As I mentioned before, I plan on checking in with a new blog entry after each Nike Skills Academy. I am currently at the Hilton Newark Airport Hotel, about 20 minutes outside of NY City, gearing up for the Steve Nash Nike Skills Academy. This academy will feature 20 of the nation’s top HS point guards, including
Lance “Born Ready” Stephenson and 10 of the nation’s top college point guards, including LeVance Fields (Pitt), Tyrese Rice (Boston College), and Jack McClinton (Miami). I had an opportunity to work with Rice and McClinton a couple of weeks ago at the Chris Paul Elite Backcourt Camp, both are tremendous talents.
On Sunday I finished working the Paul Pierce Nike Skills Academy which was held at the prestigious Mater Dei HS in Orange County, CA. The camp was a huge success and featured the nation’s top HS and college shooting guards. In addition, both Paul Pierce (Celtics, 2008 Finals MVP) and Brandon Roy (Trailblazers) were in effect kicking knowledge and spitting wisdom to the aspiring ballers. As you can see, there was no shortage of big time talent for the three days we spent in the OC.
This academy was a tremendous success and definitely fulfilled Nike’s mission in making this a very positive experience for the nation’s most elite players by offering superior instruction, personal mentorship, and ensuring it was a once in a lifetime event.
First and foremost, Nike makes it a priority to hire an amazingly talented and experienced staff. This academy featured numerous NBA assistant and player development coaches. This staff did a phenomenal job both teaching and motivating at every workout.
My role at all of the nation’s top HS events (Jordan All American Classic, McDonalds All American game, Nike Skills Academies, etc.) is simple – get the players talking, get them moving, and get them ready to play! I am in charge of setting the tone for the workout and given the responsibility of doing what I do best – hyping kids up and getting them ready to compete. I force the kids to communicate to each other and “show each other love” while getting them warmed up through a fast paced 10 minute series of basketball specific movements (cuts, pivots, jumps, sprints, and slides) along with some dynamic flexibility exercises (lunges, straight leg march, etc.). I pack a mean punch in the 10 minutes and am usually dripping in sweat myself.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with both the HS players and the college players. This year’s HS group was not as talented as last year’s crop, but these kids gave a great effort at every workout, showed tremendous progress from workout to workout, and most importantly, were very coachable. I plan on seeing many of these kids signing at big time college programs next year.
The college workouts were one in the same. With only 8 college players suiting up to workout, each player got in tons of reps, and was pretty wiped out at the end of each practice. Demar DeRozen (USC) is going to be a big time pro one day and showed the most progress from the first workout to the last. He has a great attitude and was very coachable. James Hardin was a physical beast, sporting the solid 20 pounds of muscle he gained his freshman year at Arizona State. And to no surprise, Stephen Curry (Davidson) was always the first player dressed and putting up shots and the last player to leave the gym. This kid is something special. His heroics this past March were no fluke, this kid can flat out play. I asked him about his off season shooting routine and he said he makes 40 shots from 5 different spots as part of his warm-up! He usually makes between 500-600 shots every day in the off season. His form and footwork is always flawless.
To no surprise, the highlight of the academy was when Paul Pierce arrived and spoke with both the HS and college players. This guy just came off of winning his first NBA Championship along with Finals MVP award, and he was amazingly humble when he talked to the kids. He was sincere and spoke straight from his heart and definitely made an impact. Paul is perfect example of the old adage, “it takes years to make an overnight success.” Paul talked about how sweet it felt to win his first championship at any level (never won in HS or college) and how he had been working for this for the past 21 years, since he first picked up a ball at age 9. He explained how thankful and blessed he was to be able to make a living doing what he loves to do. You could see in his eye how much he loves to play, especially when he laced up and ran through some drills with several of the players (and of course, gave them the business!). Paul talked about how he wasn’t really ranked in HS, flew under most college’s radar and wasn’t heavily recruited until right before his senior year. He told stories of how he used to get up at 5:30am every morning before school, catch the bus, have someone open the gym, and get up shots from 6:00am until school started. How many players today do that?
When I asked him about his off season workouts, he said he plans to take one more full week off and then get started with his training. This is from a guy who just played 116 NBA games! He said gets up around 7:00am, eats breakfast, and does his strength training and running (sometimes runs a series of sprints on the beach in LA). He then breaks for lunch and does his skill work and shooting in the afternoon. He then breaks for dinner and plays 5 on 5 at night. This makes for some pretty long days, but he knows that is the price he needs to pay to stay at the top.
Make no mistake, Paul Pierce is a superstar. He is that good. What a perfect role model for a skills academy that was equally impressive.
If you would like to contact me about this blog, my MVP Vertical Jump Training DVD, my training and/or camps and clinics, please email me atAlan@StrongerTeam.com. I will respond as quickly as possible!
Train hard. Train smart.
Alan Stein, CCS, CSCS
Vertical Jump Expert
