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Even if you don't become a professional athlete, the experience of working with a team, knowing how to set goals, and working every day to figure out how to accomplish those goals definitely gives you confidence to apply those same characteristics to other life challenges.
You don't have to be the biggest, tallest, strongest guy to do whatever you want to do. You can do anything. There's tall doctors, short doctors. It doesn't matter. You don't have to be the tallest guy to play the sport of basketball, football or whatever you want to play.
I painted my toenails before Dennis Rodman. One time at training camp, I stubbed my toe and the nail came loose. My mom gave me some toenail hardener, and I painted over it. I scored 40-something points that night, so it became a ritual. Paint my toenails, score 40 points.
You learn to respect team chemistry. It's the fourth quarter, there's two minutes left, the shot clock is winding down, and we're like, 'What do we do?' We didn't have that flow. Chemistry comes down to repetition. It's not, 'We've played some games; we have chemistry now.'
My parents were born and brought up in New York City. My father was trained as an electrical engineer, and my mother was an elementary school teacher. They were the children of Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States from England and Lithuania in the late 1800s.
My parents, my family, that's the biggest inspiration in my life. I've been in a lot of dark spots in my life, and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be able to get out of it, but they are who they are. They followed me. They yelled at me. They screamed at me. They loved me.
As a player, I can tell them they don't want to rush to become a coach, because there is a lot that goes on. This is all something new to me. You can talk to a lot of the coaches... and they can tell you. Until you go through it, then you can understand what it's all about.
Tim Tebow is one of my biggest inspirations. I actually want to be able to do some of the things that he does in terms of the amount of charity work and the non-profit work, and the way he impacts people off the field. I think that is what is most inspiring to me about him.
The season is a beast within itself. It's not the quickest race; it's a marathon. In the playoffs - if you're fortunate enough to make the playoffs - that's more like a dash. You have to concentrate on one opponent. When they're done, you have to concentrate on another one.
I'm more than comfortable just sitting back and scoring 21, 22 points or whatever and getting 10, 11 assists whatever the case might be. More than comfortable with that. It's just a matter of the pieces that you have around you and what you can do to elevate everybody else.
I can't play the game of basketball and live my life on what other people expect me to do or what they think I should do. That doesn't make me happy. What makes me happy is being able to make plays for my teammates, to be able to represent the name on the back of my jersey.
For centuries in this country, black people were seen as three-fifths of a person. So when you hear the national anthem or you see an American flag as an African American person who has experienced the effects of that dehumanizing existence, it's not going to mean the same.
I can remember a game, we were down with about 5 to 10 points, I go off about 25 points, we come back and win the game, we're walking off the floor. Tex (Winter) looks at me and says "There's no "I" in team!" I looked at Tex and say, "There's not, but there's an 'I' in win!
Sometimes in my mind I have a picture of something happening, and because the foot is not right it is harder to happen. I see the ball and I can see myself intercepting it or rebounding or doing this stuff, and it's just not there. There's not the movement or explosiveness.
You just have to adapt to what is needed at that moment, whereas as coaches are going crazy, because they're used to having and following a schedule. Everything's laid out in front of them on when they're going to practice and when they're going to take a plane to this city.
I think that my IQ level grew as a player. I think that I [run] the game a little bit better. I'm waiting for the game to come to me, and I'm picking and choosing my spots instead of just going out there and just doing whatever because I don't have to do that with this team?
When you're sending emails, you live and die by your subject line. Making it personal or funny can increase your open rate 10 times or more. At the very least, try to pitch some value rather than pointless bragging. 'Work Faster!' is better than 'Version 10.4 now available!'
As a player, you experience so many different moments, but you never truly sit back and reflect on them. You enjoy them, but with the championships, we were so busy celebrating with everyone that we didn't really realize what we had accomplished as individuals and as a team.
I'm more like a senior adviser so I don't like to come in here and try to take over. Just like your basic karate movie where the young guys come to the old guys with beards who have them do weird stuff to get to the other side. That's who I am, the old guy with a long beard.
I partied too much. I was still 19, 20 years old. I was coming from a little small city where there's 40,000 people, so being in New Jersey, New York, being with a big All-Star like Stephon Marbury, he's calling me every night to go out with him. I didn't know how to say no.
I think, generally speaking as a player, when I hear the word 'scout,' it's usually, 'The Seattle Storm are playing the L.A. Sparks tomorrow; the assistant coaches are scouting the L.A. Sparks.' And then they come to us and give a scouting report on the players and the team.
I thought those three years when we won championships, I really was good enough to play in the All-Star game. I felt I deserved to be in the top whatever that would be, the top 20-some players in the league. Really felt that comfortable and confident on the basketball court.
It's different, but I prefer my people on the East Coast. Some people might be offended by that, but I mean, especially knowing I'm from the West Coast. I don't know if it's because it's home for me or what, but I just feel like people are real good friends. That's all it is.
To me, the All-Star Game is just another step. I try to take all my experiences and put them together. To make the NBA was something, and then to be recognized as an All-Star - although I don't consider myself a star. I see myself as just trying to reach my potential as B. J.
You always spend a little more time watching the guys you coached, to see how they're playing. And there's no question that when I check scores, I still go to the Nuggets scorer faster than any other scores. I have a lot of love for the players and a lot of love for the city.
