He was one of the deadliest three-point shooters of his era, the secret weapon in the Los Angeles Lakers’ Showtime success. He has better stats and greater accolades than some of his contemporaries that have been elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. 

Byron Scott won three NBA titles with the Lakers and averaged 14.1 points per game and scored 15,097 points over his 14-year playing career. He took the advice of his mentors and parlayed his court general presence into a 17-year coaching career after his playing days, culminating with back-to-back NBA Finals appearances with the New Jersey Nets and a 2008 NBA Coach of the Year award while helming the New Orleans Hornets.

With all his personal achievements, Scott will forever be linked with the Black Mamba, Kobe Bryant, as Scott both mentored the rookie Bryant during his last year as a player and then coached Bryant in his final two seasons in the league with the Lakers.

Now, “Lord Byron,” as he was dubbed by his Lakers teammates in the ’80s, has taken his mentoring prowess to a new arena, as he and his wife, “Basketball Wives” alum CeCe Scott, are part of the Icons mentoring team on the new Roku Channel show, America’s Real Deal. 

Scott talked exclusively with EssentiallySports about the show and his growing footprint in the investing world. We were fortunate to have a wide-spanning discussion that talked about his Showtime Lakers days, his Kobe mentorship and his undying love of the NBA game that has been so integral in his life for over four decades.

The new business reality show you’re part of, America’s Real Deal, it’s pretty intense. It has a lot of Shark Tank elements but it’s so much more. Tell us about it.

It is totally different than anything out there. It’s a game show, but it’s a competition and a business show. It’s all rolled up in one.

And it’s great for myself and my wife. We got on board because we thought the idea was just unbelievable. The concept was great. [Creators and executive producers) Rasha and Adam Brandley, he was sitting at home and watching one of those shows where he said, ‘Man, I wish I could invest in that company.’

And he figured out a way where we can make it available to the public. It is gonna be one of those shows that’s gonna be able to help so many people that don’t get an opportunity to sit in a boardroom and get all this help and advice. 

And now you get to listen to all the questions we ask as Icons, all the questions our Millionaire Row investors ask. So we give the viewer a little bit of a head start and give you some knowledge about the company that we’re talking about investing in. 

And you can hit the QR code and you can read even more about the company and you can invest as little as $100 and be a part of something special, so it is equity crowdfunding, which is high risk but high reward.

It is one of those things that we’re giving people and families a chance to change their lives. When Adam and Rasha brought this to our attention,we just jumped right on board and we’ve been loving it ever since. 

How did you and your wife CeCe get involved?

A friend of ours that lives in New York, she called Cece and I, she said there is this new game show that I think you guys should to take a look at. 

And they’re looking for somebody like you guys. And so I gave it to my business manager, which I do every deal that comes my way. And he called me back a couple of days later and said, “Coach, we need to have a Zoom call with these people.”

And man, we just hit it off. We really saw their vision. Cece and I was so excited to get involved in something that could help other people as well. And it just became, organic right away. 

This is just a next level of coaching for you, right? 

Yeah, pretty much. It’s just like running a team, you gotta get all the people in the right places. Everybody’s gotta understand their roles and do it to the best of their ability.

And I think right now that’s what we’re trying to do. CeCe and I, in our role as Icon Investors, really look at these entrepreneurs and share our expertise on what we feel will make them a great company and why we should invest if we decide to. 

You come across as the chairman of the board on the show.  You and CeCe front and center. 

I’ll tell you, we’re having fun and we have so much fun doing it.

And our host, Jordan Sparks, is just fantastic. So we had a great relationship from day one, and it just got better and better as each episode was done. 

Season 1 began on the Roku Channel. And you’re traveling the country, auditioning companies for the next season?

Yes, we’re looking forward to doing seasons 2 and 3. And we got some great news. We will be streaming on Tubi, as well,beginning December 3rd.

That’s fantastic distribution. I love the excitement you can feel as y’all meet the entrepreneurs. They have to make an immediate impression with a 60-second elevator pitch, then they make a deeper dive presentation to y’all. 

You feel the stress with that clock ticking on screen. And we get to see real time how much you as Icons and how much the Millionaire’s Row investors put in. I was crying on episode one with the Bit of Genius couple.

