Man uh… I love ya’ll, too. Wow…

First, I just – I just want to thank God for loving me and blessing me.

I thank – I thank him for blessing me to be the man that I am and um… have no regrets on being the 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, its 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 when to Georgetown and begged him to give me a chance and he did.

And that’s a – and that’s crazy to think that you’re the best football player in the world which I did – and to be – and to be sitting up here as a Hall of Famer in basketball – you tell me God ain’t good?

Um… after I left Georgetown, I was an alright basketball player I had – 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 MVP, that’s when I became All-Star, that’s when I made First-team all-NBA. Once I got the message from him and I followed his lead all the way – oh man. Dr. J.

Those shoes – some big shoes literally – but I had – I got to Philadelphia and man – those were some big shoes to fill, with a 10 – size 10 foot – and uh… you know he was always supportive of me throughout my career, always gave me words of wisdom, just a great – great man and an old-school dude too.

I remember coming home from school one day and my beautiful mom said ‘you’re going to basketball practice’ – like [asked] ‘why I’m going to basketball practice – basketball’s soft’ – you know what I mean, I play football – I’m a football player – said where you’re going and I – I cried and I screamed and kicked and clawed and had to be dragged to practice.

I got to practice and saw all the guys that played on my football team there, so from that point I played basketball, so I have my mom to thank for that –

My dad, man… this is why… this what you created dad – this is what you made, and I’m so proud of you being that person that I looked up and being a dad to
take care of his kid – showing me the way, showing me about taking care of family and I’m you passed that torch to me, I was gracious to take it and run with it and I appreciate you and I love you, man.

My aunt, the greatest aunt in the world – hands down, I love you so much, you’re a perfect aunt, and my uncle’s Stephen […] – I really look up to you, it means so much to me.