<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">DALLAS -- Commissioner David Stern is appalled by the state of the game. Not the NBA game, mind you, but the game as it is played by a significant percentage of young Americans who aspire to make it into Stern's league. "There is something totally wrong with the development system for young basketball players," Stern said Friday at his annual NBA Finals news conference. "It historically has not been the place for professional leagues to do [something about] it, but on the basis of the consistent failures of everyone else to do it, we are at least thinking about it, and we'll be getting some dialogue with some interested parties to see if there's something that can be done here." The subject came up at a Finals in which the Dallas Mavericks have become the first NBA team since the Houston Rockets a decade ago to be led into the championship round by a foreign-born player. International players are flooding the league and now make up almost 20 percent of the NBA's player population, and scouts are increasingly turning to Europe and South America to find young players who have been developed with a focus on fundamentals rather than flash. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich summed it up recently by noting how his team usually has a choice on draft night between picking an American player who has been coddled by sneaker companies throughout his teenage years and a foreign player who has spent six or more years playing for his country's national program. And as we've seen with San Antonio's recent drafting patterns, the Spurs have been making the latter choice nearly every time. NBA officials first broached the subject with other interested parties last winter at a meeting in Chicago that included: officials from Nike; current and former college coaches Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith and George Raveling; NCAA president Myles Brand; and representatives from AAU programs. A follow-up meeting was held recently, but no consensus has emerged as to how to address a problem that has been festering over the past two decades. Twenty years ago, players typically honed their basketball and life management skills in college, then came into the NBA in their early 20s. Nowadays, however, the best American players are often identified before they even reach high school, and sneaker companies and AAU coaches often have a greater influence on those players than their high school coaches and hometown mentors. The end result has been a generation of players entering the league with enormous skills and potential -- but with a lack of comprehension of many of the intricacies of the game that are so important at the highest level. "The roster of NBA teams is going to be enriched by huge numbers of international players, and it's going to happen," Stern said. "But I also believe that the production of American players and their development is going to go through a renaissance. If we have to fuel it ourselves, OK. Maybe we're viewing it as our obligation to become involved in something we never wanted to touch because it was both unpleasant and possibly deleterious to their academic health, but we're talking about it internally." Incoming deputy commissioner Adam Silver expounded on Stern's statements in an interview with ESPN.com. "As David said, from a college and NBA standpoint, it's often too late -- by the time the rules allow us to first engage the players -- to do anything in terms of skills and personal development," Silver said. "There's a morass of rules, some Byzantine, that we're just beginning to understand. We've never done that kind of a thorough investigation into the layered rules and don't yet have an understanding of what we could do, or what others could do. "We're not as concerned that we get involved, as long as there's a system that produces American players that can compete at the highest levels by the time they're of NBA age. That's what our concern is," Silver said. "We just don't want to bury our heads in the sand and pretend [that] somehow players will arrive miraculously as fully developed adults when there's a screwed-up system all along the way." </div> Source Some interesting comments presented in this article. The overall culture of the league has definitely changed, some would argue for the worse. The problem here is Stern is being a hypocrite about the situation. The main superstarts the league promotes came straight out of high school (LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett.) Stern and the league promote the individual draw of these superstars instead of promoting an NBA Team. The popularity of the NBA grew once the league decided to promote individual players instead of historical teams. Magic, Bird, Jordan, these guys put a recognizable face to basketball and the generation after them have all tried to copy this blueprint. When the draft roles around these 3 players are mentioned the most in drawing player comparisons. I found this quote interesting... "The roster of NBA teams is going to be enriched by huge numbers of international players, and it's going to happen," Stern said. If you look at some of the major rule changes over the past couple of seasons, it seems the NBA is catering to the International brand of basketball. The knock on International players used to be they are soft and can't handle the physical nature of the NBA. Well the physical nature of the NBA has been toned down by Stern. Defenses can't man handle offensive players anymore and we don't see the hard fouls when a player goes in for a layup. High scoring games are a lot more entertaining for casual fans. They like seeing the games hit the century mark and prefer uptempo basketball. Some stadiums even give away free food if the team hits a center scoring amount. Last year's finals between the Spurs v. Pistons was one of the lowest rated Finals in NBA history. Purists liked the matchup because it was two fundamentally sound teams going against one another. However, it didn't interest the casual fan because they don't like seeing games won in the low 80 point mark. In this year's playoffs teams who can play small ball are thriving in the post season. You're going to see a lot of teams copy the Suns and Mavs blueprint, especially if Dallas wins the Finals. Even the Spurs went with an uncoventional style against Dallas with a 3 guard lineup instead of using their power lineup. We even saw Detroit open up their offense this season instead of the team grinding out wins with defense and physical play. So is this new brand of basketball good for the league and will American players adjust?
