People who have never played in a game, even pickup, with D1 players have no clue how much better they are than the average good hooper in your rec league.
rkennedy991
Whenever people talk about this kind of thing, I always remember what Brian Scalabrine said: “I’m closer to being as good as LeBron James than you are to being as good as me.”
People talk a lot of shit, but realistically, if you’re in the NBA, then you’re probably in the top 1% of the world at basketball.
akwilliamson
That’s why I tell my kids “you will be the next powerball winner” instead of instilling lies like “you will make the NBA”
Street-Common-4023
It’s wild too I met a former Dl player he would just shoot from the half court all the time. He never missed fr. Was a sniper
Numerous-Cicada3841
This is also why it always blows my mind when guys don’t seem to appreciate being in the NBA and blow their opportunity with a bad attitude, legal issues, or just not putting in effort. It’s an insane privilege to be in the modern NBA.
financial_goth
**Jontay Porter in shambles….**
dienxkalamb
The whole clip is great but the first part was hilarious — JJ Redick took an Italian class at Duke to prepare for a potential overseas basketball career.
Neophyte_Gardener
I had a coworker friend who never made the NBA outside of sl, but was a d1 tournament player 15 ppg scorer. He played several years in Europe. He described professional basketball as going onto the hardest game of your life every night. You were going up against people who wanted to rip you apart and dominate you every single game, and if you didn’t bring that you were going to get absolutely destroyed. Unless you are an NBA superstar you just don’t have that big of a talent gap against anybody that you can take even a fraction of a millimeter off the gas or you’re getting destroyed that game.
There was no relief in knowing you were playing a lesser team because even if they were at the bottom of the standings if you didn’t try to crush them you were going to lose.
You see this happen in the NBA. Even the pistons and wizards get theirs.
Jungle_Official
I played a pickup game with a few players at Maryland once. I got the ball for a wide open corner 3. Joe Smith (#1 pick that year) was standing under the basket. In the second it took me to shoot, he took two steps, leaped and swatted it out of the air. It was the most insanely athletic thing I’ve ever seen.
Better_Albatross_946
The average NBA role player is better at basketball than anyone you know is at anything
McClovinDominating
So whose pod is this because wtf is Mero doing here 😂😂
Sweetcheels69
A basketball coach on another thread a couple years back basically said to his team, being the best ball player in your school isn’t enough, or even being the top recruit in your county. You can eek by by being the best ball player in your state, but the guys who make it, are the guys who are the best in their region of the US.
DevMahasen
[Removed personal anecdote because details are too specific. Sorry]
I think modern day broadcast with super slowmo and stuff is great, in that it underscores the truly bordering on superhuman shit that NBA hoopers display on an almost regular basis. But maybe it has made us possibly desensitized to how insane even a simple dunk is. And that de-sensitivity is why some rec level hoopers think they can take on guys like Scalabrine. They just don’t understand the skill gap.
Scal put it best: he is closer to LeBron than we ever will be to someone like him and others who are mere footmarks, if that, in NBA history.
NihilisticTaters
Played on a high division rec league team with a guy in his early 30s who made all ACC 3rd Team, earned low mins for Boston’s G-League team and had just moved back to the US from playing pro ball in Italy for ~7 years but now works a normal job. Our team was full of guys that played D2/D3 or high level high school and this guy made everyone look like complete trash. He’s 6’8 and was mostly a banger and post player professionally but had the best handles on our team and was among our best 3pt shooters.
Kafka_pubsub
This clip was great, though I disagree with JJ on (or at least what I think he was implying) that lawyers and doctors don’t get tested every day.
whobroughtmehere
Someone send this to that dad on TikTok
profilemk11
JJ Redick is so well spoken
BeefySwan
There definitely aren’t “billions” of people that are trying to make the NBA lol
TornGauntlet
What is that logo on melos hat
TheFa111en
>He described professional basketball as going onto the hardest game of your life every night. You were going up against people who wanted to rip you apart and dominate you every single game, and if you didn’t bring that you were going to get absolutely destroyed.
