- 2 days ago
Former NBA star Theo Ratliff joins Greg Street for a look back at his career, his children's book, giving back to the community, and more.
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00:00It's People Station V-103. We're in the studio with an NBA legend.
00:05Yes, sir.
00:07Out of Alabama.
00:09What city?
00:11Demopolis.
00:12Demopolis.
00:12One and only.
00:13Demopolis, Alabama.
00:16Man, you had an amazing career.
00:18Yeah, appreciate it. Appreciate it.
00:2016 years.
00:2116 years.
00:22How many teams?
00:23Oh, nine.
00:25Nine teams.
00:26Nine teams.
00:2616 years, including our very own Atlanta Hawks.
00:29Oh, the Hawks. Yes, yes, yes.
00:31But you had the Hawks, the Sixers, the Trail Blazers, the Celtics.
00:36Pistons.
00:37The Spurs, the Rockets, and the Lakers.
00:40Oh, yeah.
00:41Did you win a championship with the Lakers?
00:43Oh, no.
00:44You didn't get a ring?
00:45Nah, man.
00:46Unfortunately, I had a chance to play with the great Kobe Bryant for one year.
00:51But we came up short.
00:52That's the year, actually, we led.
00:56We was lead in the series, you know, during the games against Dallas.
01:00And they came back on us three straight times.
01:02Wow.
01:03You know, at the end of the game and beat us.
01:05And they went on ahead and won the championship after that.
01:09That year for All-Star Weekend, they had the games in Atlanta.
01:12Yes.
01:12Kobe had just got drafted.
01:14Uh-huh.
01:14And guess what?
01:16I hosted the party.
01:18The Sprite party?
01:19Yep.
01:19Oh, wow.
01:20The Sprite party.
01:21It was Kobe Bryant's signing party in Atlanta.
01:24Wow.
01:26Yolanda, you might have been there, huh?
01:28You wasn't there yet?
01:30I wasn't at that party.
01:31Yeah.
01:32Kobe Bryant's signing party with Sprite.
01:34I hosted it here in the city of Atlanta during All-Star Weekend.
01:37So you played with Kobe.
01:38That's amazing.
01:40Kobe was cool.
01:41Kobe was a great dude.
01:43People forgot that when he first went into the league, he was rapping.
01:46He was rapping in French.
01:48Yes.
01:49And he had a deal on Columbia Records.
01:51Yes, yes.
01:52He was rapping at that time.
01:54I think Allen Iverson was rapping.
01:55Oh, yeah.
01:56You know, Kobe was from Philly, you know.
01:58Yep.
01:58Yeah, my boy Romain was at LaSalle with his pops.
02:02He used to play for LaSalle.
02:04His pops was an assistant coach.
02:06So he was working a lot with Kobe, you know, during the time.
02:10So Kobe really grew up in Philly, where he really got his swag and stuff from.
02:14He was straight out of Philly.
02:15Before we get into this whole Atlanta Hawks, I know today's the season opener.
02:18They're on the road in Orlando.
02:20But they play here Saturday.
02:21We got a back-to-back on Saturday.
02:23We got the Atlanta Dream playing game four earlier during the day.
02:26And then the Hawks are playing that evening.
02:29Yes, sir.
02:30But before we get into all that, let's get into a little history of some Mr. Ratliff history.
02:36Yes.
02:37Big and blocking shots.
02:39Hey, calling card.
02:41You was a calling card?
02:42Defense all day, every day.
02:44People don't realize how valuable defensive players are.
02:47No.
02:49Ask Detroit Pistons.
02:50Ask Chicago Bulls.
02:52How they won those championships.
02:53Everybody think it was just Michael Jordan, but they had the best defense in the league.
02:57Every team had the best – every team usually win a championship.
03:00They either top two, three in defense.
03:04San Antonio Spurs, same thing.
03:06You go down the line.
03:07Look at Oklahoma City Thunder.
03:09They're all those guys.
03:10But you're like one of the best all-time shot blockers of all time in the NBA.
03:15Yes, yes, yes.
03:16I put in a lot of work on that one, for sure.
03:18I made it my business to be able to be on the help side for my teammates.
