Basketball: "You're Not Spiderman"

Get it in our head, "you're not Spiderman." You don't have a superpower like Spiderman. You have a whistle and coach kids. 

They are vulnerable. They have feelings. They want to feel good about themselves, to be part of a team, to be seen and heard. 

In what ways can coaches do that best? 

"Never be a child's last coach." Never take away their dignity, their decency, and their humanity. After an altercation, a player asked if I wanted her to take the girl out. I replied, "to lunch?" 

Teach the game. Teach respect. Teach teamwork. Teach sportsmanship. 

When coaches offer the right lessons day after day, good things happen. Players put their dishes in the dishwasher, shovel driveways, and often make the honor roll. And they still learn how to cut, pass, challenge shots, and make many of their layups. Sometimes they win championships. But it's okay if they don't. 

Coaches model excellence, and players learn to establish adult relationships, earn advanced degrees, and work with intelligence, integrity, and energy. And as Buffett says, without the former two, the latter is dangerous. 

Occasionally, our players go on to have stellar basketball careers. That's wonderful, but that's not why most coaches are in it. 

Sometimes we won't have a lot to show for it. 

Maybe just a stack of cards from pre-adolescents with indelible lessons that meant something to them. This girl's card didn't predict a highly impactful basketball career but she became an All-State volleyball player and studies Data Science at a prestigious university. Remember, MUDITA, "your joy is my joy." 

"With great power comes great responsibility." 

Lagniappe. Coaches model good choices. 

Life = CHOICES

"Practicing hard is a choice. Watching extra film is a choice. Lifting weights, being coachable, & going to class is a choice. Your choices here are going to force me to either play you, or sit you on the bench. You’ll get exactly what you want."

- Pat Summitt pic.twitter.com/8HXnn2wU7u

— Greg Berge (@gb1121) February 17, 2024

Lagniappe 2. The score takes care of itself. 

Success isn’t an accident

It’s the result of COUNTLESS HOURS spent at your craft

The all time leading scorer was built day by day like this

Here is a small sample of her off-season workouts

(Via IG/ Maxpower247 🎥)

pic.twitter.com/3rf2yT87zT

— Hoop Herald (@TheHoopHerald) February 17, 2024

Superheroes don't all wear capes. Nobody remembers who her middle school coach was. But she cares. 

 

Basketball: Words

Hat tip: Greg Berge

3. The Lasting Power of a Coach’s Words

By Reed Maltbie

“When you tell a child you believe in them, you light a flame that burns well beyond any game.”https://t.co/i0mKLZuyD5

— Greg Berge (@gb1121) February 19, 2024

Words matter. Help players make memories. 

Messages can endure forever. Praise, encouragement, gratitude, and sometimes correction change lives. 

I only told one player "you're the best player I've ever coached," but I've told many "I believe in you." 

I remember hearing "you're going to start because you earned it," before the beginning of my senior season. 

Take the eight minutes to watch the TED talk.  

Basketball: Nestle Has a 4 x 4 x 4 Roadmap, Find Our 3 x 3 x 3

Don't rediscover the wheel. Borrow from other organizations. 

The Nestle Company has a brief document outlining its success roadmap. Can we find ours? Always be specific. 

• Competitive advantages
• Growth drivers
• Operational pillars

Competitive advantages. 

    Excellent teams have superior organization. Dr. Fergus Connolly arrays performance along skill, strategy, physicality, and psychology. Some coaches rely on "talent aggregation" to prosper. Lacking that luxury, invest time to improve all these dimensions. There's no "one size fits all" and over time every coach's methods evolve. 

    Excellent teams have strong coaching and consistent leadership. Weak programs meander with broken rudders. Strong sport and business franchises don't constantly change product, leadership, and financing. 

    Excellent teams have a stable, self-reinforcing culture. "Heat Culture" emphasizes physical and mental toughness. UNC Women's soccer thrives because, "Excellence is our only agenda." 

Supercharge it: Record examples of leadership and culture building. 

Growth drivers.

