Can you see the talent or do you need new glasses?

After so many years in basketball I can only come to the conclusion that many, way to many coaches in the nordic are close to blind when it comes to identifying talent at younger ages.

The reasons are many, but some huge problems are:

Generelly most dont do tests or checkups, wingspann, reach, background check height, family genetics, sports background and so on.

Its not a surprize that many great athleets come from one or two parents with sports background or it runs in the family.

Its not a surprize that a player whick will be tall has problems with cordination and doing all the stuff the "small ballers" can do. Most matchups are tall uncordinated against much smaller and quicker player and that of course makes it very hard for the tall player to attack the basket with the crossover or whatever.

Coaches have a couple of solutions for this: They dont put the tall player in the roster, they place them under the basket or make them screeners and rebounders.

He/she is 14, check yourself coach!

Once heard a coach talk about a game that was ongoing and he said; "I cant understand why this coach plays his tallest as pointguard, if he would put him inside they would win this game"

Who cares!?
The player today plays college and had several double doubles this past season at the highest level. She is still about the same height and has a lot of thanking to do that she didn`t play inside when she was young.

Identifying talent  is so important in nations where Basketball aint so big, cause we need every one of those to get better further on.

Several years ago a had a young bigman about 205cm at 15(he is now 211cm and will play college. I started him every single game and we lost several games because I played him so much that I did. As you maybe undertstand he had to defend against 170cm, 180c, players and that missmatch at that age almost only works for the smallballer.

After a game a former eliteplayer (bigman) came over to me and said something like this "Big respect to you for playing the bigman most wouldn`t, I just wanted to tell you that you are doing the right thing" and thats sadly true.
To me this was a big clap on the shoulder, since somebody noticed what I was trying to do for this kid.

Physic testing has gotten veyr populaur in nordic nowdays and thats great, but you cant compaire 210cm with 180cm`s in running tests. Many make a big deal with conditioning tests that make no sense in hell when it comes to basketball.

In basketball there are stops in average every 13th second and the players that run the most run about 4-4,5km in a game. We have to go away from football (soccer) conditiong tests and test for our sport.

We have to stop to always put the smallest at the PG position just because he/she has full body controll and can dribble like a and1 mixtape player. Sometimes there are no taller with personality/leadership to play PG and well then of course no problem in playing the smallballer.

I had a one of Pg`s in a nationalteam and I asked him who is playing Pg you and ?
He said "They will not use me as Pg cause I`m to tall" Holy christ!  To quote the great coach Jan Mikulowski

I will end this post here, cause I will watch U20 champioships game between Serbia and Germany and this is the last thing. To identify talent you need to know what talent is and what is needed in our sport. I great way is to watch international youth games and so on. The risk you take is that others say "get a life", well my life is basketball what is yours ? Working monday-friday and the getting drunk? Well not my coup of tea.

Peace, Unity & Basketball and having fun!

9 days left to work and then I got to Madrid with my two team to have a camp and lots of fun for one week in august.

Looking forward to vacation and visiting a hot Spain for a week.

Nigeria beat Greece today....

Swedish musiclegend Dr Alban, wrote a song "Hello Africa" his motherland is Nigeria and this song is legendary :-)


Hello world, tell me how is Greece doing!!???

Many years ago the threat from China was talked about, China will takeover and so on well never in basketball, but African countries can and many have realized it and more coaches, clubs, scouts, agents are looking to find the african treasures.

How is/was the camp?

I have a secret question i always use during or after some of my players are or has been to a camp. How is/was the camp? (Not a secret anymore)

Is it a genius question, well to me, the answer of my very simple question gives me a lot.


If the answer is "It is/was fun" it rings alarm bells in my head, why? Of course a camp should be fun to some degree, but answers that will play music in my head instead of alarm bells is "There are great coaches", "Super to train with great players", "I learned a lot", "super intense" and so on.

Its easy to make a camp fun for young players, but whats hard is to make them enjoy camp and get better at 1-3 skills during a camp.

Lets be honest if players would choose what to do in a camp very few would do drills that would improve their skills.

I look for a thank you coach later in life and the times a get them I know I did my best.


So coaches that do those kind of practises are often very well liked until the players that wanted to become something in basketball realize that "fun" killed their ambition.

I know I have heard of so many coaches in well knowned clubs through out scandinavia that basicly just act ref or scorekeeper at practises since they play 5-5 or eleven man drills most of practise, ohh forgot weave 3 man and 5 man, that magic drill.

With that they throw in some freethrows and 1-3 drills without any correction and in one hour at least 5 waterbreaks and of course 5-0 setplays nearly forgot that one.

Often most of the players with superior talent gets rescued at some stage by another coach, recruited to another club, but for the rest its a hard reality check later on.

But many players still stay with these coaches since they have fun and who doesn`t wnat to have fun, but its like giving candy to a child.
the subject
How many kids say no to candy? (only those who....)


How many kids say no we dont want to play 5-5 or do 11 man drill. Kids even want to run like the are chased by "jason" cause they have been taught at a very early stage that if you get tired and drip of sweat its a great practise.

If a teacher in school asks: You can choose between, staying in the classroom, going to the library or go outside to do your asignment. Whom stays in the classroom? Well from personal experience when I self went to school and when I worked in schools only the kids with very high grades the rest was gone before the teacher finished her/his sentence and why most teachers stay most of the time in the classroom.

Its simple......just as wine, decision making become better with age and coaches and teacher in school should guide everybody into the right track not let them make imature decisions that wil effect their future it doesn`t need to be boring but kids need help in finding their way in basketball and life and well everything aint fun lets just leave it at that.

We get better from our mistakes well after learning a coaches mistakes for 3-4 years you know a hell of lot about what not to do, but propably you will realize it to late.

Shooting Tech

13 videos with bball drills

Starting this year i`m trying to record more drills, so I can use them and share to others.
Here you have 13 videos with drills that I have recorded.

Soon another season ends and a....

....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.....