Kobe says European players more skilled than Americans, blames AAU

[url]http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/12114523/kobe-bryant-says-european-players-more-skilled-americans-blames-aau[/url]


Kobe Bryant believes European basketball players are more skillful than American basketball players, and says it's a growing trend that can be blamed on the greed and coaching at the AAU level.

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]"I just think European players are just way more skillful,"[/COLOR] Bryant said Friday night after the Los Angeles Lakers' 109-106 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. [COLOR="DarkGreen"]"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."[/COLOR]

Bryant was quick to point the finger for the decline of skilled players in the United States.

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]"AAU basketball,"[/COLOR] Bryant said. [COLOR="DarkGreen"]"Horrible, terrible AAU basketball. It's stupid. 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."[/COLOR]

Bryant was born in Philadelphia, but when he was 6, his father, former NBA player Joe Bryant, moved the family to Italy to continue his playing career. Kobe spent his childhood in Europe until Joe retired in 1991 and moved the family back to the United States.

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]"When you have limitations and you understand your limitations and you stay within yourself, you can be great,"[/COLOR] Kobe Bryant said. [COLOR="DarkGreen"]"You know what you can do and what you can't do. In America, it's a big problem for us because we're not teaching players how to play all-around basketball. That's why you have Pau and Marc [Gasol], and that's the reason why 90 percent of the Spurs' roster is European players, because they have more skill."[/COLOR]

Bryant smiled when asked what type of player he would have become if his family had never moved to Italy and he hadn't learned how to play the game in Europe.

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]"I probably wouldn't be able to dribble with my left and shoot with my left and have good footwork,"[/COLOR] Bryant said. [COLOR="DarkGreen"]"I was kind of fortunate because when I was growing up in Italy, the Red Auerbachs and the Tex Winters and all those great coaches were doing clinics and camps in Europe. They were teaching all the club coaches, and the club coaches were following their advice and their fundamentals like the bible, and they were teaching all of us kids that type of stuff. Me, Manu [Ginobili] and all these guys that grew up around that same time, we're a product of that. It's a big difference."[/COLOR]

Bryant had a simple solution to the problem.

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]"Teach players the game at an early age and stop treating them like cash cows for everyone to profit off of,"[/COLOR] he said. [COLOR="DarkGreen"]"That's how you do that. You have to teach them the game. Give them instruction."[/COLOR]

But Bryant, who holds an annual summer basketball camp, also was quick to point out that any solution involving changing the current culture of AAU basketball won't happen overnight.

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]"That's a deep well because then you start cutting into people's pockets,"[/COLOR] Bryant said. [COLOR="DarkGreen"]"People get really upset when you start cutting into their pockets because all they do is try to profit off these poor kids. There's no quick answer."[/COLOR]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/79c7dOg.png[/img]

Kobe thought everyone had an Italian villa

Already a thread on this

Knowledgebe strikes again

[QUOTE=JohnFreeman]Kobe thought everyone had an Italian villa[/QUOTE]

Why so salty?

[QUOTE=chocolatethunder]Already a thread on this[/QUOTE]Yeah but Euorleague is posting in that one... He got all excited because Kobe said something positive about international players and jizzed all over the place


AAU has been a mess for sometime now... i think it's great there's a place the kids can get that much basketball in on a year round basis but the financial side is really creepy and most these kids float from club to club so there's no time to teach them basketball basics

not unlike college ball where the coaches only have a gifted player for a year so why bother teaching the fundamentals when you barely have enough time to teach him the system

[img]http://i.imgur.com/rBcEXie.png[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/gzkPLmw.png[/img]

[url]https://twitter.com/DraftExpress/status/551429058014494721[/url]
[url]https://twitter.com/DraftExpress/status/551429447736635395[/url]

Somebody tell Kobe that Manu is from Argentina. :oldlol:

[QUOTE=JohnMax][img]http://i.imgur.com/rBcEXie.png[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/gzkPLmw.png[/img]

[url]https://twitter.com/DraftExpress/status/551429058014494721[/url]
[url]https://twitter.com/DraftExpress/status/551429447736635395[/url][/QUOTE]
:bowdown:

[QUOTE=JohnMax][img]http://i.imgur.com/rBcEXie.png[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/gzkPLmw.png[/img]

[url]https://twitter.com/DraftExpress/status/551429058014494721[/url]
[url]https://twitter.com/DraftExpress/status/551429447736635395[/url][/QUOTE]
Somebody's butthurt:oldlol:

Kobe is far worse than AAU teaching kids being a selfish shot chucker when you don't have the talent to be one is OK.

Educationbe

Teachthegametherightwaybe

[QUOTE=SamuraiSWISH]Being an assistant coach in AAU, I agree there is some alarming aspects about it, and even feels a bit corrupt. Much more a product or feeder system than it is a teaching tool to actually improve kids. Before I even joined the first thing I told our program leader was I want to bring back to basket skills back. But in this basketball climate it's difficult, and isn't the sexiest thing to teach kids.

We cheat our kid athletes out of aspects of the game because everyone out there is out for themselves. Everyone is trying to be a ball in hand star player.

But American lack of skills? Besides Kobe not including himself, what is he talking about?

LeBron (his court vision, passing alone makes him uniquely elite skilled)
Durant (Amazing shooter, ball handler @ 6'11)
CP3 (Possibly the best all around PG ever, both sides of ball)
Steph Curry (Best shooter of all-time?)
K. Love (Ridiculously skilled, smaller white, American Gasol)
Anthony Davis (a do it all PF who can handle the ball)

Some of these guys are of the most skilled of all-time, accompanied with elite bodies or athleticism. That's why Americans are better. Not simply due to athleticism. It's the lethal combination of that inherent genetic lottery with great skills.[/QUOTE]
He was probably talking about Lin.

Being an assistant coach in AAU, I agree there is some alarming aspects about it, and even feels a bit corrupt. Much more a product or feeder system than it is a teaching tool to actually improve kids. Before I even joined the first thing I told our program leader was I want to bring back to basket skills back. But in this basketball climate it's difficult, and isn't the sexiest thing to teach kids.

We cheat our kid athletes out of aspects of the game because everyone out there is out for themselves. Everyone is trying to be a ball in hand star player.

But American lack of skills? Besides Kobe not including himself, what is he talking about?

LeBron (his court vision, passing alone makes him uniquely elite skilled)
Durant (Amazing shooter, ball handler @ 6'11)
CP3 (Possibly the best all around PG ever, both sides of ball)
Steph Curry (Best shooter of all-time?)
K. Love (Ridiculously skilled, smaller white, American Gasol)
Anthony Davis (a do it all PF who can handle the ball)

Some of these guys are of the most skilled of all-time, accompanied with elite bodies or athleticism. That's why Americans are better. Not simply due to athleticism. It's the lethal combination of that inherent genetic lottery with great skills.

Kobe grew up in Italy, as an American, playing a caricature of our entire game because he was raised exclusively on MJ Come Fly w/ Me tapes.

Those tweets are correct, LeBron plays a more well rounded all-around game than Kobe offensively. Besides the lack of comparable post foot work, how is LeBron not every bit as talented if not more than Kobe?

[B]Good shit, I agree with his premise/point.[/B]