Top 100 Basketball Sports Quotes
#1. You know, softball is the other sport I do besides basketball.
LeBron James
#2. Football can stand parity better than any of the other sports, I think. Baseball, basketball and hockey need a defining team, in essence to frame the season. Football? Not so much.
Michael Wilbon
#3. Basketball would have been the natural sport to play, but it's a little too aggressive for me, so instead I dabbled in volleyball and some good old-fashioned Roller Derby.
Jessica Williams
#4. I don't get it. Basketball is so supremely boring. I can't understand the point of watching ten giants running from one end of the field
court
to the other throwing an orange ball through a hoop in the air. I guess it's better than golf, but so is watching paint dry.
Carter Quinn
#5. The coach should be the absolute boss, but he still should maintain an open mind.
Red Auerbach
#6. When you're 18, when you're at college, sports can be your life. You can watch every baseball game, every college basketball game, every football game. Once you have a family and kids, you can't do that anymore.
Drew Magary
#7. I like sports, and I enjoy playing basketball and lifting weights.
Joel Osteen
#8. I'm truly passionate about basketball. I'm not as passionate about baseball as I am about basketball, but I watch baseball and I watch football. I love sports in general.
Patrick Soon-Shiong
#9. I probably follow all sports a little bit. I like hockey quite a bit. I like football. I like college basketball when it gets down to March Madness. I like baseball. I enjoy them all. I watch them all.
Vince Vaughn
#10. You do not want to make this guy mad. You see him sitting there all cool and calm, but underneath, he's thinking, he's plotting. I'm telling you, it's not normal. He's like Michael from 'The Godfather.' - Kevin Johnson on David Stern
R.E. Graswich
#11. Sports were a big part of my life. I was the captain of the basketball team in high school, and captain of the basketball team at Princeton.
John W. Rogers Jr.
#12. If Shakespeare had been in pro basketball, he never would have had time to write his soliloquies. He would have always been on a plane between Phoenix and Kansas City.
Paul Westhead
#13. Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We.
Phil Jackson
#15. In America, we have three major sports - baseball, football and basketball. They get the most coverage. Then there's things like golf which mop up most of what is left. But track and field? We are way at the bottom of the totem pole.
Maurice Greene
#16. My mom is a big sports fans. Basketball, football, baseball, whatever. She calls into sports radio shows and gets into shouting matches, that's how intense she is about it.
Chris Hardwick
#17. I wanted to have a career in sports when I was young, but I had to give up the idea. I'm only six feet tall, so I couldn't play basketball. I'm only 190 pounds, so I couldn't play football, and I have 20/20 vision, so I couldn't be a referee.
Jay Leno
#18. Other people go to the office. I get to coach. I know I've been blessed.
Jim Valvano
#19. The problem with many athletes is they take themselves seriously and their sport lightly.
Michael Waltrip
#20. I think that David Stern is probably the greatest commissioner that any sport has ever had in the history of this country.
Bill Russell
#21. I grew up in Westlake Villiage, a suburb of L.A. There was a guy there who was a fighter and was like, 'I'll teach you to box.' I started a little bit of boxing, then it crossed over into jiu-jitsu. I was into it for a little while, but then I started doing basketball, baseball, team sports.
Jonathan Lipnicki
#22. It's very warm there, so we were outdoors all the time. The local people had programs for us year-round, where as kids we had the opportunity to play football, basketball, baseball, track and field - we just went from one sport to the next, year-round.
Rafer Johnson
#23. I got into running because I was too uncoordinated to play baseball, too small for basketball, and too tiny for football. I lived in a broken home and had looked to those sports as a way of staying away from my home.
Gerry Lindgren
#24. Although I grew up in Kansas City, ... I have always kept more or less au courant of Texas barbecue, like a sports fan who is almost monomaniacally obsessed with basketball but glances over at the N.H.L. standings now and then.
Calvin Trillin
#25. We old athletes carry the disfigurements and markings of contests remembered only by us and no one else. Nothing is more lost than a forgotten game.
Pat Conroy
#26. Basketball Rule #4
If you miss
enough of life's
free throws
you will pay
in the end.
Kwame Alexander
#27. I played baseball, and that's pretty much it. Basketball came late, this was, basketball was the sport that I tried to master, I kind of mastered baseball, so basketball was one of those things where I wanted to master this game, so that's why I probably play it the way I do.
Eric Williams
#28. There's a great quote by Julius Irving that went, 'Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.'
David Halberstam
#30. I love sports. I've played basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, track and field growing up.
Michael B. Jordan
#31. Faith, family, academics and then sports was the order of priorities in my family. My parents really stuck to these principles when raising me and my two brothers. As long as we took care of everything, they let us play as much basketball as we wanted.
