Skill Development Definitions and Coaching Philosophy

July 31st, 2010

179193367_f9a01779bbMy thinking differs from most coaches on most aspects of coaching, and these differences often get me in trouble. This weekend, I argued the merits of zone defenses and realized that our difference of opinion had nothing to do with zones specifically, but instead the way that we view the game and approach skill development.

Most coaches view basketball as two elements: skills and strategy. For these coaches, skills represent the technical skills that differentiate basketball: shooting, specific passes, footwork, dribbling and more. Strategy, then, is everything else, typically centering on defenses, plays, press breaks, out of bounds plays and more.

To me, there are four types of skills: athletic, psychological, tactical and technical. When I talk about skill development, I mean more than an individual workout focuses on shooting and ball handling; I believe skill development includes tactical skills like give-and-gos, pick-and-rolls, handling a trap, and more.

The difference between these two viewpoints, I learned, defines one’s coaching philosophy. The more traditional viewpoint favors a block practice environment which combines technical skill practice, typically in individual drills, with strategic practice encompassing the team’s offensive and defensive systems.

For these coaches, plays or offensive systems are specific, and players memorize movements: for instance, the team runs the Flex and players learn to use a screen only in the context of the Flex offense or the team runs the dribble-drive-motion and players learn to move in relation to dribble penetration only in the context of the DDM.

With my viewpoint, players learn these tactical skills generally first and then incorporate different general skills into team offense or the team’s system. In the traditional viewpoint, players learn skills like dribbling and shooting outside the context of the offensive system and then use these skills within the offense. In my approach, not only do players practice technical skills in skill development sessions, but they learn the tactical skills generally.

Before a team runs the Flex, for instance, players learn to use a screen outside the context of the Flex offense. Players learn to read the defense and the screen to make the appropriate cut; for instance, if the defender tries to fight through the screen, the cutter back cuts to the basket. Then, the offensive players apply these lessons to their coach’s system or plays.

The same occurs defensively. Most teams have a primary defense with their specific rules: for instance, force everything sideline-baseline, 3/4 front the post, help defense on the midline. If their primary defense does not work or does not fit against their opponent, they switch defenses: they play a secondary defense, like a 2-3 zone or 3-2 zone.

If players learn to play defense generally first, rather than with specific rules, a team can change its base defense to fit an opponent or situation. This season, we played man-to-man defense; however, against some teams, we denied the wing entry pass while against others, we played more help defense. When we played against a team that relied on dribble penetration, we did not move to a zone; we simply recognized their strength and adjusted slightly.

These adjustments constitute my strategy. From my viewpoint, we develop skills and strategy are the adjustments or game-specific tactics. For instance, how do you defend an opponent with a three-point lead and under 10 seconds to play? Do you foul before they can shoot a three-pointer? Decisions like these are the team’s or coach’s strategy. However, these strategic decisions are not important until players develop their skills generally. If players do not understand how to defend or how to use a screen or how to read the defense, a coach cannot change or employ different strategies. A coach cannot call a timeout to draw up a new play if the players lack the awareness or understanding to implement the strategy.

A narrow definition of skills (essentially technical skills) leads to one way of coaching and teaching, while a broader definition, which I favor, that encompasses four areas of skills leads to a much different approach to coaching.

At the youth level, the broader approach to skill development benefits players because the players learn skills which transfer from season to season, while coaches with a narrow definition may employ different strategies which do not transfer from season to season unless a player happens to play for a coach who runs the same system.

By Brian McCormick
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

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Kobe Bryant’s Basketball Camp & Skill Development

July 10th, 2010

Kobe Bryant apparently runs a hugely popular basketball camp in Santa Barbara, which is very commendable. However, after reading an article about the objectives, I am confused.

I must admit that I am biased against big camps. I run basketball camps, but even this week, while running a camp in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, I felt that we had too many players of disparate abilities to create a great camp. We made it work, the players improved and had fun, but it was far from my ideal learning environment.

With a young group, our focus this week was basic technical skills (dribbling, passing, pivoting, shooting, individual defense and lay-ups) and beginning tactical skills (give-and-gos and pick-and-rolls).

Kobe’s Camp, however, appears to focus on running different offenses:

The kids will be taught the flex offense, the Princeton offense, and of course, the famed triangle offense, among many other things. “It doesn’t really matter what age group they are, these kids can learn these things — especially at that age, because they’re sponges,” Bryant said.

Really? I agree that children are sponges and learn things quickly, especially when the instructions and skills are age-appropriate. However, I do not see how teaching the Flex offense to eight-year-olds is age-appropriate.

I worked a camp where every coach had to teach the same generic pass-and-screen away offense. It took all week to get players to follow directions and pass and screen away. Every team practice was spent memorizing the offense. However, if the players did not run the same offense with their teams at home, did all this practice time transfer to improved performance?

When I run camps, I teach general skills. Rather than learning the Flex offense or the Princeton offense, I teach players how to use a screen, how to make a backdoor cut or how to use a dribble hand-off. At my camp in Idaho two weeks ago, we learned all these skills. Through the six-week Playmakers Basketball Development League, players learn all these skills in general ways, not specific to one offense.

Now, this week, I used drills that I would use with a Flex offense team. Some of the girls at the camp run the Flex with their team, so I adjusted some of our general shooting drills to mimic cuts in the Flex, so they practiced the type of shots that they get with their team. However, the tactical instructions remained general: the goal was to learn how to read and use a screen in any offense, not in one specific offense.

