Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got.
As a competitor, you want to be out there. It's always tough to watch others play and know you've put in the time, you've put in work. But at the same time, you have to support them. You're a teammate, and you have to be the best teammate you can be and go out and continue to better, and hopefully you get an opportunity.
I always wanted to be alongside a very quick teammate and tough teammate.
I haven't missed many games in my career, so it is tough, and it makes you appreciate and it makes you hungry and ready to get back out there and ready to go out there and compete -- especially in a time of the year like this.
I look at the N.B.A. as a job, a great job to have, so I think, for me, I would have loved the opportunity to go to the N.B.A. out of high school. If you're not ready, you're not ready. If you are ready, I think you should be able to go.
It's always tough to see a teammate go unless he is willing to go.
In a T-shirt and basketball shorts - that's just my go-to: I'm ready for a workout. I'm ready to go play basketball. I'm ready to go dance. I'm ready to go into the studio. It's my getup for anything. I can get it dirty, which is fine. I can sweat in it; it's fine. It's nostalgic because it's what I wore every day as a kid.
It's a risk-reward thing. If I do go out and try and play and get hurt again, then I'm definitely out. I've got no chance to go. If I'm ready, then great. It's getting better. I've been doing a lot more in the last couple of days. I've got a day off (on Wednesday) and then hope to come back in on Thursday and really see where I am at and test it out. Hopefully I'm going to play this weekend but, in reality, we'll see.
It is tough when you don't play for a while and a couple of games go by when, you've worked hard to be ready, but then aren't involved.
It was tough. That may happen at the Trials. You are so in the zone when you are in there it's tough running halfway down the track and having to come back. If it's in the rules then an athlete should be able to run under protest. Aries is not a guy that is know for false starts. Now I need to go and get ready for the Trials.
I'm ready to play, and hopefully I'm a guy people can come up to and bounce stuff off of - really, be the best teammate I can be.
Byron is one tough guy and he can play through just about anything. I know he will be ready to go on Sunday.
When I walk into bat, I should know that 'Yes, I've prepared to the best of my ability. I couldn't have done anything better.' That is when I feel that I am ready to go out and play.
I tell my students all the time is, for better or worse, no publisher is going to come wrench your story out of your hands before you're ready to let it go. You will have time to take stuff out. You don't have to show it to anybody. That's what I did.
I'm ready to come out and show people I'm able to play defense.
I have to be honest about this: I wouldn't tell a lot of kids to go and be writers. It's a tough, tough business. It's not a business. It's more like a tough road. It's a really tough road.