Basketball - Giving Kara Lawson Her Due (Part 1)

"Any idiot with a whistle can coach." - Anonymous

Kara Lawson took a lot of abuse from people with questionable basketball pedigrees. Lawson responded with examples of character and competence. 

What has she actually done?

• Collegiate Excellence: Played for Pat Summitt at the University of Tennessee, becoming a two-time All-American and helping the Lady Vols reach three Final Fours
• Special Achievement: One of only three people ever to achieve an NCAA Final Four appearance, a WNBA Championship, and an Olympic Gold Medal. 
• Olympic Success: Won three gold medals representing the United States: as a player in 2008 (Beijing) and 2012 (London), and as head coach of the U.S. 3x3 team in 2020 (Tokyo). 
• WNBA Career: Won a championship with the Sacramento Monarchs in 2005, was named an All-Star in 2007
• Character: Earned the Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award twice. 
• Coaching Legacy: As head coach of Duke University (since 2020), built program to prominence with 124–50 records, four straight 20-win seasons, and ACC Tournament titles. 
• First female assistant coach in NBA history (Boston Celtics)
• FIBA World Cup Champion Head Coach 2026

Offensive Program

Horns sets - post entry with corner cut

                               - post entry into DHO if corner cut denied

Cutting     - 45 cuts when ball into the low post

                                  - "dunker spot cuts" into lane or opposite block

                     - if shooters are "top-locked" look for back cuts

PnR         - shooters weak side with ball side PnR making shooters                       available if defenders help  

Horns with clear and back cut from opposite elbow 

BLOB screen and variation of rescreening

Key Coaching Principles:

1. It never gets easier. You "handle hard better." 

2. Own your confidence. "Don't leave home without it."

 

3. Your responsibility is always giving your best. 

Like all excellent coaches, she prioritizes relationships, values, and standards. 

Basketball - OWLS

People want to be seen, heard, and understood. That's universal. We're offended by "not interested" or "get out of here." Consider, "maybe." Maybe doesn't agree or disagree. It invites more dialogue. 

Help young players understand the pathway to navigate. Share mnemonics, techniques to store and retrieve information. Take OWLS.

Teach the truth

An older attorney said, "Thinning hair and grey beards aren't all bad. They usually mean we've learned some of the answers. Athough they often mean that younger people don't want to hear them."

Kevin Eastman, NBA Champion assistant coach said about truth, "You have to be able to live it, you have to be able to tell it, and you have to be able to take it.”

Forget about, "You can't handle the truth." Excellent players and coaches want to improve. They want the truth. They need the truth. 

Keep it simple

OWLS symbolize wisdom. The Greeks believed the owl could see an "inner light" unseen by humans. An owl was said to perch on Athena's blind side so she could perceive the whole truth.

O - Others. Make a difference for others. Decades after I played high school basketball, a former JV player told me, "You were always nice to me." It doesn't cost anything to be nice.  

W - Impact winning. Give what the game needs. Part of our 'bag' may not be working. Maybe it means grinding effort, communication, and encouragement, none of which show up in the scorebook. They show up on the scoreboard.

L - Lead. Everyone can lead. Lead with attention, composure, energy. Never be a distraction. Distinguish what needs to be said and what must be withheld. Nobody said, "You were the best I ever coached." But someone said, "You were the best leader we ever had." 

S - Self. You matter. Don't give away yourself. Serve the team and your teammates. In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran wrote, "You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give." Phil Jackson said it simpler, "Basketball is sharing." 

Spaced repetition

We learn best with spaced repetition. Coach Wooden's EDIRx5 recognizes this - explanation, demonstration, imitation, and repetition times five. 

Professional athletes, chessmasters, musicians, educators, doctors, and lawyers have lengthy 'runways' to excellence. Whether it's "10,000 Hours" or something less, repetition is essential. 

Be better. Be OWLS. 

Lagniappe. Simplify the keys. 

Jay Bilas shares one of Coach K's coaching secrets.

