CHRIS NEUMER: Have you come across any players who haven’t needed to get that out of their system?

MARKO JARIC Oh yeah, there’s a lot of different characters. You know there are different characters, different players. I know players that as soon as they get out of the league they probably never went out.

CHRIS NEUMER: Give me one name. I got to ask.

MARKO JARIC: [laughs] I can’t…I can’t go there…

CHRIS NEUMER: UGH!

MARKO JARIC: But you definitely…But they’re just like that.

CHRIS NEUMER: All right I’m just going to write down ‘Stephon Marbury’ until you supply me with something differently.

MARKO JARIC: [laughs]

CHRIS NEUMER: And then you got the other side too.

MARKO JARIC: And definitely you know what, you definitely have a lot of players that just… You can’t keep in one place for more than 30 minutes, and they perform night after night.

CHRIS NEUMER: Now I’ve heard a lot about the South Beach effect and I’ve heard about how Atlanta should have a bigger home advantage because of the enormous night life there. Now you’ve been in the league for 7 or 8 years now?

MARKO JARIC: Yeah, 7 years.

CHRIS NEUMER: Have you found that that’s actually the case? Like when your teams go to either Miami or Atlanta, that guys go out more than say if you went to Milwaukee?

MARKO JARIC: Yeah, definitely guys do. I totally agree when we go to Atlanta, New York, Miami or Atlanta, guys would prefer to [go out] maybe, but that’s normal. When you go to cities that you prefer, that doesn’t mean you go out. You prefer maybe to go out have a nice dinner than just to eat in the hotel.

CHRIS NEUMER [laughs] Yeah, that’s not going to impact you the next day like other things will.

MARKO JARIC: You know what, I agree, but still it’s from a person to person. I can see that and it can happen, but that’s basically a team-to-team thing. I’ve been with teams that are very professional, but nothing in the season that happened. But if you want to win you can’t make that possible.

CHRIS NEUMER: And then, if you’re Michael Jordan, you can go out and play 36 holes of golf on an off day and shoot 36 holes and play in the playoffs the next day.

MARKO JARIC: If you’re Michael Jordan.

CHRIS NEUMER: But to ask you a yes or no question: Have you found that the cities with the nightlife, the Miami’s, the Atlanta’s and the New York’s actually do impact the way the players play the next day?

MARKO JARIC: [pause] You know what yes, but sometimes in a negative way and sometimes in a positive way.

CHRIS NEUMER: Explain the positive, I never hear the positive.

MARKO JARIC: The positive is that you are playing Madison Square Garden! You’re playing Miami, you’re playing and you feel the energy of the city. So when you play you definitely feel better than when your playing cities you know the fans are dead and you know there’s nothing there. [In Atlanta], in that case it’s probably downside, because the end of the season you don’t have many fans neither. So that New York, Miami, L.A., you know the crowd just gives you energy, you know maybe you missed.

CHRIS NEUMER: Is there are crowd that gives you more energy on the road, that would be surprising? Like when you go to Sacramento? Is there any surprising town where there’s a lot of energy?

MARKO JARIC: Boston gives you energy too. Boston definitely has a lot of energy.

CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, that’s not that surprising.

MARKO JARIC: Not surprising, yeah, well Portland. I mean every time we were there they were winning, and it was fully packed, and it’s surprising a little bit.

CHRIS NEUMER: For comparison, you mentioned Atlanta didn’t have enough fans during the season during the season, are there just places that are just dead during the season?

MARKO JARIC: I know one… dead joint for home games is us: Memphis Grizzlies. So besides us and Atlanta—and they’re a winning team, which is surprising [that] they don’t have as many fans—there are a couple other teams that there are out there.

CHRIS NEUMER: When I play there are certain gyms I like, certain rims I love. There was a gym that I played in that was designed in the 30’s. The floor is on the first floor and the seats start on the second floor. There are no bleachers or anything. It’s a really old gym at a very small university. I think my shooting percentage is 25 points higher there than anywhere else in the world.

MARKO JARIC: That happens; it’s very normal.

CHRIS NEUMER: I’ve never seen anyone ask this question, so I do. Where do you go where it feels like you just can’t miss?

MARKO JARIC: You know you have that feeling in different arenas. First of all, before arenas used to be different from one another. Right now, especially in the last 3 or 4 years, they are all so similar. The rims all look the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Dallas, Chicago or Miami because all the arenas are probably built by the same company. They all look the same. So it doesn’t have much of an effect. But there are a couple old arenas where you have that feeling like Sacramento, like Madison Square Garden definitely, Milwaukee’s arena, but pretty soon they’re going to be new too. I’m sure NBA was thinking about that so you don’t have any advantage playing in most arenas. But back in Serbia I played an arena where that there was a part of the floor that was kind of messed up. There was a leaking problem. So our team defense was based [on getting the other team] to go over there so they would lose the ball. It was funny.

