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Friday, April 4, 2025

Improve Our Basketball and Other Presentations

"Presentations should cover no more than three aspects in fifteen minutes." - Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo 

People tune out boring coaches. 

The Greeks said three factors influenced others - ethos (character), logos (logic), and pathos (emotion). The best talks rely on pathos manifesting as passion. Tell great stories. Paint mental pictures. Engage audiences. 

Quality presentations had three prominent qualities - novelty, emotion, and memorable stories. 

Be original. Everyone can be more creative, more influential. Business leaders were shocked when they heard that introverts were often the most creative people in the room. They assumed their loudest voice was the smartest. You know the saying, "An empty barrel makes the most noise." 

Learn across domains. Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Chuck Daly said, "I'm a salesman." Think how you can sell yourself. 

The last song Doug Collins heard before the 1972 Olympic game against Russia? "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?" He's not a fan. But he could begin a talk with that.

Bring emotion. Big events leave big marks, indelible mental ink. That's literally "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." 

An Athletic Director's parent told me that a parent came to the AD irate about the softball coach. "The coach doesn't know what he's doing." The AD answered, "Well, he's 21-1." The coach stayed as the parent's complained got dismissed.

Be memorable. Geno Auriemma took questions after a UCONN practice. Someone asked, "were you nice because you had an audience?" "No, I was nice because they're babies. If I yell, they think, "Coach hates me.""

Bill Gates gives a lecture on infections. 

 

What leaves the greatest impact on people? Belief. When you hear, "I believe in you" or tell a player, "you're the best player I've ever coached," they never forget that moment.

Style and content both matter. 

Use eye contact and an occasional gesture. 

Vary our voice. Alter the volume. Alter the pitch. Sometime silence can work. 

Add humor. Add graphics. Combine them. 


You see the local baseball field and the football field behind it. 


The longest homer ever in Melrose helped launch Craig's professional baseball and Hall of Fame career. It landed halfway down the goal post down the left field line. It had a crew of four and a hot meal on it. I served that up. I was part of engineering history.

Know your stuff. Be direct. Be memorable. 

Summary: 

  • Make it original.
  • Make it emotional.
  • Make it memorable. 

Lagniappe. Control the narrative. 

Lagniappe 2. Jim Rohn said, "suffer the pain of discipline or the pain of regret." 

Lagniappe 3. Can't scout original. 

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Thursday, April 3, 2025

We Teach Basketball...and Leadership

Acquire and share accumulated wisdom over your lifetime. Webster's definition of curator includes: "a person at a museum, zoo, etc. who is in charge of a specific collection or subject area."

Here's an excellent collection of concepts from Dave Kline: 

Several particularly resonated:

1) Set high standards. Believe your team will meet them.

2) Reasonable people will draw different conclusions without a shared picture of excellence. (Making a team is not enough...chasing excellence is a shared vision)

3) Small feedback given regularly is coaching. (Coaching is not criticism. Coaches mentor players and teams to translate process into excellence.)

4) Subtracting is 10x harder than adding. Which is what makes it 10x more valuable. (Do more of what works and less of what doesn't).

5) Your culture is the sum of everything you celebrate minus everything you tolerate. (What we tolerate sets the floor of achievement.) 

6) Trust people with the truth. (Coaching advances players and teams toward the truth.) 

7) Your team will mimic your actions before they follow your words. ("Your actions speak so loudly I cannot hear a word you say.")

8) It's not real unless it's written down. (Be clear and concise. Share.)

Benjamin Franklin informed these in seven words. "Well done is better than well said." 

When you find someone who shares productive content, check in. There may be more than one nugget in that stream. 

Lagniappe. Loaded jumps will increase your block touch.

Lagniappe 2. A process for grading video. 

Lagniappe 3. Basketball actions are more than perimeter passing to take a three. You see it and I know you see it. 

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Wednesday, April 2, 2025

"No Cure for Curiosity"

 


Image from James O'Shaughnessy "Two Thoughts" (also author of the iconic, What Works on Wall Street)

Players get in trouble when they say they are bored, that there is nothing here for them. As children we heard this a lot, "bored people are boring."

Can we create an assessment tool? It's the Internet. Impossible becomes I'm Possible.

Make learning THE GAME a game. You can create your own Socratic method tool. Drill down within an area (individual defense) and create subheadings like STANCE, OFF BALL DEFENSE, HELP, COMMUNICATION, and so forth.

Go to "Wheel Decide." Preparing for a job interview, a media session, a performance review? You can create your own uncertainty or training opportunity.

Choose a topic and a piece of paper. Write down whatever you know about the topic and then distill that to the most important elements on an index card. 

Or choose what you consider more important topics - "basketball separation" or "hard to defend actions" or "toughness." Or choose a fun assignment like "the wit and wisdom of Abe Lemons." 


Make learning fun. Make learning a game. And remember there is no cure for curiosity. 

Lagniappe. A lack of standards or standards applied inconsistently is a sure way to lose. 


Lagniappe 2. Kelbick with the absolute truth about defense. 

Lagniappe 3. Because you love basketball... 



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Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Update on Basketball Cutting

"Basketball is a game of __________ ." Everyone fills in the blank differently, in multiple ways. Focus today on separation via cutting. Never presume that our players know what we think they should know. Turnovers and presumption kill dreams. 

"Movement kills defense." Cutting is underrated. Cutting moves players into spots to drive, shoot, screen, or be unobtrusive. Cutting and pivoting are two vital offensive skills that create separation that get too little time. 

1) "Set up your cut." Direct from the Bilas "Toughness" criteria. This applies with or without a screen. 

2) Cut urgently. Offense fails without 'intentional cutting'. How many times have you seen teams try to run UCLA cuts with the cutter not setting up the cut and not cutting hard? Urgency is a word players should live.

3) Read the defender. Punish head turners by cutting behind them. 

4) Be aware of the ball handler. If they're not looking at you or for you, they can't deliver the ball and your cut is wasted. 

5) "The ball is a camera." If you want it to find you, then you have to find or create a passing lane. 

6) Walk to run. Walking into a cut can catch lackadaisical defenders unaware. 

7) "Go to, to go away." Cutting directly at a defender can put them at a disadvantage. 

8) Inside foot cut. I call this the Edelman cut. You don't see this much because most cuts arise off the outside foot. Edelman cuts off the inside foot (maybe with some push off) and scores. Not for regular use.  

9) Types of cuts. Access great video like Coach Nick's here on Bball Breakdown. UCLA, Flex, Zipper, Shuffle. 


10) The screener is the second cutter. Kid stuff. Zipper cut entry from SLOB with return pass to inbounder and then entry to rolling screener for the layup. Teach the screeners that "scut work" is opportunity.
 

11) Great offense is multiple actions. Staggered screen (Iverson cut) ices the game in a postseason high school tournament sectional semifinals. 


Lagniappe. Exceptional presentation via Basketball Immersion on weakside (helpside) cutting with focus on corner cut, 45 cuts, and dives with baseline drive. Extended video worth showing your players. 

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