The Jim Jackson Show: Jamal Mashburn

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You know, you get it from Apple, wherever you get it from. Please join me. Listen, man, I enjoy doing this so much, man, because now we're getting to start a basketball season, which I love. A lot of things are on my mind. I got a special, special guest that's going to join me today. I mean, it's took a while. It's taken a while for us to kind of get together and get on the platform like this and talk about our former days and with the Dallas Mavericks, but then what we're doing today and my former teammate, Jamal Mashman is going to join the show a little bit later.

Trust me, trust me, you're not going to want to miss this. There's been a lot of questions about the Dallas days. You heard it from me before, probably heard it from Jamal in the past and Jay Kidd individually, but this is the first time that the two of us have been able to get together and kind of opine a little bit more and discuss from his point of view, what he saw and my point of view of what I saw, but yet today still we're even closer than we were back then. So please stay tuned to that. But before we get to that, I kind of want to jump into the beginning of the, you know, NBA.

It jumped off superbly. I think the opening night was fantastic. You had a lot of drama trying to be built up, especially with the Lakers and LeBron and Bronny playing together, but it started off with a bang with, you know, the Boston Celtics. And the reason why I'm going to start with that one is because you got to give them love for the, you know, this year defending their championship, which is extremely difficult. You know, no matter how talented you are, the teams that have been able to repeat and do it multiple times, three P like a Chicago Bulls or the late Boston Celtic team or the Los Angeles Lakers, that's extremely difficult because you build yourself up, build yourself up through disappointment of the years in the past where you didn't quite get over the hump. And that takes a lot of energy mentally and physically. And now you have to try to do it again. You have to give yourself another way to get motivated because you want it once golden state warriors to be able to do it multiple times.

That's extremely difficult. As great as the San Antonio Spurs have been with their five titles, they never were able to repeat. And it's a reason why, and the way Boston was able to begin the season against a tough, tough minded New York Knicks team says a lot.

And the reason why is yes, they're very talented, but look at the makeup of that team. Let's go back a little bit when, you know, this NBA is a copycat league. And we'd like to say that when golden states began to go with the small ball lineup, a lot of threes, the rhetoric, the rhetoric you heard was you can't win shooting all these threes.

You can't win until you started to win shooting all these threes. And guess what other teams wanted to duplicate or replicate what the golden state warriors were doing. The only problem is you didn't have Steph. You didn't have clay. You didn't have a guy like Draymond Green, who was the kind of the, the spark plug of the team that kind of held everything together. You didn't have a David West.

You didn't have Andre Iguodala, you know, you didn't have these kinds of guys and players that kind of filled in the roles that made what stuff and clay did very special. And I kind of see that with the Boston Celtics right now, because what the Boston Celtics have done is built a unit in a team that is very difficult to defend because you have five players on the court, even with Al Horford that can step out and shoot. So now you're playing in space, but more importantly, you got five players that are switchable that can defend.

So you have defensive versatility. And what I mean by that is hard to figure out a mismatch on the court by switching. I see a team that may be able to cause them a little bit of problems.

It's Denver because of Jokic and what he can do on Aaron Gordon, but it's really difficult. Now teams are, I see are starting to try to figure out how to emulate what the Boston Celtics are doing, how they are built, how their roster is built. Now, again, you can try to do it, but the talent on that team separates why they're good, but also being a star in their own role is why they're very successful. Derek White understands his role. Drew Holliday understands his role. Al Horford understands his role. Bench players understand, Peyton Pitcher understands his role.

They know that Jalen and Jason are the two guys and everybody else just fills the gap. And because of that, they are an extremely tough team to stop. We saw that last year, how dominant they were during the year.

I think we'll see it again this year. And for me, being the avid basketball player, injuries, hopefully that doesn't play a factor. We saw it begin to hurt Golden State later in their run. Whereas early on, it was other teams getting hurt when they were at their peak, then they had to deal with it on the backside. Hopefully for the Boston Celtics, Chris Staps can get back and be back healthy because you want to see the best teams with the best players play so you can judge your team again to that. And that's what you want to see. So shout out to the Boston Celtics for defending their title, but also for the league to try to emulate a little bit of what they're doing.

And then this week also too was a little bit earlier. This is something that's been on my mind with the load management and I'm up and down with it. With old school versus new school, I understand there's a different train of thought. I'm in the game. I cover the Clippers. And I'm like, what's the line there with the load management? Injury management is one thing because you're injured. So now we need to limit practice time and playing time.

Load management because your statistics and your analytics say that you need a break or whatever. It's a totally different thing. And it came out when Joel Lobeen had his interview, I think it was right at the end of training camp, about not playing back to backs. If that's what you want to do, and this is my opinion, keep that in house because now you're setting yourself up for I think a lot of criticism, which is happening. Because now you're paid to play X amount of games, but we know that's not going to happen. If you could play 60 to 65 games and he said that he's not concerned about the MVP race, he's not concerned about scoring title, he just wants to be healthy for the playoffs. And I get that. So let's say injury management instead of load management. But I think you do cheat the game a little bit. You cheat the fans, you cheat the organization when you do that. And that's just from my perspective. Again, you have the doctors, the physical therapists, his own doctors that are telling him certain things as well.

Now what that conversation is like, I don't know. But as a basketball player, I want to see the best players on the floor. I want to see the best players competing. If you're hurt, I understand.

And sometimes you can play in the back to back. But to put that out there at the beginning of the of the year, kind of sets this thing up for disappointment. Because we want to see the best players. Now, maybe there's something there that I, and I'm gonna just say me because I'm talking about it, don't know about it that's going on with Joel over the summer with his knee or with other injuries. Maybe there's something else there that prompted that. I would have rather heard that I will be limited in some back to back games throughout the season because of my injury management.

