Basketball - A Dozen Pieces of Advice that Work

Maybe you’ve heard them. Maybe not. Advice that works. Find some that will work for you. 

1. Better shot selection is the quickest path to improvement. Showing grainy, black and white film, Coach Ellis Lane called them, "Sh*t shots." After a film session, players better take fewer the next game. 

2. Better late than early off a screen - Say, “Wait, wait, wait.”

3. Big reasons why offenses fail is lack of urgent cutting. In a set play, you might not have much initial choice. Your effort is your choice. 

4. Turnovers kill dreams. We learned, “The ball is gold.”

5. "Spacing is offense and offense is spacing." The three-point line is the spacing line. Bad high school teams often have bad spacing. 

6. "Shout praise and whisper criticism." We choose whether to lose games and lose players who tune us out. 

7. “The ball is a camera.” If it can’t see you, then it can’t find you. And if the ballhandler can't see you, your cut won't help. 

8. The ball is the smartest thing on the court. It finds scorers, rebounders, assist guys, shot blockers, and defeat who get deflections and steals.

9. Find guys who prioritize the scoreboard over the scorebook.

10. Fouls negate hustle. Kevin Sivils preaches, “Foul for profit.”

11. “Think shot first.” - Don Kelbick  The shooter is most open when she first catches the ball. 

12. “What does it feel like to be coached by me?" Parents aren’t always wrong…if we "bury" a player in a doghouse, do we expect praise? 

Lagniappe. Hall of Fame coach Chuck Daly said, "I'm a salesman." We sell every day at home, at school, at work, on the court, in print. If we don't add value, that's a hard sell... 

Coaching Interview Strategies

1. Don’t mention your AAU or JV record; sell your philosophy.
2. Make "eye contact" with every single person in the room.
3. State realistic goals; promise improved play, not championships.

— Coach Battenberg (@TerryBattenberg) July 10, 2026

Basketball - The Way of the Sword and "The Book of Five Rings"

Learn across domains and cultures.

What can we learn from from a "how-to-book" from the greatest Samurai warrior? Process. Education, training, application.  

Miyamoto Musashi literally wrote the book (The Book of Five Rings) about the Way of the Sword, about four hundred years ago. 

Key lessons resonate.

Self-control

Emotion can fuel victory or out-of-control defeats. Musashi fought sixty times with a 'final' outcome of victory. He believed most warriors lack strategy, lack self-discipline. Attitude matters. Respect all opponents, fear none. Compete relentlessly, focused without distraction. 

Anticipation

He believed that he could 'see what happens before it happens'. Charles Barkley showed clips of former player Zach Randolph who always went left. Randolph deserved credit for using his strength, but Barkley felt "dummies" didn't know that it was coming. 

Breathing

Controlled breathing reduces stress. It allows suppressive signals to flow from the frontal cortex to the stress centers (amygdala). 

He advocated for a four second inhalation, a short pause, six second exhalation, and short pause. 

Breathing as part of mindfulness is known to reduce circulating stress hormones (cortisol). 

Purpose (some say passion)

Sports facilitate competition and the ability to demonstrate where we lie on the "mastery" scale. 

I counseled players not to play for the coach, the community, or your school, but the girls next to you - the teammates with shared mission, shared vision, and shared sacrifice. 

The training needed to become an exceptional player is rigorous and exhausting, especially in summer heat. Special players find the intrinsic motivation to do what it takes. 

Lagniappe. Many players return. Others are on the competitive cusp. There aren't "minutes" for all players, so "Stay Ready Players" have to work hard and long (temperature and time) without any guarantees of regular minutes. 

James Clear on three qualities that matter: pic.twitter.com/abfVxy2jbR

— Reads with Ravi (@readswithravi) July 10, 2026

I have boatloads of respect for the player who shows up and competes hard every day. During her freshman year at American, Cecilia had a teammate who had been an All-State player and played little. But the player told her that she would show up every day and 'bring it' because she earned her scholarship and she owed the team her best. That's professionalism.

