Is Paris REALLY That Good?!?

Good defense by Bryant. Really good defense by Bryant. Great pass by Bryant, and Thompson lays it up and in.

These are Jen's famous smashed potatoes, and I'm just flipping them because she's actually picking up Blue. Today's the 19th. When we play on the 21st against Paris. But today she made some smashed potatoes, salmon, and rice. These smashed potatoes are so fire. Pretty sure it's just literally you wash the potatoes, olive oil, seasoning, so you can smash them. Does anyone else's food taste better when they make it? So the fact that I'm, I'm just flipping the potatoes, I feel like they're going to taste better. We shall see. Oh, and I got to make some bacon to go with the Brussels sprouts, so I'll do that after, and then I'll get to my Recovery. Tweaked my ankle. I think I told you guys, tweaked my ankle in the Baskonia game. And it's just hard when you tweak it, it's hard to get back right when you're playing so much. So now that we have not a few days off, but some time to recover, I'm gonna do some stem and some game ready. So I have this machine called the H-Wave. It's a stem machine. So we're out for dinner. Salmon, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, rice. The bacon's supposed to go in here. Louie's killing his food. He's gonna get strong. Roxy's killing his food. I actually just recently got the new iPhone 16 Pro. Didn't need it, but I got it. And I used to be one of those people that get the new iPhone every single year. But now that I got the new iPhone 16 and I recently had the iPhone 13, Apple is scamming us. Like literally it's the same phone. What do you guys think? Do you guys upgrade every single year or do you just stick it out with the phone that you have? And yes, it is November 20th and the Christmas tree is up. Vibes. But tomorrow we play Paris. This is a team that I've been watching a lot more film on just because I don't know a lot of their players and they have some unique players. They play very fast. They have a guy named TJ Shorts. They have a guy named Hiffey— excuse me if I'm saying that wrong. And a lot of these players have played together for the last 4 years, like 8 of them. So they kind of know what they're doing. They know their system. They're getting threes up and they play a very unique style of basketball and they're playing really well this year. So we got to be locked in. It's the game right for a break. There's a FIBA break right now. So in competition, you have, you know, your national teams who are going to compete, you know, EuroBasket, World Cup, Olympics. So now they have qualifying games. So Turkey's playing Hungary— Hungary, I said that right. So some of our players, Erçan and Erçan, are actually with the national team and practicing. So today they had practice with us and they had practice with the national team, double practice. And the coach of the national team is actually my former coach, Ergun Ottoman, who you saw on the Off the Record podcast. So On the EuroBasket 25 title, Shane will be with us. So they're working hard, they're trying to get a good dub to get them qualified for EuroBasket. And then we still have a game tomorrow before the break. So all the other Turkish teams, Champions League, all the other leagues are on break right now. So a lot of players are taking, uh, vacations, stuff like that. And, uh, we plan to go to London. So we'll see how that goes. Shoot, Roxy, shoot. Perfect. Hold your follow-through. Hold it right here. Aim here. Good shot. Go. Not a rocket. Way to go. Okay, let's try one time. Go, Roxy. Swish. Good shot. Good shot. Okay, I'm gonna videotape you one time. Okay, here we go. Hey, come look. Tell me what you see. Hello. You gotta change it to what? To ninja. Oh, karate chop. I'm okay. You okay? Yeah. I for real this time do not want to get in the ice tub at all, but it'll make my legs feel better, so I guess I really don't have a choice. Oh my God! Oh my gosh, sit still. I think I've told you guys multiple times that I'm a heavy sweater and a salty sweater, so this is a must for me. It has calcium, magnesium, chloride, sodium, potassium, which is necessary for your muscles to operate at a high level, and your brain needs salt. So your body, your body runs off electricity charges. Another reason I unplugged all the phones in my hotel room is because the wake-up time is usually like an hour before, and that includes snack time, and I don't eat snacks, so I want all the sleep that I can get. Be ready for the game. All right, I'm going to take a nap, get ready for the game, get recharged. Um, playing a great team, they actually play super fast, so got to get these puppies ready to move. So we'll see you soon. I forgot to say, side note, for all you players out there that are like, oh, why am I not starting? Or, oh, coach benched me. Like, that's something you can't control. I was starting all season and now I'm coming off the bench. What does it matter? The ball's still the same, the rim's still the same, the play's still the same. Focus on what you can control. That has nothing to do with you. Maybe the coach is benching you— or benching you— maybe putting you on the bench for a different reason. You don't know. But don't make up a story in your head that's not true. Focus on the things that you control. It's time to go out there, play, enjoy playing, um, this game. But everyone has pregame nerves, jitters, and It usually goes away once the game starts, honestly. But when you're not starting, you don't get those. I lose my pregame jitters after I touch the ball one time, dribble it. Okay, the ball's real, you know what I mean? Like, a lot of people used to ask me, like, how does it feel to play in such a big crowd? When you're on the court, you get so— you've been playing the basketball for so long that you forget, like, about the crowd, you know? Let's go get a dub.

