When attending a lecture or clinic, reading a book, or evaluating an educational post:
- What is the teacher's main point? "The main thing is the main thing."
- Is that point accurate? Are there biases?
- Does it inspire?
- Does it provide clarity?
- Can the concepts be simplified?
- Does it translate to your game (area of interest)?
- Does it ADD VALUE?
These questions apply equally to an academic class, operating a business, learning a trade, or making a life decision.
But specific to basketball, consider "defending the pick-and-roll." We'll ignore the fact that different teams may run the PnR from different sites and focus on general concepts in a 'Socratic' style.
- Why run the PnR? Do you face a guard with superior penetration skills or a post player facile with screening and rolling or screening and popping?
- Do the players understand the need for crystal clear communication?
- What "main" options do you have in defending the PnR (e.g. fight over, show/hedge/fake trap, trap, jam, switch, etc.) Often by limiting the content, players absorb the essentials.
- What does your coach specifically want you to do? "This is how we do it."
- What techniques will you use to do that? (E.g. attack the dribbler, sprint to the screener, footwork parallel to the screener, etc.)
- If your main technique doesn't work, what's the plan? (Do it better, do it harder, change personnel, change technique)
The point isn't to be comprehensive but with many possible situations, coaches and players need clarity, unity (buy-in), and feedback (coach teaches, player demonstrates competence and ideally mastery). None of this happens automatically; serious coaches and serious players have to work the process to inform better results.