To become a future NBA star, kids need to start early. More often than not, especially in the United States, that means enrolling in a school with a strong basketball program. But former NBA champion Kendrick Perkins has a warning for those lacing up their boots. He ranted about it on the latest edition of his Road Trippin podcast.<\/p>\n
Perkins, of course, wants to see new ballers emerge from all across the country. However, he feels that the public school system is broken for those who wish to pursue basketball. His reasoning is that students are spending too much of their day studying subjects he considers irrelevant. His message was clear: if you want to make it past high school basketball, avoid public school.<\/p>\n
The ex-Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> big man knows what it takes to reach the NBA and succeed there. That is why his opinion carries weight. Much of his criticism comes down to the training regimens in public schools.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have plans on playing basketball past high school at any level, regular public school is not he f****** answer,\u201d he began.\u00a0\u201cTimes are different. They\u2019re wasting three hours of their day doing s*** at their school that is not benefiting them, and they are getting behind the 8-ball.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n To further drive home this point, Perkins brought up how those who deem themselves dedicated enough to becoming an NBA star are going to prep school. \u201cThe top-tier players, the ones that are taking basketball serious, they are either in a home school or prep school.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cMarcus Spears\u2019 son, who was just named the No. 1 player in the country, his son goes to Jermaine O\u2019Neal\u2019s school. Jermaine O\u2019Neal has a prep school in Dallas that his son went to. By the way, his son is at SMU now, full ride,\u201d revealed<\/a> the former Boston Celtics star.<\/p>\n Perkins then stated that subjects like science or social science are a waste of time for kids who want to make basketball their life. He argued that they only need to learn how to read, write, and do basic math. \u201cThe other part of your day needs to be dedicated to working on your craft. Because if you\u2019re not, you\u2019re going to be behind in the game of basketball,\u201d he barked.<\/p>\n To further assert his point, Perkins cited international superstars Luka Doncic<\/a>, Victor Wembanyama<\/a>, and Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, insisting that there was no way they spent the majority of their time in school.<\/p>\n \u201cI just saw a 13-year-old out there, who\u2019s 6\u20198\u2033 in Paris, that they just put on social media. I guarantee you he\u2019s not in school for 7\u20138 f****** hours a day. He\u2019s training,\u201d the 40-year-old added, referring to Mohamed Dabone, who recently joined FC Barcelona.<\/p>\n Perk probably means well. And he is partly right that young players will be entering a vast talent pool in the future. But to act as if public schools do not build sports and athletics into their programs is a wild claim. They always have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To become a future NBA star, kids need to start early. More often than not, especially in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-83979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}