I don't blame David Stern because a player gets on the court and he doesn't put out competitively. No one can make you play if you don't want to play.

Basketball is basketball.

I'd like to think that the nature of the two teams - Boston being a championship team over the years and the Lakers, same thing - was a lot bigger than Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.

I played when I played, and played, I think, against the greatest players in the greatest time in the history of basketball.

But I like to think an athlete is an athlete.

They should have a rule: in order to be a sportswriter, you have to have played that sport, at some level; high school, college, junior college, somewhere. Or, you should have had to have been around the game for a long time.

But when I did it (the triple-double), I didn't even know it until someone told me.