I don’t give a fuck if we have to sit here all motha fucking DAY. I’m not leaving this office without my fucking money. Y’all can do whatever you have to do. I have nowhere else to be.

Save for my translating teammate, no one else in the room spoke English. But one thing you learn while traveling the world playing basketball is, there’s certain language that everyone understands, without referring to a pocket dictionary of translator app.

The powers-that-be in that room, all part of the management staff of my now-former team in Montenegro, had a brief conversation in a language I couldn’t understand, but I could read the body language perfectly: This guy is serious. Go get his damn money and let him go.

It was during this time in 2008, playing in Montenegro, where many things happened. It was there that I decided, for the final time in my life: I will NEVER leave a situation with things left unsaid and undone that I should have said and done. If people need to hear it, and I know there’s merit to it, I will say or do it. Damn anyone who doesn’t like it.

Great thing now is, I have my own media company where I can say whatever the fuck I want, and take as much – or as little – time as I wish in saying it.

Today I went long, the longest yet episode of the Work On Your Game Podcast. Because many things needed to be explained and said.

As much as social media has helped and enabled me as a brand and a business, there’s still a lot of nonsense going on. I can enjoy or ignore or even partake in it — to a point. What I’ve been seeing and hearing online for the past 7 months, punctuated by a clash between two media entities of which I am a fan of both, got me talking today. For 90 minutes.

Black folks, we gotta do better.