Basketball: Obsess Over Solutions, What's Your Process? From Forrester to Madoff to Feynman to Mr. Rogers

Leaders obsess over solutions. Pretenders focus on problems. Think about a specific solution that changed your life. 

We lost a game in high school in overtime because we didn't handle a full-court man-to-man press. Every practice thereafter we went five versus seven (initially no dribbling) until pressure became opportunity. 

In the rematch on the road, pressure turned into layups and we crushed the defending state champions 70-52. The game ended in a silent gym. Obsess over solutions. 

Finding solutions requires openness. 

• "Why I am right or wrong?" (What are the facts?)
• What about free speech? When we peddle disinformation (yelling fire in a crowded theatre), we present risk of harm to others.
• What's the harm in that? In his early days at Carolina, Coach Dean Smith and his team returned after a hard loss and found himself hung in effigy. What if someone had actually assaulted Smith as a result? 
• What's the other side of the trade? We're vulnerable to confirmation bias, only reading or listening to information that supports our position. We're bombarded with the merits of the Princeton Offense. Run well, it creates a lot of excellent opportunities. But there's no Holy Grail of offense. 
• What's in it for me? Be aware of the bias from self-interest. The snake oil salesman knows she's selling snake oil, but rationalizes why. "I'm the best person for the job." Compared to whom? 

I know a couple that regularly went out to dinner with Bernie and Ruth Madoff in their younger days. They couldn't believe that this charming couple could be part of anything nefarious. Be aware that "past performance may not guarantee future results." 

What's our process for solving complex problems? We've heard, "I go with my gut." That could be better or worse than flipping a coin. 

Consider a proven method, the Feynman Technique, named after physicist Richard Feynman. 

• Name it. (e.g. Zone offense)
• Define it. 
• Research it.
• Restate it clearly and simply having done our investigation.

When I Google "Feynman Technique" and "basketball zone offense" what comes up first? 

So that's my self-education for the morning. 

Lagniappe (something extra). Remember the wisdom of Mr. Rogers, "look for the helpers." That reflects "mentoring is the only shortcut to excellence." 

 

 

Find a Dozen Details to Improve Our Best Self Plus a Drill and Zone Set Play

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

Basketball Friday examines concepts, a drill, and a set play. Marginal gains allow us a means to grow exponentially. Our theme includes 'TIA' - teamwork, improvement, and accountability. 

Find attainable gains to make us our best self. Weigh granular ideas that apply to us. To paraphrase Howard Marks, "if our behavior is conventional, we’ll get conventional results." Work to stack successes in each area.

1. Waste less time. Nick Saban says it with a question, "are you spending time or investing it?" Sometimes there's a fine line. I do the New York Times mini crossword daily, shooting for a personal best (41 seconds). It is better to read a great book twice than ten bad ones once. Abandon bad books. 

2. Eat better. Eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods and refined sugar. Coaches can't eat like players. 

3. Exercise. Tailor to our individual needs and limitations.

4. Sleep. Shakespeare wrote of "sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care."  Because the half life of caffeine is 5-6 hours, avoid caffeinated beverages 10-12 hours before sleep. Seek a minimum of 7-8 hours of sleep daily. 

5. Focus. Better focus enhances learning. Mindful meditation improves attention in children as young as elementary school-aged. It's not a big time commitment. "Lion Mind" is only seven minutes. 

6. B+ (Be positive). Positive coaching training had benefits for both athletes and coaches including athlete experience and coaching retention. 

7. Be happier with gratitude. Shawn Achor's 21 day gratitude exercise asks us to record three examples of gratitude each evening for three weeks. 

8. Need a shortcut? Start your "jar of awesome." 

9. Slay smaller dragons first. Break bigger projects into smaller bite-sized pieces. Author Neil Gaiman says, "The importance of dragons isn't that they exist; it's that we can defeat them."

10.Sweep. Forget magical ideas. Carpets don't vacuum themselves. Dishes don't dance into the dishwasher or clothes into the 'welcome'. Leave the gym in better condition than we found it. 

11. Don't take it personally. The State Department has the "Dissent Channel." Heat coach Erik Spoelstra favors a positive culture of disagreeing.

