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#slamdunk Can pressure-cooker environment contribute positively to basketball development? – Part 1
The competitive world of professional sports requires all players to possess cut-throat instincts, elite mental focus and the ability to make decisions in split seconds with vast amounts of information
The competitive world of professional sports requires all players to possess cut-throat instincts, elite mental focus and the ability to make decisions in split seconds with vast amounts of information. In the NBA, players who carry franchises, such as LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo possess a huge degree of responsibility, both on and off the basketball court, as ambassadors of their franchises and the entire league.
The history of players in the NBA is littered with prodigious talents like Kobe Bryant playing basketball since the age of three, or challenging grown men playing professionally at age 10. On the other hand, it is well chronicled that Basketball Hall of Famers like Hakeem Olajuwon did not start playing the sport until well into their teenage years, at age 15 or 16.
This begs the question: how and why does elite talent develop in different environments? What are the key ingredients necessary for success at the highest competitive levels of the sport?
In our societies, with increased notoriety, resources and financial gain available in a sport like basketball, it leads to a greater level of competitive basketball at earlier ages. It is not uncommon in a highly competitive environment to therefore, take a short-term approach to talent development for immediate success. At younger levels of basketball in America, coaches design and implement game strategies to control games in the interest of winning at all costs; rather than the focus being on an individual player’s long-term development, they focus is on winning the game by any means necessary.
Psychologically, this could benefit a young player’s mental focus, competitive desire and tenacity with which they approach every game.
The other side of this approach is that the creativity and development opportunities for all the players who aren’t as talented or physically gifted at a young age is curbed and drastically limited.
For example, if the goal of a team is to have the best team of 11-year-old youth basketball players, the players who are more physically developed and have hit an early growth spurt will likely get the most playing time and developmental opportunities. Other players might get minimal time, or get told to focus on simply one task in a game, such as rebounding, which limits their ability to develop skills like shooting. While there are benefits to the “survival of the fittest” approach of developing talent, it always begs the question, are younger athletes mentally developed enough to handle the rigors of such a competitive cauldron at early ages? Or will it result in mental burnout and unrealised potential?
We can find examples throughout basketball history of highly touted young prospects such as Lenny Cooke. Cooke touched extreme heights as teenage high school basketball player, once being rated a better basketball prospect than LeBron James.
However, these early successes were a mirage as he was unable to sustain his success, with external pressures and factors preventing him from ever being drafted in the NBA.
More recently, NBA players such as LaMelo Ball are proving that prodigious talent does have a chance to succeed under this microscope, particularly when creativity is not stifled and is allowed to express itself.
It is obvious that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to talent development.
In the second part of this series we will focus on how the long-term approach to youth talent development has manifested itself in producing great NBA basketball players.
