I've done a lot of basketball drills, not a whole lot of competitive stuff. I have basically been in the gym everyday working on my game, working on the time off that I've had from the game, just getting myself prepared mentally and physically for the season.
I expect us to be good; very good. I expect us to first and foremost be better than we were last year and get back to having this franchise as one of the premier franchises on and off the court, and I think we have the opportunity to do that this upcoming season. I really believe that.
I said it before we arrived in Athens, that we wanted to prove to the world that our bronze medal in Sweden was not a fluke, and we have achieved this.
I was just different. When the other kids gravitated to football or basketball I went fishing and skating. I was into trapping animals, pheasants and squirrels. Not only was I trapper. I was a taxidermist.
Yugoslavia was a kind of superpower. Great movies. Beautiful novels. Great rock-and-roll. We became a superpower in basketball. The problem is that people needed to identify more strongly with it after Tito and his awful, tricky way of leading the country.
In the original script, my character was a basketball player rather than a boxer. I didn't think I could pull that off. I'm a little short to be a basketball player!
It is as big a mistake to turn down a good shot as it is to take a bad one
I don't listen to a ton of music other than putting my show together, just because my lifestyle isn't too conducive to listening to music all the time. I like to watch basketball, and I would rather not listen to music while I'm doing that.
Proper prior planning prevents pitiful poor performance.
You never realize the value of coaching until your children play for a coach
Good shooters take the shots; best shooters take most of the shots.
If a farmer and his family can get up at 5:30 every morning to milk cows, surly we can get up at that time to practice basketball.
Have character, don't be one.
Simplify the game as much as possible. When you add, you must subtract.
I have learned that peace is not the absence of trial, trouble, or torment but the presence of calm in the midst of them
A basketball diameter is 10 inches and a rim is 18 inches so I made a 14-inch rim I put in to practice on. Few people could do that because it was so frustrating that it drove everyone but me nuts. That led to me shooting very high, which basic physics tells you is the best angle - the hole is bigger from above than from the side.
Your contribution as a coach is defending and rebounding.
I lost $35,000 in less than a week at the Mirage in Las Vegas.
In jail I was just like everybody else, I was sitting there praying, feeling caged.
I understand what rappers are talking about. I think rap is less about educating people about the black community and more about making money.
I think marriage and athletes is a bad combination.
For years the league has thought I've been on drugs. I would have burned out a long time ago if that was true.
I've been homeless. I've worked at 7-Eleven.
I don't want to be bulky and stiff.
I don't trust what this life has given me.
