UPB in SB by Julian Obiedo
June 26, 2019
For the past few months, the most commonly asked question at the UPB training facility has been “where’s Coach Packie?” For those still wondering, an opportunity fell into his hands to prepare draft prospects and facilitate a pro day for BDA Sports Management. To properly prepare these players for the NBA draft, BDA had Packie and their clients stationed in Santa Barbara to work with the renowned Peak Performance Project (P3) training facility who also call Santa Barbara home. The players and coaches visited P3 six days a week for athletic training off the court.
As for the time outside of P3, on the court, Packie and the Players frequented gyms around Santa Barbara, most frequently, Bishop Diego High School for their on-court work. This entailed expanding each players range of skills, brushing up on some fundamentals, and tweaking small parts of each of their games for the better. These daily gym sessions gave Packie the chance to watch film on players ahead of pro-day to better understand their tendencies and habits and learn the areas of their games to focus on come pro-day. These on court workouts were used to correct and better shape players games for the NBA, by making them more efficient through minimizing wasted motion. Not only were these players preparing themselves, but they also were preparing to face off against the elite athletes of the NBA.
As for the end goal of this multi-month process, the players would eventually workout in front of the coaches, managers and executives from throughout the NBA. This event is called pro-day, as the players are essentially using the workout as a non-verbal job interview with the teams interested in their talents. Prior to the pro-day itself, Packie created a rundown for the coaches running workouts and for the players taking part in them. This included opportunities for players to showcase their shooting, dunking, and game skills with a short but competitive scrimmage. With help from Jayson Hughes, Coach Chris, Coach Larisa, Coach Julian and Devon Brookshire, Packie successfully conducted the BDA Sports pro-day.
