CJ Watson Reveals What It’s Like to Guard Kobe & LeBron | DSH #1616

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Speaker 5 Was that like the toughest matchup you've ever had to guard?

Speaker 4 Uh, him or Kobe. Kobe for sure, yeah.
Kobe. Kobe was just like, I don't know what I was doing.

Speaker 4 I was calling for a double team.

Speaker 5 Yeah, one-on-one against Kobe. What are you gonna do?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, you gotta, you know, gotta ask for help. So, yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't know why Coach Nelson asked me to guard him.

Speaker 5 Well, you were known as the guard, the defender, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, but I was still a small point guard. You know, he was 6'6, 6'7, so a lot different.

Speaker 5 All right, guys, got CJ Watson here, Vegas local, former NBA player, children's author, children book author, right?

Speaker 4 Yep.

Speaker 5 Yeah, what's new with you lately, man?

Speaker 4 Nothing, man. Just getting ready for school.
I got three kids, so they're about to start school again. So that time's coming around again.

Speaker 5 What grades?

Speaker 4 One's about to be a senior, fourth grade, and then pre-K.

Speaker 5 Which age range do you think is the toughest to parent?

Speaker 4 Right now, teenager. Teenager.

Speaker 5 What makes teenagers so difficult?

Speaker 4 They just talk back.

Speaker 4 They think they know everything. You know, you can't really tell them anything, but they'll come back eventually, hopefully.

Speaker 5 I feel like that's a rebellious phase for a lot of people, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah. I wonder what the science is behind that, honestly.

Speaker 4 That's a good question, yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I just, even myself, I just started talking back a lot to my mom at that age.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, I think as a teenager, you're trying to get independency. So you think you're, you know, you know everything and just trying to go into it.

Speaker 4 And I think you know everything about the world, which you don't. So still a lot to learn.

Speaker 5 Was basketball your main focus at the teenage years?

Speaker 4 Basketball, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah.
Basketball and just having fun with my friends.

Speaker 5 So you knew very early you wanted a hoop?

Speaker 4 I knew I wanted to go to college. I knew I wanted to help my parents on the financial side for not having to pay for college.

Speaker 4 So that was my whole focus of getting into basketball and just getting good grades and stuff like that.

Speaker 5 Okay, so college was your ceiling? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So you didn't even think NBA?

Speaker 4 All my dad's friends, when I see him now, they said I did, but I don't remember it.

Speaker 4 I just remember just having fun, playing basketball, and then wanting to go to college but I think once I got to college I figured out that NBA was a was close so I was like hey I'm gonna take it serious was that transition from high school to college pretty tough uh no not really I think it was just more so just learning the game learning the speed of the game and then learning the ways I can score you know work ways I can you know get get to my spots in the court and also help my teammates out nice what about college to NBA transition Very tough.

Speaker 4 It's more so on the business side, I think, just trying to figure out, you know,

Speaker 4 how to have a long career and not just you know have a two or three year career but have like a 10 you know 12 year career right and back then when you your era they valued the vets right so they were showing them over the new guys yeah yeah yeah vets were always playing the rookies were never playing so it was very hard as a rookie to get on the court unless you went to like a terrible team when they knew you had a lot of playing time now i feel like it's the opposite right yeah yeah for sure yeah there's no vets hardly

Speaker 4 there's no coaching like no no one to really show you the the game or give you the wisdom or knowledge the stuff that they learned i feel like you got to go out and search for it right i feel like there should be a a middle ground there.

Speaker 5 Yeah, there should be.

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Speaker 4 Yeah, I definitely think it should be more vets because, like I said, it makes the league better. It makes it last longer.
It makes guys, you know, play for you know for another four or five years.

Speaker 4 But also just like I said, just learning from others' mistakes. I think that's

Speaker 4 a good thing about life.

Speaker 5 I wonder if the NBA is going to head towards a shorter career span like the NFL is right now.

Speaker 4 I mean, I would hope not.

Speaker 5 I mean, just based off the current, like, because now you need to be athletic, you need to shoot. Yeah, yeah.
People are getting injured.

Speaker 4 Yeah, a lot more. I think they got to figure out the injury stuff.
You know, it may be short in the season, you know, a lot of games being played, a lot of back-to-back.

