Mike D’Antoni and NBA’s “Streetball”

An earlier post talked about the Dribble-Drive-Motion and Blitz Basketball as organized streetball. The October 2008 Men’s Journal features a story about Mike D’Antoni called “The Smartest Guy in the NBA.” The article describes D’Antoni’s offensive philosophy, which is similar in philosophy, though different in execution, than the DDM.

“I know one way to play, and it’s worked for me since high school: Push the ball up. Space the floor. Shoot before the defense gets set. Once you understand it, it’s as easy as hell. But, and here’s the catch: You need skill guys to play it, and skill,” he intones, “isn’t the same as talent.”

The argument against the DDM is that it takes athletes to play the system because Memphis popularized the offense with several athletic players. However, as D’Antoni said, these offenses are skill-based, not athlete-based. These offenses rely on players who can make plays, not run plays. Players must be able to dribble, pass and shoot, and they must read defenders and teammates to make the right plays.

“What we forgot, until we got our tails kicked by other countries, is this game is actually beautiful when it’s done right,” says Dan Peterson, D’Antoni’s old American coach in Milan [see Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 40]. “Mike saw that there was all this room on the court no one really uses anymore.”

When I developed the Blitz Basketball system the goal was to spread out the defense and punish help defenders. If they want to help on penetration in the middle, we have a wide open shooter in the corner. Shooters catch when they are ready to shoot and square to the basket, and the decision-making is easy because the ball handler can read the direction of the help and make the pass.

“People call it small ball, and that pisses me off. It’s skill ball, plain and simple. I’d start two 7-footers if they could run and shoot. But better five midgets than stiffs who can’t push it…”

I have always favored quickness and skill over size as well. I do not believe height is an excuse; one reason we started Blitz was because we had a bunch of small guards and our best players were guards. I have never understood playing bad players just becasue they are tall rather than playing more guards. My freshman coach never played our three best players together because we were all very similar players and the same size. He insisted on a traditional PG, SG, SF, PF and C, rather than playing 3 kids who could pass like point guards and shoot like shooting guards. So, we always had a weak player on the court because our post players were our weakness; probably 6 or our 7 best players were point guards or shooting guards. We never understood it.

Despite popular opinion, these offenses are not just free-for-alls. For players to execute during games, coaches have to prepare players during practice.

“People think he just rolls out a ball and tells the guys to shoot it till they’re tired,” says Alvin Gentry, a Suns assistant and a former head coach himself. “The whole idea of spacing, moving the big man out and keeping the middle open for drivers, the drags and drops” – a series of on-the-fly screens meant to create easy shots – “if that’s so simple, how come no one tried it untilhe came along? Outside of Phil Jackson or Greg Popovich, you show me a coach who’s brighter than Mike, or more brilliant at making teams adjust to him.”

People evaluate coaches based on what they see, which is typically the game performance. When teams run lots of set plays and the coach stands and yells and controls the game, people notice the coach, and we equate that with good coaching. However, the best coaches teach their players how to play the game and allow their players to play during games. Adjustments are important, but teaching happens before the game, not during the game.

Kevin Martin, David Thorpe and Using NBA-style Stats for Player Development

The Sacramento Bee has an article about Kevin Martin and his work with David Thorpe. The article details Martin’s statistics from last season. From reading the article, it appears that Martin has his own personal statistics from one of the companies that breaks down film for NBA teams.

For instance:

Martin may have gone left 62.19 percent of the time last season, but his efficiency when heading that direction was well below the rate when he headed right. He settled for the mid-range jumper 63.25 percent of the time as opposed to 38.89 percent on the right side…

Martin also has stats on his shooting percentage by spots on the floor.

A breakdown of Martin’s field-goal percentages from various spots on the floor shows he hit just 30.6 percent of threes from atop the key, which is quite low considering he shot 40.2 percent from beyond the arc overall.

NBA teams pay thousands of dollars per year to gather this information. However, 180Shooter.com gives youth, high school and college access to the same information for under $100.

