Building Boris Bakovic - The First Student of Pivotology

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As a personal basketball trainer its always very satisfying when a young player finally gets a particular teaching point or defensive technique or a goto move that he is able to use successfully more than once in a game. Its like when your five year old son or daughter score their first basket in a pee wee basketball game. Ping, the lights turn on and you can see, feel and share their excitement.

Watching Boris Bakovic, a 19 year old Serbian kid, perform as the leading scorer (27 ppg) in the Canadian university basketball league - CIS, brings back fond memories of when we first met in 2004 on the same floor he now calls home court at Ryerson university in Toronto, Canada.

You see, Boris is the kid (the gym rat) that was incubated in the gym with me for endless hours going through the skill drills that have not only formed the basis for my instructional basketball DVD series, Pivotology, but they have also equipped Boris with the best footwork in Canadian basketball.

Those were, and still are, fun days because Boris is one of the most eager to learn players I have ever worked with. A lanky 6'7" kid with skinny legs and no hops. He reminded me of Martin Muursepp a young Estonian players I played with, mentored and trained in Israel back in the 90's. Martin was a 1st round draft choice by the Utah Jazz and played a few years in the NBA before returning to Europe.

Boris would watch as I demonstrate a certain goto move and execute it 10-15 times before we moved on to something else. At first when he was in his junior year of high school he would come every Sunday to workout for two hours. I think it was the fact that he was learning a few skills from an ex professional player that kept him so keen because he would turn up like clock work to get his private training. At the same time I had to design new and different drills to feed his hunger to learn.

In essence he was my inspiration as I was his and we shared a mutual agreement that these drill were very different from what anyone else was performing anywhere in the world. The gym was our lab, I was the mad scientist and he was the gym rat.

Throughout the months we continued to meet for private workouts and as his individual skill-set got better, my ability to designed workout programs became more refined. Boris was having a solid senior season in high school and visions of playing college ball in the states fueled his drive to train harder at his craft. I encouraged him to take the SAT's which he would need to be eligible for the NCAA and he score 1650. Because of his marks he had offers coming in from Ivy league schools all across the US. While all this was going on we continued to workout as he evaluated his options to attend university. In the end he choose to go to school in Canada at Ryerson university.

In his first year at Ryerson he averaged 17 points and 10 rebounds and was selected the rookie of his conference (OUA) and earned a spot on the university league (CIS) all-rookie team. Boris was also selected to represent Canada in the 2007 FIBA U-19 World Championships held in Novi Sad, Bosnia.

Now he is in his sophomore year and as I enter this post in my blog Boris is averaging 27ppg and 8rpg for Ryerson U. How long he can keep that up before the defense starts to target him, your guess is as good as mine. But if this is any indication of how individual skill development training can refine a young eager, non athletic kid, then every kid that plays basketball should be in the gym working endlessly on their basketball game.

What Boris realized was that his individual game was getting better and he started to see the benefits of individual skill development specific training. What I set out to do was to build him into an offensive assassin-a player who can score from anywhere on the floor using an arsenal of moves in the mid-range and post area of the court.

Now after logging 300 hours of individual skill development training with me over the past three years, and counting, he has grown into Canada's leading scorer in only his sophomore year and I have trademark the drills and published then on DVD, under the title Pivotology.

I can't really predict what the the future has in store for such a committed and dedicated player but his upside is hugh. If he can handle the rigors, the bumps and the bruises that comes with being a first option player and continue to grow, professional basketball should be on his horizon. Even the League (NBA) is within reach depending on how the Canadian media exposes this young talent. Visibility plays a big part in making the NBA and currently I feel he will have to play pro ball in Europe or the NBA development league to get the visibility and scouting needed to get signed. But in the meantime for three more years Canadians will have a great time watching this young player evolve into his destiny.

Yo, Boris, we have a workout session at 9am in the morning, the gym is open!



Peace

Back To Reality

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ROCHESTER, NY. I am smiling because the title of this entry is so surreal. Back to reality! What reality? The reality of what was basketball training camp. Basketball in turbo drive! Two-a-day training camps and three hour one day training sessions, that's what I mean!

On December 10th, 2007, I took part in a minor league basketball training camp...no, not to make a come back at the minor league level, but to fulfill a personal challenge to see what kind of shape my vintage body was in.

When I played professionally I was always regarded as the best athlete on all the teams I played for, from Turkey to Taiwan. Even now during life after pro ball, conditioning remains a constant in my life.

