With a light schedule this week, let's get in some summer news. First, the Reebok Summer Championships (the big Reebok event during the big Las Vegas recruiting period) is shutting down, combine that with the down turn of the Main Event and the Adidas Super 64 looks to expand. Plenty of our local top teams (43 Hoops and MN Pump N Run to name 2) play in that.
As to Nike, very interesting. They've picked up the Wisconsin Playground Warriors, the top program in Wisconsin. Hopefully that brings them here for the Howard Pulley Invite in May.
In the biggest change of summer, Nike is going to the Nike Youth Basketball League (read more here). The idea is to make games for the 42 Nike programs more meaningful (i.e eliminate those first 3 pool play blowouts for many of these teams before they get to the real games in bracket play). It also is to focus much more on player development which is a Nike strength anyway with guys like Ganon Baker (great development videos, get them, the enthusiasm is awesome) and all their skills camps by 1 name guys like Amare, Vinsanity etc.
Lots of details yet to emerge on this but the impact it has over the long haul could be very interesting. Nike is one of the few organizations with the power to affect change on the game so I'm looking forward to see how this pans out. With the 4 big events, what does this mean for events like the St. Louis Eagles and Sabes Invitiationals which are events for the individual teams? Stay tuned
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