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Monday, June 12, 2023

Coaching Analogies - Plying Your Craft

Analogies are modeled from the Greek analogia meaning equivalency. 

John Pollack wrote an excellent book, Shortcut, about the power of analogies. He mentioned the tortured analogy above, showing a sailor rigging a fix for a wayward boom. He explains how analogies are "convenient shorthand to distill complex but common ideas, and communicate them quickly." 

No day passes when analogies don't flutter into our paths like insects or falling leaves. A myriad of analogies apply to coaches, wearing many hats.  

CEO. Preside over the organization, production, and delivery of products and services. Imagine the best or worst CEO and become more like the best and less like the worst. 

Mad scientist. The court is our laboratory. Coaches experiment with different drills and strategies. An action confronts us. We tinker with and enhance it with different spacing or timing. Put our program under the microscope to assess the hypotheses and experiments.   

Chef. A Michelin 3-star chef combines ingredients - salt, fat, acid, and heat - to create unique flavor profiles. And she subjects each dish to a precise time and temperature. Coaches do the same, with enough but not too much intensity. 

Hedge fund manager. Add value to provide above market returns (alpha). Balance risk and reward. Acquire undervalued assets and move on from or manage underperforming ones. 

Farmer. All cuts of meat are not the same. Grass-fed, hormone-free animals who developed 'marbling' slowly are different and better. 

Storyteller. Author or director...the job is to advance the story. Drive the narrative forward in sometimes unexpected, credible, concrete, and emotional ways. 


Editor. Parrot Ron Howard. "The film is made in the editing room." Watch films with great editing like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Parasite and appreciate the craft. Spot flaws in our thinking, coaching, and writing. And "kill your darlings," editing out the trivial or unrelated.  

Thief? Beg, borrow, or steal? Relate Ted Lasso to the Wizard of Oz. A hero from Kansas supplies flawed characters with heart, brain, and courage. 

Detective. What's wrong with this picture? Find the clues present or ask what's missing that might establish the villain. 

Life coach. Pygmalion became the model for My Fair Lady. Coaches help transform ordinary into extraordinary, good into great. 

Conductor. The conductor gets everyone on the same page, in tune, at the proper sequence and tempo. 

Architect. Design blends form and function to create working beauty. Frank Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim Museum is exceptional. 

General. The general deploys troops to achieve intermediate steps en route to a successful end state. Be General Suvorov, The General Who Never Lost. "Always forward." 

Economist. Economics is about the allocation of limited resources. Coaches divide minutes, role, recognition. 

Grandmaster. "At the end of the day, the game of chess is about decision-making." - Garry Kasparov  Chess masters learn classic offenses and defenses, creativity, foresight, and minimizing errors. They "chunk the board" understanding how pieces interact in space. 

Lagniappe. 

 

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Sunday, June 11, 2023

Basketball and Learning: Whom Should You Read? Plus Double Bonus Material

Whom should you read to learn, to think better? This is a central, profound question, probably something to ask around. 

There are thinkers and there are talkers. A lot of who you hear on media are talkers. You learn nothing, it's spin transmission. Sometimes you learn LESS than nothing, false information.

Being on television a lot doesn't define a thinker. Get under the hood and learn how a domain works. 

Coaching and writing are distinct skills. I've read basketball books by famous coaches (without naming names), that taught little about life or basketball. I let my time be wasted. That's on me. 

Exceptional coaches inform exceptional leadership. Serious people do serious things. Doris Kearns Goodwin explains how four great presidents - Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and Lyndon Johnson - operated. Johnson went to Everett Dirksen the GOP Senator from Illinois and talked about legacy. He told Dirksen that he could be part of the Civil Rights legacy. He helped pass the Voting Rights Act. 

Dean Smith's writings share how basketball works, that better shot selection required practicing shot selection. 

Michael Lombardi informs unusual insight into player evaluation and team development. His "Gridiron Genius" helps any coach in any sport. 

