Larry Bird Quotes

I just try and make the right play. It led to me leading the country in points and assists.

As a player, I've always been interested in understanding the coaches' minds, in seeing how they made a group function.

It's hard to be the point guard, especially playing with a young team.

The leadership aspect of U.S.A. basketball has really helped me out a lot.

I'm happy with the coach we have. I think any one of the ones I asked them to consider would've been good.

You can lead a team in a lot of different ways. It can be talking to somebody who is down or, during the course of a game, looking to penetrate and then dropping the ball off to someone else for an easy bucket.

You know, I think when you coach or you manage, you make decisions, and there's some that are really, really tough.

Anytime you have a Pat Riley running things, calling the shots, you are not going to question things because he has been through it. He knows what it is all about and what it takes to win. All we have to do on our end is play basketball because we know the right calls and the right decisions are going to be made up top.

You have got to boss scrums. The players need to know what you want them to adhere to. Then it is up to them to decide whether they are adhering to that or not.

Of course managers win ball games.

When you've been in the game as long as I have, you know the managers you've played for, the good ones and the bad ones. Even the good ones get fired.

A manager's job is simple. For one hundred sixty-two games you try not to screw up all that smart stuff your organization did last December.

As a player, I could have the ball in my hands; I could kind of dictate what happens. I'm still learning, a young coach with young players. Sometimes I'm going to see things. They're not going to see what I see. So it's being able to translate that and help them see what I'm seeing.

What else does a manager do but push buttons? He doesn't hit, he doesn't run, he doesn't throw, and he doesn't catch the ball. A manager has twenty-five players, or twenty-five buttons, and he selects which one he'll use, or push, that day. The manager who presses the right buttons most often is the one who wins the most games.

You have to be able to do everything as a quarterback, and that's not necessarily taking care of your job but making sure you're preparing everyone else to go out and play well. And make sure you have them in the right mindset when they step on the field.

I'm letting my coaches take the reins more. Letting them make the decisions on what's going to be a hard practice, what's not going to be a hard practice and also this weight cutting thing. It's the best decision I've made in my entire career.

It's very easy to say take a player, a world-class player out of the system of playing and just push him into a coaching role but coaching is a whole other thing. It's a skill.

I think it is inevitable that I'll be coaching or be a GM.

A point guard can carry a team - if he has all the right stuff.

When I was coaching, I was out there, and you're doing press conferences, and the fans see a lot more of the head coach than they do either the general manager or the president.

It's up to a manager to understand his players.

Playing on the field is different from providing inputs sitting in the dugout.

Coaching was always intriguing to me as a kid. Watching 'Monday Night Football' with my dad and hearing him talk through the game management and watching the Tom Landrys and Don Shulas on the sideline was more intriguing to me than watching Troy Aikman or Dan Marino throw the ball.

You got to worry about getting good damn coaches.

I'd be lying if I said I never had any issues with players but at some point you have to stamp your authority because if you're good at taking free-kicks, for example, they should let you take them.