How To Catch Up To Better Players (Even If You’re Way Behind)

Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you train, you're still behind? Behind the guys who've had a head start, behind the guys who seem more experienced, more confident, more athletic? It feels like you're running a race. But Everybody else started 10 steps ahead of you. Here's the truth about that. Most of them aren't quite as far ahead as you think they are. And right now, I'm going to walk you through the exact steps you need to take if you want to catch up to those players fast and maybe even pass them. The first thing you need to understand is that you're playing a different game than you probably think you are. The See, most players aren't really working that hard. They're distracted, they're inconsistent. Now, if we break it down, out of 100 players, take 100 players that you know, or 100 players who are in your class or in your area, whatever. Out of those hundred, about 50 of them aren't really in the game because they're not working out. They're not getting that much effort towards it. They're pretty much just showing up randomly with absolutely no plan. So while those players may be ahead of you right now, they're not doing anything to keep that gap. No. Now, of the 50 players that are remaining, 40 of them are putting in work. But there's no plan. There's no consistent focus. That leaves us with 10 players who are actually locked in, who are committed, who are focused, who have a plan. But of those 10 players, five of them are going to quit when it gets hard where they don't see the results that they think that they want. When some sort of adversity hits them, they're going to drop off. Of those hundred players, really, only five of them are actually doing all the things necessary to make that happen. And if you do the things that we talk about in this video, you're going to place yourself in that top 5%, meaning you're going to get better at a rate so much higher than almost everybody else. Now, before we get into exactly what to do if any of this stuff hits home for you, that you should definitely check out my free Basketball IQ Masterclass down below. It's going to give you the blueprint to start applying a bunch of this stuff today. And with this stuff inside, you can start to add points per game to your average. Right now, it's completely free, top link in the description down below. So let's get into exactly what you need to do to close the gap and catch up. The players who are ahead of you. The first thing you need to understand is that you've got to focus on the big three. A lot of times when players are in a position where they feel like they're behind a bunch of people, they're trying to catch up, they think that they need to focus on doing everything well. I got to become a better shooter, better ball handler, better defender. I got to get stronger, I got to get more athletic. I got to become better at this move. I got to get better at shooting mid range shots. I got to become a better point guard. I got to get better using ball screens. And they try and catch a whole bunch of fish and end up catching none of them. So you need to shift your approach away from trying to be great at everything to focus on focusing on becoming great at the high leverage areas. High leverage is just a fancy term for saying if you get a little bit better in this area, it's going to make a massive difference in your game. High leverage skills in basketball are like the engine in a car. You can spend all the time in the world polishing the windows of the car, repairing the door, working on the brakes, getting new tires, new rims, make your car look super nice. But if your engine is terrible, then that car is going to break down and it's not going to go anywhere. On the other hand though, if you just focus on repairing the engine or making, making additions to the engine, that car is going to fly and it's going to last and it's going to take you wherever you need it to go, even if you don't have all the other stuff. That's what high leverage skills are in basketball. They move your game forward. And like with the first example, if you don't focus on these high leverage areas, then you're going to get into games that you're really going to struggle because you've worked on polishing your windows. But when it gets down to it, your engine, it's not there. So let's break down the three high leverage skills that you need to be focusing on. You need to master if you want to capture the players who are ahead of you. Number one is basketball iq and this is the most high leverage skill in basketball. When you really break it down. Everybody is so focused on the surface level. They're focused on shooting, ball handling, finishing, stuff like that. The skills that you get on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and you see people talking about, do this workout, do this drill, how to get better at this. And so players spend all their time focusing on These surface level skills and then they get into games, they don't know how to apply them, they don't know when to do what. And it's almost as if that all of that was a waste of time. You can imagine it's like you have a toolbox and you have all the nicest tools and you've got the best hammer, the best drill, the best wrench, but you have no idea when to use any of those things. So you having the best tools ever is essentially useless. And that's what it's like. If you spent all of your time and focus on just your physical skills and you don't have the understanding of how to apply them. That's what it's like when you don't have a high level basketball iq. A lot