George is joined by Antoine Broxsie to share his extensive coaching journey across various countries and leagues, emphasizing the importance of cultural integration and…
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In this episode, George is joined by Antoine Broxsie to share his extensive coaching journey across various countries and leagues, emphasizing the importance of cultural integration and innovative coaching techniques. He discusses the significance of understanding modern offensive strategies like the Zoom action, as well as defensive tactics to counter them. Antoine reflects on his evolving coaching philosophy, the necessity of specialization in sports, and the impact of introducing CLA (Constraints-Led Approach) in international clinics.
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Esta transcripción corresponde al audio original en inglés.
This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast. This is the podcast helping coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to provide the ultimate resource for making sense of applying contemporary skill acquisition ideas within basketball. Within this podcast, we unpack how an ecological dynamics framework Impacts our perspective of the game.
If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, this is the podcast for you.
Hello and welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. On today's episode, I have Antoine Broccy. Antoine is currently working with Manchester Basketball and the SLB in Great Britain. Before that, he coached in the NBA G League with the Cleveland Charge, served as head coach of the Brampton Honey Badgers in the CEBL, and previously worked in player development roles with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and Memphis Hustle.
Explore Transforming Basketball membership and continue your coach development.
George is joined by João Pacheco, a coach from Portugal who has been living and coaching in Germany for nearly 14 years.
George is joined by Gabriel Milian to challenge the idea of an "ideal technique" in basketball and explore why coaches should embrace variability and individual movement…
Why I Wrote This Series This series aims to integrate the idea of Human Development into the fabric of organizations by design. Most organizations invest heavily in scouting, analytics, marketing, and technology.
A 16-year pro who played in the US, Japan, Thailand, and China, among other places, Antoine's journey embodies the modern coach, blending global experience, evidence-based methods, and player-centered development. Antoine, welcome to the show.
Nice to be here, man. Happy to be here.
Antoine, you've coached and played all over. How have those international experiences shaped your coaching philosophy? You know, it's a lot of playing, and then there's a lot of seeing what other coaches are doing. How do you package that all together? And now it's like, okay, this is what I believe in.
Well, I think you learn as you go. You start picking up things that you don't like. You pick up things that you do like, and you incorporate it into your life and your lifestyles and your life and the way you work. You know, and I think like I always say, you got to have open-mindedness.
Like, I love being open-minded about things and listening and paying attention. Like, you know, that's the first thing coaches teach players. The first thing you got, you got to be able to pay attention to be able to run this play and all this.
And I think that's very applicable to life, you know, life itself. You have to be able to pay attention while you're doing it because, I mean, like, think about it, you're from Brazil. I've never been to Brazil, but at the same time, like, If I was there, I would want to learn how Brazilians live on and off the court.
And I would want to make sure I'm able to walk that line with you guys, you know? And I think that's very, very important when you're traveling the way I do, you know?
Yeah. And how was that experience for you as a head coach when you were, you know, in the Canada League in terms of like finding about your players, finding out about that country, the culture, and then blending that into the actual game and coaching it?
It's very important for me. Coaching in Canada was more so about seeing if I can really do it, right? And I wanted to see, like, because I had an opportunity. It was crazy. Nobody, not many people know this story. I had an opportunity to coach with the Chinese national team, the women's Chinese national team.
They were going to the Olympics or World Cup at the time. I was like, man, I had an opportunity to coach here, there. You know, Yao Ming sent me the contract. And I'm sitting up here looking at this contract and I'm like, man, this is an opportunity.
It's a great opportunity to coach at a high level with these women's basketball team. Because they, I was gonna work with the big girl, you know, from there. And I'm like, man, like they wanna bring you in. Like they heard good things. 'Cause, you know, I worked with Jared Allen, you know, for what, 3 years now?
I worked my first year, I worked with Evan Mobley. I worked with Lauri Markkanen. I worked with some good, good bigs. And when I was in Memphis, I worked with Marc Gasol and Jaren Jackson Jr. every night, every day. So I think I had an opportunity to work with an incredible girl that's pretty— that's amazing.
You watch her play, she just kills. So I'm like, oh, man, can I do this? But then I thought about it. I'm like, hey, this is my opportunity to have my own team. And having a head coaching job, you very rarely get an opportunity to do that.
It's few and far between. So what I did, I was like, you know what? I need to see if I can do this. And it turned out very, very well for me. Like, I had very good feedback. We made the playoffs, players developed, and it was a very, very eye-opening thing.
