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Yesterday was Draft Day for the basketball league I coach in. Here's my recap of the teams I drafted.

THE CELTICS

My boys team draft got off to a disappointing start when the monster rebounder I had coveted got picked 2 spots ahead of my #5 slot in the first round. With that option taken away we regrouped and grabbed a point guard with our first pick.

JARED - He's young and smallish but comes from a family of point guards. I've already coached two of his brothers as Celtics point guards. He's quick can hit from the perimeter and drive the hoop. He does tend to get down on himself when things aren't going well but we'll work to correct that bad habit.

QUINTIN - He played for me 3 years ago on the winless 5th & 6th grade Catamounts team I coached. He's gotten pretty big now and will be the starting center. He's still tentative offensively but with footwork and close to the basket drills I think he can begin to drop some shots.

BRYCE - He played for my title winning summer team two years ago but was out this past summer with an injury. He's developed into quite a good player as well. He was a bench player for me back then, but now he's got a much better grasp on the game offensively, he's grown physically and isn't afraid to go to the hoop.

CODY - He is going into his third season playing for me. He'll be able to slide back and forth between both guard and forward. He'll play point as the back up to Jared but will see plenty of time. Still needs work on his shot selection but was much improved this past summer with me than 3 years ago.

LATROY - I saw a lot of his games last winter when he was on a really bad team. Yet he still managed to average double figures. He'll be a forward.

RICHARD - I've seen this kid play since the 3rd and 4th grade years and when he takes it, he's got a really sweet shot. He'll be a shooting guard and we'll have to build his game up so that he isn't afraid to pull the trigger when he's got the shot.

PETER - One of the few kids I made any notes about on the draft sheet. He's tall which works because I wanted a backup center, but he's going to need a lot of work to become serviceable on the offensive side of things.

JORDAN - The scouting report on him is that he can really get after it defensively and will hit the occasional shot. Works for me.

KYLE - He played for me this past summer and started to come around later in the season. We'll be looking to continue to improve his playing ability.

BRYCE - The second Bryce on the team. He's going to see time at guard and I'm hoping that he'll be able to provide solid defense.

One of the other coaches in the division said that I have probably the most well-rounded team overall.

THE SHOCK

This was a very interesting draft. I got an email from a coach asking me to try to get his daughter the day before the draft because he thought she'd benefit a lot from playing for me. After the evaluation period ended on Saturday I had a mother hand me a note from her and another mother asking me to pick their daughters. Unfortunately I was only able to get 1 of the 3 girls, but I think the team will come together nicely.

Jowaun was there to watch the players and in the draft room. He played a big role in the construction of the team.

ALLISON - When the guy who had the #1 pick changed his mind about who he was going to take, I snapped up his original choice. She's a complimentary scorer and a good defender. That's a break from my usual draft strategy but one I think that will be worth it. She'll start at the point.

DAJIA - I wasn't sure about taking her because of her seeming fragility (2-3 times a game when I've seen her, she's on the floor having hurt herself) but between Jowaun saying we can toughen her up and having seen her hit shot after shot this summer, it's a gamble with a big upside. She can play some center but I would expect to get more time for her at one of the forward spots.

JACKIE - She played for me this past summer and her mother has said that I'm the best coach she's ever had because I demand her best each and every time. She can switch between center and forward depending on the needs of the game.

JOCELYN - This will be her 4th season playing for me and she is the one player on the team that fully buys into my "Bad Girls" defense and performs it at a high level. She's a rookie in the older division but if she can maintain the same level of defensive intensity she'll continue to see plenty of time at the guard spot.

RAE-LYN - Another older division rookie she played on the team that lost to my younger division team last year in the Finals. She's raw but has size and I think that we can develop her into a solid small forward.

AUTUMN - She played for me for 2 summers, including the undefeated championship team two years ago. She missed signups this past summer and I thought she had gone onto high school. Luckily for me she was actually going into her last year of junior high. She hates the spotlight like you wouldn't believe but she can go out and rebound big time. She also can score when she sets her mind to. Likely a small forward.

OLIVIA - She will be a center and I'm looking for her to help shore up the defensive post play.

