Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Basketball - More Points for Young Players to Ponder

Coaches share points of emphasis, absolutes that we believe change outcomes.

There's no universal list.

1) Stops make runs. Teams don't overcome deficits or extend leads by trading baskets. Excellent teams find ways to get stops and bad teams find ways to surrender hoops.

2) Defense begins with ball pressure. Make life hard for the person guarded. Guard like the person you hate to be guarded by. 

3) Basketball is a fight for space. Create space on offense to reduce doubles and to open driving and passing lanes. Shrink space on defense to take them away. 

4) Create possession enders, players who can finish plays both on offense and defense. Scores, stops, steals, rebounds, and assists define us. 

5) Be aware of time, score, and situation. It doesn't matter until it matters. Painful losses most often result from a blend of bad decisions and poor execution. 

6) Help your teammates. Cover 1.5. Move without the ball. Open gaps. Never cut to an occupied post. 

7) Talk. Talk engages, talk energizes, talk intimidates. 

8) Touch. Studies show that teams that touch more, win more. Think of the pictures of Tim Duncan with his arm around Tony Parker. 

9) Be "performance-focused, feedback-rich." Coaching is not criticism, it's instruction on how to do better next time. 

10)Be a great teammate. Are you the best teammate you can be? Be in the game, ready if called, and supportive at all times. 

*Bonus - "Basketball is a game of separation." Create separation on offense and deny it on defense. 

Lagniappe. ChatGPT shares its opinion about being a great teammate: 

Being a great teammate centers on commitment to shared goals, support, and selflessness. In sports and life, it's about showing up, being dependable, and prioritizing the group's success over individual gain. For families, this means providing unconditional support, celebrating each other's strengths, and growing together through challenges. A great teammate listens, respects differences, and recognizes that each role—whether visible or behind the scenes—makes an impact.

In terms of resources, like ChatGPT, a teammate offers knowledge, encouragement, and adaptability. This means engaging not just to answer or assist, but to contribute thoughtfully, learn from interactions, and elevate the people around you. Whether in sport, family, or any collaboration, a great teammate recognizes that shared success is a reward that strengthens everyone involved.

Lagniappe 2. Maravich.  

Lagniappe 3. Some coaches step up to take credit and step back to assign fault. Man up.  

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Basketball - All Purpose Quotes and Rules

Every coach wants 'stuff' they can use to make a difference. Here are a few illustrative ones: 

"Basketball is sharing." - Phil Jackson   There's no quote with fewer words carrying more content. 

"Comparison is the thief of joy." - Teddy Roosevelt   Never discuss another parent's child when another parent wants to discuss playing time. 

"Your friends stab you in the front." - Oscar Wilde   Close friends and mentors give constructive criticism when we are most vulnerable. 

"A lion never roars after a kill." - Dean Smith   Basketball administers doses of humility. Be gracious in defeat and humble in victory.

"Don't whine, don't complain, don't make excuses." - John Wooden  Nobody wears excuses well. Avoid trafficking in finger pointing unless directed inward. 

"Just because I want you on the floor doesn't mean I want you to shoot." - Bob Knight   Players add value in different ways, not always via scoring. 

"Nonshooters are always open." - Pete Carril   You've heard the rule, Cover 1.5 (yours and half of another). Some guys get sloughed off. 

"I'm pleased but I'm not satisfied." - Sonny Lane   Complacency impairs improvement. 

"How you play reflects how you live."   There's no place to hide on the court. 

"Choosing is work."   Neil Gaiman, author   Coaches make hard choices about time management, roster management, allocation of practice time, playing time, and roles. 

"It's not your shot, it's our shot." - Jay Bilas   Better shot selection is the quickest path to improvement. Shot charts and video both reveal truth about shot selection.  

"You have to live the truth; you have to tell the truth; you have to take the truth." - Kevin Eastman   Truth lives in hard conversations. Coaching breeds hard conversation. 

"I believe in you."   The four most important words in coaching change people's lives, both coaches and players.     

Lagniappe. 


Lagniappe 2. Optimum use of ball screens includes rejection. 

Lagniappe 3. Great coaches emphasize systems and habits. 

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Monday, November 11, 2024

Basketball - Eating My Own Cooking (Developmental Material)

I sent this starter set to my son the other day for my eight year-old granddaughter Caitlin (her mother's maiden name is Clark, I kid you not).  

