Adam guests on NBL Pocket Podcast - AIR118

I'm never above Shayna with self promotion mate, so I will through the episode. I've been pimping out the show, but good. I think it's very fantastic, even if I say so myself, but I love the history of the game. Had I not done the podcast myself, I want to hear all these other stories. So that's why the podcast came to be. Then you are in our

spirit right now. You're talking in the A basketball. You're talking great teams. You're talking great individual players. Takes it off and there's number 23. And of course, Johnny goes nuts. We're all getting very fun thinking about it now. I just tried to go up there with playing my game. I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't like anybody. I'm not a decent person. Grant,

you make the past. Yes, you catch the ball. Yes. All the stars are aligned and all the muscles fall at the right time. And I was able to get off the ground and throw one down. I was saving that as a surprise for you. And now introducing your host for in all airness Adam Ryan. Welcome to episode 3. So I'm so excited. One hundred and eighteen.

Thanks for joining me today for a change on the guest. My friend Joseph Call host of NBL Pocket podcast invited me on his show. We recorded this evergreen conversation in August of 2019. The episode was released on his podcast feed in early 2020. This is my edit of our our long episode that Joe released fans of my show. Maybe interested to hear me mention a few

guest episodes that have not yet come to fruition. We also. We're going to discuss plenty of 1990s NBL topics. Joe's podcast is primarily focused on Australia's National Basketball League. The NBL. Our League has gained global recognition recently due to its next stars program. Thanks in large part to current NBL rookies. Lamello ball and RJ Hampton. Check out Joe's podcast if you haven't already. Search for NBL

Pocket podcast on your player of choice. I'm a fan of Joe's interviewing style. He is matter of fact. I'm curious and he asks great questions of his guests towards the end of the episode. I'll share perhaps the most inspiring podcast review I've received yet. If you can spare a moment or two, please add your review via your listening app. It'll be most appreciated. Show notes for

this episode and access to a huge archive of past episodes are available at in all anus.com. Now on to the show. How long have you been doing the podcast for? Started it. I think in 2012 late 2012. So coming up on seven years thereabouts. Who's your next guest you've got coming up on next episode idea? I've got a few guys are in the pipeline at the

moment. But just getting them to commit is half the battle. Especially when you just do this as a passion project. Some people have them mistaken belief that I could pay to do this. But I've got a few guys lined up. Rod Strickland is one that's sort of circling around at the moment. I'm getting Dale Alice back on the show to talk about the non-in-outie behind NBA

All-Star game because he had a monster performance in that and that goes a bit under the radar. So he had about 27 points. His whole career goes under the radar. He was most improved one year. We jumped from four points to a bona fide start. 25 or so. It was a great shooter and he's really forgotten. Yeah. When he left Dallas he went to Seattle and

then became a star. Dale has been on the show previously quite a few years ago now. But I reached out to him recently and he's interested in doing sort of watch along of the 89 All-Star game. I'm editing on what happened and different memories of players that he was playing with for that particular game. So I'm excited to do that. I've just got heaps of ideas.

Hard to take from idea down onto paper I suppose. Yeah. But I've certainly got guys that said yeah, we'll chat and it just doesn't come to fruition or takes a few reminders here and there. I don't want to be that guy that keeps on annoying somebody. So that's the worst. They're doing me the favor. So I try and display it as cool as I can and

when the stars do a line then good things can happen. But I've got plenty of things. In the works, it's just a matter of getting them recorded and going from there. Here's where you're investigative journalism still coming. How do you like a Rod Strykland? How do you find him? Do you just find him on Twitter and social and go for it or another way that you

kind of get in touch with people who are a bit more difficult to find? Yeah, good question. Sometimes it's sort of networking. Some of the guys I've had on the show have been helpful in terms of connecting me with other guys. But most of them are accessible via social media or one way or the other. Some of them are starting to branch out into Instagram, now

these days and summer on Twitter or even you do a Facebook search and you never know your luck. So I try and reach out to him that way. Occasionally I can find out some email addresses, LinkedIn's quite helpful as well. Jim McElvain, who's a former guest on my show, has been very helpful. I mean, I have been spoken to him since about 2014. As far as

voice when he was on my show, it became a two-part episode because we talked for so long. I've listened to some whenever I get a free moment. You're the first one I go to, but I've only listened to some unfortunately. You're right, that's fine, but Jim's been very helpful on the scenes and Evan has recently, as the last few weeks, he helped me connect with Paul

Mockesky. The most recent guy I've had on the show and he's a bit of a cult hero from the Milwaukee Bucks back in the 1980s. So you just never know how these things come to be. One night I got a message out of nowhere from Jim saying Paul would love to chat. He mentioned my show to him and he has his details and that's how that

one came to be within 48 hours I'm speaking to him. So then I just start going into the rabbit holes and the deep recesses of the internet and do some searches. I use a thing called newspapers.com. Yes. Which is excellent. It's a paid subscription, but you get some incredible details that way. Someone's talking about newspapers.com as well. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, it's an archive of newspapers

from mostly in America, but of course that's the perfect place for me to be able to actually search through. And you can just put in the person's name. You can narrow it down to a date range, putting some keywords and it brings up all kinds of results. And then I use all that information. And then put it into chronological order in a document on my end.