03:22Now, while everybody else was concentrating on shooting the threes and shooting the jump shots
03:25and shooting the layups and doing the dunks, how did you figure out that blocking shots was going to be
03:33the key?
03:33Well, I figured out a defense was going to be the key as early as junior high
03:39and when I was in junior high school because everybody wanted to be Michael Jordan.
03:43Everybody wanted to score all the points.
03:45And, you know, one of my coaches was like, you have a natural sense of being able to play defensively
03:50long.
03:51You had good timing.
03:53Why don't you become the best defensive player?
03:57And once he said that to me, it just stuck in my brain because then I just started looking at
04:01all the defensive guys
04:02like the Dennis Rodmans, the Akeem Olajuwans, and David Robson, all these guys and what they did.
04:09And I just started watching the tape and watched how they played, and, you know, those guys, they had winning
04:14teams.
04:15So I figured, look, if I can be a guy that plays defense, and through the years of me playing
04:20and seeing what defense means to teams, I tell kids all the time, I say, if you can play defense,
04:28if you can play defense and you just show you can play defense and you can guard your position,
04:33you can get a scholarship.
04:34Wow.
04:35It's that easy.
04:36And that was in high school?
04:37That was in junior high school.
04:39Who was the coach?
04:40Do you remember?
04:40That was actually my coach, Coach Hallmark.
04:42Coach Hallmark.
04:43In Demopolis, Alabama.
04:45Demopolis Heights.
04:45Coach Hallmark in Demopolis, Alabama.
04:48Triple shouts out to you, man.
04:50Yes, sir.
04:51A plan well executed.
04:53Yep.
04:53How was it spending 16 years in the NBA?
04:56Man, it was awesome, man.
04:57I mean, you know, having the family, you know, having the kids, and then just all the teammates.
05:05You know, everybody, you get to know everybody.
05:09When you're in the league that long, I mean, there's nobody in the organizations, wherever
05:14you go, you know everybody.
05:16The reason why I was able to play, you know, so many years.
05:20And plus, I was on the executive board with the union, so I was very involved in the business
05:23side of basketball as well, so I got to meet, and now guys, kids in the league, and kids
05:31are going to, and all these different things, so you build such a great network and a great
05:36camaraderie with each place that you go.
05:40I mean, there are people that I speak to from each team that I play with to this day.
05:45I can tell you, too, you was a great person in the league, because a few of the teams on
05:48your list, you played a couple times.
05:50Right, right.
05:51I'm kind of like that in radio.
05:52I worked in Mobile twice.
05:55I worked in Atlanta twice, kind of, sort of.
05:57So it's like, you got to have that right energy and that right spirit for them to call you
06:02back.
06:03Absolutely.
06:04People definitely have to see great things in you to want you to be around as long
06:09as you, as long as I was around, so I appreciate that.
06:13Why was it important for you to be a part of the Players Association?
06:16It was, I always wanted to know how internal operations worked.
06:23I mean, from the time I got in the league, I was already vibing to be, you know, a player
06:27rep, and as soon as I became a player rep that next year, I ended up getting on the executive
06:32board, so I served on the executive board 13 years out of the 16 years that I played.
06:37So I went through two collective bargaining agreements, and with the great Billy Hunter
06:42and all those guys, we managed to build what these guys have today as a collective bargaining
06:49unit, and we knew that the social media part was going to take off and the game was going
06:56to become a global game because we were already doing camps and different things like that.
07:00Even before the NBA started doing camps over in China, we saw the growth of that from people
07:08being scared of you.
07:09When we went, it was like 95 when we first went, and the Chinese people were scared of
07:16us.
07:16They didn't know about basketball.
07:18I mean, it was crazy.
07:19And then you look back, and you look at the Olympics, and you look at how many fans, and
07:24people know guys, and got their stats, and, you know, we went a couple times and did camps
07:28over there, and it's like people know who you are and coming up to you where they was
07:33actually scared of you when you first went over there.
07:35Oh, yeah, they know.
07:35And it's amazing.
07:36So it's crazy.
07:37It's amazing for that to evolve into now a lot of NBA players who left the league, go
07:42to China.
