Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Basketball Hall of Famer James Worthy

Adam: Our guest today is a basketball legend named on both of the NBA’s official lists as one of the greatest players in the history of the game. James Worthy is a three-time NBA champion, seven-time NBA All-Star, member of the NBA Top 50 and NBA 75 teams, and a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. James, thank you for joining us.

James: Pleasure, nice to be with you.

Adam: You were born in Gastonia North Carolina, and you played your college basketball at UNC where you were one of the best players in the country. And you won a national championship your junior year before turning pro. You were the number one overall pick in the NBA Draft. What were the best lessons you learned from your time at UNC and your time with Dean Smith?

James: Well, thanks for asking that, because Coach Dean Smith is a very special person in my life. After you leave your parents in high school, they trust that when you're playing sports, the coach and the coaching staff will kind of enhance what your parents had started for you. And that's exactly who Coach Smith was. He was a great coach, but his life and his platform was more than that. He was really interested in creating really good citizens. And he treated everybody equally and fairly. And you know, he was always encouraging you to get an education, because he really explained that sports is not guaranteed. And you really have to be a part of the society. He was more of an activist than he was a basketball coach. And he really knew his X's and O's. The one thing that I remember as a youngster was he was the first coach to bring an African American to play into the ACC in a Southern Conference in the 60s. So he took a lot of heat for that, bringing in Charlie Scott from New York to play. So that was one of the first things I remember my older brothers and my father talking about, I was like 10 years old, didn't quite understand it. But I remember them saying, you know, what a good man, he was fair, he prepared you for basketball, but most importantly, he really prepared you for life in the experiences that you would endure.

Adam: You played for a number of other coaches over the course of your career. Pat Riley, another legend. Who do you consider to be the best leaders that you play for and played with? And what do you believe makes a great leader?

James: Well, a great leader is one who's willing to sacrifice for the good of the team or for the good of the company, if you will. One who’s probably extremely talented, but doesn't bask in his talent. What he does is he looks around and he tries to bring those around him who may not be as talented, but they have a role to play. And what he does is he enhances what they do. Coach Smith, we talked about a man who really treated everybody equally and prepared you for life and shared those experiences with you. Michael Jordan was a freshman my junior year and later on Michael learned how to take what he learned from Coach Smith, the science and the theory, and make him into more of a team player. And so you know, Pat Riley believed in preparation, you have to be prepared, we were always prepared with Pat Riley. Nothing was left uncovered when it came to opponents and what we needed to know. So a leader is somebody who is a great listener, someone who understands personalities, and knows how to push individuals to the max and also keep the love and keep the respect and then keep the goals in mind for the team. They're always thinking about the team. And that's what I've experienced in some of the leaders that I've had

Adam: Great advice and universally applicable whether you're talking about leading a basketball team or leading across any organization. And you mentioned your former college teammate, Michael Jordan. What are your favorite memories and biggest takeaways from your year spent in college with a young MJ?

James: My favorite memory is him as a recruit. And coming in extremely confident. I mean this guy - he wasn't arrogant - but he would let you know immediately that he was not afraid of anything. And so when he came to Carolina - I made this comment on his documentary The Last Dance, where I said - I was better than Michael Jordan when he came to Carolina but only for about three weeks or two weeks. And after that, he just took off man. He was extremely confident. And he always sought out the best. And he was the best. And we would practice sometimes for two and a half hours, just really, really tired. And all I want to do is get a shower and get back to the dorm. And he would find me walking off the court. And he would push me back onto the court physically. He would call me young fella. He said, “Come on, young fella. Where are you going? Let's play a little game.” And so I was like, “Man, I'm tired.” But he was like, “Nah, you're scared. That's what you are.” He said, “You're not tired. You're scared.” He said stuff like, “Yeah, I'll bust your ass.” You know, he was just always like that with a big smile on his face. And I think I beat him three out of five times and I stopped playing. And that's the one thing that I have on him - to this day - are those three games in a one on one that I beat him. But he was amazing mental capacity because it could be Game 6 or Game 7 of the Finals or it could be a backgammon game in the dorm room. If he lost, they were the same to him. He was extremely upset. And that's who he is - it doesn't matter, it could be a game of marbles in the backyard or it could be a big shot in the NBA Finals. He hated to lose and he hated to be taunted. You couldn't challenge him. And so he was just an amazing guy. And you know, when he left Carolina, Coach Smith was the right coach for him because he needed a little bit of discipline in his game, he needed to understand how to take his talent and apply it to the team, and Coach Smith gave him that, and from that, he just took off. And I knew he would be an All-Star, but I had no idea that he would be arguably one of the top three players in the game.