SARAH - She played for me in last year's All-Star game and I was pretty pleased to see her hustle like I hadn't seen her do in the regular games. She was the one girl I was asked to draft that I was able to get. She'll likely be more of a defensive specialist at the guard spot.

SIERRA - Autumn's sister, she'll be in her 2nd season with me. She'll hit a bucket here and there but will also likely be focused on the defensive side of the ball.

BRIANNA - She'll be a guard. We'll have a lot of work to do with her in the preseason to get her ready. But she will be ready to make contributions, mark my words.

I'm pretty defensively focused with my girls teams and this team will be no exception. Our offensive attack might be a work in progress but we do have time to build it up. I was pleased with the draft overall and I'm looking forward to starting up with both teams when we open practice on Wednesday.

Sounds promising!

Had the first practices last night. Both went okay but we've got a bunch of work to do particularly with the girls team.

Well, we are back in action with the youth basketball season. This essentially means my free time is shot to hell.

A brief recap of my responsibilities:

1. I'm the president of the winter program.

2. I handle the public relations with the three local newspapers.

3. I write the email newsletter for the league.

5. I maintain the league scorebooks.

6. Oh yeah, I coach two teams as well.

I'm also at every game day/night, which was interesting this week because I came down with a case of food poisoning on Wednesday. I had to leave my real job on the day, but still had to get to the gym that night since I was coaching the last of the three games.

Now let's get to the look at my teams through the first two games.



My girls team is called the Shock. We're in Division 1, which is made up of 6th - 8th grade girls.

It's my first year coaching in D1 Girls in the winter league after 4 previous seasons (3 summer, 1 winter) coaching in the girls program.

My assistant coach is Jowaun. He's a former player of mine on the Celtics summer league championship league team of 2007. He made the JV squad for the high school team this year.

As for the girls on the team, it has been a trying experience so far.

We had scrimmages 3 weeks ago and we won the first one but lost the second one by the same 8-2 score.

Watching the scrimmages after 3 weeks of practices showed that we are definitely going to have to win games with our defense. Our offense is pretty hit and miss and the first two games of the regular season only served to confirm that.

Game 1 was against the Mercury. We were down by 4 at the half and ended up losing 24-18 in the end. Game 2 was against the Sun and we lost 13-12 in that game. That was a brutally ugly game to say the least.

We are on holiday break now but when we come back and get practice, we're going to really have to bear down because we are definitely NOT where I want to be. I'm picking up another assistant coach. Naomi was a player in the league and played in high school.

As for the players individually:

Allison - She's been everything I could have asked for. She's been the only real consistent threat to score and has gotten to the free throw line a ton. She had 7 points in game 1 and 9 points in game 2. She does have a tendency to control the ball a bit more than she should, but right now my team is short another quality ball handler so it kind of has to be that way. Despite the game 1 loss I was very pleased with how she played and told her. Apparently she was happy to hear that because when I told her mom the same thing, she had said that Allison had been very excited about my praise to her.

Jackie - Another player who's done everything I've asked of her. She's been the secondary ball handler when I've had to give Allison a break despite the fact that she's more of a small forward. She had 2 points in the 2nd game and has been solid defensively.

Dajia - Right now, I'm dealing with Dajia's attitude. She's got all the talent in the world but lets outside forces affect her game and mindset. Got mad because of her mom saying stuff to her during game 2. I had to take her out another time during that game because she was crying about the uniform jerseys. She led the team in scoring in game 1 with 8 pts but had just 1 pt in game 2. And when I took her out that second time, she started complaining and I'm going to have to get that stuff stopped when we come back together as a team.

Brianna - Brianna doesn't pay attention and on the court looks like she could care less. One of my rules is when you are on the bench, don't ask me when you are going back in. If you do, you keep sitting. The entire second half of game 2 she kept asking after I took her out after starting her. So she never went back in.

Olivia - She was supposed to be my center but right now, I've had to take her out of the starting lineup and play others more minutes because for whatever reason, she plays like she is afraid. In practice she is inquisitive, she wants to know what she is expected to do. I'm glad about that, but then she gets nervous before games and regresses. I need to build up her confidence so she can start playing. I'm looking to develop her post up game so we can feed her in the post.

