John Salley Quotes

Guys like Alvin Adams, Sweet D Walter Davis, Larry Nance, and Kyle Macy became my basketball heroes.

I always found it a great challenge playing against Michael Jordan, to play against Magic Johnson, to play against Larry Bird, to play against all those good players because it's something that you can take away from it.

In 1979, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered the league. I remember that. Soon after this, the story began to be repeated ad nauseam: the NBA, a tottering mess in the seventies, was saved in the eighties by these two.

Magic Johnson didn't play the style that Larry Bird did, and Michael Jordan sure didn't play the style that Magic or Bird played.

Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were the two guys with unstoppable moves.

Magic was always my favorite. I think Jordan was the best player ever, but Magic was my personal favorite.

Yes, I played in '92 with the original Dream Team, and then again in '96 with what they labeled 'Dream Team III.'

I would never have wanted to play with Magic Johnson, I would never have wanted to play with Michael Jordan, I would never have wanted to play with Karl Malone or John Stockton in my prime. We wanted to play against the Shaqs, the Kobes.

In 1981, when I went down to visit Georgia Tech, I watched Michael Jordan play and literally get ridiculed for taking a jump shot in the championship game that went off the backboard, and they won. People are forgetting that Michael was just one of the players when they went to the Dream Team.

Everybody in the NBA is good. And then you have the really good ones and the great ones.

Magic Johnson was my favorite player growing up.

It's the Basketball Hall of Fame, not the NBA Hall of Fame. So, for basketball, I played in Olympics; I played in the Junior Olympics. With what I've done and given to basketball is all Hall of Fame.

When I started playing, my mom said there were three players she wanted me to watch - Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan.

I watched a lot of Scottie Pippen, Magic Johnson, Kevin Durant, and a lot of Paul Pierce. I used to watch Tracy McGrady as well along with Kevin Garnett.

I'm a fan of Kobe and LeBron. People always try to make me pick one or the other, but I think they're both great. They both deliver.

It was larger than life - the 76ers, Dr. J, Moses Malone, Mo Cheeks, Andrew Toney and Bobby Jones - those were the teams that I grew up following.

I'm a huge fan of Clyde Frazier and Earl Monroe.

Charles Barkley played in an era where he was never the guy. He always had to take a back seat to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Isaiah Thomas, because what did they have that he never got? A championship.

People don't realize how talented the NBA is.

If you look at the history of the NBA, guys that came out of high school are the guys that held the NBA together. You look a Kobe Bryant, you look at a LeBron, these are household names.

When I was a little kid I used to go on the playground and say: today I will shoot like Bird, pass like Magic, jump like Mike, be quick like Zeke. I am thankful to them, since without seeing them do things they did, I wouldn't be in the NBA.

I'd like to think that the nature of the two teams - Boston being a championship team over the years and the Lakers, same thing - was a lot bigger than Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.

It would mean a lot to me to get into the Hall of Fame, to be grouped with some of the greatest players in history.

I grew up watching Dr. J, and I was like, 'Oh my God, this guy is the greatest basketball player I ever saw.'

Every kid who just played basketball knew about the Boston Celtics. They're one of the few teams who were always on national TV along with the Lakers.