European Method: Youth, No Positions and No Screens

A youth practice built on the two rules the best European academies hold until the mid-teens: nobody has a position, and nobody sets a screen. Under twelve the mini-basketball rules forbid the zone, and some federations now forbid the screen too, so the game is give-and-go, cutting, and passing, and every child learns to play facing the basket, side-on, and with his back to it. Passing on the move, give-and-go in threes, three against two in slow motion with the defenders arriving late by rule, ten passes before a shot counts, and a three-on-three where everyone brings the ball up. The coach corrects with questions. The no-positions rule is the Serbian way as Ognjen Stojaković described it to Sports Illustrated, the no-screens rule comes from FIBA mini-basketball and Luxembourg's under-12 rules, the ten-pass game from UPB Training's write-up of the German youth clubs, and the games from Swiss Basketball's school sheets on mobilesport, Daniel Frey's among them; give them a look.