Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert I'm DAX Shepard, I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hello there. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. Doing great. June gloom, a little bit of June gloom, but we have the windows open in the attic, and that's really pleasant. It is so fearsome cars on the thoroughfare. Don't panic. We're not getting run over. We just have the windows open today.

We have an incredible athlete, Blake Griffin. Blake is a NBA power forward, six time All-Star.

He's currently playing for my hometown, Detroit Pistons. He also is the 2011 Rookie of the Year, and he played with the Clippers here in Los Angeles from 2009 to 2013. In addition to all that, Blake has a new health and wellness focused podcast called The Pursuit of Healthiness The Pursuit of Healthiness, which is launching on Audible this August. And I am a guest on it.

You are? Yes. This is how we got to know Blake. Just an incredible interview. We're so excited we decided we want to have a lot more athletes. Yeah, based on how this one went, he sparked some change for us.

He really did. So please enjoy Blake Griffin. We are supported by MTV's Revenge Prank with my favorite guys from Jersey Shore.

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He's in charge. I'm not even going to Florida around this, I'm going to get right at it. Did you watch Last Dance? Yes, I watched every episode multiple times.

Multiple times. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Not to brag, but, you know, so I'm wondering, like, it's so fascinating for us and we don't play the game. It's got to be even more fascinating for you. Right. Because for us, it was at 10:00.

So I can't even imagine like what your experience of that is.

Yes. And the crazy part is, like most of those stories I've heard have been a Jordan athlete for Jordan, shoe athlete for eight years now. So I spent like a decent amount of time around, Michael. And he told the Dennis Rodman story one time we were in China at dinner and he told the Rodman story. And also, you know, he had some more details like that there.

And so for a long time, that was like my story that I like. That was my MJ story that he told me.

So that was like how I like really I really like, you know, I milked it. I was like, you know, we're sitting at dinner and, you know, Rodman come. I tell it like I was there. And so then I hear this story being told them like like there goes my, like, best story.

But I still have a couple of details that, like, weren't in there. So I can still, like, you know, win people over with that. I knew a lot of this stuff already. All the stories about him, like playing golf, like, you know, days before games, like I'd heard those stories over and over, but like seeing it all together and then also having the context of, like, what was happening in the season at the time.

Also just the behind the scenes footage is just amazing, him being so relaxed and like messing with the camera before they run out of the tunnel for a playoff game just blows my mind because I could never do that, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think guys today can really do that, you know, what's your disposition?

Just prior to a game, a playoff game is like very, very like the whole playoffs is very seriously for so many years.

It's just nothing outside of basketball. Our coach, Doc Rivers with the Clippers always talked about having your box. You know, your family can be in your box. Everything else has to be outside everything else. You know, it sounds crazy, but the playoffs is, you know, what we play for. And it's the most important games. And now I sort of look at it from a different perspective. I'm like, man, I like I play all these games during the regular season.

I've been playing basketball my whole life and they're they're a little bit more loose. I take obviously take basketball seriously, but they're much more loose. We play 82 games. You can't be that serious before every single game. So why am I now, like changing how I prepare for like more important games and I just still be doing the same thing?

That would drive me crazy if I were you. Yeah, because I remember seeing Bill Murray on Letterman.

Letterman's like, how are you so good. How are you so consistently good over all these years? He said, Well, I try to just be calm and no, it'll come.

And I'm like, what a fucking wonderful approach to everything.

Do you think that could be similar in sports where it's like if you just had some faith and some belief and you were loose and flowing to a certain extent, I thought you were going to talk about Bill Murray before the space jam game.

I was like, oh, he's very different in this space, which he was huge in that game.

He came up big.

He delivered yes and no, because, like for me, like we have shoot rounds in the morning.

I can feel great at shootaround, hit every shot I can. You know, when I get to the arena three hours before I go out on the court and I'm shooting, I could feel great. And then you come out for the game and I might just it might be one of those nights where I just miss every shot. So in a way, it's like, yeah, you can still have an effect on the game, you know, even if you're missing shots.

But to me, it's more than that. Like for me, I have to be in the right mind space. So it's a little bit for me personally, it's a little bit more concentration, not a crazy amount, but before games I like go through like a visualization exercise where I see the ball being tipped, I see where I am. I walk through ten to twelve situations that I want to do. Well, that game I know the other team are playing is better at this.

I know we're better at that. I know where I want to get to my spots on the floor. So once I started doing that, that helped me a lot. But in a way, yeah, you have to just breathe and let the game come to you. But it's sort of it's sort of weird. You can feel great and go into it and be doing all the right things and just have a bad game. Yeah. Just because you have so many other variables, where I describe it is like our team.

Then there's also a team of professionally trained men trying to stop us from doing what we've been practicing to do. You know what I mean? Like, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. You think about it in those terms. It's always funny because coaches like who go over offense is like, guys, if we just run this, if you just concentrate on timing this, this and this will score and then we're like going over defense. Like, guys, if you just get to the right spot, they can't score you both.

Things can't be true. The coaches, the coaches, that you should be like 160 to zero every game.

But have you ever worked with a sports psychologist to help with that visualization or come up with a routine that calms you?

Yeah, I have. I've found that. I sort of get. More from my reading books since I got an the like, a lot of coaches will just give you books here and there. There's like a really great one about tennis, the psychology of tennis. I'm going blank on the name right now, but I did have like an awful experience with a team psychologist, team sports psychologist. One time it was like right at the beginning of the NBA, sort of pushing for most teams to have one.

And so we get this guy and he's like, you know, I'm going to be spending time with every player, you know, come by your house if that works. He came by my house one afternoon. Like after practice. We sit and talk for like two hours. And it was great. And, you know, he leaves. I go to take a shower and I come back kind of a voicemail from him. I'm like, oh, he must be like, listen, I listen to it.

And he's like, Hey, coach, this is so-and-so. Just left Blake's house, had a really interesting conversation.

And I was like, no, no, no, no, never talking to him again. So did he violate your privacy? Did he tell the coach anything?

I don't know if that was the last time I ever spoke to him. OK, I would like to see him. I was just like, no, I'm not doing that.

Totally off topic, but have you seen some kind of monster, the Metallica documentary? No, I haven't.

Oh, I urge you to see it. They bring in a psychologist to help them. They can't record an album. It's all real. And there is fighting and they bring in a psychologist. And slowly but surely, the psychologist thinks he's in Metallica and he just wants to be on tour. He wants to be backstage, all this stuff.

And finally, the guys realize, like, our only problem is this fucking guy.

We got to get rid of the guy and they just never know. It's so great.

I was like, yeah, the power of Metallica is stronger than any degree you could get, like a get that close me to have that. You want to be in Metallica?

Yeah. I mean, I would have tried the same thing.

I'm curious about your opinion on one thing, because one of the big moments in the documentary I thought was when, you know, they were asking all the other players about him and they were like, he's tough. He's you know, he really pushes you. And and then he's looking back at them saying it. And he's getting emotional at the idea that he pushed people, quote, too hard. And I know a lot of people who haven't played team sports look at that.

And some people think of him as like narcissistic or a tyrant and someone in it. What's your opinion on that?

There's different levels to me. I like his form of competitiveness. It would bring out the best in me. Yeah, I think. Yeah, because, like, the way he sort of went about it is if you were playing hard and busting your ass, I don't think he really went at like Steve Kerr the way he went to Scott Brown or he's just like Scott on bushcraft today. So like I think it sort of depends on the type of person and type of player you are.

I just always connect with people who are very competitive, very serious about their craft, which he was like, you heard him get emotional towards the end of that one interview. And he's like, you know, if that's not the way you want to go about this game or this craft, you know, you shouldn't be playing. And like, he was in tears at the end because, like, that's just how he's wired. And, yeah, I remember hearing, like, oh, man, when this comes out, people going to think Michael Jordan's an asshole.

I'd watch. I just I didn't see that point. But I'm also very biased, very biased. He's the best player of all time in my eyes.

You know, I'm not biased at all. I have no connection to basketball. Sorry.

And and I was like, oh, my God, I was in love with the documentary and him and and I also could see, yeah, he's just pushing people to their potential. He's not pushing them past that.

I want to add because Monica won't break for herself, but two time state champion cheer. So just she knows what it's like to be a champion. Congratulations.

Thank you. Where did you grow up. Georgia. OK, I was going to say I'm from Oklahoma and like Chir is a huge thing, like huge. You know, we go to our high school St. Cheer competitions. It's like if you say that out here, like, yeah, they don't get it. They don't get it.

We don't have drum lines. We don't have like a ton of competitive cheer. There's we're missing a lot. You're missing out. Yeah. We had coaches that. Yeah. If someone walked in they'd be like, oh my God, these people are abusive. But it does it does pull out.

I think the best it pushes you know, there's a big parallel when I'm watching that stuff, I keep thinking about directors like so some of the best directors have these infamous reputations of just being fucking assholes. Right.

And I and I always want to believe I'd like to believe you could be great and be kind. And I guess like a coach. Like Pete Carroll, right? Mm hmm. I look at him and I'm like, yeah, they won, man. And he was kind and he was understanding. He was empathetic. And I would even say, you know, Coach Phil Jackson, he wasn't like a screamer.

He was kind of a, you know, the Zen Buddhist, as they say.

And so it's hard to know what will produce results, isn't it? I mean, you have to have seen every single approach at this point.

Yeah. And there's at different levels. There's different types of coaches. So high school, it's obviously not that serious, but it is serious in certain places. And coaches can be hard on you. But they also it's high school kids like this kid might have just had. Geometry. You know what I mean? So, like, you can't completely buried this kid, but then you get to college and even more so back when I played like even 10 years ago, colleges, the coaches have all the power and the players like you just get in line like you can't miss class.

You're not talking back to the coach. You're just there doing exactly what you're told. And then if you get to the next level, I remember getting into the league and at the time when I got drafted, the Clippers were not a very good team and it was just chaos. The players are making way more than the coaches. So like in the players, I remember a guy who was on the team already like a vet. It's signed a fifty five million dollar contract and he's like, I got fifty five million reasons why I don't have to listen to him.

I was like, whoa, that is nuts. So it's completely different on every level. And then within that there's different styles of coaches, like my college coach wasn't one of those guys. That was a super, super hard ass. There were some crazy ones that I heard about. But then in the league, I've had some who are you know, we practiced harder, some who are more just like players, coaches. It sort of depends on your style.

