Stern Is Pushing New School of Thought: Basketball Academy

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August 7, 2006

Stern Is Pushing New School of Thought: Basketball Academy

By PETE THAMEL

LAS VEGAS — With United States teams recently humbled in international basketball tournaments, some of the nation’s top professional players have converged here this summer to set about making things right. Mike Krzyzewski, the coach of the Olympic team, is attempting to recapture the glory by instilling a disciplined approach, even reminding his star players to tuck in their jerseys.

( That's anti-urban. Coach K is a racist! )

By contrast, in dozens of gyms around the city, three sneaker companies ran tournaments in late July featuring the showboating that is common in elite youth basketball. Players trying to impress coaches in the stands flipped behind-the-back passes (sometimes into the bleachers) and celebrated dunks as if they had won Olympic gold.

The contrasting scenes help explain why David Stern, the commissioner of the N.B.A., says the system for developing young players in the United States is severely flawed. He says it exploits promising athletes and has fallen behind some European systems of developing players. Stern says he wants the N.B.A. to begin a youth academy to help nurture athletes on the court and in the classroom. His concept would borrow elements of what works in Europe.

( Stern is a ing Euro-Socialist Jew! )

“I think we could do a better job of rounding and grounding those kids so the adjustment to a professional life is a happy one,” Stern said in a recent interview, his first extensive public discussion of the topic. “I’m serious about attempting to improve the overall situation.”

Under the current system, top athletes of high school age play for traveling teams sponsored by sneaker companies or, in some cases, for high schools that emphasize basketball over academics. Because of rules governing high school and college athletics, many coaches cannot talk or work with athletes during long stretches of the year. The result at the high school level is reliance on the sponsored traveling teams, which can result in a star system that produces players with flashy individual talent on the court and a sense of en lement off it.

“College coaches can’t talk to kids, but street runners can or shoe representatives can?” Stern said. “What has happened here is that the system has a lot of parties, including the N.B.A., all going the wrong way.”

Part of Stern’s call for change came after he read articles in The New York Times starting in February that explained how top prospects were padding their grades at fraudulent high schools to earn college scholarships.

“I was breathless,” Stern said. “It just struck me that these schools were in plain sight. How they could go on for so long? Kids were getting scholarships from schools that barely existed.”

( right, David, shocked, shocked, you had NO IDEA these basketball mills as fake schools existed )

The so-called diploma mills are only one troubling part of youth basketball. Stern cited stories of sneaker companies trying to lure junior high school players to their teams and of overseas agents peddling foreign players to the United States for personal profit. Stern called it “global exploitation” and “a disgrace.”

On the campus of Nevada-Las Vegas, Krzyzewski has worked to develop a national team that can shake the legacy of its underachieving predecessors. Previous teams endured embarrassing performances at the 2002 World Championships (sixth place) and the 2004 Athens Olympics (third). [Under Krzyzewski, the United States got off to a strong start with a 114-69 victory against Puerto Rico on Aug. 3 in Las Vegas.]

Stern said he was open to the possibility of running an academy with USA Basketball, which runs the national team program. Ultimately, the N.B.A. academy would more closely resemble European systems. There, talented teenagers attend a school and a basketball academy wrapped into one. They attend classes like those in a typical school but also spend hours working with coaches on fundamental skills.

( Tony went to French national sports ins ute, but somehow he never learned the fundamentals of shooting a basketball or making plays like a PG. Don't get your hopes up. )

“I can’t stress enough how much our skill development is lacking just in the programs in the United States,” said Spencer Hawes, a top prospect at center who will be a freshman at the University of Washington this fall. “In a lot of places, it’s nonexistent. You’ve got guys with all the talent in the world. They just don’t have the skill set to bring it together.”

Stern said he hoped to work with the N.C.A.A. but was not sure if the complicated rules governing college athletics would allow players to remain eligible for their universities if they were to go through an N.B.A.-sponsored program.

Brad Hostetter, the director for membership services for the N.C.A.A, said the organization would be willing to work with the N.B.A. to ensure that an academy abided by amateur standards.

Representatives from the high school and college levels, traveling teams and the N.B.A. are expected to meet this fall to discuss reform. They held a similar summit last fall in Chicago to discuss the state of basketball.

Many college coaches say that sneaker-funded traveling basketball teams are responsible for the lack of fundamentals in youth basketball. Many teams play numerous games against good compe ion but offer little skill development.

While watching the tournaments here last month, coaches chuckled at scenes like one in which Rafer Alston, a former Queens playground legend and a coach for the New York Panthers, chastised a player for dribbling too much.

( ??? as in "don't dribble, shoot the ball" ? )

Traveling teams indulge their top players with gear, hotel rooms and plane tickets, fostering a sense of en lement well before they reach college. Players can accept gear and travel expenses , but to maintain their eligibility, they cannot accept money beyond general expenses.

The top traveling teams are funded mainly by Nike, Adidas and Reebok, which invest millions of dollars a year to compete with one another to secure the best youth talent. Many college coaches no longer focus on recruiting through the traditional avenue of the high school coach, despite rules changes ins uted by the N.C.A.A. to try to reduce the power of traveling-team coaches.