Oh, they were fantastic. And like you said, when you say we take a deep dive, it is a serious deep dive because, it is 12-hour days of really trying to figure out if this company deserves our money and if we’re all going to be a good fit for each other. We’re serious about trying to help these companies become billion-dollar companies.

So yes, the first episode, they stole all our hearts. Everybody, Icons and Millionaire’s Row, we all invested in that company and they did really well.

It’s crowdfunding, it’s regulated crowdfunding. The rules have changed now to where you can invest as little as $100 as an individual investor. Plus you can buy the products. So it’s very similar to like Robinhood in terms of stocks where you can put little bits in.

There’s links on the website to buy the products as well, correct. It’s really cool stuff. Game changer. 

We as icons are coming back and doing season two and three and we’re looking at this really going season 10, 11, 12. It’s just right now, it’s just starting to roll and people are really starting to get eyeballs on it and understand what it’s all about.

And it’s just a blessing ’cause again, we get a chance to help so many lives and change the trajectory of a lot of families.

I kid about Chairman of the Board, but you always had that elder statesman aura about you. Like, it tracks that I’d be seeing you on a show like this someday. It always felt like you had a bigger picture in mind. Is that true? 

The investor mindset came later. Trying to save money was early, when you grew up in Inglewood, California, where I grew up. 

You know, gang infested area, just trying to get out of there sometimes alive and get home. I thought about – once I was in high school and then able to go to Arizona State and get a chance to go to the pros – about just making sure that I saved my money. I didn’t know really anything about investing.

I just wanted to save money. So it took me about four years, five years to really start understanding what it really meant to invest your money in the right places. For medium growth, not for anything that was gonna be, either a home run or a strikeout. I wanted to just let my money grow very slow, at a moderate rate.

And so I started finding out some things from my business people on how to invest my money and make sure that it was something that could last me once I retired from the game of basketball.

I never thought about going into coaching until I was 32 years old, at the end of my career, towards the end of my career about going into coaching.

And once I did that, obviously that carried me another 17 years in the game that I love so much. At that point, yeah. It was really all about trying to find the right companies, the right people to invest in or invest with to make sure that my money continued to grow 

Were you as focused in terms of putting that money aside and investing for the future and or was that something that came later in terms of that investor mindset? 

I just wanted to save money. So it took me about four years, five years to really start understanding what it really meant to invest your money in the right places. For medium growth, not for anything that was gonna be, either a home run or a strike out. I wanted to just let my money grow very slow, at a moderate rate.

I watched you on All the Smoke back in January. And you talk about where that spark for coaching developed. In that last year with the Lakers, especially with Kobe Bryant, had you already started thinking about it or did that mentoring Kobe really spark the interest?

You know what? I didn’t think about it until I went to Indiana. I, I had two of the greatest coaches of all time. I had Pat Riley who told me when I was 26 years old that I would be a coach one day. And I told him he was crazy.

I said, ‘Man, what are you talking about? I’m never coaching.’ 

And he said, “Yeah, okay. That’s what you say now.” 

And six years later, I’m playing in Indiana with Larry Brown, another Hall of Fame coach, who would ask me questions during practice. 

And one day he said, ‘I think you would be a hell of a coach.’

And so when you have those two guys telling you that, they saw something in me that I didn’t see at that particular time.

So when I go back to LA for my last year in Kobe’s first year, I had pretty much in my mind that I was gonna go into coaching and I had to also learn how to be a mentor. 

If you’re gonna go into coaching, you gotta learn how to teach, how to mentor other people. And Kobe was the perfect candidate.

What did you see in Kobe that made him stand out?

He was 17, 18 years old. He wanted to learn about the NBA game and he just seemed to gravitate towards me. And we had an unbelievable relationship from day one. 

And it just carried out for 20 plus years. So once I got a chance to really mentor him and talk to him about the game of basketball, the dos and the don’ts in the NBA, it just kinda led me in that direction of being on that next level, which was being into coaching.

From day one, you could see the drive, the determination. The dedication that he had to his craft he was. Like no other 18-year-old that I’ve ever been around.

