Top 60 Ben Wallace Quotes

Education is something that’s going to carry you throughout the rest of your life.

It’s fun to see how the G League has grown and I’m excited to be a part of its upside and continued development.

Everybody wants to go out and play hard for a guy where they know if they give their all on the defensive end, they’re going to get rewarded on the offensive end.

Scoring isn’t anything but a different challenge. I’m willing to take that challenge.

I think there’s guys who are coming out of college that might not be scorers but have the ability to go down in the trenches and do the dirty work. I think I give those guys a little more inspiration to go out there and work hard.

My family has been through a lot – just a lot of trials, tribulations and failures – and we didn’t have a lot of anything besides love. So, when it came my time to do something, my family refused to let me fail. They didn’t want me to fall into the trail that they followed to stay in Alabama.

If you dream big and you make it halfway and can find someone else that know the rest of the way you can still get there.

I thought I could be better than a lot of guys.

If you sign a big contract, everybody knows. They’re going to print it in the paper. It’s on ESPN. You can go online and check player salaries and all that. You’re a target.

To have my jersey retired, it symbolizes the hard work that I put in, the dedication I had for the game, the love I had for the game.

It’s one of those things where it’s not something you want to do; nobody wants to retire from basketball. You want to play basketball forever. Retirement is admitting to yourself and everybody else that, ‘I can’t do this job anymore.’ For me, that’s not a celebration.

VUU had won some national championships and had a great coach in Dave Robbins.

A lot of people think the hardest thing about this game is making it into this league. As you get older and you accomplish most of your goals – all of your goals – you find out the hardest part of this game is walking away.

Some guys are just great basketball players and they have the knack for scoring, so people just allow them to get by with that ability without teaching them anything new, without really coaching them.

Everything our mom taught us was from her life experience.

Basketball, eventually I’m going to have to retire one day. Players are going to come in and take my job. But education, I’ll always have my education.

Anytime you got me hitting jump shots, you can’t do nothing but feed off me.

If I want to be a basketball player and you don’t draft me, what am I going to do, quit, or keep going? Knock on the next door, knock on the next door, if one of those open I’m going to go in and display my talent.

My biggest challenger was my mom. Every time I didn’t do the right thing, I’d have to see her face.

I definitely learned about having a good work ethic from my family. They showed me what it meant to go out and work for something and then how good it felt when you accomplished your goals.

I learned how to play the game without using my athletic abilities while playing overseas. When I got my NBA opportunity, it enhanced my fundamentals.

When I became king on the court against my brothers, they stopped playing with me. When I started to learn the game, play the game and appreciate the game, I knew I had a chance to be good at it. But the Naismith Hall of Fame, that’s not something you prepare for. That’s taboo.

There are no plays run for your sake as a defender – you just have to want it.

You are not going to be young forever, but my motto is, ‘You can’t change what I was.’

When you gel together as a team, you don’t have to go out there and try to beat the world by yourself.

I played center but if I didn’t have to guard guys damn near twice my size every night, I was free to roam around and do a lot more. I could guard the perimeter.

I committed myself to playing defense and rebounding the basketball.

I think fans fall in love with the so-called underdog.

If you put in that work and you work hard, you’re honest with yourself about it, good things will happen.

Charles Oakley was the first professional athlete that I met, period. That meant a ton. It proved to me that if I worked hard enough, good things would happen.

I always play one way, one speed.

It feels good to just play in the All-Star Game. To be the first un-drafted player to start, I think it speaks volumes for those guys trying to make to the league that there are always opportunities if you just stay prepared.

I never thought you could win when you’ve got five guys on the floor looking for the ball and no one out there doing the little things.

You know, everyone needs somebody to talk for them every now and then.

If you say your door is always open and we can always talk about things and you’ll be willing to listen, and when I come to him to talk about something that’s bothering me that I think is hurting the team, if you don’t do anything to change it, then that’s the last time I need to talk to you.

Since I’m from the South, anything that’s home cooked, I’m down for.

Legacies are built to last.

Anytime you are named as an all-star is one thing. But to be named a starter in an all-star game that was definitely a great experience for me and is something I will remember for the rest of my life.

One or two wrong turns where I’m from could put you on a path that’s hard to reverse… We had to stick together to get through down South.

I’d rather have a guy that I carry to a fight and have to pull him back than a guy that I carry to the fight and I always have to push him.

Carlisle was cool. He’s one of those coaches who said his door was open and you went to talk to him, if he didn’t believe in what you said, he’d tell you and say, ‘I’m not going to do it that way, it won’t work.’ You can’t do nothing but respect that.

When your team needs you to fall back or your coaching staff needs you to fall back, they’re going to pull you back a little bit.

I played D-end and tight end.

I had goals I wanted to reach. I didn’t want to be just an average player.

I have no quit in me.

When I left high school, I wanted to go to Auburn, and they said they were going to let me go both ways. And my ‘both ways’ was ‘football and basketball.’ And their ‘both ways’ was ‘offense and defense.’ So it didn’t work out for me.

I’m not a defensive specialist, I’m a basketball player.

Once I had the opportunity to get my feet wet and play and enjoy this game, I just wanted to be on the floor at all times.

I leave everything on the floor so when I step off the floor I am already wind down. I don’t hold anything back.

It’s a great honor to be named to the Eastern Conference All-Star team as a starter. It’s great to earn respect from your teammates and coaches, but to also get that same respect from other players around the league and then the fans – that is special.

We all feel good to be wanted.

No one wants you to be around if you’re not going to put in the work.

Undrafted, coming in, you’re just excited to get a uniform, put you’re name on the back, you really don’t care if you play or not. You’re just thankful for the opportunity.

I’ve never been on a team where they’ve actually needed me to score.

In all honesty, I was hoping to use football as a path to play basketball in college.

You don’t have to be a great scorer to be successful in this league.

I could score some points, but I take more satisfaction in blocking shots, rebounding and getting my teammates open shots.

Any time you have a coach asking you what you think and what you want to do, it makes it easy for you to go out there and do your thing.

I remember playing that tennis game with the two sticks, ‘Pong.’ That was crazy when I first saw it. It’s funny to think that ‘Pong’ blew me away since all it was was a ball going back and forth.

Yeah, I try to tell everybody – I don’t think a lot of people believe me – that I’m the youngest and the smallest of eight boys. People don’t believe me until they see us all together. I’m one of the tallest, but size-wise, I’m one of the smallest.