Sam Smith > Quotes

“If you spend time wishing you had other players and scheming to get rid of them or not being loyal, either you end up hating them or they end up hating you, and that cannot be productive.”
― Sam Smith, The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of One Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls

“Nothing can stop the man with the right attitude from achieving his goal,” Jackson wrote, “but nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.”
― Sam Smith, The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of One Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls

“In the 1989–90 season, he and New York’s Mark Jackson were fined for saying they had bet on which of them would make the winning shot in a close Knicks-76ers game. Barkley would be called in by the commissioner for a slap on the wrist and lecture, only to say, when asked if he were going to be fined, “Wanna bet?”
― Sam Smith, The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of One Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls

“It’s hard playing on a team with Michael Jordan because you’re always the reason the team lost.”
― Sam Smith, The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of One Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls

“I’ve missed more than nine thousand shots in my career. I’ve lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
― Sam Smith, There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan

“You know, Phil, I don’t feel real comfortable in these situations. Maybe we ought to go in another direction.’ Then Scottie came in and said, ‘You know, Phil, Michael said in his commercial that he’s been asked to do this twenty-six times and he’s failed. Why don’t we go to Steve?’ So I thought to myself, ‘I guess I have to bail Michael out again. I’ve been carrying him all year, so what’s one more time?’ Anyway, the shot went in, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
― Sam Smith, There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan

“So that’s when he leaned over to me [in the timeout] and said, ‘Stockton is probably going to double team, so be ready.’ [Stockton did double, leaving Kerr open].”
― Sam Smith, There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan

“There’s no ‘I’ in the word team,” Winter would say to Jordan. “There is in the word win,” Jordan would respond.”
― Sam Smith, There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan

“What I love about Michael is that he was not the best at anything. He was not the biggest, he was not the strongest, he was not the highest jumper. But he was incredibly, incredibly smart. And incredibly disciplined and focused and driven.”
― Sam Smith, There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan

“Seventy wins don’t mean a thing without the ring.’ So it became a topic of discussion.”
― Sam Smith, There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan

“So that’s when he leaned over to me [in the timeout] and said, ‘Stockton is probably going to double team, so be ready.’ [Stockton did double, leaving Kerr open]. At some point, for a lot of players, you do have to get over that hump and the only way to do it is to kind of say, ‘Screw it. I’m just gonna, repercussions be damned, whatever happens, happens. I’m just gonna trust myself.’ It’s easier said than done. But I do remember walking on the floor and saying, ‘Fuck it. If I touch the ball, I’m gonna shoot it.’ And so it all played out exactly as Michael planned.”
― Sam Smith, There Is No Next: NBA Legends on the Legacy of Michael Jordan