Kevin Houston

Show Notes for The Basic Podcast: Episode "Attitude is Everything" Host: Kevin Houston (aka Mr. Basic) Episode Title: Attitude is Everything | Overcoming Setbacks & Building Resilience Overview: In this episode, Kevin Houston, aka Mr. Basic, dives into a fundamental aspect of success both in basketball and life: attitude. Kevin shares his personal journey of overcoming a career-threatening injury, the power of mindset, and how your attitude can be the key to turning setbacks into opportunities. Whether you're getting ready for basketball tryouts or facing challenges in other areas of life, this episode will inspire you to adopt a positive attitude and stay resilient. Key Topics: Introduction to the Topic: Attitude determines your altitude (0:00 - 2:30) Kevin’s Personal Story: Injury during senior year and missing the NBA draft (2:30 - 6:15) Overcoming Setbacks: Turning disappointment into a comeback (6:15 - 8:50) The Nature of Attitude: Why it matters and how to control it (8:50 - 12:00) Facing Challenges: Preparing for basketball tryouts with a positive mindset (12:00 - 14:00) Practical Tips: How to maintain a positive attitude and grow through adversity (14:00 - 18:00) Setting Goals and Action Steps: Daily practices to build a resilient mindset (18:00 - 20:30) Final Thoughts & Call to Action: Choose your attitude and embrace growth (20:30 - end) Key Takeaways: Attitude is a choice – Your mindset influences everything from your success in sports to how you navigate personal challenges. Setbacks are setups for comebacks – Every challenge is an opportunity to grow stronger. Actionable Steps to Improve Your Attitude: View challenges as growth opportunities Set small goals daily to build momentum Surround yourself with positive influences Practice self-talk that empowers you Mindset over outcome – It’s not always about whether you succeed right away; it’s about maintaining a growth-oriented attitude no matter the result. Memorable Quote: "Your attitude determines your altitude. It’s the key to turning setbacks into setups for a comeback." Actionable Tips: Start your day by setting a small, achievable goal (whether it’s basketball practice or schoolwork). Surround yourself with positive mentors and friends who uplift you. Use challenges as learning experiences to improve and refine your skills. Resources Mentioned: Personal story from Kevin’s basketball career at St. Bonaventure University Tips for shifting mindset during school or basketball tryouts Call to Action: Join Kevin and the Basic Podcast community in striving for improvement every day. Subscribe for more episodes that break down not just the fundamentals of basketball but life itself. Leave a comment on how you’re choosing to shift your attitude this week! Social Links: Instagram: @thebasketballfactoryinc Hashtags: #MrBasicTraining #BasketballMindset #AttitudeIsEverything #GrowthMindset Thanks for tuning in! Make sure to subscribe, and we’ll see you in the next episode of The Basic Podcast!  

The Basic Podcast - Episode 6: Why Players Don’t Succeed In this episode of The Basic Podcast, host Kevin Houston, a.k.a. Mr. Basic, dives into the key reasons why young basketball players struggle to reach their potential. Drawing from years of experience in training athletes, Kevin breaks down the mental and physical barriers that often hold players back. From a lack of commitment and focus to the pressure of external expectations, this episode provides a no-nonsense, motivational perspective on what it truly takes to succeed on the court. If you're looking to elevate your game or understand why some players don’t make it, this episode is for you!

#Podcast Title: Behind the Buzzer: Unveiling the Secrets of College Basketball's Live Period #Podcast Description: Dive deep into the heart of college basketball with this exclusive look at the Live Period!** In this episode, we uncover the crucial details that every player and parent needs to know about the collegiate scouting season. Learn from interviews with top college coaches, get insider tips on standing out, and understand what scouts are really looking for. Whether you're aiming for a scholarship or just love the game, this is your all-access pass to mastering the college basketball Live Period. Here's what this episode covers: 00:00 Introduction 01:15 - What exactly is the College Basketball Live Period? 03:30 - How can players maximize their visibility to scouts? 05:50 - What do college coaches look for during the Live Period? 08:20 - Real stories from players who made it big in the Live Period 10:45 - Tips for parents supporting their athletes during scouting seasons 13:00 - How to prepare physically and mentally for this crucial time 15:30 - The dos and don'ts during the Live Period - Coaches Speak Out 18:50 - Closing thoughts: Key takeaways for players and parents [ RESOURCES ]  👉 Subscribe to get new episodes, free tips, and exclusive content directly in your inbox: [https://podopshost.com/65e8c3e0a2182] 👉 Listen to our special series on getting ready for college sports: [https://podopshost.com/65e8c3e0a2182] 👉 Want to learn more about college basketball planning?  [ WORK WITH US ]  🔥 Looking to elevate your game to the next level? Join Us! at: [https://thebasketballfactoryinc.com] 🔥 Discover more about our player development services: [https://thebasketballfactoryinc.com] 🔥 Interested in sponsoring this podcast? Reach out directly at: [[email protected]] [ DISCLAIMERS ] The content shared in this podcast is based on personal experiences and interviews within the college basketball industry. We are not affiliated with any colleges or official scouting organizations. Please consult with a professional advisor for personal athletic career advice. #CollegeBasketball #BasketballRecruiting #SportsScholarship

Episode three let's do it Kev what's good brother not much just another week yes I mean let's get right into it man we wanted to talk about player resources right talk a little bit about uh really honestly not let just get started on talk about the resources you had as a basketball player coming up in New York uh maybe even give a little background of what your day-to-day was as a young Kevin Houston growing up in New York who you're were playing with how you trained how you got better maybe even a little back story to the path to the to the essentially the NBA the professional professional level and then we'll segue into the resources that are available now and how players could learn from this and say hey wow he did it with minimal resources I have all these resources available to me what can I do to essentially evolve my game and take my game to the next level let's get into it yeah uh the resources I had what resources first of all we didn't you know back in my day we didn't have a lot of resources uh you know we had to create a lot of our resources uh a lot of times uh when you're growing up I think you actually do better because you're almost in survival mode right you don't have a lot of resources so you kind of got to make things up as you go but our biggest resource I think when I grew up was our a coach uh Tippy who's still coaching nowadays in Brooklyn he's he's helped so many countless uh people uh reach the ultimate level I believe the last time I I checked on the website uh they he's putting through between him and Ziggy putting through aund you know 190 kits uh through division one colleges from the time that I was young to now even now they're still doing the same thing uh so our biggest resource was Tippy because without Tippy I don't think a lot of a lot of people wouldn't have made it uh he had a gym much like mine uh at the Y Brooklyn YMCA that he opened his doors to all the players like we can come work out whenever we wanted to and when when we came he actually had all the training equipment and stuff like that he would give anyone that came in a workout like take for me for instance like I wasn't I tell the kids here I wasn't very good when I first started at basketball uh it it was really you know people like Tippy helping me out understanding like hey this guy's got potential so let me let me train him like he is one of the top guys and that's you know half of my background of why I'm so holding the kids accountable here is because of my background how my a coach was with me he influenced me a lot because no matter whether you know you couldn't shoot you couldn't dribble you couldn't do anything he was the guy that treated you like like you're the star like you were the best on the team and and I think without him doing that a lot of kids wouldn't have made it but again he helped us learn how to work out like he would take us through dribbling drills uh with the heavy ball that's why I I like the heavy ball nowadays helping kids dribble um he like even now you don't see it a lot he actually implemented like a big ball which is Norm like twice the size or three times the size a regular ball is he would have like shooting equipment there that we could have on and really really he was the first I think that did all that everyone else was more like instruction based you do this you do that go right go left and he was more of a guy that he would train you but would have all these tools for you to help you get better well beyond I think it's worth clarifying what do you what do we mean essentially by player resources so clearly you mentioned your previous coach Tippy pause on how he you know was able to provide an open gym for you hold on his name is Tom murnin but we call him we call him Tippy that's his nickname so Tom MC Turnin MC Turner is his real name and he was a he was a Wall Street guy he he was on Wall Street for um I believe like 20 years and he was helping us out as well but I just wanted to clarify what his real name is yeah C that was a big pause was but uh it's it's worth uh clarifying for the listeners what exactly do you be my resources I know you talked about a coach uh your coach that meant a lot to you whether it be skill development simply just having a gym available for you to train in what other resources did did you have or are you just saying that's the only thing that was readily available to you what are some resources that you're able to translate to the listeners so they can understand yeah beyond my coach I also had X Y and Z and then we could transition into the resources that are present today uh like yeah I I think our resources was the coaches around us piece like because we didn't have a lot like I guess you would say another resource could be like