How To Get More Playing Time - Podcast Episode 15

Welcome to the Vision Driven Basketball Training podcast. Thank you guys for tuning in today. Going to get into a great topic that I know is really going to help you guys out. Before we get into that, though, if you're on Apple Podcasts right now, if you could scroll down to the bottom of the page and leave a review for me, that would be great. Let me know what you think. And for those of you guys who are on YouTube, go ahead and leave a like and subscribe if you're new as well. Got a new podcast coming every single week, so be on the lookout for that. And, you know, I always say this at the end of the. The episodes, but if you guys ever have questions for me, really, all the, all of the podcasts that I make, every, every segment of it comes from questions that, I guess if you have questions for me, let me know. My best way to do that is to DM me on Instagram @visiondriven basketball. Best way to make sure that I'll see it. And, you know, without further ado, we'll hop into it. So today I kind of want to break down, give you guys a full breakdown on how to get more playing time, because this is an issue that, you know, obviously a ton of players have, and I get a lot of questions on, you know, how do I get more playing time? And, you know, it's a very multifaceted response. Right. You know, the reason players work so hard in the offseason is so that they can produce at a high level on the court. Right. But if you don't get on the court, then you don't have a chance to produce at a high level. Right. So how can you get onto the court? And we're going to talk about the exact steps you need to take to make sure you can do that if that's what you're struggling with right now. And, you know, a lot of players really feel like, you know, they've worked super hard in the offseason, and then they come back and they aren't getting the playing time that they think that they deserve. And so we're going to talk step by step and going to break down exactly what it's going to take for you to get more playing time. So, you know, when it comes to this answer, it's. It's never a one size fits all for this specific problem. And I'm going to give you guys a few different things you need to think about for yourself. So if you need to pause this episode at all and give it a thought as to oh, is this me? Like, can I relate to this? Have I been in the situation? Do that. Okay. It's going to help you in the long run. So you can, you know, you can gain and lose playing time for multiple reasons, for many different reasons. So one player probably won't be the same as another player. And so keep that in mind as we're going through this and be honest with yourself throughout all these as well. And, you know, that being said, though, many of these things I'm going to talk about are things that a lot of players struggle with generally. So I'm sure that there'll probably be multiple that may apply to you and that you may need to address if you, if you want to get more playing time. You, you know, but before we even get into that, you know, the first thing to understand is that most coaches, the vast majority of coaches just want to win games. That's. That's what they care about. They just want to win games. They don't have any motives against you personally. They don't really care about anything other than winning games. When it, you know, when it comes down to it, obviously they're. I'm not saying that winning is the only thing, especially at youth level, right, where it's not necessarily like there's jobs on the line, but coaches want to win games, so they're going to put players on the floor who they feel like, give them the best chance to win games. Ultimately, with good coaches, with the majority of coaches, even coaches who might not be great, all of them want to win, okay? And they're going to put out the players who they think give them the best chance to do that. Now, obviously, there may be exceptions to that. I understand not every situation is the same, but for the vast majority of coaches, so most, more than likely, if you're listening to this or watching this, probably you, like, you probably fall into that category. Your coach probably just wants to win and doesn't really. He doesn't hate you for any reason. He just might pick somebody else over you because he thinks they give. They give him better chance to win. More than likely, that's. That's the case. So understand that. First of all, a major theme we're going to go through throughout this podcast is the theme of honesty. Okay? Because it's very, very important that you guys are honest with yourselves when it comes to what I'm gonna tell you. You know, when you're thinking to yourself, like, you know, answering, oh, is this me? Have I done this? Is this something that I change? Like, it's not gonna help you or anybody to. To lie to yourself about anything, okay? This is a time where you need to be honest. You need to say, like, yeah, you know what? I probably could have done that better. I probably could do better at this. I probably need to change my focus and do this now. Okay? This is something that you all need to think about because that's the first step to getting in this. If you're not willing to be honest with yourself, then is this a waste of your time? Okay? And you're not going to be able to get better. That's the first part of moving past where you've been and getting to where you want to get to is being honest with yourself and figuring