Tuesday, December 5, 2023

How Coaches Think

He walked into "The Brain Store" and checked the inventory. The sign said, "Physicist Brain, $20 a pound." He moved on. "Doctor's Brain, $40 a pound." He moved on. He saw, "Coach's Brain, $80 a pound." He asked why a coach's brain costs so much. The shopkeeper said, "Do you know how many coaches you need to get a pound of brains?"

Coaching has tradeoffs. That is a hallmark of economics, the allocation of scarce resources. How do we allocate practice time, minutes, roles, recognition? At some levels, winning is secondary. At others, it is nearly everything. 

"Education changes behavior." Coaches are teachers. We motivate, add value, and hope to get buy-in through authenticity and truth. 

We promote a philosophy, believing that it's part of added value. Mine is "teamwork, improvement, accountability." Be a great teammate, do the work of improvement, and hold ourselves to a high standard. 

"Every day is player development day." Some coaches are talent aggregators, some developers, and some do both. Locally, there's only development no recruiting. 

"Technique beats tactics." - Gregg Popovich  Our coach said it another way, that you plan to outplay your opponent or trick them. The latter is a dog that won't hunt. 

"Basketball is sharing." - Phil Jackson   Shared vision, shared sacrifice, and shared effort produce shared results. How much of each that's shared determines how good the results. 

"Successful teams inform a plan to play longer and harder." The greatest coach in the world can't manufacture great talent without adequate raw materials. But sometimes the combination of receptive talent and positive coaching distills an excellent mix. 

Coaches understand self-serving bias. We put players and teams in positions that we believe give them a chance to succeed. That doesn't always square with the opinions of friends, family, and critics.

"Do more of what works and less of what doesn't." Choose more hard-to-defend actions both individual and team. Each dish has the ingredients of spacing, cutting, passing, and screening. And like cooking, development blend time and temperature (intensity). I wrote about hard-to-defend actions here. 

Understand opportunity cost. Being on a team has costs relative to alternatives. Costs involve both time and money. Sitting on the bench magnifies the costs.

Macroeconomics is the forest, microeconomics is the trees. Macroeconomics is the ecosystem or culture. Microeconomics is how players interact with the system, the coaches, and each other. 

"Capital (minutes) flows to its most efficient use." The players you see on the court or the field got perceived as being the most efficient. 

Coaches think like economists. 

Lagniappe. To handle given situations, they must be trained. 

Lagniappe 2. I like the stampede action. 

Lagniappe 3. Losing minutes?  

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