How Quarantine Will Change Basketball Forever - Podcast Episode 4

Welcome to the Vision Driven Basketball Training podcast. Coach Ethan here. Super excited to have you guys listening. Really appreciate it. Whether you guys listening on Apple podcasts, Spotify, watching on YouTube, I appreciate it. If you guys are on Apple podcasts, I would really appreciate if you guys would scroll down to the bottom of the page and leave a five star review. Really helps me out, helps more people be able to see the podcast. So that's really a big thing for me. But I would appreciate that. If you're on YouTube, make sure, make sure you leave a like and subscribe if you're new today, I want to get into a pretty pressing topic, actually. I was inspired to talk about this because I heard the guys over at By Any Means Basketball shout out to them. They actually did a podcast on this exact topic and I kind of wanted to give my spin on it, give my thoughts on the same thing. They were talking about how the coronavirus and how quarantine is going to change basketball for at least the next few years, most likely. And we're seeing trends that have started before all this happened and now that we're actually in the midst of the whole quarantine and everything like that, you know, those trends are starting to become more and more pronounced. So I kind of want to talk about that, talk about how to maximize your quarantine and a bunch of stuff along with that. I'll answer a couple questions as well. So going to hop into it. You know, kind of the whole, the whole theme for this episode is really about self discipline because I think that's the biggest thing. We talk about why quarantine is going to change basketball forever. And I think the number one thing is that self discipline is the key going forward if you want to be successful as a basketball player. Now, the reason I say that is because the players moving forward who are going to be successful are the ones who don't need their coach or their trainer to hold their hands and really have to guide them 100% of the time. Okay? The players who are going to be successful, the guys who are going to be committed to figuring things out maybe on their own, like they might have to actually figure something out for themselves instead of having their coach tell them what to do. Their coach say, okay, we're getting in the gym at this time, this day. Be there. All they got to do is show up. Okay? The players who right now are going to become successful are the ones who are saying, okay, what do I need to do to maximize my skills, what drills I need to do a lot of players have never really had to find drills for themselves because they're always working with their team or their trainer. And now that's. It's different because you're not doing that. You have to figure out for yourself, what do I need to do? What drills are going to make me the most successful, how do I structure these drills to make them to see the most improvement? And I think that's where we're going to see the biggest difference with players is we're going to see the players who only play basketball because it's convenient, and we see the players who actually really love it and care enough to figure out how to overcome the lack of resources they may have right now. So, I mean, this is a time where most players are essentially on their own. And this is. I mean, it's unprecedented because we've always had coaches with us, We've always had trainers, We've always had people around who. Who can help us when we need help. And especially for younger players, too, who haven't necessarily had the experience that older guys have had. So now it's all about, you know, I think that's the great thing right now is there's so much content about what you should be doing at home, Drills you can do at home, workouts for home, and all the things you need to do. That's such a big thing right now in the basketball community. And I think that reason that that thing alone is going to help a ton of players, but you can have all the content out there in the world for you to see, but if you're not actually actively seeking it out, then you're not going to see the results. Now it becomes about how disciplined are you? And the other word we can use is accountability. I think the big thing now is in the past, players have been accountable to their coaches, their teammates. If you don't show up to your team workouts in the offseason, well, all your teammates are going to know. Your coaches are going to know, and they might let you know about it, and even still, they might not let you know about it. But, you know, like, okay, my teammates are all in the. In the gym getting better. I got to do that too, if I want to play. Okay. No longer. Is that. Is that the motivation that players are going to be able to have? Okay. Because that's just not happening. So right now you have the opportunity to do nothing, and nobody would really know because. Because you're at home, right? You could tell people, hey, I'm out here working, but you could just Be sitting around doing nothing the whole day and nobody would know anything. You do not have to be accountable to anybody else right now, okay? And that is another part of this whole thing that is completely new because we've always had accountability between teammates and coaches and the individual player. But that's gone now. So now the only person you're accountable to is yourself. The only person that you really have to be disciplined and the only person you really have to look in the mirror and answer to is yourself. When it comes to the work that you're doing now, there will come a point down the road where you will have to be accountable for your actions. Now, what you're doing now, people are going to know in however long it takes, and at that point, they'll know what you've done. But for now, you don't have to do anything. And you can completely. You