How I made it to the NBA - Joe Alexander
He did all this…and only played in 63 NBA games across two seasons.
This is not slander. It’s just acknowledgment of how hard it is to make and stay in the NBA.
And if he wasn’t 6’8” it would have most likely all been a waste of time
Theres a reason you go all in at 12.. he was probably way taller than anybody else his age since he was a kid
Hitting your growth spurt early is probably the route for a lot of these guys, but it isn’t always true.
Aaron Gordon said he hit his growth spurt relatively late (junior year of high school). Prior to that he played point guard (cause he was 5’5” or 5’6”). Then he hit his growth spurt and was 6’9” but could handle the ball like a point guard. He’d never played forward til his junior/senior year of high school.
dennis rodman is the ultimate example. He graduated highschool at 5ft 10 with no college offers, worked as a janitor for a year or so and grew to like 6 ft 7, and immediately afterwards started his college career
Uh David Robinson grew 16 inches in college. Nobody comes close.
david robinson is also impressive but most of his growing happened during high school. he was a 5ft 9 junior and graduated at 6ft 6, which is insane, and college “only” added 7 inches. Still a crazy growth spurt but IMO rodman growing 9 inches after graduation is more impressive
6’6” to 7’1” is adding more than 5inches at the academy.
whoops, fixed
but a whole lot less than 16
It’s not exactly a surprise when your dad is a 6’6 former college player and your brother, who is 5 years older than you, is working his way up to 6’9.
Learning to play guard against guys your own size and bigger and THEN hitting your growth spurt seems to be a big help. Kareem apparently played against much older people when he was younger due to his height and learned how to get his shot off (he said the Skyhook “was the only thing that didn’t get smashed back in his face”), and then became 7’2” afterward.
Counterpoint: A lot of people would have thought they were better than everyone because they were tall and scored more and, as a result, not work on their game as much.
This is insane dedication even though he was taller than average.
And some people might go further with half the work that he described.
I went to high school with a dude who was 6’11 and his brother was 7’1. Both undrafted. Almost all they did was basketball and really just weren’t that good.
I’m sure they may be fantastic painters, though.
An insane amount of factors go into most sporting achievements, most importantly avoiding injury.
Even in my situation, I get to say forevermore I played on an international rugby team; I wasn’t very good, just from a small country. I live in South Africa now, where some high schoolers were better than I was at my peak, and they only get the highlight of scoring against their school rival.
My highest achievement in rugby was quitting because I couldn’t hack it, but the team went on to become city champions lol.
Once, I was told that some 30 year old cook from Fiji held back a whole high school team in a truck. It is what it is.
I live in South Africa now, where some high schoolers were better than I was at my peak, and they only get the highlight of scoring against their school rival.
My brother played for my country’s U18 team, when he got to South Africa he was coming off the bench for his University’s 3rd team and that’s one of the smaller schools on top of that.
What if half way through your investment at 15, you stop growing.
Ya, i completely agree, I played for 8 years prep, juco and D2 as a starter and in all my playing years I saw about a dozen guys I played with go pro, and not one of them had that type of work ethic… remember at a higher level of ball team practise and workouts normally happen 4 days a week in season and out its 5-6.. they last 3-4 hours plus video work and class… its 6-7 hours… min… so add another 2 to that for study, rehab (god forbid you miss that) 8-9 hours of good sleep and well… add another 2 hour workout?? Holy frig that guy was another lvl….
All for 60 games in the NBA….
And a 15 year professional career. He made lots of money doing what he loved. Don’t be a hater.
Yeah I don’t get this, sure it wasn’t the NBA but imagine playing the sport you love and it pays the bills for 15 years.
Maybe I’m biaised because I’m from Europe but idk why some people act like playing anywhere else than in the NBA means you suck.
You can still good money overseas, traveling the world and playing the game you love is not too bad
One of the reasons I posted. Mind blowing how difficult it is to make it and stay in the NBA.
It’s very difficult for someone like him who won the genetic lottery but just BARELY enough to make the league. We see all sorts of guys who are able to stay in the NBA without working hard (relative to their counterparts).
Yeah but not working hard relative to NBA players is night and day compared to regular dudes.
Just think about the commitment AAU is and that’s bare minimum. Sure some guys take it to another level, but the level of consistency needed to be good enough to make to the league is pretty universal.
The bigger thing is that most guys stop caring the same way once they make it but that’s different from the grind needed to make it in and cash out in the first place
Many professions at the top level are just like this.
Go try and get into a top computer engineering firm.
You are competing against people who have devoted 6+ hours of their lives, every day, since they were 6 or 7 on electronics and computers. For many I know, it was virtually every moment they had in life outside of school. To the point they did nothing else, had no other hobbies and were basically ready to work professionally as a senior in high school (but had to get the degree to prove it).