When I was young, we ran the Flex. We set the cross screen and received the down screen to cut to the elbow. There was no deviation. Without a shot clock, we turned over the offense time after time until we got a lay-up or elbow jump shot.

When we moved to high school, we no longer ran the Flex. Now we memorized a new offense. Through these years of playing, we never learned to curl off a screen or flare off the screen or cut backdoor based on the defense; instead, we memorized where to run in a particular offense. If the shot was not open in the Flex, rather than flare because the defender went top-side, ball-side over the screen, we caught and waited for the next cutter or we re-screened if we were not open.

There is nothing wrong with the Flex offense or the Princeton offense, and there is nothing inherently wrong with teaching an offense at a camp. However, in the limited learning time available, how do you want to appropriate your time? Is teaching an offense that the players may never run again the best use of valuable time? Is it the most fun or inspiring use of time?

I try to teach to the age group. With younger players and beginners this week (10-14 primarily with a few 15 and 16-year-olds), the focus was fun and basics. We played dribble tag and speed tag every day. Why? The games are fun and with beginner players, these types of games improve their dribbling more than learning moves and doing more advanced drills. They learn naturally, one of Kobe’s emphases:

“Fun. I want them to have a good time,” Bryant said. “That’s where sports start. I want them to enjoy themselves, and not get bogged down by this or that. These kids are going to learn a lot of things at this camp — they’re going to learn them without knowing that they’re learning them, and they’re going to have a good time doing it.”

I agree completely with the attitude. We played tag because it kept the entire camp involved, is fun and develops skills without a lot of instruction.

We also spent time on lay-ups. We did speed lay-ups, power lay-ups, lay-ups off a pass, lay-ups off a catch, etc. We did a progression into the “Rondo,” and also learned the “Rondo Up-and-Under.” There was a 12-year-old who has never played in a competitive game before (from a remote town) who used the Rondo to create a shot in a 5v5 scrimmage on the last day to cheers from other campers.

We went through a defensive progression to learn to defend the ball and played lots of 1v1. We shot every day, going through the first three stages from 180 Shooter: 5 Steps to Shooting 90% from the Free Throw Line, 50% from the floor and 40% from the 3-pt line.

We played a lot of 3v3 and 4v4 half and full-court scrimmages to five baskets. I prefer short games with a definitive end to increase competitiveness. Also, short games allow you to change teams if the teams are unbalanced. When I worked bigger camps, each coach had a team of 8-10 players and the teams remained the same all week, even if the teams were unbalanced. We also played 30-minute games, which meant half the camp sat on the bench and watched (or sometimes more than half the camp if there were not enough courts to keep all the teams playing at once).

I usually play cut-throat at camp, so players are generally out for no more than 30 seconds in a half-court game and a minute or two in a full-court game. That keeps all the players engaged. Also, because no coach coaches a specific team or group of players, but assists everyone, the coach’s egos do not get in the way of helping the players. No coach is playing to win. Along the same lines, we did not spend time memorizing offenses. Instead, our goal is to teach general skills that players can apply to their teams at home regardless of the system that their coach employs.

Like all coaches, I have my biases. I am biased toward small-sided games, active drills and fun games that engage players while developing a number of basic, general skills. I dislike long lines and players sitting out.

While offenses taught properly can develop basic skills, is it the best way? Is playing 5v5 games with 8-10-year-old players the best way to develop their athletic, technical and tactical skills?

If you have more thoughts on camps and skill development, please join the discussion in the forum.

By Brian McCormick
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development

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Can One Teach Defensive Fundamentals through Zone Defenses?

July 7th, 2010

After commenting on zone defenses and pointing out some of the negative issues as well as reasons why zones are not bad for youth basketball, a coach observed that zones are a poor way to teach defensive fundamentals. In particular, the reason was that players only watch the ball in zone defense, but they learn to watch the man and the ball in man-to-man defense.

When I watch young children play, unfettered by rules and coaching, they tend to have great instincts. If a player drives to the basket, they go to the ball. They instinctively know to take away the biggest risks which are close to the basket.

However, as players learn to play defense properly, these same movements which were so instinctual and quick become labored and indecisive. Am I supposed to stay with my man or go to the ball? Do I rotate here or there? Coaches spend hours breaking down players’ natural instincts so that they can teach them the right way to play.

This season, I dispensed with the superfluous instruction and started with the players’ instincts. We did almost no specific defensive instruction. Instead, we started with a simple rule: No lay-ups or shots close to the basket. The second rule that we added quickly: Do not foul a shooter. Initially, we had a simple defensive philosophy: make teams make jump shots to score.

The problem with the way that we teach defense is that we start with specifics rather than the general philosophy. On the first day, we do the “Shell Drill” to teach players the proper positioning. The offense passes around the perimeter from spot to spot, and the defense moves into the right positions based on the ball and their man. Throughout, the coach emphasizes the importance of seeing both the man and the ball.

Now, no team plays offense like this. In fact, the only thing close to the initial shell drill is a bad zone offense. I would argue that it is easier for a defender to see man and ball when playing zone defense because (1) offenses stagnate against zones and (2) the defense always knows where to look to find his offensive player (his zone).

For young players learning to play who have a lot of information and stimuli to process, playing against even a decent man offense requires the defender to see a moving offensive player and the ball, something unlike the shell drill.

