Coach Mike Krzyzewski Opens up about Coaching JJ Redick at Duke and LeBron + Kobe on Team USA

all right let's welcome in our guest uh one of my favorite people in the world someone who's been a had a huge influence on my life coach k coach thank you so much for for joining us and for the time yeah it's great being on with you and uh i i love following you on instagram with your family and uh the joy it must have been amazing hot to be away from them in that bubble is awful yeah and then especially with your your kids growing up like that any any moment that you missed but uh i'm glad that that you guys have such a great family um real briefly the last time we spoke on the phone was right after the san antonio game in which we were limited from the playoffs and you didn't call to disparage my podcast but you called to tell me you know some encouraging words and and you know you were bummed for me about us missing the playoffs but somehow we got on the podcast and that's kind of when we laid the the groundwork for you coming on this pod but you definitely threw some shots at at my 2016 yahoo podcast well you know there are small targets to shoot at and there are big targets to shoot at as much as i shot at that podcast i uh i was kind really because there were there was a lot of room there was a lot of room there and and i felt bad for it because you played your butt off you you know you really have developed into a damn good player and you were really good here but you know taking charges were not part of what you did and you didn't necessarily lead uh the acc and assists and uh which was good by the way it was better that you didn't pass the ball but i thought you did everything in the world that day to win a ball game and that made me uh maybe very proud coach jj and i talked about this yesterday i wanted to get myself into this very briefly with this what was your first impression of him the first time you met him well before meeting him i saw him play and uh the first time i saw him play i said oh my god this kid this kid has it i mean he uh he's special you know he i i you know drive him back on that what about three hour drive i i was like floating on air with my assistant to be quite frank with you i just said this kid yeah this kid's gonna be amazing because he he he not only could shoot and really score but he played with um an all-out heart with no fear and uh and he made some shots that were ridiculous you know and uh uh i i i knew we had to have him you know and and obviously i was really lucky to coach him for for his four years here at duke i still can make ridiculous shots by the way you do that skill hasn't left yeah you can and but you practice that way yeah i do yeah you know and i'm not sure people realize uh how anal this guy is in his uh uh in his practice routines to the minute and whatever have you done have you made tapes of of a of a workout no no so i did do a shooting video when i first came out of college it called better basketball with jj reddick but i we are going to do some uh workouts that we're going to put up on youtube yeah you should come in this off season more teaching stuff and and trying to help the younger generation and how they and how they sort of prepare they need to know how hard you have to work and how much you enjoy the hard work and the amount of time and what you do is game speed game speed it don't take it for granted it's not it's not alive and well right now uh what you do the day that you were here you know where you worked out for a couple days and our guys watched you that was that was so good because our guys learned how to work at another at a higher level yeah um it's i think it's one of the reasons i've had a long career is because the the the input has led to output and the input has always been consistent and the input has always been at game speed and it's a huge reason i'm going into year 15. tommy just so you know and i everybody knows that i was a duke fan growing up but for me to meet coach k and to have him recruit me was surreal and really and we're going to get into this in a little bit but really even through my sophomore year like it was all still surreal you have to understand like i wasn't just a duke fan i was like a fan boy and so if i if i turned out to be a shitty basketball player i would have been the guy who named my dog reddick or you know named my son cameron or whatever like the duke thing and i still am i'm still that way i'm a duke fanatic i'm a duke fan and so that that high school recruitment and that first year or two just being in practice and being around coach every day i was like pinching myself i can't believe this is happening like it was it didn't set in like it was reality i was pinching myself but i was so old i couldn't feel it but you know look you were as good a guy as i've coached and i had so much fun coaching you because my plays worked and you know when people say about giving someone a green light i gave you uh and and i should have an amazing green light and you still as much as you shot you still didn't take as much advantage of it as as you could you were you know you were the best shooter ever in the acc the best shooter and uh and you know one of the all-time great players in our not just at duke but in our conference and and i'll tell you what a thing that i was uh really impressed about you is when you became a pro and you were you had talent obviously with shooting but you went to a higher speed a more athletic league and you were in the midst of maybe failing and van gundy was hard on you and that was good and the summer that you spent here becoming a better athlete was something that most kid most guys most people would never do because they would uh they would they would let failure be their destination and instead it was instead of your destination it was your motivation and that summer really took you to a different level and i know you give a lot of credit to van gundy for being hard on you and uh but you coming to grips with that reality is something that a lot of guys a lot of people never come to grips with the with the reality that the the limit that they're at is not where they should be at if they do more and then they stop and you didn't stop that's why you've been in the league for 15 years because of that summer and because of that uh that so-called i would call it a i don't know failure is a hard word but uh yeah you weren't gonna make it no you were not gonna make it it became a matter of survival and i i was very realistic with myself about that at some point during my second year i thought to myself oh i might be out of the league right and that summer was between my second and third year i came in may i stayed for about two and a half months through you know mid-july before i went back down to orlando i was with chris carawell six days a week i was with jeff houser i was with will stevens the strength guy um completely transformed my body i mean the the my my second year media day photo versus my third year media day photo two different people um so that was that was a huge a huge summer for me coach i want to talk a little bit about just what's happening right now with college basketball and the uncertainty of next season and or or this coming season due to covid um what kind of communication are you giving your team right now what are you what are you telling them uh just