....new one begins in the greatest sport in the world. The Basketball season ends one day and next season starts the day after for me, but many take long breaks from it. Its like normal with a long summerbreak here, but players till want to be good, somehow that doesn`t add up.
Every athlete needs some time of but put your money where you mouth is talking about or dont say that you wanna play pro, college or some higher level.
You will not wake up one day and fall of your bed and smile cause you are a NBA player. It takes not only talent but hard work to reach the highest levels and also some luck.
Playing under the right coaches, having the right agent or basketball friends. having some GM taking a chance on a not so certain
"will make it" player.
I`m really hoping that I have managed to get my young ones to understand this if not they will begin a new season being surpized over that other players have develepod during the summer. Summer time is where young players really have the time to be PRO players, no school, most dont work during the summer and they are playing the right sport.
You can practice basketball everywhere and alone if thats a factor. There are no excuses to why you didn`t train.
There is just an explaination that maybe
"you dont really want it as bad as you say you want to".
Summers are full of summercamps allover the world some are good, some are great and some are just worthless from a development basketballwise. I have been to a few camps during the years, not always as a coach on the camp, but sometimes just to watch some practices.
I can especially recall one camp in a european country that had one goal, money to the coaches and that was about it.
I felt sick....I could live with if it was kids there who just wanna have fun, but I tell most of these kids talented or not they where there to be coached in basketball and in life.
They got neither and on the second day me and my friends waas actually thinking of leaving since it went against so many things that we believed in.
Some camps give players a new reality in basketball, maybe they havent learned anything from their homecoach and they develop like crazy in a week. Some come as good shoters and leave as poor shoters since some coach thinks he knows how to shot the ball and maybe he could shot it himself, but he cant teach it.
In camps there are often many activ players involved and thats great in so many ways, but sometimes I think activ players forget that there are actually some players on a camp that want to learn "more" than have fun. Of course everybody wants to have fun, but I mean its not a popolaritycontest, correct that pivot, correct that behaivor, correct that footwork or whatever also.
Maybe most of the time the kids will remember the fun stuff (thats also important but mix it up and after the first day you know which kids who wanna learn), but they will thank you later on with all the other stuff, when they realize how important those things you said and showed where.
I watched one camp where they spent a lot of time learning a set play to use on 5-5 play, i dont get that.
Spacing, movement, screens, basketball IQ sure, but a set play. Was that really what the paid for a set play used only for one week in the summer of 69?
A thing that have been discussed some over here is how much and how long everyday practices should be. I think the time is in most camps is good, but I really miss a theoretical part. I`m not talking about 2 hours of starring at a expert talking, but the younger they are the shorter but and older you can do more of it and longer.
I worked one camp some years ago it was a new camp and they had all the right ideas as I see it, but the made a huge misstake and that was the prize of the camp and the placement of the camp. This was a camp that had 3 different sports on the same place, but different gruops so it was basketball for one group and soccer for another and one more sport.
Everyday that was a short lesson that had with elitetraining and sports in general, like nutrition, strengthtrainig and more. They got a small book at the start of the camp where they had all of these subjects and also space where they would right about everyday.
At the last day the coaches wrote some tips and thoughts in that book for the players to read and show to their parents. That part looked pro and felt pro. In that camp I only had one player from a prominent club and she for some strange reason played on the second team. Coach most have blind if he/she couldn`t see the talent in here. Most of the players came from a small club that I even didn`t know it excisted they had very limited experience and most of them wasn`t really talented except from one talent, "the wanted to learn and they where like sponges with everything I threw at them,"
I had one of the best weeks, with a great bunch of kids. I many times wonder if they still play on some level out their. I hope I made their passion stronger and I hope that I mad them fall madly in love with basketball regardless if talent was lacking.
One coach once said:
"There is only one stupid player and thats the one whom doesn`t want to learn anything"
One players once said to me:
"I dont want to practice these moves" I asked how will you the learn how to score?
He answered
"It just happens, I react to the situation"
He didn`t want to learn in his "world" things just happens, well do I need to say that he never reached even close to his potential or that he stopped playing very early and maybe I dont need to say that he was very limited on the court. He was waiting for it just to happen and many other also waited for it to happen for him, but it didn`t and his talent went in the garbage. My point he didn`t wanna learn.......
Hope carmelo countinues killing miami today.....