He is also 6’8” someone putting in this work at 5’11” probably doesn’t even make it back then
That’s why I have so much respect for Isaiah Thomas. That 2016-17 season was special!
Relative to his size, IT was also a freak athlete tho. Dude could dunk.
There are clips of him windmilling. Curry is at least 4 inches taller and he can’t do that
lol Steph can def windmil http://instagram.com/p/eG-0uUhbyW/ he can even do reverse dunks.
All that work and his FT% was 69% and his 2P% was 42%.
Yup, bad shooter, bad ball handler, low Bball IQ, basically sounds like he was lying about the work he put in or was really focused on the wrong things.
I mean he was 6’8 an explosive leaper but lacked all the skills you usually acquire by putting in hours of work.
Weird.
Or he just maxed out his potential and his potential was fringe-NBA. It’s not an indictment on his work effort that he wasn’t quite good enough to stick. Lots of guys like him have more success overseas
Maybe he is lying, but work isn’t gonna get you to be good at those things at NBA level without the right natural ability.
Like, if you don’t have far above average hand-eye coordination, no amount of work is gonna make you a good shooter or ball handler. Steph Curry was a shooting savant as a teenager, when he certainly hadn’t put in as many hours are NBA players.
Basketball IQ is also not gonna be boosted by solo drills, a lot of that is just reaction timing and stuff like that, in addition to fundamentals. But just being good at fundamentals doesn’t give you an NBA level “IQ,” you need talent.
He was famously a workout warrior, so I do trust he was probably above average in preparation - doing solo drills was where he excelled.
People also take the idea that NBA players “can’t shoot/dribble” way too far. The unsaid bit was always “can’t shoot/dribble” while being guarded by NBA player and not this dude literally cannot do those skills. This is why people’s minds get blown everytime Mitchell Robinson shows up to an open gym and looks like Wemby
Mitchell Robinson actually moves like KD in open courts lol
How he air balled those 2 FTs still astonishes me. I’ve seen those open gyms with Mitchell Robinson, I still don’t get how he can’t shoot from the FT line
Work doesn’t necessarily get you good at anything. I tried hard and practiced guitar everyday. Ran drills and got tutors and everything. Literally 4 to 5 hours or more everyday practicing and then playing more for fun, but then my other friend picked it up and he exceeded me quickly in just a couple years.
Then he got addicted to meth and sold everything for drugs, but I really could never break that wall between being good and really good or better. It’s just the way things go sometimes.
Disagree. It’s one thing to hit your shots alone in the gym, it’s a whole other thing to make those shots and make good ball IQ decisions when you’re playing against the absolute best in the world in an arena with thousands of people watching.
I’ll give you a personal example from my career as a physician. When I was in training, I was surrounded by smart people. People who were each the smartest kid in their class through college and even medical school. Some kids were just smarter than me, they retained everything they learned in a book/class and would get higher grades…but then in our 3rd/4th years, some of those kids would freeze when asked a question. Then I would be with people who would answer our attending’s (academic hospital professor) questions as well as I could, but then when we’re in front of an actively dying patient and every second, every thought, every instinct counts some of those same people would freeze/panic/whatever you want to call it. I made it through and now I’m a practicing critical care specialist. Those other people went into less high stress specialties.
So it’s one thing to have genetics, it’s one thing to put in the work, but it’s a whole other thing to apply those skills against people just as good if not better than you…and then to do it under bright lights and thousands of people!?!? Yikes! It makes you appreciate how amazing these kids are in the nba and how utterly special the very best of them are. Whenever I go to a live game with someone who rarely or has never gone, I like to point out you can easily tell who the Allstar player is on the court…they just move more controlled and at ease compared to everyone else.
TLDR: it’s one thing to practice boxing, it’s another thing to step in the ring and get punched in the face by another boxer who is better than you (also from personal experience!)
Thats a nice example. It goes to show that we are all good at different things. Some people are better in higher stakes situations. Some people are geniuses but they need to be in a more nurturing environment. This kind of thing is why I try to never belittle others. There is more than one type of “genius”. This guy in the video sounds like he was a “genius” of forming habits/work ethic. I know that I would never be able to form habits like that at 10⁄12 years old.
Bro what. You can’t just look at NBA stats and judge someone’s work ethic. It doesn’t matter if you shoot 90% from three in an open gym, or even while being defended by a D1 player. Being defended by a fucking NBA player is simply different. You have to be god-level talented to consistently shoot over your average NBA defender
Not to mention the mental aspect. I’d have to imagine it takes a special kind of mentality to not “choke” whenever you’re playing in front of thousands of fans. I would always get too nervous in just HS basketball to even shoot somewhat how I could in an open gym. I’ve always been in awe of how calm pro athletes are with such high stakes
Well he says right in the video that he doesn’t think he was doing the most efficient workouts or drills because he didn’t have the resources so maybe that played a part but the work ethic was there.
