The BEST Basketball Players Are The BEST Problem Solvers (Podcast Episode 64)

Foreign welcome to the Vision Driven Basketball Training Podcast. Appreciate you guys who tuned in today on Apple Podcast or Spotify or wherever else you guys listen to podcasts. And of course everybody who's tuned in watching on YouTube, shout out to you guys. Make sure if you are new on YouTube, drop a like subscribe. And if you guys listening on Apple podcast, do me a favor, scroll down to the bottom of the page, leave a review, let me know what you think about the show. If you got. If I get a new review, I read at the beginning of the show. I don't have any new ones this week, so go ahead if you're new, you have not left a review. Let me know what you think. If you have any questions for me, ask it in the review and I'll read that on the show for you. So again, appreciate every single one of you guys who's listening. So today's episode, I wanted to go kind of a little bit more in depth to a topic that I was, I was thinking about today. Just finished up my first camp that I've run, which was a decision very, very heavily focused on decision making and some skills, some skill stuff as well, for sure. But it was all kind of based out of making decisions because, you know, the, you know, I talk about. But the most important thing, the most important skill is your ability to make decisions, right? Make the right decision as often as possible, okay? You can be the most skilled player in the world, but if you can't be put in a game and know when to use what, then it's like, it's almost useless having skills, right? So that aspect of it is super, super important. And a big thing we talked about the entire weekend was just making sure that you train to become an adaptable player, okay? If you can become adaptable and able to thrive when things are imperfect, that's when you'll have the baseline to be a great basketball player. Because the game of basketball is so imperfect, right? And what we have to get away from is thinking that we've got to try and make everything perfect in practice and everything. The game is imperfect, right? So this whole weekend, through the entire camp, I told everyone there, I was like, listen, guys, like, this weekend is going to be a weekend where you're going to make a lot of mistakes and you've got to learn how to deal with those mistakes, okay? Because mistakes happen in games. And you know, I see it myself, there are players who are very, very talented who, you know, they make a mistake or something goes wrong for them and they just can't handle it, right? They'll. They'll take themselves out of games. They'll completely lose all their confidence. Then at that point, no matter how good they are, it doesn't matter. Like, it's over for them. So being able to handle making mistakes is such a massive, massive key. That, that. And that was something that beta we talked about, but that was all in the context of, okay, guys, this weekend, you know where I'm going to put you guys in situations against defenders or against disadvantages where you might really struggle, right? You might lose the ball, you might turn over, you might get your shot blocked, you might miss some shots, okay? But we have to understand that that's actually best for you long term. You're learning how to adapt in these situations. You're learning how to figure stuff out. And that is the best thing that I can teach you, right? It's how you can actually become a player who is a problem solver. That's what I want to talk about today is being a player who's a problem solver. You know, me being a high school coach as well as a trainer, I get to see kind of both sides of things, both the improving the skills aspect of it and like the individual side, but also as a team, right? And at the end of the day, you got to think about it. You know, every coach out there is. Is coaching to win, right? They want to win games, right? So everybody who's. Who wants to. Whatever level you're going to, you want to start on your varsity team, okay? You want to get recruited to play college basketball, you've got to look at and say, okay, I know that if I can help my team or this team or that coach's team win more than these other options he has, I'm going to play, I'm going to make the team. I'm going to be like. That's what coaches ultimately want, is they want guys who are going to be the best options when it comes to helping them win games. So the goal of your training is to make you a player who impacts winning at a high level, okay? And so, you know, whether that be through some sort of skill, whether that be through, you know, it could even be just the way that you approach things, your leadership or. Or your work ethic, and maybe that positively impacts the people around you as well. There's plenty of ways you can impact winning aside from just, you know, scoring 20 points per game. There's plenty of other roles to fill as well. But when it comes down to it, one of the biggest things when it comes to building a team that wins, right? Every coach wants a team that wins. And to have a team that wins, you need players who are problem solvers, okay? If you can focus on becoming a problem solver, then you become a very, very in high demand player. A player that coaches absolutely need to have on their team. Because there's a lot of players out there who are not problem solvers. And what I mean by that is that a problem solver is somebody who can be put in a situation and be able to figure things out. They don't need the coach to call timeout every single time that something new gets thrown at them. They don't need to have their hand held through different things. They're not always looking for other people to blame in situations when things get difficult. They're constantly searching for ways to overcome problems that may come up. Okay? And that is maybe the biggest key to being a successful player is being able to be a problem solver. And that was a big message I left with with everybody who's at campus weekend, which is, guys, if there's one thing that this weekend's I hope taught you is that you like basketball is so much about finding solutions for things, being a person who brings solutions. Okay? So if a defender is guarding you and they're playing, you know, up in you, they're, they're, you know, really pressuring you, well, what's, what's the solution right there? Okay, what's the solution for a defender who's pressuring you? Well, could be a ton of different things. I get, I'll get DMs, like, all the time. And I'll have players who ask me, like, hey, coach, you know, a tall defender is guarding me. What should I do? And a lot of times it's like, I can't answer that question because you're sending me a dm. I