What up guys welcome back to another episode of Get Close. I'm your host, Bart Kwan, and I'm your co-host geo and today we got an NBA legend in the house Jason Richardson.

Yes, 14 seasons in the NBA one. The second person to do to win the dunk contest back to back. I'm not even quite sure who that first person is. No one cares. No one knows.

No one cares. What's that? NC double A champion. And it's crazy to you're the first like pro super high level athlete that we've actually had on this podcast. I'm honored. Yeah, we're honored.

No, thank you. So I just have so many questions. I'm just so interested. So I guess I'll start with the first one is when did you know you wanted to play in the NBA? Oh, geez.

It's funny because the story about the NBA is I always wanted to dunk. I was really big in a dunk contest. So I've grown up. I always watched a dunk contest. I'm sorry. That was the thing I wanted to do. And I didn't know that was part of the NBA. So I just wanted to give the dunk contest for the NBA. So, you know, I think I always wanted to be a basketball player with the NBA. I think for me, it was probably like the second or third grade. I knew that's what I wanted to do, which is not very bad.

So you were dunking before the second. No, no, no, I wasn't done before. I just like had a little playrooms around the house. I had those and you put us, you know, back then you used to put a hanger on the door and get a pair of socks and just imitate what it does to be seen. So, but, you know, once I start dunking, I start dunking like the ninth grade. Okay. I knew that's what I wanted to do. Wow, the ninth grade. That's amazing. When did you know you were a badass? Like when did you know you were like, I am the shit. I'm a little bit better than everyone around me. Yeah, basically.

I think around like ninth grade, I got my first dunk in high school. And then I started doing 360s and games. I started dunking on people. And I kind of realized then that, you know, I was pretty good. And then, you know, for me, I didn't grow up with much. I came from, you know, where for a system. My mom had six kids. It was tough for us. But, you know, that ninth grade year, I kind of felt like I was starting to get good. And every year, I would tell her mom would not get old on by your house.

And so every year, my mom, you know, she wasn't the type of parents, like, yeah, whatever. She's like, okay. But every year, like, man, I got five other kids on in the same shit. No, not really. It's like every year. I can hear her tone that she started to believe me more and more every year. I just like hearing that because I started getting better and better. I started getting college letters. I started getting recruited and stuff like that. So I can hear her voice every year. Like, okay. Okay. And then like, by my, you know, the time was for me to go to NBA. She's like, okay. I read from

my house. That's awesome. You know when you're like so when I think all kids got dreams right? So

when I was little my dad used to love watching like war movies so I didn't even know it was called

but as a kid I was like I want to be army man and I just thought army man meant you're just crawling

around in bushes all day right not knowing like wars or whatever anything I just want to be

crawling in bushes so when you're in second and third grade finding your passion for basketball

did you know or were you put on a specific program because kids these days oh jeez it's like

it's almost like you know some kids get scouted I've seen like kids play baseball and it's

televised on ESPN 11 years old like you don't just get there by luck you know like when you're

when you were coming up did you have a program or a set schedule or a trajectory none of that

I mean I tell people all the time I actually grew up playing hockey being from Michigan

okay I played hockey into the eighth grade and my feet got too big for skates and back then there

was no such thing as custom skates yeah yeah and so I played hockey football baseball and ran

track and I played all those sports all the way up to my junior high school so there's

no such thing as specialized sports back then you just play whatever your friends play

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