Manawatū Jets players ensure Whanganui youth are on the ball

Daishon Knight is a sight to behold when he is in flight and right now he might be soaring higher than ever before.

The import point guard dropped 45 points to help his Manawatū Jets stun the Southland Sharks 94-91 in the National Basketball League on Sunday.

This backed up a mammoth 47-point performance against the Canterbury Rams last week which the Jets narrowly lost in a 106-103 double overtime thriller.

On Wednesday, Knight visited Whanganui to share the keys to his success with youth as part of Basketball Manawatū's Kiwi Hoops school holiday programme.

"When kids first come here, I tell them, everything they see with NBA players and their favourite basketball players is because they've mastered the fundamentals," Knight said.

"They can't do anything without the fundamentals, all of the flashiness, all of the creativity, it comes during the game and it comes with instinct."

The event is like a one-day camp, starting in the morning with 5-13 year olds and concluding with skills and development for 10-17 year olds.

There are four stations that focus on different aspects of basketball, passing, dribbling, scoring and different styles of shooting.

"My station here is dribbling, working on ball handling, how to finish after ball handling and things like that," Knight said.

"We don't come here and work on anything flashy, when they do something like that, I stop it. We're not working on that, that's not what you're supposed to practise."

Whanganui is the latest stop in a series of one-day sessions throughout towns nearby Manawatū - Jets players were in Levin on Tuesday and will head to Pahiatua next.

The Jets played three games at Springvale Stadium in Whanganui this NBL season and Knight said that the sport is taking off here.

"Some kids, you have to stay with the easy stuff, some of these kids that I've met here in Whanganui, you can just jump right into some of the harder ball handling," Knight said.

"When they heard I was coming here I got a group of messages, it really made them excited. These kids support us, so to come here and do something like this is perfect."

With two rounds remaining, the Jets next game is against the fourth-placed Hawke's Bay Hawks at Pettigrew Green Arena in Napier on Sunday.

"We're not going to win it all and go to the playoffs, but we're not going to sit around and let teams beat us either," Knight said.

"We're going into it with confidence, they've still got to fight for their spots and they've still got to come through us."