It's the JR Sport Reshow here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We all know that the NFL is sucking up a lot of air time right now with free agency, but we still have amazing things happening in the NBA, especially as we move down towards the close of the season. We got records being broken.
We've seen some amazing performances. And joining us right now is someone who's won an NBA championship. He's a legend with the Portland Trail Blazers. He's coached in the league. He's done it all.
His name is Lionel Hollins. Coach, how are you, man? I'm doing good, man.
How are you doing? I'm excellent. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Well, thank you for having me. You know, it's a pleasure to be able to go on a show and talk with people about sports.
No doubt about it. Well, I guess we might as well talk about some of the one thing we've never seen before in the world of sports. At one point in time, you were an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers. You were right there coaching against and with LeBron James. The man has scored 50,000 points.
What are your first impressions when you seen that last night? Well, you know, I thought about his entire career, man. They call him King James. He was noted ever since he was a young kid. And he's produced on every level, on a high level, in a special way. His career has been outerworldly is the best way to put it. And his last 50,000 points in a career for regular season and playoffs, it just speaks to that he is the chosen one.
And he's been chosen to do special things for a special reason. And he surpassed it. But anybody could have expected him to achieve without a shadow of a doubt. Well, you you've played in the league.
You coached against Kareem. You've seen LeBron. Is he the best? Is he the most accomplished? I mean, he's played almost 26 combined seasons, including playoffs by now. Well, you know, when you look at his longevity, and the level of play that he's played on, it's spectacular. And it speaks to his commitment, you know, to be able to end his passion, because he has a desire and a passion to be out there. So he does whatever it takes to get his body right.
He loves to play the game. So he only misses if he's truly hurt. He rarely just sits out for no reason.
And I think that that those things speak to why he's been able to go as long as he has. A lot of players have played to a certain point, and they lose a desire to work that hard. And then before you know it, their career ends. And he has had a desire to work extremely hard in the offseason to prepare for the next regular season. A lot of guys take a lot of the offseason off.
And then the last two or three months, they start getting after it. But he tends to, even when he's on vacation, even when he's shooting movies, he's working out. Coach Lionel Hollins is here with us, the JR sport re-show on the Infinity Sports Network. Well, based on what we've seen and what we might see the rest of the way, we know the Lakers picked up Luka Doncic. Do you have them in that category of being championship contenders?
I do. I think that Luka takes a lot of pressure off of LeBron of having to be the man at his age and expending that energy night in and night out for the amount of minutes that he's on the court. I looked at the night he played 37 minutes.
So it's great for him to have somebody else. And I, in fact, look at Luka is actually, he's different score than LeBron, but he doesn't have to work like LeBron has worked. LeBron is physically attacking the basket.
He's bumping and grinding with everybody. You know, he's running the lane to get ahead of everybody. And those types of things takes his toll on you where Luka, you know, one foot step back, he shoots a three, you know, he fakes a drive and he's doing all the quick ball handling thing that LeBron doesn't usually do. His ball handling has improved over his career. His three point shooting has improved over his career. His ability to post up has improved over his career.
So, you know, he's gotten to another level. But having Luka makes it easy for him. Plus, he trusts Luka because Luka is going to find him.
If he's open, he's going to find him. So LeBron runs harder. He cuts back door. He knows that he's going to get easy step, which lessens the wear and tear on your body. Coach Hollins, we know coaching is not easy, whether it's your time with the Grizzlies or the Nets or as an assistant recently with the Rockets.
We can go on. Last night we saw Budenholzer and Durant get into a little bit of a tiff. We see J.J. Redick here in his first year. It's not easy coaching the Lakers. It's not easy coaching, period.
