Developing Skills, IQ, and Athleticism, Thriving In Your Role, and More with Danny Metser (@dmhoops)

Foreign. Welcome to the Vision Driven Basket Training Podcast. Appreciate everybody who's tuned in right now, everybody who's listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google podcasts, wherever you may be listening from. I appreciate you guys and everybody who is watching right now on YouTube. Drop a like, subscribe if you're new. New podcast coming out every week. And if you guys are on Apple podcasts, do me a favor, leave a review, Let me know what you think about the show. Special episode this week got my guy, Danny Metzer, on who just a little bit of a background on kind of how we met. I think I followed Danny Instagram for maybe two, three months at this point, and we actually connected down at the Master Hoops Player Development Conference in Miami a couple weeks ago. And it was like, we're gonna for sure talk about the conference and I definitely want to hear his takeaways from him. But for me, I kind of did an episode on that last week. But in addition to all that, like, one of the best things about that conference was being able to connect with so many trainers that I had been following for a little bit. Like, I knew their stuff and had finally got a chance to actually, like, meet them. And obviously, I think it's a benefit for everybody listening as well, because now I'm able to kind of bring guys like that on the show. Danny's one guy who I really, for a multitude of reasons, I'm excited to have on. I think he's going to have a unique perspective on. On. On whether you're a player or a trainer or a coach. I think there's going to be some unique insights and value he can bring to you guys. But it was great to be able to connect down in Miami. And so I'll kind of give him the. The. The floor right here to kind of give, you know, a little, little intro on. On, you know, what he's about, how he's gotten to this point. But, Danny, thank you for being on the show today.

Dude, thank you so much for having me on. It was a pleasure to meet you. A couple of weeks ago. I was anticipating it for so long, like, just waiting for. For the opportunity to go to Miami, not just to meet all the speakers, but to meet people like you that are driven and, you know, have. Have unique knowledge in this area. Um, so again, it was a pleasure to meet you. Right now I'm at school, so it was like I had a couple days of like, you know, being in a dream, and then once I got back to school, it's like Back to reality now. That's kind of, you know, what I was thinking when I got back. But yeah, I know we're going to be talking about the conference and, and more details later on, so.

Yeah, so kind of as like, like an intro on you and I, because one of the things that I really find interesting is. So you're in school right now. Do you, do you look at. Because this kind of goes both ways at the conference. There's a lot of guys there around our age, like college age, maybe a little bit older. And it was kind of a spectrum between Some of them would be like, yeah, you know, like, I'm studying, you know, physical therapy, I'm studying exercise science. And I want that to absolutely, you know, relate to what I'm going to do when I'm done with school and I get into whether it's basketball training, performance training, a blend of that is, you know, with what I believe it's athletic training. Right. That's kind of the route you're in. So is that something that you like, Are you looking to go down that route specifically or are you kind of looking to do something else?

Yeah. So what's, what's. Pretty. People might find this really weird, but I'm actually not studying athletic training. Like, I'm not a mate. An athletic training major to later become an athletic trainer and get hired as one. The reason I wanted to major in athletic training is because I love the curriculum. And as I was doing my search for schools, I was looking at either doing an exercise science or exercise physiology or kinesiology type major. And then I was talking to my college advisor at high school and he was telling me about Quinnipiac. And I heard of the school before, but I actually started to give it strong consideration. And then when I toured, so he, he told me, you know, they have, they have this major called athletic training. And at the time I honestly thought athletic training was just like, literally what the name says, like training athletes, but come to find out later on. So, so I toured the school and right away it left a really, really good impression on me. I toured, you know, the general school, and then they actually do like individual tours where you, where you actually learn about individual majors. And again, it left such a good impression on me. And the thing that set it apart from other majors like exercise science or kinesiology or something like that is this clinical component that came with the major. I would be able to actually be like a student athletic trainer with the sports teams here. This is a Division 1 school.

So.

I thought man, like, this could be a really, really good opportunity to get some hands on experience. Real hands on experience, really early on in my career.

Yeah.

But athletic training is just one part of sports performance as a whole and helping athletes get better at their sport. We can attribute performance to so many different aspects. We can attribute it to skill development, which is what, you know, we sort of do on Instagram. We can attribute it to developing physical qualities in the weight room. So strength and conditioning. We can attribute it to nutrition, sleep. All these things go into this holistic approach to improving performance. And so athletic training is really dealing, evaluating and treating acute and chronic injuries and doing emergency care. That I would say is the bulk of it. But obviously you do have to have knowledge in some other areas, being that you're a clinician and you're working with athletes. So that kind of like pushed me in the direction of learning more about motor learning and skill development. Plus, I was already a huge basketball fan. I played basketball in high school at a decently high level. And so, yeah, all these things kind of pushed me in this direction. And so I'm really, really invested in learning more about the science behind developing skills and the art of it too.

Yeah, yeah. No, I love that. And that, that was kind of the point that I was, I was hoping you'd bring up was just talking about movement. And I think, like, you know, people ask me, like, if I was in school right now, like, I. That's where I'd be like, because that, to me, I think is the next step. And Paul talked about this at the conference. He said he was like, the, the future is going to be like, you're going to have a skills trainer who also is your performance coach as well. Like, it's going to merge. He's like, in the next 10 years, like, you're going to have one guy who does both for you because not only does that allow you to have more of like a holistic approach, but also when it comes to managing load and, you know, ultimately being as safe as possible, but also maximizing, like the time you're actually putting in. Having one person who can balance all that is going to be the future. So us. You know, me, I've always approached it from a skills perspective, but that was a challenge to me to be like, you have to understand the performance language is what he called it. Like, you as a skills coach, be able to speak that performance language so that you can be able to get to a point where you can kind of be both of those eventually. So kind of The. I actually, I went through Twitter yesterday, and I saw there was a tweet that you tweeted. I think it was last week, but it was. It kind of goes with this. And actually it was something that I wanted to ask you about. And you said, you guys ever play capture the flag and feel yourself making moves and reacting in ways you've never done before? I believe this has legit implications for ball handling training. And so this is like, I kind of want to get your, like, your thoughts on. On this, because I definitely have my own. But I think this also goes back to like, this whole. It's so funny because it's like a. It's like a whole wormhole you can go down where, like, it starts with, like, oh, it's just bad. Like, okay, I want to get better at basketball. Well, what does that actually entail? And what can you actually do to. To move yourself in the right direction? What matters? Right. So kind of talking about how, you know, those other games, other sports working, other movements, how do you see that kind of impacting basketball players? Specifically?

Yeah, the.

The.

