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Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Basketball - Complexity

Read a modern political platform or newspaper op-ed and you will see what psychologists call “binary bias,” the tendency to reduce complexity to two positions. Pick up the Nicomachean Ethics, on the other hand, and you will see Aristotle laying out a whole range of views on various topics. - From a summary of Think Again

Don't distill thinking to black and white. What basketball bickering reduces to 'A' or 'B'? 

  • Phil Jackson or Red Auerbach (plus Popovich and others)
  • Analytics or eyeball tests (the Barkley rejection of analytics)
  • Old school or new school (NIL changes everything)
  • Duke or Kentucky (many know it's UCONN)
  • Offense or defense (seek balance in life)
  • Make plays or run plays (both matter)
  • Celtics or Lakers (that's why they make chocolate and vanilla)
Don't worship the one-armed economist. There is no "on the other hand." Stay open. Complex problems seldom have simple solutions. Consider another domain, volleyball positive scoring - attacks, blocks, serves. Teams can't 'only' attend to one area to win. 

Simplify wherever possible. 
  • Teach concepts, e.g. pick-and-roll, give and go
  • Use hard-to-defend actions - cuts, simple and complex screens 
  • Run them from different sets (spread, horns, box)
  • Have a rebounding (2 or 3 to the glass) and floor balance plan 
Track results. "Winners are trackers." - Darren Hardy
  • Shot charts, turnovers, rebounds are great places to start.
  • Hustle plays like 50-50 balls, held balls, charges, screen assists help non-scorers get recognized
Fundamentals first. You can't run what you can't run. Popovich says, "technique beats tactics." 

Lagniappe. Make a difference. 

Lagniappe 2. We teach more than basketball. 

Lagniappe 3. Not shown here, but Jayson Tatum often operates from a closed stance. 

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