Dime Q&A: Will Bynum Teaches The Youth & Talks About His Journey

Will Bynum knows all about overcoming. He made it out of tough, inner-city Chicago, flourished at times in college before having to find himself all over again as a player in Israel. Since earning his way back into the NBA with the Pistons, Bynum staked his claim to a roster spot and a guaranteed place in the league.

He knows all about perseverance, and from August 1-3, Bynum went home to offer a camp (free of charge) for 100 8-15-year-old Chicago youths. The 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. camp gave them the chance to learn hoops from a pro but more importantly, it taught them leadership and life lessons so many of these kids desperately need.

“My main thing was to get the message across to the kids of the values that it took me to succeed and the things that were instilled in me,” says Bynum. “With me going through the journey that I’ve been through and having success the way that I did, I was just telling them that you gotta have a great attitude, one. And two, you gotta work hard no matter what you do. You’re gonna go through a lot of times where you fail or are disappointed and things don’t happen your way. But you have to persevere and keep working through those times.”

Bynum brought in speakers from the U.S. Army and Navy, as well as some of the area’s best college coaches, to talk about anti-violence and avoiding gangs as most of the campers hailed from the West Side of Chicago. Bynum wanted the kids to know “it’s okay to be different.”

“Those times are the life-changing times when you can just look yourself in the mirror and say, ‘It’s my fault’ instead of trying to blame someone else,” Bynum says. “Those are the times that can change your life if you have the right mindset and approach the situation with a different mentality than everybody else. That’s what I was trying to get across to the kids, especially here in Chicago. The kids are coming from the inner city, poor areas, the same areas that I grew up in so I understood that and I could relate to the kids really well.”

The Detroit guard showed the kids how to break down film (one of the main reasons he is where he is today) and put them through a lot of basketball drills. The youths also received free pairs of gym shoes, and Bynum even played in the camp’s All-Star game, where he put down this dunk.

I talked with Will earlier this summer in-between his workouts (the dude works out eight hours EVERY DAY) about nearly everything, including some of his journey and how his time overseas changed his career.

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Dime: What did you learn during your time overseas?
Will Bynum: It was special because when I was there – unlike a lot of other places that I have been – I felt like they genuinely taught me the game and how to play the game the right way. For me understanding that, at the time I didn’t understand that when I first was there because they would write bad things about me but I would be scoring a lot of points. I didn’t understand. I would be like “Why? What’s going on?” I was watching a lot of film and I was realizing that they were teaching me the game and teaching me the value of sharing the basketball. After I learned that, it made me a better player. And even like the people on the street would come up to me and would be telling me things like “You play very well. You are really, really good. But you have to learn how to pass the basketball” (laughs). So I took that, I kinda took that as a good thing and I didn’t take it like they were saying things bad about me or taking it in a negative way. I took it in a positive way. I worked on it. I watched a lot of film and what I realized was they were teaching me the game man. It helped me get to the point where I’m at now.

Dime: You say you learned so much there. Do you think that before you got there, you weren’t enough of a traditional point guard?
WB: All of my life I was playing the point guard position, but since I was so talented I was able to do what I wanted to do on a team. So there wasn’t a whole lot of teaching going on because my talent level was so high. In college, I was on extremely good teams in Georgia Tech and Arizona which had point guards at the time in Jason Gardner and Jarrett Jack when I was there, so they kinda just played me with those guys. It worked out well. We were winning and we went to the championship, but for me to be effective at the next level, I had to learn how to dominate the game from the shoulders up and that’s what I learned in Israel.

I didn’t have an opportunity to run my own team in college.

Dime: With the youth camp, teaching young kids, what do you think is the most important skill young kids should learn? Shooting, dribbling…what part of the game is most important?
WB: It’s not a part of the game. It’s a part of life. For me, it’s playing with a lot of focus no matter what you do. You’re gonna have to be disciplined. There’s a lot of things out here that may steer you left or steer you right. But you have to understand there’s a bigger goal or a bigger picture at the time then what’s going on.

My thing is I made a lot of mistakes but all of the mistakes that I made, I learned from them and instead of taking them as negatives, I took them as positives and went to work and watched a lot of film and studied a lot of the mistakes that I was making so that I wouldn’t make those mistakes again. And I think that helped me out more than just looking at me playing well or me doing the good things or the good times that I had or the things that happened. It was the bad things that really made me make a decision whether to stand or to fall. For me, those were the moments and Israel was definitely one of those moments.

Dime: I’ve been hearing the last few weeks – you were just saying you enjoyed playing over there – are you thinking of playing there during the lockout? Is that true?
WB: All of my options are open because of the lockout situation, but right now I’m not in panic mode to just go overseas or commit to a team overseas. But if it’s still going into September and around training camp time, when I know it’s critical…For me, I’m not really in love with the business aspect of the game. I understand it and I appreciate it. I’m in love with developing my craft and getting better. If that means me going across seas to play, then that’s what I’m gonna do because I have to keep developing. I’m in love with the game. I’m not in love with the money or anything like that. I’ve always played to get better because I love it.

That was my whole thing about going overseas.

Dime: Some people say that European teams have issues, whether it’s not paying guys or the conditions aren’t as good. For your experience, did you ever have any problems or was everything good?
WB: Nah, I never had problems when I was over there. You might have a day or two late (payments), but that’s maybe. Maybe. But I never really had problems. It wasn’t like I was sweating over money or something like that over there. I never had a problem with money or pretty much anything at all.

Dime: With the lockout, some guys tell me it affects their schedule because normally they slow down workouts before training camps. Does it affect you? If we get into the fall time, if you aren’t playing anywhere, is that really going to affect you?
WB: Nah, that’s not going to affect me because I’m going to be constantly working. I’m gonna be ready. Once it starts getting around to training camp time, the time where I’m missing critical time to developing my game, then that’s when I’m going to decide whether I’m going to play overseas or not.

What do you think? Is Bynum one of the league’s most underrated players?

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