You don't want to be too uptight about anything. Especially your job.

Most kids would be like, 'My dad's never around.' But I saw it as a positive. He was out there working to provide for me.

If you take away the last few years, from my last year in Washington, and you think about my career, there was nothing but hard work. I was in the gym three or four times a day, working on my skills. If we lost a game, and I thought I played bad, I'm staying in the gym to keep shooting. That's what I did. That's what I was known for: I was a gym rat.

The thing that happened in Washington -- it happened. All you can do is just grow from it. That took a toll on me. That was probably -- I think if I could've bounced mentally out of that situation faster than I did, I would probably still be in the NBA. But since I couldn't understand why they were trying to treat me like that, I basically gave up. I just didn't want to be a part of it anymore.

It sucks the way the world works. You can do a hundred things for people, but you do one bad mistake and everyone crucifies you and that's all they want to remember.

As a player leaving early, you always look back and wonder what could have been. But you have to be happy with your decisions, because you ultimately have to live with them.

When something drastic happens in our life, one person goes and hides and doesn't want to be seen. That's what I did. [Others] want to stand up and fight and think they're tough. Like if someone gets shot, you're either scared of guns or you think you're Superman. In my situation, I wanted to hide. I didn't want to be seen anymore.