Adam: James, you've never seen me play basketball, but needless to say, I'm not going to be challenging Michael Jordan in a game of one on one, but MJ if you’re listening, I would love to play you in backgammon anytime, anyplace. 

James: Just don’t beat him because you might lose a table and a lamp and everything. He goes bananas man.

Adam: You declare for the draft, and by a stroke of fate, you're drafted by the Lakers, who had won a championship the previous year. You spent your entire NBA career with the Lakers. And in the prime of your career, you played with two of the greatest players in the history of the game in Magic and Kareem? Can you take listeners back to Showtime? How did it all come together? How did all these great players play together so successfully? What are the best lessons that you have for listeners on the topic of teamwork?

James: Now Showtime was a unique experience created by, first, the purchase of the team. Br. Buss bought the team in 1978 or 79, I believe. And he had an idea of what he thought the Lakers should be. They already had Kareem Abdul Jabbar who played at UCLA and drafted by Milwaukee, but really wanted to come back to a warmer climate and somewhere he was familiar. He was already there, a Hall of Famer. Jamaal Wilkes, who had won four championships at UCLA and one championship with the Golden State Warriors before he came to the Los Angeles Lakers. So they already had great players, but they didn't have a brand or concept or style. They had never won a championship with what they had. Hence, here comes Magic Johnson. Dr. Buss saw something in Magic that he liked - the personality, the style of game, a 6’9 point guard - no one had ever seen that in the NBA. Someone with a bubbly personality fit right into LA Hollywood brand. And he ran the basketball along with another player who I didn't mention was Norm Nixon. So Showtime was fast-paced, nontraditional, unlike what fundamental basketball was, even though we played really tough defense and we rebounded the ball well, offensively, it was unacceptable to a lot of people - fast break, a lot of people like you to set up, take your time, pass, pick, move, cut, you know, like, like a machine. We didn't have that - we had Magic Johnson, who had a fast pace. We had Kareem Abdul Jabbar who had a nice skyhook if we needed to go to the half-court. But then we had Byron Scott, Michael Cooper, myself running with the fast pace. So combine that with Hollywood, Dr. Buss was the first one to have cheerleaders, the Laker girls. He was the first one to have floor seats. Everybody said nobody's gonna sit on the floor. He had the first one to put a bank title on the arena - the Great Western Forum bank that the $50 million back in back in the mid-80s. And he had these draft picks. I was a number one draft back. Back then the Lakers made a trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers back in 1976, I believe. And they traded away a couple of players and cash and in return, they got Cleveland's first, they got their draft picks. So at the time in the late 70s, Cleveland was at the top of the league. In fact, they had played in a championship. So when you think of their draft pick, it would have been nothing, it would have been like maybe second round or maybe close to last. So when they offer that up to the Lakers, nobody really knew that the Cleveland Cavaliers in the next three years was going to spiral right down to the bottom of the league. The owner didn't want the team anymore. They started losing. And in 1982, the Lakers had their draft pick. And it wasn't a big lottery. Back then it was the team who had the worst record, which was the Clippers, and the team who actually had the number one draft pick, which was the Lakers. They tossed a coin to see who got the number one pick. And the Lakers won. And they drafted me. So that's how I became a Laker. That's also how Magic Johnson became a Laker, the same scenario. They didn't really need me. They had won two out of three championships the last three years. There were other players, Dominique Wilkins, everyone thought would be the number one draft pick. He's a really great scorer. They called him the human highlight. But the Lakers didn't need that. They had a number of scorers including Bob McAdoo, who was a Hall of Famer coming off the bench. They needed someone who was going to fit in and play team and understand their role, which is why we talk about Dean Smith. Jerry West knew that Dean Smith players had the right mentality, the right attitude. So I didn't start my first couple years, I played a role until my time came, which is what Coach Smith taught us to do. So knowing that they were getting someone with that type of attitude, they drafted me first. And so coming into play with Magic, Kareem, Pat Riley, and playing for Dr. Buss, who is a great owner, and really understanding how to how to develop a great brand for us.

Adam: Whether you're playing basketball or whether you're on any kind of team, you can't have five players on the team who are trying to score. Everyone needs to understand their role, everyone needs to understand what he or she brings to the table and work together toward a common goal, which you and Magic and everyone else on the team was able to do so successfully over the years. And to that end, I wanted to know if you could share with listeners how that was able to happen given that you had so many great players who are well known. In today's game, you see it happen, but you also see teams getting broken apart. You see issues across sports where it doesn't work out as seamlessly as it did in your day. How did it happen? What advice do you have for listeners from what you were able to experience over the course of your career with the Lakers?