The 2003-05 Toronto Nike Battleground Tournament, which was a one-on-one competition played in a cage, was also a personal challenge that took my body, mind and soul back to a reality of competitive basketball played in an intense ladened environment reserved only for a certain beast of a human being. I was younger then, only 41, so taking on that challenge was easier than the journey I was about to take.

As a personal basketball trainer to numerous NBA, NCAA, Minor League, and European players and the lead instructor at the International Big Man Academy and Tall Girls Basketball Academy, the "Power of Demonstration" plays a major role in the way I teach players certain skills and techniques. Conditioning is very important so as to endure the rigors of demonstration's teaching points, I must be in top shape. I can't afford to walk around with a pouch bulging through my shirt for all my clients to see or huffing and puffing after every drill I demonstrate. It just does not fit the image of a professional trainer whose strength is supposed to be the power of his demonstration and his ability to endure pain.

Mind you, before I embarked on the journey into minor league hell, I was already in good shape from working players out, demonstrating drills and playing pick up ball with the university players I work with at home in Toronto. But thats not what this personal challenge was about.

This was about being pushed to the breaking point and not breaking. Thats what training camp is all about. Only the fittest survived. Waking up at 5am to be on the basketball floor at 6am for three hours of hell, and the body not breaking down, that always have a special feel to it. Back in the day, my playing days, that was always a very normal thing to do on a daily basis. Training to the point of exhaustion was my reality! But now as a personal basketball trainer, I don't have to do that. I don't have to push myself to the point of breaking, to that extent anyway.

So I needed to experience that feeling again, I needed to experience a reality of intense training that was twenty-seven (27) years of my life.

Man did it feel good!!

The team was the Rochester Razorsharks, located in Rochester, NY. The head coach there is Rod Baker, a hard nose coach who knows what it takes to win championships. A forward thinking coach who coached the Globetrotters, UC Irvine, Cincinnati, and some, and took the Razorsharks to the ABA championships, which they won, in 2005.

Baker's style of coaching was reminiscent of my college coach, Smokey Gaines, at San Diego State when I played alongside Michael Cage. Everything was on the clock from the minute you walked into the gym to the end of practice suicides.

But this was not college, no, this was the minor league where players will eat you alive to get a step up on you. At this level players are trying to put food on the table and get to the next level weather it be the NBA or Europe. Guys wanna get paid.

The intensity at coach Baker's training camp was consistent throughout and you either broke down and quit (which happened to a few players), or you take the stuff that's being thrown your way and become a better player and a better person because coach Baker was gonna give it to you straight.

He cussed at everyone, and always had some smart remark about something you did. I loved it though because I felt like I still belonged in this intensity ladened environment.

Sure enough even though I was the elderly statesman of the group, I got cussed at too! I remember one situation I threw a bad entry pass to the post only to hear Baker yell, Mike, "bend your old ass over and make a good pass". I wanted to laugh so hard but was sorta momentarily stunned by the comment because really and truly no one had ever used that word to my face while I was playing basketball. But I guess I am vintage! Not that being vintage had anything to do with the soft entry pass I made.

So there I was, forty-three years young, running around with twenty something year olds. Man, I was having fun though! Loving every minute of it, especially those minutes I was laying in the hotel bed relaxing and watching TV, trying to recover from the days grind while Vidal Messiah, my roommate and the player who beat me twice (2004-05) in the Toronto Nike Battleground, was sitting at the desk checking his Facebook page and talking on the phone to his daughter.

Recovery was a big deal for me and was not something I took lithely at this stage of my life as compared to earlier years when I was able to recover much faster. Recovery was foremost on my mind when I went to training camp so, I took my Jack Lalane juicer with me - to juice fruits and vegetable- which I shared with my first roommate (not Vidal) before he got waived. I also traveled with my magnetic mattress which I laid atop my hotel bed's mattress.
With these two devices and a big tub of protein powder I was ready to recover from whatever training camp had to offer.

Getting tired was never the problem, cramps were. I had some serious cramping in the abdominals whenever we did our core workout at the end of each session. But I endured from persistent hydration and the juicing of potatoes , carrots and spinach. The cramps passed and the next day I was back to normal working every drill with the highest intensity in the camp. Yes there were a few times I would lay in the cut and let the younger players pass me up but hey, I considered that my "vet break" which coach Baker never offered. Especially during the transition drills where we had to make five consecutive trips down the floor and back at top speed. I would need an extra 30 seconds to recover before taking the floor again. This was often a difficult maneuver to pull off because other players were also trying to "lay in the cut" and avoid a turn. I would alway smile to myself when I saw other players avoiding turns because clearly, age had nothing to do with me skipping a turn. It was just an intense drill that needed more recovery time, time we did not have because this, was training camp and we better recover fast or pay the price.

