Drug Dealer to AAU Dream Maker: The Curtis Malone Story

All The Smoke

The Black Effect and iHeartPodcasts

Basketball, Society & Culture, Sports

4.8 • 7.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From D.C. drug dealer to AAU kingmaker.

Curtis Malone built one of the most powerful youth basketball pipelines in America… while secretly running a criminal empire.

In this exclusive ALL THE SMOKE Unplugged sit-down, Malone breaks down his double life, the FBI takedown, his fall from grace, and the players whose lives he helped change along the way, from Michael Beasley to Quinn Cook, Nolan Smith and countless others.

This is the unbelievable true story of the man who shaped a generation of hoopers… and paid the ultimate price.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:02.6	Guaranteed Human.
0:04.0	I got a chance to sit down with Curtis Malone,
0:06.8	someone who was very instrumental in the D.C.
0:10.0	Basketball movement back in the day.
0:12.7	Someone who sat down for some street stuff.
0:16.6	Someone who's got a book out right now, duality.
0:18.6	Check it out.
0:19.3	Hope you guys enjoy this, man.
0:20.3	Now I want to welcome in Curtis Malone, DC Assault creator.
0:26.7	You just got DC Assault back, right?
0:28.4	Yeah, congratulations.
0:30.5	Your name popped up.
0:31.5	Obviously you have ties with my brother Jack.
0:34.4	Beasley spoke, you know, spoke on you lightly, you know, when we sat down and had his
0:40.4	interview. Author of a new book, talk to us about this book and why you felt it was important
0:46.1	at this time to drop it. Well, you know, I really wanted to tell my story, you know, when
0:50.9	everything happened to me, when I took the, took a fall, you know, I, uh, I felt like I can give a lot of jewels, you know, kids, um, husbands, uh, everything because a lot of things spiraled down, you know, for me. So, but I also wanted to make sure people understand you don't have to fall and not get back up and keep pushing.
1:13.4	So that was my main reason, you know, for telling the story, you know, my way.
1:18.5	So you went down what year?
1:21.0	2013.
1:21.9	And you got out in 2020?
	...

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