Speaker 4 So, but I doubt that will ever, the back-to-backs at least will ever change you don't think so i don't think so it it would have made sense for the calendar i guess right yeah yeah i think that they can shorten the games a little bit but not the back-to-backs because you know they gotta they gotta make money so yeah i think what eight acl tears this year yeah uh a lot of big big name players yeah i think uh they all won number zero too which is crazy i know we don't have to get conspiracy

Speaker 4 and pink shoes were they all wearing pink shoes yeah that's crazy crazy right yeah i know how you know the pink shoes yeah gilbert wore zero too and he used to get injured a lot yeah yeah that's crazy.

Speaker 5 I don't know, man.

Speaker 4 Don't wear pink.

Speaker 5 Yeah, can't wear pink. What did you think of the playoffs this year? Did you watch them?

Speaker 4 Yeah, look, yeah, I watched it a lot. It was great.
I mean, it's great basketball.

Speaker 4 I definitely didn't see OKC going that far. Oh, really? Not that far at least.

Speaker 5 Even the one seed?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I thought Dimmer would have upset him. Okay.
So I thought Dimmer was a more experienced team. But, you know, youth is a great thing.

Speaker 4 And when you got one of the best players on the planet, you know, and Shea, it shows a lot. Yeah.
Team just rode with him.

Speaker 5 Well, MPJ was injured. He announced it after, after, but he couldn't even shoot or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 It's tough. Yeah, it happens.
You know, it's a long season, grueling season, and it's got to make sure your body's up for it.

Speaker 5 My trainer said during that series, whoever wins that series is winning the chip.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's what I said too. Yeah.
But nobody listened.

Speaker 5 You think you could play in the game right now, though?

Speaker 4 Like today?

Speaker 5 No, like if you had your talent in your peak. Oh, I think so.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I think it all transfers.
I think I was a player who did,

Speaker 4 I wasn't really good at one particular thing. I was decent in a a whole bunch of things.
So I definitely think it would have transferred. I would have figured it out.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I always wonder because people compare errors right now. It's just such a different game than when you played.

Speaker 4 Yeah, a lot faster. I think I would definitely would have thrived in like the one-on-one system and like shooting the threes and getting to the foul line and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 But yeah, I think it would definitely have been fun to play in this era because, I mean, it's all offense, really.

Speaker 5 Did you see it turning into the way it is now? Like, did you see that while you were playing at all?

Speaker 4 I wouldn't say I saw it, but I saw, you know, Golden State was coming up at that time. They were really one of the only teams that were just run and gun.

Speaker 4 Everyone tried to kind of copy what they did, but every team is not built like that. So

Speaker 4 it was definitely fun to be able to kind of see that error start and transcend.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And you played with staff, right? Young stuff.
Yeah, yeah, young stuff.

Speaker 4 Yeah. No one would have ever thought that he would be, you know, this big of a player, superstar, change the game like he did, but you saw the work ethic.
You saw...

Speaker 4 the tenacity, the will to be great and stuff like that.

Speaker 5 That's what I hear even from his former teammates. They're like, they have no idea.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. I mean, it just happens, man.
It just happens.

Speaker 4 He's had a lot of ups and downs too. So, you know, it comes with the territory just for anybody.
So it's just part of his story. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I think his mindset is underrated. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Because he had all those ankle injuries early on, like you said. He could have probably retired younger.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and given up and quit and all that kind of stuff. But he stuck with it and got healthy.
And now is one of the greatest players ever.

Speaker 5 Crazy. You think Golden State will get another one while he's there? No, I don't think so.

Speaker 4 Oh, I might piss him off. Not with the team they got.
I mean, you got to be realistic. Okay.

Speaker 4 I mean, he's getting older, which is, you know, it's a part of basketball, part of sports, but not with the team they got.

Speaker 5 What do you think they need to change? Because I think they could still win with Steph, though, right?

Speaker 4 I think they can still win with Steph. They need another star, like, you know, who can dominate the ball.
Like, Jimmy is a star, but he's not a dominant offensive player.

Speaker 4 He gets buckets, but not to the way Steph does or a KD or somebody like that.

Speaker 4 And they need a big. They don't have any bigs to protect the rim.
And Draymond can only do so much.

