A small amount of time studying tape daily pays long-term benefits. What works, what doesn't, and what can we do better? Find something that players can turn into hoops.
Basketball is a "game of separation." Porter, Jr. uses the off-ball screen and buries a three. Don't think Simons had a chance.
Classic Mazzulla Ball...penetrate, draw 2, open the three. Will teams eventually stop helping on the drive and live with the mid-range shot?
Urgent cutting separates baskets from wishes. Garza sets a screen and Simons cuts hard and gets rewarded. Simple basketball can work.
Variation on the short roll creates a two-on-one and a layup.
The Nets did this a lot with the 6'10" Porter, Jr. coming off a handoff and ripping in threes. More simple execution
Death by live-ball turnover, the high points/possession opener.
Big-to-big pick-and-roll well-executed by the Nets.
The Nets ran this screener to handoff action again and again for Porter baskets and he was nails.
The Nets did a lot well and the Celtics had porous defense.
Lagniappe. Do you have any L.A.M.E. players?
You can't win with any L.A.M.E. in your game.
"Lazy- somebody who is not willing to work Arrogant- somebody that thinks they are better than they are Mediocre- somebody who is not very good Entitled- somebody who thinks they deserve what they haven't worked for." pic.twitter.com/bhkV8MpmyH
"Any idiot with a whistle can coach." - Anonymous parent
I coached for about twenty years in the middle school girls basketball travel program, only six as the head coach. Brad Stevens is right, "Coaches get more than we give." The mostly positive relationships with players and their families, watching youngsters develop into young adults, is a privilege.
What 'structural problems' go with coaching?
1. Playing Time
Allocation of scarce resources is economics. The best part of being an assistant was not owning playing time. Remember the "Golden Triad" of minutes, roles, and recognition. Everyone wants to play more, contribute more, and be valued more. That's normal and even more so with "pay for play," though participation fees don't buy minutes. I never accepted compensation to coach..."worth every penny."
Here's a lengthy post from a Facebook basketball group:
“In the state of Texas for public schools the governing body protects coaches and basically put in an amendment for parent behavioral expectations and rules. Violations of those can result in the dismissal of the athlete from the athletic program if the coach and or AD choose to act on it. Never had to act on it personally just always included in the players manual and pointed it out when meeting with parents.
However I did have an older coach tell me that in the early 2000s he had an affluent family that was pestering him so he finally called them in and asked, "Who should I bench to play your kid? If your kid goes in, who comes out?"
At first they wouldn't say a name and sort of hemmed and hawed around it but the coach said "If you want to make coaching and playing time decisions for me then I need a name." Finally they say "Little Johnny, he could play half the game and our boy could play off the game."
Coach says "Okay, one second." Then grabs his phone and starts dialing. The phone rings and a man picks up. Coach says "Hey John Sr., I have the Williams here and they want to discuss your son's playing time with you."
They went ghost white and wouldn't speak. Coach gets off the phone with John Sr. looks them dead in the eye and says "unless you're prepared to think about everyone's kid in this program and not just your own don't come back in here again.”
2. Expectations
There's a cognitive bias called "endowment effect." If it's ours, then it's more valuable. We think our coffee mug is worth five dollars, but others won't pay us more than three for that mug.
Coaches work to add value. We can't always meet those expectations.
They don't "vote" for valedictorian. The award goes to the student with the highest GPA. Coaching is more subjective. Coaches cope with expectations of community, fans, family, and players. The "Prime Directive" implies that parents understandably want what is best for their child above all else. That's normal and expected, and relates to that "Golden Triad."
Every coach has critics because nobody meets everyone's expectations.
3. Resources
There's never enough gym availability or practice time. When some other teams practiced eight or more hours a week, we had three.
One year I was told that we could have only two hours of practice time. I threatened to quit and meant it. They found us an extra thirty minutes each practice.
Competing against a team that keeps eight players with more practice time than our 12 or 13 with far less time...tilts the playing field. Allotting anything close to "fair" distribution of minutes creates marked imbalances. Fair playing time meant losing.
