A Journey Chronicled

My journey was to become a better basketball player through improving my free throwshooting, 3-point shooting, and testing my skills by beating one of the best basketball players I know in a one-on-one game. I actually accomplished 2 of the 3 goals I originally had for myself, as I was able to drain 16 consecutive free throws (my original goal being 15), and won the contest between my friend, Eric Hus, and I. While I was unable to accomplish my goal to make 10 3-pointers in a row, I was proud of being able to reach the other objectives I had set for myself.

The project had quite a large impact on myself and the others who worked towards their own goals alongside me. Through personally analyzing my strengths and weaknesses in one aspect of my life, I can easily translate the methods I've used to be honest with myself and improve into other areas of my life. This project provided a basic plan for any other area or situation in my life that I would seek to improve. Additionally, I think this project has positively impacted all three of us (Samir Bahadur, Jimmy McDonald, and myself) because we all had the opportunity to push each other to accomplish our goals. I feel this was one of the most significant parts of the project, as we were able to keep each other accountable and accomplish something better than what would've been done alone.

The most difficult part of the project was finding time outside of the given time in class to really focus and practice the drills needed to accomplish my goals. Being in the later half of the school year (especially Junior Year), the workload and stress level of school increased by quite a large margin in comparison to the middle of the year. With that in mind, it also was fairly difficult at times to have the desire to get in the gym and practice when I was tired from football workouts 3 days a week. These combined factors, along with not always having access to a gym within Dow, made it more tedious process to play than it should've been. I also never expected that a group of 3 would sometimes be challenging to practice with, as many of the drills I looked at were either one-on-one or full-team (5 players) oriented.

The roadblock I experienced in my project of having difficulty finding time to practice led to the insight that in order to truly improve yourself, you must make it your top priority. For me, the project was actually quite a high priority because of how much I enjoy the sport. However, looking back on my goals I have little doubt that if I had made the 20 Time project just that much higher of a priority I would've been able to reach my 3-point shooting goal. It also changed the course of the project just slightly because more than once, me and my project partners had to modify what was planned for the day so that we could practice at least something. The worst example of this came when we were unable to find an open gym for one of our in-class work times and had to spend the day practicing dribbling and off-ball moves. While we were able to be flexible enough to still practice, it was a less than ideal solution.

I would consider my own project not necessarily a success or failure, but somewhere in between. The 2 goals that I was able to accomplish make my project a personal success, however, it was also a little disappointing that I was unable to reach my third goal (especially realizing I could've reached it). If I had to proportion the amount of success versus failure I would say 80% of my project was a success with only 20% being a failure. I feel that this is an accurate estimate as I was able to reach 2 out of 3 goals I had set for myself, while also gaining a few very critical insights and teaching myself how to work towards a goal. I was very proud and satisfied with the things I gained from this project when compared to the only few things that went wrong.

While it varied quite greatly with weeks where I had more extracurricular time and those where I had almost none, I would venture to say that I spent around 5 hours a week on average on my project. Whether that time was spent playing pick up games, or actually honing in on a specific drill in which to improve on, I believe that every minute playing basketball can channel the process of getting better. I had time on the weekends and time after school on days without football workouts to work on my project, and I took almost every opportunity I had to practice.

Most definitely I will continue to not only strive to become a better basketball player through organized methods, but I will try to extend what I have learned from this project to other challenges presented in my life. Basketball is, and will be for a very long time, something that I am very passionate about, and with that passion comes a desire to become a better, smarter, and more athletic player. It was very encouraging to partake in this project because it showed me that with a little hard work, you can do just that. Additionally, with having already experienced what it takes to improve and be successful in one area of my life, I can take what I have learned to improve in some weaker areas of my life (procrastination, stress, etc.).

A large part of the success in my project can be attributed to the help, ideas, and information that I received from online articles and another friend, Alec Marty. For the most part, all of my traditional learning from the project was from the various articles that I read during SSR that discussed numerous drills I could do to improve each area of my game, the mentality that the best of the NBA have to be just that, and the inspiration to start working hard now and improve in a similar fashion to many others in the NBA. Additionally, Alec Marty contributed to my success greatly, in that he gave me real tips, drills, and training that I could practically implement in the 20 Time workouts.

This project was overall very interesting and fun, and it was a unique learning experience that I will probably only be able to be a part of once throughout my entire education. It's a great idea to improve every student's mentality and focus towards school, and teach students how to learn in different ways.

