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I think what has happened to our basketball team, we’ve been badly distracted. They’re not reading too many positive things in the paper.

Bill Russell

To me, the most important part of winning is joy. You can win without joy, but winning that’s joyless is like eating in a four-star restaurant when you’re not hungry. Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight, that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.
BILL RUSSELL

Happiness Hungry Light Natural Restaurant Sun Win Yourself
The only important statistic is the final score.
BILL RUSSELL

Final Importance Score Statistics
Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them.
BILL RUSSELL

Finding Hard Time Love People
Success is a result of consistent practice of winning skills and actions. There is nothing miraculous about the process. There is no luck involved.
BILL RUSSELL

Action Luck Miracle Practice Result Skill Success
Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.
BILL RUSSELL

Focus Mental Tough Victory
Learning is a daily experience and a lifetime mission. I truly believe in the saying “We work to become, not to acquire.”
BILL RUSSELL

Experience Learning Mission Time Work
The most important thing to me is the friends that I’ve made.
BILL RUSSELL

Friendship Important Myself
If Shakespeare can compare all of life to a stage, maybe it’s not odd to believe that part of the play can take place on a basketball court.
BILL RUSSELL

Compare Life Play Stage
I’ve been fortunate to meet and work with a lot of really smart people. The thing that strikes me most about them is how they continue to explore and learn every day. I have tried to apply that approach in my modest career as well.
BILL RUSSELL

Career Fortunate Learning Myself People Smart Work
My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.
BILL RUSSELL

Library Myself Possession Prize
We couldn’t sustain it. And they got a lot of kids that can shoot. We just couldn’t close out well enough.
BILL RUSSELL

Children Close Enough Sustainable
Heart in champions has to do with the depth of our motivation and how well your mind and body react to pressure – that is, being able to do what you do best under maximum pain and stress.
BILL RUSSELL

Champion Heart Motivational Pain Stress
The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I’d made my teammates play.
BILL RUSSELL

Important Measurement Myself Play Team
The last five or six days, I’ve been running. The last two days, I’ve been running pretty hard. Everybody’s got to be someplace.
BILL RUSSELL

Hard Myself Pretty Run
Create unselfishness as the most important team attribute.
BILL RUSSELL

Attribute Creation Important Selfish Team
Remember that basketball is a game of habits. If you make the other guy deviate from his habits, you’ve got him.
BILL RUSSELL

Game Habit Himself Remember Yourself
The morale and the camaraderie that we had for one another earlier in the year is starting to come under duress because of all the losses. Some of the guys are feeling the pressure now from the last year when they were not successful.
BILL RUSSELL

Command Early Loss Moral Pressure Success
I think that David Stern is probably the greatest commissioner that any sport has ever had in the history of this country.
BILL RUSSELL

Commission Country Greatness Thinking
What distinguishes a great player is his presence. When he goes on to the court, his presence dominates the atmosphere.
BILL RUSSELL

Atmosphere Dominate Greatness Player Presence
What’s more important than who’s going to be the first black manager is who’s going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.
BILL RUSSELL

Black Important Manager
The magic to a great meeting is all of the work that’s done beforehand.
BILL RUSSELL

Greatness Hands Magic Work
If you really have integrity, there are very few people who can insult you, or honor you.
BILL RUSSELL

Insult Integrity People Respect Yourself
Durability is part of what makes a great athlete.
BILL RUSSELL

Athlete Durability Endurance Greatness Inspirational One Liner
I think what has happened to our basketball team, we’ve been badly distracted. They’re not reading too many positive things in the paper.
BILL RUSSELL

Paper Positive Team Thinking
We overreached our decision power. Sometimes our decisions have to fit the reality of the outside world.
BILL RUSSELL

Decision Power Reality World
To love someone is nothing, to be loved by someone is something, to love someone who loves you is everything.
BILL RUSSELL

Feeling True
You got to have the killer instinct. If you do not have it, forget about basketball and go into social psychology or something. If you sometimes wonder if you’ve got it, you ain’t got it. No pussycats, please.
BILL RUSSELL

Instinct Kill Social Wonder Yourself

I think what has happened to our basketball team, we’ve been badly distracted. They’re not reading too many positive things in the paper.

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I think what has happened to our basketball team, we’ve been badly distracted. They’re not reading too many positive things in the paper.

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