It wasn't about the X's and the O's and the strategy; it was more about keeping 12 guys focused and committed to a task. That group dynamic, and then helping them to grow as people and basketball players.

I want to see if the player communicates with his teammates and how he responds to coaching. Another thing to remember is players' bodies can develop better than their skills.

How can I tell the eighth or ninth man on the team that I want you to work hard every day and I want you to improve and get better, but while you're doing that you're not going to get any minutes?

It's hard to get people to overcome the thought that they have to take care of themselves first. It's hard to get players to give in to the group and become selfless as opposed to selfish.

All of those things had been talked about, suggested, rumored, as a manager and as a member of the Knicks organization, I couldn't allow myself to think that way or believe that.

If all I'm remembered for is being a good basketball player, then I've done a bad job with the rest of my life.

Larry Brown thought Steve Francis was a Larry Brown type of player.

My first choice was to work it out with Larry Brown. I needed Larry and I gave him 50 million bucks. This is a situation that I'm in and I'll handle it and I'll make it work.

The biggest difference is in the leadership. It was better for us. We had more coaches and mentors to help us. A lot of the younger players today suffer from a lack of direction.

I've been in pressure situations before. All my life it's been about pressure and having to get it done. Just because you say it publicly, it does not make me afraid of it or make me shy away from it.

Instead of me telling them what they need to work on, I wanted to hear from them what they needed to work on.

It's been made clear to all of us that a player should never leave the playing field and go into the stands.

My thought has always been completion. Maybe you have to rebound better, shoot better, hit free throws, handle the ball, defend better. You have to do all those things in the course of a game.

My greatest gift that I have in life is basketball.

It was important to me to believe, because if I don't believe, how can I expect them to believe?

Everybody wants to be perfect.

We decided to either try trades or just go with older players. If you do that and let contracts expire you can be in the lottery for about four or five years and expect your fans to be patient.

It wasn't about the X's and the O's and the strategy; it was more about keeping 12 guys focused and committed to a task. That group dynamic, and then helping them to grow as people and basketball players.

You're always at war with the guy on the other bench. You pick up their patterns. That's what I got the most out of this year. I know what other coaches like to do.

I would still like to get more athletic and have players that can really cover what's going on in the game.

You have to develop your whole game to completion.

I believe in the players and what I've put together and we'll make it work.

We decided to go the way of trading and getting younger players.

I love what I'm doing.

We were going to have to experiment, and we needed to develop our younger players. And a lot of the changes were because of injuries. But that's where I give a lot of credit to the group in terms of being able to maintain things.

I'll continue to try to make changes to better improve the team.

I've always believed no matter how many shots I miss, I'm going to make the next one.

I can't think of any NBA team over the last few years that lost three starters. And we replaced them basically with three guys who really haven't played in this league.

The type of athletes we draft still need types of versatility on the defense side of the ball, run the offense. You should still be concerned on the offense side of the ball.

Most players in this league say they want consistency.

Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.

I've done a lot of basketball drills, not a whole lot of competitive stuff. I have basically been in the gym everyday working on my game, working on the time off that I've had from the game, just getting myself prepared mentally and physically for the season.

Basketball is in my blood. It is my obligation to try.

As I've said, basketball has been, I think, a real cooperative venture. There have been a lot of people that have been involved in it: coaches, administrators - not recently - fans and nobody, nobody any more so than students over the years.

It's very warm there, so we were outdoors all the time. The local people had programs for us year-round, where as kids we had the opportunity to play football, basketball, baseball, track and field - we just went from one sport to the next, year-round.

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.

I've tried to handle winning well, so that maybe we'll win again, but I've also tried to handle failure well. If those serve as good examples for teachers and kids, then I hope that would be a contribution I have made to sport. Not just basketball, but to sport.

My father was a soccer player. All my friends played basketball though, so I stuck with basketball.

Someday I might have to put down a basketball and have a regular 9-to-5 like everybody else.

I think we have our sports within our own culture that are huge with baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Those are the sports in America that we grow up with and soccer isn't really there yet.

If all I'm remembered for is being a good basketball player, then I've done a bad job with the rest of my life.

Both of us played basketball, and I played tennis and my knees are done. Now if you ask us head-to-head who wins at golf, I'm asking for a couple of strokes.

In the original script, my character was a basketball player rather than a boxer. I didn't think I could pull that off. I'm a little short to be a basketball player!

I like basketball, and I've been to three games, which is so much more fun than seeing it on TV, I think.

As all of us with any involvement in sports knows, no two umpires or no two referees have the same strike zone or call the same kind of a basketball game.

I wanted a NBA basketball gym at my house and that's what I worked hard for and I was able to achieve that.

Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.

I just want to try to ignore the scrutiny and all the distractions and just play hard basketball and let the best come... Improving game by game and trying to improve my game is what I want to do.

A lot of late nights in the gym, a lot of early mornings, especially when your friends are going out, you're going to the gym, those are the sacrifices that you have to make if you want to be an NBA basketball player.