4f61-8b8f-b4bb010de39a/2e9e4f05-2ec2-462a-bbf3-b4bb011105e1/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=919a7cbe-003c-4146-b592-b4bb010de3a5

Bomani Jones and Howard Bryant break down the 1986 NBA Draft and why it remains one of the most important turning points in NBA history. This Time Machine Tuesday episode covers Len Bias, Dennis Rodman, Brad Daugherty, Arvydas Sabonis, the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers, and how the 1986 draft changed the league forever. If you’re looking for NBA history, Len Bias analysis, 1986 NBA Draft context, or a deep dive into the Bird vs. Magic era, this episode goes all the way there. Bomani and Howard Bryant unpack the NBA’s rise in the 1980s, the tragedy of Len Bias, the fallout of the so-called cocaine draft, and why this draft reshaped the future of pro basketball. Topics include: • 1986 NBA Draft • Len Bias and the Celtics • Dennis Rodman’s draft class • Bird, Magic, and the NBA boom • Arvydas Sabonis and international basketball • How the NBA changed in the late 1980s #BomaniJones #HowardBryant #NBAHistory #NBADraft #LenBias #DennisRodman #Celtics #Lakers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Wave.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A wave original.
[0:13] Speaker 2: My name is Bomani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
[0:15] Speaker 2: get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
[0:19] Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
[0:22] Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
[0:24] Speaker 2: a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesday. We got the
[0:29] Speaker 2: NBA draft coming up. And so we will start here
[0:32] Speaker 2: with talking about not the 1996 draft.
[0:35] Speaker 1: We'll get to that.
[0:36] Speaker 2: The 1986 draft. Talk about that with our good buddy.
[0:41] Speaker 2: Check him out. Well, check out Kings and Paws. It
[0:44] Speaker 2: is so great that I still keep this copy of
[0:46] Speaker 2: Kings and Paws on my desk so I can always
[0:48] Speaker 2: pull it up.
[0:48] Speaker 3: Tell people to go check this out. Howard Bryant, what's
[0:51] Speaker 3: going on, man?
[0:52] Speaker 1: My man, how we doing?
[0:54] Speaker 3: Hey, man, we are good. 1986 draft.
[0:57] Speaker 2: I feel like before you can talk about the 86 draft,
[0:59] Speaker 2: you kind of got to walk up to it.
[1:02] Speaker 3: And I think part of the walk up to it
[1:04] Speaker 3: that is interesting.
[1:05] Speaker 2: Is Every draft before, like, nice long run of drafts
[1:10] Speaker 2: prior to that. 1978, it takes a year delay, but
[1:12] Speaker 2: you get Larry Bird out of the 78 draft. You
[1:14] Speaker 2: get Magic Johnson out of the 79 draft. You get
[1:17] Speaker 2: Kevin McHale out of the 1980 draft. You get Isaiah
[1:20] Speaker 2: Thomas in 81. You get James Worthy, Dominique Wilkins in 82.
[1:23] Speaker 2: You get Ralph Sampson, Clyde Drexler in 83. You get Olajuwon, Barkley,
[1:27] Speaker 2: Jordan in 84. 85, I think you wind up getting
[1:31] Speaker 2: Karl Malone, but you also got Patrick Ewing at the
[1:33] Speaker 2: top of the draft. 1986 comes, and not until the
[1:38] Speaker 2: year 2000 is it even possible that we could have
[1:40] Speaker 2: a worse draft in the end than we had with 86.
[1:44] Speaker 3: But 86 is nestled in the middle of the NBA renaissance, right? Obviously,
[1:50] Speaker 3: we'll get to all the cocaine. Everybody knows that we're
[1:53] Speaker 3: here because of the cocaine.
[1:54] Speaker 2: But the early 80s, coming out of the ABA and
[1:59] Speaker 2: the perception that this was this cocaine league and everything
[2:01] Speaker 2: else that was around it, The bird magic thing, also
[2:06] Speaker 2: with a dollop of the Sixers being as good as
[2:10] Speaker 2: they were in that time, everything is looking good for
[2:14] Speaker 2: the NBA in the early 1980s.
[2:17] Speaker 1: You had everything you wanted. And believe me, there are
[2:22] Speaker 1: a lot of places to go. But when you get
[2:24] Speaker 1: to the 86 draft, there's a couple of other things
[2:26] Speaker 1: to remember. Number one, and it's fascinating today from a
[2:29] Speaker 1: 2026 standpoint, which is why I'm bringing this up. is
[2:32] Speaker 1: that you're only two years removed from the draft being
[2:36] Speaker 1: 10 rounds. It was 10 rounds in 1984. They moved
[2:42] Speaker 1: the draft down to seven rounds. Can you still imagine
[2:45] Speaker 1: seven rounds of an NBA? There's only 12 guys on
[2:49] Speaker 1: the roster.
[2:50] Speaker 3: Well, it allows for a lot of people to say, well,
[2:52] Speaker 3: you know, I got drafted.
[2:53] Speaker 1: By the Saints. I got drafted, exactly. You can tell
[2:54] Speaker 1: a lot of guys. And it was interesting looking at
[2:56] Speaker 1: that because that was, to me, that was the– you know,
[2:59] Speaker 1: that was the high point. I mean, I was, you know,
[3:01] Speaker 1: graduating from high school that year and I was all
[3:05] Speaker 1: the way into the, you know, basketball was the center
[3:08] Speaker 1: of the universe. And your very good friend, Ralph Sampson
[3:11] Speaker 1: had just been deposed by the Boston Celtics in the finals.
[3:16] Speaker 1: I was just trying to protect my family from Jerry Seasting. Um,
[3:20] Speaker 1: so I had a knife. Exactly. And also let us
[3:24] Speaker 1: not forget that you come out of that, uh, you
[3:27] Speaker 1: come out of that year And there was an anger
[3:31] Speaker 1: toward everybody in the NBA when you're talking about the
[3:34] Speaker 1: rich getting richer. I mean, it was a fantastic half decade.
[3:38] Speaker 1: The Celtics were back. The Lakers are back. The Sixers
[3:42] Speaker 1: are back. And the Celtics and the Sixers get one
[3:46] Speaker 1: and two in the draft. And one of the questions
[3:49] Speaker 1: that people had been asking before that at that time
[3:52] Speaker 1: was the Lakers win the championship and they get James Worthy.
[3:55] Speaker 1: So it was this rich getting richer thing. And 86
[3:59] Speaker 1: was just a reload. It was like, so the Celtics
[4:02] Speaker 1: are either going to get, you know, Len bias or,
[4:06] Speaker 1: you know, they were going to get somebody good. And
[4:09] Speaker 1: so for my orientation of that draft at, you know,
[4:14] Speaker 1: in real time at that time, this was just, this
[4:17] Speaker 1: was going to be more of the same, you know,
[4:20] Speaker 1: this was going to be moving into the next half
[4:25] Speaker 1: decade or the next decade of of like sort of these,
[4:28] Speaker 1: this big three dominance. One, you know, one rival had
[4:31] Speaker 1: the top pick. The other one had the other pick.
[4:33] Speaker 1: You knew the Lakers had just lost to Houston inexplicably.
[4:36] Speaker 1: So you knew they were going to come back and
[4:37] Speaker 1: it just looked very, very top heavy. And instead that
[4:40] Speaker 1: draft turned, you know, it took, how shall we say,
[4:43] Speaker 1: history took a turn. Yeah.
[4:45] Speaker 2: No, it's actually, I hadn't really thought about this until
[4:47] Speaker 2: you said it, but it is kind of wild that
[4:50] Speaker 2: in 79, the good, already good Lakers got Magic Johnson.
[4:55] Speaker 1: That's right. Right.
[4:56] Speaker 3: In 1980, the already good Celtics.
[5:00] Speaker 1: Celtics were already good.
[5:01] Speaker 3: Say it again.
[5:02] Speaker 1: Celtics were terrible.
[5:04] Speaker 3: Well, no, but 79-80, they won 60-something.
[5:06] Speaker 1: Games, right? They won 61 games, yes. Right, right.
[5:08] Speaker 3: So I'm saying, but in 1980, they are good now.
[5:11] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
[5:12] Speaker 3: And they get Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish, right?
[5:15] Speaker 1: That's right.
[5:16] Speaker 2: You get to 82. The already good Lakers get James Worthy, right?
[5:21] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[5:22] Speaker 3: Even if you get to 84.
[5:23] Speaker 2: And think about it in the context of the Rockets,
[5:25] Speaker 2: where the Rockets were not good, but you just got
[5:27] Speaker 2: Ralph Sampson, generational prospect from one draft, and you get
[5:30] Speaker 2: the next generational prospect coming to you in 84.
[5:33] Speaker 3: Like, teams were stacking up.
[5:35] Speaker 1: Can you imagine social media in 1986 when you go,
[5:39] Speaker 1: when you're the Houston Rockets and you go back-to-back number
[5:42] Speaker 1: one picks? Yes. And then you start the draft lottery
[5:45] Speaker 1: for the first year in 1985, and gee.
[5:50] Speaker 1: The number one market in the country is Patrick Ewan.
[5:54] Speaker 1: I mean, people want to talk about gambling conspiracies now.
[5:56] Speaker 1: Y'all ain't even hiding this about who you want to
[6:01] Speaker 1: be good.
[6:02] Speaker 2: But what's so funny about that is, if I'm not mistaken,
[6:05] Speaker 2: it was Red Auerbach who pulled the envelopes.
[6:08] Speaker 3: And if there's anything we.
[6:09] Speaker 2: Don't think Red Auerbach is doing is throwing a freebie
[6:11] Speaker 2: to the Knicks.
[6:12] Speaker 3: However, it's the NBA. So there's always something for you
[6:15] Speaker 3: to think or assume.
