We are now being joined by the head coach of the Charlotte Hornets, James Borrego, and everybody and their mother is reacting to the Last Dance documentary, including somebody you're very familiar with, Joe Wolfe, the head coach of the Greensboro Swarm. He has unique insight into Jordan because he actually was in the same dorm, in the same suite actually as Jordan.
He told the story how Michael tried to jump on him from behind in his dorm room and it didn't really work out well for Michael because Joe Wolfe was a big man and a lot bigger than Slim MJ at the time. Coach Borrego, thank you for making the time and the triad. Give me a sense for some of the things you learned about your boss so far watching the Last Dance.
Wow. I mean, he sure found ways to motivate himself, you know. He found different ways to do that along his journey and I think that's what made him so special. But I did not know about the Rodman story, having to go find Dennis Rodman, pull him out and bring him back to practice. And I thought that was fascinating and it's just been a lot of fun to watch. You know, my kids didn't know a lot about him. I knew him, you know, from my time watching him on TV, but watching this behind the scenes has been fascinating. Just the drama.
It's been a lot of fun. That might be the one blind spot on Phil Jackson's coaching resume. If you're going to send somebody to get Dennis Rodman, maybe don't send the leading scorer of your team and maybe the most prolific player we've ever seen.
That's right. You never know. He might have not come back.
I mean, you never know. He might have just stayed there. So yeah, I thought, you know, to watch the Rodman thing, you know, I didn't realize, you know, when you look at a lot of the clips on film, just like how tenacious he was defensively. You know, when you think about, I think we all remember the offense and it's one thing I talked to our guys a lot about is on the defensive end.
And he was just a straight two way guy. He went after it and I just forgot how good he was on that end of the floor as well. So you got to give that group a lot of credit. They were a very good defensive team. I think a very underrated defensive team, long, athletic, smart.
They could rebound the ball. So it's been a lot of fun to watch. And you know, my family, my kids are learning some new terms. You know, we, we we're going for right now. They're, they're hearing everything right now. So I try to keep them, I try to keep them away from it.
The first, you know, Josh, the first episode, I'm, you know, trying to mute it or I have no, no control now. It's just all out there. We go for it. We laugh. We, we enjoy it.
Pro tip, ESPN2, it's the censored version. Did you know that? Yeah, I heard that. I heard that. But I, you know, at this point we're in, we're all in. You've heard the words already now. So we're all in.
We're all in. James Borrego, he's with us here. And I read the story that ESPN had a few weeks ago where you're using the time at home and also all these old games being broadcasted these vintage games to try and specifically get some of your guys to watch older players, how, how they may have moved up and down the floor, specific things that they might need the work on. And you were just talking about the defense that Michael played and how easy it is to forget about that. When I watch these old games, I think about Scottie Pippen. I think about Rodman. I think about Michael, just how much ground defensively they're able to cover. It's just an amazing thing to see.
You don't see a lot of that in the league anymore. How have you used these vintage games specifically to keep your team together, but also engaged? Yeah, so a couple of things. I mean, more than anything it connects us. You know, there's not a whole lot to watch on TV right now.
Maybe The Last Dance and a few other things, but it's a way for us, number one, to connect. Just we're all watching, same thing, watching Hoop, watching a playoff series. I wanted our group initially to watch a playoff series. I picked a 2012 series between the Lakers and the Nuggets. I just thought it fit our team.
We were looking at the Nuggets. They didn't really have an all-star on that roster. They were just a bunch of hard working, hard playing, high paced, energized.
They were an energized team, playing against a very big couple of Hall of Famers in Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum. So I just wanted them to see the contrasting styles, see a playoff series, how it unfolded. The one thing about players nowadays, and I thought it was important for us, is to really watch a full series, watch a full game, because I think a lot of players these days, or our generation, they're more about the highlights, you know, the YouTube. Very rarely do a lot of our players sit there and watch an entire basketball game from start to finish. So that's one of the challenges I gave our guys. Sit there, watch, and then really see, dissect what the matchups were like. What were the adjustments throughout the series?
