Basketball Quotes

Each group and each youngster is different. As a leader or coach, you get to know what they need.

A leader's responsibility to his team is paramount. It overshadows even his own personal feelings at any given time.

With me and basketball, it became part of me.

We lost, and that's the main thing that went wrong.

Basketball was not my main sport in grade school, or even the first year of high school.

If a team cannot perform with excellence at a moment's notice, they probably will fail in the long run.

First of all, what happens is, when you're good at something, you spend a lot of time with it. People identify you with that sport, so it becomes part of your identity.

A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional amount of time on "x's and o's" as compared to time spent learning about people.

Building relationships is the key for being happy as a coach. Players must want to play for you. If they are comfortable with you, they will work hard for you.

The game of basketball is not played with throwing punches, throwing elbows.

People got to realize that the owners who been paying me are a lot richer than I am. It's not like I was born rich; I had to play basketball to make this type of money.

I was a bit of a tomboy, so I played softball and basketball. Then I was also a cheerleader. And I played flute too.

The only way you're going to get through life, happily, is being yourself.

I hate it. It looks like a stickup at 7-Eleven. Five guys standing there with their hands in the air.

I would rather have a player who has mastered two or three moves than to try to teach him six or seven.

Our conditioning program begins the first day of class. The running portion is very demanding. It has physiological advantages, as well as psychological advantages.

We put a premium on knowing what the other team does. Then we try to take them out of it.

It's in the struggle itself that you define yourself.

A particular shot or way of moving the ball can be a player's personal signature, but efficiency of performance is what wins the game for the team.

I positively, positively, positively want to play. I've got everything else so why not a gold medal? I want to play.

It wasn't until late high school and early college that I gained enough size and skill to make me welcome on intramural basketball teams.

Mostly I play sports games - football and basketball. 'Inside Drive' and 'NFL Fever.'

If Shakespeare had been in pro basketball, he never would have had time to write his soliloquies. He would have always been on a plane between Phoenix and Kansas City.

They don't pay you a million dollars for two-hand chest passes.

My life had no meaning at all. I found only brief interludes of satisfaction. It was like my whole life had been about my whole basketball career.

It's hard when your father's the coach. Sometimes you don't know where one leaves off and the other begins.

I lived my life one way for 35 years, for me. And then the focus came in on what I really was.

Basketball, a game which won't be fit for people until they set the basket umbilicus-high and return the giraffes to the zoo.

When I came into the league, once a team drafted you, they owned you forever. If they didn't like the clothes you wore, or the car you drove, they could blackball you.

When you play guard, you're not going to block a lot of shots. Inside, you're going to block shots.

I think that basketball players should get the job done no matter how it looks on the screen.

You don't cut anywhere, don't pick down anywhere, don't double screen, no weak side picking. All these things that should happen in a game of basketball don't happen anymore.

The thing about it is almost everyone could pass that way, but we were kept from doing it by our coaches.

I don't blame David Stern because a player gets on the court and he doesn't put out competitively. No one can make you play if you don't want to play.

I think that teaching coaches are the norm now.

But I like to think an athlete is an athlete.

The players have no real self-esteem when it comes to putting the best image out there in a real competitive fashion.

My goals have gone from being an all-star to just being able to play basketball. I always took for granted that I could play. Now I know what a gift it is.

You can't win without the ball.

Everything can happen in the playoffs.

Great shooters are one dribble guys.

Pro basketball is a very mercenary endeavor.

You must have a passion to coach.

Dreamers are not content with being mediocre.

The basic premise of my system is to fatigue your opponents with constant pressure defensively and constant movement offensively.

The key to coaching is not what you do, but the way you do it. The intangibles, the motivational parts of the game are the most important facets of it.

I was a baseball player at North Central High School in Spokane, Washington even though I was all-city in basketball, even when I signed a letter of intent to play quarterback at Washington State.

I play basketball, I surf and swim and go to the cinema and listen to music and read. I like shopping.

I enjoy the last quarter of all basketball games.

When you flop, that's just another message that you don't know how to play me. Stand up and take your medicine like a man.