• Show Notes
• Transcript

Want more of the Thrivetime Show?
Subscribe Today!

Ladies and gentlemen, on today’s show, we interview the 15 year NBA player turned entrepreneur and now a broadcaster for the NBA, Sacramento Kings, Mr. Doug Christie. But his time spent in the NBA while being coached by the NBA Hall of fame and Iconic Basketball legend, Mr. Pat Riley, we ask Doug Christie what it’s like to play with some of the NBA, his best players, including Chris Webber, Mike Bibby, and Bobby Jackson. And on today’s show, this former number 17 overall NBA draft pick shares about his revolutionary new fitness related crux, transitioning into becoming a broadcaster and to look into his daily routines and habits that keep him looking at healthy, silky and smooth. That is a gentleman. It’s my pleasure to introduce to you, Mr. Doug Christie.

Some shows don’t need a celebrity in a writer to introduce the show, but this show.to mayor Koch created by two different women, 13 multimillion-dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the thrive.

What

got it?

On today’s show, we have the opportunity to interview former NBA basketball star in the current color commentator for the Sacramento Kings. Mr. Doug Christie, welcome onto the show. How are you, sir?

I am doing fantastic. How about yourself?

Well, I am honored to have you on, I remember watching you on the court, my friend. You are a defensive specialist who can also score.

Yes, yes. But if I was playing today, I would be, uh, I’d be a hot ticket, my friend.

Ah, yes, yes. Okay. Now you’ve achieved a lot of success throughout your career, but if you could kind of start off at the bottom or, or the very beginning, what was your childhood like growing up and how did that impact your path to becoming the person you are today?

You know, so, I grew up in Seattle, Washington in a single parent. I didn’t meet my father until I was almost eight or nine years old and I thought I was a latchkey kid, which, you know, you could get into a lot of trouble. And I, I did get into my fair share of trouble and then all of a sudden I found team sports. I started with soccer. And then, uh, uh, my first team basketball was that 11. I played street basketball, mom, my whole, my whole life, but I finally got on the team because the community center across the street had burned down and when they built it back up, they put a team together. And from that point, it was no looking back. So I think if for me in a lot of different ways, but uh, you know, the city of Seattle is always, it’s near and dear to my heart because coming out of there and since then, so many different players have come out and they all give me love when I see them because, uh, it was one of those things that would seem like once one broke through the kind of broken.

Since then, we’ve had a lot of kids who come out of Seattle.

No, I understand. While playing in Seattle, I believe you played for coach Dave Dinny at Mark Morris high school. Um, how did he help you improve your game and your overall mindset with his mentorship?

That’s interesting. So when I finally met my dad, coach Dave Denny is in Longview, Washington, which is about 90 minutes away. And I was telling you I was getting in trouble. So my mom sent me down there and just for a year to live with my father. And before that, uh, I was, I was in Seattle obviously, but to go to coach Denny, he was big because I was a street basketball player so I didn’t, the fundamentals weren’t really part of my game. It was just instinctual and I just played and when I got to the long view, it’s a smaller town. They have different ways and uh, the fundamentals, the jump stops to pivots, the different types of training and different stuff. So when I came back to Seattle, I had an extra gear, I had extra things that some of the other players didn’t have and I could see ya. Now I’m adding street gangs to the fundamental game. And that’s really what he gave me. When I came back. My high school coach in Seattle was male Williams and I credit him because he was the first guy that I ever heard speak truth to power to my dream. I wanted to make it to the NBA, but I had never, never heard anyone say it and he was the first guy that I ever heard say, you know what, you can make it to the MBA.

We know the step two to get into the NBA was playing in college and you went to Pepperdine. Uh, when did you feel like your game was at a level where you thought I could make it in the league? I mean, when did you, was it a sophomore year? Junior year. When did you feel like your skills were at a level where you thought, you know, I can do this?

