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I created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation back in 1997 for the purpose of going in and improving the living conditions of my people on the African continent, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo where I came from. Our first mission was to go and build a new hospital. Our next mission was to build a school.
I created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation back in 1997 for the purpose of going in and improving the living conditions of my people on the African continent, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo where I came from. Out first mission was to go and build a new hospital. Our next mission was to build a school.
We had to be to the stadium at six o'clock for home games, and traffic was so bad it would take us an hour and fifteen or an hour and thirty minutes to drive. So now I'm sitting in a car for almost an hour and a half and I'm very tense. I'm worried about the traffic. So I started smoking a cigar going to the games.
Sometimes you get the rap of, 'Don't always play hard,' or, 'Just doing it for the money.' But there are guys that genuinely love the game of basketball and are always playing it and are always out there. There are guys that work hard and actually understand the game and are very knowledgeable off the court as well.
If I had not played basketball and made the millions of dollars that I had made, I would never have been able to build a hospital in Congo. It started in 1997, and 10 years later I was able to unveil the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital, named after my mother, in my hometown outside of Kinshasa. It was such a blessing.
We can talk about the value of sportsmanship on one hand, and on the other hand, the leading shots, highlights ... you see every night are the outrageous and unsportsmanlike, so I think there is a double standard here. On the one hand, we complain about it, on the other hand it's the first thing you see every night.
Time lost is time lost. It’s gone forever. Some people tell themselves that they will work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for what they did not do today. People should always do their best. If they work twice as hard tomorrow, then they should have also worked twice as hard today. That would have been their best.
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.
The game of basketball has been everything to me. My place of refuge, place I've always gone where I needed comfort and peace. It's been the site of intense pain and the most intense feelings of joy and satisfaction. It's a relationship that has evolved over time, given me the greatest respect and love for the game.
Messy stuff irritates me. I don't like messiness. If you leave something around my house, I'll tell you to move it back, clean it up, throw it in the trash - don't matter, just get rid of it. I need stuff neat, organized. And once I start cleaning stuff, I don't stop until it's done. Otherwise I'm irritated all day.
What makes me feel good is all of the people that rooted for A.I. get a chance to say, 'He did what you never thought he could do. The critics. He did what you never thought he could accomplish.' This is a moment that me and my fans and my family and friends can share together because we always believed in the dream.
It's always a tough process when you're always the best guy on your team, in high school, in middle school, AAU and things like that. Then you come together, and you may not be the best guy on the team. You may have to adjust. You may not be a go to scorer. You may have to be a picker. You may have to be a rebounder.
I take my sport damned seriously. Basketball is my life. There are other people who go into important games as if they were any other game. I'm a brooder and I spend a lot of time thinking about my opponent, about the things he can do and about what I have to do to win. I don't think I'll ever be able to change that.
I think just having everybody know who you are is more of a challenge. More than anything about it is just knowing people are watching. I know who I am, so it's watching things I say, what I do. Even if I'm in line at one of the rest stops or something, it's just being on my Ps and Qs at all times more than anything.
But you know, if you live an affluent lifestyle, there are all types of trappings that are there that you have to be cognizant of, and you've got to try and communicate freely and gain understanding about and then keep moving on, because you know, sometimes lifestyles are chosen for us as opposed to us choosing them.
Take a good long look at human beings in their actual practices and motives; bring the utmost psychological and bio-economic factors to bear on making sense of their illusions and delusions. What then would the truth have to be, such that such human beings are FIT TO KNOW IT at all, even provisionally or tentatively?
There was a gap in minority heroes in animation, books, and storytelling for me as a kid, and being a father now, I felt the responsibility I had to the next generation to create stories that allow us to wish and dream and build worlds that inspire young people who haven't traditionally had these heroes to look up to.
Being healthy is a complete lifestyle for me. It allows my brain to function at a very high degree so I can comprehend all the new things that are thrown at me. It also allows me to sleep well so that I am rested when I need to perform. Finally, being healthy will hopefully allow me to live a long and fun-filled life.
