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Sunday, March 16, 2025

Basketball Failure

We used to say, "every season ends in tears, tears of joy or disappointment." Successful coaches and players learn from failure. 

Basketball offers many ways to fail as organizations, coaches, or players. Failure is our companion, a prerequisite for success. Failure is a certainty; repeated failure questions our methods. 

Failure reflects 'structural' problems and/or 'decision/execution' issues. 

Structural:

  • Skill (talent/player and team development)
  • Strategy (game knowledge/experience)
  • Physicality (too little strength/quickness/conditioning)
  • Psychology (effort/resilience/mental toughness)
Decision/Execution: 
  • EFG% (shot selection/time-score-situation)
  • Turnovers - "Turnovers kill dreams; turnovers earn seats."
  • Rebounding (assignment/action/conversion to defense)
  • Fouling/basket attack ("Fouling negates hustle."


Graphic from Zak Boisvert

Personal beliefs/opinions

1) Coaching is a relationship business. Establishing trust, developing culture, and inspiring players are prerequisites to success. 

2) My job as a coach was to add sustainable value for a player's life. 

3) Learn how to develop players or get assistance. "Every day is player development day." 

4) A player has two priorities, to make others on the team better and to impact winning. 

5) Condition with a ball. Practice time is precious and we're coaching basketball not cross-country. 

6) Resilience includes the ability to play with intensity while playing under control. Intensity without emotional control can lead to chaos. 

7) I love practice. Practice creates opportunity for players to add value for themselves and for the team. 

8) Bad losses are part of the process. The worst relate to breakdowns in situational understanding leading to avoidable mistakes. 

9) Performance on the track is not the same as basketball conditioning. 

10) Practice situational basketball every practice to have a better chance to win close games (two possessions or less).

Lagniappe. Duke BOB, multiple scoring options. 

Lagniappe 2. Obvious...and yet...  

Lagniappe 3. Don Kelbick shooting. Coach Kelbick teaches, "think shot first" and emphasize what you're good at. 

 

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