When I played, my teams spent hours on the shell drill every season starting in fifth grade. We worked on the proper help-side position. We worked on rotations if the ball handler dribbled baseline. We worked on defending cuts. The drills were clean and precise. For every possible question, there was specific answer. If A happens, do B.

Games, however, were messy. I did my picture-perfect closeout from the mid-line to a shooter, sprinting 2/3 of the way to the offensive player and then chopping my steps with my weight back as I was taught, and the shooter made the shot. I followed the directions perfectly, so my coach told me that I was too slow.

Next, I sprinted a little faster, waited a little longer to chop my steps, and the offensive player drove past me. Again, my coach said that I was too slow. I defended my player as he cut to the top, just as I had in the shell drill, but at the same moment, an offensive player drove baseline for a lay-up. Now, I was out of position. Somehow, I should have known that the offensive player was going to drive and ignored my player cutting toward the ball. Nothing happened like the shell drill. The shell drill supplied easy answers. Situations in games were more ambiguous.

Now when I play, I am usually the best defender on the court. I am no faster than when I was a teenager. However, I am not beholden to any specific rules. In every situation, I make the best possible decision and adjust accordingly. As a coach, I attempt to empower players to do the same. Our defensive success is not reducing all choices to one simple answer in practice, but learning to adjust and adapt to decisions.

Do players ball-watch in zone defenses?

Yes. They should. Players need to watch the ball in man defense too. When I play defense, I am generally aware of my player. I have a good idea where he is. However, if he makes a great cut, sometimes I am a step behind. However, I know where the ball is. I see the ball handler. I can read his eyes. I almost never get beaten with a backdoor pass – even if my player has beaten me, I can stick out my foot and defend the pass. If my player stands on the weak-side and I get caught in help defense, I know exactly where he is because I follow the flight of the ball. It does not matter if I know exactly where he is – the ball tells me where to go.

This is very much a zone approach to defense. However, as I wrote last week, every good man defense incorporates zone principles, and every good zone defense incorporates man principles. Unfortunately, I think many coaches generalize zone defense based on the worst possible examples and generalize man defense based on the best possible examples. In reality, they are very similar.

Can one teach good defensive fundamentals with a zone defense?

First, one must define “good defensive fundamentals”? I take a realist approach to defense rather than an idealist. Most coaches are idealists: their objective is to prevent ALL shots. As a realist, my objective is to force low efficiency shots. I do not believe that a defender can take away everything – any time a defender works to take away something, he opens something else. For instance, on a closeout, if I close out fast enough to contest the shot, I am susceptible to a drive. I cannot defend both perfectly. The battle is (1) choosing which is the better play for me as a defender and (2) the offensive player making the right decision based on my decision and possessing the skill to make the play that the decision dictates. If I know that my player cannot shoot, I defend the drive; in this instance, I force the shot, but he lacks the skill to take advantage. Therefore, I win the battle.

With young players, the defense usually wins the battle because few offensive players are complete players. If the defense plays the drive on all closeouts, whether in man defense or zone defense, the defense wins most battles as the offense takes a low-percentage shot, drives a congested lane or passes. As offensive players improve, the defender’s decision-making becomes more difficult, and thus more important.

What are the defensive fundamentals?

  1. Guard a yard. Defenders must be able to move laterally in both directions and keep a ball handler in front of them for two steps in each direction.
  2. Positioning. Defenders must know how they are supposed to defend a player. What area do they want to defend? Where is the help defense? Do you send to the sideline-baseline or to the middle?
  3. Closeout. Defenders must know how to cover as much distance as quickly as possible while remaining on balance and able to change directions. When covering more than 3 feet, the defender must decide whether to run at (and past) a shooter to force the drive or close out under control to prevent the drive.
  4. Defending the post. Defenders must know how to move their feet to stay in position and defend a pass from different angles.
  5. Defending a cutter. Defenders must know how to deny a cutter the ball while maintaining the balance to change directions.
  6. Boxing out. Possibly the most important part of defense, defenders close to the basket must box out to create more space to grab the rebound off missed shots.
  7. Matching up in transition. Players must know how to retreat quickly and match up in different situations where the offense has a numerical advantage.
  8. Help and recover. Defenders must be able to slow a ball handler to allow his defender to recover and then close out to their offensive player if a pass is made in their direction.

These are eight basic defensive skills. I am sure coaches could list 20 more (feel free to list more below). However, which of these skills cannot be taught through zone defense?

Team Defense

Even in man-to-man defense, teams play a lot of zone. Anytime a team doubles a post player, the other three defenders zone four offensive players. In transition, as long as the offense has a numerical advantage, the defense uses a zone. When a ball handler penetrates and beats his man, forcing help defense, the other defenders play a zone. Help defense is essentially zone defense.

When I coached professionally, our defensive philosophy was essentially to play man-to-man on the strong side and zone the weak side. We fronted the post and denied penetrating passes on the strong side. Our weak side defenders played the mid-line. We were most susceptible to a skip pass and open three-pointer or a high-post entry for a high-low to the post player. However, since we zoned the weak side, the top defender took the high-post which meant that we had a second defender to take away the quick high-low pass. The swing to the opposite side was wide open, so the bottom defender had to sprint at a shooter. However, we effectively took away the middle of the court and the basket.