[6:17] Speaker 1: That's right. And also, and let's not forget, that year,
[6:19] Speaker 1: that was the very year that the Knicks tried to
[6:22] Speaker 1: poach the Celtics. They tried to sign Kevin McHale to
[6:24] Speaker 1: an offer sheet. And so, you know, they were a
[6:29] Speaker 1: year removed from playing the Celtics in the second round,
[6:33] Speaker 1: the great Bernard King series, when Cedric Maxwell said, we're
[6:36] Speaker 1: going to stop the bitch, right? You know, that he
[6:39] Speaker 1: has scored his last 40 points. I mean, it was
[6:42] Speaker 1: It was a very, very top-heavy time. And you can
[6:44] Speaker 1: tell if you're thinking about it from a conspiracy standpoint. Yeah,
[6:47] Speaker 1: Bird and Magic have brought this game back. We are
[6:49] Speaker 1: no longer on tape delay. People like us. Madison Avenue
[6:54] Speaker 1: likes us. This is lucky. Let's take advantage of it
[6:57] Speaker 1: right now.
[6:59] Speaker 3: How breakneck was the turn? And I ask that because.
[7:02] Speaker 2: 1979, 1980, they were still on tape delay when Magic
[7:07] Speaker 2: put up the.
[7:08] Speaker 3: They were on tape delay in 82.
[7:11] Speaker 1: Right.
[7:11] Speaker 2: Because it feels, at least from a distance, like Magic
[7:15] Speaker 2: and Bird showed up and then boom, immediately everything was there.
[7:18] Speaker 1: It took until 84. 84 was the first one. 84
[7:21] Speaker 1: is the Super Bowl X of the NBA Finals, where
[7:24] Speaker 1: it was like, oh, we are now something else. That
[7:28] Speaker 1: Dallas Cowboys-Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl... changed what the Super Bowl was.
[7:32] Speaker 1: It's like, oh, no more high school marching bands anymore, right?
[7:36] Speaker 1: We are something else. And that 84 finals, because it
[7:40] Speaker 1: was Boston, because it was LA, because it was Magic,
[7:43] Speaker 1: because it was Burt, all the perfect storm had aligned.
[7:47] Speaker 1: And Michael was coming and everybody knew Michael was on
[7:52] Speaker 1: his way, even though nobody knew how good he was
[7:54] Speaker 1: actually going to be at that time. But After that
[7:59] Speaker 1: 84 finals, they all recognized that we got something special.
[8:06] Speaker 1: And when you think about it from a PTSD standpoint,
[8:10] Speaker 1: you can feel all of that time period today. You
[8:14] Speaker 1: can feel it in terms of flagrant fouls when they're
[8:18] Speaker 1: looking at the monitor and everything. When you look at
[8:22] Speaker 1: the malice at the palace, when you look at everything,
[8:25] Speaker 1: they're like, We're not going back, right? We're not going back.
[8:33] Speaker 1: We're talking dress codes and everything else. That 84 season
[8:38] Speaker 1: was the one where you were like, we have finally
[8:42] Speaker 1: become the league that we thought we could be. And
[8:46] Speaker 1: this goes back to 1947, 1946, because the NBA was
[8:51] Speaker 1: far behind baseball and football and sometimes hockey. Um, the, the,
[8:56] Speaker 1: the league was going through labor wars in the seventies,
[8:59] Speaker 1: you know, battling with the ABA. And then when the
[9:02] Speaker 1: ABA comes in, there was this other group of people
[9:04] Speaker 1: who were like, yeah, but you know, you can take
[9:06] Speaker 1: all that street ball shit. We don't need that. You know,
[9:08] Speaker 1: the game was too black. Um, and then you, you know,
[9:11] Speaker 1: you start adding the drugs and stuff to it as well. And,
[9:15] Speaker 1: you know, there had been, and it's wild to talk
[9:18] Speaker 1: about it now, but there had been serious talk in
[9:21] Speaker 1: my childhood. You know, go call Bob, call Bob Ryan.
[9:25] Speaker 1: I'll tell you all about this. You know, but there
[9:27] Speaker 1: was serious talk all the way up and through high school.
[9:30] Speaker 1: You know, is the NBA going to survive? You know,
[9:34] Speaker 1: like this was like this league's not going to make it.
[9:37] Speaker 1: And we've never seen a league fold.
[9:39] Speaker 3: Right.
[9:40] Speaker 1: I mean, so that's where I mean, it's unthinkable today
[9:45] Speaker 1: to think that the league is going to fold. I mean,
[9:47] Speaker 1: you barely have teams moving anymore. Like back then, you know,
[9:52] Speaker 1: Buffalo moved to San Diego and then they moved to
[9:55] Speaker 1: Los Angeles to be the Clippers. You know, Kansas City
[9:58] Speaker 1: had already moved out. to Sacramento. So you had a
[10:01] Speaker 1: whole bunch of sort of franchise instability as well. So
[10:07] Speaker 1: that period was, you know, like people talk about, oh,
[10:11] Speaker 1: they talk about ratings now. But back then they were
[10:13] Speaker 1: talking about this league might not make it at all. Right.
[10:17] Speaker 2: Think about how down bad you got to be to
[10:18] Speaker 2: be like, we're going to move to Sacramento.
[10:22] Speaker 3: That's where we're going.
[10:24] Speaker 1: That's where we're going.
[10:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to... We'll show you.
[10:29] Speaker 1: We'll move to Sacramento.
[10:30] Speaker 3: We're going to hitch our wagons and go even farther west,
[10:33] Speaker 3: young man.
[10:34] Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. And then on top of that,
[10:36] Speaker 1: you look at some of the other franchises, and it
[10:39] Speaker 1: just didn't seem like... There was a great, I mean,
[10:45] Speaker 1: even at the time, your greatest player pre-Magic was Kareem,
[10:51] Speaker 1: by far. And nobody liked him.
[10:54] Speaker 3: Right.
[10:55] Speaker 1: You know? And a lot of reasons was because he
[10:56] Speaker 1: was too black, but also he was aloof. And he's
[10:58] Speaker 1: in Los Angeles.
[11:00] Speaker 3: Right.
[11:00] Speaker 1: Which is now something that we would say, oh, of
[11:02] Speaker 1: course you're going to Los Angeles. Didn't matter. You know?
[11:07] Speaker 3: Right.
[11:08] Speaker 2: And so in 84, it's interesting also because, I mean...
[11:12] Speaker 2: The finals really kind of gave them everything they wanted
[11:14] Speaker 2: in the sense that the white man did come out
[11:17] Speaker 2: on top, right? Like whatever battle of morals and principles
[11:22] Speaker 2: that you had at that point, not only did the
[11:24] Speaker 2: white man come out on top, the white man came
[11:26] Speaker 2: out on top.
[11:26] Speaker 3: And the flashy black dude self-destructed.
[11:29] Speaker 2: I can't imagine there was anything better for business for
[11:31] Speaker 2: the NBA than that seven games of that series ending
[11:36] Speaker 2: in that very particular way.
[11:38] Speaker 1: In that very particular city. Yes. Um, which is really
[11:43] Speaker 1: why we have all this, you know, it's fascinating to
[11:47] Speaker 1: me how we, you know, we talk about these cities
[11:48] Speaker 1: and we talk about these teams and then they, they,
[11:51] Speaker 1: they fulfill the prophecy, you know, and that's part of
[11:54] Speaker 1: kind of why we attach ourselves to sports so much,
[11:57] Speaker 1: because it's like, it does represent us. It's like this guy,
[12:01] Speaker 1: all kind of coincidence in some ways, but maybe not. Right.
[12:04] Speaker 1: But then again, maybe not. And. And I remember that
[12:08] Speaker 1: very well. I mean, I tell people this all the time.
[12:11] Speaker 1: I was in the Celtic City doc on HBO. That's
[12:15] Speaker 1: my favorite year as a 10th grader who was a
[12:19] Speaker 1: huge Celtics fan because they had no business winning that series.
[12:24] Speaker 1: I remember watching that game one. Watch the first quarter
[12:27] Speaker 1: of game one of the NBA finals in 1984. I
[12:30] Speaker 1: think the Lakers were up 32 to 12. And the
[12:33] Speaker 1: way that they were, and you have to remember too,
[12:34] Speaker 1: and this is wild, but you have to remember too,
[12:36] Speaker 1: because this is a pre-cable. We never saw anybody else
[12:39] Speaker 1: unless it was a Sunday, you know, CBS game, right?
[12:42] Speaker 1: So I never, I saw the Lakers, what, twice that year?
[12:45] Speaker 1: Maybe a few times, you know, in the, you know,
[12:47] Speaker 1: the Sunday game against, you know, when they were running
[12:49] Speaker 1: up on San Antonio or killing Seattle or somebody. But
[12:53] Speaker 1: to see Magic run the floor in real time, I
[12:57] Speaker 1: was like, there's no possible way we're going to beat
[12:59] Speaker 1: these guys. I mean, this is, they're unbeatable. right i
[13:04] Speaker 1: mean they're that good and then of course bird hits
[13:06] Speaker 1: three to end the third quarter and suddenly you got
[13:08] Speaker 1: a good game they still lose the game 115 109
[13:11] Speaker 1: but you're looking at them and then gerald henderson makes
[13:13] Speaker 1: the stealing game too you're like they should they should
[13:15] Speaker 1: have got swept they then they lose the third game
[13:18] Speaker 1: 137 to 104 they they got killed that whole series
[13:24] Speaker 1: and then larry bird is like all right One of
[13:27] Speaker 1: y'all punks need to take somebody out and then you
[13:29] Speaker 1: get the Kurt Rampus clothesline. And then that whole series changed.
