Peter Robert Casey writes a blog that centers on the relationship between basketball and social media. To celebrate his 150^th blog post he listed 150 things that he loves about basketball. It’s not identical to the same list that I would make but reading it has really made me think about all the great things associated with the greatest game on earth. Here are the first 25:

1. #15 vs. #2 upsets in NCAA Tournament
2. 1979 NCAA Championship Game: Magic vs. Bird
3. 1980′s shorts
4. A crispy pair of Jordans
5. A.C. Green’s 1,192 consecutive games played
6. Above The Rim
7. Adjustable rims
8. Air Force 1s
9. American Basketball Association
10. And 1 Mixtape Volume 1
11. Any Bob Knight interview
12. Bill Russell’s 11 rings
13. Blue Chips
14. Bo Kimble’s lefty tribute
15. Bob Cousy dribbling out the clock
16. Bob Hurley Sr.’s impact on HS basketball and Jersey City
17. Bruce Pearl, exhibit A or B
18. Bryce Drew’s buzzer beater
19. Cameron Indoor Stadium
20. Candace Parker, Chamique Holdsclaw, Carol Blazejowski, Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie, Anne Donovan, Nancy Lieberman, Lynette Woodward
21. Chain nets and park rims with no nets
22. Christian Laettner’s “Shot”
23. Chuck Taylors and tube socks
24. Cleveland Cavs pregame rituals, including LeBron’s signature chalk throw
25. Connie “The Hawk” Hawkins ahead of his time

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I was watching a video recently entitled The Pick, Pop, and Roll Offense, which is produced by 5 Star and features NBA assistant Scott Adubato. I thought the tape was going to talk about a specific offense but instead it was a very thorough discussion of the pick and roll and all its many options.

According to Coach Adubato, the pick and roll, which is basketball’s oldest and still most widely used offensive action is effective for four main reasons:

1. It forces the defense to make quick decisions
2. It causes mismatches which result in match up problems for the defense
3. Gets defensive players in foul trouble
4. It forces defenses into rotations and eventually into scrambling to recover

These four things are what we  should be looking for in any offense. Now I must admit that the pick and roll hasn’t been a huge part of our offensive playbook but after watching this tape I am going to make some additions. You might want to think about doing the same!

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In an article written for Winning Hoops magazine in May 2009, Coach Kevin Sutton offered some great insight into what it takes to “own the paint.”  According to Coach Sutton, a player “rents” the paint by simply posting up on the block. If that player actually wants to “own” the paint then he needs to do the following things:

1. Have the proper mentality
2. Be legally physical
3. Score against contact
4. Be efficient with post moves
5. Get to the free throw line
6. Be a relentless rebounder

As a player you have to ask yourself whether or not the paint is just a place to hang out or is it really your “house” – a place that you own and dominate.

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Kevin Eastman, former head coach at Washington State, and currently an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics offers these few thoughts on success. They apply to coaches and players alike, no matter who you’re coaching or where you’re playing.

Do all the things that unsuccessful people will not do. Kevin Garnett brings it every single day.

Jim Rohn – “Success is a few simple disciplines practiced every day. Failure is a few errors in judgment repeated every day.”

- Success has a price, but it also has a choice. The price is what it takes to earn it. The choice is, Are you willing to pay it?

- Successful people are lifelong learners.

- If you want something you’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done.

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Emphasize absolutely no 3’s to a team’s 3 point shooter

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Here is the third and final post containing an article written by Chris Dortch for NBA.com. It has some great advice from names we all recognize!

Basketball is a game of quick reactions. The best coaches don’t cloud the minds of their players with a ton of excess baggage for fear they’ll start thinking too much rather than reacting. Eastman’s tried and true shooting tip, for example, is remarkable in its simplicity.

“Ten toes to the rim,” Eastman said. “If you do that, you can’t be anything but square. And if you’re square, you’ve got a good chance to make the shot. It’s stuff like that we’re trying to get it down to.”

Atkinson, who has an extensive international player development background, has changed his approach over the years to better approximate game conditions. How simple is that?

“I used to be a big repetition guy,” he said. “Let’s make 25 shots from one spot. But I’ve come to find that as limiting; you’re not challenging the mental process. In a game you’re going to get different shot opportunities; you might get up a 3, then go to the rim the next play. So why not work on expanding the thought process?

What are you going to do in a game?”

Besides simplicity, Eastman has another thing going for him that makes him one of the best in the business. It’s called passion.

The Celtics have done a great job developing lower draft picks, thanks in part to the careful eye of executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge and in part because of their player development program. Eastman is quick to credit the franchise’s various player personnel successes to head coach Doc Rivers and his other assistants. But make no mistake, Eastman has played his part.

ESPN analyst and former Duke player Jay Bilas works with Eastman during the summer at the Nike Skills Academy and speaks in reverential tones about the effort Eastman puts into his teaching and his willingness to share what he knows.

“When we finish a workout, he sweats as much as any player out there,” Bilas said. “He throws every ounce of his being into it.

“Every time I’m around him, I learn stuff. I take a ton of notes. Kevin’s the type of guy that, if he gains a piece of knowledge about the game, he would never keep it to himself. He would consider that an affront to the game.”

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Here is the second of three parts of an article written by Chris Dortch for NBA.com:

NBA coaches know what to look for in the selection process. During a recent workout, Kenny Atkinson of the New York Knicks sidled over to a 6-foot-10, 260-pound post prospect and told him the trajectory of his jump shot was a bit too flat.

