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I told our players at Butler, 'I hate to break it to you, but you aren't playing beyond here. That's reality. So why are you so concerned with yourself?' It's a hard lesson, but I told them, 'How you handle your role on this team will be remembered by your coaches and your teammates. It will define you.'
When you're coaching at Kentucky, you're held to a different standard, and like in politics, there is a core group that absolutely loves you, and everyone else is trying to unseat you in any way they can - anything to trip you up; that's what it is. If you're not up to that, then don't coach at Kentucky.
My dad was a high school coach for 30-plus years in North Carolina, and he was inducted into the North Carolina High School Coaches Hall of Fame. He's the best coach I've known, in every way, all the way around - relationships, motivation, going the extra mile, always putting his kids first and foremost.
With federal recognition, the Lumbee Tribe would become a full player in Indian country, no longer second class Indians in the eyes of the federal government. As such, we would employ our substantial skills and abilities to help correct problems faced by Indian country and make significant contributions.
Humility is the true key to success. Successful people lose their way at times. They often embrace and overindulge from the fruits of success. Humility halts this arrogance and self-indulging trap. Humble people share the credit and wealth, remaining focused and hungry to continue the journey of success.
Sometimes I feel tomorrow is the last. Some days I feel like I can go for years. I think my goal is that I enjoy coaching. I don't think I want to stop working. I think my dad worked in steel work for almost 50 years. The minute you saw him stop working you could see him go apart. I don't want to do that.
I was always making decisions and they were easier decisions because I had control of the game, I had control of the ball. As a coach you sort of put the ball in other player's hands and let them make decisions for you. But I still get a kick out of winning basketball games and that's what I'm in this for.
You're wondering what a bale of hay has to do with success. Well, there's a trick to loading hay. You have to use your knee. What you do is, you put your right knee behind it and half kick it up in the air. That way you get some lift on it. ... My point is, there are certain ways to make a hard job easier.
Now you've been in the playoffs once, you know what it tastes like, you know what it feels like. You know, going through the season when Coach is preaching physicality, how hard you gotta play, how you gotta take care of the ball, why he's saying that. Because all that comes into play in playoff basketball.
If you read some of the recent literature, there is no such thing as whiteness. But we made it up. Not my original thought, but it's true. Because you were born white, you have advantages systemically, culturally, psychology there. They have been built up for hundreds of years. Many people can't look at it.
I think the ability to motivate might be interpreted as the ability to lead, or to show people their goals or, perhaps more important, what their potential is - as a person as well as a player. You've got to show players that being part of a team will carry over to the experience of becoming part of society.
I totally can relate to guys going in for job interviews, and not having a tie, not having a white shirt, and that type of thing to wear. That's why I think as coaches we can do things to help. We have plenty, we as NBA coaches and players are all very blessed to be in a profession so that we can provide for.
My dad was a very quiet person, and unbelievably tough. But my grandmother gave me my first look at negative thinking to bring about positive results. When I was just a little guy, anytime I came to my grandmother and said I wish for this or that, Grandma would say, 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.'
You are the real teachers. You have these children when they are at their emotional peaks and lows. That's when they are the most pliable. It doesn't take any intelligence to send a kid home with his head hanging between his knees. But to send him home with his head up every night might show a little coaching.
I want to say to you Indiana people that I owe you a big, big debt of gratitude because nowhere in the world is a sporting group followed more than this state follows basketball. And I just want to thank you for the opportunity that I had to coach in this state - it will always be something that I will cherish.
All the years I coached, we sent a card to every professor for each kid I had, and I was able to keep track on a daily basis who cut class or who was dropping a grade average. What I did was bring that kid in at 5:00 in the morning, and he would run the stairs from the bottom to the top until I told him to quit.
To be honored by your peers is incredibly gratifying and I am so thankful to my colleagues across the league for this recognition. I'm also grateful to the talented and dedicated coaching staff I work with every day in Toronto. To be recognized with an award that bears Michael H. Goldberg's name is very special.
