In summer league play wins-losses don't really matter. It's really all about the individual player performances, players are fighting to prove themselves worthy of more playing time once the regular season rolls around. Others just want more experience. A star in the summer leagues many times rarely has the same success in the real season when defense is played and playing time is diminished for sloppy play, poor shot selection and turnovers.
Check out some of the action and let me know what you think:
There are also college summer leagues...where guys are supposed to be getting better, but I'm not sure they are:
Then of course we also have the debate going on at the High School and AAU Level regarding summer play:
Here's what a prominent former D-1 coach had to say about the situation, but please share with me your thoughts:
Things sure have changed on the summer circuit
When I was a young assistant basketball coach in the early 1980s, the majority of my recruiting time was spent in high school gyms during the school year. Summers were spent evaluating players at basketball camps. The summer club basketball circuit was a very, very small part of a student-athlete's recruitment. I distinctly remember going to the Five-Star Basketball Camp in Pittsburgh and watching guys like Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullen playing on outdoor asphalt courts in the blistering July heat, diving into chain-link fences after loose balls and being coached by some of the best high school and college coaches in the country. Basketball fundamentals were drilled into the campers -- morning, noon and night. And by the way, most of these guys paid their own way to the camp.
When a high-level recruit wasn't at summer camps, he was in his coach's high school gym shooting jump shots and working on more fundamentals. There were local summer leagues to play in, and depending on where you grew up, the competition could be very good.
In the ensuing years, as the major shoe companies got involved with sponsoring basketball tournaments and then got the summer club teams to play in these events, the landscape of "grassroots basketball" changed. Instead of paying camp tuition, players had their travel expenses paid for, often jumping from team to team. Thus the beginning of the "entitlement culture" in American basketball -- a culture that was portrayed well in an Outside the Lines feature that ran Sunday. For many top-notch high school players, the competition at these summer tournaments was just as good as at the elite camps, but fundamental drill stations were traded for glorified pickup games. Because many state high school athletics associations didn't want their coaches working with players during the offseason, a void was created during the summer. At the same time, the NCAA began to limit live recruiting periods during the college season, the idea being that it was important that college coaches spend more time with their own teams. Thus the summer balance of power began to shift toward the summer club coaches and their respective shoe company sponsors and away from the high school coach.
Ironically, the high school coach, usually trained as a teacher, was spending less time with his players than the club coach, who often had no such educational background, had other agendas and didn't have the players' best interests at heart. In many cases, their players were nothing more than commodities that, if good enough, could be peddled to unscrupulous player agents on the lookout for the next potential NBA client to represent. Although that only happens with a tiny percentage of the elite high school players, this is the filthy underbelly of grassroots basketball today.
Now understand that not every high school coach is John Wooden or soon-to-be Hall of Famer Bob Hurley, and not every summer league coach has a Bluetooth in each ear, talking to college coaches and agents. I have come across corrupt or lazy high school coaches during my coaching career and have watched some really well-coached summer teams, in which the coach has only altruistic motives and the players' best interests at heart. Sadly, however, the way the game of basketball is played in America has changed in recent years -- and not necessarily for the better. The product has gotten worse because the influential people in these players' careers are not holding them accountable in terms of playing the game the right way. If a player doesn't get enough shots or minutes, the coach kowtows to him or he's off to the next team.
There is no question that the great competition that summer basketball now provides is extremely important in the development of young players. But it should not come at the expense of their being taught the fundamentals and to play within the team concept. And the fact is, all the practices, games and trips take up so much time in the summer, there is little room anymore for working on one's weaknesses. A top high school player who travels the entire month of July with his club team might play 20 games and average 10 shots a game. That same player could get the same 200 shots up if he spends 15 minutes in a gym with a coach. With any kind of work ethic, he could get up 500 shots in an hour. It is interesting to note that Hurley, who maintains an iron grip on his program at perennial national power St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, N.J., allows his players to play with summer club teams … but never more than one week at a time. There is no slippage in their skill development because they know that when they come back from a club tournament, the next week will be spent in his gym working on the mundane, but important, fundamentals of the game. Sadly, most high school coaches don't have that kind of influence anymore.
Unfortunately, with the culture of "grassroots basketball" changing, the only way to put the genie back in the bottle would be a major overhaul of the NCAA's recruiting rules, and that's not likely to happen. For all of the slime involved with summer basketball, it is still the best time of year for college coaches to evaluate the most players in the most cost-effective way.
So expect most high school coaches to stay on the fringes of the recruiting process with limited access to their players. And expect the summer club coach to continue to fill that void.
Is that really what's best for the game?
How To Shoot Like An NBA Player
So I'm doing my job training NBA Players and I decide to ease up on the weight-training, speed and agility training as we approach the end of the week knowing that we are going to turn up the heat next week. It's been a great week and we have been working hard, I know his legs are heavy and his arms are sore. Since I try my best to be keenly aware of my athlete's physiological and psychological well-being my job is to motivate and inspire not punish. This particular player and I mutually agree that a healthy compromise is to get a good warm-up in and shoot 1000 shots, that's right 1000 shots. 500 Mid-Range or College 3's at 19ft. 9 inches and 500 NBA 3 point shots at 23 feet. To make sure we are really getting something out of our shooting I recruit an active rebounder to consistently feed me so that I can throw pin-point accurate passes to the shooter. We use 2 balls so that the shooting doesn't stop. 5 spots and we will shoot 20 shots at each spot for 5 rounds of 100 shots. Upon completion the player is soaking wet, his arms are tired and his legs are feeling heavy. I've done my job he has shot under the influence of fatigue, but mentally he's fresh because he's been rewarded for his hard work but it didn't compromise his goals and objectives which are to get in better shape and improve his shooting. Mission Accomplished!! For those of you who want to score at home here are the results( we always record results) and I challenge you to see if you can do better.
So I'm doing my job training NBA Players and I decide to ease up on the weight-training, speed and agility training as we approach the end of the week knowing that we are going to turn up the heat next week. It's been a great week and we have been working hard, I know his legs are heavy and his arms are sore. Since I try my best to be keenly aware of my athlete's physiological and psychological well-being my job is to motivate and inspire not punish. This particular player and I mutually agree that a healthy compromise is to get a good warm-up in and shoot 1000 shots, that's right 1000 shots. 500 Mid-Range or College 3's at 19ft. 9 inches and 500 NBA 3 point shots at 23 feet. To make sure we are really getting something out of our shooting I recruit an active rebounder to consistently feed me so that I can throw pin-point accurate passes to the shooter. We use 2 balls so that the shooting doesn't stop. 5 spots and we will shoot 20 shots at each spot for 5 rounds of 100 shots. Upon completion the player is soaking wet, his arms are tired and his legs are feeling heavy. I've done my job he has shot under the influence of fatigue, but mentally he's fresh because he's been rewarded for his hard work but it didn't compromise his goals and objectives which are to get in better shape and improve his shooting. Mission Accomplished!! For those of you who want to score at home here are the results( we always record results) and I challenge you to see if you can do better.
- Left Corner College 3 68-100 Left Corner NBA 3 62-100
- Left Wing College 3 75-100 Left Wing NBA 3 48-100
- Top College 3 78-100 Top NBA 3 62-100
- Right Wing College 3 71-100 Right Wing NBA 3 63-100
- Right Corner College 3 72-100 Right Corner NBA 3 59-100
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