Thorpe and Jason Hamm, a Sacramento Kings’ assistant coach, use the information to help Martin develop into a better player. 180Shooter.com provides the same information to coaches so they can help their players become better shooters. Through 180Shooter.com, a high school coach can see if his player, like Martin, shoots only 30% from the top of the key as opposed to 40.2% from the three-point line overall, and work on shooting from straight-on with the player. He can see if the player shoots better off a right-hand dribble than a left-hand dribble and structure drills accordingly.

NBA teams, players and trainers use information to specify workouts, discover strengths and attack weaknesses. Now, much of the same information is available to youth, high school and college coaches at an affordable price to enhance their shooting development.

Free Play: Three Strikes and You’re Out-Standing

Originally published in Los Angeles Sports & Fitness, January 2008

I went to the UCLA football game Saturday afternoon. One couple in our group brought their young boy, probably two or three-years-old. As we tailgated post-game, the boy ran all over the place. He tried to play with some other young kids who chased after a football or he played with his dad, running after his own ball and hiking it to his mom. One time, he ran toward our group and started to pick up speed. All of a sudden, he face planted. He got to his knees, giggled and said, “I fell.” Then he got up and started running again. He did not slow down. He was not embarrassed by his mistake. He did not think twice about running again. He laughed at his mistake and continued moving.

Author Timothy Gallwey argues that this is the natural learning process. Falling is a part of the learning process and it is not good or bad. The natural learning process removes the evaluative aspect of learning. In The Inner Game of Tennis, Gallwey argues that the natural way of learning is best for mastering sports skills. Instead, if our tailgate party had been a typical practice, a coach would have stopped the child after he fell and described the proper running technique. He needed to use his arms more as he had no arm drive and his front side mechanics were poor. After hearing all these instructions, the child’s mind would concentrate on the instructions, rather than the action. Rather than allowing the body to work without interference from the mind, the child would try to control his actions and do as the coach said to prevent another fall, ultimately inhibiting his performance.

These instructions tell the child that he made a mistake. At our tailgate party, he had no idea he had made a mistake. One minute he was running; then he wasn’t. Then he was running again. He did not judge himself or worry about falling. The fall did not cause embarrassment because it happened in front of 20 people. In his mind, there was no evaluation, no mistake. As Gallwey explains, “The first skill to learn is the art of letting go the human inclination to judge ourselves and our performance as either good or bad.” As the child illustrated, we once possessed this skill. The kid did not judge his running to be bad because he fell. Instead, he laughed and started running again.

In The Art of Possibility, Benjamin Zander writes about one of his orchestra rehearsals. Someone made a mistake and he stopped and said, “How fascinating!” There was no judgment or negative reaction. How many people use this type of reaction when they make a mistake? When we slice a drive off the tee, do we curse the shot that may lead to a bogey or acknowledge the possibility to make a great shot to save par?

In competitive youth athletics, coaches concentrate on mistakes. Coaches view their job as fixing mistakes so each player and the team improve (well, some just view their job as winning). In the process, we lose the natural learning process. We learn that mistakes are bad, and we judge ourselves harshly when we make a mistake. Rather than giggling and returning to the action or saying, “How fascinating!” before moving on, our shoulders slump, our eyes fall and our minds concentrate on the mistake. Rather than stay in the moment, our minds focus on the mistake, which hinders our next opportunity. If we step to the ball for our second shot after a big slice off the tee and concentrate on the result of our first shot rather than stay in the moment for the second shot, we are more likely to hit a poor second shot. Rather than see the possibility to make a great second shot, we allow one error to imprint itself in our mind and negatively affect our performance.

Adults need to un-learn their judgment-based behavior to unlock their best performances and enjoy their activities. However, kids possess this natural learning skill. With kids, we must nurture this skill, rather than forcing adult judgments on young kids. Kids take their cues from adults, and experts suggest as much as 90% of communication is non-verbal. When your boy strikes out and looks to the stands and your head slumps, he senses your disappointment, even if you quickly perk up and congratulate him on his effort. He learns that swinging and missing leads to disappointment. Maybe this teaches him not to swing, especially if he coaxes a walk in his next at-bat and sees you cheering him on his way to first. Rather than concentrate on learning to swing, his focus changes to getting on-base, which pleases his coach. However, when is he supposed to learn to hit live pitching? If he never takes a chance, how is he supposed to learn? Because he judges a swing and a miss negatively, he avoids the result by not trying. Rather than giggling at a swinging strike and swinging again, he falls and does not get up.

