Kobe says blaming circumstance is an excuse, every person gets a different puzzle “The key factor for me wasn’t whether or not I was ready. It was the fact that if I wasn’t ready, I was determined to figure out how to get ready. And ultimately, even if I was ready, I still needed to improve anyway.” “The work’s not going to stop. It was just a matter of, do you want to come to the league and learn from the best? I’m doing the math in my head. I’m looking at Stockton, how many years is he playing? Drexler, how many years is he playing? MJ, how many years? Hakeem?” “These are players that I studied growing up. The best way to learn from them is to have that jump off the film, jump off the page, and see it face-to-face. That is the greatest form of education that I could possibly receive.” “Sounds like excuses to me. You’ve got to figure it out. If you really have an obsession to figure it out, you will figure it out.” “Every puzzle is constructed differently. Everybody has a different puzzle, man. You’ve just got to figure out your own puzzle.”

Jaylen Brown says most people don’t understand how nuanced and layered winning actually is “I think most people in the world that we live in, in society, think winning is one dimensional. They think it’s black and white.” “And I disagree. I think winning has context. I think winning has dimensions to it. Obviously, there’s a result at the end of each game or there’s a result at the end of each outing. But internally, it could be a team that overcame adversity and wasn’t supposed to be there.” “And it could have been a team that, this is hypothetical, by the way, cheated in order to win. Yeah, they won. But they didn’t do it with integrity.” “So winning has context to me. Some people, it doesn’t. A lot of people just think winning is winning. Making money is making money.” “My relationship with failure, winning and losing is about how I felt about myself. About my output, about how I interacted with my teammates. Did I do my job? Was I afraid of anything? Was it a leadership moment where I could have stepped up?” “Those are the things I think about more so than the result. Because oftentimes if you focus on leadership, integrity, transparency, communication, just being authentic, those lead to fostering better environments that lead to more winning than not.” “I’m not saying it’s going to guarantee you win every outcome. But building an environment based on that, that’s how you build a winning organization, winning culture, opposed to a winning season.”

Jalen Brunson says 30 intentional minutes can beat 2 hours in the gym, and explains the NBA was never his goal because he was consumed with just trying to get a little bit better everyday “People say, ‘Oh, I was in the gym for two hours today.’ Like, okay, what did you do in the gym?’ You can get a much more difficult and better workout in 30 to 40 minutes versus just being in the gym BS’ing for two hours.” “While it was about consistency, it was about being precise. There was intent to everything you did. It was definitely commitment. I loved going out and working out. I loved going and playing pickup.” “When we lived in Virginia, we lived in Charlottesville Virginia when my dad worked at UVA. I would go play at the rec center with college kids. We would play pickup, I’m playing against older people and I’m playing well. I’m not thinking, I’m going to the NBA. The NBA was never talked about. No. I’m just trying to get better. It was all about going to college.” “There were baby steps. Yes there were long term goals, but I’m focused on the short term goals. Baby steps, one step at a time. People just want to jump straight there, and they get disappointed because they didn’t enjoy their journey. I enjoyed every step of my journey. Enjoy your steps.”

Andrew Wiggins says the advice he would give his 19-year old rookie self is don't blink, because your life and your career go fast and if you aren't focused on the present you’ll miss it “Soak it all in. Because you’re going to, you’re going to blink twice and you’re going to be on your 12th season.” “Because it goes by really fast. You know? I would just say soak it in, and enjoy your time. Be present.”

Kyrie Irving says Kobe Bryant told him to read ‘The Alchemist’ in order to stop being obsessed with proving people wrong “He knew how curious I was, not just about being great at the game, but about life. That’s why he gave me the book ‘The Alchemist’ and told me to read that… Kobe’s smart… He studied all the greats in every other industry so he could figure out how to be great too…” “It was about really taking the time to get to know who the people are around you. Get to know them as much as you invest in watching the game. I’m an avid student of all the greats in basketball.” “He really put all those other authors in my life so I could help balance what I was into. Since I was 12 or 13 years old, I’ve studied basketball more than 10,000 hours, as they say before you become an expert or master your craft.” “I’ve played more than 10,000 hours. I’ve done all that. When I got to Boston, I was ready for a new challenge, but I didn’t know how it was going to come from within. That’s why he gave me The Alchemist.” “The journey is the reward. Embrace the journey. Don’t think about the end goal so much where you’re fixated on trying to prove people wrong or be at the mountaintop without going through the details that it takes to really appreciate it. That was him.” “His mentorship was like, ‘Yo, stay curious, bro. I know you’re different. You’re not like everybody else out here.’”