The Personality of a Point Guard Trilogy

What is vision and how does it affect the point guard position?

Below are three articles I wrote about point guards and personality back in 2008. At the time, I even ran the idea by K. Anders Ericsson. He did not believe my hypothesis was true, but encouraged me to pursue it. Unmentioned is the work of Robert M. Nideffer, which either informed my thoughts or was introduced to me after writing these.

The Personality of a Point Guard

July 4th, 2008

Experts debated the likelihood of combo guards such as O.J. Mayo, Jerryd Bayless, Russell Westbrook, and Eric Gordon to play point guard in the lead up to the 2008 NBA Draft, while people in the Bay Area discussed Monta Ellis’ ability to play point guard after Baron Davis joined the Los Angeles Clippers.

Most analyzed the position-specific technical skills (ball handling, shooting, passing and defending penetration) or statistics (assists, assists to turnover ratio). One writer argued Ellis could not be an NBA point guard because of a low assist to turnover ratio. The commentary illustrated a misunderstanding of point guards, and talent in general.

We compare point guards to quarterbacks because they initiate the play. They are the coach on the floor and the team’s leader. Quarterbacks and point guards may possess similar personalities, but not necessarily: Our high-school quarterback was a shoot-first, pass-third forward. A quarterback’s personality often matches a scorer or a shooter. A more reliable similarity is between point guards and attacking midfielders.

Attacking midfielders typically share personality traits with point guards. Point guards who also play soccer inevitably are midfielders, whereas scorers/shooters are strikers and role players/defenders are fullbacks. Goalies are an exception.

Coaches rarely consider personality. I worked with a player whose coach would not play him at point guard because he was one of the taller players and the best outside shooter. I told college coaches he was a point guard, but he rarely played the position when they watched, so they were unsure. They questioned his handle.

Dribbling is a skill, which players can improve. Playing point guard requires the right personality. Many psychologists, talent development experts, and management texts suggest people do not change their personalities.

Coaches look for small players who dribble well when selecting point guards, which is a terribly ineffective way to identify and select talent. Ellis possessed the requisite skills — he was quick, handled well, shot well, attacked the basket, penetrated, etc. — but he was never a point guard. He was a scorer. Casting Ellis as a point guard misused his skills and strengths.

Boris Diaw was clearly a facilitator. He may have been too tall or slow to defend the point guard position, but he was a playmaker and facilitator, not a scorer. Trying to turn him into a scorer misused his talents. In a perfect world, Diaw would have teamed with a small scoring guard such as Ellis, enabling Diaw to facilitate and Ellis to score, while Ellis defended opponents’ quick guards. Playing Diaw with Steve Nash, clearly a point guard, did not maximize Diaw’s greatest skills because Nash was the playmaker.

A player may possess the personality to play a position, but not the skill. Ellis would not be a good scorer despite his personality if he could not shoot or finish. Coaches should be aware of and utilize their players’ personalities to maximize their talents rather than trying to change players. Players often flourish when changing teams when the change allows them to use their talents and maximize their personalities.

Westbrook possessed more of the point guard personality than Gordon or Bayless. He illustrated his personality at UCLA despite being in between roles playing alongside Darren Collison. He had the tools to score and get to the rim, especially in transition, but also was a facilitator. Players such as Baron Davis, Chris Paul, and Deron Williams score and get to the rim, but also possess the playmaking personality.

Evaluating the personality is important, especially for prospective point guards. Point guards must enjoy setting up teammates. They like others to look good. The Bengals’ Chad Johnson, for instance, would not be a point guard regardless of his dribbling and passing acumen because point guards cannot worry about statistics.

Point guards must understand their teammates’ personalities and relate to their teammates. They must read their body language and know when one is frustrated because he works hard, but has not received the ball or when one is scared to shoot in a big moment. Point guards’ role is to make their teammates look good and simplify their jobs, which requires a certain personality.

Being a point guard is more than being the leader — Kevin Garnett was the Celtics’ leader, but he was not a point guard; Michael Jordan led his team, but was not a point guard.

Being a point guard is more than dribbling ability. Hot Sauce and AO handled the ball better than most NBA players, but they were not point guards. Ellis possessed the tools, but not the personality.

