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Thursday, April 2, 2026

Basketball NIH Syndrome (Not Invented Here)

"We are drunk on our own ideas." - Rolf Dobelli in The Art of Thinking Clearly

Dobelli informs the NIH principle - not invented here. Most of us value our own ideas, simply because they are ours.

Coach Ellis Lane told me about a coach who came to him with a "new" offense. The coach said, "I understand it perfectly." Coach Lane said, "There's a problem. Your players won't." Even good ideas need broad understanding and eventual adoption to matter. 

Best-selling author Adam Grant tells a story about being offered an idea to invest in. The Penn students didn't have a website or what he considered a viable business plan. He didn't invest. Their names? Warby and Parker. 

Basketball lives in the public domain...everything is out there. As a writer, I wear a different hat, seeking ideas to steal, to understand, and to expand upon. 

Find "timeless" ideas and share them widely. Coaching is communication and relationships. Here are ten: 

Develop a "learning" culture. 

"Every day is player development day." Good players make smart coaches."

"Be easy to play with and hard to play against." 

"Do well what you do a lot." 

Develop teams that play 'harder for longer'. 

Intangibles like toughness and resilience travel. 

Whatever your offense, have "hard-to-defend" elements - e.g. spacing and separation, pick-and-roll, hard cutting with on-time, on-target passing, simple and complex screening (e.g. screen-the-screener, Iverson action, Spain PnR). 

Have a simple philosophy. I used TIA - "Teamwork, Improvement, Accountability." 

Don't become beholden to or ignore analytics. 

Stubbornness is sticking with a bad plan or no plan. 

Thanks for visiting my blog, one of Feedspot's 100 to follow and #12 on Feedspot's Top 100 basketball rss feeds. 

Lagniappe. "Get out of the bucket." 


 

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