we kinda ask everybody that we have,

every guest that we have on the show.

And the question is when you got to the league,

who was the first person

to bust your ass like this is the level.

Like this is the highest level to go.

- Man my first game was against Melo and AI.

But I had to guard Melo.

I was 19,

he probably what? 24.

- It was Denver.

- 23.

- Yeah.

- And you know,

and I never played in that Denver altitude,

I didn't really know too much about.

And Melo was just physical.

He just was,

he would duck you in the paint,

hit you with the shoulder.

And then he'll take you out.

Jab, jab, pull over top of you so you can't.

You wanna be physical but you don't.

He was just have you thinking too much on D.

We had a back to back that night,

I got on the plane confused.

(laughter)

("Going Bad" by Meek Mill featuring Drake)

- Never stop. Never settle.

- I wanna talk to you about like growing up,

know what I'm saying in the Maryland, D.C.,

that whole DMV area.

Like I know like high school and ball growing up,

it was at a high level out there.

Y'all had a lot of dudes, know what I'm saying.

Like talk about some of the dudes you grew up playing with

that was like some of them dudes that was boys.

I know Beas is a dude that you grew up playing,

man I played with him my one year in Miami.

So I know he's a walking bucket.

Y'all got one of the cities

and one of the areas that's like you know,

well respected as far as like the people y'all then put out.

Just talk about some of the people

you grew up playing against.

- Let me go back far to like Washington.

Guys like,

I came out of Washington like Keith Bogans and.

- [Quentin] Forte?

- Yeah Joseph Forte, and then Steve Francis,

and then Demar Johnson.

All those dudes you kinda like grew up watching,

and they make it in a McDonald's game,

and make it into the league.

And then you playing against them.

And when you playing rec ball,

and you see one or two dudes that's just as good as you,

that one dude for me was Mike Beasley.

How crazy was that?

And then as I got older in eighth grade,

Ty Lawson I seen him for the first time.

And that was just like another experience to see somebody

that fast and that good at basketball at that age.

Cause like you're so sheltered.

Then you were seeing so many dudes

just go to nice high schools,

and then head to college and I'm like man,

I didn't realize how much talent we had

in the area until I got older.

And that just molded me into who I was.

Cause every night we was playing in high school

was against dudes that were either going to D1 schools

or like young dudes coming up,

so it was good competition.

Yeah man that's when the internet

was really just poppin' off really,

so we was just jumping on all of those sites.

And you know,

you wanted to see how you stacked up against the players

in your neighborhood and hopefully once you got out

and got some exposure in the country.

So you was hearing about so many players,

6'9", 240.

You like, what does that even look like?

You know 6'4" point guard, 195.

I'm like I've never seen this before.

So like your imagination was just kind of running wild

and then I was chasing the NBA life.

I just wanted to see what that was about.

And then seeing all the young players

coming out of high school and playing in the NBA,

it was just perfect for me at that time,

because it was not too much basketball,

but it was just enough.

You know what I'm saying?

I was able to still go outside and play

and still catch up on everything in the NBA.

You know what I mean?

That was cool.

- Demar Johnson was a crazy. Like crazy.

- For real like me and him,

like I met him at ABCD.

Me and him played on the same team together.

And he didn't even realize he was ranked.

Like that's what was crazy.

I remember we sitting there one day,

we looking at the rankings

and I'm like yo, what's your name?

What grade?

We're going over each others names.

And he's like yeah, says his name,

I'm looking,

I'm going through.

I said man, bro you number one.

Like you don't know?

He's like nah, I didn't even know.

I'm like man,

that's back when he really was

crossover, crossover, bang on you.

Like throw on you.

Shoot the three, like everything.

- He was saying he could come out after his junior year.

- [Darius] He could of went straight out of high school.

- [Quentin] They were telling him to leave after junior year

and everything.

I remember that.

- He could have went straight out of high school,

I couldn't believe he went to college.

- He did one year at Cincinnati, right?

- Yup.

- And then we was in the same draft.