>you just don’t have that big of a talent gap against anybody that you can take even a fraction of a millimeter off the gas or you’re getting destroyed that game.
And for the rest of us, this is just what it’s like playing a pickup game at the local gym.
juantravis
Brian scalabrene schooling dudes is still the best example of
pendletonskyforce
For the movie Coach Carter, most of the actors had to be the best player in their high school team, or they weren’t allowed to audition. And this is just to be in a basketball movie, not to make the NBA.
Orpdapi
NBA by far has to be the hardest professional league to get into partly because of the scarcity of spots now factored in with the fact that you’re also competing with the best from around the world trying to get a spot on a NBA team also, it’s basically like winning a lottery. JJ is correct, telling some 14 yr old kid he’s going to be a NBA star does that kid no favors and I’m sure there’s countless instances of a kid who heard that and got a big head about it and eventually disappeared into obscurity after college ball.
dreadit-runfromit
People don’t appreciate how difficult it is to be a professional athlete, let alone an NBA player.
Just a few weeks ago I had to call home because I was concerned about a student and the mom went on about how he’s *going to be* an NBA star. Not, “Oh, we’re hoping with a lot of hard work he can make this his career.” Just a general statement as if it was a foregone conclusion. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t even playing in any leagues, which you would expect by 14/15. He’d just gotten a lot of comments at pick-up basketball about being great. But it was supposed to ease my concerns because apparently I’m teaching a future NBA star.
Slevin424
Now imagine being 5’3… Muggsy is GOATed
ConstantRaisin
To put things into perspective… I’m personally good enough to play low level international basketball. Think Vietnam leagues, spains 3rd level, things like that. I’m probably better than 99.9% of people at basketball, top 3 point shoot in my city in High school, etc…
I say all of this to say that when I was a senior in HS, I played against freshman, 15 year old, De’aaron Fox. Even though he was 15, I was 18, he was probably 10x better than anyone in that game. Scored over 35 points, and dunked a handful of time.
I can only imagine how good he is now. I sum this up to say that I’m probably better than 99.9% of basketball players, but a star like Fox is likely 20x better than me.
Now imagine playing against a player with Fox’s skill, speed, yet he’s 6’7 pure muscle like Lebron.
Unless you’ve played with NBA players it’s impossible to imagine.
26 Comments
People who have never played in a game, even pickup, with D1 players have no clue how much better they are than the average good hooper in your rec league.
Whenever people talk about this kind of thing, I always remember what Brian Scalabrine said: “I’m closer to being as good as LeBron James than you are to being as good as me.”
People talk a lot of shit, but realistically, if you’re in the NBA, then you’re probably in the top 1% of the world at basketball.
That’s why I tell my kids “you will be the next powerball winner” instead of instilling lies like “you will make the NBA”
It’s wild too I met a former Dl player he would just shoot from the half court all the time. He never missed fr. Was a sniper
This is also why it always blows my mind when guys don’t seem to appreciate being in the NBA and blow their opportunity with a bad attitude, legal issues, or just not putting in effort. It’s an insane privilege to be in the modern NBA.
**Jontay Porter in shambles….**
The whole clip is great but the first part was hilarious — JJ Redick took an Italian class at Duke to prepare for a potential overseas basketball career.
I had a coworker friend who never made the NBA outside of sl, but was a d1 tournament player 15 ppg scorer. He played several years in Europe. He described professional basketball as going onto the hardest game of your life every night. You were going up against people who wanted to rip you apart and dominate you every single game, and if you didn’t bring that you were going to get absolutely destroyed. Unless you are an NBA superstar you just don’t have that big of a talent gap against anybody that you can take even a fraction of a millimeter off the gas or you’re getting destroyed that game.
There was no relief in knowing you were playing a lesser team because even if they were at the bottom of the standings if you didn’t try to crush them you were going to lose.
You see this happen in the NBA. Even the pistons and wizards get theirs.
I played a pickup game with a few players at Maryland once. I got the ball for a wide open corner 3. Joe Smith (#1 pick that year) was standing under the basket. In the second it took me to shoot, he took two steps, leaped and swatted it out of the air. It was the most insanely athletic thing I’ve ever seen.
