Welcome to the NBA

May 5, 2021 10:12 AM

Former NBA players Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles host the Knuckleheads podcast, a series of freewheeling discussions with current and former NBA and WNBA players. Their first question is always the same: "When you first got to the league, who was the first person to bust your ass?" The answers are funny, enlightening, surprising and (almost) always humble; players often remember the exact number of points their buster scored in years- or decades-old games. They offer a unique window into what it's like to make the transition to the upper echelons of professional sports, when someone who has spent their life as the best player in the gym suddenly realizes that they still have a lot to learn. Here's Gary Payton with the paradigmatic "welcome to the NBA" moment, but there's much more inside.

Following are links to episodes, queued up to the question. Some of my personal favorites (Davis, Iverson, Wade, Kemp, Wallace) are at the top, but otherwise they are in no particular order. Name is the interviewee/bustee, number corresponds to the buster to show you the connections in a relatively spoiler-free manner. Some of the busters appear multiple times, and some of the bustees are also busters. Enjoy.

Bustees:
Baron Davis (1, 2, 3)
Kyle Lowry & Allen Iverson (4, 5)
Dwyane Wade (6, 7, 8)
Shawn Kemp (9)
Rasheed Wallace (10)
Damian Lillard (11)
Gary Payton (12)
Shaquille O'Neal (many)
Kevin Durant (13)
Paul George (13)
Kyrie Irving & Jayson Tatum (14, 15)
Kemba Walker (16)
Deron Williams (17)
Chris Webber (18)
Zach Randolph (19)
Gilbert Arenas (20)
Patrick Ewing (21)
Steve Francis (17, 2)
JR Smith (22)
Rex Chapman (23)
Nate Robinson & Eddy Curry (4, 24, 25)
Jerry Stackhouse (26, 27)
Glen Davis (28)
Steve Nash (29)
Seimone Augustus (30)
Jimmy Butler (31)
Robert Horry (32)
Chamique Holdsclaw (33)
Alonzo Mourning (34)
Skylar Diggins-Smith (35)
Nick Van Exel knew the question was coming (36, 37)
Udonis Haslem (13, 38)
Tina Thompson(39)
Wilson Chandler (40)
Cynthia Cooper-Dyke (41)
Al Harrington (42)
Nick Young (8, 40)
Chris Paul (4)
Kobe Bryant (43)
Montrezl Harrell (44)
Shawn Marion (45, 46)
Amar'e Stoudemire (47)
Isiah Thomas (48)

Busters:
(1) Rod Strickland; (2) Terrell Brandon; (3) John Stockton; (4) Allen Iverson; (5) Kevin Johnson; (6) Baron Davis; (7) Ray Allen; (8) Rip Hamilton; (9) Larry Bird; (10) David Robinson; (11) Goran Dragić; (12) Michael Jordan; (13) Carmelo Anthony; (14) Jose Calderon; (15) LeBron James; (16) Deron Williams; (17) Sam Cassell; (18) Hakeem Olajuwon; (19) PJ Brown; (20) Gary Payton; (21) Moses Malone; (22) Reggie Miller; (23) Joe Dumars; (24) Shaquille O'Neal; (25) Yao Ming; (26) Latrell Spreewell; (27) Alvin Robinson; (28) Carlos Boozer; (29) Mitch Richmond; (30) Diana Taurasi; (31) Kevin Durant; (32) Dominique Williams; (33) Cynthia Cooper; (34) Rik Smits; (35) Cynthia Cooper; (36) Kenny Smith; (37) Dana Barros; (38) Dirk Dowitzki; (39) Jennifer Gillom; (40) Kobe Bryant; (41) Nobody; (42) Grant Hill; (43) Nick Van Exel; (44) Al Jefferson; (45) Steve Smith; (46) Mookie Blaylock; (47) Kevin Garnett; (48) Maurice Cheeks

posted by googly (20 comments total)

These guys have some pretty amazing stories of what happens when 18-year ultra-elite athletes with enormous amounts of confidence start earning millions of dollars overnight, and also start to hang around 20-somethings with even more cash and confidence, e.g., almost die in a jet ski accident at Alonzo Mourning's Miami mansion.
posted by skewed at 10:30 AM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm five minutes in to the Baron Davis episode and I'm smiling like an absolute goon. This is a national treasure, thank you so much for sharing it here.
posted by saladin at 11:24 AM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

These are great -- one thing I've always found fascinating about listening to athletes talk about past games is their memory for stats and game specifics. Like remembering the number of shot attempts or a perfect stat line from another player, even 20 years later. It's cool to me because it's kind of breaking character almost?
posted by yeahwhatever at 11:54 AM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

THANK YOU for this post!