And I just sort of work my way through what the person did and achieve throughout their career. And that's how I use that as a basis for the conversation topics. You know, because I got in touch with the guy at the Believer Hub, his name is pronouncing it right. Seth Rosenthal, he does the young guy who does the like ESPN beef history things for ESPN nation,

whatever it's called. I got in touch with him. I was like, where do you pull those little articles? You know, sometimes I have like a headline and it's highlighted, you know, Jordan hits the shot or whatever. I was like, how do you get that? And he goes newspapers.com. And he goes, it's a really good encyclopedia, I suppose. And the fact that someone's archived all those newspapers

or at least a lot of them like that's an incredible amount of work and congratulations to newspapers.com. That's amazing. Yeah, well, I think it's about $70 US dollars per six months or something like that as a subscription. So it's definitely worth it. And I just found out so many intriguing bits of information that that then sets up the basis of the conversations. And also, you can

get access to plenty of fantastic photos that are appearing the papers from back in the day as well. So like, for example, with Paul McKesky, I found just stacks of photos of him from back in his early days in playing for Kansas and even a couple of high school photos. And I send them onto those players. And they haven't seen them a bit. Now, that's right.

They haven't seen it for years. If ever. And then they think, oh, well, this guy seems legit. So it sort of helps them open up more because they know that I'm invested. So that's sort of how I sort of use it to my advantage. I love doing it as well. I just love the history of the game. So whenever I can find out more about these

guys, then newspapers.com is a big way to go. But also just from what I've watched over the years, like all the different games I've seen and the stories and things I've read in books and whatnot, all those things are in my mind. Oh, I want to ask him about this. I want to ask him about that. And then I just put it into a document, get

it into order of when it happened. And you know, what unfolded. And go from there. When you send that initial contact, because that's I think it's quite important. That first impression. When you send it, have you got an email that's, you know, Adam at in all NS dot com or and what's the phrasing of your request. I use a gmail address. So it's probably got the

most professional thing down around. But it's in all an us at gmail.com. Right. Usually in the the subject. I'll put something like NBA history podcasts, interview request, Adam in Australia, something like that. So normally I'd sort of state Australia in the subject, because not often these guys are conducted by somebody who's in another continent. International. Yeah. And then once to talk about their career. So I

usually just make it a pretty brief contact to begin with. And if possible, I'll go through basketball reference and see who some of their teammates were over their journey. And if they've been a previous guest on my show, I mentioned them straight up. And say, look, these guys have guessed it on my show. I'd love to do a deep dive in your career. Would you be

interested in talking about your life in basketball and usually I'll just leave it at the end of that. I include a link to a couple of my previous conversations and just see how it goes. And often they just reply based on that and have a bit of interest. And then it sort of yeah, it goes from there. But it's sometimes some guys are really responsive to

it. Others, you sort of never hear back from. There's some guys that sort of show interest. And then they sort of it wanes away. And then you sort of chase them up a couple months later. But yeah, I never want to try and push the issue too much. They're doing me the massive favor. And also it's like sometimes maybe you emails gone to the wrong place.

Sometimes you take it personally. We don't get my response, but maybe they haven't even received it. You never know. But yeah, just for the people out there who are trying to get interview, that's that's a good way to do it is to mention you from Australia. It's almost a little bit of a little bit of cashier to say your international. The title of your podcast in

all and us. Where did you come up with the title of when did it strike you that that was the one you wanted to go with? Well, I wax and wine on this all the time because I'm not sure I even like the title to be honest, but at stuck. It's quite as Eric like it's too clever. I used to clever by half as Dennis committee.

I would say the great Australian rules for poor commentator. I love wordplay and puns and silly things like that. And just I was going through all kinds of ideas for what the topic, you know, what it relates to and what I could possibly call the show. And I thought, you know, fairness. And I thought, I think he's nicknames anus. You know, anus. It's all about his

anus. I don't know like I don't really love the name, but it's just that's what I'm stuck with. There'd be too much trouble to rename it after all this time, like seven years down the track. And and this is what I'm saying. You see, it was going to be all about Jordan, but it quickly became just about the history of the NBA. Yes. Of course, Jordan's

a massive part of that. And a lot of the players and media and coaches I've chatted to are involved and have worked with or played against or whatever with Jordan, but that's so much more than just MJ. So unfortunately, the title sort of shoots being the foot sometimes, but I do add like Jordan era. NBA history podcast or something like that in amongst the details of

it on iTunes or Apple podcasts. That's just now known. I mean, I call my, well, originally said, I literally just wanted to call the podcast something so basically simple that you immediately thought, so I went to the NBA pocket podcast because I wanted to do it in under an hour, but sometimes it goes longer than that. I do want to do it about half an hour.

