The Problem with European Basketball in the United States

Last week, I heard a high-level coach criticize American basketball because there is too much dribbling and too many pick-and-rolls. He specifically said that there are far more pick-and-rolls in the U.S. than in European basketball. He characterized European basketball as passing and cutting with the occasional pick-and-roll.

I disagreed with the assessment of the two games, but I would not call myself an expert on European basketball. However, Jasmin Repesa, Head Coach of the Croatian National Team and Lottomattica Roma probably counts as an expert on European basketball.

As a clinic in Toronto last month, Repesa said:

In Euroleague/International basketball, 80% of set offense starts or finishes with the pick and roll.

This is the problem. We have coaches and media members who criticize American basketball, and hail European basketball, and they really have no idea what they are talking about.

New Coaching Blog: Youth Basketball Coaching Association

My writing on this site has slowed. However, I am writing new blogs several times per week for the Youth Basketball Coaching Association.

Most of my training-related writing appears at Train for Hoops or in my Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletters.

Please use the “Topics” bar on the right to search through the archives here.

Coaching and Innovation

I read a great article by USA Volleyball’s John Kessel titled “We Coach the Way We Were Coached” which questions much of the standard volleyball practice. Because I am a Kessel fan, I used some of the thoughts last season when I started as a volleyball coach, and some of the players and the Athletic Director/Girls’ Volleyball Coach acted as though I had no clue.

After reading the article, I found Dan Pink’s blog and saw an interesting factoid from Jerry de Jaager and Jim Ericson’s See New Now:

“A study of the top fifty game-changing innovations over a hundred-year period showed that nearly 80 percent of those innovations were sparked by someone whose primary expertise was outside the field in which the innovation breakthrough took place.”

The factoid made me think about college education: the hardest part of an elite college is getting admitted.

Unfortunately for innovation, the rules of nearly every industry (coaching included) are set up to keep out outsiders.

Think of the most innovative coaches. Many come from different backgrounds. Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach was not a football player; St Louis Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan is the only Major League pitching coach who was not a pitcher; Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony’s off-season workout coach is a former lawyer, Idan Ravin; noted track coach and Velocity Sports Performance founder Loren Seagrave was an ice hockey player.

When we narrow our focus too much when hiring coaches, we potentially miss out on the next innovative mind.

State of the Girls’ Game in Southern California

This is a series of posts from socalhoops.com that provides an interesting commentary on basketball in the area. I am interested in any thoughts about the reasons for the declining interest in basketball as well as solutions to the problems.

From Just Watchin:

Has anyone noticed a drop-off in participation in girls basketball? It seems fewer and fewer girls are going out these days. 9 years ago we had close to 60 girls try-out. This year we have barely enough to field three teams–don’t even need to cut. The girls who are trying out are coming in with significantly lower skills than in years past. It’s not just my school either, but the four other schools in our city. There are probably about 4,000 girls in our high schools. It’s hard to believe only 120 of them play basketball. My theory is that basketball takes too much time to learn and that parents start their kids too early (1st grade) so by the time they get to HS, there is no novelty to the game. I think girls shouldn’t even think about playing until 4th or 5th grade. Would love to hear your thoughts on the state of the girls game.

From Witness Same:

We moved to Murrieta about 5 yrs ago and there were at least 3 travelteams in the area, but now 0..It’s just too far and costly to drive north or south so my daughter has taken up travel volleball which practices 10 mins from our house.. It’s really sad to see what’s happened to girls and boys basketball in our area.

From Cause fewer quality coaches staying in the game

Some of the best coaches have left the game. Parents make it no fun to to anymore. Civility has left the building!

From The sport is losing its value

It’s so true. But because of choices, I believe instead of playing two sports that are costly kids pick one.

Cal south soccer recorded 127,000 players playing club soccer that is boys and girls. That’s a lot of kids. Then you have girls volleyball at a high level.

Beside the fact parents ruining the game, kids quitting the game is seeing less kids.

Also some really bad coaches play a part. You go to any high school girl game they charge to get in and the only one there is parents. The cost to run the gym is not cost effective.

From OC Mom

I too have witnessed similar situations at my daughter’s school…Girls basketball gets barely enough girls to field three teams. However, over 250 girls participated in pep squad try outs and another 200 for volleyball. I don’t think basketball is dead, because our boy’s program has 4 full teams (varsity, JV and two frosh/soph A/B teams!).

I think the problem is that soccer and volleyball has proven to be more attractive and more popular, hence children are playing these sports at a much earlier age. Also, there are limited girls basketball youth teams to develop new/younger players. The recreational leagues are drying up and NJB can’t field teams for every city. There is a significant shortage of players.

