Travel ball before high school is a grift on unrealistic parents.
It all comes down to genetics. And 4'11" 7th grade point guard is going to be 5'4" point guard playing noon ball once puberty hits.
6'8" little Yella would be just fine waiting until he was going into his soph year before hitting the road for exposure.
100% agreement.
But I'm sure you can appreciate where I'm coming from. If mom is 6'2" and held her own against future WNBA chicks in the NCAA tournament and dad is just a shy of 6'7" it's possible there may be some potential worth working on. He's 5'8" heading into 6th grade and starting to figure things out.
For the record, our travel sports ball commitment isn't terrible right now. It's like 4 or 5 tournaments per year in Salem/PDX and the local select league on Central Oregon. If he ends up being good, then you can start looking at more serious travel teams in HS.
Get him into a boat. The competition in basketball is fucking fierce and one of the sports for which the PNW produces a shit load of talent.
Also, the AAU circuit is almost inevitable for hoops and that is a culture in which you have to mind yourself as a big white guy. Buddy just went through it and his son, one of the best Washington high school kids, is off to the east coast to play for a high academis school.
If this NIL shit is around when junior is out, I will tell you from having walked with my buddy through his son's recruitment that being a high school recruit has become a much tougher road than it used to be.
I don't know. I'd get that kid a killer 2K erg time and get him recruited to play rowboat. You will like your life much better. I'm not sure I could play the AAU game. The east side soccer shit show circus was about all I could take. Add the additional layer of shit you get with AAU and it would have been a hard pass for me.
