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S1 Ep18 | Dominique Wilkins: NBA Draft Special!
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As the World Cup’s group stage winds down, the American sports world takes a brief intermission for the NBA draft. Who better to talk NBA history than Atlanta Hawks legend, the human highlight reel, Dominique Wilkins! An all time great in the NBA, Wilkins shares his journey to becoming the Hawks’ most iconic superstar and his clashes with the star-studded NBA teams of the 80s & 90s. From his days starting out playing pick-up ball as a kid to his legendary duels with greats like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan, Dominique’s story is one of determination that bring’s a tear to the eye of any sports fan. Beyond the court, Brad & Joe catch up with Nique’s experience with soccer as a co-owner of the Birmingham Legion and his non profit organization KultureCity. He also takes time here to give his thoughts on the our Atlanta Hawks flying off into their next season, after finally making their way back into the playoffs and being the ONLY team in the post season to take 2 games off of the reigning New York Knicks…
I really think that's one of the biggest jobs in history was you not winning the 1988 Dunk.
SPEAKER_00I feel that way too. Michael said to me after, you know you won, but you in Chicago, what can I tell you? I said, Mike, I tell you what, you know what that 25 grand they gave you for winning. Give me that.
SPEAKER_04Alright, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Goose Man Show. I'm your host, Breg Zen. Sat next to me as always, Joe Freihoffer, and we have an Atlanta royalty in the house. Nine time NBA All-Star 2006 Hall of Fame inductee. None other than the man himself. The human highlight film, Mr. Dominique Wilkins. Number one. Thank you very much for the video.
SPEAKER_00You know something that used to come in human highlight. I'm just human now and highlights. Come on.
SPEAKER_04The highlights live on. The highlights live on.
SPEAKER_00I love watching this stuff, man.
SPEAKER_04No, I love that. I love that. You know, we were just chatting off off you know, off off air, and we were talking about just the game itself and just talking about how much the game has changed. You know, when you think back to a young Dominique, you know, what what what's a piece of advice that you would go back and tell your younger self?
SPEAKER_00Well, the one thing I was very fortunate is that I had great coaches when I was coming up, especially in high school, probably the greatest coach I ever played for on any level, uh, that taught me one thing. He said, Teaching you the game of basketball is easy. Teaching you how to be a young man, that's gonna be the hardest thing. So if you can, if you can do that early in your career, there's nothing can stop you. And he made our whole team believe that. So I got really good tutelage about the game of basketball, and we ran went 76 and one in three years in high school in the state of North Carolina, which is impossible that time. But we he made us feel we never could lose if we played together and we believed in each other. And I'm gonna tell you, I've never had a coach like him. So I think the biggest piece of advice I gave myself is no never quit. I didn't believe in quitting anything I do. And it carried over into basketball, man. It was a wonderful experience.
SPEAKER_02If we go back even earlier, before that, we did a little research coming into today, Dominique. A guy by the name of Big Harold. Wow. At the boys' club early on in Baltimore. Wow. Who's Big Harold? Tell everybody at home.
SPEAKER_00Man, you know, Big Harold was a playground legend in our neighborhood. Nobody messed with Big Harold. I love it. Nobody. But he loved me, you know, because he used to take me around. I'm I'm 12 years old. And he was an older kid. And I remember one day he said to me, I'm gonna teach you this game, and you're gonna owe me, but not like you think. And at 12, I didn't know what that meant. He's the only thing I want from you to give to someone else what I'm about to give to you. And he we worked and worked at the um boys' club. It was a boys' club. It wasn't a boys and girls club then, it was just a boys' club. And like I said, man, he was a hooper in the neighborhood and taught me everything I knew about basketball. And he saw something in me that I didn't even see. He he said, You're gonna be the first one to get out of this neighborhood to have a real career in basketball. So I was the first to have a long career in basketball coming out of the state of uh Baltimore, Maryland, and um gave me the courage to leave home when I was 16. I caught a Greyhound bus to North Carolina because I saw a friend of mine rob somebody, and I don't know what happened to the lady robbed. And I went downstairs, I told my mother, I said, I'm leaving Baltimore and I'm never coming back. And I left weeks later, never went back. And I got discovered on the playground the next day. And so this fun the funny story, I got off the bus, I see these kids playing, so I go over and start playing with these kids, and after I finish, I'm sitting on the ground, this older gentleman came. He said, Hey son, you live here? I'm like, I don't know yet. He said, Well, where are you going when you leave here? I said, I don't know. And he looked at me, he said, Come go with me. I don't know why I followed him. And he took me to his house. He said, Here's a kitchen, here's a bedroom, you can have all this. The only trade-off is you have to play for my high school team. He was a high school coach. And that's how this and I looked around, I'm like, okay, let's go. And that's how I started.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I'm that that gives me chills. I mean, hearing stories, you know, of athletes that you know have I don't even want to say struggle, but just this ability to find a way to make it, you know.
SPEAKER_00But you know, it was that humility, that toughness that you had to have, because we didn't have all the adminities. It's basically it's given to guys today, these kids today. We didn't have I didn't play AAU, none of that stuff. We learned on the pavement, playground, the toughness. And if you couldn't play, you never got on the court. And so all the older kids in Baltimore used to make me play against the uh some of the older kids who were a year or two older than me and make me play one-on-one, and I couldn't lose. They like, you lose is a problem, you know. So I never lost. But they put me in position to win, but it was toughness too, because it was like $15 a game. And if I won, I thought I would get really paid handsomely, but they would give me like three bucks. I'm like, wait a minute, I'm doing all the work. They said, young fella, we paying you to keep playing. So, you know, Baltimore was a tough town, but the neighborhoods protected their own. And so they took care of me, took care of my whole family.
SPEAKER_02How heated were some of those early games? Are we talking people surrounding the entire court, elbows being thrown, people chanting? What was it like?