the park that you that we would play in like each of us had something where we walk out of our apartment building and there was a court that was our biggest resource right other than that it was all selfmade like you had to go on the court you had to do the drills you had to make up what you need to work on no one back then it was going to tell you what to do it was more self-serving than anything how would you compare the resources you had then to what's available now I mean now there's trainers everywhere there's there clubs everywhere there's YouTube there's Tik Tok all these things that are now available to provide as a resource for players to get better how would you compare what's available now to what you had and can you say one is better than the other I know you had like a line earlier where you mentioned that you almost felt as if it worked to your benefit having limited resources expand on that uh it's a huge difference it's it's really it's really night and day I believe back in the day we had people are G to lie but we had DVDs they had DVDs like they would sell DVDs online so if you wanted to do something you had to actually go online go to whatever trainer that was selling this DVD and you'd have to purchase a DVD then you would have to P then you would have to wait two weeks you'd have to wait two weeks for their DVD to come then you you you have to watch it you know you have to watch it at home because there's no portable stuff you can't take this stuff to the gym and then pause it and stuff so you have to wash this at home right notes at home like what you saw on the DVD and then when you're in a gym you got to execute it no longer is it like that because every everything's on the phone right so a lot of times I feel like there's too much resources nowadays uh because you have you have every trainer that's online um whether it's digital stuff online training online courses uh uh you got all social media platforms they're on uh so and you got all these tools now you got all these tools that people are using um that the kids have I think an unlimited resource right they have unlimited they have access to gems they have access to tr like unlimited trainers which I just told you it was not a lot of trainers back in the day when I grew up it wasn't even heard of you go to a trainer it wasn't heard of like okay I'm going to go get this trainer and and work under him for you know two three years and develop my skills it was unheard of that someone did that it was more or less like your AE coach that knew so much about basketball he was the guy that was training you and he would do a workout for a group workout it wasn't a lot of individual workouts like there is now can you speak to what what you've noticed with a clubs in terms of how they Point their players in the right directions when it comes to providing the resources but Au teams High School coaches as well oh train here go there play for him do these drills do you have an opinion on what you've been seeing in essentially the aou realm or the high school realm if you can speak to that yes uh in in the a realm it it's hard to say it's hard to say because there's so many guys that either on their website or if you talk to them they're all about development but when you either hear someone talk about their program that you trust or you see them how they how their kids are in games because we get to go play against other teams so we get to see how other teams uh play you can and then you can you can Gauge by watching them play uh you know are they being trained the right way so me looking at that I know and there there I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to say that people are not there are uh a program that are right and some of them are my friends uh that are doing it the right way but I would say the majority is not doing it the right way it's what you said a few episodes a ago which is Cash in cash out I'm gonna have this kid in and you know I'm not gonna develop this kid I'm just gonna give him a bunch of games okay and call it development because that's what parents want to hear parents want to hear that you're developing their kid but in actuality you're really not because if you're not having to me if you're not having extra skill sessions if you're not having extra things for the kids and all you're doing is just a plain aou how are you developing off of one day a week you're not okay how are you developing off of two days a week if you're a true developer you're giving these kids a lot more you're there and what I mean by a lot more is they should be practicing more than they should be playing because if it's the opposite opposite way around and you're playing more than you're training then that's not development to me and put yourself under the fire what could you be doing better to help develop the kids in your program what have you done in the beginning when you first got started in a what have you learned through that process and developing players through the generations of kids and to now what you have set up currently yeah I I I've transformed my program in the beginning uh and I'm I'm very open about this in the beginning I had 18 teams I had almost close to 20 teams you 18 20 teams which you were a part of right um and I really didn't know what I was doing because having that many teams it's like you know how do you start with what I think I had like 150 kids 160 kids so how do you try to get as a program whole how to get everyone on a schedule and I think in the early days of me starting and me like kind of figuring out like how to handle big groups how to make sure that everyone in the program is getting something out of it I think that takes experience that takes experience of messing up right you're not going to be perfect doing anything and this is what I explained to the kids when we have practice is you know you're you're G to mess up you're not going to do things right but you have to understand like that's how you get better you get better by failing okay when you fail you understand why you fail and then you bounce back and that's with me I understood why I failed I failed because I didn't have it as structured as it needed to be I thought I was structured but it wasn't as structured as it needed to be so as the years evolved okay and I seen more athlete because to be frank I when I first started I didn't train a lot of kids from this area I trained mostly kids from my area which is Brooklyn New York Bronx like all th all those areas because that's where I was from so when I came up here and start training the kids up here it takes a while because it's a different it's a different kind of player it's not the same right it's not the same background it's not the same so you got to get used to like okay what does this area bring to the table that they're missing right which is creativity you go in the area that you know I'm from it's a whole bunch of creative people they may not be structured but they're they're very creative right so I had to come up here and have a structured plan in order to uh get the C uh certain level of skills here I had to had a structured plan and as the years went along that's what I did I started to dissect every skill level and say okay what are the basic drills that we need to do that if they did these basic drills they can Implement into their game play and then once they Implement into their game play they can be successful because I didn't want to give them something that which you give them and it's not in their wheelhouse it's not something that they're used to doing and they're never going to be be able to do you give people what they're capable of doing and then you master that and that's what we've done here we we've mastered the basics okay I've drilled the kids in this area about the basics the basics transcends every level it transcends High School it transcends College it transcends uh professional ranks and the more that you can drill yourself on the basics then the better so having resources here okay I have training tools can I have my own personal training tools that I will be coming out with by the way it's just taking me a long time of getting everything set up the way I want but I will I I I've implemented those same training tools with the kids for at least two years now I've had these training tools for two years and I know it works because I've I've had it with the kids the kids love it okay so that's one of the the the resources that I use knowing that my knowledge and my 20 years in basketball I've created these tools so these kids shortens down the time that they're learning okay instead of me telling them what to do now they wear one of my shooting devices and now it's easy for them to understand okay I also give them look at all the skill sessions that I give them I throughout the year we have a yearly program where the kids do the yearly program which it's just skill skill skill and they train more than they play right and the kids that the kids that are really serious about it are usually the kids that are of high skill level in this area and usually are the kids that are your best high school players so I give them a ton of resources between skills between um giving them training tools uh working with them in group sessions and one-on-one sessions and it's always something here in the building that it's available like yesterday we had open gym had open gym for three hours this week what majority of our teams a wise okay not with the basketball Factory but the majority of team a wise will have went through four or five practices before this weekend's tournament that's unheard of in a that doesn't happen in a a is like one practice maybe two practice and then they have a game our kids here will have four or five practices before they play the game this uh this this Saturday and Sunday so I think I think now you know like maybe four or five years I think we've got it right for last four or five years I think we got it right the structure is right but to me it's still not enough I had a parents meeting and we talked about this I still think we need to up our skill level we need to up our skill classes so that's one thing that I can do better that I told the parents in the parents meeting that I will get better at I we need to have more skill sessions because the more skill sessions we have the better the kids understand what we want because not initially they understand like why we're teaching them a certain skill and the more repetitions they have the more that