Most coaches lose their teams with the first thing they say that day or in the film session.

They walk in with 47 corrections, 12 clips, and 8 adjustments. Players leave overwhelmed and confused.

Coach K did the opposite.… pic.twitter.com/GPOEePLvCl

— Coach AJ 🎯 Mental Fitness (@coachajkings) August 31, 2026

Before every game, Coach Ellis Lane shared "3 Keys to victory." 

Image created by Chat GPT Plus 

 

What Is Our Coaching Legacy?

A dictionary definition of legacy: "Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor"

Everyone leaves a coaching legacy, generally mixed:

How we impacted people

How we impacted winning

Intangibles of character and competence

Once during the canonization process, the Catholic Church had a position called advocatus diaboli (devil's advocate), a canon lawyer tasked with arguing against the sainthood of candidates to uncover character flaws or fraudulent miracles. 

Even strong candidates have detractors. For instance, Mother Teresa did not believe in pain medicine in her hospital, thinking suffering brought people closer to God. She also had a friendship with "Baby Doc" Duvalier, son of the murderous dictator. 

What do we leave behind?

The record. Did you win? Did teams improve? Did players develop?

The beneficiaries. What do successful players remember of the experience?

The detractors. What do players who disliked you say? Is the criticism legitimate? 

The devil’s advocate. What would a fair-minded skeptic say about your  story?

The story that we tell ourselves may not overlay neatly with the truth as seen by others. 

What truths deserve recognition?

• The record. Winning coaches find and develop excellent players. So, winning demands "player dependence." 
• The beneficiaries. Winning creates a "halo effect" and halos obscure shadows. Are coaches proud of the players we coach and players favorable about the "player experience?" 
• The detractors. In Ball Four, a theme that emerges is "consider the source." On the other hand, don't dismiss criticism automatically. 
• The devil's advocate. Pros and cons are always present. Often attributed to Bob Knight: “If you listen to the critics in the stands, soon you’ll be sitting with them.”

John Barth: “Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.” So it is with coaching, regardless of the truth. 

Lagniappe. "What does the opponent want the game to look like-and how can we disrupt that?  

Mark Daigneault said something that should reshape how every defender thinks about the game:

“The players are too talented and the teams are too good to let them have their way… What does the opponent want the game to look like — and how can we disrupt that?”

That’s not… pic.twitter.com/oZlEsYamGW

— Mike Jagacki (@Mike_Jagacki) September 10, 2026

 

What Drives Winning Basketball?

How can you attack the issues that get in the way of your team maximizing it’s ability?Here’s two questions to start the conversation and help build a community of learners.

- What Drives Winning

Read on Substack

Brett Ledbetter does amazing work discussing the humanity of sport. Don't confuse insight with 'softness'. 

"What are the top three things that could get in the way with you maximizing your ability?"

"What is the biggest personal struggle that you're dealing with?"

We don't know what we don't know. 

Players have issues at home. Jerry West held a shotgun to his abusive father and told him that he would use it. 

Players have financial issues that impact housing and hunger, not just whether they can play club ball. 

A parent had serious health issues and died during the season. The parent had written me requesting extra support for the player. The team imploded while supporting the player.  

Never make assumptions. (from The Four Agreements)

How many coaches ask players what is going on in their lives (family, home, school, other relationships)? In A Sense of Where You Are, about Bill Bradley, the coach lists three words on the chalk board:

• Food
• Sleep
• Studies 

In small letters, he writes "Basketball."

Create Safe Spaces

The team (Oklahoma) thought she was selfish, taking "My Turn" or "Me, Too" shots. They confronted her about it and she broke down crying. She said that unless she scored, her father wouldn't talk to her. 

Coaching can't 'fix' everyone or everything. But if we don't know or choose not to know, then issues will impact winning. That's the truth that Ledbetter wants us to understand. 

Lagniappe. All possession changes are not equal. Live-ball turnovers and layups create higher points per possession chances for opponents. 