During the learning process of a skill, players must embrace and learn from mistakes (“How fascinating!”), rather than worry or criticize mistakes. Celebrate a swinging strike for the effort, rather than criticize the child for missing the ball. When a child swings and misses, he views it as part of the process. However, after being socialized into competitive athletics, he learns it is a mistake to avoid. He learns to concentrate on the ball. However, the irony of concentration is that if you actively try to concentrate, you are not concentrating. When a player concentrates, his mind is one with his body; many people describe this as being “unconscious” or “in the flow.” You cannot force these feelings. You cannot be actively unconscious.

If coaches and parents concentrate on positive and instructive comments, players see mistakes as a learning opportunity. If we believe youth sports are about learning and development, structuring comments as instructions, not criticism or insults should make sense because mistakes provide the best learning experiences. Unfortunately, our actions and our words do not align, as we say youth sports are about learning until we are in the middle of a tight contest, and then the parent’s and coach’s actions show that winning is more important than learning. To have the most impact, our actions and philosophy must align in tight games, as well as practices, so we teach and train players about the sport and competitiveness, while allowing young players to maintain the childlike attitude toward mistakes with a giggle, an acknowledgement (“I fell”) and a return to the activity with blissful ignorance.

Brandon Jennings and the “Euro” Movement

Adrian Wojnarowski has an interesting look, with some interesting quotes, at Brandon Jennings’ initial experiences with Virtus Roma, including his brand new endorsement deal with Under Armour. As full disclosure, I wrote that I thought the Italian League was a poor decision, basketball-wise, for Jennings, as I felt his game fit better in a league like France or Turkey rather than Italy, Spain or Greece. However, I also do not believe it is a big deal for a 19-year-old to move to Europe: I did it.

When I graduated from high school, I took an opportunity through a Rotary Scholarship and spent a year as an exchange student in Nassjo, Sweden, where I ended up playing for the 2nd Division team and the u-20 team. A totally different circumstance, I understand, but kids every year turn their back on college to pursue other opportunities. So, while Jennings is a basketball original and possibly a trail blazer if his year goes well (let the Renardo Sydney rumors commence), his path is not that out of the ordinary.

One Western Conference general manager endorsed Jennings’ path, even though the critics believe his choice will somehow hurt his draft status next season:

“To me, this is the best path to get ready for the NBA…But the thing is: You better be a mentally tough kid to pull this off. This isn’t going to be college, where they’re going to hold your hand and never make you figure out anything for yourself.”

Ouch! While not explicitly stated, it seems like an indictment of college coaches who use a command-style, telling players what to do and rewarding players who follow directions, rather than helping players discover and learn on their own and rewarding creativity.  Wojnarowski continues:

As coaching and competition go, the Euro League is mostly superior. There are no NCAA limits on practice time. There are no AAU bagmen pretending to be assistant coaches. Jennings will get coached and get benched and get the best-paying professional apprenticeship in history.

This, of course, is the problem with NCAA basketball. It is a billion-dollar non-profit entity, but coaches paid multi-million dollars per year to win championships are limited in the time they can spend doing their primary job: coaching. Instead, they spend more time recruiting, so programs hire coaches based on their recruiting connections, knowing their time to develop players while on campus is limited anyway. In Europe, where professionals are professionals, these limits do not exist and coaches do their jobs: they coach. No fundraising breakfasts with alumni, recruiting phone calls or trips to Vegas to watch poorly played high school summer games. They coach (okay, it depends on the league, as some coaches have other roles, but their primary role with their club is as a coach, not a recruiter, fundraiser or other job).

