TOM's Talks | Quinn Buckner

He won the state championship in high school in Illinois, the NCUBAA championship at Indiana, and Olympic gold medal with the US team in seventy six and an NBA championship with Boston in nineteen eighty four. He talks about those teams, plus he touches on Bobby Night, Red Hourback, Michael Jordan, and Moore on this week's Tom's Talks podcast. Welcome to another edition at Mom's Talks, and we're joined by Quinn Buckner, one of the winningest basketball players in the history of

our sport, and he joins us. I'm assuming from Indiana, Quinn, where he's getting ready to call the patient's games in the NBA restart and one thank you for joining us. How is life in Indiana, Well, Thomas, it's it's like a lot of other places. I think our state has done a pretty good job trying to manage COVID, and you have the social unrest and that's that's tapering on.

But COVID is managed your bowl and I use that word in quotes, but we're all in all, I'm on the right side of the grass and all the important things are fine. Thank you. So you're getting ready to call these games? I know Fox Sports Indiana has announced that they are going to call all the games. Production means, what do you think that's going to be like for you and Chris to call the game not at the site but back there in Indiana when the games are

being played in Orlando. Well, we remotely did this when the patients played SA Cremental in India. And I've been blessed enough, and I know you have two time to be in this business long enough that periodically you do that. I've done world feeds and be on a site other than where the event has occurred. This will be a little different, only because I think there's got to be some social distancing in terms of what you normally see on a broadcast because normally played by playing analysts are

seated together. That's probably not going to be the case at least six feet apart. But as a rule, this is something we've done before. We will make it interesting though, is the fact that you don't have fans because one of the things that I think when you do games remote, you're able to get some audio feed that gives you a sense of the arena and it allows you to generate a certain amount of energy or really just receive

a certain amount of energy. Here. I think this is going to be much like studio where you're at a game and that has all the energy comes back to the studio and you have to generate your own energy in order to have the fans feel engaged that with you because you're not on site. So that will make it interesting. But for me, it's just fun and I'll be another challenge, and I actually kind of like the

idea of doing it. Really. One of the reasons we're having you on it's the Sixes and Pacers are going to play the first official game for it's both these teams in the restart and of course they're tied in the Eastern Conference right now in fifth in sixth place. The Pacers at the edge of the key game one series Invis, what do you think about that's the first game, and of course for you guys, the status of both Broaddain as we speak in all the depot is key.

But the Pacers going forward as we get we started and playing the Sixers in the first game, well, I think it's going to be difficult for everybody. And this is just my perception of this. You've got young men that have to unpack a whole lot given life in the last four or five months. And what this is coming down to is it's this is a cliche as it can get its mental toughness. Who can really find a way to resharpen if you will that tool and the tool being the mental tool. You got two weeks

to work on your physical skills. I think that will help and hopefully keep guys from being injured. But I still think that this has as much as a mental aspect. Now you lose depending on what happens with Victor and Malcolm. Those are two of your top line players and you there's some uncertainty, I say for sure. About Victor, I don't know about Malcolm. Malcolm is back and I know he's he's back working out, and Victor has been working out. So the question is whether or not they have been

able to do this on a consistent basis. But look planned the Sixers, you know, do you see it all the time? They're no joke, I mean, really talented team. You've added, you know, Shakee Milton has been one of those. I think one of the real surprises in the leagues,

one of the shocks in the league. You're looking to add some perimeter shooting with him at forty five percent from a three line, so you're now doing that and Ben Simmons at four wh so you you But in the meantime, you're probably going to have more ball handlers on the floor, so you become a different team to

play against. And that's what's interesting that the Pacers have to be prepared to play a team in the first game that's very different than the pacer of the six Ers team that they've played before, and so I think it'll be a task, but it still depends on who is better prepared. I think much more from a mental standpoint than a physical standpoint. One of the players that's been a bench contributor for the Pacers his former sixer team,