And like, I think if you come off as genuine and authentic and it's you, it'll work, whether it's the hard nosed style or it's the laid back style. But you can't fake it. If you fake it, guys will sniff that out and you'll lose the locker room in a heartbeat.

Well, you're right. That leap from college to the NBA, there's a huge leverage switch to. Right. Like, forget the money. If someone was going to get fired from the Bulls, it was not going to be Michael Jordan. No. And I would say even most of the teams you've been on, the coach is probably getting fired before you are. Right. And that's an interesting dynamic. Yeah.

I mean, you know, there's different sort of ways to go about it. I mean, like firing versus getting traded. It really just depends. Like sometimes it's better for the team, better for the direction. It's not necessarily the coach and sometimes it's the other way around, you know, but but yes, job security for coaches in the NBA has got to be up there with the one of the worst in the world.

And if your coach says either you fire Blake or you fire me, odds are he's getting fired. If you say either you fire the coach or you fire me, I think there's still the coaches getting fired.

Yeah. In most situations, players have more power. My coach now, Dwane Casey, was in Toronto. Toronto had one of their best years of all time. They got to the playoffs, lost to LeBron in the playoffs for like the third year in a row. He won coach of the year in the NBA as voted by his peers in the media and then got fired.

Oh, my God, that is fucking brutal. The NBA award shows in like July, I think. And so he had to go up and accept his Coach of the Year award while he was interviewing for a new job.

Oh, just you know, whether you agree with the firing or not, you can just admit that that's just a shitty situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Monica and I are obsessed because Monica and I are both pretty superstitious, even though I don't believe in a higher power or anything. I yet believe in superstition and we love how superstitious athletes are.

Like we're always picking up on the different things. And it just it's such a ripe, fertile ground to like, oh, I drank a coffee one minute before I went through the thing and I scored fifty points, like, do you have a ton of little routines? You do.

Yeah, I refer to them as routines as opposed to superstitious because if something goes wrong and it doesn't happen, I don't want to have that thing in my mind that I like. I'm going to play bad.

And the routine for me is just to get through playing 82 games and having to do the same thing every single day. In a way, it sort of sounds backward, but it keeps me sane because for my job, I have to do a certain amount of things on a game day. So I when people always ask me this question, I can get super deep and go through. I have so many from the time I wake up to the time, I guess my last one would be when we warm up again at halftime, because then once the game is going, it's all, you know, it's all out the window.

Actually, that's not true. When I come to the bench for timeouts, I do the same thing, you know what I mean?

So, yeah, I have routines that I could spend way too much time talking about them. There's certain ones where I just do the same thing at every time. And for us to and we get to the arena, there's like the clock is on, right. So at 90 minutes the clock starts to count down until game time. So before that, I'm using my phone timer. So I get to the game three hours early. So I'm doing all my stuff before that once that ninety starts.

And then I have a thing where I'm at all places in the arena, there's that countdown clock. So I know it's sixty five minutes. I'm eating my pregame snack at sixty two minutes. I'm on the table, I'm getting massage. Oh wow. Forty eight minutes. I start getting taped, I'll finish around forty two minutes and I'll have seven minutes before our pre game and I even put my music to that so I make a playlist. So I want to listen to like the certain songs at a certain time.

So they, I love this.

I love it. I would do all that. So how have girlfriends responded to that routine. Have some men like you and I have to do all this bullshit for the most part, I would say they're very understanding just because they see how much I care about it. But yeah, is for sure it's taxing because if they're like at home or like at the house, I'm you know, I'm gone for sure. And I come back, I have to take my shower.

As soon as I get home, I, I eat lunch, I'm watching film, I take a nap, I wake up, I get I take another shower, I get dressed that you know what I mean? It's like there's not a lot of time. There's maybe an hour or maybe 45 minutes in there where I can just sit and talk. Yeah.

There's no real room for another person in that that routine.

Yeah, but after the games practice days, you know, those are where you sort of make up for that, especially with my kids to on a game day. I can barely see him. And now my son's at the age where I can take him pregame with me to where he can be in the locker room, like after the game. He comes in the locker room and he sits next to me in my locker and I can share that with him, but I won't really be able to do that with my daughter, you know what I mean?

Yes. Just because of the nature of a locker room, so many penises.

That's what we're talking about. Yeah, you can see everywhere. I'm a little nervous for your son, though, because that's probably a misleading group of folks to look at their penis as a young man, too. I mean, you take a very big gentleman and. Yeah, I mean, he's got to learn. He's got to learn some.

OK, so great. So you do all those things. I love that there's so much shit you can't control that.

Yeah.

Being able to control every little moment that you can control helps give the illusion of control maybe a bit. Yeah, for sure. And not every guy's like this, but I have found that most of the really good players or the consistent players who are in the league for a long time and you know, if they're role players and they manage to be in the league for a long time, they have these sort of routines. And I've had teammates who have even more than I have and like actual superstitions, I had a teammate who like before he would run out of the locker room to go into the tunnel before he ran out, would like spin around three times like that type of superstition that I don't necessarily have those.

Well, sort of I sort of do.

But yeah, it's it's about being in control for me for sure, because, like I said, I'm doing this so much that it helps put me in this place like, oh, I know what I'm doing. OK, I'm ready for this. You know, this is familiar. And even on the road now, I've been in the league for long enough that, like, I know every road arena. So I know how my routine is going to change a little bit going into that, because this locker room, the training room is here.

Yeah. And do you eat it like the same restaurant in every city and you try to get the same hotel room or any of that stuff?

Just by the nature of how teams travel, I sort of do get the same room or room type every single time I go. I know when we're in Chicago, I'll be all the way to the corner of the you know, there's Four Corners. I'll be at one of the Four Corners. So I know the room. Yeah, restaurants kind of depends. Like, you know, if I have friends in the city, then I'll, you know, maybe I'll go out to them like before I'll go with a teammate and we'll go to a familiar place.

But it's not sort of the same. I eat room service for like the morning of and then I order room service from my pregame meal and I take it with me, are you kind of like a forty, forty, twenty eater?

Like what's ideal for you as an athlete? I'm saying forty percent carbs, forty percent protein, 20 percent fat.

So for my lunch and pregame meal I would say it's a little bit higher on carbs like complex carbs. Yeah. And then right before I'll do a little bit more protein, I have these homemade like protein bars I've been doing for like six years now that are like just another part of my routine. I eat those at the same time, you know. Yeah. Oh, man.

I'd like to follow you on one of these days and just watch every little detail safe I like.

Yeah. Feel safe. Feel safe. Yeah. It makes me feel safe. Yeah.

Now I got to ask, it seems like it must be such a giant shift from when you're playing to them when you're just out on your own. Right. Because all that regimented living and knowing the plan and then all of a sudden just the light switch turns off.

Right. And isn't it an adjustment or do you try to just maintain this kind of militant schedule in the off season? What's it like transitioning back and forth? I sort of lead two different lives, like season is so scheduled and so, like you said, militant and everything's, you know, laid out. I mean, we know our schedule for, what, three months before the season starts. So even like in April, I know what I'm going to be doing.

Yeah, fourteenth in October. So yes and no. I there's certain parts when it comes to like working out and it comes to like doing the things that I need to in the off season. I'm very meticulous about it and very like schedule. I do the same thing, but other stuff I sort of just kind of wing and I it's also weird too, because at the end of the season you've been playing for seven months now, so you have to take time off.

So you go from every single day having something to do from morning to night. And then once you lose in the playoffs, you don't know when it's going to be. You lose and the next day you wake up and you don't have. He said an alarm, you don't have practice, you don't necessarily have to eat super healthy, you can kind of relax, you want to work out. It's a very weird transition to where when I was younger, I would like sort of like going like I hadn't watched Game of Thrones at one point and I locked myself in my theater for like two weeks straight and watched five seasons of Game of Thrones had.

And we lost in the playoffs one time. And it was just like my way of dealing with being sad about, you know, not not being in the playoffs anymore. But, yeah, it's weird. You have to kind of like find that find that transition and it gets easier the older you get.

That kind of appeals to me because I've always liked and it's not healthy, so either perfect or a fucking terrible.

I've been big into health and nutrition for a long time. I think my mom was like just a very well versed person. She's not a nutritionist but knows just a lot and grew up eating very healthy. Like I was the kid that like we were my brother and I would take like barley green, which is sort of like the equivalent of a green juice now, like it was a powder and we'd mix it with water and we drink it every morning, take like fish oil since we were kids.

So like, wow, all this stuff is like not like crazy to me. Right. I've sort of like ramped it up. And I think my third season in the NBA, I was like, this season I'm going to be so strict just to the tee. And I did until like March came around and I was so burned out I hadn't like had Candia, like, you know, anything bad. And I just fell off the wagon and I just like happened like right before the playoffs.

And I was like, that was stupid. Like now I had to figure out how I can balance this.

You said an unrealistic goal. Yeah. But it also taught me an important lesson, not just about food and nutrition, but just about everything. Like like you can't you can't just restrict yourself from doing certain things because those are going to help balance that life. And I still struggle with I'm not great at it, but that's sort of my routine now, especially during this quarantine. It's like I try to eat healthy for six days and then Sunday I go, you know, do whatever I want and then Monday I'm back on it.

Yeah. Yeah. So your dad was a track and field star and he played college basketball, right?

College basketball and football and football. Wow. How big is he?

He's like six, five, six, four now, but like six five.

Big guy. Yeah. Oh, boy. Wow. OK, my mom's five eleven. Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Did they meet in college now they actually both taught at the same high school in Oklahoma. OK, so you guys, you and your brother, you have an older brother and you guys were homeschooled. Yeah. Yes.

So my mom and dad, both being teachers, recognized how poor in Oklahoma City. I don't know if you remember from three years ago, there was a huge public school teacher lockout. Oh, school teacher compensation is awful in the state of Oklahoma. It might be like I think it's bottom five. Mm. And they just made a decision early on, like they can't afford for us to go to private school. So my mom was like, I'm going to stop working.

I'm in a home school them and we'll figure it out, you know, as far as we go. So we were lucky because our home school was like led by she'd been teaching for fifteen years. Right.

