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ANNOUNCER: From our region to yours...
MAN: I'm Kelly MacDonald for Accessible Media,
inside the basketball practice facility
at the Air Canada Centre
visiting with Toronto Raptor Amir Johnson.
Amir, one of the things I've always admired
about the NBA and the players
is the bonding that goes on, the association,
not even just on teams, but outside,
the summer play and so on.
Right, right.
Do you get involved in that stuff?
Absolutely.
Guys will meet during the summer,
usually they're in different cities,
mainly LA, Vegas, you know, anywhere around the States.
Anywhere where there's basketball.
And the guys can get some good runs, you know,
to play each other.
Pretty much, that's where everybody is.
And once you get a bunch of athletes together, you know,
it's just all fun and a bunch of jokes.
MACDONALD: There's some talk out there
that guys are coming into the NBA too young,
that they should spend another year
playing college ball or from wherever they come from.
Yes.
Do you agree with this?
I feel like if you're ready, you're ready.
They put the rule in, I think my year
I'm the last high school player
actually drafted out of high school
before they put that one-year college rule.
So I feel like guys I mean, our class,
you know, if you're ready, I mean,
you either have kind of like a man-child body
I feel like you should go.
But, you know, if you don't feel like you're ready
I think you should do a couple years in college.
MACDONALD: Amir, for you, how much have you had to do
especially coming out of high school right in?
Um, you know, as a young kid, I didn't really realize
how far I could make it.
And coming out of high school,
I didn't really think I could make it.
But I was very, you know, dedicated
and I worked very hard.
You know, I had a bunch of people around me
like my mother and my father just to kind of put in my head,
like, if you really want to go to the next level,
you have to put in that work.
So, for me, like, during high school, I used to
You know, high school started at 8:00.
I used to wake up by 6:00 and go get up shots before school,
during school. Like, during lunch time
I used to go in the gym and get up shots.
I used to try to get my homework done before school
and then I used to shoot after school.
So I just constantly put in the work, you know,
and eventually I was good enough to make it.
MACDONALD: With Canada's basketball team, the Toronto Raptors,
I'm Kelly MacDonald for Accessible Media.