This is backed by the data. A missed layup leads to one of the highest PPP’s in both D1 and the NBA -roughly 1.35 PPP. This is also closer to 1.5 PPP if it’s a guard missing the bunny.

The takeaway is rotations on offensive penetration are critical, no matter what your… https://t.co/y0eIcss3az

— Chris Steed (@csteed) September 11, 2026

 

 

Basketball - The "To" or "For" Proposition

What's your impact? 

Extract information from multiple sources as possible. I've shared Michael Useem's questions from "The Leadership Moment." 

What went well? Preserve it.
What went poorly? Diagnose it.
What can we do better? Change it.
What are the enduring lessons? Teach them. 

Continual evaluation (we don't see everything) helps us to recalibrate our assessment. 

Brett Ledbetter (What Drives Winning?) stratifies value:

Person > Player > Performance

This points at "To" and "For" evaluation:

What is a player doing to the team? (It's more than numbers.)

What is a player doing for the team? 

Coaches, teammates, families, and outsiders all have different perspective, much like the Kurosawa classic, "Rashomon." 

Four versions of the truth emerge. Which explains what happened? 

Finding Answers

• Time - players evolve
• Volume of data - sample size
• Objective measures - "rationality"
• Avoiding confirmation bias - "everyone says so"
• Avoid emotional hijacking - "liking influences judgment"

Confounding variables

• Previous data 
• Changing conditions 
• Internal differences of opinion

As players and coaches, find positive ways to align "to" and "for." 

Lagniappe. Maintain an attack mentality on both ends of the floor. 

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Basketball - Passing Thoughts

When someone remembers you as a player, do they think of "great passer?" Me, neither. Coach Ellis Lane pounded it into us, "Take care of the basketball. The ball is gold." 

"Turnovers kill dreams."

"Everybody knows that." Most assuredly, our players all do not. 

How do our players "feel" and "think" about passing? Passing is about the other guy.  

1. Create a better opportunity 

It reflects Pete Newell's imperative, "Get more and better shots than opponents." Passing is a critical path. 

2. Opposite of “My Turn”

"My Turn" or "Me, Too" shots inform selfish basketball. Willing passers change a team. 

3. "The ball has energy"

Sharing the ball gets everyone involved. Ball stickers do the opposite. Bring energy and energize teammates. 

4. Recognize advantage

"Passers" find and exploit advantage...mismatch, overplays, defensive inattention (e.g. head turners), getting scorers the ball in their spots

5. Passers become cutters

Defenders tend to relax when the passer gives up the ball. That's the perfect time to seize advantage. Just as "the screener becomes the second cutter" so a passer can cut to score. 

6. Fall in love with easy

Flashy assists combined with high turnovers are a net negative. Assists demand context. Aaron Levenstein’s famous quote states: “Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.”

7. Passing is reading 

Passers read plays, seeking to make on time, on target passes. That means understanding angles, defensive intent, and seeing "help defenders." The passer may pass away from one defender and to another. 

8. Knowing when not to pass

There are times not to pass. Big guys in space are often not great ballhandlers. Close and late, passing to a poor free throw shooter is a negative. Remember Knight's "Power of Negative Thinking" and learn to understand the dos and don'ts. 

Lagniappe. Write with a specific person in mind. Explore the thread; it's worth it. 

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Adding Value - Abstract and Real

Add value. In the latter part of 1980, I did a pair of clerkships at the National Naval Medical Center - Bethesda. The first was Hematology-Oncology.

As a medical student I followed around LCDR James Martin, who had a specific routine. Before rounds, he polished his belt buckle and shined his Navy white shoes...every day. He looked and acted the part. After Dr. Martin had interviewed and examined a patient, they were almost thankful they had cancer and that Dr. Martin was their doctor. That's value.

Coaches have the opportunity to change lives...not just influence student-athletes. Build character and competence. 

Connect 

Be intentional. Help players feel seen and heard. Greet each by name upon their arrival and thank them at the end of practice. It didn't always go that well in a world touched by self-concern and envy. But we make the effort. 