Speaker 5 That's what happened to my Lakers, man. No big.
Yeah, no bigs. I think with a good big, they would have won.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 You think Aiden's going to be the...

Speaker 5 All right. Let's be honest.
I'm glad you said it.

Speaker 5 I mean, like, just, I like playoff history with players, and the mindset's important to me. I don't know if Aiden, he has to prove himself still.
Sure, yeah.

Speaker 4 I think Braun could bring that out of him, though. You know, you know, so.

Speaker 5 Yeah. I mean, some players, you probably experienced this are just really consistent in the regular season.
But I think when it comes to the playoffs, the mindset kicks in, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. The mindset, the pressure, the lights, you know, it's a different pressure when you're in the playoffs because,

Speaker 4 you know, it's winter, go home so if you don't you don't do well you know it all rides on you yeah which playoff series that you played in still you still think about uh the one with philadelphia uh with when i was with the bulls yeah yeah we lost that we should have won it's right when d rose got hurt uh the second year um and uh yeah

Speaker 4 if you won that one you would have won the you think you would have won the chip that year uh i don't know if we would have won the chip we would have definitely won i think we would beat boston and went to the eastern conference finals again yeah but yeah i mean without derrick rose i mean we're not gonna go too far yeah I can only take you so far.

Speaker 5 What was it like playing with him and just learning from him?

Speaker 4 It was cool, man. It was cool just to see him grow as a player.
Seeing him before.

Speaker 4 I knew a little bit about him, but didn't know how good he was. Just seeing his mindset, his tenacity,

Speaker 4 just the way he worked. Yeah.
But he put in a lot of work.

Speaker 5 If he didn't get injured, it's one of those what-if videos, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 His ceiling was.

Speaker 4 It was crazy. Yeah.
I've seen a lot of all-star players, you know, kind of say they were sick because they didn't want to guard D-Rose at night. Crazy, right? So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 I'm going to name any names. He was relentless.
Yeah, he was crazy that year. That MVP year was like nothing I've ever seen before.

Speaker 5 And you knew he was taking it to the rack every time, but you couldn't. You couldn't stop him.

Speaker 4 Yeah. You knew he wasn't going to shoot a jump shot.

Speaker 4 He was either in go to the rim, shoot a floater, or dunk it.

Speaker 5 You think he was just so much faster than everyone? What do you think it was?

Speaker 4 It's just athletic ability, just the will to get to the rim.

Speaker 4 You know, I can't really knock this jumper down, but I'm going to get there somehow, some way. And he had like all the moves.
He was super fast, super quick.

Speaker 4 Especially like on the speed of of a dime like he can stop on a dime and change directions like no other right a lot of uh players say he could have been the greatest point guard of all time if he didn't get in oh yeah for sure yeah i mean he's still a great dude still had a great career um you know doing well in life so you know it uh you know it just happens to the best of them it was cool to see him uh develop a jumper later on in his career too yeah yeah for sure yeah yeah the jumper you know more he was more talkative i feel like uh

Speaker 4 yeah i mean it's just I think as a as a as a person and a player, you grow over time as you get older. So

Speaker 4 it all happens to the best of us.

Speaker 5 Yeah. You still think about the Pacers heat rivalry, too?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, that was a good rivalry.

Speaker 4 Once again, Ghanaian LeBron and his team beat us in the playoffs, so we couldn't get past them.

Speaker 4 But it was fun just to kind of play those games and be in that atmosphere and being close to being in the championship series. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Did you ever talk to Braun on the court,

Speaker 5 try to get in his head?

Speaker 4 I didn't talk to him, but I just talked trash here and there. My daughter still doesn't like him to this day because he fouled me hard one time.
Oh, really? Yeah, she didn't like that.

Speaker 4 He's not really like that, though. No, no, no, it was just like, you know, in the heat of the game, it wasn't like, you know, bad or anything, like a flagrant.
It was just like a hard foul.

Speaker 4 But he's like two, three times the size of me.

Speaker 5 So, yeah, he was different in the playoffs, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Man, he just had to switch.

Speaker 4 Yeah, especially in Miami. It was like, it was crazy.
Yeah. His athletic ability.

Speaker 5 Was that like the toughest matchup you've ever had to guard?

