I made a ridiculous statement when I first went to North Carolina State. I said I know basketball down there was like life or death. It was very wrong. It's more important.
Leaders must learn to discipline their disappointments. It's not what happens to us, it is what we choose to do about what happens that makes the difference in how our lives turn out.
I don't really want to go into my problems with the team at the time except to say that no one's ever had to pay me to play basketball.
I think coaches sometimes foul their own players out of game by benching them too long when in foul trouble
Basketball, like all sports, is predicated on the execution of fundamentals. The coach is a teacher. His subject: fundamentals
Even the greatest players accept coaching and value the need for discipline and the order that it brings to the team
Allah says in the Qur'an not to despise one another. So the criterion in Islam is not color or social status. It's who is most righteous. If I go to a mosque - and I'm a basketball player with money and prestige - if I go to a mosque and see an imam, I feel inferior. He's better than me. It's about knowledge.
Discipline and demand without being demeaning.
To those who much has been given, much is expected.
When I go in for heart surgery, I want a full-time surgeon. I don't want some guy who just does it part-time between rounds of golf. You want a guy who is doing it all the time and is always reading and learning about the most recent techniques.
This team is one execution away from being a very good basketball team.
Winning is like deodorant - it comes up and a lot of things don't stink.
After spending more than 17 years playing for the NBA, in the summertime, I always came back to community service and different basketball clinics.
People that don't know me think that basketball is my life 24/7. Trust me, there is much more to my life. My number one priority in my life is my family.
Whether it's college or WNBA, its basketball and the more you play the less you need to adjust.
If I want to wear a dress, I'll wear a dress.
You know it's going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black.
The tragedy is women of color have made more progress in basketball than they have in broadcasting.
What is the best thing you can do in a close game? Drive to the basket and put pressure on the defense! Not jack up jump shots
Do your best when no one is looking.
These days I smile benignly at the fights that I see in NBA games. There aren't any broken noses or black eyes, which happened quite often when I played.
Basketball has always and will always come first to me but it's also given me the chance to do really fun things and work with really fun people and its something I'm lucky to have.
Systems win! Believe in your system, and then sell it to your players.
Baseball is the only game left for people. To play basketball, you have to be 7 feet 6 inches. To play football, you have to be the same width.
The only important statistic is the final score.
