Three Common Instructions

Intention, next play, and trust.

My goal when coaching is to talk as little possible, but as much as necessary. With eight practices per week, and already three full months into our season, I have spoken a lot in total, if not on a daily basis. I imagine my three most common comments have been:

• Time does not equal development.

• Next play mentality.

• Trust your teammates. Share the ball. Play unselfishly.

Most players, when asked, respond that doing more is the path to improvement: More shots, more practice, more effort. I repeatedly assert that time is the minimum or the prerequisite. Every player who wants to achieve something works hard and invests time, but time on task does not equal improvement. Improvement is nonlinear.

The Mamba Mentality conditioned a generation to focus on volume — 4:00 A.M. workouts, 1000 made shots per day — while ignoring Kobe’s more important lesson: “It's not about the number of hours you practice, it's about the number of hours your mind is present during practice.” Practice is not enough; practice must be intentional.

We have three morning individual workouts per week, but these workouts generally have between 10 and 16 players with two baskets. It is difficult to organize specific practice for each player in a group workout larger than our actual team practices. Therefore, I put the onus on the players to use unopposed and self-paced drills to focus intently on the one to two things each wants to improve, such as hand placement, amount of dip, overall coordination, ball flight, and more.

Without a specific intention and attention on specific changes or improvements, the practice shots have minimal value. Some players may improve confidence by seeing the ball go through the net, and possibly a player may improve footwork or another detail, but generally just getting up shots will not lead to significant improvements. The mind must be present. Practice must be deliberate.

My team has an interesting mix of late adolescents. Most are older physically than emotionally. I sometimes forget my 6’8 big guy is a really young 15 years old. Many live away from home, and their reasons for living here are to advance their basketball prospects. There is some inherent pressure accompanying a move away from home at 15 years old to become a basketball player. Doubts are normal. The pressure intensifies when the team has 16 players, and players are not guaranteed to be rostered. These are average high schoolers in an atypical environment.

The mistake response is critical for our (all) players. One reason I love the FIBA3X3 and Playmakers League rules is the speed of transition between offense and defense: Drop your head for a half-second after a missed shot, and your opponent has scored a layup. Full-court games have the same threat, but rarely the absolute immediacy because of the distance between baskets and additional teammates.

Teenagers are teenagers, and one big lesson to learn is dealing with mistakes, frustrations, and failures. I tend to praise players for their effort after mistakes, especially when they attempt to do something new or as I instructed, and I am angered most quickly when players blame another player for their mistakes or they quit on plays. I have stressed over and over since the beginning of the season that the first mistake does not beat us; it is the second mistake. The turnover is not the problem; not sprinting back on defense is the problem.

Once a mistake happens, it is gone. It is too late. What can I do now? What’s the best next action? Focus on the next play. I used the Ted Lasso speech about the goldfish with one player.

I feel we play selfishly. The selfishness is not malicious and does not manifest in bad or forced shots. Several players often turn down pretty good shots. We average a good assist percentage and have some possessions, especially in transition, with great ball movement.

Our selfishness is over-dribbling and an unwillingness to set screens: We do not help our teammates get open as much as we should. We run right past each other instead of setting the screen to create an initial advantage. We drive directly into crowds rather than make the next pass. The selfishness is an unwillingness to sacrifice one’s immediate opportunity to possess the ball, take the shot, or create the play to help a teammate get open. We too often look for home runs instead of singles.

What I see as selfishness may be, in part, lack of awareness or basketball intelligence. We may have tunnel vision due to developing skills and prior coaching/teaching. These players are learning to play with minimal structure after years of running plays, and several are learning to function as point guards, as the team’s dominant personality, point guard, and ball-handler left for an academy abroad after last season. We have posts becoming wings and wings becoming lead guards, and some growing pains are expected. However, we make the right play enough that it appears to me as selfishness or overconfidence or lacking trust in some teammates.

Although younger, this age group is similar to high-school seniors playing to attract college attention. The players are reaching an age where the club is making decisions on players, pushing some players forward to receive minutes on men’s teams. Next year will be the jump to the last youth age group. While they are still developing as players, and rather young, the future is approaching quickly. On a deep team with few guarantees, I imagine these things contribute to the mistakes I see.

When the ball moves, and everyone touches the ball, players make better decisions because they trust they will receive the ball when they are open or when their shot is the right play. Sharing the ball generates its own energy for players; over-dribbling and isolating tends to deplete energy.

I understand I could coach differently to maximize our competitiveness. A shorter rotation with more defined roles would help a few players excel, and ultimately improve our competitiveness, but the others would fall further behind. Some of our flaws are due to my willingness to allow players to experiment and expand their games, and the conflicts that arise with a team full of players attempting to stretch their skills. Finding the balance between playing everyone and encouraging everyone to challenge themselves and playing the right way to maximize the value of possessions is difficult, and maybe impossible.

If we do not always play the right way, the next play mentality becomes even more important, as we have to focus on the next play and the next best action, not our frustration with a teammate’s decision or lack of vision. The practice intention and attention are also paramount, as players who want to experiment and expand their games need to improve during practice, not just try out random things in a game. Showing up is not enough; one’s mind must be present to improve through the practice and make changes to one’s game and actions.