Friday, September 20, 2024

Basketball: Simplify.


Simple is hard. With overwhelming talent (usually in the setting of talent aggregation-recruiting coaches), play fast and amplify the edge with more possessions.

1) "Get more and better shots." - Pete Newell  

Post by @matt_hackenberg_basketball
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2) Pressure the ball. Great coaching points. Tell players "NFL cornerbacks don't use slide steps to cover. Scouts look at hip turn." 


3) A woman made a bet that she could make President Coolidge, a man of few words, say more than two words. She approached him and said, "I bet that I could make you talk more." He replied, "you lose." 

Raise your efficiency with better shot quality. I see high school teams take a lot of threes with players who can't shoot. It's great to teach layups, threes, and free throws if you have guys who can finish. Doc Rivers calls bad shots, "shot turnovers." If you're shooting less than 20 percent from three (0.6 points/possession), unless you have an amazing defense, you lose. Coaches who don't use shot charts can only guess. 

4) "The ball is gold." Remember SPCA of the "Four Factors." Score, protect, crash, attack. Protect the ball. Turnover are zero percent possessions. Bad teams turn the ball over a lot. As coaches, we have some ownership over that. We can't put it all on the players. 

5) Foul for profit. Bad teams put teams on the line more. Those are high points per possession chances. Even 60 percent at the line is 1.2 points/possession. Most high school teams are well below one point per possession. 

You're entitled to say, "everyone knows that." If that's true, the bad basketball on display is a contradiction. Many players either don't know or have agendas. 

Lagniappe. Teach better. 

Lagniappe 2. It's a communication business.  

Lagniappe 3. Simple and elegant.  

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