12. Hold fire. Widen the distance between receiving information and responding to it. 

Drill. Free throw conditioning. Touch the sideline one, twice, three times. 

Set play. UCONN zone offense from "two high" front.

Quick ball movement creates inside and outside options. 

Lagniappe (something extra). Be wary of painting with a broad brush. Foreign players once were labeled 'soft'. Ginobili. 

Lagniappe 2. Mental model. "False negatives and false positives." 

False Positives and False Negatives

A false positive is a test result which wrongly indicates that a particular state is present. A false negative is a test result which indicates that a particular condition is absent.

“False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.” ― Charles Darwin

When Your Ego Demands Victory in Youth Basketball

Ego sometimes demands winning in youth basketball. "I am the lord of the 7th grade basketball universe." That and $2.25 gets you a coffee somewhere. 

Players with different skills and potential comprise our team. Do the math. Sharpen your pencils. Get better players (larger city, population +50%), shorten your roster, and play your better players a lot, especially against overmatched "free agents." If you had all lottery picks (4s) playing 100% of the game you could get '20' points (4 x 1.00 x 5 players). 

And make sure that you're pressing, even against reserves in the final moments to assure yourself of "enough" margin of victory. 

Shortening the roster helps assure mismatches AND gives you relatively more practice time - because your default approaches "small-sided games." 

Five sarcasm-free points to ponder. 

1. The quickest way to improve is mental. Take better shots. Make better decisions.

2. "Fear is the mind-killer." - Frank Herbert, Dune

3. Everyone makes mistakes. Excellent players repeat mistakes less often. Understand what types of turnovers and errors are hurting and correct them. 

4. "Winners are trackers." Practice with purpose. Track your results and compete against your personal best and perfection. 

5. Study excellence. How do great players create and deny separation? What fakes, footwork, cuts, hand-fighting, using screens, and experience works? 

You can practice pivoting without a basketball or a court. Pete Newell's triad - footwork, balance, maneuvering speed - never becomes obsolete. 

Lagniappe (something extra). Finishing details from Coach Castellaw... 

Lagniappe 2. New concept: Tagging up

Lagniappe 3. "Critical mass." Every idea doesn't catch on.

Basketball: Stealing from Howard Marks' "The Most Important Thing" Plus Triple Lagniappe (Something Extra)

We want to be our best coaching self. Where do we start? Find a mentor, a model for coaching development. She might say, "The most important thing is _____________." And then, "The most important thing is _________." And so on. 

Many readers never heard of Howard Marks, Warren Buffett-like old guy. Howard Marks' investment book, The Most Important Thing, shares ideas that parallel coaching concepts. 

• “Experience is what you got when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

1. Risk in relationships. When relationships go south, programs fail. Maybe the coaching staff can't communicate with the players, the players tune out the staff or each other. 

Risk might occur in the form of competition (e.g. it's a hockey town or you're the smallest school in a tough league). Or the track record of every coach in the past decade has been negative. Or there's no infrastructure (youth program). Do we want to assume that risk? 

"Control what we can control."

Imagine that we're not coaching basketball but instead opening a coffee/baked good store in a community with a Starbucks and a Dunkin Donuts. Risk! But to succeed, we can't worry about what they do. We have to outcompete them. Our menu has to be better, our coffee has to taste better, we have to establish our brand and get the word out. It's Sara Blakely's make it, sell it, build brand awareness. But that's basketball! 

2. Cycles are real. Programs have ups and downs WHEN we can't control who enters the program. There are times where class after class produce two or three strong players and there are dry spells. 

But it's vital to keep homegrown players home. In our area now, many players migrate to AAU-affiliated programs. Some is the 'success leaves footprints' story. 

But Duke...we don't have Coach K as a draw AND we can't recruit players into our public school. Even so, what was Duke's record last year? Cycles.

3. Psychology. Combat negative influences. "Be greedy when others are fearful." Herd behavior might contribute to players leaving the system...she left and she left, so I'm going. 

4. Don't be a sheep. Analyze independently. Think for yourself. Keep grinding in studying, practicing, and honing our craft.

