165: Cam Johnson & James Jones, FanDuel Sportsbook Phoenix Opening

but channing one big thing that people first of all like your lips are so dry are you okay do you want some water i did drink water dude yeah i'm not used to this humidity out here [Laughter] humidity the nfl is back and fanduel sportsbook is celebrating with 40 to one odds on any week one game who doesn't want to win 200 on a 5 bet this is no hail mary it's that simple new customers get 40 to 1 odds when you place your first wager on any team to win vanduul is sports betting made simple the app is so easy to use plus when you win you'll get paid in as little as 24 hours to get you started here's who i'm taking for my week 1 forty to one bet rams over the bears obviously week one sunday night football you've got the first night first game in sofie stadium matt stafford i know there's a lot of conversation about the quarterback situation with the bears i'm taking the home hometown ramps hey offers like this they're just one of the many reasons i love betting the nfl on fanduel number one rated sports book app in america easy to use safe and secure fast payouts see for yourself why fanduel is america's number one sports book they're always hooking you up with exclusive odds boosts great promotions and so much more just sign up with promo code road trippin and you could win 200 on a 5 bet that's promo code road trippin exclusively on the fanduel sportsbook app disclaimer 21 years and older and present in arizona colorado iowa illinois indiana michigan new jersey pennsylvania tennessee or virginia or west virginia new users only 10 first deposit required must wager and designated offer market max bonus 200 bonus for tennessee users fulfilled in-site credit within 72 hours tennessee's site credit expires in 14 days after receipt see full terms at sportsbook.fanduel restrictions apply see full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem call 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com backslash r g colorado iowa new jersey pennsylvania illinois or virginia 1-809 with it indiana 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help in michigan tennessee redline 1-800-889-9789 in west virginia or call 1-800 next dash step or text next step in all caps 253342 in arizona [Music] welcome to a special edition of road tripping i'm richard jefferson hosting so you know this is going to be weird i'm just replacing allie clifton who's got a little bit of a break right now but we're so excited to be a part of the fanduel sportsbook launch here in arizona and with that we have two amazing well channing's here too but no one cares about that we have two amazing guests cam johnson and james jones aka champ how you doing champ i'm great good to see you rj that's good to see you we're going to talk over we're going to talk over the young fella here we're going to do some growing folk doctors jumping around thank you thank you for having me 25. he's 25 i know people that old right unless you were like from africa it was like dekembe who was like said he was saying you know serge ibaka no these aren't these jokes aren't funny there's always rumors about how old how old some of these guys you never know yeah you never know thanks for not lying cam of course right thanks for not learning i don't think i could hide it no no no no you had a well-documented history do you know anything about cam's history i wouldn't know he went to north carolina do you know where he started at nope i know cam got a jumper an nba we got a weapon i don't like college basketball except for the university of arizona i think it's unrealistic uh i think it's just it doesn't relate as much but i thought cam watching you your rookie year to where you are now i've seen big progression i thought you were huge for them to be it sounds to be successful last year so all what you did in college does not matter to me so not one bit i don't care if you won four championships who you are in college is not who you are in the nba and you're a winner in nba which is all that matters that is all that matters but he did have one of the coolest draft moments of all time that didn't include him he had one like literally why the coolest rapper you know what i'm talking about yeah kobe when kobe was just like wow yeah he was talking about cam getting drafted yeah that's one of the coolest i've seen that i never knew who he was talking about but i think the draft is is awesome it's awesome i hope you know i'm just if you could play for real or not true but that's not what channing when we're when you're young it's the best like when you get old and jaded you're like i don't know why these kids are excited they're gonna get traded in a couple years the greatest moment ever you got when you got dropped to new york you were excited weren't you what about when you got traded from new york [Music] i was sort of excited because it was a new chance and i actually got to play with james right and that was weird he was the only year he didn't make the playoffs but we had talent on that team a really good team right not to go off on a tangent i know it's the sun stuff but like i try to tell people about how good brandon roy was yeah he was absolutely you had to be there to see it in person so someone's like like i got a little bit of heat when i i i reference cade cunningham like when you watch him play i'm not saying he's like brandon roy but when you watch his pace of play like he's not like moving super fast he's super under control understands the flow again like brandon roy used to cook people and like people would just always be like how is he how was he doing he was always that way he was that way of watching he used to boil people boy just like like a low simmer i mean he used to call that one play right i think it was like on the one free throw line yeah it would be like two down clear and he'd be like channing other side i'm like dang okay my bad i know i ain't getting it whether it was kobe we're on our test whether it was andre kirilenko you know tasha prince he would just use one or two jab step moves face up pull up jumper it was just cool not matter it didn't matter it was tough yeah well look before we get going too much and get down memory lane like the three of us cam i want to talk a little bit about your experience this year uh i had the i had the pleasure of going to the finals my first two years and losing so i completely understand where you're going where you're coming from channing never had that type of success i don't know if james jones did he just won championships but take me through like this experience take me through this experience this year you know you had last year you had the bubble you guys were kind of building