Like to be on the white house staff. Got to watch twitter to see what people are going to do. You were in, you were around when the Colin Kaepernick protests were going on when he was playing for the 49ers. What did you think then about that . I fully supported his right to speak out. I thought he made some mistakes, some big mistakes early. He wore the socks. Remember the socks that were pigs in policemen ewan forps. He didnt have a clear message at first. But i supported his right to protest and i think what he did was really admirable. He went out and sought the advice of a man named nate boyer, a former player with a seahawks. A military veteran, who gave kaepernick the advice to kneel. He said in stead of sitting on the bench, kneel. Its also a sign of respect. If you think about you bow in front of somebody. And so this was the advice kaepernick sought out. He sort of refined his message, saying i thought things had made
more sense in terms of clarifying what he was protesting. I thought he had a really powerful message and its proven to be very much so. Youre a great judge of aet leets. You recognize talent. Why isnt he in the nfl now . Colin cappkaepernick. Hes clearly a much better player than a lot of guys who are playing back up quarterback around the league. I think theres two reasons hes not in the nfl. One the marketing. I think the owners are are concerneded about their fan base and two, and these reasons really go hand in hand. The distraction that he would cause. Given modern media. The way we live. The minute he signs with a team, can you imagine the media throng, the attention that will be on every game . And so i understand. I totally understand a general manager who doesnt want to deal with that. You think about tim tebow, for example. Tim tebow was such a a
then the president kind of brought it up out of the blue. Wouldnt you love to see one of these nfl owners when somebody disrespects our flag . To say get the son of a bitch off the field right now in hes fired. This is another reason why i think all of us and our team have a tough time with the president because its instead of unifying and trying to calm the storm, hes creating it over and over again. We see it with his tweets every day. So that was you know, he used the word sons of bitches to talk about nfl players who had made it clear theyre protesting racial inequality and police brutality. Those are sons of bitches . Youre the president of the united states. Youre going to call kaepernick out for nonviolent protests, staple of american democracy. Thats really hard to deal with. And that was for me, that was
probably the hardest one to deal with. The personal slights that weve seen from trump. I mean you sort of get used to it after a while. You get numb to it. That one really stung. Because it was so devicive. And it was so angry. And it just didnt make sense. But in certain ways, it had the desired effect in that he sort of dominated the news. Theres also a constituent. Youve seen the nfl took a hit around it and the owners were scrambling around that issue, so there was, it was you know, maybe diabolically clever. It was, but is that the president s job to be diabolically clever . No, i understand. Draymond green, your wonderful player, very outspoken. He was at harvard the other day giving a talk. And he got into this kole qui with mark cube ben. Long distance. Because draymond said i dont think we should call people who run teams as owners. And i had never thought about it in those terms before. Did you talk to him about that before he went an gave that talk . Oh, no, draymond says what he wants, anytime he wants, which is what i love about him. I had never heard that argument either. The idea that referencing an owner would be offensive, but of course, you and i are white guys. We like, weve grown up in a different background, different environment. And i think that was draymonds point. Said we all have sort of a different circumstance in life and youve got to think about everybodys circumstance. Put yourself in somebody elses shoes. It makes perfect sense. Silence, theres
little cross pollination. Discussion. How much has being a player and being a coach sensitized you to issues you never would have been sensitive to . Its really one of the great blessings in my life is to have been raised overseas in different cultures with different people from all over the world. And then from actually junior high on, basically living and working, or going to school in integrated situations and then being in the nba for i guess 27 years now, whatever, 29 years, its a multicultural melting pot Work Environment and you just, you understand. You start to see where everybody comes from and you know, my old coach, he has one of the great sayings. Were at accident of birth. Were not asked to be born into the situations. Were born black, white, poor, whatever. We are who we are. And its so important to understand who the other person is and where he came from. Because in most cases, its very different and the more you can learn about that person, the easier it is to get out of that silo that you mentioned. And understand that theres nuance to everything. In the world. I follow your twitter feed. Its mostly not about sports. Its mostly about public issues and the question comes up why should people care. What you or what athletes say. Youre prominent because of your work. Why should folks look to you guys for political inspiration . They shouldnt. They dont need to. If they dont want to, then they dont have to. But everybodys got a twitter feed. Why does anybody care. There are people who probably
shouldnt. Exactly. To me, this is more a question of you know, how the world works now and social media and just the whole way we operate. Everybody has a voice. It just so happens that if youre famous, more people are going to follow you. Do you feel a responsibility because youre famous to speak out on these issue sns. Thats a good question. I dont know that i feel a responsibility. Its more just in my heart. Im so, so disgusted by the lack of sensible gun policy. Im so disgusted. I know thats a lot of what youve been tweeting about. I tweet a lot. Mostly retweet stuff. Especially in the position that im in. You know, i used to tweet when i was a commentator for tnt and i would tweet about basketball as with everything in twitter, stuff gets thrown back in my face all the time. So like years ago, i think
