How To Deal With Bad Coaches (Message To Players and Coaches) - Podcast 45

Foreign welcome to the Vision Driven Bathroom Training Podcast. Appreciate you guys for tuning in, whether you're watching on YouTube. And for any of you guys who are listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever else, listen to podcasts on. Appreciate you guys for being there and tuning in, giving me your time. You guys are on YouTube right now. Make sure you guys drop a like. And you guys subscribe if you are new podcasts come out every Sunday. And of course, follow me on Instagram as well. My Instagram is visiondrivenbasketball. And, you know, I haven't said it for a while, but, you know, you guys know anybody who's been watching for, you know, any amount of time, A lot of the questions that. A lot of the questions that I answer, a lot of the topics I cover are just questions that I've gotten through my DMs or comments or whatever. But typically DMs are the best way because usually I'll see all those. Sometimes I miss a comment on YouTube or whatever. So it's a lot easier if you just do that. But again, like I always say, you know, for a lot, there'll be sometimes where I'll get questions where, like, I've basically already covered it and you probably would just get more by just watching what I've already done. So make sure you guys go look through, see what I have. I got a lot of podcasts out. I don't even know what number this is. It's probably like 45 or 46. Like, we're getting kind of close to a year. It's getting pretty close to that. So that's pretty cool. And if you guys are on, you guys are listening to Apple podcasts would appreciate you guys would scroll down, leave a review. And like I said in last week's episode, you know, every week, then I'm gonna look. And if I have new reviews, then I'll read them. And I just look right now because as soon as I started talking, I was like, oh, yeah, I said I was gonna do that. So I may as well check right now. And I do have a new review this week. Comes from King of Landons says great iq. I love how the show teaches the mental state of basketball when a lot of people don't. Everything from creativity to routine plays. You have it all. 5 stars. Appreciate the review. Just helps the show to grow, helps more people to see it. And of course, that just means that we can do it bigger and better. So appreciate you guys who have left reviews for me. And like I said, if you could do that real quick, go down, let me know what you think and I'll rate it on the show. So this week I want to talk about bad coaches, dealing with bad coaches, what you can do as a player. I kind of have a. Have. I'm gonna kind of take this a couple different ways because there's kind of a few different elements that I want to talk about. But you know, the first thing and kind of what got me started this, I actually got a question about this, but I was at a, an AAU tournament like three weeks ago and it was for kids who were in like fifth through eighth grade. It was a pretty high level tournament. I'd say like the teams, they were pretty good. They came from all over. I'm in, I live in Pennsylvania. The teams there, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, some Rhode island teams. And so there was, they were coming from, you know, a good amount of places, good basketball areas in general, and they were good teams there. And it just kind of got me thinking about it because I'm standing there, you know, and I was there the whole day, I was working it and I was watching just the dynamic of certain coaches and I, it's kind of how I approach things now because, you know, I have, I'm. I haven't been coaching for all that long. So, you know, a lot of you guys know, aside from just this, this in, you know, my training stuff I do with my online stuff, my YouTube and then my in person training that I do, I also coach a high school team, so I've been doing that for a couple years. Before that I coached a middle school team. So I've been kind of coaching for, I guess this would be three years. And then I also been coaching with an AU team for all three of those years as well. So I've been, I've been progressing along forward and obviously, you know that three years isn't all that long, but it's enough to kind of see some stuff that works, some stuff that doesn't and more. So it's long enough where you can kind of see, you can start to see patterns of what coaches are good and what coaches aren't. And at this point, I can tell when I walk, I can look at a coach, I see how they interact with their players, with their team. I can tell who's a good coach and who's a bad coach. And this doesn't necessarily always have to do with winning, right, which we'll get into. But it's just, it's easier for me to tell a lot of times now. And so this is where I was at at the tournament. I'm watching some of these teams, and it's just so funny to me when it comes to aau because there really. There's no, like, there are no credentials for AAU coach. I'm just gonna be honest with you. There are a lot of horrible, horrible AAU coaches out there in terms of, like, not even necessarily basketball wise, like, it. Some of them, but like, a lot of them that I saw, they probably knew basketball decently well. But you don't, like, they don't know how to coach. They don't know how to, like, interact with players that age. They don't know how to, like, actually get the most out of players. And. And ultimately, for a lot of those coaches that I saw, it was completely about them. It was completely about winning, completely about, like. And at that age, your