What's next?

Most of you know that I have been thinking about what to do after I’m done with playing professinal basketball for a while. Now I feel it’s time for me to make this change for several reasons. I’ve decided to write my feelings down in details to avoid any kind of misunderstanding, guessing, gossiping, etc..

I started playing basketball when i was 8 and I fell in love with the game right away. Not only have I enjoyed playing for a long time but I’ve also made a lot of friends and had great experiences through basketball. Until 2005, when I graduated from college, although basketball had only been a secondary thing in my life behind school, it had always been a very important part of my life. I have emphasized several times that basketball is „only” a game for me and what matters most to me is to enjoy every single minute of playing. When 3 years ago, after graduating from college, I decided to play professionally, I promised myself that I would only do that for as long as I still enjoy playing.

The last 18 years I have given up a lot of things in order to play at as a high level as I was capable of. Every athlete knows what kind of sacrifices these are. I have been fortunate enough to have a family supporting and helping me as much as they could. I have never regretted these sacrifices because the things I got from basketball were always more valuable to me at the given moment than those I had to give up.

I’ve gotten to the point where this imaginary balance flipped to the other side. Don’t get me wrong here; I still love the game of basketball as I did before. But I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to before I started playing professionally, especially in college (the reason for this very complex and I won’t go into details about that here). Now I would enjoy the things I have to give up in order to play professionally more than playing. To keep my resolution of 3 years ago, this is the time for me to make the change.

And what’s next? To cite from a Hungarian song, „we have to play this game all our lives”... This is what I plan to do as well; I’m sure I will spend a lot of time on the court in the future. I will look for opportunities to play where the imaginary balance mentioned earlier will be in balance again. At the same time, I will start my civil life in the „real world”.

I’m not going to lie, I’m a little afraid of this big change in my life. Somewhat similar to the feeling I had before I went to the United States to start college; new environment, unfamiliar place, foreign language. Then, a very close friend of mine wrote the following to me in an e-mail: „you can and will overcome every difficulty, all you have to do is to play the game called life the same way you play basketball”! I have never received a compliment about my game like this, worded in a way that even I could take in easily, before or since. This thought also gives me a lot of confidence in order to reach my goals in the next period of my life.

Many of you know that last summer I did a summer internship at the Budapest office of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a strategy consulting firm. Beyond learning a lot of new and interesting things during those two months, I also found a new environment where I felt very comfortable. After my season is over in May in Valenciennes, France, I will go back to BCG and start working full-time. In my mind, I think about this change as joining a new team where, instead of playing basketball, I will do something totally different from that. The basic rules of this new team, however, will be the same that I’ve learned on my basketball teams. I really hope that I will enjoy this new activity for at least as long as I have enjoyed playing basketball!