A widely used coaching expression is "play hard, play smart, and play together." All coaches want their players to "play hard." Most players would probably say that they play hard. One of the biggest indictments of a player or a coach is "not playing hard" or "not coaching".
What does playing hard mean?
Playing hard begins with a state of mind. Let's pretend that we're not playing basketball, but playing chess. How do grandmasters separate themselves from 'ordinary' players? First, they have developed tradecraft through experience, the sum of work and patience. We can apply Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hours" metric, but we know some have successfully challenged Gladwell's rubric. "Practice alone won't make you Yo-Yo Ma." Sometimes innate talent can unhinge the process, but most of us can't rely on that.
I'd guess that most of us would agree that "masters" develop a different insight into their craft. Part of that is study, part deliberate practice. We know that grandmasters develop the ability to "chunk" pieces of information. Old experiments by Adrian deGroot revealed that grandmasters can mentally assemble chess situations because they process information to create a different perception of the game.
So, I'm arguing that playing hard begins with a structurally different approach, a different vision. And I think that begins with practice, assembling habits leading to better mental and physical conditioning. Two players can run down the court with equal speed, but one is alert and prepared to react, defend, deflect, or intercept an attack. Another is just running, the "fool's gold" of transition defense. In other words, playing hard combines intensity and consistency of physical and mental engagement.
I've read about experiments where coaches "trigger" an automatic response by an offensive player by using different colored cards or tennis balls. A yellow tennis ball might mean upfake and drive while an orange one might mean crossover dribble into a jump shot. How many teams have you seen a player receive a pass with an open driving lane (for a one dribble layup) and just take a midrange jump shot? Regardless of the outcome, we would form an opinion of that decision (and maybe that player) based on 'what we see'. To a degree, our perception of "playing hard" reflects our judgment of both decision-making and execution. We often internalize poor decision-making as playing less hard.
We may also assign "playing hard" to basketball activities associated with physical toughness - blocking out, setting good screens, taking charges, going to the floor for loose balls. But does that mean we undervalue the "playing hard" components of shrinking passing lanes, taking quality shots, or moving without the ball?
Kentucky's John Calipari has been using heart rate monitoring for years to measure player effort. "Calipari wants his players working in their own 90th percentile of physical exertion." Maybe the constant turnover of one-and-done players demands external constraints that 'senior leadership' that isn't available for modeling can't provide.
The answer likely synthesizes many of the above points. Playing hard emerges from habit, incorporates 'choice' and 'vision', tempered by coaching emphasis and expectations. If we want players to "play hard" under our expectations, then they must know those expectations, practice them, and receive positive and negative feedback (correction). For example, if the success of several 'actions' requires spacing and timing, then players disrupting it don't meet our definition of playing hard. They need to know that vacuous running isn't playing hard, it's just running.