When people start comparing him with (Michael) Jordan then that's not a fair comparison. Jordan was a far more superior player in a very tough league, he was very creative. That's not taking away anything from LeBron because he is a great player, but it is not a fair comparison because Jordan is a far superior player.
Money can make people look at you in strange ways. You get phone calls from people you haven't spoken with in a long time, and they'll leave a message saying, 'Do me a favor, call me back. I have something I want to ask you.' I'm not going to answer those calls, because there's always something behind it, like a loan.
The first three championships that I won, I won them. I had big numbers and I won them. And last year, the guys won it for me. They won it for the big guy. Numbers are overrated. There's a lot of guys in this league who can say they've got great numbers. But they can't say they've got four rings in the last six years.
It's been kind of hard, I'm labeled as a jerk right now, you know what I mean? But I love it. I've been a jerk all my life. My momma loves this jerk. My kids love this jerk. I'm going to be a jerk in a good way, though. I'm going to be a jerk to the other teams and just go out there and play basketball. I can do that.
I think it's hard to compare the NBA and the WNBA, but the thing about the NBA is they just have a ton of movement every year, but the WNBA doesn't. Free agency is not set up that way; the money is obviously not set up that way, so when one player moves, it could set the stage for, literally, like, six or seven years.
As quickly as you can go 4-1, you can go 1-4. And the whole objective is not to get too high and not to get too low. It's one thing to tell somebody that and explain it, but it's another thing to really buy in, to have felt that and understand what it means to stay even-keel. That's what you have to be in this league.
With the exception of maybe Vegas or Miami once or twice, other than that, it's all the same to me. I can't hear anything in the club with the loud music, so you're in there, and you're like, 'I can't hear you because of the loud music.' I hate that, yelling back and forth. And I don't drink, so it's kind of pointless.
Every season is so much different and you go through your ups and downs, you figure your team out, you get to play against great teams. Some of the best competition there's been since I've been in the league. Just every night, night in and night out we get to play against the top guys, the top teams. It's a lot of fun.
I mostly play my dynasty or against someone in the hotel. I don't really like online games. I can't stand people yelling in my ear over a headset. I'd rather just play someone like Dwight Howard out in Orlando or people back home. For games like that, it's cool, but just signing on and playing random people, I hate it.
Approval is a greater motivator than disapproval, but we have to disapprove on occasion when we correct. It’s necessary. I make corrections only after I have proved to the individual that I highly value him. If they know we care for them, our correction won’t be seen as judgmental. I also try to never make it personal.
I'm very conscious of data and analytics, and understanding how our body works and different loads that we put on it throughout the course of games and practices. It helps you make adjustments if you need to, helps you be smarter about your workouts, and I think it protects you from injuries to not over-exert yourself.
Everybody says they want to win. But when you start talking about sacrifice and doing what's right for the team, it's like, 'Wait a minute, I didn't mean that. I want to win, but...' There's always a conjunction with that. It's never what you think it is. And it's always, like, your weakest point where you got to do it.
My first project was to build an ionization gauge control circuit for Professor Edgar Everhart's Cockcroft-Walton accelerator. In those days, vacuum tubes were the active components in electronic circuits. I can still recall the warm orange glow of the vacuum tube filaments and the cool blue glow of the thyratron tubes.
The Zen masters have the right idea-no pain no gain: thwack a silly nebbish and he'll remember it far longer and more indelibly than any words you muster at him. Not absolutely everything can or should have to be explained, and particularly not to everybody. But a concussion is a value-judgment anyone gets the point of.
Mark Jackson played 19, 20 years in the NBA. Shouldn't even have probably been in the league, and he's the third-ranked assist guy in the NBA. But you describe his game: Can he jump? No, not really. How's his outside shot? Eh, it's inconsistent. Can he defend? Nah, he can't stay in front of guys. And he played 19 years!
