Is Jennings’ Route to the NBA Fit for Everyone?

Yannis Koutroupis wrote an article for the Hoops World about Brandon Jennings (ESPN interview) and his path to the NBA. I am sure it will be an intriguing discussion in the years to come as more high school players go to Europe instead of one mandatory year in college. Some will obviously succeed there and some will fails. It won’t be much different than when HS players were jumping straight into the NBA.

The author of mentioned article was inspired by Jennings’ more than solid stats to start his rookie season.

Read the whole article ->

Five Tool Player – Kobe Bryant

Five tools of a great basketball player:

1. Shoot - Off the dribble, the post, three point range.
2. Pass – Correct pass at the right time, give it to a teammate in a position where they can make a play.
3. Dribble – Handle the basketball, go left, go right, create the shot.
4. Defend – Guard multiple positions.
5. Intangibles – Know the time, read the situations, rise to the occasion, make the right play to win the game.

100 – 0 Loss in Girls High School Basketball

This game still lives in the media. It lives in the political circus. On February 28, Rush Limbaugh mentioned it in his address at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Read the whole article ->

What’s Wrong with Youth Sports? – from Wakefield Observer

Robert S. (Bob) Bigelow (born December 26, 1953 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a retired American basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). A forward, he played college basketball at the University of Pennsylvania. He played for the Boston Celtics and San Diego Clippers after playing for the Kansas City Kings for 3 seasons. Once the NBA began tracking turnovers in the 1977-78 season, Bigelow posted an assist-to-turnover rate of 1.39 for the remainder of his career.

He is now an author, having written the 2001 book Just Let The Kids Play: How to Stop Other Adults from Ruining Your Child’s Fun and Success in Youth Sports.

(Source: Wikipedia, See Bob Bigelow’s professional career stats)

How to make sports better for kids:

• Eliminate adult misbehavior
• Get qualified coaches
• Make playing time equitable
• Control excess travel sports
• Reduce overuse injuries

(Source: Bob Bigelow Website)

---

Donna O’Neil published an article in Wakefield Observer on November 14, 2008 based on the interview with Bob Bigelow. The idea is that…

…adults involved in the organization of youth sports who are living out their own sports fantasy through their children are sending the wrong message to kids.

Bob says in the telephone interview that…

…in a utopian world, I would take adults out of the youth sports equation altogether.

Maybe the best summary of Bob’s message is this paragraph:

Although not based on anything scientific, but merely on personal observation, Bigelow said, “If I could take 20 percent of the adults involved in youth sports, and that’s a multi-million number, and put them on a spaceship to Marks, never to be seen again, it would clean up 99 percent of the problems with youth sports. Too much of what is wrong with youth sports is their competition. Only about 20 percent that do get it. I would love to keep them around. I am fighting for the other 60 percent in the middle. That is the battle royal.”

Bob wrote a book where he elaborated on his ideas about youth athletic development and what needs to be changed to make the system work better. Quite a bit of the book is, surprisingly, given at Google Books, certainly enough to get a taste and make judgement if it’s worth buying. If you do decide to buy it from Amazon, here’s the link: