Foundation Basketball Academy

Foundation Basketball Academy A european pro-style player development program designed to maximize every athlete’s potential.

41 assists.That’s how many Nasir Anderson threw in six games at the 2025 FIBA U16 AmeriCup in Mexico. The old record for...
09/15/2026

41 assists.

That’s how many Nasir Anderson threw in six games at the 2025 FIBA U16 AmeriCup in Mexico. The old record for a U.S. player at that event was 37. It belonged to Rob Dillingham.

USA went 6-0, won by an average of almost 59 points, and beat Canada 108–71 for the gold. Anderson was named tournament MVP — 12.3 points, 6.8 assists and 3.5 steals a game.

Here’s what makes that interesting.

Look at him and you’d guess scorer. He’s a lefty, downhill power guard, 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, and he gets to the rim whenever he wants. Plenty of kids built like that never look up.

He looked up.

Here’s the part for your kid —

→ Eyes up before the catch. Know the pass before the ball gets there. → Find the cutter. Reward the teammate who moves. → Get downhill first. The drive is what opens the pass. → Count your assists, not just your points. → Guard like you pass — he averaged 3.5 steals.

Scoring gets your name in the box score. Making four other players better gets you on the floor.

Built, not born.

Save this for the point guard in your house.

— Foundation Basketball Academy

09/15/2026

A 12-year-old walked up to the mic at a live Mind the Game taping and asked LeBron and Tyrese Haliburton for advice on playing professionally.

Haliburton went first.

“Understand it’s gonna take a lot of sacrifice. You’re gonna have to sacrifice some sleep sometime. You’re gonna have to sacrifice hanging out with the boys, sometimes — get to the gym.”

And then the part most people skip:

“More important than anything, is have fun at what you’re doing.”

→ Live right — be a good person, do right in school → Know the work is going to be a lot → Give some things up to get in the gym → Keep loving it the whole way

If your kid is 12 and dreaming big, that’s the balance. Hard work and still loving the game. You need both.

Built, not born.

Send this to a kid who wants to go pro.

Follow Foundation Basketball Academy — mentality, money, life, from the players who lived it.

09/15/2026

Caption:

Amar’e Stoudemire went into the Hall of Fame last month.

He didn’t play organized basketball until he was 13.

Before that, in his own enshrinement speech, it was him, a ball, and a court — playing one-on-one against an imaginary Michael Jordan.

“It became my therapist.”

Then his first organized game, at 13: got the ball, took off, dunked it.

Six-time All-Star. Five-time All-NBA. Class of 2026.

If you’re worried your kid started too late — the calendar isn’t what’s holding him back. The reps are.

Built, not born.

Send this to a parent who thinks their kid started too late.

Follow Foundation Basketball Academy — mentality, money, life, from the players who lived it.

09/15/2026

Jalen Brunson just carried the Knicks to their first title since 1973. 32.6 points a game in the Finals. Unanimous Finals MVP.

Here’s what he said about his rookie year in Dallas, playing next to Luka:

“Do I belong? That’s like the type of doubt that I put in my mind.”

→ He watched Luka play pickup like it was slow motion → He knew he couldn’t play that way → So his answer was a routine: “I got to come in every day”

At some point your kid is going to sit behind somebody more gifted. The doubt is going to show up. What he does the next morning is the part he controls.

Built, not born.

Send this to the kid sitting behind a better player.

Follow Foundation Basketball Academy — mentality, money, life, from the players who lived it.

11.1 points.That was Benjamin Berrouet’s line at the 2025 FIBA U16 EuroBasket. Twenty-one minutes a game, a year younger...
09/14/2026

11.1 points.

That was Benjamin Berrouet’s line at the 2025 FIBA U16 EuroBasket. Twenty-one minutes a game, a year younger than most of the floor, on a Latvia team that finished sixth.

Twelve months later he walked back into the same tournament and put up 23.6 points and 15.0 rebounds a game. A double-double in all seven games. 33 and 22 against Czechia. 22 and 13 in the final — a 75–69 win over France for Latvia’s first U16 European title ever.

Tournament MVP.

He was born in Texas and grew up in McKinney. His mom played Division I at FIU and wore Latvia’s jersey at the U20 level. That’s how he got the passport.

It’s not how he got 15 rebounds a game.

Points went from 11.1 to 23.6. Rebounds from 9.3 to 15.0. Assists from 1.7 to 4.1. Blocks from 1.6 to 3.5. Every number moved, in one year.

Here’s the part for your kid —

→ Play up. Get beat by older kids now, on purpose. → Go get every rebound, not just the ones that fall to you. → When they send two, find the open man. → Protect the rim. Make them finish over you. → Show up every night. Seven games, seven double-doubles.

If your kid had a quiet summer — good. That’s a starting line, not a verdict.

Built, not born.

Save this for the kid who had a quiet year.

— Foundation Basketball Academy

6-foot-10 with a 7-foot-3 wingspan.That’s the part he didn’t do anything to earn.C.J. Rosser is from Rocky Mount, North ...
09/14/2026

6-foot-10 with a 7-foot-3 wingspan.

That’s the part he didn’t do anything to earn.

C.J. Rosser is from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, plays at Southeastern Prep in Orlando, and is rated at or near the No. 1 player in the class of 2027. This summer he started every game for Team USA at the FIBA U17 World Cup in Istanbul, averaged 16.4 points, won gold — and dropped 23 in the final against Serbia.