of players talk to me about the fact that they lack confidence, they're not sure of what to do, and they pinpoint. Confidence is the biggest limiting factor for them. When in reality, if you have a high basketball IQ and you understand when to do what, you understand how to be a great decision maker, how to create advantages on offense, when to shoot, when to drive, when to pass. If you have those things, you understand it, you're going to be way more confident. It's going to take away a lot of those problems. Which is why we refer to basketball IQ as a high leverage skill. Because getting better at that is going to solve a ton of other problems that you might have. So improving your basketball IQ starts off with first learning and understanding the actions and concepts that make up the game of basketball. So we talk about actions, this would be stuff like ball screens, pin downs, other off ball screens like flares or stagger screens, dribble handoffs, these are the foundation of basketball. Every offense you ever plan is going to use at least one of these, probably all of them. And so if you understand how to use them, you know how to use a ball screen, you know how to use a pin down, when your defender goes over it, goes under it, you become so hard to guard and you're going to be successful no matter what team you play on, no matter what situation you're in, because you understand how to use these actions effectively. That understanding of how to use actions is so much more valuable than having a crazy deep dribble bag. And then the concepts that are really important.5 decisions. Being able to make the decision to shoot, drive or pass within half a second of catching the basketball. That's the foundation of being a great offensive player. Understanding spacing, understanding basket cut triggers 45 cuts, back door cuts, all these concepts that go into how the ball actually gets into the basket. We're so focused on the third piece of it, right? We talk about skill. The third piece of a skill is the actual physical act. So you make the shot, you make the layup, you make the dribble move. That's the third part of it. The first part of it is the perception. So you have to first of all see what's going on and recognize potential options you may have. Point number two is you've got to make the right decision. So should I do this, should I do that? And if you're not good at the perception or the decision, then the action's never even going to happen. And if it does happen, it's going to be wildly inconsistent. So if you really want to make the most high leverage move possible and catch up the players who are ahead of you, the most important thing you can do is develop that perception and that decision. And we do that by developing basketball IQ. So here's my challenge to you. 10 minutes every single day, study a player who plays the same position as you, who has a similar play style to you. Take 10 minutes and watch and try and break down every detail, every decision they make. Ask why, why did they drive there, why did they pass there, what did they do when their defender did that? Take note of everything. And then when you do that, look at it and see, well, what applies to me? What can I apply the next time that I play? And if you do that again, just 10 minutes a day, it's going to skyrocket your basketball IQ and you're going to notice immediate results in games. Like I mentioned earlier, if you really want to take your basketball IQ to a whole new level, capture the players ahead of you really, really fast. You check out my free basketball IQ masterclass link down below. It's an hour long and it's tailor made for players like you who want to use these high leverage areas to become a dominant player on the court. The second thing that's so important if you want to capture the players who are ahead of you, is you need to become a specialist and you need to avoid being a generalist. The best example for this is when we talk about doctors. You have a general practitioner who is going to be able to provide help in a bunch of different areas when it comes to medicine. But then you have a specialist, someone who's maybe a heart surgeon or a brain surgeon. And that specialist is going to get paid so much more than the general practitioner. Because they have a specialized ability and that special ability, them being elite in a certain area skyrockets their value. Therefore they're going to make a lot more money. So you need to become a specialist, meaning a coach needs to look at you and know, okay, they can provide that. If you're just kind of okay at everything, you don't move the needle in any sort of direction. There's got to be something that you feel really confident about doing. I'm not saying you need to be limited and you can only do certain things, but you need to make sure that you're elite in something again before you try and cover every single base. So let's say, for example, the skill that you are best at right now is shooting. I'm not saying that you're elite as a shooter, but that's what you're best at. You're most confident as a shooter. Well, you need to put 80% of your on court training time focused on becoming elite as a shooter. Right? Become a more consistent catch and shoot player. Maybe develop an ability to shoot off of the dribble. That stuff's really important so that when you're in a game, you know, first of all you have confidence in that ability. But then your coach or your teammates, they know, okay, that person, they can provide that. Maybe you're a point guard and you're a really good facilitator. That's your best skill. Now you need to become elite at it. So like we