How Quarantine Will Affect Recruiting for Basketball Players

Obviously, you know, basketball is completely different with how there's no NBA and no, I mean, high school season got canceled, college tournament got canceled, all these things happened. And, you know, we don't know when it's going to start back up again. Okay. We don't know when we're going to get to see LeBron win another title, you know, so that, that of course, is just major right now. And. And that kind of leads into the next point, which. That completely messes with recruiting right now, especially for class of 2021. So these upcoming seniors, you know, these guys are going to lose probably the whole AAU season. Maybe something will happen and they'll get the summer, but I mean, it's not looking great right now. So just with everything that's happening, this is unprecedented because right now, you know, we're in May or no. Yeah, we're in May right now, which is crazy because last month was April, so that's usually a big live period. And I believe that they actually spread out the live period. So I think when I had another one in May, so maybe this, actually, maybe it would be this weekend. But it's crazy to see that now. And then we talk about moving forward. Usually there's another big live period in the summer, in July, we might not have that live period. Okay. So it's definitely changing the way that we have to go about viewing recruiting for that class. And Potentially even for 2022, we don't know what's going to happen going forward. So. And the reason I say that is because the way that recruiting is being done right now, I think there's a trend moving forwards towards this. And Coleman, the guys at Bayernes basketball were talking about this too, and I completely agree with it. But recruiting is so online right now because again, coaches can't go anywhere. Coaches like they, like the NCAA is, is not allowing them to go recruiting like. Like they can't even go if they wanted to. So all the recruiting they can do is watching film and communicating with players on the phone or on email. Like, that's all they can do. So that means 100% of your basketball recruiting right now is based on that. So that goes to. It's all about having film. So the guys who have film right now are the guys who are going to be doing the best in recruiting. Because right now coaches can't come see you play. All that they can do is see what you've done so far. Okay? So it's very important. So moving forward, guys, when we start to be able to Play again, you've got to have film, okay? If you're in high school, okay? If you're in middle school, you need to have film. If you're in high school, you absolutely need to have film. And the reason that that's so important is because situations like this. Now, obviously, I'm not saying this is going to happen. Like, I'm not saying that you could have predicted this, but what I'm saying is that basketball in general is moving towards that, where all of a sudden coaches are saying, okay, well, we're recruiting online. If this all of a sudden, like, we've already seen a trend towards this where you. Could you reach out to a coach, Coach sees your film on huddle or on YouTube, then coach comes to see you play, all of a sudden that becomes so much more important. That becomes so much, so much bigger a factor. Because coaches right now, whereas they might go to a tournament and they might find a random kid in 2021 that they've never seen before, and they might say, oh, wow, I want to recruit that kid. Now, that's not going to happen. Now, the only way that they're going to get that kid is if they see his film. Somebody sends them his film. Either he sends it, his coach sends it. Whoever, someone's got to send that kid's film, or else that coach has no idea that that player exists or if he's going to play. And I think the basketball is going to move towards that permanently. Now, obviously, coders are still going to go to tournaments, still going to see you guys play. But I think the importance, the value of film, that in itself is never going to go away, and it's only going to continue to grow with what's happening right now, we're going to become more comfortable with film. Coders are going to see. Some coders are going to go through this whole recruiting for 2021, and they're going to like the outcome of it. They're going to say, okay, I think we got a good class this year, so maybe I'll focus a little bit more on this. I think that's the players need to understand. So if you're a younger guy and moving forward, make sure you get film. If you're in high school, get film. Get AAU film. Now it's a little bit different. You're going to want to get varsity film. So if you're not playing varsity yet, then you're going to want to have AAU film, okay? And I would say that's very important. If you're I would say as a sophomore moving forward, then you probably want to have film again just so you have something to say. Okay, you can say, hey coach, you know I'm interested in your program. This is, I'm this tall. This is my stats this year. Here's my, here's some film. Now the coach can watch you and he can either say, okay, this kid might have a chance to play here, or you can say, okay, this is not good enough. If he doesn't have your film, then he has no idea and he's going to err on the side of, well, I don't know. So, I mean, again, these coaches, like their livelihood is based on who they bring in. They, they're, they're, they feed their families based on how 18 to 22 year old kids play. So, so it's very important that they know what they're getting with the players. So film is just increasingly important as we continue to move on. So that's something you guys got to continue to think about. And with the whole recruiting thing, I had heard John Kyle Perry, he was talking about how he actually doesn't like the summer recruiting. He doesn't like how it's such a big thing in July to go out to these big tournaments. He said that he wants it to be contained within the school year. So they had the summers off. So basically they have their live periods in April or May, whenever. Then the June, July, maybe even August is dead. Okay. Or at least June and July is dead. So you don't have any sort of recruiting at the D1, D2 level. And then you get back to school, starting up in August, September, and maybe you have another live period after that. And it's funny because it's possible that we get towards something like that where we all of a sudden have some recruiting in the spring and now all of a sudden school's out in the summer. All these school presidents and these coaches, like, well, you know what? We just did this last year and everything turned out well. We didn't recruit at all in the summer. Why are we still doing that? Okay. And a guy like Calipari is a proponent of that. And something that people have been talking about is potentially having a live period in September this year. So usually by the time you