You Win in the Locker Room First

I finished You Win in the Locker Room First by Mike Smith (former HC of the Atlanta Falcons) and Jon Gordon. 

They share a common sense approach to team building and individual development. Individual chapters discuss: 

Culture
Commitment
Caring 
Communication
Connection
Contagious (attitude)
Consistency 

They sum up with thoughts about coaching. 

They could have easily added some more C's - confidence, character, courage, and community. 

Here are a few quotes:



“Culture consists of the shared purpose, attitudes, values, goals, practices, behaviors, and habits that define a team or organization."

"Leadership is the transfer of belief."


"You need everyone to be aligned with the same beliefs, expectations, behaviors, and habits."

"One of the keys to listening and communicating is to ask the right people the right questions." 

“Transformational coaches invest in the root and, over time, it produces a lot of fruit.” 

“Culture drives expectations and beliefs. Expectations and beliefs drive behaviors. Behaviors drive habits and habits create the future.” –Jon Gordon

Defensive Notes from Quin Snyder

Notes adapted from Quin Snyder. 

Is defensive teaching important? 

Only if you want to avoid getting your career flushed. 

Pick-and-roll defense:

Where is the screen? To know defense, you must know offensive intent. 
What angle is involved?
Is spacing preserved? 
Who are the threats? E.g. ballhandler, roller, shooter from help. 

What is your defensive priority? 
E.g. ICE (force sideline)
Show/hedge (Force the ball to the screen)
Contain the ball (Switch)

What is your 'standard' coverage?
Everyone must be on the same page. 
Remember to communicate (talk!)
Is it working? 
Don't abandon your process (if it's good)?

No matter what your defense, you've got to get back. 
Early on, must cope with "drag" screens
Have to know where the biggest threat is (if the big can't shoot, let him pop)
Best to win the battle on the ball.

On pin-downs (down screens), 'shooting the gap' establishes better position to force sideline than following ("lock and trail")...it's not academic if your priority is NO MIDDLE

Shooting the gap (x2) versus trail (x3)

On high wing screens, then forcing sideline (ICE) is standard practice with screener's defender effectively 'zoning' the area to deny sideline drive

Drill. 

Can add additional player(s). Defensively can force players to show, ICE, switch, etc. 
Adding in 3rd player(s), defender has to be able to stunt (fake at) and recover/closeout on the pass. 

Steal for the Day

From You Win in the Locker Room First

"It is important to understand that there is a difference between passion and emotion. The difference between the two is that passion involves a belief about something. Emotions involve feelings about something. You want to be a passionate leader who makes decisions that are based on belief and principle over those that are based on feeling. After all, you won't always feel like doing the right thing, but if you live based on belief and principle yo will do what needs to be done." - Mike Smith 

Offseason Emphasis and Priorities

When we have established our emphasis and priorities, we partition practice time working on the specifics. A couple of drills: 

Basketball Rules

I don't believe in making a lot of rules for players. I believe in common sense. 

1. Be a good teammate. That means at home, at school, and on the court. 

2. Make the players around you better. 

3. Bring energy every day. 

4. Value the ball. (The ball is gold. Take care of the basketball.)

5. Serve your teammates. 

6. Be coachable. Correction is not criticism. 

7. Show up on time and ready to go. 

8. Be humble in victory and gracious in defeat. 

9. Communicate. "Silent teams are losing teams." 

10.Make good decisions. You make your decisions and your decisions make you. 

The Elements of Substance

I've never seen a "robot" basketball team. I'm not saying I never will. There's SOMETHING to be said about 'self-driving' technology to reduce error.

Let's imagine that 99.9 percent of soup cans don't have botulism after usual treatment. If you're the 1000th customer, you're in for a deadly surprise. If hospitals transfuse blood crossmatched at 99.9 percent, the 1000th patient gets a transfusion reaction that could kill. In short, 99.9 percent isn't always good enough.

The 'simplest' play has executable dimensions. 

For example, in the SLOB above, against man-to-man defense:

1) Play must trigger on time.

2) 2 has to empty the ball side.

3) 4 must screen properly.

4) 5 must set up cut and get separation off the screen. 

