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Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Basketball - Figure It Out, Reevaluate What to Keep or Discard

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

David Mamet shares a MasterClass masterpiece. He reduces truths to their essence.

For example, he revises Aristotle's quote, "Character is habitual action." If you lie repeatedly, you are a liar. Don't complicate matters.

He explains why people converse, "to get something from each other."

His insights have broad application. "Bad writers leave in what good writers remove" or "good writers leave what bad writers remove."

Apply that to basketball. A team loses because of poor transition defense, weak ball containment, and bad shot selection. Mamet would say, "the audience sees the truth." Bad coaches accept 'bad actions'. Better coaches, "do more of what works and less of what doesn't." 

There's no secret sauce. Skill informs execution. Designing an offense matters less than designing players to run it. 


Draw two and dish isn't a new concept (video from 1973). 

Good coaches run parallel development of skill and decision-making. In the cluster of vision-decision-execution, any one of the three that fails sinks you. 

The analogy might be the 'value trap' for investors. Price keeps rising, what should we do? Benjamin Graham reminded his students, "in the short run, the market is a voting machine. In the long run, it is a weighing machine (weighing sales, profits, and cash flow)." The tall, athletic player gets the votes initially. But without acquiring skill and decision-making, they're tall and athletic, not impactful.

Gregg Popovich tells players, "figure it out." Coaches must, too. The greatest player ever might not be a successful administrator or coach. Find what to keep and what to toss.  

Lagniappe. Movement kills defense. 

Lagniappe 2. One-on-one drill initiation.  

Lagniappe 3. Another one-on-one initiation.  

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