Transcription
What was a low moment in your career?
>> It was a couple of them. Like at the beginning of the journey, he was not playing. So coming in as a rookie and saying, "Man, if I knew this [ __ ] was going to be like this, I would have went to school." I felt like my coach Dale Harris at the time was trying to make sure he did not show favoritism to the young kid. And as a result, he swung completely the opposite direction and doing things that weren't really fair. And I mean, not playing, you know. So like my first two, three years were were nightm people don't know that. People don't know you went through that your first three years. You know, it was tough. Sit around. I watch all my peers going out there playing 35, 37 minutes. You know, AI, Ray Allen, they're all doing their thing. Share up Abdul right here. Everybody's doing their thing. And I'm sitting here glued to the bench getting really, really pissed off and ticked off thinking I should have just gone to college. That was the hardest part.
>> What was that breakthrough that your number was called? Did someone get hurt? He finally just started trusting you. What?
>> During the lockout season, when the season started, Rick Fox had plant fasciitis in both feet. He wanted to play somebody else in front of me and that person got hurt. And so then he had no choice but to start me but start me as small forward. So this is when like small forwards was >> big >> small forward. This was it was KG Raheem. This is Pip. So I started the first whatever 10 games at small forward. I think I started like like seven straight double doubles or something like that. And then I've been in the starting lineup ever since. Who the hell knows how long when I came off the bench before Rick did get injured. So >> it's crazy when you see that. I got a different side because I went to UCLA almost parallel when you came to LA. So, I would see you on campus. I would see you working out in the gym and I would know like, damn, this motherfucker's why is he not playing, you know? I mean, I looked at from like a point of view like I see this dude work out like people don't play like he looks like Michael Jordan out there. Like I would see he would come in after our UCLA practice. Remember one time you had broke your right hand. You came up to UCLA and did a whole workout left-handed like you were a left-handed player. And I was just like like >> what? >> Oh [ __ ] And then the next season he came back shooting left-handed shots. People like, "Oh my god, he's this." I was like, "No, you worked on that shit." This whole time he had his hand in the calf. If you watch If you watch Kyrie, Kyrie get all that from you.
>> It was just mad. But I'm not playing. That's like you sitting down, you not playing, and you're watching everybody else kill the league when you know you should be doing that. It still pisses me off to this day cuz like ultimately, what numbers would you have put up >> cuz everybody wants to go to that? >> Oh, let's go to career number. Let's go to career. Somebody wish somebody would have told me that back then. three 3500 4,000 more points. >> You know what I'm saying? So, you know, those three years of not playing and sitting on the bench and just watching frustrating.
>> My response was I went the villainous route was just like, "Okay, well, you want to bury me here on this bench. Everybody's going to pay for this. I'm going to show everyone that no, I was deserving of this playing time as a rookie and as a, you know, my sophomore season." But I use it as motivation, some form of vengeance. Dale Harris remember that game when he came to LA with the Dallas Mavericks and he was he was the head coach of that game. >> I looked over I said >> oh yeah he's going to have to pay for that. He got to pay for that. I remember telling that he said co that was in 1997 man let go >> doesn't matter. No, I can't let that