Obviously, starting out the drills should be close to the basket. Basketball is a game of separation and finishing.

Street cred? My graduates in D1
Cecilia Kay - frosh at American, 12.5 ppg, 9.5 rpg (2 games) 
Samantha Dewey - junior at Richmond, 15 points yesterday 


2. Compendium
Attack mentality. Choose from a 'menu' of improvements. Invest the time to review multiple videos. You don't need to develop every one. 
3. Box drills  (absolutely great drills) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwmyJF0s6gA&t=1s
4. Athleticism drills  (sport rewards explosive athletes)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szJXg72tyZ8&t=437s


Brad Stevens was asked, "What's the one thing that you look for when hiring a coach or drafting a new player?" His answer was just two words. Brad may now be the GM of the Boston Celtics, but his answer hasn't changed in over 15 years since coaching at Butler. He said, "Competitive Character" He defines Competitive Character as the approach to consistently perform well, regardless of the circumstances. It's combining character with the drive and will to do your best. Brad said, "I believe strongly in competitive character. People that will prepare well, people that care about their team, and when the lights are on - can focus on their task and do their job well, regardless of circumstances." • It means doing the work. • It means choosing to be resilient. • It means having a growth-mindset. • It means being a person of integrity.

Yes. It's too much. But it's a start. 

Lagniappe. Excellent thoughts on man defense. 

Lagniappe 2. Muffet McGraw argues for the character building values of sport. 

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Sunday, November 10, 2024

Basketball - Shooting Drills for Young Players

My eight year-old granddaughter is starting to learn basketball. This post is for my son helping her. 

Challenge yourself to shoot consistently with good form and establish "personal bests" in percentage with time constraints.


I've shared this many times. Villanova 'Get 50' is a great warm up.

Young players should become proficient shooting close to the basket and then begin to extend range. Eldon Campbell warmup. 


If you need to shoot from 6-8 feet, that's not a problem. 


Curry warmup. For young players, start close and take one step back. Make 3 from each spot and move back. 

Constraints in terms of time add pressure which is inevitable in game play. "Winners are trackers." Personal bests are goals. 


Shooting under fatiguing conditions also develops shooters. Shoot free throws in-between rounds to practice and get a breather. 

"Bill Bradley/Beat the Pro." Game is to 11, with one point for a make and minus three for a miss. To win consistently, you have to make 11 before missing four. 

Do not let young U10s and under be 'seduced' with long-range shooting. It only creates bad habits and deviation from good shooting form.

Lagniappe. "Cutthroat" variation.  

Lagniappe 2. Study video regularly. Every top player is a student of the game. 






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Saturday, November 9, 2024

Basketball- Making Moments

For some programs, every season ends in tears, tears of joy or sadness. Sport helps us to write great narratives. Here are tips shared from Sam Davies' review of The Power of Moments. 

"Boosting sensory appeal is about “turning up the volume” on reality."

"To raise the stakes is to add an element of productive pressure: a competition, a game, a performance, a deadline, a public commitment."

"One simple diagnostic to gauge whether you’ve transcended the ordinary is if people feel the need to pull out their cameras." 

"Our instinct to capture a moment says: I want to remember this. That’s a moment of elevation."

Great players and great teams don't wait for moments. They earn moments. They make moments. 

During our lives we might experience 'moments' as players, parents, coaches, and fans. The nature of moments is reinforcement with the stakes, peak, and end state. My favorite was playing twice in Boston Garden and watching my daughters play twice in Boston Garden a generation later. 

We remember high stakes (e.g. playoff, championship) games.

 

We remember epic wins and soul-crushing defeats.

Lagniappe. Is Zoom Action part of your offense? 

Lagniappe 2. SLOB complexity. 

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Friday, November 8, 2024

Basketball - Educate Better


Adopt this core value - "learn five new things every day." 

Coaches model excellence in all areas from behavior, curiosity, work ethic, and more. 

Take pride in developing players and scholars. A few tips for writing better:
  • Find your writing place. 
  • Put our phone aside. Reduce distractions. 
  • Make seeking the right words a priority. 
  • Paint pictures with words. 
  • Strong verbs replace weak adverbs.
  • Separate our creative and critical (revision) voices. 
  • Create space between initial and subsequent drafts.
Lagniappe. From Coach K's "Gold Standard"


Lagniappe 2. 
Lagniappe 3. "Even on the worst days, there's a possibility for joy." - Castle












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Thursday, November 7, 2024

Basketball - Finishing Off Two Feet

Emphasize edges. Edges include spacing, player and ball movement, and finishing. 

