How to Get my Parents to Understand Me

I forget which, but some NBA players have even said they don’t think those drills really even do much. For the same reason you mentioned, you only dribble one ball during games. I used to do them myself, i think they’re a good warm up but they shouldn’t be the focus of your training, after a certain point it just becomes a party trick.

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exactly

Are you saying all that practice spinning a ball on my finger doesn’t translate to ppg??

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You are overly competitive and under-challenged.

Those people are playing for fun.

So, Take this for what ever you think its worth- You seem to take yourself way too seriously for someone with no remarkable skill, and are completely un-calibrated in the spectrum between “just having fun” and “playing for keeps”.

Good luck with that.

Things that are 100.000% absolutely not going to happen:
-Playing in the NBA
-Playing Division 1

Things that ideally may happen
-Getting a solid education
-Getting a good job that you want based on that education
-Playing some kind of club league or Division 3 if everything goes right.

I would adjust your goals accordingly. Basketball in college could be fun if it works out right, but really won’t matter after you graduate. Don’t lose sight of what’s going to affect your life from ~5 years to 45 years on.

It’s funny, I used to be similar to this. My senior year of HS I was so overly critical of myself to the point I damn near dreaded our next baseball game. There was one game in particular, against a rival school and the HS I went to my freshman year, where I made 3 errors (playing second). After the game, everyone else went inside and I went to “the hill” and made myself run up and down it until I was dry heaving. It didn’t matter that I went 3/4 in the game. It didn’t matter that I had one of the top five batting averages in the conference. It mattered that I made those mistakes. It’s all I thought about.

Luckily, a few people got through my thick skull and my season wasn’t completely ruined and, more importantly, I didn’t lose the love I have always had for the game. I was even able to have fun playing again.

The full impact, and the multifaceted reasons why I had acted so dumb, didn’t really hit me for a few years afterward. It was a good leason to learn, though.

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Thats gold right there.

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So true!

If I could have known I wouldn’t be able to continue playing baseball after 6 months of college, I absolutely would have gone to a different school and pursued academics.

I started at a Community College at 15, but didn’t get my GED so I could continue playing sports in HS. If I didn’t play sports, I would have taken more classes to fill my time and then gone to a top university and pursued law school. Instead, I fumbled after losing baseball and was unsure of what to do with my life. I still graduated with a bachelors at 22, but there was 2 years of wasted time.

All that to say, if you have a 100% chance of not playing professionally, choose academics and find a way to still enjoy the game without sacrificing.

I have a great job, wife, house, etc., but I have had to put other dreams to rest because of waisting time, ie. I’ll never go to law school now or become a corporate lawyer.

YOU WILL NEVER PLAY IN THE NBA, so start thinking hard about your future. Stop blaming your parents, coach, etc for your shortcomings in basketball, and open your eyes to the fact that it’s not in the cards for you. If you don’t have recruiters knocking down your door already, then it’s not going to happen. If you had a shred of talent to contribute to your high school team, the coach would’ve done everything in his power to have kept you on the squad. You say you’ve only been playing for a few years?! My 10yr old daughter has more experience than you. GET A GRIP ON REALITY before you let your blinders lead you into a hole you can’t get out of.

Apparently, you’re doing well in Mandarin. Use that to your advantage. Get a degree in international business, minor in Mandarin, study abroad for a semester or more, then make ridiculous cash as a consultant between US/Chinese businesses. Your basketball dream will take you nowhere. Use your existing skill set, expand on it, then leverage that into a successful career.

I was on the freshman team as a freshman, but got cut sophomore and this year. I was definitely good enough to play this year, the players and coaches said so but made a big deal out of the fact that I didn’t come to practice.

What do you advise then if my stuff is a circus act?

How much could I make?

It’s really not the only thing I do. It’s bthe
only thing I’ve showed you.

Just to be clear: this is a reference to not coming to practice on Saturdays for religious reasons, correct? Not some other incident?

