I Built an AI Basketball Coach… and It’s Scary Good

I started Vision Driven Basketball six years ago and since then I've coached thousands of players online and hundreds more in person. I've broken down film, helped players solve a ton of their problems and make huge improvements. I've created high level shooting programs, ball handling programs, and overall skill development programs. And on top of that, I've created Basketball IQ Academy, which is the go to spot. In order to become a high impact player and understand how to play with more confidence, more consistency, become a better scorer creator and, and find a way to take your game to the next level. I've created hundreds of YouTube videos, hundreds of podcast episodes ranging on a ton of different topics, and I've gotten a ton of positive feedback from players who have completely transformed their game through a variety of these different avenues. And now I've taken everything that I've learned and I've created a clone of myself called Coach Ethan AI. Now this is a super powerful tool and it's going to help you to gain clarity, gain focus on, understand what you should be doing, get feedback, try and figure out areas where you're stuck or where you're not improving and give you a roadmap to be able to accomplish those things. And so today I'm going to test it. I'm going to answer a basketball question and then I'm going to ask Coach Ethan AI that same question and I'm going to see how similar the answers are. Like I said, I've created this clone to have all of the information that I've acquired over the years. So I'm excited to see how this goes. One of the reasons that I created this is because, because I get so many questions from players and parents every Single day through DMS, YouTube comments, TikTok, DMS emails, you name it. And as much as I try to get to everything, it's hard to do that. And so I wanted to create this as a way for players, parents to be able to go, have these questions answered, be able to get a detailed and personal response that you're going to be able to take and apply to your own situation. So let's go through the first question. So for this one, I wanted to make it seem like I was a player asking Coach Ethan AI about a specific situation. So in this case, I'm a shooting guard who's a good shooter, but I struggle to drive to the basket. What do I need to do to get better at this? And so first, this is just my answer off top of my head when I thought about this. Question number one, understand the Best situation to drive. So hunting advantages, momentum advantages, attacking closeouts. If you watch a lot of my videos, you know what I mean by that hunting turtle or mouse situation. So a size advantage or an athleticism advantage. Another great time to hunt a drive. Number two, knowing when to drive. So be willing to be patient. Understand that, like, the first time you touch the ball is going to be the hardest time for you to drive, because the defense is, for the most part, usually going to be in a pretty good position. They don't have to rotate at all yet. So if you touch it two or three times in a possession, it's going to get easier each time that you touch it. So patience is important as well. Number three, I just had get stronger and more athletic, so hit the weight room, be able to handle more contact and more resistance on your drives. Number or number four, become a more adaptable finisher. So be able to finish with either hand off of one foot, off of two feet. Put yourself in those situations so that you figure out what works best for you in those different situations. And then number five, I said play more live and make it your focus when you play. So could be one on one, could be three on three, five on five. But when you're doing those things, go in there purposefully where you're. You're thinking to yourself, okay, I probably could shoot this corner, three, and I would probably make it because it's what I'm good at. But I'm going to pass up on what I'm good at to drive and work on something that I'm not quite as good at. And what that means is that you're going to fail more, you're going to make more mistakes, but you're going to also learn a lot faster by making those mistakes. You'll figure out what works for you, what doesn't work for you, when the best times for you are to drive and when you know, maybe it's not a great time to drive or what areas you need to get better at so you can focus on them in your training going forward. So, again, this is just kind of off the top of my head what I came up with. Now we'll ask Coach Ethan AI and see how similar the answer is. All right, so here we are inside of Coach Ethan AI and there's a few options right here. When you first look at it, there's some suggested questions for you to kind of, you know, guide you or kind of help you understand, like, what kind of questions can I ask? What are some important areas to think About So we have all that right there. We can use text or voice when we're communicating. So now we'll ask coach Ethan AI that same question question and see what kind of answer we get back here. I'm a shooting guard who's a pretty good shooter, but I struggle to consistently drive to the basket successfully. Can you tell me how I can get better at this? So first we got a question back asking for a little bit more context. So you're a pretty good shooter, but driving to the basket consistently is where you're struggling. What do you think is holding you back the most is your ability to beat your defender off the dribble, finish through contact, maybe recognize the right moments to attack. So it's kind of already thinking the same way that, that, you know, I kind of pinpointed earlier. I'm struggling with all of those things. Could you go into detail on it? All right, so here's the answer that we got. It went, it went into pretty, pretty big detail on all this sort of stuff. So number one, it talks about hunting closeout. So big one is a shooter specifically because you know when you're a good shooter, you're going to get closed out harder, often off balance, are over committed. Then it talks about a drill that you can use for it and then kind of a way to apply it right there. So that's, that's, that's good. That's right on, on par there. Improving your first step. So kind of talking about becoming a better athlete, working on explosive movements. Number three, playing through contact. So again going back to, you know, getting bumped, talking about building strength in the weight room. Number four, expanding your finishing package. So again becoming a more adaptable finisher, being able to finish in a variety of different ways, play more one on one. So learning on how to, you know, not just physically do it, but also make the