Speaker 4 Him or Kobe. Kobe for sure.
Yeah. Kobe.
Kobe was just like, you know, I don't know what I was doing.

Speaker 4 I was calling for a double team.

Speaker 5 Yeah, one-on-one against Kobe. What are you you gonna do?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, you gotta, you know, you gotta ask for help. So, yeah, yeah, I don't know why Coach Nelson asked.

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Speaker 5 Was that like the toughest matchup you've ever had to guard?

Speaker 4 Him or Kobe. Kobe for sure, yeah.
Kobe. Kobe was just like, you know, I don't know what I was doing.

Speaker 4 I was calling for a double team.

Speaker 5 Yeah, one-on-one against Kobe. What are you going to do?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, you got to, you know, got to ask for help. So, yeah, I don't know why Coach Nelson asked me to guard him.

Speaker 5 Well, you were known as the guard the defender, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, but I was still a small point guard. You know, he was 6'6, 6'7, so he's a lot different.

Speaker 5 When you hear this term unguardable, do you believe actually people can be unguardable?

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, Shay's unguardable, you know, Joker.
LeBron to an extent, you know, Steph to an extent. So KD, you know, a lot of great players out there who are unguardable.

Speaker 4 You need two or three guys or a whole team, you know, to kind of stop them.

Speaker 4 I don't think you'll ever shut them down, but you can make their night tough yeah so you think one-on-one that you just can't do anything one-on-one yeah yeah you can't especially with the elite players wow that's crazy to have a bag that deep that no one can guard you in the world yeah it's crazy kyrie would you put note yeah for sure it's a lot yeah it's a lot of guys one-on-one it's a tough guard i wonder if uh because i know defensively you used to be able to put hands on people back in the day i wonder if it's because they took that away probably yeah yeah a lot of that comes to it you know like that's why jordan was so kind of dynamic because even how great he is because he did all that in the era where you could punch people and like, you know, damn their elbow them and do all that kind of stuff to them.

Speaker 4 So, but yeah, if he played in this era, he'd be probably averaging, you know, 40 or 50 points. Damn.

Speaker 5 You think so? For sure, yeah. Holy crap.
So he's your goat, it sounds like. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I know. That's always a debate.
What if Braun gets one or two more?

Speaker 4 I think he moves ahead of Jordan. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
Right now, he's, for me, it's Jordan, Kobe, and then Braun.

Speaker 5 Oh, you got Kobe over Braun? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Speaker 4 That's, that's. Everybody dismisses Kobe.
I don't know why. No, you're right, though.

Speaker 5 A lot of people do. Some people have Kobe outside their top 10.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's crazy to me. Yeah.

Speaker 5 They didn't watch a lot of basketball. I don't know if it was Skip Bayless.
Yeah, probably not. No, Skip's got the wildest taste.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't listen to it. I don't watch TV, so.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 What do you think about him? Like, you never saw a clip about him?

Speaker 4 I mean, I see clips here and there, yeah, but I don't really, like, watch it to understand or I think or just kind of recollect what he's saying or whatever. Yeah.
But, yeah.

Speaker 4 A lot of his takes are outlandish, I'm sure.

Speaker 5 That's a component of the game that you didn't have to deal with, the social media backlash, right?

Speaker 4 yeah yeah no a little bit yeah i mean when we lost in the playoffs that year to philadelphia i got a lot of death threats oh shit for uh for passing the ball so um but yeah i mean like i said were you passing too much no well it was like a last 10 seconds of the game we're up by two or up by one i passed it to my center who before that he made it like every free throw yeah he misses the two that could have put himself three and they come down they get fouled they hit both free throws they go up one so we lose the game but in game six so you got to blame for that i got to blame for it yeah but you know it is what it is that's rough did that really affect you mentally getting those no no i feel like you know social media at that time was like just starting so and even then i feel like if someone wants to threaten me they'll walk up to me and say it so none of those people who tweeted that will would have said came up to my face and said that so that's good i just wonder these days with all the players like some of them definitely have to be feeling the heat yeah yeah i'm sure they look at it you know it's hard not to look at it when you're on social media with all that stuff going around so i mean it's everywhere and then you hear like the whispers from friends or family in your circle circle, stuff like that.

