As the NBA becomes more and more international, players of multiple generations have strong criticisms for how American youth programs develop young talent.
In the United States, the high school basketball season is only a few months long, and aspiring athletes have to fill the gaps in the calendar. Most turn to the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and play tournament after tournament every weekend, rarely practicing.
The AAU circuit, which has drawn fire for promoting individual stats more than team success, helped usher in the era of “iso ball,” where teams don’t run cohesive offenses, don’t preach defenses, and generally put the individual above the team.
Some of the best players in the world have noticed the trend and have gone out of their way to call it out.
Simply having the best player in the NBA does not mean teams will win the title. Nikola Jokic only has one Finals appearance, as does Giannis Antetokounmpo. Teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors, that had role-players buy into the system, are the ones that find success.
In the AAU, parents and young players are told that they can be the star of the show as a recruiting tactic, and young players are taught that it’s better to score 40 points and lose than only a dozen and win.
While the AAU has long faced criticism, perhaps no one was more outspoken than Kobe Bryant.
“I hate it,” Bryant said in 2016 of AAU. “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 coaches who are teaching the game are being rewarded in one fashion or another. It’s just a showcase. I think it’s absolutely horrible for the game.”
Bryant was introduced to basketball when his father played in Italy, and as a result, was focused on polishing his fundamentals on both ends of the ball. While he was known as a “ball hog” during his prime, it seemed to come from a desire to win, not break scoring records.
The last seven NBA MVPs grew up outside of America. Add in Luka Doncic and Victor Wembanyama, and there is a case to be made that the six best players in the world all come from Europe or Africa.
Bryant attributes his upbringing with his NBA success, and plenty of active players agree with him.
“I got lucky because I grew up in Europe,” he summed up. “Everything there was still fundamental. I learned all the basics. And I think we’re doing a tremendous disservice to our young basketball players right now.”
Isaiah Hartenstein, like Bryant, was born in the USA but started playing basketball overseas, in Germany. He is not an NBA superstar, although he has found success as a high-level role player on both the Thunder and New York Knicks, buying into team culture more than individual accolades.
“I think [Europe does] a good job,” said Hartenstein recently on the Podcast P show. “Just looking at the AAU, kind of how the format is, we’re not playing six games a week. We’re playing two games and then we’re practicing, we’re learning how to play basketball.”
In Europe, young men have to show to their club team that they are winning players in order to be promoted to the next level. In the USA, both in the NCAA and AAU, players are recruited instead of things going the other way around.
“No one is kissing your a– over there,” Hartenstein reflected of his time in Germany. “No one is like, ‘Oh, please come here. Like, I’ll let you do whatever you want.’ No, if you mess up, you’re gonna get cussed out.”
While it’s easy to brush off criticisms of the American developmental system, the recent track record of NBA success points clearly to the international system having a leg up.