4. Parents
I am thankful to have known many parents and extended families. Few expressed open criticism or hostility. More than zero. Never automatically dismiss someone else's opinions. Their perspective may have merit. Or as Mom often reminded us, "Who died and made you king?"
5. Talent Dispersion
As children drift toward other sports, coaches have fewer "sport-specific players." There's only so much talent to go around. Gradually we had fewer and fewer basketball first athletes. "Repetitions make reputations." Don't expect that players who care most about their non-dominant foot striking mechanics or golf swing to be elite hoopers. Volleyball attracted more and more of the best athletes.
The "best" players have access to more coaching, more sport-specific skill training, and more strength and conditioning. Those players can become elite. Less committed players don't become elite.
Nothing is guaranteed. Coaching will always be hard and yet always be worth it.
Lagniappe. Writing out our goals can help with commitment.
Learn across domains. General McChrystal understands hard problems.
In Team of Teams, General Stanley McChrystal writes that adaptation begins with brutal honesty. Not self-criticism for its own sake, but the courage to ask:
What assumptions are we making that may no longer be true?
Is our current approach still working?
And if either answer is unfavorable, what must we change?
Teams become stagnant not through laziness, but through complacency. Yesterday’s winning habits can become today’s liabilities when the game changes, the league changes, or the roster changes.
Great programs update themselves. Stale programs defend the past.
Why Good Programs Stop Winning
Every coach wants a simple answer; the truth is seldom simple. When a program stops climbing, the root causes usually fall into three domains: people, strategy, and operations.
1. People (Players, Coaches, Culture)
Talent pipeline shifts: graduation hits harder, or recruitment/retention dries up.
Player development stalls: athletes plateau because their habits and coaching aren’t compounding.
Culture erodes: accountability frays, complacency creeps in, roles blur.
Coaches stop evolving: the game changes while the staff stays in place.
At its core, programs are built - or broken - by people.
2. Strategy (Play Style, Development Plan, Scheduling)
The league gets better. You don’t schedule tougher; your opponents do.
Your play style no longer fits your personnel.
What worked for four seniors doesn’t fit two sophomores and a 6'1" forward.
Player development isn’t aligned with actual needs.
Teams train what they like, not what the game demands.
3. Operations (How We Do What We Do)
Programs often fail not because of philosophy, but because of execution:
Practices aren’t efficient.
Film sessions don't address needs.
Standards soften.
Communication gets fuzzy.
Staff collaboration weakens.
The machine gets a little squeaky - and then suddenly it’s slow.
How Do We Ask the Hard Questions?
Every program hits this crossroads eventually. The good ones diagnose without ego.
Internal Review (Trusted Peer, Staff Member, Former Player)
Advantages:
Knows your system and your blind spots
Understands context (kids, town, league)
Invested in your success
Disadvantages:
Too close to the problem
May tell you what you want to hear
Shared assumptions go unchallenged
This works best when the relationship has radical candor and mutual trust.
A good outside evaluator asks questions you stopped asking years ago.
The Courage to Change
Adaptation demands humility. General McChrystal often said:
“The enemy gets a vote.”
In basketball, the game itself gets a vote. So do:
Budget/fundraising
Enrollment
Graduation cycles
Technology (are we staying current?)
The rising strength of your league
Player expectations
Modern skill demands
Standing still is not an option. Every season is either renewal or erosion. The teams that thrive aren’t the smartest - they’re the most honest.
Great programs don’t fear hard questions; they rely on them. When assumptions shift, great coaches shift with them. If we’re not getting better, someone else is. And that gap grows quietly until it’s obvious.
Analytics, love them or hate them, do not reveal everything. There are "undiscovered countries" on the basketball map that separate success and failure.
If you ask players, they may or may not be aware, so share these as complementary to success.
1. Live-ball turnovers. Live-ball turnovers more often translate to baskets, as in "high points per possession" chances.
For example, in almost every youth or high school game, you'll see a "wing to top" live ball stolen pass become a layup. I call it the "Steal Me Pass."
