I don't think anyone could be the next Dick Vitale. I mean that in a good way. More than an announcer, Dick is an ambassador for the game. Dick is in class by himself. Like what he does or not, what he has done to expand the popularity of college basketball is phenomenal.
I've been very, very fortunate. I don't need to work another day in my life. I have all the security I need.
I was raised in a home where we grew up where we discussed issues. I've always been really politically aware. My wife and four kids are very aware. They make me more attuned to a lot of things I would not think about. Especially women's issues.
Holding people presumed to be innocent in jail pre-trial simply because they cannot afford to pay their bail extracts huge human and financial costs.
I think, look, you have to be aware of the language, and you have to be aware a little bit of your own biases if you're going to overcome them.
We've changed a lot of things to help certain groups of people. We widened the lane from 6 feet to 12 feet to 16 feet to make it so the big guys aren't as dominant. Well, why didn't we just say, 'You've got to learn to play against them in the post?'
I actually feel sorry for people who have nothing to do on Christmas Day other than watch an NBA game.
Our founding fathers declared independence from Great Britain because they were dissatisfied with the laws and policies that they believed abridged their freedoms. Had they taken the stance that many want our professional athletes to take - to just shut up and honor your country no matter what - we would be living in British colonies.
Our country was founded on protest. Otherwise, we would still be a colony of England.
We took the handcheck out of the game to give guys like Steph Curry more freedom. Why didn't we say, 'Just get in the weight room and get stronger?'
People with advantages don't tend to want to give them up. If you see it as a zero-sum game, then it will never change. If only the people who are disadvantaged speak out, then it's not enough. I don't want to overshadow their voices, but I want to support.
The league has been good to all of us in terms of what we get out of all these TV contracts and everything, so it would be a little disingenuous to complain too much. But if I had my way, we'd take a five-day break at Christmas. I mean it.
Exacerbating the problem of mass incarceration is that, even after someone is released from prison, the stigma of a misdemeanor or felony conviction makes finding gainful employment difficult, if not impossible.
The hardest thing to do in this league is to get a proven star. It's just very hard to do. It's hard to do in free agency; it's hard to do in trades. You get very few opportunities to do it.
I've been around a lot of great coaches in college and the NBA, and I knew Erik Spoelstra three months, and I told my wife, father, and brother that this guy is going to be a helluva coach.
Josh Smith, put in the right spots, is an outstanding player. You put Josh down on the right block, in the low post or even on a short isolation - 12 feet, 15 feet from the basket - he can get to the rim. He's outstanding. He's not only a very willing passer but an outstanding passer. I think it's the best part of Josh's game.
As NBA coach, people get on you. But politics, maybe even more so at the local level, is nasty on a very personal level. I have a thick skin, but I don't want to deal with it.
There's no such thing as a longtime Magic coach.
One of the things I've said to teams and players from time to time - especially when things are going well like we had them going in Orlando - is that you better appreciate it and enjoy it because things change quickly in this game. You know, it's tough for guys to really think it will change on them, but it does.
I've argued for a long time here... that I think that one of the things that is absolutely killing parity is the individual maximum salary.