Bob Woodward excavates the dirt to unearth 'the best obtainable version of the truth'. He doesn't claim it's the whole truth, because that's unknowable. But he writes provable, documented truths. He also explains where and how to go off the track. 

A Supreme Court clerk challenged Woodward about a passage in his book, The Brethren. Woodward invited him over and showed him the passage in the clerk's own handwriting. The clerk was dumbfounded. 

Adam Grant explains the value of unlearning and rethinking. In Think Again, he advises keeping a scorecard of what you rethought. He explains how teaching our children to think again matters. 

Neil DeGrasse Tyson distills ideas into value. If you asked him about investing in space exploration, he'd share that the US lip balm market is almost $800 million dollars. Is space exploration as important as lip balm? He'd share that his father said, "it's not enough to be right, you have to be effective." 

Newer isn't always better. Preparation and patience matter. In The Art of War, written in the fifth century B.C., Sun Tzu explains that "every battle is won before it is fought" and "if you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by." This literally happened recently in a regional conflict. 

Summary: 

  • Think about whom you read. 
  • Great coaching isn't synonymous with great writing. 
  • Serious people do serious things. Study great leaders. 
  • "Unlearn and rethink." 
  • Find "the best obtainable version of the truth."
  • Work to become effective, not just right. 
  • Newer information isn't always better.
Lagniappe. Steal and copy. 

Lagniappe 2. Player development minute. 

 

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Saturday, June 10, 2023

Basketball: You Have the Illusion of Choice

Power up. 

"Nothing works unless you do." 

"Do the unrequired work."

"Champions do extra." - James Kerr, in Legacy

"Old men grow great by planting trees in whose shade they will never sit." - Greek Proverb

When given an opportunity to improve, "say yes." Little frustrates coaches more than hosting workouts with almost nobody showing. 

"Never cheat the drill." 

"Do five more." - Dan Pink  (Read or write five more pages. Do five more sprints or reps. Make five more calls.)

"Always do your best." - Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements

"You can run with the big dogs or sit on the porch." 

"Are you investing your time or spending it?" - Nick Saban 

Lagniappe. I believe this interview informs value. 


  • The illusion of choice
  • Develop relationships.
  • Finish. "It's about what you're willing to do."
  • Communicate individually.
  • Value second chances.
  • Trust the process. 
  • Set standards for yourself. 

 Lagniappe 2. Screening. 

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Basketball: Avoiding Shame

Coaching is about relationships. That requires all parties to be vulnerable, to open up and accept imperfection. It means accepting shame, the fear of disconnection. "What if I'm not good enough?"

Coaches make mistakes, every day, every game. "Blame...is a way to discharge pain and discomfort." "It's not me, it's you." 

99 percent won't watch this video. That's okay. Everyone needs to feel valued. Help players be valued by being 'worthy'. Brene' Brown shares that children need to know they are "worthy of love and belonging." It's part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 

Imagine your introductory meeting, explaining to the players and families that your goal is 'worthiness'. They'd say, "what's this space cadet saying'? Then you explain worthiness: 

  • Caring for and supporting each other on and off the court.
  • Preparing to compete by being fully engaged at practice and games.
  • Giving high effort even when you don't 'feel like it' at home, at school, on the court. 
  • Making others around you better.
  • Embracing shared vision, shared sacrifice, shared results.
"You're enough." Give your best. Our best won't be THE best or perfect, but it dampens regret.

Your kid isn't a loser when she doesn't make the team, become a league MVP, or get selected All-Scholastic. Remind ourselves that some people called Dean Smith a loser before he won a National Title. He answered, "I never felt like a loser." 

When I hear that a coach called players worthless or losers, I'm sad, because nobody deserves to have their self-worth erased. It doesn't matter how many championships you've won when you treat others like garbage. 

Star players will always get credit. As a parent, if you feel as though your kid isn't getting enough recognition, ask, "is it about my child or my own insecurity?" 

