Basketball Team Quotes

What does this program/team need this week? ~ Dick Bennett

This team is one execution away from being a very good basketball team. ~ Doc Rivers

Teams that play together beat those with superior players who play more as individuals. ~ Jack Ramsay

It is not overwhelmingly difficult for a committed group of players with only average individual basketball skills to put together a very good team defense. ~ Del Harris

I've always been taught that basketball is a team game and greater than the sum of its parts. ~ Len Elmore

A jostling scrum of office buildings so mediocre that the only way you ever remember them is by the frustration they induce - like a basketball team standing shoulder to shoulder between you and the Mona Lisa. ~ Prince Charles

You understand, you do not invent stuff on this team. Guys that invent stuff will not play for me. Make the easy play ~ John Calipari

I've always felt that, you know, the Almighty has a lot of things to do other than help my basketball team. ~ Bobby Knight

Do you want to choose winning over standing out? It's a choice every player on every championship team has to do ~ Doc Rivers

If you get tough mentally, you can get tough physically and overcome fatigue. ~ Pat Riley

When I bought the [WNBA] team, I saw that no one really cared about them. Like the locker facilities that these young women have to work in-they weren't right. I want to give them the best locker room facilities and show them they're valued-because if you show them value, they're going to perform better. And this goes for all women, not just basketball players. ~ Sheila Johnson

A team can't work when a guy puts himself in front of a team. I have yet to be on a team like that. ~ LeBron James

-Write out a conversation with your inner voice. Begin the entry with a question directed to yourself, then write your mental response. It may help to label the different voices A and B. Dialogue writing is a very effective way to get to the heart of the matter.

The following passage is an example of typical dialogue writing:

A: Tomorrow is a big day. You have an interview at a college. How do you feel?

B: I am really nervous. This is the first interview and I don't know what it is going to be like.

A: What are you afraid of?

B: I'm afraid I'll stutter and say something stupid. I'm worried the person will ask a question and I won't know what to say.

A: What do you want to discuss?

B: I think it is good that I was on the basketball team for four years. That shows commitment and dedication. I also got decent grades and earned a blue ribbon at the science fair.

A: What about your hobbies outside of school?

B: I really like to read. I could mention that. I could talk also about the vacations my family has taken. They are pretty interesting. I enjoy my part-time retail job.

A: It sounds like you do a lot.

B: I guess I am good at organizing my life and accomplishing what needs to be done. Hey, that would sound good in an interview!


-Try focused "freewriting." Pick one topic, such as school, friends, or family, and write everything that comes to ~ Heather Moehn

There are many really good teams in our conference this season. Miami, Indiana and Detroit will be our fiercest opponents this year. But we just have to focus on our game and be patient with the realistic hope that we'll be on top after all is said and done. ~ Jason Kidd

People want to be on a team. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be in a situation where they feel that they are doing something for the greater good. ~ Mike Krzyzewski

I played small forward on the basketball team. I also ran the 300 hurdles. ~ Gabriel Luna

Mental Toughness is doing the right thing for the team when it's not the best thing for you ~ Bill Belichick

If you are a good team, your offense is born on the defensive end. ~ Don Meyer

Championship teams are built on being prepared, playing unselfishly and being held accountable ~ Jason Kidd

The only time I'd played organized basketball was my sophomore year in high school, when I barely made the junior varsity team. ~ Dennis Rodman

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. ~ Oscar Robertson

You learn from everybody. You learn from the players. You learn from great coaches. You learn from great teams ~ Tom Thibodeau

We're still getting better as a team. We're still learning how to play basketball as a team and how to win tough games. ~ Carmelo Anthony

It is not what you teach, but what you emphasize. ~ Don Meyer

I gravitate toward the team thing. I'm not a golfer - I much prefer basketball. ~ Michael Eisner

You must be a rich man," she said. "Not much of a warrior, though. You keep letting me sneak up on you."
You don't surprise me," he said. "The Plains Indians had women who rode their horses eighteen hours a day. They could shoot seven arrows consecutively, have them all in the air at the same time. They were the best light cavalry in the world."
Just my luck," she said. "An educated Indian."
Yeah," he said. "Reservation University."
They both laughed at the old joke. Every Indian is an alumnus.
Where you from?" she asked.
Wellpinit," he said. "I'm a Spokane."
I should've known. You got those fisherman's hands."
Ain't no salmon left in our river. Just a school bus and a few hundred basketballs."
What the hell you talking about?"
Our basketball team drives into the river and drowns every year," he said. "It's a tradition."
She laughed. "You're just a storyteller, ain't you?"
I'm just telling you things before they happen," he said. "The same things sons and daughters will tell your mothers and fathers."
Do you ever answer a question straight?"
Depends on the question," he said.
Do you want to be my powwow paradise? ~ Sherman Alexie

