I don't believe either of that to be true. If you have the drive and the passion what is stopping you from developing skills yourself - It's up to the player?!

Nice article anon^, a good read. He will be one of, if not the best we have sent over for sure.

Interestingly I agree with the comments regarding how differently we seem to develop our kids to how they see it over in the States.

I also see some effort here to change slightly and tend to move towards the US style in some elements of our elite pathway system, but we have a long way to go still in this regard IMHO...

Watching our junior Nationals it is easy to see that we are still stuck in a structure and system of position based play by and large.

While we do tend to produce skilled and educated basketball athletes with reputations for good work ethics and team play, we still don't quite appreciate the individual and how to get the best out of that individual for their future, whatever team they eventually play in!

Good luck to Ben and his family, look forward to watching the journey unfold.

Hopefully better than Delly but I see your point GWB

Gives everyone a nice insight into perhaps why simmons plays the way he does...as his father and brother say bringing the best of Australian basket all and attitude of USA basketball and fusing them together...

Ben is totally right. So many coaches who think more about winning than developing. It's total amazing that kids are not taught updated fundamentals but rather set plays. And most of these set plays don't work in higher grades.

With all the talk about banning zones for under 14's, what about banning structures.

The thing about system offenses is that you hind your weakest and play to your strengths. The problem for juniors that the coaches keep them from making mistakes (learning).

The result we have players who can't create offensively but can role and play solid defense.

Also, the refereeing allows too much contact for junior and again results in players not take risks.

I have seen too many kids who develop early and made to play the 4/5 role and never handle the ball outside. The kid doesn't grow and can't play higher grades as their height makes them 1/2.

@Todd

What is worse is time poor structure of training availablity, kids don't get taught how to play the 4/5 properly, any role for that matter. They run through the same drills at training covering average skill fundamentals passing, running, shooting, screens and scrimmage.

The true art of big men is dying and yet the game still demands big players stay close to the rim for valid reason but I agree with the views shared.

"When Ben was eight and playing up with 12-year-olds, the coach assigned him to be a post player — even though he'd be squaring off against a kid much larger than himself. The coach saw Dave Simmons' size, knew his background and figured his kid would be big someday, too. That's just how things were; that's part of what encouraged the father to take more ownership of coaching his son."

The coach isn't alone in doing this. Also. parents are pretty stupid as well as the coaches. They are impressive with set plays and winning than the kids developing their minds and skills.

@Aint no time

Post play is important, I believe that all juniors should taught how to post up and how to defend it.

A lot of coaches, get the big boys/girls to post but the team never passes into the post and so the big just stands there and set screens and rebound. Very boring and doesn't develop nothing.

The stupid coaches don't teach how to pass into the post or basic post moves. Even if the big kids gets the ball in the post which is rare, they throw up a bad shot as the kid knows that he/she won't get a lot of looks.

For me, juniors should be taught all the skills and later on get define roles.

Simmons seems a know-it-all, a bit in the Nick Kyrgios mold. I guess this is the young superstar mould these days.

And yes, Australia seems to make Basketball robots. Even the complimentary US article "every team needs an Aussie" had our style earmarked as team oriented hustle guys and role players.

Out of all of our professional basketball players, I can count on my hand how many have the killer instinct it takes to take a game over. Patty Mills and Chris Goulding come to mind, and the latter probably couldn't do it in the NBA or at Olympic level.

We need to find a happy medium, between making smart and savy players - as we have done - and making guys who can take us to the next level - the Ben Simmons of the world.

Even just in high school basketball I noticed the things Ben describes. I was the teams best shooter/scorer, yet there was never a real effort to get me touches. Coaches were happy for some dud to miss a bunch of shots if it came from good offence, rather than me take it upon myself and likely score. Australia would be a powerhouse if we refined both sides.

Settle down there mate...flirting with crossing the line and making it racial...Luc Longley Andrew Bogut Matt Delly Arron Baynes Joe Ingles are all guys who impacted their NBA teams.

3 out of 5 have rings.

I think that rep for under 12 and under 14 is a useless exercise. Running elite squad working on skills and fundamentals would work a lot better.

Running sets at a younger age is just plan stupid, when kids don't have the fundamentals.

Aussie Rules football puts paid to the notion that Aussies aren't athletic. If you gave some of those boys the Basketball fundamentals, they would have NBA level athleticism for it. There seems to be a problem specifically with Australian Basketball athletes, not necessarily Australian athletes. I would put the AFL guys on athleticism among any professional sports league on the planet, and I dont even like the sport.

Athleticism is one thing we all love to see in a basketball player, it is only one thing however and there are plenty of other skills and abilities needed to become NBA standard.

Vision
Decision Making
Accuracy
Ball Handling
Reading Play
Team Work
Strengh
Coordination
Dexterity
so on and so on...

