Team and player development through the season

Working it out or playing to win every game?

I only recently became a fan of comedian Mike Birbiglia through his podcast, Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out. The basic format starts with the general interview: Basic biographical background, how they got into comedy, why Birbiglia likes them, and more. He is a good interviewer. Toward, the end, they work out bits they are working on for their acts: I have been thinking about this idea. That’s good, what about this? Oh yeah, that is great. And then I could do this.

It is fun to see their minds work and the process for crafting jokes and heightening the humor. In one episode, he described the nightly or weekly appearances at small comedy clubs as opportunities to test out material. These gigs are not the finished product one sees on the television special. The television special is the final iteration.

A basketball season should be viewed similarly. The postseason is the televised special. Regular season games are the gigs at small clubs to work out different systems, lineups, and more. Comedians strive to perform well in every appearance as they perform in front of paying audiences, just as coaches want to win every game, but the information and feedback they receive from the appearances are most important. Comedians test how far they can take jokes and learn which jokes the audiences truly respond to, and coaches test players against opponents in different situations, sets, and defenses.

Birbiglia prohibits videoing his appearances because the jokes change; the smaller appearances are not the final product. Similarly, a regular season game is not the final product. Unfortunately, most coaches act as though every game is the televised special (partially because every game is televised, partially because future contracts depend on won-loss record, and partially because coaches are super competitive).

For the majority of college teams, as an example, only the conference tournament games truly matter in terms of postseason qualification. Major conferences send many teams, which means several losses still will not end their seasons. Small conferences send only the conference tournament champion; the rest of the season is not meaningless, as better seeding improves one’s likelihood of success, but every result is not a season-defining moment.

Despite this, coaches behave as though every game is a must-win. Rather than working it out, they aim for perfection. They shorten rotations, install their offenses, defenses, and more in the preseason, schedule practices to maximize every performance, and more.

Many teams stop lifting weights in season or disrupt their normal routines because of games. Many coaches prefer not to practice hard the day before a game. They fear injuries, but also want players to peak for the game to maximize performance. With two games per week, not much time is left for more intense training or general practices not focused on specific game preparation. Everything is competition focused.

If the season’s purpose is working it out ahead of the postseason, why alter one’s schedule? We lift the day before a game. We try to stay on our normal schedule unless travel disrupts us. We practice normally the day before a game (except when we have three games in three days). We do not focus on specific opponents because the next opponent is just another step on the path to the postseason.

My won-loss record this season will not affect my future job prospects (nobody values my coaching experience here), but I had the same perspective as a junior-college head coach, which is the reason we played one of the two or three toughest preseason schedules every year. I did not schedule, or coach, to maximize our won-loss record for my resume; my goal was to develop players, showcase the players against the best competition possible, and to prepare for the postseason. Qualifying for the region tournament depended solely on our 12 league games, and qualifying for the national tournament required winning the region tournament. The region tournament was our televised special; everything else was working it out to improve and be ready for the moment.

I never touch on everything during the preseason. We focus primarily on learning to play with each other and developing our athletic, technical, and tactical skills. We practice spacing, give and gos, and pick-and-rolls generally without specific plays to prepare our individual offensive and defensive skills in these situations. We start the season with a few sets, out of bounds plays, and more, and add as necessary as the season progresses, and we identify strengths and weaknesses against our opponents. We are adding sets currently that started as general options to try (below), and then were named as specific options for sideline out of bounds plays. Now that they have names, we can call the specific options in the half-court too or use them as a read based on the defense.

Teams need to improve and learn during the season, but individual players also need to expand their games. Every time a player steps up in competition, there is an adjustment. The game is faster, more physical. Decisions must be made quicker. Replicating the faster, more physical game with lesser players is difficult, so every player faces an adjustment period.

Some adjust very quickly; some require more time to adjust. It is not necessarily improvement or development; it is acclimating. The more players play with better, bigger, faster players, the more they adapt to the environment and consequently perform better. This is a benefit of mixed-age practices, as the younger or less-experienced players watch, compete with, and learn from the older, more experienced players and adapt to their intensity and practice habits.

Coaching significantly affects the acclimation. Coaches who devote more practice time to live scrimmaging afford more opportunities for players to adapt, especially when one player moves to the new level. In a high-school situation, where the entire freshmen team moves to junior varsity as a group, possibly losing the best player(s) to varsity, the practice and scrimmaging have less of an acclimation effect early in the season because everyone is acclimating. There is nobody to push the others forward, as there is in a college or professional setting where maybe six to ten returners push two to three newcomers to adapt to the greater intensity, speed, physicality, and more.

The coaching effect is present during games. A young player moving to a higher competitive level needs a coach with patience, especially early in the season. When coaches quickly substitute players for mistakes or refuse to play players who may not be fully ready, they do not provide the game experience to acclimate and adapt. The process takes longer, and the mistakes persist, as the game continues to feel too fast or too physical.

To a certain extent, players should compete and play every game like it has championship repercussions. However, that attitude also leads to conservatism. How do players expand their skills when every game, every possession, is a must win? How do coaches allow players to play through mistakes when every possession is vital? It is harder to trust young players who may need the minutes to improve, but are not fully ready now.

Coaches and organizations who regularly develop young players are patient with these young players and force feed them playing time before they may be completely prepared because they need the playing time to become ready. Ettore Messina, at a coaching clinic years ago in Toronto, spoke about giving post players a path to quick success (rim running/fast-break, offensive rebounding, free throws) and building on the success.

