“I can get better at everything I do, and I always improve.” Jahlil Okafor

Having mental toughness is more than owning a strong mental game of basketball – it is proving one’s self time after time that an absolute mental confidence and resiliency are always present in the athlete’s

With the recent professional basketball draft having occurred to much fanfare, acclaim, media coverage and franchise support, analyzing what mental attributes make up a high-ranking draft selection will highlight all the attributes of basketball mental toughness in some of the sports future league superstars.

So much coverage is given to some of the draft’s highest picks, and with good reason, as the players ranked near the top are ripe for the picking and considered prime candidates to help their respective teams almost immediately with a combination of raw talent and unparalleled basketball mental toughness that has been ingrained in them from an early stage of their athletic careers.

This year saw the first 3 picks fall one after another, and young league rookies Karl-Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell and Jahlil Okafor all ascended from their collegiate ranks to become the professional league’s fresh-faced franchise saviors.

Despite the growing mountain of pressure that has risen up in front of their newly-minted professional careers, these young players have been gifted and granted a strong mental game of basketball through all of the years of toiling in various gyms, basketball courts and stadiums:

A select few are selected each draft year at the top of their class. These young athletes have known what adversity, conflicts, and obstacles are and they have been in front of them the entirety of their playing careers.

Being mentally tough and having a superior mental game in basketball has afforded this year’s top-3 draft picks an advanced sense of focus, one that can endure the high-draft pick scrutiny of sports media, while also contending with the enormous pressure to succeed immediately bestowed upon them from their new team’s management, coaching staff, and demanding fans.

Towns, Russell and Okafor know all too well the rigorous athletic schedule and fast-paced demands of collegiate programs, the day-to-day grind of travelling from city to city, enduring the hardships of life ‘on the road,’ as well as being so far from their families and their alma.

The basketball mental toughness instilled in them through basketball at a collegiate level should translate to the highest professional level; however only time will tell if all three of the top draft picks of 2015 will shine with a keen sense of mental toughness fit for the pros.

Being mentally tough, having a strong mental game of basketball, and always being focused on the game as a confident, complete player will enhance the possibilities that this year’s top draft picks will translate their previous success to the bright lights of the sport’s biggest stage.

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