HOW I ENDED UP PLAYING BASKETBALL in ISRAEL @euroleague TRAVEL VLOG!

Safety protocol.

Good job, Jello!

Here he goes again, Elijah Bryant, dazzling dribble dancing. Whoa, what you doing, dude? Dude, what you doing? Come here, come here, come here, come here, come here, come here, come here.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Okay, let's do some RDLs with you. Come here, you little peanut head. Wow, Mom whipped it up before Dad left.

Thanks, Joe.

Little steak and macaronis.

Jump into my arms.

What up guys, welcome back to the channel. And of course today, as you guys know, you should know, another travel vlog. During this vlog today, I'm going to be talking about how I ended up in Israel.

You have a Zoom meeting about transition to summer and safety protocols.

For what?

Drink, drive safe, shit like that.

Come on, Dory, make sure you don't walk around with your gun loaded, dude. And, and you'll, uh, you'll save money.

We are pleased to welcome you to Kovna.

We have just landed at the Kovna Airport. Local time here is 7:40 minutes.

Good job, Jello!

Jello, can you sign for me? Yeah, Danny, which one?

Which one's me?

Which one?

Where?

There you go.

Oh my, he got a lot.

Thank you.

Here we go. Oh, I think—

okay, right, picture here, picture here. Ready?

1, 2, 1, 2, 3.

I need that, but first things first. Oh, it's cold outside.

I got to go open the window. See what the bathroom looks like. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Oh, Kerb. Yeah. And the older guy's like, go, go, shoot, shoot! Like, he's talking about how she should have listened to her intuition, right? They would trust that you— it's just like, even if it's an angel. JT. Well, you know, you know 911 is—

911 is 100, right?

Yeah.

All right, so the reason you guys came here for this video was you want to know how I ended up in Israel, and this is what I'm going to tell you. I left BYU as a junior. The reason I left early is because I'd already went to prep school and I've already transferred once, so I was 23 leaving BYU. So after I left BYU, I went down to a place called Impact where I did pre-draft for like 6 weeks. So you're basically going there, you're training twice a day, all you're doing is training. Eat, sleep, train, basically working out with a bunch of guys, probably like 30, 40 guys there playing pickup, doing NBA drills, that type of stuff. So while I was at Impact, I would go to and from different NBA cities to, you know, interview for NBA jobs, you know, work out, do psychology testing, all those certain things. And if you guys want to see those videos, those are on our family channel, but they're interesting. I mean, you go there, it's very stressful, anxious, nervous. You're going there for an interview for your dream job, pretty much. So I ended up doing like 7 NBA workouts. And if I had one thing to tell you about the NBA workouts, that would be, who cares if you mess up? Who cares if you miss shots? And that's my problem when I went into the workouts. I'm not saying my workouts went bad, but they definitely could have gone better. Go into your workouts or whatever interview to learn. Who cares if you make mistakes? Mistakes are good. If you're in the mistake process, that's a fixed mindset. You need to have a growth mindset.

Where's your room at? I'm room, uh, 604. I got the penny, obviously. Let's see it. I don't like to show off my room.

Why?

Is your little treatment done?

I got a little treatment done. You put the tea bag in the machine. Machine? I'm confused. How?

You want me to say the morning prayers? Children, Father, thank you for this day.

Hi guys, welcome.

Of the breath.

In.

