The Cross Over Movement Blog

Lots of people think I am crazy when I say things like I pursued an NBA coaching job this summer or when I write a book about changing the way 75% of the coaches in a country think. They point to my dirty little secrets (I never played college ball; don’t tell anyone). I even had a girl today ask me how I could coach all over if I never played in college. But, then I read comments like these, which I saw on Henry Abott’s True Hoop:

Mike Moreau with a great line in a Hoopsworld article: “After working out a group of NBA players a few summers ago, I was sitting in the bleachers with a former first round draft pick talking about his first season in the league. I made the comment that it must have been great playing for a coach who played his same position for over a decade in the NBA. His comment to me was, ‘Man, I don’t ever want to play for a former player again. I didn’t learn anything. Just give me some nerdy dude who watches tape all night and can help me get better.’”

I don’t think of myself as a “nerdy dude who watches tape all night,” but I definitely know I spend as much time as anyone researching the game and different ways to help players improve.

Henry Abbott had a link and comments about pick-up basketball dying today. I have noticed this for years. I played at two courts when I was growing up; one has been turned into an aerobics studio and nobody plays at the other one. I get emails from friends asking where to play pick-up games and I have nowhere to guide them. I have a friend who chose to live in Davis this year while atending Sac State because he balls at the Davis Student Rec Center everyday. When I was at UCLA, I knew guys who took jobs with UCLA Catering so they could spend their afternoons at the Wooden Center playing ball. Beyond college campuses, I don’t know where pick-up games exist anymore.

I get frustrated playing at the park because the young players don’t know how to play the game anymore and the old guys are slow and out of shape. I posted on a coach’s site that players spend more time in their lives playing recreation basketball than high school basketball, so I try to teach kids how to play the game so they can function in a pick-up environment. “Real” coaches were disturbed by the idea that I allowed informal, pick-up basketball, at the park no less, affect my teaching strategies.

But, isn’t one goal of a high school literature teacher to inspire a love of reading so people read novels and non-fiction throughout their lives, not just the trashy gossip mags at the grocery store register? Shouldn’t a high school coach inspire a similar love of the game and exercise in his or her players? I remember by best college professors, Dr. Anderson, Dr. Trent and Mr. Barbee, talking about developing “life long learners.” Especially with the increasing obesity epidemic, isn’t it a coach’s duty to develop life long exercisers?

Unfortunately, kids lives are too structured to include free play. Kids grow up and don’t really know how to play basketball. They can’t play in a pick-up game because there isn’t a coach telling them what to do. And, they don’t have the same passion for the game. They never decide for themselves to play the game; they simply go to a workout or practice arranged by a coach or parent.

When I was a child, we played at recess and lunch. Now, many schools have eliminated recess and shortened lunch. We played at the park and the local fitness club. Players today do not play because they never initiate their own activities. Everything is structured and scheduled. Kids even have play dates.

This summer I was contacted by the grandfather of an excellent young player, the brother of one of my trainees and a very talented to-be-8th grader with loads of potential: 5-10, 140 lbs with great guards skills, a tremendous passion for the game and a body that will likely grow to 6-5 or taller like his brother. This particular player and his grandfather contacted me in search of training for just 4 weeks while his AAU team took a short break prior to the AAU Nationals, at which time our training would stop completely so he could travel to Florida for this national tournament. There were no plans to conduct more training after the fact, this was simply a quick fix to help him prepare for this nationally recognized tournament. What’s more, this player, despite his mature game, strong skill level and aggressive style of play, had very poor shot mechanics. He shot the ball from his left hip, a low release point and pushing it across his body in the same awkward motion that we see so many young players shoot (due mostly to a lack of strength as well as not being taught proper mechanics). This player was now strong enough to shoot a real jumpshot, but he shot like he did in the 5th grade.

