Portal:Basketball/Quotes archive
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[edit] May 28, 2007 to June 10, 2007; June 20, 2007 to June 24, 2007
- No rebounds, no ring. — Miami Heat head coach Pat Riley, on the import of a team's rebounding well to its winning, here in the National Basketball Association playoffs
- Don't knock the ball in the stands, keep it in your hands! — Boston Celtics center Bill Russell, suggesting that a player blocking a shot do so gently rather than forcefully, in order to control the basketball and essay a fast break
- Five players on the floor functioning as a single unit: team, team, team—no one more important than the other. — Gene Hackman as Norman Dale, on the import of teamwork, the 1986 dramatic film Hoosiers
- My philosophy is that you can't motivate players with speeches, you have motivated players that you draft. That's where they come in and those are the guys that are competitive. You cannot teach competitiveness. — Los Angeles Lakers head coach Phil Jackson, on his process of selecting players to acquire through the National Basketball Association draft
- When it's played the way is spozed 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, on the majesty of basketball
- I can't even begin to explain how important it is to all the people who have been involved in our program, and built it to where it is today. I can't believe we won. I can't believe we have the gold medal. — Australia women's national team captain center Lauren Jackson, on the Opals' winning the FIBA World Championship for Women for the first time in 2006
[edit] April 22, 2007 to May 6, 2007
- The rule was "no autopsy, no foul". — Canadian National Basketball Association point guard Stewart Granger, on the physical nature of informal games he played as a youth
- Any American boy can be a basketball star if he grows up, up, up. — American columnist William E. Vaughan, on the import of height in professional basketball
- Giving "Magic" the basketball is like giving Hitler an army, Jesse James a gang, or Genghis Khan a horse. — American sportswriter Jim Murray, on the explosive prowess of point guard Magic Johnson
- A hook shot kisses the rim and/hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop/and for once our gangly starting center/boxes out his man and times his jump/perfectly, gathering the orange leather/from the air like a cherished possession. — American poet Edward Hirsch, in Fast Break
[edit] August 14, 2006 to April 21, 2007
- They said playing basketball would kill me. Well, not playing basketball was killing me. — Los Angeles Lakers point guard and power forward Magic Johnson, on his returning to the National Basketball Association in 1995 after having retired in 1991 upon his learning of his HIV-seropositivity
- Just remember, their fans think their players are supermen. We'll we're the kryptonite, and we're going to win. — George Mason University head coach Jim Larranaga, addressing the Patriots team prior to their regional final game against the top-seeded University of Connecticut Huskies in the 2006 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Basketball Championship
- The first time I shot the hook, I was in fourth grade, and I was about five feet, eight inches tall. I put the ball up and felt totally at ease with the shot. I was completely confident it would go in and I've been shooting it ever since. — Milwaukee Bucks center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, on the sky hook move for which he became well known
- I can see Sue and I leading this team to many more championships...We're going to take this and learn from it. We worked too hard for this. — Seattle Storm power forward Lauren Jackson, about teammate point guard Sue Bird on the occasion of the Storm's 2004 Women's National Basketball Association championship
- I said it before we arrived in Athens, that we wanted to prove to the world that our bronze medal in Sweden was not a fluke, and we have achieved this. — Point guard Gianluca Basile, on Italy's winning the silver medal in the men's event at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, held in 2004 in Athens, Greece, in view of the team's having finished third in the 2003 European Basketball Championships
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- If we played Boston four-on-four, without Russell, we probably would have won every series. Th[at] guy killed us. He's the one who prevented us from achieving true greatness. — Minneapolis and Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard Rod Hundley, pictured, on center Bill Russell, behind whom the Boston Celtics won eleven National Basketball Association championships, including those of 1959, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968, and 1969 over the Lakers
- There are really only two plays: Romeo and Juliet, and put the darn ball in the basket. — Oklahoma City University head coach Abe Lemons, on his disfavoring of complex offensive schemes as against improvisational play
- 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. — New York Knicks small forward Bill Bradley, on the nature of basketball as a team sport
[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
- 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
