In the back of every NBA player's mind there has to lurk the understanding that they are both really, really, really good and also somehow limited. To make it to the NBA is an acknowledgement that a player is among maybe the top 500 in the world at one specific thing. Obviously, to be in the top 500, skill-wise, of anything in a world of seven billion is quite an achievement. I am not the first person to comment on this. (Because, of course, I am not even close to the top 500 of anything.)
But then, said player makes the NBA and is told their big fish-small pond reality--the one that has guided their entire lives to this moment--is to be inverted.