Why I mourn the loss of basic basketball

Basketball
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Allow me a personal story to illustrate my point.

My basketball experience was thus. During the basketball season I would attend practices six days a week unless there was a game inserted. We learned the basics of screens and rolls, guarding the baseline, strong side and weak side defense just to name a few which have been lost due to ineffective coaching.

During Summers my buddies and I would meet the same evening every week for pick up games. Losers walked so we wanted the best team we could put together. It was different every week. This was a free-wheeling one on one type of game that we see the game has turned into today.

Gonzaga appears to be the final hold-out for the quality basketball experience. Everyone else had moved to the free-wheeling one on one game.

I remember one rule we had when I played a Utah was that you better have a damn good reason for taking more that three dribbles. It is far easier to guard a dribble than a pass. Logic ain’t part of the game anymore!

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100% Agreed, watching basketball over the last 10-15 years or so has become increasingly painful, to the point where I generally no longer have interest. I feel like there’s one primary cause, AAU. It’s ruining/ruined basketball on multiple fronts. Ideologically there’s nothing wrong with a supplemental, traveling circuit, but with power, greed and a lot of money it’s agenda and “look at me style” has overtaken fundamentals, teamwork, structure and accountability. Maybe, I’m just aging and don’t get it, but I’m with you it’s a difficult product to enjoy.

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I dunno about that. I see quite a bit of passing. The best teams seem to first try to break the paint then kick it around the horn for threes if the layup isn’t there.

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I think the coaches of many of these teams are vastly overpaid. I can’t be very difficult to coach this types of game. We certainly didn’t need it on those Summer nights.

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I didn’t say that there was no passing, I said that there is far too much dribbling going nowhere

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One thing about all sports is that coaches will copy whatever the latest team with a lot of success is doing. Calipari loved the dribble drive and either kick or get fouled type offense, won a lot, and you see that influence in the game now.

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