Basketball: Ten Commandments for Players

Establish your culture, values, and roles. Lay out your absolutes. Help players get where they need to go. Be specific.

1. "Take care of business." 

• Family
• Academics
• Basketball 

Do what you don't want to do now to do what you want later. Failure to take care of business forfeits opportunities. Effort, teamwork, and resilience expose who you are. 

Reading: "100 Ways to Improve Your Writing" (notes) "Write a Strong Lead

• The lead is whatever it takes to lead your readers so deeply into your story or article that they will not turn back unless you stray from the path you have put them on.

2. Be a great teammate. Everyone can't be a great player but everyone can be a great teammate. Ask yourself, "what does my teammate need now?" It might be a ride, help with homework, or a sympathetic ear. 

3. Commit to daily improvement. Pick a plan, stick to it, and track. Not sure about where to improve? Self-assess. Do you need more technique (skill), tactics (knowledge), physicality (strength and conditioning), psychology? Get input and feedback from your mentor. 

4. Make teammates better. That's the standard of great players.

•  Give what is necessary when it's needed. 
• "It's the scoreboard, not the scorebook." Avoid the three S's - selfishness, softness, sloth.
• Impact winning by attention to detail every possession. 

5. Help your teammates. Talk. 

• Talk increases awareness.
• Talk energizes. 
• Help by moving yourself and the ball.
• "Cover 1.5" (your player and help on another)

6. Be positive. "A negative attitude never produces a positive life." 

7. Be coachable. 

• Great players want coaching. 
• They hunger for mentoring. 
• They "buy in" and help others buy in. 

8. Play present. Attitude can't be a sometimes thing. "Show up every day." Win this possession. "Drive" sums autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Are you driven to excel or is being 'on the team' enough? 

9. Focus. Lack of focus shows up with defensive lapses, turnovers, and bad shots. Defensive lapses include silence, lack of effort, lack of awareness, poor positioning, and passivity.

10. Leverage strengths. Your dominant hand is dominant for a reason. Go with your best action whenever possible. "Do more of what works and less of what doesn't." 

Lagniappe. Finishing against size... a variety of excellent suggestions ranging from going high or low, to floaters and initiating body contact.