Lagniappe 2. Ultimately, you become "your own coach" as a player, a spouse, parent, entrepreneur, etc. You own your role. 

20 years as a head coach will teach you things no clinic ever will.

Maybe one sticks.

28 Lessons Learned.

1. Coaching is all about relationships. Work to build relationships with your players.

2. Play the long game with culture. There are no shortcuts to success.

3. Develop… pic.twitter.com/WRC13IpUvY

— Greg Berge (@GregBerge) July 9, 2026

 

Basketball - There Is no Holy Grail of Analytic Comparison

Who wouldn't want a simple, concrete, credible, and accurate "number" to attach to a player? This can’t resolve controversy but might enlighten it.

The Holy Grail (HG) would reflect contribution to winning, impact on teammates, team offense and team defense. 

It would not 'curve fit' to stratify players to conform to an analyst who "likes" someone's game and has misgivings about someone else's. And it won't say whether so-and-so is the fifth best guard in a league or the tenth.

The supporting cast also impacts a player's effectiveness. If you're on the floor with better cutters and shooters, then you might have more assists. If you're on the court with 'selfish players' then you won't get as many touches. Offensive and Defensive ratings depends on those on the floor with you as well.  

As a basketball analyst, I'd rather have 2026:

• On/Off data
• Assist-to-turnover data
• TS%
• Defensive rebounding
• Steals
• and minutes played

than a single 'contribution' number. That partially reconstructs the "scores and stops" framework. 

Let's use a concrete example, Jalen Brunson, NBA Finals MVP and LaMelo Ball of the Charlotte Hornets. 

I asked ChatGPT Plus to develop a tabular comparison:

Category	Jalen Brunson	LaMelo Ball
Scoring Volume	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Scoring Efficiency	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Playmaking	⭐⭐⭐⭐½	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Turnover Control	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐
Rebounding	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Offensive Impact	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Defensive Reliability	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐
Decision Making	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Availability/Durability	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐
Coach Trust Factor	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Overall Total Contribution	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐

Usage measures responsibility, not selfishness. It also impacts the usage of other players. 

There's no precise "apples to apples" comparison available but analytics staffs are working on that. 

One statistic I'd love to invent:

Knowing your interest in "Coaches' Total Contribution" and holistic evaluation, I'd create a metric called Possession Value Added (PVA).

Rather than asking: "How many points did he score?," I'd ask, "How much better is every possession because this player was involved?"

Lagniappe. 

Basketball - Housel's "Psychology of Money" Applies to Basketball*

*Some AI assist

Morgan Housel wrote the best seller, The Psychology of Money. Apply lessons about psychology to winning sport and basketball.

Psychology applies to everything of 'value'. Studies show that losing feels twice as painful as winning feels good. 

We Hate Losing More Than We Enjoy Winning

"Studies suggest losses hurt roughly twice as much as equivalent gains feel good."

Basketball examples:

• Parents panic after a few losses.
• Coaches abandon player development after one bad weekend.
• Players stop taking open shots after missing two.

Good programs understand that avoiding pain is not the same as pursuing excellence.

Everyone Thinks Their Story Is Normal

"Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story." - John Barth

Every coach believes:

• Officials are against them
• Injuries were unusually bad
• Parents don't understand
• Our situation is unique

It rarely is. Top coaches study the game. This is where Norway fits beautifully. Rather than asking: "How do we win the U12 championship," they asked: "How do we produce adults who love sport?"

Luck Matters More Than We Want to Admit

This is one of Housel's dominant themes.

Basketball examples practically write themselves.

• Kevin Durant's size 18 foot on the line.
• A favorable NCAA bracket helps.
• An injury crushes us.
• The Halliburton Bounce goes in. 

The lesson: Judge processes and decisions more than outcomes.

Winning Is in Our DNA

People naturally keep score. Children race. Adults compare salaries. Athletes compare stats.

Wanting to win isn't the problem. Adults deciding that winning at age 10 is more important than development is the problem.

"Never be a child's last coach."

The Big Picture Beats the Highlight

A Housel recurring theme is that people confuse visible success with the invisible process behind it. 

