I just refuse to listen to any more lies. You hear them from FEMA, you hear them from Red Cross and I just didn't want to hear it from him.

I'm passionate about coaching and being able to mentor young men in a lot of different ways. I think it's good to be able to do what you love to do. It's been in me since the beginning. I was telling my college coach what to do and he trusted me. When I got into the NBA, I started having conversations with coaches. Coach Gregg Popp(avich) brought a lot out in me. Coach Don Nelson gave me an incredible opportunity to spend some time with him and he molded me but at the same time allowed me to be myself.

Growing up in New Orleans, my mom and dad were churchgoers. I would go to church with them. Also, I was going to a Catholic school so I had a fascination with the Catholic Church mainly because, in my mind, (their services) didn't take as long. I was bouncing in between my mom's Baptist church, which was called Second Zion Baptist, and going to a Catholic Church.

I've always been a man of commitment whether it was academically or professionally. But spiritually I wasn't committed. I was talking the talk and I just wanted to make that commitment. It also made the commitment in other areas of my life stronger.

People really don't care, in some ways, that you have a family. With a high profile job like I have, they just want you to win basketball games. You can do that and still keep your family together. I try the best I can to be at the basketball practices or tennis practices or recitals. In my first year at Dallas my (then 11-year old) son Avery Jr., said, "You know daddy, you're still the best coach in the NBA." I was like, "But I haven't won a playoff game yet." And he said, "That's okay. You're still my daddy." That makes you feel good.

That MAC gun can put a round clean through a Covenant Capital Ship.

My standards are so high because of who I serve but it doesn't put any water on my fire for winning. I'm still an intense person. You can be intense and saved. You can compete and still be saved. You can challenge a guy and still be saved. There was nothing soft about me as a player and there isn't anything soft about me as a coach. You want to be a man of integrity and you want the players to know that you care about them. Whether or not they still like you or not is a whole other deal.