I'm going to make mistakes, I just have to be able to learn from them as quickly as possible. To learn faster, I watch film of myself and other good point guards, and then breaking down my mistakes and really analyzing them and seeing where I could have made better decisions.
Coming into my rookie year, I could kind of eat whatever I wanted - you're really not too concerned about it. But you don't realize that a pound here and there is really not a good thing. It's just basic physics: it's harder to move faster and jump higher when you weigh more.
The four laws of learning are: the first is demonstration of what you want. The second is the criticism of the demonstration. The third is the imitation of the correct model, and the fourth is repetition, over and over until it becomes habit where is you don't think about it.
There's a difference [between taking a charge and flopping]. We all know what flopping is when we see it. The stuff that you see is where guys aren't really getting hit at all and are just flailing around like a fish out of water. That's kind of like, where are your balls at?
I'm just thrilled for so many people. Our players, mostly, but the people in our organization - Rick Welts, Joe Lacob and Peter Guber and the whole group. It's just a phenomenal group of people. I think as a coach you just appreciate kind of the big picture a little bit more.
You've got to stay ready, especially around here. That's what we preach, you'll get your opportunity whether it comes at the beginning or in the middle or in the end whenever it may be. When your time comes, you need to be ready to go because you're going to earn your minutes
Some guys have to score more off the bench because that's what their team needs. But some other teams need someone that's going to assist or rebound. It all depends on what he brings to that team and how much it helps their win-loss record and how much they change their team.
My first couple of years in the league left me very unstable. I had some times where I played well, and I had some times were I really did not get the opportunity. After Rick Pitino gave up on me my first year, people were like, 'He can't play.' So I had to get over that hump.
I'm very happy and excited to be re-joining the Sixers family as a part of their broadcast team. I spent my best and most enthusiastic years of my NBA career with this organization and its fans and I truly feel honored and blessed to have been given this opportunity to return.
If someone can learn from my experiences, grow from them and take it to the next level or to learn what not to do, that's almost a civil responsibility for your peers but also for those that follow you, support you and don't get a chance to come behind the curtain so to speak.
There are a lot of people using technology that are playing to a click with backing vocals already stuck in there on some computerized thing that runs along in time to the show so they have these amazing vocals that are only partly the guys on stage producing them at the time.
I'm going to be one of the top four that's ever played this game, for sure. And if they don't want me to have one of those top four spots, they'd better find another spot on that mountain. Somebody's gotta get bumped, but that's not for me to decide. That's for the architects.
The gay community has taken care of their issues and problems in terms of HIV/AIDS. They have done an incredible job. We as heterosexuals need to learn from the gay community because they have rallied together. They have sent a lot of information out there. They go get tested.
Most teams have one All-Star, whether that guy made it this year or earlier in his career, and some teams have two All-Stars. What theyre showing is that a group of five guys that play together and play hard will always beat a team with two All-Stars and three average players.
I failed, I think, seven [or] eight times before I finally got my first [championship]. It was just, you know, just about me growing up. Now that I'm an old, old veteran-age 29-I do things a lot differently. I don't go to the gentlemen's clubs anymore. I had to slow that down.
A lot has to be the NBA. I don't know if I can say it is the egos of the players or the money that goes around and everything. But those relationships between the coaches and the players are just not the same. They are not even close to the European coach-player relationships.
I think it's very important for every player after a long season, whether it's good or bad, to get total rest. Not just physically and mentally from basketball and the pressure on the court, but the pressures outside, too. Then, when you come back, everything's exciting again.
Doing this for so long, I realize that the media - you have a boss. And your boss wants you to provide the best material that you can. And he might put pressure on you to do it a way that you feel is unconstitutional. You might not like it. But you still gotta feed your family.
There's nobody else on the face of this earth that's playing a sport at a highest level... with a transplant. That alone continues to inspire me, because I realize throughout the whole world the struggles that people are going through. I need to inspire them the best way I can.
I want to go get a stop on defense so James can do it again. It was a big spurt for him. That made then get out of their game plan and play him closer. But when he does that, we want to make sure we capitalize and get timely stops. And that's what got us right back in the game.
Earlier in life, I put family in front of faith. I've fixed that. But I always tried to keep work fourth on the list. I was proud when [my wife] Nellie told an interviewer, 'I never could tell whether John had a good practice or a bad practice, because he never brought it home'
So much of becoming a good athlete involves bringing other things to the table, other than physical skills. It involves intelligence, it involves many of the things that you learn during the process of being educated. How to analyze, how to assess, how to equate, how to reason.
I'm feeling better after the game than I did when I came off the floor with cramps. ... I was going to try to give it a go, and 'Spo said 'No.' You know, after I came out of the game, they kind of took off. And it was frustrating sitting out and not being able to help the team.
I don't think you can say that one aspect of my life built my perspective. It is a combination of my faith, my family, the people I've met at Connecticut and understanding that basketball is a platform for something bigger than the game, helping people, touching people's lives.
You have to be able to say, OK, that happened back then. Now let's take it from here and see what happens. It would be very easy to hate people for the rest of your life, and some people have done that. You've got to deal with what's happening now and try to make things better.