ANSWERS
The questions parents actually ask
Answer first, reasoning second. Where a claim comes from published data, the source is linked so you can check it rather than take anyone's word for it.
01 / Whether the training is worth it
Is AAU worth it?
Sometimes, and later than most families think. Tournament basketball showcases skill, it does not build skill. If a player already shoots, handles and reads the floor at a level worth showing, a summer of games can put that in front of coaches. If those things are not there yet, the summer mostly produces travel, expense and mileage on a young body. The order matters: build first, show second. Reversing that order is the most common and most expensive mistake made in this area, largely because most of the advice families read is published by people selling the games.
How much does a basketball trainer cost?
Sessions here are $200. Package pricing is not published and is handled directly. For national context, published figures put group lessons at roughly $30 to $50, semi-private at $30 to $75 per player, private at $50 to $150 or more per hour, and seasonal packages at roughly $350 to $800. Source: lessons.com basketball training cost. Compare that against what a season of tournament basketball costs once entry, travel, hotels and gear are counted, then decide which one changed what your kid can do on the floor.
Group or private?
Private for building a skill, small group for testing it. Alone, a player gets every repetition and every correction, which is how a broken shot or a dead off hand gets fixed. In a small group, that same skill has to survive a defender, a clock and fatigue, which is the only way to find out whether it is real. Most players need both across a plan. A player who only ever trains alone tends to look excellent in a gym and ordinary in a game.
How do you measure progress?
By counted repetitions and by what holds up under pressure, not by how a session felt. Makes out of attempts from defined spots, time and turnovers through a handling sequence, whether the off hand is being used when it is the correct read rather than when it is convenient, and whether a decision that was correct in a drill is still correct with a defender closing. Numbers get written down and compared across weeks. A player who improves in isolation but not against pressure has not improved yet, and saying so early is more useful than encouragement.
02 / Age, hours and specialization
What age should skills training start?
When a player can hold attention through a correction and repeat it, which for most kids is somewhere in the middle school years. Before that, unstructured play does more good than instruction. The AOSSM consensus statement is direct about this: it reports a greater than 2 to 1 increase in injury rate when organized play displaces free play, and notes 88% of Olympians played more than one sport as children. Source: AOSSM. Starting formal training at eight buys very little and costs real free play.
How many hours should my kid practice?
Fewer than you have been told, and more of them alone with a ball. AOSSM flags more weekly hours than the athlete's age, and more than 16 hours per week of intense training, as warranting monitoring. It also defines specialization partly as intensive training in one sport for more than 8 months per year. A middle schooler doing more organized basketball hours per week than their age in years is past the point where the published guidance says somebody should be watching. Unsupervised shooting in a driveway is not what that guidance is worried about.
Does my kid need to specialize in basketball?
No, and the published consensus argues against it for younger players. Specialization is defined in part as intensive year-round training in one sport beyond 8 months annually, and 88% of Olympians played more than one sport as children. Playing a second sport in another season protects against overuse and against burning out on the one sport a kid actually loves. Nobody in this area has lost a college roster spot because they played baseball in the spring at fourteen. Source: AOSSM.
How often should we train?
Often enough that skill work sticks between sessions, which usually means once or twice a week during a season and a tighter block in the off-season. The training session is where the correction is made. The repetitions that make the correction permanent happen on the player's own time. A family training three times a week while the player never touches a ball in between is paying for correction they are not consolidating. Plans are built per player, so this gets set against the player's school season, their other sport and their actual schedule.
03 / College and recruiting
What are my chances of playing college basketball?
Nationally, 3.6% for boys and 4.7% for girls, counting all three NCAA divisions. The 2024-25 NCAA figures are 540,704 boys high school participants against 19,617 NCAA participants, and 356,240 girls against 16,823. Division I is 1.1% for men and 1.4% for women, so it is the minority of the total. Division III at 1.5% is the largest men's pathway, and for women both Division II and Division III sit at 1.9%. Source: NCAA. Those are national rates, not a forecast for your child.
How do I get recruited to play college basketball?
Start by calling coaches yourself, because the rule most families do not know runs in your favor. Division I men's coaches cannot initiate contact by call, text, email or direct message until June 15 after sophomore year, but a recruit may call a coach at any time before that. Official visits begin August 1 before junior year, one per school per academic year. Division II coaches may make contact at any time, and Division III coaches may as well, with off-campus contact after sophomore year and official visits from January 1 of junior year. Source: NCSA.
04 / Practical questions
What should an eighth grader be working on?
Both hands, a repeatable shot, and reading a second defender. At that age the useful work is unglamorous: finishing on the left side with the left hand, a handle that survives contact, footwork into a shot that looks the same every time, and starting to see the help defender instead of only the rim. Speed and strength arrive later and largely on their own. A player who arrives in high school able to go both directions and make a correct pass under pressure is ahead of a player who has been to more tournaments.
What happens if it rains?
The session is rescheduled, because all three courts are outdoor and there is no indoor backup. Training runs at Bellevue Beach Park in Bellevue, a public court in Newport, and Swope. Weather is checked ahead of the session and a call is made early rather than dragging a family across the river to stand in a car park. Outdoor is a deliberate choice rather than a compromise. The surface is unforgiving, the rims are the rims, and the wind means a shot has to be genuinely repeatable before it works.
05 / Still stuck
Ask him directly
If the question is about your kid specifically, the answer is worth a phone call rather than a paragraph. Alex reads these himself and replies within a day.