Gay McConnell. What have you seen and what if you like fromcconnell in his one year and in the end, the same thing all all the Philly loves. You gotta love a guy who brings it. I mean, he matches his he matches what he can do from a pure basketball standpoint and from a physical standpoint. But he's a great I think he does a great job helping the team on the floor aggregate or get to come together because he's a guy that finds open people. He's got

some Tenna City about it. He's gotten real toughness about it, high level understanding, and a really good teammate. And you know, I like him because he reminds me a lot of the things that I've seen other players who have limited skills do but do it. He's not as big as everybody, and he doesn't care about that. He knows what he can do. He's confident in it, and his teammates a confident that he'll come in and make a contribution. He's been a great addition with the second unit, and particularly

when he and Si Bonus are in there together. The second unit for the Pacers' is very effective because TJ knows who needs what, when and where, how to get it in and out of places, and a lot of again, a lot of the great things you saw when he was a Sixer he brought to the Pacers because of

the second unit. McDermott was talking that the Pacers as a whole are you got some players that were already treated or had to come there in the case of Brocken as a free agent, but Si Bonus and then the guy and the other TJ that not a lot of people talk about is TJ Warren and he had like a twenty eight thirty point game. Again to sixers, it's a group that has, I think something to prove. And speaking of Indiana, well, I think that's what Kevin Pritchett,

the president of Basketball, is really gotten. You get guys that are underappreciated, if you will, and I think that's what that situation is. And when you have guys like that who come in and people don't necessarily give them maybe the kind of respect that they feel like they do, they know they have to continue to earn it. And one of the things that I've always thought about. Our league is a team that can play the hardest and the longest or and ors, if you will stay motivated,

has the best chance to win. So you get a number of guys like that, and you're right. T J. Warrens has been a welcome surprise. And I say welcome, but not because of his offense. T J. Warren is a good defensive player, and I don't think anybody thought that. So he's now combining that which he stretched the three ball out, and now he's doing that with consistency. He's become a tough player to guard on offense, but he's a tough player to play against when he's playing defensively.

So there's some really good things with him coming over to the team as well. All right, let's turn to Quinn Buckner, as I said, a champion multiple times at both high school, college, the Olympics, the NBA, and we'll get into the NBA. You were with the eighty four Celtics team that won the championship. But it all started for you, not even in Indiana, but at Dalton Thorndridge High School and for our Philadelphia fans, that's right in the neighborhood where Donovan McNabb grew up, and two a

state champion in like nineteen seventy four. You want to right, wasn't that two times in a round. Yeah, I'm my high school team, and I'm proud of all of my teams. My high school teams were really good. We wanted. We only lost one game between my junior senior year in high school, and we won the state championship both times undefeated my senior year and had really good players on guys that are just you know, a lot like teams that I've been blessed enough to play on. They just

played it and they play for each other. And this outside of Chicago, so we have to play some schools in Chicago and still was able to withstand that, and being from Philly, you know how it is when you've got the suburban schools, people don't quite have the same appreciation for your game. And being able to be some of the Chicago schools periodically, I enjoyed that as much

as anything else. So that championship was in March of nineteen seventy four, and like Indiana, in Illinois, it was just a huge thing, like to go downstage and lead aid and I've shared this with you before and I laughed, But in this forum I happen. And so I was in fifth grade and you were a senior at dolg Thorndridge High School. At Recess, I would go out there, we would pick up and I had to be Quinn Buckler. But like I said, everybody wanted to be Quinn Buckner

those some days I had to be Boyd Back. That brings your back a little bit. Uh yeah, boy Batts was actually the best player on our team from a pure skilled perspective. He was six six. A lot of the things you could see with guys of that size, you see to Dave routine Lee. Six six guys can handle the ball. He played center for us. He can make shots, he could block shots. There wasn't anything he couldn't do. He every now and then we'd have to kind of jerk him back into you know, you're playing

with a team, you're not playing for yourself. So he was a terrific player. And we had great roles who was a great athlete and a terrific shooter. But I look guard Mike Bondsick was really the key because he was a kid who his father had been a coach, and because of that, he understood how to pull people together, could past the ball. He'd hit you in the head with it if you weren't paying attention. So it brought

something there. But and then the other guy we had was Ernie Done, and Ernie Done was by far the intellectually the brightest guy that we had on the team, and he knew how to be a really good teammate and had solid skills. Not great, had solid skills. I'm a football player, honestly, that played basketball, and I was a little bit of a man child, more so in elementary school but in high school as well, because I was on When I left elementary school, I was about

