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I don't blame David Stern because a player gets on the court and he doesn't put out competitively. No one can make you play if you don't want to play.

Oscar Robertson

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Oscar Robertson
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: November 24
Basketball Coach
Basketball Player
The Big O
Oscar Palmer Robertson
Blame
Basketball
Court
Gets
Player
Doesn
Competitively
Play
Stern
Make
David

More quotes by Oscar Robertson

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I think that teaching coaches are the norm now.
Oscar Robertson
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But after that you don't see a lot of real good fundamental play. You see a showboat-type basketball which is almost parallel to street basketball.
Oscar Robertson
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The Olympics were great, because you had to make the team, and then go to the games. Now, I don't know, these guys today don't want to do anything like that.
Oscar Robertson
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Now, I guess, people want stars. People are trying to invent stars.
Oscar Robertson
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I don't think that players learn how to play any other aspect of the game in high school or college.
Oscar Robertson
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When you play against different people from all walks of life you can't do the same thing against every player defensively or offensively. You have to change up the way you go at a player.
Oscar Robertson
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But I like to think an athlete is an athlete.
Oscar Robertson
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They should have a rule: in order to be a sportswriter, you have to have played that sport, at some level high school, college, junior college, somewhere. Or, you should have had to have been around the game for a long time.
Oscar Robertson
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I don't know hardly any of the players who have the in-between game like me, who can go to any position on the court.
Oscar Robertson
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It's like all guys want to do is make a dunk, grab their shirt and yell out and scream - they could be down 30 points but that's what they do. Okay, so you made a dunk. Get back down the floor on defense!
Oscar Robertson
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There's so many young peoople who start to play basketball and never learn the fundamentals.
Oscar Robertson
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We're all Americans trying to compete. Magic was competing for his team and Larry for his team.
Oscar Robertson
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I think that basketball players should get the job done no matter how it looks on the screen.
Oscar Robertson
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Just fundamental things - I played guard and I played forward, so you get into a position where you are pivoting out on the court.
Oscar Robertson
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Just because it is an All-Star Game doesn't mean that you are playing as efficiently as you should.
Oscar Robertson
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I think no one has written a history of the great coaches who were around 30 to 40 years ago who taught the fundamentals.
Oscar Robertson
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You've got to learn the footwork, the positioning, how to box out, how to pass, how to shoot your free throws. All these things are necessary, not to be the No. 1 player in the world, but maybe you can play against him.
Oscar Robertson
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People will think there are no other great ballplayers. Look at Garnett. Look at Duncan, Shaq, Kobe. Look at the players with Sacramento. The have a really good basketball team.
Oscar Robertson
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People say that, but I think the NBA was bigger than Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
Oscar Robertson
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It's a sad commentary when I have to say that sometimes in our country we are real sensitive to race.
Oscar Robertson