There's like this whole balance of what it takes to be successful,
and there's different ways to do it.
I think it's it's helped me a lot in terms of how I communicate and how I see things,
because I've seen success done so many different ways.
Welcome to another episode of Nasdaq's The Winning Formula,
presented by the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One team.
We have a very special guest today,
president of the NBA most Improved Player in 2016,
NBA vet CJ McCollum.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thanks for having.
Me.
Appreciate it. Yes, sir.
Uh, I want to, you know,
before we get to the off the court stuff,
I really want to actually talk about this past season where, you know,
obviously it was, uh,
injuries that affected the team's kind of progress in the year.
But from an output perspective,
at this juncture of your career,
we're seeing still high output games,
great productivity at this juncture of your career now being, you know, firmly in vet.
What do you owe kind of the longevity and
the consistency you've been able to kind of put out, you know,
coming from Portland all the way to this point,
because the longevity part sometimes is the
hardest to maintain in an NBA. That's always changing.
No, I think it's the the mindset.
It's how you approach the game.
It's what you dedicate towards it,
the consistency and the work ethic,
the preparation, what you eat,
what time you go to sleep,
how you train, when you train,
when you take days off,
what you do to decompress.
I think all those things factor in.
Obviously, you get a little bit of luck in terms
of injuries and being able to avoid things,
but I think the harder you work, the luckier you get.
And I work extremely hard to be able to, you know,
maximize my window of opportunity to play and to be able to finish my,
you know, 12th season.
You know, I, you know,
ten straight years of 20 plus points per game,
being able to stay healthy, being able to stay right.
Mind you know, through the you know,
good nights, bad nights, you know,
55 win seasons or whatever we've had and 24 win seasons.
Being able to stay consistent with the approaching from a professionalism standpoint,
I think is a it's a is a credit to my ability
to just lock in and focus and try to take advantage of the blessing.
Nice. And you know, it's something I want to kind of have as
a theme here is around like the changing the state of the NBA.
When you came in in 2013 as a 10th pick to like now,
would you say the state of financial literacy and what the what
the conversation was in the locker rooms when you first
came in the league to now is night and day?
Is it completely different now?
You know, for yourself, moving into that veteran role and seeing the new players come in,
do you feel like the energy is different in the understanding of that is different?
Yeah, I would say that people are more openly willing to talk about finances now,
whereas in past years guys didn't want to talk about what they're investing in,
what they're doing with their money,
you know, ideas, whether that's real estate, whether that's,
you know, private investments,
whether that's, you know,
food and beverage industry guys are more willing to share now,
more comfortable with just kind of talking about what we may be doing in our spare time.
Or like, maybe I get a deal or something comes across my table and I'm like,
yo, check this out,
send this to your financial you know,
your financial team where guys will ask me like,
hey, what are you investing in?
Can you send me some stuff that you're getting?
So it's like now it's more of a an open dialogue and obviously success helps,
like having successful track records or being
known as someone who does certain things at a high level.
I think it helps with the comfort standpoint.
Like guys know, like I don't play with my money, like I'm not playing around.
So it's like if there's things that I'm doing,
a lot of it's working and if it's not working,
I'll tell you, like, hey, I tried this, stay away from this.
Maybe you should look towards that.
But I think it's just about guys being more willing to share.
And are there veterans that you remember that stood out to you from when you first came
in that almost showed you the ropes in that in their way as well,
whether it was on the court or off the court that you remember when you first come in.
And now you've obviously grown into that role yourself with the with
the players on your team that kind of stick out to you.
Yeah. Um, obviously super vets, right.
Like just, you know, the cayman's of the world.
Earl Watson's the right obviously.
Mo Williams I played with I played with a lot of vets.
And then, you know, for me,
it was in my household with my brother. He's 37.
He's played overseas for 15 or 16 years.
And I mean, he's in real estate.
So that's kind of helped me kind of learn about real estate from afar.
And we've been able to invest together in different projects and, um,
being able to see how he's kind of approached,
you know, going from, you know,
16 properties to 25 properties, you know,
being able to see how he's done it strategically and what that's looked like.
We always try to do things on our own
first to figure out whether or not it's going to be successful.
Then we come together and do it because we don't want to
bring each other in on a bad project.
So he's gone and done some things,
and then he's kind of showed me the results.
And we've gone in together and I've gone and done some things and show him the results,
and we've gone in together.
So it's been cool to be able to do some of those things.
And then just structurally just
learning and asking questions I think is really important.