[13:33] Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, you know, it was like,
[13:35] Speaker 1: you know, it was a lot like game three of
[13:38] Speaker 1: the 2003 American League Championship Series. You know, once you
[13:42] Speaker 1: start thinking Roger Clemens might throw the fastball at your forehead, yeah,
[13:46] Speaker 1: a little more timid going to the basket and the
[13:48] Speaker 1: whole thing changed, right? Yeah, you might not want to
[13:50] Speaker 1: dive out over the plate anymore. And then that changed everything.
[13:53] Speaker 1: And then that was when Pat Riley said, no rebound,
[13:55] Speaker 1: no ring. And then you get that thing, and the
[13:59] Speaker 1: bad boys come, and then everybody knows the rest of
[14:01] Speaker 1: the history. And what's really funny about that, sorry, I
[14:04] Speaker 1: know we're supposed to talk about the draft, but what's
[14:05] Speaker 1: really funny about that moment was that today, everybody likes
[14:10] Speaker 1: to have all kinds of nostalgia for, remember when the NBA,
[14:13] Speaker 1: when men were men back in the 80s? Bullshit! At
[14:16] Speaker 1: that time, that was one of the dirtiest plays, and
[14:20] Speaker 1: McHale didn't even, that was a common foul!
[14:23] Speaker 3: Yep.
[14:24] Speaker 1: That was a common foul, and that... play made me
[14:29] Speaker 1: have to rethink it was like oh wait a minute
[14:31] Speaker 1: i remember telling isaiah this too and um i was
[14:34] Speaker 1: like oh we were the bad guys you were son
[14:39] Speaker 1: of bad boys the celtics started all this shit right
[14:44] Speaker 1: oops right and and and it's fascinating because at that
[14:50] Speaker 1: time because they were riding so high nothing happened. No,
[14:58] Speaker 1: McHale should have been suspended, right? The whole series changes.
[15:02] Speaker 3: I mean, Robert Parrish beat up Bill Lambert, and I
[15:04] Speaker 3: think he only.
[15:05] Speaker 1: Got a technical foul. But once again, there's a lot
[15:11] Speaker 1: of nostalgia for that time period, but in that moment,
[15:14] Speaker 1: nobody quite knew what had been created. Right.
[15:20] Speaker 2: Now, we get to 86 and this is after each
[15:23] Speaker 2: of the Lakers and the Celtics get another championship. And
[15:26] Speaker 2: the Celtics had an argument at that time that they
[15:29] Speaker 2: just trotted out the best team in the history of
[15:31] Speaker 2: the NBA, right? Like the 86 Celtics are of legendary
[15:34] Speaker 2: status up there, right? Like it's, it's the 72 Lakers.
[15:38] Speaker 2: It's the 67 Sixers.
[15:41] Speaker 3: Um, the 83 Sixers too.
[15:44] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[15:44] Speaker 2: Like this is the level of basketball that we're talking
[15:46] Speaker 2: about here. They went 40 and one at home. Um,
[15:49] Speaker 2: A lot of white boys, man. It was just kind
[15:51] Speaker 2: of hard to avoid that reality, but they wouldn't, they wouldn't,
[15:54] Speaker 2: they weren't out here doing no favors.
[15:57] Speaker 1: Why you got to hit me where it hurts? Yeah, man.
[15:59] Speaker 3: I'm just saying, but Hey man, it wasn't like no
[16:01] Speaker 3: white boys is out there. Cause somebody was doing them
[16:02] Speaker 3: a favor.
[16:03] Speaker 1: Like actually they were doing them a favor. Why? Because
[16:05] Speaker 1: everybody knew, right? I mean, everybody knows Boston and Boston.
[16:09] Speaker 1: You couldn't, even if the Celtics won, like if they
[16:14] Speaker 1: won 80 games, If that bench was not populated with
[16:19] Speaker 1: white players, that team would have fans and everything.
[16:21] Speaker 3: What do you think Greg Kite was doing there? Yeah, yeah.
[16:25] Speaker 2: Now those guys, doing somebody a favor, but like, McHale, Bird,
[16:29] Speaker 2: Danny Ainge, even if you got a healthy Bill Walton, like,
[16:33] Speaker 2: Red was clearly like, if I think the white boy
[16:36] Speaker 2: got something in him, I gotta at least give.
[16:38] Speaker 3: Him a chance. I gotta at least see.
[16:43] Speaker 1: Look, let's put it this way, okay? Just, you know, so...
[16:47] Speaker 1: So your feedback is not inundated with, why do you
[16:49] Speaker 1: guys always have to play the race card? The NBA
[16:54] Speaker 1: at that time was 80% black. There were 14 players
[16:59] Speaker 1: on a roster. The Celtics had 10 white players. That's
[17:06] Speaker 1: really mathematically hard to do. It's hard to do. And
[17:14] Speaker 1: everybody knew at that time that there were three cities
[17:19] Speaker 1: that really, really knew that they were going to cater
[17:21] Speaker 1: to white players. Boston, Utah, and Phoenix. Those were the
[17:27] Speaker 1: cities where ownership knew that they had a racial dynamic
[17:33] Speaker 1: that they had to factor into their roster construction. And
[17:37] Speaker 1: it's also not a coincidence as well that when the
[17:39] Speaker 1: Celtics had hit rock bottom You know, during 78, 79,
[17:44] Speaker 1: it was also the years where they had the highest
[17:45] Speaker 1: concentration of Black players in their history at that time.
[17:50] Speaker 1: You know, and they still refer to those years as
[17:52] Speaker 1: the Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rojas. Bob McAdoo was on one
[17:54] Speaker 1: of those teams.
[17:56] Speaker 3: Yes, he was. That was the Ed Whitson to the
[17:59] Speaker 3: Yankees of the NBA, as I recall. Like, hey, hey, hey,
[18:03] Speaker 3: Randy Johnson to the Yankees. Hey, this just ain't gonna work.
[18:06] Speaker 1: This ain't gonna work, right? Exactly. And so... You know,
[18:09] Speaker 1: at that time, you're really looking at, you know, you are,
[18:15] Speaker 1: you do believe if you're the NBA, you're on top
[18:18] Speaker 1: of the world. And that's why that 86 draft is
[18:23] Speaker 1: so important, because it brought some things back to reality,
[18:28] Speaker 1: but it also sounded the alarms for the NBA in
[18:31] Speaker 1: terms of, we know underneath the Everything underneath the bird
[18:38] Speaker 1: magic commercials, underneath all the rise in the ratings and
[18:41] Speaker 1: everything else. We know that we cannot do anything that
[18:44] Speaker 1: reminds people that of the idea that these that having
[18:52] Speaker 1: black players are having majority black workforce is a negative.
[18:57] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[18:58] Speaker 2: And so we get to this 86 draft with the
[19:00] Speaker 2: Celtics coming off this season. And the Celtics have the
[19:04] Speaker 2: number two pick in the draft.
[19:06] Speaker 3: I don't remember. What trade got them that pick? Do
[19:08] Speaker 3: you remember?
[19:09] Speaker 1: Of course I remember. The trade that got them that
[19:11] Speaker 1: pick was Gerald Henderson, who stole the ball in game
[19:14] Speaker 1: two against James Worthy. He had a contract dispute, and
[19:17] Speaker 1: they traded him to Seattle for Seattle's number one pick. Yes.
[19:22] Speaker 1: Gerald Henderson went for a first-round pick, which ended up
[19:24] Speaker 1: being Len Bias.
[19:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, which turned out to be the number two pick
[19:26] Speaker 2: because this is also the lottery of flat odds.
[19:29] Speaker 3: One envelope for everybody.
[19:30] Speaker 1: That's right.
[19:31] Speaker 2: Cleveland has the number one pick in one day. The
[19:34] Speaker 2: Sixers got rid of Moses Malone and the number one pick.
[19:38] Speaker 2: Don't remember exactly what the circumstances were on both, but
[19:41] Speaker 2: they were in a position where like maybe we could
[19:43] Speaker 2: take one more swing at this.
[19:44] Speaker 3: And they were like, yeah, or maybe we won't. Right.
[19:47] Speaker 2: Maybe we'll just go about this in a different way.
[19:50] Speaker 2: So Cleveland sitting at number one, the Celtics are at
[19:54] Speaker 2: number two. And the best thing that ever happened to
[19:57] Speaker 2: the Cleveland Cavaliers at that point was that there was
[20:00] Speaker 2: a very clear paradigm in that era that said that
[20:04] Speaker 2: if there is an excellent seven footer. And in this case,
[20:08] Speaker 2: one who played four years of college basketball was only
[20:10] Speaker 2: 20 years old and played for Dean Smith. That is
[20:14] Speaker 2: going to be the number one overall pick in the draft.
[20:16] Speaker 2: And so they, and so they took Brad Doherty who
[20:19] Speaker 2: wore number 43, because that was Richard Petty's number, which
[20:23] Speaker 2: is something that I don't think ever happened in the
[20:24] Speaker 2: NBA before, or was ever going to happen in the
[20:28] Speaker 2: NBA again.
[20:30] Speaker 3: And Brad Doherty, was a very good basketball player.
[20:34] Speaker 2: If Brad Doherty doesn't get hurt, Brad Doherty probably winds
[20:37] Speaker 2: up in the Hall of Fame by the end. He
[20:40] Speaker 2: was not in the Ewing, Olajuwon, Robinson tier of player,
[20:44] Speaker 2: but he was a multiple-time All-Star in the Cleveland teams
[20:47] Speaker 2: that he played on, were very, very good, and he
[20:51] Speaker 2: was a square.
[20:52] Speaker 3: There is no other way to put this about Brad Doherty.
[20:55] Speaker 3: He is a square. He wound up running NASCAR teams.
[20:57] Speaker 1: He was a Tim Duncan before Duncan.
[20:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but it like, But Duncan's more quiet. Yeah,
[21:03] Speaker 3: Duncan was quiet and kind of had this like really
[21:06] Speaker 3: snappy sense of humor.
[21:07] Speaker 1: Yes.
