LeBron James is right about a lot of things a lot of the time. He’s an inspiration, truly: an athlete who lived up to soaring hype and now uses his fame to speak out on issues far beyond the court. He’s probably the most complete basketball player ever, but his legacy, I think, will be in emboldening following generations to pay attention to, and speak out about, problems they have ascended past. What an incredible thing to give to the world.
But sometimes he is … well, wrong. That was the case with his take on the NBA’s China issue. Other times he’s badly misguided. That seems to be the case with his criticism of “AAU coaches.” James ripped into them during an interview with Yahoo, blaming them, in part, for the need to allow NBA players to rest strategically during the season — a practice saddled with the awful term “load management.”
Here’s what James had to say:
“These kids are going into the league already banged up, and I think parents and coaches need to know [that] … well, AAU coaches don’t give a f—,” James told Yahoo Sports. “AAU coaches couldn’t give a damn about a kid and what his body is going through.”
James granted Yahoo Sports an exclusive interview that covered the state of load management, a draining AAU culture that often leads to destruction, how he monitors his son’s involvement, and preventable measures to ensure that kids aren’t being taken advantage of and physically damaged before beginning their professional careers.
“I think [AAU] has something to do with it, for sure,” James told Yahoo Sports. “It was a few tournaments where my kids — Bronny and Bryce — had five games in one day and that’s just f—ing out of control. That’s just too much. And there was a case study where I read a report. I don’t know who wrote it not too long ago, and it was talking about the causes and [kid’s] bodies already being broken down and they contributed it to AAU basketball and how many games that these tournaments are having for the [financial benefit]. So, I’m very conscious for my own son because that’s all I can control, and if my son says he’s sore or he’s tired, he’s not playing.
“Because a lot of these tournaments don’t have the best interest of these kids, man. I see it. It’s like one time, they had to play a quarterfinal game, a semifinal game and a championship game starting at 9 a.m., and the championship game was at 12:30 p.m. Three games. I was like, ‘Oh, hell no.’ And my kids were dead tired. My kids were dead tired. This isn’t right. This is an issue.”
I’m not going to pretend that I know a lot of AAU coaches, but I regularly covered top programs in Indiana, met coaches in the D.C./Baltimore area and reported on several programs in New York City. The coaches cared about the players — deeply, in most cases — and wanted what was best for them. Are there some bad apples in summer basketball? Of course.
But mostly, summer coaches are in a strange position. The point of summer basketball is not to win. It’s not to build balanced teams and manage them so that they are in position to compete for trophies. That’s all a sideshow. Scholarships aren’t awarded based on that; coaches don’t get the call to be Director of Ops at a mid-major because they went zone in the waning minutes of a Sunday championship game. No, the point of summer ball is to get kids noticed. Players want to get minutes, have the ball and put up shots as college coaches watch.
(I’m speaking somewhat generically about the summer basketball experience, which has been in flux as shoe companies moved to control more of the action and the NCAA worked to give more power to high school coaches. The actual mechanics have changed, but the idea is the same: players want to show out for coaches and, when coaches aren’t there, the recruiting services covering the events.)
Summer teams are generally not carefully constructed so as to produce deep, well-rounded teams. If a kid is told he’s going to be the seventh or eighth man, he’ll just scout around for a less talented team where he’ll have a starring role. All the while, parents who are spending time and money to support their children, want to watch those kids get chances (who could forget James himself exuberantly enjoying his sons’ games this summer?). And often that means playing multiple games per day in tournaments meant to fit into long weekends.
And kids want to play! James basically admits this, saying: “It didn’t affect me. But now that I look back on it, I don’t know.” You know how hard it would be to get a 17-year-old chasing a dream to admit he’s tired? They all think the constant playing and training doesn’t affect them — it’s the price to be paid for greatness, after all.
James is right: The AAU system creates unhealthy experiences for many players. But those experiences are coveted opportunities for kids who need to scrape and claw for scholarships. James notes that Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League has done a better job at spacing out games — but that’s because Nike has the money to do things the right way. The summer basketball ecosystem also includes dozens of teams without the funds to stay the extra night in a hotel that would be required if a tournament was elongated to give players time to rest. James laments that some cities hosting tournaments don’t have Whole Foods, as if every kid pushing to get to the next level can afford to pay $9 per pound of food.
Besides, the vast majority of NBA players have time between AAU and their turn in the pros, and they spend it playing college basketball, where TV schedules dictate they play 9 p.m. games and class schedules call for 7 a.m. wake-ups — unless, of course, the players are flying across the country after the game. That’s not exactly the right way to get bodies ready for the next level, either.
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