Celtics’ Payton Pritchard to host basketball camp in Redmond
Published 12:00 pm Friday, July 5, 2024
- Boston Celtics guard Payton Pritchard (11) drives past Indiana Pacers forward Doug McDermott (20) during the first half of Game 4 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals May 27 in Indianapolis.
Fresh off winning an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics, Payton Pritchard will host the Payton Pritchard Basketball Camp — a youth basketball camp on Wednesday at Ridgeview High School in Redmond.
Pritchard, who hit two halftime buzzer-beaters in the Celtics’ 4-1 NBA Finals series win over the Dallas Mavericks, will be teaming up with fellow Oregon basketball alum and current Ridgeview boys basketball coach Maarty Leunen to teach skills to elementary and middle school basketball players.
It is a return to his home state for Pritchard, who was a four-time state champion and two time Gatorade Oregon Player of the Year at West Linn High School. As a freshman at Oregon in 2017, he helped the Ducks reach the Final Four. He was the Pac-12 Player of the Year in 2020 and won the Lute Olson Award and Bob Cousy Award while at Oregon. He then became a first-round draft pick of the Boston Celtics in 2020.
In the Celtics’ championship season, Pritchard played about 22 minutes per game and averaged 9.6 points, 3.4 assists, and 3.2 rebounds per game.
Leunen is a former star at Redmond High who led the Panthers to the 2003 big-school state championship and took them back to the title game in 2004. At UO he played on the 2007 squad that advanced to the Elite Eight. He received Pac-10 postseason honors in his junior and senior seasons, before embarking on a long professional playing career overseas, mostly in Italy. He recently retired and became the Ridgeview head coach this past season.
The Payton Pritchard Basketball Camp will have two sessions on Wednesday. The first session, for incoming third- through fifth-graders, will go from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The second session, for sixth- through eighth-graders, will run from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Between the two sessions Pritchard will go through one of his personal workouts.
The camp costs $150. To register go to www.energyhoopclub.com.