Dallas Mavericks, Scottish Rite For Children Screen 80 North Texas Players As Shawn Bradley Surprises Mavs Academy Combine

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — The Dallas Mavericks and Scottish Rite for Children teamed up to screen 80 of North Texas’ top middle school basketball players to build individualized injury-prevention plans at the Mavericks’ annual Mavs Academy Combine on Saturday, Oct. 17, in Grand Prairie.

Beginning at 9 a.m. CT, the event welcomed 40 of the top middle school boys basketball players in the area through 1 p.m., with the girls staying from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the International Leadership of Texas Arlington-Grand Prairie High School.

Scottish Rite’s Role In The Mavs Academy Combine

At the event, athletes completed jump, speed, agility, and balance testing led by Scottish Rite sports medicine staff and UT Southwestern medical students, followed by basketball drills and scrimmages led by Mavs Academy staff.

“The Dallas Mavericks host this youth combine twice a year and Scottish Rite for Children gets to be a part of it,” Sophia Ulman, the division director of movement science at Scottish Rite, said. “We provide the actual combine portion, which is super fun. The kids absolutely love it. Then, we are also here to provide the parents and the athletes education about injury prevention, which can involve movement all the way to nutrition. We just talk about generally how you can prevent injury and then we also try to provide education about the services we provide. So if an athlete unfortunately does get an injury, they can come to us for literally everything.”

Ulman continued, talking about the technology that Scottish Rite employs in its injury screening to see if particular individuals are at risk of specific ailments.

“Athletes can come out and get a movement assessment, where we use motion-capture technology, which is super cool,” Ulman said. “So it’s the same tech that’s used to make video games or special effects in movies and we can actually narrow down to the degree what’s happening at the knee, or the hip or the ankle that may lead to an injury.”

After screening, parents received each athlete’s results, along with any injury risks the testing identified.

The program has only grown since Dallas and the hospital initially partnered in 2017, setting records for attendance in its ninth year. Brandee Schmidt, sports medicine outreach program manager at Scottish Rite, spoke about the balance between performance and injury prevention at the combine.

“Initiatives like this let us take what we learned in the lab, what we learned through research of other published data and identify areas where we can make a difference for the athletes in their prevention of injuries,” Schmidt said. “One of the conversations we have about this program is the performance side of this. Parents want performance; kids want performance improvements. Sometimes we put a label on something and say, ‘Okay, it’s performance,’ but it’s also injury prevention. We’re pretty passionate about keeping them out of our clinic.”

How Performance Improvements Are Incorporated With Injury Prevention

On the performance side, Mavs Academy staff led drills and scrimmages after the Scottish Rite physical therapists guided the athletes through injury-prevention screening.

“We always kick off the day with Scottish Rite,” Mavs Academy director Ronard Patton said. “They do their data testing. Then we’ll get into some shooting metrics, we’ll play a little bit of three-on-three and then we’ll play five-on-five.”

Patton emphasized the event’s importance, noting that everything from performance drills to injury screening helps prepare these young athletes for their futures.

“From an organizational standpoint, we have a chance to impact kids,” Patton said. “Every kid’s not gonna make it to the NBA, but all of these kids out here, they love playing the game of basketball. So, if we can teach kids how to play, how to play the right way, if we can teach them what to put in their bodies, if we can teach them how to prevent injuries, those types of things and also help them be better leaders off the court, then we’ve done our job.”

The day was capped off by a surprise appearance by former Maverick Shawn Bradley. Bradley talked to athletes about everything from competing against Shaquille O’Neal to free-throw contests with Michael Finley to playing with high school-aged Kobe Bryant in Philadelphia to the bicycle accident in 2021 that left him paralyzed.

“If you really wanna improve your game, play against people that are better than you,” Bradley said to the athletes. “Make them challenge you and challenge the other people around you. Make the best of what you have. Be consistent and work hard. Enjoy the process and I look forward to seeing you in the lights someday.”