And I thought to myself, like, I actually have a knack for this. I can do it.
That's when you find out, isn't it?
Right. I mean, there's no substitute other than actually doing it. Like, trial and error. You have to go through trial and error.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I agree completely. And you mentioned working with Jarrett Allen. Can you share what were some of his favorite CLA activities? Alex mentioned there was a great baseball-themed scoring game you invented to work with him.
Yeah, so one of the things I like— he loves passing the basketball. Like, in his mind, he thinks he's like Sabonis or Jokic. Like, he loves those type of plays. He loves playing the game the right way. If you sit down and you talk to Jarrett, like, he wants to see his teammates succeed.
He's one of those guys that is very, very in tune with the rest of the team. So he's like, man, like, We need to figure out how to get this guy involved. And so I'm very imaginative in my approach. And I was like, you know what?
Let's play baseball. I would put different people in different spots, and I would have an umpire in the back. He would get a short roll, and he has to get a strike or a ball. He would love it. And I would say, okay, you got to do an overhead pass over the defense, and it has to be the right pass.
And Ball. And he'll say, oh. So he'll do it again. Strike. And then he'll start, and you know, like we're playing a game baseball, like he has to be the pitcher. And I say, and then on the 3rd strike, you're outta there. He's like, I got it.
You got it. So all different type passes. 'Cause you know, like one of the things I like doing is like when I talk with Alex about things, like I like having different type differentiation in the way he's passing. And he loves that, whether it be left-handed passes, right-handed passes, you know, and it's a great thing.
Like his, his whole goal right now is to have a triple-double. Like if he has triple-double, he's gonna damn near jump for joy. Like he's been trying to get a triple-double for a whole 3 years now since he realized, man, I can make good passes.
Yeah, it's interesting now. Like I'm actually surprised he hasn't done it because he's a great, you know, he's great at pitching the ball and slipping to the basket. But I guess I got a lot of that is like the ball is going to be coming back to him.
Sometimes as well, and he's finishing around the basket. But I'm sure with this Cleveland team, you know, they're loaded. I'd be surprised if he doesn't get a triple-double this season. I mentioned, you know, the kind of the handoff, the pitching and slipping. I want to ask you about the zoom action.
It's a common feature in NBA offenses now. And I think just everywhere, college basketball, even, even like high school are adopting it in Europe, Asia, I'm sure as well. First of all, what do you think of it? And then How do you teach it?
Well, I think, I think you have to teach guys how to be comfortable with pitching, right? Pitching the basketball and being able to understand when to get out of screens. And, you know, like, I love, like, when I used to talk with Jarrett and talk with different bigs, pick a side, right?
Pick a side that you're going to go to. For Jarrett, Jarrett's always picking a side that he feels like he's going to get advantage of. That's one, the first thing. Like, for him, it's mostly like he loves to come across Max Strus' side because he knows Max is gonna come off hot, you know, and they're gonna, they're probably, they're probably gonna just jump out on Max and he's gonna be wide open and Max is gonna make that pocket pass and now he's there at the, at the bucket.
So that's the first thing. The second thing is, like I told you, like being comfortable with pitching and, and getting out. Like I have this thing with when you're setting screens, it's called the DEAD rule, you know, deception, energy, angle, dive. If you do those 4 things, you're dead.
So if I'm able to deceive my defense and go with a little energy at a good angle and then die, like, the defense will be dead. That's one thing I like to teach bigs. The second thing, like I said, is, you know, they also have to have a good feel for it, right?
Like, Jarrett has an amazing feel for rolling. He knows when to hold his screen. He knows when not to hold his screen. But he also pays attention to the actual people that he's putting in the screen. Because he knows for a fact, like, he knows if Darius is coming on a zoom action, like, 9 times out of 10, like, Darius is going to make the right play all the time.
And I'm curious, is there any kind of, like, small differences that maybe, like, someone like me that hasn't coached at that level or another high school coach that may be listening, that, like, the difference between when a slasher is coming off and the shooter is coming off?
I know you talked about the guys jumping off against the shooter. But like, you know, other kind of differences between like, you know, a guy that's an elite shooter versus elite slasher and how the defense are going to be playing that.
But you as a coach have to be able to tell them. And again, like when you're in a game and you're not really recognized, like most people just when they're running zoom action, because they got to understand you can go to both sides on zoom actions, you know.
