A biography for Christian Laettnerhasn’t been written yet.
“For my entire Duke career, people were gunning for us and hating us and wanting us to lose, so I got used to that right away. Every team is going to give you their best shot. Everyone wants to beat you.”
“I like Minnesota. I'd be very happy playing there.”
“It's very important to know how to dribble and pass and catch and cut at a very high level if you want to be a good basketball player.”
“You pay attention to detail. You try to win every time. You play tough. And when you play the right way and be accountable to each other, you're going to have success and enjoy the game that much more.”
“I don't think it's a good M.O. to disrespect your opponents, and maybe that's why the teams that disrespected me and my team lost to us.”
“I pursued to have my team win as much as we could, and it doesn't happen without great teammates.”
“I always pull for the best of the best.”
“My whole freshman year at Duke, it was drilled into me that nothing was given to you, and you have to earn it, and this is a dog-eat-dog world, and blah blah blah, and blah blah blah. And you buy into it, 100 percent. You end up loving it. That's the way it should be, right?”
“I've been on teams in the NBA where we don't play the right way.”
“At Duke, the coaches would cover up for you. But with the Wolves, something happen,s and it's in the papers, and I'm blamed. Things are run differently here - the wrong way, if you ask me. One man wants to blame another.”
“Part of me would like for not all the Kentucky, Carolina, and Connecticut fans to despise me, but another part of me realizes that's not important.”
“I root for John Calipari.”
“I don't need you to love me. I don't want you to hate me, but just don't judge a book by its cover.”
“I'm not gonna say I'm the greatest guy, but the reason I don't hate is I know what it feels like to be hated. So I always pull for Tom Brady.”
“I think every basketball player I know loves ping pong. Everyone played in on the Dream Team. I played Clyde Drexler and Chris Mullin and even David Stern once. David Stern saw I was pretty good.”
“I'm up in Minneapolis all the time. I love being up there.”
“If you want the whole college basketball experience, you have to go to a game at Cameroon Indoor!”
“When you're the king of someplace, you don't voluntarily leave.”
“I pursued to have my team win as much as we could.”
“I think if you are a player going to Duke, you have to expect a little bit to be not liked when you go and play in opposing team's gyms. Like, when I signed with Duke out of high school, I knew it would be playing in hell where they hate you. That's what I loved about it.”