as I'm always watching.
I think you've made a really strong transition
into life after basketball
but before before we go into that
actually this is a great question
'cause I know a ton of my listeners
are gonna have a lot of awareness of you.
So I think the right first question is
what do you been up to?
- Man, that is such a good question.
- [Gary] Yeah, let me give you the floor.
- Yeah I've been,
first of all kind of had to rebound
in my situation.
- [Gary] How old are you right now?
I'm 35.
So people really don't realize
and I didn't realize either
really what happens to an athlete after you're done playing.
We kind of just disappear and go away
and maybe you'll see us on TV again
but that's when I think real life stars for us.
- [Gary] Yeah, I think that's right.
- Yeah, I have five children.
- [Gary] That's a great number.
- Yeah, it's an awesome number, man
and then getting into the swing of things
into being a father that's there more,
into being a husband that's there more.
- [Gary] And by the way, takes practice.
- [Chris] Yeah it does.
- People don't understand that,
as for me going hard and then having children
and even like evaluating if I'm doing too much or too little
or whether it's workout regimen
or business like that is a transition in itself.
- [Chris] Yeah it becomes a balancing act.
- It's not just so all of a sudden you're like
going to daycare and,
like it's a thing.
- Yeah, yeah and school and getting them prepared
and moving back and forth
and moving my family to Austin.
- And your situation's a little bit unique
in the fact that obviously
'cause I follow sports enough to know like it was,
I don't think as many people will know this,
it wasn't the easiest situation
that led you to not playing basketball--
- [Chris] No, no, no, it was a very dramatic--
- Why don't you give them a little context?
- Well I mean, I got blood clots,
I had a pulmonary embolism back in 2014, no '15.
That was really bad.
I was in the hospital for damn near two weeks.
That sucked, had to have surgery--
- [Gary] Was it dangerous?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, blood clots.
- [Gary] Did you know something was up?
- It was slowly happening.
I mean I know all the signs to look for now
but slowly, I mean, at first I thought it was cramps
and then a month later they come back
and then it became so debilitating,
I'm like, yo, I got to go to, there is something wrong.
But luckily made it through that
and then bounced back, got back into playing,
got back to my form of playing
the way where I was happy and everything
and then after that
my calf was sore I go to the doctor to get a scan,
oh I got blood clots again
and then it became a problem because I felt good,
I just everything just was just stopped
all of a sudden one day and
yeah, I wasn't a happy camper. - And you're 31 years old
at the time, 31, 32. - At the time I was 33,
32, 33, somewhere in there yeah.
- [Gary] Still feeling like you had three, four, five, six?
- Oh man, six, seven left in me.
I would still be playing right now.
I wanted to play till I was 36
but I could have potentially
with the way things are going in the league now--
- [Gary] When's the first time somebody said to you,
hey you may want to consider not playing?
- Nobody ever said it.
A lot of people said it but--
- Now you're starting to sound like me,
nobody said it, everybody said it,
that's the shit I do.
- [Chris] I didn't listen to it.
- SPO, is this true, do I have this right,
SPO was at the game when Hank Gathers passed?
- [Chris] Yeah.
- I think that's a fact
that a lot of people don't know.
Your coach at the time, I'm 43,
I was outrageously affected by Hank Gathers passing.
I was in eighth grade,
super into the March Madness thing,
Bo Kimble, like it was a big deal,
no internet back then,
big events really took over America for a week.
Now Prince dies and it's a half a day on Twitter,
like real big stuff happens
and it's a half a day
with the way our world works now.
Back then, something big happens, it was a week,
two weeks in the news.
Was coach affected by that when he communicated with you?
I always wondered about that.
I know coach a little.
He's a great dude.
- I think that was kind of everybody else's thought process
going through that and saying
oh wow this is dire situation.
With me, you don't necessarily tell that person that right?
You want them to kind of exercise things,
yeah get there by themselves.
We never talked
about it too much. - What about doctors?
Were like don't play?
- Yeah, they were, oh, you can't play,
you'll be fine sir,
like you've had your life, bro.
I'm just really getting started with this stuff
and you're telling me that,
that's kind of where the disagreements came in
with the communication and our problem with communication
but we got over that
and it was just my stance was to continue to try and play
And that's what I did for about a year and a half.
- [Gary] And then?
- Then I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna do this.
- How did that go down?
Did you just wake up one morning?
- I tell people this story, I was watching,
so I was in the next year,
a whole year went by I said,
all right I know I'm gonna get picked up this year,
I need to get into basketball,
I need to watch more basketball
'cause I kind of let it go last year.
I was still working out but didn't watch any games.
- [Gary] 'Cause you just needed that break?
- Just mentally it was messing with me.
It hurts 'cause--
- [Gary] You wanted to be out there?
- Yeah, I was right there
and I felt that we had a championship-caliber team
and then it just stops one day.
Then I saw Gordon Hayward dislocate his ankle
in the first five minutes.
- [Gary] I was at that game.
- You was at that game?
- [Gary] I was at that game.
Luckily, on the other side.
- I just turned the TV on like all right here we go
the season's going on, bloop bloop.
- [Gary] You almost threw up.
- Oh man I said I right right then and there
I knew I wasn't gonna play anymore.
- [Gary] Really?
- Yeah, I knew.
And I had to keep up with the Jones.
I told everybody I was gonna keep playing,
"You coming back?"
I'm like, "Yeah."
- But you knew?
- [Chris] But I knew right then
it wasn't gonna happen no more.
- Really?
- [Chris] Yeah, it's just like,
you know that thing,
I was there, we were strong
and then boy it took all the wind out my cell.
- No kidding.
- [Chris] Yeah, I was done after that.
- And so then take me through the next chapter.
So now yourself, you know you're done,
you keep up the facade a little bit
because it's a hard left
and so you want to go through that in what way yeah
and then what do you start thinking about next?
- Shh man what am I doing, you know?
That's not an easy question.
- [Gary] Do you go into like a depressed state?
- I think I was already there at that point already.
It took about two years,
I want to say two years after I was done playing,
it took me that long to kind of
come out the fog a little bit.
- [Gary] I understand.