[21:08] Speaker 2: If you like get around to it, right? Like Tim
[21:10] Speaker 2: Duncan has dreadlocks right now. Brad Doherty doesn't.
[21:14] Speaker 1: Does not.
[21:15] Speaker 2: He was just a big old goofy boy from Black Mountain,
[21:19] Speaker 2: North Carolina, had the biggest accent of anybody in the league.
[21:22] Speaker 2: And everything else about this draft pretty much was about chaos.
[21:27] Speaker 2: The Cavs took the biggest square in the draft, and
[21:30] Speaker 2: that's why they actually got something out.
[21:32] Speaker 3: Of their pick.
[21:34] Speaker 1: Well, and it's also a reminder that even 40 years later,
[21:38] Speaker 1: the Philadelphia 76ers cannot get a top three pick right.
[21:43] Speaker 3: Right?
[21:43] Speaker 1: I mean, they had the number one pick.
[21:47] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[21:48] Speaker 1: Right? And if you go back and hop on YouTube
[21:50] Speaker 1: and look at the draft lottery that day, Red Auerbach
[21:55] Speaker 1: is clapping his hands when he didn't get the number
[21:57] Speaker 1: one pick. Like, I got you. I know something you
[22:00] Speaker 1: don't know. I got you. Right? Which was, of course,
[22:03] Speaker 1: you know, just more gamesmanship, but it was just Red
[22:05] Speaker 1: being Red. But the 76ers end up trading that pick.
[22:10] Speaker 1: They end up with Roy Hinson. From Rutgers. And I
[22:15] Speaker 1: think that, can you imagine Charles Barkley and Dr. J
[22:20] Speaker 1: with two years left and Brad Doherty? Philly's probably a
[22:24] Speaker 1: pretty good team for the next couple of years. Barkley, Doherty,
[22:27] Speaker 1: front line is pretty damn good. Yeah. And instead they
[22:33] Speaker 1: trade Moses for Jeff Ruland.
[22:36] Speaker 3: Say that again.
[22:38] Speaker 1: Traded Moses Malone for Jeff Ruland.
[22:42] Speaker 3: A still pretty good Moses Malone.
[22:45] Speaker 1: Yeah. And a pretty decent, I mean, Jeff, Jeff ruling
[22:47] Speaker 1: at that time was a decent player.
[22:54] Speaker 3: Yes.
[22:55] Speaker 1: But that deal was like, what are you doing? I mean,
[22:59] Speaker 1: they believe Philly, Philly had believed. And once again, and
[23:02] Speaker 1: this is why it's so fascinating when everybody likes to
[23:05] Speaker 1: talk about sports as a meritocracy and this and that
[23:07] Speaker 1: Philly is another one of those cities where it's like, okay,
[23:09] Speaker 1: we don't have to have a white boy in here.
[23:12] Speaker 1: but it might help. I mean, they, they saw the,
[23:15] Speaker 1: you know, Julius was done. He had two years left, 86,
[23:18] Speaker 1: he was done by 87 and he retired and they,
[23:21] Speaker 1: you know, but it was Barkley city. You know, I was,
[23:24] Speaker 1: that was my, you know, first year in Philly. I
[23:26] Speaker 1: went to college at Temple and that there was no
[23:32] Speaker 1: other team that I could think of. And I hadn't been,
[23:35] Speaker 1: I hadn't been anywhere when I was a high school kid.
[23:37] Speaker 1: I hadn't been anywhere, but no team said, black part
[23:43] Speaker 1: of our city like the 76ers. You know, like the
[23:47] Speaker 1: Julius Irving 76ers were an experience. You know what I mean?
[23:52] Speaker 1: And then to follow up that experience with Barkley. I mean,
[23:58] Speaker 1: and then the very next year, I mean, two years later, right?
[24:01] Speaker 1: You got Chuck D putting Barkley in his lyrics.
[24:05] Speaker 3: Like everybody- I'll throw it down your throat like Barkley.
[24:08] Speaker 1: I mean, that was like the experience. And so, You know,
[24:13] Speaker 1: on the one hand, Moses was never as great as
[24:16] Speaker 1: he had been previously. But on the other, you traded
[24:19] Speaker 1: Moses Malone for Jeff Rulon.
[24:21] Speaker 3: Yeah, you did that.
[24:22] Speaker 1: You did that.
[24:23] Speaker 3: And by the way, you could have replaced him, but
[24:25] Speaker 3: you didn't do that.
[24:26] Speaker 1: Right.
[24:26] Speaker 2: Like that's that's how it shook out. But shout out
[24:28] Speaker 2: to you, Cleveland Cavaliers. They wound up. They didn't have
[24:31] Speaker 2: the first pick in the second round. The Mavericks did.
[24:34] Speaker 2: But they the Mavericks made that pick for them and
[24:36] Speaker 2: they made a trade. They got probably the two biggest
[24:38] Speaker 2: squares you could get in that draft, Brad Doherty and
[24:40] Speaker 2: Mark Price.
[24:41] Speaker 3: And I believe both of their numbers are hanging in
[24:43] Speaker 3: the rafters.
[24:44] Speaker 2: Sometimes what you need is a square because after that, buddy,
[24:48] Speaker 2: everything gets a little bit wonky. And we will talk
[24:51] Speaker 2: about that, including land bias coming up next. The biggest
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[26:11] Speaker 2: All right, we are back with Howard Bryant talking about
[26:18] Speaker 2: the 1986 NBA draft. It's almost cliche to talk about
[26:22] Speaker 2: what happened with Lynn Baez. It is well-worn territory, but
[26:26] Speaker 2: I'll say it again. My daddy was adamant well into
[26:29] Speaker 2: the 21st century that If the Celtics had taken Len Bias,
[26:32] Speaker 2: they would still be kicking butt to this day. Like,
[26:37] Speaker 2: the Len Bias clips of him at Maryland, that's a
[26:40] Speaker 2: dude that looks like he came from the future.
[26:42] Speaker 1: That's right. He's a man. I mean, I still say
[26:45] Speaker 1: two things on this. I'll be very quick about it.
[26:47] Speaker 1: Number one, the first time I interviewed LeBron James was
[26:50] Speaker 1: in Boston, back when the NBA Summer League was in Boston,
[26:53] Speaker 1: before they went to Vegas. And I remember looking at
[26:57] Speaker 1: LeBron James, and I just remember staring and like, You know,
[27:01] Speaker 1: when you're an average-sized human, looking at basketball players is
[27:08] Speaker 1: a humbling experience. And I'm looking at him going, no
[27:11] Speaker 1: way is he 18 years old. There's just no way
[27:13] Speaker 1: is he 18 years old. And that's how people looked
[27:16] Speaker 1: at Len Bias. There were a couple of guys who
[27:19] Speaker 1: would come later or in that same range. Like Walter Berry,
[27:22] Speaker 1: people looked at him like the way they looked at Bias,
[27:24] Speaker 1: that men against boys thing. J.R. Reid as well. I
[27:28] Speaker 1: remember at that same time, a few years later, back
[27:30] Speaker 1: in the 90s, they looked at him, same thing, that
[27:31] Speaker 1: men against boys. And obviously Zion a little bit later.
[27:35] Speaker 1: But Len Bias was one of the first guys where
[27:37] Speaker 1: you were like, wow. Right? I mean... And at that
[27:44] Speaker 1: time as well, let's also not forget that Jordan had
[27:48] Speaker 1: just scored 63 points in a playoff game. Yeah. You know, so...
[27:53] Speaker 1: The whole thing, when people were talking about bias, they
[27:57] Speaker 1: were comparing him in a lot of ways to his
[28:01] Speaker 1: ACC rival who had just scored 63 points in a
[28:04] Speaker 1: playoff game. It was like, we got our guy now, right?
[28:08] Speaker 1: So I just graduated high school. I was working produce,
[28:15] Speaker 1: unloading vegetables at Star Market. otherwise known as Star Market,
[28:20] Speaker 1: if you're not from Boston, the supermarket. And I got
[28:25] Speaker 1: a phone call. We didn't have cell phones back then.
[28:27] Speaker 1: Over the intercom, phone call for Howard Bryant. I'm like
[28:30] Speaker 1: at the supermarket, right? And it's my boy, my best
[28:32] Speaker 1: friend calls me and he's crying. He's dead, he's dead,
[28:36] Speaker 1: he's dead. I'm like, who's dead? I think he was
[28:38] Speaker 1: talking about his brother.
[28:39] Speaker 3: I was like, what, who, what, what?
[28:42] Speaker 1: Len Pius. You know, I mean, it was like, still
[28:49] Speaker 1: don't have any words for that for that very moment
[28:52] Speaker 1: remember it like it was yesterday and and then all
[28:56] Speaker 1: the stuff that came later it was just staggering you
[29:00] Speaker 1: know sports illustrated death of a dream and the whole
[29:02] Speaker 1: thing and it's like it's it all it all went
[29:08] Speaker 1: sideways i mean in a very very tragic tragic way
[29:12] Speaker 1: but also um that draft was you know you realize
[29:18] Speaker 1: that that wasn't you know, only the tragedy of the draft.
[29:22] Speaker 1: It was just the beginning.
[29:23] Speaker 3: Right, right. And look, the thing with Lin, well, he
[29:26] Speaker 3: could hoop.
[29:27] Speaker 2: Like, it was not just simply this spectacular athlete, while
[29:31] Speaker 2: that was also a part of it.
[29:32] Speaker 3: He also had game.
[29:34] Speaker 2: Michael Jordan's last year in college is 1984. Lin Bias
[29:38] Speaker 2: was the 1984 ACC tournament MVP. He's ACC player of
[29:43] Speaker 2: the year the next two years.
[29:46] Speaker 1: He was.