Many coaches and players are stuck in the paradox where players need playing to adapt and acclimate in order to perform, but they do not play because they are not ready to perform. The coach treats each game like the end, not an opportunity for working it out. I find myself simplifying goals for some players who are fighting to make the game-day roster or to increase playing time, while I encourage the better players to expand and try new things. Everyone is different.

The age groups here are in two-year blocks: U15, U17, and U19. Most of our team played U17 last season and have acclimated to the level: They were 15-year-olds primarily playing 16-year-olds last season. We have two 15-year-olds who are acclimating to the new level, and a few others who played for weaker teams, and thus have a small adaptation. I have used every opportunity to give the younger players more minutes than they currently deserve, based on performance, because they need the playing time to adapt and acclimate, as realizing their potential raises our ceiling at the end of the season.

Playing time is never absolutely fair. Better players often play more than harder workers because they are better; regardless of a coach’s comments, winning matters to every coach, especially now when every coach is judged after or within every game. Here, rather than favor the better players, we attempt to favor those with greater potential. The club’s focus is developing professional players.

Potential, of course, is fraught with difficulties. Does the younger player who is not as good as the older player have more potential just because of age? Does the shorter player not have potential just because of size? I continually see decision-makers give up on young (U16, U17, U18) guards, primarily due to size, but occasionally a missing skill (shooting), then watch the professional teams’ games and see similar-type and -sized players. Are the odds of a 6’10 player becoming a professional greater than a 5’10 player? Yes. The 6’10 player has fewer competitors. However, plenty of 5’10 guards have professional contracts. The odds are not in their favor, but they certainly still have a chance.

Playing time is one of the hardest parts of coaching for me (only cutting players is harder) because I want every player to succeed, and I do not want to be the one to limit or hinder their progression. Of course, in making such a decision to play everyone in each game, I may hinder the best players. I questioned this with my previous U16 team and even my junior-college team. Would my best player have been an All-American if she played 35 minutes instead of 27, likely increasing her stats and maybe leading to an extra win or two? Did I hold back my best U16 player because he played 25 minutes per game and shared point guard with six other guys? Did spreading out the playing time enable every J.C. player to earn a scholarship and six guys to make the national team that summer? There is likely cost to one, but some benefits to others. Who deserves the benefits? Who should suffer the costs? How does one decide?

Most teams I watch are based around one to three players, and the others simply support them. The offense, playing time, shot allocation, and more revolve around the perceived best, and the others are there primarily to defend, set screens, and spread the court. Of course, what happens when the perceived best is near his ceiling at 16 years-old and taking developmental opportunities away from others who may have a higher ceiling? Which should we value — the better player right now or the one who we perceive to have the most future potential?

Working it out, hopefully, allows both room to develop. My current best player leads us in minutes, but the player with the most potential (subjectively, of course) is in the top four despite being a year younger and very raw when the season started. We are two months and 10 games into the season, and he has moved ahead of players in the rotation if we had a must-win game tomorrow. We also run a system that does not allow the current best player to dominate too much and spreads the ball around to everyone. He is a scorer attempting to become a point guard, and in our one come from behind game this season, his three biggest plays were two passes to the weak-side for open three-pointers and a back cut for a layup. Playing under 30 minutes per game and sharing point guard with several others may short-change his development, but we have numerous players to develop; our strength is not one player, and my job is to develop everyone, as much as possible. This requires a different strategy than the one I see most often.

We have the entire season for players to establish themselves. We are not set with a starting lineup or eight-player rotation. I could not pick our team for the playoffs in March right now. Even so far, the player who hit the game-winning three-pointer in our one close game was roughly our 12th man coming out of our preseason camp. If we had kept 12 on our roster instead of 16, he may have been on the second team. However, because we play everyone, and everyone gets opportunities, he earned his way onto the court for the biggest possessions of the season so far.

Of course, despite the big shots, there are no guarantees he will be in the same position next time; another player may take a leap in the coming weeks. When coaches have flexibility in their opinions and evaluations, and continually work it out throughout the season, different players may step up in different situations and at different points in the season.

Of course, this has positive and negative effects on players’ psyches. Players who thrive one week and struggle the next are apt to be frustrated. I spoke to the team about the inconsistencies of youth and the nonlinear nature of development. No 16-year-old is consistent from day to day and game to game for 10 straight months. There are hills and valleys. Players develop at different rates. Players who were at a high point when the last big games occurred may be at a lower point in the next games. These things are hard to predict, but having depth helps to inoculate teams against these normal ups and downs, as it is unlikely all 12 players will dip in form at the same time. Of course, if the team revolves around three players and a seven-player rotation, two players dipping in form at the same time can be catastrophic.

Coaches complain about a lack of depth, but they develop their depth. Players need playing time to acclimate and adapt before they can excel and thrive. Regular season games provide these opportunities for players and coaches to work it out before reaching the important conference tournament and postseason games. Embracing this mindset to work it out also maintains a freshness, as teams do not run the same plays over and over all season, but add and learn new sets, new defenses, and more as the season progresses. Personally, I am waiting to add until I see the improvement and execution I want in the simple system we have currently. When the attention wanes, I will add new things to liven up the practices and reduce the monotony, as we practice eight times per week for ten months. Creativity and experimenting are vital skills with such a long season and so many practices. I am constantly working out new things in practices to see what produces a desired effect, which I then add to the toolbox, and what does not, which I discard. Nothing is set in stone; we have a long time before our proverbial televised special.