Shaquille O'Neal Quotes

If a team cannot perform with excellence at a moment's notice, they probably will fail in the long run.

Every team that plays us plays above their heads. That's because of me.

In basketball, there are no trap games. If you walk out on that court and lose a game, it's because the other team beat you. You played poorly. But there's no trap game.

I don't have friends when I'm on the court, besides my team.

At the end of the day, I play to win, and otherwise, I wouldn't be good at my job.

The better conditioned team will probably win in the long run.

My last year with the Spurs, I was late to practice one time.

I want to help my team get to the playoffs, win, and run wild.

You are anxious before every game because you had to win it. If you didn't you went down the ladder. I felt proud of the way we beat some teams in tough games.

We're not going to apologize for acting like a good football team.

That's all our team is about. If we stop people, we're the most athletic team in this whole tournament and we can get out and get easy buckets.

Great players and great teams want to be driven. They want to be pushed to the edge. They don't want to be cheated. Ordinary players and average teams want it to be easy

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.

You take a team with twenty-five assholes and I'll show you a pennant. I'll show you the New York Yankees.

I could barely speak after I was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers. I was going to play for the defending Super Bowl champions.... I immediately thought of all the great players on the team. I was in awe, as I had watched these soon-to-be legends play on television. They epitomized for me what football was all about: the love of the game, the professional approach, and the desire to win.

I've gotten thrown out of thirty-seven straight games,' he said. 'Once or twice, I've had to go really crazy. I ran onto the court with eleven seconds left once and stole the ball from the other team. It wasn't pretty. But, you know. I have a streak to maintain.

What I've said to [my team] is, "Look, we ran our leg of the race and we did a darn good job."

We have to be mentally prepared for every team we play. If we play a team who has a big name on their chests, then we are going to come out ready. But if we play a team who doesn't have a big name or a star player, we have a hard time coming out ready.

We love playing together and we love adversity. You know, back-to-back, the two best teams in the East.

I don't care how much talent a team has - if the boys don't think tough, practice tough, and live tough, how they play tough on Saturday.

Before a fight I'm always afraid... before I used to have a hard time just dealing with it because I would try to run away from it, but then as I competed more I understood the fact that this is how I'm supposed to feel.

This really isn't a game we really should be proud of. This game is liking taking your kids to the zoo. You're supposed to take your kids to the zoo. You're a father. So a team like that, we're supposed to beat them like this.

People want national championship banners. People want to talk about Indiana being competitive. How do we get there? We don't get there with milk and cookies.

I didn't expect this award [the 2008 MVP] would come to me. I'm surprised. I've played pretty well in other seasons. Our team hasn't been as good. Things just fell into place.

We may not be the best conditioned team in the country, but our players think they are.