Fans remember:

• buzzer beaters
• dunks
• championships

They don't see:

• culture
• player development
• communication
• accountability
• thousands of ordinary practices

The "Prime Spurs" didn't become the Spurs because they passed well. They passed well because they spent years creating a culture that rewarded unselfishness.

Managing Risk Is Part of Winning

"All of life is the management of risk, not its elimination."

Championship teams manage risk.

Examples:

• avoiding foul trouble
• preserving depth (antifragility)
• suppressing ego
• load management
• maintaining culture

The NBA's new salary aprons are almost a perfect analogy.

Just as investors can become overconcentrated in one stock, teams can become overconcentrated in one or two contracts. When something goes wrong...there is no margin for error.

Staying Great Is Harder Than Becoming Great

Winning is hard. Continuing to win is even harder. 

Butler making the Finals was remarkable. Doing it the next season seemed impossible. 

Eight straight NBA champions have failed to repeat. The lesson isn't that dynasties are impossible. It's that maintaining excellence requires constant adaptation.

Humility Wins

The best coaches accept:

• They don't know everything
• Circumstances change
• Rosters continually turn over
• Yesterday's solution may not solve tomorrow's problem.

Reasonable beats brilliant.

The teams that succeed for decades aren't usually the smartest. They're the ones that consistently avoid catastrophic mistakes.

Championship teams avoid beating themselves.

They limit turnovers. They share the ball. They "foul for profit" and excel at shot selection.

They have few recruiting mistakes and strong cultures that can overcome the mistakes they make. 

Get players to embrace coaching truth: winning is often less about extraordinary plays than about consistently avoiding ordinary errors. 

Lagniappe. Great horns examples from Coach Peterman. 

Need new ideas out of Horns?
​
This video has 48 different Horns actions from college basketball in just over 8 minutes.
​
If you love studying offense, you'll find plenty to steal.
​
👏 Huge shoutout to @SamDailey for another incredible breakdown.
​
Do yourself a favor and give… pic.twitter.com/KQrtCPePUw

— Scott Peterman (@coachpeterman) July 8, 2026

Basketball - Intangibles and Specifics

Six of the most important intangibles that coaches look for in players:
1. High character
2. Great attitude
3. Work ethic
4. Mental toughness
5. Leadership
6. Intelligence

— Sports Psychology (@SportPsychTips) July 7, 2026

Traffic in specifics. Don't say, "I play hard." Explain. "I communicate. I'm first to the floor. I'm first to pick a teammate up off the court." Examples:

High character 

• Teamwork
• Selflessness (Team first)

Great attitude

• Positivity
• Coachability

Work ethic

• "Never cheats the drill."
• Relentless 

Mental toughness

• Performs under situational duress (pressure)
• Performs when not physically at peak

Leadership

• Models excellence (home, school, sport)
• Resource for teammates ("available")

Intelligence

• Makes the right play consistently
• Reads plays to become a step quicker 

Lagniappe. "Hindsight held a level of perfection that real-time decision-making could not provide." - David Baldacci in "Long Road to Mercy"

Lagniappe 2. How are we making a difference in development? 

View on Threads

Basketball - Only “A” Work Can Craft "A" Results

In an episode of “The Bear,” Sydney makes an omelet for Sugar, the restaurant manager. Her work shows effort and precision. It’s crafted not cooked.

Your work reflects your attitude towards it. If “A” work matters, then bring “A” attitude and “A” investment.

Austin Kleon, author of Show Your Work, shares valuable quotes:

“To all viewers but yourself, what matters is the product: the finished artwork. To you, and you alone, what matters is the process: the experience of shaping the artwork.” Process matters. Be a tracker because winners track the process. 

“Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you'll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It's that simple.” The variety and breadth of workout activities published leaves no excuse for "I didn't know what to do." 

In this clip, Jayson Tatum illustrates separation with "attack off the catch" or STAMPEDE. 

"Basketball is a game of separation..." Players create separation with cutting, screening, and dribbling with 'change of direction, change of pace, and deceleration. 

