Fast Five: You Get Three Questions (and two Horns Sets)

"Questions connect people." 

Asking better questions has become an important theme. For example, John Miller wrote QBQ: The Question Behind the Question and John Maxwell authored Good Leaders Ask Great Questions. 

Who are we? Where are we? 

1. I want to provide structure (not solutions) for players so they can ask better questions of both themselves and their teammates. By teammates, I include family, classmates, co-workers, and community. Leaders find solutions, but ask better questions.

2. "Frontline leaders and troops can then connect the dots between what they do every day-the day-to-day operations-and how that impacts the company's strategic goals." - Jocko Willink in Extreme Ownership. We must teach, get feedback, and give feedback so there is both leadership down (Commander's Intent) and up the 'chain of command'. Players need to know both their role and how to fulfill it. 

3. What does my team need now? First, who is my team? I'll offer off-season workouts that include both skill development and instruction in "how to play." You can't just play games to learn how to play. 

4. What do we do a lot (e.g two or three domains we intend to do well)? How can we improve that? 

5. Do we control what we can control or are we too complex, disengaged, unfocused, or distracted? 


Okay, I get it. You like the Xs and Os. A pair of GSW (Warriors) horns actions. 

Can You Run Everything from Horns?

Buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog vendor, "Make me one with everything." 

Can we run "everything" from horns? Getting players to SEE THE GAME presents the day-to-day, season-to-season challenge. How do individual skills translate into the "multiple actions" inherent to transcendent offense? 

Flour, salt, sugar, eggs, and milk combine to a host of delicious synergies. But one spoiled ingredient ruins the batch. 

We all have the recipes; do we have the ingredients? 

Simple Celtics Actions

Simple offensive actions, executed well, create defensive headaches. The Celtics have improved their offensive efficiency. 

Offball screen for 3 can get baseline cut or three point shot. 

1-4 low into high ball screen with pick-and-roll and corner 3 options. 

Avery Bradley (2) is a perimeter threat but moves well without the ball.

Horns ties up the bigs and Isaiah Thomas has drive and kick options.

Jae Crowder (3) or Bradley (2) can get weak side pin down screens. Sometimes 4 will pass and follow to set another screen. 

Building Your Basketball IQ

"He knows how to play the game."

Every coach sometimes complains about the basketball IQ of players. Every great player has great game understanding. Elite size, athleticism, and skill with poor basketball IQ yield underachievement.

When you think of basketball IQ, which players come to mind first? Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, LeBron, Jordan?

What is Basketball IQ? 

• "Know how to play." 
• "Coach on the floor" 
• "Make the right play at the right time."
• I say VDE - vision, decisions, and execution. 
• "Make teammates better." 

Study and knowledge precede vision, decision, and execution. Watch to see, not just be entertained. 

What are some examples of "heady plays?" 



Two minutes of offensive pick-and-roll education.



Ignore the first minute of video. 

• Video illustrates "Gap, kick, swing." 
• "Great offense is multiple actions." 
• Force the defense into scramble.

How do I execute? 

• Read the defense
• Read the passer
• Understand timing...when using screens it's better to be late. "Wait, wait, wait." 

I read about one coach who got so frustrated by his starters' lack of knowledge and understanding that he informed players they would be tested (written) and failure meant losing their starting positions to player who passed. They learned. A "performance-focused, feedback-rich" environment enhances learning. 

There's no foolproof way to build basketball IQ. Given a choice, I'd rather have a player who finds an obsession to learn than one who simply wants to learn. "The first price you pay is paying attention."  

Learning from Adversity

Adversity is our companion. Often, others view us not through the prism of our success but the lens of our response to adversity. 

We embrace failure stories from many life arenas. Abraham Lincoln suffered lifelong depression, resulting in multiple breakdowns. During his early years, he endured the death of his brother, mother, and niece. Childhood death was routine during his time. He suffered beatings from his father and criticism for his scholarship. "Lincoln's melancholy" found deep roots, pervasive through his nomination and Presidency. His eleven year-old son died during his Presidency. Yet Harriet Beecher Stowe connected his weakness to his strength. Depression did not prevent him from preserving the Union, but perhaps drove him to preserve it. 

