Basketball Coaches Are Teachers, Not Conductors
Preparing Players to Handle Big Moments Best for Everybody
Teachers teach lessons and prepare students to solve problems on their own; conductors, as best I can tell, control the every movement of an orchestra.
Basketball coaches constantly argue they are teachers because they use the basketball court as a classroom. And, obviously, some of them actually do. Read any of John Wooden's books, or listen to Bill Walton's admiration for "Coach," and it is evident Wooden taught more than the 2-2-1 press and the UCLA cut.
However, if coaches teach players to make decisions in life, why do they not allow players to make decisions in games? The Phoenix Suns are a revelation in the NBA this season because Mike D'Antoni allows his players to play; he does not handicap their creativity and athleticism by dictating the action through constant set plays, like Jeff Van Gundy.
How are players supposed to learn to think for themselves and to make critical life decisions when coaches hoarde timeouts to use to prepare for every critical possession at the end of a game, thus eliminating the players' decision-making? Coaches dictate the action; they draw the play and tell the players exactly what to do. In other words, the coach orchestrates the action. And, many coaches with endless egos like to point out and take credit for this orchestration.
But, what does this teach a young player? How to follow directions and do exactly what they are told? Is the goal to drill the life and creativity out of players until they become drones following every order?
There are two problems:
1) The peak age for sports participation is 12 years old. Most kids who quit cite the sport not being fun anymore as a reason. I see a correlation between the coaches insisting on the "my way or the high way" approach versus allowing the players to make plays. When I was in junior high playing for my dad and Dr. Morrison, I never remember a timeout called to set-up a play. I don't remember them drawing up special plays. I don't think we had that many close games, but I think they trusted us to make plays and win the games with our talent and basketball acumen. And, we all had a blast.
2) As the 2004 Olympics illustrated, our best players lack the understanding of how to move without the ball, play in pivotal stretches without instruction from the bench, play against changing defenses, adapt to circumstances, etc. If our best players lack these abilities, what does that suggest about our average players in this country?
There is a clamoring among some to adopt the International three-point line into the college game. They cite the rash of upsets in March Madness and "blame" the ease of the three-point shot, as evidenced by #2 Wake Forest being Pittsnogled out of the tournament.
I think the more important rule change, which will never happen, would be to adopt the International Timeout rule. Internationally, teams play 4 ten-minute quarters. In each quarter, a coach has one use-it-or-lose-it timeout and two in th final period. This is sufficient for any coach. While some suggest this would take the coaching out of the game, I argue it would heighten the importance of coaching.
Coaches would have to teach and prepare and trust their students to pass the test. No longer would they be able to hold their hand through the exam or bail out a player about to make a critical mistake. No more orchestrating the final three minutes of a game. Coaches would have to teach, and players would be better for it.
Basketball coaches constantly argue they are teachers because they use the basketball court as a classroom. And, obviously, some of them actually do. Read any of John Wooden's books, or listen to Bill Walton's admiration for "Coach," and it is evident Wooden taught more than the 2-2-1 press and the UCLA cut.
However, if coaches teach players to make decisions in life, why do they not allow players to make decisions in games? The Phoenix Suns are a revelation in the NBA this season because Mike D'Antoni allows his players to play; he does not handicap their creativity and athleticism by dictating the action through constant set plays, like Jeff Van Gundy.
How are players supposed to learn to think for themselves and to make critical life decisions when coaches hoarde timeouts to use to prepare for every critical possession at the end of a game, thus eliminating the players' decision-making? Coaches dictate the action; they draw the play and tell the players exactly what to do. In other words, the coach orchestrates the action. And, many coaches with endless egos like to point out and take credit for this orchestration.
But, what does this teach a young player? How to follow directions and do exactly what they are told? Is the goal to drill the life and creativity out of players until they become drones following every order?
There are two problems:
1) The peak age for sports participation is 12 years old. Most kids who quit cite the sport not being fun anymore as a reason. I see a correlation between the coaches insisting on the "my way or the high way" approach versus allowing the players to make plays. When I was in junior high playing for my dad and Dr. Morrison, I never remember a timeout called to set-up a play. I don't remember them drawing up special plays. I don't think we had that many close games, but I think they trusted us to make plays and win the games with our talent and basketball acumen. And, we all had a blast.