And there's some players that have been helpful,
but there's more like, may he rest in peace,
junior Bridgeman before, you know,
I got into franchising,
I called him and asked him some questions.
My financial advisor kind of set us up to kind of talk and from a mentorship standpoint,
be able to kind of pick his brain.
And before I start getting into real estate, you know,
Don Peebles was someone that we reached out to and, you know,
set up dinner so we could kind of talk through,
like, strategically, like, how do you do certain things?
Why do you do them this way?
What stage should I look at? How should I structure things?
And it's been helpful to go to people who have
done it at a high level and been very successful.
I love that. And, you know,
for yourself, I would actually, you know, piggyback off of that.
I want to talk about what was the genesis for not just you've mentioned this before,
but not just the CJ McCollum,
the the 91 Heritage wine,
but also participating in the media.
I know for sometimes the the athlete,
they may look at the media almost in
a standoffish way depending on how things are covered.
What was the when was the moment that you realized,
hey, I have a voice, I want to use it.
And I have a perspective that's unique and
useful to kind of framing the game of basketball.
Yeah, man. I majored in journalism and mass communication and sociology,
so I've been working for Lehigh Sports,
I interned, I covered games, I covered soccer,
lacrosse, field hockey, football,
volleyball, tennis I tennis.
I cover the Patriot League championship and the Patriot League Tournament of Tennis.
So I've done every phase of journalism,
from interviews to being behind the camera to writing stories,
feature stories, all of those things.
I was the editor for The Brown and White,
which is a school newspaper,
so I kind of started off doing that while I was playing, and I loved it.
And may he rest in peace.
I love Stuart Scott,
I watched ESPN, I watched Sportscenter,
I just loved the process of analyzing games,
and I was like, yo, I want to play.
But if I can't one day it stops.
I want to be able to talk about sports,
be around sports, cover sports.
And that's kind of positioned me to,
you know, start with the internship.
And then I had a radio show.
I did a deal with Sirius XM radio my rookie year.
I had Rookie Diary,
and then I had to deal with,
you know, iHeart radio.
I had a 175 playlist.
I had a morning radio show on 7:20 a.m.,
so I had multiple shows in radio,
and then I got pitched to podcast in like 2014.
I was like, no, like I'm doing too much media.
I had covered the finals at that point,
like I was doing stuff for ESPN and Sportscenter and I was like,
I'm being known more as a journalist than a hooper.
And I was like, there's a negative connotation associated
with that right now because of how we're viewed as athletes.
And I was like, yo, I got to get better at basketball and be able to play more
and be more of a mainstay before I can carve out this whole journalism career.
So I kind of paused.
I won Most Improved Player of the year,
and then I launched the podcast the next year.
But I had kind of like established myself.
I had had some injuries, I wasn't playing,
and I was like, I don't like where this is going.
I know I'm building out like a great legacy and this is important to me,
but I'm being judged for doing,
like what I went to school for.
And it's like it's productive to society.
I'm not like out, like wild and out.
I'm literally using my major and doing it at a high level.
But I'm being judged as like,
oh, he just cares about all these other things besides basketball.
So I was like, all right, let me just take care of this.
This is how I provide.
And then we'll go back and do it.
And that's kind of how we did it.
And then obviously I did a deal with ESPN for multiple years, and we kind of did that.
And then I had my second baby and travel and doing the podcast,
and it was just it was too much,
and I needed to kind of take a step back and be able to,
to really evaluate my life,
spend more time with my family and these, you know, young,
important, impressionable years for my kids and be
around my wife and be able to work out.
And I got a lot going on.
So it was like, let me take a step back and then we'll reevaluate going forward.
That's a great point. And I feel like the, you know,
the important note you made about was also like,
I am a hooper as well.
Like, this is something I enjoy doing, but you know.
Right. For some reason, people think that those two things can't like kind of coexist.
At what point when you came into the league,
you know, there might always be.
And then it depends on a player,
this feeling of, you know,
not do I belong here?
But like staying here and like working really hard to
make sure that you get your seat and you keep your seat.
Was there a moment in time?
Could have been in your rookie season or another season where you felt like,
okay, you know what, I'm going to be here a while. You know what I mean?
It could have been a breakout game or a moment where you were like,
you know what? I'm comfortable here.
It's slowing down for me a little bit.
I don't feel like the game is moving too fast.
Was there a moment that you remember where you're like,
you know, I'm going to be in this league a while?
Two. I had some really good practices where like,
it was like I was in a matrix and I was like,
okay, this feels just like college.