CHRIS NEUMER: There was a high school where, well actually I should say a junior high, where Isiah Thomas went in Chicago [Resurrection]. The basketball court was made of tiles like the tiles that’d you normally see on a bathroom floor. So they had chunks of the tile had come off and some of the tiles you’d dribble on and the ball would go a different way, or you’d dribble it and the ball would only come up halfway to your hand—

MARKO JARIC: Same thing in Serbia you’d dribble the ball and it’d just stay down. But, like I said, the NBA probably improved a lot the last 5-10 years.

CHRIS NEUMER: Now is that good for you, as a player, do you want every arena to look the same?

MARKO JARIC: Yes, definitely yes. Sometimes you can get up, like playing especially overseas, that standards aren’t that great like over here.

CHRIS NEUMER: Wow. Who would have thought that the overseas standards wouldn’t be just wouldn’t comparable to the NBA’s!

MARKO JARIC: Yeah, especially when you play in local leagues in every country, you know you have some smaller arenas; you have some university school arenas. So, sometimes you come up a rim could be totally different, totally higher than another rim. For the home team you know they can get used to it, but for you, you’re just like: What is this?

CHRIS NEUMER: So in the NBA arenas there’s no real place that you don’t like to play more than others?

MARKO JARIC: Based on rims and parquet [floors] and stuff no.

CHRIS NEUMER: Temperature?

MARKO JARIC: Maybe about atmosphere and energy. Maybe some of it because of the energy you just don’t play well.

CHRIS NEUMER: Where?

MARKO JARIC: [pause] You know what, I don’t know if they can use this against me…there’s a couple. I never like to play in Washington D.C. I don’t know why, it’s totally new arena and its fine. You know, there’s just arenas that just suck out the energy out of you, it’s funny.

CHRIS NEUMER: Hmm, I haven’t heard that. Is that true across your career that you haven’t liked the D.C. arena.

MARKO JARIC: You know what, through your career you can’t see where you play good and where you don’t play good. There’s definitely a couple more arenas that you’re just trying to avoid.

CHRIS NEUMER: Gotcha. Now you guys in Memphis went through a coaching change midway through this last year. My friends and I all played ball in college and we still all follow the game. I’m a Bulls fan and I’ve taken a lot of heat because Vinny Del Negro is a first year coach. A lot of people are taking him to task for what he’s done on the job. And he’s done a couple of bonehead things. He’s run out of time outs a number of times and done a couple other things, probably monkeyed with the rotation a lot too. People keep saying he should be fired right away next year. And I say you look how hard he had the Bulls playing. They were missing Deng, he’s injured, and they had a couple of players that weren’t there. Del Negro had them competing game after game and that’s what I want to see from a coach. So I figure, here you are. You’re a player. You’ve just recently gone through a coaching change, how would you tell a fan whether a coach is doing a good job or not?

MARKO JARIC: First of all, fans need to be realistic and to see how good of a team they have. To me, the only way you’re going to judge the coach is how much potential he uses of the team. You can see the best coaches of the league, they can see clear, they’re [getting] 130 percent out of the team, and out of the players obviously. You’ve definitely seen that many times. You see that one player will go to one team and will play excellent, and then he gets traded and he’ll just disappear. It happens all the time. That shows the system and how good the coach is. That’s why there’s no one player who didn’t want to play for the Phoenix Suns two years ago, because whoever would go there would just play unbelievably good and then as soon as they leave the team their career went in totally different direction.

MARKO JARIC: It was D’Antoni’s system at the time. I don’t know if he was Coach of the Year, but you know what, he showed he was a good coach. He didn’t coach me, so I can’t say whether he knows exactly when to call timeouts, but, to me, the most important thing about coaches, just take the maximum out of players and pointing them in the right direction. But we are the ones that make the decisions on the court.

CHRIS NEUMER: Scott Skiles used to coach the Bulls. He was notorious for yelling, screaming and getting on people. On the other hand, you’ve got guys like Stan Van Gundy that will throw himself under the bus to protect the players. Do you guys care which type of coach you have?

MARKO JARIC: It’s very important. It also depends on the kind of team you have. I think if you have a young team that needs teaching, definitely you need a coach like Scott Skiles. [He will] basically point you in the right direction, some time overpower the team, and basically just teach you. You know what; sometimes you have 12-15 different players 10 different egos, 10 different everybody that just need to be happy on the team, and it’s a very difficult job to have. And really everybody asks me, “Marko what you want to be when you’re done playing,” I don’t want to be a coach. As much as I think I can be a coach, it’s a tough spot to be on. But that’s the difference between good coaching. Sometimes you need to recognize when you’re going to be tough on the player, as soon as they learn something you need to back up and let their character come up. They say some coaches are hard on the players, and they’re never going to let the players develop their character.

