Developing Great Shooters at the Professional Level with Francesco Nanni

This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast, and I'm your host, Alex Sarama. This is the podcast where we help coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to create the ultimate resource to help make sense of how contemporary skill acquisition ideas can be applied within the basketball world.

Throughout the podcast, we'll unpack how an ecological dynamics framework alters our perspective of the game. If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, then this is the podcast for you. Welcome back to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Delighted to be joined by a close friend of mine and one of the rising stars of Italian basketball, Francesco Nanni.

Hi Alex, it's a pleasure to be here. It's always a pleasure to get a chance to talk with you.

Within this podcast today, we are going to take a deep dive into shooting and specifically the application of a differential learning approach within shooting. So obviously, as part of the podcast, you know, we're going very specifically into different subject areas in each podcast.

So the idea is you leave today with a bunch of ideas from Francesco on things you can try in your next practice. And very quickly, before my first question today, a reminder that in episode 9, in Reconceptualizing Shooting, I covered an outline of what differential learning is.

So I do recommend listening to that if you haven't already done so. So with that in mind, Francesco, do you want to just quickly start introducing, uh, where you're coaching this year and, and the context of what level? Because I think that's very interesting in terms of how you've developed your differential learning, aka DL, shooting activities?

So yeah, I've been coaching in between A2 and A1, the first 2 Italian leagues, for the past 7 years now. So I'm working mostly with professional older players, like above 24, 25, players who have already consolidated their shooting mechanics and their shooting motion a lot.

So what we are trying to do and to use the L-Wick is a different situation than what most coaches are facing when they are trying to teach shooting to younger kids, kids that are not— do not have like a consolidated motion yet. And I think it's interesting because it presents some opportunities because the players are very much expert and talented players and we have a lot of time with them.

But at the same time, the fact that they already have a very specific idea of how they want to shoot and how they want to practice shooting can be a specific challenge sometimes.

Absolutely. Those forms of life are very entrenched, and I, I experienced it last year with Paris, just where, you know, a lot of players have their routines and it's very difficult to maybe get them out of that because they think they're successful because of those routines.

Let's begin with an overview of differential learning and, you know, actually looking at what it is.

You know, like, you're the man of the definition, you're the man of science. I always learn from you, so I will try to simply define the way I think about it, which is that I love to use differential learning as an exploration instead of giving the player the solution, the movement solution that we would want for him.

We are trying to let him explore, to experiment with different solutions so that his own body, like, he can adjust and he can find a solution that is efficient for him. And I think it's very important because we get the player If the player is making a mistake, we're going to come back to that later when we name specific differential learning tasks that I'm trying to do with my players.

When a player is, let's say, missing something or is doing something that maybe we believe is not functional for him, some biomechanical factors that can make it harder to score at a high efficient rate, then instead of simply naming to the player, hey, let's say for example, hey, your elbow is in the wrong position, because as we know, we want to try to be So we're trying to make it implicit by externalizing their own attention because we don't want to say, hey, your elbow is in the wrong position.

So we want to let them find specific tasks where they're going to naturally put the elbow in different ways, but without thinking about it. And I think that's the key. And that is also a good way to try to get players out of very internalized solutions that they've been using for years.

I think one of the biggest things I'm trying to do, Francesco, is get coaches away from these ideas of set biomechanical principles. And I think if a player's shot isn't functional, AKA they're not consistently shooting a good percentage, like you alluded to, as coaches, we can suspect that their self-organization or strategy in one area is not optimal.

The key difference though is we don't know what exactly is optimal and what that movement should look like, right? And I think that's exactly where we align.

Yeah, I think, and sometimes, like, me and you have been in the gym together and it's been a great pleasure of mine. Like, when you see a player that is not, I use the word fluid, that is not like when you see him shoot, you see that he's like throwing a rock.

It's like a tough movement where it needs a lot of energy. There's probably an energy transfer, not ideal solution in there somewhere. At least this is My non-scientific language for it. And so we don't know what the problem is. We don't want to go and say, hey, use your feet differently, use your hips differently.

Like, we want to try to get into a more functional solution without knowing what the solution will be like. We are trying to make a sculpture without knowing what the final solution is going to be.

Exactly. I think it's a big part of that is just being comfortable with the unknown. And that's something the researcher Carl Woods, he writes about that a lot. In terms of we don't always have to know what the solution should be. And I think that's such a good example when it comes to shooting and differential learning.

