“I am going to be a football player, basketball player or baseball
player”,
In delving deeper into this question I found that the
quest to play in the NBA starts at the tender age of 5 or 6, where parents
introduce their kids to the game of basketball by watching it on TV and/or
taking them to a game. Parents
then enroll their kids on a basketball team to keep them busy, increase their
weekly exercise or help them to learn how to play with a team, all in the hopes
that they will play in the NBA. Parents
encourage their kids to play on various intramural teams, sign them up for
basketball camps and enroll them in agility gyms at great financial strain in hopes
that they will continue honing in on their skills and becoming adept at the
game, so they can make it to the NBA.
In High School only the best players make it onto the
varsity basketball team. The
competition is so strong that when these players who have been playing
basketball all their lives enter high school, not many of them make it onto the
team, because the weaning out process (or numbers game) begins. This is a very crucial
time, because college scouts begin to look for extraordinary players for their
teams and athletes in their junior year initiate their search for the elusive
athletic college scholarship. Even
getting a scholarship is a numbers game.
There are approximately 15 players
on a varsity high school basketball team and there is normally one scholarship given to play college basketball. That means only 1 player out of 5-7 teams or 1 out of 90 players receive a college
basketball scholarship. Although it is not necessary to get a
basketball scholarship in order to play on a college team, these statistics
show the initial odds of just receiving one.
The pool of possible athletes making it into the NBA
becomes even smaller at the college level. If you are fortunate enough to receive an athletic
scholarship to play basketball, you have beaten some of the odds, now you have
to figure out how to transition to the NBA? There are over 250
college basketball teams that contain 12
Players on each team, which means there are 3000 male athletes playing college basketball in total. Every year 60 elite athletes are chosen in the NBA draft. Additionally, 15-20 standout
athletes will make it onto an NBA team by impressing scouts in the NBA Summer League, so the that is a
grand total of 80 players making it to
the NBA
The end result is not favorable for those who wish to
become professional basketball players, because only 1 out of 5000 male basketball players who make their high
school team will transition to the NBA.
These statistics are quite daunting, but we (parents, teachers, coaches)
should not be focusing on just helping our children make it, but helping them
create a mindset of “I
have many goals and although making it to the NBA is one of my goals it does
not define me, I can and will beat the NBA odds.”
Magic Johnson is a perfect example of an NBA player that
beat the NBA odds. Yes, he made it
into the NBA and excelled as well as broke records during his tenure, but when
he left the NBA, he made a bigger name for himself and a legacy for future
generations. Magic Johnson
redefined his himself by founding and running these entities:
Magic
Johnson Enterprises
Magic
Johnson Productions – (A promotional company)
Magic
Johnson Theaters
Magic Johnson Entertainment (Movie
Studio)
Magic
Card (prepaid credit card)
Magic Johnson is also part owner of Los Angeles Lakers
and Los Angeles Dodgers
God Bless,
A. Mayartis J
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