I trust kids that they'll figure it out kids are smart enough that I think once you give them a lot they will be able to take that and be able to to get better at that because I truly think I truly think it's in the it's in the players hands I think if the players want to get better they will get better but something has to be in place for them for them to get better so I trust the kids that if something's available and they really want it P they can they can do it they they've proven it in my program over and over again that they can do it so I mean do you think being that earlier you mentioned that you coach people from the inner city versus this more so I guess rural area uh do you think it makes a difference in terms of Player Development in the long term whether someone doesn't have a lot of resources versus when they do have a lot of resources is there a fine is there a fine balance in between making sure if possible for certain kids that have certain things that are necessary to help almost expedite their progress versus kids who may not have the you know let say Financial Resources to pay for uh certain opportunities yes I I truly think it makes her breaker kit whether he has resources or he doesn't have resources now we live in a different time so when I was growing up we had to figure it out we're in we're in an era where it was like a figure figure it out era or fail right we're not in that era anymore we have so much stuff nowadays that you can't just tell a kid figure it out um so for me I think seeing the kids that don't have the resources and we see them a lot especially when we we play in these um BigTime tournaments uh especially with the girls and the guys over the last three four years and then some of these local tournaments we get to see a lot of talent of kids um for other teams and you can just see it you can see and say hey if this kid had a certain amount of resources or have a certain uh someone teaching him how to do certain things and when to do it he could be outstanding or she could be outstanding I think that the difference between being good and great are your resources are the people you surround yourself with if you're able to surround yourself with smart people that understand the game that understand that okay no you don't do all these fancy moves you got to start with the basics and I know with kids it's hard for kids to to understand like okay because they see all this cool stuff online that they want to do but it really comes down to how is your fundamentals how is your basic skill level are you mastering your basic skill level because if you are you can you can do a lot of great things in this game and that and and to me that comes down to the people that are coaching you and the resources that you have and and the gym availab availability right if you don't have the gym to go in the gym and do all these things then how you going to get better you know it's cold outside again it's not like when we grew up you know our parents like go outside figure it out I don't care if it's freezing like nowadays kids don't want to go outside and do that so you need gym time you need gym time to go in the gym and be able to work on these skills so that you can get better and you need a knowledgeable person who has those uh type of resources to give you and if you're not under that then you're I'm not saying you're not going to succeed because I succeed it you better have a strong will to make it it's either one or the other you ever have a strong will to make it or you better be under someone that has the resources that can provide you with things to make sure that you can be able to uh get to the level that you want to get to but that's another thing I mean the other thing I want to touch up on is there's not a lot of things we talk about resources there's not a lot of things for kids that are their their their skill level is not up the part to the elite athlete right and that's what that's what I don't like about social media I don't like about social media I don't like seeing it's everything's catered to the elite athlete everything piece the elite high school player the elite pro the elite every drill you see someone do online everything you seen on social media they talk about elite elite elite elite that's not that's that's not the majority of of of the United States the majority of the United States it's either their skill level is low or at a medium level at least 98% 98% you're talking to 2% of the of the population that is Elite everyone else should be able to do your fundamental basketball because to me if 98% is either below or average that's what they should be concentrating on because that's how they can succeed yeah you're not lying man I think uh I think this a good way to end it there a good way to end it on the leave it on the mark where I like how you said those who don't have the resources like you said let's hope that unfortunately or fortunately right you have the will to persevere through your circumstance right and find the right Avenues and uh people mentors for you was your coach that could you know Excel you to the next level and for those who are fortunate to have the resources right family gym tools uh take advantage of it you know I'm saying make sure you're aware of the opportunities you have take advantage of it and uh see where this thing can take you Kev any last words man any last words as we uh close it up the only last words I would say is you know I know a lot of things look like it's hard kids it's really not it's really it's really about being on a routine being on a schedule and understanding that okay you're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days I just want kids to understand that you can make it whatever your goals are whatever you can do just be under someone that has that kind of same level of wanting you to reach that certain level if you're under a guy that is helping you and making sure that is holding you accountable go under that guy because you're more likely to accomplish your goals and just just my last message to kids like you can do it you just have to be able to understand that I need to put together a routine if I'm able to put together a routine I think you know the world Sky's the limit yeah that's it that's the pod

All right, cool. Take two, I guess. So, kev, what's up, man? How we doing? Doing good, man. On this rainy day. It's crazy. I mean, let's really  get into it. Last, last week was player expectations.What that looks like in terms of how player can manage their, you know, their career cycle from a youth player all the way up to high school, potentially college.And now we want to roll into skill development.You know, the skills landscape, as we've talked about privately, has definitely been drastic through times.You see people, a lot of skill, no skill.How do you know, really walk our audience into, like, how does one acquire skill?What do you see in skill development that's missing in terms of training or it's mindset? And I know I got a couple of other series of questions I want to get your opinion on, but you could take the lead from here.Yeah.The first thing I want to discuss is about skill development and where we're at, you know, in the United States as far as, like, the skill acquirement.And I think we're at a crossroads.I think we're, you know, you have people that do it the right way of teaching kids, and then you have kids that you have trainers that do it the wrong way.And I think now more than ever, there needs not, that needs to be, like, one way of doing things, but there's a certain set of skills that everyone should have, I believe, and that comes down to what they're getting taught, what they're looking at online, because now we live in a digital world where now people are looking at their phones to get training advice, and now everyone, I'm not on social media a lot, but when I am on social media, it seems like a lot of guys have a lot of different opinions on the way they should be training.And it's everyone, to me, like, you don't have to be, to me, you don't have to be a player to teach someone.Right? But you do have to be knowledgeable about what you're teaching kids, because nowadays a kid looks online and they think, you know things about basketball that sometimes, clearly that person doesn't know the ins and out and what's going to work in a game and what's not going to work in a game.So I think as far as, like, skill development, it's at a crossroads.Like, if I'm a kid nowadays, what do I believe online is going to help me? Because there's so much stuff online that kids are looking at that I think it's confusing. Yeah. Like, with many things. I believe the term is like information overload. You don't know where to go, who to listen to.There's so much information out there that you almost don't know where to start. Should I work on combination moves? Should I work on finishing? How good should my handle be before I start practicing in game? Whatever. Right? You see all these different things on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube.But you mentioned earlier that you believe there's a good foundational core skills that you think players should have.What do you think those skills are?When do you think they should start building on those skills and really just talk about that dynamic? Yeah, I think the basic fundamental skills that everyone should have is, you know, your basic rip, left, right, your basic counter off of the rip.Okay, maybe fake to the left, go to, go to the right, and vice versa.Fake to the right, go to the left.I think those are simple enough skills in which they still work at an elite level.And I think these kids are not getting taught that. These kids are not getting taught triple threat yet.So many kids are good with the ball, but if you take them outside of taking away their strength with this, dribbling the ball and you say be, get it off of a triple threat, they don't know how to do it.First of all, they don't know they're left from the right. All right? A lot.I know a lot of kids, especially some of the kids that I've trained in the past, like, I got to teach them basic footwork, how to move, how to move your defender where you want them so you can blow by them.Right? And that's. That's about just basic footwork of moving your feet to where you want to beat your opponent.People don't know that because all you see online is dribble, dribble, dribble.And when you look at it on tv, when you look at it on tv, you see people doing simple moves.Take. Take