If shame is fear of disconnection, then help players feel connected. When I've heard of dissatisfaction about my coaching, it hasn't been from the parents of reserve players, but good players not feeling 'enough'. 

Because coaching is about relationships, work to improve communication and connection. Being vulnerable is part of that work.   

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Friday, June 9, 2023

Prior Posts Primarily on BOBs

Special situations such as baseline out of bounds (BOBs), sideline out of bounds (SLOBs), and after timeouts (ATOs) offer advantage as choreographed opportunities. BOBs are especially important as they start close to the basket. 

This post assembles a reference list. 



When properly set up with prior backscreens, the screen slip "33" works. 

"Four" a screen-the-screener action scored FIVE times in one game. Sometimes, an action only has to work once. 

Duke BOBs from a profile on Coach K. 

1-4 Low sets from a successful private high school 


Another post with a variety of BOBs.


Clear the bottom defender and screen the middle (above). 

And more...


Screen the low help side defender to get the help side corner 3. 

And even more...


Staggered screen out of 1-4 low. 

Figure out what works best for you.

Lagniappe. What motivates us? Love, skill, value, and money. Ikigai is a Japanese concept that seeks to find the center of all, from the DailyCoach. 









































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Thursday, June 8, 2023

Basketball: Don Meyer Notes

Source: 2009 Annotated Don Meyer Coaching Notes 

1. What's important to you as a coach? This would be a logical introductory question in a job interview or an initial meeting with players and/or families. What's your WHY? 

  • Coaching is about relationships. 
  • Pete Newell says a coach's primary obligation is helping players to "see the game."
  • Develop skill. "Every day is player development day." 
I got a letter from my high school coach this week as a local HoF committee member recommending a former competitor for the local Hall of Fame. 

2. Plan. "Have a system that works for you." 
  • Clearly explain your system. 
  • Be able to teach your system.
  • Get everyone on the same page. Give and get feedback. "Trust but verify."
3. Honor your team by hard work (Players & Coaches).
  • Model excellence. 
  • Hard work is a skill. 
  • Aspiration and inspiration lead to preparation and perspiration. 
  4. PRACTICE WITH SPEED.
  • "Make practice hard so games are easier."
  • "Basketball is a game meant to be played fast." - Wooden
  • Defense, competition, and decision-making make it real. It also conditions efficiently. 
5. Maximize your abilities on and off the floor. LOSERS CUT CORNERS.
  • It's impossible to improve without hard work.
  • Evaluate your efficiency. "Investing versus spending time."
  • As a player commit to basketball and academic achievement. 
6. Compete versus yourself.
  • "Winners are trackers." - Darren Hardy. Seek your personal best.
  • Do Five More. - Dan Pink
  • "I'm pleased but I'm not satisfied. - Coach Sonny Lane
The Ship of Theseus story - "After several centuries of maintenance, if each individual part of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one at a time, was it still the same ship?" Evolve as people and as coaches. We change little by little on our coaching journey. We're not the same coach at the end of the journey as at the beginning. 

Lagniappe. Finishing skills add value. 
Lagniappe 2. This weekend we have our fifty year high school reunion. Tonight some of our basketball team members are getting together to reminisce. An overtime win in Boston Garden was the March Madness highlight. 
 




 

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Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Basketball: Holistic Coaching

 


Earn appreciation for "holistic coaching." A reporter asked Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg about his team. "Ask me in twenty years and I'll be able to give you a better answer."

Coaches live forever as players impact families and society. Your opinion on the best defense of the pick-and-roll matters far less than the character, habits, and process of your players. 

Be specific. "Be a good person" doesn't create a framework for players. 

Coach Sonny Lane taught us core values:

  • Family comes first. 
  • Academics comes next.
  • Basketball is third. 
People remember how we make them feel. 