Speaker 4 So yeah, it's definitely, I'm sure, a lot. You gotta, you gotta be just, you know, mindset focused.

Speaker 5 I heard some of them at halftime or on Twitter. Just

Speaker 4 I'm sure on bad teams, yeah, it's like

Speaker 4 not on good teams.

Speaker 5 Um, you played on a lot of teams. Uh, did you see any of the trades coming or were they all shocks?

Speaker 4 Uh, so I never got traded.

Speaker 5 Oh, you never got traded?

Speaker 4 It was like a sign in trade, so I'm not really traded. I got to pick my destination, which is cool.
Wow. Uh, so that was like the great thing about my career.

Speaker 4 Um, yeah, it was never like a traded, but I was always definitely like worried maybe during trade deadline in February if I was going to get traded or not because sometimes I wasn't playing the best maybe, but I was still, you know, good, good fit for that team.

Speaker 4 But yeah, I never got traded.

Speaker 5 Damn, I feel like that's rare for a 10-year career.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, rare.
Yeah. But like I said, I'm definitely blessed to be able to pick my destinations and pick where I wanted to go.

Speaker 5 These days, it feels like there's a lot of musical chairs. People are saying there's no loyalty anymore.
What do you think about that?

Speaker 4 Yeah, there's definitely no loyalty. I think the teams are doing, you know, it's a business.
You got to understand that coming into it. So, you know, business-wise, you got to do what's best for you.

Speaker 4 I think the players have a lot of say-sale now more than they ever did. So, I think that's a good thing, too.

Speaker 5 Favorite team to play on for you?

Speaker 4 The Bulls.

Speaker 4 We had the best record two years in a row and went to the Eastern Conference Finals. Damn, that's nice.

Speaker 5 Do you ever regret not winning a chip?

Speaker 4 I mean, I feel like what's meant to be was meant to be. I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Speaker 5 I know some people hold that over people's heads.

Speaker 4 I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 You only have, there's 32 teams. You only have so much control, right?

Speaker 4 Sure, It's only one winner at the end anyway, so everyone's a loser.

Speaker 5 I know Shaq always gives Chuck some heat.

Speaker 4 Yeah, when you're in that kind of stage, yeah. I mean, Kenny won two, Shaq won four.
So, yeah, Chuck's the odd man out. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Let's talk about post-NBA career. You're an active angel investor, right?

Speaker 5 You're also an author. What have been some good investments for you?

Speaker 4 I invested in Instacart, invested in a pickleball team.

Speaker 4 So it's kind of a little bit all over the place, tech, health, and wellness.

Speaker 4 So I love the angel investing uh private equity vc world so it's always interesting to me so always trying to learn more about it go to conferences and seminars and stuff like that so it's always cool to meet different founders and see what they're what they're cooking up and you know all these cool ideas are coming up with that's cool man so you might make more off investing than your nba career that's the plan that's what i when i started that's my that was my goal to make more off my off this uh venture and then you know then my playing career so i think if i can do that that'd be kind of that'd be success to me nice were you investing as a player or you waited no i waited so i didn't even know anything about it until maybe 2020 was my first investment.

Speaker 4 Who put you on? The guy named Rashawn Williams. He's my mentor.
He's on Shark Tank now.

Speaker 4 So I always kind of bouncing ideas off of him, asking him for information, insight, getting books to read from him. So it's always cool to, you know, just to have someone to tap into.
Nice.

Speaker 5 What books have the biggest impact on you, you said?

Speaker 4 My favorite book, the one that he recommended is Why Should All the White Guys Have Fun. It's a really good book.

Speaker 5 I haven't heard that one.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's really good.

Speaker 4 So yeah, I love that book. I love A-list Angels.
It's always a good one for me.

Speaker 4 Just to see the different things that celebrities or athletes or entrepreneurs are getting into. Like I said, just the different ideas they come up with.

Speaker 2 Nice.

Speaker 5 I love books, man. So I'm going to check those out.
Books changed my life. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And pods.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Do you listen to any pods?

Speaker 4 I listen to

Speaker 5 Tall In.

Speaker 4 I've never heard of that one.

Speaker 5 Chamoth. Oh, no.
It's like.

Speaker 4 Oh, I heard.

