A Quote by Doris Burke

I believe if the players and coaches respect my viewpoint of the game, then fans will as well. And full credit there goes to the NBA and to ESPN. They are willing to put people like me in a position to do this.
I have to give credit to the NBA, because they've done an unbelievable job of taking our game global and putting us in a position to be able to come here and other places in the world and see how big the game of basketball is. If you have never been here, you might not really understand how amazing and how big basketball is. These fans in China love the sport, and they have more players playing than we have people living in the US.
There are coaches who put more or less players in front of the ball; when you put lots of players ahead of the ball, the risk is magnified. There are coaches that won't contemplate that. I respect that.
I'm one of the best players in the world in that No.10 position. Fans, coaches, players, and everyone knows that my best position is playmaker.
What I find fascinating … you have to give David Stern and the NBA a lot of credit … ESPN pays the league, and then the league tells them what to do. It’s more ESPN’s problem. You gotta have no balls whatsoever to pay someone hundreds of millions of dollars and let them run your business.
It's all like an NBA game. You got the stadium full, and you got the fans. Half of them are booing you, but the other half is cheering you on. That's just how it goes.
In the NBA, you have a better diet and strength coaches to make you better physically. And the number of coaches, it makes me feel like there's more of them than us players.
The Energy job was probably the key. It kind of transitioned me back into the States. It gave me a link to the NBA. And I got to make some contacts and meet some players and get players set up and learn the NBA game and terminology and coaching those type of players. It was certainly a huge, huge key to getting to the NBA.
But people don't know if I can teach the game. I know I can. My experience in Oklahoma was positive. It opened my eyes to how the game is played - the interaction among players, fans and media, how all that works. You have to know about the business of the game and how the actions of players and coaches affect the business. I think I have it down now.
The NBA is the strongest professional sports league in the world. The league and the game is bigger than any one person, Michael Jordan included, and they always will be. I hope that today players, especially our young players, continue to recognize that simple fact. Nothing is more important than the game itself and the fans who support it.
The players and the coaches have been my soft landing spot, and those men and their acceptance of me and the respect they've shown to me on the air, that has changed fans' opinion of me.
Baseball is a simple game. If you have good players, and you keep them in the right frame of mind, the manager is a success. The players make the manager. It's never the other way. Managing is not running, hitting, or stealing. Managing is getting your players to put out one hundred percent year after year. A player does not have to like a manager and he does not have to respect a manager. All he has to do is obey the rules. Talent is one thing. Being able to go from spring to October is another. You just got caught in a position where you have no position.
Going back as far as I do covering men's college basketball, the objections to me being an analyst never came from inside the game. The players and coaches have always showed me the utmost respect and quite frankly my gender has never felt like an issue inside the game.
I would like to accept this recognition on behalf of all the staff members that that I’ve been associated with; all of the office people behind the scenes who never get credit and make this game so great along with the great coaches and players.
A lot has to be the NBA. I don't know if I can say it is the egos of the players or the money that goes around and everything. But those relationships between the coaches and the players are just not the same. They are not even close to the European coach-player relationships.
You always give credit where credit is due - to high school coaches, college coaches - but my dad, the foundation that he built with me, is where all of this came from. The speed, the determination, the mindset, just the natural belief that you can do anything you put your mind to, it all comes from my dad.
I'm passionate about the game - just like the fans are, and I've coached in the league for a long time, so that's the perspective I will bring to ESPN.
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