Adam: Well, you know, different time, obviously the 70s, 80s, I always like to allude to guys like Kareem Abdul Jabbar, those people who are basketball fanatics will understand Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who was named Lew Alcindor. At UCLA, he had for years with a great coach in John Wooden. Jamaal Wilkes, who I mentioned earlier, had four years with one of the greatest coaches in college basketball and in history, four championships. I had three years with Dean Smith, Michael Jordan had three years with Dean Smith. So when I think about players who played back then, you go to college, the most important thing you do is you learn how to become a man or woman because you socially have to adapt. Forget about basketball, you have to adapt to just normal life. You know, responsibilities, meeting people, growing up, dating, whatever it is. And then when you get to your particular sport, whatever it is, you have been drilled over and over and over, because you have time to do it, you have a lot of practice time, you have a lot of teaching time, you have a lot of time to teach how to post up a variety of moves. Every day, at practice, we had 20 minutes before practice ever started, we had 20 minutes, just big man drills, and the guards were doing their thing. So when you fast forward to today's game, you have a lot of AAU, which in my opinion, aren't really teaching the theory and the science of the game, you'll find a few coaches who know what they're doing. But overall, it has become a big marketing wave of talent where there's a lot of talent, but they just don't get the college experience. So they're coming from a different place. They're coming from, I'm really talented, I'm good. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school team because he was somewhat of a, you know, fancy player, shooting all the time, didn't pass. So we're getting a lot of that - they're talented. And we're seeing that the game is changing as a result. It's all about three-point shooting. Now, it's not about the big man and more a big is a Kevin Durant, a guy that can shoot threes. And so that's what I see. And when you get to the NBA, they don't have time to teach, it's 82 games. So for me, that's what I that's what I've seen, the less you learn the basics - it would be like going to law school, graduated from law school, and then automatically you get to be a Supreme Court justice. You don't get to be a clerk, you don't get to be a judge, you don't get to be a federal judge. And so that's what's missing with, with some, there's a gap. And so the league has had to adjust to that. That's why when we played it was a little bit more physical. The game didn't start changing until these kids started coming out early, they moved the three-point line in a little bit to make it more a little more easier. You really can't even breathe on a player now. If you breathe on somebody, it's a foul, you know. So it's entertaining, and it's more global. Television has expanded the financial - I mean, the financial astronomical numbers are crazy because it's global now and it's television and it's marketed properly. So it's still fun to watch. But when I watch it, I see a different mentality than from when for what I saw growing up.

Adam: And your mentality was the big-game mentality. You got the nickname Big Game James for a reason. What advice do you have for anyone listening on how to perform in big games, in big moments, in high-pressure high-stakes situations?

James: You know, it's really just like anything else. If I were a lawyer and I was going into the courtroom tomorrow, then I'd be so prepared. I would know just about everything there is to know. And it's the same thing in sports. You know, you study film, you look at your opponents, you look at how they're guarding you, you look at every quarter, what you can get in the fourth quarter based on you know, so that helps. It doesn't guarantee you anything. But without that preparation, you don't have a chance. So I always thought I went into a game prepared. And the regular season, I remember having to guard Larry Bird on a Tuesday night and wake up the next morning and travel to New York and guard Bernard King, take Thursday off, go into Philly, and guard Dr. J. You know, in college, you might get one or two players every couple of weeks or so. In the NBA, it's every night, you got to guard a Hall of Famer. And so the regular season, you can be really successful if you're prepared. But during the playoffs, most of the time you have one team for seven games. So now I'm not traveling, I only got one team to worry about. I got a lot of video to watch, a lot of film. And so I expect myself - mentally I plant that seed - I expect myself to do better during the playoffs because I'm not traveling, I'm not worried about all these different players, I'm focusing on two or three players that I got to deal with. And then I go from series to series that way. So it's all about being focused and being prepared.

Adam: James, I love it. You mentioned the great John Wooden earlier in the conversation and one of his greatest quotes, failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Something else that you shared, which is so important, we often think of big games and high-pressure moments as more challenging. And the way that you looked at it was the opposite. You viewed playoff series as easier because you had more time to prepare, you had one opponent to focus on rather than having a number of different teams that you had to play over that same time period. So so much of it revolves around your mindset. And to that end, I wanted to know if you could share with listeners what advice you have on how anyone can develop a winning mindset?