2. 75-25 balls. "50-50 balls" are misnomers. The more alert, focused, and aggressive team captures more loose balls, forces held balls, or saves balls earning extra possessions.
3. Dumb and Dumber actions. A player makes one bad play, often a turnover, and then immediately 'doubles down' with another, most often a frustration foul. "Two wrongs don't make a right" plays out in almost every game.
4. Ball movement. "The ball has energy." In Mazzulla's world, he wants to "draw 2" to create edges. Pritchard's pass doesn't show up in the scorebook, but that initiates the sequence leading to an open trey.
5. "Screen assists." Want more minutes? Princeton Coach Pete Carril said, "Help others to help yourself." Off-ball screens can lead to an opening for you as the second cutter or free a shooter. Not in the box score, Queda's screen creates the scoring chance. As Mike Vrabel says, "guys who make the most of opportunities get more of them."
Lagniappe. Basic math.
Offense: take the highest percentage shot. Defense: force the lowest percentage shot. Repeat that every possession… and you win. Consistently.
Study great players, coaches, and teams. Julian Edelman interviews Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla (language, situations). "Make this about how we can win this game."
Mazzulla is a different guy. He focuses on the duality of light and dark, life and death, and competition. "I think about that thirty times a day."
"If you're going after a goal, there's probably just as much if not more dark side..."
Mazzulla wanted to discuss the opening of the 2022-2023 season, "the beginning of a journey...you can never stop learning."
Happily Miserable - the state of the Celtics. "We have a responsibility to the city...and to ourselves."
He says that ignoring Wooden, Auerbach, and Phil Jackson, the ratio of success (championships) to failure weighs heavily on failure.
"You sign up for the journey...every chapter has a different theme."
"You have to understand everything that came before you..."
Mazzulla thinks that it's a healthy exercise to review the mistakes that both great players and great coaches made. See both the successes and the failures.
Mazzulla believes that he never had a bad coach...and that the teaching was always about more than basketball.
What makes a great coach?
Teaching fundamentals.
Puts players in a position to win.
Honesty...
Encouragement within perspective...
Mazzulla asks himself, "Who am I going to be?" at a moment in time.
He said of his father's techniques (a coach), "he was always trying to win the moment" and "he was relentless."
"The other side of responsibility is the weight that it carries."
"Nothing is ever going to be good enough when you have a responsibility to greatness."
Mazzulla described Huggins as "great to play for" and "**** you" and "I love you" were inextricably linked...to get the best out of you. "Success was hardship." Mazzulla's WVU club went to the Final Four.
"The Dark Side and the Hero" are not so far apart...like winning and losing.
Another Mazzulla-ism, on his "playlist" he asks himself whether he can come out to this music for a UFC Championship fight.
He's a different guy.
Lagniappe. We can't say this enough. "Control what you can control." Many say effort and attitude. Include choices - on and off the court.
Bill Bradley has enjoyed a spectacular life, shared in his books. His best and most well-known was Life on the Run. Bradley was one of my earliest sports heroes and McPhee's book (below) was the first basketball book I read.
First, an introduction:
Son of a banker, he grew up well-off, atypical for a basketball star.
Princeton grad, All-American, Final Four star, scored 58 points in a consolation game in 1965, still the record.
Profiled in John McPhee's book, A Sense of Where You Are
Rhodes Scholar
NBA star, won two championships with the NY Knicks
U.S. Senator from New Jersey
Overarching message:
“Life on the Run” taught that greatness is not glamour but discipline - not ego but teamwork - not fame but awareness. Real victory builds a life of depth, integrity, and connection.
Top quotes:
“You cannot be average and expect to win in this league.”
“You owe the game your best because the game owes you nothing.”
“The greatest measure of any player is how he makes his teammates feel.”
You discover who you are by what you do when no one is watching.”
“Leaders set standards by the consistency of their example.”
Additional key points (from ChatGPT Plus) that apply to MVB:
Humility Is the Foundation of Growth
Unlike many athlete memoirs, Bradley constantly questions himself:
Am I good enough?