Speaker 4 Someone sent me that one. Yeah, it's like an investing one kind of one where you talk about he was doing Coke or something?

Speaker 4 Oh, was he?

Speaker 4 Oh, I didn't even know that. Okay.

Speaker 4 Someone just sent me the clip. It was funny.

Speaker 5 I wonder which one of the four was talking about that.

Speaker 4 That's interesting.

Speaker 5 My First Million is a good one. Okay.
Yeah. Which one do you listen to, though?

Speaker 4 I listen to this one. My oldest daughter plays volleyball.
It's the one called Volleyball Dads.

Speaker 4 There's another one that talks about sports and tech. I forgot the guy's name.

Speaker 5 Volleyball Dads. Wow, there's a podcast for everything, man.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 Seriously. Volleyball Dads.
Yeah. But yeah, I just listen to it kind of like on airplanes or driving stuff sometimes.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 So is investing the main focus for you right now?

Speaker 4 Investing, trying to turn my books right now to a cartoon series. Nice.
So working on that.

Speaker 4 And then just the foundation we have here for kids. So that's about it.

Speaker 5 Please do the cartoon because I feel like cartoons suck these days. Yeah.

Speaker 4 For kids. Yeah.
I think there's not a lot of African-American cartoons out there either and ones that teach and preach positivity. So that's what I'm trying to get into that lane.

Speaker 5 Nice. That'd be awesome, man.
Is that what the foundation is about, too?

Speaker 4 No, foundation is about, we have a free basketball camp. We have an out-of-school health program, and also a black history essay contest.

Speaker 4 So just trying to empower kids, give them a different sense of humility, sense of being, and just a chance knowing that they can go out there and make it.

Speaker 5 That's important for you. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, because you mentioned growing up in a tough environment, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Growing up here in the inner city, you know, I didn't have a lot of

Speaker 4 people to look up to, especially not like, you know, sports athletes that came and gave back.

Speaker 4 So I just want to be that kind of, you know, that mentor for those kids and let them know that you can make it. You don't have to be a basketball player.
You can do whatever whatever you want to do.

Speaker 4 So, you know, entrepreneur, doctor, lawyer. So, I have to go and be an athlete like most people think we are.

Speaker 5 I love it. So, you grew up in Vegas? Yeah, born and raised.
A lot's changed since then.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, it's definitely changed. Yeah, a lot.
A lot's changed. I feel like the sports scene has changed.

Speaker 4 I feel like when I was younger, they would say we never would get a team, a professional team, and now we have, you know, three or four and more coming.

Speaker 5 So. Whispers of an NBA team, right?

Speaker 4 I'm sure it's coming soon.

Speaker 5 All the locals know it, but we can't really talk about it.

Speaker 5 But yeah, maybe baseball too.

Speaker 4 We'll see. Yeah, Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Vegas, people are getting priced out. We're at the point now where it's like booming, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, Vegas is expensive now, man. I think I was looking at something the other day.
It was like, you got to make at least $100,000 to be comfortable.

Speaker 5 And that's, you know, I saw that. Yeah, yeah.
That's a lot for most people. Yeah, for sure.
Average income is 50K.

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's tough.

Speaker 5 So I was reading this. There's this guy named Jacobs, Life in Vegas, and he was talking about these resort fees now.
Basically, it's like $100 in fees.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 5 Like just for one night.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 5 People don't even want to come here anymore.

Speaker 4 The party scene has died.

Speaker 5 I mean, back when you were growing up here, the mob was kind of running a little bit, right? That's what I heard. I don't know.
Allegedly.

Speaker 4 Yeah, allegedly.

Speaker 5 And yeah, people just can't afford meals now on the strip.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy.
Yeah, everything's getting expensive, man. That's why we've got to keep, you know, building, keep making money, keep, you know, creating things.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 You plan on staying here for a minute, though?

Speaker 4 I think so. I think so.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Maybe until my youngest ones gets out of college or goes to college. So, but we thought about moving a couple times.
We just haven't.

Speaker 5 Now, we do get flacked for the education system. So how did you go about that with your kids?

Speaker 4 They're in private school fortunately. So I think that's a good thing about that.
Living in Vegas.

Speaker 4 But yeah, if I had to put them in a public school, I don't know where I would put them because it's terrible.