Stay ballin' world,

Brad

Know Your Role

What's good ballers?! This just in: it's still a great time to be a basketball lover. As the NBA playoffs and 2014-2015 season begin to draw to a close, the more and more motivated I have become to improve and hone in on one of my true passions. It's been amazing to simply watch and take notes on the true professionals who have fought their way to their respective Conference Finals, and it has provided me with an edge when I go to play in my own time. Any advantage that you can create or find is an advantage that you can use to be better than your opponent. To be completely honest, however, I haven't had a lot of time to play the sport I love lately, but I am eagerly waiting to the days of summer. I am fully and impatiently planning to play A LOT of basketball this summer, and to enjoy the beautiful weather that is sure to come.

Similar to my last post, these past few weeks brought a new epiphany and self-discovered insight. In one the 2 on 2 pickup games I participated in earlier this week, I was playing pretty poorly. Following my mindset and previous inhibitions, I tried to shoot and drive my way out of the slump, but my efforts only resulted in more turnovers and less quality possessions for my teammate and I. Even though my only fall was not being consistent with my shot, my team was now suffering because I was trying to take it upon myself to get us out of trouble. It was in this moment that I learned something important and new: in order to improve the performance of your team you must be honest with yourself and recognize when your shot isn't going in. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to look to give others scoring opportunities, and be patient and careful when you seek your own shot. Immediately, my teammate rose to the occasion, and with my own selfish attempts aside I was able to focus on creating the best scoring opportunities possible. The result was immediately better possessions, and an increased number of high-percentage shots. This is important to realize as I feel that a lot of us can get caught up in what we can do to improve the team, and sometimes it is to simply look for others.

For my daily reading for the past two weeks I decided to focus on a previous MVP-winner and multiple NBA Scoring Champion that I realized I didn't actually know that much about. While for much of these season he was plagued with injuries and setbacks (unfortunately so), Kevin Durant is one of the most exciting young players in the entire NBA. As with any great player, I was very curious and interested in learning more about how others perceive his work ethic and mental toughness - I was thoroughly impressed. Kevin Durant is widely known by his peers and mentors as someone of character and high standard, whose constantly stays positive and continually, constantly, always wants to get better. He is also said to be one of the most humble superstars there have been, and thankfully accepts coaching and direction. Most significantly to me, especially this week, is that KD is always working to get the teammates around him better, even though he may be miles more talented than some of the people he plays with. I love hearing stories about how superstars have earned their ranking, and how hungry someone is to be better despite them already playing at the highest level - it really makes you want to be like them.

Click here for the article discussed above!


Ballin' up this week and many more,

Brad

Settle In

How my fellow ballers be? It's been a truly amazing time to be a basketball fan lately as the weather has been absolutely splendid in time for the NBA playoffs. Similar to my last post, my schedule recently has been quite stressful and busy, but I have continued to work on my game whenever I got a little extra time! Even though I couldn't work quite as intensely on the actual application of the game the past 2 weeks, I have made sure to follow the professionals very closely in each of their own playoff runs. I've learned since my last post that being a baller doesn't always mean balling out at your local court (or a bigger stage), but that ballers have to put in the time to learning the mental and strategic elements of the game. It may not sound like the most glamorous activity, but I'm telling you that you'll ball so much harder and more often then the other guys around you who didn't make the effort.

I still believe that just getting out and playing pickup games is one of the most accurate indicators of your personal skill level as a baller. The next time you play in a pickup game, pay attention to the areas of your game that you need to improve; trust me, it'll be very easy to notice at least one area of your game you'd like to be better. If you don't feel you can use your off-hand to dribble and finish effectively, then work on improving your ambidexterity. If you feel that you can't beat someone off the dribble or drive competently to the hoop, then work on your ability to finish through contact and traffic. If you feel your shot just won't go in, be patient and give yourself time to really decide if you aren't just having an off day. Then get in the gym and work on your consistency and fundamentals. The best basketball players in the world constantly analyze themselves to find areas of their game to improve on - it's just not as obvious for them!

This week for my daily reading I decided to learn about a player who is riding a breakout season into the playoffs as the runner-up for MVP: James Harden. It was really interesting to read specifically about Harden because for most of his career he had never been considered even a starting shooting guard. When Harden was in Oklahoma City, he was a quick-ten-points-off-the-bench kind of player; he was someone who could heat up quickly and give some productive minutes. However, this all changed when the Houston Rockets took a chance on the young player and gave him a large starting role with plenty of opportunity to earn more minutes. Obviously Harden responded very well to the challenge as he has played himself to within just votes of being the MVP for the 2015 regular season. It should very encouraging to all of us to see someone like Harden have this kind success because it shows us that even a player who never received that much attention was able to improve to be one of the best players in the NBA.

Link to the article: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1456280-4-qualities-that-make-james-harden-a-full-fledged-nba-superstar


Ballin' up this week and many more,

Brad

Playoffs?!

