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Thursday, May 15, 2025

Basketball - Avoiding Bad Plays

 

Bill Belichick extends the teachings of Coach Bob Knight. "Basketball is a game of mistakes." The quote above reflects the impact of Tom Brady on winning. More precisely, Brady kept the Patriots out of negative plays. 

Teach players, feed them the gospel of playing clean. 

  • Take quality shots (the quickest route to improvement)
  • Value the ball (turnovers are zero percent possessions). 
  • "Foul for profit." Never foul perimeter shots. No retaliation fouls or fouling bad or bailout shots. 
  • "Mental mistakes have no redeeming value." - Bill Belichick 
  • Missed assignments show up on the scoreboard not the scorebook. 
Grainy black and white film showed us defensive breakdowns (baseline drives, bad fouls) and low percentage or rushed shots ("#$%& shots"). Film imposed humility.

Basketball teaches truths. 

"Teamwork is a force multiplier."
"Turnovers kill dreams." 
"Selfishness, sloth, softness" belong to losers. 

In Any Given Sunday, Coach Tony D'Amato says "the game is pure." He laments how the business of football corrupts the sport, despite the honesty and beauty in the game itself.

Many of us feel that way about basketball, conflicted about kids learning to play and a parent paying $45 to watch a twelve year-old play travel ball. Not watching kids at $45 a pop is one way to avoid seeing bad plays. 

Lagniappe. Create your own shot. 
Lagniappe 2. Another brief but deep thought from Belichick in The Art of Winning. "Big, obvious things should be big and obvious to you." What would be your biggest, most obvious thing? 


 




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