Speaker 5 We're the second worst in the country.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's bad. It's been like that for a long time.

Speaker 5 Is that where you went when you were here? I went to the same school.

Speaker 4 My oldest daughter goes to Gorman.

Speaker 5 Oh, so you went private? Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 4 yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Gorman's known for athletics, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Football.

Speaker 4 My parents

Speaker 4 got a scholarship, so I couldn't afford it. Damn.

Speaker 5 Well done. You want your kids to be athletes or do you think?

Speaker 4 No, I didn't want them to be playing sports at all. Really? It's kind of surprising.
My daughter, you know, took up sports and is playing volleyball and stuff like that.

Speaker 5 Why didn't you want them to play sports?

Speaker 4 Because I just know the ups and downs you can go through. I had a lot of friends with mental issues and depression and all that kind of stuff.
So I didn't really want them to

Speaker 4 go through that. But sports teaches us a lot of lessons, being resilient, teamwork, all these things.
So it was good for them to learn those life lessons.

Speaker 5 Respect, because that's a hot topic right now. Parents vicariously living through their kids when it comes to sports.

Speaker 4 for sure yeah

Speaker 5 I said I would never be that parent because I've seen a lot of kids you know and their parents do that to their kids and I didn't want that for my kid yeah and then the kid grows to hate the sport yeah hate the parent right hate the parent hate the sport that they once loved not a good thing so they turn a fun sport into a job yeah yeah at a young age yeah so and the aau circuit's under a lot of attack right now yeah Because you see a lot of that, right?

Speaker 5 Yep, and it's not about development for the AAU system.

Speaker 4 It's just about, you know, who can make the most money off a kid and a team and stuff like that. So I think it needs to be moved back to development and just growing the kids and having fun.

Speaker 4 And then if they go to be a pro, then they'll be a pro, but absolutely. Don't force it on them.

Speaker 5 Yeah. You said you invested in a pickleball team.
Yeah, yeah. That's hot right now.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's hot. Hopefully, you know, it comes, you know, and does big things, you know, gives me an ROI.
So, but I think it's a fun game.

Speaker 4 It's fun for me because I played it and I got the email a couple days later. So I was like, yeah, let's try it.
Let's do it.

Speaker 5 Paddle's hot right now, too. Have you seen it? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 I have a place right next door from my house. It's a Plato Place.

Speaker 5 Same with me. They're all there.

Speaker 4 They're there all the time. Yeah.
we're neighbors.

Speaker 5 There's only one place in Vegas.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. Oh, is it on Section 10? Yeah.
Yeah, that's where I live. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Small world. Yeah, I played there.
It was super hot outside, but it was fun.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 You could just slam it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I never played it, but I always see them outside playing.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's hot, man. But pickleball, man, lifetime replaced their basketball courts with it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Because there's too many fights on the court.
Right.

Speaker 4 For basketball?

Speaker 5 Yeah. Plus, pickleball probably makes them more money because all ages can play.
Yeah, yep.

Speaker 4 So I'd be like,

Speaker 4 more year-round, too.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Yeah.
Well, dude, this has been cool. You play a lot of poker, too, now?

Speaker 4 I have no clue how to play poker.

Speaker 5 Oh, so you're just playing tonight for fun?

Speaker 4 Yeah. Last time I played in Blake's tournament,

Speaker 4 I think I was maybe the first or second person out there.

Speaker 4 I don't know how to play at all.

Speaker 5 So you don't know the best hands?

Speaker 4 I mean, I looked up the rules, but I don't know if that's going to help me at all.

Speaker 5 I need more practice. Well, good luck, man.
Maybe you'll make a deep run tonight. No, I appreciate it.
I'll try. Yeah.

Speaker 5 And where can people find you and find the books and find the charity and everything?

Speaker 4 You can find the books at cjpins.com.

Speaker 4 um i'm on instagram twitter x twitter whatever facebook uh quietstorm underscore 32 and the foundation's website is quietstorm foundation.org awesome we'll link below thanks for coming on man appreciate everything

Speaker 5 out guys peace wherever you guys are watching this show i would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe it helps a lot with the algorithm it helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team truly means a lot thank you guys for supporting and here's the episode

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