foreigners. This week is going to be the final four.It's going to be final four for girls, going to be final four for men. Right? You look at some of these games and you cannot tell me, you. You don't see people doing simple things. You don't see people dribbling through their legs a thousand times. You don't see, of course, the stars. Okay, the stars are doing it, but that's one girl, that's one guy.So what are the other players are doing? Because that's gonna dictate on what you do as a player who wants to get at that level or want to be able to acquire some of the skills that they have, you're gonna have to follow the same suit.If they're doing simple moves on tv, that's telling you, well, I need to do simple moves.I need to master simple moves. So some of.Some of the things that I would teach, especially younger kids and older kids who want to be at that level, is your triple threat.Working out of a triple threat, how to get your defender off balance so you can beat them right away.Because at every level, quickness matters. The quickness of the move matters.You have an internal clock of two to 3 seconds that you have to make a move to get by the defender or the defense, the people in back of the main defender who's guarding you, then they're going to readjust.And that shot that you would have if you blow by your defender, you're not going to have, because now you have a defense behind you that he's going to contest your shot or negate you going to the basket.It's definitely also worth mentioning that even when you watch these players warm up or train, a lot of is very fundamental right form, shooting, footwork, you know, whatever.Whatever is within their arsenal at that certain position. I know privately you have a story. I don't know if you want to share.I mean, we could also cut this out if need be, but that when you were at U Miami, you were playing against Ray Allen and playing against, training with, and then you saw the attention to detail and the simple things he was doing.I don't know if you want to share that story. Yeah.When I was at the University of Miami, that was, I believe that was the lockout year of, I want to say 98, 99 was a lockout year.Don't hold me to that. But I think that was around that time, and a lot of.A lot of NBA players, they flocked to Miami because the lockout. Nice weather.So during that season, in that preseason, my first year at Miami, we got the play against every superstar that was in the NBA.You know, Tim Hardaway, Alonzo, the whole, pretty much the whole Heat players.And then Glenn Robinson came down, Ray Allen came down. Even Alex Rodriguez came down. Who I, by the way. By the way, he could hoop. Alex Rodriguez can hoop.Listen, I know he's a great baseball player, but you talk about basketball player like I didn't like.You look at him like, oh, he's got this guy, just a baseball player now. He can truly hoop. He could hit shots, he could dribble. His athleticism. Surprised me.But getting back to the story of Ray Allen, because they would come down there for the whole week.So we would play pretty much every day. We would work out and then play in the afternoon.So one day I, you know, I get to the gym pretty early every, pretty much every day, right? Just to work on my game.Because at that time, I still was a developing player, developing my shot, developing my ball handling.And every day I would see Ray before he beat everyone to the gym.And I had a chance to sit and watch.Like, I would sit and, like, I wouldn't bother him because I know how people are.I'm sitting in a corner just watching him. Literally, he would just take form shooting. He did form shooting for an hour. He didn't go. He didn't go further out. He didn't, you know, you would think he's a three point king.He's, you know, he pulls up and he does all this great stuff.All he did was just work and work and work.So at the end of the week, at the end of the week of watching this guy just shoot form, shooting over and over again, I asked, I finally worked up enough courage to go ask him, and I said, hey, ray, why?Why don't you shoot, like, threes? Why don't you shoot, like, pull ups and stuff like that? The stuff that I'm accustomed to him doing, because at that time, I believe either he was on the more I believe it was on the Milwaukee bucky.Yeah, that was a different ray. Yeah, that was a different ray right there. So I, so I asked him that. He said, he said, listen, your form is the most important thing. He said, my form will travel.He said, if I perfect my form, I don't worry about whether I'm going to make shots at the three point line or pulling up.He said, the form is the most important thing. You got to work on your form. So it becomes habit.And that stuck with me, because here's a guy that you would think he takes 5000 shots from the 3.9.No, here's a guy that worked on his form just from a couple feet from the basket, and all he would do is just go a little bit around the world, one feet away from the basket, shooting form shots over and over and over again.And if he didn't do that, he went to the free throw line, shooting over and over and over and over again, free throws.So I kind of developed the same routine.Like, after watching him play my next year, when I transferred to St.Bonaventure, I actually adapted that like, all I did was form, shooting, form, form.And it really, really helped my game because it really perfected the way I shot the ball.And it showed in that year that I played for St. Bonaventure, setting the all time record for threes.Something that's interesting is the fact that someone can listen that and be like, oh, form shooting is boring for an hour.Form shooting.I feel like there's something to be said about doing the simple things really well and doing them over and over and over again.Regardless, basketball, whatever, are as what he said, it can travel, right? It translates into other aspects of your game or other aspects of your life in terms of.Because you have such a solid foundation.But for players, regardless, shooting, ball handling, where do players start when they're looking to advance their skills?Like I said earlier, there's so much information, there's information overload on everything.TikTok, this trainer, that trainer, how does one start in terms of finding that foundational, repetitious routine that they can get into?Yeah, I always say start small.So I, with my own son, would I implement like, hey, five minutes a day?And that's what I would tell kids, start out with five minutes a day, because you're not going to, you're not going to do an hour, right? Your body and your mind, your mental game, you're not trained to do that yet.So start with five minutes a day and start with something simple as form shooting. Right? Form shoot, form shooting. I know Ray did it with a basket.You don't need, you don't really need a basket, you just need space where you're working on flicking the ball and mimicking the same routine over and over and over again.And you may do that for five minutes, then the next day do it again.The goal is every day you should be doing five minutes of something, right.If you're working on ball handling, right, there's a certain thing that you're, you're, that you're working on.A lot of people, there's an unwritten rule when you dribble a ball that you gotta, you gotta have your hand over the ball.I know a lot of coaches in our area tell the girls and the boys, like, it's a carry, it's a carry.You can't get underneath the ball, but everyone who knows who dribbles the ball understands, like, you gotta carry the ball, right? There's a specific way that you do it in which the referees don't see it, but everyone, if you look on tv, you know their hand is underneath the ball.So I would tell kids to start with something that's very simple, right?Because once you start with something simple and you master that, then you move on to another simple thing, right?You master another simple thing. It's what I call habit stacking, right? You, you stack habits, and the more habits that you stack, the better you're going to become. Okay. And you, and you got to be disciplined in what you're doing.You got to know, like, okay, every day if I put in a certain amount of work, then when I play, I'm going to be a product of that work that I put in.I could be blank. I mean, I'm definitely blanking. What's the coach at a UConn women's Gino Rm? You know, Gina, there is a good clip that I seen online, I think Twitter or something, where he mentioned, like, the skill level with the kids that he's evaluating is at an all time high, right? He's like, oh, man, they're skillful.Athleticism's off the charts, but he's saying despite the skills, they don't know how to play. Right. They're just dribbling for no reason. Right. You're going between legs five times, but you're in the same spot.And it was a nice little excerpt where, you know, I think, you know, the press, you know, parents, I think were there, they're all just, you know, they're quiet because, you know, there's, to some extent it's true.Right. You see the NBA, oh, granted, the NBA is a different story. Right.You see a lot of players, they're just, oh, between the legs, nine times behind the back combo is like, what do you, how do you, how do you take what he said? What is your perception of almost, I wouldn't necessarily say the over glorification of all these skills and all these moves.But I mean, actually, side note, I know, I know we share back and forth trainers where they're doing all kinds of crazy things like jumping through hoops.And I think you shared with me a guy who's on a treadmill or doing shoot. It's, it's craziness.What can you say about the level of, I guess, skill awareness, if you want to put a title to it that players have to have in terms of this works, this doesn't work.There's a time and place to do X, Y and Z. Yeah. Gino's my all time favorite.He's all like, every year in AAU, when I have really good teams, I show them video of him, because I think he, out of anyone in college, okay, really talks real.And what he says about skill development, what he says about kids, like, I share the same value as he does, but obviously, he's on a different platform than I am, because if he says it, people don't question.Right? If I say it, you know, people question like, oh, that's not how to be.So when he talks about, like, the skill levels at an all time high, it is.It's no doubt about it. Like, we.I have discussions with you about back in the 1950s, whether these guys can hang quick nowadays, and you always say no, but that's