Most if not all american basketball players are athletic SCORES not fundamentally sound shooters. You keep looking at box scores and doesn't equate to being fundamentally sound... Dwight is more athletic than DMo, but DMo is more fundamentally sound than Dwight on the low post or even the high post... But you are looking at the box score and not the entire package.... USA has some of the most gifted athletic athelets in the world, but they are not fundamentally sound. T_Man <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_CCkatCABYc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
You can cherry pick examples such as D-Mo and Dwight to show Europeans are more skilled than Americans. I could equally pick a random example and say that a comparison of Kevin Martin and Ricky Rubio proves that Americans are much more skilled shooters. Each player is unique, and it is hard to characterize a very diverse set of players and say that "all Euros" are like this, and "all Americans" are like that. To be honest, without some sort of statistical comparison, this is just an "eye test" sort of argument. What skills are we talking about, exactly? Shooting? Ball-handling? Passing? Defense? Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and others are some of the best shooters in the NBA. I don't really see a case to be made that Euros are clearly better in the shooting department. Perhaps, on average, Euro big men shoot better than American big men, but that could also just be that the good-shooting Euro big men are the ones that actually make it to the NBA. Euro big men being good shooters is also far from universal. Omer Asik, for example, sucks at shooting. D-Mo is not a great jump-shooter either. Enes Kanter jump shots are a regular feature on Shaqtin a Fool.
2 out of 3 players you just mentioned fathers played in the NBA and understand the importance of being fundamentally sound. The case I made with Dwight and Dmo is based on fundamentals and athleticism.. Which is what Kobe is talking about from the aau stand point.. Even the video I posted talked about the difference of the players and how fundamentally sound they are... Again the argument that Kobe is bringing up and I totally agree is with AAU and how they are not teaching the kids the fundamentals and how the Euro is training the kids in fundamental basketball. Again that is my comparison with Dwight and Dmo and that is what the article is about. T_Man
And when the Euro players like Kostas get here, they say we have the most athletic, strongest, fastest players here in the NBA. American athletes specialize at an early age. It would be good for them to cross-train, pick up the skills of other sports, such as the footwork of soccer, balance of martial arts, explosiveness of sprinting, etc.
Oh come on now, where are you from? Mars? Basketball is 2nd most popular sport in Europe. Yes we have tennis, athletics, swimming and skiing, but Eurobasket for example attracts far more viewers than those four and the player base massively outnumbers any sport other than soccer.
We do have the most ATHLETIC, there is no argument there.. The problem is with playing rec basketball which is what aau is turning into and working on your fundamentals which is what Kobe is talking about... Our kids are developing very bad techniques and have little to no fundamentals of the game. I agree and disagree with the other skills... They need to get with a trainer and work on their skills... My son does year round training for both basketball and will start his personal training this summer... To see his development from over the last year is amazing.. I have a personal experience with AAU anf the coaches really are a joke, they don't teach and develop the kids. T_Man
I hate Kobe, literally hate and I can't truly say that about many people. Having said that he is right on this. AAU basketball is a joke. Players runs around playing glorified all star games. All they are for is showing off a players individual abilities. The statement that you can only get better by playing is blatantly untrue. While you of course do need game reps to implement skills, you have to take time to work on these skills. You don't get better simply by playing lots of basketball.
I don't know if Kobe's right or not, but does it matter? For example, I can take lessons from Hakeem on post ups, Harden on Eurostep, Curry on shooting, Beverley on defense, and I can master all those skills. But I still wouldn't even get in the DLeague because I don't have NBA athleticism. Having watched a lot of FIBA Cup this summer, if Europeans are collectively more skilled than Americans, then they are miles behind in terms of athleticism. Because were not doing anything against the US team.
