Best 195 quotes in «nba quotes» category

When I leave the NBA, I don't want my legacy to be, 'He won a championship ring.' I want my legacy to say: 'He played for the people. He gave everybody in the world hope that they can be just like him.'

What do you have when you have an agent buried up to his neck in sand? Not enough sand.

What type of teammates do you want to play with? Be that teammate yourself

When I was a little kid, I used to really embarrass my parents.

What a pathetic play from a pathetic human being.

What I would say is I've only had one injury in my NBA career, that was probably was because my core wasn't strong enough, when I had a stress fracture in my back.

When I was about 17 I knew that I was going to be serious about music. Before that I thought, fairly certainly, that I would be a writer. Before that, I thought I would be a forward in the NBA. And before that I thought that I would own a snake farm.

Where else but the NBA could people like Bill Russell, Spencer Haywood, Ricky Barry, Dennis Rodman, and Allen Iverson come in and be allowed to be who they are?

You can't always be the most talented person in the room. But you can be the most competitive

Wherever you go, things change you. I mean, obviously moving to Miami and becoming part of the NBA has given me a different perspective on style than I had when I lived in Chicago or Milwaukee.

When you win, sometimes it overshadows a poor performance.

You have to lose yourself in the team and you have to lose yourself in the game

You go from high school, to the NBA, and you're thrown in the fire.

You learn from everybody. You learn from the players. You learn from great coaches. You learn from great teams

You know the world is messed up when the tallest man in the NBA is Chinese, the best golfer is black, and the best rapper is white.

You need to work as hard to be a great teammate as you do to be a great player

You need your best players to play their best when their best is needed

You could be adding gasoline to a roaring fire. We understand that. But this is who we are.

You never realize the value of coaching until your children play for a coach

Young people need models, not critics.

1. Be on time. 2. Never criticize a teammate. 3. Never use profanity.

Athletes, we were supposed to just be there, and in class I made it a point that I was prepared for every exam, that I got on that Dean's List. Because I wanted them to see that there was a black person on the Dean's List who was an athlete. I accepted the challenge, because I want you to know that we bleed just like you do. We have feelings just like you do. Let us read the same books and we'll understand it just like you do!

Who could better motivate Bill Russell than Bill Russell?

You've got to stay humble and hungry. Just keep working and thank God you have a chance to play in the NBA.

We looked like a team at both ends of the court.

Accept a loss as a learning experience, and never point fingers at your teammates

As a novelist, there are three phone calls you never expect to receive in your lifetime because if you waited for them you would grow despairing - one calling from Stockholm with a Swedish accent, one from the NBA, and one from Oprah Winfrey.

Anything can happen with hard work and dedication

As I grew up, I played in sandals. I played in flip-flops all the time back in the day. That's why I didn't really care about spraining my ankles. When I first started in the NBA, I loved low-cuts. I can play (in them), because I used to grow up playing in flip-flops all the time.

At the end of the day, no matter how well you score, you've got to be able to stop people

Be a dreamer. If you don't know how to dream, you're dead.

Being afraid on the court, means you're not confident of your skills

A key basketball skill is imagery. The best players "see" situations before they happen so they can be prepared

As players see themselves getting better through skill sessions, they will want to get in the gym more

Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.

Basketball, like all sports, is predicated on the execution of fundamentals. The coach is a teacher. His subject: fundamentals

Because of the makeup of the NBA, it cannot afford for the public to turn on them.

Build shelter against a rainy day.

But the point of using the number was to show that sex was a great part of my life as basketball was a great part of my life. That's the reason why I was single.

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.

Don't worry about being cool. Worry about being the best

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.

Boston is a very proud franchise. The NBA misses them when they are not in the mix. They, along with teams like the Knicks and 76ers are a big part of the heart, soul and history of the league.

Congratulations to the NBA champion Boston Celtics - they beat the Los Angeles Lakers by 39 points. Or as Hillary Clinton would say, "Too close to call.

Drink deeply from good books.

Every NBA arena has six cameras in the ceiling. The question is what does the software do with video feeds? How to surface that in a set of analytics? There are some "playbooks," but in most sports these days what you really want to share out with coaches and players is a set of video that lets you visualize what's going on and what's the best way to do things.

Every year I will stock my locker up with body wash, different lotions, different oils and different creams.

Fundamentals were the most crucial part of my game in the NBA. Everything I did, everything I achieved, can be traced back to the way I approached the fundamentals.

Free speech is against governments, not against the NBA. So the players and coaches and indeed owners have been fined for their speech, which is costly rather than free. I sort of acknowledge that there is not free speech when you agree to work in the NBA.

He'll never be Jordan. This clearly takes him out of the conversation. He can win as much as he wants to.