Indiana had the ball with 10 seconds left in the quarter. Dallas had a foul to give. Indiana ran to set an on-ball screen for Caitlin Clark with just over 6 seconds left, and Paige Bueckers grabbed her arm, eventually leading to the referee blowing the whistle. This play happens every NBA and WNBA game: Defense has a foul to give when the offense has the ball with shot clock off, and the defense fouls to force the offense to inbound.I don’t understand these plays. I know the purpose. I know they occur so frequently that children now know to take fouls in these situations. I understand breaking up rhythm or negating an advantage. Fouls have uses.

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Most foul-to-gives are like this example — the defense reaches out and grabs the offense once the offense initiates after holding the ball to wind down the clock. Does the defense gain an advantage by fouling with six seconds? Does the defense gain an advantage by standing off and allowing the offense to dribble down the clock to six seconds before starting its action?

Teams frequently full-court press Clark, but back off with a foul to give under 20 seconds and wait to foul when she initiates? Why? I see this as coaching not to lose as opposed to coaching to win.

SABA

This is just one possession in a midseason game, but these situations occur often throughout the season. How much does a team gain by getting one extra possession per game? We won a college game on a last-second shot when we ended every quarter with the last possession. Three extra possessions in a two-point win. The win occurred early in league, but if we had lost, and every other result stayed the same, they would have made the postseason, not us (they would have tied us on record by flip-flopping the result, and they would have had the tiebreaker). We reached the postseason, in part, by excelling in late-quarter situations.

The foul disrupted Indiana’s offense, as they had to inbound. However, the foul allowed time to set up and organize a play with six seconds remaining, opening nearly the entire SLOB playbook. Is the disruption sufficient to suggest a defensive advantage? Very few professional teams turn sideline inbound situations into defensive advantages.

The possession starts from neutral with Indiana able to take its time to organize and call a play. However, the initial foul (intent to foul) occurred with the possession in neutral (whistle was late). Dallas traded a neutral possession with the ball in the middle of the floor and the clock running for a neutral possession with the ball out of bounds and the clock stopped. Is that a good trade?

NADA

I did not watch the game, and the clip started around 10 seconds. Why not go for a steal rather than grabbing the player when the plan is to foul anyway? Why not be extra aggressive? Why stand off and wait for the offense to initiate?

Indiana’s strategy appeared to be a Ram high on-ball screen set around six seconds. Why not trap and pressure the ball? The next player can take the foul to prevent the pass for a layup if Clark managed a good pass?

Clark notoriously shoots worse going to her right hand. The defense had her moving to her right. I imagine she passes better going right, as do 99% of right-handed players, which increases the risk of a trap. Of course, Dallas would have defended differently if they intended to defend instead of foul, potentially pushing Clark to her left toward a trap or double team or running a second play at her earlier.

Above is an example of forcing the offense to go early in a situation without a foul to give. Their point guard made a good play; he was one of the best players in the country. He passed early. They got a decent shot, although their 5’9 guard was shooting over a 6’8 post. We hardly could have played the possession worse, yet we ended up with a layup at the buzzer rather than watching their guard iso for the last shot of the quarter. A potential two or three-point possession for our opponent turned into a basket for us.

The second possession is an example of our aggressive defense with a foul to give. Sure, we may have fouled him. If the referee blew the whistle, they would inbound at half-court and we would have played defense. However, by being aggressive with the foul, we generated a steal and an extra possession rather than allow them to hold for the last shot.

These late-quarter situations offer an asymmetric opportunity because the offense’s goal shifts from scoring to taking the last shot. If the defense does nothing, the offense holds the ball and maintains the current score or improves their position: Indiana trailed by two, so they enter halftime trailing by two, tied, or with a one-point lead. The defense, however, does not have to wait on the offense, and the offense’s reluctance to shoot early provides the opportunity to create a low-risk defensive advantage.

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In our game, their best player wanted to isolate, as their point guard was crossmatched against our post player. In a previous game in a similar situation, he iso’d into a step-back and was bailed out by a whistle. His game style suggested he would have attempted the same isolation into a step-back, which would result in a last defensive possession of 0 to -3 points with 0 points the most likely outcome. One might expect Clark to do the same, attempting to get the switch, then iso against the post defender for a step-back three-point attempt.

Instead, we attempted to run a second defender at the ball. He passed early to their corner shooter who was more shooter than driver. They ended with a good shot, but the process worked: The ball was out of their best player’s hands, their second best player never touched the ball, and their third-best player was forced into a less-comfortable action (driving, not shooting). They still could have scored 0 to 3 points, although the odds were greatest for 0.

In addition to lessening their odds to score, we also gave ourselves two chances. First, we could have stolen the pass, which obviously would have been the ideal, as with the second possession.

Second, we forced them to shoot early enough for us to score on the other end. We added a potential for 0 to +3 points, whereas we had a near zero percent chance to score if waiting for them to iso and shoot at the buzzer. We would have had time to advance the ball and attempt a decent shot even if he had made the layup.

We dictated the end of the quarter rather than sit back and allow their best player to dictate. The odds are not always in our favor. They could have scored a layup, and we could have missed or not had time for a good shot. There are no absolutes, no guarantees. We chose to be proactive, to attempt to make a play rather than allowing the offense the freedom and time to initiate.

Trapping is not the same as whether or not to foul, but they are related. We could not foul in the first possession because we did not have a foul to give. We were not overly aggressive on the ball, and we did not foul when we were beaten on the closeout, which we would have done if we had a foul to give. A foul to give turns these asymmetric opportunities even more in the defense’s favor, like in the second possession, as the defense has another strategy to stymie the offense when the offense creates an advantage.

The defense knows the offense wants to hold the ball and take the last shot. This creates fragility. Force the offense into the endgame early, and the offense must choose between the early shot or forfeiting an advantage. Either way, the loss to the defense is minimal. The defense forces an early shot and gets the last shot on offense, or the offense chooses not to use the advantage, and the defense returns to neutral.

Dallas’ wait and foul is the standard play made by professional teams in these situations. Nobody (except me) will criticize the coach for taking the foul here. The foul is not even wrong, objectively or subjectively. Instead, willingly forfeiting the benefits of the foul is conservative coaching. The coach attempts to avoid a mistake and play the possession safely, following standard protocols, rather than being aggressive or trying to win the possession. While many seem to believe this is the correct way to play because professional coaches play this way, this is not the only strategy. Teams can win games and make the postseason by mastering end of quarter execution, with and without the foul to give.

Coaches complain frequently about not being allowed to coach hard anymore, without defining the prohibited actions or behaviors, but the reality is many players have been socialized to equate yelling, screaming, running, and punishments as effective coaching.

I coached a high-school varsity girls’ team. On the bus home after a loss against a vastly more experienced, deeper team, one player said, “Coach, I think you need to yell at us more.” I asked why she thought I should yell. She answered because we were losing. I asked if she played hard, and she said yes. I asked if she tried her best, and she said yes. So, I asked why I should yell at her. What would I hope to accomplish by yelling at her?

Should I yell at her because she played competitive basketball for the first time as a 10th grader? Should I yell at her because she joined the team a week after tryouts and was out of shape? Should I yell at her for getting tired when we only had six players? How is yelling going to solve these problems? Is yelling at a player who did not understand traveling violations three weeks earlier going to help her become a three-point shooter? Would yelling help her grow beyond 5’3?

We played teams with more height, skill, and experience, girls who played year-round and who started in elementary school. We had zero players show up for the first team meeting, and I was hired after the official start date. I was proud of the group for even trying and for showing up every day, despite being mocked by schoolmates. We had ninety-nine problems, but lack of yelling was not one.

She listened and said, “Yeah. You’re right coach.”

Yelling does not solve problems. It does not increase skill levels or make players taller. Yelling cannot compensate for lack of experience. Yelling cannot expedite improvement. Players still need time, repetitions, opportunities, instruction, and more.

Skill Development

That being said, I would not characterize myself as anti-yelling. I do not think a coach who yells occasionally is necessarily a bad coach or person. We should not reward yelling as a coaching practice, but it happens.

Yelling, however, is not the goal, nor is it a sign of good coaching, but many assign these beliefs, like my player above. Coaches frequently post about hard coaching, yelling, and tough love as signs the coach cares about a player, which suggests the opposite — a coach who does not yell — does not care about the player. Read these posts enough, and one is socialized into believing a coach must yell at players to be a good coach.

Some college coaches complain frequently in their press conferences about not being allowed to coach hard anymore, but they never define hard coaching or explain the actions and behaviors that have been prohibited. They create a straw man fallacy, arguing against something that does not exist. They are paid millions of dollars to coach; nobody fired them when they yelled in a player’s face or grabbed a player in front of a national television audience. They are like people in the media speaking on cable television to tens of millions of people every night about their voices being silenced. It is in their heads. They have created an imaginary problem to fight, a straw man to blame to defend losses and poor performances. If only they could coach hard, this performance would not happen. What does that mean?

Instead, I see players who believe they are being coached only when the coach yells at them. Between trainers and coaches, they are unaccustomed to repetitions finishing without feedback. They cannot exist in a silent gym. They need the coach or trainer to yell, whether the yelling is encouragement, motivational, or negative. The content matters less than the volume. Coaches who yell and scream are described as passionate and full of energy and often preferred to quieter coaches.

The reality is coaches yell more now, in my experience, than when I played. I had some dickhead coaches who I disliked and who caused me to quit sports, but their behaviors were bullying outside of practices or games. They were dickheads in their normal personalities as adults, coaches, and teachers, but they never yelled that much. I played for a hard basketball coach, Chicago born and bred, who retired to work in homeless shelters, but he did not yell as much as the average high school or AAU coach now. He was not one of the bullies. People now react more negatively to these coaching behaviors because these behaviors are more frequent, not because players are soft or fragile. In fact, some even criticize coaches who do not yell enough because yelling is accepted and often praised.

As I hear players passive-aggressively criticize their coaches for not yelling more, then listen to these coaches coaches complain about being neutered because they cannot coach hard, I wonder about the disallowed actions and behaviors. Unfortunately, many reminisce about their ability to get away with abusive behaviors, such as throwing balls at players or breaking whiteboards and throwing pens in the locker room; taking away practice gear and team shoes; not feeding players or stopping for food after road games; or running teams early in the morning after night games. Social media and connectivity have extinguished many of these behaviors, but none of these, all of which I experienced, have anything to do with hard coaching. They were simply ways for coaches to punish players for making the coach look bad. These are about the coach’s ego, not improving performance.

Coaches who cannot motivate and prepare players without these behaviors are not good coaches, regardless of championships or winning percentages. Every team has a bad practice or two. Every coach has a bad day during the season. A long season has ebbs and flows. Bad days are normal. Players may deserve occasional punishments for effort or attitudes. Coaches may need to put players on the line to regain attention or focus. Ideally there are better ways, but it happens. However, there is a problem when a coach puts players on the line every practice. The coach is not reaching the players. There is a break down somewhere. It may be the players, but ultimately, the coach is the leader, and the responsibility falls on the coach. Daily punishments say more about the leadership than the players.

Our descriptions of coaches often lean more toward cheerleaders or drill sergeants than teachers. We want activity, not contemplation. We want immediacy, not reflection. We want coaches diving on the floor and sweating through their shirt with spittle raining off their mouths as they yell and scream. We describe these behaviors as unhinged in any other profession, but desirable in coaching. We characterize behaviors as passionate within sports that would be considered a lack of self-control in other disciplines.

The problem is not so much that yelling is more common or that we love when coaches walk on the court in the middle of the action, but that young players are socialized to believe coaches have to engage in these behaviors or they are not being coached. Players internalize these daily posts about the need to accept hard coaching despite the vague descriptions.

Many coaches resort to intensity and effort because they struggle to identify and solve the technical and tactical problems. They hope playing harder compensates for a lack of shooting, poor passing, slow defensive recognition, and more. Athleticism, effort, and intensity can take teams a long way.

However, intensity and yelling cannot be the only answer. At some point, playing or practicing harder hits a plateau. More, more, more improves a player’s shooting only so much. Quantity beats quality up to a point, then more quantity leads to diminishing returns, and quality practice, drills, and instructions overtake intensity and quantity. Players should seek out coaches who can identify shortcomings and devise activities to solve the problem, not just coaches who are loud and active.

20 Hacks for the 24-Hour Athlete

Hard coaching, however it is defined, is not wrong, but also is not everything. Players need coaches with understanding and emotional intelligence. They need coaches who can build their confidence and self-belief. They need coaches who maintain their joy for playing. They need coaches who can instruct without overwhelming them. They need feedback they can use to improve. They need to relax under pressure and learn strategies to cope with pressure and negative thinking. They need intelligent, adaptable coaching that centers the player and is built around their needs.

The camp started with each division (age group) divided into groups with each coach at his own basket. Groups went basket to basket for 15-20 minutes per basket, and coaches were allowed to use those minutes for any activity to evaluate the players. Most other baskets started with pregame layup drills, two-line shooting, and more. I played three-vs-three. I did not check their layup abilities or shooting techniques. I watched them play basketball. We scrimmaged the whole time in every group that came through my basket.

Fake Fundamentals

We drafted in a snaked order and I picked somewhere toward the middle (5th through 7th of 10). We won the camp championship. One player was clearly the most talented player, and he was drafted first or second. My point guard was arguably the second-best player, probably deserved the MVP because we won, and I drafted him in the second round.

I knew I could wait to the second round to pick him because point-guard skills are difficult to evaluate in a layup drill. He was small and unassuming. The group was incoming 8th or 9th graders, and there was a big discrepancy in height and early maturers. I figured nobody would notice the late-maturing point guard in unopposed drills, and I was right. My first round pick was picked around where he should have been, but my second and third picks were the steals because I drafted basketball players, not unopposed skill merchants. I ended up with three of the 10-12 best players in a draft with ten teams.

My fourth or fifth pick also played far above his selection rank because he was the type of relentless rebounder who is overlooked in drills. He was just productive, active, and a beast going for rebounds, something every coach wants, but how do you see that in unopposed layup and shooting drills? How do you know the slightly uncoordinated, inexperienced player missing some layups and avoiding his left hand is a beast?

Everyone knew my first pick was good. He was the type of long, athletic, decently-skilled player who typically dominates middle-school teams. He was not as good as the best player who was in the same mold, but he was definitely among the top five to eight players, most of whom were the similar player type: The tall driver and scorer.

The steals were the point guard and the rebounder. I would have drafted the point guard first overall. I knew he was the best basketball player. However, I also understood how other coaches viewed basketball and knew they would pick height and athleticism over him because they did not see his true skills. I imagine he was fine in drills; he probably made his layups and handled the ball well in dribbling drills, but these skills did not distinguish him from the others who had the advantage of height, length, and visible athleticism. He was a crafty, intelligent point guard who created shots and made the right decision on nearly every play. He could shoot off the pick-and-roll and finish over players in the paint. His skill was obvious once we played games. I was simply the only one who used my evaluation time to scrimmage instead of do drills.

I was reminded of camp because a coach posted about the importance of teaching players the three-player weave for high-school tryouts. As I acknowledged previously (above), preparing players for tryouts and their next coaches may be necessary, regardless of beliefs. However, basing selections on one’s ability to perform a drill is an easy way to misevaluate.

What’s the purpose of tryouts? The question seems self-obvious, but I am unsure if it is. Often, tryouts (recruiting, drafting) seem to recognize prior achievements as much as anything else. We cut the player who cannot do the three-player weave because he has less experience or less-formalized coaching or played for a zealot like me, not because he lacks potential, skill, or talent. The players who excel at the drill have played more organized basketball or played for better coaches, and making the team is their reward.

This is the wrong approach. I have written about this with regards to recruiting, and especially recruiting in women’s basketball before NIL when there were fewer professional opportunities for women. Signing the scholarship was often the goal, but the scholarship is the beginning, not the end. Making the team is viewed as the goal, but making the team is the beginning. We should be selecting (recruiting) players for the future, not rewarding the past.

An easy way to see the distinction is professional salaries. Professional players make the most money at the end of their careers, not at their peaks. Teams often end up paying players for past achievements, not their present or future performance. Stephen Curry made $10 million in 2014-15 when he was the MVP; he will make just under $60M next season. Is he six times the player now than he was during his first MVP season? No. The Warriors won, in part, because Curry was underpaid in his prime, allowing the Warriors to sign someone like Kevin Durant, but now are stuck because his salary (as a percentage of the salary cap; in absolute terms he remains underpaid) outpaces his impact. His current salary is a reward for the first half or so of his career when he was severely underpaid relative to performance.

Selecting or recruiting players based on past performance creates the same problems. Past performance predicts future performance, but not necessarily as players change levels, which is when players try out or are recruited/drafted. A city’s high-school player of the year is not necessarily the best college prospect, just as the NCAA player of the year is rarely the 1st Pick in the NBA Draft. Success at one level is not indicative of potential at the next level.

24-Hour Athlete

Tryouts for a freshmen basketball team should be about potential, not experience, and not a reward for middle-school achievements. This makes decisions difficult. I watched a high-school coach nearly cut a near seven-foot tall high-school freshman because of all the things he could not do (too skinny, not strong, bad rebounder, didn’t post up), but how many players have more potential than a seven-footer? Last year, when asked who on my U17 team I thought could play professionally, I mentioned our 13th or 14th best player because he was likely to grow to seven feet tall; he was growing into his body, new to the team, started late due to some minor injuries, etc., so he struggled competitively as a 16-year-old, but those struggles did not change his potential. The odds are in a seven-footers favor, even when he does not help win a game tomorrow. Should a coach keep the six-foot post who dominated middle-school basketball and likely would be effective as a freshmen or the near seven-footer who may not help win a freshmen basketball game, but who has legitimate college and professional potential?

The argument goes the other way too. The point guard on my camp team was overlooked because of his lack of height; he was average height for his age, but was short for the best players. The other coaches drafted the taller, more obvious basketball players. He was a late-maturer, and nothing stood out about him physically. However, his skills and his brain were on a higher level.

On the same team that almost cut the seven footer, I selected one of the shortest players despite his competitive disadvantages. He saw the game better than others, but he was overwhelmed by some teams’ size and athleticism. I selected him because I felt if he caught up physically, he would have a higher skill level and basketball intelligence than other players. He was a late maturer; should we cut players based solely on when they hit puberty or reach their growth spurts?

A few days of tryouts is a difficult time to evaluate and select players, just as watching a handful of games makes evaluating players to recruit difficult. Recruiting is easier because college basketball is clearly a competitive level: Coaches recruit to win games now, and potential is evaluated in terms of relatively short-term success.

