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.