"You never finish a work of art. You abandon it." - Ken Burns
Names conjure associations. Adam West? Batman. Doris Kearns Goodwin? Lincoln. Gordon Ramsay? Beef Wellington.
When we think of Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich, what's our take?
Today. Victor Wembanyama the much-hyped man-child goes to the Spurs wayback machine. Popovich gets a science experiment.
Pomona of the Claremont Colleges. Popovich's multilingual intelligence and unapologetic style rankles some. Hit 'em with those trophies.
Air Force and Russian studies. Pop is a geek. He's a reader comfortable with history and suffers no fools.
He's got the receipts. Five NBA championships. Long ago ping pong balls went the Spurs' way, Pop got Duncan and the Celtics got a long championship drought.
"Get over yourself." Pop preaches team not ego. Players learn quickly that it's team over individual, always a good lesson especially for a young player.
"Pound the rock." He lives, "It takes what it takes." If it takes a hundred hits to break the rock, then you have to keep hitting it.
Three star orbit. Popovich knows that the triumvirate of Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili drove the bus. And that's okay.
Pop doesn't waste words. You get what you get with a Pop interview.
Let Ginobili be Ginobili.
Eddie Mabo Day. Popovich has a rich appreciation of 'cultural literacy' which some might call woke. The literal definition of woke is being attuned to issues of social justice. Popovich discussed Eddie Mabo Day because he knew Patty Mills had close ties to indigenous people's justice.
Hammer action. Although this probably dates back to Chuck Daly, Hammer action is often associated with the Spurs.
Popovich...one of a kind... a beautiful and complex mind.
High school sport careers fly by. Excellence tools catalyze the rest of your life. Control what you can control - attitude, choices, effort. Find what works at home, the classroom, and the office. Get inspired; be inspiring.
Effort
"Champions do extra."
"Do the unrequired work."
Author Dan Pink says, "do five more."
"How you do anything is how you do everything."
Make effort your superpower.
"Always do your best," one of the 'Four Agreements'
Choices
Are you spending your time or investing it? Invest in yourself.
You become the average of the five people closest to you.
Study more effectively, using Pomodoro technique (25 minutes on, 5 off).
Approach problems better with Feynman technique (name, define, research, summarize).
Do "Whatever it takes" to become successful.
Avoid distraction from doing what it takes.
Find mentors. "Mentoring is the only shortcut to success."
Be coachable.
Find "edges" to improve your performance.
Be an "AND" player, not a "BUT" player. Don't have coaches qualify your talent with "but she has issues."
Study your mentors' mentors. Usher studied Michael Jackson's and James Brown's mentors.
Build great habits.
Put process ahead of results. "Trust the process."
Put people ahead of things. Put the person ahead of the player.
Learn to use analogies.
Ask better questions. "What if?"
Attitude
Be positive. A negative attitude never yields positive life.
Bring energy and energize your teammates.
Great players make everyone around them better.
Bring the best version of yourself each day.
Choose "get to" not "have to." I 'get to' work hard today.
Lagniappe (something extra).
Everything you say yes to is saying no to something else:
Taking the meeting means saying no to an hour of reading. Scrolling mindlessly late at night means saying no to a productive morning. The Zoom call means saying no to some deep work.
Basketball has tradeoffs. Extended defense trades turnovers and playing faster for surrendering layups. Play more physically and have more fouls called.
What are the pros and cons of multiple defenses?
Cons: Sometimes more is less.
1) Lack of focus on one defense can yield mediocrity. "Be good at what you do a lot." Don't be 'jack of all trades and master of none'.
2) Players may not know their assignments in multiple defenses.
3) Personnel suited to one style may not fit well with another.
4) Players may become confused as to what defense they're actually playing.
5) Player effectiveness varies between defenses. I never felt great playing the weakside wing in the 1-3-1, feeling overmatched as a rebounder.
6) Rebounding may suffer without individual assignments.
