In this second bonus episode, Jeff Van Gundy suggests that Pat Riley's political battles with the NBA might've had something to do with the fact that he never coached the national team, while Zach Lowe theorizes that we're bound to have a reduced NBA schedule in the future. Our takes on the state of the NBA game--are there just too many threes being hurled up unless Steph Curry is shooting them?- are also covered in this loaded discussion.

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Special guests Jeff Van Gundy and Zach Lowe agree on whom they would choose to take the last shot between LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. (It might be a surprise.) That and many other topics, such as the uphill battle the U.S. faces in the upcoming Olympic Games, are rolled out on the first of two bonus episodes.

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At last the gold medal game is here, and Spain, led by Kobe Bryant’s new Los Angeles Lakers teammate Pau Gasol, is the formidable opponent. Back and forth they go, and at crunch time it’s going to be up to LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and, of course, the late, great Mamba. Interviews with Craig Miller, Mike D'Antoni, Chris Bosh, Coach K, Sean Ford, Jason Kidd, Deron Williams.

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As the Redeem Team tears through the Beijing Olympics, we meet some of the lesser-knowns on the team, like Tayshaun Prince and Michael Redd; deconstruct the quarterbacking and athletic brilliance of LeBron James and even ponder the relative merits of Whitney Houston vs. Mariah Carey, Olympians in their own way. Interviews with Jerry Colangelo, Chris Bosh, Deron Williams, Jason Kidd, Carmelo Anthony, Jim Boeheim, Craig Miller and Mike D'Antoni.

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In the days leading up to the 2008 Games, Kobe Bryant gets away (barely) with tardiness but not with questionable shot selection. Once in Beijing, Yao Ming hits an opening shot heard throughout the land, but the U.S. at last gets the chance to flex its Olympic muscle.  Starring Chris Bosh, Coach K, Craig Miller, Jason Kidd, Carmelo Anthony, Jerry Colangelo.

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LeBron James led a so-so team into the Finals during the regular season, but Kobe Bryant, by the measure of most, including Coach Mike Krzyzewski, is the league’s best player. So when Mamba joins the Redeem Team in the summer of 2007, which one is really in charge on the court? Starring Chris Bosh, Phil Jackson, Anthony Carmelo, Deron Williams, Coach K, Jason Kidd.

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While an injury keeps Kobe Bryant away from USA Basketball after his highest-scoring season, newly crowned champion Dwyane Wade joins LeBron James for version 1.0 of the Redeem Team. But trouble awaits in the semifinals of the FIBA World Championships.

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We unlock the secret of why players like Carmelo Anthony, Jason Kidd and Chris Bosh buy into the coaching style of Mike Krzyzewski. Why, Coach K’s not some gentleman from Duke; he’s a swearing machine from the mean streets of Chicago.

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With USA Basketball in shambles, they turn to "The Godfather," Jerry Colangelo, who proved to be instrumental in reviving the program. There are other "Great Men" with courage, intellect, and leadership that made The Redeem Team great, including of course Mike Krzyzewski, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, but the first Great Man to come along and change the course of USA basketball's history was Jerry Colangelo. Colangelo has owned, general managed, and coached the Phoenix Suns basketball team, he was Chairman of Basketball Operations for the Philadelphia 76ers, he owned the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball, the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA, the Arizona Sandsharks of the Continental Indoor Soccer League, the Arizona Rattlers of the Indoor Football League, he was instrumental in relocating the Winnipeg Jets hockey team to become the Phoenix Coyotes, he built a basketball program at Grand Canyon University, and he's been president of the NBA Board of Governors. And that's not even the most interesting part of his bio. This episode also includes stories and interviews with Portland Trailblazer and Redeem Teamer Carmelo Anthony, Redeem Teamer and now assistant coach for the LA Lakers Jason Kidd, NBA champion and Redeem Teamer Deron Williams, and winningest coach in NBA history Phil Jackson, among others.

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After a memorable 2003 NBA draft that included four eventual iconic champions that would enrich the 2008 Redeem Team including LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, three of these young stars are thrust into the spotlight at the 2004 Olympics. The experience is anything but golden and the U.S. Olympic program arrives at a crossroads. On this episode you'll hear from Dwyane Wade (Redeem Teamer, 3-time NBA champion with the Miami Heat, 13-time NBA All-Star), Carmelo Anthony (Redeem Teamer, 10-time NBA All-Star and current Portland Trail Blazer), Deron Williams (NBA champion, former Utah Jazz point guard, and Redeem Team member), Grant Wahl (Former senior writer for Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports correspondent, host of podcasts including "Fútbol with Grant Wahl" and "American Prodigy: Freddy Ad‪u"), Craig Miller (USA Basketball's Chief Communications Officer extraordinaire, headed PR for the 1992 Dream Team and the 2008 USA Basketball Men's Senior National Team), and Sean Ford (USA Basketball's National Team Director).