You know, it was probably my junior year because my first year I didn’t play because of proposition 48 my second year I got a few minutes and then my third year kind of similar to high school, I exploded in high school and my junior year and I exploded at Pepperdine and my junior year, the MVP of the league and all of a sudden bang. I was like, okay, wow. I think that this is something I can do. We started going to play teams like North Carolina and different things. So now I’m starting to see these people who are getting a lot of publicity and they’re saying they would be draft picks and different things like that and I’m playing really well against them.

Now you got drafted by the Sonics. What was it like to hear your name called and the draft? Okay.

Oh man, that’s you know, for a kid that’s like the greatest moment of all time. I mean you, you hear the commissioner David Stern go up and say with the 17 pinks in the 1992 drafts the Seattle Supersonics like the crispy. So you pair that with the fact that Seattle is my home town and you know, that’s just, it was a blessing that didn’t turn into a blessing because of the contract negotiations and different things. But to hear your name called is it a dream come true?

We traded right away. I mean you got a lot of trades throughout your career. What does it feel like when you’re traded?

You know, obviously at the beginning, and I say this to some younger players, is when you’re in high school, you go to high school and you live with that high school for your whole life. You know I’m from Rainier beach forever blue and orange. Then you go to college, I’m a wave, Pepperdine, blue and orange and you make it to the NBA and you. Your mentality is that that that’s going to be the same thing is going to be yellow and green, Seattle Supersonics, but all of a sudden that’s when you get traded. You learn that this is a business and it slaps you in the face and now you, if you haven’t been understanding about the business aspect, you really have to take that into consideration

from the Knicks to the raptors to the kings, and they had a lot of great experiences. What was your favorite NBA experience? What was the team where you felt like, okay, I’ve finally got my NBA traction?

That’s easy because that was the king’s, but you just mentioned three things. I hit him really quickly when I, when I go to the Knicks, I learned how to be a pro because Pat Riley, I learned how to come early, stay late. That was incredible. I go to Toronto was a, there’s their first year in the NBA and a Hall of Famer. Isaiah Thomas is there and he kind of takes the reins off and allows me to think differently and explore myself. And I really started getting traction. So by the time I got to Sacramento, everything hit on top of the fact that the Sacramento situation with the teammates, with the style of play, it was just a perfect storm. What I call it, basketball, Nirvana.

I really like Pat Riley and probably an unhealthy way, his intensity and I just loved his career. Uh, what was it like playing for him? Was it scary?

You know, that’s funny that you asked that question because, so the first time that I met Pat Riley, you know, I like you watched him on television and saw the suits and the hair and the professionalism. And the first time that I met him, I walked to his office and when I first got traded there and the secretary said, please sit down. Wait. And you know, I waited probably six, seven minutes. It seemed like an hour though. But when I walked in, it was a, it was a dark office with wood. He was kind of sitting behind a desk like, you know don Corleone. Oh my God, Pat Riley. And I love him to this day because of his honesty and his frankness. And I credit him with a lot that happened because I learned how to be a true professional. Andrea,

you were surrounded by talent and you all seem to gel in this way. That was a, it was almost like you were brothers. It was that camaraderie of the fab five kinds of a vibe, you know? And it was like a Chris Webber. I mean, just wow you wow. Bibby wow. They just had great chemistry. Talk to me about the chemistry and how deep did that chemistry go? Was it five players, deep, six players, deep. Eight players need. Talk to me about that team chemistry of the greatest show on the court.

Now back with the Kings. They’re trying to build that back with bloody as the general manager. I think that that’s kind of what I watched. That looks like the field that they’re trying to get. It wasn’t five, six, seven it was. It was all 1415 guys. And the reason I say that is because in practice, the second unit, they would go at us so hard if we weren’t ready to play that day. And I always said our second unit probably lose the top five to seven team in the NBA with Bobby Jackson and, and all the Hito Turka Lou and Scot Pollard. And they had a, they had a really quality squad. They would beat us up, but it was when you say family and brotherhood, it’s a, it was a healthy going at each other, not playing buddy ball and being friends. We are, we love each other and love each other. To this day, I work with the page of the lottery and Bobby every single day right now. And I see him go hug him every day. But it was the ability to push one another and care for one another on a level that you normally don’t see in athletics. And if you do see it, it’s some of the really elite teams because that is the special thing that they can go through a team and make you go to a different level.

