Motivational Story - Can the Mind take down a Superstar Athlete?


Greetings! For this piece, I want to touch on an elite NBA player that we would view as one of the game’s most thrilling, creative and unique talents. A player that was selected as the first overall pick in 2016 NBA Lottery. He was drafted as a ballhandler and paid handsomely for his skills as a top level point guard.

Yet at the tender age of 23, this player during the recent pandemic stoppage of his sport scheduled time with a sports psychologist to help him overcome a huge mental block that was preventing him from taking shots out on the court? His fear has become one of the hot topics in his sport and created such a buzz throughout social media circles.

We’ve seen great baseball players in years past forget how to throw a ball from second base to first that ended up derailing a few promising careers? Now look at the Ben Simmons situation with the Philadelphia 76ers. 

This is one worth watching. His lack of shooting has gotten so out of hand that NBA teams began to give him much more floor space than normal as if to say “we dare to you to take the shot” while they clogged up the lanes on his teammates that can hit the basket from 15-30 feet away?

In the recently completed NBA season, there were 58 players that had recorded a better points-per-game average than Simmons’s 16.4 figure. Why everything seems to be blowing up on this talented player is that his statistics over his first three seasons have not improved compounded with the fact that he’s not producing the shots out on the court for a player that will be paid between $29-to-$38-Million Per Year over the next five seasons.

“People don't realize these incredible athletes can lack confidence too," Simmons former AAU coach said of Ben. "Right now, it has become a mental thing for him?”

Simmons is doing his best to stay positive. "I know it's going to come," he says. "It's a matter of me being comfortable doing it. Some of that is getting the reps in. I need to have someone make me accountable to myself.” 

FOR THE ATHLETES: Each week, we try to give you stories that can relate to any player at any level, pro or amateur. Sometimes what a player gets paid can immediately change the perception of their production versus cost value for a team?  

As well, just because an athlete might be viewed as a “Superstar”, he or she are not immune to human breakdowns? Succeeding at any level of your sport is “Winning the Battle of your Mind” and that is an exercise you can never slack off or push aside?

Jim Loria


MOTIVATIONAL QUOTES RELATING TO THIS STORY 

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look Fear in the Face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do” – stated by Eleanor Roosevelt, longest-serving First Lady of the United States, and wife of then President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)

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NEVER FORGET THIS OK: “You Block your Blessings when you let your Fear outshine your Hopes” – stated by an unknown author


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