Sarah - Right now, Sarah is getting a bit lost in the shuffle. She does a good job in practice and is doing what I ask her to do, but in trying to win games I also need to put more offensively inclined players on the floor and unfortunately that cuts into available minutes for her. I'm going to have to work more with her in practice on her offense so I can put her in the game more.

Autumn and Sierra - The sisters have had issues with being at practice and games on time, but when they do get there, they have been very good. Autumn is older and when the Mercury were double teaming Allison in game 1, she became the outlet to inbound the ball to. She had 2 points in game 1 and has been one of our better rebounders. Sierra has taken some shots that haven't fallen but she's been very aggressive on both sides of the ball. I'm pretty pleased with how she's doing so far.

Rae-Lyn - She's young but has good size for a 6th grader. I wanted to put her at forward but with all my issues with the center spot, I've been putting her there. She's not going to dominate as a 6th grader but she has been doing her job. I'm going to have to work more with her to give us another low post option.

Jocelyn - She's in her 4th season with me. She's small but almost as aggressively competitive as me. She's been my best defensive player so far, and the only one that has set picks properly. She hasn't scored yet but that will come. I don't play favorites with my team, but Jocelyn sure does resemble every quality I want in my players.

We don't have another game until January 12th so I'm hoping that we can get our act together and get things sorted out to get a win.



My boys team is the Celtics. We are in Division 1 Boys which is 7th and 8th grade boys. I've been coaching the older boys since I started coaching in 1986.

My assistants are Gary and Mike. Gary and I have been coaching together off and on for 10 years. Heck, he was an assistant coach when I was a player on his team the Rockets. Mike played for me for 2 seasons and has coached with me for 5 seasons plus.

The boys so far have been an interesting mix.

Practices have been generally smooth and consistent. Our two scrimmages were challenging. We were smooth offensively but to be honest we STUNK defensively. We lost both scrimmages 14-11.

We opened the season against the Nets and we couldn't have been worse. We only lost 39-32 but we were horrible defensively. My thing is defense and I get really irritated when we look lost on that side of the ball. The Nets leading scorer in the game torched us for 19 points and he's their DEFENSIVE specialist!

In practice before Game 2, we spent the majority of time going over defense. In our league, there aren't enough good three point shooters to play man to man exclusively so we stick to zone defense a lot. We worked it over and over again with all the players.

It seemed to pay off because Game 2 against the Cavaliers was a 42-23 blowout victory, keyed by our aggressive defense. We're 1-1 and play our next game on January 3rd.

As for the players:

Jared - He's the 5th member of his family to play for me. He's the point guard and does a good job when he keeps his head up to see the floor in front of him. His defense is excellent when he's focused. He does get down on himself when things aren't going well but I'm working with him on that. He's had 17 points combined in the two games.

Quintin - At 6-2, he has the size to dominate. In game 1 he had 9 points to lead the scoring but it was frustrating because he could've had so much more if he shot the ball better. He blew 3 easy bunnies by hitting the side of the rim on layup drives. Not something you want to see from someone his size. In game 2 he had 9 points again, but he had an outstanding game. We posted him up and he dominated inside. I was very pleased with his effort and improvement in that game. This is his second season playing with me and if we can keep feeding him down low, there's not many who can stop him.

Bryce #1 - Bryce played for me on a summer league title team and is back with me this year as a very different player. He didn't see a lot of time on that other team, but now is a major factor in my rotation. He's had 5 points in each game choosing his spots far better than he did during the scrimmages. In game 2 he was a big presence defensively.

Cody - His third year with me. He still goes too fast, but he's been doing everything I ask of him. He's playing down low as a forward and playing both guard spots when I need him there. He's scored 9 points and in game 2 he was all over the place defensively. I don't keep track of steals, but in that game he had to have had at least 10. If he ever harnesses his speed, he'll be darn near unstoppable.

Latroy - I watched him as the leading scorer of the team he was on last year. I know he can score but he's been working hard defensively too. He can hit the outside shot and play close to the basket. Late in Game 2, I even tried using a double post option with him and Quintin.