SPEAKER_00I've seen a lot of stuff on playground. I mean, the toughness, some of the guys that play on the playground could have easily played in the NBA for a long time, but they made more money on the street than they made in the NBA back then. But they I mean I I've I've seen some great ball players. I've seen guys because you get a bad call, a guy comes back with a baseball bat and cracks them upside his head. You know, it's stuff like that. I've seen that. No rest for that. No rest. And so if you call a foul, you know, you show respect. Okay, take it out of bounds. Because you couldn't never foul out of a game. I mean, we didn't have referees like that. But it was sometimes it got real heated where it, you know, you know, consequences that was faced. But the playground taught me everything I know, how to be tough, how to just never quit, keep coming. And so I never feared anything that I played because, hey, coming out of Baltimore, what was the fear after that? The mental fortitude.
SPEAKER_04You know, the mental fortitude to keep pushing and survive, survive on the court and say, yeah, I'm not gonna back down from anyone and take that on and grow every time you go.
SPEAKER_00If you talk to guys like Comelo Anthony, who's also from Baltimore, and and come out, Sam Conselto's guy, they'll tell you the same thing. You know, Baltimore teach you know respect and toughness, man. You had to have that. You had to have some game too to play in that area, because it was a lot of great playground basketball players come out of Baltimore.
SPEAKER_04Well, I I mean, obviously you're one of them, but then you make your way down to North Carolina and you know, from you know all accounts, North Carolina is a pretty big basketball state, right? So to be able to have to have the record that you then ended up having and the success that you had, I think speaks volumes about Baltimore, but then speaks volumes about you as an individual. You know what?
SPEAKER_00The one game we lost, it was my uh sophomore year high school. We had a hell of a team, you know. And we beat a team by 30-something regular seasons. We played that same team in the semifinals. And uh they ended up beating us by I think one or two. We should have blown them up, but we relaxed. And I remember the coach coming to the locker room after the game. He said, Proud of you guys. We should have won this game. We relaxed. He said, But if we stick together the next two years, we won't lose another game. And we like, yeah, okay. You know, but he pushed us and we ran off 56 in a row in two years.
SPEAKER_0256?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. How many environments like in the gym in North Carolina? Yeah. Sell out every game. Our whole town in North Washington, North Carolina followed us to every single game on the road. Always had sellout crowds.
SPEAKER_04Other schools thinking, oh yeah, they're coming to town, let's go. You know, we bring in the crowd.
SPEAKER_00We used to do this Highland Grove Globe skit. We get in a circle, and uh, myself or a guy named a guy named Alvis Rogers, who was a year older than me, we get in a circle and we do this little skitting, and we start doing dribbling behind our back, you know, past between our legs, and the other team down there that's looking at us like we have no shot.
SPEAKER_04We're just here to watch it. We're here to watch. That's it for real.
SPEAKER_00We were blowing teams out by 25, 30, some by 40, 50 points, man. Yeah, we were good. We were good.
SPEAKER_02Were you a superstitious guy early on? Was there anything that you had to do pre-match that you did into your later career as well?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one of the things I was very superstitious about is free throw shooting. If I took more than two bounces at the free throw line, I thought that it was gonna be off. So I would kind of catch myself on only two dribbles at the free throw line. Get yourself set and score up and knock the shot down. That was one of my biggest superstitions.
SPEAKER_04And you carried that on throughout your professional career?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. From high school, because I it was two things. It was that, and I I wanted to listen to jazz music before a game. Because most people want to listen to something very upbeating and get them, you know, ready and fired up. But it was jazz for me because it relaxed me. It got me ready playing. And I told guys all the time if you're not nervous when you play, something's wrong with you. Because that nervousness helped you prepare. I mean, got myself, Michael Jordan, Magic, all of us. Everybody had a little nervousness. And because it prepared you to play. I mean, you've been through it as a player. It just makes you more sharper.
SPEAKER_04I mean, absolutely spot on. It's a nervousness that you feel that you're ready for because of the preparation that you put into all the work leading up to that game.
SPEAKER_00Because the difference being nervous or scared. Scared means that you're not gonna do very well. You got no shot. You got no shot. But if you're nervous, you're prepared. And so again, you know, being athletes like we were, used to be, you know, it it that that was the mark of a real competitor, you know. And that's what made you, that's what made you great. And great you were.
SPEAKER_04Um, you know, you you touched on uh a few names there, you know. We we we'd be you know, mistaken if we didn't get into a few of these guys, you know. Uh Dominic, I gotta be honest. I'm I'm a kid from the South Suburbs of Chicago. Michael, I already know we when you said Chicago, I already knew what it was. You knew where the kids were going. You know, I mean, just talk talk me through that, right? Because I have an appreciation for for whether it's it's golfers, whether other athletes, when they go up against the best, right? And and they want to be pushed, I think the the mind frame is different. And it's it's very much a case of, yeah, I want to be out there. And and not only do I want to be out there, but guess what? I'm gonna prove myself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, playing against the greatest players, and especially in that era, um, man, I can't tell you how thrilling it was and how you had to make sure you were prepared to go. And Michael Jordan is at the top of that list. Um, Michael and I go back since college. You know, I was a junior, he was a f freshman. The first time we had a chance to play against one another, I didn't really know who he was, to be honest with you. I mean, you you heard his name. But I remember it was the first time James Worthy and I had a chance to go head up. And Georgia came into North Carolina. Uh, we went to Greensboro and first play of the game, I go up, I wanted to set the tone. I go up and I catch Worthy's shot, and I threw it in the second, third row in the stand. I went up above the rim. I'm almost looking the rim, and I'm fired up. And then Worthy and I had going at it. We're both having great games. In the last two minutes of that game, a young kid named Michael Jordan took over. I'm like, so that's Michael Jordan.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, where'd this kid come from? Where'd this kid come from? We're meant to be over here, but this kid over here.