CHRIS NEUMER: In your career have you ever had any coaches that stand out in your mind as coaches you really meshed well with or you thought your style of play would have benefited from?

MARKO JARIC: Definitely it happens every time. I can’t even tell you the name. The coach comes to a point [where he thinks], “Yes I’m in the same line as this guy.” But some guys, I’m like, “We have totally different visions of basketball.” So it happens all the time.

CHRIS NEUMER: One thing that I’m sort of surprised at, especially in basketball, is the salary nature and the things like that. There’s a lot of talk of expiring contracts. This last year, Raef LaFrentz, he wasn’t Raef LaFrentz, he was Raef LaTrentz’s Expiring Contract. I know you were part of the big deal for Kevin Love (ed. note: Jaric and O.J. Mayo were traded from the Timberwolves to the Grizzlies in June of 2008 for Kevin Love, Mike Miller and assorted parts), and people were talking about you being thrown in simply because your contract matched up. Is that just part of the deal? Getting used to you being seen as a contract?

MARKO JARIC: NBA is organized very well for everybody. Only the thing is that players don’t have rights to say anything. That’s definitely a thing that I would change. Basically we don’t have a contract with the team; we sign the contract with the NBA. Because you just go anywhere you want, your contract can go anywhere you want. Basically you sign a contract with the NBA, you sign for three years. Three years you’re going to get from NBA wherever you’re going to be going to Memphis, Lakers—

CHRIS NEUMER: [confused] So, wait, when you get your checks they’re not from the Grizzlies?

MARKO JARIC: No, no they are from the Grizzlies; I’m just saying you’re basically—

CHRIS NEUMER: But the contract is signed by the NBA?

MARKO JARIC: No, no everything is signed with the team. Basically teams can move players whenever they want. That doesn’t allow fans to connect more with the teams. As soon as they maybe connect with a player or team, that next year, maybe they try to rebuild and just change everything. But one way I understand why that thing is done, so they protect the owners and… management is the most important thing of the NBA. It’s basically a good general manager that puts the pieces of the puzzle together.

CHRIS NEUMER: With a salary cap.

MARKO JARIC: Yeah, with a salary cap exactly.

CHRIS NEUMER: This is what surprises me that there is so much talk of the summer 2010, all the big guys. Lebron, Dwyane, Amare—

MARKO JARIC: Chris Bosh.

CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, their contracts are all up, and it’s like we have to go under this, and I’m thinking: Who’s the last free agent to change teams and win?

MARKO JARIC: I’m going to tell you something. I think a lot of teams base their teams on the terms of their fans. I think a lot of smart GMs understand that probably most of these players are going to stay with their teams.

MARKO JARIC: I mean, that’s too bad because you know what? It’s so hard to get these players and why would they just let them go? I think, like, 80 percent [of] these franchise players, like Lebron, Wade, Chris Bosh and other guys are going to stay with their teams. So to me it’s absurd to me to basically to clear salary caps, for your team in 2010 because they’re not going to let that happen.

CHRIS NEUMER: As a player does it bother you when you look at what the management is doing, and that they might be structuring things to get better odds in the lottery or under the salary cap in 2010? Does that bother you as a player?

MARKO JARIC: Of course it bothers me, and it’s very disappointing. Our careers are limited, we can play ten years, you know. Fifteen years if you’re a great athlete in a great position. We want to win as much as we can. We can’t wait till the organization builds up something in 2-3 years from now. I say maybe because I know so many teams that they’re rebuilding and trying to build something and maybe one or two are doing a good job. Maybe Portland is one of them that do a really great job over last 3-4 years. I don’t know any other team that’s doing a great job. Or maybe Orlando is doing a really good job.

CHRIS NEUMER: It’s funny, the Clippers were bad in the 80s, bad in the 90s, pretty bad in the 2000s…

MARKO JARIC: Of course when you have a team, with management and great tradition, and what impressed me, why you can’t—there's no way everyone can be great, but you can at least move forward. You have teams like San Antonio Spurs, for the last 10 years that have been good.

CHRIS NEUMER: You got longer than that because you had Robinson and Elliot before that.

MARKO JARIC: You know what; they know who the superstars are. Because of winning they had all these good/great players. I’m going to tell you, you see that team year after year, they’re successful, year after year, it’s a good organization, it’s a good team. You know what, if you can’t do it on your own, try to follow how they trying to select their players. What they do in their organization to keep this team in a high ratio winning and losing. You know just try to follow them if you can’t think of something on their own. Also, you have teams that I’m not going to mention in the last 30- 40 years that they can’t make it in the playoffs, so you know what, there’s something wrong there.

CHRIS NEUMER: I’m not going to write down ‘Golden State’ next to ‘Stephon Marbury’ here in my notebook. I’m not going to.

MARKO JARIC: [laughs] Don’t write down anything.