- Yeah and I guess yeah that's what people call
a depression or something.
- You know it's funny,
my brother AJ, who's sitting right there, left Vayner,
we started this together, VaynerMedia
and then three years ago, three and a half years ago,
we started a sports representation business, VaynerSports.
We do football now
and we have 20 guys, 25 guys
and our entire thesis was off-the-field
dynamics that we could create
but a lot of it was life after football.
These kids are, first of all football's crazy,
because a lot of these guys are top of their class--
- [Chris] Way crazier.
- Yeah I mean there's real injuries in football.
There's real stuff going on.
Kids are, the first round picks
out of the league three years later for real for real.
So that's 25, that's 26.
- [Chris] What do they do usually?
What's the next step in that?
- Most kids really screw up.
They you overspend their money up front,
then they're done, they're 25 and they're like,
I mean this is why we did it,
we're like we think we can change it.
I watched, he watched from afar that agents,
and I don't even blame agents,
it's not like I razz them,
I don't think these are bad people,
they're in business.
Agents are there and then when you're not producing dollars
it's their responsibility to their company and their family
to go find things that do and they're done.
And we thought the way to hack it
was really be in these kids lives through and through.
And obviously our business acumen and all that other stuff
gave us a leverage that they would potentially believe us
and now that we're starting to do it a little bit,
Walter Pal, Derek Morgan,
we're doing real stuff for these gentlemen
long after football when they brought us no dollars
'cause we came in late in their contracts,
now the reputation's working
which is giving us leverage
but going back to you, that's the thing,
like as a kid,
even right now as a 43-year-old male
who puts out content every day
that yells at people that says you're 54 and you're young,
I still think athletes that retire are old.
Like when an athlete retires, I'm like oh, they're old
'cause that's the way we grew up.
- So garden, we're looking at the garden right there.
Last week the Hawks played a preseason game,
Vince is 43,
and I've been telling people this whole story,
it's like a running joke. - Like you grew up
loving Vince as a kid.
He's still out there.
- Vince Carter's so old, how old is he?
Like everywhere he goes and it's just,
and that's on TV, man.
You know how powerful TV is.
- And he's not, and he's not, and to your point.
Now what's great,
I think the best thing that's happened
in the culture of sports
is that athletes have become,
when I was growing up athletes only wanted to
maybe also or be rappers if they weren't athletes.
Mow they want to be entrepreneurs too.
And that is completely,
I mean I've got five star recruits when they're 16
hitting me up talking
about life after basketball and football.
So it is now cool, it is now legit
and it also feeds a little bit of their competitive spirit.
There's a lot of things that make me worry
that entrepreneurship has gotten cool
because I think a lot of people are getting into it
that aren't entrepreneurs
and unlike basketball and rap,
they can't be exposed real quick
and they get into like
their own little deep depression over time
because it's not meant to be.
But one thing I love about the rise entrepreneurship
is it absolutely I believe
something that is going to help a ton of athletes
in that transition.
- [Chris] No absolutely.
- So talk to me about back to the first question,
what are you up to now?
You get out of the fog and now?
- Now, just trying to figure things out really.
- [Gary] What's interesting to you?
- I've been in Japan,
I've been to Australia.
Media interests me.
I'm working on a book for a 2020 release in the fall
for next year.
That's going great.
I just started getting out there--
- [Gary] Are you working with a ghost writer?
- Yeah.
- My ghost writer actually lives in Austin.
Yeah, she's amazing.
And so how's that process been, good?
Are you recording, are you interviewing?
- Yeah, recording, a little bit of everything,
recording, typing, talking, interviewing.
It's like a whole process
but it's like a chemistry that you build.
- Let me just bounce around a little bit here.
When did you think you were gonna make the league?
- I knew I was gonna make the league when I was 17.
The summer going into my senior year, yeah, I knew, yeah.
- Prior to that there was still kind of like,
'cause it's such a big,
actually that's great,
let's keep that on the shelf for a second,
when did you want to go into the league?
- Probably when I was like six or seven, pretty early, yeah,
very, very early
'cause my dad was watching--
- Were you a Mavericks fan?
- No, the Mavericks were really bad.
- I'm aware.
- Yeah, they were really, really bad.
- You're like every other NBA fan bandwagon?
- Yeah, yeah, 'cause MJ was on TV every day.
So in the, at first I remember like thinking
like who is this guy in this same team
'cause every time I go over my grandma's house in the summer
they're always playing.
And then everybody would be around the TV watching it
and my dad would be doing the same thing.
So I said, yo I want do that.
This is the same game that we play on the playground
and oh it's on TV and then after that I said,
all right cool that's what I want to do.
And it was always there but then--
- Was there anybody in your family that was really tall
or athletic or things of that nature?
- Me.
- [Gary] Really, you're an enigma?
My dad is like 6'3, I mean I have some couple tall uncles
but nothing, I don't know where I came from, yeah.
I'm just a little, little taller.
- [Gary] And when did you explode in height?
- From 14 to 16, thanks man.
- [Gary] You went from what to what?
- I went from like 6'3 to 6'10, 6'2 to 6'10,
somewhere in there.
So my freshman year when I got there as a freshman,
I was about 6'1, 6'2.
I left about 6'11 prospect.
So 14 to 16 is like oh I really want to be in the NBA
and I was just practicing really hard,
doing what I needed to do
and then 17, 18, the height came with it,
19, I was out of there.
So it happened fairly quickly.
- Yeah, it did. - Yeah.
It was like oh man I'mma play in the NBA,
I'mma do all these cool things
and then they said, aight, it's time to go.
I wasn't sure I was ready but
I had to do it. - What a crazy draft class
you were part of.
- [Chris] Yeah it was crazy.
- Like super crazy.
It's actually the one time,
I've been telling a lot of people lately
that flip sneakers and entrepreneurs and hustlers
to get into sports cards
'cause it's getting really, really, really hot
and I did that as a kid
and the one time I got back into it was your draft class
because there was so many of you guys, I was like--
- [Chris] You got some cards?
- I mean AJ and I were buying so,
we were opening up so much FLIR basketball your year,
there was so much
'cause we were like that was just loaded.
I mean it's an all-time class.