SPEAKER_00So that was the start of our competition against one another. And we're the only two foes in NBA history that ever averaged over 30 against each other for a whole career. That tells you, and he said something rec recently, man, that blew my mind, but it's things that I've been trying to tell these young kids that the level of competition that he and I had was legendary. He said, I was the only one that ever unleashed his um instinct as far as his instinct, his toughness, yeah, and his drive. He said, I was the only head player that that he had to unleash that, you know, to compete against me every every night. Because one thing he said, he said, because I was had the ability to inflict as much pain as he did. And I thought that was a compliment that, man, that's you know and and what these young kids don't know. When you hear something like that, greatest player, he is the greatest player. Play, that tells you where you stand as a great player. And only way you can measure your greatness, you gotta play against the greatest player. I never ducked anybody. I had to go at Larry, I had to go at Dr. J, English, Dantley, Worthy, Bernard King, all these guys in the same era. My first eight games, I think I played against eight, nine Hall of Famers. And I remember What? I remember I said, man, if it's gonna be like this, I don't know if I'm gonna make it. Might as well go back to the playground. Hey, yeah, bring back the $13 chance. I mean, it was work, but I I said to myself, you know, if it's gonna be like this, man, I got to change my attitude. I said, I know I'm gonna play against these god-like players, but I'm gonna make sure they understand they're playing against a god too. Hey, let's go. I I I had to think that way. And they they thought, I mean, you talk about Bird and you talk about, you know, guys like Mark O'Guire, and nobody talk about uh Marcus Johnson, I can Orlando Wood, I can go down the line. So many guys at that small four position that was lethal. You know? Yeah. You know, crazy. And and Byrd, so somebody asked me a question. If you had to give the ball to somebody at the end of the game to make the game-winning shot the most critical point of the season, who would you give it to? I said, you know, Steph Curry is the great one of the greatest three-point shooters in the history game. No question. I said, but if I had to give it to a guy, I'm giving it to Larry Bird. Because he can make a three left-handed or right-handed. Telling you, Larry, man, he had a competitive edge unmatched. Unbelievable. And and the great thing is going head up with those guys, none of us ever smoked each other. We rarely even shook hands. Larry and I speak for 13 years, didn't shake hands. What? 13 years. Nobody liked each other. But he and I are very close now. Because we're not competitors. And again, he's another guy who said some unbelievable things about my career and our battles. And that lasted a lifetime. And it shows you how much respect we had for one another. I wasn't a guy who talked trash. I just played. And I came at you as much as you know I could. And um, that's the thing that they respect, you know. And you have to, you don't have to talk when you're game. Now, I take now Larry Bird talked a lot. But he backed it up, though. He backed it up.
SPEAKER_04But give us an insight into Larry Bird and in the trash talking. Uh-huh. I love it. I love that there's such a mutual respect, right? That you guys didn't talk for 13 years, but now you're close friends. I think that is amazing because the drive and willingness to want to win.
SPEAKER_00I tell you what he did to John Concack. This is crazy. Still this deck completely. So we switched. So his man switched on me, and Concack switched on Bird. And Bird looked at him and picked the ball up, put it on his arm. He said, I'm just gonna take a turnover come to Sorry, white boy, like you switched on me. I don't even want to play no more. And I looked him up like, what? Did he just do that? I mean, he would do stuff like that to psych you out. And Concake was done at that. Oh my gosh. Bird had balls, man. Let me tell you, he was he was something else, man. But we had epic battles. I mean, he talked trash to me one time in my rookie year just to, you know, see how I react. But once he saw that I was a guy gonna keep coming, we just battled. We not we didn't never talk trash to each other.
SPEAKER_02In that era, it feels like in the lead the toughness was different. It was also less cameras, less microphones everywhere. It was just you entrapped on the court.
SPEAKER_00I think the biggest part is that you played your position. Now it's more hybrid. Guys play multiple positions. I did not want to play power forward or switch on centers. You just couldn't do it. A small forward wanted to guard a small forward. Now you might switch on a shooting guard or something, but them bigs was too big and physical back then. Not only that, they were skilled. Now you're gonna switch on a Kim Elijah one down on that block and you're 6'8, maybe 6'9, 215, 220. No, because they're gonna punish you down there because they were too big, too strong, too skilled. And them guys, they used to say one thing, if I switched on a center, right? Or a power forward, the first thing they're gonna say, they're gonna roll down to the basket for one, and then they're gonna say, mouse in the house. And then you're gonna drop it in total. Now you got to battle that guy. You know, the the the small forwards was big enough. Um the small forwards I went against was six eight, six nine, six ten, you know, some seven footer. You look at Thurlow Bailey, who played at the Utah Jackson, he was 6'11, small forward. 240. Insane. Them guys was big. And that's why when I hear people talk about basketball, and you hear these young people say, you know, you know, the league was trash and guys wasn't skilled. I said, these kids are out of their mind. These kids are delusional. If they realized how skilled and how physical it was, and we were still able to score through the physicality, even with the hand check. I averaged almost 30 points a game in a hand check era. And so they asked you all the time, what would you score now with no hand check? I thought, I don't know. I said it'd be more than I said it'd be more than 35 a game. You know, because and and I'm not just throwing numbers out there. I mean, we did that, you know, with the physicality. So I wish these young kids would educate themselves more. So I asked a 16-year-old kid who came to my house about two weeks ago, and we're talking basketball, and in his mind, you know, our era, he said your era wasn't very good. Oh my gosh. And I thought, first of all, son, you come in. You're out of my house. You come to my house, you say that. Are you out of your mind? I said, let me ask you something. Who's the greatest single season scorer in history in rebound? He said, Westbrook. Uh Steph Cry, I thought you're not even close. I said, really? That shows you your lack of education. I said, there's one guy that's Wilt Chamberlain, average 50 and 25 in one season. I was like, that's what I'm talking about, guys. Educate yourself before you just start throwing numbers out there. And I think the biggest thing is the internet has really kind of promoted what these guys really think about basketball and what who's supposed to be great and who I don't believe in a GOAT, to be honest with you, because it's too many different areas. And Michael Jordan said it best. I never said I was the greatest. He said, You guys said he said, I can't say I'm better than Bill Chamberlain, Russell, you know, and Oscar and all of that. I never played against those guys. So why am I saying I'm the greatest? And that's why I admire so much about him is that he knows what he's done. Of course, top of the list. But he never crowned himself. He never did, he never did. None of us did.
