How hard is it to get on an AAU basketball team?

[Anonymous]

09:08 here- we are at Evolution basketball also. Agree they have good small group practices.
DNA was good for us a few years ago but in Springfield so likely too far.

As another OP said, DS has to be willing to put in the time. We were out everyday for an hour over the summer. A few times a week plus evolution training pre season.

Good luck!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:09:08 here- we are at Evolution basketball also. Agree they have good small group practices.
DNA was good for us a few years ago but in Springfield so likely too far.

As another OP said, DS has to be willing to put in the time. We were out everyday for an hour over the summer. A few times a week plus evolution training pre season.

Good luck!!

At his age, if he isn’t meme-ing about “ball is life” , it’s better to shift him to another activity

There is no team sport as competitive as basketball

There are just way too many hoopers who are gym rats

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP- look at some one on one training through the winter and some of the lower AAU team to start.
Good luck!!

This. My kid started one on one and small group training when he was the worst player on a bad rec team. After a couple of months with a really good trainer, he was playing up a year and starting on a not bad mid-tier AAU team. By high school, he was playing on a team with kids hoping to make the NBA.

It's important to recognize the levels in basketball and recognize that -- contrary to the conventional wisdom that basketball is all about athleticism and natural talent -- most kids move through lots of levels. Kids need a base level of athleticism, but beyond that, it's really about how good their coaches and trainers are and how willing the kid is to train hard and do what their trainers teach them (e.g. hundreds of hours of form shooting in the paint rather than going to the gym and missing threes, hours of exhausting ball handling drills rather than playing pickup with their buddies). To me, that's actually the rarest thing -- seeing a kid who knows how to train and is willing to do the work. It's really mentally hard, and most kids can't make themselves do the work, so they go to the gym and play around with their friends and call it training.

💯

[Anonymous]

I also recommend Evolution training in Merrifield. Our son has improved quite a bit since he started training there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP- look at some one on one training through the winter and some of the lower AAU team to start.
Good luck!!

This. My kid started one on one and small group training when he was the worst player on a bad rec team. After a couple of months with a really good trainer, he was playing up a year and starting on a not bad mid-tier AAU team. By high school, he was playing on a team with kids hoping to make the NBA.

It's important to recognize the levels in basketball and recognize that -- contrary to the conventional wisdom that basketball is all about athleticism and natural talent -- most kids move through lots of levels. Kids need a base level of athleticism, but beyond that, it's really about how good their coaches and trainers are and how willing the kid is to train hard and do what their trainers teach them (e.g. hundreds of hours of form shooting in the paint rather than going to the gym and missing threes, hours of exhausting ball handling drills rather than playing pickup with their buddies). To me, that's actually the rarest thing -- seeing a kid who knows how to train and is willing to do the work. It's really mentally hard, and most kids can't make themselves do the work, so they go to the gym and play around with their friends and call it training.

So true. Every time I hear from someone that their son should pick up basketball easily because they've played other sports or are "naturally athletic," it makes me roll my eyes. My son is on a travel team and he's earned his spot through years of training. He's played since first grade, put in countless hours of ball handling and shooting drills, developed court IQ playing hundreds of games, and has worked on specific skills through years of one-on-one training. Getting up early on weekends, training through heat and cold outdoors during Covid when many basketball gyms closed, spending every spare moment practicing some aspect of basketball.

Hearing someone like OP express surprise that their son was cut from a travel team after playing for a year reveals total ignorance of the game and the competitive nature of basketball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also recommend Evolution training in Merrifield. Our son has improved quite a bit since he started training there.

I like Pro Fit in Merrifield.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:09:08 here- we are at Evolution basketball also. Agree they have good small group practices.
DNA was good for us a few years ago but in Springfield so likely too far.

As another OP said, DS has to be willing to put in the time. We were out everyday for an hour over the summer. A few times a week plus evolution training pre season.

Good luck!!

At his age, if he isn’t meme-ing about “ball is life” , it’s better to shift him to another activity

There is no team sport as competitive as basketball

There are just way too many hoopers who are gym rats

And the gym rats are reclassing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try Durant or Takeover.

