We have a rule in Costa Rican basketball that forces teams to play players under the age of 21 a certain amount of minutes; our basketball federation believes this will help develop young talent by forcing teams to play young players. While the specifics of the rule has varied over the years, I think it's a poorly designed rule that has unintended consequences. I'm a big believer that players should earn their minutes. This rule force feeds minutes to players that are either not ready, or haven't earned that opportunity.
The advocates of the rule points to Rohel Wilson and the Conejo brothers as success stories; Rohel Wilson was going to be a star anyways, I knew as much when he walked into our gym about six years ago (and couldn't quite convince him to stay). Luis and Isaac Conejo are great basketball players...I think you could argue that the rule accelerated their development, but I think a bigger part of their development should be attributed to Coach Josh Erickson, who put his faith in these young players and has let them grow.
Of the league's top 30 scorers, only two have come up under the sub 21 rule (Rohel Wilson and Luis Conejo), a rule that has now existed for six years. All those minutes have been invested and we have little to show for it. Have we seen an exponential improvement in the Juegos Nacionales or the Sub 21 national teams?
This is not a diatribe against young players. I enjoy coaching young players and watching them develop.I've been fortunate to work with some good young players, including the current crop of Escazu players which makes up the backbone of the dangerous Escazu Juegos Nacionales team.
We have six Sub 21 players on this year's squad who work hard in practice every week.
- Jose "Fafa" Garcia: a gritty combo guard who dealt with ACL surgery last year
- Adrian Chavarria: a nifty shooter who lit up Michael in a game last year
- Ian Waugh: the youngest of the group, a long swingman who's not afraid to go against the older guys
- Armando Duran: a heady point guard who has great ball vision and feel for the game
- Ronny Johnson: a speedster who can blaze the court.
- Victor Arias: another one of the younger players, Victor is an athletic big man who has a world of potential
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| Victor Arias at the line. |
Heading in to our game against Perez Zeledon, we had two goals: win the game and play our sub 21 players a total of 33 minutes. PZ is not a pushover; they have three players who can have big games at any point. To work in that many sub 21 minutes puts pressure on execution from our starters so we can work in the young guys in the rotation. Our guys did a good job of getting off to a strong start, breaking out a ten point lead. Armando Duran took the reins from our starting point guard and guided the team to an even bigger lead, pushing the lead up to 25 in the first half. Ronny Johnson then came in and did a great job on PZ's point guard, Thomas Douglas, matching speed with speed. Fafa, who's usually played the bulk of the Sub 21 minutes, came in and did his job. Finally, Victor had a strong game in the post rotation, even putting an emphatic dunk on league vet Pitico. We coasted to an easy win and, but just as important, met our sub 21 minutes by a wide margin.
Game Notes
- Dave Millinier had 20 points in a very efficient 20 minutes; he's been very effective against PZ all year. Michael Jackson added 18 points, while Isaac Saint Rose scored 17. Semaj Inge led PZ in scoring with 23.
- We held PZ sharpshooter Jacki Acuña under 10 points which may have been the greatest accomplishment in this game. Isaac, Busta and Diego combined to smother him on the defensive end.
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