SPEAKER_04You said you said the same thing though, right? A little while ago. You said I wasn't trash talking, I let my numbers do the talking, and I let other people talk, talk about me. And and so, you know, you you're you're in that conversation, and and you have that that something extra you need to be elite to be great.
SPEAKER_00You look at guys, right? Yeah, I have won a championship, and it's a lot of great players that have won a championship. Barkley, Stock Malone, but does that take away their greatness? How many guys and if you take my career, most of the teams, the good teams I played against, right? They had two, three, four Hall of Famers. One team had five. We had one, and we still won 50 plus games every year. And people would look at my game and like, oh, he was a great dunker, but he had to be a great dunker because he couldn't shoot. I'm like, what? What? Couldn't shoot. Check the tape. All the stuff you see in the days, mid-range, I was doing that back then, you know, on a high level. And so again, it's it's the lack of not knowing the totality of a player's game. So they say highlights, and when you say highlights in me, what do you say? Dunks, dunks, dunks, dunks. But it's hard to score over 26,000 points on docks. Yeah, that's good. Let's go. So it is what it is.
SPEAKER_02Let's go back then to those early days in Atlanta. You go from UGA there in Athens to right here in Atlanta, Georgia. You're a young guy, you're on NBA money. What was Atlanta like back then and getting to live that new lifestyle for yourself, playing for a team that had that added passion with being so close to where you went?
SPEAKER_00You know, going to University of Georgia is funny because I wanted to play in Atlanta. But I never thought I would have that opportunity because University of Georgia kind of saved me and my family when they took us out of North Carolina, come to Georgia. I lived in Atlanta before I even played a single game at Georgia. And um I remember When I got drafted, got drafted by the Utah Jazz. I was like, I'm not going to Utah. And they want me to play Power Ford. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. And so I played in these classics with uh Magic Johnson. All the great players in the league played summer ball around the country. So I I toured one and I was averaging like forty, fifty points a game in those in those games. And I guess in some way Magic helped get that trade started. So it was Hank Aaron and also uh Ted Turner. And they said, hey, get this kid by any means necessary. So it came, it got the opportunity where they traded John Drew, Freeman Williams, and a million dollars to get the rights to me. And I like I died and went to heaven, man. So, you know, we quick quickly changed the culture here because they didn't get a ton of fans here in Atlanta. But when we came and we started to build something after that first couple years, it just took his own, it just took its own course. And you know, we we put together a long stretch of of winning seasons. So it was it was a fun time in here in Atlanta, and that's why I'm still here.
SPEAKER_04Did you did you feel any added pressure knowing that, you know, or or responsibility? And and I think I know the answer to this question, but did you feel anything extra saying, oh, we've we've we've got to bring the fans in, we've gotta we've gotta add something here.
SPEAKER_00You know, I felt responsibility my whole life, to be honest with you. You know, being a man in the house since I was 12, left home when I was 16. So I was used to pressure. So coming here, there was relief. Yeah to be honest with you. And I knew once we came together and believed in one another, I knew we could build something we can win. It may not happen right away, but it was gonna happen. But we got some good people that came in with Dan Roundfield and Tree Rollins and those guys, and then we ended up getting Kevin Willis, then we get Randy Whitman and Doc Rivers and Spud and all those guys came and we just kind of came together and started winning. And we built the culture here. And so, man, fans used to come uh before the game just to watch the layup lines. We had an athletic team. Because athletic, we put on a show. The layup lines? Yeah, we were put on a show in the layup line. What were you doing? Man, everybody was doing all these different crazy dunks. And I remember Dwayne Pharrell and those guys who was at uh Brian Oliho that joined the tech used to ask Danny Crown. We need to go to Atlanta Hawks games early because we want to see the Hawks warm up. And the layup lines, it was a show. We need to watch the game.
SPEAKER_04We're just here for the warm-up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the warm line could look, man, we were put on dunk shows uh in the layup line. It was unreal. Then after about half a year, I say, you know what? I'm not gonna spend that kind of energy. I gotta keep that energy for the game. So I stopped doing that, you know. Yeah, you get in the fourth quarter and you're burnt out for the layup line. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean, you look at you look at basketball games now, and I feel like the layup line is it's very casual. It's very much uh a layup line and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00Well, the thing about the layup lines back when we played, you gotta take game shots. Yeah. You just can't come and throw shots up half courts and all that stuff. Because the coach would be like, hey, hey, hey, look, that's not what we practice. And so it was more structure. Yeah. I mean, because again, it was, man, they fine you for everything back then. Everything was structured, man. And Mike Fortello was kind of the uh whole architect of that, man. He was Mike, little Mike was tough. He was tough, man. But I think he's for me one of the most underrated co coaches in history. He could coach. He could coach, man. He helped put me in position to be successful every night.
SPEAKER_04That's amazing. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02One of the things that makes your career so unique to us as well is the time that you got to spend in Europe for a little bit. Did you ever have any specific experiences, your first encounter with soccer, either growing up or especially seeing it there, where you were like, shoot, there's a there's a level of passion here that's that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00You know what? I got introduced to soccer pretty quickly. You know, once uh I decided I wanted to do something different, go to Europe, and watching so many soccer games over there, it's a different world. I saw, I went to, I think I saw it was Greece and France. They had a hundred thousand people, right? And they had these 60, 70-year-old men in the stands fighting. I'm like, the hell with the soccer, and this is a good fight right here. In the stands, throwing hands. They were throwing hands. Yes. Let's go. Yeah, hey. Hey, uh, this I'm gonna tell you the Greek fans, the most passionate fans, radical fans in the world. So when we won the European Championship, we fly from Paris back to Greece, and it's 250,000 people at the airport. Yeah, I was scared to death, man. So they had to escort us through town from the airport to our homes and buses and police force full riot gear because we couldn't drive our cars. That's off. They were trying to pinch your skin to see if you were real. You know, I'm like, I was like, man, this is crazy, you know. But to this day, I go to Greece, I'm treated like God over there. Wow, man. Yeah. I mean, because we were so we were the first one to win the European Championship. They've won, kind of Nycos has won six more since then, but we were the first to win the European title. Just set it. Setting the standard over there. So they still, to this day, man. I mean, I love those people that they they really embrace me.
