Kobe Speaks Out Against AAU

[CHBB]

I'm not sure if this is in the right section. If not, feel free to move it.

Kobe Bryant recently made some comments on a whole host of things, but the one that stands out the most is what he said about AAU and how it's ruining basketball. Here is the link:

http://nypost.com/2015/01/10/bryant-speaks-truth-in-blasting-youth-hoops-organization/

Personally, I am very glad that now that his career is winding down, Kobe is more concerned with integrity and his impact on the game and speaking the truth about some things than about making sure he doesn't do anything to upset his bottom line. That's a rarity in today's world in general, let alone sports.

The irony, as pointed out by the New York Post, is of course that Kobe gleefully endorses the very shoe companies who run AAU and who are the reason why "AAU is ruining basketball". What the Post left out though, is that Kobe is also the epitome of the hyped up high school kid who was handed the keys to the kingdom at a young age, and his success and that of Kevin Garnett and McGrady is really what got the ball rolling towards this point. I think the difference really is in how pre-NBA lives of these three players differ from that of many of the most hyped up kids these days.


Anyway, I'd love to hear what other people think about this subject, especially seeing as this is an international forum where members from many different countries post.

[CKR13]

I remember you CHBB saying a similar problem with today's basketball scene, it was last year during the FIBA World Cup (or was it in 2012?) about how "prep factories" being the cancer of it.

Prospects get suckered into a false sense of security, being hyped to the point of them playing against inferior competition just to advertise and use them as cash cows by the underbelly recruiters for NCAA programs. They don't improve, they stagnate and they are poor in fundamentals as their "mixtapes" are made up of only dunks and select plays that highlights their athleticism but not the proper orientation of team play and the right way to approach the game.

I can think of victims like Bill Walker, Michael Beasley, Jermareo Davidson and JamesOn Curry who were hyped in highschool, advertised in college but could not do consistently of what NBA teams expected when it was time to mold in.

This is probably the first time I have shared the same sentiments with Kobe Bryant, but he does touch a point.

As CHBB mentioned, Kobe then the hip-hop generation leading into LeBron James being byproducts of the circus that the AAU are putting on these kids. While this has produced results like James, Dwight Howard and Josh Smith, there are countless who disappeared into obscurity.

From Europe, I like their basketball academies and youth teams teaching young ones the essence of fundamentals and team play.

Great thread CHBB.

[CHBB]

Thanks. And yeah, haha it was during both, actually. It's something I've been saying ever since 2011 or so, after the whole 2010 Kentucky team fiasco. To me that is the whole watershed moment of when things fully changed, when that 2010 team was so hyped up and actually showed a blatant disregard and disrespect towards their legendary head coach and came off as very uncoachable. Everybody was so sure John Wall would be the best point guard in the NBA and were saying he was better than Rose before he even laced up his sneakers, which I thought was absurd given that Rose from day one had been one of the best players, let alone point guards, in the league. Then the next year it was Kyrie (who was a much better player than Wall in college), then inexplicably in 2012 it was Austin Rivers, and so on.

That whole K-State team really fell off huh... I remember Bill Walker and he was pretty good in college. Beasley was really that good in college, too, but he needed to get drafted to an organization that would humble him and help him grow and develop him, and he didn't.

And yeah, I completely agree with you, obviously. The fact that they play against inferior competition in high school to me is the most important aspect of it. Also, before that whole Kentucky 2010 thing, there was never a situation where any kid, no matter how high he was ranked in high school, wasn't forced to humble himself and fit into a college program and accept a position of subservience to the coach and the team the way a player should. Now, that's what happens in every major program. College is when a player is supposed to grow and be developed, and now players don't get developed until they reach the NBA, if at all. The problem with this is that by the time the players reach the NBA, their "brand" and their stats are what matters and most coaches are pretty much powerless over them. The biggest reason for this, other than the shoe companies and AAU is the "one and done" rule of the NBA, which basically took out the answer for the question of "Could this player be drafted out of high school?" and made it so that every hyped up, highly ranked high school kid was made out to be "If the age limit wasn't there, he would have gotten drafted out of high school", which creates a hype machine that fuels into the AAU and shoe companies and all of that, and basically makes it so that every single highly ranked high school kid is seen as "going to the NBA after a year" and thus we look at them as if they're college players or even pros when they're still a sophomore in high school even. The fact is, too, that everybody but the player profits from this until he finally makes it to the NBA.

I was going to write up a post a few months back showing how the draft has changed in the past 20 years or so but I decided against it. I went through all of the NBA drafts of the past 25-30 years though, and I noticed the exact trend that I have been speaking about for awhile now. Even up to 2007, the majority of players drafted high were players who were the best players in college and who were juniors and seniors. 2007 really marked a watershed moment, though, as that was the first draft full of hyped up "one and done" kids in Durant, Oden, and some others. One thing that changed with John Wall being drafted first overall in 2010 especially was the idea of how important size, speed, and athleticism are at every position. It used to be that teams drafted the best player at the position and gave the player a chance to show he could play that position regardless of size, but now most of those players don't get drafted anymore. The "height requirements" got taller and taller every year up until I guess this year, when Gary Harris got drafted despite being 6'3, and now I look in this and next year's mock draft and I see a bunch of players who would be "undersized" in previous drafts and thus go undrafted. This would seem to be a return to the way things used to be, but it's important to note that these players are all from the same schools almost exclusively. This means that now the hype machine trumps even the recent rules about height and position in the NBA. Probably the only thing that is good about this hype machine and AAU and how it has affected the NBA is the fact that there are more legitimate prospects these days due to the fact that most guards are 6'6, most small forwards are 6'8, most power forwards are at least 6'10, and most centers at at least 6'11. The problem is now the AAU hype machine is even ruining the one positive that came out of all of it in the first place.

The one thing American schools do best is getting the most athleticism out of their players. Now if we could combine that with the European focus on fundamentals, we would again be producing the most complete players on Earth. Actually, those two things are combined in urban leagues, but unfortunately most of the most hyped players these days come from the suburbs or go to suburban prep schools for high school rather than staying home if they're from an urban neighborhood.


I normally wouldn't agree with Kobe either, especially as he is the epitome of "me first" players for most of his career, but knowing the difference between him and the kids nowadays who are hyped up in high school makes him the lesser of two evils by far to me. For all of his faults, he is probably the most refined, best two way player of his era, with only Vince Carter in his early Toronto prime coming anywhere close. High school Kobe would be head and shoulders above the majority of these "one and done" players in college because he's a student of the game in a way most players just aren't these days.

[CHBB]

Also, what I love about the New York Post's piece is that it connects that AAU culture to the Knicks current situation with Melo. People forget that Melo was one of the first overhyped "one and done" types. He was ranked high in high school, went to Oak Hill, and then got drafted after a year of college. He's never been forced to grow up or stop playing for himself and his stats, and he just signed a max deal basically despite the fact that he's never won anything in the pros.