Now that the high school basketball season is coming to an end, off-season basketball programs begin. Besides club basketball tournaments, the season offers both in-state and out-of-state high profile basketball camps.
But which camp to choose?
Many of these summer programs will hail themselves as the best of the best when it comes to their camp offerings. You will find that it is not uncommon to find excellent looking websites that are very professional, well written and easy to navigate. You will also find many of these programs to be endorsed by big name corporations as well as multiple partnerships cross-marketing each other in order to raise the level of attraction to the camps.
Most of the these camps offer their services at the rates that fall between $400 - $500 which is a standard rate for a week of camp training. There will be more advanced camps offered which you will find to be rather pricey at the $1,000+ rate for a week of training.
Many of these advanced camps might be worth the money and experience if they take on a more active role in positioning the top players before their college placement connections. Many will advertise that scouts, recruiters and media personnel will be in attendance, but very few truly deliver as they promise in this area.
When evaluating these programs, look for solid basketball fundamentals to be the program's focus mixed with the opportunity to play lots of fullcourt basketball. Also, keep in mind that camp programs are only as good as the quality of players they attract as well as to what the programs do with the players after the instruction takes place.
More often than not many of the camps have great training experience with high level of competition taking place, however, before paying the high rate that many of these camps request, make sure that they offer the top campers the opportunity to be recognized and marketed to college recruiters.
If you choose to attend an out-of-state nationally recognized camp, make sure that the level of play of your athlete is ready for that kind of high exposure. Otherwise, the best thing to do is to train hard at the local and less expensive camps before heading out for the big name events. Exposure is good, but make sure that the athlete is ready to be exposed in a good light.
Balancing local training and development with lots of club basketball experience is always the less expensive method before heading out to the rest of the basketball world.
When choosing which camps to attend, you might want to get to know the 7 p's: prior - proper - planning - prevents - piss - poor - performance in order to remember that you don't need to go out to expensive, out-of-state, big name camps to get "discovered" until you are dominating your local competition.
