A goal is created three times. First as a mental picture. Second, when written down to add clarity and dimension. And third, when you take action towards its achievement.

Winning teams at the NBA level, the college level, and the high school level all play team basketball. Championship teams have five players on the same page at all times.

You have to work hard at staying in contact with your friends so that the relationships will continue and live on... Friendships, along with love, make life worth living.

My parents taught me a long time ago that you win in life with people, and that's important, because if you hang with winners, you stand a great chance of being a winner.

People of conscience are compelled to oppose racism, sexism, and intolerance of people with different sexual identities and orientation wherever and whenever they see it.

It's a different animal when you're in the NBA. You come in this league and you've got 7-footers who play 7 foot who are going to protect that rim come hell or high water.

A great defensive effort. The one thing we have to do is make it hard for people to beat us. We're not worried about winning and losing, we just have to make the game hard

Eminem. My son was listening to that and I was like, “What is that junk?” Then I started listening and I thought, You know, that kid is pretty good. It's the storytelling.

I think you have to work very hard and dedicate yourself and have the respect of your teammates before you're about to go out and just try to take a game over by yourself.

In leadership, there are no words more important than trust. In any organization, trust must be developed among every member of the team if success is going to be achieved

There is not that many players that really can take over games, signed Candace Parker, I really felt like at that time that a National Championship was certainly in reach.

Coaching is salesmanship. Coaching is winning players over and convincing them they have to play together. It takes a team conviction to play together to make things work.

I try not to get too low. I fight adversity as hard as I can fight it, not to get too low. When good things happen, I don't really embrace it. I just say it's a lucky day.

Positive wish: 'The sun will come out tomorrow.' Negative reality: 'Yeah, and it will flash brand-new daylight on the same old mess unless something is done to clean it up.

Fifty-four years ago, I was an 8-year-old boy living in rural Kentucky when the schools were desegregated. I walked into a white school where I was not wanted nor welcomed.

My favorite moment was in Game 6 when Bill Walton tapped a missed Sixers shot toward the backcourt and Johnny Davis ran it down as the clock expired. We were NBA champions!

I frankly think the NBA All-Star game has run its course, the whole dunk contest... The game - if those guys actually played hard in that game, it'd be the best watch ever.

I made a ridiculous statement when I first went to North Carolina State. I said I know basketball down there was like life or death. It was very wrong. It's more important.

The most overrated thing is that you're a good defensive team because of your coaching. No. You're a good defensive team because you care and because it's important to you.

For us tall people, the whole key is that your hips and your knees should form a right angle when you sit down. That's where backs and hips get to be problems for big guys.

Basketball, more than any other sport, is a team game...about the thousands of small, unselfish acts, the sacrifices on the part of the players that result in team building.

I think the basketball gods will get you every time if you start trying to mess with the game. You've got to take what the schedule gives you, or who the standings give you.

I'll watch the kids play, have a big steak with my friends, stay in a nice hotel, sign a lot of autographs, then go back to Vegas and tell my alumni how tough recruiting is.

I've been so fortunate in my life that my family has never been jealous of my success. They have shown true love and commitment to me by being supportive. They shared in it.

When I was growing up, there weren't any Little Leagues in the city. Parents worked all the time. They didn't have time to take their kids out to play baseball and football.

Superiority and success doesn't favor good effort or self-esteem... The mentally precise and physically fit win, while the mediocre and obtuse take solace in hopeful cliches.

It doesn't matter whether you're a former player or you come up through the video room, whether you come from college. You have to earn that trust from NBA players every day.

I wanted to become a college coach. I got game films of all the good college coaches - Pete Newell at California, Eddie Donovan with St. Bonaventure, Ken Loeffler at LaSalle.

Every Olympics, they make a big deal out of something - security... traffic... pollution... something - and it really doesn't come true. For me, there's never been a problem.

The best players I've coached make really hard things look easy. Like you may say, well, that was easy, and then, well, go try it. You think it's so easy, go ahead and do it.

You get to do things for people who will never pay you back and they say you never have had a perfect day until you've done something for someone who will never pay you back.

I was happy working for the N.B.A., but to be honest, I decided that I'd probably get back into coaching. I missed the teaching, I missed the games, I missed the competition.

I think the Pistons have such a well rounded team, which is why they're so successful. All you have to do is look at the stats defensively and at their rebounding and scoring.

I would enjoy the fact that I had a team that won a national title, but I would be disappointed that none of the kids got drafted because that's not how it's supposed to work.

Karen is as good a coach's wife as I've ever been around, and she's better than most. She loves basketball and has a great understanding of my responsibilities, my possession.

Who in their right mind wouldn't listen to what Larry Bird tells them? He knows what it takes to be a successful player, and he's letting us do the things to have the success.

I never want to lead a team that is not allowed the freedom to pursue what's in their hearts. If you want your team to be fully committed, then you'd better be fully committed

As NBA coach, people get on you. But politics, maybe even more so at the local level, is nasty on a very personal level. I have a thick skin, but I don't want to deal with it.

Al McGuire talked to me I don't know how many times about dealing with the press: "You've got to be a con man." I tried that for a day or so, but it never really worked for me.

We need your help. I need your help. We need money for research. It may not save my life. It may save my children's life. It may save someone you love. And it's very important.

I had no desire to coach college until I went to college. Then I said, 'Maybe I can do this.' You get inspired by the people around you who move you and light a fire under you.

Everybody in the world is talking about Canada…outside of the US, there is probably no country in the world that is producing more blue-chip young basketball talent than Canada.

Now, I look at where I am now and I know what I wanna to do. What I would like to be able to do is to spend whatever time I have left and to give, and maybe some hope to others.

When I went to high school, an all-boys' school, a Catholic school, I tried out for football, and I didn't make it. It was the first time, athletically, that I was knocked down.

I think you can challenge people, but you don't want to break people down. But you've got to sometimes just pull them aside and say, you know, you're OK but you could be better.

But try if you can to support, whether it's AIDS or the cancer foundation, so that someone else might survive, might prosper, and might actually be cured of this dreaded disease.

I call it, 'The Kentucky Effect.' Guys from Kentucky are usually drafted higher, and their shoe contracts are worth more. They're in more demand overall because they played here.

If you can get a second-round pick that makes it, it's unbelievable for that franchise, what you save and all the other things to build. You're always looking for guys like that.

Guys like Andre Miller and Kevin Garnett - they're posting up hoping a second guy will run at them so they can pass. You're better just playing one-on-one in the post if you can.

Communication does not always occur naturally, even among a tight-knit group of individuals. Communication must be taught and practiced in order to bring everyone together as one

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