http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/...ean-players-more-skilled-americans-blames-aau Kobe: Europe players more skillful LOS ANGELES -- Kobe Bryant believes European basketball players are more skillful than American basketball players, and says it's a growing trend that can be blamed on the greed and coaching at the AAU level. "I just think European players are just way more skillful," Bryant said Friday night after the Los Angeles Lakers' 109-106 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. "They are just taught the game the right way at an early age. ... They're more skillful. It's something we really have to fix. We really have to address that. We have to teach our kids to play the right way." "AAU basketball," Bryant said. "Horrible, terrible AAU basketball. It's stupid. It doesn't teach our kids how to play the game at all so you wind up having players that are big and they bring it up and they do all this fancy crap and they don't know how to post. They don't know the fundamentals of the game. It's stupid." Bryant was born in Philadelphia, but when he was 6, his father, former NBA player Joe Bryant, moved the family to Italy to continue his playing career. Kobe spent his childhood in Europe until Joe retired in 1991 and moved the family back to the United States. "When you have limitations and you understand your limitations and you stay within yourself, you can be great," Kobe Bryant said. "You know what you can do and what you can't do. In America, it's a big problem for us because we're not teaching players how to play all around basketball. That's why you have Pau and Marc [Gasol], and that's the reason why 90 percent of the Spurs' roster is European players, because they have more skill." Bryant smiled when asked what type of player he would have become if his family had never moved to Italy and he hadn't learned how to play the game in Europe. "I probably wouldn't be able to dribble with my left and shoot with my left and have good footwork," Bryant said. "I was kind of fortunate because when I was growing up in Italy, the Red Auerbachs and the Tex Winters and all those great coaches were doing clinics and camps in Europe. They were teaching all the club coaches, and the club coaches were following their advice and their fundamentals like the bible, and they were teaching all of us kids that type of stuff. Me, Manu [Ginobili] and all these guys that grew up around that same time, we're a product of that. It's a big difference." Bryant had a simple solution to the problem. "Teach players the game at an early age and stop treating them like cash cows for everyone to profit off of," he said. "That's how you do that. You have to teach them the game. Give them instruction." But Bryant, who holds an annual summer basketball camp, also was quick to point out that any solution involving changing the current culture of AAU basketball won't happen overnight. "That's a deep well because then you start cutting into people's pockets," Bryant said. "People get really upset when you start cutting into their pockets because all they do is try to profit off these poor kids. There's no quick answer." A lot of AAU coaches are a freaking joke.. You get the father with the the son team, the coach who have played some college ball and trying to make some quick money on the side or the ex-nba player that uses his name to get the best of the best without teaching the boys how to play. Unfortunately I couldn't agree more... My son is 14 in the 8th grade and he's 6'4... I was blessed to find a trainer for him that is old school and teaches nothing but fundamentals... The first day I met him he stated if you're looking for me to teach your child to be Kobe Bryant then you have the wrong trainer... I teach kids basic fundamentals to be more like Tim Duncan. T_Man
By my count, the Spurs have three European players, so Kobe's off by about 70%. Or does he think that everything outside the US is "Europe"?
European players are certainly better and more skilled fundamentally. It's been that way for a while.
I don't think European players are more skillful... I mean, pick a category. 3-point shooters: The highest ranked European shooter is Serge Ibaka at #20 in 3pt%. There are only 6 in the top 50. Assists: Wall, Lawson, Rondo, Paul, Curry, Lowry, etc. The highest-ranked European is Manu Ginobili at #29 with 5 assists per game. Points, rebounds, etc... you can go down the list. And Europeans are known for not being great on defense. So are they more fundamental? Sure... you can make that argument. You can say they use the "proper" techniques and you can even make the argument that they are smarter. But more "skillful"? You'd have a tough time making that argument.
I think it's just semantics here. When Kobe is talking about skills, he's talking about the things that can be taught - that's fundamentals, technique, smarts, etc. Points/rebounds/etc are outputs. The inputs are skills and athleticism. Skills can be taught, but athleticism is (mostly) natural. What Kobe is suggesting is that our players simply rely on the latter more. Marc Gasol could never have the physical gifts of Dwight Howard. But what if Dwight trained for basketball like Gasol from a young age? How dominant could he be in that scenario? I don't know the answer to that - maybe it wouldn't work at all - but that's what Kobe is talking about.
I think you're missing the point entirely. You are talking about present exclusively and you're looking at nothing more but the box score. How short sighted is that. Shaq had better stats than Sabonis, does this mean he is more skillful? Jordan had better stats than Dražen Petrović, does this mean he is a better shooter? Wall, Rondo etc. have more assists than Parker...
The main difference to me is not skill or fundamental related, but rather it is about the goals of playing. AAU ball in general has almost no loyalty. Players bounce around from team to team for different tournaments, almost never practice, and use the AAU stage as a platform to be seen as an individual. AAU ball is focused as much as anything else on making yourself look as good as possible so that you can have a nice YouTube video. You need to have ahigh level of skill to get noticed of course, but you don't need to develop a team friendly game or style to be successful. In reality, the only reason to win is so that you can get more games in the tournament, beyond that winning or losing is all superfluous.
At the very least most international players can hit FT's including the big men. Meanwhile we have players on our team like Dwight, Josh Smith, and Joey Dorsey can only dream of ever shooting above 60%. Sad
