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Saturday, March 22, 2025

Basketball - Finding Luck

Scott Celli, a local volleyball coach who has won a State Title, Ten Sectional titles and sixteen consecutive league titles argues that three elements forge winning - skill, health, and luck.

Some say, "you make your own luck." To a degree, that's true. Author David Austin wrote about luck in 1978 in Chase, Chance, & Creativity. Author Sahil Bloom summarized his findings:

  1. Blind Luck: Completely out of your control. It includes where you are born, who you are born to, base circumstances of your life, "acts of God", and more. Blind Luck covers the truly random occurrences of the universe.
  2. Luck from Motion: You’re creating motion and collisions through hustle and energy that you are inserting into an ecosystem. The increase in collisions opens you up to more lucky events.
  3. Luck from Awareness: The result of your awareness and depth of understanding of a specific domain. This depth of understanding within a given arena allows you to become very good at positioning yourself for lucky breaks to benefit you.
  4. Luck from Uniqueness: Occurs when your unique set of attributes attracts specific luck to you. It actually seeks you out.
"Luck from Motion" describes making our own luck through the unseen hours, the unrequired work, nose to the grindstone effort. "The harder I work, the luckier I get." 

"Luck from Awareness" relates to "domain expertise." Choose to learn every day, not as a know-it-all but as a "learn-it-all." Author and NBA Champion Assistant Coach Kevin Eastman reads two hours daily. That 180-hour difference gives him a leg up as a coach, author, and motivational speaker. 

How else do we find luck? 
  • Mentoring. "Mentoring is the only shortcut to excellence." 
  • Metacognition. "Thinking about thinking."
  • "Deliberate practice." Bring intentionality to all we do. Study film. Study great coaches. Study great players. Study mistakes. 
  • Artificial intelligence. Use free resources like ChatGPT and Claude.ai for summaries as springboards to knowledge advance. 
  • Teach better. Study great teachers like Richard Feynman and Doug Lemov.
For example, here's ChatGPT responding to a prompt about Lemov: 

Doug Lemov, best known for Teach Like a Champion, focuses on practical, high-leverage teaching techniques that improve student learning. Here are some key insights from his work:

  1. Technique Over Talent – Great teaching isn’t just about charisma; it's about specific, trainable techniques that anyone can learn and refine.

  2. No Opt Out – When a student gets an answer wrong or doesn’t respond, the teacher ensures they engage by circling back to them after giving support, reinforcing participation and accountability.

  3. Cold Call – Calling on students regardless of whether they’ve raised their hands keeps everyone engaged and ready to think critically.

  4. Check for Understanding – Instead of assuming students understand, teachers should systematically gather real-time data through questioning, observation, or quick assessments.

  5. Right is Right – Teachers should hold out for completely correct answers rather than accepting partially correct or vague responses.

  6. Ratio – Effective lessons increase the percentage of cognitive work students do, rather than over-relying on the teacher explaining.

  7. Wait Time – Giving students time to process before answering improves depth of thought and response quality.

  8. Positive Framing – Correcting misbehavior or mistakes in a way that keeps students motivated rather than discouraged.

  9. Joy Factor – Engaging students through structured fun, competition, or a sense of accomplishment keeps learning exciting.

  10. Exit Tickets – A quick question or task at the end of a lesson helps assess what students grasped and informs the next steps in teaching.

What do better coaches do? They radiate caring, inspire, remain positive, give and get feedback, and set high expectations. Their students become "luckier" with better grades and standardized test scores. 

Lagniappe. A quote from David Baldacci's "The Hit." "Success or failure was always defined largely during the preparation. With good planning all one had to do was execute. Even last-second changes could be made with greater ease if the planning in the first place had been precise."

Lagniappe 2. Build better habits. James Clear argues that habits are the votes for the type of person we wish to become. Make it easier to follow good habits and harder to follow less productive ones. "Don't miss twice." 

Lagniappe 3. ATO's from Tevin Brown 

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