So that's one thing that Cole has been talking about a lot on his. On his. On his Instagram. For anybody that's not familiar, it's by any means basketball. And he's talking about, you know, getting. Understanding the individual puzzle pieces that go into forming the whole puzzle. These are. These could be, you know, physical qualities or perceptual cognitive abilities. Anything that encompasses a skill that we can pretty easily defined. So, like, if we talk about ball handling, you know, since you mentioned ball handling in my tweet, we could be talking about, you know, I mean, it's so many different things. Ankle mobility, hip mobility. These are physical qualities. Being able to produce force horizontally, so being able to access, you know, steep shin angles, you know, again, yeah, I already mentioned producing force. So there are all these physical qualities, but then there's like, you know, as a ball handler, reading how. How heavy the defense is helping, where the help defenders are, and that can inform a lot of decision. A lot of your decisions as a ball handler. Am I going to drive or does it make more sense to create an outside shot? So, yeah, I would say, like, that's. Those are some of the things I've been thinking out, thinking about recently in regard to. With regard to using other sports or like, playing other games, like weird games like Capture the Flag for. I. I came up with Capture the Flag, and I'll talk more about what I was thinking about in a bit. But yeah, just using all these games and different sports to develop general physical literacy that once. Once applied to basketball and actually, like, explored with, will eventually translate, hopefully, to basketball games, real basketball games. And there's nuance. Like, we could talk about how much, you know, certain physical qualities, how much transfer certain physical qualities have over others. There's definitely a spectrum, but in that way, I found Cole's presentation really interesting. But the capture the flag thing, I mean, I was just thinking about it, like, when you. I'm sure you've done this, you've played capture the flag, and you're waiting for a little bit to seize an opportunity, and then you finally decide, boom, I'm going to go. And, like, you know, you run and you have a little bit of open space, but then eventually, defenders see you, right? Everybody sees you and they're trying to get you. And you don't have a ball or anything. You don't have anything limiting you from moving. Mm. It's just you, your body, and the people that are trying to stop you from getting to the flag. And you end up doing the craziest shit with your body, like. Like, just, like, changing speeds, like, being super deceptive, like, using your eyes to deceive people into thinking you're doing one thing and doing another thing. These are all qualities that we need within the game of basketball that, like, I feel like if we went back to a little bit, players would find it engaging and fun, but we're actually building qualities that are applicable to the game of basketball.

Yeah, no, absolutely it. Man. Bring me back to those middle school days. Do we used to play capture flag, like, at the end. At the end of every day? And it's exactly what you're talking about. It's like you don't realize, like. Like, how almost how limited players have. Like, a lot of players have become because of how early they specialize in things. You had kids who are, like, by the time they get to, like, fifth grade, they're just basketball players, and they're not really out there. Like, they're not out playing with their friends every day, Right? They're not out. And I think. I think Covid definitely made that worse where you weren't out just, like, you know, with your friends every day playing, you know, football, playing capture the flag, playing, you know, whatever. Whatever sport you might play in your neighborhood. Like, that was stuff that I always remember doing growing up, and it has such an impact. And I think, like, one of the things that. One of the connections that I think players should make when they think about, like, okay, how do I actually become the best player I can be? And I think, especially for coaches, like, if I'm going to be teaching somebody, like, let's say ball handling, for example, right? If we're going to work on ball handling, it's. We're working movement because we're gonna have to. We're gonna work some different stops, right? If we. If we work like a stash between the legs, that. That can be considered ball handling, right? But it's more so a movement, right. I'm learning how to stop, how to. How to accelerate and then decelerate. And then maybe out of that, I have to learn how to decelerate, change directions, and then accelerate again. Right. That's all movement right there. So, like, one thing that. That Mike G. At the conference was showing us was tag. And tag is like my new favorite thing now, like, because it's literally working those exact same things where we're working a bunch of different stops, right? They don't even understand, like, I put, you know, I put two players in, like, I give them a circle to chase each other around. One of them. One of them is it. One of them is not. Like, they're chasing each other and they're working those different stops. They're changing directions, decelerating. And again, especially if you don't have a ball, there's nothing limiting them. So they're just be able to work on those movements over and over and over again and get comfortable with them. And then at the same time, we can talk about, okay, now we're working in curved angles as well. So you're able to work that. That puzzle piece, which isn't something that players work on a ton. It's usually. It's just straightforward or maybe straight to the side, but it's never at that curve. So now we're working a couple of really underdeveloped areas, especially with my players that I work with, who are just basketball players who are just doing the same exact movements over and over and getting really good at some of them, but neglecting a lot that they don't get because they don't play football, they don't play, you know, baseball and play soccer, right? And so I think that's something that's. That's really crucial to understand is like, as a skills coach, like, you teach movement like you also are a movement coach. Whether or not you. You recognize that, like, that's what you are. If you do anything where your players are movement, you teach movement. So you should understand how to effectively do and I think. I think doing that through games is a really, really great way of applying that. I just started. It's actually funny. I was thinking about this when I saw your tweet. I just started up a clinic series for some middle schoolers in my area, and I was actually talking to my mom about it last week. She was asking me, like, oh, you know, what are you guys going to do for the first week? And she, like, my mom is not. She's not like, a big basketball player. She's not. She'll show. She's at every game growing up, but she doesn't really, like, know the game or understand, like, the details of it or anything like that. And certainly nothing when it comes to the training side of it. Like, that's not her wheelhouse at all. Like, not at all. And she. She had mentioned something just, like, kind of as a joke. She was like, oh, so what are you guys going to do today? You guys going to play soccer or something? And I was like, probably not today, but maybe next week. Like, we might play soccer next week. Because it's literally like, those are like that. Especially at that age, I think, just working different movements and then building that engagement, especially if we start off. But it's like, hey, guys, only five minutes of soccer right now. All of a sudden, the monotony of, like, a normal training session, like, that's gone because they're like, oh, we're playing soccer now, right? So that, I think, is another element to that. And that was why I loved Mike G's presentation at the conference where he talked about prime time and just being able to build engagement through different games, because that actually makes it a more effective session if you take 5 minutes to play a game, but it's going to make the remaining 55 minutes of your session really, really high quality. And also that those five minutes are going to work. Moving patterns that are going to make your players better, and movements are probably never going to hit anytime else. Well, why would you not do it? And so that was something that I really, really got from that. And I think when you look at players like Kyrie Irving or, you know, anybody else who moves, well, we look at these guys who can handle the ball. Steph Curry is another one. Or, like, whoever that you can think of that, like, is crossing people up and finishing all these acrobatic ways. Like, I think a lot of people overemphasize the basketball side of that. And it's, oh, he's so skilled. He's so. There's. He's so good with the ball, but they don't look at the movements that allow him to actually be able to do that. Like, if Kyrie Irving couldn't. Didn't have his ability to decelerate the way that he does, and if he couldn't play at those. At those angles, at those shin angles that he plays at, then he wouldn't be nearly as effective. It wouldn't matter how. How tight the ball was, how tight his handle was, exactly how much spin he could put on his layups. It wouldn't matter because he doesn't have those general qualities first. So I think, again, going back to, like, kind of the first one that I brought up is, like, as a skills coach, understanding the performance side of the movement side, like, that's, that's the future because that's where you can really start to build the player as a whole.

