Building a Winning Basketball Player

If you could go into a laboratory and build the perfect basketball player, what would that player look like? In other words, if you were building your own player on NBA2K, what would he look like?

Give me a 6'9 forward with guard skills, freak athleticism, who is a phenomenal shooter and has great "awareness" (IQ). That's pretty much the recipe, right?

Side note: Did we pretty much describe Lebron James? Other than the shooting (broke jumper), I think we did. Carrying on...

Okay, now I'm talking to all basketball coaches, and in typical "Just Win Today" fashion, where we use sports as a metaphor for life and education, I'm talking to teachers and parents.

If you're lucky enough to coach that "freak athlete," or have a gifted student in your class, or you're working with an extremely talented individual in any walk of life... OF COURSE, that is going to make your job easier. Do those students/players deserve our best? Do we owe it to them to make them even better than they already are? Obviously the answer is yes.

I would even argue that coaching/teaching the extremely talented is MORE DIFFICULT, because how do you push "genius" to another level? That is an article for another time. Today I'm talking about teaching/coaching/mentoring everybody else. Because we are going to encounter "average" far more often than we encounter "genius." So with that in mind, what abilities, what traits, and what types of things should we be looking to coach into these individuals? What kind of "controllables" can we control with these people?

In basketball terms, I try to build up traits that will build what I call "winning players." These aren't necessarily the star players on your team (they can be), but they're the kind of player that can be found on the roster of every team that ends up winning anything of consequence. They're the kind of people that end up "making the world go 'round." They're the kind of people that are CRITICAL to successful teams and organizations.

Here are the things you can absolutely coach/teach into anybody:

Level 1 - Worth Ethic and/or Effort - Your work ethic is something that you can control. How hard are you willing to work? How long are you willing to work? These are definitely two things you can control. Work ethic is a skill, and it's the foundation of anything you're trying to do. Like the old saying goes, "nothing will work unless you do." If you don't believe that, imagine two players with identical physical ability. Now imagine one of those players willing to put in 2-3 hours per day, 6-7 days per week, year round. Now imagine the other player only willing to put in 1 hour per day, a couple days a week, for 5-6 months. Over a period of time (2-3 years), which player is going to be better? The answer is obvious. Work ethic is a skill, and it's something that you can control. This would be the first step, Level 1, the most basic requirement, for any "winning player." If they're not willing to work really, really hard, you're not going to "beat the good teams on your schedule." You won't overachieve. A great work ethic is the foundation. It can be taught. It is a skill.

2. Attitude, "Coachability," Ability to Take Criticism - Your attitude is something you can control. Are you willing to taking coaching and fix mistakes? In other words, are you willing to admit that you don't know all of the answers, and are you willing to take advice and/or borrow ideas from somebody with more experience than you have? This is definitely a skill. So many players are so sensitive when it comes to being corrected. Bottom line, if you're willing to listen and correct your mistakes, you're going to be a better player. This is a skill that is something any player can acquire. It's something you can control. This would be "Level 2" for any winning player. If you have a team full of players who genuinely masters Level 1 and Level 2, and that's as far as you go, I can almost guarantee you'll AT LEAST beat everybody you're supposed to beat on your schedule. You will AT LEAST reach your talent level and achieve at the level your talent suggests you should. Even better, it will be a fun team to coach and a fun team to play on.

3. Accountability, "No Excuses Mindset" - Are you accountable? I think this goes into "attitude" a little bit, but developing a "no excuses" mindset would be a giant leap forward from that, in my opinion. The reason I say that is, while some players have a great attitude and are respectful to coaches, etc, they don't have that internal mindset to reject all excuses. This is a skill. If you have the ability in any situation to look at what you are accountable for - what you can control - and then "own" that without making excuses, that is a skill. Excuses are lies we tell ourselves! Removing those excuses removes a critical barrier to self improvement. This is a skill any player can acquire, and it will no doubt help make them a winning player. This would be a "Level 3" skill for a winning player.

4. Toughness, , the ability to COMPETE, "Being Relentless" - Once a player has a great work ethic and a great attitude (they're willing to do the work and they're coachable), the next level would be "outstanding mental toughness" and/or "being relentless." Again, take two players with equal ability. The first player works hard and listens at 100% and has a "no excuses" mindset, until things get hard. At that point, he feels defeated and shuts down just a little bit, or maybe just for a play or two. The second player also works hard and listens at 100%, doesn't make excuses, and then he actually turns it up a notch when things get hard. This is a skill! The ability to be at your best when you're best is needed (Coach John Wooden called this "Competitive Greatness") is a skill. Not every player has this, but this is something that any player can acquire. This is much harder to find, but it is a winning trait. This would be "Level 4" for any winning player.

5. "Collective Care and Responsibility" - This is an idea that I borrowed from Duke Coach Mike Kryzeweski. Anybody who follows Just Win Today knows how I feel about kids trying to "lead" each other (it often devolves into "telling each other what to do" and doesn't end well). I think it's really, really hard to get 14, 15, 16 year old kids to understand how to lead. They're still kids! I think Levels 1-4 capture what I often talk about in regards to becoming a good player, and that is "worry about yourself." But if you have a player that has actually mastered his own work ethic, his own attitude, has a "no excuses mindset," and has developed elite mental toughness and a great competitive spirit, then that player might be able to grasp Level 5. This is the level where a player starts to understand how is actions impact the group, and vice versa. This is the level where a player starts to get the other players in the group to "buy in" to a bigger idea or goal. If a player makes excuses or isn't coachable or isn't a great worker or isn't a great competitor, "worrying about everybody else" will come across as fake and will be destructive to the group. But this is something that can be coached into players, and it is not only a winning trait for that player, but this trait will make the entire group better. This would be "Level 5" for any winning player.

All of these ideas apply to the classroom as well as to a team sport. Getting kids to work hard, to listen, to develop a "no excuses mindset," and to develop elite mental toughness and truly compete - to try as hard as they can - is something that will benefit athletes and students alike.

I think Level 5 is what that rare level where people "make their teammates better," and is much harder to find, but the point is, all of these things can be taught. They're not physical traits. They have nothing to do with how big you are or how fast you can run or how high you can jump. They're all traits that are "coachable."

I think in regards to basketball specific ideas (I'm talking to you now skills trainers), the most under coached part of the game is "vision." There is a whole industry (I'm talking to you skills trainers) that is teaching kids that basketball is a series of moves instead of a game that can be seen and anticipated and thought out. We should all be teaching vision more, but that's a whole other article.

So teachers and coaches, think about these five levels as they pertain to the students in your classroom and the players on your team. What are we doing to instill these core values? How can we best teach them to our students/players? And even better question would be, how would YOU reorder this list in order of importance and/or what other traits do you value that can be taught universally to all students/players?

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate your feedback. #JWT

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