- [Chris] Yeah for sure, it's pretty good.
- How did your friendship graph work with that class?
Like you guys were obviously traveling around together,
well for a couple weeks there for the draft stuff
but when did you first make your connections with your,
who were your best friends in the league?
- What just period overall?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Pretty much everybody,
the whole championship team was an amazing team.
Everybody got along,
everybody made great connections.
Ronny Turiaf's a great friend of mine, Jerry Jack--
- You want to hear something funny?
I have a Ronny Turiaf Jets jersey.
- How do you have a Ronny Turiaf Jets jersey?
- Because when he came to the Knicks
and he actually made us,
like when he came to the Knicks,
our entire friend group got pumped
because he was bringing back
a little bit of that '90s Knicks.
He was being like a tough guy
and so for birthdays we're always challenged
to give each other gifts that are like unique.
So did you give me that, AJ?
So AJ got me a Ronny Turiaf Jets jersey, number 14 was it?
Yeah, so that's how we go about that man,
plus, he knows about wine, so I fuck with him.
- Oh yeah that's my guy, yeah that's my man.
Jerry Jack's my guy.
He was my roommate at Georgia Tech
and we played together for a year.
- He had a real nice career.
- Yeah, he had a great career
and I think he's, I'm not sure if he's still trying to play.
I haven't talked to him in a minute.
- He had a really nice career, he really did.
- Yeah.
- Who was your best mentor when you came to Toronto?
Did anybody kind of like take you under your wing?
- Yeah it was a few people.
One was Michael Curry.
He was my vet coming in.
He was like a no-nonsense dad type, man.
He taught me the value of working hard
and getting your shots up.
Derrick Martin was a guy, he did a lot for me.
Sam Mitchell. - You had some vets
on that team.
- Yeah we had some vets.
That wasn't all at the same time.
Michael Curry was only there my rookie year.
Mike, Derek and Sam,
they pretty much took me under their wing
as soon as they got there.
I want to say the next year, second through the sixth year.
- So you grew up a Bulls fan.
- [Chris] No, I wasn't a Bulls fan.
- Just an MJ fan?
- I was a basketball fan,
just the Mavericks were just,
it was 16 and whatever that year
so it was tough kind of having
some support for the home team.
- Yes, I'm aware.
And what about now?
Do you literally root for the Heat and the Raptors?
Like were you pumped for the Raptors?
- Yeah, I was happy for those guys, man.
There was still so many people,
the managers and equipment guys, popcorn guys
and the dudes in the stands
that I would talk to every morning,
they were they were still there and I mean,
it's funny every time I walked in,
they were like, Chris can you believe it?
I'm like, no I can't can't,
I cannot at all, this is crazy.
And then to see 'em really get their moment was amazing.
But I root for those guys.
I root for Miami.
I identify with the teams I've played for.
- Of course.
What about other sports?
Did you grow up a Cowboys fan?
- Yeah, I'm a Cowboys fan, yeah.
- That's my only win this year for the Jets.
- Yeah, it's cool.
Everybody's always like, ah,
you always get that all the time.
Look, I'm from Dallas,
I grew up during the glory years
and it's a good franchise.
- Did all your homies from back home razz you
because of that NBA Finals?
That must've been
fucking terrible. - Which part?
- Losing to the Mavericks in the NBA finals.
- Oh, no, they didn't.
If they did, we haven't spoken since.
- [Gary] Really?
- Yeah, no, we didn't take it,
we take it very seriously. - I was thinking to myself,
man he loses in Dallas,
he loses, obviously that was very--
- [Chris] That really sucked, by the way.
- Of course, that was super disappointing
but you got those three or four friends
that are your boys boys
who might've actually grew up cheering for the Mavericks
since they were--
- [Chris] No.
- No.
- None of us.
We were all hurtin'.
I mean I wouldn't even call it bandwagon.
- It's bandwagon.
- [Chris] I don't have a team.
- Fair enough but like--
- [Chris] We don't have a wagon.
- It's a variation of a wagon.
It's an all-star wagon.
- [Chris] A wagon with no wheels.
- Here's my thing.
I got very into tech in the 2000s
and would go to Silicon Valley a lot in 2006, '07, '08, '09
and when I tell you,
because I'm a big sports fan,
and this is the time when it was all nerd land,
they barely cared about sports
but when I tell you there was not a person in San Francisco
that knew the Warriors played there,
like there wasn't a person on Earth,
I had never seen or anybody wear a jersey of the Warriors
or mention that word in the four to five year period
that I spent 12, 15 times in San Francisco,
and now every kid in Cleveland and Ohio and Dallas wears--
- [Chris] Steph Curry jersey, shoes, the hat.
- What do you think about the notion
of people wrapping their own lack of self esteem
into something else like it's like Patriot fans right,
like a bunch of them razzed me on Monday night
and I was sitting there, I was looking,
I'm like you did nothing.
Do not confuse your team's success
with your actual success.
Thoughts on that?
(laughing)
- I mean there's not much you can say.
Hey I get it, people want to feel good
I mean I remember when we got together with Miami
and it was more Miami fans,
we're like, hey that's great.
Then the same guy'll have a Cleveland Jersey on
four years later,
it's like okay, come on bro,
you got the hat and the jersey.
- But that's what you did?
- [Chris] No, I did not.
- Yeah you liked players.
- I liked players, yeah.
- [Gary] Yeah, well that's what that guy did.
He liked Clay Brian.
- I could not have their Jersey
nor could I afford their stuff or their shoes.
I had their posters.
I had the posters on the wall.
- The four dollar poster, for sure.
- That was about it.
- What about video games?
Were you good at it?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, I play video games for sure.
- You're strong or?
- Now, no, no, no, I'm retired.
- In your prime?
- In my prime I was pretty good.
Madden was my game,
Madden and Call of Duty at one point in time, Black Ops Two.
- I love it.
- I actually bought part of the Minnesota franchise
for Call of Duty.
So that's my little step
towards ownership of the New York Jets.
Alright Chris, what else do you want to talk about?
What else is on your mind?
- Man, what's on your mind, bro?
You're the guy.
You got the office by the garden and everything.
