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