Jennings appears to understand his task:

“Here, it isn’t like what basketball was in the U.S., where everyone just sits back and watches the individual player. It’s team first here. People come to watch the team play, and the team win. What I want to do is build relationships with my teammates, with my coaches. That’s what people are wondering if I can do …”

Hmm, a player known for his individual brilliance criticizing the American game that rewards individual brilliance. If he fits in with his teammates and learns to play the point within a team game, it will surely enhance his value to teams. While a gamble, after a season in year, Jennings will certainly be more ready physically and psychologically for the grind of the NBA season. And, while college kids play for free (or their one year of colleg education), Jennings is making a million dollars this year. Is there a negative?

Manchester United’s Football Academy

I often reference to soccer and used several soccer books in the research of Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development. I found an interview with Tony Whelan who is a former pro player who works in the Manchester United youth program.

SI.com: How does the standard of youth development in England compare with other leading soccer nations?

Whelan: The English system is good, but suffers some defects, principally that kids aren’t playing as much spontaneous football anymore — it’s a syndrome John McEnroe described as “affluenza.” The incredible skills many South American players have are typically developed by themselves while playing in the street. The kids at United are only with us 10 hours a week, so they need to be playing and watching a lot of football outside of the club.

Is basketball in the USA any different? How come the former players, elite coaches and sports scientists all agree on the importance of spontaneous play, regardless of sport, yet nobody does anything to encourage it or protect it? It receives much praise, but almost no follow-through. Is it because nobody has found a way to profit from free play?

SI.com: What’s special about youth development at Manchester United?

Whelan: For the youngsters, it’s an honor to be at such a great club, and they achieve more due to the higher standards set. Plus they know there’s a heritage of bringing young players through to the first team, and they benefit from our world-class facilities. In terms of coaching, we aim to ensure the boys love playing the game and learn to take responsibility for their own development, both on and off the pitch. It’s like being in a maze; the satisfaction you derive is from finding your own way out.

At one of the most elite academies in any sport in the world, their aim is to develop a love for playing the game. Is that the mission of youth basketball coaches? Where does encouraging a love of the game rank in importance in the average youth league? How many coaches teach players how to take responsibility for their own development? Coaches blame players for not playing enough on their own, but don’t most coaches coach in a manner that makes their presence necessary?

SI.com: Can you spot the stars of the future when they are in their early teens?

Whelan: Rarely, although an exception is Wes Brown, who stood out as a future England player by age 13. Players change so much mentally and physically, and there are so many distractions and diversions these days that it’s very hard to tell.

I criticized a comment on another site because the coach said he could tell who would make the varsity when the players were in 7th grade. I agree with this comment that there is so much that goes into the development of talent that early detection is rare, except for the truly obvious, a player like USC’s Jacki Gemelos who I saw in 8th grade and knew would be a top five player. However, for the vast majority of players, the talent and ability levels are indistinct, and the players who excel are those with more motivation, opportunity, encouragement, etc., which is not easy to evaluate or predict.

When the Best Athletes Collide…A Story of Point Guards

Sports Illustrated features a great article about Marvin Townsend, an AAU baseball coach from Chesapeake, Virginia titled “Virginia’s Boy Wonders.” The article talks about filling out a line-up card when teenagers David Wright (New York Mets), Mark Reyonolds (Arizona Diamondbacks), Ryan Zimmerman (Washington Nationals) and B.J. Upton (Tampa Bay Rays) played shortstop and all played for the same team.

This happens in youth sports all the time. At every level, the coach puts his best athletes at shortstop and pitcher, just as a football coach puts his best athletes at running back and quarterback and a basketball coach makes his best athlete his primary ball handler. However, as players progress, every player is a former “best athlete.” Wright, Reyonolds and Zimmerman now play 3rd Base, while Upton is an outfielder. Many former quarterbacks move to wide receiver or defensive back.

In basketball, the “best athlete ball handler syndrome” hinders point guard development. Every coach wants a great point guard; point guard is basketball’s magical position. However, so few point guards develop. I think this occurs for two reasons:

1. The best athlete who plays as the primary ball handler is also the team’s best scorer. Coaches encourage the player to take the ball to the basket and to shoot often to give his team the best chance to win. The player relies on his athleticism and develops a scorer’s mentality to win games.

