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.
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.
"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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Basketball is not war, yet presents metaphorical battles and concepts available to us. More than ten years of Navy service taught valuable lessons. History teaches more.
"I can learn."
Bowdoin Professor turned Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain explained how an untrained Rhetoric professor became a hero at Gettysburg.
Basketball - Promote a learning culture.
"Always forward."
General Alexander Suvorov was the "General who never lost." He treated his mean well, was committed to training, and never retreated.
Basketball - Earn the right to confidence via high performance.
"Every battle is won before it is fought."
Sun Tzu's The Art of War is a timeless classic from over 2500 years ago. He believed that preparation and a host of principles set strategic standards.
Basketball - Preparation, practice, and performance follow intent.
"We will fight in the shade."
According to the historian Herodotus, a native of Trachis warned Dienekes that the Persian arrows were so numerous they would blot out the sun. Dienekes answered, "Good; then we will fight in the shade."
Basketball - Think "Whatever it takes."
"Duty. Honor. Country."
MacArthur's legendary "Address to Graduates" (West Point) emphasized the core values of the service academy.
Basketball - Distill standards and values. Character. Sportsmanship. Community.
"Find one more thing."
General Hal Moore argued that there was always "one more thing" that could be done to help earn victory. Include that concept into your philosophy and teach it to our players.
Basketball - Our basketball training and experience can shape us to become more when we're willing to apply what we know and sometimes to think "outside of the box."
"You can’t help when or what you were born, you may not be able to help how you die; but you can—and you should—try to pass the days between as a good man.” - Sam Damon in "Once an Eagle"
We can't choose our size, our biological limitations, or our upbringing. We can choose our attitude, our choices, and our effort to grow our character and competence.
Basketball - Everyone can't become an exceptional player. We can choose to become an exceptional teammate and the best leader we can be.
"The wind blows hardest at the top of the mountain."
Winning is hard. That's why it's valued.
NBA regular season win leaders for the past ten seasons:
Rank
Team
Wins
Games
Win %
1
Boston Celtics
530
800
.663
2
Denver Nuggets
495
801
.618
3
Milwaukee Bucks
486
801
.607
4
LA Clippers
466
800
.583
5
Golden State Warriors
464
793
.585
Of course, NBA regular season wins don't necessarily translate to NBA titles, profits, or fan satisfaction.
An owner's North Star could be profits, publicity, winning or some combination.
Other levels lack the resources of professional sport. At these levels, coaches apply their own meaning. Winning matters in varsity sports and beyond. Nobody will convince me that winning is the Holy Grail if you coach U14s or U12s. That's the stuff of Springsteen's "Glory Days."
What is sustainable competitive advantage?
It's consistent winning, not necessarily championships. Wooden didn't win a National Title at UCLA until his 16th season. Dean Smith won a championship in his 21st season at UNC. He said that even without having won a national title that he never felt like a loser.
How do you get it?
There's an evolution underway. Our local girls' program won ten consecutive league titles including five undefeated regular seasons. That benefited from a coaching stability, a solid youth program, two players from the METCO program, health, and luck.
Top players left the system for the Prep or Private school world. Wins have become much harder to come by. The strength of the volleyball program attracting elite athletes also mattered.
Friction
Friction shows up amidst 'the discipline of execution' - the triad of people (coaches and players), strategy, and operations.
Replacing coaches, changes in the youth program, and improvements in other programs also create friction.
For years, Coach Ralph Labella and I offered off-season (May to September) twice weekly development sessions. That's history.
Overcoming Friction
What are some ideas for returning a program to prominence? This is 'spitballing' not proven success.
A local coaching summit getting the best ideas from stakeholders, especially coaches in the system.
That could only take place in a "safe space" with no blame game attached, just curiosity and openness.
A "campaign" to attract and retain players starting at a young age.
Return to offseason development (who's invested?)
A couple of free coaching clinics with paid coaches brought in with booster club funds.
The Pushback
Ego is the enemy. Solving a problem requires diagnosis and treatment with "a starting over" approach without a postmortem examination on the past. Almost invariably, bruised feelings emerge, regardless of the intent.
Without repeating the "talking dog" story, I don't see any of this happening. Happiness is being wrong.
Our attitude, choices, and effort define our progress.
James Clear described a friend who writes three pages a day - resulting in publishing three books annually.
Kobe Bryant took a thousand shots a day during his offseason, fashioning a top ten career.
Larry Bird shot five hundred free throws daily before school and became one of three members in the 50/40/90 club along with Steve Nash and Kevin Durant...not too shabby for an OG.
What's our learning framework for basketball or another sport?
Dr. Fergus Connolly favors:
Skill
Strategy
Physicality
Psychology
Boost skill with deliberate practice, ideally against competition. "Repetition makes reputations."
Enhance basketball IQ with reading, clinics, and video study. "Video is the truth machine."
Become more physical with regular strength, conditioning, and recovery. "Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care." Remember that sport rewards athleticism.
Raise your resilience with mental reps and a mindfulness practice. "Have you taken even one mindful breath today?"
Commit to daily improvement...like Kevin Durant, who wakes and asks, "How do I get better today?"
Lagniappe. How do you warmup?
How you start practice is extremely important
The drills you choose to use as “Warm Up Drills” - set the tone for the whole day
