Lance Stephenson is one of the best basketball preps in the class of 2009. He plays hoops for Lincoln High School in New York. Lance Stephenson is a 6-5, 195 pound senior forward that in most hoops recruiting magazines and websites is ranked the Number 1 basketball prospect of 2009.
Lance Stephenson
Basketball Videos at Streetball
Tyreke Evans will be taking over the point guard spot for Derrick Rose and the Memphis Tigers next college basketball season. Tyreke Evans is considered to be the top basketball prep in the High School Class of 2008. He was a McDonald’s All-American and a Jordan Brand first team All-American, winning MVP in both basketball games.
Basketball and Hip-Hop Lifestyle
Brandon Jennings is taking over the point guard position from Jerryd Bayless and the Arizona Wildcats next season. Brandon Jennings is considered to be the top basketball prep and point guard in the high school class of 2008. Check out the basketball clip at Streetball of Brandon Jennings.
Kevin Love was explaining how he isn’t going to burn through the millions of dollars he is about to earn. He was discussing putting aside part of his paycheck in a long-term tax-deferred account he could use “in like 40 years,” although he couldn’t remember the name.
Ballers call it a 401K retirement plan.
“That’s it,” said UCLA’s former All-American center.
Kevin Love is a month away from becoming a multi-millionaire because he can play basketball better than almost any 19-year-old on the planet.
But he is still a teenager, and two months ago a 401k plan was a foreign concept. And while he said he can balance a checkbook, he said online banking is much farther than a mouse-click away for him.
In the six weeks since Love declared himself eligible for the NBA draft, he has learned there is much more to being a professional basketball player than making shots, jumping high, rebounding well and scoring high marks during interviews with prospective teams.
In fact, basketball and streetball is the easy part.
“The worst part about it is how many people come at you,” Love said recently after a workout at the Home Depot Center. “The craziest part for me was really no media came at me. It was my whole family wanted to talk to me, and extended family wanted to talk to me, then the coaches wanted to talk to me, then all the agents wanted to talk to me.
“It was madness. I got so tired of it so fast I was like, `You know what? I just want to play basketball right now.’ It’s not about all that stuff. It’s about getting better.”
Training comes first Love put on his double socks, rode the conditioning bike for 15minutes and did another 15minutes of conditioning and stretching while moving up and down the basketball court.
The markedly leaner, over 17 pounds leaner, and more defined Love removed his shoes and stepped on a scale before lying on one of three training tables at the side of the courts. He was strapped to one of the end tables for another 15 minutes as trainers stretched his back, his legs and every other conceivable muscle in his body.
Finally, 58 minutes after walking into the ADT Event Center, Love took his first shot, a miss from 14 feet away, before making his next five.
“He’s receiving the ball at a higher point and not bringing it down when he catches it, which is critical to getting his shot off quicker,” said Joe Abunassar, whose Impact Basketball company is helping Love prepare for the draft. “I think we’ve got it more consistent than it was. We’ve got him really low to the ground and stepping in and keeping his balance on every shot.”
Love is in Orlando, Florida, this week for the NBA’s pre-draft camp, and like former UCLA teammate Russell Westbrook, he will not be playing in the pickup games. He is there to be tested and measured by the NBA, and then will get out of town and wait for June 5, when he will begin working out for individual NBA teams in preparation of the June 26 draft.
“I know I’m going to be OK, but there’s still that sense of urgency, anxiousness and nervousness, too,” Love said. “I used to say I don’t really get nervous, but I’m not in control of the situation. I’m in control of what I could do in the workouts … but come draft night I’m not in control of anything.”
The wooden velodrome surrounding the weightlifting areas and basketball courts were quiet in the afternoon, in contrast from the high-speed cycling training that took place a few hours earlier, when some of the best riders in the country zoomed around at speeds in excess of 35 mph.
The pickup games featuring NBA hopefuls, including Love’s former UCLA teammate Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, current college players such as Villanova’s Taylor King, and even a high school senior, were over. Not that Love would have played and risked injury.
While Hip-Hop and rap music played quietly in the background and a high school basketball team from the Philippines worked out at one end, Love was a few hundred feet away on another court beginning shooting drills.
Love began with 18-footers from the baseline, and quickly worked up a sweat while rotating counter-clockwise around the court.
Two straight misses and Love, ever the perfectionist, threw his arms in the air in frustration and disbelief, before he settled in and the ball consistently fell through the net without touching the rim.
