During the course of USA Basketball training camp, players will be checking in on a regular basis to give you the scoop on what's going on in Las Vegas and in the minds of the team as they prepare for the 2006 FIBA World Championships.

Dwight Howard | Shane Battier
Previous Player Blogs: July 19

Howard has been impressed by Coach K. Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images

So far camp is going great for me. I’m having a lot of fun playing with all these older guys, getting accustomed to playing with guys like LeBron and Carmelo, pretty much just being out here and being part of the team.

I really don’t know these guys on a personal level, so it’s different. Most of them are much older than me, so I’m just trying to fit in and get a spot with these guys.

That’s probably been the toughest part, finding out where I fit in. We have a lot of scorers, and even though I’ve been working on my offensive game a lot this summer, I think that my role for this team will be rebounding. That’s one thing that I’ve really been looking at over the past couple of days. They’ve had me matching up a lot against Elton Brand. He’s an old school player who knows all the tricks. It’s been awesome seeing how these other guys play and do different things.

And playing under Coach K has been an experience. The most impressive thing about him so far is just his will to win. Watching him when he was at Duke, I thought he would be one of those coaches that really stayed on his guys and worked his guys real hard, four hour practices, stuff like that. But I see now that he is laid back and that he wants the best out of you.

After a few more practices we’ll be ready and looking forward to competing against other competition. So far we’ve only had one real scrimmage game and we really played hard against each other. If we play hard like this against each other, we’ll be ready to play anybody.

It's exciting for me to be reunited with Coach K, with whom I played for at Duke, because there are so many great memories over the past years – winning championships, basketball games, and just being around the man for four years. It's exciting to be around a guy who just gets it and it's a thrill for me to be able to play for him one last time for a couple of years.

I think everyone was a little curious initially about Coach K. Everyone's biggest fear is that he was going to treat them like college-age players. Coach K is a smart guy. He treats everyone like a man. He taught us like men when I was at Duke. He gives us unbelievable freedom to be good basketball players.

I haven't seen any changes from how he was then and now. Obviously when you're at Duke, you're an 18, 19-year old kid who's just trying to figure out what's going on in the world, so he just slows things down.

Everybody here has either been an All-Star, or a first round draft pick, or All-NBA player somewhere, so there's no need to slow it down quite like he did in college.

Personally, I'm trying to bring energy and enthusiasm. I'm trying to play great defense everyday and just be a good team guy. This team does not need me to go out and score 20 points a game or grab 20 rebounds. They need guys who can go out and play hard, and just be a solid player on the team.

Day two has been pretty good. Day two and day three of training camp are traditionally a little bit more difficult. The first day you have a lot of enthusiasm and energy – you're excited to be there. Day two or Day three you wake up and you're a little sore, a little tired. You've got to push through it. That's training camp life.

Today, we've tried to put in some offensive sets. We've tried to put in some of the defensive rotations that work for international play. Obviously we're very raw at this point. But we're working at it and getting better each day.