Preparing for the elementary basketball jamboree, the Elementary Basketball team worked on fundamental skills
to grow together as a team.
Nirupam Maheshwari, fifth-grader, said that the team aimed to work on “passing and being open to receive
the pass from teammates.”
Mr. Kaiser, the head coach, said the focus of the team was simply “understanding the basketball game”
because a lot of their players are new. Describing his players’ relative inexperience, he said, “The players are
learning the sense for basketball. They may think, ‘Oh, my team’s down there, I should be down there too,’
instead of maintaining their position.”
With all these areas of improvements for the players, Mr. Kaiser prepared drills to help the players
improve their basketball skills. Mr. Kaiser said, “Basically we work on basic skills and learn the fundamen-
tals of the game. In elementary we do very different things compared to high school. We teach them the
basics, we leave the fine tuning to varsity coaches.”
However, the basketball team wasn’t just filled with areas of improvements; the team also had
strengths worth mentioning. Mr. Kaiser stated that the team’s overall enthusiasm was one of their most
noteworthy strengths. “These kids don’t point their fingers at each other,” he said. “If a team is willing
to play together, they can accomplish a lot.”
With this enthusiastic attitude in their toolkit, the team practiced and grew together to gain a valu-
able experience in the game of basketball.
Dribbling tips
1
3
Dribble the ball
hard. The harder
you dribble, the
quicker it gets back
in your hand. The
more time the ball
spends in your
hand, the more
2 control you have of
the ball.
4
Top Row: Coach Kaiser, JJ Hahm, Joshua Ko, Max Chin, Nirupam
Maheshwari, Brian Jeen, Zachery Youn, Clare Son, Alex Schmidt,
Nazarii Karpinskyy, Coach Kaiser, Coach Evans; Bottom Row: Ethan
Evans, Kenneth Lee, Taniya Christober, Masataka Shimokawa,
Yoshiki Sakamoto, Anant, Agarwal, Shasheesh Manda, Helena
Chin, Roy Hwang, Thomas Kaiser
1. Helena Chin practices bounce pass with her partner.
Throughout the season, the team improved the accu-
racy of their passes. 2. Masataka Shimokawa struggles
to do push ups. Building arm strength is important to
pass and shoot in basketball. 3. Thomas Kaiser and
Ethan Evans listen to Coach Kaiser’s instructions. Coach
Kaiser shared what their next drill will look like. 4. JJ
Hahm dribbles down the court as he weaves through the
cones. Even with his injured arm, he tried to work hard
and participate in every drill. 5. Zachary Youn, Masataka
Shimokawa, Anant Agarwal, and Ihor Vasyltsov carefully
watch the coach demonstrate their next drill. They prac-
ticed perfecting their dribbling by weaving through cones
as they dribbled. 6. Max Chin jumps up to make a clean
shot. He had one of the best shooting aims in the team.
5
6
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