Top 100 A Basketball Quotes
#1. I believe that whatever we have, regardless of a trade being done or not, I feel we have a shot. I've just got to believe that we're going to be all right. I've got to just play basketball.
Allen Iverson
#2. There has never been a great 'silent' defense
Del Harris
#3. 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.
Shaquille O'Neal
#4. Sometimes a player's greatest challenge is coming to grips with his role on the team.
Scottie Pippen
#5. I lick my fingers because I don't like when my hands get slick. Licking my fingers helps me keep a good grip on the ball.
Steve Nash
#6. It's easier to date a football player for sure. Football players have one game a week, and they practice every day, but they're all at home. In basketball, they're on the road all the time.
Khloe Kardashian
#9. My rule was I wouldn't recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house. That's not my world. My world has a cracked sidewalk.
Al McGuire
#10. If I would have listened to other people back in 2000 telling me I should have stopped playing basketball because of a kidney disease, I wouldn't have won a world championship.
Alonzo Mourning
#11. You can talk without saying a thing. I don't ever want to be that type of person.
Charles Barkley
#12. He credited his teammates, who he thanked in turn, with challenging him every day and driving him forward and making him a better player.
Stephen Curry
#13. I think I've gotten more attention after the Olympics than any other U.S. athlete, and it's really great that people are recognizing who I am and what I do. You look at Shaq and you see a basketball player. You look at Tiger Woods and you see a golfer. But people are responding to who I am.
Johnny Weir
#14. Sometimes I screw up in the game, I miss a shot or I miss a rebound, and I fight myself. I am like, 'Why I miss that shot? Come on, what are you doing?' I am fighting myself.
Mehmet Okur
#15. I love basketball. I love football. And to me, I think that's a dimension that you don't see with a lot of female leads, especially. I have a genuine love for it, and I always thought it was very interesting to show that side of me.
Cristela Alonzo
#16. I know a lot of people did a lot of heavy lifting to make me successful and I do everything in my power not to screw it up.
Charles Barkley
#17. Once the Hack-a-Shaq works once, you know I'm going to see it again. The only thing worse for basketball than that defense is the Lack-a-Shaq offense, where I have to go to the bench because of foul trouble. There is no fun in that.
Shaquille O'Neal
#19. Imagine Michael Jackson trying to play basketball or Michael Jordan trying to become a musician. They might not have been so successful if they would have chosen to do so. Regardless
Harshajyoti Das
#20. To me, first and foremost, basketball is a fun sport. It is a hobby, an interest. And second, it is a profession. I feel that I am very fortunate that I can find a professional job that I really, really love.
Yao Ming
#21. My mother was a champion high-jumper. My three brothers are basketball players. We've all been very athletic.
Grace Jones
#22. For a college basketball player or coach, to reach the Final Four is la-la land. You've achieved, you've got your stamp of approval. My first team to do that was in 1986. Then we did it in '88, '89 and '90.
Mike Krzyzewski
#23. Someday I might have to put down a basketball and have a regular 9-to-5 like everybody else.
Shaquille O'Neal
#24. Each moment of my life I was dreaming of how great I could be, and continued working hard. Each time I closed my eyes I could see me shining bright like a sun.
Kobe Bryant
#25. The only thing even in this world is the number of hours in a day. The difference in winning or losing is what you do with those hours.
Woody Hayes
#26. I didn't so much think I needed to address the shooting need. What we needed was somebody who could come in and play the two-three (shooting guard-small forward) spot. If he could've been a pure shooter, great. But if not, we still needed somebody to give us minutes there. I like the guys we've got.
Joe Dumars
#27. We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us - anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.
Bill Russell
#28. You know what's fun about basketball? It keeps evolving, and it keeps changing a little bit. And the older guys want to try to hold it back to how they grew up, and it's not the same. You've got to change with the times, and some of the guys you've got to drag across the finish line.
Mike D'Antoni
#29. [The movies] glamorize game day a little bit too much. It's such a focus. They miss a lot of the nuts and bolts, and the time that goes into the preparation each week, or each couple of days in basketball.
Vince Kehres
#30. I don't know. I don't have a fax machine, so I didn't get that message.
Shaquille O'Neal
#31. Every memory I had growing up was involving a basketball. I didn't go to the prom and stuff like that. It was always basketball for me.
Kevin Durant
#32. Negative thoughts are contagious and they get passed around like a disease. I inoculate myself against the fear of failure.
