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Marty Mac's World: He's just what these basketball players
need...
The Sacramento Professional
Developmental League is many things to many people.
Around these parts, it's a summer
showcase for the area's best players to play in a controlled setting
and be pushed by legitimate competition. It's a proving ground and
educational platform for the young and up-and-coming.
And to quite a few players, it's often
the nightcap of a day-night doubleheader. You can find quite a few of
the same hoopers who play in the evenings at Capital Christian High
School in the league playing at Basketball Town under the direction of
skills coach Guss Armstead.
Armstead, who also doubles as a
pseudo-drill sergeant, has full-court games going alongside each other
that last five minutes or the first team to seven.
The winning team on the main court
stays and is challenged by the winner from the other court. Armstead
is the coach for both squads, calling out play sets and calling fouls
that are not acknowledged on the floor.
The games are competitive and often
feature players who are earning money playing professionally
somewhere. Or it could be DeMarcus Nelson, who will go back to
Duke this fall but is not permitted to play in the Developmental
League because he already has played at his school.
Playing in the league are Ryan
Anderson, formerly of Oak Ridge, who will begin playing for Cal in
the fall; former Kennedy High star Zack Graves, who is heading
to Montana; and Kevin Galloway, who is headed to USC from
Sacramento High.
After the games, players run the
dreaded 17s, sprinting across the court 17 times in less than a
minute. It's pretty much the last thing you want to do after playing,
but anybody who is getting up to play ball at 9 a.m. daily is fairly
serious about honing the craft.
At Basketball Town, NBA players such as Mike Wilks, Troy
Hudson and Bobby Jackson can hone their games. The place to be for hoop dreams in a highly structured
environment, Basketball Town helps players find their
potential pro games.
Basketball Town is the state-of-the-art facility that
caters to everything involving hoops. The primary attraction to
Basketball Town is renowned basketball skills trainer Guss
Armstead.
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