Bam Adebayo

“Where I'm from, in the middle of the country, there were no clubs or parties. You had to make your own fun.”

“Different players play you different ways. Some players might be slow-footed so they got to backup. Some players might push you up. You've got to have a go-to that's a mix for both of them.”

“You just gotta hang around people that are really outgoing, and you'll end up, before you know it, you'll be an outgoing person.”

“I'm an African-American man. I've got to live with that. I've got to be cautious everywhere I go.”

“That's been my challenge. Go out there and guard the best player and get it done on both ends. It's been working out pretty good for me. Just got to keep that thing going.”

“Me, growing up, I was a Kobe fan, Kobe fanatic, and just getting, just being able to just wear his shoes, it's my favorite shoe to play in.”

“I just got to be more aggressive. A lot of time, I just got to make the right reads. It's nothing major, just minor tweaks.”

“It doesn't matter if it's Spencer Dinwiddie, Taurean Prince, DeAndre Jordan, I'm trying to win that matchup every time.”

“Like I said, being an African-American man, you can tell there's two Americas we're living in. They don't want us to be equal.”

“Imagine if a mob of Black people wanted to go in the White House. Imagine what'd happen. It'd be tear gas. It'd be rubber bullets. It'd be the whole nine yards.”

“People who have a strong sense of determination about themselves, I feel like the sky is the limit for those types of people.”

“My mom never had nothing that she could call her own. So growing up and being able to do something different with basketball and be a special player, that was something that I've always had in my mind, I've always wanted to do. And just having the opportunity to do it for my mom is an incredible experience.”

“My mentality is I have to be better for my teammates.”

“If I have friends in town visiting, we'll go get dinner, but if I'm just by myself, I'm at the house, watching random TV shows.”

“I had to stay in the house a lot because my Mom didn't want to see me on the news. I wasn't a bad child. She just didn't want me in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“First year, I was in a real high pace running around and I couldn't pace myself.”

“I feel like I've built big enough platform and still building my platform for us to get justice for Breonna Taylor.”

“As I started getting better and I had to go places and meet new people, there were times where you just couldn't keep to yourself. You had to speak to people.”

“A lot of passes that I throw, some of them are kind of thread-the-needle type of passes, and I know Year 1 or Year 2 Bam wouldn't have done that. But you've gotta take the leash off the dog. What's scarier, a dog with a leash walking with a person or a dog with nobody around him?”

“I'm a person, and everybody wants to be an all-star. Nobody wants to just be a role-player. I've thought about it. But the number one goal is to keep winning, so I'm more focused on that than being an all-star, honestly.”