He wasn’t playing video games, he wasn’t going out. It was 24/7 basketball and he just wanted to be the best that he could be. 

And, and me seeing that and seeing that drive and that determination, that work ethic that he had in practice every day — being at practice an hour and a half, two hours before everybody else got there.

Staying after practice another hour, two hours after everybody else had left. 

And you gotta understand, when I met with Kobe, I was 36, I was at the tail end of my career. Sure. I was going on year 14. So I would have to come to the arena early anyway, just to get loose and the treatment and all that.

And this kid would already be on the court, working out, so I knew real early that he was gonna be a great player. 

Did I know then that he was gonna be as great as he ended up, being this icon that everybody around the world would know of?

I had no idea he would be a five-time champion. A 15-time All-Star, League MVP. I didn’t know all that. I just knew he was gonna be great, and it just came from his words. 

I talked to him one day on the bench and I just said, ‘What do you want accomplish in this league?’ 

And he said, “B, I want to be one of the greatest that ever played.”

And I looked at him and he looked at me, and you could see with the way he looked at me that he meant it. He wasn’t joking, he wasn’t fantasizing. He truly believed that. 

And I looked at him and I said, “You will.” Because I saw what that kid had and he absolutely was one of the greatest that ever played this game.

You are also a large part of the end in terms of managing his minutes. Can you talk about the 60-point game in terms of just managing him within that game?

When I took over the team and was hired, he had two years left. 

And my first meeting with him was I said, “KB, this is my goal for you. It’s to get you to game 82 in your second year, your very last year, relatively healthy. Bcause I want you to go out the way you want to go out. I don’t want you to be beat up and hurt, so I’m gonna give you days off.’ 

And I told him, I’m gonna give you days off. There are days I’m gonna call you and tell you don’t even come to the gym. I said I gotta preserve you as much as possible. I don’t need you to shoot around because there’s nothing that you haven’t seen.

I said to him, you can come in at game time and I can tell you the game plan and you’ll get it.’

And he said, ‘OK, Coach.’ And was able to do that. Got him to game 82 in his last year, relatively healthy. 

But when he started that final game, he started that game like, 0-for-5.

And I’m standing there going, ‘Man, I just don’t want him to go out this way.’ 

And then he gets fouled, a couple of free throws. And then the, then the rim just looked like an ocean from there. Now we’re cooking it. It was one of the greatest games I’ve ever seen. Especially for a guy who was retiring after 20 years of basketball and what he gave to the NBA.

It was remarkable. And it was so fitting to me for him, because he had put everything that he had in his body into that league, into the NBA.

I know you still have a strong connection to the Lakers. LeBron just played his first game, like, yeah. What would you give in terms of advice to LeBron and head coach J.J. Redick in terms of just how to manage the end of his career?

I can’t stand that term … load management. My load management was no. Practice, not games. You don’t miss games.  

And a perfect example with Kobe is that we go to Detroit to play, and he’s sick as a dog. You know, and I told him before the game, I said, “Man, you can’t play.”

And he was like, “No, Coach. I got to. This is probably my last time ever coming to Detroit. You know, these fans are here and I gotta play. I don’t have to play much, but I gotta play.’

And he played, he played probably 20 minutes. But he understood how important it was to play because of people who had spent their hard on money. 

A lot of these young guys don’t understand that. You have load management, so you’re missing games that somebody, some fan might have saved up all their money just to see you play that night and you don’t play.

So as far as LeBron is going, as far as LeBron and J.J., I think they have to come to that realization too, that, this is, this man’s 22nd, 23rd year in this league.

You gotta make sure he’s ready for the first round of the playoffs, and obviously you gotta cut his minutes down and things like that. 

But he also, he, being LeBron has to also agree with that and understand, that’s how it’s gotta be. Right now. The team had been playing so well before he came back, and they’re gonna, they’re gonna do well this year.

But yeah, that’s tough. I’m sure J.J. had it before the season even started, that this is my plan.

Now, you gotta have Lebron buy into that plan. That’s essential that everyone is on the same page.

What do you think of where the Lakers are at to start the season?

I still don’t think that they have enough to really challenge OKC or even maybe Denver or Houston, for that Western NBA title. 