Round 11 action in the regular season as Anadolu FS host Paris Basketball in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. And that man right there, Elijah Bryant, in outstanding form in the last few games, a threat to score in the absence of Shane Larkin. First possession to the hosts as Paris settle into man-to-man defense. Jantan in space, got it. Coach Mihajlović has seen enough. The only way I can slow these guys down is to get a timeout. And look at the hustle. Ward all by himself, knocks it down. Bryant gets his first touch. Oh, great pass inside to Uturu. Terrific feed by Elijah Bryant. Bryant now has got to make something happen. Uturu in traffic, rises and drew the foul. Can shoot from distance. Here's Bryant. That's a good pass. Now this is better from FS. Bryant Depoirier, hang on to your hat! Vincent with the stop. Turnover against TJ Shorts. Bryant scoop and score is good, but that's a tough shot. And again, it's a quick outlet. Paris are right back at you, chasing down. Now shot block running down. Bryant against his countryman Tyson Ward, kicks. Bryant had to get it up quickly, got it! Elijah Bryant strings it from distance. He knew The shot clock was running down. Good defense by Ward, but Bryant sending it in from downtown. A great feed for Bryant, and again, good composure from Derek Willis, but another terrific assist from Elijah Bryant. Don't leave him short. He'll try his hand at his first three.

Got it.

Speaking of threes, Bryant made the toughest three of the night. Another good pass to Poirier. Good defense by Bryant, really good defense by Bryant. Great pass by Bryant, and Thompson lays it up and in. Here's your score at halftime: Anna DeLuca FS, 39, Paris Basketball, 43. A turnover for Shorts. Well, Elijah Bryant wants the foul, doesn't get it. Shorts is definitely lining up the foul. There's the contact. It's a foul. There's been a technical foul given to the FS bench. Thompson shot no good. Parier offensive rebound, Watson in the low post, kicks to Bryant.

Got it!

And Elijah Bryant has been extremely influential in this one. He's in a good run of form this season. Low turns the corner, got it! Mauado low. This brings a timeout from Mihajlović. Ospone dispossessed. It's a 4-on-1. Malcolm. Well, great contest by Darius Thompson, who didn't give up. Now the trailer, Asmoni, right down Broadway. Great fast-break basketball from FS. Somehow, Bobois wins the tip into the hands of Bryant. Tough foul. What a great pass to Poirier, perfectly measured by Elijah Bryant. And finished in style by Vincent Poirier. Skip pass to Thompson. Bryant again combining with Vincent Poirier. There's Shane Larkin there, who's out tonight because of an ankle injury. How he would love to be on the floor. Bryant turns the corner.

Bryant got it!

A one! Look at the concentration of for the American, and that confirms his double-double career mark for Elijah Bryant. He's got more to come. Poirier's got to convert, and the silly foul here from Colin Malcolm. A basket here will all but seal it. Shorts from the dots, got it! TJ Shorts, that very well may see off the challenge of Anadolu Efes. The 7th victory in a row for this new basketball club. Elijah Bryant, what a night he had.

All right, so unfortunately we lost, and the thing that's annoying about the losses is that it's not like we're getting blown out. We're in the games every single time. It's frustrating, but like always, you got to learn from it, reiterate, and move on. We get a few days off here Let's take a trip. Did you write down wherever you see the most of how many days you have left to get a scholarship? How many days is it today? I wrote the date out. May 21st. Okay, so how many days? I don't know the day number. I just do it in my head. Okay, well, that's what you need to have, and you need to erase it every single day and rewrite it. This many days left till I get a scholarship, because that will put some sense of urgency into what you got going on. Do you agree? Yes, and you're right. With you, it's never been about necessarily work ethic. It's been about sense of urgency. You never have a sense of urgency ever. Like when I was going to prep school and I had to get all my offers back, do you understand that every decision I made was based on is this helping me get an offer or not? So the fact that you have a brother who knows, has some, some sort of idea of what's going on, and I haven't heard from you after your game— hey, did you watch my film? Hey, like text me every day. Hey, did you watch my film? Hey, did you watch the film? To me, that means like you don't care, so why should I care? So are we gonna have this conversation again next time we talk? No. All right, so figure out how many days you have. So I just finished reading Power of the Subconscious Mind for the 5th time. It's a book that you can read literally every month, and I'm gonna challenge myself to do that. I challenge you guys, let's read it together. The Power of the Subconscious Mind is one of the best books I've ever read, but I've also challenged myself to read 30 minutes a day. So right now I'm reading The 48 Laws of power. And I think sometimes we get distracted in understanding that we must grow outside of basketball, whether that's, I don't know, learning how to code, learning how to cook, learning a new language, because we're more than basketball players. I'm trying to grow outside of basketball. I'm trying to be consistent outside of basketball as well. My reading— I challenge you guys to find something daily that you can do to grow your skills outside of basketball. Maybe it's reading. If it's reading, let's read a book together. Let me know in the comments. So when it comes to my diet and meals that I'm eating on a daily basis. I'm always in charge of breakfast. Like, I enjoy making breakfast. I just don't have time to make dinner or lunch. And when it comes to breakfast, I'm always going to have some like oatmeal, some eggs, and then some sort of protein from the night before, and some rice probably. But when it comes to my wife cooking, what she does to make it easier for herself— and it's not easy to cook and take care of the house with kids— but she'll make like 3 meals for the week. So like, she'll cook 3 days in a row, and the other days we'll eat leftovers So you'll have leftovers, I don't know, chicken and rice or leftovers steak and rice. So then in the morning I can use that protein for eggs or I can mix and match during the week. There's a game night. She's not going to cook on game night. That way we just eat leftovers. Bruh, she made some teriyaki, I don't know, chicken wings, fire rice, some salmon from the other night, some blueberries, more rice. What's that? Couscous, Brussels sprouts. So I always tell my wife, hey, I want to get this style. I want to you know, start dressing better. And she's like, you have all the pieces, but you just never wear them. I'm like, prove it. So she put this together for me. I had all the pieces. You want to break it down what it is?

