You know you’ve made it big when people refer to you by just one name. A quick glance at the who’s who of past and present NBA greats reveals quite the list of one-name superstars. Guys like Magic, Bird, Jordan, Shaq, Kobe, and LeBron all fall under the umbrella of NBA royalty. They’re all household names, even to people who don’t watch basketball. They are (or were) the kings of the court, with the fame and riches to prove it. Their salaries can reach upwards of $20 million a year, and that’s before we even factor in wildly lucrative endorsement deals.

Maybe you want to go by a singular name. Maybe you love basketball shoes almost as much as Jarrett Jack.  Maybe you’re the next big thing. After all, you’ve got mad skills, magic hands, and you’re freaky tall—like, Jolly Green Giant tall.

Why not you, right? You’re the big man on campus, the high school star. Cheerleaders drool over you. Your mailbox is overflowing with college recruitment letters. Your local paper even calls you LeBron Jr. Your grades are okay, but who’s got time for homework? Everybody knows you’ll have your choice of the top Division I schools, and from there it’s only a few short years to infamy. Right?

Um, to put it nicely—dream on.

Think you’re going to get drafted into the NBA? You have a better chance at scoring free courtside tickets to Game 7 of the NBA Finals, sitting next to Miley Cyrus in a cat outfit, and then getting struck by lightning in the parking lot, after finding out you hold a winning Lotto ticket.

Think of it this way, there are 30 teams in the NBA and each team carries roughly 15 players. A little bit of basic math, and we’ll find that there are about 450 players in the league. Even with injuries and folks retiring, how many of those spots do you think are going to open up for you? After all, there are only 60 players drafted each year, and getting drafted doesn’t even guarantee you a spot on a roster.

It’s tough to make it to the NBA. Like, next to impossible, tough.

The film Hoop Dreams gives great depiction of just how difficult it is to make it to the NBA. The film follows two inner city kids as they go through the struggles of trying to make it big as a basketball player. The two people featured in the film were supremely talented players, but neither of them ever make it. William Gates was one of the top high school players in the country, and ends up getting injured and has to give up on his dream of playing pro basketball. The other person in the film, Arthur Agee, receives a full ride to a Division I school, Arkansas State, but he too never makes it into the NBA.

Why the depressing reference? Well it just goes to show that even if you’re great, even if you’re one of the top players in the nation, and even if you have a camera crew following you around 24/7 and get scholarships to play at fancy prep schools and Division I colleges, you still probably won’t get in. Need us to put a number on it? How's this:

0.03 percent

Those are the odds, according to the NCAA, of a hotshot high school varsity player making it to the NBA. About three star athletes in 10,000 will pull that golden ticket and get drafted. Again, that’s—

3 in 10,000

Those are some long odds. Plus, even if you’re one of the three who’s lucky enough to get drafted, there's no guarantee that you’ll ever lace up custom sneakers and play on an NBA court.

The sequel to Hoop Dreams, Hoop Reality, actually churned out an NBA player—Patrick Beverley. But it wasn’t easy. It took a series of false starts and countless rebounds that lead him to be one of the 0.03 percent. But it wasn’t easy. Take a looksee at his journey....

• Patrick Beverley played for the University of Arkansas for two years before he was kicked out for cheating and sent to the gulag (okay, he actually left to go play with BC Dnipro of the Ukrainian Basketball League).
• Finally he made it back to the U.S.—where he was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009.
• He was then traded to the Miami Heat, but decided to stay overseas, signing with the Greek team Olympiakos.
• Signed by the Heat in 2010, he was cut after a couple of months, and went to play in Russia.
• Signed with the Houston Rockets in 2013, played a week in the NBA D-League, and was then called up to play with the big boys in the NBA.

Whew!

Hopefully he paid attention in his foreign language classes in high school. Now if only he studied Russian or Greek. Right, probably not.

Despite all of the ups and downs, Beverley made it. He’s a living, breathing member of the 0.03 percent of uber-talented kids who dream of getting into the NBA and who actually make it.

He was also lucky enough to have the opportunity to prove himself without getting slammed with a career ending injury before stepping onto a pro court. Which happens to a lot more people than 0.03 percent of people. Even if you make it, you still have to worry about career ending injuries that can take it all away in an instant, leaving you to coach, sell cars, or star in a reality TV show. Basketball is a very physical game, and guys get hurt all the time. A quick tour of the Internet will reveal no fewer than a few dozen websites devoted to the injuries of NBA players. If you don’t believe us, perhaps you should check out the Boulevard of Broken Basketball Dreams for yourself.

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