Simmons Report: Barack Obama

[Sħãlïq™]

BS: I want to talk about sports. You have plenty of time to talk about politics with whoever. How do you have time to follow sports when you have the busiest job on the planet?

 

Obama: Well, first of all, I don’t watch network news or cable news. So in the morning, when I’m working out with Michelle, it’s on SportsCenter. This is the one thing that she allows me — to control is SportsCenter. So that pretty much keeps up the family on whatever has happened the night before. And I tend to be a night guy. Michelle and the girls will go to bed around 9:30 p.m. or so. And so I usually have to stay up until midnight or 1 a.m. reading stuff. And every once in a while I’ll sneak in a ball game as I’m reading my briefings.

 

BS: It’s funny, because I always pictured you in bed pretending you were working but watching League Pass on your iPad — [laughter] — watching some West Coast game — [the] Sacramento Kings or something.

 

Obama: I do have League Pass on my iPad. (...)

 

BS: I’m sure you notice that — it seemed like many of the famous basketball players took particular interest in your campaign in 2008.

 

Obama: Yes. Well, you know what, I think they know that I take a great interest in them. And I think they understand what it is to compete. And I think they took some pride in the first African American President, and so — and I can talk basketball with them.

We were down at an event in Vince Carter’s house down in Florida, and Magic was there, and Chris Paul came — it was right before the All-Star Game, so they were all — a lot of them were in town. And Chris had to leave early because he had some sort of Nike event that he had to go to. So I just rang him up to say thank you for coming. And we started talking a little about basketball and how great the Clippers were doing.

And I said, man, Blake Griffin is unbelievable, and you guys seem to be really clicking. I said, the only thing is you got to tell Blake to just take that 12-, 15-footer when he gets it because he’s got a good stroke, but he always looks like he’s hesitating a little bit because he wants to go inside. And if he starts getting that shot like Karl Malone, he’ll be unstoppable.

And Chris says, "Man, I just told him that." He said, "He’s going to be here in two minutes. Can you hold on?" I said, no, you can just go ahead —

Full Transcript