There's a lot to be learned by watching. I think the younger generation could fare a lot better in their game if they could sit down and watch some of the games of the past.
My favorite player growing up was Julius Erving, because I loved the way he played above the rim, all of the tricks with the ball, big hands, and just phenomenal showmanship.
Jeff Kwatinetz and Ice Cube and Amy Trask - all those people are real visionaries, and the league that they started has been phenomenal. And my job as commissioner now is to kind of help continue to build, improve the fan and the player experience.
Because coaching is a challenge, it makes you want to come back. But if you do, you know you're going to be negligent in other areas.
We had some great years in Portland. We went to the finals twice. We won 63 games one year. You can't tell me those weren't championship teams.
That's the part of basketball that we have to understand. You can never look at it as an individual sport. You rely on so many other people.
Guy Lewis was all about efficiency. He was a great motivator. He got real talent and taught his players how he wanted them to play: hard and aggressive!
Some of the guys in the Eastern Conference, I had never been on their teams - like Larry Bird: even though you make the All Star team, you're going to be in the West; he's on the East. So you're never going to be teammates.
If I had a great game, and I was hot, usually we were up by 20-30 going into the fourth quarter. That means I don't get to play in the fourth quarter.
The key ingredient is talent - you've got to have talent. If you look at the regular season, they've got the best record in the entire league, so they've got the talent.
You have to understand, the Blazers and their fans had a unique relationship. I'm not sure there has ever been a love affair between an NBA team and its fan base like we had... We had good players and good citizens.
As commissioner, you have to have a great relationship with your players but also to the upper executives: you gotta make sure their mandates are all on target and in line.
This should be a written rule: Guards should always defer to centers. I don't care how good you are, those big guys make the game so much easier for every other person on that team, and without them, everyone else needs to work twice as hard.
I never stopped trying to improve - after 15 years of playing, I was still trying to think of something I could do better throughout the course of the year.