Metta World Peace

“I remember I came into the NBA in 1999; the game was a little bit more rough. The game now is more for kids. It's not really a man's game anymore.”

“When Kobe talks, I shut up and stay out of his way.”

“I always like to make some jokes, sometimes.”

“Earlier in my career, I just wanted to be an entertainer.”

“I think, at the end of the game, guys gotta trust themselves more. I think sometimes - not myself, but sometimes, guys - they look to Kobe too much.”

“You can't prepare for something that you can't prepare for.”

“I'm not a 'real rapper'; I just like to talk about what I've been through. When I was younger, I just said random, stupid lyrics and censored myself because I was worried about what people would think. But now I've become more mature with my words and uncensored.”

“If someone is not playing defense or not giving effort, that's my specialty. I don't hold back on my words.”

“I shake everybody's hand before the game, but Oklahoma City, they don't shake hands. Only some of them, but I don't think they really shake hands before the game.”

“As a kid, New York was in my blood, and that was it. I got a chance to play for the Knicks, so it was cool, but it was towards the end of my career.”

“I don't really talk about myself. I always talk about what could make the team better.”

“I've learned a lot from my own kids. Actually, my son was the reason why I got involved in other things outside of basketball.”

“A live feeder is somebody who is trying to eat everybody in the room.”

“I'm still ghetto. That's not going to change. I'm never going to change my culture.”

“Changing my name was meant to inspire and bring youth together all around the world.”

“I don't want to get stuck practicing basketball all day, so that's why I'm always moving: because I don't like to be stuck in one mind-frame.”

“I got bullied so much at 11 and 12 that I became the bully. I didn't want to get bullied no more. And that just carried on through my life.”

“I wish I would have listened, when I was a kid, to my elders or people who had my best interests at heart, and then I wish I would have been more conscious at that age also.”

“I'm not going to sugarcoat myself. For what?”

“For me, basketball was always about survival because I was just trying to get out the hood, right? When I got to Chicago, I'm like, 'I'm just trying to survive, and anybody I got to step on or break, so be it.'”