don't have to feel any sort of way about that because there's no one who can tell you anything different. They don't know. So you have to understand that we're going to continue to see a bigger and bigger gap between the players who are self disciplined, who hold themselves accountable, and the players who are only disciplined when it comes to their coaches, their teammates. They're only held accountable by the other people in their lives. Okay? Now listen, I am not saying that you should not be accountable to your teammates. You absolutely should be. I think the mark of a player who can actually be great is that they care about their teammates. They hold themselves accountable. You know, it's the player who. And this is what I tell people, you know, the players who approach basketball differently, they approach it with a. Why they approach it with, you know, it isn't just about going to practice and. And me doing my best. It's about saying, you know what? I'm tired, but I know the guy next to me is just as tired as me. So next sprint we're running, I'm gonna make sure I'm encouraging him. I'm letting him know, let's go, man, we're gonna get this next one. All right? And because of that, I'm now not just holding myself accountable, but I'm holding my teammates accountable, and they hold me accountable. That's gonna help raise everybody's game. So I'm not saying that you feel accountable to your teammates or coaches is a bad thing. It's a good thing. So there's a book called Relentless by a guy named Tim Grover. And Tim Grover was the trainer for Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade. And so he's got a ton of stories in that book. But essentially the book is about what it takes to have the mindset of some of those guys who are great, the Michael Jordans, Kobe Bryant's, Dwyane Wade's, and the way that they approached basketball and how you can sort of apply that as well. It's a great book and I think everyone should read it, especially basketball players. But there's a part in the book where he was talking about the lockout, and that was between the 2011, 2012, the summer before that season. So he was talking a little bit about, you know, how players were approaching the. The offseason that year and how a lot of them knew that there was going to be a shortened season. They didn't know when the season was going to start. All they knew is it was going to be delayed. And so a lot of guys took that opportunity to kind of be like, ah, you know, I don't know when the season's going to start, so I'm not going to really, I'm not going to work out as much. So, like, I know Tim Grover was talking about how there were guys who didn't want to pay for trainers, they didn't want to get in the gym, they didn't want to do all this stuff because they didn't know the season was going to start. And for a lot of those guys, when they got back, all of a sudden they guys were getting hurt. They weren't ready to play because they weren't working at it, because they were just like, oh, you know what? I don't know when it's gonna. I don't know when things gonna get back to normal. So what's even the point? So all of a sudden, when things did get back to normal and they didn't necessarily get an adjustment period, bad things happen to them. But the guys, for example, Kobe Bryant, who he talked about in the book, Kobe was working out two or three times a day every day during the lockout. Guys like that were ready to go when the time came because they held themselves accountable. It wasn't about what their teams are doing, wasn't about what their teammates are doing. It was about what they were doing. And a guy like Kobe completely understood the value of that, okay? And that's again, what makes him one of the greatest of all time. But that mindset in itself, you know, not everyone's going to be as talented as Kobe Bryant is, but you can still apply the same exact mindset in the situation we're in right now. Okay. Obviously, it's kind of similar situations with the whole lockout where we don't know when we plan again. Things are different now. All of a sudden, it's a quarantine. We don't know when we plan again. We don't know when things are going to be getting back to normal. So what are you doing now to make sure you're ready when that time comes? That's all about being self disciplined. So I thought that was a great story and really illustrated the fact that the guys who really want it are going to stay prepared, they're going to stay ready, and they're not going to allow the outside influences to distract them. I think that's the difference when it comes to self discipline is you have to have an intrinsic force that motivates you to keep on going even when the outside factors are working against you. What that means is you have to have your goal, your vision, and you have to know how you're actually going to get there. And that in itself has to be what drives you to continue to work. Even when things are questionable, you don't know what exactly is going on. You continue to put the work in because you know that you need to get to your goal down the line. And that doesn't change because of whatever the circumstances are. Okay? So that's a mindset you can begin to develop right now. So like I said, how do you develop this whole self accountability, self discipline? And like I said, number one, it's. It's have a vision and write it down. Know what you want, what are your ultimate goals? What do you want to achieve next season? Okay? Write that down. And then number two is you got to figure out what it's gonna take to actually get there. Okay? So now you know where you want to go. Now what is it gonna take for you to get to that point? What kind of things do you need to do to achieve that? That's number two. And then number three is every day you wanna set out daily tasks that you can do that are gonna get you closer to that goal. Okay, so