    "Every day is player development day." Seek 1% daily improvement. 

    Become your own coach. Learn to know and train what is needed.

    Develop your software and hardware (mind and body). 

Supercharge it: "Be a tracker." Write down and monitor your development plan. 

Operational pillars.

    Live great habits. In the spirit of James Clear's Atomic Habits, make them obvious, easy, attractive, rewarding. 

    Commit to making everyone around you better as a player and person as a leader and role model. 

    Find ways to impact winning. Become a 'possession ender' getting scores (points, assists) or stops (rebounds, steals, charges taken).  

Supercharge it: Journal your progress. Have a daily plan of a specific accomplishment. Include memorable daily work. Record items of gratitude. 

Lagniappe. Build the machine.     

10 things you can do this month to get faster.

1) Do hill sprints
2) Jump vertically
3) Lose body fat %
4) Jump horizontally
5) Sprint at top speed
6) Fully rest on off days
7) Sprint with resistance
8) Lift heavy weight, fast
9) Sleep 7+ hours a night
10) Lift moderate weight,…

— Keith Ferrara (@keithjferrara) February 18, 2024

Lagniappe 2. Great offense is multiple actions. 

Samford is having a ton of success with the European concept of playing through the pick and pop and getting directly into a second action like a pin down, dribble handoff, or backdoor. Making your opponent guard multiple actions in a row is a great way to have success. pic.twitter.com/jqvw1K9NY5

— Eric Fawcett (@EricFawcett_) February 18, 2024

 Lagniappe 3. "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary." - Everyone's Mother

Tyrese Maxey was in the gym nonstop last off-season

His gains are no surprise or accident

Working on initiating the contact with @DrewHanlen who is one of the best in the world

pic.twitter.com/1Cl9t3i1eq

— Hoop Herald (@TheHoopHerald) February 17, 2024

Basketball: These Sands of Time are Running Out

Sometimes we get the gift of coaching a superior person who is also a terrific player. 

The last 'graduate' of my coaching career finishes her high school journey Monday. In the semifinals of the Comcast Tournament Saturday, Cecilia Kay led Bishop Fenwick (16-3) to the finals in a 48-39 win over Woburn, the #4 seed in Division 1. Their three losses came at the hands of the top two teams in Division 1, undefeated Wachusett and Bishop Feehan. 

Saturday she had a typical game - 21 points, 10 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 3 assists as she approaches 1,700 career points and has over 1,100 career rebounds. And as overwhelming as her numbers, she impacts winning most as the anchor of one of the best high school defenses around. Still, she is as humble as she is accomplished. 

Cecilia will likely graduate as valedictorian, has a D1 scholarship to American University, is a McDonald's All-American nominee, a reigning Boston Herald "Dream Teamer" and led her team to the State semifinals and Finals the two previous seasons. Her team is banned from the postseason in 2024 as the school got the death penalty from the MIAA for violations by the baseball team.

So like Tolstoy's Levin, I'm witness to the final harvest of her high school labors and to a far lesser extent my contribution. As Brad Stevens says, "we coaches get more than we receive," and I wholeheartedly agree. 

Basketball: Teaching Points Comcast Tournament

Massachusetts' top-ranked Division 2 team, Medfield (in blue), faced off against Central Catholic, ranked six in Division 1 in the Comcast tournament semifinals. Here are a few video teaching points.

Choose a pace likely to work for your athletes. Medfield is fast and athletic and Central is more methodical. Choosing to press out of the gate seems ill-advised to me. Medfield rips through it. 

Chuck Daly preached "spacing is offense and offense is spacing." Medfield usually has excellent spacing opening up penetration and often drives to dish for corner threes. Here they finish at the rim. 

This BOB sets up a closeout and Medfield attacks it without enough resistance. 

America's Play (BOB). You can't get screened and/or you have to switch to get out on the shooter. 

 

Where is the blue sky? Why pass the ball into the post to your 5 foot nothing point guard? There's no advantage creation and Medfield is in the midst of a 19-0 run. 

