Last weekend, I attended the Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group Conference. The conference is one of the best conferences in the country for strength and conditioning coaches and sports medicine professionals, and regularly draws some of the best speakers. At the conference, former Oakland A’s and current N.C. State strength and conditioning coach Bob Alejo was one of the speakers. 

He mentioned that he hired Brett Brungardt, the guy who runs the NBA pre-draft combine, to come to Raleigh and test his players. He showed the Box Agility Test (also called the Laneline Agility Test) on video, and said that NBA scouts had told him that they can determine who can be a good defensive player based on the first two steps of the test. I disagreed with the comment, and the tests in general, so I dug into the numbers.

To get an idea, I looked up the Box-Agility Test scores for the players who made 1st or 2nd Team All-Defense this season in the Draft Express database. The database had agility scores for 5 of the 10 players:

• Tony Allen (2004) – 10.70 seconds
• Chris Paul (2005) – 11.09 s
• Michael Conley Jr. (2007) – 11.63 s
• Joakim Noah (2007) – 11.79 s
• Tyson Chandler (2001) – 12.13 s

To offer perspective, the top 3 scores in the database are:

• Mustapha Farrakhan (2011) – 8.18 s
• Isaiah Thomas (2011) - 8.22 s
• Andrew Gouldelock (2011) - 8.23 s

Also, the two best scores for players over 6’8 in bare feet in the database are: Ralph Sampson (2011) – 9.12 s and Josh Harrellson (2011) – 9.20 s.

To offer more perspective, here are players with the same or similar times who are not all-defensive performers:

• Tony Allen (10.70): Chuck Hayes 10.70, Shawne Williams 10.69
• Chris Paul (11.09): Ronald Dupree 11.09, Michael Beasley 11.06
• Michael Conley Jr. (11.63): Trevor Ariza 11.63, Nick Collison 11.62
• Joakim Noah (11.79): Terrence Ross 11.78, Lonny Baxter 11.77
• Tyson Chandler ( 12.13): Monta Ellis 12.13, Mark Madsen 12.12

As evidenced by some of the examples, some aspect of being a great defensive player is not measured in the Box Agility Test.

There are two primary problems with the Box Agility test: (1) It may not be an agility (CODS) test, and (2) There is no coupling of perception and action.

There is no published reliability and validity information for the Box Agility Test that I have found. An unpublished thesis (Brown, 2012) found the test to be reliable. However, to establish validity for the test, Brown (2012) compared the test to the T-Test. The T-Test has been shown to be a measure of speed, not agility (Pauole, Madole, Garhammer, Lacourse, and Rozenek, 2000), so the positive relationship between the Box-Agility Test and T-Test did not provide validity for the Box-Agility Test being a test of agility.

Agility as a construct lacks of a precise definition (Jeffreys, 2011; Holmberg, 2009; Sheppard & Young, 2006). More recently, agility has been divided into two categories: reactive agility (or agility) and planned or pre-planned agility, also referred to as change of direction speed (Safaric & Bird, 2011; Young & Wiley, 2009; Oliver & Meyers, 2009). Planned agility involves a closed skill where movements are known ahead of time (Oliver & Meyers, 2009). Reactive agility is an open skill that captures the perceptual and decision-making skills required within a game context (Jeffreys, 2011; Serpell, Young, & Ford, 2011). Most tests of agility traditionally have used pre-planned movements and applied the test results to open-skill sports (Cooke et al., 2011; Pound, 2007). This is the case with the Box-Agility Test. It is a pre-planned test.

If defense was merely a physical skill, this would not be problematic. However, as we know, basketball involves much more than physical quickness. The best defensive players anticipate. Has Shane Battier (2001 – 10.95 s) been a great defensive player because of his foot speed or his perceptual skills? The perceptual abilities thought to differentiate expert and non-expert players include pattern recognition and the ability to predict and anticipate an opponent’s behavior (Aglioti, Cesari, Romani, & Urgesi, 2008). These abilities are untested in a pre-planned test like the Box-Agility Test, and ultimately these are the abilities that most differentiate the expert defenders.

