Basketball was my thing I was always able to use to forget everything.
— Jahlil Okafor
There are guys like Chance the Rapper; I'm a big fan of his.
I've been working on all my aspects of my game.
My dad is the opposite of me. He's so outgoing and so loud.
I love LeBron, but Kobe was the first player I actually considered my favorite.
I think, yeah, Chicago is the best basketball city in America.
I have a lot of eyes on me because of basketball, a lot of young people looking up to me. It's made me grow up faster.
My defense is a criticism, but we won a national championship at Duke, so it wasn't that bad.
I do three different workouts a day. In total, it's about six or seven hours.
I think from losing my mother, I appreciate having good people around me.
I just want to go to the right environment for me and the right team.
I like playing in the post, so a system that plays to my strengths is important.
I'd like to win Rookie of the Year.
Rankings, for most players, are like adversity because we all want to be the best. So you've just got to approach it like you would a tough situation on the court. You just have to respond.
There's a lot of pride I have coming from Chicago because so many great players have done so many great things in the league. I definitely want to keep that tradition going. So yeah, I want to represent Chicago in the best light possible.
My main focus, my pride is right there on the block. That's where I've always played and my focus has always been.
I'm a winner. I've always been a winner.
I remember my first camps when I was in high school, freshman year. I did a LeBron James camp, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
Of course, in college, you're traveling, especially when you're with Duke basketball, but in the NBA, it's on a whole entire level.
I always knew I wanted to be in the NBA and play myself in a video game. That was my goal when I was a kid.
That's always been my interest - things of the unknown.
I've always been a Kobe fan; he's one of my favorite players.
I've done this a couple times, been to a couple different camps and a couple different AAU practices to talk to kids. I tell them you have to be dedicated, have to decide if you want to be a serious basketball player or not. They always ask, 'What if you get discouraged?' You have to remember what your goal was in the first place.
Being an NBA player, a lot of stress comes with that: realizing there's a lot of pressure on me and accepting that for what it is, realizing that I might need help, I might need somebody to talk to, accepting that there's nothing wrong with that.
I don't want to say why I should be picked over somebody. I just want to say why I should be picked for any team.
He's been the greatest father for me. Going around the streets of Chicago with my dad, people always tell me they can't believe how much my dad has matured. Or, 'You wouldn't believe how your dad used to be.' There's always lots of words about how much he's changed.
There's three banners I want to hang - ACC regular championship, ACC tournament championship, and, of course, the national championship.
I definitely want to play for a school that throws the ball in the post.
I became a better talker on the floor, being at Duke, being in leadership with Coach K, and I think I got better defensively as the season progressed.
I never take a day off.
I set really high expectations.
I'm definitely not the caliber player that LeBron is, but I find it funny how people can criticize him and the way he plays the game. So it's pretty easy to criticize me if they are still able to criticize LeBron.
I've always been a basketball player. My earliest memories are of playing basketball. I was born playing it. It's why I'm so comfortable on the floor.
Ever since third grade - I never even noticed it until after the game - people were telling me how crazy my dad is. I think I'm so locked in when I'm playing on the floor, I only hear him maybe during timeouts or when we're up 20 or 30 and I'm on the bench. But when I'm in the game, I don't hear him.
Being from Chicago, an inner-city kid, I'm fortunate enough now to be able to help the kids here when I come back, when I'm in town.
I was a big sweet-tea guy.
My goal is to be the best. That's my thing I want to achieve - the best that I can be - and hopefully, that's the best player in the NBA.
I think, when I was younger, I might have scored on the wrong basket. That wasn't too smart.
One time, I palmed some medicine balls, just because people wanted to see if I could do it.
You see a lot of guys in the NBA make dumb mistakes.
Coach K was fine with the way I played defense.
I just want to win.
I try to make really close bonds with people.
I've talked to a bunch of big men who told me they didn't really start playing basketball until seventh or eighth grade. That wasn't the situation with me.
I want good players around me because it's all about winning.
I'm definitely used to being the centerpiece of a team.
I never had to worry about putting a target on somebody else's back. Usually, the target was on my back.
I just think that playing in a championship game and playing in every game in March Madness, that's just more time for critics to watch you and more time for them to nitpick at what you don't do well or what they feel you don't do well.
When I pictured myself in the NBA, I always imagined myself with an older guy taking me under his wing.
I have videos of me playing basketball in diapers.