They might have to make a trade or two, before the trade deadline. ’cause I think the bench is still a little thin. They need a couple more guys that can play both ways.

Rob (Pelinka) has done some hell of a trades the last couple of years. So if he can pull off another one before trade deadline. Just one more to get a couple more guys in there.

Or at least another dead eye shooter who can depend as well. I think then you elevate their chances of being Western Conference champion. 

Do you see a little bit of yourself in a guy like Austin Reaves? Just the work ethic, the continual overachieving, the working his way into stardom? 

Yeah. I love Austin because of where he comes from.

Played four years of college basketball and was really overlooked. The Lakers get him, now this guy is one of the best players at that position in the league. 

And again, it just goes back to, number one, believing in yourself. And number two, your work ethic. And he has an incredible work ethic.

A lot of trust and a lot of faith in himself that if he goes through the process, he’s going to be okay. So you gotta give him a lot of credit. Each year he’s gotten better and better, which is something that most players strive to do each year but plenty don’t achieve. 

And right now, they have a great three-headed monster. You know, when you talk about LeBron and Luca and you throw Austin there. That’s a pretty damn good team. 

That depth, it really has become even more crucial than in other eras.

OKC and Indiana proved to all of us last year that you still have to have nine or 10 deep.

And so when you come off that bench, your drop can’t be so significant that you gotta bring the starters back in to always climb back into it. That drop has to be very little, if at all. 

And I think that’s why OKC was so good last year and right now, if you watch them play, they don’t look like they’re having a hangover from being champions.

It looks like they want to do it again, which is great when you have a young team. 

I still love my Celtics, but like it’s really showing this year. That lack of depth.

Well, you’re missing Jason Tatum right now. It’s gonna be hard for them to recover from that. When you have a thin bench or when you have a rotation of seven to eight deep and not nine or 10, you are much more susceptible to those injuries that those guys got at the end of the season during the playoffs because of the workload that you have.

It is kind of crazy that you’re seeing guys blowing Achilles at the time during the playoffs when it’s most important, you know? And it’s unfortunately, but again, if you got nine or 10 deep, that workload not, is not as heavy, which gives you a chance to survive a little bit longer.

I was watching your podcast, Byron Scott’s Fast Break, and I was watching you with legendary Lakers trainer Gary Vitti. And you know, Steve Kerr came out recently talking about the fast pace of play and the injuries.

We have guys like Wemby and Giannis hurting right now on top of the stars already out, like Bradley Beal and Fred Van Vleet. Do you put much stock in pace of play as the reason these injuries are happening?

I put a little stock into it. I understand that the game is faster. The guys are bigger, the guys are stronger. And when you have that type of force, sometimes going against each other, things are gonna break sooner or later. 

As much as we want to go back to the ‘80s and say, look we had a high pace, fast game back in our day where we were averaging over 100, 110, 115 points.

They had to soften the rules to get these guys to average 100+ points because the fans wanted to see high scoring. So, I give it a little bit, but not much.

I think one of the main reasons that a lot of these guys are getting hurt more nowadays than they were back in our days, because they’re playing basketball 24/7, 365 now.

You have to give your body a break. Like, season’s over and two weeks later, you’re playing in the Olympics or you’re playing here or you’re playing there and then you come back. It is too much basketball. Sometimes you just gotta take time off. 

And when we played, if we lost in the finals, we’d take two weeks off, then back to work. But it wasn’t always on the court. It was non-weight-bearing, so you didn’t have those poundings on your joints. That helped save us during the regular season.

Today, training camp is shorter than it used to be. Preseason games are shorter than it used to be. So they’re getting all these benefits, but I still think you gotta stop playing the game and give your body a chance to rest and recover a lot longer than they do right now.

Where do you stand on shortening this season? 

I’m so used to 82 games. I don’t know what I would do if they shortened it to 65 or something like that. I don’t know what I would do. I know it would help a lot of guys, but I know the NBA would lose a lot of money, so I don’t think that’s going to ever happen.

It’s all about the green. And the NBA would lose so much money if they shortened the season to 65 or 70 or something like that. So I don’t see that happening. 