SPEAKER_02So you're saying the plane lanes, there's flares everywhere. There's people who like trying to get away.
SPEAKER_00Part of the airport's on fire. Okay. Emergency slide, it comes out of the plane. That's how rap uh crazy they are.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean I mean, they're wild. That's that that's wild. The wildest thing, I remember when I first got there, you know, you know, I I had taken a whole summer off and gained a couple pounds, and I go there, oh, that's dominating gained a few pounds. But I get to practice, right? My very first practice is 11,000 people in practice. I'm like, we is this a game? We haven't practiced yet. You know, that I haven't gotten in shape yet.
SPEAKER_04I really misread the schedule.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it was 11,000 people at our practice.
SPEAKER_02Chanting? Drums.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. They were like so excited that I came there. And I remember our first training camp, we had to go to Paris. We had to go up in the mountains and the training had to run five miles up and five down. And I remember telling the coach, I said, Coach, I came over here to play basketball. I ain't come over to run track. Like, five miles up there? No, I can't do that. But I remember when we won our first 17 games. And I'm coaching Yugoslavia. He was tough, named Malkovich. He was tough, man. And I remember he said after we won our first 17 game. He said, Dominique, it's us all. But we need him.
SPEAKER_04Hey, hey, willing to go to battle for the team?
SPEAKER_00Throw some elbows in the, you know. The first only time he ever smile and hug me, right? Is when we won the European title in Paris, in my hometown.
SPEAKER_01The judge would be. He's good though, huh? He pretty good.
SPEAKER_00Oh, let me tell you, he was, he was like, you know, I'm also he was upset every time I had an excuse, because he wanted to jump rope all the way down and back, sideways. I said, Coach, that's an accident waiting to happen. They're not paying me to jump rope. I ain't that coordinated. He would come up with all kinds of crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_01And then he was like, oh, I'm gonna come in.
SPEAKER_00Hey, coach, I'm gonna get the job done for you, though. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04We're gonna win. I'm gonna score 45. We're gonna call it.
SPEAKER_00I was, you know, at my age at that time, I was averaging like 28 a game and 12 rebounds. You know, it was I had a great year that year. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Love that. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. And then, you know, you obviously you you get that experience being over in Europe with with the the foot the world football and the soccer flare. Come back, obviously finish your career here, but then fast forward uh a bit, and and now you're you're you're part of a a soccer club in in Birmingham.
SPEAKER_00You know what? It's because you know, my introduction to soccer in Europe, man, I started developing a love for it. I think they're the most underrated athletes ever. Because this constant movement and toughness that them guys have to do with it.
SPEAKER_04He's talking about the field players, not the goalkeeper.
SPEAKER_00Those guys go lazy, they they might get some action every now and then, you know. My fault, bro.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. I'm gonna need you guys to go score a few more goals, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, man. They'd be over there eating a sandwich, taking the bathroom or something. You know. No, but no, but I love I love soccer. So, you know, I own a piece of uh the soccer team in Birmingham, the Legion. Man, so so much fun. I love going down there, sitting watching those guys play, watching the women play. So, yeah, soccer has become a part of my life now.
SPEAKER_02I love that. We had one of our own goalkeepers, Shaden Hibbert. He spent a little bit of time over there online as well.
SPEAKER_04I mean, the I I remember the last few years, we'd always go down and play them, and the turnout they had, the support they they have, um, everything about the club just first class organizations.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's first class organization down there too, and they continue to grow, and it's going to get bigger and bigger. Soccer has exploded in the United States as you well know. And uh I but but I will, you know, going back to you talking about the Goldies. You got some skilled guys too. I mean, the anticipation you have to have and the reads you have to have is pretty amazing, you know, to do what you do. So uh again, that's the thing that's kind of intriguing to me. Because they are they always on edge, they always guessing, you know. You know like you got 50 people coming towards you, you gotta sort it all out. No, but yeah, soccer's soccer's so much fun, man. I enjoy going.
SPEAKER_02No, I love that. If we put you out there in the field for 90 minutes of soccer, where would you want to play? Goalkeeper, center back, striker scoring the goals?
SPEAKER_00He said, uh goals? That's not good. I know. You know, and no funny thing is my my background is track and field. You know, I was a runner. I was a sprinter. You know, I still hold my high school record in a quarter mile.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay. Just a little bit. I ran a 40.
SPEAKER_00I ran a quarter, a quarter mile in high school.
SPEAKER_04And then you're telling the coach over in Greece you don't want him to run five miles? Come on. He was one of the things.
SPEAKER_00That's the difference between a sprinter and a runner.
SPEAKER_02And a sideways.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because see, after about 400 meters, I'm done. Yeah. So the cot in college, right before the season, you had to run a three-mile trail. And so we had to run part of the campus. So myself and two other guys, three other guys, we were always last. You know, that cross-country. So one day we're gonna get smart, right? So we cut through the woods and we came in first that day, and we sweat and poured water all over us. And the coach said, God, you guys did a damn good job. You know, but they said that one of the Central is that hold on, something ain't right. So what they did, they planted some coaches in the woods. Oh, we did the same, we did the same thing the next day, right? And get to the front, and you're like, man, we're so tired. The coaches said, check this out. Showed the pictures of us cutting through. Get back, start running, get back to running. Got us up at six in the morning. Oh, we're running three miles on the track. Gotta be able to keep an eye on it. Yeah, we're cutting out smart Hugh Durham, that coach out there, man. We tried, we tried, didn't work.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh. How tall were you, for example, freshman year of high school? Running track at how tall were you?
SPEAKER_00Uh I was six three when I first went my first year of high school. I grew I grew five inches in one year. Yeah, I was six three, and and uh I like I said, I high jump, triple jump, and I was the anchor on a mile relay. Yeah. And so that next season, I grew to be six eight, six eight and a half that next season. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Why do you think you made it as far as you didn't have the impact that you did? Is it your DNA, a chip that you have upstairs?
