Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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?
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. If your son barely played, they aren't interested in developing him as a player. 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.
Ouch, that's kinda harsh. These kids are only 14.
Sad reality but 95% of the time, your kid either has it or he doesn't. 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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
Congratulations to your son. What surprised you?
Anonymous wrote:Our team has had to use zone quite a few times due to the size advantage of other teams. We have seen our share of reclass players (we have none) and have played 13u teams with 3 or more 6' and over players. While we do try to use man as much as possible, playing zone when very undersized has helped us compete
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:RE: overperforming their talent level - AAU basketball is full of clubs and coaches who run junk presses and zones to basically gimmick their way into wins. You can definitely steal some games, or at the very least make the score more respectable, by keeping the scoring down and mucking up the game. It helps B level parents and kids feel like they belong. Maybe that's the whole point of B and B+ level AAU anyways, just enjoy being part of the whole AAU scene for as long as you can.
And this is a bad thing? This happens at literally every level of basketball. You play to win the game...You can try to make the argument that getting beat down by 80, and staying in man is good for development. It's not.
DP. It is a bad thing. Euros are producing better basketball talent than us right now precisely because they focus much more on skill development.
Eventually basketball is about man defense and half court offense. Pressing and zones prevent kids from skill development though they get to win. If you are consistently losing (or winning!) by 80 then you have signed up for the wrong division. The answer is to recalibrate which division you are signed up for.
This is a huge oversimplification of why Europeans are producing SOME better basketball talent (we're still significantly better). The youth basketball model as a whole needs vast improvements, but it has little to nothing to do with youth players pressing and playing zone. Zone is crucial at all levels of basketball. You rarely see teams play zone exclusively anymore, but they are a HUGE part of development and understanding movement in basketball. And the game has changed significantly with teams at all levels playing faster and relying on early offense, you're actually seeing less half court offense than you did ten years ago. This is not to say that it's not crucially important to play good man defense, or run good concepts in the half court, but you're talking about the game as if it's 1995 and not 2025.
Most tournaments in the area at the developmental level do not give you a chance to pick a division to sign up for, even though they say they do. Not enough teams. Sometimes you can do it at bigger tournaments (MADE, Hoop Group, etc), but look at the disparity in scores and you'll see it's virtually impossible to play even the majority of your teams games at the right skill level. Only the best teams are rightly placed.
I disagree. The discussion point was using a gimmick defense such as a zone or a press to work your way into a win. At the youth level, defense is easier to teach/play, especially simply based on aggression. Offense takes more time to learn. By the time you get to college a press/zone is rare precisely because it a a flawed strategy.
Early offense is a symptom of the problem: score before the defense is set because it is easier rather than lacing up and beating a defense in the half court. To be clear, I think this is smart basketball but it comes at the cost of skill development—skill development is precisely where the Euros are ahead of us. There is a reason why James Harden in 2017-18 is the last NBA MVP to fully come up through the American youth basketball system. A trend that will almost certainly continue into the medium term future.
The problem with pressing and zones is that they come at the expense of reps for BOTH teams in trying to problem solve. It substitutes space elimination/aggression for tactics and skill, in order to get the win.
Basketball is a beautiful sport that wonderfully blends individual performance within the construct of the team structure. Zones and presses take that away until an ENTIRE team is ready to handle it. Once the entire team is ready to handle a zone/press, then the concepts become almost unusable. I think that is the crux of the issue. A zone/press at the youth level, for the vast majority of players, comes at the expense of skill development.
The same thing happens in youth baseball. Stupid strategies are deployed to try to gimmick your way to victory rather than playing the game as it will eventually be played when everybody has developed the skills to play the game efficiently.
If your team cannot find tournaments where it consistently finds itself in competitive games then it shouldn’t be signing up for [those] tournaments. Can you really say with a straight face that either team really learns anything from a 60-point game?
As it stands, the winning team wasn’t challenged and the losing team didn’t learn anything, either. But that press sure did produce a lot of layups and that zone sure did stop drives to the basket. If you banned pressing/zone until high school, then the better team still wins but it will be forced to play man defense and the losing team at least gets into half court offense and can explore space and learn from it. Both teams would be better served developmentally from such rule changes.