 

Medfield played a lot of zone. Here Central screens the middle of the zone to open a cutter who can't finish. Well-designed action

 

Medfield runs a high ball screen to open a drive and kick for 3. 

Handoff, screen, drive, dish, and three. Teams cannot help against the drive and give up the three. 

Basketball: "Why Did We Lose? "

"Negative thinking—realizing that an average game from your team and average preparation from you isn’t likely to beat an average game by the very good team you’re about to play—can give you by far your best chance to win that game." - Knight, "The Power of Negative Thinking"

Learn a lot from volleyball. Every possession scores a point:

• Our team wins a point. 
• Opposition loses the point. 
• Our team loses a point. 
• Opposition wins a point. 

When a team plays well, it controls the action and has a higher percentage of winning points. Conversely, during losses it's usually a combination of opponent efficiency and our misery. 

Losing teams have a lot of commonalities with that, inability to 'win points':

• Poor half court offense (few points won)
• Inability to capitalize on opponent errors
• Poor transition defense, fouls, turnovers (losing points)
• Inadequate half court defense (allowing opponent points)

Within that framework, I watched video of a struggling team recently and the first thing I noticed was poor transition defense. Players didn't get back quickly or purposefully, didn't protect the basket, and fouled often when opponents were finishing. Ninety percent through the season, is that coaching, players, or a combination? 

A slight head fake moves the defender and opens the middle. 

"Utilize strengths, attack weaknesses." - Sun Tzu   Good teams exploit matchups. 

Good offense, defensive error. KP slips the screen early and the defense recognizes late. 

Force defense into unfavorable coverage, such as long closeouts. Nets attack the closeout. 

Break down possessions and find out why scoring occurred. 

Lagniappe. Which describes our team? 

"It's how you react and how you respond.
There are two things that you can do:
1. You can whine and complain and make excuses
2. You can get back up, move forward, and join the fight.
For us, it's never a choice.
It's a requirement for us to get back up and get to work." pic.twitter.com/sSntnhvsIN

Lagniappe 2. Two key points arise...are you making people better and are you impacting winning at both ends? That applies to players and coaches. 

WHAT A TRUE TEAM IS LIKE

“We have the ability to play hard. We have the ability to play together. That’s the beauty of basketball. The sum can be better than the parts.” (Matt Painter) pic.twitter.com/SMho3XuhOZ

— Coach the Coaches (@WinningCoaches) February 15, 2024

— The Winning Difference (@thewinningdiff1) February 15, 2024

Basketball: Thumb on the Scale

Of course coaches want to put a 'thumb on the scale', to alter a variety of outcomes.

Some coaches start 'working' the officials from before the game. An opposing coach got tossed 45 seconds into the game. Nothing had happened to rouse his anger. He chose to be a pest. It didn't help us as their talent blew us out.

Personnel. Coaches don't ask outsiders for advice on personnel. And besides, I'm not at practice to see who improves, who works, who cares. Attending practice gives insight into why teams and coaches succeed or fail. I watched former Marcus Camby's backup center Ted Cottrell coach enough to see why his teams and players succeed. Player development came first. 

I've shared the story of how a disgruntled parent/local politician tried to oust my high school coach after his son got cut. Ultimately the coach earned enshrinement in the New England Basketball Hall of Fame.

Strategy. I'm less concerned with a coach's strategy than them actually having one. Man, zone, hybrid, mixture of defenses? Great. "Do well what you do a lot." Are you containing the ball, shrinking space, contesting shots without fouling? Is the opposition scoring in transition without resistance? 

Operations. Offensively, what's the spacing, advantage creation with player and ball movement, finishing ability? Too many teams play five out, make perimeter passes, and jack up an errant three-ball. That's not winning basketball.

Be hard to guard with hard to defend actions - urgent cutting, on-time/on-target passing, PnR, simple and complex screens (e.g. screen-the-screener, backscreen-the-roller), back cuts, DHOs/Zoom action, something. You don't have to do everything. Do something. 

