In this informal YouTube vlog, Elijah Bryant and several participants discuss what it means to be a basketball player. The conversation opens with a brief prayer of gratitude before Elijah outlines the essential attributes of a great player: the ability to work with teammates from diverse backgrounds, taking and applying coaching instructions, handling high‑pressure situations, learning from failures through film study, and sacrificing personal and family time to improve. He shares personal anecdotes from his two‑plus years playing in Israel with Maccabi Tel Aviv, noting cultural quirks like heating in winter and recommending the local sneaker shop Sneakerbox for shoes. The dialogue also touches on personal branding, channel identity, and light‑hearted moments such as “dad dunking” and shout‑outs to friends. Throughout, the tone remains conversational and enthusiastic, mixing sincere reflections with casual banter.
Chapters
What does it mean to be a basketball player?
Here he goes again, Elijah Bryant, dazzling dribble dancing.
Hey, get out of there! Get out of there! Come on, we pack.
Come on, I'll be back. Come on.
Okay, boo, I love you. Give me kisses, give me kisses, give me kisses, give me kisses, Mom.
What do you mean?
All right, now come on. Bye, boo, love you.
Bye-bye, Blue.
Bye.
What are you doing?
Hey, yo.
Hello, welcome. Thank you. You guys, can you guys stop it? Grow up. What does it mean to be a basketball player? Your life jacket is located under your seat.
Please do I mean, we were just sitting back, you know, chopping it up, reminiscing about the good old days and all that, you know, tracking my roots, where I came from. But like I say, man, always said it. It's not about the destination, it's all about the journey, baby. Ain't nothing changed.
The city for sure. Wow, back to what I was saying. Being a basketball player, you have to have a lot of traits, not just on the court but also off the court.
Hi, Nunu! Hi, Nuni!
Say hi!
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for our many blessings.
We thank you for the opportunity to be here. We thank you—
Does the AC work or is it just heat? Does the AC work or is it just— it's only on heat or cooling? No, no, heat is— heat is— I mean, cooling is perfect. Thank you.
All right, bye.
That caught me off guard because usually in— oh, and if you guys didn't know, I'm in Israel, back where Janelle and I spent 3, 2+ years here. Usually in Israel during the winter or like during the cold seasons, they turn the heat off. I'm surprised that the air is on. Another funny thing is my first time signing with Maccabi, I came to a room similar like this and I made a video as well. Alright, so the reason I wanted to talk about being a basketball player and what you have to be able to do, there's a few components that I wanted to discuss. The first one is that you have to be able to work with others, so your teammates, personalities, come from different backgrounds, all have different goals and what they want to accomplish personally, but sometimes you have to put that aside to accomplish a team goal, more so in college compared to a professional. Also, being a basketball player, you have to be able to take instructions from your coach, from your assistant coach, some teammates maybe, and be able to apply them in a game. Hey, you need to get back on this pick and roll. You need to do this. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, done. Can't be any egos involved. You also need to be able to deal with pressure, high-pressure situations, anxiety, defeat, all of that. But I guess that kind of comes also with any other job, but I feel like the sport of basketball has really high-pressure, intense situations compared to other careers. So if you want to become really successful, you have to be able to take your failures and look at them as data points. Oh, I didn't play well, go watch film, learn from that, and put it into your next game.
Oregiv. Where are you?
The last thing for being a basketball player is you must, you must sacrifice time away from family. Not just for players overseas or NBA, but to get better you need to sacrifice time, go to the gym, all that stuff. So being a basketball player is a blessing, but it comes with a lot of things you must do to get to a high level.
Still going to hurt you the worst. I never got the basket and the fruits of the labor, and I never got the cash from that dude from the label.
I'm just thinking back.
Hello!
You like it?
Working on that posture.
Cat Cow.
Dang, you sane? That boy over there running on his toes. John, give me some content. You want some of my coffee? No, give me some content. Like Some more? No, I don't drink coffee. You got anything to say for EuroLeague? Excited?
What's your channel called?
Elijah Bryant.
Uh, I'm on here in Elijah Bryant channel, you know what I mean?
Hello, call me Big O, Little O. No, don't call me Little O, Big O only. I know it's a couple of O's out here, but I'm the oldest, you know what I mean? Hopefully y'all having a good day, man. Look at this, look at this, this guy over here, man. You know, the guy himself, you know. I will let y'all know this though, a man, you know, he got a baby, Blue. Now he dad dunking. If y'all don't know what dad dunking is, I mean, when you have a kid, you feel like you can jump all over the place because all the energy they give you, you know what I mean?
So they didn't have any more Kyries in Turkey, so I had to get some from my guy at Sneakerbox TLV.
So if you're ever in Israel and you need some shoes, hit up Sneakerbox.
TOB. Until next time, TLD. Thank you for all the great memories.
Shabbat Shalom.
It's time to go way back, way back, way back, way back. Pure pandemonium when I'm in the building. Grown man flow, ain't got time for the children. Now you can boo me, jump off, I'm winning. I still lay it on, shout out to the women. Watch, you was cool, they was acting wild. Walk in, leave drunk, it was packed for hours. Belligerent students, man, the shit got messy. Remind me of my first show I did at the Red Sea. I ain't had no DJ, just the tape deck. Opened up for Son of Star I love that. Met this cat named Larry, he was with the Avengers. Showed me how to make movies.