This feels just how it felt.
The ball was comfortable,
the flow I was moving,
I was able to kind of get my game off.
I was like, okay, like, I can do this now.
How do I get more efficient?
How do I become more consistent?
How do I like, master this version of
myself so that I can put this version out consistently?
And then you fast forward to my second year.
Wesley Matthews goes down with an Achilles injury.
Aaron falters his shoulder.
They have to play me. I was like, third string.
I start playing, I start really killing.
Then we go into the playoffs going against Tony Allen.
I have six points,
eight points and then I have 20,
eight, 25, 37, something like that.
And I'm like, okay, if Tony Allen can't really mess with me, I'm gonna be all right.
Like, he's having really he's having difficulty.
He's like the best defender I've probably gone against,
especially up to that point.
It's like he's having problems with me.
Like, okay, I'm gonna be okay.
That's interesting that the level of defender that you
respect is like a barometer almost of like,
okay, if this person's like,
you know, struggling a little bit like this thing.
Was there a moment between the sixth to eighth and 27th where
something shifted or you noticed something or you were just like, okay, actually,
I can exploit this or they're not as
good here or this is something he's not comfortable with,
that let's you like kind of having those extra.
I think it was comfortability nerves,
level of aggression, confidence
like all that kind of wavers as you go throughout the game.
Missed shots, especially when you're younger, missed shots.
You know, maybe you're not getting touches.
Like maybe you're just trying to do all the things the right way.
But like, you just, you know,
you're not allowing the game to come
to you and you're not really maximizing opportunities.
You're just kind of like out there.
And then as it goes, you have a bad game or like a poor shooting performance.
And you're like, huh? All right, I'm just gonna go whoop.
I'm gonna make shots. I'm gonna miss shots.
I'm gonna turn the ball over.
I'm gonna remember plays. I'm gonna forget plays.
Especially when you're younger.
I'm just gonna play.
I'm gonna play like I'm in the backyard.
I'm gonna play like I'm back in the hood.
I'll play like I'm back at Lehigh.
Like I'm just going to go back to that mentality.
And it's going to be what it's going to be.
I've already gone, you know, three for 12.
What's worse two for 12 is like I the only regret is I should have shot more.
Maybe I should have been two for 20, you know what I mean?
So it's like that's how I looked at it, like I'm gonna go hoop.
It's going to be. It's going to be. This is a great defender.
This is a really good team.
You're going to score. Sometimes you're going to not score.
Make a make a good play every time and be aggressive every time you touch the ball.
That's a great point you made because a lot of what you mentioned is mental.
We had the Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas on and he was
like basketball is actually a thinking man's game.
Like that's what he he said to me.
And he was telling me how a lot of especially later in his career, what he,
what he separated like good and great players from
is just the mind like the mental aspect of it.
Like mentally strong teams were the ones that were toughest to beat.
And it's interesting that you mentioned that just now,
because a lot of what you said is really based in confidence.
Would you even say that?
You know, that is just as important as
the athleticism as the shot making and just the pure kind of raw talent,
the ability to maintain confidence and kind of stick through it even in rough patches?
Yeah. I mean, the mind is very powerful, man.
What you speak becomes your reality.
And I think, you know,
I've spoken a lot of this life into existence through hard work.
So you speak it and then you go get it.
And I think a lot of players, they waver.
Confidence wavers, concentration wavers.
There's distractions.
There's good cities, bad cities, nightlife.
There's all these distractions.
Family, women, money. And then you got a game,
family, women, money game.
It's like a constant, especially for a younger player.
So there's all these things,
all the things you've ever wanted.
You can have. You can go buy it.
You can go this vacation, go that vacation.
So there's all these built in distractions that you consistently have to maneuver.
How is your focus in those moments when no one's watching?
How is your focus in those moments when everyone is watching?
How is your discipline?
How consistent are you with your approach? What's your attitude?
Good nights, bad nights.
Good games, bad games.
Home's going well. Home's not going well.
How do you block it out and go hoop?
Everybody can't do it.
So you have to maneuver all of that stuff.
Still focus and concentrate.
A lot of money on the line. Take care of your body.
Contract. Year. Not a contract year.
They draft another player. He's your age.
He's younger than you.
These guys are moving faster.
You're moving slower. You're getting older.
It's like all of these things that are happening.
How do you stay focused, concentrate,
lock in, still have the self-belief.
Not not allowed but doubt to creep in,
still work, still produce.
