CAMERON BLACK – TEXAS LEGENDS, NBA G LEAGUE AFFILIATE OF THE DALLAS MAVERICKS, ASSISTANT COACH – EPISODE 743

Website – https://texas.gleague.nba.com/

Email – camblack20@gmail.com

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronblack/

Cameron Black is in his 2^nd season as an assistant coach for the Texas Legends, the NBA G League Affiliate of the Dallas Mavericks.  Cam played college basketball for Bowling Green State University before joining the University of Akron staff as a graduate assistant.  The Ohio native spent two seasons in Player Development with the Atlanta Hawks and then moved into his first coaching role with the Erie Bayhawks.  In the 2019-20 season, Black was an assistant for the Grand Rapids Drive where he helped coach centers and assisted in two NBA Call-Ups.

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Take some notes as you listen to this episode with Cameron Black, assistant coach for the Texas Legends, the NBA G League Affiliate of the Dallas Mavericks. 

What We Discuss with Cameron Black

• Growing up in Kent, Ohio where his father was the head basketball coach at Kent Roosevelt High School
• The influence his dad had on his players and how that inspired him to be a coach
• Emulating the moves he would see on TV in his driveway as a kid
• How AAU helped him get noticed by college recruiters
• Why he chose to play for Louis Orr at Bowling Green
• Adjusting to the speed and strength of the players in college
• Getting advice about the coaching profession from his coaching staff at Bowling Green
• “Just be a good person so nobody has anything bad to say about you and let people know what you want to do.”
• Having a big game his senior year against his hometown team Kent State who didn’t recruit him
• His favorite and least favorite arenas to play in in the Mid American Conference
• Why he chose not to play overseas following his college career
• The amount of time spent recruiting and scouting were two things that surprised him as a GA at Akron
• Why coaching at the college level appealed to him more than high school coaching
• His interview with the Atlanta Hawks that ended up with him on the court working out with the Hawks’ players
• “Basketball is basketball. Whether that’s at the pro level with the Hawks or whether that’s on an elementary school team.”
• Building a relationship with Dennis Schroeder on the Hawks
• Developing relationships with his peers in the video room
• Learning x’s and o’s through his video work with the Hawks
• “The guys in that video room that you build a relationships with are the guys who kind of help you get jobs because those are the kind of guys in your same age range and those are the guys who are progressing and developing their careers.”
• How the relationship he built with Malik Rose with Hawks helped him get a job with the Erie Bay Hawks
• 1. Be a good person 2. Develop relationships with players
• “When I sit down with the guy and watch film we just don’t talk about the play and what they could have done better. You have to check in on how they’re doing as a person and that kind of helps out on the court as well.”
• His experience trying to get a high school coaching job
• “It’s important to keep learning. It’s important to not think you’re too good to be coached.”
• You have to build a culture of work
• “The G League isn’t necessarily about who wins the most games. Obviously everybody wants to win, but it comes down to how you’re developing the guys.”
• Be a star in your role
• Guys playing alongside great players – your job first and foremost is to play defense and make open shots.
• “I think the toughest part about the G League is that everybody wants to get out. When you think about the players, coaches, trainers, front office, it’s a league where everybody’s trying to get to that next job.”
• “The biggest thing that we talk about is continued development. Not staying the same coach that you were a week ago.”

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THANKS, CAMERON BLACK

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TRANSCRIPT FOR CAMERON BLACK – TEXAS LEGENDS, NBA G LEAGUE AFFILIATE OF THE DALLAS MAVERICKS, ASSISTANT COACH – EPISODE 743

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight. But I am pleased to be joined by Cameron Black, assistant basketball coach for the Texas Legends of the NBA’s G League. Cam, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:14] Cameron Black: Hey, how’s it going? Appreciate you having me on.

[00:00:15] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Excited to have you on. Full disclosure Cam’s coming back from a long road trip tonight and he’s been willing to stay up with us. So excited to be able to talk basketball with him and learn a little bit more about him and his career. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid.

Tell us a little bit about some of your first experiences with the game of basketball.

[00:00:34] Cameron Black: Yep. So I grew up in a real basketball and kind of sport oriented family. My dad played basketball at Northern High School in Columbus. Went on to play at the University of Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Kentucky NAIA School.

He came back and went to go teach and coach at Kent Roosevelt High School in Kent, Ohio. Met my mom who was also a basketball player at Buchtel High School in Akron. And they met and had me and I kind of grew up in the gym. My dad ended up coaching girls basketball, girls track. Same with boys and boys track boys basketball as well.

So that’s where I grew up. First Steps as a kid in the gym seeing all the sports, watching ’em and that’s where it started at. And from there on, just went play in different gyms, playing at parks starting young aau teams, travel teams early on being good on those teams. And then other teams would come and kind of recruit you and want you to play with them.

So that’s kind of how it started.

[00:01:30] Mike Klinzing: More sports than just basketball or is basketball always the main thing?

[00:01:33] Cameron Black: Basketball is really the main thing. Played a little bit of football growing up and kind of stopped. My freshman year of high school ended up hitting a big growth spurt and I went from like six-one to six-six.

And I said kind of football is not for me. I really only played football cause a lot of my friends played and during that season I just wouldn’t have anything to do. So that was kind of my release and what I did.

[00:01:55] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that makes sense. I think once you get to a certain size, unless you were going to put on about 120 pounds right, you probably not going to be too good as a six-eight skinny guy out on the football field.

I think you probably made the right choice going to hoops. When you think about your time growing up with your dad as a coach and being able to have access and get in the gym, from the time that you were really young, what are some of your memories of like your dad’s teams and maybe his players and just sort of being around that team atmosphere?

[00:02:21] Cameron Black: My memories of my dad coaching were just being a very defensive oriented coach. Making sure that guys and girls played very hard on defensive end. He knew a little bit of offense, but that really wasn’t his thing. He just wanted to make sure the guys and girls on those teams played hard.

And probably the biggest thing that I remember from my dad being a coach in that kind of small town that’s going around and the guys and girls that played for him to come back to ’em and they’ll stop at the house or we see ’em around town at the grocery store and they just thank my dad for being a positive influence and keeping him out trouble, kind of helping him out with life.

So it’s one of the reasons why I wanted to be a coach.

[00:02:57] Mike Klinzing: Did you know you wanted to be a coach? Is that something that you knew, knew early on or did it come later, like when you were in college?

[00:03:04] Cameron Black: Honestly, my grandmother who passed away, but one of those stories that she would tell all the time is me, I’m not sure the exact age, but around five, six or seven out in the front yard playing with kids in the neighborhood.

And I would pull out my dad’s clipboard and she always says that I would take and bang on the clipboard, those things really just in my blood. And I saw it growing up and I really wanted to do it.

[00:03:33] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. That’s funny. I mean, it’s, it’s interesting because. I think most people come to the coaching profession in one of two ways.

They, they come to it as you describe, where it’s somebody that from a really young age, maybe they had somebody like you had your dad who influenced him as a mentor and somebody that they looked up to and they, they kind of always knew they wanted to be a coach. And then you have the other people who were playing and they’re kind of going through their career and all of a sudden they get done either as a high school player or a college player or a pro player.