7) Requires more practice time to implement.
Pros: Different alignments may cause offensive confusion.
1) Opponents must prepare for multiple defenses.
2) Disguise defenses by aligning in one and shifting to another. For example, align in a 2-3 and switch to man-to-man on the first pass. The most extreme shifts occurred in Dale Brown's "Freak."
3) Shifting defenses may make offenses feel time pressure against shot clocks.
4) Zones can protect players in foul trouble, limit PnR effectiveness, and impact star players.
5) Designed plays for one defense may not work well against other defenses.
Find balance:
Excel at base defense and one or two alternatives.
Confirm with analytics your impression of defensive effectiveness.
Scrimmage with your planned defenses to check being on the same page.
When implementing new plans, be prepared to fail fast instead of failing permanently.
Lagniappe. Watching video helps us understand why defense works and how adjustments increase the chance for success. Coach Daniel's video breakdowns of Boston/Miami 2020 are instructive.
I bought a medium tension resistance band (shown in the video) from Amazon and tried several of the exercises. I'm trying to build leg strength for fall prevention (I'm old).
Fortunately, there were no Wile E. Coyote moments.
Spanish squat
Hip extension
Backward lunges
Forward jump with resistance
It wasn't as easy finding a stabilizing post but found one in the corner of my yard.
The exercises were challenging but manageable and low impact. Here's a quick link to the video.
Pure. Simple. Joy. A player, a ball, and a hoop. Promote joy.
Invoke a mental model of inversion, what's the opposite? What strips away basketball joy?
Abusive coaching takes away fun. Coaching doesn't entitle us to remove dignity and decency. Driving the bus doesn't permit throwing players under it. "Never be a child's last coach."
Burying players on the bench...
Abandonment... coach everyone.
Parental pressure... support your child and the team.
"Not" basketball... incessant running practice trying to get players to quit is a practice to be condemned. Great coaches know how to condition within drills.
"Hunger Games." Differentiate between competition and confrontation
Shawn Achor is a Harvard professor and happiness researcher who wrote, The Happiness Advantage. Look under the hood:
1. Infuse our brains with positive hormones dopamine and oxytocin by experiencing happiness.
2. Look for the positive in our lives, experiencing gratitude.
3. Celebrate small wins.
Coaches influence our team's attitude and approach.
B+ (Be positive). Positive lives don't come via negative attitudes.
.B (Dot B). Stop and take a breath before responding.
Promote mindfulness which lowers stress hormones and blood pressure, increases memory, sleep, and attention.
Develop a portfolio of positive stories. Remember my story of Naomi at tryouts. "Coach, I am REALLY excited to be here."
Promote the '21-day Gratitude Challenge'. Write down three things each night you're grateful for over three weeks. Then review and reflect on the positives.
"Speak greatness." Choose words wisely (as taught by Rod Olson).
Let players know, "I believe in you."
Summary:
"Never be a child's last coach."
Distinguish between competition and confrontation.
B+ (Be positive).
.B (dot B, stop and take a breath)
Meditate
Be grateful.
Share positive stories. "Coach, I am REALLY excited to be here."
Lagniappe. Study players whose game might resemble yours.
Lagniappe 2. Plus minus... add positives, avoid negatives.
This column is a repost on its twentieth anniversary. Some say it was my best work.
Five Words
May brings us Mother’s Day, which means thinking about Mom. Moms are special, as the sideline reporters catch the ‘Hi, Mom’ and nouveau riche athletes buy mom the dream house she never had. Even if Dad were teaching the fundamentals, everybody knows Mom was the law.
From the time a boy or girl is old enough to crawl, Mom is usually the one who rolls them the first ball. With time and practice, the little one starts to enjoy their first game with the rolling ball, the precursor to chasing some other ball on the diamond, the court, or the field. Mom probably signs them up for T-Ball and Little League, and does more than her share of driving to and from practice. Moms even earn the special moniker of ‘Soccer Moms’, a ‘focus group’ for political parties, a constituency of van-driving, referee-baiting power.