a different generation.But the skill level is at all time high. They can do more with the ball. They can jump higher, run faster. They can do anything with the ball better than my generation. Right. And even the generations before.But I feel like the biggest difference is how to use it, when to use it.And that is their right hand advantage. A lot with our. At our level, at the. At the AAU level, at the training level that I.That we're in, we see that a lot, that people don't know how to use that.They use it at the wrong time. They don't understand time and place. They don't understand manipulation. The pace of your dribble matters. Right. They don't understand any of that.All they understand is, you know, if they're training well, this video says, do this, and this video said, oh, that looks cool.Or, or I seen online this girl that that guy did it in.And like, no, it's not played through a video. Right. This is. This is real life.So, to me, you're gonna have to be able to look at what you're looking at, right.The content that you're looking at and understand that who they're doing it against sometimes, because who they're doing it against online tells you, like, listen, that ain't working on an elite player.That may work on that.On that person, because that person's defense is not of the par to an elite player, and they think they can do that on anyone.So, you know, when you're talking about Gino, talking about the skill level, yeah.The skill level is at all time high, but the IQ is not. The IQ is missing. And that's what we have to teach on our level.The IQ, like, we did a practice yesterday, and it was all about IQ, when to do something.And it's hard for kids to understand that if they're not being trained on that.And the more they're trained on that the more they understand of how to use it, how to use it, when to use it.And I believe if kids are trained on that, they're smart enough to realize and smart enough to execute what you're telling them.But it's too much. It's too much online that they're watching that.I find that it's just, it's disheartening because it's almost unraveling everything that I'm doing because what are they, what are they doing?More peace. Are they on their phones a lot more watching this? Or are they at our practices and our training sessions doing the things that we're trying to teach them as far as, you know, right time, right place, what type of dribble moves is going to work when.So, you know, it's a tough battle, but it's been done.We've been doing it for years now, helping guys and girls understand that. And when it's done, okay. And when they do get it, it looks nice. You can tell it works in a game.And I think with the perfect example of the LSU game, I also toss it up to players not really knowing what to look for.Right.You know, we were watching the LSU game and people are so enamored and talking to some of the kids yesterday, they're so enamored with Kalyn Clark's, you know, 40 points and twelve.But it's like when we were going back and forth, it was more so, like, dang, like, look, look at the defense.Like, how, how does one walk into a game, right, and do the same thing over and over?Like, who's guarding who? What is the set? What are you offering? Or what are you cutting off? Like, I feel like a lot of players and coaches also, they're not, they're too honed in on, oh, look at this three.Look, it's like, or more so.It's like there's not a lot of killing clarks out there, if, to be honest, it's probably just one. Right. So what we should really be looking at is everyone but her and what, what is everyone else doing? Right. What is their skill level at? How is everyone else scoring? I believe there was three other players that scored double digits. How'd they score? Right. A lot of screen and roll actions, right? Kick, pop. A lot of these actions.So, I mean, I do like the, I would like to say, like, I would toss it up also.You know, people don't know what to look for, essentially.And I feel like that's also lost in the noise in terms of the content and then jumping through hoops and the treadmill, trainers or whatever you want to call them.Yeah, I agree. You hit it right on the nose. Like, everyone points out to Caitlyn Clark and she's great, right? She's. She's great for women's basketball. She's great for basketball in general, right? But like Kyrie Irving, there's one Caitlyn Clark, okay? There's one of her, right? Another person coming along like her in another generation, it's not going to happen, right?So why are we looking at her, trying to mimic our game after her, when we should be looking at the surrounding players in that game?You look at Iowa. I love. I love watching Iowa, right? Not because of Caitlin Clark. I. I like watching her play. I like watching the other players that are playing around Caitlin CLark. They are so simple, okay? And they made it to a final four, right?You look at LSU's team, look at LSU, there's littered with five star, four star girls, right?You look at Iowa's team, how many five star girls they got? How many four star girls they got? How many, like, you go down the line and go down the list, but you look at their game, very simple, okay? Rip and go. Rip and go to a spin. Rip and go. Kick, pump, fake, get by, kick. So it's very simple basketball. That's what we should be looking at. But that content is not good enough for social media.So people can, you know, they can digest that content and say, hey, this person is doing it this way.But that's what college is.That's why you got so many transfers piece at the, at the college level, whether it's boys, whether it's girls, because they take that same mantra of, I'm going to dribble, dribble, dribble, and do all these great dribble moves that they see.And I'm going to take it to the college level and do it at the college level.But college coaches don't want to see that. They want to see simple basketball. They want to see you make IQ simple plays because that's the. What wins, okay? That's winning basketball.And something also worth noting as we, you know, going through the circuit last year and watching, you know, girls basketball at that high level, you almost can notice that you almost, not necessarily, but in a way, you almost stick skill on anybody, but you can't necessarily stick IQ onto every single player, right? They're stuck in their own ways. They see the game a certain way.So, speaking to what you were saying, you know, coaches of course are looking for it.An adequate skill level, right. To take you to the next level in terms of the recruitment process.But maybe this is a whole other episode.But there is an element of awareness, IQ, when to do things that should be mentioned when going through skills, right.It's not just being able to go between the legs, it's when to go between the legs if you even need to.Or as you at your stable is simply ripping and going with the right footwork, really just closing out the episode.Any last thoughts in terms of what players should do now? I mean, a lot of noise out there in terms of skill development.Let's say you're talking to a middle school player, right? Fairly good. Right. They're aware of the game. They want to take it to the next step.What should he or she do to really find a routine and really take leaps and bounds to their game? It's with anything. You got to be consistent. And that's the key really to anything.Consistency on an everyday basis, not just doing it once or twice a week, thinking that's going to get through.You got to be consistent every day. And sometimes being consistent is just doing five minutes a day. 5555. Right. But then you build that habit of being able to work every day.If you're not, if you're not in doing something every day towards one of your skill levels, then you're falling behind.You're falling behind other areas, you're falling behind other age groups, you're far falling behind other genders, men's girls that are in that space and are doing that on an everyday basis and working on their game.So for me it's like, take the simple stuff.I know there's not a lot of stuff out there that is showing players like what to do.And I've had discussions with peace about maybe creating something, maybe coming out with a lot of content that is breaking down the simplicity of basketball, of making certain moves on the basketball court that you see over and over again in the girls and boys game.Because that's when I look at social media, which is rare, but I do look at it, okay? But when I do look at it, I look at. It's just complicated. This stuff that people are doing, they're complicated. And there's no way that half of this stuff is getting away. And just take a. I can't tell you enough. Just take a look at this weekend and the final four.I want everyone to take a look in the final four this weekend and the men's and girls game and tell me, how many moves are people actually making that you see online? And if the answer is like, hey, Kevin, I seen it once or twice, that will let you know.Like, you know, being basic works. Okay? Being basic has always worked. You look at. At the NBA level, the WNBA low. Take away the stars. The stars are gonna be stars. There's only one star. There's only. There's only one. One or two stars per team.You take away the stars, everyone else has to 90, 95% of the players gonna have to do the same thing of being basic and mastering the basics.And if you could master the basics of basketball, okay, shooting the right way. That's one right footwork. Understanding what you know, your left from your right, and how to move your.Your pivot foot, which a lot of people don't know how to do. Okay? Dribbling the right way, stepping with the right foot. Okay. Deceiving people. Understanding that. If I'm going to go. If I'm going to go right, I must fake someone. Like, I'm going to. Like, I'm going left first before I go right, not just going right.So, a lot of these things are very simple, but it's hard for. It's difficult for you.I don't know how, in this day and age, if you're a young people, young person, you kind of learn.I don't. I don't understand because there's so much mess out there that is.And I'm not saying that some of this stuff is not right.What I'm saying is, if you want to be successful, there's a certain.There's a certain skill set that everyone has that you have to have. Right. And then you can add on all the other stuff.But if you don't add the basics, if you don't add the foundation, okay, then everything is going to come crashing down when it's time to play.I think that's the pod. Yes, sir.