If you skipped practice for any other reason than your religion, then I have zero sympathy, but you don’t strike me as that type.

If it is the religion issue, let’s try to explain something: the only players who are so good that their college or professional team will tolerate them not playing on a specific day (regardless of the reason) are players that are so good it’s worth the trade. College basketball games happen on Saturday. So do NBA games.

Why do you keep making it seem like I dont want to play high level. I most definitely do.

As I mentioned earlier, I played D1 hockey. In high school I was not one of the few guys on my teams who could do stuff like this:

There were guys who could do stuff like that in practice and would even score some nice goals in games. They genuinely had better hands than I do. But more often than not, at game speed, against a physical opponent they would get caught looking down at the puck, trying to be too cute and would get clocked with a big hit or easily neutralized. They were skilled. Even alone on the ice with no pressure I can’t do some of the things that they could do with a puck and stick.

But I was faster, better conditioned, extremely coachable and played within the team’s system. I made very good reads and I almost always recognized what the safe play was. I also knew when there was room to take a risk and when the safe play was necessary. I was willing to go into the high traffic areas and pay a price. I was willing to grind in the corners to win puck battles. The guys who ran all the sick stickhandling drills were always on the periphery looking for an opportunity to create a highlight. I was making reads to intercept a pass and creating my own chances.

Ultimately I made it and they did not, because I was simply more athletic (stronger, faster, shot harder, better agility) and a better student of the game. My anticipation and understanding of different schemes on the ice allowed me to use my athletic gifts to be where the play was going. The only way that I attained that was by playing for as many teams as I could get on for a very long time. And being coachable. I realized early on that I wasn’t going to be a star standout high skill player. So I let my coaches use the tools I had to deploy me in situations that I would thrive in which a lot of young players aren’t interested in. I played a high energy physical game, blocked shots, killed penalties and made reliable plays. By the time I was a junior/senior I had worked my way from being a role player to one of the top scorers in my division. I never scored fancy goals. I just knew how to play. When I started in college I knew I was going right back to the 4th line and would have to grind it out as a role player again. I just wasn’t the high skill marquee player. Being a top scorer in high school didn’t mean anything at D1. All four years I played mostly on the third and fourth lines, heavy PK usage, very little power play time. But I was still valuable because I understood my game and did everything the coaches asked.

All the drills and practice in the world isn’t going to help you. It isn’t what you need. If you don’t play for a team you won’t play, period. You have to learn to play within a system, discard your ego completely and relish whatever assignment you are given. That’s the only chance you have of even playing D3 ball.

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depends on whether or not you learn to get along with people. If you don’t, very little. If you do, getting the right gig can definitely net you a 6 figure salary.

I don’t know about “keep making it seem”.

Stated another way. This is the difference between someone who plays rec league on the weekends and someone who seriously endeavors to play at a higher level.

I advise you to get better at things that will help you. Like I actually stated in my post where you quoted me. You know, where I said to make up ground, shoot quick and at a higher release point?

This is the kind of stuff that I meant to talk about in my post above. The guys who spent all their time with the “circus act” stick handling drills wanted to look slick but all the time that they put into looking skilled didn’t translate into points when it was game time. For every hour they spend working on dipsy-doodle moves that look great but rarely work against an experienced, physical defender, I would spend an hour just shooting and then another hour in the gym. I eventually scored more points than them because I knew how to get open or find seams in defensive systems, I hustled harder because I had the conditioning and explosiveness and I had a release on my shot that was very quick and accurate. I scored goals from every single angle feasible in the offensive zone because my shot was extremely plus. When I went to college I became a role player again. The guys on the top lines were the rare freak athletes who were conditioned, had incredible shots and the great hands the kids back in high school were working on. They also just had innate spatial awareness and 360 degree vision that really cannot be taught.

Good point: OP Read straight to hell. Then get yourself a finance degree with minor in Chinese and move to Hong Kong. Secondary benefit is that you’ll be tall and can dominate the basketball scene.

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