I never had a doubt that I would make it to the NBA, even when I wasn't playing.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I don't think nobody's doubting I can play basketball.
If someone were to ask me before I made the NBA, you going to have to go through all this, you're going to have to sign your soul away to play in the league, I still would have done it.
The NBA wasn't a big deal at that time, so it wasn't really in my career plans.
I always had a dream to someday own an NBA team.
I kind of knew. I said, 'Yeah, I'm not going to be able to play in the NBA. That's just not going to happen. Let that dream go.'
When I was younger, I just thought about playing in the NBA.
I had never dreamed about the NBA like some guys did. I was a non-scholarship player at an NAIA college. I played on the Boys and Girls Club team in my freshman and sophomore years of high school before I made the high school team. I was our backup center in college.
I spent 50 years in the NBA. Can you imagine doing something that you love the most in the entire world and doing it for your entire life and, besides that, getting a pile of money for it? It's unbelievable. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. And I know it.
There was the misconception out there that I retired after the 2008 season, but that was never the case. I wasn't done with basketball yet, and I'm still not done.
I didn't like how my NBA career ended because I wanted to go out on my own terms. But nobody tried to believe in me, that I could go back and play. I can still play at 39.