On a new episode of his Underdog Fantasy podcast “Sheed & Tyler,” former Portland Trail Blazers All-Star power forward Rasheed Wallace discussed how the NBA game has evolved off the court since he last appeared in 2012-13.
“For me, when I was coaching high school kids – I was coaching high school kids probably five or six years ago – [there were] two things I didn’t allow in a team: we can’t do Eurostep and… at half-time [you can’t be on your phone]. First of all, we’re not even a big school like that, for you to check your phone. There’s nothing that important. Your parents already know you have a game that night. Shit, they’re sitting over there! I banned this whole phone thing. That’s what they do, they’ll check phones.
Wallace was selected fourth overall in the 1995 NBA draft after an All-American career at the University of North Carolina. He spent his first professional season with the Washington Bullets before being traded to Portland, where the 2.08 m big man’s career really took off.
He finished third in MVP voting in his first season with the Trail Blazers, in 1996-97. In 1999-2000, Wallace was an All-Star on a Portland team that was just a fourth-quarter collapse away from reaching the NBA Finals. That team lost 59-23 to the Shaquille O’Neal/Kobe Bryant-era Los Angeles Lakers en route to their first title.
“I know when I was playing we all stayed in town. [during the offseason] like the veterans and stuff. Like when we played in Portland, Cliff Robinson was my veteran—rest in peace, Uncle Cliffy—and we were doing pickups.
Robinson, a 6-foot-2 forward who died in 2020 at the all-too-young age of 53, was an All-Star and Sixth Man of the Year while with the Trail Blazers. He and Wallace played together for just two seasons before he reinvented himself as one of the league’s best defenders with the Phoenix Suns.
“I just learn things from him and the other veterans – Chris Dudley, he was in Portland when I was there too. And I just learn things from them in the summer and the offseason, you get beat up every day, so [you think]”Okay, it’s going to make me tougher, it’s going to make me better for when they really need me during the regular season and the playoffs.”
Dudley, who is 6’2″, played for Portland from 1993-97.
Learn more: Will Trail Blazers extend veteran contracts before reaching 2026 free agency?