Defensively, get "color on color," contain the ball, deny the middle, and contest shots without fouling. Are opponents getting "one bad shot" or whatever they want? 

Simplicity. On the other hand, some coaches sound like Peyton Manning, "Omaha. Omaha. Alabama, Zebra 27, Strawberry." I'm asking whether her playbook looks like a first edition of Moby Dick. Call me confused, as the players usually are. Simplicity is hard. 

Coaching is hard. That's why it matters. 

Lagniappe. "A game of separation..." Deceleration allows a defender's effort to create separation. 

The ability to stop quickly is one of the most important skills in the game.

Stop separation is the most efficient way to create space.

You don’t have to have top end speed to be able to create space. Just get your defender moving and slam on the breaks. pic.twitter.com/y7HORChmUd

— Reid Ouse (@reidouse) February 13, 2024

Lagniappe 2. More separation with the dribble. 

Most effective move in basketball is a hard in and out dribble

Impossible to guard when perfected

pic.twitter.com/QttnrHIVc9

— Hoop Herald (@TheHoopHerald) February 13, 2024

 

Basketball: Clear Thinking

Two primary measures of education are: clear thinking and clear communication. Both inform playing well.

Offense involves seeing the game and making decisions about player and ball movement. Poor shot selection and decision-based turnovers flow directly from unclear thinking.

What are most common examples of decision-based turnovers?

• Playing in traffic, driving or passing into a crowd. Yes, the former also allows a player to "draw two" and pass.
• Passing to covered players or passing to a defender. These occur frequently when opponents pressure a team. 
• Shot turnovers especially 'airballing' three-point shots. 

Multiple 'systems' control thinking. Kahnemann writes about System 1 (reflexive) and System 2 (reflective) in Thinking: Fast and Slow. We lack the luxury of time in 'real-time' decision making. 

Factors interfere with our decisions, as outlined by Shane Parrish's Clear Thinking.

• The emotion default: we tend to respond to feelings rather than reasons and facts.
• The ego default: we tend to react to anything that threatens our sense of self-worth or our position in a group hierarchy.
• The social default: we tend to conform to the norms of our larger social group.
• The inertia default: we’re habit forming and comfort seeking. We tend to resist change, and to prefer ideas, processes, and environments that are familiar.

How do the above show up on the court?

Emotion - players lose control, discipline breaks down and shows up with disengagement, poor decisions, and often fouling. Retaliation and frustration fouls are examples. 

Ego - ego manifests as selfishness, being a less than ideal teammate. At the other extreme, ego destruction causes players to shut down. 

Social default - when players make poor choices especially in a group. "There's nothing else to do...let's go drinking." Dangerous "challenges" also fall into this area. 

Inertia - "I know better than our coaches." We do what we do.

Lagniappe. Lead by being part of community. 

Got to learn recently from a CEO of a company that is worth almost $4B, with a staff of over 1000. An unbelievable man and leader.

Asked his 3 keys for leaders, he said this:

- Be the hardest worker in the room.

- Selflessness. Elevate everyone around you.

- Humility

— Kevin DeShazo (@KevinDeShazo) February 1, 2024

Lagniappe 2. Strong teams have at least three capable scorers, two dominant rebounders, and two reliable ballhandlers. 

9 straightforward quotes on REBOUNDING

1\ “Offense sells tickets, defense wins games, rebounding wins championships." -Pat Summitt

2\ “You can pass too much, you can dribble too much, and you can shoot too much, but you can never rebound too much” pic.twitter.com/3WjYU9PXKR

— Matt Hackenberg (@CoachHackGO) January 31, 2024

Lagniappe 3. Simple works.  

🏀 🪄

*MAN*

HORNS: DHO, BALL SCREEN, BACKDOOR pic.twitter.com/Lzs2u0UIED

— The 🏀 Playbook Wizard (@PlaybookWizard1) January 30, 2024

Lagniappe 4. Social proof (group dynamics). 