Well, as you’d expect, I explained to the grandfather that this young player needed training to refine his shot mechanics and, more importantly, that my training is not and never will be a quick fix method to improvement. My focus has always been long-term development and that proper shot mechanics are a vital element to that end. In our conversation the grandfather was very concerned that investing a significant amount of time correcting his shot would mean a poor performance at the AAU Nationals because this player relies heavily on the three-point shot as his primary offensive weapon (despite the bad mechanics). He only wanted to work on offensive moves and ball-handling to help improve his performance. Fortunately enough, he agreed that the shot mechanics needed changing. We agreed that after the tournament this fall we’d get back together to work on that part of his game.

As it turns out, I had a long conversation with the player about the need to change his shot and, thankfully, the kid grew inspired to start working on it on his own during this off time. We started working out a week later and he had already established in his mind that he wanted to have correct mechanics for this tournament just a few weeks away. So, to cut a long story short, we spent the next 4 weeks working exclusively on his mechanics and i can honestly say he was the quickest learner I’ve ever had. In that short amount of time he worked on his shot everyday outside of our lessons, to the point where he could shoot 3-point shots with perfect form. A great end to an interesting saga because he recently earned MVP of a camp in Florida, including a game with 9 3-pointers using his newly acquired correct shooting technique.

This scenario proved to me that the desire to win is not exclusive to the coaches of the AAU teams. Players and parents, even in the 7th/8th grade are also VERY focused on winning and will approach off-season training as a means to an end, which in this case meant playing well at one tournament. Unfortunately, the disturbing trend is the total lack of concern for long-term development. At such a young age, our players should be establishing a base of fundamental skills that will be essential to long term success as competitive athletes. Yes, there is a place for in-game competition, but as they reach the developmental and competitive stages, things like proper shot mechanics must be established. Training should be looked at as a quick fix.

This situation offers further support to Brian McCormick’s Cross Over Movement, and the need for more emphasis on deliberate practice and less emphasis on a peak-by-friday mentally that focuses on winning above all else. Competition is a means to an end: Long Term Athletic Development.

Coach Vinnie

Team USA added a couple shooters and Kobe Bryant and suddenly all the problems are gone, right? How can anyone criticize the American game after Team USA beat Brazil by fifty?

All the bandwagoners who jumped off Team USA’s bandwagon in 2004 and 2006 can jump back on and celebrate Team USA’s destruction of the Western Hemisphere. However, my point has never centered on the Senior National Team. The Senior National Team’s losses in Indianapolis, Athens and Japan made it possible for people to fathom that my points might be correct. Without those losses, people would think my book was crazy-talk.

However, my argument is about much more than an International Tournament every two years. I wrote earlier this year that Team USA should win in Beijing without making any changes to the way it conducts business. While everyone is busy celebrating the importance of the three-year commitment and the work of Colangelo and Coach K, let’s not forget the addition of Jason Kidd and Kobe Bryant. I’d argue the new starting back court is the most important change thus far, in terms of winning games.

But, my argument is about the development of players: all players, not just the top 10 players. I have aknowledged that LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony developed just fine in the current system. While the academy arguments and the media talk centers on the top 10 players every year, my argument is about every one else. How do we create the best possible development system for all players, at all ages, not just the elite seniors in high school or those gifted enough to play for Team USA.

And, this tournament has done little to discourage my thinking. While the problems may be solved at the Senior National Team level, all the talk and the summits and the discussions have led to no changes at the true grassroots levels because their is a vacuum of leadership that nobody is willing to fill.

By: John Harmatuk

I had a major philosophical crisis this summer. Can you win at the highest level playing up-tempo, fast-break basketball? Conventional wisdom says no; the proverbial “play the right way.” One of my coaching friends calls fast paced basketball “rat ball”, certainly not a glowing endorsement of the up-tempo game.

I love up-tempo basketball. I teach full court man press and to take the first available shot we have in our scoring zones. The more shots, the faster the pace, the better we played. We lost only one game last year scoring over 60 points and that was an 82-88 barn burner against a talented Klein Forest basketball team. In the last three years we have won 70% of our games. Last season was the most successful season in Cypress Springs High School history in terms of wins, 27. So, what is my problem? We lost our first playoff game. In fact, we lost 7 games all year, incidentally all to inside oriented teams that controlled the tempo.

I have spent this summer researching the game of basketball, trying to develop my philosophy as a basketball coach. St. Anthony’s famed coach, Bob Hurley, in a clinic articulated that it takes 5 years as a head coach to develop your coaching philosophy. Well, what do you know? I’m entering my 6th season as a head coach.

I realize that it does not matter which style you prefer, it matters that you have an identity in which your team believes. You must play the game with a coherent purpose. Ben Howland’s UCLA teams believe they will win the game with their defense. The Phoenix Suns think they will win by outscoring their opponents. Two opposing, albeit, successful philosophies. In an email exchange, noted trainer Brian McCormick explained it best, “These teams know they can dominate at one thing, and it gives them confidence.” He used Pat Summitt and Vance Walberg as examples. Coach Walberg has developed a successful, fast paced, style of play, which John Calipari and his Memphis Tigers currently employ. Much like Coach Walberg’s teams, we believe in our system and when we force our tempo we win.

This begs the question, “How do you win the game when the identity you hold on to is failing you?” This is the key. As a coach I must prepare my team better for these situations. We need to know what we need to do and how we are going to finish the games in which the tempo does not favor our style of play. The greatest example of this in today’s game is the San Antonio Spurs. Their half-court defense is their identity. They can win the up-tempo game; Parker and Ginobli are fantastic in the open floor. What do they do down the stretch to win the game, especially when their game plan is not working? The answer is Tim Duncan. They know if they need a play on either end of the floor, Tim will make that play.

Practice these situations. I feel the key to a successful season, for us, will be to become a team that is confident in finishing the games that are not playing out according to our style of play. As a coach it is my job to instill a purpose for our offense and defense, especially in late game situations. We have to be confident down the stretch that we can win the halfcourt game. I’m looking forward to year six.

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I’m interested in your thoughts on this topic, shoot me an email and tell me what your philosophy is……..Coach Harmatuk coachtuk@earthlink.net

This morning, I was thinking about some NBA coaching situations and my next newsletter. I have inquired with a couple teams about positions, as I have watched guys who train NBA players and know I am fully qualified to do what they do. More about what I thought about will be in the next newsletter.

However, then I visited Hoops Hype and saw in a link that Atlanta has hired Alton Lister to tutor its big men. I don’t want to knock a coach publicly, but I cannot help but relate a story from a couple years ago when I visited the Pete Newell Big Man Camp.

Coach Newell asks Alton Lister to demonstrate a move. It was a very, very basic move that any 8th grader should be able to do, yet I was continually amazed when these college and pro players struggled. I was an average high school player, but I could have stepped onto the court and demonstrated better footwork than any player at the camp.

So, Lister tried to demonstrate. And, he travels like five times in a row. The other NBA guys are laughing at him. The campers feel embarassed for the guy. I was shocked. Finally, Newell lets him leave the court and has another coach demonstrate.

As Lister walks off the court, with his peers laughing and giving him a bad time, he mutters, “Doesn’t f-in matter. You can travel in the league.”

Al Horford and Shelden Williams are in good hands.

Somehow, people miss my message. I continue to get calls and emails about European versus American basketball. I feel compelled to write a clearly articulated persuasive essay, just like in junior high school:

(Topic Paragraph)
I receive emails and calls from coaches who fish for the same answer. They want to know the difference between the experiences of an 11-year-old in the USA and an 11-year-old in a European country, and they assume the answer is something to the effect of drills or coaches.

There are no magic drills. If you buy into the argument that basketball in the United States is struggling, it is not because of a lack of coaching or a lack of drills or any magic solution. Nobody in Europe invented anything new or revolutionary. (Thesis Sentence) The difference, and I do not know how to state this more clearly, is PHILOSOPHY; in the United States, winning the next game is the major motivation, while European clubs exist to develop players for the National Team and the professional club.