Whereas the NBA combine uses a pre-planned test (and another test that uses a response to lights) that shows virtually no ability to discriminate elite and sub-elite defensive players, reactive agility tests have discriminated elite and sub-elite players in netball (Farrow, Young, & Bruce, 2005), Australian Rules Football (Young & Wiley, 2009), and rugby (Gabbett & Benton, 2009). These tests use a live person or a video screen in the testing, as opposed to a planned course of cones.

The Box-Agility Test is one small data point for NBA General Managers to evaluate before making a selection. However, to suggest that it reveals who will and will not become a great defensive player in the NBA is false. Basketball defense goes beyond the physical – every change of direction is made as a reaction to an external stimulus. These directional changes and movements are never pre-planned. It is the coupling of these perceptual abilities with the physical qualities that makes one a great defender.

As a side note, potential lottery pick Dennis Schroeder had the exact same test score in the Box-Agility Test as Chris Paul. 

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development

The May 2013 Wired is a 20th Anniversary Edition that attempted to capture the 20 years of its existence in the technology world in an A to Z fashion. Apparently, one of the consistent themes of the last 20 years is Faking it, as described by Twitter (Follow me!) co-founder (I didn’t know either) Biz Stone. 

Biz (and after reading his article, I cannot be sure that is, in fact, his real name) recounted the story of his rise from unemployed college dropout living in his mother’s basement with his wife to founder of Twitter, a position that probably makes him a billionaire. His story left me with two feelings: (1) That’s fucking awesome! and (2) Are you fucking serious?

Basically, after leaving a start-up in New York City to live the unemployed life in his mother’s basement, he passed his time blogging. He was one of the original users of blogger, according to his story. He blogged as his alter-ego, not as his unemployed self. His alter-ego, inspired by a scene with Wile E. Coyote in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, was Biz Stone, Genius, and he was the Founder of Genius Labs. Genius Labs essentially amounted to his imagination.

Because he was one of the original bloggers, he had an email relationship with Blogger and Twitter founder Evan Williams. When google bought Blogger, Biz “worked up the confidence to email him and say that I thought I’d always been the missing piece of his team” (p. 76). Williams pushed Stone for an interview, and despite Google’s reluctance to hire non-PhD’s, Stone managed to get a phone interview. Somehow, he talked himself into the job. Later, he and Williams left Google and founded Twitter. History.

My initial impressions were that it is fantastic that someone, regardless of qualifications or educations, who has confidence and a specific skill, is able to talk himself into a job like one at Google. Despite my years in academia, I do not think that someone should get a job because of education alone, or even experience alone. why shouldn’t someone with talent (which he has shown to be true) and gumption be able to land a job more conforming to his talent and skills than his education and experience? Why should a job at a place like Google be determined by one’s ability to gain admission to Harvard or Stanford as a teenager? It is awesome when someone can show his skill and talent and be rewarded with a desirable job despite a lack of credentials.

On the other hand, how many qualified, talented, and skilled programmers and computer scientists have been turned down by Google while a college dropout who named himself a genius and spoke with bravado talked himself into a job that he ultimately quit? Is that fair? One of those eminently qualified applicants could have been the co-Founder of Twitter instead of Stone (or it’s possible that Twitter never would have been founded with Stone living in his mother’s basement).

In some sense, his story is not a story of faking it as much as luck. As Daniel Kahneman wrote about in Thinking Fast and Slow and Leonard Mlodinow wrote about in The Drunkard’s Walk, people do not want to attribute a person’s success to luck. Stone appeared to attribute his fortune to his confidence and bravado in faking his genius. However, what if he interviewed with Sergey Brin instead of Wayne Rosling and Brin saw through the bravado. The same bravado that he attributed his success could have been the bravado that caused someone else not to hire him. There is a certain amount of luck involved in going from a college dropout that leaves a start-up to creating an alter-ego to becoming the alter-ego to talking one’s self into a job to leaving that job to become the co-founder of one of the most influential companies in the world.

