"They go after pros," said Daren Kalish, Adidas's sports marketing manager. "That has to do, I think, with representation. This [Adidas] is about the brand I work for and exposure. We want to be relevant to the baller [high school player], the consumer."
Adidas not only retained a number of the most influential summer-league coaches but extended their contracts, said Kalish, who believes the power of many can be greater than that of one, namely Vaccaro.
Former Oak Hill Academy star Josh Smith says summer camps are more important than high school season because of who gets to see you play.
(Chris Howell -- Bloomington Herald-times Via AP)
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_____Hoops Scoop_____
Every year, there's a story behind the story at summer camps.
2004
Juniors Greg Oden and Derrick Caracter go head-to-head at Reebok ABCD camp, with experts giving Round 1 to Caracter. The two could go 1-2 in the 2006 NBA draft.
2003
Several Adidas players consider the high school-to-NBA jump, most notably Dwight Howard, the eventual No. 1 pick in the 2004 draft, and Dorell Wright, a sleeper who is compared to Tracy McGrady.
2002
Adidas holds a news conference for an injured LeBron James, who cuts his college list to five. One college assistant said, "Yeah, just great," knowing James will never play college basketball.
2001
James, a junior, outplays top senior Lenny Cooke to cement his status as the best player still in high school.
2000
A thin kid who just completed middle school finagles his way into Adidas camp and holds his own against seniors. His name? Sebastian Telfair, the New York guard selected in the first round of the 2004 draft who recently signed a multimillion dollar Adidas shoe contract.
-- Eric Prisbell
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"What Nike went through 10 years ago, that's what we're going through," Kalish said. "Eventually people will say it's not the man."
Because Adidas staged its own July camp outside Atlanta as well as a 100-team Las Vegas tournament, more players competed and were scouted this summer. That presented a challenge to college coaches visiting Las Vegas, where game sites at times were an hour apart at local high schools. The University of Nevada staff, for example, spent more than six hours mapping out the logistics of hop-scotching around the area to see targeted recruits.
Proponents, though, cite increased participation as a positive. "Two hundred more kids get to go to camp who wouldn't have," said Memphis Coach John Calipari, who attended all three early July camps. "Anything for inclusion, that gets more kids involved, I'm for. Yeah, the top 100 guys might not play against one another as much; yeah, it might cause us to travel more; but 200 kids get an opportunity."
Former Duke guard Bobby Hurley, now a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, remembered when he was in high school playing in a camp in Princeton, N.J., because there was no other. Hurley believes scouts' attendance at the camps "sends the wrong message to the kids," but scouts need to attend because failing to do so would put them at a competitive disadvantage.
The camps are vital to players' success, as well. Former Nevada standout Kirk Snyder is an exception, someone who made the NBA without competing in a major camp. Snyder said he was invited to Nike's camp but did not attend because his mother needed him to stay home and care for his sister. Partially as a result, Snyder received far less attention than his peers, many of whom were hyped since middle school. Only after leading Nevada to a surprising run in this past spring's NCAA tournament did Snyder begin to emerge from obscurity. The Utah Jazz made him the 16th overall pick in June's NBA draft.
Josh Smith, who was drafted straight from high school by the Atlanta Hawks in June, said camps are more important than the high school season because of who gets to see you play, namely college coaches and pro scouts.
But George Karl, the former NBA coach who addressed the players at Adidas camp, said he has trouble accurately evaluating talent in such a setting. "I'm not sure I understand" the camps, he said as his eyes bounced between two courts. "The games are [not good]. It's guard-dominated."
Several incidents also illustrated just how far beyond the NCAA's reach the camps exist.
At Adidas, one guest speaker was Jim Harrick, the former UCLA and Georgia coach who was dismissed in 2003 amid an academic fraud scandal in which he was not implicated. An Adidas staff member introduced Harrick to the players as a man of "character and integrity." He received a standing ovation.
Harrick also coached a team in the camp. At Reebok, one all-star team was coached by Bill Bayno, the former UNLV coach who was fired after the school was placed on probation because of recruiting violations.
All players at Adidas camp watched an NCAA-mandated video, hosted by analyst Dick Vitale, that spoke about the "purity" of the college game and addressed issues such as drugs, betting, agents and recruiting rules.
One segment detailed when coaches are permitted to call recruits. For example, the video explained, coaches may call only a certain number of times during certain months. "Tell them that then," one player hollered, prompting laughter from others. "For real, they don't stop calling."