I don’t, I know you’re a sports color commentator, so I’m not gonna get any hot water by comparing this player versus that player. But I just want to ask you about you, your team there. There are guys in the NBA right now, and I’m sure we could all think of them. All the listeners out there where you go, that guy is going to find a way to get 19 or 27 points no matter what he has to do. You know, you pass the ball to him. Doug Christie, I’m sure you’ve seen this as a color commentator and there’s a guy, he’s not, he’s not passing. He’s going to dribble. He’s gonna wait till that shot clock gets down and he’s going to get his 22 points and maybe the team is at the team’s detriment. You know, it seems like on the Kings you guys would pass that ball and whoever was closest to the basket, whoever had the best shot, got the shot. Can you talk about the unselfishness of the Chris Webber? Mike Bibby experiences

the unselfishness to Chris Webber because as a superstar and a Hall of Famer, hopefully, I don’t know why he’s not already. Yeah, he was. He set the table for the ability because if he would have been selfish, then it kind of permeates through the team. What was his own selfishness? It just, it was something that just kind of went through the ball club and all of a sudden the ball is moving around and I heard coach Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs say this when it when a play is drawn up for a particular player, it’s not for that player to it’s or the team to score. And a lot of those mindsets we took, we don’t get credit for them because we didn’t win a championship, but the point is we kind of understood that that ball would move around. The ball has the energy it would normally find the best player, but we all worked on our game. Everyone can pass, dribble, shoot the screen, all the different things. So it was a high level of trust. Now I would also see Chris’s face and I’m like, okay, it’s probably about time that he gets a shot. We’ve been shooting a little bit so we make sure to give it a ball.

Probably got 28 29 points a game and he wanted to, he could have sat there and his whole career put up 27 28 the game.

Oh absolutely. Easily. I mean with us he was 25 27 a couple of years, 22 but if you look at it, it was he would allow other people to contribute with, took the team to a higher level. Yeah, you’re right. He could have probably took an extra eight to 10 shots a game is his average would’ve went up, but then the team average wins, would’ve gone down. And to his credit, I think that he recognized the team aspect coming from the fab five and all that he did. He brought that right to the NBA.

I’m from Minnesota, watch a lot of Bobby Jackson. How good was he?

Yeah, man. Bobby is, he’s, he’s one of my favorites.. And I say that because Bobby and I played one on one all the time. Practice sometimes it got so physical where they had to send us home. We bumped, heads got cut, but we sharpen each other’s skills. He learned how to play against a taller guard. I learned how to play against a smaller guard, but Bobby could have started for any other team in the NBA at point guard and his unselfishness was the ability to say, you know what, I’m going to come off the bench. He was a sixth man of the year, but he made that second group so special because you got to start in quality guard. It’s coming up. I mean he went to the final four. All the different things that he does. I give him a bunch of crap every day that I see him. But the point is I love him to death and he’s about a specialist. You get

my partner and I, we’ve been blessed to build 13 multimillion-dollar different businesses. And you know this cause you’re an entrepreneur. When you build a business it takes two years, three years, four, maybe five, maybe six to get that traction. And then once the business gets up into orbit it, it, it’s, it’s more, it’s more fun. I’d like to talk about your career as an announcer, as a broadcaster. How long did it take you to [inaudible] when you’re a calling the games to feel like you weren’t bad because you sound great now. What? I mean, how long did it take you to, for you to feel like, oh boy, I screwed that up. I mean, how long did it take for you to feel comfortable?

You know, interestingly enough, I don’t listen to myself cause I have a hard time doing it. So I’m a question asker. So I asked people because ultimately what I think doesn’t matter, it’s what the people think. So that’s what I do. I asked what you think, how you know, how do I do this? This all started with me coming to do a camp for the kings and golden one, which is the golden one center now. And uh, after I did the camp they liked it. They took me into the office. We started talking about all the times I didn’t really realize it was the interview and they called me. I was living in Los Angeles and said would you like to do pre and post on the radio? So I do pre and post on the radio from my son’s closet. They had, I had my physioball.

