Sometimes in the NBA, it’s not about the rings, the fame, or even the money. It’s about staying true to who you are. That’s the vibe you get when Stephen Jackson sits down with Dwight Howard on Above The Rim with DH12. The conversation starts off light, but then it slowly digs into something deeper. A story surfaces—one that’s been floating around the league for a while—and when it lands, you feel the shift. Nothing but sacrifice. The part of basketball that people don’t talk about much. It is the part where players are asked to lose pieces of themselves just to fit in.

Dwight and his co-host discuss a moment that has been circulating for some time. “You were on that Spurs team. We had Danny Green up here. He said like on that Spurs team, they wanted y’all to kind of sacrifice your personality,” the co-host says. Dwight looks over and asks, “Is it true?” Boom! This is where Stephen Jackson leans in and tells it exactly how it is. And if you know anything about Stephen Jackson, you already know the answer is gonna be raw and real.

“They definitely tried to bottom me up,” Jackson says with a calm fire in his voice. “I was from Texas, around the sip and serve days… so I was at home. A lot of things that they have seen, they were trying to make me more professional.” He added, “And for the most part, I did it because it got me on the court. I ended up being on the championship team”. Stephen Jackson then revealed the reason why he left “once I proved that I belong there, I wasn’t changing… that’s why I had to get up out of there.” The man helped them(Spurs) win a ring “I was the third lead score on the team, but they end up paying him(gobi) and let me go”

Dwight chimes in, clearly relating. “I think that’s why they was getting rid of a lot of the vets,” he says. He talks about how the league shifts once vets start to really see what’s going on behind the scenes. It becomes less about talent and more about control. “You woke now… we gotta get you out of here,” Dwight says. The players who know the game inside out, the ones who could guide the young ones, end up being the ones pushed out. It’s almost like the system fears the truth.

That’s the part that hits the hardest…when being true to yourself becomes the reason you’re shown the door. Jackson didn’t lose his spot because he couldn’t play. He lost it because he wouldn’t play the game on the sidelines. Stephen Jackson came in with the kind of mindset that doesn’t sit well in a system that expects silence and smiles. This is probably why his time in Spurs was made miserable… intentionally!

Stephen Jackson leaves the mic behind to pick up what matters

Stephen Jackson had a different dream after basketball: music. He built a record label, Secret Society Entertainment, and tried to give people around him a shot. “I was blessing people with my blessing that God didn’t intend to bless,” he said. “I was starting labels, trying to help the same people that was always in trouble,” he added, thinking he could be the one to pull them out.

But that dream started draining him. “I lost focus on the people who were really there for me,” Jackson admitted. “I should have been blessing more of my family,” he said, reflecting on how trying to save the wrong people took him off course. Dwight Howard responded, “People get upset when you’re doing more for the wrong ones than the right ones,” and Jackson agreed, “That’s the realest thing ever.”

Then came the shift. “God’s gonna force you to sit down, bro,” Stephen Jackson said. And that’s exactly what happened. He let go of the rap game and stepped into something new. “Out of nowhere, Rachel Nichols called me to co-host The Jump,” he said. That one call changed everything.

From there, he found his lane. “Matt said, ‘Jack, you wanna do a podcast?’ I said, ‘What’s that?’” Jackson laughed. “We started with Showtime, then Paramount bought them, and now we own Showtime Boxing—All The Smoke Fight.” No more chasing dreams that weren’t his. According to Stephen, he just had to stop doing what he was doing and let god do his magic, instead of playing god himself to his hood friends.