quotations about basketball
Don't let winning make you soft. Don't let losing make you quit.
LARRY BIRD
attributed, 1001 Motivational Messages and Quotations for Athletes and Coaches
We have a great bunch of outside shooters. Unfortunately, all our games are played indoors.
WELDON DREW
The Michigan Journal, 1987
My thoughts were always that that night was the most important game in the world. Everybody in the world was watching that one game. And I had to be the best player on the court and win that game that night. That was my mentality, and it stuck with me all the way through my career.
LARRY BIRD
interview, ESPN, December 6, 2016
Basketball is like most other things: if your basics are off, nothing else is really going to help you improve.
GREG DUTCHER
Killing Calvinism
On a good team there are no superstars. There are great players who show they are great players by being able to play with others as a team.
RED HOLZMAN
attributed, Team Work: Rediscovering the Essence of Basketball
I'll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it's sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.
KOBE BRYANT
attributed, Team Work: Rediscovering the Essence of Basketball
Being hip-hoppers, we were obliged to be obsessed with basketball.
NIKESH SHUKLA
Coconut Unlimited
Basketball is a team game. But that doesn't mean all five players should take the same amount of shots.
DEAN SMITH
attributed, "501 Awesome Basketball Quotes", Basketball for Coaches
The real secret behind top athlete's genius, then, may be as esoteric and obvious and dull and profound as silence itself. The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player's mind as he stands at the center of hostile crowd-noise and lines up at the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all.
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
"How Tracy Austin broke my heart"
The only important statistic is the final score.
BILL RUSSELL
attributed, Boston Celtics IQ: The Ultimate Test of True Fandom
Apparently I need shoes with a 'swoosh' on the side if I'm to continue playing basketball.
BETH FANTASKEY
Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side
But that's the thing about basketball: you don't play games on paper.
BILL SIMMONS
The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy
I decided one day early on in high school that I wanted to be great at basketball, not just a good basketball player. I would go to the elementary school by my house and shoot thousands of shots all day, every day.
GILBERT ARENAS
Daily Texan, Mar. 29, 2001
Defense should be played with your feet and your brain, not your hands.
BOB KNIGHT
"33 Basketball Coaching Points from Bob Knight", The Coaching Toolbox
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
Sacred Hoops
At any point during practice, call a timeout. Huddle the players and give them 4 or 5 specific instructions. Then send them back on the court. Wait 15 seconds and then ask them to write down the 4 or 5 things you asked them to do. It is scary how little they will recall.
BOB KNIGHT
"33 Basketball Coaching Points from Bob Knight", The Coaching Toolbox
Basketball is a beautiful game when the five players on the court play with one heartbeat. Passing, screening, cutting, and movement away from the ball: The game can be almost balletic in its grace and simplicity.
DEAN SMITH
The Carolina Way: Leadership Lessons from a Life in Coaching
As I got better and better, there were a lot of double teams, and I drew a lot of defenders, so I had to learn how to pass the ball, and get it off to my teammates, because the more people that came to defend me, that means there are more openings for other players.
YAO MING
interview, Nov. 14, 2003
You can't win without the ball.
RED AUERBACH
ESPN, Jun. 2005
I was all about resurrecting the lost art of the midrange jumper, but then one day I was shooting free throws--just standing at the foul line at the North Central gym shooting from a rack of balls. All at once, I couldn't figure out why I was methodically tossing a spherical object through a toroidal object. It seemed like the stupidest thing I could possibly be doing. I started thinking about little kids putting a cylindrical peg through a circular hole, and how they do it over and over again for months when they figure it out, and how basketball was basically just a slightly more aerobic version of the same exercise. Anyway, for the longest time, I just kept sinking free throws. I hit eighty in a row, my all-time best, but as I kept going, I felt more and more like a two-year-old.
JOHN GREEN
The Fault in Our Stars