“These kids can not shoot like we could” says one old timer. Another wise one claims, “The game is not the same and they are ruining it”. If you hang around gyms long enough, you will surely hear these complaints and others like them from the basketball elders who knew how to play the game the right way. What is the “right way and who is the “they” that are ruing our great game?
In most circles, the criticism will inevitably lead to AAU. First, lets correct a common misnomer .AAU stands for Amateur Athletic Union. The AAU is an organization that sanctions and holds events. It also provides players and teams with certain benefits such as insurance and non-profits statuses for its registered clubs and or members. AAU is not a particular club or team and not every team is registered and plays under the AAU umbrella.
Whether you call it club, travel or select ball, it’s commonly referred to as AAU ball so I will not rock the boat.
Former Indiana University great, Damon Bailey states in a recent article:
In most circles, the criticism will inevitably lead to AAU. First, lets correct a common misnomer .AAU stands for Amateur Athletic Union. The AAU is an organization that sanctions and holds events. It also provides players and teams with certain benefits such as insurance and non-profits statuses for its registered clubs and or members. AAU is not a particular club or team and not every team is registered and plays under the AAU umbrella.
Whether you call it club, travel or select ball, it’s commonly referred to as AAU ball so I will not rock the boat.
Former Indiana University great, Damon Bailey states in a recent article:
“As a parent and an AAU coach, I’m as guilty as the next person, but today the kids play so much, and there’s very little time actually spent working on the individual things kids need to work on,” Bailey lamented during a brief break from camp duties. “Again, that’s something we’re trying to teach the kids, that basketball is something that, unfortunately, if you want to be good at it you really have to work at it, but you have to work at it the right way.
“Just going out and playing games or going out and playing AAU is not necessarily the answer. I think there’s a place for it, but just doing that alone is not going to help.”
“Just going out and playing games or going out and playing AAU is not necessarily the answer. I think there’s a place for it, but just doing that alone is not going to help.”
For those of you who do not remember, Bailey was a phenom in his day. The great Bobby Knight recruited him in the eighth grade. He went on to a good career at Indiana and played ball overseas.
Bailey is mirroring the sentiments of many basketball traditionalists who feel that AAU is hurting players. There is some truth to his argument but as always, there are two sides to this coin. A few thoughts follow:
Bailey is mirroring the sentiments of many basketball traditionalists who feel that AAU is hurting players. There is some truth to his argument but as always, there are two sides to this coin. A few thoughts follow:
Too many AAU coaches do not develop. Developing is teaching
How many times have you seen an AAU team play and all they do is runs sets? Running sets is a major part of learning to play basketball but is it helping to develop young players? It amazes me to see a team that runs an offense that is initiated with a pass from the top to a wing but the wing has not been taught to get open. Instead of teaching the appropriate way to execute a V-Cut, the AAU coach focuses on teaching a play that he/she saw Coach Popovich draw up during a timeout. Never mind that the execution of that play depends on the fundamentals that have been instilled in pro players since they were kids.
The flip side of running too many sets is not having any structure at all. A lot of AAU clubs have been known to just roll the ball out let the kids play. Who is teaching kids how to play? Who is teaching them to not only set screens but how to set them at the correct angles? How many kids intuitively know when and how to cut back door? These coaches need to learn how to play the game themselves so they can teach the future of the game.
Too many games to develop
The flip side of running too many sets is not having any structure at all. A lot of AAU clubs have been known to just roll the ball out let the kids play. Who is teaching kids how to play? Who is teaching them to not only set screens but how to set them at the correct angles? How many kids intuitively know when and how to cut back door? These coaches need to learn how to play the game themselves so they can teach the future of the game.
Too many games to develop
As Bailey describes above “today the kids play so much, and there’s very little time actually spent working on the individual things kids need to work on.”
Basketball games are like the spelling tests that we used to take in elementary school. We would get a list of words on Monday and practice them all week. Our parents would make us write them down again and again. Sometimes they would use word association to help us remember the words and definitions. We would then put them into sentences and apply the newly learned words. We would repeat the correct way of spelling the words for the entire week and wake up on Friday, game day, and study some more. We would then go into the designated hour ready and PREPARED to ace the test. We practiced to get perfect score on the test. In basketball, there is no perfect score but working on your game is the secret to having success on the court. Playing so many games is like taking spelling tests everyday in order to learn how to spell them the correct way. That philosophy is backwards. The games are tests and they allow you to show what you have already learned.
On the other hand, games are very important. Games allow players the opportunity to grow. Games offer circumstances that practices can not. Pressure, increased competition, and mental toughness are tested in games. Simulating these conditions strictly in a practice setting is impossible. The key is the right balance between games and practice. NO eleven year old kid needs to play in 100 basketball games in a year.
Too many kids are pigeonholed into positions at an early age
Basketball games are like the spelling tests that we used to take in elementary school. We would get a list of words on Monday and practice them all week. Our parents would make us write them down again and again. Sometimes they would use word association to help us remember the words and definitions. We would then put them into sentences and apply the newly learned words. We would repeat the correct way of spelling the words for the entire week and wake up on Friday, game day, and study some more. We would then go into the designated hour ready and PREPARED to ace the test. We practiced to get perfect score on the test. In basketball, there is no perfect score but working on your game is the secret to having success on the court. Playing so many games is like taking spelling tests everyday in order to learn how to spell them the correct way. That philosophy is backwards. The games are tests and they allow you to show what you have already learned.