Defensive Success

Ultimately, defensive success has little to do with the particular strategy (man or zone), especially at a youth level. Instead, the success starts with players playing hard. Hustle and effort can make up for a lot of mistakes defensively, especially with young players. Next, it requires some basketball smarts. If players know the general plan (no lay-ups, no free throws; force two-point jump shots), they can make educated decisions quickly and other players can adapt. Finally, defensive success requires toughness, mental and physical. Players have to be willing to use their bodies to box out, chuck cutters and take charges, but they also have to let it go if they do everything right and the offense still scores.

When teaching a man or zone, a coach can emphasize effort, hustle, smarts and toughness, so either strategy works for developing good defensive fundamentals.

By Brian McCormick
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

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Why are Zones and Presses Bad for Youth Basketball?

July 5th, 2010

As a follow-up to the last article defending one’s right to play zone defense, I decided to explain further the negatives involved with zones and presses at young ages.

Full-Court Press

Against a full-court press, I teach players Diamond Spacing: the passer needs an option up the court, behind the ball and on a diagonal (splitting a trap). The fifth player spreads out the defense on the opposite side or preferably down court to draw a defender.

When the defense traps, D3 and D4 have to choose who to deny or they zone the three passing options and attempt to read the passer’s eyes. However, against youth teams where the passer lacks the strength and skill to make a 40-foot pass, D5 can rotate into the frontcourt and the defense can deny all three pass receivers. This is the problem. There is nowhere for a fourth offensive player to cut to create an open passing lane, as his presence simply congests the court even more. If younger players play a small-sided games, even 4v4, the press breaks down to an extent. Now, if the defense traps the ball, two defenders zone three offensive players, leaving an open passing lane for the offense.

Zone Defense

The same holds true for zone defenses. In any good zone defense or man defense for that matter, an inability to throw a good, strong skip pass allows the defense to clog the paint without giving up anything. Generally-speaking, whenever a defense takes away something, they give up something else. So, if a defense takes away the paint, they give up open jump shots. However, with younger players, they lack the strength and skill to take advantage of the openings that the zone defense prevents. The skip pass is too slow to create the desired wide open shot.

In this generic set, two offensive players (O1 and O3) are isolated on the weak side against one defender (D3). A quick skip pass should lead to an open shot for O3, or if D3 runs at O3 on the catch, O1 should be wide open for his shot.

However, if the offense cannot make the skip pass, or if the offense has to step inside the three-point line to shoot and therefore condensing the space, then the defenders can close out in time to take away the open shot. They defend the paint, but also have the time to defend the shot. At higher levels, teams have to pick their poison: overplay and take away the paint and give up the open three-pointer or vice versa. The ball moves too quickly to take away both.

Again, a small-sided game of 3v3 or 4v4 in the half-court makes it more difficult for the defense to take away the paint and the shot, even when the offense needs to step inside the three-point line. A 2-2 zone or a 1-3 zone would give away far too much space, so in a sense, teams would be forced to play man-defense in a small-sided league. Either way, players would have more space and time to execute their skills (passing, ball handling, shooting, finishing, reading the defense) than when playing 5v5.

As I wrote previously, when players possess the experience and skills to play full-court 5v5 games, there is no reason to prevent zones or presses to hide players’ weaknesses. However, with young players, these are the reasons against zones and presses, though the problems are remedied more easily by playing more age-appropriate small-sided games than instituting artificial rules to manipulate coaches into doing things a certain way.

By Brian McCormick
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League<

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Is Zone Defense Bad for Youth Basketball?

June 30th, 2010

Today I watched a video that vilified zone defenses and presses in youth basketball. Now, I am a man-to-man coach and played in man-to-man defense only leagues when I was young. However, as long as zone defenses are legal, I do not see why youth leagues should prohibit them or why coaches should be discouraged from employing them.

Before getting too deep into the argument, I suppose that I should frame the age groups. The video mentioned that zones should not be used before high school. Therefore, our conversation centers on u14s. Now, I do not even believe that players need to play organized basketball until they are 8 or 9. When players begin organized basketball, I believe that they should play 3v3 games, not 5v5 (more on this below), which is why I created the Playmakers Basketball Development Leagues. I do not see a need for 5v5 games until players are 10 years old or older, so the argument of zones or no zones has to do with the 10-14 year-old age group.

What is the argument against zones and presses?

Generally, coaches feel that zones and presses are lazy. Coaches imagine other coaches stationing five players in the key to force jump shots and protect the basket. Of course, this happens. I have heard of coaches who play a 2-3 zone defense and literally tell the bottom three defenders to stand on the block, in the middle of the key and on the block, respectively, and not to move. To prevent this type of lazy coaching, coaches vilify all zone defenses.

Of course, I also know coaches who play man-to-man defense and tell 1-2 players not to worry about their players (the weaker players) and concentrate solely on help defense. However, nobody suggests outlawing man defense because of this type of over-competitiveness.

Coaches believe that teams who play zone defense force young, unskilled players into outside shots which they cannot make consistently. They believe that presses benefit the biggest, strongest players who overwhelm young players who lack the strength to exploit the entire court.

To me, the answer is not to outlaw zone defenses. How does ignoring the problem (inconsistent shooting, lack of strength, lack of passing under pressure) help anyone?

The problem is one of spacing, which is easily fixed by reducing the number of players on the court. In top European soccer academies, players do not play full 11v11 games until they are 11 or 12-years-old. They start with small-sided games using a smaller field to encourage more touches for each player and to make the game more manageable.