We're creating environments which impact self-organization by, you know, infusing all this variability— shooting from different stances, different arcs, different ball sizes. And the idea is obviously, as players are doing that, they're just going to self-organize and learn to shoot in different, more adaptable ways.

So it's basically, you know, The abundance of the system degrees of freedom, it's a benefit because, you know, the hope is when they go back to more of a CLA activity or the game itself, they can obviously use their degrees of freedom to shoot in different ways.

So let's get— I've got a bunch of questions here for you on DL, but I'd love to get to the practice activities because I think I've picked up a lot of great ideas from you in this space. When we've been on court together, we often try different DL tasks out.

Yeah.

So I'd love it if you could just kind of list some of these activities, and maybe if you can too, like the context, or maybe, uh, because it was strategic variability you were using, you weren't just doing these randomly. So maybe you could talk about the players themselves.

So for example, one that I did with a player of mine, for example, that I'm really— not still, but I've used this idea, variation of these, from a dear common friend of ours, uh, Patrick. Johansson from, from Driller in Sweden, like a great mentor for me.

And he flirted around with this idea a lot in different solutions. And for example, let's say that we want the player to shoot with the ball very far away from his body. We might mention the elbow, we might mention the arc, we might mention different things, but we're not going to mention any of it.

We're simply going to ask the player, hey, I'm going to give you 3 solutions. You're going to have— if I call you 1, it's going to be a shot where the ball is coming up as close as possible to your body. So we're using the ball, which is an external reference, not an internal one.

Your 2 is your normal shot, and 3, the ball is going to be as far away as possible from your body. And then you start with 3 degrees of freedom to let him experience 3 degrees. Then you go to 5. So he's going to have, hey, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

And he has to learn how to control that in small degrees of change. And by doing that, he learned to use his, his junctures, his elbow, his wrist, his shoulder in different ways. Without ever thinking about those. And then you can start asking questions like, hey, what do you feel comfortable with?

Like, what is the number that you prefer? Okay, 3 was your normal shot in the beginning, but now you feel more comfortable when you go to 2, where the ball is closer to your body. Okay, let's start to get into that. And I found this way that you can try to put in different solutions.

So now I make the example about, hey, the ball is close or far away from your body. Or you can think about it in terms of the arc. You can change the arc of the shooter doing this. You can try to change the way a player is jumping on his shot.

You can make an example where he doesn't jump at all, where he simply goes on his toes, or where he jumps a lot, where he jumps in the middle, like use different variations of that. And he has to try to self-organize every time to try to get a good shot.

And I've had this try with many different players, professional players. And they like it a lot. They've been successful with it. We go back to it, we try to change it, you know, to try to mess around with it a little bit. But I think it's a good strategy also with novice players.

I think too, what this is all kind of getting back to is the importance of— you used the word fluidity. And this is where good movers are naturally going to be better shooters. And it's just in terms of how they solve the degrees of freedom problem.

So, so much of the time in the past, Francesco, I think The solution to improving shooting has been focused in the wrong areas. You know, shooting coaches, you know, suggesting very specific techniques, narrowing the degrees of freedom values, whereas in reality it's so many different things.

And I think movement and the ability to move well, and, you know, players growing up in multi-sport backgrounds moving in different ways, I just think that's the— that's basically why we're having to do DL so much with professional players now, because I don't think they're encountering these rich— they're getting, you know, chances to learn in rich learning environments, solve movement problems when they're younger, right?

Yeah, and that's absolutely right. And like, going back to like the specific constraint of the environment, I think like me, maybe other coaches listening to your podcast are facing with professional players. Like, to be honest, like, you know me, like, I would never go like, hey, this is game day, you have your own routine that you've done for 15 years, I'm not gonna come there.

And the first day we know each other and I say, hey, don't do that. That is not scientifically proven to be right. I don't think that's right. But what I'm trying to do is, okay, let's work about it in practice. And maybe like slowly we try to add some more variability in your routine.

The last thing that I try to touch is your game day routine, but only if you feel that you're really like comfortable with working with me, I can start to propose things like, hey, what if instead of doing like 5 shots per 5 positions, and you simply like, okay, you shoot around a little bit on game day, but like change your position a little bit every shot.

And I explained to them why, hey, like in the game, you're not going to take the same shot twice in a row. Like, I know it might feel good to make a 5 on 5 from this position as a mental resource. And if you want to do that, that's fine.

