Basketball is Supposed To Be Fun (Podcast Episode 41)

Foreign podcast. Appreciate every single one of you guys who's tuned in right now, shout out to everybody who's watching on YouTube. And of course, you guys who are listening on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever else you guys listen to podcasts at. It's funny because the past couple episodes I've gotten comments on my YouTube videos on the YouTube version of the podcast, asking me if I post these episodes on Spotify. And so it's like, literally, I start every single podcast by saying, shout to every listening on Spotify. So, like, I mean, I don't know if people, like, skip the intro or whatever, but it's always funny to me. I'm like, yeah, guys, I literally tell you in the first. In the first sentence or two that it's on Spotify. And if you guys check, I believe I have it linked in the description, too, to Spotify. Maybe wrong on that one, but of course, if you just search it up. Right. That's the other thing, too. We talked about this last week or a couple weeks ago, where it's like, people leave comments and it's like, listen, again, I appreciate everybody's feedback. I always appreciate. And actually, I asked you guys on my Instagram story a couple days ago, as you know, three days ago when you guys are seeing this, just for some podcast topics, and you guys actually left a lot of really, really good topics that I'm definitely gonna get to. So shout out to all you guys who gave me topics to talk about questions for the podcast. Today's episode is very heavily influenced by you guys and your questions for me. So, again, I'm very appreciative of every question that I get. But there's. There are some questions that I do get where it's like, listen, all you got to do to figure this out is, first of all, I don't want to get to, like, the Google thing. There's a lot of questions that, like, people ask me where. I'm like, Google could tell you this much better than I could. Like, I had someone ask me. I forget what it was. Oh, it's like someone asked me, like, what. What the. What the salary is in the G league, like, just ran. I'm like, Google will tell you that way better than I can. I. I can't tell you that. All right, that's one of those things. But also, when it comes to stuff like this, like, okay, so is my podcast is Spotify. Well, if you go, you know, you go check Spotify, right? I think I want to do an episode at some point coming up about, like, being. I don't. I'm trying to figure out how to put this, because I feel like when it comes to stuff like this, like, again, I appreciate questions, but I also want, like, I don't want it to be a thing where you guys feel like you have to rely on me to. To give you everything, to, like, tell you everything. Like, I think that, like, they talk about the saying, right? Teach a man to fish or, no, give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he can eat for a lifetime. Right? Well, I wanted to. To. To be at a point where, like, you guys are able to not just rely on me to. To give you answers to things or to tell you what this is and what that is, but you guys feel like you're. Of course, you guys take input from people, right? But at the same time, you guys are able to kind of decipher and go through things yourself. And then I think. I think that's really where we're going to get to, like, the most progress. I think a big vision for me this year for my stuff is like, I want us to get beyond, like, the kind of surface of basketball training because there's a lot more to it. I know there's a lot more to it, and I think that a lot of players overlook it, and we're so stuck in, like, the, you know, beginner first stage that we don't really progress and move forward. And this is kind of a tangent I'm going on. This has nothing to do with really what I was just talking about with the questions and all that. All I'm saying with that sort of stuff, guys, is like, again, instead of having to wait for me to tell you stuff, listen, like, again, I don't. I don't like you and ask me whatever, but like me personally, I like to know things right away. That's why I hate online shopping. I'd rather just go to the store and buy it because I want it now. Like, I don't have to wait two days for it. Okay? Even Amazon might get it to me the next day. I'd rather just have it right now. So for you guys, too, like, if there's a question, you probably can, like, hey, do you have a video on this? Well, you could figure that out right now if you just go on YouTube and look it up. So I'm just saying, from my perspective, that's what I would do. That's what I. That's how I always approach things. So just a suggestion. But it's just, it's funny that that's a question that I get. It's like every single podcast, I'm like, shout out to Spotify, first sentence every time. Again, appreciate you guys. And I'm kind of, this is, this is kind of me just going on about something that's not a very big deal, but I just think it's funny. So. But today's podcast episode, today's topic is all about, it's about like, we're gonna go to a few different directions with this, but a question that I keep on getting. And I got again, when I put that, that post up the question sticker on my story, it's just people asking about like people talking about how they're burnt out or how like basketball's not fun anymore and like all this stuff. And so I feel like it would be a good topic to cover because I think it's very, very important that, that I go through this, this is a question that I'll answer with guys, DM me all the time about it. I think it's good to get it out there for, because I know, I know the amount of DMs I get about it. It's probably going to be helpful for a lot of you, a lot of you watching, listening right now. So really, I'll kind