Introduction: Professional basketball is a fast, demanding and highly complex game. Although high physiological and physical fitness seem essential for being successful in elite basketball (Drinkwater et al., 2008, Ziv & Lidor, 2009), a direct link between game performance scores and fitness measures is rarely shown (McGill et al., 2012). Therefore the aim of this study was to relate the outcome of basketball specific pre-seasonal fitness tests with game performances in the following season in a cohort of junior and senior professional basketball players. Methods: 73 male elite players from teams of the highest German basketball junior (JBBL: n= 28, age: 14,8±0,7 years, height: 183±8 cm, weight: 67,8±14,6kg; NBBL: n= 20, age: 17,0±0,8 years, height: 194±9 cm, weight: 78,6±9,5 kg) and senior (BBL: n= 25, age: 26,3±3,6 years, height: 196±9 cm, weight: 101,3±9,8kg) leagues participated. All athletes performed a battery of preseasonal fitness tests linked to speed (21m-Sprint (21S, s), 10x15m Repeated Sprint Test (RST, s)), jumping ability (No step vert (NSV, cm), maxVert (MV, cm)), aerobic endurance (YoYoIR1-Test (m)) and agility (lane-agility-test (LAT, s)). During the following season, games and minutes played, points scored, assists, rebounds, steals, and blocks were assessed as dependent variables of game performance. Results: In young junior players (JBBL) all fitness measures were significantly related to one or more game performance scores (p<0.05; 0.18
© Copyright 2014 19th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Amsterdam, 2. - 5. July 2014. Published by VU University Amsterdam. All rights reserved.