So when you say you shut yourself in the foot, I know exactly what you mean. I'm like, I wanted to keep this super, super sharp and tight, but sometimes you need that 45 minutes to an hour with certain guests. It just happens. Some of my conversations here for well beyond an hour. It doesn't necessarily start out thinking I'm going to be chatting with two hours like

the poor McKesky is the most recent episode, almost two hours. I didn't know it was going to go for that long, but I had all these career sort of chronologically listed. And I thought, well, I'll ask about this and this. And I just kept on branching out from there. You just never know. But I didn't want to call it just NBA history podcast because too generic

wasn't sure of the legalities of it. I didn't know if I could just say it was called the NBA history podcast. Yes, because back when I started in 2012, there weren't a lot of podcasts around the stage. I'm sure there was still in the tens of thousands, but I didn't want to just get booted off iTunes as it was then known because I just called it

the NBA history podcast. So you had to be a little bit clever and trying to change the name, but I think I was too clever by half. My then question is your big fan of the NBA and basketball and that. But what makes you decide what why a podcast? Why not a website with articles or a documentary? Why podcast and the way you've done it? I

love podcasts since about 2008. I think that was probably when I can recall listening to podcasts. One of the main ones I got back in the day as most people who probably listen to this would be the BS report with Bill Simmons. Yeah, sure. I listened to that for quite a few years. And it only dawned on me in 2012. I mean, that's still fairly early,

I guess, but not not too early in the podcasting history. I think they began in about 2004, 2005. But I thought to myself, why don't I just start a podcast on my own? Like I love them so much. And I listen to them all the time. Nobody's really doing what I actually wanted to hear. That was another thing because I wanted to hear conversations with guys

who played in the NBA back in the day. I still love the game today, but it just doesn't hold a candle to the pre 1998 era for me. And that's just my love and nostalgia for that period of time. So I thought, oh, well, I don't know how well I'll go, but I just want to start one myself and see what happens and try and get.

I was on the show that used to play in the NBA or the ABA back in the day or whatever it might be. And the first guest ended up getting in touch with was Bill Winnington, who was, of course, a key member of the Bulls on their second title run in the 1990s. And a proud Canadian as well. I have these patchy memories, because obviously you

know my age were a map with this thing. But I remember him having for a while. I don't think it was an oeba. Certainly, and I say he had his own McDonald's burger. And it was called the beef wedding. And it's sad. Is this true? Am I right when I said this? Yeah, you're right. He did have the beef wedding. I think I briefly asked him

about it in my chat with him. Do you remember what he said? I can't actually remember what he said, but I think he brought it up just in passing. But I think there's a couple of ads for it that still exists that are online. You can find if you do enough searching for it. But I think he really enjoyed just having it named after him. And

it's quite quite amusing to look back on. But it's funny how they sort of things come to mind and still stay in the memory banks, you know, 20, 30 years after the event. For sure. And now you said how you liked the MBA sort of pre 98. Obviously the podcast is called Innoleanis. Semi-centered around Jordan and the Bulls. My question is what did you like about

that particular time? Like you said, it was nostalgic. But is there anything you can really pinpoint as to what you loved about that time? And indeed Jordan and the Bulls. Is there anything particular to you that you really enjoyed about those two things? Definitely pre 98. That's obviously my sweet spot. When the Bulls won Game 6 in 98 at Utah. That was my 23rd birthday. Exactly

on June the 14th. That holds pretty special memories as well. Just coincidentally with numbers. But 1989 was one of the first times that I recorded some NBA games on videotape here in Australia on ABC. Peter G was the guy that mostly hosted the NBA games that we used to get once a week on TV. And usually they were two or three weeks delayed sometimes longer. But

yeah, I used to record games on videotape. One of the first ones I ever recorded was the NBA games on video tape. What I recorded was Jordan Shot at Cleveland in 1989, Game 5 at Rich Hill, Coliseum. I watched that game countless times over the following five, six, seven years with my brother Luke. And we just wore that tape out. And then I'd also recorded stacks

of other things around that time and began to just amass a collection of games that were built up over the next 10 years. What was the NBA coverage like? Did the ABC just straight away throw to the NBA and it was American commentators and everything? I don't remember the ABC on the game. There was basically a quick intro from Peter G. He'd be wearing his famous

green jacket and most of the people old enough to remember. Would remember this. I don't remember Peter G. When you say green jacket ABC sports, I'm immediately thinking of the late show and Graham and the Colonel. Yeah, that's true. That's right. Is that a ripoff of him? I don't know if it's a ripoff of a Peter G. But I think might have been some of the

war dream choices of the ABC back at that time. I'm not entirely sure. But I definitely know you're talking about Rob Sitch and San O'Chalaro. I'm going to show you with Peter G. He'd sort of introduce what Gamer about to watch. It would usually be a slightly edited version. I think they're one or one and a half hours. And then it would cut straight to the