get to September, it's a, it's dead. So coaches aren't really going. I mean, there's no tournaments really at September. So that was what people were talking about is potentially, because there's not going to be any aau, most likely in the Summer, do they have a live period in September to where these coaches can go watch these AAU teams play? And so that way they were not completely going to miss out on, on aau because of course everybody's going to struggle. I'm sure college coaches are still going to be getting their fair share of guys. And a lot of guys did their work early, but they're still looking for guys, okay? So it's important that they find that. And obviously guys in 2021 who might not have film, might not have good film, that's going to be big for them as well. Okay? So the other thing is, if you're one of those guys, if you're in 2021 and you don't have film. So I mean, what should you do? Like, what's the answer? Well, you know, the first thing is I would say still reach out to schools that you are interested in. And if you have a co, you know, your coach, your high school coach, your AAU coach, what I would say is, you know, text them, email them, call them, say, hey, coach, would you mind recording a quick video kind of endorsing me as a player? Okay. My character, my work ethic, what skills I have, what I bring to the team. And then, you know, maybe just quick one to two minute video from, you know, you, you may be your high school coach or AU coach, maybe you have a trainer. I think that that's going to be big because I know just from a character perspective, at least the coach can know that the culture, okay, well, at least if I bring this kid in, like he's a guy that his coaches can vouch for, that's better than sending them nothing, say, hey coach, I want to play for you, but you don't have anything to like what are they gonna say? If you have nothing to send them, at least have that. So if you don't, if that's all you have, then maybe at that point you go to filming a workout. Okay? So you say, okay, you know what? I don't have any film of myself from, you know, I don't have any film from this past season, but maybe I'll film a workout or something. Okay? So you go to the gym and at the least, you know, that's still not film because there's no defense, obviously, but it's better than nothing. Okay? So that's the current situation, you know, be able to do that, get on these coaches radars. Okay? Even if they say we can't recruit you right now because we don't have film on you at least they know you exist. Okay? And maybe they say, you know what, maybe this kid says, this film later, we'll be interested. So once you do that, once we get back into playing, it's. It's point. It is point number one for you to get film. Now, what this might mean is that before the season starts, you might need to go to some sort of showcase. I know I went to one before my senior year where they recorded every game and posted on YouTube. So all I did after that was I just went through those games and I just found clips of me of my highlights and I just put that all together. And that's gonna be an option for you guys. You just gotta find something in your area that's gonna be. It's going to be a la to do that. So I think that's a big thing. And obviously once the season gets here, get your film together, send it out. But ideally you're going to have that film before the season even starts so that coaches can have you on their radars before the season begins. Okay. Because I think a lot of coaches next year are going to be out watching seniors play. Whereas before they might have already had an idea who their targets are going into the senior. Their senior year. I think this year is going to be a little bit different. It's going to be a little bit later. The process is going to take a little bit longer to be coaches who are going to be not quite sure on guys and they're going to have to go see them play in the winter. Then they're going to be giving all their offers and stuff like that. Okay? That's going to be for some, in some cases, for a lot. For a lot of cases, they. They are good. They've got their guys, they know their target. They will know their targets by the time the season gets here. So do your work early if you can. That's going to be important. And along with that too, you know, with the NBA kind of moving backwards towards December or towards, you know, a. I guess right now we're unsure of what we're going to be doing when it comes to finishing out the season. But, you know, I think. I think a big thing for players is understanding that everything trickles down. So the NBA goes, college goes, and then high school goes, and that's how it is. So if the NBA ends up resuming the season late, we don't finish until, you know, July. Maybe they're able to start up in June. Okay. I don't know if that's going to be the case or not, but maybe they're able to do that. They end up going through July, the beginning of August, so then they don't start up again until, you know, beginning of December. Right. All of a sudden that's going to change things for everybody, because now that would mean that their season wouldn't end until about two months later. So all of a sudden you go from a June end next year to an August end. And obviously, I think the biggest thing that would affect is college guys who have to make a decision, am I going to go out or am I going to stay another year? Because when the season ends in June, now all of a sudden, you know, the draft is whenever, end of June or beginning of July. But now all of a sudden, these players have time to say, okay, you know what? Beginning June, I spent the whole month working out for teams, talking to different GMs and coaches and, you know, me and my. I can figure out where I'm going to go. Okay? And you know what, whenever the cutoff date comes, June 20th, whatever, and I get to choose whether, whether or not I want to stay or go back to, or whether I want to go to the NBA or stay in school, I can make that choice. And now all of a sudden, I didn't miss much team stuff. I'm in the, I'm in the gym. If I, if I decide to go back to school, I have all July, August in the gym with, with my college team. But now if the NBA season doesn't until August, I mean, and they don't have the drafts until, you know, a little bit after that, well, what are these kids going to do? Okay. Because you can't, you can't make that decision in the end of August because school starts up in the middle of August for a lot of these, these colleges. So that kind of, that kind of gives us a little bit of a logistical situation right there. What are we going to do with these guys who are going to leave or stay or trying to make that choice that's going to, that could affect it. So that's something to think about, too, moving forward. But you know, again, this is just a kind of a big thing, and in terms of what it's going to do down the line for basketball, most likely.