You have Gary on your pod quite a bit. He was part of a roundtable discussion my colleague Mark Medina did on the reasons behind all the injuries and the pace of play and the factors leading to all these injuries.

And it seemed like he knew how to get y’all the rest you needed. But when I heard him talking about the injuries, and the kinetic chain, it made so much sense.

Gary likes to talk and man, you give him one question and he talks for 20 minutes and he has some incredible stories. Greatest trainer in the history of the game. Probably by far.

Gary talking about the stretching and cross-training versus the repetitive motion of just playing hoops 24/7.

Yeah. It’s the most important thing about your body is just taking care of your body and listening to your body. 

Your body a lot of times tells you when something about to happen, and if you don’t listen to it, it is going to happen. 

And Gary, as hard as we worked back in the day, he was an advocate of ours in letting your body heal, giving it that 24 to 48 hours of recovery.

Today’s game. What do you see in terms of today’s game, that Kobe mentality? I’m from Maine. Cooper Flagg is everything to us right now, and not just because of the draft, but just seeing the mentality we’re seen him put in the work when no one is looking. Do you see that Mamba Mentality in a Cooper Flagg or any other young guys? 

Yeah, you see it in a few guys. Cooper, I watched him at Duke. I knew, and I still know he’s gonna be a great player at this next level in Dallas.

There’s no doubt about that. I think he does have that mentality. But it’s hard to compare anyone to Kobe because he’s the originator of it, and he took it to a different level than anybody probably ever will. 

But there’s a few guys. I think, when you look at Cooper as being one, and I’m looking at the young guys, Victor Wembanyama is another.

Wemby’s problems are gonna be just staying healthy. I think he has the mentality of trying to dominate a game and dominate this era, but he’s gotta stay healthy. 

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is on a different level. He is just so consistent. Every single night that he plays, you never speed him up. He’s gonna do what he wants to do. He’s gonna get where he wants to get. And he has a quiet assassin mentality in his mind to me, just watching him play. He wants to kill you, but he’s just not gonna be boisterous about it.

But I love watching those three guys. Plus, the older guys like Kevin Durant and LeBron and Luca and the Greek Freak. And I love the Joker. I think the Joker’s unbelievable, man. This guy at that center position is one of the best I’ve ever seen at that position. With the way he can affect the game on, on, on the offensive side especially. 

I know Tatum was a big Kobe Bryant fan. But to compare any of those guys to KB and his mentality … that’s tough. It all comes down to all that work sometimes when there’s nobody around. I don’t know if there’s a whole lot of guys in the NBA today that can do that like he did.

What do you make of the foul baiting with Shai? You wish you could have done that yourself back in the day?

Oh, without a doubt. If I could have got to the free throw line four or five more times a game just baiting in the guys, getting that foul call like that, it would’ve been a different story.

This era of basketball would’ve been perfect for me because of the way I shoot the ball and I can get up and down the floor. And if I had the green light to shoot like all these guys have to shoot threes when you got a 3-on-1 fast break. 

Pat Riley was saying, ‘Hey, we got a 3-on-1, we want to get a lay-up or a dunk.’ 

So I, I think I would’ve had a whole lot more probably success individually in this day and age than I would’ve in the ‘80s and ‘90s. 

With all the big contracts today, we gotta get some of these NBA guys on Millionaires Row.

 You know what? It’s great that you even bring that up. We talked about having guest stars come on and do an episode. I just can’t mention any specific names at this point. But we’re working on it for upcoming episodes.

I’ve heard you talk about Shaq versus Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and how ‘Cap,’ as y’all called Kareem, would just dominate. What do you think about Jokic versus Kareem? I see a lot of little shifty things that Joker does that might get under Kareem’s skin.

Yeah. Joker would be a great matchup with Cap. But again, there’s nobody who could guard Cap. Down low, Joker couldn’t guard him. Kareem would score all day long on Joker in the post. 

Now the other problem is Kareem has to guard Joker. And Joker’s great at taking you from 3.0 to the elbow.

And he’s a great passer, just like Kareem was a great passer. You can run your offense through Joker because he’s such a giving person. He’s gonna give you a pass if you open. And guys make harder cuts because they know they’ll get the ball if the Joker has it.

