Dean Smith Quotes about Basketball

What to do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.

Basketball is a beautiful game when the five players on the court play with one heartbeat.

The most important thing in good leadership is truly caring.

If you make every game a life and death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot.

A leader's job is to develop committed followers. Bad leaders destroy their followers' sense of commitment.

Good people are happy when something good happens to someone else.

A lion never roars after a kill.

There is a lot of basketball beyond our control, but a player should never let anyone try harder than he does

I wasn't as critical during games as I was at practice. Players needed confidence during games more than criticism.

The coach's job is to be part servant in helping each player reach his goals within the team concept.

One player's selfish attitude can poison a locker room and make it hard, if not impossible, to establish team work

Basketball is a team game. But that doesn't mean all five players should have the same amount of shots.

I always mean what I say, but I don't always say what I'm thinking.

I think the real free person in society is one that's disciplined. It's the one that can choose; that is the free one.

You should sub a player out when you see a player not going full-speed or playing selfish basketball.

Basketball, more than any other sport, is a team game...about the thousands of small, unselfish acts, the sacrifices on the part of the players that result in team building.

The key statistic is still to get to the foul line.

I only use statistics to reinforce what I already think, or if it's something unusual.

I enjoy basketball. I enjoy coaching basketball. It's the out-of-season stuff I didn't handle well.

Over coaching is the worst thing you can do to a player.

I would never recruit a player who yells at his teammates, disrespected his high school coach, or scores 33 points a game and his team goes 10-10.

Praise behaviour that you want repeated

Everyone on the bench stands for the man coming out of the game.

I've always believed in quickness over strength and size.

The most important thing is team morale.