Oscar Robertson Quotes

I think no one has written a history of the great coaches who were around 30 to 40 years ago who taught the fundamentals.

But when I did it (the triple-double), I didn't even know it until someone told me.

If you're a basketball player, you've got to shoot.

You have to teach now - tell a kid how to box out, tell him how to pass, teach him footwork. Players don't understand that anymore.

The triple-double is just a stat. It's a test of your strength and stamina and playing ability, really.

Basketball is basketball.

Just because it is an All-Star Game doesn't mean that you are playing as efficiently as you should.

But if people are buying the products, naturally they're gonna use them.

You don't cut anywhere, don't pick down anywhere, don't double screen, no weak side picking. All these things that should happen in a game of basketball don't happen anymore.

They should have a rule: in order to be a sportswriter, you have to have played that sport, at some level; high school, college, junior college, somewhere. Or, you should have had to have been around the game for a long time.

You've got to learn the footwork, the positioning, how to box out, how to pass, how to shoot your free throws. All these things are necessary, not to be the No. 1 player in the world, but maybe you can play against him.

It's like all guys want to do is make a dunk, grab their shirt and yell out and scream - they could be down 30 points but that's what they do. Okay, so you made a dunk. Get back down the floor on defense!

But after that you don't see a lot of real good fundamental play. You see a showboat-type basketball which is almost parallel to street basketball.

The Olympics were great, because you had to make the team, and then go to the games. Now, I don't know, these guys today don't want to do anything like that.

We're all Americans trying to compete. Magic was competing for his team and Larry for his team.

I'm sorry that the young athletes in basketball will not get the chance to play (in the Olympics) anymore, and live that dream.

When I started playing, I wasn't fast, I was gangly, my jumpshot was terrible.

The thing about it is almost everyone could pass that way, but we were kept from doing it by our coaches.

Actually, Magic and the Lakers beat Philadelphia for Magic's first NBA Championship.

Just fundamental things - I played guard and I played forward, so you get into a position where you are pivoting out on the court.

When I came into the league, once a team drafted you, they owned you forever. If they didn't like the clothes you wore, or the car you drove, they could blackball you.

It's a sad commentary when I have to say that sometimes in our country we are real sensitive to race.

When you go into a game on offense, you make a couple moves and see what the defender is going to do. Then you pretty much can figure out what he is going to do against you - whether he carries his hands low or high, whether he is bumping or pushing, those type of things.

People say that, but I think the NBA was bigger than Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

But I like to think an athlete is an athlete.

This is where young players today want to land. They want to be NBA players because of the money.

I think that basketball players should get the job done no matter how it looks on the screen.

Now, I guess, people want stars. People are trying to invent stars.

I don't think that players learn how to play any other aspect of the game in high school or college.

I think that everyone should be able to dribble. Everyone should be able to pass. Otherwise, why are you out there?

When you play guard, you're not going to block a lot of shots. Inside, you're going to block shots.

When you play against different people from all walks of life you can't do the same thing against every player defensively or offensively. You have to change up the way you go at a player.

You see what happens in college and high school games today - a three-point shot or a dunk. I think that's the reason that you see a lot of that in the pros today.

You look at today, it's a different situation. You have a game that has been transformed into a game where almost every shot is either an outside shot - a three-point shot - or a dunk.

Look, I think you should promote the game, but I think you should make it what it ought to be. Not some kind of a side-show.