High-school coaches, and especially freshmen coaches, have more to consider. Freshmen basketball is a developmental level. Winning games is not the dominant goal, but ultimately we judge coaches by their won-loss record. Should a freshmen coach select a player who may not reach his potential for three or even five years or the player who dominates the drills in tryouts because he largely finished puberty and is near adult size and physically mature? My best freshmen players competitively often were football players because they were bigger, faster, and stronger, but few played varsity basketball. As others caught up physically, they lost their advantages. A team filled with football players likely competes well as a freshmen basketball team, but what is the point if few develop into varsity players? Winning freshmen games?

Selecting teams is more than a reward for prior experience and should be based on more than immediate success, especially at the freshmen high-school level. The goal is not to make the job easy for the coach by selecting the most experienced players who know how to play already, but selecting those with the potential to play beyond the freshmen level, whether due to their outlier height, craftiness, basketball intelligence, or more. Coaches must balance between the players who are super-effective now because of size, athleticism, toughness, and more, which may not improve as they age, and those who have special qualities, but maybe cannot yet express those qualities yet competitively. Excelling in drills is one thing; the goal is to select future basketball players.

A World Cup profile of Colombia’s Gustavo Puerta led me to an older article about future-proofing a midfielder — the game constantly evolves and scouts must identify players for the future game, not just today’s iteration. Harri Mannonen, the mentor of Memphis Grizzlies’ Head Coach Tuomas Iisalo, wrote about the same idea years ago: We must develop young players for the game of 10 years from now, not the game as played today, which complicates skill and talent development.

How do you future-proof a basketball player? What will the game look like when today’s 12 year-olds are playing college and professional basketball? Are the skills being taught currently those they will need in the future game?

The Athletic’s Jon Mackenzie said, “We’re not really thinking about footballers having profiles or skillsets anymore. We’re thinking about footballers having skillsets within phases.” Move beyond position designations — point guard, shooting guard — and even skillsets — shooting, passing, defense — to re-think lineup optimization and skill development in terms of game states: Small Advantage, Big Advantage, Neutral, Defensive Advantage.

Do we have players who can beat a defensive advantage? Do we have self-creators in a neutral state? Can players exploit small and big advantages with the required speed and accuracy? These questions differ from “Can we pass?” or “Do we have enough shooting?”, and these questions and answers shape our skill development. Needing to improve our exploitation of big advantages is not the same as believing we need to improve our shooting, although adding a shooter or improving the team’s shooting may improve the exploitation of the big advantages.

SABA: The Antifragile Offense

“Beating the press itself is only one phase in the chain possession sequences unfold into. After solving the first line, space appears: now there’s a pocket to access and movement becomes the most valuable skill, as well as the ability to make a neat touch or punchy turn. Solve that and teams are faced with open field, and runners come to the fore: suddenly the skillset required is carrying, an ability to move very quickly, threaten depth before defensive lines can stabilize, and drive into space. Each phase in this possession chain offers different demands, and the task for coaches is to match a player’s role in each phase with their best skills,” wrote Tom Curren, Editor-in-Chief of Scouted.

Think about most teams. The power forward (PF/4) inbounds the ball in the full-court. I watch college teams continually use PFs as their inbound passers against full-court pressure despite explicitly instructing them not to dribble. The PF is not required to inbound the ball! Opponents know they can trap the point guard because the PF will hold the ball when it returns to them, providing time for the defense to recover.

Personally, I develop dribbling skills in all players and encourage all players to dribble during games. However, when a coach uses a different style, and limits players, why utilize them in situations requiring them to dribble? There is a mismatch between their role in this phase and their skillsets. The player makes a mistake, and the coach yells at and substitutes for the player, but it is the coach’s error. Either develop the skills to play in that phase and encourage players to dribble or switch roles.

Basketball differs from soccer as the unlimited substitutes allow coaches to employ greater specialization. Late in the playoffs, trailing teams increased their full-court pressure, running extreme gambling presses. My backup point guard was our press breaker. He moved so well, even three defenders could not prevent him from receiving the inbound pass or stay in front of him. He was our specialist in these defensive advantage phases. He negated the defensive advantage and created big advantages with his movement, agility, and dribbling.

When I coached college basketball, our shooting guard (21/10) started away from the ball. I wanted her to finish the play. Other players faced the defensive advantage, and she received the ball with a small or big advantage to finish the play. Our goal was never to break a press, but to score. Our best shooter started furthest from the ball so she would have the option to shoot, drive, or pass to a teammate for a layup. We matched her best skill (scoring) with her role.

Years ago, I wrote about the myths of the talented player because basketball writers and fans insisted the coaches of the uber-talented needed to let them play. Essentially, they argued the supremely talented excelled only in three-vs-two fast breaks, isolations with space, and catching lobs for dunks, but could not be expected to play half-court offense or defense. They believed these players needed to play in space because of their talent, whereas I argued players who could only play with space were not skilled or talented. Their talented players excelled in advantage phases, but not in neutral or with a disadvantage. The best players excel in all phases: They handle and exploit defensive advantages; they self-create advantages (shots) from neutral; and they play fast (.5-seconds) on the catch and use advantages.

Few players excel in all phases; those who do are considered to be the great players, at least the great offensive players. Our goal with skill development should be to develop the skills to enable players to excel in all phases. However, at competitive levels, coaches should position players to use their skill sets in the right phase.

Some post players excel at back to the basket moves. They self-create shots from a neutral state. However, send a double team, and they may lack the passing skills to leverage the defensive advantage into a big advantage. Other posts need an advantage; they perform better when catching with some movement and attacking an unsettled defender. Some are lob catchers and offensive rebounders who finish plays primarily when receiving with big advantages, but lack more general offensive skills against defensive pressure.

A player who excels only with big advantages is not a bad player, as creating vertical gravity for lob dunks and offensive rebounding increase offensive efficiency. However, asking the player to catch against a set defense and make a play will expose a lack of skill in the neutral phase. The player has value when used in the right phase of play.

Many skill development drills now start with big advantages. I use these drills to introduce basic decision-making, and practice shooting and defensive closeouts. I reduce the initial advantage by adding players, shrinking the space, or shifting the start to practice more realistic decision-making and passing skills. We want big advantages, but we must be able to exploit the small advantages to create the big advantages.

Of course, good defenses force teams to start from neutral. We use team skills (screens) to create initial advantages against a neutral defense, but we also need players who can self-create when teammates cannot get open or late in the shot clock or game. Trainers often emphasize dribbling moves in a neutral state.

Drills solve a problem. The problem may be an individual problem to solve, such as developing better footwork for a post player to attack from neutral, or a team problem, such as improving the team’s execution with a small advantage. The different phases supply a consistent way in which to view the game to practice the basic game states rather than dividing into half-court and full-court or slow or fast. Skills are performed within these contexts, and each context informs the execution. Shooting is not the same with a big advantage as in a neutral state. The game states change the skills. Our practice should prepare players for the different phases, and our expectations in competitive levels (developmental basketball is different, as the goal is development, not winning) should match skillsets with phases.

The game trends faster with a greater emphasis on shooting. Developing faster processing, greater imagination, and better shooting are ways to future-proof a young player. The days of specialists are disappearing; generalist players are needed to combat ever-evolving defensive strategies. All players need all skills, and they need to develop the quick recognition of which skills to use when and the ability to execute the skill. At the end of the day, every player needs to be a playmaker and hard2guard.

Instagram drills are the creative, marketable drills within a private training session, but presumably only constitute a small part of the training. Trainers who post these drills as their marketing bear some responsibility for the criticism they receive and the conclusions that are drawn, even when the social media content shows seconds of an hour workout, on average. Assuming these drills are used in a reasonable proportion and with a purpose, the IG mentality, not the drills, is the much greater problem.

Several years ago, I took over a team with two point guards. The younger (one year apart) was quicker, longer, with a better handle, a better finisher, and a more creative passer. Others in the club tempered my enthusiasm. The older point guard was physically stronger and sturdier, a marginally better shooter, more experienced, and played better defense. The younger player would have scored higher on an isolated skill ranking.

He played with an IG mentality. He used every opportunity to isolate on defenders and attempt every move he practiced with his trainer. His goal appeared to be beating his own player as much as winning the game. Maybe developing this confidence and the accompanying skills should be the goal of an U18 team. Maybe trying moves from practice should be more of the goal in youth basketball. The problem, of course, occurs when every player wants to try his moves and nobody passes. The game becomes your turn, my turn, like a bad pickup game. There has to be a balance. Winning does not have to be the only goal, but learning to play winning basketball is part of player development too.

Hard2Guard for Perimeter Players

Individual training begets individual players, especially when drills require players to look at the ground to pick up or avoid cones. Coaches criticize players, AAU, and their AAU coaches every summer because of over-dribbling and lack of passing, but individual training often includes solely dribbling, individual moves, shot creation, and shooting with little to no off-ball play and passing. Many trainers specialize in moves, and especially dribbling moves, as did the younger point guard’s trainer. Move after move broken down into progression after progression that were, in isolation, well-conceived, but in totality missed the purpose. This training begets an IG mentality. No points are awarded for dribbles completed. The dribble is not the end, but used to create a better pass or shot.

Moves are individual style. There is no single way to execute a crossover dribble. Not every player should cross over in the same way and players should not cross over the same way every time. “There is no singular, ideal technique. Technique is the pattern of the movement, which is integral to the skill, but is not the whole skill. Skill involves reading the situation and making the correct decision in addition to performing the necessary movements,” (Knapp, 1963). More specifically, technique is any coordination pattern or the manner in which the neuromuscular system organizes movement (Bennett & Fransen, 2024). Skill adapts the coordination pattern to produce functional and beneficial outcomes in the specific context (Bennett & Fransen, 2024). A crossover move at a cone is a technique, a movement pattern; a crossover in a game is a skill, as the player adapts to the defense to find a functional and beneficial outcome.

Individual Skill Development

Focusing solely on the technique, there are two general ways to improve dribbling: First, you improve your general dribbling, and second you can improve your specific moves. General dribbling improvements enhance specific moves, but improving specific moves does not necessarily improve general dribbling skill.

For example, many players develop a good hesitation move as a compensation for a lack of ball control. They make their crossover and instead of controlling the ball in their finger pads and calluses, the ball rides into their palm and wrists. The hesitation gives them time to regain control to make the next move, whether attacking straight ahead, shooting, or making another move. The hesitation works as a move, and they continue to improve their deception, which often improves the move during a game, but does nothing to improve their ball control. Improving their ball control — the ability to receive a dribble in the pads and calluses with control to enhance optionality — enhances a hesitation move, and also makes a reliance on the hesitation unnecessary.

Many of my isolated ball-handling drills focus on ball control and the reception of the dribble after a move. When trainers post themselves or their players doing drills, my eyes focus on the reception of the dribble, which is my measure of ball control. Many expert ball-handlers have average ball control, but extreme quickness and speed. Their explosive first step and deception hides a weakness, and often the weakness is never addressed because of their success. Many drills are designed to accommodate this crutch with players making a one-two move then hesitating or raising up in between repetitions. They shift the focus right as the drill gets hard or challenges their weakness. They focus on the move, not the underlying elements to improve their overall technique.

Ball control is not the only element of general dribbling technique. Players can improve general speed with the ball, which often is among the first goals of coaches once players have competent control of bouncing the ball. Players move from stationary to walking to running to running faster, generally within the first practice or two. Players also can improve their quickness, both their general hand quickness with the ball, but also their footwork and posture to accentuate this quickness. Players who improve their ball control, speed with the ball, hand quickness, and footwork will improve their individual moves, regardless of their preference or style. These general improvements essentially raise the floor of their moves, and also give players more confidence with the ball. Improving one specific move improves the one move and may create a go-to move to give players confidence, but the improvements are limited.

The IG mentality focuses only on the moves and acquiring newer and better moves without a focus on the general dribbling or the end of the move. I use drills similar to those posted online, such as the triple-move drill. The problem is not the drills, but the emphasis, the goals, and the purpose. I specifically instruct players not to think of the drill as a game move. The drill is not about deception, but quickness with the ball.

These drills serve a purpose. They solve a problem. They are the beginning, not the end. Ultimately, there are no individual skills in basketball; everything is an interaction. We remove the defense to isolate a specific part of the skill, what the influencers refer to as a micro skill. That is just the beginning, the warmup. The real practice is the application of the improved ball control and quickness to moves against defenders, whether through one-vs-one full-court or in open-court drills such as Foster’s one-vs-one. Winning basketball does not preclude isolating one-vs-one and working on moves, but players must learn how to use the dribble efficiently and effectively to create the end product, not just to make moves for style points.

Below is an article I wrote, which was published in Winning Hoops in September 2002. I edited only slightly to shorten, and included videos to replace some of the original drill descriptions.

The Next Dribble

In our basketball culture, ball-handling has taken on a life of its own, as evidenced by the And 1 tapes, which put a premium on “handles and hops” and “look for players to embarrass each other.” However, in the new lexicon of ball handling terms, moves and teaching points, the next dribble has been ignored. This dribble allows a player to use his tight handle to blow past a defender, even more than the actual move. The next dribble often prevents players from possessing a tight handle because they disregard the importance of this dribble.

I yelled at ball-handlers to keep the crossover below their knees when I started coaching, as do many coaches. When I thought about it, the instruction made no sense. Of course the crossover is below my knees: it bounces on the ground. As I thought about word usage and teaching points, I developed the next dribble, which explains the below-the-knees crossover.

The next dribble is exactly as it sounds: The dribble following the move, whether a crossover, through-the-legs, or behind-the-back.The dribble should take the player past the defender. If you watch most players on any type of move, the ball comes up on their palms and wrists before they fully gain control. Also, study their bodies. Most naturally lower their stances for one dribble — the move — but return to a more upright stance as soon as the ball is transferred from hand to hand. Between straightening up and the lack of ball control, the player is slowed and unable to explode past the defender.

By emphasizing the next dribble, players develop better ball control and can attack a defender more quickly. First, maintain the lower stance through the next dribble after the move. By staying low, the next dribble is quicker, and the player can take a longer first step past the defender, cutting off the recovery angle. Second, gain better ball control so the ball remains in the fingertips and calluses. By gaining this control, the player is able to immediately push forward with the dribble, eliminating the natural hesitation caused by the ball rolling up the palm and wrist.

The main drills I use to concentrate on this aspect of ball handling are double moves, such as the scissors dribble, and the one-dribble crossover. To put two moves back-to-back, the ball-handler must gain control quickly after the first move. The ball rolling up the wrist slows the ball-handler and hampers his ability to execute the double move. The goal is to keep the ball in the calluses and fingertips, while moving forward.

SCISSORS DRIBBLE

Dribble through the legs on every dribble. No extra dribbles. Dribble in a straight line and work on quickness. Push the ball forward as soon as the ball contacts his hand, eliminating the slight hesitation.

BETWEEN THE LEGS-AROUND THE BACK

No extra dribbles. No stutter steps. Dribble with the right hand through his legs, then immediately dribble around the back with the left hand. Continue for the length of the court. Dribble in a fairly straight line and increase speed with proficiency. The shoulder should not rise up as they dribble around the back, which is an easy sign of lack of control. Repeat with left hand through the legs and right hand around the back.

ONE DRIBBLE CROSSOVERS

This drill should be done at full speed. Reduce the hesitation between dribbles. Dribble in a slight zigzag. Each dribble goes somewhere. Take one dribble in between each crossover. Stay in a stance throughout: No up and down motion with the head. Start with a right hand dribble followed by a hard crossover to the left hand. Continue forward with no hesitation for one dribble with the left hand, then crossover. Plant and cut on each direction change; no squiggly lines. Minimize the hesitation with the plant and cut.

References

Bennett, K.J., & Fransen, J. (2024). Distinguishing skill from technique in football. Science and Medicine in Football, 8(4), 397-400.

Knapp, B. (2024). Skill in sport: The attainment of proficiency. Routledge.

I visited an art museum. I sped through the museum. I am not an art aficionado, nor an expert. Some things speak to me, others do not. I do not stop at each piece of art, as do some. I take in the room and, if something catches my eye, I explore further. I may spend more time looking at and appreciating a specific piece or search for other works by the same artist.

My disinterest in a specific piece or artist does not mean I believe the work or artist is bad or not worthy of its place in the museum. I can acknowledge a work is impressive in its scope without liking the piece myself or having an interest in engaging with it further. Art is subjective, as are people’s tastes. My taste is not impacted by price or perceived value; my artistic preference is street art, which is free and therefore generally not valued by the marketplace.

Enjoying a piece of art is about how it makes me feel. I trend toward street art because it adds color to an often drab (asphalt, concrete, white/beige walls) background. Street art and graffiti often are whimsical against the harsh landscape, whereas museum art complements the structure of opulent buildings. The contrast makes me feel happy or joyful as I walk, the same way I appreciate flowers along the walkway or children playing by the street.

Like the art, most coaches do not speak to me. I do not study or follow many coaches. Most simply do not interest me. My disinterest does not suggest the coaches are bad coaches or even that I think they are bad coaches. I can acknowledge a coach wins many games, fulfilling his or her primary objective, without liking the coach’s coaching or playing style. I dislike plenty of objectively great coaches, just as I walked past some famous artists. My personal preference is not an indictment. I am not suggesting I am better. I may have no interest in some artists, but know their talents far exceeds mine. Taste is not synonymous with quality.

My taste is not determined by salary, level, or perceived ability. I do not assume a coach is good because he or she has achieved a certain level. Good and bad are subjective, although often characterized by objective measures (won-loss record, level, salary), whereas taste is individual, shaped by backgrounds, experiences, and personal preferences. I like what I like, regardless of another’s likes or opinions. I prefer a faster pace, fewer sets, more player decision-making, aggressive defenses, and less-involved coaches. I dislike coaches who step on the court during the action, substitute for every mistake, and call set plays on every possession.

Practice Design

Feelings and subjectivity change. I read a short piece about a filmmaker who watched Lost in Translation as a 20-year-old and again as a 40-year-old. His view of the movie, the characters, and who he identified with and how has changed. The film is the same, but he changed, and therefore his feelings about relationships have changed. As Heraclitus said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.”

Tastes — likes and dislikes — change. I coach differently now than when I first started, which changes my relationship to coaching. I started out ultra-competitive, believing my role in each game was to outsmart the opposing coach. I yelled. I directed. I stalked the sideline. I obsessed over our set plays and scouted to implement defensive schemes to discombobulate opponents. I took each win and loss personally.

My interests have changed. Now, I am more interested in players making decisions and plays, not seeing if I can devise something clever. My teams play faster and more aggressive. I prefer not to be involved. I do not scout much. I am concerned almost entirely with my team and players, not the opponents. I distance myself from the game’s outcome. These personal changes obviously shape my tastes in coaches and coaching styles.