Be consistent with your production.
How do you do it? Consistently. It's hard.
Everybody can't do it. That's why guys are in the league. Then they're out.
That's why guys have great years and then they boom.
Not because they can't hoop, because everybody can hoop.
How mentally locked in are you?
Ten shots in a row. You miss ten.
Do you shoot the 11th with the same way Steph Curry misses ten.
No one cares. He shoots the 11th one.
Some guys won't shoot it.
They'll start cutting. They'll start passing.
They'll start thinking.
Or they don't even have the license to shoot ten.
So it's like there's all these factors that play a role,
but it all comes down to how consistent you are mentally.
And can you eliminate distractions enough to be successful for long enough,
like the best players in the world,
like LeBron, been in the league 20 years.
His ability to lock in and focus.
It's like you can question how many championships or whatever,
blah blah blah. Money on the line.
He locking in a random Tuesday in Charlotte.
He locking in. You know what I mean.
It's like and this is like he's done it.
He's played at the biggest stage.
Olympic gold medals.
Yeah. Legacy he's.
Built. Tiger woods locking in when he has to.
Venus. Serena. The best NASCAR person.
The best formula one driver.
Like when they lock in, they lock in.
So it's like there's good drivers,
there's bad drivers, there's good hoopers.
I'm not gonna say there's bad hoopers.
There's just hoopers that lack discipline. They're not bad.
They don't have discipline. They don't have consistency.
Mentally they may not be as strong.
So they waver and then the shot doesn't look the same.
The handle don't look the same.
They start thinking.
And this paralysis by analysis.
You know what a great answer. And thank you for that.
Something that actually personally for me stuck out is a, uh,
a post-game conference that you gave in the 2019 playoffs,
talking about how you couldn't make a graduation and during those playoffs,
because in 2018, uh, you know,
there was a rough patch where you were swept by the, uh,
you were swept by the Pelicans in the 2018 playoffs.
But then 2019 went all the way to the Western Conference finals.
And you were talking about in this post-game conference,
like, you know, this year, like,
we're not going to have time in April and May like to go to these things like I'm here,
like I'm because you made a deep playoff run the following year.
Right? And it stuck out to me because the mentality was there of just like, no,
we're not like after last year,
we're not going to just, you know,
accept what it was and just say it is what it like.
We're going to come back and we're going to make sure we make a deep run this time.
That was not our expectation as the Blazers.
Uh, is it hard to kind of or for you, maybe not.
But in general, how much impact is like losing or having
a losing culture in in a locker room impact?
The other things that you just mentioned, discipline.
Because I'm not saying you had a losing culture,
but sometimes a tough loss can that like that can have impact on
someone's mentality or team's mentality even of like, can we get there?
Can we get over the hurdle?
No. It affects you for sure, man.
Looking at the last season, right.
Like that's the most losing I've ever done ever.
So like mentally it starts to creep in.
Like why am I playing.
Do I really want to keep doing this?
Like, how long do I want to play?
Like, if this is what it's going to be like,
you have all of those moments.
Like, I put in extra work.
Like, why am I putting all this extra work in?
Like, is it going to pay off?
We're still losing. You know what I mean?
It's like all of these things, but then you just stick to like,
this is why I play I love basketball.
Basketball allows me to provide for my family. I played it for free.
I play it now because I make money.
It's great. I would still play it if it was for free. Like, it's.
I still have the joy and the passion.
I have a legacy, I have kids, I have a wife.
My job is to provide. I want my son to see and
want my daughter to see that you have to work hard for the things that you want.
Sometimes you got to sacrifice.
You got to spend your time wisely,
and you have to utilize your talents so it becomes more of like,
money's great success is great fame.
Like, all those things are cool, but it's like God gave me specific talents.
It's a disservice not to utilize them all.
Some talents you utilize more than others.
But like I have a gift.
Utilize the gift until the gift is no longer there,
and then you move on to the next thing.
Utilize that gift and then you give your gifts away.
So it's like I'm not utilizing the gifts that God gave me.
If I don't work hard, if I don't maximize my time,
if I'm not taking care of my body,
if I don't have the right mindset when I'm going into games preparation,
if I'm not leading with love and care, like on the court,
off the court, in my household,
like oozing is difficult, but it's just a game.
You gotta program yourself to give your best effort, your best preparation.
You live with the results and you remove yourself from those results when it's over.
Success or failure? Great night.
I score 50. I'm back.
Like I like I scored ten.
It's the same work ethic. It's the same approach. That's great.
