NBA official says TT basketballers have skills

SEVEN young TT basketballers have been selected for an Elite Camp for the opportunity to compete at the NBA Ultimate Experience in October, after showing their skill at the Digicel/NBA Jumpstart Clinic at the Centre of Excellence in Macoya on the weekend.

The camp allowed children between the ages of 12 and 16 to showcase their basketball skills. All the youngsters received certificates of participation with seven advancing to the next stage of competition.

Nickolai Mills, Jelani Blackett, Nwadike Felix, Samuel Waldron and Daniel Constance will be competing in the next phase of the clinic in Trinidad in July.

The two girls chosen for the Elite Camp were Nikiya Baptiste and Breanna Charles.

At the Elite Camp, the seven TT youngsters will compete against finalists from seven other Caribbean countries. Ten basketballers from the Elite Camp will then be selected to attend the NBA Ultimate Experience in October.

Troy Justice, senior director of international basketball operations in the NBA, was impressed with the talent at the clinic but said this is just the start of the journey for them. “We are very excited about the future of TT basketball. There are a lot of athletic kids, they are skilled and they are very smart.

“They need to keep working (because) they got a long way to go; but the great news is that they can get there because they are really skilled and they are really hungry too, so (I am) very proud of these kids this week.”

Justice said the clinic was not just about the basketball skills, but he wanted the participants at the camp to learn life skills as well.

“With the NBA, we really believe in not just basketball, but the values that the game of basketball teaches.

“We have talked the last two days about sportsmanship and teamwork and work ethic and discipline and the value of hard work.

“All of these things have been things that we have been talking to them about, and at the end of day that is really the more important thing than just the game of basketball,” Justice said. Roshawn Campbell, marketing executive at Digicel, felt the company had to get involved in the clinic because of the value of sport for young people.

“Digicel understands the importance of the demographic of youth sports and we see a trend where basketball is really evolving over the past couple of years, and so it was imperative for us to jump on board with the NBA,” Campbell said.