It's easy to go overboard with praise after a team wins a title. Understanding the 'why' adds more value. Obviously, exceptional talent, executing with effort, and playing unselfishly craft success. Take a granular, local view of our teams and why they succeeded or didn't. Rather than an exhaustive 'laundry list' of factors, simplify to generalize. I'll list three negatives and positives that regularly decide performance and outcomes: Negatives 1) Transition defense. Bad transition defense gives opponents easy shots, translating to scores and momentum. "Be good at what you do a lot." Eve ..read more

Coaches have a chance to share holistic education. Let players know, "it's about the team and each of you." Robert Greenleaf developed the philosophy of "servant leadership." It embodies principles of serving others and your community.  First, a ChatGPT summary:  Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy and style that emphasizes the leader's primary role as a servant to their team or organization. In contrast to traditional leadership models where the leader's main focus is the accumulation of power and control, servant leadership prioritizes the growth and well-being of other ..read more

“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” ― Jim Rohn First, an elaboration of Jim Rohn's famous quote.  From Brave AI: According to Jim Rohn, we all suffer from one of two types of pain: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The key difference lies in their weight and duration. The Pain of Regret Weighs tons: Regrets are monumentally heavy and linger, often manifesting as “what ifs” when looking back on past decisions or missed opportunities. Burdensome: Re ..read more

Closely held beliefs: 1) Learn every day. 2) "Share something great." That could be a book, show, quote, recipe, whatever. 3) Bring our best version of ourself every day.  A great website keeps on giving with new and valuable content. Go to Character Lab here. Unfortunately, it is a legacy site but has a lot of great content.  For example, here's a piece dedicated to making better judgments.  Excerpt: What’s the easiest way to help young people develop better judgment? I think it’s useful to get kids to not just look for reasons why their idea is right. Push them to think about ..read more

Coaches teach "help and recover" defense or "Cover 1.5" with emphasis on "the ball scores." For some players, that fails or disadvantages defense. When?  Think of situations where help hurts.  Double teams resulting in short roll passing to corner threes or corner cuts.  Help off corner three. This occurs in many situations including help on the high ball screen or off short roll passing.  Help for strong post defenders. Too much help creates numerical edges away from the post.  Doubling the elite passer leading to lobs (the Celtics largely removed lobs and corn ..read more

Reconcile the split between "less is more" and introducing actions that will play later. First a few absolutes: Skill comes first. "We can't run what we can't run." Cut hard. Separate and finish.  On time, on target passing...  Take care of the basketball. Turnovers are zero percent possessions. Take quality shots. Bilas: "It's not your shot, it's our shot." 1) Pick-and-roll. Become a PnR player, learning the skills of both the handler and the screener. Learn the nuances - reject the screen, rescreen, slip, and more.  The purpose of the ball screen is not to set the ball scre ..read more

Learn every day. Teach as much as possible. The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander offers practical advice on navigating the world. It's not necessarily a 'cover-to-cover' book, but one to pick up anywhere for bits of inspiration. 1) Amidst the sound and the fury around us, "Remember Rule Number 6...Rule Number 6 is, 'Don't take yourself so g--damn seriously.' "Ah," says his visitor, "that is a fine rule. And what, may I ask, are the others?" "There aren't any."  Many here have accomplished much more than I. So it's easy to be humble. Ego causes angst, envy, and error. Rei ..read more

To become a player requires exceptional commitment, continual ascension, and periodic frustration. Ideas for development: 1) Build skill. Become your own coach learning to separate with and without the ball. "Basketball is a game of separation and finishing." Face the basket at the elbow, choosing your left as pivot foot. Close your eyes. Rip through and get as much separation as possible with a one dribble pickup. Become used to NOT seeing the ball. 2) Play one-on-one. Work on your separation moves off the catch, off the dribble, developing a jab series. Playing "on air" (no defender) gets yo ..read more

Make sure we've seen enough to make a rational judgment. Win over critics with competence and competitiveness.  "Show out." Decision-making involves mental models (how we think) and cognitive biases (conscious and unconscious influences). Sample size is a mental model that takes the volume of observations into account. If we flip a coin five times and get consecutive heads, the likelihood of heads on the next flip is still 50 percent. With 50% to the fifth power, we have a 1/32 chance of getting five consecutive heads. With more observations, we know the answers will converge o ..read more

We're playing good basketball or we're not. Good teams do what good teams do...they leverage advantages to score and limit opportunities for opponents. "We make our habits and our habits make us."  Yet there is a corollary, often when good teams lose, they stray from their "normal play" and display losing habits. A bad team's features become a good team's bugs. What happens? Loss of Focus Selfishness (lack of team play) Sloth (lack of effort) Softness (lack of toughness) Inattention to detail The one-offs (outliers) occur from inversion of good habits. Focus Attention to det ..read more