- I used to always try
to hold people to two points.
When you got two, I'm like, "He's not getting four!"
[Laughing.]
Right? So my whole goal was like,
"He's not scoring today."
- Big Baller's back, baby.
- Teach me how to shoot. [Puck slaps.]
That puck's loud.
Oh! What the...?
- Oh yeah, that's how quick it is.
- Ooh! You're gonna be a cowboy, Nate, after this. Look out.
- I'm learning.
"Houseguest." Let's get it.
["Just Ball" by Metta World Peace]
- Gonna pull up to my guy Ron's house,
aka Metta World Peace.
I can't find his crib, yo.
You know how secret he is,
he probably got like a secret Batcave entrance.
[Knocking.]
- What up, homey? - What's good?
- Let's get up in here, I don't want anybody
to know where I live.
♪ Just because it seems I retired from the ball ♪
♪ Doesn't mean homey ain't ballin' no more ♪
♪ Comin' from New York, dog, all we do is ball ♪
♪ Poppin' all these bottles, not retired, I just ball ♪
- Lemme sneak
up in here, then, man, what's goody?
How you doin'?
- Sure, everything good, man. - Everything good?
- Seattle's finest in the building.
- Man, y'all know what it is,
man. Hey.
- I just moved in, man.
Matter of fact, you can help me with a box, man.
Come on. - Aw, man, you know, for sure.
- Oh, man. - I definitely help
O.G. Ron move some....
- Lead the way, point guard. - Yes, sir.
- S***, man. - Man got me workin'.
- We could put it up here or somethin'.
Thank you, man. - Yeah.
Tell me about your AAU team.
- We had Elton Brand, he was always the best.
- Timeout, you had Elton Brand on your squad?
- Elton Brand is just a beast.
Lamar Odom after that.
Lamar played the one and two, mostly the two.
Erick Barkley, which nobody really know him, 'cause....
- Talkin' 'bout the PG? - PG.
- Come on, he was cold. - Cold.
- What you mean?
Real hoopers know who he is.
- He was cold. - Yeah, Eric Barkley was....
- The best defender on the squad.
- What was up with the name change?
I mean, you had guys like Ochocinco,
he changed his name, Chad Johnson.
What was the whole deal about,
"I'm going to change my name?"
- It started out with ignorance, I'm not gonna lie.
Ocho changed his name - Chad changes to Ocho.
I'm like, "I'mma do that too, that's dope." Right?
Originally, I wanted to change to Soul Hood.
And it went from that to Meditation,
and I'm becoming more of a wholesome person.
So it took me four years to actually change it.
And then, Metta's a Buddhist name,
and World Peace would just support that.
- I love that.
I wonder what name I would pick
if I could change my name. - Yeah, what would you pick?
- I don't know, 'cause a lotta the time I always go with....
My alias name was always my name backwards.
I always pick Etan Nosnibor, that's Nate
Robinson backwards. - Oh, my goodness.
That actually sound dope.
- No, Etan Nosnibor. But you went from wearin' 15
for most of your career, 37, 93.
So what was it with the numbers?
- The numbers, I always wanted 10 jerseys,
and then I also wanted to acknowledge
all my favorite ballplayers,
so when I 15, that was for me.
I was 23, Michael Jordan, and I actually was a All-Star
with 23. - That year,
yeah, you was killin'.
- So that was a honor, man. To be a All-Star in number 23?
And I played for the Bulls, my life was amazing.
- That's what's up. - Yeah.
- Who was one of the toughest guys you had to guard?
'Cause you're such a defensive player.
- I'mma pay homage first,
'cause I don't want to call nobody out.
It was really tough to guard LeBron, Kobe.
LeBron had 25 that first game against me.
And I had some good games against LeBron,
but his first game, he got 25.
I used to be able to time everything,
so I knew when the ball bounced -
that's why I would steal on the ball.
I knew when the ball was gonna get back to your hand,
and I was beatin' everybody to the ball.
I used time Grant Hill's
rhythm to his shot.
I used to block his jump shot.
I held Latrell Sprewell for zero
for a season, no points.
- Every time he faced you, he didn't score on you?
- That one season,
yeah, he didn't score a point. - That's tough.
- I used to always try to hold people to two points.
When you got two, I'm like, "He's not getting four!"
[Laughing.]
Right? So my whole goal was like, "He's not scoring today!"
But the crazy thing was, in the summertime
I would practice defense for the first 45 minutes.
I'm in the gym by myself -
slide, slide, slide, slide, slide,
on just defense, defense, defense.
And.... - Hear this, kids?
Forty-five minutes of straight defense.
- Man.
- Come in, I see you got this beautiful Christmas tree, man.
- Yeah, man, my wife had me put a star up there.
- Fifteen-footer, it gotta be, huh?
- Yeah, it is.
You could probably touch that, too.
- Nah, it's too high.
That's up there, bro.
- You touched 14 feet before. - Twelve.
- Twelve? - Yeah,
I dunked a little tennis ball on a 12-foot.
- My most memorable Christmas story is
we didn't have a lot of money, so we used to get free toys.
So one Christmas, we went to go pick up some free toys,
they gave us four bags of Dick Tracy T-shirts.
- That's it? - So we was happy at first,
we was happy. But then, after you wear it every day,
it's like we got a ton of Dick Tracy.
It got real old.
- That's funny, man.
Back in the day, I used to have them,
and my mom used to have toys that say, "From Santa, To Boy."
It never say our name.
I'm like, "Damn, Santa forget my name?"
- Yeah. - Like, "Come on, man.
What is this?"
What you got in store just in the upcoming future, bro?
- Man ... man, I feel right now,
my kids is the most important thing in my life.