NBA telecast as it happened on either TNT or TBS or whatever channel it was at the time. And then he'd sort of do an outro where he'd talk usually about what the game would be the following week. And a couple of other key stats and things here and there. And it would just usually be one game a week on a Friday night. We get them on

ABC. And I think they replayed them pretty much every Saturday. And then they were on the morning as well. But yeah, one of the first games was the shot. I also recorded the 1989 NBA All Star Game, which was a few months prior to that. And there were a couple of the early ones I kept on tape. And just watch them over and over. Not too

long after that in the early 90s, the NBA card collecting craze kicked off. And my brother and I would just get cards after cards after cards. And we just studied the back of the cards. And that's how I learned about a lot of the players. There's something about the basketball card. And they've kind of gone out of fashion. I think it's still around. But it's more

of a field of the specific trade now before everybody just had them. And I think when you know, now the NBA is consumed you know, online and in video, which is great. But there's you know. It's not as tangible as the actual physical little card like you hold a bit of card. It's physically in your hand. You can't just click on it and it's gone the

next minute. You know, you've got to find a home for it. I feel like that sounds a bit sort of conceptual. But that idea of that the NBA was in your hand growing up. You may say a little bit more nostalgic. I don't know, maybe a bit much. I definitely agree because I'd also just take pride in the fact that I'd learn all the names and

nicknames of these players. I look at what college they attended, what numbers they wore. Yeah. I key stats and even to this day, there's certain players as soon as I hear their name. I think, oh, yeah, he went to that college. Oh, he wore that number. That type of graphic on the card. What have you? Did you have a brand that you liked? Were you an

upper deck guy or? No, I actually had the NBA hoops. I only really collected NBA hoops for just a couple of seasons. I don't know why I stopped. I had flea for a little while. I don't think I had many upper deck at all. But strangely, I stopped sort of collecting them in there after a couple of seasons. But you had some very fond memories of

just watching the collection. I just keep looking over and over and getting them all sorted and putting them into folders and all that sort of sad stuff. But I love doing it. Let's talk about the 89 game. The shot. The way I remember it. Now, what's probably a copy of it a couple of years ago. Kray, though, kind of has like one of the best worst

games in history. He's actually going to protect. He's doing a lot of scoring the last couple of minutes of I remember. It's not just a Jordan shoot to shot over a lame duck. Am I right when I say that? Yeah, spot on Kray had a great game. Him and Mark Price had fantastic games. They were both injured during that series. Coincidentally, a little shameless self promotion.

I'm never above that. Both guys Kray, Gila and Mark Price have guessed it on my podcast. So I've chatted to them in some depth about this series. I'm not sure how much they wanted to talk about it. But I certainly asked him about it quite a bit. It's an amazing series. Oh, it's fantastic. I absolutely love it. Jordan says they're going to win it for. They

take long. He misses free throws. Ilo had a great game. And if it actually wasn't for Jordan, making that final shot over the outstretched charms of VLO, as he sort of sailed past and Jordan just hung that extra half second, it seemed. Ilo would have been the hero of the game because he hit the shot that put Cleveland up by one that preceded Jordan's final shot.

Yeah, lots of great things from that series. It went to the fifth game. Chicago. Were the underdogs. They were the lowest seed, actually. And Cleveland had beaten the bulls. I think six times straight through the regular season. The rest is history, I guess, in terms of the shot, but it was a fantastic game. Ilo had a great game inside of Mark Price. I'm always interested in

guys who play really good runner-up games. That is one that stands out. Craig Yello against Jordan. The other one is DeKemi, Matambo against Shack in that series. It's 2001 where Shack has an incredible series. Dominic's Matambo actually plays really well, but you wouldn't know it. When greatness gets eclipsed, it's an interesting little thing. That was certainly one of them. Have you seen the footage of that

89 after the shot where it's done from the local Chicago news reporters, guys? And they run on the court. Have you seen that? How amazing is that footage? Where's Graben Jordan and us the question? Yeah, and then the CBS guys are sort of trying to push him away as James Browns trying to get the main interview with him. But yeah, he's going, yeah, you stuck it.

You stuck it, Michael. You stuck it. Jordan gives a very human answer. Not the very camera-ready Jordan, not so camera-ready in that moment. And then he sharpens up for the national TV. He's really incredible footage. Yeah, his rather primal, I guess you could say. He's a reaction. And certainly the two Chicago guys. The guy you're recording on the camera, the other guy was the reporter as

such. I'm just trying to think who the guy's name was. You haven't spoken to him? No, I've got to touch with the guy that filmed the actual angle that you're talking about. And I know of the name of the guy who's escaping me at the moment. But another guy from Chicago was there, Rich King. He's in the background as well. On the baseline. And you can