I left the art museum and ate at a food truck at a street festival. Later, my wife asked if I liked the food. I said it was okay. Truthfully, the food was very good. I would order again. However, I waited almost an hour in the hot sun. In that context, it was not worth the wait. Almost anything was bound to disappoint. The $10 lemonade with a 20-minute wait likely would have felt like a better bargain under the circumstances.

I know my coaching style does not fit every context. A few years ago, I was hired midseason to take over a last-place team and prevent relegation. My style did not work. There were reasons outside my control, and ultimately the team was not relegated, but my style is not the best fit for a short-term need. We needed to win two or three games within a month with minimal practices. The context calls for a more direct approach, which has not been my style for years. Other coaching styles would have been more effective to achieve the immediate, specific goal. I have my preferences, but there are times when the overpriced lemonade is superior to the Sichuan noodles.

People have criticized Fake Fundamentals, and by extension me, suggesting I dislike coaches or am negative. I dislike coaching styles or coaching behaviors, but these are subjective opinions. I dislike many pieces of art, but that does not mean I think they are bad or that I can do better. They just do not speak to me based on my experiences and preferences. Everyone does not have to love Picasso or Monet, just as everyone does not have to love your favorite coach.

The whole point of Fake Fundamentals was not to tell coaches not to use certain drills or criticize those who do, but to goad coaches into thinking more deeply about the drills they use and the environment they create. My writing is meant to spark questions more than answers. As Richard Feynman said, “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” Loving Picasso or the three-player weave is not wrong; just do so because you appreciate something about his work or have your own purpose for the drill, not because everyone likes him or uses the drill.

My closest friend in coaching and I disagreed about everything when we coached together: Lineups, our best players, playing style, press breaks, drills, and more. We have been friends for over 20 years. The drills a coach chooses to use are not the person’s identity. Few coaches who I know and am friends with in real life agree with me with regards to coaching ideas. I started my first blog long ago because of our email threads arguing about basketball. The goal with the blog was to expand our email arguments and include more opinions.

I do not dislike coaches because I dislike some coaching behaviors or styles of play just as I do not dislike artists because only a few pieces spoke to me as I strolled through the museum. Tastes are subjective, and tastes change. If I spent the next three seasons coaching professional teams, my likes and dislikes may change. Right now, however, few coaches speak to me, similar to the few artists in the museum, and just as I prefer street art or graffiti, the coaches toward whom I gravitate are coaches such as Ted Kroeten from Joy of the People who advocate for more free play and less specialized training, not the Danny Hurley’s or Dawn Staley’s or Eric Spoelstra’s of the world.

I saw two different, but related discussions about difficulty (hard) and complexity during the World Cup. The first argued soccer was inferior to football because football was a more complex game, whereas soccer’s universality was due to its simplicity. The second suggested the final third (of the field near the attacking goal) was the separator in soccer, which explains the best players playing forward, but others argued defense was harder.

Football is complicated, but simple (relatively-speaking). Soccer is the more skillful, complex sport. “Complicated systems rely on individual components to execute a highly specific task; to fulfill a tightly designated role,” wrote professor John Kiely. A quarterback has a specific task; an offensive lineman has a different specific task. Every player fills a tightly-designated role, and the entire team falls apart when one player fails in his role. When a running back does not pick up the blitzing linebacker, he sacks the quarterback, forcing a fumble, and the team loses possession or concedes a scoop-and-score touchdown. Ten players executed properly, but one component failed, and the team lost possession. This is a machine-like, complicated system, which is intolerant of error and ultimately fragile (Kiely).

Football is not complex. The running back had one job: Pick up the blitz. The linemen had one job. The receiver had one job. Quarterback has some complexity, as the quarterback must survey 11 defenders and pick out the correct play, although this occurs before the ball is snapped, and the coach generally has limited the selection to one or two plays depending on the defense’s alignment. After the snap, the quarterback has to read five to seven players in coverage to see the opening before it appears, although he knows the routes his receivers should be running, simplifying his options. If the receiver runs a different route, the likelihood of an interception increases: The system is intolerant of error. The game is complicated, not complex.

Antifragile Defense

Soccer is complex. Complex systems respond to changing circumstances, working together to achieve multiple goals, and playing different roles in different contexts (Kiely). When the opponent’s right winger beats the left fullback, the left-sided center back covers, the right-sided center back shifts over, and the right fullback drops deeper. The system is not intolerant of error, but designed to compensate and recover. There is not one single opponent to cover, as a deeper midfielder may make a run to the penalty spot. Players work together and adjust accordingly moment by moment. There are dozens of potential interactions at any moment between the 11 defenders and 11 attackers, and roles constantly shift. There are few black-and-white decisions and many shades of grey.

Football players are highly-specialized; only goalkeepers are highly-specialized in soccer, and their role has generalized in the modern game, as the Sweeper Keeper has become the norm more than the exception. Goalkeepers are evaluated as much by their ability to be the 11th attacker and to initiate the offense as they are their shot-stopping abilities. How many quarterbacks are evaluated by their tackling abilities? Soccer has position designations, but the roles are more fluid than football positions, and every position requires every skill. Attackers defend, and defenders score goals; a defensive tackle never throws a football. An offensive lineman can be a Hall-of-Fame level player without having any ball skills. Soccer players use their feet, a more complex motor skill than using one’s hands, and every player must be adept with the ball. Soccer involves more complex motor skills.

Football may be harder; that is a subjective judgement, largely based on one’s experience. On the spectrum from most athletic-based to most skill-based, football is toward the athletic-based side, whereas soccer is toward the skill-based side. Football defensive backs especially are sports’ best athletes, but soccer is the more skillful, complex sport.

Antifragile Offense

Are attackers more talented than defenders? Is defending more difficult? Many defenders started as attackers and moved to defense as they moved up the competitive ladder, suggesting those who remain as attackers are the most talented. Of course, coaches may shift certain players instead of others based on other factors than talent, such as personality, size, physicality, and more. Messi would not make a great central defender, but that does not mean defense is harder, nor does it prove attackers are more talented. The best players eventually find the position that optimizes their specific characteristics or occasionally the one enabling them to get on the field the quickest, like England’s Nico O’Reilly shifting from midfield to left back for Manchester City to play more as a 20-year-old.

The lack of time and space and the need for precision within the attacking third suggests attacking is more complex than defending. Players have less room to maneuver and less time to act. Passing a ball 30 yards is harder than passing a ball 5 yards, but a 30-yard pass from one relatively stationary open player to another is simpler than the 5-yard pass between two defenders to a cutting teammate navigating the offside trap. The lack of time and space, and the increased demand for precision, make dribbling, passing, and shooting more complex as one gets closer to the offensive penalty area.

Defenders within the offensive third primarily need to disrupt the attackers. They do not need to make a perfect pass; anywhere away from goal suffices. Attackers make moves perfected through hundreds of thousands of practice repetitions, whereas defenders simply need to kick the ball away to disrupt the attackers. However, defenders must defend while moving backward, and attackers can use fakes, forcing defenders to read the right moment and movement to act

The low scores suggest defending is easier, but defenders must disrupt attackers for 90 minutes without making a mistake, whereas attackers only have to be right once, and they go home the hero. A defender with a 99% success rate for the game can be the goat, whereas the attacker with a 1% success rate can be the G.O.A.T.

Hard is subjective. Messi likely would find defending harder than attacking, whereas William Saliba likely finds defending easier than trying to dribble past two defenders from the wing to the edge of the penalty area and curling a shot around and past the goalkeeper into the opposite corner of the goal. The discussions are interesting, but generally reflective of experiences and skill sets, not absolute truths. Complexity is more task-dependent, and attacking is more complex than defending, at least on the ball.

I intentionally used Playmaker, not point guard when writing the player’s version of Developing Basketball Intelligence because of our preconceived ideas about positions. Since its publication, position-less basketball has gone mainstream, although position-less basketball is often just a euphemism for everyone shooting three-pointers. Now position-less basketball faces a backlash, as people yearn for the traditional point guard (Fake Fundamentals). As one coach wrote, “Everybody wants to run a non-point guard, positional-size lineup until they realize they need point guard decisions to be made.” What is a point guard decision? Why do coaches and fans seemingly want decision-making responsibilities and basketball intelligence relegated to a single position?

Another coach answered my question with his own: “Do you not subscribe to your best decision-maker having the ball in their hands at the ends of games?”

How does one determine his best decision-maker? We assume the answer is obvious. Coaches suggest nobody knows their personnel like they do because they are in practice every day. Coaches, however have their own biases. Is a player with low turnovers the best decision-maker or does he just play overly safe? Is the player with the most assists the best decision-maker or does he just have the ball the most? Is the player who can see and make every pass the best decision-maker or is there more to decision-making? I watched every game of a college team, and I am convinced the coaches misevaluated their personnel. I may not be correct, but certainly one must answer how he determines the best decision-maker before deciding only one player should possess these skills.

My last team had at least six of fourteen players function as a point guard during the season, and every player handled the ball against pressure and led the fast break (I only consider the playoffs and cup games with the top 12 teams, not our regular season games where we won by an average of 60). When the coach asked, I re-watched the fourth quarter highlights of our championship game (below), and arguably five players had the ball to make the play in the fourth quarter.

The player who handled the ball at the end of the semifinal game to preserve the win was not in the game at the end of the final. I do not subscribe to the idea of one dominant ball-handler making all the decisions, even at the end of a championship game.

I want global players, as described in Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development, or generalists, as described by @nonewthing: “The more talent a player possesses, the more his profile expands on the specialist-generalist spectrum: Positional versatility; different roles/playing contexts in the same position; ability to roam and look natural across the pitch: This defines a generalist.” A traditional point guard is a specialist; a three-and-D wing is a specialist. I want generalists. “Generalists are the possible best and higher ranking talents than specialists in most cases,” (@nonewthing). I want every player to handle the ball, shoot, make decisions, and more.

The college coach responded, “I think everyone would love to have a team where everyone can be trusted to make decisions, and there’s no drop off regardless of who has the ball. But I would say most teams don’t have the personnel for that. Although it would be ideal, getting players for that seems difficult.”

Of course it is difficult when you want specialists. Players do not become good decision-makers by not making decisions. A coach must risk mistakes, and maybe even losses to develop these qualities. Coaching is not hoping and wishing, but doing and developing.

The team lost its best player and point guard from the previous season. He dominated the ball and epitomized the type of singular decision-making the college coach preferred. He left a void. When I started, I characterized the team as combo guards who dribbled too much and were not great shooters, and centers who were not going to grow enough to be professional centers. Previously, the team ran plays every time down the court, and games were played in the low 60s. A new player joined the club who I thought might develop into our starting point guard, but just as he was starting to understand, his dad removed him from the team, and he quit basketball altogether.

The player who ended up as our dominant ball-handler had played as a 3/4 in the previous season, and he was known mostly for his off-ball cutting and offensive rebounding.

The other prominent player at the end of the championship game was our shooting guard who I essentially benched midseason for being a chucker.

This team with multiple end-game playmakers did not start with these qualities. They developed over the course of the season. Everyone played. Everyone was encouraged to dribble and make plays. I am unconcerned with turnovers, especially when trying to make a play. We played fast. We ran few plays. We played a lot in practice. Very few practice activities had no interactions or offense-defense dyads. Very few drills did not incorporate decision-making of some kind. While most coaches are saying “No, no, no” and “Pass to the point guard,” I’m yelling “Go, go, go” and “Faster.”

These players were good players before I arrived. They adapted quickly to a new style of play, which attests to their previous coaching and experiences. They rose to the occasion quickly when challenged to be more than they had been previously. Losing the point guard helped others escape roles they had adopted and allowed them to see themselves as something more. I did not have to do too much traditional teaching and coaching.

I encouraged the players to do more, to explore, to try new things, and not to fear mistakes. I did not seek perfection, just better. I emphasized speed of play and speed of decisions from day one because players must adapt to the greater intensity in games and faster speeds as they progress to the next level. We won games because our opponents struggled to adapt to the speed at which we forced them to make decisions. Our players were prepared for the next step because of the speed at which we played in practice and games; speed in terms of getting up and down the court (:14 shot clock games), but more importantly speed of decisions (1-second games).

Coaches treat players as specialists, then question why they are not generalists. They see a bad decision and double down, specializing more and more, limiting players to prevent mistakes. When the goal is to win every possession, every game, maybe this makes sense, but it lowers the ceiling. A team of specialists can win a lot of games, but generally struggles to be the best or win a championship. Teams need playmakers to win, and players do not become playmakers without attempting to make plays.

When I take over teams, I do not look at players as they are now, but as who I believe they can become at the end of the season. I make mistakes. I overrate some and underrate others. I do not account for a player’s desire or a player’s depression when his girlfriend dumps him. Nobody bats a thousand. My job often is to help players see what I see. They do not need to be specialists, adapted to one specific role. They can be generalists. They can develop into playmakers, whether or not they are the primary ball-handler. Once they can see the vision, they can work toward it, expanding their skills, not just practicing on their specialized strengths.

Nobody inherits or even recruits a team filled with generalists. It requires a willingness to risk mistakes and losses to encourage every player to broaden his skills, explore, and try new moves, passes, and shots during games. More than anything, it is the environment and risk tolerance that enables players to develop in this manner, turning over-dribbling combo guards into efficient playmakers, stiff centers into stretch fours, players favoring structure and sets into open-court demons, and a team known for falling short in big games into champions.

Age is a common argument in youth basketball and especially AAU. People complain about grade holdbacks or redshirting for athletic purposes, which is not particularly new, as I knew parents holding back their boys over 20 years ago. There is also debate about the proper age group for freshmen who played varsity: Should they play U16 with their age group or U18 with varsity players? The underlying theme of these actions and conversations is winning, and especially a perceived fairness to enable winning. A second theme is making things harder for players, as we believe only through the struggle will players improve.

20 hacks for the 24-Hour Athlete

Another common discussion is the rate at which children quit sports, as Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, said his organization has found children quit sports, on average, at age 12. Everyone has an opinion on the reasons for children quitting, and especially at this age. We blame coach negativity, overly serious games, early specialization, and more. Everyone has a pet issue on which to place the blame.

A baseball coach made an interesting point. He quit baseball after Little League All-Stars because he was moving to the bigger fields. He was small, likely a late maturer, and the bigger fields “made sport thoroughly unenjoyable.” He sat out three years and returned in high school.

Basketball players in FIBA transition out of Mini-Basket at 12 years of age: The court gets bigger and players move from four-vs-four to five-vs-five. The game gets harder and more complex. Of course, basketball in the United States is governed by different, often inconsistent rules. However, does the transition to a higher basket height, bigger court, and full five-vs-five influence children, especially the smaller or late maturers, to quit because their bodies are not ready for the new game?

We base most things on averages. We move to the bigger field at age 13 because, on average, most have outgrown the smaller fields, and the smaller field probably is dangerous for those playing against the most advanced 13-year-olds. We look at the positive tail — the biggest, strongest, most mature — from a safety standpoint, but primarily for the majority in the middle. We ignore the negative tail — the smallest and least mature. They drop out, and most see this as the natural selection process, the pyramid getting smaller as the game gets more competitive. The players who are not as good or prepared or big drop out. Normal. Nothing to see here. People generally continue with the things they are good at and quit when they are not. No need to study the phenomenon in more depth.

A Decade of Writing on Youth Sports

We use chronological ages because of the ease of measurement. Everyone has a birth certificate. You were born on a specific date, you have proof of that date, and that makes you a certain age. We imagine everyone of the same birth year to be roughly the same, although we know this is inaccurate. I was the oldest player on my 5th grade basketball team, I believe, and probably the second or third tallest at around 5’4 (I think). We played against a player who was 6’2 and looked 10 years older than us in our very first competitive basketball game. He was the same height and looked virtually the same when he graduated from high school. We were the same age, but definitely not the same in terms of physical maturation.

Designating us into the same competition category is much easier than exploring alternatives. We do not see these physical discrepancies as unfair because our birth year is unassailable. We do not question the randomness of birth dates. If nobody tracked birth dates — we were born, and left the hospital with no birth certificates and records did not exist — would we be placed in the same competition category? Would the undersized 13-year-old baseball player have to choose between playing on a field that is too big or quitting?

I wrote about bio-banding two years ago and have found myself referencing the article several times recently as people describe irascible problems in youth sports. We avoid potential solutions such as bio-banding or simple common sense because we assume the motives are to gain advantages to win. Our obsession with fair leads to more unfairness.

If the Little League had told the small 13-year-old to stay in majors rather then moving to the bigger fields in senior minors (that’s what it was called in my Little League), other parents and coaches would complain. My dad was my Little League coach in majors. Majors was a two-year age group. When we moved to majors, we must have retained more players than usual because our league had to add an expansion team. My dad reluctantly volunteered when nobody else wanted to coach the new team. Other teams had roughly half the roster held over from the previous season, but we were a whole new team.

At the draft, somewhere in the middle rounds, the best team selected one of my school friends, (JD) just before my dad planned to pick him. In the next round or so, my dad chose another player (JH) of similar position. After the draft, the other coach asked about acquiring JH because his best friend was the assistant coach’s son. My dad suggested a JD for JH trade. Friend for friend, third baseman for shortstop, slightly bigger for slightly faster. The other coach refused because he knew JD was better. Neither player made the all-star team in either of our seasons in majors. JD was better, but the difference between the two was not going to disrupt the standings, but the Little League coach could not take that chance.

That was two coaches talking about swapping players to play with their school friends. Imagine instead the Little League All-Star (LLAS) was left behind because he was deemed too small for the senior minor fields, despite being an all-star in majors. The other teams would not accept an All-Star playing below his birth year. Every team would complain. The player would be accused of cheating and sandbagging to win Little League championships. Instead, he quit.

A common sense solution to retain a player — allowing him to play with players of a similar size for another year — is unusable because adults are so concerned about cheating and allusions of fairness. We care about birthdates and chronological age, but not maturation and biological age. We do not see the advantages of early maturers as unfair — that’s just biology — but complain vociferously when a player plays down an age group based on birthdates.

On the playground, with no adults, nobody would have a problem if the player played on a smaller field. Nobody would check his birth certificate and argue he was two months too old to play on their field. Children do not look at ages when creating fair teams. They match up by size and perceived talent. At our recess basketball games, we always split our top four players so two were on each team. We never stacked a team with three. We tried to create fair teams, not by using birthdates and ages, but size and skill. Children intuitively understand fair. As someone tweeted during the World Cup, “Mbappé and Olise are the two players you’d split up to make the teams when we were kids.” Adults only use fair as an argument to retain their child’s advantage.

When I coached in Estonia, the oldest age group was U18, but boys graduated from high school as 18 year olds or U19s. Better players played on adult teams as high-school seniors or they quit after U18. We had an awkward 6’4/6’5 18 year-old who was not good enough to play for our men’s teams. The club simply had too many players, as the professional team sent down players to play on the amateur men’s teams. However, he had one year of high school left; he did not want to move to a new city, and the other semipro team in our city had no youth program after U16. There was nowhere for him to play.

The Federation instituted a rule for players like him. An 18-year-old with no men’s team opportunities in his club can play U18, provided he registers as an U18 player and does not play any senior (adult) games. As an example, most of our other U18 players also played on the men’s amateur teams. You could play down as an 18-year-old, but not if you appeared in men’s games. The Federation provided a common sense solution for players trapped in a difficult situation by the groups, knowing nobody would sandbag to play U18 when they had opportunities to play senior basketball.

The same idea would be like allowing a senior to play junior varsity rather than cutting him. Most people do not see the point, but also complain about high schools no longer having enough players for multiple teams. The senior would be allowed to play JV, but he could not play varsity also, whereas in most states, a freshman can move back and forth between JV and varsity.

Popular sentiment would be against a senior playing JV. It would be unfair to the other JV teams who might lose one more game; of course, we are talking about a senior who is not good enough to play a single varsity minute. Is he likely to change the competitive landscape of a JV league? Others see the senior playing JV as taking away someone else’s opportunities. Why do we rate one opportunity over another?

There was a player a year behind me in high school who was cut from the basketball team every year: Freshmen team, JV team, varsity team twice. Despite never making a high-school team, he kept practicing. He played all the time, lifted weights, and ran track and cross country. He was always on the small side. By junior year, he was starting to grow, and the weights were starting to show.

He went to a mid-major Division 1 program for college and tried out for the team. Almost unanimously, the players said he should have made the team. He outplayed the starting point guard at tryouts, but the coach decided not to keep any walk-ons.

He came close. His story likely is an outlier. Few players persist after being cut so many times. Ultimately, there is no Hollywood ending. However, what if he could have played JV as a junior or senior? Would one season of high-school competition have prepared him just enough to make the D1 as a walk-on? What if he had played on the freshmen team as a sophomore because he was the size of a freshman? Would the experience have been enough to make varsity as a junior as he started to grow and catch up to his classmates in size, maturity, and athleticism?

Individual Skill Development

We do not allow this because we deem it unfair to someone else. Why should he play on a freshmen team instead of a freshman? Of course, there were three freshmen on varsity when he was a junior. Is that unfair to him? We always accept, encourage and even insist on advanced players moving up to challenge themselves and play against better competition, but we are against older players playing down to play against equitable competition. Why is using chronological age fair, but using biological age unfair?

The reason likely is simply because birth certificates are the easiest measurement. Ages work for the majority or the middle, the 68% of the population that falls between -1 and +1 standard deviation (SD) from the mean. We are unconcerned with the negative tails (smaller, less mature, less experienced, less skilled), which may be where we see players quitting because they feel they are not good enough or not prepared for the bigger field or higher level of competition. It is not the competition or leagues and coaches being too competitive, but their perception of their abilities at more competitive levels.

I do not expect anything to change. However, as everyone seems upset about the number of children quitting sports around age 12 and overall declining participation in some sports at the high-school level, we should examine more creative modifications to enhance participation and facilitate the participation of the late maturers rather than simply blaming competition or specialization. There likely are many reasons, and perceived competence is shown repeatedly to be a major factor in continued physical activity. The answer to increase participation may be to re-think how we determine fair, and to work toward helping the late maturers or just the smaller children feel more competent and confident.

The continuous one-vs-two/two-vs-one drill, as I have said previously, is my favorite dribbling drill.

I re-posted the drill recently because I found an amusing comment calling it cardio more than dribbling practice in a thread that started with a trainer calling a series of stationary two-ball drills “the most difficult ball handling workout on the internet.”

Individual Skill Development

The workout included stationary drills like this:

One of the most enduring concepts from my motor learning classes is Gentile’s taxonomy of motor skills, which categorizes the complexity of a skill. The taxonomy uses four categories, two based on the environmental context and two based on the function of the action.

First, is the environment fixed or stable? A basketball court is a fixed, stable environment — the floor does not move — but defenders change the stability. Defenders affect the time and space as one must respond to external stimuli. Second, is there inter-trial variability? Is it the same thing every time or does the skill change regularly? Third, is there object manipulation? Most skills in basketball involve object manipulation, as the ball is the object. Finally, is the skill performed standing still or with movement? The least complex skills are in the upper left-hand corner (Fixed environment, no variability, no object, no movement), and the most complex skills are in the lower right-hand corner (changing environment, inter-trial variability, object, movement).

The most difficult ball-handling workout used stationary two-ball drills. Dribbling a ball is object manipulation; therefore the A and C columns are eliminated. A stationary drill is body stability; therefore, the drills fit in column B. A stationary, undefended drill has no changes in the environment, no affect on time and space; the environment is fixed and unmoving. Finally, the goal of stationary dribbling drills is to perform the same pattern repeatedly, meaning no inter-trial variability. Therefore, the stationary two-ball dribbling drills are categorized in 1B, relatively simple drills.

Not all drills are the same, and some are definitely harder than others. Some patterns are more difficult to learn and repeat, but their complexity is the same. Stationary, undefended drills are not complex. The lack of complexity suggests they are relatively easy to learn with sufficient practice. Almost anyone can learn to do the drills in Stephen Curry’s two-ball warmup routine, but few players can dribble the ball masterfully while being trapped after using an on-ball screen to find and pass to the open player. “Complexity translates better to simplicity, but not vice versa,” as Rafe Kelley said.

Dribbling against a trap is categorized in 4D. The player is moving (body transport), dribbling (manipulating an object), every trap differs in location, pressure, defenders, spacing, and more (inter-trial variability), and defenders and passing targets are moving (in-motion regulatory conditions). If simplicity does not transfer to complexity, do 1B drills transfer to 4D performance?

Is complexity the same as difficulty, which was the initial argument?

The taxonomy does not account for individual differences. Curry’s two-ball drills are easy for him to perform, but a beginner will struggle. The taxonomy refers only to the task and does not account for the individual’s experience, skill level, and more.

John Kiely wrote about complicated and complex: “Complicated machine-like systems typically follow one path to achieve a specific end, and as such are highly predictable, but also highly vulnerable. Complex systems achieve their objectives through a process of exploration and on-going adaptation; negotiating obstacles, solving problems through trial-and-error, and flexibly adapting to changing circumstances.”

Imagine the difference between a strict play as I was taught as a young player, and advantage basketball. A play has one path to achieve a specific end. An intricate play, like those designed by Danny Hurley, are complicated, but not complex. Plays become predictable, like the Flex offense I ran as a child, and therefore vulnerable. I once coached against a team that cycled through six plays in the first quarter, scoring on almost every one — good plays, tough to defend — but after the first quarter, I called out the action as soon as they called out their play, and our defense improved. Their best player eventually looked at their coach and asked what to do. Their complicated plays no longer worked, and they were vulnerable. A team using advantage principles is not searching for one specific end, but flexibly adapting and solving problems, exploring to find the bigger advantage. They are antifragile; they thrive when the defense acts to take away the first option and push the possession toward chaos.

SABA: The Antifragile Offense

I differentiated task difficulty and task complexity in The 21st Century Basketball Practice, based in part on Kiely’s ideas of complicated and complex. Both exist on a continuum. Task difficulty (easy to hard) depends on the individual more than the task, whereas task complexity (simple to complex) is based on the task more than the individual. A task, such as Curry’s two-ball warmup, can be simple, but also hard for a beginner. Meanwhile, dribbling through the trap can be complex, but also relatively easy for a player with Curry’s skill.

The tasks are the same whether Curry or a beginner performs the two-ball drill, but the relative difficulty changes. The change in difficulty is based on the individual and his skill level and experience, not the actual task. The initial drills were called difficult, but eight-year-olds can do them better than the high-school player in the video. Difficulty is relative, and based on the individual. However, the drills are relatively simple, as the environment does not change, there is minimal variability (multiple drills, but each without any inter-trial variability), and no movement [Note, when I finally watched to the end, there are some drills with movement; I initially stopped after 10 seconds or less]. The most difficult drill is the one you find most difficult, but the most complex drill involves dribbling against defenders with a drive, pass, shot option: The more potential interactions, the greater the complexity.

In practice, we can progress drills along either continuum. As players master the Curry two-ball warmup drills, we can make the drills harder or more complex. We can add to the pattern, require greater speed (X number of repetitions in a minute), and more to make the exercise harder, or we can add movement to make the drill more complex. Performing the same drills while walking forward and backward (like my video above) moves the 1B drill to a 1D drill, increasing complexity. Adding movement also makes the drill more difficult for most players, at least initially.

However, even the more difficult, more complex exercise is far from the complexity of a game, which means the direct transfer is minimal. Instead, these drills are practicing something other than the skill performed during the game; the drill is solving a different problem. As long as we understand the problem, the drill is useful. However, if our goal is to dribble more competently against a trap in the game, the two-ball warmup drills are unlikely to improve this performance.

Instead, I use two-ball drills primarily to demonstrate competence and improve confidence. Players see themselves mastering new drills and harder patterns, which is easier to see with simple drills, and increase their confidence in their skills. Confidence reinforces competence, which reinforces confidence: It is a positive feedback loop.

A coach could use the drill to improve ball control on the reception of the dribble or to work on pounding the ball harder. The coach and player would need the correct intention and concentration to make these improvements rather than grinding or getting through the drill. Potentially these problems could derail a player in games and cleaning up these issues — using this drill to solve this specific problem — could enhance game dribbling and give him more options when dribbling against a trap.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, “Drills are a tool. They are neither good nor bad. Good drills are when the purpose and the activity align; bad drills are when they do not.” Hard drills are equally subjective, and a hard or difficult drill for one player is easy for another. Complexity, however, is a somewhat objective measure, provided one supports Gentile’s taxonomy.

Of course, Gentile’s taxonomy is related to open and closed skills, a measure more widely accepted. Open skills are performed in dynamic, unpredictable environments requiring decision-making, and movements are externally-controlled, whereas closed skills are performed in predictable, self-contained environments with minimal to no decision-making and are self-paced. Basketball is an open-skill sport; a free throw is a closed skill. The one-vs-two/two-vs-one drill is an open-skill drill; the two-ball drills are a closed skill. How much improvement in an open-skill sport can we derive from closed-skill practice?

The most important question, in terms of skill development, is whether or not hard drills transfer to improved game performance. It depends. Are the drills designed to solve a specific problem for a specific player? There may be far or indirect transfer with the drill improving one aspect of a skill, reducing mistakes and improving performance. However, for near or direct transfer, drills should match or near the game’s complexity. We improve at that which we practice. Are you practicing to improve your ability to dribble two balls or your ability to dribble past two defenders?

I watched the “Shawn Gets the Yips” (Season 4, Episode 5) from Psych this week. Psych centers on Shawn, a psychic detective with the Santa Barbara police department, and each episode starts with a flashback to his childhood. In this episode, Henry, Shawn’s father, teaches Shawn to play second base by hitting ground balls on a patch of grass in front of the ocean. Henry sets up a glove chest high on a target from a shooting range. He hits the first ball to Shawn who fields it and throws perfectly to the glove.

Shawn’s instant success excites Henry who praises him and his throw. Shawn shows enthusiasm and asks for another ground ball. Henry is ready and willing, but decides to add a bunch of technical instructions, telling Shawn exactly where to position his feet and changing his target. Shawn looks confused as Henry hits the ball and throws the ball well over the target, smashing a window.

The cold open encapsulates youth sports. Everything starts positively with a father and son playing in their front yard. The father is interested in the son’s improvement, so the activity is not truly play, which is done for its own sake, but it is close. Parent/child (or older siblings) informal play should be the beginning of every child’s foray into sports, not an organized, adult-led activity. Play is the best environment for early skill acquisition.

The initial success and positive reinforcement also is good, as Shawn shows real desire to continue. Developing competence is a big driver of continuing with an activity. Shawn performed well and received praise from his cantankerous father. Parents primary role with children should be positive, reinforcing the child’s effort and embracing his enthusiasm.

The activity would have been great if this had continued with Henry hitting balls and offering small bits of praise (“That was perfect”) and hustles (“Get ready. Get low.”), to use the terminology from Ronald Tharp and Ronald Gallimore’s study (1976) of John Wooden. They could have had a nice day near the beach and gone for ice cream afterward: A perfect day of childhood play.

Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm, Henry instructed Shawn, despite referring to his initial attempt as perfect. Too often, coaches and parents cannot help themselves. They see a child perform a skill successfully without their intervention, and they feel compelled to involve themselves. They fear a dip on the next repetition, I suppose, and want to avoid any regression. They want the child to be successful, but they do not trust the child on his own, as he lacks experience and mastery. They insert themselves, attempting to compensate for the lack of experience and rush the process of mastery.

I made nine of ten free throws in our opening tournament in my first season of organized basketball. The next week at practice, our assistant coach (the father of a fourth grader) decided I needed to change my free-throw shooting technique to be better. He was considered a bit of an expert coach because his eldest son had played college basketball. I was the best free-throw shooter on the team and in the area (won a local, then citywide contest to prove it), but he focused on me, changing my stance, talking about my elbow, and criticizing my pre-shot routine. Adults need to involve themselves, even when a child is successful. I never shot as freely again.

Evolution of 180 Shooter

Parents and coaches often see a small bit of success, which could be beginner’s luck, and attempt to capitalize on and improve it. They change their behaviors completely rather than maintaining the same attitude that preceded success. Henry was positive and relaxed as he hit the first ball, but changed to more demanding and prescriptive as he hit the second ball. Praise and hustles quickly became technical instructions, which became a reproof (body language) when Shawn broke the window. The initial positive, playful experiences become a negative work-like experience.

My largest clientele when I worked as a private trainer was players whose parents were a coach or former college athlete. The parents knew they possessed the knowledge to help their children, but also possessed the intelligence and humility to trust someone else in order to retain their child-parent relationship. They remained the positive reinforcement after games and training, while I provided the instruction and critiques. They could shoot around with their sons and daughters in their front yards without needing to instruct or ruining the father-son/daughter time with instructions or reproofs. They could be a parent, not a coach.

We set up children for failure when we see the initial success, such as Shawn’s first throw, and announce his precociousness to the world, which is now common with social media. Players post their child making a shot on a mini hoop and title it with “Class of 2040” or something similar. I imagine these posts are made in jest, but the attitudes pervade.

Many coaches and parents proclaim an 8 or 9-year-old as a surefire college player, but few make it. Part of the failure is the difficulty with evaluating really young children, but some has to be the environment, the pressure, the expectations of achievement placed on young children who should play for fun at that age, rather than training for a professional career. Once they meet the inevitable hiccups in the talent development journey, will they have the grit, the growth mindset, and the resilience to persist or will they collapse under the weight of their disappearing talent?

Seeing mistakes or areas for improvement and not saying anything is difficult, as coaches and parents feel their job or purpose is to help their children develop and improve. Sometimes, the best way for a child to improve is for the adult to remain silent. Allow the child to learn on his own.

Individual Skill Development

Children make mistakes. Part of the learning process is trial and error, making and learning from mistakes. When we instruct immediately, we disrupt this learning process. Furthermore, when we offer explicit, internal, technical instructions, we overcomplicate the skill. Players need knowledge of the skill (the doing), not the knowledge about the skill, as Mark O’Sullivan says. When Shawn threw a perfect strike on his first try, he did not need instructions about the perfect execution. He just wanted another try. He was motivated and interested. Hit him another ball. Let him try again. Children need more play, more child-initiated activity.

Tharp, R.G. & Gallimore, R. (1976). Basketball’s John Wooden: What a coach can teach a teacher. Psychology Today, 9(8), 74-78.

Drills solve a problem. The problem does not have to center on skill development. There are many potential goals in a specific practice or within a practice. Every drill does not have to be the optimal drill for skill development or transfer to the game.

A coach sent a video of a college coach’s drill from social media, asking my opinion. The drill in question was a simple pregame layup drill in which the team had to make a certain number of layups in a row. We did the same drill when I was in fifth and sixth grades. We started every practice by making 20 right-handed and 20 left-handed layups in a row as a team.

The college coach’s explanation was something about concentration. A pregame layup drill is not going to improve the skills of a college player, nor transfer directly to improved finishing in games. Concentration, however, is a different problem to solve. Coaches often search for the best drills to use to start practices to create the right environments. I believe Geno Auriemma and UConn do something similar with a simple layup drill and a certain number of made layups in a row to start practices.

Last season, after a few bad practices, I asked players for input. How could we start practices better? I generally started with our dynamic warmup, which often ended with tag or another fun game, and then I like to use Rabbit as the first drill because it generally starts a practice with energy and competitiveness. I felt this usual start was not working.

The players suggested a more traditional warmup drill, something akin to a three-player weave. Previous coaches, and the other teams for which they played, started practices with almost 30 minutes of these warmup-type drills and five-vs-zero offense.

I chose to incorporate the ideas from my elementary school team, but in full-court drills to incorporate more running, as these conversations occurred around when we had a lengthy break between games and conditioning was a minor concern. I rotated through two or three different full-court layup drills, and the team had to make 50 or 100 layups in a row.

Similar to the college coach, my purpose was concentration. I searched for a drill to solve the problem of starting practices with a better mindset. The layup drills solved this problem.

The coach who sent the drill disagreed. He asked about defense. Pregame layup drills are a #FakeFundamental. Confusion.

Pregame layup drills are a fake fundamental when used as skill development. When teams miss layups in a game, and their coaches spend more time on perfect angle, three-quarter speed layups, the practice is unlikely to improve performance or transfer to better shooting percentages on contested, poor-angle finishes. As Canada Basketball’s Mike MacKay found, poor-angle layups are the most missed shot in (women’s) basketball. We spend hours practicing a different shot than the one attempted during games.

My purpose, and the college coach’s, was not to improve our game layup performance. My purpose was a dose of conditioning, but primarily concentration; I wanted to improve the beginning of practices. The team layup drill with X number of makes in a row appeared to increase team camaraderie, togetherness, and concentration. The drills solved my problem.

This also is the problem when coaches are beholden to theories or another coach’s beliefs. Every situation, every team is different. Coaching is more than motor learning. Coaching is more than direct transfer to the game. There are social benefits to certain activities. There are psychological and physical benefits. These may not transfer directly to game performance. Instead, they may prime players for the next practice activity, which is focused on skill development.

Coaching is not one thing. There are no absolutes. There are no black and white answers. Many coaches chafe at the Fake Fundamentals title, but miss the message from every introduction, which was to question traditional ideas, not to discard them. Think critically and examine your purposes. Do not just switch your mentor’s ideas for a content creator’s ideas, but actually examine, question, study, and think about your purposes for practice activities and the best ways to solve your problems.