I miss Seattle a lot. It was my first city that I lived in on my own. It was a great city to play for. It was unfortunate for the fans what happened, but it’s time to move on. I’m sure they’ve moved on. But in the back of my mind, I still have a thing for Seattle and always am going to remember what they’ve done for me.
Scott Brooks you mean the world to me. I love you. You as a man, I never met anybody like you. So selfless. You don't take the credit for nothing, Even though you deserve all of it. I love you and your family for always taking me in, Believing in me, Texting me late at night when I was going crazy. Thank you. Thank you.
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.
George Washington Carver said: 'No one has the right to come into this world and go out of it without leaving distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.' So if I'm going to be remembered for something, if I have a choice, I'd rather be known for standing up for my principles than shooting a jump shot.
This year I've just been aggressive. I still have that mindset of passing the ball, and being aggressive and attacking to the basket is going to draw more attention, and that way I can find my teammates. Being in attack mode is something I try to bring into every single game, and that's what's making me be so successful.
It was a weird game. There was ugly shooting and a lot of turnovers and mistakes, and we were just fortunate to get the win. I should have done better, but it was just a very ugly and weird game... I knew the game was going to be an ugly game when I saw those three guys at the scorer's table. Ugly people call ugly games.
It's a really weird mindset to kind of try to take my mentality on the basketball court and bring it here on to the golf course. I don't want to have too high of expectations on, like, each hole, just try to enjoy the process, but hopefully get out to a good start tomorrow and be in the conversation and see what happens.
The only thing that I've really noticed in my own experience is just people kind of saying that a woman, when they react to something exciting, 'Oh, that's a masculine way of reacting.' And to me, that's absurd. It's like, that's how humans - they get excited, and you yell, and you jump, and you flex. That's what you do.
There's been injuries to where my perseverance may have gotten overlooked-just my hard work and what I bring to a franchise and to a team may have gotten overlooked. But it's a matter of staying professional and playing the game of basketball and ultimately doing whatever it takes to win a championship for your teammates.
A rebounder, or a shot-blocker for that matter, is always at a disadvantage if he tells himself the only way he can succeed is by out jumping the guy next to him. Sometimes he will have to, but most of the time he will not. Most of my rebounds came from positioning, where I was able to get the ball while in heavy traffic.
In the NBA, you're taking a bunch of different talents, and you're managing them. You have to give them a system; you have to give them a belief. That's why coaches like Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich are so great: because they gave the team confidence in the system and in their ability to execute night in and night out.
I think when you look around this league, so much is scripted. And not scripted in a sense that the league is scripted, but when guys talk, it's like, 'Say this. Yeah, come out and say that.' Like, nah, I'm not doing that. I'm going to say what's on my mind. I'm going to say what's on my heart. It's just genuine speaking.
I supported Obama because of his relationships. A lot of the things he believes in, you would say that it's not in the best interest for someone in my tax bracket, but it's not about that. It's about him making the world better and making it equal and even all around, and that's what I'm supporting when I supported Obama.
A lot of people [are] saying civil union," Faried told KDVR. "I don't like it being called that because I can get married to a female and it can be called a marriage. Why can't a female be married to a female and male be married to a male and it be called a marriage? You still have the same thing, same love and happiness.
As a student of the game, it is a dream come true to align myself with a brand that has a rich history in sports. Like most kids, I grew up idolizing Michael Jordan and continue to work relentlessly to reach his iconic status on the court. I'm truly motivated to take my career to the next level as a member of Team Jordan.
As the wonderful agony begins for 1964-65, I sometimes wonder why I do it. I've got an insurance business going on the side, and it is starting to grow nicely. Selling insurance fulfills me, in a way, like basketball. But basketball keeps calling me back. I suppose I'll play until I can't keep up with the kids any longer.
Spreading the word on a zero budget is difficult. You find yourself spending all night on Twitter following people; using Facebook to leave messages on various club walls; commenting on YouTube clips and blog posts; giving interviews online and taking photos of bottles to send to websites in the hope that they feature you.