fifth through eighth grade, winning really is not important. It's just not that important. Okay? At that age, it's really about. It should be about developing. And really, at any age, it should always be about developing your players. But that was what got me thinking on this, because I'm looking at it, and I would say at that tournament, 90% of the coaches that I saw there just weren't good coaches. Like, they just flat out weren't. And it's to a point, you know, where if you coach at any sort of school, you coach at the middle school level, at the high school level with, like an actual school, typically there's going to be, you know, not always. I wouldn't say qualifications, but, like, you're going to have more checks and balances, right? Like, you're going to have an athletic director you have to report to. You're going to have parents who are more involved, you're going to have teachers who are more involved. You're going to have assistants and helpers who are like, there's just a lot more that's involved with it. So typically, you know, a lot of times you're going to have coaches who are bad, who get weeded out a little bit more often. Okay, not always. Not always. Definitely not always. But certainly more so than aau. With aau, anybody, any Joe Schmo can just create a team and start coaching. And trust me, I've. I've experienced that before. I've seen it over and over and over again. So the. There. There really is an epidemic of bad, bad coaches throughout basketball. And that's kind of how it is with, you know, how popular basketball is. It honestly, in my opinion, probably the most popular youth sport. In fact, I don't even know if that's really an opinion. That's. To me, it just seems like that's probably what it is. And so with. With how much AAU continues to grow, you got new teams popping up, new coaches, new. Like everything is just growing so much that obviously you're going to have some bad apples mixed in with the good. But at that tournament, it was kind of discouraging for me to see, like, how many of the bad apples are out there. Like, there's a lot of them. And. And I'm not. This is not to be on like a, you know, a whole downer note, but like, that's. This is kind of where I wanted it to go because this is where this whole thing stemmed from. But I want to, again, relate it back to like a player's perspective because obviously a lot of you guys, players listening and you want to know, like, hey, how do I deal with this coach or that code? Like, when certainly I'm gonna. I want to talk about that too, because I have experience with that and I know that's something that a lot of you guys can definitely benefit from. But, you know, I know I probably have a lot of coaches. I think I have a good mix of coaches and players who watch. And trainers as well. I'll kind of mix them in with that group, but even more so, like coaches who are. No, I would say coaches and trainers. I think they can both kind of benefit from it. But you know, something that I think it's important to be able to check yourself on. Being a coach or a trainer is like, so much of it is always about, like, you know, you have to step back and you have to look at what actually matters with coaching, right? Like, what's the point of coaching? And the issue with youth sports is that a lot of times coaches try and make it completely about winning, completely about winning. To the point where, like, I'm at that tournament and I'm hearing coaches who are coaching, you know, 10, 11 year olds, like, you know, just, you know, screaming, you know, swearing at their kids on the bench, like, and I mean, just ridiculous. Like coaches calling timeouts just to like cuss out their Entire team of 10 year olds and then not actually give them any help with, like, what's happening on the court, just, like, just because they're angry and they can't control their emotions. So that's. That to me is just like, I mean, me, if that's. If I'm If I'm a parent and the coach treats my kid like that, like, I'm probably fighting that coach gonna be honest with, like, I'm probably gonna come off of the sideline, I'm probably gonna go fight that coach. But aside from that, like, my kid's not playing on that team anymore. That's. That's the bottom line, right? Like, my team's not. Like, I'm coaching, not gonna play for my team, My kid's not gonna play for a coach like that. And that happens when winning. And you as a coach, feeling good about yourself, you putting way too much into, like, the result. That's what's gonna happen is you're gonna have coaches who are way too overly emotional, can't control themselves. They don't understand. Like, you're trying to develop people, you're trying to develop basketball players, and then you can think about winning. That's really where the priority has to lie. So the, the. The something that I talk about, and really, anytime that people ask me about, you know, if. Anytime I'm on a podcast, like, something comes up where it's like, you know, what. What do you do when it comes to, like, you know, like, how can you get the most out of your workouts or players? Like, how do you help players the most? And for me, it's like, it always comes down to how, like, are you player focused? Like, do you put your. Your players development above everything else? And that's the lens that you look at things through. And again, like, my. My experience watching is that a lot of coaches, especially with aau, are not like that. They just. They just aren't. They do not put that the. The player first. And that's something that I think needs to change. And you