By John Feinstein
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 2:15 PM

SAN ANTONIO -- On the afternoon of the 2008 national championship game a powerful and influential group of basketball officials sat on a podium -- two of them actually -- in front of a packed hotel ballroom to make a very important announcement about the future of youth basketball.

NBA Commissioner David Stern was there, as was NCAA President Myles Brand. Georgia Tech basketball Coach Paul Hewitt was the third man at the front table. They had the speaking roles.

Behind them sat representatives of two shoe companies, high school basketball, USA basketball and the AAU. In all, 10 people were at the "Developmental Table."

The dog and pony didn't have seats but they were very much present in the room.

Brand spoke first and was followed by Stern and Hewitt. They spoke in glowing terms about the coming together of the basketball world to try to improve the quality of youth basketball. They said they were forming a corporation that would (of course) have a web site. They were proud and happy to make this announcement.

But what exactly did they announce?

"Good question," Stern said later. "I think what we're trying to say is we're all working together to make tangible progress in areas where we need to make progress."

Those areas, according to Brand include building strong communities educating athletes, supporting coaches, developing officials and building events for youth competition.

All noble goals. How did they plan to reach them?

"That's our next step," Brand said. "What we've established here is a partnership and a corporation (no name for it yet) that is going to try to work on all of these issues."

Perhaps they could have added that they would also like to work on the issues of World Hunger; ending the war in Iraq and health insurance for all Americans. There appeared to be as many tangible ideas in the room on those issues as on that of youth basketball.

If you cut through all the eloquence, here's what is going on: everyone in basketball knows that summer basketball has run amok. AAU coaches frequently play a more important role in the lives of their players than high school coaches. Some AAU coaches aren't even coaches, just street agents who pose as coaches to get close to players who are seen as future stars -- and moneymakers. The shoe companies want a piece of this pie -- and have pretty much taken control of it -- and most high school stars will tell you that their AAU coach, their street-agent (who usually comes in the form of an 'uncle') and several shoe company reps are their best pals in life.

So, the notion of trying to bring some control to this mess is a good one. Brand talked -- away from the podium when questioned -- about training and certifying coaches. A fine idea but where exactly will these coaches come from? College coaches can't work summer camps because for every five that do there will be five that don't and those that don't will scream, "recruiting disadvantage."

"That's one of the things we need to do," Brand said. "Identify good coaches out there and help them by giving them certification, which will give them more credibility with players."

Perhaps. More likely, free sneakers have more credibility than a certificate with Stern and Brand's autographs on them. Still, it's worth a try.

While Brand was non-committal about the notion of summer academies or camps run by the new corporation -- "we aren't at that point yet," -- Stern was more blunt. "I think that's what we'll get to eventually," he said. "It could be as early as the summer of 2009."

That may be a starting point. As Brand (correctly) noted there is nothing the NCAA, the NBA or anyone else can do to completely rein in the abuses going on in summer ball. There will always be street agents and posses and people who want to lurk around star players. But if the NCAA and the NBA can put their considerable muscle behind summer programs that will in some way educate kids on everything from learning to say no, to who to stay away from, to what their chances of truly making money playing basketball might be; that would be a step in the right direction.

The biggest problem though, was evident by all the different entities represented in the room. Everyone can sit on podiums and smile from now until doomsday and it isn't going to fix summer basketball or youth basketball in general. Brand began by pointing out that this "initiative," had started two years ago. So, two years later, everyone gets together in a room in front of a bunch of TV cameras to say: we know there's a problem, we want to do something about the problem and we're going to keep talking about the problem.

It's a little bit reminiscent of a character from the old 'Gong Show.' He would be introduced as, "Larry and his clarinet." Larry would come out and explain how he was going to play his clarinet; how he really wanted to play his clarinet; how he was just about to play his clarinet.

He never actually got around to playing his clarinet.

That's what this appeared to be about. The NCAA and the NBA really, really want to play the clarinet. They recognize that it is important that they play it together and that a lot of people who care about clarinet players everywhere need them to play and play together and play well.

But they still haven't played a note.

Maybe it would have been better to have made an "announcement," like Monday's after they had played a few notes. It would have been nice to have someone introduced as being in charge of identifying coaches or as the head of the new basketball academy. Someone like unfairly fired ex-Harvard coach Frank Sullivan or someone really smart like Billy Packer (not that Sullivan isn't smart) or maybe even Pat Riley, who may have been scouting the women's Final Four in search of players for the Miami Heat. Those are just a few examples of people who could be brought in to the fold to help. Of course there wouldn't have been for them on either platform. Maybe they could have come in with the dog and the pony.

Still, let's not knock the idea of trying to do something to clean up summer basketball. Any step would be a step forward and there is already recognition that there is a problem.

The NCAA and the NBA told the world today that summer basketball has problems. They held off on also telling us that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.

At least it's a start. Of course if they ever actually get around to doing something, that press conference may have to be held in a dome somewhere. The good news is the NCAA has plenty of access to domes these days.

By the way, everyone looked great in the post press conference photos. The photographer used a very wide lens.