That I think wouldn't have caused the same kind of stir that we have come to see because of that statement. And whether Joel was saying that in a playing manner or really meant it, the way it came across was this was going to or is going to be the plan for the Philadelphia 76ers for the year. And which is kind of tough because this is a team with a rebuilt roster with Paul George who now is going through an injury but has come on board that has a real legitimate chance based on the roster, based on the talent to really push not only the Knicks but the Boston Celtics to Eastern Conference Finals but also to a championship.

So, I'll be monitoring that situation throughout the course of the year with Joel and beat in the Philadelphia 76. Again, that's just my opinion on what I feel. I think the time is different. Guys are not going to play all 82. I get it. I'm old school but I'm new school and I understand that this is a different time and a different era and they may have some inside their information may dictate something totally different.

But also, the last thing I want to do, two things I want to more on to talk about. Last night, man, I called game for the Clippers. So, I was able to see into a dome during the preseason. But last night was something special.

It really was. And unfortunately, my clips didn't get a chance to win the game. We fought hard. We lost in overtime.

Kevin Durant did what KD does, took over the game. But the atmosphere. So, the atmosphere was bananas, especially the wall.

The wall is bananas. If you haven't been there yet through a preseason game or haven't seen it, you got to go. I mean, it reminds you and Kevin Durant said it. He had something to say. It reminded him of college.

I think he said Oklahoma State was the last time he's been in that kind of crowd and that atmosphere and that's in college. Because this wall is straight up 50 rolls, I believe it is, with fans standing up and cheering. And it's right by the opposing team's bench.

So, you hear it all the time. What a phenomenal job by Mr. Ballmer and his staff and his team to kind of build their own. When you build your arena, you want your own identity.

That was something getting away from crypto that I know that the ownership group wanted to get to. And within this structure, they built their own identity, whether it's coming into the Plaza and being greeted by the greeters. And then there's a full court basketball court, there's an outside restaurant.

You feel like you're starting to connect with other fans before you go into the arena to see all of the amenities, the technology. So, shout out to the Clippers. We had the game. I think we got tired, in particular, James Harden, down the stretch of the game, turned it over, missed some shots to a tough, which I think is going to be a tough Phoenix Suns team. So, keep your eye.

And then with Tyus Jones, and Monte Morris now kind of manning up the point, allowing Kevin Durant and Book and also Bradley Bill to kind of do their thing. But again, shout out to the Clippers for that, into a dome. If you haven't been there and you live in LA or you're coming in town, you got to come support the Clippers, first of all. But come and check out the arena. You'll be blown away. And last but not least from what's happening in the news, shout out to New York Liberty, New York Liberty for finally, after all the cracks at the apple, getting to the finals, being disappointed, being able to win that first championship.

I don't know what it's like. I only lived through other people who have won championships, but I always envisioned what that first one is like. And you can see it probably wasn't the prettiest game, the most efficient game, but at the end of the day, they won it. Five, 10, 15 years from now, they're not going to talk about how maybe inefficient or the shooting was. What they're going to say is the New York Liberty finally, finally won their first championship.

Been the first championship for basketball for quite a while there in New York too. So shout out to the Liberty. At your job, do you ever have to deal with a nose roller? How about a snub pulley? Well, if you're installing a new conveyor belt system, dealing with the different components can sound like you're speaking a foreign language.

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Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click Grainger.com, or just stop by one of their local branches. Welcome back, and as promised, this is a special guest. This is something that we've been trying to get together to do for a little while, to get together to talk life, basketball, Mavericks, whatever it may be.

But my former teammate, a really good friend of mine, and a not only an outstanding basketball player, but we know about that, but the businessman himself, we're going to dig into that. But welcome Jamal Mashburn to the Jim Jackson Show. Mash, what's up, brother? What's going on, man? Good to be on your show, man. Thanks for having me. I know we've been, every time you visit Miami and different things, we catch up for lunch and different things like that, so I'm looking forward to this segment. Well, listen, man, I'm surprised that you got enough time in between your busy schedule with all the businesses that you own, that you have some time, you're not flying.

Real quick, and I put on my Instagram page, kind of the backdrop of your business exploits, and we'll get into that. But from your perspective, from a basketball, all the things that you've gotten into business-wise, how did that begin to happen? Was that something that you took on during your playing career? It actually started before my NBA playing career, and it was probably more started for me when I was a young kid, probably about 10 years old. I'm born and raised in Harlem, New York City, and got a chance to ride the train from Harlem to downtown New York City and watch the train transition from people that looked like me to people who didn't look like me, but they were carrying a briefcase and wearing a suit.

So I was wearing a suit and tie when the cap was pulled my whole time from first grade all the way to 12th grade, so I just had a desire to carry a briefcase. And then also growing up with a dad, my dad left the house when I was 10 years old. My mom and dad got divorced.

Well, back then it wasn't divorce because there was no access to split up, it was just a separation that they mentioned divorce. He was a professional boxer. He fought Larry Holmes, Ken Norton, and sparred with Muhammad Ali, and he didn't make a lot of money. And me growing up in the projects, I started to see a professional athlete in the different light.

Wasn't rich, wasn't famous, but was a part of that industry. And I wanted to do something different. And my mom, she was a bookkeeper for the New York City Housing Authority, and she taught me debits and credits and how to balance a ledger at an early age, because I used to show up to her job for after school, and when we didn't have after, she couldn't afford aftercare and different things like that.

So I would go to a job and watch her, and she would teach me and everything like that. So I looked at it not only from the standpoint of how professional sports you can participate, but what's after that, and what does it lead to, has always been my mantra. And I started early on with that mindset. And then when I went to college and got to the pros, my first business deal, I hired a business manager and he eventually became my business partner.