know, again, like, like I said, we'll see. Because it's discouraging to me when I see that so many coaches are. They don't understand that, and it becomes about, you know, what's. Like, they don't understand how to appeal to players. That's the other thing too, is like, you know, is the best way to get a player to understand something, to change something, is the best way to, like, berate them and scream at them and. And like, just straight up tear them down. I don't think it is. And you know, a lot of coaches, like, that's just how they're brought up. And I think that's the best way. In my, like, in my opinion, that's just not the best way to do it. And, you know, even if you look at Coaches, like, you know, throughout my, my playing career, you know, I played with a lot of different coaches who had different personalities, different styles, and some of them were real loud. Like, you know, they're, they're like, you know, they like to really get into it. And a lot of coaches are kind of a little more reserved, a little quieter, but the, overall, it really doesn't change how you play. I, I played on some good teams that were coached by coaches who were a little bit more laid back. They didn't really, they weren't like, you know, raise their voice kind of guys. And those teams were still good, sometimes better than teams that had coaches who were, you know, crazy and loud and all that sort of stuff. So I think that that's, that's one thing. I think that, that as a whole, coaches need to be better. And again, obviously, like I said, guys, you know, it's, it's this, I want to relate this back to players, but ultimately with coaches, it has to be like, coaches have to stop making it about themselves because I think a lot of them do. And that's ultimately why it's so toxic. A lot of these teams and, and especially because coaches think that, like, you know, you're, you're working with players who are good. Like all those. The tournament I was out was a really good tournament. Like, it was a lot of really talented kids. And again, it, to me, it's unfortunate that, that those are the coaches that are working with the best players. Like, to me, it's, I, I think that you get a lot more out of those players because I look at it as like that 10, 11 year old. A lot of those kids are going to probably hate basketball by the time they get to high school. Like, they're, they're just going to be burnt out of it because there's so much pressure put on that kid to win and to not be able to make mistakes, to not be able to grow at all that, like, by the time you're, you know, you're 14, 15, 16 years old, like, at some point you just got to get tired of that. So again, the number one concern has to be development overall. That's gonna be the number one thing, right? Developing that person. Right. Ultimately off the floor. How do you develop them as, you know, being good sports? Right? The way they communicate with their teammates, with their coaches, with the officials, right. Do you set a good example? Because a lot of coaches just don't set good examples. Like when your player sees you, you know, berating a ref or, you know, you Are berating one of your players, like how is your player then going to respond in that same situation? They're not going to respond positively, they're not going to respond to their teammates positively so that they can keep going forward. It's going to be a continuous cycle of negativity and that's not the best way to do things. Certainly not for long term success and long term enjoyment of a game. Right? It's a game of basketball. This been kind of a rant, I'll be honest with you guys. But when I, when I was again, this is something that I see and like, I don't like it. I want things to be a little bit different. So just give my two cents out there. But again, I do kind of want to relate this back to players because for me, you know, I've played, like I said, with a bunch of different coaches, some really, really good coaches and some coaches who aren't quite as good. You know, back when I was say, I would have been in ninth grade, you know, I, for the most part I've had good coaches, right? Middle school, great coaches. And then for, you know, sophomore year through senior year had good coaches as well. But my freshman year of high school was a completely different story. I had a coach who, the year started off a little bit weird because I was hurt the first half of the season and so I wasn't playing. And then when I got back, the coach just like, I just didn't see eye to eye with the coach at all. And there was a few different things I thought that, you know, first of all, looking at it now like, you know, was, was my coach a good coach? No, he wasn't a good coach. He wasn't a basketball guy. Like he didn't know how to coach basketball. He didn't really know anything about basketball. He wasn't very knowledgeable guy. He was much more like a lacrosse. Like he was kind of just there. Like he kind of was just like, you know, essentially imagine if you have a coach who, you know, play basketball back in like the 80s and then just decided that that's how basketball is. Like, you know, how I play back in the 80s, that's how we're going to play now. That's how we're going to practice, how we're going to play. That was my coach basically. So, yeah, not where I'm at now. Like, no, not a good coach. But there certainly was things on my end that I didn't do to help the situation, right. That I, that I may have put myself in more of a hole at that time, despite not seeing eye to eye with that coach. So the first thing really comes down to, you