Coaching People who Play Basketball

Thanks to Coach Mike MacKay, Performance Manager from Women’s Basketball Canada for his ideas to support this article.

Some ideas for you to consider this weekend as you continue your ongoing development as Coaches.

Blindspots

As a coach you need to know your blind spots. Are you relatable and speaking the same language as your players ?

Coaching Equation

Who are you coaching + Why are you coaching them = What are you coaching + how are you coaching

Does the Why of why your players are playing = the why of why you are coaching. Do you have a shared purpose in your program ?

Learning

Think of how a baby learns to walk. As a parent you move behind them, like a bomb disposal unit ready to reach out and grab them at any point BUT you let them wobble BECAUSE it is a safe learning environment and they are able to take their learnings , transfer them and try again.

Consider this analogy in your training behaviors. Can you get repetitions of the skills you want to train without repetition ? Very few players will be able to learn a perfect movement pattern that can be reproduced in a game but actually all movement has variability and must be able to withstand instability. Much like the baby learning to walk.

Time Outs

3 things to consider.

1. Why do you call timeouts?

Is it

• Because of skill issues
• To clarify concepts
• To discuss strategy
• To implement a tactic

2. For all of these consider what you would do to

• Avoid this becoming an issue
• Prevent/stop this occurring
• Punish this if it is a positive for your team and a negative for the opposition.

3. When do you intervene ?

• Too early = The Cue has no impact
• Too late = the players get the feedback after the moment of decision
• As it happens = run the risk of overwhelming them and distracting them

You have to find the moment which enhances performance.

Feedback

Know your player. Who are they and what do they want to know.

Do they want to be;

• Appreciated ?
• Told where they stand ?
• Told how to fix it ?

When you know this you can work with the player on the ABCD’s

Agree , Build , Challenge , Deeper

Review

We have all been there, blank faces staring at us as we ask how that game went or what they thought of the drill. Do your players have the language to be able to answer you ? Here are some ideas to make sure they do.

• Give them a compare and contrast e.g. How did we go in rebounding in this game compared to last week ?
• Ask them if it was this or that ? e.g. Was our rebounding in this game aggressive or passive ?
• Get them to rate on the process. e.g. Where was our rebounding on a scale of 1-10? Get the group to think of what a 10 out of 10 rebounding performance is, this will get them visualizing what good is.