Basketball is a sport that requires a healthy athlete, awareness, power, speed, stamina, endurance, etc. That’s why I attended jr. warriors basketball camp to help develop me and each of these areas. I wanted to be the best that I can be. The one week camp provided food, Gatorade, water, health aid kit, and staff. As soon as I walked in the camp mostly everybody was bigger than me. I was one of the smallest but was one of the top players in the camp.
We started the camp with drills. Left hand and right hand lay ups are a top asset to basketball. So we started off with those and continued on with defensive drills. Once our camp director saw that we put a lot of effort into the drills then he broke us off into teams. With over 100 boys and girls in the camp, ages 7-17, we all just wanted to get on a good team. The division were broken down by ages. Ages 7-9 were the pacific, 10-12 were the eastern division, 13-15 were the western division, 16 and 17 were the superstar division. But sometimes age didn’t matter. If you were good enough to play a higher age they would let you. I was put on a team with a few talented kids to build around me so I could make the team better. I was the team captain, floor general, point guard. With 10 games on are list we had to come together a 1 unit and get to know each other. Getting know each other helped us communicate better on and of the court. It also created friendships outside of camp. As we begin our drills I start to wonder if cousin is coming. I already knew he had signed up for the camp, but didn’t know if he was coming or not. So camp director started the drills without him. “Everybody get in your age groups and meet with your coaches at each basket’’, he said. So I run to the 13-15 year old basket and there my cousin skyler was. “Hey little cousin’’, he said as soon as he saw me.. “How you doing big cousin, I thought you were never going to make it.’’ “Well my mom and I ran into traffic on the way.’’ “At least you made it.’’ “You ready to play?’’ I asked. “Always ready’’ he replied. “Lets dominate this whole camp’’ I said to skyler. “Lets get busy then.’’ he replied. As the drills start skyler and I find out that we are on the same team thru out the whole camp. Now putting skyler and I on the same team was a bad mistake. We are like the best combination together on the basketball court. I was a 5 foot 2 speedy point guard, he was a center 6 foot 4 dominate center. I was a great ball handler, shooter, and passer, he was a dunker, physical around the basket, shot blocker and rebounder. Together we were like Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler(Two NBA All starts). We started off with the two on two drill. The two captains from each team plays two on two to see which teams play first. There were 6 teams overall in our age group, so that meant there was t of us playing for spots to see who went first and last. Skyler and I were the captains of our team, so we played against to other boys from another team. “First team to 5 wins’’ camp director said out loud. “Check ball!’’ I said with powerful voice to the boy that was guarding. I inbound the ball to skyler and he gets straight to the basket for a two hand tomahawk Dunk(two handed reverse dunk). “Somebody better get him off me, he can guard me’’. skyler says, talking trash to the opponent. I Retake the ball out and throw it back to skyler. He gives the ball back to me, now its my turn. My speed and quickness gives me an advantage over the majority of my defenders. Its Rare to find a defender with quick feet that could guard me. So I use my speed to get straight to the basket for a easy lay up. Score is two to zero. All we need is three more points to win. So I start to take the game over and get the last three points. Our team gets the 1st game of the camp. The 1st game was the only game that will be watched by all spectators, including members of the pro team, the golden state warriors. This 1st game meant a lot to my team and I. Everybody was ready too show off their skills and talent to the pros. We actually won the game by a large margin. Myself and skyler had 25 points a piece. The team we played didn’t really give there all. Some people say that they were playing scared. I didn’t really care, my team got the win and I brought my A game. I have a lot of pros approaching me after game telling me I had a great game and I have a bright future in basketball if I work hard and give it my all. “ Hey skyler, did you see Jason Richardson come up to me after the game?” “Yes, Your lucky.” “Yes, I know.” Skyler didn’t really seem so happy about me getting to talk to Jason Richardson and he didn’t. That’s one of his favorite players. I felt kind of bad that he didn’t get to talk him. So I went up to Jason Richardson and asked him can he come back to the championship game if we make it can he come back and watch us play again. I did that so he could come talk to skyler after the game this time. Over the course of the camp we played hard fought games to see who would make it to the championship. Our team only lost 1 game out of 10 games. I averaged close to 20.6 points a game, with 8.5 assist and 5.2 steals. Skyler helped out with 25.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, and 3.7 blocks per game. We paced our way to the final game and took every game one at a time. Our team mates were also making big plays as well.. We played hard, smart and together, to get to this championship. We have to play the best team in the camp. They hadn’t lost a game. They beat us by 3 points in our only meeting against them. This game meant a lot. Before the game started, I told my teammates to go out and give it there all. “This is the last game off the camp guys, just got out there and perform at your highest level”. The game starts, and as I look to the left I see Jason Richardson. Now that should have Skyler ready to give it his all. We start the 1st quarter finding ourselves trailing by 6. Our defense was terrible in that 10 minute quarter. “We need to tighten up on defense, our coach says”. “ Coach maybe we shouldn’t play that tight because this team really isn’t that good at shooting jump shots, I suggested”. “Lets give it a try, he said”. As the 2nd quarter started we came out on fire! Shooting Long range jump shots making 8 out of 9 of them. Then we started to give the ball to Skyler so he could pound the ball down low and takeover. The other team were fouling him every time he got it because he couldn’t be contained. It started to get real close in the 4th quarter with only 2 minutes left. “Get the ball in Rajon’s hands!” Coach yelled. We needed points fast, trailing by 4. So I made a 15 foot jump shoot to cut the league to 2. Skyler gets a steal and dunks the ball with aggressiveness. The game is all tied up. With only 14 seconds left, the other team is wasting time to get the last shot off. Time ticks down. 2 seconds left the shooting guard from the other team takes a deep shot and nails it! Game Over! My team but up there best effort so I couldn’t be mad at all. Skyler had 45 points to lead all scorers the game, and I had 22 points to help out. But that wasn’t enough to get the win. Jason Richardson so how hard we worked and gave the whole team free tickets to go watch the warriors play. Skyler got a Jason Richardson jersey because of his performance. We got something out of the hard work and I had a great experience.