Ethan Khoza argues that athletes often lack confidence because their training is not game-specific. He emphasizes practicing in situations that mimic game demands (speed, intensity, defensive pressure) rather than repetitive stationary drills like spot-up shooting or isolated ball-handling, and gives examples of more transferable, sequential and pressured practice scenarios.
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And then we talk about tangible things. When it comes to building that unshakable confidence, I think the first thing that you need to do is evaluate how you train. So you have to put yourself in situations that prepare you for games. Right. A lot of times there's a disconnect between that, where players aren't actually training in ways that prepare them for the demands of a game. Right. The speed of a game, the intensity of a game, the challenges that a game presents. A lot of times those aren't there when they actually are training or working out. And so there's no context when they get to a game. Nothing translates for them. They don't have confidence because they don't practice and that they're not prepared for those situations. Okay, so this might mean that, you know, when you look at how you're training is all you're doing spot up shooting, Right? Are you shooting the same shot at the same spot over and over and over again? How often do you do that in a game? Almost never, right? Just about never. You're typically going to shoot one shot and then the next time you're going to shoot a different shot and then the next time you're going to shoot a different shot. Oh, and by the way, you just played defense for 30 seconds in between all those. So you have to be able to be successful in that context. So do you practice shooting different shots one after the other? Do you practice shooting a three from the corner and then a pull up from the wing and then a relocation three pointer at the top of the key and then, you know, a transition pull up? Do you work on hitting different sorts of shots and having to your body having to adjust from shot to shot as opposed to just shooting the same thing over and over and over again where your body can go into autopilot and then all of a sudden it's not game specific, it's not translatable to the game. You got to think about things that way. If all you ever do is practice stationary ball handling with no defense, how do you expect to go into a game and be able to handle the basketball when there's people trying to take the ball from you, people trying to trap you, pressure you, how you, how, how does that translate? You stay, you sitting there pounding the basketball into the floor with no defense around you. How does that, how's that applicable to a game where there's people trying to take the ball from you and you're trying to move in certain directions, you're trying to get the offense started or Make a pass or, or get the ball at the floor or drive. You have to put yourself in situations in your practices that mimic that, right? At the very least, mimic the movements. All right, maybe you don't have somebody to pressure you, but can you mimic those movements that you need to in a game? Can you imagine a defender guarding you full court and work on being able to change your pace and protect the basketball and change your directions and do all the things that are required of you? Can you do that at a high level? And then can you find ways to work out against the defender who's trying to steal the ball from you? And work on being able to protect the ball and still be able to get to your spots and be able to change your pace and find different nuanced ways to beat that defender who's pressuring you? And that, that is what translates, is stuff like that, right? So you have to go away from the stuff. That is maybe the more traditional approach where, hey, you know, this is what we do. We do our stationary ball handling, we do our spot up shooting. And that's supposed to be enough. It's not enough, right. It's not the ideal way to do things. I just saw My guy, Tyler LeClaire talk about this. Do, does stationary ball handling and spot up shooting, do they work? Right? People say, okay, well, why, why change it? Because it works. It does work. Like, you'll get better at spot up shooting. If you practice spot up shooting, you'll become a better shooter objectively. Is that the most ideal way to do things? No, it's not. And will you see as much translation to the game where that's not how it looks? No, you won't if that's all that you do. So there's better.
