The Belize Basketball Federation is preparing for the Centrobasket Championships to be played in the Dominican Republic from July fifth to the eleventh. Today the Federation welcomed its new coach former NBA all star and UCLA standout Marques Johnson. His task is daunting as Johnson only has a few weeks to put together a selection whose players he knows mostly by reputation and videotape. But arriving from the United States today he told us he is up to it and feels confident that the team will distinguish itself.
Marques Johnson, Coach National Team
"The prospects are good, I mean in the game of basketball the most important this is get everyone functioning as a cohesive team and this team was able to do that last season in Cancun I believe it was, they finished second to Mexico they lost by 106 - 103 game on some great offence and so I think if we can keep Mexico or teams of that nature from scoring that many points I think that enhances our chances to be even more successful."
Jules Vasquez
"You lack head coaching experience and great players as we know do not great head coaches necessarily make. How do you respond to that?"
Marques Johnson
"Well that's absolutely true I do lack head coaching experience that's what would make it such a unique challenge for me coming into this but You know what I do I point to a guy like Doc Rivers who is having a lot of success. He didn't have head coaching experience before he took over the Orlando Magic several years ago. He like me was a broadcaster he didn't broadcast games as long as I did. For me my benefits are numerous number one is that I played for some of the greatest coaches. My high school coach at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles was a winningest coach in California history and one of the top high school coaches in the country in history. My college coach you know about John Wooden who just passed away last week, the most successful coach in college history. My NBA coach Don Nelson, my first seven years as a player who taught me the game on the pro level is the winningest coach all time in NBA history. Does that automatically mean that I am going to be on that level? Not at all. What is means though is that I have a lot of knowledge from those gentlemen that I was fortunate and blessed enough to play for to pass on to these players."
Team leader Milton Palacio is currently playing in the finals in the Spanish League finals and will not arrive until next week. Palacio is facing #1 pick in the 2009 NBA draft Ricky Rubio. Other players will be arriving later this week into the weekend. The draw for the Centrobasket tournament has been finalized and it shows Belize in group b with Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Mexico and Cuba.
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