Kobe Bryant

Skill is the Divider

A great, old-school video about skill development Pony Baden.

The Jackson 11 (Rules 1 - 6)

In chapter 2 of his book, 11 Rings, Phil Jackson goes through what he  calls his 11 basic principles of mindful leadership that he has developed over the years.  Below are short notes about rules 1-6.

1 - Lead From The Inside Out 

  

2 - Bench The Ego

3 - Let Each Player Discover His Own Destiny

I always tried to give each player the freedom to carve out a role for himself within the team structure.  I've seen dozens of player's flame out and disappear not because they couldn't figure out how ot fit into the cookie-cutter model of basketball that pervades the NBA.

My approach was always to relate to each player as a whole person, not just as a cog in the basketball machine.  That meant pushing him to discover what distinct qualities he could bring to the game beyond taking shots and making passes.

4 - The Road To Freedom is A Beautiful System
It was important for him to find the perfect system that gave his players freedom to use their unique gifts while working together as one unit.  His beautiful system was the triangle offense.

5 - Turn The Mundane Into The Sacred

At the start of training camp, we used to perform a ritual that I borrowed from football great Vince Lombardi.  As the players formed a row on the baseline, I'd ask them to commit to being coached that season, saying, "God has ordained me to coach you young men, and I embrace the role I've been given.  If you wish to accept the game I embrace and follow my coaching, as a sign of your commitment, step across that line."

6 - One Breath = One Mind

Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki likened the mid to a cow in a pasture.  If you enclose the cow in a small yard, it will become nervous and frustrated and start eating the neighbor's grass.  But if you give it a large pasture to roam around in, it will be more content and less likely to break loose.

62 Things To Know & Ask When Interviewing For A New Job

The following post was borrowed from George Raveling's website at coachgeorgeraveling.com.  It is a really good article about how to approach the interview process.  You can find the article in it's entirety here.

George Raveling is currently Nike's director of International Basketball.  He previously served as the head coach at Washington State, Iowa, and USC.

Very few coaches go into an interview process with an aggressive mentality, most go with their hat in their hand!

Open the interview process w/ a short statement about why you want the job & what unique value you will bring to the job!(MAX 60 sec intro)

The best interviews are ‘WOW’ interviews!!!                                         

At the end of the interview make sure there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind who you are, what you’re about & what you’re capable of achieving!

When you walk out of the interview room you want people saying that was the best coach’s interview we’ve had in ages!!

At the end of the interview process the mental thought of the selection committee must be ‘THIS is our guy’

During the interview process your demeanor must be relaxed positive body language, strong eye contact, hi energy & enthusiasm, confident!

97% of the people sitting around the interview table are not experts on the game, you’re the expert conduct yourself in that manner!!

What will be your answer if they ask you why do you want this job or why should we hire you?

Great question to ask during the interview: “Why do you think this is such a great job?”

Write down 10 significant reasons why an AD should interview you for a job and hire you, then ask yourself how compelling are these?

 When you interview for a job, the interview must be interactive—they question you–you question them–whoever asks the best questions wins

#1 objective in the interview is to tell a compelling story as to why you should be the coach & then what unique values you bring to the program!

Other than the previous coaches win & loss record what were some concerns that you had with him/her??

What are five things that it is imperative that the new coach focus on immediately? WHY?

What are the five most important characteristics you value in your coach??

In your opinion what are the 4 or 5 biggest challenges confronting this program?

Next to winning and graduating players what’s the most important consideration from your perspective??

Full article after the jump:

Gary Colson Peer Pressure Drills

I first stumbled across peer pressure drills while searching through the blog of coach legend Gary Colson at garycolson.wordpress.com.

Simply put, peer pressure drills are basic drills that you probably use every day, but as a team, you won’t move on to another drill/skill until you have completed a certain number of repetitions to perfection, either in a row or in totality. 

For example, every day, we start our practice with zig-zag ball-handling.  We set the cones up and complete four different drills: (1) regular crossovers down and back, (2) between the legs crossovers down and back, (3) behind the back down and back, (4) spin move down and back.  In order for us to move on to the next drill, everybody has to do it correctly and make their lay-up going down and coming back.  One miss, and we do that particular drill over again. 

  

For every miss over one, we have a down and back.  So, if we have 2 misses, we have 1 down and back.  If we have 3 misses, we have 2 down and backs.  If we have 4 misses, we have 3 down and backs, etc.  We don’t move on until it’s perfect.  It can sometimes take a while if our guys are being lazy or they aren’t engaged, but after a few down and backs, I usually don’t have to worry about them regaining their focus.

This is great skill work, gets our guys loose effectively, and builds mental toughness.

Once we complete that, we do some kind of passing drill.  Sometimes, it’s the 3-man weave where we have to complete a certain number of passes, no more or less without allowing the ball to touch the ground, and finish with a made layup.  Another passing drill that we use is what I call ‘skips in transition.’  I have diagrammed that drill below:

We have three lines.  The line under the basket (1) gets the ball and makes an outlet pass to line 2.  On the pass, line 3 sprints the floor on the opposite side.  Line 2 then makes a skip pass to line 3.  We emphasize 2 being able to make the pass to 3 and 3 catching it without the ball touching the ground.  Our guys have a tendency to catch it off the bounce, but that slows you down. 

The 3 lays it up, then sprints to the right wing the 1, after making the outlet pass to 2, sprints the court and rebounds 3’s layup.  We preach getting the rebound before it hits the ground.  1 then runs out of bounds and makes an inbound outlet pass to 3.  2, after making the skip pass to 3, sprints around a cone that we put at the elbow, and sprints the left side of the court.  3 makes the skip pass to 2 for the layup.  A key part of the drill is making sure that 2 does not wait for the 1 and 3 to inbound the ball and sprints to the block.  If he gets to the block before the pass is made, we have him spot up and wait for the pass their – we really emphasize sprinting the court, looking for skips in transition, and being able to make that pass.

With ‘skips in transition,’ I set a number of 10 perfect drills in a row, down and back is 1.  A perfect drill is one where no passes touch the ground, clean catches, and made layups.  We can also set this drill to time.  If I were to do it by time, I would do it in 3 minute intervals.  In college, we called this drill ’28 in 3’ because we had to have 28 perfect layups in 3 minutes before we moved on.

Gary Colson has a really good passing drill that we have used as well called ‘Prefect Lay-ups.’ I have that drill diagrammed below as well, and it is something that we have used this spring to switch things up – especially when we don’t have a lot of time because our ball-handling took too long or we have other stuff we just need to get in.

The thing about ‘peer pressure’ drills is that the philosophy behind it is solid in that it teaches fundamentals and ensures that you do things efficiently and effectively with a built in checks and balance system.  You can also have the freedom to implement whatever drills you want, just tie a ‘magic number’ to it and hold the player accountable!  Coach Colson said that he has found that a lot of coaches who do not understand the correlation between the drill and the magic number that you require, but he says that the number is more important than the drill itself.  Having to hit a certain number in a row keeps players focused and engaged on the drill and helps ‘train the mind.’  Our players know that we will finish almost every practice with some kind of ‘scrimmage’ play, but they also understand that we have certain things to get through before we get there, and the better we are at the other stuff, the more time they will have to play at the end.  Putting this burden on them increases their sense of urgency to get their work completed quickly.

I know that using these peer pressure drills has really helped me find and efficient and productive way to work on the basic fundamentals every day.  I hope it helps you.