“We had a strong relationship with Walter Brown, and felt that he was the best owner in the league.”

I grew up in the heart of the Depression.

Cooper was my road roommate, and also happened to be the first African American player drafted by a National Basketball Association team.

I had endured six years of frustration so I think winning it all meant more to me than most of the others on the team.

There were riots in just about every game we played with Syracuse.

These days I smile benignly at the fights that I see in NBA games. There aren’t any broken noses or black eyes, which happened quite often when I played.

I won the city scoring championship as a senior.

French was my first language.

We lived in Yorkville, which is located on the East End of Manhattan. It’s further east than Hell’s Kitchen, and back then it was the kind of place where the roaches and cockroaches were big enough to carry away small children.

I once heard that Paul Seymour said as much as winning an NBA Championship, he’d like to see the Celtics lose a game after Auerbach brought out the cigar so he could go up to Arnold and stuff the cigar in his face.

The NBA wasn’t a big deal at that time, so it wasn’t really in my career plans.

Bob Brannum was my body guard on the court. He was 6′-6 and built like a bulldog.

It also didn’t take me long to decide that Tri-Cities wasn’t for me, and that I wasn’t going to go there to play basketball.

Do your best when no one is looking.

Every jock gets up and tells the world how lucky he is. But I feel that I may be the luckiest one of all in terms of timing and being at the right place at the right moment-even though, for the last 30 years, I was told I was born 20 years too soon, for obvious reasons.

All this stuff is kind of surreal to me – Ididn’t think I’d be in the league or none of that. It was making it to college. That’s about it.

You know when I played, you had me and Kevin (McHale) and some others throughout the league.

My dream was to become a rec league coach. I love basketball so much,

I’m ready to go. As big men in the league, there are two who have done something special during this millennium. I’m one and Tim Duncan is the other.

I’ve heard a few times, in three or four years, this league is going to be yours. I don’t like that. Because I think I’m established now.

I want the younger kids, the basketball players in high school and college to hear from me and let them know that when you come to the league, this is what happens and this is how I feel as an NBA player. And it’s not all peachy keen.

For years the league has thought I’ve been on drugs. I would have burned out a long time ago if that was true.

When I first got into the league, I tried to fit in. Now I don’t care.