The Players' Tribune recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and Knuckleheads, the popular podcast co-hosted by Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles, has been a major part of the success story. It is one of the most authentic shows in the space and was well ahead of the curve as athlete-driven shows have become more ubiquitous with each passing day.
The former Los Angeles Clippers teammates, along with TPT head of original content Ashly Robinson, spoke to Sports Illustrated about their show as it enters another season.
Sports Illustrated: You two have known each other for a long time but was the genesis for the Knuckleheads podcast you both telling your individual stories through The Players' Tribune?
Darius Miles: Q did a Letter to Myself that got big reviews. About two years later, I dropped mine. A lot of former players reached out to both of us and were happy that we told our stories because they know how hard it is for us to open up and tell a story about your struggles, your mental health or about whatever it is you went through.
Quentin Richardson: It was one of the few times in my career where it was my voice. People were hitting me saying they could tell that this was truly my words and they could hear me in the story and stuff like that. I was letting D know that whenever he was ready to tell his story that I had the right place for him to do it at. Where he would be comfortable, it would come out how he wanted. I rode shotgun on his article and they got a chance to see our chemistry in real time and how we really rocked. They said y'all gotta do something. Then we came up with this.
SI: What do you think the show means to The Players' Tribune?
Ashly Robinson: I honestly believe that the show means whatever your core foundation is. Whatever the fabric and the cloth you would want your entire being to be made of, that's what the show is. Knuckleheads as a whole to me is that fabric and that foundation. It's a reminder of why Derek Jeter started this company and I don't think anyone envisioned that we could create a show like this that could mean so much to the world. In that sense it's the foundation, the fabric, the core values of the company. It's more than just numbers to us at this company because you find that—and we experience it a lot with our written side—athletes come in and they are able to express themselves in a way to unlock that secret that they haven't felt comfortable sharing. We've found a way to do that with the podcast.
SI: What do you remember about the first time you recorded together?
QR: Chaos. It was right on my patio. It was myself, D-Miles and Drew Gooden. We learned a few things from that. [Laughs] The first thing was to ration the alcohol that we are intaking while doing this at the table. That is kind of why it became chaotic. Also in that, us and the producers, we got a chance to see that even though this was like a practice run, you could see that once we sat down and once we engaged, real stories and good stories was coming out of it. We left from there and we started on our thing trying to get some guys to sit down with us. I guess you could say that we found out that it was really fun and cool to do. That's the biggest thing I took away from it. It's a privilege.
AR: I wasn't at the recording for the first episode but the producers who were the lead on the ground at that time brought it to me for the first listen. I remember that episode feeling very raw but you could feel the joy immediately. Jimmy Butler was the first guest and he was perfect because there was a Chicago connection at the time. It was that playground joy where the person across the table knows what I've been through and more. It was the most unguarded conversation that they've had.
SI: When did you realize you might have something special?
DM: Really after the first season and when Kobe reached out and said that he liked what we were doing. Kobe, he really didn't mess with a lot of players. We never had a relationship, we were always competitors. We would play against each other and go about our business but for him to reach out and say that he wanted to be a part of what we were creating. After that first season and him being our first episode of season two, that was the moment where I was like, yeah we got something nice.
QR: When we would call and talk to our people from our hometowns and we heard they were playing it in the barbershops. For me that means you're touching the community. If they're going to put it on in a barbershop it's going to stay on. Nobody's coming in saying play this or turn this off, that means something where we come from, getting that type of love.
AR: When you listen to it you feel like these athletes are talking to a family member or someone who is in their trusted circle. When athletes are interviewed there are different levels of comfortability. And you can almost sense it in the first answer that you get or even that first handshake. As soon as Darius says that first question it's like the athlete might be looking around thinking am I at home, am I talking to my brother, am I talking to my cousin who grew up with me in the trenches? It's so familiar what they bring. When I listen to it, because I played basketball, I'll always say that I was born to produce this pod because I grew up with two older brothers that are literally Q and D reincarnated in my mind. It's like I was prepared for this in a way I didn't expect. The joy that you feel when you play pickup ball at the playground or in the gym is the joy that's coming across in the pod.
SI: Let's talk about that first question. We're looking at a graphic here that has all the answers to "who was the first person to bust yo ass." And they are all over the place. That's such a smart thing to do because it seems like it would evoke a very present response because it takes them back to a specific place and time in their memories.
QR: This is the hilarious thing. I don't know if you remember this, D. This was D's thing totally. I totally could have ruined a dope thing. That graphic could not be there. When he first did it, we stopped and talked after the guest left. I said so we're going to ask that question every time? He's like yeah and I'm like I don't know if we should do that. We had a back and forth and clearly we agreed to keep doing it and it's like the biggest part of the show. For whatever reason I didn't agree with that in the beginning and D kept doing it because it was the best thing. That's like the signature of the show right there.
DM: As a basketball player and a basketball fan, first of all it kind of humbles the player you're talking to. Especially if you're talking to a Hall of Famer. As a basketball player, everyone can relate to that question whether they went pro or not. Guys can remember on the playground that a guy named So and So did it. I just felt like it was a question every baller could relate to.
