The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on AAU basketball and how it doesn't prepare players for college or professional basketball. Even former AAU star Michael Beasley admitted that the he didn't learn anything about playing defense during his time at DC Assault (made famous to casual fans by the Curtis Malone references in the Washington Post Gary Williams hatchet piece earlier in the year) he couldn't remember participating in any defensive drills during his time in AAU basketball.
None of this is new of course. AAU basketball is not about basketball, it is about exposure and promotion. There are some coaches out there that do help improve players but the majority are merely looking for ways to line their own pockets. Many players spend years playing AAU basketball and arrive in college knowing next to nothing about playing the game because the guys "coaching" them don't know much themselves. The influence of high school coaches has continued to wain as AAU basketball has seceded in professionalizing the youth basketball scene. High school coaches like Morgan Wooten and even current Montrose Christian coach Stu Vetter might be a thing of the past in the coming decades. Many high school coaches don't even have any clue what is going on in the college recruitment of their players and that is a sad development.
The college game has certainly suffered the ill effects of the corrosion of fundamental skills that has resulted from the proliferation of AAU basketball. It is probably true that some of the athletes that come out of AAU basketball are as impressive as players from any era but very few have the skill set or knowledge of the game that even a marginal college player had twenty years ago. I had to laugh when Rudy Gay's mentor/handler/bagman Anthony Lewis tried to take credit for Gay being in the NBA by teaching him "not to settle for easy shots." when he was a 13 year old. He isn't the only fool and charlatan who actually believe that they are helping these kids.
