What distinguishes a great player is his presence. When he goes on to the court, his presence dominates the atmosphere.
My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.
Remember that basketball is a game of habits. If you make the other guy deviate from his habits, you’ve got him.
Friendship is a full-time job.
I’ve been fortunate to meet and work with a lot of really smart people. The thing that strikes me most about them is how they continue to explore and learn every day. I have tried to apply that approach in my modest career as well.
Heart in champions has to do with the depth of our motivation and how well your mind and body react to pressure – that is, being able to do what you do best under maximum pain and stress.
We couldn’t sustain it. And they got a lot of kids that can shoot. We just couldn’t close out well enough.
Don’t knock the ball in the stands, keep it in your hands!
I think what has happened to our basketball team, we’ve been badly distracted. They’re not reading too many positive things in the paper.
Durability is part of what makes a great athlete.
The last five or six days, I’ve been running. The last two days, I’ve been running pretty hard. Everybody’s got to be someplace.
If you can take something to levels that very few other people can reach, then what you’re doing becomes art.
The magic to a great meeting is all of the work that’s done beforehand.
Create unselfishness as the most important team attribute.
We overreached our decision power. Sometimes our decisions have to fit the reality of the outside world.
We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us – anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.
The morale and the camaraderie that we had for one another earlier in the year is starting to come under duress because of all the losses. Some of the guys are feeling the pressure now from the last year when they were not successful.
The most important thing to me is the friends that I’ve made.
The only important statistic is the final score.
I think that David Stern is probably the greatest commissioner that any sport has ever had in the history of this country.
What’s more important than who’s going to be the first black manager is who’s going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.