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I think I can be pretty special. I think I can impact a lot in the NBA, especially with my size and my shooting ability and athleticism and just being a humble person.

I have always maintained that in basketball the importance of the mental to the physical is about four to one.

The league is changing, and we don't have many back-to-the-basket players. We now have a game that requires skill and versatility. A lot of that is about being able to think. It makes all the difference in the world to have a player in there with a high basketball IQ who can make the right decision.

The thing with NBA teams, a lot of times they just want to get you back on the floor to play, so as a player you've got to be very, very smart.

You need to possess more than a little nastiness to play basketball at the highest level.

When I was young, I had to learn the fundamentals of basketball. You can have all the physical ability in the world, but you still have to know the fundamentals.

The most important thing for any athlete is to know his ability. If you know your ability and have even a little bit of a strong mindset, you can get success, because your ability takes you to success.

The biggest thing for me is the passion that I've always had for hockey. I remember growing up, no matter what I did in life, my parents always told me to try to do my best at it and be my best. I can say going through different things that that passion is the most important part. It's not skills or talent or any of that stuff.

Anything you can do to help someone, I just think it's so important because there's a lot of kids that look up athletes of all size and shapes in a lot of different fields, not necessarily in the basketball field. They get involved emotionally with those people because there's something about certain athletes that people rally around.