A Quote by Steve Alford

When I played with Michael Jordan on the Olympic team, there was a huge gap between his ability and the ability of the other great players on that team. But what impressed me was that he was always the first one on the floor and the last one to leave.
On a good team there are no superstars. There are great players who show they are great players by being able to play with others as a team. They have the ability to be superstars, but if they fit into a good team, they make sacrifices, they do things necessary to help the team win. What the numbers are in salaries or statistics don't matter; how they play together does.
I believe in work, in connections between the players, I think what makes football great is that it is a team sport. You can win in different ways, by being more of a team, or by having better individual players. It is the team ethic that interests me, always.
The great thing about [Michael] Jordan was that he made them want it just like he wanted it. And a lot of times like a lot of the basketball players, not to be getting on basketball, but, with a lot of the basketball players you might have one superstar on the team, and they're not willing to play up to par with the way he is, so they don't make it. But then you have some celebrities on the basketball team, and they don't know how to get along with each other!
Five players on the floor functioning as a single unit: team, team, team-no one more important than the other.
I feel my overall skill set, my ability to make players around me better, and my ability to help my team win is unique.
After Michael Jordan recently criticized President Obama's golf game, Obama responded by saying that Jordan should spend more time thinking about his basketball team, the Charlotte Hornets. Then Jordan said, 'Do you really want to talk about whose team got crushed this week?'
I absolutely think I have the ability to be a world-class athlete and make a team. But even if I never make another world championship team or Olympic team, I think there are so many things I can say about the sport that can really excite me and bring me a lot of motivation in the day to day.
To me, that's the brilliance of Michael Jordan. He was an incredible, amazing individual player who matched his talents to the team, matched the team's talents to him, and he lived in the middle of those extremes. I don't know how you do that.
When your great players are team players, everybody else follows their lead. The best team doesn't always win - it's usually the team that gets along best.
Michael, if you can't pass, you can't play. - Coach Dean Smith to Michael Jordan in his freshman year We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees.
In 1981, when I went down to visit Georgia Tech, I watched Michael Jordan play and literally get ridiculed for taking a jump shot in the championship game that went off the backboard, and they won. People are forgetting that Michael was just one of the players when they went to the Dream Team.
Tim Duncan was a marvelous player. He played the game from the four, the five position. He was one of the unique players, like a Michael Jordan, who could get to spaces on the floor you that you couldn't do anything about.
Perhaps the most satisfying thing occurred when Michael Jordan became a team owner and said to me, 'I owe you a lot of apologies. It's a lot harder to run a team than I thought.'
Team sports, there's always some kind of sacrifice happening... A team, if we lose, if Michael Jordan has a bad night, you hang it on him a little bit... but if you lose as a tennis player, you have no one to blame but yourself, and that's a different beast.
Football is a team sport. I'm proud of what I achieved in my career, but I also know that I wouldn't have achieved any of it without the support of my team-mates. I played with great players, great managers, and in great teams.
Not only do I admire Jordan's accomplishments and his phenomenal basketball ability, but also the way he has conducted himself on and off the court. I don't think there will ever be another player to have the same impact on the game of basketball as Michael Jordan.
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