Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Coming back, Utah just felt like home.
I want my friends and family to see me play.
I feel like I got underestimated a little bit.
It's a personal goal for me to be an All-Star.
You've gotta be able to score around the basket.
The Jazz have got one of the most loyal fanbases.
I've just gotta continue getting better and developing.
That's what winning does. It gives you that extra juice.
I know DeAndre Jordan, he's a good player, good rebounder.
I'm happy to be here at the NBA Draft no matter where I go.
I thought it was destiny that I was going to play basketball.
I can go down to Atlanta any time I want, I grew up in Atlanta.
Cartoons only showed you certain things. The comic books go in deep.
The NBA changes on you. You've just got to always be able to adjust.
My senior year in high school I knew was going to be drafted into the NBA.
The biggest thing is to work hard and keep your head on straight and work hard.
No one would get a tattoo like this, so I decided to get Jesus holding a basketball.
I took a trip down to Mexico. It kind of changed my perspective on life a little bit.
But giving back isn't just a celebrity thing; the smallest acts can make a big difference.
Every summer I kept figuring out what I needed to work on to be productive the next season.
I just go in, go do my workouts, go as hard as I can and let the chips fall where they may.
I still love Utah. I miss being out there, but sometimes you have to move on and try new things.
I've enjoyed my time at Georgia Tech and feel my year here has helped my development as a player.
As a rookie, I was a pick-and-roll player. I was an energy guy who could dunk, block shots, rebound.
Everybody gets the wrong idea because I try to hide it, I try to walk around smiling. But I'm always angry.
I have watched the NBA draft just about every year, so to see myself up there, that is something I am excited about.
I do make a difference. I just come out and provide a presence in the paint, defensively and offensively. I play hard.
I'm pretty sure I'm not looked at to score 20 a game. I can just do all the other stuff - rebound, defend, make plays.
Utah was so different, I was so new to it. I didn't expect to stay. But as the years have gone on, I've grown to love it.
Utah has become my home and I am excited to be able to continue my career playing for the Jazz and the best fans in the NBA.
You just have to know how to put in the work, know how to be patient, how to take advantage of every opportunity that you get.
I've been blessed with the opportunity to play the game I love for a living and it has given me a huge platform to help others.
I can hedge out on the screen-and-roll, I can fall back, and I can switch. I'm pretty good with everything on the pick-and-roll.
When I set picks and rolled to the basket early in my career, either I'd dunk or it'd be an offensive foul where I run the guy over.
You'll be on one team this minute, then the next day you get traded. So, I mean, I knew how the business works... It happened to me.
Other teams and other opponents, they look and see I'm 6-foot-10 and think I'm a 5 man or whatever, so they try to take advantage of it.
After what happened with my mom passing, I was just like I need to get back. I just need to get back to my routine, get back to playing basketball.
Whichever position coach decides to put me at, I will be ready, I want to be able to use my jumper as a weapon in whichever position they put me at.
Out in Utah, it's chill, laid-back. There's not a lot of rah-rah stuff going on. You can focus on your job, your career, whatever else you have going on.
Guys aren't going to have it going offensively every game so you need to find ways to contribute to the game, whether it's hustle plays, defense or whatever.
I'm 19 years old from Atlanta, then a year later I go to New Jersey. I'm there for a couple months then the next thing I'm traded across the country to a place I've never been before. It was tough.
I worked out with a lot of guys with NBA experience around Atlanta, guys like Dwight Howard or Dion Glover sometimes or Josh Smith sometimes. They just tell me to keep working hard and it will pay off.
I like how calm and chill it is in Utah. It's a good thing and it's a bad thing. The bad part is, maybe after a big game you want to go out and hang out or whatever, and there's really not too many spots like that in Utah.
When you bring kids in to the world it's a big responsibility, you're responsible for taking care of those kids and providing for the kids and whatnot. It's been a huge change in my life; it's been a great experience for me.
Know sometimes you might have to sacrifice minutes or scoring opportunities just for the betterment of the team. And I think once everybody buys into that, I think that's how you get tighter as a group and start winning more games.
My mom, she had a challenging job raising three kids on her own and having to work at the same time, you know that shows me a lot. It shows me how hard she worked, how much she cared about us and I want to do the same thing for my kids.
Georgia Tech definitely helped me a lot. I don't know about coming out of high school. But Georgia Tech was good for me. I got a lot stronger, a lot more used to not having the ball in my hands all the time, moving without the ball, setting screens.
In the past years, I got in a lot of foul trouble because I was out of position, or because I was just too aggressive. I was trying to block too many shots. It's really just learning when to take a chance at blocking shots, and to get to spots early.
When you first come in the league as a big man, they tell you to be physical down there. No layups, all that kind of stuff. So you have to buy into it, because you think it's going to get you more playing time. But it really just gets you more foul trouble.
My favorite part about being a father is playing toys with them, or watching movies with them, really just playing around with them. They bring a lot of joy in to my life, even when I'm having a bad day. Just to come home and see them smiling brings so much joy to my life.