Larry Bird

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.

Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It's being able to take it as well as dish it out. That's the only way you're going to get respect from the players.

I don't know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody - somewhere - was practicing more than me.

When I was a kid, like 14 or 15, I played with the waiters from the hotel, 'cause that was the best game. And these guys, they'd let me play. And they were black guys.

When I was a kid, I never thought about anything. Never had to think about where I was going to school or what I was going to do. I just lived minute to minute.

I really don't like talking about money. All I can say is that the Good Lord must have wanted me to have it.

I like being by myself.

Once you are labeled 'the best' you want to stay up there, and you can't do it by loafing around.

I've been around a while. I kinda know these things.

I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.

The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.

What's better? Dogs or broomsticks? I mean will the world really ever know?