Top 159 Lakers Quotes & Sayings - Page 3

Growing up in L.A., every kid wants to play for the Lakers. As a kid I went to their championship parades, bought a Kobe jersey - I went to the gym and made everybody call me Kobe - loved Shaq, loved the three-peat.

I grew up watching the Lakers and the Dodgers and the Rams, all local men's professional teams, and never really had any women that I grew up watching.

It took for me to get to the Lakers and for my teammates to help me get through that mental block that I had. Anytime I was open, anytime it even looked like I might be open, they always told me, 'Shoot the ball. We don't care if it goes in or if you don't make it. Just shoot it.'

The first time I ever spoke to John Cassavetes was at a Lakers game. I got up to go for a hot dog, and he was coming in the opposite direction. I don't know who said hello first, but we started talking, and it turned out that he went to high school with my first wife, Alice.

I met wonderful people playing in the NBA. Whether it is the officials, the scorekeepers, all the people who work for the NBA, not just for the Lakers, but I'm talking about just for the league itself.

The best players are always in the thick of the action. (Michael) Jordan did it with the Bulls, (Kobe) Bryant does it with the Lakers and Leo does it here. We want him to stay with us because he's the best and we wouldn't swap him for anyone.

Christmas Day was special because everybody is watching at home. That's what I loved about Christmas Day because it shined the spotlight on the Lakers, on our team, and we knew that all of the other leagues were at home and millions of people were watching. So it made it a special day to play on Christmas.

In terms of basketball decisions, I will always defer to Magic. He's brought a vision of the kind of team we're going to build and a vision of what Lakers basketball is going to be.

We survive our way through basketball hoping the #? Lakers will survive and we hope for the #? Kings and for the #? Ducks and we want them all to succeed but if you are a true fan and especially if you are a #? Dodgers fan deep down inside you are saying please get out of the way, get off the stage, here come the DODGERS!

I remember one time I wrote something very, very critical about Wilt Chamberlain. The next time I saw him - and Wilt was not a man, as huge as he was - he was not a man of confrontation. And we were in the Lakers locker room. And he sent Jerry West over, and he said, 'Frank, Wilt would like you to leave.'

I remember watching when D-Wade and LeBron were here playing for the Heat. I remember watching them play the Lakers with Kobe. So I just was able to watch those games growing up and really watch my favorite players.

As for middle school, I had a really horrible era of style. I'd only play basketball with the boys during lunch, so I went through a phase of only wearing Lakers uniforms to school - that was cute! And then I kind of went through the Puma phase that everyone went through with the sweatsuits, which turned into Juicy Couture sweatsuits.

I was busy with my family, my budding career as a TV writer, my antipathy for the Los Angeles Lakers, and my general reluctance to engage in anything that might force me to leave my comfort zone. But sometimes ideas won't let you go. For me, educating girls was like that.

I love the feeling of being in front of a live crowd and performing and just kind of letting loose and getting the crowd involved, and I got to perform at the Superbowl and at the Staples Center, you know, at the Lakers game, which was amazing.

You really don't believe that winning at home or winning on the road makes a difference. The Lakers have that mind-set. They don't look at it as 'We're at home, we're on the road.'

Well, I might take a plane, I might take a train. How do you people live here? You must be insane. I'm leaving Sacramento. Sacramento, I won't stay. But I'll be sure to come back when the Lakers beat the Kings in May.

I remember, years ago, if I had had an opportunity to leave the Lakers, I would have left for one reason: because I did not like an owner that was not telling me the truth. And it would have made no difference what they would have offered me; I would have left.

Amos clapped his hands. “Khufu!” I thought he’d sneezed, because Khufu is a weird name, but then a little dude about three feet tall with gold fur and a purple shirt came clambering down the stairs. It took me a second to realize it was a baboon wearing an L.A. Lakers jersey.

We get three of the Ball boys on the Lakers together, and we gonna go championship, championship, championship, championship, championship.

