Hoops

Selection Dilemmas: Skills vs Potential

In retrospect, it's a shame Anonymous #211378 responded before you did.

Love your work. : ) : ) : )

My bad, I was with HAHA in wondering if Anonymous #211378 had an agenda, & supported his stand. I thought you were giving a green light for responses like Anonymous #211378's. *** WRONG ***

Kudos to ankles.

HAHA:
"Ouch!
How do you know for a fact that that is what is being insinuated?"

Isaac:
"HAHA, surely a personal response to a personal question isn't entirely out of place? I think that the first response is common "on this forum" in junior topics because a lot of the questions stem from individuals who think they (or their children/players) are getting a bad deal and jump straight in with a clear agenda. "I'd guess" that a far straighter question on this might get a better discussion going."

Sorry Isaac, & pending a ban, but that is a load of crap.

NB: DD inserted quotation marks, to put emphasis on my stand.

211500 - I'm talking about juniors through to U/20's. I'd can U/14's Nationals for just the reasons you're talking about - lots of post-pubescent kids who are highly-skilled and coordinated but have maybe another inch growth in them. Rarely are they already tall enough. I feel for a lot of the early-maturing boys who are stuck in the post the minute they have their first shave, only to find out they have topped out at 5'10" with post skills only.

To the how long do you persevere you have to ask how tall? Mark Eaton played in the NBA simply because he was 7'6 (or whatever) and that changes heaps. If he was a mere 7-footer they wouldn't have persevered for so long!

If you want to run a stereotype to the end, we need to look at teaching talls in a different way. These are kids who stand out all the time (and often shy away from that attention - ectomorph (tall, skinny, often intelligent) body types are also often shy), often because they lack the coordination of their peers. They are expected to succeed at basketball simply because they are tall, so we throw them in with everybody else and try and teach them to dribble in a one-on-one drill with a guard who makes them look stupid. They miss shots from so close to the basket we can't believe it but they never take an unguarded shot (and generally never one without contact of some sort). They are continually targeted by the opposition coach - whose general solution is to physically intimidate them and we wonder why they don't develop quickly. There's nothing we do to help them develop confidence or skill (not to mention getting on forum's and bagging their selection over other, more skilled players!).

As I said in an earlier post, I have a tall daughter. I watched a game last year where the opposition coach wouldn't let his big (6'7") go against my daughter (6'3") who was more athletic, and so had a dispensable player 'tag' her all over the court. Not a single foul was called even though it was effectively a Hack-a-Shaq treatment (without the foul shots). Had I man-handled the referee that way in the street (I was sorely tempted I must say), he'd have been most offended, yet we expect developing bigs to handle that because they are bigger, often less strong, often less confident, but taller.

Aaaah, more selection dilemmas. As a selector of sorts involved with a couple of different state teams (not SA) in the past couple of years and with a tall daughter, I have an extremely balanced perspective!! Not!

You can't teach height is absolutely right. But my daughter has been left out of a state team because she was tall! The coaches philosophy was that at 16's its all about running and height doesn't. The same coach took her the next year and she certainly held her own, even though she didn't get any shorter!

Coaches will (and should) pick their players to suit their style and demands. Sometimes this means they sacrifice a player's development in the interest of short-term team gains (nothing wrong with that if their goal is results, as opposed to development). The Schenscher (?) story is familiar. Tall players take longer to develop, get absolutely hammered by the referees (who seem to think that they are tall so shouldn't have any additional advantages - meanwhile they don't slow down the quick player or make the exceptional shooter shoot from further out!) and are often trailing behind physically more mature kids who are zipping up and down the court.

My experience is that, beyond certain minimum physical requirements, almost anybody can make it as a player (say State teams and above). Many will take different paths. We can all name talented kids who seemed to have all the tools - height, athleticism, skill, 'unsuckyness' - yet have not gone on with it. And there's always great examples of players who were not necessarily first picked who have gone on to have outstanding careers (Brad Davidson comes to mind as a guy who was never one of the 'chosen ones' at junior level yet has managed to carve out a very successful NBL career and win a Commonwealth Games Gold Medal for his country).

But when you are talking about development programs, you need to put resources into the players 'most likely' to succeed. How many 5'6" point guards are there in world basketball? Naturally these selectors need to look at players with the tools to play at an international level if everything else falls into place. So many of the girls in these programs are 6' girls or 6'5' boys whose skills are still developing. They may not handle the ball as well as others yet but if they are going to play at international level (and this is the purpose of these ITC-style programs) they will be matching up on Penny Taylor/
Kobe Bryant types (6'2" 2/3 athletic 2/3 players in the case of Penny) and its tough to develop a 5'7" extraordinarily skilled player to compete with that.

Mugsy Bogues proves that you can do that, but it's the exception rather than the rule - so do you put your resources into finding the one exception or go with the numbers and put the resources into the players more likely to succeed?

It all comes down to the goals of the program. Is it about winning or developing players? I think most junior programs should be about developing players (and would coincidentally do away with the National U/14 Club Championships for just that reason if I had a magic wand).

You wanna win? Take the skills NOW. You wanna develop players (and a strong program)? Take the potential (which incidentally includes attitude and enthusiasm).