Most players in the NBA have been playing basketball their entire life. Some have talent and genius when they are born and some don’t have any skill or talent but only their love for the game.
Various people think they can make it in the NBA solely because of talent. This is far from the case, with few exceptions. A person does not need to have prerequisites to be great at the game of basketball. It takes complicated work and effort.
All the NBA’s greatest players had one quality down in their playbook: consistency. How much they have determined the difference between a great and bad player in the league. People like Stephen Curry, Kobe Bryant, and Luka Dončić all have amazing work ethics and can teach others how to stay committed to their work.
Stephen Curry was a tiny guy compared to everyone else, still to this day. Curry was always the hardest worker and figured out his way to the NBA. When Curry was in his final year of high school, he wanted to join multiple college basketball teams, but only Davis College recruited him because he was very fragile compared to other players. Despite that, he worked as hard as he could to prove the rest of the world wrong. He broke the college record for most threes in a season. Stephen went to the NBA just a year after that and broke another record for most threes made in the league’s history. He gives a lot of credit to his trainer that helped him get the mentality needed to get where he needed to be.
People recognized Kobe Bryant for his hard work and “Black Mamba” mentality. The NBA drafted Kobe to the Los Angeles Lakers, at age 17. In Kobe’s first year in the NBA, he won the slam dunk contest. He is the youngest person in NBA history to do so. Throughout the years of being in the NBA, his personal trainer Tim Grover helped him figure out how to get his “Mamba Mentality.” Kobe already worked really hard, but he was inexperienced and impulsive, which cheapened his talent and skill. Tim Grover showed him how to balance everything while still being able to fuel his drive to play basketball.
Luka Dončić first picked up a ball when he was 8 and loved it so much that he worked every day to improve his game. When he was only 13, he had a 5-year contract with Real Madrid basketball and played for till he was 19. At a young age, he joined the Dallas Mavericks. Luka Dončić is one of the most nonathletic players in the game today but still seems to dominate the game. He works on his strength and understands his weaknesses. He can shoot and pass very well but has trouble driving to the basket and dunking. In his training, he focuses on his best skills and adds on more and more every day.
No matter how talented or lucky you are, you won’t make it in basketball unless you have consistency and pride in what you do. If a person wants something that is out of their reach, they must work for it and have a plan mapped out to get it. All the NBA players mentioned in this article honed their talent and skills to get to where they are. They never stop learning, even if they got to where they wanted.
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