My office is not this nice.
- The only reason that my office is this nice
is because I was smart enough to realize
this part in New York was gonna blow up
before most people did.
We committed to this office five years ago.
This was the only building in this entire area.
We're actually paying less rent in this building
than the building we left
that is like 80% like worse than this
because of the way the real estate market worked out.
So this was another kind of good bet.
What's on my mind?
What's on my mind is TikTok.
I think TikTok is the place
where people that are trying to make it and have no money--
- I've been hearing about TikTok
for the past couple months.
- I really think it's a real important place.
eSports, we just mentioned it,
is very much on my mind.
I'm just fascinated by the fact
that outside of NBA players
and a little bit of soccer players
and a couple of football players
like eSports athletes are more famous
to the 15-year-old today
than every single baseball player,
than 90% of the NFL,
I mean, forget about it,
hockey, I feel bad
but I'm not sure the average kid
can name five hockey players that are active in the NHL.
- What about like content creation and all that stuff?
- Yeah obviously.
So back to your point of being interested
in media and content creation,
I mean I think it's the cost of entry
for any relevance in our society.
I believe that if you're not producing daily
for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat,
TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube,
that if you don't have a podcast,
if you're not thinking about a vlog,
that you are just leaving
an enormous amount of opportunity on the table.
- Now what made you see that?
'Cause I've watched past videos and everything
and you kind of see,
you're very passionate about that.
- I was a super entrepreneur kid
selling baseball cards and all this.
I started working in my dad's liquor store,
wanted to build it up.
We were immigrants.
My mom knitted me my Jets jersey,
so I understand not being able to afford stuff.
And I just realized ironically,
the story goes, and it's true,
I was playing Madden '94 in college,
my friend came over, he said, "You've got to come see this."
It's September of '94,
I go into a room and a kid dials up to the internet,
the old cuckoo dial-up shit
and I was just like this is it.
Nothing else to say.
This is it, like I believe this is gonna be a big deal.
- [Chris] So you knew right away?
- Right away, I'm talking like love at first sight
where you just know.
I went all in, learned,
launched an e-commerce wine site in 1996
and the way I built my dad's business for him
was building a website,
starting the email newsletter,
knowing that Google was gonna be big, Google AdWords
My real hit change in my career
happened when I started a YouTube show about wine in 2006
when I was 31,
back to like, I mean I thought I was a fucking kid,
back to the beginning of this conversation,
this is why I pushed it all,
I'm like I think I'm a kid now.
- [Chris] That's interesting.
- Like I think Vince has 30 years of professional work
to be done when he retires.
I really understand people.
That's what I've come to learn.
I understand people,
I like people a lot,
I'm empathetic, which is why my wine brand's called Empathy.
I have that in me.
And when you have empathy
and you think about the other person,
when you have compassion, sympathy, empathy,
when you have those things mixing,
you're actually thinking about the other person.
As a matter of fact, if you're great salesman,
you're actually thinking about the other person
I think the reason I've been great at sales my whole life
is I sell things I believe in,
whether its wine, services, my sneakers
and then I try to figure out
why it's valuable for you
and if it's not I don't try to force it.
And so I've always been good at that.
Twitter came, I was right, Tumblr.
I mean I was right a lot.
I'm right a lot,
but I'm not guessing.
I already see it.
It's kind of like the sports card thing.
right now a lot of people,
LeBron rookies have gone up from 1,100 to 2,300
in the last four months since I've been talking about it.
It's not because of me.
It's just it was already happening.
People are like whoa you predicted.
I'm like I didn't predict it,
you could just see that people were moving.
I could see the people that were flipping
off-whites and Yeezy's were starting to post on Instagram
about sports cards.
- Yeah, oh kind of those same--
- Those same flip kids.
They're just trying to make money.
And you know the sneaker game's impossible.
You've got to wait in line,
you get one pair.
You can't get volume.
But like if you believe in Darren Fox
or if you believe right now a lot of my friends
in the sports card world
really believe in the Miami rookie, Tyler--
- [Chris] Tyler Hero, yeah that's my man, he's good.
- A lot of people are really investing in him
'cause he's the 13th pick, right, I think is right,
and just like you can make real money.
I mean I told a bunch of people a year ago
to buy Giannis rookies
'cause I thought he was super under priced,
and I thought he was gonna go
and they went from 200 to 800 for a lot of kids.
They're back down to 550, 700 but like--
- [Chris] It has this market peak.
- And it's liquid.
It's on Ebay and StockX just dropped it.
- [Chris] Yeah, StockX is crazy.
- So StockX is now flipping it.
So now it's cool 'cause that always matters.
So I think content matters.
I'm good at it because I understand that,
I understand that people are using TikTok.
I don't make emotional decisions and say,
well this is stupid teenagers
just doing drop songs,
like it's not it's not how I see it.
I don't think my opinion matters
and I think that's helped me tremendously.
I don't impose my opinions on my observations
and I think that's a core strength
and I think that's why I've seen a lot of things.
- What was your first hustle?
I'll tell you mine.
My first hustle,
I was burning CDs off Napster.
- Yeah, that was a lot of,
you're in that age
where that was a big one.
I love those entrepreneurs.
- Yeah, I was selling suckers too and it didn't work.
It was different though.
It was like, ooh, there were some big ones.
I haven't seen, no, those big ones though.
And I haven't seen 'em since then.
- [Gary] The Tootsie Roll ones?
- I don't know.
It was like it was made by the same company
but it was a different
sucker. - Where were you getting 'em?
- Some store in south Dallas.
Yeah and I was buying 'em wholesale
and going back to school and then
but then I learned about competition
'cause one of my friends were stealing
from the grocery store they was working from,
ran me out of business.
- Yeah, I totally understand.
It's tough to beat somebody getting something for zero.
- Then they had a king size Snickers, 25 cents,
aw man he crushed it.
- I hate to tell you my first hustle
'cause it's not something I'm proud of
but the first thing I did when I moved to Edison, New Jersey
was I would run around the neighborhood
and I would rip people's flowers out of their yard
and then ring the doorbell and sell it back to them.
- They didn't know those were their flowers or?