Actual teacher. Yeah. It wasn't like a walk in the park. She had like a lesson plan. We had like a schedule. I had that. But it was also great because I could wake up at, you know, eight, do my chores, nine o'clock start school, twelve o'clock be done because I didn't have any wasted time. My mom would teach me a lesson. I would finish, I would move to the next one. I was just bam bam, knock it out.

Yeah. And so I wasn't being deprived of like a true learning experience. And then also sports for me and my brother. We played for sports during the year, so we were constantly around friends first from sports or friends from the neighborhood. So for us it really worked out. And then we got to a certain point. My dad left the Oklahoma City public schools and took a job at a private school so that we could go there. OK, I'm a Christian school.

OK, so now how much of your desire to play basketball was your own desire and how much of it was wanting to do?

Whatever Taylor did was a little bit of both. My dad was great because he being a basketball coach, he didn't make us play sports. We wanted to play sports and he made us do was finish once we started, started the season. But you're not going to quit, ever quit. And I don't even think I ever wanted to quit anything. And he also encouraged us to play whatever we wanted. Like I loved soccer growing up. I loved baseball, football, basketball, golf.

Like we would play we'd play street hockey. We would do whatever his belief was that, you know, one sport's going to help you with another sport and just team building, being around kids, working with other people, learning how to be a leader. I mean, I remember from the time I was so young, my dad like just drilling in my brain. If you think you're a good player and you have the ability, it's your job to help make your teammates better.

And so I remember him always teaching me the lesson of, like, you can't throw the ball to him like you throw it to him. So those are things that I was learning as a kid. I didn't realize I was learning, but I was learning to like deal with people and work with people and figure out people strength and. Like, maximize them in such a way that it was like just a fun game for me. Yeah, I didn't realize I was doing it at the time and well, that's what a leader does, right?

I mean, that's when you watch Last Dance. You're like, I'm trying to explain to Monica because she was never into basketball. That happened to be like the 10 year phase. I was obsessed because I'm from Detroit. Eighty 89. I'm in seventh grade. So I love basketball because of them. But I'm trying to explain to her, I'm like, there's so much involved. I'm like Allen Iverson. If you just watched him play, you'd probably say, Oh, he's the best ever.

I mean, just that guy could score his his handles. Everything was insane. But then there's this other component. Can you get the best out of guys? Can you lead a team to victory? And that seems to be a whole different skill set.

I remember trying to navigate that when I first got into the NBA, not necessarily my first career, because when you first get in, you was trying to keep your head above water.

But then, you know, after a couple of seasons, you're trying to figure out how to become like a leader amongst men. Yeah, yeah.

I'm 21 years old. My teammates are thirty five with, you know, kids that are like in middle school. So, like, I can't connect with them in the same way that I can connect with my college teammates are like the guys that are my age. So I remember like sort of going on a journey to like, you know, talk to different guys. And the one guy I talked to was Tim Duncan that stood out to me the most.

And it's weird because growing up I was like never a Tim Duncan fan. I didn't like dislike him, but I was like, the Spurs are boring. Like, they just like, you know, they're fundamental. They do this these things being shot, which my dad drilled in my head as well. But as soon as I got in the league, I was like, oh, I get it. Like, this guy's awesome, you know what I mean?

He was one of those guys sort of that taught me within the game, like playing while I was playing against him, like it's OK to, like, mess with guys. It's OK to, like, be funny or like say something I would like lined up next to him. I at the free throw line and he look over and be like, oh fuck, not you again.

Like you're still, you know, like that type of stuff or as I might it be like a little dad joke. But like in the heat of a game it was so disarming to me. Like this amazing player was like taking time to like, you know, have these little jokes with me, like a little side things with me.

He was so unique in that every time I watched the game, we were always against them in the final. So I wasn't rooting for him, per say. But he was the guy more than any other player that ever played where I'd be like, hold on. What?

They just say he has thirty eight points when I miss that.

Like he was just so not a flashy player, but he was just so goddamn consistently putting up double, double, double, double, double, double, you know.

Yeah. Guarding him was so frustrating because you kind of like especially towards the end is like you kind of knew what he was going to do, but you just weren't going to stop. It's not like LeBron was like, OK, like he's just like physically a very good player. And he can overpower some guys. He can jump over some guys. It's just like he's he's not beating you with speed. He's not necessarily beating you with quickness or strength.

Yeah, but he's still just going to score because he's just better like he knows how to do everything and it's frustrating. But at the same time, like an unbelievable amount of respect for for guys like that.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

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Did you hear that list? That's a bad list. Yes. In the fact that your sleep has so much to do with those things. I know we got to prioritize. I have a sleep number bed. It's heaven on earth. I just slept with my little five year old in it last night. We both had our own little slot. My sleep number is eighty five and I had the best night's sleep last night and I saw that little angel and now during the lowest prices of the season, saved four hundred dollars on a sleep number three.

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So how did you transition? Can you point to a moment where you were like, OK, I'm going to be the leader of this team?

It was weird for me because when I got drafted, I think they had won like 18 games the year before the Clippers and the Clippers had won 18 games the year before. And so when I got to the team, it was a destination where guys would come to the end of their careers to like sign a one year deal or play just in L.A. and, you know, good city. Or they hadn't really, truly been like superstars. So it was weird because then my first year we sort of the thing was like, OK, we're just going to have a bunch of young guys are going to play these young guys.

And so I was sort of one of the older ones, at least like that was on the court. And I sort of had my own way of leading then.

And then the very next summer, we traded for a guy named Chris Paul, who's one of the best point guards of all time. And because we got him now, like, you know, other older guys wanted to come to the team and play there, it sort of became a destination or at least was starting to. So then our team got very old again and I was sort of lost in that. It was a very weird thing for me to navigate of trying to, like, be a leader, trying to get better as a basketball player, but then also, like, learn from these guys.

It was a hard thing for me to sort of figure out. And I never really, like, talked about it in that sense. But it was it was like, how do I how do I navigate, like, all these different things while still just trying to be a good player? Yeah.

And by the way, it's not like arrogance. It's your responsibility. If you are the scoring threat on the team, you know, it's your job to do that. You can't. Right. You have to take on that role. It would be ridiculous not to.

Yeah, it was sort of weird for me, too, because my first like several years, I was more physical, like, I would just try to dunk and I would, you know, rebound and really just try to, like, impose your will physically on people and didn't have some of the same skills that you develop over time. And I remember like my rookie year, sort of like blowing up in terms of like just becoming more well known as a player and sort of stepping onto that true NBA stage.

And then my whole rookie year, we were bad just before we got all those guys. And, you know, in the games, if it was a close game, we weren't supposed to win. We were super young. It was just like people like watching us because we were just fun to watch. Yeah, a lot of games like we lost. There was no big deal. I was like, oh, he finished with twenty points and twelve rebounds like man amazing.

Like, you know, rookies aren't doing that. And then it's so quickly changed to like all I like he's got to be doing this, this and this now. And I just heard so much negative and so much hate that I like sort of like turned myself off, you know, where there was some reporters or some people were like, I just fed in too much to that. And I closed myself off. And looking back, I wish I had handled it differently.

But again, I was 21 years old and like, oh, and not to say that's, you know, super young, but it is super fucking young.

I want to get into a lot of that, actually. But I got to say, you to your profession is so unique. And I thought this had so many basketball games. I'm here and some guy who literally can't take a flight of steps or he'd have a heart attack.

Yes. Screaming at Grant Hill and informing him how he should do that job. And I think what other profession are there people who know fucking nothing about it and can't accomplish any of it? Authorities screaming at the people who are experts. It's either you go to a courtroom and there's a bunch of dipshits screaming at the judge about jurisprudence. It's insane. But but alas, you're in the one occupation where people just scream at you of how you should be doing your job and none of them can do your job.

And the fact that you guys can handle that is amazing to me.

You know what? I think you're just, like, prepared to handle it just because, like, when you start planning high school and you go to opposing high schools, they have their student section and they're yelling stuff at you. So from even in youth basketball now, it's so bad that other parents are like not necessarily heckling like the fans, you know, but like they're saying stuff. They're getting crazy. Like a kid falls down and they're like, you know, yelling whatever it is.

So you're sorta you you climb those levels of in person, in arena and game, like heckling. What you're not prepared for is the media. And what I wasn't prepared for. Twitter had just started. Yeah. And right when I got drafted and it was 2009, Twitter was relatively new. That's what I wasn't prepared for, is just being so like publicly scrutinized. So in such a personal way because you cannot read articles and if you're on Twitter, it's hard not to see stuff.

And I have to imagine they're also making character judgments of you. Right.

So what they're probably saying and I'm completely unaware of whatever they were saying at that time, but I will say when they start saying, like, can he lead this team or blah, blah, blah, these are like character assessments of you, not are you physically talented?

Can you score?

Yeah. There was one time earlier on in. My career might have actually been my second year where we had lost two games in a row, maybe I'd gotten stitches and I was in the back for a long time after the game. And normally, like the media comes in the locker room or, you know, you have to go to the press conference room. So I'm back in the locker room for so long, I come out. No media is in the locker room anymore.

And I asked one of our guys, like, am I good? And he's like, Yeah, you're good. I thought I didn't have to go speak that day. So I get my stuff. I go home and I see this article from this ESPN writer about how after two back to back losses, I left one of my teammates out to the one that did go to the press conference room. I left him out to dry and that shows exactly who I am as a player.

It's just a situation where it's like spoken after almost every game my whole life. And because I didn't that one time now a character assumption has been made.

But why should you have to anyway? Like what? What does that have to do with you playing you you on a game day, you're required to speak to the media like three times like once before or after shootaround before the game and once after the game. The way I get around talking before the game is I go into the training room. If you're in the training room, you don't have to speak.

But now I also sort of have an understanding with our team beat writers like, hey, I'm trying not to speak before the game. I'll stay after and talk to you. You no longer whatever you need. I always kind of set that up beforehand. And most people are very, you know, very conscious of that. But then you go into a away arena and like somebody beat writer might not know that. So you can have to do the whole thing.

But like, our PR guy does a good job now. But when I was younger, it wasn't wasn't that easy.

Well, another insanely unique thing about your job is that, like, we've all fucked up at work, right? We all fail at our job. The notion that right after the failure at your job, you'd have to go out and answer questions and be scrutinized about your failure. I mean, it really is a unique human situation to be in that cannot come naturally.