your goal might be, I want to be the starting point guard next year. So every day you're doing ball handling, okay, you're going to write out for yourself exactly what you're going to do and you're going to stick to it. That's going to allow you to actually move towards that goal as opposed to it just being a dream, just being a daydream. Okay? So those three steps, very important if you want to really continue to be self disciplined. Again, I'm talking about the difference between guys who are going to make it in the long, in the long term and the guys who won't are the guys who are self disciplined versus the guys who are only disciplined when it comes to their teammates and their coaches. Okay. The guys who really want it now by themselves are going to feel so much by the time they get back and they now have the, the additional factor of their teammates and coaches holding them accountable, they're going to start to see a ton of progress that guys who don't have that self discipline aren't going to see. Okay, so that's the first thing. 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 had another one in May. So maybe this, actually, maybe it was 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 Bayamon needs 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 20, 21. 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 on 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 kid's 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 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 have 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. 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, 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 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's, it's, 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, allow you 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 the 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 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. So we'll see how that goes. But you know, like I'm saying, basketball is going to favor the people who are prepared and disciplined moving forward, who come out of this, who putting in being accountable to themselves, doing the work that they know they need to do. Those are the players that basketball is going to favor. Okay? So right now it's, it's time to build those habits if you haven't already. And even when things not being normal, those habits need to be built because then when things get back to normal, it's going to be easier for you to maintain those things. And again, that outside factor of your coaches and teammates being there is going to help you even more at that point. So there's players right now who don't have a hoop, who are still getting better, who are still working on their ball handling every day, who are still running sprints every day, doing push ups, pull ups, doing whatever they can do, whatever they have access to, to get better. Okay. And I think that develops, not just that's going to help you as a basketball player for sure, but it's going to develop also that mindset of being self disciplined. I think that's a very, very important thing that it goes beyond just, just you playing, just you playing basketball also. And it becomes how does this affect me mentally moving forward? Because that, that will translate to when you all of a sudden have access to all the other things you used to have access to. Now the way you approach is going to be different. You're going to see a lot more improvement. So at the end of the day, it comes down to doing what you can. That's all you can do. If you can look yourself in the mirror and say, you know, I've done all that I can do, then you know that again, that, that itself is going to develop that mindset that it's going to take to be successful. So I want to answer a question real quickly. This comes from Zion. He says, hey, my name is Zion, I'm a subscriber and I was just wondering if you could make a video on au camp such as middle school hoops, TV, Drich Neo, etc. And if you think we should attend those? So it's a good question, A question I get a lot actually and I got a kind of a two part response. These camps, they can be good for a couple reasons. Obviously it can be exposure for you though. It depends on a couple of different factors. First of all, it depends on how old you are as to whether or not I would tell you to go to these things. Obviously, middle school tv, middle school camp, that's one of those camps where, you know, I'm not, I'm not a huge proponent of it. I am and I'm not. So the first thing it is, it is exposure, okay? There's plenty of guys who, who get seen at those camps and all sudden they become ranked because that's where the, the, that's where the cameras are, okay? But there's a lot of guys who go to those camps and spend a lot of money and it's like, for what? Like why? Because here's the thing with those camps, they can either be really good for you or they can be a money grab. That's kind of my thought on it. The other thing too, that is a positive is that you'll get to see how you match up to high level competition, okay? So you'll know when you go there, like, okay, where do I match up with some of these really good players in my class? I think that's another positive thing. So you got to evaluate that yourself. And you know, I think if you have, if you can do that, if you can go one of those camps, then there's nothing wrong with that. You know, I don't think, I don't see any issues with that at all. So you got to do research though, make sure the camp you're going to go to actually is going to have that high level competition. Because if not then going to an exposure camp and there's not great players there. It's like it's not, not really a point, especially if you're young. If you're young, then there's just no point because no one's going to care. No one's going to be there if