It's the JR Sport Reshow here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We're in the middle of all the March Madness, marching towards the Championship Games. Right now, we got to talk to someone who's been a champion all over the place, whether it's the WNBA, whether it's four times with the Olympics, whether it's in life, whether it's coaching.
We got a Basketball Hall of Famer with us. It's Lisa Leslie. Lisa, how are you?
I'm doing great. Okay, I see the jerseys in the background, JR. Come on. This is all over the world. We do it all over the world here. Well, let me ask you this.
You've been all over the world. I didn't even get into the work you're doing with DraftKings. We're going to get into that.
The coaching, you were just broadcasting with a rival. You're working with the Magic. You got a family. How do you manage to do all of this on a professional and personal basis and not lose your mind?
Well, you know what, JR? I get to do things that I really love, that I'm passionate about. I think it's important to do jobs that you would do for free.
I'm going to be sitting here talking about sports anyway. I work for CBS and I get a chance to cover all sports, so I love that. Whenever I am doing on rival, that was just a phenomenal, epic opportunity, and I loved every minute of it. Never felt like work to me. Doing real estate, public speaking, those are things that I feel like that's my spiritual gift, so I try to fulfill that. The other things are just, listen, being able to support brands that support women in sports is a no-brainer for me. I think it's great to be able to give back. I love being a role model. I just approach life the way I did in the game.
I'm hardworking, I'm disciplined, I'm loyal, all of those things. For me in life, you get up every day and we have choices. I just choose to give and give back and try to be the best person that I can be daily.
Lisa Leslie here with us on the JR Sport Brief Show. You talk about giving back. We're going to get into a lot of the things that you just mentioned. Coming out of USC, you showed a lot of love to Juju this week. We saw what happened with her ACL.
You immediately went online and let everybody know that, hey, I'm praying for you. You're going to get through this. Have you spoken to her? What does this mean for her moving forward? We know she's young. People want to see her play.
Right. I spoke with her mom. I just feel like it's very early in this. I reached out, of course. It's heartbreaking.
Like I said, it's for anybody. We're all just fans of her and to watch. Out of all the players, you're just like, oh my God, that's Juju. At first, I was hoping, I said, maybe she just bumped knees. You're just hoping that it's not ACL. But then you get to this point and you're just like, all we can do is really pray for her and just encourage her that there's been so many great players that have torn their ACL and come back and reach greatness and that she's going to be another one of those players to be able to do that.
We look at Paige Becker and AZ Fudd are just two to mention who are playing outstanding. It can be done. Is it or Long Road? Absolutely. Is it hard and heartbreaking? Absolutely.
But listen, it's tough. There's really no words around it, but you just want to feel like she's not going to be forgotten. I mean, the women's basketball, we really have put it in her hands as far as the next up and coming young player to hold down even college women's basketball.
It is a blow to all of us, but I think Juju will make it right back to the top. She's such an explosive player. So that's another thing where you realize it's going to take time for her to get back to her ability to be as explosive as she is. And we have the time. We're going to be here and we're going to support her.
Lisa, no shame in my game. She was the player that I really wanted to watch throughout the course of the tournament. With her out from USC, what do you think we'll see the rest of the way? We know we have UConn. We know we still have LSU. What do you think we're going to see the rest of the way? Well, I mean, we're still going to see USC and listen, they only lost three games.
And yes, Juju is a huge piece of that, but they still have some ballers out there, so we can't just write them off. I think UCLA is going to be a tough matchup without her if they get to that point. Let me just move my bracket to make sure, because I don't want to overlook nobody. They have to get past Ole Miss. Now, who do they have to get past first? Well, listen, to get there, stay up there. It's going to be tough.
I don't want to start naming off. It's going to be tough, but UConn is right there and UConn is rolling. They look great. Paige looked phenomenal. Az Fudd's there. I mean, Sarah Strong is just a beast inside and she's only a freshman. So I think it'd be tough to talk about SC making it all the way, but UConn is right there in their bracket. You got on the other side, you have UCLA at the top who's really strong. Texas looks really good and South Carolina looks great. I don't know that you can really pick out one team because I think NC State is one of those teams you can't overlook. You can't overlook TCU, Sedonia Prince, phenomenal player, shot blocker out there. So there are so many teams that you just don't want to leave out. Can Notre Dame put it all back together?
I don't know. Then Tennessee's going to have something to say about that because they got some ballers, you know? So I just love, it's truly, we are in a place of so much parity across the board with women's basketball and you can't just say clearly who's going to win the championship, but I love that because the game is elevating and opportunities are elevating.
