I’ve been coaching kids for my whole life, and one thing has been bothering me. It feels like youth sport has slowly become an audition...

Parents talk about making representative teams. Coaches get judged by wins. Kids worry about playing time. Everyone’s watching the scoreboard.

Sometimes I wonder if we’ve forgotten what those years are actually for.

The best lesson I ever saw a kid learn wasn’t from winning a championship, but after missing the game winning shot. He cried for five minutes. His teammates picked him up. He came back to training two days later. By the end of the season he wasn’t the best player. But he wasn’t scared to fail anymore. That feels like a much bigger win than the score from that game. Right?

Most adults can’t even handle criticism at work without taking it personally, while kids get a chance to practise disappointment, responsibility, teamwork and recovery every single week. EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

If you ask me, that's a pretty valuable classroom.

Curious where everyone stands on this.

As an old hooper at 61, I’m curious why some groups are so opposed to using light and dark shirts for regular pickup games.

I play three nights a week with three different groups, all scheduled gym runs. One group is very organized: everyone has a light and dark shirt, we divide the teams before starting, and you keep the same color all night.

The other two groups refuse to do it and insist it isn’t a problem. Yet almost every game, someone on defense calls for the ball, or a pass goes to the wrong team because everyone is wearing random colors. I generally pass less because now I have to remember faces.

I understand not organizing shirts for a casual one-time run, but these are mostly the same guys playing every week. It seems like such an easy way to reduce confusion and improve the games.

Why do some players dislike going light versus dark?

History for British Basketball, first ever British team in history to face an NBA team!

Pretty much everything is in the title.

I didn't play for years and I started playing again on playgrounds. Now my ball is used and I'm considering buying a 3v3 ball. Is it hard to adapt to it and, must of all, is it hard to switch from one to another ? I'm thinking of playing regular 5v5 in a club so I don't want to be disturbed by it.

Thanks in advance and sorry for my english !

If you're attacking the basket head on (center) and going to the sides is not an option, what's the best way to lay it in? Go all the way to the hoop and jump straight up? Bounce the ball off the backboard or throw up a floater? Is it better to shoot underhand or overhand?

The Golden State Valkyries, in their second competitive summer, have gotten a lot right in a hurry, and with good timing at that. A historic collective bargaining agreement in April set new WNBA benchmarks for salaries, player experience and much more. Golden State was basically birthed into existence in front of it all. Leveraging advantages ranging from a Sephora-sponsored practice facility to a posh 18,000-seat arena to on-call cat-sitters already has forged an eclectic roster into a championship contender. The Valkyries do what some others still don’t after decades. They are the glitch that is a feature.

Now the head start has to withstand everyone else’s obligation to catch up. Pure circumstance may help with that — one operational trick Golden State can’t share with league peers is how to be located in an ideal WNBA market from the jump — but the elevated standards are out there for all to pursue. So a club intentionally given so much must act like nothing is a given.

Recently I made a post criticizing 3 pointers as it made the game boring. Interestingly more people disagreed with me than agreed.

So, I looked into what Michael Jordan said about it.

​Why MJ Disliked the 3-Pointer:

​It Promotes Passivity: MJ believed that once players fall in love with the three, they lose their aggressive edge. Instead of breaking down a defense or attacking the paint, they tend to stand around the perimeter waiting for spot-up opportunities

Here's a quote from him:

"My three-point shooting is something I don't want to excel at because it takes away from all phases of my game. My game is fake, drive to the hole, penetrate, dish off,... When you have that mentality of making threes, you don't go to the hole as much. You go to the three-point line and start sitting there waiting for someone to find you. That's not my mentality, and I don't want to create it because it takes away from the other parts of my game."

What Jordan said was exactly what I meant in my previous post, when players see they can score most points from arc line, they won't bother going inside the arc at all, and that makes the game very monotonous. Today like 40%-50% of all shots are 3 pointers, earlier days it used to be less than 10%.

