Metro Detroit's Jewish
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assisted living community I

Former Detroit
Pistons star Rick
Mahorn will coach
a Partnership 2000
basketball camp.

`Bad Boy'
Good Clu

LONNY GOLDSMITH
Staff Writer

F

or 17 years, National
Basketball Association
players feared Rick
Mahorn's flying elbows
and his no-holds-barred brand of
basketball.
Next month, the baddest of the
Detroit Pistons "Bad Boys," who
won the NBA championship in
1989, will be going to Israel to help
teach basketball to 60 Ethiopian,
Russian and Israeli teenagers.
Running the camp is David Bitan,
a former professional basketball player
in Israel and now coach of the team
from Migdal HaEmek. Bitan said the
camp will focus more on basketball
fundamentals than on the creative use
of elbows.
"I had a meeting with Rick three
weeks ago in Detroit and he was
incredible," Bitan said. "He gave us
ideas about what to do at the camp
and I left with a good impression of
,,him and that he really wants to be
there. I'm very happy with how the
meeting went.
Mahorn could not be reached last
week to discuss his coaching plans.
The camp will take place Aug. 1-4
at Kibbutz Gevat in Detroit's
Partnership 2000 region in the Central
Galilee. The camp will focus on shoot-
ing, passing, dribbling, offense, defense
and competition. During breaks in the
day, participants will get to talk to
Mahorn about his NBA career.
Bitan said he been working for five
years with Robert Aronson, executive
vice president of the Jewish Federation
of Metropolitan Detroit, to get the
camp going. Now corporate sponsors,
including Marriott and Nike, are
/ signed up and the coaches and partici-
pants have been selected.
"In the last month-and-a-half, the
whole camp has been put together,"
said Tanya Mazor-Posner, Federation's
senior community development asso-
ciate.
She said Federation officials are
delighted that Mahorn agreed to take

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Rick Iliahorn, formerly of
the Detroit Pistons, shoots
over Kareem Abdulgabban

part. "Rick Mahorn is amazing with
children and he's done camps around
the United States," she said.
Mazor-Posner said Mahorn came
with the high recommendation of
Pistons President Tom Wilson.
"Tom felt that Rick would be the
most effective player to go," she said.
"He's a well-spoken individual with
skill in dealing with children."
Mahorn joined the Pistons in
1985 after five years with the
Washington Bullets. Not known as a
scorer, he has averaged 6.9 points
and 6.2 rebounds per game in his
career.
He played with Detroit through the
1988-89 season when the Pistons won
their first title, before he got drafted

away by the expansion Minnesota
Timberwolves. He was later traded to
the Philadelphia 76ers.
After a year away in Italy and four
years with the New Jersey Nets,
Mahorn returned to the Pistons for
the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons. He
spent the last two months of last sea-
son with the 76ers, much of the time
as a steadying force for the team's
volatile star point guard Allan Iverson.
"I remember Rick from his great
time in Detroit when he took the
championship," said Bitan, recalling
the images of Mahorn, Bill Laimbeer
and the "Bad Boys."
"I got to see him in person and he's
a very nice and cool guy," he added.
"I'm sure the kids will love him." El

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Detroit Jewish News 11