Start to think about the basketball through the lens of a teacher, a coach, someone that was curious. That's a word we use a lot in our program is just being curious. So that was one exercise we did, Josh, that really, really helped us. I thought that was good for us. We've continued to watch some of those vintage games. I keep feeding our guys a bunch of vintage games, 2007 Spurs Suns game, 2005 Detroit Spurs, some of these Bulls games. So I think it's been fascinating for our young guys who they've heard the names of these players, but they haven't really watched them. And even for myself, going back to watch the 2007 Spurs Suns series was fascinating for me.
I was there. I participated in it as a coach or video coordinator, but I see it through a different lens now. So it's been a lot of fun, you know, and along the way, I'll feed certain players, you know, I'll send Devante Graham some Steve Nash clips, you know, just undersized, not the most athletic guy, watch his movement, watch his pace, watch his efficiency, watch his decision making when he gets to the paint, you know.
And so we're pulling those things for our guys just to keep them engaged, keep them thinking, keep them growing. One of the young guys you're talking about is Devante Graham, who's a North Carolina guy and he spent a lot of time with the Swarm. And I wonder, how much of a role did the G League and Greensboro play in his development specifically?
Well, I thought it was huge. You know, I've been a big believer from day one in the G League program. It's one of the things I came in here, I said we were going to commit to. And we did that with Devante. And I think he's a clear example of what that program and the G League can do for a player. Number one, it gave him real time reps at this level. And there's nothing like reps. You say this to our players a lot, you know, if a player's not playing 15, 20 minutes a night, I want to try to get the minutes in the G League, you know, just for the amount of reps, decision making.
You don't get that in a practice to the degree we need it. So the G League is vital for our program and our development. Devante, as we watched him last year, he was making threes. He was making shots.
He was making plays. We just didn't know if it would translate to the NBA. And when we brought him back from Greensboro, he was playing well.
And towards the end, we brought him back and forth to our club. And he did not shoot the ball as well as he did in Greensboro. But we knew that the data, the reps were saying he could become and be that type of player if we could get it to translate at the NBA level.
So it was a great test for us. And I think it gave him a lot of confidence, you know, throughout last season, going into the summer, having learned under Kemba Walker, Tony Parker. Now he had a handful of reps in the G League. He had confidence. He really felt like he could take a step this summer. As an organization, we didn't know what type of step, to be honest, you know, for anyone out there that says they knew that Devante Graham was going to do this.
I'm not too sure about that. You know, for even us as coaches, as our front office, all of us, we didn't know if it would translate. But boy, has it ever, you know, and I think a lot of it, you got to give our G League program a lot of credit for that. And Devante's willingness to go there and invest his time in that. And he's one example. The Martin twins this this year have been great. They came out of Greensboro much better, more confident players. Jalen McDaniels has done that.
Dwayne Bacon has done that. So I'm a big believer. We'll continue it. You know, next year we may have a couple more young guys in the fold and, you know, we'll place them there and develop and make sure they're growing. I'm not sure if you know this, but today is Chris Paul's birthday. He's from Winston-Salem. He went to Wake Forest, of course.
And I don't think a lot of people know. Is he 40 today? I don't think a lot of people know that in between your stints with the Spurs, you spent time with what was the New Orleans Hornets at that point. What's the best story you can share being in the same building with CP3? He is a basketball junkie. I mean, he would watch more basketball than any of us, even on the staff.
He'd be, you know, in the evening, you know, Chris Paul, he would watch every single game. And I knew when he was up watching because he'd be texting me, you know, did you see this play? Did you see that play? Did you see that call? Why are we adding this play?
And he would just wear us out as coaches. I mean, and I would sit. I think I was the third assistant. So I was where I sat on the bench.
It was right next to the first player in line, if you can imagine that. So after, you know, Chris came out of the game, he would plop down right next to me and I would get an earful for until he went back in the game. And you know, if Chris was chewing off my ear too much, I would just tell Monty to put him back in the game. I was tired of hearing him.