in in preparation for what could be uh another season that that potentially gets disrupted yeah i always believe that you know that people can handle the truth and you never you just let people know exactly what's going on so i mean our goal is to have a season uh it'll probably be a disrupted season where there could be cancellation of games and uh the goal is to have an ncaa tournament and that's what college basketball is going to try to do although you know just looking at college football and saying well they're doing this it's not going to be the same it's a different sport it's indoors there's more contact and and a lot has to do with what the medical protocols will be uh especially concerning contact tracing and uh and we're realistic with our guys we test every day our guys got here the first around the second of august at that time we tested every week and uh we've had all negatives and so our guys have been able we've been able to work with them in an interesting way i've i i keep my distance from them and but my my coaches started out with one-on-one and we have a great practice facility so they actually got more individual work because you got four buckets one guy at a bucket and we built up and we actually learned to do some things that are better you know and our yeah most of our team is living in the washington duke that's a five-star hotel here on campus and a number of the teams are there and we've kept our bubble and uh it's just uh it's they're really an upbeat group and jj this is an interesting thing for me you know from march until the time our team came i'm on zoom all the time that's how we're communicating and as a leader i don't get a feel for my people you know like i try to listen more i ask more questions but one of the main things is you know from how i coach and that you get energy from your team you give energy but you get energy and all of a sudden you're you're just giving energy and it wears your butt out and all of a sudden these kids come and boom i meant boom you know like boy this is good you know yeah and they've been really energetic and and good and we start official practice next week but they changed where we can work with them about eight hours a week now we don't really work with them that as much but a good group and you know my staff is sensational with uh john and nolan and chris and nate and then will stevens these kids love our strength coach this guy's one of the great guys in the whole world so they're we're just around good you know it's neat to be around good people but now we're interacting and so we're getting energy and we're just gonna we're gonna keep we're gonna keep getting ready and uh hopefully good things will happen you've had to uh deliver news to your teams uh a ton over the last 40 years and i i think back to my time at duke my freshman year um you know you were one of the first people that told us we were going to a war in iraq that was that was right around march madness my senior year you were the first person that told us what was happening with with the duke lacrosse team and that these charges were going to be brought like i remember vividly pulling up to cameron right after the acc championship my senior year and and you coming to the back of the bus and telling us what's going on how difficult was it to to sort of have that conversation this past season with your guys hey guys march madness has been canceled and for you know some of the older guys or even some freshmen that maybe decided to leave their their careers at duke were abruptly cut short well that for everybody really in college basketball and it started in the acc tournament where we were going to play at 2 30 in the afternoon and that morning it was the morning after gobert was tested positive and i i saw that late at night i knew the world would change then you know like it was going to be different and that morning at breakfast i could tell my team there was a different mood so i sat down with him i said how do you feel and they they felt scared they didn't know and i said well let's let's talk about this i'm going to call my ad my president and get guidance from them and then we met a little bit later and uh they they were they did not want to play they were afraid that something would ha and that was smart on their part and my president was just about to make the decision to cut spring sports already and so he just made that announcement then and vince price and then the ball kept going now saying that they didn't know that that meant the ncaa tournament was not going to happen but that morning i said you know just so you know when we we're not playing it could be that you know the ncaa tournament will not be played but no one knew anything then and i asked my president whatever statement they put out to say even though we were postponing or canceling or whatever it wouldn't be for the entire time because maybe two months from now they would allow it but when it became aware that it's not going to happen a big thing in any type of situations like this is closure so how will you have closure with these guys and so you know i met with them individually and uh you know we that that weekend uh when they were going to announce the ncaa tournament but didn't before they went home we were trying to keep him at duke but duke wanted everybody out uh we actually had a dinner at the youth club and we created a video of one shining moment and we and we had all their their thing i got chills just it was such a good night and i said you guys you guys won you know you guys want and so then we kept in contact and the weekend of the final four on the saturday of the final four you know that's the best day where four teams come together and i called i facetime which i usually don't do and you i apologize for people having to look at me for this amount of time but i don't facetime very much because my nose and ears take up most of the screen but uh i facetimed each one of them it took most of the day and had a long time said i want you to imagine yourself today you would have been in atlanta you would have been playing in front of 75 000 people just close your eyes sometime today and think of yourself doing that and then on monday the national championship day i had a team meeting at 8 30 8 45 a zoom and that would be the time you would come into the locker room for the last time and i was actually dressed up in a coat and tie and i told him i said i want you to think of a few things i want you to imagine yourself being there and i want you to uh you know be in this moment and then i gave a pregame speech about what they did i said and you know you guys you went from you won the acc tournament and you were a number two seed and then we we went through those first two rounds and we killed people but man that sweet 16 game you know we're we're down by eight with four minutes to go and i don't know how the hell you guys did it but you did it and you came through and and then you know we're we we go to the uh elite eight and we win and we're in the final four and on saturday you guys were amazing to win by 25 points in a semi-final game is incredible and now you're in the moment that you dreamed of playing for the national championship and what you dreamed of was unbelievable you know what one thing about dreams is when they become reality it's reality tonight let's go out and be