On the other hand, games are very important. Games allow players the opportunity to grow. Games offer circumstances that practices can not. Pressure, increased competition, and mental toughness are tested in games. Simulating these conditions strictly in a practice setting is impossible. The key is the right balance between games and practice. NO eleven year old kid needs to play in 100 basketball games in a year.
Too many kids are pigeonholed into positions at an early age
Take a look at the Hoopgurlz Top 20. The smallest player is a 5’8 guard. The Top 20 has five girls that play on the wing facing the basket and their heights are as follows: 5’11, 6’1, 6’1, 6’2 and 6’3. Wing players are essentially guards in today’s game. They face the basket, put the ball on the floor and can shoot from the outside. The top 100 has thirty five guards and only three of them or shorter than 5’7.
One of the problems with youth coaches is that they take 5’8 eighth graders and make them post players. These young ladies are told to rebound and pass to 5’2 guards. Many of these 5’8 middle school post players end up being 5’9 high school seniors. These players have restricted skills sets since they have played hundreds of summer games in a position that they can not succeed at. A player can have the best footwork and low post shots in the state but scoring in the post on a girl 6 inches taller on a consistent basis is not going to happen at the elite level. The poster child for undersized bigs having success against taller opponents is Charles Barkely. Many forget that Barkely’s face up game was better than his post moves. Also, I have never seen an undersized female post that can dunk. Barkley’s freakish athleticism allowed him to dominate bigger opponents.
All basketball players should be able to face the basket and shoot from the outside. They should definitely be able to handle the basketball and it is the coaches’ job to teach them these skill sets but the players’ job to work on them.
In fairness to the AAU coaches
One of the problems with youth coaches is that they take 5’8 eighth graders and make them post players. These young ladies are told to rebound and pass to 5’2 guards. Many of these 5’8 middle school post players end up being 5’9 high school seniors. These players have restricted skills sets since they have played hundreds of summer games in a position that they can not succeed at. A player can have the best footwork and low post shots in the state but scoring in the post on a girl 6 inches taller on a consistent basis is not going to happen at the elite level. The poster child for undersized bigs having success against taller opponents is Charles Barkely. Many forget that Barkely’s face up game was better than his post moves. Also, I have never seen an undersized female post that can dunk. Barkley’s freakish athleticism allowed him to dominate bigger opponents.
All basketball players should be able to face the basket and shoot from the outside. They should definitely be able to handle the basketball and it is the coaches’ job to teach them these skill sets but the players’ job to work on them.
In fairness to the AAU coaches
-In fairness to the AAU coaches, it is not all on them. What happened to the days of players shooting until the sun goes down. Where is the player like the great, Nancy Leiberman,
who would leave her suburban home and travel to Harlem and play pick up with the boys?
-Are today’s players’ worse shooters than in the past? I’m reminded of a coaching video featuring Bob Huggins in which he claims otherwise. Huggins describes the defensive tactics in the past. Most teams played a zone defense that restricted them to the paint. They played with both palms facing the sky and hands at the offensive players’ waist level. The defending guards were 5’5 and 5’7.This combination of pack the paint defense and smaller players allowed for wide open shots. Now look at today’s game. The defense is full court and in your face. The players’ hands are in your face and all over your body with arms that have been hardened in the weight room. The players are now 6’3 and 6’7 at the guard spots (on the mens side) and trap, chase, funnel and harass. Could Bob Cousy get his set shot off against Bruce Bowen? Most likely not.
-AAU serves its purpose. The best players play club ball and if its better competition that makes you better, it is the place to be. Take 2008 state semi-finalist Wagner. The entire starting five played travel ball. AAU ball players are the best in the city.
-Damon Bailey played travel ball. In Bobby Knights book, My Story, he writes:
“ AAU basketball was just beginning to grow, and this southern Indiana kid had been the national MVP on three teams that had won AAU age group champinships-starting when this kid was in the fourth grade”….I went down to see this kid as an eighth grader”.
There is national attention on the early recruitment of basketball players today. The theory is that the game is showing the sign of the Apocalypse because coaches are recruiting players so young but here is Bobby knight, the poster child for the old school, admitting he was recruiting an eighth grader in the late 80’s. That is another story.
“ AAU basketball was just beginning to grow, and this southern Indiana kid had been the national MVP on three teams that had won AAU age group champinships-starting when this kid was in the fourth grade”….I went down to see this kid as an eighth grader”.
There is national attention on the early recruitment of basketball players today. The theory is that the game is showing the sign of the Apocalypse because coaches are recruiting players so young but here is Bobby knight, the poster child for the old school, admitting he was recruiting an eighth grader in the late 80’s. That is another story.
-I saw Damon Bailey coaching his daughter in the 2007 AAU national tournament. His 10 year old daughter was playing in this event that featured close to 100 teams from across the nation. His team was skilled and disciplined. His daughter was one of the better players on the floor at all times and had an advanced skill set for her age. I guess if AAU worked for daddy, it will work for her.
