Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Basketball: What Would Belichick Do?

"To live in the past is to die in the present." - Bill Belichick 

 Will we have a basketball season this fall and winter? Should that impact our commitment to improve ourselves? Players and coaches have a mandate to grind. 

Mike Lombardi dedicates a chapter in Gridiron Genius to WWBD - What Would Belichick Do? It's about process, relentlessness, and discontent. 

Take stock. Hit the ground running. Successful people marry self-assessment as part of their process. 

Belichick assigned Michael Lombardi to inventory team assets.  Understanding our assets informs change. Inventory reflects one of Belichick's core principles, "it's better to move on from a player a year too early than a year too late." That creates competition and hard feelings. Hard conversations come with the job. 


No Complacency. Find players who thrive on repetition, compete each possession, and have a reason for each decision. Making the team isn't enough. Nurture the player with the appetite for greatness. Contentment leads to slippage. Complacency is the enemy of achievement. 

Keep searching for greatness. 



Teach across domains. Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham preached margin of safety. Recently, we learned that Titanic exceeded lifeboat standards of the day. That did not work out well. The online world has an abundance of teaching material. The Patriots teach that handling the ball is a privilege. 

Deploy your knowledge effectively. Know what you know. Excel within our Circle of Competence. Stick to it. 

"What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word “selected”: You don’t have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence . The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital."

Bill Belichick traded Drew Bledsoe within the division, understanding Bledsoe's strengths and limitations. Belichick's Patriots went 5-1 against their former QB, with eleven interceptions. 


Know the minutia of rules. They can work against us, too. 

 Lagniappe: Sharpen your tools. 
  1. Go to move - What keeps opponents awake at night? (What's your ace in the hole?).
  2. Counter move.
  3. "Winning move." (What's your ace in the hole?). When the game is on the line and the ball is yours, what's your solution? 
Coaches may keep a play, action, or ATO move in reserve. 




Pentucket held the Iverson Cut in reserve until late in the game, scoring five points on two possessions to break a close game open. 

Lagniappe 2: Chris Dorsey shares a Princeton breakdown drill
Lagniappe 3: Mom had a saying, "bored people are boring." Find something stimulating to read and study. 

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