Exactly. Yeah. Like, literally understanding. I mean, like, if you're, if you're teaching a sport inherently there's going to be movement and what is involved in movement. Biomechanics. You have to have understanding of biomechanics at least at a base level. Like, there's a huge biomechanical difference between doing a regular linear sprint and doing a curvilinear sprint. You see crazy stuff going on at the ankle and the hip and all this rotation. And like, you have to. You have to at least understand that, like, at a base level. But one thing I wanted to talk about is you mentioned, like, the Kyrie Irving thing. Part of our job is understanding or figuring out identifying what the limiting factor is for players. Is the ball slowing them down or is their body slowing them down? Because inherently they're going to have to use both. They're going to have to be there. The two are going to have to be combined in live play. And so if you can sort of have a process for how to recognize that, wow, this guy's really good in, like, stationary ball handling drills and, like, just really skilled at manipulating the ball and he's got good ball control. But as soon as I give him a little bit of pressure and as soon as I get a defender on and pressing up and trying to steal the ball and giving him a little bit of contact, and he's got to accelerate and then stop on a dime and do that in a cycle in a way that he can create for himself and for teammates. If, if we're seeing a clear, like, skill gap, then, hey, like, we gotta work on the movement, you know what I mean? Um, and vice versa. They could be really athletic. They could have really good, raw athleticism. Um, especially, like, players that may have started playing basketball later in their life. Um, maybe something to, you know, identify is like, hey, you move really well, but, you know, your ball control and your ability to manipulate the ball is limiting you a little bit as a ball hand, as a ball handler, you could be really good. And so that's where, you know, maybe it makes more sense to do stationary ball handling drills that have a heavy emphasis on controlling the ball and manipulating it. Um, so it's all about identifying limiting factors. That's a huge part of our job.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. And as you're saying that, like, I, I, I'm thinking about different players that I work with who, like, you can even, you can even take, for example, like, if we're trying to work on, like, a, like a punch or like a same foot, same hand, stop with the ball. And there are some players who, like, are really uncomfortable getting into that sort of low, almost lunge position, and they don't like taking, like, either. They don't want to get very low out of it. So, like, they're not able to really accelerate very fast into it because they're not confident in their ability to stop. Or they might just really shorten up their steps. They're not comfortable taking, like, a long step into it, which might not sell the drive quite as much. Right. And I think that, like, being able to understand that and then kind of, like, backtracking a little bit. So, like, if I see that, and then maybe we start off just working, like, out of a lunge. Like, I think another thing that Mike G. Did where he started with, like, he did, like, the hand game, your hands out in front of you, and then you had your partner who was kind of, like, pushing you off center. So maybe we just start off working that out of, like, a lunge position that they might be not very comfortable in from, like, a dynamic perspective getting into. So we just can kind of start stationary from it and then seeing how that kind of builds into. Okay, well, once they get comfortable in that position, can we slowly build them up to getting to that in a dynamic position? And I think there's, there's so. And this is an area that I've, I'm definitely trying to get better at as a whole, because I forget who someone at the conference and mentioned it again. I love it. It's like, every single, every single time, like, every two sentences, one of us, like, yeah, the conference, they said this. Like, I love It. But yeah, someone had mentioned. Yeah, someone had mentioned, like, you don't. You don't know, like, that player might have, like, an injury history where, like, maybe they. Maybe they, like, really, like, roll. Like, maybe they really badly sprained their left ankle a couple years ago, and so now they're not as comfortable planting on that foot. So maybe they don't like stopping on that foot. And so a lot of times it's like, okay, if a player isn't driving left, is it because they actually can't drive left with their. Like, with their ball handling, or is it because they don't like going left because for whatever reason it puts one of their. It puts, like, it's basically they. They were able to cope in a way that they don't have to go that way anymore. So they kind of ignore that they go right because they're more comfortable and more confident in their ability to go that way. I think that is something huge to understand is, like, it's not always going to be a surface level sort of thing. Like, oh, well, they don't drive left, so they're not comfortable with their left hand. Well, that might be the case, but like you said, it also could be that there's a limiting underlying factor to that as well. I think. I think that's a great point that you brought up right there. And honestly, while we're on it, like, since we keep bringing it up, do you have anything, like, specific from the conference that you really took away that you, like. Like, for me, I talked about last week, like, the first thing was the relationship aspect of it at Tim Martin. It was really the first. The first presentation of the first day where you talked about that. That was, like, my biggest thing. I talked about kind of blending the skill and performance side and then. But for you, like, what were your, like, biggest takeaways from the conference?

Yeah, I really liked. Since we're on Tim Martin, I really liked that he. He mentioned the Rudy Gobert example. So quick background. Like, Rudy Gobert was kind of on the fence for making the All Star Game, and that's a goal that him and Tim really had, obviously. And so I think the Jazz, like, also gave him an incentive, like, he had to average a certain amount of points and rebounds. I forget exactly how many it was. It was, like 15 and whatever. I don't remember exactly. But, like, part of you want to. If you're working with a basketball player, right, and they have goals for themselves, you could have, like, you know, something that. That you have in mind for what's going to help benefit them the most. But if the player is not on the same page, you're not gonna, they're not gonna buy in as much. And so I think a huge part of working with your players is, you know, having, having dialogue with them, having deep conversations with them about what they want and what, what you think they would benefit from the most and sort of meet in the middle and come to a compromise. That this was a pretty common theme throughout his presentation. He also talked about having a, having again having dialogue with players like within training. So like let's say you're, let's say you're training somebody or group of, let's say two, three people, however big it is. And a lot of times what you'll see trainers do is they'll, you know, when they're giving feedback and they interject or like they're just starting a drill and they have to give a little bit of context. They'll like, do like this lecture. Like they'll, they'll go through their workouts in very lecture in a very lecture style way where they're saying everything to the players and there's no like encouragement for a response or a dialogue. It's, it's monologue. It's basically monologue. And what he talked about was, you know, maybe instead of a really, this is a really easy thing that you can start doing if you're a trainer is like, change your like statements, like lecture statements to questions that invoke curiosity from the players. So like, let's say you were lecturing them about like what, like what decision to make when a big is hedging, like doubling you on a ball screen. Maybe, maybe change that to. Okay, you know, I know he works with. I'm bringing up this example because I saw, I think I saw a clip of him working with Tyrese Maxey and a couple other guys and they were going through a wing ball screen and he's like, he, instead of like lecturing them, he's like, okay, this guy's hedging the ball screen. Like this guy is jumping way out. What do you, what different options do you have, do you think, on this wing ball screen?

Yeah.

And then, and then they start and it starts. Not only do they answer that, that question directly, but hey, like, it may encourage them to be more curious, which is what we want players to do. We want players to get past the surface level understanding of basketball. We want players to be. And of course they're not trainers, but if we can give them a little bit of a space to talk about how. How they're thinking the game and. And what their decision map is like when they actually enter a game. That's huge, man.

Yeah.

So that's something that I've been implementing in my workouts, something that I saw because I came across that clip with Tyrese, like, a while ago before the conference, and when I saw that, I was like, damn. Like, I should really. Like, I should think twice about when I don't give my players a space to talk and give their insight.