What do you think about what J.J. Redick has done and just the job in general and how it's evolved? Well, I think that having your best player be on board with you from the get and welcomes you being the coach and having had a relationship with him helps. A lot of coaches don't have relationship with players, but they develop them over time, which, you know, I've had to do when I was with the Grizzlies. And I think that I tell everybody coaching is confrontational. Playing is competition and it's confrontational as well, but it's physical. With the coach, it's a mental thing. You've got to challenge guys and set high standards and get them to buy into playing together, playing hard, those two things. And then having strategy to win the game, playing the game to win it, you know, you go to the park and you go play in the gym, you know, you throw up some jumpers and they're ill-advised and nobody cares. But you play in a game, it costs you. You can be up a few points with a few minutes left and you take a bad shot or you commit turnovers. There are consequences on the court. So you have to learn what the time and score is and what your strategy that your coach has implemented as you go down the stretch. So I love coaching because it's the next best thing to play. I couldn't play anymore. LeBron's 40.
I quit at 31 and I couldn't play another second. Right. And I used to talk to him about, you know, his gifts and my gifts. I said, we've both been gifted by God, but God gave you a lot more gifts to me. Doesn't mean that I couldn't play in the NBA and have a career and have success, which I did and win championship. But, you know, he's blessed him with a lot more that he has than I have. I wasn't 6'9".
I didn't weigh 230, 240, 250, whatever everybody says he is. But I enjoy being around LeBron. I enjoyed his commitment.
I enjoyed his willingness to want to be coach. But, you know, he wanted you to challenge, but you had to be on point of what you were trying to challenge him about. You just couldn't come at him just because he made a mistake and you want to yell at somebody. You think yelling at LeBron allows you to yell at everybody else. Those things don't work with him or any really great players.
You have to manage them in a way where you're communicating and setting a table for what you're planning on doing and what you expect from them. Former NBA champion and coach Lionel Hollins is here with us at the JR Sport Brief Show. You talk about coaching.
I go back a couple of weeks ago to the All-Star game. Draymond Green made a comment about potentially being a coach. He was made fun of just a little bit. He's a competitor.
What do you think about his temperament and behavior? Do you think he'd be a good coach? Well, there's been a lot of players that have transitioned from playing to coaching. I think the biggest thing is patience. The second thing is understanding that every player doesn't have the skill set to play on the level that you played on when you played. Jerry West struggled with that when he tried to coach.
Magic struggled with that. Two guys that I just recall off the top of my head because they don't have your skill set. They don't see the game the way you see it.
Those were great players that saw the game in its entirety. You got guys that only see the game through themselves and their own lens, and you have to teach them. Teaching is also a struggle. It's competition every day to get them to do the same thing. I remember when I came to the Grizzlies, I'm telling you, we went for a week where every day I had to start from scratch and tell them all over again what I told them the day before. And you just have to stay after. So you have to have that desire and that stick-to-iness and mental toughness.
So Straymont could do it. Whether he could deal with referees and stay in the games, that's still an issue. Whether he can not yell at players blatantly all the time, you can yell at players, but after a while they quit listening to you if you're not on point of why you're yelling and communicating in a different manner with them. But if they know you care, if they know you care, you can get on them. And they know you're for them and their desires for success.
Not necessarily the teams, but you have to share with them. I want you to have success, but there's parameters that you have to operate in so that everybody else can be a part of this success and help. Well, Coach Hollins, we know your most recent stop in the NBA was with a young Houston Rockets team. We've seen how they've developed under Coach Imei Udonko. What are your thoughts on what he's been able to do with his second chance in the league? Well, he was a very good coach the first time around. I think that he laid a foundation and he created a culture that Missoula has been able to tap into and take it to another level, obviously, and win a championship. And I think that what helped him a lot was the management discarded a lot of players and bought in some veterans.
They bought in Brooks, they bought in Van Veeck, and so Jeff Green. These guys know how to work. They know how to be professional. They know when they come out of the game, why they came out of the game. Young players never know why they came out.
They never commit a foul. Every turnover is somebody else's fault. And that's a learning and maturing thing that happens with most players in the league.
But having those veterans to say, yeah, man, let it go. That was your fault. Yes, that was a foul. Quit arguing with the ref.
And that brings the development up quickly because it helps the player to grow and mature. Coach, you talk about Joe Missoula. We know the Celtics won the championship last year. You just pegged the Los Angeles Lakers as being contenders.