I had to earn the respect from everybody, from referees to opponents, but my teammates, they saw some European guy coming here and I had to prove myself. Luckily, I proved myself, but with big help from the entire Lakers organization.

No one ever bugged Jack Nicholson. When we made 'Witches,' and people were standing around to see him, he'd just come out and say, 'Hi everybody!' I was lucky enough to go with him to a Lakers game, too, and he was always friendly. No one bothers Jack, because he makes himself so accessible.

I really like to play to squash, because it's competitive, and I like basketball. I'm friends with a guy in L.A. called Andrew Bynum, who used to play for the L.A. Lakers NBA team. We play together sometimes.

When I first fell in love with the game, and I'm outside playing in front of the house, I'm not picturing myself in an Indiana jersey or picturing myself in a Thunder jersey. I pictured myself in a Lakers jersey.

Every fan wants to win every year, that's how my dad was. It would be nice to be able to do that every year, but I think Lakers fans know, as long as they see progress, and steps going in the right direction, they'll be patient.

Any time you have any type of record in any record book, especially with the Lakers, it is pretty special.

The Lakers are family. My kids don't have to switch schools. Little things like that are important. People don't think about things like that. I feel like something special is going to happen in this town.

I think people fail to realize that teams and organizations have been stacking teams since way back in the day. The Lakers had the Showtime era. Boston had six hall of famers on one team. You had Detroit, the New York Knicks, and now the Miami Heat. They were stacking their teams back then, it just fell off over the years and now it picked back up. Boston did it first, then LA. I was fortunate enough to play against them when they had Shaq, Kobe, Rick Fox, Gary Payton, Karl Malone... that's five hall of famers on one team! So you can't get mad at Miami for doing what they did.

I played for Miami, with LeBron. They cut me. I got drafted by the Lakers, they traded me to Miami. Bron got there, they cut me. I remember it like it was yesterday. So yeah, it's a chip on my shoulder.

Do you know how many teams have won three straight titles over the last 40 years? Two. Michael Jordan's Bulls twice in the 1990s and Kobe and Shaq's Lakers from 2000-02. LeBron would have joined that list had Miami won that third straight title.

The year after Russell retired, in the famous seventh game of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, Willis Reed, the New York Knicks center, limped onto the court against the Los Angeles Lakers, inspiring his team and freezing Chamberlain into a benign perplexity.

Whenever I hear people crying about Kobe yelling at people in practice or wondering whether or not LeBron is best friends with his teammates, I just roll my eyes. You know how many off-court conversations I had with the Zen-Master Phil Jackson in my entire time with the Lakers? One.

The Lakers have always been on the forefront and anywhere LeBron has been, has been on the forefront.

The Houston team I was on - we were just rolling. We just hit the right stride at the right moment. And the Lakers team, we were rolling again.

I don't know anything else but the Lakers. This has certainly been more than a job for me as a player. It has certainly meant more to me than just an occupation.

I have worked out with the Thunder, Lakers, Knicks, Grizzlies, Spurs, and a few others before the draft. I have worked out primarily against shorter and supposedly faster players in these workouts.

Indiana wanted to go in a different direction, wanted to go younger, and the Lakers wanted me, so I said, who wouldn't want to be in L.A? That was a no-brainer.

When I was living in L.A., first of all, I had actually tried out or submitted to be on 'Tough Enough' when I was living in L.A. and then I ended up getting, like, a few call backs, but because I had just moved out there for the Lakers, I just felt like I couldn't have done both.

There's a tipping point that happens with soccer in which you just kinda get it. I was drawn to it because the best soccer teams play similarly to my favorite basketball teams - like the eighties Lakers or eighties Celtics - teams that emphasized teamwork over individualism and relied on passing as their biggest ongoing edge.

I think that a lot of times we get wrapped up in just our career - we play ball, we make good money. As a kid you probably grew up a Lakers fan, a Clippers fan or whatever it is because sports is just a thing when you're a child. But, when you really look at the overall picture, we have a platform and a voice.