something and then this year you come in and did you kind of know what was it different when you guys added chris paul was there something that you're like oh this year is going to be different yeah um i think the bubble gave us a lot of confidence going forward but i think we're on record of saying like i know there's a couple clips a couple of interviews we did early in the season they're like you know typical preseason stuff but they're like how like how far do you guys think you could take this and we're all looking each other like all the way oh yeah yeah yeah we had a lot of confidence and we had a lot of guys and guys that feel different roles guys that do a lot of things so going into the season i think i think we were there i think we knew what we had a chance to compete for uh well did you did you really understand how hard it is because that's what you know champ and i like we you know we we've been through the battles chanting all of us had been in playoffs before and this was really i know the bubble was kind of an introduction to it but like did you guys fully understand how like much of a roller coaster emotionally physically like not having chris for certain portions and just you know did you understand how like emotionally draining like a finals run is no but they all told us champ cp everybody jay everybody that had been to these points had told us that all these things are possible so i think in guys that hadn't been there myself mchale book d.a in a playoff like situation yeah just assumed everything was going to be cranked to the max so it's like nothing like don't let anything catch you by surprise so can't say we're specifically like oh we know exactly what's going to get thrown at us but we're like all right throw whatever or whatever it takes at us what is one thing that you realize about yourself like in a good way where you're like damn i didn't know i could go that hard or if i just lock in defensively or if i you know lift this type of way like what is one thing you discover about yourself because until you get pushed to those limits right you're not gonna figure that out right because you're just gonna say okay i know i can shoot the corner three i know i can go left but when you start playing guys up in higher levels you go western conference finals finals people know your scouting report so are you gonna go right and cross back over left you know like what is one thing that you discovered about your game and yourself uh through that playoff run one thing in specific um for me was the defensive concepts and rotations and how they kind of ratchet up obviously as the playoffs come along because you know the other teams trying to run you know their personnel like as much as they know our tenancies we're knowing we're understanding their tendencies and so the watching it all come together and and really putting so much focus into understanding one team six or seven players you start to hate him yeah it's fun and you and you feel like you learn so much about defense in general i mean you you can listen play all your life but i learned probably more defensively in that two months than i had the whole rest of my my career yeah well so like like having champ and and having veterans because like champ i i know you're in the front office but i know you are an involved front office like i know you communicate with the guys like you're telling them what you see like did you see a change in your young players from like the beginning what was the message that you were kind of telling them that like hey we can do this but this is something that you have to pay attention to it's going to be [ __ ] hard it's going to be this is going to be that what was something that you were kind of communicating and then you were like oh they i think they might they might be listening and understanding compete on the strength of your fundamentals right so i always talk about he talked about defense like more than anything in the playoffs it's all defense yeah your best players are going to take the shots you know chris is going to take 20 shots devon's going to take 20 shots you're going to get three or four you have to take three or four really good shots and you can't make mistakes on defense because in the playoffs one bad rotation is a run you're subbed out you don't wait you might not play another game with our younger guys from the first uh playoff series first game was just their attention to the defensive rotations and so you see some instances where five six passes i'm thinking like all right young guy weak side low guy it's gonna be a breakdown and they're in the right spot wow okay i'm in the next game same thing eight passes low guy supposed to tag close out for some bass line and i'm like i was expecting that to be a wide open shot yeah and we made them do something differently you know and so like i had a chance to see them in those defensive moments where i'm expecting like all right that's pg and pg is going to win this matchup and i'm like oh he held his own yeah that's growth for our young guys and i said okay if they're comf comfortable and confident in those moments now i can't imagine what they're going to be like after they review the end of this series and gain confidence and say hey man we just did that oh man and beating the lakers now now beating the lakers in the first round that we understand respectfully that they weren't a hundred percent but you still beat the lakers lebron james was on that floor uh they had a ton of guys with a ton experience and they were the defending champs like when you guys and look i know sometimes that people say oh you're too young to really know what's going on i was like no that's you out your damn eye like if anything i'm young and somewhat starry-eyed right like what was that like going against you know the greatest player of this era defending champion defending finals mvp like did that ramp up your focus was that something that you were kind of did you have that moment where like holy [ __ ] like we're playing against the lakers in the playoffs um it wasn't until we won the series and that was the first time lebron is lost in the first round yeah it was like oh oh you realize that it's never easy to beat a team led by lebron james in the playoffs you know that going in yeah that's why me and champ and channing kind of like attached our attachments and it's great come on come on big fella yeah and look i mean so we had seen them at the end of the regular season yeah and you could tell that it just felt like we were destined to see them in the first round yeah and you could tell that the chippiness is starting to come into play and all that so i think for us like i said before we didn't know what to expect