Ultimately, you become what you believe you are. In other words, having a means to organize and to reinforce your strengths and overcome weaknesses forges a strong self-image. Part of that involves blocking out negative thoughts, replacing them with positives creating structural, neurobehavioral change.
What does that mean?
Earning success involves paying a price. Bob Knight and others have said, “It’s not about having the will to win, but the will to prepare to win.” Basketball (or almost any other activity) has layers of complexity that we introduce, and yet relatively few players will embrace the journey and reach the destination.
For example, we learn to set goals, but that isn’t enough. As a basketball coach, my role is to help players ‘see the game‘. Physical conditioning allows players to remain intense without distraction during competition. Learning to maintain a broad focus helps players see the developing offensive or defensive play unfold, but a narrow focus helps us catch passes and shoot better. The dribbler driving into traffic or passer passing into off the ball defenders didn’t see the bigger picture.
When you go to practice, do you understand what our ‘core’ short-term goals are (process goals) and how they affect the longer-term (product) goals? During a practice or game, focus on the outcome (product) is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. Developing goals is a pre- and post-activity mandate. During practice and games we must focus on the process, the what I must do here and now.
For example, our stated ultimate PRODUCT GOAL is to become the best team in the River Valley League and our intermediate-term goal is to defeat the teams that we have yet to defeat. But our process goals involve consistency on defense with our CORE PROCESS (what we must do to be successful) and improvement in our offensive fundamental approach.
Specifically, offensively we know that each player (on average) will have the ball 20 percent of the time (ergo, 10 percent of the whole game). We therefore emphasize the importance of what you’re doing when you don’t have the ball. Coaches recognize that many contributions don’t have an easily-monitored statistic. A player might set great screens or make the great pass before the pass leading to a basket. The best players contribute when they don’t have the ball:
- Pass and cut to the basket or to an open spot to set up a scoring opportunity
- Pass and set a screen, usually AWAY from the ball
- Go to the boards aggressively
- Seal or block out when the opportunity presents
- Maintain proper spacing to allow teammates to operate “in space”
How does this translate into offensive drills in practice? Playing with great focus (head up and on a swivel) allows you to recognize the opportunities and risks (defensively) more quickly. Think of the acronym CARE.
- Concentrate
- Anticipate
- React
- Execute
You can develop most quickly by questioning what it takes to get to the next level in an activity. As a medical student, I focused on preparation to become the intern. As the intern, learning the resident’s job became paramount. As a resident, knowing the attending physician’s role and ultimately the role of mentoring trainees dominated.
When we practice next week, we’ll revisit goal setting, the importance of process in achieving product quality, and I’ll bring laminated handouts with specific reminders about our core offensive and defensive principles.
We must strengthen our mental process (mental workout to optimize self-image) and our goal setting (using your ‘success logs’) to give ourselves the clearest pathway to achievement on and off the court.
