Top 60 Basketball Leadership Quotes From Players & Coaches

motivational quotes Nov 26, 2024

Inspirational basketball quotes about leadership:

Effective leadership is an essential ingredient to success in basketball.

Starting at the top, leadership is a fundamental trait of a great basketball coach. It's the coach's job to motivate, inspire, and push their team to levels they wouldn't achieve otherwise.

But it's not just the coaches job to lead. Players must step up and lead each other if a team wants to be championship-caliber.

Players who lead echo what their coach preaches and push their teammates to be the best version of themselves.

The best basketball teams each year have strong leadership from their coaches and players.

So what exactly does good leadership look like on the court? How do the great ones inspire, motivate, and guide their teams to success?

In this post, see what some of top figures in basketball - from legendary coaches to iconic players - have to teach us about the qualities and characteristics of a great leader.

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Basketball Leadership Quotes From Coaches

1. "If I'm not leading by example, then I'm not doing the right thing. And I want to always do the right thing." - Pat Summitt

2. “I don’t look at myself as a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball.” - Coach K

3. "Being a good leader is feeling what's needed to be said." - Tom Izzo

4. “I think that in any group activity—whether it be business, sports or family—there has to be leadership or it won’t be successful.” - Coach John Wooden

5. "I think we all are coaches in our own respect because we have to try to figure out a way to help make people better than we really are, and that's what leaders do." - Coach Tom Izzo

6. "Good players want to be coached. Great players want to be told the truth." - Doc Rivers

7. "We're past the days of Vince Lombardi, where you say jump and I ask: 'How high?' But you still have to find a way to get your guys to jump, get them to trust you." Tom Izzo

8. "We can all be leaders." - Tom Izzo

9. "I am not going to coach you to who you are. I am going to coach you to who you should be someday." - Doc Rivers

10. "The price of leadership is strange." - Tom Izzo

11. "I'm a hardass, but we wouldn't have had all the accomplishments we have as a basketball program if that's all I was. Players would have stopped listening to me, and I would have been run out of coaching if that's all I was. So I think we win because I am, because I demand sometimes more than they can give. But I don't know what that is until I find out you can't give it." - Geno Auriemma

12. “A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” - John Wooden

13. “I talked to the players and tried to make them aware of what was good and bad, but I didn’t try to run their lives.” - John Wooden

14. "Really good leaders help others become better than they are." - Tom Izzo

15. "If you don't want responsibility, don't sit in the big chair. To be successful, you must accept full responsibility." - Pat Summitt

16. “In leadership, there are no words more important than trust. In any organization, trust must be developed among every member of the team if success is going to be achieved.” - Coach K

17. “Silence is a form of communication, too. Sometimes less is more.” - Pat Summitt

18. “Too many rules get in the way of leadership. They just put you in a box... People set rules to keep from making decisions.” - Coach K

19. "The most important thing in coaching is communication. It's not what you say as much as what they absorb." - Red Auerbach

20. “Every leader needs to remember that a healthy respect for authority takes time to develop. It’s like building trust. You don’t instantly have trust, it has to be earned.” - Mike Krzyzewski

21. "Only praise behavior that you want to be repeated. Never use false praise." - Coach Dean Smith

22. "A big part of teaching is being emphatic. Maybe I'm right or wrong, but part of my approach was that when I said something, the kids understood exactly what I meant and what I wanted." - Bob Knight

23. "The most important thing in good leadership is truly caring." - Dean Smith

24. "I wasn’t as critical during games as I was at practice. Players needed confidence during games more than criticism." - Dean Smith

25. "To have long term success as a coach or in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way." - Pat Riley

26. “During critical periods, a leader is not allowed to feel sorry for himself, to be down, to be angry, or to be weak. Leaders must beat back these emotions.” - Coach K

27. "I always mean what I say, but I don't always say what I'm thinking." - Dean Smith

28. “Leaders have to give time for relationships. But more demands will be placed on their time as they become more successful. So if a person’s success is based on developing relationships, then they have to continually find new ways of getting it done.” - Coach K