So most people are going to go to the side of that they're really strong in being able to pitch it or whatever, you know, because they're like, oh shoot. I'm not good going my left, so I'm gonna go to my right. And I think when you look at people like Mason Plumlee and all those guys like that, he's very good in zoom actions.
You look at Zubac, amazing with zoom actions. But I think one of the things you have to learn how to do is not go make a banana cut, but you're going that way with the basketball in terms of an angle screen, not going towards the 3-point line, but you're getting out the pass this way.
Now you're creating separation. Now that shooter is coming, coming out. And if he's trailing, he's— you still can get out. If not, you still can clip him. And if you're able to get it down, because the way most people do it, they do it around the 3-point line.
So you get pushed out a little bit.
So you're not in range to shoot, for example.
Exactly. So that little thing is understanding like, okay, well, the 3-point line is here. Go, go cut the 3-point line in half. Get it out this way. Now he's getting behind. Now you're out. Now he's throwing it over. Now you have a dunk at the rim, you know, or you got something on the backside if he pulls over.
That's awesome. It's like, just like the small details of like fighting for your space and not making sure you get pushed too far outside the 3-point line. And on the flip side, how would you guard the zoom action? What kind of coverage do you see?
And yeah, what do you like to do?
So it's a, it's a 2-part thing, right? For me. Understanding, like I talked about this the other day about Zoom actions, like understanding who your blowup guys are. You gotta have blowup guys. You wanna be able to, I love getting to the body, pushing him up and making sure he doesn't even touch the ball.
Like Isaac Okoro is a blowup guy. Like you designate blowup guys for that. The second part of it is, it's just like you would make sure like Evan or Jared or any big you have, like Push up on that big. Take him, make him not be comfortable with handling the basketball.
It's different with Jokic, right? You don't want to sit back in his own. Also too, you really can't push him up because he's going to get you. He's strong and it's hard to get around him because he's so big. He takes up so much space.
So when he's doing something with Jamal Murray, you are pretty much at his mercy. But other centers that you're putting in a zoom action, You want to make sure you're physical from the point of attack. Once he gets the ball, you're— he's not looking.
You're already playing from the top. Now he's like this. So if you're blowing up the play, and on top of that, like, you're playing, playing physical defense at the point of attack, like, now he's stuck with the basketball. And now you're pretty much— now it's going to be a one-on-one because he's going to have to probably throw it back out.
And now you're probably getting into a pick and roll. And now that's advantage defense. But a lot of times, a lot of times, if you don't recognize the zone, you don't You're not able to get up on the ball handler fast enough, but you have to make sure your bigs recognize that Zoom is coming.
Because obviously the ball's in the middle and then you got, you know, you could have both the Zooms on either side. So that guy, that blowup guy, let's say the ball's going to, you know, the right side of the court and that blowup guy has to recognize that they're going to go to the Zoom axis.
So instead of being that kind of like help position, he's more now, he's got to go press up and get it into the body so he can kind of fight through. It's 2 screens essentially. And get through both of them. So that would be your thing to kind of focus on, that blowup guy.
If you can find good blowup guys, but if you don't find good blowup guys, right, that point of attack has to be physical. Like, you have to be physical with that. You can't give him space. You can't let him do that. Because if I'm dribbling down and I'm dribbling down, I'm going to easily get off of it.
And now he's either in the lane, like, you take Mikal Bridges, right? Like last night, if you put him in Zoom, he's boom. He's getting to his spot and he's just pulling up because he's so big. But if you're not physical with those guys, because what happens is like you're getting— he's pushing you off and he's doing this.
Now you can't even get up and show on a lot of your things. So let's say you don't have a blowup guy. I would, I would say either send him the other way, send that zoom guy the other way, or top block.
Yep.
And send him the other way and make him go to his second option, you know, because you may not have a blowup guy. I don't necessarily like switching because you're coming off that thing full speed. And people like Max Strus is going to kill you.
If he's coming off full speed on the Zoom, he's going to get downhill, he's going to throw it up, and you're going to be— your ass is grass.
Yeah, it's over. It's over. I love the Zoom, man. You know, I really like watching it. The one thing I really do like about it, and it's just my personal preference, but I think I just to mention is like the bounce pass off of it.
You know, we love to pitch and slip, but I think sometimes to your point, when they're crowding, I don't know. I just feel like it's easier. It could be easier for the bigs to, you know, just bounce it. And, you know, the Warriors do a great job of this, just bouncing off to still pitch it early, you know, with the bounce pass.
And I just, something I thought it was interesting anyway.