2. We overlook the potential point guard because he appears timid when he receives the ball. His mentality is to create plays for other players. However, he may not see the ball consistently, due to the “star” ball handler, and when he does get the ball, he is not a gunner. He looks to set up a teammate. However, that is supposedly the star’s role. The coach needs a player to shoot when the star draws 2-3 defenders and actually passes the ball.

Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of perceptual skills. When one player dominates the action, he is the one player receiving enough repetitions to develop perceptual skills. The other players do not develop as quickly because they do not get as many competitive repetitions to develop confidence in their skills, but also the experience necessary to develop their perceptual skills.

In baseball, it’s an advantage because shortstops move to positions with fewer demands. However, when the best athletes converge in basketball, they share the same mentality. While a shortstop develops the arm strength to play 3rd Base or centerfield or the fielding ability necessary to play 2nd Base, the best athletes do not necessarily develop the mentality to be a point guard.

The personality and psychology of a shortstop and a 3rd Baseman is basically the same. However, the mentality, personality, psychology and role of a point guard differs from that of a scorer. When the best athletes converge, some make the transition to the point guard position; some embrace the role. However, many end up as combo guards, a euphemism for a shooting guard who is too small to be a shooting guard but who does not run the team well enough to be a point guard.

Developing more and better point guards is not a matter of doing more ball handling drills or trying to change short shooting guards when they transition to college basketball or the NBA. Instead, coaches must nurture perceptual skills in all players so the best athletes have a chance to transition to the point guard position. Also, we need to use different measures to identify talent at young ages. If a player with the right personality to play the position does not see enough court time or is cut an early age, a program loses a point guard. Programs often fear cutting a kid who could grow six inches and become a legit post player. But, we do not have that fear of cutting a player who could develop into the perfect point guard if given more experience or tutoring.

Rather than attempting to change an already successful player to a new position because of his height, like moving Monta Ellis or Jerryd Bayless to point guard just because he lacks the ideal height to play shooting guard, teams, especially at the youth levels where players are developing and have the potential to close the physical gaps with more training, should look to fill the role with another player or change their system. In Portland, Brandon Roy appears to have the personality to be a scorer and a playmaker, a lot like LeBron James. In Golden State, Stephen Jackson might be Don Nelson’s ideal point-forward. In youth leagues, look for more than physical traits. Some players develop earlier than others, and a potential point guard might be a late bloomer. We need a better system for identifying talents, especially those rare talents which develop into point guards, and a better system for developing the perceptual skills characteristic of skilled or elite performers.

Perceptual Skills and the NBA Draft

Last week, an associate broached the idea of an NBA pre-draft-like workout for college recruiting purposes, akin to the football combines. I said that I did not think that an individual workout would show a college coach much about a player, especially considering it is a staged event. If a college coach could walk into a gym unannounced and watch a player workout without detection, the coach could see the player’s work ethic, coachability and other traits which would be staged during a combine-like workout. Additionally, basketball is a team game, and an individual workout only has so much transfer to the real game. Every year, NBA and NFL teams draft “workout warriors” who flop once they get on the actual field because vertical jumps and 40 times are only valuable in a game setting, not in isolation.

Today, while reading through an article by Mark Williams and Jamie North of Liverpool’s John Moores University, I found this:

“Scientific evidence demonstrates that elite performers are better at anticipating than less-skilled athletes and that, at the elite level, the ability to anticipate is more likely to discriminate successful and less successful athletes than physical or physiological characteristics,” (Williams and North).

When NBA and NFL teams draft players, the physical and physiological characteristic differences are minimal. Drafting a player with a 4.23 40-yard dash over a player with a 4.35 40-yard dash is minutia. Both players are fast. In the NBA, players drafted to play guard are of a similar size, while posts are of a similar size. There is not a huge difference between a 6′0 PG and a 6′2 PG, even though we make a big deal out of those two inches, just like a 6′9 post player is deemed “undersized” while a 6′10 post player is legit. Is an inch going to make that big of a difference?

However, the difference in these player’s ability to anticipate may be great. If D.J. Augustin has the best perceptual-cognitive skills of the 2008 PG crop, will it matter that he is only 5′10? If Kevin Love has the best anticipatory skills of the 2008 PF crop, will it matter that he is “too short” or “unathletic?”