An athletic gulf is a huge hurdle to overcome, and yes they are miles behind us in that regard. That's also why the NBA has so many athlete first guys in it, you can't teach that. Likewise the shooting thing is overblown because we put together some olympic teams that shot poorly. That was more a problem of team construction. The best shooters in the world are American, that's not really a problem we have. But things like post entry passing, backdoor passes, blocking out, proper rotations and just general awareness on where you should be on the floor, these are the problem areas. It's not a coincidence that D-mo and Papa are far and away our most technically sound players. They can't shoot, they are slow, and have subpar athleticism, but they usually help the team on technical ability alone. The NBA game is not as good as it should be because a large % of the league is very poor technically. If some of our brilliant athletes would be taught proper basketball it would be beautiful. The defending champs are a model for winning with technical excellence despite having mediocre athletes.
Beside the athleticism, the problem is Europe is divided into several countries so USA's player's pool is much deeper. If Europe was a country right now, I wouldn't take a bet on any of them. The third and the biggest reason - there is much more money in NBA than in Europe for basketball. The opposite is true in soccer where Europe (and Latin America) dominates while USA can't even sniff the semis. Highest paid basketball player in Europe receives $4.2M...
That doesn't even make sense. If you can shoot, you can shoot. That's all there is to it. I don't even know what looking at a box score has to do with anything. I can name a bunch of American players who can shoot. Do you know how many American players shoot the 3-pointer at 37% or better? Let's look at it... There are 73 total players, both American and foreign who shoot 37% or better from 3 who have at least 2 attempts per game. There are only 7 foreign players on that list. Just 7. Americans make up 66 of the 73. The highest foreigner on the list is Jose Calderon who comes in at #27. Full list: Jose Calderon #27 Serge Ibaka #31 Matthew Dellavedova #52 Nikola Mirotic #54 Marco Belinelli #58 Pablo Prigioni #65 Evan Fournier #70 So there are only 2 foreigners in the top 50. Americans are 48 of the top 50 three-point shooters in the NBA. So that would be 4% of the top 50 three-point shooters are foreigners. This year, there were 101 foreign players on NBA rosters on opening day. There are 450 total NBA players. So that means foreign NBA players make up 22% of the NBA, yet foreign players only make up 4% of the top 50 3-point shooters. If Americans are not "shooters", then why are the so much better at shooting?
It's harder for athletes to excel from a big country like the U.S. compared to an area made up of smaller countries. Good players in the U.S. get weeded out and beat by better players. A player like Kostas Papanikolaou if he grew up in the U.S. would never make it to the NBA because he would be competing in the U.S. against guys like Kevin Durant. Coaches select the biggest, strongest, fastest, most athletic players, and players like Kostas Papanikolaou would be thrown by the wayside. Yet because he came from Greece, he didn't have to compete with players like Durant. He was able to reach his full potential. It's harder to make a name for yourself in the U.S. unless you are supremely gifted at basketball.
Let me go back to the argument of where it stands and Seal stated it best.. The argument is on AAU and fundamental basketball and how it's compared to the developing the players in Europe... I am not going to get into it with you on stats, because a lot of times stats are a freaking joke and they never tell the entire story. T_Man
I've been saying this for years and its true,but its also 2 sided. Tony Parker,Dirk,nor Yao went to school and practiced for a couple of hours. At an early age, guys overseas are recognized and trained to be pros. I would imagine american players would be more sound basketball wise if they practiced and did drills like a job,then attended school vs the other way around. I do think aau corrupts kids. Kids dont learn how to play,they just hoop. All they do isb try to stack teams,run and gun, get noticed for college. Thats why so many of these so called wonder kids lack fundimental skills. I'm going to do camps here pretty soon, i probably wont let the kids shoot at the hoop for 2 weeks. When my kids want to go to these camps, i can tell early on after meeting the instructor that most dont have a clue. When you're talking about teaching the triple threat to a 8 year old. I know you didnt play ball past 7th or 8th grade. At that age, making layups,catching the ball on the run,qand basic dribbling will carry young people a long way.