All of us.

- Kenyon, Kenny Saddlefield.

- He was pretty good though.

- It was a problem.

- It was the deal. If Kenyon wouldn't have got hurt.

- Oh Kenyon broke his leg.

- That was the deal.

- Yeah that was tough.

- Kenyon Player of the Year, like they was running it.

- So what other players,

influenced you being like a tall,

you know what I'm saying 6'9", about seven feet type dude,

that's like shooting jumpers,

handling the ball as well as you do

and doing all the things.

Like basically being a two guard

in a seven foot, 6'11" frame.

Like name some of the guys.

I mean I heard you say some of the guys.

I heard you mention him before.

And I've always said that I looked at you

as like D Miles 2.0.

Like when D Miles hit the scene,

it was like what's going on.

This boy is 6'9" out here,

bap, bap, bang.

- Dunking on everybody.

- But I'm talking about really had

the right to left crossover that was moving.

- All that shooting a J, fades, all that, yeah.

- And was like banging that thing and like then you came,

and D Miles was like a I don't know,

like Ray Allen or Rashard type three.

You know what I'm saying,

the one thing that he was missing was like his jumper

and all of that and then you come in,

you know the 50, 90 whatever everybody says type dude.

- Yeah you just build on

what all those dudes you watch coming up.

Man I was just,

I had an opportunity to.

DJ like,

man he didn't have to but he took me under his wing

as I was coming up from like as a high school kid,

just always following him to the gym.

You just seeing the lifestyle,

seeing stuff that I wanted to be a part of.

He was always cool in bringing the youngsters back from

out around our way just to be around the life.

So he showed us love,

and you realize what the OG's really did for the game.

You know so the stuff that I seen him do

and then before him,

just really watching seeing what you was doing,

it was just like you just wanna do that,

and you just wanna keep building and seeing how far

you can take it cause it's just about evolution of the game,

you know what I mean.

So there's somebody that's gonna do what I do,

that's gonna maybe find 200 different ways.

So I would say not at a early age,

I was like finally, there's somebody that looks like me.

Cause I'm the only one walking around here

long and skinny and playing in this sport.

So I'm like man finally somebody that looks like me.

And it just makes you feel like

you can do anything out there.

So like everyday I was watching T Mac clips,

I had a tape.

We was rewinding tapes watching T Mac film,

looking at stats,

looking at how he goes left, pull up.

Like that was somebody I was drawn to and I had to study.

So I had to write so much stuff down on him

and I was just starting to learn about him

and see how he came from high school

and how he was 6'8" and long and athletic like me.

So I just kind of shifted my focus just to him.

And then once you go to one player,

then you just go to the next

and then you just go from there.

But T Mac and Kobe was the two guys

that are always stared at constantly when they played.

And try to figure out how they did what they did.

- I never could understand when people used to say,

man Kobe played just like Jordan like that was a bad thing.

- No.

Yeah no.

That's hard to look like Jordan.

- What? You know if I could rock like Mike?

- Yeah shoot the fade like Mike?

- The style how he dunked.

The flavor, the swag.

- So speaking on when you was coming up

and you know the influence was like,

at what point did it hit you or did you realize like man,

I could make it,

I'm nice.

Like I could play in the NBA one day.

Like at what point, you know what I'm saying was

it when you was hooping against somebody,

or at a camp,

or you made yourself known out of there.

At what point did you say like I'm going to the league,

I'm gonna get there.

- I went to Five Star camp.

I was a tenth grader.

Nobody really knew my name but it was like spring time,

and I was going into the summer playing in all these camps

like right before All-American camp.

But I went to Five Star.

And I got like the Most Outstanding Player

but when I was out there,

I went the year before and my first time ever at a camp.

And then that next year I was going back,

and I was playing outside and I was just cruising.

I was just pulling up from deep,

everybody was coming to watch the games,

I'm dunking on people,

I'm just like the game is coming super easy to me.

And last year it was like I was having a hard time

just trying to figure it out.