Note to all NBA draftees: when you come into the Association, please bring your personality. If you can’t offer something unique in the spotlight, or if you don’t put your heart and soul towards being in the spotlight, chances are, there is someone more qualified than you who does, and who wants it more. And it doesn’t necessarily take basketball skill to do it.
Now, some of you might be too young to have fully developed a personality. That’s okay. Eventually you will have one. All human beings go through this process.
But unless you are a shoo-in for a lottery pick, you better at least counter that lack of a developed personality with a strategic gameplan that will lead you to an NBA career. That strategy could involve some element of PR, perhaps a greater element of basketball skills training, and more likely a combination of both. But please do not underestimate the PR portion.
Because public perception will soon become more powerful than you could’ve ever imagined.
And we’re not just talking the general public. We could be talking about any particular affinity group. It could be the subset of NBA general managers that may make a certain judgment about you by the basketball decisions you have made. It could be the subset of fans from your hometown that may make a certain judgment about you by the quotes you have made in any given interview.
Whatever the affinity, never underestimate it.
It’s just like Mark Cuban saying to new Nets owner and Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, in the excerpted interview by Howard Beck of the New York Times, below: If it’s not in your nature to show up, then you better at least plan to show up.
The NBA, where multi-million-dollar businesses happen.
Q. Where does personality come into play?
A. Personality matters in the entertainment business. Entertainment matters in the entertainment business. The N.B.A. doesn’t sell basketball in our arenas. We sell fun. On TV, we sell competition, passion, amazing athleticism and personality. When we say, “This is where amazing happens,” it’s as much Shaq’s oversized personality — now Michael Jordan on the sideline screaming at refs — as LeBron’s dunks or Dirk’s jumper.
Read the whole article at: Words of Wisdom From the Mavericks’ Cuban – Off the Dribble Blog – NYTimes.com
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