Athlete

I would really want to teach someone how to function without having to have plays called for you.

No, I don't want to coach. I don't want to coach.

I learned how important it is to have a home that's in order - that's peaceful.

I'm always going to be around the game of basketball. I plan to keep my options open as a player moving forward, but that's not coaching. Maybe front office work, working with teams and spreading the game, maybe teaching the game to young people, that's something that's a very big passion.

I had friends around campus and great teammates. I didn't want to leave. I didn't expect to be regarded and scouted as such a high pick, so it was a crazy twist to reality. I'd always wanted to make the NBA. It was my dream. Then all of a sudden, people were telling me I'd be the fourth pick if I entered the draft.

I'm more mature, my game is more mature, and I can do a bunch of things on and off the court to fully maximize this team's potential.

Don't get me wrong - it's amazing playing basketball. But being 19 years old, playing and interacting with grown men with families wasn't fun all the time, especially during a grueling 82-game season. That, mixed with Toronto's freezing winter climate, made me miss my buddies back at Tech even more.

I felt like I was chosen to play basketball when I was younger.

At the end of the day, I looked at my options. I wanted to be in the NBA. I wanted to pursue my dream. It was my choice. But sometimes, just for fun, I think about how it would've been if I'd stayed in college.

You go from being with the guys all the time in the locker room, in practice, having a militarized brain in terms of this schedule, and then, all of a sudden, you are on your own. You lose a sense of purpose; you lose a sense of yourself. And you lose confidence. You find yourself saying, 'I was the best at this, and now I'm not the best.'

The media attention - the negative, in particular - it makes you a different person.

The way I look at it, competing at a high level, whether that's business, art or film, athletics, anything you do, there's a certain way to go about it.

My favorite was always smothered pork chops. Smothered pork chops. That would be my request if I ever had one, and it was pretty consistent.

The post area I had to unlearn. And yeah, now it's a relearning process. It's different. It's learning what works and what doesn't work.

I don't jump as high and I'm not as fast as Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. I don't have many highlight plays, but I can play this game.

Your favorite coach is the one who constantly yells at you.

Once I close the doors, it's closed. I don't open it back up. That's kind of me as a human being. That's just one of the things about me... But yeah, for me, I don't close anything until I'm officially done.

The game has gotten a lot faster. I was anticipating changes as far back as when I first came into the league, when the spacing was changing, and big guys were playing in different spaces on the floor. But when that change actually happens, and it happens so quickly, it's just amazing.

Micky Arison is a fantastic owner and a great leader, and we've always had a special relationship.