07:42Oh, for sure.
07:43And have an amazing career.
07:45Have an amazing career.
07:47I mean, you look at Stephon Marbury as a, I mean, Hall of Famer.
07:51I mean, Hall of Famer over in China.
07:54With statues and all kinds of stuff, you know, and actually lives over there.
07:58So, and it's a few guys I know that went and had great careers over in China, and, you
08:04know, with the great big gal, Ming, you know.
08:07A lot of younger guys over there right now.
08:09In the competition against them.
08:10Yeah, so.
08:10A lot of younger guys playing around there.
08:12Yeah, it definitely has become a super global game.
08:16And, you know, NBA is now talking about the Europe.
08:18NBA Europe, they've already been putting teams together.
08:20So it's going to keep expanding, you know, as long as the NBA has something to say about
08:27it.
08:27Now, how does a kid playing basketball in Demopolis, Alabama, make a decision that he's going to
08:33go play collegiate basketball in Wyoming?
08:38Everybody always asks me that because, I mean, Wyoming, Alabama, it's there.
08:43It's two different dynamics way across the country.
08:46I was, I really wasn't a highly recruited kid.
08:49I may have had three different options.
08:52Maybe it was Western Kentucky, AUM was Auburn, University of Montgomery, Alabama State.
08:58So it was smaller schools that were trying to get me.
09:00Western Kentucky was kind of a major school.
09:03But Wyoming actually had ties with the University of Alabama.
09:09The coach there had, was an assistant coach at the University of Alabama.
09:12So that's how they even saw me.
09:14I went to one camp when I was in high school, and that was the University of Alabama basketball
09:19camp.
09:20And he had his people working the camp.
09:22So once they saw me, they felt I would be a great fit.
09:25And plus, they had already had coaches and players.
09:28I think they had Mr. Basketball from Mobile.
09:31They had Mr. Basketball my year that came out from Central, which is Tuscaloosa, that also
09:37went there.
09:38And I didn't even know he was going to be more.
09:39Was it Cousins?
09:40No, no, no.
09:41It was Hassan Sanders.
09:43It had Quentin Higgins out of Mobile.
09:44Yeah.
09:45Hassan Sanders was out of Tuscaloosa.
09:48So they had a lot of ties, and they were getting a lot of players from the side because
09:52of his ties at the University of Alabama.
09:54So me, I'm 170 pounds, 6, 7, 170 pounds.
10:01So I'm like, I'm a mid-major kid.
10:02I'm not a major guy that's going to be waiting around.
10:05And I wanted to sign early because one thing I wanted to do was just take that burden from
10:10my mom to know that I was going to get a scholarship.
10:13You wanted to lock in.
10:14I wanted to lock it in.
10:15And that's what I did.
10:17Now, I can imagine being from Demopolis, Alabama, and going to Wyoming, for people who don't
10:24understand, the cultural side of Wyoming is so rich.
10:31And a lot of people don't realize some of them places like Wyoming and Montana and what
10:36they really bring to the table.
10:37Well, Alabama country, Wyoming's country.
10:40So that part didn't change.
10:42Alabama's country, Wyoming.
10:44But the weather changed?
10:44Oh, my goodness.
10:46It's a different kind of country, though.
10:48Oh, for sure.
10:48Oh, for sure.
10:49Wyoming is a different kind of country.
10:51Yeah.
10:51So Wyoming was actually more laid back.
10:55It wasn't a lot of those people, believe it or not, hadn't really been around black
11:01people before.
11:02They hadn't been outside of Wyoming?
11:03That go to school.
11:04Yeah.
11:04That's in school and class with you.
11:06And I had some of those conversations.
11:08I was like, I've never been around a black person.
11:10I'm like, what?
11:11I went out there.
11:12I'm like, that's crazy.
11:12I went to Jackson Hole with Kanye.
11:13You live in the United States.
11:15You've never been around a black person.
11:16I went to Jackson Hole with Kanye, and we stayed for a whole day and a night.
11:20So it was like, you could tell just the atmosphere and the energy.
11:25Yes.
11:26It's different.
11:27Yes.
11:28It's very different.
11:29It's a little different.
