A Quote by Sonny Vaccaro
There's Brandon Jennings. The NBA told him to go to college for a year, and he said, "Screw that. I'll go to Europe and make a million bucks and then come back." And he's proven to be a pretty damn good player. He's done as much for the game as Michael [Jordan] by forging a different route.
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So much has been said about Michael Jordan as a basketball player, but when I played with him, the Michael I knew was just Michael. I guess more than anything is that I got to experience the human side of the so-called gladiators, warriors and heroes that we worship.
If a player needs money, and that's a decision he's willing to make to go to college based on name, image and likeness, where he can make more money instead of where he wants to go to school, why don't we give him the choice to go to the NFL if he's ready to go and if the NFL wants him to go? Basketball has done it for years.
Interviewing Michael Jordan is like playing him one on one. If he respects you and especially your media platform and he's amused by your college try, he'll let you get off a shot or two. Then he'll go behind his back, give you a head fake and leave you wondering exactly what he meant by this and that.
I always said if I ever get married, I would tell my woman - I love Michael Jordan, I am a Michael Jordan fanatic - I said, 'Michael Jordan is the only athlete you can sleep with and I wouldn't get mad, as long as you got something signed. You gotta bring back a ball, a hat or something. You can't just give away that sh*t for free.'
We should not go to a baseball rule. If a kid goes to college and, after a year or two, wants to go to the NBA and is good enough - and he grew, he got bigger, he got more confidence - let him go. Why would you now force a kid to go two years?
If Michael Jordan was a damn plumber, he couldn't get a date. Any guy got $500 million looks good.
My good friend Yao Ming was the first big player in the NBA to come from China. He gave himself to the game and was successful. That inspired the NBA to invest more and do more for the game of basketball. We're building academies not just in China, but in India, Africa, Europe and South America as well.
There are some rappers out there that I listen to, that I'm like: "You are really good but you could be like the Michael Jordan of rap if you applied yourself." There's a lot of people who are better at basketball than Michael Jordan, but Michael Jordan just wanted to be Michael Jordan, more.
Michael Jordan was a great individual and a great player. You can't say enough about what he brought to the game. He took the NBA to another level.
When people start comparing him with (Michael) Jordan then that's not a fair comparison. Jordan was a far more superior player in a very tough league, he was very creative. That's not taking away anything from LeBron because he is a great player, but it is not a fair comparison because Jordan is a far superior player.
Michael [Douglas] is, I think, a great actor. He's made some very interesting pictures. When he was going to college, I was very proud of him, but when he said, 'Dad, I want to be in a play,' he had a bit part. I went to see it and Michael said, 'Dad, how was I?' I said, 'You were terrible.' I thought he would go on to be a lawyer and in three months, he was in another play and I went and, I must admit, he was great. I think he has been good in everything he's done.
NBA is totally different in style. In NBA, we play much more aggressive, much harder. It's not time for thinking. In Europe, we play every week, one game. Here we play every second day so if you lose, you don't have time to think about losing. Just go forward.
Unless we are able to commit to a permanent growing settlement [on Mars], then I don't think just going there with humans and coming back is worth doing. The expense of planning to come back is like the people who left Europe to come to America and then to turn around and go back to Europe, it really doesn't make any sense at all.
I grew up playing sports, so I think of what it would be like to be in the NBA if you were a great player when Michael Jordan was playing. You could've been a phenomenal player, but you're in the Jordan era. That's the unfortunate thing about the competitive nature of entertainment. But we know what we signed up for.
You know, I've always told him (Larry Brown) I wanted the relationship that Michael Jackson... Michael Jordan, I'm sorry. ... I wanted the same relationship with him like Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan had.
When you go to South Africa, you get a different vibe and a different sound. The music is awesome the people are loving it. When you go to Botswana, it's a different ball game. The people out there love Afro Beat Hip Hop so much. When you go to Sierra Leone it's different, when you go to Nigeria it's different... It's all pretty exciting!
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