Designing with Intention

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Hello and welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about one of the most underrated tools coaches can have in their coaching toolbox, and that's intention and how setting clear intentions can help you design better practices, manipulate constraints more effectively, And actually guide your players' attention toward the principles that matter, the principles of play of your team.

So by the end of this episode, I want to give you a way of thinking about intention that links everything together from your season plan all the way to the small-sided games you use at practice, to the constraints that you use in those small-sided games to get the desired behaviors emerging.

So let's start with why intention matters and what is intention. To me, intention Is the invisible string that ties everything together. So your session plan is tied to your principles of play, which is tied to effective constraint manipulation. So without intention, the changes or the constraints that you add in your small-sided games feels random.

Whereas with it, every constraint, every rule tweak, every feedback you give starts to align. So think, for example, in a game where you've manipulated the constraint and it hasn't really gotten you to what you've wanted. It hasn't gotten you to the goal of your game.

Maybe you didn't even have a goal to your game. So let's talk about a real coaching example. So let's say you're in a small-sided game and you change the constraint mid-game and realize that it didn't lead anywhere. Well, that's the gap that intention fills.

So some of the key ideas with this is that intention gives direction and filters your choices. Because, you know, in a small-sided game, you can manipulate any number of constraints, use Newell's constraints models and see, you know, hundreds or even thousands of different constraints you can manipulate in real time.

But with intention, it really filters those options down. And you're not just adding noise, you're guiding attention. So you're really trying to create the affordances for your players with each constraint manipulation, which we'll talk about a little bit more. In this episode. So let's connect intentions to principles of play.

So why principles of play have to come first, right? So before we can talk about constraints, we have to talk about our principles. Because if we don't know what our principles are, how are we going to know what constraints to manipulate to get the desired behavior?

Or for what reason we want that desired behavior to emerge? So if we don't have our principles documented, Then we're just guessing, especially when we constrain and with the intentions that we set for each small-sided game or session plan. So let's listen to Alex speaking about this in a recent podcast he did.

Rattle off a quick definition of principles of play from your perspective. Yeah, absolutely. Just, I kind of call it the macro and the micro. So say you've got 4 phases of play. So you've got like transition, half-court offense, transition, half-court defense. So it's.

how you envision your team playing in these different phases of the game. So for instance, half-court offense, your principle of play could be when you see neutral, getting to a trigger, right? Then your micro principles could be things like what solutions you want to exploit.

I call them the coverage solutions you want to exploit playing against different types of defense, right? Then a principle of play in transition offense could be to play as fast as possible to find high-value open shots. And then your micro principles would be how you do that.

So that would be Quick outlets, land like a quarterback, whoever rebounds is the point guard, kick ahead, all these things. So it's, you know, for me, that's like the lifeblood of any program, just to have principles of play documented.

So, you know, like he said, and building on it, if you're clear on your intention, the small-sided games becomes much easier to constrain. You're not chasing everything because you have that filter. You're targeting something super specific. And I think that's the key with intentionality is being as specific as you can.

So for example, let's say your intention is to improve 0-second decisions. Suddenly the possible constraints are narrowed. Maybe you can reward offense with the ball back if they take a robbed shot, because that's part of your 0-second decisions as opposed to holding it.

Or you can add a 1-second shot clock on the catch, right? They have to shoot. drive or pass in less than 1 second or it's a turnover. Super simple. The principles filters your options of the possible constraints. So now let's move on to the role of constraints and how constraints can support intention.

The constraints you use can basically— that's, that's really the whole idea of using constraints to amplify certain affordances. Maybe some you might want to even take away.

So let's say you want to play with pace. My constraint could be that the offense has 5 seconds to get into a trigger after gaining possession if they don't have dominoes. So if there's no dominoes and they don't get the ball over the half court and straight into a trigger within 5 seconds, it's a turnover and I can call it straight away.

And now if my intention for that small-sided game, let's say we're doing 4-on-3, is to play fast, play with face and my macro or my micro intention is land like a quarterback, then I can start to also constrain. All right, if you don't land like a quarterback, then it's a turnover, right?

So ball immediately back to the other team. And so now with both my macro and my micro, I wanna play with pace. How am I going to be— play with pace being super specific? I'm gonna land like a quarterback so I can immediately bust out dribble.

I got kick ahead pass. I can outlet quickly seeing the floor. So with that, I can straight away start to design my practices and my constraints so that it fits into the intention of the small-sided game, right? So a common mistake is just constraining to constrain, but if you constrain with purpose and if you're as specific as possible, then you'll get the desired behaviors you wanna see.

So for example, common one in camps I hear and see coaches doing a lot is like everyone on the ball, everyone on the team has to touch the ball at least once before you can score. And so that's like, they think that's going to lead to better ball movement, but that's not necessarily the case.

Because players, what they'll usually do, and I'm sure maybe you've tried this, I know I have in the past, is that they'll start to just pass it in the backcourt where there isn't any defense, and then they'll continue to play like they have been before.

Right. So you have to constrain effectively to maybe see that. The behavior emerging. So maybe you can say that you have to, everyone has to touch the ball in the front court before they can score. Or again, the 0-second decisions always helps with that as well.

So ask yourself, what principles am I trying to train and what constraints help amplify that? So for example, and this is an example that Alex gave in the podcast that we referenced, is double points for rejecting the ball screen, right? We want to make players attuned.

To creating an advantage by going away from the pick. Now maybe you have a player that does that extremely well and maybe they don't create advantages after using the pick. So you could just do the exact opposite and say you can't reject. So now they have to find these solutions using the screen, using the pick there.

So this is an easy example of how you're just making the affordance for them to work on these skills that they're maybe not so good at, or maybe a skill that you want them to work on more. And finally, if we're bringing all this together, let's start with this.

A season with intention leads to weeks with intention. Intentional weeks leads to intentional practices, and intentional practices lead to games that reflect your principles. So, you know, you can start with your season plan, and then you get your session plan, and then you get your small-sided games.

In those small-sided games, what are your micro principles that you want to work on? To work on the intentions you have for the season. And this gives players clarity, it gives players consistency, and it also gives them an opportunity to explore the right boundaries.

So it guides their attention towards what the principles of play. So for example, if we're telling a player they have to land like a quarterback, then they have to find, you know, different ways to box out so that they can get the ball, land facing the opponent's basket, and then start from there.

And this gives you as a coach confidence in your session design because you know you're being intentional and you're going to work on your principles of play. Less guesswork mid-practice, as we spoke about at the beginning of this episode, because it filters down the list of constraint manipulations that you have and more alignment across your staff.

Everyone on the staff knows how we're going to work on our intention. So finally, I have a challenge for the listeners. I want to challenge coaches to document 3 macro principles in their next weekly session. So what are the 3 principles of play you're going to be working on next week or your next week session?

And then I want you to design 1 small-sided game that aligns with the micro principle for each of those macro principles, right? So I want you to design a small-sided game and let's say you wanna play fast. What is a micro principle that's gonna help you play fast and build that in?

to that small-sided game for all 3 of those macro principles. I hope that's, you know, not too confusing. And also, I want to invite you to share. So if you are able to do this in your practice, you can tag us on Instagram, or if you're part of the Transforming community, you can post on the wall and share with coaches and see what you've come out with.

Finally, I want to say intention doesn't need to be complicated, but it does need to be clear. If you take anything away today, it's this design for intention and everything else starts to reveal itself. Thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can let us know, or if you want to challenge some of the things on this episode, you can do that as well by reaching out to us on X or Instagram, or you can find the link in the show notes below.

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