In reality, tournaments are a huge part of the problem with American youth basketball. Parents are spending a ton of money on those tournaments, which in turn puts pressure on coaches to win rather than do the correct thing developmentally. Eventually these kids get to high school and they are poorly prepared for the higher level game.
Sorry, but this is way overstated. NBA and NCAA teams will pick up opponents full court and use zone defense in certain situations. The OKC 2-3 zone is widely covered by the media.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:RE: overperforming their talent level - AAU basketball is full of clubs and coaches who run junk presses and zones to basically gimmick their way into wins. You can definitely steal some games, or at the very least make the score more respectable, by keeping the scoring down and mucking up the game. It helps B level parents and kids feel like they belong. Maybe that's the whole point of B and B+ level AAU anyways, just enjoy being part of the whole AAU scene for as long as you can.
And this is a bad thing? This happens at literally every level of basketball. You play to win the game...You can try to make the argument that getting beat down by 80, and staying in man is good for development. It's not.
DP. It is a bad thing. Euros are producing better basketball talent than us right now precisely because they focus much more on skill development.
Eventually basketball is about man defense and half court offense. Pressing and zones prevent kids from skill development though they get to win. If you are consistently losing (or winning!) by 80 then you have signed up for the wrong division. The answer is to recalibrate which division you are signed up for.
This is a huge oversimplification of why Europeans are producing SOME better basketball talent (we're still significantly better). The youth basketball model as a whole needs vast improvements, but it has little to nothing to do with youth players pressing and playing zone. Zone is crucial at all levels of basketball. You rarely see teams play zone exclusively anymore, but they are a HUGE part of development and understanding movement in basketball. And the game has changed significantly with teams at all levels playing faster and relying on early offense, you're actually seeing less half court offense than you did ten years ago. This is not to say that it's not crucially important to play good man defense, or run good concepts in the half court, but you're talking about the game as if it's 1995 and not 2025.
Most tournaments in the area at the developmental level do not give you a chance to pick a division to sign up for, even though they say they do. Not enough teams. Sometimes you can do it at bigger tournaments (MADE, Hoop Group, etc), but look at the disparity in scores and you'll see it's virtually impossible to play even the majority of your teams games at the right skill level. Only the best teams are rightly placed.
I disagree. The discussion point was using a gimmick defense such as a zone or a press to work your way into a win. At the youth level, defense is easier to teach/play, especially simply based on aggression. Offense takes more time to learn. By the time you get to college a press/zone is rare precisely because it a a flawed strategy.
Early offense is a symptom of the problem: score before the defense is set because it is easier rather than lacing up and beating a defense in the half court. To be clear, I think this is smart basketball but it comes at the cost of skill development—skill development is precisely where the Euros are ahead of us. There is a reason why James Harden in 2017-18 is the last NBA MVP to fully come up through the American youth basketball system. A trend that will almost certainly continue into the medium term future.
The problem with pressing and zones is that they come at the expense of reps for BOTH teams in trying to problem solve. It substitutes space elimination/aggression for tactics and skill, in order to get the win.
Basketball is a beautiful sport that wonderfully blends individual performance within the construct of the team structure. Zones and presses take that away until an ENTIRE team is ready to handle it. Once the entire team is ready to handle a zone/press, then the concepts become almost unusable. I think that is the crux of the issue. A zone/press at the youth level, for the vast majority of players, comes at the expense of skill development.
The same thing happens in youth baseball. Stupid strategies are deployed to try to gimmick your way to victory rather than playing the game as it will eventually be played when everybody has developed the skills to play the game efficiently.
If your team cannot find tournaments where it consistently finds itself in competitive games then it shouldn’t be signing up for [those] tournaments. Can you really say with a straight face that either team really learns anything from a 60-point game?
As it stands, the winning team wasn’t challenged and the losing team didn’t learn anything, either. But that press sure did produce a lot of layups and that zone sure did stop drives to the basket. If you banned pressing/zone until high school, then the better team still wins but it will be forced to play man defense and the losing team at least gets into half court offense and can explore space and learn from it. Both teams would be better served developmentally from such rule changes.
In reality, tournaments are a huge part of the problem with American youth basketball. Parents are spending a ton of money on those tournaments, which in turn puts pressure on coaches to win rather than do the correct thing developmentally. Eventually these kids get to high school and they are poorly prepared for the higher level game.
