#RealTalk - Today is a Big Day
Today is a big day on the basketball calendar, but not one that you’ll see get much attention on social media.
Today is the last day of the NBA off-season and so it is the day that various NBA teams waive players or assign them to the G-League.
Many of the players that will get that unfortunate news will be the very same that were celebrated on twitter in recent weeks with “welcome to the NBA” posts on social media.
Such posts are marketing tools, not for the players or their NBA teams themselves, but often from their previous programs (AAU, prep school, high school, etc...), looking to market their program.
Those posts may not be malicious, but they are misleading, because it misrepresents how hard it actually is to make it to the NBA.
For many young players, the NBA is the long-term goal and it comes with the belief that it will be tied to lifelong financial security.
And for those players that make it…and stick…and manage their finances responsibly…it can be just that.
But that three-step process BEGINS well-after those welcome to the NBA tweets. Making it to the NBA summer league, to a training camp, a pre-season game, or the G-League is a huge accomplishment in and of itself, but if you really want to know who made it to the NBA, you have to check the opening night rosters…and there’s a lot less to tweet about at that point.
Consider what we’ve seen just over the weekend:
• Nik Stauskas was waived by the Bucks. The former St. Mark’s (MA) and Michigan star was a former lottery pick;
• Simi Shittu, once high highest-ranked and recruited prospect in New England, was waived by the Bulls;
• Myles Powell was waived by the Knicks. He was the best player in the Big East last year at Seton Hall and got a total of 6 pre-season minutes to earn his spot this month.
To be clear, this is not a knock on Stauskas, Shittu, or Powell. They are among the very best players and prospects to come out of New England in the last decade. But that is exactly the point.
For all we hear phrases like, “he’s a pro” thrown around when prospects are coming up the ranks, it’s premature, misleading, and potentially more of a burden than a compliment.
Making it to the NBA is incredibly hard, a lot harder than we lead young players to believe. It takes the rarest combination of basketball talent, physical tools, hard-work, and sometimes some good luck or at least an opportunity.
It’s also not the only reason to run this race. There are plenty of other, potentially more achievable, goals that we don’t talk nearly enough about. There are other professional leagues around the world. There’s the opportunity to earn a free education and, ideally, to build a better life. Even without a scholarship, basketball can be a pathway to some of the most prestigious colleges and universities in the world. There’s the comradery of being on a team, having access to additional academic support, the health and wellness implications of being a college athlete, and the confidence that the game can provide.
There’s lot of reasons.
They don’t get talked about on twitter…but guess what, making it to the NBA is a lot harder than twitter makes it look. Young players need to know that, not so they stop chasing their dreams, but so that they realize there are no guarantees, no matter how talented you are, and various ways to make this process worthwhile.