"Atomic Habits" author James Clear says to develop systems to make good habits easier and bad ones harder. For example, how can we keep order?
  • "Five-minute room rescue." Pick up for five minutes.
  • Marie Kondo method. If it gives us no joy, toss it. 
  • "Let it go." Take one thing away when you leave a room. 
Share lessons of great coaches like Don Meyer: PUSH-T
  • Passion
  • Unity 
  • Servant leadership
  • Humility
  • Thankfulness
Inform player development like Dr. Fergus Connolly:
  • Skill 
  • Strategy
  • Physicality
  • Psychology
Teach the 'anatomy of a possession' of Dr. Connolly:
  • Spacing
  • Player movement
  • Ball movement
  • The 'scoring moment' 
Imprint your personal philosophy:
  • Teamwork, Improvement, accountability
  • Everyone can be a great teammate
  • Basketball is a game of symmetry and movement. 
Find success:
  • "Be good at what you do a lot."
  • "Do more of what works and less of what doesn't."
Simplify your process:
  • "Possession and possessions"
  • "Get more quality shots with better choices and passing"
  • Opponents get "one bad shot" (hard twos)
Know Dean Oliver's "Four Factors" differential
  • Effective field goal percentage
  • Rebounding
  • Turnovers 
  • Attacking the basket 
(SCORE, CRASH, PROTECT, ATTACK)

Share basketball truths:
  • Good teams don't give games away
  • "Basketball is a game of mistakes" (Knight)
  • "The game honors toughness." (Stevens)
  • Hard work is a skill.
  • Good teams handle pressure.
  • Good teams can win on the road and against quality teams.
  • Respect the game.
  • "Teams that can't shoot free throws last as long in the post-season as dogs that chase cars." (Tom Hellen)
Become a storyteller ("Made to Stick" by the Heath Brothers).  SUCCESS:
  • Simple - Make the story easy to remember
  • Unexpected 
  • Concrete 
  • Credible
  • Emotional
  • Stories
Read and teach leadership:
Lagniappe. Build skill. 

Lagniappe 2. Build hip strength.  




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Tuesday, June 6, 2023

More Basketball Analogies

Learn across domains. Analogies help us relate unrelated domains.


1. Work ethic...the iceberg. What we see in a player is the part of the iceberg above the water. Player development, unseen actions comprise the bulk of the stuffing inside.

2. The basketball court is a laboratory. Develop a hypothesis, conduct experiments, and define results. I thought that run-and-jump defense (I like to call it trap and switch) would work well with our small, athletic soccer-playing guards. It didn't. 

3. Learn to fly. "Basketball is a game meant to be played fast." Developing transition offense or playing "The System" requires both mindset and practice.  

 4. Get more arrows in your quiver. Empire of the Summer Moon informs the rise and fall of the Comanches. Their horsemanship was unparalleled. Comanche warriors, as early as teens, could wheel their horse around and deliver a dozen arrows with deadly accuracy in a minute. Aspire to add more and better arrows in your playing or coaching quiver. 

5. Put your program under a microscope. Examine both the big picture (the bird's-eye view - another analogy) and the granular detail. 

6. Help fix your program with a fine-toothed comb. The closely set 'teeth' on a comb have special value in removing parasites. Turnovers are parasites, flies in the ointment, a clog in the machine (more analogies). 

7. Season on the roller coaster or the merry-go-round? Coaching helps elevate both level of play and consistency. The roller coaster season speaks for itself. 

8. Sports leave scars. It's not war, but it leaves scars. Who among us has no leftovers from dislocated fingers, arthroscopic or open surgery, and more? It comes with the territory (another analogy). 

9. Basketball is "Darwinian." Competition is 'survival of the fittest'. Darwin's quote is about adaptability and flexibility. Players adapt to the opponents, different styles of coaching, and also to the officiating. 

10."Junkie" equals addict. Are you a basketball junkie, competition junkie, adrenaline junkie? "I can quit anytime." 

11.Most seasons end with disappointment. Either the Heat or the Nuggets emerges as the NBA champion. Most end with a postmortem examination, an autopsy. Nobody died except a team's dreams. 