out what these actual. What the problem is. Okay? And you need to ask yourself, first of all, do you actually deserve more playing time or do you just want more playing time? There's a difference between those two things. If you deserve more playing time, it's because you feel like you've earned that playing time. You feel like when you've been put in situations to produce, you've done it. You feel like there's nothing. There's no exterior factors that you've neglected that would cause you to not play. There are no. There are no other things that would prevent you from getting more time. That is a case where maybe you feel like you deserve it, but if. And also maybe you're better, maybe skill wise, you do deserve it. Okay? But that is different from wanting more playing time. You can want to play, but are you good enough to play? Are you better than the other players who are getting more time than you? Okay? Are you. We're gonna break down the. Some of some more reasons why you might not be getting playing time. But at the end of the day, it all comes back to being honest with yourself and where you're at. If you are sitting behind a bunch of players who are better than you, then there's no, like, you can't be upset with that, right? Because again, coaches want to win. They're gonna play the best players. So you can't be upset about anything like that. So you have to ask that question for yourself. And you know, everybody. Everybody wants to play more. Everybody wants to play more, but not everybody deserves to play more. Okay? Ultimately, I mean, end of the day, there's only five players on the court at one time, right? So not everybody can get more playing time. And, and like I said, not everybody puts in the work to actually deserve more playing time, okay? And you know, it really is a matter of being honest, you know? Sure. A lot of you probably have heard of Dre Baldwin, who's on YouTube. You know, former pro player, does a lot of kind of motivational stuff now. But, you know, Dre's a guy that I was watching back when I was probably 12 or 13 years old. So, man, it's been a while. But I just read an email from him the other day where he was talking about one of his teammates, I believe it was back in high school, where he, you know, his teammate was basically, like, going off to his coach about how, oh, what coach, I should be playing more, Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, the coach was like, okay, cool. And so the dude got to play way more the next game, and he turned the ball over more than 10 times. And at that point, his Dre's teammate was like, oh, okay, I get it. And then there was no more. There was no more discussion about it. Okay. Moral of the story is, be careful for what you ask for. You know, you might want more playing time, but are you ready to actually get more playing time? Are you good enough to actually be put in a position to do that, or are you going to be that guy? Right, because if that's. If that were the case, it was just a case of, oh, I just got to go sit. Coach, I should be playing more. Coach, I need more playing time. But you're not actually good enough to get it. That. That could be you right there. And at the end of the day, if a coach wants to win, he's not going to put his team in that position. Okay, that's just a quick story, kind of illustrate that point. You know, the other thing to consider is maybe you are good enough. Maybe. Maybe from a skill perspective, maybe you have the prerequisite skills that maybe are better than some other people on your team. Now, you need to consider what role you might be filling or not filling. Okay? You need to consider the system that you guys play in, right? So, you know, if you can only play big man and you can't shoot and you can't dribble, but your coach likes to play, you know, a five out with five guys who can shoot and dribble, well, it's gonna be tough for you to get as much playing time as you might want, because obviously, you don't fill the role that your coach wants. Okay, maybe there's gonna be some times where he might go with the big or something like that, but generally, you're gonna be kind of. Kind of stuck in A specific area that your coach might not like to go to all that often, okay? So be cognizant of that. Maybe it's a case where, you know, you're a great ball handler, okay? But maybe you're the third string point guard because the two point guards ahead of you can both shoot the ball better. All right, maybe you, maybe you're a better ball handler than them, but you can't shoot it as well. And maybe your coach has a system where he needs everybody on the floor to be able to shoot the basketball, especially his guards. If you can't do that, you just don't fill the exact role that that coach might have. Maybe there are other teams where they just want their point guard to bring the ball up, get the offense going and let their wings or the bigs do the scoring. Maybe that's a system. And, you know, in that case, maybe if you're more of a shooter, then maybe you don't fit well in that system, okay? Maybe you don't fit well as that point guard. So you really need to consider, what does your team run? What does your coach want out of his players? What. What roles do each, does each player fill? You know, if there's a person who you think is worse than you, who's playing, ask yourself why it is that they're playing. Do they do something better than you? And that might not even be necessarily skill wise. Are they better at