see him watching the shot as it happens on one of the angles of the photo of Jordan's shot. But yeah, I've got to touch with them. But to this point, I haven't managed to lure them under the show. But I'll keep Adam, mate. What's your relationship with the Chicago sometimes and the Chicago Tribune? Do you kind of have any contact with them? Who's there? Adam Ryan

equivalent? Who's like their best balls contact from that erudina hooners? I've spoken to a couple of the great ones. Sam Smith. If he writes for the Trump you or did? Yeah, he's probably the pre-eminent guy that most people sort of jumped to immediately when you think of the balls. He still covers the balls to this day. But for bulls.com mostly. At that time, Sam Smith was

definitely there. I think Lacey Banks is a name of another guy that was certainly involved back at the time. And I've also had a lady on the show Cheryl Ray Stout who is a Chicago radio pioneer. One of the first women to be involved in the coverage of the Bulls back in that era as well. She broke some unbelievable stories about Jordan. And I've had her

on the show. And she opened up about how the story of Jordan's come back. In 1995, actually came to be. She was one of the first to actually hear the news of Jordan's impending return, which is over looked quite a bit. And also she broke the story if you're actually first leaving the game as well. So, up side from Sam Smith who's actually guested on the

show a couple of times too. He wrote the Jordan rules book, of course. Second coming. And one recently, which I haven't read, what's the title of that one? It's the one about the Labor negotiations. And for the life of me, I can't think of what it was. Prior to that, he had one called There Is No Next, which was another thing about Jordan. There is no

next. That's the one I actually meant. He's written another one since then, which was about the Labor negotiations that led to the players getting, you know, the exorbitant money they're getting today in the NBA. I can't think of what that one's called. But yeah, so there are a couple of moments. There are other guys that we reference. Another great mate of mine, Aaron Steen, who's the

co-host with me on the series that I do called NB, whatever it might be. NB 88 is the series that we're doing at the moment, which is covering the 88 season as it unfolded. We reference a guy called Bob Sakamoto. He was another guy that wrote a lot of great pieces on the Bulls. I don't think the sun times is accessible via newspapers.com. We've accessed the

Chicago Tribune to a great degree because we get a lot of our great information on that series where we cover the season as it unfolds through the Tribune archives. What about Jordan and the Bulls particular? Like, obviously an amazing player and everything. But is there anything about them that's particular to you that you liked and thought about running with this idea of a podcast that's through

their prison? Well, one of the unheralded players that I absolutely love is Dave Corsain. He was on the Bulls in the 1989 season. In other words, he's last season with Chicago. An interesting little stat about him. He played the most games for the Chicago Bulls in the 1980s. It's a great trivia question that probably nobody would actually get correct. But he was on that roster and

played in the game at Clevver in game 5 in 89. And as soon as I saw him, I was just became trans fixed by him thinking, who is this guy? What's he on the roster and what's his history? And then when I got his basketball card, I sort of started a bit more about him. And I've always been fascinated by him. And the reason that the

podcast I think has spawned into what it has become is I love hearing the stories of guys who are not the most well known on a roster. Sure. It's great to have somebody who's really high profile and was an old star or a whole of fame. I don't get me wrong. But it's just awesome to hear the story of someone who never really had the spot

on the screen. I've got a lot of shine on them throughout their MBA career. To at least to the degree that these other stars do. But they often have the most interesting stories and experiences that are hardly ever actually touched on or elaborated on. So that's why I thought, well, I'll create the website. I initially started doing a few blog posts here and there, but I

quickly transformed to be just really a podcast. And I wanted to just hear these guys stories and just sort of uncover the things that they achieve because they're still one of the top two, three, 400 players in the world. Yeah. And yet people still talk down and say, oh, these guys are just, you know, white stiff soul ever and Ed just annoys me so much. But

I thought I'm going to share their stories. And often they got the most interesting ones that very rarely ever here. We were talking about San Martin books before. Have you got a favorite MBA book? Is it Bill Simmons's Book of Basketball or? I do have the Book of Basketball. There's a lot of ones I've got on my shelf that I haven't seen even got to read

yet. Which ones haven't you read yet? There's a great one that I'm hearing plenty of good news. There's two things about called the Last Pass. It's written by I think Gary Pomerans about Bob Cusy and Bill Russell's relationship. And they're journey. It's only come out, I think in the last six to 12 months. But yeah, the Last Pass definitely have a look at that. I'm just

going to turn around and look at my bookshelf for a minute. Work away. Marker Jordan, the life is a fantastic book written by Roland Laisenby. I've avoided that because I thought, what could I possibly not know at this point? I've read Sam Smith's one. What's good about that one that you like? Well, it's an absolute tone. To begin with, it's massive. It's like six, seven hundred

pages, something like that. Yeah. He dives into the Jordan family background and goes back a couple of generations. Establishing how Jordan's maniacal side on the court came to be based on perhaps some of the generations before him and what they did in the early years before. You know, Michael was even a twinkle. He's dad's high, as I say. Yeah, really insightful look. And it's a massive