Well, well, Sabonis is good at the bounce pass. So you got to understand, like those people, they got exceptional people in your zone because, because you take Sabonis, like in his zone plays. When he's in the zone, who he has coming outta the zone.
For the past couple years, he's had Kevin Huerter come out of it. He's had Fox. So if you're coming around and he's coming around with that left and you getting clipped, 'cause you already know for a fact, like, he's gonna pop it and that ball's gonna be there.
He's gonna grab it and he's gonna be downhill with his left. And that's already leverage in itself. 'Cause Sabonis doesn't need to, need to pitch it because his screening, his screening is, is an elite thing. You're not, Even if you push him up, even if you push him up and you don't allow him to get into that zone, he's gonna still be able to bounce it 'cause he's so strong with how he's holding you off.
Once he hits you, you gotta help, and now he's rolling, now he's at the rim. You know, like, like Sabonis and those guys like that, like, those are different level type guys.
Yeah, obviously they got different, you know, action capabilities. They got huge hands that can hold the ball, right?
If you can teach somebody how to do the bounce, Because Kenny talked about it last year. He's like, why don't we just bounce it? Because like, Sabonis, he'll just bounce it. And I'm like, well, you know, Kenny, I don't know if we're good enough to get to that yet.
So, okay, well, let's teach it. Let's see if we can do it. And I love how Kenny, the way he's like forward thinking, he's like, let's see. Let's see if it sticks. Let's throw it against the wall to see if it sticks.
Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. All right. So talking about being open-minded, since adopting the CLA, what are some long-held coaching beliefs you've had to reevaluate or let go of?
Block training. Like, I let go of that because again, like, I think, I think like player development has to be progressive. It always has to be progressive. Like, players are trying to figure out new ways to get ahead of players that they're probably going against.
So you have to teach them new ways of getting better. Like, and I think the finishing and doing also, because I remember Alex was like, man, like, let's see if when they're missing, that's a good thing because now they're thinking like, why am I missing?
When we have sticks up and he's— they're trying to— we're putting constraints on it and they're at the rim and they're like, oh shoot, I can't dunk it. So now I got to figure out what to do. And they're missing layups at the rim and they're like, it's frustrating, but you see them not wanting to give up.
It's one of the most unbelievable things you will see because like normally you'll say, okay, well, you finish and just finish and just do something else. Now it's more so like you're getting away from that. I had to let go of that. I'm like, no, we got to have something different every time we're doing one.
I'm trying to make something different, make them think, make them just push the envelope even a little bit more.
I guess it's just about like making them think. And that's a great point that you said. It's like making them think, oh, like I'm not just here shooting, you know, 10 in a row, 20 in a row, whatever, mindlessly. I'm here constantly thinking about how I'm shooting so I can find ways to Improve it.
Because like, you take for example, when a game starts, nothing is ever repetitive in the game, you know. So even your finishes, you may get 1 or 2 finishes that you work on, but all your finishes may be all different. So, so now you're touching on everything because you may end up doing a finish like this and then do another finish at the rim like this.
And then you may get 1 or 2, if that, that are the same ever in a game, you know. You never really get the same finish Every time, or the same type of shot, or the same whatever, like maybe corner shots. But even at that, like your speed, your speed speeds up, it may slow down.
Your pass may be wrong, your pass may be down, your pass may be up. It's just giving you variability throughout the whole workout, you know? And you watch players, they're like, oh shoot, this is almost as close to game life as possible. 'Cause it's not like, oh, we're not gonna make 10 in a row.
No, no, no, no. We're not doing that. No, with brass swishes, I'm pushing you, pushing your brain a little bit more.
And I know you said in another podcast that players should focus on one sport after a certain time. So for you, what are some transferable skills you see athletes develop from playing other sports? And when do you think it makes sense to start focusing on basketball exclusively?
I said that because, like, you watch the players that are really good at what they do. They were really one sport, one sport people. Their parents decided, hey, like, you're going to be good in this though, so let's concentrate on this. I do believe, because I played every sport, I played football, basketball, baseball, and I do believe, and I was good at every one of them.
I was very good at every one of them. But then when I started realizing, like, shoot, I'm going to be tall, I'm like, I wish what we have now could have been then. You know, someone telling me, because all we did was play basketball all day, every day.
That's all I did was play basketball. Yeah. And, you know, if I was able to work on my skill level at that time, like, it would have been— I would have been a hell of a lot better player, you know? And I believe, like, those people that work on those kids that, that you find early, that we already know he's going to be a very good player in basketball, let's— and also too, like, if he loves it, you don't want no one to just force him to do it, but he or she loves it.