AR: The answer is always a surprise. I'm honestly waiting for them to just be like "nobody." Dr J. was like "I'm still waiting." My favorite thing now, since it's been six years with the pod, you have guests that are like I knew you were going to ask this question. People are prepared for it but then you can see something cross their eyes and they're back on the court or they see who the player is. They probably remember what they did pregame that morning. It's like a whole flashback memory. I always love it because it's just a quick way to pay homage to somebody else before you talk about how great you are or how excellent you were at your sport. You humble someone very quickly but in a positive way because that question does two things. It reminds you that you made the league, which was your entire goal. It also automatically lets every listener know that these guys are the best in the world but there's a lot of work to be done.
SI: One of our takeaways from the show is that it is very positive, especially at a time where there's a lot of people in the media space trying to go in the opposite direction. How conscious of a choice is that?
DM: That was one thing before we started, we wanted to focus on positive interviews. We wanted to focus on the players more. We didn't want to enter the negative stuff because there's so many platforms that touch on the negative. We wanted to make sure their families appreciated the interview. They might have kids that never really saw them play or never really got into their history of their career. It started to come down to a responsibility. We really pride ourselves in that, to show the overall world of basketball. One of the biggest things was for us to create that environment where this is a safe place. I feel like we touch on something that's kind of deep. It's more about mental health. It's more about stuff that they went through. It's a learning lesson for people that's coming after them to find out and know.
QR: The guys who were willing to come sit down with us. The Jimmy Butlers. The Dwyane Wades. The guys from that first season, they are really who we owe it to. Without them coming on and sitting down with us and doing all that, no one gets to see what's happening and we don't get to get going. The willingness for them to sit down with us and do it. The openness that they had. That's what really made it hit. Once those guys sat down, people got to see them in a light they never got to see them in when they do postgame interviews or any of the stuff they do with the regular media people. I think it was a different tone and like D said we created a safe space for guys to come and vibe with us.
We knew most of the guys who first came on so it was a different vibe to that. They knew we weren't going to try anything slick, no crazy stuff. It was all good vibes and I think from there we go to the fans. Me and D had no clue that the Knuckleheads celebration and us as a duo and what we did in those two years in L.A. resonated as much as it did. This was like a full circle moment with us being able to see. There was no social media for us to know how we impacted that many fans. We had fans in Japan and China doing Knucklehads back then. Now it's a different world where we get to see all of that. People send videos of when we were in high school. We get to see that and that's a different appreciation for us to have.
SI: Athlete-driven podcasts have exploded in number since you all started this six years ago. Do you feel as though Knuckleheads was ahead of the curve?
DM: We definitely feel like we were ahead of the curve because there wasn't near as many of them as there are now. We don't really take too much credit for it. We love when people tell us we were the first one. It lets us feel like we created something that's a phenomenon. Other guys can retire or even the current guys that's in the NBA can get an opportunity to create their own platform and do it the way they want to do it.
QR: I feel like the whole who started it and all that, history can tell that story, we don't have to be the people that started it. For people to come on our shows and tell us that we gave them the confidence and showed them that they could do it their way, gave them the ability to go out there and do it, we definitely take pride in that. At the end of the day you look at me and D, for us to be considered pioneers and any of that. We weren't All-Stars, we weren't All-NBA, jerseys retired, any of that. It just shows the respect that we still garner from our peers. We definitely wear that as a badge of pride.
AR: They are humble in that sense and there's always the asterisk. It's like the bubble championship. You could argue Jalen Rose could be the first with the Jalen & Jacoby show. They trail-blazed in the sense that it truly felt like Q and D started this podcast. It's trailblazing in letting athletes who look like them, who had careers like them know they could do it too. All the guests, Kevin Garnett will go out of his way to let them know that when he saw them doing the pod that he thought okay, I can be in the media space. They trail-blazed in the space of it being athlete-owned and athlete-first.
SI: What's the future hold for Knuckleheads?
QR: The media space is always evolving with different platforms and things like that. We're going to be present and visible wherever is good to be at with all of the new stuff coming on. We'll be evolving. When we look at each other and how we're trying to get better, we look inward. We try to become better interviewers, better listeners. There's so many guys we haven't talked to. We just want to be a staple of hoops.
DM: Our show, it comes down to a responsibility to tell a lot of these guys' stories that don't get the opportunity to be on the front covers of magazines or be invited to big-time shows that's out there. We always want to be better, we always want to push the brand. When I think about our brand I think about growing up and watching Inside Stuff with Ahmad Rashad. One of those staple shows for basketball. It gives me a feeling of that because I remember every Saturday morning I used to get up and watch that show. We just want to create something that the culture loves. That young players that's coming up as well as the older players can appreciate.
QR: We're lifelong super basketball fans, historians of the game, and for us to be able to sit down with some of the people we've been able to talk to and what they mean to the game and how we looked up to them before. There's been several times I get off the interview with George Gervin or Dr. J, I'm telling my pops yo pops I was just on with this guy. We never could have fathomed while we were hooping in the league that we would get a chance to do this with these guys. When we played we didn't get a chance to compliment each other like that. It was a different league, we weren't swapping jerseys and stuff. For us to to be able to do this, it's a real blessing and it's a lot of fun for real.
AR: I'm proud that they get as many flowers as the guest gets. And then I'm proud of how inclusive it is. Not every show will cover women's sports the way that Knuckleheads does. There is no difference in how they talk to Jayson Tatum and how they talk to Diamond DeShields. The show has never lost its purpose. Sometimes in media, it changes so fast, you have to change how you ask question, you have to change how you cut content. The fabric and the foundation of this show has stayed the same since Day 1.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson Reflect on Their 'Knuckleheads' Run.