Every basketball player wants to wear their team's throwback jerseys.
I think the only thing that matters is you win as a team and you lose as a team. And so the team needs to understand that no one player is bigger than any other player. Everybody has a role... Every single role is important.
Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game.
It is always disappointing when a player is not prepared to stick it out and fight for his place in a national team.
I think winning a championship, for me, it put things in perspective. You can either be a great player on a so-so team, or you can be a role player on a championship team, or, in an extreme case, a great player on a championship team.
I've been the best player on every team that I played on, so if I can't be the poster child of your team, then what else is it? It's got to be a black-white issue. Every white player I know who's the best player on their team is the poster child of that team.
Of course team spirit and team's strategy matters more than anything else as far as the team is concerned. As far as I am concerned, if the presence of one player is affecting the morale or the spirit of the team, then we might as well rest that player for a while.
Always, as a coach, you have to be thinking not to flood the players with information. You have to think what's key for the player, for that team, and how do we deliver it in a way that it might stick and have an effect.
I was always Little Doc. And in the sixth grade I was the worst player on the team. People said I was only on the team because of my name.
I swear I have never told a player to attack another player. In fact, I have told my players if they ever hear me saying something like this, they can break a stick over my skull. I ask only that they play aggressively.
If a player is trying to intimidate a skilled player on your team, what do we want? We want our skilled players playing, so we shouldn't be doing that.
You need experience around you when you are a young player. You need to know how to run a team, to lead a team and to play as a team which means, your team has leaders but you still function as a team.
A winning player is nothing more than a player on a winning team. A losing player is a guy who played on a losing team that year.
A gifted player, who is not a team player, will ultimately hurt the team.
It's tough at first. You realize in the NBA, it's not easy. Each and every night, you're playing against that player that was the best high school player, that player that was the best player on his college team.
To me, throwback means I'm a smart player. I know how to play the game. I'm very skilled. I do a lot of things that other people don't do.