Around the NBA:2025-6

[Monster]

Volleyball is booming. Youth volleyball is growing 20% annually. Some larger area HS programs have 60 or 70 girls trying out for teams while basketball programs have numbers less than 1/2 that. I don't know if it's the lack of contact and physicality or the opportunity to pick it up a bit faster than hoops... but it's a legit trend in many places.

And if those girls are in year-round programs... those families are spending $10k+ pretty easily and also traveling all over the country.

Now that boys volleyball is a sanctioned HS sport, it's growing exponentially, too and I'm guessing the year-round stuff has already started. Maybe start in on that... and take a note from AAU basketball...

- Schedule 3 days of games for every team in every tournament.
- Make every team play each of the 3 days.
- Charge $15 for every person to enter the facilities (usually to watch ONE game).
- Stuff as many teams into the tournament as you can.
- Rinse and repeat the next weekend.
- Count your money.

Just a couple of things on AAU, for context I’m in my mid 30s. My cousin played on a team that made in to state in 4A this year and I can’t stand watching them play basketball. They play the most gross brand of basketball I’ve ever seen, if you can’t turn the opponent over on BS half ass defense they really struggle and then it’s a 2 pass chuck a contested NBA 3. All my cousins teammates have been playing AAU for ever and my cousin is the only rotation player that is not in the AAU cycle (my cousin is a legit FCS football prospect and has multiple D1 golf offers so basketball is his worst sport). I am not shocked that the state title game was Chaska and Apple Valley because they were the 2 programs that actually had a offensive and defensive system unlike Tartan, Maple Grove, Wyzata, Alexandria even though schools probably have more individual talent.

I honestly think that is why I have fallen in love with the girls game so much these last few years because it’s team basketball that have so many different ways to win not this junk non aesthetically pleasing AAU crap.

But I will say the AAU money grab is in girls basketball also. My best friends wife is the head coach of a 4A program here in the state. Their daughter is in 3rd grade. She is already in AAU and is traveling and practicing every weekend. They debated having her play AAU this young because they don’t want burnout and the daughter isn’t playing other sports because she is not as good at them. But what my buddy says “we wanted to give her everything in our power to succeed and do what we can, and having her on that second best woman’s AAU team can do that” so they are spending thousands of dollars for her to play 3rd grade AAU basketball when who knows if she will be any good.

Yep.

Last spring, I ran into an acquaintance I know at the first AAU tournament of the season. Turns out, he coached high-level HS hoops for 35 years. Who knew! Anyway, we watched the game together. About 10 minutes in, he muttered "This is rough." And then a bit later, "This is really rough."

It's as you described. There's no place for moving the ball in today's AAU circuits. No extra passes. No swinging the ball. No help D unless you're going for a block. It's... well... it's a rough watch.

And I don't really blame the kids either. It's the coaching. This type of play is encouraged. The games I watched with that former coach were not the highest levels. For the most part, they were the 2nd tier kids. The ones who have to move the ball and play hard in HS to stay in the rotation.

Yet... even though all of them would be better served as being glue guys, they all wanted to be THE guy. Maybe because they couldn't be the guy on their HS team? And very importantly, the coaches are encouraging it. There's no reward for making the extra pass or closeout on defense. Maybe because it's tough as a short-timer coach without any real clout (just a guy to these paying kids/families) and in part because they also came through the AAU system just a few years prior. (Most of the coaches are young.)

In any event, it's not fun to watch. And this style of play had been ingrained in all of them through playing years of AAU basketball.

As for the girls... there's not a ton of difference. Still a money grab. The only rub is that physical limitations sometimes forces girls to play a different style.

___________________

A side note. Even for the kids with potential to play college basketball... how much investment (for those families who don't get to do AAU for free because their kid is THAT good)... is worth it? Paying $10K a year for 8 years just to get your kid into a low-level D2 school (or D3 without much of a scholarship) vs. just investing $80k and using that to send your kid to college?

Case in point: Just a few years ago, a friend had a kid who played for arguably the top HS team in the state. I asked him about AAU the summer before the kid's senior year. He said "Nah, we're done with that nonsense." Then I asked about the kid and college ball.

"Why? I own my own business. I have money. My kid is smart. Do I want to send him to SW Illinois Peoria State for basketball... or Purdue or Georgetown for an education?"

Thanks for all the discussion and info.

I'm very far removed from all this but I would guess some of the money spent is not just about chasing the dream for the kid (or living through the kid) but also about chasing status.

