Joel Meyers, the longtime TV voice of the New Orleans Pelicans and a veteran NBA broadcaster, will be sharing with Pelicans fans weekly conversations he has with friends and colleagues in the media and the NBA. Up next is P.J. Carlesimo, an NBA analyst for ESPN’s TV and radio programs. This is the first of two parts of Joel’s conversation with P.J.

Joel Meyers: Ever since you left the bench, you’ve been on ESPN. Whether it’s on TV or radio. Do you find yourself looking at games just to kind of be prepared, be ready just in case we’re back in June or July?

P.J. Carlesimo: Between doing the interviews, that kind of keeps me in it a little bit. If Indianapolis or ESPN calls up, I’ll pull out the stats from what they’ve done so far. That kind of keeps me in it. What I’ve found I’m doing a lot of – and I’m sure it’s the same for you – is that I’ll get a call from San Antonio that says they’re playing game six tonight from the 2003 finals. I’m very conversed in with things that happened 20 years ago. I’m not as good as what’s happened recently. People every once in a while want to know what’s going to happen. I just think it’s going to be so different for all these teams to try and build the bridge back to where they were. In my mind, it was no question that the Lakers and the Bucks were head and shoulders above everybody else at that point when we went down. I know people are talking about the Clippers and when they get healthy and all this, but I mean I thought those two teams had distanced themselves from everybody else. Now it’s totally unchartered territory. We know what it’s like in October and November when the ball is kind of going all over the place and you start going, ‘Well, hey. It’s going to take a while to get in basketball shape and it’s going to take a while for these teams to come together.’ Yeah there’s a big advantage in that they’ve played 50 or 60 games. That’s good, but it seems so long ago and conditioning is going to be such a challenge. I think there will be some guys in very good shape because of what they’ve had access to in terms of being able to work out and I think other guys are not going to be in good shape at all, particularly basketball shape, because they haven’t shot the ball that much.

Joel Meyers: You’ve coached at the highest level for a long time. Do you go back and re-live – and you brought up 2003, 2005, 2007 where you won rings as an assistant coach with Gregg Popovich. The game that stand out in my mind, for you, is 1989…the upset of Bobby Knight and Indiana 78-65 and then the No. 1 seed at the time, the Michigan Wolverines. Do you go back? Do you look at that? When is the last time you saw that, because I still don’t think it was a foul with three seconds to go. Rumeal Robinson goes to the line. Do you go back and revisit that at all?

P.J. Carlesimo: I don’t. I used to get calls – I still will – when ESPN Classic replayed the game. I always get a bunch of texts or phone calls the next day or sometimes that night. I remember a couple of times checking into hotels late at night, as you and I are used to when a team gets to a city, and all of the sudden the phone will ring, ‘Hey, they’re playing the championship game.’ I don’t watch it. I don’t go back. I’ve seen the clip of the play itself a number of times, but I haven’t gone back to watch it. It’s funny living in Seattle, that game of course was in the Kingdome in 1989.  I swear – I’ll say a month, I used to say a week – a month doesn’t go by that two or three people don’t stop me and say, ‘Hey I was at that game.’ I think I’ve talked to 200,000 people that claim they were at the game. It’s a good memory because that whole trip – the five wins preceding the one-point overtime loss to Michigan – we really enjoyed. It was a special team, obviously, and it was a great time. I actually got a chance to talk about it a lot a month or so ago when they cancelled the NCAA Tournament because the last game I did this year was Dallas at San Antonio on March 10. Pop and I of course went out to dinner after the game and we were sitting there and had a really nice meal, and I flew out to Las Vegas the next morning intending to do the Pac-10 tournament. I was going to watch the first day and then we were going to so the semis and the finals. I was looking at three straight weeks of the NCAA Tournament for Westwood One. It was a great schedule because I had a couple of Monday and Tuesday NBA games snuck in there. It was going to be my busiest four weeks of the year, then of course the plug got pulled with Rudy Gobert and Utah/OKC that night. Then I started getting – the following week or whenever it was when the NCAA made the decision – what is it going to be like for these guys to not get a chance to play in an NCAA Tournament? People would ask me, ‘What was that like? Making a Final Four run or playing in a championship game.’ I said it was a once in a lifetime experience. Unless you’re Duke, you don’t get a chance to do that that many times. If you’re lucky enough to get back, it’s great. That is once in a lifetime for our seniors – that team that we had had about six or seven seniors. You look at the guys this year. I’m close to Mark Few – he’s not that far from here at Gonzaga over in Spokane. Seton Hall had one of their best teams this year. They had big guys; they had Myles Powell, a great guard. I think there were more teams this year with a realistic chance to win the tournament. Everybody always says they can win it, but usually it’s three or four teams or five. This year I think there were 10 teams that literally could look around and say, ‘Hey, we’re good enough to win this whole thing.’ Those teams, particularly the seniors, are never going to get a chance. Even the teams where you have guys coming back, it’s not the same thing. It’s not the same team. It’s sad if you’ve experienced it because it’s such a phenomenal event, particularly for a senior or a team like Dayton or San Diego State this year. Not that Dayton will never get back there or San Diego State will never get back there, but those were really special teams and everybody wanted to see, ‘Hey, can these guys play with the teams from the power conferences?’ Obviously you’ll never know. Compared to what’s going on, is that all important? No. But for a lot of these guys and girls, it literally was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Joel Meyers: A couple of years ago Donte DiVincenzo had an amazing run and championship game for Villanova. Those opportunities were lost for guys that wanted to advance to the NBA.