The "negative step" is another separating technique. It provides a "launch step" to attack the basket. It may also draw a defender closer. 

 

Be a technician. Be relentless. Be a dog.

Lagniappe. What does our culture look like? 

Nick Saban said, "We can't have complacency, we can't have selfishness, and we can't lose our accountability."

Because that's how culture dies.

It doesn't collapse overnight - It crumbles quietly.

Here are 5 silent culture killers every team must avoid:

1. Letting Toxic… pic.twitter.com/lbkzEFeg5b

— Coach AJ 🎯 Mental Fitness (@coachajkings) June 12, 2026

Basketball - There Is no Owner's Manual

Cars, televisions, and even air purifiers come with an "Owner's Manual." Basketball players do not.

If we were constructing an owner's manual, how would it look? What absolutes belong and what "options" make our player and program more valuable?

Choose whether to be a lumper or a splitter. Lumpers have broad categories and splitters seek more granular divisions.

1. Character 

"Character is job one." - Etorre Messina

"The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior." Coach Nick Saban says players create value for themselves with their choices. 

Find your guys. "Moss displayed another Belichick staple: mental toughness, which the Patriots define as “doing what is best for the team when it might not be best for you.”In New England, Moss was a “program guy”: someone who works hard, is a supportive teammate, and cares deeply about winning. In other words, someone with football character." - Michael Lombardi in Gridiron Genius

You know the saying, "If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas." 

When you bring a player into your culture, you bring their baggage and sometimes their 'entourage', friends and family. 

2. Coachability

"Do the right things, the right way, all the time." 

Players hear a lot of voices - their own, their posse's, and coaches. The exceptional player wants coaching, wants to improve, and wants to hear the truth. Exceptional players travel "the extra mile."

Coachability includes focus which includes the ability to avoid distractions. Is a player about the work or "the life?" Is she committed to making the team better, the people around her better, or "the scorebook?" 

3. Resilience

"Good teams play harder for longer." - Dave Smart  

Themes repeat and resonate. 

Adversity is inevitable in both personal and athletic life. 

How do we measure resilience? We can be captive to sample size. A good or a bad performance under pressure shouldn't be dismissed but placed in context. 

Coaches want players we can trust to "see the game" and make consistent, positive decisions and execute. Use an AI consult:

The most reliable identification methods (based on research)

1. Scenario-based decision testing

Use video or VR simulations to evaluate decision-making under stress. This method is empirically shown to reveal cognitive flexibility and resilience.

2. Adversity-based drills

Create controlled adversity: bad calls, uneven numbers, fatigue spikes. Observe adaptation speed, communication, and emotional regulation.

3. Resilience questionnaires + behavioral observation

Validated tools from resilience research paired with real-time observation give a fuller picture.

Resilience is multifactorial—motivation, coping, optimism, hope.

4. Coach/peer feedback loops

Players who elevate team resilience (leadership, identity, positivity) are consistently high performers under pressure.

The most comprehensive framework comes from a 2022 systematic review synthesizing 92 studies. It proposes a resilience filter made of biopsychosocial protective factors that determine how strongly adversity impacts an athlete.

Key components researchers evaluate:

• Biological factors — Physical conditioning, injury history, recovery capacity. (Belichick's 'ability and durability')

• Psychological factors — Self‑belief, emotional regulation, coping strategies, mental skills training. (Confidence and consistency)

• Social factors — Coaching quality, mentorship, team culture, family support. (How a player treats her family can predict how they interact with teammates and coaches)

4. Development Arc

Legendary North Carolina soccer coach Anson Dorrance described wanting players with "continual ascension." Examine a player's development history and their capacity to "become their own coach."

When players improve, many factors intersect.

• Resources. Training is expensive.
• Family support (beyond resources)
• Mentoring (the only shortcut to excellence)
• "Competitive character" - intrinsic motivation
• "Paper trail"... training plan, tracking, video, etc. "success leaves fingerprints"

There is no Owner's Manual. The road is long, highly competitive, and needs will and skill to overcome the obstacles.

