BIG-TIME HOPES.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

BLUE RIVER - When word comes late Monday morning about a rafting trip down the McKenzie, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says that'll be just fine. With one stipulation:

"Only if we go to a place where if the boat turns over, I can get out and walk across the stream."

Oops. Too late.

The raft pushes off from Paradise Point just east of here, and one of basketball's all-time greats is stuck on river guide Matt O'Neil's raft for a two-hour tour that will voyage through rapids where a spill would require not only some swimming, but a life jacket, even for a 7-foot, 2-inch man.

Things could be worse for Abdul-Jabbar, an instructor at the United States Basketball Academy's first-ever "Big Man" camp this week.

"This is a great facility," Abdul-Jabbar said. "It's everything that you need in one spot. The game of basketball needs places like this."

About 25 players, mostly college level and some professionals, are participating this week in the Big Man camp as well as a camp for guards. Former longtime National Basketball Association head coach Bob Hill is leading the Big Man camp, and former NBA player Jay Humphries, now a coach in Korea, is leading the guard camp. Both are investors in the USBA.

When he opened it seven years ago, Eugene's Bruce O'Neil envisioned the USBA as a place where high school and college players could train during the off-season - and learn more about the game that James Naismith invented with peach baskets more than a century ago - with some of the best to ever play and coach it. That's still the goal, although it has been a struggle.

But landing a player of Abdul-Jabbar's stature as an instructor is one major coup, and another is on the way. At the end of this month, the academy will hold the first-ever draft for the Chinese Basketball Association. About 64 Americans who aspire to play professionally, but haven't made it to the NBA, will attend the camp, as will several coaches and general managers from the Chinese professional league, O'Neil said.

O'Neil grew up playing basketball in Roseburg, then played and coached at the University of Hawaii before returning to Oregon. He runs the USBA with the help of his two sons, Braidy and Matt, who played for the University of Oregon in the early 1990s.

The USBA, which now has an office in Beijing, has signed on as a consultant with the Chinese league to provide its facility as a training spot for the league's coaches and players. A contract also has been signed with China's Ministry of School Sports, and starting in October, China will send its junior national team, 14 of its best male players ages 16 to 18, to study and train at the USBA. In January, China's women's junior national team will come here, O'Neil said.

The UO will provide instructors to teach the players English, he said.

And O'Neil said he hopes Abdul-Jabbar, and other former players with NBA playing and coaching experience, such as Bill Cartwright and Petur Gudmundsson, both of whom are teaching at the Big Man camp this week, will help out with the Chinese, too.

The 57-year-old Abdul-Jabbar, who aspires to become a head coach at the professional or college level and who wrote a book - "A Season on the Reservation" - about teaching the game to American Indian children in Arizona, is keeping an open mind, he said.

"His name is obviously huge over there," O'Neil said of Abdul-Jabbar's fame and popularity overseas. In fact, one Chinese player has even changed his name to "Kareem," because he wanted a famous American name, O'Neil said with a laugh.

"The game is just growing so much internationally that we've chosen to become a leader in education," he said. "This is a big step for the Chinese. They've never let their kids come and do these kinds of things in America before."

Hill, who trained the Taiwanese national team here last year, made a visit to China with O'Neil this past spring.

"It was very obvious by the reception (O'Neil) got that he's well-liked and trusted there," Hill said. "Basketball is the up-and-coming thing over there with Yao Ming," he added, referring to the NBA star from China.

In fact, Ming has visited the USBA here and a lodge has even been built for him, along with one for NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal, Bruce O'Neil said. Although O'Neal is a minor investor in the USBA, he has yet to make a visit, O'Neil said.

"We're going to get him up here soon," O'Neil said, as he watched Hill instruct players in a pick-and-roll clinic.

For now, having someone like Abdul-Jabbar at the USBA is the thrill of a lifetime, said Jay Anderson, an ex-UO player who wants to play professionally overseas. "It's pretty sweet," Anderson said. "It's unbelievable to have him here."

Abdul-Jabbar gave players a lesson in how to shoot the shot he was best known for - the sky hook - Monday morning. It has been 15 years since he retired from the Los Angeles Lakers, but he still nails it as if it were, well, 1989.

"Every time," said Owen Newman, a 6-foot-9 player for Lane Community College.

"Unless I'm guarding him," joked Brad Kanis, another LCC player who, at 7-foot 1-inch, stands almost as tall as Abdul-Jabbar.

"It's the best thing that's ever happened to me," Newman said of meeting and receiving instruction from Abdul-Jabbar. "I love it. This is what's going to take us to the next level."

Kanis agreed.

"It's not every day you get to work with someone like him," Kanis said. "It's crazy."

Abdul-Jabbar, known for being shy and humble, said he was just honored for the chance. Too many professional and college players today think they already have it all figured out, he said. Just look at this year's Lakers, loaded with superstars, but losing in the NBA finals to the Detroit Pistons, a less talented team but one that worked twice as hard.

"I think that was a great lesson," Abdul-Jabbar said. As for the young players here this week, he said "it's neat that they want to hear what I have to say. I've got a lot of respect for kids that do."

CAPTION(S):

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (center) shoves off with other coaches and players on a white-water trip down the McKenzie River. Chris Pietsch / The Register-Guard Legendary basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar coaches Brad Kanis (left) and David White at the "Big Man" camp at the United States Basketball Academy in Blue River on Monday.