“Once you are labeled ‘the best’ you want to stay up there, and you can’t do it by loafing around.”

Who in their right mind wouldn’t listen to what Larry Bird tells them? He knows what it takes to be a successful player, and he’s letting us do the things to have the success.

First master the fundamentals.

I always know what’s happening on the court. I see a situation occur, and I respond.

I wasn’t real quick, and I wasn’t real strong. Some guys will just take off and it’s like, whoa. So I beat them with my mind and my fundamentals.

Anytime you’ve got an opportunity to play for your country and win a gold medal,

But it is a black man’s game, and it will be forever.

When I go to the line I’m thinking ‘All net.’ When I don’t think that, I’m likely to miss.

I just shoot until I feel good.

Practice habits were crucial to my development in basketball.

Whether it’s a tie game or down by 1 or up by five, it was always the same shot. So I always felt comfortable with the ball in my hands because it was in there a million times before.

I don’t think that once you get to one level, you can relax. You’ve got to keep pushing.

I’m a firm believer in that you play the way you practice.

I wanted to compete at the highest level again – and that’s the NBA.

I didn’t play against the toughest competition in high school, but one reason I was able to do well in college was that I mastered the fundamentals.

You never make any of the shots you never take. 87% of the ones you do take, you’ll miss too. I make 110% of my shots.

Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out. That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players.

I always tried to stay around .190, with three or four RBI. And I tried to get them all in September. That way I always had something to talk about during the winter.

Hey, I think it’s easy for guys to hit .300 and stay in the big leagues. Hit .200 and try to stick around as long as I did; I think it’s a much greater accomplishment. That’s hard.

I’ve always felt like there was a lot of hype around me even when there wasn’t. I felt like everyone was talking about me even when no one was talking about me.

We really are living in the era that all this sci-fi literature and cinema was centered around.

It comes to the one who rests upon the promises of the Word. It comes to the man who lives by faith as if in the actual possession of the answer to his prayer, although the enemy is still around him.

It affects people around me, but it was my job to see through that.

If you’d been where I’d been… if you’d seen the things I’d seen!… you… you’d be me… Or someone following me around.

because there wasn’t any live music around my town and no one in my family played instruments.