Great video about the problems with youth basketball by Stan Van Gundy. Shout out to 80's dunk God Terence Stansbury who posted the video along with the following message on his Facebook page.

Here's the truth about youth basketball in America! Stan Van Gundy's message is so true.

The really sad thing is that some new coaches in Europe who have never played basketball are doing the same thing with their youth teams. The fact is that the best players are already good by 15 years of age but all players at every level still need to work on fundametals.Late bloomers will arrive by teaching fundamentals. Not teaching fundamentals or how to read the game both offensively or defensively is just hurting the kids.

I've watched games both in the US and Europe where kids are just pressing full-court and then playing zone defense 80 to 90 percent of the time just to win games. It's really hard to watch basketball when teams don't even have a concept of how to score quickly using a fastbreak offense with secondary options. Maybe these so called coaches have forgotten that the easiest way to score is the fastbreak.

I've also seen youth teams that don't even have assistants coaches at the advice of the head coach. That's unbelievable! Looking at the bench alone has made me crazy with the absence of an assistance to encourage the kids to stay focused when the coach is standing up with his back to his team during the entire game. Every good coach and player who has played on winning teams understands the key role of an assistant coach in practice and during games.

Learning how to close-out properly, depend against down, double, staggered, flex action screens, and all man to man situations should be applied both at practice and in games, instead of just zones. Universal basketball set offenses should be taught instead of just pick and roll plays.Youth coaches need to understand this message!