Am I working hard enough?
Am I contributing to the team?
Am I understanding what matters?
His humility is the most enduring feature of the book.
Greatness Comes From Obsession, Repetition, and Attention to Detail
Bradley was never the most athletic player, but he built an NBA career through:
meticulous practice
almost fanatical footwork drills
hours of shooting alone
studying angles, passing lanes, spacing
He reinforces a powerful message:
Talent is nice. Craft is everything.
Team Success Requires Sacrifice and Unselfishness
The New York Knicks of the early 1970s were known for beautiful, selfless basketball. Bradley explains why that mattered:
The ball moved.
The players trusted each other.
Everyone accepted roles.
Ego never overwhelmed the system.
He elevates the idea that basketball is a civic act — a collective effort to make something better than any individual could alone.
Lagniappe. Parcells themes.
Bill Parcells with one of the best quotes on teamwork, mindset, and culture.
3 actions.
Simple, powerful, and impossible to argue with - but most people can't follow them.
Cognitive dissonance is the tension of holding two opposing ideas in our heads at the same time. Every team feels it. Players feel it. Coaches feel it. The best coaches manage it; the best teams grow through it.
Gregg Popovich said it bluntly:
“Get over yourself.”
Bobby Knight put it differently with the same intent:
“Just because I want you on the floor doesn’t mean I want you to shoot.”
Those two lines summarize the conflict every team faces: players want more, coaches want better.
The Player Perspective: The Golden Triad
Most players (and, often, their supporters - family, friends, fans) want the Golden Triad:
More minutes
A bigger role — more touches, more shots
Recognition — praise, stats, headlines (now NIL)
It’s human. Players work hard, sacrifice, and want something to show for it.
This shapes conflict. One player getting more usually means someone else gets less.
That’s where the dissonance begins.
The Coach’s Perspective: Impact Over Image
Coaches see the game differently. They value players who:
Impact winning
Make teammates better
Embrace their roles while working to grow them
A player can move the scoreboard without dominating the scorebook.
Winning plays often go unnoticed by outsiders:
Rotations that erase open threes
Box-outs that let someone else grab the rebound
Screening angles that free scorers
"One more" and “hockey” passes that lead to assists
Charges, deflections, floor burns
Communication that organizes the defense
Coaches see these. Film captures these. Teammates appreciate these. But the public and the media don’t always understand these. That gap can create frustration and conflict.
Star vs. Starring in Your Role
Every athlete confronts a private tug-of-war:
“I want to be the star.”
“But the team needs me to star in my role.”
Some players live inside that tension for years. Great teams build harmony there. Weak teams languish there.
The truth is simple:
Roles are earned, not imagined. And roles evolve when players dominate the one they already have.
How Great Coaches Resolve the Conflict
1. They Celebrate the Invisible
Dean Smith made a habit of praising players who didn’t fill the stat sheet but filled the win column. He turned gratitude into culture.
2. They “Wear the Credit Cap”
Coaches take time - quietly, intentionally - to acknowledge the glue players: the screeners, defenders, communicators, rebounders, energy bringers.
Those conversations matter. They keep players connected to meaning, not just minutes.
3. They Use Transparency, Not Guesswork
When coaches clearly explain why a player’s minutes are what they are, dissonance decreases.
4. They Enlist Mental Skills Experts When Needed
Sports psychologists help players:
manage ego
separate identity from role
understand team ecology
build resilience
embrace contribution, not comparison
For some athletes, hearing the message through a different voice is transformative.
Summary:
Cognitive dissonance isn’t a flaw - it’s the cost of caring. Players care about their future. Coaches care about people, process, and results.
Teams succeed when they reconcile "psychological imbalances" through honesty, clarity, and shared purpose.
Lagniappe. Work on athleticism.
Been experimenting with a new drill; simple but sneaky hard.
