Start 2025 off right with a limited-time offer: Get access to my full basketball training program for just $99 for the YEAR (usually $25/month) — that's over 50% OFF! 🔥🔥
👇 Click this link to get started!
https://t.co/UnB3DSjhdC
Bro he’s Anthony Davis size moving like this!!!
Don’t let someone being coachable & buying into a college system lead you wrong!!
Chris Cenac Jr is like that!! 📈
NBA Pre-Draft work with Chris Cenac Jr.
June 23rd is right around the corner.
At this stage, every detail counts — movement quality, processing speed, physicality, pace, and the ability to translate skill into NBA possessions.
@chriscenacjr
Keldon Johnson on his role with the @spurs: “I remember a couple years ago, I had a hard conversation with Pop. One morning, we were getting ready to play Dallas, and he pulled me to the side and told me that he thought it would be best for the team if I started coming off the bench. I said, ‘Yeah, of course. Whatever’s best for the team, I’ll do it.’ And I truly meant that, too.
But I’m also just human, man. And I was like 24 years old. If I said that I fully bought into this role from the jump, I’d be lying. I had averaged 22 points in the NBA. I’d won a gold medal with Team USA at the Olympics. So I just didn’t understand. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. And ultimately, I didn’t take it well. I sulked. I let the outside noise affect my play. I didn’t present the best version of myself as I was coming off the bench for the rest of that season. And I knew that I was much better than that.
I’ve been reflecting on that part of my journey a lot lately, with the position we’re in right now.
To backtrack a little bit…. When I was drafted in 2019, that was probably one of the most stressful nights of my life. I’d had a great year at Kentucky, and I thought I was going 9 or 10. In my mind, my floor was 15 to Detroit. The crazy thing is, I didn’t even work out for San Antonio. We talked a little bit on FaceTime, but I honestly didn’t think I’d still be on the board at 19 when the Spurs picked. Definitely not at 29, where I ended up going. I don’t know why I slipped so much, but thank God I did, because I landed at a proven organization with vets who could mold me.
That situation could have gone one of two ways. Thankfully, it went the good way.
Dejounte was young, too, but he knew the ropes better than me, and he made sure that I did everything the right way. I can’t thank him enough to this day for how much he’s helped my career. Same thing with DeMar DeRozan. Those guys really embraced me and took me under their wing as a young guy, and showed me how it was done. I feel like I had such a great group of vets, whether it was LaMarcus Aldridge, Patty Mills, Rudy Gay — all those guys went out their way to make sure I was solid. I feel like they knew how good I could be before I even knew how good I could be. They didn’t let me skip any steps, which was huge for my career early on.
And yeah, fast-forward to summer 2024, and I got to thinking back on my first couple years here in San Antonio, and how I could get that spark back, get back to being me. That’s when I started to see the bigger picture. We had picks. There were all these signs that we were building something that was gonna be special, all these bright green flags.
But there was this one red flag.
Me.
In that moment, I had to take a hard look in the mirror. And man, I just got embarrassed. I hated that feeling — the feeling that I had let my vets down, and especially let my younger teammates down.
This organization believed in me since day one, when Pop and our GM at the time R.C. Buford took a leap of faith on a player who was sliding in the draft and didn’t even have a workout at their facility. They had a plan, and I was a big piece of that plan. I just needed to get out of my own way. Period.
I knew that I could either be the person who tries to fight the change, who makes it about them and their ego, and tries to do everything their way (which never really works). Or, I could trust the process. And the Spurs never gave me a reason not to trust it. So I bought into my role, and I put my best foot forward each and every night. Whatever I had to do to be the best version of myself, I did it. And I feel like this season has been a testament to that.
I’m just really at home here. I think that’s probably obvious, right? The cowboy hat isn’t a gimmick. San Antonio is all me. Being a country boy, that’s just a part of who I am. From Huntington Prep to Oak Hill Academy to Kentucky, I feel like I just carried that country boy vibe with me everywhere I went.” https://t.co/WnVP4cXPll
The Portland Trail Blazers season ended 13 days ago & Rob Williams III is already back in the gym ready to make the most of the off-season. @rob_williamsIII@trailblazers
@JJWise27 is as lethal as they come from outside for @teamsippunited.
Gets to the rim at will, demanding a double everytime the ball is in his hands.
There’s no wonder he gets the attention he does at the next level.
Congratulations to former @memgrizz Assistant Coach Joe Boylan on publishing a recent article in @TheAthletic highlighting how the rise of basketball analytics has had a major impact on the intellectual shift in sports history.
Read how Boylan’s evaluation of the analytics revolution in basketball is an important tool to measure performance and optimize decisions but it comes with a limitation, a player’s full impact is not always reflected in the box score. His coaching philosophy reflects that a balance of the use of data as a measurement or goal and your instinct gives you a competitive advantage in today’s game.
Keep up the great work Coach!
Click the link below to read the full article.
https://t.co/CIEanwAmm4
*Photo credit: The Athletic
Highest TS% by players off the bench since the ASB (min. 80 FGA)
69.0 - Collin Sexton
68.9 - Micah Potter
67.7 - Luke Kennard
67.2 - Gary Payton II
65.3 - Kobe Brown
65.2 - Brandon Williams
64.3 - Zaccharie Risacher
63.8 - Dylan Harper
63.8 - Taylor Hendricks
63.8 - Anthony Gill
19 years ago, a high school basketball coach put his team manager into a game for the final four minutes. The kid had never played a single minute of competitive basketball in his life. He scored 20 points.
Jason McElwain was diagnosed with severe autism at age two. He didn’t speak until he was five. He couldn’t chew solid food until he was six. He wore a nappy for most of his early childhood. As a baby, he was rigid, wouldn’t make eye contact, and hid in corners away from other children.
He tried out for his school basketball team every year and got cut every time. Too small. Too slight. Barely 5’6 and about 54 kilograms. But he loved the game so much that his mum called the school and asked if there was any way he could be involved. The coach created a team manager role for him. For three years, McElwain showed up to every practice and every game. He wore a shirt and tie on match days. He ran drills, handed out water, kept stats, and cheered every basket like he’d scored it himself.
On 15 February 2006, the last home game of his final school year, the coach let him suit up in a proper jersey and sit on the bench. With four minutes left and a comfortable lead, the coach sent him in.
His first shot missed. His second missed. Then something shifted.
He hit a three-pointer. Then another. Then another. His teammates stopped shooting entirely and just kept passing him the ball. He hit six three-pointers and a two-pointer. 20 points in four minutes. The highest scorer in the game. When the final buzzer went, the entire crowd rushed the court and lifted him onto their shoulders.
His mum tapped the coach on the shoulder, in tears. “This is the nicest gift you could have ever given my son.”
McElwain won the ESPY Award for Best Moment in Sports that year, beating out some of the biggest names in professional sport. He’s 36 now. He works at a local supermarket, coaches basketball, has run 17 marathons including five Boston Marathons, and travels the country speaking about never giving up.
When asked about that night, his coach still gets emotional. “For him to come in and seize the moment like he did was certainly more than I ever expected. I was an emotional wreck.”