BD: That's dope. You also were president of the NBPA during your career. What made you want to do that? What made you want to be the president at that time?

IT: So, Dave Bing and Archie Clark approached me during my rookie season and said, “Hey, you've got to get involved in the union.” And I was, like, “Man, I just got some money, you know? I don't want to be in the union.” And Archie was, like, “No, you have to be involved.” So they made me become a player rep. Once I became a player rep, then everybody else—even the Chicago Bulls—they all voted for me to be president of the union. They were, like, “You got to be the president.” And fortunately enough for me, accepting the responsibility—not only accepting responsibility but fighting for our individual rights, fighting for our benefits, fighting for salaries, fighting for better hotel rooms ...

BD: Can you dive into that? Chris Paul is now the president and all this great stuff is happening. What were the things you were fighting for as the president that are now starting to catch the wave that you envisioned?

IT: Our Detroit Pistons teams, which were known as the "Bad Boys," we actually were the rebels of the NBA not necessarily on the court, but what we were talking about off the court. And then being the president of the union, the first thing you always want, you want better jobs, you want higher salaries, you want benefits and then you want your living conditions raised. So we were the first team to get our own plane, we started chartering our own plane. We stopped staying at the airport Marriott. Remember airport Marriotts? Short beds, everything else. And we upgraded the living standards.

Now, at that time, the NBA and everyone else thought I was crazy because I look out at this room right now and it's a very diverse room. When I got into the NBA, basically, if this was a media-related room, it was white male Caucasians. That was all that was in the room that was covering the sport. There were no females. Females hadn't come into the NBA in terms of covering the sport. And all we were saying was, “Hey, we want everybody to be a part of this fabric.” So we started talking about diversity. We started talking about inclusion. We started talking about race, okay? We started talking about all the hard things. And by the way, we were winning. So they couldn't kick us off the stage, so they had to deal with us.

Consequently, in dealing with us, everything got better, we moved along. The first collective bargaining agreement that came along with the salary cap, the Detroit Pistons were the first team that voted “no” against it. And then they had to redo it. And then we finally voted “yes” and we came along, but the reason why we voted “no” is because, when you talk about free agency and you talk about being free and you talk about, at that time, how the contracts were structured, a lot of them were really based on indentured service contracts.

And the reason why I say that, and people don't like to hear that language, but I'ma hit you with some hard language, right? When you get drafted and then you become a free agent, think about the labels and the terms that we're using. So we were critiquing all of that and we were saying, “Now, wait a minute, so what do you mean free, free agent?” And then you go back in the history books and you just see what all that language means. So we started critiquing the language. We wanted to have real conversations about the language. And all of those things suddenly started changing, and that led to race and how do we have conversations about race?

Corporate America at that time was saying, “We will not come watch African-Americans play.” A room like this will never come and watch African-Americans play basketball. So corporate America had divested and took all of their money out of the NBA. David Stern, Charlie Grantham, Alex English, Junior Bridgeman, Bob Lanier, myself, we all were around the table and we said, “We think that America will come back if you let us have the mic, tell our stories, who we really are—not who y'all wrote about who we were, but let us talk.”

Because back then, it wasn't a room like today. You had to sit and do an interview, and then a guy who was just as biased or, you know, had his own agendas—remember, there were no females—so they had to interpret what you said and then go back and tell America what you were saying. And at that time, we in the NBA were saying, “No, I'm not like that.” I was saying, “I'm not like that.” But that was a hard hurdle to get over. Now, we're here today, and corporate America loves the NBA and the NBA loves corporate America.

BD: You did it all. As far as me looking at somebody and saying, “Alright, I want to be an owner. Damn, he did that. Oh, I want to be the president of the union. Damn, he did that. Be the GM of the Knicks. He did that. Popcorn." So we sit in the back on TNT and he's, like, “Yeah, man, I just exited my popcorn business.” Why are you so driven still, as an entrepreneur and as a businessman?

IT: First off, I'm driven because of the opportunity that we have and the example that I try to set. But that was passed on to me from the generation before. So I didn't come up with all these ideas. Somebody said, “Hey, this is how it should be.” We're all coachable, so we listen. In terms of my popcorn company, I was co-founder of a popcorn company that all of you have seen and experienced and probably didn't know it was mine, called Indiana Popcorn. The red bag of kettle corn that you walk through in the airport, that you see everywhere, that was my creation, so to speak. Now, why did we change the colors on the bag? If you remember how popcorn used to be, popcorn came in a clear plastic bag. And like all of us, we wanted a little flavor, right? So I said, “Let's put some colors on the bag.” So in putting colors on the bag, now you see popcorn, potato chips, everybody's got colored bags. Exit out of my popcorn company.

Then now, I'm in champagne. We've got 200 acres over in the old region of Champagne [in France], and we're the largest first press of the grape champagne that's in the United States, and that's what we give you. Most of the champagnes that you've been drinking in the United States are second and third press of the grapes. And sister, that's why when you drink it, you get a headache after two glasses, and brother, when you drink it, if you drink too much, you're gonna throw up. You will physically throw up. Now, why is that? The second and the third press, particularly the third press of champagne, it is used to make perfume and vinegar. What they have done here is they've loaded up with sugar, so consequently, the sugar in the third press is what's getting you sick, but they've got a great marketing campaign behind it. And Baron always told me, “You don't know nothing about marketing. Let me do this.” So what we give you is the first press. The first press is the best press.