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You can imagine Drexler’s response as he answered questions about his comments from friends and media Wednesday. “Jack is using me to sell his books,” he told me late Wednesday night. “I don’t get it. Every statement he made is completely false. I never said any of that. Not any of it. Not even close. Why would he make up statements? You’d have to talk to Jack about that.” Portland Tribune

Clyde Drexler, Jack McCallum 

I connected with McCallum Thursday morning. He had already engaged in several discussions with Drexler on Wednesday. McCallum said he has Drexler’s comments – taken from a two-hour visit at Clyde’s Houston home more than a year ago – stored on his recorder. “If anybody thinks I feel good about this, I don’t,” McCallum told me. “I don’t think I took things out of context. The Deadspin excerpt did, and I’m sorry about that. But I stand behind the quotes that are in my book.” Portland Tribune

Clyde Drexler, Jack McCallum 

McCallum goes into length discussing the Drexler interview in a pair of blog posts on his Website, JackMcCallum.net, and posted the transcript of the aforementioned part of the Drexler interview. In a Thursday conversation with me, he explained where he felt Deadspin’s Jack Dickey erred, stressing he believes the writer took it out of context. “Deadspin took the idea that everyone on the Dream team felt sorry for Magic because he was going to die,” McCallum said. “Clyde didn’t say that and I didn’t write that. He was talking about a league-wide perception. “No. 2, they seemed to cast it as if Clyde resented Magic on the Dream Team. That’s not true. Clyde talked about some other guys who shouldn’t have been on the Dream Team, but not Magic. My impression was Clyde did not resent him being on the team.” Portland Tribune

Clyde Drexler, Jack McCallum 

I’m not sure how much that would appease Drexler, who was angry with McCallum, even after they had talked on the phone on Wednesday. Portland Tribune

Clyde Drexler, Jack McCallum 

“He’s trying to ruin a 30-year friendship I’ve had with Magic. I’ve been one of his biggest supporters in the game of basketball, and probably his biggest fan. I have nothing bad to say about Magic, ever.” Drexler conceded that he made one comment to which he was quoted. “I said, ‘People didn’t know what would happen with Magic. If I’d known he was going to live that long, I’d have tried harder to get the MVP (of the All-Star Game) in 1992,’ " he said. “But I was laughing, and I was kidding. Jack should have known that. I would never comment on someone’s mortality. That’s not for us to do. Jack lost he mind when he put that out there.” Portland Tribune

Clyde Drexler, Jack McCallum