[29:47] Speaker 2: the clips of watching Lynn bias, that game at the
[29:49] Speaker 2: Dean dome, basically when it wasn't the first game at
[29:51] Speaker 2: the Dean dome, but it was the first year where
[29:53] Speaker 2: he makes that, makes that, makes that bucket, steals the
[29:56] Speaker 2: pads and reverse dunks it.
[29:57] Speaker 3: And it was like, he just levitated off the ground
[29:59] Speaker 3: to go do this. It's like, what was happening here?
[30:02] Speaker 2: And he was going to play for the Celtics who
[30:04] Speaker 2: already have literally the best frontline in the history of
[30:07] Speaker 2: the NBA.
[30:08] Speaker 1: And what was wild about that too, Bo was that,
[30:10] Speaker 1: you know, what was exciting to me about that was that,
[30:14] Speaker 1: and once again, you talk about the, The style of
[30:17] Speaker 1: the day. You're still only 10 years removed from the
[30:21] Speaker 1: ABA-NBA merger. And the stereotypes and the racism that comes
[30:27] Speaker 1: with that, which those dudes played streetball. We play basketball
[30:31] Speaker 1: the right way. That Dr. Jack Portland, we pass the ball,
[30:35] Speaker 1: all of it. We play the game the right way.
[30:37] Speaker 1: The Celtics were extremely proud of the fact that they
[30:40] Speaker 1: had never had an NBA scoring champ. Why? Because we
[30:46] Speaker 1: share the ball. We're not selfish. We don't want an
[30:49] Speaker 1: NBA scoring champ. All of our guys are fundamentally sound,
[30:53] Speaker 1: which was code for, you know, you can have all
[30:56] Speaker 1: the flashy black guys and we'll beat them, you know,
[31:00] Speaker 1: with our white intellect, right? That was the thing underneath it.
[31:04] Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why we in the black
[31:05] Speaker 1: community love the Celtics so much was because we felt
[31:08] Speaker 1: we had to protect Jojo White and Cedric Maxwell and
[31:11] Speaker 1: Robert Parrish from that bullshit, right? Because that's what you
[31:14] Speaker 1: were living with. But then we were going to get
[31:19] Speaker 1: an athlete? Yes. The Celtics? We were going to get,
[31:23] Speaker 1: you know, brothers were like.
[31:26] Speaker 1: We can actually be Celtics fans like out loud now.
[31:29] Speaker 3: We're going to get an athlete.
[31:31] Speaker 1: We're going to get somebody who actually like leaves the floor.
[31:34] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[31:35] Speaker 2: Well, the other thing about Red Auerbach, you have to remember,
[31:38] Speaker 2: he had the teams with all the white boys in
[31:40] Speaker 2: the eighties, but he had the teams with all the
[31:41] Speaker 2: black dudes in the sixties. He was a valuable man
[31:44] Speaker 2: when it came to these things. He wasn't, he wasn't
[31:46] Speaker 2: going to be the guy like this. Was it like
[31:49] Speaker 2: late aughts Mike Krzyzewski where you're like, dude, you don't
[31:52] Speaker 2: even want that guy.
[31:53] Speaker 1: Are you serious?
[31:54] Speaker 3: No, no, no. Red Auerbach's looking at Len Bias and hell,
[31:56] Speaker 3: Shesky probably would too.
[31:57] Speaker 1: He tried to get Ralph Sampson, which I used to
[32:00] Speaker 1: laugh at.
[32:00] Speaker 3: Yeah, come on down.
[32:01] Speaker 1: Right here.
[32:01] Speaker 3: We got a place for you, buddy.
[32:03] Speaker 2: You may have to come off the bench for a
[32:05] Speaker 2: year or two, but we got something for you.
[32:07] Speaker 1: Although we do know that 50-50 or even close, he
[32:12] Speaker 1: was taking a white boy. Yeah. He took Michael Smith
[32:15] Speaker 1: over Kobe Bryant.
[32:17] Speaker 3: Michaels, that was a different draft, right?
[32:19] Speaker 1: No, no. He took Michael Smith over, I think, was
[32:21] Speaker 1: it Eddie Jones? Eddie Jones seems a little bit more likely. Yeah,
[32:24] Speaker 1: it was Eddie Jones. He took Eric Montross.
[32:30] Speaker 3: He did take Eric Montross.
[32:32] Speaker 2: But I felt like he took Eric Montross very similar
[32:34] Speaker 2: to how Eric Montross wilds out at Carolina.
[32:37] Speaker 3: Because one thing Gut and D.
[32:38] Speaker 2: Smith were doing, hey, we also have to have a
[32:41] Speaker 2: couple of white guys on this team.
[32:42] Speaker 3: And it helps if they're seven feet tall.
[32:44] Speaker 1: Exactly. That's right.
[32:46] Speaker 3: But we... The bias... I mean, look. Bias dying.
[32:52] Speaker 2: obviously literally changed the world, right? And it's sad because
[32:55] Speaker 2: the legacy of Lynn Bias wound up getting a lot
[32:58] Speaker 2: of black people thrown in jail. Not like it was
[33:00] Speaker 2: Lynn Bias' fault, not like it was his idea, but
[33:03] Speaker 2: that was the end result. The death of Lynn Bias
[33:06] Speaker 2: became an excuse for a lot of people to do
[33:08] Speaker 2: a lot of things that they probably wanted to do
[33:12] Speaker 2: already and was one of the first cases that I
[33:14] Speaker 2: could think of. And it's the same thing going on
[33:16] Speaker 2: with this Matthew Perry case. And it's something that really
[33:18] Speaker 2: kind of gets on my nerves a little bit. which
[33:20] Speaker 2: is whenever a famous person, Phyllis Seymour Hoffman, whenever a
[33:23] Speaker 2: famous person dies of using drugs, you got to go
[33:25] Speaker 2: find somebody to blame.
[33:27] Speaker 1: Who sold you these drugs and you're going to put
[33:29] Speaker 1: them in jail?
[33:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, or some other junkie to go do that, or
[33:31] Speaker 2: like Tyler Skaggs, the thing with the angels.
[33:35] Speaker 3: With the angels. I understand what you're doing here, but
[33:38] Speaker 3: come on, man, are you serious?
[33:40] Speaker 1: Are you serious? And also, let's not forget that the
[33:42] Speaker 1: piece of that too, when it came to the drugs
[33:46] Speaker 1: with bias, was also the selling of, That three strikes
[33:51] Speaker 1: and the war on drugs and all this stuff that
[33:54] Speaker 1: we're doing it for you. Like, and that you in
[33:58] Speaker 1: the black community, you're asking for this. We're doing this
[34:02] Speaker 1: as a benefit. We're not doing this as a punishment.
[34:03] Speaker 1: We're doing it to protect your kids. Right. And you
[34:08] Speaker 1: did anything but protect our kids. Like the, all of
[34:11] Speaker 1: that stuff. I mean, you destroyed our kids and their kids. Right.
[34:17] Speaker 3: Right.
[34:18] Speaker 1: So, but that is all happening. And when you think
[34:21] Speaker 1: about that draft, I mean, like I said, we focus
[34:23] Speaker 1: on bias, but number two pick bias, dies of a
[34:27] Speaker 1: drug overdose. Number three, Chris Washburn. Yep. Cocaine suspension. Number six,
[34:33] Speaker 1: William Bedford.
[34:34] Speaker 3: Yep.
[34:34] Speaker 1: Drug suspension. He's in a championship team with the Pistons. Yep.
[34:38] Speaker 1: Number seven, Roy Tarpley, banned from the NBA.
[34:41] Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah, and he was cold.
[34:43] Speaker 1: And I was going to say, and Roy Tarpley. We
[34:46] Speaker 1: don't talk about, everyone's like, oh, well, the Dallas Mavericks
[34:49] Speaker 1: didn't get to the NBA Finals until, you know, 2006.
[34:51] Speaker 1: Those mid-' 80s Dallas Mavericks teams were right there with the Lakers.
[34:58] Speaker 1: They were pretty damn close. And Derek Harper dribbling out
[35:00] Speaker 1: the ball. They had a shot, man. And Roy Tarpley
[35:07] Speaker 1: was the center. When he was on that team, when
[35:10] Speaker 1: he was playing, they were great. 13, Pearl Washington, banned
[35:17] Speaker 1: from the NBA drugs. 22, Scott Skiles, played a bunch
[35:21] Speaker 1: of years, coached the whole thing, but he had a
[35:23] Speaker 1: cocaine thing in college. He did.
[35:27] Speaker 3: That guy is a story.
[35:30] Speaker 1: He's his own documentary.
[35:32] Speaker 3: Scott Skiles is like, there's a Jason Williams element to
[35:38] Speaker 3: Scott Skiles, but Jason Williams, Jason Williams didn't get in
[35:42] Speaker 3: nearly as much trouble as Scott Skiles did. Jason Williams
[35:45] Speaker 3: just smoking dope, but not like dope dope, just like weed.
[35:49] Speaker 1: That's just weed. Six of the first 22 picks, five
[35:54] Speaker 1: of the first 13 picks in that draft were associated
[35:59] Speaker 1: or suspended, banned from the league, or died because of drugs. Yeah.
[36:07] Speaker 3: And this is when the NBA starts doing things.
[36:09] Speaker 1: And the NBA starts doing things. And also, let's also
[36:12] Speaker 1: not forget that Chris Washburn is in Golden State. And
[36:16] Speaker 1: Golden State is having its own problems. Because they had,
[36:22] Speaker 1: you know, the nickname, because there were so many drugs
[36:24] Speaker 1: going through there, they used to refer to Oakland as Cokeland. And,
[36:30] Speaker 1: you know, Bernard King had his drug issues when he
[36:33] Speaker 1: was in Golden State. And so... you know, then he
[36:37] Speaker 1: goes to the Knicks, obviously, but, and, you know, becomes a,
[36:39] Speaker 1: you know, the great hall of famer that he is.
