Quotes About NBA

Well, first of all the defensive three-seconds rule doesn't allow you to play a true zone like you would in international ball and college. Another key factor is training. It is a very different defense to coach, in a pure sense. Not many coaches in the NBA have focused on that, they're largely man-focused.

It's good to be taken out of your comfort zone - it's part of the NBA grind - a challenge I'm ready for.

Coaches don't sleep for a reason. They don't sleep because it's a danger zone every night. Very seldom do you ever get two or three days off... The lifestyle of coaching in the NBA is a tremendous challenge that gives you tremendous highs but also tremendous lows.

Running out the tunnel and hearing my name called out for the first time, stepping out before the game. I just had a different type of feeling, it was amazing, like I actually made it to the NBA.

I always tried to be an all-around player. In college, I felt like I needed to add to my game to get to another level, to get to the NBA. The NBA has really turned to positionless basketball, so it was very important to me to have an all-around game so I could stand out in front of other guys.

The NBA is a difficult thing because the head coaches, they definitely have one of the more difficult jobs and one of the jobs with, I guess, little amount of security as possible. There's so much turnover all the time.

In the NBA you are pretty confident but you are one phone call away from being somewhere else; you've just got to be ready for everything.

My first motion capture game was with Sony - 'NBA: The Life.' It was very ahead of its time. Brandon Akiaten, he was the writer and director. He had a real vision of what this game was meant to be; it was a basketball game where I was the Jerry Maguire sports agent type guy. And it was great!

I had never dreamed about the NBA like some guys did. I was a non-scholarship player at an NAIA college. I played on the Boys and Girls Club team in my freshman and sophomore years of high school before I made the high school team. I was our backup center in college.

I actually feel sorry for people who have nothing to do on Christmas Day other than watch an NBA game.

I think all of us as NBA players have expectations of ourselves that are different from expectations from external forces and sources.

The game has gotten a lot faster. I was anticipating changes as far back as when I first came into the league, when the spacing was changing, and big guys were playing in different spaces on the floor. But when that change actually happens, and it happens so quickly, it's just amazing.

I thought, 'I'm going to play in Yugoslavia, then I'll go to play in Italy or Spain.' Then I'll be 28 or 29 and I'll try NBA. I never thought I can play in NBA because NBA was totally different world for us in Europe.

A closing team is so important in the NBA. The last seven minutes is what you are always coaching to get to. Now you have your team set, you have the match-ups you want, you have your time-outs, your chance to finish the game, and that's my job, to get us to that position during the course of the game.

I see myself as a pretty mobile big man.

I never really had role models or guys in the NBA to show me the ropes or be a friend, mentor to me like that.

I still say one of the greatest moments in my whole NBA career was getting drafted.

I'm a huge fan of Clyde Frazier and Earl Monroe.

I love Greg Monroe.

Draft day is a hectic day, especially for draftees and, more or less, for management.

We had guys come out of high school, Moses Malone, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, but all these guys could play.

I could have gone to a bigger school. I use it as motivation going to a school that loved me. I wanted to put them on the map and show everyone that you don't need to go to a top school to make it in the NBA.

I never envisioned myself playing for the U.S. Olympic team -- growing up, I never envisioned playing in the NBA, to be real with you. I never envisioned that type of stuff. So this is like a dream that I never had come true. It's like I'm a part of what's really going on. It's still very hard for me to believe that I am really going to be a part of the biggest thing in the whole entire world.

I want to retire in New York, let's be quite frank. I think a lot of people jumped the gun when I said I wanted to be a free agent. And yeah, I want people to come to play in New York. I want them to want to play in New York. I want New York to be that place where guys want to come play.