Point guards — or more specifically being a playmaker or facilitator as point guard often is misused as simply a position-designation — require a certain personality and emotional intelligence. The best point guards maximize their personality by developing the requisite skills to play the role. However, the skills without the personality are insufficient, just as the personality without the skills is not enough. Those with the skills and size of a point guard, without personality, are combo guards, who coaches hope can play the role, even when it is unnatural.

A more effective strategy is to identify players who possess the skills to match their personality. Golden State allowed Ellis to be a scorer, and the Kings allowed Chris Webber and Vlade Divac to facilitate from the high post rather than demanding they play as back-to-the-basket scorers.

Point Guard Play and Perceptual and Cognitive Skill Development

July 9th, 2008

A previous article, “The Personality of a Point Guard” argued that point guards require a certain personality, which elicited feedback from readers who argued for the importance of vision:

“I agree that ball handling is a skill, and that you have to have the right makeup, but having the ability to see things unfold before it happens is a talent that cannot be taught. Stockton, Kidd, all the great point guards had the ability to make the game look easy because they knew what was going to happen before it did. This is the reason that Vlade and Webber were great at the high post. This is how a player gets a high assist to turnover ratio. It is the ability to make the ‘right’ pass.”

Experts do not possess superior visual function. In “Perceptual and Cognitive Skill Development in Soccer: The Multidimensional Nature of Expert Performance,” authors Paul Ward and A. Mark Williams wrote:

“This research suggests that expert performers are not endowed with superior visual function, and that perceptual and cognitive factors are better discriminators of skilled performance in adults…Experts typically exhibit more effective search strategies…and are faster and more accurate at recognizing and recalling patterns of play from memory.”

Steve Nash and Jason Kidd separate themselves from average point guards because of perceptual and cognitive factors, not vision. Expert point guards recognize cues quicker and more accurately. When Nash drives middle and draws defenders, he recalls Stoudemire’s cuts. When Kidd sprints down court, he reads and exploits a defender’s slightest movement. Average players, and lay people, do not notice a defender standing with his weight on his left foot, but Kidd exploits this by attacking to the defender’s left. Kidd probably cannot explain his choice, but he reads the slightest lean and weight shift and reacts, whereas average players miss these cues.

There is a visual aspect to successful skill execution, which starts with technical skills. In "Conditioning the Visual System: A Practical Perspective on Visual Conditioning in Rugby Football," Rudi Meir wrote:

"As a simple rule, the more complex and demanding the centrally performed task or the more stressed the athlete, the narrower will be the functional visual field size, resulting in errors that coaches often describe as tunnel vision.”

Vision increases as skill and confidence increase, as players concentrate less on their technical skills (dribbling the basketball) and more on the cues in the environment. Kidd was an expert dribbler, which left more of his attention for reading defenders rather than protecting the dribble. Visual skills (scanning, cue identification) improve as dribbling skills and confidence improve.

The reader represented perceptual and cognitive abilities as vision. Great point guards “make the game look easy” and “know what is going to happen before it does” due to cognitive and perceptual skills, not visual acuity. “Making the right pass” has to do with anticipation and awareness. Great players read cues and anticipate actions faster than average players. The reader disagreed:

“Call it awareness or call it court vision, I find it difficult to believe that this is a taught ability. If this were something that is taught, why don’t we have more great point guards or passers?”

Ward and Williams wrote:

These skills are not innate if they require extensive practice — they, in fact, can be taught. What limits their development? Why are there so few point guards?

How many coaches use extensive task-specific practice with the appropriate feedback to develop these specific skills, especially early in players’ development? Ward and Williams indicate that limited practice and high-quality coaching can have a significant impact on the acquisition of perceptual and cognitive skills at an early age. However, they may go undeveloped if not practiced extensively.

Next, players with the right personality often are cut because youth coaches favor stronger, faster, more aggressive scorers. Dominant, aggressive personalities capture attention, not the point guard who involves everyone.

After 8th grade, we tried out for the city BCI team (an area all-star team and precursor to AAU). I played point guard for our city-champion school team. My teammate made the BCI team as a point guard, and I did not, although his father was our school coach and played him as our power forward (he was a fullback in soccer, too). Who understood our relative talents and personalities better, coaches selecting a team after a three-day tryout or our school coaches who coached us to two championships in four seasons?

