2020 RTB Livestream Top Performers - Session 1
On Friday, November 13, RecruitTheBronx.com hosted Session 1 of their High School Preseason Livestream showcase. The replay of the Livestream video of approximately 75 minutes of game play and the three point shooting contest can be found here.
2021’s
Elijah Parent (2021) 6’0 point guard, Bristol Eastern High (CT), AAU Team: CT Passion – Parent is a coach’s dream, seemingly to have absorbed so much about what it takes to impact a game’s outcome. He scores using skills that will translate to the next level, such as jump-stop pumps and pivots, floater game, quick-release threes with shooter’s touch, stop-n-go and change-of-direction craftiness. All those techniques uses the defender’s abilities and aggressiveness against themselves (As the level of opponent’s athleticism increases, the more valuable are these scoring skills). He was terrific without the ball, making timely cuts, and playing great screen-away basketball. Conversely, on the defensive end, he refused to overplay his opponent’s fakes and dekes, making him deceptively hard to score-on.
Tommy Lorenzetti (2021) 6’0 guard, St Paul’s Catholic High (CT), AAU Team: CT Passion - Lorenzetti is a detail guy, and he gets them right on the basketball court. To describe his game is an exercise in going through a basketball how-to manual. His defensive stance is text book. He plays low-to-the-ground with the ball to his advantage. Adding in jump stops, pump fakes and step-throughs, it takes him where he wants to go with the ball. That includes a successful drive-n-dish attack. He has a strong body and he uses that to his advantage as well. He can hold a position seal to create an entry pass to himself. He sets screens like he enjoys bruises, including a solid understanding of the screen-away game. He can elevate into a jumper when that’s the right play. He finds open teammates like he wants to be their buddy. If he gets the itch someday, he’s the kind of player who could morph into a terrific coach and teacher of the game.
James Tourin (2021) 6’1 guard, Babylon High, AAU Team: Lights Out – Tourin is an “excellence-lies-in-the-details” performer. He does several of the subtle things like baiting the opponent to throwing an interception in transition, head faking his defender into opening a driving lane and being timely slipping into the scoring lane in transition and in his off-the-ball basket cutting. He is clearly the product of being coachable having met good coaching. He is a confident floor general who has a very useful cross-over move. He sneakily piles up extra possessions for his team by being a scrappy, instinctual and hustling rebounder. Tourin made the finals of the 3 point shooting contest.
2022’s
Daniel Becil (2022) 6’3 guard, Worcester Academy, AAU Team: AAU Team: NY Jayhawks – “Mr. Impactful”. Becil was clearly a leader in the Player of the Game assessments. A relentless playmaker on both ends of the floor, filling the stat sheet with game changing steals, assists, rebounds and scoring. He then followed that game performance by winning the 3 point shooting contest. He’s got a strong body with excellent body control and great basketball head on his shoulders. He had an array of ways to score the ball, including a lethal left hand finish, that made him impossible to over play in any form. He did the subtle things that lead to wins, such as putting the opponent’s paint defender’s in foul trouble and beating his man down the floor in both directions.
David Ellington (2022) 5’11 point guard, All Hallows High, AAU Team: Bronx Storm – Ellington is crafty with the ball. In our notes on him, the phrase “hard to stay in front of” kept coming up over and over again. He has the long arms and ball control to create devastating change-of direction set-up moves. The control, ease and relentless of his cross-over, step-back and step-through combinations are upsetting to his defender, the help-defenders and the opposing coach’s stomach.
Miguel Garcia (2022) 6’1 guard, Walton Campus, AAU Team: CSA Elite – Garcia is a handful on offense. His package includes spin moves, jump stop pump-n-pivot playmaking, stop-n-gos and just a sheer will-to-win in traffic. He will also outsmart you from off-of-the ball with timely cuts and by finding the gaps. Defensively, his ball pressure can wreck the opponent’s ability to run a planned set.
Amere Morris (2022) 5’8 guard, Morris Educational Campus, AAU Team: CSA Elite – Morris makes the defensive minded coaches smile. He stays low in his stances and uses his quickness and desire to change the games outcomes. Offensively, he has a great sense of tempo, opportunity and made decisions accordingly. He is fun to play offense with because he will get you the ball when you earn it.
Jayden Mills (2022) 6’5 Monsignor Scanlan High, AAU Team: CSA Elite – Mills has won the basketball gene pool lottery. He is long, agile, mobile and quick off the floor, a prototype D1 wing’s body. His long arms and his ups made his play around the basket seem significantly taller in than his 6’5 height would otherwise suggest. He has ball handling skills that will actually translate better versus the taller-than-high school opponents that he will face at the next level…i.e., where there’s fewer short guys to get underneath his dribble. His shooting form is also promising, a classic case of a 6’5 high school star-in-the-paint making the conversion into a college wing threat. In other words, the more the demand for his excellence to come from the wing, the more practice reps and confidence will lead him to making that metamorphosis.
Kamerin Quintero (2022) 5’11 guard, St Raymond High, AAU Team: CSA Elite – Quintero is a bona fide scorer. He has a point guard’s ball skills, but is so focused and gifted on getting the ball in the basket, he is probably likely to be an All-Conference player at the next level as being a second-touch guard. He is a smooth operating lefty, with both the body control and long ball ability to be un-guardable. He has the best kind of basket drives, simple, but lethal change-of-direction and/or stop-n-go hesitation moves. He stays very low with the ball in transition, which allows him to both change direction faster than the defense can and enables him to see the floor openings because his head is up and looking to do so.
Tavares Tuck (2022) 5’11 point guard, Amistad High (CT), AAU Team: Hoop Haven – Tuck is a disruptive force on defense. He enjoys both attacking the ball handler and baiting intercept-able passes when off the ball. Offensively, Tuck has much to offer as well. He has the ball on a string and a cross-over that is hard to stay in front of. He is creative and athletic on the finish, including both off hand and wrong foot launch moves. After forcing his defender back on his heels, Tuck is confident in his ability to drain the under-contested three. He embarrassed defenders in the open floor.
Khalil Walker (2022) Palisades Prep, AAU Team: CSA Elite – “It’s his wing span that will kill ya…” Walker loves to use his long arms and hustle to be an on-the-ball defensive nightmare. He is textbook is staying in his defensive stances. Those long arms and a good sense of how to use his body also helped him make space, score and draw fouls on his basket drives. He was very slippery in his off-the-ball play. A terrific operator in transition, he sees the gaps well and gets buckets for both himself and teammates.
2023’s
Danny Cruz (2023) – 5’11 guard, Cardinal Spellman High, AAU Team: CSA Elite - Cruz takes pride in his floor-burn game, a hard playing and relentless hustler. He loves being the ball-pressure offense-destroyer player on defense. He has an effective basket drive game, which is well set-up by his long ball threat. Consistent with that assessment, Cruz made it to the 3pt shooting contest finals.
Colin Vigeant (2023) 6’0 guard, Fairfield Warde High (CT), AAU Team: DTX – Vigeant has a soon-to-be-cured basketball ailment. A young, immature and un-muscled body. Veteran scouts understand how to look past that temporary condition, especially when the rest of a player’s game emanates discipline and commitment to excellence. He is a defensive clinic in terms of every detail, staying in a stance, moving his feet, hands-up, talking and playing the help lanes. He is very useful in the off-of the ball process, crafty with his slip-screens and relentless in his screen-away unselfishness. His shooting form is promising, a few hundred more hours in the practice gym seems destined to turn him into “an overnight sensation” in the future.