https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27125793/these-kids-ticking-bombs-threat-youth-basketball
I’m halfway through this, and while its specific to basketball its true for other sports, like soccer. I’m pretty active in local youth sports and coach both of my boys’ basketball teams and help coach Lacrosse. A few years ago I started seeing more and more two sport at one time kids. Previously the debate was just about year-round sports and if that was bad for development but what I see now is kids doing two sports at one time. This spring there were multiple kids on my 10 year old’s lacrosse team that were juggling two sports. They’d leave a lacrosse game and go play a basketball game or be forced sometimes to choose between the two because of a time conflict. I guess the thinking is I want my kid to have exposure to multiple sports but I want them to focus on a specific sport as well. I think this is partly due to the year round 1-sport kids. My kids do one sport at a time - soccer, lacrosse, basketball or wrestling or whatever they feel like trying. In soccer and basketball I do see that year round kids are pretty much above the rest of the kids simply because they have more exposure so I guess parents feel the pressure to get their kids into more programs to help them keep up so they can boost their own ego. Its such a grind for a kid to go through this.
On the basketball front there are a few NBA player’s kids coming up through the ranks in LA schools that I follow that seem to just play hoops. It will be interesting to follow their careers and injury history.
There are already concerns about Lonzo Ball’s injuries and while I don’t know about his upbringing I assume with his crazy Dad he did nothing except play hoops all year.