Quotes About Basketball

The great thing about [Michael] Jordan was that he made them want it just like he wanted it. And a lot of times like a lot of the basketball players, not to be getting on basketball, but, with a lot of the basketball players you might have one superstar on the team, and they're not willing to play up to par with the way he is, so they don't make it. But then you have some celebrities on the basketball team, and they don't know how to get along with each other!

We never ask candidates to demonstrate their skill. We ask lots of questions about past experience, but simply looking at the results of their decisions does not let us understand the process that they used to make the choice in the first place. A good analogy is sports. If you wanted to know how well a person plays basketball, for example, you could look at statistics like shooting percentage or blocked shots. But, this is just an historical account of how well the individual played in the past - the numbers do not tell us much about how that individual plays basketball now.

I care about systematically playing basketball. If the spacing isn't right, if guys are standing on top of each other, if there aren't lanes to be provided, or rebounders available to offensively rebound the ball, or we don't have defensive balance when a shot goes up, all of these things are fundamental basketball. I follow 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.

He loves basketball. And I said Obama loves basketball. Let's start there, all right. Start there.

But after that you don't see a lot of real good fundamental play. You see a showboat-type basketball which is almost parallel to street basketball.

Everyone thought I was going to die like a year later, they didn't know. So I helped educate sports, and then the world, that a man living with HIV can play basketball. He's not going to give it to anybody by playing basketball.

Magic is crazy. He is that crazy wild guy on the basketball court that is very intense and very serious. He is the guy who lives and eats and breathes basketball.

Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.

I grew up in a small town in Illinois, and my dad was a basketball coach. Thanks to him, I have excellent fundamentals in both basketball and baseball.

No player in the NBA was born wanting to play basketball. The desire to play ball or to read must be planted. The last 25 years of research show that reading aloud to a child is the oldest, cheapest and must successful method of instilling that desire. Shooting baskets with a child creates a basketball player; reading to a child creates a reader.

I want the younger kids, the basketball players in high school and college to hear from me and let them know that when you come to the league, this is what happens and this is how I feel as an NBA player. And it's not all peachy keen.

I played a lot of sports and it's the plays in basketball that weren't worked out that are the ones that are just fantastic that you remember. We don't know the power that's within our own bodies.

Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.

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?'

If I don't get five [titles], I won't be happy with myself as a basketball player. I don't know how you guys will feel about me.

Basketball isn't my job.

I was a skinny, scrawny guy. I stuttered horrendously, couldn't speak at all. I was a very shy, reserved player and a very shy, reserved person. I found a safe place in life in basketball.

Basketball is a game and their primary reason for participating in the sport is simply for the pleasure they experience while playing. Don't be afraid to lose. Have fun while you're busy playing hard and playing smart.

When I lose the sense of motivation and the sense to prove something as a basketball player, it's time for me to move away from the game.

February is always a bad month for TV sports. Football is gone, basketball is plodding along in the annual midseason doldrums, and baseball is not even mentioned.

I had never made any plans beyond basketball.

In 1948, I began coaching basketball at UCLA. Each hour of practice we worked very hard. Each day we worked very hard. Each week we worked very hard. Each season we worked very hard. Four fourteen years we worked very hard and didn't win a national championship. However, a national championship was won in the fifteenth year. Another in the sixteenth. And eight more in the following ten years.

My mother was a champion high-jumper. My three brothers are basketball players. We've all been very athletic.

I think that basketball players should get the job done no matter how it looks on the screen.

You have to be wired a certain way to be a professional basketball player, and the way my body grew, something happened genetically that allowed me to become a lot more explosive.

I love basketball so much, I love playing it. I just never thought I could make it to college, make it to the NBA or stand up here today in front of you guys and be an NBA MVP. It’s just a surreal feeling, and I had so much help, so many people believe in me when I didn’t believe in myself.

So like any football or basketball coach, you always always believe you're going to win.

In my time, we had little league and junior league or whatever - before that, there's the sandlot. Kids played baseball wherever you can make a space. We played tackle-football on the street. Now we play basketball in the studio. We have a hoop. But we also have a pitching machine.

When I was young, I had to learn the fundamentals of basketball. You can have all the physical ability in the world, but you still have to know the fundamentals.

Part of the charm of basketball lies in the fact that it's a simple game to understand. Players race up and down a fairly small area indoors and stuff the ball into a ring with Madonna's dress hanging on it.

If The Muppet Show had a basketball team, the score would always be Frog 99, Chaos 98.

When I'm smiling and having fun, that's when you should have a problem. If I'm out there frowning and looking mean, that's when you know you've beat me - because I'm not having fun. I've been playing basketball since I was three. Everybody since I was three tried to tell me to stop smiling. Even my dad. My dad apologized to me when I was ten.

Magic is who I am on the basketball court. Earvin is who I am.

I sail, scuba dive, play football, basketball.

I'm going to be real as hell and show you who I am, because I want the kids to see who I really am and the basketball players to see who I really am, and that's all that matters to me.

Racing is not football or baseball or basketball where you can do it yourself. If you're good in high school, you just shine. (But in racing) you have to have a family behind you.

I think it is an accurate statement to say that some people consider feelings of same-gender attraction to be the defining fact of their existence. There are also people who consider the defining fact of their existence that they are from Texas or that they were in the United States Marines. Or they are red-headed, or they are the best basketball player that ever played for such-and-such a high school. People can adopt a characteristic as the defining example of their existence and often those characteristics are physical.

Michael Jordan is God disguised as a basketball player.

The goal in life is the same as in basketball: make the effort to do the best you are capable of doing--in marriage, at your job, in the community, for your country. Make the effort to contribute in whatever way you can. You may do it materially or with time, ideas, or work. Making the effort to contribute is what counts. The effort is what counts in everything.

The invention of basketball was not an accident. It was developed to meet a need.

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.

The only reason I went to college was to play basketball. I injured my knee and couldn't play.

There are lots of things that I will probably never experience in this life. Military combat. Being dictator of a small central American country. Dunking a basketball. Being a famous rock star. Or walking on Mars. But one thing I have been, and will always be, is an entrepreneur.

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.

I am more than just a serious basketball fan. I am a life-long addict. I was addicted from birth, in fact, because I was born in Kentucky and I learned, early on, that Habitual Domination was a natural way of life.

I'm not a role model... Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean I should raise your kids.

When I watch kids play basketball, they don't know how to think the game. They know what it should look like, but they don't know why.