On my youth teams, I always pretty good. I guess I just really started to play with some of my peers around age 8 or 9. We always battled and had fun playing in the rec leagues.
Of course my goal at Duke was to win the national championship, but we were shorthanded, and lost one of our big guys that was very important to the team. By the end of the season we only played about six guys. But we tried our hardest and did our best and overall had a successful season.
I was shooting over my head. With my long arms, it was like a slingshot. Coming from college to the NBA, I was only about 180 pounds, so I was trying to push the ball to the rim from the 3-point line.
I think when you have the point guard guarding someone full court and just chasing the guy all around, always in the right spot, it just makes you want to get down in a stance and be his backup and have his help whenever he needs it. Or having the same energy that he has.
I think when you have 24 hours in a day to just think about basketball all the time, that's just what I want to do. I want to fall in love with it and just do everything I can to be the best at it.
When you want to play basketball and you get paid for playing basketball, you want to do it every single day. So I don't think I'll get tired of doing it.
I have the same routine every day just to make me a better basketball player, and I'm going to continue the routine just to see where it gets me and how I can reach my potential.
You're always becoming; you've never arrived. And I use that day by day just for me to work hard each and every day, and know that no matter how good I worked out today, no matter how good I thought I was today, I can always get better and always be a better person.
The Duke family, those are my brothers, and it's something I'll always take with me. Coach K, he gives me a lot of motivational things and checks in on me and my family. He knows where my heart is.