I've also always known that I wouldn't be playing for the N.B.A.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The N.B.A. is not an easy job. As you get older, you play this game for 82 games a year, and you play 11 or 12 years, your body tends to break down.
I suspect the real reason the N.F.L. and N.B.A. don't want high schoolers and college underclassmen to play with their ball is that they don't want to jeopardize their relationship with National Collegiate Athletic Association, which serves as a sort of free minor league and unpaid promotional department for the pros.
If we can't have a great team and a winning team, then I will not be an N.B.A. owner very long.
I was happy working for the N.B.A., but to be honest, I decided that I'd probably get back into coaching. I missed the teaching, I missed the games, I missed the competition.
I look at the N.B.A. as a job, a great job to have, so I think, for me, I would have loved the opportunity to go to the N.B.A. out of high school. If you're not ready, you're not ready. If you are ready, I think you should be able to go.
I really have to make sure that I'm staying true to who I am, and that I know my responsibilities to current N.B.A. players, to future N.B.A. players, to our past and retired N.B.A. Players.
When I graduated from college I didn't want to play in the AFL.
I wasn't going to play on defense in college.
That's the one regret I have in all the years that I've played professional sports, that I didn't win a championship in the N.F.L. And that's why you play on any level of team sports: you want to win a championship as part of a team.
The N.C.A.A. is a multibillion-dollar business built on the talents of players who are often unqualified for or uninterested in being students and who benefit materially from the system only if they are among the few who turn professional.
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