As the discussion of rest gains steam in the NBA, the Lakers superstar says the fundamental issue begins much earlier.
I played college basketball, was a high school assistant coach, a high school head coach certified by NFHS and I was a college basketball recruiter and scout. I always lay these things out when I say I wouldn’t allow my players at my high school to play AAU. I forced (yes forced) them to play other sports.
In our class during the process of becoming certified as NFHS coaches, we were told something that remained with me because I already understood that it was a problem, “when training, athletic injuries derive from overuse, unless the injury comes from a movement or action during a game/practice.” I have had design professionals argue that NBA stars get hurt because of their brand of shoes, so I wrote about that:
Let’s Put To Rest That “It’s The Shoes” When Athletes Get Injured Often
In the above post I was talking about D Rose and adidas. In that post I explained, “D Rose played over 60 games a year since he was in middle school…The point is that shoe design hasn’t been the primary reason for his injuries. Ignoring that making kids specialize in a sport early in life is going to be at the root of a lot of short careers.”
In the interview with LeBron James he stated, “I think [AAU] has something to do with it, for sure,” James told Yahoo Sports. “It was a few tournaments where my kids — Bronny and Bryce — had five games in one day and that’s just f- – -ing out of control. That’s just too much. And there was a case study where I read a report. I don’t know who wrote it not too long ago, and it was talking about the causes and [kid’s] bodies already being broken down and they [attributed] it to AAU basketball and how many games that these tournaments are having for the [financial benefit]. So, I’m very conscious for my own son because that’s all I can control, and if my son says he’s sore or he’s tired, he’s not playing.”
I made my basketball players run track, play volleyball, I made them do other sports because I knew that playing an NBA load of games would hurt them in the following season. I hurt my kid’s prospects of getting college scholarships because the entire system is based on travel basketball. At least that’s what other coaches would tell the kids I had who were good enough to play in college. This is the thing though, every one of my kids at Crawford High School who could play college ball went on to play college ball without AAU or travel team ball. I even went as far to take kids from other high schools on recruitment trips in my minivan after the season and after they had spent years playing for travel teams.
I say this to state that travel basketball may be where all of the coaches can see kids at one time, but all of the games and leagues aren’t needed. I’ve spoken about this continuously on this site when looking at marketing and grassroots:
I ran a basketball recruitment site from 2004 to 2011. Over 100 players attained scholarships to play in college. I did this because many of the players couldn’t afford to play on travel teams. On two different occasions I placed high school players in colleges without them having to compete year around: as a high school coach and recruiter for Imperial Valley College and as the founder of Center Court Basketball. For years I’ve said that travel basketball is detrimental to the skill development and physical development of athletes. For years I’ve screamed that allowing your kid to play basketball year round would lead to injuries earlier and often.
LeBron just said everything I’ve been arguing. The only thing he missed talking about and looking at were the athletes who had the longest, most successful careers in the NBA as evidence of the power of cross training:
At Overbrook High School in West Philadelphia, he was an avid track and field star: he high jumped 6 feet, 6 inches, ran the 440 yards in 49.0 seconds and the 880 yards in 1:58.3, propelled the shot put 53 feet, 4 inches, and broad jumped 22 feet.
In college at the University of Kansas, the 7’1″ goliath ran a sub-11-second 100-yard dash and also threw the shot put 56 feet.
Duncan, the early favorite for Rookie of the Year honors, credits his lunch pail work ethic to his time spent in the water as a youth. “Growing up, I was a swimmer and swimming’s kind of an individual sport where you have to push yourself a lot.” A teenage champion in the 400m freestyle, Duncan didn’t take up basketball until Hurricane Hugo destroyed the swimming pool at his Virgin Islands high school in 1989.
Back in 1978, Jordan was known as Mike, not Michael. He was more accomplished as a baseball player than as a basketball player. He was an outstanding center fielder and pitcher who would later throw 45 consecutive shutout innings for Laney High School.
Robert Parrish and Kareem Abdul Jabbar were both accomplished and trained in martial arts. Kobe Bryant is noted for being a soccer player initially. The more you dig into the history of many of the greats in basketball who played long careers without many injuries, you find multi-sports backgrounds. Allen Iverson was a better quarterback than basketball player and even LeBron played football.
When you begin looking at the last 20 years at the careers that have been cut short because of injury the number of athletes who had short NBA careers coincides with the rise of travel basketball and specializing in one sport at an early age.
LeBron just made me look a little less crazy for screaming all of these years, “play more than one sport or cross train, it will make you better at your primary sport and prevent injury.”
