Quotes from Monty Williams

When I was in Portland, they started pushing me to do more media when they thought I was going to be a head coach.

Every team goes through segments of the season where things get a bit loose, from time to time.

Herb Williams was a guy that took me in and taught me how to eat, taught me how to take care of my body.

I would like to be the kind of coach who gets text messages and phone calls from players years after I coach them, because we had something that is bigger than just being on the floor.

The one thing that Pop taught me was to be myself.

I'm a man who has failed in many areas, but the one thing I don't want to do is quit.

You can either be a quitter, a camper or a climber. I don't want to quit, and I certainly don't want to camp.

The reality is we live in a world that's filled with stuff, but quitting is not an option.

It just comes from my faith as a Christian, to not just do a job, collect a check and go home.

We got to figure out or define what is a legal guarding position because there are times where he can move his hands out of the way, but it's hard to tell a guy what to do when somebody is running into you, you know what I mean? I don't know what a legal guarding position is at times.

You can't play like that in any conference, where bigs just continually get offensive rebounds and get fouled and get to the free throw line.

I am overjoyed to receive the Michael H. Goldberg Coach of the Year Award from the National Basketball Coaches Association.

Having already been a head coach and having been fired, you never want to be in a situation where you're not prepared.

You do feel a level of excitement because winning in the NBA is really hard as it relates to one game, but to win a series, you have to enjoy that.

Your natural tendency, human nature, is to always look and see if there's an opportunity. But that's something that I don't spend a ton of time doing because I'm pretty meat and potatoes when it comes to approaching the day.

I'm distraught as I look at my boys - two are African American and one is Caucasian - because too many people see them differently. None of them should have to think about how law enforcement will treat them if pulled over for rolling through a stop sign.

I have to be real with my kids. Life is precious. They know that. Yet, I have to remind them that they're blessed beyond what most people on the face of the Earth could imagine.

I think facts remove assumptions.

I think if we can educate ourselves and educate our kids and educate guys in the NBA, we can remove assumptions. Once you remove those assumptions, I begin to understand someone else's background.

So many reporters ask a lot of crazy questions. The answers to most of these questions are so obvious, but they ask them anyway just to see what kind of reaction they can get out of you.

We talk about touching our guys in a personal way, knowing that we all want to play basketball and coach basketball, but our guys are dealing with stuff and we want to make sure we are sensitive to that.

In our case, my children and I couldn't have made it through the tough times without the grace of God and the wonderful support we received from family and friends.

I just try to be authentic and speak from the heart. Sometimes it requires me to shut up and not say anything.

There are so many things you can lose sight of as you try to win games and all the stuff we try to do every day.