Yeah, yeah, no, that. I love that. And I think kind of. I think kind of like the biggest thing is understanding that there's so much more beyond just the surface level of basketball training. Right. Like, you have the actual skill part, but we just talked about movement, obviously, but then you actually have, like, how are we affecting them when it comes to, like, their understanding of the game as well and their confidence as well? Like, there's three major aspects to it that a lot of times, like, the. To be too honest with you, the skill part usually is the part that gets focused on, and the other two are just kind of like, oh, well, if it happens, it happens maybe sporadically, but there's never a focus on it. So I think. Would you actually involve them by asking questions? Right. First of all, it allows them to not be able to zone out. Right. If we're going to go through something in a session and they can just kind of coast through, okay, they're going to. They know that you're going to lecture them the whole time, so they can just pick up, like, whatever they need to know, whatever they need to do to get through that drill, they can. They can figure that part out. And any of the other details you tried to give them, they don't care. Like, they didn't listen. They didn't. Even if they heard it, they're not going to remember it because you said. You said a 10,000 other words to them. So they can't keep all of that in their minds, so they're going to keep the important stuff. But if you change that to literally, like, asking them about it and instead of saying, like, okay, listen, when you come off of. When you come off of this ball screen, right, and your, you know, your defender, or let's say you come off that ball screen and you kind of drag it out so your screener pops out, okay, what kind of pass. What's an option of a pass you might be able to throw to them right there when you ask them that, they answer thing. Okay, well, I Guess I couldn't. I wouldn't throw a pocket pass there. I could throw a hook pass there. Now they're starting to put that stuff together, right? And, and so now, like, they have a recall to go back to as well when they're in a game and they have to make that quick decision, obviously not going to think about, okay, well, I'm coming off the screen now, what am I going to do? But they, they have the understanding of, okay, just kind of innately, oh, I go to a hook pass down because my guy popped out. That's the, that's the past to make right here. I think one of the, one thing I was talking about is just trying to teach things more implicitly. So I think a way to get through implicitly as well is to ask them and have them answer the questions, because then they're the ones who are actually coming to that conclusion instead of you saying, this is how it is, this is how we're going to do it. And they don't have any skin in the game. They didn't have to actually come to that themselves. They didn't have to actually have any context for why that is. And Tim Martin talked a little bit about creating teachers as well. It's like we want to put players in a position where we first of all build that curiosity, but as they get more experience, they get better at things. Put them in positions to teach the other players in the session who might not be as familiar with a drill or with a concept that maybe they've already done, they're good at. So he had mentioned that with some of, like his veteran, his veteran point guards. So he's like, well, sometimes I'll have them go through the stuff that we're doing with, like, guys who might be newer so that they first of all are able to kind of work that leadership ability and their communication as well. But also when you have to. I think it was Dev who, who said to, to teach us to learn twice. So if I can have you teach something, also, you have to actually learn that on a much, on a much, you know, greater, greater scale. I don't know if you can relate to this, but this is something that I say all the time. Like, I, I, back when I was playing in high school, like, I was working on every day, you know, and, and just putting up a ton of shots, like putting in a lot of work as compared to now. Like, I'm not putting in nearly as much individual work as I was back then, but I'm way better now. You Put me in a basketball court now I'm significantly better. And it's, it's partly because like, I have to teach this stuff now, so, like, I have to know what I'm talking about, so I have to actually, like, have an understanding of it and like, like be able to show somebody else how to do it as well and explain it to them as well.

Yeah, I couldn't relate more, bro.

Yeah, it's exactly what it is. So like, it's so. It's so funny how it works like that because you're putting in way less time, but yet you're way better at it. And I think that is. That should be the goal of our sessions too, is like, okay, how can we get the maximum amount of like, a value out of this session if we're just going to go through and just focus on the physical skill part of it? We're leaving so much, so much on the table because like, the same way that I feel like I'm better because of just the mental having to understand everything, if I can help my players get to a point where they have to understand that stuff as well and they also are getting those reps, then it's like the, The. The growth is. Becomes exponential in comparison to. To how it's kind of typically done to pivot from that. There's something that you had brought up when we were kind of dealing back and forth is talking about roles and kind of how to thrive in your role, how to expand your role. And I think there's a lot of ways we can go off this. So what do you, like, where do you kind of want to start with that, with that topic and what kind of your. Because I know you posted about. On your story the other day as well, and I'm sure you can kind of go into that a little bit.

Yeah. So quick background. So what Ethan's referring to is I asked a question to my followers. I posed a question saying, what. What makes a player selfish? Because we hear. We hear people saying, oh, this player is selfish, that players unselfish. What does that actually mean? And so just quick background about like, how I was. I played basketball in high school.

But.

I wasn't good until like, I wasn't like, solid until much later. And you know, I made JV for my. For my high school, really small high school, my sophomore year, so I didn't make varsity until junior year. I didn't start seriously working on my game until. Until that summer going into junior year. And when I made the varsity team my junior year I didn't, I didn't have a big role right away, just naturally if you're, if you're, unless you make like, you know, crazy strides and you, you all of a sudden become like this ball dominant player that has a crap ton of like isolation, like pick and roll skills. You know, the types of skills that we think that the superstars in today's NBA have. It's, it's not common. It doesn't happen like the vast majority of the time. So I had to figure out how to fit in with other players on my team just naturally and I wasn't going to be like the, the guy on, on my team right away. And so like I didn't have the knowledge that I have now about like how to, how to run into open spaces, how to, how to create closeouts, how to move off the ball. You know, those are, those are a few things that I've been studying extensively, especially recently that you know, if I had that knowledge back then I think I would have been able to ascend into a bigger role way quicker because people naturally want the ball, right? So I wasn't just going to be able to chuck up a bunch of shots from the get go. I had to figure out how to. I knew I had this big goal in mind of becoming the guy on my team as a lot of people do, but I wasn't going to be able to do that realistically by just chucking up a bunch of shots right away. Like knowing what I know now about creating closeouts, attacking them, going into open, you know, going into open spaces, off the ball again, I think I would have been able to ascend into that role much quicker.

Yeah, I think going with that like the concept of attacking closeouts, it's so funny to me how like I never heard that concept explicitly said one time in high school, like not one time that I hear any coach, any, any trainer ever mention to me, like, hey, the goal here is to create closeouts, find closeouts to attack. Like not only. So I didn't even hear the concept, nor did I, like I didn't hear it so I didn't consciously understand it. So I didn't. I missed so many opportunities and it's so funny to like, I'll go back and like watch some of my high school films sometimes I'll be like, wow, could have scored there, could have scored there, could have drove right there, could have created a shot for my teammate right there. Like it's so fun. I'll go through and I'll look at like 5, 3 possessions where like I just, there'd be a closeout or if I, if I make one more pass, I create a close up for my teammate and they're going to have something to attack.

It's so true.

It's, it's so funny and it's like the, the understanding of like, I think that's where like to become a mature basketball player is understanding like how what, how, how one thing affects the next. So I might not be able to drive and get to the, get to the basket, right? I might drive and there's a dude who's 6, 8 in the paint. I might not be able to get all the way for a layup but when I do that, that might cause that weak side help defender to collapse in. And then I create, I create a kick for my teammate right there. Either they have a shot or that's a close up for them to attack.

Right there and then boom, they're scrambling.

Exactly that. Yeah.

That's the thing about it is it's not just like I'm sure I did have an understanding. I was still a knowledgeable like basket. I did still have a good amount of knowledge about basketball at the time. And definitely like senior year is what is when I started is when I ascended into that role like being the ball dominant guy on my team and creating for others. So I did have some understanding of how to create closeouts and attack them. So but, but what I understand now is it's not just about like what happens when you attack the closeout like directly. It's what that, it's what like the pat. You talk about the kick out pass. When the help side defender comes over, you kick it out to them. They, they also may not score but they like their guy has to close out presumably very hard if they're, if they're even remotely a good sh. And now they, they close out. You can relocate you. That's what people miss is you like a possession really like fizzles out when you've created a closeout. You attack it, you kick it out because you don't have a scoring opportunity and the guy that you passed it to like didn't create more opportunities for them for, for, for themselves or for other teammates. But you, after you kicked it out you just kind of like walked back to the three point line like just not even. And then like the possession just kind of like dies, you know. Yeah, but what I started doing recently in pickup is I'm playing club basketball this year and we had a team practice a few days ago, and we went 5 on 5 at one point and at the end of practice. And what I'm really good at, I'm. I'm honestly, my ball handling has got a lot, has gotten a lot better over time, but I still leverage my strengths. I still try and leverage my strengths. And I would say it's not a top strength of mine. My strength has always been my three point shooting, and so I need to leverage that. I'm a smart player. I know how to move off the ball. And so instead of, you know, go back into that situation where you kicked it out, let's say the weak side corner or now the strong side corner is open. The guy that was guarding you that is trailing you because he closed out to you if you kick it like he's running. But once you kick it out, he, he often gets really relaxed. And so that's a really good opportunity for you to sprint your ass over to the corner. And hey, if the guy you kicked it out to doesn't end up scoring or doing anything with it, hey, now he has you in the corner wide open.

That's, that's the, yeah, that's, that's the Steph Curry technique.

