Thursday, December 28, 2023

Basketball: What Are Your “Legacy” Messages?

Basketball asserts messages that resonate in our lives. I stole a bunch. Learn to share them with our players. Some I worked to leave behind: 

1. "I believe in you." Nothing inspires more than a trusted leader expressing trust. Tell players or teams who earn that trust. 

2. "Basketball is sharing." - Phil Jackson   Shared sacrifice, shared vision, shared results. This nullifies the dreaded S's - selfishness, sloth, softness.

3. "The game honors toughness." - Brad Stevens (and others)  Toughness includes both mental and physical discipline. Skill flows from disciplined training. Tough players play both ends of the floor, play the right way, do the 'dirty jobs' and earn teammates' respect.  

4. "Technique beats tactics." - Gregg Popovich  Effort is not a substitute for skill. Dean Smith said, "I don't coach effort." For excellent players, effort is a feature not an 'add-on'. 

5. "Every day is player development day." - Dave Smart  Player development includes skill, seeing the game, and teaching players how to compete and win. 

6. Culture matters. "This is who we are. That is how we play." Regardless of our 'rooting interest', respect the Miami Heat. They embody the "whatever it takes" mentality. 

7. "Think again." - Adam Grant  Things change. Seek solutions not 'my way'. Great players, coaches, and teams constantly evolve. 

8. "The ball is gold." - Coach Sonny Lane  Good teams don't give games away, don't give the ball away, and don't give possessions away. 

9. "Take more and better shots than your opponents." - Pete Newell  I say it as, "Possession and possessions." Get the ball and do something good with it. 

10."Teamwork. Improvement. Accountability." Everyone can't be a great player, but every can choose to be a good teammate. Strive to be better at the end of every practice. A one percent daily improvement translates to a 37-fold improvement over a year. Leverage compounding. Accountability means holding yourself to a high standard. It's Bill Walsh's "Standard of Performance" and Anson Dorrance's "Excellence is our only agenda." 

Be proud of the people whom our players become. 

Lagniappe. Teacher's pets. 

Lagniappe 2. Search for value. 




at