Five Big Lessons for Players and Coaches

Young coaches may seek guidelines to share with players. These may help.

Players, embrace these principles. 

1. Great players make the people around them better. That applies across team domains, such as Larry Bird and the Celtics, Freddy Mercury and Queen. Are my choices making others better? The core of Metallica has lasted forty years. How? They agreed to choose whatever is best for the group. 

2. Sweat the small stuff. Great teams and players handle the details. Coach Lane always shared "three keys to victory." Simplify and clarify expectations. 

3. Always do your best. It won't be perfect. It isn't the same daily. It may not be great. "If you just do your best, there is no way you can judge yourself. And if you don’t judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame, and self-punishment." - don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements

Being your best means being prepared, practicing fully focused, knowing and doing what you can do in the moment. 

4. Excellent players limit mistakes. Great players and teams do not give away games. They take away games with aggression, intelligence, and execution. 

5. Be a great teammate. Anyone can be a great teammate. We control our attitude, our choice, our effort. Bring positivity and energy. 

Select key responsibilities for coaches. 

1. Help players "see the game." Micro and macro game details require learning and teaching structure. Spacing, player and ball movement, and finishing/defending don't come naturally. Teach basketball symmetry - apply and handle pressure, force and avoid mistakes, get/prevent quality shots. 

2. Develop players and teams. "Every day is player development day." Improve and revise our drill book, playbook, and curriculum teaching spreadsheets. Google Drive is an outstanding storage resource. 

3. Get the most from players, putting players in position to succeed in the game and in life. Help players become their best versions. "Utilize strengths; attack weaknesses." 

4. Understand that the person is more important than the player. Players are more than assets or commodities to be deployed and consumed. 

5. Put players first. "Are we building a program or a statue?" As a group, many of us lament the empathy-deficient attitude of coaches making multimillion dollar salaries who oppose sharing any monies with players. That's just one form of unequal treatment of the people playing the game.

Lagniappe. Win with overwhelming force.  

Lagniappe 2. Be intentional. 

When you watch basketball with intention.. you learn a lot

Watch off the ball (screening, moving without the ball, getting open, etc)

Watch defensive rotations

Watch footwork (on offense and defense)

Watch how players score most often

Look for details, not just highlights

— Anthony Pugh (@Anthony_Pugh2) September 10, 2022

Lagniappe 3.