11:29It's country, but it's a rich country, a wealthy country that you don't realize how
11:37wealthy it is until you really just dig into it.
11:40Oh, yeah.
11:40You was in Jackson Hole.
11:41That's where all the money at.
11:43But just driving now, because you guys fly to the private airport.
11:46Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:47And then drive in.
11:47So it's like you get to see the mountains and all this stuff.
11:52It's rich.
11:53Yeah.
11:53I mean, I feel in love with the mountains and the scenery out there because it wasn't
11:58snowing when I went out there.
11:59But, you know, the mountainous areas and, you know, they take your snowmobile in.
12:04I mean, it was, you know, how they do it.
12:06You go to visit somewhere.
12:08They want you to come.
12:09They go get you all the great amenities.
12:11But it was definitely a well-spent time out there.
12:19Got to meet some great friends, lifelong friends.
12:22Like I said, we still, you know, keep in contact.
12:24I go back every now and then, you know, go and visit.
12:28And I'm in the Hall of Fame over there, you know, alumni, all the different things, you know,
12:33that I choose.
12:33So you graduated?
12:34Oh, yes.
12:35Definitely.
12:35You graduated?
12:36Definitely.
12:36Yeah, absolutely.
12:37What?
12:37Absolutely.
12:39I graduated.
12:40I graduated after.
12:41I left early, but then I did online and got my degree.
12:45Well, congratulations on that.
12:46Yes, sir.
12:47But let's dig a little bit into, like, the Theo Ratliff Foundation.
12:50Yes.
12:51And the different things that you do.
12:53Well, I mean, my heart is my Theo Ratliff Activity Center that I did in conjunction with
13:00my actual, with my hometown, with the Parks and Recreation.
13:04So we serve over, you know, like 5,000 kids a month.
13:09And we do from adults to elderly programs to kid programs.
13:15I've been doing my camp over 25 years where I go back and have a free camp for the kids.
13:23We get up to 300 kids, you know, from that whole area.
13:29You know, you have people coming from Birmingham, all different places come and just hang out
13:34and do the camp.
13:35And I thought that was very important early on because, one, my mother, she was just a
13:43super community person, always not just in combat for her kids, but for the whole area
13:52as far as making sure we got things that wasn't the way it was supposed to be, to get them
13:58the way it was supposed to be as far as in schooling and different things of that nature.
14:02And so I wanted to make sure I made myself available because I never saw an NBA guy, let
14:12alone a college guy, to come back to my hometown to interact with me when I was younger.
14:20And I know it's a big thing.
14:22People look up to me as being a role model, you know, as far as how they look.
14:27And I want the next person, if they go on and be successful in whatever it is that they
14:32do, to be able to come back and have that same feeling.
14:35Oh, take the same model and hopefully I could be that model that they would come back and
14:41they would do the same thing that I was doing and lending my success and sharing my success
14:47with the people of Demopolis.
14:49Now, giving back to the community is very important, of course, and congratulations on that.
14:55But also, financial literacy and investments and knowing how to move money around and knowing
15:00what to do with money, you educated yourself and now you're passing along this knowledge
15:04and information to other people like, your portfolio is crazy.
15:08Yes, sir.
15:09Yes, sir.
15:10Let some of these younger athletes understand how you can take a very small amount of money
15:15and be able to live comfortable for the rest of your life, not even having to concentrate
15:20on thinking, I need to have $100 million, I need to have $200 million or $1 billion.
15:24Like, a lot of us are not even there yet to understand, if I got $1 million, $2 million, $3
15:30million,
15:30$4 million, $5 million, I could take that money and put it in a situation where I never
15:34have to work again.
15:36Well, it's really about educating yourself.
15:40I mean, like anybody, you go through, you have your ups and downs, I mean, and I think
15:47actually sports prepare us a lot better for those situations because you're winning, you're
15:53losing games, you're having good teams, you're having bad teams, and you're having to figure
15:57things out.
15:58So even in business, it's the same thing.
16:00I mean, you have to constantly be like a chameleon, you have to be able to think, and you have
16:06to look at people and be in rooms where people are much smarter than you, and they actually
16:11are experts at what they're talking about, especially when it comes to investing in individual
16:16things.