Cool.  Spring AAU season's here. Kevin, tell the people, how you feeling about Rise as One, the Basketball Factory plans, expectations. I know that leans a little bit into the topic we're going to talk about. Introduce the audience to who you are and what has you excited for the spring? What I think just to piggyback on what you said about the spring obviously we do a year round program. Like most programs that come back in the spring. We go year round. Also, we've been prepping for this the whole year knowing that actually, Kev, before even getting into that, why don't you just introduce yourself first? I'm trippin Introduce yourself. Who are you for the people who are just listening out of the blue?  Yeah, for the new people that don't know me at all,  Kevin Houston played  10 years of professional basketball. The original one absolutely played at university of Miami. Even further than that, played at Seward County community college, transferred into the university of Miami, then transferred again to St. Bonaventure. Brooklyn kid went to John Jay high school in Brooklyn. Same, but a whole bunch of more famous guys than me that went to John Jay high school. I've come from a a great high school.  Great basketball background with a lot of my family members playing ball. Yeah, that's me in a nutshell I could sit here there and bless you all my awards But you know that would take a long time I want to just say people to trouble I was a great, you know I was a great player that I was a fortunate to be on great teams with great teammates. So  Yeah, that's I think  That's pretty much who I am.  All right. Now I'll get into it. Spring AAU, you're the director of RISE as one AAU club. Introduce RISE, talk about the Basketball Factory and let's get into it.  Yeah. AAU wise, like we've been going year round, so we, I have a program that we do AAU, but it's not your typical AAU, whether you meet once a year or twice a year, you I have kids that play, you go around from, fall to right now to, to the spring, summer winter. This is our Superbowl, we lead up, we try to prepare ourself as much as possible leading into the spring season and we don't have that much turnover. Although this year was an unusual year with.  having a ton of kids. I don't know where these kids came from but I'm glad that the program is growing to give you an indication piece of how many kids that came this spring or our AU program on a typical year on the probably let's go by my best year, but my best year my best year was, Back when I had two courts and the most I've ever had was 74.  So this year coming into this year I was expecting just to retain the kids that has always came to my program, but then we had an explosion, especially middle school of 97 middle schoolers, not your typical 74. So I think from that standpoint shows me we're on the right path of doing things because I'm pretty sure these kids wouldn't have came unless, and I don't do that much advertising. Okay. You don't mean I'm not a social media guy. I'm not on social media a lot. I send out, email campaigns to just my parents. So to have that many kids is really impressive, but I'm really happy because I feel like the kids that have been in my program the longest, I think they are getting new teammates that, you've seen it. They're more talented. They're more talented kids that are in the program and I'm excited to have them there and I'm excited to coach them and develop them over the next couple of years.  Definitely worth congratulating. Just seeing progression. Not only have I been a player, but not only helping you coach and train these kids, it's always nice to see your standard as for local basketball in the area to just exceed your expectations. But really just leaning into expectations. We wanted to hop on this podcast and talk about player expectations. Before we even dive into player expectations, do you have any expectations out of the spring leading into the summer, any goals, things you're looking forward to?  I have goals. I have expectations like anything. Just, I had a parent's meeting last week and we talked about a lot of this stuff. Last week, and I think  especially for me being in that area, because being in different areas, you should have different expectations, right? If you're in an area that is producing year after year, division one players, I can't have that same expectations on my kids that these other areas have on theirs because we frankly are not a basketball area. We've become a basketball area. Because the atmosphere we've created at Rises 1 but we're not necessarily per se, everyone thinks of, okay, Northern Jersey has as a hotbed for basketball, but I think we've created something. And so my, my, my expectations, especially with the kids with the coaches, with anything is let's have a standard, let's stand for something. And what that is, If you come to our program, you're going to work hard. You know that you're going to do a certain amount of work  to get you ready and prepared.  So for us, me, it's about setting a standard and holding the kids to the standard. And I think everyone who comes to my program realizes that, Hey he's going to, we're going to practice hard. We're going to practice the right way. We're going to practice like a college atmosphere where I have you on schedule and we're doing stuff as if we were a college now we're not. Okay. But my thing, my thinking is if we can get on a schedule of a college program, then we're setting these kids up for success. Okay. Also, a lot of my background is European. So a lot of my drills that I do is a lot of European stuff in which you're sharing a ball, you're moving the ball, balls, not sticky. So for my expectation this year really is just to develop the new kids, continue developing the kids that have been in my program and the parents have been in my program for, for the last three years. And basically get some of the newer kids on the same schedule as the kids who are in my program. And in doing this, I think you create a continuity that, it might pay off this year, but I think in the next few years, I think if you can get them on the same schedule, I think it will pay off. And in the long run, I think a lot of  AU stuff is short term. This it's like a microwave success. Okay, they come over to, they're supposed to win right away. They're supposed to do all this stuff right away. And then when it doesn't happen,  whether it be the director or the kid okay, I'm done. I'm going to go somewhere else and try it again, but it doesn't work that way. Especially for areas like ours, like I'm such a developer that I tell the parents like, Hey, especially the new players are coming in this year that it's going to take a while. It may take the whole season. It may take two, two more seasons.  It's no different than learning at school. It takes a while for the kids to understand what you want, what the expectation is, because a lot of these kids are coming from programs. That they have no expectations. Like no  cash or cash out cash in cash out, but here you have expectations because you cannot let your teammate down. I'm a big team guy and playing for one another. I, we got our hands full, but we got to this group. And I told you this when I put it together, this group of kids. They feel different. They're different than the last group. And I feel like they're more engaged in basketball. They're more eager than ever. We also have younger age groups. So I think that's gonna, that helps because we're having younger age groups comes at excitement for practice, come for that hunger for learning. Yeah, I'm very excited. I'm very excited. Having a lot of these new kids and seeing what they can do. And. And I'm a developer. So anytime I can sit there and develop talented kids, that's what I want to do.  Something I think that goes unnoticed, so to speak, and not just your club, or basketball and other sports is How set, how unique setting standard is relevant to how society portrays it and really what effects it has in long term success for these kids. The reality is what's the percentage one, two, 3 percent people actually get to play at the collegiate level, let alone division one or two. Instilling, these disciplines and behaviors and structures for these kids in these kinds of communal environments and sports right within your gym  is useful and necessary, right. To help introduce them to the real world, teamwork in the working environment when you get to the university level.  And again, player to coach in regards to my relationship with you in this professional realm. It's definitely something I've seen useful for myself and my peers, right? And other individuals that went on to play college basketball and seeing some of the kids we've coached, right? To see how it translates and how well prepared they are and seeing their outcomes. But yeah, shout out to you in that regard. But really, to get into it, man, player expectations. I know you briefly mentioned your expectations or goals, as you recall,  into what you're looking for this spring and this summer.  