Summary:

• There's no one pathway to success.
• "Character is job one."
• Coachability is necessary and underrated.
• Resilience is needed and trainable.
• Competitive arcs need planning.

Lagniappe. The well-coached team...do we check the boxes?

Is your team well-coached?

via @coachneighbors pic.twitter.com/B8lXsCAYZq

— CoachLync | Tools & Playbooks (@CoachLync) July 3, 2026

 

Basketball - Superficial Study Misses the Details.

Content should come with a disclaimer - likely useful, neutral, waste of time. That would help both readers and author. Pay attention to this. It's not enough to read...process the content. 

Most content is noise not signal. Filter!

Rolf Dobelli, author of The Not to Do List, suggests refining your reading palette.

1. Stay within your Circle of Competence - your lane or area of expertise. Even within our Circle, there’s an abundance of material. 

2. Produce more than you consume. I don’t believe this because it limits our exposure to diversity of ideas. Exposure to ideas doesn't oblige us to become either advocates or critics. 

3. Engage deeply. Society seldom rewards superficial knowledge leading to analysis of complex areas. Scoring off service might distill to putting opponents in a disadvantage but you need specifics. Prosperity requires effective responses, not just information. Study, take notes, develop a plan and find whether better process changes outcomes. 

4. Reread the best content. Imprint the lessons available in what you found to be the best content. Some of the books I've read multiple times include:

• Basketball: Multiple Offense and Defense (Dean Smith)
• Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl)
• Legacy (James Kerr)
• Search Inside Yourself (Chade-Meng Tan)
• In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle (Madeleine Blais)
• The Score Takes Care of Itself (Bill Walsh)
• Chop Wood, Carry Water (Joshua Medcalf)

The goal isn't curating a library of 5,000 books, but to read excellent books and take away worthy lessons. 

Lagniappe. Keep grinding. 

Talent comes and goes. Motivation fades.

Consistency stays.
That’s what wins.

Show up. Work. Repeat.
pic.twitter.com/7wU1M7hmxD

— Greg Berge (@GregBerge) July 2, 2026

Lagniappe 2. Unplug and restart.  

 

 

Basketball - Focus

"Focus is a superpower."

What is focus? 

Focus synthesizes awareness of surroundings- time, space, and situation - and the ability to make decisions under pressure.

We did a drill in high school with a passer and a line of receivers about 12-15 feet away. The passer would start by passing a medicine ball to the next person in line and the "line" would be passing a basketball back. Two balls in play. Pay attention or risk getting a medicine ball in the kisser (it happened!).

The Focus Spectrum

Focus includes the ability to prepare, to learn the playbook, assignments, and the scouting report. Restated, focus happens long before you ever step onto the court for games. 

Focus is knowing where your scorers thrive with the ball, how an opponent wants to attack. Focus is being able to play "harder for longer." Focus is learning to "see the game" by being coachable and through video study.  

Teams without focus are often "not on the same page" and unlikely to execute. Conversely, players and teams that execute have proven their ability to focus. 

Keep it simple

Focus includes "wide focus" about what happens in the geometry and player motion and "narrow focus," being able to read a defender (e.g. attack the front hand/foot) or go for a steal as it leaves a dribbler's hand (e.g. Kawhi) or returns after bouncing off the floor. 

Games are won and lost because of missed assignments or loss of focus, where players "got lost" during a timeout. 

Charles Barkley noted that Zach Randolph scored partly because of "Dummies." 

Training Focus

• Mindfulness
• Asteroids is a cheap version of high tech training available
• No free shooting...add focus with constraints...time, scoring requirement and a hand in the face 

Focus isn't a solitary skill. Sometimes it requires intense physical training and at others the ability to sit your butt in a chair to study a playbook, opponent video, or American history.

Lagniappe. "If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you’ve lost your focus." - Michael Jordan

Kobe Bryant defined focus through singular, unwavering attention to a specific goal, "I focus on one thing and one thing only - that's trying to win as many championships as I can."

Basketball - Reverse Engineer Great Coaching

One of the greatest advantages coaches have today is access to information. Books, podcasts, clinics, videos, and social media provide a wealth of ideas. 