Someone 5’11 had a better chance of making it back then than now too
It’s a little more surprising he only played 63 games in the NBA when you consider he was the #8 pick in the draft.
Most top ten picks get a bit more time to develop, but Joe Alexander was truly terrible in the NBA.
I’m pretty sure he has the least points scored of any #8 pick since the ABA merger.
I mean it kinda makes sense that the people drafting him thought they had a once in a generation talent, when they actually had a once in a generation “worker”. When it came time to produce the talent, on an NBA level, it just didn’t exist. He certainly had the tank and fundamentals to sustain a career though
he was the #8 pick in the draft.
Damn that was a pretty loaded top 10:
1 CHI Derrick Rose
2 MIA Michael Beasley
3 MIN O.J. Mayo
4 SEA Russell Westbrook
5 MEM Kevin Love
6 NYK Danilo Gallinari
7 LAC Eric Gordon
8 MIL Joe Alexander
9 CHA D.J. Augustin
10 NJN Brook Lopez
I looked through each draft since 1976 and I think you’re right. Even Egor Dёmin, who is a rookie who had a season ending injury at the beginning of March, has almost twice as many career points.
Imagine the work put in doing this to barely play in the NBA.
Now imagine a kid who drank 2L of coke almost every day. Did not really take physical workouts seriously until maybe teens. Still slow, can barely jump over a stack of newspapers, and just started to grow into a 6’10 body frame.
Now imagine getting drafted and you were just asleep the whole time, and a taco bell commercial plays as you get drafted. Your bros wake you up and get all excited, but you go back to sleep because it’s like 4am where you are.
Now imagine after 10-12 years you average a triple double, win 4 MVPs and still get called a fat pudgy boy.
Crazy
I think what happened to Jokic is exactly the reason why guys have to to put in all this work. Jokic was already showing his passing and IQ were levels above everyone else even in his rookie years and yet he got drafted so low because he looked slow and ‘un-athletic’. He did not have what coaches at the time wanted for a Centre ( a physical athletic guy who can be a lob threat, protect the rim, get rebounds or score under the paint) like a freaking generational talent nearly didn’t even make the NBA because he ‘didn’t fit the meta’.
Plus Jokic also didn’t develop those skills randomly. Of course he has freakish hand-eye coordination and intuition, which are thinks that likely come about extremely early in life (particularly the former), but if you see very young Jokic play he is constantly trying bold things and fine tuning his creativity.
Also, when he did come to the NBA he took the leap because he committed to a very rigid and intense workout schedule for the physical side of it. If he didn’t he wouldn’t have reached nearly the same level of course
Also, as he stated himself, he’s white.
This is why Allen Iverson is one of the most talented athletes out there.
Did he work and practice? Sure. Was it to the level of his potential? No and he’s still one of the best players to ever touch a basketball and one of the best athletes to ever touch a football in U.S. high school sports.
You hear multiple stories how he wouldn’t touch a basketball all summer and still be ready for the season. He himself said he didn’t like to lift weights because they’re heavy 😂.
I don’t know anymore more raw talented than Iverson.
Than I think about Joker who drank Cola and ate Burek
Not to mention he’s 6-8 and a great athlete
This is the kind of thing I think about when Redditors are criticizing players for being too emotional or too excited over “small” achievements in the NBA
Unbelievable amounts of dedication, discipline, and work
CP3 mentioned how the Spurs core are usually two hours early for practice and that includes Wemby. He said that if practice was scheduled at 10, Vic and some guys are already in the gym since 8 am. You would assume he probably started his day earlier with stretching and meditation. Guy goes to bed at 9 probably wakes up at 5 or 6.
I remember one season of Hard Knocks covering the Texans where JJ Watt was telling some rookies about his routine. It basically consisted of an insane amount of hours working out, etc, plus eating incredibly healthy, including no drinking, etc, and then going to bed every day at like 8pm. He was like, “Yeah, it’s not fun.”
Yeah, I remember everyone calling him a tryhard after that, which is such a dumb insult to begin with.
Also, it makes a ton of sense as an athlete. You’ve got a short time-frame to make as much money as you can before age/injuries force you out. You really only have to stick to that insane dedication for so long to get your money and success and then you be retired at 34 and do whatever you want for the rest of your life.
If you’re not “tryharding” at the pinnacle of your sport, then what are you doing? This isn’t Thanksgiving football with the fam, lmao.
Just people who are insecure because they will never be great at anything themselves, so they need to find some way to save their ego by belittling those putting in the effort they know they never could.
Man that’s a crazy sleep schedule. I wonder what that’s like
You will probably naturally hit it in middle age. I know I have lol
Nearly 40 and sleep from 4am to about 9am when my 1 year old wakes me. I know my situation is different than most as I work overnights.
