To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.
A basketball team is like the five fingers on your hand. If you can get them all together, you have a fist. That's how I want you to play.
The thing I loved the most - and still love the most about teaching - is that you can connect with an individual or a group, and see that individual or group exceed their limits.
Throughout my life, my mom has been the person that I've always looked up to.
I've been so fortunate in my life that my family has never been jealous of my success. They have shown true love and commitment to me by being supportive. They shared in it.
Everybody wants to take responsibility when you win, but when you fail, all these fingers are pointing.
Leadership is an ever-evolving position.
In high school, in sport, I had a coach who told me I was much better than I thought I was, and would make me do more in a positive sense. He was the first person who taught me not to be afraid of failure.
Fun is to experience things you would not have been able to experience in any other setting.
I have a rule on my team: when we talk to one another, we look each other right in the eye, because I think it's tough to lie to somebody. You give respect to somebody.
First of all, what happens is, when you're good at something, you spend a lot of time with it. People identify you with that sport, so it becomes part of your identity.
I think you're not a human being unless you have doubts and fears.
Even though we want huge individual egos, our collective ego is unbelievable.
The person who has inspired me my whole life is my Mom, because she taught me commitment. She sacrificed.
Each group and each youngster is different. As a leader or coach, you get to know what they need.
The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions.
Imagination has a great deal to do with winning.
That's what I do now: I lead and I teach. If we win basketball games from doing that, then that's great, but I lead and teach. Those are the two things I concentrate on.
I'm fortunate now that I coach at Duke University and we've won a lot. I have some kids who haven't failed that much. But when they get to college, they're going to fail some time. That's a thing that I can help them the most with.
It is the ultimate honor for a coach to be his country's coach.
