Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There's something nice about being part of a trailblazing group. It's hard to look at myself that way because I look at Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoops and Rebecca Lobo and Dawn Staley in that way.
I have always liked knives. Then somebody gave me one. Then somebody gave me another one. Then I liked having them and started buying them. I started finding ones I liked, ones with funky blades.
In any household, whenever you are a family that's going through something tough - whether it's an illness or whatever the case may be, families tend to close their doors and become more private.
You always wonder how a coach's demeanor will be going from assistant to head coach. They can kind of change, the personality, and you don't know how that will affect the team or how they see him.
I just want to try to ignore the scrutiny and all the distractions and just play hard basketball and let the best come... Improving game by game and trying to improve my game is what I want to do.
Everybody dreams about getting to the NBA and everybody dreams about having their own shoe. But when you're the face of a brand, you've got to kind of back off and let it all soak in a little bit.
Most of the time, if you ask a kid who's their best friend, it's usually a classmate or their neighbor or something, but for me, it was my granddad. Everybody knew him - they called him Mr. Jones.
I'm a social butterfly. Once I get somewhere, I can make myself at ease and start the team bonding and build a relationship with my team, all my teammates, all the coaches, all the coaching staff.
With the way I dress, I think my personality shows, so I don't always have to talk. Someone can see what I'm wearing, see what socks I'm wearing, and see what my vibe is, what kind of person I am.
For me, Duke was personal. I hated Duke and I hated everything I felt Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn’t recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited players who were Uncle Toms.
More than anything tough, I play 'Madden'. I'm a football guy at heart; maybe I should have played football for a living instead, because I play a lot of football videogames. I'm really into them.
I only had one year of eligibility and I wasn't getting many offers from other schools. I jumped on it to make a mark. That was the most wise decision I made coming out of Oklahoma junior college.
The only reason is that I hadn't seen The Modern Jazz Quartet perform live and a live performance is often where the real experience of jazz takes place. I'm not familiar with the Boswell Sisters.
Intellect is merely a narrow and highly specific kind of thing that we DO, but our immediacy relates us to what we naturally and essentially ARE, the actualities of our full-dimensional existence.
It's wonderful for the players. It's a huge challenge and a huge responsibility for us to get our act together, get our butts in gear. Phil isn't going to bail us out because of our mental lapses.
This is my first summer [with] no trouble. I ain't go to jail for speeding. Didn't go to jail for DUI. I didn't break my foot. I didn't break my other foot. I'm one step ahead of the game already.
I know just one thing is those guys, KG and everyone, they're hungry. They want it bad. Sam's the only one that's had that, has the ring. Other than him, everybody else over there, we want it bad.
I took Hedo (Turkoglu) in the first game and Rashard (Lewis) hit the winning shot. I took Rashard in the second game and Hedo hit the shot. If I could clone myself, we'd be all right. But I can't.
I wanted to do two things when I was growing up, about your age. I wanted to play in the NBA, and I wanted to be a businessman after my basketball career was over, and that is what I am doing now.
For me, growing up I watched Michael Jordan win all those championships, and I dreamed of being in that same spot one day. So to actually be here, and have one under my belt is an amazing feeling.
I think our criminal justice system has two problems. We have systematic problems and we have people problems. So if the hearts of people are not about justice than any system you have won't work.
My favorite singer is Canton Jones, a gospel hip-hop artist - when I'm on the bus going to a game, I listen to him in my own little world, singing and dancing; he gets me ready to play every time.
Opinions are very easily heard in our media and technology-type of world that we're in. I just try to stay focused on the people that I'm around every day that I work with, that I trust and value.
In Turkey, the media wait for you outside. You go down to them, in tunnel, and sometimes, people are yelling and throwing things. They throw coins. I get hit in the head. Bleeding. There is blood.
I never feared about my skills because I put in the work. Work ethic eliminates fear. So if you put forth the work, what are you fearing? You know what you're capable of doing and what you're not.
The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether its proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation – the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing.
I would tell players to relax and never think about what's at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you've lost your focus.
But my drive to win is so great ... I just step over that line. ... It's very embarrassing, ... one of the things you totally regret. So you look at yourself in the mirror and say, 'I was stupid.'
When you come off a losing season - one of the worst seasons in all of basketball - and get guys like Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, two perennial All-Stars, we felt like we had a championship team.
It's going to be great. A lot of the players are coming. I wasn't here when they put (Jackson) up in the rafters. But to have him here as my number goes up, it brings back a lot of great memories.
I'm on a mission. And I know the older I get, I may lose a step or two, but it's all up in the medulla oblongata. I've got a lot up there. I've got a lot of knowledge... in this medulla oblongata.
In junior high in Germany I fought kids all the time. I had such a bad temper, I almost got thrown out of school. A few lickings from my dad got me out of that scene. He wore me out with a paddle.
Scottie was just a different character than Michael. He was more the soft side. Every once in a while he would explode, but he would help me. Michael on the other end was almost always aggressive.
There are so many guys that come up and have strong hearts, but they just have to understand what the consequences are and how to execute the things that they learned to make themselves successful.
My off-the-field heroes, the people who gave me the values to live by and who inspired me with their hard work and unselfish dedication to their family, were my mom, Catherine, and my dad, William.
My first few years in the league, I was relying on my athleticism to get me by, because that's what got me to the NBA. The problem with that is, you end up getting really, really tired by February.
On my best days, such as when I was a junior in high school coming off a 42-point performance and near triple-double, my dad was there to tell me I haven't arrived yet and bring me back to reality.
I can't worry about what other people are saying about me. At the end of the day, it's just their opinions, but if I said I don't hear it, or it doesn't bother me a little bit, I'd be lying to you.
I started rapping towards the end of middle school. In high school, with a lot of my friends, we would make beats and just start rapping - beating on the wall, beating on the table and freestyling.
When you're younger, everyone wants to be a point guard. Everyone wants to shoot fadeaway jump shots all day. Nobody wants to be a big man. Nobody wants to go stand on the block and just set picks.
I don't think anyone's worth $100 million if Michael Jordan wasn't, but hey, that's what Abe Pollin thought I was worth, and if someone puts $100 million in front of you, you're gonna take it, too.
Getting an unsophisticated client was the golden prize. The quickest way to make money on Wall Street is to take the most sophisticated product and try to sell it to the least sophisticated client.
I just want to be in there at the end of the game to try to help the team win. The last six minutes of an NBA game is where you make your name, so hopefully I'm in there trying to help my guys win.
If I had to think of what I would do different in my whole career, it's that I never would have picked up a beer, bottle of vodka. That definitely changed my life. That is an Achilles' heel for me.
I have worked out with the Thunder, Lakers, Knicks, Grizzlies, Spurs, and a few others before the draft. I have worked out primarily against shorter and supposedly faster players in these workouts.
When people ask me now if I miss coaching UCLA basketball games, the national championships, the attention, the trophies, and everything that goes with them, I tell them this: I miss the practices.
When you work out or you're doing anything active, it's more fun as a group. You may lose track of the time, and the next thing you know, you're working out for two hours because you're having fun.
In the States, I get recognised all the time. I met a fan once who had a tattoo of my face on his arm. I can see how some people get carried away with it, but I don't have trouble staying grounded.
To me, I have always been a Rick Adelman fan. I felt like if I had been in his systems, I probably would have been a better player than I was because if you look at his system, it was ideal for me.
The key about playing internationally is the confidence that you gain. Not only do you train with some of the best players in the NBA, but you compete against some of the best players in the world.