Collaborate

We cannot extinguish the fire individually. Players, families, coaching, and community have to align. 

Coach

Coaching is teaching, inspiring, and correcting. Correction is not criticism. Coaching demands positive and negative feedback. I've seen a player commit 14 turnovers in a developmental setting in one game. "One bad play, bad play. Two bad plays, bad player. Three bad plays, bad coaching." Fourteen bad plays, mental health check for me...

An underappreciated skill is teaching players how to add value for themselves. 

• "Play a lot." Camp Driveway can only do so much for you. To "see the game" you have to play, ideally against better competition. 
• Study the game. That usually requires video...to study how players execute, how teams succeed, how coaches make a difference. Watch video on studying video, too. 
• Become more athletic. Sport rewards athletic explosiveness. The ability to accelerate and decelerate, to change directions, and execute on the move requires extensive investment. Roger Federer played a variety of sports until he was twelve, then specialized. Your preadolescent will benefit from learning to move as much as learning to play. 
• Become your own coach. Find balance during self-reflection between criticism and grace. Everyone has bad games, even exceptional players. During his 1968 season with an ERA of 1.12, Bob Gibson had a game where he allowed six earned runs. Conversely, during another stretch of 99 innings (11 starts) he allowed 3 earned runs (ERA 0.27). Nobody's perfect.  
• Seek balance. Courage balances recklessness and fear. Commitment balances obsession and laziness. Find joy in the balance. 

We call medicine 'practice' because we never attain perfection. Coaching won't reach perfection either. As Dean Smith said, "If we make every game a matter of life or death, we'll be dead a lot."

Lagniappe. Zip elevator. 

Lagniappe 2. To craft legacy, surround yourself with compounders. 

Surround yourself with compounders: pic.twitter.com/jQpwqpz8IP

— Reads with Ravi (@readswithravi) August 20, 2026

 

 

Our Basketball Idea File

"Ideas are the currency of the future." Coach Collins recently reminded us that "every great coach keeps an idea file."

We decide on the organization and content. Here are some personal thoughts on getting started. 

Suggestions on organization

Player development

Strategy

Physicality (strength and conditioning)

Psychology (mental toughness, psychology, resilience)

Building a Toolbox 

• Spreadsheets (Google Drive is free)
• Drill book
• Playbook
• Video teaching collection
• Websites/Links
• Personal journal (Blog, Commonplace book, note book)

 Miscellaneous 

"Jar of Awesome." Keep a jar of awesome recording 'great stuff' that happens on slips of paper. 

Basketball Design Matrix or "Creative Matrix Template" 

Okay, this is the antithesis of the McKinsey "three-second" rule where in three-seconds you get the takeaway. 

Life Lessons

Learn AI 

We don't need to understand language models or how to code to get something from AI. Like the "Centaur" chessmaster, become the better version of man and machine. 

Teach players daily lessons about how basketball teaches us "character and competence" - how to be a better human. 

Learn to integrate and filter the firehose of daily information. And teach players to do the same. 

Lagniappe. Brad Stevens told my wife (the rocket scientist), "Basketball is not rocket science." At the same time, simplifying complexity is an art. 

Computer scientist Sara Hooker on underestimating difficulty: pic.twitter.com/8OlJ2Kk9tg

— Reads with Ravi (@readswithravi) September 6, 2026

Lagniappe 2. An unusual version of a screen-the-screener action.  

Have never seen this version of a BLOB screen the screener before pic.twitter.com/68uI5ygi2X

— Matt Hackenberg (@CoachHackGO) September 5, 2026

 

 

 

Survival - Girls' Basketball Is on the Ropes

“It’s the hope that kills you.” - Ted Lasso

I'll give you one more sneak preview before I write up a full analysis, but this is what the trend looks like for boys vs. girls basketball participation in Massachusetts over the last 22 years (MIAA schools only).

