Social media helps coach find spot on Mavericks’ staff

DALLAS _ Johnny Stephene is another prime example of why no one should ever underestimate the power of social media.tmpplchld A few months ago, Stephene posted some videos of himself teaching Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan some ballhandling skills. The Dallas Mavericks saw the videos, and then offered him a job this past summer to become their ballhandling coach.tmpplchld “The Mavericks reached out to me by email and told me they were interested,” Stephene said after Thursday’s practice at American Airlines Center. “They saw me work with a lot of NBA players on my social media.tmpplchld “From there, I got a chance to come here in July for a week. And after working out with some of the rookies and some of the new guys here, they brought me back for preseason.”tmpplchld It’s no surprise that the outside-of-the-box-thinking Mavericks are proud owners of the NBA’s first ballhandling coach. After all, they have Gary Boren, who is the NBA’s only known staff free-throw shooting coach.tmpplchld In hiring Stephene, owner Mark Cuban said he “saw some of the work he was doing so we reached out to him. Our thought was that if he can improve the ballhandling skills and increase our guys’ confidence with the ball, it would be a great investment.’’tmpplchld “He’s a positive upbeat guy who’s got a very good reputation,” Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. “It was Mark’s idea to bring him on board, and he’s been a positive factor for us.tmpplchld “Because playmaking is such a huge part of the game now _ generally playmaking means you’re going to have to put the ball on the floor some. If we can do anything to enhance our guy’s abilities to make plays, even a little bit with a guy like him, it makes sense.”tmpplchld Stephene works with players as a group and some individually.tmpplchld “I’ll do about 15-20 minutes with the guys every day working on the ballhandling skills, and then sometimes I’ll go a little bit over, or sometimes we’ll do a really quick 5 minutes,” he said. “I helped DeMar DeRozan with his handle a lot. Word of mouth started going around and they said, ‘Where is this guy working? I see some of his videos.’tmpplchld “And then the NBA players and young kids and college kids started sharing the information, and that’s how my following got up, too. Word of mouth and the powerful social media.”tmpplchld Stephene, 28, has nearly one million Instagram followers _ on (at)Dribble2Much _ and almost 10,000 Twitter followers. He has worked with Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant, Boston’s Avery Bradley, Sacramento’s Seth Curry and Denver’s Nate Robinson.tmpplchld “A lot of people see my techniques,” Stephene said. “I don’t give away too much, but I give a lot of techniques on the video.”tmpplchld The players appear to have taken a liking to Stephene and what he has to offer.tmpplchld “Since we got Johnny here probably about a month and a half ago, he’s been working with us every day after our workouts,” swingman Justin Anderson said. “When you’re fatigued and when you’re mentally drained, it’s good to be able to try to get control of that ball so when you’re in the game you have that confidence that you know exactly where the ball is. It helps a lot.”tmpplchld A Palm Beach, Fla., product, Stephene was a guard at Liberty University and Central Oklahoma. He played professionally in Mexico before a stress fracture injury curtailed his career.tmpplchld Eighteen months ago, he started a company called the Handle Life, and has since obtained an apparel line named Handle Life.tmpplchld “It’s truly a blessed opportunity,” Stephene said of his job with the Mavericks. “I didn’t really know that after a year and a half of my business that I was going to be training an NBA team.”tmpplchld ___tmpplchld (c)2015 Fort Worth Star-Telegramtmpplchld Visit the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at www.star-telegram.comtmpplchld Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.tmpplchld