Everybody would love to be able to be great and make it to the NBA All-Star Game as a rookie. I mean, that is everybody's goal.
I've been told a million things in this league. I was Rookie of the Year, and then got traded... So it's hard for me to sit back and believe everything I hear.
I'll never forget when we won that game my rookie year versus Kansas City. We won one game, we were 1-10, and to sit there and watch everybody celebrate, there's nothing like it. I just sat there and enjoyed it.
I turned pro and won Rookie of the Year on the South African Tour and then it took me two tries at the qualifying school on the European Tour and to get my card and the rest is history.
To win the Calder Trophy means a lot. It means a lot. I don't have words. I could tell you in Russian.
Any chance a rookie gets to go play in the playoffs, that should be a boost going into summer league. That should be a boost for the rest of your career. That's something that a lot of rookies can't say they did.
What the Jets did with Mark Sanchez, they took a rookie quarterback and went pretty far with him.
I wasn't highly touted coming out of high school, so it wasn't like I was expecting to get a lot of minutes. For me, I didn't know how good a player I was, even though I think I did decent as a freshman.