Yeah. And I also I have this bit, so like I always have a stand up charity show, you know, charity event every year. And so, like, sometimes I'll get up and I'll do like a little like my own version of a five minute set, you know. And one of my things was it's not only that to have a bad game, but you're also getting up and doing this after you've been exercising for two and a half hours.

You're not going to come off supersmart if somebody sticks a microphone, you know what I mean? So you're just not going to come off like smart. You might not come off where you're, like, super reflective about the game because it just happened. I haven't had a chance to, like, think about it. I went to the locker room, our coach talked to us. I took a shower, I put my clothes on, and now I'm speaking to you.

Yeah, postgame interviews are a weird thing because there's sort of necessary for people to write the story. But, you know.

Yeah, well, it's got to drive the whole business part of it now. Have you ever done the math? How much do you run in a game?

Have you ever figured that out yet? So they track everybody now. So I guards' run more than big men. I think I averaged like one point eight to maybe two point one miles a game. That's just like non walking movement.

OK, OK.

But it's a fast run though, I mean, you know. Yeah. So basketball is all like sprint, stop sprint shuffle stop back pedal run. You know, it's, it's not a lot of just jogging unless somebody just scored and we're jogging back on offense. It's a lot of like quick bursts and then like sort of continual movement. Right. Which makes like as a basketball player, we always say like there's no way to replicate basketball shape because it's just such a dynamic like this.

Did that happen with Jordan in the in the baseball body? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it can't be that different of a body.

And I said, oh, it's crazy. It's crazy because it's all you're just planting and stopping and turning and pushing off. And then also you're pushing on people. So like if you go to do cardio, I don't know how you would unless you just made up an obstacle course where you're mimicking playing basketball, you wouldn't be able to get the basketball shape, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's a very unique sport that.

All right. Now I'm going to catch Monica up to speed really quick. He plays for years in high school for his father as the coach. His brother's there for two of the years. Two of the years. Yeah. Yeah.

They win the state championship all four years. Oh, four times state Charles.

And listen to their record over those four years is one hundred and six to six losses of those four years.

They won one hundred and six games to six losses. Yeah.

So so Blake is a phenom and his brother convinces him to go to Oklahoma, which was at that time pretty unconventional. Right. For what a standout high school player you are. You could have gone to bigger schools, right?

Yeah, I think it most I guess in that that time most of the top players in the class would go to like the Dukes and the Kansas and you know, those.

And did you and your brother play together at Oklahoma two years? Yeah, we both got drafted the same year.

Get the fuck out. OK, so I don't know much about your brother. Did you guys play the same position? My like my sore. More lasted two years in college, I was the center and he was the powerful in the NBA, I was a power forwards, so he sort of went from being a power for to a small Ford when he got to the NBA. Now, we never we we could play together. OK, I have to assume he was better than you when you were young.

Yeah, he was the person I was constantly chasing. Yeah.

Did you so relate to Jordan when he was talking about playing his older brother? Like just wanting the dad to see that he beat them?

Oh, yeah. I looked up to him, you know, still to this day when my best friends and like very close, but we would just go head to head. We'd fight every day because of sports, you know, was never justified. It was always because he beat me in something and I just had to, you know, the fight.

Was there an exact moment where you're like, oh, my God, I'm better? Yeah, I think, like, at a certain point we stopped, like, fighting, but we would always play one on one. And I remember, like, he says the same thing. It sort of happened when he left for college and I was still there. So like the reason we won four state championships, my first two years, he was the best player in the state and he just dominated.

So like I got to of as a freshman and sophomore and just kind of like ride on his coattails. And then when he left, I got sort of when I, like, came into my own as a player, there was a time where I beat him and one on one. But like, I don't know if he like particularly like credit to just because there's variables. But yeah, like there's a moment where, like, you know, that you can beat him because one on ones that it's different than fight, you know what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You might catch somebody one day.

There's a moment where I'm like, oh yeah I got I mean once I have that I got them like I'm never losing that confidence, you know, or you just be the best player you've ever played against, probably in your mind, like also your basketball hero that's tangible that you can touch. You know what I mean? Because I wasn't around NBA guys. I went around a lot of college guys. So, like, that was like the guy I was chasing always.

Yeah.

Now that you have done all the things, where does winning those high school championships rank on your pride scale, pride scale?

I mean, it's up there because, like, even though it's high school and we were in a smaller class, it's like we did the absolute best that we were supposed to do. So we did it. And I also took high school basketball. We all did took it so seriously from the time my dad got to this school to start coaching, he won five state championships there because he won his first year there. And then then there was a year that they didn't.

And then my brother got there and then that was it.

Can I just say really quick, I can't imagine that bond between you guys to be a father, to all win a state championship together to know your boys. I mean, my God, he must have been exploding with pride.

Yeah, I actually just saw there's like a little sort of documentary thing. And somebody sent me like a clip that I'd sort of forgotten about. And it was like somebody interviewing my mom and my dad and my brother's senior year state championship game was so special and rewash it really took me back to like this place because it was the last time that we lost us. Three were, you know, on a team together, on the court together. So special for us and my mom, my mom realized and I think my dad did, too.

I don't know that my brother and I really appreciate it in the moment as we do now. But my mom hearing my mom talk about it, you know, it's like one of them going to college and one of them's going to still be here. But it's like the last time. And then luckily we got to play again together in college, which was my brother and I lost my dad on there, but we got to play again together and that was even more special.

OK, now I'm going to raise Monica. I'm going to get so you understand, he's an amazing high school basketball player. Then he goes and plays in college.

He plays two years in college. And in those two years in sophomore year, you get thirty double doubles, only one shy of David Robinson's record, which is insane. So double doubles when you get double digits out there scoring rebounding assists. Right. Means he's doing everything OK. So you're just one shy of David Robinson sophomore year.

You also got five hundred and four rebounds, which is just one shy of Larry Bird's record in nineteen seventy eight.

Oh, you're just you crushed in college and then you become a first round pick for the Clippers in twenty nine. And here's the part I have great confusion over, and I want you to help me understand this. So you get drafted, you got no say right. You have absolutely no say in what city you're going. Teachers, Prain, you're not going somewhere you don't want to live.

Right. How do they negotiate your contract? Because you don't have the leverage of taking other offers. How do you get market value, given that you had no choice and where you're going?

So in the NBA, every first round pick one through thirty is slotted. So it's already figured out for you. So, I mean, the first pick of the first round makes this amount of money and he's guaranteed two years time option three and four. So your contract is just structured for you.

OK, OK, great. That makes it like no no agent makes money off of first round picks rookie deal because they didn't negotiate and negotiate anything. There's. It's just it is what it is. OK, second round is different, you can negotiate, you can get more here, here, here and but will never exceed what those preset ones are probably in the second round.

No, no. I mean, yeah, no.

OK, now, did you watch the ESPN 30 for 30 Rock. Yes.

OK, so for the people who didn't watch it, they point out that in general, the general arc for a human being in the work force is the older they get and the more experience they have managing money, the more money they get. And they pick out most people in their 40s, you know, between 40 and 50. And they've had all this experience managing money. And it's a perfect time to get it. Now, it's completely flipped in sports where you had the least amount of experience managing money and then you get this enormous amount.

What is that experience like? I cannot imagine at twenty one years old, getting millions of dollars, what was the experience like?

So when I got drafted in 2009, all these Antoine Walker, who was one of the guys that the the documentary broke was sort of featured about because he made so much money and literally lost it all. You know, when I was getting drafted, you go to this thing called Rookie Transition Program. Everybody that got drafted goes to this program and they sort of give you a three, two and a half to a crash course of like everything you need to know.

Some of it's just like, you know, have any sense at all. It's just very obvious stuff. But the financial portion was very, very interesting to me, and it was very Eye-Opening because it scared the shit out of me. And I always heard these stories. So when I got drafted, I got an apartment and I got a car. The only other big thing I did was pay off my parents' mortgage.

Oh, you sweet son of a bitch. Yeah.

You know, and like other than that, I didn't really spend very much money at all. And then sort of, as you, you know, get another contract in another contract. It's, you know, you readjusts.

Yeah. You readjusts. And but I also like had great financial managers and my mom, you know, she did all our taxes, everything for my family. We also had because they were teachers and their income was so poor. We had a second family trophy company that we ran out of our rewards company out of the back of our house. And so she would do financials for that as well. So she had a good understanding of how, you know, budgeting and all that stuff.

And also when we were kids, my mom made us budget like we had to put a certain amount of aside for like savings. We had to put a certain amount for stuff we wanted to do. So I sort of had an understanding that my mom, also my poor financial managers, had to have a weekly call with my mom for like the first two years of my career, maybe even longer than that. I finally was like, I you know, I think they've earned the trust, but I'm very fortunate and lucky that I had, you know, my parents to, like, lean on.

It was just sort of an easy transition for me. But, you know, it's not quite the same for everybody. Yeah.

And it sounds like you watch these documentaries as I do. I remember watching the one maybe the bad boys or something. And I'm looking at Isaiah Thomas, who in Detroit was an absolute god. He is a God in the NBA. And it was talking about like that year they won a first championship. I think he was on a million dollar year contract, which was outrageous then. Yeah. And I'm watching this documentary in twenty nineteen going, wow, a million dollars thirty years ago is not a lot like whatever number you think is huge today.

You got a lot of life to live because it's a young man's sport. It's rife with complexity. Yeah.

And it's you know, I think the number that always kind of shocks people is like the average NBA career is like three and a half years. Right. People think it's longer because you're just hearing about the guys who are really good and have been in the league a long time. But you're not hearing about the guys who come in and play one year and they're out or playing two years in and out, three years and they're out. So that also just like, scared me, too, because it's like you just never know what's going to happen, you know?

Yeah. And I've been fortunate to play, you know, eleven years now. And, you know, and that's obviously beats the odds. But I and I still want to go more. But as a young player, the hunger and like sort of being terrified of like the horror stories was just always in my mind. So I just I never went crazy now. OK, so again, catch Monaca.

So he gets drafted. No one so slow. No, you don't know the history of that.

Yeah, I understand what's going on. But you know what? Money. Time to check back in.

So Blake goes to the Clippers first round preseason game. Thank you.

Fractures is patella. Oh, and he doesn't play for the full first year.

He's in the NBA. Oh, boy. Heartbroken. Does it rattle your confidence of like because when you're that age you feel completely invulnerable to injury.