SPEAKER_00What made you different? I think to see my mom raise eight kids by herself, that was my drive. To not see her suffer and struggle anymore. And so my drive came from that and those streets in Baltimore, Maryland. That's what my drive came from. Because I said, if I can make it through this, everything else is easy.
SPEAKER_02And it was for me. Do you ever think about that, Dominique? And what do you say right now, looking at you?
SPEAKER_00Uh you know, people ask me if I had to go back, right? And what would I change? And I to every single person I said nothing. Because going through those struggles built the character and strength in me. Because if I I would if I would have had it a little easier, I don't know if I would have become what I became. So it was all the the trials and tribulations I went through that built me for this. I I was built to get to be here, you know. And because I've seen the toughest. I've seen the toughest struggles, you know. And um and I've seen things that probably young kids should never see. And so it prepared me for this that I'm doing now. So again, when I when I see guys like we talk about toughness and toughness, they try to exert I just laugh a lot of times because I know it was different back when we played. So then I asked these kids, I said, it's a it's a powerful back in our day that did not play. His name was Maurice Lucas and his nickname was the enforcer. When I was in college in the summer, he trained me. And nobody and and during those days you weren't supposed to do that with NBA playing, a college player. So I had the toughest guy training me, uh, then I had the most one of the most skilled guys ever playing, Peter Mavericks, who used to come out and work out women shooting ball handling when I was in college. You don't get that kind of tootless today. Those guys took a personal interest in you. They wanted to see you succeed, but once you got there, they would hit you and say, Welcome to the NBA and say, wait a minute, hold on. Didn't we just train a summer go together? You know, but that's that's who they were. That's the kind of guys they were. They wanted to see you do well, but again, they want to see how long you can sustain it.
SPEAKER_04You know, that's deep, and I'm I'm here for it, man. That's that's that's amazing. Uh Dominique, I know we've got a a question from from Matt in our in our studio. Yeah. Matty, go for it.
SPEAKER_03Neek, first of all, it's it's really awesome that you're here. I'm an Atlanta child of the 80s and 90s.
SPEAKER_00You're a good man.
SPEAKER_03You and Doc Rivers actually came to my school when I was in third grade, told us to stay in school, stay no to drugs. I listened, so that was good. Listen to you. But uh, I mean, you're just such an iconic figure for all of uh the 80s and 90s kids in Atlanta. I texted some uh Atlanta buddies saying uh you were coming on, and they were like, uh I waited in line while he was getting a chili dog at the varsity for his autograph. Still a core memory for him. But the question I wanted to ask you, and and as a core memory of mine, and I think it's probably so much different from every other kid during this time, was the 1988 dunk contest. You know, I was rooting for you uh as the hometown guy, and I know everyone else is celebrating, you know, EMJ, and that's he's it's actually a logo now, but I truly think that's one of the biggest jobs uh yeah, you know, in in history was you not winning the 1988 dunk contest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I feel that way too. Um you know what though, I remember Doc Rivers said to me after he said, You know they weren't gonna let you win that, right? And I said, you know, the best thing about that dunk contest, that the fans knew that they were gonna get a show. And they was gonna get their money's worth. So no matter who won, they got their money's worth. And you know, Michael said to me after um it was over, he said, You know you won, but you in Chicago, what can I tell you? I said, Mike, I tell you what, you know what that 25 grand they gave you for when you can give me that.
SPEAKER_04You know, I accepted, right? That that never sentence check. That sentence is gonna carry a little bit more weight.
SPEAKER_00But you know, even to this day, man, now Michael and I, I mean, we were competitive. Of course we both thought we won. But he always continued to show respect about that dunk contest. And every, you know, when he sees me, he said, Yeah, you know you won. And I said, Mike, how you doing today? You think it's good? You know, I I'd forget about it. But we knew what we brought. And we never talked about it. Michael and I never talked about that. It was kind of an unspoken thing with us. We we all knew, you know, you got the greatest dunk contest in history with two great players who went head up because we wanted to know who the best was. That don't happen anymore.
SPEAKER_04Well, think about it, you know, how he was able to grow off of that dunk contest and the amount of money and all the things that that came with that, and just from that side of it.
SPEAKER_00Well, he made a ton of money before he even got there. He made hundreds of millions. But but Michael, I mean, yeah, he was a major, major brand. No question, but still is to this day, even more so. But playing against him, and um and this is not negative, it's like playing against Satan. Because he was possessed. His eyes would be bloodshot red. I can't make this up, you know. And I used to say, okay, it's gonna be a game tonight. And so I'll head up battles. I mean, if you look at if you go back and look at somehow, he had 43, I'll have 40, I'll have 57, he had 41, he had a game, he had 60, you know, and I had like 30. Those were the type of games that we played every single matchup, you know. He brought out the best. If if if he can't bring out the best, then you you ain't ready to, you know, compete.
SPEAKER_04You're not at that level. You ain't at that level. And you're not at that level. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so he knew that I was at that level because I was never gonna just let anyone just dominate me, you know. But that's the level of respect. All in bird the same way, magic the same way, Dr. J, who they never talk about. Uh Iceman, who they never talk about. I mean, how great these guys were, man. I mean, it's it's insane the skill level. That's when I hear these guys talk about skill, right? And you know, plumbers and all this garbage that they say. I'm like, you guys really don't get it. You have no clue. You never have no clue. And and and I think the biggest thing for me, when did it come a thing where you disrespect the guys before you? Yeah. It's the digital. It's worse than football or baseball. I mean, what because you know what, we supposed to uplift one another, right? And supposed to, you know, respect and and really cherish the guys who gave us an opportunity to want to play this game.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I don't disrespect them. You know what? I don't care if it's the from the I would say the the least talented guy to the most talented guy, I give them the respect because they're the reason why we're here. We had to grow up and emulate someone, right? Sorry, yeah. Someone you had to want to be like. For sure. And so why disrespect those guys? And I don't understand what I mean, and then you got guys who are marginal players disrespecting these guys. Like, we don't know if you would have been in the league in our area. So why are you disrespecting guys before you? It's crazy. I mean, now I look at sometimes like you file out messing with me. I'm like, you know, but you don't see me going publicly and just disrespecting. I don't believe in disrespecting guys, man. But please don't you it's like don't crap on us to prove your point.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You don't have to. And I say all the time, great is great, don't care what area you play in. Just give us our respect as much as you want our respect.