national champions and uh and uh and then two hours later uh we uh sent out uh uh some stuff to them and it was one shining moment we had a banner made national champions 2020 and so you know stuff like that is those kids deserve that and uh uh and and it was it was you know what it was really good for me to do it you know if i felt good about doing it because you know the journey that you have with a a team i've had 46 journeys or i'm gonna have my 46th with and then besides the u.s team and each one is its own entity and then you have to wrap it up you know like you wrap it up but you how you wrap it up is important because for the rest of your life that team will remember how you wrap it up and uh you owe that to the unit i learned that in the military too you know you don't have your unit all the time there's a start and a finish and then there's the passing of auton to somebody who's going to take over that unit and uh i believe in that stuff and i think that's one of the reasons we have such great relationships with our guys uh and it's a thing that keeps all you guys the same you know you all have done your individual journeys it wasn't the same amount of wins and whatever but there was a good ending a good start we went for it and even if we didn't win the whole thing it was a good ending and we did it together so that's what we tried to do with this yeah i can't imagine how difficult and creative you had to get to to put closure on a season like this um i didn't get the closure that i wanted at duke which would have been a national championship and the closest i came uh in my four years was my sophomore year and we we made the final four we lost to uconn there was a couple plays at the end of the game where i had the ball in my hand one that would have given us the lead and then a a chance to to tie on a three i got stripped on one play and and missed the three on the other but that entire sophomore year for me and i i've i've told parts of this but you know in december i had my sisters come meet me on campus and i i really was thinking hard about quitting because the pressure and all of the the hate that was coming my way it just it didn't feel like it was worth it um and you and i talked i guess in february after a valparaiso game it was the first time that um that you kind of i think it was maybe the first time that you had noticed that i was something was amiss right um do you do you remember anything from from that that winner of my sophomore year and and kind of when did you notice that i wasn't all there well i don't remember a lot from it you know what i overall i remember about your sophomore year was one of the critical years in your life because you learned the price that you had to pay to be that successful and and what it took to be on the stage you weren't old enough or have experience enough to handle it like you do now or that you know as a man and and there really wasn't enough people there weren't people it's not like your family knew you know or anybody it's hard like most people don't know and i didn't know you were going through it but then you know you once we knew about it you know we as a program tried to help you with it and uh and where then isn't it amazing then after all that it's something you embraced you know i became my life yeah my life yeah but you embraced it and that's the thing a lot it's the same thing it's similar to what we talked about with your pro career there's a you know i call them bridges you know they're they're bridges that people have to cross in order to fulfill their potential their potential what their talent and motivation can do for them and it's one of the great things that i i've loved about college is i've been able to cross a lot of bridges with guys you know you had a bridge in your pro career that was a tough one but you had a coach in the pros that was tough and but he was taught he was tough because he believed in you not because he didn't believe in you and then you came to the place where you cross bridges and i don't know if you've ever thought about it that way but you know sometimes coming back home or coming to a place that where you had achieved not just one not just hit shots but you crossed the bridge you crossed something that that was tough and you surrounded yourself you don't cross you shouldn't cross a bridge alone and so you got will you got a whole bunch of people and you did it you know during your sophomore year uh it was so damn new and uh it wears on you also you're a kid i was 19. yeah you're a kid you want to have fun you wanted to yeah you yeah yeah so all of that stuff are you in short splitters right now are you in your office in short spotters right now i'm in my yeah my conference room yeah yeah okay so may 21 2004 was probably the most important day of my basketball career and that's when wojo and collins tracked me down right i was staying at an off-campus apartment i wasn't enrolled in summer school i was just kind of chilling i told my parents i was finishing up an incomplete because my grades were so bad and i think i maybe had told you guys that i was at my parents in virginia and wojo and college tracked me down because shavlik randolph is a snitch and he said he saw me at this one apartment but they dragged me up to your office and we sat there and we had a very emotional meeting um but you talk about sir like being surrounded by love and and to a degree like forgiveness like i don't even think looking back like i didn't think i deserved a second chance at the time and for you to give me that second chance and to say no we're gonna help you make it right we're going to put you on this program we're going to put you on this schedule we're going to surround you with all the resources you need you want somebody to talk to we'll give you somebody to talk to you want help with nutrition we're going to give you help with nutrition it was it was life-changing that that that day was life-changing well and then we trapped you every second of the day yes but when something is happening to a person a lot of times that person feels it only happens to him or her and it's never happened to you you feel guilty you feel ashamed and you're a little you're a little bit bewildered or a whopped belter and the thing is the people in the room with you i mean i've gone through that i know it's hard to believe but i was 19 at one time i was you know i i i was messed up at different times wojo and chris and and so it wasn't like we didn't know that that can happen it didn't happen to the level that it was happening to you because of how good you were you know there was a bigger spotlight and part of you part of the problem you had was you needed to get away from the spotlight and be a guy be a kid and that spotlight was there all the time like how the hell do i get rid of this and uh and we had to spend the time with you to show you how you can lead a life being in that spotlight and uh you learned that that's why i'm saying you embraced it and and wojo and chris did an amazing job uh it's it's one of those things as an assistant coach in the fine print and additional duties as a signed by the head coach uh yeah i was coach i was going to ask that about about sort of spotting these bridges with your guys because you know we had we had grayson on a couple weeks ago and we talked about how he went through some similar things but