Competition Versus Practice

Many of the most fundamentally sound players in basketball trained outside of the United States. How can that be with the United States owning almost a historical lock on international Olympic basketball competition? 

Earlier this year Kobe Bryant had some telling comments about basketball development, “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." He added, “I just think European players are just way more skillful. 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.”

He's not the only one who feels that way. NBA Coach Stan Van Gundy noted, “It’s a bad system for developing players." He added “they aren’t learning to handle the ball; they aren’t learning to make plays against pressure. The emphasis with our high school players is to get exposure and play as many games as you can and show everybody how great you are. If I can win the 11-and-12 year old league and tell all my friends about it that is a whole lot more important than if my kids actually get any better or learn anything about the game.” 

He notes that in Europe, “those guys are doing five or six practices for every game. They are spending a lot of time in the gym working on individual skills. It’s reversed here.”

At HeadStartBasketball.com Mike Klinzing identifies some consequences of competition-oriented versus practice-oriented development:

• Fundamental skill development is sacrificed.
• Too many games lead to overuse injuries and burnout.
• Players don't develop leadership and people skills.
• Playing with older players makes you better.
• Nobody players for hours at a time anymore. 

This isn't unique to basketball. At the Spartak Tennis Club in Moscow, coaches develop the best group of women's tennis players in the world strongly emphasizing relentless attention to strokes. In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle notes that players do not play competitively for the first three YEARS as they build tekhnika (technique). Coach Larisa Preobrazhenskaya simply explains "Technique is Everything." 

The New York Times reported in 2007, "To put Spartak's success in talent-map terms: this club, which has one indoor court, has achieved eight year-end top-20 women's rankings over the last three years. During that same period, the entire United States has achieved seven."

Highly respected conditioning guru and author Alan Stein comments about "Too Many Games." He shares three concerns:

1. Too many games (and not enough development)
2. Too much focus on rankings and exposure
3. Too little emphasis on coaching education (primarily at the younger levels)

He believes (as do I) that this contributes to injury and short-changes players on skill development and game understanding occurring via practice. 

Within practice, analagous to soccer's futsal, small-sided games in limited space allow for more touches and important growth in both individual and team skills. More one-on-one, two-on-two, and three-on-three and fewer games will help foster better play at all levels.