As for coaching...I've seen a lot of bad coaching and I'm more experiencing watching schools that don't have remotely big-time programs. My guess is that it still is a problem at other places with bigger stakes.

One of my cousins played basketball for a very small high school and a few weeks ago when I visited her in Atlanta area she was talking about how her coach (a guy I went to college with) was just an excellent teacher of the game and really was able to communicate to the girls many of the nuances of the game so they were able to play with a real feel for it. This guy was and is hyper competitive so I always wonder how he would do as a coach but his high level of intelligence in sports took over and he did really seem to thrive in that role. I've played sport and specifically a lot of people that may have been good at playing the sport but they were not smart about the game.

I would guess it's more difficult now than it was years ago to coach players as a team. I also think it's a skill and just like many other areas of life I don't think many people have the preparation, experience, knowledge on how to do it well. Sports for young folks at whatever age has exploded and I'd guess there is a lack of good coaches available and some that might be good are either not interested in the BS or simply don't have or want to commit the time. This was likely always a bit of a problem but with higher stakes and kids playing even younger...

[Phenom]

Luka is out for the remainder of the regular season and is currently questionable for the first round.

Denver has home games vs Spurs, Blazers, Grizzlies, Thunder and a game at San Antonio.

Lakers have at Dallas and GS, and 3 home games vs Thunder, Suns and Jazz.

I'm guessing 3-2 for both teams, conservatively. That would keep LA in the 3rd seed.

The Lakers have definitely become a good first round target. It seems like a matchup with Houston is highly unlikely so the needle to thread here is if Denver is able to move up to 3 and the Wolves get stuck at 6. Might just need to root for all teams to keep winning.

[FNG]

Luka is out for the remainder of the regular season and is currently questionable for the first round.

Denver has home games vs Spurs, Blazers, Grizzlies, Thunder and a game at San Antonio.

Lakers have at Dallas and GS, and 3 home games vs Thunder, Suns and Jazz.

I'm guessing 3-2 for both teams, conservatively. That would keep LA in the 3rd seed.

The Lakers have definitely become a good first round target. It seems like a matchup with Houston is highly unlikely so the needle to thread here is if Denver is able to move up to 3 and the Wolves get stuck at 6. Might just need to root for all teams to keep winning.

Yeah, this seems to be very favorable for the Wolves. The Lakers have a 1-game lead over Denver and also hold the tiebreaker, so Denver has to pick up two games on them to move up to 3. I guess they could go 4-1 with LA going 2-3, but I think that's unlikely.

You have to expect that both Houston and the Wolves now would both prefer to finish 6th in order to face a likely Luka-less Lakers team (I'm guessing even Cool sees the Lakers now as the better matchup for us!), so it's going to be interesting to see how both teams play out the rest of the season...starting tonight. Philly really wants to win to stay out of the play in, and I see that Embiid is no longer on the injury list with an illness. Ant is also off the injury list. Can we beat a motivated and healthy Philly team while we're missing Jaden? Do we want to? Right now I have us finishing 3 games behind Houston, but that gets reduced to just 1 game if we beat them on their court next week.

This is starting to feel a lot like last season when Curry got hurt. It's not as much fun to beat a team missing by far its best player, but heck, getting to the second round any way we can has to be our goal.

[FNG]

The Association should be ashamed of themselves for this worst ever end of season. So many teams are not trying to win at all, and with the indifferent defense, the point totals are absurd. Here are the points scored yesterday by teams playing tanking teams: 138, 143, 128, 140, 136, 141, and 129. I haven't been betting the NBA recently, but I suspect bettors laying the points against tanking teams are making a lot of money. Tanking teams last night lost by 34, 32, 32, 21, 40, 34 and 11 points. Today Miami is favored by 17 1/2 against Washington, and the Wizards keep the score within 20 about 10% of the time. Something needs to be done...

[Q-is-here]

The Association should be ashamed of themselves for this worst ever end of season. So many teams are not trying to win at all, and with the indifferent defense, the point totals are absurd. Here are the points scored yesterday by teams playing tanking teams: 138, 143, 128, 140, 136, 141, and 129. I haven't been betting the NBA recently, but I suspect bettors laying the points against tanking teams are making a lot of money. Tanking teams last night lost by 34, 32, 32, 21, 40, 34 and 11 points. Today Miami is favored by 17 1/2 against Washington, and the Wizards keep the score within 20 about 10% of the time. Something needs to be done...

There is this concept in golf called the anti-cap, which is basically keeping track of the opposite of your handicap. For those that don't know a golf handicap takes your 8 best scores out of your last 20 rounds and averages them. So when someone says they are a 15 handicap, that person is breaking 90 probably only half the time or less!

