Delta Charter guard excelling despite small stature
Published 12:03 am Wednesday, December 30, 2015
FERRIDAY — In a sport dominated by height, five-foot-five-inch Daevern Mays is making his presence felt.
The Delta Charter School sophomore point guard has taken the reigns and smoothly merged into the flow of the game.
“He is pretty comfortable out there,” Delta Charter head coach Ron Ellis said. “I stay on him because he is a young point guard. He is my No. 1 guard and I have to stay on him to get him to the level I want him at.”
Ellis is in his first year as head coach at Delta Charter, but the transition didn’t derail Mays at all.
“I just slid right into it,” he said. “He wanted me to just run the offense, be a point guard and lead.”
And so far, from what Ellis has seen, Mays has stepped up to the challenge.
“He can get to the hole and score,” he said. “He is a really herky-jerky player and has a lot of hesitation.”
However, Ellis is also pushing Mays to expand his game.
“I really want him to develop a midrange jumpshot,” he said. “I always tell him that when he goes against bigger guards, he can’t rely on a floater all day because it is going to get tough to shoot those. But he’ll get it.”
Mays’ floater, though, has been a staple of his game.
“It is the best part of my game,” he said. “I’ve had a floater since I was a kid because I’ve always been short. That was my only way to get the ball over defenders.”
Ellis, who said Mays can be as good as he wants to be, was already talking about the young guard potentially playing at the college level.
“At his size, in college, if you can’t play defense, it is going to be hard to play,” he said. “So I want him to be more of a lockdown defender, too. You have to show you can get up on someone and stop them.”
As for Mays, he said he is just going to try and work on all aspects of his game.
“I’m working on everything,” he said. “Everything can improve. Only time will tell, but I’m going to try to be the best I can be.”