"What never lies? The evidence." - CSI

12.Words have multiple meanings. A reporter asked football coach John McKay about his season, "how do you feel about your team's execution?" Coach McKay quipped, "I'm in favor of it."

Lagniappe. 






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Monday, June 5, 2023

Basketball: Absolute Must Lessons for Young Players

Don't presume that players know the essentials. Create and edit your list. Some considerations:

1. Have a mindset that "stops make runs." Everyone plays defense.

2. "Turnovers kill dreams." Do the math. Turnovers corrupt chances to win and force teams to make even more shots to compensate.

3. "Don't play for your coach. Play for your teammates."

4. Be "possession enders." Possession enders score, rebound, get stops, and assist leading to baskets. Winning requires possession enders.

5. Prosperity follows better shot selection. Every player should know what a quality shot is for teammates and themselves. Forget about "my turn" shots. 

6. Make teammates better. Why is Jokic so good? In addition to scoring and rebounding, he's an exceptional passer creating opportunities for teammates.

7. Be coachable. Find mentors and be a mentor and resource for younger teammates. 

8. Become a more explosive athlete. Do the work. Athleticism fosters separation.

9. Find basketball symmetry. 

  • Get and deny separation. 
  • Take care of the ball and pressure the ball. 
  • Get quality shots and challenge shots without fouling. 

10.Skill dominates. Develop separation skills with and without the basketball with footwork, quickness, and 'basketball moves'. Improve finishing, shooting range, and free throw percentage. 

Attack mentality. Choose from a 'menu' of improvements. Invest the time to review multiple videos. You don't need to develop every move. 

Your parents grant unconditional love. Your coaches and teammates share conditional love for impacting winning and changing lives. 

Lagniappe. 

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Sunday, June 4, 2023

Basketball: Best Practices

“Best practices” vary. How do you value process versus outcome? One area high school won consecutive state basketball championships. Their best player hails from far out of area and the coach has assembled a 'regional' all-star team. That’s becoming the trend not the exception. Talent aggregators earn notoriety as coaches. 

Find paths to better practices using all available resources. 

Own "practice accountability" over "outcome accountability." Outcomes are subject to a myriad of variables - talent, schedule, health, even luck. But coaches control tryouts, player selection and development, strategy, scouting, game planning, and so forth.

Ideally, teams enter the post-season having evolved with cohesive consistency and 'toughness'. 

Process and outcome link nonlinearly. An “iceberg effect" exists as the visible performance in high stakes games links to talent and "unseen hours". 

Adam Grant writes, “Focusing on results might be good for short-term performance, but it can be an obstacle to long-term learning.” Soft scheduling doesn’t produce hardened competitors. Growth of young players may propel them past older teammates.

What is the best metric to measure coaching at developmental and high school levels? Here are just a few:

  • "Basketball experience"
  • Wins and losses
  • Player and family satisfaction (feedback metric?)
  • Player development 
  • "Peak performance" of top players 

“The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” Unreliable players tend to remain unreliable. 

Excellent coaches put the team first. In 1986, Dave Stapleton usually replaced Bill Buckner defensively late in games. Bill Buckner’s critical error in the World Series occurred because the manager deviated from his process of defensive substitution. Eighteen more years passed before the Red Sox won their first title in eighty-six years.

Lagniappe. Great culture is best practice.  

Lagniappe 2.  

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Basketball: All I Ever Needed to Know

Basketball teaches us about life and life teaches us about basketball. 

Robert Fulghum wrote a best seller, "All I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten." Book banning is a smaller problem than lack of reading.  

Apply the lessons. 

Share everything. Share your time, energy, and experience with others. Be a mentor to younger teammates and listen to experienced voices. 

Play fair. Sportsmanship doesn't have an expiration date. Be enthusiastic for each other. 

Don't hit people. "Foul for profit." Don't put teams at the line for high points per possession chances. 

