Basketball Quotes - Page 67

You'd like to see your team reasonably happy, but that's not your job. Gain their respect and get them to accept their roles

Push yourself to keep improving or you'll stay as close to the bottom as you are to the top

It's not what you teach, it's what you emphasize.

The goal in life is the same as in basketball: make the effort to do the best you are capable of doing--in marriage, at your job, in the community, for your country. Make the effort to contribute in whatever way you can. You may do it materially or with time, ideas, or work. Making the effort to contribute is what counts. The effort is what counts in everything.

Drink deeply from good books.

It's important to keep trying to do what you think is right no matter how hard it is or how often you fail. Never stop trying

There were butterflies, otherwise, you're not really ready to play. The locker room, I remember, was quiet and we were very focused on playing that game.

You get what you tolerate!

Players will never do more than you demand.

And if you see me, smile and maybe give me a hug. That's important to me too.

All really successful coaches have a system.

The difference between Namath and me is that when you make the money he makes, they say you're ruggedly handsome. When you make the money I make, they say you have a big nose. (On resembling Joe Namath)

Not only is Rip Hamilton an outstanding basketball player, he is also known for giving back to his community.

Politicians refuse to modernize schools, they cut out midnight basketball, but build all these new jails. First class jails, second class schools. This is zero tolerance.

Football, you can go out and buy a football and play it in your backyard. Basketball, you can go out and play it in the schoolyard or in your driveway. Baseball, you get a glove and a bat and a ball and you go out and play in the neighborhood. You can't do that in hockey.

I get scared of a lot of attention. I get scared of the spotlight. And I'm not talking about on the basketball court.

The only reason I went to college was to play basketball. I injured my knee and couldn't play.

There are many really good teams in our conference this season. Miami, Indiana and Detroit will be our fiercest opponents this year. But we just have to focus on our game and be patient with the realistic hope that we'll be on top after all is said and done.

Kobe enjoys that situation. Stepping up and making the big basket or being involved in a key play.

Some people insist they've never met a gay person. But Three Degrees of Jason Collins dictates that no NBA player can claim that anymore. Pro basketball is a family. And pretty much every family I know has a brother, sister or cousin who's gay. In the brotherhood of the NBA, I just happen to be the one who's out.

Now I'm a free agent, literally and figuratively. I've reached that enviable state in life in which I can do pretty much what I want. And what I want is to continue to play basketball. I still love the game, and I still have something to offer. My coaches and teammates recognize that. At the same time, I want to be genuine and authentic and truthful.

I believe you win games by what you do from your first practice until your first game

When we were growing up we only got two pairs of shoes every year. With me, I was lucky because I got three pairs of shoes, the third were basketball shoes: Black Air Force Ones, White Air Force Ones, and boots for the winter.

Everybody thinks the grass is greener on the other side. If you talk to most artists, they think they can play something, you know, "If I had stayed playing football in high school, if I had been doing basketball..." Everybody's got their fantasies and thinks the grass is greener. It's not. It's not.

Leadership does not mean getting people to do their job. It means getting people to do their best.