We've been together for 27 years. And we started with Outback Steakhouse as a limited partner and got involved in that. And then it snowballed and got involved in the car business, restaurant business, meaning quick service business, Papa John's, and then also involved in waste management as well. So I've done a lot of things. I kind of reflected, Jim, is me and you growing up in that era of the 90s and playing high school basketball, I think that was the start of guys being really versatile players.

Handle the ball, can shoot the ball, play multiple positions. And it kind of segued into what today's game is. And all I did was kind of transition that into the business world, essentially.

Hey, man, let me ask you this. Did you feel any pushback? Because I started the business, remember, we had the restaurants and everything. Did you feel any of the pushbacks during that time? Like right now, entrepreneurship is huge.

You got to have a market brand and ownership knows that. But back then that wasn't the case. It wasn't as accepting, was it, for us as basketball players to want to get into secondary businesses outside of the game.

Did you feel that? I didn't necessarily feel that because as you know, a lot of people didn't know what I was doing until probably towards the end of my career. And I was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going towards the end of my career, what I was doing off the court. So I didn't reveal that to a lot of people. And I wasn't the type of guy that led with being an NBA player and my brand and all that marketing stuff, even though that's a valuable asset. I was more or less creating an operating company and understood the nuts and bolts of the business and went about it that way and built a team around myself and then started that way. So a lot of people didn't know what I was doing. I didn't find any resistance necessarily from players or other people. I think there was this mindset when we played that, you know, do one thing and do it well, and that's play basketball.

You know, don't have any outside interest or anything like that. That's going to be a distraction. And for me, I kind of looked at it like, you know what, I was a student athlete for anyway.

You know, I was going to class and playing sports anyway. So what's the difference? So that's how I kind of looked at it. But when the resistance that I will say that, that is, I ran into was people think you're a dumb job most of the time, right? And that is a stereotype that I've probably faced and had to combat against. And even internally, I mean, from the standpoint of, are you good enough?

Are you smart enough? Did you graduate college? I mean, I didn't graduate college. I went three years at the University of Kentucky.

And once you get past that internal kind of, I guess, imposter syndrome, kind of move forward and you kind of, you know, work at it and get better at it, expose yourself to different things and take mitigated risk and then go about your business. But not a lot of pushback. I think the conversations and the owners were different back in the day. I think nowadays the owners have multiple businesses.

They sold the company or different things like that. And I think back in the day when we played, you know, there weren't many billionaire owners at the time. You know what I mean? I think Don Carter, that was his franchise.

You know what I mean? I mean, you know, he had other things he was doing, but it wasn't quite as big as the NBA. And you had multiple owners that, you know, worked the NBA as a part of their gig.

But nowadays it's like a, it's a trophy asset. You know what, you know, it's interesting when you said that too, about the perception part. And did you make it a point to once you got in those meetings that you had to kind of be the lead voice in the room? So whoever you were dealing with would understand that, no, I'm not just a place figure here. I do understand the business that I'm in. And I want to make sure that you understand that, you know, that I know, did you kind of take the lead instead of it being your partner doing a lot of that upfront?

Was it more you? You know, in the beginning it was probably more him in a collective, but the conversations that we had between him and I, you know, I started to understand the business. And one of the reasons that I hired him as a business manager early on was a part of my deal with him was you had to teach me everything you knew about finance and he has his master's in finance.

And he also is a CPA and teach me everything you know about finance and everything you know about accounting and share that information with me and be honest about that information. So early on, I was a little bit busy with the basketball side of it. So I couldn't attend a lot of meetings, but as I progressed through my career and understand what my time and how that was allocated and even in the off season, I can be much more involved. And I didn't necessarily feel like I had to lead the meeting in order to get my point across or to feel like they understood me as more than just the face or just a part of the group. I think where I was pretty good at and still am pretty good at is connecting the dots to my past in the industry that I was a part of, meaning the MBA and how it connects to industries that I'm in.

Meaning what's the common denominator? You know what I mean? I remember when I was in Japan and I went on a cultural trip with Toyota as a dealer, me and my business partner, and they were probably over 10 other dealers. And I got a chance to sit with the president of Toyota and he wanted to chat about basketball, but to everybody else, he wanted to chat about dealership business. And for him, I went back to the room and the next day we had a dinner, I think, and he wanted to talk about basketball again. I entertained that conversation, but then I said to him, hey, you know what?

You know, the customer satisfaction score that you give a customer after they leave the dealership or you mail it to them and they have to fill out that survey. He was like, yeah. And I said, well, we have that as MBA as well. And he said, really? I said, yeah, it's the kid that wants me to sign an autograph at the end of the game.

That's my customer satisfaction score. And he said, and after that, he said to me, he was like, wow, I didn't even see it from that perspective. And after that, we never talked basketball again.

We only talk car business. So you flipped it a little bit right there with that conversation, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And it's really, it's really comes down to of understanding the other person's business and understanding your business and then make a direct connection to them, to bring them into your world, to kind of expose them to different things that they may not see. And then they expose different things that you may not see in their world.

And you find out what the common denominator is and that's how the relationship sparks. And they start to see you as a different person, meaning that you can, you know, understand their industry as well as being, you're very self-aware and understanding that what their needs are, what their challenges are and how they're similar from one industry to another. Now, would you, if you were to give advice to young players playing now and they're way more entrepreneurial, they're getting into businesses right in college, right out of college, their first years, whether that's on the entertainment side, it could be real estate, it could be music or whatever it is.

Is there some piece of advice that you would give them in regards, with regards to directing their focus into business, how to hire, who to trust, any of that? You know, I've had a number of conversations with former professional athletes, current college kids, you know, a lot of people want to, you know, pick my brain on different things like that. And they ask me that particular question. And one thing that I tell them is, why, or ask them, why do you want to get in the business?

Just why? You know, and I think sometimes as a professional athlete, you make a lot of money early. You have responsibilities early, meaning you become the breadwinner of the family at a young age.

