Players not plays.

I read a quote once that went something to the effect - "If your X's are twice as big as the other guys O's, then your X's look pretty good when they run your plays."


What I continue to take away from this quote is no matter what you run (or whether you run anything at all) your success is determined by the quality of your players against your opponents. For a long time I thought my job as a coach was to put in a system that if run properly would give us an advantage over our opponent. I've had high and low amounts of success with this concept. The two determining factors often tended to be how good the players in the system were and the level of our competition. You very quickly learn everyone has a system and if their ahtletes are bigger, faster, and more skilled their system wins.



Now I just try to make my players more skilled and work harder than our opponent. The reality then ,and now, is that we beat the other team when we play better, smarter, harder. Teams with more talent, size, skill or effort beat us everytime if they can at least match us in the other categories.


Now I spend less time on plays and more on skill. I want 5 players on the floor that can shoot it, and beat their player 1 on 1. I want 5 players who can handle the ball and make decisions. When you have 5 players that can do these things on the floor the game becomes so much simpler to coach and play. The guy with the ball makes a read to attack, everyone else reads and reacts, open guy scores the ball.


The same is true on defense. I don't need 6 different things we do on defense. I need 5 players that can use strength, footwork, and hustle to stop the ball. When we rotate, hustle, angle and battle harder then the other guy we win. When we don't, we lose.



Why do it:


1) You are actually coaching kids to play. Not making cogs in a system.

2) You end up with skilled kids that can play anywhere, any way for a lifetime.

3) Your job gets easier. Your not making adjustments for every detail and the emphasis becomes players learning, not you teaching.


4) Its player owned and operated. At game time its their reads, commitment (prior to and during), and ability that controls the outcome.



Why not to do it:


1) If you as a coach can't live with mistakes. This won't always be pretty, especially while the skills, minds and feet co-ordinate. If you need to mirco-manage and can't live with trial and error. This may not be for you.


2) If you can't live with short term butt kicking. In the developmental years and early on in their careers they are going to get beat. They will get beat because other teams use systems that maxmize the strength of their team without improving them for the future. In mini their big kid will score 20 pts a game on you because he/she was told to go stand by the rim and shoot. Your big kid is turning the ball over and feeling confused because they have to handle, pass and play on the wing. Short term success for them. In the long run your kids will be the better player in the short term they may lose.


3) If it is about your stuff. If you aren't ready to let kids go off plan, make reads, find their own ways to be successful, this isn't for you. If you have to know what your kids are going to do every second, not for you.

4) If you have clearly defined image of what you want every kid become. If in your mind you look at kids and have them pegged, pigeon holed, labeld or categorized this may not work for you. Tall cannot always = post and little cannot = shooter. You need to be willing to let kids work stuff out on their own for their own purposes not yours.

Getting a little handsy . . .

So I've been reading. What I've been looking at is the FIBA rules and the "Tower Philosophy" of advantage & disadvantage. I'ld like to say that this reading is beccause I have a genuine love of the game, but my movtives are a little more mercenary. I'm always looking to gain the extra understanding, language, or technique that I can pass on to help my kids be successful. My current adventure is out of a desire to reconcile what I'm seeing, experiecing and needing to coach in my summer work with BNB and what I'm seeing, experiencing and needing in my high school coaching.

My issue is with what to tell my kids. As a coach there is nothing more frustrating then telling a kid one thing and having him/her come back in the middle of a game upset because an official has contradicted something he/she has been told. The kid doesn't want either adult upset with them, what is a kid to do. I find this more often happens with hand, arm, body placement at both ends then it does with issues of violations or offensive skill execution.

What we need is an example. Case in point. Offensively and defensively we tell our girls (age 15-16) in the summer that there is going to be contact so they have to intiate it. "You can either, be the player getting hit or the one doing the hitting." Then they will go out and swim over on cuts, knock down arms in passing lanes, get forearm contact on screens, meet cutters with a forearm and hip, get hands in and out on the ball handler to keep distance and stop them from using their arms. We seem to have success and have been complimented on our aggression and physicality. Now when we come back to high school boys (age 14-19) we try to send the same message about being the aggressor we end up in foul trouble. I ask them to be proactive: jam and force the issue attack at both ends and we are told to back off. We are told we cannot reach, can not invade space, can not wrap. I hear a logical explanation and ask my kids to adjust because that is all we can do.