six feet in one hundred and eighty. I was big then so and my dad had played sports, so I had a mentality which I carried through my entire life about I was never going to be the best athlete, so I wasn't as I worked on my game, but I worked. That's the shoulders down. My father helped me understand shoulders up part of the game, and that's really what I think enabled me to be able to play with really good players and accept whether I could make

a contribution in one place or another. Right, So he played in the defensive secondary in high school. And you actually went to Indiana, as we know, and we're going to get into with the basketball, but you've played from the mistaken defensive back for two years under who's your football team? Yeah, I played. I played football all four years of high school, and you're right. I was a defensive back and played I played a little all of skill positions except quarterback. When I got to college, I

got ready to go to college. My father had gone and my father, my father was a god Busses, so it was ahead of me many many years. So I go to Indiana. I had never seen coach and I coach had no idea what I was getting into. But I you know that era it is whomever is in charge, you respect to do what they ask. My father put me on a football scholarship and I asked him about that and I said why. He said, because I didn't

necessarily want coach. He knew how coach coach. I didn't want him to have that kind of control over you. And I thought that was an interesting observation. I asked him that actually after I was done. But yeah, I played two years of football. I started at free safety and and now I can honestly, I had a gift. I'm just telling you I had a gift as six to two hundred at that time, I'm running a four or five forty as a free safety and so, and I wasn't afraid of the game. And you can't be

afraid of football football. You gotta play, and you know, you gotta listen. You gotta be prepared to take somebody's head off, because for sure they're doing that. So I did that for two years and it was fun. But my passion was basketball. My greatest gift was athletic ability football. My passion was basketball, and that's how I ended up being a basketball player. And what a crew. I mean the Indiana Hoosiers and again I shared on a Farm

Bureau Insurance television. I got to watch those games. And what people forget. People may remember that Indiana won the nine the national championship in Philadelphia at the Spectrum in nineteen seventy six, But the previous year, you guys were undefeated in the Big Ten. The last game Scott May out of Sandeski, Ohio breaks his arm in that Purdue game and end up losing to Kentucky. So you're right there.

You're a championship caliber team and you get turned away in part because Scott May got hurt, but then you go undefeated the next year. That it reminds me of the Spurs that one year they got right to the cusp, but I think it was against the heat and they came all the way back. I mean, to win the regular season, you know, that good record, and didn't back and win the championship, and that's what your team did.

Let's feel the thing that you've hit on it. And I think it's really important people just kind of take this in context. What we were able to do in seventy six was primarily because of what we didn't do in seventy five, because you still have to have a high level of drive and focus on your mission, obviously to win the championship, and when you feel that you have the best team in basketball the year before Scott

May breaks his arm. But I think people need to understand when Scott healthy, he carried us a long way, and the next year that he was a Player of the Year in the in college basketball. So you're talking about a terrific player and he wasn't at full scale. But even at that, you know how how small it is a minuscule the chances are for things to go exactly the way you want them to go. Therefore, you have to make sure you put that extra effort. And

I'm a firm believer. First of all, seventy five team was better just if Scott's healthy. But seventy six team was driven by the fact that we didn't have the success that I think some of us thought we should have had in seventy five. So it kept us emotionally at a higher pitch and allowed us to stay focused on winning the championship, knowing if you don't make a play, I don't care when it is. It can be the difference between you're not winning and losing the game, but

winning and losing the championship. But you're thinking that every time you make a plot, a play has to be made. So that's what I really that's my feeling about that. But as much as anything, I'm equal. I'm probably going undefeated. I get it. But we went two years in Big Ten Conference and didn't lose the game. That to me is a bigger feat in its own right. When you

think about now, they call him big five conference. But Big Ten has always had great athletics at the football basketball level, and to do that to me, says, this was a team that was was pretty good. Absolutely beat Ricky Green in Michigan for the champion and like to Cincinnati read of that era. I could name your entire left out and Green Rots and Vincent Mayer. What was it like playing for Body Night coach who was demanding. But I come from a father who was demanding. As

