Talent Selection Strategies and Relationship With Success in European Basketball National Team Programs

Abstract

There is limited knowledge of the talent selection strategies used by national sporting organizations to identify and develop talented players in basketball. Therefore, we aimed to explore differences in selection strategies between European youth basketball national team (NT) programs, and how they relate to the program's success. Specifically, we examined differences in the number of youth NT players and within-country variance in the 1988-1999 generations between 38 countries (n men = 38, women = 32). Further, we tested if the number of youth NT players and within-country variance was related to the NTs senior ranking, youth ranking, and youth-to-senior player promotion, using generalized Bayesian multilevel models. We further checked the moderating effect of the amount of licensed basketball players in each country. On average, 15.6 ± 2.0 male and 12.4 ± 1.8 female players were selected per generation. Over a third of the NTs consistently selected a higher or lower number of players than the average, with a difference of 8.1 players (95% CI [5.8, 10.8]) for men and 7.6 players (95% CI [5.4, 10.0]) for women between the countries with the highest and lowest average. When licensed players were used as moderator, the differences decreased but did not disappear, in both genders. There was an above 99.3% probability that a higher number of players was positively related to higher men's senior and youth rankings, and women's youth ranking. Within countries, generations with a higher number of youth players generated more senior players, with a probability of 98.4% on the men's, and 97.3% on the women's side. When licensed players were used as moderator, the probabilities for these relationships remained largely unaffected, apart from women's youth ranking, which sank to 80.5%. In conclusion, the selection strategy in basketball NT programs varies between European countries and selecting a higher number of players possibly relates to better long-term performance and more players promoted to the senior NTs. These findings show that talent development programs should make conscious decisions about their selection strategies as it can affect their success.

Keywords: countries; national sporting organizations; sport federation; talent identification; team sport; youth national team.

FIGURE 1

Flowchart of aims, analyses, and data of the study.

FIGURE 2

Average number of youth players per generation for each country, with colors indicating differences from overall average.

FIGURE 3

Relationship between countries’ reported number of licensed players (on log scale) and mean number of youth players per generation, with 50, 80, and 95% CI of posterior predicted distribution.

FIGURE 4

Relationship between countries’ mean number of youth players per generation and ranking points controlled for number of licensed players, with 50, 80, and 95% CI of posterior predicted distribution.

FIGURE 5

Relationship between countries’ average number of youth players per generation and the number of players that reach senior controlled for number of licensed players, with 50, 80, and 95% CI of posterior predicted distribution.

FIGURE 6

Within-country relationship between number of youth players and number of players that reach senior in a generation controlled for number of licensed players and senior ranking, with 50, 80, and 95% CI of posterior predicted distribution. Lines indicate posterior prediction for each country.

FIGURE 7

Distribution of senior national team (NT) debut age, by gender and if player had played in youth NTs or not. Dashed line indicates median debut age.