Why?
Over the years, basketball — the game itself — has become part of your lives.
You have experienced success and failure. Both are temporary. The next morning, a new day begins, and new short-term goals have to be set.
Most of the time, we do this together with the team.
Because basketball is a team game.
Those who have become some of the best young basketball players in their city but still think of practice, individual workouts and games simply as fitness, a hobby or a healthy way to spend their free time are making a serious mistake.
For those of you who are more talented and more advanced than many of your peers, basketball has already become something more.
You have to think about your own future.
If you want to become successful, simply deciding to be successful is not enough.
You need goals.
And all of us have to work for them.
That is how success is achieved.
Sometimes the goals are small. Sometimes they are much bigger.
It does not matter.
Achieving them makes us happier.
Failure and difficulty, meanwhile, teach us how to get back up after we fall.
For most of us, that may become one of the most valuable lessons of all.
Once you learn how to do it, overcoming difficulties becomes easier.
What Comes Next?
One thing we try to teach you — and remind ourselves of as coaches — is that situations are rarely simply good or bad.
There is always something that could be better and something that could be worse.
The real question is:
What comes next?
What are we going to do now?
For you, basketball has become much more than a game.
Those who think carefully about their future — and those who believe in the value of work — understand this.
Basketball is an opportunity.
It is a tool.
And you should not waste it.
The world has changed, and you should also understand what sport can give you beyond the enjoyment of playing.
You need goals.
Sometimes those goals will become ambitious and far-reaching.
At other times they will be simple, everyday objectives.
But they will continue to change.
There is no final destination.
Basketball must mean more than simply saying:
“I played a good game today.”
Enjoying the game is the minimum.
It should bring you happiness.
But competition will continually demand more from you.
You have to move beyond your comfort zone.
We are preparing to compete.
For you, the time to do that is now.
It is not too late.
But a few years from now, those who allow today’s opportunities to pass may no longer have the same choices.
Look Ahead
There is nothing wrong with hoping that basketball might also create financial opportunities.
Some young athletes already receive sports scholarships.
There are many other opportunities and values worth making sacrifices for, and basketball may help you reach them.
There is nothing wrong with that.
Your life is a career path.
Coaches should help you along that path as well.
That is one of our shared objectives.
If you succeed, that is also a success for us.
And you are already successful.
I mean that seriously.
Where you are today and everything you have achieved so far already represent success.
It is the result of many smaller successes.
And none of them happened alone.
They were achieved together with a much larger team.
Your parents are part of it.
Your friends.
Your teachers.
Your coaches.
Everyone who has positively contributed to your journey.
There have also been opponents and difficulties along the way.
And yet you are still here.
You can keep moving forward.
You can decide what the next step will be.
You Are Not Alone
You are not alone on this journey.
You have a team.
And a team can become something very similar to a family.
We have common goals.
One of those goals is to help each other become better — to become more capable than we were yesterday.
We achieve goals.
We correct mistakes.
We become more successful.
That is in everyone’s interest.
And we do it together.
But you must also know what your own individual goal is.
Dare to dream.
Without dreams, achieving something truly significant becomes almost impossible.
Some of you will go further in basketball than others.
Some may eventually have to accept a smaller role in the game.
There is nothing wrong with that either.
If, along the way, you achieve many goals and basketball helps you become successful and happy people, then the journey has been worthwhile.
Keep playing for as long as you can.
And if possible, keep doing it together with teammates who mean something to you.
Whatever happens — good or bad — remember that it is ultimately another situation that has to be solved.
And you do not have to solve it alone.
Trust
Trust yourself.
And trust the people beside you.
That may mean your family.
Your friends.
Your teammates.
Respect the people around you because they help make you better.
Trust them.
Teams need rules that protect and strengthen team spirit.
Some of those rules exist to balance individual interests with the interests of the group.
Our objective in competition is to win the right way — and to pursue that goal with everything we have.
That requires sacrifice.
It requires all of us.
Together.
Every day we challenge each other.
Every day we push one another.
Why?
Because we want to discover what we are capable of.
We want to show ourselves — and others — how far we can go.
And if we truly commit to that process, there is no reason to fear what comes next.
Because in the end, winning is not the most important thing.
The most important thing is the road that leads toward it.
For that journey, I wish all of us strength, health, perseverance, honesty, trust and, above all, joy.
Joy may be the most important of all.
It will help you through everything.
You will see.
The opportunity is there for everyone.
What you receive from it will depend largely on how much you are willing to put into it.
