Key Things Basketball Trainers NEED To Understand (That A LOT Don't)

There's so much that you guys talk about, and I'm saying you guys, you and Coleman with mastery hoops, and you with your own stuff as well. When it comes to different aspects of training or coaching or, you know, helping players learn, you know, whether it could be like, you know, external versus internal queuing, or it could be block versus variable or whatever, you know, what are some. What would you say would be some key things that maybe a lot of trainers don't understand right now when it comes to actually helping their players get better? What. Or just things that you say in general, like, okay, these are like three things. Like, you have to know these things. Like, you have to have a good grasp on these areas.

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing that's lacking in training is just skill acquisition. Like, and just like us being teachers in general, like, you wouldn't to be a teacher in a school system, you have to go through a process. You have to go to school to be a teacher, to be a trainer. There's nothing. Right. You can just know basketball and people think you know how to teach, and they're two totally different things. Knowing basketball, knowing how to teach and coach, two totally different things. So I think the biggest thing is just knowing how to get people results from a scientific perspective instead of just taking it from. This worked for me. I've seen this work. This is what I've been told. So I'm just going to do that. So I think the biggest thing is just understanding how everything that we do and say as coaches affects the player development process and how quickly or how slowly this player evolves and how efficiently that we can get these players results in games. Sure, sure.

And I think I definitely agree with that. And I think one of the things that I see a lot now coaching is I train, but I also coach with a high school team. And so you're just exposed to a whole bunch of different coaches all the time. Whether it be you walk into a gym for an away game and you see a team that's practicing or finishing up or whatever, or whatever. In the off season, if it's a. You like, you're walking around seeing all these different teams, these facilities, practicing or doing whatever, and you like, you see it like, you see this the same stuff where it's like, oh, yeah, you'll see the, okay, hey, this is what we did because I did it, or I'm looking at something being done and I'm like, there's so many better ways to do it, but it's like we Feel like what was said in the 1980s, the 1990s, 2000s, like, that's where we've got to stop. That's where, like, they figured it out. Then there's no way to improve on any sort of thing. And it's almost like. It's almost like basketball training. And I even would compare it to, like, other sport, like baseball. To me, I was talking about this a couple of weeks ago. I did an episode on internal was external focus. And like with baseball, like, so many of the cues are externally focused was like, okay, squash the bug under your foot. Or it's. Show the picture, your belt buckle. Or like, whatever. There's. There was all these different ones. When I looked up, like, baseball cues, it was like everything was external. And I was like, what? When I played baseball, when I was like, nine years old, I still remember some of these. And then you compare that to basketball, where everything's internal. Like, almost every. Almost everything. Okay. It's like, okay, you gotta snap your wrist, you gotta make sure you fully extend your elbow. And. And it's not necessarily that. Like, you know, you can never do that, but it's like baseball. It's almost found a way where I can. I don't. I haven't played baseball since then, but I remember those cues. And I think. I think that says a lot right there. But it's like with basketball, it's almost. We're kind of stuck. It feels like even in comparison to different sports. Weightlifting was another one. But I think with. That's kind of one aspect. But also, like, when you look at, you know, skill acquisition, it's like there's all this science out there, and there's not a ton of coaches out there who are, like, diving into that.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah. I think. I think the biggest thing to, like, sum that point up is, like, especially in basketball, people think because it worked, that we should keep doing it. But it's like, to what degree did it work? Is there a better way to do it? And I don't think that enough coaches really explore that. Like, oh, I can do the mic and drill, and it helps players get better, but could I do something else in that same amount of time that's going to help them get 25% better than if I was to do the mike and drill? And I just think that's a question that, like, not enough coaches and trainers even think about. And then if they did, then they would try to find a way to. To do it better through the science and through things like that.

Yeah. So kind of going with that, going with the mic and drill. I know you posted about this pretty recently where it was just making some. Some upgrades to the mic and where you're almost adding in. I think variability is the good word to use here, where it's not just repeating the same thing over and over and over again. Because to a point, once you have the initial mastery of that, like, what kind of value are you getting out of that? So when we talk about adding challenge to drills, and I think you can kind of speak on this, why is it important for trainers and for players to add variability or add challenge to these drills? And what are some kind of simple ways that you can do this with a drill, like the Mikan, for example?

So I think the common misconception. Misconception is that we want to rep something until it's. Until you don't even have to think about it anymore. But once you get to that point, you're not going to see any more improvement, like you said, because there's no struggle. So when we struggle, that's when we can actually build a skill. So if, say, you're doing the mic and drill and you can already make 25 out of 25, you're not doing absolutely anything in terms of getting better because there's no struggle presented. So that's something that we talk about all the time with mastery. Hoops is like, how can we improve drills by adding ways or adding ways to make it tough, right? And I think one of the easiest ways to do that is just a bunch of different constraints. So I can use like. So say we're taking the mic and drill, for example. I can say I can use audio cues. That could be a constraint. Or I could use. We're shooting from a certain spot. So maybe instead of doing the mic and drill right under the hoop, we're taking it further outside the paint. So it's challenging that touch, right? Just adding some sort of a constraint to make it more difficult, and then that's how we're actually going to improve. But just simply doing something that you can already do and doing it on autopilot is just in no way. It doesn't matter what skill you're doing, you're not going to see improvement. You might maintain, you might build confidence, but you're just simply not going to.

Improve what's, like, the balance. Because I see there. There's some coaches who have taken this to a point where it's like, oh, no block ever. You never do block training. It's always gotta Be variable, always random. And then obviously you have kind of the normal, like, status quo, which is the other end of that spectrum, which is almost everything's blocked. There's nothing that's varied or challenging. So what is kind of your. Like, how do you find a balance between those two things of, you know, not completely cutting off one end of it, but also making sure that, you know, they're kind of in the. That ideal sort of like, learning state?

I think. I think that part's more like of an art. So you understand the science. Okay, I need to use block practice at this point. I need to use variable practice at this point. And then that's the art of training, is being able to, at the right times, implement the right amount of challenge. So if I start with block shooting, say, for example, and it's too easy, I might add one layer of variability where, okay, they're moving spots every single time. If that's still too easy, just add another layer of variability to that. Maybe I'm going to go jump shot and then floater. And then if they really struggle with that, that's kind of that sweet spot where it's difficult but not too difficult. I'm going to stay in that zone. And then again, if it becomes too easy, we stretch it even more. So we just want to operate as much as we can. If we're looking for improvement in that optimal zone of improvement where it's not too easy, where they go on autopilot and they're not thinking, but it's not too difficult, where they're failing every single rep and they just get frustrated.