So I was like, mom, we've got to get this guy back in the game. I don't care if you've got to play in 40 minutes. You know, this guy is in my ear constantly, but that's what type of player he is. I mean, he is, when I talk about curiosity, this guy, he is a basketball junkie. He knows every set. He knows every player, every official, he knows tendencies. And he's an example for young guys. And, you know, I think Davante, that's the step I'd like to see someone like him take where he understands the league at an extremely high level. He studies his craft and Chris did that.
But boy, did he give me an earful after every time out. So one of the best competitors I've ever been around. You know, I've been fortunate to be around Tim Duncan, Monty Ginobili. Another Wake Forest great, Tim Duncan, by the way.
Wake Forest great. Absolutely. And I hear they have a new coach.
Is that correct? Yeah. Coach Forbes was with us yesterday and he's already ticked off Big Blue Nation trying to re-recruit a kid. And that's all going well as he's trying to figure things out down here.
Yeah. No, there's a lot of great, you know, great coaches in this area. Great players. I've been fortunate to be around Tim and Chris Paul, two highly competitive individuals.
So I've been blessed to be around some really special ones. Before I let you go, see, MJ obviously is known for all the basketball purposes, but it seems like younger people, kind of like how football fans don't know John Madden as a coach. They know him not even as a broadcaster.
They know him as the football video game. A lot of people just know Michael Jordan is a shoe. And are you a sneakerhead at all or no? I was not.
I was not. I probably had one pair of Jordans as I grew up. Now I've got, I can't say unlimited, but I've got a good, I've got a good stash. Yeah. Do you have a guy? I know somebody. Yeah, I know.
I know somebody. But yeah, I think you're right on that. And I think my kids, you know, they know him as the brand. They know a few of the shots, the highlights, the dunk contest.
I think that's one thing that's shown a lot is the dunks. But I think what we all forget is the player and really the struggle that Michael had to go through. I think we all think of his accomplishments, the six titles, the little hiatus. But he had a lot of years of struggle, pain, adversity. I don't think he won his first title till he was 30 years old.
I believe that's correct. And that's a lot of, you know, doubt. It's the critics and he fought through it. And I think that's one thing my family and I and, you know, I will share with our players as we go over the next few weeks is the journey wasn't easy for him.
And there was a lot of critics even from the start. The first, you know, when you listen to these interviews now, a lot of those players and GMs thought he was too, too small. He couldn't carry a franchise.
The game's not built for someone like this. Adidas turned him down, right? He wanted to go to Adidas. And what did they say? Too small.
Boy, do they wish they had that one back. So, yeah, I think it's a great lesson for all of us. You know, just keep pounding, keep growing. You've got to understand there are going to be critics along the way. But even when you fall, get back up, be stronger for it. It's just great to have your insight on this, coach.
And we've had a lot of really neat angles to the last dance. Michael Jordan story, whether it's Coach Wolf with the Swarm, yourself, Mack Brown, Roy Williams, a lot of people, they just come out wanting to talk about Michael and share interesting ways that he's touched their lives, that he's touched so many lives. And you, of course, draw a paycheck from coach or not from coach, but from owner MJ as well. Thank you for spending time here.
The swarm, obviously, in our backyard. We love him over there in Greensboro. And it means a lot that you'd come on with us today. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
Got it. That is the head coach of the Charlotte Hornets, James Borrego. For those who are wondering, Robert, do you know Chris Paul's age? At his birthday today? I'm going to guess 37. 35. Chris Paul is 35, born May the 6th, 1985.
Really? He has the same birthday as my mom. Today's your mom's birthday? Oh, crap.
It is my mom's birthday. Up next, Y. Olivier Saar is taking a big risk from a basketball standpoint, choosing to become a Kentucky Wildcat today. This is The Drive.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-02-11 22:54:09 / 2023-02-11 23:00:55 / 7