Put things back where you found them. Leave the gym in better condition than when you found it. Remember Legacy and the All-Blacks New Zealand rugby team and "sweep the sheds." 

Clean up your own mess. And another thing. "Were you raised in a barn?"

Say you are sorry when you hurt somebody. Every team runs into some rough patches in relationships. Say "I'm sorry." 

Live a balanced life. Sports are important but they follow family and academics in importance. "Take care of business." Another theme from James Kerr's Legacy is "better people make better All-Blacks." 

Take a nap every afternoon. LeBron James gets twelve hours of sleep a day. More sleep equals higher performance. 

LOOK! Everything you need to know is there somewhere. Be coachable. Your coaches will put you in position to succeed. 

Stick together. Everyone can't be a great player. But everyone can choose to be a great teammate. You're on a lot of teams, starting with your family. Not many people can put the team first all the time. But coaches and teammates remember those who can.

Have a 'holistic' approach to coaching and bring energy. 

Lagniappe. 

Lagniappe 2. Repost. Simplify the game. 

 

 

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Saturday, June 3, 2023

Basketball: Highlights from Adam Grant's "Think Again"

To think better, Penn Professor Adam Grant advises "unlearn and rethink." In "Think Again," he challenges us to reconsider what we 'know' and to ask more and better questions. 

For example, after the Eastern Conference Finals, a reporter asked Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla if the team relied too much on three-point shooting. Without hesitation, he replied, "No." Perhaps a more nuanced answer would be, "after a disappointing loss, we will examine everything, how we coach, how we prepare, how we play." 

Grant's work raises a lot of questions, such as "how do you know" and how we can think better individually, in groups, and as parents and teachers. 

He provides a wonderful summary at the end with concrete ideas. Here are highlights from memory: 

1. Think like a scientist (I suggest detective). Instead of arguing as a preacher, prosecutor, or politician, think objectively with hypotheses, experimentation (evidence) and derive conclusions. 

2. Develop your identity from values not opinions. This reminds me of another book, James Clear's "Atomic Habits." Clear argues that habits become a vote for the person whom we want to become. A health conscious person develops behaviors of exercise, healthy eating, and adequate sleep. A better coach studies basketball and people, communication, and learns how best to teach her system. 

3. Seek disconfirming evidence. Instead of confirmation bias where we solicit opinions and information proving established beliefs, study 'the other side of the trade'. That requires to listen to and consider material from those with whom we disagree. Our critics may have useful insight. 

4. Set aside 'rethinking time'. Sometimes our lives go onto 'autopilot' and we forge ahead with tunnel vision of our path. That might work, but a broader view could help us make better decisions, especially in work-life balance. 

5. Teach our children from a young age to think again. He specifically encourages us NOT to ask young people what they plan to become as they grow up. As I recall, Van Gogh meandered through a panoply of professions before becoming an artist. Regrettably for him, he sold only one painting during his lifetime. 

6. Question how external pressures impact our decisions. In 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger launch was under tremendous pressure, especially following the State of the Union address promoting civilian space travel. Pressure to launch in cold weather resulted in tragedy as rubber O-ring seals lost their functional ability, brittle in temperatures in the thirties. 

Coaches can be under pressure to win, to play high draft choices over proven veterans, or select players based on connections instead of ability. 

7. The most successful forecasters are not the smartest or with the best access to information. They are most willing to update their predictions based on considering new information. You wouldn't necessarily 'bet the Derby favorite' if you had additional negative health information. Coaches need to update our thinking with new data. 

8. Keep a rethinking scorecard. What have I rethought that helps me? In other words, recognizing being wrong makes me more correct. Eureka. 

9. Celebrate rethinking as it often gets us closer to the truth. 

Willingness to adjust decision-making in life and sports shouldn't be considered a bug but a feature. I highly recommend, "Think Again." 

Lagniappe. "Horns Burn"

 

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Friday, June 2, 2023

Measuring Coaching Performance

"She's a great coach." What's our metric?

