Jerry West Quotes

The marketing of players has created untold wealth for many sports stars. You can't blame them or the company that covets the relationship with them, but that doesn't mean the player is good.

Personalities seem in many cases to dominate the lucrative endorsement market. But that doesn't upset me. What upsets me is when not enough attention is paid to the product-the game.

I don't think people fully appreciate the trauma associated with losing. It takes a lot out of you, year after year.

Confidence is a lot of this game or any game. If you don't think you can, you won't.

I would never, ever intentionally hurt a player contractually.

I was disappointed if I didn't have a chance to win a game, and if I had the chance and didn't do it.

I’ve never seen a better coach than Gregg Popovich.

You can't imagine how much good luck is involved in winning, but all of a sudden, you get in a situation where every break goes your way, every call goes your way, every ball that rolls around drops in instead of out. It feels magical.

There are many players who don't measure up to their marketability.

To have harmony on a team, you need a coach who can get inside the head of every player and get them all pulling in one direction.

Coaches who have been players in the league, they get so attuned to playing how they were successful, and who their coaches were.

You can't ever totally know what's inside of someone else, or see the kind of will someone like Magic has. You have to rely on your instincts to find people who hate losing and know how to win.

The trick in writing children's books is to set up danger, mystery and excitement on page one. Force the kid to turn the page . . . Then in the middle of each chapter there's a dramatic point of excitement, and at chapter's end, a cliffhanger.

Anything can happen with hard work and dedication

I've seen a lot in my life. I've seen a lot of winning. I've seen a lot of testing times. I think when you're tested, you really find out what you're made of.

I'm just ultracompetitive. I will be till they put me in the grave.

[The NBA] used to be a small band of basketball groupies. Now there are a lot more corporate-type people working in the league.

As a player all you can do is play within yourself, even in the context of a team sport.

I was not a great ballhandler. I just worked very hard at it, and I got to be a good ballhandler-a competent ballhandler-but never a great ballhandler.

If you can't see someone's got a game with great personality, you shouldn't be out there looking.

When time is running out and the score is close, most players are thinking, I don't want to be the one to lose the game, but I'm thinking, What do I have to do to win?

I don't really want to go into my problems with the team at the time except to say that no one's ever had to pay me to play basketball.

To be candid with you, free agency hurts all sports. It's great for athletes making an enormous amount of money. But to say it helps the sports, I don't believe that.

When it's time for me to walk away from something, I walk away from it. My mind, my body, my conscience tell me that enough is enough.

Don't let talent get in way of team performance. Great players do what's outstanding for team, not what makes them stand out

You can't get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.

The passion to win games, the incredible, focused energy and also the camaraderie of the team were all things that I really loved.

Basketball came to me and for some reason it gave me an opportunity to live a life that I didn't dream possible. But it did let me live my dreams.

I always wanted the ball in my hands with a game on the line, as I think any real competitor does.

As you get older, every chance to win a championship is more crucial, because you are going to have less and less of them.

I don't live in the past. And besides, there are too many times in my career to remember specific events, because I played so many games.

The only thing I care about is winning. That's all. If you don't want to win, you don't want to be around me.

I enjoy winning, but more importantly I enjoy the people I'm around.

I would hope that racism is something that just does not work in this day and age, but I know otherwise.

It was clear to me that I was never going to be the same kind of player I had been. It was time to quit.