so you give us lebron james and los angeles lakers in the first round and we don't have anything to compare it to all we know is that we got to go out there and try our best yeah give everything we got pay attention um that scouting report for that you know couple days in between you know the end of the season that first game was so detailed i mean i'm we would sit there with with coaches and go over rotations and and assignments and if you're guarding this guy do this if you're going that guy do this if he gets the ball this way rotation to come and it's like all these sets of rules and we're just like people don't understand right like all right yeah yeah yeah you better make so much more sense yeah but you can't do that during the regular season you have time that's a different that's my playoffs put all that effort into one team you got another team the next night you're like wait let's do these rotations then you're gonna play like old school james houston where it's no rotation can you guard james harden tonight so what's going on that like really digging deep into lebron's tendencies really digging deep into ads tendencies and what they do it was i mean you see what makes lebron james one of the greatest bastard players of all time yeah and for him to be doing that you know he's been in the league since i was seven 22 years 22 years okay so so now you understand because you might not be a vet per se from like your years but you once you go on a post-season run but yeah well he's 37 years old he's in his second year and like once you go on once you're a vet from a playoff standpoint you kind of like approached the regular season yeah i took a shot at you you take it yeah yeah it's but like once you get there you're kind of like man this regular season ain't [ __ ] right because it's like you start to understand that your brain has a different gear yeah like oh yeah oh they'll get us night but this was three games and four nights but once we get to lock in there's a confidence that you guys get as a group what was something that you guys talked about like privately like when the coaches were gone when this was gone was was there a level of accountability for each other was there a level of picking each other up because even in that first round i believe you guys were down was it 2-1 you were down 2-1 at one point in time lebron over there shimmy and he over there salsa dancing and stuff you know what like what what was that kind of like hey we got to pick ourselves up we all watched the lakers warriors together at cp's house that's smart and at half time of the game it was like a giant meeting just everybody just huddled around outside it was basically like all right let's talk about this yeah like either one of these teams will be playing and guys who have been in the playoffs before say what you need to say and guys who hadn't say whatever you felt like you had to say and i remember jay like saying guys i just came out for championship run and the biggest thing that that is required is that kind of connectedness that kind of ability to withstand going down two to one in a series and being able to bounce back and then he looked at all of us and he was like i need to know that you know when when we're on the court together that if i look around the court i know that you'll have my back because you all know that i have your back and so just moments like that kind of set the stage for us i felt to be able to handle whatever was thrown at us and and to just go out there and compete and i think we carried that throughout the throughout the whole entire playoffs anytime you know whether it would be cp missing some time or guys getting nicked up or teams winning games that you know we're close ones or hard fought ones yeah no not go ahead so the sun's culture has been you know i was here in 2010 i think to 14 15. and that was a different culture it was a winning culture right not obviously not to the nba finals but we won a lot of games when we had a healthy team um with steve and grant and amari were here and so the new culture of this team what is that and how do you continually to the right word isn't engage it but how do you put another step on top of that this year i think the the biggest thing is we're a working team and we're a team too so you hear a lot of when you get to the nba it's super individual you know you're not going to have a great relationship with your teammates but i think our whole team has a those are bad teams by the way yeah those are practically bad so those are only bad yeah those are bad just make sure your story people are like oh if you're a lottery pick you usually go to a team some people say it takes away your love of the game the business side all these things but my two years here like it's felt more like college where you have relationships with your teammates you spend time with them and you like you know you honestly feel like you're you're playing for the city you know you're playing for your guys around you rather than just going out it's a great city to play it's a great city it's a great city yeah we're both friends well yeah we're both both featured in high school it's called moon area high school there we go man to the moon to the moon uh no okay to the point about channing talking about culture like great pop village used to joke and say you know the spurs were like a college culture you with your success and i and i just can't i can't state it enough like you played in the league for 14 years 14 you only were you were never on a team with a losing record and you only missed the postseason one time when you played if shit's gonna go bad it's gonna go bad with channing around so like we are still 500 though we're a rebuilding team well okay anyways in the west how young brandon when you when you still point being of that is you were around great cultures like it's hard in the nba to win it's hard to be consistently good and it's not like you were on a bunch of teams you were in indiana and i remember those teams we played against you guys in the postseason in the miami teams then all of a sudden you go to portland so you you you were on a lot of success how did you try and take all the pieces from those different cultures and start implementing them here in phoenix i mean well all those teams had a common thread every guy on that team loved to compete and at everything basketball related and so when you stepped on the floor and you're playing one-on-one every guy wants to win yeah if you're playing five one five and you're keeping score who's getting defensive stops yeah every team wants to win you don't find very many guys on our team you won't find a guy on our team that's like oh yeah you can have that one you can have