Quote

For a long time, I thought I was going to play basketball. There's not many 6-4 white guys playing the three spot in the NBA, so I realized I probably didn't have much of a future in basketball and that football was probably going to be my best bet.

I always felt that I had to leave a legacy on the African continent. As I was only the third player to come to the NBA from Africa, I felt I had to do my best to recruit more young Africans to come and play in the NBA - and also find a way to bring the NBA to Africa.

The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.

I'm just trying to play against ethnicity. I got to play a guy from Louisiana in 'The Pacific' named Merriell Shelton, and now I'm playing Elliot Alderman.

I've learned a lot from the experiences that I went through in high school, through college and overseas, and just everything in life. That is what prepared me for coming into the NBA, being undersized, no recognition, not getting anything easy, and I have been fortunate to prosper in this league.

I've played different nationalities, and everything from vulnerable to strong to crooked to demented. It just increases your possibilities of work because, if people know you can do just about anything, then you're going to get more offers. That's what I want to do.

There have been players with Indian heritage, but there hasn't been a Native-American professional basketball player who became a regular for all sorts of social and political reasons.

Whatever your ethnicity is, in this life you are going to be on a journey to discover who you are and how you feel about yourself.

I'm a better and more educated person because of basketball.

Coming out of college into the draft, being Asian-American and being from Harvard, that's not going to be an advantage because of stereotypes.