16:17As far as managing your money, you just have to have great counsel, you know, you got to
16:23have great people around you, you got to, because I think everybody go through, their
16:28friends, everybody need money, everybody want to borrow money, and you know, one thing that
16:33I think magic, I mean, you talk to any of those guys that have been successful, the power of
16:39saying no.
16:40You have to learn how to say no, because you can't help everybody, and everybody don't
16:46need to be helped.
16:48You know, you try to do certain things, you know, for people, but when it becomes like
16:53a consistent task of you just giving, and it's the same thing over and over, then you
17:00have to understand that, yeah, they're really not, they're really accepting you giving it
17:06to them, and they're not really trying to figure out how to work.
17:09When you enable people like that, it's amazing how they think that you should just automatically
17:12do it, not understand that nobody can give you enough money.
17:15Right.
17:16People don't understand that.
17:17No matter how much money you have, nobody can give you enough money.
17:20If I give you, if you're not working and you don't want to work, I give you a million
17:24dollars in a year, in less than a year, you're going to be broke, because you don't know
17:28what to do with the money.
17:28So I really just wasted my money.
17:30Absolutely.
17:30But people don't, people actually get mad with you when you won't give them your money, not
17:35understanding.
17:36You got the same 24 hours, and you have a gift, but you don't understand how to, but
17:42you think somebody's going to give it to you.
17:43Right.
17:44And at the same time, like I said about being around and surrounding yourself with the right
17:51individuals that understand money.
17:54I mean, you look at some of these guys now, with Andre Iwadawa and staff, and the things
18:02that they're doing now, it wasn't even a thing back when we were playing.
18:07Right.
18:08You know, the tech world and all the different things, because they have an owner, you know,
18:12being in a relationship with an owner that's in the tech industry, and them being out in
18:16the tech industry, they got a chance to collaborate with some of the biggest tech people in the
18:24world.
18:24So their portfolio and their different things are looking way different, and I try to do
18:29the same thing.
18:30I got with a guy after I was done, Charles Smith.
18:34You remember Charles Smith that played with the Knicks?
18:37A very astute business guy that went through New York with the family office, and he started
18:43introducing me to the family office.
18:45And, you know, we started taking trips to Dubai, to meetings, to really talking about
18:50business.
18:50This ain't about vacation.
18:51You know, you're going to enjoy yourself while you're there, but it was really about
18:56being in the room, listening to different ideas, and then me being able to take different
19:03ideas over to Dubai, even for investments.
19:06Right.
19:06You know, so taking my investments, what I had with my partners, to these different places
19:13around the country, trying to, you know, get them to invest in what our idea is.
19:19So it definitely stretches you a long way when you're sitting in the room and have the right
19:26counsel with you.
19:28And that's some of the advice I always try to give to young guys, especially now you're
19:32getting that early money in.
19:33It's like, you know, I need the chains.
19:35I need the, you know, I got to get the cars, and I got to do all the things.
19:39But I always try to give them the value of the education piece that they got to continue
19:47to grow in that financial literacy.
19:48And it's something that don't come overnight.
19:51You have to consistently hear things in order to grasp them.
19:55Right.
19:56You know?
19:56So if you're in that room and you're having those kinds of conversations, people having
20:00those conversations around you, you're going to continue to pick it up.
20:03And that's how I kind of worked, you know, even through the union and talking about that.
20:08I had no idea what they were talking about when I first got in the room.
20:11But after, you know, a year of going to meetings and listening to calls and doing different things,
20:17now I'm starting to understand it, you know?
20:19And I think even, like, our first flick is so crazy.
20:23I was just looking back at this in one of my notes.
20:26We were collected bargaining over $3 billion.
20:32$3 billion in 95.
20:37And you think about where the league is now.
20:39They said, come on, man.
20:41It's a lot of money.
20:43No.
20:44I'm talking about, but compared to where the league is now, the NBA, where the NBA,
20:49is now with their Andrews salary, Andrews salaries, you know, I think the most Andrews
20:56was like $19 million.
20:57Back then.
20:58Back then.