My advice to teens is to try and do something that scares you every day because it's the only way you can test how far you can really go. Whether it's going out and auditioning for the play or trying out for the basketball team, you have to explore your boundaries and see where you really want to go and the only way you can do that is to break out of your shell. ~ Zac Efron

A leader's responsibility to his team is paramount. It overshadows even his own personal feelings at any given time. ~ Mike Krzyzewski

On good teams coaches hold players accountable, on great teams players hold players accountable ~ Joe Dumars

As a general, and as a leader of this team, whatever I've got to do get my guys going I'll do it every time. If I have to be the bad guy sometime, I'll guess I'll take that. That's what a leader and a general and a chief of police does. Everybody is not going to like it, but I don't care if they like or not. I'm Bush, so if they don't like it resign. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

A basketball team is like the five fingers on your hand. If you can get them all together, you have a fist. That's how I want you to play. ~ Mike Krzyzewski

Goals should be realistic, attainable, and shared among all members of the team ~ Mike Krzyzewski

They played exquisite basketball in this series and in particular these last three games. They are the better team. There is no other way to say it. They played great basketball, and we couldn't respond to it. ~ Erik Spoelstra

We love playing together and we love adversity. You know, back-to-back, the two best teams in the East. ~ Steve Nash

A team is a group of players who support one another on court and who think of the group before they think of themselves ~ K. C. Jones

I understand the NBA and the role I play on my team. I know that I have to play a leadership role and do whatever I have to do to win. ~ Carmelo Anthony

Use different basketball offensive alignments to cause confusion for the other team. ~ Hubie Brown

The way defences are operating these days, the other team'starts picking you up when you walk out of the hotel lobby. ~ Doc Hayes

I was all limbs and I was very convinced that I must be uncoordinated, so I didn't want to try any sports. And the girls' basketball team was constantly like, "Please, please just come play." ~ Geena Davis

That's all our team is about. If we stop people, we're the most athletic team in this whole tournament and we can get out and get easy buckets. ~ LeBron James

Offense at Indiana is not equal opportunity. Those players who shoot best are going to shoot most. It is important that every player know his offensive limitations. It is also important that a player know who the best shooter is on the team. When a passer has the option of passing to two players, I expect him to get the ball to the best shooter. I continually stop practice and ask players who the best shooter is and I expect them to know. It is important that you get the ball to your best shooter. ~ Bobby Knight

You don't have to be best friends as basketball players but I do believe in chemistry. I think it makes everything different if a team is really together and they're all on that same page. They might not like each other, per se, but if you're on the same page and the chemistry is there, you can play great basketball. You can go back to teams like Detroit, the Bad Boys. Those guys had great chemistry, that's why they won. ~ Dwight Howard

Have a vision. Sell your program. Your team is going to reflect you. ~ Mark Gottfried

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was four years old and was considered not very bright. Oprah Winfrey was demoted from a news anchor job because she was thought to be unfit for television. Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for lacking imagination. Thomas Edison was called stupid by his teachers. The Beatles were told they didn't have a great sound and rejected by Decca Recording Studios. Dr. Suess was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. Abraham Lincoln had a long list of failures, including eight election losses and a nervous breakdown. ~ Tim Suttle

The basketball team was trailing by three points. I trail by four points - north, south, east, and west. I also trail by covered wagon. ~ Jarod Kintz

Nobody's cooler than my two girls. They just seem to take whatever comes with, you know - happiness and - steadiness. And they're loving school. They're making friends ... and - they've already joined some clubs. And Sasha, you know - I think maybe to endear - myself to her, she - she decided she wanted to join a basketball team. So - what more could I want? ~ Barack Obama

In his sophomore year Wilbanks tried out for the high school basketball team and made it. On the first day of practice his coach had him play one-on-one while the team observed. When he missed an easy shot, he became angry and stomped and whined. The coach walked over to him and said, "You pull a stunt like that again and you'll never play for my team." For the next three years he never lost control again. Years later, as he reflected back on this incident, he realized that the coach had taught him a life-changing principle that day: anger can be controlled. ~ Lynn G. Robbins

We didnt come out with any energy. We know were not good enough to let the game come to us. We have to come with high energy, play hard team basketball and do everything the right way. Coming into the season, we all knew we didnt have too much room for error. ~ Chris Bosh

Sports were a big part of my life. I was the captain of the basketball team in high school, and captain of the basketball team at Princeton. ~ John W. Rogers, Jr.

