On his blog, Ettore Messina recently wrote about basketball development systems as it affects Italian Basketball. Italy failed to qualify automatically to the 2009 European Championships.

Messina argued several points, starting with the professional clubs:

With the exception of very few clubs like Siena, Roma, Milano, we don’t have the economic strength and a system in place to develop young players…The first thing less economically fortunate Italian clubs cut out of the budget is the program of developing young players. Very few clubs managed to continue to invest money in the teachers and the recruiting of young players.

As I have written previously, the U.S. development system eliminates the role of the professional clubs in youth development. While Italian clubs cut youth programs when they struggle financially, hurting the future of their clubs and creating a greater reliance on signing talented professionals to stay competitive, the U.S. system is designed this way. NBA teams and the NCAA do not fund youth development; they rely on others to develop players and then sign the talented professionals and pre-professionals. Without a well-funded development system, the professional league cannot guarantee its product in the future. The NBA manages because its franchises have the money to buy the top talent from all over the world; in smaller countries with fewer sponsorships and less TV money, this is not always possible.

When I was in Trinidad & Tobago this summer, I spoke to a couple people who wanted to start a professional league. I advised them to invest the money in younger players now and develop the youth players. Right now, there are few local players with the skills to be a “professional player.” However, there are a lot of potential players, kids with great athleticism and some size. Starting a professional league with poorly prepared local players and hired guns from abroad leads to a two-tiered pro game. In Ireland, teams sign American players and expect them to score 20+ppg and get 10 rebounds. The Americans are the stars and the Irish players are the role players.

The Irish SuperLeague brings in very little revenue, so a club’s expenses are spent on the professional team and the youth teams are ignored. When I coached in Ireland, I argued for more court time for the youth teams so I could work with the top youth players, but the club said that it could not afford more court time. In the long run, developing the young, local players to create more competitive and skilled younger players leads to a better long term professional league than continually spending money on hired American players to be the stars. I told the Trinidadians to spend the money on 13, 14 and 15-year-olds and start a professional league in 5-6 years when there is a greater depth of local talent to support a professional league. A professional league sounds sexy and often attracts more sponsors, but youth development is the key to sustaining any league or national team programs.

Messina also commented on the Federation’s role in Italy:

All coaches who worked with the national team for the last 15 years have been constantly warning that we have a huge problem with development of young Italian players and that it will soon lead to much bigger problems in our basketball. For fifteen years we were blind enough to hide the problems behind good results of the national team. We underestimated the poor results of our young national teams, while in the 80’s and 90’s they were succeeding at a very high level…In the 90’s the Italian federation had a full-time coaching staff and the coach of the national team was also responsible for all young teams. Now, this generation retired and this system non-existent, we have nothing.

In the U.S., we focus on the Senior Men’s National Team, but nobody pays attention to the youth results. The Federation needs to ensure the development from the youth through the senior team. In the U.S., we have never had a full-time national team head coach who was responsible for the young teams. Coach K coaches Duke during the year and spends his summer with the National Team. To ensure development, a Federation needs to support the clubs and work with the players.

When I coached in Sweden, whose youth girls’ teams have excelled in recent years, once a month the clubs took a weekend off and the top players were invited to a training camp. During the year, the players trained together in their age group. As an international competition neared, the coaches made cuts until the team was selected to prepare for the tournament or games. There was a cooperation between the clubs and the national teams. The clubs respected the national team programs, and everyone worked together to develop the players, the clubs and the national teams.

In the U.S., and many other countries, there is a lack of cooperation. Clubs have their agenda; schools have their agenda; and national team programs have their agenda. A strong Federation can enforce its programs and implement the development programs. As Messina writes:

I’ve been suggesting to Russian basketball federation…to hire the permanent coaching staff that could go around the country teaching the players, selecting the players, helping the coaches to improve and to have a unified program of developing Top-25 players through all (U16, U18 and U20) stages. A program we don’t have here in Russia. A program that Spain and Greece implemented 15 years ago.

Is it any wonder than Greece and Spain are the top two European National teams now? Or that Spain consistently puts players in the NBA (Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol, Jose Calderon, J.C. Navarro, Jorge Garbajosa, Sergio Rodriguez, Rudy Fernandez, etc.)? Spain and Greece have strong national development programs, great youth programs, great senior national teams and great club teams (Olympiakos, Panathanikos, Barcelona, DKV Joventut, Unicaja, Real Madrid).

It starts with the organization and the emphasis. The U.S. has a large and diverse population, resources, facilities, and the professional contracts to motivate and sustain players. However, that does not mean that the U.S. has the best possible system or makes the best possible use of its advantages, money, resources or facilities. And, other countries without these advantages cannot look to the U.S. as a model, but must get creative and serious about youth development, as developing the next generation of players is the only way to sustain or improve current successes.

Relying solely on buying professional players is not a path to sustained success.