I worked out with the Razorsharks from December 10-23, then returned home to my present reality. The experience was very rewarding as I dropped 5 pounds and reached a level of conditioning not experienced since my time as a pro baller!

This (training camp) is something I could definitely do more often to keep myself in top shape. It is a grind though but well worth the pain.

Peace

Good Luck Samardo Samuels: My Failure Will Be Your Success

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ROCHESTER, NY. I am chillin' in my hotel room icing a bruised thigh I sustained from a collision in the paint resulting from a post move I tried to execute in heavy traffic. On ESPN is a game my roommate and I have been anticipating all day.

The game is St. Benedict's Prep vs. Oak Hill Academy and our players of interest, Samardo Samuels and Tirstan Thompson, both playing with St. Benedict's Prep.

This is the first time I will see Samardo Samuels, the #1 center in America high school play the game of basketball that has been our ticket out of Jamaica.

My roommate, Vidal Messiah, was curious to see Tirstan Thompson play. Tirstan is a high school transfer from Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto where Vidal and myself live. Tirstan was a 16 year old up and coming Canadian talent who transferred states side (Just like Samardo and I did from Jamaica) to experience a better brand of basketball.

As I iced my bruised thigh, and the game progress, watching Samardo run the floor stirred deep memories of when I first came to America to play college basketball. Those days are so far gone now, but tonight they were staring me dead in the face as I thought to myself…. Man, I pray this kid make it to the league.

See, back in 1981, I left Jamaica on a scholarship to Tyler Junior College with hopes of one day being an NBA player competing against the best players in the world.

Originally I was supposed to go to the University of Texas. U of T brought me from Jamaica on a recruiting trip that exposed me to my first live NBA player, George “ The Ice Man” Gervin. The “Ice Man” had stopped by to visit his younger brother Derrick who was also on this recruiting trip. It was an inspiration to meet “Ice”.

Anyway, I committed to Texas but had to change gear because the school was placed on probation, which was something I really had no understanding of back in 1981. Barry Dowd who was the assistant to Abe Lemons, and the coach who came to Jamaica to recruit me, suggested I attend Tyler JC because the coaching staff at the University of Texas had been fired.

This was all very confusing to me back then because I really wanted to go to the University of Texas to play alongside LaSalle Thompson, who was an All-American and my tour guide throughout my recruiting trip. Coach Dowd suggested Tyler JC as leverage and then transferring to a major D1 which turned out to be San Diego State in 1983. So already my lofty dreams of getting to the NCAA and the NBA was taking some bumps and bruises.

But getting back to reality… as I lay here reflecting on my time at Tyler… Samardo is collecting a rebound which he outlets to his PG while Tristan Thompson fills the lane….

How crazy is this though? Why did these memories of ages past enter my mind. I am guessing it’s because Samardo has committed to attend the University of Louisville and play for Rick Pitino.

See, in 1981 my roommate at Tyler JC was a kid from Louisville, Kentucky by the name of Keith Floyd. Keith took me home with him to Louisville one spring break and that’s when I first met Milt Wagner who later played with the Lakers and then in Israel the same year Derrick Gervin and I were also on contract with Israeli teams. Buck Johnson was in Israel that season too playing with Milt, so was my younger brother Andrew.

In 1987 I went through the Houston Rockets rookie and vet camp with Buck Johnson who was Houston’s first round draft choice that year. Hmm....memories, memories!

So here I am in Rochester, NY laying in bed icing my bruised thigh thinking to myself….. watching this young Jamaican kid play ball got me reflecting into corners of my mind I have not been to in a long time…

Thanks though kid, those were fun times and I wish you the best of luck because I did not get that long NBA career I left Jamaica dreaming about, and I hope our path cross so I can teach you the art of Pivotology, because I know it can help you at the next level. Don’t worry though because you are my little homie, and even if our paths don’t cross I will make sure you have my instructional DVDs. And when you get them study them and use the drills over and over. They will take care of your footwork the way they did for Boris.

The stuff that goes through my mind!

Anyway, the game is over and Samardo and Tirstan's team, St. Benedict's Prep, won.
So now its time for me to get some sleep because we have practice in the morning at 6 am.

Peace