I’d sit there and watch the game. Then I’d go pro before the game at halftime and afterward. And I would just give my analysis. That worked out pretty well. I go to pre and post television cause Bobby took a few games off. They liked me and before you know it, they have me start doing color and here I am. It’s just, it’s kind of been a really fast thing. The feedback has been fantastic and so for me, I have a hard time, I don’t have a hard time watching myself when I played, but I have a hard time listening to myself. I don’t know why.

Well, they’re using the three-bar. What’s The r three-bar? How can it help our listeners out there?

Then the rebar is, first of all, there are four of my partners and one of his, and his name is Tim mass and he was my trainer when I was in the Mba. The best trainer in the world. Look him up man. I just can’t even say ended up. So Tim creates the rebar, we help and we put it out to market in the rebar works on all the intrinsic muscles. Most of the time when you train stability, what do you train? You train to big muscles, the ones that you see in the mirror, this one trains all of the small muscles, work on movement dysfunction and all those types of things. So we’re talking stability, flexibility, and it can train strength at the same time. But there’s a trilogy because we have a rubber band system that are rubber bands that works on flexibility, stability, and mobility, and then we have a third one.

It’s coming. It’s not ready yet, but it’s coming to market pretty soon, so the trilogy of them with the rebar being a, the foundational piece of teaching people how to be efficient in motion because ultimately, in my opinion, that’s where sports is going. It’s going to be the, and you see it with the Golden State Warriors. You saw it with our team, the team in any soccer team that you watch, whether it’s Argentina, whoever your team is, the efficiency of the ball moving, the efficiency of movement of the players and that’s what the rebar does. So you got an aging population. This is the piece of equipment that’s going to allow the aging population as well as weekend warriors, elite athletes to continue to do the things that they love to do on a day to day basis.

Where can we buy the rebar?

You can go to a rebar training.com and you can see it there. You can look us up on Instagram rebar training, uh, Twitter as well and check us out rebar training. And that’s our three-bar training.com.

Now, Doug Christie, uh, one of our show sponsors, Mr. Wes Carter, he’s an attorney who represents a, uh, a TD Jakes, his law firm ever since. Td Jakes, Joyce Meyers, they’ve represented pastor Craig Rochelle, a lot of ministry people, also big businesses. Wes has a tough question I’m sure for Mr. Doug here. So West, what is your question? Wes meet Doug. Doug Christie, meet Wes. Doug Christie.

Hey, how are you, Liz?

I’m doing great. I’m curious, you know, with our entrepreneurial kind of topics that we usually cover now that you’ve transitioned from athlete announcer, what’s, what’s been the biggest surprise or challenges as you try to bring a new product, a new baby out to market as you’re, you know, gearing up, getting, bringing it to life. What’s he, the Reno I’m one of your bigger challenges or surprises you’ve encountered in the entrepreneurial world,

the things that you think are going to work. And this is where I just talked about, uh, me listening to myself. And it doesn’t matter what I think it matters what the listeners think. Similar to business is what you think is going to work doesn’t really matter because you’re not the one that’s buying the piece of equipment or you’re not buying the product. It matters what people think. And you have to take yourself out of that and a lot of times get out of your own way to find a modicum of success. And that’s, that’s something that, that we are, are truly learning on top of the fact of the financing of learning how to go out and get the type of money that you need to get to the level that you see yourself. That and as an athlete you want that success quickly because then you used to watch yourself and you’ve been at these levels, but you got to understand businesses a little bit different.