with jj or with grayson where it's you know so obvious they're whatever star players they're in the spotlight it may be more clear but you know when you have guys who maybe aren't playing as much or whatever it is is that really like the the role of the assistant to just be sort of seeing this before it kind of comes to a head well i think for all of us i i i kind of think that's my job i i watch my guys a lot and i watch body language moods facial expressions and a lot of times i can tell if something's wrong and then my guys see it too and then we'll talk about about i mean we you know we're going to have a meeting later today and part of it is we're getting to know these guys you know like i watch them like crazy who's a little bit weaker who's a little bit stronger interactions and and then if there's any change in in character in activity uh and to nip it at the bud so to speak and i believe in counseling you know i've i in my life i've done in the mid 90s i went through a really difficult time with injury and and a lack a loss of feeling and uh i believe there's nothing wrong with that it's a sign of strength and so we provide counseling for our players and and uh not just our counseling and i think it's good and i i think it's good for people to uh to take advantage of that throughout their lives and uh um and that helps that that that real and you know for a player i think they know then you know i think they know already but they really know that we care about them you know not just to uh not just to score well i'm not going to lose my job if we don't win the whole thing or you know i you like i do this because i want to be in the moment of these kids not yeah in whatever is going to happen with this group and that's still very exciting to me but i also want to be there you know like i have so many guys that point for me and and it you know i talked to three of them yesterday in different for different reasons and it's so fulfilling yeah you know let me can i tell you a quick story this is a a great thing uh marshall plumley marshall plumley wanted to be in the army and he went and he you know he played well here he was in the nba off and on but he had to follow he went rotc and then he he went full board and now he's a ranger airborne he calls me yesterday he's so proud and he's one of those guys that when you hear his voice on the phone you feel good it's full of life it's it's like there's not enough seconds in the day for this kid to live and he said coach i just went through three weeks of amazing training and uh i was trying trying to qualify for the third ranger regiment in fort benning it's one of the elite groups in the world and he said i i was picked and he said the toughest ques the question he said that was so good during the interview they said well why do you want to be in the third ranger regiment uh officer plumlee and he said you know when i was a sophomore at duke coach k spoke for general brown down at fort benning when they were combining the armor and infantry units in the united states army and bob brown was in charge of that and he brought back a hat from the third ranger regiment and i gave it to marshall and i said i think you know you love this and and i said the third ranger unit is like duke basketball and basketball and uh he said i've always i get i i want to cry really this kid is unbelievable and he says coach i told him it was my dream to be in the third ranger regiment and and i am and i said you son of a bucket man you are a stud i am so damn proud of you i said no one's followed his heart like you have and those are the things uh you know throughout that a college like for me i i recruit good guys and they become really good men and then uh you're able to follow their their wives and be a part of their wife it's to me that's the best thing that that's happened in my career but marshall's story is it's an amazing it's an amazing story it's an amazing story 7-1 i know he's in a ranger unit jumping out of airplanes he's crawling under crap and he's and he's smiling about it and having fun holy crap and you used to complain about extra sprints jj you're soft i'm soft tommy coach is the ultimate body language reader by the way i know you said that earlier my senior year when i broke the acc scoring record it was a game in philly we were playing temple at uh wells fargo or whatever the arena was called back then and john chaney had told his players jj reddick is not going to break the acc scoring record against us we're going boxing one okay so i didn't get a lot of clean looks i ended up with like 13 points or something and broke the record in the sec at halftime i put a piece of gum in my mouth okay so when we watched film the following day coach points out he's like why the [ __ ] are you chewing gum why are you chewing gum what is this as if as if the gum was the reason i didn't have a great game but that means and it wasn't the boxing one no it was they screwed you up and you went to the gum it's like a seinfeld episode going to the gum oh man i'm gonna i'm gonna wrap i'm gonna wrap the sophomore to junior year story with two two quick anecdotes so there's a moment we win the acc championship my junior year against georgia tech and i got no guards with no guards on the floor in the last minute yeah i know everybody had fouled out um and i got emotional after the game and i and i i basically buried my head in your chest and and there's a picture of it and you actually sent me that picture framed uh about six months ago but the moment i always remember was we lose in the sweet 16 to michigan state um and we're in austin you call me up to your hotel room after the game we chatted and that moment i think to me at least in my sort of personal life was the moment that we became friends where that that surrealness that had been there my first two years and during my recruitment that was gone because of that year that i had gone through with you right and the way that you had embraced me like that was the moment where we became friends and we've been friends for you know 16 years since it's great you know one quick thing about that georgia tech game so you know jj's the only guard in the game sheldon williams and chavelic randolph are bringing the ball up the court and we have a lead but we're milking that damn thing as much as possible and with a little bit over a minute to go and there's like 26 25 seconds on the shot clock right in front of our bench jj pulls up and shoots and and he hits and he looks at me and he goes the shrug i said he's son of a buck it's the dagger you got to put him away you got to put him away tommy coach and i used to watch tape this is this was the other thing like coach was the first coach that i had that embraced me shooting threes in transition like no everybody does that now nobody was doing back that back then but pesia was and so pay he would he would he would because coach watches nba every night he would watch a king's game like late night get to get the video from the night before and then show me and i think and you talked a little bit about how i i maybe should have shot more but my confidence as a shooter and as a player a lot of that comes from having played for you and i think that you do that with a lot of your great players is that you you give them full empowerment you give them full ownership of of the bus or the ship whatever