Stop Following the Herd
I see it every summer. The same cycle, the same disappointment, the same excuses.
Thousands of players doing exactly what everyone else is doing. Same tournaments, same camps, same trainers everyone talks about. Same shortcuts, same Instagram workouts, same “elite” programs that promise the world.
And every fall, I watch those same players struggle. Not all of them say it out loud — most don’t. They’ll tell you they changed their mind about college ball, or they got burnt out, or they decided to focus on academics. The honest ones might admit they didn’t get what they hoped for.
But the ones that break my heart are the players who actually have a chance. Real ability, real potential. They’re so close to something good, but their decisions along the way leave them short. Not just unprepared physically — that’s fixable. It’s the mental side that kills them.
They end up in bad situations that spiral because they were never taught how to handle adversity. They crumble under pressure because no one showed them how to think through problems. They get overwhelmed by the speed of the game because their training was all flash and no substance.
I’ve watched highly ranked players — kids everyone expected to succeed — get chewed up and spit out. Kids who worked their tails off but were working on the wrong things in the wrong way. Kids who trusted environments that looked good on paper but didn’t prepare them for reality.
It’s not entirely the player’s fault. These kids are 15, 16, 17 years old making decisions about their future based on marketing and peer pressure. They see what everyone else is doing and assume that’s the path. They don’t know what questions to ask or what red flags to watch for.
But here’s the truth: if you’re doing exactly what everyone else is doing, you’re setting yourself up to get exactly what everyone else gets. And what everyone else gets is mostly disappointment.
The herd follows the loudest voice, the biggest marketing budget, the shiniest facility. The herd thinks more is better — more tournaments, more exposure, more showcase events. The herd believes in shortcuts and magic bullets.
The herd is wrong.
Real development happens in the details no one wants to talk about. It happens in boring fundamentals practiced until they’re automatic. It happens in mental preparation that looks like nothing from the outside. It happens in environments that care more about your long-term success than their short-term profit.
The window for basketball development is small. Smaller than most people realize. What you do between ages 14-18 largely determines what’s possible after that. You can’t afford to waste that time following the crowd to dead ends.
You have to be smarter. You have to ask harder questions. You have to care more about substance than style, more about results than reputation.
Stop doing what everyone else is doing just because everyone else is doing it. Stop trusting environments that can’t show you a track record of players they’ve actually developed over years, not months. Stop believing that the path that failed thousands of players before you will somehow work for you.
The players who make it don’t follow the herd. They find environments that understand what real development looks like and stick with them long enough to see results. They do the unsexy work while everyone else chases the latest trend.
Your basketball career is too important to trust to popular opinion.
Aram runs Hoops College, a basketball training program in Charlotte. The program is the offer that follows from the argument. → hoopscollege.com