STARKVILLE -- It wasn’t about football or basketball to Travis Outlaw, of the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers.

It was about giving back to his hometown of Starkville. Teaching the game of football was the emphasis for Camp Complete on Friday and Saturday at Starkville High School, and Outlaw returned to his alma mater eager to meet some of his young fans. Even though Outlaw’s sport is basketball, he tries to never miss an opportunity to be visible in his hometown. That’s why he didn’t hesitate to join coach Willie Gillespie’s group of volunteers for Camp Complete.

“You’ve got to respect somebody who is always going to lend a helping hand,” Outlaw said. “For coach Gillespie and his staff to come out here and do this is priceless.

“It’s definitely about the youth. I feel like it’s good to take the time at a football camp for kids who love sports. It’s big if it helps keep them off the streets and keeps them occupied. It’s good that parents take time to bring their kids to these events.” During his five-year career in the NBA, Outlaw has been instrumental in assisting people in need from coast to coast. Outlaw was the ambassador for the 2007 Trail Blazer Street Jam, which benefited the Special Olympics, and he returned to the Gulf Coast region in August 2006 to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. He also donated $10,000 to the local boys and girls clubs in Starkville.

Outlaw works out at Starkville Sportsplex to fine tune skills

STARKVILLE — Travis Outlaw looked around the Starkville Sportsplex on Wednesday afternoon and smiled.

The Starkville native and member of the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers is proud the city has provided such a facility to the community. Outlaw and Ed LeBlanc, his personal coach, took advantage of the facility to focus on specific points of Outlaw’s game to help him prepare rejoin the Trail Blazers. Outlaw will leaves Starkville at the end of August to begin his sixth season in the NBA. “This year I felt like I needed to alter my moves a little bit more than normal,” Outlaw said. “The biggest thing now is take whatever they give me and not be hesitant about it.”

LeBlanc is in charge of helping Outlaw develop a better understanding of the game and make sure the game slows down for him. During the course of the session, Outlaw worked on shooting free throws, driving to the basket, and perfecting his jump shot. “We want to make sure he has a full option of moves and has an understanding on both ends of the floor so he can dictate the game, as opposed to letting the game dictate him,” LeBlanc said. “We want him to become a better student of the game.” LeBlanc believes Outlaw can improve on his career statistics (9.6 points and 3.4 rebounds per game).

“There’s a lot of fine-tuning with Travis.” LeBlanc said. “He just said how amazing one little thing changed my free throws. At his level, everyone is strong and everyone is an athlete, so one hand length and one inch is a big difference. We’re tearing down instincts that were good enough, but he wants to be great. To be great, he has to get past being good, and that’s tough to do.”

Portland small forward Travis Outlaw has been one of the NBA's success stories. He arrived in the NBA straight from high school in small-town Mississippi, and at first appeared wholly unprepared. He had essentially dunked his way to great numbers in high-school, and he could still jump in the NBA. But his jumper was a little scary, his defense was nothing special and coaches had a hard time finding a use for him.

But he worked.

And he did something that you seldom see. He entered the NBA with a noted weakness -- shooting -- and has since turned it into his calling card.

The athletic things Outlaw can do -- finishing on the break, catching alley-oops, getting the occasional spectacular block -- now take a backseat to his ability to get off a high quality shot just about whenever he wants. He can catch and shoot from downtown, or drive and show off the high point of release in his mid-range game.

That last quality has made him Portland's Option 1b (behind Brandon Roy) as a crunch-time shooter.

Read Full Post at: ESPN TrueHoop

Outlaw on the Loose!
Travis Outlaw took the road less traveled.
by Adam Fleischer

If you’ve seen any of the game-winning shots or ferocious dunks that Portland Trail Blazer Travis Outlaw has been adding to his resume over the last few seasons, you may have noticed that, regardless of the magnitude of his late game heroics or the level of posterization, Outlaw typically reacts with nothing more than a hop and a jog down court—maybe with an understated scream somewhere in the mix. This is not for lack of thrill surrounding what he’s just accomplished. It’s just the way that the soft-spoken Mississippi native has continued to carry himself during his six-year ride through the pros.

Now a key contributor on a youthful, talented and bandwagon-breeding Portland team, Outlaw wasn’t always bringing Blazer fans to their feet. “When I first came in the League, Portland said that I was gonna be just a project, so my plan was that I wanted to continue to get better,” recalls the 6-9 Outlaw.

Both parties made good on their plans, as the lengthy forward put in hard work while the Blazers treated him like the project they had promised in the early going. Appearing in just eight games as a rookie on a veteran-dominated Trail Blazer team, Outlaw didn’t let his lack of playing time nor his teammates’ less than ideal rep as “Jailblazers” interfere with his goal of improving to a point where he’d see action on the floor.

Neither a bust like ’03 Draft classmate Ndudi Ebi, nor a solidified superstar like LeBron James, Outlaw is an example of a kid who needed—and was given—some time to develop before he was able or asked to contribute. Having benefited from the chance to test the NBA waters right after high school, he, like many other players, isn’t the biggest fan of the age rule. “I don’t too much like it” he says in a thoughtful and honest tone. “You can have special cases where a kid is good enough to come out of high school, and I think he should have the opportunity. They shouldn’t make that choice for him whether he should go pro or to college.”“I had some great vets that were pushing me [back then], and it turned out pretty good,” he admits, thinking back to teams early in his career that included Dale Davis, Damon Stoudamire and Rasheed Wallace, as well as fellow youngsters Zach Randolph and Darius Miles. Like Miles, Outlaw made the jump from high school to the NBA, becoming the first of three consecutive Blazer first round picks selected weeks after high school graduation, with Sebastian Telfair and Martell Webster joining him in 2004 and 2005, respectively.