I have always noticed in high school yearbooks the similarity of all the graduate write-ups - how, after only a few pages, the identities of all the unsullied young faces blur, how one person melts into another and another: Susan likes to eat at Wendy's; Donald was on the basketball team; Norman is vain about his varsity sweater; Gillian broke her arm on Spring Retreat; Brian is a car nut; Sue wants to live in Hawaii; Don wants to make a million and be a ski bum; Noreen wants to live in Europe; Gordon wants to be a radio deejay in Australia. At what point in our lives do we stop blurring? When do we become crisp individuals? What must we do in order to end these fuzzy identities - to clarify just who it is we really are? ~ Douglas Coupland

I was a roving guard on the Lowell Hebrew Community Center's girls' basketball team all through high school. My specialty was stealing the ball, but my only shot was a lay-up. ~ Elinor Lipman

Yeah. When I was in high school I used to do stupid video edits. I would hook-up two VCRs or three VCRs and do film edits for the basketball team and stuff like that because I was always just into doing that. ~ Jesse Lacey

We win because we play together as a team. ~ John Havlicek

The best teams play for each other, not with each other ~ Jeff Van Gundy

I'll just have to get it against my favorite team. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

You can easily separate 'team guys' from 'me guys' by how they accept coaching. The guys that accept it are about winning ~ Bill Parcells

The Spurs are a great WNBA team. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

I am thrilled to be an Olympian, and I think that although we will be underdogs we can beat many teams and will be a surprise in Sydney. ~ Steve Nash

You can pick captains, but you can't pick leaders. Whoever controls the locker room controls the team ~ Don Meyer

Basketball is a game that gives you every chance to be great, and puts every pressure on you to prove that you haven't got what it takes. It never takes away the chance, and it never eases up on the pressure. ~ Bob Sundvold

I was captain of the volleyball team and the basketball team, and I ran track. ~ Sarah Shahi

But at the same time, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to be happy with what we were doing. My parents were athletes in high school; my mom and my dad were the stars of the basketball team, but they never pushed my brother and me to be anything we didn't want to be. ~ Jonathan Groff

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?' ~ Jimmy Fallon

When you're picking a basketball team, you'll take the brother over the guy with the yarmulke. Why? Because you're playing the odds. ~ Adam Carolla

Talking of first times Stephanie, I bet your first time was really memorable for you and the captain ot the football team .. and the basketball team .. and the softball team, the track team, the chess club and the pool boy! ~ Chris Jericho

We're talking about being relevant again. I want the Sixers to be on people's tongues again ... I want the Sixers to be the basketball team that people want to see. ~ Doug Collins

Remember that tomorrow when you are trying to get somebody to do something. If, for example, you don't want your children to smoke, don't preach at them, and don't talk about what you want; but show them that cigarettes may keep them from making the basketball team or winning the hundred-yard dash. ~ Dale Carnegie

Players who are late say that their time is more important than the team. ~ Don Meyer

Play off your great player ... great teams have a go-to player and they play off of him. ~ Don Meyer

Damian Lillard is having a better year than Chris Paul. Lillard got snubbed when he was left off of the USA Men's Basketball team, and now the All-Star team. ~ Kenny Smith

You have to lose yourself in the team and you have to lose yourself in the game ~ John Calipari

Winning coaches look for opportunities to praise. Anything that reflects a commitment to the team is praiseworthy ~ Bill Parcells

My mother used to say, 'You gotta exercise.' She would really pound on me to exercise every day. She was very physically fit; she was on the basketball team in high school in St. Louis in the 1920s, when women didn't do that. And she taught me to play tennis, taught me to walk and run, and I ran for 30 years pretty religiously. ~ Dick Gephardt

Put the Team Before Yourself. ~ Pat Summitt

A team divided against itself can break down at any moment. The least bit of pressure or adversity will crack it apart ~ Bill Parcells

I think what has happened to our basketball team, we've been badly distracted. They're not reading too many positive things in the paper. ~ Bill Russell

