Basketball is growing in popularity across the country. How accessible it is, the fast pace, and it is offered to both genders are all factors of this growth. According to a study done for the United States Tennis Association looking at, “data from 2006 to 2010 via an annual survey of about 50,000 students a year and found that 40 percent of adolescent boys and 25 percent of girls play competitive hoops” (Sabo). Due to this increase we, as a country, need to make sure that these kids are being properly taught how to play. According to research, the United States is training players differently from other countries. There are many leagues and programs for American youths to get started playing basketball, but none currently more popular than the AAU.  The AAU, abbreviated from Amateur Athletic Union, is a union that creates different leagues and tournaments across various states and regions. Coaches will then pay small fees to enter teams into these leagues and tournaments. The AAU was founded in 1988 with the goal of creating common standard in amateur sports. It started off by growing at a steady rate but eventually gained a lot of popularity in the years following the great depression. Adolph H. Grundman explores this growth in his book The Golden Age of Amateur Basketball: The AAU Tournament, 1921-1968. He says, “By the end of 1936 basketball was about to enter a phase of its history that would eventually make it one of the world’s most popular games.” (Grundman).  Unfortunately, over recent years the AAU has lost the key aspects that made it so popular. Through research and accounts from individuals who have taken part in AAU we can conclude that AAU has become more about money than basketball, causing coaches to take the focus off of teaching and in turn hurt player’s abilities, the product fans see on the court, and has put the united states behind in terms of basketball development. This has led to many current and former basketball players to come out and openly condemning the AAU. They and other basketball fans hope that by doing this they can change the course youth basketball in the U.S. is headed. 

  The AAU has transformed from an organization with the goal of teaching young kids how to play basketball, to a business that just wants to see profits. This was a relatively quick makeover for the AAU which has led to so many people noticing this change. Bleacher Report’s Jay King shares his view in his article “AAU Basketball, Greed, and Its Effect on The NBA”. King shares, “Over the years, AAU basketball has evolved from an organization dedicated to providing an outlet for children to improve skills and develop valuable skills such as teamwork and leadership to an industry designed to put money into its leader’s pockets. The steady evolution has left AAU basketball in the hands of sleazy, money-hungry businessmen rather than conscientious adults with the kids’ best interests at heart.” (King).  King felt that this issue was strong enough for him to write about it. His point is furthered through how easy it is to enter an AAU league or tournament. Anyone can pay the tournament/league fee, claim to be an AAU basketball coach, and have parents pay them to coach their kids. The effects of people doing this is shown in Doug Green’s article “Bottom Line: AAU is a money machine”. In this article Green shares what high school basketball coach Thom Sigel told him, “I saw a college coach tweet that it's easier to make an AAU team than a high school team nowadays," Sigel said. "What he meant was he just saw a team get beat by 70 or 80 and the people on the losing team aren't even high school players, but can get on an AAU team because they pay the money.” (Green). A 70-80 point scoring margin is not what anyone wants to see in a system that is supposed to be competitive. Some coaches don’t seem to care at all as long as parents keep paying them to coach though. These are prime examples of how AAU has morphed from a way from kids to learn basketball, into a cash cow for greedy old men. 

It seems as a coach’s interest in money has increased the amount of teaching they do has decreased. Which is why this problem is easily seen. They’ve taken away attention to detail and have sacrificed teaching players key fundamentals in favor of flashy plays that catch people’s eye. Future basketball Hall-of-Famer, Kevin Garnett, has taken notice of this and had some negative regarding AAU remarks in a recent interview. In this interview Garnett says, “Our league now is at a point where you have to teach more than anything. AAU has killed our league. Seriously, I hate to even say this, but it’s real.” Garnett played in the NBA for over two decades and was around long enough to witness this change before his very eyes. He feels that how much teaching young players still need once they get to the NBA is the biggest problem. Fellow former NBA player and now coach of an AAU team, Maurice Taylor, would agree with Garnett. “These teams don’t value PRACTICE and TEAM play,” Taylor said. Some of these coaches don’t give their boys the ammunition needed to compete in structured systems. That’s why so many don’t succeed.” (Taylor). Taylor knows enough about basketball to notice the lack of knowledge from the guys currently coaching AAU teams. Both of these former players’ points are personified through the case of basketball player Michael Beasley.  In his Wall Street Journal article, Kevin Clark, mentions that while Beasley was struggling to transition into the NBA, “[He] finally conceded a fundamental flaw: No one, at any level in his basketball career, had asked him to play defense. And especially not in AAU. ‘If you’re playing defense in AAU, you don’t need to be playing,’ [Beasley] says. ‘I’ve honestly never seen anyone play defense in AAU”’(Clark). This is a clear case of what can come from poor coaching. It is almost impossible to succeed at any level, let alone the NBA, for a player to not know how to play defense.  Beasley was the second overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft and was expected to be an All-Star type player. Now eight years later, he is struggling to just stay in the NBA because he never was taught the correct way to play defense. Instances like these show the faults of AAU and why it should be stopped. Having players come out and make these statements should be very alarming for anyone who is considering putting their child in AAU basketball. 

