I write about the art and science of player development. New articles are sent to my email newsletter first.
Want more? Browse the full archives or read recent posts below.
These notes, reflections and observations by Alan Keane (England u18 National Team Head Coach) from the FIBA U18 European Championship 2019 is too good not to share – much less to allow to get lost in the Twitterverse. Raw. Candid. Actionable. This is the kind of share that helps to deepen our collective perspective of …
Some of the most exciting plays in a basketball come from the inbound passer. Begs the question: If the inbound pass is so important, how are we as coaches developing this competency in players?
How you coach the game with no shot clock is different than how you coach it with a shot clock. Here’s why this impacts player development.
Not all non-traditional stats are equal. Which ones are most important to winning? Take a look into a team’s “hustle board” to see what they track.
This. Is. A. Coaching. Masterclass…! Seriously. It’s rare to observe basketball practices that have been mindfully designed to integrate the mental, technical, physical, social and competive constraints in a way that reads like a book. This is why we (affectionately) call Mike MacKay: Yoda Master MacKay. In his day “job”, he’s the Women’s High Performance …
A good coaching friend is hunting for a “sticky” term to offer up to his players for how they should contest shots. How would you answer his query? Searching for a “sticky” adjective to #teach our players how they should contest shots…? @PGCbasketball @CoachBobWalsh @coachwoodley @DrewHanlen @CoachBobStarkey @BCCoachStevens @SefuBernard @CoachJimBoone @kawhileonard @UVAMensHoops — Sam Ferry …
There are very few absolutes in basketball. (To be honest, the only one that I can think of is: High score wins!) One of the dangers or blind spots we all have is that our perspective is influenced by our experiences—and the story we tell ourselves about those experiences. It’s like being a frog at …
Icebergs have two parts: what people see (above the surface) and what people don’t see (below the surface). Success Is An Iceberg We often get mesmerized by someone’s above the surface success and don’t factor in all the below the surface opportunity-costs they paid to achieve that success. This is the ‘iceberg illusion’. It’s been a …
Oh boy… (Going to get myself in trouble with this one!) I know, I know…. For many of us, the sheer utterance that sport is not a family is sacrilege. Yet, when I listened to Jack Clark (UC Berkeley rugby coach) on Finding Mastery: Conversations with Michael Gervais say it, I sat up straight. And, …
Milos Teodosic has been dropping these kinds of dimes for years. What he has improved, and what isn’t readily available to every player, is how he passes (e.g. underhand scoop pass, wide body hook-wrap-pass-with-spinology, etc). Those are “next level,” yet there’s one thing that he does consistently that is available to *all* players: what he …