Saturday, April 20, 2024

Basketball: Random Thoughts from an Old Guy for Younger Ones

Use a few thoughts from an old coach to young ones. 

1. Develop enduring relationships. My wife and I celebrated our fortieth anniversary visiting my high school coach and his wife for dinner. 

2. Cultivate a network to help players succeed long term. Encourage them to seek references and letters of recommendation. 

3. "Never be a child's last coach." Both our best player and the twelfth player should feel seen, heard, and valued. 

4. Add value. Vary practice to engage players and find multiple ways to develop player and team skills. 


5. Remember Brian McCormick's "no laps, no lines, no lectures." Conditioning within drills and scrimmaging adds efficiency. 

6. Everyone has to be in the game. Pat Summitt, Geno Auriemma and others review film of the bench. 

7. Maximize value of timeouts. "Practice" timeouts during practice. Focus on one or two ideas during timeouts. Less is more. If possible have three timeouts for the final four minutes (Dean Smith). 

8. Basketball requires maximum individual improvement in service of benefit of the team. Bill Russell said, "my ego demands the success of my team." 

9. The game is for the players. "Are we building a program or a statue?" 

10.Basketball is a game of SYMMETRY. Work to prevent on defense what we desire on offense. 


Lagniappe. Be like Coach Rav. 

Lagniappe 2. Our team can improve today by choosing better shots. 

Lagniappe 3. Work on getting your shots and a variety of shots. 




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