4th of July

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Happy 4th Of July. . . Now Get Ready
For The Endurance Test--(July 5, 1999)

In case you hadn't noticed, we took a couple of days off. Watched a lot of hoops, including almost all the playoff games at the War on the Floor on Friday and Saturday. And then in honor of the holiday, we decided to do absolutely nothing. Well, not nothing. . . Went for a long road ride from Sherman Oaks to San Dimas ala' Lance Armstrong (who is still in the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. . . which is, next to the World Cup, probably more popular around the world than the NBA--yes, we know that sounds like heresy, but it's true), and then did the Raging Waters thing with the family. Later we all ended up over at Dana Pump's house for a 4th of July party, with some of the new Pepperdine coaching staff, a bunch of other coaches who were all in town with their wives and families, listened to Bob Gottlieb extol the virtues and benefits of Marv Marinovich, and watched Dave Hopla get ready for his shooting clinic at CSU Dominguez Hills, which is actually today (July 5) and not tomorrow as had been originally announced. . . . Hopla is pretty amazing, and he (almost) never misses. He'll be doing shooting stations at the first week of West Coast All-Stars and then some speaking and demonstrating for the players this week, so if you've never seen him, be sure to come out and watch because he's just amazing with the ball. After that, family and friends all went over to the CBS Studios' lot in Studio City, where we hung with about 5,000 of our closest neighbors and saw a great fireworks show, and then hopped over to Jerry's Deli in Studio City for dinner and bowling. We avoided answering e-mail, didn't write anything, and for at least a day (other than the little Hopla exhibition), didn't really think much about hoops.

All in all, it was a great way to recharge our batteries and get ready for the onslaught that starts this week with the beginning of the July "open exposure" period which starts, at least here in SoCal on Wednesday, July 7 with the first session of the Double Pump West Coast All-Stars. In the midwest it will be the Nike Camp, and in the East it's adidas ABCD camp. Then throughout July, we'll be attending the second session of West Coast All-Stars, which coincides with the Rim Rattler Camp, and we might even make it to San Diego Superstar camp for a day, and then it's off to Vegas for the adidas Big Time tournament, then back to CSUDH for the Best of Summer, CSULB for the Slam N Jam NIT, and Cypress for the Summer Showdown. Then it's San Diego, Vegas again, and the Bay Area for the "Great 8" tournament. And in between there are a few other high school tournaments, more high school summer leagues, and the assorted recruiting stuff that all this entails. We'll try to continue posting articles, player evaluations, and other reports and schedules on a daily basis, but if we're a bit late from time to time, don't freak out. . . .just be patient.

We hope everyone had (and is still having) a great holiday. Rest up, relax, and recharge. Because it's a long, hot summer, and you'll need to pace yourselves. We know that we will.

Stay tuned.