Basketball: Frustrated by the Pandemic? "I Can't Get Better."

Take ownership of our education. Urban Meyer's Above The Line shares that theme.

Will a generation of players argue the pandemic robbed them of basketball experience or capitalize on the best available education online?

Read. Read basketball books, blogs, and clinic notes. Read about leadership, about excellence, about psychology, and whatever interests you. 

Here are a few lessons from General Stanley McChrystal's Team of Teams:

"We have to begin leading differently...a leader's words matter, but actions ultimately do more to reinforce or undermine the implementation of a team of teams."

"A gardening approach to leadership is anything but passive. The leader acts as an "Eyes-On, Hands-Off" enabler who creates and maintains an ecosystem in which the organization operates."

"He knew what was normal, so different stood out." (If you want to be different, to stand out among your peers, your plan, preparation, and training must be better.) 

Train. Seek out trainers and educators on the Internet, especially the talented teachers domestic and foreign. 

Drew Hanlen, Pure Sweat Basketball. 

Don Kelbick, Drillz and Skilz. 

Kevin Eastman. 

Improve our teaching of skill development. 

• "You can't be bored."
• "You can't get tired." 

Kirby Schepp. 

"What would your offense look like if you put your players in different spots?" 

Study the game. What big picture applies and how do the details make that happen? 

For example, everyone agrees, "transition defense is important." What elements go into that? How many players go to the offensive board? Who? What are your primary and secondary goals? How do we train this? How will we measure it? 

Lagniappe: For our organization, the job is to make sense of what General McChrystal calls shared consciousness and empowerment. We need group understanding of the mission and its execution.  

They called their operation in Iraq "The Star Wars Bar" because groups from many different organization merged to plan and operate against terrorism in real time. 

Lagniappe 2: Click through to the Radius Athletics mini-clinic on spacing. 

Make the mental shift from viewing “basketball coaching” as coaching technique and actions to viewing it as creating favorable spacing conditions for players to apply skills. ("Steward of spacing")

Lagniappe 3: Sawubona, more than a greeting but an invitation to participate in each other's lives. Does winning bring a team together or togetherness bring winning?