The invention of basketball was not an accident. It was developed to meet a need. Those boys simply would not play "Drop the Handkerchief."
~James Naismith

This is the second most exciting indoor sport, and the other one shouldn't have spectators.
~Dick Vertleib

There are really only two plays: Romeo and Juliet, and put the darn ball in the basket.
~Abe Lemons

Any American boy can be a basketball star if he grows up, up, up.
~Bill Vaughn

If the NBA were on channel 5 and a bunch of frogs making love was on channel 4, I'd watch the frogs even if they were coming in fuzzy.
~Bobby Knight

The rule was "No autopsy, no foul."
~Stewart Granger, on the pickup games of his childhood

When it's played the way is spozed to be played, basketball happens in the air; flying, floating, elevated above the floor, levitating the way oppressed peoples of this earth imagine themselves in their dreams.
~John Edgar Wideman

I haven't been able to slam-dunk the basketball for the past five years. Or, for the thirty-eight years before that, either.
~Dave Barry

I look at the NBA as a football game without the helmet.
~Tom Tolbert

To win, you've got to put the ball in the macramé.
~Terry McGuire

These are my new shoes. They're good shoes. They won't make you rich like me, they won't make you rebound like me, they definitely won't make you handsome like me. They'll only make you have shoes like me. That's it.
~From a Charles Barkley commercial for basketball shoes, 1993

I liked the choreography, but I didn't care for the costumes.
~Tommy Tune, on why he never considered playing basketball

If you meet the Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball.
~Phil Jackson

Nothing there but basketball, a game which won't be fit for people until they set the basket umbilicus-high and return the giraffes to the zoo.
~Ogden Nash

What is so fascinating about sitting around watching a bunch of pituitary cases stuff a ball through a hoop?
~Woody Allen, Annie Hall

We have a great bunch of outside shooters. Unfortunately, all our games are played indoors.
~Weldon Drew

Basketball is the MTV of sports.
~Sara Levinson

The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.
~Bill Russell

I hate it. It looks like a stickup at 7-Eleven. Five guys standing there with their hands in the air.
~Norm Sloan, on zone defense

Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.
~Red Auerbach

Fans never fall asleep at our games, because they're afraid they might get hit by a pass.
~George Raveling

The only difference between a good shot and a bad shot is if it goes in or not.
~Charles Barkley

When I dunk, I put something on it. I want the ball to hit the floor before I do.
~Darryl Dawkins

You don't play against opponents. You play against the game of basketball.
~Bobby Knight

When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team.
~George Raveling

We're shooting 100 percent - 60 percent from the field and 40 percent from the free-throw line.
~Norm Stewart

You can run a lot of plays when your X is twice as big as the other guys' O. It makes your X's and O's pretty good.
~Paul Westphal

Giving "Magic" the basketball is like giving Hitler an army, Jesse James a gang, or Genghis Khan a horse.
~Jim Murray, about Earvin Johnson

The secret is to have eight great players and four others who will cheer like crazy.
~Jerry Tarkanian