A well-known former college and NBA player was in International Falls on Friday to teach basketball fundamentals at Rainy River Community College.
Christian Laettner, a power forward/center who was on two national championship teams in his four seasons at Duke University and played 13 seasons in the NBA for the Minnesota Timberwolves and other pro teams, took the court Friday while providing pointers on how to play the game.
Laettner said his visit to the Falls was arranged by being in touch with RRCC women’s basketball coach Dieter Humbert.
After Laettner ended his playing career, he formed the Christian Laettner Basketball Academy, which is in its third year and has traveled to various places in the country to work with male and female players ages 12 and older.
“With the older people I try to teach them to play the game without dribbling so much,” Laettner said. “With the younger people I try to teach them (by saying), ‘Hey, we’ve got really to work on the dribbling, the catching and the passing,’ and then doing all that stuff while you’re running full speed up and down the court.”
Laettner, who is the only college player to have been part of gold medal-winning 1992 United States Olympic men’s basketball team known as the “Dream Team,” worked Friday with players from the RRCC men’s and women’s basketball teams, who have already begun practicing for the 2012-13 season, as well as some boys and girls players from the Falls.
“The thing I’m hoping more than anything is (being on the court with the players) makes it fun for them,” he said. “Even if I’m a little older and can’t bend over as I used to, it’s still fun for them to go home and say, ‘I was on the court playing with Christian Laettner today,’ or ‘he showed us what to do.’”
Late Friday morning, for instance, Laettner was playing full court with the Voyageurs men’s team.
“It was easy with the college kids, because I don’t have to show them anything,” he said. “All I have to do is bark out commands and they can do it right away.”
Laettner said basketball fundamentals are key to the success of the game.
“The game of basketball is all about timing and rhythm and being in the right spot at the right time and being in formation the right way — being set up the right way,” he said. “I also think (basketball fundamentals are) things people don’t talk about enough anymore, they don’t coach enough, they don’t stress enough.”
Laettner, who was coached by Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, said coaching is “the most important thing out there” to a basketball program to be successful.
“I don’t know any good player out there that did it without good coaching,” he said.
Laettner, who described basketball as a “young man’s sport,” said it’s possible for someone to play in the NBA 20 years after playing in college by staying in good physical shape.
“I don’t know how Grant Hill’s still doing it,” he said. “I’m blown away that he’s still doing it.”
Laettner, who noted he decided to end his playing career in the NBA after 13 seasons because of having back trouble, said he remains in contact with Hill and other players that were part of the national championship teams at Duke.
Following Friday sessions at RRCC, Laettner was on hand for a banquet at the Thunderbird Lodge, before heading to Lake of the Woods to go musky fishing.
Laettner, whose basketball academy is based in Jacksonville, Fla., and has other camps scheduled this month in Minnesota, said he would like to return to the Falls next summer for another camp and possibly be around for the annual “Pulling for Peace,” if that can be arranged.
