Quotes from Clyde Drexler

I retired at 35 in '98 and thought, 'There's only one place to go, and that's downward.' I retired at a good level. I was at peace after 15 years - I was lucky to play that long.

It makes you a better player when you're around better competition. If you pay attention, you can learn something.

Come on, everyone wants to win a championship, but a lot of players have had great careers without one. Sometimes it just doesn't happen for whatever reason.

Without the hand check rule, players are more likely to work their way open.

Everybody's mom plays a huge role in their development and support. Mom was awesome. There is no one better. I had a good family. I had six brothers and six sisters, and they were all very supportive.

Because coaching is a challenge, it makes you want to come back. But if you do, you know you're going to be negligent in other areas.

We had some great years in Portland. We went to the finals twice. We won 63 games one year. You can't tell me those weren't championship teams.

You talk about demand, and these are big-name NBA players fighting for spots to be in the BIG3. So you gotta bring your game to make a squad, and that's what Ice Cube's envisioned when he started the BIG3.

In my day, defenders played you with two hands and an elbow. You're not getting by a guy, especially if he has an elbow and a hand on you and is a strong defensive player.

Some of the guys in the Eastern Conference, I had never been on their teams - like Larry Bird: even though you make the All Star team, you're going to be in the West; he's on the East. So you're never going to be teammates.

If you've got the best record, you're going to be the favourite. So you've got to play as the favourite with a bullseye on your back.

If I had a great game, and I was hot, usually we were up by 20-30 going into the fourth quarter. That means I don't get to play in the fourth quarter.

I had a lot of wonderful accomplishments in the game of basketball. Of course, to win a gold medal for your country - it doesn't get any better than that.

You have to understand, the Blazers and their fans had a unique relationship. I'm not sure there has ever been a love affair between an NBA team and its fan base like we had... We had good players and good citizens.

This should be a written rule: Guards should always defer to centers. I don't care how good you are, those big guys make the game so much easier for every other person on that team, and without them, everyone else needs to work twice as hard.

You may score 50 points and grab 40 rebounds and have 30 assists, but if I don't make the free throws at the end of the game, and we lose, does that make you not a champion?

I don't care what anybody says: a pro athlete is going to be a role model. I tried to use that as a positive influence, to let kids know we are regular people.

Houston fans want a high value for their entertainment dollar, and if you don't win, they will drop you and go on to the next big deal.

Education is worth its weight in gold. Make no mistake about it.

To be able to have a professional 3-on-3 league and be a part of that, that's been a ton of fun, ton of fun. The fans love it, the players love playing it, and it's just a lot of fun to be around.

That's the part of basketball that we have to understand. You can never look at it as an individual sport. You rely on so many other people.

The key ingredient is talent - you've got to have talent. If you look at the regular season, they've got the best record in the entire league, so they've got the talent.

If I had to make a choice for the Hall of Fame... I would have gone in as a Portland Trail Blazer.

Going to the Portland Trail Blazers, who actually took the time to invest in me, was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me in my career. I got to a small market where I could focus on basketball, basketball, basketball. No distractions.