Rex Chapman is awesome. Very insightful, funny Twitter account that is not all about basketball at all.
posted by AugustWest at 12:00 PM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

players often remember the exact number of points their buster scored in years- or decades-old games

Reminds me of the quote from Rounders:

"In Confessions of a Winning Poker Player," Jack King said, "Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career."
posted by paulcole at 12:05 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

I do not think remembering stats from your games or when an opponent busts your ass is breaking character. These are some of the most competitive people on earth. Most are smart or at least worldly and athletic. I was a floor trader for almost two decades, making hundreds of trades a day. I can recall almost every trade I ever made. Certainly the really good ones and the really bad ones. And, I do not define good ones or bad ones based on P&L. I define it based on decision making wrt the inputs I had. I would say my best trade ever was a losing trade that had I not made I would have lost so much more that I might have been out of business. My most profitable day had nothing to do with me making great trades that day although I did. It was based on weeks before when I built up a position long hundreds of puts and then the Crash of '87 happened. In one day I made 6 or 7 times what I had made the entire year before.

You remember competition.
posted by AugustWest at 12:06 PM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

I love the "experts talking to experts" genre and want it for every topic. For sports, it's especially fun, as I have been on the court with actual (eventual) NBA players, including, must humblingly, B.J. Armstrong. The mind-warping gap between their knowledge and skills and that of 99.999% of all others who've ever played? Staggering and a factory of smiles.

At the Coralville IA rec center, I once watched Gerry Wright, Sir Jam-A-Lot, make uncountable consecutive jumpshots from everywhere on the court. He didn't play a minute in the NBA and was not known for the range of his game (he was mainly known for stuff like this). And it was so crystal clear to me, child of 13 or so, that his game was beyond my imagination, that it was somehow both painful and a joy.

Anyways, the camaraderie of these conversations is terrific fun. Thank you for sharing!
posted by Caxton1476 at 12:07 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

Listening to elite athletes do high-level analysis is one of my favorite things. The mental game is entirely invisible but it is so thrilling to hear about.
posted by Think_Long at 12:23 PM on May 5, 2021

LeBron James has an eidetic memory (this has been documented in a few places) and while this is widely seen as a huge asset, giving him the ability to recognize opponent's plays and predict player behavior, apparently it has its downsides as well.

"When I was a kid my coaches started to say to me that I remembered things that happened in games from a few tournaments back -- and that surprised them," James says. "I started to realize how important that could be years later, probably when I was in high school. And then, eventually, I realized that it can get me into trouble."

The "trouble" he seems to be referring to is that he remembers his past failures on the court too well, and this leads to a sort of paralysis when he's playing. His brain is in overdrive thinking about the past and apparently creates some sort of blockage in real time. This seemed to plague him much more earlier in his career and over time he appears to have used it to help him become the best player in the game.
posted by jeremias at 12:30 PM on May 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

Anyways, the camaraderie of these conversations is terrific fun.

This is one of my favorite aspects of these podcasts. I love it when Quentin and Dwyane Wade talk about how Rip Hamilton had long nails that carved them up but they couldn't really get mad at him because he was such a cool guy. It's also awesome hearing them give props to players who aren't so well known (e.g. Kyrie's nemesis Jose Calderon) but still play at an incredibly high level. The mutual respect and humility among people who are literally the best in the world at what they do is enlightening.
posted by googly at 1:04 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

So just looking at the list, two WNBA players both say Cynthia Cooper-Dyke is the player who kicked their butts, and then they interview Cooper-Dyke, who says... nope, nobody!

(But then you listen to the interview, which so far is really good, and she admits that she didn't play a lot of traditional one-to-one defense in the pros, and in college, Cheryl Miller was her nemesis. Nice!)

This is great. I've always liked Baron Davis as a player and his interview is just what I'd hope. Will check out many more.
posted by martin q blank at 2:48 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

LeBron James has an eidetic memory

LeBron's astounding recall covers pretty much everything any player on both teams did in a game when he was on the floor. Here's a quick example (SLYT) from a post-game interview a couple of years ago.
posted by Blue Meanie at 3:07 PM on May 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

Podcasts and people sitting around and chatting are like poison to me, but damn, these are great.