Like, this is what we gonna work on, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then That's what we gonna do. And I think that comes almost like 9th grade, because I knew then for a fact that you got 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th. That's 4 years to really, really hone in on that sport.
Yeah, I think I remember it was like LeBron played football until I think it was after 9th grade year, or it could have been after 10th grade year, but I think it was after 9th. I could be wrong. But yeah, to your point, I think I do agree.
After that certain point, And I think the biggest reason is because you just play so much of it. So you don't want to like be, you know, playing, practicing basketball 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours a day. And then, oh, I got another sport where I'm here for 2 hours a day.
That's not healthy either.
Right. I mean, you also run the risk of, you know, getting injured early. You know, you think about it like when you're preparing for football, you're preparing all summer for football. When do you really have to do for basketball? To go back on the question, what skills are transferable?
I think those physicality skills that you get from playing football, that's very transferable. Because you watch Jalen Suggs, he was an amazing football player. And like, you watch him being so hard-nosed on the court, like he will fight through injuries. Like there's nothing about him that you say is soft.
Like you just look at him just like, holy crap. Like you just know for a fact, like he's a football player. And I think that helps a basketball player become even more physical when he's playing this game. Because I think physicality—
Yeah.
You got to have physicality to play this game, or some sort of it, or some kind of it. That's a skill that's very transferable, I think. Being able to sprint at top speed and being able to— like, you watch football players, them being able to evade and juke people.
You don't have that in basketball. But if you can find it, like, you watch those guys that play basketball, you take— play football, like AI play football. He does look like sometimes a football player on the court because he can move on a thing.
And those things with juking people and—
Yeah.
Being able to get you off balance, like, AI is very good at that. And I think it's transferable back to the football field too, because like, I think basketball players are in amazing shape. So when you're going out on the football field and you're able to play for longer periods of time, that helps.
Sprint for longer periods of time, that helps.
Endurance, more endurance there as well. I agree with you, man. I think it can only benefit, I think, playing other sports. Pivoting on from this, You presented a full CLA-based clinic at Nike's Rise Camp this summer. So taking these ideas to China for the first time, I believe, how did you translate these ideas to a group of players or coaches who don't or haven't seen that style before?
What are some of the feedback you got from it?
So first I went to Alex. I was like, hey, Alex, man, you mind if I use CLA to go with Nike? Yeah, man. Yeah, man. You know, he gave me that. He was like, and I said, give me some pointers. What do you think?
So he started going through some things. He was like, you do this, you do this, you do this. And it started to form. And I'm just like, oh, this is gonna be amazing. I can't wait to try this stuff. So then, you know, at our meetings, the Nike reps was like, what is this?
Like, I had to explain everything to 'em. They didn't know what it was, but they loved it. And I was like, I just need more manpower. Give me sticks, manpower, and just like, Get out of my way. And, and I promise you, they'll love it.
So it wasn't a traditional, like, start off like— so we started off with finishing and 2-hand, 2-sided drills. I did a lot of 2-sided transition. I did all kind of stuff like— and the kids loved it because, you know, even though I was, you know, I was hitting there, blocking their shots with that stick, you watch it like, oh shit, let me finish, let me figure this out, let me figure— So they were constantly figuring out all the things that we were doing.
Like, everything was CLA. Everything, even down to the 5-on-5 I was doing CLA, trying to put rate limiters and put restrictions on everything that they do. And you watch how fast they started to play and watch how well they became in read and react offense and read and react trying to understand how to play 2-man games with people and stuff.
It was amazing, amazing thing. Nike really loved it. I still get called. They call me all the time, even to this day.
And like, just to build on that a little bit, so you kind of in the camp started a little bit, you know, maybe, you know, 2-on-2s, 3-on-2s, 3-on-3s, and then you kind of started building it up until you got to the final 5 and you saw some transfer and some carryover.
So first I did, you know, first it was finishing, right? Finishing with the sticks, having them go right to left, and they had to bust through the nail, finish at the rim, whether it be Dunking or whatever it may be, they had to finish it with a stick over.
Then I got into cross-court passing with the stick. They had to get it over the stick and they stampeded down catching goals or going catches or whatever. We was doing that. Then I did shooting drills. I did shooting closeout drills. What I would have them close out, have 2-sided closeout drills.