Jeremy Lin
#32. Until my senior year, baseball and basketball were my best sports; and even when I was a senior, I still wanted to play baseball professionally. But the family wanted me to go to college, and I guess I agreed with them, or else I would have accepted some of the offers I got.
Joe Namath
#33. Everyone wants to win, but not everyone is willing to prepare to win.
Bobby Knight
#34. Sports formed me. I was always decently skilled but lacked size, so I had to resort to using my skill versus my power. I strategically play golf because that's all I can do. It's the same on the basketball court. I try to get open and shoot it. Or I use the open space on the soccer field.
Zach Johnson
#35. This team is one execution away from being a very good basketball team.
Doc Rivers
#36. Analytics only goes so far. Basketball, more than baseball, for example, is really a team sport.
Steve Ballmer
#37. It's intense in every sport. No matter what, USC vs. UCLA is crazy. Especially when it comes down to football and basketball, it's just nuts.
Akeem Ayers
#38. I like playing many other sports, such as basketball.
Guan Tianlang
#39. Basketball was always my sport. It just took me until my second year of college for me to realize that I was a better baseball player than a basketball player. But basketball was always my number one love. Finally found out I was better at baseball and chose to pursue that route.
Curtis Granderson
#40. The Lakers were able to maintain a certain level of talent and success, and so were the Celtics. It became part of people's sports lore.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
#41. I played college basketball in West Virginia for two years, and then I graduated from NYU with a sports management degree because I realized the NBA's not going to happen.
Ramon Rodriguez
#42. I've tried to handle winning well, so that maybe we'll win again, but I've also tried to handle failure well. If those serve as good examples for teachers and kids, then I hope that would be a contribution I have made to sport. Not just basketball, but to sport.
Mike Krzyzewski
#43. Sports like baseball, basketball, and hockey develop muscles. That's why Americans have the strongest eyes in the world.
Robert Orben
#44. There are only two options regarding commitment; you're either in or you're out.
Pat Riley
#45. 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
#46. Basketball, like all sports, is predicated on the execution of fundamentals. The coach is a teacher. His subject: fundamentals
Jack Ramsay
#47. I was all limbs and I was very convinced that I must be uncoordinated, so I didn't want to try any sports. And the girls' basketball team was constantly like, "Please, please just come play."
Geena Davis
#48. If you are afraid of failure, you don't deserve success.
Nastia Liukin
#49. There is a rare exception of mainstream sports that have a fatality rate. That's motor sports and rodeo, ... football, baseball, basketball, hockey, you make a mistake and you give up a run or some points. In these two sports, if you make a mistake, it could cost you your life.
Don Andrews
#50. [On writing:] "There's a great quote by Julius Irving that went, 'Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.'"
(One On 1, interview with Budd Mishkin; NY1, March 25, 2007.)
David Halberstam
#51. Basketball was not my main sport in grade school, or even the first year of high school.
Mike Krzyzewski
#52. There isn't a single professional sports season now that doesn't go on at least a month too long. Baseball starts in football weather, and football in baseball weather, and basketball overlaps them both.
James Reston Jr.
#53. Drama is played at the pace of chess ... or billiards ... or poker. Engrossing? Sure. But comedy is played at the jubilant, high-octane speed of sports like basketball or hockey.
Mark Waters
#54. Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.
Tiger Woods
#55. There's discussion in athletics about how sport - where they say 'SportsCenter' has ruined the fundamentals of basketball because it's - it only applauds dunks and three point shots and blocks, and I think, you know, the cable news has done the same thing for politics.
Dan Pfeiffer
#56. I've got four brothers, so with them and all our friends we had these sports parties in the basement. We'd play basketball, mini-sticks, baseball in the backyard, football, whatever it was. We were busy 24/7.
Rob Gronkowski
#57. When asked if he was a basketball player he replied No I clean giraffe ears.
Elvin Hayes
#58. I played three sports in high school, baseball, football and basketball. Baseball really helped me a lot.
Calvin Pryor
#59. Sports teach you how to be quick. Injuries teach you how to slow down.
Yao Ming
#60. A person really doesn't become whole, until he becomes a part of something that's bigger than himself.
Jim Valvano
#61. It's just about being in the zone, in any sport, be it football, basketball or baseball.
Mark Teixeira
#62. My sporting hero was Drazen Petrovic, the NBA basketball player, who was killed in a car accident in 1993. He was a good friend, an unbelievable player, and I dedicated my Wimbledon win to him.
Goran Ivanisevic
#63. You have to remember that baseball really was the American pastime in the Forties, not football, basketball or any other sport.
Harrison Ford
#64. Basketball is sort of an interesting sport that, you know, the top player on your team makes so much more of an impact than the top player in any other sport.