deep dive on Jordan's life. Roland Laisenby is a fantastic author. Hopefully I'll have him on the show at some stage in the future. I actually sent him a couple of Jordan game DVDs in advance of him writing that book. He very kindly put my name in the acknowledgments, which was fantastic. Get out of here. I'll go and read his book store and check it out. Sure,

because I've seen it there. I'll give it a second look. He also is responsible for another great book. One of my other favorites I've got is called and now your Chicago Bulls. I think it was a 30 year anniversary. I got it for my 21st birthday from a really close friend of mine. A pictorial book, but also Roland Laisenby does the words as well to do

with the history of the Bulls franchise. And there's some fantastic photos and stories about some of the key moments and players over the journey to that point with the Chicago Bulls. This is both a confession and a brag, I suppose, but my high school library had a copy of three feet repeat, which was a sort of almost a three large size book photo journal of the

book. I was a little bit of a fan of the 98 series against Utah. And I remember thinking, it is terrible, but I said, I don't trust this library to take as much care of this book as I will. And I stole it. Anyway, that's my high school library. Sorry about that. I just thought, no, no, no, I know I'll take better care because I remember

reading it. There was a bit of penmark in it and stuff. And I was like, no, I can't. I can't have that. I took it. You're saying it's unacceptable that is penmark. It's coming home with me. It was real crafty. I stole the barcode off it. And everything. That's what I've done. Oh, that is so good. Well done. Congratulations on that. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm quite

an honest answer back as well. Sam Smith's book was certainly transcendent at the time. We're talking pre-internet. So what was in the book, obviously, it certainly became massive talking points at that stage when it was released. And of course, all through the papers and probably sourd his relationship, I guess, with Jordan to an extent too. And when you're covering the balls, that makes a difficult. Would

make it very difficult. Back when I had Sam on the show the first time, I think it was like in the first 10 to 15 episodes. So it was on. So the first 20 or so episodes of my show, my audio quality is absolutely terrible. I'm talking into a web camera. The microphone was shocking. But thankfully, the guest side of things there, audio is pretty good

because it's usually Skype or it may have been a phone call quality, but still they sound pretty good. Where I sound terrible. But it was early days. I still took pride in the research. I did it that time. But I'd love to get Sam back on the show again, talked to some more specific points again to do with those balls back in that era. I found

it to be really a great guy to chat with. He was very accommodating. And once I was sort of reached out to him back at that time, might have been 2013 or something like that. He responded really quickly. And within probably three or four days, we were chatting. And then he came back on again, probably three or four years later, when the new book he put

out there is no next. And then my mate Aaron and myself, we chatted with him in a like a three man weave chatting about that book as well. And he was really good to talking about the process behind how that book came to be and and his research and interviews. He did it in the lead up to putting out that book about whether or not there

will be another MJ. That's always the question. I hate to even go down that road because you see enough of that sort of talk on Facebook about who's better than that. It drives you nuts. We won't go there. No. Who was that first girl who you were star struck and nervous about calling. I get a bit nervous before every call. Soon as I hear the Skype

line ringing. I think, Oh boy, what am I doing? Oh no, I'm freaking out. The very first episode was Bill Weddy did right. And I said this a couple of times, but it was a funny way that I even came to be. Do you want to the story very quickly? Yeah, go. Yeah, please. Okay. There's an app on the phone called Words with Friends. And I'm

not sure if you played it. It's like Scrabble, I guess. But at some stage, Bill Weddington on Twitter put a comment about his words with friends score or something like that. And then we were playing a few games back and forwards and then he replied and said, yes, it is. And if it's not, my whole life has been a lie. So I thought, Oh, okay, that's

quite interesting. So he's got a sense of humor. We were going back and forwards playing this game. And I thought, well, I'm thinking about starting a podcast. I'm in communication here with Bill Weddington. If this is really him, why don't I try and set up a chat with him? So I said something like, this is all a via a message behind the scenes in the game

on a scale of one to 10. Where would you sit in terms of chatting with me via Skype about your career? When I started a new NBA history podcast and he replied with I think five. So I thought, okay, well, he doesn't absolutely despise me. It's a maybe. It's a maybe. That's it. He doesn't despise me yet. He's not saying, oh, yeah, sure. Let's do it.