communicating than you? Do they talk on the floor? Okay, do they take charges? Are they always in the right position on defense? Do they run the floor hard? Do they rebound the ball? Well, those are all things to consider. That, that can give a player who you might feel is worse than you more playing time than you because he just happens to fill a specific role that that coach wants, okay? So that's something to consider as well. It's not just about your skills and abilities. It's about the role that your coach needs to fill. He's going to put guys in those specific roles that are going to help him to win the game. And if he doesn't feel like you can do that for him, you're not going to play as much. Okay? So this can be for literally any skill. And, you know, that's something that needs to be considered because that is more of a big picture thing. Okay? You know, from your perspective, you're like, okay, I'm this good. I should be getting this much time. But your coach is thinking, okay, we're gonna run this and this and we're gonna build to This, I want these specific guys with these specific skill sets to be doing this for me, okay? The next thing to think about is your habits in practices and pregame. This is, this is such a big part. And unfortunately, I think a lot of players ignore this. You know, it all starts with did you show up for team workouts in the offseason? Right? Because unless you have a legitimate reason as to why you didn't or why you couldn't, that that's, there's no. If you didn't do that, there's no reason for you to complain about lack of playing time. Because to a lot of coaches it just shows a lack of you really caring all that much. Okay? And that's one thing right there. But also at the end of the day, coaches are going to go with guys that they're familiar with because they're going to trust them more. We're going to talk about trust a little bit more, but they trust those guys more. They've seen them more, they've been around them more. They're going to get the benefit of the doubt over you. Even if again, you might be a little bit better, he might just trust that other guy more than he trusts you. And at that point, because you didn't show up, that's an issue, okay? So playing time equals trust, alright? When you get more playing time, it's because your coach trusts you more. If you get less playing time, it's because your coach doesn't trust you as much. Okay? And as a coach, you know, we don't want to depend on somebody who we can't trust, right? Even really in anything, you don't depend on somebody if you don't feel like you can trust them to get the job done. It's the same thing in basketball. You're not going to put a player in a position to play a lot of minutes if you don't trust that he can produce for you, okay? Unless you absolutely have to play that person. And that being said, we can talk about your habits in practice, okay? Do you show up late to practice? That's a big one, right? Do you have respect for your coach's time, for your teammates time? Are you constantly late to things? Are you constantly to meetings or to film sessions? Or if you're supposed to be at the game an hour before, are you constantly only there 45 minutes before when you get to practice? Are you the guy who's just launching half court shots, kind of messing around waiting for practice to start? Or are you overworking on some sort of skill that you're trying to get better at or that you need to have ready to go for that day. Okay. There's a big difference. You can tell in players who prepare and players who don't. And that is a major factor when it comes to who you can trust. Do you miss practices often? Right. Is there a million reasons for why? Oh, I had a doctor's appointment. Oh, I had to do this. Oh, I had that. I had this. I was. Are you missing a bunch of practices? Because again, if you're missing practices, you're immediately you're going to lose out on trust from your coaches because you're not going to be going through the sets they're running. You're not gonna be going through the drills that you're going through. You're not going through the game plan that they're gonna do. So how can you expect to play if you're missing practices? If you're being late to practices, if you're, if you are not respecting the time of your team, it's gonna be tough for you to really have a leg to stand on when you want more playing time. Do you give great effort in practice or is it a day to day thing? You know, if you're a little bit tired or if you don't really feel like practicing, are you kind of, you know, going 50%, going 75% that day? If you are upset that you didn't play as much the night before, do you, do you kind of slack off and not really care about anything in practice? That's something that again, you have to be consistent. If you are not consistently, if you're not consistent with your effort and your practices, it's tough for coaches to trust you with that as well. And that's something you need to consider. Do you complain about things in practice? Do you complain about having to run? Do you complain about having to play this position? Do you complain about having to do this or having to do that? That to me is self explanatory and hopefully that's not you because again, if that's you and you're complaining about playing time, then that should be your answer for you right there. That's why you're not playing. Do you accept criticism from your coaches and use it to make you better? So this is something that a lot