Who else do you see in that mix? Who are you favoring to go all the way this year? Well, I still like OKC.
I don't know. It's going to be tough in the West. I always say it's tough, but you only have to play one team. And then once you get by them, you get to play another team. And you don't get to play all eight teams that are in the playoffs. They're all potential finalists.
So that's the first part. But I love Cleveland. Cleveland has turned the game back a little bit. They don't play slow, but they play big. And you can play fast and play big, especially when your power forward can play on the perimeter, put the ball on the floor as well as post up. And they guard the basket. They rebound. The offense will rebound. And so they're going to be tough on a lot of these teams that play small. The Knicks play really small most of the time. And I love their culture in New York. I love how hard they play, how together they are.
They're really a family and connected. But when it gets down to it, it's going to be about the matchup that you have. If you have to go up against a team that you can't match up with, you're going to have to play exceedingly well to beat them.
And if you slip up at all, you're not going to win. Coach Lionel Hollins here with us on the JR Sport Reshow as we wrap things up. I do want to talk to you about one more coach. He's coaching the Dallas Mavericks right now. His name is Jason Kidd. You were a point guard. He's a point guard. He's now coaching the team that just lost a point guard, two of them. What are your thoughts on what's going on in Dallas and how is Jason Kidd going to deal with this?
Well, Jason's going to deal with it well. Jason's a champion. He's a Hall of Famer. And he was a great player. Again, he's one of those great players that came along even in high school.
Everybody knew who Jason Kidd was coming out of high school, going to college, and then into the NBA. And I think that as a coach, whether you're a point guard or not, I think you have to see the game and manage the game for the players. And that takes a lot of energy and a lot of effort when you don't have leaders on the court or you don't have star players that are leaders. And so I think that he'll have to step up more and really coach. I mean, you stand on the sideline. You're calling plays because you don't have a guy who knows what plays to call or that you're in tune with that is in tune with you. You know, you talk about quarterbacks and quarterback coaches and how they're in tune because he's calling the plays, but he also knows what the quarterback can do well and likes to do. And it's the same way in the NBA. You don't have a player that fully understands what everybody on the court can do. You have to manage that.
You have to lead him through that. And a lot of times, and for me, I go back way back when I was an interim coach in Vancouver, I used to meet with Mike Bibby every game day. We can go to lunch after shoot around. We wouldn't always eat.
We just sit there and talk. And I said, these are the players that we can work. And this is what you can use to get Sharif. All this is what you work in the big country off Mike Dickerson. And he embraced that. And he bloomed into doing it himself. Mike Conley did the same thing here in Memphis. So, you know, it's a process. I don't know if they have enough, but they play hard and they play together.
So they'll give everybody a fight when they come. And you can't slip up and take a night off when you play Dallas because Jason will have them ready. Coach, you're suggesting that Jason suit back up and play point guard as well, right? Is that what you're saying? No, because I've been, I've seen his body when I was assistant coach with him in LA.
I don't think he wants to suit up again, but he can certainly mentally coach those guys and help them be better. I hear that. Well, coach, thank you so much for the time. Where can people keep up with you and find you, coach? Well, I'm on Twitter.
I mean, X, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook. I mean, lieholland14 on all of those sites and platforms, but I don't do much. I do some clinics. I do a lot more mentoring and speaking to kids and, you know, getting ready to go to Portland for Bill Wallens Memorial. And I do a lot of stuff with St. Jude. And so I'm in the community here doing my thing, but I don't travel much.
But when I do, it's usually I'm gone for a week and I'm glad to get back home. Hey, coach, we appreciate the time. You brought up Sharif Abdur Rahim. I'm going to have to hit him up. It's been a minute since we've had him as a guest on the show. He's a great guy from here in Georgia. Yeah, I just saw him in San Francisco at the All-Shark game, him and his wife. He's one of my favorite people. And not just as a player, but as a person. He's one of the most genuine, good people that I've been around in my career. He most certainly is. Well, coach, we'll catch you on down the line. I appreciate the time.