20:59Now you got dudes getting $60 million a year.
21:03Yep.
21:05It's like, it's amazing.
21:05I think when Jalen got it, it might have been more than 60.
21:08He was probably doing about 60 or 70.
21:10A year.
21:10A year.
21:11Yeah, I'm saying a year.
21:12I ain't talking about the full contract.
21:14Right.
21:15Yeah, so it's definitely amazing.
21:18Amazing things happening.
21:19And I'm happy for the guys.
21:21And, you know, I love it.
21:23I love seeing them eating off the fruits of the labor that we put in as a union.
21:28It has to grow.
21:29To make sure to collect the bargain.
21:30It has to grow.
21:31It's like everybody talking about.
21:31They have to keep it going.
21:33Keep the comparisons going.
21:34Jordan and LeBron and Kobe.
21:36Like, if we don't get better, we're going backwards.
21:39Yes, sir.
21:40Yes, sir.
21:41Anti-bullying awareness.
21:42Yes.
21:42Theo the hero.
21:43Theo the hero.
21:44Yes.
21:45The book.
21:45Oh, yeah.
21:46Yeah.
21:47My, yeah, one of my partners, you know, up in Philly, we decided to do the anti-bullying.
21:54There was a lot of things going on.
21:56And the internet was just full of it, you know, of kids.
22:00And, you know, bullying is a huge, it's still a huge problem.
22:04They don't talk about it a lot as much as they were before, even though NBA had a promo a
22:10couple of years ago about anti-bullying.
22:12And when you see some of the situations and the amount of suicide kids are having from people doing cyberbullying
22:25or, you know, having those personal bullies that push them to that edge, I mean, it just breaks your heart.
22:32And, you know, and I wanted to, we wanted to make sure that we were touching on something that was
22:37kind of making a difference.
22:38And with the book, you also have the reading aspect of it.
22:42Kids are, it's fun, it's a fun book, you know, talking about me and how I kind of dealt with
22:47bullying throughout some junior high days when I wasn't an NBA guy.
22:52So I was just a long-skinned guy with little money, you know, living in a low income, with short
22:59pants, too short for my legs.
23:02You know, people, you know, we used to call it janky back in the day.
23:06They was on your neck.
23:07Yeah, they was on my neck.
23:09So just things like that where we wanted to be able to touch and have a source to go to
23:18kids, you know, young kids and talk to them about bullying and possibly cartel it at a younger age where
23:25they see, look, you don't have to be a bully.
23:27You don't.
23:28And if you're bigger than other people, you can be nice and still be the good guy in the group.
23:36You don't have to try to be nasty to people.
23:38And most of the time, you end up in a bad situation when you do become that guy.
23:44And those childhood relationships evolve and revolve into summer.
23:47Exactly.
23:48Because you never know where somebody's going to be.
23:49You never know who's connected to who.
23:52Right.
23:52And the positive is always better than negative.
23:54Right.
23:55For sure.
23:56Atlanta Hawks basketball.
23:5826-27 season.
23:59Hawks.
24:01Yes, sir.
24:01What you thinking?
24:02Hey, man, I love it.
24:04Man, I love, I think Johnson went to Duke, right?
24:08Yeah, J.J.
24:09J.J.
24:10remind me of Grant Hill.
24:11Yep.
24:12He remind me of Grant Hill.
24:14When I played in Detroit, when I got drafted to Detroit, Grant was our point forward.
24:18Wow.
24:19Yes.
24:20And he has the same type of athleticism that Grant has, and he's a problem.
24:25He's a problem.
24:26He did a great job.
24:27Made an all-star team.
24:29They had a very decent year, playoffs and all that stuff.
24:33But I think this year, you're going to see a jump.
24:36I like the size of the team.
24:38I like them.
24:40The kid they drafted from Arkansas, right?
24:45Yep.
24:45Yep.
24:46The point guard, he's a very tough-minded point guard.
24:51Wiggins or Keyshawn?
24:53Hmm?
24:53Wiggins or Keyshawn?
24:55Yeah.
24:55Gilbert.
24:56Hmm?
24:57You talking about Gilbert or Keyshawn?
24:58No, the point guard for the Hawks?
