On his favorite former teammate:

I think still to this day, I love Steve and Mike, but one of my favorite teammates is Nick Van Exel. Man, he was great. You hear a lot of stories, about how he pushed a ref and head-butted a ref, how he’s a little selfish and stuff. He came here — first of all, he had to give up the last year of his contract, which was like $13 mil or whatever. Who does that, first of all? He was around here, in a great mood always. He had leadership on the court. He would make tough shots for us.

On why he stopped playing saxophone:

What happened was, I started playing the sax, and I even had lessons. Then I got my teeth knocked out. I had those front two, those rabbit teeth that were, like, this long. [Points to his lower lip.] The first, first time I got them knocked out was in Germany. Then over here, it was in the playoffs against San Antonio. I couldn’t really put the plate here anymore and play. I had to be careful. I had, like, a brace from the back on it—I was like, “Screw it. That’s not going to work.” So I started playing guitar. My brother-in-law is actually a good guitar player. He’s got a Rolling Stones cover band in Germany. He showed me some tracks, and that’s how I got into it.

On his first participation in the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program this summer:

It was great. I’ve never really been to Africa. I’ve been to Tunisia, North Africa, on the beach — but that’s not really the real Africa. When I found out I definitely wasn’t going to play at the Euros — because the NBA has asked me for years, and I always was busy in the summer, playing. So I asked them if they still had a spot and they said yes. We were in Johannesburg for a little over five days. Usually what we did, we went to the camp in the morning, taught the kids some stuff, hung out with the kids. In the afternoon, we did community service stuff. Saw some great stuff. Built a house, actually, in one of the poorer areas. Played with the kids one day. Saw some eye-opening stuff, so I’ll definitely want to go back and help out when I get a chance. Definitely an experience. Did a safari afterwards, for a week — that was great. I think when you live in a modern world, you get away from nature a little bit. All you do is sit at house and watch TV or whatever. There, you kind of sleep in a tent outside, and at 3 in the morning, you get woken up, like, “What is going on?” An elephant just walks by, grazes the tree your tent’s in, wakes you up. It was amazing. Saw every animal there is in the book. Had a blast. Then I went home real quick to Germany for a couple of days.

I’ve had games where I’m stiff in shootaround, can’t make a shot in warm-ups, and all of a sudden, you get to the basket one time. You get fouled. You have an “and-1.” And all of a sudden, every basket you get, the basket seems to get bigger. I had other experiences where I felt like I could jump out of the gym in the mornings, and I miss my first six, seven shots. The game’s weird like that. I’ve had games where I wasn’t feeling well, and for some reason you can’t even get a rebound; somebody seems to tip it, and you end up with zero rebounds. You’re 7-feet — how the hell you not getting one rebound? And then that night, against Phoenix in the playoffs, it just seems like the ball is coming to you. I was getting offensive rebounds. I was getting good looks at shots. I was driving. I was getting to the foul line. It’s just funny how sports works. Sometimes it works in your favor and sometimes it doesn’t.

Turk Pipkin at TEDxSMU from tedxsmu on Vimeo.

2. Mayor Leppert is trying to rush through a complicated package of ethics reforms, in the wake of former Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill’s corruption conviction. Some council members want to take more time, some don’t think the reforms are needed, and none have answered my e-mails about how they think Erick Dampier will react to his new role occasionally coming off the bench. Where is your fancy talk of transparency now, city hall?

3. Southlake Carroll ISD is ditching its perfect attendance award so sick kids stay home. I, however, am still planning on maintaining perfect attendance at the games on my Dallas Mavericks ticket plan, starting with tonight against the Washington Wizards.

Not only is he extremely generous, he is by far the best professor I had at UTA. He’s insightful, intelligent, unbiased, interesting and hilarious….all the qualities you could ask for in a professor. He just made class a pleasure to go to. I was lucky enough to have him twice and my husband took him for a class at TCC at my insistence!

I laugh every time I see his name on something because his generosity knows no bounds. He even sponsored the opening of the Ross store in Lincoln Square (Arlington) of all things! There is a little plaque at the check out stand in his honor. He really deserves the accolades!

And the legend continues. Related: is anyone else getting just a little bit tired of this man’s grandstanding?