It was it like, no, no, this isn't part of my narrative. I'm not someone who would be out for a year with an injury.

There's two reasons. One, like you said, you feel you're unstoppable, like injuries don't even cross your mind. That but also I just got to my dream since I was a kid, it just happened and I'm like, wow, this is cool. I'm still terrified that I'm not going to make it. So I'm, like, working really hard. I'm not really taking it for granted, but I'm like, this is the beginning. So our last preseason game, like you said, got hurt.

And then I found out I wasn't going to be able to play. I thought it was going to be able to, like, let it heal on its own. Two and a half months later, it doesn't have to have surgery. I missed my whole year. And around that time there was a guy named Greg Oden, who was a really good player for Ohio State, drafted number one, the Portland. Same thing. Knee injury doesn't play his rookie year.

Another knee injury misses a lot more games, knee injury, knee injuries out of the league, no more same pikas, me, God.

And so now I'm starting to hear like, oh, he's another this guy. And then on top of that, the Clippers, like I mentioned, they were deemed as like a cursed franchise for a long time. Right before I got drafted, Bill Simmons of ESPN writer wrote this long article about how I should demand that they not draft me because I'm going to go there and I'm going to end up like all the other. No one picks just turned out to not have great careers.

And so I had like all that on top of my dream, getting taken away on top of being hurt, which is just mentally and physically a tough thing. So it was like a year full of, like, self-doubt and like just wondering. But it also scared me and I just like working as hard as I possibly could. And I got some great advice that, like I still stick with today.

And as cheesy as it sounds like in every bad situation, I have to try to find the silver lining for me that was working as hard as I could, getting back in shape and then also going to every game and watching and studying and seeing, you know, how this league operates. And it definitely gave me, you know, an upper hand, you know, going into my second first season.

Yes. So in retrospect, OK, so then Monica, let me catch up. We wake up Monica here I have here.

I mean, he then comes and plays the next year and he gets Rookie of the Year. He gets nominated to the all star team, which is very rare for a rookie.

You score a tremendous amount of points. You know, you just you crushed what then becomes your rookie year.

So are you at a vantage point where you can look back and go, oh, wow, that year probably made me something durable. You know, it was a test you had.

It could have taken you out like there's so much mental fucking quagmire there that you could have succumbed to. You could have lost all your confidence. Do you think it steeled your your resolve?

Yeah, I think I learned a lot of lessons for sure. I don't know that I necessarily thought about it as like I could have gone the other way. I just took those lessons and I moved on.

Looking back now or maybe at the end of the end of my career, I'll be thankful for that time because it really gave me, you know, my first true test, I guess, when I first got to the NBA. But like in the moment when I'm starting to finally play my rookie year, I'm almost just kind of like finally, you know what I mean? I'm not really like looking at it from like a new perspective, even though I did treat it like that as I was trying to come back from it once I started playing that first year, I always just say, like there was a game that happened where like after that my life just never went back to how it was like it just took off.

And it's just been like that ride ever since. You know, there's ups and downs, but it's just been that ride. Yeah.

And I always I've had tons of humbling moments over my life and work and, you know, now from this vantage point, weirdly grateful for all them because again, you could have like you're in high school, you're winning championships, you go to college. And the next thing. Next thing. Next thing. Next thing.

And then you can almost wake up after it's all over to evaluate it. But I do think that one year pause, maybe it's a time to, like, think maybe more clearly on what player you want to be when you finally do come back, maybe a heightened gratitude that you wouldn't have had if it just everything worked out perfectly. It just kind of hard to know.

Yeah. Now I can appreciate that much more, but in that time, I don't think I really sat back and appreciated it because like now I've seen guys who have, you know, gotten hurt their first year and not played and then they're sort of their projection didn't meet their production. Yes, I see that now. And I realize, you know, what could have been definitely now appreciative and grateful for those lessons I learned and also to having that year, my sophomore year of college, and then getting drafted, number one, in like my own little world, like I was like I was like doing it at that point.

I was the best I could possibly do in my mind. And so I had people who are around me not like super close, but people that were around me. And then when I got hurt, those people went away.

I good lesson to learn early. Yeah. Next year when I started playing, I remembered all those people who were like with me texting me, call me. And then they went away. And then when I started playing again, they're back. That's again.

That's a great life lesson because they. They would have never stopped without that year and you really wouldn't have maybe found out 100 percent. My question is a bit broader, because you were just saying, like you had done everything right and you were sort of at the pinnacle.

What is it like managing NBA egos? Like everyone is in the NBA? Their egos must be enormous. They're the best of anyone they've ever come across and then they all get put together. And then there's a ranking within that. And I just feel like that must be a nightmare. Ego wise enough to work together. It is.

That's a great question, because, like, if you ask a coach like, I don't know, 70 percent of coaching in the NBA is managing egos.

Yes. Any coach you people talk about all the time within the NBA is, like you said, you're the best player, the kid. You're the best player in high school. You're probably the best player in college. And then, you know, you come to the NBA where there's a pecking order. And, yeah, the players that stick around for a long time, they realize if they're not one of those, like top 20, 30 guys, then you've got to find your role and you have to star in your role.

You just have to, like, throw yourself into that and realize the importance of that.

That's so cool about Rodman's story, isn't it? Like, I had no idea until I watched that that that guy was scoring twenty six points a game in college. I never seen him be offensive. Yeah. And I'm like, how cool he figured this thing out. Yeah.

He's the perfect example. He has championships and he's so famous because he just was himself and he just accepted that. And unfortunately I've seen a lot of kids come in, guys come in who are very, very talented and they just can't grasp that idea of not being the man. Yeah, and I know that's a hard thing to do, but the guys who are smart figure it out and they say, OK, I'll do this.

As I heard an actor say, it's like if you notice there's three people playing the trumpet, you better play the clarinet. Right, because you're not going to play the trumpet with those three people and stand out. So what are you going to play?

And you know what? What's really sad is like people around those people sometimes do them a disservice because everybody circle around them thinks they're the best to. Yeah, yeah. Just that player. And also, a lot of times everybody around those people are depending on them to be a good player and to make money and well, in an unfair way, they're putting all this pressure on them to like, oh, no, you've got to score so you can score better than him and you can do this better than my coach is screwing.

He's not playing, you know, and those people constantly, just constantly tear you down. I'm so lucky that I've had, like, my brother and my dad, who are basketball players and coaches, and my mom just not built that way. And the people that are around me aren't like that. But there's so many guys that do and it's not their fault. But like that's part of the downfall. That's why having that group of people around you is so, so important.

Well, your job, you are probably around more rags to riches stories than any place on the planet, 100 percent.

And it's got to be the most unique dynamic. I am fascinated by it.

It's like, you know, lowest of the lows and a lot of circumstances to like very quickly, like kids are signing at eighteen. Nineteen year old kids are signing a twenty million dollar deal.

It's like, you know, that's a what's the it's like a famous percentage of people who win the lottery to go broke.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Or people commit suicide though. It's all misleading. It's like it's dangerous getting that dream you've thought of forever because it doesn't come with the matching happiness.

When you look in the mirror right there, you got to earn that another way.

Right. And even then, look at the fact that you're 19 or 20 years old. On top of that, it's just like. Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

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In Oklahoma, growing up makes you feel like you were a man without a country, or was it fine?

My parents did such a good job because they got married in the early 80s in Oklahoma, which is not the most tolerant place. Bunch of great people there. But like, you know, they had their fair share of nasty looks of comments and remarks. It's still happening today. So you can imagine what it was like 30 years ago. Yeah. So my parents did a really, really, really good job of just rising above it. And so there's situations that my brother and I look back now and we're like, oh, wow, that was like that was racist, you know what I mean?

Like, weird, because my parents didn't give it the power. It didn't affect us either, which I didn't realize was happening at the time. But I remember girls in like high school saying, oh, I like you, I like your thing. And they're like, I like you too. But like, I can never date you. And you're like, why? Like my dad won't let me. But now I think, like, a super fucked up.

But at the time I was like, yeah, all right, you know what I mean? Which is crazy to me.

Well, did you identify with Rodman? I thought the saddest part of the last dance was when Rodman or maybe it was in the Rodman documentary, which is also phenomenal. But when you're talking about going to that small town and he's like, yeah, people are calling, oh, in Oklahoma. Oh, yeah, people calling me the N-word. He's like, you know. But black people call me the N-word and the white people call. And I was like, I mean, he doesn't even see how fucking different it is and how damaging.

And it is it's it's so telling of how fucking oppressed you'd be to not really even be aware of it.

Yeah, yeah. I have great friends growing up and I went to a great school, but like there definitely were situations. And it's also weird for me too, because because when my dad got that job at a private Christian school, there was another family who was mixed. And then there was like one other black kid at the school who that was one of my best friends. And it was like I would be playing basketball on the weekend with my travel team and I would be with all like my black friends.

And then I would go back to school and to be with my white friends. And it was two completely different worlds. And so I always, like, felt really weird about not that I was like trying to act like one way or the other. It's just like who you're around is like sort of who you are. At a certain point. I remember I felt like, all right, I have to pick like a side. Yeah. Now I just this is who I am.

And if you're on this side or this side, cool. But this is who I am. And like, obviously I wish I had that ability when I was 15, 16, 17 years old, but I didn't. And the older I got, the easier it got. But like, it was harder than I thought, especially when I look back on it, like the more like show because, you know, you go through stuff as a kid and you don't think about like, oh, I'm reacting this way because of that, not because of this.

And now I realize all those things.

Well, there would be layers for me that would piss me off. And the one would be I got to imagine if I was black or mixed, I'd almost be more comfortable. You're just a racist. Great. You hate black people. But the fucking cheer for me in a game and then treat me like shit in public. That layer of hypocrisy.

I can't date you. Yeah, yeah.

Like I'm a hero here. And then I'm a piece of shit here. That would be the thing I think that would most irritate me.

Yeah. It was interesting because when I was growing up, my neighborhood was just, you know, lower middle class maybe. And like my neighbors on the right were black, my neighbors on the left are white. And it was kind of like neither racist, you know, but like just in like the way that you separate the two, you know? And I just always remember things like one was like one of my best friends in the neighborhood and one was a girl that was like, you know, she went to the same schools and stuff, but, like, didn't really mix, you know what I mean?