Mom always tried to make a game of everything, Spelling Bee or Math Rounds during washing the dishes before there were dishwashers, and Scrabble or cribbage to sharpen a young mind. She introduced me to medicine, too, with a book called ‘The Great Physicians’ at age 12, where I learned of Galen, and Vesalius, whose grave-robbing exploits revealed the circulatory system, and the wonders of Morton and Pasteur.
Sometimes mothers become the catcher, or the goalie, or the batting practice pitcher. I remember how Mom’s sister was the athlete, who could play ‘catch’ with ambidextrous ease. Still Mom was the one who got dinner out early, and never complained as we wolfed it down to get to practice or games on time. Mom was always my biggest fan.
Mom would make sure the uniforms were clean, and that we had spikes, or cleats, or sneakers, even when money was tight, which it always seemed to be. There was never any question about hustling on the field or on the court; it was very obvious that Mom and Dad hustled to make ends meet. When progress merited it, there were a couple of years where the ‘rents’ scraped up the dough for me to go to Sam Jones’ basketball camp.
I still can’t understand how Sam could put four quarters on the back of his hand, turn it over, and catch them individually, as though he were a machine.
Mom and Dad would make the traveling appearances to watch a game when they could, ‘night games’ mostly, because they worked, and there was only one car anyway. They’d sit on hard bleachers in cold weather to watch their son pitch or hit, or try to field. They never could make it to any soccer games, but tried to go to every basketball game, even when I didn’t really want them there. They came to the “Tech Tourney” games in the Garden, and were rewarded with a photo of their son kissing the Division I North trophy along with his smiling teammates. They came to Wakefield, Winchester, and Waltham in sweltering heat to watch the Inter-City League games, and even after Dad had passed, Mom still came to watch her ‘little boy’ try not to embarrass himself as a forty-year old in the Wakefield Twi-League of twenty-somethings. She smiled a lot, even though she started to feel the pain of advancing age, just like her son the pitcher.
Mom wasn’t perfect. A meticulous housekeeper, she was a neat-freak nightmare beyond any teenager’s belief. She was a domestic tyrant. If displeased, she unleashed a stream of undeleted expletives which let you know where she stood. Those times made it easy for a son to find comfort at the ballpark, the gym, or the library, safe with teammates and books.
She never had a lot of friends, and her outbursts kept those at a distance. Her Irish temper had a volatile and short fuse, and too often she sought refuge at the end of a bottle. But through it all there was a constant, a devotion to her children and their success in making it in a hostile world.
Mom no longer has the inquisitive and sometimes scolding eyes; she sees her world with an indescribable emptiness and often vacant expression.
Her face is kinder now, exposed to a brave new world. Her mind and body dwindle, ravaged by Alzheimer’s Disease and cancer. Her biggest comfort comes from the further mind-numbing effects of pain medication in the nursing home, not from the visits of caring friends and family. Nobody should have to live as she does, and she deserves five words which she hears but cannot remember. So, if you can, tell your Mom “I love you” and “thank you”, while she still knows you care..
Written May 2003 (author's note, Mom passed on in January 2004)
Develop an array of weapons with multiple actions. I recently shared some back cuts. Force long closeouts. Don't feel compelled to run everything but use proven actions that work for you.
Long closeouts happen for multiple reasons.
Unanticipated help
Planned "draw 2"
Defensive errors
Extra passes ("one more")
Miscellaneous (e.g. short roll passing)
Great spacing (e.g. filled corners) is necessary but not sufficient.
Examples:
Spread clear PnR options (drive, corner cut, corner pass) to pressure both PnR defense and the corner help defender.
Short roll passing with great spacing (above) presents a nightmare for defenses. The pass could go to corner or wing depending on defense.
Defensive error. Embiid backs Tatum down and Brown doubles and leaves the corner open. Many teams teach players not to help off the open corner.