decision on how I'm going to attack, when I'm going to attack, what that's going to look like right here. The talk about playing with constraints, which is actually great that it's talking about that. So specific rules on your one on one to be able to more accurately apply this sort of stuff. And talking about attacking defenders weaknesses, understanding when to drive. So again that's a big thing right there. Give them some drills for that, some keys in terms of looking for, you know, for what to look for. Talking about improving your handle, talking about being willing to make that kick out pass when you drive if the defense steps over. Because you know, a lot of times that's where Players struggle as well. Studying film of, of players who are really great drivers. I gave John Moran and Shea as an example right here and then kind of repping these things too. So like we talked about figuring out what works for you and you know, what doesn't work for you. It covered everything that I covered and actually went a little bit more in depth into a couple other things as well. So I think one, one for one so far in terms of answers. So I'm going to see if they can take all that and if it can give us like a 30 day plan to follow. This is good. Can you lay out a 30 day plan that incorporates all of this that I can follow? All right, so it gave us a 30 day plan here. So it looks like it has a balance of skill work, live play, physical conditioning, building a solid foundation. So Monday, talking ball handling, first step explosiveness, finishing through contact strength training. Tuesday we get into some one on one stuff. So now working on coming off of a closeout or off the dribble and again focusing on attacking that defender's weakness or that advantages you might have small sided games. Then Wednesday back to skill development. Now we have shooting off of drives, working on that closeout killer and finishing strength training, some one on one stuff and back to ball handling focus first step focus on Friday, conditioning. Saturday and some finishing focus now working on attacking from different angles. So getting a little bit of variability in your finishing workout. And then Sunday looking at rest and film study. So again focusing on a player who's really good at it and just looking at the details of what they do and then you know, recovery as well. Some additional tips, track your progress, adjust as needed and sickness for 30 days, you'll see noticeable improvement. So I think that's really good as well. Touches on a lot of the major points that you know are the same as my answer right there. Like I said, Every YouTube video podcast I've ever made I've put into this, I've trained it on. So I know it's also going to continue to get better as there's more and more that gets added to it. But I think this is really good and this will definitely help you get a lot better. And not just that, but it gives you some clarity for your specific situation on what you should be focusing on. So again when we compare something like that to where most players are at, which is they get on YouTube or online and they try and piece together all these random pieces of content and this trainer, that trainer and they try and come up with a plan and there's so many different moving pieces. They don't know what should I focus on, what should I not focus on? What's important, what's not, what's right, what's wrong. This tool helps us simplify that a ton. So there also is like a voice feature as well. So I'll give that one a try where you can essentially talk to me as Coach Ethan AI. So I have a question for you. I am struggling in my AAU games to score consistently. I feel like I'm not getting the ball enough and I'm just not getting enough opportunities. So what can I do to get more opportunities and be able to score more consistently? The first thing to focus on is creating those opportunities for yourself. A lot of players think scoring is just about having the ball in their hands. But the truth is now if you want access to Coach Ethan AI and a lot more, then you're going to want to check out the High IQ Playmakers Club. This is brand new. I'm super excited to announce it. It's my monthly membership where you'll get access to support and coaching that are going to help you to take your game to the next level. Like I said, so many players out there struggle and feel stuck because they don't know who to listen to, they don't know how to get feedback. And maybe they feel like they're doing something wrong, they're missing something, but there's nobody to go to and ask that. So you feel stuck. You feel like you're. You're putting in work and you're not seeing the results or you're not making the improvements that you feel like you should. Sometimes what you need is coaching. You need support. And that's what I want to offer inside of this membership. So obviously you'll have access to Coach Ethan AI, which is going to again give you the opportunity to ask those questions and Receive immediate feedback 247 whenever you might need it. And that alone is to be super valuable. Inside this membership we also have a community aspect. So it's a place that I built and designed for serious basketball players who not only want that coaching, but want to be surrounded by other serious players who are on the same path as them. So you have the opportunity to ask questions, to post your game film or receive, receive feedback on that, talk about your successes where you're struggling. I'm also posting weekly film breakdowns and deep dives and, and we have a monthly members only call where we'll break down film and we'll have like an open Q and A aspect of it as well. I'm also going to be looking for film from members to be able to break down sometimes in these calls, sometimes I'll just break them down and post them inside of the community as well. So a really good way to not just have access to me through Coach Ethan AI, but have access to me personally on those monthly live calls and through those film breakdowns and then just in the community as well. I'm in there responding to comments and posting and giving feedback and all that sort of stuff. It's everything you need to get high level coaching, high level support at a fraction of the price of what it would normally cost. Now you don't have to guess on what you should be working on, what's working, what's not working. The saying that I've been using is that if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And the HI IQ Playmakers Club is designed to help you take things as far as you can and to achieve your goals. So if you're interested in that, that's going to be linked down below. Hopefully I'll see you in there. Appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.