Episode 1 - Spencer Jones on the NBA Journey: Success, Money & Life Beyond Basketball

Hi, it's Chris Tittley here, and this is the first episode of The Scoreboard. A very special guest out of Denver, we've got Spencer Jones, a rookie from the Denver Nuggets in the NBA. Spencer, thank you so much for being part of this series and also being the first guest.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I'm honored to be the first one.

Now I'm going to get straight to it in regards to The Scoreboard and what your personal scoreboard looks like at this time in the moment. What do you define as success coming into your first season into the NBA?

For me, success, you know, I try to take a holistic approach. You know, you grow up and, you know, success for me was like, you know, I had dreams of being a basketball player and everything like that. So, success would be making the NBA and stuff like that. You know, as you start to achieve those goals, you know, you always look to push further and further on that. So, I mean, I don't know. Success is just always having enjoyable challenges that you know you can overcome even though you aren't you know, currently, you know, it's always having something ahead to look for and always finding ways to get, you know, to renew those challenges as you solve them and finding new ones.

And when it comes to basketball, let's go back to the early days in your life where that first pickup of the ball, where that first interest happened, and how did that sort of— what age were you and what drove the spark?

Yeah, for me, you know, I was always a pretty random boxer. Kid who just kind of just liked hanging out with people and stuff like that. And I had an older brother, and a lot of the kids around the neighborhood were around his age and stuff like that. And so they would always play sports and everything like that. So growing up, it was— I was always annoyed that I was like too young, too small to get out there. And then eventually when I got big enough, it was like one of the first sports we used to always do together was hoops. And this was around, I don't know, maybe 4 or 5 years old and stuff like that. And so that's kind of where it grew, just, you know, wanting to be out there with, you know, my older brother and all his friends and stuff like that, playing outside.

And the dream as a young kid was to play in the NBA. And now this year you've been drafted— sorry, you've been selected by the Denver Nuggets to play as a rookie in the NBA. How does that feel?

Feels great, honestly. I mean, you know, a couple of trials and tribulations to get there, you know, stumps in the road that you had to overcome. And, you know, you're better for it. Obviously, when you're going through it, you know, you wish you weren't. But now that I kind of went through it and got through it, it's like, you know, you're happy, you know, for that, for that path and everything and almost don't wish it any other way. Just things you've learned.

So, and in regards to the support crew around you of getting and fulfilling your dream, you know, I've seen sport described as, or sports athletes described as being selfish for a period of time to get to where they want to be. How important has that been? And is there people around you that have, that have backed you from day one?

Oh, absolutely. There have been people who backed me from, from day one. I mean, you know, I didn't know how realistic the NBA vision was for a decent amount of my time, honestly, probably not till about halfway through my college career did it actually look like, you know, a substantial possibility for just the, you know, the normal person looking at it. So yeah, no, I really relied on the support. I remember, you know, getting to Stanford was kind of a, you know, interesting path just because I was like the last person admitted. It was like a very last-minute recruiting process where they found me very late in my senior year, which is, very rare for basketball recruiting. And so I honestly didn't think I would have, I would have played in like, you know, the Power 5 Division 1 level until, until around then. And then, you know, also like, you know, I had a substantial injury my, my senior year of college or my 5th year of college, my last year playing that, you know, kind of I thought might have, you know, kind of hurt the hopes of being an NBA guy just because I didn't, you know, take a take the jump I thought I needed to have to, you know, to be drafted. And obviously I wasn't drafted, but I was able to still get signed to the team and have a, you know, a guaranteed contract for the year and stuff like that. So I still found a way to get there. And, you know, it was all the support system, all the, you know, medical staff, coaches, parents, everything like that that kind of, you know, helps you get to the day-to-day stuff that eventually, you know, leads to the goal.

Yeah. And Spencer, talking about your college years, you broke a few records in your college. How does that make you feel looking back now as a chapter in your life? And obviously now moving forward into the NBA, trying to get onto the court and succeed so much. Does it feel like it's a distant memory, or does it feel like pretty fresh to you still?

