Just a fantastic piece written here. Well done. A lotta folks don’t understand that, when they get to the higher levels of anything, EVERYONE there was a superstar at whatever else they did before.
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I think I’ve said this before on here. When I got to college as a 6’4", 235lb freshman, I was rudely awakened to the fact that hitting home runs in batting practice wasn’t that big of a deal. In fact, all of the lil’ guys could do it with relatively ease. What was worse, every pitcher could throw at least 88 and could locate nearly-every pitch. That just didn’t happen in HS. The complexity of the game changed exponentially from my Sr. spring season to my Frosh summer league.
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I think we may have already established this in the past, but did you play at CMU?
as far as basketball goes, you’re in a far worse situation than them. Not the other way around. You’re 17 years old, you’re not good enough to score 10+ points a game on a high school team, and you don’t even play on a team. Westbrook and Butler are physical freaks. They had the physical tools to overcome their situations. You clearly don’t.
Here’s a suggestion. If you’re as smart as you think you are, get yourself a free ride to a D1 school via National Merit scholarship or something along those lines (that’s how I went to school at a highly regarded private University), and try to walk on. It sounds to me like you’re way more likely to get an academic scholarship than an athletic one. That’s your best bet, since you have no way to be recruited. If you’re good enough, you’ll get on. I knew a guy who did exactly that where I went to school. No athletic scholarship, but he had an academic one. Showed his stuff. Made the team.
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Thanks you so much. Do you know what AAU circuits I should try out for? My main struggle in game (I did play basketball during my freshman year) is pregame nervousness and pressure. Aside from my actual personality issues, thats my other mental barrier. If I can break that I could really have everything off of me.
My mentality is my main block, if I can bring my same confidence that I have in practice in game, I’d definitely be able to double my scoring. I’m actually a skilled player.
This is what I believe I have. Even though I’m not D1 level now, I believe I can get there and walk on based on an academic scholarship; my weighted GPA is 4.4, I can speak Chinese conversationally (I was in Chinatown speaking with senior citizens yesterday) and I am a focused student.
I’d love to play D2 or D3 it’s not that. I just have an obsession with being the best sometimes, but at the same time I know that my resumé isn’t at the level where I can make demands. I don’t have the right to make demands yet because I’m not in demand, and I’m not good enough to complain about shit. I’m just trying to get to that level and the only possible way I can do that is to get better.
I don’t have much to add that hasn’t already been said except to share my D1 athletic experience. I was a decent basketball player with decent athleticism (I could dunk - barely - at 6’00” and super white) and i was lucky enough to play pickup games with some of the players at Valparaiso University in the late 90s. One guy named Ivan was an international player who stayed on campus during the summer and we’d always run into him.
Talk about an eye opener. Playing against a guy who is 6’11” and so skilled completely shattered any notions I had about my skill level relative to a D1 player, let alone a pro. I never thought of myself as a good basketball player after that.
Edit: I guess I don’t have much of a point besides actually experiencing the skill gap others have mentioned firsthand. It is hard to understand if you’ve never measured yourself against it directly. But don’t let this discourage you!
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No, I can’t dunk. But there are players who can that I would bust the ass of. I used to be able to grab the rim with 2 hands. I haven’t lifted heavy in six months. My squat has dropped from 405lbs to about 225lbs. My vertical actually decreased; in the winter I couldn’t sprint. My 40 yard dash is slow. I’m actually very slow, but track runners and the track coach keep saying I should join track for some reason bc I’m fast (I don’t know why). This body refuses to become more athletic.
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The SOPHOMORE coach not the varsity coach said “There’s actually a spot on the team for a guy like you on the varsity team”. I didn’t take it uo because I thought the head coach would feel a different way, it’s all weird. I had a lot of pride and a chip on my shoulder against the head coach too;he told me I would have made the team if I had came to Saturday practice (which is really just a fucking conditioning workout) that I would have made the team. But the thing is that he let football players who didn’t come to one fucking practice on the team. I’m better than both of them too, no bullshit. One of them can barely dribble with their left hand or make an open jump shot. So I took it personally.
I don’t really fit in with some of the teammates either. They think I’m a bitch, and the team captains often sway the coaches opinions.