Steph. Like, that's literally what Steph is doing. And you don't have to be as good of a shooter as Steph is to take advantage of this. You can just be like a good shooter and everybody else on your team can be a good shooter and you end up creating really good opportunities for each other.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like one of the things that I'm big on now, and this is like I first started talking about this concept with the high school team that I coach with now and, but now something that I talk about with like all my players is, is 0.5 decisions. So this kind of goes with attack and close. That's green closest. Some people call it like zero second decisions. But like how I just initially heard it was 0.5 decisions where when you catch the ball, like that's when you have to, you have to do something with the ball at that point. Like if you catch and you hold it for two seconds, then you, the advantage that you would get off of that closeout is gone for them. Unless it's a really, really bad defender or you're way more athletic than they are. So when I get that pass, when someone my teammate drives and kicks out to me, I either number one is shot, like, you have to be at a point where you can hit that three because you can't hit the Three. No one's closing out to take away that three. So, so you limit yourself. So number one is that three. But then what? Okay, well if you don't have enough, quite enough space for it, then you have that a little shot fake which a lot of times going to get you that three or a mid range pull up or you might have a jab coming off it, or it might just be a catch and rip through right there. But it's like that's four options for you right there. And getting good at just understanding when to do that. Like that one situation when I have a close up coming at me and I have those four options, can I get good at understanding when to do what? And that's something that I've been big on with, with my players like playing that. We can play it out of a one on one, out of a two, on two, out of. I love it out of a three on three as well, where we're just like working on creating close ups to attack, right? And then eventually like again, I might not get the shot right here. I might, they might do a great job closing out on me. They take away the three. So I might immediately rip through and go and they might recover and the help might be there so I can't score. But if the help is there, that means somebody had to rotate, meaning somebody's open on the floor right now. So I might kick it out to the corner and that, that top defender might do a great job as that next like rotational defender. And then it's just swing, swing. And now my teammate at the top of the key has a wide open three and it's, it's again like you said, like understanding how one thing leads to the next. And it's not always just going to be, you know, your shot. It's like how can you create the best looks for your teammates and in response you. Because maybe that, that pass happens at the top of the key. They don't have the three right away, so they drive again. Your defender has to help off and now you have a wide open three. It's just like it's a cycle. It's a cycle.

I mean, let's say, let's say you kicked it out and the guy like the guy that is guarding the guy that you kicked it out to, he's just a really fricking good defender and he closes out really fast and he recovers. What are you going to do? Just let the possession fizzle out and like walk your ass back to the three point line from where you from where you started? No, get your ass into open space. I didn't see this stuff like four years ago. And then I brought up the practice because a few days ago at the end, the guy that was guarding me was like, holy shit, dude, you're fast as hell. And I was like, dude, I'm not that fast. In the same way that guys that handle that, you know, ball dominant guys change speeds and, and change direction and change their heights in the same way that they do that shit. You can do the same shit off the ball. Like, you can. Like, how do you think J.J. redick gets all of his looks? He's not fast, but he does, he applies. Like, and it's a good thing we talked about movement because, like, you can. They're. Functionally, there's no real difference between like juking your defender with the ball versus without the ball. Yeah, it ends in a wide open layup. It ended in a wide open layup if it ended in a wide open three. Ended in a wide open three. So you can do some of the same stuff off the ball. Like, for example, you can kick the ball out and then like, act like you're super relaxed and like you're just going to jog back to the, or backpedal back to the spot that you came from. And then you can. And then as soon as you sense that your defender is relaxed, immediately sprint your ass to the corner. Sprint your ass to an open space on the three point line. And that. And that keeps the possession going in search for the best possible look that your team can get.

Yeah, I think, I think for players, that's one thing that they can do. Like, and immediately if you just start to become conscious of this, you're going to become like so much more effective as a player. And it's not necessarily going to be like we mentioned that you're going to score a lot more, but what it's going to make, it probably will lead to that, but it's also going to make you just a way better team player. So going back to the point of like selfish versus unselfish player. Players who understand this concept are unselfish players because they understand that like, okay, the ball moves, it gets back to me. I create for my teammate, they create for me. When things are flowing, when things are moving, everybody gets touches, everybody gets shots, assuming that, you know, they can hit those shots. Um, so one thing for players to do is just like, if you have access to your film, just look at opportunities when closeouts come at you. Like, go back and look and watch and see, okay, when my teammate kicked the ball out to me and that closeout came, like, did I make the right decision there? What could I have had? Maybe I didn't look to attack that closeout and had I done that, maybe the help would have been late. I probably would have got to the basket. Maybe the help was there, but it was really heavy help and I could have skipped it over to the corner. And once you start to really start to dissect things and like try and project forward, like, okay, if I would have done that here, what, what, what, what would that have created? That's going to take the IQ that you play with to just a whole different level. And every coach wants players like that. So kind of talking, I think maybe, I don't know if you mentioned this in our conversation now or just through DMs is like if you're, I guess, kind of to your, your point, like when you're trying to just get established on your team and like for me, definitely like coaching a high school team, like, I can say this for certain. If you play the game of basketball the right way, there's going to be a spot for you, right? There's going to be an opportunity for you if I can put you on the floor. And I know that you're not going out there trying to ISO yourself and shoot up all these shots because you feel like that's what you have to do to make a difference. But you understand how to attack closeouts. You understand, you know how to, you know or why you should be looking to not just score every time, maybe your teammate is going to be open. If you understand the concept of creating a long close up for your teammate to have as well, like, you're going to make my entire team better. You're going to elevate everybody else on the floor. So now regardless of whether or not you're the best athlete or you're the biggest or you're the fastest or whatever, you, you make my other players better. You make my point guard better. You make my, my big man better. You make my at my, my player who is the best athlete. You make him better because of your understanding of the game of basketball. So just my challenge for players is just go look through your film and like, look at opportunities that you might have missed, maybe look at opportunities that you did it well and see what you're able to create just by looking at those closeouts that you can attack. And I think that is just a game changer. Like, had I done that I would have had. I would have recognized so many more opportunities when I was playing. And I'm sure that you. You feel the same way.

Look, it's crazy. Like, one thing that happens in this is specific to high school. So for any high school players that are listening to this, there's no defensive three seconds. So what often happens is the second line of defense, you know, the help defenders that are farther away, farthest away from you. Let's say you're on the top of the, at the top of the key and you guys are five out. What will happen is at least, at least one of the guys that are in that second line will creep way in. Like, they'll, They'll. The guy in the corner, like, is. Is 20, like, 15ft away from his guy. So if you even remotely have any ability to skip the ball to the corner, and if that guy is even remotely a good shooter, again, that you didn't have to do anything, you didn't have to set up any offense, you just passed it to them and boom, they're scrambling. Like, I go back and watch my film from high school, and I cringe every time players, like, don't see that. It's crazy sometimes. I'll admit, sometimes I did that. But I was a pretty conscientious player, like I said, especially in my senior year, and I, like, wreck it. Like, Pete. It'd be really confusing. Like, why the hell is the guy, like, I. You just, you just crossed half court, dude.

What the hell?

You already skipping the ball to the corner. But, like, if you saw where his defender was when I did that, like, you would. You'd be like, oh, my God. Holy shit. Obviously you do that.

Yeah.

