Coach Ethan breaks down how to earn a starting spot: buy into your role, listen to your coach, give full effort every possession, and put in extra work outside practice. The difference between starters and bench players comes down to who's willing to do more.
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What's up, guys? Coach Ethan here today. I want to talk to you guys about how you can become a starter on your basketball team. I got this question a while back from a player and I wanted an answer today for you guys. The first thing you guys need to understand is that it isn't necessarily just about being one of the five best players on your team, alright? There's a lot of times that coaches will play guys and start guys who just fit a role that they need. So if you're able to be a guy who could fill a role, a lot of times you can find yourself in the starting lineup even if you aren't necessarily one of the best five players in the team, alright? So I'm going to get more in depth into that. Let's get into. So the first point I want to make, and probably the most important part of all, is that you need to buy in. And what this means is that you buy in and commit 100 to what your coaches say to their system, their philosophy, and you buy into your role 100%. Now, that might seem a little bit counterintuitive, right? You want to become a starter, but I'm telling you to buy into your role that you're giving. You need to buy into the role that you're given and excel in that role before you can expect to be a starter. So if your coach has you as a sixth man coming off the bench and you want to become a starter, you've got to excel in your role as sixth man until your coach promotes you to the starting position. If your coach brings you in to be a defender and a rebounder, you need to excel so much in that role that you become a starter. You have to buy into what your coach says. A big mistake a lot of players make is that they get a roll from their coaches that they don't like. And instead of responding and excelling and getting a bigger role and a better role that they might want, they decide to sulk and be angry and quit. And that's not the right response to have if you want to become a starter. You see, you have to understand something. Becoming a starter isn't necessarily a straight road. Sometimes there's going to be ups and downs. See, you might start off with a bench, but then somebody in front of you gets hurt or somebody in front of you doesn't play well and your coach is going to look down the line and see who he can use to replace that person. And if you accept in your role, then you give yourself a good chance to be that guy that the coaches pick. So again, excel in the role that your coaches give you and buy in. The next key to becoming a starter is that you guys have to listen and learn from your coaches as well. Now what I mean by this is that you have to be a guy that your coaches don't have to repeat themselves to when you're in practice. You have to be a guy who picks things up, A guy who doesn't have to be reminded to do things. A guy who's always listening and paying attention. You can think of a coach like a gatekeeper, right? And he's standing at the gate. And behind the gate is the playing time that you want, the starting job that you want. But you have to find a way to get the gatekeeper to open up the gate for you. And you do that by listening to your coaches, by finding out what they want from that position and being able to fulfill that need that they have. There's five spots on the basketball court. Let's say that you know one position. That means that your coach can put you in at one position. But if you know two positions or three positions, that's two or three spots your coach can play you at. So when you learn the plays, learn more than one spot. That way your coach can put you into different spots and it gives you more of a chance to play. Now like I said before, if someone gets hurt or somebody gets bent because they're not playing well, now you have even more of a chance to be the guy the coach looks to to play. In fact, I challenge all of you guys to learn all five positions. Learn every spot for every play that you have. Learn every spot for every defense that you have. That's going to give you even more of a chance to be a starter at some point. Because you know everything. Believe me, as a coach, guys who come in and know what they're doing and know the plays and know their spots, don't be reminded every practice. Those are the guys that get playing time. Because in the heat of the moment, you can't put guys in the game if you don't trust them. So if you want to develop that kind of trust with your coaches, listen in practices and learn everything that you can. The next point should be really self explanatory, but I'm going to say it anyway. You need to give 100% every day, every, every practice, every second that you're on the court, guys who are lazy and don't get after it and then ask me why they aren't starting or why they don't make the team or they don't get playing time, to me, it doesn't make any sense. If you aren't giving 100% at something, why do you expect to reap reward the benefits from it? If you want that starting spot, but you aren't giving 100% in practice every day, you aren't trying your hardest in sprints, you aren't diving on the court for loose balls, you aren't taking charges, you aren't playing good defense, you aren't trying to get rebounds, you aren't boxing out. These are all hustle things you have to do. And again, going back to my last point about developing trust with your coaches, if you want your coaches to trust you, they can't question your effort ever. They have to know that if they put you in the game, you're going to give 100% no matter what. Just because you don't like your role right now does not mean that's an excuse to not try and to not give effort and practice. So if you want to get that role, you got to go out and get it. You got to go out and take it. It's not going to be given to you. And again, this is something that I shouldn't have to say. So if you're in the mindset of, oh, the coach didn't pick me, so I'm not gonna try as hard, that's a backwards way to think you've got to go out and get that spot and give 100% every single day. And the last point I want to make if you want to become a starter is that you have to put in the time. This means getting up exercise after practice. This means asking your coach questions if you have them. This means studying game film. This means learning the playbook. This means in the off season you're coming to open gyms, you're coming to team lifting sessions. It also amazes me that guys don't show up to anything in the offseason and then they expect to just be starters when they get there. They expect to get playing time when they're there. Meanwhile, they have a bunch of other guys who showed up to things over the offseason and are reaping the benefits of that. So again, you got to put in the time. Basketball is not just from November through March every year. It is a full year round thing. You got to be committed to if you want to be one of the five guys who gets to start. Okay? Because there's a lot more people who come off the bench than start. If you want to be in that top group, you got to put in that top level effort, all right? That's really what it comes down to. You just got to work harder. You got to buy into your role. You got to put in the time, put in the effort, and you got to learn and listen to your coaches. That's what it comes down to. And it's not necessarily an overnight thing, but it's something that progresses more and more. So you got to stay locked in and do what you need to do every day to get that spot. I hope you guys found this video helpful. If you did, go ahead and leave a like and subscribe as well. I want all you guys to join our private basketball training group where I'm giving you guys free workouts, personalized coaching from me, and a bunch of other exclusive content you're not going to get anywhere else. It's 100% free. The link is in my description below, so go ahead and click it, join, and I'll see you guys in there. And like I said before, if you guys enjoyed the video, subscribe as well. Click this little black button right here. Make it easy. I really appreciate it, guys. And drop a comment. Let me know what you guys want to see next. All right, I'll see you guys soon. Peace.