And that's a difficult role to be in, especially since if nobody has ever taught you how to play that particular role. And I just asked them, you know, hey, why do you want to get involved in business? It doesn't necessarily mean that you become a professional athlete that the natural step is to be a business owner. What are your other passions? You know what I mean?

What do you also want to get into? It could be nonprofit, it could be just an investor. It doesn't have to really mean to stand up a business. And I think that's where kids make a big mistake. They think that's the natural evolution is to become a business person.

And that's not necessarily the case. So for me, it's always been, tell me your story of how you made it to the NBA and then tell me your story of how you want to get to another particular place by transitioning. And if you can't tell me how you got to the NBA and gym, you know me, I'm not talking about how many points you scored, different things like that, or shoot left-handed layups or whatever, but what motivated you to become an NBA player, you know, or NFL player and what drove you to that being your purpose that has to translate to me on the next endeavor. If it's a business owner investor, whatever it may be, because you're a young person and, you know, you finished the league.

If you're lucky, you're not LeBron, you know, 20 years, probably around three years, two years or whatever it may be for some people. So the reality of it is I find that a lot of guys want to get involved in business because they're trying to make up for mistakes that they made in the past in their playing career and trying to catch up on money, you know, and different things like that, or lifestyle. And that's good, all good, but, you know, is that going to get you up in the morning when things are tough, when you don't want to get up? You know, just like an NBA game, do you want to play that back-to-back night, that four and five days, you know what I mean?

Money's not going to help you on those back-to-back nights. You know, your body's going to feel a certain way mentally. You're going to be tired physically. You're going to be tired.

What gets you out of bed? You know, I think there was a quote from Marvelous Marvin Hagler that he said, it's hard to get up in the morning and do road work when you're sleeping in silk sheets. That's right. That's right. Great quote. So I kind of look at it that way. What's your purpose?

You know, what's your purpose? I mean, you don't have to necessarily, and I think you're right there, much more entrepreneurial this days, these days. But my question has always been entrepreneurial and what, you know, is it marketing? You know, is it branding? You know, that's just one avenue of business. That's not the complete avenue, the complete pie of business. That's just a component in my opinion. No, I love it, man, because that transition, too, is a lot harder because you see a lot of LeBron and all the business ventures at the end, as a young player, you say, I'm going to do that.

You know, I see, and people forget about how Junior Bridgeman started, you know, back in the day and they see a Magic Johnson and that's what they want to do. But I think it was a great point you said, too, like, it doesn't necessarily have to be you own brick and mortar or business. It could be an investment part.

It could be things you do in your community. And that's a great message to get to guys, because you know how it is when they come in the league. Well, let me get into real estate and buy this or build this, or let me invest in this music, in the music industry and be a producer or a movie over here, the glamorous things a lot of times. And sometimes that may not be their real passion.

It's just what a lot of other people are doing. So that's, you know, that's a great point. And I want to transition real quick too, Bash, because we never had a chance to really sit down and talk us across a platform like this and kind of share our thoughts on our days in Dallas, man. I mean, it's, you know, we get it all the time. I know when you went to different teams, I'm sure people ask you like, what went on? What the hell happened?

They asked me, but I want to start kind of at this part. In 93, you drafted number four pick, excited to come to the NBA, but you get drafted by Dallas. Now, Dallas, we come off the year before we only won 11 games. I only played 28 games that year because I held out, but that initial thought, okay, we know the draft part exciting, but when the Mavericks, what was your, what was, what was the thought process then when you got drafted to a team that had just won 11 games, and now we're getting a brand new coach touring Quinn Buckner your first year?

Yeah. You know, what was interesting was, you know, getting drafted fourth overall in 1993, you reach your dream of wanting to be in the NBA essentially. And that comes to that, that point. So it's hard to really be disappointed about what team you get drafted to. And no way, no, how was I disappointed in getting drafted by the Dallas Mavericks. Obviously I looked at the record, you know, because you still don't know what that means, you know, I remember, I remember me and you connecting on the phone. I was in Kentucky and we were talking about, you know, your contract and all the different things that you had to go through difficult.

And that always stuck with me that you reached out to me because I was a little bit of a holdout as well. And you may not know this, I think you know this, but they had offered me $500,000 more than what you had got the previous year, which was 19. So they wanted me to sign 19 and a half and no way and no how.

No way, no way, no way. So I, I had my business manager go in there at the time and he came back with 33 and a half. So for six years, so I was excited to go to Dallas. But people don't understand back then it was all about market value. Like when I held out, I was the fourth pick. So it was Shaq, it was Alonzo and Christian Layton. So the market was already set.

And then the fifth pick was Lofan Zoella. So I fell right in between that. So I wasn't trying to take less and I didn't ask for more, but the Mavericks wanted to pay me like what the eighth pick got. And they gave me all kinds of excuses, man, as to why a guard shouldn't get paid. But we, I held my ground.

I took a lot of hits for it, only playing 28 games. But in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, but the fourth pick next year, whoever that is, if I sign for this, now that sets the market a little bit for that next year. Not only, not only that, Jim, you set the market. If you just signed a, a, a terrible deal as the fourth pick, you set the mark for the remaining players from five, six, seven, all the way down, you know? And so the way I kind of looked at it was you took the bullet early on and I probably could guess one of the excuses that they gave you is probably the same excuse that they gave me. And the excuse was, well, he only paid 25 million for the franchise, meaning the owner. And I'm like, well, that's what I can do with me.

You know what they told me, Mash? So Donald Carter flew to Columbus and this was already during my holdout. And he said, you know, we don't, our past draft picks didn't pan out and we don't think we should pay a guard. I said, well, Mr. Carter, that's not my fault. That's your past draft picks didn't pan out. They said, well, we'll give you a million dollar signing bonus if you come in.