[36:41] Speaker 1: But at that time, you know, the Warriors had a
[36:44] Speaker 1: reputation of being, you know, a place where drugs were
[36:48] Speaker 1: running rampant. And also let's not forget 1986, while that's
[36:52] Speaker 1: going on, you're a year removed from the Kansas city,
[36:55] Speaker 1: Pittsburgh drug trials and baseball. And so the eighties, it just,
[37:02] Speaker 1: I feel like going back and like watching wall street
[37:04] Speaker 1: or something, right. You know, or watching Robocop where drugs
[37:10] Speaker 1: are like everywhere in the 80s.
[37:12] Speaker 3: Well, hold on.
[37:13] Speaker 2: Two years ahead of the Edmonton Oilers cocaine scam.
[37:17] Speaker 1: That's right. Then the Oilers too. That's right.
[37:19] Speaker 3: Ask me who went to jail for that.
[37:22] Speaker 1: Who went to jail for that?
[37:23] Speaker 3: Grant Fuhrer.
[37:24] Speaker 1: That's right.
[37:25] Speaker 3: The black guy.
[37:26] Speaker 1: The black goalie.
[37:30] Speaker 3: Ain't nobody ever circled the wagons to be like, yeah,
[37:32] Speaker 3: but not him. Not him.
[37:33] Speaker 1: Don't know him.
[37:35] Speaker 3: Now that guy, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[37:37] Speaker 3: Everybody was like, hey, maybe me.
[37:40] Speaker 1: Him?
[37:42] Speaker 3: Absolutely not. But hey, the cocaine 80s were wild.
[37:46] Speaker 2: And then this draft, even the guy's who weren't cocaine cases.
[37:52] Speaker 3: It didn't go right for anybody, it feels like. Doherty
[37:56] Speaker 3: wound up having the bad back.
[37:58] Speaker 1: He's back into his career.
[38:00] Speaker 2: Ron Harper tore up his knee. John Hotplate Williams couldn't
[38:03] Speaker 2: stop eating. Dale Curry, you know, he had a decent career, right?
[38:09] Speaker 2: He's the one who played forever. You know who played
[38:11] Speaker 2: the most games out of anybody in this draft.
[38:13] Speaker 3: By the way?
[38:14] Speaker 1: Rodman?
[38:15] Speaker 3: Johnny Newman.
[38:16] Speaker 1: Jenny newman yes jenny richmond like 16 years.
[38:20] Speaker 2: Yes johnny newman played the most games dill curry also
[38:23] Speaker 2: played 16 games like rod harper pulled it together and
[38:26] Speaker 2: played 15 years but again we had a knee injury
[38:29] Speaker 2: situation there were all kinds of guys that just washed
[38:31] Speaker 2: out walter berry didn't become that guy.
[38:34] Speaker 1: I remember that's not possible oh sorry i'm looking at
[38:38] Speaker 1: the wrong draft you're right yeah well didn't get there
[38:41] Speaker 1: but johnson Not a great Johnson, Alabama, right? Yeah. Yeah.
[38:44] Speaker 2: Not a great pick by you. Houston Rockets coming off
[38:48] Speaker 2: of that year. Arvita Sabotis is in that draft, but
[38:50] Speaker 2: he only plays gets over here for seven years. And
[38:53] Speaker 2: even then, by the time he got here, he had
[38:55] Speaker 2: the knee problems. The guy that wound up having the
[38:59] Speaker 2: best career in this draft turned out to be Dennis Rodman.
[39:03] Speaker 3: And it is wild. We didn't know it at the time,
[39:05] Speaker 3: but looking back on it at the end, in the
[39:08] Speaker 3: cocaine draft, the last man standing was Dennis Rodman.
[39:16] Speaker 1: It's crazy. And what's really sort of wild about it,
[39:19] Speaker 1: just in terms of irony and when you're looking at
[39:21] Speaker 1: all of these, when you go back and just look
[39:23] Speaker 1: at the numbers, there are just so many moments where
[39:31] Speaker 1: everything changes, but that's what history does, right? Where everything changes. And,
[39:36] Speaker 1: and Dallas is such a good example of that because
[39:40] Speaker 1: I remember, you know, knowing how different, there were like
[39:45] Speaker 1: three guys that you remember outstandingly that when they were on,
[39:51] Speaker 1: the future changed. One was Michael Ray Richardson, drugs. One
[39:55] Speaker 1: was Roy Tarpley, another one, right? It was like, oh,
[39:59] Speaker 1: suddenly their teams are totally different teams when he's playing,
[40:05] Speaker 1: you know? And then the drugs just sort of changed everything.
[40:07] Speaker 1: And obviously, you know, bias is the, you know, the third,
[40:11] Speaker 1: like the what ifs and how things would have just
[40:14] Speaker 1: completely shifted. Yeah.
[40:16] Speaker 3: Like I say, should have took a square.
[40:19] Speaker 2: The guy from that draft with the most win shares
[40:22] Speaker 2: for his career in the end, Jeff Hortisek. Could have
[40:26] Speaker 2: had Mark Price. Johnny, Nate McMillan. Squares abounded. You also
[40:33] Speaker 2: had Chuck Person, who was just a lot of fun.
[40:35] Speaker 1: A lot of fun. You know what surprised me in
[40:36] Speaker 1: that draft? Because I was, once again, we talk about,
[40:39] Speaker 1: you know, the blackness of the 80s and all those teams. Because,
[40:43] Speaker 1: of course, I was a Georgetown guy at that time.
[40:46] Speaker 1: David Wingate got 15 years.
[40:48] Speaker 3: David Wingate did get 15 years.
[40:49] Speaker 1: He got 15 years. And one thing that people do
[40:52] Speaker 1: not talk anywhere nearly enough about is that this is
[40:57] Speaker 1: still a job. Yeah.
[40:59] Speaker 3: Right?
[41:00] Speaker 1: He got 15 years on the job.
[41:02] Speaker 3: That's a gold watch.
[41:04] Speaker 1: Right? I mean, and that is some real talk right
[41:07] Speaker 1: there in terms of also just being a professional. Like
[41:11] Speaker 1: Johnny Newman, 16 years in the league? Yep.
[41:14] Speaker 3: Keep coming to work.
[41:15] Speaker 1: And people tell you, what's the average service time in
[41:21] Speaker 1: the league? Is it three years? Average career length? Three years?
[41:24] Speaker 1: You got 16? 16. 16.
[41:25] Speaker 2: By the way, another square you might have wanted to take.
[41:29] Speaker 2: Johnny Dawkins.
[41:31] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. One of my favorites.
[41:32] Speaker 3: Yeah. Johnny Boyd.
[41:34] Speaker 1: If you ever meet him. And his knee. And he
[41:35] Speaker 1: was a great player until he tore up his knee
[41:38] Speaker 1: with Philly.
[41:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you ever hear about a black man
[41:40] Speaker 2: rooting for Duke of a certain age, you're like, why
[41:42] Speaker 2: would you do such a thing, that Johnny Dawkins thing?
[41:44] Speaker 2: Johnny Dawkins happened before all the other stuff did. Well,
[41:47] Speaker 2: that was my reason. Duke was one of my favorite teams.
[41:50] Speaker 2: Because they had the black backcourt of Dawkins Amaker. Yeah,
[41:53] Speaker 2: but you got over that shit, right?
[41:55] Speaker 1: Very quickly.
[41:55] Speaker 3: Okay.
[41:56] Speaker 1: Hey, hey, hey.
[41:58] Speaker 3: You've said enough.
[41:59] Speaker 1: I mean, come on. I know, I know. That hurt
[42:01] Speaker 1: me right there.
[42:02] Speaker 3: I know, but you know, right? Like I just had
[42:04] Speaker 3: for the audience. I did that for the audience. I
[42:08] Speaker 3: did that for the people.
[42:08] Speaker 2: I needed to make sure that they knew that I
[42:10] Speaker 2: wouldn't allow a double agent to sneak in here.
[42:14] Speaker 3: Drozd Petrovic was in this draft too.
[42:16] Speaker 1: I noticed that.
[42:17] Speaker 3: There's so much in there.
[42:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, if you weren't here, boy, that Drozd Petrovic was
[42:22] Speaker 2: a motherfucker, boy.
[42:23] Speaker 3: Good gracious, he was good. And all of them Euro guards,
[42:28] Speaker 3: like them Slavic guards or just Eastern Europeans, him and
[42:31] Speaker 3: the OG Saruna's Marshall. I was going to say, Oh,
[42:34] Speaker 3: they came over here with a game that looks familiar.
[42:37] Speaker 3: We're like, Oh y'all out here. Whoop it. Yeah.
[42:40] Speaker 1: And my, and Marshall Lona's who's, you know, he had
[42:43] Speaker 1: them thighs and calves like a soccer player and, and
[42:47] Speaker 1: Euro step. And he was, he played a lot like
[42:49] Speaker 1: Ginobili before Ginobili, but he was more muscular. He's a
[42:51] Speaker 1: bigger guy. Um, It's true. I mean, it is, once again,
[42:55] Speaker 1: really fascinating watching all of those players. Because once again,
[43:00] Speaker 1: that was my sweet spot where that was the moment
[43:03] Speaker 1: where the Big East was as popular as the NBA
[43:06] Speaker 1: in our neck of the woods. And so I remember,
[43:12] Speaker 1: and also let's not forget the white stiff player. Because
[43:18] Speaker 1: there was Ewing, but there were all these other guys
[43:20] Speaker 1: that everybody thought, you know, the John Concax and the
[43:23] Speaker 1: Larry Kristoliak and the Greg Dreilings and all these dudes, right?
[43:30] Speaker 1: And it's like- BWS, Big White Stiff.
[43:32] Speaker 2: It's an archetype that has largely been eliminated.
[43:36] Speaker 3: Kind of sadly, they made things more fun.