It’s not about jumping then sliding in games — it’s about training the mechanics behind force redirection and reactive balance. It builds stability, hip control, and direction-change speed. pic.twitter.com/AKwGqPs4wi
Everyone has "pet peeves." Every day online I see youth coaches asking what's the "best offense" for their ten or twelve year-olds. They're not asking about player development. They prioritize competing to win youth games.
Winning counts. But individual and team skill development matters more than winning in developmental programs.
Think back to your youth basketball experience. There wasn't enough quality instruction. If you're old, Internet video didn't exist. It wasn't anybody's 'fault'. I remember few games or our record. That doesn't matter.
What matters?
Teach fundamentals. Basketball is a game of separation. Help players separate with and without the ball via cutting and screening.
Movement kills defense. Teach players how to set up cuts, when to cut (the ball has to see you), and to face cut and back cut.
Teach how to set and use screens. The screener is the second cutter.
Teach "basketball moves" of separation footwork, like the jab series, wing series, box drills, and so forth.
Teach against defense - 1-on-1, 2-on-2, and 3-on-3 small sided games.
Share Kirby Schepp videos of fundamental movements in confined space.
Teach Billy Donovan's "95" how to play without the ball, the 95 percent of the game that players (not point guards) don't have the ball.
Teach players to play and they have a chance to succeed at higher levels when it matters more.
Lagniappe. Finding competition is essential to development. Playing against "C League" competition won't prepare you to face "A" players. That often means taking a licking.
“If you’re the best player in the gym, then you need to find a new gym.’” - Cooper Flagg
Your playing career flies by. Even the best players face setbacks - illness, injury, slumps, or personal challenges off the court.
Develop a code - your metaphorical armor. Find words that steady you when things get hard. Here are a dozen to consider:
Accountability Answers Branding Competitive Character Experience Habits Impact Standards Teamwork Toughness Urgency Value
Accountability
Accountability means being responsible for your actions and their consequences. Raise your level of accountability to meet your personal and team standards. Growth starts with ownership.
Answers
Become an answer. Sport challenges everyone to perform - to earn playing time, roles, and sometimes recognition. Coaches, teachers, and employers all want answers, not excuses. Be the person who solves problems, not the one who creates them.
Branding
Branding is reputation. What do people see when they see you or when they see our program?
When I think of MacKenzie Scott (formerly Bezos), I think of philanthropy.
We want people to see winning, teamwork, and class. Guard that brand. Build it every day.
Competitive Character
When Brad Stevens recruits or signs players, he investigates their competitive character. What does that mean?
Work relentlessly without needing external motivation.
Stay poised under pressure; respond, don’t react.
Embrace coaching and pursue constant improvement.
Compete with integrity — hard, but never dirty.
Prioritize team success over personal stats.
That’s competitive character - effort, discipline, humility, and heart.
Experience
Make our program experience about teamwork, competition, and improvement. Players who give the team the best chance to succeed earn minutes. Experience means valuing each other and the game itself.
Habits
We become the product of our habits. Train for skill, quickness, strength, and conditioning - you become more skilled and more athletic.
Eat better and sleep more - you upgrade your hardware.
“We make our habits, and our habits make us.”
Impact
Impact means changing what happens - on the court, with teammates, and in the community. The best players, through their process, impact winning and make others better. They leave fingerprints everywhere they go.
Standards
Set high standards.
“How you do anything is how you do everything.”
Take care of business at home, in school, in practice, and in games.
A Gentleman's C is unacceptable. Clint Hurdle wrote, “Lower the standards and you lose the winners; raise the standards and you lose the losers.”
Raise the bar - for yourself and for your team.
Teamwork
Team sports demand that we put the team first. That’s harder in an era of NIL and pro-sports celebrity, where attention and money can eclipse shared purpose.
Teamwork requires sacrifice - often of the Big Three: minutes, role, and recognition. The best teams understand this truth: when everyone gives up a little, the team gains a lot.
Toughness
Brad Stevens says, “The game honors toughness.”
Toughness is physical and mental. It’s playing hard, finishing plays, and responding to adversity without flinching.
True toughness travels with you long after the last match - it’s the character that endures when no one is watching.