I have a Carmi cargo in this nice chocolate brown for fall. He has this rugby shirt and then this wool coat that we got last year and he's worn like one time. And then I got him this COS wool sweater this summer, um, Running Champ green shirt for Christmas, and then just baggy.

I'm probably— that's just pants for the win. This is just random on my mind right now. Traveling is a lot, but traveling with 2 kids is a lot more, to say the least. But what I will say is that creating new experiences with families in different locations is something that we value as a family. So now that we're at the airport in London, I'm starting to kind of feel less anxious because we already passed the security, already passed check-in, already passed all that stuff, you know, when you get to the airport. So now I'm excited to, you know, get to our hotel and kind of enjoy these next few days off to kind of get away from basketball, to allow my mental health to kind of recuperate, you know, because the season, there's so much stress. So this should be fun and hope to take you guys along. London, baby! The wheel's on the other side, the steering wheel. Look. Look at that. It's crazy. My idea of tourism as I'm getting older, I'm starting to realize that let's say we're in London, I want to go see Big Ben, Buckingham Palace. I don't want to be in a museum and I want to go get all the good eats. So we're going to go try this place called— what's it called, Jin? 29 Seeds, I thought. I think it's like a healthy spot. Let's go.

Okay, Dad, get your jacket on.

Jen got me a scarf. I've never worn a scarf in my life. Zip this up too? You don't have to. Fit check. Scarf from Zara. Nike Nocta hoodie set. Adidas Yeezys. Arteric jacket. Mom's a professional scarf wrapper.

I saw like tons of different ways.

I want to be full transparent here. I know I'm all about health and wealth, but I'm on a little vacay trying to get a reset, and this is like me, I would say, having a brewski. So, all right, I watched the YouTube video. How to— you did? I did. Like the place, I go up, I go down and through, and I go down and— I'm wearing my nightgown. Let me see. Exactly. That's good without the hood. Without the hood looks good. Yeah.

No, I like the hood.

You don't like the hood? That looks fire. We're talking about how it's so nice to hear people here speak English, then also I feel like it takes a lot of bandwidth as well because you're in everyone's conversation. Like, for example, the guy behind me is talking about Ed Sheeran and I was listening, whereas like, I don't know what they're talking about, I'm not wasting energy on that. So which one's better, being able to understand everyone and know it, know everything that's going on, or just knowing what you're talking about with your wife or your family? What would you think? Also, another thing too, I'm not gonna lie to you guys, on this trip I have not been eating how I preach to you guys, but that's life. It's about 80/20, right? So I've been having ice cream. I had a Coke the other day, you saw, but that's okay because I'm giving myself a break. Then I'm gonna get back on track when I get back to Istanbul. So enjoy sometimes. Embrace it. That's the tea. This hotel gives vibes of Home Alone. So they asked, do you want a newspaper in the morning? Of course I said yes because Why not? We want the full experience. All right, so we're supposed to come here to go to the toy shop and the boys are So you guys saw us lose to Paris. You saw me go on a vacation with my family. I think sometimes people forget that as basketball players, we're humans too. So I know what we do in terms of our job and success and failure is put in the public for everyone to have an opinion, but also we do have concerns about mental health. So being able to get away for a few days with the family and get your mind off basketball is very critical in terms of a long season where there's a bunch of highs and lows. So again, remember, it's consistency over intensity. Love.