Quotes About Basketball

I love basketball and I'm committed to it, but if I have to lock up my spirit because of basketball, it ain't worth it.

Basketball, in America, is like a culture. It is like a foreigner learning a new language. It is difficult to learn foreign languages and it will also be difficult for me to learn the culture for basketball here.

So after 11 years you're just picking up all this information. I'm a basketball junky, so I watch old players. The '90s was a great era of basketball. I watched so much of that. That just helped me be a student of the game and pick up any moment. It's the 10,000 hour rule. You're just trying to master your craft.

When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team.

Tennis was always there for me, which was lucky. I would go play baseball, basketball, football, hang with my brother, do whatever, and at the end of the day I'd come back and say, 'Hey, Mom, would you hit 15 minutes worth of balls with me?'

The tradition in Serbia has always been team sports - football, basketball, handball, volleyball and water polo, individual sports are not supported.

I just play basketball. I'm athletic. Skinny but strong, tall but quick.

One-and-done is the most damaging thing in college basketball. It brings money into the college game, because it kickstarts the bidding war. When you know a kid can't turn pro and is going to go to school for one year and then go pro, that's when you see everyone going to games and courting players.

You should sub a player out when you see a player not going full-speed or playing selfish basketball.

I was never really a model. That somehow is in my bio. The whole thing is I was tall since I was a child - you're either a model or you play basketball.

You might be a redneck if... your high school basketball game got rained out.

It's a really weird mindset to kind of try to take my mentality on the basketball court and bring it here on to the golf course. I don't want to have too high of expectations on, like, each hole, just try to enjoy the process, but hopefully get out to a good start tomorrow and be in the conversation and see what happens.

Life for me outweighs the game of basketball.

I'll show you just how cruel a sport basketball is.

I probably would have no capability of absorbing a 60-defeat season as a coach. It would be a foreign experience. My whole career, even as a player, has been on winning basketball clubs and it just seems to have been a part of the make-up of what’s been given me. That’s what I’ve been given and that’s what I’ve had to deal with. Some people can make fun of it or some people can have a good time with it, or some people can resent it. It’s just what it is.

There was a time when only specialized Christian missionaries needed to be able to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ against the attacks of Islam. Today every Christian has an opportunity and obligation to present the gospel effectively and in Christian love to the Muslims who have permeated our Western society. When your neighbor, your mechanic, your favorite basketball player, your employer or employee, or even your children's friends could very well be Muslims, the need for proper understanding and an effective Christian witness is abundantly clear.

I feel like I'm a basketball player in a football uniform.

I started taekwondo at 5 or 6 years old and did a bunch of kick-boxing later, too. Eventually I became a black belt and coached as well. I did some basketball and softball growing up, but most of my activity was martial arts.

I had never made any plans beyond basketball.

I had no experience with broadcasting basketball games, so I took a tape recorder and went to a playground where there was a summer league, and I stood up in the top of the stands and I called the game.

I don't have a set working style. Some lyrics come really slow, others come in 10 minutes while I'm watching basketball. They're always a surprise to me.

I don't play basketball for the money. I don't play it for the crowd. When I didn't have a friend, when I was lonely, I always knew I could grab that orange pill and go hoop. I could go and dunk on somebody. If things weren't going right, I could make a basket and feel better.

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'm pretty fundamental when it comes to running. A basketball player doesn't practice his free throw shooting by doing slam dunks all over the place. He does it by practicing free throws. That's the attitude I take: You don't get better at running by doing everything but running. You get better by running.

Africans are not as tall as northern Europeans. But Manute Vol and other sports figures in basketball and football receive a lot of press coverage.

It's not like being a professional basketball player where you're in a big house. Maybe three, four or five guys make a couple million bucks a year, but that's it. The rest of them have second jobs.

As you keep shooting the ball, you become a better basketball player.

I got on the scale and I weighed around 203. I'm only 5'7. I was about to turn 30, and I wasn't active anymore. So I started working with a nutritionist and a trainer. I played basketball twice a week. And soon it all just became a habit for me. I became addicted to something good for a change.

There is still an assumption among many people that to be black is to be lower class. In the last fifteen to twenty years, perhaps even further back than that, there's also been an explosion of a very wealthy black class in the United States, but those people are often treated as special cases: they're athletes, entertainers. Jay-Z. Basketball players. The country metabolizes the fact these rich black people exist, but it seems only to reinforce the idea that every other black person is limping along in poverty.

I'm definitely somewhat of a tomboy. I grew up a pretty big tomboy actually, and was really obsessed with basketball.

I was captain of the volleyball team and the basketball team, and I ran track.

Basketball was mine, and that's what's carried me to this point.

I did quite a lot of fencing when I was a kid, I was a swimmer, and I played a lot of basketball. I was a fencer for Great Britain, but I only did that because I watched Robin Hood, Star Wars, Highlander and The Three Musketeers, and I wanted to emulate Richard Harris and the great British actors that I grew up watching.

It wasn't until late high school and early college that I gained enough size and skill to make me welcome on intramural basketball teams.

Given a full summer to practice basketball, and especially my jump shot, I know that I could play in the NBA and do well.

I do believe that one way to bring cultures together, to develop trust between people and countries and religions, is through education. And through music and art and basketball and activities and joys that people share worldwide, regardless of ethnic background or religious orientation.

I never thought a basketball shoe would be named after a woman, let alone me.

There was a possibility I could have been out of the NBA. It's taught me something that was a little deeper than basketball. I'm talking about life decisions.

In basketball, you can be the greatest individual player in the world and still lose every game, because a team will always beat an individual.

Trying to take money out of politics is like trying to take jumping out of basketball.

Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naive if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN.

When you're at the basketball court watching a game, one person may be talking about a fight he had with his wife, another is talking about the last hard-on he got, someone else is talking about the presidential election. The language and the tone and the voice - I'd love to be able to capture that spontaneity.

As a kid, I always idolized entrepreneurs. I thought they were cool people in the way that I thought basketball players were cool people. It's cool that some people get paid to dunk basketballs, but I'm not one of those people.

. . . a jostling scrum of office buildings so mediocre that the only way you ever remember them is by the frustration they induce - like a basketball team standing shoulder to shoulder between you and the Mona Lisa.

I love that basketball gives me the opportunities to do good things for people and to point them towards the Man who died for our sins on the cross.

I wake at 5 or 5:30 most mornings, make myself a latte and grab a cookie, write until 10 or 11, go have my favorite meal, 'second breakfast,' or grab coffee with friends, or play basketball. Then, around noon, I begin apologizing via email for the manuscripts I can't get to.

The people who know basketball, their elevators don't go to the top.

Yugoslavia was a kind of superpower. Great movies. Beautiful novels. Great rock-and-roll. We became a superpower in basketball. The problem is that people needed to identify more strongly with it after Tito and his awful, tricky way of leading the country.