The NBL Prospects Camp, which recently saw 63 of Australia’s brightest young stars put through their paces before NBL scouts and coaches, has been adjudged a resounding success.
Event organiser and Melbourne Tigers assistant coach Ian Stacker said the camp had received positive feedback from both NBL teams and the players who were invited to attend and he was now working with the NBL and Basketball Australia to ensure it became a permanent fixture on the League’s schedule.
“The camp went as well as I could have hope,” Stacker said. “We had 100% attendance from those who registered and the coaches, who included Dr. Adrian Hurley, Darryl McDonald, and Steve Breheny were great.”
The overall level of athleticism of the players impressed the coaching staff, with Andrew Savige of Latrobe City’s Big V team recording a staggering 80cm standing vertical leap in the physical testing component.
Stacker said a number of players impressed enough to get invitations to join NBL squads for the upcoming season. PJ Isaacson of Sydney, son of legendary TV personality Don Lane, was amongst the standouts and was joined by Matt Sutton (Forestville Eagles - Central ABL), Ricky Henderson (Ballarat Miners – SEABL), Nathan Crombie (Brisbane Capitals – QABL) and Maalo Hicks (Darebin - Big V) on the Camp’s All-Star Five Team.
Henderson and Sutton also teamed with Steven Wiasak (Geelong Big V Youth League) on the winning side in the 3-on-3 challenge competition.
Tiri Masunda (Tasmania), Anthony Olay (Gold Coast), Zane Reeves (Adelaide), and Cameron McCallum (Melbourne) also received honourable mentions for their performances.
Stacker said the selection of the camp’s All-Star Team was difficult and reflected those that were considered NBL-ready by the coaching staff.
“They were looking for players they thought could play in the NBL now, so the two main things they were looking for were players who had the athleticism and skills to compete at that level,” said Stacker. “There were also a number of other players outside of those who were named who showed they were capable of playing in the NBL. The consensus was that they had many NBL athletes who just needed to develop their skills to make it to the next level.”
Stacker said he saw a lot of potential from the 18-24 age group and thought there could be a possibility of providing additional development opportunities.
“I would love to conduct such camps in each state on a quarterly basis for development purposes and then have an annual NBL prospects camp where the best from each state would come and compete in front of all the NBL teams. I would like to see more players already in the league attend for developmental purposes which would also give those outside of the league a measuring stick.”
The camp was held for three days at the Waverley Basketball Stadium and the invited participants were put through a range of drills, physical tests and scrimmages. The players went through an array of competitive shooting drills which included one minute of full court lay ups, a 30 second layup drill, five minutes of shooting three pointers without a rebounder and five minutes of shooting one bounce pull up jump shots
Article from www.nbl.com.au
http://www.nbl.com.au/default.aspx?s=newsdisplay&id=75501
http://www.nbl.com.au/default.aspx?s=newsdisplay&id=75558
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