Daryl Morey
#65. If I weren't earning $3 million a year to dunk a basketball, most people on the street would run in the other direction if they saw me coming.
Charles Barkley
#66. If architecture is, as is sometimes said, music set in concrete, then football and basketball may be said to be creativity embodied in team sports.
Michael Mandelbaum
#67. I was a better basketball player growing up in high school than I was a swimmer. Basketball to this day is my favorite sport.
Ryan Lochte
#68. I played Little League baseball, but I also played basketball. Basketball was my primary sport. When you play basketball seriously, a lot of times, through the summer season, you continue playing. So that replaced me playing baseball.
Chadwick Boseman
#69. 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
#70. 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
#71. 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
#72. 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
#73. We [Americans] are a football-baseball-basketball-golf culture with some ocassional forays into tennis and less often the winter sports ...
Michael Wilbon
#74. Involvement in my kids' sports teams is something I have made time for over the years. I've also been able to coach all three of them in baseball and basketball, something that has strengthened our bonds and given me indescribable joy. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Thomas Perez
#75. 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
#76. I played all kinds of sports when I was young: tennis, handball, basketball, some soccer. I focused on basketball when I was 16 or 17 and then came to the U.S. when I was 20.
Dirk Nowitzki
#77. Basketball is my favorite sport, and I'm also a very passionate football fan.
Abhishek Bachchan
#78. I'll show you just how cruel a sport basketball is.
Atsushi
#80. Growing up, I was always into sports - basketball and volleyball - but I wasn't really a runner.
Stephan James
#81. Basketball Rule #6
A great team
has a good scorer
with a teammate
who's on point
and ready
to assist.
Kwame Alexander
#82. First off, do everything they can to give their kids the opportunities to play sports; asthma is not a deterrent to playing sports.
Dominique Wilkins
#83. [At nine years old] I didn't really know what that meant at the time. I thought it might be in a warm summer sport like softball, but I played a variety of sports growing up - basketball, soccer and track. I really didn't care. I just wanted to be an Olympian.
Elana Meyers
#84. The beautiful thing about the game of golf is you can play good golf and compete well into your later years, and you can't do this in basketball or football or baseball. But in golf, it's a longer live sport.
Tom Watson
#85. Basketball is a sport that involves the subtle interweaving of players at full speed to the point where they are thinking and moving as one.
Phil Jackson
#86. In a team sport like basketball, every time you help somebody else, you help yourself.
Pete Carril
#87. In an individual sport, yes, you have to win titles. Baseball's different. But basketball, hockey? One person can control the tempo of a game, can completely alter the momentum of a series. There's a lot of great individual talent.
Kobe Bryant
#88. I started playing baseball and soccer. Those were my sports on the streets and in school when I was growing up. I didn't even start playing basketball until I was 14.
Earl Monroe
#89. I need to work with great directors and actors, people who are better than me, so that I am challenged. It is like playing sports - surfing, basketball, it doesn't matter what it is, if you play with people who are better than you, then you get better too. It is the same thing with acting.
Paul Walker
#90. Baseball happens to be a game of cumulative tension but football, basketball and hockey are played with hand grenades and machine guns.
John Leonard
#91. I think that my God-given physical attributes, big hands, and big feet, the way that I'm built, proportion-wise, just made basketball the most inviting sport for me to play.
Julius Erving
#92. [My] career was sputtering until [I] did a 360 and got headed in the right direction.
Tracy McGrady
#93. Competing in both track and field and basketball for the Bruins I have a lot of great memories to choose from. But my all-time favorite moment in collegiate sports has to be in 1982 when we won UCLA's first NCAA title in track.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
#94. I think we all have great opportunities individually but collectively our unit is so much bigger. Collectively our unit is something I've never seen on television. I don't look at our show as a basketball show. I look at our show as a sports and entertainment show.
Kenny Smith
#95. Yeah, handsome, great big guy, seven feet tall! Name is Rick Miller - Portland, Oregon. And he started a business. Of course you know it was in basketball. But it wasn't in basketball! I mean, I figured he had to be in sport, but he wasn't in sport.
Mitt Romney
#96. I'm a big sports guy - golf, tennis, baseball, basketball, snowboarding - and I love games.
Jason Dohring
#97. There are very few sports where you can find that tranquility. Some people find that in golf, but when you're in the water it's such a difference from the golf course or the basketball court. That's what makes surfing unique over any other sport.
Troy Polamalu
#98. I think we have our sports within our own culture that are huge with baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Those are the sports in America that we grow up with and soccer isn't really there yet.
Claudio Reyna
#99. I played basketball in high school, and I love watching sports - I'll watch everything except maybe hockey.
Andy Roddick
#100. I have 'the first' attached to my name in a whole lot of different aspects when it comes to the sport of basketball.
Lisa Leslie
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