Finishing off two feet helps mitigate contact, improve balance, and creates three-point plays. I didn't teach this enough. 


Villanova and Jay Wright are a great place to continue.

What else could we do? 

Box drills with constraints. 
  • Back to the basket, pivot and attack. 
  • Require a finish off two feet. 
  • Start without defense, then add defense. 
Another area to work is a "stampede catch" into a basket attack, combining both stampede action and two foot finishing. 

Lagniappe. Another way to initiate "America's Play" 

Lagniappe 2. Balance openness and critical thinking to learn.  

View on Threads

 

 

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Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Basketball - "It's All About the Ball"

NFL Analyst Greg Olsen described film teaching run by a team about forcing turnovers. Teams that force turnovers create opponent 'net zero' possessions and live-ball turnovers become high value possessions. 

"Possessions and possession," means have more possessions and more positive possessions. Forced turnovers create extra possessions and committed turnovers reduce them. 

In middle school basketball, we reduced turnovers twenty-five percent (from a high baseline) by emphasizing and reporting team turnovers. Players were too young to be saddled with public (team) turnover reports. 

Although most players do the 95 (percent) without the ball, there's much ado with it. 

  • Win individual matchups (e.g. drives and Kelbick "think shot first.")
  • Deny dribble and pass penetration. "Containment"
  • Take care of the ball. 
  • The ball is the 'smartest thing on the court,' as it finds those who score, assist, rebound, and steal...that is, "possession enders." 
  • Share the ball because "the ball has energy." 
Lagniappe. "Your team-building plan must be personalized and specific to your personnel, your competition, your goal, and your leadership style." - Coach Krzyzewsk, "The Gold Standard"

Lagniappe 2. Chris Oliver take on "form shooting." 

Lagniappe 3. The court is our laboratory. What do we do with that? 

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Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Basketball- What Belongs in Your Man Offense?

At every level of experience, coaches seek effective and teachable offense. 

What 'first principles' belong?

1) "We can't run what we can't run." Skill come first. Sacrificing player development for team action is a mistake. Practicing 1 v 1, two-man game, and three-on-three one-sided actions all deserve a lot of attention. 

2) "It's about making plays, not running plays." - Coach K

3) What's our transition game? How big a role will it have? 

4) Prioritize spacing. "Win in space."

  • Initial formations
  • Player and ball movement (create ad
  • vantage)
  • Scoring moment (execute advantage)
5) Single formation with multiple actions (e.g. 5 out or horns)


Also, a lot of actions flow from box sets. Take care not to introduce too much, too soon. 

6) Multiple formations with the same play. Pick-and-roll runs well from many formations. Back cuts including blind pig deserve consideration. 

7) Continuity and motion offenses. Regardless of whether you have "motion," we need movement. Actions on the help side keep defenders occupied and less available to "shrink space." 

8) Pick-and-roll. Many variations arise, ranging from Zoom action (downscreen, DHO), straight DHO, Pistol variants. 

9) Hard to defend actions. Aside from pick-and-roll, complex screening like staggers, elevator/sandwich, screen-the-screener, screen-the-roller (Spain) all offer separation with different spacing solutions. 

10)Customize to your personnel and experience. The best scorers should get the most shots. Basketball is not a democracy. 

  • Attend to free throw shooting. 
  • Include 'fatigued' shooting with conditioning built in. 
  • Proximity defenders (hands up) alters results. Free shooting has limitations. 
  • Make it competitive. Track shooting among groups with time limitations such as shots made in 4:00. 
Lagniappe. Horns clear, late clock DHO. 

Lagniappe 2. Rajon Rondo teaches PnR passing.  


 

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Monday, November 4, 2024

Basketball: Conceptual and Experimental

 

From Adam Grant in "Originals"

Grant argues that innovation most often comes conceptually in the young and experimentally from the 'old masters'. In basketball, both apply.

Consider Don Meyer's 'three phases' of coaching - blind enthusiasm, sophisticated complexity, and mature simplicity.

Blind enthusiasm moves coaches hither and yon, wondering about this and that. Mature simplicity embeds persistence and failure, as in "that doesn't work; I abandoned it."