You know, it's just all this stuff just goes by so fast. You know, it's, it still feels like fresh, but at the same time, you know, the whole draft process was long, grueling, that it almost feels like it was a little bit of ways away at the same time. But no, it's always nice to have, you know, some sort of legacy, especially at a place like Stanford, you know, where you'll, where, you know, I know if I return, I'll be remembered in some spaces and stuff like that. So it's like just nice to know that you'll have that community because of, because of what I've done and things like that. But, you know, obviously I would have definitely have traded some of those personal records for more, for more team achievement and everything like that, always. But no, yeah, it's definitely, definitely something I really, really hang on to.

I'm curious as to know when you're on the basketball court and you come off and you finish the game, whether like on a percentage basis, whether you come off feeling happy half the time or three-quarters of the time or 25% of the time, or like, oh, we can improve, or a bit disappointed? And the feelings that go through you when you finish a basketball game?

Yeah, I can be my own worst critic at times. I'm not— I'm not typically the happiest. I mean, you know, there's this— you always get that sense of relief after the game's over in terms of like, you know, you can relax because you're so hyped up, so revved up, you know, and always in that kind of killer mode for that, that long time. You know, it's nice to, you know, bring it down and relax. So you always get that sense of relief. I would, I wouldn't, I wouldn't define it as happiness necessarily because, you know, you still love the game and, you know, there's always things I'm looking at is, shoot, I could have done this better. Or, you know, you know, always, I'm always critiquing myself on what's, you know, what I could have done in the game and did I give it everything. And, you know, more times than not, you're, you're telling yourself no, even though you probably did, you know, because, because you always feel like, you know, As you get higher, higher up, you're always looking for ways to try to, try to, you know, improve yourself and everything like that. So it's always— I'm always critiquing myself, always looking at very small things that, you know, many people would overlook that I'm just like, I wish I did that a little bit better.

And when you're growing up, when you were selected in teams or not selected in teams, how did that feel in regards to disappointment? Was it one particular moment that maybe drove you a bit harder in terms of selection? Because it probably can be brutal in regards to not being picked or being picked, etc. Is there Has there been moments of disappointment in your life? And you did mention the injury before, but moments of disappointment that thought, okay, I'm going to throw in the towel.

Yeah, there was, there was, there was definitely a couple of those moments early on. I didn't have too many of those moments, um, just because, you know, I was, I was usually pretty good around it. So I was always selected for the various teams and everything. But no, around my senior year of college was a very distinct moment. I remember, um, I remember it was my final game actually of, uh, of my senior season in high school. Sorry, it's not college, high school. But no, it felt like it was my best chance to get that Power Five offer. I think it was, it was Northwestern. The head coach came out and, you know, my high school was a very good basketball school and everything like that. We had won 3 state champions in a row, championships in a row coming into my senior season. And then, you know, we were going for, you know, the 4-peat, which we, I don't think we had had since ever and everything like that. But we ended up losing like a sub-state game to a small-town team that we should have blown out, and we lose that game off like a last-second shot or whatever. It was a devastating loss, obviously, because it's, you know, it's your last high school game, everything like that. And plus, I didn't have a terrible game but didn't have a great one. And, you know, it was in front of a school like Northwestern that I was, you know, would have been very excited to have taken the offer. Um, and so after that, you know, I, you know, they obviously didn't, didn't offer me, and I was— didn't really know where the basketball would have gone after that just because my parents kind of had— I've come from a very academic family and everything like that. And so I wasn't going to sacrifice academics or— yeah, academics just to play sports. And so Northwestern was like one of those options where it was like I didn't have to. But with them falling through, it was kind of like, okay, I have the grades to get into better schools than what basketball is offering me. So am I going to play basketball in college? And that was That was kind of something that was wearing on me a little bit towards, towards the end of the season. And so it was just somewhere I had to rely on the support and everything. And, you know, going into that final AAU season, it was, you know, it was a little bit of a struggle, but I just, you know, had to prepare every day and just, you know, wait for, see if an offer would come and everything like that. And, you know, Stanford came along, along with some others, but Stanford was definitely the best option. And, you know, luckily I got through it and got to that.

Now, you mentioned the word grades there and talking about academic and what have you studied and what are you thinking about, you know, life post-sport? It's obviously a very, you know, important focus for you now is, is the NBA. But then obviously sometimes, uh, injuries can happen, sometimes things don't go their way, and there's a, there's a life after sport.