And I said, Mr. Carter, no disrespect. I ain't never had a million dollars, but I don't, I don't know what I'm missing, but I'm not going to sign for less than what I work. It was all these other excuses.

You know what, Mash? They didn't come in and we talked about this and people don't know. They didn't come in to a negotiation, to an agreement until I chose to file a lawsuit against them about to and the NBA for collusion, for trying to suppress the contracts of rookies. And with that, I was going to get double what a trade offer was. And they came in and finally 28 games paid me all my money and were laughing and giggling and having a great time at the press conference. I'm like, bro, if I didn't have this lawsuit, I still be in Columbus.

You don't watch it. Correct. So you had to force their hand in some regard. And that allowed me, I think I entered into training camp, maybe, uh, probably, I think, I don't think I missed an exhibition game, but, um, one thing I will say is that I did speak to our former coach, Quinn Buckner. I want to say probably about a couple months ago, I talked to him all the time. He had a great conversation because when we first, when I first really, really come on, you come on, it was problematic to me, man.

Cause, um, you know, what kind of pissed me off was my first day. I think I signed a contract and my first exhibition game was that next day, uh, after practice. And we had shoot around at reunion arena and I remember it like yesterday. And you know, when you went into reunion arena at 10 o'clock in the morning, it's kind of cold in there because when there's no people in the stands, it's a little different in those arenas.

Right. Um, so we're going to shoot around and we're running through those five on old plays and a three point shot and Quinn Buckner yells and goes, rookies don't shoot threes. And I'm like, well, what the, what the hell are you asking for?

You know what I mean? And I'm like, and that's where it just started to snowball and different things like that. But long story short, me and Quinn got that out the way I apologize to him. I think when I went to the Miami heat and went to the Indiana paces and plays and said, Hey, listen, man, I was a little bit immature in how I handled the situation. I want to apologize to you and stuff like that. So we mended and then Quinn called me about two months ago on another matter.

And, um, he was like, Hey man, I just want to share with you. I didn't coach you well, you know, and everything like that. I didn't build a relationship with you because he didn't know the history of me. You know what I mean? And how I looked at certain things, you know, I think that's the problem. Sometimes when you, uh, draft people is that you don't get a chance to really understand their true story of who they are, how they grew up.

You know what I mean? Um, what's the father in the life. How did they look at, uh, leadership or authority figures? You know, it was just like, uh, uh, everybody wants to be your father figure, but they didn't earn that role. And I wasn't looking for a father figure. You know what I mean? They just automatically assumed that I was looking for that. I was pretty much an independent thinker, but me and Quinn had been good so far, man.

And, and, um, but you know, playing on that particular team, you know, that was, that was a tough first year, man. And I will have to say, man, the Dallas Mavericks, uh, they got every bit of that 33 million because I added two more games to the win column that next year. For business owners like you, the American express business platinum card works just as hard as you do to help you pursue your passions with its world-class business and travel benefits. You can get more for your business.

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Shopify.com slash Westwood one. Now do you know so Quinn and I because we cross paths all the time because of him doing a Pacers game and we talked and he kind of said the similar thing like always trying to get you guys to understand was, you know, growing up being young men and being responsible. I said, but Quinn, but your communication wasn't like that. I mean, you Quinn, you tried to have us run in the triangle is no possible way. Our makeup of our team was going to do that. But do you remember late in the season playing out here at LA at the sports arena, me and Quinn got into it in the locker room.

I had a towel on ice bags, but, but that shows you the tension. Cause I'm talking to Tony Campbell, like, man, we should have won this game under my brother. We should have won this game, whatever.

And Quinn walks over. It's like, what'd you say? I said, I'm talking to Tony. I said, we should have won this guy. You talking to me.

It just spiraled into another thing. But that what people don't understand is that winning 13 games, that's basically in a six month period, two games a month, no matter how well we played, it was like our margin for error was so slim. And that was a difficult situation in that year. And then now, so think about this. That's the first coach that we have, right?

That's my second coach. Cause guard her was there the year before. Now the following year is when we that's, this is when it jumps off. This is when it gets real good. This is what everybody wants to know. Jay Kidd comes into the fold and we never really had a chance to dive into the dynamics of all of the relationships.

And this is where I really want to hear from you. Your, your, your thoughts on the two, because Jay Kidd enhanced everything we did. I don't think people really understand what he brought to the table. And I think we knew at the time that Jay was going to be the guy that kind of was the face of the franchise because of that, how dynamic he is. But walk me through from your perspective, what would right, what would wrong, what could have changed with us? Cause we dynamically, we didn't have a chance to really grow into what I thought we really could have been. Well, I kind of looked at it as you know, we had the opportunity to really be, you know, three J's essentially over a long period of time. And we had, we had flashes of greatness. I think the thing that we kind of lacked was a veteran leadership in the locker room that has been through the paces of an NBA season, even though we had fat lever, other people like that. I think we still need a stronger voice in the locker room. And then also we have to take accountability for it as well. Aim into the league, you know, I was trying to plant my flag and, you know, show people that I was worthy and that I'm capable.

And I thought, you know, you, you did just try to do the same as well. All young players try to do the same Jay Kidd in his own way, probably try to do the same thing. I don't think we were as mature to handle certain situations without that veteran leadership and without a strong coach and a strong organization. I also think that as far as me and you are concerned, we had to shift how we had to play as well, because we handled the ball a lot, you know, in our past situation, you at Ohio State and me at Kentucky. So having to play with a true point guard, that takes adjustments in itself. So I think it was just a culmination of things.

You know, I think things ended the way they were supposed to be. And also you got to remember Jason Kidd wasn't the Jason Kidd at his second stint at the Mavericks as he was with the first stint at the Mavericks. He couldn't shoot the ball, you know what I mean? So there was a, but he could pass it very well.

