A Coach's Diary

So many games are won and loss by how we as coaches handle late game timeouts and special situations.  Many times its the last 5 or 6 plays of the game and the adjustments you make as a coach in those situations that separates the winners and losers, and it is important to stay sharp in this area in the off-season.   To keep myself and my coaching staff sharp in our ability to recall plays quickly and efficiently, we have a little activity that we use.  We have identified certain situations that we need to be ready for, and we have written them down on small pieces of paper.  We put them in a bowl and several times a week we pull on one and quickly draw out a play that fits the situation.  We also like to talk about how we would guard that particular action so that we are always thinking about how to put our guys in position defensively to have success against anything somebody might throw at us. These are the situations we have written down to ...

This is a video that I like to show my guys, especially in the off-season where we don't have the excitement or purpose of preparing for competition.  In the off-season, our guys can sometimes get bored with the skills and drills that we do to improve their fundamentals, so a little perspective and added motivation is always great to get them going and to provide importance and relevance to what we do. Here, the guys at NBA Open Court are talking about the importance of teaching and learning the fundamentals of the game and how mastering the fundamentals is a difference maker between being good and being great.  They use Tracy McGrady, Michael Jordan, and Larry Bird as examples.  As good a player that Tracy McGrady was, and for as much talent as he had, he was much maligned for never being able to get out of the 1st round of the playoffs. The guys mentioned that college, and more importantly mastering the fundamentals of the game, is something that might have held him...