i've missed more than 9 000 shots in my career i've lost almost 300 games
26 times i've been trusted to take the game running shot
and missed it have failed over and over and over again in my life
and that is why i succeed
maybe i led you to believe it was easy when it wasn't
maybe i made you think my highlight started at the free throw line
and not in the gym maybe i made you think that every shot i took was a game winner
like my game was built on flash and not fire
maybe it's my fault that you didn't see that failure gave me strength
that my pain was my motivation
maybe i led you to believe that basketball was a god-given gift
and not something i worked for every single day of my life maybe i destroyed the game
or maybe you're just making excuses
i never feel that i'm at my best i feel i still have room to improve
i still set goals for myself to strive for i'm never complacent with what i've achieved uh
even though it's been very successful for me i still feel i have a lot to prove
not just as a player but as a person as a father to some extent as a role model in all aspects
so i'm never really too complacent with myself or with what i've achieved when i get to a point
where i feel i can't improve as a player i walk away from the game no i've never been afraid i
mean obviously you're nervous but afraid means you're not confident in your skills
i have total confidence in my skills so i'm not afraid you've had the utmost
confidence your confidence level was through the roof where is it now on top of the roof yeah i
don't think my confidence changed i wouldn't have come back into this situation yeah torches is is a
tool that teaches you know and it teaches you bad things it can also teach you good things it's how
you perceive those things i've looked at every experience that i've had negative empowerment
and taking that as a positive you know if i wouldn't change anything because i think it
would alter some of the other things i have you know so when i look back i can't say that i've
had any bad things happen sure i mean you don't want bad things to happen but you deal with bad
things you can't have good or and without bad you know basketball is my love always have been and
i can't ever envision an ending of something like that you know that passion that i have
for the game until i'm dead and gone until that's when it's well i can wait i'm not gonna run it's
never enough never enough as long as you compete you know it's always great to win that's why you
compete each time that you win it takes away a little bit of that hunger you know which is is
a challenge within itself you know it's a battle within the your mind to find a challenge to go to
that same place that you've been five times before you know and that's hard you know um you know when
people say well the first one was the hardest no the always because you're battling with yourself
because a lot of times i had to battle with myself to keep challenging myself you know that to me was
why i would say that the biggest battle was it was myself because when you get to a certain
pinnacle you got to find some ways to keep going out there for 82 games i just think that i have
the habits of working hard i always been taught that to reach a goal that in life that you want
you have to work hard to get to it and so far i just you know have that in mind determination
you know uh what your motives are what your ambitions were from beginning
you know it's been a lot of soul-searching in terms of it's easily it's easy to sit back and
say well i've given my best you know i'm tired you know some other somebody else got to do it
or whatever i didn't take that approach i thought positively and and said whatever i could do
every little inch of energy that i have i'm gonna try to provide for this team i mean if you give
up then they give up you know so i didn't want to give up you know no matter how sick i was
how tired i was by you know low on energy i was i felt the obligation you know to my team to the
city of chicago to go out and give that extra effort to even harder my competitive drive is
far greater than anyone else that i've met you know i think that i thrive on that i think that's
my biggest motivation in life you know is to to to compete you know find different competitions and
certain things in life and and tried to overcome that you know be a positive or negative but
i have yet to meet someone who is as competitive as me you know and
i just feel that much confident about my competitive job i still
feel that i have a plateau that you know i hadn't reached yet in terms of my skills or my
my ex expectations of myself you know i'm always going to expect myself to do
certain things that surpass certain things as long as i believe that
then you know my role to success has continued to expand my my principle advised me to go to an
air force academy because he felt that after i finished college i have a job
so i said no i don't want to go that route so i decided to go to university of north
carolina a lot of people didn't expect me to do so well but i guess that was a challenge that i
faced and sometimes you have to face those challenges and see what happens i will not
quit this game because of what the media has done to me or what other people have done to me i will
quit this game because my skills are diminished i can't find the challenges to keep pushing myself
i'm a lot of my love is always going to be there but i will my pride won't let me leave
because someone else is going to push me out i'm going to leave on my own terms and i don't think
too many athletes have that opportunity to do and that's what i want to do whenever it comes
you know we are old sure retire it's been a long season but mentally we have a we have a vision
we have a finish that we have to attain you know and sometimes you have to do it when you old and
you're tired you know and i think it's the test of your will to succeed when you have to deal with
some of these negatives and i'm pretty sure by the end of this playoffs you'll see the
old and the tired people were very very young and strong mentally successful to be happy you
got to have disappointment so i think all of those things have evolved and happened to make
me who i am and understand the benefits and the privileges i have for being who i am you know
and not to wear it on my sleeve be very humble about it that's one thing my parents
taught me very well is you know don't wear your reputation on where your accolades don't wear your
you know your personality on your sleeve let it happen let it be you
it is who you are don't hide from it but don't you know don't wear it rub it in people's faces
you know the thing that i remember the most about my father and you know i had him for 32 years
you know and i never look at it from a negative sense obviously he was murdered and you know
and you know rarely do i get the chance to talk about him you know but the thing that i do
remember all the time you know i think about them practically every day
is for a person like myself who live in this in the spotlight and is so critical you know from
people all the time in terms of what i do what i say you know where i go the thing he's always said
take a pause before you make a decision and say what if and the purpose for saying what if is that
whatever decisions you make always either going to have consequences and not that i live in a
in a box to where i'm afraid to do things i know that you know as my father says that
what if comment is to be able to deal with the consequences of what decisions you make
and you think about that if you think about the consequences pro a con you make the fight
you make the right decisions that you feel is the right decision now all the decisions i made
other people may view to be not the right decisions from their perspective but for me
to go play baseball and everybody says oh it was a it was a failed opportunity to play baseball you
know that's what they think for me it was the best thing that could have happened for me because it
allowed me to go back to the game with a stronger passion at the same time i was able to understand
the love that these minor league baseball players have making fifty hundred dollars a month
fifteen hundred dollars a month which is nothing but for them it was big to me
to see that helped me put things in perspective to understand the platform that i was on in 93 that
when i went back to it in 95 and 96 i appreciate it even greater so when we won those championships
and we went through those those things mattered to me far greater than what i did in 91 92 93.
people don't see that and people will never understand that to be success you know all
they think about well he bet at 202 you know and he struck out certain number of times
yeah okay you know but the effort was there and the learning curve and the passion was there
that has transcended not just to me but to other people who are afraid to do things because
they are worried about the perception that may come from other places
to me that's more gratifying than anything you know so that's the things that my father
and my mother instilled to me take a negative and turn it into a positive don't be afraid to fail
you