I would say what really hurt me during that time was I got injured early on in the season and I was and now I missed a bunch of games. So Of course, I signed an offer sheet with for phoenix because I mean It showed that they wanted me they gave me an offer and I was tinkering like I don't think there was an offer like like that in warlands at the time, but I was kind of hopeful because Both situations were pretty similar it was both rebuilds So I was like, you know what? Maybe this situation might work out if I if I signed this offer sheet, maybe that I can go to I could go to phoenix then but it just didn't work out that way and I kind of knew that New one was gonna bring me bring me back and I would say the only good situation during that time was, you know, you had money that was a good coach and uh, then a couple years later We we went to the playoffs. So it was like But uh, of course during that time when I signed an offer sheet, I was like, man I'm very hopeful to go

to phoenix at the time. I also signed an offer sheet as a restricted

It was like truthfully like I loved Orlando. I loved Orlando. It was not like anything against Orlando, but It was an opportunity to go to the Bulls Where I was gonna start the first time in my career Instead or lando matched and I went back to being the eighth guy and never really moved out of that role until stand left and that was like I've talked about it was stand I talked about it a ton with them then like there was just no pathway for me to ever like have a different role with him and I understood it, but man Seven days on my honeymoon. That's how long I had to wait seven days on my honeymoon And that time period I think I think you're right you're hopeful And then when it gets like day five or six, you're like, no, I'm going back

I'm going back Yeah, man, because every time I go to New Orleans I get booed and they don't understand the business and everything Because it had nothing to do with the fans or really the city. It was just at the organization at the time Uh, it just wasn't right for me. I didn't feel like they were really invested Into me but and but we went uh, you know went there Stook it out was there for five five years and uh went to the playoffs So I mean, I don't know what they can be mad at but

Do you in 16 years um Do you do you ever reflect? backwards Like have you caught yourself with any what ifs in your career

Yes, you have. Yeah

What if the CP trade doesn't go through or does go through I should say and he goes to the Lakers staying clipper, right? Maybe yeah, play 10 years for the clippers, right?

You're right because I because I was I really did feel like I would have been there almost my whole career

What's the biggest what if for you?

uh, one maybe that trade two those injuries in New Orleans because I felt like I could have had a better

career in New Orleans you were essentially being load managed right in New Orleans with it with the knee injury stuff um

Not necessarily load managed. I just had and I just had an injury in a surgery every year when I was with New Orleans That was the the problem. Yeah,

no

And uh, it wasn't so much management. It was just more I just had some just freak freakers and injuries.

Yeah

When you went to Houston and you go to play for Mike dantony um Can you enlighten us to what it's like playing for coach dantony the whole experience

What I like about dantony is offensive is very simple uh, it's all about playing fast playing downhill and just Just kind of played the right way and what I like about is his demeanor. He he never gets rowdy And that's what I really think his demeanor helped those raucous teams because he let us play freely He made he least you know kind of tells the the right way to do things and uh, I think he worked out wealth with her with those things

Yeah, you got uh six men of the year in 2016 2017. I was a free agent in 17 and I've talked with Daryl about this

privately

And darryl and I and my agent at the time we had some miscommunication I thought there was a four-year offer sheet darryl said it was only three so I ended up going to filly but I talked with dantony on a park bench in brooklyn bridge park uh about an hour before I made this my decision because I I wanted a longer deal and I was only looking at one-year deals from filly and uh two things stood out about that conversation number one He said to me I want every guy That ever plays for me to have their career year with me

Damn like that. The

second thing was I was like How much am I actually play because you And he to his credit he was like I'm gonna play you these minutes and eric these minutes then you'll you'll you'll You know last six minutes of the second quarter It's anybody's time could be you could be you guys together and then he went he was here's my playing with james and christ Like he had already mapped out The rotation right he's like would you play last year? I was like 28 minutes. He's like there's your 28 minutes right there Oh

damn

Yeah, but I I would like did I think especially at that stage of my career Because you guys were all older And dantony you don't practice Right so any expectation Yes night to night just you play a game you go do your work and then you go play another game

Yeah, and that was and that was new for me, you know, I've That was new for me when we I remember we went on it like a 12 to 14 game win a streak And we were practicing and we weren't really watching too much film. We watched five minutes of film and then He'd be like a it's done. I want you to be ready for games. I want you to only think about the games and uh And I was like man. I was just a different and then you're really Refreshed like your mind's refreshing your body's ready for games

