Top 60 Mike Budenholzer Quotes

We talk a lot about having high-character guys and high-IQ guys, and I think that’s one of the characteristics of those types of people or players that if and when something doesn’t go their way, their reaction usually is to come back and fight harder, dig deeper, do more.

As an assistant you have lots of ideas and suggestions that might be perfect for that moment and time, but you don’t think through all of the ramifications down the road. As a head coach it’s about being conscious of the whole group and what’s best for us long term. And that’s on and off the court.

The thing Pop did for me and did for a lot of coaches is – he let me coach. It seems really simple, and that’s the beauty of being with Pop and being around Pop.

It’s a tough job to be the owner in a rebuild, to be the GM, to be the coach. These are tough jobs.

That’s where your defense starts. If you are not good in transition, you probably aren’t going to be good. Or you’ll be taking it out of the net and playing a lot of offense.

We want, obviously, open, good threes. It’s important to us.

As a head coach you have to think about the entire group with every decision you make. Up and down the line, front and back, it has to be about the entire group and the bigger picture.

I think people know how we feel about the international game and the European game and how we can learn from each other.

There’s no doubt Giannis, he just wants to work and work and work.

My dream was to be an assistant college coach, maybe a head coach, maybe at a Division III school.

No matter what the matchup is, you have to make it a good matchup.

The health and well-being of our players are a critical component of our ability to succeed.

When you watch great teams around the league, whenever they lose, you don’t want to be the team that comes and plays them next.

For every team in the playoffs, their defensive intensity, their defensive attention to detail just becomes greater.

A lot of times continuity is your best hope for taking that next step. Can you have a balance of continuity and some additions and bolster it and walk that fine line of adding and embracing continuity?

I would have never ever dreamed of my career playing out the way it did.

We should be shooting 3s whether we’re 1-for-14 or 10-for-14.

My father, he’s meant so much to me. He’s always on me to be thankful and humble to everyone who’s helped me and helped the team be successful. There were many things that he said and preached throughout my life that are now part of my mindset. It’s a big part of who I am.

I literally remember going in my backyard and my dad teaching me Paul Westphal moves.

Probably the No. 1 characteristic, if you want win championships, you’ve got to be great competitors. It’s got to come naturally.

As a coach, I’ve got to get better. I’ve got to improve.

It’s not easy to go out and win and compete and play against the best teams, the best players in the league, and we take that very seriously.

I yell at myself all the time.

Those teams that really trust each other, really communicate with each other, really hold each other accountable and do it in a good way, in a respectful way, and just genuinely enjoy and like each other, I think that can be something that helps you separate when talent is equal.

It always starts with having great competitors on your team, in your front office, on your coaching staff.

There is great effort to balance the short term with the long term. How are we trying to achieve sustained success? That includes success now.

It’s just hard in our league to see somebody who has had that much sucess, that’s done that well, that’s that well-respected, not just among coaches but the whole basketball world has great respect for David Blatt. That’s hard anytime you see a coach go when they make a change.

One of the great things about working for Pop, not just me but everybody, is he wants you to give your opinions. He almost wants you to disagree with him. It’s part of the whole process.

It is always the great challenge when you have a good team and you have good players and you find a way to keep those players with you, then how do you add around the edges?

Playing unselfish basketball is a core component of our basketball culture and high assist totals are a great indicator that we are playing the right way.

I can tell you, those video guys are truly trained to see the spacing, the timing, how offenses progress, what are teams doing defensively.

As coaches, whether we’re making personnel decisions or not, we’re all critical of ourselves. We always want to get better. We push our players to do that. But nobody bats 1.000.

You never want to put yourself in a position where you can bring negativity to yourself or the organization and your teammates.

Giannis is such a great player.

I would say we took a lot of pride in our player development program in Atlanta.

I would love to be the best defensive team in the league.

The really great players, I think embrace playing unselfishly and embrace playing in a system that ultimately kind of lifts up their teammates or their role players and guys who are around them.

Getting swept is hard.

For coaches, we always look for those examples of guys who put in a lot of time and effort during the summer and really work and it carries over for them to take their game to the next level.

Whoever has a great idea, it doesn’t matter who it comes from. You just want to have as many good ideas as you can.

My mom, raising seven children, was such a steady and firm influence. You did not mess around with my mom. Nobody in the neighborhood or whole town did. She had that steadiness and firmness but love at the same time.

I love what my dad taught me and modeled for me – not just with coaching but as a husband, as a father, as a teacher, as someone in our community that cared and worked to make things better. I watched my dad and learned a lot about a lot of things, not just basketball.

If we’re competing and we’re doing the daily fundamental things that we talk about every day, then everything will sort itself out.

We always say the wine tastes a little better after a win.

I think individually, Al Horford is very special, very unique. He’s a guy that can kind of be the backbone of the defense.

Organizations go through change.

I think going on the road for a couple games, I always feel it’s better to go out for a couple games than just one game and come back. The out-and-backs, to me, are not my favorites.

Sometimes coaching is being hard on them, but there’s a balance. I’m fine with the word nurturing. It’s teaching in a positive way. You have to find what works for each group.

You have to have guys that will compete every night, every possession.

The way things were done in San Antonio gave me a great 19-year look into how you can have sustained success.

If you are just focused on the end result, you are probably going to have a frustrating year. But if you embrace on what you go through every day and how you work every day, there’s a lot that can be taken from that.

It’s part of, I guess, one of the harder parts about coaching is you have to make some tough decisions.

To add a player in the draft is something we always look forward to.

Respect for your teammates is important to us.

John Collins has been a great offensive rebounder since jump street.

What LeBron James has done in our league is phenomenal.

Each of us can play a role in eradicating hunger in our communities, and together with Feeding Wisconsin we look forward to raising awareness and having a positive impact on the work to help this important cause.

If you’re conscientious of where your team is, and the opportunities and what’s available to them, I think you’d be naive – I don’t think anyone would believe you – if you said that you weren’t aware of it.

I’ve got all these memories of guys just trying to get steals and not being very solid or very good defensively. They have all these steals so they must be a great defender. I usually find it to be the opposite.

Any NBA coach, you just try to figure out what is best for your group.