I take full blame for all of my issues though; if I was D1 talent, or generally better at basketball nothing could stop me. Thats why I say it comes down to buckets. Actual skill. The talent thing is indeed real but there are D1 bound players doing the same things that my own body is literally capable of doing. Thats why I say I can play D1. NBA playing is far off; I will always believe in myself but I know that I won’t be 6’10" and I’m literally incapable of getting past Jimmy Butler or Russell Westbrook. Their athleticism would result in me getting locked down and ripped up or literally getting my shit beat at every scoring attemot
Yep. 2004-2007. I think we have talked about this at some point, haha.
It’s ultimately your call and life, but I would encourage the route that I laid out above rather than attempting to get an academic scholarship to a D1 school and then trying to convince the coach to give you a tryout. Some schools may allow that, but most will not have an open tryout and the coaches will likely be averse to letting a complete unknown into the gym with their highly-prized scholarship athletes, especially when they ask for some tape of you playing in high school and have to admit that you don’t really have any. You have a significantly higher probability of getting yourself onto a college basketball team following the advice that I offered above.
If that’s not enough to convince people where we normal folks stand relative to real live athletes, there’s always this:
If any good at all has come from this thread, hopefully it’s that you have been awakened to the possibility that you have some emotional issues (I am not speaking of a formal diagnosis, as I am not any sort of mental-health professional) that are worth addressing. All of this stuff about your parents not understanding, about being unable to fit in with kids, about the coach being an asshole…at some point, if you always think it’s someone else’s fault, you have to realize that you’re the common denominator in all of these situations.
Fitting in with teammates is part of being a useful player, dude. If I’m a college coach, I have zero interest in a player with a backstory that says his high-school coach is an asshole and he had trouble fitting in with teammates. You have some serious challenges to overcome besides just being 6’1" at the moment. You have to, like, learn to get along with people.
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Yea, and if I hit as well in batting practice, I’d have more home runs than Barry Bonds. That’s kind of the point. If you aren’t near perfect in practice then you won’t be good in a game.
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Have you ever thought about why the guys on the team feel that way about you?
You might indeed be able to play in college, but at this rate, like others have said, you would have to walk on.
Just google AAU teams in your area, reach out to the coaches and see if you can try out or just be an extra body in practices.
Ha ha I remember that challenge. Scalabrine put the ginger smack down on all the trash talkers!
I never played my man Ivan 1 on 1 but I doubt I would have scored even one bucket. Running to half court and heaving up a reverse granny shot might have been my best chance to get the ball in the hoop.
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I remember seeing Shawn Bradley warming up after half time at a Mavs game waaay back in the day. For those who don’t know who he is, he was like 7’2 or something like that. I’m pretty sure he was the tallest in the NBA at the time. And he was without a doubt the most unskilled player in the league. But he got boards and a dunk every now and then, and had a reasonably solid NBA career.
Anyway. I was watching him warming up, and he was the first player on the court. He just started shooting mid range jumpers and 3’s, and was draining every goddamn shot. That was the moment in my life when I realized holy shit. The least skilled player in the NBA, who would never ever take a 3 in a game, can drain 3’s all day in practice. It gave me quite a bit more respect for NBA defenses as well, since the narrative for a long time has been ‘NBA players don’t play defense’. They sure as hell do, offensive play is just on another level.
That’s my basketball story. the end.
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It is my hunch that the #metoo movement is the beginning of the end for Jocks getting their action like they have in the past.
He entered the NBA at 7’-6" 235lbs. Strong defense was a simple case of farting in his general direction to sway him like the sears tower as a cold front moves through chicago on a hot summer day.
Then there was Manute Bol, who beat shawn in the appears-to-be-constructed-from-spaghetti category. 7’-7" and 200lbs. Now I know why he was named minute.
I won’t forget my friend (season ticket holder for the timberpuppies) told me how the elastic cuff on Corey brewers socks wouldn’t tighten around his ankles cause he was so skinny at 6’-9" 185lbs lolol.
Forgive my ignorance, but what’s the point of playing D1 if you have no thought you’ll make it in the NBA?
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Jeeeezuz, dude has a whole foot on me and we’re the same weight … fuuuuuck
Lol, I have the same basic story except with a 6’6" benchwarmer on the Carnegie Mellon basketball team who played 7 minutes per game.
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