The ultimate sports figure. The ultimate competitor. Great person. I consider him my friend. I wouldn't be that good if I was Michael Jordan.
Toni Kukoc
Everyone has an ego. Even someone that doesn't play one minute has an ego.
It is nice to start a game and feel the game from the beginning, but I have to pick up the pace when I come off the bench.
Michael will always, to me, be the best player ever. He changed the game. He made it global. Every player today should tip their hat to him.
My thought is the only way I will have progress is in the NBA.
I would watch San Antonio play and see plays I recognized from the Russian team, the Yugoslavian team.
War is not game. If you lose, you can be mad or sad two or three days. War makes you sad every day, every minute.
I don't want to say which guard it was with the Bulls, but I would take the ball and he would come to me and say, 'You are taking my bread.' I didn't know the slang.
I always thought about the NBA.
I have an easy way to explain the war. It's a Croatian defending his country and a Serb attacking a Croatian country. With anyone who has a problem with understanding what's going on, that is the easiest way to understand it.
Maybe two or three years will be enough for me to grow into a good NBA player.
I have to go to the NBA and try.
A lot has to be the NBA. I don't know if I can say it is the egos of the players or the money that goes around and everything. But those relationships between the coaches and the players are just not the same. They are not even close to the European coach-player relationships.
It was always a dream to come to the NBA.
Everybody knows the NBA is the top of basketball in the world. The game here is more hard, more physical, faster than in Europe.
When my game is going well, everything gets much easier, offensively and defensively.
I've always said that besides the NBA, the Yugoslavian league and a Russian league were the best basketball leagues in the world.
I try to help people looking for food and money and clothes. I have done some radio transmissions here in Italy to tell people the truth about Croatia.
Scottie was just a different character than Michael. He was more the soft side. Every once in a while he would explode, but he would help me. Michael on the other end was almost always aggressive.
There's a lot of things in my life that are more important I have to think about than what someone puts in the newspaper, or says on TV.
You never know when people with sick minds can destroy your life. It doesn't matter how well life is going on for you that moment. If that can't happen in the middle of New York City, it can happen anywhere else. If the terrorists can hit the Pentagon or the White House I don't see where it's safe.
My generation, with Vlade Divac, Drazen Petrovic, Arvydas Sabonis, that was the first wave of European players that kind of opened the door for the world.
In Italy, my wife and I always said we feel like strangers because there's maybe only a couple other people from other parts of the world. Here in Chicago, there's millions of people from Poland, thousands from Japan, hundreds from Croatia. We like it here.
Money-wise, I was probably the best player in Europe. It was safe where I was in Italy. But I wanted to play in the NBA to see if I could.
I'm a sportsman, not a political man.
I think it's very important for every player after a long season, whether it's good or bad, to get total rest. Not just physically and mentally from basketball and the pressure on the court, but the pressures outside, too. Then, when you come back, everything's exciting again.
Maybe NBA teams won't want me and maybe I'll play in Europe the last one or two seasons.
Sometimes in my mind I have a picture of something happening, and because the foot is not right it is harder to happen. I see the ball and I can see myself intercepting it or rebounding or doing this stuff, and it's just not there. There's not the movement or explosiveness.
I had to change my game completely. I was what Scottie was. What he was doing here I was doing in Europe.
I was one of the main guys on my team and you always want to check people that you're bringing in. Are they tough enough physically and mentally? Can they respond when you need them to respond?
There were games I would score five and games I would score 30, and sometimes the five points were way more important than the 30.
Chicago is one of the greatest places when it comes to sports. It kind of reminds me of my hometown in Split. It doesn't matter how bad the soccer team is, everybody worships the soccer, the players and the games.
I kind of expect that the people wouldn't know me. I know I'm tall and I cannot escape that.
I shot millions and millions of shots, just wanted the ball and felt good every time I released the ball, especially in those last seconds of big games.
I always felt comfortable looking at the court.
It's a saying if coach likes and sees good stuff in you and wants you to play he'll pick on you, he'll make you work and do things right. Once he stops talking to you, you know you're done.
I thought those three years when we won championships, I really was good enough to play in the All-Star game. I felt I deserved to be in the top whatever that would be, the top 20-some players in the league. Really felt that comfortable and confident on the basketball court.
I know Steve Kerr well and his basketball IQ is really high. He knows everything about basketball.
It feels great to have the chance to play with the Chicago Bulls.
I try to imagine what it will be like to play for the Bulls. I don't think I will be able to feel it before I step on the court at Chicago Stadium.
I worry for the future of the world. For my children.
My uncle was almost hit by a sniper while dropping his son at basketball practice.
I actually played a lot of other sports - table tennis and soccer for a long time.
It was almost an accident that I got into basketball at all but fortunately it wasn't too late and I was able to be a part of a great generation for the sport.
When I first started playing, we practiced nine hours a day. Five and a half to six hours of those were working on the fundamentals.
Obviously the game is more enjoyable when the ball is shared and everybody looks for each other on both ends of the floor.
I am not a prima donna. It's just that I feel cold on the bench.
Only Vlade Divac go first year he play. The rest of the guys from Europe sit on the bench.
I am a basketball player. For me to sit on the bench at 21, 22, not what I wanted.
I don't think the people in Chicago really knew exactly who I was in the seven years I was there.