P.J. Carlesimo: No question. The Final Four for a lot of people define their careers with what they’ve done there. Donte is the perfect example. I saw him a lot because I still do some Big East Conference (games). Jay Wright is a good friend, so I watch them. I like Donte. I had him the year before in the regional, I think when they beat Texas Tech, and I really liked him. I thought he was a good player. Even when he was drafted I said, ‘Boy, people are really overreacting to what happened in the Final Four.’ Having covered Milwaukee a couple of times in the past few years – last year he was banged up – he’s really a good player. He’s an excellent player. Like you said, that wouldn’t have happened without the Final Four…it wouldn’t have happened that year without the Final Four experience.  

Joel Meyers: Let’s move on to the Spurs. You’re with them in ’03 and they win the title in six games over Jason Kidd and the Nets. It’s Tony Parker’s second year, Manu Ginóbili is a rookie. Then (2005) comes up, Brent Barry is added (along with) a couple other guys, (Bruce) Bowen is already there. Then 2007. What stands out in your mind about those three championship ruins with Gregg Popovich?

P.J. Carlesimo: I’ll tell you what really surprised me, as I’m getting toward senility and you’re knocking on the door too. I had forgotten so many things about that game six. (My son Kyle) watched it with me. The game is over and Kyle says, ‘Timmy (Duncan) had a quadruple-double.’ As it turned out, the stat crew messed up; they only had him for eight blocks to go with I think 21 points, 20 boards, and 10 assists. The game was ridiculous how well he played. I don’t think anybody’s ever had those kind of numbers in a clinching game in the NBA Finals. What I had forgotten, I’m watching the fourth quarter and we’re down seven or nine points (and) go on a 19-0 run, which I forgot. Steven Jackson had three threes, Speedy Claxton was unbelievable. Jack and Speedy finished the game like Pop always did: if guys were going good, you didn’t necessarily go back to the starters or go back to who he would finish a game with. Jack hit three threes in that 19-0 run. Speedy was unbelievable, I think he had two buckets. David (Robinson) is playing his last game. You couldn’t have had a more fairy-tale ending to a career. David is playing at home in, I think, the first year of the AT&T Center. There were so many different story lines, but to me…Tim was the constant. There’s no question about that. I had no recollection that he literally had a quadruple-double in that game. I’m watching one of the other games against Detroit, I think in game seven in 2007. He blocks a shot – which again, other guys swat the ball out of bounds and then walk around like a rooster. Timmy would block the ball softly up in the air and catch it himself and he got control of it. He dribbles the ball up the floor, he stops and hit a top of the key jump shot, we’re down five. It’s a huge play, and he stops and knocks down a jump shot. I’m sure sitting on the bench, I was thinking, ‘What is he doing?’ Of course he knocks the shot down, we cut it to three and end up winning the game. If a guy can be underrated, and yet at the same time go into the Hall of Fame which he’s doing this year, it’s Tim Duncan. You know him. He’s a better person than he was a player, but I almost had forgotten just how special Tim Duncan was through those three championships. When you look at it, it was one in ’99 and another one in ’14. So I guess he got five championships.

