17/05/2024
I gave a impromptu talk on Monday to a group of 6th grade players and our coaching staff about details and came up with an analogy that I have been thinking about more and more in the past 3 days:
Most players look at basketball as a very simple puzzle - like a 20-piece with large squares that a toddler could put together.
They think of it as easy and obvious and are frustrated when they can’t assemble it perfectly when it looks “so easy.”
What we do is “Zoom in” to help them see more detail in 3 important aspects -
1) Imagining a bigger future for themselves in great detail
2) show them that each of the 20 pieces they see is actually made up of 15 smaller pieces, that again are made up of 10 even smaller pieces - making a 3000 piece puzzle
3) show them how to practice so that instead of building a vague picture, or worse - a lot of disconnected pieces that don't fit- we build a cohesive understanding of basketball that works for them.
When you have a big exciting future, a detailed picture of what it looks like, and a system to build the skills you need to get there, then practice becomes exciting!
Working on shaping the next puzzle piece when you already know exactly how it fits into your game, makes motivation skyrocket!
And when each puzzle piece is so small, detailed, and focused, achieving mastery of that 1/3000th of a puzzle suddenly becomes reachable, instead of overwhelming.
This is why we do what we do!