Quite a clear difference https://t.co/UFHLgc8Ewb pic.twitter.com/1bIcUhfabQ

— Ethan Fuller (@ethman43) September 2, 2026

In Massachusetts, girls' basketball isn't extinct...but it's struggling. 

Basketball is a cruel mistress. 

Harsh demands on participants

• Physically - not a contact sport, a collision sport
• Innumerable skills to learn
• Physical conditioning mandate
• “Positionless” ability to defend
• High time and expense costs
• Competition from other sports, especially volleyball

Attract and retain student-athletes 

Tradition - be part of something special. Develop a program that produces "competence and character." If your mantra is, "If you build it they will come," then if you don't build it, they will go. 

Excellence - craft and reward excellence. Model excellence, add value, and minimize politics.

Leadership - "leaders make leaders." Have a specific plan to build leadership. Identify leadership opportunities and help players find leadership pathways. 

Accessibility - as an "industry," we have to do better to reduce barriers to entry (costs, availability). We should develop 'regional' (less than 25 miles) programs to foster competition without 'unlimited' expense. This will be hard.

Coaching - it's fine to make rules such as "no parent coaches" but finding low cost or volunteer coaching expertise competes with programs that pay. 

Joy - Find the fun. Find the joy. Leverage positive coaching. "Never be a child's last coach." Do not sacrifice kids on the altar of victory. Winning and ego compete with development. 

In economics, "capital finds its most efficient use." If that's true for athletes, then basketball is becoming inefficient.

Lagniappe. Ram screen plus. 

DOWN FLAT pic.twitter.com/EBPtmTanRo

— Hoops Companion 🏀 Resources for Coaches (@Hoops_Companion) September 5, 2026

Lagniappe 2. The shared posts are #7 in Feedspot's Top 100 basketball RSS feeds. I want to earn your readership every day.  

 

 

 

Messages for Young Coaches

Young coaches succeed spectacularly, fail miserably, and do everything in between. What separates them? 

Philosophy

Have a philosophy that is the program North Star. Mine was teamwork, improvement, and accountability. Yours can be entirely different. It is something to anchor on, winning or losing.  

Temperament

Represent maturity, responsibility, and positivity. Leading young people is both a privilege and responsibility. Being a hothead, out of control, or abusing officials and others is conduct unbecoming. 

Teaching (Character and competence)

"Every day is player development day." Coaches teach sport, teamwork, leadership, sportsmanship, and more. 

"Repetition makes reputations." Coaching includes correction and correction is not criticism. 

Player development

Player development includes both intangibles and specifics of:

• Skill
• Strategy 
• Physical development (e.g. strength and conditioning
• Psychology (mental toughness, resilience) 

Develop possession enders, players who create scores (assists, scores, rebounds) and stops (defense, turnovers, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc.)

Organization 

A coaching position doesn't come with a practice schedule, drill book, playbook, tryout plan, game planning, game management, and so on. 

Coaching is also editing. Refine your approach with experience - adding and subtracting. "Via Negativa" means subtraction and less is often more.  

Mentoring 

Find a mentor, someone you can go to with questions or for advice. If you have a mentor, think about Usher's advice, "study your mentor's mentor." 

Curiosity and openness 

Young coaches who are "know-it-alls" invariably end up with "the stock trader's breakfast" - egg on the face. Coach is humbling. Everyone makes mistakes - of omission or commission. As the saying goes, there are two types of coaches - humble and those who will be.

Lagniappe. Players wonder about ways to win. Coaches recognize the many ways to lose.   

The Core Four 🔴 pic.twitter.com/e6RrfWSBZT

— CoachLync | Tools & Playbooks (@CoachLync) September 4, 2026

Look for "low hanging fruit." Some of the lowest are:

• Shot selection (stamp out bad shots)
• Turnovers (value the ball)
• Foul discipline (stop giving away free throws) 

 

10 Ways to Win More Basketball Games

Basketball coaches enjoy teaching the game and competing. Coaches understandably ask, “Give me something I can use now." Find something that resonates. 

