Larry Bird Quotes about Basketball

Don't let winning make you soft. Don't let losing make you quit. Don't let your teammates down in any situation.

I've got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.

A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.

Push yourself again and again. Don't give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.

Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It's being able to take it as well as dish it out. That's the only way you're going to get respect from the players.

I hate to lose more than I like to win.

I wasn't real quick, and I wasn't real strong. Some guys will just take off and it's like, whoa. So I beat them with my mind and my fundamentals.

You can make all the excuses you want, but if you're not mentally tough and you're not prepared to play every night, you're not going to win.

It doesn't matter who scores the points, it's who can get the ball to the scorer.

Practice habits were crucial to my development in basketball. I didn't play against the toughest competition in high school, but one reason I was able to do well in college was that I mastered the fundamentals. You've got to have them down before you can even think about playing.

There are many times when you are better off practicing than playing; but most people just don't understand that

Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got.

First master the fundamentals.

You never make any of the shots you never take. 87% of the ones you do take, you'll miss too. I make 110% of my shots.

I'm a firm believer in that you play the way you practice.

Michael Jordan is God disguised as a basketball player.

As far as playing, I didn't care who guarded me - red, yellow, black. I just didn't want a white guy guarding me, because it's disrespect to my game.

I don't know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody - somewhere - was practicing more than me.

Basketball has been my life and I worked at it so hard because I enjoyed it so much.

Coaches can talk and talk and talk about something, but if you get it on tape and show it to them, it is so much more effective.

When I go to the line I'm thinking 'All net.' When I don't think that, I'm likely to miss.

The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.

Basketball was always a game to me. One of the greatest things in life for me was to be able to play what I loved dearly and get paid for it. So it was always a game to me and that's how I perceived everything.

The best players will play. That's the way it will always be.

I really don't like talking about money. All I can say is that the Good Lord must have wanted me to have it.