- lack of regular international competition for our national team.
- outstanding junior talent ID and coaching network

Id suggest that because of the size and structure of basketball in australia we have our sh*t together more so than other countries at the junior level. By the time they get to adulthood then the strength of regular international competition and good coaching kicks in for the other countries. A good example is the US team in the 17 Men worlds. Because of the size of the country they only had athletes from the East Coast in their Team USA.

Our junior systems and coaches are renowned internationally.

All the Kids go off to college and sit on the bench, should stay in Australia

Welcome to 2010. Hint: junior success never ever has translated to seniors. Apart from Ronaldson hitting the 3 in Atlanta and the Sydney 2000 games, the Boomers really have never been close.

there is a huge focus on development at junior leve at the AISl to develop players skills and technique as well as team work.

in the NBA and in certain euroleagues this continues significantly at the pro level where players have one on one sessions with speciality coaches to improve everything from rebounding technique jump shot technique to one on one options.

I think this is largely ignored at pro-level in the NBL and by most of the aussies playing in europe (no where near the attention good NBA players recieve)

look at Bogut..his low post back to the basket game has improved ten-fold and the last 2-3 seasons through expert training not just 80 game season top comp.

there seems a lot of upside with the boomers players but there is still some skill and technique defiencies that should have been ironed out (not least shot selection and rebounding).

You could put a hundred athletes into the AIS and each would improve significantly for the reasons given above BUT if you selected the right 20 in the first place success at senior level would follow.
Basketball in Oz is still controlled by the ethnic groups etc that established the sport here and that has inherent problems

which ethnic groups are they?

The sudanese? The greeks? The croats/serbs/bosnians? Becuase there's a tonne of them running the sport.

You've got to be joking.

NBL isn't a development league either. There's pressure to win, there's no "play the kids" type attitude. If you don't win you're in trouble financially more than anything else.

If the AIS program is the " bees knees'of world basketball then we should be much higher in the Senior World rankings.Dont kid yourself, there would be hundreds and hundreds of coaches in the US with a better teaching program and skills knowledge than what has been at the AIS.

1) Our National Junior Team success has never translated to consistent Senior Success in the men. Should it? The women are a different story.

2) Other nations are more talented than we are. Have greater depth of playing and coaching talent. They are more unified and serious about development and about coaching accreditation, about who can coach. Coaching courses are strenuous things. They take a couple of weeks out of their lives to often go to a central location to get their certificates. Lectures, clinics, not just in basketball, but also in physical education, biomechanics, etc. Here, we give a parent a whistle and wish them all the best.

We also get bogged down in the great player makes great coach syndrome.....it's not always the case. Great teachers are great coaches...regardless of what their name is or where they played.

3) A talent like Bogut is once in a generation. That's what our country can produce every 10 to 15 years. One player, two or three at a push, that can be consistently good in the best league in the world and at international tournaments.

4) For where basketball is as a sport in Australia, we do pretty well.

5) The argument that our players go overseas and get better is fine, the talented kids that do go to good colleges are OK, but there are a lot of ordinary colleges with ordinary coaches. Not every division 1 coach is amazing. Not every division 1 program is amazing. There are good division 2 schools.

At the end of the day, in the US system, self-interest over-rides (sometimes) what is best for the kids. Players will get recruited over because there is pressure to win and the price for losing is your job. They're not necessarily about developing talent, they are about winning and if you want to win, you must recruit the best. Simple.

6) The European system is OK - they develop first and they spend time at practice. Every. Single. Day. With the same coach. It does get results. European nations have come along in leaps and bounds. Lithuania, Spain, Greece, France, Germany, Slovenia, Italy, Serbia etc...all have their own problems (no doubt) but they seem to get it together when they wear their national jersey.

7) Our system is a mish-mash right now. Not particularly unified. There's the State/NITP that leads to the AIS where the pathway ends, there's the various high-school competitions that are growing in prominence because they pay coaches handsomely (not very good coaches in some instances) and there's always the representative clubs...that's three or four different masters for each kid. It's wrong. The teaching is inconsistent and the variety of coaches is pretty drastically poor.

The clubs want to win Under 14 Nationals and the Classic and the various Tournaments around the place but there 'aint a heap of emphasis placed purely on development...

8) Now do this to understand why we finished where we did. Count the number of full time administrators our sport has, the guys that count the money and pay imports and manage stadiums, and compare it to the number of well paid full time coaches who are great at what they do....IMO that's it in a nutshell.

Abuse, people just simply walk away, we are the most critical abusive society in the world. Size equals negativity , bogut, longley both copped more abuse as juniors than any other sportsmen in Australia, its a credit to their parents that they even bothered to stay in the sport. Most just simply walk away and get on with life.

good points raised. here in wa i can guarantee that a lot of wabl coaches prefer to win than to develop. heck, as long as a team runs the horns or flex offense perfectly with every cut correctly, who gives a rats ass if they can shoot or finish off.

that is the problem in junior basketball- x's and o's (which are important don't get me wrong- but at a certain time, and you need to know why) above skills and drills.