An excerpt out of Kevin Pelton's "The Evolution of the NBA" points out how the league is changing ... <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">What does this have to do with the playoffs? Smallball. All of a sudden, the league is abuzz with discussion of how the game has changed, increasing the value of quick perimeter players with the ability to penetrate and decreasing the value of lumbering big men. Of course, this effect is nothing new. The change in the league started during the summer of 2004, when the NBA enacted new rules interpretations limiting contact on the perimeter. There were some inferences drawn between the interpretations and the success of the up-tempo Phoenix Suns, but the Suns were considered something of a fluke and remember that last summer Phoenix seemed to be moving away from that style by trading Quentin Richardson for Kurt Thomas. By this year, that the game had changed was impossible to ignore. I wrote about it for SI.com a couple of times midway through the season -- first looking at how guards are penetrating more and then at the increased prevalence of small backcourts. Do note that while I was planning to write the first column for some time, I chose to use a jarring example of the change (Kobe Bryant scoring 81 points and the Sonics and Suns combining for 301 in overtime on the same night) as the backdrop. I think we got our jarring change that made everyone sit up and take notice of how the game has changed during the Western Conference Semifinals series between the Dallas Mavericks and the San Antonio Spurs. The Mavericks won the series in large part because their roster was better equipped to play the speed game than the Spurs roster, which suddenly looked ancient by comparison. The San Antonio front office has been the league's best in recent years and remains way ahead of the rest of the NBA in terms of mining foreign talent, but the Spurs group missed how the game was turning to speed. Signing Nick Van Exel and Michael Finley last summer and Brent Barry the summer before gave San Antonio plenty of veteran savvy, but not enough quickness. So when the Mavericks paired point guards Devin Harris and Jason Terry in the backcourt, the Spurs never found a defensive answer. Only a transcendent series by Tim Duncan and San Antonio's "veteranism," to borrow a term from Flip Murray, took the series to seven games. You would be hard-pressed to demonstrate that the new rules interpretations had much impact on how teams operated last summer. As mentioned earlier, even the Suns seemed to be moving towards a more traditional style. I expect something different this summer; while the point guard crop is not nearly as deep in the draft this year as last year, I think more teams will be looking for players who can penetrate -- and, almost as important, keep quick players out of the lane on the defensive end. It is, simply, the evolution of the NBA. </div> The Evolution of the NBA Tighter adherence to rules driving scoring increase Small backcourts prove increasingly big in NBA
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting shapecity:</div><div class="quote_post">Source The problem here is Stern is being a hypocrite about the situation. The main superstarts the league promotes came straight out of high school (LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett.) </div> where is the love for tmac, just playin i do think you are on to something with the international player thing. I dont like it at all. if they are better than us, and want to play in our league, then they should earn it. stern is making it too easy for international players to adjust to our game. we keep getting more more busts from europe, and pretty soon they will be just like high school kids. no one really will want em because of the risk factor, but everybody is too entriqued by their potential. but international players have made a huge impact on the game like dirk, nash (doesnt really count), tony parker, and manu. i remember manu saying how difficult it was to adjust his first few years.
Whether the NBA is changing the rules so more foreign players will succeed or they are changing the rules because they want the game to be less of a slugfest and it just so happens that foreign players benefit from this style is hard to say. One thing I know is that I've never seen a guy have more power over his organization than Stern. Even Bill Gates doesn't have as much control of Microsoft as Stern does of the NBA. Stern doesn't really let the PUBLIC decide what kind of NBA we want, he seems like he has his own vision and is determined to ram it down our throats. But I think the league is getting better. By bringing in players with different styles from different backgrounds it makes it more interesting. I don't think the post-up game is superior to the running game or the other way around. I think it's better if both are incorporated. Nothing's better than seeing Manu or Barbosa take defenders by surprise cause they're used to a particular style of player for a guy that size. at the same time you have to love a solid post-up move.
The NBA has gone signifcantly smaller and reduced the power of the inside game. In these days, we're gonna need the type of small guys able to penertrate if we want ANY KIND OF LOW POST SCORING
Another thing that doesnt help the development of the game is the AND1 Mixtapes. I think I can speak for most of, if not all of us on here who play ball often, and you go down to the local park or whatever for a shootaround, and all you see is kids trying to do fancy dribbles and killer crossovers, thinking that thats what makes a good basketballer, instead of trying to become a good jump shooter or what ever.
Fundamentals are important, but I also believe flash is necessary to add an element of unpredictablity to a player's offensive repertiore. This discussion also makes me think of the Larry Brown/Stephon Marbury clash. Larry Brown is all about fundamentals and Stephon Marbury is almost all flash.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Char:</div><div class="quote_post">Fundamentals are important, but I also believe flash is necessary to add an element of unpredictablity to a player's offensive repertiore. This discussion also makes me think of the Larry Brown/Stephon Marbury clash. Larry Brown is all about fundamentals and Stephon Marbury is almost all flash.</div> Yeah but the message AND1 is putting across is, to be a good baller, all you have to have in fancy dribbling moves and be able to dunk, which isnt the case at all.
Basketball will always be a team sport. If it was not, you would have never heard of Jason Kidd, John Stockton or Steve Nash.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting TDoug:</div><div class="quote_post">Basketball will always be a team sport. If it was not, you would have never heard of Jason Kidd, John Stockton or Steve Nash.</div> Yep. 3 guys with MANY rings between them.... just kiddin