And not because there's hatred again, but just because, like, you didn't really mix. And it was always kind of weird because, you know, it was this was the day where you'd go ring the doorbell and say, so-and-so. And if he's not home, I'd go to the other house. I would always go to my, you know, my boys house first.

And I always felt like I was just constantly choosing, constantly like picking. I was never mixing the two. And I wish I had done a better job of that. And I wish I had known what I know now or be a little bit more secure about it. But that's just kind of how it was like in Oklahoma, you know, at the time.

Very nice symmetry, though, that it went white family, mixed family, black. I'm glad it lined up like that was just a nice, steady progress for me because I didn't have to pass over one house to get his pick.

And how old are you?

Thirty one still. Yeah. Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

Oh yeah. But do you like older women. Oh but I was going to ask because I had, I have an identical story of a person who is like I like you but I can't go out with you because your parents probably work at Dairy Queen.

And now the stereotype in Georgia was that Indians ran Dairy Queen. Yeah. So I got to catch you up on her. OK, go ahead.

You're quite familiar. Familiar. The same George, Oklahoma sort of thing. Yeah, exactly, and so that one event has derailed my opinion of myself, my relationships, everything like from then until like a month ago, essentially what I like really started doing work on it.

Do you think those experiences have affected relationships?

I got over that pretty quickly. I don't think it ever deterred me from hanging out with who I wanted to hang out with or pursuing who I wanted to pursue. I think I think there's still a little bit today. I mean, the beauty of being in Los Angeles, there's just so many cultures and it's such a diverse city that like, you know, moving here at 19 was like a really a breath of fresh air because, like, I wasn't that different.

Yeah. So I think I sort of quickly got over that.

Also, you had this great asset that you were thriving in such a profound way in one level and especially very like, you know, grew up, went to college there and just stayed there.

Yeah.

You know, without basketball, as my knowledge as well, has taken me places that I never dreamed of being. And so I'm fortunate that way that it sort of brought me out of that. It opened up so many opportunities for me that it helps me come up out of that situation. OK, so then my last question is, so Donald Sterling, there's a new documentary coming out, right? I'm very excited to see it. Did you participate in that?

I actually did.

They did a 30 for thirty on this whole thing. And then right after that, they were doing this. And I was like, I'm I've told my piece, you know. Yeah, yeah. By the way, I've also had to talk about it so many times before that that I was just kind of like, I don't want to do another deep in depth, like sit down for three, four hours and go over this one subject, you know what I mean?

Well, again, this would be another trigger of mine if I were black or mixed, which is OK. So there's this racist asshole.

And now I got to fuckin answer all these questions because this guy like this is my responsibility to constantly be available. And I'm doing it to you right now. But I don't you know, I don't need that. Like, I didn't sign up to have to now talk about this guy being an asshole all the time.

Yeah, it's really interesting because there's a draft lottery that happens where they find out who's picking what. So the Clippers get the first pick and then, you know, a month later is the actual draft. So during that time, they announced that they were going to take me with the first pick. And I remember my mom called me one day and she was like, you know, it's like, honey, I just was reading about the guy who owns the Clippers.

And at the time, I didn't know much about him because, like, the Clippers were never on TV, never barely in L.A. were they even on TV from Oklahoma and like.

Yeah, exactly. They were on PBS. And so I'm from Oklahoma.

So, like, you know, I heard about the Lakers and the Celtics and the big teams. So I sort of looked into it and it's like there's a lot of stuff, but like no one really seems to like say anything really quick to bring Monica up to speed, you know.

So I know the owner, the Clippers, he made a bunch of racist comments and he also bring his like his mistress into the locker room and stuff and do weird shit like that.

I think in this case, quickly, he made up all his money in real estate. He had so many different lawsuits surrounding racial discrimination, literally recorded saying this or that about different minority groups, also driving up prices to be able to kick them out, treating them unfairly like all these different things, right? Yeah.

So I would when I first got drafted, I had to I had to go to his house. Oh, wow. Malibu for a white party. It was like, you know, everybody dressed in white. Oh, my God. So I get there.

He's wearing all black at his own white party. So he's wearing all black and he proceeds to parade me around the party. You hold my hand and bring me around to other people and they introduce me like this is our number one pick in all the land. And look how strong is feel his arms and.

Oh, my oh, you do stuff like that all.

So then, you know, we're playing for him. He would always do, you know, things. He would bring people in the locker room. I came. Yeah, she probably came in the locker room. There's a girl that she was she was always with. It was just known as his mistress, him and his wife, whatever.

I don't know, whatever they had when he was taking you around the party and feel his muscles and all that. In that moment, were you feeling I mean, because it's very it's very plantation owner.

He look at this thing. I own a feel strong. It's like, what was that on your mind? What was happening?

Or just feel like, oh, this guy is kind of a weirdo and I am pretty ripped, so go ahead and feel what was happening a little bit of both because like I'm just getting the league in like he's the owner of this team.

I don't know how. Obviously, I know this is not normal, but like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

What how much power do I have in this situation?

Yeah, I would like I would like not hold his hand as much as I possibly could, which is like me standing up. I'm like, no, you could have done more.

I was like, yeah, but I wiggle the way if you so. Yeah. I don't know. Obviously, it felt weird, but I also was just like, get me out of here, so fast forward, he gets caught on tape saying to his mistress she secretly recorded I mean, he was saying a bunch of racist stuff. So then this is happening right before the playoffs. So then these tapes come out and we're about to play game three of the first round big series.

And this all comes out and we're like, now what do we do? Because, like, people knew he was racist before this.

It just brought it to light again, like he had multiple lawsuits for racial discrimination. So now people are looking at us like, what are you guys going to do? Here's another thing I've griped about a lot.

And Monica disagrees with me, and I think I'm wrong about it. But I will say I am very sympathetic to like a black actor who just wants to be a comedian. And then the second they're famous because they're black, they also also have to be a social activist. It's just not a responsibility that a white guy has to deal with. And I think that's a little unfair. So similar to the Olympics, right.

When they wanted the black athletes to not go to the Olympics, I'm like, I mean, they already had the shittiest fucking life. And now you have to tell them not to go take the reach, the pinnacle of their dream. Yeah. On top of that, I just had some part of that feels and then you've worked your ass off to get to the playoffs and now you have to, you know. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

And I'm I watch the documentary. I don't know if this is going to go against what anybody says, but like in my mind and I know and most people like we weren't going to boycott the games because we never played for him, right? Yeah. He paid us.

I wasn't like those my own romance guy, like, great. You know, like, fuck this guy. Yeah. He's paying us. He owns the team. Sure.

But we're like, this isn't him, like, actually owning us. We're playing basketball. We're doing what we want to do and we're good at it. And we're in this situation, you know, we decided to do a thing where we turned our warmups inside out. We had to wear these jackets out. So we came out to have court warm ups. We took our jackets off to them on the ground, and we were all just in basically blank T-shirts.

They were inside out.

So gangster, that's that's in that's in the commercial for that dock.

It's so gangster. I love it again at the time.

Maybe I'm just a horrible judge of, like, how big moments are at the time, but you're just kind of like, all right, we got to play. This game is like the whole box thing. We're like, this is not in our box. We've worked our whole season to get to this point. And now we're going to let this asshole, like, ruin it and like, you know, take the focus away from what we're really here for when we were never playing from the first place.

And so, you know, I think we navigated it pretty well, given the circumstances and given how fast this came out on a Friday night.

Our next game was Saturday. Oh, so Friday night or maybe it came out Saturday morning. We had a team meeting Friday night. And our coaches like, hey, this is going to come out just so you guys know. And I'm pretty sure Saturday morning it all blew up on TMZ or whatever.

So we quickly sort of had to decide, like what we were going to do because everybody was sort of looking to see like people thought we were going to boycott. And I remember getting like texts from people like you guys should boycott, like you guys shouldn't play and all this stuff. And I think our coach at the time was like, turn your phone off now, because he didn't want us to deal with it. He did want us to deal with it as a team, but he just didn't want people, you know, trying to get in our ear who didn't work this whole season, who didn't put blood, sweat and literally tears into the season to be in this position to say like, oh, you guys shouldn't play, because then we're doing ourselves a disservice as well.

Yeah. So it was crazy situation.

Blake, you are fascinating. Yeah. At first I was like, we've never had an athlete on really.

And I was like, other than Coach Carroll, but he has such a cool philosophy. I thought it would transcend that and it did. And I think you so transcend the sport the way you've lived your life and played the game and all that. I'm thrilled you're in Detroit, my hometown. I hope you eat a lot of Coney dogs while you're there on your cheat day and that I admire you a great deal. And I think you should be proud of the way you've handled yourself, as I'm sure you are.

And thanks for having me on your podcast. Yes.

Thanks for having me. And I appreciate the kind words, you know, likewise. Big fan, Monaca, Newfane, if you if you're caught up yet, you all got up there on that.

Yeah. He's a legendary he's one of the great.

Just to tell you that, you know, but my introduction to you is I saw you do a UCB show. I saw you do a show with Ben. Oh, you did? Yeah. And you did great. Thank you.

Oh, that's great. Well, I hope that I can hang out with you in real life when all this is over. And yeah, it's great meeting you.

Let's let's make some L.A. Detroit's balcony dogs. Yeah.

All right. Thanks for all your time. Thanks, guys. And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soul mate, Monica Padman.

Oh, see how chilliness go. It's got a good chill. She got a microwave in here. Do you think so?

Yeah, OK. For reasons such as that.

I got to say though, in two and a half years of. I mean, in this attack, that's the first time I've wanted a microwave, if you wanted one other than this. No, but that's weird. That's like the first thing most office places, huh? What are they called? Yeah, we don't know anything about real life.

No, I used to work water cooler, you know, chit chat, office politics.

So I worked at my aunt's law office. Was it like a proper go, their industrial complex, many floors, huge building elevators?

No, she had her own practice, so she had one. She has her own practice. And so she has an office space. But there's other offices there, too, for other people doing other things. Sure. There's conference room.

Oh, yeah.

And when I break rooms and you have microwaves in there, you sure do make your lunches.

I'd say it's second most valuable to the fridge. If you don't have a fridge, you got nothing to microwave.

Well, that's right. That's right. Other than when you know, film productions, rent office space for preproduction. Uh huh.

I think that's my only experience in an office, like going to a large office building, parking in a parking garage, taking an elevator up, seeing people like, oh, one or that person, what floor they work on, seeing the same people but never saying hi.