5. Skill AND luck matter. "Sometimes good decisions produce bad outcomes..." An intelligent (investor) coach will invest coach in a way that limits his downside...focus on capitalizing on skill (player development) and team (portfolio) building. 

Lagniappe (something extra). Training movement, rhythm, disruption. 

Lagniappe 2. This investment video was the inspiration for this piece. Watch it or ignore it, it's your choice. 

Lagniappe 3. Mental models, inertia. Mental models help us to think better. Sometimes we don't change because we're simply set in our ways. "We've always done it that way."

If I Have Another Team, What Five Things Will I Do Differently?

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Do better. How?

This is too good from Nick Saban! 😂

pic.twitter.com/0CIJJk982u

— Drew Maddux (@DrewMaddux) September 6, 2021

1. It's always about minutes. Explain the philosophy of relatively equal playing time in a developmental setting but the potential to earn minutes from unrequired work. How will we know? Think back to Kevin Eastman's "success leaves footprints." 

Track practice and results. Think homework time and grades. 

2. Have an even bigger focus on player development. Usually, we had at least fifty percent of practice devoted to skill building. It's never enough and you never go wrong by having more capable players. Players must score and defend in the half-court, stop transition, handle pressure defense, and become competent at pick-and-roll and pick-and-roll defense. 

"30 buckets." 3 shooters, 3 rebounders, 3 minutes. Volume shooting drill where each player should get at least 40-50 shots in their three minute shooting. The goal is to score a minimum of 30 buckets as a group but we've had fifty (when I participate). 

3. Scrimmage more. Scrimmaging reveals strengths and weaknesses. Scrimmaging conditions. But it also limits skill building vis-a-vis small-sided games and shooting drills. We want at least 150 shots per player per practice. We can't get that through scrimmaging or only playing games.  

Controlled scrimmaging (O-D-O, offense-defense-offense, three possessions) is a big favorite with players and practices special situations including defense. 

4. Automatic calls on most inbounds plays. Doug Brotherton is a great follow on Twitter and has enjoyed major coaching success. He's moved up to the college level. With "automatics" run even, odd, and "zero" according to the clock. You can override or even use the clock as a decoy. 

5. Work on defeating pressure as a team. Practice advantage/disadvantage 5 versus 7 full court and half court. Add constraints like limiting dribbles per touch. 4 on 4 full pressure in the half court without dribbling forces cutting and passing.

What changes will you make this season? 

Lagniappe (something extra). Coach Nick says, "I can fix your jump shot." He's checking basics - alignment, balance, rhythm, release point. He's got something...but maybe we sell "I can fix your __________." Quickness? Defensive stance? Blocking out? Reading screens? 

Turning Puppies into Big Dogs (It's What We Do)

"If they don't bite when they're puppies, they usually won't bite." - Bill Parcells

In the developmental space, coaches seek to add value through teamwork, skill building, and accountability. That's hard enough, but adding "bite" adds complexity.

"Toughness is a skill." Not fake toughness (chest pounding, glaring at opponents) but setting and fighting through screens, taking charges, and being first to the floor. There's no "50-50 ball" when it's YOUR ball.

Toughness translates into taking care of business - preparation and execution of classwork, chores, and jobs.

How do we make puppies into big dogs?

• Set higher expectations.
• Build your body. (Strength and conditioning)
• Model commitment and discipline
• Give specifics (be granular).
• Share examples.

Expectations. Avoid setting the bar low. In 1967, coming off six consecutive bad seasons, new Red Sox skipper Dick Williams proclaimed, "we'll win more than we lose." The Red Sox lost in the seventh game of the World Series. Teams sink to the level of low expectations. Don't traffic in excuses. 

Strength and conditioning. I've had players acknowledge fear of physicality. But regardless of your sport, strength and conditioning translate. 

Jayson Tatum wants to be an All-NBA player.

Modeling. Life rewards thinking but also action. Players won't "buy in" unless they see added value translating. Mac Jones is the new Patriots QB1. He got respect in the room but showing up at Gillette Stadium at 4:30 A.M. and putting in fourteen hour days or more. "Your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear a word you say." 

Specificity. SMART training references specific-measurable-attainable-realistic-timely approaches. "This is what you have to do to succeed." 

