By 
From 5 to 10 years:
Youth basketball is the spirit of the game. Watching new kids play the game you love and realizing it used to be you is an unreal feeling. Kids this age play games because their parents will most likely sign them up. It’s full of trips, fouls, and ball grabbing, but that’s all the fun. The referee jokes around with the kids while you have the occasional pushy parent who takes youth basketball too seriously. It is very likely that all players will be assigned numbers so that each player plays the same amount of time regardless of their skill or talent. Some may say that this is a problem to teach in the younger stage, but youth is not about winning games, it is about seeing if children fall in love with the game. As the youth years pass, kids drop out or enter travel programs where they can gain even more of their basketball experience.
From 11 to 15 years:
Between high school and the beginning of high school, these are the players who really love the game. They have played enough to decide if they want to step on the court or not. In this age range, basketball officially becomes a sport for them. Kids get interested in the competitiveness of the game and really learn the building blocks of becoming a great player. AAU starts around this age, which can be very positive for a player, or could be very detrimental depending on the specific team players choose to be on.
Ages: 16 to 18:
Before this age group, all kids get possibly the same amount of playing time, but this is the time when basketball is not just a sport, it starts to become a job. Between schoolwork, private coaching lessons, high school practices, and AAU practice, kids learn skills that don’t involve the game itself. They learn commitment. They learn what hard work is. They learn that you can’t just throw a basketball onto the court and expect to win. They learn to manage time and balance priorities. What they also learn is whether they are serious about the game of basketball and the level at which they want to play. This is the age group that separates scholarship holders from those who play to play. Players stay after school and work on their own game or go home and stay on the couch and don’t try to improve because maybe they just don’t care about advancing to a higher level of play.
Ages: 19-22
College basketball is no longer a sport or a game. It is a business and with that business each player has a job to be in the team. They are asked to do certain obstacles and drills that are not made for the typical player… which is why they were offered to play in the first place. Basketball becomes life at this time. Either you work hard enough to make basketball your potential career or you can use it to develop strong mental and physical stability that will improve your life after graduation.