5) 3 has to look off defender and make accurate pass.

6) 5 has to catch the ball.

7) 3 must cut hard to get separation.

8) 5 must deliver pass on time and on target.

9) 3 must finish. 

Ideally, you have continuations...e.g. 4 down screens for 1 if the initial action doesn't play out...

We can't assume automatic action...we see poor screens, players who don't wait don't set up cuts or cut hard. Players don't catch the ball or pass into traffic, and so forth. 

The analysis shows that on this "simplest" in-bounds play, players have to execute well to even get a scoring chance. The Patriots' mantra "do your job" has to marinate into the TEAM consciousness. 

Grand Theft Spurs Concepts

Reminder, "good artists borrow, great artists steal." - Picasso 

Stolen from Facebook group, "Herb on Hoops". 

San Antonio Spurs Philosophy: System Basics from Chris Oliver

Perspiration Isn't Enough

I've talked about preparation and perspiration dominating aspiration and inspiration. But what's the proper relationship? It's not 99 percent to 1 percent. 99 to 1 ratios constitute slavery. 

Because coaching is about connecting, we need to bring far more than the 1 percent. That just doesn't make it. Sometimes we're going to get pounded; we can crawl into a hole or find a way out. 

We need more joy to succeed. We need joy to face our fears. We need that "why" not just "how and what". Our community (basketball) willingly shares perspiration (fundamentals, Xs and Os) but those aren't possible without motivation...which flows from courage, character, and desire. Creativity (building something) demands vulnerability. Self-criticism achieves nothing without strategic change. 

Brene' Brown remarks in the video "If you're not in the arena, also getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback."

"When you armor up against vulnerability, you shut yourself off." 

We will always have critics. But unless we face our fears and teach our players to face theirs, then we cannot grow. Our most important comparison is to our former selves. Are we getting better? 

Dual-Track Thinking: Decisions and Execution

Poor decision making destroys trust. Players can't execute well in a poor decision making environment. As a part-time stock trader, I have to be aware of 'distribution bias' - holding on to bad decisions (bad stocks) instead of the better ones (that are gaining). 

Paddy Upton shares his thoughts here. This reminds me of Jack Clark (rugby). Upton seeks to draw out the individual and collective expertise of his teams. 

Key excerpts:

Upton says cricket so far has seen instruction-based coaching. The future, he says, will be all about man management.

One needs to bring in an approach - what I call harnessing the collective intelligence that sits within the group.

And when you have become scared of making the same mistake, you actually put yourself in a [state of] physical readiness to make that mistake.

You need to be doing what you are best at, regardless of what the other guy is going to do. So playing to a player's strength rather than playing to the opposition's weakness is another philosophy I believe in.

I seek to understand players as much as possible rather than fill them up with my knowledge. 

Coaching in its pure form is helping somebody find their own answers for themselves. 

In order to use a more empowering approach, one of the prerequisites is that the ego has to take a back seat.

High Quality SLOBs

We all seek well-designed plays that inform quality scoring opportunities.

Here are four different strategies to get scoring chances:
1) Scissors, zipper, stagger
2) Zipper into backscreen
3) Cross-screen into give-and-go
4) Cross-screen into "hammer" 

We all adjust personnel to get scorers and shooters opportunities. 

My favorite SLOBs create multiple scoring options. 

The inbounder is often the most dangerous option. 


Simple give and go action off cross-screen.



The Spurs often use the "Hammer" with a weak-side back screen into a corner 3. Here the Warriors use their version. 

Great Coaches Map Out a Pathway to Success

                                                             
Do we have a process worthy of commitment from players and community? If we do, have we clearly communicated our priorities and emphasis? 

Style and substance matter. As a medical student, I got counseled by an intern who said, "from your writing I know that you know a lot. But you're not speaking up. You have to be more verbal." People judge us continually, just as we evaluate players. 

Who are we? What do we stand for? We need message discipline. Our culture and the character that comprises it stand without compromise. 

Carmine Gallo's Talk Like TED discusses 'message maps'. Does everyone in our program understand the message* ?

*Black Box Thinking means driven to self-evaluation and correction. 

