Better Late than Never?
By Jerome Green
Better Late than Never is an old adage that we’ve heard for most of our lives. But does this adage work with basketball? In the era where there is an abundance of opportunity and distractions for kids to participate in, it is becoming more difficult to get the average player to focus on one sport.
I’ve had many parents make statements to me that their son or daughter was too small, not fast, and too white, etc, to compete in the basketball arena. So it would be best to play a sport (soccer, lacrosse, etc) that they would have a chance to play in college. In many cases it’s not even that they are looking for a college scholarship, just the opportunity for their child to play in a college sport. Unfortunately, the question of passion or what the child loves very rarely comes up.
Lately I have received a lot of calls from parents whose sons didn’t make their High School Freshman teams. After querying them, it is confirmed that their child has been usually just playing in the park league (which I am not against doing), has had very little to no skill work. They are slow, small and lacking skills and strength. Where have these folks been over the past 5-years? Usually exhorting the message that they didn’t want little Johnny to be limited and they didn’t want to be traveling all over the place, so they took the route of mediocrity (a little bit of everything).
It is one thing if you are a talented and gifted athlete (which is a very small percentage of the population). The average young athlete needs to work their ass of if they want to be successful on the high school level.
High school basketball players need some of the following ingredients to become successful. I call them the six structural components for basketball success or the 6-S’s
SPEED-Speed is a great equalizer. If you are gifted with it you have a leg up, but only if you know how to use it. I just watched a high school point guard, playing at a big time program in Los Angeles, with a ton of speed, but no understanding of how to use it or make his teammates better. He was extremely difficult to watch.
SKILL-The more skilled you are, especially at the guard and wing positions, the better you will be as a player. You cannot have the most speed, but if you are the most skilled, it provides some equalizing factors. What does “being skilled” mean? It means having good ball management capabilities, footwork and some kind of decent shooting stroke. It also means being able to play on the ball defense. Being able to penetrate effectively with either hand is a plus.
SIZE - they say, “you can’t tech height”, and that is basically true, but you can still get better. This is what many programs don’t do. We say, “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.”
STAMINA - Conditioning and being able to run the floor is a huge piece of being a high-level basketball player. This is also something that most players can control, but is often overlooked. Just being in good shape isn’t enough – you have to show that you are willing to work at it to get stronger and an in better shape. Every high school and college have strength and conditioning programs. Players are expected to work just as hard on the body as they are on their game.
SMARTS - Basketball IQ goes a long way in making you a player, especially if you have several of the other “S’s” to back up that IQ.
SPIRIT- you have to have heart and a connection on some spiritual level to really play this game at a high level. I am not talking about a religious affiliation or a God presence, just something or some place you can go to when you need inspiration, encouragement or just peace.
If you are missing Speed, Skill and Size you more than likely will not play high school basketball. If you are highly skilled, can play defense and know how to play, and go to the right school for your skill set, you probably will be able to play high school ball.
Better late than Never? To that I say, “Better prepared than not. If your goal is to play high school basketball, don’t wait to the last minute to start preparing for it.