All of you are aware of the journey I've taken this past year and I just want to relay to all of the people that sent along their prayers and well wishes, my heartfelt thanks. It was truly overwhelming to me and my family the outpouring that we received from the Twin Cities community and from across the Midwest.
I'm not Joe Paterno. Somebody didn't come and tell me Bernie Fine did something and I'm hiding it. I know nothing. If I saw some reason not to support Bernie, I would not support him. If somebody showed me a reason, proved that reason, I would not support him. But until then, I'll support him until the day I die.
We talk to our guys all the time about the difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in something, you do it when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you do it all the time, even when you lost that feeling that you originally had when you you made the original commitment.
I believe that good defense embodies seven cardinal principle: reduce the number of your opponent's shots; force your opponent into low percentage shots; control everything within 18 feet; eliminate second shots; no easy baskets; point the ball on all long shots; and prevent the ball from going into the pivot man.
We talk in coaching about "winners" - kids, and I've had a lot of them, who just will not allow themselves or their team to lose. Coaches call that a will to win. I don't. I think that puts the emphasis in the wrong place. Everybody has a will to win. What's far more important is having the will to prepare to win.
Outside the Raptors' organization, I definitely think guys like LeBron James, James Harden and Derrick Rose will show off some great looks. On our team, Kyle Lowry has amazing style. But we have a lot of fashionable guys: Patrick Patterson, Bismack Biyombo and Jonas Valanciunas are all really into fashion as well.
One of the things I've said to teams and players from time to time - especially when things are going well like we had them going in Orlando - is that you better appreciate it and enjoy it because things change quickly in this game. You know, it's tough for guys to really think it will change on them, but it does.
There's an old adage of, 'This is what I do, it's not who I am.' There is a line that gets blurry at times because you sometimes become your work, or you sometimes put so much into your work that you can't separate from it. It swallows you up. It really happens during the season and it's a difficult line to manage.
I hate this quality, but I can go to dark levels when we lose. It's not a panic attack, but there's anxiety. I'm inconsolable. I'm a train wreck. I'm being myself. Then I get this crazy, intense focus, where I get desperate not to be embarrassed again. That dark spot is what I tap into. Creativity comes from there.
You're coaching Kentucky - and you have a chance to change lives. That's not what this is up there in the NBA. You have assets. You're trying to piece a team together. You're trying to win more games than the other guy. You're trying to advance in the playoffs, and if you don't, they'll find somebody else that can.
Talent is important. But the single most important ingredient after you get the talent is internal leadership. It's not the coaches as much as one single person or people on the team who set higher standards than that team would normally set for itself. I really believe that that's been ultimately important for us.
If my primary purpose here at Indiana is to go out and win ballgames, I can probably do that as well as anybody can. I would just cheat, get some money from a lot of people around Indianapolis who want to run the operation that way, and just go out and get the best basketball players I can. Then we'd beat everybody.
The thing is 3,900 out of 4,000 college basketball players are very happy to have a scholarship. They're happy. They've got a $70,000 scholarship and they've got money in their pocket. It's the other hundred guys and they're all going to make money playing basketball and the top guys are going to make a lot of money.
Residual income is passive income that comes in every month whether you show up or not. It’s when you no longer get paid on your personal efforts alone, but you get paid on the efforts of hundreds or even thousands of others and on the efforts of your money! It’s one of the keys to financial freedom and time freedom.
People, on their bucket lists, are saying, 'I want to see a game at Rupp Arena.' Magic Johnson will call and say, 'I want to come to the game tonight. I want to see John Wall or Anthony Davis or Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.' It's become fashionable to be seen here, because people want to be seen and associated with success.
Actually, when I saw it in USA Today, I just, Candace Parker was, we were warming up in practice and she was underneath the basket shooting and I just said, 'Hey Candace! I enjoyed what I read in the paper today about your decision [to stay].' She just started laughing and I did too. So I haven't discussed it with her.
Despite their tremendous talent, (NBA players) are still, by and large, young adults, seeking validation from an authority figure, and there is no greater authority figure on a team than the coach. Needless to say, in today's warped, self-indulgent climate, too many players couldn't care less about appeasing the coach.