of give you guys an example. So here's One of the DMs that I got about this said, can you make, can you make a podcast about finding love for the game again? Since quarantine, it's like I'll go outside and get a great workout in 500 shots and then go out, do the first part. And it's basically saying it's hard to be able to finish stuff because, you know, you go out there and it's like, it's hard to stay locked in and motivated and it's hard to enjoy it sometimes because there's a lot of outside factors that can make it less enjoyable, that can make it more difficult. And for sure that's a, that's, that's a, that's for sure a piece of it. And I definitely get that. And you know, my kind of answer is that I think this is multi layered. Like it's not just a simple like kind of quick fix, but I think there's a lot of pieces to it we can talk about. So I think like off the bat, when I get questions like this, it's good to look back and think to yourself, like what, like what's the point of even playing Basketball. Right. Because I got questions too. And we'll go through some more DMs that I've gotten later on. But like, I get question people talking about, like, oh, you know, like, I want to do this, I want to do that, and I want to be this and that with basketball. But it's like ultimately you started playing basketball because it was fun. Like you, you picked up a ball, you watched somebody else pick up a ball and they were playing and then you decided you were going to do the same thing. Really, that's, that's what it comes down to. So I think from that perspective, it's good to recognize that basketball, you didn't start playing basketball because you wanted to be, you know, you want it to be, you know, wanted to average 20 points a game. Right. You didn't start playing basketball because you wanted to play in the NBA. You started playing basketball because it, it was fun and you enjoyed doing it. I think that's a thing that a lot of players fall away from. They lose sight of that. And when you lose sight of that, it becomes much easier to not enjoy the game of basketball because you're not doing it because you actually like it. You're doing it because you want something from it. Right. So point number one, when I get questions like this too, a lot of times it comes back to, you know, the, the definition of what players would consider hard work or working hard or working out or doing all these things or training. I think it's, a lot of times can be counterproductive to actually long term success. The more that I learn, the more that I listen to people who know what they're talking about. The more that I work with players, the more that I recognize that like even a lot of our training should be fun. It should be enjoyable. Obviously the game of basketball is fun. I think that a lot of training should also be fun. Like there's obviously going to be times where you're going to have to go and do reps and you're not, it's not going to be fun. I'm not saying every single aspect of everything you do has to be enjoyable, but I'm saying that if everything that you do when you're training is, it's terrible and you hate it and you're just bored out of your mind and you just, it's like, oh man, I just go out and do 500 shots every day and I, I hate it. By the time I get to shot 50, I'm, I'm already tired of it. And you go do it by yourself every day, you're obviously going to improve. But is that the. The most that you could do when it comes to improvement? I don't think that it is. So I think that's the other aspect to look at. And this is one of the things that we're gonna get to as a kind of a. Kind of a solution for. This is like, you have to look at the way that you're training and understand that it's not just about like, oh, I go out and shoot 500 shots a day. Well, how do we get that to translate, right? How do we make sure that the work you're putting in is the most efficient work you can possibly do? By efficient, I mean, like, the hour that you put in, how can we get the most out of that hour that you do? Because if you do, if you're putting in very, very efficient work, then immediately we can discount the whole, let's work it out for five, six hours a day. Because this is not necessary if you're putting in efficient work. And on top of that, when you put in that efficient work, you know, you don't have to be on the court for that many hours a day to still see really good results, then you're going to be more inclined to give more in that hour, the hour and a half that you're out there training. Because you already know, like, listen, this is going to be the time that, like, yeah, I might not enjoy the entire process of it, but these, these 60, 90 minutes a day, like, I'm getting a lot better from this. Okay. I think that's going to start a lot of times with a lot of training. Should be fun. So that will come down to playing and finding ways to make things competitive. And like I said, we're going to talk about that. But I think one of the biggest things when it comes to, you know, rediscovering why you actually play the game of basketball and actually learning how to enjoy the game of basketball is the way that you actually approach it mentally. I think a lot of players have such a fixed mindset with how basketball is. Like, listen, I'm here right now. I mean, that. That's where I am. I think that you need to have a growth mindset as opposed to that fixed mindset where you can say to yourself, listen, I might be here right now, but I'm moving forward. Like, I'm not stuck right here. This is not what I am. Right. I might be this right now, but I'm not going to be this moving forward. Like I might be something different tomorrow. And that can apply to games as well. So, right, you have a bad game, a player who's, who has a