So Kareem would have trouble guarding him, ’cause Joker could take him all the way out to the three-point line. But at the end of the day, I think you still have to get it as to Kareem because that, that Sky Hook, you know, 65, 70 percent of the time it’s going in and there’s nothing you can really do about it.

Now, Shaq’s gonna get his 30 on Cap, right? But Shaq couldn’t even guard that Sky Hook. It’s fun to make the comparisons though, right? It’s what makes it all so fun to talk about.

But to this day, I think Kareem is still the greatest player to ever play the game. 

I can’t let you go, without one Larry Bird story, because that’s my guy. And I try to tell all my guys that I’m coaching nowadays, but they’re like, ‘Larry Bird, ah, old slow white guy. He ain’t got anything.’ Gimme just one Larry Bird story that would tell these youngins that Larry Bird was a force to be reckoned with. 

Listen, that’s another name that doesn’t get talked about enough. Larry Bird, he’s still top five to me, one of the greatest players of all time.

And he was just magical with that basketball. And when you look at him, you say he can’t run. He can’t jump. But he was a great shooter. He would outthink most of the people on that floor. And he knew where everybody was. 

One of the best stories I have about Larry Bird is Game 4 of the 1987 NBA Finals. They  were taking the ball out. They’re running an out-of-bounds play and we’re all trying to figure out who’s going where. 

And Larry said, ‘Hey guys, guys, guys. I’m gonna curl around. I’m gonna go over there to the corner, I’m gonna catch it and shoot it. Ain’t a damn thing y’all can do about it.’ 

And we were like, what? And the late great Dennis Johnson takes the ball out, slaps it, Larry curls to the corner, catch it and makes a three. 

And we’re like, this MF just told us exactly what he was gonna do and then done did it. It was like, are you kidding?

So now, we get fouled, Kareem makes one out of two free throws but Kevin McHale knocked the rebound out of bounds. So that’s when Magic hits the famous Baby Hook.

So they come back out. Now they’re down by two and they’re lining up. Larry said, ‘Guys, guys, guys. Same play.’ We put Mychal Thompson on DJ but Larry still got the pass.

Same play. Curled again to the corner. Caught it and he let this one go of the three ball and it was dead on, hits the back of the rim, goes out. We win the game. 

I remember after the game, they’re interviewing him and when I’m telling you he was in disbelief that he missed it. He was that good and that confident that, every time he shot a game-winner, it was gonna go in.

But to have the nerve to tell us the play and tell us where he was gonna catch it and tell us there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it, that’s Larry Legend right there. He was one of the greatest I’ve ever seen. 

I showed my son the documentary about the ‘Greatest Game No One Saw,’ the college guys playing the Dream Team in practice and beating them. And even then, Bird pretty needs a chiropractor on the court with his back and he’s still talking such trash and backing up every last bit. 

That dude Larry Bird was a monster on that basketball court. The videos don’t do justice to what I witnessed right in front of my eyeballs. 

OK, putting on the icon hat again. The contracts are bigger now. We probably have guys headed toward billion-dollar contracts. What advice can you give to today’s NBA guys to know how to invest that money properly? 

I think the first advice I would give them is to make sure your circle is small and tight.

These guys got too many people around ’em, too many people in their ear. Most of ’em got too many ‘yes men’ just telling them everything they want to hear instead of what they need to to hear sometimes. 

When it goes into investing, make sure you get two or three other opinions. You got your own, you got your own group of guys that you feel comfortable with that you trust. But always get somebody outside that has no interest in making money off of you, nobody asking you to invest. Just giving you advice on where they put their money.

You have to do your due diligence. You have to do your homework. Don’t leave it up to your people. Do the work yourself so you feel comfortable in making that decision. 

And then it’s very important to understand that when you are investing, make sure you don’t try think you’re gonna get rich off this one thing. Just make sure it’s something that you can invest and it has a moderate growth potential. 

That’s gonna last you a lot longer than the ones that everybody’s trying to hit a home run off of. Those deals rarely exist, It’s like one in a million where you can make $30 million in an instant. 

