Jr. NBA Elevate: Ava Watson

Hey, what's up y'all? It's Ava Grace Watson. I'm a shooting guard, class of 2024, and you're now watching Elevate. What's up, y'all? This is Coach J. I'm with Ava Watson. She's one of the top guards in the class of 2024 at Buford High School. We're gonna get it in today with Elevate. Let's go. All right, so the first thing we're gonna do, we're gonna tap the ball right here in front of our face, and we're gonna get big pushes laterally off our foot. So every time we push, we're gonna get back balanced and push again. Okay. All right, so you push. All right, so big push and reach. Good. Push. Tell us a little bit about you. My hobby that I like to do, I like to play tennis with my little brother or my friends, like pickleball, stuff like that. I'm the only girl. I have three brothers. My favorite food is chicken. I can eat that all the time. And I love burgers. I love food. Tell us about your brothers. What's it like growing up with brothers? A lot of wrestling, fighting, Nerf guns. You really didn't see me with like dolls. You saw me with like boy stuff. But no, it was like hunting, fishing. I was like a little convoy running around with them. That's cool. Made you tougher though. Yeah. I'm sure you're a more physical basketball player because of it. No, for sure. Yeah. And so chicken, what's your favorite way to have chicken? Fried, of course. Okay, we're in the South. Yeah. Gotta have fried chicken. Gotta have it. Chicken tenders, everything like that. I love it. Good stuff. Let's get back to work. Go in and out. Just to shake me. Push off your left foot here. Boom. And I'm going to give you contact. Try to ride you off of it. Release this shoulder. And then let's go right foot, right hand here. Nice. There we go. There's one. All right, Ava, this show is called Elevate. What are you trying to work on or elevate this off season? I know my basketball's good. It's probably just getting more of a routine. Shooting the ball, I want to sharpen things. I want to get better, but it's just sharpening my tools. I know I have everything I need, so. Okay, and what tools do you need to sharpen, do you feel like? Tell me more. Definitely my ball handling, transition, finishing around the bucket, stuff like that. Okay, so finishing, we'll get some of that. Some ball handling, we got some of that. I like it. Just kind of hone everything in a little bit. Yes. I love it. And so, you just lost in the Final Four in the state tournament. What do you see for next year? We're real small, so I think we're gonna be pretty fast. We're working on our team with strength and speed right now, so that's what we're gonna try to use for our advantage. So playing fast, that's gonna help you with that stuff you talked about, ball handling, finishing around the rim, transition. Yes. Great, all right, let's get back to it. What we're gonna do is keep building off the moves we worked on before, so we're dribble, relax. We're going between cross, front foot pound, shot. After that, we're getting out to the corner three, boom, shot. We fill up for a third one, space, catch and shoot, and then we're right back on it. X, boom, boom. Nice, great job, way to attack the low corner. Knock down. There it is, good, knock down. Boom, one point, good, one more just like that. Here we go. Knock down, great job. Big shot, big shot. There it is, catch. Hey, that looked easy. Good job. So I heard you dropped 40 points on somebody this year. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, it was the game to get us to the championship for region, and we were playing Mill Creek. We blew them out the first time, but since it was region, I guess our team and I included thought we were just gonna blow them out again. So we started off pretty slow, but we ended up going into double overtime, and we ended up pulling it out, but yeah, it was a close game back and forth. I didn't shoot the ball very good, but I got to the rim and got easy baskets and got on a few points. Okay, so 40 off of like 50 shots, or like you were pretty efficient with it? Yeah, I was definitely hunting my shot. I was probably, I don't know my shot percentage, but I'm pretty sure I made more than I missed. Right, so you were shooting above 50%, that's all we needed to know. Okay, so you didn't shoot it well, but you were still above 50%. Yeah, I didn't shoot it as well as I know I can shoot it. I was a little off that game, but. You have a high standard. Yes, I do. Tell us a little bit about some of your influences and inspirations. Yeah, it's definitely my mom and dad. My mom's a very hard worker, even though she's not. My dad's the sports person, she's like the worker and the caretaker, but she's a very hard worker. And my dad, he played basketball at Virginia, so he's my trainer. So he shaped my game and he made me who I am today. I told your dad, I don't think I told you, but your dad was an influence to me, because I grew up close to him and he was older than me, and he was like, Chesley Watson, Chesley Watson. He was like a big deal, so it's really cool. He was one of my influences too. That's awesome. Good stuff. All right, let's go. You're gonna catch and shoot. Once you make a shot, you're gonna make as many as you can in a row from that spot. All right, once you miss, now you had that number, so you made three. You're gonna move to the next spot for five spots. You wanna get as many as you can. Hopefully, you know, a pretty high number. Any guesses from me? I don't know. No? All right. We'll just do the best we can. Okay, yes. Let's do it. Knock him down. Great shot. One. Good shot. Two. Three. Good shot. Four. Great job. 25. Good. There it is. 26. Great job. 35. 36. 37. Okay. 37. That was a little bit better, right? Yeah. Good job. Way to shoot it. Hey, what's up, y'all? This is Ava. I just finished a workout with Elevate, and that's a wrap. Go. Woo! First attempt. Now I'm gonna match you, just because you did it. Here we go.