Drill. "One more" pass and follow drill that we and many other teams practiced.
Long closeouts put defenders on an island with opportunities to shoot, drive, or penetrate and pass.
David Blatt hammer action. The Spurs (below) run a facsimile.
The youngest professor at Penn, Adam Grant says he's far from perfect. Students offered him the chance at investing in their business. He asked about their model, their business plan, progress on their online platform. They said they'd get to it. He declined. Their business? Warby-Parker online eyeglasses, a raging success.
Let's learn from what he's written.
Lessons from Give and Take:
He classifies people as givers, matchers, and takers. Perhaps surprising, the most and least successful are the givers. Give too much and end with nothing. "Ambitious givers" do the best.
He gives examples of people unwilling to share, including credit. The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright wouldn't credit junior associates for ideas or help. His business suffered dramatically. Jonas Salk was a 'credit hog' while developing a polio vaccine. His selfishness pre-empted selection to the National Academy of Sciences or winning a Nobel Prize.
This lengthy thread shares some of his life observations:
One of the clearest signs of learning is rethinking your assumptions and revising your opinions.
Motivation. "We make our habits and our habits make us." People are creatures of habit, good or bad. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, advises us to make good habits easier to follow and bad ones hard. Better habits include reading, exercise, film study, journaling. Track completion and "don't miss twice."
Lexicon. CHIN set. Reorient the defense and open spacing to create a high ball screen.
Drill. Go inside your drill book. Mix it up to keep players engaged.
Video. Watch every day.
Xs and Os. Love Flex? Run it from SLOB. Cut hard to make plays.
Tips. How do you teach steals off the dribble?
Kawhi will go for the ball on the way down or up. I always taught to go for steals on the pulse upwards because I thought it reduced foul risk.
You get the idea. If a new coach asked for help, I'd ask about general philosophy, seeking harmony with their beliefs.
Lagniappe. Expand your repertoire...check with cellphone video.
Our writing will never be perfect. But writing helps us improve. How we research, write, edit, and summarize reflects how we do everything.
Tips collected:
"Do the unrequired work." Bare minimum effort achieves bare minimum results. Dan Pink reminds us to "do five more." In Legacy, James Kerr counsels us, "Champions do extra."
Copy investigative journalist Bob Woodward's informing at least SIX points worth sharing (highlighted).
Writing clears paths along the learning journey. Writing on paper is better as it imprints memories more effectively.
If you share your thoughts, you expose yourself to criticism, which can be valid. But criticism often says more about the critic than the target.
Ron Howard says, "the film is made in the editing room." Life is about revision. Yet we live forwards and are critiqued backwards.
Writer Anne Lamott reminds us that "shitty first drafts" are the norm not the exception. Write it down. Fix it up.
Lagniappe. Coach Hanlen demonstrates getting more separation on the ball screen.
Basketball is "a game of separation." Excellent players get separation and finish to score. Excellent defenders deny separation and force lower quality shots.
Some of these actions aren't classic back cuts but whatever works.
Why do back cuts work?
Defenders overplay or play 'tight'
Defenders lose sight of the cutter (e.g. head turners)
Defenders anticipate one action and get another
Defenders are not alert/aware
Cutters cut urgently
Passers deliver "on time" and "on target" passes
Simple play designs I like (or got burned by):
Find a couple that you like. The advantage of "simple" with young players is that the simpler, the fewer turnovers. Anything can work when executed well. Nothing works without it.
"Beverly" - I saw Beverly line this up and called out, "backdoor" and they burned us.
An old UCONN action.
Ball side corner cut with PnR setup.
DHOs can set up this corner cut.
Corner cut run through Horns post entry.
The back cut serves as option one and establishes an iso for an elite '5' who can put the ball on the floor.
Celtics ran this "Triplets" action through horns.
Multiple back cut options off the high ball screen.
DHO corner cut away.
