For Adidas, that man is Rivers. As Adidas' grassroots basketball coordinator, Rivers' job is to keep track of all the rising basketball talent in the country. He coordinates the entire network of grassroots basketball programs, including all of the AAU teams sponsored by Adidas. The number fluctuates each year, but he is generally in charge of 50-60 programs. A typical day outside of the month of July includes tracking down coaches and managers for 15-20 of those programs.
Rivers finds out about players, their skills, their troubles.
A lot of that information goes towards compiling a list of 200 or so players who will be invited to the following summer's ABCD camp in New Jersey. Rivers actually came up through the system. The former coach of Oakland Slam and Jam misses the bench and the daily contact with his group of 12-15 players, but, now, he says, he's reaching 1,000. Luciana Chavez is a staff writer for the Sporting News. Scintillating at Nike with enormous showing vs. Tyson Chandler, the No. 1 ranked center in the nation.