working at tnt, lebron had a huge game and i tweeted Something Like if i could pick one player to have f in a road game, game seven in the playoffs, id take lebron. You think any cleveland fans might have retweeted that after cleveland beat us on the road in game seven . So ive learned my lesson. Im more interested in retweeting articles. Trying to spread the word if i see something really sensible. Nick kristof wrote a great piece in the New York Times with two weeks ago about comparing gun safety to the automobile industry. And you know, in the 50s, you were nine times as like ly to de in a car accident than you are today and the reason its gone down is simple safety measures. Seat belts. Car seats. Speed limits. You know, making sure drivers license Background Stuff was
thorough and the right people were behind the wheel. And the whole article was like we dont have to take away peoples Second Amendment rights, but what we need is some common sense and yet, people ar. We dont do anything. Thats ridiculous to me and it drives me crazy and so im constantly retweeting stuff that i read about that issue because it means something to me. Coming up next. As steph curry, i guarantee you hes never talked one time about oh my gosh, wonder what happens if i mis. He just goes out there and plays. En it comes to helping her daughter, shopping for groceries, unclogging the sink, setting Updentist Appointments and planning birthday parties, nobody does it better. Shes also in a rock band. Look at her shred. But when it comes to mortgages, shes less confident. Fortunately for maria, theres Rocket Mortgage by quicken loans. Its simple, so she can understand the details and be sure shes getting
the right mortgage. Apply simply. Understand fully. Mortgage confidently. So how old do you want uhh, i was thinking around 70. Alright, and before that . You mean after that . No, im talking before that. Do you have things you want to do before you retire . Oh yeah sure. Ok, like what . But i thought we were supposed to be talking about investing for retirement . Were absolutely doing that. But theres no law you cant make the most of today. What do you want to do . Id really like to run with the bulls. Wow. Yea. Hope youre fast. I am. Get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change. Investment Management Services from td ameritrade. I enjoy the fresher things in life. O. Fresh towels. Fresh soaps. And of course,
tripadvisors freshest, lowest. Prices. So if youre anything like me. Youll want to check tripadvisor. We now instantly compare prices. From over 200 booking sites. To find you the lowest price. On the hotel you want. Go on, try something fresh. Tripadvisor. The latest reviews. The lowest prices. 60 of women are wearing the wrong size pad and can experience leaks discover always my fit. Find the number thats right for your flow and panty size on the top of any always pack. The better the fit, the better it protects. Always. Were on a mission to show drip coffee drinkers, its time to wake up to keurig. Wakey wakey rise and shine oh my gosh how are you . Well watch this. I pop that in there. Press brew. Thats it. So rich. I love it. Thats why you should be a keurig man fullbodied. Are you sure youre describing the coffee and not me . Fullbodied. Fl[ gasps, laughs ]c, progressive gives you options based on your budget. You ever feel like. Cliche foil characters scheming against a top insurer for no reason . Nah. So, why dont we like flo . She has the name your price tool, and we want it. But why . Why dont we actually do any work . Why do you only own one suit . Its just the way it is, underdeveloped office character. Youre right. Thanks, bill. No, youre bill. Im tom. You know what . No one cares. Has grown into an enterprise. Thats why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. Now, im earning unlimited 2 cash back on every purchase i make. Everything. Whats in your wallet . Can this much love be cleaned by a little bit of dawn ultra . Oh yeah one bottle has the Grease Cleaning Power of three bottles of this other liquid. A drop of dawn and grease is gone. I look at you and i would say, well this guy is like the missing beach boy. You have the blond hair. The blue eyes and so on. I think the Asunlgts Mgts is th
grew up playing basketball in the u. S. And went to the University Of Arizona and the rest flowed from there, but you spent part of your life here, but part of your life in the middle east. Talk about what that was like. You were very much not in the mainstream of culture. What did you learn from that experience . Well i sort of had the best of both worlds. I was born in beirut. My grandparents settled there after world war i. They had a great his ary of running an or fannage. We spent a lot of time in los angeles and periodically, he would take sabbaticals overseas. He was a professor of meiddle east earn history. You were there during your Junior High School years. Three years in cairo. A year in france. A summer in tunisia. Ive lived in different cultures. Ive seen speak arabic. I did speak it pretty well. Enough to get around when i was there for a couple of years. And i saw americans in cairo. We were beloved. This is the late 70s. Beloved. We stood for our culture. Everybody copied us. And we were beloved. I i think we still are for the most part. In a lot of places around the world. But people are wondering what the hell happened to us. They dont love our foreign policy. They dont love whats happening with our government, but i think they still love american values. Whether were hanging on to that. I saw all that. I saw different perspectives. I saw how people saw us. Then i was in someone elses backyard, having to adapt to their culture. Those are great things to experience as a human being. Your dad went back to beirut in the early 80s to become president of the American University in beirut. It was a real difficult time there. It was. It was his dream job. Having been raised at the university literally then going to school there. Speaking fluent arabic. Loving the culture. In beirut. Loving the idea of bringing people, students to the university who can foster peace and understanding amongst all the different religious groups. He loved that. He loved that challenge. He loved the idea and when the job came up, he knew it was dapg rouse, but i think he felt somewhat protected because of his background and because of his reputation. But obviously that in a weird paradoxical way, it was those qualities that made him a target. He was a force for