Adopt the Bill Walsh approach such that, "The Score Takes Care of Itself" when we do the right things at the right time every day. 

Track shot quality

Dean Smith sometimes scrimmaged with "shot quality scoring" such that layup attempts got two, contested jump shots were level, and turnovers earned negative points. 

"Winners are trackers." Shot selection improves under the stress of tracking, fulfilling a Bilas Rule, "It's not your shot, it's our shot."

Beat the Press

Make practice hard so that games are easy. My favorite drill is 5 versus 7, full court, no dribbling. The ball touches the floor and it's a turnover. Success demands a "pass and cut" mentality and it definitely translates to games. 

Special situations

Winning close and late is about execution. We finished each practice with "specials," three possession games (offense-defense-offense) which started with a BOB, SLOB, ATO, or free throw. This created competition, decision-making, and aggressiveness that improved "close and late" performance. 

Never foul a perimeter shot

Pete Newell taught teams to get "more and better shots than opponents." Force "hard twos." One opposite of hard twos is fouling twos and threes sending teams to the stripe. That cannot happen. 

Always condition with a ball

Pete Carril believed in conditioning with a ball. Many drills such as Kentucky layups, 3 x 3 x 3 shooting, and "Racehorse" condition with the ball. And, of course, Argentina...

Racehorse. Full court, full speed (that's a challenge) passing, cutting, and finishing drill. Change passers every minute. 

There's no whip but coaches exhort players, "Go, go faster."  

Free throw rebound defense

Offensive rebounds against free throws are beyond a pet peeve. Sandwich the best rebounder, block out the other low and the shooter and it shouldn't happen. But it does. 

Stop doubling down on stupid fouls

In almost every game, we see "frustration fouls" as a player makes a mistake and compounds it with a foul. It's a FAFO form of losing basketball and discipline breakdown. As Kevin Sivils teaches, "Foul for profit." 

Avoid live ball turnovers

Coach taught us that "the ball is gold." Turnovers lose games, kill dreams, and act as zero percent possessions. Even worse, live ball turnovers translate into high points per possession chances for opponents. A classic is the stolen "wing to top" pass that turns into an open layup - in middle school and pro ball. 

Time out management 

Take a tip from Dean Smith. If possible, reserve three timeouts for the final four minutes. That allows for rest, coaching, and for implementation of your "specials" that practice created advantage. 

Three keys to victory 

Coach provided us with a scouting report (mimeographs for old timers) with hand drawn keys representing what was needed to win. It might be "force turnovers against their suspect guards" or "attack the basket and get them in foul trouble with no depth." We ended up 21-4 with the four losses by a total of seven points...

Lagniappe. It's hard to get as many shooters as we want. This video shows how the Celtics leveraged spacing. 

Basketball - "Do Something"

Years ago at Fenway (from a front row, third base-side seat!) I heard first base coach Dave Parker walk by and yell at Jim Leyritz (coming up to bat), "Do something." Having a 6'5" behemoth yell encouragement didn't help.

An important question for players and coaches to address is:

“What does this behavior hope to accomplish?”

Rude, insulting, or passive-aggressive behavior seldom accomplishes the desired intent. "I knew that you'd eventually take a good shot," won't endear you to a player.  

Better communication connects better: separate the person from the problem. Instead of labeling the athlete as lazy, selfish, or negative, ask "what's your why? What are you looking for from this?" That creates more room for change as coaches seek to change behaviors.

Coaches want to raise player and team performance. Understanding their motivation might open a pathway.  

Does a player understand we're on her side?

Does a player understand their position on the performance to potential continuum?

Does a player know her strengths, weaknesses, and chance to add value?  

By the time the player's "at bat" it's too late. Exceptional players want coaching and have already come for it. They know the difference. 

Lagniappe. Approval requires somebody else to complete the transaction. Contribution doesn't. Control whether you add value in domain expertise; we don't control who reads or appreciates it. Good work stands on its own. 

Lagniappe 2. Offense is spacing. Defense contracts and corrupts spacing. 

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