Basketball - Feedback Versus Advice with Help from Bill Walsh

Feedback looks backward. "This is what we did." Advice looks ahead. "That is what we can do better." 

It's not the same as knowledge and wisdom. At any point, our knowledge is static. With work and fortune, we can acquire wisdom. 

Grow what we know and how we apply it. How? 

Study great leaders and teachers across domains. What makes them tick? What makes them great? 

Bill Walsh is one such professor. Each of us has unique perceptions from their professors. 

1) Walsh championed standards. Standards mattered for the receptionist answering the phone and the workers striping the field. They mattered for his assistant coaches and for the players. 

2) Walsh believed in growth. Growth followed work and sometimes crossed the line into obsession.  

3) Walsh lived culture. The legendary Paul Brown was one of Walsh's mentors as he developed the "West Coast Offense." Culturing and mentoring are related. This offense prioritized horizontal passing plays to stretch the defense (spacing), therefore setting up defensive vulnerability to vertical big plays in both the running and the passing game. 

"The Score Takes Care of Itself" is Walsh's classic. Great coaches have amazing clarity about what corresponds to winning and losing. The best coaches I know wrack their brains studying success, failure, and how to progress and improve. The diagnoses are easier than the treatment. 

• Why are we failing? Offense, defense, conversion (O and D transition)
• How are we measuring effectiveness? The score isn't enough. 
• What must we stop doing? (Turnovers, bad shots, bad transition D, etc.)
• How can we change failure into success? 
• Am I capable of paying that price?

Here's a link to Walsh quotes. 

“If you’re growing a garden, you need to pull out the weeds, but flowers will die if all you do is pick weeds. They need sunshine and water. People are the same.”

Lagniappe. Nash on dribble separation. 

Steve Nash explaining the use of change of direction dribbles

"They are all really the same move.. you just want to create space and change direction" pic.twitter.com/BPWpf64eUS

— The Courtside Vault (@CourtsideVault) November 17, 2024

Lagniappe 2. Accountability FOR not accountability TO. 

Accountability done well is holding people to the standard not because you are against them, but because you are for them. It's reminding them of who they are meant to be, of the commitment they’ve made.

Accountability is what you do for people, not to people.

— Kevin DeShazo (@KevinDeShazo) November 15, 2024