In basketball, when a team employs a zone defense and packs in the defense against a youth team, it condenses the space. The offense cannot use the entire width of the court; well, it can use the entire width, but due to a lack of skill, the defense does not play the entire width. Of course, a team can do the same with man-to-man defense as well: if the coach knows that nobody on the opposition can shoot a three-pointer, his defender can back off several feet and play the passing lanes.

The answer is not strategy, but structure. Fewer players on the court opens more space for players to practice their skills. Fewer players on the court means more touches for each player.

The same is true for a press. Presses work against younger teams because players lack the strength to throw over top of the press. Therefore, the defense can shrink the court and put all five defenders in the back court. Of course, a team can do the same thing with a man defense too, especially with the press breaks that most teams employ. If using fewer players, there is plenty of space for offensive players, and the press cannot condense to space or overwhelm the offensive players.

Why is the argument against zones just semantics?

One cannot play good man-to-man team defense with understanding zone principles and one cannot play good zone defense without understanding man-to-man principles. For this reason, no youth teams play really good team defense.

Let’s look at a generic 2-3 zone defense (played well) versus a good man-to-man defense:

2-3 Zone

This is a very generic defense and a very generic play. However, in a basic 1-3-1 set against a 2-3 zone, the point passes to the wing and cuts to the corner. One of the top defenders (O1) takes the ball and the other (O2) takes the high post. The bottom outside defender (O3) takes the corner, the middle defender (O5) fronts the low post and the weak-side baseline defender (o4) helps in the middle of the key.

Man Defense

In the man-to-man example, the offense starts in the same 1-3-1 set and runs the point to the corner to create a strong-side triangle. The defense defends in the same manner as above, except different defenders defend different positions. O2 takes the wing; O1 follows the point to the corner; O4 fronts the low post; O5 takes the high post; and O3 helps in the middle of the key.

The basic difference between man-to-man and zone defenses is the way that the defense defends cutters (with or without screens). In man-to-man defense, defenders deny and follow cutters to a point and then deny or play help-side defense; in zone defenses, defenders follow and release the cutter to the next defender and then recover to their zone.

However, strong-side defense and weak-side defense remain largely the same. On the strong-side, someone defends the ball and a defender is responsible for a quick closeout to any perimeter players, while a defender typically denies any penetrating pass into the post (low or high), though some zones at the college level are designed to force mid-range jump shots, so they do not cover the high post too closely and concentrate more on the three-point line and low post, like many college man-to-man defenses.  On the weak-side, the defenders play with one foot in the key, two feet in the key or on the mid-line, depending on the amount of help defense.

Therefore, when the ball is passed to the wing, a player has essentially the same amount of time and space to execute a move against a good man-to-man defense as against a good zone defense.

Obviously, man and zone defenses and offenses can be far more complicated. However, if the argument is that the players are young, unskilled and inexperienced, would they be doing anything more than the most rudimentary cuts and rotations in man or zone? If a team has a sophisticated man or zone defense or offense with an u11 team, the coach probably is spending far too much time on strategy and not enough time developing general individual and team skills. Therefore, again, the problem is not zone vs. man, but strategy vs. skill development.

If man-to-man and zone defenses are so similar, what is the argument?

When coaches argue against zone defenses and presses at young ages, they make two arguments:

1) They argue against poorly taught or lazy defense, and they blame zones for this.

2) They argue against exploiting unskilled players.

Prohibiting zone defenses does not fix either of these problems. In fact, prohibiting zones could exacerbate the second problem. If zones are prohibited, it is tough to play good help defense. My team when I was young was often called for violations because we played help defense with a foot in the key, as most high school coaches teach. But, if outlawing zone defense, how do you differentiate between good help defense and zone defense?

Therefore, if you prohibit good help defense in the name of outlawing zone defense, the biggest, strongest player has a better opportunity to dominate single-handedly. The best player dribbles the ball up the court, beats his own defender and other help defenders are hamstrung or late because they are a step too far out of position because of the anti-zone defense rule. Therefore, he gets to the basket with ease and scores. On defense, it is easy to put the biggest, strongest player on the ball, teach the wings to deny everything hard and easily exploit weaker, unskilled players with man-to-man pressure.

As for the first problem, their issue is not with zones but poor teaching. I am also against poor teaching. However, I think that man defense can be as overwhelming and poorly taught as zones.

To fix these issues, we need to do two things:

1) Employ more age-appropriate games for young players;

2) Examine teaching methods of zone and man defenses without viewing zones as a four-letter word.

In the first case, if players are unskilled or lack the strength to play against a zone defense, they probably lack the skill and strength to play against man defense as well. The problem is not the defense, but the space. Young, inexperienced and unskilled players need more space and time to execute their skills. Therefore, these players should not play 5v5 leagues, regardless of the defense. Criticizing zones does not get to the root of the problem. The root of the problem is a need to create more space and time for players and to get each player more touches so that every player can develop his skills so he has confidence when he moves to a 5v5 game, regardless of defense.

In the second case, we need those who oversee leagues to act more in a role of “coaching the coaches” than just administrating. League directors should assist coaches and encourage good teaching techniques. Zone defense is not the enemy – poor teaching is the enemy. We need to remember the difference. It is possible to play great zone defense and teach players many useful skills that they can transfer from season to season regardless of the defense that their next coach employs.

By Brian McCormick
Author, Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League<

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Scrimmages and Offensive Instruction in Practice

May 14th, 2010

A coach emailed a question regarding Blitz Basketball and my use of scrimmages to teach my basic offensive sets and defensive strategy.

