Dylan Petersen
Rod Wave Elite put on a movie this past weekend in Dallas. The talented team had a hundreds of people standing around the court to watch their games throughout the weekend. This team also racked up millions of YouTube views for Cam Wilder’s YouTube account and even made it on YouTube trending. They went 4-0 on the weekend to help them earn the Summer Sizzle Shootout 17U championship. The team was made up of EYBL players, OTE players, and even eighth graders. Rod Wave Elite could not have done without the coaching of YouTube star Cam Wilder.
Who is Cam Wilder?
Rod Wave Elite would not be anything without the popularity of Cam Wilder. For those who don’t know; Cam Wilder is a former college basketball player, who quit basketball to start making content on social media. Quitting basketball paid definitely paid off for him. He now has 558,000 YouTube subscribers and he has 4.6 million followers on TikTok. Cam Wilder grew popular on social media by creating funny and entertaining basketball content. A lot of his content has came from the AAU scene. There are a lot of AAU tournaments around the country that are very unofficial and Wilder took advantage of that. Wilder would play in AAU tournaments with all of his college friends and the people loved watching it. Eventually that got old so Wilder decided to become a coach and make his own team: Rod Wave Elite.
What is Rod Wave Elite?
For those who do not know, Rod Wave is a famous rapper but this team is not affiliated with him at all. Cam Wilder thought the name would be funny since the rapper has a lot of memes created about him.
Cam Wilder is not your typical coach. He does not run much offensive plays, jokes around with players during timeouts, and he even makes his player run killers during halftime.
Wilder’s roster for Rod Wave Elite changes just about every weekend through the spring/summer. Cam Wilder goes around the country hosting tryouts for his AAU team. Each weekend he goes to a major city in the U.S. and during the week he holds tryouts to see who he wants on the new team for the upcoming weekend. He also tries to get players on his team that would help make the best content.
There are two players that play on Rod Wave Elite just about every weekend: LaVar Johnson and Nelson Neumann. LaVar Johnson is one of Cam Wilder’s good friends and he plays on Cam Wilder’s team every weekend. The problem with LaVar is that he is 20 years old. However, he is the perfect player for content. He is 6’7 wing who plays similar to college star Emoni Bates. LaVar can be seen dunking on kids and pulling up from three likes it’s nothing. Now for fan favorite Nelson Neumann. Nelson is so fun to watch because he is only in the seventh grade. When Nelson gets in the game the crowd goes crazy. He always finds a way to knock down a three pointer or get a steal while in the game. Nelson is very good for his age and he is very entertaining. Wilder loves to use Nelson for content and Nelson is always up for it.
What was so Special this Weekend about Rod Wave Elite?
This weekends Rod Wave Elite roster was the best one yet. Normally, Wilder’s team is composed of random players from his tryouts but this weekend was different. Cam Wilder had multiple top ranked players on his squad this weekend. This team full of studs was unstoppable in this random AAU tournament.
The Ellis brothers flew all the way to Dallas from North Carolina just to play for Rod Wave Elite. Eli and Isaac Ellis are some of the most popular high school players in the country currently. They both have over 500k followers on TikTok. They are very consistent on TikTok as they post their basketball highlights but also add some dancing in their content as well. Eli Ellis just got done playing in the OTE league and he earned all-first team honors as a sophomore playing against top ranked high school/pro players. Eli Ellis made the competition look too easy this past weekend. He was knocking down threes with ease including some from halfcourt. Ellis was also making flashy plays left and right for the team as well. Eli’s younger brother, Isaac, also put on a show this past weekend. Isaac is also one of the top players in his class. He showed off his elite quickness, shooting skills, and finishing ability over the weekend for Rod Wave Elite.
We cannot forget about the other stars that played for Rod Wave Elite this weekend. The team had Oklahoma State commit Justin McBride playing for them. They also had #1 ranked eighth grader Isaak Hayes playing for them, who was seen cooking his defenders off the isolation all weekend long. The team also had 5 star and EYBL player Trent Perry playing for them as well. Perry was throwing down some vicious dunks for a freshman throughout the weekend. They also had 3SSB player Lance Carr, who was also making it look very easy offensively. The team also had Tyran Mason, Aric Walls, and Donovan Matthews who are all underrated players from the state of Texas.
This team was scoring around 90 points every game. The competition they were playing against was nothing crazy, as this was just some random AAU tournament. The weak competition allowed all of the players on Rod Wave Elite to put on a show. Each player simply made it look easy. This was perfect content for Cam Wilder’s YouTube channels. Rod Wave Elite players were throwing down dunks left and right and splashing threes from everywhere. This team was basically or literally like grown men against kids. Cam Wilder assembled a dream team and it helped them go on to win the championship.
Rod Wave Elite is back at it in Los Angeles this weekend, so I wonder who will be on the team this weekend? Also can they top this past weekend’s performance?
612 Hoops Blog 