know, with you. You want to first evaluate yourself, say, hey, you know what? What? Like, is there something that I'm doing that is causing this reaction from my coach? Whether it be I'm not playing as much as I want to, whether my coach, you know, doesn't seem to, you know, want to, you know, my coach doesn't seem to agree with me on anything. My coach doesn't seem to like me very much. Whatever it might be, you have to first look at yourself and say, hey, is there something that I'm doing that maybe I should be doing better or maybe I should be changing completely? And it kind of starts with the first thing is, you know, what do I do to help a team win? You know, I've talked about it a couple times. I don't know if I've made a podcast episode on it, but I probably will at some point if I haven't already. But the most important skill you have is your ability to impact winning. Whatever, you know, whatever you do can do to help your team win. That's what's most important. So you might be the best shooter on the team, and that's how you impact the team. You might be the best defender. That's how you impact the team. You know, you might be the best ball handler, so you're the point guard, and that's how you impact. Like, there's a lot of different things you might do. You might not be that good at anything, but maybe you bring a lot of. A lot of energy in practice and you push the guys ahead of you to do better, and that's how you impact the team, and it impacts winning. Okay? You have to understand that coaches are trying to win. They're going to put teams on the floor that are going to be the most competitive, okay? So it's not always about, you know, hey, coach, I worked on this all offseason, so why can't I go out and do this? Well, if you doing that doesn't help a team win, then it's just not going to happen. Like, your coach isn't going to do it. If your coach thinks that that will help the team win, then he's going to let you do it. If your coach thinks that you shooting 10 threes a game is going to help the team, you know, have the highest chance to win, then he's going to tell you, hey, go shoot 10 threes a game, okay? Or he. Or he might not tell you that, but he might not. Not tell you to shoot. Like, he might. He might let you shoot whenever you want to shoot if he thinks that you shooting the ball is going to be the best chance for them to win. Okay? And on top of that, right, I'll have players who will be, you know, frustrated because they. They have teammates who get away with being able to do certain things. Like, you know, maybe. Maybe, you know, they turn the ball over, coach doesn't take them out, they make a mistake, coach doesn't take them out, they miss a shot, coach. But then the other. The other kid, he turns the ball over or he misses a layup and he gets pulled right away. Well, that. Off the bat, right? That's not. That's not fair. Like, it's not very fair that one kid gets pulled and one doesn't. You have to understand, guys, that it's not like it's. It's always fair. It's. It's always fair. Usually. Again, there's a caveat here, guys. There. There are. I'm giving. You guys generate like. Like general points right here because they're all like, there's always going to be codes out there who just flat out aren't good. And then maybe we're talking a little different story. But for the most part, guys, when we're talking, like, school basketball, like high school basketball, for the most part, your code is going to be decently, like, decently qualified. Like, they'll. They'll for the most part know what they're doing. So when. When I talk about that, like, you have a player who, you know, maybe on their high school team, they're. They turn the ball over, they miss a shot, they do something wrong and they don't get pulled for it, they get to keep playing. Then the other kid who does the same thing, he does get pulled for. Well, here's the thing. It's not always going to be equal, right? You're not always going to get treated equally. Meaning you guys get the same amount of time, okay? You guys both get the same amount of shots, and you guys can both make the same amount of mistakes. This is not true. Because that kid who doesn't get pulled might also be the best defender on the team. And therefore, when he messes something up on offense, he's going to keep on playing because the coach is like, well, that's my best defender, so I kind of need him on the floor. Okay? You might have a kid who might, you know, miss a layup, but also he's the, you know, the best, you know, the best communicator on the floor, right? He's always in the right spot, he's always doing things correctly, and because of that, the coach is going to play him more. So that's the first thing to understand that it's always fair. It's. It's fair that the player who's better or contribute something somewhere else gets more. Gets more leniency with mistakes, gets to miss more shots, gets to take more shots, okay? They're going to get that benefit of the doubt because of what they bring to the team, opposed to the other player who doesn't bring those things at that point. How are you impacting winning? If you go in there and you're not a great defender, you're not a great passer, you're not a great communicator, you're not really great at anything, but you go out there and you miss a couple shots and, you know, you turn the ball over, well, how are you impacting winning? That becomes a question. So when that coach looks down the bench and, you know, he might see another guy down there who maybe can't shoot as well as you can, or maybe he can't pass