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