Isolated drills are not the enemy; they simply are not the best way to transfer improvements directly to the game. Their use over the last twenty years has been exaggerated as we created a trainer-centered development environment. More time should be spent in more realistic, representative activities, but the greater need is understanding the specific problem before deciding on or designing the activity.

Practice Design

Drills are a tool. They are neither good nor bad. When needing to hammer a nail into a plank of wood, a hammer is the appropriate tool. A hammer is an inappropriate tool when needing to saw the plank of wood in half. Good drills are when the purpose and the activity align; bad drills are when they do not. Fake Fundamentals are when the purpose and activity appear to align, but do not, such as using the pregame layup drill to improve finishing on contested, poor-angle layups.

Determine your purpose and design an activity around the purpose. Drills solve a problem. The first step is knowing the problem you want to solve.

A video of Angel Reese shooting stationary corner three-pointers went viral this week. I hesitate to write about her practice because she gets so much unwarranted criticism on social media, but its omnipresence provides a starting point for discussion about habits, practice, and shooting.

[This is a longer video of what I saw on social media. I only watched the first 20 seconds of this video and provide only as context for those not perpetually online.]

Social media believes Reese is a bad shooter, and every Internet expert commented about her shooting technique. Most criticized her step-in on the catch. In the clip, she shot left-handed (I honestly did not know she was left-handed) and stepped in with her right foot. Nearly everyone disparaged this step, asked if she even had coaches, and demanded somebody be fired for this atrocity.

My purpose is not to write about Reese specifically, but to provide general observations. She stepped with her right foot so her right foot was parallel to or in front of her left foot. I would correct this, as shooting with the contralateral foot forward increases the propensity to twist or rotate to generate force. Few comments pertained to the length of her step, and instead focused on the foot. The critics believed stepping with the contralateral foot was the most incorrect instruction possible and the “literal opposite” of the correct shooting technique.

Why is a right-foot step for a left-handed shooter wrong? We see this as wrong because it is not how we were taught, and years of experience performing a skill in a certain way has established a strong habit. Anything different than this habit feels weird. This is one reason people stop improving. In fact, this is a central tenet of K. Anders Ericsson’s deliberate practice. He believed it took roughly 40 hours to develop competence in a skill and most people stop improving because they lack intention and concentration in their practice. They keep doing what they have done already. They reinforce their habit.

Change is hard. Change is weird. Change feels wrong, especially after years and years of established habits. Therefore, most players revert to old habits after a few repetitions. They lack the intention and concentration necessary to establish a considerable change to their habits.

Years ago, I worked with a high-school senior. I thought she was good enough to play in college. She was a great shooter, but she had a slow set shot that would not work in college. I asked if she wanted to work on changing her shooting style, but she said she did not want to play in college. She just wanted to have a good senior year. We continued with her same style, making minor refinements.

After the season ended, she changed her mind. She decided to play in college. After her first year, she returned home and said she needed to change her shot. Our goal shifted. She was ~40% three-point shooter, but on low volume because she needed time and space to shoot. Our challenge was to maintain the 40% three-point shooting, while changing her shooting style to enable greater volume and a greater variety of attempts.

Evolution of 180 Shooter

Improvement is not just increasing percentages. Maintaining percentages while increasing volume is also improvement. The ability to make more and different types of shots is improvement.

We started with shots close to the basket to re-establish a new shooting habit. I was in and out of town all summer with camps, so she practiced largely on her own. She played in an adult Asian summer league every summer, and I implored her not to shoot three-pointers, her greatest strength, because she would revert to her old habits. She decided to use the league to improve her playmaking skills, while practicing her new shooting habits individually.

She returned to college and shot just under 40% in her next season, but attempted almost two additional three-pointers per game, nearly doubling her output from her first season. She had changed her shooting habits because of her focus and concentration every day during the summer. Very few players persist through the awkwardness and the initial decrements in performance. Very few players would eschew three-pointers, their biggest strength, during a summer league. She was different.

I was taught a right-foot step in for a right-handed shooter from my very first official practice. Everyone I know developed this habit, and everyone initially views a left-foot step in for a right-handed shooter as weird or awkward. However, is that because of our well-learned habits or because there is something definitively wrong with using a left-foot step in?

Fake Fundamentals

I was taught offensive basketball starting with the triple threat and triple threat moves. The left-foot pivot foot for a right-handed shooter makes a jab step-shot easier because the right foot remains in front when shooting. Jab stepping with the left foot would require a longer backward step and possibly a pivot to return to the desired shooting base. The shooter likely would lose any advantage gained by the jab step. If we eliminate the jab step-shot, as few players shoot these, are there other reasons we must use the same foot step-in?

Many people referred to rhythm. However, how much of one’s rhythm is based on the habits accrued through years of performing a skill in one way? When someone says “I’m trying to imagine stepping into a jump shot with the same foot and it makes no sense”, is he referring to rhythm or habit? After years of practice, can one distinguish between the two? At the end of Reggie Miller’s career, using a shooting technique nobody would teach, did he feel like his shot had no rhythm or had his technique become such a habit that anything else would have felt weird?

One reason we teach the right-foot step-in for right-handed shooters initially is to give young players extra force as they shoot. This is the second step in an immature throwing pattern. First, children throw a ball wit no step. Next, they step with the same foot as their throw; generations derogatorily termed this “throwing like a girl” because pre-Title IX, many girls did not play sports and therefore never progressed to an adult throwing technique because there was no purpose. The adult throwing technique is to step with the opposite foot to create a stretch from the front hip to the back shoulder. An adult shooting technique does not follow this same progression because of the vertical component, but you do see this on long-range shots, like this Steph Curry three-quarter shot off a left-foot step:

And, to avoid the comments that a one-foot shot differs from a two-foot shot:

In my time as a college coach, watching many highlights of potential players, it appeared the contralateral step was more common in Australia than the United States, and also common in the better shooters. This is not to suggest these players always stepped right-left into their shots, but that it was more common. I believe players should use both feet just as we teach them to use both hands. With practice, the right-left step-in is just as smooth and rhythmic as a left-right step-in; I prefer the right-left step in now, despite never using it as a teenager.

Finally, all three of Curry’s three-pointers to beat France at the Paris Olympics used the wrong footwork: First, he steps in with his left foot in the exact same way as Reese in the video; second, he steps right-left into his shot; and finally, he shoots with his left foot forward.

“Curry’s the greatest shooter ever. He can get away with it.” Sure, but also, he’s the greatest shooter ever because he shoots successfully with any footwork. Variability is an asset. The best shooters I have coached invariably can shoot off a jump stop, right-left, and left-right. They have generality in their skill. They are not limited to a certain execution.

Beyond the argument about habits, feel, and rhythm, nobody knows, based on the small clip, if her coaches wanted Reese to shoot like this on all shots or if this was a drill as part of the workout to practice something specific. These were practice shots, not a game shot, and not even game-like practice. We can only speculate as to the purpose of the practice.

Drills solve a problem. Years ago, a father and his two sons drove two hours so they could work with me on their shooting. One of the drills, out of the entire hour, asked them to step in to their shots right-left (right-handed shooters). The father said afterward they would not be back because I did not know what I was doing because nobody steps in to their shot with their opposite foot. Same argument social media espoused unanimously this week.

I do not remember the exact purpose with his sons. However, around the same time, I worked with another player who had a big right-foot step as he shot. However, when he shot free throws, he shot with his feet nearly parallel. He did not step with a big right-foot step because he watched a certain shooting video, as his father suggested, but because he could not decelerate properly. He used the big right-foot step and the turn almost like a hockey stop to meet his momentum, as Lee Taft says.

We practiced with a right-foot step-in to change his deceleration pattern. When stepping left-right as a right-handed shooter, players can rely entirely on their right foot to decelerate because they shoot with their right foot forward and a slight turn to the left regardless. However, to stop right-left and shoot with the right foot forward, they must anticipate the stop because the left-foot step should be a half step to maintain the right-foot forward shooting stance. Practicing the right-left step-in changes their deceleration pattern and teaches their body to decelerate properly with greater flexion in the knee and hip. Then, we return to the left-right step-in and attempt to maintain the same deceleration pattern to prevent the long right-foot step and turn.

The drill — shooting with a right-left step-in — solved a problem, which was the player’s deceleration. The drill was not game shooting, game-like shooting, or attempting to change the player’s specific shooting habit. Instead, the drill was a small perturbation to improve a specific aspect of the overall shooting technique: The deceleration, which also improved the shooting stance, with feet closer together not spread wide with an exaggerated turn, and the force transfer from horizontal to vertical. However, viewing the drill out of context, many experts would have drawn the same conclusion as the father and run to social media to criticize.

Pertaining to the Reese video, assuming the same as did the twitteratti that she was practicing her game shooting and not focused on something specific, how do we expect a below-average shooter to improve through shooting the same shots in the same way? A below-average shooter getting reps on reps on reps is reinforcing the below-average pattern or shooting style. Improvement requires change, not more, like the college player above.

Individual Skill Development

Based on the few shots in the clip and the middle of the competitive season, I would incorporate different shooting drills and reduce instructions. I would avoid giving her more things to think about, while using drills to perturb her shooting habits and force some changes. Once those changes started to take hold, we use more repetitions to stabilize the new habits.

Based on the coordination between her lower and upper body, I would use medicine-ball shooting to start each session. I imagine some combination of changing her force generation and transfer would improve the rhythm and coordination of her shot.

Next, I would warm up with some of my movement shooting drills, and especially some of the ones focused on quickness to reduce thinking and cognitive control. I would use the X shooting and quick hands drills.

I also would use the 180 Drill, as I felt last year that balance affected her finishing, and there is nothing to suggest anything different when shooting.

Other ideas would depend on watching her more and would be specific to her. This is more about the general thought process of designing practice programs to improve shooting during the competitive season, not specific to Reese, as I watched two shot attempts and have not watched her in a game in over a year, maybe since she left LSU.

Change is not wrong, but change always feels weird. Sometimes, change requires an intermediary step that may seem incorrect, but it is a step toward the desired result. Again, drills solve problems. Simply shooting more in the same way will not make major progress or change habits. The practice must de-stabilize the habits first.

A recent study concluded, “Multi-sport athletes had significantly more athletic success in their professional careers from both a statistical and an award perspective. These findings should be emphasized to youth athletes, parents, and coaches to encourage participation in multiple sports during high school,” (Sang et al., 2025). The study used a pool of NBA players to determine whether or not multi-sport high-school athletes had greater early-career NBA success.

The conclusion ignored the sample, which was drawn from a decade of 1st Round NBA Draft picks, and included 87 multi-sport athletes and 231 single-sport athletes (Sang et al., 2025). Another conclusion, therefore, would be that nearly three-quarters (72.6%) of 1st Round NBA Draft picks who played in the NBA were single-sport high-school athletes, suggesting specialization in high school enhances one’s likelihood of obtaining a professional basketball career (Sang et al., 2025). Should we emphasize to youth athletes, parents, and coaches that most 1st Round NBA Draft picks played only basketball in high school?

Same data set, different conclusions. This is the problem any time someone says, “Science says,” or “Research proves,” especially when referencing a single study. Conclusions are shaped by the authors as much as the data.

I wrote about the dangers of early specialization in Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development over 20 years ago, but my beliefs have changed slightly as time has transpired. It is not that I believe early specialization is good, as much as I believe the research and commentary on early specialization includes other confounding variables and draws conclusions that are not as definitive as the headlines suggest. The evidence against early specialization is not as robust as the frequency of discussions, position statements, and recommendations suggests because no standardized definition exists (Mosher et al., 2020).

Specialization and early specialization often are conflated. Early specialization is not high-school students playing one sport; that is sport specialization. Only half of the research articles included in a recent review on sports specialization even mentioned the measurement of age (Mosher et al., 2020). Balyi’s (2001) original long-term athlete development paper recommended specialization after age 10 in late-specialization sports (basketball), although the most frequent definition of early specialization is specializing in a single sport “before the age of 12” (Mosher et al., 2020; Wiersma, 2000).

I found another recent research article through social media touting the benefits of late specialization and playing multiple high-school sports. The article concluded, in part, “Participation in approximately two other sports and later specialization… were characteristic of top-ranked youth players who later played in the NBA (Gulch et al., 2026). These authors surveyed top-ranked high-school players who eventually reached the NBA and matched them with top-ranked high-school players who did not make the NBA. The conclusions of “participating in two sports” and “later specialization” were used to promote multi-sport participation in high school, suggesting multi-sport participation improves one’s likelihood to reach the NBA.

Instead, the study actually found “63% of the total sample began playing on a select team by age 10”; the future NBA players joined at age 10.7, whereas the non-NBA players joined at age 9.1 (Gulch et al., 2026). The future NBA players specialized in basketball at older ages: 12.9 years old compared to 9.6 (Güllich et al., 2026). Ninety-percent of future NBA players compared to 52.5% of non-NBA players participated in organized sports outside basketball before age 14 (Güllich et al., 2026). The conclusions were correct and unassailable; the future NBA players specialized at an older age and participated in more sports. However, the ages were before high-school ages.

The content creators pushing this study as a reason for multi-sport high-school participation did not read the study or purposely misguided their followers. The study has nothing to do with high-school aged participation, other than using their national rankings during high school to create the matched pairs. The non-NBA players specialized early and engaged in less sampling, and the future NBA players were just across the early specialization threshold, on average, and sampled more at younger ages.

This study relied on surveys filled out by players with an average age of 16 at high-school basketball tournaments. Theoretically, a 16-year-old should remember his childhood of a few years ago, but surveys also can be unreliable. I messaged some former players and asked at which age they specialized. They determined specialization in different ways, as is the problem with many retrospective studies and/or qualitative research.

One said she specialized in basketball at age nine, never competed on a team in another sport, but played soccer, beach rugby, and field hockey with her basketball team during every offseason for roughy 10 years. Is a player who spends her summers (three months) playing multiple sports a specialized athlete because she competes in only one sport or is she a multi-sport athlete because she plays multiple sports recreationally? Another player answered that she specialized around age 10, but ran track and played softball in high school. Playing multiple high-school sports is the antithesis of early specialization, but she self-identified as specializing early, likely because 10 is the age when she decided basketball was her number one sport.

These answers confuse the literature. If I had simply asked at which age they specialized, both would be categorized as early specializers. However, by asking about other sports, neither is an early specializer. The manner in which questions are asked, and the number of questions affect the responses and the conclusions. Authors affect the data.

I looked for these anecdotes after another study went viral on social media. A survey of 296 NCAA Division I male and female athletes found 88% participated in an average of two to three sports as children, but participation is undefined (DiFiori, 2013). Seventy percent self-reported specializing after age 12, but specializing was not defined (DiFiori, 2013). Social media ran with the study, as science proved late specialization and playing multiple sports in high school are better, but the actual data does not show either.

In my short example (I received more responses, all of which were similar, but using two is easier for discussion), both players participated in two or more sports as children, thus fitting with the 88% of college athletes. However, both self-reported specializing before age 12, thus fitting with the 30% of early specializers. The problem was not intelligence; one of the two is arguably the smartest player I have coached in 25 years. Instead, in such a survey, the responses depended on their internalization of the questions and their experiences. Both clearly viewed specialization as the age at which they decided basketball was most important and/or joined a more competitive team, not when they stopped participating in other sports.

My research would allow me to argue either conclusion. I could conclude most college athletes self-report that they specialized in their eventual sport before 12 years old, and therefore most college athletes specialize early. I also could conclude most college athletes participated in multiple sports during their teenage or high-school years. Same data, different conclusions. Writing that most participate in multiple sports during their high-school years would lead people to believe these teenagers competed in multiple organized high-school sports, which is true of only one of the two. I can write my conclusion and headline to shape the data in whichever way I want, and I can use vague language to allow people to draw certain conclusions. Science is biased, especially the discussions.

Many from the consultant class have cited a recent study that found the “the vast majority —nearly 90% — of junior and later senior international-­level performers are different athletes,” (Güllich & Barth, 2024). This study has been used to refute early specialization and argue it is better not to be elite at young ages. Neither is addressed by this study.

First, in most sports, and especially in basketball, international competitions begin with regional U15 competitions to qualify for U17 FIBA World Championships. Therefore, at the earliest, an “international-level junior performer” is 14 years old, which is beyond the cut off for early specialization. Also, just because an athlete plays at an international level does not guarantee the athlete has specialized. Therefore, these studies do not examine early specialization directly.

More importantly, the stats are biased in one direction. “89.2% of international-level U17/18 juniors failed to reach international level as seniors,” (Güllich et al., 2023). An U15 or U16 national team has 12 players, meaning just under one player per team makes the senior level. This should not be too surprising. Every year, there is a new junior national team; this summer players born 2006-2011 will compete in international youth competitions. However, there are only 12 spots for an entire country at the senior level. This summer, players born in the 1980s could be playing with players in the ‘00s. There are not enough roster spots for an average of one per year. Ten to twelve years of national teams funnel into a single national team. Of course few of the junior players will play for a senior team.

The study also reported “82% of international-level seniors had not reached international level as U17/18 juniors,” (Güllich et al., 2023). This is the statistic showing it is better not to be good at a young age. As many say, you can be good early or good late, but not both. However, again, the numbers are distorted.

Only 18% of senior international players — one or two from a team of twelve — played international as juniors. Each age group has twelve international players. Imagine the senior national team represents a 15-year age span. Those 15 years of youth national teams with twelve players per team equals 180 potential players. Of course, not every junior player plays every summer due to injuries, improvements, and other circumstances, so roughly fifteen players per age group play some junior national team games or 225 potential players. Surely more than two of these 225 should be on the senior national team?

How many other players play? How many players do not make the junior national teams? Obviously, this varies by country. In the smallest country in which I have coached, by population, there were 20 teams at the U16 level or 240 players for the age group. Multiply that by the 15 years, and conservatively, we are talking about 3600 players. Subtract the 225 players who played for junior national teams, and we are left with 3375 who did not play for a junior national team over those 15 years. Of those 3375, ten make the senior national team.

Surprisingly, the odds actually favor those who played on a junior national team (.8% to .2%), but that is not how the data is presented. My numbers are not exact, and every country differs. I used the smallest country; bigger countries with greater participation would have more players who did not not make the junior or senior teams. The research also combines sports, and basketball may differ from these conclusions in either direction. Everyone has anecdotes to support both conclusions.

I coached numerous players who played for junior national teams in several countries, and none has appeared for a senior national team despite professional careers, NCAA National Championships, NCAA and NJCAA all-conference awards, and more. In the year they realistically would have progressed to the national team (24-26 years old), they competed against players who were 12 years older and mainstays on the national team. I once coached the most capped player in her country’s national team history, and she retired from the national team at 39 years old. A lot of players came and went while she had her national-team roster spot. Breaking in is difficult.

