Monday, March 1, 2021

Basketball: Watch "The Playbook", Advice from Coaching Legends

"Practice a million times until it's perfect." - Patrick Mouratoglou (Netflix, Playbook)

Excellent coaches ascend. Mike Reiss writes about Bill Belichick, "One of the main things he mentioned is to always look for a better way. A better way of teaching. A better way of training. It resonates to me that he's a constant learner. He's everything we want to be, but he's coming out and saying 'I'm looking for new ways to learn and improve.' That's inspiring."

Invest in ourselves becoming learning machines. 


Championship coaches share philosophies on The Playbook. Tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou said to Serena Williams, "I think you're an underachiever...you won thirteen Grand Slams...you could have won twenty-six." Playbook also interviews Jose Mourinho, Jill Ellis, Dawn Staley, and Doc Rivers. 

Dawn Staley loves puzzling. "Building from the ground up." Just like coaching. Her dean at UVA told her, "growth takes place out of your comfort zone...you gotta work just as hard as you do on the basketball court in the classroom."

Staley says, "When you make somebody feel special, they want to help you succeed." 

Great players want to be coached; so do other professionals. Dr. Atul Gawande hired a retired surgeon to oversee and assess his surgical technique. Many writers, including Stephen King and Anne Lamott have other writers and critics review their writing. Psychologist Dr. Brett Steenbarger wrote, The Daily Trading Coach, 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist. "Are your ways of thinking helping or hindering your performance? Are you actively framing and reframing your views of markets, or are impulses, needs, and fears hijacking the ways in which you think?"

Skill trainers are integral to NBA success. Tim S. Grover, author of Relentless, worked with Kobe Bryant. Drew Hanlen has multiple "students" including Joel Embiid, Brad Beal, Jayson Tatum, and Zach Levine in the NBA All-Star pool. 

Coach Hanlen has a YouTube channel with video, drills, and podcasts.  


It's important to know your shot and to diagnose and correct deviations. 

There's a difference between know that and know how. It uses physical and mental inputs with emphasis on detail. For example, UCLA cuts won't work because players don't set up their cut and don't cut urgently. Coach Popovich reminds us, "Technique beats tactics." 

Excellent players leave fewer points on the table via poor decision-making (e.g. turnovers, shot selection) or execution (don't do what you can't do). Or sometimes they stop doing what they do well. Mouratoglou noticed that Serena Williams wasn't attacking the net because of lack of confidence. He told her that she was winning 80% of the points at the net (she wasn't) and needed to attack more. But she started to attack the net because he restored her confidence. 

Lagniappe. Coaching Toolbox shared a few NBA SLOBs. 

Zipper, Elbow, Cross-screen. 



















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