that one i'll get the next one and that's that culture of work and com competition and so if you think about like college environments usually when you're in college all guys do is play basketball compete at everything horse one-on-one sprint drills suicide drills and so we wanted to make sure that we had the types of guys that would embrace work and competition and that's where they shine and so when we you look at us on the floor some nights we're going to be out man physically some nights are going to have more talent than us but our guys will always step on and say hey they won't out compete us they won't outwork us and that's where they get their confidence so one one one more with when we're talking about chris paul having the dinner at the house right that sounded like a hundred dinners we had during our chat we it was dinner some drinks and like it was but it was you know we would go over to bronze house or we would go over to k love's house and we would just do a dinner and just be around each other and even when we were annoyed with each other we couldn't stand each other or like people were beefing not in like a negative way like in a brother way like we understood the importance of being around each other the chris paul edition like having that leader there what was that what did what did that mean and like do you see similar because i've never played with chris paul so like but you know he's obviously a hall of famer he's a legend but like are there similarities between him and braun and how they try and bring people together to push towards a goal oh yeah they care about their teammates yeah right and and that's the most important thing for them is is not just winning but helping their teammates win right and and there aren't any limits to how far they'll go to help their team win so if that means having dinners great that means bringing guys in and listening to them if that means spending extra time away like going to a guy and meeting a guy where he is to bring him up to where you want him to go that's what those guys do because that's their nature their nature as leaders is to to lead a team to victory and so having chris a guy that if you ask anyone that's ever played with chris they're like he's the most competitive guy all he wants to do is win but he doesn't want to win for himself he wants to win for the team and and it's genuine so it's not tough to take criticism from him because you know where he's coming from it's not hey you're holding me back from winning he's like no this is holding you back from winning so listen to me so that's that's why he's been so instrumental for us i think one thing that i've always noticed about you is your assessment of talent is pretty dang spot-on right and i've uh watched as you you know worked your way pretty quickly up to you know you obviously got executive of the year or whatever but like for me whatever we talk about everything whenever we see each other you know you always have friends or teammates who like when you see him you feel like you've never i've seen you every single day it's just one of those things and so talked about college what is one thing you look for in college players or guys you want to draft guys you want here right what is like two traits or three traits again you said competitiveness you said they want to compete what are some other things so people listen it's like hey you don't have to be the best shooter right you have to be the best rebounder but you got to compete you got to try those so those are behaviors right right competition the working part like those are just your actions it's your behavioral pattern like you're going to come every day and you're going to give what you have i look for capacity like i'm you know i think what happens in in in our game too much is people talk about potential yeah a guy potentially can do something he can't shoot now but if he works at it in two years maybe he'll be able to play well i understand as a player at this level when you're playing with the against the best in the world you have to have something you can hang your hat on every night that gives you confidence that if i do what i'm supposed to and i continue to work on these other things i can survive and so for me i look at a college guy who has experience he's been there three or four years has demonstrated over three or four years he can rebound at a high level he can pass at a high level he can shoot at a high level i'm confident when he comes in he'll say okay i may not be bigger than him i may not be faster it may take me time make time take time for the game to slow down but my identity is i know i can score and i've been scoring for three or four years and even when things are bad i can lean on that so i'm looking for guys that have the capacity to do the things that translate here if you can defend there are multiple ways to defend be a team defender or whatever but that's what it's about this episode of road tripping is brought to you by bourbon time even if you don't have a traditional 9-5 schedule there is no denying that this past year has changed the way that work and rest intersect without a designated office to come home from we're missing that natural break in our days our friends at jim beam recognize this phenomenon and they want to help us out beat the burnout and start blocking off the hour of 6 to 7 p.m as your me time where you can do what you love for you and only you and what better way to spend my me time than with my feet up enjoying a nice smooth glass of jim beam so let's make the idea of bourbon time a reality join me in reclaiming 6 to 7 p.m as the happiest hour so you can do whatever it is that makes you happy and if that involves a glass of bourbon remember to drink jim being responsible jim beam kentucky straight bourbon whiskey 40 alcohol by volume copyright 2021 james b beam distilling company claremont kentucky the nfl is back and fanduel sportsbook is celebrating with 40 to 1 odds on any week one game who doesn't want to win 200 on a 5 bet this is no hail mary it's that simple new customers get 40 to 1 odds when you place your first wager on any team to win vanduul is sports betting made simple the app is so easy to use plus when you win you'll get paid in as little as 24 hours to get you started here's who i'm taking for my week 1 40 to 1 bet rams over the bears obviously week one sunday night football you've got the first night first game in sofi stadium matt stafford i know there's a lot of conversation about the quarterback situation with the bears i'm taking the hometown ramps hey offers like this they're just one of the many reasons i love betting the nfl on fanduel number one rated sports book app in america easy to use safe and secure