[43:39] Speaker 1: Well, you know, once again, you know, they like to
[43:42] Speaker 1: blame us, but they're actually cannibalizing each other. Because the
[43:46] Speaker 1: European players came in, opened up the space, and then
[43:50] Speaker 1: the big white guy in the middle who, hey man,
[43:52] Speaker 1: I was always guaranteed a job. What you mean there's
[43:57] Speaker 1: no room for me anymore? The game shifts.
[44:01] Speaker 3: It did. Who else we got here? Kenny Skywalker, 1989
[44:05] Speaker 3: Slam Dunk champion.
[44:06] Speaker 1: Kenny Skywalker, Kentucky. Kentucky. You know, one of the guys
[44:09] Speaker 1: in the chef, I was actually thinking about this because
[44:11] Speaker 1: I was laughing when I went through this. They were Obviously,
[44:15] Speaker 1: Len Bias accepted, but who's the one guy in that
[44:20] Speaker 1: draft in the first round who did not play a
[44:24] Speaker 1: game in the NBA? Huh.
[44:28] Speaker 3: I do not know.
[44:30] Speaker 1: The jerry-curled fighting Irish Kenny Barlow.
[44:35] Speaker 3: Oh, you know what's so funny? I was picking him
[44:37] Speaker 3: up with Kenny Norman. I was so confused when I
[44:40] Speaker 3: saw the gap and was like, I don't understand why
[44:43] Speaker 3: there's a gap. I remember Kenny Norman, but you're right,
[44:46] Speaker 3: Kenny Barlow.
[44:47] Speaker 1: Kenny Barlow, Notre Dame. We used to make fun, right?
[44:51] Speaker 1: Because I didn't like Notre Dame. Notre Dame basketball was
[44:56] Speaker 1: never much to me about anything. But they, you know.
[44:59] Speaker 1: We used to make fun of the Jerry Crilled Afro
[45:01] Speaker 1: Brothers over there. They had Kenny Barlow and then they
[45:03] Speaker 1: had David Rivers. They did have David Rivers. You know,
[45:07] Speaker 1: who we used to make fun of because of the
[45:10] Speaker 1: Nintendo game Punch-Out. We used to call him Kid Quick. Oh, wow.
[45:19] Speaker 3: Now, this draft was all over the place.
[45:22] Speaker 2: It was another Russian, Sasha Volkov, that played for the
[45:25] Speaker 2: Hawks for a couple years.
[45:26] Speaker 1: Not to be confused with Nikolai Volkov from the WWF.
[45:29] Speaker 3: No, no, completely different situation. We were about that Sasha
[45:33] Speaker 3: Volkov life, but it never happened. I mentioned it quickly before.
[45:36] Speaker 3: Chuck Person got to be wishing he could play today.
[45:38] Speaker 1: Oh, no doubt.
[45:39] Speaker 3: First of all. So great things about Chuck Conner, about
[45:42] Speaker 3: Chuck person, excuse me.
[45:43] Speaker 2: First of all, his nickname was the rifleman because his
[45:47] Speaker 2: middle name was Connors because he was actually.
[45:49] Speaker 1: Named after the rifleman.
[45:51] Speaker 2: And then became a guy that just shot a bunch
[45:54] Speaker 2: of three pointers and then suffered an ignominious end to
[45:57] Speaker 2: his coaching career. As he went down, as none of
[46:00] Speaker 2: the head coaches went down during that last little coaching scandal,
[46:03] Speaker 2: back when you could get in trouble for paying people
[46:05] Speaker 2: to play basketball.
[46:08] Speaker 1: And hilariously too, Chuck Connors. His mother did name him
[46:14] Speaker 1: after the rifleman, after Chuck Connors. And on top of that,
[46:17] Speaker 1: he also was a Boston Celtic.
[46:19] Speaker 3: He was.
[46:20] Speaker 1: He was.
[46:21] Speaker 3: He was. Chuck Connors. Keep calling him Chuck Connors. Chuck
[46:24] Speaker 3: Person and Reggie Miller on the same team, but you
[46:27] Speaker 3: make it 2019. Mm-hmm. Hey, man, they might be the
[46:32] Speaker 3: greatest show on earth.
[46:33] Speaker 1: And that team was one of the great villains because
[46:36] Speaker 1: that was Byrd's last year when he hit his head
[46:38] Speaker 1: in the court in the... In the playoffs, Chuck Person
[46:42] Speaker 1: was hitting from everywhere. He was one of the great villains,
[46:45] Speaker 1: and he reveled in that too, but he could play.
[46:49] Speaker 1: That Indiana team is interesting as well because they weren't
[46:52] Speaker 1: championship level, but you knew when you played them, you
[46:54] Speaker 1: were going to get into some stuff.
[46:55] Speaker 3: Right, right.
[46:56] Speaker 2: By the way, another great square, Nate McMillan, future head coach.
[47:00] Speaker 1: Another one.
[47:00] Speaker 3: Got his jersey so square, he got his jersey retired
[47:03] Speaker 3: by the Sonics.
[47:04] Speaker 1: That is its own program. Squares in the rafters by
[47:08] Speaker 1: Bomani Jones.
[47:09] Speaker 3: Nick Collison. Mr.
[47:10] Speaker 1: Thunder. Another one, right?
[47:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, where they just, hey man, they just liked you.
[47:15] Speaker 1: They just liked you.
[47:16] Speaker 3: Avery Johnson.
[47:17] Speaker 1: And that's a good one.
[47:18] Speaker 3: No, the difference is at least Avery Johnson won a championship.
[47:22] Speaker 1: Yes.
[47:23] Speaker 3: With the Spurs. These other guys were just there.
[47:25] Speaker 1: For a long time. Yeah, right.
[47:27] Speaker 3: Not all stars. No, no, no. Just people. And I'm
[47:31] Speaker 3: all for that.
[47:32] Speaker 1: There is something to be said for sticking around. Yeah.
[47:37] Speaker 3: And again, in this draft, Hey, man, that would be
[47:42] Speaker 3: the docuseries, Surviving the 86 Draft.
[47:45] Speaker 1: That's right.
[47:46] Speaker 2: Anybody that was in it, and you managed to make
[47:48] Speaker 2: a crowd of it, shout out to you, John Sally,
[47:50] Speaker 2: Surviving the 1986 Draft, and getting yourself like four championships
[47:54] Speaker 2: out of the deal.
[47:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, and I, you know, just go back and look
[47:57] Speaker 1: at that 86 Draft, and another guy there who was
[48:00] Speaker 1: on one of my, there are two of them in
[48:02] Speaker 1: there on my list. I didn't buy into one of them,
[48:05] Speaker 1: but I always still do talk about the list of,
[48:09] Speaker 1: your greatest misses, right? Who were the guys that you
[48:12] Speaker 1: were convinced were easily going to be great players and
[48:16] Speaker 1: never turned into great players. And two of them are
[48:18] Speaker 1: on that list. One was Walter Berry. Yeah. You know,
[48:21] Speaker 1: everybody thought he was six, eight, two 20 was just
[48:24] Speaker 1: going to just roll left-handed as well. Never really was
[48:28] Speaker 1: a great player. And the other one that everybody thought
[48:30] Speaker 1: was going to be a good player. I didn't think
[48:31] Speaker 1: it was a great player, but people talked about him
[48:32] Speaker 1: back then was Billy Thompson and Louisville. Yeah. And Billy
[48:36] Speaker 1: Thompson went to the Lakers and was like, oh man,
[48:38] Speaker 1: the Richards just got richer. And won a title with them.
[48:44] Speaker 3: This, it's, when you just see all the names, Kevin Duckworth.
[48:48] Speaker 1: Yep.
[48:48] Speaker 3: He's in this draft. Kevin Duckworth's the worst thing. Good
[48:52] Speaker 3: enough to be your center, but certainly to be a
[48:55] Speaker 3: liability of one form or another in the end because
[48:57] Speaker 3: he was just a little bit too chubby.
[48:59] Speaker 2: Like he was he was he is an interesting version
[49:02] Speaker 2: of he was a big man who didn't play like
[49:05] Speaker 2: a tall man.
[49:06] Speaker 1: That's right he played small he provided no presence and
[49:09] Speaker 1: he was a jump shooter quick enough just wasn't quick
[49:11] Speaker 1: enough to to be that presence and fade away jumper.
[49:14] Speaker 3: You could what else could he do now were you
[49:17] Speaker 3: were you not a guy who bought into pearl washington
[49:19] Speaker 3: because these new york talk about Pearl Washington like he
[49:21] Speaker 3: was a ghost.
[49:23] Speaker 1: I am in the Pearl Washington all the way camp.
[49:26] Speaker 1: And while you were talking, I was thinking about this,
[49:29] Speaker 1: that it's so... So such a big part of this
[49:35] Speaker 1: was how important the Big East was. We got to
[49:38] Speaker 1: see them dudes all the time. I mean, they were
[49:41] Speaker 1: actually rivaling the NBA. I don't know if it was
[49:44] Speaker 1: that way in terms of ratings, but I know that
[49:46] Speaker 1: if you said, who do you watch? People would have
[49:48] Speaker 1: been like Celtics, Lakers, Georgetown, Syracuse. Anyway, Pearl Washington, I
[49:55] Speaker 1: remember because I was a big basketball junkie back then.
[49:57] Speaker 1: I used to read all those Street and Smith trade
[49:59] Speaker 1: mags and basketball digest and all of them. And they were,
[50:02] Speaker 1: I remember the scouts would talk about how Pearl Washington
[50:04] Speaker 1: could play in the NBA. And what was funny about
[50:06] Speaker 1: it was, was when he got to the NBA, when
[50:11] Speaker 1: you saw him against other NBA players, you were like,
[50:14] Speaker 1: you're kind of short and fat and can't, and can't shoot.
