“It’s easy to go out there and fight and scratch and play and sweat and bleed for guys that you consider your friends, your brothers.”
“I’m an assassin on the court. And at home, I’m a nun.”
“If you are walking through the hood and you notice the cracks in the sidewalk where all the weeds, pebbles, dirt and grit settle in, that’s me.”
“I am going to be happy regardless where I am at as long as I am playing basketball with some guys that have the same common goal that I have, and that is to win.”
“I played quarterback, safety and receiver.”
“All the racial slurs I done heard. All the things I heard about my mom, and my basketball game and my kids, all this. It felt good to punch a fan one time.”
“I’m from Texas, so we used to wear our pants starched down like a cowboy. So when I got to New York, to New Jersey, everybody was laughing at me like, ‘Look at his pants! His pants could stand up by themselves!’”
“Before 2 Chainz got big, he used to sleep on my couch.”
“There’s one thing that people will never know about Tim Duncan: Tim Duncan might know more UFC moves and more fighting moves than anybody in the UFC.”
“My rookie year, Byron Scott didn’t really want to sign me. In New Jersey, the New Jersey Nets. I got there, and Byron Scott didn’t really like me, but they let me come to camp and I was having a great camp. Stephon Marbury embraced me.”
“I think Don King has always been an idiot in my mind. He’s always been about money. I don’t think he cares about anything else but himself.”
“I was raised that if I’m with you and we get in a fight, I’m going to help you. We’re going down together. That’s how it goes.”
“Anytime you want to take time off from a job that millions of brothers work so hard to get here, that’s not being humble.”
“God chose me for a reason. My momma tells me that every day. I know there’s a million people who want to be in my shoes.”
“I had a taste of a championship in San Antonio, and that was big for me. I cried when we won, and I hadn’t cried in 10 years before that. It felt good, everything I’d been through, to say I was the champion at the end of the year.”
“There’s a lot of guys that play the game of basketball for the money, for the fame.”
“I’m not stupid. I mean, I didn’t go to college but I’ve got a lot of common sense.”
“I’m never going to settle for losing.”
“I’m a grown man. I have six kids. I’m married now. So I speak my mind.”
“I grew up on Geto Boys and of course UGK, who put my hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, on the map. I was about Goodie Mob and OutKast too.”
“Being from the South, I was really into Southern rap, but I listened to a lot of stuff from all over.”
“I couldn’t afford to go to the record store to buy new tapes, so I’d tape everything off the radio. Just hit record when my song came on. I used to take my mom’s tapes and tape over them. I had a nice little collection. Had my own Stephen Jackson mixtapes off the radio!”
“I never met a dollar that could change me. Been the same guy since day one.”
“I am Port Arthur. I’m the president of Port Arthur.”
“I got a lot of respect for my OGs, so when they ask me to do something, I do it.”
“Kobe can play in any league.”
“I went to Golden State and helped them get to the playoffs my first year there, and they haven’t been to the playoffs in 13 years. I played in Charlotte… and I got them to the playoffs. So, every team I go to, I make them better.”
“I don’t want to be a guy who’s just sitting on the bench stealing money.”
“Mike Brown is a guy I definitely respect.”
“I came into the NBA not looking at it as a job but the same way I did when I was playing at the Y. I was just getting a paid a lot of money to do it, that’s all.”
“You can’t expect a coach to win with guys that don’t even care about the game.”
“Nobody wants to play the game more than Kawhi. Nobody wants to be great or go down as one of the greatest more than Kawhi. So his heart and his passion and if he wants to play basketball should never be questioned.”
“How many people can say that they’ve punched a fan?”
“Just because we make a lot of money we’re supposed to be the bigger person? Fans tell us that our kids are ugly and that they should have thrown our mothers in jail for having us. That’s not disrespectful?”
“I don’t want to be fake.”
“I’m not going to let Kobe throw elbows at me.”
“It’s hard for any man to take something thrown at his face and not to retaliate.”
“People don’t understand how it feels to be with a guy who you call your teammate and you’re with more than your family during the course of a season.”
“I never thought I would be in a situation where I would have to go into the stands and actually help my teammate fight fans. But at that time, there’s no way I could have lived with myself knowing that my teammate is in the stands fighting and I’m not helping him.”
“That’s the definition of a teammate, being together, being there for your teammate.”