The average NBA role player is better at basketball than anyone you know is at anything
So whose pod is this because wtf is Mero doing here 😂😂
A basketball coach on another thread a couple years back basically said to his team, being the best ball player in your school isn’t enough, or even being the top recruit in your county. You can eek by by being the best ball player in your state, but the guys who make it, are the guys who are the best in their region of the US.
[Removed personal anecdote because details are too specific. Sorry]
I think modern day broadcast with super slowmo and stuff is great, in that it underscores the truly bordering on superhuman shit that NBA hoopers display on an almost regular basis. But maybe it has made us possibly desensitized to how insane even a simple dunk is. And that de-sensitivity is why some rec level hoopers think they can take on guys like Scalabrine. They just don’t understand the skill gap.
Scal put it best: he is closer to LeBron than we ever will be to someone like him and others who are mere footmarks, if that, in NBA history.
Played on a high division rec league team with a guy in his early 30s who made all ACC 3rd Team, earned low mins for Boston’s G-League team and had just moved back to the US from playing pro ball in Italy for ~7 years but now works a normal job. Our team was full of guys that played D2/D3 or high level high school and this guy made everyone look like complete trash. He’s 6’8 and was mostly a banger and post player professionally but had the best handles on our team and was among our best 3pt shooters.
This clip was great, though I disagree with JJ on (or at least what I think he was implying) that lawyers and doctors don’t get tested every day.
Someone send this to that dad on TikTok
JJ Redick is so well spoken
There definitely aren’t “billions” of people that are trying to make the NBA lol
What is that logo on melos hat
>He described professional basketball as going onto the hardest game of your life every night. You were going up against people who wanted to rip you apart and dominate you every single game, and if you didn’t bring that you were going to get absolutely destroyed.
>you just don’t have that big of a talent gap against anybody that you can take even a fraction of a millimeter off the gas or you’re getting destroyed that game.
And for the rest of us, this is just what it’s like playing a pickup game at the local gym.
Brian scalabrene schooling dudes is still the best example of
For the movie Coach Carter, most of the actors had to be the best player in their high school team, or they weren’t allowed to audition. And this is just to be in a basketball movie, not to make the NBA.
NBA by far has to be the hardest professional league to get into partly because of the scarcity of spots now factored in with the fact that you’re also competing with the best from around the world trying to get a spot on a NBA team also, it’s basically like winning a lottery. JJ is correct, telling some 14 yr old kid he’s going to be a NBA star does that kid no favors and I’m sure there’s countless instances of a kid who heard that and got a big head about it and eventually disappeared into obscurity after college ball.
People don’t appreciate how difficult it is to be a professional athlete, let alone an NBA player.
Just a few weeks ago I had to call home because I was concerned about a student and the mom went on about how he’s *going to be* an NBA star. Not, “Oh, we’re hoping with a lot of hard work he can make this his career.” Just a general statement as if it was a foregone conclusion. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t even playing in any leagues, which you would expect by 14/15. He’d just gotten a lot of comments at pick-up basketball about being great. But it was supposed to ease my concerns because apparently I’m teaching a future NBA star.
Now imagine being 5’3… Muggsy is GOATed
To put things into perspective… I’m personally good enough to play low level international basketball. Think Vietnam leagues, spains 3rd level, things like that. I’m probably better than 99.9% of people at basketball, top 3 point shoot in my city in High school, etc…
I say all of this to say that when I was a senior in HS, I played against freshman, 15 year old, De’aaron Fox. Even though he was 15, I was 18, he was probably 10x better than anyone in that game. Scored over 35 points, and dunked a handful of time.
I can only imagine how good he is now. I sum this up to say that I’m probably better than 99.9% of basketball players, but a star like Fox is likely 20x better than me.
Now imagine playing against a player with Fox’s skill, speed, yet he’s 6’7 pure muscle like Lebron.
Unless you’ve played with NBA players it’s impossible to imagine.