I think napping is huge in the NBA where the teams work with sleep consultants because even if that’s his off day schedule, finishing an OT game on the road in Milwaukee and getting on a plane to Cleveland to get into the hotel after 2 am and then waking up the next day to workout and play is tough.
Wasn’t there just an interview with a teammate who confirmed Wemby wears those blue light blocking goggles after 11 pm or something?
I remember Giannis years ago talking about how he usually played pretty poorly in early start Sunday games because he didn’t get his pre-game nap in. Sounded like a pretty normal thing among players too, and there’s definitely a ton of players/teams who are notoriously shitty in that timeslot.
LeBron narrates a good series on sleep in the Calm app. Napping is super important for him.
Kobe has this routine, Early morning workout and nap before the actual game.
It sounds like heaven brother.
But I’m 37 so I’m ancient.
But entertainment is so fun at night
I feel ya. It changes though. Like I’d much rather wake up at 5am to go fishing than I would stay up till 10pm and go to the club.
This will be you one day. Take this warning to have your fun now. Ya body changes. It’s like thanos.
Staying up til 10pm to go to the club. Now, it’s been awhile since my bar hopping days, but 10pm was around the start time.
A lot of why teams don’t love west coast roadtrips.
If you are on the east coast and go to bed at 9pm, and you are playing a game that tips off at 7pm in LA… guess what, you should be asleep for an hour by tipoff.
Pretty much no NBA players are going to sleep this early for that reason. From what I’ve seen and read most nba sleep schedules are somewhere in the 2am-10am range during the season.
like Kobe said, he didn’t trust guys who put in the bare minimum and showed up just as practice started and left ASAP
you gotta fight for your spot in the league
I think it’s important that he mentions he wasn’t highly scouted or athletic. I would love to hear a candid contrast from someone who was highly scouted and only become a role player. I’d also like to see a coach compare the 2 work ethics, because I’m sure the less athletic player works harder, I still think it’s incredibly close how hard they work, the star/athlete just doesn’t think as much of it.
Almost everyone in the NBA was the best player on their high school/travel team. Then maybe if they’re still good they’re the best on their college team. But obviously that doesn’t make the jump to the pros. Look at Luke Kennard. He broke LeBron’s all-time Ohio scoring total. Yet in the NBA he’s a role player known as a 3 point specialist.
Yeah, that’s what I’m interested to see the contrast in. The Aytons of the world compared to this guy.
And Luke’s a 10 year pro. Thats very successful.
He is trying to downplay his natural gifts to highlight how hard he worked.
The truth is he won the genetic lottery like every other player who makes the NBA. There are degrees to this and some people on the edges either squander the opportunity or they over perform.
His work ethic is admirable for sure though, I wish I had that. I blew massive opportunities when I was younger because I didn’t put in the work. It’s really hard to be disciplined at such a young age.
I think people downplay it a LOT in general. If we assume there are ~500 players in the NBA at any given moment and that they are the best 500 in the world with ~4B men capable of playing basketball…work ethic alone will never cut it. Ever.
They are the top 0.0000125% of players in the world. Height, musculature, tendon insertion, and a million other things. Even just being all that. You still need work ethic and a desire to actually play basketball. It’s wild and I love it.
Not nit picking here. But out of the 500 best basketball players in the world do you think they all play in the NBA? Id say the number is 400-425.
He was 6’8” with a 42 inch vertical, also thinks his first step was the “quickest in the world”. How is he not athletic? I honestly don’t get his viewpoint at all.
I think he meant when he started at 12
I can’t find his height when he was 12, but he was 6’6” by the time he was 18 and both his brothers were fairly tall. You could say he only started working that hard because he was pretty certain to reach a playable height in the NBA from his height at the age of 12. I’m also highly doubtful of his claims, because literally all the non-stat web pages about him are filled with his “I worked hard” rant. It could be a grift to gain more relevance as a relatively unknown overseas player (63 NBA games).
https://sports.yahoo.com/news/whos-joe-alexander-just-ask-200700856–nba.html?guccounter=1
That’s if you take his word. His combine vert is 38” and that’s in an open gym, 42” is probably the highest he ever hit in an open gym.
Still athletic, but you have to give him it’s relative to his competition and he does say he improved all of those things from high school to when he was drafted.
38.5 inch vert and ran a 2.98s sprint and hit 24 reps on the bench. dude was like the nba combine equivalent of calvin johnson
He had a good combine for sure, but that’s disrespectful to Calvin Johnson. Megatron is top 50 most athletic humans of the past 25+ years.
I’m honestly curious who the contenders are for a better combine than Joe Alexander. Dude is infamous in nba draft circles, so this whole narrative this week of people basically treating him like JJ Barea is pretty funny.
