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Speaking on the latest episode of the All The Smoke podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, Mobley reflected on his time with Yao in Houston and expressed that the 7-foot-6 center was more than just a dominant post scorer. “What people don’t understand about Yao. He could pass the ball, like Joker, he could've done that,” Mobley said. “It’s just the offense didn’t. Say we would’ve had Rick Adelman, for a fact, you would’ve seen more of Yao Ming. Like that Chris Webber, that Vlade Divac, Brad Miller type of passing. He had all of it.”
How much did you feel that people they felt counted you and your teammates out during the 2006-07 “We Believe” Golden State Warriors team run in the NBA Playoffs against the Dallas Mavericks? Jason Richardson: Aw man! We felt EVERY bit of that! Every bit of that, man! We had an UNBELIEVABLE fan base out there in Oakland. They were tired of losing; it was 13, 14 years without them going to the playoffs and they just had this energy about us that just… almost propelled us going into the playoffs, you know — making the playoffs first of all. And so, we understood that people counted us out. Everybody had something against them, you know? They were saying that Baron [Davis] was “injury prone”; Stack Jack (aka Stephen Jackson) was coming off the situation in Detroit with the ‘Malice in the Palace’; they had me as a good player that’s getting numbers on a bad team… There were just so many things that we had that we wanted to prove people wrong and I think we put all of that aside and we played for each other and the only thing that we wanted to do was like, Hey we gonna let you know that one: We’re a good team and we’re good players…
Stephen Jackson on Malice at the Palace brawl: I definitely regret it, that incident cost me a lot of All-Star games
Stephen Jackson on Malice at the Palace brawl: "I definitely regret it because that didn't happen too. That incident cost me a lot of All-Star games. You know what I'm saying? $3 million and court fees and all that stuff. So, yeah, I definitely regret it. If anybody that was involved in that say they don't regret it, they lying. I definitely regret it because it put a cloud over me, too. But what I don't regret is being there for my teammate, right? You throw a beer in anybody’s face around the world, that's assault. But it's not assault when you're dealing with a tall, black, rich, black athlete. You know what I mean? So, I get it. But I would rather be there for my friends and be known for that than being one of the guys walking off and one of my teammates getting stumped out in the stands."
Stephen Jackson: I didn't admire Michael Jordan. I admired Kobe Bryant because he was the same age as me. And the dedication that he put as a teenager, I didn't think was real. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like he was just so different. McDonald's, we all at the McDonald's game. All there for the same reasons. I should have won MVP that game. We going to McDonald's after practice. He says ‘I see y'all. I'm not eating that sh*t.’ This is in high school. Everybody eat McDonald's in high school! Everybody still eat to this day. I don't, but everybody eat McDonald's in high school! The Big Mac and two fries and strawberry shake, apple pie. Everybody had that. Not Kobe. Not Kobe Bean Bryant.
Byron Scott. Game seven. You need a bucket. You got two players. Which one of these two you gonna give it to? MJ or Kobe? Stephen Jackson: I’m giving it to Kobe because just off the simple fact that I know he’s going to get us a good shot. I know it. And I know we going to get an attempt. You know, you might double him and we seen him get doubled and make the pass, the right pass. If Kobe gets the ball, we going to get a shot up. I don't care if it might be over four or five people and the odds of him making it than the other four people on the court is totally different. So I'm going with Kobe. Off the top.
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Craig Hodges on Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan: The difference was MJ's right hand
Matt Barnes: What's the difference between those two in your opinion? Craig Hodges: Right hand. Barnes: Why? Hodges: Because Kobe would be going to the line to shoot two, MJ was going to shoot the and one. So a lot of them knocks that Kobe had to shoot with two hands when that knock would happen, MJ put that bad boy over here. You know what I'm saying? Stephen Jackson: Oh, that's the difference, huh? Okay. Hodges: That is the only difference, it’s that gripper. Him and Dr. J (Julius Erving).
Stephen Jackson apologizes to Reggie Miller for Malice at the Palace
Reggie Miller got emotional during his appearance on the All the Smoke podcast when Stephen Jackson started the conversation with an apology for his part in the brawl between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons and their fans, the Malice at the Palace. “I’ve never had a chance just to tell you that I’m sorry,” said Jackson, who was suspended 30 games after the most infamous night in NBA history. “We all understood what our motivation was for that season. It wasn’t for us. It was for you. It was the whole motivation for getting things done the right way and getting a championship for you. I never got a chance to apologize to you for my actions. With me saying that, I love you even more because you defended me because you knew that I was just being a loyal teammate.”
