Coaching is Teaching

Be a Student of the Game

Develop an Offensive Philosophy

Demand Excellence

Teach Skills, Not Just Systems

The Thrill of Victory, the Agony of Defeat

Having a Shared Vision

Once you have an understanding of what your vision is going to be, it is extremely important to have all of the people who are around you believe in your vision and help you to achieve it. Whether it be other players, coaches, family members or friends. Everyone involved must believe in your vision and take a small piece of ownership in it. You should put your vision in a written statement that is clearly understood by everyone. A vision statement helps you to stay on course and guides you when you get off track. It makes everyone involved feel proud and excited about being a part of something bigger than themselves. It requires people to stretch expectations and their performance. To reinforce your vision, you should use pictures and motivational signs. You should place them in areas where you will see them frequently. After seeing the pictures and signs frquently you will internalize the meaning of the words and images.

Coaching Style

Your coaching style will play a huge part in determining how you implement your philosophy. Set some goals for your team. First, determine what you want your team to accomplish, and what you want them to get out of the experience. What’s most important? Winning? Getting along with each other and getting everyone equal playing time? Both? In other words, set priorities. If you’re coaching a youth level team, simply getting everyone some playing time might be your top priority. This will most likely not be the case, however, if you’re an AAU, high school, or college coach.

Up the Coaching Ladder

Patience With Your Bigs

Both for the player and the coach, a big key with big men is patience. Because of their size and the skills required, it will often take a taller youngster more time to develop then a shorter player. Those working with these taller players have to be patient and encouraging. If allowed to develop at his own pace, he may blossom into a truly outstanding player.

Zone Offense - Beating the Zone

Move the basketball and move players to DISTORT THE ZONE defense. Drive gaps, adjust spacing, improve passing angles, screen the defense, skip pass, swing the ball to the other side, cut to the basket, flash into the post, or overload to shift the zone. All are great techniques in beating the zone.

Zone Offense -Gap Alignment

To start your zone offense it is a good idea to get in a "GAP ALIGNMENT". Against an even front zone(2-1-2, or 2-3)get in an odd front set(1-3-1,1-2-2 or 1-4). Against an odd front zone, get in an even front set. This is to make 2 defenders think about which one should guard you. If a defender is in a direct line between you and the basket-MOVE. Basically, put players where the defense isn´t.

Get The MOST Of Your Court Time

If you are going to put in a new offensive play tomorrow, then at the end of practice tonight - distribute to your players a written copy to go right into their Playbook, and for them to know tomorrow. When tomorrow arrives have them walk through it.In a matter of just a couple of minutes, you are now working 3/4 speed and discussing KEY components of execution such as timing, floor spacing and the sequence of options.

Competitive Practices

As often as possible, make practices competitive. Games are played to be won and lost, so the more competition you can have in practice, the more used to competition your players will be. To be battle tested your practices have to be war. Practice how you play. So practice hard.

Coach Within Your Personality

One of the most important pieces of advice that can be offered to a new coach is to coach within your personality. Don´t try to coach like someone else or emulate someone else´s style. Be yourself. Players can sense right away when you are being "fake". You will go further if you coach in a manner that you are comfortable with.

Keep Things Simple

There is an old rule in coaching-KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Don't try to over complicate things. Kids have a lot on their plates, the more you simplify, the more they retain.

Clinics

Bottom Line

If you are: 1) knowledgeable and organized, 2) work as hard as you expect your players to and 3) care about them as people, your players will reciprocate by playing hard and buying into your coaching philosophy.

Playbooks

Practice Length

Team Chemistry

When selecting your team, you obviously need to be concerned with talent, but also important is how those talented players are going to work together. You need to select players who will accept your philosophy and are willing to blend their talents with those of their teammates in order to win. A headstrong player who is only interested in his or her statistics can destroy a good team. Just look at Terrell Owens.

Basketball Practice Duration

A typical basketball workout would be somewhere between 1.5 hours and 2.5 hours from start to finish. Consideration should be given to the age of players and the time of the season. The younger the player and the later in the season - the shorter the practice should be. As coaches, we expect our players to be on time so that we can begin on schedule. For that reason we should be respectful of players(and their parents) to be organized enough to end on time.

Scouting

One of the most important things to know about your opponent is the players individual habits. Try to find out if a player is a shooter, passer or a driver. If they are a shooter, do they like to shoot off the pass or the dribble? If they drive, do they go left or right? Do they drive to score or to draw the defense so they can pass to an open teammate. Know these individual tendencies and you will have a better chance to defend you opponent.

Have Confidence

Be demanding

Discipline the Player, NOT the Person

A VERY successful division one college coach uses a tactic that is very interesting. In practice, he does NOT call players by name when he is scolding/questioning them. Rather, he uses their jersey #. For example, "Come on 20, you need to set up that screen. Otherwise it´s just an exchange," Or "32, that was a bad decision. Couldn´t you see that she wasn´t open?" The idea is that when he corrects them, he doesn´t use their name. Therefore, it is not directed toward the person, it is directed toward the player. Off the court, and in situations where he is praising something that is worthy, he uses their name. He wants them to associate themselves only with positive reinforcement. Thus, you discipline the playerm but praise the person.

Practice Plan

A good practice should be well organized and efficient. One of the best ways to achieve this is throught the use of practice plans. Decide what you want to accomplish in your practice, how much time you will devote to each thing you want to do, then the drills you will use and how much time you will need to complete them.

Time-Management

Aggressiveness

As far as teaching aggressiveness, simply make as many of the drills in practice competitive, with a winner and a loser. Then have the losers do a task, like a sprint or two, five pushups, or reward the winners by letting them get a drink first. Eventually the will to win starts to spread, and aggressiveness becomes a necessity.

Efficiency Ratings

A good way to show your team how effective they are being on offense and defense is with efficiency ratings. For your offensive efficiency, take the number of points you score and divide by the number of possessions you had. You can count your possessions by adding the number of shots you took with your turnovers and number of times you went to the free throw line. Anything over .85 is a good offensive rating. Likewise, take the same numbers for your opponent. This tells you your defensive efficiency. Anything under .75 is good.

Lopsided Scores

A one sided game is not good for either team. The overmatched team could feel humiliated and the victor is not challenged. To make the game more challegeing, the better team could ask themselves some questions like: Did you play everybody? Did you continue to take advantage of a player or team by applying extended defensive pressure? Did you continue to run for layups off steals against a team that couldn´t run back to protect their hoop. All of the above and more are coaches decisions. I´ve seen teams use games like these to give boys/girls quality playing time (more minutes than they usually get). I´ve seen teams use games like this to work on their perimeter shooting and refuse to shoot inside the lane. I´ve seen teams NEVER press an overmatched opponent BECAUSE IT WASN´T IN THE BEST INTEREST OF ANYONE INVOLVED. Oftentimes, there is a game within a game. When it´s over, was it about dignity and respect or was it about winning at all costs?

Drill Time

When running drills, break your team into groups and spend no more than five minutes on a drill. You want to keep practices fast-paced and this will help. By breaking down into smaller groups, you keep everyone active and give them several repetitions in the exercise. By keeping the drill time short, you keep their interest.