By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow point guard Sergio Rodriguez wrote a blog for the Turkish Airlines Euroleague site in which he is talking about his young days.
People on EuroLeague.net want me to talk about ballhandling, so here I go. I spent a lot of time with a basketball in my hands and in that sense, ballhandling is something that came to me in a natural way. Since I was a child, I was always surrounded by balls. If I got good grades or did something so well that I deserved a gift, it was always a football, a basketball, a tennis ball, a volleyball. I loved all of them, but mainly, I had the habit of having a basketball in my hands every day. It also helped that we had a basketball hoop in my backyard. I was always playing basketball at home. At the same time, I was never a kid who loved video games, so that made me spend more time playing a lot of sports on the street.
As a kid, I went to a public school in Tenerife that didn’t have a basketball team. Basketball in Tenerife was mainly for kids in private schools. I tried to join a team at age six or seven, but they wouldn’t let me because I was not in one of those schools. I started to play football, tennis, karate, table tennis…a little bit of everything. Then, at eight years old, our La Salle school was linked to Unelco, a basketball club, so I started to practice. By that time, I had already played a lot of games in 3-on-3 tournaments and stuff like that. When I started practising with the team, I realized I was good at it and that it was easy for me to retain everything I learned.
As for ballhandling, like I said, I had the good fortune to have a basketball hoop at home, and in that way, I didn’t bother anyone. I didn’t live in a flat or in a house in which bouncing the ball would be noisy for our neighbours. It was a good way to spend energy and be active at the same time. It was kind of natural. Then when you grow up, you keep an eye on what people do and how they bounce the ball. You try to imitate the players you like, what you see on TV. Back in those days, we had a team in Tenerife, but not at the highest level in Spain. I tried to have as much fun as possible and work to get better with what I saw on TV and what I liked.