Loyalty...

I miss the days where people were loyal.  Guys like Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Steve Nash, wouldn't leave their teams for anything.  Now, people just go where ever for money, or whatever reason.

But it's not just happening in the pros.  I've seen it happen to two teams, and it makes no sense to me. Two players that coaches have invested their time with.  Two players that were welcomed into the program and afforded an opportunity that many don't get (you should see how many people show up to some of these tryouts).  The teams spend enough time to be a small family, and to see these guys just say forget family and go play in other places, that compete in some of the same circles no less, is just astonishing.

One player had been in the program for years.  Back then, he was not much.  Just an average kid who wanted to play.  They gave him a shot, worked with him and developed his game some, got him some looks from college coaches.  All of a sudden, he's playing on another team.  Why would you think that is a good idea?   That's nothing short of a slap in the face.  "Hey thanks for making me good and by the way I'm going to play against you now." 

While the second player hadn't been in the program as long (I don't think so anyway) but I saw him over the weekend playing for another team.  I just didn't know what to say to him.  I didn't want to see him doing well.  Inside I hoped he played horribly as karma struck back.  I wanted to confront him and ask why he even bothered playing with that team rather than handle his responsibilities with our program.

I don't know how the other coaches can hold their tongues.   I wanted to just tell both those guys how I felt and that they aren't LeBron.  You don't have someone welcome you in, put their trust in you, back you, and help you grow and then just bail.  It's not cool.  I had the opportunity to chill with a couple of the players that came through the program and have a sense of loyalty.  It's fun to be around  those guys, hear the stories, and how much they remember about the teams and the battles they fought together.  You don't have those kinds of memories and all when you are team-hopping. 

Maybe I'm old school, but I wish loyalty was still important...

Oops...My Bad

Been working so many hours at work since my last post that days are running together.  Just realized that its Tuesday, and there's no post for you guys. I'll get around to it soon, if my job gives me time to breathe...

Flying High

Trust me when I tell you I'm still all giddy and whatnot from this weekend. I'm dead serious.  We had a great weekend as a program, and it was fun to be a part of.  I was probably the most excited I've ever been in a while.  I can tell you for sure I am never that excited about work.  EVER. The boys came out ballin' all weekend, and were determined to make the most of the weekend.   I  had a great time, and I would do it every weekend in a heartbeat. 

I have people that ask me how I manage and do it week in and week out, skipping out on hanging out with friends on the weekends or relaxing after work.  Truth is, I am hanging out with friends, and I'm relaxing.

Sorry this isn't a real post, but I don't really know what else to say other than to tell these boys from this weekend - Job well done.   And to Coach Halewicz, thanks for writing this recap for me.  The high will probably wear off by next Monday and I'll be back to my normal posts.

Zero Gravity National Finals Recap

Get Your Mind Right

As I've said numerous times this spring season, I learned something else to add to list of things to accomplish with my team.  You can have the best players and lose.  You can have mediocre players and win.  And you can sometimes predict the future outcome 10-20 minutes before tip-off. All you have to do is see what they do for pregame.

I've been on both ends and seen it coming in most cases.  How you prepare for a game doesn't end after the last practice.  It ends at tip-off.  The stretching before hand, pregame meeting, the five minute warm up, the huddle just before the starters take to the court - that's all part of the preparation.  And that part, when not done well, can easily put you in a really bad situation.  Before you know it, you are down 15 to a bunch of scrawny, goofy looking kids, that most probably thought wouldn't be able to catch a ball, let alone make you look like clowns on the court.  But you can't just go through the motions - the stretching has to actually loosen the muscles, the pregame meeting needs to have meaning, warm-ups need to be focused and purposeful, and the huddle should be encouraging.  You have to "get your mind right" before hand, because if you don't "come correct" you've probably just come to get wrecked.

As a coach, I will need to explain and drive all of this for the first few games and/or tournaments so it sinks in and becomes routine.  I have seen how important it is for myself.  I've heard from coaches I respect how damaging it was for their teams in games they struggled in.  I heard basketball greats emphasize how important preparation was to them and their teammates.  Being someone who wants to someday reach that level of success and respect, I would have to be a fool - idiot even - to not make that one of the things I add to my next season.  Not to mention that it is a little intimidating to your opponent if they walk into the gym all lackadaisical and see all of your players stretching together, focused and ready to rip them to shreds, have an intense warm up and storm the court with crazy amounts of energy.  Weaker men may just wet themselves. 

I have tournaments I haven't won, leagues that I've yet to earn the title of champion in - to bite off my Lady Bears, I have "Unfinished Business." To those coaches I'll be competing against: this spring may be your worst nightmare.  We may not win all of our games, but you are going to be in for one heck of a battle.  You better believe it'll be "Put up or Shut up" when my team takes the floor, so don't let me catch you sleeping.

Newsletter!

If I keep showing up in these newsletter, I may be able to claim 'D' list celebrity status lol.  Just a quick mention, no publications - this time.