And they look around, they’re like, the game’s going to kind of end. And now what do I do? Maybe I want to get into coaching. And so it’s always interesting to kind of hear people’s journey into the coaching profession because you have those two sort of distinct tracks, those who have known from the time they were little, and then those who kind of come to it a little bit later after.

Other experiences as a player in the game are done. And obviously there’s a lot of different pathways into, into coaching, but I think when you have a dad or a parent who’s a coach, I think that obviously has a huge influence. When you think back to yourself as a high school player, what do you remember about what you would do in your summers to try to work on your game and get better?

What did that look like for you? How’d you balance out playing pickup ball versus working on the gym, working in the gym, on your game by yourself or working with your dad? Or just what was your process like?

[00:04:55] Cameron Black: Well my process really, and honestly, it started out in the driveway. I would watch an NBA game or a college game.

I would learn a new move or see a shot that I wanted to work on the next day. I go out in the driveway, work on that move, work on those shots. We had a little weight set in the garage, so I work on my game to go in the garage, hit the weights, and then we had a park that was close to the house.

So I would go and walk to the park. You know, sometimes in a small town like that, there’s nobody at the park. I walk right back and start working on my game again and maybe eat lunch or something like that. Then I go back to the park, then I go play all day and then I come back. So that was kind of my process and that kind of process helped me keep getting better.

Kept me in shape during the week. And then on the weekends, during the summer you play aau tournaments against better competition. So that was kind of my process and that’s kind of how I turned into a decent player.

[00:05:53] Mike Klinzing: What’s your favorite memory from playing high school basketball?

[00:05:56] Cameron Black: Favorite memory?

My senior year, we lost one of a great player by the name of Andre Polk. And then it was kind of my team that senior year and that previous year we lost in the district final at the buzzer to So the next year it was my opportunity kind of with my team. Ended up getting to the district final or the game before the district final.

We were playing against a pretty good team in Twinsburg who was ranked top 25 in Cleveland. They had a recruit by the name of John Harris who was going to Miami, Ohio, another kind of six eight guy. And that was kind of the big matchup for me. And then the college coach who I played for Louis Orr was also in for that game and I ended up playing pretty well and we won and that game took us to the district final.

So just playing that game played pretty well in a good environment and tournament. A lot of people didn’t think that we’ll be there. Playing against a good recruit and then John Harris and then winning that game was probably my best memory. That next game. We also lost in district final at the buzzer to Akron East.

Just playing in that game. Hitting two game winning free throws in that game is probably my best memory from high school.

[00:06:58] Mike Klinzing: I think high school, when you look back, it’s fun to think about. I think the environments are so important when you get to play in front of a big crowd, obviously you’re, once you get to the districts here in the state of Ohio, now you start to get a lot more people coming to those games.

And certainly the environments in those games are conducive to, to making for, for great memories. You and I talked a little bit before that Cam went to Bowling Green State University in the Mac, and I went a long, long, long time ago. Played at Kent, and obviously Cam grew up in, you grew up in Kent, Ohio.

And so talk a little bit about your recruitment, how you ended up at Bowling Green, and just a little bit about you said you had a little personal a little personal vendetta when you come back and, and play against play against Kent at the MAC.

[00:07:41] Cameron Black: Yep. So I grew up, for the most part playing on kind of local AAU teams.

And as I kept working on my game and getting better people started to hear about me. And there was a King James shooting stars AAU team that lost the center and price, who I think he went to St. Edwards in Cleveland. But he got hurt and they were looking for a big guy, and they ended up calling me.

So went out for the first tournament and played pretty well. I was a guy who people didn’t know about, you know what I mean? Playing against a Boo Williams team that had James McAdoo on that team. I’m not saying that I locked him up at all, but I played pretty well. And the next Monday when I got back from school my picture was on Rivals and that was kind of a big thing back then.

And that’s kind of where my recruitment kind of took off, playing with a better team, with more exposure. And then my first offer actually came from Ashland University, which was division two school in Ohio. The next one came from Youngstown State. If anybody from Ohio knows anything about Youngstown State, you can, that’s not a kind of place that you really want to go play.

You’d rather go somewhere else. And at the AAU National Tournament in Florida my parents got a call from coach Louis Orr he was actually watching me on the court and ended up offering me a scholarship on the phone. So that’s kind of how that happened. Was it a hard decision or was it an easy decision for me, like an under recruited guy?

Like it was an easy decision. You have a guy that coaching at Bowling Green, who’s won championships who’s played in the nba. Bowling Green is kind like Kent, a small town as well, but it was also away from home. So I could do my own thing and really enjoyed the campus and everything like that.

So, easy decision for me.

[00:09:22] Mike Klinzing: When you think back to that time, what advice was your dad giving you? What kind of conversations were you guys having as the process was playing out? Maybe as, as you talked about the fact that maybe you were a little bit under recruited and maybe you were looking around going, Hey, I played against this guy, or I played against that guy and I see they’re going to play here or going to play there.

Just what do you remember about the conversations you were having with your father during that time?

[00:09:46] Cameron Black: During that time, I think there were guys who were recruited by a lot of schools and kind of knew what they wanted to do. Me being under recruited, it was almost kind of like, You want to take the first thing that you get almost because those things where I wasn’t expected, like growing to go play what I to level and developed late.

So those where state school with good coach and went with that decision.

[00:10:15] Mike Klinzing: What did you like about coach Orr right from the beginning?

[00:10:18] Cameron Black: Coach Orr was very personable. One thing that kind of hit with my family was he’s a religious man, a man of God somebody who we all knew would be a great father figure being away from home.

It really, it really wasn’t a basketball decision. It was more of a decision based off of who my family trusted and who I trusted as a man.

[00:10:36] Mike Klinzing: When you got there, what were the adjustments like both on the court and in terms of going to school and just get, being in a different environment?

[00:10:47] Cameron Black: Yeah, the, the big adjustments on the court were I think every level that you go up is the speed of the game.

More athletic players. For me, being the kind of skinny guy coming out of high school, I think I was six-10, about about 230 ish. And then you’re going up against guys who are the same size, but they’re 260 and 270. And I came in at 18 years old and ended up kind of playing a lot my first year and starting and those guys I was starting playing against were 22, 23 years old.

So I really had to get, adjust to the speed of the game and also the strength from other players as well.

[00:11:21] Mike Klinzing: How about in terms of the practices? You talked a little bit about your high school experience and then obviously when you go and you step up and you get into the practice environment at college, just what was that piece of it like for you day-to-day, comparing just your experience as a college player going to practice every day versus high school player going to practice every day?

[00:11:43] Cameron Black: With my ability at the high school level and practice there, there wasn’t a lot of competition, you know what I mean? But once you step up to the college division one level, mid majors it’s really competition every single day and you can’t really take days off, you know what I mean? So if you take a day off, you going get dunked on.

You have to be ready to play every day. And in the off season, the kind of adjustment was like, we had a lot of track stuff running the steps from the stairs, like weight rooms and open gym for a couple hours than individual player development.

You know what I mean? So it was kind of structure in that kind of more structure in that sense because we had more time and more people devoted to the program.

