Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant has been stirring up the pot all season long. The future Hall of Famer continued his media blitz Friday evening after his team dropped a close game to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Only this time, Bryant potentially found a way to piss off all of North America.
I just think European players are just way more skillful,” Bryant said, via ESPN. “They are just taught the game the right way at an early age. … They’re more skillful. It’s something we really have to fix. We really have to address that. We have to teach our kids to play the right way.
If we are talking fundamentals, Bryant is 100 percent correct here. Though, it must be noted that the environment surrounding European youngsters training to play basketball compared to those in North American couldn’t be more different.
Bryant continued…
AAU basketball,” Bryant said. “Horrible, terrible AAU basketball. It’s stupid. It doesn’t teach our kids how to play the game at all so you wind up having players that are big and they bring it up and they do all this fancy crap and they don’t know how to post. They don’t know the fundamentals of the game. It’s stupid.
As it relates to Bryant, he joined his father in Europe at the age of six and didn’t return to the states until 1991. If anyone knows just how much different youth basketball is across the pond compared to the United States, it’s him.
Never afraid to tell us what he thinks, Bryant could be on to something here. And while some might take his words as a criticism of American basketball, it might start a narrative that we need in the states.
Photo: USA Today