If there was not a lot of luck involved, someone would write a book citing Stone and others as the example of how to be successful or how to make it in business. Follow these 8 steps to guaranteed success: (1) Drop out of college; (2) Quit your job; (3) Grow desperate; (4) Create an alter-ego; (5) Make an outlandish proposition to an acquaintance; (6) Adopt the attitude of the alter-ego in a once-in-a-lifetime job interview; (7) Leave job with one of the richest companies in the world to found another start-up; (8) Become infinitely famous and wealthy. If you do not believe that luck played a role, follow these 8 steps immediately.

In a sense, both interpretations are true. Stone succeeded at least in part due to his confidence and bravado, and he succeeded because of luck. After all, they say that one makes his own luck, and his confidence and bravado gave him the opportunity to have luck favor him. He made tough decisions (dropping out, leaving a job). He was bold (telling Williams that he needed him, calling himself a genius). This gave him the opportunity to get an opportunity, and he made the most of the opportunity.

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development

At the end of Game 1 of the San Antonio Spurs vs. Golden State Warriors series, the Warriors Kent Bazemore found himself in an undesirable position: Leave Boris Diaw open cutting to the rim or leave Manu Ginobili open for a three-pointer. Given the situation, Bazemore played the possession almost as well as a coach could have hoped (see above), but Ginobili made the shot to win the game.

After the game, as I went to twitter to comment, Sports Illustrated‘s Chris Ballard already had tweeted my observation:

Minor point but, as bad as Warriors switching D was on that Ginobili three, if Bazemore contests off one leg instead of two he gets there

— Chris Ballard (@SI_ChrisBallard) May 7, 2013

I wrote about closeouts previously, and many coaches have disagreed. However, the Bazemore closeout demonstrated two things:

First, as Ballard mentioned, Bazemore attempted to close out as opposed to running past the shooter. As I wrote in my previous post, “A defender in help position [in the paint] cannot contest the shot and prevent the drive.” Bazemore actually did a remarkable job, and Ginobili still had a good look.

Bazemore did not execute the textbook stutter-step closeout that nearly every high-school coach teaches. Instead, as he neared Ginobili, he gathered on two feet with a stride stop, much the same as a player would to shoot or jump for a two-footed lay-up. The gather slowed Bazemore’s momentum and improved his control as he closed out on Ginobili, but this gather also provided the time Ginobili required. If Bazemore had run past Ginobili, running left hand past Ginobili’s left (shooting) hand, it is possible that Ginobili would have jumped into Bazemore’s path and drawn a foul or pump faked, taken one dribble, and made a mid-range jump shot. However, if Ginobili jumped sideways and was rewarded with three free throws, it would have been a bad call – sure, NBA officials give the call frequently, but you would be hard-pressed to convince me they are good calls within the rules of the game.

If Ginobili made a mid-range jump shot, it happens – as I wrote previously, a defender in that position cannot take away everything. Therefore, the decision is what to take away. I tend to believe in the philosophy that Rick Majerus espoused: Never allow a catch-and-shoot jump shot; always force the player to dribble into a shot. Would it matter if Ginobili made a pull-up jump shot instead of a three-pointer? No, the Spurs win regardless. However, when put in an undesirable position, force the best of the bad options, and from a defensive standpoint, that is forcing the shot off the dribble, not off the catch.

The second, and more important point, is that Bazemore made a great closeout. Take away the time and score. Bazemore did what the closeout is designed to do: He stopped on balance to give himself a chance to defend a drive, and he got close enough to defend a shot. In the course of the game, this is generally what coaches want; this is the purpose of the closeout: Take away the shot and the drive. He did this without the stutter step. He sprinted the entire way and stopped with a stride stop before jumping to contest. If he had stutter-stepped or chopped his steps, would he have been anywhere near Ginobili on the shot attempt?

Of course, he did not really take away the shot; Ginobili had space to shoot comfortably. These are my issues with the closeout: (1) A stutter-stepping closeout would have been entirely ineffective, as Bazemore would have had any opportunity for even a late contest; (2) A great, perfectly executed closeout still gave the shooter enough room to shoot comfortably.