(Supporting Paragraphs)
In the simplest terms, an 11-year-old in the U.S. plays for an AAU team and has been for several years. While much rhetoric is given towards development and improvement, these teams approach practices and games to win. From the drills to the instruction to the coaches’ body language, the approach is to win the next game. Regardless of what anyone says, for the vast majority of the teams in the United States, winning the next game is the major priority.

In Europe, youth clubs prepare players to play for adult clubs. Players grow in the same club practically from birth to death: when I ran clinics in Greece, I saw guys wearing their club colors playing in an over-65 league. While kids in the U.S. jump from team to team, league to league and coach to coach, there is a progression within a club for players in Europe, culminating, the club hopes, with a professional career for the club’s top team. The emphasis, from the beginning, is to develop professional players.

There is a huge difference in methodology between winning the next game and developing a professional player. To use an analogy, if you took a Calculus textbook into a 3rd grade classroom and demanded the students pass a Calculus test on Saturday, how much Calculus would the students actually learn? However, if you allow a student to progress through various levels of math before taking Calculus as a high school senior, the chances are high that a motivated student will learn Calculus.

(Conclusion)
As long as the overriding philosophy at every age group in the United States remains winning (and exposure), other systems will produce better skilled players due to their philosophy of long term development. Winning the next game is an immediate event, while developing a professional player is a process which takes place over a series of years. Skill development, according to the research of nearly every psychologist who studies the subject, is a long term process. Therefore, which system is more conducive to skill development? It isn’t the drills or the coaching: it is the overall philosophy which explains the noticeable differences between basketball in the USA and Europe.

A couple weeks ago, Vern Gambetta recommended the book The Art of Learning on his blog. THe book is written by Josh Waitzkin, whose early life was the subject of the book and movie Searching for Biobby Fischer. I’m not a chess player, so I ignored it for a while. However, when I decided I needed to read a book to take my mind off my own writing, somehow this was the title that popped into my head when I was at Borders.

I have only read the first two chapters, but it is a great book. It is really one of the best books for coaches that I have read. While most coaches seek out more information on strategy, I am far more interested in how to coach, not what to coach. I feel the what to coach is pretty easy: you can go pretty far playing nothing but man-to-man defense and running 1-2 plays. But how you coach-from your ability to reach players to maximizing their learning to creating a good environment-those are the issues of importance to me.

I read the first two chapters and underlined the parts which paralleled the philosophy I tried to express in Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development, especially in Chapter 4 of the Second Edition: “The Psychology of Talent Development.”

He writes from the perspective of a former champion, a player who has seen it all in his sport. And, I am one who believes there is little difference between disciplines. While I used a great deal of research from sports psychologists, as well as my own coaching experience, when writing my book, somehow these passages affirmed even more the accuracy and importance of the book’s message.

Initially, he describes the learning process:

A chest student mus initially become immersed with the fundamentals in order to have any potential to reach a high level of skill. He or she will learn the principles of endgame, middlegame, and opening play. Initially, one or two critical themes will be considered at once, but over time the intuition learns to integrate more and more principles into a sense of flow.

Doesn’t this accurately describe the learning process, especially with regards to the tactics of basketball? To reach a high level of skill, a player needs to learn the fundamentals and use only one or two concepts at a time. But, after years of using these concepts, he and his team can use multiple concepts simultaneously. Unfortunately, we do not allow for this type of learning progression to occur. But, I certainly believe it to be the ideal.

Later, he talks about playing pick-up games in the park and says, “Each loss was a lesson and each win a thrill.” How different is that then our current basketball system? Kids leave games ambivolous about the results. They play so many games in a weekend that they cannot remember what happened and cannot learn from the mistakes. NBA coaches always talk about the pain of losing and the lack of joy when winning; it is a game.

