I’m not sure that an athlete is prepared to be a role model. He has a lot of attention paid to him that he shouldn’t have, and then the athletes tend to think of themselves as better than they are.
When a passer has the option of passing to two players, I expect him to get the ball to the best shooter. I continually stop practice and ask players who the best shooter is and I expect them to know. It is important that you get the ball to your best shooter.
When we’re playing a good scoring center, we tell our team that it is not our defensive man’s job to stop the center. It’s the responsibility of our perimeter people to stop the ball from going inside.
You can’t imagine the number of people in professional sports who have come up to me and said, “God, you treat those assholes like I’d like to treat them.” And my question is, “Then why don’t you?”.
Pat has been instrumental in what we’ve done here so far and the most selfish thing for me is that I want to see what we’ve done placed in the hands of the most competent person, and that’s Pat.