One thing that CP told me that has always Stuck with me was you guys were you guys were hard to play against not only because of the offense Um, but because of the defense and the switching and whether it was like that last year Um When I played in LA or all the subsequent, you know three or four years after that Is like so disruptive to your offense. It ended up causing the ball to stick a lot There's no flow to the offense. Right. And CP said to me, he's like The reason we did that was strictly so that we could Try to beat the warriors because we knew we had to switch against them and you end up doing it and having a lot of success with it But the thing that always stood out about That was like teams would uh inevitably try to post bigger players And you and CP and even james You guys always held your own right you guys always held your own So when you're talking about dantony not Showing a lot of film Like defensively your schemes like how much did you guys look at? Aftertime outplays and the game plays, um as you're getting ready for an opponent Because I think there's those are probably the only times really where you could like strategize around the switching

literally we just kept a simple like We really didn't do too much trap and we just we just switched everything and we what we want to do is we just break Your wisdom we wanted you to we wanted to turn you into a one-on-one team That's what it really do we want you to come down not move the ball Try to score on this one-on-one And see if you can really beat us that way because on the other end on offensive end you're not gonna outscore so It was like pick your poison

Were you aware being on those Houston teams that? Essentially the rest of the league besides LeBron and the Cavs had had stopped trying for a couple years when they had kevin

I don't know man. We we just had so we just we just had some unique teams over there in Houston I

don't mean you guys. I mean besides you guys. Sorry. I didn't say if I didn't say that right Besides you guys in the LeBron Cavs It seemed like the rest of the league was willing to sort of take a couple of years off from spending and going after a championship And that's I was give Darryl a lot of credit right Um, you guys had a team that was like built to compete with them right?

Yeah, I mean everybody was you kind of knew it, you know You just kind of knew it was gonna be Us in the Warriors in the West Air Commerce final and then you're gonna run into the Cavs in the final in the east So of course, there's probably boring times But I bet you it was probably fun for a you know team like this to really compete against the Warriors and have those chances to really have a chance to beat them and You know just didn't Tell about

one of the things that I I think changed when you went to Houston Because I don't really remember in LA or in New Orleans use spacing to 28 to 30 feet And When you got to New Orleans and Ryan Anderson was there for a little bit of that too. Yeah, he would space to 28 feet um How did you develop that range and was that coaching or is that something you just naturally did to try to give James and Chris more space

Naturally did that created more space because I was like if I space out a little bit further for one It's gonna be a easier shot for me once I catch it Because they got a defense they they're gonna help or they're gonna stake on me So it's either it's gonna work out well for a team like us because you know, you're just standing in one area and You're just kind of watching the defense. So That's why I spaced out further and further

Every time I've ever watched you in warm-ups shoot threes and you're doing your long threes Um, I'm always like how does he get the ball there? Partially because you kind of shoot more of a set shot right, you know, right and the strength there is incredible um You just said something about Playing offensive Houston at that time was a lot of standing around now. They ran Stagger away for you. Yeah, you get that on either side of the court Outside of that not a ton of play calls Obviously you talked about being downhill You're talking about those closeouts all of a sudden an eight foot close out becomes a 10 foot close out If he gets over zealous on that closeout your strong right hand drive where you get there, right? creating free throw scoring that way but the adjustment from being in la or Towards the end of that, you know first year and certainly beyond that you're getting plays called for you You're a integral part of the offense in terms of having the ball in your hands Uh, and certainly in New Orleans same thing. Was that a difficult adjustment more and more importantly than that How hard was it for you to get the buy-in from yourself? Like I got to just be off the ball now

Yeah, it was different for me every organization um Of course it worked out well for me in Houston because james, you know um he was a will and passer and It was he he had to make a quick decision if he was a scoring he was going to make the right pass and um In new warlands, you know, I got told like I said we were a young team Everybody was fighting to compete where you know who can be the best young player in the league because you know We had a good young team. We drew holiday tarry kevin's ad um course ryan was there So we were all competing but we all liked one another but we were all you know compete because we're all the same age and then uh clippers there a different situation, you know They do more iso for paul and uh and kawaii and uh for me You know, I just kind of had to space the floor for them a lot more so um Every everywhere was just been different just been different man

