JR Interview with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

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Shop in store or visit Ashley.com today. It's the JR Sport Brief Show here with you on CBS Sports Radio. We're more than a month away from the NBA season. This might be the dog days of the summer, but right now we're being joined by a legend. No other way to say it. Six championships and six MVPs.

El Capitan, it's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Kareem, how are you, man? You doing good? I'm doing very well. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you for taking the time to hop on. There's so much, obviously, that we want to talk with you about when it comes down to basketball with your unique perspective. But then, first, we have seen you so much, even in these dog days. I've seen you on TV a lot. A lot of commercials for good cause. Tell us what you've been working on with AFib and tell us about that.

I've seen you a lot. Well, I'm trying to raise consciousness about AFib. It's a very recently understood illness that affects people in a very negative way. It's shortness of breath and fatigue and really can't cope physically. And it also inhibits your ability to breathe and just function. It increases your chance for stroke by a factor of five.

And that's serious. You can die from a stroke if you have this condition. So I would really encourage everyone to visit the website, no time to wait.com, and you can find out more about this condition and find out what you need to do so that it doesn't have to threaten you.

You've led, obviously, a very active lifestyle during the majority of your life, even active now, moving around, being an advocate. And when you talk about your own diagnosis here, were you a little shocked or surprised about it? I was shocked in that I didn't realize it was threatening me that much, but it wasn't surprising because I've been having problems. I went to a baseball game.

I went to the Dodger game and I couldn't walk any further than maybe 20, 30 yards without having to sit down and rest and get my breath back. And it was just something I didn't want to have happen. Nothing had happened to me. So I just wanted to dismiss it and hope that it was something that would pass quickly.

But of course it didn't. And I'm very fortunate that my business manager made me go to the hospital and they diagnosed me and I'm doing a lot better now. Happy to hear that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is joining us here at the JR Sport Reef Show on CBS Sports Radio. Whether you are retired and active like yourself, whether you're still an active athlete, there's so many conversations now with modern technology about the current athlete, how much they should play, how much they shouldn't play. Yesterday we heard the whole press conference by Adam Silver implementing new rules to try to lessen load management. Why do you think we've reached the point where players were sitting out? Is it more so the players not wanting to be active because of their salaries? Is it the owners protecting their investments?

Why do you think we've reached this point? Well, you know, I can't speak for the owners or people like that. I think that the fact that we have good medical attention on the various teams about checking out people's ability to withstand an NBA season. We have good medical information. So at times when it's not working for someone, they need to get away from the game.

We've seen that. But every individual presents a different issue. And it's just for people who think that they have a problem, all the medical attention that's focused on professional sports will enable them to find out what's going on fairly quickly and to protect their health, protect their life. It's a lot more important than being able to play a professional sport.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbaris here with us, the JR Sport Reshow on CBS Sports Radio. We know about your career and accomplishments in 21 years and having the scoring title for more than 30 plus. Given all of the information that's available today and the detail, would you have approached your career differently? Would you have sat out a few games?

Obviously, you would have had an elongated career, but what are your thoughts on that? That's hard to say. Who knows what physical ailments might or might not affect someone. There's no telling.

You have to live your life and find these things out as you go through life. So I think someone that has the potential to be a professional athlete will probably give it a definite attempt to make that their lifestyle. It pays well. It gives you a public persona. A lot of people do very well with that. Some don't. So we have to go one step at a time and be careful because our lives are more important than just having an opportunity to play professional sports or not.

I don't think that that should be the choice. Well, Kareem, I think there's one athlete in particular in the NBA who has pretty much led that charge, and it's probably because he's not American. And that happens to be Nikola Jokic. We've seen him win a championship.

We've seen him win multiple MVPs. And there's been a lot of talk over the years about the emergence of guards and it being a guard driven league. We know you were a center and we see Embiid and Jokic. What are your thoughts on how the NBA looks like it's hedging maybe back towards the bigs?

Well, there's always a balance. You have to be able to defend on a perimeter and you have to be able to defend on the interior. So that's not going to change. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is joining us here at the JR Support Preshow on CBS Sports Radio. Nikola Jokic has made it just very clear. For him, basketball is a job. And to your point, there's so much more to life just in him being identified as a basketball player. He was criticized for a lot of that once they won the championship. Do you feel that was justified when you take a look at his perspective? Well, that's hard to say.

I mean, what are you comparing it to? What was Nikola supposed to do, become a doctor? He might not have been able to handle that burden. You know, I think, you know, people have to find their niche in life and pursue it. Everybody does that. I don't think Nikola is any different. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar here with us, CBS Sports Radio. One player, especially as we come up on the upcoming season that a lot of people have paid attention to is Giannis Ietetokounmpo. Already talking about his future. I know you've looked at his game and you've said, man, you would love to have had the opportunity to play in a straight line back and forth just like him. What impresses you about Giannis and his game and his attitude towards it?

Well, I think Giannis decided that by teaching himself, he only could do things that made sense to him. So getting the ball off the defensive end and taking it down and trying to score with it without giving the ball up. That's a big part of his game and he does very well at it.

But, you know, that's something that has to do with his instincts and the talent that he has physically that he's able to do that. But, you know, telling the big guys that you guys can't dribble, get the ball to the guards and go down instead of the offense. That's basically the way the game has been played for so many decades. And that might change a little bit now.

Do you continue to see more of an evolution? We see like big dudes are handling the ball more. And obviously with LeBron being six, nine and running point.

And we saw this with Magic Johnson when you played with Magic. But do you feel that we are moving towards a space of positional as basketball? Everybody is six, eight and has a similar skill set. No, I don't think it's going to be like that.