Kristen McDonnell (@CoachKristenMcD) was named 'Coach of the Decade' by The Boston Herald, which provides the leading coverage of Boston area high school sports. How might they have arrived at that conclusion? She graciously provided an interview here. 

Her achievements at Braintree High School included four state championships, numerous conference titles, and development of numerous division one players. She briefly coached boys at Norwood High and quickly took her team to the state finals before returning to coaching girls at Norwood where she is in the Guidance Department. She's a leader in promoting coaching development with her "LeadHERship" sessions online for women coaches.    

What is the best metric to measure coaching at developmental and high school levels?  

  • "Basketball experience"
  • Getting the most from available talent
  • Wins and losses
  • Championships (state, sectional, league)
  • Player and family satisfaction (feedback metric?)
  • Player development 
  • "Peak performance" of top players 
  • Peer evaluations ("I know it when I see it")
  • Reputation "everyone knows that"
  • Self-assessment (what did I think of my performance?)
"Where I stand depends upon where I sit." As a player or parent, I might grade the coach based upon the "Holy Triad" of minutes, role, and recognition. A community might assess the coach based upon the team's record, the entertainment value of their play, or the perception of team culture. The athletic director might see "absence of complaints" as the gold standard. As a coach, I seek to understand what style of play and granular details of execution. Also, I’d be curious to see practice and gain insight into team culture. 

“The basketball experience” Did players enjoy being part of the team? Is program interest rising or declining?

Getting the most from players. Did the team perform as expected or at variance with expectations?

Wins and losses. Some teams schedule weak opponents to pad their records. Power rankings reveal that. 

Can the team beat good teams and win on the road? 

Championships. What’s the resume?

Satisfaction. The player experience is a big part of results…but not everything.

Player development and peak performance. Is the program producing successful players at the next level?

Peer evaluations. Do you work in a system where peers comment on the program?

Reputation. Character is what you are and reputation is what people think. 

Self-assessment. High performers are often the harshest graders. “The wind is always blowing hardest at the top of the mountain.”

Bottom line is that grading performance isn’t easy and grades will never be uniform or fully unbiased. 

Lagniappe. I loathe the term "dumb jock." Most elite athletes are elite students of sport. 
Lagniappe 2. 


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Thursday, June 1, 2023

Basketball: "It Takes What It Takes"

"It takes what it takes." - Nick Saban 

What do great players have in common? 

They do what others don't. 


From Anson Dorrance's "Vision of a Champion"
  • They do unrequired work. 
  • They say 'yes' to growth opportunities. 
They are relentless. 

  • They show up early and stay late. 
  • They do not quit.
  • They never cheat the drill. 
They make everyone around them better.
  • Excellence impacts winning. 
  • Great players end possessions - get stops, scores, rebounds, assists. 
  • Consistency matters. 
  • You know it when you see it. 
They bring intangibles every day. 
  • Toughness is a skill.
  • Basketball IQ is their calling card.
  • They embrace challenges. 
  • Coachability...they want improvement.
  • They make winning plays not just 'scorebook' plays 
Envision players in four 'now' and 'future' categories:
- Lottery picks
- First round draft choices
- Second round draft choices
- Street free agents

It's possible to move up or down a level but tough to go up two levels. When one team has multiple 'lottery picks' or rosters studded with first round picks, they have a formidable edge. 

As a player, move up a level.
  • Become more athletic...strength, conditioning, explosiveness.
  • Find a mentor. Get suggestions on 'need' areas. 
  • Play a lot, including against better competition. 
  • Outwork everyone. 
  • Work on skills with a partner.
  • Be a tracker. Constantly seek personal bests.
  • Become your own coach.  
  • "Invest your time, don't spend it."
  • Edit the physical and mental mistakes out of your game. 
Lagniappe. This won't work consistently which doesn't mean it can't work. Jim Boeheim teaches the 'front' of the 2-3 to have 'fingers touching'. It will be tough to screen both defenders in that configuration. 

 



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