We all appreciate that. Lisa Leslie is here with us on the JR Sportbreeze show Coast to Coast on the Infinity Sports Network. You mentioned the Gamecocks and I talked about your four gold medals and we know you played alongside Dawn Staley. You mentioned the Gamecocks. She had some positive words for you recently.
You had some positive words for her. Are you really potentially maybe looking at coaching on the college side? We heard that WNBA teams are saying no. I guess you're too big for them, I guess, Lisa. Listen, I'm just, I was really enjoying women's basketball in a few games and you know the internet just does what the internet does.
It makes a whole stir of everything. I don't know about coaching. I really don't know what my thoughts are about that at this time. It's just, I do love the players. I love being close to the game and that may be in some aspect of, you know, I love broadcasting. I love talking about the game, describing the game and I really enjoy that. I enjoyed covering the rival tremendously in a way where I felt closer to the game and I love being on the broadcast side. I work for CBS, so I will be covering women's final four and men's final four with our show, We Need to Talk. So, I'm cool where I am.
Like I said, like you said, I got 50 jobs already. So, yeah, that's kind of my perspective on it. I'm very close to the game. I love the players. I love helping and being out on the court with them. It's been, it was so much fun working with, you know, the WNBA stars and, you know, maybe I'll do more of that. Well, we certainly saw a lot of your comments and working out with Angel Reese. You said that she's 2.0 with you.
I remember watching you play. What are those similarities that make you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I could teach her a thing or two. Well, I think first it's the heart in the fight. Like Angel has the heart in the fight and I felt like you have to have that to separate yourself. You know, I didn't back down from any player, any position, any opportunity to guard somebody and I see that in Angel. The way she guards, guards and picks their pocket and take the ball like the heart in fight and the effort and she really has a great motor on her. Like she is in every single play and possession because she has the energy to do that and all players don't have that. She has a nose for the ball and I just feel like if we're talking about helping and impacting her game and it's just trying to improve offense, that's the easier part of the game to me. Defense is the hard part because defense just takes heart and effort and you can't teach that to everybody. Everybody's not willing to make that sacrifice and Angel does at a very high level. Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie is here with us on the JR Sport Brief Show. You talk about talk about effort and heart.
We know that you can't go out there and teach that. It's pretty cool for Angel to see her brother out there competing on on Maryland right now. What are your thoughts about what's going on on the men's side of the tournament right now? Well, Julian Rose clearly double-doubled like his sister and like their mother because their mom played ball too.
So, I just think it's in their genes that he has to get after the ball and play. And Maryland, listen, Florida is one of my teams that I picked but if there could be an upset, Maryland, if they play their game, I mean that's gonna be an excellent matchup. I'll just leave it at that but it's great to see that her little brother's out there having success as well an excellent rebounder just like his big sister.
So, we love to see that in the family, right? So, can't write off Maryland. Maryland, the Tarpons are, oh, that's gonna be a tough game. Just say that.
Florida, because you got Clayton and Martin out there, some tough guards. It's gonna be exciting to see. I can't wait. The games that we've been waiting too long, right?
Like when do the men play? Is it tonight? We gotta wait until Thursday, Lisa. We gotta wait. It's too long.
Bro, like I can't. We've had two games. I've been watching NBA but we have two games where I'm like, I need to see what's gonna happen in this tournament.
Well, let me ask you that, Lisa. Between the men and the women's side, there's so much interest in the game. I know people want to talk about ratings are down but the money's going up.
The eyeballs are certainly all over the place on the internet. And then even on the college side, the men and the women have garnered a lot of attention, NIL money. What do you think about just the exposure and money, how it's changed the game? Like when you finished at USC, you had to go out to Italy and come back and wait for the W. Now we got players that just, they chasing checks in college. Listen, I'm not mad at it.
And here's the reason why. I went to a college that was a private university that my parents would have never been able to afford, one. Two, I was on a campus where I didn't have a lot of money and access to anything other than what the school provided and gave.
And I remember being a month, it's a private university. So you're amongst people who come from money and you're trying to figure out, listen, I used to buy a burrito for lunch and eat half for lunch and the other half for dinner. So I have been in these very rich universities where I still was struggling financially to be able to survive in some ways.
And yeah, you get your little meal card and you got to go to the cafeteria, but the lap of luxury that you're surrounded by and you knowing where you come from can be a little bit difficult mentally for these kids. So I am all for these kids making money. I am also for financial literacy also, which, so I hope that those are programs that are being created for these young people to understand how to invest and how to make their money grow for themselves and not just about the cars, the juries and the houses, but finding ways to really create generational wealth from the money that they make. And I was able to do that. I'm very lucky that I have so many accountants in my family personally that my uncle was able to help me with my taxes and understand how to invest early.