[00:12:28] Mike Klinzing: When you get to school, are you still thinking about as you decide what you’re going to major in and where you, what direction you want to go?

Are you still thinking coaching is the direction that you want to go at this point? Or are you thinking something else?

[00:12:41] Cameron Black: I think the coaching slash sports administration route as well, I was thinking about coaching was always on my mind growing up and then in high school, but I wasn’t sure how I’d able to make money from coaching.

[00:12:59] Mike Klinzing: When you’re playing, I think this is one of the things that is interesting too, if you’re thinking about coaching, were you in any way, not only as you’re thinking about yourself as a player and, and worrying about playing your best and competing and doing all the things that are required of a division one basketball player, but are you thinking about and watching the coaching staff at all and sort of watching what they do and thinking about how that could impact you as a coach?

Or were you more focused on, Hey, I’m a player, and then the coaching thing was just kind of in the back of your mind?

[00:13:32] Cameron Black: I think probably the second part I was focused on trying to be the best player I could be, but also there’s a lot of downtime that comes along with college basketball. Obviously you have class and all that stuff, but there’s certain moments where after practice you may go on the coach’s office, and that’s where I kind of talk to Coach Orr and also another coach by the name of coach Louis Twigg about like coaching, how to get into it and what their story was and how their life has gone in the coaching atmosphere.

[00:14:00] Mike Klinzing: Do you remember any of the any of the advice they gave you?

[00:14:04] Cameron Black: It’s kind of funny Coach Orr said, don’t do it.

[00:14:07] Mike Klinzing: He’s probably not the first one to say that.

[00:14:08] Cameron Black: I didn’t listen to that, but coach Lewis Twig was really a guy who didn’t necessarily play in college, but came up as a manager and things like that.

And he gave me advice along the way. And some of the best advice he kind of gave me is, was first of all, just be a good person. So nobody has anything bad to say about you, but as well as kind let people know what you want to do. And that’s kind of how I got into this spot. Just letting him know what I do.

When I got done opportunity kind of came little bit, but relationships and letting people know I wanted to coach.

[00:14:47] Mike Klinzing: Before we get to that, let’s talk a little bit about your playing career. I asked you what your favorite high school memory was. What’s your favorite memory from playing at BG?

[00:14:56] Cameron Black: Ooh, favorite memory?

Let’s go back to kind of what we talked about earlier. Came to Kent State my senior year and just had a really good game. Like I said, being a kind of under recruited guy Kent State was right in our backyard. I couldn’t, I grew up five, 10 minutes away didn’t receive the attention that I wanted from that school.

And then I always had a little vengeance, wanted to get some revenge . I never really had a good game. There was some games I was hurt games that got in foul trouble. But my senior year at Kent, I ended up having a good game. Had about 18 points and like nine or 10 rebounds and a few blocks, and we actually ended up losing that game.

But just having a good game at that place. That’s one of my favorite memories.

[00:15:36] Mike Klinzing: A little personal vendetta. What was your favorite place to play in the MAC? Was your, yeah. Did you have a favorite arena you liked?

[00:15:41] Cameron Black: Ooh, good question. Akron. Akron always had great teams, great fans. I mean, the music was loud and also was close to home as well, so I had a lot of fans and family and friends come to see that game games.

So that was a great, great experience.

[00:15:55] Mike Klinzing: experience. What about the place you least liked to play?

[00:16:01] Cameron Black: Probably like a ball state.

[00:16:03] Mike Klinzing: Long trip, long bus trip

[00:16:04] Cameron Black: Northern Illinois, some of those games like you said, long trip and a lot of fans and had to go out and cold weather during those times. And January, February, those are probably the trips that I didn’t like the most.

[00:16:16] Mike Klinzing: I always hated playing up Miami the dark.  I always felt like it was dark there whenever we played. I’m like, man, how do they even see in here, man? It’s crazy.

[00:16:25] Cameron Black: Yep. Miami, Ohio is like a, it’s kind of like a theater where they perform.

[00:16:30] Mike Klinzing: That was a different experience. I never had much luck down there.

So I was, I was, I was always glad to get out of get out of Miami whenever I could. All right. So when you get done with your playing career and you’ve got some advice from your coaching staff and they’re talking to you and, and you get an opportunity to go and be a graduate assistant at the University of Akron, talk about how that comes to pass.

[00:16:53] Cameron Black: Coming out of college I knew I wanted to coach, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go and play first. So I ended up signing with an agent ended up having an offer to go to Luxembourg. Wasn’t a whole lot of money. And I kind joked around with my friends and said, man, I could make this amount of money working at McDonald’s and McDonald’s will probably actually. It had more benefits and all that. Yeah. I knew if I played overtime I may be able to get better contracts and make more money, but also had a lot of injuries at Bowling Green I had a stress fracture in my tibia. I had a partially torn patellar tendon in my other knee, so I didn’t want to risk those opportunities.

And I grew up in a family who really value education. My mom was like a top 10 student in high school class went on in nursing, and those are kind of one of the things that they stress. So I knew that if I go to Akron, be a I can get my education for free and then start coaching as well.

[00:17:48] Mike Klinzing: When you get to Akron and you sort of stepped behind the curtain as a coach, you’ve been a player for your entire life, and obviously your dad coached, so you had some idea of what the life of a coach was like, but what do you remember about that first experience coaching in terms of. Maybe something that was surprising to you that you’re like, man, I didn’t realize coaches spent so much time doing this.

[00:18:12] Cameron Black: Yep. The, the biggest thing at that level was I didn’t know how much time they spent recruiting. As a high school athlete you’re getting a lot of calls from different schools but you don’t notice that that coach who called you also probably called or more other kids that day.

So that’s one of the things that took a lot of time. Also just the scouting process. You don’t know how much obviously now too, but you don’t know how much time the coaches spend, like watching games and putting edits together and kind of getting the team prepared to play. So those are kind of things that kind of surprised me the most.

[00:18:46] Mike Klinzing: Was there a coach on the staff that took you under their wing and sort of became a mentor to you while were there?

[00:18:51] Cameron Black: Two coaches on that staff. The first one Terry Wagan is kind of the reason why I actually went to Akron. He kind of recruited me to Akron, but when I would go from Bowling Green back home in the summer my mom worked in Akron, so sometimes I pop in and I see Coach Wagan and I also, same thing, kind of let him know that I wanted to coach.

So by the time I got done, he was the one who kind reached out to me and kind got me into it. And the other one was Charles Thomas spent a lot time with him, lunches and things like that, and he just kind teach me the rules of the game and how to recruit and things like that. So those were two guys

[00:19:28] Mike Klinzing: I spent a lot of time on the court against Charles when he was at Eastern and I was at Kent.

We battled each other for two years. I think when I was, he was a year ahead of me. So when I was a sophomore, when I was, by the time I was playing, didn’t play much as a freshman, but as a sophomore and a junior the Thomas twins were tough to deal with, man. They were really good players.

And obviously they’re both still in the game and in the coaching profession today. So that’s a good mentor. That’s a good person to have on your side without question. Yep. So when you look at your time there and you start thinking about your career path, did you have in mind, cause obviously your dad’s a high school coach, now you’re at coaching at the college level, and eventually where you are now you’re coaching at the pro level.