Joel Meyers: Pretty amazing individual, as you said.

You coached Kevin Durant his rookie season. Did you have a good feel that this guy was going to be that good at that time? I remember sitting down with him at Key Arena when you were the coach, a couple of hours before game time. I asked him about that commercial where he was walking through the tunnel by the locker room and taking off all of those jerseys…his first Nike commercial. I asked him about it and said, ‘Who is Drew Freeman’s All-Stars?’ and he smiled and he goes, ‘That was my middle school.’ Did you realize at the time – because you had him his very first year – did you realize Durant was going to be this good?

P.J. Carlesimo: I actually did and it’s not because I’m insightful or know basketball, it’s because Stevie Wonder would have known (laughter). If you watched one practice, there was no question. I remember calling Rick Barnes, I was standing in our bedroom in our home in San Antonio where you and I had a glass of wine or two (laughter) and I called Rick up when I thought I was going to get the scout job and I said, ‘How good is he, I’ve seen him on TV,’ and he kind of said the same thing we said about Timmy (Tim Duncan). He said ‘let me tell you, he’s a gym rat. You’ll have to kick him out of the gym. All he wants to do is be a great player. He’s a great teammate, he’s unbelievable, he can shoot it, he’s so skilled, you’d be shocked at how big he is, and, here’s the best news; he’s a better person than he is a player,’ I mean it was like he couldn’t have been bubbling over more. So, we get him, I get the job, I think I had to stay for the press conference or something like that. The team is in Vegas getting ready for Summer League and Ralph Lewis is coaching the team, one of our assistants, and we go and watch five minutes of a practice and I’m going ‘holy God,’ I couldn’t believe it. I wish I had tapes because I remember some scrums after some practices when we got back to Seattle and we’re getting ready to start the season in October and people saying how good he was, and I remember saying specifically, because I didn’t want to put too much (pressure) on him, that we weren’t going to be a good team, I think he’ll be a 8-10-time All Star, he may be good enough to make a run at MVP, he’s going to win championships in the league, and (the media) is looking at me [surprised], because he was really skinny, really thin, and (the media) said ‘wow’ and I said ‘I don’t feel like I’m sticking my neck out. You guys watch him play and you’re going to believe it,’ you know, they could only watch 10 minutes of the practice and we hadn’t had any games except Summer League games at that point. If you had watched him play and particularly if you knew him, if you got to know the person, I mean he’s like, you know, people talk about (Michael Jordan) and watching the series now and people still talk about LeBron, rightfully so, Kobe, of course, those guys out-worked the other players in the league. It’s a bad combination when a guy naturally has more talent than most of the other players in the league, but then he has a work ethic and he out-works the other players in the league that are less talented, then they’re going to be a real problem. We’d come back from a trip, and I’d be sitting in my office, and any time I heard a ball bouncing at two or three-o-clock in the morning I knew who it was. I got a kick out of it, you literally had to kick him out of the gym, and there’s nothing you could ask him to do that he wouldn’t do. He was that motivated to be the best player, and even later in his career. Right now, still, I guarantee when he comes back, there’s no question how he’s going to come back. It’s physically possible he’s going to come better than he was because he’s going to be out-working these people. Right now I guarantee he’s working as hard, if not harder, than anybody in the NBA right now. That’s Kevin Durant, and it was real easy to see how good he was going to be.