I went through ups and downs as a young player dealing with criticism and things of that nature. To finally win that first NBA championship, it was definitely a relief of a lot of pressure and frustration we dealt with as a team. It was great to bring a championship to the city of Chicago.
Every time we play, we want to win, that's for sure. It may be the World Championship, the Olympics, the NBA Championship or the South American Championship, but we always want to win.
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.
When I was eighteen and I won the European Championship - that's when I realized I had an opportunity to play in the NBA one day.
I wanted to go the NBA and win a championship because I've never seen a grown man cry the way Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan cried when they won a championship.
I thought I would make it (to the NBA). I believed that I would make it. But I had a Plan B. I was going to get my Master's degree at Tulane University had it not worked out. I think the pressure of making it wasn't on me as great as some other players that had no other options. I was going to do something special in life and I wanted to play in the NBA. I had a backup plan but I went full speed ahead with my Plan A.
Come on, everyone wants to win a championship, but a lot of players have had great careers without one. Sometimes it just doesn't happen for whatever reason.
They need to do two things if they’re going to be great and win a championship: take the ball away and keep teams out of the end zone. You have those two things, that’s the recipe for a championship.
When I played in the NBA for 12 years, Seattle had some of the best fans in the NBA.
A lot of people don't understand that playing in the NBA, the toughest thing is to win an NBA championship. I was in the NBA 15 years. I'd been in the playoffs. I'd been in the Finals. But it took me 15 years to finally win one.
Are some people destined for a great fate, or to do great things? Or is it only that they're born somehow with that great passion - and if they find themselves in the right circumstances, then things happen? It's the sort of thing you wonder.
What made it so special was the city of Houston had never won a sports championship. I think the championship changed people's thinking about their own city. It made them feel like their city had some significance that it hadn't had before.
Some things happen without you putting an effort, while some others things do not happen despite we wanting it to happen.
I'm satisfied with what I've done. I'm not satisfied with what has happened in my career, some of the real roadblocks I had to overcome.
We get three of the Ball boys on the Lakers together, and we gonna go championship, championship, championship, championship, championship.
When I got cut from Cleveland, they weren't one of the best teams in the NBA at the time, so I had some doubts. I didn't think I was going to get back into the league. I wasn't sure it was going to happen for me.