there's not a high level competition there. So that being said, exposure camps are not important for, are not that important for 99% of players, okay? Especially younger players, especially guys below like sophomore, junior year of high school. Like if you're younger than that, exposure camps most of the time are not important to you because most players aren't really that aren't good enough to, to need exposure yet. Okay? I'm not saying they won't get to that point, but they might not be where they need to be as a seventh grader or an eighth grader or ninth grader, they might still have a ways to go to develop. Players are so focused, you know, they put the cart before the horse. The number one thing is developing to the point where, to where you can actually be a player that coaches want to recruit. It can't just be, oh, I go to an exposure camp, that means I'm going to get an offer. No, that's not how it works. You are really good at basketball, then you get exposure, then you get the offer. Okay? That's how it works. So before you ask yourself, do I need to go to an exposure camp? Ask yourself, hey, is there a, is there a skills camp near me that is really good that I can go to that might make me better, that might make it, that might give me exposure down the line because I'm better? Ask yourself that question. Okay? Now if you are that, if you are skilled like that, if you are one of the best players in your area and you know, you might have the opportunity to get exposure at a camp like that, cool. But if you're not that player, be honest with yourself and understand that the important part is get, is being, is developing yourself, especially as a younger player. You know, I always say like if, honestly if you're below like your sophomore year of high school, I wouldn't even worry about recruiting at all. In fact, for most players, if you're not a high major player, you really don't need to even worry about. So you're like going into your junior year. That's, that's when I would say it really starts to matter for most players. Okay, again, for some players who the high major kids are going to get offers when they're in sixth grade. Okay. Okay. That's how it is. If you're going to be going to Duke, North Carolina, most likely, most of those guys, those guys you see on TV guys get drafted. They're going to get offers when they're seventh grade, eighth grade. That's how it is. Some of them slip through the clack, the cracks. Obviously, you know, obviously you have a guy like, you know, John Morant who went to Murray State, who wasn't highly recruited and you got guys like that. But for the most part you're going to have guys who get those offers early. They're going to go to those camps, get offers early because they're, you can just see down the line they have freak athleticism or freak height or whatever it is that they're good at. But for the most part, focus on your development. That's what I would say. And really that's what I say. It's better look for you to go to those camps that are going to help you with your development, moving down the line as opposed to going to those camps that are just focused on exposure, where you're just going to go play. Most kids don't need exposure at that age, though. You, it is good, like I said, to be able to compete against players who are really good to see where you match up with them. Okay, so going forward, you know what you need to do to work on. You know what you need to be able to compete and be better than those guys. Okay, that should be your reason for going to one of those camps. If you're that young, if you're in middle school especially, don't even think about the exposure part of, think of, okay, how do I, how do I match up against players in my class, I guess, guys my age around the country and take that and get better from it and then use that to propel your development forward. Say, okay, now what do I need to do to get, like when I get in the gym, what do I need to do to get better? Don't focus on the wrong things. What it comes down to, your focus should be 100% on being the best player you can be, not your exposure, especially when you're that young. So I've talked about this a little bit, but I want to go back to how to maximize your quarantine. And this is something that we already have talked about a little bit. Being self disciplined, being holding yourself accountable. But you want to make sure that you get the most you can out of this in this time that we have. So like I said before, guys, it starts with knowing what your goals are. So specifically, want to talk about next season? So what are your goals for next season? What do you want to get out of next season? And again, this is something that I, I won't tell you what your goal should be. That's something you got to think about for yourself. So what are your goals moving forward? And then it goes to what you want to do long term. Okay, so you have your next season goals and long term, what do you want those things that you should know? Write them down if you need to, but you got to know them for sure and then you got to determine what it's going to take for you to actually achieve those things. It's not good enough to just know them. If you don't know what to do, then you're going to find. Find it difficult to maintain that level of commitment to it because you don't know if you're actually getting closer to where you want to be. So it's important that you know that as well. And then you got to know, what am I going to do now to move towards those things? What can I do every day to move towards those things? So you got to figure out, today I'm doing this workout because I need to get better at this. Today I'm going to watch a breakdown on this player because I want to get better at this specific skill. That's something that's very important. And you can't skip that part. And that part becomes important because you