On the Nike EYBL circuit with Team United he went for 16.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.4 blocks a game.

Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisville, Arkansas, Miami, NC State and USC are the seven still standing.

Now here’s the part parents get backwards.

Every gym has a tall kid. Almost none of them are Rosser. Length is the most overrated advantage in youth basketball, because it’s the one that shows up on a roster sheet and then does nothing on its own.

I was a 6-foot-9 big for eleven years across eight countries, and I hold my college’s career blocks record. I can tell you exactly what length gets you: a bigger margin for error. That’s it. It does not get you the rebound, the block, or the finish.

Timing gets you the block. Position gets you the rebound. Balance gets you the finish. Every one of those is a rep, not a measurement.

The long kid who never learns those things gets scored on by a guard who studied his feet. I watched it happen for a decade.

Your son is not behind because he’s short. And he’s not ahead because he’s tall.

Length is the gift. The rest is work.

Built, not born.

Save this for your big.

Third in the entire Nike EYBL in rebounding. 9.2 a game.He’s not a center. He’s a wing.Demarcus Henry is a five-star in ...
09/13/2026

Third in the entire Nike EYBL in rebounding. 9.2 a game.

He’s not a center. He’s a wing.

Demarcus Henry is a five-star in the class of 2027 at AZ Compass Prep, ranked top five in the country, with 14 offers and a FIBA U17 gold medal. Across the AAU season with Vegas Elite he went for 19.3 points, 9.2 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.3 steals a night.

But the number that should matter to your kid is 9.2.

Here’s why. Every other elite number on that list is partly a gift. Scoring needs touch. Handling needs hands. Passing needs vision. You can build all of it, but you start somewhere.

Rebounding starts nowhere. It is the one stat on the sheet that is almost entirely a decision.

I played eleven years as a professional big man in eight countries. I never once got a rebound because I was more talented than the guy next to me. I got them because I assumed every shot was a miss, I made contact before I looked for the ball, and I jumped a second time when he didn’t.

That’s it. That’s the whole skill.

Your son doesn’t need to be taller to get eight a game. He needs to go every single time, and most kids don’t. They watch the flight of the ball, they admire the shot, and they lose the possession standing still.

A wing who finished third in the best league in America didn’t do it with height. He did it by deciding to.

You don’t get taught to rebound. You decide to.

Built, not born.

Save this for your player.

09/12/2026

This is the part of the comeback nobody posts.

Klay Thompson, on the second injury — sitting behind his own bench, unable to play:

→ “I still had some moments of weakness. I would cry like a baby on the bench.” → “I’m hearing the crowd and I’m just like — I can’t believe this happened again. And I couldn’t shake that from my head.” → “I was frozen. I couldn’t move.”

Then Steph Curry walked over and told him:

“You’re going to play so much basketball after this. Don’t worry.”

Klay’s response, in his own words: “I couldn’t see that at the time.”

He couldn’t see it. He came back anyway. And then he won another championship.

Two things in there for your kid: the lowest moment of a Hall of Fame career involved crying on a bench — and somebody on his team said the right thing at the right time.

Be that teammate.

Send this to somebody sitting out with an injury right now.

Follow Foundation Basketball Academy — mentality, money, life, from the players who lived it.

09/12/2026

He grew up in Ohio. Dayton, Xavier, Cincinnati — all of them in his backyard, none of them recruited him.

He ended up with ten mid-major offers and went to Lehigh. Then he dropped 30 on Duke in the NCAA tournament and went 10th in the NBA draft.

Here’s what his family told him when he was sitting there waiting on schools that were never calling:

“You’ve got to go where you’re wanted, where you’re needed.”

And the question from his mom that actually decided it:

“Do you want to be somebody’s first option, or somebody’s second option?”

That’s the whole thing. Every kid is chasing the biggest name that will have him. The ones who make it usually went where somebody actually needed them.

Built, not born.

Tag someone who needs to hear this.

Source: Knuckleheads Podcast with Quentin Richardson & Darius Miles, The Players’ Tribune — CJ McCollum, S8 E2.

At 14 years old he was the youngest player on USA Basketball’s U16 national team. They won gold at the AmeriCup in Mexic...
09/12/2026

At 14 years old he was the youngest player on USA Basketball’s U16 national team. They won gold at the AmeriCup in Mexico. He averaged 16.2 a game.

Then every prep school and national basketball factory in the country came calling.

He stayed at Coatesville. His public high school. The one he was always going to.

He’s now the No. 3 player in the class of 2028 with more than 20 offers, coming off a sophomore season of 25 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists — and he is first in three-point efficiency in his entire class.

Here’s what that should tell you, and it’s the thing almost nobody says out loud:

Nobody got recruited because of the name on the front of their jersey.

They got recruited because they played against better players and the film went where they couldn’t. The circuit travels. The USA trials travel. The tape travels. You do not have to.

Transferring is a real answer for some families. But it should be the answer to a real problem — not the first move you make because a group chat told you the local school would hold your kid back.

If your son is the best player in his gym, the fix isn’t a new gym. The fix is a harder level. Play up. Get on a circuit team. Go to the trials. Be undeniable at one thing.

The gym doesn’t make you seen. The level does.

Built, not born.

Comment STAY if you think he made the right call — or LEAVE if you’d have moved him. I read every one.

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