SPEAKER_02That's it. Well, speaking of uplifting, you do a lot of that in your legacy and away from the game, too. Brad and I were looking at it. Your work with Culture Kings in sensory accessibility in that space as well, Brad. Seems like such a cool foundation.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Culture City was it was unbelievable. That's how we ended up meeting for the first time. That's right. And he was okay, set a table with me. Yeah, there we go. It was bad. It wasn't bad again. Listen, you go to uh uh a dinner with with Dominique Wilkins, and the amount of people just coming up to him, left, right, and center. I mean, it it was impressive how you navigated the evening, but more so the message of of what Culture City was all about. And and for me to be able to be there and witness it and then meet the wonderful folks behind it that are based over in Birmingham and the work that you guys are doing, it is phenomenal.
SPEAKER_00Uh man, um, it's been a journey. Because I look at what Julian Maha and his wife has built. Culture City, they're the founders and co-founders, and to bring someone in who's dealing with some of the same issues that they've dealed, because they have a son that's nonverbal, and I have a grandson that's non-verbal, and I have a daughter with sensory needs. So it was kind of marriage-made heaven. And I've been on that board, uh the chairman for nine years. But what we've done around the country, even around the world, to help people build more edu have more educational tools how you navigate through people who are dealing with uh century overloads. It's been pretty amazing. We had a kid who he got arrested, right? He did some time in prison. A young kid who had an accident, no one got hurt, so he got in his car, came back the other way down the wrong side, had another accident, but nobody really got hurt, and so he gets out of the car, and the guy said, What are you trying to do? Kill yourself? He said, Yeah, I'm trying to kill myself. The only thing he's doing is repeating what this guy, this guy, this guy is autistic. Goes to jail and they interrogate him for five hours. And he said, if you sign this piece of paper, you can go home. He signed it, he don't know what to sign it. They put him in jail. And so myself and a guy named Kelly O'Connor who was on the show billionaire, we came together and said we gotta do something. And so we raised uh two hundred fifty dollars for the defense fund. So we ended up getting him out 'cause they had him charged for attempted murder on himself in fifty years. Never heard anything like that? And so we got it c we we put a petition together to the governor and got it commuted to ten years and finally got him uh full partner after about two years. So that's what the kind of work we do.
SPEAKER_04It it's amazing. I mean, like I said, I was able to to see firsthand that night. And um you know, when you when you're talking about changing lives, right? And you did it as a basketball player, but now being able to to be a part of the foundation and and doing I don't want to say real work and and downplay your basketball work, but but I mean it's a carryover though to that.
SPEAKER_00You know, that excitement that we had on the f floor carries over to this part of my life now. Uh because I'm just as passionate about it. Because when you have kids or people in your family who have those same problems, you know. I have a young my youngest daughter who has spinal bifidus. She's been in a wheelchair bound her whole life, you know. So I live it. No, I I just don't hear about it. It's something that I deal with. My gr my youngest grandson, well, my I got a lot of grandkids, but now I don't know if he's the youngest. He might be closer younger. I got quite a few. But you know, he he's dealing with those issues too of being uh verbal. So I live it every day.
SPEAKER_04But you you're you're you're changing lives for the better, you're making a difference. And it certainly is worldwide.
SPEAKER_00We all have to do our part socially to give back in some form or fashion. This is my way of giving back. You know, healthcare is kind of my calling right now. So that's what I'm passionate about. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02For anybody who's listening to this or wants to get involved with Culture City, what are some things that they can do to get in time with the city?
SPEAKER_00Oh, you definitely can reach out on our website and um see exactly what we're doing, how you can get involved at culturecity.org. That um it's a lot of exciting stuff we do. I guess we have sensory pods, right? We have sensory pods and we have sensory rooms in every NBA arena, every MLB, uh uh National Football League, Carnival Cruise ships, we're everywhere. And so again, it's giving people a a place that they can go and get balanced out. Now you can re-enter into society. And so they never had a place of their own to go to, or they did the people weren't educated how to deal with people who are dealing with sensory overloads. You know, now we've trained all of the first responders around the country. Uh and we and I'm talking about from fire departments to police departments, hospital to we we do a little everything as far as educating people how to deal with it.
SPEAKER_04That's amazing. That's amazing. And you know, I know you know giving back is is a huge thing, and and I know you're you know, going back to basketball, you're you're still giving back to the hawks, and you know, they obviously had an exciting run. We talked about we we talked we talked about we talked about the game and and the eras and and how it's changed. Um talk to us about the excitement of of the future of the Hawks.
SPEAKER_00Man, I tell you what, this year, especially second half of the season, was magical. I mean, the how those guys came together when you got uh to kill Alexander, and then you got other pieces like Jock uh when you got um Jock Land and those guys, all those pieces came together with Jalen Johnson and uh those guys, and they just caught fire. You know, I I discredit the last game because sometimes you get burnt out at the end where you just don't have that night, it's not your night. That was that last game. But what what they did to get up to that point was pretty exciting. It really was. And and when you talk about being a part of Atlanta, man, I mean, I I I am Atlanta, I mean that's all I know. And I love the organization, you know. And I hope um they will cheer me out when it's time to go, because that's how long it's gonna take them to get rid of me. They're gonna have to wheel cheer me out of there. But but I love it in our ownership for Tony and Jamie Gertz. Man, you know, it's funny because I was just telling my wife this morning when I was in the hospital, I said the thing that really, really made me uh feel better is when Tony Russell and his wife Jamie Gertz came to the hospital to see me. That's bigger than life to me, and I'll never forget that.
