The Cross Over Movement Blog

I have been asked a couple times in the last two weeks about my rules and how I discipline players. I am not a big “rule guy.” I don’t have my 15 commandments that all players must follow and I am not a “my way or the highway” type guy. In all my years coaching, I cannot think of a real discipline problem. Sure, we have had bad practices and some players work harder than others, but I do not remember a time where I really had to discipline a player or team.

In How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life), Dov Seidman writes:

To be capable of making Waves, you need an organizing principle more inspirational and compelling than rules…Thinking and communicating in the language of should - values-based language - by its very nature inspires…The language of values inspires us because values are aspirational in nature. They propel us to higher ground…Values do double-duty; they inspire us to do more than while simultaneously preventing us from doing less than.

Rules generally create a confrontational relationship. When a coach creates a rule, he tells a player he cannot do something. Players - and people in general - do not like to be told what they can and cannot do without any part in the decision. So, players find ways around the rules. Soon, 15 rules becomes 20 as coaches make rules to eliminate ambiguities caused by other rules.

Rather than setting down rules, should language inspires and replaces the need for rules. I worked a camp once and told my team on the first day that they were going to act like champions in everything they did all week: our goal was to be first at everything. We jogged from station to station to be first; we sat in the front rows for speakers; everything we did was based around the idea that we want to be first at everything and have a championship mentality for the week.

While we jogged to stations or sat attentively and listened to speakers, other coaches dealt with behavioral problems. “No walking! No talking! No dribbling!” Rather than inspire, these rules and admonishments created an adversarial relationship between player and coach as the coach tried to retain his power and the player tried to subvert it.

In How, Seidman writes:

Though companies desperately want employees to keep their heads in the game, it turns out that generally they do a terrible job at creating conditions necessary for employees to do so. A three-year survey…conclused that, although the vast majority of employees are filled with enthusiasm when they begin a new job, in about 85% of companies morale declines dramatically after six months and continues to do so for years afterward.

Does the same happen with basketball teams? The recent firings of Scott Skiles, Avery Johnson and Mike D’Antoni (okay, he wasn’t fired), three good coaches, would suggest similar occurences in basketball. For some reason, after a period of time, the players did not respond to the coach in the same manner as at the beginning of their tenure.

According to the survey, people want three things:

1. Equity: to be respected and to be treated fairly
2. Achievement: to be pround of one’s job
3. Camraderie: to have good, productive relationships

Is basketball any different? Players want to feel like the coach cares about them and respects them; they want to feel like they are part of the team; and they want to feel like they are improving and play a role in the success of the team. If a coach makes sure a player feels all these things, playing time, shot attempts, wins and losses and other common excuses for players’ displeasure go away.

I coached a player once who hardly played. However, I gave her a role on the team and outlined the steps she needed to take to earn playing time. I offered to work with her individually outside our normal practices. I challenged her to get better to make the starters work harder to get them ready for competition. Suddenly, she went from a little used player on the end of the bench to a motivated player who felt respected, felt like she was an important member of the team and felt like she played a role in the team’s success. She earned some playing time, but never played a lot, but she said the season was her favorite season in her career, mainly because I ensured that she felt equity, achievement and camraderie regardless of playing time.

Most basketball discussions center on the what: plays, press breaks, drills. However, it is the how which separates coaches.