I love him as a player, love him as a person. I'm excited for what he's done as a coach, his passion and knowledge of the game. But I just think, you know, we were all looking for different things, but similar things and trying to prove ourselves. And that's why I think we got kind of sidetracked a little bit. And also people don't realize how tough it is to go into a game and you get past the first half in that third quarter, you know, you just don't have enough to close this thing out. And that happened to us quite a bit with the Dallas Mavericks. You know, I'm glad you said that too, the maturity part, because people can tell you how you should react, but until you kind of go through it and you don't have that viable voice in the locker room and things were upon us really quickly. And I'll tell you from my perspective, and I tell people this all the time, instability in the franchise was one cause of it too, because, you know, I had three different owners, four different coaches in five years.

So you don't, every year, something is changing. My injury affected me a lot more than probably I let on two people because 51 games into that third year, we're rolling, we're trying to, we're on the cusp of maybe making the playoffs. And even when I got out, the team still had a good opportunity near the end of the year to win some games and maybe get that last spot or these be viable. But going through my injury, it was so much more severe than people think mentally. And I probably let that affect me more than anything because quite honestly, I didn't feel I had the support once I tried to come back from that injury because honestly, they tried to rush me back.

Like to get back into, I remember Donald Carter said, I mean, not Donald Carter, but it was Dick Motta. Can you come back at the end of the year, play some games so your scoring would be counted? I said, I said, coach, I can't even walk. I can't, I can't even walk.

Right. So, and then the following summer trying to get the rehab to come back to kind of be the player, bro, I was going through where it affected my, and I tell a lot of people that next year, you know, when I struggled at the beginning of the year, right. I couldn't run full speed and go off my left leg without a pain shooting up my leg.

So I would slow down on the break, try to go off two feet and then go up. And a lot of it too, my fault, that we were dealing with that next year. And as I got older, I said, you know, I got to take a responsibility. I was trying to get back to who I was, but I wasn't that player because of that injury.

You know, what's interesting about that and that, that comment that you're making is that's the same thing I've dealt with. I was one of the early players who had microfracture surgery. That next year, that next year, after I came back in 90, 95, 96, right. He only played, he only played 18 games. 18 games and I had microfracture surgery. And I'll tell you what, Jim, I, I, you know, I was in the same boat where I kind of went into a shell a little bit and you know how when you get injured, you know, you're not going to be right. The same player that you were just something in that chain is off. Which is hard to accept too.

Being young, being young, that's hard to accept. And I was, I had to sit in a passive resistant motion machine for eight hours a day as a part of, I wouldn't even say rehab. And I got a call from the Dallas Mavericks and I was non-weight-bearing, Jim, on crutches for eight weeks.

And then I had to do this motion, passive resistant motion machine throughout a 12 week period. And remember the, what's the trainer's name? I could get his name. Don, was it Don? Don, what was that?

What was Don's last day? Give it to Emu Oil. He wanted, he wanted Emu Oil for everything. He told Emus or whatever it was.

Right. And I'm like, he called me and he was like, oh, the 12 weeks are up. You ready to come back and practice? And I'm like, where's the rehab? Like, like, like there's all these different things that I need.

My leg is half the size of what it was before I went into surgery. You know, so that was the time that I knew that I needed a change. And also I had to redefine myself as a player as well, you know, and accept certain things that I couldn't, couldn't do. And, you know, I went from a guy that could blow by you to a guy that had to get to a mid range game after my microfrax, I had to adjust.

Man, I feel that bash. That's hard to do. And especially when you're so young and you're like, man, I'm living my NBA dream and I want to get this second contract, you know, but I'm declining.

I physically, I'm declining. I'm so young. So it was really, really tough. And now they call it depression, which I probably was in at that particular time.

Cause I wasn't, I didn't feel like myself. And that took a toll and I had to redefine it on the fly and become a different player. So that's why I forced the trade out of Dallas to get to the Miami D. Well, I remember we were in the locker room. Now this is the following year, 96, 97. And now we had another coach in Jim, Jim Clemons, who kind of, and he wanted to, and that's my Ohio state guy, but he wanted to run semblance of the triangle. We had some Maki Walker.

We had the different kind of squad, but I remember you coming into the locker room and was like, yo, I just got traded. I was like, where he said to Miami. I said, man, you gotta be kidding me. You, you get, cause JK was already going to Phoenix and you can't, the look on your face when you sit and I'm sitting, I'm the first one there.

I'm the last one there. And you sitting there telling me that you going to Miami and I get traded to Jersey. JK go to Phoenix. You go to Miami.

I go, I go to Jersey. You know what happened was, uh, if you remember one of the minority owners, um, he became a good friend, Frank Saccanelli. Remember he had the ownership with David McDavid in that team, in the team at the time. So, um, Frank Saccanelli, um, uh, lived in the same neighborhood.

I had moved to, uh, I think it was, uh, somewhere in Plano, Willow Bend country over there. Yeah. And, um, we started to build a relationship and I was just honest with him one day and I said, Hey Frank, man, I think it's time for me to move on. He was like, really? And I said, yeah, I want a different situation.

And he was like, okay. I said, I think you guys are going in a completely different direction and I just need a fresh start to go somewhere. And he said, what are the clubs you want to go to? And I said, um, Indiana Pacers and the Miami Heat. And he said, why do you want to, uh, those two organizations? I said, well, I haven't been a part of an organization that reminded me of my University of Kentucky days when it was all about winning and when he has stability and different things like that and had one voice. Larry Brown was at the Indiana Pacers. And then also, you know, obviously Pat Riley at the Miami Heat. Um, and then a couple of days later, he said, man, we got to, we got a deal for you to go to the Miami Heat. So to this day, I thank Frank Saccanelli for listening to me and understanding, you know, um, what I wanted and really being accommodating because they didn't have to trade into my name.

