Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Basketball did not save my life. God saved my life. It's not basketball. But God saved my life because he blessed me through basketball. He opened the door from basketball.
The most difficult thing with a new shot is if you go two or three games without making it, or you struggle, and people start saying, 'You can't shoot 3s,' or, 'Why do you shoot 3s?'
You can't force people to love you. If you love somebody, you love them because you love them. People who love you, it doesn't matter; if you're good or bad, they will still love you.
An hour and a half before games, I always eat fruit - a banana, an apple, and an orange - because I'm trying to get natural energy. You get natural sugars and natural energy from that.
I'd read about NBA players in magazines when I was growing up in Congo, but I had never actually seen what NBA basketball looked like because we didn't have access to a satellite for TV.
It wasn't until I moved to Spain that I actually got my first glimpse of the NBA. I'd watch this program called 'NBA Action,' which came on every week and showed clips from different games.
Defense, in the game, is something that I just really enjoy. Some people enjoy assisting the ball. Some people like to score, score, score, but to me the first thing that comes up is defense.
It's a long story, my life, growing up with my dad, my mom when she died, everything. I had bad moments in my life, my dad going to prison, I had nothing, and that's where I got my motivation.
After winning a championship, I learned something about this: To win a championship, you need everybody. You need everybody to be out there, everybody to have confidence to play at a high level.
That's where I get my toughness in mind. From my background when I was young, everything I've been through, everything I was going through in my life. It helped me a lot, it helped me to be strong.
I know people that was playing basketball better than me. If they were in the NBA, they could be All-Stars, those people. They just never had the opportunity to go play professional basketball in Europe.
Where I come from, dressing is a culture. When I go back home, I cannot dress bad. I cannot miss, or people will be like, 'What's going on with you, Serge? Did you lose your mind, or what?' That's the culture.
I like to always be able to contest shots. If you play against a player like Al Jefferson - he likes to pump-fake, so you need to be alert and quick. If he pump-fakes you and you go up, when you come back you need to go right back up to contest his shot.
When you are a young player in the NBA, sometimes you don't pay much attention to some of the cities you visit, especially in cold places like Toronto. But when you spend more time in the league you learn more about the cities you play in, and learn how to appreciate them more.
At first, I wanted to be a good player in the NBA. When I get to a team where you have one of the two best scorers in the league, I just said to myself that I needed to do something. I need to do something to help my team, something to make my name. That's where I started to focus on defense.
When I say about 'dream is free,' I don't only mean about basketball or to be in the NBA like Serge Ibaka. No. I mean in general, in anything you do. You can do anything you want, anything you dream about. You can do it. You just have to know the dream is free. And dream is free for everybody.
When I was 16 I took the first opportunity I had to play basketball in a different country. I flew to Europe for the first time and found myself in the small town of Macon, in France. That was the first time I lived far away from my people, from my culture. I was young and had to adapt quickly.
I didn't know there was an NBA draft. But in my mind, I was always telling myself, one day, 'I'm going to be in professional basketball.' And I believed it. One day, I will. I believe this every day. I think about this every day. I was going to do whatever I had to do to be there. And it comes true.
When it's time to dress, I have to think. I have to envision myself in a certain outfit. The night before, when I go to bed, I close my eyes and start thinking about the outfit I'm going to wear tomorrow: all the colors, the fabrics, how it's going to look. It's about putting the whole thing together.
I had a poster of Kevin Garnett hanging in my room. He was one of my inspirations when I was young. I was at my friend's house - he had a lot of money, so sometimes I'd go to his place to watch some NBA action. I remember the first time I saw Kevin Garnett, I just felt something in my body: 'This feels like me.'
My father was always pushing me to become a basketball player. In Africa, when you're a kid, every kid loves to play soccer, and I loved playing soccer. But my dad didn't want me playing soccer. He would joke, 'C'mon, man, you're too tall!' Then he promised me, 'If you start playing basketball, I'm going to give you my jersey.'