This is why I wrote that coaches have to make a decision, and the decision should be based on the scouting report. Are you defending a driver or a shooter? If you want to take away the shot on a long closeout from the paint, you have to run to the body. If you stop and chop your steps, the shooter has space. For a great shooter, that space translates to an uncontested shot. Can the player attack the closeout? Yes. That is the decision that you have to make.

If you decide to defend the drive and stop with enough space between the defender and the shooter to take away the offensive player’s first step, then you are not contesting the shot. If that is the decision, and the player makes the shot, you have to live with the decision.

Bazemore did about as well as he could have in that situation. He closed out quickly, he gathered on balance to prevent a blow-by, and he got a hand up to contest the shot late. My point is in no way to criticize Bazemore. Instead, the point is to demonstrate that even the best possible closeout is ineffective when the defender has to cover so much space, and to highlight that a well-executed closeout included no stutter-steps or chopping of his steps as in the traditionally-taught closeout.

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development

From July 29-31, I will be conducting a basketball camp in conjunction with Northern Pride Sports Academy in Bellaire, Michigan.

• Dates: July 29-31, 2013
• Location: Bellaire High School Gym
• Times: 3rd-5th grade: 8:30-10:30 A.M.; 9th-11th grade: 11:00A.M. – 2:00P.M.; 6th-8th grade: 2:30-4:30 P.M.
• Co-ed
• Cost: $50 (includes a t-shirt)
• Sponsored by Shanty Creek Resort
• For more information, visit Northern Pride Sports Academy or on Facebook – Northern Pride Sports Academy.

Contact Paul Koepke (231) 676-3559 or gatorrec@charter.net

Previous camps:
(Boston)

(Accra, Ghana)

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development

Would we have such a problem with a lack of physical activity if elementary-school physical education classes looked like this?

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development

A fellow basketball coach sent this video with the message, “I am in awe of this video – specifically, how the coach broke down the entire job of goal keeping into individual tasks and skills to be trained.”

I am not a soccer coach. When I pushed play, I too enjoyed the drills. It appears to be great training. However, is it?

How often does a goalie have to block shots that are thrown at him? How often does a goalie have to bat a ball thrown from overhead?

I have seen goalies do similar drills, especially the one where the goalie faces away from the ball, jumps 180 degrees to face forward, and saves a ball. How relevant is that to the game?

As I said, I am not a goalie coach. I don’t know if these drills truly work. They may have been proven to be quite effective in developing goalkeepers. However, these drills appear to be drills that look like great training but would not have much transfer.

The drills are good for some things that are important to goalkeeping: visual tracking, hand-eye coordination, and more. However, there is a reason goalkeepers tend to improve with age, and it does not have anything to do with improved reflexes (genetic) or reaction time.

As goalkeepers gain experience, they develop improved perceptual skills. They anticipate better, so they start in a better position. They read the game, so they are quicker off the line. They improve their communication skills.

I understand the need for these types of drills; what else is a goalie supposed to do when field players are involved in their drills? If perceptual skills are the key to developing as a goalkeeper, what should a goalkeeper do when field players are involved in drills like the video below?

The goalkeeper drills from above look good and hard and keep the goalkeepers busy while the field players play tiki taka or do other drills. However, just because the goalkeepers are being kept busy, does that mean the drills are effective?

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development

Mark Upton from Australia posted the video above on Twitter and asked: “Skill Acquisition ‘theory into practice’ challenge: this activity is labelled as ‘decision making’. True/false? Why?”

I will be honest; I don’t know what sport these players are practicing. Based on the drill, and its description as a decision-making drill, I assume the game involves a player rotating in a circle and bumping an oblong ball to stationary, undefended targets. I don’t know what the objective of this game would be; possibly time.

If the game involves defense or moving targets, as in any invasion game, I don’t see how this drill taxes decision-making. One could make a small argument that he is training his choice reaction time, but this argument would be refuted easily if the game actually involves defenders, moving targets, and any kind of movement by the passer, as any invasion game would require faster skill performance than that demonstrated in the drill.

Through the wonders of youtube and twitter, I see many problems like this. Coaches or trainers sell a drill as practicing something that appears to be important for game performance (add dribbling drills with tennis balls, two-ball drills, etc. to this list), but the environment in which it is practiced means the transfer of the practice is nebulous at best. There is a giant disconnect between motor learning theories, and the manner in which these coaches attempt to develop skills.

