AAU HATE IT or LOVE IT? - ALL-MET ELITE

AAU BASKETBALL

HATE IT or LOVE IT?

A COLLECTION OF QUOTES  

 ALL-MET ELITE

 

LeBron James - Fundamentals. Fundamentals and the thinking game. That's what I would like to change. There's not many guys that think the game. And the fundamentals are not where they used to be."

 

"I don't know. I don't know if it's the little league coaches or AAU ball. I just don't think the game is being taught the right way. I'm not saying every coach. Because I know my little league coaches were great, and they taught the fundamentals, and we played for (the) team. It has something to do with something. There's a shortage somewhere going on."

 

"Yeah, I've seen it over time. And it's hard because these little league coaches and these AAU coaches get a player, and he's so good, and they want to win so bad that they just kind of give everything to that kid to keep him around. And hopefully, he doesn't go to a better team or however it goes."

 

"But they stop teaching all the guys, and they stop teaching what this really means. This is a team game, man. This is not about one individual. Not one individual has won a championship or even won anything by himself. Obviously, I know individual accolades come with it but, for me, I've always said if I'm going to accomplish anything individually, it's only going to happen because my team is successful."

 

Kevin Garnett - “Our league now is at a point where you have to teach more than anything. AAU has killed our league. Seriously. I hate to even say this, but it’s real, from the perspective that these kids are not being taught anything. They have intentions and they want things but the way they see it is not how our league works. You earn everything in this league. You’re not entitled to anything. And it’s more entitlement than anything."

 

Kobe Bryant - "I hate it because it doesn't teach our players how to play the right way, how to think the game, how to play in combinations of threes,"

 

"I think everything is a reward system. I think the coaches who are teaching the game are getting rewarded in one fashion or another. It's just a showcase. I think it's absolutely horrible for the game."

 

"My generation is when AAU basketball really started becoming s---. I got lucky because I grew up in Europe and everything there was still fundamental, so I learned all the basics."

 

"I think we're doing a tremendous disservice to our young basketball players right now," Bryant said. "That's something that definitely needs to be fixed and it's going to definitely be one of the things that I focus on."

 

Kobe Bryant -  "AAU basketball, horrible, terrible AAU basketball. It's stupid. It doesn't teach our kids how to play the game at all so you wind up having players that are big and they bring it up and they do all this fancy crap and they don't know how to post. They don't know the fundamentals of the game. It's stupid."

 

"Teach players the game at an early age and stop treating them like cash cows for everyone to profit off of, that's how you do that. You have to teach them the game. Give them instruction."

 

"That's a deep well because then you start cutting into people's pockets, people get really upset when you start cutting into their pockets because all they do is try to profit off these poor kids. There's no quick answer."

 

Greg Popovich - When Popovich looks at American talent he sees many players who "have been coddled since eighth, ninth, 10th grade by various factions or groups of people. But the foreign kids don't live with that. So they don't feel entitled,"

 

 The international kids, "have less. They appreciate things more. And they're very coachable."

 

Charles Barkley - "This new generation, they all stick together, they all play together, they're all AAU babies, any type of criticism directed toward them, they consider it hate. Even if it's a fair criticism, they consider it hate. So, no, it does not bother me what the new generation thinks, to be honest with you. I know they all stick together, so that's just part of it too."

 

Bob Huggins - "It isn’t their fault, but it is the reality of the times. I think they play all of the time but they don’t,”  “It’s kind of long and complicated and I’m not trying to kill AAU because I think it has some good. But I think when you used to have to go to the playground to play, you had to win, or you sat for four or five games. That was long the playground rule. Winner keeps the court. So, if you had three or four or five teams, two would play and the winner would take on the next, whether it was five-man teams, two-on-two, or one-on-one. So, what you did, is you played to win because it was more important to stay on the court than it was to score six of your teams’ nine baskets if the other team scored 10 and you sat out. The older guys expected the younger guys to pass them the ball and screen, and guard their man, and do all of those things and they were going to shoot the ball, the older guys were usually the better scorers. You learn how to win. I think when you go out there and play three games a day and you know you get two Whoppers with cheese, and fries, and a shake twice, and a pizza afterwards whether you win or lose (it takes away from the ultimate goal of the game, which is to win.) “I mean, I didn’t have anybody buying me pizza if we didn’t win. I just think it’s a product of the older guys used to help the younger guys. Now they’re never around. You drive by courts now, you don’t see anyone out there playing. It’s just a different culture, I think. And in fairness, the athletes now are bigger, stronger, faster. They’re better. It’s just their idea of how to play sometimes baffles me.”

Steve Kerr - “Even if today’s players are incredibly gifted, they grow up in a basketball environment that can only be called counterproductive. AAU basketball has replaced high school ball as the dominant form of development in the teen years. I coached my son’s AAU team for three years; it’s a genuinely weird subculture. Like everywhere else, you have good coaches and bad coaches, or strong programs and weak ones, but what troubled me was how much winning is devalued in the AAU structure. Teams play game after game after game, sometimes winning or losing four times in one day. Very rarely do teams ever hold a practice. Some programs fly in top players from out of state for a single weekend to join their team. Certain players play for one team in the morning and another one in the afternoon. If mom and dad aren’t happy with their son’s playing time, they switch club teams and stick him on a different one the following week. The process of growing as a team basketball player -- learning how to become part of a whole, how to fit into something bigger than oneself -- becomes completely lost within the AAU fabric.”

Robert Horry -