Then I would have them shooting with the stick, picking each side that they want to pass to.
Yeah.
And playing a little game with them that I would have the 2 people at the free throw line and finishing with the stick at the thing where they have to make— where I would put no dribbles, one pass, you get to finish. Or you get one dribble between the 2 of you and you have to finish at rim over the stick.
And I would put a game on it up to 10. If they win, I do pushups. And they would love that, right? Then I would do 2-sided transition. I would have them get up and down, changing who takes the ball out, who's passing, who's getting out, who's getting to— and I would make them run balls to the wall.
And now they're playing. So now you got 3 on the court. Then I started with the 4. I guess you were kind of right. It was 1, 2, 3, 4. I didn't even think about it like that. I didn't even think about it.
See, you caught me. You did it. You knew what I was doing before I didn't even do it. I didn't even come to think about it. It was 1, 2, 3, 4, and then 5. It was like that. Then I did the 5-on-5, and now we're moving.
And I would put them in half-court sets, and I would say, okay, I put the ball on someone's back, you go right, what do you do? And now, boom, I find an advantage. And now that you're playing, now we're playing 5-on-5 down.
I was going to say, this initiative, it was all part as well of just kind of— and we spoke a little bit about it before, but just want you to touch on it a little bit, like the importance of Growing basketball in China.
Obviously China already, the game there is, you know, there's a lot of money in it. The players are, you know, super skilled. So a lot of them are thinking, I don't have to leave China. I can still stay here, get really competitive basketball in my home country versus trying to go, you know, to the NBA or other leagues.
But just the importance of, you know, kind of growing that market because I remember like 10 years ago, you know, there was a Jordan commercial and it was about You know, an American player going against a Chinese player for like the MVP of the NBA.
I remember the commercial 10, 15 years ago or something like that. And like since then, you just haven't really seen a lot of Chinese hoopers come out and go to the NBA.
Yeah. I mean, we talked about earlier, like Nike has this thing where they want to inject the top feel of basketball into the youth. Like you want to be the The top players. You want to be one of the top, if not the best, one of the best.
And they feel like it's a travesty where we don't have every year somebody close to being in the draft, somebody's working out. Because like, like I've done so many like pre-draft workouts, there's no Chinese players that's coming through. It used to be every year you get a couple Chinese players coming through from the CBA.
You know, they're saying, oh shoot, like, well, I want to try to get in the NBA. I want to try to get in the G League or whatever. Like, you think about it, like— Yeah. Why aren't any Chinese players in the G League or Chinese players being in being a two-way?
You know, like they got really good talent over there, and their whole thing is like we have to get the love of basketball back into China for not just being good but being the best playing on the best platform in the world. I mean, you think about it, man.
Like for example, probably five of the top NBA players. Or top 15 NBA players are international. We got SGA, Giannis, Jokic, Luka, and Victor had 40 last night at SGA. I think I said SGA, but—
Sengun as well now.
Yeah, you got Sengun now. You got Franz Wagner. You got really good players that are not US-born. So you as China, as a country, you probably want that team. You know, why not? They have the infrastructure to incorporate it, but the kids have to want it.
You know, the kids have to get it. So that's why they're going after kids now. They're going after the youth and saying, hey, we want you guys and girls to be the best. Because again, like, we want you girls playing in the WNBA.
We want you guys playing in the NBA. There's no reason— like, CBA should be second on your list. NBA should be first.
No, absolutely, man. You know, hopefully we do see, you know, more top talent come out and come to the NBA because Essentially, I love the NBA because it's the best talent in the world coming there. So hopefully it's the same, we'll bring that talent from China too.
Antoine, I do want to thank you for your time. It's been really nice. Great speaking to you. But before I let you go, I have one more question. So my final question, we ask every guest this, is the transformative tip. If you could leave coaches with one piece of advice that would instantly improve their practice environment, what would it be?
I would say, to go back to, be open-minded. Go out and learn different tactics that's going to help you grow and push you to be a better coach. Like, don't be so caught in your ways. You know, like, your way may be good, but you can incorporate other ways to help you even be better.
I think that's the most imperative thing or paramount thing that you want to do as a coach. Like, listening. It's okay to listen. It's okay to be attentive to new things or open to new things. Because, I mean, this basketball is always like, you got Transforming Basketball on your shirt.
How in the world are you going to be able to transform basketball without being open-minded?
Great. Well said. Antoine, once again, thank you so much, man. It's been great speaking to you.
Same here, my man.
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