It would be like matt jones from arkansas/the jaguars talking about how hard he had it lol
he is truly a textbook example of someone making it to the nba based on raw athleticism. I think he is bs’ing because he literally had no skills except for dunking
I mean, he’s an inch shorter than Sabonis and definitely more athletic.
Also, taller and more athletic than Doncic.
Both white guys too because Idk, seems like he’d use it as an excuse if I gave a black example instead.
Am i misremembering what i just watched or did he say when he got drafted he thought he was an olympic sprinter with the quickest first step in the league lol, im pretty sure he thought he was athletic. But i imagine there are players magnitudes better than him that worked out allot less. Some people are just so genuinely gifted that they can just scrimmage and do a few box jumps. And actually given the state of youth athletics nowadays they make this guys routine seem like a vacation, which doubles the leverage the naturally gifted guys have because they can crack the league without decimating their bodies as much
Also being gifted in first step speed and sprinting is all good and well, but overall a pretty small part of basketball. Hand eye coordination, jumping, and lateral agility are all way more important. He was a gifted athlete, but not a gifted NBA athlete.
I always think about the guys that are naturally talented and have reputations for not putting in the extra work.
These dudes are still putting in insane amounts of work to maintain their spot. The weight lifting and especially running alone you have to do is insane. Like you can’t fake running up and down the court all night. Most adults couldn’t do the back and forth running let alone also play basketball at the same time.
Excellent observation, and I completely agree.
They take what an average person puts into their job and does it 10x as hard and 10x more effort.
And then we go “ wow a random dude is making millions putting a ball into a hoop”
Just crazy.
I was on the court shooting 200 shots a day thinking I’m a hard worker…then you watch shit like this and know how far you are from them lmao.
…not to mention I’m just a 5’8 filipino dude hahaha
It sucks knowing you can put the work in but it won’t matter if your genetics don’t allow you to be taller. But at least you can still be better than your friends
Yeah i mean, if you set the threshold for what your doing mattering to “nba player” i guess so. But theres a very very realistic chance that just about any healthy kid can brute force their way into atleast a partial scholarship if they pick a sport and are willing to put in more hours than their peers. Hell i have 2 buddies that got full ride bowling scholarships
The town I’m in have a Filipino only basketball league besides the one big non Filipino player they allow in per team. As the non Filipino big you only get the ball from rebounds. Fun league though, short people getting the ball and just running full speed up and down the court.
I played in a Asian league when I lived in Los Angeles. Each team was allowed 2 non Asians and there was a height limit based on race. If you were African American you couldn’t be taller than 5’11, if you were white/hispanic the height limit is 6’1 there was no height limit for Asians.
The crazy part was the league was run by a white guy, who was also a team captain. His team was always stacked and he later asked me to be on his team. When you join the league after your first game the other team captains can say if they want you in the league or not. They also measure you with your shoes off.
There was controversy one time with my team because we picked up a guy who was Filipino and the guy who ran the league said he was hispanic and we already had 2 non asians on our team. The dude brought his mom the next week to prove he was asian, it was like when Greg Odens mom had to carry around his birth certificate. Never mind that he had his drivers license and his last name was 25 freaking characters long!
It was fun to play in but I got sick of getting called for bullshit fouls when 120lb guys would run into me and fall down. I had to stop playing in the lane all together.
That just seems super weird.
What? You don’t like eugenics basketball?
/s
It was VERY weird when I first played in it. This was a LONG time ago, like 20+ years ago and it was WAAAAY out in the Valley. The guy who ran it is very off putting at times. Especially so after I said I didn’t want to play on his team. I played 3 “seasons” in that league. Last I heard it was still going a few years ago, but not sure now.
All my favorite point guards over the years were Filipino dudes lol
We do it for love of the game. My knees were cooked by 16 growing up and hooping in flip flops. Legs weren’t used to playing pick up in shoes when I moved here 🤣
I bet you excel at the Pinoy step
I feel like he’s underselling himself quite a bit lol. “I’m not special. I just work hard.” I mean yeah. Easy to say when you end up being about 6’8. The ability to work hard is certainly a talent and shouldn’t be diminished but it’s the icing on the cake for him winning the genetic lottery. Playing 15 years professionally at any level is commendable and a hell of a lot better than the vast majority of people out there.
This is very true.
If youre someone, especially under six feet, you can work twice as hard as he did and no one is giving you any offers or even a chance to prove yourself in the NBA.
Im not saying hardwork is not important but thats really not the only thing you need. Everything needs to go your way before even getting into that point. You have to be very lucky in the genetic lottery to be tall enough, then you have to have the talent and coordination to be able to play decently, and this is where discipline and hardwork comes in, you have to put in the work with what you have so you can continue to improve and be better at your game, day in and day out.
