XIX USA Basketball camp – BCN – Easter’24

The XIX USA Basketball Camp Easter Week in Barcelona has come to an end leaving our young players from no less than 13 different nationalities with great vibes and lots of enthusiasm.
Once again, our technical team, led by our Head Coach David King, designed a program that required the utmost in coordination and rapport in order to ensure that our players learnt and progressed both technically and in their team play. A program based on the very essence of the Offlimits Methodology.

At this new event, our Head Coach from Michigan, and active player in Basquet Club Peñíscola, has been joined by the New Yorker from Brooklyn, Frank Corbett, and the Canadian, Naz Buhagiar.

Our guest, Frank Corbett, in his first time participating in our program, has shared all his knowledge and experiences of basketball “Made in USA,” accumulated during more than two decades in the NBPA (National Basketball Players Association), New York Knicks, UCBA (United Chinese Basketball Association), ABA (American Basketball Association) and USA Basketball/Youth – Professional level Player Development. This is a real privilege for stimulating the talent of all our athletes.

And our ” rookie,” Naz Buhagiar, has also been able to share with our young athletes all the knowledge he has gained over several years of learning as an assistant coach to great American coaches, who in recent years have actively contributed to making the Basketball Offlimits Camps a benchmark program worldwide. We are talking about coaches David Raimer, Gigi Brown and Cliff Morgan, all of whom also have a long and proven experience in the NBPA (National Basketball Players Association), New York Knicks, Basketball City, ABA (American Basketball Association) and USA Basketball/Youth – Professional level Player Development.

On Saturday, we welcomed at the airport all the athletes enjoying the Full Board (residential) program, some of whom were accompanied by their families and others who had travelled alone to live the real Offlimits 360º experience. And at the Hotel EXE Mitre, which was our base camp, they had the chance to meet coach Frank, who had already been in Barcelona for a few days enjoying the city and the Catalan culture.
On Sunday, the program began and even the repeat athletes and seasoned veterans sensed that this new annual camp would be different, that something new was brewing. This was the first contact with the new teammates and initial motivational talk given by David King, who spoke to the young athletes about the importance of companionship, effort, teamwork, empathy, respect, tolerance, equality, confidence, self-esteem, …, non-negotiable values in sport and especially in Offlimits Camps.

And then came the first highlight of the program with the presentation given by Carlos Vega, one of Global Perfomance’s leading coaches. He joined the Campus technical team to stimulate and enhance the improvement of the sporting performance of our players, without neglecting to include injury prevention and sports rehabilitation. Global Performance is a High Performance Sports Centre located in Barcelona, Girona and Sant Cugat. Centres which are aimed at helping elite athletes and those who aspire to be elite athletes to achieve their goals.

The second major highlight of the program came with the announcement that all players and their training group would enjoy up to 12 clinics given by coaches David King, Frank Corbett and Naz Buhagiar. This is one of the key features of the Offlimits Methodology.

And to wrap up his talk, David King surprised all those present by announcing that at the Closing Ceremony we would be offering three scholarships to the players who had best represented the non-negotiable values of Offlimits Camps in their day-to-day lives. One of the scholarships consisted of two weeks in July at the Junior Knicks Camp & NBPA x Five Star Camp in New York City.

Next, it was guest coach Frank Corbett who addressed the group to express and share his excitement about his first experience as an Offlimits Camps coach in Barcelona. These words left no one indifferent and contributed towards creating a fantastic atmosphere of companionship to start the intensive training program.
The Camp went smoothly throughout the long and intense days of training. The athletes were developing day by day so that they would be able to achieve their didactic and sporting objectives as a result of the multiple learning experiences. They also put their physical fitness to the test using the various approaches to psycho-physiological and fitness techniques for basketball, proprioception and inertial strength training led daily by trainer Carlos Vega from our partner, Global Performance.

Global Performance’s success doesn’t only lie in possessing the latest technologies applied to sport, but also in their proper application, plus the coordinated approach and work carried out by all the members of the team. Controlling from the outset the correct application of the workloads in order to help each athlete achieve the best version of their potential. To accomplish this goal for our young players, Global Performance installed a large part of its material and technological resources in our exceptional gymnasium at the Poliesportiu Josep Comellas.

And on Wednesday came one of the big surprises that always happens at the Offlimits Camps when the player, Nina, who had travelled to Barcelona from Slovakia, was awarded the MVP for the first three days of the program, courtesy of “24 Segons”, one of our main sponsors, who offered Nina a pair of fantastic Adidas Sneakers that Nina was able to pick up at Catalonia’s flagship basketball shop, along with her family who had also travelled to Barcelona. Our most sincere thanks to Max, Galdric and everyone involved at “24 Segons”.

And on Thursday we continued with the surprises, namely the Show Time & Closing Ceremony!
Family and friends were invited to the event and were also able to take part in the Show Time led by our wonderful coaches, which included games of coordination, reaction speed and shooting under maximum pressure provided by all who attended.

After the electric Show Time it was then time for some deep and emotional feedback from our Head Coach David King and our guest coach Frank Corbett, which ended with a few words of thanks from our CEO Ignasi Caballé.

Certificates and gifts, which had been flown in from Brooklyn, were then presented to all participants, followed by the awarding of scholarships to the program’s three MVPs:

• Vincent from Germany, will be able to enjoy a full scholarship for the Junior Knicks & NBPA x Five Star programs for two weeks in New York City.
• Lukka He from China, will get a 75% discount scholarship at our XXI USA Basketball Camp in Barcelona.
• Laia from Catalonia, will be able to enjoy a 50% discount scholarship at our XXI USA Basketball Camp in Barcelona.

We brought to a close a new Basketball Offlimits “Made in USA” experience with lots of shared basketball learning, passion and fun for the young players. These were athletes, many of whom had travelled to Barcelona from the Netherlands, the United States, China, Germany, Ukraine, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Slovakia, Latvia and different parts of the Iberian Peninsula and the Canary Islands.

We can’t wait to see you at our next Basketball Offlimits experience!