The anti-cap averages your 8 worst scores of your last 20 rounds, with the goal of reducing the difference between your handicap and anti-cap. The point is that when you have a bad round of golf going and you realize it won't be counted toward your handicap you still dig in and try to score the best you can to avoid a real blow-up score. It helps you become a more consistent and focused golfer.

So....I don't know where I'm going with this, LOL, but there should be some incentive for these teams to still try their hardest even if they are mathematically out of the playoff/play-in race. There shouldn't just be disincentives to tank (reduced impact on lottery odds), but actual incentives to do well. I don't know what that would look like.

But at the end of day, the real problem may just be that the season has too many damn games. That's a tougher nut to crack for financial reasons.

[FNG]

The Association should be ashamed of themselves for this worst ever end of season. So many teams are not trying to win at all, and with the indifferent defense, the point totals are absurd. Here are the points scored yesterday by teams playing tanking teams: 138, 143, 128, 140, 136, 141, and 129. I haven't been betting the NBA recently, but I suspect bettors laying the points against tanking teams are making a lot of money. Tanking teams last night lost by 34, 32, 32, 21, 40, 34 and 11 points. Today Miami is favored by 17 1/2 against Washington, and the Wizards keep the score within 20 about 10% of the time. Something needs to be done...

There is this concept in golf called the anti-cap, which is basically keeping track of the opposite of your handicap. For those that don't know a golf handicap takes your 8 best scores out of your last 20 rounds and averages them. So when someone says they are a 15 handicap, that person is breaking 90 probably only half the time or less!

The anti-cap averages your 8 worst scores of your last 20 rounds, with the goal of reducing the difference between your handicap and anti-cap. The point is that when you have a bad round of golf going and you realize it won't be counted toward your handicap you still dig in and try to score the best you can to avoid a real blow-up score. It helps you become a more consistent and focused golfer.

So....I don't know where I'm going with this, LOL, but there should be some incentive for these teams to still try their hardest even if they are mathematically out of the playoff/play-in race. There shouldn't just be disincentives to tank (reduced impact on lottery odds), but actual incentives to do well. I don't know what that would look like.

But at the end of day, the real problem may just be that the season has too many damn games. That's a tougher nut to crack for financial reasons.

What's surprising to me is that even the young guys on tanking teams don't seem to be playing hard. We've seen the Wolves sleep walk through games against teams missing key players (Pacers games last season come to mind) only to get by young hungry players trying to prove they belong. But that doesn't seem to be happening with the tanking teams. Are the coaches telling them not to play hard? It almost seems like it.

I'm in Tucson, Q, and about to go out on the golf course...I will not break 90.

[Q-is-here]

Enjoy your round FNG! Golf is hard.

[rapsuperstar31]

The Association should be ashamed of themselves for this worst ever end of season. So many teams are not trying to win at all, and with the indifferent defense, the point totals are absurd. Here are the points scored yesterday by teams playing tanking teams: 138, 143, 128, 140, 136, 141, and 129. I haven't been betting the NBA recently, but I suspect bettors laying the points against tanking teams are making a lot of money. Tanking teams last night lost by 34, 32, 32, 21, 40, 34 and 11 points. Today Miami is favored by 17 1/2 against Washington, and the Wizards keep the score within 20 about 10% of the time. Something needs to be done...

There is this concept in golf called the anti-cap, which is basically keeping track of the opposite of your handicap. For those that don't know a golf handicap takes your 8 best scores out of your last 20 rounds and averages them. So when someone says they are a 15 handicap, that person is breaking 90 probably only half the time or less!

The anti-cap averages your 8 worst scores of your last 20 rounds, with the goal of reducing the difference between your handicap and anti-cap. The point is that when you have a bad round of golf going and you realize it won't be counted toward your handicap you still dig in and try to score the best you can to avoid a real blow-up score. It helps you become a more consistent and focused golfer.

So....I don't know where I'm going with this, LOL, but there should be some incentive for these teams to still try their hardest even if they are mathematically out of the playoff/play-in race. There shouldn't just be disincentives to tank (reduced impact on lottery odds), but actual incentives to do well. I don't know what that would look like.

But at the end of day, the real problem may just be that the season has too many damn games. That's a tougher nut to crack for financial reasons.

What's surprising to me is that even the young guys on tanking teams don't seem to be playing hard. We've seen the Wolves sleep walk through games against teams missing key players (Pacers games last season come to mind) only to get by young hungry players trying to prove they belong. But that doesn't seem to be happening with the tanking teams. Are the coaches telling them not to play hard? It almost seems like it.

