Basketball Quotes: Wisdom, Motivation, and Hoops Inspiration

Basketball is like photography, if you don’t focus, all you have is the negative.

Dan Frisby

Create unselfishness as the most important team attribute

Bill Russell – American basketball player

When you’re not practicing, someone else is getting better.

Allen Iverson – American basketball player

Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.

Bill Russell – American basketball player

The most important thing to me is the friends that I’ve made

Bill Russell – American basketball player

Remember that basketball is a game of habits. If you make the other guy deviate from his habits, you’ve got him.

Bill Russell – American basketball player

Durability is part of what makes a great athlete.

Bill Russell – American basketball player

I grew up watching basketball played the right way. Guys looking for the open man. Guys making the extra pass. Guys giving their best and coming through in big moments.

Bill Simmons

Any American boy can be a basketball star if he grows up, up, up

Bill Vaughn

Discipline is doing what has to be done, when it has to be done, as well as it can be done, and doing it that way all the time

Bob Knight – American basketball coach

The key is not the ‘will to win’… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.

Bob Knight – American basketball coach

The game honors toughness

Brad Stevens – American basketball player

The difference between a good defensive team and a bad defensive team is as little as three possessions

Brad Stevens – American basketball player

My goal is to win the next game one possession at a time. That’s it. I don’t have any other goals

Brad Stevens – American basketball player

You have to earn your right to win the game with effort and togetherness.

Brad Stevens – American basketball player

As the game has evolved, the demands upon players have evolved, and practices must evolve to meet these changing demands.

Brian McCormick

If you are afraid of failure you don’t deserve to be successful!

Charles Barkley – American basketball player

The only difference between a good shot and a bad shot is if it goes in or not.

Charles Barkley – American basketball player

Despite being lavished with all the attention, Michael Jordan never lost his sense of humility.

Charlton Best

It’s discouraging to make a mistake, but it’s humiliating when you find out you’re so unimportant that nobody noticed it.

Chuck Daly – American basketball coach

The best teams have chemistry. They communicate with each other and they sacrifice personal glory for the common goal.

Dave DeBusschere

There is a lot of basketball beyond our control, but a player should never let anyone try harder than he does.

Dean Smith – American basketball coach

What do you do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it

Dean Smith – American basketball coach

Basketball is a beautiful game when the five players on the court play with one heartbeat

Dean Smith – American basketball coach

Over coaching is the worst thing you can do to a player

Dean Smith – American basketball coach

One player’s selfish attitude can poison a locker room and make it hard, if not impossible, to establish team work.

Dean Smith – American basketball coach

Sometimes you will hate me because I will tell you the truth about your game. And the truth can hurt/humble you

Dean Smith – American basketball coach

Sometimes you will hate me because I will tell you the truth about your game. And the truth can hurt/humble you

Doc Rivers – American basketball coach

If you’re not talking, you’re not playing defense

Doc Rivers – American basketball coach

Discover your gift, develop your gift, and then give it away every day.

Doc Rivers – American basketball coach

Discover your gift, develop your gift, and then give it away every day.

Don Meyer – American basketball coach

You can pick captains, but you can’t pick leaders. Whoever controls the locker room controls the team

Don Meyer – American basketball coach

Recognize and reward players who put the team first, not just the gifted ones

Don Meyer – American basketball coach

There’s only one thing we can control, and that is how hard we play

Don Meyer – American basketball coach

Your program must have an overriding purpose which is clearly visible and which teaches lessons beyond winning.

Don Meyer – American basketball coach

A key basketball skill is imagery. The best players “see” situations before they happen so they can be prepared

Dr. Jack Ramsay – American basketball coach

Winning is more related to good defense than good offense

Dr. Jack Ramsay – American basketball coach

I believe you win games by what you do from your first practice until your first game

Dr. Jack Ramsay – American basketball coach

Playing basketball calls for every part of your body, and every ability to move possessed by the human body.