After starting as a prodigy on the street, he starts to train with a famous chess coach. He says about the experience:

Bruce had a fine line to tread. He had to teach me to be more disciplined without dampening my love for chess or suppressing my natural voice. Many teachers have no feel for this balance and try to force their students into cookie-cutter molds. I have run into quite a few egomaniacal instructors like this over the years and have come to believe that their method is profoundly destructive for students in the long run.

Precisely. Unfortunately, because players do not play much outside practice now, there is not a great love for the game to be dampened. However, a coach of young players must build this love for the game, above all else. He continues:

The most important factor in these first months of study was that Bruce nurtured my love for chess, and he never let technical material smother my innate feeling for the game.

In every article, book and research paper I have read regardless of discipline, this is the greatest consistency among the first coaches of future expert performers. However, most basketball coaches completely ignore this in the race to qualify their eight-year-olds for nationals.

My parents and Bruce decided to keep me out of tournaments until I had been playing chess for a year or so because they wanted my relationship to the game to be about learning and passion first and competition a distant second.

I argue against competitive leagues for under-10 players and don’t really think players should play 5v5 before 10 years old. European soccer academies limit full-sided competitive games for youth players as well. However, in our rush to compete, we have u-8 AAU National Championships and believe it is a necessary and positive outlet.

There have been many years when leaving my New York life felt like career suicide-my chess rivals were taking lessons and competing in every weekend tournament while I was on a boat crashing through big waves. But I would come back with new ideas and a full tank of energy and determination.

A vacation from the game? Unheard of. Kids train year-round, non-stop. I remember talking to the mother of a player about a free clinic I was offering. She said he daughter was too busy. It was the off-season, yet she has a basketball trainer for 2 hours on Monday-Wednesday-Friday and a plyo trainer for 90 minutes on Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday and played for her high school team and an AAU team. And, though she was a reasonably talented player, she is headed to a DIII school, even though she told a DII Head Coach that she was going to get a DI scholarship or quit playing. Sadly, this scenario is not abnormal.

I am only two chapters into the book, but I think it is an excellent read and concur with Vern Gambetta. If you are interested in how to coach, the art of learning or parenting your budding superstar, this is a great read.

I visited the UCLA site today and the natives are restless because in one services new post-summer rankings, a USC recruit has overtaken a UCLA recruit, which, of course is blasphemy to a Bruin. However, without arguing for or against either player specifically, a poster makes an interesting argument:

How can a kid go from being a top 50 player to the 2nd best in the country, without growing an inch? I would take the consistent #3 ranked player vs. #2 shot in the pants.

Now, I do not put much stock in rankings. Scouting services also rank players according to college potential, not high school performance. Therefore, there is a bit of prognosticating the future involved with ranking players, meaning it is an inaccurate science at best and completely useless at worst. But, these scouts make a good living because sites charge for the rankings so people can indulge in silly arguments like this one.

In the example, Player A is an established star who has been near the top of the 2008 class since he started high school. Player B is a locally known star whose national reputation has skyrocketed since the season ended.

The argument the poster makes is that Player A, therefore, deserves his ranking because he has been there longer. While I appreciate the proven performer argument, there is a significant counterpoint to this rationale:

Judging by the rankings, Player A has plateaued, while Player B has shown marked improvement. As a college coach, do you want the player who has been a four-year star, but whose game has leveled off, or the lesser star who continues to improve and improve? If all things are basically equal talent-wise right now, wouldn’t most college coaches choose the player who has had the greatest ascension lately, hoping that his steep development curve may continue, while Player A’s development curve remains flat? If this does happen, Player B would be a better college player than Player A and the new rankings would be accurate.

The counterpoint to this argument is that Player A has had nothing to prove for a long time. He already verballed to his school of choice and has been named the #1 player in the class by one national writer. He was bored this summer. When the games matter again, he will turn it on and excel and surpass Player B who benefited from the “it” factor of being the new face in the crowd showing new skills and athleticism, while Player A simply did the same things he has been doing for years, namely dominate, which failed to impress as much this time around.