It is something that takes time. It’s just like anything else in sports. It’s a process, and you gotta understand that and make sure that you are investing in things that you’re interested in.

I always invest in people. I always say, I bet with the jockey, not the horse. I want to be with that person that I know that’s gonna go out there and do the work that’s going to grind, that’s going to have that Kobe mentality with my money.

Know the people. Make sure the management group has it on lock, but you invest in the people. Invest in the jockey, not the horse.

CeCe owns some medical spas she’s got, that’s an interest for her. What’s the best investment you ever made?

I invested in this pet food company. My friend and investor, Charlie Norris, he was the

CEO of a dog food company called Freshpet.

And he said, he said, ‘B, you should get involved. You should invest half a million dollars. In this company and we’re give you the friends-and-family rate, $6 a share.

And I was like, ‘Charlie, that’s a lot of money. I’ll invest 250,000 instead.’ And that, that stock is up to like $50 a share and is yeah, the valuation of that company is close to $1 billion. Probably the best investment I’ve ever made. 

And what a great product. I got two dogs, Kuma and Kiera, both eight years old and they love it. And my man, Charlie, has done extremely well with it. And, we’re extremely happy with the direction Freshpet has gone.

It’s fun when you get it right, isn’t it? 

Oh my God. It’s the best feeling in the world. 

I have to imagine spending all the time on set, those long days, you get time to pick the brain of those investors.

Oh, absolutely. It is just like anything else as you know it, when you get to the point where you think you learned it all or know it all about that particular field, it’s time to retire.

I’m still an infant in this business world. So anytime I can pick up pointers and listen to what the Millionaire Row guys, it’s invaluable. When we have our breaks and we have lunch, I get a chance to sit down with these guys and ask them questions. The education that I’m getting from these guys who’ve been doing this all their lives, I’m learning every day on the set, enjoying their company to the fullest and taking notes. 

Now, you’ve got some guys on that set with some crazy hair game. Not you … well, you still got the Showtime looks because you don’t age being bald. But you got one guy on that set with some crazy facial hair game.

Oh yeah, that’s Jake Kouns. He’s got the curl going, got the Rolly Fingers mustache. Yes, absolutely. It’s fantastic. 

Who’s winning it this year in the NBA?

Right now, I think OKC might repeat.

I don’t see the hangover that I thought I would see from a young team like them. They’ve come out this first half of the season rejuvenated and excited and determined. 

They’ve gotten off to an unbelievable start this season, but that’s something that you normally don’t see from a young team. They normally have a little bit of a lull going into the season. They’re still celebrating. 

These guys look like want to repeat and they’re coming hard. I would say that they are definitely the favorite to win it again unless something crazy happens.

I love what Presti has done up there with that team, just nine, 10 deep and even with Williams, one of their stars being out, they’re still off to an unbelievable start. So you can see how that depth can really help you sustain when one of your guys are down.

It’s fun to watch. It really is. 

I know about that complacency because we went through it. In 1985, after winning the championship the year before, we came back and we were living off our last year’s laurels of winning the championship. 

And in ’87 when we won it, Riley was a genius who came up with ‘I guarantee we’ll win it again’ because he wanted to put us on notice that, ‘Hey guys, we gotta start thinking about this now.’

We started working earlier than we normally would after winning the championship just to get ready to see if we can repeat. And then we were able to do it. So our focus was there the next time. 

That’s why I think OKC is going to be such a hard out. If they’re healthy into the playoffs, they’re gonna be a hard out to beat them four outta seven. You gotta play four unbelievable games to beat that team. 

Okay, I got one last question. Coaching. Are you done with coaching? Is there any thought of getting back in? 

There is, but it’s not on the professional level. I think I could really help a lot of these young guys get prepared for the next level and just prepare them for life in general.

So I would really love to do it on the collegiate level. That would be rewarding at this point in time, in my career, in my life to be able to get back to some of the young guys. I think it would be a lot of fun. 

I know the biggest challenge is obviously recruiting, but it’s not that big of a challenge when you have NIL when you can just throw all this money at these guys right now anyway.

It would be fun to to take over a university, try to build it up and, put my footprint on that as well. I would be excited about that opportunity.