You have a 9 year old who doesn’t like working on fundamentals and does “lots of double dribbles”, and the question is if you should force him to play basketball?

No, probably not. 9 years old is 4th grade, right? I don’t think kids on DS’s rec, school, or club teams were doing double dribbles much by 4th. Some travels, yes, but they understood the fundamentals of dribbling.

Forgot to mention, if he's happy with playing rec ball there's not reason to discourage him from playing it as long as he's having fun.

But if you want him to get really good and make higher basketball worthwhile, then he'll need to focus on other aspects of his game.

Every kid likes to shoot.

The thing I hate the most is watching kids take ugly looking three pointers that miss badly when they should be working on their form and accuracy from closer in first.

And also taking the shot is kind of an easy way out vs trying to take someone and driving to the basket. Keep in mind, I am not a fan of the modern game, which emphasizes three point shots more.

To get good and far, your kid will need to work on fundamentals. They need to be comfortable handling the ball and finishing close to the basket, where they may be traffic and people guarding them specifically.

Just running up and down the court and playing in scrimmages is probably just playground basketball. And that doesn't work in higher level basketball.

There are different levels of AAU teams and you just have to find the right fit. There are some really bad low level AAU teams where the kids don't even know how to play. I don't know if their parents realize how much of a better value and experience they would be getting by putting their kids in a rec league. But there are some really high level AAU teams where parents pay like 2 or 3 grand a season and the level of play kind of shows too.

From the leagues and teams my kids played on, I say anything from grade 3 and earlier doesn't really count and is just baby ball. Fourth and Fifth grade is where you want to see the development. By middle school, every good player has the same skillsets and it's really the drive and mentality that sets them apart.

So your kid is still at a good point to start basketball.

Get him out of rec/house league as soon as possible. Find a good trainer and an AAU team he is comfortable with.

DS9 starts to learn basketball rules & play basketball 2024 winter, and I am told that he is a natural good shooter by coach. I don't even know what it actually means, but I think the coach was quite impressed since he was a newbie. He still does a lot of double dribbles and his foundation is not solid. He had a tough time to play with other teammates who play basketball since kindergarten. Those 3rd grader boys were so mean. Another basketball private team coach from spring 2025 told us they will give DS9 a chance to join their AAU team if he is willing to work more on his fundamentals and more practices. This team is more nice and coach is more strict. Well, he is scared of too much competition and worried about getting kicked out. He also hates working on fundamentals. So, we did not even consider it. He joined their recreational basketball team instead in spring 2025 with us pushing him, and the coach still sees him as a potential. Anyways, he is currently 54" and he will turn 10 in November. I see many boys are taller than him. For a boy who is not willing to work on fundamentals, scared of failures, enjoy scrimmage basketball/games, should we keep pushing him or just let him give up on basketball one day? We force him to join another recreational basketball teams in the fall because he kind of wants to give up on basketball even though we think he has potential to go further. At the end, he is kind of okay to join for the fall 2025 recreational team. He did not want to do any basketball camps or practices during the summertime. By the way, what is AAU? I know it is more competitive, but how more competitive?

He does other team/individual sports, but he has more natural talent in basketball than other sports that he has been playing for years. I am not sure if his height (54") may limit him. DH plays basketball for years, but DS cries every time DH beats him. DH is 6' 2" with 200 lbs, so he can play more positions than DS. I have been asking DH to practice with DS, but they only have practiced like 2 times only this year due to many factors. Anyone has a kid like that?