In a sense, it is the same argument I made in an article I wrote about Joakim Noah titled the Leinart Lesson. In the article, I wrote:

Joakim Noah would be the #1 pick in the 2006 NBA Draft , if he enters. Right now, all scouts remember is the scintillating performance in the Final Four as he dominated the floor and led the Florida Gators to the National Championship. NBA General Managers, Scouts and Head Coaches will watch him run and jump at the pre-draft camps, oohh and aahh, and pick him #1, thinking about his potential, overwhelmed by his athleticism and length.

Instead, Noah plans to return to college to enjoy college life and win another national championship. Now, he has zero chance of being the #1 pick in the nba draft”>2007 NBA Draft because teams are already lining up to pick uber-teen Greg Oden, who may have been drafted number one in the 2005 NBA Draft. So, already Noah starts the season at #2. However, with another season in front of the fickle NBA scouts and general managers, and one where Florida, despite its talent, likely does not repeat (it’s so hard to win 6 games in a row during March Madness), NBA scouts will find holes and weaknesses they are too excited to see right now. They’ll see his slight frame as a problem, his funky-looking shot an impediment, etc. Right now, they don’t care. The 2006 NBA Draft is one of the worst NBA Drafts in a decade; next year, in what could be one of the best drafts in a decade (after the star-studded 2003 NBA Draft, of course), NBA scouts will look for ways to pick Josh McRoberts or Julian Wright or Thaddeus Young or some other player ahead of him. He will be yesterday’s news, not the next hot thing, as he is right now.

Player A suffers from the same type of familiarity that hurt Noah’s draft stock. He has been around longer and it is hard to stay on top when scouts, GMs and coaches are paid to find the next big thing. At this point, putting Player A near the top takes no guts. It causes no controversy. However, putting Player B ahead of Player A gets people talking, which increases revenue. If Player A turns out better than Player B, everyone will remember that 95% of the people predicted it; they will not remember the one guy who dissented. However, if the one guy is right, and Player B turns out to be better, that one guy’s stock skyrockets. It’s really a win-win situation for the scout. However, a coach cannot make a mistake like a scout.

So, who deserves the higher ranking? Beats me. I would not discount Player B just because he is new to the argument, but I would not discount Player A just because he has been there longer. Both can obviously play, so the USC and UCLA coaching staffs are the real winners in the argument. At the end of the day, does it even matter who is #2 and who is #3? Both get to play close to home for good programs and good schools and have a great opportunity to play in the NBA. When that happens, will anyone remember their class ranking? It’s like SAT scores: SAT scores are the most important thing in the world to a high school senior, but once in college, nobody cares what you scored on the SAT and once you graduate from college, nobody remembers. Class ranking will only be important to these kids if they fail to make it to the NBA and live like Al Bundy from Married with Children, constantly re-living the good old days. Otherwise, it’s a fun argument, but one that will ultimately be settled on the court. And, when the argument is #2 or #3 in the entire class, there are no losers.

I do not have espn insider, but I saw the introduction to a Doug Gottlieb article about USA Basketball. The preview says:

We stink.

There, I said it. And it is the pink elephant in the room that no basketball man has been willing to touch for years. I am not special. I am simply stating the obvious.

What? Nobody. Have you been asleep for the last couple years? Sure, in 2002, when I started to broach the subject, everyone was filled with excuses and too busy blaming George Karl for the debacle in Indianapolis to notice the flaws in the development system.

But now? Mr. Gottlieb, have you met Jay Bilas or Fran Fraschilla? Don’t you spend time together in Bristol? I know none of you actually live there, but your paths have crossed, right?

Now, I’m not going to say “we stink” because I do not believe it. However, I do believe we have problems and need to shift our collective mindset, which is the basis of Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development.

I just cannot believe that someone in the media is that obtuse that he has not heard anyone willing to criticize the USA Basketball machine.

On that note, in this week’s newsletter I have an interview with Fran Fraschilla who talks about the differences between basketball here and abroad.

Anyway, Mr. Gottlieb, welcome to the party!