Me and my wife is tryin' to get everything all settled,
and I'm just into sports.
I'm really excited about the future of sports.
When I retired, I went back to UCLA for digital analytics,
and I went back for coding a little bit, also.
And I seen athletes don't really have
a relationship with their customer,
with their fans, with their businesses,
and I knew if I could set something up like that,
we could start to not only launch our own businesses,
but even help athletes.
- Piano, do you play?
- I don't play, man, but you know, when you young,
I figured that you should have a piano.
Just seening it on TV ... and I know nothing about a piano.
I hope my kids play, but they don't even play it.
- O.K., Community Champion Award.
- Yeah, yeah, some of the awards is cool, man.
All the adversity that I had on the court,
I did just as much good stuff.
I got this NBA citizenship award.
- But it's like they don't want to show this,
they don't want to tell us about this, man.
- Sometimes....
- They don't want to tell us about the O.G. Ron, man.
The loving side, really?
- I got so many awards like this.
- You gotta let 'em know, man. That's cool, that's dope.
- At 23 I had two TNT commercials, had deals comin' up,
All-Star, finished sixth in MVP voting,
NBA was pushing me, and then, boom, when the brawl happened,
I lost every single deal.
I missed out on the All-Star that year,
I was gonna be a All-Star again.
- Would you change anything about that brawl, the fight?
What would you change that day?
- The only thing I would change
is that I wish it woulda never happened.
- Tell me a little bit about playin' with Kobe.
- Winning a title with Kobe was amazing.
Watching Kobe work was amazing.
It was times in the game where I had to snap out of it,
'cause I'm watchin' him.
He's always doin' something incredible.
I had to be like, "Ron, focus on the game, man.
"Get your mind in the...."
We played against y'all in the Finals.
He had 25 straight points from the third
to the fourth. - Fourth, yeah it was crazy.
- Come on, man. [Laughs.]
- It was crazy 'cause everything he was doin',
it looked just like MJ, bro.
He'd fadeaway jumper, come down,
slice through the lane, dime, come through, hit it.
And the one person we thought was gonna take the shot,
and he actually passed you the ball.
You made that three,
and I was like (gasps). - Yep.
- But with Kobe, I had to always be ready,
'cause you never knew when he was gonna need you.
I knew I was always destined to have a championship,
because even early in my career,
at 23 years old, I was killin'.
I was in my All-Star prime,
and gonna become a multiple-time All-Star.
And when the brawl happened, I'm just like,
"I'm never gonna get this oppurtunity again."
Basketball gods is like, "It's over for you."
You know what I'm sayin'?
- Right.
- And then you get a chance to ... I go to the Kings,
think, "This is O.K." I go to the Rockets, it's a'ight.
Tracy gets hurt, Yao get hurt, it's like, "Damn."
Dikembe get hurt, "Damn."
And then we get to the Lakers, "Oh, wow. I'm back here?
This opportunity I dreamed of, oh wow."
- Rumor has it is you actually wore your jersey
that whole night, to the club.
- Went to the club, my tape's still on....
- Tape on his fingers. - Poppin' bottles,
and then we go to the studio.
At four in the mornin', we go to a studio.
Dr. Dre in there, and it was Interscope Records.
I released a record called "Champion,"
and then Dr. Dre heard the record
and said, "Let's do a new record."
So then I'm in the booth recordin' with Dr. Dre.
- No way. - "Champion, Part Two."
And I'm literally fallin',
I'm so tired at this point. - You fallin' asleep
in your jersey? - And I'm fallin' asleep,
and Dr. Dre's like, "You up?"
I was like, "Have you finished it?"
We did one verse, and we were supposed to finish
the second verse, we never did it.
And then Chris Brown's in the studio,
and he takes my jersey.
He say, "Yo, can I have that jersey?"
I'm like, "Hell yeah, you can have it."
- Oh, you gave it
to Chris Brown? - Signed it
and everything, Chris Brown. - Aw, that is crazy.
Little HGB got the jersey, that's tight.
- I hope he's still got the jersey, too, man.
I'll be pretty upset if he don't have the jersey.
- Nah, he probably definitely got that jersey.
You from Queens, too? - Queens.
- What was it like growin' up, though?
- People always ask me why I rap.
It's because my story is so real.
When you see your cousin come home
from gettin' beat with a bat,
almost died,
and then....
That s*** stick with you, man.
- Yeah. F*** yeah.
- You know what I'm sayin'? - Sheez.
- And a lotta people in my neighborhood be askin' me,
"What you rappin' for?"
I'm like, "Just because y'all don't play ball,
and y'all in the street,
it don't mean your story was more real than mine."
You know what I'm sayin'?
- What would you say to a 12-, 13-year-old kid
that felt that way, that had that kind of trauma,
and that's trying to make it to the league,
and has that same hunger and ambition as you did
trying to get to the league. - Yeah.
For one, the league is a business.
If you want to get into this NBA business,
it's not your business, right?
When I came in, I was so stressed,
and I only was worried about myself.
I'm like, "F*** everything else."
Whereas, when you're entering someone else's business,
I think you should respect the business
and never forget where you from.
Always keep your morals, never forget where you from,
and if you can make it out,
never forget where you came from.
- Man, y'all know what it is, man,
"Houseguest," man, season 2,
with my boy Metta World Peace,
aka O.G. Ron, is how we called him.
Man, it's love,
brah, we appreciate you, man. - My dude.
- HGB got the jersey, that's tight!
You gotta hope he didn't give it away at that d***....
He had a garage sale,
he made a million dollars. - Oh, really?
- Yeah. - Oh, wow.
- He might have sold it. - Nah, come on, Chris.
- Nah, he ain't sell it.