Wow, I've had many. You've had many. Yeah. Because I've had like internships and all kinds of stuff. It is a specific feeling for me.

It's a very specific grammes adult like no one's here but adults.

It almost feels like a penitentiary, like they're not inviting. When you roll up in front of a huge office building. Yeah. You're not like, oh, I'm home.

No, only this monolith. I've got to navigate my way to this tiny office. That's one of a thousand in this building.

Yeah, but I guess part of it is it's good that it doesn't feel like home.

Sure. So be productive. Yeah. And then you leave and then you go home. It feels like a separate place. Yeah. Where our jobs don't really feel like a separate place. Not this specific, maybe even acting.

It's like you do you go there but then you come home and it's a part of you and like generally I pull up to work and there's a trailer and it's more like a home away from home and I'm excited to get into my little mouse. Yeah.

So I just remembered I was going to tell you. So we know somebody who just got in some trouble.

Twitter trouble. Twitter trouble.

Yeah, it's called t t t t t for some tweets she wrote a long time.

Eleven. Oh no, nine years ago, 2011, 2011, nine years ago.

The tweet is it's offensive to disabled folks. But what's interesting is it's a joke on the stereotype of Asians, which is Asians are the stereotype. Asians are super smart. Yes. So the tweet was we shouldn't use the word retarded anymore.

We should refer to them as Asian-Americans. Now, the joke is it's against what the stereotype of Asians is. Yes.

Look, I also don't think those are good tweets. I don't think she should have tweeted them. But I also. We know her. Yeah. And hasn't written anything like that in nine, eight, nine years. And so for me, when I see that, I'm like, that is how you measure change, how someone has evolved and changed and before even.

It's it's also kind of a because she's not a provocative tweeter. So it's as though she was she was.

Oh, she's she has changed a lot.

I think I was gonna say it's also a comment on what the cultural sensitivity was nine years ago.

It's hard to remember exactly what the temperature was for sure. I know I said it in 2012 and hit and run. Mm. And some people were upset, but not a lot of people.

That was 2012. Yes. People are starting to say, let's stop saying that word in movies. Right.

You're always in this tricky position when you're writing a movie, which is are you painting an accurate picture of what people are like or do you have characters in your movie that are realistic and of the the town that they would be in? And is it accurate or not, like people, you know, a good chunk of the country saying that word?

Right.

And so if you have a character that's kind of backwards and everything else, it's kind of untrue to pretend they would say the other version of it.

Totally.

So you're in this quagmire between am I in my realistic or do I pretend people don't say that word for the movement?

Because, like, you shouldn't say the N-word. But clearly, when we do movies, especially if they're historical in there about racist people, it feels fraudulent or dishonest to not have them say the word.

But I think that's a little different. Right, because you're you're not saying it's OK. You're saying this is what it looks like when someone says that. And it's like, is that character, are you celebrating them, are you correct? Right. Yeah, I think that's the big that's the big distinction. But anyway, so those tweets, like, came to surface yesterday and she posted like a really big, long apology message.

And I was looking at all the comments and I just was like, I have to comment.

Oh, what was the pervasive well. Theme of the comments? Was there consensus? No.

So there were so many people, real mad, really, really mad, mad at the tweet, at the doormat, at her apology.

Well, it was tricky because the first response was because the verified ones go to the top. I think that's why it's like looks first. So this person is someone verified and he's white and he he says it's not my apology to accept, but all the blah, blah, blah, blah. And a bunch of people jumped on that. And it's like, yeah, it's not it's not your apology to accept, even though he acknowledged that. So it was tricky because it's like a lot of people who are affected by the tweet who are upset.

And then there were a handful of white people who are defending. And so then that became like, yeah, white people. You just don't get it. So then it's this whole thing. So I was like, I think I have to comment because I'm the only person who is technically affected by the tweet and knows her and knows she's a good person.

Can I ask really quick, technically how you were affected?

Because I am Asian-American and I did look at, oh, I'm still hung up on the R word. Right. So that's also it's weird. Like there's like a few people who are like, actually it should be more on this, but everyone's upset about the Asian-American part.

Oh, wow. Her aside. Yeah. You know, the validity of that, whatever that aside, inviting judgment in twenty, twenty four things she said in 2006. Is this a bad idea?

Because again, we do lose sight of how different things were when I was a part of Storyline's in twenty only four or five and six that just you wouldn't be in those storylines now.

I 100 percent agree. Did it make you think I was like it's so funny because I know her. Yeah. And I know that how unequivocally she's on the side of good even more because I know that. Then I read her tweet with the most good faith I possibly can. And then I was like, can you imagine if we applied that same good faith to all the tweets we read?

But that's why. Because I thought that too. I was like, well, I'm obviously giving her the benefit of the doubt because I know her and I know what's true about her. And OK, so these other people who tweet crazy things, they probably have people who defend them for the same reason. But here's the difference. If Meghan if she tweeted it a month ago, I would be like, hey, you can't, you can't.

And this is why. Yeah, but because it was so long ago and there has been a clear change and you can see someone's evolution. It's like that's really all you can ask. Yeah. But like with the other people, like people would say like Trump's racist and they can point to a hundred times over the course of time leading up to now where that has proven to be true. Not like in nineteen eighty eight. He said one thing. Right, right.

It's a pattern. You have to just like follow the pattern.

The tricky thing for me and I guess, look, I'm a dinosaur, I'm getting old. The world makes more sense to me. I'm wrong. I'm just wrong more often than I'm right.

I will say all these words. What's really funny is what we have a problem with is how how people look nervously in a restaurant at a family who's got a mentally challenged kid.

And then that's obviously what is painful, is to have people stare at you like you're in other. We get really hung up on what word we're referring to that on. We're placing all of our discomfort with how people are treated until the word. And my hunch is every time we pick a new word and we're cool with it, inevitably that word then will become its own land mine.

Because, you know, I wrote this big thing in a script I wrote once about the term made like no one uses the term made anymore in Los Angeles, you'd say your housekeeper or whatever. And then some people say, my house manager, whatever, gets elevated.

And at some point you go, what's demeaning isn't the name. What's demeaning is that one human's cleaning up another human shit.

Now we can keep getting hung up on the name, but that's not really what we're meaning, that they're not getting paid. Yeah, it's just like a smokescreen.

And you even look at it with the evolution of, like, calling black folks Negroes then colored. That was an improvement from Negro and then colored was bad and then African-American and then black. And it's like. We keep changing this name forever, what the issue is, how we're treating the people, and then the name becomes really symbolic of the mistreatment and I just think it's not upstream. It's like the last stop is what you're actually referring to this injustice.

Yeah, I agree. The name is just indicative of the behavior. But if the name triggers the feeling of being demeaned. Yeah. Then we shouldn't say it, you know, and leave it up to the marginalized group to decide what they want to be called. I think that's fine. But so I wrote as of today, we are no longer friends.

No, I did not. I wrote All you can ask of a person is to acknowledge, learn and grow from mistakes. And then I said, You're a good person. Megan, as someone who's Asian-American and knows you personally, I feel qualified to say that. And of course, people are mad at my ass, which I knew would happen, but I didn't care because it's true.

And what I also know is true is none of her friends can comment.

They're not allowed to because they'll get canceled. Yeah, they're not allowed. And so I was like, I'm happy you did that.

I have to. Yeah. Anyway, so that's something happening on the Internet right now. Yeah. Yeah, that's an update.

That's our five minutes on the Internet. What's what's new in the Internet. I guess you're judged by your reaction to it is what Hussin said does or a couple of different people have said. You said, look, look, everyone can fuck up, literally, the only thing is like how do you react to it? And sounds like she reacted is yeah, but she's taking as much responsibility. I'd be tempted to defend explain the joke. I'm to be like, I don't think people are getting the joke, but it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because it's so privileged to say my wanting to make a good joke is more important than your feeling the world.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah.

But I guess it's like when you're in a fight too with your wife or your partner, your loved one, and you're like, yes, you're right. You're right, you're right. I just, I just got to because I didn't get home at nine.

I got, I got home at seven.

I know that's not the point, but it's like you feel so like in this litany of things I did wrong, a few things I did right. I want recognition right now.

I, I, I just wonder what you know, we all recognize that most things in society are our pendulum's. Right. They're kind of like have intensity than they they ebb and flow.

And I guess I'm a little concerned what the the ebb and the flow of this will be, because you get so fatigued.

We all have like a finite appetite for all of this as is. So you're just like, I'm overwhelmed and I'm unplugging or I'm retreating or I don't want to know anymore. I can't take on anymore.

And I just wonder what that critical mass is and then how much stuff will get missed.

Because I get I get all of that because I feel it.

And then I every time I do, I think that is literally how the black folks are feeling every day because of this.

Yeah. Yeah. Someone just made a oh. Oh fuck. It was the Jon Stewart interview you sent me, by the way.

What's the title of that? I implore everyone to die. Yeah. New York Times Jon Stewart interview from last week promoting his new movie, Jon Stewart. We want you on.

So bad, so bad. He just has the most phenomenal way of making points. He said, you know, after six weeks of people, white people being quarantined.

Yeah, they were like, no, fuck it. I don't care if I get this disease. And he's like, imagine four hundred years of that. That's really what it is.

I know there's there's been some great memes that have really gotten it right. Also just saying that like putting it in perspective that they. Oh yeah.

They've done these side by side protest signs right. Where one woman's like, I need a fucking haircut and the other person's like, I need to breathe.

Yes. Yeah, they're pretty staggering. Yeah.

But, uh, but happy birthday, everyone. You're looking for a nice transition into positive.

Well, I do think I like that word dedicating slots to the topic. And I also like that there's a day of none of it. I want to be able to give both a reprieve and dig into it.

Yeah, but even on the days that are all about it, there's other conversations that come in and out. I feel more along the lines of if we're going to reflect what it should be, it shouldn't be this insane intensity and then nothing more than an insane intensity and then nothing. It's like this is a part of our lives. Karen is a part of our lives. Race is a part of our lives. So avocado toast is a part of our lives.

So, you know, it's like this is all a part of what we do.

Like like on this episode with Blake, we recorded this before the protest, the protests. But we talk about race in this episode.

We talk about his life and Sterling, Donald Sterling, Sterling, and we talk about him feeling like he had to choose, he had to choose whether he was going to hang out this white friend. He was going to hang out with his black friend. And it all felt so separate and he had to make decisions.

