Pop Says Foreign Players are "Fundamentally Harder Working" Than American Players

Sadly, I think this can be said about a lot of Americans.



http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201306/popovich-says-foreign-players-are-fundamentally-harder-working-most-americans




Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich Says Foreign Hoops Players Are 'Fundamentally Harder Working'
Wednesday, June 12, 2013 9:38 pm
Written by: ThePostGame Staff







By almost every measure -- winning percentage, playoff appearances, championships -- the San Antonio Spurs are the most successful North American franchise of the past 15 years.


As with every dynasty, the Spurs owe their success to a combination of factors (scouting, coaching, luck, etc.). But in looking at this San Antonio squad -- you know, the one giving the Miami Heat a run for its money in the NBA Finals -- it's impossible not to notice one characteristic that separates the franchise from other teams. Namely, the Spurs have relied heavily on a plethora of foreign born players.


Two of the Spurs' "Big Three" -- Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili -- come from outside the United States. Tim Duncan, San Antonio's legendary big man, was born in the U.S. Virgin Islands but played collegiately in the United States and represented the United States in the Olympics.


This year the Spurs feature several key foreign role players in Tiago Splitter (Brazil) and Boris Diaw (France). Add in Patty Mills (Australia), Aron Baynes (Australia), Cory Joseph (Canada) and Nando De Colo (France), and more than half of the players on San Antonio's roster were not born in the continental United States. The eight foreigners on the Spurs constitute the most in the NBA in a season when there were a record number of foreigners.


As you might have suspected, this is not a coincidence. In a brilliant and revealing ESPN The Magazine story by Seth Wickersham, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich says foreign players are "fundamentally harder working than most American kids."


This work ethic is a result of many factors, perhaps none more important than the development systems in foreign countries:
"...when Pop looks at American talent he sees many players who "have been coddled since eighth, ninth, 10th grade by various factions or groups of people. But the foreign kids don't live with that. So they don't feel entitled," he says, noting how many clubs work on fundamentals in two-a-day practices, each lasting up to three hours. "Now, you can't paint it with too wide of a brush, but in general, that's a fact."


It definitely seems like Popovich has a point. Not only has he been scouting international players for decades, plus it's impossible to argue with the Spurs' remarkable and sustained success.


bob


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This is why the whole "America Is The Greatest Country On Earth" thing has not been good for this country.

Many people in my generation - but more so in younger generations, feel entitled to just show up and state "I am an American" - as if that is enough.

In every aspect of education (Science, Medicine, Math, Technology), foreign candidates regularly eat the lunch of Americans.  And while the rest of the world fights to catch up - we do little to fight to stay near the top.

America is a great country - but that is not a given.  Those who came before fought hard to establish our place in the world.  Sadly, the younger generations just think you can show up and stay in the lead.  The facts however, run counter to this false idea.

The foreign game is played differently than here in the States.

The US certainly has more talented athletes, and thus athletic ability tends to hold more weight than fundamentals as it pertains to NCAA recruiting. Colleges want the guys that run the fastest and jump the highest. Those players then enter the draft, talented physically but lacking some basic but important skills of the game. Overseas, players have inferior athletic ability but are taught fundamentals of basketball. But basketball in other countries is less physical, since players here tend to be physically stronger.

GregPop's evaluation is right, but that's only because of how players are coached in the states when they are young going through high school and college.

I think what Pop is referring to more is the entitled culture of elite young athletes. With coaches fawning over players from an early age and a mercenary AAU culture, most players believe all they hear and think they're already great because they have more mature bodies and have athletic ability. But they fail to realize how small the pool of NBA players is and that they have to work really hard at their game to join those ranks.

At a coaching clinic, one of the speakers told a story that stuck with me. He was coaching at a summer camp with about 100 high school all-stars, and he asked how many of them thought they would play in the NBA. One hundred hands went up. Then he broke down the numbers for them -- that there were 100 other camps just like this one across the country, each with 100 players who thought the same as them -- that's 10,000 players. There are 30 NBA teams, each with a roster of 15 -- that's 450 NBA spots. And each year, only a couple of rookies make it on each team -- that's about 60 available spots each year. Yet 10,000 kids expect to make it in the NBA.

The priorities and expectations of these kids get all out of whack because the adults around them keep telling them how great they are and that they're headed for division 1 and the pros. When they keep hearing that, and when many of the people around them make excuses and accommodations for them all the time because they're good athletes, they think they're already great. I can't tell you how many very good high school athletes I've seen that keep practicing what they're already good at, don't work on the weaknesses in their game, and think they know it all and don't listen to coaches willing to criticize them.

That's not to say that there aren't US players who don't have a good work ethic, because there obviously are. But they're outnumbered.

From what I've heard, many elite foreign players enter the professional ranks at a young age. In that situation, they're put up against much older players, and their weaknesses become evident very quickly. They either work to improve or don't cut it.

I don't have an answer. All I know is that priorities in elite youth sports in the US are way out of whack.