Ben: Its our pleasure, you are getting advice from some of the best and most experienced minds in the game. The coaches you recently heard from. I have come to admire and respect,not only for their advice but their dedication to this game and this blog site. Try to find an N.B.A. coach or a high profiled N.C.A.A. coach that will give you the advice these coaches give you and they do it for the love of the game not for the love of the dollar. Best of luck son Coach Mac

Some thoughts from Steve Nash -

Steve Nash Advice for Point Guards
Words of wisdom for point guards (presented by Steve Nash at the Nike Point Guard Academy

“You should always want your coach to be critical. It gives you an opportunity to learn and to overcome adversity.”

“You maximize your potential by being humble develop a work ethic, strive to be a good person, and to be the best teammate you can be.”

“Use your scoring ability to be a better passer, and your passing skills to become a better scorer.”

“You can’t be a point guard who gets into the lane and always passes. Capitalize on the real estate you have gained.”

“Point Guard must be able to pass with both hands equally off the dribble.”

‘”I am always thinking how can I get myself better.”

“On the fast break, after 2 or 3 hard dribbles you should see the whole floor and know where all your teammates are.”

Its not difficult to see why Steve is a two time Most Valuable Player in the best professional league on the planet. Coach Mac

Ben,

You couldn't have picked out a better player to pattern yourself after.

Ben,

I got this from a coach in Italy.... watch #9, Ricky Rubio.... here is a guy that knows how to make his teammates better. HE IS the real deal, he can really play!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh6jgHlsumU
Last Tuesday, I gave a big buildup to the game in Barcelona on Thursday: FC Barcelona vs. Mens Sana Siena (Italy). Now, in a game last November, Barça beat Mens Sana in Siena by 19 points, 84-65. No one could believe a team could hold Siena to 65 points on its home court, as Siena has a great team: together 3-4 years, same coaching staff for four years, eight deadly shooters, able and willing passers. So, I thought Siena had a slim chance to win this 'return match' in Barcelona. Well, chalk up another prediction misfire for yours truly, as Barcelona won this game, dominating from start to finish. The final score was 85-70 and that pretty much says it all.


The MVP of the game, and the Euroleague's MVP of the week was Ricky Rubio. People like stats. I'm not into stats that much but some might say, "Hey, the guy only scored 14 points and only made two baskets in the game." No question about it: He only scored those 14 points. He also had three rebounds, four steals, 10 assists and a +33 overall ranking on the European evaluation system. He just broke Siena's back, as he had done earlier. Then, like Pete Maravich, he broke a trap, went behind his back, into the lane, between his legs and then fired a behind-the-back pass to a guy in the left corner for a three. I'm sorry, but this guy is simply on another planet.


<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh6jgHlsumU>. Here is a 10 minutes YouTube clip of his highlights in this game. He's Number 9. The TV commentators are speaking in Catalan dialect. I'm fluent in Spanish but I cannot grasp a single word of Catalan. Another language. In any event, you can see him and some of the other Barcelona players, like Boniface Ndong, who got in foul trouble early, like Fran Vazquez, who was the 11th guy taken by Orlando a couple of years ago, like Juan Carlos Navarro, who played with the Memphis Grizzlies, like Pete Mikael, who has been talked about as a possible NBA prospect. They go 12 deep and they can all play.

thanks coach sars .

I noticed that Rubio always is doing something in the play whether its on off ense or defence.

I took one of the moves he did at 7:35 on the video.

Ben -

Ricky is non stop motion - you are right... he is ALWAYS doing something... looking for steals... pushing the ball, making all kinds of unbelievable moves. Did you notice how much energy he brings to the team? The rest of those guys play HARD because they all know that he will try to get them the ball IF they run the floor and make themselves available.

There are several videos of him... I think the one move that amazed me was going behind his back with the ball bringing it back to the front and then making a behind the back pass to his teammates.

He does some amazing things to set up his teammates.... and you can tell that they love and appreciate this kid / young man.
( I think hes 18?) A kid to them I would imagine. I am looking forward to the day that he comes to the NBA... and I hope the Chicago Bulls get him.... HE could play for me anytime... AND -- IF you can make moves like that so can you. You have a great work ethic - I think that if you continue this way - you will be successful at whatever you decide to do.

The coach that sent me this is a brother of an old friend of mine and he went to Italy to coach, his name is Dan Peterson if you ever want to look that up.

Here is one of the by-products of this great game.... I got to meet a lot of coaches from all over the world because of this site and the coaches group I belong to. (via the internet) What a great game - I'm going to meet one in Hawaii this summer. I've met several of them in person... we traded a few ideas here and there... As you get older you will network with a lot of people that can help you with different things.

Keep up the good work Ben and good luck with your season, by the way, how is it going?

By the way Ben,

Ricky Rubio was drafted in the NBA

He was taken at No. 5 in the 2009 Draft, by Minnesota.
He did not want to play in frozen Minnesota on a bad
team. He signed with sunny Barcelona, his home town
team for two years.

Just thought you might want to know that...

I did here about him being drafted. I thought He was going to be homesick or soething like that.

But I do have a game today so I'll post the summary.

I also noticed Navarro was a good player.