How do we coach? How is our program perceived? 

Ask ourselves, how do we treat people? How do our players see us?

Excellent coaches inform and teach players how to improve. Outstanding coaches model that improvement themselves every day. 

What About BOB? Generic to Specialized

I always feel that we should get a scoring opportunity off our inbounds plays. Earlier I showed a BOB Stack reversal. 

Here are a few alternatives from similar sets. 

Everyone runs a version of this. At least it seems that way. 

 Here's a stack with action keyed by the 2. Against aggressive man-to-man defense 2 gets a slip. 

Zones allow us to choose where and whom to attack. X3 gets pressured and somebody gets a shot. 

A different kind of ball reversal forces pressure on the weakside. Change 2 for 5 and an aggressive closeout gets you a post up. 

We can't get crazy about Xs and Os and forget about finishing. If we can't make shots then it makes no difference where we choose to screen, cut, and pass. 

Summer Development - Two Minute Warning

My daughter Paula used to walk onto the court standing tall, head up, chest out, making a statement. "I want everyone in the building to know that I can play." We know that how we carry ourselves has neurochemical impact, as expansive posture raises testosterone and lowers cortisol (a stress hormone). 

People constantly judge us. They analyze our appearance, clothing, speech - including our nonverbal and verbal projection. How we appear depends our PASSION, PRACTICE, and PRESENCE. How does that affect summer workouts?

Coaches develop the total player. We build athleticism, skills, emotional and psychological resilience, game understanding, and teamwork. But we develop the person most. 

I have a small plan for players. During a rest period at practice, each player will (with advance notice) give one two-minute presentation on an aspect of basketball. This is an open book experience. They're not being graded. This is an opportunity for them to learn, to refine presentation skills, and to develop their public speaking. 

They might want to use elements from articles like this. 

I will randomly distribute topics that are sufficiently broad yet central to understanding basketball as a young player. Suggestions? 

Bill Parcells on Winning

CoachingToolbox shares. 

A few excerpts:

• Leadership is the most visible thing there is – because if it’s not visible, there is no leadership.
• Nobody cares what you’re up against. The sooner you put those issues out of your mind, the sooner you can direct your focus toward the real issue: pushing your team toward victory.
• A competent coach should be able to field a team that is strategically sound, that plays with discipline, that doesn’t beat itself.
• Establish clear expectations – people can’t become accountable unless they understand exactly what you want.
• A team’s practices will predict its performance just about every time.

Coaching is Coupling

- Ron Sen, "The Simple Guide to Girls' Basketball"

We all 'know' that coaching means connecting, communicating with team members. Now we understand the science behind that. 

Princeton's Uri Hasson has shown that effective communication (storytelling) activates mirror responses in receivers' brains using functional MRI. The communication literally produces coupled electrical activity. The same story told in another language (incomprehensible) doesn't activate the same regions. 

But that doesn't mean that every 'story' will have equal effect. From the time of Aristotle, we know that emotion creates bigger impact. How many times have you told a player "I believe in you" in a transformative way? I recall a player telling me about six months after a post-game meeting, "what I really remembered was you saying, "you live your life the way you show effort on the court. You can't live your life with half-hearted effort." We need to find a way to 'reach' our players. 

We have to blend emotion (pathos), evidence (logos), and credibility (ethos) in players' education. But the emotion can't be a verbal beatdown or false praise. Players understand narrative fallacy. Kevin Eastman says it another way, "You can't fool kids, dogs, or basketball players."

Effective education changes behavior. I preach "possessions and possession." Pace and defense produce more possessions and reducing turnovers and better shooting create more effective possession. 

The math is stunning (logos = evidence). The difference between 15 and 24 turnovers and shooting 45 versus 35% (forgetting about free throws) is almost a doubling (25 versus 13) of baskets. We don't make enough threes yet for that to be significant. 

Ultimately, the success of the team depends more on the players than anything else. When we add value (athleticism, confidence, discipline, skill, teamwork) and help them become their own coach (self-regulation), we help them remake themselves both now and for the future. When they experience success, that helps ingrain better practice and personal habits. That's the ultimate connection...changing lives.