What If I Told You 80% of Your Work Isn’t Helping You Get Better?

A lot of times the players that are doing the most that struggle to see results and translate their work into games, maybe you want to pass somebody who's ahead of you and you feel like you're outworking them. You're doing all the right things, but you're not closing that gap. Maybe there's a certain spot that you want to get, there's a team that you want to make, you want to make it to a certain level, but it feels like the work you're putting in is not pushing you towards that. If that sounds like you, then it's not a motivation issue and it's probably not even a work ethic issue. Usually it's a strategy issue. You're not not going about it the right way. So in this video I'm going to give you a super simple guide to follow that's going to fix that process for you to ensure that you're doing the right things. Again, not necessarily doing more, but making sure the stuff that you're focused on are the right things. And if you follow these things, your improvement and your success is inevitable as long as you keep going. The first thing that's super important to do is that you need to focus on the high leverage areas. Not every area of basketball is created equally. You have to be able to look and say, okay, when I watch a basketball game, when I watch a game at the level I'm trying to play at or the team that I'm playing on, what are the things that happen the most and what is going to be the best bang for my buck? There's the 8020 rule that states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your inputs or 20% of your work. So 20% of the things that you're focusing on are attributing to 80% of the results on the court. So if we want to make sure that we get the best results possible, we got to figure out what that 20% is and then double down on doing that. That's what we call the high leverage skills. So that 20% there, we got to make sure we're focused on that. In my experience. And when you watch the game of basketball, the two most high leverage areas that you have to be focused on are shot making and basketball iq. If you have those two things, you're going to be a value to a team. You're probably going to be able to play. There's probably going to be a role for you. And if you don't have those things, it doesn't matter what else you do have, you're going to be limited if you even have a role at that level. The reason why it's high leverage is because even if you get just a little bit better, either of those areas, it makes a drastic difference with your results. So your time, your priorities should make sure that it reflects that. So when it comes to shot making, one thing that I've been saying over the last few months is that for most players, 80% of your skills training of your on court workouts should be focused on shot making. So you say that 20% for your ball handling, for your finishing, for whatever it is you're trying to improve. And 80% of the time should be focused on putting the ball in the basket. Now within that, we can look at the most high leverage areas of shooting. The number one thing would be catch and shoot three. So coming off of just normal like spot ups, this could be coming off of relocations, this could be coming off of different actions like pin downs or like handoffs. And then we have one or two drill pull ups, probably being the next most high leverage area of that right there. So being able to catch the ball and closeouts coming so you shot fake, take a dribble or two dribbles in the mid range, hit that shot there. Coming off of the ball screen or a handoff, maybe getting downhill, one or two dribbles, you can make those shots catch and shoot threes and then one or two drill pull ups at a high level, then that is going to make a huge impact on your ability to impact the game. And then the other high leverage skill is basketball iq. So learning how to read the game, how to make better decisions, how to make quicker decisions on the court, being able to recognize and create opportunities for yourself and your teammates at a high level. The reason why this is so important is you need to get to a point where you are able to anticipate the game and you're not stuck reacting. The biggest difference between the best players and everybody else is that the best players are constantly anticipating what's going to happen. So it feels like they're a step ahead because they see something and they instinctively know, okay, more than likely that's going to happen, more than likely that's going to be open. More than likely he's going to do that. That means that I'm going to have that opportunity and everybody else is reacting to what happens. So the defender does something, then they do something, or the guy, their guardian does something and then they do something, or their teammate does something and then they do something. Instead of being able to anticipate the opportunities that are going to present themselves, you need to get to a point where you can anticipate it at a high level or else you're going to struggle to make a big impact on the court. Nothing else matters if you don't have a high level of basketball iq, because you're always going to be a step behind if you don't. Now my entire channel is about developing basketball iq, so make sure you go through and watch some of my videos. That will kind of give you even more depth into this. But I have a free basketball IQ masterclass link down below in the description. It's an hour long and we go through the most important parts of this. How to score more, how to create more for your team, how to play with more confidence, developing some of the mindset shifts that the high IQ players have and it's going to really transform the way that you view the game in basketball. You're going to take some of the stuff and immediately apply it to your games. It's completely free, so make sure you check that out as well. The second thing you need to do is you need to make sure that you play as much as possible, see defense as much as possible, so get into more live game situations. So pickups, scrimmages, one on one, two on two, three on three, doesn't really matter, but we want to find times to be able to play against defense in times where it doesn't really matter in terms of the outcome. If it's like a real game, then you know you can't, you don't have the freedom necessarily to work on as many things because you know you're trying to win a game. So you're a little more limited with what you can do. So we want to find opportunities to play in quote, unquote, meaningless games as often as we can. You're not going to develop the necessary basketball IQ or, or the necessary in game shot making ability like we talked about, those two high leverage areas. You're not going to develop those things just by doing drills. You're going to develop that by playing against defense. That's going to force you to see different situations, be able to adapt and figure things out. And that's critical for translating those things into game skills. The other thing that I think is so important when it comes to this is that every time that you play, no matter if it's a real game, a