Victor Wembanyama’s on-court warm-up session before matches when he played in France lasted about an hour. It consisted of a lot of stretching, a lot of passing and dribbling drills, and then some shooting.
The basics. The abilities. Nothing else.
“It’s what they teach you to bring to the game,” he said at the time, about a year before the San Antonio Spurs took the French star with the No. 1 pick in last year’s NBA Draft.
Taught in some places, perhaps. It is taught everywhere, not so much. There are many in the NBA (from commissioner Adam Silver on) who are sounding a bit of an alarm about how the development of young players in the US differs from the process in other parts of the world, and how the model that appears to focus More on playing than practicing may not be the best method.
This year’s draft will once again reflect the changing trend.
French stars Alex Sarr and Zaccharie Risacher won’t have to wait long to hear their names called during the NBA draft that begins Wednesday night, and they could even be the top two overall picks. Sure, they’ve played a lot of games. But they are in this position because most scouts consider them the most NBA-ready of their class, with games that are extremely complete, a product of how they prioritized footwork, passing, shooting, dribbling, fundamentals about highlights. moments.
“Those guys start playing very young and, more importantly, they not only play when they’re young, they’re taught when they’re young,” Denver coach Michael Malone said last season, when asked why Balkan players – like Nuggets star Nikola Jokic – simply seem more adept at skills like passing. “There is a big difference. In the United States, in AAU Basketball, guys play a lot of basketball, but are they being taught how to play?”
It’s the question everyone asks. USA Basketball is trying to find an answer, along with the NBA. And it’s not new, either: Veteran coach and now television analyst Stan Van Gundy says the problem stems in part from how winning is overemphasized at the youth level.
“Frankly, if you look around, we’re failing pretty badly in this country as a whole at teaching people basketball skills,” Van Gundy said. “Everyone notices it if they watch the NBA, because there is a big difference between the skill level of the players that come from Europe and what we have here in terms of their ability to pass and shoot the ball. We can’t even produce enough people who can do those things here, so we have to go around and try to find people who can do them. We are not developing skills here.”
By the way, Van Gundy didn’t say those words this week, or last week, or last month. He said them when he coached the Miami Heat, two decades ago.
“You’re scratching at something that’s a conversation that a lot of people in the NBA are having right now,” Orlando Magic president Jeff Weltman said. “I think everyone is looking at youth basketball right now. There are very different models that you can follow. …It’s something we need to continue to analyze and measure as we move forward. The league is changing and how do we recalibrate that toward youth programs?
Some coaches, at the youth level, say the answer is simple: it’s up to them to do better.
Antoine Thompson is the boys coach at Stony Point High School in Round Rock, Texas, and his program reached the Class 6A state finals last spring. At Stony Point, fundamentals are paramount and it shows in the win-loss record: 38-2 last season.
Their solution: more practices, less games.
“We have moved away from the old way of teaching the game, starting with the fundamentals and then practicing the game with a team concept. That went out the window,” Thompson said. “And it’s getting bad because now you start at the grassroots level and that was where the game was taught. “We are ignoring it now.”
Thompson points to Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic as an example. Doncic has been a professional since he was basically 14 years old, part of the Real Madrid system before coming to the NBA. But the key is how he got there, Thompson said.
“I was playing at a club where the club was structured to teach the game of basketball before we played it and we’ve reversed that here,” Thompson said. “Now we play basketball, but we don’t teach.” the game of basketball anymore.”
Maybe that will change. The NBA is thinking it could be like that.
The league and USA Basketball are working together (former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is also involved) to see what can be done. Some countries require all youth level coaches to be licensed and pass some form of aptitude test; That may not necessarily be realistic in a country as large as the United States, but there is always a better way.
“We think there are definitely ways to improve the system,” Silver said.
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