don't know how good you are. I don't know what you're good at. I don't know how good that other player is. I don't know how big you are. I don't know how strong you are. Right? So I don't know. But that's one of those things where it goes back to being a problem solver. Right? Can you figure it out? Right. Can you figure out, okay, well, if I tried this and it didn't work, maybe they got to try this. Oh, okay, that works. Well, maybe I'll go back to that. Okay, now they figured that out. So now I got to go to this. Now I got to make this small adjustment, okay? So, you know, maybe let's go back to that same example. That player is pressuring you. Well, maybe you're able to, you know, rip through and get to your left side, right? You're able to take your space back as they're pressuring you, rip through and you beat them to the basket. Okay? Now, you know, maybe the next time they're, they're kind of ready for it, so maybe just give them a jab step the next time they jump to it. And now you're going the opposite way, okay? And now maybe the next time they respect a little bit more so they give you a little bit of space and, and then maybe you, you shoot the ball and then you make that, right? Now the next time you come down, maybe they, they're still giving you a little bit of space, but this time you go the shot fake, they jump for it and you drive by them that way. Okay? So that's, that's the process of figuring stuff out, right? One of the biggest things and that's, that's from this weekend at my camp that I saw and I see in general is just two foot finishing, right? I. I've made a video talking about the importance two foot finishing. And you know, anybody who, you know, you guys who watch March Madness this past year, watched Johnny Juzang from UCLA just absolutely go off and basically carry UCLA to the final four out of nowhere, every single finish he had that wasn't a dunk, every single finish that he had around the rim was off of two feet. Every single one that he had the entire time during March Madness, every single finish was off of two feet. And the reason for this is because it gives you so many options off of that. So, you know, for example, if we're working on a drill where, you know, you're attacking the basket and there's a help defender who's coming across the lane to try and contest you. If you try and go up off of one foot immediately every time without trying to throw off the defender's timing at all, and that defender keeps blocking you or keeps altering your shot, you keep on missing it. Well, maybe that's when you, you realize, okay, maybe I got to get the two feet right here and go with a shot fake so that they jump for the ball now. And now I can just finish right through it, right? I can just, I'll have an open layup because they already jumped into themselves out of the play. Okay? And so now, you know, again, we can get back to Two feet. Now maybe the next time you go to two feet and you pump fake, maybe they don't jump forward this time. Okay, so what's the solution? Right? Maybe you're able to step through, right? Step through the opposite side with a pivot. And maybe they aren't able to contest that as well. You get the finish, or maybe they foul you, or maybe you step through and you give another shot fake and they jump for that one and then you can just spin back around and now you've got another finish. Okay? This is, it's literally just the process of figuring stuff out as you play. And again, the players who are able to do that are the ones who are the most successful ones. And really the first key to this is just developing the mindset of not needing anybody to have to hold your hand through things, right? And that's not to say that you don't need help, right? It's, that's, of course, like, it's, it's always a good thing to ask somebody for help if you need it, but when it comes down to it, like, you gotta be willing to make some mistakes on your own, right? And you can't always have somebody around to blame for. You can always be like, well, you know what, I'll just, I'll, I'll, I'll ask that coach this and then if it doesn't work, then I'll, I can blame the coach for it, right? I don't have to blame myself for not being able to figure out, I can just blame a coach, right? That's not the mindset of somebody who is a problem solver. That's the, that's the mindset of somebody who is a problem creator for a team, yet doesn't bring any solutions. And teams with a lot of problem creators are teams that don't win, right? And so if you are a problem creator, then any coach who wants to win isn't going to, he's not going to be like, no coach is recruiting you to win if that's the way that you play, right? If, if, if they go to a game and they see that, okay, this guy's always complaining about this. He's always doing this. He's talking to you. He talks to your head coach. Your coach says, yeah, you know, he's a great player, but his attitude isn't great. And, you know, sometimes he's not always at 100% because he gets frustrated and all this sort of stuff, right? You have to be a problem solver. And that comes with the mindset. Of saying, you know what? I'm going to be somebody who figures stuff out, right? I'm going to solve problems that come up. There's always a solution to everything, right? Every single solution, every single problem that you face in the basketball court, I won't say every single one. I bet there's probably some example of one that's not easily solvable at least. But probably 95% of the problems that you face are solvable problems. Okay, right, here's one, right? If you're, if you're 5 foot 3 and Shaq posts you up, there's nothing you, you're going to get scored on. There's nothing you can do about that, right? There's one problem that there you do not have a solution to, okay? There's one right there. Even if you follow him, he's probably going to dunk it on you anyway. So, you know, not much you can do about that. But aside from that unique situation, pretty much anything else that you go through is something that you can figure out that you can solve. So that's one thing to think about. You know, as important as it is to train your skills, train your shooting, your ball handling, your finishing, your passing, all that stuff that is important, defense, all stuff that's important to being a good basketball player, skill wise, it's equally if not more important to train your ability to be a problem solver. And so what does that mean? Well, the biggest thing is putting yourself in game situations and having to rep out what's actually happening with the defender on the floor, right? So like I talked about, if we're working on a drill where you have to, you're driving the basket and help defenders coming, okay, well, now