The drill in the video does not appear to be a bad drill in and of itself. There is some coordination involved. It appears as though he is practicing a passing skill which I imagine is important for the sport. There is some hand-eye coordination and visual tracking practice. Therefore, I am not saying that it is a bad drill or something similar should never be practiced. Similarly, doing dribbling drills while tossing a tennis ball – or something similar – are not bad drills; they practice coordination among other things. They do not, however, practice decision making.

If you want to practice decision making, players have to make decisions. In basketball, that means figuring out who is open and passing them the ball or deciding whether to attack with the dribble or who to defend. These skills cannot be practiced in isolation without the help of video. To practice these skills, the environment must be similar to the game environment – moving defenders, moving targets, multiple options to defend.

To improve as coaches, we have to know what we are training. If the goal is to train visual tracking skills or hand-eye coordination, great. However, if the goal is to train decision-making skills, there is a problem.

Unfortunately, the problem identifies itself in a game when players make bad decisions. The coach then blames the players because the coach has been doing these neat decision-making drills he or she found on the Internet from expert coaches or trainers. If the coach spends practice time doing drills labeled as decision-making drills, and the players do not improve their game decision making, many coaches blame the players. I saw it happen all season.

Instead, what about the practice? If the learning does not transfer from practice to a game, is there learning? No. Transfer is a prerequisite to learning from a motor learning standpoint; without transfer (and retention, as one could argue that it is not the transfer from practice to game but the retention from one day to the next), there is no learning. Rather than blame the players, why not find drills which transfer better from practice to games? It’s not the players’ fault; it’s the coach’s misunderstanding of basic motor learning principles that leads to an emphasis on ineffective drills.

Is this decision-making practice? Not for an invasion game.

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development

The sentiment amongst the media, fans, and even coaches during this men’s college basketball season has been that the level of play has been sub-standard. In Thursday’s USA Today, Steve Kerr said, “The quality of play is down” in an article titled “Scores, Quality Drop” by Eric Prisbell. 

There have been many reasons suggested for the drop in quality of play. The three most popular reasons tend to be: (1) physical play; (2) lack of fundamentals; and (3) the NBA age-limit, which has created the 1-and-done player.

When I wrote Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development in 2005, the players who I was training are today’s college players. The games that shaped my viewpoint and provided fodder for some of the background of the book involved players playing college basketball today.

Many read Cross Over, or my blog, and thought my criticism of the current system was based on Team USA’s struggles early in the decade in international competitions. Instead, these players, and the system in which they were developing, were the impetus for Cross Over. My concern was not the success of the absolute elite or the health of the NBA, but in creating the best possible system for all players from recreational to elite. As I wrote:

A new model must meet the needs of all players, whether recreational, developmental or competitive and provide the right environment for players to develop their skills and enjoy the experience. While focusing on fun and learning, athletes develop better and broader skills. If the player has a happy confluence of work ethic, genetics, opportunity and skills, he or she may conquer the scholarship quest. If not, the athlete will lead a happier childhood with a greater appreciation for sports and more well-rounded athletic skills.

The problem is not high school vs. club/AAU, as many try to paint it. Instead, the issue, by and large, continues to be the same thing that I wrote about almost a decade ago: a Peak by Friday mentality.

I talk to coaches and leagues, and very few want to adopt modified rules for young players. Everyone wants 9-year-olds playing the same game on the same court with the same baskets as professional players. One of the key points from Cross Over is that children are not miniature adults. Why do we want children to play the same game as adults?

As children grow, nobody wants to be the one who develops players. On Linkedin, Christopher Colbert responded to a post based on a previous article, and wrote, “A youth basketball coach told me ‘why should I spend time on development when it is the next coach who benefits from that?’ My mouth dropped to the floor as he discussed 9 year olds.” Unfortunately, that is the mentality. Coaches and parents emphasize winning ahead of development because coaches want to appear competent, and winning is the way to appear competent, and parents want to brag, and winning or being elite is something tangible for parents. Nobody brags about their child shooting an extra 25 minutes after practice or the 10% improvement at the free-throw line; instead, everything is wins and points per game.