Freud preached that our work and relationships defined us. His disciple, Viktor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning, wrote about a third domain, suffering. “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning." And “when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” He argued that his expertise came from being a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, and a survivor...of four concentration camps. 

Michael Jordan didn't make the Laney High School varsity as a sophomore. But he was a JV stud, a 5' 9" guard who scored over 40 points in multiple games. He had a 45 inning scoreless streak as a high school pitcher. Being a sophomore on JV didn't prevent him from scoring 35 points in his first varsity game or later starring at Garfinkel's Five-Star camp. He didn't win the state championship in high school, but assembled a championship college and pro career. 




Speed skater Dan Jansen's bid for Olympic gold in 1988 ended with a catastrophic series of falls, closely related to his sister's death from leukemia. The 1992 Olympic 500m race also proved disappointing for the American champion...before he earned redemption in the 1000m race. 




Heather Dorniden embodied relentlessness in her 600m race. 




Anthony Robles didn't let what he couldn't do interfere with what he could do - become an NCAA Wrestling national champion.  

It's good to have plans for times of need. 

We choose how to fight our fight, to earn self-respect. Choose wisely. 

Difference Makers

"Little things make big things happen." - John Wooden

Celtics' analyst Brian Scalabrine continually shares first-half pearls that make a difference. 

"Get the ball in the paint." The Celtics trailed early as they missed long jump shots (hard twos). 

"Trust your teammates." Nobody can do it all by themselves. 

"See the movement." I remind players constantly that "movement kills defense." 

"If you want to beat the Warriors, that's how you have to play - pass, pass, pass." 

"Does so many things...to help you win." Scal complimented Jae Crowder on the breadth of his game. Crowder's 'true' value encompasses his work around the basket and his defense in "positionless basketball". 

"Amazing that they're only down three points at this time..." Scalabrine noted that the Celtics were outscored by ten in the paint in the first quarter. 

"Perfect timing by Smart..." noted the role of patience in allowing the play to develop in transition. 

"Good understanding by Jaylen Brown (3), understanding that if my guy goes (to double) that I have to release." 

"The Celtics have done a great job (in the second) getting into the paint...first quarter, 16-6 and now 24-20." The Warriors are small; adjustments are critical. 

"You gotta call those quick timeouts (in this building) because these guys can really get runs going." Brad Stevens takes a timeout after consecutive transition hoops. Unfortunately, they followed that up with two terrible possessions. 

Teaching Young Players Zone Offense (One potato, two potato)

We help players find solutions. Deciphering zone defense and getting quality shots come through informed attack. 

Why would youth coaches play zone? They want to win (winning over teaching) as their first priority. Zones exploit young players who cannot shoot and help limit 'better' players as well as pick-and-roll. They probably aren't using zones to protect players from foul trouble. 

Teach players that zones have limitations:

1) they don't stop transition offense
2) they allow the offense to decide where and whom to attack
3) they have no assigned rebounding so it may help offensive rebounding 
4) each zone has particular weak spots

There are predictable advantages to exploit, using the 2-3 as an example.

Figure 1.

1) basic principles of space, cut, pass, and screen still apply

Figure 2.

Proper spacing yields better passing angles (Figure 2) and extends the zone.

2) offensive players "behind" the zone are invisible (Figure 1) 

3) make two players guard one (Figure 1) 

4) scoring percentages correlate with PAINT TOUCHES and BALL REVERSAL

5) look to deform the zone (shot fakes deform north-south, pass fakes deform east-west)...

6) players also need to learn to "look off" defenders who are reading their eyes. 

7) don't let the ball stick - "2 second rule"...one potato, two potato. 

I like to use the acronym "DR FlaPS"

1) Dribble into gaps (penetrate to pass) to make TWO cover ONE

2) Reverse the ball (11-12 year-olds often have trouble with skip passes)

3) FLAsh (cut to open spaces)

4) Post-up (if you have the personnel)

5) Screen

The dribble can open the middle.

Screens have a myriad of potential uses, compromising the top of the zone or the bottom. 

I have delayed introducing zone offense at the earlier ages. I think this is a mistake because general principles still apply, just attacking different defenses. 

Fast Five: Searching for a Better Way

Challenge ourselves to find a better way. As a diagnostician, I ask myself, "what are the possibilities and why should I think about another way?" 