you want to call it and and by going through the fire with you on that it gave me all the confidence the world so for me to take a terrible shot with a minute to go i still do that i still am going to try to put a team away well along with that you know i've had a chance to coach more great players than anyone because of being at duke with so many but also the 11 years as a coach in the u.s and like in college especially great players have to be able to follow their instincts and you can put them in positions but if you put don't put them in a box let them go and this the single easiest time for you to get a shot was before the defense got there whether we were we had a numerical advantage or not it didn't matter you were going to hit about 50 percent of your shots and so in transition take it man and then your teammates should know that and in that the chaos of transition if it was a long rebound you probably have a 50 50 chance of getting a rebound so it's like a free shot you know for my whole career too on we're the ones who uh started that on an offensive board you'd kick it out and i always told you guys that's my shot that's a free shot you have to take i don't care who it is you have to take the shot on an offensive rebound kickout we'd watch film on that all the time yeah where like you'd show us missed opportunities and and you'd show guys who didn't shoot or you'd show the rebounder get the ball and be like look there's there's the guy that's open that's the shot right there right now everybody does it and yeah and it's hard but you you know it's fun it's kind of like you know you're you're up in new york and i'm sure when broadway was going on you go like oh yeah oh yeah yeah and it's like me being like a producer or director and you have that singer or dancer you know like go for it man you know like you know we can play the music and we can surround you with good people but there's something you will do in that moment that nobody can teach you and those are i love those i love that you know i uh i i love it and you were you were one of those guys there you know there aren't that many that played a duke like that you know they're uh a few more recently but they're not here long so you only you know you only get to do that for a year with them and they never really get to the level of doing that that they would if they were here long i'm not saying they shouldn't go don't get me wrong but uh for you i had it's like having grant for four years or latener for four years uh intellectually and and defensively and badly a for four years you know they they're just some things that hurley for four years they they do think you guys do things that you can't teach you you uh you can't teach and uh you know tommy coach just named all his favorite players that's what it was just named i didn't name all my favorites i'm just kidding um i told i told john jackson to tell you don't don't do that and ask me the all-time favorite team i know i know i told i told john i said john we were going to make coach draft to start we do a draft every episode i'm like we're going to make coach draft a duke starting five and basically jj was like it's not gonna happen it's not gonna happen and you would be so disappointed that's really really why i told him not not to do it i i i would have you ever cried on your podcast yeah once i actually did it that would have been another time i didn't i i didn't i didn't want it to happen on my watch not on my watch tommy i don't remember if it was a birthday or if it was you breaking this the wins record but one year at k academy we did a roast of coach k and uh his dog debbie organized it and she asked me uh to be one of the roasters um and part of the shtick was that coach's favorite player was shane battier and that every time you that he heard the word battier he got a little movement he got a little excited do you sense some jealousy here yes this is this is not this is not the first uh time shane's name has caused this on this show yeah like come on and and when did i ever say that but you know it might be true it might be i love it i don't i i know it's not me it's fine i'll get it out of debbie or lindy at some point but i know it's not me it's fine it's fine um when did you did you consciously decide to embrace the one and done era because grace and i we talked about this with grayson so grayson played with i think 11 or 12 guys i played with one i played with lou aldang that was a one and done grayson in his four years played with if you count um uh duvall uh he he played with 12 guys um so it seems like in the way that you recruited maybe post 2010 2011 where you were getting maybe one one and done guy and now it's you know four or five guys it seems like that are coming in every year now we didn't change our recruiting yeah we look for three things you know you got to be really talented you don't have to be a pro right away but or even a pro at the end but you have to be really good and then we have to get a bun a few guys that are going to be pros then they have to be you know pretty good academically because we have one of the great schools in the world and the third thing and they're all equal they have to be good guys and so we haven't changed it's just that the world changed the salaries of the mba changed you know the and so and then we have produced a lot of pros and and we have a we have a we have one of the great programs and so guys come here and it's financially beneficial for them to to leave and but we haven't changed that doesn't mean we've embraced one and done we just look if you if you came in now okay uh just to use like a tyler hero as an example you know you would be either a lottery pick or uh mid first round after your rookie year and would you go you know and chances are you would and you should if you're going to be drafted that high you know like a luke canard was here for two years he didn't think he's gonna we but we had everybody hurt during that year and he was the only one who wasn't and had a great year and he came in and he and his dad almost apologized i don't know i said no you got to you go you're gonna be somewhere around the 15th pick you're you know six five white guy who can shoot and who can shoot really well and you just had as good a year as you might have in college you know you should take advantage of it so it's more uh that the financial opportunities and and you know the nba it i don't know it's a crazy league it's a great league but there are opportunities out there for young guys and uh uh but i i we haven't changed jj do you think you would have gone if we if you because the tyler the tyler comp is interesting because it is he it is a little similar in terms of uh you know where he was after his freshman year if if he was top i would tell him to go yeah you know because not after his sophomore year yeah i would have got eaten alive in the nba yeah no i i think the mindset that i had is way different than the mindset that college kids have now or that high school kids have now because when i when i was in school you know you could still get drafted out of high school and a lot of guys did my draft class in 06 was the first draft where you couldn't go out of high school and so growing up and being a duke fan my mindset was always four years i want to break the scoring record i want to get my jersey retired like those were