I'm in Tucson, Q, and about to go out on the golf course...I will not break 90.

I'm not paying too much attention to the tanking teams. But at least for Utah, it sounds like if a player is hot and they take the lead in the first half, they get pulled and don't play a minute in the 4th quarter, letting the other team come back.

[AussieWolf3]

The Association should be ashamed of themselves for this worst ever end of season. So many teams are not trying to win at all, and with the indifferent defense, the point totals are absurd. Here are the points scored yesterday by teams playing tanking teams: 138, 143, 128, 140, 136, 141, and 129. I haven't been betting the NBA recently, but I suspect bettors laying the points against tanking teams are making a lot of money. Tanking teams last night lost by 34, 32, 32, 21, 40, 34 and 11 points. Today Miami is favored by 17 1/2 against Washington, and the Wizards keep the score within 20 about 10% of the time. Something needs to be done...

There is this concept in golf called the anti-cap, which is basically keeping track of the opposite of your handicap. For those that don't know a golf handicap takes your 8 best scores out of your last 20 rounds and averages them. So when someone says they are a 15 handicap, that person is breaking 90 probably only half the time or less!

The anti-cap averages your 8 worst scores of your last 20 rounds, with the goal of reducing the difference between your handicap and anti-cap. The point is that when you have a bad round of golf going and you realize it won't be counted toward your handicap you still dig in and try to score the best you can to avoid a real blow-up score. It helps you become a more consistent and focused golfer.

So....I don't know where I'm going with this, LOL, but there should be some incentive for these teams to still try their hardest even if they are mathematically out of the playoff/play-in race. There shouldn't just be disincentives to tank (reduced impact on lottery odds), but actual incentives to do well. I don't know what that would look like.

But at the end of day, the real problem may just be that the season has too many damn games. That's a tougher nut to crack for financial reasons.

I never knew about that in golf since I never play, but I like the direction that idea takes things.
Like you, I'm not exactly sure how to apply it here, but my first thought is:

Sports leagues often try to solve this at the organizational level, draft punishments, fines, ect, but a large cooperation --- and this applies to all sectors of business --- can easy weigh and absorb the risk and cost of fines and will have more resources to put towards hiding bad behavior anyway to avoid getting caught.

I say, put it in the hands of your laborers through some combination of your anti cap and revenue sharing cash bonuses to players and coaches (hell maybe even more of the lower level staff too)

I'm sure there are holes you can poke in this but it's gonna be hard to get players to sit if they know that money is on the line that is more than just bigger contracts. The mid season tourney is proof of this concept, but a poor application of it

[FNG]

There is this concept in golf called the anti-cap, which is basically keeping track of the opposite of your handicap. For those that don't know a golf handicap takes your 8 best scores out of your last 20 rounds and averages them. So when someone says they are a 15 handicap, that person is breaking 90 probably only half the time or less!

The anti-cap averages your 8 worst scores of your last 20 rounds, with the goal of reducing the difference between your handicap and anti-cap. The point is that when you have a bad round of golf going and you realize it won't be counted toward your handicap you still dig in and try to score the best you can to avoid a real blow-up score. It helps you become a more consistent and focused golfer.

So....I don't know where I'm going with this, LOL, but there should be some incentive for these teams to still try their hardest even if they are mathematically out of the playoff/play-in race. There shouldn't just be disincentives to tank (reduced impact on lottery odds), but actual incentives to do well. I don't know what that would look like.

But at the end of day, the real problem may just be that the season has too many damn games. That's a tougher nut to crack for financial reasons.

What's surprising to me is that even the young guys on tanking teams don't seem to be playing hard. We've seen the Wolves sleep walk through games against teams missing key players (Pacers games last season come to mind) only to get by young hungry players trying to prove they belong. But that doesn't seem to be happening with the tanking teams. Are the coaches telling them not to play hard? It almost seems like it.

I'm in Tucson, Q, and about to go out on the golf course...I will not break 90.

I'm not paying too much attention to the tanking teams. But at least for Utah, it sounds like if a player is hot and they take the lead in the first half, they get pulled and don't play a minute in the 4th quarter, letting the other team come back.

Very good point, rap. and that makes me feel better...well, maybe a little. Coaches likely have a directive to lose games, but a young guy who wants to show his coaches something might get hot and threaten that directive. So that might force the coach to bench the hot player. Still kind of sad, but I'm al least heartened that the young subs might be trying to win.