Jocko Willink writes in Extreme Ownership, "the leader is truly and ultimately responsible for everything." If I start over with "blank slate" sixth graders, what am I going to teach? 

Define the problem and the solution may become obvious. Players need to develop a mental model, a representation of what "quality basketball" should resemble...both individually and as team. My priority would integrate VDE - vision, decisions, and execution. That demands a better process, predicated on performance and feedback.

This can't mean ignoring individual skill development. But it can't mean getting players with very limited concepts of how to play into summer leagues to play games.  

1. The offensive problem, "put the orange thing in the orange ring." That informs both better quality shots and better technique. It demands better habits beginning with flips. Long-term success doesn't begin with practice idiosyncrasy. "Your way" doesn't work for 99 percent of youngsters. 



2. Apply "Priorities and Execution." The priority is to get the easiest shot using the 'tools' of spacing, cutting, passing, and screening to get a "pass and cut" mindset. 

3. Find a spacing solution. FastModel represents the half court into 'areas' with players avoiding over-occupying any space. It also illustrates the "pass and cut" priority and the need to fill open areas to maintain spacing. 

4. Transformation. Many young players equate dribbling with ball advancement. Particularly at younger levels, excessive dribbling is a problem. That creates play without purpose and usually without much skill. 

Brian McCormick has discussed random practice versus block practice, using 'dribble tag' as an example of random practice.

That doesn't mean no dribbling, but applying constraints (limits). We can require the dribble to advance the ball (when a pass is less appropriate) and limit the number of dribbles. 

We reinforce passing and cutting with a drill I call Ultimate. 

The goal of Ultimate 1 is to advance the ball via passing only into the opponent's End Zone. If the ball hits the floor (ground), it's a turnover, with the opposition immediately 'converting' into offense. 

Ultimate 2 adds one dribble, bounce passes, and conventional basketball scoring. 

5. Half-court action. Half-court play is essential against better teams that limit 'easy baskets' in transition. Players need to learn to execute in smaller spaces...and to learn play in small-sided games/groups. 

I call this "Stanford" with play limited to one side of the split. We can start without dribble penetration (e.g. pick-and-roll) but add that early. 

Reading defense has to become an early priority. If the post player gets overplayed, she and the ball handler must learn the 'slip'. After the pass, 1 must identify cutting to get return or to set an off-ball screen. 5 must learn the potential for a back cut pass to 3, return to 1, and one-on-one actions. 

On wing entry, 1 and 5 need to learn coordination (e.g. UCLA cut) and 5 learn to screen (off-ball and ball screen) and roll. 1 also must learn how NOT to interfere with 3 (bury to corner) and to play with 3 (e.g. outside handoff actions). 




Potential criticism includes "how can you teach players to play with rudimentary individual skills?" I see too many older players who have some skills but poor modeling of how to play. I'm not saying that I have a better way, but that there has to be a better way. 

Questions for Every Player

We can't give players all the answers. We help them by inspiring them to ask better questions. Here are some ideas. 

1. What specifically are you doing to improve TODAY? You can grow physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. 

2. How are you making the TEAM better? 

3. Why do you DESERVE to be on the floor? 

4. How are WE going to be successful as a team? 

5. How are we going to WEAR DOWN the opposition? 

6. What is your GO TO and COUNTER move? (If you don't know, then you don't have them.)

7. Tell me how you have FOUR WAYS TO SCORE. Realistically. 

8. How can you become a BETTER TEAMMATE? 

9. Basketball is a mental game. How do you plan to SEE THE GAME better? 

10.Basketball is a game of mistakes. How can we REDUCE MISTAKES? Do you continually commit the same errors? 

11.Are you INVESTING TIME or SPENDING it? 

12.Coaches look for players with ELITE size, athleticism, and skill. If you lack size, what are  you doing to compensate? 

Fast Five: Taking the Charge

Taking a charge is one of the best plays in basketball. It changes possession and costs your opponent a foul. You may get the opponent's top player in foul trouble or get your team headed toward the penalty, although player control fouls are not shooting fouls.

Marcus Smart turned a recent Celtics-Cavaliers game around by taking a pair of charges late.  




1. Excellent defense is "multiple efforts." Taking the charge requires anticipation and athleticism for position and the physical and mental toughness to absorb contact. 