SPEAKER_04No, and you are absolutely spot on. You are Mr. Atlanta, you are Atlanta. The the city loves you, we love you. Um, and you know, I know uh, you know, we're extremely grateful for you to to to to come on the show. Anytime, man. You know, it's uh you're an extremely busy guy. We know that.
SPEAKER_00Uh I'm gonna come and get some ideas from your soccer uh facility.
SPEAKER_04Hey, let's go! Let's go, let's go. But Dominic, just want to say thank you again, man. Uh absolute pleasure to to have you on. Um, you know, you are always welcome. We've got an exciting summer of World Cup. Um, and yeah, we uh we we can't thank you enough. So pleasure is my man. For sure. Thanks, guys. Thank you for telling stories. Appreciate it, man. You got it. Thank you. Good times. What an iconic guest, Dominique Wilkins sat here in chair in studio. Um I could listen to him tell stories all day long, man. Um to to hear him talk about Larry Byrne, Michael Jordan. You know, I I was sat here in awe, my jaw just on the floor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, same here, man. Too plus I thought, like, I know you're a pretty big dude when this guy came through the door to go on the. Holy like the NBA back then was just different. How physical it was. So physical. Just crazy, man. I would not last five seconds trying to go to the cup against these dudes. It's crazy. And so I just love how well spoken he is, too. About like it's not about trying to compare different generations of the game. You know, you have to honor those that came before. Not only everything that he's done for the Hawks, for the league, uh, for the city coming onto the show, too, and everything that uh he's done away from the game, too, and the the sensory accessibility space too has been super beautiful. And I know that's how you guys first met, too, which is so cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, he he's an unbelievable individual, you know. Of course, a fantastic basketball player, you know, hall of famer. Um, but as an individual, as a person, unbelievable. Fantastic guy, uh, extremely humble, um, so kind, just just his openness to to whether to tell stories, to talk about life, to talk about making a difference off the court, off the field. Um, he certainly is is first in line to put his hand up and say, Yeah, I want to be a part of that, and I want him I want to make a difference for good and and and use his his popularity, use his platform for good, and he is doing that day in and day out.
SPEAKER_02Time for the mailbag, delivered by the Home Depot, always on time. We want to say thank you so much to all of you listeners for getting in your questions each and every week right here. Big shout out to the Home Depot for making these moments so magical for the viewers, the listeners, the guests on the show. First one, Rudy from Cartersville would like to ask you, Brad, if your pet if your pet wrote a review of you, what would Teddy say? Oh Google review.
SPEAKER_04Uh first off, big shout-out to uh to all of our listeners. Uh appreciate all all the questions. Uh big fan of the off-the-wall questions. You know, I I like it. Um you know, we we get some doozies in here. And so if if Teddy, our our new puppy, was to write a review, um I would I think it would be one, it would be a positive review. It it would be it would be five stars, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Five stars. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh unbelievable. Is this for you or is this for your whole family? Like is he running a personalized video? This is for me. No, uh, this is for me. Five stars. Uh, you know, I'm take him out, feed him, make sure like all the things. Um, you know, the kids, uh, our youngest, my my youngest daughter, she'll pick him up as if he's a stuffed animal and just like, oh yeah, come here and grabs him this way and pulls him this way, and he's got to be thinking, What get me out of her hands right now. Meanwhile, the other kids are like, You can't pick him up like that. What are you doing? Um, but he's unbelievable. You know, of course he's still puppy, so but he doesn't nip, doesn't bite, uh, knock on wood, Teddy, keep it that way, please. Um, but yeah, man, he uh he's he's phenomenal and and is fit right in and you know deals with all the the kids' shenanigans. Um so it's pretty funny to see. But yeah, I think he's giving me a top review.
SPEAKER_02Usually in the family, I feel like a dog picks their person, you know, like their safe person. Would you say that's you guys? Like are you? No, that's my wife. That's pretty.
SPEAKER_04Oh, really? That's that's pretty. And and that's you know, she's home, you know, with him. And you know, she was very hesitant day one uh of getting a puppy, as as we know. She wasn't team dog, right? No, for now it's Teddy's part of the family. Teddy's gotta come here. Teddy's got we can't go to this restaurant, they don't have outdoor seating. I'm thinking, what is going on here? Like, so she's she's all in. She's all in. I love that.
SPEAKER_02Next one comes in from Amanda in Columbus, Georgia. This is so good. When you get a yacht, I love the wording there, Amanda. Appreciate it. When you get a yacht, what are you gonna name it? Oh hey, you want me to go first so I can give you some time?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, talk it, talk it into an ex uh talk it into existing group. I I appreciate the confidence.
SPEAKER_02When the time, I think you're gonna get yours before I get it. That's for sure. I'm gonna say, just for the last name, fryhopper, what if I what if I called it the large fry?
SPEAKER_04The large fry.
SPEAKER_02And I could just put a little French fry decan on the back of it too. The large fry is coming through. I like it. Rolling into the harbor. Five. Uh that's that's a good one. Um your horn of yours could like when you press it, you could go. I like it.
SPEAKER_04Um, yeah, I don't know. I don't I don't know if I've I've got a fun name. I'd maybe like yeah, skip cap. No, cap a dog. You know what I mean? But I I think, you know, I'm gonna go the the bald, the bald keeper. The bald keeper. Yeah, like you know, the the keeper of the the bay, the keeper of the oh yeah, you know, the the keeper of of all the ships.
SPEAKER_02And I'm gonna say the bald keeper. You don't want to go with like the wet glove right now, the musty boot.
SPEAKER_04I don't think anyone's bored in that ship. No one's no one's bored in that yacht. By the way, we went from a yacht to a ship.
SPEAKER_02Uh what you said, yeah, it's just baldy. It just gave off like musty fishing boat vibes. True. It's luxury. I don't know. I guess large fry either is not. That's not a luxury. Large fry.
SPEAKER_04The the large fry. Right. All capitals. Uh I I think you've you've you've crushed it with that name. Um, I gotta do some more thinking, but that that's that's a good question.
SPEAKER_02Big shout out to Amanda and the Home Depot as always.
