"You have people walking around with all the knowledge of humanity on their phone, but they have no idea how to integrate it. We don’t train people in thinking or reasoning." - David Epstein, Range
Resources limit us but imagination shouldn't. Find ways to differentiate ourselves from the competition.
First, notes from a Richard Branson MasterClass chapter about his fierce battle with British Airways during Virgin Airways startup.
Create a short list of better ways than yesterday.
1. Share better. Share ideas. Share successes. Share failures. During medical training, a third of trainees develop CLINICAL DEPRESSION. That doesn't mean a little sad. That means. "Dr. Smith should be on medication for his problem." In my second year of residency training, I worked 185 consecutive days, including usually being on call in hospital every third night. Average sleep, one hour. I'm not asking for sympathy for forty year-old history, just saying that's no way to train young people in empathy.
Failure is part of basketball maturity. Recovery from failure is part, too. Success and failure stories inform those struggling that they are not alone.
2. Communicate better. Hemingway said, "writing is easy; all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." He often wrote short sentences using small words. His words inform emotion.
"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."
After a two-point home loss to the thrice defending State Champion, Coach said, "you lost because it said, "Lexington" on their jerseys. You're better than they are and you won't lose to them again."
3. Prepare better. We practiced five versus seven full court press, no dribble, every day. Pass and cut. Repeat. Repeat and finish. We won the rematch by eighteen in their gym. Their All-State guard scored ten. You could hear a pin drop at the end. We won the rubber game in Boston Garden in overtime.
4. Give and get better feedback. President Reagan said, "Trust but verify." Get everyone on the same page. Check.
- How do we defend the pick and roll?
- How many do we send to the offensive boards? Who gets back?
- What is our "gotta have it" BOB, SLOB, ATO, set versus man and versus zone?
Coach Bob Knight would call a "practice timeout" and then hand out pencil and paper and ask players to write what they heard and diagram the play he diagrammed. You better know.
5. Be more specific. You remember from Alice in Wonderland, "“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’" That doesn't work with players. Define and share examples of playing hard, quality shots, containing the ball, denying the post, help and recovery.
6. Make fewer mistakes. Another Knight saying, "Basketball is a game of mistakes."
- Make the easy play.
- "No easy baskets" from mental mistakes, fouls, and bad transition.
- No "shot turnovers"
Make more positive "possession ending" plays. STOPS make RUNS.
Pete Newell said it best, "get more and better shots than our opponents."
Lagniappe. Spurs concepts... worth the trouble.