fast payouts see for yourself why fanduel is america's number one sportsbook they're always hooking you up with exclusive odds boosts great promotions and so much more just sign up with promo code road trippin and you could win 200 on a 5 bet that's promo code road trippin exclusively on the fanduel sportsbook app disclaimer 21 years and older and present in arizona colorado iowa illinois indiana michigan new jersey pennsylvania tennessee or virginia or west virginia new users only 10 first deposit required must wager and designated offer market max bonus 200 bonus for tennessee users fulfilled in-site credit within 72 hours tennessee's site credit expires in 14 days after receipt see full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com restrictions apply see full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem call 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com backslash rg colorado iowa new jersey pennsylvania illinois or virginia 1-809 with it indiana 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help in michigan tennessee redline 1-800-889-9789 west virginia or call 1-800 next dash step or text next step in all caps 253342 in arizona we're so excited to be here with fanduel uh at the footprint center launching the sports book i'm here with cam johnson james jones and of course channing frye so channing just kind of glossed over the executive of the year thing but like he's like oh you look like i know you won the executive of the year it was like what two years ago whatever 15 minutes ago my point is this as you're not there cam so you're gonna have to hold on here as former players and i can know this and channing knows this we know basketball is what we did who we were how how where does this rank that award i know you didn't win the championship this year but like as far as like looking for that validation and respect in your new craft what did that like award mean i mean it meant a lot for for for me um personally just because it's something that you don't i didn't set out to do that um and and more importantly i i feel grateful for my teammates yeah i call my coaches my players everyone that works for us for their efforts and their abilities because without your team being good without winning games it doesn't happen and so they won that award for me yeah and like it just gives me you know it just energizes me to go out and do as much as i can to help them because it's a team effort but it's definitely something that you get something nice for cam because rod thorne when he drafted me he won executive of the year right and then he got us a gift did candy get you anything no i got him tripped to the finals a trip to the fight oh here we go [Music] see that contract must be coming up does anybody ever get executive of the year while you were playing on the team see no no i'd say cp is a gift yeah cpo cp was definitely a gift to you guys look and this is where i was so fortunate my rookie year i get drafted and i had jason kidd who is a similar type floor leader like competitor like play maker so like it makes the game so much you cut the game it's short the game's a shortcut yeah it's just like this segment you do this and we're going to be fine i'm going to do everything what that same marriage you had stefan we had a lot of other things we had a lot of turmoil we had a lot of turbo at richard i was over hanging out at richard's house more often complaining about my team like damn this can't be real life but then malik rose would be like jenny this is not how the nba is well malik came from he came from san antonio which was a very different culture place um oh boy yeah when you're a bad team it just it does make you you feel like dang me i don't know if i love that so getting this whooping by 50 ain't it so i want to talk uh about some of your as you say ayton our arizona boy wildcat number one pick he made some tremendous growth this year and i'm not gonna lie i'm gonna sit up here and say that i have complained about deandre before when i saw him shoot in threes and when i saw him shooting driver it doesn't mean he's not skilled or doesn't have that ability but i'm like this dude's built like david robinson like like yes that should be in a d that should be a cherry on top of what he can do but like when you guys brought in chris paul and you could see kind of like how his game started to really mold into a dominant dominant big man not just a rolling you know roll roll to the rim but post moves some post work like was there like an individual thing that you had a conversation with him because his game started to evolve in a much quicker once in the probably the last 18 months i just told him to try to i tried to simplify for him and tell him to focus on the things and the areas where he could dominate yeah right like if you think about where he can excel the most those are the areas we can help our team uh our team is built on the perimeter and the entire interiors is his so if you you want to score down there you're not fighting and competing with anyone else yeah we'll concede that there's no one else you just have to go and attack that and so it's like don't stand on the perimeter shooting threes yeah our guards would do that and you won't find them down there trying to post up and take your jump hooks yeah so he he embraced that and i think what chris and our our teammate just the chemistry amongst our team it allowed him to find his own because you know with big guys all the big guys there's nothing worse than a big man that just want to stand outside she's got a strange ratchet they just straight ratchet on a perimeter he goes chanting if you're going to be a specialist be a specialist there is a root there is room for you in this league for a long time and i said really he goes man when i was in phoenix we did this jenny you have an opportunity where did i go next year i came to phoenix and absolutely barbecued the whole league and barbecued and the rest and we want to chip on it because if you can't double team the best player then that guy then it's not on me right then we're playing four and four that is a skill that is a thing that teams will pay a lot of money for playing four and four with a guy like devin booker and geondra aidan roland will make you lots of millions of dollars so don't be foolball list i'm not posting i'm not playing with kevin love and braun and tristan i don't need to go down there come on out here i'll fry island i'll play with you oh did you ever win richard you don't play with richard nobody i was so happy because it was like i saw him dominated arizona mainly on the interior but he's skilled but it's like like david robinson when you make that comparison it's like the physicality the size