My teammate stood out in a short tryout because he was aggressive and made things happen — good or bad — whereas my steady play was overlooked in quick scrimmages. This happens every year: Bigger, stronger, more athletic, more aggressive players advance because coaches believe they can turn fast, skilled dribblers into point guards. However, without the personality, they will be in-between or combo guards, regardless of their technical skills.

In “Deliberate Practice and the Modifiability of Body and Mind: Toward a Science of the Structure and Acquisition of Expert and Elite Performance,” K. Anders Ericsson wrote:

“When superior performers in sport are presented representative tasks, verbal reports reveal how advanced preparation, planning, reasoning, and evaluation mediate their superior performance…even the superior speed of expert performers appears to depend primarily on acquired cognitive representations that allow performers to be prepared for execution of appropriate actions rather than better basic acuity of their sensory perceptual systems and/or faster basic speed of their motor systems…more skilled athletes use anticipatory cues to guide their motor responses.”

Coaches must look beyond height and speed when identifying and selecting players, especially at young ages when some have obvious physical advantages as early bloomers. Coaches must devise strategies to train cognitive skills to develop expert performers. When coaches only run set plays, and never explain the why or the how, players may not develop cognitive recognition of patterns. Instead, they follow directions. Even when running sets or continuity offenses, coaches must teach players to read and react to situational cues to maximize their abilities. When the competitive stream nears the top (college and professional basketball), everyone is big, strong, athletic, and skilled. The difference, especially for point guards, is their ability to identify the correct cues and anticipate plays. Those who process the information and act more quickly make better decisions and more plays than those who miss cues or process information more slowly.

Experts, Vision, and Perceptual Skills

July 16th, 2008

Former NBA star and current radio show host Rick Barry said in an ESPN the Magazine article written by Tom Farrey:

“I don’t know where it comes from but either a player has it or a player doesn’t have it,” Rick Barry said. “I can teach you how to pass but I can’t teach you how to see. If I throw you a pass into that little hole in the defense - that to me is the one telling thing that determines whether you’re a natural player. And every one of my boys has that.”

Barry confused some important concepts. We use “vision” colloquially to combine many things, but indefinite language complicates instruction.

The Barry children’s eyesight is similar to average players, but they possess perceptual and cognitive skills allowing them to identify cues and anticipate movements quicker because they recall previous experiences more quickly and more accurately than average players. “Vision” is not eyesight, but perception and cognition (However, Brent Barry likely possesses far above-average visual acuity, evidenced by his superior ability to shift from a soft-centered focus to see the floor to a fine-centered focus to shoot).

Barry believed “vision,” cannot be taught. However, from Ward and Williams:

I attended NBA Summer League and watched Bayless, the quintessential combo guard, because of my interview with Blazer’s Edge. Bayless played very well, but proved he is not a point guard. Combo guards possess the technical skills to play the position — Bayless had a great crossover, got to the basket at-will, had an in-between game, etc. — but cannot adjust to the point guard personality. I believe one’s personality leads one to a facilitator role or an aggressive, scorer role. Others argue combo guards lack the perceptual and cognitive skills of a point guard. The answer likely is a combination.

Bayless turned the corner, and attacked to score. Several times, I caught myself saying “dish it”, but he never saw the open player or chose to attack and ignore his open teammate. I do not believe his field of vision narrowed due to a lack of technical skill (Meir), as he dribbled well. Instead, the decision was rooted in his personality, in limited perceptual skills, or both.

The issue is not visual, even if he did not “see” these options. Instead, he did not identify important cues or process information as quickly as a point guard such as Steve Nash. We marvel at Nash’s vision, his talent is quicker cue identification and processing, which leads to his anticipation, often described as “seeing the play before it happens.”

Nash anticipates because he sees the play develop in his mind. This is not visual, but perceptual. He identifies the cues, processes the information, and makes decisions, often without a conscious thought, quicker than someone without the same perceptual skills. Bayless drove and missed the same cues; therefore, he did not “see” the play develop ahead of time. Nash’s anticipation enables the perfect pass at the perfect time, whereas combo guards pass too late or not at all. We describe this as “vision”, but it occurs in the brain, not the eyes, and is a cognitive and perceptual skill.