James: Well, to develop a winning mindset, first of all, you have to really believe in what you're doing, you really got to believe. I mean, if you go to school to be a dentist and you know all the time you want to be a lawyer, that's probably not a good thing to do. And you have to really love what you're doing. I loved going to practice, I loved being around my teammates. We joke each other and have fun and create that camaraderie, just like you do at a corporate boardroom. You monitor each other constructively and make sure that you're making sure your teammate is good. You have to be able to accept constructive criticism, you have to be able to accept that and really move on. So yeah, it was less challenging for me in the postseason, because, you know, I didn't have to guard five Hall of Famers in a week, I only had to work on that one for about seven games. So I was always alert and ready for that.

Adam: Since retiring from the game, you’ve been involved in a number of different things, including a venture called M3Linked, which is focused on developing a community for entrepreneurs where they can develop new and winning relationships. From your experience on the court and off the court, what are the keys to building winning relationships?

James: Well, that's the one thing that drew me to M3Linked was the fact that it reminded me of a team, you know, when you are trying to collaborate, and connect and grow. It reminds me of what you do as a team, you collaborate, you have a playbook, you connect with one another, and you set goals, you know, you monitor that and then you grow as you go and you enhance to meet your goals. It takes all the things that we've talked about as far as understanding your target, what you're trying to reach, setting goals, and sticking to those goals and understanding that, you know, collaboration with other people and having many antennas is better than solo. So having those connections, whether you are an entrepreneur, whether you are an inventor, someone who's a patent lawyer, or an accountant, and we allow at M3Linked, we allow our people to have at least 90 seconds to introduce their business and then we break out into smaller groups to have a special interest, but it's all about helping other people, and also receiving help as you need it. So it's the corporate world is just like a locker room, you got a coach who has to understand personalities, you have people who know their roles, and you go out and you play the game. And it doesn't necessarily take the team that pays the biggest salary or has the biggest office building. It takes those people connecting inside with one another, and really loving to be around each other and being able to take that constructive criticism and move on and meet their goals.

Adam: You developed relationships with so many Laker greats over the years, as your time as a player, as your time as a TV analyst. I want to ask you about a few of them and see if you could name one thing that you learned by virtue of spending time with them, starting with Kobe Bryant.

James: Kobe Bryant and I had a relationship because he was a sponge for information. I've never seen a kid other than Michael Jordan who just didn't have too many other hobbies. Basketball was it. And my first experience with Kobe is he wanted me to help just with some footwork. And we were talking about some of the science of how to set up your man and drop steps and up and unders and all these things he was really interested in. You could see it in his eyes. He was just thinking, every word that came out of your mouth. He was really absorbing it. And then he went on to tell me - I hadn't showed him this move yet - and we were at the end of a session and he says to me, “What about your step back rocker move?” And I said, “We haven't even talked about that yet.” When he was a kid, he was in Italy with his dad - his dad played basketball in Italy - and his father used to send for these NBA games via VHS and beta - if you you know old enough to remember that - and Kobe used to watch an entire season delay of NBA games. And he said, “I watched you play in ‘85” or something like that. He must have been 12. And he said, “I saw this move and I just started doing it in on the playground.” Then he did it. And that's who he was. And if you want to fast forward that to his last year, this 19th year, I got a call at 9:30 at night - this was when I was helping Byron Scott with some of his bigs as far as footwork. It's Julius Randle and Larry Nance and some of those guys and Kobe was still on the team. And he said, “Could you meet me in the gym? In the morning.” I was like, this is weird. I mean, what does he want? I thought maybe he just wanted to talk about the future or some. And he wanted to know about frickin’ footwork. In his 19th year. And I had seen him demonstrate just about everything I had done plus more. But he was getting a little older. And he wanted to know a few more things about how he could get position without working so hard. You know how he could set up players with his eyes. How he'd look away. And you know, it just never stopped with him. And he was an assassin. I hadn't seen anybody like him since Michael Jordan. And they ended up having a great relationship. I can remember Kobe Bryant's first meeting with Michael Jordan. And all he did was ask questions. “How do you do this?” You know, they'd be in a timeout or they'd be at the free-throw line and Kobe - cause he's like that, Michael was like that - he’s like a mosquito. You just keep smacking him off of you. You just keep smacking him off of you. But he just loved to ask questions. And he always knew what he wanted to know. And so he was a great guy and winning an Oscar after he retired showed you the direction where he was going with women's sports, his daughters, was a great loss, but he left a great legacy.

Adam: Biggest lesson, biggest takeaway from your many years spent with Magic Johnson.

