 That was then 14 year vet of the NBA champion at Arizona. This is now, and if I started this interview any other way, Mike, I'd probably be fired. Dude, we knew that Tate Top was gonna be there today. Tell me, how is this happening? How are you so jacked? I'll be here. I mean, I got here probably like at 5.30 today. I'll be here till probably 10. What? So I work hard and I got nothing else to do. I'm a full-time dad now, so all my stuff happens later in the afternoons. I got pick up, drop off from school, volleyball. So I'm doing all that stuff later in the afternoon. So I have nothing to do all morning. Ben, Fandle does not drug testing me. So let me know if there's any suppies that I'm missing out on. Suppies? Cause I don't look like you. He doesn't. We can vouch. We can vouch for him. We'll see, thanks for helping me out, God. That is a, that's an insane amount of working out. All right, so Arizona, sweet 16, gonna face Clemson next. I do have Arizona going fairly far in mind. How far do you think your team can go? I think they'll get past these two rounds. I mean, but it depends on what kind of game that you have. You can't go by how they looked in the past. Every game is a new game, especially you never know how these guys are gonna shoot or you never know how the other teams gonna shoot. But being in the position, it's a lot more pressure on one game, knowing that you have one game to go out there and play the best that you can. It puts pressure on some teams, on some players, so you never know how that game's gonna go until you get out there and play it. I mean, you won the national championship, you were what, freshman year at Arizona, and to get there, you had to go through Paul Pierce in Kansas, VC over at North Carolina. Like, what do you remember most about that run? It just, I remember we almost lost the first two games. We lost almost lots of college at Charleston and South Alabama, you know? And those were our two first games. And I think we were down a half time going into both of those games. So, I mean, there was really no pressure on us. We were 500 in the pack 10 that year. We were hoping to get in. And we ended up getting a good, we got to getting a four seed. And there was really no pressure on us. No one really expected us to do any damage. You know, we were supposed to lose after every round going into that year. So, I mean, there's really no pressure on us. We just came in and played. Mike, there's obviously a lot of really good players that have come out of Arizona that played there. Who would be on your Mount Rushmore of all Arizona wildcats? Sean Elliott, maybe Sean Elliott. I have to go with. Well, Sean Elliott, Caledronese. Oh. Caledronese, I have to go me at the two. Three, I'll play Sean Elliott. Derrick Williams at the four. And I have to go DeAndre Aden at the five. By the way, when Derrick Williams was coming out. Just position-wise. I thought Derrick Williams was going to be the best player in the NBA when he was coming out of Arizona. Wait, was it a game against Duke where he just absolutely torched them? Yes. Oh my goodness. And that's why I put him up there. You got to put him up in the top five that ever do it at Arizona. Big, you were the number two overall pick coming out of college after your sophomore year. You went to the Vancouver Grizzlies, but it seemed like you didn't really want to be there. Why was that? I wouldn't say I wanted to be there. I was blessed to be drafted. It was just, I was 19 years old. I just turned 20, have a son already with a baby on the way. Just leaving the country wasn't, I didn't think was in the cards with me. I wasn't ready yet. I don't think I was mature enough to, you know, have my whole family in a different country and move like that. We had nothing to do with the city. It had nothing to do with the team. It was just, you know, I figured like, I want to start low to where I could bring a lot of family close to me, have a lot of family around me at the same time. And out of the country, I didn't think it would have been good for me. I figured you knew they're going to move to Memphis. And you said, hell, hell, hell, no. I don't want to go there either. Really? You had to get one? I had to throw my jab in. It was good because rest in peace, Michael Housley, the owner at the time, knew that they were going to start redoing their team. And, you know, he came to me and was like, hey, Mike, you know, I have respect for you. And, you know, give me your, we're going to probably trade you. So give us some destinations you would like to go. And I gave him a few, you know, he said, okay, give me your top five again until I top five. And he said, what's your number one destination that you would like to play in? And I told him Sacramento. And, you know, by a couple months later, he ended up making it happen. Don't ask me how, but it happened. Turned out great for me. Yeah, that's not usually how that gets to go. And you did play seven seasons there in Sacramento. And then you had the seven game battle with the Lakers in the 2002 Western Conference Finals. Share a story from that run, because that's one of those ones everyone remembers. It