Post by @sarah_creates22

View on Threads

 

Basketball: Quick Reality Check

Rule 1. "Impact winning."

Rule 2. Make your teammates better.

If your numbers are more important than winning, you're seeing it wrong. Yes, better teams have better numbers. But it's scoreboard over scorebook. 

Oluchi put up 5 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists and was +21 in the box score.

“Never let a performance where you’re struggling offensively make you think you can’t impact winning.” pic.twitter.com/QD6GU4V7NJ

— Duke Women’s Basketball (@DukeWBB) February 13, 2024

Lagniappe. Need more minutes?

PLAYERS: Do you want more playing time? Make it impossible for the coach to sit you. Become a better teammate and more positive leader. Find ways to become more valuable to your team. Bring more value to your team. Make your teammates better. Make your team better.

— Jamy Bechler (@CoachBechler) February 13, 2024

Lagniappe 2. Four Corners versatility. 

Set plays out of “4 Corners” to use at the end of quarters

*All can be seen on video in the linkhttps://t.co/xBp4W2gjk7 pic.twitter.com/7DfBFoy2fj

— Matt Hackenberg (@CoachHackGO) February 13, 2024

 

Basketball: "Leaky"

Words wax and wane in popularity. "Leaky" seems to have caught on.

Some announcers apply it for players with a nosebleed or laceration.

Moreover, sorta leaky...

• Transition defense...the Celtics allowed 18 Friday first frame points!
• Half-court defense...seeing some teams allowing piles of layups off basket attacks.
• Defensive boards, if lacking size and/or toughness 
• Offense can leak with turnovers, poor passing, and sorry shot selection.
• Absent foul discipline gets viewed as leaky.

Lagniappe. There's traditional leaking. 

Lagniappe 2. Building range by Bogdan Bogdanovic 

Basketball: Measure Something to Stay Connected

Our minds and body interact. Positive psychology can result in higher performance and negative mood can diminish performance. 

Some performance experts measure handgrip strength with a dynamometer to assess an athlete's status regarding fatigue or overtraining. But there's more. 

A majority of the studies, including longitudinal and cross-sectional designs, found an inverse relationship between grip strength and depression, with greater grip strength associated with lower depression risk or severity(Ashdown-Franks et al.May 6, 2023

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pmc

Depression and Hand-Grip: Unraveling the Association 

A few points worth contemplating:

1) With young players, don't expect consistency. It's often impossible to untangle effects of variable skill, experience, and psychology. 

2) When there is no apparent explanation, find non-basketball factors (academic or personal) that could contribute. 

3) No substitute for trust exists to engage with team members to understand what impacts changing performance. 

Strong communication skills offers a means to monitor the 'vital signs' of our organizations.

Lagniappe. Stay focused. 

"The more concerned we become over the things we can't control, the less we will do with the things we can control"

– John Wooden

— Coach Mac 🏀 (@BballCoachMac) February 10, 2024

Lagniappe 2. Making a difference. 

What is the “Art” of Coaching?

Knowing when…

- To speak up or to listen
- To take a stand or to give in
- To push harder or step back
- To take a break or do one more
- To think of a play or think of a player
- To give a consequence or give a hug

What would you add?

— Greg Berge (@gb1121) February 8, 2024

 Do everything possible to make players feel seen and heard.  

Basketball: "Just One More Thing"

Learn from the great investigators like legendary detective Columbo. He's a big sports fan. The rumpled detective snooping around could make anyone uncomfortable. 

Coach: "I don't want to hear your opinion, Columbo. If I hear any more, I'm going to take this upstairs." 

"This is a murder now...and I kinda figure that's my department." 

Coach: "Murder? It's just a bad record. What do you know about basketball?"

“My wife says I’m the second smartest. She claims there are 80 guys tied for first. Before coffee, I’m up and walkin' around but I’m not awake.”

Coach: "Why do you care?"

“I worry. I mean, little things bother me. I’m a worrier. I mean, little insignificant details – I lose my appetite. I can’t eat."