Wayne PAL AAU Newsletter - June 6, 2012

They Are Who We Thought They Were

Before we get into the post, as promised last week, I've correct that SNAFU from last week and turned that post into two:

Care To Talk About It

The Million Dollar Pyramid

Hopefully that is the last time I try that again, and you'll get quality posts going forward.  On to this week's post...

A few years ago, there was an Arizona Cardinals press conference that later became a Coors Light commercial.  While the point of the commercial was humor, it brings up a good point.  Just so that we are all clear on what commercial I'm talking about, here it is (not endorsing the consumption of alcohol, and if you do partake, please do so responsibly):

Head Coach Dennis Green, while frustrated about what did and did not take place on the field, was also complimenting the Bears organization in a way.  "They are who we thought they were..." If I were on the Bears organization staff, I'd be more than happy to hear that.  That means we played within ourselves and maintained our identity even when things looked bad (The Bears came back to win the game even though they started the 4th quarter down 20 points).  Sometimes that's tough to do.  It takes a level of discipline and maturity that even professional teams don't maintain, and they did it.

It's frustrating for opposing coaches, like Coach Green, when they know what you are going to do and have made the adjustments to shut you down.  The actual press conference made that quite clear.  But imagine if you are the Bears coach and you know that if you'd been who "they thought you were"  instead of trying to be something you aren't, that you'd have won.   Imagine how much more intense that press conference would have been.  I've seen those.  Sure it wasn't a televised event, but the post-game coaches huddle, dinner, stroll outside to cool down was nothing short of intense.  But you've spent weeks, months, even years sometimes to establish an identity to live by and a little adversity was enough to destroy it.  How much can you break that down?  You did things you don't normally do, so it's no wonder you did them poorly.  What can you take away from that and use as a teaching point?  "Don't do what we haven't done all season?"  That's practically common sense.  So that game is a total wash - nothing came out of it aside from a bitter taste and a couple of hours of frustration.   So, if you can get your opposing coach as frustrated as Mr. Green by playing to your identity, you're overjoyed.

One of the Coors guys then asks, "If you knew who they were, why didn't you stop 'em?"  Good question, but when you play a team that knows who they are and doesn't deviate, can you stop them?  Its not as easy as it sounds.  When teams have an identity, they do things well that play into it.  This past weekend I saw a team that shot the ball at an unbelievable percentage.  I even remember saying to another coach, "We just need to make them put the ball on the floor and challenge them to make contested layups."  Wrong - that's not who they were, and they had the will power to stick to their game for most of the game (they had a moment where they looked like they might break, but didn't).  They stuck to what they do well, even when it started looking grim, and pulled out wins.  We tried to chase them off their spots and get them to change their style - we knew who they were but we couldn't stop them.  When you come up against a good team committed to their coach's philosophy and schemes and their identity, stopping them tends to prove to be easier said then done.  You just have to hope that your identity puts you in position to take advantage of their mistakes.

Teams need  an identity - it gives you direction, gives you something to fall back on when things get tough, a foundation to build upon.  As individuals we all work to have an identity; we develop, protect, and invest in it - why shouldn't a living, growing, developing entity like a team be any different?  When you are who they think you are - you're a much stronger force to be reckoned with.  When you let someone else change who you are to suit their desires, you lose - and that holds true on or off the court.  So you know what, let them get mad that you were who they thought you were.  That means you've done your job, and you've done it well.

The Million Dollar Pyramid

dys·func·tion·al (adj)

1. not performing normally, as an organ or structure of the body; malfunctioning.

2. having a malfunctioning part or element

3.behaving or acting outside social norms

How many times have you used that word?  I use it almost daily, and most of you probably do too, simply because dysfunction rears it's head in some form in every team.  But on a basketball team, you want that to be the one place you don't see it at all.  For those couple of hours in practice each week, those grueling thirty-two minutes of a game - you want to see your team perform at it's best.   As I've been creating my own coaching philosophy and deciding on how I am going to go about preparing for future teams, one thing I want to do is check dysfunction early.   I once read a book that I'm going to spend the next few weeks pulling ideas from to make this happen, and I think it's worth sharing some of what I've taken away from it.

Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions

If you do any reading of business books, you should look into Patrick Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  It discusses five major themes of dysfunction, and breaks it down really well with a story of a company finding its way out of a situation by removing dysfunction (I've heard that each revision of the book has had a slightly different story).  Lencioni claims that these five themes create a pyramid, and that to overcome dysfunction these levels of the pyramid need to be overcome from bottom to top. Even in the short span of time a coach has with his players, I would say you can easily demolish a dysfunction pyramid - if you start the season working to address all five levels.

For me, I'm looking to stress the importance of commitment from everyone right from the start.  I'm still ironing out the specifics, but I know for a fact there will be no room for missing games and practice, and I am going to expect nothing short of 100% from everyone unless they want to be keeping the bench warm.  I also plan on spending a lot of time in each practice demanding that players communicate with purpose - positively and effectively, verbally and through body language.  