Consider our coaching. Do you coach the same way now as when you started? Coaches revise our psychological reserves, our teaching analogies, drill book, and playbook. What is right for teaching novices differs from teaching the more mature or the highly trained. 

Consider Anson Dorrance's "competitive cauldron" of UNC women's soccer. He and his staff grade and rank every player daily. Everyone knows who inhabits the top and bottom of their world. For nationally ranked college players and teams, that worked. Young players with less experience and less established "ego," should never be exposed to that approach. If you want to create mental health problems and 'corporate rage', that would work. 

Brian McCormick wrote "Fake Fundamentals," sharing what he considered outdated drills (above). In this post, I shared drills I used and abandoned for a variety of reasons, including injury prevention.

A worthy goal is not comparing ourselves to other coaches but comparing ourselves today to our prior coaching. That recognizes a permanent room for growth. Many great writers like Salman Rushdie argue that good writing is rewriting, with our creative self and our critical self. 

Lagniappe. Sport rewards explosive athletes. 

Lagniappe 2. JVG teaches roll and replace (Villanova uses a separate version).  
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Sunday, November 3, 2024

Basketball: Advice for Young Coaches

Former SEAL Team leader Jocko Willink told a story about a team member who told him to limit the key pieces of information to know to three - that's all he could remember. Sometimes players get overwhelmed with information, too. Complexity is as likely to confuse our players as our opponents. 

1) Have a clear philosophy such that players know, "this is who we are" and "that is what we do." Write it down and make it transparent. 

2) Add value to get buy-in. Coaches add value via relationships, player development, and basketball education. 

3) Embrace personal development. You model excellence for everyone around you, assistants and players. Find a mentor. Learn every day. That doesn't mean taking every piece of advice coming your way. A lack of humility always ends with the "stock trader's breakfast"...egg on the face. 

Lagniappe. Blame is about ego defense and lack of accountability. 

Lagniappe 2. This is long. Save it and extract something you find useful. 

Lagniappe 3. Coach Hacks has some thoughtful ideas about tryouts. Over fifty years ago, a School Committee man tried to tank a coach and season when his son got cut.  

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Saturday, November 2, 2024

Basketball - Coaching Edges

Coaching edges arise in many domains: (examples)

  • Player development 
  • Managing tempo - practice, games, timeouts
  • Winning matchups, creating mismatches
  • System implementation - matching skill sets to mission
  • "Absolutes" - limiting turnovers and fouls
  • Video study and analysis
  • Winning close and late  
  • Motivation
Watch a 'generic' struggling team. You know what to expect:

Poor decision-making:
  • Low percentage shots
  • Undisciplined fouling
  • Decision-based turnovers
Poor execution: 
  • Unskilled shooting 
  • Lack of ball containment and penetration containment
  • Execution-based turnovers
Effective coaches stay on point with their philosophy:
- "Sacrifice" 
- "The ball is gold" (value the ball)
- "Pleased but not satisfied..." (no complacency)

Lagniappe. Bad reads lead to suboptimal execution. 
Lagniappe 2. It's not enough to draw diagrams showing screens. 

Lagniappe 3. Process and results 

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Friday, November 1, 2024

Basketball: What Really Matters?

Bill Belichick and other NFL coaches invest Mondays to analyze what won or lost games. For professionals, that is where the rubber meets the road. Coaches and players should understand the distinction. 

For coaches whose reputation, job, and lifestyle depend on winning, that makes perfect sense.

For developmental coaches, the equation differs. What advances or holds a player back? Of course, that doesn't devalue winning. 

Quiz players on what wins and loses games, both overview and details. 

What wins games? (Big picture, Bird's Eye View)

  • Talent 
  • Execution (reading the game and finishing plays)
  • Number of Possessions
  • Quality of possessions - Defenses allowing "one bad shot." 
  • Coaching 
What wins games? (Granular, Frog's Eye View, Four Factors)
  • Differential shooting, effective field goal percentage
  • Forcing Turnovers 
  • Rebounding (possession ending or sustaining)
  • Free throws (committing and drawing fouls)
What loses games? 
  • Bad decisions (impacts offense, defense, conversion)
  • Turnovers (0 % possessions, "turnovers kill dreams")
  • Fouling (via free throws, high points/possession chances)
  • Losing close games via lack of offensive and defensive delay
  • Losing close games via inability to execute, defend special situations
Lagniappe. Diagonal cuts. 
Lagniappe 2. Great advice from Coach Wooden. 


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