Huerter gives back to region
Atlanta star to conduct camps this summer
Kevin Huerter, upon entering the 2018 NBA Draft as a 19-year-old, two years removed from graduating from Shenendehowa High School, looked to establish himself in the world’s best basketball league as he heard his name called by the Atlanta Hawks with the 19th overall selection.
Four years later, the 6-foot-7 Huerter is now a valuable member of the Atlanta franchise. Proof of that status is the 23-year-old landing a second fully-guaranteed contract with the Hawks that will pay him 65 million dollars over his next four years.
Huerter has entrenched himself as a valuable player in the NBA, averaging 12.1 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game in a 202122 campaign where he also earned the Sekou Smith Award from the Atlanta media as the team’s most cooperative player to deal with. Huerter is grateful to the people that put him in the position to succeed and now wants to help Capital Region players looking to enhance their basketball aspirations.
In wanting to give back, Huerter has found two different avenues to do just that: by conducting a pair of basketball camps held at Halfmoon’s Impact Athletic Center and establishing the Kevin Huerter Foundation to help those in less fortunate situations.
“Bringing relationships and the NBA to upstate New York is big,” Huerter said. “Growing up, there wasn’t a specific NBA team I followed and there was no one from the area playing to look up to. I thought, ‘how can I bring that presence back to the community and have camps that build interest?’ It is a lot of fun. As I get older, you meet more and more people. I think having NBA guys working camps, the people there appreciate it getting to see them and hearing different perspectives.”
Huerter Basketball Camps will conduct two different camps this summer. The first will be held July 11-15 and the second is set for August 1-5. The morning sessions to be held from 9 a.m. to noon are for younger kids, and the 1-4 p.m. afternoon time will be reserved for high
school athletes.
“It is the whole community engagement thing. For me moving forward, it is starting with the youth and getting high school players from around the area to work with the NBA and college guys that have gone away and have come back,” Huerter said. “I think I see that me getting everyone together under one roof. I think it will be a really nice basketball atmosphere if we can get these camps going the way we want them to.
“It is like what your parents tell you, ‘you are trying to leave places better than when you found them?’ Obviously, we’re trying to give back to the community.”
As he grew up with his older brother Thomas, the siblings subscribed to
Sports Illustrated for Kids and filled a wall with those magazine covers that included shots of their two favorite NBA players: Dwayne Wade and Lebron James. Huerter, who played two years at the University of Maryland before declaring for the NBA Draft, understands kids attending his camp will have rooms filled with images of him.
“When we were younger, we went to the Siena camps and we did the (Greg) Koubek overnight camp,” Huerter said. “I did the Koubek camps when I was younger and we transitioned into the Siena camp. When I got older, I worked at the Koubek overnight camps.
“There are kids you remember. When I was at the Fast Break Camps working at Shen, Mason Courtney was one of those kids there as a middle-schooler running around. Now we have seen where he has taken his game going to Siena.”
Koubek, a star player at Shenendehowa who went on to play in four straight Final Fours at Duke University, is currently serving as the General Manager of the Sports Academy (formerly known as the Mamba Sports Academy created by Kobe Bryant). Huerter hopes both his camp and foundation can become impactful parts of the area’s hoop community.
“The foundation we’re putting together is a lot of youth welfare and creating athletic opportunities for underprivileged and economically challenged people,” Huerter said. “With the Impact Center, we’re trying to bring things there that I didn’t have when I was growing up. We didn’t have a facility like this to do the camps. This is the continuation of Koubek in a lot of ways.”