"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." - Jim Rohn
"Little things make big things happen." - John Wooden
Programs survive or wither according to attention to detail. Detail first means getting the right people in the right positions in your organization. Teams like the San Antonio Spurs "hire tough" with superior head coaching and unconventional assistants like Etorre Messina and Becky Hammon. They work their culture of communication, collaboration, selflessness, and teamwork.
John Wooden introduced each season by instructing players how to wear their socks and shoes. Preventing blisters meant keeping players on the court. "You can't make the club from the tub." John Calipari doesn't coach effort, he measures it with heart rate monitoring of Kentucky players during practice. Bill Belichick is the Alex Trabek of the NFL, quizzing players during meeting about opponents, where they went to school, preferences, and tendencies.
"The devil is in the details." On good teams, players know each other's 'sweet spots', where they like to operate. They know a player's range, whether she prefers to shoot or drive. A post player must recognize when to empty an area to open a driving lane, how and when to set ball screens, and where players tend to miss shots. Some players habitually miss long or short. Guards should avoid feeding big in space who can't handle the ball well. Players need to know when to foul ("foul for profit") and whom.
Coaches have 'specialty' teams, too. They may have a pressing unit or an end-of-game squad with better foul shooting and facility to run 'delay'. They also must know players' strengths and weaknesses, such as vulnerability to ball pressure or trapping or strengths and weaknesses in transition or half-court play.
A coach can design a ball screen to penetrate favoring the ballhandler's dominant hand or a play forcing the help defender to 'forget' and help off the 'corner 3'. I recently shared the 1989 Pistons' designs to overburden Michael Jordan with double and triple teams.
Players choose how they construct offseason development. Tim Grover discusses the grueling workouts of players like Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade in Relentless. Players decide whether they will pay the price. Bryant opines, “This book is the blueprint for discovering what you’re capable of achieving, getting results you never imagined, and reaching the highest level of success.”
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu writes "Every battle is won before it's ever fought." Results follow planning, preparation, practice, and execution of a strategy, with the foreknowledge that "technique beats tactics." The Alabama football team returned to the locker room amidst a lightning storm and each player had a handout on his chair. Coach Saban and his staff were prepared for the unexpected and wasted no time during the delay.
"Success is a choice," wrote Rick Pitino. You allocate your professional development including conditioning, skill development, sport psychology, reading and study, nutrition - how you invest or spend your time. "Your paycheck is your responsibility."