I said, my father was was an athlete. My father was one of those people who think if you had to tell you twice, you had a problem. So I was that part. I dealt with what I didn't deal with well, and particularly my sophomore year. I kind of just got through it my freshman year because you're just trying to acclaiment was I didn't didn't care for the

way the message was delivered. And at one point my father and I had had a conversation and he even suggested that I might consider leaving because I had a search. I don't remember what it was, but tom something happened and I was trying to get it corrected and talked to coach Night. He wouldn't talk to me. He walked up the stairs and say, I don't have anything to say to you, and he said it certain with some

extra words. My fathers. I talked to him about it, and we go through this whole conversation as you would with your child, missais Son. You either make nitre's a question. Either listen to what he says and do that and take out of consideration how he says it. You'll be fine if you can't do that, and you mayn't want to consider going somewhere else. And that really triggered for me because what he was, what he said, and in addition to what he said, he said because if it's

the right thing to do, do it. So if you take it out of context in terms of how it's delivered and take the message as the message, he was right the majority of I mean, he was right. As a rule. He's a he's a brilliant guy, so he was right. So I had to get to that to be able to not have any anxiety or whatever you want to call it for playing for coach. But the thing I knew for him he had done something. When I was a freshman, Minnesota had the great team. Dave Winfield,

who's the great player, Jim Brewer, Clyde Turner. They had a heck of a team. They had the best team in the conference, there's no doubt about it. And they were going to play Northwestern near the end of the season and we were right there, tied with them, something right in there, and coach and I said, they're gonna lose a Northwestern now nor offense to Northwestern, and all of the journalists you and I know from Northwestern as

a basketball school, they weren't noted for that. And long behold, they went up there in Minnesota lost and that was one of the other things that got my attention. So from a buying perspective, you got buy in that. You know he knows what he's talking about. So when he starts sharing information and he keeps coming at you as hard as he did. And my dad and I had a discussion. I just took it, took the context. I

didn't take the way it came at me. And that's how I was able to do what I was We were able to do so just for today's Darken or Carland, somebody would say you didn't like his methodology. No, I didn't like his methodology, but I love the guy. Because the other thing I knew about him for sure time. There wasn't any question about And I think when you manage people that way, I don't think you can do it anymore. They have to know that you care about them, right,

And that's part of leadership. If I know you care about me and you're coming at me with that, I can deal with it. It's like family. You know, family comes at you sometime and you're like, look at them, all right, Well it was That's what it was like. But the methodology, let's put it this way. That's not my method We'll have more of my conversation with Quinn Buckner after this. In this time of social distancing, Novacare Rehabilitation is offering physical therapy from the comfort and safety

of your home. Through their new tell a Rehab program, Novacare will virtually bring their services to you so you may heal, build strength, and get back to the things you love. Tell a Rehab let you easily connect with one of Novacare's licensed therapists through web based technology that is Hippo compliant. For more information, visit novacare dot com. Now back to my chat with Quinn Buckner. So, and I don't want to discount this because then after that

you'd already played kind of international level. But that summer, you know, you end up getting drafted by Milwaukee seventh overall. But you play in the nineteen seventy six United States Olympic gold medal gay team in Montreal, and like I said, to put it on USA in the winning goal. What did that feel like? A little more about that, Well, let me just give you a couple of things that have happened. Coach Knight knew I wanted to be an Olympian, and because I wanted to be an Olympian, more sold

than playing in the NBA, I hadn't thought about. I wasn't sure if I was skilled enough. Honestly, I just wasn't sure. So I played on the international team's my first three years from school, including when Larry Bird came to Indiana. I was in an international competition when Larry Bird came from French Lick, Indiana to come team to

the university. For the first two weeks, I was playing with David Thompson and that great team with Norm Sloan, Mony Tow and Tom Burleson, And so I wasn't there to help Larry kind of I think accla made himself through that. But my point was simply, coach Knight kept involved in international competition to prepare for the opportunity to be on the Olympic team. Now, as many of those closer to our age, you know, seventy two, it was taken from us. There's no question they was taken from us.