So part of what ascending into a bigger role is if your, if your goal is to. Because we do, we do have the goal of becoming the guy on our team. Let. Let's just, I mean, let's. Let's just be real. Like, you don't just want to. Not to say that, like, you're just going to abandon, like, moving off the ball and attacking closeouts completely, but you want to. You want to eventually ascend into the role of having the ball, you know, doing a little bit of isolation, going through some ball, going through ball screens, but part of doing that is getting. You have teammates, and especially if you're not the guy yet and other people think they are, they're gonna. If you all of a sudden try to be the guy and, like, try and chuck up a bunch of shots in isolation, you're. You're Immediately. I mean, you're losing credibility. But what you can do is do all the stuff we've been talking. Ethan and I have been talking about with. With regard to closeouts and moving off the ball. And now all of a sudden people will see that, like, you're not. You. You could shoot in those situations. It's not. But it's not going to come across the same way that shooting in. In. In isolations and like, shooting heavily contested shots will, because at least you're making an effort to cooperate with your teammates, move off the ball and such and such. And. And so people, over time, the more you do that, will believe you that you can become the guy. Because it's all about building credibility when we're. When we're talking about ascending into a bigger role. And so if you can start to apply that if you're in high school, if you're. Or if you're even in middle school or something, man, you. You're gonna. You're gonna shorten the amount of time that it takes you to actually practice. Put. Put the things that you've been doing in training into games. Because we're all working. We're all working on our. Or most people, the vast majority of people are working on their isolation skills and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, no, I'm completely with you on that. I think another topic that I had brought up and I'd sent you was just talking about the kind of. The concept of. Of block versus random or block versus varied practice. And I think for me, like, it's funny looking at how, like, things become popular and talking points become so popular in. In any sort of realm. But this is one that, like, I think over the past year especially has, like, really started to take off. There's like, okay, block versus random. And it got to a point where it was like, everybody was on the like, oh, like anti block practice basically, is whatever, right. Like, to an extent, some people still are like, I'll still talk to people who are like, yeah, like, block practice terrible. Like, you should never do it. And I'm like, well, it's. It's. It's. It's so much more nuanced than that. But I think you had done a couple YouTube videos specifically on this, so I kind of want to get your take, because one of the things that I was just thinking about last week is I was working with one of my. One of my groups, and it was a group of all varsity players. And, like, all of them are good. Like, they're all good players. And we were trying to do, like, we were doing, like, kind of like real basic footwork. It was like coming off of a ball screen and hopping off of your inside foot, landing on two feet and then shooting the three. So like a real basic. Like, Damian Lillard does it like. Like he's. If you want to see an example of that, I'll probably even put. Honestly, put a clip of it in here just so everybody who's watching and see it, like, David Lillard will come off of a ball screen, just quick hop of his inside foot, land on two, shoot it. And it's just the quickest way to get into that shot. It's not the only way to get into it, but it is a way to do it. And so we were working on that and like, they were really struggling with it, just like getting the footwork consistently. And so it becomes to a point where it's like, wow, we have to just rep this out. Like. Like, we have to. They have to get comfortable doing that because we have to get to a point where they can get to a game and not have to think about, like, oh, I got to step there and then step there. It's got to be like, just automatic for. Again, they might not do that sometimes. They might step one, two into the shot, just depending on this, what the situation calls for. But I think. I think achieving a certain level of comfort matters before you can just start to say, okay, well, let's just randomize everything, vary everything. And I know for me, I like, it's almost like a pendulum that, like, I find myself swinging on sometimes from. Like, sometimes I have to, like, catch myself some way too far on, like, the. Everything's rare, everything there, everything's varied, everything's random. And not. Not enough with, like, just the straight up reps, I think matters to an extent as well. And that's just one example. We did the same thing working off of the catch, so working like coming off of a dribble handoff. And like, Duncan Robinson does it really well. Well, he'll hop off that inside foot, no dribble, and then land on to shoot it. Like, he does that with. What's his name? With their big. With Bam. Like, they'll run that dribble handoff for him all the time, and he's great at it. And again, they were just struggling, like, maintaining that consistent footwork every single time. So I think for me, I think there needs to be an understanding. Like, it's. There's always nuance to it, but I want to hear Kind of your take on, on, you know, like the studies that you had done. I know you mentioned that you had changed stuff about that, but that's kind of like where I'm at with that whole, with that whole topic, honestly.

Yeah, I really like that you mentioned like the trend that's going on right now. And I think that can largely be attributed again, like, I think I just want to give a shout out to Coleman and Tyler and what they're doing with mastery hoops. I think they've had a huge influence on how trainers and players look at training and, and the transfer of training to games. And if you're a trainer and you're listening to this, I'm sure you're familiar, at least somewhat familiar with this phenomenon or paradigm where, you know, have you ever seen the graph where it's like doing block practice versus random practice?

Yeah.

And when you do block practice, you see an initial spike in performance, but that kind of fizzles out and goes down and with, with random practice. Yeah, they get a little bit better because they're performing those skills and then they actually retain those, retain that information and retain those, retain that performance that they, that they did in training. So I'm sure, you know, some of us are familiar with that. But that, that basically sums up like generally the value of random versus blocked. But, but people like really took that and ran with that and maybe blew things a little bit out of proportion. Like. Yeah, there's just no place for blocked practice. It's, it takes all perception out of the equation. Like you're, you're doing a disservice to your players. But you pointed to one thing which is like, if somebody is like just not literate at something like, and it, and it is a big enough portion of their, of what they're going to see in games, then yeah, like totally just rep that out over and over again. Especially for younger guys or guys that are earlier on in their development is like, yeah, it makes a lot of sense to literally just work on inside. Inside foot skips into foot replacements and shots, you know, pull ups. Or maybe, you know, there, there, there could be like a. What a lot of people do that. One thing this reminded me of is a lot of people when they're trying to do a speed stop, they'll like, they'll, they'll actually skip off their inside foot and then hop forward as opposed to stopping on a dime where you, you just quickly plant 1, 2 with your inside foot, then your outside foot. A lot of players have difficulty with that as well. So just simple stuff like this, you know, target, you know, if you're going to do block practice and you want to build some physical literacy, definitely consider doing this with younger audiences or guys that are just like earlier on in their development, you know, guys that started playing basketball later on. But another thing is, recall the graph. We see a higher increase in performance, you know, in general, I know there's more nuance, but just conceptually try and understand this. There's a, there's a, we see a higher temporary increase in performance after block practice versus random practice. So why not maybe take advantage of that in the sense that they're like, you know, maybe, maybe you're not, you know, training players that are younger or earlier on in their development. You could, you could do block practice to like before a game or like before, you know, as a warm up to build confidence and to build physical literacy in a skill that is, that is, that is pretty common that they're going to do very often, at least relatively speaking, like the hop example. And so that's something that you. Especially for, you know, we're getting closer to the season, especially for a couple of college guys that I, that I work with. They're starting up in a couple of weeks. And so, you know, we should also take that into account in season, you know, random practice. We talk about like physical load, physical load management, but the brain is very metabolically active. And so if you're making players make more decisions in training, that's more cognitive load as well. We have to think about that aspect as well. And so if you're doing a lot of random practice in season and they're, and they're, you know, they're already doing their team practices and they're, and they're pretty hard and they're already playing games. Boy, like, that's a lot of load. And so you should maybe just think about doing more blocked practice in season versus in the off season.

