Amar’e Discusses What The Real Issue Is With Zion W/ UD & Mike

You joined the Heat during the transition period. Talk about the Heat. We always talk about Heat culture and identity here. Was it different than the other stops? I mean, obviously, every stop is different, but we always like to talk about the Heat stuff here. Yeah, the Heat organization was perfect for me, right? Because, first of all, I'm back home. I'm back in Florida. My home was here. I can drive to the game without having to buy a place or rent a place. And then the culture was great, right? Everyone was cohesive. We all got along from top to bottom, you know, from the ownership down to the players on down to the weight training crew, right? We all had this culture they called the Heat culture where everybody just kind of wants the best for each other. And for me, I thrived in that, right? And I was toward the end of my career, and I was still trying to maintain health and stay on top of my game. And everybody was giving me encouragement and allowed me to kind of keep pushing through and keep striving to become better and better, right? So that, for me, was a great moment for myself. I always wanted to be here because even back when I was drafted to Phoenix, Pat told me, he said, listen, we had the 10th pick. And if you would have dropped to that instead of being taken 9th, they would have took me at 10. Wow. So I knew one day that I would probably make my way back to Miami. I mean, I don't know if you remember this, but obviously giving you your flowers because it was a lot of times me being an OG on the team is like, I got advice for everybody. But who the hell give me advice? Right. You know what I'm saying? But it was many times me and you had conversations because it'd be some games that you probably ain't play or some games I ain't play. So we had to talk each other off that ledge. Right. Absolutely. You know, when the opportunity comes, just stay ready, Stack, because you know we competitors. Like, if we see we can help the team win and we're not out there getting the opportunity to help the team win, we get frustrated. And in practice, we're putting in work. Yeah. In practice, you see you deep balling. You know what I'm saying? Like, let's get in the game. Coach, put us in. So it was a couple times we had to talk each other off that ledge and be each other therapists. Right. You know what I'm saying? Right. But obviously, he played more than me. And when he got his opportunity, he's still tall in the paint. But if your mind ain't right, when your opportunity does come, you ain't going to be ready to perform. Exactly. And you're still mad about the ---- that happened last week. Right. And you're still mad you ain't get in the game. So I appreciate you for that because nobody is able to talk to me. I'm always giving advice. But ain't nobody give me no advice. Right. You know what I'm saying? Ain't nobody ever giving me advice. Right. I got to figure it the **** out because I'm the old boy on the team. Right. So it was good to have somebody who I could talk to. Absolutely. Somebody that could give me advice. Somebody that's been through the same ---- I've been through. Somebody that's seen everything but the win like myself. These young motherfuckers don't know nothing. Right. I can't ask these motherfuckers. Right. I can't. You know what I'm saying? Exactly. So that worked out for me. That was a good thing for me to have another OG. Every day. Seen everything but the win? I've seen everything but the win, killer. You can't get ---- past me. I've seen everything but the win. God damn. He's seen everything but the win. Give me your top five. Give me your Mount Rushmore power forwards. We're going to ask him about that Olympic stuff. We are going to ask him. Mount Rushmore power forwards. Wow. Okay. Yeah. My Mount Rushmore power forwards. I'm going with Tim Duncan. Charles Barclay. This is four, right? My Mount Rushmore is four power forwards. Kevin Garnett. and I'm going with the Diggler either. I mean, it can be. I will. Bill Russell was with a center. Yeah, it was a center. Yeah, it was a center. Yeah, I will have. I will have to probably go with dirt because Karl Malone was good but I don't he wasn't as good as Dirk if you, you know, in my opinion, Mose Malone was solid but I think he was also center at times. Yeah. So, I'm going to go with dirt. I can't argue that for. I can't argue that for at all. No. But but while we on the topics of power forwards and this is what I want to tap into. When I look around the league and I'm watching these games, one of my favorite players to watch is Zion but what what you think that he and this is kind of off the topic of what I'm talking about but I have my opinion. What you think that he needs to be to get over the hump? He's one of my favorite power forwards to watch. I see his ceiling so high for this kid. He's just health is one thing. Health is one thing. But you know what I'm saying? You think that he has the mentality to get over the hump and in this situation and with the Pelicans. It's it's tough. It's tough. It's tough when when when health is an issue, right? And you're not able to play and perform on a consistent basis and then now you're second guessing your athleticism. You're second guessing your game and then like improve because you gotta work on recovery. Um and I think I think with Zion, if he if he work on like his perimeter skills, right? He get a lot of points in the paint. Yes, he does. And that's based off athleticism. But as you get older and and time kick in, you gotta be able to shoot the rock, make decisions off the dribble. So, I think just just kind of improving his game on the perimeter side and then also keeping that aggressive in the paint flow will be helpful for him. So, not just being athletic. Well, yeah. You can't you can't depend on that all the time. And what he's saying is like you like people understand how grueling that is on your body. You you guys know I'm talking about people at home. They don't understand. I'm six ten. So, Zion. That was six seven. Right. Zion was six five. Probably six five, six six. Six maybe. Yeah. People understand how grueling that is for 82 games to be just a a savage in the paint and attack and hit bodies and do that stuff. Like as your career goes on, you have, like you said, you have to lean on. It's like Brown. Brown's become a three-point shooter, man. You have to you have to lean on something else. Yeah. My thing is just does he have the mentality? Yeah. That's a good question. That's a very good question. Nobody gonna change your situation. Nobody gonna get you in shape but yourself. Right. Exactly. So, does he have the mentality is my question because all the physical **** is there. I love what I see physically but mentally, does he have the mentality? And you can tell if the mental is there if you're in shape. Yeah. When you see when you see somebody in shape, you're like, yeah, he ready. Oh, yeah. If he out of shape, I agree a thousand percent. Yeah. You're doing all something. Right. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? Exactly. I used to take a month off, bro. If that three weeks, maybe a month. And we back at it. And I'm grinding. Right. It's it's it's on. Right. I'm hitting that **** treadmill, running outside. Right. Exactly. For all. It's a lifestyle when you get to this. It is. And the earlier you get your earlier you can get your mindset around that. What y'all are talking about, the longer your career is gonna be cuz. It's a lifestyle. When it's over, it's over. Exactly right. It's a lifestyle, man. Touch on that USA. You wanna talk about USA? Yeah, man. What the hell happened, Shaq? I got the I got the bronze, didn't I? We got the bronze. Larry Brown. Larry Brown happened. He said, damn. Damn, Larry Brown. I gotta keep it above. Yeah, I I just I just I just to understand the coaching philosophy. I I didn't I didn't understand what was going on. Cuz you have players like myself, Carmelo, D Wade, and LeBron on the bench. Huh? You know what I'm saying? I'm like, yeah. Jefferson, you got you got these guys playing in front of us. So, listen. This is and I got this and I got this same story from D Wade. It was it was not a he didn't say Larry Brown but it was more so the veteran guys got to play and you you're younger guys. He didn't believe in young guys. Yeah. The veteran guys got to play around it. D Wade's. Hold on. Give me. Hold on. Give me this. D Wade had the same conversation. Give me this roster. Who's on it? Well, we had we had Steph Mulberry, AI. Yeah. Duncan. Yeah. Boozer. Was it Boozer on the squad? I think it was. Um Richard Jefferson. Lamar Odom, Sean Marion was. Yes. Yes. Uh. Yeah, those guys were on it. And then. And who played? And then the young Gunners which was me. Uh Melo, D Wade, and and and Bron. And then we had a McAuliffe. You know what I'm saying? I might have missed someone. I might might have been someone that was there that wasn't there or whatever but that was the gist of the team. And Larry Brown didn't believe in playing young players. So we got no playing time. D Wade got the most playing time out of all of us. I think cuz he had college experience and all these things. Yeah. Me and LeBron with high school kids. Melo one one and done. You know what I'm saying? So we got we got we got no burn. I'm like coach put us in. You know we we can you know what I'm saying? Like you're kidding me? Yeah. What happened? No D Wade said the same thing. He said that they didn't they didn't play the young guys. Yeah. We didn't get in specifics why but he said they just didn't play the young guys around that time. And we got no explanation like coach talked to us why we're not playing like what can we do to what can we do like give us some information. We got nothing. We I mean we didn't get it. I mean. That was around that time man. Coaches didn't give you no explanation. Yeah. No no. Now they do. You can go in the office and sit down with the coach now. Back then coach didn't tell you. I wanna I wanna ask you about that though cuz for all of the USA basketball is obviously not going anywhere. So every time they put a team together there's a handful of people that don't play. That's a that's a long commitment. A summer commitment. Y'all on that team because y'all are really good at basketball. Away from your family. Yes. But you're really good at basketball. You understand certain things. Like your mentality has always been at every level to go dominate and you don't play. Like what's your mental coming home? Like are you like oh I'm about to kill these dudes when I get home. What what is it? Yeah yeah yeah absolutely. Cuz it happens every every every summer right? At USA basketball there's four guys Jason like Jason Tatum. Yeah. Like the stuff that that just happened right? But it didn't it didn't really like hurt our confidence. It didn't hurt my confidence. No of course not. You know what I'm saying? Cuz I knew what I can do. I'm like if I was on the court I know what I can do. You know what I'm saying? If I play you know five ten minutes I know I can make a difference in the game 100%. But it didn't hurt my confidence when I went back to Phoenix. And I took that motivation of staying in shape during the Olympics and I just stayed in shape the whole summer and then took that you know you know being in top shape from the summer right into the season and I got off to a to a great start. Yeah I honestly I I look at both sides of it cuz I saw what Steve Perr went through and I understand that in a perfect world you wanna play everybody. Um but you can't. And you gotta try to figure out how to play the best guys that's gonna mesh together. It's not about the best individual guys. It's about the guys that's gonna mesh together the best. The five guys that you can put on the court that's gonna play against the play together the best. Do I think some of those young guys should have? Absolutely. What if you lose and you gotta make a change? Yeah. Y'all absolutely should have played. Absolutely. You gotta figure out a way. You gotta implement. You gotta figure out a way to implement them young guys. Maybe you don't play all five of them at the same time. Just try to figure it out. Try to figure it out. Yeah. You figure out a way to implement these guys. You know what I'm saying? We all the time. Being that guy, Devin Booker said, I'll be that guy. I'll take the defensive challenge and you know, settle on offense for what I get open shots. Absolutely. However, you can get on the court to help the team. I'm sure those young guys are willing to do that. There's no doubt. Opportunity. Exactly. But as a coach, it is a tough decision on who you gonna play. I wouldn't wanna coach that team ever. That'd be hard. Yeah. So, you got so much talent. Everyone has egos and everyone knows they're great. And someone's not gonna play. And then the older guys feel entitled to some. Yeah, for sure. For sure. There's just an entitlement. And every person that's not playing. Yeah, those guys are printed all-stars. Yeah. And all these champions. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You ain't finna tell AI. AI don't wanna hear that. Yeah. About not playing. What? Larry who? You can't tell those guys that. Kobe and them, they don't wanna hear that. Like, we ain't sitting out. Like, they don't wanna hear that. We've got another exciting week of hoops coming up and I've got the perfect way to get you even closer to the action on the court. 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