Youth participate in 2-day Grind hoops camp

The youth took the opportunity to participate in the first Grind Basketball Camp on Saipan, which was run by former Japanese-American professional basketball player from Guam, Morgan Hikaru Aiken, over the weekend at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

Last Saturday, the first session featured eight high school boy cagers, while the second session was a mix of young girls and boys.

The drills that Aiken implemented in the camp were dribbling, ball handling, a read-and -eact offensive/defensive drill, layups, and a mini halfcourt game with no dribbling.

He shared in an interview after the first session that the boys that came out were “really talented and you could see that they really love basketball. I can see the passion is there and I feel that’s where it starts, versus having parents just push or force the sport on them.”

He said that in his years of coaching and training kids, the No. 1 thing for him is to find passionate kids. “You see that here because they love the game. They want to be here, they want to learn, they want to improve. And I feel like that’s a stepping stone to improving and maximizing potential.”

Aiken, who is the first Guam high school graduate to sign a professional contract to play basketball overseas in the Japan Basketball League and later in the B.League, had a talk with the participants during the camp in which he told them that yes, it’s practice and as much as he doesn’t want unforced errors, they’re there to improve.

“We’re going to make mistakes, but mistakes are things that we’re going to learn from. So, be comfortable making mistakes, you just have to be able to adjust,” he told the boys. “The last thing I told them was to ask questions. If I’m explaining a drill and they don’t understand it, I don’t want them to go through the motions just because I’m coaching.”

The 30-year-old added that if there was one thing he wanted participants to take away from his camp, it’s that the little details matter.

“Focusing on the little details every day kind of adds up to the big picture, as in, you’ll get to a place where all these little habits that you’re fine tuning and fixing leads you to become the best middle school, high school or college player,” said Aiken. “It’s not one major thing where it’s like, oh, you could do this really well—but it’s a lot of little things. Especially with basketball, there’s so many aspects to work on, from defense to offense to awareness to cardio, to movement. But it’s the little things that really matter that start separating yourself from another athlete. And then now, when you combine those and you look back, you’ll say ‘I came a long way.’”

He then said that he might come down to Saipan for more camps about every three months, but that, “I feel like I could definitely do maybe three or four two-day camps within the year. That’s definitely something I would want to do in the near future. So, I definitely want to continue this. I feel like as a trainer, I’m able to learn too, because every athlete, every player, is different. And as a trainer, it helps me grow seeing how each and every athlete acts and responds. Even if it’s similar drills, everybody’s different.”

Azzy Fatialofa, NMI women’s national team pool player, joined the second session and said that it was a good experience for her. “It was an honor to be learning from a professional player. The drills he had for us were fun and a way to keep us on our feet. Through each break he gave us advice as players to take with us through our journeys as basketball players. This opportunity was something I wouldn’t forget and I’m going to use it to my advantage,” she said.

As for Enzo Sasamoto from Mount Carmel School, he said the camp “was very tough, but it means that we’re going to improve. If it was easy, we’re not going anywhere. We learned a lot of new things and it really helped us with our IQ of the game and our conditioning.” The 14-year-old said that his favorite part of the camp was the last 4v4 no dribble game. “It really helped us with our offball movement, off ball screens, and passing,” said the MCS boys varsity basketball team hopeful.

Participants of the camp with Fatialofa and Sasamoto included Jay Pineda, Peyton Basa, David Apatang, James Matsumoto, Kian Helgen, Jared Villagomez, Niko Paul, Lance Lerio, Mike Mercado Jr., Patricia Matsumoto, Liam Sablan-Wilson, Jener Pineda, and Aaleyah Fatialofa.