I think adaptability. That's probably why you've lasted. Yes 16 years in the league When james was at his peak and he he made the comments the other day and we had a long discussion on it last week's podcast about the system comments um when james was at his peak And he's in a game where he's getting 50 60 point triple doubles What was it like playing with the player like that that just had a complete control and mastery over every possession

Yeah, I mean to do was hard. I mean he was hard to guard because He's strong He's very deceptive with his footwork. He has starting. I mean just very explosive too. So it's it's gonna be hard to guard it's gonna be very hard to guard him But he had a but his motor is It was a whistle underrated because he he can go hard throughout the whole game just constantly attacking you attacking you and uh and also make the right place so So I get what he means why i'm not a system guy. Of course he can do it, but With him you gotta be a lot of free. You gotta free you gotta let him go one-on-one You gotta let it get him in the post you got a lot of it'd be better for him that way And then you got to work off him and once you work off him Um, I would say he becomes more motivated To do everything as far as moving the ball doing this doing that. So I definitely get what he means. Yeah, I

I we all we all co-signed it. We all said he was speaking factual I brought up what ifs earlier and I've had to unfortunately speak oftentimes about Uh, what is my career? 2015 before you got there we lost the rockets up 3-1 up 19 in the third quarter game six at home just like Complete now down river. Yeah, thanks

No, but it's

it sucks. It sucks

The

1718 conference finals CP gets hurt at the end of game five you guys are up 3-2 the game seven Where You guys It's actually a remarkable. I mean I watched the game. It's a remarkable step 27 missed three's in a row It still could have won and still could have won that's the it's like damn. It was a nine-point game 7 of 44 Does anything stand out? Like What was going through your mind that game? Does anything stand out about that stretch where you're missing three's like I know none of you guys are saying like oh We're gonna stop shooting them. Was there any like conversations on the bench like what the fuck is going on? I'm not gonna lie for one. I

didn't even notice we missed that man. I swear I'm not gonna lie to you. I never know I didn't think I didn't know we missed that man because we were still scoring You know how some guys when you when you take that many threes because we took a lot of threes in Houston like you would feel it you'd be down 20 points or or you couldn't score. I mean we were in the game the whole game. So it really didn't really feel I mean we didn't really feel it. We know that all we needed was a couple threes and then it'll propel us to probably win in but We were still in the game. So you really couldn't feel it

The mindset around those matchups 17 18 18 19 of course the Rockets also played Golden State in 15 after they beat us in the conference finals, but you were not a part of that team But the mindset that your team had about those Warriors teams with katie and stuff Take me through that

for what we wanted to turn them into a a one-on-one team As if they were moving around and they're flying around passing the ball wherever Anywhere anywhere anywhere on the floor then we knew we were we were gonna lose because it's impossible to beat them when their ball is moving So we we were kind of like you know what Like katie score as many points as he can because he's gonna be hard to stop anyway One-on-one wise, but we can feel like we could be physical super physical with everybody else And because we felt like of course clay could be clay is gonna knock down open threes But we're gonna be on him Staff we're gonna try to be as his physical as we can on him and katie whatever he gets it like It's one-on-one you could go do whatever you want to do. So We just felt like We just played our game offensively and just turned him to a strictly one-on-one team Like how we wanted to do on on the defensive end We thought we'd make it really tough for him and it and it was but that's how hard and difficult it is to be that team Yeah,

well, I think in general it's just hard and difficult to Be a championship team. Oh for sure. It's it's it takes a lot and some of it Is luck you you oftentimes have to avoid going over 27 in a game seven you have to avoid Lowing a 19 point lead in game six at all

Like it

it it it oftentimes can come down to a single stretch of a game or in some cases I think you know a few plays here and there You know, I I I think about a lot about that series When I talk about Steph Curry a lot and This generation and the lack of physicality I think about those series. I think about even the king series last last spring the Attention that he gets particularly off the ball Just in terms of people putting their hands on him Clay same same thing, right? You know, you they get into their split action. You can't point switch You're literally grabbing and shoving you're shoving your own guy sometimes. You're serving the screen or sometimes into your own guy like the physicality I think is an underappreciated part of the league in general because and people point to like Our foul merchants, you know, the joy on beads of the world James of course and his peak. Yeah, they're smart though Free throws across the board are down That's what people don't understand So like yeah, there's freedom of movement.