as well, but maybe he's a really good rebounder. Maybe he's just big and he's going to go and he's going to play inside defense and get rebounds, whatever. So Cody's going to put that player in because that guy is going to contribute to winning. He's going to go get rebounds, okay? And maybe you get pulled because of that. Maybe you get pulled because what are you really doing that's helping the team win at some time, at some point, that's what you got to have to, you have to understand, like basketball, it's always fair, it's a fair game, but it's not. That doesn't mean you get treated equally amongst all of your teammates. Okay? The better players play, the better players get opportunities, and the better players get more leniency with their coaches. That's ultimately how it will always work. It will always work for any team that you will ever play on. And so that's something that you have to understand. How do I impact winning? What do I bring to the team? What do I bring? Every game that my coach looks at me and says, I need that guy on the floor because he does this for me. If you can't answer that question, then being upset with your coach about playing time, well, you really gotta look in the mirror first and say, well, what do I need to work on so that I can be a player that my coach looks at and says, hey, I need him on there? That might be as simple as you're always in the right spot, right? You're always in help when you need to be. You're always boxing out, you're always making cuts. You know, when you're supposed to. You're always setting screens when you're supposed to be setting screens. Like, you always do the right things. That's not a talent thing. That's not a, hey, you know, you gotta be able to shoot the ball like this and dribble like that. No, that's just a knowing how to play basketball thing. So that's something to understand that if you want to, you know, be able to play more. If your issue with your coaches, you don't play that much or you don't play as much as you think you should, well, it's probably because you don't impact winning quite as much as you think that you do. So that can be a conversation maybe you have with your coach, say, hey, coach, what I need to do to get more playing time. And here's the thing with that. Like, a lot of times your coach is going to give you an answer. And sometimes some coaches are very, very honest about what they think. Some of them are. Some of them aren't, though. Like, you might have coaches who might not be with you, but you have to be able to release like, like, like be introspective and say, you know, watch the film, watch and say, hey, you know, what am I doing that is good? What am I doing that's not good? And what exactly can I do to improve? So that can come down to just normal situations. Sometimes players will be like, hey, you know, I don't get to play in crunch time. Well, if your coach, if you turn the ball over lot, right, if you're always making bad decisions, then your coach isn't going to play you when it's crunch time. If, you know, you had a game where you guys were winning by five and there was a minute left and you went down and shot a three, you know, within five seconds and you missed it, well, now your coach is not going to trust you to be on the court when you guys are in those situations where you're up by a little bit with a little bit of time left. Because obviously the smart thing to do is work the ball around, make the defense have to play you, hopefully make them foul you or you get a wide open layup or Something like that. And you want to run as much clock as possible. Okay? So coach is going to put players on the floor who can hit free throws, who are strong with the basketball, who make good decisions, and ultimately that's what it's going to be. Those players at that moment are going to impact winning the most. So the coach might take off his best rebounder because maybe they aren't a great, they aren't great free throw shooters or they're not great with the ball in their hands. Okay? That's just something to think about. You got to think about situations as well. So we talk about playing time with coaches. It always is going to come down to what do you do to impact winning, how do you help the team win? And if you help the team win a lot, you're going to play a lot. And if you don't, then you won't play a lot. So ultimately, something to think about. The next thing, right, when we talk about not just the basketball skills part, obviously the way you impact winning, that's going to be the most important thing. When it comes down to playing time or your coach liking you, whatever it might be, like the way that you help the team win, if you help the team win, that, that kind of, that, that trumps everything, right? That covers up a lot of, a lot of faults. If you're a great shot maker and you're the best on the team at it, then it's gonna, it's really gonna make up for a lot of other things for you. But that's not always gonna be the case. You're not always gonna be the best player on the team. There are a lot of other things that you can do that can help you when it comes to your coaches, but also it can hurt you if you don't do these things. So number one thing is effort. So you might be one of the better players in the team, but if you don't give consistent effort, then you're not going to get consistent playing time. You're not going to get consistent, you know, leniency from your coaches, and they're also not going to trust you as much because they don't know what version you're going to get. If you, from game to game, some games