Legendary NBA reporter Craig Sager delivered a powerful statement on his battle with leukaemia, at the ESPY Awards.

Presented by USA Vice President Joe Biden, Sager's speech came after he was awarded the Jimmy V Perseverance Award. 

Here is an excerpt from the speech: 

“What is time really? When you are diagnosed with a terminal disease like cancer or leukemia, your perception of time changes.

When doctors tell you that you have three weeks to live, you try to live a lifetime of moments in three weeks. But you say ‘To hell with three weeks.” When doctors tell you that your only hope for survival is 14 straight days of intense chemotherapy, 24 hours a day, you sit there and you count down the 336 hours. You see, each day is a blessing.

Time is something that cannot be bought, it cannot be wagered with God, and it is not an endless supply. Time is simply, how you live your life.

I am not an expert on time, or on cancer, or on life itself. I’m a kid from the small Illinois town of Batavia, who grew up on the Chicago Cubs and made sports his life’s work.

Although there has never been a day where it actually felt like work. I’ve run with the bulls in Pamplona. I’ve raced with Mario Andretti in Indianapolis. I have climbed the Great Wall of China. I have jumped out of aeroplanes over Kansas. I have wrestled gators in Florida. I have sailed the ocean with Ted Turner. I swam with the oceans in the Caribbean. And I have interviewed Gregg Popovich, mid-game, Spurs down seven.

If I have learned anything through all of this, it is that each and every day is a canvas waiting to be painted, an opportunity for love, for fun, for living, for learning.”