Man, I love ya'll, too, well. First, I just. . . I just want to thank. . . thank God for loving me and blessing me.
I thank him for blessing me to be the man that I am. And I have no regrets.
I'm being a guy that I am, and the person that my family love and my friends love, my teammates love, my fans love. I want to thank Mr. Colangelo, and the Hall of Fame, for honoring me in such a great way, it's truly a blessing and I'm humbled by it.
I want to thank Coach Thompson. . . Coach Thompson, for saving my life, for giving me the opportunity. I was recruited by every school in the country for football and basketball.
And an incident happened in high school and all that was taken away. No other teams, no other schools were recruiting me anymore.
My mom went to the Georgetown and begged him to give me a chance, and he did. And that's crazy to think that you're the best football player in the world, which I did,
and to be sitting up here as a Hall of Famer in basketball, you tell me God ain't good. After I left Georgetown, I was an basketball player; I had talent.
But once I started to listen to Larry Brown, and take. . . and take constructive criticism, I learned that how much of a great, great, great coach that he is.
Once I. . . Once I started to listen to him the way I was supposed to and was coached by him, that's when I became an MVP, that's when I became an All-Star, that's when I made 1st Team All-NBA -- once I got the message from him.
And I followed his lead all the way. Man, Dr. J. . . . those shoes, some big shoes -- literally.
