Oscar Robertson Quotations

You don't cut anywhere, don't pick down anywhere, don't double screen, no weak side picking. All these things that should happen in a game of basketball don't happen anymore.

I'd like to think that the nature of the two teams - Boston being a championship team over the years and the Lakers, same thing - was a lot bigger than Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.

If you're a basketball player, you've got to shoot.

I think that everyone should be able to dribble. Everyone should be able to pass. Otherwise, why are you out there?

Some players are more physical than others, some play with more finesse. Some are just really great all-around players. So you have to change your game.

You need a teaching coach who understands the game of basketball, not just some guy coming on the court talking about Xs and Os.

I think that basketball players should get the job done no matter how it looks on the screen.

But I think the image that's thrown out on television is a bad image. Because you see players who want to imitate hip-hop stars. And the NBA is taking advantage of the situation.

I don't blame David Stern because a player gets on the court and he doesn't put out competitively. No one can make you play if you don't want to play.

It's like all guys want to do is make a dunk, grab their shirt and yell out and scream - they could be down 30 points but that's what they do. Okay, so you made a dunk. Get back down the floor on defense!

When you go into a game on offense, you make a couple moves and see what the defender is going to do. Then you pretty much can figure out what he is going to do against you - whether he carries his hands low or high, whether he is bumping or pushing, those type of things.

You see what happens in college and high school games today - a three-point shot or a dunk. I think that's the reason that you see a lot of that in the pros today.

When you play against different people from all walks of life you can't do the same thing against every player defensively or offensively. You have to change up the way you go at a player.

But I like to think an athlete is an athlete.

I was taught to play that way when I was in high school and even before I got to high school.

It's a sad commentary when I have to say that sometimes in our country we are real sensitive to race.

Now, I guess, people want stars. People are trying to invent stars.

When you play guard, you're not going to block a lot of shots. Inside, you're going to block shots.

The Olympics were great, because you had to make the team, and then go to the games. Now, I don't know, these guys today don't want to do anything like that.

They should have a rule: in order to be a sportswriter, you have to have played that sport, at some level; high school, college, junior college, somewhere. Or, you should have had to have been around the game for a long time.

I think that teaching coaches are the norm now.

But if people are buying the products, naturally they're gonna use them.

I don't think that players learn how to play any other aspect of the game in high school or college.

This is where young players today want to land. They want to be NBA players because of the money.

The thing about it is almost everyone could pass that way, but we were kept from doing it by our coaches.

We're all Americans trying to compete. Magic was competing for his team and Larry for his team.

Who do I think was the greatest? This might shock you: Elgin Baylor. He did so many great things. Nobody could guard him, playing in the forward spot. I'd love to see some of today's greats playing against Elgin. They couldn't guard him. Nobody could.

You look at today, it's a different situation. You have a game that has been transformed into a game where almost every shot is either an outside shot - a three-point shot - or a dunk.

You've got to learn the footwork, the positioning, how to box out, how to pass, how to shoot your free throws. All these things are necessary, not to be the No. 1 player in the world, but maybe you can play against him.

So many kids think that, ... But when you look at the history of players coming out (of college) early, only a handful really make it.

Of course I think with my 14 years in the NBA I never made a million dollars,

Pete Newell was the Olympic coach and was a fine person. It was a great honor to play on that team, ... Jack McMahon of the Royals was another coach I enjoyed playing for in the NBA and I got the opportunity to play with and against so many great players.

Basketball wasn't what it is today, ... Being brought up in the ghetto, my parents were told, long before I came along, that education was the way out.

Look at A-Rod with the Yankees. It doesn't mean that you're going to win. I'm sure he thought when he went to the Yankees that they were going to walk through the World Series.

There have been a couple of coaches there, through the years, that I didn't always agree with what was going on, ... Today, a lot of these guys at the university have my cell phone number.

The most important thing is what the returning starters think, ... Can they get themselves together and play basketball? You've got to grow up right now. These things happen in sports.

The whales are so many. They eat all the smaller fish and we fish all the smaller fish,

It's just good to be out here, ... I'm just glad to supply these guys.

It's a sad day for Bob, but what I don't understand is all these people pulling their (financial) support and things like that, ... There are a lot of things at UC I haven't liked over the years, but I still support the university.

It meant that the critics who needed something negative to say about my career couldn't say something negative about it.

I've got a system in place where the university gets a lot of money from me, especially when I die, ... I will still help the basketball program, too.

Every time you score it's an assist now. But when I played you had to be going to the basket on the dribble. So it's easy to get the assists, but the rebounds are the toughest things to get night in and night out.

In sports, you're going to have players who are great but haven't won championships. That's true. You only get one winner a year, and the rest of the guys don't win.

Basketball is basketball.

Just fundamental things - I played guard and I played forward, so you get into a position where you are pivoting out on the court.

I'm sorry that the young athletes in basketball will not get the chance to play (in the Olympics) anymore, and live that dream.

I think no one has written a history of the great coaches who were around 30 to 40 years ago who taught the fundamentals.

I played on an all-black high school team and we didn't want people saying that we were clowns.

Actually, Magic and the Lakers beat Philadelphia for Magic's first NBA Championship.

But after that you don't see a lot of real good fundamental play. You see a showboat-type basketball which is almost parallel to street basketball.

Just because it is an All-Star Game doesn't mean that you are playing as efficiently as you should.

But when I did it (the triple-double), I didn't even know it until someone told me.

You have to teach now - tell a kid how to box out, tell him how to pass, teach him footwork. Players don't understand that anymore.

Look, I think you should promote the game, but I think you should make it what it ought to be. Not some kind of a side-show.

People say that, but I think the NBA was bigger than Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

The players have no real self-esteem when it comes to putting the best image out there in a real competitive fashion.

When I started playing, I wasn't fast, I was gangly, my jumpshot was terrible.

When I came into the league, once a team drafted you, they owned you forever. If they didn't like the clothes you wore, or the car you drove, they could blackball you.

The triple-double is just a stat. It's a test of your strength and stamina and playing ability, really.

There's so many young peoople who start to play basketball and never learn the fundamentals.

People will think there are no other great ballplayers. Look at Garnett. Look at Duncan, Shaq, Kobe. Look at the players with Sacramento. The have a really good basketball team.

I don't know hardly any of the players who have the in-between game like me, who can go to any position on the court.

College coaches want to power the ball inside, they want (their post players) to power the ball up, but no one can shoot from that 15-foot area anymore.

I played when I played, and played, I think, against the greatest players in the greatest time in the history of basketball.