Yeah, absolutely. No, yeah, um, yeah, going into Stanford, they, uh, I majored in— they call it management science engineering. It's, uh, like industrial, industrial engineering for, for many other schools is how they, how they call it. Um, but no, what I, what I kind of— I've always been interested in the healthcare space just because my dad and my grandfather were both physicians and everything. So, I've been around medicine a long time, but I didn't necessarily ever want to be a doctor, but I was very interested in the business side of it or being in the tech technical side of it with all the advancements with AI and everything like that. So, I always keep interested in the startup space with health tech and even sports tech with sports performance and sports medicine performance, everything like that. So, The great thing now is, you know, you're, you're an NBA player, so you have a decent platform and stuff like that. And so, you know, one thing I'm just looking to, looking to do as I'm, you know, as I'm obviously spending most of my hours, you know, trying to be the best NBA player I can, is also trying to use my platform to, you know, maybe ease the transition later on, get connected with certain companies and stuff like that and just, you know, you know, do what I can to use this, use this great platform that I have to kind of, you know, figure out the rest of my life.

No, for sure. Definitely. And let's get on to the NBA now. The Denver Nuggets. Have you guys got together? You're training in the preseason. You met all your teammates, etc.?

Yeah, not everybody yet. So typically not everybody has to report. At least the veterans don't have to report till training camp, which is thinking like 2 weeks end of September. But they bring in all the young guys, pretty much all the guys who have been on the team for probably like 3 years or less and all the new guys. And so I kind of like that because, you know, you get a little bit of that college feel. Everybody's around the same age, stuff like that. You know, so it's been nice. And yeah, so it's, it's not too bad right now. It's a little less, it's a little less than college right now, honestly, just because we're not in the full swing. It's just, you know, it's just about 3, 4 hours a day. And then, you know, you kind of just kind of have the rest of the day to kind of figure it out. I mean, obviously a lot of guys will go back in the gym, so there's more hours there, but that's kind of on your own. That's kind of the professional life is a lot more autonomy.

Yeah, I was going to say, you know, being, you know, there's a fair bit of downtime as a professional athlete, but not huge in the NBA. But what do you get up to? Do you do some hobbies? Do you get out there and sort of put basketball to one side, or is it 24/7 in your head?

No, it's, it's, it's always been a conscious effort not to make it 24/7. Uh, always have something outside to clear yourself. Honestly, me mentally, that always makes you a better, better player when you can, when you can unload some of the things you always stress about on the, on the floor. Um, so it's just not always in your mind because, you know, if it's constantly on your mind, you're just going to stress, stress about it more on the court. That was, that was a big reason why I enjoyed Stanford. It was very easy to do something like that. You know, you could always get outside and, and a bunch, you know, it's, it's, you know, you're around Silicon Valley, everybody else has got their own things going on that you can, you can kind of, you know, hear about and get interested in. So it kind of opened your, opened your eyes, you know, and perspective on everything. Um, but no, yeah, being in Cali, being in Colorado's, in Denver's really nice. You know, I'm big on getting, getting outside, getting outdoors, done a couple hikes, uh, run a little bit, you know, enjoy the parks, walk around the city. You know, just kind of anything I can do to get outside. And I read a little bit on my own time as well.

One question in regards to the future of yourself in regards to the NBA and the salaries, etc. There's a lot of money that gets thrown around. There's managers, a lot of people that take a lot of bits along the way, etc. What are you thinking in regards to your financial situation and the future around the NBA? And obviously a bit more money than college. And, you know, It could last for 5 years, it could last for 10 years. What are you thinking around that?

For me, the biggest thing is to just, you know, keep track of my spending. The biggest thing is the lifestyle creep that usually gets people, you know, just because like you said, you never know how long your career is going to be. So you just, you just want to make sure you know how much you're spending, how much your yearly expenses are, so you can kind of prepare for how much you need to make to, you know, have a life that suits you and, you know, everything like that. And I've I've kind of never really been a big spender, so a lot of it's just been kind of investing for me. I'm not too worried about my spending habits, but yeah, I mean, you know, having some money from college also helps. So I kind of used pretty much all my NIL money just to have like the basic, just to set my basic investments that everybody needs, you know, your Roth IRA or your high yield savings and, you know, a little bit in the S&P and stuff like that. And so kind of with the extra stuff from the NBA, it's kind of like, you know, maybe more diversifying my investments with like real estate or, you know, something in startup, start, you know, in the startup space, stuff like that. But, you know, I can get a bit more creative with it. And, you know, with that comes the learning opportunity of, you know, being in, being an investor and learning kind of venture and capital.