The most notable instance of someone publicly bashing the AAU comes from Kobe Bryant. In a post-game interview, Bryant took the opportunity to share his disdain for AAU, calling it “horrible, terrible AAU basketball.”  The more interesting part of Bryant’s rant, is his

beliefs that player development is better in Europe than here in the United States. He said, “I just think European players are just way more skillful… They are just taught the game the right way at an early age.” Bryant’s opinions should be held in especially high regard given his unique upbringing. Bryant’s father played professional basketball in Italy, where his family lived for seven years. During those years is where Bryant started to learn to play basketball. Bryant is known to be one of the most fundamentally sound players to ever play the game. Many basketball experts, and even Bryant himself, attribute that to his time spent over seas. He is also one of very few to have seen multiple countries youth basketball developmental systems. Until this no one would think to question whether other countries are teaching basketball better than America given our dominance in the sport, but there is evidence to this claim. Bryant is backed up by a CBS article written by Gary Parish. Where Parish mentions that after reaching out to six different NBA scouts that, “five of the six said that, yes, Bryant is probably right that European players, in general, are taught basketball more effectively than American players” (Parish). A real life example of this is seen in a same Wall Street Journal article that brought up Michael Beasley. Kevin Clark, the author, compares the way Beasley was taught basketball to that of Peja Stojakovic, who is Serbian born player. The article reads that Stojakovic, “remembers spending four hours a day dribbling through chairs and working on defense and other fundamentals in practices. Mr. Beasley, on the other hand, says he can’t remember any specific defensive drills his AAU teams ran.” (Clark). This is also true in the story of Brandon Jennings, who opted to play basketball in Italy instead of going to play college.  In an article for Grantland Max Blau explains Jennings time in Italy. “It was, he says, the most intense two weeks of his basketball life. If he’d never gone to Europe, he says, ‘I wouldn’t know the pick-and-roll game. I wouldn’t know how to guard, wouldn’t know how to fight through screens. I’m stronger now”’ (Blau). These personal accounts show how much more value is put on simple skills and fundamentals in European Countries as opposed to here in the United States. This, Bryant’s upbringing, and the scouts who agreed with Bryant all give reason to Bryant’s statement.

Despite all of this, some still feel as though AAU is best way to develop young players. In his article for USA Today, Chris Korman supports the AAU because of the exposure it gets players. He writes AAU helps the young athletes by, “introducing them to a world so many of them couldn’t dream of, a world ripe with possibilities and opportunities” (Korman). Korman feels that these young players get to now showcase themselves and get more chances to be seen by college coaches than they would just playing high school basketball. Exposure is the biggest point pro-AAU basketball fans will bring up when debating its worth. Getting to play in front of college coaches is a special opportunity, but shouldn’t be the reason behind not changing away from AAU for few reasons. The first being that AAU only generates exposure because it is in the off-season. College coaches can’t come watch a player’s high school games because they are too busy during that time with coaching their own team. If players decided to play in high school summer league games, coaches would then go to those games. The second reason being that coaches only go to the big name events that the best players are already at. So if you are trying to showcase your ability in an average level tournament, no one will be there to watch. This can be seen through Evan F. Moore’s article “AAU Basketball: More Than a Convenient Villain”. In this article Moore shares a quote from a parent of a AAU player. The article reads “A parent of an AAU player, who did not want to be named for fear of a damaged reputation, told me that exposure to major colleges and universities was one of the reasons she signed her son up… “I’m sure all of these boys, mine included, begged to be a part of this very expensive ‘opportunity’ with hopes of scouts being at the events,” the AAU parent said. “Well, we had our first weekend tournament and college coach seats were empty.” (Moore). Showing how easily wasted money can be in AAU and that not every tournament draws the same crowd. The third reason being that there are exposure camps set up all across the country for players to attend. These camps are a much cheaper and provide the same exposure as an AAU tournament would.  So if your only reason for supporting AAU is the exposure it brings, you should take these factors into consideration. 

The AAU is a perfect example of how greed can turn even the most innocent of demographics into a business for people to profit off of. Due to the corruption and lack of teaching from coaches, young basketball players in America are at a disadvantage compared to those in Europe. If it does not start soon the level of play will continue to decline, leading to worse basketball across the country. Some of the best developmental ways aren’t getting taught to kids, and if aren’t soon may never be again. This could put the United States behind other countries in basketball, a sport we are known for dominance in. My research only proved my original thoughts on the ineptitude of AAU basketball. These claims from former players and personal accounts should prove the faults of AAU. Also with exposure not being unique to AAU, there aren’t any redeeming qualities to force kids to stay in AAU. If you are a parent of a young basketball player, I urge you to not enter your child into AAU and to pull them out if they are already in it. The golden age of AAU that Grundman referred to in his book might be over, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t too late for there to be another one. With participation rates being higher than ever before now is a great opportunity for youth basketball to become great again. 
