As the calendar turns over, basketball coaches begin conference play, and hope to have the answer to how their team can win. Through the experiences gained from October to December, most teams have had an opportunity to be challenged, learn from adversity, and establish an identity. Below are three questions that you had better know the answer to, if you want a chance to win your league:
✔ What does your team do better than anyone else in your league?
✔ What is your team’s biggest weakness, and how can you help your team overcome it?
✔ Do your players know and accept their roles?
These three questions are guiding thoughts, which will give your team a chance to play their best basketball. We hope this helps your coaching staff evaluate where your team is at, as you prepare for the most important stretch of the season.
You can follow Dynamic Coaching Tools on Twitter at @DynamicCoaches
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PROGRAM BUILDING MODEL
TALENT
The number one factor to winning games is TALENT. While this might not be a popular reality, because some aspects of talent are out of the control of a coach, it is the truth. Without talent, it is hard to win games. Talent is made up of three main categories; athleticism, skill, and depth.
CULTURE
Culture is defined as “how we do things here.” Every person around a program has an impact on the culture of a program. Culture is the easiest area to impact, but the hardest thing to control. Sustainable success can be directly attributed to good program culture.
COACHING
Coaches have all of the power, but very little control. The best coaches recognize that their role must shift from driving force to quality control. The sooner that this can happen, the quicker a program has the opportunity to become an elite program.
The word ELITE is thrown around too frequently, but there is no denying that the definition of elite describes what every program is striving to achieve.
Want to know how you can become the driving force to making your program elite? Be on the look out for our next blog post, which will talk about the first three areas that a program must improve!
GO FOLLOW DYNAMIC COACHING TOOLS ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, AND FACEBOOK:@DYNAMICCOACHES
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Top 10 Must Have Attributes For Point Guards
Every coach wants to have a floor general. A floor general is an extension of the coach.
Here are the 10 attributes every coach should want from their point guard.
1. LEAD BY EXAMPLE!
Sprint to the spots. Front of the line.
2. COMMUNICATE!
Vocal on both ends of the court. Guide teammates.
3. POSITIVE ENERGY!
High fives, fist bumps, and positive talk.
4. KYP!
Know your personnel. Know when and where to get your teammates the ball.
5. PLAY WITH POISE!
Know when to pass, attack, and pick up your dribble.
Spot ups, pin downs, flares, and curls.
7. MID-RANGE SKILLS!
Do not drive too deep. Have variety of floaters, runners, protected finishes around the rim.
8. WORK ON DEFENSE!
Pressure and contain ball handlers.
9. CHANGE OF HEIGHT & SPEED!
Keep the defense off balance. Allow time for plays to develop. Make help side move.
10. MAKE FREE THROWS!
Capitalize on the freebies. Show confidence. Allows team to set up defense.
If you have questions or want to learn more, reach out to Coach Eric Brotherton.
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PROGRAM BUILDING | 3 Areas to Improve
In our last blog post, we shared our PROGRAM BUILDING MODEL. When trying to build a program, there are countless areas that need your attention. We encourage coaches to filter through this information and make it a priority to get to the W.I.N.
W.I.N. = What’s Important Now
It is our belief that there are three main areas that a coach must focus on improvement.
TALENT
Our next blog post will take a deep dive into the TALENT GAP. Coaches must evaluate and have a clear understanding of how the talent in their program compares to the other program’s that they are competing against. The quickest way to win more games is to improve the talent on the roster. A talented roster will have some success, based on the advantage created by a positive talent gap. Depending on the level of the program, talent can be improved through player development or recruiting.
COACHING STAFF
We recently ran a poll on our twitter page, asking “What is the biggest separating factor between the best team in your league and everyone else?”
What is the biggest separating factor between the best team in your league and everyone else?#ProgramBuilding#GrowTheGame🏀
— Dynamic Coaching Tools (@DynamicCoaches) June 23, 2020
As you can see, coaching only got about 4% of the vote. Coaching will take a talent gap and shrink or expand the advantage created by that talent. Due to that, we believe that improving the coaching in your program will help you win close games, and can help your program find consistent success. Improving your coaching staff can be about finding experienced coaches, aligning the skills of your coaches with the program needs, or even focusing on improving as a head coach. The best coaching staffs are full of “learn it alls,” who are constantly finding ways to improve.
CULTURE
We define culture as, “how we do things here.” The most important thing to understand about the culture of your program is that every single person around the program is going to make an impact. A strong culture can also impact the talent gap. Your culture can help you win big games and gives your program a chance to have sustainable success. How can you start the process of establishing and improving your culture? We will address that in an upcoming blog post. You can start with these two exercises and take a look at the example below.
CORE VALUES
What are the 3-4 things that will define your program. If you can’t limit it to 3-4, then you are spreading your attention too thin. One suggestion is to pick things that go beyond basketball and have a broad spectrum.
“THIS IS US” (25 Words or Less)
Describe your program in 25 words or less.
As you jump into the process of improving your program, these three areas will make the biggest impact on your program. This type of narrow, focused vision will help a coach block out distractions and focus on the W.I.N. that we described earlier in the post. Want more PROGRAM BUILDING information? Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook ( @DynamicCoaches ).