Yeah, they did. And, and that, but that goes back to the relationship part of it too. And part of the convoluted story too, with this, we, the three of us never played 82 games together. We had the transition, your injury, my injury, you had different ownerships, you know, cause Mark Cuban didn't buy the team until, you know, 92,000 back then.

So we had three different kinds of ownership group, ownership group with different kinds of opinions on who we should be. But then it was this every time, every year, it goes to this, the Tony Braxton stuff. I was like, man, I don't care how many times I tell the story. It ain't happened, but it's so sensational. But then you get caught up into it when you had nothing to do with it whatsoever. It's like, well, the three J's got broken up by Tony. I'm like, first of all, it didn't happen.

Second of all, Jamal ain't had nowhere, nothing to do. How do you deal with it? How did you see that at that time too? You know what it was?

I would say that was the first time that I've ever dealt with a semblance of social media. I mean, you know, people have to understand this is that back in the day, probably the 1990s, early nineties, mid nineties, you had still had them after that you had beat writers and you had beat writers for each club. And when you came into a city, they couldn't talk about the Dallas Mavericks winning. They wanted to talk about the rumor of Tony Braxton and what all that was. And I remember Jimmy being in New York and when all this started to kind of shake out a little bit and you went to dinner with a sponsor in New York and I'm dealing with my family. I'm like, I'm a New York cat.

You know, I'm just going to hang with my people in New York. And there was some other teammates that participate. I think it was George McLeod. No, no, it was, but George and Tony Dumas. George is the one. George is the one that said that I left them and went to the studio after I invited him.

I said, if y'all want to go. So nobody went, I ended up going to the sponsorship gym with Scotty Brooks. I remember that. So, you know, what that tells me is I tell people that's how, you know, we had a losing team because your backup really wanted your spot all day long. He wanted, he tried to do everything except win the spot on the court and tried to win it by doing some other mischievous stuff, you know, and difficult stuff to, uh, convoluted situation or poison the situation.

So, you know, I tell people all the time when everybody's not pulling in the right direction, uh, you, you, you got bad culture and a losing, a losing effort, man. And it resembled in our record. Let's be honest, you know, and we have to take responsibility of that because, you know, we were a part of that and I wish we could have done more together. And I wish we could have played a longer time together and actually grown together, um, and let that see what that would have, um, transpired into, you know, because I think myself, you and Jason, and we got to, we can't forget about Popeye Jones.

Popeye was integral. And the rings, the Williams and all those guys, um, it's, um, I wish we would have had more time together, but you know, professional sports is, uh, built in a microwave and results are expected instantly. And, uh, we didn't provide it, you know, that's probably one of the things that I regret, like, Hey, you know, maybe we should have stayed together or ruined the course out a little bit longer, but there was just so many circumstances that I threw it from injuries to youth, the immaturity that we all had to figure out our place in the NBA at the end of the day. Well, I say this, Mash and this is why I appreciate you a lot, because over the course of the years, we've been able to communicate and we've been able to connect more business-wise and just talking about family. Later on, when I come down and you brought your daughter Taylor, we are the Four Seasons eating and all of that, the father that you've become, the father that I've become was, has a lot to do with all of that stuff that I learned and went through and challenged myself and, you know, had disappointments up and down, but still had to figure out a way, getting traded, being on different teams, but it's helped me as a father to communicate a lot better and try to understand, you know, what my sons are going through or are going to go through. You had to deal with your son playing, you know, starting off at Minnesota, then going to New Mexico State now at Temple with your daughter, going through business. As we wrap this up just a little bit, you take all of that and what you learn, how has that helped you become the father that you are?

Great question. You know, my son is at the University of Temple. He's a heck of a basketball player, but I've learned a lot in basketball because I utilize it as a backdrop of life. I think basketball is one of the few sports, you can count football in there, and in that regard where you can learn a lot of life lessons if you really pay attention. You're not going to miss every shot. You're not going to make every shot. You know, how do you deal with adversity? How do you deal with teammates? How do you deal with your own performance and where you want to be ranked as a basketball player, but also blending into a team? You know, so there are a lot of life lessons.

How do you deal with adversity? And, you know, it comes down to if you really look at it, I share a lot of my basketball career with my son and daughter that applies to them in life and how they should approach failure and adversity. How should they should evaluate their own game and not necessarily worry about other people and what their thoughts are about them. And what I mean by game is my daughter doesn't play basketball, but what is going to be her signature in life as she goes through life and business and all the endeavors that she wants to go through?

How does she create her own signature rather than just being the daughter of Jamal Mashburn? You know, so for me, it's been a blessing to be able to communicate that to him and not necessarily talk about success or talk about failure, but really talk about decision making and how do you create a process, you know, and how do you deal with your emotions and not let your emotions cause you fear or get you too excited? How to be even keel? How to use your brain and different things like that?

How to ask questions? How to have courage? And I've always said this, that basketball players and boxers, UFC, it takes a lot of courage to get out there, you know, and why it takes a lot of courage is that you're naked pretty much, Jim.

You know what I mean? You're wearing a t-shirt and shorts and people can see your expressions. They can see your failures. They can see when you succeed. They can judge you and all these different things. So there's a lot that it takes to get on a college or high school or NBA floor that people don't see, you know, so I've shared those things with them, but I also shared with them that, you know, you got to make your way in life and I can help you in a lot of ways, but you're the person that's going to have to run from the door. Yeah, and it's setting the table for them to be able to go through their own experiences and but laying the foundation parts of it. When the tough times come, they can make those decisions, understand how to evaluate those decisions.

Now, they're not always going to be correct, but at the same time, you have the processes in your mind via our conversations as parents that help you evaluate and kind of wade through the decision-making process. I love it, bro, and I'm getting you out of here just in times. I know you got business to get to. Hey, bro, I really appreciate you coming on that.

