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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OK so honest opinions- my son played on our large high school's freshman summer team. they didn't practice, it was just some games at westfield. he only played a few minutes per game (like a lot of the kids) but is confident he will make the team. what are his chances? i counted 15+ different kids who showed up on different game nights. How many do they take?[/quote]

I have had three boys go thru FCPS public HS basketball programs.

For the off season leagues, the coaches play the kids they want to develop. At the really big high schools, only a handful of freshman will eventually make it to Varsity. 15+ kids showing up for off season league games is in the normal range, but the coach really only cares about a handful of those kids. I bet 3-4 kids always started and played much of the time and the time left was split between 12 other kids. [b]If your son barely played, they aren't interested in developing him as a player. [/b]He still can make the freshman team because they need practice players and kids on the bench. But if he wants to play in the games, he should really work hard between now and tryouts.[/quote]

Ouch, that's kinda harsh. These kids are only 14.[/quote]

Sad reality but 95% of the time, [b]your kid either has it or he doesn't.[/b] Some kids take huge leaps between freshman and sophomore year, but unless they grow a ton, you might be out of luck making it past JV. 15 kids on JV, maybe five make it to Varsity. [/quote]

Yeah, but it depends on what you mean by “has it.”   Kids need height and/or speed and/or bounce, but the biggest differentiator in my experience is discipline.  You can see it at the gym -  there will be a bunch of HS kids fooling around with an unserious game of 5 on 5 where most are focused on looking cool, then there will be one kid in the corner pounding two balls for half and hour, then doing full court ball handling drills at a sprint, then doing thousands of one handed shots from 3 feet out.

The fact is, anybody who cares enough can learn to shoot and get handles.  Kids who aren’t freak athletes but say they want to play varsity yet can’t sprint and dribble while looking up and doing crossovers and wraps, can’t hit at least 9 of 10 free throws after sprint drills, can’t make 50 off hand layups in a row hitting the backboard each time, or can’t run suicides under 28 seconds— those kids don’t really want to play varsity. [/quote]

I feel like this is a common misconception. I've coached a TON of kids who have the work ethic, work on the right things, can do things fundamentally well (and even good), but don't move well on the court, are in bad spots consistently, don't read the game well, etc. And all of the height or speed doesn't make up for those facts. Maybe you get away with it as a freshman, but likely never at a higher level. That's what I mean by "it". [/quote]

Interesting.  Do you not find that the kind of basketball IQ you’re talking about develops with experience?   For my kid, doing tons of 3 on 3 with a training group really accelerated that development because there’s nowhere to hide — you have to make the right pass, move to the open spot, etc.[/quote]

DP.  I coach at the school level. There has been a fundamental dynamic shift in the past few years. We’re seeing kids that come out of club programs that can do great things one on one or in busted play situations. But the moment you ask them to run a structured offense or make smart reads within the offense they simply cannot do it. Similar issues on the defensive end, but less glaring. They have tunnel vision to play one on one offensively/defensively. Part of it has been the evolution of basketball at higher levels as kids watch it. But it is very frustrating. You see otherwise intelligent kids and it doesn’t matter how much you coach them or give them opportunities, they simply cannot do it or they cannot see it. Natural or developed basketball IQ is becoming a bigger differentiator to us.

So in the past I would have said yes, the basketball IQ can be developed as they age.  Now, I’m not so sure. [/quote]

I’m surprised to read this.   My (now graduated) kid was something of an outlier — from worst player on a rec ES team to varsity at a top HS, but he would tell you that he developed due mostly to work and luck (meeting an ex-pro who offered to train him).

Maybe it’s confidence — my kid always thought he wasn’t as good as he should be, so he did all the easy things to get ahead, like learning to make foul shots (he was the guy that shot techs) to ball handling (hours and hours of cone drills), to hours of defensive slides, to being damn sure to know the plays the coach called.

I did see some of what you describe at a recruiting camp. My kid was not getting the ball in scrimmages (everybody was playing iso looking for highlights), so he started doing the easy things — follow drivers in to put back missed layups; rebound, pass to a guard, then beat everybody down court for the easy transition basket; make the obvious cut when the paint is wide open; move to the corner for the wide open 3.  He ended up standing out by playing basic team basketball.   [/quote]

Congratulations to your son.  What surprised you?[/quote]

I’m the PP.  I was surprised to read that there are kids with good fundamentals who struggle to develop an understanding of team basketball.  I always figured that if kids watch enough games and play enough 2 on 2 and 3 on 3 they’d naturally get there.

My kid was lucky in getting in with an offseason training group of older, very much better kids as an 8th grader, and they’d do drills and 3 on 3 for hours at least once a week at an empty church court.  Those kids moved faster and passed much harder, so when I’d watch freshman and JV games they seemed slower and sort of lazier than the 3 on with the older kids.  Also, DS learned habits from those kids like sprinting down court in transition when he saw a teammate getting a steal. [/quote]

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