Whaddup fellow ballers? It's been a hectic week-and-a-half since my last post as many other responsibilities in my life have been tugging at me for my time, but you just KNOW that nothing's getting in the way of me being around basketball! Despite reduced time, I've still been able to play plenty of pickup games, read numerous inspiring articles, and enjoy this year's NBA playoffs! As far as the latter, it's been a fun and satisfying postseason so far even though my Phoenix Suns were in the race for the 8th seed for the entire season until they lost an underrated key player in Brandon Knight to injury, and gave up 9 of their last 10 games to teams who could actually keep their roster healthy and make a respectable push into the postseason, and I had to watch as those like the San Antonio Spurs, who looked like they weren't even going to win their first round postseason match-up throughout most of the season, somehow defied their age yet again to become the hottest team in basketball and went on an impressive win streak to finish the season... there's always next year.

As far as the pickup games, the combination of this project and the weather starting to finally move towards spring has made me JACKED to play basketball more than any time in recent memory (I hope you all feel the same)! More and more I've felt eager to go outside and enjoy the day with a good group of friends by playing the timeless game of basketball at our local (and may I add quite nice) court outside of the Midland Community Center. My friends and I love this place as there are two full, free-entry basketball courts that are open any day of the week at any time. An unexpected outcome of going there so often is that I've met many other ballers who do the same, and have formed some casual friendships with a few of them. To anyone who has the ability to come play here, I'm telling you it's a nice spot to shoot hoops and get pickup games going - I know you'll see me there more and more as the weather brightens up!

The picture above is of course LeBron "King" James himself. With the playoffs just beginning, I figured I was going to see a lot more wins and highlights from the Cleveland Cavalier's superstar (widely considered the best active player in the world) over the next few months, so I decided to read up on how the player I grew up idolizing prepares his mind and body to play at the level he does. Coming in, I had assumed that James trains himself strenuously and diligently to maintain the level of athleticism he's accumulated, however I had no idea just how strictly he diets and how intense his training regiment is. LeBron keeps himself under strict and consistent guidelines in order to be in the best shape he can, and his work ethic is awe inspiring. I think we all realize that professional athletes are paid to keep their body in top shape, but I also think that we all tend to underestimate just how hard these "professionals" work in order to be the best they can be - it's commendable.

Link to an article outlining James' workout routine: http://www.menshealth.com/celebrity-fitness/lebron-james-workout

Ballin' up this week and many more,

Brad

An Eventful Month

How's it going baller-nation? A lot has happened since my last post - from almost a full month ago- and I'm excited to share what I've been working on and learning in order to further my progress toward my goal of being a better basketball player. Over the past month, I've concluded this year's Community Center League basketball season, taken a trip to Florida over Spring Break, and played many more pick-up games than usual. Additionally, I've read one very interesting and helpful article that has changed my mindset in particular.

Shortly after my last post (ironically titled "Feeling Good"), my CCL team played our way into the championship game where we faced the upperclassmen of our very own Dow High School. They were the defending champions and despite an honorable effort, we were unable to pull out the win. Although the CCL season may have ended in heartbreaking fashion, I still feel that this project greatly helped me in becoming a better basketball player, and by improving my overall confidence in any game situation. There's always next year!

My Spring Break trip was very relaxing and a needed break from school, but I made sure not to slump on my goal to improve my game. Although my friends and I (most of the CCL team) were staying at a villa located on an island off the west coast of Florida, we were all hungry to continue playing the game we loved. Fortunately, one of my friends drove and was able to bring along a basketball; however, we still needed to find a court. We all set out and took a long bike ride to the location that we thought looked like a basketball court from Google Maps, and luckily it was a small concrete court. We were all overjoyed to find a place to basketball on our vacation, and we went almost every day to improve ourselves, as well as the team (I feel very good about our championship hopes next year).

The picture above comes from the aforementioned article that discusses the shooting technique of one of my personal-favorite players, Kyrie Irving. When I first searched, "how to shoot like Kyrie Irving," I expected dozens of articles praising Irving for his beautiful shooting stroke and fundamentals. To my surprise, the first search result was an article that critiqued Kyrie's shooting stroke and fundamentals, and said that if he must fix some bad habits if he ever wanted to dominate the NBA. The article provided an in-depth analysis of what is wrong with Kyrie's stroke, and even ways for him to mend his poor technique. This came as a great surprise to me, because beforehand I held up Kyrie as one of the best players in the NBA, and that it was his sound fundamentals and sweet shooting stroke that got him there; the article changed my perspective to one of more awareness in player's shooting errors.

Link to the article: http://hoopshype.com/columns/david-nurse/how-to-fix-kyrie-irvings-shot

Ballin' up this week and many more,

Brad

Feeling Good

What it do fellow ballers! Since my last post I've completed an enjoyable and successful 20 Time workout, read helpful articles on improving my game, and had plenty of chances to use what I learned. I've really enjoyed fully focusing on becoming a better basketball player and honing my skills, and it's really encouraging to see even little improvements in real-world application.

