John Calipari
If it's late in the game, then you have your five best free-throw shooters on the court.
I've had transfer students who have never seen the inside of their previous coach's house.
The best food I've had in Lexington is Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt. It's non-guilt ice cream!
The opportunity to coach Kerry Kittles I wouldn't give up for anything.
Don't encourage 8th-, 9th- and 10th-graders to forgo education just to go to the G League.
No one will steal my joy.
I think I'm overrated as a recruiter.
We don't get every kid. We get the ones we are supposed to get. It just kind of plays out that way, and it always has.
We're not the only ones out there trying to get good players and trying to help kids.
We should not go to a baseball rule. If a kid goes to college and, after a year or two, wants to go to the NBA and is good enough - and he grew, he got bigger, he got more confidence - let him go. Why would you now force a kid to go two years?
I'd love to be coaching kids three or four years. You kidding me? That's what I used to do.
If they're out of high school, and they can go directly to the NBA and get drafted and get millions of dollars, I'm for it 100 percent. Just let's not devalue education. Let's just not devalue it.
In my mind, I've got the best job in the country.
The problem with the NCAA - it's slow-moving.
So kids that have pro potential and want to take a loan so that their families don't have to deal with it, why can't you?
When we're worried about a bureaucracy and keeping the bureaucracy going, you're always going to make mistakes.
If a guy can bully you, he will bully you.
I'm going to continue to see my friends who coach in the NBA and see my former players who play in the NBA. I'm going to continue to go to games.
I've always said I have more money than I can spend, than my children can spend.
You wish there was more consistency about how they do things in the NCAA.
If the NBA is worried about the NBA, if the NCAA is worried about the NCAA, if each individual institution is just worried about themselves, and the last thing we think about is these kids, then we're going to make wrong decisions. There are a lot of players of different levels, of different abilities. Let's be fair with them.
If I'm up at 4 in the morning, it's because I'm just coming in.
The thing I can tell you about coaching is that we make decision and career moves when your nerves and emotions are still raw, right after the season. It's the worst profession for that.
Let's not have a postseason tournament. Let's have a preseason tournament where you're guaranteed three games: we go somewhere, and all the fans come in, and we celebrate our league. We'll have great games to start the year, and we'll do it prior to the year.
I'm not a big proponent of the league tournament.
If you win the conference tournament, it doesn't mean anything.
LeBron and I are friends.
I'm not the grand poobah. I'm not the emperor. That's not what I want to be.
If you don't deserve to play, you won't play.
Every one of us in this country is based on you've gotta take care of yourself.
Some of the best kids I coach were raised by a grandmother who was so firm that they understood.
If I walk in a home, and a young man disrespects his mother or grandfather, grandmother in front of me, I'm out. Because if that's the case, he respects no one. He is not going to respect me.
I have bobby pins everywhere.
Any coach out there that wants to lose, you make sure they put raisins in the breakfast oatmeal. You'll go down, don't worry about that.
When your best players are really good guys, it's the best.
All my best players have been really good guys, which means I can coach them.
The problem with my guys, all my guys, they come in and improve themselves so fast in college: they go from 'He's this and this' to 'That kid is the first pick or second pick. Four. Five. Seven.' Tell me about those teams: not great. So my guys are walking into bad situations.
Let the D-League be for players who have been in the NBA, who are on the fringe, and that want to fight like heck to get in the NBA. They should have a living wage, not $17,000 to $25,000. A living wage.
The guy who started on third base and gets home and acts like he hit a homer - that guy doesn't impress me.
Change does not come easy.
If they want to go to college and then leave, let them leave when they want to leave. Why would we force a kid to stay? 'Well - it's good for the game?' It's about these kids and their families.
I was small, but I was also slow.
I was a very average-at-best player.
I majored in business/marketing because I was going to be a teacher and a high school basketball coach.
I had no desire to coach college until I went to college. Then I said, 'Maybe I can do this.' You get inspired by the people around you who move you and light a fire under you.
In a normal season, the sixth man always seems to get the most minutes on my team.
The whole thing is develop players, develop them as people, develop teams.
At times, we, as coaches, try to shove guys as square pegs into round holes and keep hammering away.
Every kid will tell you that they want you to be real, but that's until you keep it real with them. Then they don't want it real.