2) As the 2004 Olympics illustrated, our best players lack the understanding of how to move without the ball, play in pivotal stretches without instruction from the bench, play against changing defenses, adapt to circumstances, etc. If our best players lack these abilities, what does that suggest about our average players in this country?
There is a clamoring among some to adopt the International three-point line into the college game. They cite the rash of upsets in March Madness and "blame" the ease of the three-point shot, as evidenced by #2 Wake Forest being Pittsnogled out of the tournament.
I think the more important rule change, which will never happen, would be to adopt the International Timeout rule. Internationally, teams play 4 ten-minute quarters. In each quarter, a coach has one use-it-or-lose-it timeout and two in th final period. This is sufficient for any coach. While some suggest this would take the coaching out of the game, I argue it would heighten the importance of coaching.
Coaches would have to teach and prepare and trust their students to pass the test. No longer would they be able to hold their hand through the exam or bail out a player about to make a critical mistake. No more orchestrating the final three minutes of a game. Coaches would have to teach, and players would be better for it.
Published by Brian McCormick, CSCS
Basketball Entrepreneur, Professional Coach and Globetrotter. Performance Director for Trainforhoops.com and Creator of 180Shooter.com. Subscribe to my free weekly player development newsletter: email hard2g... View profile
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6 Comments
Post a CommentWho ever wrote this article is an idiot. You obviously are not a coach, know very little about the actual game of basketball, and are not a teacher. So you cannot and do not have the capacity to make the statements that you did. You fail to notice that there is a tremendous difference in coaching the NBA verse coaching 5th graders. I thought this would be obvious to anyone. I'll give you that NBA coaches try to conduct and orchestrate games because they understand the game which you apparently do not. They understand their players and their abilities, strengths and weaknesses, etc. A 5th grade coach is teaching the fundamentals of the game to children. Generally it is their first experience with the game in a structured setting. You have everything twisted.
Very good article and on target. Many of todays good coaches are starting to allow their plays to play freelance basketball that is controled by rules taught during basketball practice. During the game the coach then allows his players to play the game without having the coach control every players movement and shot taken. Coachlikeapro.com has an interesting article about this free-lance offense and the coaching/teaching points use to teach it.
I agree. It's a combination of many factors, but one of the biggest problems I see is kids unable to do anything on their own. When I coached in Los Angeles, I first heard the term "play date." Parents would arrange for their kid to play with another kid for an hour on a certain date. Kids spend all their "play" time in organized, adult-supervised activities, whether it is basketball practice, karate, soccer, dance class, etc.
Kids just don't go out in their front yards and play. They don't ride their bikes to the park and play. All their development happens under the direction of adults, not on their own. And, this manifests itself in a variety of ways, and in this instance, on the court, where coaches must try to close the gap and do so by providing even more structure. Nobody taught me to move wthout the ball; I learned by playing; when I played, I wanted the ball so I moved to where I could get it. If kids don't ever play, somebody has to constantly tell them where to go.
Excellent article! I don't claim to be any historian of basketball, simply a parent and as such have seen my child struggle with decisions to do something creative on the court without being told to. Not to take away from coaching but by letting the player have some independence doesn't it benefit the team as a whole? As mentioned in your article isn't the game the test to which the players have had numerous study sessions (practices) to prepare for? When do the players get to a point where they become responsible and accountable for there own actions independent of their automatic response to the coach? If it's because the modern-day player isn't prepared then perhaps modern-day coaching is failing?
Is it the chicken or the egg?
Does the overcoaching and micromanaging cause the lessened basketball IQ, or does the coach try to compensate when coaching unprepared and unknowledgeable players?
I believe youth and high school coaches reflect what they see in the NCAA and NBA, and players are never given the opportunity to develop basketball IQs because they are controlled and overcoached at every level. Furthermore, informal play (pick-up games) is disappearing so players lose another opportunity to "learn" the game, while spending even more time in structured, adult-centered activities.
If all coaches gave players at every level more opportnities to be decision-makers, basketball IQs would increase and the aesthetics of the game would be much improved.
The final 2 minutes of a basketball shouldn't take half an hour. You're right - coaches try too hard to control and micro-manage the game. However, the modern-day player doesn't quite have the mind for the game that his predecessors had.