SLOB versus 2-3 zone with strong 3-point shooter (3).
Tufts women ran this action with Carla Berube coaching.
Lagniappe (something extra).
I challenged the guys on my AAU team to watch a quarter of playoff basketball this week and not watch the ball the whole time. Instead pay attention to all the off ball movement. How hard guys set picks, how hard they cut, how defenses rotate…
Tension between 'minutes' and participation defines relationships.
When applying, bring your receipts, your best version.
Applications for the local high school girls' coaching job closed four days ago. I've never applied...medicine is challenge enough. But if I were, here's y campaign, remembering Chuck Daly, "I'm a salesman."
Coaching is art and craft. Yo-yo Ma explains that his art follows truth, trust, and service. Seek truth, build trust, and perform service. Just as his music serves his audience, coaching serves our players and our community.
1. Explain why you're the right person for the job. That's your raison d'etre, why you're interviewing. Bring positive energy. Never mention the competition. Don't badmouth the previous administration.
2. Coaching is about relationships. The coach sent ten players onto the court to start the game. "You can only start five, Coach. Technical foul." The coach looked into the stands with his hands up. "I wanted to start your kid, but the referees won't let me." Decide what is best for the team and coach each child.
3. "Every day is player development day." I established success in player development. Nobody wins big with mediocre talent. Some coaches recruit and others develop.
My daughters were All-League players, among the top forty players in EMASS as judged by others. They played at the AAU Nationals.
I have one former player in Division 1 currently at Illinois.
I have another selected for The Boston Herald "Dream Team," the top five players in the Commonwealth, a three-time All-Scholastic over three seasons.
Great players grow because of their commitment, by putting in the work. They "do the unrequired work."
4. Impact big picture winning. Help players learn how to win. Multiple former players won multiple sectional championships, State Championships (basketball, volleyball), and league titles. They win in life with elite success in business, graduate schools (Veterinary Medicine, Education), and a graduate of Annapolis (United States Naval Academy).
5. Coaches are storytellerswho help players write great narratives. Empower young players through a holistic approach to teaching.
Frances Perkins became a champion for workers including women and children and served under FDR as the first woman to hold a Cabinet post (Labor).
Arlene Blum led an all-woman expedition climbing Annapurna, one of 14 Himalayan peaks over 8,000 meters. The climb showed women are audacious adventurers, earning both successes and risks.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Bowdoin Rhetoric professor, won a Congressional Medal of Honor as a Civil War hero at Gettysburg. When asked how, he explained, "I can learn."
Alexander Suvorov, a sickly child, became "the general who never lost." His philosophies included rigorous training, treating his men well, and "always forward."
The aforementioned Sara Blakely explained that her father asked each week at dinner, "what have you failed at?" Failure is the precursor to success.
Kyle Maynard, limited by short limbs, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Don't tell me you can't. Show me you can.
6. Have a track record and paper trail. Coaching relates theory and practice. I've written the Amazon e-book, "The Simple Guide to Girls' Basketball: The Game Is for the Players" and this blog with almost 3,500 entries. Baseball Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean remarked, "If you can do it, you ain't boasting."
7. Demonstrate personal growth.
Study great coaches and leaders across disciplines. Incorporate leadership lessons in our daily writing.
"Read. Read. Read. Read. Read." - Werner Herzog
Model excellence. I served on a Presidential Medical Support mission in 1986. I was Research and Education officer for the Pulmonary Medicine Department at Bethesda. I served as President of the local hospital Medical Staff and our Medical Office was voted best locally.
Feedspot ranked this basketball blog among its top 100 in the world.
Learn every day. MasterClass is a great tool. I'm working through "Building Your Startup" by Alexis Ohanian, Reddit founder. Coaches create and maintain a startup each season. MasterClass includes courses from Steph Curry, Geno Auriemma, and Mike Krzyzewski.
Explain why and how you're a problem solver.
