Doncic, Giannis, Jokic illustrate the disaster zone that is America’s youth basketball

There was a day when the thought of a “forener” winning the NBA’s MVP award was just as absurd as the best player in Major League Baseball is from Japan who had no idea that his interpreter stole $16 million from him to bet on everything “but baseball.”

End of days stuff.

The best basketball players in the world are no longer Americans but Europeans who actually know how to play the game. This includes Dallas Mavericks forward Luka Doncic, who is on the path of becoming what former Mavericks coach Don Nelson used to say; the next Michael Jordan would be from Europe.

Don and his son, Donnie, were way ahead when it came to the Euros. A lot of people thought they were crazy. They were. A little. On this, however, they showed Steph Curry range.

This evolution can be traced to the International Olympic Committee allowing professionals to play in the Olympic games, in 1992; and America’s youth basketball system that can now be officially labeled as a broken ATM machine that is still flush with cash.

We are a nation of 333 million people, and there is no shortage of talented kids who prefer to play basketball over every other sport combined. It’s a cheap sport to play, and yet we don’t have the very best players.

In terms of overall numbers, and “depth,” the U.S. still has the best “team.” Because we are a nation of 333 million people. In terms of the best players, they’re from outside of our borders.

Chances are 99.999999999 percent that for the sixth straight year the NBA’s regular season MVP will be foreigner. Since 2019, the award has gone to Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece/Nigeria), Nikola Jokic (Serbia), Joel Embiid (Cameroon); this year’s award will likely go to Jokic, or Doncic (Slovenia), or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Canada).

The NBA’s first-team will likely be four foreigners, and one American, Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics.

According to the NBA, when this season began the league featured a record 125 international players from 40 countries.

For years coaches, and some general managers, have groused that America’s youth basketball system, which is now almost completely run by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) with cooperation from the top shoe companies, is a revenue-producing machine where playing games is the priority over learning how to play them.

We are living the results of these different priorities.

“When I grew up in Europe, I learned the skills that the little guys can do. The fundamentals. Right hand. Left hand. Moving on the court. Playing with your teammates,” retired Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki said in a phone interview.

Dirk was the first Euro to win the NBA’s MVP award, in 2007.

“It was all about playing the right way. I am guessing that is still the foundation that it’s set over there,” he said. “I see these big men coming over here, and you have to be able to shoot, the fundamentals, and that’s what you work on every single day, and be able to be a team player. It’s not about how many times you can dribble; do you have a good basketball IQ?”

According to NBADraft.net, 1/3 of the players projected as first round selections for the 2024 NBA Draft are from overseas. The top two players on their draft board, Alexandre Sarr and Zaccharie Risacher, are from France.

The top pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, who will one day soon be a first-team all NBA player, is also from France, center Victor Wembanyama.

Also projected as a potential top five pick in the the ‘24 draft are Serbia’s Nikola Topic, and Lithunia’s Matas Buzelis.

Buzelis grew up in Chicago, but his game is all parts Euro. Both Buzelis’ parents grew up playing basketball in their native country, as did both of his grandfathers. Buzelis looks like the rest of the Euros who come to the NBA: Big men with little men skills.

America adopting the Euro attitude towards player development will require a Death Star-level blast to a system that not only makes money, but has been in place for decades.

The AAU level, which can start for a kid in the first or second grade, places a heavy emphasis on playing games, which leaves little time for practice and drills. Because practices and drills are boring.

A viral quote from Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma sums up perfectly when he told an audience about the state of America’s young player: “They’re more talented than ever, better athletes than ever, they can do more things than kids 10, 15, 20 years ago. But they’re not better basketball players.”

“Because this coach, or that coach, or that system, has them playing six games on Saturday and they practice just once that week. It’s totally opposite of what they do in Europe. They can all dribble. They can all pass. They can all shoot. Doesn’t matter if they’re 5-10 or 6-10. Because they practice, they don’t play games.”

This is a common complaint/observation among America’s top college baseball and soccer coaches, too. For decades this system was flawed, but not a problem until the Euros exposed the flaws.

Now that men like Giannis, Doncic and Jokic proving that a Euro winning an NBA MVP award isn’t an outlier, the flaws are impossible to hide behind LeBron James, Curry, and Kevin Durant.

America is a nation of 333 million, and the very best basketball players who play here all learned how to play the game elsewhere. Because they actually learned it.