- I think they did but here they see
this remarkably cute six-year-old
who barely speaks English and they're like,
I mean first of all 98% of people said no.
One of the reasons I really want kids to work retail
or sell something
within the first 10 to 15 years of their life,
is I think that most people
have a terrible relationship with no.
They're scared of no, they're super scared of no.
And I think one of the things that's great
about working at a restaurant or working at a retail store
or trying to sell something
within those first 10, 15 years,
is you get real comfortable with no.
- Yeah, what was your first retail job?
- I've only worked for my dad's liquor store as a kid
and then have run my own stuff.
So I've never really worked,
up until 14 everything was baseball card shows
where I real, I mean I still believe 95% of the shit I do
is based on what I learned
in the trenches of sports card shows.
100%, like I had some crazy hustles.
I had one all-time hustle
that has to do with basketball.
The Dollar Stores popped up in the '90s, like '91 '92.
At first, I know everyone here's a youngster,
at first, youngsters, Dollar Stores weren't
like they are now
where they have like new stuff
and it's made for The Dollar Store.
At first, it was some real shit
like there was warehouses.
The internet didn't exist yet.
So you couldn't get rid of stuff on Amazon or Ebay.
There were warehouses filled with old stuff
and here came The Dollar Store
and they're just selling stuff, like old-style,
I remember I bought a ton of Rambo toys
that were 1984 toys but I was buying them in 1992
'cause they were just in a warehouse,
just old stuff, Zelda books,
like that was what I was looking up
but there's all sorts of stuff.
Anyway, one day I go to The Dollar Store
and they have Shaq figures.
Shaq made huge noise,
obviously when he came to the league
the same way he is now,
he was commercial from the get.
And there was a Shaq toy line.
But what was weird about this
was this had just come out like a year earlier
but they were in The Dollar Store.
So I looked at it,
so I bought all 25 that were in the store,
I started walking down the mall
and went to Kmart to look for cards and other collectibles
and I noticed there was Shaq figures in there
and they were $9.99.
So I was like huh,
so I bought something at Kmart to get the bag,
I went back into the food court,
I put the Shaq figures I bought at the Dollar Store
into the Kmart bag
and I went back to Kmart and I was like,
yo my grandma bought me these toys,
I don't really want them.
I don't have a receipt, can I refund 'em?
And they were like, yeah
and I'm like without a receipt
and cash not store credit?
Again, this is 1991,
Kmart didn't have their shit together yet.
So then I went,
so I took five of them,
I returned them,
I got 50 bucks back for what I just paid five bucks for
about 45 minutes earlier.
Then I went back to the dollar,
I'm still in the mall,
Phyllis Mall, big shout out,
you look like a fucking disaster now
but I went there last summer,
it was crazy,
there's like four stores open
in the whole mall, it's finished
but I went back to The Dollar Store and said,
hey do you have any more Shaq figures?
And the guy working there goes, yeah,
went in the back and brought out cases.
I was like I'll take them all.
So I bought them all,
then I came back two days later
and they had more cases.
Over the next month and a half, two months,
I bought like 400 to 500, 600 Shaq figures for a buck
and kept returning them to Kmart for 10 bucks,
made like four or five G's real quick.
And then went to Kmart one day,
then it was done and then like a month later I went to Kmart
just my normal run
looking for X-men figures or sports cards.
There was a whole clearance of Shaq figures for like $4.99.
So Gary one, Kmart zero.
- Yeah, my first job was Blockbuster,
my real first job, no I hated it.
I mean they don't exist anymore.
- I know but at the time they were hot.
- Yeah, it was hot.
- Before Netflix, like people don't understand,
Blockbuster was hot.
- They had it, man, I don't know what happened.
- Well what happened was they didn't buy Netflix
for $40 million dollars.
I don't remember the exact number
but Blockbuster passed--
- [Chris] They had a chance to buy 'em and--
- This is one of my favorite stories in business history.
Blockbuster passed on buying Netflix
for a real, real low number.
Now they would've bought the old Netflix
which was CDs in the mail.
Who knows if blockbuster would have innovated
to make it an OTT.
So it's not that 50, right?
They passed on $50 million?
- [Chris] Which I'm sure they had, right?
- They passed on 50,
the company's now worth 19.7 billion at this moment.
It might be different right now, in market,
but Twitter took a massive hit today, down 20%.
That's what's going on in news.
I don't know when this is airing.
Do we have questions?
I hit up Community, 212-931-5731
is my text community service.
That's another thing I'm paying attention to a ton, texting.
I don't know if you've seen like Diddy, Marshmello,
a bunch of other people,
like people starting to throw out their numbers,
it's on the back of this app called Community
and I'm using it, 212-931-5731.
On the way here, five minutes before I saw you,
I sent a text to 4,000 people in Miami
saying I got your man Chris on the show,
anybody got any questions.
And so it's really an amazing platform.
- And you keep saying it on this
and then people listening--
- Yeah I'm saying it on this right now
'cause everybody who's listening,
I'm hoping more people sign up for it.
I'm doing a bunch of like,
I'm giving away access and first opportunities
on that platform
because that platform,
I have a direct relationship.
I'm not at the mercy of Instagram.
Instagram's algorithm has clearly taken a turn
over the last two, three weeks.
The same videos that would get a million views for me
are now getting 600, 700, 800.
The ones that used to get 500,000
are now getting 280, 320.
So it's happened and it's happening to a lot of people
'cause I've been bringing up
for the last three or four weeks
and people are DM'ing me to like what do I do?
I'm like you should have done
what I've been telling you to do for two years
build up your fucking TikTok and your Twitter
and start a podcast
and an email service.
Like people get one dimensional.
What do you got?
Oh, we're doing calls, let's go.
What have you got?
You can dial it.
- Mobile, that's one of the things
I've been fascinated with
trying to figure out how to be multi-dimensional,
especially in the world today, you know what I mean?
What's like some things that you think are great
that really help you with being multi-dimensional?
- Self-awareness.
I know that I like to be helter-skelter.
The reason I was a bad student
is I like a lot of action.
So I don't know you well enough
but here would be my question,
being multi-dimensional first starts with self-awareness.