“What he needs is to do everything faster, everything quicker, improve little angle changes with the NBA offense with the illegal defense rule,” Abunassar said. “He comes in with an amazing skill set, but he still has a tendency to be a little off balance with his jump shot.”
Thirteen minutes later, Love broke for a drink - these workouts are so structured that even the amount of time spent to re-hydrate is timed - before he raced out of the right corner and shot off a curl.
Love followed with 3-pointers from everywhere, making 9 of 10 from the right corner and hooting and hollering before four straight misses from the left wing produced a few unprintable words.
Other days include work in the low-post, defensive drills and mid-range shooting, and many nights conclude with 90-minute shooting sessions closer to his home on the Westside.
Love is in such splendid shape these days that an hour worth of shooting, including an emphasis on 3-pointers, didn’t seem to tax him. He had plenty of energy left for his weight training session.
If his life was all about basketball these days, his stress level would be nearly non-existent.
However, Love is learning there is far more to being an NBA lottery pick.
“This is like choosing a college, but it’s all bunched into eight weeks, so it’s a lot of stress,” Love said. “You’re choosing an agent, figuring out endorsement deals and percentages, where you’re going to work out at, waiting for the lottery balls to drop, being in the gym at 8:30 in the morning (almost) every day.”
Love, who handled a media crush as a freshman at UCLA like an NBA veteran, said he became so overloaded at one point he elected not to attend a Los Angeles Lakers playoff game even though the seats were “in the second row behind Jack Nicholson.” He was tired of the people always approaching him.
And then there is the conflicting data.
Love played at 270 pounds at UCLA and was told by NBA executives he needed to slim down. He has every meal hand-delivered by Sunfare, so his carbohydrate and caloric intake is monitored, although he did break away by having a Subway sandwich between his on-court and weightlifting sessions.
“I knew I had to get in better shape than I was,” Love said. “The thing that made me upset was during the season (was) a couple people said I may have been a little out of shape. At first, Coach Ben Howland wanted me really big. He wanted me big, wanted me strong. And then he called me out and said I was out of shape, so then I got in better shape.
“So now everybody in the NBA is saying I need to lose weight, need to lean out, need to be more explosive, so that is what I did.”
Love, the Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Year in his only college season, is a bonafide lottery pick, so endorsements are part of the equation.
He said one of the reasons he wanted to sign with an agent was because he had a few deals on the table, including one for a video game and another with a trading card company.
It’s filler stuff, though, because a month remains before the draft, and among the many off-the-court things Love has going on is the wait for the NBA’s invitation to attend the draft in New York. It is something Love desperately wants to do, but more work must be done.
Between June 5 and the NBA draft Kevin Love said he will work out for six to eight NBA teams, the most likely being Charlotte, New Jersey, New York, Memphis, Minnesota and Chicago.
A few more are likely to be added, and one or two dropped, but he said one workout he is really looking forward to is with the Timberwolves, mostly because he will get to meet vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale, the man Love most patterned his game after.
“That will be great because we can talk about so many things he did as a player,” Love said.
Yet, even during a lull, when the training is scaled back and the anxiety of the team workouts remain a week away, Love said it is the most stressful time of his life.
“While all this stuff is going on, all I want is it to be June 26 already,” Love said. “You can’t wait for that to happen.”
The
Reebok Headliner Try Out Camps are open to high school basketball players
graduating in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. The weekend basketball
experience will consist of individual skill assessment stations, and
competitive full court games.
“For many years, access to
national camps was often based off of who you knew or what travel
program you played for. The Reebok Headliner Try Out Camps have changed
all that and now gives players an equal opportunity to earn their way
into events that give them outstanding exposure,” said Christopher
Rivers, Reebok Director of Basketball. “Finally, the undiscovered have
a chance to be discovered.”
The cost to attend a Reebok
Headliner Try Out Camp is $125. For camp registration information log
on to www.prepchamps.com. Also check out PrepChamps.com for a full
recap of all the players that earned invitations through the Reebok
Headliner Try Out Camp in 2007.
Reebok Headliner Try Out Camps
are managed by Driven Athletics (Poulsbo, WA). Driven Athletics
specializes in managing camps, combines clinics and tournaments. Their
even management staff brings many years of experience operating quality
events with the use of the latest technologies to create a unique
environment for participants, coaches, spectators and sponsors.
PrepChamps.com
is the official digital content partner of the Reebok Headliner Try Out
Camps as well as other Reebok Grassroots Basketball properties. They
are striving to become the industry leader as resource for helping high
school athletes to “Get Recognized and Get Recruited”.
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