Dre Baldwin

Don’t try to imitate other coaches. Be your own person with your own style and do your own thing.

Hubie Brown – American basketball coach

The invention of basketball was not an accident. It was developed to meet a need. Those boys simply would not play ‘Drop the Handkerchief.

James Naismith – American-Canadian educator

Your best player has to set a tone of intolerance for anything that gets in the way of winning.

Jeff Van Gundy – American basketball coach

You need your best players to play their best when their best is needed.

Jeff Van Gundy – American basketball coach

The best teams play for each other, not with each other.

Jeff Van Gundy – American basketball coach

Your best player has to set a tone of intolerance for anything that gets in the way of winning.

Jeff Van Gundy – American basketball coach

You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.

Jerry West – American basketball player

Never give up. Failure and rejection are just the first steps to succeeding.

Jim Valvano – American basketball player

If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.

Jim Valvano – American basketball player

What type of teammates do you want to play with? Be that teammate yourself.

John Calipari – Basketball coach

You have to lose yourself in the team and you have to lose yourself in the game.

John Calipari – Basketball coach

When the legs go, the heart soon follows.

John Wooden – American basketball player

My philosophy of defense is to keep the pressure on an opponent until you get to his emotions.

John Wooden – American basketball player

A coach must never forget that he is a leader and not merely a person with authority.

John Wooden – American basketball player

What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player.

John Wooden – American basketball player

The best thing to do after a poor performance is to bounce back with another great game.

Johnny Osaki

In fact, it is the success of the entire team that brings home a championship title.

Johnny Osaki

Michael Jordan is the greatest player ever because he has the best individual contributions to the team’s success in the regular season and postseason to go along with winning 6 NBA Championships.

Johnny Osaki

One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.

Johnny Osaki

Great players are willing to give up their own personal achievement for the achievement of the group. It enhances everybody.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – American basketball player

Basketball gave me the confidence to speak out and it gave me the platform to be heard.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – American basketball player

One of the ways to improve creativity is to force players to think.

Keith Rumjahn

Everything negative — pressure, challenges — are all an opportunity for me to rise.

Kobe Bryant – American basketball player

Once you are labeled the best you want to stay up there, and you can’t do it by loafing around. If I don’t keep changing, I’m history.

Larry Bird – American basketball player

Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.

Larry Bird – American basketball player

Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates.

Magic Johnson – American basketball player

There is no such thing as a perfect basketball player, and I don’t believe there is only one greatest player either.

Michael Jordan – American basketball player

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Michael Jordan – American basketball player

I would tell players to relax and never think about what’s at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you’ve lost your focus.

Michael Jordan – American basketball player

When I lose the sense of motivation and the sense to prove something as a basketball player, it’s time for me to move away from the game.

Michael Jordan – American basketball player

Limits, like fears, are often just an illusion

Michael Jordan – American basketball player

Team work is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one.

Mike Krzyzewski – American basketball coach

Discipline is not a nasty word.

Pat Riley – American professional basketball executive

You have no choices about how you lose, but you do have a choice about how you come back and prepare to win again

Pat Riley – American professional basketball executive

Failure is good. It’s fertilizer. Everything I’ve learned about coaching I’ve learned from making mistakes.

Rick Pitino – Basketball Coach

Basketball is a lifelong game. You continue to learn from the game day in and day out, and all along the way, you get better.

Scottie Pippen – American basketball player

I really get motivated when I have doubters.

Shaquille O’Neal – American basketball player

Me shooting 40% at the foul line is just God’s way to say nobody’s perfect.

Shaquille O’Neal – American basketball player

The time when there is no one there to feel sorry for you or to cheer for you is when a player is made.

Tim Duncan

Also Look in to the Quotes of Michael Jordan, Quotes of Kobe Bryant, Quotes of Bill Russell, Quotes of Don Meyer, Quotes of Bobby Knight, & Quotes of Larry Bird