It makes you a better player when you're around better competition. If you pay attention, you can learn something.
This should be a written rule: Guards should always defer to centers. I don't care how good you are, those big guys make the game so much easier for every other person on that team, and without them, everyone else needs to work twice as hard.
Jeff Kwatinetz and Ice Cube and Amy Trask - all those people are real visionaries, and the league that they started has been phenomenal. And my job as commissioner now is to kind of help continue to build, improve the fan and the player experience.
As commissioner, you have to have a great relationship with your players but also to the upper executives: you gotta make sure their mandates are all on target and in line.
There's a lot to be learned by watching. I think the younger generation could fare a lot better in their game if they could sit down and watch some of the games of the past.
You have to understand, the Blazers and their fans had a unique relationship. I'm not sure there has ever been a love affair between an NBA team and its fan base like we had... We had good players and good citizens.
Everybody's mom plays a huge role in their development and support. Mom was awesome. There is no one better. I had a good family. I had six brothers and six sisters, and they were all very supportive.
That's the part of basketball that we have to understand. You can never look at it as an individual sport. You rely on so many other people.
My favorite player growing up was Julius Erving, because I loved the way he played above the rim, all of the tricks with the ball, big hands, and just phenomenal showmanship.
Education is worth its weight in gold. Make no mistake about it.
Going to the Portland Trail Blazers, who actually took the time to invest in me, was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me in my career. I got to a small market where I could focus on basketball, basketball, basketball. No distractions.
We had some great years in Portland. We went to the finals twice. We won 63 games one year. You can't tell me those weren't championship teams.
I don't care what anybody says: a pro athlete is going to be a role model. I tried to use that as a positive influence, to let kids know we are regular people.
In professional sports, things can change quickly. You keep your balance. You keep your perspective, and things will work out.
The key ingredient is talent - you've got to have talent. If you look at the regular season, they've got the best record in the entire league, so they've got the talent.