The challenge is no longer finding information. The challenge is extraction, improving our 'yield' from available resources. 

One process that has helped me is to reverse engineer what outstanding coaches, teachers, and leaders do. Rather than asking, "Should I copy this?" ask, "Why does this work?"

Here's one approach.

An Alternative Learning Process

1. Find an outstanding book—basketball, leadership, psychology, or teaching.
2. Read the Table of Contents before reading the first chapter.
3. Ask yourself, "What do I already believe about these topics?"
4. Read the book carefully.
5. Return to the Table of Contents and mentally reconstruct the major lessons without opening the chapters.

If you can explain each chapter in your own words, you've moved beyond reading to learning.

Example  Habits That Make a Champion (Allistair McCaw)

What does being 'coachable' mean to you? 

If you were teaching a player or team about a coachable player, what lessons and examples would you emphasize? 

• High level of commitment 
• Listener
• Tries to follow instructions as presented
• Embraces feedback
• Applies lessons to make others better

Excerpts:

Repackage the lessons in a way meets your philosophy of developing character and competence. 

You may not believe that being an early riser adds value, thinking that getting more sleep is what matters more for recovery. Nothing obliges us to adopt everything from other coaches. But it raises valuable questions. 

What principle is the author trying to teach?

That's the value of reverse engineering.  We don't have to adopt everything we read. Understand why successful coaches believe what they believe.

Every great book becomes another tool in our coaching toolbox. Some tools recur daily.  Others stay in the drawer for years until the right player or situation appears.

The goal isn't to become another coach. Become a better version of yourself.

Lagniappe. Finishing at the rim against high "contestedness" isn't easy. Do the reps. 

USE YOUR STEPS

Players that have good size and length can instantly be better finishers at the rim when they learn how to use their full 2 steps at the rim

Here we are working on taking a bump and then covering as much ground as possible (in any direction) with our last 2… pic.twitter.com/khRA6syV0S

— Steve Dagostino (@DagsBasketball) June 23, 2026

Basketball - Seven Reasons Not to Hire Me As Your Next Coach

When seeking a coaching job, most applicants choose the "default" approach, explaining why the community should hire them.

Another approach can be explaining why they shouldn't hire you. Here are some credible reasons:

1. Politics

I have no interest in the politics of the job. If you want a "yes man" who will do the bidding of the Mayor or a School Committee Chair whose daughter is on the team, you don't want me.

If you want a political hire, the best friend of so-and-so, then give the "friends and family discount" and make the political hire. 

2. Qualifications

The only time that I've coached high school basketball is during low stakes summer league games or during summer tournaments where players were sharpening their skills.

Don't count the twenty or so years of coaching pre-adolescents or the player development that spawned State Champions (at other schools), a Boston Globe and Boston Herald dream teamer, or players in the Melrose High School Athletic Hall of Fame. 

3. Lack of Commitment

"You never applied before." In addition to about twenty years of volunteer coaching and a busy local medical practice (including heading the Intensive Care Unit), I also helped raise four children. My wife might take issue with that. 

4. Paper Trail

"How can we assess your basketball knowledge and experience?" In addition to having played serious high school basketball (Captain of the top division Sectional Champion), you really can't know my basketball philosophy. 

As I said earlier, it's NOT to please the parents and their understandable need to have their needs met - their child's playing time, role, and recognition. My basketball blog lays out my beliefs.  

5. Leadership

The only organization I was in with any clarity of leadership was ten years as a Naval Officer in the United States Navy. The answer to any question had specificity and clarity, "whatever is in the best interests of the Navy." 

Respect for authority starts at the Naval Academy (I did not attend), where the five answers every Middie knows are:

• "Yes, Sir."
• "No, Sir."
• "Aye, Aye, Sir."
• "Right away, Sir."
• "I don't know but I'll find out, Sir." 

Former players haven't accomplished as much as I'd like. Two played Division I Women's college basketball, one is a veterinarian, many are teachers with Masters' Degrees, and a few have been executives in Fortune 500 companies. 

