Listen to the Entire JHS Podcast Here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nWe discussed Jerry\u2019s tweet about the quality of play in the Nike Peach Jam, an event that I was fortunate enough to coach in a couple years back. It\u2019s an event Nike sponsored teams fight all season long in the EYBL to qualify and it brings together the top 24 Nike sponsored teams in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t paint AAU with one broad paint brush.\u00a0 It is as good and competitive of basketball you will see on the amateur level.\u00a0 It has a March Madness feel to it.\u00a0 Pretty much all of them are going to play in March Madness and you will watch games where there will be 5 NBA players on the floor.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that is the problem, but certainly there are problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s generally taken that Kobe and the NBA guys on the bash \u201cAAU\u201d basketball bandwagon are in fact talking about the leagues created by the big three shoe companies, Nike, Under Armour and Adidas, because these are the big 3 when it comes to producing the NBA players that they view as suspect when it comes to knowing how to play the game. If you are an NBA rookie, odds are very, very high that you played in one of the shoe company leagues. If Kobe says the current crop of youngsters don\u2019t know how to play, he\u2019s talking about the shoe company kids, not kids from the actual AAU organization itself. He\u2019s calling a tissue a Kleenex.<\/p>\n
Are there things that these leagues could improve upon? No doubt.<\/p>\n
Youth basketball players in the United States spend way too many weekends\u00a0playing in meaningless weekend tournaments. Wins and losses don\u2019t matter as much when there is another game to play in a few hours. If a player gets disenfranchised with a coach or a lack of playing time, they can simply hop to another team or another league with no consequences. Instead, these players could be balancing their time working on skill development and trying to focus on weaknesses\u00a0in individual or group workouts.\u201d<\/p>\n
In \u201cthe old days\u201d, I think back to how important every game was in my high school career. It seemed like life or death at the time, and I competed accordingly! I \u201cleft it all out on the floor every game,\u201d as they say. Kids today who play almost year round every weekend can lose a game, shrug their shoulders and start texting and tweeting like nothing happened, because they know the next game is in 2 hours, and there are 4 more of them coming that weekend. As a coach in that type of situation it can be frustrating trying to build a sense of urgency to play the right way and get kids to leave it all out on the floor. The shoe companies however have been smart enough to make the games matter. In the Nike EYBL, every game matters because only the top 24 teams are invited to the Peach Jam in the end.<\/p>\n
In ancient times, when I played, because there weren\u2019t tournaments every weekend we spent the summer working on our game. We sought out old guys to beat us up and teach us the \u201ctricks of the game\u201d on the court at the local YMCA. If a guy made up his mind to go to work in the summer, you could see dramatic improvement during the next high school season. You don\u2019t see those huge jumps in players as often these days. I see guys that are \u201celite\u201d as 15 year olds who don\u2019t develop skill wise because they don\u2019t find the balance between skill work and playing games.\u00a0 You don\u2019t improve skill wise just playing in tournaments. You improve skills alone in a gym or working with a partner or small group of likeminded individuals.<\/p>\n
The lack of structure and regulation dictates that every team and every league is going to be different. Some players are going to receive really good coaching, some are not. That\u2019s the reality of the situation.<\/p>\n
One thing we can control as Parents and Guardians are the amount of games we allow our children to play in a year. We can make sure they take some time off now and then and just be kids. We can do our due diligence and find a program where they like their teammates, feel respected by their coaches and have fun. We can also help them if those needs aren\u2019t being met.<\/p>\n
A friend of mine encouraged his high school son who had been playing for MOKAN to take a summer off, work on his skills and strength and play a few tournaments with his pals \u201cjust for fun\u201d. It took some convincing, as the boy is a diehard and loves competing on a high level. In the end he trusted his Dad, and took big strides in terms of skill, strength and most importantly love of the game that summer. He came back bigger, stronger, more skilled and more fired up the next season for MOKAN and he had a nice summer in front of the college coaches. As your kids get older, their needs change in summer ball. Jerry pointed out that in early development, getting minutes and having fun are the priorities, but as kids enter their junior and senior years, exposure also plays a role. Some teams have a cadre of college coaches at every game, and sometimes being a role player on a high level team can pay dividends in terms of exposure that being a star on a less competitive team cannot offer.<\/p>\n
SO HOW DO YOU PICK THE RIGHT TEAM FOR YOUR CHILD?<\/p>\n
\n\n- Ask for background check of coaches\/program.<\/li>\n
- Ask around the area to get reviews of the coach\/program- talk to former players and parents to get feedback. \u00a0If in high school, get advice from your coach.<\/li>\n
- Ask philosophy of team\/coach\/program.<\/li>\n
- Are they teaching your child life skills through sports that will help them succeed in the future?<\/li>\n
- If a college scholarship is important, ask what their track record is in assisting high school players to receive a scholarship<\/li>\n
- As a parent know your child\u2019s goals and outcomes \u2013 this will help you find the right team\/program. \u00a0Too many parents think they know their kids’ desires but usually their actions are driven by their own motives. The number one reason most kids play? They want to have fun with their friends. We would all be better served by knowing and remembering that sometimes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
We asked Jerry, how as the son of legendary coach, he picked coaches for his own children.\u00a0 \u201cAt young ages I want them to be pushed but not about the coach winning.\u00a0 I want them to be taught, have fun, learn to enjoy to compete (that is something we have to be aware with our children) there is no greater joy than working hard, improving and going to bed knowing that you are doing what you can do to max out on your talent.\u00a0 That is a deeper, richer fun. I think you can make it fun throughout the process but it is not all laughs and giggles.\u00a0 You are going to have to work one day so why not teach our kids to immerse themselves in a process of improving, working and find value and joy in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bottom line, if Kobe and Lebron truly want American youth basketball to improve they should offer solutions and get more involved. The opinions of the world\u2019s best players carry weight. More importantly, their actions speak volumes. Kobe hasn\u2019t been at the Nike Skills camps the last few years, and I\u2019m not sure if he\u2019s seen a Peach Jam. Maybe he should. A lot of great NBA players are still highly involved and working to make the game better at the youth level.<\/p>\n
I recently began the \u201cJIM HUBER SHOW\u201d as an effort to give back and make the world a better place through sports. We\u2019ve been talking to some of the great minds in the sport and outside of sports about solutions to problems and ways to improve the lives of the kids we coach. I hope you\u2019ll become a part of that mission by subscribing and giving us a rating and review that will help the show grow and have a real impact for our wonderful game!<\/p>\n
Listen to the Entire JHS Podcast Here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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Last year, several high profile NBA and former NBA Stars stepped out and attacked \u201cAAU\u201d basketball as being bad for American kids. Kobe Bryant called AAU quote, \u201cStupid\u201d, saying that, \u201cHorrible, terrible AAU basketball. It doesn\u2019t teach our kids to play the game at all. So you wind up with players that are big and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/podcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}