Vault: Coach Development

Alan Keane: Observations & Trends from FIBA U18 European Championship

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 …

Mike MacKay: Developing World Class Basketball Players

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 …

Basketball is NOT Basketball

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 …

The Iceberg Illusion & Why Mistakes Matter

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 …

Permissionless Rather Than Positionless Basketball

Many refer to it as POSITIONLESS play. Years ago, while working with Canada Basketball, we had referred to it as developing the ‘global’ player (i.e. players that could shoot, pass, and dribble from all positions). Perhaps, better said, it’s PERMISSION-LESS… players are no longer seeking permission to initiate from multiple positions, in multiple ways. Perhaps, …