you're there mentally, you're focused, you're locked in and your effort is there and sometimes it's not. Then again, it's going to be a struggle for you to be able to build some sort of consistency with your coaches. And that's the question asked, does my effort Waver ever, right? Am I ever just out there kind of going through the motions, whether that be games, practices, that's something that coaches are always watching and it makes a big impact. Something that should be pretty obvious. But do you show up to things like, are you, do you show up, first of all practices, do you show up to practice? Are you a practice on time? Do you show up to team meetings? Simple things like that that I shouldn't really have to say, but I will say them anyway. So if you aren't doing those things, then expect your coaches to react to that. Do you take coaching well? Are you coachable? Can your coach criticize you and you be able to accept it and learn from it and get better from it, or are you always on the defensive? Well, coach this. Well, coach that. Well, I did this, I saw that. I did this and that and this and that. And then like, you don't actually, you're not able to actually to able, you're not able to actually take what they say and learn from it and say, hey, you know what, maybe there's some truth in what my coaches are telling me. And maybe they're not saying it because they don't like me. Maybe they're not saying it because they want to be upset or they want to blame me for this. Maybe they're just saying it so that I can be better and I can help impact winning more so that I can ultimately play more. Right, because you play basketball, you work in the off season so you can get to your team and hopefully play as much as possible. And then while you're on the court, hopefully do as well as you can. But ultimately, the first step is playing as much as possible. So if your coach is giving you feedback, chances are he's telling you something that's going to help you to impact winning more. And if you can do that thing, you will impact winning more. Meaning you're going to play more. Meaning you're going to have more opportunities to play well. So it's kind of a cycle. So you have to understand it all starts with you taking that criticism. Do you take it and then you learn from it and get better? Well, if you do that, then you're going to be on an upward trajectory. But we can think about it like this, right? You might have two players very, very similar. Talent, ability, athleticism. So they play on two different teams, or let's even say they play on the same team. Okay? And both of these players are, you know, they, they, they, you know, they both go and they both Make a mistake and their coach says something to them and one of them says, okay, coach, and then learns from it and improves a little bit right there, accepts it and then gets better from it, learns that doesn't make that mistake again. The other player says, well coach, I. But he did this and then that. But like then I thought that and then this and then you just kind of had to give an answer to your coach and didn't really take what they had to say, but kind of had to defend yourself and do all those things and you didn't actually get better from that. Okay, so you in hindsight went down, right? That guy who took the criticism and learned from it, he went up, right? His ability to impact winning, it's up here now. Okay, the player who didn't do that, they're down here because not only did they not take what their coach said, now they're probably going to be in that situation again and probably made that same mistake again. So now the coach is going to see that happen again. Then they're going to be like, okay, we'll get him out. Go put somebody else in so you have less time in the game to play. Maybe they get to a situation like that again, coach gives them, you know, some criticism. The one player takes it learning sermon gets better. Now he's up here and his ability to end back winning, although the player does the opposite, doesn't take it, has to give some sort of answer, he goes down. Now you have, you know, let's say that's over a full season. You've got one players up here, one player who's down here simply because one of them takes criticism well and learns from the other one doesn't. So the importance of being coachable guys cannot be overstated. It's one of the most important qualities for you to have as a player if you want to be successful as you can possibly be long term. Very, very, very important because coaches trust guys who are coachable who they know they can. They can get on about certain things because that guy's going to take it, respond and ultimately help a team win more. They don't trust players who aren't like that because they know that player ultimately does not really care about the team. They just don't really care. They care about themselves looking good and they care about being right and they care about all these sort of things. They don't care about the team winning. So that's another thing to ask of are you coachable? Do you take criticism well or do you always have something to say to your coach, do you always, you know, coach, always getting on me about this? And then, and then you aren't actually able to, you aren't able to actually step back and take a look and say, hey, you know what? He might be right on that. Or maybe he's saying that to me because he wants me to be better. And that's kind of the thing, guys with coaches, like, there's very few people that you'll come across who directly benefit from you being as good as you possibly