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.
LARRY BIRDYou can make all the excuses you want, but if you’re not mentally tough and you’re not prepared to play every night, you’re not going to win.
More Larry Bird Quotes
-
-
The best player I ever played with was Dennis Johnson.
LARRY BIRD -
It makes me sick when I see a guy just stare at a loose ball and watch it go out of bounds.
LARRY BIRD -
Before every game I used to go out and shot the same shots over and over and over. In the summer time I spent a lot of time just shooting. So really it just came natural.
LARRY BIRD -
I don’t think that once you get to one level, you can relax. You’ve got to keep pushing.
LARRY BIRD -
I learned what my weaknesses were and I went out the next day to turn those weaknesses intro strengths.
LARRY BIRD -
Practice habits were crucial to my development in basketball.
LARRY BIRD -
Strength is not nearly as important as desire. I don’t think you can teach anyone desire. I think it’s a gift. I don’t know why I have it, but I do.
LARRY BIRD -
Guys like Larry Bird — he played so hard, he wants everybody else to play hard. That’s not unreasonable. Any coach would want that and demand that.
LARRY BIRD -
Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you’re ready to play as tough as you’re able to, you’d better go out there and do it..
LARRY BIRD -
The nature of competition is such that any number of people invariably have their eyes on the same prize you do. Recognize your assets and employ them to the best of your ability.
LARRY BIRD -
If you tell a teammate you’re ready to play as tough as you’re able to, you’d better go out there and do it.
LARRY BIRD -
A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.
LARRY BIRD -
The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.
LARRY BIRD -
When I was young, I never wanted to leave the court until I got things exactly correct. My dream was to become a pro.
LARRY BIRD -
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.
LARRY BIRD -
I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.
LARRY BIRD -
Once you are labeled ‘the best’ you want to stay up there, and you can’t do it by loafing around.
LARRY BIRD -
My goal was just to try and be the best player on my high school team, and look where I am now. And that was still my goal as a young kid, just to try and be a little better than my brother was.
LARRY BIRD -
Michael Jordan is God disguised as a basketball player.
LARRY BIRD -
I think you have to work very hard and dedicate yourself and have the respect of your teammates before you’re about to go out and just try to take a game over by yourself.
LARRY BIRD -
When it gets down to it, basketball is basketball.
LARRY BIRD -
Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you’re not giving it all you’ve got.
LARRY BIRD -
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.
LARRY BIRD -
Maybe it’s God disguised as Michael Jordan.
LARRY BIRD -
I don’t know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody – somewhere – was practicing more than me.
LARRY BIRD -
I like being by myself.
LARRY BIRD