NOTE: This is the first in a series of blogs reporting on the Nike Skills Academies by internationally renowned basketball strength & conditioning coach Alan Stein of www.StrongerTeam.com

I got to my hotel room in NJ at 2:00 am Monday night after a couple of long flights from LA. I was 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. Jordan Hamilton (Compton, CA), Aaron Dotson (Seattle, WA), Michael Snaers (Moreno Valley, CA) and Demetrius Walker (San Juan, CA) were some of the notable HS players and Demar DeRozan (USC), Stephen Curry (Davidson), Austin Freeman (Georgetown), James Hardin (ASU), and Tyreke Evans (Memphis) headlined the college players. In addition, both Paul Pierce and Brandon Roy 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.

First and foremost, Nike makes it a priority to hire an amazingly talented and experienced staff. In addition to yours truly (I will get into my role in a minute), this academy featured the legendary coach and scout Tates Locke (Trailblazers), Nike skills guru Kevin Eastman (Celtics), one of the nation’s top HS coaches Kevin Sutton (Montverde Academy in FL), along with Fran Fraschilla (ESPN), Paul Cormier (Nets), Kenny Atkinson (Rockets), Dave Severns (ATTACK Athletics), and Craig “Please Don’t Mention The Shot Jordan Hit” Ehlo. This staff did a phenomenal job both teaching and motivating and these guys really represent what is right about the coaching fraternity. Having future NBA superstar and previous Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy stop by was an added bonus. He really knows the game and taught the kids some very valuable stuff.

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, and here are some of my thoughts:

After a tough first day (the first day is always tough as the kids have spent most of the morning on long flights), the HS group really started to get rolling the next morning. Overall it was a great group. 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. As talented as many of these kids were, many of them just haven’t been exposed to quality coaching (which is NOT their fault). Some of these kids haven’t been shown the basic fundamentals of the game until now – proper footwork, how to set screens, team defense concepts, etc. But they definitely got a three-day crash course! The HS workouts, lead by Kevin Eastman, were up-tempo, high energy, intense, and filled with NBA-level drills and concepts. Coach Eastman does an incredible job.

The college workouts were one in the same, lead by hardnosed Tates Locke, who is infamous for telling players what they need to hear, not necessarily what they want to hear. Coach Locke is a coaching legend, a basketball genius, and the king of one liners. With only eight college players suiting up to work out, each player got in tons of reps, and was pretty wiped out at the end of each practice. Demar DeRozen 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 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 five 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.

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 and 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 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. 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?

Coach Eastman chimed in how hard Paul works every single day in practice, and that even after playing the league for over a decade, he never misses a practice. Paul told numerous KG stories, including how KG drove straight the gym at 2:00am as soon as he stepped off the Celtics plane following a tough road playoff loss to get up shots and work on his game.

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.

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 at Alan@StrongerTeam.com. I will respond as quickly as possible!

Train hard. Train smart.

Alan Stein, CCS, CSCS
Vertical Jump Expert