My 20 Time workout was probably the best application of the project thus far. Due to the other school's gym being used for physical education class, my 20 Time group found its way to the Green Gym, where the Team Sports class was coincidentally playing basketball that week. To start things off, our group took all kinds of layups to not only warm ourselves up, but to work on one of the most important aspects of the game of basketball: fundamentals. Thereafter, my group of three was able to gather three other players, and we all played a 3 on 3 game of pickup basketball. This was really fun, and it served the purposed of testing whether each player in our group had improved toward their goal (I played rather well, I think).

Within the time between my last post and the one I am currently writing, I've had to put my skills to the test in two real, organized games in the Community Center League. Each and every successive weekend that I have played CCL basketball since starting my 20 Time, I have felt more confident and skilled when dribbling, shooting, and making quick, basketball decisions. Overall, I have loved the new found ability and improvements, and it's very encouraging to actually have noticeable progress (however small); I'm really starting to see that the game of basketball still has a lot of rewarding challenges to offer.

The picture above was part of an article that I read over several of my class's SSR time. Like last week's post (from a different source), Stephen Curry's shot is analyzed and broken down to show how he is able to make the amazing shots he does. Overall, this week's theme has been less about what the proper technique is to shoot (despite the diagram above), and more on how you can practice to be a better shooter. More recently, I've been looking at how some of the game's greats (Michael Jordan for example) have been able to reach that level of success, and what kind of mindset a player must have in order to get there. So far, I've learned that to truly be a good player you have to sacrifice and put aside your own bodily complaints to push yourself harder than the rest; the more you put into improving your game the more you get out of it.

Link to the article: http://www.ecbahoops.com/how-to-shoot-a-basketball-steph-curry/

I hope that my 20 Time project is the beginning of the steps that I must take in order to improve to my game, especially to the point of excelling and standing out among the rest. I am still unsure of who exactly will be my group's mentor; many names have crossed my mind, but each one has subsequently been crossed out due to the level of commitment it seems they will have to take in this project. Although that has slightly upset me, I have a positive outlook on the rest of the project, and I look forward to making more gains!

Ballin' up this week and many more,

Brad

Improvement

Yo yo yo, whaddup fellow ballers! Since my last post I've been lucky enough to participate in a 20-Time "workout", and an actual basketball game at the Community Center. Additionally, we've started reading choice selections that are related to our 20-Time project, and I've been reading a handful of helpful articles giving simple tips of how to better your game.

My 20-Time "workout" was supposed to consist of just one, simple goal: shooting better free throws. Our group of three had planned that it would be best if we were to begin with the manageable goal of 10 out of 10 free throws, and gradually deepen our goal into more difficult challenges. Overall, after a short period of time had passed within the hour, our group begin to lose interest (despite shooting more accurately) in shooting free throws, until the last 20 minutes of class where my group and I played a game of pick-up basketball. While it was useful to work on foul-shooting for most of the hour, I was glad that the work was supplemented with a game, so that it became more exciting and real. Overall, I felt that the time prepared me for my CCL contest, and that it was beneficial to work on free throws for 20-Time.

This brings me to my CCL game, where I felt that I played a bit better last week, following my 20-Time, then any other game this year. In fact, at one point in the game I actually had a chance to shoot free throws. I had not made any of the few attempts I had taken before that point this year, so I was pleasantly surprised by making one of the shots, while narrowly missing the other. The 20-Time workout definitely improved my confidence and free throw shooting muscle memory, and it made my foul shots much more accurate.

The school week after that game, we began to read books related to our topic for SSR, where I learned to improve other aspects of my game. This picture is one that was studied and analyzed in a specific article I read that gave 3-point shooting tips from Stephen Curry (left) and Steve Novak (right) - two of the best shooters in all of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Both of these amazing shooters expressed the need for holding the "follow-through" on your shot (the hand motion that shoots the ball) and to attempt to commit your shot to muscle memory in order to shoot consistently. They stressed that the best shooters are those who shoot the same, great shot time and time again, regardless of the defense, pressure, or unfamiliarity. Great shooters have the same foot placement, jump, and follow through each and every shot they take.

Link to that article: http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/21716576/3-point-shooting-tips-from-stephen-curry-and-steve-novak

While the question of "who is my mentor?" still remains, I was glad to be able to secure Mr. Schulte as our adult supervisor so that we could use the gym every week for our 20-Time workouts. I'm optimistic that someone will be willing to sacrifice a little of their time so that our group can all get better, or that Alec Marty will finally be cleared to be that person.


Ballin' up this week and many more,

Brad