of players, especially these days, struggle with, is just taking criticism and using it. Because criticism is a very good thing. I've talked about this before on my podcast all the time, but being criticized by your coaches is really the best thing that could happen to you. Because again, at the end of the day, coaches want to win games. So they want their players to be as good as possible and as ready as possible so that they can win games, they can be in the best position to win games. So your coaches want you to be at your best. So everything they do is with that in mind. They're saying, if I'm going to criticize or yell at this, at this player, it's because I want them to get this so they can play better, so that our team can play better. So, you know, coaches are one of those rare people in your life that, like, you being your best directly helps them, right? So therefore, there's not, like, there's no reason for them to do something to sabotage you or to push you down or to, you know, for no reason, right? There's going to be a purpose behind it. So if you're able to take that criticism and listen to what they're actually saying, you know, maybe you get yelled at, but instead of being upset because coach yelled at you, think about, like, what is he actually saying to me, though? You know, maybe he yelled at me, but he was actually saying, hey, you need to. You need to get farther over into help so that you're in a position to take a charge. Maybe that was what he was saying to you. Now you need to do that and be able to take it and do better. Maybe he yelled at you for something and, you know, but. But actually what he was yelling at you for was he wants you to sprint the lanes, right? He wants you to sprint the lanes so you can get out in transition and you guys can get layups and get open shots in transition, okay? So consider those things, like when players can't take criticism again, to a coach means I can't trust them, right? I can't trust them in the heat of battle. They're going to be. They're going to be spending time being offended over things instead of taking what I'm saying and using it to be better, okay? Because the best teams are teams that aren't, that don't have guys who get their feelings hurt by their coaches coaching them, right? So is that you? Because if that is, that's a problem, and that will cost you. That will cost you playing time. Do you communicate with your teammates on the practice floor? Are you vocal on the court? Do you talk on defense? Are you encouraging your teammates? You know, when you're going through drills, are you a person that your coach, again, can trust? That's how you develop that trust as well, being vocal, doing all those little things on the floor. And if you don't do those things, then again, that's something that you're missing out on. And end of the day, are you focused and locked in the whole time, right? Do you go up and down? Does your effort vary up and down throughout practice? Does your focus vary up and down through a practice? Do you zone out a lot? Do you make, do you make repeated mistakes because you aren't focused? That's a problem as well. And a lack of any of these. Right. Can cause you to lose trust with your coaches. And therefore it's going to cause you to lose playing time. And, you know, again, an example might be you show up to practice late. You know, every couple practices you're late. Like, you're just constantly late. And now all of a sudden, like, your coaches, like, they're thinking about man, like, why is he always late, right? His teammates all show up on time, but you're late, okay? Like that, that, that's an issue if you miss, you know, you're missing practices time and time again. When you're having doctor's appointment schedule during practice, like when you're, when you're showing that your first priority is not basketball, that's a problem as well. You know, if, if your coach says, you know, if your coach criticizes you and gets on you about something and you just, you shut down and you decide, like, you know what, whatever coach, and that's your response to it, then they're going to lose trust in you as well. There's all these things that happen during practices that put you in position to actually get playing time in games. And if you mess up those things, you're going to lose out on that. So I kind of mentioned it before, but we can also talk about pregame. You know, are you the last one to get out of the locker room to go warm up? Right? Are you, are you the one who's kind of goofing around, doing whatever, just hanging out before the game again, shooting crazy shots that you're never going to shoot in a game, just messing around, ready to go if that's you. And then you get to the game and you're not playing as much? That's an issue you need to fix. Your approach to the game needs to be better. And this is something that I see coaching youth basketball, coaching high school basketball is a lot of times players who want more playing time also are the ones who have the worst habits, okay? Because especially those players who, ability wise, might be able to have more playing time. Usually the reason they don't is because their habits are not good. And so as a coach, I'm like, I'm not going to play you over this other kid because he has a better approach in practice, he takes criticism better, he does these things better. I trust him more if things go poorly than I trust you. Okay, because you don't. Because you don't show me those habits on a