Same thing is true on the opposite. Even if you are tall and talented but you dont work hard to improve the gifts that you are given, you are also not going to make it or worse, it will be cut short with a lot of injuries because your body cant keep up.
Still holding my Joe Alexander stock
Small tent city on Joe Alexander island.
He’s closer to LeBron James than you are to Brian Scalabrine
Brian Scalabrine is closer to LeBron James than you are to Brian Scalabrine.
It’s an interesting story - but the fact is 99% of people could do the exact same amount of work and still not even be good enough to play mid major basketball
Yeah, like if you’re under 5’10”, your odds of making a D1 team are practically non existent. Hard work really only separates peers, and a dude making the NBA is in dozens of tiers above the average person from a physical gifts standpoint.
I’d say under 6’2
Mac McClung is G league mvp and he’s around 6’1 and a half and can’t get nba minutes
Probably some bias against him but still point is if he was 6’5 I’m sure he’d be on a team by now
and it’s not even just the height…all the plyo, strength, whatever exercises isn’t going to magically make you elite level quick or give you a 40”+ vert if you’re just not wired that way……hell, you could do all of that and still not come close to someone that doesn’t do anything but play a lotta sports and see big improvements on their natural athleticism as a bonus
And there’s probably guys that put in 70% or even 50% of what this guy did and ended up as nba stars. Somehow I can’t imagine teenage Zion putting in even 50% of this much work.
I don’t believe this guy had level of consistency. He probably still worked hard though but I’m not buying everything he’s selling. He’s giving off Dan blizerian type of vibe to me
Literally sounds like he’s trying to sell some kind of plyometrics training program.
Yeah, genetics are a huge component to most all pro sports and high level athletes. Something like 20% of the NBA is either a brother or son to another player. LeBron could have probably went pro at 16, but do you think he really put in more work than the best 4-year D1 players? Not even close.
Strange to say because 99% aren’t applying this to their own dreams
Like sure we can be practical with genetics but how do we know for sure if you aren’t pushing limits this seems similar to a defeatist mentality
but how do we know for sure this seems similar to a defeatist mentality
It’s not defeatist, it’s reality. It’s physics after a certain point.
There’s a reason weight classes exist in combat sports and weight lifting.
It’s not defeatist at all - in fact people would be massively wasting their time on an impossible goal when they could have been studying/working towards something they could realistically accomplish.
Disagree it’s not a waste of time because the journey regardless of how it ends typically helps you permanently in life. there are also always other avenues connected to your goal you can land in.
I’ve been getting Joe’s videos in my feed and it seems like he’s struggling to come to terms now that he’s finally done playing basketball. And what he’s describing in these videos is NOT healthy. One of his videos talks about how he was in pain his whole basically from 16 to now, chasing his dream to play in the NBA and to keep playing professionally. A lot of these guys will say the pain was worth it but the last few years people like Dirk have spoke up about how he wishes he had quit 1-2 years earlier, those last 2 years now make it hard for him to play with his kids.
I hope Joe’s able to find peace off the court and enjoy life. But there doesn’t seem to be any joy in any of his videos.
These kinds of guys are workaholics at heart and need this sort of disciplined lifestyle to keep themselves from thinking too much. For them the work is part of the zen. In a way being busy is what keeps them at peace if that makes any sense.
He’s been playing professional basketball for 15 and it seems like he wants to funnel that energy into social media or whatever other plans he has.
Happens to quite a few athletes, I guess that’s why it’s so important to have a plan for what you will do next
No, he’s just trying to build a business to supplement his income now that basketball is fully done for him.
This is why i hate when people ask things like “are LeBron and Kobe the hardest workers in the nba”
We don’t know how dedicated the average Joe’s are in the nba to get to that point
Shaq was lazy and still dominated… so it’s not universally true
Yeah, like, the hard work only matters if it’s even in the range of outcomes.
It’s dumb when people pump up how hard so and so in the league had to work to get there as if they worked harder than everyone else…sometimes (a lot of the times) they’re just that much more talented in the first place. Then, the hard work is what separates people in a similar level. But it’s not like everyone who didn’t make the league didn’t put their 150% effort into it.
Wemby is only better than Pat Spencer due to hard work /s
Was Shaq considered lazy while he was dominant? I thought that reputation came from later in his career
Yes, at least starting with the Lakers. Fucked off all off season and would start the season overweight and out of shape.
Shaq is the example of the chasm between lazyness and a lack of disciplin. I dont think i can ever remember a time he was lazy on the court, and by all accounts he was always in the gym. He just didnt hold himself accountable to allot of other stuff that, had he of done, might have elevated him to goat contention
I think he was lazy by NBA/professional athlete standards.
Like I would guess when it came to diet/conditioning he was well below the NBA average
“Average Joe” Alexander is 6’8” with a 42 inch vertical.
