When looking across the Mercer Island Community Center basketball court during Coach David Hudson’s summer basketball camp, one may see the young sons of local basketball legends Jamal Crawford, Nate Robinson and Will Conroy taking part in scrimmages and drills.

With such notable names in attendance, it’s easy to assume Coach Dave, as his campers call him, is working to cultivate the next great generation of Seattle basketball players. But Hudson is quick to dispel that notion.

“To me, I don’t even think about basketball players,” he says. “As a person with no kids right now and with my buddies who have kids, I just want them to grow up to be responsible people. So [with] whatever they want to be, teaching them to work hard, teaching them how to focus on whatever their goal is, I’m more concerned with that. With basketball, I’m sure it’s helping, but for the most part, I just want them to grow up to be good citizens.”

Last week, Hudson returned to Mercer Island for the third consecutive year, leading Gary Payton’s Youth Skills Academy, which Hudson has led since its inception. The four-day camp is one of over 20 clinics that Hudson, the owner and operator of Elite Youth Camps, leads across the country. It’s also his last camp of the summer.

Payton, who refers to Hudson as his nephew, sings praises for the work Hudson does leading the camp that bears his name.

“He does a lot of camps for a lot of people,” Payton said. “This camp is basically him doing all the work. When people find out he does my camp, they see that he does a great job and guys want to hire him to do more.”

As a fourth-grader, Hudson was a camper at Payton’s summer youth camp, where he met Conroy, who later introduced him to Crawford. Hudson calls Conroy and Crawford two of his best friends.

“When I think about my basketball [career], and I’ve played basketball my whole life, the main thing that sticks out is my basketball camp memories,” he said. “I can’t remember what we did in the basketball camps, I just remember the interaction. I remember how cool I thought the coaches were, it was just the whole thing that came with meeting friends. I can’t even tell you if those were good camps or not, I just remember having the best time of my life at basketball camp.”

Hudson said he tailors his camps around the games of the players he partners with. For Payton’s camp, the focus is more on the fundamentals of basketball.

Hudson is also a shooting coach who works with professional basketball players, having worked with Crawford, Robinson and Isaiah Thomas. And he has his own basketball history with Mercer Island. A 2000 alum of Rainier Beach High and a University of Washington walk-on, Hudson’s Vikings had their share of meetings with Ed Pepple’s Mercer Island basketball teams.

“Yeah yeah, we ‘shmacked’ Mercer Island every time we played them when I was in high school,” he says with a grin and a good-natured rib. “They had the Matt Logies and the Josh Fishers and all them.

“I remember they were always disciplined. We always had more talent, but they were always disciplined, so they brought us down to their lane,” he said. “They weren’t no pushover. They always had good players and when we kept our cool, we beat them every time. But when they got us frustrated, fouling and cutting through screens, that’s when they’d beat us.”

Hudson said he learned to develop his work ethic through playing basketball and sports. It usually came through hours of practice and working to see results. He said he hopes he’s able to pass on all the things he got out of basketball camp to the youth he works with.

“I’m trying to give them the same memorable life experiences and get [them] to be around NBA players that they hear about or see on TV,” Hudson said. “Also, in the midst of all that, try to teach basketball and try to give them some life lessons like don’t talk when adults are talking or work hard [because] whatever you put in, you get out of it. These camps to me are way bigger than basketball, basketball is the smallest thing.”

For more on Coach David Hudson’s basketball camps, visit Elite Youth Camps on Facebook.

Julian Vining, 10, dribbles upcourt against Bryce Kageyama, 10, Aug. 24 at the Mercer Island Community and Event Center (Joe Livarchik/staff photo).

Parker Coyle, 9, looks to pass during a scrimmage Aug. 24 at the Mercer Island Community and Event Center (Joe Livarchik/staff photo).