ALLEN – One of the main items in recent years on Ariq Noor’s summer to-do list is to make sure he attends the Mavs Basketball Academy Hoop Camp.
Check, check, check, check, check.
On Friday, Noor completed his fifth consecutive year of participating in the Mavs Basketball Academy Hoop Camp. And the fifth time was just as enjoyable as the first four for the 14-year kid from Allen.
“I love it and it’s very fun,” Noor said. “The coaches help you and teach you and make you get better.
“I want to get better at everything and improve my game, and I learned how to get better handles and shoot better.”
Ben Hunt, who is the Youth Basketball Manager of the Mavs Basketball Academy Hoop Camp, has watched Noor’s game steadily blossom over the years. And he has noticed the little nuances of basketball – things that can make the difference between winning the losing – that Noor has added to his repertoire.
“This is my fourth summer (working the Mavs camps), so over the last four years and obviously being involved in camps up North, that’s where I first saw him,” Hunt said. “Ariq has done a great job over a number of years.
“He had a chance to improve his game from his shooting and his ball-handling, and that’s two areas that had been a big focus for him.”
Being a repeat camp participant, Hunt insists, has its advantages.
“The part about Ariq is being a fifth-year veteran camper it’s wonderful to see a veteran camper grow over the years and improve their skills at Hoop Camp,” Hunt said. “I think that’s one thing that we obviously enjoy seeing is our campers improving their skills and enjoying the game a lot more as they go.
“But also, they’re getting a chance to showcase their skills and their growth and development in our programs and in our system.”
Noor used the skills he learned the previous four summers to make the eighth grade basketball team at his school. This fall he’ll be trying out for the freshman squad.
As usual, Noor will have a pretty neat story to share with his friends and classmates on what he did this summer. And that includes meeting Dallas Mavericks guard Wesley Matthews, who attended the camp at Life Time Fitness and shared some words of wisdom with Noor and the other campers before playing some games of Knockout with them.
“It felt amazing to see an NBA player here,” Noor said. “I also got to meet Devin Harris and Dwight Powell at the other camps.”
Rest assured, Noor is already making plans to attend the Mavs Basketball Academy Hoop Camp again next year. For him it’s become an annual summer ritual.
“It’s so encouraging to see veteran campers return because that means we have had a positive impact in their growth in basketball that they continue to come back to continue that improvement,” Hunt said. “And that’s what we’ve seen in all camps across the Metroplex that we run in the summer, especially in those familiar faces, and we really enjoy that.
“But we also enjoy watching them grow as a basketball player and as a person. We also focus on character building in our camps, and that also adds to that as well.”
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