day to day basis. And I don't have that trust in you. So if your habits aren't good, don't expect your coaches to trust you more. Just, just. It's not like, it's not how life works. So, so that's got to change. And then we can talk about. In games, right? If you get put into a game and you know, you mess up a play or you forget a rotation or you make some other extremely avoidable mental mistake, like, and then you know that's something that will keep you off the floor because your coach is going to put you in. You finally get your chance to prove yourself. You go in there, you don't know the play, you don't know the play call. Well, what's your coach supposed to do? You know, like he's going to go back to the guy who was already playing ahead of you and knows the play. Okay, you need to. And I talked about this in my podcast, I believe it was two weeks ago, where I talked about essentially, you know, what is, what is. You know, it was like 95, how to put, how to separate yourself from 95% of other players. And it was all about controlling those things you get, you can control with like knowing the plays. Okay? Because again, if, if that's your thing, and it's the crazy thing to me is like, players will be like, coach, I feel like I should play more. Then they get put in the game and they don't know what they're doing. Like, you don't know the plays, you don't know the defenses, you don't know any of the calls. So clearly you haven't been playing, you haven't been paying attention in practice or doing anything extra to learn anything or asking any questions or retaining any sort of information. So you can't be like, again, don't be ready for it, you know, like, like Dray Baldwin's teammate. Don't ask for something and then get it and then not be ready for it. That's another way to very, very, very quickly lose trust with your coaches. Especially if you go and have a conversation with Them about, hey, coach, you know, I really, you know, I want to know what I need to do to play more. And your coach gives you that opportunity, and you blow it, right? You blow it. You don't know the plays. You don't. You make some simple mental mistake that's very, very avoidable. Okay? To be honest with you, when I see that, to me, it makes me think, oh, he doesn't. Like, he doesn't care. Like, he doesn't really care about being here. Because if he did care, he'd know the plays. Knowing the plays is all about whether or not you want to know them, right? It's not, you know, obviously you're gonna miss shots, you're gonna turn the ball over, you're gonna do things, you're gonna get scored on. Sometimes those are unavoidable. But if you don't know the plays, to me, it makes me think, oh, you don't really care. Because if you did care, you go to practice, maybe you aren't getting in practices all that much to run through the plays, but. But you come talk to a coach after, have, you know, write out the plays on a piece of paper, and you'd study those plays so that when you're put in a position to do them, you can go in and you can. You can run those plays, right? So to me, it's like, you probably haven't. You probably don't really care all that much. Maybe that's not. Maybe that's not true. Maybe you do care, but that's the impression it gives off, and you don't. Again, you're gonna lose some trust right there, because there's a lot of trust right there, okay? So control those things that you can control, because that's how you know who cares and who doesn't is who controls the things that they have control over, who puts in the work, the time and the effort to actually do those things and who doesn't. So, you know, after you've done all this self evaluation, which, again, if you guys feel like you need to go back and listen to it again, maybe write down some stuff that you think applies to you, Think about it. Like, really take. Take. Take a minute to think about what exactly. Like what categories you might fall into with these, and after you've done all that, it can be helpful to go to your coach and ask them about it, okay? And there's a couple things you need to keep in mind when you do this, though. You do not want to go to them out of anger or resentment or being you know, just frustration. You want to be rational with your conversation. You want to, you know, tell them your, your points and ask them for what their thoughts on it are. Really, that's. That's what you want to do. You know, you want to. Here's how I would go about it. I would say, you know, I would say, hey, coach. You know, maybe you say, hey, coach, can we talk after practice? Or maybe after practice say, hey, coach, can I talk to you for a second? And you know, you say, and also, hey, once before we get to this real quick, don't do it after a game. Don't be one of the players who is going to your coach directly after a game, especially if you, I mean, really win or lose. Actually probably would be worse if you win. Don't go to your coach after, directly after a game and say, coach, what do you do to get more playing time? Don't do that. That's not a good look for you at all. That's really just going to. It's probably just going to piss off your coaches. To be honest with you. Like, I would not recommend that you do that. And what I would recommend is that if you're going to go talk to your coach about playing time, do it at least a day after the game. Okay? You can do it at practice, you can do it whenever. Don't go to them before a game and ask them about it. Don't go to them directly.