you actually get first hand experience at solving problems. So the first time you came across the lane and you went off of one foot and you got blocked, well, the next time you come across the lane, you get to, to a two foot jump, stop, pump, fake, they jump forward again and now you got a wide open layup, you just solved the problem. And not only did you solve a problem and work on your finishing physically, right? Because that's a finishing drill right there that you're working on your finishing. Just as probably more, in fact my opinion, more so than it would be if you were working on, you know, Mike and layups or you know, XL layups or whatever. Insert any sort of finishing drill that you would just kind of do by yourself. Working on Finishing with a defender makes that translation to the game just that much more higher, right? But aside from the actual skill part of things, you actually are working on your ability to be a problem solver, right? And that just like finishing is a skill that you get better as you do it more often. Okay. So it's almost like the payoff for that time that you spent, right? You spend 30 seconds going through two reps of that as opposed to you spending 30, 30 seconds on a set of mic ins. Right? You improve your finishing with both of those things. But it's, it's also twofold with the one with the defender because you also work on your decision making, your problem solving. So you're working on like two times the basketball, like applicable stuff in the same amount of time, if not less time. Okay, so that gives you an example of that, right? A big thing that we worked on this weekend that I work on every day pretty much is reading closeouts, right? There's almost always going to be situations that I put my players in where, you know, a closeout's coming to them. So you catch the ball, do you have space to shoot it? Well, if you do, then you shoot the ball. Do you not have space to shoot it? Well, if that's the case, then you're probably looking to drive. Could you potentially have space? Or maybe you see that there's a. They're closing out to you, but they're really kind of wild. They're really trying to take away the shot. So you can go with a shot fake and get them completely off their feet out of the play and then have a wide open lane to drive, right? There's a ton of different options that you can have. And the biggest thing though is that you work those skills by putting yourself in those different situations, right? So working those closeouts, okay, we will do a ton of shooting come off coming off of closeout. So, you know, maybe there's a drive and a kick and you shoot that shot. Right? But you made the decision, first of all, okay, I'm gonna shoot the ball because I have space for it. So working on that decision making process, the problem solving process, but also you're, you're working on your ability to shoot the basketball as well. Okay? So again, twofold for that too. And that's why, like, you know, typically if you watch my sessions, like it's gonna be so much live stuff, so much where there's a defender on the floor, and if not a defender, it's probably gonna be me giving some sort of cue, some sort of visual cue, audio cue, whatever it may be. So that there is, there's more to it mentally, and you actually have to work those goals as well. So the biggest thing, guys, is you wanna put yourself in situations where you have to work those, those problem solving abilities, right? And I'm giving you guys specific examples of drills that can again be as simple as you playing two on two with your buddies, right? Or playing one on one with somebody. You're playing three on three or playing five on five. Like being in those game situations where you've got to be able to figure stuff out, right? Maybe you have a player on you who's real long and athletic and you got to figure out how to, how to play against a player like that, okay? Maybe you got a real short, quick dude on you, right? Or there's countless amounts of variables that you could face between, you know, from, from one game to the next. And it's the best thing you can do for yourself is put yourself in a position to get better at adapting and figuring that sort of stuff out, okay? So again, the, the biggest thing is that your training should put you in a position to work those things. If you want to be good at it, then you've got to train it. And part of that is, again, being able to put yourself in those game situations if you can, but also just play more basketball. You know, like I said, guys, when things go wrong in games, which they inevitably will, because that's basketball for you, it's an imperfect game. Can you figure it out? Right? Do you have that mindset that says, I'm going to figure this out, right? I'm going to overcome this. It doesn't matter that this isn't. This is unexpected, or that this wasn't supposed to happen, or that this went wrong, or that this guy did this, this girl did that, or that the ref did this, the coach said that I'm going to figure it out, okay? If you have that ability to approach the game that way, then you're going to be, you're going to have the potential to be a very, very impactful player when it comes to winning. Like I said, guys, players who help coaches win are players who have spots on teams who coaches want to have on their team and ultimately who help, you know, get on the floor and help their teams win. Which, you know, when you win games, it makes basketball a lot more fun. So this is a, I thought it was an important topic to bring up. You know, becoming a problem solver, I think, is a goal that every player should have. And you got to ask yourself, how often am I working on this ability to be a problem solver. How often am I looking for somebody else to blame? I'm looking for my coach to blame. I'm looking for my teammates to blame. I'm looking for the reps to blame. Or how often can I say, you know what, I've got to do better in this situation. I got to figure out how to overcome this. Okay? That's the mindset that you want to have if you want to be as great as you possibly can be. And ultimately that's what I want you guys to be, is the best that you can possibly can be. So I appreciate you guys for listening. I hope this helps you guys out. Gave you guys a couple of thoughts to go with into this week. And again, appreciate everybody on YouTube who's watching right now. Drop a like subscribe drop a comment too. Let me know what you think. If you have any questions, send me a DM at visiondrivenbasketball on Instagram. And of course everybody on Apple Podcast. Make sure that you scroll down the bottom page for me and leave a review. Let me know what you think. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.