How early is too early?  Former Texas A & M and current Kentucky Head Hoop Coach Billy Gillespie has received a commitment from a 6’4” eighth grader named Michael Avery from Lake Sherwood, CA.

Now look, I’ve long thought that something needed to be done about AAU basketball.  The shoe companies essentially own it and the AAU coaches and college coaches sell dreams to kids and families of the NBA when the Michael Beasley’s of the world and his 6 different high schools before he popped up at Kansas State are really rare when you consider that less that 450 players play in the NBA.

You have kids missing school and traveling all over the country.  They can play in this tournament but not in that one and the brand of shoes is the reason why.

I understand why the AAU coaches are into it.  These are guys that have build some abstract power in the community and on the court and also create one heck of a supplemental income.  Hell, if you have a kid that is good enough, you can parlay that into an assistant job at a Division I school; maybe even in the Big 12 south.

I understand why the college coaches do it because regardless of how the NCAA and the school presidents proclaim to be all about educating students-athletes we all know it’s about paying for the expense lines that other sports and Title IX offer up.  They win or their gone, period.

What I don’t get are the parents, who many times forfeit their duty, obligation and responsibility as parents under the cloak of offering their kids opportunities in life when really all they want is a new house and their trying to insure that the meal ticket gets it done.

Michael Avery’s father, Howard said that now that his son is committed to Kentucky, he just has to find a high school.  He currently attends Ascension Lutheran School in Thousand Oaks.  This whole offer from Kentucky came about because he was in Indiana interviewing for a private school that he is considering attending and through the grimy handling and misdealing of youth basketball, introductions, handshakes and eventually an invitation to play came about.  Avery played in front of Gillispie but of course, because of the NCAA, he could never make contact with a prospect at the tournament so through the squeaky clean AAU team, they find out that they should contact Kentucky.

Violah, you got yourself a scholarship.

We get so caught up and trying to decide if we can, we never stop to think about if we should.  We see it in little league, we see it in middle school and of course in high school and college.

Kids get shuffled from here to there, playing on this team and that team, traveling here, there and everywhere being fed, nurtured and essentially managed by some AAU hack or someone else with a financial goal in mind.  I’m constantly sitting here thinking, “Who the hell is raising your kid?”

It affects thousands and thousands of kids every year.  The AAU coaches make money and get kick backs on the shoe deals.  I haven’t heard of any college coaches that are starving.  Finally the players get, well, there’s 450 players in the NBA and there are more and more Lenny Cookes every day.

Scratch a lie, find a thief.