But there are going to be differences. There'll be some little guys that can come out and shoot but can't play anywhere near the basket. And there are little guys that have that challenge. There are big guys that can handle the ball and do what someone like Giannis does. But not every big guy can do that. You know, you see big guys trying to handle the ball.

It's either a turnover or they give up a steal. So, you know, you have to take everybody's talent and incentive in the game to take that into consideration and try to let everybody play at the top of their game. And eliminate the things that create turnovers and enable the other team to have advantages. If you work it like that, you can have a very effective team and win championships.

That's possible. The JR Sportbree show here on CBS Sports Radio. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar joining us. You talk about the evolution of the game. You are a Lakers legend. We know about the history of the Lakers. We hear about it now even so with LeBron James.

There's television shows and programs that are made about it. The NBA is a huge business and we even hear the stories. Players go to LA and get trapped in the dramatization of winning time. What are the real trappings of playing in Los Angeles and being that Lakers star? I don't think it's any different for being in Los Angeles than any of the other NBA teams. If you can go out there and do the things that enable your team to win, you're going to make it. You're going to be a star.

And if you can't, you're not going to last too long. It doesn't matter where you're playing. When you sit down and watch the game right now, the current style of play and how it's run, is there any element that you enjoy, any element that you would love to see different? No, I'm enjoying the game as it is now because all of a sudden now there's a balance between scoring inside and scoring outside. You've got guys that can hit the three-pointer and you've got guys that are better off at attacking the hoop. And getting the right mixture of guys and putting them in a winning situation is what every team wants to do. So it takes a team, you know, the general manager and the coach really have to figure out how well guys can work together.

As we start to wrap up here with the legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, you have always been known not just for your work on the court, but also being an advocate for human rights, just being a good human overall, thinking about things outside of basketball. There have been a lot of conversations, especially earlier this week, surrounding unions and the NFL and injuries. We saw Aaron Rodgers go down. And you hear a lot about the strength of the NFL and its PA and why they're not able to play on grass.

What are your thoughts on the strength of a union and these constant negotiations that take place every five to seven years? What advice would you give to the NFL PA in regards to even just getting a surface that they would want to play on? I know so little about that. I'm not going to volunteer any advice to the NFL. I mean, that's such a tough game.

Guys get hurt permanently in that game. So I don't know enough about it to give them any suggestions. I've enjoyed NFL football for a long time, but as far as telling them how to market their product and protect their players, I couldn't tell them anything about that because I don't know enough about it. In a general sense, Kareem, when you look at sports, there's so many rules that have been changed over the past 15, 20 years that gear towards offense, whether it's the NFL, the NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball, for instance, speeding up the game. Do you think, and we know change is necessary, but is it too much change and too soon where it's just like, hey, let's hands off on the defense a little bit?

I don't know. There should be a balance. There should be, the offense and defense should be evenly matched and let it go from there. Because that's how dominant teams achieve what they achieve because they're able, even though they're evenly matched, they're able to figure out a winning strategy that is consistent and they are consistently winning.

And that's why they are at the top. Look at the Lakers during the 1980s. We were able to be consistent and keep a team on the court that did all the things offense and defensively. That's that's what all the teams really want. And they all try to get the players that can create that situation on the court.

I think that's that's what the fans want to see. You know, how smart their front office is and how good their coaching staff is. Kareem, you mentioned the Lakers final question for you. We see LeBron James going into another season. We see the emergence scoring wise of an Austin Reeves and an Anthony Davis.

What are your thoughts? What's your preview for this upcoming Lakers season? Well, I know Lakers are going to be contenders if they're healthy.

No, but that's the big if. It's hard to get through the season without having a key injury. But if they can stay healthy, I'm sure they'll be contenders, but they're not the only ones out there. And because I haven't watched any of the other teams as closely as I've watched the Lakers, I can't give you any of my great predictions.

But it'll be an interesting season for sure, because there's always new talent coming in. We have this young man from France. Waiting to see what he can do.

In fact, I'm going to be over in the Middle East promoting a game that he'll be playing. I'm speaking of Victor Iamba. Really curious to see what he can do on the court.

Seven foot five running around and handling the ball like a guard. Did you think that we would see the NBA develop into this space or it's something you couldn't even think about 30 and 40 years ago? Well, 30 or 40 years ago, you couldn't think about it.

You better not think about it. I mean, can you see Will Chamberlain trying to bring the ball up court? I couldn't. I couldn't see me bringing the ball up court on a regular basis. There are certain things that you can do and you can't do. So that's what makes the game interesting and guys that can overcome the tendency to say, you know, little guys can't play on the front court and big guys can't play on the back court. Well, every now and then that doesn't happen. You got big guys that can handle it and do incredible things with it and little guys that can go inside and consistently get things done.

You brought it up and so I'm going to finish on this. The emergence and change of basketball. We see it internationally as well. Team USA just losing and we see that, yes, the lines have been blurred.

It's not USA and then everybody else. What are your thoughts on the response to Team USA basketball when they lose? It's almost like they get laughed at now regardless of who they send out there. Well, I remember a couple years ago the Greek team won the gold medal at the Olympics and everybody was wondering, who are those guys? Well, they've been practicing. That's who those guys are and we got to keep practicing and keep pushing the game and making it evolve and I think that's a great incentive for everybody, for the teams that want to see us knocked off and for American basketball. It's a wonderful situation and when does the season start? Come on.

Kareem, do us a favor. Share to us one more time where we can find out more information about AFib. If you want to find out about AFib, go to visit.

NoTimeToWait.com and you can find out all about what AFib is about and you can find out what you need to do to take care of your health and maintain your ability to do the things that you want to do. You heard the message from a legend. It's the JR Sportbree Show here on CBS Sports Radio. Thank you so much to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for joining us. Thank you guys.

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