practice pickup, one on one reflect after that, what did you do well, what did you not do well? Did you work on applying the things that you've been trying to get better at or did you shy away from because you didn't want to look bad? Most players will play or be in these situations and just kind of forget about it. And you're leaving so much potential improvement on the table by not being purposeful and asking yourself, how did that go? What could I have done better? What was missing, what wasn't missing? That stuff is really, really important. The third thing you need to do is study the game. A lot of players plateau and don't see results because they don't understand the context behind what they're doing or what they're training. So yeah, you might be able to really handle the ball, but you get on the court and you don't actually know how to apply those handles. When am I dribbling too much? When does it make sense to put the ball on the floor? What am I trying to do every time that I put the ball on the floor? You might be really good at shooting off of a certain action, but you don't understand how to get to that. You don't understand when the right decision is to pull the trigger on that or to not. You might be a really, really good player, but. But you don't really know when to attack, when to move the ball, when to get to the next action. So you get into games and you're inconsistent. Maybe you play below the level that you're capable of because you just don't understand when to do what. So spend time watching your own film if you have access to it, looking at opportunities that maybe you missed because when you're playing, there are a lot of things that happen that you, you just don't remember until you go back and you see. Honestly, there's probably a lot of stuff that you're going to see that you didn't even notice in the moment. By going back and watching yourself, you're going to see some of those things that when you're back in those situations, you're going to be able to take advantage of going with that. You should be watching and studying high level players, players that play the same position as you or have a skill that you want to develop. Go study them, go watch them, see what they do. And don't just watch it as a fan, but ask yourself why? So you see a clip of them doing something, rewind it and say, why did they make that decision? Why did they do that? Why did they dribble like that? Why do they do that? On their drive, start to pick up on patterns. Okay. They keep doing that, and it leads to that. Or I see that detail. Oh, I see. I just saw it again. Well, why did they do that on both of those possessions? When you do this, you're going to pick up on so many little things you're going to be able to apply into your own game. I use this example a lot, but I was playing basketball last year with a group of college players, and I came down, I had the ball in transition, and there is a player behind me on defense who was trailing me. Time me up for a block. And instinctively I went to what was called the Pinoy step, which is like a slow step finish on a layup. And I had never worked on that before, but it was enough that it threw off their time and I could finish it. The reason I was able to do that is because, like I said, I had never worked on it, not one time ever. But I had watched a lot of players do it. Like I watched Tyrese Halliburton do it. There was a player that I coached actually, who was very, very good at that, and I would see him do it every single game. And so I got into that environment, into that moment, and my brain just kind of pieced that together, and I saw it as an opportunity to use that. And like I said, I got better and I was more prepared in the court simply because I spent time around the game and. And I was observant of other players. This is such a huge opportunity that you have, and it's got to be a staple in terms of your routine. And the fourth thing that is so important if you want to start to see progress, is you need to be patient and be persistent. Everything that you do is building a foundation. And I'll throw the meme up there, but there's a meme of two guys who are down in the mines and they're mining for diamonds, and one of them is really, really close to breaking through and get into those diamonds, but he quit because he's been working at it for so long and he hasn't seen any results yet. And then you see the guy below him who is on that current journey of trying to mine and get to those diamonds right there. And it's such a great example of how everything works, because you don't know when that breakthrough is going to happen. You don't know when it's going to click for you. Don't know when that opportunity is going to come your way. You've just got to keep Working and doing the right things, focusing on the right things and putting your head on and saying, hey, I might not see results, I might not see success immediately, but I want to keep doing the right things that I'm, I'm, I'm confident in. I'm going to keep doing those things until I get there. The important thing to understand is that progress is not linear. We all think that we're robots and that if I just keep working today I'll get 3% better and then tomorrow I'll get 3% better. The next day is 3% better. And we expect it to be like a straight linear line. In reality, it's not how success or results actually work. Some days you're going to feel 20% better and the next day you're going to show up and you're going to feel way worse. You and the next, you might feel even worse, and the next year you feel a little bit better. And slowly over time, that line trends upwards. But every day, day to day, you might not feel that way. It might feel like you're getting worse some days. And that's all a part of it. And a lot of times players feel that and then they change course and they freak out or they quit. And you have to understand that that's what comes along with it. Being able to deal with the ups and downs of trying to achieve something is so important to do. And, and if you can do that, you can stick with it, that you're going to be successful because you're building the right habits and you're building a great foundation. It's very easy to feel discouraged when you're putting in a lot of work and not seeing the results on the, on the back end of that. But what this gives you is a great opportunity to analyze what you're doing and to think about it critically and ask yourself, hey, am I really focused on those high leverage areas that are the most important things? Am I spending enough of my time and focus doing that? If you make that shift to do that, that's where you start to see the impact and the results come in games. This approach to training and development is so important if you want to see success. Like I mentioned earlier, I have a free basketball IQ masterclass linked down below to help you develop that high leverage area, that high leverage skill. And it's going to, it's going to change the way that you view the game of basketball. So completely free top link down below. Make sure you check that out. Appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.