Even more importantly combining these abilities and skills at the highest level will produce a potential franchise player or star player in the NBA.

The gene pool will decide many things, however if I put forward some names, like for instance Larry Bird, Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Love, I don't think it is their supreme athleticism that stands them out from the crowd.

Yet these and many more NBA stars are right up their with the best athletes one cares to nominate and I would have them in my team any day, beacuse they are highly skilled and valuable players in the sport of basketball.

Better to talk about their skills and abilities rather than focus on where a player may be from or irrelevant facts such as what colour their skin happens to be...

It's more about mentality than it is about athleticism...Simmons is not nearly as athletic more specifically explosive as other guys he goes against but his advantage is his mentality and skill set at 6-10.
He has an America approach to the game and attacks everyone he plays, he doesn't back off. He tries to make plays kids in australia would never make because they know they would be put on the bench. I can't count how many times I have heard kids say "my coach doesn't want me dunking the ball" that was probably bc the kid missed 1 dunk and the coach spat the dummy and said "just use the backboard lay it in".
That is the main thing here not athleticism it is freedom of expression and being encouraged to experiment and play freely without position and without being told you are a specific position at age 10.
America encourages aggressive attacking fast paced basketball and australia does not. Funny thing is australia has a shorter shot clock less time in the back court and still play slower than USA....just shows what coaches are instilling in kids.

Every level college entertains multiple styles of play but the speed at which players play is much faster...

Comparing US college to our juniors isn't even close to fair, maybe US High School level, but not college I would have thought.

Also agree with what billy hoyle says in that comment about being able or at least being allowed to play with freedom of expression and being encouraged to experiment, to a point at least.

I have been guilty of it myself, however over time and with experience and self confidence as a coach one can do it better and it will eventually help our kids improve their style of play.

More importantly it has potential to keep them playing and enjoying the game for longer.

Coaching juniors here, it is not so easy to employ such experimental or free flowing play ideas, because every other coach and some parents always think they can do it better.

Worse still, someone is always there to judge you as a coach, perhaps unfairly because of a win/loss record, then try to replace you because some player or his/her parents don't see it the same way.

To coach our juniors better, we need better equipped, more competent and confident teachers, not just X & O coaches that buy into a system which produces robots, but develops humans that are not affraid to make a mistake to ultimately improve and continue enjoying a wonderful game.

To compliment this we need strong leaders and well credentialled people at the top, involved in our Associations at committee level who are not agenda driven but there for the right reasons and make the right decisions based on what is best for the kids and the future of the game.

We need to take notice of world trends and adopt best practise with the guidance of BA and our best coaches, not be too concerned with win/loss at under 10's...

IMHO of course!

What can be done?

1. Ban offensive sets for under 14's
2. Change the Nationals 14's to 15's and make it at the term 3/4 break and change 16's to 17's and 18's to 19's. Not under 20's as its a waste of time.
3. Get rid of Under 12 rep ball.
4. BA and state associations advertise, so your kid's wins but can your kid shoot, pass or dribble?
5. Don't give state appointments to coaches who play restrictive offensive sets.
6. Get experience coaches eg NBL coaches to speak boards about the need to teach all the fundamentals and skills to all junior players.
7. State associations to give awards to coaches and associations that teach skills and fundamentals.
8. Extend state junior programmes to a larger squads.
9. Ban full court defenses in under 14's on made basketballs or out of boards.
10. Umpires instructed to make more calls in juniors and no disadvantage/advantage calls. Contact it is a foul. If a player reaches in, the referee must see it as all ball but if they can't tell, then it's a foul.

Anon^ can you elaborate on what you perceive to be the Euro' model?

I am aware that in Europe there are many countries within close proximity, possibly this makes it easier to share knowledge and techniques, however I am not aware of a collaborative model where all countries buy into the same ideals...

From my limited knowledge of Euro' junior development, each nation does things their way to a point, perhaps you know of something more, can you share this model?

Players need to train play less. In Victoria, most teams train twice a week and in WA only once. No time to develop skills and fundamentals.

I don't coach due to time commitments (infant daughter) but can't handle the stupid parents and associations who don't keep up to date with new ways of doing things.

You don't know me or my situation. I'm telling you that I don't have the time.

As for associations being stupid, please listen to Ben and Dave Simmons.

Saying that parents are stupid was over the top, but do think that coaching is getting harder because of parents and social media.

Many parents are impressive with structures as it is easy to understand than offenses based on principles such as Motion, Prineton offense, read and react, the passing game and dribble drive motion.

As for coaches and associations in Australia not keeping up with the developments of the game that's more common than not.

Not sure why the personal attack?

New rule: Todd can attack people but no one else is allowed to attack him back.