Storybook endings. Bill Bradley put in three hours a day from age 12 and eight hours on Saturday transforming a banker's son into an All-American and Rhodes Scholar. "He wasn't a great athlete." But he is a Hall of Famer. 

The Heath Brothers' book Made to Stick animates the edge provided in telling your narratives. We remember great stories and often apply them. 

Lagniappe (something extra). "Never think without a pencil in your hand." - Es Devlin, performance designer

Image from MasterClass, Es Devlin introduction

Lagniappe 2. AND or BUT a message from Nick Saban

Coaching: "Big Six" Some Key Points from Lemov's "Coach's Guide to Teaching"

"That which we are, we are, and if we are to be any better, now is the time to begin." - Alfred Lord Tennyson

Few of us have eidetic memory. Pick and choose what to incorporate and share. 

Director Werner Herzog reminds storytellers (and coaches are) to "read, read, read, read, read." 

Here are six quotes lifted from Doug Lemov's Coach's Guide to Teaching. Why six? Legendary investigative journalist Bob Woodward says that he includes at least six key points in any article.

Action sequences begin with vision and progress to decisions and execution. Chess grandmasters "chunk" the board and players do, too. Satchel Paige was shown images of hitters from the waist down and he identified them as that was part of his process in deciding how to attack them with his pinpoint control. Pete Newell said a coach's first job was helping players, "see the game." 

Looking isn't the same as seeing. And it's easy to "overlook" opportunity which makes film study helpful. 

Technology can help or hurt us. Under stress, we literally get "tunnel vision" and lose the bigger picture. This is particularly worrisome during combat and police encounters. Smartphones may narrow our focus and therefore the recommendation to withhold them on game day. 

Expect pushback. 

Players do not "magically" grow knowledge and perspective, any more than auto mechanics, engineers, or doctors. Training takes many years to develop and the "only shortcut to success is mentoring." 

Yes, I'm a broken record because 1) about a third of games are decided by two possessions or fewer and 2) that means any two possessions might decide a contest. I looked back at our (1973) 21-4 high school season, and eight games were decided by two possessions or fewer. We lost four games by a total of seven points. 

What hurts many teams - turnovers, shot selection, missed layups, and missed free throws...

Players know that they have to "clean up" mistakes but they often don't recognize opportunities to do so. Curating mistakes and opportunities for improvement and suggesting and practicing "edits" gives us a solution-based focus. 

The paradox confronting every player and team is that individual achievement is the foundation of success but collaboration elevates us. "We can go faster alone but farther together." All great achievements in human history have come on the winds of cooperation. 

"Coach's Guide to Teaching" shares a myriad of practical advice and is a worthy addition to our bookshelves. Twenty-five percent of Americans never read a book, but coaches don't belong in that grouping. 

Lagniappe (something extra). From Wikipedia, "A lagniappe  is "a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase" (such as a 13th doughnut on purchase of a dozen), or more broadly, "something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure. It can be used more generally as meaning any extra or unexpected benefit."

Lagniappe 2. Zags BOBs video from Joe Haefner

High-powered offenses get additional advantage via special situations. 

Memorable, Useful Analogies for Sport and Basketball

Analogies reinforce concepts between disciplines. They help us solve problems and think out of the box. 

How many times have we heard players say after a mistake, I know, I know? To know is to do. Use analogies to do better. 

"All cooking is about time and temperature." - Thomas Keller

• Our progress relates to time invested and its intensity.
• ACHIEVEMENT = TIME x EFFECTIVENESS
• The quality of time spent matters not just time.

"Never accept the fact that something is yours." - Sam Jackson

• Fight for your position every day. Someone is coming for you. 
• “You had to look at your players and defend every player to the rest of the organization.” (Al Davis philosophy for the Oakland Raiders in Michael Lombardi's Gridiron Genius)
• Michael Jordan told Roy Williams that he would work as hard as any player ever at Carolina. Williams told him that he had to work harder than that. 

Michelangelo crafted his magical Pieta at age 26. Many were amazed. He explained that it was no miracle, because he had worked on his craft ten hours a day since he was eight. 

