First and foremost, I loved basketball. My dad introduced me to basketball when I was a baby.
I am a big basketball fan. I have been watching basketball ever since I was a young boy.
I played football first. I love football. I'm a die-hard Broncos fan. I loved football, but in the offseason, I started playing basketball, and I just fell in love with the game. I've been playing basketball ever since 5th grade.
A big part of what kept me focused on the music was already failing with basketball. I played basketball all of my life. When basketball didn't work, I knew that I had to make it in whatever I decided to do next.
Since I started playing basketball, I had goals. I was going to do everything step by step. I'm proving it, my basketball is getting better.
Going to the Portland Trail Blazers, who actually took the time to invest in me, was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me in my career. I got to a small market where I could focus on basketball, basketball, basketball. No distractions.
Baseball is like cricket, and I grew up in a country where they had cricket. So I understand cricket, soccer and basketball. I played basketball at the club level and a little bit in college, so that's why I'm a basketball fanatic.
There's hasn't been a day in my life since I was 9 years old that I haven't touched a basketball or done something connected with basketball.
And from the first time I picked up a basketball at age eight - I had a lot of difficulty when I first picked up a basketball, because I was a scrub - there were things that I liked about it.
Baseball is like cricket, and I grew up in a country where they had cricket. So I understand cricket, soccer and basketball. I played basketball at the club level and a little bit in college, so thats why Im a basketball fanatic.
If you put it in perspective, I loved basketball before I loved everything else, you know what I mean? Before I had a girlfriend or even childhood friends, I had my basketball. So it's my first love.
Since I first started playing basketball, I have just loved it, and nothing has ever made me lose that love.
I don't really differentiate from big-time college basketball to any other kind of basketball. It's basketball. It's fundamentals and defense and shooting - they're all the same.
When I grew up, I never - I wasn't allowed to go out. I missed my prom because I went to an AAU tournament and all that stuff. For me, it was basketball, basketball, basketball.
I absolutely loved basketball. All I ever wanted to do was play basketball.
Chick Hearn was my favorite broadcaster ever - he's the one who taught me to think basketball, how to love basketball.