I had success in front of you.
All that success came from years and years of work, weeks of sacrifice.
Two days, six a m's, 11 PMS,
three workouts a day, missed nap times,
missed bedtimes, missed music classes,
missed dinners with my wife.
It came with sacrifice,
and it's great I get to do all these things,
but like, I know what I missed to get that.
Yeah, it's like, how long am I willing to miss that and do these things?
And that's like the the decipher of when guys kind of start to like,
it's too much. I want to walk away.
And would you say you take some of that discipline and
principles and apply it now to something different,
but maybe adjacent the business world.
Like, are there things that you look at and
have taken from the discipline that it took you to get
to the success levels that you have in your pro career
and apply those things in any way to the business world,
whether you're looking at deals,
real estate investment like standing up a business,
building out a team, you know, to support you.
Like, do you take some of those principles and apply
them when it comes to other ventures off the court?
Absolutely. I think you look at sports in itself, right?
I want my kids to play sports not because I did,
but because what you learn from it communication,
ability to take leadership,
ability to give leadership. Ability to listen.
Ability to do task in groups individually.
Being able to work alongside people.
People from different walks of life,
different backgrounds, different languages, different upbringings.
Like you get in this big melting pot of
people and you learn how to be yourself within it.
So I think it's really important.
And then on the hiring side and on the business side,
communication cadence, what type of leadership did I receive?
Well, what type of leadership did I not like?
What did I feel should have been better in this environment versus that environment?
What would I have liked to see?
What can I work on and improve upon as as an employee?
As an owner? If I was an owner,
what would I like to see if I was an employee, what would I like to see?
And now, as an owner and operator of multiple businesses,
you're still a work in progress.
But you know what success looks like because you've seen it.
So you're like, okay, we got to do this a little bit better.
We got to do that a little bit better. We got to put more money into this,
take money away from that.
What do what do our support staff need to be successful?
What do we need to be successful?
What type of freedom do you need to give people so that they can go be their best selves?
How do I not micromanage while still knowing what's going on?
How do I empower people around me to know that they're trusted, that we're watching?
There's like this whole balance of what it takes to be successful,
and there's different ways to do it.
Look at the NBA, the MLB,
there's teams that spend money in MLB and don't win,
and there's teams that don't spend money and they win.
So there's a way to do everything and it starts with the culture.
But I think it's it's helped me a lot in terms of how I communicate and how I see things,
because I've seen success done so many different ways.
You mentioned Tony Allen earlier,
toughest defender to this point that you
faced in your career doesn't have to be the toughest,
but one of the toughest that you've played and also the toughest offensive player.
Maybe you've had to guard in your career in recent memory.
So toughest defenders I would go Tony Allen just physicality.
The refs let him play.
Great hands, great anticipation.
Um, ultra ultra aggressive.
Um. Avery Bradley was a really good defender.
Good name. Yeah.
Quick. Great hips could get over screens.
Great chaser, strong core, good stability.
Like you push him. He don't really move.
Um, team defensively like peak Warriors.
They were just so good defensively.
Like when they had Dre Iggy Klay they were long.
They were athletic obviously KD they just switched everything.
So they kind of jumped the game up.
And now you play ISO.
But Dre just kind of floats right. He's like the free safety.
So like that was just a tough defense to maneuver.
They randomly go box and one triangle and two like they just do different stuff.
So that was difficult to to combat
offensively Steph and Klay like the way they move. It's like art right.
Like they pinch post split split cut action running in circles.
Great conditioned athletes scoring transition. Always got to find them.
Great screeners know how to slip when they
had you know Zaza Pachulia and like some of the best screeners ever.
Mhm.
Hard to get over those screens.
Unsung part of the game.
Like the conditioning.
Yeah. And then you got to be locked in.
You got to be communicating. It's just so much.
And then Steph get bink bink bink pull up like you know what I mean.
All of that James Harden Pete James though like James
is still good but like Houston James where he like dribble dribble
dribble 6015 and 1055 1211
like that James was like tween cross tween cross like he had.
And he go dunk on your center like that was like
next level Kyrie like I like guarding Kyrie just because it's art.
Mhm.
The way he plays it's like a rhythm to it.
He don't know what he going to do.
You don't know what he going to do.
But he can score from all three levels. Great left hand.
I watch a lot of Kyrie film Shea.
Shea's tough man.
The breaks he got elite breaks.
Great Middie walking 30.
I say those guys have been the hardest.
