MJ Mondays | We All Want More

I can't count the number of conversations that I have had with players and their parents about their roles and playing time. Understandably, most people want more opportunities to play and contribute to their team's success. One of the first things you have to learn as a coach is you can't make everyone happy, and it is important to learn the same as a player and as a parent.

In an activity used to address playing time, my coach in college once asked us all to write on a notecard how many minutes we felt like we should play in a game. He then collected all of the notecards and added up the minutes. A college basketball game is only 40 minutes long. This means that there are 200 minutes to share on each team because you can only have 5 people on the court at a time. When he added the numbers that we all wrote down, it was well over 200 minutes. This was an eye-opening experience about how many minutes there are in a game, and how important it is to earn the trust of the coach by working hard, being consistent and mastering your role.

In the book Driven From Within, Michael Jordan wrote, "I focus on the little things. Little things add up to big things."

Tinker Hatfield is a shoe designer who designed most of Michael Jordan's shoes, including the Air Jordan 3 through the Air Jordan 15. He said, "Michael's technique on the floor was perfect. His shot, his follow-through, the way the ball rolled off his fingers - he was a meticulous player."

We all want more, but to get more, we have to earn the trust of our coach by focusing on and mastering the little things that we already have in front of us. Those little things will add up to big things.

What is something small that you can work on mastering right now?