With no communication happening, you are essentially nothing but dysfunctional.  You obviously aren't paying attention to results - if you win, you cheer and celebrate.  You lose, and you want to try to figure out what happened.  Everyone is avoiding accountability - no one is apologizing for blowing the coverage or holding people accountable for defensive assignments.  But maybe that's just the fear of conflict rearing it's head because your teammates don't trust that you really want them to get better and are trying to help you.  

I want to start working on this right away because when you look at it, what part of that pyramid can happen overnight?  You don't build trust in an instant.  Commitment for a game or two is easy and easily faked for short periods.  If you don't start early, by the time you need these things to be eradicated to make a serious push into the championship portion of your season, it will be too late and your pyramid will show up at the most inconvenient of times as an unmovable obstacle that will knock you and your team on its butt.  I'm going to let me team go at each other - in fact, I'm going to encourage it - because I think that's one thing I've seen that has helped this season.  By letting them go a little harder on each other, they will hopefully help build up trust in one another while improving their skills as a team.  With all the talk of the Dream Team lately, you know those guys - Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson - went at each other every practice and expected nothing short of excellence from one another.  In one commercial, you hear Magic saying, "Don't you cheat on me..." to another player, which I see too many times in practice where guys half-step through drills because it's "just practice.  Nope - we are going to set a precedence of no plays off so long as your laces are tied.  If the greatest players of all time demanded the best from one another at all times, those working to be the best need to follow in that mold.

Historically, dysfunctional teams, whether its in the workplace, the home, or basketball court, will eventually fail and its usually epic. It's okay to laugh, cry, cheer, criticize (constructively) - it all lends itself to success, which is what we all want.  Don't give your teammates the silent treatment.  And as an added bonus, practice is more productive and fun, and hopefully you'll get a few good ticks in the win column.  I want to see my guys win more championships. I want to take them to Nationals. I don't want to see them fail.  Strategy, philosophy, and talent are great tools to have, but dysfunction can dull all of those tools and kill you. 

Care to Talk About It?

During a lunch break last week, a co worker and I were discussing how hard it is to keep the silent treatment going.  That got me thinking - why is it so hard to do it with some people and really easy for others?  Why can't adults keep it up for days, but I've seen youth teams go stretches of games where the only person talking is the coach.  Well, after a few days of thinking about it - I may have an answer. Whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, it essentially comes down to this: How much do you care?

When you care and are committed to someone or something, you want to see it succeed.  Very rarely can two or more people succeed at anything consistently without some form of communication.  Think about your personal relationships.  How many of the ones you care to maintain would last if neither of you said a word to each other.  How much would you get done?  How frustrated would you be?  How hard would it be to keep it going and not say something?  I challenge you to try it.  See how long it lasts, especially my married readers.  Silence just makes it considerably harder to be successful, even on the hardwood. 

On the occasions that I've participated with my players in drills, it's weird that by just talking to them - letting them know what's going on, who is doing what, who's going where - makes things more fluid.  Every once in a while other players will pick up on what I'm doing and they'll start communicating, so we'll get more and more good reps in for both offense and defense. There have been many games where the tempo, momentum, and intensity have been altered simply by choosing to communicate.  Teams have clawed out of deficits or crushed all hope for a comeback  by making a conscious effort to communicate and respond to that communication correctly.  And I've seen many games where big leads were lost, and opportunities to get back into games were lost because that decision to communicate effectively was not made.  I've been saying for most of the season, and seen it ring true time and time again, that the smallest things can have the biggest impact if you do them well.  The smallest muscle on the court, the tongue, is the most underestimated x-factor in the game of basketball even though it has the ability to turn the tide of a game with just a few simple motions. It can be the difference between good and great, a win and a loss, champion and participant.  Being that it's such a fine line, so small a difference, it takes someone who really cares about what they are doing and who they are doing it with to make that adjustment. 

It takes so much more work or me to be in these drills and say nothing, and I think that's just because I'm committed to the concept I'm trying to get across and care for my players. And I've had a few players (I wish I'd had more, but which coach doesn't) that cared enough to cheer for teammates even when the deficit was huge, push their cohorts to work harder in practice, talk through defensive rotations to keep us in games - which shows me they cared.  I honestly had no real issues with them venting frustrations other than delivery (telling your teammate he/she needs to stop "sucking" is not effective) because your coach should not be the only one annoyed when you've spent weeks practicing the same thing and having those same mistakes appear in the game.  The coach shouldn't be the only one a little enraged when you blow a big lead because you stopped playing fundamental basketball.  The coach shouldn't be the only one congratulating a kid for pulling down a ton of rebounds or some other "lost stat" in youth sports (people only seem to care about minutes, points, and turnovers these days).  The players that care do that for a coach and it's invaluable.

When you truly care about something, you find it almost impossible not to talk about.  When you care about basketball and all the facets of the game, you want to talk about it - you want to share what you've learned, seen, and done, especially to other people you feel would understand.  So when I see teams not talking, it makes me wonder.  Do you just not know?  Or do you just not care?  In most cases, they know - you can tell by what they are able to do at a somewhat consistent level.  And like I said earlier, the difference between somewhat consistent and consistent, as small as it is, may just need one quick flick of the tongue.