AAU stands for amateur athletic union.
Though this is kind of a brand name that’s turned into a catch all for a basketball team for athletes that are high school age, but isn’t affiliated with a high school.
It's a team they can play on during the offseason. A travel team if you’re more familiar with that nomenclature.
They’re involved in a lot of different sports, but we’re just talking about basketball.
AAU runs a spring season and summer season. They also do a winter season, but most kids don’t play because they’re playing high school basketball.
AAU doesn’t have a set number of teams. Anyone with 30 dollars can start an AAU team and in fact anyone with 300 dollars can become a tax exempt organization through the AAU. Meaning they can accept tax free donations from people as if they were a charity.
If that sounds problematic to you, I’ll have you know that sounds very problematic to me as well. Because while basketball leagues are great for America’s youth, they are certainly not a charity.
Along with that 30 dollars for the team membership every athlete has to pay $14 a season
Now with your team you are allowed to participate in AAU sanctioned events. Not all. Some are invite only. You can imagine that ones that are invitation only are the ones that will have prominent college scouts attending.
Your team is whoever you put on the roster for that AAU event. So in theory if you’re the manager or coach of an AAU team you could show up every weekend for an event with a completely different roster. This unlike any school affiliated or professional sports team where a defined roster is needed before the season commences.
Which brings us to our first problem with AAU basketball. Lack of consistency
Athletes in AAU are at the beginning of their careers
They are in the most formable years they'll ever have, so it’s important that they have coaches and mentors taking the time to observe their game and figure out which skills they lack and should work on if they want to get to the next level. They need a coach who is going to be able to observe them on a consistent basis.
This isn’t best for the athlete if he’s traveling far every weekend to play with this team and not even practicing with them. He/She is spending time traveling when they could be working on weak aspects of their game.
Often during these tournament weekends, athletes will play between 4-6 games depending on how well they play with very little time for rest or analysis of their performance. So not only aren’t they learning from their mistakes, but they’re running the risk of burning out.
Therefore if a team wants to win that’s the type of defense they should play, but this a style of defense that isn’t played in college and wouldn’t work against a physically stronger opponent.
That being said AAU coaches prioritize winning as opposed to development. I'm not faulting them obviously coaches want to win, but at this point winning isn’t necessarily success.
It’s like cashing out too early on a stock you believe in.
Ultimately AAU competition isn’t as important as working on your skills. Playing in basketball games is necessary to execute on the skills you’ve practiced, but the most important part is practicing the skills.
A lot of people think that AAU started going wrong when Nike and Adidas started sponsoring teams. Once it became a business and coaches started getting paid by these shoe companies, the focus of the team became making money by growing the brand rather than producing quality college athletes and quality young men and women. Even now most of the top tier AAU teams are sponsored by Nike, Adidas, and Under armor.
I’ve heard I wasn’t able to find an example, but I’ve heard that sometimes some of the money ends up going to the parents of the players and has made certain players ineligible for high school or college sports due to losing their amateur status.
A lot of prominent names in Basketball have criticized the AAU system. Steve Kerr coached his son’s team for three years and he called it a weird subculture where teams rarely practiced, players would play on multiple teams over the course of a tournament, teams would fly in players who had never practiced or played with them to play in a single tournament. He says the aspect of playing as a team and forming something bigger than yourself is completely lost in AAU basketball.
Kobe Bryant claimed that it encouraged fancy play. Stuff that would make spectators ooh and ah, but when it came down to playing the game itself. Kids were completely ignorant. He claimed AAU Basketball is stupid.
Ultimately in America we live in a time of leveraging any success we may have into public adoration. I think public adoration should be a byproduct of dedication to something you’re passionate about. I think the players who are here to stay are the ones who don’t fall into the trap of being celebrated. They are the ones who love the game and enjoy the process of self-improvement.

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