Perfect hearts

Another trial, another challenge. We've lost another player from our 15U team (NJB All-Net) and now what was once a very deep, balanced team is very bare-bones. It will still be talented, but it will be very tested in the coming weeks.

(Note: Our 15U team in the OBL is still intact and unaffected.)

Hsien told me after practice that he is going to play with Lanakila's second team, which is comprised of players from Kalakaua's middle-school team. In other words, he wants to play with his friends and classmates. And he'll be playing against us.

First we lost Kyle, who decided to play with another team in the 17U Division of the same league. (We don't have a 17U team in NJB All-Net this season.) The league doesn't allow a player to participate in two age divisions and he wanted to get more experience competing and practicing with older players.

We had already lost Kali‘a (playing with his original team, Blue Devils) and Manoa (playing for his dad in the KPT League). Sifo hasn't been showing up lately, too. Tani has been busy with football (and still will be for another couple of weeks). Kapaa would be a big help, but he has an injured ankle.

So it's another obstacle. And yet, I'm not worried, not as much as I was a week ago. Sometimes we won't have the "perfect" roster. We won't have a bunch of experienced guys who happen to be 6-foot or 6-6 or whatever. But we'll have guys with the right attitude and perfect hearts. When we have that, anything is possible on the court.

We had a super workout today, 5-on-5 to end the practice after a good 30 minutes of shooting drills. From our older guys to our youngest and newest guys, everyone played hard, kept learning and got better as a team. That pushes us forward each day, improving as a team and as individual contributors.

On paper, it looks like a huge loss, all these Thunder players missing. But we have Anu, Tani (when he's free) and Jared to anchor the team. We have great hustle from Kanehe, Gabriel and Drake. We have perimeter shooting from Sierra (when she's there). What we lack in pure size, we can make up for with skill and smarts. Our 13U mighty mites showed that to me on Sunday, beating two much bigger and deeper teams. (The game videos are online now.)

So I have faith in both our 13U and 15U teams in whatever league we're in. Our heart is perfect as a team and, apparently, that's all we need. Sure, since we're down to eight players in 15U (NJB All-Net), and if Sierra, Kapaa (ankle) and Kanehe (knee) miss games, we're down to five and probably should find two more players. If it happens, it happens. But I'm certain that the challenge for me this season is to let go and trust God, and that's what I will do.