25:00Yeah.
25:02I thought not the kid from Arkansas?
25:04What's his name?
25:06Nah, I can't call her name.
25:09I know he played with Calipari.
25:12That's all I know.
25:13But I think that's going to be a good control factor for them when they need kind of that balance.
25:22Should get a lot of balance this year.
25:23With the point guard that's kind of switched Johnson off the ball a little bit.
25:27And I think they definitely should be a fast-break team.
25:31I think, you know, most of the guys, 6'8", 6'9", you know, and up.
25:35Yeah, they got some height.
25:36That's going to be on the floor.
25:37They got some height.
25:38That's some speed.
25:39Yeah, Mel made a great jump last year in coming in and establishing himself as a guy that can score
25:46the ball.
25:46And he's always been a tough defender.
25:48So, I think that's going to be a great look for them.
25:54Like I said, the East is packed because, I mean, you got, you know, LeBron and Jalen Brown.
26:00They look good with them sixes.
26:03They done built another one, huh?
26:04They done built another one, man.
26:05LeBron had packed up and took this town to Philly.
26:08And the Knicks still doing what they're doing.
26:10Halliburton coming back.
26:12It's going to be some nice teams.
26:15And Orlando look good, too.
26:16Orlando look really good.
26:18Magic going up.
26:19Yeah, so it's going to be a nice test to see because they're a similar size team.
26:24They're going to match up pretty good.
26:26They're going to match up pretty good, I think, for the first game.
26:29But I'm looking forward to the season this year.
26:31Definitely going to get to a lot of games, check these guys out, you know.
26:35This whole Atlanta sports arena is incredible right now.
26:38Oh, yeah.
26:38Yeah, Atlanta sports is going crazy.
26:41You know, like I said, the dream, they doing their thing.
26:45I was joking with one of my friends.
26:48I said, man, Angel Reese is the Kevin Garnett.
26:51You see the Kevin Garnett.
26:53They be trying to hate on Angel so bad.
26:55They be trying to hate on her so bad.
26:57Man, I don't know why.
26:59She plays harder than anybody.
27:02So, I mean, if you have somebody that plays hard like that and got the passion for the game, I
27:07mean, I don't have no problem.
27:08I mean, I used to just laugh at Kevin Garnett because he's screaming and hollering.
27:12And she do the same thing.
27:14She throw out, they can't guard me.
27:17I was watching the last game.
27:19I just started laughing.
27:20I think they compare her to Kaitlin so much, but they don't understand.
27:23They play two totally different positions.
27:26She's not even – that's not even close to a comparison.
27:28Right.
27:28It's not a comparison.
27:29No, no.
27:30If you see Kevin Garnett play basketball – when you see Kevin Garnett play basketball, you see what she do.
27:37She look at Kevin Garnett play basketball for sure because their energy and she talking to herself and doing all
27:44the things
27:45and hyping herself up and she's balling.
27:48She's definitely balling.
27:49And the squad is doing – you know, they're doing a great job.
27:52Howard, I mean, the whole crew.
27:54So, they definitely need to take this thing home, you know, coming up.
28:00Demopolis, Alabama.
28:02Yes, sir.
28:02You know it.
28:03Pistons, 76ers, the Hawks, the Trailblazers, the Celtics, the Timberwolves, the Spurs, the Hornets, and the Lakers.
28:12Yes, sir.
28:1216 years in the NBA.
28:1416.
28:1595 to 11.
28:191,968 blocked shots.
28:22Three-time leading blocker in the NBA.
28:25How can people follow you because I know you're doing motivational speaking
28:27and you're doing a lot of different things in the community.
28:29So, how can people contact you if they're interested in being a part of what you got going on?
28:34Yeah, yeah.
28:35They can always contact me on my LinkedIn.
28:39They can just look up Theo Ratliff on my LinkedIn.
28:41And then also Instagram, Shot Blocker.
28:45Shot Blocker on Instagram.
28:47The one and only Shot Blocker.
28:48Theo Ratliff on LinkedIn.
28:50Yes, sir.
28:50And if you see them in the streets, buy them a Sprite.
28:57That's what's up.