Lakers’ Kobe Bryant Rips AAU Player Development, Praises European System
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Chris Graythen/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Known as one of the most fundamental players in the NBA today, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant had some very critical words regarding AAU basketball and how young basketball players are being developed.
Bryant sees the players coming over from Europe as more skilled basketball players while the players coming up from AAU leagues struggle with some fundamental elements of basketball.
“I just think European players are just way more skillful,” Bryant said, according to Arash Markazi of ESPN. “They are just taught the game the right way at an early age. …They’re more skillful. It’s something we really have to fix. We really have to address that. We have to teach our kids to play the right way.”
“AAU basketball — horrible, terrible AAU basketball — it’s stupid,” Bryant continued. “It doesn’t teach our kids how to play the game at all so you wind up having players that are big and they bring it up and they do all this fancy crap and they don’t know how to post. They don’t know the fundamentals of the game. It’s stupid.”
Bryant is in his 19th NBA season.
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