I think the most important thing about coaching is that you have to have a sense of confidence about what you're doing. You have to be a salesman and you have to get your players, particularly your leaders, to believe in what you're trying to accomplish on the basketball floor.

If you give the future all your attention, the present will pass you by.

He practiced against Kobe all of last year, so obviously it was sweet revenge for him. We deserved that. We didn't know who he was, we gave him up to Charlotte, we had no idea how good a player he was.

An acrobatic dunk will make it onto Sports Center. A simple, unspectacular bounce pass in the rhythm of the offense will not. System basketball has been replaced by players who want to be the system.

Basketball is a great mystery. You can do everything right. You can have the perfect mix of talent and the best system of offense in the game. You can devise a foolproof defensive strategy and prepare your players for every possible eventuality. But if the players don’t have a sense of oneness as a group, your efforts won’t pay off. And the bond that unites a team can be so fragile, so elusive.

If we can accept whatever hand we've been dealt - no matter how unwelcome - the way to proceed eventually becomes clear.

Before a vision (dream) can become a reality, it must be owned by every member of the group.