2. Taking a charge is not "risk-free reward." There's a physical price and as Shane Battier counsels above, protect yourself. 

3. Solid defenses provide help (protection). Great defenses turn help into charges. Charges also help energize teammates. 

4. Excellent defenders anticipate where and when the offensive player will attack...and get position first. You will never take charges by playing 'handsy' defense. Charges provide another example where footwork rules. 

5. Charges are 'stats'. The NBA tracks individual and team charges under "hustle stats." 

There's a difference between taking charges and flopping. Marcus Smart is no stranger to both. 

NBA anti-flopping rules may have diminished flopping...or at least fining for flopping. 

Source: SI. 

Fast Five: Location, Location, Location

"Position in life is everything." Everyone knows that in real estate, it's "location, location, location." 

Coaches work to put players in positions to succeed, but ultimately players have to decide and execute.

1. Kevin Eastman describes post up real estate in order of desirability: homeless (3), renter (2), and homeowner (1).

2. Excellent players play purposefully. 

We see this every NBA game. The wing enters the ball to the post and then cuts through...occasionally he gets a give-and-go, but he moves the defender who won't 'dig' or double the post as he covers the cutter. 

In the triangle offense (above), two cutters clear through. 

3. When defenders make choices (e.g. help up), post players have to open passing lanes. 

Successful players find open spots; unsuccessful players stand then sit (on the bench). 

4. Some offenses design relocation. 

Tom Thibodeau's Bulls used this to free up elbow jump shots for their 4. 

5. "Movement kills defense."

The Celtics like to use dribble handoff actions. Here they get the ball into their "passing posts" (e.g. Horford or Olynyk) and Avery Bradley earns two relocating from "corner 3" to back door slam. 

Bonus: 

I don't want little guards playing in the post...but they can use it as a "weigh station" to a better spot. 

Against the 2-3 zone, the 1 passes and cuts, the 5 relocates to the top and the cross screen frees the guard for a mid-range shot. 

"Basketball is a game of cutting and passing." 

Howard Marks on Investing (and Basketball)

"To change the world, we must first change ourselves." 

Howard Marks is a legendary figure in the investment community. The author shares notes from Marks during a lecture in Mumbai. These apply as well to the basketball community as the investment world. Just change investing or investment to 'coaching' or 'teaching' and investors to coaches. 

• Ego, hubris, and overconfidence are killers of investment returns. 
• In investing, to succeed you must survive.
• Investors would be wise to accept that they cannot see the future and they should restrict themselves to doing things that are within their powers.
• Very few investors have the nerve to say, “I don’t know.” But that’s how you build integrity in your investment process.
• Anytime you think you know something others don’t, you should examine the basis. Ask yourself – Who doesn’t know better? Why should I be privy to exceptional information? How do I know this that nobody else knows? Am I really that smart, or am I just wrong?
• You can know more than others about companies and industries if you work very hard and if they are not fully followed. This is the knowable. You can control your emotions. That’s very important. 
• When there’s nothing clever to do, it’s a mistake to try to be clever.
• Of the most corrosive of all the difficult human emotions is the feeling to sit by and watch other people make money.
• Success is not good for most people. We all know of people who have been successful that makes them think they are smart, and they have the ability to do everything. Of course, that’s a very dangerous thing.
• Everybody must invest in a way that is consistent to their personalities.
• To be a successful investor, you must have a philosophy and a process that you stick to even when the times get tough. This is very important.
• Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett's partner) told me that investing is not supposed to be easy, and anybody who finds it easy is stupid.

And a BOB from John Kresse...

Sustainable Competitive Advantage

We all seek sustainable competitive advantage. The New England Patriots have competed in seven of the last sixteen Super Bowls, winning five. How have they done it in a league seeking parity with a salary cap, free agency, and annual draft favoring losers?

ESPN examined continuity. "The New England Patriots' 31 NFL rivals have combined to employ nearly 300 general managers, head coaches, offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators from 2012 through this offseason. Three men have filled those roles for the Patriots over the same period."

Players matter. What predicts success? "The only variables that predicted NBA success were youth, college performance, and college quality. These variables predicted NBA performance better than draft order." 