When players play the adult game at 9 years old, and the emphasis at every level is winning, players do not develop fundamental skills as quickly or as fully. Contrast the U.S. basketball development system, and the current college game, with the Barcelona system and its success:

Key points:

• Result of a lot of people investing a lot of time in the young players. Pep Guardiola is famous worldwide, but how many people know about the coaches and trainers developing the young players? Yet, that’s where the success starts.
• Now seeing the results of 20, 25, 30 years of hard work. Success is a long-term process; most coaches and programs favor short-term results.
• Evidence is the number of homegrown players in the first team. Problem in the U.S. is that this is not an incentive; college teams cannot develop homegrown players, nor can NBA teams. We value recruiting or drafting players more than we value the development of the talent.
• They win trophies and play an attractive style of football. No negative tactics – junk defenses, etc. – needed to win.
• They play a 4-3-3 system with their youth teams because it is the best system to develop skilled players. While a zone at a young age may help a team win, is it the best way to develop skilled players? Is clearing out and allowing the best player to go 1v1 in a 1-4 low set the best way to teach the game?
• They look for mentally strong players. Are these the qualities that we seek in youth basketball players? Are we developing mentally strong players?

In another article about La Masia, Lionel Messi said “As a kid they teach you not to play to win but to grow in ability as a player.”

They have a different philosophy or mentality; they develop the player first, and the team second, as the purpose of the club is to develop players for the professional side. The U.S. is not set up for long-term benefits, so coaches have a short-term outlook, as demonstrated by the coach that Colbert referenced. The result of this short-term outlook from season to season is the lack of quality seen in today’s college game.

In 2005, I started Cross Over because of what I witnessed with the players who I trained and the environment in which they were developing. I suggested that the system would develop fewer skilled players. I argued that with the money invested in basketball in the U.S., we should demand the best possible system of development for all players rather than being satisfied with one good enough to win an Olympic gold medal or produce enough players to supply the NBA.

Most people pointed to LeBron James and Kevin Durant and others and argued that the U.S. system was fine. Now, eight years later, everyone is worried about the declining quality of the college game. The explanation remains the same: the emphasis on winning at every level impedes player development which ultimately reduces the quality of play at the college level.

The solution is more clubs with a long-term view of player and talent development, and a willingness of parents, players, and coaches to delay gratification for something more than an u9 trophy. Skill development takes time and cannot be rushed. Children are not miniature adults – we should not treat youth basketball as a pre-professional level.

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development

http://tinyurl.com/cmhtbnl  - smh @ myself for not knowing about@brianmccormick until now. About to read every newsletter tonight!#hoopsgenius

@brianmccormick spent a lot of time reading and implementing “Developing Basketball Intelligence” and want to say thanks. 23-2, #2 in NY

Buy Developing Basketball Intelligence here.

Excited for game 1 tomorrow, and owe @brianmccormick a big TY for his advice, writing, and training of our player/coach development.

If there’s ONE article on ACL injuries all parent/coaches/athletes should read, it’s this one. http://developyourbballiq.com/girls-should-not-play-basketball/ …@brianmccormick #aclchat

#FF to a basketball guy across the pond that ‘gets it’ too. A top coach to follow, regardless of your sport - @brianmccormick.

@brianmccormick I’m wishing I was still coaching h/school now that I’ve read all your books. Just about everything would be different…

@uppy01 I know, big fan of @brianmccormick. Breath of fresh air for aspiring/inexperienced coaches. Coaching courses could learn something!

Coach @brianmccormick summer camp in ghana was mad real…best thing ever that happened 2 ghana basketball

@brianmccormick your insights are among the best, keep sharing and reaching those who have ears to hear.

#FF @brianmccormick knows his b-ball, knows his science, combines the two & has a great BS-detection meter.

my goodness, this guy is a thinker. Brilliant!! “@brianmccormick: Training Basketball Players http://is.gd/9XX2q8  #StrengthTraining”

@JeroenOosters Cross-Over van @brianmccormick is een MUST READ! zou heel de Belgische jeugdopleiding op moeten gebaseerd worden imo!

