The man, the myth, the legend.
Welcome to The Daily Show. - Thank you.
Glad to be here, man.
It is such an honor to have you on the show.
Although, you know, I told my brother.
I said, you know, we're having Dominique Wilkins on the show.
And he was like, this is amazing.
He's a legend. You know, he loves basketball.
And then I said to him, yeah, his nickname
is the human highlight film.
And he said, he should change it
to the human, like, TikTok or human YouTube
because no one watches film anymore.
The kids-- the kids don't know what that is,
but they still know your dunks, though.
How does it feel to do something
so well that regardless of the generation,
people still recognize you as one of the greats, one
of the greatest to ever do it.
You know--
[applause]
You know, I always believed--
I always believed when you play, you play for the people.
And because the people who make you who you are.
And I've been that way ever since I was in high school
that, you know, I played as hard as I could.
And I only knew how to play at one speed,
and that was all out.
And it was the way that we looked at each other,
the way we competed back in those days.
I mean, you had no nights off.
So you had to bring your a-game every single night.
The game has completely changed because players now
have an outside influence, you know, as opposed
to what your generation had.
I mean, you see the news--
even just recently, you know, the Brooklyn
Nets saying, OK, you know, Steve Nash, it's time for you
to go.
And people saying, wow, are we really living in the era
where players have more power than the team slash the coach?
And, you know, not even commenting on that story,
it seems like sports has changed,
or the NBA has changed in terms of where the power lies.
Do you think it's good for the game?
I think it's good things and bad things--
OK.
--about it.
You know, I really admire these guys kind of, you know,
having their own destiny, creating
their own destiny to do something-- something
great for themselves.
And they do have a lot more power
than we had because we didn't-- we
didn't go to different teams.
We played at one organization, you know, most of our career.
And I got to say, I was proud to play in Atlanta
for most of my career.
[applause]
Because I could have went to other--
I could have went to other teams and played,
but I wanted to win here.
It didn't happen.
But when I look back on it, I don't have any regrets.
So, you know, I love the fact that they had their own power.
Now as things back in our day I loved more just
from a competition standpoint when, you know,
you've got to play against Magic Johnson one night,
Jordan one night, Doctor Jay one night.
This was every single night.
So it was tough every night out.
And so I had to make sure that I was focused.
I had to make sure our team was focused
to compete on the level that, you know,
the organization expected.
And so, for me, Atlanta really made me who I-- the people
here in Atlanta, you guys made me who I am.
[applause]
I feel like--
I feel like-- I feel like the native son here, you know?
And I've never left.
And even though I played in other teams
and went away for a short time, I never really left Atlanta.
And Atlanta is my home, even though I'm not from here.
I love that. I love that.
You've made it your home and you've created
so much in that new home.
I would love to talk about what you do outside of basketball,
even though it ties into sport as a whole.
And in particular, talking about Culture City.
You're now, as you said, part of an organization that really
is tasked with more inclusivity, finding
people who have venues or areas of their world
and their lives that don't cater to them.
You know, it feels like this becomes the second competition
for you to engage in.
What is your end goal?
What do you hope society as a whole will get to?
Well, you know, healthcare is kind of my calling now.
And, you know, I didn't realize how much
that meant to me until my daughter was
affected by a special needs.
And Culture City has been that organization standing on
the wall for so many people.
We have over 1,200 venues around the world
that we've trained people how to deal with people who
dealing with special needs.
And most of the people--
the majority of the people have hidden disabilities.
So it's a lot of hidden disabilities, visible
disabilities, PTSD, autism.
All these different things that we deal with every day.
But we take those problems head on,
and we help people change their lives.
And it's all about finding healthy options.
Dominique Wilkins, thank you so
much for coming on the show. - I appreciate you, brother.
It was an absolute pleasure having you.
And congratulations on everything that you do.
I really appreciate it.
Dominique Wilkins, everybody.