Stanford’s Mark “Mad Dog” Madsen talks about why he went into coaching at the NBDL level, the differences between the D-League and the NBA and when he realized that “the dance” would follow him the rest of his life (run time is 5:37).
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Lost Lettermen: This is Jim Weber from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Stanford’s Mark Madsen. Mark thanks for joining us.
I wanted to ask you first about coaching in the D-League. You were cut by the Clippers in August and then you went straight into coaching. Why not hang around, see if a roster spot opens up due to injury and try and play in the NBA one more year?
Mark Madsen: To be honest with you, I had that thought. What had happened was … my particular situation was that I was traded from Minnesota to the Clippers along with Craig Smith and Sebastian Telfair.
When I got to L.A. initially the Clippers kind of floated the idea of a buyout. I had one more year left in my contract. And initially I didn’t really think I was going to do it but then as the roster shaped up obviously, you know, they got some great big men down there, including Blake Griffin.
So I made the decision No. 1 to do the buyout and No. 2, to be honest, I didn’t want to be doing nothing this year. I did think about staying in shape and hoping for a phone call to come from hopefully a really good team that had injuries and needed a big guy.
At the same time there’s no guarantee that that would happen. And so I thought to myself, “I always wanted to coach, why not give it a shot now?”
LL: And how did this position open up with the Utah Flash? Were there other positions out there that you were looking at?
MM: I was in conversations at the college level for some coaching opportunities and in fact one high school coaching opportunity in Minnesota and a media opportunity in Minnesota as well.
The way the Flash opportunity came about was really through a random family tie from Livermore who kind of knew or had heard that I was out there considering coaching.
So the serious conversation began through a friend of the family basically and then someone from Livermore was kind of involved in the process as well.
LL: What’s it been like for you going to the NBDL from the NBA and all the travel to these small cities and taking busses and stuff like that?
MM: One of the big differences is nobody’s coming around the charter plans with hot chocolate cookies and fresh milk. (Laughs) Which is what happens on every NBA charter. We don’t stay at the Ritz Carleton or the Four Seasons in the D-League.
But in some ways I like the D-League … the aspects of the D-League even more. We stay at low-budget establishments that are great. And one of the things I love is that the players in the D-League are extremely close to the NBA level and many of them are already playing at the NBA level. They just don’t have the opportunity yet.
I think we saw that this season with a guy from the D-League that we played a lot against, Sundiata Gaines who got called up to the Utah Jazz and he hits a game-winner against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
So the one thing that I’ve always known and the one thing that I’ve seen first hand is how many great players are in the D-League, including on our team the Utah Flash. We have a number of guys that in the right opportunity could definitely play at the NBA level.
LL: Yeah, I know you were recently assigned Kosta Koufos who has a lot of expectations on his shoulders. What’s it like working with him?
MM: Well, we’ve only had one game with Kosta but the thing I’ve noticed about Kosta right way is that he has a great understanding and knowledge of the game of basketball and he’s a hard worker.
Kosta has obviously worked very hard to develop the basketball skills that he has for a big man to shoot the ball extremely well. He put the time in the weight room to develop the strength and the stamina and Kosta is a guy who’s game I’d look to really expand and unfold to be able to show some things that up to this point he hasn’t yet shown which he hasn’t.
LL: I know that you’ve promised the team you would dance if they won the NBDL title. At what point did you realize that you were going to be asked about your dance routine for the rest of your life?
MM: (laughs) It’s funny you say that Jim because, you know, when I was on the Lakers and Shaq and Kobe would go into other arenas the fans would talk to them about basketball. Ever since that moment, in every opposing arena I go into, inevitably someone will ask me, not too much about basketball they ask me about the dance.
And the funny thing about the dance is the whole team was dancing. And in fact Devean George was right next to me and you know what, his rhythm is not so much better than mine.
LL: I know a lot of guys, once they retire, are then invited on to Dancing With The Stars. Is that something that’s been floated out to you or you’re putting feelers out about that?
MM: It is something that has been discussed in terms of my friends coming up to me and asking. (laughs) But as much as I would love to do that, and the truth is I think it would be a lot of fun, I know that I’m probably not the right guy in the sense that my rhythm is probably not the best.
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