Coach: "Do you think there's a problem?"

“There’s something that bothers me. I just can’t get it out of my mind...“I’m sorry to bother you, but I just have a few more questions…”

Coach: "I don't answer to you."

“I’m not trying to make you nervous. It’s just my job...details bother me."

Coach: "Our players know what they're doing."

Don't count on that. Don't count on it.

Coach: "I've got a system and I'm a lot smarter than you."

"All my life I kept running into smart people. I don’t just mean smart like you and the people in this house."

Coach: Do you think our transition defense is a problem?

"Why? It's only a dumb theory of mine."

Coach: "Do you think we have a problem with half-court defense?"

"Yeah. Awfully obvious."

Coach: "The coaches and team are working really hard." 

"And you both must be exhausted. I don't know how you do it."

Coach: "Next you'll tell me that turnovers and shot selection are issues."

"I, uh, thought you'd like to know, sir, that, uh, I think that is a possibility, yes sir."

Coach: "Now, you're going to tell me that we don't rebound that well."

"I would tend to agree with that, yes."

Coach: "What do you expect from me, anyway?" 

"I want you to teach me everything you know."

Coach: "You think we're the only team that's struggling?" 

"You see, in my line of work, somebody is always, well, dead. That's the only way to put it. I mean they don't even call us in unless that's what it is, somebody dead."

Coach: "You know something, you're a devious man."

"That's what they tell me."

Every coach goes under the microscope. That's part of the job. And as director Mira Nair says, "you need the soul of a poet and the hide of an elephant to do the job."

Lagniappe. Coaches succeed by creating advantage in skill, strategy, and resilience. Results reflect that. 

Your GAME GOALS should be a pursuit of your program’s identity through your style of play

They are not subjective. No one’s judgment should factor in. You achieved it or you didn’t

If designed correctly, achievement of these goals should lead to Ws

— Matt Hackenberg (@CoachHackGO) February 11, 2024

Lagniappe 2. Basketball is..."a game of separation." 

The best players can stop and start on command. Just because you stopped does not mean that you need to end your dribble.

Stopping quickly can force a reaction out of the defense. It's important to be able to learn how to play out of a stop. pic.twitter.com/pbtHFehUiL

— Reid Ouse (@reidouse) February 10, 2024

 

Basketball: Authenticity

From Thehopefullinstitute.com

10. AUTHENTICITY Legacy uses the analogy of a bridge: secure because it is made of several different planks. You need more than your sport or profession, you need personal skills, family and friends. Harvard Business School Professor Bill George argues the essence of a great leader is about “Being genuine, real and true to who you are.” This approach is reflected by the All Blacks. Honesty and integrity are the cornerstones of authenticity. There is also the understanding of accountability, meaning players commit to doing what they say they will, even if it means not being late for the bus. 

Honesty = Integrity = Authenticity = Resilience = Performance 

I disagree. Authenticity matters when we have David Brooks' "eulogy values." 

"Résumé virtues, he proposes, are those that are valued in the contemporary marketplace: the high test scores achieved by a student, the professional accomplishments pulled off by an adult. They are the skills that are met with bigger paychecks and public approbation. Eulogy virtues, on the other hand, are the aspects of character that others praise when a person isn’t around to hear it: humility, kindness, bravery."

Many well-known public figures are authentic. What good is authenticity if we are authentically selfish, authentically boorish, authentically cruel? A survey of women's college basketball players showed that over half didn't trust their coaches. They compared their situation to 'crabs in a bucket', where everyone tries to crawl out over each other. 

"Character" is not cruelty. Empathy is not envy. Gratitude is not greed. 

Education changes behavior. Coaches educate. We teach life skills. If our authentic teaching doesn't lift players' collaborative and interpersonal skills, we're failing even if our teams have a winning record. 

Calling out players or teams as "useless" or "worthless" or "garbage" isn't coaching, it's verbal abuse. Coaches can reference an action or a play as unhelpful or poorly executed without undermining a player's self-worth. 

