Scott Brooks

“You really just have to come in and build the spirit up of your team by working them everyday, showing them examples of what they've done and reinforce their work.”

“There are 30 great jobs in the NBA, and I've got one of them.”

“The more games you coach, the more comfortable you feel.”

“When you have an intense game, you're going to have arguments. I have no problem with it. I think it's healthy.”

“Mind games to me are overrated.”

“You learn from playing against the best players and the best teams, and we're going to keep fighting and figuring out ways to beat them.”

“I was the youngest of seven kids and I would not have been able to go to college without an athletic scholarship.”

“Progress and Poverty was the most closely knit, fascinating, and convincing specimen of argumentation that, I believe, ever sprang from the mind of man.”

“I'm very thankful to players like John Stockton and Spud Webb. They've made it possible for someone like me to make it. I think teams are actually looking for one player under 6-feet now, because they make things happen.”

“You worked every day to earn what's on the table, literally. It was a week-to-week thing. And I wouldn't change it. I would not change it for anything.”

“I've never talked to our guys about being young. That's an easy crutch to fall on. You really just have to come in and build the spirit up of your team by working them everyday, showing them examples of what they've done and reinforce their work.”

“You don't think the losing is ever going to end, but when it does end, you get to enjoy it and keep working with it and keep getting it better, and that's where we are.”

“The NBA needs more of that 'it's-about-us-against-them' mentality.”

“I believe this with all my heart: The greatest coach of all time in my eyes is my mom. She's instilled in me a toughness and a perseverance and just a never-quit mentality, and I thank her every day for providing me, for what she sacrificed her life for.”

“To this day, I hate walnuts and I hate onions because on weekends when the walnuts and onions were in season, we were out there first thing in the morning and out there until the sun went down topping onions or picking walnuts.”

“When you get punched, you have to get up. You have no other choice. If you don't, you're not going to grow, you're not going to get better as a player.”

“You can have great players, but if they don't want to be coached, what are you going to do?”

“You play 20 games, you have one bad game, I think any team in this league will live with that.”

“There's nothing that you can say in the paper that should affect you.”

“I've been around young, talented, non-coachable players. I've been around veteran, talented, non-coachable players. No matter what you do, sooner or later - even if a coach comes in that's able to connect with them - if that's who they are, they're going to go back to it.”