They take anyone and are super easy to get on……

OP here. My son has been practicing over the past 2 months. He would like to try out for some AAU teams.

Team Durand and Takeover seems like they have not updated their websites and social media for a while.

Can you recommend some other lower level AAU teams?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try Durant or Takeover.

They take anyone and are super easy to get on……

OP here. My son has been practicing over the past 2 months. He would like to try out for some AAU teams.

Team Durand and Takeover seems like they have not updated their websites and social media for a while.

Can you recommend some other lower level AAU teams?

Virginia Cyclones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP- look at some one on one training through the winter and some of the lower AAU team to start.
Good luck!!

Op here. This is so promising. We live by Tyson’s/McLean. I would love to sign him up for a lower AAU team and some skills clinics.

Can you recommend lower AAU teams?

I have no idea how to find them. We are new to basketball.

The easiest thing to do is
1. Find some local teams. Go to a site like BallerTV and find local events (https://www.ballertv.com/search?section=events&text=dmv), then find some teams in your kid's age group and gender. Or go to a league site like Force One (https://www.forceonebasketball.org/results-other) and look at standings to get an idea of how the teams stack up (I think, looking at results, that the American conference in ForceOne would be less competitive one).
2. Then you can look on social media for information about those teams' tryouts.

Op here. I’m having difficulty finding the websites. I either can’t locate the website or the website and/or social media seems to not be updated and definitely does not have tryout info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try Durant or Takeover.

They take anyone and are super easy to get on……

OP here. My son has been practicing over the past 2 months. He would like to try out for some AAU teams.

Team Durand and Takeover seems like they have not updated their websites and social media for a while.

Can you recommend some other lower level AAU teams?

Virginia Cyclones.

I just googled and Virginia Hurricanes popped up. It seems like a girls team.

Can you link cyclones?

[Anonymous]

Some of the teams mentioned here are only looking for specific players and roll existing roster year over year. We know a kid that just got picked up by team takeover. He’s the only new add to the roster for now. The whole process seems intentionally vague.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of the teams mentioned here are only looking for specific players and roll existing roster year over year. We know a kid that just got picked up by team takeover. He’s the only new add to the roster for now. The whole process seems intentionally vague.

I think for better teams it IS internationally vague because they want to limit how many kids show up. The alternative is a team like my kid’s AAU team that publicized tryouts and had 120 kids show up to try out for 2 teams — so in theory they were filling 28 spots, but they were only looking for a handful of new kids and my kid and most of the others who made the team had been invited to try out, so I don’t know if any truly new kids were offered a spot. The coaches started walking around 5 minutes in and telling kids they were cut. It seemed like a terrible way to do things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of the teams mentioned here are only looking for specific players and roll existing roster year over year. We know a kid that just got picked up by team takeover. He’s the only new add to the roster for now. The whole process seems intentionally vague.

I think for better teams it IS internationally vague because they want to limit how many kids show up. The alternative is a team like my kid’s AAU team that publicized tryouts and had 120 kids show up to try out for 2 teams — so in theory they were filling 28 spots, but they were only looking for a handful of new kids and my kid and most of the others who made the team had been invited to try out, so I don’t know if any truly new kids were offered a spot. The coaches started walking around 5 minutes in and telling kids they were cut. It seemed like a terrible way to do things.

Is this really how cuts work? This sounds horrible!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of the teams mentioned here are only looking for specific players and roll existing roster year over year. We know a kid that just got picked up by team takeover. He’s the only new add to the roster for now. The whole process seems intentionally vague.

I think for better teams it IS internationally vague because they want to limit how many kids show up. The alternative is a team like my kid’s AAU team that publicized tryouts and had 120 kids show up to try out for 2 teams — so in theory they were filling 28 spots, but they were only looking for a handful of new kids and my kid and most of the others who made the team had been invited to try out, so I don’t know if any truly new kids were offered a spot. The coaches started walking around 5 minutes in and telling kids they were cut. It seemed like a terrible way to do things.

Is this really how cuts work? This sounds horrible!

That club is the only one I ever saw do cuts that way. I was not happy about it at all — I knew and liked the coaches but I found that appalling. That said, I know an ex-NBA player who said that’s how they all did it before AAU became so full of pay to play teams.