Stop Worrying About Getting Exposure

You know, I got a DM last week and it was, it was from a kid and he was, he told me he's going into his freshman year of high school. So he was saying, like, you know, he asked me a couple other things and then, you know, he said, he was like, hey, coach, so, you know, I'm going into my freshman year. Like, you know, you said in your video that rankings are important, which I talked about in last week's podcast. And he's like, okay, so if rankings aren't important, like, what should I do to, to get exposure, to get noticed? And, you know, this kind of has a multifaceted response to it. Here's the thing. If you're in 8th, 9th, most of you in 10th grade, like, I'm just going to tell you straight up, like, don't even worry about exposure now, okay? Most of you are not Mikey Williams, okay? Like, like, most of you aren't. So most of you aren't going to have espn and you know, you know, all these, all these major networks covering you when you're in, you know, you're in eighth or ninth grade, this won't happen. Very, very, very, very, very, very few players have that. And it really doesn't matter at the end of the day. So, so the whole exposure thing, it's for what? Like, the main thing is players will ask me, like, coach, how do I get recruited to play basketball? Like, I, I don't want it to. It's not this simple, but it really is. Like, you have to be good. You have to be really, really good. Like, really, really good. If you aren't getting, if you aren't getting recruited now, there's some things you can do additionally, but at the end of the day, if you're in eighth or ninth grade, like you, you aren't good enough to play back to play college basketball yet again unless you're a top player, okay? So when you're that, when you're that young, when you're below your junior year high school, or at least the summer going into your junior high school, so if you're still a sophomore or lower, your main focus should not be exposure or recruiting or anything like that. Like, just stop thinking about it. It's not important. Again, unless you are a top player in your class, right where you're going to have D1 offers when you're in seventh or eighth grade, okay? Again, 99.9999% of players do not fall in that category, okay? So stop worrying about it. If you're below that that age, your main focus should be development. Okay? Should be getting really, really good so that by the time you're a junior, right. Junior is a very important year for recruiting. By the time you were a junior, you can contribute to your varsity team. You can be a main guy in your varsity team. You can play on a good AAU team, play good tournaments, and actually be in front of people who now actually care. Because here's the thing. I've said this in videos before, that you guys have probably. I had a whole pod. Well, it was a segment of a podcast where essentially I talked about the whole difference between, you know, D1, D2, D3, my experience playing with guys at each, and how a lot of those D like, a lot of D3 guys that I know are better than some D1 guys I know. Like, and the thing is, for the majority of Division 3 programs, like, they're not going to recruit you before your junior year. Like, they're just not going to. It's different in D1. They might recruit you as a freshman, sophomore, some even earlier than that if you're. Again, if you're a top player. But like I said before, the majority, in most places, the best player on your team, the best player in your league, the best player in your conference is going to be a D3 guy. So that player isn't even going to really get recruited until he's a junior. Okay? So why. Why worry about recruiting when you're a freshman? It doesn't really matter. Your. Your. Your goal needs to be to become that guy. Like, I need to become the guy who's the best player on my team, who's the best player in my conference. Like, that's got to be what you're actually looking to do. It shouldn't be about, oh, I got to get exposure, I got to do all this and that. And, like, that's just. It's not important. Like, I think. I think the focus for players is not where it needs to be in terms of that. Like, I get it, because that was. That was me. But, you know, I learned to recognize, like, you know, you got to actually get good enough to be there, because a coach is going to look, and when he evaluates you, he's going to ask himself, is this kid going to be able to contribute to my team? Right? And like I've said before, a lot of these, even if you. Even if it's D3, a lot of these D3, like, guys are incredibly good. Again, I mentioned before, you know, you go watch Devonte Friga right? Like, that's a D3 guy and he is. And he's, you know, if you, if you play with him, he's probably one of the best players you're ever gonna play with, right? So. So you need to, you need to look at that. Like, I, like, think about that yourself. If a guy like that is. And again, I know this for, I don't know this for, for sure, but like, you know, you'd assume probably not before his junior year is really when he started to get that sort of, that sort of traction, at least with the program he ended up going to. So, so end of the day, the, the exposure piece, forget about that for now, okay? Get to a point where you can, you can actually see yourself contributing to a college roster. Okay. This shouldn't be about like, oh, I want to play. No, it needs to be like, are you good enough to do that? Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself that. If you aren't, then figure out why that is and work on it. Once you get to your junior year of high school, going into your junior year, this is when you can start to be proactive. So, for example, I'm going to dive into this at some point in more detail. Probably give you guys something template or something that you can use. But you're going to want to reach out to coaches because here's the thing again, if you're not a top player, if you're not a, you know, if you're not a. If you're not D1 guy, teams are not going to reach out to you for the most part. They might reach out to you, but you're going to have to reach out to a lot of schools, especially if you're interested in them. So if you want to go to this school, it's a good chance they probably won't reach out to you. You're going to have to be the one to email their coach, say, hey, coach, you know, my name is, you know, Mark. I go to this high school and I graduate in this year. Here's my highlights. This is my stats from last year. You know, I'm interested in playing at your school, you know, and essentially that's what you're going to say. So you're going to do that for the schools you're interested in. And at that point, you know, if they're, if they think again, if the coach looks at you, it looks at your highlights or looks at your game film says, hey, this kid might have the potential to contribute to our team in a couple years. They'll be interested in you. If they don't think that, then they won't be. So again, you need to put yourself in the best position to actually get there. Stop trying to get to the finish line before you even start the race. If you're at eighth or ninth grade, you haven't even started, you're not even close to where you need to be. So stop worrying about the finish line. Start focusing on actually sprinting and getting into first place. Worry about actually doing it before you actually worry about finishing it. That's a big thing I think that players need to understand is that it's not just about like, you know, oh, I gotta get exposure. You know, this kid and this kid is, you know, Mikey Williams is getting this and that. It's like, stop. Again, that's my issue with balls. Life and overtime is like, stop worrying about what's happening on overtime. It has no effect on you. Again, those, those players on there are the, are. Most of them are, are the very, very top of the, the basketball of each class, right? So they're going to get the attention, they're going to get the quote, unquote, exposure and they're going to get the offers early because they're just, they're better than everybody else is, okay? So you can't worry about that right now. That doesn't affect you. You got to get yourself to a position to where you actually can contribute and schools are actually interested in you, okay? Because if you just are like, oh, I'm going to get exposure, that's the other thing too. You got to think about these camps too. A lot of camps are going to be like, oh, exposure camps or whatever, right? But if you aren't good enough, like, if you aren't that good, what do you like, what's your exposure gonna do? It's gonna really be a waste of your time and money potentially when you could be spending that time and money in a better place. And then by the time you're a junior senior, you gotta, then you gotta worry about that stuff. And you can go, you can go to those camps, right? Because you're good enough. You put the work in for it now and you know that teams are gonna be interested in you. Okay? So take it step by step. Get there first. Get good enough first than worry about actually being, you know, reaching out and putting yourself in a position to, you know, have opportunities for yourself. I want you guys to right now go to the top link in my description and get my free elite perimeter score workout. We're going to work on a bunch of different skills that you need to have if you want to be an elite player in the perimeter. Make sure you guys check it out completely free. 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