What were you thinking about in terms of what you thought your career path would be in the coaching profession? At the time you were at Akron, were you thinking, Hey, I really love this college coaching and I’d like to stay here? Were you thinking about going to the pros at some point? Were you thinking about high school coaching?

Just, where was your mindset at while you were at.

[00:20:29] Cameron Black: My mindset was kind of watching my dad for years. I loved the fact that he was a coach and could do his thing on the floor, but also wasn’t necessarily a fan of him having to teach all day. And I kind of knew that taking the college route, I could get the coaching, kind of do that full-time and not really have to go the teaching route.

And as far as the pros, honestly coaching in the pros is something that never crossed my mind, like literally never. And it just one day just kind of happened.

[00:20:59] Mike Klinzing: Well, tell us about it. How does that happen? How do you get to your next stop is with the Atlanta Hawks, so how does that opportunity get in front of you?

[00:21:07] Cameron Black: Yep. So I talked about coach Lewis Twigg assistant at Bowling Green before. Same thing, just being a good guy to him when some of the guys on our team weren’t kind of picking his brain, letting him know that I wanted to coach. One day got a call from him that the Hawks were looking for a big guy can come in and play a little bit and do some video. Ended up sending my resume in. Got a call back and had a interview with Charles Lee who is currently assisting with Milwaukee. Also Taylor Jenkins,who’s now head coach at Memphis Grizzlies. Did good with those interviews.

Kind showed him I was good person. I knew what I was talking about, about the game. And they ended up flying me down for an interview. At that interview I wasn’t sure if it was going to be like one of those kind of sit down things on the court and ended up being pretty much all on the court.

They put me to the test, they put me in pick and roll defense guard guys like Dennis Schroder and Jeff Teague in Pick and roll. Had to guard Paul Millsap and Al Horford and those guys in the post and really had to kind of hold my own as best I could. During their workouts making sure I was sprinting to all the loose balls and everything like that.

And everything went pretty well. Uber back to the airport got a call that I got the job so went from being an Akron about to start that second season going with my grad thing and going straight to Atlanta. So that’s kind of how it happened.

[00:22:29] Mike Klinzing: Did you expect that interview to be on the floor?

I mean, was that something that they warned you like, Hey, in advance, like you have to be ready to step out on the floor and play, because that’s a big piece of what this job’s going to entail?

[00:22:37] Cameron Black: There was no discussion of that.

[00:22:45] Mike Klinzing: Did you show up in a suit?

[00:22:51] Cameron Black: Honestly, I did. Yeah, I showed up in a suit . And they actually appreciated and they like that I came looking like professional and then they took me right to the equipment room.

[00:23:01] Mike Klinzing: So once you’re hired on and you get there, and are you looking around going, wow, I’m in the NBA. Now, obviously you’re at a entry level position, but still you’re working with b A players, you’re working with B a coaches. Just what was the, what was your feeling as you’re sitting there in the office or you’re on the court and you’re working with these pro guys?

Just obviously you said earlier that it wasn’t expected, you were never thinking about coaching at the pro level. So what was your initial reaction? How were you feeling as you started that job?

[00:23:36] Cameron Black: Yeah, well my initial reaction kind of will go back to that interview. It’s kind of before the season starts.

It’s not training camp time yet, and you don’t really expect those guys to be in there. And when I, like I said, when I put that shirt and the shorts on, I walk in the gym. You know, I literally was just playing with my friends two K and using the Hawks last week and now for the first time I get to see these guys in person and it’s kind of a starstruck kind of thing, but you have to hold it in because you don’t want those guys to know that,

That first experience being with the team training, just amazing really. I mean it, it’s kind of hard to describe as like I talked about earlier, a guy from a sports family who loves basketball and all of a sudden you’re like at the NBA level and getting to see all these great coaches and players.

It’s almost indescribable.

[00:24:28] Mike Klinzing: Was there something that was unexpected or something that went on during whether N B A training camp, NBA practices, were there things that you watched that you were surprised that were happening in an NBA practice? Whether that’s just the way they went about it, whether that was something specific that they worked on or talked about or the structure of practices?

What were your first impressions?

[00:24:53] Cameron Black: My first impression was that and I called my dad and told him this too. Basketball is basketball. Whether that’s at the pro level with the hawks or whether that’s on the elementary school team is like shell defense is shell defense. You know what I mean? I was kind of surprised that at least to start everything was the fundamentals and the basics.

It was having a stick hand up and low man help and things of that nature. The same things that we kind of as kids take for granted. Thus, the exact same thing that the pros are doing. I mean, I think that’one kind of thing that gets lost in all this.

[00:25:28] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s so true. I mean, obviously you can get into the specifics and the Xs and Os and all those things, but ultimately it really does come down to there’s some basic movements, some basic actions that are universal.

The basketball, and again, ultimately right, you have to be able to execute what it is that you do, and you have to do it full speed. You have to do it hard, and you have to be able to compete. And if you can do that, no matter what the level of basketball chances are, you’re going to have some success. While you were there, was there a guy, player wise, that you kind of connected with?

Was there somebody that you would say, Hey, I’m still in touch with this guy, or somebody that you felt like you built a pretty good relationship with?

[00:26:07] Cameron Black: Yep. That, that guy for me would be Dennis. As a young guy going there, I’m 22, he’s 20 two-ish, 23. And just being in the gym, I actually met him one of my first days down there just in the gym, kind of late, didn’t know what to do, didn’t know anybody in Atlanta, and he ended up coming in on to shoot.

And we shot during the workout. I didn’t necessarily work him on anything, just kind of worked hard and had play some music for him and that’s how we kind of built a relationship from there.

[00:26:36] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I think being able to get in the gym and get shots up, I’ve talked to a number of different coaches on the podcast cam that talked about how, hey, I was a low man on the totem pole as a coach, and I just went in and I started working with guys and just rebounded for ’em.

And not necessarily, like you said, not necessarily working ’em out, but just being there. Hey, I’ll rebound for you. And then slowly again, you develop that relationship. You start to build trust with the player and then before you know it, you’ve got that, that type of relationship where you can, you can really help that player to continue to improve and get better.

What were some of your responsibilities when you weren’t out there on the practice floor? Trying to help players develop in that?

[00:27:12] Cameron Black: Some of my responsibilities off the floor was front office video. So coming in they said they would teach me how to do all the video using sports code, different programs.

So one of my first responsibilities with doing front office video you know, as a game you watch international games probably three hours long and all I would do is kind of cut more into the game. So the front office guys, west Wilco gym that time, not send him games that will go from three hours to 50 minutes.

And that’s kind of where it started from there, doing the ones and twos. And then after that, when the season kind gets rolling around each intern has different coaches that work with on scouts. So then I go from kind of doing ones and twos to get plays and play calls and shots and things of that nature and helping that coach put a scout together.

Those are the kind of biggest things that you do off the court and, and that’s something that I’ve never kind of did or heard of, but that’s something that’s really time consuming for people kind don’t understand when you end up coding. Three, four or five games a day. We’re on the court working hard and playing all that stuff, but once you’re off the court, you’re right back in the video room and there’s four or five guys in just kind of sitting there.

