Yep, those high level camps like PGC can cost upwards of 3500 to attend. Insane. 

Is this why the best players in the league are increasingly players who didn’t come up through the US youth system?

Fuck AAU basketball. Shit ruined the development of all these young guys, not to mention the countless injuries and mileage these guys are accumulating. These kids are playing 3 games in a day 6 games in a weekend. Charging \(100 a person and \)50 for the kid for the parents to come and watch the games. Kids playing games in flip flops and using their phones on the court. The whole thing is a fucking joke.

Honestly needs to be a bigger discussion. The culture for child development in general in the US is so shitty now. It’s locking lower-middle class kids out of extracurricular activities and hobbies now.

Capitalism sucks and he explains why perfectly without realizing it. Making youth sports pay to play sucks, yes, and that is what capitalism is. 

what happened to the game i love, basketball’s supposed to be broke boy sport, no expensive equipment, no fancy facilities needed, just get a ball and find a hoop

That’s why so many of these star players in the nba today haven’t come through the USA system 

Dang not my goat calling capitalism wonderful

Youth sports, not just basketball, in the US has been such a mess the last few years. Where to even begin?

• Youth programs like AAU is a toxic environment. There’s no coaching or teaching. These programs are just out there selling kids off to higher programs like cattle.

• Players get trotted out putting insane mileage that their young still developing bodies can’t handle. By the time they get to higher levels, their bodies are already breaking down.

• Culture is also pretty damn terrible. Highlights and having viral moments take precedent over anything else.

Describing late stage Capitalism on accident.

As a European myself, who really hates the whole AAU/highlights trash basketball, this “Europe is free and great” is a bit too romanticized the last few years, and while some of the things brought up have been true for a while capitalism is undefeated:

In Europe it’s “free to play” if you play for these big academy teams, which is like 30 across all countries in Europe or something. Most other teams (you know, the other 5000(?)) expect you to pay some monthly/yearly fee, which varies greatly from club to club and country to country.

And, to make things worse a lot of the main academies are looking to perhaps shut down their youth levels as they are very non-profitable. They rarely create senior team players and they cost a lot of money to run “for free”.

For instance Real Madrid is looking to maybe shut down their youth levels - I visited them last year and they have 0 overlap between the senior team and youth teams, they dont run the same things or anything. They viewed it as: If the kid is good enough, he’ll play with the men, not the youth. So, there was no need to run the same things. And they’ve made a Luka and a Hugo in the last 10 (?) years, so it’s a big expense they don’t get a good enough return on.

Lastly, NIL money now is hailing almost all European talent over to the US colleges, ‘cause kids can make more money in those 4 years than they might ever make professionally in Europe, and they will most likely get to play a lot while in Euroleague (which is the only place they can make any money resembling college) they get almost no playing time as that’s a cutthroat league with no tanking where developing young talent is not a priority.

The only thing he got wrong here is saying Capitalism is wonderful, because I’m not sure that’s the case anymore lol

Comrade Nash!!

Capitalism ruins everything it touches so it’s only natural it ruins this too.

American culture. This is who they are. Shitify everything, then spread it to all countries through their influence so even if you leave their country you still face the consequences of their thinking and philosophy.

NBA Europe is just that 

At this point I’d be curious to hear about things that are going well in the US

I’m a sicko and like to follow eu ball. This is 100% correct. And the NBA is soon going to have fewer and fewer American players as the kids are literally not taught fucking anything. I wonder how bad it will be before things change.

Capitalism kills 

He’s right but ironic he is saying this in the Amazon prime platform lol

“Capitalism is wonderful”

proceeds to immediately explain why capitalism is not wonderful

I don’t remember who said it but it was a couple of years ago one of these talking heads said something like in the US kids play 6 games a week and have one training a week while in europe they have 6 training sessions per week and one game which allows coaches to go far deeper into fundamentals.

Kinda stuck with me

You are so so so close to getting it Steve

You can substitute basketball for just about any other noun. US culture is disgusting.

Nash is a closet leftist. I remember after ⁹⁄₁₁ the media asked him what he’s reading and he said the communist manifesto lol. Also spoke out against the Iraq War which took balls in 2002 given the hysteria in the country.

Kinda. This was my experience playing from elementary school all the way to semi pro (extremely long rant incoming):

So, there are local clubs that you go to play as a kid and you pay a fee. Think of it like what you would pay for your kid to do, like karate.

Most of the money goes to the coaches, which is not much, and a tiny bit for maintenance support, but that’s mostly been taken care by the municipality or the government (depending whether the gym’s in a school or some place else).

In there, you get drilled in fundamentals. Dribbling, passing, moving with and without the ball, defense, and at the very end scoring (starting with cutting). 3P shooting is out of the question because you are too small to begin with, and it’s not a point of emphasis anyway.

Shooting is something you mainly work on yourself. They still teach you the basics, but the repetition required for it would take so long that it doesn’t make sense in a team setting.

Getting in middle school is when the serious development starts. You drill systems, screens, reverse screens, zone, man, the works. It doesn’t matter if you are a guard or center, and you better play defense otherwise you are not playing. Unless you are a very good point guard, defense is as mandatory as anything.

By high-school, you either made it into a team or washed out. There are no school teams, not really. I couldn’t play for my high school team because I was considered a “professional”.

There are local teams playing in tournaments (think YMCA level), and three leagues above.

The 3rd league is bad. It’s mostly people with jobs that used to play some pro level, and young kids. The league above that is very hard because there are act players making a living playing basketball and very good young players.

The first is very good, and there’s ferocious competition to stay in the league.

To play in any of the lower leagues you need to be fundamentally sound. To play in the top two, you need to be physically gifted. I was very short at 6’1”, but was a pest defensively - so I got minutes. But I gave up because I f’ed my knee and I knew there is no way I could compete with the height and speed I’d need.

When we played Giannis and Thanasis, I left the team because I needed to study for the university exams, but took a break to go watch.

It was so funny watching because I thought, “OK. That’s actual basketball talent!” Funny enough, I thought Thanos had a better chance to make it because he was so freakishly athletic and big.

Giannis was about 6’6 at the time, and crazy thin, but he was very good with the ball.

Btw, Giannis was playing PG. I ask his teammates after the game and said that’s the position he always played. So, the myth that Potatohead turned Giannis into a PG is just that.

Anyway, continuing on. After you make it as a professional you hopefully get to play for the youth national team. That’s when you know you are good. It’s also the best opportunity to get noticed by the biggest teams.

Having said that, if you are good enough, you get scouted and sign by 14yo maybe 16yo at the latest. I had a friend that got two offers by two of the biggest teams in the country to play straight in their developmental teams and play minutes with the first team.

The mofo kept telling them no because he didn’t watch to move 40 mins away from his family. All expenses paid, rented home for him and travel expenses for him and his family covered. I think he is now a chemist abroad. What a waste…

It’s very tough to make it because you much have daily practice after school that are at least 2.5h long, and then do practice sessions on whatever you need to work on, and weekends is when you play games. By 15yo you much make a decision because it’s unlikely you can study and practice enough. Especially with the education system in my country because after school you must do 2-3h of post school cram school. Meaning, there aren’t enough hours in the day to do both unless you go to a private school where you can do both and you don’t need to do cram school. But there are just a couple in the whole country.

He ain’t lying. But kids can develop and improve their game without AAU and spending big money on trainers and camps, and have for decades.

It’s like that for every sport nowadays… baseball. Sheesh. Expensive.

My goat is always right