The issue comes down to advantage & disadvantage. Not all contact is basketball is foul, if it were then we would be out all night getting a half in. So the official uses their baseline rules about position and spirit of the game, while not allowing rough play, to determine whether illegal contact clearly and immediately gained an unfair advantage for one player or the other. What I struggle with is finding the middle ground to work with my kids. I struggle with how the same action can be good tough play in a 15 year old girls game, but excessive between to 17 year old boys.

Do not misunderstand. I have almost never recieved an explanation from an official that was not satisfactory. I may not have agreed with it at the time, but their rational is always within the scope of the rules. My frustration is managing the scope.

I had a young coach ask me the other day: I see a lot of reaching going on in games, and I tell my girls to keep their hands out . . . what is the rule.

I did my best to explain it as I understood they should not be using their hands to impede or make illegal contact with the offensive player. I also tried to explain that depending on the effect, or result, of the contact is going to determine a foul or not. I finally conveyed that each official is going to see it differently and kids will need to adjust. In closing I explained that we teach our kids to play with hands off at first, then we teach counters to offensive reads that require more and more phsyicality.

The fact is there is no right answer. There is what the rules say, but the rules are situational. There is what the official says, but every official feels a little differently. There is what I say, but different coaches teach things different ways. The simple truth is you have to teach kids how to do it all: hands on, hands off, in and out, arm bars and counters for the all those things. If you do not they will end up in a situation they are not prepared for skill wise or mentally.

The Defense

Contrary to some of the scores we give up I feel like we have a pretty solid defensive philosophy.

I have never been much of a believer that statistical differences are an indicator of good defense. Just because I can hold someone's score down doesn't mean I play good defense. It could, but I could also mean that: I'm holding the ball on offense for long periods, keeping the ball away from the other team, and using a couple of kids who can defend on their top players while everyone else is just letting the other team shoot. To me that's not good defense.

Coaches talk about turnover ratio, but again what we do on offense has as much do do with that number as our defense.

My judge of the success of our defense is the reaction of the opposition to it: are they having to call timeouts to dicuss things, are they needing to be reminded to calm down, are the looking to the officials for help, do they get furstrated and make notably frustrated decisions. My favorite defensive moment as a coach came in a game where late we got called for a blocking foul trying to trap the ball. The opposition threw the ball at our kid and said "Don't you ever f%^&ing quit!".

Why do we defend the way we do (what we believe about defense):
- It is harder to play and make decisions under pressure.
- It is harder to play and make decisions when playing at speed.
- More defenders and ways to stop the ball is better than less defenders.
- Less options and choices for the offense is better than more.
- Having the defense know what the offense is going to have to do is easier for us to attack, then reacting to the offense.
- We want the offense to have to execute skills at speed for 94 feet every possesion.
- A physical game, played at high pace, under constant pressure will favour a team that has better coached, skilled athletes over a group with a couple of solid individuals trying to execute a system.

How do we defend the way we do (what we are trying to do):
- The player with the ball must be forced to dribble it. They are not allowed to be passers or shooters.
- All dribblers must be forced to the sideline and baseline.
- Everyone defensively must be in a stance all the time.
- Job of players off the ball is to attack the dribbler and cover for attacking teammates.
- The ball cannot be unguarded.
- Everyone moves with the ball in the air. Picking up closest men once the ball is guarded.
- Any ball inside the 3 point line or at a checkpoint is doubled. Any ball in the key is collapsed by everyone.

No I in team . . .

Welcome to generation unplugged. I am constantly dealing with kids who don't believe things are a big deal. They've grown up with options, untilties, settings, multitasking, and an ungodly amount of gadgets and gizmos. As they grow up they have faced the simple truth, if something is hard or I don't like it I'll shut it off and try something else.

The lesson they've learned is if I'm not good at it, if its hard, if it makes me feel bad or even bored: go do something else. Its great. We have a generation of creative, multitasking individuals that are natives in the technological world where we are only immigrants. They communicate percieve and understand concepts that are a foreign to me as swedish.