I do not spend practice working 5v0 or walking through defensive rotations in a typical shell drill. I scrimmage, and after a player is finished, I use the play to teach a concept if something needs to be corrected. I generally do not stop the action in the middle of the play.

As I answered his question, I realized the philosophy behind my coaching style. I do not expect perfect execution in a game. Many coaches do. Many coaches want their players to execute the play exactly as they draw it on the blackboard. I think the game is messy and unpredictable. I believe that my team’s success depends on the players’ ability to adjust and adapt during the play and to make the best decision.

If I stop the action in practice when a play becomes messy, how do the players learn to adjust and adapt? In a game, I can use a timeout here and there when the play gets messy, but I do not have enough timeouts to use to control every possession or prevent every mistake. Therefore, at some point, the players have to fend for themselves. However, if they never get the opportunity to adjust to their mistakes and make decisions to adjust to the new reality, how can I expect them to make good decisions in a game?

An old adage is that you have to practice perfectly because there will be game slippage. If you practice perfectly, the adage goes, you will perform at 70-80% in the game due to the slippage. However, if you practice at 70-80% at practice, the game slippage will result in a performance closer to 50%.

What if the adage is only half-true? What if the game slippage occurs because the players do not learn to adjust and adapt to new situations during their perfect practice? What if there is little to no game slippage when practice is imperfect and players have to make decisions constantly and then receive feedback after the play about other options or better possibilities?

My practices often looked disorganized this season, and our game performance was sloppy at times because we looked so disorganized. However, we honestly had very little to no game slippage. We generally performed better against our opponents than we did against each other. Skills that we rarely executed correctly in practice scrimmages (traps on the press, pick-and-rolls on offense) suddenly happened over and over in games.

Some of our success was a talent differential, as we played teams whose starters were not as good as our players off the bench. However, we played teams with equal or more talent, size and speed, and executed as well against them as we did in practice. Our performances were not perfect, but I do not expect perfection. I have yet to see a team play perfectly.

Therefore, to maximize performance, do we strive for perfection in practice so we perform close to perfection after the normal game slippage or do we practice at something less than perfect, but eliminate most of the normal game slippage?

By Brian McCormick
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

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What comes first: lack of footwork or lack of calls?

April 28th, 2010

In my volleyball game last week, the opposing setter used a “deep dish” set for the entire first set. Between sets, I asked the lead official is this was now legal. He replied that the setter did the same thing every time. I asked if that meant that my setter could catch the ball and toss it underhanded to our hitters if he did the same thing every time. He told me not to ask stupid questions. I told him that stupid answers beget stupid follow-ups.

The same conversation could occur in basketball. A coach asks the official about a traveling violation, and the official replies that the players travel every time, so he cannot call every one.

This line of thinking begs the question: which comes first, the lack of footwork or the lack of calls?

I watched a college basketball game this season where one player traveled more than 20 times without being whistled for a violation. Officials at every level appear to have adopted the more liberal NBA rules rather than enforcing NCAA or NFHS rules.

Players catching a pass on the run are allowed 3-4 steps to stop; players regularly switch pivot feet on the catch, catching the pass right-left, but then using the left foot as the pivot foot; they make a two-count jump stop but then use a pivot foot; they take off of one foot and land 1-2 rather than with two feet at the same time, etc.

These players are ignored by officials. However, are they taught by coaches? Do we teach proper footwork in practice?

Officials argue that players travel every time down the court, and parents and coaches argue when they call repeated violations. My friend was docked on his evaluation because he whistled seven consecutive traveling violations. His evaluator did not dock him for missing calls; he was docked for making the right call too many times!

Unfortunately, how do we teach proper footwork to players if it is not enforced in a game? If opposing setter is never called for a lift or a double, why should he learn to set the ball correctly? If a player is not whistled for traveling, why not switch pivot feet when it is advantageous?

I think officials have to be more rigid in their interpretation of the rules. This will make for some ugly games, as when my friend whistled 7 straight travels. However, if officials do not enforce the rules more consistently, footwork will deteriorate further. We are at the point where people celebrate Kobe Bryant – the best player in the world – for the ability to do a simple step-through that I learned when I was in 5th grade because such examples of proper footwork are so rare.

To improve the level of play at all levels, coaches must spend more time teaching the proper footwork and ensuring that their players understand the difference between a legal move and a traveling violation, and officials need to be more strict in their interpretation of the rules, even when it means an ugly game or angry parents. At some point, players have to learn the right way to play, and the more that we allow the rules to degrade, the harder it will be to maintain any sense of order on the court.

By Brian McCormick
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

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Basketball Practice, Mindful Learning and Player Development

April 2nd, 2010

2169383315_b9d4d33219I played at a big sports complex last night, and an elite club team practiced on the next court. The club regularly features high Division I recruits, and a trainer took the current players through a workout. For the first 45 minutes, they did conditioning drills.

The high school season ended last weekend. Assuming these players did not play for the state championship, their season has been over for 2-3 weeks. Their big summer recruiting events are not until July. Is this the time to stress conditioning above everything else? Is this how to develop a player?

After the conditioning drills, the players practiced their ball handling. Several players had terrible posture during the drills, and few did the drills any better than an average high school freshman. Therefore, I imagine the players were learning something new, or relatively new, as opposed to training an already learned skill.

Is learning a new skill in a fatigued state the best way to learn?