reconciliation for understanding. He was a positive image for the u. S. Thats right. And he became the most Prominent American In Beirut at the time because you mentioned the embassy bombing. Marine bar ricks that were bombs. 300 marines were killed. Awful. The military lapse. The embassy basically after it was bombed, i dont remember if it was closed, but it was obviously basically shut down for the most part. The American University campus became sort of the next most obvious place where you were going to find americans and he was the president. Then you got a call. Your dorm room. 3 00 in the morning. My dorm room and a man named bahin, good armenian name, he worked at the university, great family friend. He called me to give me the news
that my dad had been shot and killed and obviously, you know, my whole world changed and our familys whole lives. Ended in a certain way and a new life had to begin and it was pretty rough. You and your dad were close. He was very invested in you and in your aspirations to be a basketball player. Helped you secure your scholarship and so on. I ask you this as someone, i lost my father when i was in college. We were under different circumstances, but also very difficult circumstances. Suddenly and unexpectedly. And it was like i felt completely alone. Yeah. You were alone. Your family was overseas. What did you do . Well i turned to my teammates. Thats one of the beautiful things about sports, its like a built in family. Kind of a cocoon and you can lose yourself in sports, in physical activity. So i went to practice the next day. My teammates knew what happened, obviously, my coach. I spent, like i slept for three hours on his couch in his office the next day when it happened. I didnt sleep all night. I didnt know what to do. But i practiced that afternoon. I needed to think about something else. And so i just kept playing and going to school and you just move on. You practiced the next day and had a game the next night. I think it was a few nights later, maybe three or four days later. But that game was something that was sort of noted nationally because the entire arena kind of grieved with you. Right, right. It was the kind of thing that
back then, was kind of, it was a local story. You know, if today if that happened, it would be you know, it would have been miserable to deal with that you know, it would have been a national story. It would have been unbearable. But at the time, it was at least an era where there wasnt this 24 7 invasion of your privacy that happens all the time now. But i dealt with you know, the local media or whatever and the game itself was very emotional. And fans were so supportive and from that point on, i became like an adoptive son in tucson and people there were so amazing. They took care of me and the basketball program, the coaches, my teammates and i was lucky. The team and the guys carried me through a really difficult time because as you said, my family was still overseas. Im sure you think about as i
think about sort of the fact that my dad never saw what happened. What would he say about your he wouldnt believe it. I was not even recruited out of high school. I didnt secure the scholarship to arizona until literally about a month before School Started so this was, this would have been so farfetched. But my dad loved sports. He loved ed basketball. We used to go to the ucla games. John wood ner. No one would have predicted you would have the kind of career that you had as player and you got to play with some extraordinary, great, great players. Including Michael Jordan. Im so interested in how athletes elevate themselves to be greater than the rest. Who the athletes who kind of can take charge of that moment when everybody else is, i dont want to take the shot. You take the shot. What is it about the psyche of a Michael Jordan, a tim duncan, a david robson, the kind of players you played with that separates them from the rest . Yeah. Its an interesting dynamic. You got a few of them now certainly steph curry would fit in that. Its a really, its one of the fun things about coaching is you get to really see somebodys soul and what theyre about. And everybody obviously in the nba brings something to the table. Theyre all such tall enented players or they wouldnt be here. There are just u certain guys who seem to rise above the rest of them. Its fearlessness. Its lack of selfconsciousness. Its, its work ethic. Its prepping for that moment. And all the best players, you mention ed tim duncan. Michael jordan. Larry byrd. All the best guys are the ones that have the most skill combined with the guts that youre referencing and thats an amazing combination. The guts to not worry about making a mistake. Yeah. I still remember michael had this commercial when he was still playing. 26 times, ive been trusted the take the game winning shot and missed. That commercial really struck me. Because you think of michael jord jordan, you think he made every shot. He didnt make every shot. If you can make half of them in the clutch, youre doing really well. But youre going to fail half the time so you have to be able to accept failure. The hardest thing for me to accept, i was not a clutch player and shooter because i was too selfconscious, to insecure about the judgment that would come my way. And i finally kind of got over that hump halfway through my career where i said screw it, you got to go for it. That was something i had to work at. My guys, like steph curry, i
guarant guarantee you, hes never thought, what if i miss. He just goes out there and plays. No conscious. Especially difficult today. The amount of judgment that exists for these guys. These young guys. We are getting judged not just daily, but by the minute. Every single s