The coaching carousel is seldom kind to revolving door management. Constant changes in management means change in philosophy, system, teaching, and communication. The Freakonomics blog reviewed studies and showed that coaching changes of poor and middling teams generally produced mediocre results. "These authors find that if you are a bad team, changing your coach didn’t make a difference.  And if you are “not bad,” a new coach makes it worse."

Analysis of NBA results by coaching tenure concluded that longer-tenured coaches did win more and attributed this to three factors: 

The article also provides an analysis of how much coaches actually contribute to NBA results. 

On average, first-year coaches have a small negative effect...which improves with time. They also found that longer-tenured coaches produced improved player, team, and coach performance. 

In other words, process - and all that encompasses - matters. The quality of the players and the coaches probably limit the extent of the differences in professional sports. I believe that with more heterogeneity at lower levels (both players and coaches), that coaching can have its greatest impact at lower levels. 

Athletic Participation Adds Value

In our community, parents must "pay to play" at all levels - youth, travel, AAU, and high school athletics. They face other expenses - gym memberships (e.g. YMCA), personal training, sport-specific training, and increased medical expenses for injuries associated with play. The 'fashion conscious' athlete has leggings, shooting sleeves, designer sneakers, basketball socks...none of which teaches you the game or skills.

What's the 'reciprocation'? 

The New York Times published a review of benefits of athletics. 

It noted, "Hiring managers expect former student-athletes (compared with people who participated in other popular extracurriculars) to have more self-confidence, self-respect and leadership; actual measures of behavior in a sample of people who had graduated from high school more than five decades earlier showed those expectations proved accurate."

High school athletes are more likely to attend college, graduate from high school, and have higher grades than non-athletes. 

Athletes develop more robust leadership skills and function better in teams. Among World War II veterans studied, "the 43 percent of male veterans who played varsity sports scored had careers of "higher status" and more success in upper management jobs and those in the trades."

Girls participating have improved health - better bone density (less osteoporosis), less high blood pressure, and diabetes, and fewer mental health problems. 

Girls in sports are less likely to engage in risky behaviors, "For example, high school athletes are less likely to smoke cigarettes or use drugs than their peers who don’t play sports."

Teen pregnancy rates are lower among female athletes. Sports helps girls become successful women. "Using a complex analysis, Dr. Stevenson showed that increasing girls’ sports participation had a direct effect on women’s education and employment. She found that the changes set in motion by Title IX explained about 20 percent of the increase in women’s education and about 40 percent of the rise in employment for 25-to-34-year-old women." Competition on the field and in the gym helps women advance in business and in the boardroom. 

Physical exercise reduces the risk of breast cancer in young women. 

We should encourage everyone to reach self-actualization in life. Positive athletic experiences have a myriad of benefits. 

 

Fast Five Plus: Out of the Box Thinking

A few big corporations (e.g. 3M) assign employees time (10-15%) for 'out of the box thinking'. A software company could ask employees to fix bugs, create add-ons, or develop new products. 

As basketball coaches (or players), what ideas, revisions, or enhancements (or deletions) belong on our radar? Chop wood, carry water. 

1. Edit our Drill Book (additions and subtractions). Google Drive is an excellent shareable resource. 

2. Reformat our Playbook. Our playbook includes motion offense, man and zone sets, special situations (BOB, SLOB, Game winners), delay game, quick hitters, presses and other defenses. What's working, not working, or needs tweaking? 

IMD (in my dreams) we space, cut, screen, and pass. 

I like to use the inbounder to screen...not sure they're as enthusiastic. 

3. Network with other coaches. Bill Belichick has met with Nick Saban, Gregg Popovich, Tony LaRussa, and Chip Kelly. Online basketball groups provide 'free advice'. 

4. Attend an analytics conference (or pursue equivalent study). "Do more of what works and less of what isn't." 

5. Prepare (as though you're asked) a presentation for a Coaching Clinic. Young players have limited perspective and experience. Every day can be a mini-clinic. 

6. Ask myself, what are my shortcomings as a coach? How can I improve? Coaching encompasses leadership, teaching, organization, knowledge, game management, analysis, and more. How can I give more? 

7. Ask, "If I were building a legacy, what can I do today?" 

8. Ask "Whom have I not thanked enough or often enough?" I start with my wife...