NBA Experience Quotes

I'm not like the next Michael Jordan, but I'm also not what everyone saw me as before I started playing in the NBA, either.

I met wonderful people playing in the NBA. Whether it is the officials, the scorekeepers, all the people who work for the NBA, not just for the Lakers, but I'm talking about just for the league itself.

I don't know if I could have made it as an NBA player. But I knew I could make it as a coach.

So you're dealing with a coach, and you're dealing with a guy who's actually experienced NBA basketball from a player's perspective and actually goes about it that way.

After I left the Nets, I found out what it takes to not just make the Finals, but to win a championship. I think I have a sense now of how you build a championship structure and how you maintain that structure.

As you get more experience out there, as you get more comfortable with the NBA system, the offense, the schemes, you begin to understand where you're going to get your looks from. And I think a big part of playing well is not having to look over your shoulder and just understanding that you're consistently be counted on.

When I played in the NBA for 12 years, Seattle had some of the best fans in the NBA.

It was a blessing just to play one NBA basketball game.

As I grew up, I played in sandals. I played in flip-flops all the time back in the day. That's why I didn't really care about spraining my ankles. When I first started in the NBA, I loved low-cuts. I can play (in them), because I used to grow up playing in flip-flops all the time.

I've learned a lot from the experiences that I went through in high school, through college and overseas, and just everything in life. That is what prepared me for coming into the NBA, being undersized, no recognition, not getting anything easy, and I have been fortunate to prosper in this league.

It wasn't about the money. I was just playing basketball, playing with my brother, happy being in the NBA.

When you are a young player in the NBA, sometimes you don't pay much attention to some of the cities you visit, especially in cold places like Toronto. But when you spend more time in the league you learn more about the cities you play in, and learn how to appreciate them more.

I'm blessed just making it to the NBA. That was my first goal and dream. Playing with Kobe and Shaq and for a coach like Phil Jackson, and then going to play with guys like Jordan and Jerry Stackhouse, it's just a crazy experience.

I am used to the hype because I played in the NBA.

I played with Mike Dunleavy Jr., and we got a great relationship on the Warriors. Knowing him and now knowing his dad, all I know is he's a man of his word. Anything that he's ever said to me has been honest and I respect that.

I never really had role models or guys in the NBA to show me the ropes or be a friend, mentor to me like that.

I learned more in that first year in the NBA than I could have in four years of college.

I like to get the ball in transition and go and everything, but I'm also not as dependent on having the ball all the time as I was maybe in college and when I first got to the NBA.

There was a possibility I could have been out of the NBA. It's taught me something that was a little deeper than basketball. I'm talking about life decisions.

My dad has kind of been the standard for me, he played 16 years in the league, and since I've been in the league, every year that I go through and deal with the scratches, the bumps and bruises, just the grind that it is to go through one NBA season.

I learned a lot in the NBA.

Jeff Bzdelik is one of the smartest, most knowledgeable, hardest working coaches I have ever worked with. His teams in the NBA and college have achieved beyond their talent levels. Recruits to Wake Forest will play for a coach who was successful in the NBA for a long time and will teach them what they need to know to make it to the NBA.

Just being in the NBA is crazy and also after every bucket that I make or every pass it's kind of like, 'Woah, I just did that.' It's been awesome.

I grew up playing basketball on the streets of New York City, and it was very, very rough, and I started playing in the NBA in the same way.

You're all over the place usually with young players. You're trying to manage their emotions and teach them NBA situations. It usually takes months, even years, to learn and recognize NBA situations and then to develop a level of competitiveness that's necessary at this level.