YOUTH basketball has grown by leaps and bounds through the last few decades.
The young athletes play an important role in the development of a country’s grassroots-based basketball program.
In the hotbed of basketball in America and in the European landscape (where the sport is a close second to soccer), they have started them early.
One notable successful story by a young ‘un from the past: Spain’s boyish-looking Ricard (Ricky) Rubio, the
fourth-year playmaker of the Minnesota Timberwolves in the U.S. National Basketball Association (NBA). Now age 24, the 6-foot-4 Spaniard was good enough to play for DKV Joventut in the Spanish semi-professional league ACB in 2005-06 at the tender age of 14 (turning 15 a month after league play).
Years before, he was already honing up his skills by way of kiddie competitions where he was a dominant force.
In his second season with Joventut, he romped away with the ACB League’s Rising Star Award in 2007 after pacing the league in steals. Two years later in 2009, he earned ACB Defensive Player of the Year honors after repeating as steals king.
Internationally, Rubio was FIBA Europe Young Men’s Player of the Year awardee in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Just two months before turning 18, he was named a member of the Spanish national team to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he earned a silver medal. While Team USA beat Pau Gasol and Spain in the finals, Rubio became the youngest basketball player ever to compete in an Olympic basketball final.
Before that, Rubio secured a bronze medal in the 2005 FIBA Europe Under-16 Championship.
In August of the following year, he steered Spain to the gold medal during the same international event and was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player after averaging 22.3 points, 12.8 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 6.5 steals a game. En route to leading the tourney in all four statistical categories, Rubio registered a pair of triple-doubles and a quadruple-double. In the championship game, he collected 51 points, 24 rebounds, 12 assists and seven steals as Spain posted a 110-106 double overtime win over Russia.
Since the 1990s, countries from the Asian region – noticeably the People’s Republic of China – have seriously embraced youth basketball activities.
In the Philippines, there’s the youth-oriented Milo Basketball Efficiency and Scientific Training (BEST) Center with its annual Small Basketeers of the Philippines (SBP) and Passerelle twin tournaments featuring elementary and high school athletes from the various schools in the country.
A laudable program founded by former national team coach Nic Jorge in 1978, the BEST Center organizes regional tournaments before concluding with a national championship.
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the world’s basketball-governing body, has taken recognizance of the tremendous growth of youth basketball through the years.
Whereas before (in the early 1970s) it only had the 18-and-under event to showcase, the FIBA now has expanded to include world competitions for players ages 17 and under, 16 and under, 15 and under, 14 and under, 13 and under, and 12 and under.
Indeed, international basketball activities are getting younger and younger