Portal:Basketball/Quotes archive

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[edit] July 23 to August 14, 2006

• Well, you can certainly teach free-throwing. And you can teach the boys to pass at angles and run in curves. — University of Kansas Jayhawks head coach Phog Allen, reposting the contention of his Kansas predecessor and inventor of basketball James Naismith, pictured, that basketball could not be coached
• When I dunk, I put something on it. I want the ball to hit the floor before I do. — Philadelphia 76ers center Darryl Dawkins, on his propensity for executing grandiose slam dunks
• Those guys today don't like to bang. It's something you had to be good starting out doing. I started out as a football player. I liked to inflict pain. In basketball, it was the same thing. — Miami Heat center Shaquille O'Neal, on the physical quality of his play
• I keep both eyes on my man. The basket hasn't moved on me yet. — Philadelphia 76ers small forward Julius Erving, on his man-to-man defensive strategy
• I learned so much from Sue about the Xs and Os of the game of basketball. — University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers head coach Pat Summitt, the second winningest-ever National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I women's basketball coach, on the strategic knowledge imparted by Louisiana State University Lady Tigers head coach Sue Gunter, for whom Summitt played on United States national team in the basketball tournament of the Games of the XXI Olympiad
• I think it was wishful thinking of me to dream of being an NBA player. And once I made the NBA I dreamed of being an All-Star, but I never dreamed of being an MVP. — South African-born Canadian Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash, on the unlikelihood of his becoming the third player–after Houston Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria) and San Antonio Spurs power forward Tim Duncan (United States Virgin Islands)–born outside the United States mainland to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award
• Boards, boards, boards. — University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish football head coach and amateur basketball coach Knute Rockne, on the importance of rebounding to a team's offensive success

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• We Latinos are in a growing stage in the NBA. It's all part of the international basketball boom. — Argentine San Antonio Spurs shooting guard Manu Ginobili, on the 2000s globalization of the talent base of the National Basketball Association, and with respect to the league's having featured 12 Latin or South American-born players during the 2005-06 season
• I sign so many autographs, my hand hurts every day. — Soviet Union national team center Uljana Semjonova, on her popularity in her native Latvia, of which basketball is said to be the national sport and which was one of the eight nations to be original members of the Fédération Internationale de Basketball

[edit] July 4 to July 23, 2006

• Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up. – Boston Celtics head coach Red Auerbach
• If the NBA were on channel five and a bunch of frogs making love were on channel four, I'd watch the frogs, even if they were coming in fuzzy. – Indiana University Hoosiers head coach Bobby Knight, on his preferring collegiate basketball to that of the National Basketball Association
• I won't coach this team next year if he is still here. He won't listen to anyone. I've had it with this kid. – Los Angeles Lakers head coach Phil Jackson, in reference to shooting guard Kobe Bryant and on his leaving the team, to which he has returned, after the 2003-04 season
• The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot. – Boston Celtics center Bill Russell, on his defensive strategy
• When it's played the way it's supposed to be played, basketball happens in the air; flying, floating, elevated above the floor, levitating the way oppressed peoples of this Earth imagine themselves in their dreams. – American author John Edgar Wideman
  

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• When I had troubles, I'd go out—with basketball. You can do it by yourself, too. So you'd go out and shoot, and you'd fantasize. – Duke University head coach Mike Krzyzewski, pictured
• I really did not think a thing about playing five black players to start the game; they were our best players and deserved to start. But if I knew all the misery it was going to cause me in the weeks following the game, I'd have thought long and hard about it. The players from Kentucky were gracious about it, but many of their fans and people from other parts of the country did not want to see it. – Texas Western College head coach Don Haskins, on the victory of his team, which started five black players, over that of Adolph Rupp of the University of Kentucky, which started five white players, in the 1966 NCAA Men's Division I tournament
• These are my new shoes. They're good shoes. They won't make you rich like me, they won't make you rebound like me, they definitely won't make you handsome like me. They'll only make you have shoes like me. That's it. — Phoenix Suns power forward Charles Barkley, promoting a line of Nike athletic shoes

[edit] May 29 to July 4, 2006

• "You don't play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball." - Bobby Knight
• "Sometimes a player's greatest challenge is coming to grips with his role on the team." - Scottie Pippen
• "The best teams have chemistry. They communicate with each other and they sacrifice personal glory for the common goal." - Dave DeBusschere
• "I am sure that no man can derive more pleasure from money or power than I do from seeing a pair of basketball goals in some out of the way place—deep in the Wisconsin woods, an old barrel hoop nailed to a tree, or a weather-beaten shed on the Mexican border with a rusty iron hoop nailed to one end." - James Naismith
• "I look at the NBA as a football game without a helmet." - Tom Tolbert