Now I'm a free agent, literally and figuratively. I've reached that enviable state in life in which I can do pretty much what I want. And what I want is to continue to play basketball. I still love the game, and I still have something to offer. My coaches and teammates recognize that. At the same time, I want to be genuine and authentic and truthful.
I'm not worried about facing the Sacramento Queens. Write it down. Take a picture. I'm not going to talk about this all year. When I get back, there's going to be trouble.
But at the same time, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to be happy with what we were doing. My parents were athletes in high school; my mom and my dad were the stars of the basketball team, but they never pushed my brother and me to be anything we didn't want to be.
I love playing basketball because you could be having a rough day in your life, and while you're on the court it gives you a clear mind. I'm not worried about anything. I'm there just playing freely and I go out there all and I have fun.
I started taekwondo at 5 or 6 years old and did a bunch of kick-boxing later, too. Eventually I became a black belt and coached as well. I did some basketball and softball growing up, but most of my activity was martial arts.
I grew up in Arkansas and that's the law. My dad was a high school basketball coach, so I was raised as a coach's son and I was a baseball player back in Arkansas, and I lived in Texas, too, so I was just surrounded by sports. So that's what I was going to do: Pitch for the St Louis Cardinals. I had no idea I was going to be an actor. So I got my collar bone broken in the Kansas City Royals training camp. And once I got hurt I started doing other things for a while.
I viewed it as a business, but I always viewed it as a game. An opportunity to show my skills, my basketball skills, amongst the best in the world.
The best teams have chemistry. They communicate with each other and they sacrifice personal glory for a common goal.
Basketball was always a game to me. One of the greatest things in life for me was to be able to play what I loved dearly and get paid for it. So it was always a game to me and that's how I perceived everything.
I think planning to be a "professional adventurer" is about as realistic as planning to be a basketball player, so I don't usually encourage it.
And from the first time I picked up a basketball at age eight - I had a lot of difficulty when I first picked up a basketball, because I was a scrub - there were things that I liked about it.
Baseball is green and safe. It has neither the street intimidation of basketball nor the controlled Armageddon of football. . . . Baseball is a green dream that happens on summer nights in safe places in unsafe cities.
I always wanted to be an NBA ball player since I was eight years old. I kind of went on the road of sports and I ended up on the stage with the microphone. For me it's like a dream come full circle. I think some people do it because their agent tells them it's a good look to get some publicity. But myself, I eat, live, and breathe basketball.
I heave the basketball; I know it sails in a parabola, exhibiting perfect symmetry, which is interrupted by the basket. It's funny, but it is always interrupted by the basket.
True grit is making a decision and standing by it, doing what must be done.
They asked me when I was out there, 'Why do you want to be traded?' I said me staying here is like divorcing my wife and marrying someone who looks like me. That's backwards, man.
That's sort of a trick question, and I don't have a trick answer. Next question, please.
If you do things with a certain type of result and cause a certain type of reaction or effect, then you increase your market value. It's very much a competition for the entertainment dollar, and that's never been more clearly evident than in today's NBA game.
I really did not think a thing about playing five black players to start the game; they were our best players and deserved to start. But if I knew all the misery it was going to cause me in the weeks following the game, I'd have thought long and hard about it. The players from Kentucky were gracious about it, but many of their fans and people from other parts of the country did not want to see it.
We should not have to push you to work hard, you should work hard because you want to be a great player.