You just might be actually better
going super deep on one thing or it might be awesome
for you to do with four to five things.
That becomes a personality trait
of like do you like the chaos
or do you like the structure?
So that's first
Second, if you like the chaos,
you want to start a watch brand and have a podcast
and do the book and be on TNT
and do your own version on Instagram,
if you want to do all those things,
you have to be okay with dropping some of the balls.
But it's a really interesting thing I always,
athletes get it a lot.
It's kind of one of those scared money doesn't make money.
It's kind of like,
and you know this,
you grew up, and I don't know how you were about this,
but there was a lot of guys
that don't want to take the last shot
and there's a lot of people right?
There's just a lot of guys that don't want to
and there's guys that do and things that nature.
I think it's a self-awareness game.
And you have to be okay with missing things.
It's just like the last shot.
You have to be okay with missing it.
If you start five things with a team,
you need to be okay with two of them failing.
I'm not scared of anything failing except VaynerMedia
because all those other things are side dishes
and inevitably some of them are gonna fall
and I'm okay with the booing.
I actually use basketball a lot with this,
I always find it fascinating
that people are scared to do things
when their life isn't over yet
and I always make the analogy of,
if you're the home team in basketball
and the road team goes on an 11-0 run in the second quarter
and you call timeout,
your home team is booing you, the home crowd, right?
They're booing, they're upset, they're frustrated.
- In New York, yeah, they're booing you.
- They're booing in a lot of places.
They're booing in a lot of places.
So I always tell people like hey,
you need to you need to be okay with that
and wait to triple zero when it's over right?
That's the answer for multi-dimensional stuff for sure.
Who's this?
- [Male] This is Martin.
- Martin.
Let's see what Martin has to say.
(phone dialing)
- [Martin] Hello?
- Martin?
- [Martin] Yo, what's up?
- What's up?
It's Gary Vaynerchuk and Chris Bosh
and we're calling you.
- [Martin] Holy shit, what's up, Gary, how you doing?
- I'm feeling phenomenal.
Say what's up to Chris please?
- [Martin] What's up Chris?
- [Chris] How's it going, man?
- [Martin] Pretty good, pretty good.
- Awesome. - What's your question?
- [Martin] Well so my question is to Chris is
obviously Gary talks a lot about buying the Jets one day
and changing the culture,
potentially changing the culture
and I guess my question to Chris is
do you think that it's really possible
that he could come in there
with the same kind of mentality he does to business
and has made pros and the organization around it change
and make it like turn it into what he does
with everything else that he's touched so far?
- You talking 'bout the Jets?
- Yeah, his main question I think in the macro
for everybody's value,
taking me out of it a little bit,
is do you believe ownership has the ability
to make an impact on winning?
- Oh yeah, absolutely.
I mean it starts from the top.
In my situation in professional sports
if you get somewhere
and you're supposed to win a championship
and the floors aren't clean,
the locker room's not clean,
you don't know the owner at all,
you don't know anything about the place,
that takes a huge effect on the culture of things,
it trickles all the way down
and it kind of sets this precedent
like nobody knows what's going on.
So yeah it definitely can start from the top.
I mean that's where it starts
because it takes usually,
you've seen some gun-slinging owners coming in and saying,
hey it's time to win
and it just changes everybody's mentality.
- Daniel Snyder came in with that
It has not worked.
Mark Cuban did, it did work.
And by the way, Martin,
just 'cause you are gold in something
doesn't necessarily mean you are in the next thing,
like I have outrageous levels of confidence
that I'm gonna buy the Jets and win Super Bowls
but that's because I think I'm an operator.
Like to me a lot of times operators do well
in other operating situations.
I think if you look at owners,
trust fund babies do poorly
'cause they've never operated anything.
They were just in the lineage of ownership.
I think Michael Jordan's done an atrocious job
and you see this a lot with athletes
when they go to coaching or ownership
they really struggle
because they did it on their back.
They've never managed anything,
they just were a superstar at their sport
but they don't know how to actually create a culture
or build something.
So Michael Jordan's done an atrocious job,
that's just fun for me to say.
So I think if you look at the ownership groups
that have done well,
there has been one or two,
there's been two ways I've seen it work.
One, this is an individual that has operated other things
and they understand how to build culture,
hire good people,
put them in a position to succeed,
build relationships from the popcorn guy to the superstar
to the GM to the fans
or number two, there absolutely is
some trust fund baby lucky sperm club ownerships
that I've seen, the Giants it makes me sad to say that,
but you see good families groom their children in a way
that makes them good owners
and you have seen that as well, not spoiled,
make them actually work a little,
that kind of stuff.
- [Martin] So where have you seen the best culture
in your professional career Chris?
- I mean the one I've been a part of.
Pat Riley, he's done a phenomenal job
and one of the things about setting a culture for something,
not everybody is going to agree,
it's not for everybody,
but the structure is there from the bottom to the top
of what everybody's expectations are,
what your job is supposed to be,
and just really the level
that everybody's supposed to meet every day.
So if we're here and it's,
we're here to win a championship,
that has to go into everything that we do,
the thought process, the things you wear,
the way you speak to people,
the way you solve problems.
And I definitely have to give credit to the Heat.
Those guys do a tremendous job
'cause it has been the same and they keep going.
- Miami fans are a little funny
because it's just such a nice weather
like they're funny,
like watching you guys roll
and them not selling out playoff games along the way
that's just audacity
and that's just Miami,
they're a funny fanbase,
not to razz Miami,
it's just it's a town that is fun,
like the ownership for the Heat is phenomenal to me.
The fan base is a little funny.
You guys didn't sell out playoff games.
That's crazy.
- It was loud.
- Yeah, I know it was loud.
Can we talk about your rebound?
- [Chris] Yeah sure.
- Good.
I believe that your rebound
is one of the all-time most underrated plays
in sports history
because of the impact it has
on the enormous passion people have
debating the goat when it comes to basketball.
I mean in its basic form,
for the non basketball fans that are listening,
Chris gets a rebound in an NBA Finals,
kicks it out to Ray Allen,
that basically means just very black-and-white,
the series ends if he doesn't,
I was a little passsive with basketball,
LeBron I think took that shot,
like that means he would have missed that shot,
they would have lost that series,
that's a big fucking play.
