Basketball Quotes

You watch some teams these days and you wonder if they just met on the playground and decided to choose up sides.

Wilt Chamberlain lied when he said he had 20,000 women.

When I hit bottom, I can attack the problem and get to where I want to be.

I've got to give Larry Bird his due; he was a great player. He knew the game and he was smart.

Death has always had a prominent place in my mind. There are times when I think somebody might kill me.

The NBA's chosen ones think I'm setting a bad example? I think they need to look around and stop taking themselves so seriously.

Black culture is something I don't relate to much at all.

I spent money, I slept with women around the league, but I always kept my mind on the game.

I went from five foot eleven to six foot eight, and the more ball I played, the more I caught on to the game.

I understand what rappers are talking about. I think rap is less about educating people about the black community and more about making money.

I didn't want to be known as Madonna's playboy, her boy toy.

I can't begin to describe the amount of crap I've taken for being a lousy free-throw shooter.

I'm starting to see players copy what I do. I'm flattered.

The doors fly open when you're a professional athlete.

Wherever there's money, there's drugs, so to say drugs don't exist in the NBA would be stupid.

The NBA believes if you play for a team and get paid by a team, you're the property of that team for 24 hours a day.

As long as I play ball, I can get any woman I want.

For us to be successful on defense, we must get back and stop the basketball, eliminate easy baskets, keep the ball out of the lane, and bother the shooters.

The great thing about basketball is it's a live ball. If someone's in your way, push them out of the way, go around them or over them, whatever it takes.

Charles and I go back since college. None of us thought this would happen, we just wanted to play basketball. This is the highest honor that can ever be paid, and it's mind-blowing.

The 50 greatest players don't matter when you're in the Hall of Fame. We all know that I was not one of the 50 greatest, I was one of the 25 greatest - in my mind.

There's only one thing we can control, and that is how hard we play.

I have learned that peace is not the absence of trial, trouble, or torment but the presence of calm in the midst of them

It is not what you teach, but what you emphasize.

The worst day coaching is better than the best day doing anything else

Shared suffering: one guy messes up and everyone runs. One guy does well and everyone benefits.

When the legs go, the heart and the head follow quickly behind.

Players must do what you want them to do in pressure situations.

Administrators are like pigs; don't wrestle with a pig because you both get dirty and the pig likes it.

The team is an extension of the coach.

When you get to be my age, you don't buy green bananas because you may not be around to eat them.

Only run special plays for special players; find plays that fit your players.

You have to clean out the pig barn every week because you know your pigs are in there doing their jobs every day.

We had 10 turnovers tonight. Each one gets worse as you go. It is like prior arrests: the 10th one may not have been that bad, but when you have had nine prior ones, it looks pretty bad.

It doesn't matter where you coach, it matters why you coach.

Make the practices like games and the games like practices.

Parents would rather have their son get all-state than his team win the state championship.

As a coach, you're just trying to figure out how to keep a team on edge. You've got to find that edge.

Quickness more than anything else should determine your amount of pressure on the ball.

We can always do it better.

Play off your great player... great teams have a go-to player and they play off of him.

Don't ever have a rule that you won't enforce with your best player.

I know you can't please everybody; you can't make everybody happy, but just getting that perception that I don't care about basketball and what it brings is a lie.

Guys who might not be superstars but because of their hustle, because of the little things they do, these are the guys who can really mean the difference between winning and losing.

You always have to give 100%,because if you don't someone, somewhere will give 100% and they will beat you when you meet.

Creativity can be learned like basketball, which does not mean we will all be NBA stars.

No one runs fast without an extreme amount of training. Like today, you see kids walking around dribbling a basketball. I had a bag with track shoes in it, and I used to go to the track every day.

I lost all feeling a long time ago. Basketball is basketball. It doesn't matter what floor I'm on.

I've now been in this country for thirteen years, since I was seventeen. So this is my second home.

I love fashion as much as I love basketball! It is a great joy for me to express myself through designing my own collection.