I've always had jewelry over the years, but when it comes to clothes, I'm just a white or black Polo tee guy with some jeans and a pair of Jordans, and I'm cool. As long as I'm comfortable, I'm cool.Collection: Cool
When you play in Toronto you feel like you're playing overseas. We can't wait to go on the road sometimes just to be in America.
When I got traded to the Raptors Kyle Lowry told me, 'We expect you to average 15 points a game off the bench.' And I said, 'Perfect, so you need me here.' And that made me feel wanted. So once he put that expectation on me, it just made everything fall into place.
I don't sleep much. I think it's hereditary. My mom doesn't sleep. My dad never slept. My naps are definitely when I get the most sleep. I'm a big napper - that's when I get most of my sleep.
Some guys like to eat two or three different times a day before the game. I eat once, and that's it.
I think as competitors, that's why we get into this, to gain respect from the guys who have played the game, and you walk away and they say, 'He was a tough cover - that dude was nice.'
It doesn't really matter to me whether you start or not. I play a lot of fourth quarters. I think that's what's most important to me. I think that's what I've always cared about, just having an opportunity to finish games when it's really winning time.
A lot of the stories I got on A.I., I can't say publicly. Overall, I just really appreciated how he went about going into games. He got a lot of flak for the 'practice' comment, but every game, he gave it his all.
You can go to war at 18, so you should be able to make a living at 18, especially if college isn't what you see for yourself.
I always have these debates with my friends, I was like 'can you imagine dropping LeBron in '75?' and I was like 'bro he'd win 15 championships in a row.'
In the summertime you'll find me back home in Atlanta, in the gym playing against whoever walks in that day.
If you think that I got to come off the bench, then I am going to put you in a position to try to prove you wrong. Then after a while, it was kind of fun, and over the years it was my makeup.
I'm not a flopper. I hate when people say I'm a flopper. I don't flop. You never see me flying all over the floor. None of that. I barely fall down in games.
In the NBA they've taken away so much of the hand-checking and the physicality of how guys are able to guard you. So if you touch me, I'm gonna throw the ball toward the rim and get shots.
I'd never seen my father stand up. As far as I can remember, my father was always in a wheelchair. I always remembered that. And I remember my first basketball game, ever, he rolls into the gym, he stays by the door and he watches me play. And that was the only game he ever saw me play because he passed away shortly after that.
I played varsity in high school as a 9th grader. I came off the bench during the first game of the season and had 25 points. Well, I became a starter after that and in the second game I scored 53 points.
Every time I'd ever stepped on a basketball court, AAU, middle school, high school, I always thought about the NBA.
A lot of guys ask me, 'Why did you go straight from high school to the NBA?' So I ask them, 'If you had the opportunity to take your dream job at 17- or 18-years-old, would you do it?'
Sometimes I just think we get caught up in the entertainment aspect of this business and people kind of forget that this is the way we feed our families and this is our livelihoods.
Once you're there, you'll love playing for the Raptors and love playing for the country, but by the fourth or fifth month into the season, you're just like damn man, I wanna go home.
I was raised in a musical house. Marvin Gaye. Boyz II Men. Jodeci. My mom always played that Toni Braxton song, 'Un-Break My Heart.' When I hear that song, it still puts me right back in the car with her.
The structure of college basketball never made sense to me. The coach is the star and you get up at 5:30 A.M. to run before class. That was never appealing to me.
A.I. didn't ask me to do a bunch of stuff for him. He just wanted me around. Usually we were at the Friday's in Philly, which he should have bought, because he was there so much.
You have all the ambition of winning a championship and competing in your hometown. For me, it didn't work out that way.
If a guy is not serious about being a student-athlete then why force him into the college system. He's not serious about getting education.
If you look at the history of the NBA, guys that came out of high school are the guys that held the NBA together. You look a Kobe Bryant, you look at a LeBron, these are household names.
What AI was able to do at his size, with the teams that he had was remarkable, you can't take that from him.
I thought I was pretty average height. And then it just clicked to me - 'Yo, you're undersized.' I guess when I got older and my body started hurting, I'm like, 'I'm not as big as I thought I was.' So I always played with the mentality that I was bigger than I actually was.
I can't shoot straight-up. I've always played crooked. One of my coaches says I play backwards. I do everything backwards. I don't have coordination. It's weird to watch me play.
I wanted to prove that I could be a starter. And then once I realized I was gonna be a sixth man and it wasn't gonna change, I just relished the role. I just said, 'I'm going to make it really hard on whoever it is that has to guard me these next 10-11 minutes that I'm in here.' And after a while you just create an identity.
A guy tried to rob me but decided not to because of whatever I do in the community. He's a Lou Williams fan, so he didn't rob me.