And that’s kind of how you hear about those relationships getting built in that video room.

[00:28:24] Mike Klinzing: How much did you pick up in terms of your knowledge of Xs and Os? Cause I’ve talked to a couple other different guys who worked in the video rooms in the NBA and they’ve talked about how just sitting down and having to watch the sheer volume of film that you guys watch in those scenarios that they felt like they came away from that just with a tremendous gain in their knowledge of the Xs and Os of the game.

Do you feel like that was what happened for you as well?

[00:28:52] Cameron Black: The interesting thing about that is when you’re, you’re scouting a team you’re learning about each individual player. And you have to kind of figure out how they play, what moves they use and their tendencies. Then you move on to the offensive portion.

You basically go and learn every team in the league’s offense, you know what I mean? You’re going through what they’re doing and transition their early offense, their sets side out, baseline out in the game plays. And those are kind things that honestly, in the video room we’re kind of coding at a fast pace.

Sometimes it’s one and a half, two and three speed, but you end up kind of just watching so much film that you kind just start to pick up things. And as a somebody who wants to coach, you’re kind of like going through it like I like that player, I like the offense. Or This player’s doing this.

And that kind of builds your kind of I don’t know the right word, but it kind of builds your coaching catalog and those are kind of things that you use for yourself.

[00:29:47] Mike Klinzing: Did you have a way or do you have a way currently of sort of compiling all the things that. You’re learning. In other words, do you have, the old-fashioned way would be, you’d have the three ring binder or the, or the notebooks.

And obviously the more modern way you’ve got things saved on Google Drive. But just what’s a process you have for, as you’re learning, as a coach, as you’re picking up things, as you’re taking notes, as you’re seeing a video or a play that you like. How are you compiling all that into sort of your database so that you can have that at your fingertips as your disposal, as you continue on in your career?

What’s your, what’s your method for, for kind of cataloging all the things that you’ve learned in your coaching time?

[00:30:26] Cameron Black: Yeah, there’s two ways. One will be using the program. We’re using NBAs called Sports Code. And you can actually create a database and if there’s a play or something that I like, I’ll kind of send that to my own database, which I kind of carry and build over the years.

And then the second one is, you kind of just have to remember, yeah. When you remember those things. Now I get in coaching meetings with our team, with the legends, and we may want to talk about how to guard a different action and what to run. And it’s kind of one of those things where I remember what I saw or I’ll remember what a coach with the hawks may have said, or something like that.

And you kind have to bring those things to the forefront, to the table. And those things ended up helping you look good as a coach.

[00:31:07] Mike Klinzing: What were the relationships that you built with the Hawks that are guys that you could still reach out to today that have sort of helped you advance in your career? Who were some of the people on the staff that you developed a close relationship with?

Yep.

[00:31:22] Cameron Black: It’s kind interesting at that level. I love at Coach Bud is a great guy to look up to, but you know, in those situations when you’re low man on the totem pole coach is not coming up to you.

They have scouts and you’re kind of there to do the work and, and help them out and then they’re going home to their family. The guys in that video room that you build a relationship with and that I built relationships with are the guys who kind of help you get jobs because those are the kind of guys in your same age range and those are the guys who are progressing and developing their careers.

And I think those guys in the video room along with those relationships you build, are the guys end up helping you out the most as the young coach.

[00:32:07] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it makes a ton of sense, right? Because those are the guys you’re sitting in that room with all the time. And as you get older, I think this is one of the things that I learned and not just.

In coaching, but in life when you’re 22, 23, 24, 25, you know lots of people and you got lots of friends. But most of those friends and people that you know, they don’t really have much power. They’re not really in positions where they can make anything happen for . A lot of that for themselves, but certainly not for somebody else.

And then you realize as time goes on and those people continue to advance in their career, that eventually that, that network that you built of contemporaries of peers, when you’re 22, 23, 24, 25, that makes a huge difference in terms of being able to network and, and being able to get jobs and be able to be aware of what’s out there because of that network that you built when you were younger.

I think that’s a really important consideration when you think about the direction that you want to go in your career. Did that have anything to do with the opportunity that you got next, which was with the Erie Bay Hawks?

[00:33:09] Cameron Black: So that opportunity came about. So Malik Rose worked in the front office with the Hawks.

Malik is somebody who is very personable, but also the Hawks we would play as a staff on off days and before games and me and Malik always kind of ended up having to guard each other. Malik obviously played in NBA and all that, but he was a little bit older and he was a guy who was able to bump a little bit and show I could play and we kind of developed a relationship from there.

And with him working in the front office, he wanted to kind of learn how to use Sports Code and become a better guy in the front office by being able to kind code and watch his own video. And that’s kind one of things that kind of sat down with end up showing him. So that off offseason he ended up getting a GM general manager job with the Erie Bay Hawks and basically told me to come on and join him.

[00:33:59] Mike Klinzing: How did your role change and expand when you go from being in the video room and on-court player development with the Hawks to your role? When you get to the. To the Bay Hawks. Now, I’m assuming that you’re doing more of the actual, what most people would think of as coaching. So just tell us a little bit about your day-to-day role there in Erie.

[00:34:19] Cameron Black: Yeah, well go going back to the Hawks on the court helping with all those player development workouts, whether it was a guard or a big playing with those guys on the off days. Like we played three on three full court with 12 second shot clocks so getting that experience and then helping out with practice and drills, and then going back to that video room and just coding up games and helping guys with scouts.

That kind of leads you into the next job, which is you’re the guy running the three on three workouts and you’re, you’re kind of helping guys get in, stay in shape. You’re the guy who’s running the player development workouts with the bigs and things like that. And then you’re not, I actually had to code my own games in Erie, kind of do both because they have such a small staff, but cut up my games and then developing my own scout. So it was a great experience kind of being able to go from, you’re with the, you’re the help, but then you to the G league and now it’s, it’s really on you to do a good job developing players and developing scouts.

[00:35:19] Mike Klinzing: So at this point now you’re in your second professional basketball coaching position.

Are you pretty set that that’s the direction that you want to continue to go? Are you still thinking that hey, maybe at some point I’ll go back and think about college? Or are you just kind of in the moment and just saying, Hey, I try to do the best job I can here and then we’ll kind of let the chips fall where they may.

[00:35:41] Cameron Black: Yeah, I was kind of set in that moment, kind of focused on what I was doing, but also I kept all options open. I wasn’t opposed to potentially going back to college and also wasn’t opposed to a different G league team or a higher role on a team or getting back to the nba just kind of being in a moment and learning and kind of appreciating the opportunity.

[00:36:02] Mike Klinzing: What do you think, as you look at these first couple experiences at Akron, at Atlanta, and then with Erie, obviously three different levels of the game of basketball and sort of three different roles in each of those different organizations, what were some of the things that you feel like you learned in those first three experiences that continue to benefit you today in your current role with the Legends?

[00:36:23] Cameron Black: Things that I learned in my coaching career at that point that helped me that I apply now. One is being a good person cause you never know could help recommend you for a job or who have something good or bad to say about you. The next biggest thing would be developing relationship with your players.

