This year the adidas Superstar Camp will move to the home of the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing, China. The adidas Superstar Camp will run from May 22nd-26th, 2006, at the Beijing Sports University and will feature 54 of the top 16-18 year old players from China, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Japan and Australia.
The 2006 adidas Superstar Camp will once again feature top coaches from the world of basketball, highlighted by NBA Hall of Fame player and coach, KC Jones. Jones was a defensive standout with the fabled Boston Celtics dynasty of the late 1950s and 1960s. Serving first as a reserve and then as the heir to Bob Cousy at point guard, Jones won championships in the first eight seasons of his nine-year career. He contributed to the Celtics by running the offense and playing outstanding defense on the opposing teams’ star guards. After retiring, Jones continued his winning ways as a coach with six NBA teams (Los Angeles Lakers, Capital Bullets, Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics, Seattle SuperSonics and Detroit Pistons), employing a low-key, laissez-faire approach that won seven division titles, five Eastern Conference titles and two NBA Championships. In recognition of a career that produced more championship rings (eight championship rings as a player, one as an assistant coach with the Lakers, one as an assistant coach with Boston and two as a head coach of the Celtics) than Jones has fingers, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989.
Other coaches joining Jones at this year’s camp will be former NBA All-Star and current Seattle Sonics assistant coach Detlef Schrempf, former General Manager of the New York Knicks and former General Manager and current Utah Jazz assistant coach Scott Layden, Daren Matsubara, President of EBO (Elite Basketball Organization) and one of the top Asian-American coach in the US AAU circuit and lastly Wayne Hall, elite personal trainer of NBA All-Star guard Tracy McGrady.
NBA players attending, coaching and talking about their basketball experiences will be Dwight Howard, the 2004 NBA first overall draft pick of the Orlando Magic. Howard, considered by many in the basketball world as the NBA’s next great player and the future Kevin Garnett. Joining Howard will be TJ Ford, the speedy point guard of the Milwaukee Bucks. After sitting out the 2004-05 NBA season with a serious neck injury, Ford made a remarkable comeback in 2005 to once again show he was one of the leagues most well rounded point guards (was named to the starting line-up for the Sophomore team of the 2006 NBA All-Star T-Moblie Rookie Challenge).
Continuing with the idea of offering more than just outstanding on court teaching, adidas created a series of educational basketball classes. The idea behind these classes is to provide the athlete with on and off court skills needed to be successful at the global game of basketball. The classes started in 2004 with “Basketball English” and then in 2005 with “Basketball Psychology and Attitude” created and taught by NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The 2006 adidas Superstar Camp will feature a course titled “Next Level Fitness,” an initiative created and taught by Wayne Hall. The “Next Level Fitness” classes will cover the importance of taking care of your body through diet and on and off court training.
After the Beijing camp, the adidas Superstar Camp in Atlanta, Georgia, takes place on July July 4-9, the second annual adidas Superstar Camp in Latin America will be held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, from July 19-23 and the final leg of the 2006 camp series will be in Berlin, German, from August 23-27 and will feature players from Europe and Africa. The four camps will feature over 330 of the world’s top young basketball players with some of the finest international coaches and NBA players joining in, making the adidas Superstar Camp series a truly global event.
|