The question is the best way to teach these skills. Dan Peterson’s “Sports Cognition Framework” introduced three elements required for sports success:

• Decision-making ability (knowing what to do)

• Motor skill competence (being physically able to do it)

• Positive mental state (being motivated and confident to do it)

Often, mental mistakes are believe to be a decision-making breakdown. The center fielder throws to the wrong base, the tight end runs the wrong route, or the defender forgets to mark his man, etc. These scenarios describe poor decisions or even memory lapses during the stress of the game. They are not necessarily the lack of skill to execute a play or the lack of confidence or motivation to do the right thing. It is recognition, in hindsight, that the best option was not chosen. In addition to glaring negative plays, there are also missed opportunities on the field (i.e. taking a contested shot on goal instead of passing to the open teammate).

Bayless rarely chose the best option. Often his decision worked out, as he drew many fouls, but the best option was to pass to a teammate for a dunk when the help defense rotated rather than forcing a shot between two taller defenders. My argument is Bayless possesses the motor-skill competence to pass, but his personality or slow recognition and processing of the relevant cues (help defender’s rotation) led to his decisions to shoot.

If these perceptual and cognitive skills are learned, and not innate, why has a player with Bayless’ talents failed to develop them? How can a young guard starting his youth career develop these skills?

Dr. Joan Vickers, a professor at the University of Calgary, suggests players must play to develop the full skill — a drill eliminates the decision-making, which is the essential aspect. In a series of responses to questions on the PBS web site, Vickers described the process of developing these skills:

“Behavioral training features blocked practice drills where the following characteristics exist: the same skills are practiced to perfection; high levels of feedback are given constantly; instruction is delivered using simple to complex progression; and where there is limited simulation of what really happens in games. When behavioral methods are used extensively, performance is often impressive in the short term (so both the athletes and coaches think they are doing the best thing), but athletes trained too much in this way are unable to maintain or improve their performance in the long term. They lack the ability to perform consistently. Skills and tactics mastered early in training and performed well are not maintained as the season progresses. There is also a limited ability to perform in new and unusual settings.

What is being advocated today is the use of random and/or variable practice drills, delayed and/or reduced feedback as skill develops, the use of whole instruction, questioning, video feedback and video modeling. Collectively, these new methods completely change the practice environment where the athlete learns to deal with the realities of the game and where they become more self-sufficient.”

Behavioral Training is a Peak by Friday approach: Immediate results supersede development. Coaches control players through their instructions and plays. Teams appear organized, but players fail to develop the necessary skills. Only one player — the primary ball handler — if any, makes decisions. Coaches often ignore point guards and favor more aggressive, bigger, stronger players and use these players as the primary ball handler (Bayless). As players progress, they improve because they always have the ball, whereas others struggle to improve with limited touches. They do not necessarily develop into point guards, though they often play the position because of their aggressiveness and speed — Ellis, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Jason Terry, etc. They played the position for most of their career, yet never developed a point guard mentality. Why?

My argument is personality. Vickers’ argument, and I think K. Anders Ericsson would agree, is the players developed in Behavioral Training styles. If games offer the best environment for random plays and reduced feedback, why is the current system of hundreds of games failing to develop these perceptual skills?

Players do what they can do, and coaches coach to win when an opponent is present and scouts are in the stands. This makes variable drills and small-sided practice games the best teaching methods. The practice environment is, by nature, a learning environment where players should feel safe to make mistakes. There is no performance pressure. The drills and small-sided games give players multiple repetitions, whereas only one or two players receive significant decision-making repetitions in competitive games. How many coaches choose a primary ball handler and only allow him or her to dribble? How do the others develop?

The solution, as Vickers suggested, is changing our coaching approach. Move away from the common Behavioral Training and incorporate more random training with task-specific practice. Basically, if our goal to develop players’ cognitive and perceptual skills, we need to practice them, just as we design shooting drills to develop better shooting technique.

We also must be more specific about the skills to develop before we can develop these skills. If the “experts” believe “vision” is innate, how do we convince non-expert coaches to develop the skill, especially if they may lose early-season games when pursuing a new practice style?