But I think something that needs to be vocalized or shared or discussed is player expectations. A lot of players have expectations, in different realms, right? We could talk about  skill expectations, right? They think they have a certain skill set and then when they go to these games and they're essentially failing, they think they've set such a high bar of expectation, how good they are, that they get disappointed due to the lack of influence from, rental input or, coaches that have, don't have their  well being and first thought, what are your thoughts on just that, that particular segment of player expectation, kids and their skill sets.  Yeah it's a different day and age. We've had numerous conversations about this where  kids expectations don't meet their work habits.  And I think that's the biggest thing. When you look at, again, my background's from Europe. So you'll hear me talk about Europe compared to the United States. So in Europe, and I believe Luca Dots has talked about this. There, there's a, there's an interview about him saying this. That they,  in Europe, they practice more than they play, right? And because they do that, they're high skill guys. So look at all this, I'm talking about skill guys, I'm not talking about who's the best, I'm talking about plain skill. If you talk about the plain skill, who's the highest, whether you're talking about the girls games or the guys game, it's gotta be your European,  right? Because they're in academies that are just drilling them about skill. We're in the United States. I feel like they're more like gameplay. Okay. What about the games Kevin? What do you know game? Where's our game? but where's our games and they're playing games more than they practice on the skill and Because of that they have an expectation that oh,  I should be here right because they're playing all these games And sometimes, especially as a young age, this is what I find is  as opposed to do, like someone has expectation while they're young and someone has expectation while they're older. When you're younger and you say you're at the middle school age where you have expectation, you don't know.  So you think you belong, right? You think Hey, I'm the best player in my area. I should be X, Y, Z. I I'm, I should be here. But you don't realize like the amount of people in the United States that are striving for the same thing that you are striving for until you go and you play  different teams. Now you start realizing like, Oh, I'm not as good as what I thought, right? You need to have that honest conversation with yourself saying, maybe I'm not, or you could fool yourself by saying. Oh, I'm not at that level because of so and I'm not at that level because of the team I'm playing for. I'm not at that level because of whatever. Where as an older person, I believe in high school, I think by the time you get to 10th or 11th you realize where you are in the pecking order. Okay? Because  If you, if it's not you that, that don't realize it, the college coaches do, and they tell you by  whether or not they're contacting you, whether or not they're offering you, whether, so you get you'll get constant feedback where you are. And you'd be surprised. A lot of people think that they are division one players. And then by the end of it they're sometimes not even a division three player where they don't even go on to college. So I think player expectations. You got to be real with yourself and you got to, the most important thing about that, because I went through the process is you got to have people around you telling you the truth. If you don't have a good support support camp that is basically helping you through the whole process. And that person who's helping you or people that are helping you are not telling you the truth.  They're basically doing you a disservice because at the end, you're You know, everyone's going to, the college coaches are going to be telling you.  And I think a testament to that practice in regards to the European style. Look at, just in regards to the NBA, man, Europe is taking over, right? The Luka Dances of the world, the Yokushas of the world, right? Even this upcoming NBA draft, I think under the projected top 20 picks, I think 70 percent of them are coming over from Europe, right? And it's slowly been increasing for the past couple years. Yeah, I think you touched on a lot of good stuff. One thing I think segues really well into this next topic is, How this lack of realistic expectation  translates to, college coaches, right? Which is essentially the end goal for a lot of these players wanting to compete at the next level. Can you speak a little bit on the expectations or I guess I don't want to be cold and say unrealistic expectations, or I guess we could lean on just the lack of awareness in terms of expectations from a player or parent when it comes to the opportunity to play in college and the correlation of their already existing skill sets and how it compares to other kids.  Yeah, I think you're right on that. I think you, you have to say,  you don't want to put kids down and say, Hey, your dream, you're never going to accomplish that, right? You never want to crush their dreams because look, I didn't even know I was going to do the things that I did in my career until I start setting goals and stuff like that.  I think being realistic is probably the most important thing that kids, Nowadays, I just don't think they have I think they do set unrealistic goals because when you look at the numbers of things of making a division one team or division eight, let's take the visual out of the equation. Okay. Because most of my kids in my area are D2 players and they turn into division one players based off of their work habits.  It's hard to make D1, D2, and even D3, people don't understand the difference between all three levels. And I get asked this quite a bit size, yeah, and it's always size.  You can find a great guard at the division three level that can poop against a division one guard, right? It's the size of the guard though, because now sometimes at the division three level, he's six foot, but then you're dealing with a guard that's six, four at the division one level. So it's mainly, and it's not so much the guards. It's so much the bigs. The bigs are truly bigs. I remember I was playing in Miami and I can't, my background was great. I came from the number one junior college conference in the country where they were producing at least 20 to 30 division one athletes out of that conference every single year. And it was known, the J Hawk conference, it was known in Kansas that it was the number one, if you wanted to do anything in Juco basketball and go to the next level to the video one, you had to go to the J Hawk conference. So when I, and we had guys, we had, in fact, we had three NBA guys, my year that I played, we had a guy got, it was like seven, three, okay. That ended up getting dropped. I forget his name.  He was seven, three  piece.  I've never seen a guy at Chicago level that tall before, right? But I only seen him once a year.  I only seen him once a year. Just so you're talking about, you're talking about the division one level when I got to Miami. Now I'm seeing guys on an everyday basis. Not only my teammates, right? The inside players are tall. The guards, we had a guy named Johnny Hemsley. Like he 6'6 dynamite, absolutely electric with the ball, right? I'm going against him in practice. John Sammons, who, was another NBA guy played at least 10 years in the NBA. I'm playing alongside him. So for me, it's that is the biggest difference when you're talking about division one, division two, division three, because I think young kids, they get in their mind that all division three is bad. No it's actually quite good. If you go to a game. It's actually pretty good basketball, man. You got good, you got great coaches at that level. That's going to coach you up, but it's just on a smaller scale. So I think having a realistic expectation  of saying, all right now, my level is division two.  I just don't think people are humble enough to tell themself that it's too easy and it rolls off the tongue too easy saying, I'm a division one player.  It's 1 percent man.  And I talked about is 1 percent that makes it to that level. And I'm talking about all around the country, all around the world, but now you got Europeans that are jumping in there, right? You got us guys coming in here. So it's. It's not easy and the way people talk about it nowadays Oh, she's also a Division 1 player, she's also a Division 1 player. Oil and sport. Please, I wasn't a Division 1 player. I did not make Division 1 right out of high school. Okay. I made junior college. I think just, I guess really just to fine tune the language. I think when we speak of being realistic with players, I like to lean a little bit on being more realistic on just the environment and the ecosystem. Once you're able to really see the ecosystem wow, like numerically, it's extremely difficult to compete at certain levels. I think, like you said, it starts to humble players and parents towards, okay let's look at basketball or AAU or school team in a different light. Rather than, oh, we need the division one thing or we deserve it. It's more so what, life skills or what disciplines can we pull from these experiences while still being in shape and having potentially the opportunity to compete. at that level.  