How You Can Come Back A Whole New Player Next Season

So I still remember very clearly back when I was a player, every time the offseason would get here, I would plan out everything I was going to do and I would really, like, visualize and I could see transformation that I wanted to make going into the next season. So get to the end of the season and I would say, I'm going to do this, this and this. So that next year I come back and I completely new player, right? I'm going to pass this person, I'm going to pass that person. I'm better than that person because I'm going to put in way more work than them. And a lot of times that was actually exactly how it went down in terms of my actual approach to it. So I would put in a ton of work, more work than pretty much everybody else around me. And we're talking like, I'm getting up, going to the gym to shoot with my dad before school, and then I'm going to lift workout after school. And I'm doing that every single day, Spring, summer, fall, all leading up into that winter season. And again, my thought was, okay, if I do these things right, if I put in more work, if I outwork people, then I'm going to be able to transform myself into the player that I want to be. And even though this is the process that I went through quite often, I always felt like I would get to that next season and I wasn't where I felt like I should be. I know that I put in all this work and I outworked all these people, yet I haven't jumped that person or the gap between me and that person's not any closer, or that person is still just straight up better than me, even though I feel like I'm doing all of the right things. And so making that transformation is something that as a player I wanted to do desperately. And I, the, the effort was there. I just didn't quite understand exactly what goes into transforming yourself as a player. So if you have a similar goal or similar desire to change who you are as a player going into your next season, we're going to dive into exactly how you can do that. And some of the things that I wish I would have had as a player, some things I wish that I would have understood, that would have allowed for my story to be a lot different in terms of that. So the first thing that we have to understand is high value, high demand skills in the business world. And really in every field, they talk about if you want to make money, if you want to always have A job, if you want to be successful, that you need to have some sort of skill or multiple skills that are in high demand. So in business they say, hey, if you can sell things, then you'll always be able to make money, you'll always be able to get a job. If you're good at marketing something, you're always gonna be able to sell sell something, you're always gonna be able to work with a company, have a job if you're able to effectively market, right? Those are two examples of skills that are high value and in high demand. And so if you want to be successful in a field that like business, having those sorts of skills is very, very important, right? You can be super hardworking, super driven, really, really want to succeed and put in a. But if you ultimately aren't working on developing those high in demand, high value skills, then you're never going to be as successful as the people who, who do put their time or naturally have those skills, right? So for me as a player, I didn't spend enough time, first of all understanding what exactly are the high demand skills in the game of basketball? What are the skills that, much like I just gave that example with business, what are the skills that are going to guarantee that I always have a job, or I'm always going to get on the court, or I'm always going to be involved because I have something that's in high demand? I, I didn't understand what those things were really. Obviously we understood the basics of it, but I didn't really fully grasp it. And because of that, I don't, I don't think I was focused enough or purposeful enough focusing on those things. So we talk about basketball. What are those high demand skills, those high value skills? I think a great way to figure this out is by looking at the numbers behind it. So right here is an example of the screen on Synergy, which is basically just a huge catalog of every college team, every, every NBA team, WNBA team, international teams. And there's a database of pretty much every stat that you could want to see on offense and it breaks it down by category, by shot, type, by player, all those sorts of things. So what we can see is that we look at the types of shots that are the most common and this is for a variety of teams. We can look at college teams at every level, men's, women's, we can look at the NBA, wnba. We're going to see a lot of overlap. So we see the whole spot up category as a big one. We have where a Lot of teams are going to have spot up as their number one most used category. This is just shots coming off of the catch. So could be a catch and shoot three. It could also include a catch attack, a closeout, drive to the rim or get to a pull up. I've talked a lot about making 0.5 decisions and this is essentially what this is is being able to make quick decisions. When you first catch the ball, I'm either shooting it or I'm driving it, or I'm passing it and being really, really good in those situations. And what you'll see is that a lot of teams, this is their number one area for and you're going to see for a lot of players, this is the number one area that's going to be dominated by just spot up situations. So can I make a quick decision? Can I make a catch and shoot three at a high level? Can I attack a closeout that's coming at me, get to the rim or get to a pull up in the mid range if the rim is not an option? So that is an incredibly high value, high end demand skill is being great in these spot of situations. We'll also see pick and roll, ball handler, right or ball screens. And we'll see that a lot of teams use this a lot as well. It's a very common thing. And there's a lot of players