The Dream

Update: The Hakeem interview went well.

Aside from some audio fidelity issues (this was a phone interview) and a polite decline of my request for a voicemail drop ("Wassup this is Dream, shake out a message for my all-star friend Dan Gentile") the interview went pretty well. We spoke for 40 minutes (he talks fairly slow).

I learned:

Despite his website's statement that he has a "private palace" in Jordan it is just a small house. He was upset about this, seems like somebody's gonna get fired. He would also love to have Michael Jordan visit him in Jordan.

Hakeem's dream shake would be vanilla with strawberries and bananas ("you've gotta keep it creative, mix it up, use different combinations").

When asking him about the controversy behind his height (some say 6'11, some say 7 foot) I got him to admit that he is in actuality 6 foot 5 inches. This took some convincing and included me using the phrase "Don't lie to me, Dream!"

He's not familiar enough with the ninja turtles to pick one that he most resembles, despite Dwight Howard (who he called the best big man in the game today) constantly referring to him as Master Splinter in an adorable YouTube video of the two working out together.

He has never played NBA Jam, thus making my question about whether he used the unstoppable combo of Shaq and Scott Skiles irrelevant.

We had some taco talk regarding the double decker, which he starred in a commercial for with Shaq. He said he's trying to watch his weight so he could probably only eat two of them, and that he would not want to compete with Shaq in an eating contest.

The fashion equivalent of a dream shake would be wearing a cashmere sweater with jeans. This was without a doubt the best part of the interview, Hakeem spoke very passionately about his personal style at length and how the key to fashion is to make it look like you're not trying.

He still plays 3v3 pickup games with Clyde Drexler. God help the other 4 guys that randomly end up in that game.

Those are the highlights. I might chop up some of the audio and post it soon. Watch for the Thrillist piece sometime next week.