Miller immediately got choked up and his eyes began to water after hearing his former teammate’s heartfelt words. “I did not want to go there. You don’t have to say that to me, man,” Miller told Jackson. “Come on, man. You don’t need to apologize to me. You young cats, Jamaal (Tinsley), Jermaine (O’Neal), Al (Harrington), yourself, Ron (Artest, now Metta Sandiford-Artest), made those last few years in Indiana my best years. I didn’t have my superpowers but I felt and you guys made me feel like I was Superman.”
Vernon Maxwell: I accidentally hit Horace Grant with a dumbbell trying to hit Gary Payton
Stephen Jackson: We all make mistakes but I heard you made a mistake and accidentally hit Horace Grant over the head with a dumbbell trying to hit Gary Payton. Vernon Maxwell: I was trying to get GP upside his motherf*cking head with a dumbbell and hit my boy hard, that's my boy… Jackson: And put him out two weeks! Maxwell: Yeah it was my fault. I bruised him pretty bad. That's my boy. GP, he jumped on my young boy, hit my young boy Shammond Williams for no reason.
Stephen Jackson doesn't believe LeBron James didn't know Luka Doncic trade was happening
Matt Barnes: LeBron has a new running mate. Stephen Jackson: Yep. Barnes: I had a hard time believing, Stack, because we've been in this game a long time that LeBron had no idea that this was going down, I had a really hard time believing that but I've just been hearing more and more sh-t… Jackson: I say I don’t. Barnes: You don't believe it? He knew, he had to know, right? There ain't no f—— way. Jackson: No way. Barnes: There ain't no way! Jackson: No way. Barnes: There ain't no way that LeBron… But on the flip side people are saying hey maybe this is the Lakers finally putting their foot down and not really have to check in with Bron no more, you know what I mean? So you hear that side and it's just like but I just don’t. A trade of this magnitude and LeBron being who he is and he's always been so instrumental on whatever team he is obviously with just cause, to having a say on what happens, so I just don't see something this big going down without Bron knowing.
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Byron Scott on his beef with Stephen Jackson when he was the Nets coach: ‘It was it was a two-way street, we've both gotten older, we both grown. Like I said my biggest mistake was I wish I could go back and say let me take him to the side and explain the situation. Jackson: And I still hold that appreciation nothing has changed with you giving me the opportunity when nobody else did and allowing me to start my first NBA game so I will forever appreciate you for that’.
Stephen Jackson on Metta World Peace: 'If he was in his right mind, he could’ve won Defensive Player of the Year and MVP multiple times'
Stephen Jackson: That’s why I feel like that was the best team I’ve ever been on. From one through eight, we could’ve played with anybody, any team, on any night. And Ron Artest? Man, if he was in his right mind, he could’ve won Defensive Player of the Year and MVP multiple times. No one could stop him. No threes, no guards in the league could guard Ron. That’s heavy talk, I know, but Ron—without a cloud over him, without any distractions—was unstoppable. At 6’7”, 260 pounds, with the handle he had? He was unbelievable. Ron could lock anybody up and take pride in it. But you never knew which Ron was going to show up.
Stephen Jackson: When the protests started, Minnesota went crazy. They burned police stations. The city rolled. It felt like something out of a movie. During all this, I was getting death threats, people hacking my phone, my DMs full of hate. I lost 20 pounds. I wasn’t eating or sleeping. I was doing four or five interviews a day. But I stood tall. I had no blueprint, but I knew I had to stand up for George and for justice. This was the biggest civil rights movement in history—18 countries and 50 states protested at the same time. It had never been done before. Did we get change? Some. Is it enough? No. But I’m proud of what I did. I helped his family, his daughter, and I stood for something bigger than myself."
Stephen Jackson: "I didn’t have a better career than Ray Allen, but if you look at the games I played against a lot of these people, I balled out against them. We might not have won the game, but in my matchups with a lot of these people who y’all look up to, I bust their ass a lot of nights and locked them up. I didn’t have better careers than them, but I was a competitor. I wasn’t a better shooter than Ray, but I was a better post player, a better passer, a better defender—better at a lot of things on the court. People don’t understand that. As a fan, they just think it’s hating. But I did it in real time."
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