By TENAJH SWEETING

Tribune Sports Reporter

tsweeting@tribunemedia.net

PORTLAND Trail Blazers centre Deandre Ayton is currently at The Bahamas senior men’s national basketball team training camp in Houston, Texas, in preparation for the 2024 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament set to take place in Valencia, Spain, July 2-7.

Before making his journey with the national team on Monday, Ayton engaged with the 50 youth athletes at the Jr NBA clinic hosted by the Bahamas Basketball Federation (BBF) a week ago. 

The 2018 no. 1 NBA draft pick along with men’s national team head coach Chris DeMarco and other officials conducted the clinic at the Kendal GL Isaacs Gymnasium, showing the athletes in attendance the skills needed to get them to the next level of basketball.

The youth had the opportunity to run through shooting and ball-handling drills and were also given tips on how to improve on the defensive end.

The Bahamian big man gave his perspective on the significance of hosting basketball clinics for the potential next generation of ball players.

“It helps them to understand you can be around more great athletes and people on the same level as you from different places…I really want them to understand that basketball can really do a lot for you and your family. I need them to understand that this is just not a sport. This thing is really important if you really take it seriously and you start from now because this is the age I started at,” he said.

Ayton got his initial start with basketball in the fourth grade and he then moved to the United States at age 12 after experiencing a growth spurt.

He attended the Balboa City School in San Diego, California until his junior season when he transferred to the Hillcrest Prep Academy in Phoenix, Arizona.

The post player was a five-star recruit before making the decision to compete for the Arizona Wildcats men’s basketball team and the rest is history.

He shed light on some of his goals while working with the kids at the Jr NBA Clinic.

“Mainly just bringing the NBA here and showing them that it is a possible opportunity for everybody to showcase their talent and bring it to the United States. Knowing that there are women and males here there is a WNBA and NBA so it is just an opportunity for the kids to know that they can do it too. 

“I told them to just get the butterflies out the way, come out here and try to represent yourself and also your country and just have the pride knowing you are from a small place but you can be somewhere big just like where I am at. It is possible for anybody to do it,” he said.

The Jr NBA Clinic certainly made an impact on Zhyon Thompson and Zuri Hanna.

The former attends ISBET Bahamas and he found the experience to be very insightful.

“My experience here was very nice. I had the opportunity to meet new people and learned a lot of new things. I enjoyed myself and saw an NBA player, NBA coach and executive. They told us all the things we are supposed to learn and do if we want to compete at a high level,” he said.

It was a plus for the 15-year-old to brush up on some of his basketball skills. “The new skills I picked up are footwork, ball-handling and a lot of shooting. To sum it up, it was very exciting,” he added. 

Hanna, who attends St John’s College, said Ayton educated the group about the NBA game and gave them good pointers.

“My experience here was very good. It was exciting because I got to learn new stuff and learned how to do them better than I was doing it. I got to work on my shooting skills, layups and my defence. I got to interact with people and it wasn’t too tiring. It was pretty exciting to come here,” she said.

Ayton and national team are gearing up to compete in an Acropolis Tournament in Greece next week and then Bahamas will look to make sporting history at the 2024 FiBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament scheduled for July 2-7.