Finding an NBA Opportunity – Put a Stake in the Ground
Getting a job in the NBA
In the Learning Leader Podcast, Dr. Mat Duerden shares, “When you graduate, you’re not going to have your dream job, 9 times out of 10. Don’t worry about that. What you should worry about… put yourself in position where you can at least have some intrinsic motivation in what you’re doing.”
“Consider you have 1 stake to put in the ground and that could be a geography stake (where you want to live), industry stake, company stake, work/life balance stake, job title stake. Decide what is most important to you and fight to find that position.”
“Go find a job in that location or with that title or in that industry… if there is some kind of intrinsic motivation, you will likely get more opportunities. And then you’ll get 2 stakes, 3 stakes.”
Anyone who has been privileged to have a career in sports will tell you how true this is. I cannot name one person who got to choose their ideal team and position.
When I first started aggressively pursuing NBA jobs, I was living in Virginia. I preferred to stay on the East coast so I applied for everything available in Charlotte, Atlanta, and Orlando. I ended up in Portland.
I’m not sure if I even got my application noticed by any of those teams listed. I would call HR to follow-up and just continually be punted forward without any information. At that point, I started looking at G-League jobs as well, to expand potential opportunities.
The thing was… I had to put a stake somewhere. And in basketball, it’s likely not going to be your location, something I had to learn. When interviewing potential Interns for the Trail Blazers, if anyone told me that they wanted to work for the Blazers because it was their dream to work for their home team, I very much encouraged them that they needed to branch out. The odds of being hired by your home team are minimal. There are 30 options out there and you need to make yourself available to all of them.
If your stake is basketball, I would narrow it. Is it Coaching? Scouting? Video? Analytics? What is a part of the sport you love that you can focus on and get an entry-level position. For me, I wanted to work in a Front Office. I started volunteering at Liberty University, writing Scouting Reports on the players from the team. I would send them to the Head Coach (Ritchie McKay) and then he would go over them with me. No NBA team was going to hire me as a Scout immediately but it was a stake I could put in the ground and start working on that skill. The next step would be finding a team who would give me an opportunity to continue to learn and grow.
Now if your stake is financial compensation, I would recommend against working in sports. Due to the high demand of jobs in sports, most are not compensated well. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t do it, there are lots of other perks to working for a professional sports team but compensation is not one unless you reach the highest levels. For example, I worked a year as an unpaid Intern, a year as a minimum wage Intern, and then an opening salary of around $20,000 for my first year (that is 3 years of 7 days a week work for around $32,000 total). Again, that’s not to discourage you from working in professional sports, but also to give some reality to what you are walking in to. Often, staff at the collegiate level are compensated better than at the pro level. All of this must be taken into consideration when considering your life goals regarding career and family.
If your stake is local to where you grew up, very much consider starting or working at the high school level.
If your stake is financial, consider a college team or international.
If your stake is a position, consider every level that offers that opportunity (G-League, WNBA, etc).
If your stake is to work in the NBA, be available to work anywhere location-wise and hone in on a particular lane/skill, and be ready to volunteer/Intern before being compensated.