The issue is I'm in charge. I'm running a team where you sacrifice your feelings, stats, and desires for the good of the team. I ask a group a teenage kids to put team first in a world that is designed to appeal to their feelings first. Its a polarity shift that I find harder and harder to get across to kids. Your needs come second the groups needs come first.

Together Everyone Achieves More: right!!! Their idea of together is downloading music from the friends my space, my idea of togetherness is putting up a tent in the freezing rain with your friends because that was what you did. Draw a charge for your teammate, cover for your teammate, get on the floor for the team. THey want options, I want blood.

The solution: teach the skill they need. Learning to overcome, learning to suffer for the good of the group, learning to compete and overcome for some else not yourself. Growing up taught us these things, in our games, with our friends with the choices we had. If their life hasn't taught them, I have to teach them. I have to sell team. I have teach them the internal conversations and perseverance that life taught us.

We have to create the identity and skills for them to learn, adpot and buy in to.

Compete

Kids need to compete. Kids want to compete. The issue is what they and we as the adults in charge define as competing.

The dictionary definition of compete, has it as a verb meaning: to strive to outdo another for acknowledgment, a prize, supremacy, profit, etc.; engage in a contest; vie: to compete in a race; to compete in business.

Our kids tend to think of competeing as engaging in a contest. They "compete" when there is a score or prize or an opponent. The issue is that to become a high performing basketball player you need skills created through muscle memory and repetition on your own. Kids associate competion, and the accorded effort, to game like situations. In reality the competition should be striving to be the supreme basketball player, person and part of the best team they can be. The competition and drive should be internal not external.

Solutions that we as coaches can offer:

1) For kids who can't grasp the concept of internal vs external drive you can cheat a little. You can turn drills, and skills work in practice in games, with scores, winners, etc. Kids enjoy this and tend to work ahrder. They are going to struggle on their own and miss out on a lot of development since without the external factors they won't want to drill hard or at all individually.

2) Demand high performance all the time. There are no break drills, or drills where we don't go hard. Require that everything be done all the time at game speed and intensity. The drawback to this philosophy is that developing skills for young athletes often requires to walk before you run. On teams with varied skill levels someone is going to be bored or overwhelmed. It also requires kids that are committed to being better, kids that play for fun or to be part of something may not responsd well to constant demands and pressure.

3) Spend the time reminding, praising, punishing, talking, . . . whatever your kids need to create that internal voice that pushes them. I don't buy that there are driven kids and lazy kids. No one pops out of the womb ready to take on the world, or indifferent to their surrondings. Competing and demanding excellence of yourself is a trained skill and learned behaviour. You have to keep putting people who need to learn it in situations where they develop the proper attitudes and structures. The draw back is you are talking about personality, values and attitude which are shaped by all the influences in their lives. You get them after they've spent 6-16 years with other adults and peers shaping their values, changes may not happen over night or at all. If your message deviates or contradicts their prior programming there is no sure bet they'll ever buy in.

The most a player can do is compete every second they have available. The most we can do as coaches is everything we can to try to help them do that.

Tactics vs. Talent

Everyone likes to win. Ask my players after a game or practice, I'm about the win. Heck, ask my wife during a game of Scrabble. I'm about the win. That being said, I don't think as a coach it is my job to determine the outcome. It is the job of the players to go out and win the game. Out work, out execute, out read, and have better skills then the opponent.

There are lots of ways to use tactics to win a basketball game. Do you want to win in mini game? Press and full court deny letting them throw deep since most girls and not a lot of boys can. Get a big kid teach them to post up at the rim and let their teammates feed them the ball. Clear out on offense and let your best player attack the rim all night. You'll win mini games.

Do you want to win in high school in New Brunswick? Chase the stud all over the floor, zone off of everyone else and let them shoot. That will win you a lot of games vs. the skill set of NB kids. Have you made your kids better basketball players???

These are strategies, ways we find to win. You see at all levels of basketball. I heard a middle school girl last night say, "Hey coach you know what works against her. If we all just back off everyone else and 2 or 3 of us crowd her. " Its true there is always a tactic you can use to make it harder for a team or player to be successful. At elite levels (university, pro, National teams) most of what they do is tactical. This doesn't always make kids better basketball players. The young lady's idea to shut down the girl in middle school is great, but would she or her team become more skilled defenders or players by selecting that option.

