This past June the NBA welcomed a few dozen new players into the league as members of the Class of 2006. Players like Tyrus Thomas, Rudy Gay, and the infamous Renaldo Balkman will forever be linked together because of that amazing night they shared in the summer of 2006. With the rookies just a few short months away from making their NBA debut, I began to wonder what these young men were like as adolescent hoop stars.

After spending some time running a basketball clinic for local kids from the ages of six to fourteen, and participating in and refereeing several pick-up playground games I have come up with a few words of advice for anyone looking to get involved in youth basketball...

Forget about the idea of fairness

You can almost never construct fair teams when dealing with kids in a varying age group like the one I dealt with. Ultimately, the kids who are most talented are friends and choose each other for their teams. On the other end of the spectrum, the kids who suck are also friends and they don?t care about getting their butts handed to them as long as they do so alongside kids of their liking.

Don?t be sexist

A lot of times kids overlook little girls decked out in pink because they don?t think they know the first thing about any sports, let alone basketball. Think again. I know a handful of six-to-eight year old girls who could beat a few clumsy ten year-old boys with both hands tied behind their backs.

Hands are legal

When playing basketball with the youth of our nation I discovered that wrist slaps are an acceptable form of defensive pressure. The move is most often used by the slower kids who can?t keep up with the better kids on the court, but when I saw a twelve year-old smack the nail polish off of a eight year-old girls finger nails I figured it must be legal in some sort of playground rule book.

Two is always better than one

Why dribble with one hand when you can dribble with two? This must be another rule that is only enforced upon entering high school-level basketball. About half of the kids do it, but the ones who don?t never call the others out on it. I once counted a girl double dribble fifteen times before she passed the ball to a teammate. She also stopped her dribble and started it up again several times as well and she was twelve, which isn?t that young. I?ve never seen the game of basketball look so ugly.

Rock ?n Jock

Remember those MTV Rock ?n Jock games of the mid-nineties where guys like Dean Cain would try for that special 25-point shot all game? The hoop seemed to be at least one hundred feet in the air and he would miss the shot fourty-three times before finally making one that also happen to win the game for his team. You know how must of the shots attempted at the 25-point Rock ?n Jock basket were air-balls? Well, that?s what it?s like watching some kids play basketball on a ten-foot hoop. Only more painful.

Walker syndrome

Several kids are fans of simply throwing the ball at the rim from as far away from the basket as possible. Some of them will actually give up an open mid-range jumper and dribble back behind the three-point line to chuck a brick at the backboard. Very Antoine Walker-esque.

Never volunteer to be the referee

Every time the kids saw I was going to referee their games they thought they had an automatic win. These kids would actually expect me to overlook things on their end, while calling ?fouls? non-stop on the other side. The thing is both teams were thinking the same thing, that I was on their side. I wonder if that?s how Dwyane Wade feels...

Never encourage a dunk

Don?t start lifting little boys and girls up so that they can hang on the rim. Before long you?ll be lifting the older, and much heavier kids up onto the rim and your arms will feel as though they are bleeding internally.

The clueless ones

Watch out for the kids running around in circles who claim they want to play basketball too. Run a few tests by them before you allow them to join in the potential game. Ask them what kind of ball you?re playing with and if they say, ?The bouncy one!? Relegate them to the cheering section. Otherwise you?ll end up with little kids running around the court and ignoring what?s going on during the game while screaming, ?I?m cute!? and claiming they are some kind of human flag.

Most of all just figure out so way to make everyone feel as though they won, otherwise you?ll need to break up some fights and wipe away some tears. Little kids are about as emotionally stable as Ron Artest and Adam Morrison combined...

Andrew can be reached at Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com