was just, at that time, I knew we were the best team in the league. I mean, record-wise, we kind of, you know, cracked the bed in game seven, but I don't even think you shouldn't have got the game seven. But, you know, I mean, it just shows how much of a better team we were. You know, we didn't play our greatest. We ended up taking two, you know, two of the top five players that probably ever played a game in the overtime. We shoot two for three, I mean, two for 13 from three pointers and under 500%, under 50% from the free throw line. And I'm taking them the overtime. So, I mean, I knew that we were the best team in the league at that time. And if we would have got through that, we would have won the championship. Bip, I gotta ask, was it rigged in 2002? Whoa! Whoa! Tom's got some heaters to that. I have questions! Everybody has eyes. Everybody got to see what it was, you know. But, I mean, they shot a lot of free throws in the fourth quarter. I mean, I think, I remember our ball boy telling us, you know, we were getting the champagne ready. Champagne was ready for us after that game, after game six. And they had to end up putting all that stuff away. But I mean, I knew we were a better team than that Laker team at that time, yes. I know this next question, you could ask it up so many people and they'd have a different answer, but would you say your Kings team is the best team to never win a title? Of course, you know, I mean, I think, I mean, even you could put us up there with, I think, even some of the teams that maybe won. We were just so good all the way around. I mean, just the way basketball was supposed to be played, there was no egos. Everybody knew Chris Weber was the alpha male on the team. And what stood out to me going to Sacramento is that Chris Weber never had a problem holding his hand up and saying, my fault. You know, I messed up. And that wore off on everybody and everybody was held accountable for the things that they did. Mike, I always heard these rumors and when I played overseas during the lockout, my coach, this Turkish dude, he would literally smoke cigarettes at halftime. And did Vlade actually used to rip sigs during halftime of games or that's just, that's all. I saw Vlade smoke a cigarette one time before a game. It was the playoffs against Dallas. And you know, I was running to the bathroom before you do the national anthem and stuff like that. And you know, I came in and, you know, Vlade's, but he's four feet over the stall. So I see his thin, I just see him smoking a, I mean, he's getting it down till he finished the whole cigarette and probably like 20 seconds. So, I mean, just to see him do that, I was like, yeah, Vlade, you're smoking a cigarette. And he just, I mean, he popped the way through it and I think he just went out like nothing happened. That is class. Did he have like the hot shower running to try and get him blinded? No, he was in, he was in the toilet stall, just standing there like he was just outside. You know, I just, I can't believe it. He's hiding, but he's above the stall. I like it. That's incredible. It was good time though. It was a good time there by like Vlade's, you know, probably one of the best teammates I ever had as far as he was the same play, no matter, no matter what kind of game he played. And he just, he would keep everybody together. We'd get on the plane with Gamble. And I mean, he was just the kind of the leader of keeping everybody together. So, babe, you played against Colby Odyssey and the NBA, but also in the McDonald's All-American game, you guys played with each other. What was Kobe like, any good Kobe stories for us? It was just good to see him like up close and personal. Back then there was no social media. You didn't really get to see anything. I mean, there was magazines that came out then. So you got to gauge yourself against what these guys put out. And just to see his name up there and stuff like that, it's just, you know, to see him in person, it was just like seeing him in the NBA, like you didn't know if it was real or not. And you get to the game, he carried himself, you know, just like Michael Jordan, he walked like him, he talked like him, he moved like him. It was just a great, I think to play with probably one of the top three players to ever play the game. It's a dope pick. Yeah, that's a cool picture you got up there. A long time ago. All right, you're on the Atlanta Hawks, seven game series, first round of playoff, 2008 champion Celtics team, and y'all pushed him to that seven. Do you remember anything, stick it out from that one? I mean, it was just, going to Atlanta, I had to play a different role. And I kind of, going to Atlanta, I kind of took the Vladi debak role going to Atlanta. You know, I think myself and Joe Johnson were the only two guys on the roster at that time that been in the playoffs. And so, I mean, just to, you know, I went to Boston, I kind of took, I tried to take some of the pressure off the guys and say, talk a little bit trash again about the fans out there saying, you know, last year, I seen a lot of you guys with bags on your heads and now the stands are full. So they, I mean, they booed