Ecological Approach in Basketball: Swedish Federation

What Is an Ecological Approach in Basketball?

The Swedish Basketball Federation are one of the first basketball federations in the world to adopt an ecological approach in their coaching and player development frameworks. To-date, we understand that the other federations who have also gone down this path include the Norwegian, Finnish and Icelandic Federations (an obvious Scandinavian connection!). Additionally, the regional federations of Bavaria and Berlin within Germany have followed suit. Hopefully, there will be many other federations joining them over the next few years…

What does it mean for a federation to adopt an ecological outlook, and how can coaches, teams and other organisations benefit from incorporating these ideas? Basket Svensk’s excellent coach educators Rikard Aspegren and Andrew Pleick had Mark O’Sullivan on their podcast for Swedish coaches.  A number of excellent ideas were discussed in this episode, forming the focus of this blog.

The podcast is a great introduction for coaches looking to learn more about moving away from traditional coaching methodologies. Andrew and Rikard started with the question of what is skill acquisition? Mark made a great point about how in many coach education courses, no one talks about what skill is. “What is skill and how do we learn skills? What happens to them, do we own them, keep them, do they stay with us?!” – Mark O’Sullivan

Mark went onto say the following:

”Traditionally the idea is that skill is something in our heads, and coaches can plant this through showing players the “correct” way of performing something.”

This viewpoint is what we see frequently at all levels of basketball: from the NBA and WNBA down to grassroots. Coaches coach according to mental models of what they think a skill should look like and how specifically it should be performed. Therefore what is skill? Mark provided an excellent definition:

“We need to understand skill is a functional fit between an individual and an environment over time. Because it changes: players adapt, bodies adapt, the environment changes etc.”

Mark provided a specific basketball example of how in a game, fatigue sets in and players must adapt. Being down two points with a minute left in the 4th quarter changes how a player performs skills versus being up by fifteen points in the 1st quarter. This is a very different perspective to the traditional coach-centric approach. Frequently, the head coach, rather than the players, is at the pinnacle of a practice. Mark highlighted one of the most common (mis)conceptions in coaching: “I’m going to show you how to perform this skill and now you’ve learnt it.” 

We frequently see this in basketball. Coaches and skills trainers show one very specific way of dribbling, passing and/or shooting. There is never a consideration for what the player prefers or what best-suits their body. Within the podcast, Mark referenced Gibson’s knowledge of vs knowledge about (the environment). Traditionally, coaches focus on knowledge about. This is descriptive as it including showing ways to perform a skill, such as a player having their foot and hand in a particular position.

However, skilful performance in the game requires knowledge of. This is in the game and in-context. Mark went onto say that:

“We have to develop players knowledge in the game. Just because they can answer a question doesn’t mean they can perform the skill in their environment!” 

When it comes to interpreting this practically, this means that basketball coaches must be far more patient in providing their players with opportunities to explore. This also means that we should ensure that players practice with representative information. By playing with an opponent, this ensures players are acting on relevant information while dribbling. Instead of breaking the skill apart (decomposing) and dribbling on-air or versus a cone or fake defender, this approach is about “keeping it all together.”

Rikard and Andrew posed a great question about the role of the coach. Mark replied about how instruction is part of coaching, but over-instruction is the issue. Within an ecological approach, a coach may provide the “what” (e.g. dribble past the defender in a 1-on-1), but critically, the coach does not tell the player “how” to dribble. 

 

Andrew spoke about how coaches in Sweden are buying into the CLA, but how there are also many who are resistant and believe players still need to work on their fundamentals and technique. Mark’s response to this focussed on how skilful behaviour in basketball is not about fundamentals, but instead about being functional. “The only fundamental we’re dealing with in sport is gravity!” This is because what may be fundamental for one player, is not fundamental to another. Every player is unique: different bodies, heights, arm lengths, weights. 

“A lot of those fundamentals don’t apply as they’re averages based on one universal average. Functional means that you’re finding your unique solution through exploration that works for you.” – Mark O’Sullivan

Mark referenced his foundations for task design. Is there a ball, an opponent, direction, consequence (eg transition if opponent steals the ball)? The diagram below is taken from Mark’s blog and can easily be adapted to basketball footblogball.wordpress.com

One of the reasons why traditional methods remain so popular is due to the copy-paste nature of coach and player development schemes in basketball. For example, Andrew spoke about when he was sent to Lithuania for coach development. He returned and said to another colleague “are you implying I should implement what I saw in Lithuania? This would never work for me, my personality and players.” He saw very authoritative coaching that wouldn’t work in his environment back in Sweden with 12 year olds first trying basketball. Context is king: we have to have a nuanced understanding of the environment we are in and the players we are working with!

It’s been a pleasure to be involved with the Swedish Federation; both with their new frameworks and supporting with frequent coach education programs. It’s great to see how many Swedish coaches are embracing a completely different approach. At Transforming Basketball, we hope that many other federations and organisations will be brave enough to adopt an ecological approach over the next few years!

Interested in learning more about what is being done in Swedish Basketball? Listen to this episode from the Transforming Basketball Podcast: