Coach K's Ways

country venus especially special Lebron James. We look for an opportunity of the the weekend on Athlama being the best in the world. I guess the Redeem Team is as it is right, We're the best team in the world. We're the best team in the world. We put fast football America basketball wheels beat, which is that time? Welcome to

episode five of Kobe Lebron and the Redeemed Team. I'm J Dande and we're calling this episode Coach K's ways to look at the strategies and the tactics that Mike Shook used not so much in the games, not the XS and oose, but it's about his approach to leading this team and getting the most from this group. It's about identity and community, but First, I have a quick

quiz from my co host Jack McCallum. Jack, can you spell Sewsky without hitting your keyboard and googling or any other cheating like that, You just spell for me k R g y z e w s k I no prom at all? Right, And that might be the easiest difficult name for me A spell as well, And it's it speaks to just how prevalent he's been for the last four decades that if you've covered basketball professional or college, you've written that name so many times that it comes easily.

It shouldn't make sense. The fact that we all know how to correctly pronounce Schefski, which looks nothing like the way you say it, really speaks to his imprint in

his stamp on the world of basketball. And Jack, now that you've passed through spelling tests, I want to know if you can give us a brief rundown of the role of the coach in USA basketball, because you were there from the first time NBA players came into international basketball, and how the role of the coach has changed from Chuck Daily leading the dream team to when Suzewski was called upon to coach this two thousand eighteen that's a good question. Mike's name, by the way, always reminded me

of the character in the Superman comics. Mr mix Plexis, did you ever did you ever read that if you had to get him to spell his name backwards to go back into the third dimension or wherever the hell

he was from. But anyway, the coaching role j and I think it's gonna speak to what happened in two thousand five when they finally decided we gotta get a program, you know, we gotta get like a thing with one coach and and a multi year commitment from players, because before that it was very Catches, catch Ken after Chuck Daily, and they gave the job, as they should have, to Lenny Wilkins, who was a loyal assistant on the ninety

two team. Lenny had a bunch of guys. As Charles Barkley put it, the knucklehead factor was very high on that team. I'm sure Lenny was just glad to get the hell out of Atlanta with a gold medal two thousand The coach a little bit forgotten we talked about these Olympics was Rudy tom Janovic. And I'm gonna tell you why he coached this team. J And it's a quick quiz for you. He coached the world championship team. I'm gonna give you a hundred dollars for every starter

you can name on that team. We don't want to take too much time, but go ahead, Carter. This is the World championship team. Here you go, Kevin Garnett, not even close. Here it is Jimmy Oliver, Jason Sasser, Michael not Hershey Hawkins, Michael Hawkins, David not Leon Wood, and Gerard not Bernard not, Albert not bb King. That was a team that Rudy coach to a bronze medal in the World Championships. They were having labor problems at the time,

you know, it was before the lockout. They couldn't get anybody to play, and that's the team they put on the court for the bronze medal, and Rudy coached that team. Believe it or not, it's looked upon as like a really great moment in USA basketball that they managed to win the bronze. So Rudy got the job in two thousand and then the two thousand two team we talked about that a little bit. Coach by George Carl had a sorry sixth place finish two thousand three was an anomaly.

They put this great team together. That was was the Olympic qualifying team, who starters were Tracy McGrady, Jason Kidd, Duncan was on that team. Iverson was on that team, Jermaine O'Neill, Ray Allen, and Vince Carter off the bench, and Larry Brown coached that team. And that was largely the reason Jay that he coached the two thousand four

Olympic team. And I will have to admit that covering those games in Puerto Rico in two thousand three, myself and a couple others had this idea, Hey, let's get a program, let's have one coach, let's make it kind of organized. And the guy, I said, Larry Brown, would be perfect. And then and then he had all this criticism for the way they coached in two thousand four

when they got the bronze and Athens. And that led us to what we talked about last week, the higher of Jerry Colangelo and his move to talk to hire the guy we're going to talk about today, and what struck me when we were interviewing Seki and also Jim Beheim, who was routine deem redeem team assistant coach. We're gonna hear a lot from him in this episode. But when you look at those guys, just seeing them on our screens, is that these guys are institutions, right has been a dupe.

Be has been at Syracuse since I started watching basketball in the early nineteen eighties. I don't know if you have memories of those programs before those guys were at the Helm. I'm sure you do, But to me, they're inseparable Duke basketball and Mike Schowski, Syracuse basketball and Jim Beheim. And there's something reassuring about that. I'll tell you what, Jay, here's how scary it is. I remember Jim as a

player at Syracuse. I mean he was a very good player, and Dave Byng was there then, and I think Jim graduated obviously I should have looked us up, I think in nineteen sixty six. So we're now in the year twenty twenty one. There was about a half a year when Jim was not at Syracuse University. Went there as

a player, got his master's degree there. I can imagine he did a hell of a lot of studying to get that became the freshman coach, the j V coach got the varsity job, has never been absent from the bench since then. And like you said, you know, look, there's been some criticism of Jim recently, and there's some things that I wish he wouldn't say. But if you're talking about a guy that has shown loyalty to an institution, the two guys you would bring up would be Jim

Beheim number one, and obviously Mike Showsky number two. And like I said, there's something reassuring about that type of loyalty longevity, especially now when it seems like nothing was the same like it was at the start of last year or two years ago or five years ago. And these two guys have been in the same places for forty plus years. And what was interesting, though, is that Sky didn't lean into that when he coached USA basket Ball, when he stepped away from the hallowed halls of Duke.

And at that time, as he was coaching his two thousand and eight team, he'd already made ten trips to the Final four, he'd won three n C Double A championships, so he knew that gave him a little bit of credibility with the NBA players, but maybe not necessarily cash

with them. And again, since this is about identity and community, he decided that, if anything, he was going to be more like the guy from the Polish neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago and the guy who played basketball under Bob Knight in the Army Academy at West Point. And it reminded me of a story that Dan Bickley did for the Chicago Suntimes in December. I was just

starting there, just starting off my career. Bickley was working there. Bickley, of course was the author as well of Return of the Gold, which is the book about the two thousand eight Olympic team that really proved useful in our research for this podcast. But the time he wrote an article about how She's SFETI was this guy from Quartz Street, the Polish neighborhood on the north weside of Chicago. His

buddies had nicknames like Twam's and Mo and Porky. He gatting fights playing basketball against teams from outside the neighborhood. And in the first meeting that Mike Sasefski had with this group that would be the two thousand eight Olympic team. That's the neighborhood that Ski went back to. And he starts talking the way that he's used to talking, but it's not the way that they were used to hearing him.

I know, I probably have to follow them out, but they don't expect me to say, motherfucker all right, and you know when you're talking, just come on your motherfucking like, we gotta get this gold medal. And all of a sudden, I wasn't this uh guy from Duke in West Point, you know, it's more of the guy from the inner city of Chicago. And one of the people that uh it definitely made an impression on was Jason Kidd, the

veteran leader of the redeem team. First meeting, we got to hear coach k Couss right and I could believe it. I was like, oh, like, this is the same guy that's on TV, and like, I think he said the whole the tone, the whole mood kind of like relaxed and everybody was, you know, not on edge now. And Coach again, he hit it out of the park when he first cussed, and I couldn't believe it. I was like, just got cusses and they go He's he's got a filthy mouth, and I'm like, oh, this is gonna be fun.

So another unexpected move was that Shefsky contradicted the Godfather Jerry Colangelo, and he didn't quite take sides against the family, but still Collegelo told the team one thing, and then Sky immediately told them the opposite. He talked to him, he said, and leave your egos at the door. And I got up and I said, you know, the only time I'm gonna probably disagree with Jerry, but don't leave your he goes at the door. Lebron, you be Lebron Kobe. You know. All I know is the Gasols are gonna

be the Gasols. Geno believe will leave be even better if you guys, aren't you We're not gonna win. We are not gonna win. And for most of them, it was the first real test of Coach K and something I found really interesting. But Jay, there was something Beheim told us that the fact that Coach K wasn't an NBA coach and didn't have history with most of these guys was a big plus because that was the polar opposite when they picked the first coach who was going

to lead NBA stars into the Olympics. The idea was, oh, it can't be a college coach, you know, it's got to be an NBA coach. And here's what Beheim had to say. But having a college coach, you have no friction. I don't care what pro coach takes it. He said something bad about somebody or somebody or something during the course of his career that somebody won two or three NBA players, they're gonna say, I don't like that guy. So we had none of that. You know, we had

no issue. And I think that in in only that, But I remember Lebron coming to me and when I said something about Zecia's coach, don'tor you tell me something. I'm gonna listen to you. You've been doing this a long time. And so I think they were really listen, would listen to whatever we said. And we were college coaches. We had never beaten them in a tough game or said something about him. So I think that was good. I think that's important. I think that's a I think

that's a benefit. So that doesn't mean that no players had a history with coach k So, for example, Chris Paul and Chris Boss had gone up against him in their days playing at the in the A. C. C. Bosh went to Georgia Tech, and here's his memories of seeing Coach K and the sidelines in those games. I only had one year in a sec, but I mean he always had that intense intenseness, intense nature a boy himself. So those couple of times on um, you know, playing duke,

I mean you could hear him. He's right, you know, right there, he's yelling at his guys, encouraging them to play harder, play better, and they are and man, we're down twenty now. So when those things are happening, you're super competitive. You know, you tend not to like that person. But I came into the situation, of course, he's you know, Coach K, and you know I came into the situation

with an open mind. And and um, we all had to find ourselves in over six and o seven, But by two thousand and eight, I think we all had a pretty good uh rhythm to what was going on and how important it was for everybody. Of course, and also if you played in college as long as a guy like Darren Williams did, and you had success going through the n C Double A Tournament. Sooner or later, you're gonna run across Coach K during the n c Double A Tournament. I think Coach K was perfect for us.

You know, he was I feel like the right person at that at that time, I felt like he was even though he was a college guy. All the NBA guys respected him, you know, his body of work and then you know his work ethic and you could just see the passion he he had for the country and for representing the USA basketball And so I thought I thought he was perfect. And he did such a great job of of you know, talking to guys, motivating guys.

I mean, you really have to motivate us. Honestly, we were pretty motivated as it was, you know, once we made that commitment. But you know, he just was. He just did some such a great job of coaching and motivating and bringing us together. And um, you know, it was really awesome to play for him, even though I hated him up to that point. Why would that be what what would you connect? You just do? Yeah, they beat us. Uh, my sophomore year in the n ct

A tournament, got got some really questionable calls. So clearly he was able to get over it. And Kate did have one player that he coached in college on the team, Carlos Boozer, and I was curious how close coach k had to having another Dukey on the squad, and that was Kobe Bryant. Now there's some alternate timelines where Kobe goes to college instead of straight to the NBA from high school. We've always assumed that he went to college that be Duke. Someone asked him on Twitter which school

he would have chosen. He replied Duke. But in he also did a charity fundraising interview with Jimmy Kimmel in which he said he would have gone to North Carolina. So who knows how it would have gone, which which alternate timeline. Of course we know what ultimately happened. But Jack you around in Philadelphia, and Rashid Wallace had gone

from Philly to Carolina a couple of years before. Now I'm wondering what was the speculation in Philadelphia about what Kobe, who went to high school at Lower Merion on the main line, what Kobe was gonna do once it was time to move on from high school. Well, the one thing good about Kobe then that I don't remember, and even did some research on it. He never played footsie like a couple other guys with Oh, I'm gonna stay in Philly. You know, everybody praised the Philly coaches. John

Cheney's a genius. We love that guy, Fran Dunfie, you know, Phil Mark Tully, all these real Philly guys. And then nobody went to school there. Rashid Rashid Wallace left, Pooh Richardson left, Bo Kimball left, Hank Gathers left, Scoop Jardine, Eddie Griffin. There was a couple of guys that stayed, Uh, Kyle Lowry, Aaron McKee, Uh, Lionel Simmons actually, who was a really great player with sal Kobe didn't do that. But as I recall it, Jay, he did do a little bit of foot see I I had He had

said at one point that North Carolina stopped recruiting me. Well, what he meant was Dean Smith said to him, Dean wouldn't talk like this, but he ain't coming to college. You know, he's going to the NBA. And I think he kept the dance on a little bit longer with with Mike, with Shoski. But you know, and it's funny, you know, because of all the kids that jumped into college that that didn't go to college, excuse me, Kobe would have been, you know, really perfect college guy, you

know what I mean. He was a really smart kid. He would have enjoyed the classes he could have gone in there and you know, spoken Italian to some people, but really in the you know, from the beginning, his m O was I'm going to go to the NBA, and I think that was clear to most people. Well, here's what coach Ka told us about his recruitment or lack there of, of Kobe. You know, I never thought

he would go to college. We recruited him, but it no one recruited him to any deep level because you knew, you know, like I never saw Lebron play in high school. But when I saw Kobe play, He's the best high school player I've ever seen. And when he walked into a gym, he walked in like Jordan's at a high school level. Like the place stopped, you know, like he not only could play the role during a game, he

played the role before and after the game. He looked that good, he leave, he was that good and he was that gud but I knew he was never gonna come. So of course, when Kobe did make his announcement, here's what he had to say. No, I have decided to skip college and take about towns to the NBA and Jack.

I wonder what that Coach k Kobe relationship would have been like if Kobe had gone to Duke, and he would have arrived on campus with that natural teenage rebellion and and Coach k would have been the authority figure. And it feels like there would have been an inevitable class just like Kobe had with Phil Jackson that we detailed in the second episode of this series. But instead they don't collaborate until they get together on Team USA, and maybe they were even peers at that point. Yeah,

sort of. I can't imagine if he would have gone to college, Kobe would have been a one year guy and then talking to us. You know, he he got his lesson about dealing with the pros when he was an assistant on the Dream Team back in ninety two, when he was all eager, Hey, what should I do? What should I do? Coach? What should I do? Chuck? Tell me what to do? You know, him and p J. Car Lesimo are really excited, and Chuck looks at them and goes learn to ignore, meaning don't look at everything.

You know, Barkley is gonna screw around and throw the ball at a wall, or he's not gonna, you know, run hard in every drill, you know take you know, just don't have to notice everything like you do with Duke, and Showski even admitted that even after that experience when he go went back to his team, it changed them a little bit. But you can't be the same guy coaching college that you are in the pros. And one of the great things we found out Jay was how

good coach K was at dealing with pros. You know, nobody had one bad thing to say. And these were the biggest stars in the game on that Redeem team. Absolutely, and uh Jim Beehi, I've talked about that with us, about the difference in Coach K the college coach and coach K coach and the Redeem team. The key with Mike is that he is different in college. What he does in college and what he did with those guys. I mean, he was like a pro coach. He's a

master psychologist master. It really the mental aspect of coaching, getting the players to contribute, getting them to show that they're part of the that they got we're saying in what we're doing, uh, and in getting them to accept their roles. And they were good. The NBA players were great. You're listening to Kobe Lebron and the redeem Team. We'll be back in a minute. So one thing that had to have helped was that coach k wasn't acting like the coach of Duke, and he was obsessed and i'd

say even repressed with coaching USA basketball. And we talked to him. I was amazed at the details that he remembered from his time with that team, and we'll hear several of them over the course of this podcast series. Also the emotions that reservice, how he was getting choked up at times telling us about some of the moments that he shared with this group. And it's not like he was tired of Duke and that he was going

through the motions. I mean, after this two thousand and eight experience, he won two more national championship at Duke and he sort of got with the times and started recruiting these one and done players. So it wasn't like he was finished with Duke. But those championships might even be more impressive than the earlier ones, right, because he's older and there was a bigger generation gap of the players.

And I'm wondering perhaps this experience helped him connect with the new generation or new generations of players from this this Olympic odyssey that he went on. But I just got the feeling that these Olympic gold medal teams, remember he coached in in twelve and sixteen as well, they just meant something more to him. And Jack, did you notice that when he talked to us, he was wearing a USA Basketball shirt and not a Duke shirt. Oh yeah, he probably made it. He had just come from practice.

I think he probably did one of the quick change artists, you know. Okay, but you know it isn't hard j for him to get into that mode. He goes way back with USA Basketball. He was an assistant to Bob Knight on the infamous nineteen seventy nine Puerto Rico Pan American game when uh, when coach Knight put a Puerto Rican policeman in a in a trash can. So he goes way back and he always wanted his guys to play.

You know, Christian Latner was one of those guys. As much of a pain in the neck as Christian could be. He was one of those guys playing on the Junior USA national teams over there, you know, where the toilets wouldn't flush very well, and the and the water wasn't always warm, and so he always had this kind of soft spot. And the fact that he goes all the way back to nine seventy nine and still, as you mentioned, he's still coaching gold medal teams in two thousand and sixteen.

At the same time, he's keeping up a duke basketball pro ram that's one that has remained one of the tops in the nation over the last three decades. That is pretty extraordinary. And uh, Jim Beheim talks about Mike Sassky in that respect. Mike literally worry about this three d days a year. Literally when he was gonna do Renny for n C double a term game, he was watching tape of you know, Spain. He did. He really did that. He brought into this is this is it?

I mean, he wouldn't admit to it, probably, but this was the most important thing for him. I think of all the things. I mean, let's see, won five n C Double A championships, but he worried and thought and stressed on this every day. He liked kneel on because the staff like me along because I try to get him the ease up a little bit. Here, Let's take a few minutes off here, let's get away, let's go to dinner, let's come down. It's just funny to me this notion of Jim Beehive as the chill guy, right,

That's not how we think of Jim Beheim. Is the guy to be like Mike, calm down, settled down, lacks. That's not the popular impression that we have a Jim Beehive. And one of the things I found out being around him for for his practices is he kind of lets everything go. You know, they're screwing around. The music is playing loud, and Jim kind of looks up at the booth. They turn off the music, and he strolls into the huddle, and for whatever reason, everybody shuts the hell up and

you can't hear what he's saying. Now you get him into a game, you know, then he kind of turns into that whiney, gesticulating Jim Beheim that we knew, but in this kind of atmosphere, Jim kind of understood that as the other college coach, you know, and coach K is gonna be watching film at four o'clock in the morning, we're gonna be hearing about that. Later in the podcast, Jim thought, now, I'm not gonna be that guy, you know, I'm gonna be kind of the as you said, the

chill guy. And he did have that in him. It's funny. I remember at the Final four, uh five, the one that was in New York that the last non dome Final four actually, and in the off day, they have a media availability at the Merritt Marquis Hotel in this ballroom, and Jim Beeheim's up there, and he was so good and so loose and relaxed they actually had to cut off his mic so that they could go on. I mean,

he could have stayed up there all day. He was having a great time dealing with the media in this in this ballroom, in this New York City hotel room. But uh, you know, on this two thousand and eight staff, the Redeemed Team staff, keep mind, it wasn't just the college coaches. So It's not just Schowski in Beheim. You had Mike Tantoni and Nate McMillan, who are the NBA coaches on this staff, and D'Antoni met with us and he told us how adept coach k was that managing

this team. He was really good at He understood exactly how how much to give them. You know, we always kept saying, you want to be uh prepared, but not over over prepared. You know, I think we we did a lot of film work, we watched games up games, but he he really took care of the players. He knew how exhausting it was playing the NBA season, and

he had a good field of the team. And that's what you know, besides the exes and ohs, which he's really good at and uh, there's a lot of coaches like that, but his is one of his best things that he does is the filling the pulse of the team and how much he needs to talk to him or give him, give him freedom or you know, I have like you said, have selected hearing. Having selected hearing is huge and he didn't miss the beat on that.

I think one of the overlooked guys in this Jay is is Nate McMillan, and it kind of speaks to you know, it's almost an extension of his playing career. He was an All defensive team guy, I think second team All Defense three years and he was the one that sort of reinforced the seriousness of purpose of of Shasky and you know, you have to play. Everybody would

laugh and say, oh defense. You know, there was nothing you had to d up in this for the Redeemed team in two thousand and eight, you were playing against prose who from Spain, who shot threes. You had to play the whole game. And I think that's what Nate supplied, that kind of intensity and defensive philosophy that Showski wanted

to incorporate. Mike D'Antoni, on the other hand, was sort of the guy that, you know, I think Chris Bosh told us off handedly, well, you know, coach D'Antoni will go We'll just outscore him, you know, And that that was Mike. And is it a positive or a negative? Would his son's teams, which I was around in the early aughts, would they have won a championship if Mike had a little more Nate McMillan or Mike Showsky and him.

I know what D'Antoni would say, you're full of crap. Uh, you know, you gotta be the way you're gonna be. But they were a great pairing. I think Mike for a little bit of the hey, let's play loose offensively, let's to be ourselves, and and Nate would say, hey, we gotta locked down once in a while. You know this isn't this is two thousand and eight when we got the Gasol brothers and uh guy shooting NBA three pointers.

So they were a good match. Yeah, And you know, Sezsky would turn to them for not just philosophy but also specific play calls, right and in in a huddle, he was more than willing to turn over the clipboard and let those guys diagram plays. And also he'd get advice from them on not freaking out if the players appeared to be preoccupied with other things. During his pregame speech, I relied tremendously on Mike D'Antoni and Nate tell me

what a pro grat like. Even as scouting reports and things like that, a big thing for me was talking to them before a game and what the hell they were doing. I'm used to a team just sitting there and doing I mean, they're doing all kind of crap. You know, they're they they're putting their feed on tennis balls, they're rolling their bodies, they're stretching, they're whatever. And that's happened the first time. And Nathan Mike said, don't worry.

They're paying attention. And I said, makes me nervous, And they said, don't be nervous. In other words, don't try to change their environment in certain things, and you change your way of looking at that environment. And I've benefited greatly from having that pro influence and any side out of bounced play, I let them diagram too, because the NBA has only six thousand, four hundred and thirty three side out of bounce place. And uh, I just relied on them a lot. So I call all those guys

like our co coaches. Really they were. We really worked well together as a as a group, you know. And also it was better for them to hear more voices than mine, and they knew how good MICUs and Nate and you know, for me not not to let them do their thing would be numb. I mean, Mike is one of the most brilliant offensive minds. He would always say, though, don't worry, we'll outscorm I said, no, let's play some different sounds like, let's let's play. I'd be more comfortable

if he's played some. So Nate was big obviously is one of the great defensive players. Uh in the n b A. I said, don't let him influence you. Let's get a good balance. You're listening to Kobe, Lebron and the Redeem Team. We'll be back in a minute now. One of the things that that Sky did which was very smart, was take input not just from the assistance, but also from the players. And a lot of coaches

are slow to understand. And you're talking about two thousand and eight Redeem Team, as was the case with the two Dream Team, you're talking about some of the smartest players ever to play the game. I mean, Lebron James's basketball like you, I don't know where do you put it. It's on a level certainly with with Larry Birds, Oscar Robertson's you know magics and coach k took input from them as well as the assistance. Before we ever had

a practice, I met with those my leadership team. It's kid Dwayne Kobe and Lebron and I said, well, you know, we got a short period. We've gotta have two practices a day. And they looked at me and said, you know, coach, we can't do that. So I don't know if they're punking me or whatever. That's what he means, says, we all have our routines in the morning, pilates, whatever it is. We have a team meeting, will practice, some of us will want to work after practice, some of us will

want to come at night. Let us have our routines, and you don't have to do any condition. Shinning will be in condition. That's what we do in our routines. So okay, that's what we did, and I'll tell you what they did that. We added more court coaches because we found that me or Beheim running the drill was not good, and even D'Antoni running the drill was not good. Nate pretty good. And so we had assistance like Wojo Chris Collins, assistants in the NBA. We had so we

had a bevy of guys around. So whenever these guys needed something, they would go to the gym with them. And sometimes even during the competition pool play, we would not have a practice. We would we'd call it a spa day, but it was more of a day for you. And they would we would go to the gym and they would do all their individual stuff and I weren't. And you know what, by them doing it, they saw each other and how they herod. It really was a tutorial really for all of them. Whatever they show on

TV is one thing. What they do in private, they have their own stuff. And uh, that was a big thing for me. Yeah, because you're as a college coach or a little bit more of a micro manager, you know,

in that regard. So we've talked about identity as a theme here, and one thing to keep in mind is that Mike Saschefki is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and from the moment that he first gathered this team for meetings and training camps in Las Vegas, he really tied the national basketball team's preparation for the Olympics into the Armed Forces. The team visited military bases, they invited service members and their families

to watch practices and scrimmages. He had veterans and high ranking officers speak to the team, even had camouflage warm ups made up for the players and coaches and even Jerry Colangelo when they visited a military base ahead of one of the tournaments, and h Chris Boss spoke to the military theme that was so pervasive throughout the preparation for the Olympics. We met men and women who served who got We met one gentleman he fended off a bomb and the debris got in his eyes, blew up

and got in his eyes. Was blind. He re enlisted, you know, um, hearing hearing stories like that, and always, I mean they always, like damn here every day we would meet someone talking to two and three star generals and at the same time as well then telling you about leadership and what it means to wear that flag on your chest and how important it is. I mean,

it was intense, man, it was intense. And then before we you know, we didn't even um, we hadn't even left Vegas yet, you know, So it was just you saw how important it was to represent America, to represent the United States of America and who's watching and what it means to a lot of people, and so we wanted to reciprocate that energy and show them, Okay, it means a lot to us too. But it started with Coach K, you know, with Coach K and uh Colangelo.

You know, those guys. They showed how important it was, you know, by by setting the tone of having the military men and women in Vegas, I mean, as soon as we got there, you know, And and it was always a part of the process. Sometimes it would be you know, Coach K telling some story when he was a basketball player at West Point or something like that, and you know, it was always ingrained. It was in pretty much ingrained in UH in the narrative the whole time.

And Ski told us that was all very intentional. We used to military like crazy to help us feel being USA. And the first group that we had talked to our team Bob Brown, one of my former players at West Point. It's a Colonel Pint just retired as a fourth star general. He brought three wounded war years sent to speak to

our team about selfless service. One of them was blind Scottie Smiley, who became the first blind officer in the United States Army, and two other non commissioned officers who had lost limbs, and all three of them had no excuses and they wanted to serve. Again, two thirds of those guys were crying listening to them. And you know, you don't own something by just hearing and seeing, you own something by feeling. And the military helped us immensely feel.

That's why we always did things with the military, so that our guys got it and they all, we all became better people from being in there. And really that's the essence upon which that team and then the future teams built on that. That was the culture, and God bless those guys for being able to feel that way.

You mentioned you really leaned on that military connection. And for some people it's it's a little it's such a subject, right, mixing sports and military, and they wonder about the appropriateness of that. But I would figure if anyone had the license to do that, it was somebody who went to army. And I'm wondering what you learned at West Point about and and and how the West Point culture uh equated sports and military and how how those two things could

be compared and mixed. Yeah, well, a couple of things. One, every cadet is an athlete. That that's one of the other words. There's not a cadet there that doesn't participate in sport. It either the company level, intermural club, or varsity. And that was the Thayer model of education that sport, you know, pond the fields of friendly st all those great quotes that they we all believe in it because we we see that it actually happens. The other thing

with sport. It put the guy who might be the number one guy in his class and engineering and whatever, but who could hardly catch a ball be on the bench. You know. It put you in different roles of and and so in all these things. By being in sport, you learned h different roles, but you weren't learned empathy, you know. And you learned how to be a member of a squad. We also learned how to be a squad leader. So you know how we did that in leadership and training. And we take an oath. Every cadet,

