How to convince kids that there’s more than scoring in basketball

Today, most kids see the soaring dunks of a LeBron James or the unconscious three-point shooting of many college stars (think Dell Curry’s kid, Stephen, for Davidson in the 2008 NCAA tournament) and all they seem to care about is scoring points.

How do you convince a young basketball player that there are many facets of the game beyond scoring?

Things like learning to play defense so well that you can actually help your team more by shutting down the opponent’s top scorer than worrying about how many you score each game.

Or by becoming a team leader, helping other less-talented teammates to remember where they’re supposed to be in certain offensive or defensive sets.

Or at a young age that they simply will be more effective and help their team more by taking good shots from 10 to 12 feet rather than trying to emulate their NBA heroes by shooting three-pointers all of the time.