And can I just say we've not really had any athletes on.

Yeah, I loved it. I got so there was like a whole world of interest.

We've never got to ask totally like even the how you negotiate a first round. That was like I've been dying to know that for twenty years.

I thought it was so funny. He is amazing. I really, really liked him. I think I was like, what an amazing guess and so interesting and what a different world and the whole thing. I want to assure the athletes on I really dug it.

Yeah, me too. I enjoyed it a lot. Yeah. He's a cool guy, Kouka. Younger than me. Embarrassing. Would you date him. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

I want to see you guys together. That height difference. I would love to be so exciting. Like is open for business.

I'm here, I'm waiting.

OK, so he mentioned the Bill Murray Space Jam.

He's and I didn't really know what he was talking about, but I, I guess I forgot Bill Murray was in Space Jam. Yeah, right. Yeah.

I totally didn't realize that.

Yeah. I mean, I loved Space Jam as a young person.

You weren't a comedy nerd yet. Yeah, so I didn't know that or I was just an old man. That's a big get.

But Bill Murray is the ultimate sports fan. You know that about him. He's like commentated on ESPN. He plays in every single celebrity golf tournament. He like, lives for golf. He loves sports. So that's kind of a trick way to get Bill Murray in.

So I bet he was like, yeah, hang out with fucking Michael Jordan for three months. What I don't care how shitty this thing is, I got to do it.

That makes sense. Yeah. He says people forgot I got the assist on the game winning basket. It's so easily forgotten. I stole the ball. I made the pass. Nothing. I don't even get interviewed after.

That's Bill Murray said, yeah, OK. The book on the psychology of tennis. There's there's a book called The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Galloway. That's the one that kept popping up when I typed in psychology of tennis or sports psychology, tennis. So I think that's one.

Although there's so many sports psychology books, I'm not sure and I could be wrong in the history of sports psychology, but I do think it gained popularity or awareness with tennis specifically. I think those were the first athletes to start really using.

Yeah, psychology makes sense because I guess tennis is such a mental game. It is a mind fuck. Yeah. When you're up like forty fifteen and then all of a sudden you're in deuce you know, like how the fuck did this happen.

Now I got to win two in a row and all of a sudden you just like collapse mentally. It's a damn fun game. I'm not good at it but every time I play I do really enjoy it.

But I'm so bad at it. I mean, I've never taken a lesson or anything, so I'm just kind of like running around. I'm leaving.

OK, bye bye. I wanted a Diet Coke. I'm sorry.

Did you see my pledge to try to get Diet Coke to sponsor me?

I did, yeah. I also you posted about the ball sack cowboy painting, and I just want people to know that's in my house.

Yeah, well, I think people are fans of the show know it is. The reason I posted it was because Aaron was telling his friend about it. Yeah. And then the guy got curious in there and said, do you have a picture of it? And I found one. And then I thought I should share this.

It's becoming a valuable piece of art. I'm nervous someone's going to break into my house and try to steal it.

We've talked often about what a guy on a first date being brought back to Monica's apartment, I would think, because she has a whole wall dedicated to pervy pictures.

Sort of, yeah. It's not a wall. It's a bench. And all of this stuff is kind of up, up, up against it right now. But it was an accident. It was just like, oh, I'm I'm just putting all this stuff I can't put up on a wall yet on this bench. And it turns out most of it's pervy.

Yeah. So you got the ball sack, cowboy. Well, that's hanging up. That's hanging. Yeah. And then you have the Paul Walker amazing piece. Ah that's who's probably worth one hundred million dollars.

You had that commission so. Yeah.

And then you've got some really nice needlepoint from our friend Laura. Yeah. This is great tits.

Yeah. It's two birds, tits, birds and it's just great tits. It's beautiful, it's beautiful. It's gorgeous.

And I have another thing too. Yeah. Octopus made of penis. The tentacles are penises.

Yes. I won that at a white elephant. But if you're like new to your apartment. Oh yeah.

You might go like I don't know if I've got enough gas for this gal. She's a straight up perv.

Well, maybe that's the right. Oh yeah. Maybe you are. It maybe it's not false advertising.

Yeah. I'm warning them exactly what's going to happen.

It's as advertised. OK, so Blake, so he said the compensation for Oklahoma schools is really bad for teachers. Might be bottom five. And then when I looked it up, the list I saw, which I think was from twenty eighteen, I think it was second to last. Oh boy.

Yeah, it was behind Montana and then Missouri was one above it. So Montana was the worst. And then Oklahoma and then Missouri and I think it was, it was thirty one thousand something. That's what a teacher makes there. Yeah. Mm.

It's not a lot, not enough.

Teachers have to buy their own in addition to not getting paid anything, they also have to like buy their own supplies, supplies.

It's that's a huge mess.

It's not the the high water mark of our country. It's not. We got to work on that. We got to work on this.

OK, he said he got drafted in 2009 when Twitter was relatively new.

Oh, this circles all the way back to Twitter at twenty six is when Twitter jumped on the scene.

I think I joined really soon in. Yeah, yeah. I think it was early adopter. Early adopter. I know exactly where I was when I created my account. I was at my father in law's house in Utah while he's living in Utah. We were in route to Wyoming. Oh, I'm like, I'm going to join this thing and start telling people what I think all the time.

I know. Hopefully it'll come back to haunt me years later.

I remember also starting it, I was living in my parents house because I twenty six, I think I also joined really early. Twenty six was my freshman year of college.

I feel like it would be more resonant if I was in college because I'd be reading tweets and then seeing the people. Right. Because your friends. Right. Oh, but I mainly just like, followed celebrity. Oh, OK, that and then I get maybe you. Oh I doubt it. I had, I wasn't in Aurora was. I am paranoid. I don't know. I was in on parenthood. Yeah. And I probably wouldn't. Who cares.

I just made it all about being back to him getting drafted in 2009.

OK, so twenty six is when Twitter began. OK, so this is really interesting. What's the percentage of people who win the lottery who go broke.

What is your guess. I say 40.

Over the past couple of years, several news organizations have attributed a statistic to the National Endowment for Financial Education stating that 70 percent of lottery winners end up bankrupt in just a few years after receiving a large financial windfall of 70 percent, 70 percent.

Well, my assumption for how it went wrong with those people was that people have not had that kind of money.

A, do they realize it's going to get paid over 20 years? So they like, oh, I have 10 million dollars. We don't know. You have 300 grand a year for the night or whatever the numbers are. Yeah.

And then so does that occur to them after they've bought a bunch of shares, they thought they had all this money, but then. Oh, I guess they only have after taxes 150 a year. I can't live in a mansion.

Yeah. I mean some happening clearly. Seventy. Easy come. Easy go I guess.

Yeah. That's sad. It's really sad. Yeah. A lot of suicides too in that group.

Well probably because of this the yo yo emotionally of like having nothing or having whatever you have which is probably normal and good. Yeah. Then having this crazy amount but then losing it like this is not good for your brain. No.

Or body is it better to have had and lost or to never had it all.

Oh that's about life. I know but I wanted to apply like money.

The thirty four thirty on Donald Sterling is a podcast. I thought it was a show.

It's going to be they keep advertising. Oh yeah. You said they're going to do a doc.

Right. Which I can't wait to watch. Oh yeah. Well the one he was talking about that he was a part of. Oh is a podcast I believe there's a five episode podcast. Thirty four thirty podcasts on it.

I started it last night. Oh you did good. Yeah. So fascinating.

I want to listen if you had to pick a gun to your head, OK, the rest of your life you can either only see narrative's or you can only see documentaries.

Oh and they'll be let's say in this hypothetical there'll be a consistent stream of either like they'll be just as many docsis there would have been narrative's and vice versa. And of similar quality, there are similar quality, we got to make everything equal and is the quality high for both?

Mm hmm. That's a little easier for me to pick because you picked. OK, I would.

I mean, it's so fascinating when one is great. Yeah. In here, I get blown away in a level that I just don't from a made up story. I think I agree.

If the level is high a documentary, I pick that. But if the level is like mediocre or middle, I think I might pick narrative like how about this?

You can only have seen one of these two things, either the last stand.

Oh, my. Or the first season, because we got to compare 10 and 10 episodes of Handmaids, the last dance, last dance, but I thought you were going to say fleabag.

Oh. And I was like, I would be really hard for me, too.

That's a I'm glad you thought of that one, because I don't think I was.

I had one in the chamber, like fleabag made me feel new things like Last Dance did. Yeah. Handmaids is unbelievable. I love that show so much. And it does. I mean, it makes me think, but it doesn't give me a feeling necessarily that like I got with fleabag and I got with last dance.

So that's harder for me. Yeah. Yeah. My info junkie. I know.

I know.

That's the same Foljambe also the docs are such fodder for conversation. Exactly. Yeah.

And there's like I feel like there's more pausing when watching a doc same fleabag where you like really hammered out with everyone and real. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.

I think I agree. This is the Sophie's Choice. That's all for Blake.

Nice. Blake a really really liked him so much. I related to that was such a fun conversation. You, you acted like I didn't know anything about basketball which is true. Well like yeah.

I was nervous that like when someone comes within two points of Larry Bird in college or a game like some of these, you know, really Outfest ever.

And he's like within a few points of those people, it's like it's it's a big deal. It is. I almost feel bad for him.

It's like, you know, anyone in a post Jordan era or a, you know, post Kobe era, the bar is so insanely high that it's hard to be recognized. What afine you could be a phenom and not, you know. Yeah, yeah. I guess. Who cares.

I guess that's your ego, right? You still you're if you're that good, which he is, you're going to keep playing what she does and you're going to make money and do what you love to do every day and that's enough. Yeah.

It just had there not been a Larry Bird that bit him, you know, he would have that record. And if there wasn't this guy, that's just two points away.

Two points. Yeah, it's crazy. So he's playing for your team. I know Detroit. I'd have to start watching basketball again so I can cheer on my new friend in my hometown.

Well, if I start dating and then we can all go hang out in Michigan. Yeah, we'll stay at his place. All right. Well, I love you and I love you. And it'll be really fun going on.

Double date, you guys. I'll try not to monopolize them me be like stop talking, monopolising my boy kind of talk to him.

I treat my name right. Yeah, that's my painting.

OK, I love you back.