FROM THE EPISODE:

JACK MCCALLUM: Ladies and gentlemen, Darko Miličić went 2nd to the Detroit Pistons before Carmelo Anthony, who was 3rd before Chris Bosh, who was 4th. And before Dwyane Wade who was 5th. So that is fully, as we said before, that is 1/3 of the kids who five years later would be on The Redeem team. But that draft interestingly gave us those guys. I think that's probably ranked among the greatest drafts of all time. Do you have any memories of other great drafts?

J.A. ADANDE: It’s right up there. To me, I think the standard has to be the 1984 draft. If nothing else it gave us Michael Jordan, but also Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, John Stockton's in there as well. So if you think about stocking Olympic teams, you've got Barkley, Jordan, and John Stockton. So there's a third of the 1992 Dream Team comes out of that one draft, similar to the way that the 2003 draft stocked the Redeem Team of 2008.

JACK MCCALLUM: Yeah. Another great draft was your guy: Kobe Bryant in 1996. You got Kobe, you got Ray Allen, you got Steve Nash. You got —

J.A. ADANDE: Allen Iverson at the top of that —

JACK MCCALLUM: AI was right there, Peja Stojaković, Marcus Camby, Stephon Marbury, a bunch of guys… Derek Fisher, who watched for a hundred years 

J.A. ADANDE: Won five championships with Kobe.

JACK MCCALLUM: …making jump shots out in LA. But 1996 was a great NBA draft. What's to me is why — I don't remember, maybe because nobody gives too much of a damn about Cleveland, but was there ever an examination of how LeBron James got to Cleveland? You remember Patrick Ewing and the New York conspiracy? Good ol’ LeBron only had about a 22% chance of going to a Cleveland, but nevertheless, there he was. I don't think there has ever been one athlete — correct me if I'm wrong — who has ever brought more of a renaissance to one city. When Michael Jordan went to Chicago, Chicago was already a pretty damn great city, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Kobe later. LA was a pretty good city, too; they had other stuff going on. LeBron James to the Cleveland Cavaliers? That set things off, man. 

J.A. ADANDE: That was everything. There is that great YouTube video. The Cleveland Tourism Board or something like that, it was like a mock Cleveland promotional video which really pointed out all the things that were *wrong* with Cleveland. But one of the lines in there is, “Our economy is built on LeBron James.” 

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The creation story of the 2008 Redeem Team begins in the residue of the 1992 Dream Team, as does the redemption story of Kobe Bryant, who played such an important role when he later not just joined the Redeem Team but played the pivotal role of "team energizer." Hosts Jack McCallum and J.A Adande examine the young Kobe — fresh out of high school, clueless in many ways about the NBA baskeTball game — and, with a lot of Zen Master insight from guest (and winningest coach in NBA history) Phil Jackson — follow Kobe through the highs of championship glory, the painful lows of a sexual assault charge, and the dismantling of a mini-dynasty.

FROM THE EPISODE:

We asked Phil Jackson to summarize his relationship with Kobe Bryant and he made it sound like something from a work of literature:

PHIL JACKSON: I think it's almost like a Prodigal Son story. There I go into a father limination illustration. There's a conflict and there’s a willfulness and there's selfishness and there's “I could do this on my own” type of thing. And then there's a the second life or second opportunity that really brings back tenderness, yielding. It really took two of us to have that complicated relationship early on, trying to both be willful or directed, and Kobe’s was to establish himself.

His identity and maybe to establish what a team had to do to win, the direction that teams have to have: this unselfish behavior. And bending that will I think was done, sometimes, in unusual ways. Like one time, I arrived at the facility where I had a parking spot that was designated as mine, and there was Kobe’s car in my parking spot; things like that. Just to know that he was going to irritate me and me not reacting to it at all, just going on about the day, not taking on umbrage. So we forged something that was harmonious and that was one of the joys of our life. My former pal and partner Jeanie Buss says that we raised him as a son of our own.

J.A. ADANDE: So you can see why we had to clear the way for this. Much like Kobe isolating on the wing so he could go one-on-one — although I'd say Kobe's ability to steal the spotlight is part of The Lakers and the way they steal the spotlight. There's something about that franchise…

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