Basketball Athlete Quotes

#1. OK, I'll put it like this: I doubt if we will see another All-American basketball athlete who is a Rhodes Scholar.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#2. I was a much better writer than I was an athlete. My college coach told me flat out, he said, "Deford, you write basketball better than you play it."

Frank Deford

#3. Adam [Sandler] is a good basketball player, so he is a natural athlete, he worked with Sean Salisbury to make his footwork and delivery smooth, and he did a great job.

Bill Goldberg

#4. The problem with many athletes is they take themselves seriously and their sport lightly.

Michael Waltrip

#5. The true athlete should have character, not be a character

John Wooden

#6. If I were in charge I'd drug test all you sons of b****es, not just the athletes.

Bobby Knight

#7. Either because I was an athlete or because I was black - probably both - there seemed to be a clear assumption that I wouldn't be up to the work.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#8. I've been an athlete that's sort of in advance; always thinking. After basketball I'd love to have my own radio show, my own TV show.

Shaquille O'Neal

#9. I think the greatest all-around athlete ever was Jim Brown. He played lacrosse, basketball and ran track at Syracuse. He played professional football for the Browns.

Will McDonough

#10. Honestly, the only thing I loved when I was a kid was basketball. I was an athlete when I was a kid, and that was it.

Justin Timberlake

#11. If you are afraid of failure, you don't deserve success.

Nastia Liukin

#12. I might be the most injured athlete in the history of sports. I've had 31 operations. An endless string of stress fractures.

Bill Walton

#13. When I was a kid, I was always an athlete. I played a lot of sports. I played football, basketball, baseball and soccer.

Scott Caan

#14. I've read that same formula, but as an athlete I'm classified as phenomenal. You could look it up.

Shaquille O'Neal

#15. I've been the type of person [and] the type of athlete, I don't like to be given anything. I like to earn.

Shaquille O'Neal

#16. Wilt Chamberlain had a great deal to do with the success of the NBA. His dominance, power, demeanor and the rivalry with Bill Russell says it all. He will be sorely missed by myself and everyone in the basketball community. Wilt was a great performer and a great athlete.

Red Auerbach

#17. Once you become a professional athlete or once you do anything well, then you're automatically a role model ... I have no problem being a role model. I love it. I have kids looking up to me and hopefully I inspire these kids to do good things.

LeBron James

#18. Throughout my journey in basketball, I always have someone to talk to in my father. I know how hard he had to work as an athlete.

Joakim Noah

#19. I was an athlete growing up. I did a lot of sports: soccer, basketball, so I was always so used to hardcore training, a lot of running. I got to a point where I felt like I just wanted to get toned; I didn't need to shed pounds, so now I do Pilates.

Jacquelyn Jablonski

#20. 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

#21. The Olympic Games is holy. Athletes from around the world, including myself, of course, dream to participate.

Yao Ming

#22. Bill Russell is one of the great names in basketball, an all-American ... and the only athlete to ever win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a professional championship all in the same year-1956 ... But Bill Russell had this one problem: He threw up before every game.

John Eliot

#23. So much of becoming a good athlete involves bringing other things to the table, other than physical skills. It involves intelligence, it involves many of the things that you learn during the process of being educated. How to analyze, how to assess, how to equate, how to reason.

Julius Erving

#24. My goal is to let people see who I am as a person, not just a basketball player. Many people see athletes in a certain way - flat and one dimensional. I want to change that view.

Blake Griffin

#25. Kobe's an incredibly talented athlete, and there are many more like him among today's players.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#26. I can play basketball, run track, and play volleyball, so yeah, I've always been an athlete at heart.

Vivica A. Fox

#27. In college I never realized the opportunities available to a pro athlete. I've been given the chance to meet all kinds of people, to travel and expand my financial capabilities, to get ideas and learn about life, to create a world apart from basketball.

Michael Jordan

#28. Your best athletes might give basketball a try just when they think, geez, this might be something that pays off for me in the end.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#29. The NBA is all about winning, but at this level (college basketball) winning doesn't make you happy. You can win, and play lousy, and in my program, feel lousy. To me it's about: How good can we be.

Geno Auriemma

#30. Athletes that can't listen, can condition.

Chuck Daly

#31. I'm a firm believer in quiet confidence. By that I mean knowing inwardly that you are good, and not exhibiting a boastful attitude outwardly. If an athlete doesn't believe in himself, no one else will.

Dick Van Arsdale

#32. With basketball, if a guy is having an off night you still can say he's a good athlete. But with a comedian, you see them in front of the wrong audience - and they can look like complete amateurs. It's remarkable.

Gary Gulman

#33. On the court, Jason Collins is not a huge basketball star, but he has already claimed his place in civil rights history as the first openly gay athlete to play in one of the four major U.S. sports leagues.

Nancy Gibbs

#34. I came up in a small town ghetto and I never did think I'd be a celebrity or famous athlete, I was just loving to play the game of basketball. And I worked hard at everything I did.

Moses Malone

#35. I'm not sure that an athlete is prepared to be a role model. He has a lot of attention paid to him that he shouldn't have, and then the athletes tend to think of themselves as better than they are.

Bobby Knight