29. "Over-coaching is the worst thing you can do to a player." Dean Smith

30. "That's what I do now: I lead and I teach. If we win basketball games from doing that, then that's great, but I lead and teach. Those are the two things I concentrate on." - Coach K

31. “When a leader takes responsibility for his own actions and mistakes, he not only sets a good example, he shows a healthy respect for people on his team.” - Mike Krzyzewski

32. “A leader may be the most knowledgeable person in the world, but if the players on his team cannot translate that knowledge into action, it means nothing.” - Coach K

33. "Courage gives a leader the ability to stand straight and not sway no matter which way the wind blows." - Mike Krzyzewski

34. "As a leader your job is to do everything in your power to create the perfect conditions for success by benching your ego and inspiring your team to play the game the right way. But at some point, you need to let go and turn yourself over to the basketball gods. The soul of success is surrendering to what is." - Phil Jackson

35. "Leadership is not about forcing your will on others. It’s about mastering the art of letting go." - Phil Jackson

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Leadership Quotes From Basketball Players

36. "A lot of leaders fail because they don’t have the bravery to touch that nerve or strike that chord." - Kobe Bryant

37. "I would tell players to relax and never think about what's at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you've lost your focus." - Michael Jordan

38. "It’s something I’ve embraced, and it’s a powerful tool, like you saw. The things I can say about my teammates and truly believe and instill that confidence in them, that’s one of the coolest things as a point guard, as a leader, as a friend, as a teammate. That’s how much better you can make people by just believing in them and telling that to them, to their face." - Caitlin Clark

39. "I’m here to be a leader and show younger people the way." - Damian Lillard

40. "The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great at whatever they want to do." - Kobe Bryant

41. "Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got." - Larry Bird

42. "You don't always have to be a leader and be as vocal as I am. I'm sure some people would love it if I didn't talk as much as I did." - Chris Paul

43. "No matter what, people are going to like you or not like you. So be authentic, and let them like you or not for who you actually are." - Kobe Bryant

44. "Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got." - Larry Bird

45. “Use your success, wealth, and influence to put them in the best position to realize their own dreams and find their true purpose.” - Kobe Bryant

46. "Leadership is something I was born with." - Carmelo Anthony

47. “The beauty of coaching is growing the players from the ground up. That journey continues.” - Kobe Bryant

48. "To have harmony on a team, you need a coach who can get inside the head of every player and get them all pulling in one direction." - Jerry West

49. "Well, the first quality of being a good leader is you have to be able to follow. See, a good leader can't just be the leader all the time, I have to be able to follow." - Lisa Leslie

50. "I've always been a leader my whole life. I've always led. I didn't know how to do anything else." - Magic Johnson

51. "If you can't see someone's got a game with great personality, you shouldn't be out there looking." - Jerry West

52. "There’s a big misconception where people thinking winning or success comes from everybody putting their arms around each other and singing kumbaya and patting them on the back when they mess up, and that’s just not reality. If you are going to be a leader, you are not going to please everybody. You have to hold people accountable. Even if you have that moment of being uncomfortable." - Kobe Bryant

53. "I knew that to be successful, I had to be more than a scorer. I had to become a leader. It's not about scoring. It's about doing what my team needs me to do." - Jimmy Butler

54. "I try to hire people I don't have to motivate. But I do motivate the people working with and for me." - Magic Johnson

55. "Good coaches, however, teach you how to think and arm you with the fundamental tools necessary to execute properly." - Kobe Bryant

56. "One thing that somebody told me is that leadership is a lonely role - some people can do it, and some people can't." - Kyrie Irving

57. "Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them.” - Kobe Bryant

58. "Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It's being able to take it as well as dish it out. That's the only way you're going to get respect from the players." - Larry Bird

59. "That's a strong sign of a good coach, to let an assistant participate. It shows his confidence in the coach's ability not to have to dominate everything." - Jerry West

60. "Leadership is lonely." - Kobe Bryant

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