Quotes from Jerry Reinsdorf

I had a vision of how basketball should be played. And the vision was the Knicks teams that won the championship in 1970 and 1973. I wanted a team that emphasized defense. I wanted a team that on offense had a system where players moved off the ball, and the ball moved.

Discrimination and prejudice of any kind have no place in sports or in our society.

O'Malley wanted to move the Dodgers out of Brooklyn because he saw the promised land. He was right about that, but to this day I think he was wrong to take the Dodgers out of Brooklyn.

I had been a basketball fan growing up, and I felt that if we brought in the proper coach, and we played basketball the old fashioned way - where defense is paramount and offense involved movement off the ball and movement of the ball - we could build a winning team, and Chicago would respond to that.

I thought that the Bulls were an undermanaged, under-operated team and that it could be a very successful franchise if run properly.

I know I could have a better public image if I were less open, if I ducked more issues and didn't speak out. But it's not my nature.

You get into sports with the idea that you want to win. If you aren't trying to win, what's the point in being involved? Once you do get involved, you realize the team draws so much from the community, and it would be nothing without the support of it. You've got to give back. It needs to be a two-way street.

My greatest moment as a jock occurred when I was 14 and playing punch ball in front of my house on Albemarle Road near East 17th Street in Brooklyn. I ran back, back for a ball, and it fell in my hands. I didn't even see it. Everyone congratulated me on the catch, and I never told them how it really happened.

I have to let the general manager do what makes the most sense, or I can't hold him accountable.

I never heard of anyone saying they want to deploy their capital wisely and go buy a sports franchise. What you want to do is just not lose money. You see, I don't have to work anymore. I tell people I don't have a real job. On the other hand, I learned long ago that you can't go broke if you turn a profit.

Chicago seems to follow New York, and coming from New York and being in real estate, I worry about things happening in Chicago that have happened in New York. I've seen a great city like New York go downhill. It has a wonderful financial downtown, but the rest of the city is not very nice.

I thought I would spend the rest of my life being a good tax lawyer. The interesting thing about being a tax lawyer is, none of your clients are poor. I had clients come to me and say, 'Can you help us make investments?' That led to me getting into the real estate business.

If I hadn't been fair, I would never have made the $6 billion in real estate deals that I did. I mean, if you're not fair, people don't want to deal with you.

I operated a business where I let someone steal three-quarters of a million dollars.

When I look back, I did what I had to do for business and then fit family life into it.

You can't make a manager have a coach he doesn't want. I can't make the head of the accounting department work with someone he doesn't want.

We strongly believe that children should not be exposed to smokeless tobacco or see such products being used by their on-field sports heroes.

My liking for a team isn't based on just how good it was, but how good was it in relation to how good it should have been.

Don't write us off. Nobody thought we'd win the World Series in 2005, but we did. There are years when we think we're great, and we're bad. I mean, the funny thing about this game is that you can't figure it out.

I do sincerely hope the Cubs win a World Series. After I die.

The Commissioner was correct to ban Mr. Sterling from all official NBA business, to levy the stiffest allowable fine, and we will support his recommendation to press for Mr. Sterling to relinquish his ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers franchise.

I just put people together. I just identified jobs that have to be filled. And then I have to go out and find the right people and make sure they talk to each other. So I'm the beneficiary of good things that other people do. I get credit for that. If they don't do a good job, I get the blame for it.

I don't think people realize how much I love basketball. A lot of people think because of this idiotic comment I made that I love baseball and don't like basketball. Baseball came first because if you grew up in Brooklyn in the 1940s, that was the No. 1 thing. But if you have more than one kid, you love them both.

I only had one player in my 33 years of sports that couldn't be traded. He wore No. 23 - and 45 when he played baseball.