Hey I’m, ____ (fill in the blank whatever age they are), “Is it too late for me to become good at basketball?”
Is it too late for me to play college basketball?
Is it too late for me to possibly make it to the NBA?
I just started playing basketball and I’m 16 or I just started playing and 14, or now I’m 17 or I’m 22, is it too late to go overseas?
Or,
I’m 25 is it too late to play in college?

Everyone has a fill in the blank age, I have heard it from people who are 10 years old, and I’ve heard it from people who are 30 years old. They all ask me the same thing, is it too late?
The general answer to the question is this: NO, it is not too late for you to do anything. Now let me go into a little bit more detail with this; it is not too late for you to do anything until, or unless you decide that it’s too late.

I started playing basketball at age 14. Is it true, hypothetically, that there are other people who at the same time that I was 14, they started playing basketball too and they gave up at some point before they even got to age 21? Or even before they got to age 18 because they figured it was too late for them to become good? Is that true? Is it true that there are 14 year olds playing right now who would give up before they turn 18? Is it true that somebody watching this video right now gave up on playing basketball because they started at age 14, or younger even, and gave up before they got to age 21 because they figured it was too late for them to get good?

Do you think, just a guess, not a hypothetical guess, but a hypothesis, that that is possible? Probably so. So there is no set number that says, “Alright if you start playing at this age or later, you can’t play in college.” There is no number that guarantees that. There is no number that says you started at this age or later you can’t play in the NBA.

There are guys who are playing in the pros, D-League, overseas, NBA who started playing basketball when they were 17, 18 years old. I don’t know who all of them are, but I read these stories, I hear these stories often. Hakeem Olajuwon, NBA Hall of Famer, didn’t start playing basketball until late, or what most of us would consider late, because he was playing soccer, he was playing a different sport. Tim Duncan, is another guy. Tim Duncan was a swimmer. He’s from the US Virgin Islands, he was a swimmer. The only reason he started playing basketball was because there was a hurricane that came through his hometown and destroyed the swimming pool in his neighborhood, so he couldn’t swim competitively anymore because he didn’t have a pool. So he started playing basketball and we know what the rest of that story is.

So those two of the greatest players of all time, those are two of the top 50 players in the history of the sport of basketball. If they can start late, then you can start late. Does it mean you’re going to become a hall of famer? No. But could it mean you get a college scholarship, or go play ball in college and maybe go play overseas for a year or two or ten years or 15 years, is it possible? Absolutely.

So, there’s never a point in life in anything, I don’t care if we’re talking about being an author, I don’t care if we’re talking about being a school teacher, being a rapper, being a basketball player. There is never a point in life when you reach a number, a number is just a number, age ain’t nothing but a number. There’s no number that guarantees you can’t do anything, and there’s no number that guarantees you can.

Just because you’re 14 years old and been playing ball since you were 5 doesn’t guarantee you are going to become a pro. You might not even make it to college. And just because you’re 14 and you started playing when you were 13 doesn’t mean that you can. YOU decide when it’s too late.

Each one of you who is watching this video, no one else decides for you, when anything is too late for you to do. You decide what’s too late for you. You don’t decide it for nobody else, nobody else decides it for you. And you don’t have to answer or think about whether it’s too late for somebody else to do anything, you need to figure out whether it’s too late for you to do anything. And don’t think that because you’re a certain age, whatever you consider young, that it guarantees that you’re going to have success in the future, because it doesn’t. Guess what? I have been the ages that a lot of you are and heard a lot of people around me talking about how I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do that when I get to that age, and most of them didn’t do it. Because they got so much satisfaction from talking about it, that they didn’t have to take the action. They got more satisfaction from talking that took away their drive to actually go make it happen. So I would really suggest you not talk about what you’re going to do in the future, but actually save up that energy and go do it.
To answer the question in general, is it ever too late to make it in basketball?
No. It is never too late.
The only time it becomes too late to make it in basketball is when you decide that it is too late for you. It’s not about what nobody else did, it’s not about this guy, he started at 17 it’s too late for him. That’s HIM. That’s not YOU. That’s what that guy did. His life ain’t your life. And if there’s another guy who was 14 and he made it, and became the greatest player in history, that doesn’t mean that’s what you’re going to become. His situation is his situation, yours is yours. You have to focus on what you can do, not what anybody else did, not what anybody else might do, or what you want to talk about you might do. What are you going to do?

What are you going to do right now to get yourself closer to where you want to go? Nobody else decides that for you. You decide it for yourself. Work on your game.