AAU Good or Bad?

[muffin]

This is getting scary, whenELA and I agree on something.

[uiii]

As a high school coach, I have watched many aau and youth games. It seems that these aau and youth coaches are more concerned about winning and inner city rivals than fundemental basketball. We place to much emphasis on being the best or great at a young age. No one can look at a 12 or 13 year old and determine what type of athelete they will become. No one but that individual can determine that by how hard they will work to be better. At the age of 12 or 13 years old who cares whose the best aau player. A kid at this age has between 5 to 6 years before even considering a collegiate or professional career. That's a long time to perfect their game. A lot of negative comments placed on coach t.com about a kid places a lot of pressure on kids to out play each other. Instead they should be focusing on the team concept of the game and fundementals. Let's teach the game and not preach the game.

 

Also to say that Europeans are more fundemental than players in the U.S. bothers me. That is a negative reflection on our great college coaches. Your saying that Rick Pitino, John Chaney, Dean Smith, John Thompson, and Bobby Knight who produced some of the best ball players ever did not teach fundemental basketball. Let's face it the game has changed since Larry Byrd and Magic Johnson.

[CoachKeenon]

I am an AAU basketball coach and I am thoroughly enjoying this topic. I have very mixed feeling about the state of AAU and basketball in America as a whole. I think that the American basketball player spends too much time watching And 1 tapes and working on dunks and not enough time on free throws and 15ft jumpshots. We have created a culture in basketball that thrives on entertainment and a dunk or even a missed dunk is more entertaining than a 15ft jumper. My sole purpose for coaching AAU is to get kids into college and I think that AAU does wonders in that regard by EXPOSING players to coaches and competion. The fraternity of AAU coaches needs to take a look in the mirror and decide why????? Is it the money? Is it the self promotions? We have to start teaching these young men and women how to play the game, that should be why. The influx of European players is a result of us as coaches not teaching because we look like good coaches if we win and unless we realize that winning is not our measuring stick, we will continue to do a disservice to our players.

[wchsfranchise06]

Who are you Cobrafan90. Do you go to Whites Creek. Do you play any sports.

[cobrafan90]

i went to WC.

[wchsfranchise06]

When did you go? Whats Your Name?

[cobrafan90]

from 86-90. Jabari Martin

 

feel free to email me at jabmartin@hotmail.com

[ELA]

As I have said before... I am not a basketball coach! BUT, I do enjoy watching a game every now and then. Over the past decade, it seems to me that basketball has turned into a game of individual players and not much team work. Of course, there are great coaches who teach fundamentals and team work and place special emphasis on players doing what is right (both on and off the court), but too many kids in sports today only focus in on their individual success in life and forget about doing what is right for the team. I think the secret to life is BALANCE! You must have a balance between education and athletics, a balance between athletic teams (i.e. baseball, football, basketball, etc.), and a balance on each athletic team. No one sport should dominate a child's life and no one player should dominate a team. You will naturally have some who have more athletic abilities but it should always be a team sport. Parents should support their children's athletic pursuits, but some of the travel squads are simply demanding way too much of parents and young players! Nike and the other shoe companies are not in this for helping kids! They are in this partnership to sell shoes and clothes! Coaches (AAU or High School) who accept money and items from these companies should rethink why they got into coaching in the first place. If it's not for the well being and development of young student athletes, then they should either try to coach at the college ranks or get out of coaching altogether! COACHING IS ABOUT MORE THAN JUST YOUR CAREER! IT'S ABOUT KIDS HAVING FUN AND LEARNING TO PLAY A SPORT AS A TEAM!

[btexpress]

Another Interesting article

 

Prospects show world is dribbling at NBA's doorstep

 

SAN ANTONIO — In the summer of 1992, David Robinson and Tim Duncan could have exchanged curious glances for the first time. Robinson on his way to impose America's will on an international basketball uprising.

 

It's no coincidence that so many of today's great talents were born outside the country, starting with the greatest, Duncan, who nearly quadruple-doubled the Nets into oblivion Sunday night and who represents one of the faces of a fundamental crisis in the Stateside game.

 

Take a quick survey of your nearest mock draft. Every other name on the first-round board has been lifted from some Cold War spy novel. Guys named Pavel and Darko, Aleksandar and Boris. There are more prospects from Georgia, the republic, than Georgia, the university. Scouts aren't raving about someone named Magic (Johnson), but someone named Maciej (see Lampe, Poland). This year's Baby Shaq comes courtesy of Greece, a bull named Sofaklis Schortsanitis. And New Jersey's best hope to avoid becoming the Buffalo Bills? It's not a reminder to Kenyon Martin that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw bricks, but a belief in 6-11 Nenad Krstic of Yugoslavia, last year's 24th pick.

 

Scouts figure Krstic would have gone in the lottery in this year's draft, knocking down another American big man. What does it all mean? Someone should ask Larry Brown and Jeff Van Gundy, two coaches who could've had the Cavaliers job if they truly coveted it. Van Gundy picked Yao Ming over LeBron James.

 

Brown picked Darko Milicic over LeBron James even after James courted Allen Iverson's ex.

 

"There needs to be a message sent to our whole American program," Spurs GM R.C. Buford said outside the champions locker room late Sunday as he savored a cold beer and the warm memory of once drafting France's Parker at No. 28 and Argentina's Manu Ginobili at No. 57.

 

"We've got to start developing basketball players and have a curriculum that breeds success. ... Every one of these foreign countries has a developmental program that's preached throughout their club teams, and so the teaching they get isn't SportsCenter highlights but plays like you see Tony and Manu making."

 

Buford fell for Parker after watching him at a Final Four exhibition.

 

The American players, Buford said, "were hooting and hollering after every basket." Parker? "Tony had a poise and maturity that was not very apparent elsewhere on the court."

 

So will Americans ever get that message Buford was talking about? "If we keep getting our butts kicked," the GM said, "we will."

 

After the USA lost to everyone but Grenada in the world championships in Indiana, the perfect peach-basket setting, George Karl agreed that European players were receiving better training and blamed "the greed of the NBA" for extinguishing the American players' fire.

 

Now here comes the draft and another foreign invasion, another reason for Americans to re-evaluate their approach. It's high time to quit thinking that bouncing the ball off your opponent's forehead is the surest way to the rim.