Leon Powe preaches hard work at Celtics Jr. Academy camp in Lewiston
Campers raise their hands when asked if they can do 20 push-ups on Wednesday during the Jr. Celtics Academy Summer Basketball Camp at the Lewiston Armory. (Russ Dillingham/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
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Key Takeaways i Key Takeaways highlight the most important points of this article so you can get the gist at a glance.
- Teamwork and hard work were building blocks for the 2007-08 title-winning squad.
- The Celtics must adapt this season after significant offseason changes.
- Cooper Flagg is evidence of hard work leading to excellence.
LEWISTON — During the 2007-08 NBA season, coach Doc Rivers closed Boston Celtics practices with a free throw.
So naturally, that’s how Leon Powe, a member of that Celtics championship team, ended Day 3 of the Celtics Jr. Academy basketball camp Wednesday at the Lewiston Armory.
It took a few campers, as well as some push-ups and laps around the gym in between attempts following misses, but a free throw was finally made — an appropriate metaphor for Powe’s message of working hard to achieve goals.
“It’s really good talking to the kids,” said Powe, who also joined last month’s camp session at the Portland Expo. “It was really special for me because … I’m here to teach. I’m trying to instill in them competition because life out there is not fair. It’s not easy. And I don’t want to make it seem like that. So out here, on the court, that was my safe haven … I had to work hard on the court, so I want to bring that to them.”
Nearly 20 years after helping the Celtics win a championship, Powe, 42, continues to represent the organization as a community ambassador.
“(The Celtics) make sure when we join this team, we are family,” Powe said. “That’s what we teach — family. We preach it all the time, especially with the Celtics. And we’re more so in the community a lot, too. … I love doing what I do because it’s helping kids, helping people, motivational speaking, things like that with the organization.”
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Last weekend, Powe saw Rivers and some of his old teammates from the ’07-08 team — including Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo, when he was in Springfield, Massachusetts for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2026 induction ceremonies. Rivers was one of the inductees.
“From the ’08 team, it’s a lot of memories,” Powe said. “It’s refreshing because we built the team off of helping one other. Ubuntu — I can’t be all I can be without the next person being all he or she can be. So we said that throughout the whole organization, and that’s what showed on the court. We played defense, we played hard, we competed and we were one of the best teams to ever do it.”
The Boston Celtics 2024 NBA championship trophy was on display at the Celtics Jr. Academy camp Wednesday in Lewiston. (Jimmy James/Staff Writer)
Fittingly, the drills Powe helped lead following his talk with the campers Wednesday focused on rebounding, defense and strategy.
Amid the camp activities, the Celtics’ 2024 NBA Finals trophy was put on display in a room off to the side of the basketball court at the Armory.
Only a few players from that championship team are still with Boston, especially following this summer’s roster movement that most notably sent Finals MVP Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and a cluster of draft picks.
“(The) NBA is a business,” Powe said. “You don’t expect everybody to be around the same team. My ’08 team, we didn’t keep everybody around, but you’ve got to find a way to adapt. And then you welcome in the new guys, too, as well. And when you do that, you try to build some type of team chemistry.”
Powe was only with the Celtics for one more season after the franchise’s championship run in 2008. Then he found himself on the Cleveland Cavaliers for a season with LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal, further expanding his list of Hall of Fame and future Hall of Fame teammates.
Powe last played in the NBA in 2011 for the Memphis Grizzlies. So he was out of the league long before Cooper Flagg, who is entering his second pro season after his 2025-26 Rookie of the Year season. Powe said it is refreshing to have an NBA player come from Maine, and again emphasized hard work.
“You can come from anywhere,” Powe said. “You can be anything you want to be. And you can look at many different examples, especially Cooper Flagg coming out of Maine, as your example. Because it’s not easy, but I’m pretty sure he put the work in and he did what he had to do to get to that level. And that goes for anybody. Whatever level (they’re) trying to get at, no matter how high or how low it is, you’ve just got to put the work in, and that’s what that showed, that you can put the work in, too, as well as he did.”
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Jimmy covers sports for the Sun Journal, primarily contributing to the Varsity Maine team. He is from Hagerstown, Maryland, and graduated from the University of Richmond in May of 2025 with a B.A. in journalism. More by Jimmy James
