Thanks to True Hoop, I came across this article from the City Paper. net on a former Temple basketball player waiting for the draft. Just goes to show what a little dedication, hard work and persistence can do for a player.
If Dionte Christmas doesn’t make an NBA team, it won’t be the first time he hasn’t made the cut. When he was 13, he couldn’t even make the Oak Lane Wildcats.
I love stories on players being cut only to work their tails off to bounce back and turn into a very good player. It takes a special person to accept rejection and get back after it.
For most kids that age, being told they weren’t as good as their friends would have been enough to put an early end to their career. For Dionte it was motivation. He gave up video games and started coming to practice early every day, to get in more jump shots. The next year he made the team.
Love the commitment! Dionte gave up video games! How about showing up to practice early! Don’t be on time, be early!
By the time he was 15, he had improved enough to meetJohn Hardnett, the Philly basketball guru. Hardnett, Sonny Hill’s heir apparent, mentors nearly every good-to-great player growing up in Philadelphia. His workouts are the stuff of city legend, frequented by pros from across the country, and always provide a chance for local preps to show and prove. Christmas was just barely good enough to get into the gym. “At that particular time he was not a very good basketball player,” Hardnett remembers. “He wasn’t a guy you imagined to be where he is now.” He was, Coach Hardnett says, “an average basketball player.”
Partly this was because Christmas wasn’t an exceptional natural athlete. But what he lacked in athleticism he made up for in time on the court. Inspired by seeing pros like Aaron McKie, Cat Mobley and Alvin Williams up close, Dionte became a gym rat. “I threw my older guys at him and suddenly he was always the first one in gym,” Hardnett remembers. “Once he met those guys, I never had to say anything to him,” his father agrees.
On Fridays, Hardnett used to run workouts at Mallery playground in Mount Airy until almost 11 at night, and then hold practices the next morning at 9. For most players, the regime was almost impossible. “Dionte was always there at 8:30,” Hardnett remembers, “shooting.”
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
Tags: basketball, College, Draft, Hard Work, John Hardnett, NBA, Sonny Hill, Sports, Temple, Training, Workouts