And, with cutbacks in sport programs at the public schools, there is little focus on team sports like basketball at the elementary and middle school levels. By the time these kids get to high school, they barely have any skills to play the game, even if they have the interest.

As discussed previously on this board and many have expressed that the sport is dying due to the interest in soccer and volleyball. It has lost its appeal….period…

Just my opinion…Thanks.

The popular explanations are competition from volleyball and soccer, poor coaching, bad parenting, fewer youth teams, players starting too early and others.

Casey Jacobsen Breaks Down AAU Basketball

AAU Basketball offers the good and bad of youth basketball. The good is the opportunity to play against better competition and travel. The bad is the way that this system has developed around the shoe companies with an emphasis on exposure and player ratings, not development and meaningful competition.

Former NBA player Casey Jacobsen offered his feelings on the AAU system:

Somewhere along the line, however, a battle ignited between two athletic shoe companies that would change youth basketball as people knew it. Nike and adidas, in an attempt to sell more shoes, began sponsoring AAU teams and their coaches. There were not a lot of rules or regulations regarding summer basketball, and these companies took advantage. A lot of cash and apparel changed hands throughout the years in order to have the best basketball players wearing a certain brand of shoe. It was pretty crazy, but it was very real.

He highlights the real life saga of Schea Cotton, a prep legend who never made the NBA as anticipated:

Schea Cotton was caught in the middle of all of it. Everybody wanted a piece of this kid. He traveled all over the country playing basketball in Nike shoes. He was the one who Nike had pinned their hopes on being “the next Jordan,” a player/personality who could be successful at the professional level and earn Nike millions of dollars. So what happened to him? Schea couldn’t qualify for college after the NCAA invalidated his SAT score.

Did the constant basketball and travel have an impact on Cotton’s future? Jacobsen believes that it did:

Maybe instead of shopping in Las Vegas, he could have been going to summer school or working on his game with his high school friends. I believe that if Schea Cotton was born 10 years earlier, he would have had an NBA career.

As I wrote previously, AAU basketball and its coaches are not to blame. Instead, the problem is the overall system that promotes exposure over real competition and tournaments over training.

These all-star teams are only a small fraction of all the AAU teams, but they are the ones who draw everyone’s criticism. The answer is not eliminating AAU basketball, but changing the philosophy away from exposure and rankings to competition and training with a greater practice to game ratio, better coaching (rather than shoe marketers) and more periodization (a real off-season).

The New Model for Youth Basketball Development

Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development, the 3rd Edition is available as a paperback (here) or an e-book (here). In the 3rd Edition, I eliminated many of the original chapters that focused on the problems with the way that we develop basketball players, and expanded the information on the solution.

Cross Over is now 207 pages outlining a teaching philosophy based on a long term athlete development philosophy and containing over 150 age-appropriate drills.

The original chapters which focus on the issues affecting youth basketball development appear on this site and have been renamed The Cross Over Movement Manifesto.

Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Philosophy of Long Term Athlete Development
• Chapter 2: Athletic Skills
• Chapter 3: Tactical Skills
• Chapter 4: Technical Skills
• Chapter 4B: Technical Skill Progressions (Ball handling, finishing, passing, post play, shooting)
• Chapter 5: Psychological Skills
• Chapter 6: Practice Planning
• Chapter 7: Coaching Effectiveness
• Chapter 8: Learning
• Appendix 1: Injury Prevention
• Appendix 2: Dynamic Warm-up

The Cross Over Movement Manifesto

The Cross Over Movement Manifesto is 12 chapters comprised of the original chapters from the 1st Edition of Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development with updated information and opinions from three years of writing blogs.

When I published the 3rd Edition of Cross Over, I focused the book on coaching information and the long term athlete development philosophy.

Cross Over outlines the solutions that a coach or organization can make at the grassroots level to emphasize long term athlete development, the development of global players and an athlete-centered philosophy.

The Manifesto, the chapters which appear here, presents many of the problems plaguing youth basketball and outlines some structural changes like the Elite Development League.

The Manifesto

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Current State of Youth Basketball

Chapter 2: Early Specialization

Chapter 3: Free Play

Chapter 4: Talent Identification

Chapter 5: Introduction to Long Term Athlete Development

Chapter 6: Coach Education

Chapter 7: Finding the Right Coaching Environment

Chapter 8: The United States Basketball Development System

Chapter 9: Worldwide Development Systems

Chapter 10: Elite Development League

Chapter 11: High Performance Centers

Appendix: Parent’s Guide to Development Talent

Concussions and the Peak by Friday Mentality

I saw a tweet with a link to an article about a concussion victim with short-term memory loss. George Visger says:

“Coaches need to be more cognizant of when kids get their bells rung…They need to know it’s not OK to put them back in the game. They need to look at new helmets and equipment designs that absorb impact. And we need youth coaches who are trained — people who know what they’re doing and not just telling kids to ’suck it up’ when they’re hurt.”