I am a long standing junior rep coach. One year recently I coached an under 12 VC team. The fundamentals of the players were mediocre, and for 7 of the players definitely below the standard required to play at VC level, including the team's alleged superstar, who had great dribbling and vision but poor defence and shooting, and didn't move much. My programs are very well planned and I mapped out a program that sought to focus on fundamentals. I laid this out for the club management and the parents at the start of the campaign, and all agreed. We actually just scraped into VC, due to the turnovers and poor shooting % and easy layups given away = because of low fundamentals at both ends. A few weeks into the season (1 win and 2 losses) the club told me that I must introduce set plays even though I thought the focus on fundamentals was making a big difference. I discovered some of the parents had been in their ears expressing concern that we are not running sets. Alarm bells started to ring. But I did what was asked, and 3 months later with a fair chunk of each training spent on sets, we kept turning the ball over and defending poorly because fundamentals again started to fall behind. And not getting any baskets off the sets because the players didn't have the ball control and movement fundamentals to execute. What a pity, because these players are now going to be behind their peers perhaps for many seasons. The coach is usually the fall guy when a team doesn't win a lot of games, and this case was no exception. But I know in my heart the focus on fundamentals was right, and would have set the players up for the seasons ahead, and yet the "wisdom" from many at the club specially the parents forced the team into this crazy idea of sets at under 12s just in the hope of getting a few more wins in the short term. I think in general the game's leaders and many parents are too focused on wins at under 12s and forego the opportunity for their kids to learn to love the game, be confident in their skills, and maintain their desire to play right through to adulthood. So many kids give up at under 16 because they are sick of the pressure and that everyone (especially their parents) is an expert critic.

HumbleHardworking coach,

Your experience is the norm not the exception.

It amazes me that the limited time you have is spend on structures.

You are totally right in focusing on skills and fundamentals.

If I was you I go to club that holds to view that young kids should be learning the fundamentals instead of x's and o's.

I think Simmons has done a lot for Australian basketball. People are recognizing the talent pool in Australia because of the success of Australian players, including Ben. There has not been a previous Australian to receive such lofty status at the high school level such as Ben.
The question is why are kids like Ben, Humphries, Adel, Maker, Bolden and others not staying through high school in Australia like Exum, Delly, Mills, and others.
Imo Ben would not have the ability to separate himself and go make an individual play for himself if he stayed in Australia. Both Delly and Exum struggle with this. Mills is in the best system in the world. In the same breath I don't believe that Ben would be able to go make as many plays for others if he grew up in the U.S. system (9 assist in the Hoop Summit). He has had the best of both worlds.
I think the true complaint is why can't Ben have the best of both worlds and stay in Australia.

Agree with HardworkingCoach. Too much poor coaching at junior rep level where it's easier to coach X's and O's than to fix a poor shot.

I'm not trying to put down all the volunteers who do their best - if they're not taught the fundamentals then it's very hard to coach them in turn.

This probably cos of too much competition for bragging rights between clubs at the expense of the kids. Or maybe cos it's too hard to keep your job as club execs if you aren't getting immediate results.

Are there any clubs where fundamentals come highest in their priorities?

Shayok.....Amen.....Nailed it "I think the true complaint is why can't Ben have the best of both worlds and stay in Australia." That is pretty much what his brother said in the article that Ben has had the best of both worlds, complementing the coaching here at home but in the same breath cautioning that there is a fine line between structure and freedom to play.

I am sure kids go to US High Schools for various reasons, those with basketball in mind also go there to establish a US Ranking.

College coaches can watch them play live and it makes it easier for kids to be noticed by the highest D1 coaches and that ranking is listed on US web sites, used to determine who is next best for their class.

It is very much about getting into the US system, kids here get a nominal ranking, same as Euro' or any kids outside the US, but if you play in High School in the US it gives you an opportunity for a higher ranking coming into your college class year.

Example:

Ben Simmons stays in Australia and develops in the AIS his US Ranking is a 2, he goes to a US High School and it becomes a 5 (The top ranking possible). He then goes to the top of the ranking list and they all talk about him, if he stays here they still know about him, but it is not recognised as it would be otherwise.

Anon #534255

"Fundamentals" includes individual offense fundamentals such as movement, spacing, feeding a post, getting open int he post, reacting as a post to dribble penetration, back cutting when overplayed, the proper way to use a screen, etc - all of these individual rules of thumb.

To add to what I have said earlier, I am certain that part of the reason that coaches teach sets not fundamentals like the above, is that single choreographed set plays are easier to teach than having to watch what numerous players are/are not creating at any point in time and reminding them of missed opportunities to use a rule of thumb.

How hard is it to teach the creating of offensive opportunities through away-screens !!! but when the away-screen is step 5 of a set play it gets done and the coach looks good.