I mean there's other players that are hard to guard,
but like the way they they all play is unique and different to the game.
So I would say those guys are like, yeah.
Would you say a 30 point per game score or
all star when you came in versus now seeing this evolution of guards,
you mentioned Shea, but also going as far back as, you know,
folks like Kobe, even like the the dynamic between the two.
Is there a difference in the guards?
Are you seeing an evolution or not?
It's it's completely different.
Yeah. The evolution of the game,
the guards, the skill set.
But also like the pace points per possession,
the the game is completely different.
So Kobe averaging 30 back in the day is nuts.
Mike averaging 30 because the score was 97 to 98.
So the game was slow. The possessions were slow.
They didn't shoot a lot of threes.
Like it was a completely different game.
So he was scoring you know 30 out of 90 now.
And it's no disrespect to like the way the game is played now.
Like I love it. It's free flowing.
There's a lot of threes. It's pace you know points per game.
You know you're looking at you know 1071081 ten 111.
Like offensive rating some teams is like the best team is 115.
That's a lot of possessions.
Shea is just a freak of nature, right? Because he's.
He's shooting tough twos and getting dirty.
It ain't like he just. He's three dependent.
He's a three level scorer.
He just started shooting more threes this year because analytically it makes sense.
But he's a guy so he's shooting tough twos and getting 30. It's like him and Jordan.
The only players in the history of the NBA 30 points per game over 50 from the field.
He did it three times and he's low to mid 20s.
Yeah.
So it's like game is different blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
But like the skill set he's six six handles Steph six
three you know handles shooting movement like the game is completely different.
But the way that they're playing you know they ISO they move a little bit.
But it's ISO.
We're going to get our best player the ball.
We're going to find matchups that we like kill.
I love that. And last question here.
Do you have an opinion on the parity that exists now in the NBA.
Right. Yeah there was a dynasty era almost.
Or there was even a period of time with
the same 5 or 6 teams from both conferences were always in the finals.
And now we're seeing multiple different winners, different teams.
And you know, there's you can have a discussion around ratings and if that's like
good for viewership or whatnot or small versus big markets etc..
But do you think in general that aspect of like,
do you like the parity that now exists and feeling like
it's anyone's guess who might be in the finals by the end of the year?
And as a player yourself,
does that motivate you and make you feel like,
yeah, like we have a shot at any given year or not?
I mean, in a sense there's parity,
but it's also like the best teams are the best teams.
Like this year you play a seven game series.
So like you've got to be better than somebody to beat them four times.
It's not like college basketball where you can get lucky.
It's like the NFL. And not that you can get lucky,
but like you beat them once.
You might not be the best team all year,
but you were the best team that day at that moment.
Injuries and all that stuff kind of plays a factor.
But in terms of the parity,
I think that I don't think there's 30 teams trying to win a championship every year.
Like I don't think that's the case in any sport.
There's some teams that just know,
like this is not a championship caliber roster.
This isn't our window and it shows in the performance.
And there's teams that like look at their roster,
the window, the age of the team.
How good is their best player.
How good is their second best player.
What is the roster like. And they know this is the window.
So like teams kind of maneuver based on windows.
But I think there there is a lot more chance for small like you can say small.
There's two small markets in the in the finals.
But OKC has been the best team in the NBA the last 2 or 3 years.
Mhm.
Pre new CBA like they had a great team great roster.
They built it out through draft picks through trades.
Yeah through player development.
They brought in some vets like they did it.
They had time to do it right.
Because you were able to get some losing in and kind of like figure it out.
But they built it a good roster.
Carlisle is a great coach, championship coach.
They did some trades,
they signed some players,
they developed some guys.
And here they are playing a unique brand of basketball that's fast paced.
They beat a big market team.
They just beat a team that's a team that,
you know, probably has a larger fan base.
They just beat them like it's you've got to still line it up like you can.
You can build parameters around a sport.
You can build a system.
You can implement rules and regulations on trades and money.
People still got to go play.
Mhm.
Pay them 20 million a year or 80. They still got to go hoop.
Pay him 5 or 10 like you still have to go play.
You got to build a roster and you got to construct it the right way.
But like Indiana could come back and win the series. Do I think they are?
No. But like they could.
And we have nothing to do with that.
Like it's just it's going to be what it's going to be.
Yeah. Uh. Wonderful answer.
Thank you so much again for the time today,
that was the winning formula presented by the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One team.
I'm your host Joel Kilani.
And this was CJ McCollum.
Thank you, thank you.