2 Ways to Easily Separate Yourself as a Prospect

If you want to stand out as a young prospect, it’s not just about talent — it’s about how much work you’re willing to do when no one’s watching. Two areas immediately come to mind in separating the serious prospects from everyone else: more film study and more weight room work.

Spending time studying game film, practice film, and training footage is essential for real development. It gives players the chance to rewind, slow the game down, see situations differently, correct mistakes, and build a higher basketball IQ. On the court, things happen extremely fast — but in the film room, you learn why they happen. Every great player I've scouted could see the game one or two steps ahead — and that doesn’t happen by accident. If you’re serious about growth, film study isn’t optional. It has to be a consistent part of your process if you expect to separate yourself and stay separated.

The other area where prospects either make it or fade out is the weight room. If you’re not building real strength, explosiveness, and resilience right now, you’re not preparing for the size, speed, and physicality you’ll face at the next level. Against college-aged athletes who are fully developed, skill alone isn’t enough. If you neglect strength work, you’ll get physically overwhelmed when it matters most. Training hard and getting shots up is important, but it doesn’t replace the foundation that real strength provides. To survive — and thrive — at the next level, time in the weight room is absolutely non-negotiable.

Bottom line: You want to separate yourself? Build your mind through film, build your body through the weight room — and be relentless about both.