“I was a skinny, scrawny guy. I stuttered horrendously, couldn’t speak at all. I was a very shy, reserved player and a very shy, reserved person. I found a safe place in life in basketball.”

The joy, the optimism, the teamwork, the experimentation, the exploration, the curiosity. No band has inspired more artwork, no band has inspired more books. No band has ever inspired a more loyal following and I’m involved in all of that stuff.

That’s what I tried to share in this book, Back From The Dead, the ability to learn, to dream, to hope. In a world that is far too often selling fear and death, I’m selling hope and life and success and that’s why I chose to be part of the Grateful Dead.

In basketball, you can be the greatest individual player in the world and still lose every game, because a team will always beat an individual.

During the course of my life, Grateful Dead played all the time. There were constantly concerts you could go to.

Being a broadcaster encompasses the business of sport, which is my life today, and it encompasses the skills of being a history student, and the ability of being a performer.

No one missed more basketball in the history of NBA than I did. I played 14 seasons, on the roster for 14 years, and I missed more than nine-and-a-half full seasons.

Winning is about having the whole team on the same page.

There are four pillars to happiness, which is the ultimate goal in life-to be happy. Health is first, family is second, home is third. That safe place where you can go to and regroup, be in a safe place by yourself start over.

I love to play music. I’m terrible at it, but I love learning about it .

I lived to play basketball. Growing up as a kid, Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics were my favorite team. The way they played, the teamwork, the sacrifice, the commitment, the joy, the camaraderie, the relationship with the fans.

I’m a different person today than I was yesterday. I live for the moment and everything that happens in my life changes me.

Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Beatles, Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Rolling Stones, Carlos Santana. So many of them are still around and still going strong. I go out to see them all the time.

When I think of Boris Diaw, I think of Beethoven in the age of the romantics

When I’m at a show, I’m yelling and cheering. I’m with those guys [the Grateful Dead].

My life changed irrevocably four-and-a-half years ago when my spine failed and collapsed. I spent two years on the floor, in excruciating, debilitating and unrelenting pain.

I’m a fan and a friend, I met them in 1974 when I first joined the NBA and my life has never been he same since. I became the basketball player I was because of the Grateful Dead.