Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Basketball: What Inspires Us?



"When did you get into basketball or did basketball get into you?" 

Wonderful stories inspire us. Seek and share great stories. Film directors get two hours to tell a story. Advertisers have thirty seconds. Exceptional coaches tell a great narrative over decades.

Underdogs inspire.

Eric Spoelstra tells us to "remember great plays." 

 

Tigers and bears, oh my! The Princeton final play was deceptively simple. The high post to wing backcut (at 0:56 of the video) was the only action happening. It looks as though a double screen formed on the help side, but without a cutter. That's all they needed, execution with one defensive error. 

Creativity is the "rage to master." Dawn Stover writes, "Practice, training and exposure to unfamiliar ideas and experiences play essential roles in shaping creativity."

Persistence inspires



You can't catch in a "shot ready" position? Believe in yourself through your work. 

Great teaching inspires


Ron Finley teaches a MasterClass on gardening. In Candide, Voltaire tells us, let us cultivate our garden." Coaches tend our gardens.

Cross domain principles inspire"The bigger your roots, the healthier your plants." Great plants need:

- Fertile soil (team culture). 
- Planting the seedling before it's root bound (fundamental growth). 
- Spacing between plants.
- Attention (light, water, fertilizing) for each plant.
- Protection from the elements and pests (negative influences). 

Execution inspires



Play and coach to inspire our teammates, families, and fans. What inspires you? 

Lagniappe: "How do we define a good shot? The amount of defensive pressure, length of shot, and individual player characteristics...much depends on the shooting skill of the individual player. For some players, a lightly guarded twenty-foot jumper will be a higher percentage shot than on taken at close range among a number of defensive players." - Dean Smith, in Basketball: Multiple Offense and Defense. 

Easily relatable as Billy Donovan recently said the same (about contestedness) in his Coaching Clinic.

Lagniappe 2: I've never done this. What if, at the first parent meeting, parents bring in an index card (anonymously) with the answer to this question, "what are your expectations for your child and family from this experience?" In her MasterClass, Designer Kelly Wearstler creates a program around the client's likes and wants. 



Lagniappe 3: In Lee DeForest's lecture on Princeton offense, he shows complex and simple options. The "elbow entry" allows the guard to cut off the ball handler for a layup. Larry Bird's 1986 Celtics would run this simple action with Bird and Bill Walton.