me every time I touched the ball, they booed me every time I said their name. But I think it kind of took some of the pressure off of those guys going in and figuring out, like, let's go play. And then Mike, towards the end of your career, you signed with the Miami Heat. They made the run, obviously they lost to the Mavs, but what was it like with that experience playing with, you know, that big three of, you know, Braun, D-Way, and Bosch? It was different. I had to play another role in that aspect too. You know, I wasn't really used to just going in the corner, really standing and hoping the ball comes to me. I never really played like that. And it was just a whole different situation, different scenario for me. I mean, it was just a good, it was great to have the experience of playing with three Hall of Famers at one time, but it just wasn't the right spot for me to be in. You also, your last season with the next bib, you played with the Knicks. You got to see Lynn Sandy up close in person, including that 38-point game against Kobe and the Lakers. What was that time like, Lynn Sandy, like, and also specifically that game? It was like, I always tell this story. It's like angels in the outfield, you know? I mean, it's like, like, they were like, they were roughing them up. And I felt bad for them because they were hitting them pretty hard. And just some of the way the ball, some of the way the shots hit the rim and would go in and the stuff that I was seeing, it's like almost unbelievable watching it. And I mean, it was like, I always tell everybody, like angels in the outfield, like he grew out there, he had nothing to lose. He put his heart on the line, but he turned New York into a German land place. I remember going into the mall and I mean, the only jersey they had in there was Jeremy Lenz. They took down Carmelo Anthony, they took down Stade Mars, they took down Chandlers. His was the only jersey in the mall. That's amazing. It's crazy to think back to that time. All right, you're part of the King's broadcast team. DeMona Sabonis has a double, double in 53 straight games. And I know being part of the local broadcast brings with it sort of a different kind of energy. He didn't make the All-Star team. How do you guys handle that from game to game when you talk about it? I mean, I think he got the rough end, the short end, the stick. But I mean, it's crazy that he's gonna not make the All-Star team and have a chance to make an All-NBA team. I mean, you look it in that aspect and just crazy to look at. Like he, I mean, I said that, I said the record, he's gonna be Kevin Love's record probably like two months ago. I mean, he gets these doubles by halftime. And I mean, he's hard to stop. He's kind of brings back kind of like the way we used to play. The offense has run through him mostly. And I mean, he makes it easier for the guys on his team. All right, King's MVP, is it Fox or Sabonis? I mean, I think the team moves the way if Fox plays, but I think you have to give the MVP to Sabonis just by the numbers that he's putting up and the stuff that he's doing that probably won't be seen again for a long time. But I think the team runs off of the way Fox plays. Babe, my last question for you is a couple of weeks ago as well on the King's broadcast. You got a little fired up about the let's go heat chance going on in the King's arena. Besides the obvious, what really got you pissed off that? I mean, just, you know, from being in there when I play, I know it's been a while since they made the playoff. And I mean, like, I'm not just saying just to say this, but I think the Sacramento has the best fans in the NBA. And I could have a story for that is that I was with the band, Grover Grizzlies, you know, Chandler, when you go to these other places, they come out to see good teams. They're not going to come see us when we're in Vancouver. We're winning 20 games out of 82, you know what I mean? So they're not going to come see that. I remember our last game of the season, we're countdown games. It's our last game of the season. We going to Sacramento, I remember going to warm up. And I mean, the place is full. And I just, I was like, I couldn't believe that there was that many people there that will watch them play us. And that's what kind of turned me over. It's like, I want to play here. This is a place I want to play. It's where they come play every night. And I mean, they come watch you every night and they're behind you. They have your back. That was one of the biggest reasons that made me mad that there was that many cheers and stuff for the heat. I hate it. And the Lakers. Yeah, and the Lakers. It is. So like you're a Laker fan and like Vancouver, like, come on. Like it's, it is a noxious, you're not. Yeah, you're not. As far as games, there are always tons of Lakers fans and it pisses me off. I'm with you, Mike. I know we've kept you from your workout too long. I would hate to think a muscle deflated while we were out here doing this interview. So get back out there. We appreciate the time so much. Thank you for having me, guys. Talk to you later, Mike. You can get on that. We'll run it back when we return.