the ability to run it's not like uh like david robinson wasn't shaq he was a skilled big man you know we're older so it's the rick schmitz it's the patrick ewings those are the guys no one's trying to take away your growth of your skill but like you can see that there was a trend of like more not to your point the area where you could help the team most are where they needed the most help wasn't getting the most attention correct right and that was the part for me where i'm like dude you could be one of the best big men of this era for the next 15 years because he's only what he's like 16 right now 23. yeah i'm not great with guessing ages like it's not great it's close there's some something around something along those lines but go ahead i'll say as a big man the most dangerous and the most in the best part that feels great is when your mind is quiet when you go out to a game you don't have to do anything that is like you said i'm not trying to do a little bit of you a little bit when i saw him catch the ball look take a dribble and finish over a two guard that was on the bottom weak side i was like he gets it he's not in a rush he's not trying to like dunk on three people you have a mic in your mouth sorry he's not trying to do this i felt like his mind was quiet in a sense where he was like i just gotta run here do this i catch i look in the corner nobody's there did i look oh you a little you're a little shrimp get this baby out the street finish and when he started doing that teams are like oh dang you can't rush him yeah right then he was catching uh behind the lobs and he was just doing things that were so simple that he goes he started to get his confidence from it and then his energy started changing defensively where he was stopping the stopping the ball and then getting back to his man on the lob right which is one of the hardest things to do in the nba as a big man especially when you have guys rolling behind you especially when you're as that politically gifted as yourself listen i'm a positional defender i'm in the right position me playing defense has been dude i'm there coach i'm there i just can't move all right gotta get the knees i gotta get i gotta get the the flex all in there that's not what i'm in there for you take this too i'm gonna be up one well by the time we get back down count i want i'll i'm sorry cat this is oh this the locker room was like this louder with shump and kyrie congratulations on chump on dancing with the stars does that mean he's dumb yeah he's doing dancing with the stars you didn't know that he was on the text [ __ ] i know that there's no detection okay congrats congrats man that's good like first of all he's going to win it that's right i'm like wow going to cam i want to ask you okay everybody learns a lot this and that what did you learn the most and don't don't take this wrong way which is always a bad way to start a question what did you learn the most from your loss in the finals no no i mean this respectfully because like you're gonna you're trash but like hear me out here hear me out let me give you an example okay let me give you an example when we lost the san antonio spurs my second year steve kerr crushed us speedy claxton crushed us like steve kerr came in the game hit two threes we could no longer double team tim duncan tim duncan goes for 20 19 like 20 20 10 and 9. he almost had a quadruple double in game six of the finals so going into the 2016 final what i remember is thinking to myself 8 through 12 are going to have an impact in this series because i saw the last time i was in the finals 8 through 12 had a big impact so i go in and champ chapel attest to this i went in got some garbage time they gave me five minutes because we were getting blown out they were getting blown out so they gave me five minutes at the end of the game because they said and i just went super hard richard was going i was going super hard like it was game fast forward super hard because i remember i'm like yo like this is not over so then game two get blown out again so i get like seven minutes and i'm going hard super hard garbage time etiquette he broke all over the rules i'm trying to fast forward to game three kevin love gets the concussion and and uh um our what's our coach's name tyron yeah that was his name t-lou goes man well richard's play who should we start instead of kevin it's like well richards played well in the minutes that he had and then that ultimately gave us a little bit of momentum we went small and that worked so i learned a lot in my loss to the spurs because six through i may want to say eight through 12 had an impact so i came in thinking like okay i'm on the eight through 12. don't take [ __ ] for grounded come in lock in you get five minutes go hard you get two minutes go hard because it's going to have an impact so i say all that did you learn something from your loss that you feel like moving forward could actually give you something you know to grow on um yeah i did um i think a big part of that was just figuring out how to stop teams and figuring out how to stop something different the bucks presented us with different challenges than than we had seen most of the playoffs and a lot of it was their size yeah and you learned that you know guys like giannis are pretty good and when they really get going and hit every free throw too it's a wrap then it makes it a lot harder and it makes it a lot harder to kind of force them to do what you want them to do and we still have arguments about what we could have done better what worked what didn't work those will haunt you for the rest of your life it'll never change always in a positive way next thing you know tempers are flaring because i'm like something we should have done this i'm like well if we would have done this yeah and i think it's just that cumulative experience the cumulative experience the being so close and and when i look at it i see game four where we're up nine with 11 minutes left you know i heard that hurt me for you guys right in the beginning of fourth quarter we're up six with a couple minutes left and you just see them chipping away not that you we didn't know it but just the importance of possessions just the importance of possessions how you're right there so much but it turned into four straight losses yeah um and then and buckling down on it but it's the experience it's the experience of it and um and just taking away all those lessons from and remembering that feeling that feeling that we have walking off the court game six because you don't you don't realize the feeling you don't it doesn't set in until you the buzzer range starts so when that confetti starts coming down and and you're walking off the court and they start