The Arizona Stars Elite Organization AAU Boys Basketball team has collected one of the strongest leadership teams in the metro Phoenix basketball club circuit. Gene Littles, Former ABA Player and NBA Coach leads the team. Coach Littles played college basketball at High Point University. Afterwards,
Littles was selected in the 5th round of the 1969 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks and in the 1969 ABADraft by the Dallas Chaparrals. Littles opted to play in the American Basketball Association (ABA).
Littles played for five seasons with the Carolina Cougars (1969–74). He then played for one season (1974–75) with the Kentucky Colonels. With Kentucky, Littles was a member of the Colonels team that won the 1975 ABA Championship.
Coach Gene Littles
After his playing career, Littles got into coaching, and became an assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA. He got his first taste of head coaching when George Karl was dismissed at the end of the 1985-86 season. The Cavaliers next year hired Lenny Wilkens, however.
In 1990, Littles got a second NBA head coaching job, with the Charlotte Hornets — replacing Dick Harter. He lasted a season and a half with the recent-expansion Hornets, until he was replaced with Allan Bristow at the end of the 1990-1991 season. Littles later became an assistant with the Denver Nuggets, and served as an interim coach during the 1994-95 season, in between Dan Issel and Bernie Bickerstaff.
The Arizona Stars Elite is a 501-(c) organization with a mission to help inner city youth utilize basketball as a creative outlet as well as to support Arizona communities young men and women. The Arizona Stars’ AAU program has a fully funded elite team and financially helps young players who would not normally have the resources to play and travel out of state which allows them to get much needed exposure and college scholarships from top D1, D2, D3, and community colleges.