Richie - Been a fan of his since I saw him take a gutty three point shot in 4th grade to win the only game his team would win that year. He's getting limited minutes right now (more in the game 2 blowout though) but he can shoot. He had his first basket in Game 2.

Bryce #2 - He missed game 1 but had a good game 2. I was worried that he would be a liability because he is so quiet in practice and looks at you like he has no idea what you are saying. It must just be his way because he did a good job in Game 2 and drained a 15 foot jumper.

Jordan - A good defender but I'm still trying to figure out how to get him more involved in the game.

Peter - He's a newbie and we've been working really hard with him because he's the back up center. He's made some big mistakes that we've gotten on him for but he takes the criticism and instruction and works that much harder. He usually doesn't make the same mistake twice. He hurt his ankle before Game 2 and while he did play in the 1st half, I had to bench him for the second half because it started hurting again. I like the kid and really hope I can improve his game by the end of the season.

Kyle - It's his second year with me and while he's probably not going to be an offensive factor, he is the only one who played great defense in the first game. He's stopping drives, boxing out and rebounding. As important he's remembering (for the most part) to give the ball off to the point guard after the rebound. I've praised him for his defense after both games.

So that's where we are right now. We're a work in progress with both teams but we've got the potential. We just have to let that potential become reality.

Good luck with both your teams and with everything else, too! That seems like a lot of responsibilities you have there and I couldn't imagine keeping up with it all.

Thanks GQ.

It's a tough job to try and keep everything running smoothly.

I've gone from a benchwarming player to the boss of the program...not bad eh?

Not bad at all! Best of luck with keeping it all flowing smoothly.

Greetings everyone!

Well we are finally back in action with the basketball league. We got snowed out on the last two dates of our 2008 portion of the schedule.

Only my boys team, the Celtics were in action this past Saturday.

Before the game I asked the kids if they had a good holiday break and they all said "Yes". I followed that up with "Good...break's over, time to get back to work."

Apparently I must've said it in some language I didn't know I spoke because we didn't play well at all. Both teams showed a large ration of rust on their games due to the long break between games but the Bulls managed to shake enough of it off to play better than we did.

We were down 17-11 at halftime and that was only after we hit a couple of shots right near the end of the half. We made some adjustments during halftime and came out for the second half. We went on a 5-0 run to start the half and cut the lead to 1 point. But that was as close as we got as the Bulls kept hitting shots and we went cold.

They are the best 3 point shooting team in the division but we gave up only 1 trey to them all game long and actually hit four of our own from long range.

The problem for us was our defense. We were terrible with our low post defense the entire game and the Bulls big men got rebound after rebound after their own missed shots. We ended up losing 41-29.

We're now 1-2 on the season.

My point guard Jared and my center Quintin had awful games. While Jared did okay distributing the ball and had a couple of great assists, he couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat with his shots. Quintin meanwhile played like he was half asleep. We couldn't get him to post up on the blocks most of the time and the few times he did, the guards didn't pass it to him.

Big Bryce and Latroy did well offensively with 9 and 11 points respectively. Bryce's defense was lacking a bit because he kept getting out of position (a theme that carried over to pretty much everybody). Latroy might as well have been watching the game on TV the way he played defensively.

Richie was solid and scored a basket, I still am working on a better rotation to get him some more playing time though.

Kyle had one sequence offensively where he was super aggressive but otherwise his head was just not in the game.

Peter was killing me. Argghh! He gets in position to make a play and then he hesitates and loses the moment. I keep stressing to him that he needs to make his decision and then DO IT, but he gets nervous or something and the opportunity disappears.

Jordan and Little Bryce had a couple of individual defense moments but otherwise not much coming from them right now. They both got off a shot apiece but they didn't fall.

Cody was the only one that really played a solid game all the way around. He had 5 points in the game and continued to do a bang up job defensively, he's accounting for a lot of our steals and in this game he had most of them I believe.

We've got practice in a couple of days so I'm hoping when we get to work at the practice we can get things straightened out because we played like crap for most of the game and we can't afford to do that.

The one thing I need to improve on is our rotation. We need to split up the subs a bit better so that we have the better players on the floor more often while still satisfying the playing time rules.