Check out this week’s Sports Illustrated (SI) and you will see an awesome article on Oakland Basketball and NBA Superstar Damian Lillard–who has taken the NBA by storm and was a former student of TTA!
Below is an excerpt from the article that mentions TTA. To read the entire story, click on the link at the bottom of the post. Thank you for your continued support of TTA.
Article Author: Lee Jenkins
“ Between Kidd, who was drafted No. 2 by the Mavs in 1994, and Lillard, Oakland did not yield an NBA point guard of consequence. “It fell off tremendously,” says Lou Richie, a former O’Dowd point guard who played at UCLA and Clemson. Richie and Tony Freccero are co-directors of a basketball training program called Triple Threat Academy, which tutors children as young as four and was founded in 2003. That winter Freccero took out a classified ad in the San Leandro Daily Review, in hopes of drawing kids to the inaugural Christmas camp. Lillard, 13 and 5’2″, saw the ad. He was one of 50 kids who showed up at Assumption Catholic School. “
“ Now, according to Freccero, Triple Threat works with 100 players a day in three gyms around Northern California. The Bay Area boasted three McDonald’s All-Americans last season plus returning standouts such as Arizona’s Brandon Ashley, Oregon’s Dominic Artis and Missouri’s Jabari Brown. “The talent level in Oakland today is probably higher than it’s ever been,” Freccero says. “They play all positions, but you keep hearing, ‘Who’s the next point guard from Oakland? Who’s the next one?’ “