If the greatest determiner of success at an elite level is anticipatory skills, not physical skills, why do we continue to evaluate players based on physical measurements and combine-style tests?

Free Play: Passion before Performance

Originally published in Los Angeles Sports & Fitness, October 2007

At the gym this week, I watched a seventh grader work with a personal shooting coach for an hour. After his lesson, his mother spoke to another coach and had the coach watch her son and offer pointers. Then, the child shot for another hour as his mother watched and critiqued every shot based on the coach’s advice. After the child had shot for two-and-a-half hours, he started to whine. He wanted to go home. His mother told him to make 20 free throws in a row. Eventually, a team had practice and kicked him off the court.

 

When I was young, I imagine there were days when I shot by myself for two hours. I know I set goals like making 20 shots in a row before going inside. However, I made the decisions. I initiated the practice, I set my own goals, I decided when to finish. My individual practice was child-initiated and based on my motivations. I practiced because I enjoyed shooting.

 

The mother initiated the kid’s practice, setting goals, hiring trainers and talking to coaches. The kid did not want to continue. He was not enjoying the activity. His body slumped after every missed shot that prolonged his practice, he whined and he threw the ball. Maybe the mother wanted to teach her son a lesson about practice habits, work ethic or discipline. However, I saw a kid starting to hate basketball.

 

In the United States, we face an obesity epidemic. Kids are fat. However, we also have turned childhood sports into a scholarship chase. I believe the obesity issues stem from the same misguided philosophy which turned youth sports into the pursuit of the ephemeral dream, rather than a time for fun, activity, learning and exploration.

 

Parents rush their kids into competitive athletics because they do not want their son or daughter to fall behind. I once received a call from the mother of a six-year-old who wanted individual basketball training for her son before she put him into a league because she wanted him to be prepared and successful.

 

These efforts are misguided. K. Anders Ericsson, author of The Road to Excellence, believes “when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love because if you don’t love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good.”

 

Ericsson believes a person needs hours of deliberate practice to become an expert performer. In a sense, the mother provided an environment for deliberate practice. This is the approach parents take. They know their child needs to practice and work hard to be successful, so they start the child down this path at earlier and earlier ages, like the mother of the six-year-old. However, the parents miss the first requirement: kids must love what they are doing. Pushing a child into an activity too hard and too soon often has the opposite effect, turning the child against the activity. In these instances, many rebel against their parents or coaches and stop playing sports altogether.

 

When a child quits sports at an early age, he is less likely to resume these activities later. Kids love to learn and explore. They do not compare themselves to others. They enjoy playing and learning. However, as we age, we become more self-conscious and more aware of others. A teenager is unlikely to try a new sport because he does not want to fail. People associate a failure in an activity with a character flaw and worry others might like them less just because they cannot shoot a basketball or catch a football. While it is easy to dismiss these feelings, how many adults actively pursue activities in which they are not very good or have never tried? Now, imagine doing so during adolescence. No wonder P.E. is the worst class of the day for many kids.

 

Once upon a time, kids played hopscotch at recess and jumped off swings at the highest peak. They jumped over (or into) puddles and skipped just for fun. Jumping rope was a game kids played to song.

 

Now, as recess disappears and the pursuit of a scholarship grips parents as soon as their young prodigy takes his first steps, personal trainers painstakingly count the number of foot touches in a plyometric workout to prevent overtraining and burnout. Depth jumps are prohibited for all but the most advanced kids. The play activities of past generations are now carefully regimented training activities used to prepare young athletes for sporting success.

 

In The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin, a world champion in chess and Judo, writes: “the most important factor in these first few months of study was that Bruce [his first chess coach] nurtured my love for chess, and he never let technical material smother my innate feelings for the game.” Eventually, Waitzkin moved to more intense levels of training and instruction. However, this occurred after he developed a passion for chess and a desire to pursue the sport.

 

In the gym, the mother failed to nurture her son’s love for basketball. While her efforts stemmed from a good place, rather than help her son improve, she hindered his development. As we change physical activity from fun games to training activities, we lose kids who are uninterested in or psychologically unprepared for the competitive nature of youth athletics.

