A 10-year-old Tauranga basketball player will be soon heading to a prestigious camp hosted California, which has 172 NBA alumni and counting.

Pāpāmoa Primary student Xavier del Mundo will be among the top basketball talent in the world at the Phenom Basketball Camp, which begins in July 2024.

As a selected player, Xavier will have the opportunity to practice in front of scouts from all around the world, and even play in a tournament which will be broadcast live on American Cable TV.

Xavier’s mother, Racheal del Mundo, says the family’s jaws are “still being picked up off of the ground” after receiving the exciting news.

“After Xavier started basketball, we saw he had some pretty exceptional ball handling skills, and started looking into different elite camps he could attend.”

Racheal says the camp had an “application process” which involved submitting videos, and opening a social media account for her son.

Fortunately, Racheal had been collecting videos of her son throughout the basketball season, and was planning to send them off once the season had concluded.

However, one day Racheal says she decided to “cheekily tag” the Phenom America camp in a video she posted to Instagram on the page she created for her son.

She was “shocked” the next morning when she woke up to an invite.

“It’s a pretty high level camp. Around 172 of their graduates have gruadated and went on to play in the NBA. About 85 per cent of the kids who attend also go on to get a college basketball scholarship in the United States, so that’s Xavier’s first goal.”

Photo: Supplied.

Attending the camp will also be made easier for Xavier, as his father’s family is from Los Angeles, near where the camp is based.

“It happens to be about 30 minutes up the road from my sister-in-laws house, so we don’t have to worry about accomodation, it really has fell into place and is meant to be I think,” Racheal adds.

"Our oldest son is already living there too, so it will be a great time to visit him."

Xavier currently plays for the Tauranga reps, the Pāpāmoa Bull Hogs, and enjoys practicing during his lunch time and after school like “every other kid”.

But according to Racheal, the Tauranga player has about a “10 per cent chance” of heading to the NBA draft once he has graduated.

“There is 75 players selected per year, who can go until they are 18-years-old, with the ultimate aim of making the NBA draft once they have graduated.”

Xavier will be heading to the California based camp in July 2024.