Anonymous wrote:At our games last weekend, the 2 teams that beat us got a leg up on us pressing and causing some turnovers which converted into points and we got behind early. We were a team that only had 1/2 our kids and the other half came to fill in (no reclasses) so we weren't use to playing together and the press got us early.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:RE: overperforming their talent level - AAU basketball is full of clubs and coaches who run junk presses and zones to basically gimmick their way into wins. You can definitely steal some games, or at the very least make the score more respectable, by keeping the scoring down and mucking up the game. It helps B level parents and kids feel like they belong. Maybe that's the whole point of B and B+ level AAU anyways, just enjoy being part of the whole AAU scene for as long as you can.
And this is a bad thing? This happens at literally every level of basketball. You play to win the game...You can try to make the argument that getting beat down by 80, and staying in man is good for development. It's not.
DP. It is a bad thing. Euros are producing better basketball talent than us right now precisely because they focus much more on skill development.
Eventually basketball is about man defense and half court offense. Pressing and zones prevent kids from skill development though they get to win. If you are consistently losing (or winning!) by 80 then you have signed up for the wrong division. The answer is to recalibrate which division you are signed up for.
This is a huge oversimplification of why Europeans are producing SOME better basketball talent (we're still significantly better). The youth basketball model as a whole needs vast improvements, but it has little to nothing to do with youth players pressing and playing zone. Zone is crucial at all levels of basketball. You rarely see teams play zone exclusively anymore, but they are a HUGE part of development and understanding movement in basketball. And the game has changed significantly with teams at all levels playing faster and relying on early offense, you're actually seeing less half court offense than you did ten years ago. This is not to say that it's not crucially important to play good man defense, or run good concepts in the half court, but you're talking about the game as if it's 1995 and not 2025.
Most tournaments in the area at the developmental level do not give you a chance to pick a division to sign up for, even though they say they do. Not enough teams. Sometimes you can do it at bigger tournaments (MADE, Hoop Group, etc), but look at the disparity in scores and you'll see it's virtually impossible to play even the majority of your teams games at the right skill level. Only the best teams are rightly placed.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:RE: overperforming their talent level - AAU basketball is full of clubs and coaches who run junk presses and zones to basically gimmick their way into wins. You can definitely steal some games, or at the very least make the score more respectable, by keeping the scoring down and mucking up the game. It helps B level parents and kids feel like they belong. Maybe that's the whole point of B and B+ level AAU anyways, just enjoy being part of the whole AAU scene for as long as you can.
And this is a bad thing? This happens at literally every level of basketball. You play to win the game...You can try to make the argument that getting beat down by 80, and staying in man is good for development. It's not.
DP. It is a bad thing. Euros are producing better basketball talent than us right now precisely because they focus much more on skill development.
Eventually basketball is about man defense and half court offense. Pressing and zones prevent kids from skill development though they get to win. If you are consistently losing (or winning!) by 80 then you have signed up for the wrong division. The answer is to recalibrate which division you are signed up for.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:RE: overperforming their talent level - AAU basketball is full of clubs and coaches who run junk presses and zones to basically gimmick their way into wins. You can definitely steal some games, or at the very least make the score more respectable, by keeping the scoring down and mucking up the game. It helps B level parents and kids feel like they belong. Maybe that's the whole point of B and B+ level AAU anyways, just enjoy being part of the whole AAU scene for as long as you can.
And this is a bad thing? This happens at literally every level of basketball. You play to win the game...You can try to make the argument that getting beat down by 80, and staying in man is good for development. It's not.
Anonymous wrote:RE: overperforming their talent level - AAU basketball is full of clubs and coaches who run junk presses and zones to basically gimmick their way into wins. You can definitely steal some games, or at the very least make the score more respectable, by keeping the scoring down and mucking up the game. It helps B level parents and kids feel like they belong. Maybe that's the whole point of B and B+ level AAU anyways, just enjoy being part of the whole AAU scene for as long as you can.
Anonymous wrote:Very accurate, and there are a lot of teams in this area that do that too, and probably over perform their talent level a bit.[/b] Team Attack is a good example, Nova Cavs,[b]etc. And a lot of the time, you win games against those talented kids that play bad basketball. But when they beat you...Absolutely terrible feeling.
Predominantly White team. Hahaha