 

The media points to the dedication of Tiger Woods at an early age to illustrate successful athletic development. However, how many young prodigies never make it? These are the stories left untold. However, parents and coaches latch onto the Tiger Woods’ story. Nobody learns from Todd Marinovich or Jennifer Capriati or the dozens of others who quit sports altogether before they reached any level of noteworthiness. Rather than looking at Woods as the rule, what if he is the exception? What if he developed in spite of the pushing, not because of it? What if Woods, like Waitkin, developed the passion for the game first and then engaged in the deliberate practice which elevated him into the world’s greatest golfer? The media only captures part of the story; maybe the real story is the fun games that he played with his father when he was young which generated his intense interest in golf.

 

Youth sports are not the pre-minor leagues. Kids are not miniature professionals. Whether the goal is to develop your child into an All-American or just to keep your child active, the method is the same: youth sports should be fun, child-centered, exploratory and learning-oriented, not a competitive cauldron or pre-professional training.

The F.A. and English Football Development

One article mentions Manchester United as the club to replicate because of its philosophy.

For those unfamiliar with European football (soccer to us), Manchester United is one of Europe’s most storied and decorated clubs. The English Premiere League is regarded as the best league in the world even at a time when England’s National Team failed to qualify for the 2008 European Championships. Some in England believe the number of foreign players playing and dominating in the EPL is one reason England’s National Team is losing, and they believe the number of foreigners on the EPL teams should be reduced. Others argue that creating a watered-down professional league will not serve the National Team’s best interest.

In England, the FA (Football Association) hired a new National Team coach to restore England’s National Team to prominence, much like USA Basketball did with Coach K. However, more important, the FA has examined its youth development program and made recommendations which will be introduced nationwide. USA Basketball has not taken this measure, and the only changes at the youth level has been changing the name of Nike’s All-American Camps and changing the marketing of the adidas brand.

The FA’s report concluded:

The central argument of the in-depth report by Richard Lewis, the executive chairman of the Rugby Football League brought in by football’s governing bodies to advise on producing the next generation of Rooneys, Gerrards and Lampards, is that professional clubs must spend more time working with five to 11-year-olds on technique, rather than obsessing over results.

In Europe, players develop within the youth programs of professional clubs rather than at various rec centers, AAU teams, schools, etc. In England, Man. U is the model.

This is the United ethos. Backed by Sir Alex Ferguson, an Academy overseen by Brian McClair and Les Kershaw have focused on accentuating first touches in well-coached training sessions, or four v four matches, rather than launching into rivals in competitive fixtures of eight-a-side or more. United are so committed to improving technique that they just canceled an Academy fixture with another club who wanted to play 8v8, not 4v4.

United even employ one of the world’s foremost skills coaches, the Dutchman Rene Meulensteen, to hone the touch of their youngsters (and also the first team).

Sir Alex Ferguson is the Head Coach of Man. U. Imagine youth basketball programs that employed some of the finest basketball coaches and focused on skill development not winning games. This is the FA’s recommendation for English football; it is also the recommendation made in Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development.

As I argue in Cross Over, the FA report’s author says:

“I recommend a change in ethos in age groups 5-11 so that much more emphasis is given to skill development and acquisition rather than an emphasis on results in matches,” said Lewis.

When people have disagreed with me about the failings of the U.S. system, I argue that the U.S. should not be satisfied with good results, but should ensure that the U.S., with its financial resources invested in basketball, has the BEST system.

“If football in England wants to be the very best in the world, it must be the very best at every aspect of young player development,” stressed Lewis. “There can be no room for compromise.”

In Cross Over, I argue that the Foundation and Fundamental stages are the most important stages for elite player development, as players need to learn the proper execution of general motor and sport-specific skills during the formative, “skill hungry” years.

The key area of Lewis revolves around what the Dutch call “the golden years” of learning. Skills acquired then, from the step-overs that United youngsters learn from Meulensteen to drag backs and kicking with either foot, set them up for life.