fixed mindset, like that's just. They're stuck there, right? They're, they're stuck with, with that, that bad game, a great game as well. They're stuck with that great game. I think that we need to get to a point where a, a bad game ultimately, but you have to have the realization that a bad game really means nothing and a good game really means nothing. It's all about what you do next. It, that's literally what matters. So if, if you're the same when you have a game, when you go out there and you go over 12 and you hit one free throw, you finish with one point as, and you feel the same about yourself as you do if you go out there and you're 12 for 12 and you hit 10 free throws and you finish with, you know, 39 points. Well, that's ultimately we want to get to because no matter if you have that one point game or that 39 point game, obviously we want to be closer to that high number. Right? But at the end of the day, you're still only as good as your next performance. I get a lot of questions every single day from players who are saying like, hey coach, I want to play in the NBA. I want to do this, I want to do that. And my, my response is usually to those players because a lot of them are younger is okay, well, where are you right now? Right? Everyone's so focused on this long term, like, oh, I gotta, I gotta make the NBA. I gotta be, I gotta be the best player in my class. I gotta be this and that and all that. And that's cool, right? That's, that's fine. Again, I'm not saying don't have long term goals or anything like that. I'm just saying when you place a goal like that out there and you're nowhere near it, then when you don't go out and average 50 a game, it's going to be tough for you to be like, oh wow, like what am I even playing the game basketball for? If you judge the game basketball based on how close am I to making the NBA? Like here's again, we, I've talked about the numbers before. There was 450 players in the NBA and there's 450 million basketball players on the planet, right? So again, you can be. I think it's like the top. Again, my math might be off, right? I Don't know. I know there's a lot of decimals to move around here. It's like 0.000005%. The top point000005% of players on earth play in the NBA, right? So you can be in the, you know, you can be in that top000006% of players, right? But ultimately you're like, you're not going to be the NBA because again, you could. You might be player number 452, and you're not on a roster now. So think about it like that, right? If we're just judging based on, okay, where do we match up, where do we stack up? Then it's going to be hard for you because there's so many players out there. So it can't just be based on, like, okay, how do I compare to other people? Right? It the. The ultimate, like, gauge for how good you are, how successful you are, needs to be. How much better am I than I was yesterday or last week or last year? Like, what improvement have I seen? Because everybody who's watching listening has a different ceiling, right? Everybody has different, you know, natural gifts or abilities. And. And some of you are going to go farther than others will, right? But ultimately you have to judge yourself based on, like, how close am I to. Or have I reached my actual potential? Am I working the way that I should be working? Am I working efficiently? Am I putting in quality work every single day? Am I taking, you know, my sleep habits, my eating habits? Am I taking my stretching, my recovery seriously? Am I reading? Am I watching film? Am I doing those little things? They're going to help me to get ahead, okay? Especially if you're not naturally gifted at something, right? You're not naturally big or naturally athletic. Are you doing all the other things to make sure that you can get any sort of advantage you can get? Okay? And if that's what you're doing, then you should already feel happy with the effort that you're putting in, regardless of whether or not. Again, a lot of times you guys are so focused on the NBA, like, you're not even anywhere close to the how old you need to be to be in the NBA, let alone how good you have to be. So if you can take it step by step and say, okay, listen, this is where I am right now, right now we need to focus on being this right now. I'm not a very good shooter, so what can I do to improve that? I'm not a very good ball handler right now. So what can I do to improve that? And then I know that once I improve myself, like, the cards will fall where they do. Right? If I'm good enough to play at a certain level, then I'll play there. And if I put in that really high quality work every single day for multiple years and I'm not good enough to be there, then I won't be, but I'll know at least that I put that work in. Okay. I think approaching things with less expectations as to where you're going to be in this, that is saying, listen, I'm going to put my head down, I'm going to make sure that I'm working, I'm putting in that quality work every single day. Because a lot of people who aren't doing that who are saying, okay, where am I at? Where am I? Am I better than this guy? Am I better than that guy? Am I better than him? Am I worse than them? Okay, how do I make sure that this coach thinks I'm this and that that coach thinks I'm that? Those players are so focused on what everybody else is doing. They're so focused on what their teammates doing. They're so focused on what that. What that guy's doing. They're so focused on what overtime is posting about that guy. And it really has nothing to do with them. They're so focused on all that that they miss out on those opportunities to actually become as good as they can. Meanwhile, that player who's just tunnel vision focused on what they're doing is gonna be able to reach their full potential.