6. Age

I'm practically as old as Methuselah. Plus, I've only coached girls, so I'm effectively older as I've witnessed some drama close up. I've heard, "Oh, Dad" so many times, I wondered if I should legally change my name. 

There's a lot to be said for youth and for women coaches who might be able to relate to players better. 

And if you want secrecy, I'm not your person. I believed in transparency as parents could come to practice, pre- and post-game meetings to hear my ramblings about my expectations and interpretation of what happened. 

7. Other Limitations

I have too much experience as in, "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." 

I'm a pain. When the Rec Department informed me that I could have two one-hour practices a week, I explained that if the girls couldn't have at least three hours a week (some communities had eight), then I'd move on. 

If you're looking for someone who believes basketball exists to serve children rather than adults, who values truth over convenience, standards over popularity, and improvement over excuses - then perhaps we should have a conversation.

Lagniappe. Footwork is power. 

The Kobe pivot ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/BfcTlJ5UNq

— Anthony Pugh (@Anthony_Pugh2) July 1, 2026

Basketball - Patience and Performance*

*Adapted from my volleyball blog

We live in an era of I want what I want, and I want it now. Overcoming that demands a different kind of strength, one that doesn't announce itself.

The word patience evolved from the Latin patentia, meaning suffering. Not passive waiting, but the willingness to endure the work and the time necessary to achieve a desired end. 

The Chinese character for patience captures this beautifully: it depicts an enduring heart. Two cultures, a thousand years apart, pointing at the same thing.

History and Patience

Aristotle framed patience as a balancing act - the mean between apathy and impetuousness, between too little and too much. Benjamin Franklin sharpened that: "He that can have patience can have what he will." For Franklin, patience wasn't resignation. It was leverage, the leverage of a nine-year printing apprenticeship.

The Stanford marshmallow experiments gave us data to match the philosophy. Follow-up studies found that children who delayed gratification - who waited for the second marshmallow - earned higher SAT scores, better grades, stronger social skills, and showed less substance abuse. The ability to endure the moment predicted the future quality of life.

John Wooden understood this instinctively. Patience flanks competitive greatness at the very top of his Pyramid of Success. He won his first national title at UCLA in his 16th season. Sixteen years. The Pyramid wasn't decoration - it was his operating system, and patience was load-bearing.

Patience as Emotional Discipline

In Stoic philosophy, patience isn't passivity; it's emotional discipline. And that discipline quietly opens something else: compassion. When you're not ruled by impulse, you can see another person clearly. You can see not just who they are, but who they might become.

For coaches, that combination is gold.

The player who can't get out of her own way right now. The point guard who panics under pressure. The shooting guard with skill but doesn't understand shot selection yet and needs work putting the ball on the floor. Patience lets you hold the vision of what's possible for them, even when they can't hold it themselves - and help them navigate the time and commitment it takes to get there.

Patience in Sports

The applications run from the physiological to the tactical:

Maturity and physical development. Pre-adolescent athletes are genuinely limited - neurologically, physically, emotionally. Rushing that timeline doesn't accelerate development. 

Player development. There's a pyramid to climb, and the steps don't rearrange themselves. Fundamentals precede execution, on the court, in the dojo (sand the floor), in the pool. 

Team development. Collaboration is built, not declared. Trust accumulates through repetition, conflict, resolution, and time. The team that competes in November is not the team that gathered in August. Honor the process.

Waiting for the scoring moment. This is patience made visible in real time. The cut that opens late. The through-pass that reveals itself one beat after you expect it. The changeup that requires the hitter to hold just a split-second longer. Elite players don't rush the moment. They read it and let it arrive.

Summary

Patience adds value. And it's trainable.

It shows up in etymology, in philosophy, in experimental psychology, in Wooden's sixteen-year climb to a championship. It shows up in the athlete who waits for the cut, in the coach who holds the vision longer than the player can, in the team that trusts the process when no championships have appeared on a banner.

The enduring heart isn't passive. It's disciplined. It's the water that carves canyons and the coaches who craft championships. 

Lagniappe. Anchors. 

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