I Am A Basketball Player Quotes

#1. I am a basketball player, and I would like to focus my energy on basketball. The other things, I would rather not do. It is not something I am greatly interested in, but I know it is my responsibility.

Yao Ming

#2. Our offensive philosophy is to simply find a way to get the ball into the hands of our team's best player.

Kelvin Sampson

#3. The coach's job is to be part servant in helping each player reach his goals within the team concept.

Dean Smith

#4. I'm a basketball player, not a monk.

Marvin Barnes

#5. If I'd gone straight to the NBA, I don't think I would have been ready as a player or a person.

Kevin Durant

#6. My goal was just to try and be the best player on my high school team, and look where I am now. And that was still my goal as a young kid, just to try and be a little better than my brother was.

Larry Bird

#7. I wasn't as critical during games as I was at practice. Players needed confidence during games more than criticism.

Dean Smith

#8. Only run special plays for special players; find plays that fit your players.

Don Meyer

#9. If a player leaves Marquette and doesn't have some of my blood in him, then I don't think I've done a good job.

Al McGuire

#10. Players must do what you want them to do in pressure situations.

Don Meyer

#11. 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

#12. Don't let talent get in way of team performance. Great players do what's outstanding for team, not what makes them stand out

Jerry West

#13. Deep down, your players must know you care about them. This is the most important thing. I could never get away with what I do if the players feel I didn't care for them. They know, in the long run, I'm in their corner.

Bo Schembechler

#14. The more your players have to think on the basketball court, the slower their feet get.

Jerry Tarkanian

#15. I was a skinny, scrawny guy. I stuttered horrendously, couldn't speak at all. I was a very shy, reserved player and a very shy, reserved person. I found a safe place in life in basketball.

Bill Walton

#16. I've always considered myself a crunch-time player. I just love having the ball in my hands. Everyone in the arena knows the ball is supposed to be in your hands and you still make it. It's the odds. I love the odds.

Reggie Miller

#17. The greatest compliment to any player is he is a great teammate. We can't all be great players, but we can all be great teammates

Jay Bilas

#18. Discipline is the greatest form of love you can show someone. Great players crave discipline

Tom Izzo

#19. My father was a soccer player. All my friends played basketball though, so I stuck with basketball.

Steve Nash

#20. Even the greatest players accept coaching and value the need for discipline and the order that it brings to the team

Jack Ramsay

#21. 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

#22. It's kind of like ... It's kind of like playin' a basketball game. I am there and the other player is there, and it's just the two of us and I put the other player's body in my van. And I am the winner.

Chris Onstad

#23. I'm a basketball player. That's what I do and what I love but that's just not all who I am. I'm talented in a lot of different areas.

Kevin Durant

#24. I think I am a smarter player now.

Carmelo Anthony

#25. Great players never look in the mirror and think I'm a great basketball player. You ask yourself, Am I the best player I can be?

Michael Jordan

#26. I am, first of all, a basketball player. I've done this for so very long ... For me, it's been essential to be successful on the court.

Tony Parker

#27. You don't get respect for being an Asian-American basketball player in the U.S.

Jeremy Lin

#28. 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

#29. Sometimes a player's greatest challenge is coming to grips with his role on the team.

Scottie Pippen

#30. 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

#31. Do your best when no one is looking.

Bob Cousy

#32. I have my own identity as a player.

Carmelo Anthony

#33. 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

#34. 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

#35. 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

#36. As far as carrying the torch for the years to come, I don't know. I just want to be the best basketball player I can be.

Kobe Bryant

#37. 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

#38. 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

#39. I think coaches sometimes foul their own players out of game by benching them too long when in foul trouble

Jeff Van Gundy

#40. 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

#41. My mom always tells me that ... Nobody is going to remember you for the great basketball player you are but they will remember you for the character you have off the court and how many lives you're changed.

Isaiah Austin

#42. I played when I played, and played, I think, against the greatest players in the greatest time in the history of basketball.

Oscar Robertson

#43. 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

#44. 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

#45. I'm playing against great players, playing against the best in the world. The competition-that's what I've always wanted.

Kobe Bryant

#46. Magic Johnson is the best player who plays on the ground, and Michael Jordan is the best player who plays in the air.

John Paxson

#47. Few players have cast a spell across the game like Yao Ming, before or since.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#48. 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

#49. I started out as a football player. I liked to inflict pain. In basketball, it was the same thing.

Shaquille O'Neal

#50. One score makes happy ONE player, one assist makes happy TWO.

Toni Kukoc