There has been a lot of discourse lately over why European basketball is producing more NBA stars than the AAU development system. For St. John's head coach Rick Pitino, the issue has less to do with the system and more to do with the people - specifically, the parents.
Appearing on The Herd with Colin Cowherd, Pitino argued that parents are doing their developing players a disservice by getting too involved in their careers. He argued that parents are just trying to get more money from schools that will pay their kids to play rather than staying with experienced coaches and putting in the effort to learn and develop.
“The easiest thing to do is blame the AAU system, and I’m not one of those people that do that. I would rather blame parents than AAU. I think parents today, are way too involved in their children’s careers as far as growing up. The parents need to just sit in the stands, enjoy the game and let the kids develop. And develop a love for the game. 20 years ago, I never dealt with parents,” Pitino said.
“I’m very lucky, I’ve got parents that are disciplinarians, they get after their kids. But the ones that aren’t, hurt much more than AAU. They want, ‘Okay, let’s go to a different school next year because you can get $300,000 more.’ No, let’s grind it out where you’re at and play for Tom Izzo and play for this person… because he’s gonna make you a terrific basketball player with discipline and character.”
Finding the Source
Pitino certainly knows his stuff when it comes to player development, having turned hundreds of players into winning college players and a good number into NBA and global pros later.
But the topic of player development really came to a head when Kevin Durant asserted in February that people blaming U.S. player development on AAU stems from racism.
© Brett Davis-Imagn Images
There's no perfect way to develop a player. If there was, everyone would already be using that method.
Whether the lion's share of the blame goes to the AAU, parents, players, coaches, Europe or something else not listed, there's plenty of blame to go around.
