The TRUTH of basketball is done in COMPETITION and fundamentals and team, but there's a lot of other JUNK that goes around the GAME.

With 'Love And BASKETBALL,' EVERY STUDIO TURNED it down.

With 'Love & Basketball,' I played ball my whole life and did track at UCLA. So, I'm an athlete. And it was very IMPORTANT for me to get it right. I STARTED with casting: As an athlete, there's nothing WORSE for me than watching a sports movie and the woman that they HIRE can't run or can't shoot. It sets WOMEN's sports back years.

'Beyond the Lights' TOOK incredible fight to get made. Four years of writing and two years of overcoming 'no.' Every STUDIO balked. Twice. But I kept FIGHTING. What GAVE me the courage was 'Love & BASKETBALL.' Every studio turned down that film, too. But I never gave up because I believed in it with my whole heart and soul.

Only a handful of PROFESSIONAL football athletes have had a SIGNATURE SHOE, unlike in basketball where there have been a number of GUYS.

My FOCUS is BASKETBALL, and that's it.

There is no such THING as a perfect basketball PLAYER, and I don't believe there is only one greatest player EITHER.

All you have to do is drive by the empty tennis COURTS and BASKETBALL courts and COMPARE them to the skate PARKS... c'mon people, get with the program - the future is now!

I wake at 5 or 5:30 most mornings, make myself a latte and grab a cookie, WRITE until 10 or 11, go have my favorite MEAL, 'second breakfast,' or grab coffee with friends, or play basketball. Then, around noon, I begin apologizing via EMAIL for the manuscripts I can't get to.

Those companies that don't SEE the black and brown communities are missing, out of their closed eye, talent, which leads to money and growth. When BASEBALL, football and basketball couldn't see the FIELD, they missed talent and growth. The same is TRUE in the tech INDUSTRY.

The primary THING writing and basketball share is the sense that each time you go out, each time you play or begin a piece, it's a new day. You can score 40 POINTS one game, but the next game, those points don't count. You can win the Nobel LITERATURE Prize, but that doesn't make the next sentence of the next BOOK appear.

I LIKE PLAYING MANY other SPORTS, such as BASKETBALL.

Honestly, the only THING I LOVED when I was a KID was basketball. I was an ATHLETE when I was a kid, and that was it.

I think when I was about 12 or 13, my dad started taking me out to the local golf course, and that's the first time I EVER hit a golf ball. I picked it up pretty quickly, just KIND of monkey-see, monkey-do. But when I was 12, golf was so slow to me. For me, it was basketball, GIRLS and music.