- Yeah, yeah, kind of.
Things happen a little differently.
- Do people, Martin, thanks so much, brother,
do people sorry (laughter), no listen--
- [Chris] Bro, like oh my God.
- I'm like sports radio,
I want to get into a point.
I had to put him off.
I didn't need him jumping in.
Chris do a lot of,
like I'm a hardcore sports fan.
I've watched every play of a New York Jets game since 1982.
So I know every single play.
Obviously this is a finals game
it's a huge play,
I feel like if I was a Heat fan
and I came across you at an airport,
I would be over-the-top compelled,
I wouldn't want to bother you
but I would have to find some way to be like,
bro, that rebound means everything to me.
Like do you get a lot of love
or back to my point,
that this is one of the great
underrated plays in NBA history,
is it just that's the way life is,
it kind of it's a sneaky little part of it,
most people don't go to that extra layer of thinking
what actually happened.
- I think it kind of goes both ways.
People see it and they'll tell me about it
and then you have,
all I wanted to ever do is make a big play.
- [Gary] Is that true?
- Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean as a kid growing up--
- You probably did game seven, NBA finals,
two seconds--
- Oh my goodness, one, two, one, you missed it,
then say, oh, it's overtime.
- No, he got fouled.
- You play those games and stuff like that,
the ironic part for me
was that it was really an exercise for me
because I didn't score in that game.
No, game six I did.
It was just a struggle for me offensively
in that whole series.
- [Gary] You were just off with yourself
or they defended you well?
- Yeah, they defended well,
I mean it's the best team in the world
and the way they were defending us,
they pretty much, LeBron and Dwayne had to carry us.
They stuck to me,
didn't really rotate much
and it was working.
- Who was sticking to you, Tim?
- Yeah, me and Tim was pretty much
matched up the whole series
but the way
they were doing it-- - Is he a great human being?
He seems like a nice guy.
You don't know him?
- I'm sure he is.
- [Gary] He's quiet as fuck, right?
- Yeah, yeah, he's quiet, phenomenal basketball player.
- [Gary] Clearly.
- And great coach I'm sure
but at the time it was just kind of,
it was a very tough series
and everything happened so fast.
We were winning and we were in control of that game
with two minutes left.
We get into a situation
where we've got Bron on Tony Parker.
That was our game plan for the late game situations.
All right, we've executed it perfectly,
Tony hits that step-back three,
we turn it over a couple times,
we're down five points.
It just happens really quick.
The only thing that kept me in it was that my wife,
when you're about to lose a big game,
you look around at your family for sympathy.
It's just like that look when it's like ah damn
but I looked at her and she wasn't looking at me.
She just stood up and started clapping
and it's kind of like a shell shock
when you go to the bench,
it's kind of like holy shit, oh no,
and we were just kind of,
I was looking at everybody else and say
yeah, this is not a good situation.
I looked at my wife and she was,
she just stood up and start clapping
was like I don't know what the hell she was looking at
and so that snapped me back into it
and we were able to make the plays
to extend the game and extend the series.
That rebound just happened 'cause-
- [Gary] You're playing basketball.
- Yeah playing basketball.
- But it's fucking huge.
- Yeah well I mean,
I was able to watch the trajectory of the ball,
you know what I mean?
So back some time ago,
one of my good friends told me,
hey or a great player told me,
if you want to get a rebound,
you get there before the ball gets there, right?
So in that situation,
I could watch, you practice watching the ball go
and you just know where it goes after a while.
I was able to kind of watch it the whole way
and first person I saw was Ray.
- [Gary] That's a good person to see.
- Yeah and in my mind it happened very,
it's like slow-motion, like the Matrix,
you know what I mean?
In real time, it still does not--
- [Gary] Like a hundredth of a second.
- Yeah it still does not seen that way in my mind to me.
Like, I'll watch it, it's like, okay.
- I genuinely think that that play is really underrated.
- I don't even want,
I like the fact that it's kind of under there,
kind of hanging right there in plain sight,
because you just hope that you can make those type of plays
that people will remember.
I remember when Jordan hit all those shots,
Packson, Steve Kerr, Hakeem Olajuwon.
- I just think that play needs to be branded more.
I really really genuinely think like
that needs to be more known as like the rebound.
It is that big.
I really do think it's that big
and honestly and I, listen, I hate Michael Jordan.
So I've spent my entire last 15 years
hoping and wishing and rooting for LeBron
to do whatever he needs to do to climb that later.
It's crazy, my number one grateful thing towards you
is that rebound
because without it
that game would have been over
and the series would have been over.
- Yeah, they probably would've made
some changes with the team.
I mean we were fully aware,
we were fully aware of what we were up against.
But I always tell people,
I'll get mad when somebody say, well the game's over.
I get so mad
because it's like no, the game is never over
until you see like triple zeroes right there.
You know what I mean?
Like oh, we'll leave.
Don't leave.
- That was really,
first of all, especially in my two favorite sports,
basketball and football are funny like that,
like there's just something to,
actually all of 'em, actually all of 'em.
That's absolutely right, that's absolutely right.
- Yeah, just don't leave man.
And so any other people
even you have to stick with things even
sometimes you'll give up on yourself or something
like that when you're right on the cusp--
- What is the hottest you were in your career?
Like when I ask you that question,
what stretch of time, what period,
like what two weeks,
I was always fascinated like fuck,
it's funny I've been during the majority of your career
I was quite passive with basketball in comparison.
Knicks went into a coma and my career took off
and I was working till 11 p.m. every weekday.
So unlike football,
where Sunday I could make the commitment,
it was hard for me to get all in
but in my childhood I was super in.
Actually back to the Spurs,
I just remember David Robinson would have pockets
where he would just go lightning hot
like it was just really interesting to watch some people go,
like when I ask you that question,
do you think of like year three in Toronto
of just like this two weeks where you were just 30 and 20?
Was there ever a period that you actually remember
being ultra hot for like a week or two or a month?
- Nothing out of the ordinary.
Maybe it was a couple times in a month
I feel like I couldn't miss
but you forget those pretty quickly
'cause it keeps coming at you.