“So I told him to get his elbow up a little, and he started making them,” Atkinson said. “Then we worked on his footwork a little bit, and he went to the corner and started to make 3s. I’m sure the mentality with him has always been, ‘you’re 6-10, you need to be down on the block.’ But to me, with that shot being worth an extra point, it adds to your value if you can make it. It won’t be his bread and butter, but it expands his game.”

With that brief exercise, Atkinson could report back that this player was coachable, just like Landry Fields, whom the Knicks took in the second round last season. A couple of tweaks to Fields’ jumper by assistant coach Dan D’Antoni turned Fields into an NBA 3-point threat. His career percentage from the college three-point line was .343. As an NBA rookie shooting from three feet farther than he did in college, Fields shot .393 from behind the arc.

“A lot of that was footwork, getting more arc on it,” Atkinson said. “Dan will be the first to tell you those weren’t monumental changes, they were subtle changes.”

The key was that Fields was willing to make them.

Clearly, the prevailing opinion on the Knicks staff is that poor shooting mechanics can be corrected.

“There’s a lot of argument back and forth [in the coaching fraternity] about what skills you can improve,” Atkinson said. “There are guys who debate whether you’re a shooter, or not a shooter. As a coach, I’d like to think you can improve shooting.”

Eastman, who has been immersed in skills development since he wrote a 30-page booklet as a senior at the University of Richmond in 1978, believes that, too. And the process is easier than a lay person might imagine.

“A trait that I have is the ability to simplify something,” Eastman said. “We try to get every skill to three or four teaching points, no matter what it is.”

That comment reminds me of something amateur golf legend Bobby Jones once wrote about swing thoughts. If he took one thought to the course, Jones believed, he would play well. If he had two floating around his brain, he was in for a challenging day. And on those days when three or more thoughts fought for his attention, he couldn’t beat his grandmother.

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Here is the first of three posts sharing an article written by Chris Dortch for NBA.com. The information applies to every player and coach at every level of basketball!

One of the best talents any player can have is the ability to be coachable. Taking instructions & information and applying it. That is called being coachable. Not just having a good attitude and being a good teammate, but taking information that your coaches are giving you and IMMEDIATELY applying it!

NBA prospects need talent – and ability to be coached

By Chris Dortch, for NBA.com

As NBA teams work out and interview potential draft picks in the remaining weeks heading up to the draft, one of the most important traits the various general managers and directors of player personnel will be looking to uncover is whether a player can handle the truth.

“The NBA is all about the truth,” said Boston Celtics assistant coach and skills instructor extraordinaire Kevin Eastman. “You can’t lie your way through to this level. Sooner or later, your skills, or lack of skills, will be exposed. So you deal with the truth straight on.” What Eastman means, and the reason my recent conversation with him turned all Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men is this: NBA teams want to know whether a player they’re about to invest millions of dollars in is coachable. And if the answer to that most basic of questions is yes, the next question is, can that player understand and agree with a realistic assessment of his game, warts and all?

In other words, can he handle the truth?

If he can, and he’s willing to put in the time to improve, he can make a nice living in the best basketball league in the world. The NBA assistant coaches I consulted for this column contend that most any weakness can be improved upon.

Talking with college coaches, I hear all the time about how their players, freed of the NCAA’s 20-hour rule (which limits a student-athlete to 20 hours a week of athletics related activity), can blossom at the next level, where they can work on their games as often as they choose. Not surprisingly, in a league that is constantly adding 19, 20 and 21-year old talent, skills development has become refined and sophisticated, practiced by game-improvement mavens who draw upon any means necessary to get their points across.

“The younger the league gets, the more important skill development becomes,” said Denver Nuggets assistant John Welch. “Before, a lot of that stuff was done in college, but now it has to be done in the NBA. With a team like ours, where we’ve traded older players and gotten back younger players, it’s become very important.”

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1. Competitors crave challenges and turn everything into a competition

2. Competitors are compelled

3. Competitors HATE to lose

4. Competitors play with emotion

5. Competitors take things personally and are motivated by it

6. Competitors play with something to prove

7. Competitors take pride in their performance

8. Competitors are aggressive

9. Competitors are relentless

10. Competitors are highly demanding of self and others

11. Competitors are confidant and optimistic

12. Competitors are ruthless

For more detail on each of these characteristics see www.championshipcoachesnetwork.com

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In an article for Success magazine, John Maxwell had this advice:

“Winning teams have competent players, The Law of the Chain from my book The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork states that the strength of a team is impacted by it weakest link. And that weakest link is always going to determine the load the team is able to carry.

Lou Holtz told me over lunch some time ago that if you have a bad coach and bad players, you most definitely are going to have a bad team. If you have a bad coach and good players, you’ll have a fair team. But to have a good team you need a good coach and good players. That weak link – whether it’s the coach or the players – will always keep you from reaching your potential.

It’s not that the weaker player doesn’t have a role on the team. It’s highly possible your weak player is simply in the wrong position. Countless NBA players have been drafted as the next great point guard but for some reason didn’t get the job done. They either had too many turnovers or were not making their teammates better by getting them the ball where they needed it. But they flourished as soon as they were move to a shooting guard position. They weren’t bad players – they were just playing out of position.”

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