more important to me at the time than getting to the nba right the second part of this is i think you almost get punished now by staying in school sometimes yeah you know they're looking they're looking at that age that's that's as as as important as any of your physical measurements or any of your stats that age is an important stat and so i think it can hurt you sometimes if you end up being a 22 year old senior like i was yeah um as opposed to tyler hiro who's 19. yeah let me tell you like one of our key players from last year cassius stanley who's going to be a good pro and a great kid he had him started every game for us was really it but he he was already 21 he was an older freshman and and he and his family loved duke and great student and but they couldn't stay because of age you know like if you get too old then you what you just said is absolutely true people look at that so uh we understand that that's yeah that's part of you know you have to keep adapting to the environment you're in you know that's one of the key things about sustained excellence is the ability to adapt to new environments and and uh you know for me you know i'm 73 years old i i i'm coaching kids that are 18 to 22. i'm 50 years older than these kids and and uh so i got to adapt how i talk to them how what i wear i'm wearing air force ones and and uh my my sweats can't be too baggy and and uh i gotta say and and i would like to stay in decent shape anyway but uh and then i gotta know what the hell they're doing i gotta you know follow him on instagram and and uh learn a little bit about and i like that and so you adapt to how you communicate what you do not adapt to is what you communicate how you communicate you adapt what you communicate are the same they're the same values of integrity and courage and respect and selfless service and loyalty and trust all the all those things and duty and uh they're just taught a little bit differently than the way we taught you and but it's the same less it it's the same values based system and obviously fundamentally basketball wise i always personalize for that team but it it's it changes and you know you have to embrace change you can't be talking about how it used to be how it used to be it what way it was how it used to be is not the way it is and and forget about how it will be that'll take care of itself if you take care of what it is right now and so you have to embrace the moment that you're in with the people that you're in with and it's up to the leader to make those uh uh to adapt in that i caught you know i call it being an agile learner and in in uh in a curious person where you are constantly trying to learn you know you you know if you stop warning you might as well you know you might you definitely should get out of coaching but uh you know that that's what living is about it's about learning and interacting and being in moments and you know at 73 for me to be in these moments with these kids that's crazy good it's unbelievably good i always i've always said this when people ask about you because i get asked about you all the time you know i coach is a great coach blah blah but his greatest strength is adaptability and you said it you know you you've adapted um how you've coached not what you've coached you've adapted how you've coached and then year to year you adapt to the personnel that you have on your team it's not duke doesn't have a system the system is the people that you have on your team that year and then you maximize the gifts and the talents of those players year to year you're you know if you had marvin bagley and wendell carter on the team you're not running jj reddick floppy action every time down the floor you know uh so you you adapt year to year you brought up something a second ago about embracing change and let's zoom out for a second on a macro level in this country right now right there's some people that don't want to embrace change and you've been outspoken on a number of issues recently uh and you and i did something together for tnt the other night um i would assume you've got to be pretty excited as an older person in this country to watch the younger generation be so active and ask for a lot of things that are are just basic moral human rights issues well i am and the one of the reasons is that uh the younger generation uh sees things through a lens that i did not see when i was their age and because of the environment that we all grew up in in the 60s and 70s and this this generation does not see color gender nationality religion they they see a person you know they are they are they will totally embrace you as a as a person and there's so many in this generation that feel that way not everybody obviously that this is the time this is the time to uh unite the the talents of the great people that we have in this country who are you know different gender different color different nationality uh you know it's it's time to do that and understand that that's a strength and uh for me i didn't realize how behind we were because of these zoom calls that we've had with the brotherhood really opened my eyes not opened my eyes it gave my eyes more depth uh where i i felt instead you know i always say you don't own anything by just hearing and seeing it you have to feel it and and i felt it over these you know and and uh i'm really proud of what my guys are doing and what we're doing this is a time in our country where we have a chance to to be one and you know i i believe right now we're you know i hear people say we're better than this and and and that's both part everybody and we are not you we are not better than this right now you know we have to get better than this and we have been better we should watch old tapes you know of when we were better than this but at this point we are not and we should you know in order to make to change something you have to acknowledge that there is a problem you and and and there is a problem and it's everybody's fault it's not it's not one person's fault it's everybody's fault and it'll be everybody's fault if we put it together so in 2004 i'm visiting my aunt in iowa it's like july 4th week and i get a phone call from you and you're like hey man i'm thinking about taking the lakers job and then you went radio silent for about three or four days and i'm sitting there that weekend and i'm like calling my buddies at university of texas or i had two buddies that played at university of iowa and i happened to be in the state and i was like yo if coach takes the lakers job i'm out i'm leaving and remind you this was coming off my sophomore year where i'm already like i'm already you know dealing with some stuff how close how close were you to taking the lakers job yeah closer than any other offer i ever had and really in depth i've only entertained two nba offers uh one in 90 when dave gavitt was in control of the uh uh i love dave gavitt he's one of the the great men ever and uh he took over the celtics and i always i grew up with the lakers and celtics you know the two brands and i didn't take it and then we we won two national championships the next two years so uh but with the lakers you know i was 57 and [Music] i said you know is there something more is is is there i love what what i'm doing i love duke i love but is there something more and i'm not going to be doing this forever maybe and i i knew kobe uh and they