The Internet Is Telling Stories Of The Moment They Realized They Were NOT Going To The NBA And I'll Never Forget Mine

When it comes to internet trends, for the most part, they aren't really for me. I'll watch the videos, but rarely will I make one, mostly because they aren't that relatable/intended for me. But every once in a while there is a trend that I can relate to, and it's this one below.

I can't stop watching these videos. Everyone's story is awesome and the best part is we've ALL been there.

If you played basketball at pretty much any level growing up, you had this moment. There's a player you went up against who humbled you and showed you that playing this sport for a living is not in your future. Shit, most of the time it was also a reminder of how different D1 guys are. It didn't matter how good you thought you may have been, we've all been shown the light at one point or another.

This has caught on with a bunch of people sharing their stories of when they knew it was a wrap for them and then who the player was, and this is something I absolutely can relate to. I remember it to this day and it took place over 20 years ago.

Back in the early 2000s, I'm pretty sure my sophomore year of high school so around 2001-2002 (god dammit) we played a boarding school/team from Groton Massachusetts named Lawrence Academy. I can't really remember why we were playing them considering they were in the Independent School League and my high school played in the EIL/NEPSAC, maybe it was an out-of-conference game or a scrimmage or something but once the game started it was clear we were in a whole lot of trouble.

When we looked across the gym we saw this 6'7 wing/big who was easily 3-4 inches taller than anyone on our team, and he was doing it all in warmups. Dunking in the layup line, hitting threes like it was nothing, things that we didn't exactly see a whole lot with the teams we normally played.

Once the game started, my god. It was a wrap from the opening tip. This dude would get the ball, casually dribble to the three point line, cash it, jog back down the floor, block something at the rim with ease, or get every rebound possible and then take it coast to coast himself for a transition dunk. Mind you, as a maybe 5'9 skinny sophomore (my growth spurt came the summer before my junior year find a new slant), this made no sense to me. Even the best players in our current league weren't doing things like this, shoutout David Lloyd at Pingree. As someone who had been playing their whole life and always thought he was pretty good, nothing was more humbling than that first half. I'm pretty sure the guy had the easiest 30 of his life in the first 20 minutes because there was literally nothing we could do defensively. He was too big, too fast, too strong, and too skilled. I looked up his Wikipedia and it says his high school career high was 50, and I'm almost certain it was that game against us.

I think it's fair to suggest that when you're on the floor with a guy and you think you're playing the same sport but what he does looks like that, it becomes very clear that he is worlds above you. It's not a welcome to the NBA moment, more of a welcome to the reality that you'll never make the NBA moment. You could argue that should have been the case since birth for yours truly, but like that video suggests it usually doesn't come until someone absolutely kicks the shit out of you on the court.

So who was the player?

Antoine Wright. 

Remember him? He went from Lawrence Academy to Texas A&M for a few years, ended up their 10th all time leading scorer, and then entered the 2005 Draft where he went 15th overall to the Nets. He played 6 years in the NBA and didn't do much, averaging just 5 points for his career, which just goes to show you what a different level the league is. You could have convinced me this guy was Jordan based on what I saw when we played against him. 

Wright did have a few cool moments in the league

and he did play in 28 playoff games which was probably awesome, but his last season came at age 26 when he played in just 7 games for the Kings before playing 5 more years overseas. 

I'll just never forget from that moment on, I knew the league wasn't for me. It's a sad realization that 99.9999999% of players come to at one point in their playing career, most of us going through it well before you even get to college. This was also reinforced to me whenever I would head down and watch the Worcester Academy varsity team play, they had guys like Jarrett Jack (made the NBA), Craig Smith (made the NBA), Stevey Hailey etc. Those games were nuts and a nice little reminder that high level hoops, like true NBA talent level type hoops, were just not in the cards for me.