To the casual basketball fan, a high school hoop season begins in November and ends in late February or early March. College fans follow their school or team from mid October through March Madness, which actually culminates in April, when the NCAA crowns their champ.
What the casual hoop fan may not know, is when all of that is over, during the spring and summer, the sport of basketball is going a hundred miles an hour. Club teams or AAU programs form and play tournament basketball practically every weekend, all across the country. Stories of players entering the transfer portal are in the news daily. You hear or read the words, combines or showcases, where elite college players take part in those events, trying to impress NBA scouts and organizations, with the goal of improving their individual stock for the upcoming draft.
With those thoughts in mind, Scott Waldrop, Owner and Founder of The Grind Session (TGS), decided he’d offer a combine setting for TGS players. The participants will be student athletes that will be playing on squads during the 2022-2023 Grind Session season.
“The Grind Session Combine will strive to be an essential part of the elite high school players off-season routine,” Waldrop said. “While this combine will be new to the players, we’re excited to creatively deliver a valuable experience for our teams and players who have remained loyal to us over the years and for prospective players who are just beginning their Grind Session journeys,” Waldrop added.
“I think The Grind Session is the best high school platform in the world, so expanding it into the summer and providing a showcase for its top prospects is a fantastic idea,” PHHoenix Prep Athletic Director John Ortega said. “It’ll really help those players and set a standard for what TGS will look like each year,” he added.
This first ever event will be held June, 21st, 22nd and 23rd, at the Gabay Rec Center in Brooklyn, New York. The combine is presented by True Capital, a Grind Session partner.
The Grind Session combine will give players an opportunity to participate in individual on-court programs consisting of speed and agility testing, anthropometric measurements, shooting drills and to create a “Pro Day” video. As part of the event’s innovative format, TGS will incorporate HomeCourt, a mobile basketball training
application that uses advanced machine learning and computer vision, to provide analytics and to record the shooting evaluation portion of the combine, allowing players to create their “Pro Day” video. The video, used to showcase a player’s skills, may feature only the the individual player (and either a coach or trainer) and will be up to five minutes long. HomeCourt is developed by NEX Team, Inc., an NBA strategic partner.
In addition to those activities, players will compete in full court, five on five games on two of the event days. “Watching the players compete during the combine, is like getting a really good movie trailer, months before the premiere,” Ortega said.
“The Grind Session is a player driven league, I think the combine is a great idea. We have some of the top prospects in the country and this will bring them exposure. It’ll highlight the best players in our league,” Bella Vista Athletic Director Matt Gordon said.
This year’s combine will provide some of the best high school basketball players in the country the opportunity for player evaluations, high level, full court game competition and the chance to get off-court educational enrichment.
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