NBA trainer impressed with UAAP MVP Kiefer Ravena

MANILA, Philippines -- American basketball skills coach Joe Abunassar, the founder of the top NBA off-season training camp, will always have a soft spot for Filipino players.

Abunassar, CEO of Impact Basketball, is in Manila for a brief two-day visit to bring his specialized training camp closer to Filipino players and coaches in partnership with Global Link Travel and Tours.

Abunassar has helped several NBA stars from his first clients NBA champions Kevin Garnett and Chauncey Billups to first time All Stars DeMarcus Cousins and Kyle Lowrie. But aside from his high profile NBA players, Abunassar also takes pride in helping the country's top college basketball programs San Beda and Ateneo in their title runs in their respective leagues and Alaska in the PBA and past national teams.

Among all the Filipino players that he took under his wings, it was Jimmy Alapag, Asi Taulava, Kiefer Ravena and Marcio Lassiter who stood out.

"We started with Jimmy and Asi in 2005-06 when they came down to Florida. I think we've helped them lengthen their careers and gave them the opportunity to go up against NBA players that helped their confidence," said Abunassar, who was happy to see how fit Taulava is when he dropped by at NLEX practice last Friday.

"Recently, we've had Kiefer Ravena who has trained under us for several years now with Ateneo. He really made a commitment to his body and get into shape. And also Marcio Lassiter, who won a (PBA) championship recently," Abunassar added.

He's really impressed with how Filipino players compensate for their physical limitations with their "intensity and doing the little things" and made special mention of Ravena's competitiveness.

"Kiefer would just raise his game when they do scrimmages against more athletic teams in the States," said Abunassar, who started his career as assistant coach to legendary Bobby Knight at Indiana University.

The two-day Manila camp, which consists of basketball clinic for players 12 years and above and coaches seminar on player development, is just a glimpse of how they do it in the US which usually runs the whole summer or 12-day camp for international clients.

After the Batang Gilas training camp at Impact before their stint in the Under-17 World Championship, SBP logistics head and CEO of Global Link Andrew Teh thought of making the camp more accessible to Filipino players, who are not part of the big basketball programs in the country.

"Kasi ang existing practice is to bring in a team there. After seeing the development of our Batang Gilas players, I thought of packaging the camp for those individual players who would like to develop their skills sets in preparation for the big leagues," said Teh.

Initially, Teh is looking at 15 slots for a 12-day summer camp at Impact in Las Vegas. 

He was able to get a special discounted rate from Abunassar in exchange of flying him here for the two-day mini camp. The package which is inclusive of airfare, 14-night hotel accomodation with free breakfast and transfers, 10-day training camp at Impact and training kit is pegged at $3,980 which is more than $1,000 lower than what each Batang Gilas player incurred.

For interested parties, call Global Link Travel and Tours at (02) 400-7862 to 28 and 0920-9702246.