Talent wins out in the end. We've all been on teams, or in tryout situations to get to a higher level where even though we worked hard, we just weren't good enough or at least as good as someone else. {Unless you are an NBA all-star (in which case thanks for reading).} Kids need to be able to play. Especially in the FIBA game of 24 and 8 with a move to a European style by Canada Basketball. Everyone has to be able to shoot, everyone must be able to dribble, everyone must be able to play at speed and defend all over the floor. If you want kids to be skilled, we should be putting them in situations where they have to be.

We've made a hard adjustment in the last year with my varsity boys teams. There are almost no assigned player positions, our offense and defense is concept based, everything everyone is being asked to do is about making reads and executing skills. Its tough. They play in league where defensive tactics and set plays are the norm over developing players who play. They want what the other team has. They want answers that never change, patterns they can memorize, and something that they can do everytime so the the pressure is on the kids who want it. In my mind the only thing you can everytime is be stronger, smarter, and more skilled. Its taking some growing pains but everyone is learning to play the game the same way.

Coaches give me all sorts of reasons why that is great but their team has to do this or that. The reailty is if you want your kids to develop skills (imho)you have to put them in a position to play, run and win executing those skills. If we tell them skills are important, but then use tactics that never let them practice new skills in games they take something away from our actions: finding a way to win is more important the learning the skill coach asked me to learn.

I'll end with this notion. One night a couple of coaches and I were discussing a similar issue one coach who disagreed with my view point passionately proclaimed, "My job as a coach is to put my kids in the best position to win games." I completely agreed with his statement. THe difference was he felt that what his kids did, and the schemes they used, to maximize their talent were what put them in the best position to win the game. I feel like what we do in practice, in games, and the off season to become better players than the other team should be what puts us in the best position to win. How do you feel?

94 Feet . . . Gimme a break

The court is a certain length. All any coach could ever ask of any player is to play the game all out for every second that they are on the floor. I personally feel like if we're asking kids to do that then they need the opportunity. This isn't 1955, its 2008 and in a FIBA game the game is played with skills executed at speed all the time. If we are attacking and defending the full length of the court it is giving my team and the other a chance to work and develop skills every second they are playing.

I hate it when people come over, or even classier yell over, "Coach why are you still pressing? Hey coach could you take off the press?"

That drives me insane for three reasons:

1) No one ever says anything where we're losing and playing full court. I'm developing my kids how I want, the other team is doing the things they want. No one says boo. This tells me that the issue is that there is anything wrong with playing the game full court, full out for 40 minutes. The issue occurs when the other team is losing. This means that their motivation in either situation is not the development of their kids game or mine, but rather the final outcome.

2) People who understand basketball understand that picking up full court is not the same as pressing. In a FIBA game with 8 seconds to get it over (and the knowledge that a huge percentage increase in made hoops happens in the first 7 seconds of a possesion) it is key that someone always be picking up and slowing the ball. We ask our kids to play every second hard and the right way. If we are still trapping, and zone pressing and running in every turnover up 40+ ok there is an issue. That is not the same as playing full court. Having ball pressure and control over what we do defensively is just fundamental basketball, don't complain because we're doing the right thing defensively and developmentally for our (and your skill set).

3) How does me not picking up full court help your or my kids get better? We are now meeting the ball handler 1/2 to 3/4 of the way down the floor which is terrible in terms of containing the ball and where the offense goes. Its also terrible in terms of teaching your kids to handle the ball in a game situation. Your kids get to dribble the ball over half with no pressure which if they can manage it, is clearly not a skill they need to improve. Both teams need to practice reads in full court, half court, transition, and breakdowns on both offense and defense. Waiting for you to run something eliminates half of what we and you can work on.

The game is being played to win or to develop kids: depending on your philosophy. Regardless once the win or loss is clearly no longer in doubt, the only issue becomes developing players. Players don't learn skills by going out an executing offenses or disrupting offenses. They develop by getting opporunities to execute skills at speed. The game being played 94 feet both ways gives them those opportunties. Let the kids learn to play, gimme a break.