too who, depending on who you are as a player, you may be really ball dominant and this might be your number one category. So another important skill to have is can you score out of a ball screen? Can you make a three if they go under, can you get to the rim if they chase you over and the drop defender doesn't stop you, can you get yourself to the rim or to a floater and score or maybe to a mid range pull up? Are you able to pass out of a ball screen situation as well? Depending on how the defense guards it? If they switch, can you attack the switch? Being good in that situation in ball screens as a handler is also very high value, high in demand skill as well. And so we also see transition is important. But when we look at really the two biggest categories for most players, especially if you play in the perimeter, having the ability to play in these spot up situations. So making cash and shoot threes, being able to make quick decisions, getting to a one or two to a pull up or getting yourself to the rim and finishing really, really important and then being able to play as a pick and roll ball handler, being able to make the necessary shots and decisions and then also being able to pass the ball out of that, those situations as well is really, really important to have if you want to be a player who is highly sought after and really valuable to a team. So the first thing when it comes to being a transformation is understanding what matters, what type of shots are going to get you opportunities. We see for a lot of teams that spot up and pick and roll ball handler, they might account for 70% of a team's offense, and for certain players, it might account for 80% of their entire offense. Right? So if you want to be really, really good, get really, really good at those two things. And for the majority of players, that's going to make you very, very highly sought after. And it's going to put your skills in very high demand. It's going to allow you to play more, score more, be overall more successful because you have things that people want, that people are looking for that lead to winning. So that's the first thing. The second thing, and this is really the deeper point, and I would argue maybe even the more important point when it comes down to it, because if you really want to enough and you really keep on looking, and obviously if you're watching this video, if you watch a lot of my videos, then you probably are a player who is constantly looking for ways to get better and constantly asking, hey, am I doing this right? Is there something that I should be doing better? Should I adjust what I'm doing? Should I do this in my workout? Should I focus on that instead? If you're already asking yourself these questions, eventually you're going to come to the conclusion that I just gave you there about what matters. How do I develop, what are the high value skills and how do I develop them? You're going to be able to find that. I think a part that isn't talked about enough but is so crucially important is changing who you are as a person. The way that you think basketball, we look at the skills aspect of it and we see the physical. We see this person can run fast, jump high, this person's super tall, this person can shoot the ball, this person can handle the ball, this person can pass, this person can finish, this person can do this, do that, this person's super quick and has a crazy bag, whatever. We see all that stuff, what we don't think about quite as much is what actually leads to that. It all stems with the way that you view the game. There's something that's called affordances. Affordance, all of that means is essentially the opportunities that you have to act in a situation. So, for example, Shaquille o' Neal has different affordances than Isaiah Thomas has. Because Shaquille O' Neal is obviously over 7ft tall, massive guy, he's going to not only be able to do different things on Isaiah Thomas, but he's actually going to physically see the game differently because he's going to see things that are opportunities for him that for Isaiah Thomas he wouldn't even see because it's not an, it's not an available opportunity for him at five foot nine. Right. And so in the same way, wherever you start off as a player, you can get better at all of your skills, right? You can become so much more skilled, you can develop those high value skills. And at the end of the day, if you don't change how you see the game, then the affordances don't change. Meaning you can't take advantage of any more situations than you have been because you still see the game the same exact way. Right? Hopefully that makes some sense. But what I'm trying to impose on you is that it isn't just enough to more skilled. It's important that you also change the way that you think and the way that you are as a person, as a player. Because if you don't do that, you're going to be stuck in a box, right? And you're going to be somebody who's going to have some really, really great games from time to time. And then you're going to have a lot of really mediocre games where you feel like, man, I know I can be better than this, I know I can do better than this. But for some reason it's just not happening with any sort of consistency. And usually it's because you don't view the game the right way. This is my biggest problem for sure as a player is that I never changed the way that I saw things, even though I was getting better. Right? And because of that, my understanding wasn't any better and my confidence in myself wasn't any better. And those two things are crucial when it comes to becoming a successful player. So how do we do that? How do we change the way that you see the game? How do we change who you are as a person? And it all comes down to developing your basketball IQ to a high level. And so understanding, kind of like what we just talked about, when are the important situations for me to attack? Right? One of the important situations for me to be able to shoot the basketball or make a pass. And when you understand those