Ira wrote:I think it's true and the reason it's true is that our pre-nba players are going to school and not devoting all their time to basketball. This is a good thing.
Really?
What schools are we talking about? HS? College?
Our best players are only kept from coming to the NBA out of HS because there are restrictions on this. You have guys going to college for 1 year, who probably care little about the education they are getting in class- more about the exposure they get on the court.
You have all of those AAU teams and traveling teams during HS, and you know a lot of our kids are spending more time thinking about their game stats than geometry.
The problem I see is that there are a lot of gifted athletes in the NBA who, as youth, are coddled and pampered without any attempt to instill in them the fundamentals of the game. You get a moose like James- able to dominate in HS without having to learn certain aspects of the game and never really attempting to learn them from what I can see. You get the 1 year college kids who are only in college to make a splash- and have little concern for refining their games if all they have to do is show "potential" to get drafted. In some ways there is no incentive to be a complete player
LeBron James in a fine player, but after 7 years he still has a sporadic jumper from longer distance, and little or no mid-range or post-up game. Most of Kobe's skills can be attributed to his dad being a player- most pros who had dads in the game seem to understand the fundamentals- and it is not even close in terms of fundamentals between Bryant and James at this point. An MJ - James comparison highlights the same issue. He played under a great college coach with great teammates, and worked on aspects of his game to become a complete player. James is not a guy who will be as effective if he slows down or suffers any kind of injury to his wheels, because without his explosiveness he is actually a pretty limited player- you will never see him putting up numbers like Jordan did in his mid to late 30s.
And guess what- fans contribute to some of the issues we see- kids are more likely to look at a spectacular dunk than the pass that got the ball to the dunker. They don't pay attention to a player who boxes out well or keeps another player from getting the ball in good position. Fans have respect for Tim Duncan, but he will not be the guy a young kid dreams of being, and guys on forums like this will talk about or post "sick dunks" by marginal players before they show Duncan's footwork in the post or him using the backboard on a side jumper.
None of this means that the U.S. is not going to produce great players, but I would agree with Bryant that there is a skills gap between the U.S. and Europe, and pound for pound, their guys have more learned skills and an understanding of fundamentals than our guy, however you look at it, and to be honest, you see more fundamentals in the WNBA, too.
No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities- C.N. Bovee
7/28/2010 12:29 PM
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