Media out there talks about how a lot of NBA players, there’s a lot of news, it says NBA players, NBA players go at this, percentage of NBA players go bankrupt after play. And they, you know, it’s vague, but bless you, you represent small business owners and Forbes says 90% of small business owners go bankrupt. So the headline that you know, it’s, it’s a sexy headline, you know, 90% of NFL players go bankrupt or it’s, you know what I mean? It’s easy to poke fun at the other guy. Right. But talk to me about just the getting game checks and how when you first got game checks, when you first started getting paid, what was that, how did you go through the process of financially managing things and did you have a financial advisor or what kind of people are there to help you in the NBA get adjusted to the financial situation of really knowing that hey, I’ve got three to five years on average to make a bunch of money and then I got to do something else that won’t pay like this. How, what kind of advice or counseling is available for guys like you?

You know, the NBA does a fantastic job now. When I first came into the NBA, they were just really tightening up that area. So a lot of mines I didn’t necessarily have, or sometimes what you see as guys get uh, the bad advice or they get around the wrong type of people. You might have, you know, a financial advisor or someone else, but if you signed over all the rights to them cashing your checks and different things, you see the horror stories of guys losing a lot of money. And it’s happened to some of the biggest players that have ever played in the NBA or professional sports. So you got to first of all, get yourself around quality people, the right people, the home run is, and always what you’re looking for. It’s the ability to, to keep your money. You want to make money with it.

But trying to always hit a home run isn’t the way to go. And usually, if you’re hearing these could get rich schemes and all those different things will, you’re already rich. What you want to do is you want to be wealthy now and you have to figure out a way. So a lot of it is trust, but the NBA has some fantastic people now that are, that are in place. If you have advice or if you want advice or different things like that on top of the fact that now I think athletes are more or less learning how to use the leverage of while they’re in the NBA. A lot of people want to be around them and different things and a lot of doors are open for you just have to ask the right questions and be willing to listen and take time to, um, to look at your situation and try to better at their best that you can.

How do you typically go about organizing those first four hours of your typical day? I mean, what, what time do you wake up every day now

I wake up about 6:00 AM uh, I start watching different shows, listening to the radio and different things as a, you know, um, you know, working out and then I take my son to school. Sometimes I put my headphones in, I’ll go hit some golf balls, just try to decompress. Uh, and then I started taking my notes and different things. So I have a radio show that I do daily from three to seven and then whenever I’m not doing that, I’m always doing the king’s games. So like right now I’m sitting in the garage getting ready to go in and jump on the radio, go from three to five 30 Pacific Time game starts at seven o’clock it just before you know it, my day starts at six but before I know it, it’s midnight.

I want to respect your time here. The final question typically looks like in the NBA during regular season Nba, it’s a Monday. What time were you waking up and what did that look like when you were in the league?

I always will on an early riser, so about six-seven o’clock right in there. If we have practice at 10 I’m getting near. Usually, about eight o’clock I go, I would get in the hot tub. I get my ankles rubbed, I lift weights, then I go out and I work on my own individual skill work. By then Bobby’s driving. We’re playing on one on one so by the time practice started I’m in a full sweat, so whatever practice consisted of, I would finish that and then I would go in reverse and I start bringing everything down usually in the night with the massage, Epsom salt, and seaweed bath to get rid of all the toxins, try to hydrate and get ready to watch some tape and start all over again.

Doug Christie, I know there are a lot of people reaching out to you for your time and I appreciate you and investing in our half a million listeners who are also honored to for you know, for you to speak into their lives. Just thank you so much my friend and I, I appreciate you more than you could possibly know.

Absolutely. I hope to do it again. If we have more time, you guys want to just let me know. I so appreciate the opportunity.

How you take care of the boss. Yes, Doug Christie was an NBA player and yes, he played in the NBA for 15 years. But since retiring from the game of basketball, he’s gone on to become a successful announcer and a successful entrepreneur. And he’s never done learning and never done applying himself. So I would ask you this today, and what area of your life are you not applying the focus or dedication needed to improve? Doug Christie also schedules every hour of his death, my friend. It is so important that you are intentional about how you spend your time, where you spend your time and who you spend your time with. So here’s my action item for you today. Get out your day timer. Get out your calendar and schedule out your day. Design a life that you’re going to love or live a life that you don’t like by default. And I was any further ado, break.