Quotes from Mike Budenholzer

The best decisions are made when everyone is included, everyone is involved.

It's part of, I guess, one of the harder parts about coaching is you have to make some tough decisions.

It's a tough job to be the owner in a rebuild, to be the GM, to be the coach. These are tough jobs.

I think individually, Al Horford is very special, very unique. He's a guy that can kind of be the backbone of the defense.

When you make that transition to being a head coach, there's so much more you have to think of and consider. You're constantly thinking, 'How does this impact our culture? How does this impact us two, three steps down the road?' It's thinking big picture, and all of those things come with time. It's a great challenge.

That's where your defense starts. If you are not good in transition, you probably aren't going to be good. Or you'll be taking it out of the net and playing a lot of offense.

I think going on the road for a couple games, I always feel it's better to go out for a couple games than just one game and come back. The out-and-backs, to me, are not my favorites.

Being the youngest, my siblings took great care of me and pushed me in all the right directions.

Growing up in a small community where everybody knows everybody, it was a lot of fun. Great friends, great memories.

I'm going to get better as a coach. Or at least I certainly hope to and plan to and need to work to, and have that as my mindset.

We talk a lot about having high-character guys and high-IQ guys, and I think that's one of the characteristics of those types of people or players that if and when something doesn't go their way, their reaction usually is to come back and fight harder, dig deeper, do more.

If you're conscientious of where your team is, and the opportunities and what's available to them, I think you'd be naive - I don't think anyone would believe you - if you said that you weren't aware of it.

It always starts with having great competitors on your team, in your front office, on your coaching staff.

For coaches, we always look for those examples of guys who put in a lot of time and effort during the summer and really work and it carries over for them to take their game to the next level.

A lot of times continuity is your best hope for taking that next step. Can you have a balance of continuity and some additions and bolster it and walk that fine line of adding and embracing continuity?

There's no doubt Giannis, he just wants to work and work and work.

My mom, raising seven children, was such a steady and firm influence. You did not mess around with my mom. Nobody in the neighborhood or whole town did. She had that steadiness and firmness but love at the same time.

I've got all these memories of guys just trying to get steals and not being very solid or very good defensively. They have all these steals so they must be a great defender. I usually find it to be the opposite.

Playing unselfish basketball is a core component of our basketball culture and high assist totals are a great indicator that we are playing the right way.

Any player that values winning, success would be great in a system that emphasizes unselfishness and ball movement and player movement.

As a head coach you have to think about the entire group with every decision you make. Up and down the line, front and back, it has to be about the entire group and the bigger picture.

I remember as a really young child, watching his energy on the sideline and watching him get excited, his body movement, the way he reacted. It's fun to hear other people tell stories about my dad and the things he did in games and the way he'd get upset with officials.

John Collins has been a great offensive rebounder since jump street.

There's no doubt that having some guys on the bench that have been through things, and that are older and experienced, understand not just the highs but the lows of losing a game. Winning and keeping a steadiness throughout a game, their voice in timeouts, it's really valuable.