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Saturday, October 12, 2024

Basketball: Reality Checking

BOLO... be on the lookout... for ideas, truths, analogies to help strengthen ourselves and our teams. 



From Adam Grant's "Originals," Brandon Tartikoff of NBC points out that "we" are overconfident in our skills and creations and often myopic in understanding why. We are better at assessing another's work than our own. It's more than "I don't know what I don't know."

Our past performance doesn't guarantee success. Grant points out that Dean Kamen, inventor of a portable dialysis machine, a technological revolution, later invented a technological flop, the Segway. 

Great players often do not become great coaches. Conversely, deep work in game study (e.g. video coordinators, low on the totem pole grunts) can produce elite coaches like Erik Spoelstra. 

We're not good at judging our own work. Blogger gives me feedback on article readership. Some articles get over a thousand reads, others a few hundred. I can't predict. A master composer, Beethoven, was wrong a third of the time about which pieces got picked or panned. And I'm no Beethoven. 

No 'cookie cutter' exists for success and innovation. One that matters is producing volume. Grant writes, "Picasso's oeuvre includes more than 1,800 paintings, 1,200 sculptures, 2,800 ceramics, and 12,000 drawings...only a fraction of which have produced acclaim." Even among the masters, "throwing a lot against the wall and finding what sticks," has validity. 

"Great stuff" gets rejected - James Patterson's early novels, the Harry Potter series, and of course Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. 

What does this mean for coaches? 

  • First impressions may be wrong, the early Michael Jordan. 
  • Failed copies. Pete Newell said copying your coach may "produce a poor reproduction of the original." 
  • "Kill your darlings." Our faves among drills and plays may not work. 
  • Find a mentor or "Personal Board of Directors" to critique us.
  • Don't succumb to overconfidence. The best coaches are open to considering new ideas and information. 
Be wary of making premature judgments without enough time or information. That will happen anyway. Take sample size into consideration. I say, "don't beat yourself up, there will always be someone to do that for you." 

Your experience and background might be a 1-4 offense, precursor to horns, and switching defenses. Our middle school team won't flourish with concepts they neither know nor understand. Seek Don Meyer's mature simplicity. 

The drills, sets, or sayings from our youth are as likely outdated as enduring. As better tools enter our toolboxes, don't fear to jettison the past. There are no layup lines during games. 

Consider the "Hero's Journey" and the presence of either sidekicks or mentors. Batman had Robin and Alfred; Skywalker had Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. Expecting to do it alone reeks of hubris and folly. 

Players think there are a few ways to win and coaches know there are almost infinite ways to lose. In fact, experts know what's most important among the many. “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”  

Lagniappe. Simplify. 

Lagniappe 2. Again.  

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