“I would not advise a young player to even listen to Byron Scott, because he is the worst coach at communicating with young guys, and I’m living proof.”
“My whole career, I’ve never had no serious injuries or no surgeries.”
“NBA or nothing, man. I don’t need the money. I just want to give back to the game. Anything else is a step down, so I just want to give the NBA a shot.”
“A lot of people think I’m just an athletic thug.”
“My confidence in myself is unbelievable.”
“It’s not too many people who play the game harder than me.”
“If you really love something, you gonna do it until you can’t do it no more. And that’s how I feel about basketball.”
“Me personally, I can take getting beat, if it’s about basketball. But when it gets to the point where you’re being personal, and being disrespectful as a man to another man, that’s when I have a problem.”
“I’m a sexy guy, you know?”
“The Bay Area has become my second home since I arrived here in 2007 and I can’t accurately describe how good it feels to be wanted and appreciated by an organization. The Warriors – from Chris Cohan, Robert Rowell, Chris Mullin and Coach Nelson to the last person working in the front office – have embraced me since Day One.”
“I had a hell of a career – didn’t miss no games.”
“Who creates a fake page? If I want to respond to a person on social media, it has to come from my page with the verified check on it.”
“The best part of my career was being able to play with a lot of guys from different countries, different places, different races. That was the best part about it.”
“Tim Duncan and Steve Smith made me feel like an All-Star.”
“I love the fact that players have control of where they want to play.”
“Just winning is special.”
“When I lost my brother, it kind of messed me up because in my city, I know everybody. I kind of felt untouchable.”
“I wasn’t the greatest at school, so I studied basketball.”
“I partied too much. I was still 19, 20 years old. I was coming from a little small city where there’s 40,000 people, so being in New Jersey, New York, being with a big All-Star like Stephon Marbury, he’s calling me every night to go out with him. I didn’t know how to say no.”
“In some crazy sort of way, if I died helping a teammate or a friend or someone that I love, I think I could live with it. My family probably couldn’t, but I think I could.”
“Responsibilities have weighed on me my whole life.”
“I’ve been at the bottom. I’ve lost loved ones, I’ve lost best friends, but that’s part of life. I don’t hide that.”
“I was the best basketball player, the only thing good in my hometown so everybody did everything for me.”
“When I got to Oak Hill, I got a chance to learn. I learned a lot about myself, basketball and about school. If would have stayed in Texas, I probably wouldn’t have graduated.”
“First, I don’t talk to Derek Fisher. He’s not my type of guy.”
“I want to be part of a team that wants to win. Guys that are trusting each other, guys that don’t mind playing hard.”
“I just wanted to be around a positive organization that’s used to winning and plays the game the right way. Milwaukee, they’re not used to winning. I just wasn’t going to go for it at the end of my career.”
“No, I get techs because I want to; I don’t care. I’m not getting techs for no reason. It happens.”
“My reputation is the main reason why a lot of things don’t go my way on the court.”
“I leave everything in God’s hands and continue to work on playing basketball.”
“I’m going to support my teammates. I’m a team guy.”
“My job’s to play basketball. My job’s not to be here to be friends with anybody.”
“I say what I want to say when I feel like it, regardless of what the consequence is.”
“At the end of the day, if you’re not against racism, you’re racist.”
“I want it every game at the end. If you know anything about me, I want the ball at the end. I don’t mind taking the shot.”
“When things are not fair, I speak my mind.”
“I’ve never been a guy not to speak my mind and I guess people don’t like that.”
“There’s no time for being babies or being scared. If you’re scared, go to church.”
“But I’m going to play with the same passion and desire every night, and nobody’s going to change that. Not referees. Nobody.”
“In San Antonio when I was asked to say other players were better than me to help their confidence so they can play better, that was the most disrespectful thing that I’ve ever heard from any coach in my life.”
“George Karl’s son probably wouldn’t have made it to the NBA if he wasn’t a coach. He would have never got the opportunity.”
“A team like Golden State makes you change your lineup a little bit.”
“I love wearing my jewelry.”
“I love playing basketball more than I love getting fined and getting suspended.”
“You have to listen to the people who employ you.”
“We all know LeBron’s IQ is on another planet.”
“If I were LeBron, I would have gone to Chicago or I would have stayed home and showed a little more loyalty to my city and my team. But I’m not LeBron.”
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