[50:20] Speaker 1: He had a flat jump shot, kind of leaned in
[50:22] Speaker 1: and you, but at that time, that was an example
[50:26] Speaker 1: of when you could be an East coast point guard,
[50:29] Speaker 1: and drive the hoop and just play East Coast basketball.
[50:32] Speaker 1: You didn't have to have a J from way outside.
[50:35] Speaker 1: All you had to do was take dude number one
[50:37] Speaker 1: off the dribble and go. And everybody talked about Pearl Washington.
[50:42] Speaker 1: Pearl Washington is a legend, man. And Pearl Washington is
[50:45] Speaker 1: one of those guys where you realized, at least for me,
[50:48] Speaker 1: who's going to become a reporter and become a journalist,
[50:50] Speaker 1: was realizing how many tools you actually had to have
[50:55] Speaker 1: to be an NBA player. You know what I mean?
[50:58] Speaker 1: Like that gap between college player, Naismith level player, NBA player,
[51:05] Speaker 1: NBA great. Like huge gap in that last step. And
[51:11] Speaker 1: Pearl was one of them guys because when he got
[51:12] Speaker 1: to the NBA, when he was with the Nets, I
[51:14] Speaker 1: was like, that's Pearl? Everybody was better than Pearl Washington
[51:18] Speaker 1: because he was quick, but he wasn't fast. And then
[51:22] Speaker 1: they used to, you know, all that NBA. And also,
[51:25] Speaker 1: let's also not forget the New York of it all. Yeah.
[51:31] Speaker 2: Now, the last thing I wrap with, and this is
[51:33] Speaker 2: the interesting thing because we often think about this draft, obviously,
[51:35] Speaker 2: in terms of the cocaine and the reputational damage, but
[51:39] Speaker 2: it's also worth noting, David Robinson was the number one
[51:42] Speaker 2: pick in 87, but if you go through those drafts.
[51:45] Speaker 3: 88, 90, 88, 89, 90, even 91 because Larry Johnson's
[51:52] Speaker 3: back wound up giving out. Between David Robinson and Shaquille O'Neal,
[51:56] Speaker 3: the draft wasn't yielding that many great plays. This is
[51:59] Speaker 3: not the only draft that you went back to look
[52:02] Speaker 3: at and were like, huh, that didn't turn out the
[52:05] Speaker 3: way that we thought.
[52:05] Speaker 2: So 87, you wind up with Reggie Miller becomes a
[52:08] Speaker 2: Hall of Famer after Robinson.
[52:10] Speaker 3: But Danny Manning, Didn't work out his number one pick.
[52:13] Speaker 3: Nervous in service, purpose. His number one pick at 89.
[52:16] Speaker 2: Derek Coleman, all-time unreal talent.
[52:19] Speaker 3: It didn't happen.
[52:21] Speaker 2: You get guys like Mutombo in 91 or whatever, but
[52:23] Speaker 2: 92 is where you get Shaq and you get Alonzo Mourning.
[52:27] Speaker 3: Like that draft felt like a little more. But this was.
[52:29] Speaker 2: Actually an interesting period of time where the NBA was
[52:32] Speaker 2: not really getting the guys out of college to keep
[52:36] Speaker 2: the thing afloat as it had been. We're like in
[52:38] Speaker 2: 1982 were the top three picks. I contend that if
[52:41] Speaker 2: you would put any of those three guys, which were worthy,
[52:43] Speaker 2: Terry Cummins and Dominique Wilkins, put each of them on
[52:47] Speaker 2: each other's teams and.
[52:48] Speaker 3: The end results maybe are very similar.
[52:50] Speaker 1: That's right. You know what I mean?
[52:51] Speaker 3: But it was still like Terry Cummins gets forgotten, but
[52:53] Speaker 3: that was three really good players, right? Mark.
[52:57] Speaker 1: Great player.
[52:57] Speaker 3: Yes.
[53:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, he was like the big forward with a small
[53:03] Speaker 2: forward game. Like he and Dominique Wilkins were kind of pioneering.
[53:06] Speaker 2: And James Worthy, like three guys, big forwards, small forward games. 81,
[53:09] Speaker 2: you had Aguirre and Isaiah Thomas at the top of
[53:13] Speaker 2: the draft. The draft was putting dudes out there. And
[53:16] Speaker 2: then for whatever reason, we wound up with the lull.
[53:19] Speaker 3: And that lull kind of starts here because even with Robinson,
[53:22] Speaker 3: you had to wait for two years because he went
[53:23] Speaker 3: on to both.
[53:25] Speaker 1: Exactly, his commitment. And also one of the other pieces
[53:28] Speaker 1: of that that is consistent happening at the same time
[53:32] Speaker 1: in real time is by the time you get to
[53:34] Speaker 1: 88 you win the bronze in the olympics yep and
[53:38] Speaker 1: it and everything shifts in the other direction right everything
[53:42] Speaker 1: goes and now all of a sudden you get to
[53:44] Speaker 1: the dream team and by the time you get there
[53:47] Speaker 1: now we start we're starting to think about alternative sources
[53:54] Speaker 1: of talent now it's becoming an international game And before
[53:56] Speaker 1: we go, the last thing I do want to say
[53:58] Speaker 1: about this is that we did not mention the other
[54:00] Speaker 1: Hall of Famer in that draft, which is Sabonis.
[54:04] Speaker 3: Sabonis, yeah. We got to know him quickly.
[54:06] Speaker 1: Very quickly. Sabonis was the Vladimir Tretyak of basketball. It
[54:11] Speaker 1: was like, if he could come over here, like the
[54:13] Speaker 1: great goalie for the USSR, if he played in the NHL,
[54:17] Speaker 1: Sabonis was killing dudes internationally. Sabonis was supposed to be
[54:22] Speaker 1: Kareem and Walton combined, but he was behind the Iron Curtain.
[54:26] Speaker 1: And one of these days, we're going to get to
[54:28] Speaker 1: see Sabonis. And he got drafted, and he didn't show up, obviously,
[54:34] Speaker 1: until what, 92? 95. 95. So he got drafted nine
[54:39] Speaker 1: years before he made his NBA debut and was still
[54:43] Speaker 1: a really good player. He just wasn't the same. He
[54:45] Speaker 1: wasn't Sabonis. He was heavier. But go back and look
[54:47] Speaker 1: at Sabonis. in the 80s playing international for the USSR.
[54:54] Speaker 2: But that's the thing about the 88 loss, which, as
[54:57] Speaker 2: I recall, was only like by a couple of buckets.
[54:59] Speaker 3: Yeah. David Robinson got off the boat.
[55:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[55:03] Speaker 3: David Robinson got off the boat, had to go guard Sabonis, man.
[55:08] Speaker 1: Sabonis put some work. Sabonis put some work on you.
[55:14] Speaker 2: That team was like David Robinson, Dan Marley, Danny Manning.
[55:19] Speaker 1: Hersey Hawkins was on that team.
[55:20] Speaker 3: Yeah, man.
[55:21] Speaker 1: Well, because the coach, John Thompson, didn't put enough offense
[55:25] Speaker 1: on that team and people didn't like Big John anyway.
[55:28] Speaker 1: And they were like, we're going to pay you back
[55:30] Speaker 1: for this, John. Yeah. Bronze? We're going to pay you
[55:33] Speaker 1: back for this, John.
[55:34] Speaker 3: Boy, we overreact.
[55:35] Speaker 2: Don't nobody overreact like when America lose a basketball game.
[55:39] Speaker 2: Get ready in 2028 when Victor come knock down the
[55:42] Speaker 2: buildings in LA. I don't know what they're going to
[55:44] Speaker 2: do to the basketball program. Something's going to have to change.
[55:49] Speaker 2: Promises were made. Promises will be kept.
[55:52] Speaker 1: That's right. It'll be like the white salesman in Boogie
[55:55] Speaker 1: Nights talking to Don Cheadle.
[55:58] Speaker 3: What kind of.
[55:58] Speaker 1: Brother are you? You know, Black men losing to gold? Yes.
[56:05] Speaker 1: What kind of brothers? In America? In Los Angeles? What
[56:08] Speaker 1: kind of brothers are you?
[56:10] Speaker 3: It's going to be tough. We got to keep Chet
[56:12] Speaker 3: off that team, boy. That's all I know. Unfortunately, Chet.
[56:16] Speaker 1: As you already talked about it, don't put Chet in
[56:19] Speaker 1: front of Victor.
[56:20] Speaker 3: I can't.
[56:23] Speaker 1: Just go watch some bullfighting or something shit like that, right?
[56:26] Speaker 1: Put that little red thing right in front of him.
[56:29] Speaker 1: Little Toro. You're done. I can't do it. Oh, man.
[56:34] Speaker 3: Hey, man.
[56:34] Speaker 1: Hey, Wemby. Chet's in the corner. Chet just rolled up. Oui, oui.
[56:45] Speaker 3: Got it.
[56:46] Speaker 1: Got it. I got this.
[56:48] Speaker 3: Howard Bryant.
[56:49] Speaker 1: Check it out. Here we go again.
[56:50] Speaker 3: Kings and Pawns.
[56:51] Speaker 2: Still available. Where all fine books are sold. My brother,
[56:55] Speaker 2: I appreciate you.
[56:56] Speaker 1: All fine, man.
[56:57] Speaker 3: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining
[56:59] Speaker 3: us here on The Right Time. We do this four
[57:01] Speaker 3: days a week. Ryan Brumley had on everything behind the scenes.
[57:04] Speaker 3: Thank you, sir.
[57:05] Speaker 2: Hit the voicemail line 323-596-7767.
[57:09] Speaker 3: Remember, follow the right time.
[57:11] Speaker 2: Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars.
[57:14] Speaker 3: You only give us four stars.
[57:15] Speaker 2: I'm inclined to believe you are a hater and we'll
[57:17] Speaker 2: talk to you guys in a couple of days.
[57:19] Speaker 3: Take it easy.

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