Just think of the NBA All-Stars not on the USA Olympic team last summer! I randomly looked up the 2018 USA U17 boys’ team. Players such as Scottie Barnes, Jalen Green, R.J. Hampton, Evan Mobley, Isaac Okoro, Isaiah Stewart, and Jalen Suggs. Is it really better not to be selected to this team? Did they fail because they played on a junior national team, but not a senior national team?

My argument is not for or against early specialization or multi-sport participation. My purpose is to point out the subjectiveness of science, as I see too many people posting that science or research proves something, when I hope the above has demonstrated the same data set can be used to conclude two opposing viewpoints, especially when using vague language and relying on adolescents and/or retrospective surveys.

My primary arguments against this research are (1) single-sport participation in high school is not early specialization; and (2) there are confounding variables that appear not to be investigated or accounted for in these studies, most notably the length of the competitive season.

Most appear to commingle sport specialization with a year-round competitive schedule, but these are two separate issues. My players in Europe generally specialize early, around 10 years old. They rarely compete in a second sport, unless they start in one sport and switch to basketball. However, they have a two to three-month offseason in the summer, and often a winter break. They specialize early, but they do not compete year-round. Players in the USA now compete year-round, although they may not specialize. Some players play year-round high school and AAU basketball, but still run track and field or play football or volleyball. The year-round competition and absence of any offseason are likely bigger causes for concern than single-sport participation during the high-school years.

I favor sampling early. I have argued every child should start with gymnastics or martial arts to develop their balance, body control, coordination, and emotional regulation. Every child should learn to swim at a young age for safety, if no other reason. After those three, I believe children should try out at least one individual and one team sport. I also believe the choice to specialize and play only one sport or to dedicate more time to one sport should come from the child, not the parent, and should come after age 10, as children likely lack the full cognitive appreciation before that age to make an intelligent decision.

Once children specialize, they need an offseason, they should participate informally in other sports and activities for fun, and they should incorporate multilateral training: A good team/club has an appreciation for movement skills and coordination development at the younger ages, and strength and conditioning by the transition to high school. These are my personal guidelines, regardless of the science or research, which, as the above demonstrated, can be biased or misconstrued to make specific points, especially when the study is paid for by an organization with a vested interest.

References

Balyi, I. (2001). Sport system building and long-term athlete development in British Columbia. Coaches Report, 8(1), 22-28.

DiFiori, J.P. (2013). Early sports participation: a prescription for success? American Medical Society for Sports Medicine National Meeting, April.

Güllich, A. & Barth, M. (2024). Effects of early talent promotion on junior and senior performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 54(3), 697-710.

Güllich, A., Barth, M., Macnamara, B.N., & Hambrick, D.Z. (2023). Quantifying the extent to which successful juniors and successful seniors are two disparate populations: A systematic review and synthesis of findings. Sports Medicine, 53(6), 1201-17.

Güllich, A., Meisel, P., Côté, J., Malina, R.M., Brenner, J. S., Hainline, B., ... & DiFiori, J. (2026). From youth basketball to the NBA: A matched-pairs follow-up analysis of top-ranked youth basketball players in the USA. Sports Health, 19417381261423901.

Mosher, A., Fraser-Thomas, J., & Baker, J. (2020). What defines early specialization: a systematic review of literature. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2, 596229.

Sang, L., Bach, K., Feeley, B.T., & Pandya, N.K. (2025). Effects of early sport specialization on injury load management and athletic Success of National Basketball Association players. Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 13(1), 23259671241304732.

Wiersma, L.D. (2000). Risks and benefits of youth sport specialization: Perspectives and recommendations. Pediatric Exercise Science, 12(1), 13-22.

Coaches stress practice efficiency. We use shooting machines to increase repetitions, negating the need for anyone to chase a ball or even work with a partner. We demand players arrive 10-15 minutes before the start of practice to begin the daily vitamins. We schedule drills to the second and time water breaks. Efficiency, not wasting a second of time, is considered a characteristic of good coaching.

Practice Design

I prefer effectiveness. I do not not schedule every second, but have a loose time frame in mind. I do not demand players arrive before practice starts as long as they are dressed and ready at the designated starting time. I hate shooting machines. We are not producing simple toys on an assembly line. There are many more important things than efficiency when working with people: Effectiveness is one.

Small-sided games are an example of an activity increasing effectiveness and efficiency because it incorporates many skills. Players shooting with a machine practice one skill; they maximize repetitions, but only shooting repetitions. Small-sided games practice many skills. Comparing shooting repetitions on a shooting machine to shooting repetitions in a small-sided game ignores the time spent on other drills to practice passing, dribbling, defense, and more. Only comparing shooting repetitions oversells the machine’s efficiency. A small-sided game provides fewer shooting repetitions than the machine, but the repetitions are more representative, and the game includes all of the skills, which outweighs any issues of efficiency.

Decision-making is not an add-on, but an integral aspect of skill execution. Shooting is not just the physical action, but the decision to shoot. Small-sided games better represent game shots because they are game shots; the decreased number of players reduces the potential interactions, thus lessening the complexity, but the primary constraints are present. Players decide whether or not to shoot and determine the distance to a defender needed to feel open. They read the speed and angle of closeouts. The defense’s presence and proximity increase the speed of the shot execution. Players evaluate whether a teammate has a bigger advantage if they turn down the shot to move the ball. Players shoot differently on the first shot than at game point.

Players and coaches trust in game slippage, accepting their shooting percentages will be halved during games. They strive to increase their undefended shooting percentages, creating a greater skill reserve for when their skill depreciates rather than embracing and practicing with the constraints that affect shooting percentages. The drastic percentage difference between practices and games demonstrates players practice something other than what occurs in the game. The whole point of practice is to improve game performance; the practice did not transfer when percentages are halved. Players should change their shooting practice, not aim for a greater skill reserve.

“Complexity transfers to simplicity, but not vice versa,” said movement expert Rafe Kelley. Every player who shoots 35% from the three-point line during games can shoot 70% in a gym by themselves, but not every player who shoots 70% by themselves will shoot 35% during games. The 70% practice shooting does not cause 35% game shooting; they are correlated because great game shooters will shoot well in practices as well. We trick ourselves into believing correlation is causation by looking at the best shooters, but many great practice shooters are not great game shooters.

Coaches and players hesitate to move away from traditional repetitions. Almost everything we believe about shooting, skill, and success is predicated on repetitions. Naturally the best shooters have attempted the most shots, but there is also survivor’s bias: Every time we highlight the practice routines of Stephen Curry or Kobe Bryant, and the volume of repetitions, we ignore other players who also shot hundreds of thousands of shots and never played in the NBA or developed into great shooters.

The ten-thousand hour rule warped our minds, making us believe anyone could develop into experts with sufficient practice, but many players develop with fewer repetitions, while others fail to develop despite many more. I coached a player who she she had never thought of herself as a shooter, but proceeded to shoot 50% from the three-point line, essentially leading the nation in three-point shooting percentage, while practicing less than anyone on the team.

I recruited a player who shot 35% from the three-point line during her last high-school season. She shot 35% and 40% in her two seasons playing for me and set the school record for three-point field goals made. She transferred and shot 21% in her next season. She transferred again for her final season, which became two because of the pandemic, and shot 35% and 37%. She averaged roughly 37% from the three-point line across six seasons. The outlier was the 21% season, not the 40% season. What happened?

There are various factors involved: New coach, teammates, environment, league, offensive sets, role, injuries, etc. Shooting is not one thing, but many things. However she sent a text after reading Evolution of 180 Shooter:

One coach in six seasons demanded 80% practice shooting to attempt game three-pointers. She led or was near the lead during those Dr. Dish workouts, shooting around 80%, but she shot only 21% during games. The issue was not just her. Her team did not shoot over 30% from the three-point line, whereas her previous team shot 37% and was top five nationally in three-point field goals made and three-point field-goal percentage; her final team led the country in three-point field-goals made, I believe.

She played for three coaches and three programs. Two were among the nation’s leaders in three-point field goals and percentage, whereas the other program believed in practice efficiency, shooting machines to decide who could shoot in games, and game slippage. The game slippage theory did not work, at least in her case, as she shot far below her practice percentages.

Why? Skill development, shooting, and performance are multifactorial. Correlation is not causation. I would not attribute success or failure to a single factor. However, she suggested her two biggest factors were confidence and practice design.

She switched from a team encouraging her to shoot to one questioning her shots. Consequently, her playing time decreased, reducing her shot attempts, creating a negative reinforcement loop: Less confidence = worse shooting = less playing time = fewer shots = less confidence… This started with the coach who had players run on treadmills next to the court for practice mistakes and created arbitrary rules about who can and cannot shoot based on practice percentages on a shooting machine.

The second change was practice design. As she texted:

She never practiced her shooting against defenders during the outlier season. They shot primarily on the Dr. Dish. She lost a sense of timing and rhythm without the consistent game-like practice. She struggled with anticipating the speed of defenders, especially playing in a new conference against new opponents, then playing fewer minutes and attempting fewer shots. She no longer engaged in the same type of practice that helped her improve from 35% to 40%. The lack of game-like practice likely affected her confidence, compounding the problem.

She was not alone. Almost without exception, her teammates shot lower percentages before and after their two junior-college seasons. This is a within-subjects design: We can compare the results from the same players who encountered two or more different training environments. Of course, it is far from objective, as too many variables affect shooting performance. However, these players changed their shooting practice for two years during junior college, engaging in more contested shooting and decision-making shooting through small-sided games and modified shooting drills than before or after. Many never practiced in this manner again. Some teams used only isolated, block shooting drills; others relied on shooting machines on the players’ own time. Many coaches view our shooting practice as scrimmaging and not true skill development.

The players endured many changes when transferring, and one cannot ignore the differences in situations, systems, styles of play, shot selection, playing time, opponents, and more. However, every player shot better when practicing with more variable, defended, and decision-making shooting drills and small-sided games than when they no longer engaged in this practice. Of course, this does not confirm the typical coaching bias, so coaches ignore these results and attribute the differences to higher levels of competition (debatable with the talent we faced) or lack of effort.

Is game slippage real? Sure, it is a euphemism for a lack of transfer, evidence that the skills practiced by players differ from those performed during games. We should design better practices rather than increase our skill reserve, and include as many game constraints as possible. The purpose of practice is to improve game performance; what are we really practicing when game performance is so far removed from practice performance?

Evolution of 180 Shooter

Efficiency is great, but effectiveness is better. Fortunately, small-sided games provide both. Players mix multiple skills, improving efficiency compared to block practice, and attempt more representative shots, this improving the effectiveness, and transfer, of the practice.

The ultimate purpose of practices and coaching, whether we want to admit it or not, is winning or performance, not learning. Learning, improvement, and development are important because they impact winning. Secondary purposes are building confidence, enhancing intrinsic motivation, exercise, fun, and more, but we play to perform and win. Drills lacking representativeness or ignoring the affordances, but building the confidence of an eight-year-old, are not bad or wrong, regardless of the nonsense posted by your favorite content creator.

Drills solve a problem. Generally, the problem is skill-based; I devise a drill such as med-ball shooting to enhance the player’s coordination and improve his rhythm during shooting. The constraint, the heavier ball, enhances the player’s learning, as he feels the difference as the weight forces his upper and lower body to work together to synchronize the timing of movements.

Improving coordination through the med-ball shooting does not directly improve performance. The goal is to improve coordination to improve his shooting style, which can be transferred to more complex shooting drills, which transfers to improved game shooting and overall performance, eventually impacting winning. The goal is not to improve at the drill or the med-ball shooting. The drill is a means to an end. As skill acquisition specialist Job Fransen wrote last week, “Don’t assume ‘near transfer’ (getting good at the specific drill) automatically leads to ‘far transfer’ (getting good in the game).” Med-ball shooting is several steps away from far transfer, but the drill solves a very specific skill-related problem.

Recently, Mike Jagacki tweeted, “Random thought: we had coaches attacking the 3-man weave and other drills because they didn’t represent the game. Now we have offensive players rip balls from the backside of defenders, defenders running around cones, etc. If the goal was to recreate the game environment, things still look pretty weird.”

I agree to an extent. Content creators need more and more content, and the drills move further and further from the game. However, just because some of the starts are unrealistic does not make them bad, nor does their lack of realism make the three-player weave a good drill. What is the purpose? Does the drill solve the problem? Is the drill the best activity to solve the problem? Is the drill one activity in a series of activities to solve a problem?

The difficulty in designing drills is getting to the endgame (SABA), the most pivotal drive/pass/shot decisions and actions. A high pick-and-roll is easy to get into: The ball-handler starts with the dribble in the backcourt and dribbles into the front-court, and the screener steps up to set the screen. This is not difficult and is game-like. However, what about the end of the possession? How do we set up drills to practice the decisions and actions after the initial advantage has been created?

I never liked the shell drill (Fake Fundamentals) as a coach because our coaches told us to step aside and allow the offensive player to beat us on the baseline in order to practice rotations. First, the positions and actions are prescribed beforehand, so the practice is rehearsal, not learning. Second, and most important, why would I allow an offensive player to beat me when coaches yelled at us whenever we gave up baseline penetration? The lack of congruency bothered me.

I use cones or other starts to create the initial advantage. Is it game-like? No. Is it better than telling defenders to step aside and allow offensive players to beat them? I believe so.

Anything other than five-vs-five sacrifices representativeness, generally to practice a specific action, reduce the complexity to improve success, to increase repetitions, or potentially all three. The two questions to ask are:

1. Do the gains outweigh the losses? Are the increased repetitions or specificity worth reducing or eliminating the representativeness?

2. Does the set up create negative transfer?

I watched a defender cut off the sideline in the front-court just as one would in the zigzag drill (Fake Fundamentals), and the offensive player changed directions and drove straight to the basket. The coach was incensed and questioned the defender who responded that he did exactly as they had practiced the previous day. The coach was astonished, and said, “That was just a drill.” Therein lies the problem. The purpose of the drill should be to transfer desirable behaviors to the game; the drill has negative transfer when it develops undesirable habits. Anytime the answer is “that was just a drill”, there is a better activity to teach or train the skill.

Skill-related problems are not the only problems to solve, as the number of players, baskets, balls, and other constraints impact practice design. I use different drills in small-group workouts than large team practices. I use different drills when one or two baskets are available versus four or more baskets. I cannot play Funio with a large group or without the side baskets.

Similarly, 3v3v3 only works with 18 players and six baskets. Running a practice or workout on a half-court with one basket poses different problems than a full-court space.

Many people use the drill below or their own related version. I initially used a version, which I called cone layups, when I trained players individually. I used a gym with a small half-court: The entire area would not support an NBA three-point line. How do you practice full-speed or game-like layups with roughly 20-feet of space?

Cone layups. Players circled the cone without losing too much speed to attack the basket as fast as possible. Initially, we started with one cone, similar to the video (minus the defense), then added a second cone. Players started on one sideline along the baseline, dribbled at the cone near the opposite short corner, turned around that cone and headed toward the top of the key to round the second cone and head back to the basket. Eventually, two players worked out together, and we added the defense to chase the dribbler.

I liked the cone layups to increase speed for layups, but also to practice lowering the inside shoulder when turning the corner against a defender. Running the entire arc is not game-like, but players often turn a corner during games when driving to the basket and lowering the shoulder helps to create or sustain an advantage. I also use curved runs because they may inoculate players against hamstring injuries, based on conversations I had with hamstring expert Mackie Shilstone years ago, which appeared in an early newsletter.

I did not use this drill with teams initially. Why use a half-court drill to practice full-speed layups when a full-court is available? A few years later, however, I coached a J.V. girls’ basketball team and used our pregame warmups as practice. Everyone played, so fatigue was not a concern. We practiced only three times per week for 90 minutes and had no preseason. We turned our pregame warmups into practice with 12 players and only three or four basketballs on half of the court. Chaser Layups became a purposeful drill given these constraints.

I had a problem: Practicing layups with greater speed in a confined space. The cone layups solved this problem. Later, I had a related problem: Practicing full-speed layups with a small contest with only a half-court available for an entire team. Chaser Layups solved this problem reasonably well. The competition enhanced the intensity, and players appeared to enjoy the challenge, enhancing concentration and effort compared to a normal pregame layup drill.

Almost any drill has a purpose for the drill’s originator, but coaches down the line are unaware of the original purpose as drills are shared and copied so much. Who knows the original coach’s purpose when he or she devised the three-player weave? Did the coach teach a secondary fast-break with the outlet and sprint behind? Did the team run a weave in their half-court offense and this expanded out to a full-court drill? Was the coach more interested in conditioning? Did the team struggle with catching passes on the move? I do not use the traditional three-player weave (Fake Fundamentals), but the originator likely had a purpose. Now, coaches copy the drill because everyone does it, and few people question its purpose. Why not use the three-player weave? An NBA coach uses it, so it is good enough for my team. Too few people ask why. Too few teams practice purposefully.

I see coaches post the chaser layup drill and similar drills when they have full-courts and multiple baskets available. The drill is not game-like. One does not dribble away from the basket and turn 180 degrees in an arc to attack the basket. This, I believe, was Coach Jagacki’s point when critiquing those who argue every drill must be representative, but then demonstrate drills with cones and other obstacles.

There are better drills when space and numbers allow. The instructions and the drill are not game-like or game-based. However, they solved specific problems for me. Different problems require different solutions, different drills, different constraints. Copying drills, even great drills, without understanding the purpose is not purposeful coaching.

The below combines three articles about the NBA Pre-Draft Combine written before 2013. Consequently, the references are old. I only combined and edited for brevity; I did not change the content or references, other than referencing a few recent studies.

As you read about prodigious performances in the NBA pre-draft combine, remember Kevin Durant’s performance ranked 78th out of 80 in 2007. Durant famously failed to lift 185 lbs. a single time, nor excel in any other test. Of course, none of the 77 better athletes won the 2008 NBA Rookie of the Year, and Durant is the only three-time NBA scoring champ from the 2007 NBA Draft. While other 2007 NBA draft picks trained to be workout warriors, Durant prepared to dominate the actual NBA.

Basketball is not the amalgamation of tests or qualities. Performing better in isolated tests does not transfer to on-court performance. Increasing one’s vertical jump or box agility test score does not improve basketball performance, although trainers and NBA decision-makers (apparently) believe performance on isolated tests predicts on-court performance (Berger & Daumann, 2021).

Fake Fundamentals

Combine performances offer little predictive information about future NBA performances, as illustrated by Durant. Players with better combine results tend to get drafted earlier, but with no justification based on post-draft performances (Berger & Daumann, 2021). Drafted players outperform un-drafted players in height, wingspan, vertical jump height and reach, line agility, and three-quarter court sprint tests, but do not necessarily perform better once drafted (Cui et al., 2019). The greatest correlation between combine results and rookie-season performance was between upper-body strength and rebounds and blocked shots (Ranisavljev et al., 2021). Anthropometrics, including height without shoes, standing reach, weight, wingspan, and hand length, were the tests most associated with future on-court performance (Teramoto et al., 2018). Standard measurements have predictive value; athletic tests not so much.