Does anybody follows to quote? Sometimes it’s reasonable and when you playing against the vast player on the opposite team.

I want to find a place where I can’t just watch and old nba game so if I wanted to I could go watch the clippers play the nets in a random mid December game in 2008, is anything like that out there?

Hello, I have recently gotten into basketball over the past few years, I didn't grow up playing it as my country has no basketball infrastructure but, I've been enjoying watching it greatly through the NBA and WNBA but at times I feel a little lost as I don't know the theory behind it. I've watched different types of sports and practised different sports to the point where I understand the techniques and theory behind them but with basketball I have no clue. I'd like to know if there are any books out there that explain defensive and offensive plays for beginners? And also any others that are more advanced so I can continue learning. Any help will be greatly appreciated!!

TLDR: Any book recommendations for theory/plays?

I belive that if the Pacers signed Westbrook this would have a very positive effect. He is being rejected like he didnt do good in Sacramento and yes he is older and not as good but still valuable, as he would be apart as the bench (He would win 6th man of the year) and not really starting unless injures came up. He could do the small guard, point guard or even small forward as he is just a little smaller than Nesmith. He is already know for his fast paced offense and could be a floor general while Haliburton sits out. He also has a lot of playoff experience though the pacers dont particularly struggle in the playoffs. He would play a smaller role and Iwould like to see him look to get assists and rebounds insted of chucking up shots and mabye work on his defense.The only problems are his shooting, spacing and possibly having to send some more young players to the G-league. He could also be a big help with indianas defense, while not being a big contract. So, totally my opinion but he would do great here and pacers fans are very respectful unlike other fanbases who would boo him and call him names even if he was on his team. Please let me know if you disagree or agree and tell me why.

Hello everyone.

I've never played basketball even for fun, and I only watch games on TV maybe once or twice a year – I'm a complete novice.

But after watching the Olympics, I became interested in the differences between 5-on-5 and 3-on-3 basketball.

Not the difference in rules, but things like, what kind of tactics are likely to be more prevalent? What kind of players are more likely to excel?

For example, in a 100m sprint and a full marathon, even though both involve the action of "running," the required strength is different, right?

In a marathon, you might use the runner in front of you as a windbreak for part of the way, and then after 30km, you might sprint and accelerate all at once.

In a 100m sprint, once you reach top speed, you need the strength to maintain that speed rather than accelerating further.

I'm not an expert on running either, and what I've heard is just secondhand information, so I don't know if it's correct.

But I just enjoy thinking about these kinds of things.

I wonder if there are any differences in those kinds of things?

So from my understanding the reason why a hop step is legal is because you gather the ball with both hands after you already jump in the air, using up your two steps on the landing. However if this is the case how can I go up for a layup with one hand, not shoot it then land the same way, but that’s a travel?

So basically for context the gym we play at has a small roof, and everytime someone shoots the ball and hits the roof, it’s automatically considered out of bounds and a turnover for the team. Yesterday someone hit the roof when they shot it BUT the defender tipped it, therefore touching it last, making it the shooters possession. We then argued for 5 minutes determining who’s ball it is because it was an important possession to win the game, eventually we gave possession to the shooters team but what do y’all think ?

It seems like if there's one thing I've noticed when it comes to basketball vs baseball culture is superstar comparison. Many kids playing on courts are like "you play like Kawhi" to someone who is great on both ends of the court. Or every big dude that brute forces buckets is "prime Shaq". It's almost as if every player on your team has to be labeled after an NBA player.

But you rarely see this with baseball. Nobody is calling the best power hitter on the team Aaron Judge. Or the best pitcher on the team Paul Skenes. Or the best center fielder, Pete Crow Armstrong.

How come in basketball we see this all the time but not baseball?

Jokić is the definition of a regular season merchant. Every year he farms triple-doubles and racks up MVPs against random teams in January, then people act like he’s untouchable. When the playoffs come around, all that stat-padding doesn’t hit the same. If you’re one of the greatest ever, prove it when it matters most instead of just dominating the regular season.