Quotes from Marcus Smart

Just make sure that you know what's going on with your money and you know where you money is coming from and how much is coming out and going in.

If I could just get better a little bit each year, then I did my job.

If I'm too busy looking in the past, how can I see what's in front of me with the future?

I am a physical player, no doubt about that, but a dirty player? That's not my reputation.

I was always taught coming back from injuries the last thing you want to do is have a mental game going on with yourself and psyching yourself out and you just start thinking about the injury.

When I got cleared by doctors and was coronavirus-free, one of the first things I did was get to marching in Boston. I wanted to join the people out there doing all they could to speak out against injustice and hatred and police brutality - folks looking to ensure the future of our country is better than its past.

I never had a spring break. I've always been on the road. I've always been traveling.

On that court, ain't no such thing as friends and smiling and everything like that.

I just don't want to give anybody a reason to label me as something I'm not.

I'm the youngest of four boys, and my oldest brother, Todd, was like a father figure to me. We were very close even though we were 23 years apart. When my parents were working, he was the one there for me. He was diagnosed with lung cancer when he was 15 years old.

I'm the youngest of four boys. My whole life I had to fight. I had to get down and do things in order to secure my spot in the household. So, coming onto the court, it's nothing different.

Back in the '60s, '70s, my mindset and the way I play would be perfect.

I remember times putting on my shirt and having to tuck my stomach in because I didn't like the way it looked.

My whole life I've been the one to look myself in the mirror whenever everyone else is doubting me. I'm the one that had the most confidence in myself and I always betted on myself, and it's worked out for me each and every time.

I think my play speaks for itself.

I've always felt like a little bit of an underdog at each level - never the tallest or strongest or even fastest. But one thing I've always tried to do was to play harder than anyone on the court.

The uniqueness about me is I don't do one thing perfectly or great. I do a little bit of everything. That's what makes me so unique. I'm just trying to master a little bit of everything.

Nobody else is going to protect yourself. You've got to protect yourself.

There are a lot of things that make Kyrie's game unstoppable. But his ability to ad-lib and come up with things on the fly is special.

I've always said, 'Before you see the rainbow, it has to storm.'

I look at basketball as like a storm. But it's the eye of the storm. The calmest place of it is to be right in the eye of it. And that's what basketball is for me; it's my eye. And while everything else around me is going on,' he continued, 'the destruction and things like that, basketball keeps me calm.

I'm not the best shooter and I'm not the best scorer, but you do have to respect me because I can go off.

I could've easily let the passing of my brother control how I live my life. But I was determined not to let him die in vain and to make a negative into a positive.

I'm a lock-up defender and I believe strongly in my defense, so I don't need to take cheap shots at guys to get an edge.