As a result, considerable influence is left to the coaches of teams funded by the sneaker companies, who also have multimillion-dollar contracts with colleges and individual college coaches.

“I would say that precollegiate basketball issues are the most challenging and damaging of any of the issues that we’re dealing with,” Myles Brand, the president of the N.C.A.A., said in a telephone interview.

When Michael Jordan became the Nike marketing phenomenon known as Air Jordan, sneaker companies discovered the power of having a defining pitchman.

That is why they spend millions in search of the next Jordan. LeBron James, who skipped college and has quickly emerged as an N.B.A. star, was showered with so much gear in high school that he gave it away during lunchtime trivia contests. Adidas bought billboards and bus signs around his hometown, Akron, Ohio, pleading for him to sign with them. James eventually signed a seven-year deal with Nike worth nearly $100 million.

The latest prodigy, a senior named O. J. Mayo, plays for the high school that his adviser picked for him, North College Hill in suburban Cincinnati. But he has struggled socially and athletically at times. He has been suspended three times, reportedly for fighting and missing class, and some college coaches say that his game has not fully developed. He is expected to sign with Southern California or Kansas State to fill the year before he is eligible for the N.B.A. draft. Under the N.B.A.’s new collective-bargaining agreement, players must be at least 19 and one year removed from their high school class’s graduation to play in the league.

“There’s no platform for O. J. to get better,” said Sonny Vaccaro of Reebok, who advises Mayo. “Who’s going to make him better in North College Hill when he’s playing against whoever it is?”

Sneaker company scouts have already identified a successor to Mayo. He is Renardo Sidney, a 6-foot-9 16-year-old whose potential was recognized before he reached high school. Sidney is a sop re, and his family moved to California from Mississippi to improve his compe ion and exposure. He attended Reebok’s summer showcase camp in New Jersey this year and plays for a Reebok-sponsored traveling team.

Vaccaro said in a telephone interview that Reebok paid Sidney’s father, Renardo Sr., $20,000 a year as a consultant, with the money earmarked for youth programs. Renardo Sr. would not say where his son would attend high school next season, but he said an elite academy would be an appealing option.

“It would definitely enhance his skills to get him ready for the N.B.A.; a lot of kids need a little more advancement than A.A.U.,” he said, referring to the Amateur Athletic Union, which oversees some traveling teams. “I think it would be a great thing if it could happen.”

Not everyone thinks so. Players and coaches who would be affected by the changes are wary of the selection process for elite players. If the academy were sponsored by Adidas, for example, would it be biased in favor of players on Adidas traveling teams?

“On the surface, it’s intriguing, but I’d want to know a lot more,” said George Raveling, Nike’s director of global basketball. “Basically, what is it that we’re trying to achieve with the academy? Is it trying to fix something that’s not broke? I don’t know.”

( So we can count on your support, right, George? )

For now, Sidney will continue to play for his Reebok-sponsored team in California. He has even considered not playing high school basketball, an option that would be virtually unprecedented for an elite prospect.

His ambivalence toward high school basketball underscores the shift in power from high school coaches to the traveling-team coaches that the N.C.A.A. has unsuccessfully fought. One reason for that shift is access to players: Many state federations do not allow high school coaches to work with their players over the summer, although there are no such limits for traveling-team coaches.

The N.C.A.A. also prohibits college coaches from working with their players for about four months. The rules were written to give students a break from their sports, but because many college basketball players attend summer classes, coaches say they should have a chance to develop them to the fullest extent. They argue that if a chemistry professor can work with a star student or a music professor can train a top pianist anytime, a coach should not be restricted.

“In swimming, they go on club teams and swim all summer,” said Bruce Weber, the men’s basketball coach at Illinois. “In baseball, they go to play in Alaska. In basketball, and we are on national TV and make all the money, we can’t go near our kids. It makes no sense.”

The notion of an academy makes sense to people at all levels of basketball. The timing does too, with the United States having been knocked from its pedestal atop the basketball world. But with so many competing interests involved, a consensus could prove elusive.

( aka the corps and their $$$ corrupting everything they target )

As Krzyzewski tries to orchestrate an American basketball renaissance at the top, he acknowledged that changes must be made at the bottom.

“There has to be a way that we allow basketball players in our country, whether it be at the high school or collegiate level, to work on their game year round,” he said. “Now whether that’s a basketball academy, I don’t know.”

( "work on their game year round" Exactly we need a balanced, well-rounded approach for teenagers )

Thayer Evans contributed reporting from San Diego for this article.


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

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The sports equipment corps with their 100s of $M will also put their profits above the interests of any player and of any sport. Don't expect the basketball establishment to come between the sports corps and the players any time soon. Both the corps and players will be in court suing for right to free trade and free employment. The basketball establishment itself is the wealthy beneficiary of sports equipment corps. I expect no significant changes, and Stern is a hypocrit for saying he wants change.

[DarkReign]

I think you pegged it perfectly. Young players with ghetto-mom and dad in tow will be screaming about all the $$$ his/her child should be making.

In a perfect world, development rules. But, then again, I am not the astronomically talented young bball prospect with the potential to make millions of dollars.

Im sure I would be singing a different tune if I were. Jealousy sucks.