Grayson Allen

“You don't go on nine-day road trips in college.”

“If you watch college basketball growing up, you picture yourself in that moment, you picture yourself playing in the Final Four on a huge stage.”

“Duke has had many lightning rods over the years, it's a long list of 'em, a long list of white Duke basketball players that have been lightning rods. I didn't fully understand it before I came to Duke, but obviously I do now.”

“I really love Duke. My plan going in is to stay four years.”

“I really loved all my time at this university and so I hope it's seen how much I appreciate Duke. Not only playing basketball for Duke, but being a student at Duke, and I really am thankful for my time here.”

“In high school I would use that total defeat that I felt in any type of mistake to go to the gym. That's what made me such a hard worker.”

“Being the competitive guy that I am, I can't get into individual battles like I have.”

“For me, just my heart was here at Duke. I just wanted to be here.”

“As a basketball player, you want to play. There's only so much stuff I can go over doing one-on-one drills in practice and watching the team and watching film.”

“I kind of got down on myself, and started putting all this pressure on myself to go out there and play well. And that's when I was playing my worst.”

“I think I'm so much of a better driver than I was when I first came to Duke; that's the biggest thing for me.”

“I found my identity in Christ. When everything else around me was falling down I found my identity in God.”

“In a lot of ways I would love to be another student and love to be looked at as a Duke student and a senior and psych major and someone on the basketball team instead of Duke's polarizing, lightning rod, Grayson Allen villain, all those types of things.”

“I don't feed off of the boos, I don't feed off anything like that... No one likes to get booed, no one likes to get cussed out, no one likes to get yelled at by 20,000 fans when you go places.”

“I'm a firm believer that when something feels right, you go with it.”

“I don't feel a need to prove anything or rewrite my legacy.”

“Something like missing a shot, and the next play you're thinking about it, or you give up a play on defense and you're thinking about it, you're frustrated about it, what's happening is that you're really thinking about yourself. You're not connected to the team. And you have to be connected, or those few plays add up.”

“When I'm playing timid and afraid to make a mistake, then I'm not going to play well.”

“Half of the basketball world thinks I'm this hothead, dirty player who can't get anything under control and probably thinks I'm arrogant and a selfish guy.”

“If I was doing something that I really, really enjoyed I want to be perfect at it and not make mistakes and do everything right. And when inevitably I made mistakes, because that's what humans do, I would get very angry, very disappointed, very discouraged.”