A Coach's Diary

Here are a couple of workouts that I've watched this morning.  Stanley Johnson of Arizona in a pre-draft workout: Jerian Grant out out of Notre Dame: What I've noticed about their workouts is the simplicity of it all and the number shots that they get up and make.  Two of the most important skills in basketball are (1) being able to get wherever you want tot get on the court and (2) being able to make shots when you get there.

Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors is the type of selfless, tough, warrior that every coach wants on their team.   This video, taken from ESPN's pregame telecast of their game 4 match-up against the Houston Rockets does a good job of telling what kind of player, and person, Green is.

I know I’m as excited as anybody to have Shaka Smart as a basketball coach in Texas.  The energy and enthusiasm that he will bring to the program is going to be great for the sport across the state.   He will do a great job of recruiting and he has shown the ability to get the most out of his players.   Plus, the style that they are going to play will be very exciting! The video below just gets me going.  He has a few teaching points that you can hear that are really good, a couple of statements that he makes about how they will play and the mentality that he is trying to build, and there are some good drills and ideas there as well.

Below are quotes are taking from the first chapter of Phil Jackson’s book, 11 Rings.  The first chapter is titled ‘Circle of Love’ and it talks a lot of the importance of getting your team to work together and form a real ‘brotherhood.’ He talks about the importance of ‘the ring’ in sports and how the ring symbolizes the quest of the self to find harmony, connection, and wholeness.  He also said that players understood intuitively the deeper meaning of the ring.  The Ring His 2001 - 2002 Championship Laker team took on the motto ‘The Ring.’  He said that it was not just a band of gold, but that it’s the circle that’s made a bond between all the players.  A great love for one another.  A Circle of Love. The Most Important Ingredient It takes a number of critical factors to win an NBA championship, including the right mix of talent, creativity, intelligence, toughness, and, of course, luck. But if a team doesn’t have the most essential ing...

Barkley talks about the importance of getting paint touches. The following post was borrowed from Bob Starkey at  HoopThoughts.Blogspot.com For the large majority of us, we are well into the beginning of the off-season.  A major part of the off-season for the best of coaches is a thorough review of their system of play.  As I view the NBA plays-offs, my question to us is this:  WHAT'S YOUR PAINT GAME? I'm a strong believer that championships are won in the paint.  This speaks to both offensive and defensive philosophies. In 2011, the Miami Heat lost in six games to the Dallas Mavericks.  The Mavs dominated the paint and the Heat settled for jump shots far too many times.  In that off-season,  LeBron James called up Hakeem Olajuwon  and asked him if he would work with him that summer on his paint game.  You have to give great credit to LJ for first recognizing what he need to work on to improve his game and then for not hes...

In an article posted at at Yahoo by  Adrian Wojnarowski , head coach Steve Kerr talks about Steph Curry's need to allow the game to come to him.  He said that Curry sometimes wants to win so bad that he tries to do too much. The desire to win sometimes conflicts with knowing how to win, especially for our best players.  They want to win so bad, that they think that they need to 'take over.'  It can be a challenge getting them to understand the need to and understand how to allow the game to come to them. Below are some quotes from the article: "I never worry about his confidence," Kerr told Yahoo Sports late Monday. "I don't worry about anything with him. I just feel like there are times that he wants so badly to win, he tries to do too much. "He's still learning. That sounds crazy, because he's the MVP of the league. But he's still learning how to develop that rhythm, how to be patient and just move the ball, makes the easy pa...

Below is an article from The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel on Bo Ryan and how he has built his program based on discipline and fundamentals. Indianapolis   — What's Bo Ryan's secret? Barry Alvarez, the University of Wisconsin athletic director, gets asked that a lot. People want to know how Ryan does it, how he wins and wins with players some big-time college basketball programs wouldn't touch, how his teams consistently display toughness and character. Since Wisconsin hired him in 2001, Ryan has won 357 games and has made 14 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances despite having successfully recruited exactly one McDonald's All-American. Over that span, Duke, the team Wisconsin faces in the national championship game Monday night, has put more than 30 high school All-Americans on the court. Going back further, Ryan has had one losing season as a college head coach — his first at UW-Platteville (1984-'85). His career winning percentage is .765....