Over 100 kids attended yesterday morning\u2019s youth basketball clinic for players between eights and 12 years old conducted by the University of Nations, which was led by former NBA forward David Wood.<\/p>\n
Wood, who played for the Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, and the Milwaukee Bucks in a seven-season NBA career, said he could not have hoped for a better turnout.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor this facility we\u2019ve got about as many as we could comfortably handle to give an excellent camp. We\u2019ve got another 100 or so coming this afternoon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Wood, who got some help conducting the clinic from former University of Nevada coach Mike Brown, former athletic director of University of Nevada Dick Dankworth, and baseball veteran Dan Dix, said the first day of the youth clinic focused mainly in teaching the kids about the fundamentals of basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked a lot on just dribbling the ball correctly. If you can\u2019t handle the ball, you can\u2019t really play this game very well. As a group, we had enough [balls] for everyone to have a partner. Then we went to the fundamentals of basketball: Shooting; lay up; passing; defensive footwork; post move; and forward move. It was really hard work teaching specific movements but we really wanted these kids to get better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The 6\u20199\u201d former University of Nevada standout said the first day\u2019s clinic also focused in having the kids develop the mental part of the game as well as learn lessons in life.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday I also talked about goals and dreams and how important it is to set goals and dream big dreams. Life is hard and if you don\u2019t have big goals and big dreams when it gets hard you end up quitting. So, we talked a lot about goals and dreams, controlling what you say with your tongue, speak life, you can kill your dreams if you don\u2019t speak in faith,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Along with his fellow UN delegates, Wood also brought along two of his four sons\u2014Moses and Caleb.<\/p>\n
Wood also reminisced a little about his stint in the Philippine Basketball Association where he played with the Purefoods Tender Juicy Hotdogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played alongside Alvin Patrimonio, Jerry Codinera, and Dindo Pumaren. Our coach was Eric Altmirano. It was an altogether awesome experience. The team started a little slow when I got there, but then we won six games in a row. Unfortunately we lost in the semifinals to Red Bull. People really love basketball there,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Northern Youth Basketball Association vice president and Matansa Sparks head coach George Cruz was also ecstatic about the turnout for the first day of the youth clinic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really a success. Just having these kids come out and over a hundred of them it\u2019s really, really good. Having the team of David Wood, Mike Brown, and company working with them it\u2019s great, really great. We start to see the talent. Exposing kids to basketball and see them develop skills is just awesome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
NYBA president and Garapan Rollers head coach Joe Diaz seconded Cruz\u2019s sentiments when he said, \u201cI\u2019m very happy. It\u2019s no always that Saipan gets to host an ex-NBA player and have him conduct a clinic for free. All the kids are happy and so are we,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The youth clinic for players 8 to 12 years old continues today from 8am to 12pm followed by the clinic for 13- to 17-year-old players, which is from 1pm to 4pm. It will run until Wednesday and will culminate with a championships tournament on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over 100 kids attended yesterday morning\u2019s youth basketball clinic for players between eights and 12 years old conducted by the University of Nations, which was led by former NBA forward David Wood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}