In today’s world we have people talking to us, giving us information, and even giving us opinions on what they think we should be doing. The outside input can be never-ending. We see this in athletics all the time, whether it’s family members, hangers-on, or close friends. Everyone has the answers for us. This is [...]
Coaching Philosophy and Career Enhancement
The Mirror
Mirrors are great because when you look into them you can’t see anything but the truth. You can close your eyes an pretend not to see, but once you get back to reality, the trust will show in every mirror. Almost every level of basketball has reached its season midpoint, which means that right now [...]
Inspiration vs. Motivation
We can learn a lot from other coaches — how they operate, how they think, how they get their teams to accomplish what many thought was impossible. In particular, I found it very enlightening to follow Sean Payton (New Orleans Saints coach) in the papers and learn from articles written about him, his staff and [...]
Regaining Trust
Trust is so important to success in any field or endeavor. Just like anything else, trust can be lost from time to time. When things don’t go as planned, when things take a turn for the worse, when everything that used to work doesn’t, trust can dissipate. The key becomes…how do you get it back? [...]
NFL Defenses
I’ve been reading a lot about the defenses of the “final four” teams that were in the NFL playoffs. Have often thought that basketball coaches should study football coaches from an organizational, practice planning, film watching and philosophy of defense standpoint. All four of the final play off teams talked about the importance of defense. [...]
Handle the Truth
All the great ones in any profession have the same curiosity about one thing for sure: how can I get better? Kobe Bryant, for example, is on a never-ending search for ways to improve. He doesn’t care what it takes; his goal is to strive for perfection. The only way to truly get better is [...]
Mental – Technical
There are a number of teams right now searching for answers — how can we get back to playing well? how can we turn things around? how can we play to our ability and potential? Teams have worked on drill after drill to the point that players know what needs to be done in any [...]
Never Too Old to Learn
We played the NJ Nets the other night and I spent some time with Del Harris before the game. Talk about a coach who has had a successful career! He’s been to NBA play-offs 27 times, was NBA Coach of the Year in 1995, took Houston to the NBA Finals in 1981, andhas been coaching [...]
No Excuses
If you analyze successful teams, you’ll find a few common threads. One of the most vital things is that successful teams don’t believe in excuses. I can tell you that we work very hard at being a team of no excuses. We don’t win every game we play and we may not win the NBA [...]
Practice: 2nd Half of Season
As teams enter the second half of the season, sometimes practices become less frequent and, in many cases, shorter as well. Players still have to remember the importance of these sessions. It often becomes the difference in getting one or two more wins — wins that can determine the success of your season. Here with [...]
A Champion’s Approach
As I analyze not only our team but many other winning teams in various sports, it becomes clear that winning teams approach their seasons with a greater dedication to perfection than average teams. Many teams are satisfied with playing well and getting good practices in. The best teams are different. Whether it’s practices or games, [...]
When Character Meets Situation
During the course of a year, very few games will be perfect in execution or results. This is a given for all of us. Having said that, there are a number of times during a game when your team will require a “winning play.” This is a term I have heard a lot recently and [...]
Less is More with Champions
People often ask how we can get three high-level players (and now a fourth with Rasheed) playing so much as a team. The answer is two-fold: • It’s those guys that allow us to play that way more than it is Doc making them play that way. They are ultimate professionals in that they understand [...]
This is How We Do it Here
Interesting to just observe players, not only see what they do, but also to listen to what they say. We were going over some defensive things with the young players the other day and you could see that they were trying to do it — they heard what was being taught but they didn’t grasp [...]
Performance or Production?
In this age of instant reporting and our ability to put almost every game on TV, there’s a decision that players have to make and coaches have to demand. The decision comes down to…performance or production. What is the goal of the player and the team that night? This decision is not as easy as [...]