can be in life. There's just not that many people who do. But your coach, he directly is benefited by you being as good as you possibly can be. A lot of people in life, they. Now, this isn't really true, but a lot of people think that, you know, you, you know, somebody else being better or getting better, that's a threat to them. So people aren't really, like, A lot of people won't tell you the truth about things. They're not going to help you as much as they probably could, right? Because they, they might see that as threatening to them. A coach, he's going to help you as much as he can because the better you are, the better he is, the better you are, the better his team is, the better you are, the more games that he gets, he wins. And that's what you know, that's, that's what you like. You, you play to win the game. So if you want to have winning teams, you're going to make sure your players are in the best position to be successful. And so once you, once you recognize that, that basically everything your coach says is in the interest of winning and you being better so you can help the team win, then you start to take, to go, to get away from being, being offended and taking things personally and saying, hey, you know what? This is with my best interest in mind because the better I am, the better my coach looks. And your coach knows that, right? So be able to take coaching, be able to be coachable, and that's going to make a big impact for you as well. And then obviously, you know, are you a guy who's around the off season? Has your coach seen you put the reps in, right? Or, you know, because listen, if you get into a season you weren't around the off season, you start missing a bunch of shots, your coach might say, hey, you guys, to stop shooting that shot, right? If they, but if you're, if you were in the whole offseason, your coach is seeing you shoot the ball, he knows you can make shots. You might get a little more leniency when you start, you know, you get into a slump, right? You might, you know, you might have your first five. First five games. You might miss every shot you take. But your coach saw you in the summer putting those reps in. He's seen you make a lot of shots, so he knows, like, hey, you know, he'll get it together and you're going to have that benefit of the doubt. But if you don't do that, then it's tough for you. Your coach should be able to say that to you. So that's something to think about. And then, you know, obviously, that's all stuff in your end. There's a lot of stuff you can control to make your situation better. But at the end of the day, you know, there could be times too, where it's not really on you, where you've got to be able to say, hey, you know what? Maybe this is. My coach just isn't very good. And like I said before, like, when I'm watching that AU tournament, I see a lot of coaches who just flat out shouldn't be coaching. Like, they shouldn't be. They're just. They're not. They aren't good coaches. And, you know, at that point, there's always. You have to make that decision, sort of like, you know, do I want to play for this guy? Like, are there other opportunities for me? Especially when it comes to, like, AAU and travel ball, like, there's so many teams out there. So if you have a coach who's bad, who's always, you know, you know, really negative, always berating players, always putting players down not in the interest of making them better, but in the interest of, like, proving a point, then that's where you kind of have to make that decision. Like, okay, is there a better option for me? But ultimately, that needs to come after you first say, hey, I'm maximizing all the things that I control. And ultimately, that's the best way to kind of deal with coaches who are bad or who you disagree with or who you don't get along with. Um, and again, if you want to make sure that you maximize the amount of playing time that you get, the amount of opportunities that you have, then make sure those controllables. Your effort, your. Your coachability, how, you know, you showing up to things and you being able to impact winning, ultimately those are going to be at the forefront of what you do, and everything else is going to kind of fall into place. So hopefully this helps you guys out Like I said, guys, leave a review. Let me know what you think. If you guys are on YouTube right now, drop a comment for me. Give me your thoughts on this. Give me your experiences. If I missed something, let me know about it. And again, like I said, there's. There's no. You know, I'm giving you guys some generalities. Obviously, there's coaches out there. Like I said, there's coaches out there who are bad coaches. And there's not much you can do about those type of coaches other than go play for a new team. So, listen, I'm not one of those people who's like, oh, you know, you got to stick it out. You got to go. No, if you have an opportunity to go play for a different team with a better coach, then go do it. I'm all for it. But also, you can't blame like. Like, you have to know the difference between a coach who is trying to win and a bad coach, because they're not the same thing. But a lot of players are like, oh, I don't. He's a bad coach. He doesn't play me. He's a bad coach. He's let me shoot. Well, why is that? Right? There's a difference right there. So, again, hopefully this helps you guys out. And like I said, give me a follow on Instagram, send me a DM if you have any questions for me, and any sort of podcast suggestions, topics. All that hit my DMs as well. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.