Basketball Quotes

The fact that all these basketball quotes have stayed alive for so long, convinces us all, that there is a great wisdom in them.

For more suitable navigation through this page, I've divided them in several categories for you.

I'm sure you'll find some of them interesting.

Teamwork

"One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team" - Kareem Abdul Jabbar

"Talent wins games, but team work and intelligence wins championships" - Michael Jordan

Hard work

"When I was young, I never wanted to leave the court until I got things exactly correct. My dream was to become a pro" - Larry Bird

"Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best" - Tim Duncan

"And from the first time I picked up a basketball at age eight - I had a lot of difficulty when I first picked up a basketball, because I was a scrub - there were things that I liked about it" - Julius Erving

"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" - Grant Hill

Funny Quotes

"They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds" - Wilt Chamberlain

"If the NBA were on channel 5 and a bunch of frogs making love were on channel 4, I'd watch the frogs, even if they were coming in fuzzy" - Bobby Knight

"If I weren't earning $3 million a year to dunk a basketball, most people on the street would run in the other direction if they saw me coming" - Charles Barkley

"They run like deer, jump like deer and think like deer - Charles Barkley

"I wanted to do two things when I was growing up, about your age. I wanted to play in the NBA, and I wanted to be a businessman after my basketball career was over, and that is what I am doing now" - Magic Johnson

"I played basketball to try to get my parents from working so hard" - James Worthy

"I hate them with all the hate you can hate with. Can you hate more than that? If you can, I hate them more than that" - Tim Hardaway

Coaches

"Never understimate the heart of a champion" - Rudy Tomjanovich

"If you meet the Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball" - Phil Jackson

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

Other Basketball Quotes

"Scoring 100 points is a lot, but... I maybe could have scored 140 if they had played straight-up basketball" - Wilt Chamberlain

"Pressure can burst a pipe or pressure can make a diamond" - Robert Horry

"I think I started learning lessons about being a good person long before I ever knew what basketball was. And that starts in the home, it starts with the parental influence" - Julius Erving

"My life had no meaning at all. I found only brief interludes of satisfaction. It was like my whole life had been about my whole basketball career" - Pete Maravich

"If you're a basketball player, you've got to shoot" - Oscar Robertson

Check these classified basketball quotes from NBA players like...

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