tryout where you like and do what's best for your lad - at his age i'd avoid places that put him in one spot - look for a club that teaches positionless basketball with young age groups.

Club politics are an un-tameable beast and, as it did for us - lead us down a deadend that had no interest in our outcome

It's U12. I wouldn't be shopping my kid until at least U14's.

If he is a dunker in under 12's.......he is a weapon! :)

Go to a program that prioritises development.

If they are locking him into a post spot at under 12's, then the club that you are at, is probably not the one that you want.

1. Being a post/dunker for most of 23/24 season, is his chances of making the 24/25 season necessarily diminished as he doesn't have the versatility of a point guard?

If he's tall and averaging 9ppg in U12, where the bigs probably aren't seeing much of the ball beyond putbacks, I'd say that the club would see his potential. VJBL7 is a lower level of competition however, so the chances of making a reps team may come to how many teams the club is intending to field in his age group. I guess for a big club, you'd have their 3rd or 4th best team graded into VJBL7, so that may give you an idea if your club has that many reps teams.

2. Do players get penalised for trying out at a second club?

I have seen players get penalised sometimes. I guess it comes down to club culture, or maybe just what kind of person the DOC is. I personally think the system is a little unfair to players - there is a lot of talk about player loyalties to clubs, but as you pointed out, if there is a very good player coming from another club at the same position, they will be given preferential treatment by the club. Generally though I think most clubs would treat permission to train applications to go to other club's tryouts to be a normal part of business and wouldn't penalise the kid directly.

3. Do you have any advice for my son to increase his chances of making the rep team next season?

I feel a bigger player at that age should concentrate on being the best possible rebounder and defender, and taking their opportunities for putbacks from offensive boards. That will provide value via skillsets that not many other kids would value at that age.

As above go to a program that develops all skills, don't even worry about reps, he gets in he does, if he is going to be tall his time will come, get him some private or small group lessons, no need to rush, skilled big blokes are in demand, not one dimensional bigs.

Definitely make sure your son is at a club that focuses on development - especially at u12 and u14!

My biggest peeve from parents is thinking that coaches are looking for most points scored in a game which is far from what we are looking for. 9ppg is good for U12 but what else is he doing to stand out from others? Box outs? Rebounding? Put backs? Floor General?

Scoring isn't everything and the sooner we can get the mentality of scoring BEING everything the sooner the kids get better...IMO

Well said Macgyver. Drives me nuts when parents mention their kids scores. At u12 level I couldn't care less. It’s only gotten worse since play hq made it so easy for everyone to track scores.

Not being a great ball handler and slow sort of nails it, if the opposition can steal it from him he won't be bringing the ball up the court. If your son is tall you should embrace the inside spot, a tall player who works hard on offensive rebounds can rack up a lot of points in juniors. I know it's not about points but when guards are continually driving and throwing up junk, a good tall rebounder is where it is at, cleaning up the missed shots. You need to do extra sessions to improve fundamentals like ball handling and foot work but I would be encouraging him to play inside the keyway and rebound, sprinting from end to end on defence and offence. See a lot of kids in teams who was tallest player and just wanted to be a guard and shoot 3's, him and his parents couldn't work out that if he stayed in the key he could rebound all the missed shots and score 15+ a game and play in higher teams.

Agree Rockstar....the amount of big guys I see these days hanging out at the three point line wanting to shoot is insane....you have something very few people on the court at the same time have HEIGHT why not use it?? Parents and coaches need to encourage bigs to play that position - i'm not saying don't shoot if your open but don't sit out there waiting for a shot that may not come.

Work on O and D boards, put backs...heck mid range if you want but don't be another guard who only has eyes for the three ball. If your son is seen to be on the right position the ball will come to him the players will see him there and feed it too him especially if there is a miss match. Rep players including U12s are smarter than we give them credit for these days the ones that want to do well will feed the ball to a big especially if here is in there every time they get down the court and is demanding the ball.

@Hedge...i've got no problem with playHQ tracking point stats....but if your going to tracks points...track the other stats too (Assists, Rebounds) nothing worse than a player thinking he has contributed nothing when he looks at playhq and sees zero points when in reality he has had 15 rebounds and 10 assists.

@MacGyver - great idea, but reality of implementing that, especially at the level OP is talking about, is a nightmare. I see so many parents that can barely comprehend how to operate the ipad and get PlayHQ right now, trying to add in rebounds and assists would be a disaster.

If parents are keen for it, better to film a game(s) and track the stats yourself

There is NO such thing as club loyalty. Clubs will always favor the better player maybe unless you're well connected. So always do what you think is best for your child.

Being tall is already an advantage especially in u12s and moreso if your son is able to do what's expected of a tall player.

There are other avenues to develop dribbling not just rep games (domestic, bball academies, pick up games, etc)

Personally i would try out for both clubs, if possible. And decide based on:
(1) which team he lands - the higher level the team starts in grading the better
(2) coach - i think more than club culture, the coach assigned is more important. But you'll need to some reasearch.
(3) team composition - if your son player 1-5 in the team that he lands on then this will mean mor minutes compared to beijg player 6-10. But this will mean that you'd need to observe other bottom aged kids in your club now.

Thank you for all the comments and guidance. I really value your insights and perspectives! It has given us courage to tryout at two clubs and see how he fares.

Hi @Basketballmum79,

I've said this elsewhere ...

1/ Practice = Homework
2/ Squads, Private Lessons, Academies, etc = School
3/ Games - Exam

Over the course of each week, a motivated player is going to spend several hours practicing and in organised training. They are only going to spend, at most, 40 to 60 minutes on court playing games.

He is playing bottom age U12. Plenty of time to hone his game. Most important things are to work on his movement and ball handling skills. Train, Train, Train!

By all means, try out with as many Associations as is practical. Don't worry about Association "Loyalty". Every association has their own agenda. Just find the one he is most comfortable at.

And while I share the sentiments of other posters regarding scoring stats, the reality is that the people you need to impress DO look at scoring stats.

Representative level basketball, particularly in the higher grades, IS about winning as many games as possible. Teams with the most effective scorers win the most games. That is just a fact of basketball life. Of course, as players age, their ability to Assist and Rebound becomes more important. But scoring ability is still key.

I've been keeping stats for various teams I've been involved with for several years. The reality is, the players that score the most effectively are always the ones that get the most attention by the coaches and the most game time.

So Good Luck to you both. And tell him to keep practicing and training. The more he puts in now, the greater the payoff for him in few years time. Easier said than done, can get very expensive financially, can take a lot of time. But without that motivation and support structure, chances of climbing the ranks are severely limited.

I've seen a few suggestions to find a club that's focused on development.
As a parent any tips on how I approach this? We are also looking for a club for an U12 and finding it challenging to know what the culture or program is like from the outside.

Altona/westgate/melbourne/keilor are all a 15-25min drive for us. Out of these which would be considered focused on development? Any experience there?

Keilor across the past couple of years has impressed with their development and growth.