talked about earlier, study the best point guards of the game. See what you can take away from watching them and apply it to your own game. Become really good when it comes to handling the basketball, making passes with either hand. Maybe your best ability is that you're a great defender. So double down on that. Become the best defender on your team. Become elite as a defender. Go get stronger, get more athletic. Go find really good players to play against. Go watch some elite defenders. Go watch Tony Allen, go watch Marcus Smart. Go watch guys who are great defenders jrue Holiday and see what you can learn from them and become elite at that. If you can even become elite in one or two categories, that is going to make you so valuable in the court. And then combine that with your increases in basketball iq. And those are the two most high leverage levers that you can put pull. And the third super high leverage area if you want to capture the players who are ahead of you is you need to have consistency in the face of resistance. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this video, of the hundred players that we talked about a lot of them are going to quit. Even the players who are doing everything right of that final 10, half of them are going to quit when it gets hard. This is the hardest part about basketball. You have to be willing to show up and give the same effort every single day, regardless of how the day before went. So you're in the process of getting better and, and maybe you go, you have a terrible practice, you have a terrible workout, you couldn't make a shot. It was awful. And you feel like, man, I'm not getting any better. Today was awful. I feel like I'm, maybe I'm going backwards. You have to be able to show up the next day, regardless of how you feel and do it again. And that is the most difficult thing to do. But it's completely controllable. So you have the ability, you have the power to do that. You're able to make the result that's going to say, hey, I don't care how I feel, I don't care how I played yesterday, I don't care if it feels like everything around me is crashing down. I'm going to show up and work hard again. I promise you that eventually when you, as you do that enough, you're going to see success, you're going to see the results that you want. But it requires you to continue to show up when things are difficult. And it seems really obvious, but I promise you that not a lot of players are doing this. And it's the reason why. Players say they want this, they want that, but then you look at it and they're not consistent, especially when things are difficult. So now let's talk about exactly how you can apply these things to make sure that you catch up the players who are ahead of you and maybe even pass them. You don't need a crazy plan to do this. What you need is a simple, repeatable system. So here's your three step weekly action plan. Number one, like we talked about, study the game for 10 minutes a day. Go watch a player who plays similar position to you, who is a similar play style to you. Maybe you want to go watch a specific team. You know, you want to go watch Villanova, you want to go watch a, you know, UConn teams that use a lot of actions. But take that 10 minutes, write down as much as you can, you can notice about the decisions that are being made, the, the different things that you see, the details that you see, and then write down how that applies to you, where you can take that and use it in your own games. If you can do that for 10 minutes a day, five, six, seven days a week, you're going to get so much better at basketball, it's going to be insane. The next thing you do is train for four to five days a week on developing those specialty skills. Right? We want to become a specialist. So identify what are the things you're already like the best at. Now again, you might not be great at them yet, but if you had to pick one, maybe two things that you already do better than most other things, double down on those, becoming who you are and become a specialist at those things, things. The third thing that I recommend that you do is keep track of the progress you're making. So get a journal, get a notebook and use that to take your notes on the film every day. But then also use that to write down, okay, what are you doing for your workout? You know, how long was it? How did you feel? Take note of when you left that workout, did you feel good? Did you feel bad? What did you feel bad about if you did? And going with that, Make a commitment that you're going to show up every day regardless of how you feel. Now, that combination right there of writing this stuff down and then continuing to show up again the next day and the next day and the next day, you're going to look back 30 days, 60 days from now and you're not even going to recognize the player that you used to be because of the habits that you've built. Now if you want to make this transformation even faster, I have a free ebook that's called how to Get Better Basketball Twice as Fast as Everybody Else. And this is going to walk you through, step by step, how to do this is going to give you a set plan to follow and it's the stuff that we just talked about. But think about it. On steroids. That's what this ebook is completely free. That's linked down in the description as well. And even if you just apply a few of the things you're going to learn inside of that, it's going to change everything for you. Leave a comment down below, Let me know what you think about this, what your plan is going forward, any questions you may have. I appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.