Basketball is not played in isolation. Basketball is an open skill; these tests are closed skills. Closed skills are unchanging and self-paced: Players initiate their movement when performing their VJ tests. They react to an external stimulus, generally the ball or an opponent or both, when jumping in a game. These are different skills. A player with a higher max VJ has the potential to jump higher in relation to the ball or opponents, but not when he reacts slowly or is affected by movement or contact. How many jumps in a game start from a static position with a self-initiated countermovement? Is maximum height as important as jump quickness?

Nobody who has watched Durant play basketball questions his athleticism. I imagine Durant excelled in the basketball portion of pre-draft workouts, as his shot is effortless, and he proved to be an expert shooter at the University of Texas. However, his more important skill is his ability to read the defense to create openings to use his effortless release. How does one measure this ability when competing against cones in workouts?

Evaluating players in individual workouts is like evaluating baseball players against the pitching machine. How much can you learn about a hitter in a batting cage? Batters must read the pitcher and determine the pitch type and location in tenths of a second. The speed and general location do not change in a batting cage. There is no decision-making, as every pitch is a strike, and there is no consequence for swinging at a bad pitch or swinging and missing. How does a scout evaluate a hitter’s ability to read a pitch or hit a slider?

The pre-draft workouts are like the batting cage because experienced trainers prepare players for specific tests, and there is no decision-making. The workouts are designed to make players look good, not to challenge players or expose weaknesses. Players practice for the specific drills. They are the designated shooter; they know they are shooting every time they run around a cone and catch a pass. Are these shots testing the same skill as receiving a pass in a game with a defender closing out and a teammate calling for the ball as the shot clock ticks down on a team trailing by two?

I attended the Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group Conference, founded by Art Horne, now the Head Athletic Trainer and Director of Performance for the Boston Celtics. Former Oakland A’s and current N.C. State strength and conditioning coach Bob Alejo spoke and mentioned he hired Brett Brungardt, who runs the NBA pre-draft combine, to test his players. He showed the Box Agility Test (also called the Lane-line Agility Test), and said NBA scouts had told him they can determine a good defensive player based on the first two steps.

I looked up the Box Agility Test scores for the players who were named 1st or 2nd Team All-Defense this season. The Draft Express database had scores for five of the ten players:

• Tony Allen (2004) – 10.70 seconds

• Chris Paul (2005) – 11.09 s

• Michael Conley Jr. (2007) – 11.63 s

• Joakim Noah (2007) – 11.79 s

• Tyson Chandler (2001) – 12.13 s

For perspective, the top three scores are:

• Mustapha Farrakhan (2011) – 8.18 s

• Isaiah Thomas (2011) - 8.22 s

• Andrew Gouldelock (2011) - 8.23 s

The two best scores for players over 6’8 in bare feet in the database are:

• Ralph Sampson (2011) – 9.12 s

• Josh Harrellson (2011) – 9.20 s.

For more perspective, I found players with similar times who are not all-defensive performers:

• Tony Allen (10.70): Chuck Hayes 10.70, Shawn Williams 10.69

• Chris Paul (11.09): Ronald Dupree 11.09, Michael Beasley 11.06

• Michael Conley Jr. (11.63): Trevor Ariza 11.63, Nick Collison 11.62

• Joakim Noah (11.79): Terrence Ross 11.78, Lonny Baxter 11.77

• Tyson Chandler ( 12.13): Monta Ellis 12.13, Mark Madsen 12.12

Some aspect of being a great defender is not measured in the Box Agility Test. The test has two primary problems: (1) It does not test agility; and (2) there is no coupling of perception and action.

I have not found reliability or validity information for the Box Agility Test. An unpublished thesis found the test to be reliable, but compared it to the T-Test to establish validity (Brown, 2012). The T-Test has been shown to measure speed, not agility (Pauole et al., 2000). Therefore, the positive relationship between the Box Agility Test and T-Test does not prove validity for the Box Agility Test as a measure of agility.

Agility lacks a precise definition (Holmberg, 2009; Jeffreys, 2011; Sheppard & Young, 2006). Agility has been defined as the ability to change directions efficiently or with a minimal loss of control or speed (Barnes et al., 2007; Safaric & Bird, 2011); described as a rapid, whole-body change of direction or speed in response to a stimulus (Sheppard & Young, 2011); and described as the coupling of deceleration with a reactive acceleration (Plisk, 2000).

More recently, agility has been divided into two categories: Reactive agility, or agility, and planned agility, or change of direction speed (Oliver & Meyers, 2009; Safaric & Bird, 2011). Planned agility involves a closed skill in which movements are known ahead of time (Oliver & Meyers, 2009). Reactive agility is an open skill capturing the perceptual and decision-making skills required within a game (Jeffreys, 2011; Serpell et al., 2011). Most tests of agility use pre-planned movements and apply the test results to open-skill sports, which is the case with the Box Agility Test. Actual agility, or reactive agility, is rarely tested because a reliable test is more difficult to design and repeat.

Basketball involves more than physical quickness. The best defenders anticipate. Was Shane Battier (2001 – 10.95 s) a great defender because of foot speed or perceptual skills? The perceptual abilities thought to differentiate expert and non-expert players include pattern recognition and the ability to predict and anticipate an opponent’s behavior (Aglioti et al., 2008). These abilities are untested in a pre-planned test, but ultimately differentiate expert defenders.

Recently, tests using flashing lights to simulate a reactive condition have been introduced. The pre-draft combine now incorporates a test with flashing lights, according to Alejo. The question is whether or not these tests measure something different than pre-planned tests. A pre-planned test and a test with a flashing light were found to measure the same predominantly physical qualities, although times were slower with the flashing lights (Oliver & Meyers, 2009). In essence, the they were the same test with slightly different procedures. A flashing light (Fake Fundamentals) does not present the cues enabling a skilled performer to anticipate and move more quickly. Reactive agility tests must incorporate game-realistic simulations because expert performers are distinguished by predominantly domain-specific attributes (Abnernethy et al., 2005).

A pre-planned test and a reactive agility test using a video display were found to measure similar, but distinct abilities (Farrow et al., 2005). More importantly, the reactive test differentiated groups of low, intermediate, and high-skilled players. “The highly-skilled players’ ability to anticipate the intended pass direction, as evidenced by a negative decision-making time, allowed them to predict earlier their change of direction and hence complete the sprint component with greater speed. In comparison, the lesser-skilled group’s decision times indicated they waited until the passer presented all available information before initiating their change of direction,” (Farrow et al., 2005). The coupling of perception with action is crucial to performance (Serpell et al., 2011), and a light cue does not train this coupling, as basketball players do not respond to flashing lights during games.

The NBA combine uses a pre-planned test and a test with flashing lights with virtually no ability to discriminate elite and sub-elite defenders, whereas reactive agility tests using a live person or video screen discriminated elite and sub-elite players in netball (Farrow et al., 2005), Australian Rules Football (Young & Wiley, 2009), and rugby (Gabbett & Benton, 2009). Basketball defense goes beyond the physical: Every change of direction is made as a reaction to an external stimulus. These directional changes and movements are never pre-planned. The coupling of these perceptual abilities with the physical qualities creates a great defender.

There is a cottage industry of trainers who specialize in preparing players to look good and perform well in these planned workouts, which is filtering down to the college, high school, and youth levels because of the NBA’s influence. Private skill trainers run their own combines and invite scouts (or do their own rankings) because they prepare their players to perform well in the specific tests and drills. The specificity principle states one must practice the exact thing at which one wants to improve: Play basketball to improve at basketball or practice the box agility test to improve at the box agility test. Combines shift the focus of training, as players practice to improve performance on specific drills and tests, not their actual basketball performance. We assume improvement in the drills or the tests transfers to improved basketball performance because the tests are basketball-adjacent, but transfer is not guaranteed or even likely.

Individual Skill Development

Working out is not bad, but playing basketball is the best way to improve basketball performance because expert players possess the skill and athleticism to navigate constantly-changing game environments. The problem with workouts is the goal. We moved too far away from the game and celebrate athletic feats that may not transfer, while ignoring actual game performance. Individual practice and tests have a place, but these isolated combine tests and workouts have limited validity in terms of predicting or improving performance, as best illustrated by Durant.

References

Abernethy, B., Baker, J., & Côté, J. (2005). Transfer of pattern recall skills may contribute to the development of sport expertise. Applied Cognitive Psychology: The Official Journal of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 19(6), 705-18.

Aglioti, S.M., Cesari, P., Romani, M., & Urgesi, C. (2008). Action anticipation and motor resonance in elite basketball players. Nature Neuroscience, 11(9), 1109-16.

Barnes, J.L., Schilling, B.K., Falvo, M.J., Weiss, L.W., Creasy, A.K., & Fry, A.C. (2007). Relationship of jumping and agility performance in female volleyball athletes. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 21(4), 1192-96.

Berger, T. & Daumann, F. (2021). Jumping to conclusions–an analysis of the NBA Draft Combine athleticism data and its influence on managerial decision-making. Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal, 11(5), 515-534.

Brown, A.E. (2012). The reliability and validity of the lane agility test for collegiate basketball players (Doctoral dissertation).

Cui, Y., Liu, F., Bao, D., Liu, H., Zhang, S., & Gómez, M.Á. (2019). Key anthropometric and physical determinants for different playing positions during National Basketball Association draft combine test. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2359.

Farrow, D., Young, W., & Bruce, L. (2005). The development of a test of reactive agility for netball: A new methodology. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 8(1), 52-60.

Gabbett, T. & Benton, D. (2009). Reactive agility of rugby league players. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 12(1), 212-14.

Holmberg, P.M. (2009). Agility training for experienced athletes: A dynamical systems approach. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 31(5), 73-78.

Jeffreys, I. (2011). A task-based approach to developing context-specific agility. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 33(4), 52-59.

Oliver, J.L., & Meyers, R.W. (2009). Reliability and generality of measures of acceleration, planned agility, and reactive agility. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 4(3), 345-54.

Pauole, K., Madole, K., Garhammer, J., Lacourse, M., & Rozenek, R. (2000). Reliability and validity of the T-test as a measure of agility, leg power, and leg speed in college-aged men and women. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 14(4), 443-50.

Plisk, S.S. (2000). The angle on agility. Training & Conditioning, 10, 37-43.

Ranisavljev, I., Mandic, R., Cosic, M., Blagojevic, P., & Dopsaj, M. (2021). NBA pre-draft combine is the weak predictor of rookie basketball player’s performance. Journal of Human Sport and Exercise, 16(3), 493-502.

Safaric, A.J. & Bird, S.P. (2011). Agility drills for basketball: Review and practical applications. Journal of Australian Strength Conditioning, 4, 27–35.

Serpell, B.G., Young, W.B., & Ford, M. (2011). Are the perceptual and decision-making components of agility trainable? A preliminary investigation. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 25(5), 1240-48.

Sheppard, J.M., & Young, W.B. (2006). Agility literature review: Classifications, training and testing. Journal of Sports Sciences, 24(9), 919-32.

Sheppard, J.M., & Young, W.B. (2011). Training agility and change-of-direction speed (CODS). In Marco Cardinale, Robert Newton, Kazunori Nosaka (Eds.). Strength and Conditioning: Biological Principles and Practical Applications (pp. 363-376). Wiley-Blackwell.

Teramoto, M., Cross, C.L., Rieger, R.H., Maak, T.G., & Willick, S.E. (2018). Predictive validity of National Basketball Association draft combine on future performance. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 32(2), 396-408.

Young, W.B. & Willey, B. (2010). Analysis of a reactive agility field test. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 13(3), 376-78.

In January, I published 20 Hacks for the 24-Hour Athlete, which I wrote primarily for players, as I found myself offering the same advice and sending the same links to players who were looking for off-court advantages or help. Below is a chapter I removed from the final book; some content may appear in the book, as I combined two chapters into one late in the process.

“Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” – Diane Ackerman

Every player wants to train like a professional player, as we attribute their professional status to their training and imagine they have access to the best coaches, practices, and training theory. Is their skill attributable to their current training? Should you train like a pro?

A post on a coaching forum said, “Brett Brown of the 76ers said that while it’s not uncommon for NBA players to dramatically improve their shooting after they enter the league, very few seem to improve their ball-handling significantly. It seems to be a skill players learn young or not at all.” I do not know the accuracy of the statement, whether Brown said this, nor whether few NBA players improve their dribbling skills. However, dribbling skills are learnable into adulthood.

We had great ball-handlers when I coached U9s. They looked good in drills, they could do tricks, and they handled the ball well in games. More than half of our team did the slip-and-slide from the And1 Mix-Tapes in our pregame layup lines at the AAU National Tournament. Our first opponent stopped their warmup to watch our players. We shredded presses because every player could handle the ball. How did they develop these skills? Was it because they were young? Yes and no.

We played. Our dribbling drills consisted of follow-the-leader and small-sided games. We encouraged our players to try tricks. One player pulled off the slip-and-slide in a game.

Our two best ball-handlers were the last to leave practices because one’s father was the program director who had to lock up and the other’s mother liked to talk. They played one-vs-one as everyone filed out of the gym. They had no baskets, so one-vs-one was basically keep away. The vestibule was about six to eight feet wide, and they dribbled around or through each other after most practices. Nobody told them to practice while their parents talked. They just played.

Play is fun, voluntary, and done for its own sake rather than another purpose (to improve); you lose a sense of time and gain a diminished consciousness — you are immersed fully in the moment; there is no one way to do things and the experience drives a desire to continue (Brown, 2010). They were unconcerned with their parents standing outside and talking for 20 minutes because they were immersed in play with no sense of time and no desire to do anything else. Once they got into games, they had so much space compared to the vestibule that beating a defender was easy.

Individual Skill Development

Brown believed age affects learning, development, or maybe just dribbling. One problem in our basketball development environment today is many people view any individual drill as skill development. An individual drill is not necessarily skill development. I visited an academy years ago, and the director showed off his U11 players doing very impressive straight-line drills. Once they scrimmaged, nobody beat anyone off the dribble. The director blamed athleticism. whereas I implored him to play tag. He relented, and players lost control of their balls repeatedly as they played tag. These players developed well-trained habits through their complicated straight-line drills, but the skills collapsed under a little bit of pressure, speed, and unpredictability. There was a disconnect between the practice and the game.

Skill acquisition is a subconscious process and leads to fluency, whereas learning is a conscious process focused on accuracy (Krashen, 1982). Fluency precedes accuracy; you spoke and communicated with friends before you knew proper verb tenses and spelling. You can end a sentence with a preposition, and everyone understands the idea despite the grammatical error. Play develops fluency with the ball, the basket, and teammates. The academy players perfected their accuracy — they could conjugate their verbs on a test — but they lacked fluency: They could not converse with another person.

Age is only a factor because of children’s willingness to explore, experiment, and risk mistakes. Young children learn rapidly through a large variety of movements with minimal repetitions, and a tendency not to follow instructions (Schöllhorn et al., 2010). They explore and play. Our players developed their dribbling skills through their after-practice play as much as the playful drills such as tag and follow-the-leader and small-sided games in practice.

NBA players rely on stationary and straight-line dribbling drills, or they attack cones, chairs, or interns rather than playing one-vs-one in confined spaces. They practice like the academy players, focused on accuracy, not fluency. Young players develop their fluency through play; NBA players struggle because they engage in specific movements with many repetitions and almost constant feedback and instructions. It is not the age preventing the development of dribbling skills, but the environment.

Adults view play as superfluous because it is fun, and therefore not serious practice, but every learning environment offers a different social context and fulfills different needs; ignoring any environment is detrimental, whether play or deliberate practice (Cote et al., 2013). One is not better than the other; each has its purpose. However, accuracy without fluency misses the point; are you interested in conversing with another person or just being able to correct grammatical mistakes on paper?

Playful practice and a playful attitude toward practice possess intrinsic value at every stage of development (Anderson & Steel, 2022). San Jose Mercury News columnist Tim Kawakami (2017) once wrote about Stephen Curry and Ian Clark: “They’re playing like little kids, while they’re preparing to do something very serious, and there is Curry in a nutshell, right there.” Coaches praise Curry’s stationary two-ball routine, but ignore the playful aspects of his preparation and development. Steven Kotler wrote in The Rise of Superman, “If we are hunting the highest version of ourselves, then we need to turn work into play and not the other way round.” Curry is who he is because of the playfulness, passion, and fun as much as the effort and seriousness.

Nobody is associated more with serious practice than Kobe Bryant and the Mamba Mentality, but his practices often incorporated play. “Bryant would invent various sets of rules where he could only dribble and score with his weak hand; some days he could only score inside the paint, others only from outside” (Pick, 2014). He manipulated task constraints to practice different skills, as the constraints changed the defender’s behaviors. He created different challenges for himself, which mimicked the challenges he faced during the season.

Too often, drill work is insufficient. We spend hours practicing layups, but Mike MacKay, a master coach developer with Canada Basketball, has written that the most missed shot in basketball is the poor-angle layup. The ubiquitous layup drills and practice fail to prepare players fully for the intensity and angles of game layups. Curry’s layup touch may have developed from shooting on “the thick steel rim that offered no absolution” that was on a pole “not squared to a single landmark…so every shot required instant, expert recalibration” (Fleming, 2015). Bryant may have perfected his finishing through practicing against different defenders with different constraints that prohibited the perfect-angle layups and dunks. Layup drills refine the movement and improve wayward technique, but you need to play to develop the touch and feel to become an expert finisher. Play affords the opportunity for exploration and discovery.

Does this mean all NBA players should play tag? Beats me. I am not an NBA trainer, but players might want to try something new if Brown is correct and few NBA players improve their dribbling despite numerous skill trainers running summer-long workouts to improve these skills. Henry Ford said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” Maybe the reason players remain the same is they continue with fundamental, skill development drills despite their apparent purposelessness. Who knows?

Future elite performers typically start in playful conditions (Bloom, 1985). The world’s best soccer academies believe serious play best develops players for the future (Nesti & Sulley, 2014). National-level players and expert decision-makers played more as children (Hornig et al., 2016; Berry et al., 2008). Even K. Anders Ericsson (2017), the godfather of deliberate practice, identified children playing as “their first steps down the path of expertise.”