• "The magic is in the work." 
• Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 Hours" may be questioned but it follows on the heels of Wooden's "faith" and "patience" in the Pyramid of Success.
• Dashrath Manji cut a road through a mountain with a hammer and chisel. 

Spanx founder Sara Blakely says, "make it, sell it, build brand awareness." She turned an idea into a five billion dollar business. She owns the business having never sold stock or bonds to raise funds. 

• Each of us has a brand to nurture and defend. 
• Remember that Chuck Daly, two-time NBA Champion coach said, "I'm a salesman." 

Investigative journalist Bob Woodward seeks "the best version of the truth."

• Kevin Eastman says we have to "tell the truth, live the truth, and take the truth." Excellent players want the truth. 
• Self-awareness and analysis reveal the "brutal facts" about our teams.  

Playwright and author David Mamet asks "what hinders you?" What's the equivalent of writer's block for coaches? 

• Losing streaks aren't "obstruction." 
• Ego and stubbornness can prevent us from change, growth, and adaptation. 
• Would lack of identity for a team approach writer's block?
• Netflix profiled tennis coach Patrick Moratoglou in The Playbook. He coached Marcos Baghdatis from a raw teen up to number eight in the world, and the youngster dumped him saying, "now I know how to be at the top of the game." A fall from grace ensued. 

"Excuses are poison." Robin Arzon migrated her career from law to fitness.

• Teams and coaches navigate waters filled with poison. 
• Coaches work to immunize teams against laziness, selfishness, complacency, envy and more (The Disease of Me). 
• Remember coach Wooden, "don't whine, don't complain, don't make excuses."

Lagniappe (something extra in two parts). Both are relevant. 

Take parts of a workout and make it your own. In my opinion, it's better to have fewer moves executed well than many executed less well. And when possible, finish with the dominant hand. 

Unwelcome Coaching Advice, Positioning, "Curry Pivots", Horns Core Series and More

“Brain Trust” - truth or oxymoron...

“There’s nothing cheaper than free advice.” When a coach asks, “what do you think about _______,” we're not giving gratuitous advice on personnel, technique, or tactics. Separate picking a coach's brain and picking on him. 

When asked about a former player, look for context. Are we asked about her or her family? What is she like as a person? Is she wondering about commitment, skill, effort, maturity, or resilience?

Coaches want players who do what we teach, the right way, at the right time.

Defensive positioning. 

• Containing the ball starts with arrival. Move on the pass. When watching defense, does the color (defense) arrive with the ball? #Proximity
• Load to the ball. Be responsible for 1.5 players - yours and help. 
• Drop to the level of the ball. If an offensive player wants to stand in the parking lot, let her. 

Drill. "Curry pivots." Nobody will throw excellent players at us. Build our own. 

Start with self-flips to get into pivoting. After the pivot - work shots, shot fakes, jab step, negative step, and rip through. Do not travel. Add defense to simulate game actions.

Set Play. What core (series) actions belong in our playbook to teach young players? Simple actions, well-executed, yield quality chances. Examples: 

• Pick-and-roll (ball screens)
• Off ball simple screens (cross, down, back, flare)
• Off ball complex screens (stagger, screen the screener, screen the roller - Spain pick and roll)
• Simple cuts (e.g. back cuts)
• Give-and-go 

I teach players, "bigs away will come back into play." 

Lagniappe (something extra). Sherri Coale gets players to find, talk, and scramble.

Basketball: What Are the Five Brutal Facts of Our Team?

In Good to Great, Jim Collins includes confronting the brutal facts as essential to organizational success. 

The Daily Coach amplifies:

“Everybody, take out a blank sheet of paper. I want you to write down the top five brutal facts that face the company today. Go.”

Collins wants them to allocate a total of 100 total points to these five brutal facts. This way, they won’t overemphasize No. 1 on their list and may even discover that No. 4 should be the real priority.

1. Are we valuing the little time that we have as much as we should be?

2. What are the 5 brutal facts of our own teams?

3. Which of these must be addressed immediately?"

Here is a composite of BRUTAL FACTS of coaching girls teams during twenty years:

1. Trends. We're witnessing a steady drift away from basketball toward competing sports - volleyball, soccer, and lacrosse. That's not a criticism of players, just reality. James Naismith's claim that "basketball is an easy game to learn but a difficult one to master" rings true. Excellence demands an enormous commitment to unrequired work - skill development, strength and conditioning, and study. 