Urgency
Urgency means now. Be here now. Take a breath, then earn this point. Build momentum for MVB and halt it for opponents. Skill, strategy, and strength matter - but urgency turns potential into performance.
Value
Add value to your team and teammates, and you add value to yourself. Coach Saban asks, “How do you have to edit your behavior to accomplish the goals you have?”
That’s value — aligning your daily actions with your biggest ambitions.
Final Thought
Your code becomes your compass. Follow it when you’re playing, leading, or struggling. The blueprint isn’t perfect. The path has bumps. But when you live your code, you’ll have direction.
Lagniappe. Never leave the basics.
Kobe Bryant said something that changed my life:
“The best never get bored with the basics.”
That’s how mastery is built — during the unseen hours. 🎥 Watch this legendary story. pic.twitter.com/gIjmsMqkYo
Exceptional players and coaches study the game. Let's look for teaching points from a recent Celtics - Sixers matchup.
Modified "Zoom action" (downscreen DHO) is a NBA staple. Derrick White gets the Queda handoff and gets a "Mazzulla Ball" two on one into a floater.
What you see may not be what you get. Watford turns the corner after starting toward the top. Not exactly "stampede" action and Jaylen Brown reacted as though expecting something else.
Another two on one created with Brown laying it down to Queda.
"Numbers" and ball reversal. The Celtics have a three on two and Brown in the middle holds the defender. That creates an easy ball reversal and a Simons three.
A 'screen option' seldom seen at lower levels is a rescreen. White reads the screen and the Sixers subtly rescreen to open a three.
Simons rejects the screen and finishes with shoulders parallel to the glass keeping the ball away from the big.
Defending the three (to reduce opponents' EFG%) is another Celtics priority. Brown gets caught 'tagging the cutter' as Edwards lifts for an open three.
Jaylen Brown scores on the midrange. In the 23-24 season, Brown shot 48% from midrange.
From Brave AI: On a statistical level, mid-range shooting efficiency varies significantly. According to data from the 2021–2023 seasons, the 90th percentile for mid-range shooting percentage (4–14 feet) was 50.9%, while the 50th percentile was 43.55%.For longer mid-range shots (14–23 feet), the 90th percentile was 48.11%, and the 50th percentile was 42.14%.Players like Kevin Durant, who shoots around 55% from mid-range, are considered all-time elite in this category.However, the average mid-range shooting percentage across the NBA is around 38.4%, meaning that shooting above 45% is generally considered excellent or "great" by modern standards.
Thus, the layups, threes, and free throw imperative in the NBA. Apply those to other leagues and levels at your peril.
Lagniappe. Dr. Fergus Connolly emphasizes that everything at practice, every lesson, every film session should impact results.
When we communicate with players, we don't know how information will land.
Can we use AI to speculate and see what flies or dies?
Here's the process I've chosen. I've asked Google Gemini to create a mini "focus group" (FG) across the roster. Then, I'll deliver the message and seek feedback from the AI FG.
First, here's the FG that Gemini created.
Varsity Team Focus Group Roster
Role
Name
Year
Key Personality/Perspective
Senior Star Player
Marcus
Senior
Confident, expects excellence, needs a challenge and clear path to winning.
Skeptical Borderline Starter
Tariq
Senior
Practical, easily frustrated by "fluff," needs tangible evidence and a defined role to buy in.
Senior Reserve
Jake
Senior
Loyal team player, understands his role, seeks acknowledgment for effort and contribution regardless of minutes.
Sophomore Borderline Starter
Liam
Sophomore
Highly motivated, slightly anxious, needs structure and belief from the coach to overcome mistakes.
High Potential Freshman
Devon
Freshman
Observant, ambitious, hasn't earned a role yet but wants to know how to get there.
Let's write a letter...using light revision and input from another AI, ChatGPT Plus which has an extensive baseline (thousands of blog posts I've written) to apply.
Gentlemen,
Our success this season depends on you. Your attitude, commitment, energy, and performance will shape our story.