have it written down. You know what you want to get to. And because of that, your commitment to it is going to raise up, is going to be higher. You're going to be able to hold yourself accountable more easily because now you know, like, okay, I need to do this today. Like, I need to do this now. There's no excuse saying, I didn't know. Look, I didn't know what to do, or I thought I was doing enough, but now you know what you need to do. Okay? So that's an important part too. And I think this goes to a bigger part where a bigger point, which is, you know, the players who are going to succeed long term are the ones who don't need situations to be perfect for them to still get the work in. And this is, you know, I think about this too, just myself, like, obviously it's not perfect for anybody right now. And I still think to myself, like, okay, you know what? I just want to wait till everything's better, back to normal, and then I'll do this. But you have to understand that the people who do things now when it's not perfect, those are the people who are actually going to keep on doing things when things are back to being normal. Because things will never be perfect completely. Right now it's obvious that things are not great, so it's obvious. But when the quarantine's over and school is back and everything is how it is, how it usually is, there's still gonna be things that are gonna be not perfect. And then at that point, the people who are making those excuses are gonna find new excuses to make. Okay, so you wanna break yourself out of that habit, okay, so you can't wait for things to be perfect because they never will be. They Never will be perfect. And, you know, I love. I love reading about guys who have overcome significant things to get to where they are. And, you know, I think one of the best examples of that is a guy like LeBron. You know, you look at LeBron, and he grew up in Akron, didn't have a lot of money at all growing up. You know, he. There. There were days where he was hungry. And I think I remember reading that he. At one point when he was in, like, first, second grade, he missed like, 80 days of school or something like that. And, like, it's just a bunch of craziness. And I, Yeah, I read that he, you know, at some point, really, he was technically homeless, living on people on, you know, friends and family's couches and stuff like that. And when he was 9, his mom sent him to live with one of his coaches because it would just be a better situation for him. So, I mean, obviously, that's just intense, right? Like, that's crazy that a kid that age has to go through all that before the age of nine. And you might think to yourself, like, wow, like, you know, that kid didn't have much growing up. Like, you probably. Like, you wouldn't expect that. That kid all of a sudden becomes the best, like, in my opinion, the best player in NBA history. And it's crazy to think about that sort of revelation because, you know, everyone has to go through something, but not a lot of people have to go through all of that, right, in terms of just. Just all the poverty and all the stuff he has to go through as a kid at that age. So despite things not being perfect, though, LeBron overcame that and propelled himself forward to becoming an NBA legend, becoming one of the best players in the history of the game. And clearly, obviously, LeBron is physically gifted. There's no denying that. One of the most. One of the most gifted athletes we've ever seen. Okay, but there's a lot of guys out there who are physically gifted. There's a lot of guys out there who also have those. Those sorts of. That height, that athleticism. Maybe not to his degree, but there are guys out there who also have physical gifts, but they don't achieve 1% of what LeBron has, okay? And a lot of those guys have come from much better situations where, you know, they might have had a steady home, you know, steady family situation. They might have had access to, you know, whatever they needed. There was no shortage of money or anything like that. But despite having those advantages and things being more perfect, they don't achieve as Much as the person who didn't have as much, didn't grow up in a perfect situation at all. And I think the question is, why is that? Like, why is that possible? Obviously, that's not every situation, but how is it possible that somebody who didn't have all the advantages growing up is where he is now? And I think that having to overcome imperfect situations is one of the most important things that you can do to propel yourself forward. And the reason that it is because when you start to develop the mindset that, you know, you. When, that even when things aren't ideal, you're going to get it done, all of a sudden when things become better, you. You are able to just level up the way that you work, because now you have things you didn't have before, right? You're still working like, like your work is like, listen, I don't care that someone might have more than me. I'm going to beat them, okay? I'm going to be better than them. Then all of a sudden you get those things and you still maintain that mindset. Well, now the rate at which you're going to improve is just going to be astronomical. It's going to be crazy. And, you know, when you approach, when you approach everything, when you approach your work with the mindset, though, of, you know, regardless of the situation, regardless of anything on the outside, I'm going to get it done, that is such a powerful thing, such a powerful way to think. And that's why a guy like LeBron is where he is now. Because regardless of the circumstances that he had, regardless of all that stuff, the way he worked at it didn't change. It stayed the same the whole time. And I think that when the only option is to succeed, when you say, you know what, listen, my family, you know, we're in poverty right now. The only way to get