Why the NBA Wants Youth Basketball in America to Be More like It Is in the Balkans

Yep, the NBA is looking to… the Balkans to help define the future of youth basketball in America.

Let’s get to it.

🏀 The NBA Knows It Needs to Fix Youth Basketball in America

Ben Golliver of The Washington Post penned an in-depth article this week on why the NBA wants youth basketball in the United States to be more like youth basketball in… the Balkans.

The details:

• The NBA’s “Global Basketball Development Committee” found that the European developmental system benefits from a focus on: long-term club play, properly-trained coaches, team and position-less basketball.

• Commissioner Adam Silver says in America there are too many games, too much specialization, and too much focus on individual skill development— and that it’s all leading to overuse injuries.

• He joins a long list of people (and research) to say athletes should play many sports growing up, especially before high school.

• The current fragmented AAU, high school and NIL college circuit is antithetical to developing team-oriented players.

• Top prospects are now being brought into the NBA’s “Court of Leaders”, where they receive mentorship from league execs on professionalism, work ethic, and team concepts.

• The NBA will invest in youth development and coaching certification so the American system can more closely resemble the European system, but there is a long way to go.

• The league cites a report from Luka Doncic’s foundation which highlighted the Balkans’ success in developing players in a system with the aforementioned properties.

There’s a lot in the article and it’s worth a full read, but you get the point.

But Why?

I highly recommend watching the Court of Gold documentary on Netflix, which offered behind-the-scenes access of the US, Canadian, French and Serbian teams at the Olympics.

What becomes clear is that the French and Serbian players, in particular, were playing in the same system, and with the same players and coaches that they have been playing with for years.

Hell, since the Olympics were in Paris, France was even staying and training at the same academy most of the players grew up attending.

The US team, on the other hand, was acutely aware of the obvious: that they were a team of legendary mercenaries who had to win lest they get ridiculed. They also rented out the entire Marriott Opera Hotel in Paris during the games.

Obviously the US won gold, but they found themselves in a 3-point game with 3 minutes remaining in the Gold Medal game against France, and trailed by 10 in the fourth quarter in the semifinals against Serbia.

The challenge faced by the substantially more talented Team USA put the benefits of the European youth basketball system on full display.

But this effort by the NBA isn’t about the Olympics— it’s about the league’s brand of basketball and sustainability.

Ratings and Product

NBA ratings are down 5% (they’ve, ahem, rebounded from a sluggish start) while social media impressions are up 41%.

It’s a star-driven league, with fans consuming the sport in short snippets of star players.

This incentivizes skill-based, me-first play at a very young age.

And that creates a set of very unique problems for the NBA.

1) A challenger league.

Former Warriors minority owner Chamath Palihapitiya opined on X that a group of investors and athletes could form the LIV Golf of basketball:

Plenty of smart people disagree with this take, including John Wall Street, who wrote recently:

I tend to agree, but that presumes that team loyalty and allegiance continue to matter in the NBA.

The skillsets and mindsets of incoming American players don’t align with a team-oriented style of play, which creates, you guessed it… more highlights but a worse overall product.

In 10 years, will fans have the same loyalty to their teams - the league’s moat - if the things keep heading in this direction?

2) The last 5 MVPs are international players (though Joel Embiid played for Team USA in the Olympics).

The international system is not only producing better team players, it’s also now producing BETTER PLAYERS.

3) NIL aims to make this all worse.

Here’s a video of Villanova (my alma mater) “star” Wooga Poplar gifting his mom a car:

Poplar transferred to Villanova from Miami and has a shot of getting draft in the second round. But he’s getting paid buy-your-mom-a-car-money.

Meanwhile, former Villanova guard Collin Gillespie, who was barely recruited in high school and certainly didn’t earn the money to buy his mom a car in college, tore it up for the Phoenix Suns this week, earning the praise of Kevin Durant and head coach Mike Budenholzer, who said: “There's a lot of confidence in him. Collin just has a way, I think all his teammates love him. There's a toughness, I think the Villanova coaching, the Villanova winning, it's real. He does all the little things that go into winning.”

Gillespie starred at Villanova just before NIL kicked in. He developed over five seasons at Villanova (Covid year) and led his team to the Final Four as a senior.

The stability of a program like Villanova’s created an NBA talent in Gillespie.

Now, NIL and upcoming direct-payments-to-athletes from schools creates an incentive for players to become mercenaries and jump ship to the highest bidder each season. And to specialize from a young age, because meaningful earnings can be achieved earlier. A positive!

But the downside is that this is wrecking the team style of play in college basketball, and will no doubt have an impact on the type of player entering the NBA if things continue on this path.

The Opportunity

As we outlined yesterday, there is a ton of investment in indoor basketball facilities, largely to capitalize on the tournament “demand”.*

But these facilities could also be well-positioned to partner with well-funded youth clubs - potentially backed by NBA owners - to offer them a high-end home base.

This would create stickier revenue, and ultimately be more of a net positive for youth basketball players and the sport overall.

*One can argue the supply of facilities is created the tournament demand, not parents clamoring to sacrifice more weekends.

🆕 New Around Here?

Subscribe to Buying Sandlot to stay up-to-date on the business of youth sports. Our newsletter is free to subscribe, but paid subscribers get more content, in-depth analysis, and access to our growing database of the key people and businesses building the future of youth sports:

Already a subscriber? Be sure to take our new subscriber survey, so we can learn more about the type of information you need to receive to do your job better.

Good game.