Idk exactly how long or hard Kobe/LeBron practices, but this guy isn’t really far off in terms of physical gifts. Now if you argue there’s also a mental aspect where LeBron sees the court differently or Kobe can feel a shot rhythm not many people can - I have no argument for or against it.
There is more to “physical gift” than height. Height is the minimum physical gift needed for NBA
He did this all while being white?!?!?!??
well he worked out autistically to overcome that setback
Scrolled too far to see people acknowledging these two wild statements. Tip of the hat to you both.
Lol. I don’t doubt that he worked extremely hard, but he is also 6’8” and a freakish natural athlete(had a legendary combine performance, which is why he ended up going #8 overall). Also, being white does not hurt your chances, except insofar as white people tend to be less athletic overall. When you’re a freakish athlete, I would argue that being white actually helps.
He was doing plyos since he was what 12
That’s rare for someone to dedicate from young
Yeah he said he had to work at it to be athletic
Way less than 1% of the population is that tall… so all that work is crazy - but he still had to win the genetic lottery
Right, my only point here. Like I said, I don’t doubt he worked insanely hard, and he deserves to flaunt that. But he also started at a point 98% of people will never reach.
98% is honestly way low. 99.9% of people have zero chance of becoming a NBA or NFL player no matter how hard they work.
True, was being generous there lol.
And after all that, you could win the genetic lottery and have the discipline/work effort, but still not have the mentality and self confidence to make it far. Lots of hurdles to overcome.
Or an injury. Mental health struggles. plenty of things could happen.
I didn’t get why he said keep in mind that hes white. What does that have to do with the hours you put in?
Yea, that comment is the one that actually made me say anything, just weird. Also, Joe is a proud dual-citizen with Israel, which makes me personally look at that comment even a little more unfavorably lol.
I had to work harder than your average kid plus I’m white, so keep that in mind when considering these hours….
Like its somehow more commendable that a white kid would put in strenuous physical work like this? Lmao idk if I like what he was implying. What did his whiteness have to do with the hours he put in. Holy dog whistling Batman!
The implication is that white people are less athletic therefore he had to work harder to reach a baseline. Which is stupid because despite what hes trying to imply he was clearly helped, not hindered by his genetics and also in my experience as a grunt in the military, white people aren’t “unathletic” at least not on a genetic level.
Stigma and black athletes are probably looked at more favorably in the NBA. Also I think he meant white in terms of being a light skinned dude. White guy can also apply to a lot of European guys. Luka was labeled as unathletic and wasn’t even drafted 1st in the NBA despite having one of the most decorated resumes for a prospect coming out of Europe. I bet if you if Luka was black he’d be praised to be the next coming of Lebron.
To make it in the NBA as a white athlete means you have to stand out more. Kind of like how you’re trying to be a world class sprinter and no coaches are willing to take a chance at you just because you’re not a Jamaican or American sprinter. Think of all the white athletes that happen to be starters and you’ll see how much more freak of natures they are. It’s either that or they possess very high basketball IQ.
He mentions being a world class sprinter with a 42 inch vertical, and it’s like oh ya. He wasn’t a good enough shooter or creator, but honestly he might have a better run if he’d have come out in this era.
he averaged 1.9 rebounds per game at 6’8 with 40 inch vert. bro needed to consult with josh hart or something. come on man. what you doing in those 3 hours.
Bro underachieved in proportion to physical gifts if anything
The 42 inch vert came after doing an hour of plyometrics a day every day if someone gave me a ‘physical gift’ with that sort of rider I’d send it back
I’m sorry but doing an hour of plyometrics a day doesn’t give you a 42 inch vertical and doesn’t make you a “world class sprinter”. He obviously worked hard, but he’s also massively understating how important genetics are. He could’ve specified at the start of the video that unless you’re already physically ahead of all of your peers, this video doesn’t apply to you.
That’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. I remember seeing clips of him before he was in the NBA just dunking everything. So what went wrong? Why didn’t it work out for him in the NBA?
A 6’8” guy pretty much mainly known for dunking is going to have to do something else well, like play defense or playmake etc etc.
Was there something else he was great at to where he had a strong enough role to stay?
Yeah, you have to combine this guy’s video about hard work and Alex Caruso’s interview answer about actually figuring out the skills you need to be successful in the NBA. No one needs another shooter in the NBA, we already got someone better than you. Learn to set a screen and get some boards.
EVERYONE needs another shooter in the NBA.
Yeah that was the worst example of a skill that no one needs more of.
Plenty of gunners with few other skills making a living in the league.
Yeah that’s what I’m curious about. No one really watched the Bucks during that time so I never really saw how bad he was. Just based on this video it seems his work ethic was there though.