But as I said earlier, a huge part of expectations relies on parents. The kids go home, parents have opinions, whether they play professionally or even play basketball or not there's definitely an influence on children's behavior, how they look at the game, how they play the game, right? Can you speak a little bit on, parental level?  Yeah, I've been fortunate enough to have been around a lot of parents, especially my parents, who are realistic. So I don't really deal with that a lot. Okay. There are parents that come to me that are unrealistic, but as and everyone knows who knows me I'm going to tell the truth. So I really am very honest with kids because again, I'm in an area that, Really, these kids are coming, the better kids are always coming to me every year, right? I have a program in which all the better kids are coming to my program. For me, I don't need to lie to them like other programs need to do to retain them. I don't need to say and neither would I do it, say Hey, you're a Division 1 player. And I don't handle those type of compliments. With some of the parents though because some of the parents talk to each other and I think they get information from each other I think that's where I find the disconnect because they talk to one another and they exchange information But that information is wrong.  The information is wrong that they're getting and they're and that's where you know the disconnect between some programs and parents lie is when you have a director and That, buys into whatever the parents are saying, because they want to retain that kid. So for me, the expectations from the parent has to be  humbling. You have to humble your kid. You can not be saying to your kids like, Hey, you're a division one athlete. No, I don't remember even me saying I'm a division one athlete in my  senior year. And I was all, I was an all city kid. I was second team, all city. If you're a second, if you're either first, second, or third team mall City,  you're really good. In New York City, it's a hotbed, right? So if you're either first, second, or third, you're the guy, right? I don't, I didn't even think like that, I didn't think I was a visual one player. I was like, oh I think I was still thinking like I got holes in my game. Where nowadays I think the talk that I hear from the kids, it rolls off the tongue too easy. Hey, I'm a division one player,  . I laugh at it because it's.  The more and more I do this job of a you, the more I hear it. And the more I say, you have no idea what you're facing. And we know what we're facing. Cause we've been on the circuit before we see the kids that they're going to have to go against. We see the lack of skills that they have compared to what the college coaches want, because every college coach has a.  Have a skill set that they like for their team and you must fit that skill set. And if you don't fit that skill set they're not going to get you. I always say you have to have one exceptional skill. Either you have to have one exceptional skill that trumps everything else. Then they want you for that one exceptional skill, or you've got to be good across the board between all the skills, but it's got to show. But if you don't have a skill to hang your hat on, okay, whether it be defense, shooting dribbling organizing your team. Being a hustler, okay, being a defender, if you don't have one skill set that sticks out, that is better than everyone else. Yeah, you're going to have a hard time. Think about it, how are you going to stick out?  Yeah, you're going to have a hard time and I think something you, you briefly touched on is really just the expectation from parents of, Forgetting again, leaning back into the having realistic awareness of the situation. Like a lot of these AUs, man, like it's a business. So they're like any other business. They're willing to almost sell you, the river essentially, right? Saying, Oh, I know this guy, I can get you a scholarship. Again,  the numbers tell you these colleges, man, these coaches, they get paid to perform, March Madness is here. Like people are going to lose their jobs, man. And. The whole, I know this person, you're like, no, you got to earn it, man. And leaning back to the original part of the conversation there has to be an element of, realism in terms of the environment you're in, who you are as a player and what you want out of the game. Because, it's clearly easily easy to get duped in this industry. But how would you.  How'd you advise kids to manage expectations when it comes to the skill sets, when it comes to really just dealing with the outside world? I think the manage expectations, I think you don't listen to the noise. I say that a lot. I said I was fortunate to have, three to four division one players in my program. And I said the same thing to the parents, same thing to the kids. You have to block out the noise. There is going to be so many people that come at you that say, Hey, I can do this for you. Hey, you should be here. Hey. And if you're not a realistic parent and you are so focused on.  Saying, Hey, my daughter's here or my son's here.  Then you've already caught up in the game because it's a business. If you don't think it's a business, you have no idea what's going on. Directors, AAU programs, college coaches, like it's all a business. It's a big business in which, college coach, I don't think parents need to understand. They get paid to do a job. And if they don't get, if they don't do their job, they get fired. They get fired right away for not doing their job. So for me if parents can really block out the noise and I say run your own race, don't look at someone else saying, Hey, this is how he did it, this is how she did it. I need to be on that same path. No, there's no particular, if anyone tells you they have it down to a science where you know, I can get them to here. No, it's not an exact science. Because when you look at certain people, why they get scholarships, there's really no exact size other than  particular teams, particular colleges have a certain set of skill set that they're looking for, right? So I just think run your own race, understand that if you're running your own race, their skills will dictate where they go. The higher the skill level, you don't have to worry about it. The lower the skill level of not having these skills. It's not, it's not going to end out well for you because you don't have a certain set of skillset to make it to the next level  and really just closing it off as well. It's worth noting, AAU or any sport you play is really meant to be an opportunity for kids and parents, man, essentially learn, grow, get these, life skills, these disciplines that do project into other avenues of your life, post high school. And, sometimes we talk about it, it's a shame to see these kids not really.  Take what they should get out of AAU or playing on these teams, right? And then it ruins their, not only ruins their experience, but then they end up having a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to, sports or team sports or working with teams and things like that. Just worth noting that, it's meant of course for fun, but of course known to grow and develop. And I like that.  You touched it. That's a great point piece. And I think the parents have to focus on them being, especially you're coming from middle school, let's focus on them being a good high school player.  That should be the focus. Let's not focus on. What's going to happen. What five years down the line, let's focus on I'm more anything I do in life. It's more or less short term goals. I have long term goals, but I really focus on the things that I can control in a short term, because if you add up all these small short term goals, it ends up being your long term right. But if you're so far ahead and you're thinking so far ahead,  It's never good because as things change, okay. Things change. Your role has changed. Nowadays with AAU people,  they say they'd love this AAU one point, then the following year, they're with another team, they say they love that team. Then the following year, they're on another team. So it's this AAU game. It's not going to get it down to a science. I've been doing it 13 years and I've seen everything in the business that I could shake my head at. And I said, that's not the way to do things. But.  I would hope that parents, and I say this to you a lot, there's a roadmap  on how things are done. If parents are looking.  There's a way in which if someone makes it or someone doesn't make it that is your level of skill set, there's someone out there that you can look at and say,  you know what? Look how they made it, right? They made it this way. Maybe I'm gonna do it a different way, for me, I'm looking at, she has the same skillset, same, it's a roadmap or  she went over here. She didn't pan out. There's a roadmap. So if the parents do their background check of checking on. Who was who and who did what they will know right away, whether or not their player or their daughter or son is a division one player. Like I knew, and I always take it in my, my, my instance, I knew after my sophomore year, heading into my sophomore year, I was a division one player because I had the  skillset because I looked at certain players that had the same skill set at me. And I looked at them and I said, I'm at that level. And I was realistic with my level. You hit it on the nose. I think this is a good way to end it. Until the next one.  Peace.