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I've always been skeptical of people who say they lose themselves in a part. Someone once came up to Spencer Tracy and asked, "Aren't you tired of always playing Tracy?" Tracy replied, "What am I supposed to do, play Bogart?" You have to develop a style that suits you and pursue it, not just develop a bag of tricks.
I hate letting my teammates down. I know I'm not going to make every shot. Sometimes I try to make the right play, and if it results in a loss, I feel awful. I don't feel awful because I have to answer questions about it. I feel awful in that locker room because I could have done something more to help my teammates win.
I'm just blessed that I was able to have guys around me that had some of the same goals. The man above gave me a gift and he gave me friends and a mentor that can help me reach my goal and reach my potential. And we all had the same goal, so it wasn't hard for us to get, you know, off track because we all wanted the same thing.
In the next 15 or 20 years, I hope I'll be the richest man in the world. That's one of my goals. I want to be a billionaire. I want to get to a position where generation on generation don't have to worry about nothing. I don't want family members from my kids to my son's kids to never have to worry. And I can't do that now just playing basketball.
He reminds me of Michael Jordan. "You look and they have similar games where they want to lead their team to victory, no matter if they have to shoot the ball every time or if they have to rebound or pass, they're going to find a way to win." I've always said that Kobe Bryant is the best scorer in our game today and he's definitely proving himself.
That's what keeps me humble because I know my background, know what my mother went through. I never get too high on my stardom or what I can do. My mom always says and my friends all say, ’You're just a very low-maintenance guy’. I don't need too much. Glamour and all that stuff don't excite me. I am just glad I have the game of basketball in my life.
I don't really get involved in it, the whole thing. I understand how important this city is and what I mean to this city and what our team means to the city... but I don't get caught up into it. I just go out and play my game. I try to lead the best way I can, and if I can put my team and this franchise in a position to win the title, I'm grateful for that.
Commitment is a big part of what I am and what I believe. How committed are you to winning? How committed are you to being a good friend? To being trustworthy? To being successful? How committed are you to being a good father, a good teammate, a good role model? There's that moment every morning when you look in the mirror: Are you committed, or are you not?
I'm a guy who is just trying to be successful in whatever I do, and I give everything to my teammates, give everything to the coaching staff. When you fall short, it hurts and it eats at you, and it hurts me to know that I wish I could have done better and done more and just put a little bit more effort or whatever the case may be to help us get over the hump. But it just wasn't our time.
It's humbling to know that you have fans all over America and all over the world and they want you to play on their respective basketball team. It's very humbling that they respect the way I play the game of basketball. I can't discredit that. I can't say I don't enjoy it because you put in a lot of hard work to have fans. And for me to be a role model and for me to have fans all over is great. It's very humbling.
Well, of course you question it, especially when you get to this point. I always look at it would I rather not make the playoffs or lose in The Finals? I don't know. I don't know. I've missed the playoffs twice. I lost in The Finals four times. I'm almost starting to be like I'd rather not even make the playoffs than to lose in The Finals. It would hurt a lot easier if I just didn't make the playoffs and I didn't have a shot at it.
Basketball isn't easy. All my life I've been striving to make myself better. It's a full time commitment. To be the best, you have to work the hardest. You have to chase what seems impossible over and over and over again, because giving up is not an option, and when you feel like you've reached your limit, it's only the beginning, that's when the time to dig deep, to find the courage to push some more, because if you've got the drive, the discipline, and the resolve to do what it takes to make yourself great, then the rewards are endless.
The letter from Dan Gilbert, the booing of the Cleveland fans, the jerseys being burned -- seeing all that was hard for them. My emotions were more mixed. It was easy to say, 'OK, I don't want to deal with these people ever again.' But then you think about the other side. What if I were a kid who looked up to an athlete, and that athlete made me want to do better in my own life, and then he left? How would I react? I've met with Dan, face-to-face, man-to-man. We've talked it out. Everybody makes mistakes. I've made mistakes as well. Who am I to hold a grudge?
All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point.