I learned that from, I’ve seen him many a times when guys are going through bad times on the court or they’re frustrated about playing time, things like that. I watched Darvin Ham sit in that corner and, and talk to that player and end up building a relationship that can help get that player back on the right track.

So that’s kind of one of the things I use now with the legends. When I sit down with the guy and watch film we just don’t talk about the play and what they could have done better. You have to check in on how they’re doing as a person and that kind of helps out on the court as well.

[00:37:09] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I think building that relationship and being able to talk to guys, and I know that’s one of the things that is sort of at a theme, honestly, cam of run through the podcast is Coach is talking about just being able to build that relationship, which one allows you to build trust with the player so that you can help ’em on the basketball court.

But then as you talked about, you have to get to know him and understand kind of what makes ’em tick. And then not only you’re helping ’em on the court, but you’re also helping ’em hopefully off the court to become a better person, to have a more successful career and ultimately get to the goal of where they want to go.

The level that you’re coaching now, and when you were at the Bay Hawks, or we’re going to talk about your experience with the Grand Rapids Drive as well. Those guys, I’ll obviously are hoping that they can make it to the NBA someday, and they’re all striving to get there and so I. Your role as a coach, if you can build that relationship, build that trust, and then now boom, you can try to help those guys to continue to improve and hopefully help them to be able to reach their goal of getting to the NBA at some point, or at least being able to move up.

And who knows, maybe they get an opportunity if they don’t make the nba, maybe they get the opportunity to go to Europe and make some more money, or they just continue to grind away in the G League and see if they can’t maximize what it is that they have. And I think your role as a coach obviously to, to help them to be able to do that and reach their goals after that year at Erie.

And you go to the Grand Rapids Drive, what was that like? Why make the change and maybe compare and contrast the two, two jobs in terms of the organization and just what your role was?

[00:38:40] Cameron Black: Yep. So it didn’t happen as smoothly as you just said.

[00:38:45] Mike Klinzing: It never does, right?

[00:38:46] Cameron Black: Yep. So after that season, that’s when Milwaukee ended up taking all the assistance underneath him didn’t have jobs. So kind of went throughout that summer looking for a job and actually didn’t find one. So I moved back home and I figured I only spent that one season in Akron, so I figured I’d finish up my masters. I started substitute teaching back at Kent Roosevelt, the schools that I came up in.

And also I was assistant coach at Coventry High School, helping out a friend who was previously a grad assistant at Akron with me. So I kind of spent that season helping those kids out and working on my masters and substitute teaching as well. And at that point I wasn’t sure if this was going to, if that was going to be the route or would I make it back to the pros or college.

So it’s kind of some indecision there. But that’s what I did for that year. And after that season, I actually applied for some high school jobs in the area and didn’t get the head coaching job. And I figured with my professional experience in college and playing, I thought that honestly that would be easy to do.

Athletic directors you know, if you take this job, what are you going to do when the Lakers call? And it’s like, how do I answer that question? Right? Yeah, exactly. There’s no good answer there. Yep. So went through that process and nothing happened. Actually got with Matt Futch who played Akron, who was coaching at Buchtel and just moving on was help out that next year.

But once again relationships. So there was a guy in the assistant coaching program in the NBA where the NBA kind of places former players with G lead teams to get them coaching experie. And the guy who they placed in Erie was Courtney Alexander. Great college player. Actually led the nation in scoring back in his years and played in the NBA as well.

We helping ended up helping him out kind, learning sports code, learning how to code, learning how to do scouts, and we really built like a, a brotherly relationship. He’s like a big brother to me. And he ended up going to Grand Rapids this season that I didn’t coach. And he developed a relationship with Donnie, who was assistant coach there.

Donnie’s former college coach that next season Donnie got the head coaching job and brought Courtney along with him. And then when they were putting their staff together Courtney said that he knows me, he knows that IQ for the game think I could help the bigs out there. And that’s how I got that job in Grand Rapids.

[00:41:11] Mike Klinzing: When you look at. These different organizations that you’ve worked with, obviously the Hawks on a completely different level, but the three organizations that you’ve been with in terms of Eerie Grand Rapids and now the Legends, would you say that all those organizations, are they, are they similar in terms of the way they go about conducting their business?

Or were there big differences in sort of the way that those organizations were put together?

[00:41:40] Cameron Black: I think they’re pretty similar. Obviously in the nba there’s a resources

and a systems in both places in Erie and in grand Rapid. Really not a permanent place to practice. We practice at different colleges. It’s just kind of a G League thing and the nature of the league you just kind of have to get things done. And that’s why being intensive legends is such a great thing.

We state of art facility great crowd, great fans in. So pretty much in that G league most things are the same. The only difference is how the coach and GM kind of run things in Erie. Great coach about John, Josh Longstaff, who’s actually with the Bulls now. He came from different video rooms in the NBA and he worked under Bud and kind of learned his system and kind of put that onto his teams.

And then in Grand Rapids, you have a coach in Donny Send who didn’t coach and the Pro for long. He was a longtime college coach. So I kind of have to see two different ways of, of going about things.

[00:42:47] Mike Klinzing: And then talk a little bit about the legends. What, how’s that organized and just what’s that coaching staff?

What’s your relationship like with the other coaches?

[00:42:55] Cameron Black: I have great relationships with the coaches on obviously Nelson’s recommended me.

Learning a real, we like to call it a old ball coach. Somebody who really, somebody who really knows the game and like somebody who’s also a great mentor. A lot of times I get done with my, with this team you’re going through the personnel through the video and the sets and all that stuff.

And then you’re going on the court walking through the plays and things of that nature. And as soon as I’m done with that scout, I go over to Nelson and say how was that

You’ll say that was good, but maybe you should say which player is coming off of that screen, things like that, or to match up. So just on, on this staff, we have a great staff, but just it’s important to keep learning. It’s important to not think you’re too good to be coached. Those are the biggest things that on with this staff.

[00:43:54] Mike Klinzing: When you guys are together, and I know you just came off a road trip, but when you guys are playing and it’s in season, how much time do you guys spend practicing during the season? And then what’s a typical day like? I know there’s not a typical day, but how much time are you spending together with the staff meeting, going over things, watching film?

And then how much time during the season do you guys get to practice? Cause obviously in the NBA there’s very limited practice time once the season starts. Just I’m curious as to how it works in the G League.

[00:44:27] Cameron Black: The G League is kind of similar to the NBA for the games.

We’re playing back to back games, or we have three or four games in one week and we may not practice. And there’s sometimes where we may have have one game in a week. So during those times where we play a bunch of games it’s more film based stuff. And we, being a staff and as assistant coaches, we go out to lunch with our laptops open and people think we’re crazy and we’re working on scouts and things like that in the airport.

And then during times where we only have maybe one game in a week a typical day would be like a coach’s morning coaches’ meeting in the morning followed by our pre-practice work. Guys are in groups by themselves or twos for a 20 or 30 minutes piece, and we’re kind of going through things they need to do to get better and putting through workouts.

Then we’re going through practice and after practice there may or may not be a meeting, but one of the differences between college and the pros is, After your practice in college you have to make sure guys are going class and you doing check-ins and recruiting and things of nature.

But in the G League, I kind of like after practice we home and work from stuff done. So those are differences.

