Launceston teenager Sejr Deans will take the biggest step of his promising basketball career this weekend.
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Flying out to Canberra on Thursday, the 16-year-old joined up with 23 of the world's best juniors on Friday for a four-day NBA global academy camp.
The Riverside High School grade 10 student, who was selected alongside Queenslander Harry Pennisi as the only two Australians among the group, said he was looking forward to spending time under the wing of NBA executives and global academy coaches.
Juniors from Europe, South America and Asia make up the rest of the camp invitees.
"It's pretty exciting," Deans said.
"I haven't really done anything like it before so I don't know what to expect but I can't wait.
"I've been to Australian camps but I've never been to an NBA academy camp, so it's going to be a good experience.
"This is probably the highest level basketball I would have played at."
The selection caps off a huge 12 months that started with Deans inspiring Australia to a gold medal in the under-15 Oceania championships in Papua New Guinea.
Sinking the last four points of the championship final to give his country a 61-58 win over New Zealand, Deans finished with an equal team-high 15 points.
From there the Westside Trojans talent won an invite to a national camp in Canberra in May before being selected for Australia's under-16 Asian championship side.
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Date and venues for the 2019 tournament are still yet to be announced, but Deans will be ready to go regardless.
"Hopefully we'll come top four and be able to go to worlds next year," he said.
"I'd like to just play the highest league I can play - whatever that is, that's what I want to do.
"I've improved a fair bit [this year]. I've been doing a lot of stuff with my coaches - my individual coach Ben Rush and my weights coach Rob Lewandowski, but also just the BTas guys like Mark Radford and Brad Kann are always supporting me.
"I can't really thank them enough for what they do for me."
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