Our NBA future is in the hands of - the Amateur Atheletic Union???

[JoMal]

Sunday, June 11, 2006, by Nate Jones
Could it Be: Stern and the NBA Consider Fixing the Grass Roots
According to an article by ESPN’s Chris Sheridan, NBA commissioner David Stern is considering stepping in an “doing something” about the disaster that is American basketball at the grass roots level.
Most fans don’t pay attention to this, but the American grass roots system is definitely broken. Shoe companies such as Nike and Reebok have learned that they have a lot to gain by acquiring the best young players in the game to wear their brand and promote their shoes. In order to ensure that this will be the case, these shoe companies have pretty much taken complete control over what happens on the grass roots level of American basketball. They infiltrate the grass roots by pouring tons of money into AAU programs. These companies hire street/grass roots brokers, such as William Wesley, George Raveling, and Sonny Vaccaro to do their dirty work for them. With the aid of these brokers, the big shoe companies lace AAU coaches with money to travel and recruit the top prep players, as well as unlimited amounts of free gear to outfit their teams with. With the backing of the shoe companies, AAU coaches have garnered enough power to attract all of the top prep players in the country.

The system is currently set up in such a manner that if a player expects to play division one basketball, he has no choice but to play AAU ball. The only problem with this is that these AAU coaches don’t do much coaching. These teams play a good amount of games against great competition, but don’t really do a lot of practicing. These coaches aren’t working on fundamentals with their players. They are just working on making sure that their players get maximum exposure, which ensures that their players get recruited by division one programs, and thus ensures that their team gets more notoriety and more money and endorsements from companies such as Nike. The lack of practice and the lack of the breakdown of fundamentals has created an environment where the top player’s in the country are quite talented athletically, but don’t really accumulate the skills that they should be acquiring at that stage of their development. That’s why you see so many European players come into the league with more fundamentals than most young American players have.

As well, you have young men that aren’t held to any accountability. AAU coaches are not trying to alienate any of their star players. Having the best players is what gets these coaches more notoriety and more money. If they alienate one of their players by (gasp) coaching them or disciplining them or making them work hard, they risk the chance of losing that player to a competing team. That’s part of the reason you see our young players come into the league with discipline problems. These kids have been so coddled along the way, that they don’t realize that playing college and pro basketball is a privilege and not a right.

So how do we fix the system? In my opinion it is rather simple. It’s going to take David Stern and the NBA players association creating their own league sponsored amateur system. In this system, the NBA will choose its own set of coaches to run programs throughout the country. The coaches will be required to teach certain skill sets and hold their players to a certain level of accountability. Because the league will be sponsored by NBA money, their will be no need for coaches to actively recruit and the best players for their teams, since unlike with the current AAU system, the money they receive won’t be tied to performance of their team or the rank of the players that they have on their roster. This plan will cut Nike, Reebok, and insincere snakes such as Vacarro out of the loop and thus uphold the integrity of the game and help to enhance and showcase the skills of the best players in the country. But the problem is that the NBA never likes to pay for any program with their own dime. They always turn to their sponsors to bank roll whatever program they are trying implement. This is one program were the NBA has to be the singular sponsor. That is the only way to ensure the lack of corruption that flows throughout America’s current grass roots system.

I’m sure the shoe companies will come back with a rebuttal stating that their donations enhance the game and give more players an opportunity to develop and showcase their talents. But to that response I’d ask this: Why is it that these shoe companies pour the most money into the teams with the most talented/most marketable players? If they were just trying to enhance basketball on the grass roots level, wouldn’t they just be donating money to all teams equally? As well, why do they focus on funneling the best players away from teams sponsored by a rival company and on to a teams sponsored by their own particular brand? The answer is simple. It’s because they don’t care about the overall enhancement of the game. All they care about is that they make sure that they get to the next LeBron James at an age early enough to ensure that when the time comes he will sign with their company.

As fans of the professional game itself, I think we all have witnessed the decline in fundamentals for young players coming into the NBA, not to mention the total lack of respect and discipline the majority seem to display once they start earning a real paycheck.

Could the domestic problem (foreign players tend to avoid this pitfall) as we are seeing it be due to the unrestricted influence of basketball shoe companies at the AAU sponsorship level?     

[westkoast]

I don't know if this is the only reason that fundamentals is not always stressed to players coming into tihs league....

What about high school coaches teaching fundamentals?  If someone does go play at a division I school what about learning the fundamentals there?  Also, there are players who have not been taught fundamentals per say but learn on their own.  Special players like Kevin Garnett, Lebron James, and Kobe Bryant came into the league based on athleticism and turned into fundamentally sound players.  While I don't think it is okay for these large corporations to try to funnel talent into their revunue stream down the line...I bet they have given away a lot of free stuff to players that never turn into anything later on down the line.  The players that cannot learn that athletic ability only gets you so far  don't make it in the NBA as much as you would think.

Honestly my personal opinion is the way the sports media glorifies the flashy plays over the plays with substance.  I call it the Michael Jordan effect.  As a young kid playing basketball you want to be the guy who makes the fade away, off-balance jumper with time running out.  You don't want to be the guy who rotates to the right spot always.  Why?  Because when you watch Sportscenter you see highlights of players dunking with those ESPN commentators making goofy jokes and yelling 'OOOOOHHHHHHHHHH' in the middle of the telecast.

[JoMal]

You are right; this is just one explanation for the lack of fundamentals being taught at an early age, but it also shows exactly why these kids are not getting well-rounded training experiences. The ESPN highlight factor is way up there in creating this problem as well.

Bottom line? This is a self-feeding NBA/ESPN/AAU problem that no amount of money - in and by itself - will fix. Sponsorship of events by shoe companies leads directly to producing the problem that the sponsorships should be addressing.