things and you truly becomes a part of you. You're going to be able to be successful and you're going to be able to actually make that transformation because who you are as a person is going to match who you've become as a player through the work that you've put in. So it's really, really important that you develop your basketball iq. I want you to go down the top link in my description down below, get my free basketball IQ Masterclass. It's an hour long and it goes into some of those important topics. When it comes to changing who you are as a, as a, as a player, how you view the game, your iq, your understanding is going to immediately help you again, just like change the way that you view things. And when you do that, it's going to help you just unlock the skills that you've been working on. You're going to find that the things that you do on the court feel so much more natural and you're able to find success and make plays with much more consistency because of the way that you see the game. So some of the stuff we talk about, I say it all the time, you can add six or eight points per game to your average right now, just with the stuff that we talk about inside of that masterclass. So completely free. It's an hour long. Definitely check that out. Because like I said, if you don't change who you are and how you think the game, then none of the physical stuff is going to matter for you. So that is a super crucial part when it comes to transformation. And the last part I want to talk about is you have to understand the fact that people will view you a certain way. Right? Think about where you are right now. The people that are around you, your teammates, your coaches, the, the opponents, the opposing coaches, people who know you as a player, they have a certain idea, a certain view of who you are and that's cemented. Right. They say first impressions last forever. Right. Really hard to break a first impression or somebody has a lasting impression of you after meeting you for seven seconds or whatever the number is. Well, that, that is a, a trend. That's a real thing. Is that how people start off seeing you? It's hard to change that. So you might get better, but your coach is going to think of you in a certain way. Right? Maybe you, you weren't a great shooter and you work really hard to develop a jump shot and now you feel like, I can shoot the ball a little bit now I'm pretty confident doing it. Your coach may view you as the player who can't shoot. And so for you, that's another part of it is you have to be able to redefine yourself as a player to the other people around you because they have an idea of who you are. And, and you have to really be willing to go out there and prove yourself, right? The worst thing you can do is put in a ton of work and then go out and not attempt to show it, because nobody's just going to. Going to offer you those. Those situations. Nobody's going to offer you the opportunities because they don't know yet. So when you know that you've put in all this work, when you know that you've worked hard and you've developed skills that are going to translate that matter, they're going to help you be better. That's part of it. The next part of it is, hey, I've got to be willing to go out there and potentially fail at first. I got to be willing to go out there and take those shots that I've worked on. I gotta be willing to go out there and attempt to do those things that I know I can, that I've improved, that maybe people don't expect from me, maybe I've never done before, because if I don't do that, people will keep me in the same box. And even though I may be better, I'm still going to be given the same opportunities that I've always been, right? You have to go take what you want. And that was another area that I really struggled with too, is I would get better. But, but I didn't understand that, hey, people aren't just going to be like, oh, here you go. Now we're going to give you more shots now we're going to give you more opportunities. No, you have to go and actually take those opportunities until they change the way that they think of you. And that only happens by you going out there and saying, hey, this is what I'm going to do. And I don't care if I mess up at first, I don't care if I miss shots, I don't care if people are talking about me. I don't care. I know what I can do. I know what I've worked on. And when you have that mindset, that mentality that's going to allow you to actually make the transformation, right? So much of this is the way that you think who you are as a person, your overall understanding of these things. It's very, very important to have that. So if you want to make that transformation and redefine who you are as a player and actually be able to say, hey, all right, this offseason I put in all this work and I'm doing the right things. Now how do I make sure that I come back next season and I actually can accomplish those goals that I have for myself? Well, it all starts with who are you as a player? Who are you as a person? And. And does that match the work that you've put in? And when you can say yes to that, not only are you going to be better, but you're going to be way more confident in yourself. And because that, you're going to be way more consistent. And that's when you can truly achieve the goals that you have for yourself. So this is stuff that I wish that I would have understood as a player. So here we are now, me trying to help you be able to grasp that and apply that to your own game. I appreciate you for watching. Like I mentioned already, make sure you click that top link down below and go through that, that Basketball IQ Masterclass, completely free. Take notes on it. Like I said, I promise you, it's going to change the way that you view basketball and it's going to change your confidence, your overall success on the court. Best thing is you can do it sitting on your couch or whatever. Whatever you want, right? So highly recommend you go check that out down below. I appreciate you for watching Talk Soon. Peace.