JAG’s Sports Blog

After watching “Outside the Lines” on ESPN in which kids as young as the 4^th grade are being scouted and contacted by Division 1 college coaches, it’s no wonder to me why our basketball system is so screwed up from the top to the bottom. Kids don’t even know how to play, let alone know how to play as part of a team and the organization HoopScooponline.com is telling us who the next LeBron James is at nine years old. I’ll also discuss the double standard in sports for superstars and lesser players, but this isn’t about the league endorsing this standard.

The United States is currently having trouble competing in any sport, at any level of international competition today and a lot of this is attributed to the ‘me’ attitude of our athletes. This selfish attitude comes from kids no longer simply wanting to play ball for the fun of, now it’s all about figuring out when they’ll be able to dunk like Mike or what touchdown dance they’ll do in the end zone after a score. If they hit a home run, will they stand in the batter’s box until they see how far it went. Once upon a time, kids similar to myself, used to spend the summer playing at least three sports a day and just having fun, but that’s a thing of the past. Now sports is about traveling teams and camps to determine your national ranking. The question has to be if so many kids are reaching for the top echelons of sports, why aren’t we any better than we are right now on the international stage.

The day before this show, I heard a conversation on ESPN radio about whether the USA team was better off without Kobe Bryant, who is currently not participating with the USA team because he is going undergoing minor surgery on his knee. The discussion basically dealt with the fact that the USA team tends to be built on slashers offensively. Slashers are great in the NBA, but in international competition, slashers take up too much floor space and the international game favors jump shooters. The trapezoid configuration makes it tougher for the big men to set up on the floor or to move out of the way of the slashers to do their thing. We need fewer slashers and more all-around team oriented players for international competition. This is what our young players are exposed to on ESPN and other sports oriented highlight shows. Slashers get paid in the NBA and winning is simply the icing on the cake.

We always hear about how fundamentally unsound and undisciplined American players are and yet a site like Hoopscooponline is thriving in the athletic arena. I tend to question how a service like this can truly benefit the young player or anyone because it makes kids focus on their statistics to enhance their visibility for colleges now. High school players can no longer go straight to the professional ranks. An example of young players becoming lazy and resting on their laurels was a kid named Demetrius Walker. Walker was rated the top player at a very young age because he was already 6′3″, but hasn’t grown any since then and became a target at camps for every young player trying to make a name for themselves. Walkers’ future seems uncertain now as his game hasn’t seemed to mature over the last three years. In my opinion, this comes from camps that want to evaluate talent, rather than actually teaching skills.

The LSU Tigers coach John Bray tried to sound like he was taking the high road, but even he could be considered guilty of scouting middle school age kids. Bray admitted to watching Taz Mitchell and Tyrus Thomas because they were local kids they hoped to get when they reached college age, but it’s still unofficial scouting. Lute Olson (Arizona) and Baylor’s coach had sent letters to Jay Mykel Reese, who is the new LeBron James as a 6^th grade student. Coaches use Hoopscoop because they can track these phenom basketball players throughout their early years to determine whether it’s worth their time to go full throttle when they’re in high school. The competition will be fierce to get the best players now that players will have to spend at least one year in college before going to the NBA.

For my money, scouting kids as soon as they can dribble a ball doesn’t serve the kid or anyone any good because all this does is raise selfish players. The game will come down to the individual rather than the team because the top players will be on a mission to secure their futures as opposed to trying to be the best player and team player they can be. It’s no wonder the US has lost it’s grip on sports as the best team in everything we do. We now try and put together the best all-star team we can get and hope pure talent will win out against the “teams” from around the world.

It kind of seems like if you’re going to scout players as early as the 4^th grade, why shouldn’t they still be able to go to the pros straight out of high school. Isn’t this why you’re scouting them in the first place? You’re looking for the next great player and I guess you want to get them early, so you can get them in the best college programs and ready for the NBA. I’d rather see kids just play and establish themselves as superior players once they get to high school. Scouting them in elementary/middle school dictates how they will play, rather than the player letting the coach decide how they will play and grow.

Double Standard in sports:The scene is Los Angeles with two players and two similar cases. The only difference is one is still in Los Angeles and thriving, while the other was released from the team. The two players in question are Kobe Bryant and Latasha Byears. Kobe Bryant dealt with a high-profile alleged rape case of a woman in Colorado, while Byears was involved in an alleged rape case in Los Angeles of a former teammate.

The scene is Los Angeles with two players and two similar cases. The only difference is one is still in Los Angeles and thriving, while the other was released from the team. The two players in question are Kobe Bryant and Latasha Byears. Kobe Bryant dealt with a high-profile alleged rape case of a woman in Colorado, while Byears was involved in an alleged rape case in Los Angeles of a former teammate.Bryant was grilled in the press because of his squeaky clean former persona, while Byears was known for doing the dirty work on the court. The Lakers organization did everything possible to ensure Bryant could get to and from court to the ball games during his tribulations, while Byears was released while being investigated along with three other men for the crime. Every detail could be re-hashed in both of these cases, but it’s obvious that when you’re a star, your transgressions will be overlooked, but as a bench playing grinder, less leeway is given in a team wanting to deal with the bad press that’s guaranteed to follow. Fans have to keep in mind and admit that the WNBA is viewed as a bunch of lesbians as it is, so their image isn’t that great in the sports world anyway.

Sheryl Swoopes came out as a lesbian and many more are thought to be and that’s not a positive image in the sports world and generally not accepted at any level or sport. Throw in the WNBA being viewed as an extremely inferior brand of basketball and a woman helping to rape another woman was terrible press and theefore, my theory on why she was chased out of the league and out of sight, out of mind. For the most part, the WNBA hasn’t taken any heat for this and the league has gone on their merry way because Byears isn’t a name many casual fans will recognize.

Hypocrisy comes in many forms and you’d better believe that sports isn’t immune from it if it means the survival of their sport. Just thought I’d throw that little subject in because it was accepted based on the skill levels of the players involved. Kobe Bryant is no longer vilified for his part in his rape case after pressure on his accuser to drop the case, while Byears has finally returned to the league after 3 years, signing with the Washington Mystic.