Bill Foster
#33. She understood about the comfort you can get from a small separate world, whether it's a theatre or a basketball team or the inside of a book.
Susan Cooper
#34. I'm a huge, huge sports fan, and Marquette basketball is my No. 1 thing.
Danny Pudi
#35. I loved the glamour and excitement of the games and, in particular, knowing the names of each and every one of the referees - that's because my mom, a former basketball player, would yell at them from our front-row seats for making bad calls!
Hannah Storm
#36. I don't let individual statistics make me a focus or more of a focus. I just tried to come out and attack early and get a big lead. We were able to take it in overtime and win.
LeBron James
#37. 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.
Bill Walton
#38. We had more great times than bad times together, but they've moved on, I've moved on. I have a new team now and I have a new focus.
Shaquille O'Neal
#39. If your bigs rim run at full speed it not only increases the potential for a quick layup, but opens up court for guards
Fred Hoiberg
#40. When I met Michael Jordan on a basketball court at an athletic club - we hooped together in Chicago - he came to me and asked me if I wanted to do a song for his upcoming movie. I was like, 'Yeah!' I didn't even ask what it was.
R. Kelly
#41. There is a lot of difference at McDonald's between the guy in the back making the fries and the manager up front who is running the place.
Don Meyer
#42. A successful person realizes his personal responsibility for self-motivation. He starts with himself because he possesses the key to his own ignition switch.
Kemmons Wilson
#43. A lot of people I meet say, 'You remind me so much of Magic Johnson.'
Carmelo Anthony
#45. If you are a good team, your offense is born on the defensive end.
Don Meyer
#46. Millions of guys play millions of basketball games every day of the week at the playground or the YMCA. But LeBron James gets $20 million a year because he can jam on all of those guys. We're always going to want to see LeBron and Kobe go at it.
Adam Carolla
#47. A football player is often bigger than a basketball player - more massive, that is. The basketball player is taller and more slender. So it is with redwoods. The tallest redwoods are often slender, and so they aren't the largest ones.
Richard Preston
#48. I'm a season kind of guy - not the preseason but the regular season.
Shaquille O'Neal
#49. 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.
Prince Charles
#50. Promise to wear a cheerful appearance at all times and give every person you meet a smile.
John Wooden
#51. I only want to play basketball, and play it well and be happy about it. But I realize that with being famous, comes a lot of demands.
Yao Ming
#52. It was a cheap shot. They won the game, move on. My thing is, I don't ask for a lot, but I demand my respect, especially from a guy like that.
Shaquille O'Neal
#53. It feels good to come here and be a winning program.
Kevin Durant
#54. If you're getting ready to do a really emotional scene then, right before it, you're probably not going to be outside playing basketball.
Emilie De Ravin
#55. I also play a little bit of Tiger Woods once in awhile. Get on the golf course there, and pretend that I'm beating him.
Jason Kidd
#56. If I walk in a home and a kid disrespects a woman, his mother or grandmother, then I am out ... I wont recruit them
John Calipari
#57. We [Americans] are a football-baseball-basketball-golf culture with some ocassional forays into tennis and less often the winter sports ...
Michael Wilbon
#58. Basketball is a game of conditioning and fatigue. That's why I believe in practicing a team to train when it's exhausted.
Pat Riley
#59. When I was young, I was sold on winning. I was always serious on the court. As I got older, I realized that it was just a basketball game. Just go out there and have fun.
Carmelo Anthony
#60. 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.
Hunter S. Thompson
#61. Michael Jordan changed so much in basketball, he took his power to make a difference. It's so much going on in music right now and somebody has to make a difference.
Kanye West
#62. When people ask me what I miss most about the game, it's being in the locker room and getting to know the guys. Back in those days, we had roommates. We had to talk basketball and that was a great way to understand the game itself and form those lasting relationships.
Earl Monroe
#63. The great thing about basketball is it's a live ball. If someone's in your way, push them out of the way, go around them or over them, whatever it takes.
Dolph Schayes
#64. All really successful coaches have a system.
Jim Valvano
#65. One of the questions I get asked a lot is, 'What do you do to stay in shape?' My glib answer is, 'I play.' But I mean it. Sure, I go to the gym, but I don't spend my life there. Most of my activity is outdoors, whether it's basketball or mountain biking or rock climbing.
Jason Lewis
#66. My eldest sister Beth is a doctor who studied at Harvard and Columbia and played basketball for Harvard. She set the athletic and academic standard for the rest of us to follow.