Buy Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development here.

If you still play sports, check out @brianmccormick . He will make you better.

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development

“It takes two to make a very great career: The man who is great, and the man– almost rarer– who is great enough to see greatness and say so.” – Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

In the video above, David Burkus, an assistant professor at Oral Roberts University, discusses the difficulty in accepting new or creative ideas. He suggests that for an idea to be great, it must satisfy two conditions: it must be new, and it must be useful.

Burkus discusses the difficulty in accepting the new idea, and his challenge to those who are presented with new ideas echoes the Rand quote from above. He suggests that since new ideas threaten the status quo, we are reluctant to adopt them. Also, since we use the old paradigm to judge the new idea, the new idea does not appear useful or better because it is not the old idea.

In basketball, many hold onto old ideas like running a mile for a conditioning test, static stretching prior to practice, step-sliding and drop-stepping on defense, only shooting lay-ups with the outside hand, giving quick offensive players (like Rajon Rondo) lots of space, and others. New ideas are not embraced quickly.

Burkus argues that we do not need more creative ideas; instead, we need to be better at recognizing great ideas. Several weeks ago, I tweeted: “I’m realizing that research is no match for tradition. The lack of critical thinking skills in coaches & aspiring coaches is disheartening.” I was asked for suggestions on how to improve. My 140 character response was, “Read. Debate. Talk to people who think differently. Learn from other disciplines. Answer ‘why?’ w/more than ‘because’.”

Why did I look into the efficacy of static stretching? When I was young, I never got hurt. I also never stretched. I played at recess, after school, etc. The only sport where we stretched was soccer. The only sport where I pulled a muscle was soccer. When I got to college, our rowing team stretched a ton. Again, I pulled a muscle. Sure, this is a tiny sample size and probably just a coincidence.

When I started to coach, I did not have players stretch; I actually prohibited stretching with my first team in Europe. We did not suffer a bunch of injuries; in fact, I don’t think anyone missed even a practice due to an injury all season. As I started to write, and people began asking me questions as if I was an expert, I went beyond my personal, anecdotal experience to find some real answers.

Why did I look into the way that I was taught to play defense with the step-slide and drop-step? When I was young, I was considered slow. I was told that I could not defend anyone. I listened to my coaches and practiced their methods. When I got to college, and played pick-up games (often against better players than I faced regularly in high school), I started to get picked up on teams because of my defense. That was due partially to my actually playing defense and partially from my lack of fear of being embarrassed by quicker players. When I played a pick-up game against Baron Davis, for instance, everyone on my team scattered and left me to bring up the ball 1v1. I was dumb enough not to be scared or worried about getting picked or dunked on.

However, I also dispensed with all of the lessons that I was taught in high school and before. I did not worry about whether I crossed my feet; I did whatever was necessary to stay with the ball. I watched some football practices and watched the defensive back drills and realized that they crossed their feet. Defensive backs had to deal with the same possibilities as a basketball defender; there is always the possibility that as soon as the DB turns his hips, the WR can break down and go back to the ball or run a slant or an out. In basketball, there is always the chance that a ball handler can make a crossover move exactly when a defender crosses his feet. It’s possible. However, I never got crossed so badly that I fell down, as some believe will happen if a defender dares to cross his feet on defense. Instead, I played admirably against very good, very quick guards despite my reputation in high school of not being able to guard anyone.

After thinking about my movements, I started to watch other defensive players. When I watched good defenders, I saw players crossing their feet. This led me to switch my teaching from what I was taught to what I did when I was put in a situation to defend faster players.

These are my two examples. Many times, we look for new answers in the same game, and we do not see new solutions. By looking beyond the hardwood and stealing ideas and methods from other sports, we can bring new ideas (that are proven already) to basketball and test these ideas to see how well the concept transfers. It’s not that basketball needs more creative ideas; instead, we need to recognize the better, new ideas.

Brian McCormick Basketball - The Science behind Basketball Coaching & Player Development