I mean, I love the fact that we can still chop it up. I can meet you down in Miami. I saw you this summer, you know, despite everything that went on. I've always loved and respected everything you've done on more importantly off of the court and you've always been one of those gentlemen and men that I that I use and I use an example of quiet can get you a lot of places because you don't know what somebody's doing and then it pops up and you're like, well, I didn't know.

I said because he didn't mean for you to know until he wanted you to know. So, brother, I appreciate you. Thank you so much, man, and I'll see you soon down in Miami right there in that front row at the Miami Heat game too, bro. I appreciate it, Jim, and I want to say this from my standpoint is we've grown our relationship and we've all, we both of us have matured as men and that's probably the most important things. There's not a lot of relationships that come out of our era of basketball because we also saw each other's competition, you know, even when we played on the same team. It's not like it is today where there are all these kumbaya moments.

Everybody wants to have this totally different. So I give you a lot of credit for, you know, being open to dialogue and different things like that and building our relationship because, you know, when I was in high school, you were the guy that was ahead of me and then I looked up to and was like, yo, at Nike Care, man, that's Jim Jackson, you know what I mean? So for me to get a chance to get to know you, to see what you've been through, and to see that you've come on the other side, not only as an analyst, a media personality, but also the business stuff that you're doing, it makes me proud and it makes me proud to call you a friend, my brother. Appreciate you. I appreciate you, brother.

Family, everybody, best wishes. I'll talk to you soon, man. Thanks a lot, man. Have a good one.

Okay, you too. Listen, please follow us on Instagram at Jim Jackson Show, at Jim Jackson Show. Please follow us. We got a lot of content that we're going to be pushing towards the website or to the streaming service so you can see it.

So towards IG, so please follow us on that. But also too, my favorite segment. It's a little bit different.

It's called Off the Court. I kind of look at some things. Sometimes it has basketball related, but this one is a little bit different. I'm a big movie guy. I mean, movie series guy, history guy, trying to figure out how things work together. So I'm watching Apple TV and it's this show called Dark Matter. I'm like, okay, what is it?

It's kind of like a sci-fi movie, but it's a drama. And it's talking about a scientist, I think that's his category he's in, who creates a box and also uses some drugs to be able to influence his mind, to calm down, to go into a state of being in order to enter this box. But what happens is he's living in Chicago and he goes into this box. But what happens is once he comes out, he's in this infinite world of space, but you have doors that are inside. And these doors are in different dimensions, but they're dimensions within where he lives, like Chicago. It could be 10 years in the future, 20 years, 30 years.

It could be in the past. You don't know, depending on what door you go through. So he ends up in all these different kind of dimensions trying to find his way back home. So he sees himself one time, not with his then wife and son, but working in another capacity. Or he sees his wife working in a different capacity.

He doesn't even know who he is. I mean, the show is bananas. And the way it takes off and the way it leads you down the road, you start to think like, okay, it's a lot of times movies, series, they dictate something else. You may call me crazy, but I'm going to take you back because when Enemy of the State dropped and they had a lot of this surveillance stuff, people say it was too futuristic. That stuff had never happened.

They won't have cameras everywhere. Where are we today? And it's funny because a really good friend of mine, James Lasseter, who worked for Overbrook and is Will Smith's partner, recently told me, he said, listen, when we shot that movie, when we shot Enemy of the State, that was back in the late nineties, I believe it was. They talked to the CIA about technology. CIA was like, listen, you can talk about that.

We've been past it. So by the time the movie got released, that kind of technology was like 10, 15 years in the past, but it was a precursor to a lot of stuff that we see today. So it always, I'm always thinking like some of these movies we see, I saw a movie called Silo.

Okay. About the world going through some devastating catastrophe. And these people lived in a silo, I don't know how many feet deep in the, in the ground and they never went outside, but it was presented to them that if they went outside, they would eventually die, pass away. And they kept them under control in the silo by showing them the outside.

That was a past devastation, but never allowed allowing them to really see what was out there. Is it true? Cause that is that something in the future?

I don't know. But I think about that stuff. And I think about 20 plus years ago, I was reading a book about currency money and where the world was going. And it was talking about the eventuality that you would phase out paper money. You're like, Hmm.

Okay. Debit cards started to come into play. Credit cards started to come into play.

Didn't use cash as much. And then COVID hit. Well, as a result of COVID, you began, you didn't accept cash during that time.

And then post COVID, a lot of industry, whether that's food service, whether that's merchandising, whether that's movie theater, entertainment, whatever you go to into a dorm right now, you don't bring no cash. I thought that that was a sign of where Bitcoin crypto of where we're going. And it's, and it's kind of scary because COVID I thought accelerated the fact that now paper money, having money is not as essential as it is digital currency. And the thing about digital currency is what you can track how you spend, where you go, what you do. But more importantly, if somebody wants to click that button to shut the system down, the paper money has no value.

We go back to days of trading and bartering to get goods and supplies. I don't know. It's just, that's just my mindset because I've read it. I, and I watch a lot of stuff probably up too long. It might be the cigars, might be the tequila sometimes.

I don't know. But I'm thinking about these things when I'm watching it and I'm like, it may be far off. It may be like crazy, but at the same time, a lot of this stuff is going on and it makes you go. It makes you think about it. Hey, I appreciate you joining me.

Thanks a lot. We'll see you again next week. You met Lala Kent on Vanderpump Rules. Now Lala and her friends share everything on Give Them Lala. Baby S is giving me money making moves.

Oh yeah. So I'm going to have one kid who's like, I want to just live in a box and do like artistic dancing and paint. Ocean's going to be like, it doesn't matter if I'm broke mom, I'm passionate about it. And Baby S is going to be the one that says passion doesn't pay bills Ocean. Watch what Lala is talking about on YouTube or search for Give Them Lala wherever you listen.