Sometimes I look like I was under interrogation. Some people just don't look good in clothes. In New York, Armani and all those clothing people used to call me up and tried to pay me not to wear their clothes. This is as good as it's going to get...and then it's all downhill. I'll be fine. I never feel as bad as I look.
I think that it's perhaps harder to learn from victory than it is from defeat. I think that we don't want defeat. We don't want defeat in sport. We don't want defeat in life. How are we going to be beaten? All right. We have to deal with those things. What's going to cause us to lose the game, whatever the game might be?
I think it's gonna take a sincere empathy and compassion for people of all races, to really reflect and process on the true history of the black community in this country. The history has been filled with incredible oppression and we really have to acknowledge that, to start to change the lens of how we see true equality.
The term 'overachiever' sort of makes it look like the person has mediocre talent and he just works so hard that he achieves beyond what you would think. 'Overachiever' is sort of a - it's sort of an incorrect term. An overachiever is someone that's just willing to pay the price to get so much more out of his performance.
I went into a restaurant one night and ordered lobster, and the waiter brought me one with a claw missing. I called him over and told him about it. He told me that in the back there's a tank they keep the lobsters in and while they're in there, they fight and sometimes one loses a claw. I told him 'then bring me a winner.'
My wife has now made a point of, after losses, to bring our son into the bed when he wakes up in the morning. So when I'm waking up and I'm still obsessing over whatever happened the night before, I see this little guy right in front of me smiling and wanting to connect with me. It's totally changed how I compartmentalize.
If they're trying to get high school kids to go to the D-League, I will be shouting from mountaintops saying, 'What is this going to do to a generation of kids who say, 'All right, I'm going to do this,' you get one or two years to make it, and now you're out without any opportunities. Who's taking care of those kids now?'
I make an excellent salary and work a great job. A lot of the people who voted for Trump don't. Let's say you say you're out of a job and believe this guy is going to get you on back on your feet. You might overlook some stuff not because you believe it. But you're that desperate. They're wrong. But it's what they believe.
In 1955-56, Saint Joseph's won the first Big Five championship, compiled a 23-6 overall record, and entered its first postseason competition ever - the National Invitation Tournament - finishing third. That season's success seemed to vault St. Joe's into the national collegiate basketball scene, and it has been there since.
Everybody makes such a big deal today about team play because there's such a scarcity of it. Greed is a reason. You have to understand the influence of greed. A player has to be selfish in the pursuit of the development of his skills, but he cannot be selfish when it comes time to blend them in with what's good for his team.
Major League Baseball has the best idea of all. Three years before they'll take a kid out of college, then they have a minor league system that they put the kids in. I'm sure that if the NBA followed the same thing, there would be a lot of kids in a minor league system that still were not good enough to play in the major NBA.
If the NBA is worried about the NBA, if the NCAA is worried about the NCAA, if each individual institution is just worried about themselves, and the last thing we think about is these kids, then we're going to make wrong decisions. There are a lot of players of different levels, of different abilities. Let's be fair with them.
Josh Smith, put in the right spots, is an outstanding player. You put Josh down on the right block, in the low post or even on a short isolation - 12 feet, 15 feet from the basket - he can get to the rim. He's outstanding. He's not only a very willing passer but an outstanding passer. I think it's the best part of Josh's game.
I've always loved Air Jordans. My favorite one was the Air Jordan No. 1 with the black front. What's ironic about that is I don't own a pair of those. I probably have countless pairs but they're my favorite ones. I had the poster in my room. Those are my favorite Jordan shoes of all time. I've just never bought them for myself.
I care about systematically playing basketball. If the spacing isn't right, if guys are standing on top of each other, if there aren't lanes to be provided, or rebounders available to offensively rebound the ball, or we don't have defensive balance when a shot goes up, all of these things are fundamental basketball. I follow it.
The NBA has made a real issue about really making these superstars the premium that everybody wants to go to. That's their calling card and their marketing tool. But the coaches at the other end of the sphere are trying to make everybody on the team, even nine, 10, 11, 12, just as important, and have a real role that's meaningful.