The Corruption of AAU Basketball 1

AAU which stands for American Athletic Union is used to create higher level competition for basketball’s elite players. It is a great way to expose players’ potential because sometimes the high school level of competition just isn’t enough. Grantland’s Jonathan Abrahams recently wrote an article about Andre Iguodala, whom currently plays for the Golden State Warriors of the NBA. According to him, Andre suffered a loss in production under high school basketball because he was forced out of his comfort zone and time to time had to play under the basket because of his height. He was introduced into AAU, and completely blossomed to a star player because of the elite talent that revolved around the organization. While some praise the aspect of AAU ball, critics believe it is an organization full of corruption. NBA agents, college coaches, shoe companies want to raise sales and to simply have the best talent to represent. They want to find the next Michael Jordan or LeBron James, but are limited in doing so. AAU basketball is able to fill that void, but with a cost that relies on illegal actions such as providing impermissible benefits that could actually hurt the player in the long run. Numerous college athletes have been suspended because of impermissible benefits and links to NBA agents and boosters.