Yeah, you remember,
I remember the big stuff.
After awhile, I was like, all right,
I was hot for a week.
I still didn't get the accolades.
So I didn't get those awards
that normally come with hotness.
So that made me kind of say aight,
this really doesn't mean anything.
- Talk to me about one of my favorite cultural moments ever,
that concert you guys put on
when you guys all signed there.
- That was pretty sweet, wasn't it?
It was pretty sweet.
- When's the last time you saw it
like on the internet or on TV by accident?
- I was watching it like the other week.
Because we've been talking about it.
- [Gary] It's such a fun moment, right?
- Yeah, we were having fun.
- You were real happy.
- I remember that part the most,
I'm like man he's real happy.
- Oh yeah, it's warm right now.
Usually it's starting to get chilly.
I like the chill and the light brisk in Toronto Falls
but this is something different, man.
- On some real shit,
do you view that chapter of you guys,
back to the four, five, six, like it really,
like I remember being like oh man,
this is gonna be boring for a long time.
Obviously, the Spurs had an incredible dynasty
going at the same time
and that Mavericks team got hot at the right kinda way,
like I mean this is a really challenging question
and I'm not looking to make it challenging.
I'm just genuinely curious.
I really am curious,
do you view that chapter as a success
or is there a level of disappointment
because you thought you could have done more?
- No, it's success, it's success.
- I can see it either way.
I really genuinely didn't know,
I was curious.
- Well I mean people have to,
so the whole story behind that was right,
we signed, we're there,
the decision is the night before,
we're having crazy parties as Miami.
I had never seen that many cameras around our hotel.
We were at the W.
I mean sea of cameras,
hundreds and hundreds of cameras.
I've never, we haven't even played a game.
So the next day,
I know basketball,
all right we're gonna do the press conference,
we're gonna go through the whole thing,
we hold up the jerseys,
boom, we gonna get out of here.
12 o'clock comes noon nothing
to one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock,
nobody's hitting us back.
We're just sitting in the hotel room
just sitting there. - The three of you?
- No, no, no, me and my family.
I hadn't slept in 24 hours.
I was just up.
So they eventually call us,
aight, hey come down to the arena about five or six o'clock.
We pull up to the arena,
it's thousands and thousands of people.
They got jerseys printed already, posters everywhere,
I mean it was overwhelming.
So then we got in there and they said,
all right this is what's going on
and they explained everything to us
and I was like yo, that's so cool.
This is crazy.
And they had the build up there
because there was a concert there the next day,.
I just found this out.
So everybody thought we like we didn't--
- Honestly I wasn't even worried about that.
It was just that image in my head of like the three of you,
you guys were just like,
that must have just been an incredible moment.
- I mean come on, it was amazing.
It was 25,000 people there with no basketball.
- And you're in your 20s and optimism is attractive to me.
And you guys were like we're gonna win 87 fucking times.
- You saw what happened when Jordan and them got together,
what about us?
It was just like,
and you know we were just,
it was kind of being young and naive at that time too
'cause everybody was happy.
We weren't worried about watching what we say.
We didn't know that things could get out
as quickly as they could.
- How early did you think about free agency
at that point of your career?
Like when did it start seeping into your head?
Like a year before it happened,
during that season, late?
- [Chris] Before 2010?
- Yeah like when did, as a kid, you're a human,
you were like, I know you were professional
and focused on the season at hand,
but you're fucking human.
You might have thought about,
I got kids that we're talking to right now
for next NFL Draft
who are worried about their second contract
four or five years from now
and I think that's smart, not stupid.
So I'm just actually curious for you
when did free agency and how that was gonna play out
play out in your mind?
- It kind of really start playing into it 2008.
- [Gary] Two years before.
- Yeah, two years before.
Not that I was obsessing,
we had signed the deal,
the three with the four year option.
So that was getting closer
and once that started getting closer,
it became this thing.
So people would ask you about it,
they force it in your head.
So they make you think about.
And people lead.
The people lead you and then--
- [Gary] You're human.
- Yeah well I was human
and I didn't put two and two together
as far as like having the foresight to look at the class.
Then you see who all's gonna be available in 2010,
alright yeah it's gonna be a shit show in 2010,
I got to get ready for it.
But every single day it was questions and everything
but I had eventually,
I had to get to the point where I'm back to leading my team.
So I couldn't really worry about that stuff.
Because they wanted me to leave,
Vince, left, you're gonna leave, aren't you?
I had to deal with all that stuff.
So that wasn't that fun.
- No, it wasn't.
It's constant story up in Toronto.
- I mean it kind of sucked and
I was just making a decision to play on the big stage.
I wanted to play on the big stage.
- Who did you think was gonna draft you?
This is always my favorite question.
- People always told me Toronto.
It was either Toronto or Miami, yeah.
And so that's why it's kind of funny going to Miami,
it was kind of coming full circle--
- Those were the two teams that you kind of,
your agent, the process, the interviews beforehand,
you felt like those were the ones zeroing in?
- Yeah, it was four, five for me the whole time.
And people were telling me
yeah, you're not gonna make it to five.
So just be ready,
you're going to Toronto.
You still don't believe 'em.
You still have to go through the process
of getting drafted and everything
and it worked out.
- What do you think about all those baggy suits?
- They were terrible.
I looked at my suit, I thought I was so cool.
- [Gary] Of course that was the fresh style then.
- Yeah, that was but man.
- Wait till people look back
at the shit they're wearing right now.
- Oh yeah yeah with the spikes and crystals--
- Beanies and tight jeans, these nerds.
These kids are gonna be like,
who the fuck was I 20 years from now?
- [Chris] I think what Trey Young wore shorts.
- I know, I know.
It's crazy to watch fashion evolve.
Chris, thanks for being on the show.
- [Chris] Man, I appreciate it, man.
- Real pleasure.
- [Chris] Thanks for having me, man.
- Yeah, real pleasure.
This was episode 369, was it?
329, all right, we got 40 more to go to get there.
212-931-5731, hit it, thank you, thanks Chris.
- [Chris] Thank you, man.
- Awesome, that was fun.