After my freshman year of college, I worked a summer camp. It was a fun, recreational camp where the coaches often played with the campers.

One day, we played a small flag football tournament. My team was playing against another team who had a really good athlete. He was the star pitcher on his Little League All-Star team at the same time. He went to the camp during the day and played in the District All-Star Tournament at night.

Something happened and the great athlete fell and hit his head hard. He was out for a second and had no recollection of what happened. I was 20 and did not know much, but I guessed that he had a concussion (based on the two concussions that I suffered in my youth). After a few minutes, he said he was fine and he wanted to play again.

I said no. His coach got mad and said he was playing. I said that he wasn’t playing against my team. His coach was furious and said I was cheating. I said that there were more important things than a pick-up flag football tournament at camp. The coach was fighting mad.

My team and I left the field and went for popsicles. The kids on my team remarked about the other coach’s fury – they could not believe how adamant he was about the child playing after the injury.

I went to the camp director and told him that I felt that he should call the boys’ parents. He disagreed. He had the camp nurse (not a real nurse or athletic trainer, but someone hired to administer first aid, fill the water bottles and keep track of attendance) look at him. In her infinite wisdom, he was fine.

Luckily, nothing severe happened. By happenstance, when he reached high school 3 years later, I was the varsity assistant on the high school basketball that he was trying to make. He remembered me from the incident. While he thought nothing was really wrong with him, he also remarked about the other coach’s insistence on playing him (he made the J.V. team).

When we talk about the Peak by Friday mentality, this is an extreme example. The coach obviously cared more about winning some game than the player’s health and well-being. While I usually write about the Peak by Friday mentality in relation to sacrificing the player’s development to focus on winning, the extreme and even more dangerous example is the coach who sacrifices a player’s health to go for the win, whether it is pitching a player too many innings in a day or week or playing a player with a likely concussion.

However, the problems magnify when parents condone the mindset. I was coaching in a tournament and one of my all-time favorite players went for a lay-up and got cracked on the top of the head. She bit through her tongue and blood was gushing everywhere. Her mom took her to bathroom and cleaned up the mess. Several minutes later, after spraying something to numb the pain on her tongue, she returned to the bench and asked in the game (naturally she was our best player and arguably the best player in her age group at the time). The head coach was not going to player her, but she would not leave us alone. So, I ran to her father and asked. He said to play her, so she played. Of course, we won the game and everyone talked about her toughness. But, was it the best decision for her health? It worked out fine and nothing happened, but should she have returned to action?

We expect professional athletes to play through pain and injury. Should we expect the same of an 11-year-old girl or 7th grade boy? Where do we draw the line between admiring toughness and resiliency and putting a player’s health in jeopardy?

Perpetuating Early Specialization and Exposure Myths

Since the July recruiting period ended, many local newspapers have written about local players and their new recruiting prospects. AAU/club coaches use these articles to perpetuate the myth that summer club ball is the only way to get recruited.

I read two egregious examples. In one Santa Monica High School’s Thea Lamberger verbally committed to UCLA, and the ESPN article said that her recruiting had taken off after the Nike Nationals last weekend. While many people may have changed their opinions about Lamberger at the Nike Nationals, insiders told me that UCLA offered her a scholarship in early June at UCLA Elite’s Camp when she dominated the camp competition.

If true, she could have accepted the scholarship offer in June and not played at Nike Nationals and her recruiting would not have changed at all. However, the article implies that the offer was because of her play at Nike Nationals, which simply is inaccurate according to insiders.

In another case, a club coach told the local newspaper that many players had seen their recruiting skyrocket. He named several players. I happen to know about one of the players. The same coach who told the papers that her recruiting had taken off because of her summer performance was calling schools and trying to sell schools on a player that college programs had crossed of their recruiting list. Maybe she added other suitors, but his report to the paper was inaccurate if he is calling uninterested programs and tryng to get them to offer (though the coach should be commended for working hard on behalf of his players).

Of course, nobody fact checks the accuracy of these statements because local newspapers are in the business of writing feel-good stories about local players and college coaches are not allowed to comment on prospective players. So, how does one verify the story? Coaches are allowed to market the necessity of their programs through these stories, and nobody counters their statements.

