Quotes About Basketball

Kobe's been criticized unfairly. He's in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation. If he passes too much, they say he's not shooting. If he shoots, he's called selfish.

I have certain guys who I looked up to. Jordan, Kobe, those guys. Passing that on to doing my part to kind of keep that influence of basketball where it should be is kind of why I play the game.

That's what Europe brought to the NBA: the passing skills, the shooting skills.

I was always really good with the ball, I was always passing the ball, scoring, shooting the ball. I think for me, that's just a normal thing.

Any time you've played different sports - for me, it has always been basketball; that is an instinctual sport. You're dribbling the ball, passing. I'm sure that has helped me a lot along the line with helping with my football instincts.

It's easy to draw up isolation basketball - it's not easy to draw up great motion offense with passing and cutting.

I guess I get the most notoriety from my shooting. But I like passing and movement, making the game easy.

You can see that just with the passing, you can destroy the defense.

Passing is kind of in my game all my life.

After what happened with my mom passing, I was just like I need to get back. I just need to get back to my routine, get back to playing basketball.

If you meet the Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball.

As a leader your job is to do everything in your power to create the perfect conditions for success by benching your ego and inspiring your team to play the game the right way. But at some point, you need to let go and turn yourself over to the basketball gods. The soul of success is surrendering to what is.

Michigan's been recruiting me since the eighth grade, so they have a special place in my heart, I'd say, because I've visited there seven times, and my mom lives in Michigan, still, and she'd probably like me to stay closer to home and play.

I made three visits during my senior year of high school to Duke, UNC, and Virginia. If I hadn't gone to Duke, I would have went to Carolina, just like a lot of Carolina players who, had they not gone there, would have went to Duke.

I basically try to visualize the team doing good things on the court the night before the game. I get shots up. There's not actually a pregame ritual that I do. I'm still trying to figure that out. I say a prayer. I go out with confidence.

When you know you're gonna have the opportunity to shoot the ball, because the coach draws up the play at the timeout, boom instantly you think about the play, you kind of like block away everything, and you think about the play and you kind of visualize yourself making the shot that you're gonna take.

I've always cared about my teammates, but it's about being vocal and letting them know I care about them... not just on the basketball court.

I danced for 12 years, and I played a lot team sports: basketball, volleyball.

I played varsity on all of them for four years. I'm 5'9 and that's not that tall for a center so I was a forward. I loved playing volleyball and basketball and track I was good at, but it stressed me out.

I played volleyball and basketball, and I did track and volleyball in college.

Growing up, I was always into sports - basketball and volleyball - but I wasn't really a runner.

In 1981, at age 31, I was voted the best player in basketball, and the most valuable player in the league.

I've grown into that more aggressive, more selfish basketball at times.

My senior year in high school I knew was going to be drafted into the NBA.