I have been fortunate to be a skills instructor for the Nike Skills Academies every summer since their inception. While I would like to say that I simply do it for the good of the players and of the game, I have a much more selfish reason to do it as well. I learn a great deal from my fellow instructors and coaches and I love it.
The Nike Skills Academies (the best players from the Paul Pierce, Vince Carter, Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire position academies head to the LeBron James Skills Academy), are great laboratories for thought and the sharing of ideas about the game. There are so many different ways of approaching basketball, and learning the way that others do it and see it is a great education in the game.
Nike has continued to develop what I consider to be a great concept for the development of players during the summer. The Nike Skills Academies have allowed high school players to get high-level instruction and concentrated drill work during two different weeks of the summer, a time that is usually reserved for young players to cement bad habits while playing three or four games in a day. Pete Newell used to say that basketball is over-coached and under-taught. At the Skills Academies, basketball is taught -- and taught very well.
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Jay Bilas