So I thought, okay, well, we'll just continue playing this game back and forwards. And then after a few months, I started doing my research on him. I came up with all the ideas of questions. I'd like to ask him and topics I'd like to chat about. And then said, you know, would you like to make this happen? And it happened in the off season between, I

Winninson pops up on the screen in front of me. And I am freaking out. But I was just beside my something. My goodness, this is Bill Winninson. A guy that I've admired is an NBA champion. A guy that I've followed for the last 20 odd years, I've known who he is and what he's done and his impression on the city of Chicago. And he's there right

in front of me talking. And that was the very first person I had on the show when he fired up the old video. And I was a bit frotting to be honest. Yeah, the video does throw me off as well. If you're talking to someone internationally, you're either doing it late at night or early in the morning. Not exactly camera ready. That's all right. I think

I saw on your Twitter the other day, you had that amazing shot on the cover of Come Fly with me. First of all, tell me what's your favorite NBA entertainment video? And then specifically your favorite Jordan NBA entertainment because there's a plethora out there. There is. I've got some fantastic releases. My favorite would have to be Come Fly with me. Same. Watched it so often. It

was crazy. The music. Okay. I could jump in there. Please. There's a guy on YouTube. His name is Jose. And he's got a very unique surname to X-Tria, some other. He's got all the clean. I've heard of him. You've seen it. It's amazing. I've saved him all. I walked down the street. This and that stuff. That's funny. That actually reminds me. I at one stage when

I was driving to and from my job. I was a promise school teacher or elementary school teacher for about six years. And I don't teach currently. But I'm just out of the teaching game. But I used to record the audio from NBA. I used to play games onto CDs back in the day. I'd play the audio of games. So it'd be like, you know, Marvel. But

in Mike Vrtelo calling a bulls cavalier game or whatever it might have been. And I was listening to that on the way to. That's quite sad. I'm still for radio call. That's a big. You're actually. That's awesome. Amazing. But you come fly with me. What about just NBA in general? Were you a dazzling, dunks basketball bloopers guard? Do you have something else you like? We had

our dozen dunks and basketball bloopers. We used to watch that relentlessly as well. And I made my brother initially watch it with me. And then he came to love it as much as I did. Then there was the all new. Dalying dunks basketball bloopers. It's just so good to see Frank Gladen and Marv Albert and their humor going back and forwards in amongst all these NBA

highlights and music clips as well. So NBA superstars is another fantastic one. Yeah, that was amazing. The one with in Pearl Jam. I think they were spectacular. And then I was fortunate enough to have Don Spurling. Who's the head of NBA in a time. And you see that name on the back of the video. Don talks about the part where he's chatting to I think it's

MJ's high school coach and he says something on the lines of yes, I'm the guy that cut Michael Jordan from his high school team. Or whatever the words are. But in order for him to finally get that clip on come fly with me. He basically said to him, look, if you don't say pretty much these exact words, I can't put it in the clip. So he

then got the guy to say it. And that's the only words you hear from that coach. And it's basically because Don said you must say it like this or you won't be on the show. I thought that was pretty funny. He'll have wrote it on that in our episode. I've watched that enough, but I've never been able to really put my finger on what made those

so good. And they were all really good. Come fly with me. It was my favorite. But airtime's amazing and untouchables. All that sort of stuff. I still haven't quite worked out what they did. It was so special. But amazing. Let's think about Jordan now. Obviously was very lucky to be the type of player he was. I really do believe he was once in a generation and

unreplicatable. I think that's probably pretty fair. But now I can't with the social media that goes on like has his legacy kind of in torn down and just he's been made a bit of a mockery of like his crying faces on a lot of Internet stuff. What is your relationship with Jordan now that he's you know with the Hornets? I'm still a massive fan still love

following whatever he gets up to and anytime he gets some camera time wherever he is. I love seeing it and seeing what he's doing. He's been made a bit of a fool fire. There's crying Jordan things which I just despise. But that's another whole thing in itself. But I'm glad for him that he actually didn't have to experience any of the social media era as a

player because I've heard him on record saying interviews countless times that he wouldn't have been able to probably perform the way he did if there is the entire scrutiny of social media where you can't do anything without somebody filming you or hearing about it. I'm glad that he missed that whole era as a player. These days he's getting criticism for the fact that he's not a

great owner and he doesn't make the right moves and whatnot. Lab Poon is probably the word I'd use. It's that sort of point and laugh type thing which is certainly there's criticism on the way. The team is running whatever but it's that joking style that I just think. It is. It's pretty much some tall poppy scene. I'm going on and he's doing whatever he can and

putting a lot of money into it at the same time. But I mean he's got his finger in about 35 different pies and of course he's earning millions and millions every year as it goes. But I would have loved to have sent him actually enter into commentary cover games and be a sort of a special comments person. It would have been great to see what he

would have done had he gone into the media side of things. Let's go to the year he's not there. 93 94 and then 94 95 half of that season. Am I right when I say that? Spot on you. 94 interestingly I was on an NBA tour with some other Australians. We flew over to LA and then we watched about six or seven games in about two

weeks across the country. When we paid the deposit for that trip Jordan was still an active NBA player. No. It was probably three or four weeks I think after the deposit was paid for the trip. Jordan actually ended up retiring. Drew Drew Drew the tragic death of his dad. I was just beside myself and I was about 19 I guess at the time. And I was

absolutely livid because the balls game was going to be one of the highlights of the trip. Yeah of course. We get over there. We see six or seven games. We get to Chicago. We saw the balls play the 76ers of a Sean Bradley's rookie season with the 76ers and I love Sean Bradley. The balls won in a massive blowout. But it was already terrible because Jordan.