That, that's, that's a great point too. I didn't even think about it that way. Like I actually, I was going to do probably other next week, the week after an episode just talking about stress and how stress is stress. So the stress, the stress that your body goes through in the weight room, that's going to compound with the stress that you felt because you only slept for four hours and you had a made, you had a massive test that you didn't do well on. Right. So like all that stuff kind of compounds. So going to that, that season example, if you're constantly Like, I talked to my, my younger brother yesterday who's. He's a freshman at the University of Scranton. He was talking about they had their D3 started their practices up yesterday. And so he was talking about, like, he's like, yeah, you know, practice was good. Like, my head was literally spinning the whole time because, like, I'm trying to figure out how to do everything. I'm trying to figure out how, like, how to succeed at this level. And so then again, like, that's a lot of, A lot of load on, like, you know, cognitively initially. So now if I say, okay, well, hey, now we're going to get in the gym, we're going to do. We're going to work on ball screen reads for an hour straight where I'm throwing two defenders at you and changing up the looks and trying to do all that sort of stuff. Like, at some point it becomes like, when is. When is it diminishing returns. And so for me, like, exactly what you said. As we approach closer, like mid October right now in Pennsylvania, like high school, middle school starts up in like a month, their season. So, like, we're, we're like slowly becoming more and more blocked just to kind of build a confidence level in terms of like, the shots that they're going to get that they've been taking in their fall leagues and in their summer leagues. So we're getting more. Getting them confident, ready for the season to start off. And then definitely, like you said, like, as, as the, as the season gets here, that's where it really becomes that. I don't know, I don't know what your thoughts on this too is, but kind of going with that, like, I have a couple players who like, really, really serious when it comes to aau. And like, in my area, you have to like, get out of here to play, like, really good aau. So like, all players who play like in Philly for au, which is like three hours for three and a half hours from here. So they're going there a couple times a week to do that. And then they're playing these big tournaments, players who are going to D.C. to play. And so it almost becomes like the weird, like, the weird kind of thing is that it almost becomes like the only off season they actually have is like, August, September, October, because from March, April, May, June, July, you're. They're playing every weekend. And like, these tournaments matter for them because, like, they're playing good competition. There's college coaches there. So it's almost hard. It's almost hard to find Time to be able to like, really work on. On like that varied, random stuff because I wanted to keep getting the shots that I know they're going to shoot in their tournaments. I want to play well and I want to be confident going into that. And so it's just hard to find a balance too. Like, there's so much basketball being played. That's just kind of a whole other point that, that, that I thought of right there. But yeah, the concept of managing load too, I think that's something that's overlooked when it comes to the whole, you know, block first versus varied debate or topic, I guess.

Yeah, especially cognitive load, because people put a lot of emphasis on managing load in a physical sense, you know, on the joints and. And all that stuff. But yeah, we have to remember that the brain is very metabolically active. We have stress and so we have to be able to manage these things so that players can learn at an optimal level or, you know, there's a range, but, you know, around, you know, what we, what we think is optimal. I encourage people to, you know, because we talked about designing practice in a way that gives players a challenge, but not too much of a challenge to the point where, like, they just can't get anything, can't seem to get anything right. Like they're messing up the coordination consistently and it's just too much of a challenge. So I encourage people to look up this thing called the challenge point hypothesis that will. That can give you. We. I know we want to get to some other topics, but that's something that I've been reading into recently that I think could benefit people if, you know, if they're a trainer or even a player just, you know, nerding out about stuff like this and, and want to find the optimal zone of challenge.

Yeah.

In training.

Yeah. Well, that was kind of where I was going to go next. Was talking about, you know, like a thing or two, a couple things that you are currently studying or that you're trying to learn more about. You want to get into more in the future. And, and I guess that could fall under that. But like, where are you at in terms of like, what are you trying to. Like what are you trying to. To. To learn more about and get better at yourself?

So this might, this might get really technical and a little bit complicated, but just hear me out.

So go for it. Go for it.

You know how in. So in strength and conditioning, we. We have. We have an understanding of periodization. In other words, you know, periodization just basically means strategic planning for athletes. In the realm of strength and conditioning to elicit a specific adaptation over time. We have a very, we have extensively researched this and we have a really good understanding in general of what, what that process actually looks like, how to actually periodize training programs for athletes. But I think what's a little less understood is periodizing skills training. Like what I have run into the issue of at times is being able to objectively know if I'm placing more physical and cognitive demand on the athlete over time.

This is what Paul talked about.

Like you have to have a model by which you can clearly identify.

A.

Player'S work capacity and how much load you're placing on them and how they're actually adapting to that to either increase their work capacity or decrease their work capacity. And obviously we want them to increase it and decrease it over time. So that was getting a little bit away from my point about skills training. But my point is we have to have a model by which we can objectively measure improvement like in, in the sense of skill. And so like I'll give you an example. I don't know if people are familiar, I don't know how many people are familiar with the constraints led approach or the games based approach. They're a little bit different. But let's just use the constraints that approach. So this is where you basically add, you, you manipulate aspects of the environment to, to, to encourage player, to, to encourage players to, to work on certain skills or to narrow the solution space. So like, let me see if I can come up with an example. Like let's say you're, let's say you're in a group of four people including yourself and you go in with your players and you guys are working on a ball screen. In reality this is a five on five game. So you would have guys that are helping one pass away and help defenders that are farther away. But in a group session like this, you only have four people. So how do you, how can you like constrain the solution space in a realistic way? In a more realistic way that that sort of mimics what would actually happen in a game. Because that, that has a lot to do with how skills transfer. And naturally, I mean, at least I, this is something that I do. I just say you can't go outside the lane lines or I'll make like a mark, I'll make two markers on the baselines that, that all players can clearly see or, or really just the ball handler can clearly see and maybe the screener, I guess because they're on offense and they have to stay within that. Within that parameter so that we are more closely mimicking what would actually happen in a game. And yes, you can snake a ball screen and you end up actually going outside the lane line and stuff like that. But depending on what you're working on, that may be a really good idea. Right?

Yeah.

So that's really what the constraint slot approach is as an example. And so over time, the goal should be at least like, roughly, I think we can. A lot of us can agree about this, is to increase the amount of decisions that players have to make in workouts over time and be able to clearly identify how many decisions they had to make in the beginning in a particular drill that you're designing versus what they versus what they were doing at the end. And not only that, not just the number of decisions, but how complex each decision is. And we have to be able to like, if we want to have the same amount of structure that we do with guys when we're working with them from a strength and conditioning standpoint and in the weight room, I think it would be really useful if we had a same kind of structure or framework for skills training. And so there are a couple papers that outline this, you know, a framework like this. There's a 2017 paper. It's this framework that's referred to as the SAP framework. It's the Skill Acquisition Periodization Framework. That's a paper from 2017. I forget who the authors were. And then there's another paper in 2019 that kind of responds to that, that reviews that paper, but also adds more insight into how to create a periodization framework in the, in the realm of skills training. I think it's called the Post framework.

I love that. Yeah, I haven't, I haven't even. The way that you bring it up, it makes complete sense, right? Like even going back to be able to manage the cognitive load if you can tell how not only how many decisions are being made. Because I think that's, that's the general outlook is like, okay, we want players to make decisions like decisions. Decision. Want them to have to do that, obviously. But is there, is there a, is there a best way to go about doing that strategically and especially over a long period of time? And, and then you're able to, to almost, to almost gauge like when they come in and you're able to see that, okay, how are they feeling? How was this week? Right? If you, if you, if today, like they just had three massive tests, they probably aren't going to be cognitively as effective. Or have as much, just as much, you know, fuel in the system to be able to handle super complex decisions over and over and over and over and over again at a high level. So I think that's, that's great. Being able to kind of have a framework for how, how all that would work. Do you have anything else that you kind of want to, you kind of want to go through? Any topics that we, that we might, we may have skipped over that you wrote down?