Authenticity isn't enough without character, empathy, and gratitude. We can't award ourselves eulogy virtues; they come from others. 

Lagniappe. Most of us experienced the difference between having played for excellent coaches and something less. 

Coaching is Hard.

The skillset is incredibly dynamic, yet our kids need great coaches.

So what makes a Great Coach?

Here are 10 Traits of Great Coaches. pic.twitter.com/QO6FAFu0u9

— Greg Berge (@gb1121) February 3, 2024

Lagniappe 2. Poor traps are worse than none. I teach, "put them in a glass box." 

SSG Saturday on Sunday: 3v3 Trap O/D
Working on trapping for the defense. Offense working on being strong with the ball and making the pass to the open teammate. (There’s a 3rd player on offense on the block out of the frame on the right). pic.twitter.com/hypgYPqaxb

Lagniappe 3. More on coaching... 

5 Traits of a Great Coach:

1. Has a clear vision for the team
2. Leads by example
3. Invests time in each player
4. Makes learning enjoyable
5. Always seeks and values feedback

The best coaches, like great players, are always evolving.

— Steve Collins (@TeachHoopsBBall) February 10, 2024

— Coach Tony Miller (@tonywmiller) February 11, 2024

Basketball: Development Spectrum (Work Your Body)

Develop your whole body - legs, core, upper body. When working on legs, include "single leg" work with a variety of exercises.

Development is about skill, strategy, physicality, and psychology. 

James Clear's Atomic Habits reminds us about the importance of consistency.

• Establish a habit and then improve it.
• Track your habits - "Pick, stick, and check."
• "Don't miss twice." 

In long term athletic development single leg, split stance, and staggered variations should make up the majority of lower body training:

▪️RFESS
▪️Split squat
▪️Front foot elevated split squat
▪️Single leg squat
▪️Barbell split squat
▪️High box step ups
▪️Staggered TB DL pic.twitter.com/yUqOV93aRi

 

— Jeremy Toohey (@Toohey_sp) February 10, 2024

Basketball: Communicating Better

Coaching is about relationships. Everyone thinks we have solid communication skills. Often improvement means intent. Examine how we can improve. 

Teach our players/students to improve their communication as well. We teach basketball and we teach life skills. Forget "shut up and dribble" in favor of "communicate well and dribble." 

1. Up our non-verbal game. 

a) Make better eye contact. LeVar Burton reminds us, "the eyes are the window to the soul." Better eye contact shows interest and empathy.

b) Mirroring or "lean in." Demonstrate commitment to the conversation. One researcher found that he could predict the future of a relationship solely by watching video of conversations.

2) Choose better words. 

a) "Speak greatness." AND is more positive than BUT. "She's an excellent leader AND there's room for growth" differs from, "She's an excellent leader BUT there's room for growth."

b) Sandwich 'coaching' between praise. "You've played your best ball lately. Let's work on reducing turnovers. Keep growing your game."

c) Be open-ended. "Tell me more" or "Go on," maybe "and then what?" 

d) Encourage. "Let me know if you need anything," and "show me how you did that." 

3) Tone. 

a) FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss reminds us about tone. He sometimes uses his "FM Radio Host" voice to calm communications. 

b) Questions often have rising intonation at the end. "That makes sense, doesn't it?"

4) Use emotion. When Coach K was coaching USA basketball, he asked players to think about the one person who most helped their development. When they returned to their rooms, each player found his USA Olympic uniform laid out on his bed. How would that make you feel? 

Showing up matters but interest, empathy, and "mutual participation" of dialogue not diatribe separate better communicators. 

Lagniappe. Coaches speak publicly. Do better. 

Getting started:

• Short story
• Question
• Quotation
• Data or fascinating facts
• Visual opening

Lagniappe 2. It's the work. 

The Unseen Hours have constantly made the best of the best who they are and the best part is, it doesn't just work in sports, but in business too! pic.twitter.com/oUeO50UemX

— Alan Stein, Jr. (@AlanSteinJr) February 3, 2024