Brute Force Development

Thinking beyond simple drills to improve skill development in basketball.

Drills solve a problem. Some drills include the context; others do not. The degree of representativeness does not determine the goodness of a drill; if representativeness was all that mattered, why do anything other than play five-vs-five? The utility of a drill is determined by its ability to solve a problem or enhance performance.

I tend toward a more constraints-led approach, but I use isolated practice when I identify a problem and decide the best solution is individual or isolated practice. Limited isolated practice to solve specific problems is good practice and should be the primary reason players seek out private trainers, as team environments often lack the time for specific, individualized personal practice. Instead, most private training is too general to be individualized and lacks a specific problem to solve. The training is simply isolated practice with no real purpose for the lack of representativeness. Players just perform reps on reps on reps, satisfying the grind, and expecting more, more, more to cause improvement. This is Brute Force Development.

Years ago, I visited an NBA trainer’s workouts. The trainer had said he would hire me as a consultant (he never did), so I watched his workout with some NBA pre-draft post players on my way to a strength and conditioning conference (where I met Lee Taft, Todd Wright — now with the Clippers, and some others). I watched as a potential NBA draft pick made the same mistake, and missed the same shot, over and over without the trainer offering any cues or instruction. The feedback was typically general: “Higher”, “Bend your knees”, “Balance” — the same things parents scream from the stands during every U10 AAU game, but agents paid over $10,000/month per player for this training.

They were drop stepping middle and shooting baby hook shots, but the players was not rotating completely. Consequently, he missed short on every shot. He was never positioned to score.

Personally, I would not organize practice in this manner with six professional players standing in a line and taking turns on undefended repetitions. Presumably, players take turns to enable the trainer to provide individual feedback after repetitions. Otherwise, there were multiple unused baskets to which the players could have spread out to increase repetitions. The trainer sacrificed repetitions to practice on a single basket and representation by isolating the movement, yet offered no corrective feedback. What’s the purpose? What are we even doing?

I got so frustrated, I walked onto the court in flip flops and board shorts as the player walked to the end of the line. I was just a guy on the sideline who showed up after they had started. Nobody introduced me or even acknowledged my presence. I asked the player if he wanted to know his problem. Again, I was a six-foot tall nobody, and he was a 6’10 potential NBA draft pick who had played in the ACC: I am not going to tell him what to do. He nodded. I showed him. He simply needed to point his toe more toward the opposite sideline to enable a greater rotation. Simple cue. Easy fix. He made the rest of his shots in the workout.

Again, I would not set up a training session in that method. That is not my style. That being said, I watch videos and read about trainers practicing micro skills and focusing on details, but see a complete lack of attention to the actual details, often because the lack of defense enables success. If a trainer talks constantly, stops players after every repetition, instructs, films every repetition, posts about the grind, and emphasizes micro skills, for the love of all that is good, identify and correct the micro skills, like this player’s incomplete pivot and rotation.

I recently watched a video praising another NBA trainer. The video demonstrated a move and drill similar to the second repetition:

In the video above, the player attempts to keep the ball high as he spins, but drops the ball before his shot. This was not a practice; we filmed drills for a few hours for an old web business. There was no feedback because it was not a practice or workout; he was doing us a favor. This was the original content creation.

The video of the NBA trainer appeared to be from a practice. He made no attempt to keep the ball high or protect the ball from a defender in his demonstration, nor did the players during their repetitions. These professional players made this same two-dribble, spin, and finish move as this 14-year-old future college football player with seemingly no intention to protect the ball or attention focused on anything more than completing reps. Doing work!

Maybe I overrate the ability of professional players, but the move, without defense, is not difficult. The player in my video was a three-sport athlete who had played basketball for roughly a year. He was a freshman on a rural high-school freshman team whose coach never ran a player for him. How many repetitions does a professional player need to learn this move? What do players learn when doing the same move over and over? What are they developing?

Bad habits.

Repetition after repetition without attention engrains habits, and in this case, a bad habit. I do not want players to spin into the middle of the three-second area with the ball at their waists. Coaches yell, “Keep the ball high” during games when a little guard reaches in for a jump ball or a steal because they dropped the ball to their waists as in their practice repetitions. Habits. The defense exposes the bad habit the practice repetitions failed to expose or correct. The trainer did not demonstrate protecting the ball, nor did he offer any corrective feedback. He did not introduce a constraint to force players to change or improve. Instead, doing more is supposed to improve the move almost by magic. Brute force development. Just do more.

I do not stop the action much. I do not instruct a lot. I do not have an ideal or a perfect technique I want players to copy. I do not talk about micro skills. I do not tell players exactly where to put their foot or how to hold the ball. That is not my style of coaching. However, if that is your style, how do you still not correct? What are these magical micro skills? Video after video is utter nonsense. I am constantly bemused at the trickery these trainers use to convince parents and agents to pay them money.

Last year, some expert content creator wannabe trainers criticized my use of a med-ball shooting drill because it lacked representativeness. Content creators learn a new word and can’t stop using it. They have to show off their ability to read a book I guess, as otherwise people may question their intelligence after listening to them try to explain basketball for any length of time.

The med-ball shooting drill is an example of an isolated, non-representative drill used to solve a specific problem with a player’s coordination when shooting. Shooting a med-ball is not specific to game constraints, but the practice is more specific to improvement than most shooting drills, as it is designed specifically to attack a rate limiter. How many game-like shooting drills address specific problems or weaknesses?

I do not to believe in absolutes or a single correct way. I understand I am different than these trainers who engage in more specific coaching, but I do not understand how they manage to be hyper specific and still not correct errors. Furthermore, they demonstrate with the errors! How do coaches or trainers expect players to improve when they choose to isolate moves and teach specific move after specific move, while offering no corrective feedback and allowing mistake after mistake?

I lean toward using constraints or manipulating the environment, but I also am not opposed to isolated drills when necessary. I use drills to solve problems. The med-ball drill forces players to adapt a new coordination pattern, deriving more force from their lower bodies and the synchronization of upper and lower bodies rather than relying solely on their upper bodies to shoot a (lighter) basketball. We practice with the med-ball, then move to the court and attempt to feel the difference, the improved synchronization, and apply it to shooting a basketball. This is just one approach I have used with players, and I do not use med-balls with every player, as every player has a different problem. This is what should be meant by individual practice: Meeting the individual’s needs and solving the individual’s problems, not just removing defenders and taking turns one at a time.

Unfortunately, too many coaches and trainers simply hope players manage to improve through more work, more repetitions, and the grind, yet offer no specific cues, nor direct players’ attention to specific problems to change. They simply do drills and repeat habits, often incorrectly or with insufficient attention. They do not understand how they expect players to improve, but simply trust that enough repetitions will cause some improvements through brute force development.