The player with the poor posture was your typical skinny, 6′6 player who probably cannot eat enough to add weight because of all the playing, workouts and growth spurts. The postural issues are nothing new: coaches see them all the time, especially with taller players or players in the midst of a growth spurt. However, just because it is common, should it be ignored?

What would enhance this player’s performance more right now: 45 minutes of conditioning or 45 minutes of balance and stability work to train the right posture and activate the right muscles to enable him to move more efficiently?

Sure, mobility and stability work is not as “hard” or “demanding” as running up and down the court for 45 minutes, and the players may not even break a sweat, but what is going to help the player improve the most right now?

If the player practices with poor posture, the poor posture is going to lead to less effective movement and poor habits. At some point, to get past a plateau in his performance, the player will have to correct his posture and learn new movement habits. Simple cues like “hips down” rather than “lower” or “chest and eyes up” rather than “eyes up” during the specific drills focus the player on the correct posture. Why not train this posture from the beginning at the start of the off-season? More to the point, why not train the player properly rather than putting the cart (intensity) before the horse (movement efficiency)?

If we want to enhance our players’ development at practice and increase mindful learning, we need to teach new skills when players are fresh and ready to learn, and we need to correct their weaknesses at the most basic level. If a building was crumbling, you would not start by fixing the walls; you would fix the foundation because any problems with walls likely starts with the foundation.

With a player, fixing or improving his basketball-specific technique without first addressing his athletic deficiencies is the same as patching the walls without addressing the foundation. Eventually, the walls will collapse again, and you will spend all your time returning to fix the walls without ever really fixing the problem.

If we have better awareness of movement and the body, we can develop better players by fixing the root of the mistake and starting from the foundation, not just the basketball-specific corrections.

By Brian McCormick
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

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7 Sport Memory Techniques to Accelerate Skill Learning

March 25th, 2010

Author: Denise K. Wood, Ed.D.

Sport skill memory is developed when athletes learn and remember motor skills. Motor memory techniques can accelerate the skill acquisition process so athletes can progress to higher levels of sport performance more quickly.

Motor learning principles are drawn from psychology and applied to sports training. Coaches can use the following sport memory techniques to speed up skill learning and retention for athletes of any age:

1. Help athletes learn skills correctly the first time. Initial learning is most impressionable. A skill learned incorrectly is often difficult to re-pattern. Coaches should monitor and guide athletes to learn proper technique when athletes are still in the early stages of learning.

2. Teach skill rhythms first, then refine the movements. Athletes can learn and recall rhythmic movements more quickly than isolated movements, just as rhymes are more readily remembered in verbal learning.

3. Chunk movements. Movements can be learned and processed if they are “chunked”, or grouped, into larger movements. This grouping technique increases an athlete’s capacity to learn and perform sport skills. Break skills down only as much as necessary. Overanalysis causes paralysis.

4. Make new skills meaningful. Explain and demonstrate new skills so that the athlete understands what the skill requires and why it is executed that way. Also make clear how a skill, movement, or strategy will help the athlete improve sport performance.

5. Associate new skills and concepts with well learned skills. Athletes learn new skills more quickly if key movements make sense to them. A coach can capitalize on an athlete’s previous experience and maturity level by suggesting mental images that associate new skill concepts and features with familiar ones.

6. Point out specific cues that require the athlete’s attention. Intention to remember alerts an athlete to important aspects of a skill or game situation. An athlete’s ability to focus and remember key cues distinguishes beginners from skilled performers.

7. Overlearn skills to correct errors. Overlearning means practicing skills beyond what is necessary to perform them properly. It is effective for correcting previously learned errors and for reinforcing properly coordinated movements.

Sport memory techniques such as these can streamline training, saving valuable time and effort. These are just a few of the many tools used for how to effectively convey what skills and strategies athletes need to know.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/sports-and-fitness-articles/7-sport-memory-techniques-to-accelerate-skill-learning-835770.html

About the Author

Dr. Denise K. Wood is an educator and sport and fitness training consultant from Knoxville, TN and creator of www.sports-training-adviser.com She is an inspirational motivator with an extensive toolbox of training techniques based in science and delivered to accelerate the learning curve. Dr. Wood is a former USA Track and Field champion and member of more than 20 USA National Teams. She has trained a wide range of clients from beginners with special needs to Olympians. She has been recognized as an outstanding professor in exercise science and research/statistics.

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Four Stages of Skill Acquisition

February 18th, 2010

The following article originally appeared in Hard 2 Guard 2009 Player Development Newsletter Volume 3, Issue 37 and is included in Brian McCormick’s Player Development Newsletters, Volume 3.

While running a clinic for an organization last weekend, the head coach reminded the group (and me) of the four stages of skill acquisition:

* Unskilled, Unconscious
* Unskilled, Conscious
* Skilled, Conscious
* Skilled, Unconscious

The beginner player is unaware of his mistake and the proper execution. Next, he learns the proper execution, but he cannot consistently repeat the skill. For instance, many young players understand the basics of shooting – they can recite BEEF and show you where to start your shot, where to place your hand on the ball, etc. – but they cannot execute the skill perfectly and consistently.

Eventually, they execute with correct technique. However, they consciously control their shooting technique. When they step to the free throw line, they tell themselves to bend their knees. A lot of players get stuck in this stage where they mentally control their skill execution.

The final stage is to forget: the player masters the skill and forgets the technical instructions. He does not need to think about his foot placement, hand placement, etc. – he simply catches and shoots.