They played a game three times, they try to get the outcome the last I think three minutes to get the outcome they want. So we were considered, you know, Scott May, Adrian Danley, what Ernie Grunfelt, Mitch cup Check, Phil Ford, Walter Dames. I mean, we've got a real crew. Those guys are legit. Those are all really good basketball players. And so there was some real question as to whether or not Coach Smith, Dean Smith for those of you who don't know, great coach Smith and coach Thompson. John

Thompson was an assistant, right. I mean, we had a heck of the staff, but people didn't think that we were going to be able to do it because we didn't have size, hadn't been together, and it was our thought that we're gonna again talk about the motivation. When I was a senior in college the same thing. For this, we're highly motivated to get that back. I don't know. I mean, you can always speculate had we consistently been winning, we'd had the same motivation because you would take it

for granted. The Russians were really good and they're the ones that took that. The game went to and seventy two, but we didn't play them in the final game. We played Yugoslavia, who was really big. Then it's it's not you no longer Yugoslavia, but that's what it was then, and for me, there is no better feeling. And from an athletic standpoint, even when an NBA championship as happened as I was then, then representing your country and the sport that you have been participating in and playing the

national answer for that, that's huge. I get shields about that thought. Even today. It's one of the greatest things I've ever been involved in. I get love in my throat thinking about it. So then you go to the Bucks and in your fifth year under Nelly, you guys are really good. You win sixty games and you get into the Eastern Conference semifinals one nineteen eighty one and you faced Doctor j and the Sixers and they knocked you out. And tell me a little bit about the

well we had struggled. We were green and growing, if you will, the first couple of years. Because for those of you who don't remember, and this is really revision as history, Junior Bridgeman, who was a terrific player, Brian Winners was on our team. Dave Myers had left our team. We had like Mickey Johnston at the time, but Dave Myers is Andy Myers's brother and was a great UCLA player. They had come over in the Kareem trade. I came the year after that, and then we got Kent Benson,

Marcus Johnson, Sydney Moncrief. Bob Lanier is on our team. So we've got a team that can play. But listen, yeah, Bobby Jones and Doc and most cheeks. It really just came down to, you know, there is more skills. I mean, I'm just that's really what it was. We were trying to hang in there, and I don't think we had the kind of confidence you need when you play a team. But that kind of talent where you can give it to Doc at any moment and he could make some

kind of play that you've never seen before. Um, that's what you have to have when you're deep in the playoffs. As you know, time, the further you go in the playoffs, I think it's more about the talent. It really is. I mean, you could xenoy it, but the defense is going to be solid. They're going to be times that everybody knows what each other doing. Now, you gotta have a guy that can just find a way to get a bucket or get to the file life. Bobby Jones

would up, Mo would come up with the Steel. You know, Clint, you got guys doing that. Um, you know, you got a bunch of guys that can make plays. And for us, we just, honestly, I just didn't think, you know, in retrospect, I wasn't sure we had enough. That's not I'm not trying to complicate it. We just didn't have another. Right.

But later you get traded to the Celtics and the Dave Collin Steel and in your second year in Boston A three four, when sixty games and you're with Larry Bird and Shale and Perish and Ja you come off the bench and guys win the championship. One of the great NBA teams. You beat the Lakers. We that was terrific to give you a part of the way. I think, you know, so I'm Americana, if he will quote unquote having gone through high school with that success in the Olympic,

I always thought I was a Celtic at heart. I really did, because this is where Wayne Embery had drafted me. And Wayne Embery was a great player for the Celtics. He ended up when he's the one that actually got Kareem in Milwaukee. Wayne Embury and Coach Knight were really close. One of the guys that really that I got to know, and I mean one of the really bright men that I've ever been around was read our Back and Coach

Knight and read our Back were really close. And a matter of fact, Red would only ask Coach Knight about college players. The rest of it. He just kind of scouted on his own. So at one point what happened was after you after eighty one, we lose, you know eighty two. Basically we play and we're decent, I tear my thumb and I'm done. But it was it was a blessing because my son was born like a month later, so it was a blessing. So I find myself and