8. Know the game. "See the game." Teach the game.
Know the breadth of strategies among basketball and other sports through books like "Game Changer" by Dr. Fergus Connolly and "Making Decisions" by Ed Smith. The "bird's eye" view of sport is about initial spacing, player and ball movement, and executing the scoring moment. Coaching provides the granular detail.
Have a thorough strategic knowledge of Xs and Os. Offensive philosophies? "Movement kills defenses" and "basketball is a game of creating and denying separation." With the available talent, I like spread offense, simple and complex screening, and horns sets. Blend a mix of man and hybrid defenses depending on player abilities. Learn to simplify the complex.
Teach your basketball lexicon of player and team development.
9. Develop leaders. "Leaders make leaders." Leaders listen and craft nuanced responses based on diverse input. Leaders accept that dissent can build stronger teams. "Have you thought about trying this?" The State Department has its Dissent Channel. Wehrner von Braun had his "Monday Notes" at NASA. Even Aerosmith had "Dare to Suck" meetings to explore 'bad ideas' that became hits.
10.Playing experience is helpful but not mandatory. Lawrence Frank cut his teeth as a manager under Bob Knight. Believe in "whatever it takes."
Captain, Massachusetts Division 1 basketball sectional champion (Wakefield) in high school
All-League player, high school soccer
Division 1 college baseball walk-on at Harvard
Playing experience helps understand success and failure, but extensive playing doesn't guarantee exceptional coaching.
Highlights:
Sell why you're the right person for the job.
Coaching is about relationships.
Every day is player development day.
Impact winning.
Be a storyteller. Compile your list of holistic life lessons.
Have a proven track record.
Be committed to personal growth.
Know the game and be able to teach it.
Develop leaders.
Lagniappe. Keep learning. Coach Ayers with great tips.
Lagniappe 2. Pistol. Short video as intro to many options.
MasterClass profiled World Champion pizza chef Tony Gemignani in its GOAT series. The parallels are obvious.
Feel joyful watching people eat. (Feel excitement watching great basketball. I worked with a coach who preached, "Entertain your family and me.")
Everything starts with flour - high gluten, high protein flour. (Everything starts with having effective players. Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, "It's not enough to be right. You have to be effective.")
Low diastetic malt makes pizza lighter and airier. (Excellent players are strong and conditioned.)
"I never thought of that." (There is always more to be learned. Action: what can I learn more about?)
"To be a master, you have to be a student." (Action: Embrace the Zen teaching of 'beginner's mind'.)
Activate yeast ('woke up'). (Coaching takes players where they cannot go alone.)
Cold water slows the dough down. (Be aware of the importance of tempo.)
Sea salt and oil. (Find the right combinations for your coaching tastes.)
Experience "epiphany" a flavor worth experiencing for life. (Rarely, you watch a team that leaves a special taste. When I watched the Winnacunnet girls play, I knew they had something special. Coach Beattie was their secret ingredient. Action: Study a great coach.)
"I'm going to learn how to make this." (There's no coaching cookbook. It takes time and trials. Action: be intentional in learning each day.)
He rests the dough in the refrigerator for 48 hours. (How committed are we to the process?)
"It was a lot of trial and error." (Edison learned there were 999 ways not to make a lightbulb.)
"When you're competing you get an adrenaline rush." ("Nothing great is accomplished without enthusiasm.")
"When I look at pizza I look at it as a sport."
"Sauce should always be at room temperature." (Stay under control.)
Whole milk mozzarella. (Fat = flavor. Ingredients/players are key.)
He uses pizza steels in the oven. (We all need help.)
Learning a craft is a lifelong journey. (Action: Learn every day.)
He has "respect the craft" tattooed on the side of his hands. (Action: give respect to get it.)
"Strive for greatness." (Action: Always do your best.)
Summary:
"I never thought of that."
"To be a master, you have to be a student."
Experience "epiphany" a flavor worth experiencing for life.