celebrating it's immediate right it's immediate and it's just like because you're so locked in when you finally take those blinders off you're like you see it sorry you see it i see it and then even for me i screamed we are at four and i'm so locked in like somebody got a contest and then somebody goes every possession but like and then in 17 that was a different beast right because who we gonna double team well the greatest shooter of all time just to leave the greatest store of all time i saw t couple days ago and he was like we were kind of talking and he was just like he was where some other people was like man yeah richard was trying to retire like yeah i want to retire then i was like you know what we got the best team in the league why am i going to retire i'm like this warriors team is great they won you know 73 games but i feel like if we play this team again we can beat them but they didn't show up they showed up they showed up they showed up with one of the baddest dudes that i've ever seen in my life and it was like there was no beating that team there's no you have to get lucky and you have to be healthier yeah at that point that's the only shot that's that's you know that's the finals to cam's point when you go through that pain what you realize is just one possession makes the difference you make one shot instead of losing the game by one you win by one it's you you make one shot or you don't turn the ball over instead of an eight nothing run it becomes a six nothing run and you're able to make a shot and you're able to change the dynamic of the game so it comes down to possessions like one possession can be the difference between win the title as a shooter i remember alvin gentry and come from portland i was still kind of discovering who i was as a player and so i made a game-winning shot in indiana the night before and then the next night we had a back to black against new jersey and i was like one for 16 or something like that just she's just died just like absolutely ill i wasn't a back-to-back guy for me so coach goes channing he looked at me and he goes i'm going to you and i said right and he goes channing if we're going to play in the street and you have one chance to make one shot one possession you think you can make it i said any day to week so he goes forget about the 17 you missed you just got one and i ended up making it and that changed my whole attitude i was like damn like when it really counts you know especially as a shooter you can miss all those but if you have an opportunity to make that one that's important it is something that you gotta have put into work to like kind of forget all that mass forget all that garbage they say hey we're going to retry this and i'm betting on myself for that one possession so i i would never like but channing one big thing that people first of all like your lips are so dry are you okay you want some water i did drink water do you have some more yeah i'm not used to this humidity out here humidity monsoon season yeah it's monsoon yo okay so how big so as let's get dry goes in arizona like do you hear this i'm not when it [ __ ] okay so as two phoenicians right two kids that grew up here like the phoenix suns are everything there's been a bit of a drought you know no pun intended but what was it like feeling the energy in the city rise right like this is like this is arizona's different place but i would consider when when if they could pick any team to be great they would pick the phoenix suns over over the over the cardinals over the diamondbacks over the coyotes they would pick the phoenix suns what was the energy like from like your first year so all of a sudden y'all win the first round second round could you go to restaurants anymore could you go anywhere was it just chaos uh yeah they came out in full force yeah that's the only way to put it and my first year here so i was coming from chapel hill yeah so that's great chaos it's chaos yeah it's it's decent but when i got here i was so under the radar man i could go places yeah you're tall you play basketball i play sometimes oh you look like you look like you should play more yeah i'm sorry but now since since since this season since this finals run it's wild yeah but you appreciate it because these are the people that were packing the stands these were the people that were packing the stands and we were in milwaukee playing yeah and and especially after not having fans for a year yeah for a whole calendar year and then them coming back in this place was rocky i couldn't buy anything i literally tried to buy some hats and jerseys for my kids they were like oh we're sold out at night crazy and nike was like we're not we we're we can't supply them again until the following season so like everything and every place around here was sold out what was the what give me one weird instance that happened you're like okay yeah this is different in terms of off the court no yeah just like going into a place and it was like right after the finals it was i was going to costco because i need to pick up some things okay okay pick up a slice of pizza i just want free skippers quick they don't do samples now they're in clothes but yeah i love the costco samsung so i was just trying to pick up some things like i needed a fan for the garage yeah i needed this that and the other maybe pick up some food i left with maybe three things you always go to costco you're going to spend like 300 minimums yeah i spent like 50 bucks because you got to get out i had to get out yeah i spent like 45 minutes in there like three things in my car and i'm like you know what baby out of amazon don't just come at a time at a time when nobody's here yeah and it and you know i if somebody's excited to see you and and you know there's somebody that it might make their day and if you can spend a minute to make their day i'll do it but then it was just like kind of the whole store kind of like everybody yeah that was the turning point because i hadn't been out and around during the finals i was you know you go from the gym home sleep recover get back to the gym and try to play another game try to the final should have been channa's teammate because if you were you wouldn't have those problems well why you say that teams he played not winning but it would i appreciate it i appreciate it james always got done she's always got the jokes okay so let let's let's play on some crap you didn't play on some shitty teams like wow like bad ones you didn't win without me that that's fine but i went to a lot of playoffs i went to the playoffs like 12 times in my 17 years like we got the same ring i want to close up and talk about next year like not putting expectations on it i want to talk about like your