Abby Wambach
#67. I'm a firm believer in that you play the way you practice.
Larry Bird
#68. Have a vision. Sell your program. Your team is going to reflect you.
Mark Gottfried
#69. You have a choice to make when you're not playing. Either you're invested and a great teammate, or your not
Brad Stevens
#70. I am not a strategic coach; I am a practice coach.
John Wooden
#71. Accept a loss as a learning experience, and never point fingers at your teammates
Michael Jordan
#72. If you can do something and not blow your own horn, it sure sounds a lot better.
Don Meyer
#73. I was actually supposed to be a basketball player, not an actress. My parents had me playing basketball on competitive teams when I was in kindergarten. Even though my heart belongs to the arts, I'm a tomboy at heart, too.
Zendaya
#74. People are much more loose if you are having fun. I had a basketball player who was really soft-spoken, and then we played Connect Four with him, and he really opened up!
Hannah Storm
#75. People got to realize that the owners who been paying me are a lot richer than I am. It's not like I was born rich; I had to play basketball to make this type of money.
Moses Malone
#76. I enjoy playing at the heart of it is just a kid who really loves playing the game of basketball.
Kobe Bryant
#77. Remember, 'Rome was not built in a day.' Instant success is never possible. Competence results only from sustained, consistent, self-disciplined effort over an extended period of time.
Bud Wilkinson
#78. I'm a Christian first. I'm a family guy second. As much as I like coaching, as much as I like basketball, it's third, fourth, or fifth down the line.
Steve Alford
#79. For example, Michael Jordan earns $100million a year but continues to play basketball and remains a modest human being.
Franz Beckenbauer
#80. The difference between a good defensive team and a bad defensive team is as little as three possessions
Brad Stevens
#81. I was about 14, and my friend's stepdad asked me to do a 10K with him because his son - who was more into basketball - didn't want to. It was amazing, and I still remember the time I got: 48:23.
Sean Astin
#82. Few players have cast a spell across the game like Yao Ming, before or since.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
#83. Basketball is a team game. But that doesn't mean all five players should have the same amount of shots.
Dean Smith
#84. Everywhere I've been, I've been the best player. I love being a leader, and I love being the best. I just want to get better. It's not about being cocky or selfish or anything like that. It's just how I am.
LeBron James
#85. I've given these guys the blueprint on how to win a premiership, now I just have to be patient until they're ready.
LeBron James
#86. This summer is going to be a different summer for a lot of people. Everyone is going to take care of their own business and everyone is going to do what's best for them, including me.
Shaquille O'Neal
#87. 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.
Sonny Vaccaro
#88. I started out as a football player. I liked to inflict pain. In basketball, it was the same thing.
Shaquille O'Neal
#89. Moving to the US was quite a transition for me, to say the least! There were, and still are so many new things to get used to: the language, food, culture, even the style of basketball is different here!
Yao Ming
#90. If you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.
Michael Jordan
#91. 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 Johnson
#92. It's not about any one person. You've got to get over yourself and realize that it takes a group to get this thing done
Gregg Popovich
#93. In recent generations, women's sports have been a blessing. Some of us can remember the bad old days in the '50s, when we would discover in casual schoolyard play that a girl could outrun most of us or hold her own in basketball or hit a softball - but there were no teams, no coaches, for girls.
George Vecsey
#94. Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.
Red Auerbach
#95. For me, basketball kind of mirrors life. It sounds deep, but the sport has transformed my personality and my daily coping mechanisms. It has meant a lot.
Robbie Jones
#96. Poets are regarded as handicapped writers whose work must be treated with a tender condescension, such as one accords the athletic achievements of basketball players confined to wheelchairs.
Thomas M. Disch
#97. Once you've done the mental work, there comes a point you have to throw yourself into the action and put your heart on the line. That means not only being brave, but being compassionate towards yourself, your teammates and your opponents.
Phil Jackson
#98. Basketball was always a game to me. One of the greatest things in life for me was to be able to play what I loved dearly and get paid for it. So it was always a game to me and that's how I perceived everything.
Larry Bird
#99. The difference between Namath and me is that when you make the money he makes, they say you're ruggedly handsome. When you make the money I make, they say you have a big nose. (On resembling Joe Namath)
Jim Valvano
#100. The biggest scandal I was ever involved in was - in high school, at a basketball game, I shot and scored for the other team.
Darby Stanchfield
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