I'm going to Boston. Well, initially I was disappointed because my ego was in it. Frankly, I'm borderline All star starting whatever. Going to Boston obviously for my career was the greatest thing that could have happened, because I go to an organization that has established at the upper level of winning and you know, as you well know, having beat to seventy six ers at one point for the Eastern Conference championship, they were they were consistent, and they're

winning the year that I went. The first year, we weren't really good. We weren't tied together. We're good, we just weren't tied together. So in eighty three and toy four, you play in a series that's East Coast, West Coast, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and it's got everything you want in it. And I was just trying to make sure, as I always did on any team, that I can

make a contribution in any game. And when we lost, you know, it was one of those things because it was two three two and we'd lost, We were in the process of losing a game and Gerald Henderson's it was the ball and it really flips the series, because if you go down one one game and you go out to the other team's home court and they got three games, there's a chance you're gonna lose two of those games. So now you're looking at playing at some

point coming home to play an elimination game. So having whether that kind of storm, I think brought on a greater amount of intensity. But it couldn't have been any more fun than have done that and beating the Lakers, because you know they the Lakers and the Celtics as a rule in the Sixers had moved up there, but the Lakers and the Celtics have been a toast of the league. So to be able to beat them, and it was really show time against blue collar and you know,

as good as everybody. You know, Magic was good. Let me tell you what. The captain, the big fell Careem. Oh my goodness, people was out of this world. And

we just happened to have some guys play good. Cedric Maxwell, who played well against the Sixers, and eighty one and one the MVP played great for us in game seven, and it was really a part of why we were able to beat him and sold because we had Kevin mckell's Cedric didn't play a whole lot that year, but in that game he played like he'd been starting the entire year and was terrific in all aspects. And then you guys ended up playing the Lakers again in eight

and acted their revenge. Well we played, yeah, we actually played them again, and they called us. They beat us. It's just that simple. In eighty five we played them and then they beat us. Um, and they beat us, And I think it was a little bit because they didn't. You remember what I talked about Iu in the seventy five It is that that shadowed a doubt that you noticed there that allows you to play at a slightly higher level than you did before. And they did, and

they were for that series, they were better. You know, at some point you got met the guy's better that were just better. When watching the Last Dance, there was one of those sequences where Michael was a year going into you were in his inner circle with Michael Jordian. What did you see off the court as obviously you got to be friends with them. Um, really good guy,

he really is. He's a good guy. He's a smart guy. Um, but he's he's an intense competitor and everything, and you just know that when you deal with him, UM, and either you you're either going to have to be an intense competitor with him or you just don't compete with him on on on that, on anything. UM, but I don't at the last day. It was interesting even that he did it quite frankly as I as he but I think he felt it was something that needed to

have happened. I just was hoping that people could see that though he was competitive and he challenged internally and what they were doing, that at his heart, he's really a good human being. UM. And I've been blessed enough to be around a lot of guys at that level. I have a great you know this this relationship and Larry and those guys their intense personalities. Some people can be intense and play in the in the field or on the court and turn it off some camp it's

just how they're built. Because I don't know the thing and we were talking earlier, and I think it's important for people to understand. This is what I think is going to be the challenge, even in the bubble and the time frame, because the mental capacity to be able to withstand all of the things that come at you. That can be foreign to what is just a smooth ride.

You have to be able to endure. But that takes preparation, and the guys have been out of the game for a while and that ability to do that that those great players have, and they have it at a higher level, is a matter of preparation, and it's daily, daily preparation. It's minute by minute preparation. It's who they are. So I mean, that's that's what I know about them. At the end of the day. What you hope for all of them the good people, and I want the people

the casual fan who's listening to us. I don't care what you see from the ninety nine point nine percent. They are really good people that you see grow up right in front of your eyes. And sometimes they do and say some things that don't make sense for you,

and they really don't make sense for them. But they're young men and young women who make mistakes, and if you're around them on any prolonged period of time or you get the chance to sit with them, they realize they're just human beings that do what all of us do. They make mistakes, and they're smart. They'll grow and they'll learn well, Quinn. I can't think enough great insight, tremendous to talk to you. I wish you the best and hopefully we'll see u at some point down the road.

Who knows when that may be. Thanks a lot, I appreciate it, Tom Lukard, Thanks for listening to Tom's talks with me Tom McGinnis on the seventy six ers podcast Network. Check for new episodes every weekend