Pat Riley Quotes

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

There are only two options regarding commitment; you’re either in or you’re out.

Excellence happens when you try each day to both do and be, a little better than you were yesterday!

Anytime you stop striving to get better, you're bound to get worse.

Shoulda, coulda, and woulda won't get it done. In attacking adversity, only a positive attitude, alertness, and regrouping to basics can launch a comeback.

Great players and great teams want to be driven. They want to be pushed to the edge. They don't want to be cheated. Ordinary players and average teams want it to be easy

If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges.

All of us have at least one great voice deep inside. People are products of their environment. A lucky few are born into situations in which positive messages abound. Others grow up hearing messages of fear and failure, which they must block out so the positive can be heard. But the positive and courageous voice will always emerge, somewhere, sometime, for all of us. Listen for it, and your breakthroughs will come.

The key to teamwork is to learn a role, accept a role, and strive to become excellent playing it.

You have no choices about how you lose, but you do have a choice about how you come back and prepare to win again.

The most DIFFICULT thing for individuals to do when they become part of a team is to sacrifice, it is much EASIER to be selfish.

Complacency is the last hurdle standing between any team and its potential greatness.

The key to success is to learn to do something right and then do it right every time.

Any team can be a miracle team. The catch is that you have got to go out and work for your miracles. Effort is what ultimately separates great teams from ordinary teams.

Don't let other people tell you what you want.

The true warrior understands and seizes that moment by giving an effort so intense and so intuitive that it could only be called one from the heart.

We sometimes need adversity to fathom our true depths.

There's no such thing as coulda, shoulda, or woulda. If you shoulda and coulda, you woulda done it.

In every contest, there comes a moment that separates winning from losing. The true warrior understands and seizes that moment.

I've learned to keep things simple. Look at your choices, pick the best one, then go to work with all your heart.

We measure areas of performance that are often ignored: jumping in pursuit of every rebound even if you don't get it, swatting at every pass, diving for loose balls, letting someone smash into you in order to draw the foul. These 'effort' statistics are also stored on computer. Effort is what ultimately separates journeyman players from impact players. Knowing how well a player executes all these little things is the key to unlocking career-best performances.

Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers.

You can only receive what you're willing to give.

Am I a control freak? No. Do I believe in organization? You bet. In discipline? In being on time and making sure everything at the hotel is ready and right? Definitely. I don't control players. I try to control the environment around the players so they can flourish.

When you leave it to chance, then all of a sudden you don't have any more luck.