Personal favorite so far, is Richardson just directly addressing Allen Iverson as “Chuck,” like Bubba Chuck is Iverson’s real name.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:39 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is great

2nd'd

Between this and stumbling upon the Ted Lasso AI reference I've had a lot of good basketball look backs this week.

What a fun sport. NBA does sports personality better than any other I can think of. I know it's a lot of branding and celebrity BS, but, they take the advantage of small # of players and really let people be themselves.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 12:46 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

The NBA really is different than the other major sports for how important the one on one game is, and through that the individual personalities and abilities of the players. In baseball, the pitcher faces off against the entire line-up of hitters, so their ability is magnified, but the team effort still holds the day in most cases throughout the season, football has a the match up of safeties or cornerbacks on receivers, where one can get burned by the better player, but the team strategy overall is the more important thing with football's specialized roles and staccato play structure, and "soccer" is organized around the field of play with multiple layers of defense to penetrate to score, making one on one match-ups less vital than the NBA where, even with team or zone defense, any one player is responsible for offense and defense, directly guarding or being guarded by another.

Add to that the journey many players take to reach the NBA, where they are singled out from a young age to work their way through a system where their unique abilities have to stand out in order to move ahead and where so many players had to fight through their own personal difficulties, Stoudamire's interview, for example, mentions having to decide on what high school to play, and switching twice, when he was 15, his father dead and his mother in and out of prison, while Payton talks about how he became such a trash talker because he and his brothers and sister would go to different neighborhoods and challenge the locals to games and often have to fight their way out when they won which built his game and his reputation. The number of younger players who talk about how inspirational Iverson was to their success speaks to this as well for Iverson being the epitome of a player forcing his way to success despite difficult circumstances.

The love of the game for these guys is tied to this kind of personal narrative it seems, based on respect gained by what they can demonstrate without having to rely on outsiders to measure. They are totally vulnerable in being seen in this demonstration, able to be shown up on either end of the floor and called out as an individual, but also able to excel in the same fashion and build really tight relationships with the others they play with who go through the same thing as it is still a team sport in the wins and losses, it just magnifies the individual battles to succeed in ways most other sports don't, or do differently, as in tennis or golf where the competition isn't sticking a hand in your face or an elbow in your ribs while maybe mouthing off to you. The demonstration of personality through play is an essential part of the NBA.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:17 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

Kobe is - was - among the most cerebral athletes I've ever heard and his total embrace of being a devout student of the game at such a young age is remarkable.

And hearing Zeke tell how his mom hijacked his college commitment announcement to Indiana is a priceless gem from another era.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 5:12 AM on May 6, 2021

This is awesome - thanks! (and I have a super-low tolerance for podcasts :-)

My favorite so far is the Chris Webber one, where he talks about how Hakeem Olajuwon (so underrated!), who hit him with the jump hook over and over, and so Chris realized that he needed to learn that move, and then Darius reveals that, years later Webber was the first person to bust his ass, using that same move, and so then Darius knew that he needed to learn the jump hook. You can see them connect over this shared experience, sense of brotherhood, and knowledge being passed down through basketball generations.
posted by chbrooks at 9:21 AM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]

Yes! The theme of learning the moves that you were busted by runs through a lot of these; Darius calls it out several times.

A related theme is how often they talk about players busting their asses not through special talent or athleticism but rather just knowing the game better and being smarter and taking advantage of their mistakes, and that being a huge wake-up call. Baron Davis talks about it with John Stockton, AI talks about it with Kevin Johnson, and a lot of players pinpoint that moment when they realized they couldn't rely on talent or athleticism but had to get humble and learn more about the game.
posted by googly at 10:56 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

Left off the list but the Ron Artest episode is, predictably, completely fucking fascinating.
posted by saladin at 10:24 AM on May 7, 2021

I'm a huge fan of this show. Agreed with the others here that the "experts talking to experts" style of interview gets these players to open up and tell stories that you don't normally get to hear in conversations mediated by non-players/media members/etc. The way they open up when they know they're talking to people who get them and their lived experience is great, and it's wonderful how we as listeners get to go along for the ride.
posted by lhputtgrass at 2:51 PM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]