Best Pat Riley Quotes

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning.

Don't let other people tell you what you want.

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

If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges.

A particular shot or way of moving the ball can be a player's personal signature, but efficiency of performance is what wins the game for the team.

Being ready isn't enough; you have to be prepared for a promotion or any other significant change.

Coaches who let a championship team back off from becoming a dynasty are cowards.

Management must speak with one voice. When it doesn't management itself becomes a peripheral opponent to the team's mission.

There's always the motivation of wanting to win. Everybody has that. But a champion needs, in his attitude, a motivation above and beyond winning.

Being a part of success is more important than being personally indispensable.

Giving yourself permission to lose guarantees a loss.

From nobody to upstart. From upstart to contender. From contender to winner. From winner to champion. From champion to Dynasty.

You have no choices about how you lose, but you do have a choice about how you come back and prepare to win again.

You have to defeat a great players aura more than his game.

You prove your worth with your actions, not with your mouth.

Shouda, coulda, and woulda won't get it done.

Look for your choices, pick the best one, then go with it.

There's no such thing as coulda, shoulda, or woulda. If you shoulda and coulda, you woulda done it.

People who create 20% of the results will begin believing they deserve 80% of the rewards.

Great effort springs naturally from a great attitude.

There can only be one state of mind as you approach any profound test; total concentration, a spirit of togetherness, and strength.

When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.

When a milestone is conquered, the subtle erosion called entitlement begins its consuming grind. The team regards its greatness as a trait and a right. Half hearted effort becomes habit and saps a champion.

The Ten Commandments were not a suggestion.

When a gifted team dedicates itself to unselfish trust and combines instinct with boldness and effort, its ready to climb.