Everyone wonders about minutes, roles, and recognition — that’s normal. But our foundation is simple: teamwork, improvement, and accountability.
“Professional behavior” means more than talent. It means respect - for teammates, coaches, opponents, and officials. Coaches coach, players play, and referees officiate.
Professional behavior also means being on time, stretched out, and ready - physically and mentally - for practice. Everyone can lead by showing up prepared, working hard, staying focused, and supporting others.
All positions are open. Hard work doesn’t guarantee success or a starting spot, but failing to work hard guarantees failure.
If you have questions, ask. There are no bad questions, only unasked ones. Clarity keeps us united.
When we’re on the same page — when we buy into teamwork, improvement, and accountability — we raise the odds of success for everyone.
Take care of your family obligations and your coursework. The same discipline that makes you a good student and son makes you a better teammate.
“How you do anything is how you do everything.”
Help write a great story — one built on effort, respect, and pride in how we play. Let’s make this a memorable season.
Coach
"Here's the Gemini AI FG feedback"
The following responses represent the individual, unfiltered reactions of five players after reading the coach's introductory letter.
1. Marcus (Senior Star Player)
Perspective:Confident, expects excellence and winning.
"The message about Professional behavior is solid. That’s what separates champions from everyone else, and frankly, some guys on the team need to hear it—especially the punctuality stuff. I’m already there. But this letter felt... generalized. I didn't see anything about our goals. Are we aiming for the league title? State? If success 'depends on us,' I need to know what 'success' looks like on the scoreboard. It’s a good foundational letter, but I want to read the chapter about winning next."
2. Tariq (Skeptical Borderline Starter)
Perspective:Practical, easily frustrated by "fluff," needs tangible evidence and a defined role.
"I liked the clarity on 'Coaches coach, players play, and referees officiate'—that's a boundary that needs setting. But my biggest takeaway is how many buzzwords are in here: 'teamwork,' 'improvement,' 'accountability.' What does that actually mean for me? I’m fighting for a starting spot, and I need a clear definition of my role and the system. If 'all positions are open,' what is the quantifiable metric for me to earn that spot? The part about 'hard work doesn’t guarantee success' felt a little discouraging, almost like the coach is managing expectations for a losing season."
3. Jake (Senior Reserve)
Perspective:Loyal team player, seeks acknowledgment for effort regardless of minutes.
"I appreciate the focus on effort and respect. That’s what I bring every day, even when I know I’m not playing heavy minutes. It makes me feel like my contributions to practice—running the scout team, cheering from the bench—are recognized as being part of the 'great story.' That's important. My only hesitation is the line, 'All positions are open.' I'm a senior, and I know my role is reserve, and I'm fine with it. I hope the coach still sees the value in my effort within that defined role, rather than making me feel like I have to constantly battle for a spot I probably won't get."
4. Liam (Sophomore Borderline Starter)
Perspective:Motivated but anxious, needs structure and belief.
"I like the specific rules: be on time, stretched out, ready. That helps me stay focused because I know exactly what I need to do to meet the minimum standard. The connection between being a good student and a good teammate made sense. But I got nervous reading the middle section. If hard work doesn't guarantee success, and all positions are open, that means I have no margin for error. If I mess up my first start, will I immediately lose my chance? I need to know that the coach is willing to invest in me and help me through the mistakes."
5. Devon (High Potential Freshman)
Perspective:Observant, ambitious, wants a clear path to earning a role.
"I focused on two things: 'All positions are open' and 'If you have questions, ask.' That's exactly what I needed to hear as a freshman who wants to earn his way onto the court. I liked the connection between discipline in school and discipline in basketball. My question is: What does hard work look like for me right now? Is it extra shooting? Watching film? How do I translate my 'high potential' into the professional behavior and performance needed to actually get a role? I'll definitely take the coach up on the offer to ask questions, because I need clarity on the next steps."
Players "hear" what they want and as coaches, we need to know there's no "one size fits all." Seeing how an "imaginary" focus group might respond might help us communicate better and informs how important individual attention is.