every West Point graduate is the same. And the fact that we've all taken the same oath, and that's the lifetime of service to our country, whether it's in military or civilian. And so even with the Redeemed team, uh, we we took an oath of playing for our country. But those standards, you know, I said, you guys. At some other time during that summer week, I said, uh, you guys are used to signing a contract, and I said, if you believe in this shop, I want you to

sign the standards. But Coach K was smart. You know, it wasn't just West Point, it was also Motown. And Coach K used that soulful Marvin Gay national anthem from the three NBA All Star Game in Los Angeles. He used that to motivate the players as well as the military stuff. As Carmelo Anthony alludes to here, Coach K did a great job of making us understand what we're playing for. He did a great job of letting us know you're playing for. You have USA on your on

your chest. That means a lot. You know. Like even when we when we change the national anthem, right when we we we put in you know, we we started listening to the Marvin Gay national anthem. That was Coach K doing, you know. That was his way of like, listen, this is bigger than you, guys, this is bigger than us. And when you hear that that Marvin Gay, you know, national anthem, you get goose bumps. And Coach K would just play it, play it play and play it so

we understood, you know, what we was up against. And here's Darren Williams again to tell us how it all came together to instill this sense of national pride in the team. It was our way of serving the country. You know. We we didn't go to war. We didn't go you know, like like our military does. We don't go and fight for our country. That was kind of our way. I feel like I'm representing the country of

of giving back. And I think there was a level of pride because of where USA basketball had had gotten to, you know, with what happened in OH four and things like that, and so I think that's what made it it's so special. Was was you know, the reason it's called the Redeemed Team, you know, because we were able to redeem what happened in for kind of put USA

basketball back on top. So ultimately, what Coach k was able to do was created a shared environment, a community that they could all inhabit and we stay at equal rights and input, and ultimately they were all rewarded for that. And he shared with us a conversation he had with Kobe Bryant after the twelve gold medal game in London, which was Kobe's last with the Olympic team. Yes, it's not to make the details public, so we'll honor that.

But it was obvious that those type of exchanges were as valuable a part of this whole experience as anything else was for him. These guys gave you a lot of private moments that they wouldn't give other people. And I think that environment it was a good neighborhood to live in. So that's it for episode five. Remember we're not even in Beijing yet, so we're gonna be hearing a lot more about coach ks tactics, about his interactions with Kobe and Lebron and Wayne Wade and everybody else.

But remember what's happened. Now we have Gary Colangelo's in charge, the Godfather, he has his coach, Mike Sky. Everybody's in love with everybody. Ye, so an episode six, the team comes together and everything is instantly wonderful, right, Well, not really Remember the episode we called the Greek Tragedy when we won the bronze medal in two thousand four. Well, an incident involving the Greeks, not the ancient ones but the modern ones occurs in two thousand six, and we're

going to talk about that in episode six. But here's a little tease of how important a loss was in the two thousand six World Championships to the Redeemed Team. When we lost in two thousand six. The Redeemed Team really has its origin from what we learned in two oh six was that you can't It's kind of like the US military in Vietnam. You can't just send people over there and think because you're good, that you're gonna You have to train together, you have to learn about

their game. You know you you can't be arrogant and I'm prepared are and remember Season one of the Dream Team Tapes, which talks about the Dream Team in Barcelona, is still available on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your favorite podcast. So I'm Jack McCallum, thanks for listening, and I'm j Dande will catch you next episode The Dream Team Tapes, Season two. Kobe Lebron and the Redeem Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts

in association with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, where wherever you get your podcast. This season is written and hosted by me, Jack McCallum and j Adande. Executive producer Scott Waxman and Mark Frances for Diversion podcast and Sean's High Tone for I Heart Radio. Our editorial director is John Tuttle. Supervising producer Brian Murphy, legal producer Freddie Overstegen, Editing,

mixing and sound designed by Mark franztz. Verna Fields is our technical producer, and our Director of Marketing and business Development is Jacob Bronstein Diversion Podcasts