The Lost Art of Coaching: Getting Back To The Basics

December 6, 2008

When attempting to perfect ones craft during the introductory stages your base is the most important thing when laying down your foundation. When involved in sports your coach is major part of helping you with your foundation, which is the basic fundamentals. There once was a time in basketball where the basic fundamentals where extremely important. Nearly every coach on every level from kids just starting out in the sport to middle school to high school to college and on to the pros stressed the importance of basic basketball fundamentals. Basic basketball fundamentals include footwork drills (pivot moves, karaoke drill, ladder work,ect), passing drills, and rebounding drills. Its not just that these coaches taught these drills, they taught them correctly and they demanded perfection from their players when practicing these drills.

A crucial point of a basketball players life is his high school years.

Back in the day (60′s, 70′s, and 80′s) high school coaches did a much better job developing their players. They paid close attention to details which is why those players during those times played the game the way it is suppose to be played. Now a days you go watch a high school basketball game and the play is all about flash and glamor on the court. You can also even see some of the same things when you watch some college and NBA games. All this play is just manifesting poorly executed basketball. And all of this leads back to coaching. What happened to the John Woodens, the Bob Knights, the John Thompson, the Larry Browns, the Dean Smiths of the world of coaching. These coaches taught their players to play fundamentally sound. When watching these respective coaches teams play you can see the discipline in their style of play.

In the past the game of basketball was centered around the big man, meaning the low post players. Now today’s game is all about the guards and wings for the most part. I cannot tell you how many times I have gone to watch a high school game or a college game and I watch these guards overlook the bigs in the post. And when I say bigs I am talking about big guys that are 6’10 and above. With me myself being 7 feet tall, I know the feeling all too well when a guard just sits there with the ball in hand watching you work your ass of for position only to shoot the ball himself.

It is a bad feeling knowing you are out there rebounding and defending your tail off and do not get rewarded on the other end of the floor. Just imagine if a young Lou Alcindor while at UCLA was blocking every shot imaginable the opposite team puts up while grabbing every board only to come down court and get over looked by his teammates who refuse to throw him the ball inside. I am quite sure if this happened Henry Bibby or Mike Warren or one of those great guards that the Bruins had in those days probably would have gotten strangled to death by Big Lou in the locker room. Coach Wooden probably would have more than likely threatened their scholarships. But the whole point is they didn’t over look him and the basketball world enjoyed the experience of witnessing greatness in Alcindor and Bruins won championships as a result. Now today the big man position has changed, the post players do much more. Post players today can shoot, run the floor, dribble, and do the the things that alot of guards can. I am not saying its anything wrong with this at all in fact I think its great but the game is not being played inside and then out. The game is pretty much outside then in at whatever point. Playing the game from the inside and then out makes the game so much easier, it completely opens up the entire floor which make the game easier for everyone. I think the game needs to go back to focusing on the big men a little bit more.

If your involved in coaching on some level I think it is important to evaluate yourself as a coach. Coaches just like players always have room for improvements. I think it will benefit every coach to look at their coaching styles and ask themselves what they are missing or what will benefit them to become better coaches. If I where a coach I would study my teams game film constantly and I also will go back in the archives and look at some of the great coaches in basketball history coaching styles.

Doing this will help the game go back to the basics and basketball will be played the right way and you will start to see kids having a better understanding of the game at a young age. I say this with no disrespect to any coach I have ever played for but I definitely would have benefited from more fundamental teachings of old. I think I would have matured as basketball player at a faster rate. Doing this and all things will improve the quality of play in the game of basketball. I would love to see it happen.