James: When you're in high school, you get this you get to make these visits to go visit colleges that you might be interested in. So I visited UCLA, Kentucky, obviously everyone knew that I was going to go to North Carolina, but I heard it I heard of Magic Johnson. 6’9 point guard. You never heard of that. You know, back in my day, a 6’9 guy would be playing center. So I met Magic at Michigan State, and you knew he was going to be something big whether it was a DJ on the radio, whether he was going to have a chain of record stores or whether he was going to be an entertainer. There was something about him he nailed innately that just vibed off of him, you can feel that pleasure and that excitement. And when I was drafted by the Lakers, I really understood what a leader he really was. Kareem was with the Lakers before Magic. And when Magic was drafted, Kareem was smart enough to say, hey, look, you're the guy. I'm gonna do what I do. But you're the vocal, you know, you're the energy. And that's when Showtime was born. It was born with Magic, Kareem, and that bubbly personality, his rookie year, the first game of the season. One out of 82, they were playing the San Diego clippers at the time. And Kareem hit a game-winning little Skyhook to win the game. And Magic Johnson went ballistic. He jumped on Kareem’s neck. And he was riding on him like he was a camel of something as if they had won the NBA championship. And Kareem was looking at him like, dude, what's wrong with you, don't ever do this again, we’ve got 81 more games. He said, this is just one. And Magic said, “We’ve got 81 more games. If you do that 81 more times, you're gonna get the same reaction 81 more times. And that's just who he was, man, all the time. 24/7. Whether it was on the court, off the court, and he really knew how to make everybody around him better. That was his thing. If you were in a shooting slump and you needed to get up some extra shots and you got to practice early - let’s say practice was nine o'clock and you got there at eight - It wouldn't be a ball boy there waiting for you. It'd be Magic. He would be getting your rebounds passing back to you. Just pumping you up. “Come on now. I'm gonna come to you five times.” You know, he was that kind of guy. If you were having a down month, he was he would chat with you. All the time, keeping his strength, whatever challenges, he carried his challenges along with his teammates’ challenges. And can tell by what he's done, post-career, why he is who he is.

Adam: What's your biggest takeaway from your time spent around Lebron James?

James: He's a modern-day elite player. They're sharp. They're a little bit more sophisticated than they say we were in the 80s. He's very involved in every aspect of his life. I mean, he owns a soccer team, the Boston Red Sox, part of that situation. And he's a businessman. But he also understands what he has to do on the court. Extremely conscious of every single thing around him. A lot of players they stick to what's happened on the floor; LeBron knows what every writer has said about him, he remembers everything. All of this goes into his formula of how he sustains success. And so he puts about a million and a half dollars into his body and his workouts. So he's serious, he has a really good formula for his sleep, everything he does is all centered about longevity. And I cannot believe at 36 years old, I think it'll be 37 pretty soon, that he is dominating the way he's dominating. The way he's playing and still dunking and running. It is amazing to see the modern-day athlete, the science of what they know now, of how to eat. I mean, I was eating Burger King every other day - the Jr. Whopper - on the way to a game, you know what I mean? And so, it was different, they traveled different. We were traveling on Eastern Airlines, Delta, we would fly commercial up until a certain point in the late 80s. We finally started to charter. He has a chef. It's different. It's amazing. And so when you put your mind to it, that you want to be the greatest and you do all the things that are needed like he has. I just find him to be extremely professional, extremely conscious about his game, has triple-doubles, still gets triple-doubles. It's just an amazing athlete that has maxed out his body and his mind, kept his attitude pretty sharp. A family man - married his high school sweetheart. Just kept his mind on where he wanted to be. And he's done it.

Adam: James, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

James: Write it down. The first thing you should do is get your little tablet, write it down. I want to make this amount of money. And how can I do it? And the most important thing is, what are you willing to give up to do that? Are you willing to give up a couple of vacations? Are you willing to give up less spending? Are you willing to work an extra two hours a day? Are you willing to make that extra phone call? Are you willing to develop relationships that may or may not help you? You have to explore. It takes time. And don't be afraid to fail. Failing is not failure, it's a reboot. You're not going to hit every shot - but you might not hit every shot, but you might get a rebound here, then you might get a steal or a deflection. You got to keep grinding and then you have to be able to deviate. Sometimes you have to take a timeout and say, ok, this path isn't working, what can I take from this path and put it on my new path. Keep going. So, I found that it's cool to have a mentor. And there are a lot of mentors out there. But it's cool to have one that you know, has your best interest is really smart and someone you can count on, that may be able to give you the advice you need. But more importantly, they'll be able to calm you down and point you in the right direction. So that’s the advice that I've experienced and that I continue to follow.

Adam: James, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

James: My pleasure.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

Follow Adam on Instagram and Twitter at @adammendler and listen and subscribe to Thirty Minute Mentors on your favorite podcasting app.