Who is here to help advance my career?
Key Learnings
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Take the decision to work with an agent very seriously because you are deciding to let someone act on your behalf.
Ensure your agent has certification from FIBA to work within International basketball as an agent.
Use different representatives (agent, financial advisor, and lawyer) for different parts of your personal and professional affairs.
Remember that the reputation you build at the early stages of your career will impact how marketable you are when you are playing at higher levels.
Build good relationships with your sponsors to increase the chances of renewing your contract.
A Player's mentor looks after the player’s best interests and personal development only.
A Players’ Mentor will help you develop your career and help you planning and identifying transitions.
Family plays a paramount role in the development of a player; however, they do not understand the specificities of the game, and, most of the time, they will not understand what is happening in your head.
Parents are primarily responsible for the overall evolution of the athlete as a person.

Parents’ most important dos’ and don’ts

Do’s
  • Educate yourself.
  • Be interested and supportive. Acknowledge and enjoy your child’s participation and successes, even the small ones.
  • Let your child make his/her own mistakes and learn from them. When your child makes a mistake, ask what they think they could have done differently, what they learned from the experience, and if they would like any feedback (not criticism or blame). Failing is an opportunity for growth.
  • Teach your child to respect his/her coach by showing respect to the coach yourself.
  • Show respect for referees and officials, always. Young players will copy/paste what they see at home.
  • Ensure  that the  player  respects  the  principles  of  good  sportsmanship,  behaviour  and ethics.
  • Encourage (but don’t force) the player to follow a dual-career. His/her professional career might be short. Education will be the key for their post-career success.
  • Support your child’s choice to play no sport (or choice to play a different sport).
Don’ts
  • Don’t try to relive your youth through your child. Accept that your child may not excel in that or any sport.
  • Don’t blame the equipment, coach, other players, referees or even the weather.  Blaming others teaches non-accountability to kids.  They do not learn to look at what they could have done differently or learn from their mistakes if they learn to blame others.
  • Don’t push. Players may lose their self-confidence, become resistant and resentful toward their parents, become unsure of themselves and their abilities, may stop trying, or may drop-out.
  • Don’t tie your ego or image to your child’s performance. Laying guilt on a child because “their performance made you look bad,” is highly destructive. Your child is not responsible for your reputation in the community.