Listen to enough of his content and it sounds like he’s kinda not a team guy.
Wasn’t a good ball handler, wasn’t a great shooter, was a bit of a workout warrior. Probably wouldn’t go so high in a draft today due to less emphasis on vertical leaping and such.
What’s crazy is hearing this work ethic but when he played he couldn’t be more passive. We’ll always have “let Joe dunk” I guess
One of the funniest conspiracy theorists of all time, I still remember his high production YouTube video where he was convinced the movie back the future was tied into real life conspiracies
I’ll take “Shit that didn’t happen and it completely over exaggerated for $100, Alex”
When you throw out “autistic”, I’m immediately out. His head is so far up is ass.
I’m surprised you got past “all white being white”
yeah. he’s on a podcast in which he ridicules his fellow players for talking about coming out of the ghetto, when he himself saw true poverty growing up in rural china…
what he fails to mention he went to the private International School of Beijing, tuition roughly $20k/year, students live in gated villa neighborhoods with security guards, it’s completely cut off from the local community.
so yeah I wouldn’t take what he’s saying literally.
So he was putting in five hours of work every day but didn’t start organized ball until junior year of high school? That’s what chat gpt says anyway. I don’t believe him yo. Thats such insane commitment it’s like your entire life nonstop for a decade? Anyone can just say shit. Like just common sense says youd NEED to take days off to recover, come on Joe.
My immediate reaction when those numbers started getting thrown out. So you’re telling me a 13 year old is doing 5 hours of workouts/ball EVERYDAY throughout the school year? The guy even claimed he didn’t count his school team practices as a part of his workout regimen.
If you got out of bball practice at 5pm, you’re not done with your workouts til 10pm. Okay Paul Bunyan.
Yea I think there’s a good deal of exaggerating going on. Not because I think people can’t be driven to that degree, but one quick visit to his IG page and you will be inundated with these 15 year pro posts. He clearly has figured out that these posts get great engagement and has now built his entire online persona around trying to be an NBA version of David Goggins.
I had to scroll too far for these comments.
Like this shit is ridiculous. Unless his parents pulled him out of school like one of these Olympic hopefuls, I flat out don’t buy this at all.
On top of that, saying things like ‘plus I’m white’ and ‘autistic work’ is one of those things that tells me this dude is some kind of influencer now trying to farm engagement more than anything
6’8 with a 40 inch vertical straight away puts him in the top 0.00001% of humans. His competition pool is very small compared to the average person.
The height, yeah. But you’re underestimating how much vertical you can gain doing plyos and lifting.
He says he wasnt bery athletic as a teen, and then 2 sentences later he says he was a world class sprinter. You don’t become that from an hour of plyometrics a day lol.
I hate when ppl say “well he’s 6’8”.
There’s a SHIT TON of guys 6’8 in D1, D2, D3, NAIA, JUCO, etc. who will never sniff the NBA.
Joe Alexander was A PROBLEM
It also worked out nicely that he won the genetic lottery and was ultimately 6’8” (1 in ~9,000 adult men are that height or taller.)
Honestly, I doubt this guy worked this hard and he might be grifting for views. He was the 8th pick in the draft and was legit one of the most athletic dudes in the nba. Like he would casually touch his head on the rim for fun type athletic. Its not like he wasnt gifted physically even by nba standards. Hes 6 8, had a 40 inch vert and was in contention to get into the dunk contest at times. One of the reasons cited back then to him flaming out was due to his questionable work ethic.
“Joseph Anthony Alexander is a Taiwan-born American-Israeli former professional basketball player. Alexander, at 6 ft 8 in played both forward positions, ”
Read enough things in the Google overview to know he’s a grifter
He is also 6’8”.
So he was never the most athletic as a teenager but when he attributes his jump in athleticism by the up on workload at 13. Hows that make sense?
How do you train 3 hours a day starting at age 12 and not get a scholarship. That’s nonsense.
Remember he said it…he’s white. 🤣
Anyone else find it odd that he mentioned that? Like, what’s that supposed to mean?
I can’t believe he did all this, had the career as a pro basketball player, AND was a star on Seinfeld for 9 seasons. Seriously impressive.
He just couldn’t resist the “plus i’m WHITE”
And he’s 6’8”. Even guys that tall have to work like crazy unless they’re just blessed with elite athleticism
So you were a different animal and the same beast
West Virginia? Wow, he went number 8. I remember liking his game back in the day. Crazy he went ahead of: Brook Lopez, Robin Lopez, Mo Speights, Roy Hibbert, jaVael McGee, Ryan Anderson, Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, George Hill, DeAndre Jordan, Omer Asik, and Goran Dragic.
Rare example of trying too hard actually hurts your improvement.
Who can confirm that what he saying is true, besides him?
I am hold enough to remember the hype for Joe Alexander