Lewis underlined how important “the formative years are to the establishment of correct technique”, adding: “Young players must be able to pass, control, kick and shoot correctly, as well as learning how to improve speed, stamina, flexibility, agility and balance. Their mental tool-kit must also be built up in their formative years”

Instead, the solution in the U.S. has been to add role players to the senior national team and  search for an elite academy for a dozen 18-year-olds. While the media suggests that players’ readiness for Division I basketball is aided by the constant AAU basketball, I disagree. Too many games at a young age stifles the players’ development, not enhances it.

Skirmishes with local rivals are pointless. “An over-emphasis on results leads to a climate of fear, something remarked on by many in the system,” added Lewis. “I am not advocating the removal of the ‘winning ethos’, nor the downplaying of the very successful FA Youth Cup or the desire to produce winning England Under-21 teams. However, match results, especially at the youngest levels, are not all-important.”

I watched yesterday as an AAU coach yanked players in and out of games whenever a player made a mistake. The kids were 12. The tournament was another meaningless tournament. How is a player supposed to improve when he gets yanked out of the game every time he makes a mistake? Why do we expect 12-year-olds to be perfect?

Another point I have made is the disproportionate amount of respect we give NBA coaches versus youth coaches. Few if any major coaching clinics hire youth coaches who understand how to teach youth players. Instead, college coaches are used for name recognition even though many have never taught a child and 95% of the audience works with kids and teens.

The position of youth coach must also be lent more respect, Lewis argued. “The coaching regime required for young players aged 5-11 is a highly specialist area, and coaches of these children must be rewarded appropriately,” Lewis maintained. “Quality coaching is critical.”

The FA saw a problem, hired someone to examine it and now is charged with implementing the changes. Maybe new developments in the USA will follow a similar path, though, to this point, there has been a lot of talk and very little action to overhaul the development system, or at least tweak its basic philosophy.

Too Much Thinking

When I was young, I shot for hours in my front yard. I know that at some point my dad must have taught me to shoot correctly, and I went to a couple camps which covered shooting, but I do not remember being overwhelmed by instruction. I think I largely developed by trial and error in my front yard.

However, in eighth grade, one of our assistant coaches decided he wanted to make me a better free throw shooter even though I had won a local competition and shot nearly 90% in games. He disliked the way I set my body at the free throw line, and he attempted to alter my mechanics. I don’t know if his points were valid or not, but my shooting percentage decreased. I don’t think I changed my physical shot very much; however, he changed my mental approach. I started to think about shooting. To that point, there was a ball and a basket. I did my routine (two bounces and a spin), set myself, found the target and shot. After his coaching, I changed my routine (no spin), looked at the target earlier and thought about the alignment of my feet and my arm. I shot the same way, but my shooting suffered. His instruction got in my head, and I struggled to turn off my mind.

This week’s New York Times Play Magazine features Barry Zito and his struggles on the mound for the San Francisco Giants. Zito talks about his struggles and attempts to re-find his pitching mechanics and the success of his early years in the Major Leagues:

“Your body’s gonna do what your mind lets it do. You have to surrender to the pitch. You try to control the process, not the result. A New Age guy told me that the last thought you have before you let the ball go — I hope the batter doesn’t hit it — determines where it goes. All the preparation, off-season work, can be done in by that last thought.”

The same happens to shooters. When shooters think, “I hope I don’t miss short,” right before they shoot, they tend to miss short. The mind does not differentiate between the positive and negative, and instead captures the image of a shot missing short. A lot of free throw shooters try to control the result; they try to place the ball in the basket rather than shooting the ball. A free throw is not like throwing darts; one cannot aim directly at the target and hit the target. You cannot aim your shot; you have to trust the process and let your body work.

After a good outing, Zito says:

“I just let it fly last night. Real success comes effortlessly, you know. The best fun is the game when you surrender to it. The hardest thing in life is to trust that something is gonna come. Like Rachmaninoff. He wrote . . . until he taught himself just to be an instrument of something coming through him. I made up my mind only a few days ago that’s what I was gonna do.”

“Too Much Thinking” appears in this week’s Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletter along with another shooting-related article about planning to be great. To subscribe, email hard2guardinc@yahoo.com with “Subscribe” in the Subject.