In 2015 BCBA was established to provide a place where the kids in our community could come together to play organized recreational basketball. So every Spring and Fall since, BCBA has hosted a Jr Nba Recreational league and we plan to continue for many years to come.
Over the past year our board has been been hard at work discussing how we can significantly strengthen support for quality basketball in our community. We opened up registration for Fall Recreational ball expecting to launch a new league format but things have been coming together well over the last month so we have decided to start the transition now as we feel it will provide better opportunities for our players to develop their skill and love of Basketball
So, to better serve our players, we will be starting the transition from our current recreational only structure to an academy format, which incorporates a recreational/developmental/elite basketball player path. This will allow us to not only better serve the newest player exploring an interest in basketball, but to also provide defined support paths for basketball skill and leadership development with the ultimate goal of our players forming important life skills through competitive sport.
We currently have a strong recreational league with a mixture of individually registered players of varied skills and experience, some preorganized teams and some “elite” teams. With this recreational structure/size it is extremely difficult to create league parity and provide maximum potential for a positive game-day experience for players at all levels.
So while we are a play to win organization, we believe at the recreational level that:
- At 6th grade and below players should compete man to man with victory being determined by the play of the players and not coaching schemes. If we can make the teams as even as possible the games should generally be very competitive and give the players maximum positive experience.
- At 7th-8th grade there should be a transition where players learn to interface with a coach’s game strategy and the success of the team is a combination of the players’ ability to play as well as how they execute offensive and defensive concepts developed by their coach.
- At high school, generally, teams are formed and enter the recreational league registered as a team.
There are exceptions to the typical development path when a player demonstrates above average skill, drive and/or basketball IQ, where they they can accelerate above the average development curve and work on higher level basketball skills and concepts even at a younger age.
These players can apply/tryout/move into an “elite” program where they can access additional practice sessions and activities with the goal of becoming part of an “elite” player pool.
So an accelerated player, during the rec season and throughout the year, based on their continuing evaluation and availability, can participate in Elite Practice Plans and be invited to participate in additional competitive leagues, local popup games/tournaments, as well as regional/national tournaments with AAU, YBOA, ACA and other high level basketball competitions.
This developmental/elite support structure will also provide a defined path leading to significantly better opportunities to play quality middle/high school, college, semi-pro and professional basketball.
Providing a consistent support system for this complete player roadmap, from the player who just wants to play basketball for fun to the one who wants to be the next Kobe Bryant, is not and will not be easy, but we have a core team willing to execute and we hope and believe that there will be others to follow.
Transition
As previously mentioned we have individual players and some formed teams of various skilled players registering. we also have “elite” program players with formed teams at the 7th, 8th and high school levels under our Blue Chip Elite program. There are still quite a few details being worked out, but moving forward for the BCBA Jr NBA recreational season we plan to properly evaluate all players before and during the season.
Our “elite” program players will be expected to support the Blue Chip recreational season (approximately 16-20 games/yr) by being distributed in the league as necessary to meet their development and the organizations needs. Sometimes playing on an Elite competitive team or into a recreational team to give more game time minutes to expand their leadership experience and allowing them to play positions they may not normally play on their “elite” squad.
Moving Forward
BCBA Basketball will have an academy-wide uniform that will be used for at least a 1 year cycle. Teams will still use NBA team names, but now we can more easily redistribute players around the league to maintain as much parity as possible. In the past it was virtually impossible to redistribute because players would be stuck with a specific team uniform.
We also hope and expect that by providing an exceptional uniform along with the execution of a quality support program that it will instill a sense of pride with our players to be a part of something worthwhile.
Right now it looks like the the Blue Chip Rec uniforms are going to price at $75. If you research full dye sublimated reversible uniforms of this quality you will find the lowest at wholesale cost qty 500 is typically no less than $75. Basketball programs around the country usually charge around $100 or more for this type of uniform.
Registration
The owners of BCBA, Jeremy Pinkney & Dennis Illagan, have agreed to absorb the uniform cost to Blue Chip registrants for this first season of transition. So this Fall season the registration fee will stay the same ($210), and moving forward the registration fee starting next season will most likely be $185 + uniform fee for anyone without the league uniform.
A typical BCBA jr. NBA season includes 1 preseason game 7 regular season games and a playoff tournament.
Registration is now closed for fall. Spring registration will open soon and as each age/grade is filled it will close and a wait-list will be formed. Registrations for any open spots CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
We hope you will be patient with us as we implement this new system and transition. Our main challenges are:
- Transitioning the thought process of coaches, players and parents from a relatively unregulated recreational basketball league to a well structured player development academy. This will encompass a large amount of player support of features not offered elsewhere. It will be an evolutionary process with many ideas currently being implemented and technical bugs to be squashed. We will be working diligently and we will need your patient feedback to help us get it running smoothly.
- Dealing with preorganized teams which may have an exceptional number of skilled players and a coach who is not on our coaching staff and does not strictly follow our guidelines. If we cannot fully eliminate or deal with preorganized teams in this transition and we do not have enough teams to form into a separate division, then your player’s team may have to play a lopsided game or two during the regular season but these teams would only play other organized teams or play up a division for the playoffs.
- Convert from a less structured format to a strict adherence to USA Basketball, AAU/YBOA rules and Jr. NBA player development working group guidelines. Eventually have all of our competitive divisions split out by graduating class with age limit. This not only allows the most number of players to play against their schoolmates, but also leads into development towards grade based upper level basketball competition. We hope to accomplish this quickly but based on several factors we may have some multi age/grade divisions until we fully transition.