were at my house they offered a lot of money and we were building the emily szczeczki center at that time and they offered to do the rest of the building of that and and and uh and so when they left the house it was you know like this is like generational wealth you know this is not you got to consider it and uh but this is a this is a true story it's a funny story uh i think it's funny and so one of the guys who one of the people you know we all need a few people to believe in us in our life the guy who hired me here who has passed away tom butters believed in me three times and and it was critical in all three times and so he was no longer my id but i called him i said that's a tom and it was 25 years after he hired me and uh i said tom when you hired me and you uh you paid me 40 000 and to be quite frankly i accepted the job here without even knowing how much money i was gonna make but anyway that's another story and uh i said and so the financial thing the first thing financially from them at that time which it's a lot of money ever but at that time they offered me 40 million dollars okay and so i said tom forty thousand forty million i said what do you think he said i think you should send me a ten percent finders fee i said you son of a bucket and i just couldn't do it and i i i love duke and i love this and ironically a few months after that jerry colangelo asked me to coach the us team and i i did that for what i loved that and and we've won gold medals you know three olympics two world championships a couple more national championships and and uh but that it was it was interesting during that time but i'm i'm really really pleased that i did not do that coach do you have any favorite uh kobe stories yeah you know uh a number of them the best one or one of the best ones was you know when we were starting to build a culture at the usa basketball he chauncey phillips and jason kidd were added to add uh veteran leadership to lebron and carmelo and you know those those guys who are great guys and so we're getting ready to uh uh to get ready for beijing and uh so i'm with my staff in vegas a couple days before the team comes in and uh all of a sudden there's a knock on the door just two days early and it's kobe he said coach can can i talk to you for a minute and i said certainly so he went to a private room and i said what do you need he said i i i need to ask you a favor and i s i said yeah what is it he said i want to guard the best perimeter player on every team that we play now he's the nba scoring champ he's the best player in the league at that time he had seven 50-point games that year and he he knew that he would have to change a little bit and be a leader and and but he says you know i want to guard the best perimeter player and then he pauses and you know his eyes he and jordan have the same had the same eyes they killed you with their eyes and and he leans forward and he said coach i promise y'all destroy him i i got holy [ __ ] i said this is good so uh we go we have a team meeting in the first practice he doesn't take a shot he does not take one shot and he's playing defense and so i call him over afterwards i said you know yo this destroy thing he says coach i promised you i'll destroy him i said look i've seen you destroy teams offensively will you shoot the freaking ball and he smiled you know he had that smile and he said from then on i was the only coach ever to ask him to shoot and you know what he was doing jj he he had this vision of moments he knew that for us to win the gold medal we would have to beat argentina whether it be in a semis or the gold medal game and that he wanted to guard ginobili believe me he already had that figured out and he was going to prepare to guard you wasn't just to set an example for his team he had that vision crazy so we do play argentina in the semis and we're beating him by 20 points and genobly gets hurt so now you think we're going to win by 40. and it becomes a six point game because now he's not interested anymore that's who he is that's who he was god bless him and uh i love the guy and he and lebron developed a relationship that was needed to create the culture and they did i i'm so proud of lebron for doing that and obviously i was very proud of kobe for doing it you were uh you were also a coach on the 92 dream team right um in a hypothetical world the redeemed team and the dream team play a seven game series who wins that series well in their when they're all healthy yeah healthy and prime yeah no the dream team but they weren't all healthy in 90s yeah bird was banged up magic was later yeah yeah and stockton was not read you know uh but in their prime i mean you're talking about 11 hall of famers and uh the greatest thing you know what and that was the first time uh that uh the nba came to the olympics and that was a visionary moment by david stern in the nba and it was a an atomic bomb for the world of for the global world of basketball those guys were rock stars there and you know they were such gentlemen they represented us so damn well and the nba of the 80s built the mba of who you are today and those guys brought we didn't have a culture for usa basketball they brought their culture to usa basketball for that moment then it didn't stay after that it was it was a moment in time really uh a moment in time they i mean you're talking about when you're you know whatever starting five you pick all time there are a few in that on that team you know i don't care who you're who you are maybe some of the younger people today they don't know how good magic or bird these guys even jordan they they you know but uh and one thing too about kobe kobe was this generation's jordan and the when he was with that horrific accident and i can remember bringing my whole team upstairs to my six floor office and they were crying i was telling them stories because i didn't realize how much of a hero he was to this genera to this generation and uh and in some respects lebron has been that now and uh i'm proud of him because he carries a mantle he he carries a lot of burden and uh and especially at this time of of uh social unrest uh he has really really put it out there as has the league you know the nba should be very proud about how they've handled this whole thing you got you got the best commissioner in sport you know adam's and his team has done a that bubble it was amazing it worked and and everyone was safe you know what what an amazing job you don't know when you're going to play though do you again no no it's gonna be late january early february yeah that's what i think um when you because you've gotten to sort of peek behind the curtain uh of the nba right by your involvement with usa basketball when you go back and talk to your duke guys what are what are the observations that you're sharing with them about lebron or about kobe like what is what are what are the things that you notice that are that are separators for those guys well i use them as examples of you know the very first thing is preparation you know just how how the elite pro player prepares and and uh yeah i tell them stories of you know when we're with the us team yeah i to i remember the first meeting i had i had it with dwayne wade jason kobe and lebron and i said well you know i think we should have two practices a day one physical and then one walk through and and they said whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa now we coach we can't do that and so i don't know if they're punking me or whatever they're doing i said look you you should understand we all have our individual workout routines and we will need time every day to do our individual stuff give us periods of time in the morning after practicing at night and guys will fill those windows and then we can you know it's good to meet and late in the morning and then have practice and we'll we'll take care of that and i had to they were they weren't punking me they they they have their individual routines whether it be you know yoga pilates you know what extra shooting and i then had all these people wojo chris collins all these guys working for me throughout the day they were going to gyms doing this and whatever and uh i learned that wow these guys prepare and then the respect that they showed you know how they look at you you know if you know the face-to-face contact and and how they studied the game you know if we went through a scatter report and said these are the six things argentina does in a conference room by the time we got to the gym lebron knew all of them chris paul knew all of them so i had to adjust and you know like well here's the top ball screen before i said anything i would ask what do you think and and chris would say this or lebron would say this and most of the time it was what i was going to say sometimes it was a lot better but you know they owned it and we had to do you know i found myself doing i can't do that with my own team as much but i will ask him what do you think you know and uh and then how how well they took care of their bodies how they ate you know lebron has the same guy working with him since he's 20. before he played he i think he stretched for 45 minutes you know you know some of our guys want to show up you may have to show up 45 minutes yeah and did i i guess the key word here is commitment to a high level of excellence and they only see the finished product they don't know what goes on behind and i thought i knew a lot about what behind what i'm behind but i did and you know the relationships or the the shared i call it shared best practices of being on that olympic olympic team and those guys could be their own guys you know if they're with their own teams they can't show weakness or or whatever they got to play the role but with that team they were they could hang out a little bit and uh when i don't know if i told you this story but when we added kobe uh jason kidd and chauncey who i love i love chauncey and i went i flew up to akron to talk to lebron and i said look we're you know we need we need this what do you think he says no whatever he says you know uh jay kidd is the best passer in the nba he said i'm a good passer i think i can learn from him and kobe prepares better than everybody i think i could learn from and every meeting lebron sat right next to jason and every night they went out to shoot together you know and i i see this then in 212 we had this young guy called anthony davis who didn't play as much in the london olympics and i see the mentoring that lebron did with him there or the all the guys and so now you see him in the in in the moment of maybe winning an nba championship and so that that melting pot of talent that usa basketball was able to create and these guys giving it up really has made the game better uh it's made the game name better because you pass on some of these secrets you know like what book are you gonna look at no there is no book yeah but if you watch if and if anthony watches how lebron prepares and talks and yeah i think it's passing on these elite preparations secrets on on the achievement of excellence that uh and i i saw it happening and uh it you know a great place to be in part of the reason that i get so jazzed about this stage of my career and the the mentoring part the leadership part is is sharing some of those secrets and it's not just with it's legitimately not just with my teammates i mean i have young guys in the league texting me or asking me stuff after games or if i see them at dinner or whatever and it's i think it's part of as when you get older you realize like it's part of your your legacy as a player is to is to share and somebody shared it with me somebody helped me uh it's it's my turn to to pay that pay that forward let me tell you one thing with new orleans they're fortunate to have you and i know all the people down there and as good a player as you are you doing that helps develop culture you know there there are there are a number of teams that have traditions you know but there aren't as many teams that have cultures and it's culture that wins not tradition culture wins and sometimes you don't develop culture because you take tradition you think tradition is enough and so having veterans who have gone through it and understand and are willing to share like you could be in a position where you don't want to share because you don't want a younger guy to take your place and and tell me that that doesn't happen and uh and so if you can get a collection of people who will do that old new and talented and you got a chance you got a chance to develop a culture that uh that will be deserving of winning you you don't just win you have to be deserving of winning before you win and uh i i i'm excited what how it'll go for you down down there coach um we appreciate the time greatly this has been a lot of fun it's always good to catch up with you i'm looking forward to being able to see you in person and have some wine with you um yeah you're a wine dog well i want to say with all the wine i haven't gotten any i'm more of a california cab guy sauvignon blanc uh oregon uh i like oregon i like oregon oregon's great yeah you're all the you got all the french and spanish yeah you're you've come a long way from the from the mountains and roanoke i'll tell you that where they didn't even have cork coach is trying to portray me as the wine snob so my wedding back in 2010 i didn't know a whole lot about wine and i was on a budget and i wanted to i wanted to keep that budget so we had picked out a couple wines to serve at the dinner and they in retrospect they weren't great wines and coaches coach coach flies in and he's you know we at the at the dinner or whatever i noticed that he's called the sommelier over and he's got the wine book and he's ordering a bunch of different great great wine for his table and he did not did not share any of that with mine it's okay it's okay now because now you sip at that time you galt you were not a sipper at that time you were a bumper uh that's facts that's facts all right coach we appreciate it thank you man all right i loved it

Channel: JJ Redick

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Keywords: mike krzyzeski, coach k, mike krzyzeski duke, coach k duke, mike krzyzeski jj redick, mike krzyzeski jj redick duke, coach k jj redick, mike krzyzeski jj redick interview, mike krzyzeski jj redick podcast, coach k jj redick interview, coach k jj redick podcast, coach k the old man and the three, mike krzyzeski the old man and the three, coach k lebron, coach k kobe bryant, coach k team usa, the old man and the three, jj redick podcast, jj redick new podcast, coach k lakers

Id: ZV0WFfADuh4

Length: 76min 32sec (4592 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2020