And I did buy houses, but those are properties that I could then, you know, use as investment properties. And so I think those were things that education for these kids are very important to connect with that money. But am I happy to see them get a piece of the pie? 100%, because there were jerseys sold with our names on it.
We never saw, not even a dime. So, yeah, it's important. And when you think about the communities that a lot of these young athletes come from, they will be the first millionaires of their families. And having the education, that's what college is also for, education. So to educate them on money and how to invest it and how to grow it is very important.
And I think that's the responsibility of these universities while these kids are receiving these NIL deals. Hall of Fame basketball player, Hall of Fame person, Lisa Leslie is here with us. Lisa, tell us about the work you're doing with DraftKings amongst all the other things. Yeah, well, listen, I really believe in supporting brands that support us, especially women in sports and DraftKings has been at the plate, knocking it out the park for a few years now.
And the reason why I've teamed up with them is because they're doing it again. The NCAA tournament, DraftKings basically hosts a free $25,000 second chance women's brackets alongside the donations that go to the Women's Sports Foundation for every entry. So they will match $1 to every entry up to $25,000. And let me just first say the Women's Sports Foundation does so much grassroots investment in women and girls in sports in different areas. And I love that I've been a part of Women's Sports Foundation for many, many, I guess I could say decades now, it's crazy.
But decades because I won some Women of the Year awards, but Billie Jean King started that foundation, it's been outstanding. And so for people to enter, they simply just have to go to DraftKings.com backslash second chance. And make sure if you decide to bet, listen, just bet responsibly, there's gaming tools in place. And remember, it's more about having fun than just, you know, just have fun, have fun, don't bet the house.
We're not saying, you know, go all in and lose everything. But just have a good time and enjoy yourself and support brands that support us and that is DraftKings. Lisa Leslie here with us on the JR Sport Brief Show as we start to wrap things up. I can't believe in about a month's time we're going to be looking at the WNBA season. Am I right to bet on on Kaitlyn Clark and DeJuana Bonner and Indianapolis, all the talent they have now? Well, they have a lot of talent.
And, you know, one thing about talent on paper versus talent, um, you know, actually doing it. But when you think about a player like Kaitlyn Clark and how she's been able to change the game and her ability to pass the ball, which I think is, I don't think it's underrated anymore, but I think people kind of slept on that. But she makes players around her better.
And it's so much fun. I remember I played with Nikki T, like when you have a player that can pass the ball, that can see you running the floor and get out and make the game easier. Those are extra 10, 15 points that a lot of teams don't get because they're just playing five on five. So that transition is going to be great. DeJuana Bonner runs the floor well. She's another player who's going to be a great recipient of passes from Kaitlyn Clark. And then again, you have Kaitlyn herself who can change the game with her range unlimited when she crosses half court, she's in her range, literally, you know, she's improving, getting better. I think they're going to be outstanding to, to watch.
And I hear that they have the most television televised game. So we'll get a chance to see up and close on what they're capable of. Are you right to bet on it? Listen, I don't think you, I don't think you can go wrong. Uh, you know, putting a little money over there. Let's just say that, but bet responsibly, JR. Oh, absolutely.
Lisa and final question for you. This is a selfish one being here in Atlanta, Georgia, to talk to the first woman who dunked in a game, you now here in Atlanta, we got Brittany Griner. She's dunking all over the place. What are your thoughts on what she's been able to, to come back from and go through and then still ball out right now? Yeah, I'm so happy for Brittany. And, you know, I got a chance to tell her directly after she just dunked in unrivaled and making history once again, um, I'm happy for her because we know that she's been through a lot and she's been resilient and she's worked hard and her and her wife and her new baby. She's just thriving in a way that is so, um, important and is great for her individually, but also for the league, we're happy to have her back. We're happy to be able to see her, um, excel. And now she has a new start. Listen, she's going to be there with Howard, um, Ryan Howard, Alicia Gray, like those two women play the game on both ends, talk about two-way players. And now you're going to have Brittany, you know, able to, to be that third line of defense there in the back or second line.
I don't know, depending on how you see it. Um, I think they're going to be a good team. And, um, listen, you, you're always trying to be able to compete. They will be able to compete.
Atlanta dreams really made some some great moves. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for the time. We appreciate it. Where can people keep up with you, all of your work and all the great things going on?
Well, you know, you always find me on IG at least to Leslie, you can find me on Tik TOK, at least to Leslie, you can find me on X at least to Leslie. And, you know, listen, I'll be on CBS. Um, our talk show, we need to talk.
We will be covering the, both the women's final four and the men's final four. Hey, we appreciate you for not just doing amazing things for yourself, but also for the community. Catch you down the line, Lisa. Okay. All right. Thank you, JR.