my. To get my mom out of. Out of poverty is to be successful. I mean, that in itself, like, that's just crazy, right? That. That's a crazy drive that you're going to have just. Just from that alone. Okay? So not everybody's going to have that story, right? Not everyone's going to be. Grow up like that. So. But that does not mean that you don't have to overcome imperfect situations. That. That's my point. My point is not that you have to go through everything LeBron went through. My point is that you need to go through, when you. When they come, when. When you get to them, imperfect situations, you need to get through those. You need to use that to. To propel you forward this right now. Great example. The quarantine compl. I mean, the definition of an imperfect situation for everybody, okay? But the way that you work right now is the way that you're gonna work long term, okay? So if you can approach your work with saying, I'm gonna get it done, if you can do that now, now think about when things get back to being better. All of a sudden it's like, wow, the way that you're gonna be able to get things done at that point is gonna be crazy. So you need to make sure that you embrace that. It's not perfect, but a lot of times the best players didn't have it perfect growing up, okay? But they were able to deal with the mindset that they're going to overcome it. And because of that, look at where they are now. So that's how we're going to be able to tell who really wants it, who doesn't, is who was working when it wasn't perfect, who was still getting, who was still improving, who was still looking for ways to get better when it wasn't ideal, okay? So, you know, approach these imperfect and difficult times with the understanding that, you know, you can become significantly better if you choose to take action on those things. So that's very important. And a point that I want to bring up regarding the whole quarantine situation. I think that's going to be big going down the line for a bunch of players. And so I got another player, another question, actually, from Abby. This is actually a couple weeks. This. Actually, I think it was my first podcast, this comment, and so I want to get to it. She said, specific question. How do you properly study NBA film? I don't want. I don't have much of my own, so I'm trying to watch other players. Kobe, White, Morant, Zo Shot, Giggles, Alexander to try and implement those into my game. How would I get that film study to transfer and quickly to. Okay, so this is a great question, actually, and I'm going to use this to kind of pivot into another point I want to talk about. But there's a couple ways that you can go about this. And the first thing is that watching NBA film is great when you're trying to study, like, the moves the players use, because we're going to go get into kind of the differences between the NBA and college. But if you want to watch how LeBron uses the pick and roll, or how Jayson Tatum sets up his step back, or how Klay Thompson comes off of an off ball screen for a catch and shoot three or, you know, whatever, whatever. You want to watch something specific. You know, how C.J. mcCollum uses floater, all those different things. That's great. That, that's, that's the best reason to watch NBA film is to watch how these guys do it. I mean, these guys are the best in the world at what they do. So I would say if that's what you're gonna do, you know, think about your own playing style. Think about how you, the way you play or the way that you want to play, okay? And then find players who play similarly to that. That's going to be one of the biggest things when it comes to actually being able to break down and transfer that film that you watch to your own game is don't watch players who you don't play like, okay? Because it might be players who do things you can't do, right? Or that's not in your game. And if you're not, if you're not working to, to develop that, then, you know, if you're, if you're a big guy, but you're watching, you know, John Wall. Well, I mean, how, like maybe you should watching, you know, Joel Embiid or, or maybe Anthony Davis or something along those lines, you know, figure out who you play like and then be able to break down film. Watching players like that, I think that's how you're going to do that. I prefer to use individual game film if I'm watching NBA players. Like, if I want to watch, if I want to watch Damian Lillard highlights, I'm not going to go to Damian Lillard season highlights because those tend to be his most extreme highlights, right? Those are the ones where he crosses over three people and then dunks on a center, right? That doesn't, that's really not really going to help me, okay. Because I'm not going to do that, and most players aren't going to do that. So just watching highlights of their crazy plays, right? I'm going to watch LeBron, you know, where he had that play because of the Sixers, where he split the ball between his legs, in between Tristan Thompson's legs, went down and dunked it. Like, that's not, that's not really helpful to anybody. Great play, but that's not. When we talk breaking down film, that's not what we're looking for, okay? So we're not watching for highlights. We're watching for skills we can take and start to implement, start to understand more. So that's why I prefer to watch individual games. You know, I'll watch a game where, you know, I was watching David Load yesterday where I believe he had 60 against the Lakers this year, or maybe it's 48. He had a crazy game as Lakers. I was watching that game and I was able to break down some specific skills for my VIP film room in the perimeter score system. So on that point, actually, that's coming out when you guys see this. That'll be coming out tomorrow. The perimeter score system, everything will be dropping tomorrow. So if you guys are interested in that, make sure you send me a dm.