Another trend is the inability to keep top players "home." If we develop even two solid players annually per class, there's a steady influx of talent. Now, it's exodus. What, if anything, can change this? 

2. Skill. Every position is a skill position and the overall level of skill in the teams I see is lower than that of a decade ago. That doesn't mean there aren't highly skilled players, hard workers, and athletes. But a corollary of fewer "basketball players" is more players playing basketball as secondary sport. 

3. Physicality. "Basketball isn't a contact sport; it is a collision sport." The will to set and fight through screens, to rebound, and take charges is uneven. I think it's no accident in the secondary sport population where contact is not a core of the primary sport. 

4. Basketball IQ. The jury is out. "Instinctive" play often reflects experience. I've seen a lot more instinctive play in volleyball which relates to players starting younger and playing more. 

5. Attitude. I've coached a lot of great kids, nice kids. Note the quote from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

CAESAR

(aside to ANTONY) Let me have men about me that are fat,

Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.

195He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

More past players had a 'nastiness', the 'lean and hungry' look. They weren't dirty but more were fierce. 

Tennyson reminds us, "that which we are, we are, and if we are to be any better now is the time to begin." 

Lagniappe (something extra). Defending back screens is tough. 

Five Common Sense Principles Separating Victory and Defeat

"It's not rocket science." - Brad Stevens

Games sum individual possessions. Each possession impacts the game. Teams with many "bad possessions" (offensively and defensively) underachieve. They might win some because their opponent isn't any better, but mostly 

Bad possessions = bad basketball = bad results

Enumerate reasons for bad possessions and "invert" (to get better or good ones). Start with low hanging fruit - not the whole orchard. 

And it's worthwhile to review notes from Knight's "The Power of Negative Thinking"

Transition. Players must know their assignment. "Accountability demands clarity." Do you send two or three to the glass? Floor balance demands a plan (e.g. guards back). Challenge our team to allow three or fewer transition hoops per game. Transition layups create a two point deficit and when they come off turnovers it's effectively more (see below 'live ball turnovers bleed into your defense')

Fouling. Never foul jump shots or (worse) three-point shots. The mandate is to "contest shots without fouling." Worse is fouling the opponent's own poor shots. A capable team shoots about 75% from the line, among the highest points per possession. 

Turnovers. Here's a great screen capture from Zak Boisvert's clinic. He divides turnovers into skill and decision-making. 

Solid teams don't give games away. Do the math. Imagine 60 possessions. If you throw away 40% (24) you have 36 possessions with shots. If you have an effective field goal percentage of 50% (higher than most high schools), you score 36 points. That won't win many high school games. In the dark ages (1973) before the three-point shot and with few ball screens, we averaged 65 points per game. Coach Lane emphasized 'the ball is gold' and take quality shots. 

Offensive fouls. "Foul for profit." Bad screens and out of control drivers constitute most offensive fouls. In addition to forfeiting a chance to score, you also acquire a personal foul. 

Bad shots. Doc Rivers calls them "shot turnovers." My coach called the "forced shots" or "sh*t shots." Every player should know what good shots are for herself and for each or her teammates. 

T.J. Rosene preached "Get 7s." 

Understand shot selection. Levels 1-10, there is no 10 (perfect shot) or 1; discuss 3-5-7-9. 3rd grade shots lose. 9s are great shots and obvious. 5s are so-so; get 7s. In range, in rhythm, with room. Get 7s to win. 

About a third of games are decided by two or fewer possessions. Don't waste them. Reduce common mistakes and we have an opportunity to turn mediocre seasons into good ones and good into excellent.

Summary:

• Bad possessions = bad basketball = bad results
• Minimize transition hoops
• Bad fouls translate into high quality shots (free throws)
• Play under control (offensive fouls = turnovers plus foul trouble)
• "The ball is gold" (reduce turnovers)
• Get better shots (keep shot charts, get 7s)

Lagniappe (something extra). "On time, on target."