[00:45:41] Mike Klinzing: How do you go about building the culture on a team in the G League where you have guys that are coming in and out? You talked a little bit about how on the road trip that you guys were on that you had seven or eight guys that were healthy and that could play, and so there’s lots of challenges that go on that maybe you don’t have those same challenges at the college level or at the NBA level.

So how do you build a culture within your team? What does that look like from a coaching perspective?

[00:46:08] Cameron Black: In my opinion, you have to build just a culture of work. You have to build a culture with, first of all, it starts with good people and a good staff. You have to have people on your staff that people want to work with.

And then during that practice you, you really crank up the music and you have guys who know what they’re doing on the court and you just get the work. And one of the biggest things that goes on with the culture is just kind of the conversations that you have with your team in this league. This league is different than a lot of leagues.

You kind of have to remind these guys on a weekly or biweekly basis that we’re here to work. You’re not going to get to the NBA by scoring 40 points a game. These guys are looking for players who can defend and make an open. And, and that’s basically what it comes down to. So that’s kind of how we talk to the guys on a day-today basis and, and have to show guys that we know what we’re doing as a staff.

You have to prove yourself that you as a coach, know what you’re doing, you can really help those guys get better. And that happens by on the court and then them that you can just help those guys get better.That’s really what the G league player is concerned about. The G League isn’t necessarily about who wins the most games.

Obviously everybody wants to win, but it comes down to how you’re developing the guys.

[00:47:22] Mike Klinzing: It’s interesting because when you think about player development, you think about, typically, I think most people look at it and say, okay, I have to develop my all around game. I have to be able to do this, I have to be able to do that.

But the reality is, is that most of the guys who are in the G League, if they’re going to make it to the NBA at all, they’re going to make it as you said, Probably as a role player, as a guy, hey, you have to be able to play defense. You have to be able to knock down open threes in today’s game. If you can do those two things, there’s probably a role for you.

And yet at the same time, I’m sure guys, as you said, the mentality is, Hey, I have to show the full array of what my talents are. And yet the reality is once they get to the league, there’s only a few guys, maybe one guy, maybe two on each team that kind of gets free reign to have the ball in their hands and make decisions and do all the things that anybody who grew up playing the game would love to be able to do.

But the reality is most of the guys are just role player. So how do you convince a player? How do you talk to player? How do you communicate to players that, hey, you have to get really good at these things. And maybe tamp down the idea of, I have to really develop my all around game. It’s like you have to get good at the things that you’re going to actually do in a game, especially if you want to make it to the league.

Just what’s those, what are those conversations like?

[00:48:44] Cameron Black: Those conversations are, they aren’t always easy, but I think when a team like us and Legends, when we look at the big team and the Dallas Mavericks, especially coming from a big perspective, I mean, those guys are playing, but one of the best players in the league, Luka, and if you look around at that group that’s on the, with him, like the bigs aren’t creating shots off the dribble.

They’re not posting up, they’re literally playing in a role with Luka. They’re setting screens rolling and if you’re a guard, the same thing kind of applies. You’re going to run your set and you’re going to get Luke of the ball and you’re going to get out the way and wait for a shot. And that’s kind of it. It kind sounds crazy, but I mean, that’s what it is when you’re playing with great players and every team has their star kind.

Top one, two or three players, and everybody else is basically playing their role on defensive end, trying to get stops on the offensive end, you’re getting out the way and you’re waiting on the ball for a good shot.

[00:49:51] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I know we talked to Mike Procopio on the podcast, I don’t know, probably two years ago or so, and I know he was with the Mavs for a long time as player development, but he would talk to us about, there’s so many guys that end up coming to the league and they just don’t understand that you have to just do what your coaching staff wants you to do, and you may not necessarily like it.

You may think that you can do more, but ultimately there’s only. 30 to 45 guys in the league that kind of get the free reign to do what they do. And obviously if you’re playing on a team with Luca and we know that his usage rate is historically high, you better be able to play off that guy and do the things that the team needs you to do.

And so I just think as a player, it sort of goes against all your natural instincts that your whole life, you’ve been probably the best player on your team. Now all of a sudden you get to the G League, you want to be able to show, Hey, these are all the things that I could do. But the reality is, if you’re going to make it at the next level, you probably just have to focus on being a role player.

And it just seems like for a guy who’s in the league or in the G League, it has to be, I don’t want to say confusing, but just I would think it takes a lot of conversation to get that message across of like, Hey, look, here’s a guy who, who made it? Here’s a guy who was at this level. Now look, he’s playing in the nba.

Look what he gets to do versus. You know, what he might’ve done when he was a college player or what he might’ve done when he was a high school player. It just, it completely changes because you have to play a role, as you said. I think that’s just have to be one of those things that, as a coach at that level, I think you said it really well when you said, Hey, we have to just make guys better and help them to understand what it is that they’re, they’re trying to do.

So I think when you do that and you’re doing it a little bit on the floor and you’re doing it a little bit off the floor and you’re having those conversations, you’re trying to work with players and at the same time you’re trying to win games, it feels like trying to build that culture and making sure that everybody’s together, that to me seems like it still has to be, has to be challenging to get guys to, to play together on a day-to-day basis and figuring out what those conversations look like and, and how you can get guys to, to buy in.

So when you think about that piece of it, when you think about getting guys to buy into the team concept and yet still try to play together, What are those, what does that look like on the practice floor when you’re trying to get guys to keep the ball moving and, and sort of play their role? How do you guys go about coaching that into your team?

[00:52:24] Cameron Black: It’s definitely one of the toughest things that goes on the G League. One thing we talk about is guys being a star in their role. So when we talk about those guys with the Mavs, or even our guys playing alongside great players your job first and foremost is to play defense and make open shots.

And after you successfully play defense and you’re shooting the ball, well, then you may get a little bit more leeway on the offensive end to go and make plays. But you have to kind of star in that role doing your job perfectly. And then you gain trust from the coaching staff to do more things.

And then honestly you have to show the guys that the way that they want to play it just doesn’t look good. And that comes down to conversations, come down to film, watching some of our guys early in the season. Basically just going one-on-one. And you kind of have to show those clips in film. And everybody knows at that level, these are smart guys.

They know that that’s not the way to play. So you just have to show how bad it looks on film. And then after that, you show the plays where we do move the ball. We get into the, and there’s a kick out swing. One more pass, and then you have to kind of explain to those guys the percentage of your shots on one-on-one highly contented shots is going to be much lower than when we play together.

And there’s a couple different passes, swings, and then you have wide open shots, your percentage will be higher and then you’ll look better as a player.

[00:53:49] Mike Klinzing: How much time are you spending with players watching film? Obviously you as a coaching staff and you as an individual, you’re watching tons of film and breaking down your own games and also I’m sure looking and scouting and looking at opponents.

But when you sit down actually with a player or with your team, how much time are you spending per week with a player watching film?

[00:54:08] Cameron Black: So typically our team watches a post-game edit after every game. And that basically includes offense in different categories about what we’re doing wrong and how to get better.

And the same goes for defense individually for a coach. We all kind of have our own position groups. Me being a bigger guy, I mostly have the fours and the fives. And when I go back and watch a game, I have to do points per possession for coach. On a defensive end, I have to send coach my notes from the game.