I do not think that these coaches mean harm; instead, papers quote their opinions, which are often taken as fact. The same occured with an article about specialization and the importance of summer play.

“At this point, if you are an elite player, you really have no choice but to do this,” Babineaux said of summer tournaments. “You simply aren’t going to be seen if you only do high school.

“College coaches expect them to play a higher level of basketball. They want to see them play against the best.”

So, the authority on what a high school player has to do is an AAU coach. What else is he going to say?

To his credit, the writer points out some of the important attributes of the players that he covers:

Mao, Babineaux, Rodriguez and Mitchell have similar attributes: An insatiable work ethic, physical and mental resilience, good grades, time management skills and a strong parental support system.

But, then he backtracks and credits participating in one tournament as the reason for more and better scholarship offers:

Babineaux got a spot at an invitation-only event in Philadelphia in which many of the nation’s top coaches attended. By playing well there, the 6-foot-4 guard likely will find himself among the leading recruits in the class of 2011.

That means the potential for more and better scholarship offers.

The problem is the perception. For already talented players, playing in such big events may be important to improve one’s scholarship pursuit (though it is not the only way, as evidenced by Lamberger’s offer after participating at an elite camp).

However, the perception created by such articles is that the offers are because of the exposure. This cannot be more false.

College coaches offer scholarships to prep players who possess the skills, talent, grades, size, intangibles, etc that fit a need with their program. This must come first.

If players lack the skill, talent, size, grades, intangibles, etc., no amount of exposure will be enough to warrant a scholarship offer.

Parents often ask what they should do to help get a scholarship offer: Get Better! That is always the answer. If you’re good enough, a college will find you. If you are not good enough, it does not matter how many colleges know about you.

Exposure camps, tournaments and teams play a role in a player’s recruitment in today’s system, but the role must come after the player develops the skills and talents to warrant a scholarship. Exposure does not equal a scholarship.

The College Recruiting Process

Publicly, the following is denied by every college coach who insists that something like this never happens. However, talk to players who have been recruited recently, and this occurs more and more.

I spoke to a high school senior-to-be. During the summer, while traveling around to various tournaments, she took an unofficial visit to one of the schools that was on her final list of five. Her parents were not on the visit, as she was with her team at a tournament.

On the visit, the head coach asked the player: if we offer early, are you ready to commit right now? They told her that she was one of two players that they were recruiting at her position. The player was unsure – she had not visited her other choices. She told the coach that she wanted to talk to her parents first.

Several days later, the coach offered another player who accepted the scholarship and informed the first player that they no longer had a scholarship for her.

Why does it matter?

This spring, I noticed a number of transfers from local players. Through some investigating and reading some web sites, I am fairly certain that the above scenario played out in every situation, except the player accepted.

A player takes an unofficial visit during the summer or her first official visit in the fall. The school offers a scholarship – or says that they will offer the scholarship if the player is ready to accept. The school tells the player that they are prepared to offer another player if she does not make a verbal commitment while on campus.

In this situation, many players commit. After all, the school is offering a scholarship – a free education and the fulfillment of a dream. When we think of scholarships as a reward for one’s high school career, the acceptance of the scholarship is the end. The player accepts, receives congratulations and feels like all the work paid off.

Unfortunately, that commitment means that the player has committed to four more years of basketball at that school. What if the school does not have the right major? What if the school is far from home? What if the coach has a coaching style that does not work for the player? What if the program recruits another player at the position? There are dozens of reasons for choosing another school.

A scholarship is not an end – it is the beginning. When a player thinks of the scholarship as the beginning of a four-year commitment, the choice is far more important and more than a reward.

These players this spring – seven players – transferred after one year for various reasons. Not enough playing time, too far from home, coaching change, asked to leave by the coach…any number of reasons.

However, these players did not make an educated choice. They were pressured into a choice. When the player transfers, it does not affect the coach. The coach does not have to sit out a year when the player leaves – instead, the coach signs a new player and moves on. The player transfers – which means going through an abbreviated recruiting process all over again – and has to sit out a year.

I am not sure of the answer to the problem, as every coach does the same thing because they do not trust other coaches. They do not want the player to take her visit to campus, leave and then get pressured by the coach on her next visit. I do not know how to legislate trust, unless the NCAA forced players to take all their visits before making a commitment.

However, I do know that it is in the best interests of players to take their visits and make an educated choice. If a player has a dream school and the school is a great fit in terms of need, playing time, major and more, an early commitment makes sense. But, coaches pressuring a player into making a choice without even discussing the choice with her parents ileads to bad choices and ultimately more transfers.