Yeah, totally. Just one more, one more topic and I'm sure you'll have insight on this is behavioral psychology. So one thing that I've been thinking about a lot recently is we can. I actually, I think I posted about this. I was responding to one point that Mike G. Made in his presentation from the Mastery Hoops Conference. And one thing that like he's talking about engagement and get, you know, getting his athletes engaged and prepared for the session that's going to come and even within the actual like meat and potatoes of the session. Right. What I've been thinking a lot about recently is like we could talk about the theory of strength and conditioning, motor learning, all these protocols all day. We could, we could talk about what drills athlete basketball players should do. We talk about how much they should sleep, what foods they should eat. But I would say we put enough emphasis on that. And there's always more to learn, obviously, but we put a lot of emphasis on that. And I think the issue that. But then we also talk about players need to be consistent. Like if you want to see results, you've got to be consistent. Especially if you want to see results in the long term that are actually noticeable, you've got to be consistent. Right? That's what people say. And so I feel like there's a little bit of a disconnect between like the science, like the actual theory of training and like the adherence aspect of training, like getting players to buy in and getting players to do what were what we're prescribing to them or what we're outlining for them in the long term, getting them to do that in the long term so that they can see consistent results over time. I think there's a little bit of a disconnect. And so I think we have to emphasize we have to put more emphasis on how basketball players can build long term habits to where like it doesn't feel like because you, I mean they. Mike G. Described it, we all know this, we love basketball. And even, even though we do, there are days where we just don't want to train nearly as much. You know, there's. We have life stress and, and all this stuff, and we have to figure out, like, how to get people to love the process so that it doesn't feel. So that training doesn't feel like a choreograph. Because, like, again, we can have this model of what training should look like in an ideal world. But if players, like, dread it, if they, if they're miserable doing it, they're. They're going to go through a phase where their motivate, the motivation is there, the inspiration is there to start. They're going to do that for a week or two weeks, and then they're going to fall off and do that and do the exact opposite for one or two weeks. And then what. What actually happened? You had a net gain of zero. Yeah. Right. So we have to put a lot more emphasis on behavioral understanding, behavioral psychology, how to get players to build habits so that they can see success in the long term.

Yeah, no, I love that. And I think there's. That's something I've been thinking about too. I think I've heard Paul mentioned this a couple of times, talking about, like, dopamine and how, like, there's so much when it comes to just like, brain chemistry that can go into how effective. Like, exactly what you're talking about right there. When, you know, all day, every day, it's just like, okay, you're constantly stimulated through your phone, through tv, through the food that you're eating. Like, it almost becomes like you can get those quick hits of dopamine from that instead of having to get it through a more productive means, which would be going and training. Right. So almost becomes like a. Well, it's way easier just take the, you know, to just take the easy route and just go spend six hours on TikTok. It's way easier to do that than it would be to go and do something that's difficult. Ultimately might net you a better feeling than that, that those quick hits that you get from just being on YouTube for four hours or whatever. Like, so I think, I think that's part of it too. And, and again, like, going back to the initial points, like, the surface level is the skills part of it, learning how to teach, how to dribble or how to shoot or whatever. But then it's the movement part and then it's the, you know, going with the entire, like, you're understanding your IQ of the game. And then it goes into this, like, how your brain actually works when it comes to you adhering to something and you building habits and all that sort of stuff. I think as, as coaches and as trainers. Like, there's a book that I just finished reading called Conscious Coaching, and it's by Brett Bartholomew, I think is his name. And it's. It kind of talks about how to like, kind of in the same. In a similar vein, how, how you can be able to kind of connect with different players depending on their personality and. Because that's, that's kind of in the thing. It's like a coach will have a team and they'll. They'll coach every player the same. They'll talk to every player the same and whatever. And half the team is going to thrive in that and the other half is not going to. So now all of a sudden, a lot of times the, the. It's always been like, oh, well, I guess they can take coaching and they can't, right? He takes coaching well, which is why he's able to respond well to my coaching. He doesn't take coaching well, so he doesn't respond well. But when you look at it, there's so much nuance between player to player. Like, if I work, if I have a player who is like, conversation goes through different, like, archetypes. So, like, you'll have different types of personalities. So for example, you have like the manipulator who is like, constantly looking for ways to like, maybe it's talking. Talk themselves out of doing conditioning or going to like, they're the player who's going to the trainer saying, like, oh, my ankle's acting up. I don't know if I can practice today. But they're back for the game the next day, right? Or they're trying. I think an example he gave is that he had a player who came into his office, was asking him about, like, what the. Like what their lifts were going to look like on Monday. He was trying to figure out, like, oh, are we doing max day? And he was actually asking all these questions, trying to figure out if the team's head coach was going to be at the lift on Monday because they had a big party plan for the weekend. So he wanted to know, like, indirectly if they would be able to, like, you know, get real wild or if they would have to tame it back and be prepared for Monday. So that's one certain. That that's a certain personality right there. And you can contrast with that. That with somebody who's like, he talks about like, the novice or somebody who's brand new, right. Who doesn't really have any sort of understanding of anything. You can. You can kind of. You can contrast that with the mouthpiece. So the player who's always like, always has something to say. You bring up some point, and they're always trying to make a joke, trying to make everybody else around there, around them laugh. Always something going on. You have the leader who constantly is trying to, like, bring people up with them. That's four very different types of players, types of people. And so trying to coach each one of them the same exact way is just like, you can't coach the leader and. And the manipulator the same way because one's going to. One's going to. One might thrive and the other one might not. You might have to micromanage the manipulator a little bit more. You might have to be a little bit more on their case, but you might not have to be on the case of the leader because they're like, they already had that, that figured out, right? You can't, you can't. You can't treat the leader the same way as you would the novice, because they're in two different levels of development. There are two different types of players. So I think as a coach, kind of going back to your original point, if we can understand the differences between each player and how to connect with each of them individually, I think that can go a long way as well when it comes to helping players build those good habits and be able to show up and do the work. And I think ultimately them want to show up, right? Because I think when they have you have that relationship and they enjoy just like, being around you or being with your program or whatever the case may be, I think that goes as, you know, on days where you don't really feel like basketball, if you can at least look on that and say, hey, listen, at least I could see my coach today who I always have good conversations with, who is constantly able to push me. Right? Because you have a coach who understands you, I think that goes a long way as well. So that, that's kind of my, my, my, my kind of take into that. You have anything that you want to, like, close out with any messages to end with real quick.

Yeah, I mean, this was. It was a pleasure talking to you today. Pleasure actually finally getting to meet you in person a couple weeks ago. You guys can follow me on Instagram @DM Hoops. That might be a placeholder for now, but that's. That's the username right now. You can follow me at Dymhoops on TikTok my YouTube channel is Danny Metzer. That's where I, you know, if I have a, if I have a more, you know, if I want to talk about a concept in, in more detail and in a longer length video, then that's the platform that I use. But really just I'm most active on Instagram, so you can go there and check out my account and I actually have a link tree to all my other accounts, so you can find that in my bio as well.

Awesome, man. Yeah, I'll have you tagged in everything on Instagram, YouTube, all that. But man, I appreciate you coming on. There's a lot of great stuff in here. Like I'm, I'm about to sift through all of it and pick out some clips and, and go back and I wrote down, I wrote down so much stuff too on my phone. Like, I have a lot of stuff to look into. So I hope everybody else listening feels the same way. Again, I appreciate you coming on, man. And everybody who's listening shout out to you guys. Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, Everybody watching on YouTube, drop a, like, subscribe, drop a comment as well. Let me know what you learned, what you took away from this episode. If you have any questions for me, questions for Danny, drop that as well. Let us know what you think. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.

Peace.