I have to clip edits and clips to send him as well. But then I go back and I watch film for the players. And when I watch film for the players, I’m basically clipping everything that I see that’s good and as bad. And this could be between 15 to in my 15 to maybe 30. And then before the games, I’ll kind of sit down with the guys and go through everything.

So I would say if we play 2, 3, 4 games in the week, I’m basically taking maybe 25 minutes before each game to go through the players and explain to them what’s going on.

[00:55:12] Mike Klinzing: As you do that and you sit down with players and you’re going through and, and looking at it, how much do you balance out what they’re seeing when they’re looking at their own personal clips?

How much do you see of, Hey, here’s what you’re doing right? Here’s some clips of you doing exactly what we’re looking for, and then balancing that out with, Hey, here’s some clips of things that we need you to improve on or get better. You try to keep it balanced or is just kind of game to game. We just kind of see how things go.

[00:55:40] Cameron Black: There’s honestly, there’s a balancing act that goes along with this. Cause you can’t show all bad and you can’t show all good, in my opinion. Also depends on where the player’s headspace is at. If a Player’s really struggling. Sometimes you may need to show more good than bad to kind of keep him on the right track.

But it just kind of goes down to reading your player, in my opinion. I like to show a little bit of both, but that’s kind of how it goes.

[00:56:06] Mike Klinzing: How much of your job is playing Amateur psychologist with guys?

[00:56:09] Cameron Black: Honestly every day. I mean,  our last game against Sioux Falls everybody on the staff is getting one of ours about not calling out the coverages and he’s frustrated. He comes off the game and I walk down the bench and I sit down player and I’m thinking of back to my playing days and how do I explain to him what needs to do better?

And I sit down and I tell him as a big on the floor, everything is your fault on defensive end. That’s one thing you have to understand. There’s no help. There’s no talk. Everything is literally your fault because you’re the biggest, the anchor of the defense in the last line defense. And what I explained to him is you have to communicate loudly and effectively enough that everybody on the floor knows what’s going on.

And you also have to communicate loudly and effectively enough that everybody on the bench knows what’s going on. So if you call out the pick and roll coverage that’s soft and nobody can hear it, there’s something goes wrong and the guards don’t get into the ball that’s on you. But if you like, our sideline pick and roll coverage is called ice.

And if you call out that ice loudly enough that everybody on the floor and everybody on the bench knows you called it, and then something goes wrong with that ice, it’s not going to be on you. So there’s a lot of mind games. You have to play with the player and you have to kind of communicate with them on different levels.

[00:57:38] Mike Klinzing: I know you talked about dividing up responsibilities amongst the staff when it comes to positionally and you got a group that you work with, working with the big guys. Is there any other ways that you guys divide up in terms of responsibilities on the staff? Do you have a specific offense and defense coordinator, and are there some staff that have that or are there certain responsibilities that are designated for each coach?

And if so, how do you guys go about doing, putting that together and, and getting that organized?

[00:58:07] Cameron Black: Yeah. On the staff we have one guy who has assistant and our head coach and then Nelson’s both. Both. We also divide up different scouts. And there’s a scouting schedule where say I have one scout, the next coach has another scout.

Let me kind divvy it up that way so we’re not kind of bombarded with scouts. That’s, that’s probably the biggest thing is the scouting schedule is probably the thing. Our scouts are probably the thing that takes the most time and the most tedious work with coaches. So it’s good to kind of separate those so you have time to go in and do those scouts.

[00:58:43] Mike Klinzing: What’s something that a coach who coaches at the college level level or the high school level might not know or might not be aware of in terms of what it’s like to coach in the G League? Or is there something that when you think back to your time as, as a coach at the college level, or you think about your dad as a high school coach, is there something about being a G League coach that maybe coaches at those other levels might not understand?

[00:59:10] Cameron Black: I think the toughest part about the G League is that everybody wants to get out. . When you think about the players, coaches, trainers, front office, it, it’s a level in the league where, Everybody wants to you’re obviously doing the work and appreciate the job, but everybody’s trying to get to that next job.

So it’s about players, coaches, and staff being unselfish and, and really trying to work together. That’s the biggest difference, everybody’s kind of focused on that one common goal. You have some players who love the game and really want to play college basketball, and then you have other players that are just kind of happy to be on the team.

So that’s the biggest difference to me.

[00:59:56] Mike Klinzing: Do people talk about that? I mean, do you, as a coaching staff, is that something that sort of just hangs in the background and nobody talks about? Or, or is that conversations that you sometimes, have you and Nelson ever sit down and be like, Hey, what do you think’s next?

Or, who can we talk to to maybe get that next opportunity at the next level? Or do you kind of keep that on the back burner and just put your nose to the grindstone and, and do your work?

[01:00:20] Cameron Black: I think we talk about it, but I think the, the biggest thing that we talk about is continued development. Not staying the same coach that you were a week ago, or you just have to keep improving.

And that goes for coaches, players front office. It’s really about and it used to be called a development league. We’re all there to develop and get better. And then kind of after this season, you kind of go your separate way and you see what happens.

[01:00:44] Mike Klinzing: All right. I want to ask you one final two part question.

So part one is when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge? And then the second part of the question is, when you think about what you get to do every day working for the Legends, working in basketball, being a coach, what brings you the most joy? So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

[01:01:08] Cameron Black: The biggest challenge for me would be trying to balance working in the G League with a six or seven month contract. As well as having a young family. I’m married with a kid that’s almost two. So those are going to have to be some choice and decisions I have to make. And it kind of, you kind of really can’t plan, you know what I mean?

So once April hits my contract’s going to be up. I’m not sure, I’m probably going to move back home like I normally do, but then you have to kind of look for that next job and then make sure that if you get that next job, it kind of aligns with the family. That’s really the biggest challenge for me.

The biggest joy is when you’re working with a player and you’re showing on film and you’re working on things on the floor, and then that player executes something on the floor and they look at the bench at you and you know, they, or something like that, or depending what kind player they may yell.

So it’s just one of those things where it’s great to work with the player, show them the film, and then they execute on the floor. And also, like I said, as an assistant, the thing that we put the most time into is our scouts. So putting the time into a scout where you’re not sleeping and you’re watching film and you’re missing time with the family and you’re getting up early and staying up late, and then you put together a good scouting report that the team can understand and then the team goes out and executes the plan, wins the game.

Those are the the two joys I have.

[01:02:35] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that’s well said. I think it’s something that any coach would appreciate and love. When you see something that you conceive of in your mind, you watch it on film, you put it on paper, you share it, and then boom, it happens out on the floor. I know that’s one of the most gratifying things that any coach can feel.

Before we wrap up, I want to give you a chance to share how people can reach out to you, connect with you, whether you want to share social media, email, whatever you feel comfortable with. And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:03:05] Cameron Black: You guys can contact me. My email is camblack20@gmail com.

And you can also reach out to me on Instagram, Cameron Black, c a m e r o n b l a c k.

[01:03:18] Mike Klinzing: Awesome. Cameron, cannot thank you enough for ending a long day of travel with us here on the Hoop Heads Pod. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.