And Spencer, some of your peers and friends, have they been picked up with NBA teams as well? Do you know some, some similar friends in your situation where you can sort of WhatsApp and say, hey, what's going on? Or is this normal? Or is this what you normally do?

I mean, there's a decent amount of guys I knew that got picked up. I mean, Harrison Ingram, who played at Stanford and then went to North Carolina, got picked up in the second round at the Spurs and stuff like that. Then, you know, like, I mean, you generally know a decent amount of guys as you get better and better. The community gets smaller and smaller. So, you know, you've played against guys, you've interacted with guys. And so, like, even some of the guys on the team, you know, I've interacted with before, even like, you know, going through the whole draft process and stuff. And so the community, like I said, the community is gets pretty small the better you get. So yeah, I have a decent amount of guys I can, I can talk to about certain things.

Some final questions I'm going to ask about some personality traits, um, and you can, you can answer how you want. Um, resilience. Are you a resilient person?

I would say so, very much so, yeah.

Patient?

Uh, yes, I'd say patient, yeah, more so than most.

Um, confident?

Confident took— that one took some time, but yes, I'd say I'm confident.

And the, the blurriness and grayness between confidence and arrogance?

Uh, the blurriness and arrogance, I think— I mean, one thing I've always, I've always found is that, you know, the best players do have a decent amount of arrogance to them, like an irrational confidence, just because it's like, to take those risks in games and stuff like that, you almost need it. You know, so I don't see arrogance, especially in sport. I don't really see arrogance as a terrible thing. Now, outside of sports, absolutely. But inside sports, like, you know, the trash talking, everything like that, you need a little bit of that in order to take these kind of risks in games and do things that some of these guys do. But yeah, I mean, the blurry line is kind of like how much you have to back it up, you know, like how much have you earned the right to have your confidence. But, but, you know, like I said, like, you know, like if the first game, you know, the first game I walk into playing with the Denver Nuggets, like, I'm not going to have anything to really back up my confidence for really being out there. It'll be my first game in the NBA. I mean, yes, you'll have college stats and everything like that, but I haven't really played an NBA game. So I'm going to need a little bit of arrogance, you know, to say that, you know, this confidence might be irrational, but, you know, it's going to, you know, it's going to come to fruition eventually.

Do you pump yourself up or not?

Yeah. Yeah, I have my own ways of pumping myself up. From the outside, it doesn't seem like it, but from the inside, yeah, yeah, I have certain, certain ways of thinking that, yeah, you kind of have to, you kind of have to after a while, especially, you know, transferring the NBA where it's 82 games instead of, instead of 40. Like, there are going to be days, yeah, you don't want to be, you don't want to be out there. So it's, you have to find ways to pump yourself up.

Uh, are you superstitious?

No, I've never really been superstitious, um, in terms of that. I, I definitely have a routine that I stick to, but You know, sometimes life gets in the way every once in a while, so you have to be able to adjust and prepare for that.

And how are you on the, on the road, on traveling and getting on planes and staying in hotel rooms?

It does wear on you a little bit, you know, after a while. I mean, even in college, I'm sure it will a little bit in the NBA, just because, you know, like most of the time you're recovering and stuff like that. So you're not really, even though you're traveling, you're not really seeing the city. It just feels like you're just going from one hotel room to the next. But, you know, like I said, as long as you, as long as you keep a routine, something that's familiar, you know, that feels like home a little bit, that's kind of how you get through it.

Spencer, thanks so much for having a chat today, and all the best in the, in the rookie season at the NBA with the Denver Nuggets. It's very much appreciated for you to come on and give your time to be this first episode of The Scoreboard. I really look forward to following your progress and really look forward to catching up, and hopefully one day we can meet face to face.

Absolutely not. Thank you so much for that.