I can see Sue and I leading this team to many more championships ... We're going to take this and learn from it. We worked too hard for this. ~ Lauren Jackson

Basketball is a game of conditioning and fatigue. That's why I believe in practicing a team to train when it's exhausted. ~ Pat Riley

It's humbling to know that you have fans all over America and all over the world and they want you to play on their respective basketball team. It's very humbling that they respect the way I play the game of basketball. I can't discredit that. I can't say I don't enjoy it because you put in a lot of hard work to have fans. And for me to be a role model and for me to have fans all over is great. It's very humbling. ~ LeBron James

She understood about the comfort you can get from a small separate world, whether it's a theatre or a basketball team or the inside of a book. ~ Susan Cooper

The most important thing in coaching is communication. It's not what you say as much as what they absorb. ~ Red Auerbach

When Steny Hoyer brings up a resolution to support and recognize the University of Maryland men's basketball team - I'm not making this up - before we even had March madness, then you just know that it's just political favoritism. ~ Jason Chaffetz

I think I was chosen by basketball, although I never really physically got drafted to any team that I played for. ~ Julius Erving

The team is an extension of the coach. ~ Don Meyer

The way my team are doing, we could get Wilt Chamberlain in a trade and find out that he's really two midgets Scotch-taped together. ~ Gene Shue

I didn't expect this award [the 2008 MVP] would come to me. I'm surprised. I've played pretty well in other seasons. Our team hasn't been as good. Things just fell into place. ~ Kobe Bryant

I love practice. It is when a coach exercises the most control over the improvement of his or her team. ~ Mike Krzyzewski

A long list. From getting cut from the high school basketball team, to getting fired from jobs, getting credit cards rejected and cut up. Rejection has only been a distraction, not a roadblock. "Every no gets me closer to a yes," was the saying I used to use. ~ Mark Cuban

In sixth grade, my basketball team made it to the league championships. In double overtime, with three seconds left, I rebounded the ball and passed it - to the wrong team! They scored at the buzzer and we lost the game. To this day, I still have nightmares! ~ Zac Efron

It's been kind of hard, I'm labeled as a jerk right now, you know what I mean? But I love it. I've been a jerk all my life. My momma loves this jerk. My kids love this jerk. I'm going to be a jerk in a good way, though. I'm going to be a jerk to the other teams and just go out there and play basketball. I can do that. ~ Stephen Jackson

I won't coach this team next year if he is still here. He won't listen to anyone. I've had it with this kid. ~ Phil Jackson

One of the reasons why I enjoy college basketball a little more is because of its team orientation as opposed to individual orientation. ~ Len Elmore

Five players on the floor functioning as a single unit: team, team, team-no one more important than the other. ~ Gene Hackman

When it comes to team dynamics - on a basketball court or in a corporate setting - maintaining a positive atmosphere is crucial. ~ Rick Pitino

Westbrook: 10 triple-doubles and carrying that team, injury-prone, into the playoffs. LeBron being the best player in the world. But I think right now I would go with James Harden because of what he's done. He's stepped up his game defensively. He's not a great defender but he's competing on the defensive end. ~ Mark Jackson

On paper, I think this is the best team I've been on. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

I've always been a quitter. I quit the Boy Scouts, the glee club, the marching band. Gave up my paper route, turned my back on the church, stuffed the basketball team. I dropped out of college, sidestepped the army with a 4-F on the grounds of mental instability, went back to school, made a go of it, entered a Ph.D. program in nineteenth-century British literature, sat in the front row, took notes assiduously, bought a pair of horn-rims, and quit on the eve of my comprehensive exams. I got married, separated, divorced. Quit smoking, quit jogging, quit eating red meat. I quit jobs: digging graves, pumping gas, selling insurance, showing pornographic films in an art theater in Boston. When I was nineteen I made frantic love to a pinch-faced, sack-bosomed girl I'd known from high school. She got pregnant. I quit town. ~ T.C. Boyle

I think I'll stick to what I'm used to, my principles, and that is team Number 1 and individual Number 2. ~ Yao Ming

I blame Riley for my broken thumb, not Matt Geiger. That ain't defense Miami is playing. That's just chopping. I have no idea how his team gets away with it. I guess when you've been in the league 30 years you can do it. Respect, he gets it - he's like John Gotti. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

Simplify the game as much as possible. When you add, you must subtract. ~ Don Meyer