By all means, if you want to train like a pro, do stationary two-ball, straight-line, and other similar drills. However, Brown essentially said these do not work. Instead, add complexity to develop your skills. As Rafe Kelley said, “Complexity translates better to simplicity, but not vice versa.” Make your practice more playful, and more like a game. Couple the perception and the action. Tag is not perfect, but it adds speed, unpredictable changes of direction, evading skills, reading opponents, and more that more closely approximate game dribbling than a straight-line, two-ball, or tennis-ball catching drill. Skill is more than being able to bounce a ball. The skill is being able to handle the ball under pressure and make the best decision given different, constantly changing situations. This is the skill to develop, not being able to dribble two balls at the same time in straight lines.

References

Anderson, D.I. & Steel, K.A. (2022). It’s not the type of practice that matters, it’s the attitude: The impact of playful practice on motor skill learning. Brazilian Journal of Motor Behavior, 16(2), 179-93.

Berry, J., Abernethy, B., & Côté, J. (2008). The contribution of structured activity and deliberate play to the development of expert perceptual and decision-making skill. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 30(6), 685-708.

Bloom, B.S. (1985). Developing talent in young people. Ballantine Books.

Brown, S. (2010). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. Avery.

Côté, J., Erickson, K., & Abernethy, B. (2013). Play and practice during childhood. In J. Côté & R. Lidor (Eds.), Conditions of children’s talent development in sport (p. 9-20). Fitness Information Technology.

Ericsson, K.A. & Pool, R. (2017). Peak: Secrets From The New Science of Expertise. HarperOne.

Fleming, C. (2015). Stephen Curry. The full circle. ESPN the Magazine, April 23.

Hornig, M., Aust, F., & Güllich, A. (2016). Practice and play in the development of German top-level professional football players. European Journal of Sport Science, 16(1), 96-105.

Kawakami, T. (2017). Steph Curry, Ian Clark like ‘little kids’ in pregame routine. San Jose Mercury News, May 19.

Krashen, S.D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon Press Inc.

Nesti, M. & Sulley, C. (2014). Youth development in football: Lessons from the world’s best academies. Routledge.

Pick, D. (2014). Ex-L.A. Laker Tony Gaffney relives bond with Kobe Bryant. Basketball Insiders, October 15.

Schöllhorn, W., Beckmann, H., Janssen, D., & Drepper, J. (2010) Stochastic perturbations in athletic field events enhance skill acquisition. In: Renshaw, I., Davids,K., & Savelsbergh,G.J.P. (Eds) Motor learning in practice – A constraints-led approach (pp. 69-82). Routledge.

Drills solve a problem. Some drills include the context; others do not. The degree of representativeness does not determine the goodness of a drill; if representativeness was all that mattered, why do anything other than play five-vs-five? The utility of a drill is determined by its ability to solve a problem or enhance performance.

Individual Skill Development

I tend toward a more constraints-led approach, but I use isolated practice when I identify a problem and decide the best solution is individual or isolated practice. Limited isolated practice to solve specific problems is good practice and should be the primary reason players seek out private trainers, as team environments often lack the time for specific, individualized personal practice. Instead, most private training is too general to be individualized and lacks a specific problem to solve. The training is simply isolated practice with no real purpose for the lack of representativeness. Players just perform reps on reps on reps, satisfying the grind, and expecting more, more, more to cause improvement. This is Brute Force Development.

Years ago, I visited an NBA trainer’s workouts. The trainer had said he would hire me as a consultant (he never did), so I watched his workout with some NBA pre-draft post players on my way to a strength and conditioning conference (where I met Lee Taft, Todd Wright — now with the Clippers, and some others). I watched as a potential NBA draft pick made the same mistake, and missed the same shot, over and over without the trainer offering any cues or instruction. The feedback was typically general: “Higher”, “Bend your knees”, “Balance” — the same things parents scream from the stands during every U10 AAU game, but agents paid over $10,000/month per player for this training.

They were drop stepping middle and shooting baby hook shots, but the players was not rotating completely. Consequently, he missed short on every shot. He was never positioned to score.

Personally, I would not organize practice in this manner with six professional players standing in a line and taking turns on undefended repetitions. Presumably, players take turns to enable the trainer to provide individual feedback after repetitions. Otherwise, there were multiple unused baskets to which the players could have spread out to increase repetitions. The trainer sacrificed repetitions to practice on a single basket and representation by isolating the movement, yet offered no corrective feedback. What’s the purpose? What are we even doing?

I got so frustrated, I walked onto the court in flip flops and board shorts as the player walked to the end of the line. I was just a guy on the sideline who showed up after they had started. Nobody introduced me or even acknowledged my presence. I asked the player if he wanted to know his problem. Again, I was a six-foot tall nobody, and he was a 6’10 potential NBA draft pick who had played in the ACC: I am not going to tell him what to do. He nodded. I showed him. He simply needed to point his toe more toward the opposite sideline to enable a greater rotation. Simple cue. Easy fix. He made the rest of his shots in the workout.

Again, I would not set up a training session in that method. That is not my style. That being said, I watch videos and read about trainers practicing micro skills and focusing on details, but see a complete lack of attention to the actual details, often because the lack of defense enables success. If a trainer talks constantly, stops players after every repetition, instructs, films every repetition, posts about the grind, and emphasizes micro skills, for the love of all that is good, identify and correct the micro skills, like this player’s incomplete pivot and rotation.

I recently watched a video praising another NBA trainer. The video demonstrated a move and drill similar to the second repetition:

In the video above, the player attempts to keep the ball high as he spins, but drops the ball before his shot. This was not a practice; we filmed drills for a few hours for an old web business. There was no feedback because it was not a practice or workout; he was doing us a favor. This was the original content creation.

The video of the NBA trainer appeared to be from a practice. He made no attempt to keep the ball high or protect the ball from a defender in his demonstration, nor did the players during their repetitions. These professional players made this same two-dribble, spin, and finish move as this 14-year-old future college football player with seemingly no intention to protect the ball or attention focused on anything more than completing reps. Doing work!

Maybe I overrate the ability of professional players, but the move, without defense, is not difficult. The player in my video was a three-sport athlete who had played basketball for roughly a year. He was a freshman on a rural high-school freshman team whose coach never ran a player for him. How many repetitions does a professional player need to learn this move? What do players learn when doing the same move over and over? What are they developing?

Bad habits.

Repetition after repetition without attention engrains habits, and in this case, a bad habit. I do not want players to spin into the middle of the three-second area with the ball at their waists. Coaches yell, “Keep the ball high” during games when a little guard reaches in for a jump ball or a steal because they dropped the ball to their waists as in their practice repetitions. Habits. The defense exposes the bad habit the practice repetitions failed to expose or correct. The trainer did not demonstrate protecting the ball, nor did he offer any corrective feedback. He did not introduce a constraint to force players to change or improve. Instead, doing more is supposed to improve the move almost by magic. Brute force development. Just do more.

I do not stop the action much. I do not instruct a lot. I do not have an ideal or a perfect technique I want players to copy. I do not talk about micro skills. I do not tell players exactly where to put their foot or how to hold the ball. That is not my style of coaching. However, if that is your style, how do you still not correct? What are these magical micro skills? Video after video is utter nonsense. I am constantly bemused at the trickery these trainers use to convince parents and agents to pay them money.

Last year, some expert content creator wannabe trainers criticized my use of a med-ball shooting drill because it lacked representativeness. Content creators learn a new word and can’t stop using it. They have to show off their ability to read a book I guess, as otherwise people may question their intelligence after listening to them try to explain basketball for any length of time.

The med-ball shooting drill is an example of an isolated, non-representative drill used to solve a specific problem with a player’s coordination when shooting. Shooting a med-ball is not specific to game constraints, but the practice is more specific to improvement than most shooting drills, as it is designed specifically to attack a rate limiter. How many game-like shooting drills address specific problems or weaknesses?

Evolution of 180 Shooter

I do not to believe in absolutes or a single correct way. I understand I am different than these trainers who engage in more specific coaching, but I do not understand how they manage to be hyper specific and still not correct errors. Furthermore, they demonstrate with the errors! How do coaches or trainers expect players to improve when they choose to isolate moves and teach specific move after specific move, while offering no corrective feedback and allowing mistake after mistake?

Basketball Practice

I lean toward using constraints or manipulating the environment, but I also am not opposed to isolated drills when necessary. I use drills to solve problems. The med-ball drill forces players to adapt a new coordination pattern, deriving more force from their lower bodies and the synchronization of upper and lower bodies rather than relying solely on their upper bodies to shoot a (lighter) basketball. We practice with the med-ball, then move to the court and attempt to feel the difference, the improved synchronization, and apply it to shooting a basketball. This is just one approach I have used with players, and I do not use med-balls with every player, as every player has a different problem. This is what should be meant by individual practice: Meeting the individual’s needs and solving the individual’s problems, not just removing defenders and taking turns one at a time.

Unfortunately, too many coaches and trainers simply hope players manage to improve through more work, more repetitions, and the grind, yet offer no specific cues, nor direct players’ attention to specific problems to change. They simply do drills and repeat habits, often incorrectly or with insufficient attention. They do not understand how they expect players to improve, but simply trust that enough repetitions will cause some improvements through brute force development.

Coaching is problem solving. Coaching can be a lot of other things too, but I was attracted to coaching to solve problems and help others achieve their goals. I enjoy working with a player or team and deducing the problem holding them back and creating a solution to help them overcome the sticking point. Sport and sports performance are multifactorial, meaning the problem could relate to the biomechanics of one’s shot; psychological skills such as confidence, resilience, mindset, and more; general strength and coordination; game understanding as it relates to shot selection; movement skills; and more. There is no single answer. Every player is different, every team is different, and every environment is different. Every problem needs a new solution.

24 Hour Athlete

I attended a top 25 NCAA Division I practice a few years ago under the impression I would meet with the head coach afterward. I took over three pages of notes, but the coach left as soon as practice ended. I reached out and offered to come back, but never received a reply. Now, I struggle to pay attention when I attend college practices, as most cycle through the same fake fundamentals, vary little in their substance, and the coaches are disinterested in discussing different practice designs. I watch out of curiosity, but mostly my mind wanders.

Last season, a coach actually asked my opinion. I admitted I had not watched closely, but offered one suggestion for their shooting, especially a few who shot near me during drills. I did not know the players, nor had any way to distinguish them, so my comment was general. My suggestion was nothing remarkable. However, most basketball coaches see basketball problems. They focus on technique cues: Follow-through, bend your knees, elbow in. I see a general movement because of my background in different sports, and specifically strength and conditioning.

The coach messaged the following week after a recruiting trip and said he now noticed the mistake everywhere. He worked with one of his players a few times, and reported that he made seven straight after instituting the slight change. The coach said the player thought he was a shooting guru!

Coaching originated as a generalist profession, but most are now specialists. One is not better than the other; each has its advantages. Specialists maximize their strengths — often their basketball-specific strategies — and hire for their weaknesses, such as movement skills. However, specialist coaches lack generality. Experienced coaches become “rigid under pressure and regress to what they know best,” according to David Epstein in Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

I wrote, “Coaching is one of the last, great generalist professions,” in the mid ‘00s. Coaches understood the physical and the psychological, motivation and conditioning. They knew how to teach and instruct. Their knowledge was learned primarily through observation (assistant coaches watching a head coach) and experience (actually coaching). Some beliefs were more universal than others, some practices can be criticized, and some coaches were better or more knowledgeable than others, but coaches generally accrued significant implicit and explicit knowledge about conditioning, development, motivation, skill acquisition, teaching, and more. Coaches had extensive general knowledge across a wide range of domains, although few were experts in a single domain.

Coaches today know more about their sports (specialists), but few are better coaches than during my childhood and adolescence. Most are content specialists in their specific sport, not generalists. They can teach seven ways to attack a two-three zone defense, but cannot observe a player jump stop — a basic, basketball-specific skill — and identify the biomechanical (technique) error (Myers & Hawkins, 2010). Administrators encourage specialists to build on their strengths and hire for their weaknesses rather generalizing their approach. Teams now have a strength coach, a shooting coach, an offense coach, a defense coach, a recruiter, a guard coach, a post coach, etc. We specialize despite the generalist nature of coaching and sports performance.

“Sports performance is governed by a complex interaction of variables, such as physiological fitness, psychological preparedness, physical development, biomechanical proficiency, and tactical awareness, amongst others (e.g., nutrition, genetics, general health and wellbeing, sociocultural factors, etc.),” wrote Dr. Paul Glazier (2015). Coaching is not one thing, but the application of various specialist disciplines with the goal of improving the performance of an individual, individuals, or a team.

Many, if not most, of the generation of coaches before me were teachers first, and often physical education teachers. P.E. teachers are generalists, as they must know a little about a lot of sports, fitness, strength, physical activity, and more. Coaching developed out of physical education, whereas “the overwhelming trend historically has been for sports performance research to be mono-disciplinary in nature — that is, it has tended to be conducted within the confines of one of the sub-disciplines of sports science,” wrote Glazier (2017). Our knowledge is siloed.

I am a generalist. I am interested in all aspects of coaching and performance. I often struggle because I want to be involved in everything. I want to problem solve. Anyone who has subscribed to this newsletter for any length of time understands my interests vary widely in and out of basketball. Friends advise me to specialize, to make SABA or 180Shooter or Playmakers my brand, to speak and create content only around this topic. My friends are smarter than me, their advice in terms of success is correct, but I cannot limit my interests to one thing. As a friend said to me recently, “I can’t believe you have written so many books, and they are all different subjects.” I could not confine myself to one discipline as a doctoral student, let alone a specialization within a discipline, even at a time when expertise and specialization were valued most. I certainly cannot specialize within a generalist domain.

I have spoken at conferences and coaching clinics for strength & conditioning, coaching, skill development, and sports psychology. My topics have varied from motor learning in strength and conditioning to psychological conditions for skill development to long term athlete development to dynamic systems and skill acquisition. Similarly, I have never presented on the exact same topic at basketball clinics or conferences. I do not repeat the same presentation on shooting or small-sided games or the pack-line defense from city to city. I explore new ideas. I have too many interests to present on SABA or NADA over and over and over again. I am not building a brand. I am curious. “I contain multitudes,” (Walt Whitman, Song of Myself).

I defend coaching as a generalist discipline and believe generalists have a great deal to offer, but everything in my experience suggests society prefers specialists, despite Epstein’s conclusions in Range. I applied for a scouting internship with an NBA team in my early 20s, and was rejected because they said my resume suggested a coach, not a scout. They believed knowledge outside the specific domain would cause conflict. Epstein wrote, “Modern work demands knowledge transfer: The ability to apply knowledge to new situations and different domains.” Knowledge across disciplines would seem to be advantageous, not a hindrance.

I applied for an entry-level strength and conditioning job with a different NBA team after completing my Master’s degree in Sports Coaching, my initial strength and conditioning certification (CSCS), and a subsequent certification (USA Weightlifting). I had acquired some experience as a volunteer strength coach and a personal trainer. The NBA strength and conditioning coach told me to get another certification, the NASM-PES, which I completed. I spent the year training basketball players and teaching Spinning classes, then re-applied the following offseason. The strength coach then said I had too much basketball experience. An NBA team saw basketball experience as a negative!

Subsequently, I applied to another organization to fill a shooting coach position, but again my lack of specialization interfered. I had been a head coach and had multiple strength and conditioning certifications, including a Level 1 certification from USA Track & Field. My background was considered too diverse to be a specialist; my experience moved beyond a specialist position because I had other experience in related fields. The NBA clearly demonstrated a preference for specialists.

Coaching has moved away from being a generalist profession, and lost most of the essence of its attractiveness to me when I started out. Now, coaches are specialists and hire specialist assistants or consultants to fill gaps. Why hire a well-rounded coach with general knowledge as an assistant when the head coach can hire a sports psychologist on retainer, a strength and conditioning coach on staff, an X’s and O’s expert, a player development expert, and a portal/recruiting expert? Coaches now develop with limited knowledge and experience because they are siloed in the same way researchers have siloed sports performance research.

No coach will be an expert in every discipline, but coaches must know something, whether explicitly or intuitively, about all of them. Years ago, I watched a coach who had coached me at camps when I was a child train a group of children and end with “plyometrics” to “improve their speed”. He then told me the parents loved his workouts because the players left tired. I had not taken a science class since high school, but I knew intuitively that training speed through plyometrics at the end of a two-hour workout that fatigued the players was incorrect. Because I sensed he was misguided, but I did not have the correct answer to support my intuition, I furthered my education and pursued my initial strength and conditioning certification. My curiosity motivated me. My intuition was insufficient; I wanted to know the correct answer.

Basketball (possibly all sports) has two types of coaches: The first believes basketball is unique, and essentially a discipline unto itself, and the second positions basketball as an invasion game with similarities across sports. My initial arguments about the step-slide and drop step fractured along these lines. I learned the step-slide and drop step as a player, but I improved as a defender once I was cut and stopped trying to follow my coach’s directions.

I watched other sports and saw different movements, including players crossing their feet. Why could a soccer defender or a football cornerback cross his feet without falling down when I was assured repeatedly for my entire basketball career that I would trip and fall if I crossed my feet on defense?

I repeatedly was assured basketball was different. Basketball was a specialty unto itself, and one could not learn from other sports. This is the point from which I split from traditional orthodoxy, the moment when Fake Fundamentals took hold, although the book was not written for another 20 years. I did not believe basketball was governed by a different set of natural laws than other sports, and instead, I intuitively knew movements that generalized across sports were more likely to be correct.

A few years later, I heard an NCAA Division 1 college basketball head coach tell a strength and conditioning coach with a professional rugby background that he did not understand basketball. The coach wanted her basketball players to run miles and miles on the track in the offseason because “that’s just what basketball players do,” whereas the strength coach wanted to focus on power, speed, and vertical jump. These coaches see basketball as a specific endeavor, and separate from concepts related to biomechanics, education, motor learning, sports psychology, and more. They trust what they know rather than exploring. They see basketball as their specialty and ignore the complex interaction of multiple sub-disciplines affecting sports performance.

I am not an expert in any specific discipline. I am a generalist. I have an interest in many areas related to sports performance, and I study, think, and write about many of them. I only wish coaching retained its generalist sensibilities rather than following the path of research to become siloed specialties. Someone on a coaching staff should have the knowledge and experience to transfer different domains and disciplines and speak the language of experts and non-experts to sustain the flow of information. Increasingly, unfortunately, the experts butt heads, as basketball coaches believe their expertise in basketball supersedes the strength coach’s knowledge of movement and physiology. We now believe a basketball specialty overrides the general application of specialist expertise from other domains, and we lack the generalists to see the multifactorial explanations.

Reference

Glazier, P.S. (2017). Towards a grand unified theory of sports performance. Human Movement Science, 56, 139-56.

Myers, C.A. & Hawkins, D. (2010). Alterations to movement mechanics can greatly reduce anterior cruciate ligament loading without reducing performance. Journal of Biomechanics, 43(14), 2657-64.