In, out. Guys, I got 3 minutes finally. Look at this, I finally hit 3 minutes. So it's like a guided breathing exercise and you alternate oxygenated breathing, you like 40 times, and then you hold your breath for as long as possible. And I got 2:48, got 2:32. 3 minutes is my longest ever. I held my breath for 3 minutes. It's ridiculous. Pretty stoked about that. All right, so after my NBA workouts finished, we all came back, all the players, and worked out at Impact one day. A pro day where all the NBA scouts come and they watch you and you interview. So you do different drills, shooting drills, dribbling drills, all that type of stuff to hopefully get a job. But during this whole process, I was staying in a 2-bedroom apartment with my wife and a roommate. So to say the least, my wife is— she's a trooper. So after pro day, luckily, I mean, after waiting and waiting and seeing what's going to happen with summer league, I got an opportunity with the Philadelphia 76ers. And honestly, I would be lying if I what's saying. I wasn't nervous, anxious, excited, all of the above. I mean, I was chasing my dream job. So once I finally made it to Philadelphia, they treat you exactly like an NBA player from what I've heard. Obviously I haven't played in the NBA in a regular season, but I mean, get your own hotel room, they give you per diem per day, you have access to all the stuff, the facilities. So I felt like I kind of made it. In a sense, you know. I mean, this was a kid who was told he would never play Division 1 basketball. I was stoked, nervous, anxious. All right, so when you first get to the training facility, all that stuff, you do testing— not vertical testing, you do that stuff during your NBA workouts— but you just do like, they measure certain things, and then you may do physicals, all that type of stuff. Yeah, the doctor checks down there, all that good stuff, check your heart stuff, EKG, basically liability stuff. And then you get into practice and stuff like that. And obviously some places are harder than others, but here, being that I wasn't drafted and I didn't have a lot of stuff behind my name— I did well in college, but I didn't have Duke, Kentucky behind my name, so it's harder. It's for sure, it's way harder. So what you guys have to understand is that if you're drafted, the NBA team has more money invested in you, so you're gonna get more of an opportunity. So I was getting an opportunity, but I wasn't getting an opportunity at the same time. So fast forward to summer league in Vegas where sometimes the coach is coming up to me and saying, hey Elijah, you know, today, you know, be prepared not to play. Which is nice, but like, it's just coming from a guy who thinks he's the best. Everyone there thinks they're alpha, thinks they're the best. So to hit— for your coach to tell you like you don't have a chance to get in, like, talk about confidence being smacked right in the face. And it was tough. It was tough. I'm not going to lie to you. There were days where I was like, this is so stupid. Just give me a chance. So fast forward, I think 2 games into summer league, and finally I was just like, I mean, what do I have to lose? I'm just going to ask the coach, just give me an opportunity to get in the game. So I went up to the coach, I asked him, hey, look, let me just get a chance to play. You know what I mean? At least try. So I get in, I actually do well. I think I scored like 8 points in 2 minutes or something like that.

So I played well.

But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter really. Like, they have— they know who they're— who they're there to watch and who they have the money invested in. And I'm not saying this in a negative light towards NBA front office, NBA personnel, NBA coaches. If I invest in something and I put money into it, obviously I want to see what they're going to do for me. I totally get it. But coming from a player's perspective, I want to have an opportunity. So I, I understand both sides. So pretty much The Philadelphia Summer League didn't go how I wanted it to go, but back to the growth— that's a fixed mindset, right? But the growth mindset, I learned a lot and it was a great opportunity. So thank you, Philly. Cheers.

Oh my goodness, you're so cute!

Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!

So after Philly, I went back to Utah, and we're staying with my in-laws, Janelle's parents. And I was just kind of thinking like, now what? And I thought for sure I was gonna have contracts coming in. I mean, I played Summer League, like, I should have tons of contracts coming in, right? But I didn't. 3 teams came in.

Baseline drive, Bellario. Bryant open, makes the 3, and there's great passing game from Maccabi. Wants to feed Bryant, gets him in the end against Jokubaitis. Leans back, that's a tough shot by Elijah Bryant. Bender open again from 3. Walker, excellent defender, forcing to pick it up. Jones finds Bryant. Bryant makes the 3. 6-point lead, 76 to 670. Maccabi were ahead.

In Germany came in, and it was decent money. Mind you, any money coming out of college at that time is way more than what I was making then. So I waited. I talked to a few coaches from those different teams, and then I was praying a lot, that's for sure. And then a lot came and said a lot, and they had like the fire-breathing Sharks or whatever.

I was like, what?

I'm telling you, it couldn't have been a better place to start my career. So thank you so much, a lot, and forever in my heart.

All right, let's go.