Crossover Effect
Players are recruited by summer camps as well as colleges and at times are caught in the crossfire of a sneaker rivalry. Bitter feelings exist on both sides of the Adidas-Reebok grass-roots competition, only intensifying the courtship of some players. Said Vaccaro, "It's personal."
Some players plan to attend one camp only to wind up at another. Kalish calls this being "zim-zammed."
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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Adidas expected Eric Wallace, a sophomore standout from Winston-Salem, N.C., to attend its Atlanta camp. But Kalish said Reebok cultivated a relationship with Wallace and those close to the player at a mini-Reebok event the week before. As the Atlanta camp approached, Kalish lost contact with Wallace's people. Eventually, Kalish said, Wallace's summer-league coach simply drove the player north to Reebok's New Jersey camp instead of south to Adidas's.
Also consider Louisiana's Tasmin Mitchell, who played at Reebok camp despite other members of his Adidas-sponsored summer-league team competing at Adidas camp. Mitchell cited his relationship with Vaccaro as key in his decision.
"Do they think they own kids?" Reebok's Chris Rivers said of Adidas. "Tasmin had the right to defend his MVP [earned in 2003]. . . . We build good relationships."
Tennessee's Tyler Smith had played on a Reebok-sponsored Alabama summer-league team, but earlier this year, Kalish said, Adidas began sponsoring the Tennessee Elite, a start-up summer-league team coached by Smith's father. Smith attended Adidas's July camp, irking some at Reebok.
"One camp may have the best players," Adidas representative David Pump said, "but at the end of the day, who's selling the most shoes?"
That would be Nike, considered by many as the most consistently secure brand, which did not appear to squabble over players for its camp this summer as Adidas and Reebok did. Nonetheless, longtime summer basketball organizer Hal Pastner, who has run a variety of Nike-sponsored events, staged a 300-team Las Vegas tournament called the Main Event, competing head-on with Adidas and Reebok Las Vegas events.
"This is not a Nike tournament," Pastner said. "This is a Hal Pastner tournament. I do not work for Nike."
A Swoosh, however, appeared on the front of the media packet. The event's Web site boasted that each participating player receives a Nike-designed tournament T-shirt. And a Nike banner hung beneath the scoreboard at Durango High, the tournament's headquarters. (Pastner said the school is sponsored by Nike.)
One sneaker company was a step, or at least a few hours, ahead of the others. This past Thursday, nearly 100 college coaches attended the first ever Midnight Madness at 12:01 a.m., the start of the latest period in which coaches can evaluate prospects. The event was sponsored by Pangos, a company that was staging its first event before producing its first shoe.
Dinos Trigonis, the event's director, said the motivation behind his midnight event was to give players a stage of their own before the three other tournaments kicked off. "The calm before the storm," Trigonis said.
The event was not entirely calming. A team from New Jersey didn't finish its game until nearly 5 a.m. EDT, after some players had arrived in Las Vegas the same day.
"I've stayed up 24 hours straight," said weary player Matt Honrychs. Asked how long he plans to sleep, the 14-year-old said, "Uh, 'til we have another game."
Said the team's coach, Robert DePersia: "Is it ridiculous? Yes. Is it an opportunity that is priceless, to play in front of these coaches? Absolutely."
That night, after more than an hour of scouting, North Carolina Coach Roy Williams yawned before exiting a gymnasium to a dimly lit parking lot. Williams wasn't bored. It was 1:11 a.m.
"I thought I had seen it all," said Williams, walking briskly to avoid a minor ruckus that ensued among some fans. "I thought we had gone to the limit. It appears that this passes the limit. . . . This was unusual."