Many players waffle in-between the 3rd and final step. When things are good and they are thinking positively, they catch and shoot without any conscious control. However, when they miss a shot, feel fatigued, feel pressure, etc., their mind attempts to wrest control of the physical process. Once a player reaches the Skilled-Unconscious Stage, thinking interferes with skill execution.

Is there a way to go from Unskilled-Unconscious to Skilled-Unconscious? After all, if the goal is to return to unconscious skill execution, why add the conscious element? That is the basis for the school of thought which favors implicit learning:

Considerable evidence now exists in the scientific literature to show that excessive conscious control of one’s skills (reinvestment) is avoidable if the skills are learned implicitly, without recourse to hypothesis testing (e.g. bent knees = more power) or accumulation of explicit knowledge,” (Farrow, et. al).

How can a coach teach the required skills without explicit instructions? Many coaches already use many implicit learning techniques: (1) analogies; (2) errorless learning; (3) subliminal learning; and discovery learning/play.

Analogies can be used to present the key coaching points of a to-be learned skill as a simple biomechanical metaphor that can be reproduced by the learner without reference to, or manipulation of, large amounts of explicit knowledge (Farrow, et. al).

In 180 Shooter, I list several cues that I use with shooters that are similar to analogies. The most common basketball analogy is the “hand in the cookie jar.” This type of analogy allows “many bits of information about a skill to be presented to the learner in one manageable chunk,” (Farrow, et. al).

When I learned to swim last winter, I thought about one instruction – reaching on each stroke like I was reaching to touch the wall – and one image – the hull of a boat. In the Total Immersion philosophy, the goal is to be more efficient with each stroke, not to work harder. By reaching for the wall, you lengthen each stroke (made sense based on my rowing experience and the difference between stroke rate and stroke length), and by picturing the hull of the boat, I forced my head and chest down to create a more streamlined position. There were no details to remember about exact hand position or precise stroke length.

Errorless Learning
When I begin a shooting session, I start with form shooting close to the basket. This is a form of errorless learning. Rather than instruct step-by-step, the player shoots in an area where it is easy for him to make shots. He grooves his technique or gets a rhythm. Through the successful execution, he learns the right way to shoot with minimal instruction. The longer that I coach, the less that I say, especially in individual workouts because I want to minimize the thinking.

If the player starts in the right position and finishes in the right position, everything in between takes care of itself. While there are many details that one can teach, every detail gives the player another thing to analyze or another reason to think too much.

I show the right starting position and emphasize shooting the ball high: start small and finish tall. If there are mistakes that consistently result in missed shots, I tweak the technique and instruct as needed. However, when starting with the errorless learning and a basic picture of the goal, the need for detailed instructions lessens.

Subliminal Learning
In Developing Sport Expertise, Neil Craig, Head Coach of the Adelaide Crows Football Club, cites a study published in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink as provoking subliminal implicit learning. In the study, people memorized groups of words and then walked down a hallway. Those who memorized words subtly referencing old age – gray, Florida, old – walked with a stooped, slow fashion like an older person.

Craig puts posters on the wall which emphasize the importance of precise skill execution like focus, attention, concentration, etc. He figures that reading these words in the locker room on a daily basis contributes to subliminal learning.

Discovery Learning/Play
When I work with a new team, I present situations and allow the players to devise solutions rather than telling players exactly what to do. As I conducted several clinics last weekend, I realized that coaches skip over generalities and move straight to specifics – in a sense, they skip the perceptual and conceptual elements and move straight to movement.

I worked with a junior college coach once who moved straight into out of bounds plays – she never taught or challenged players to get open, use space appropriately or anything pertaining to spacing and getting open. Instead, it was straight to set plays. She wanted Skilled-Conscious players because she wanted to control their actions through her verbal instructions.

For instance, last night, my directions centered on this: Basketball is a game of time and space – the offense aims to create time and space and the defense attempts to take away time and space or to protect space. I did not tell the players how to play, where to go, what to do. I want to see how they learn and develop within general ideas.

Last night, we concentrated on 1v2 and 2v2 because most teams at this level press. Therefore, I want players who can handle the ball under pressure. We have no press break; there is no “right” way to get open. There is no rigid way to attack 2v1.

Instead, I aim to create challenges that give players an opportunity to discover the right play or the right decision. My job as a coach is to create the challenges and then offer occasional instruction based on the execution.

For instance, after watching several missed lay-ups, and remembering a study conducted by my friend Lindell, I stopped the game and taught a two-foot lay-up rather than the one-foot take-off which resulted in many missed lay-ups and off-balance shots.

The goal, then, is to move to a Skilled-Unconscious performer as quickly as possible. In a sense, coaches use set plays because it is quicker to memorize an A-B-C plan (set play) than to teach and develop players into Skilled-Unconscious players.

The goal is unconscious execution where players react immediately to defensive cues. My practices and clinics often look ugly because the players are not there yet. However, the ugliness precedes the Skilled-Unconscious level because too much instruction or structure inhibits the players’ learning.

Therefore, to move to the Skilled-Unconscious performer, coaches either need to give players more time and repetitions so they think about the right decisions and learn in the traditional four-step method, or they need to focus on implicit learning and developing players who move from Unskilled-Unconscious to Skilled-Unconscious.

Players need the time and opportunity to learn the game through exploration and discovery with minimal interference, as opposed to the constant structure and explicit instructions in today’s game.

By Brian McCormick
Director of Coaching, Playmakers Basketball Development League

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