goals individually and then you i want you to talk about you then i want you to talk about the team yeah and then channing i'm just here with chablis man [Laughter] all right cam so like that's one of the fun things about the postseason is that when you have this type of like success and it doesn't mean that you're averaging 25 through the postseason but you understand you understand now that you have another gear that like when i need to sit down in the stance when i need to make that rotation like i know i'm capable what is something that you want to add to improve to your individual game for your own growth and then also like ways that you can contribute to the team and add that just playing more with the ball in my hands um i have been very very off ball oriented and we got guys that like to have the ball in their hands so i just you know find shots opportunities where i can but being able to play more with the ball in my hands has been has been a big focus i think i've made shots from year one to year two and i think i'll continue to make them going forward just adding it just adding everything you know like like champ said you do your things you do them well you know your role um but for me i i i take and i try to add in yeah i try to just like like you said start with what i have yeah so with what i know i can do i can hang my hat on at the beginning and end of the day and then sprinkle the other things in as i get you know comfortable figuring out the team the system so i think these first two years have just have just been great in terms of what i've been able to pick up what i've been able to see that okay i need to be better at this okay these opportunities present themselves okay i can take more advantage of these opportunities so just adding that in and then continuing to to compete on the defensive end because i i and high school college like i had the reputation of not defending anything my coach jamie dixon pulled out a chair in my freshman year in practice it randomly practiced and just started yelling at me told me telling me i couldn't guard the chair i'm like coach we need to start practicing anybody by the way by the way i've known jamie dixon since i was like 15 years old that's my guy yeah i just saw him a couple weeks ago in vegas oh yeah that was the coach there remember yeah it was him and ben allen him and ben halliday i used to go together yeah that was a big like everybody go with the flagstaff for the team so since those days it's always been like all right i'm gonna prove that i can defend people yeah and and that i think has probably been my biggest improvement since i since college and i think there's still a long way to go in terms of uh fully realizing that fleshing that out and and getting to it there okay sweet champ this year your team now you understand that last year was a a different year i think everybody understands that it's it's part of the the ebbs and flow of the nba you know what do you want to see from this team right like you you guys are going to be one of the best teams in the western conference you re-sign chris paul you guys are bringing back all your guys like championship is still the goal right but what what what do you want to see as far as growth and improvement because it's hard to win a championship it's hard to get to the finals every year but you can still be getting better every single year right so for me it's like we said before last year which was having championship moments every game right every game should be a championship experience you should learn something that can you can add to your toolbox that will help you when you're getting a championship moment but if you look at teams like the way i think about it is if we're going to continue to have this growth your your natural response is to say okay what do i add right before you say okay where do i double down and where can i become more efficient with my base you know so for us we're a team that shares the ball can we be better sharing the ball you know we're a great shooting team can we improve our shot quality those are the things that we do well let's continue to do those well but even more efficiently before we add things because the first thing you assume is like hey last year we're a good offensive team right so we're gonna be good we're gonna if we just show up we'll be just as good offensively as we were last year this year and if i could add to my game if we can add this dynamic maybe we can beat a team like milwaukee well that's not my like every year is different and the only way you get to that point is being true to who you are more efficient with you do while throughout the course of the year those championship moments you stack it so that's my focus for our team defensively we're a defense first team let's not forget that and then offensively let's share the game a little bit more so that when we get into those moments cam said it's just not devin or chris yeah it's okay they can go devin or chris but deandre can score in the post and cam can get up the bounce and mikael can create on his own and you look at guys coming off our bench like campaign we want to be dynamic where they don't know where we're going to hit them because we aren't a team yeah your versatility is we don't have a honest right and we're not going to be that type of team we're not going to try to play that type of way because we're a team we're a team first like a collector that's a good answer that's like that's why he won executive of the year yeah there's a smart guy or whatever all right for richard jefferson channing frye and you know allie clifton that was a terrible exit i'm not good at this yet again how do how do i exit how do i close you see oh sorry ali normally closed isn't this road trip yeah it's another episode yes thank you we just did it that's that was our close yeah ali we miss you like you're normally here sitting in this chair so uh it takes some pressure off of us but guys thank you thank you thank you so much appreciate you good luck good to see you guys yeah great to see you guys good luck man hey hey you guys had a hell of a year man you too yeah we want to thank the wagner family of caymus vineyards for providing us with some of their delicious wines in addition to caymus cabernet from napa valley the wagners made a range of other wines from diverse parts of california we recommend trying them all we're really enjoying sipping on them during the podcast and we're also sending our lucky guests some camis and other wines made by the family after each show

Channel: Road Trippin'

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Id: 3IwR9MP4wyg

Length: 54min 21sec (3261 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 11 2021