We were retired. So we didn't get to see Jordan play but we get to see Pippin play and we saw some other great players in the NBA at that time. So it was great to be in the old Chicago stadium. But I really love that season because first of all I was over there and saw some games during that time. Pippin had an absolute ripper of

a season MVP quality season on the all style game MVP as well in 94. So he was on fire that season but sadly missed out on seeing Jordan. So I've got quite a strong attachment to that season regardless. Even though Jordan was in retirement. The lineup would have been BJ Armstrong, Pippin, Horace Grant and still will per do it. I think he was traded at that

point. And you're starting should you go would have been what? He might as he actually played for the balls back in the maybe 87 season when he was a youngster. He was on the bulls roster. Then he came back and was pretty much the guy that was tasked with replacing young Michael Jordan. They hadn't pulled the trade on Robman yet. They still had will per do.

Robman came over. I think in October of 95 as when he joined the team. When they got rid of Padoo just prior to the 95 96 season kicking off. If you look at that 94 and 5 those that season in a half in the absence of Jordan. It really shows how good Pippin was. But have you ever looked into like the Pete Mayer situation that what

it was like being that guy. I'm not sure what his current role is, but he certainly was with the balls fairly recently. He had obviously a lot of expectation on him and you never ever going to replace a Michael Jordan. But yeah, it's quite an interesting period of time for him. That season's not spoken about the other thing that's kind of a bit buried is the

series against Orlando. Now you remember you put up footage and then I got taken down. Am I right? That's right. Okay. So that's what I was talking about. That series. Why do you think it's kind of buried. You're going to have to tell me because I haven't seen it since I was eight years old. What happened in that series tell me better. That's funny because I

uploaded. I think it was game four of the balls magic series and that was taken down you sent it to me. It was down within 12 hours, which is quick. Somehow game six still stays on there. And I think I uploaded another game earlier in the series, which is still on there. But strangely, yeah, it's a series that's often forgotten. Of course, Jordan was wearing 45

after game one of that series. Nick Anderson questioned that Jordan had he been his old number 23. That wouldn't have happened. And of course, come game two. Jordan had an absolute ripper of a game and reverted back to his famous number 23. So there's heaps of different storylines throughout that series. Chicago definitely should have won the series. They just gave it away. Unfortunately, I guess they

were still trying to gel together as a team. People sort of say, oh, the NBA wants people to forget about it. But I think that's far from the truth. It's just a strange moment in time where the balls hadn't get quite gel. They had to make some more moves. They got rid of Purdue. They brought in Rodman. It'd be fascinating to sort of see more of

a deep dive into that. But for the time being, I guess we can only imagine what could have been, but quite fascinating to watch when you look back on it all these years down. When you say they gave it away, what did they miss? Like, do they miss late shots? Was Jordan not good? You talked about not geling, but is there any they game in particular

where they didn't place it well? Game six. We're talking about 90 95 NBA playoffs. Bulls magic. It was played in Chicago. And we three minutes and 24 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Chicago were leading 102 to 94. And they end up losing that game at home. It's hard to even imagine that's the case. The final score was 108 to 102. So Chicago didn't score again

for the last three minutes and 24 seconds. That's the decider at Chicago. I just can't believe it. The balls let that one slip. Sure, they would have had to go back to play a game seven in Orlando. They were up eight at home with three minutes left and lost the game with Jordan with Jordan. There was opportunities throughout the series where the balls could have ran

up an extra game and actually could have closed it out in game. Six rather than actually being closed out in game six. I don't have any other questions for you. I'm very happy with the way that went. I'll speak again soon sometime. Thanks very much, mate. It's been a pleasure chatting to you as well. Thanks for listening. I welcome your interaction with the show. You can

suggest topics or guests. You want to hear conversations with send me an email audio clips are welcome in all anus at gmail.com time to share another great review from a fan of the show. Thanks to travel to the following truth seeker via Apple podcasts USA. It's titled podcast that saved 2020 for me. It's rated five stars. Thank you. And it reads as wild as the year

2020 was. I found this podcast on Spotify and started binging the episodes. Since I couldn't give it a review there. Here I am. I grew up in the 90s and to be able to relive memories like this is amazing. Truly and a stunningly researched and entertaining podcast. This show is a gem. Now I'm going to go back to the show. I promise you I did not

write that myself. I couldn't even pay somebody to write something as great as that. Thank you. Traveling truth seeker. I'm sure that's not your real name. I really appreciate the support. I'd love for you to reach out and actually let me know where you're based in the USA. And perhaps a few details about you. Thanks so much for the very kind words. Worldwide the show has

179 ratings on Apple podcasts with an average of four and a half stars with 93 reviews across all providers. Thanks for your continued support. If you add a review. I'd love to see you. I'd love to read it out on a future episode. Your ratings and reviews are one of the best ways to support the podcast. If you enjoy the show, please tell your basketball loving

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