As the summer approaches, so does the start of summer youth basketball, the leagues, tournaments and the AAU.
There are varying degrees of thought on how organized youth basketball helps or harms today’s student athlete. NBA great, Kobe Bryant, now retired, has been quite vocal about his specific dislike of AAU basketball and its culture. He’s even started the Mamba League in Los Angeles in an attempt to somehow change the culture of the AAU mindset.
“It’s stupid,” the five-time NBA champ stated. “It doesn’t teach our kids how to play the game at all. I think we’re putting too much pressure on these kids too early, and they’re not learning proper technique of how to shoot the ball, or proper technique of spacing.”
LaMarr Dyson, executive director of the Kyrie Irving/Rod Strickland Summer Basketball League, said, “It’s too watered down. Every mom and pop has a team. You have teams traveling, playing in national tournaments and they’re not competitive. They come here and they struggle to score.”
“Some coaches have expressed to me that AAU basketball can make a player one dimensional,” noted George Littlejohn, commissioner of the 305 Kevin Bushel Pre-Teen Classic in Brooklyn, a summer league for 12- and 15-year-olds. They start later this month.
Littlejohn continued, “Coaches complain that it’s too specialized, and that players develop bad habits which are hard to break, but they have to be.”
In defense of AAU, Littlejohn acknowledged, “It’s how a lot of the elite players are discovered, but on the other end you have to question: How many young players are really elite?”
Bryant has said, “Kids seek their own shots in AAU. They play one-on-one ‘hero ball.’ They’re out there trying to get noticed by recruiters, so they ignore the fundamentals.”
Bryant has partnered with Nike and the Los Angeles Boys & Girls Club to launch his Mamba League. It’s a 40-team coed youth basketball program. It runs for eight weeks, February to April, in Southern California.
The kids play on 9-foot goals, 1 foot lower than regulation, and on courts that are not as big as you’d find at your local Y. The league focuses heavily on the fundamentals of the game, fun and instruction, “but also to understand the connection that the game has with life in general, and convert that into being a better son, a better daughter and a better student.”
“Some people only think of the basketball side, but there’s also a social side in all of this,” emphasized Littlejohn. “That’s important, too.”