I think like we sometimes overrate what happens on game day, meaning the preparation for the day.

Yeah.

And I think if it's a player who is comfortable doing that, especially like we're speaking about a 28-year-old player, 32-year-old player, like, I don't think like the benefit of doing a little bit like 5 minutes of differential learning of game day instead of spot-up shooting, I don't think it's worth the trade-off of like putting you off of your routine.

So like, I think we as coaches, we need to be conscious that I fully believe 100% in what we're doing scientifically. But also there is like a mental component in the game and the trust and the confidence the players feel that is important.

Especially at that level. I think at the youth level, it's so easy to go all in on these things. It's such a great alternative to ever having to do form shooting and, you know, those traditional shooting drills. But I think obviously it's, there's a nuance to it at the professional level.

And like, you know, you alluded to it, it's based on things like relationships, trust, competencies. And I think one of the players I had in Paris last year when I was there, he, like, during the year, the more we worked together, the more variable his pregame shooting became.

Yeah.

And it was by the end of the year, it was awesome. And I think it was, you know, he saw the value in doing this in the practice environment. And naturally he just kind of, you know, moved towards that pregame. So one thing I want to get at is something Professor O'Gray speaks about is sometimes, you know, learning to do it quote unquote right by practicing it wrong.

And there's certainly an element to that in DL where sometimes, you know, we're If we suspect there might be inefficiency in a self-organization shooting coordination, we might actually highlight and amplify that within the DL task. And that is not easy for a general manager to watch or even for the player itself.

So have you ever actually had to explain this to a player? For the coaches listening, if they want to try this, you know, would you actually recommend them explaining the science behind this in a very easy-to-understand manner for like 20 seconds before you do it?

Oh yes, uh, yes, but we have to be careful because we don't want to go into some internalized attention. So for me, it's important that players know what we're doing. The other day I was, I was working with a player of us. He was not a good shooter, he's a great worker, he's going to become a great shooter, I'm really confident.

We were working on the fluidity and the pushes, and I try to be careful not to mention his feet, not to mention his ankle or his hips or something, but I tell him, hey, you're gonna I tried to let him shoot with his legs completely stiff, like it was, like it was me basically when I'm completely stiff.

And I simply tell him, hey, we want to show the 2 extremes to your body to see what it feels like. And I think sometimes you need explanation because players are very, they care a lot about their shooting. It's how they pay their bills.

It's how they, they go and compete. So we need to earn their trust. Before we can actually work with them. And I think to show that we, we know, like, they don't, they don't want to read a paper on this. They don't want to have a 200-book explanation.

But also, I don't think it's right to hide behind, like, we know that this is the theory, but we have to be able to communicate this in an efficient way. That is, hey, this is 30 seconds what we're going to do. So the example is, hey, we're going to try these 2 extremes.

We're going to try to play, to shoot with your legs completely locked. Yeah. And now we're going to try to extremize the movement of your legs, of every joint in your legs, without mentioning specific one. And then we're going to go in all the in-betweens.

I think that's also a good way for some to explain this to our GM, to our other coaches that maybe are watching. I don't think it's always easy. Sometimes I try to start with some differential learning that are less extreme for this reason.

Exactly. Going back to one point you said before, you mentioned shooting form. Like the other day, there was a player of mine with Another like center is a non-shooter, but he wants to learn to shoot, to be comfortable, at least from the free throw line and from like a random spot of 3 sometimes.

And he was form shooting from like almost below the basket every day. And I said, you know what? Like, I'm not going to tell you to not doing that. But today that you practice with me, let's start shooting from behind the 3-point line.

Like almost NBA range. And you try to like to move all your body to solve the problem with the degrees of freedom of your joint and let it go. Let the ball fly. Because I noticed that the other day we were doing like a half court shooting competition with the guys, you know, the classical thing that players do sometimes.

And he was shooting so well, like he's a strong dude and his shooting form was almost better from the half court than what it is from the free throw line because the free throw line is basically like locking all his joints, is not letting the ball slide.

Yeah.

So I said, hey, like shoot from like 9 meters from the rim. Let's try that.

Okay.

Then we tried it and like he scored sometimes. Okay. Can we try to do the same when we get closer? Like we have to try to coach in strange ways. Sometimes we have to also challenge ourselves and like, hey, we know that this is going to look— it looks bad on the player sometimes.

Like not bad, it can make the player feel uncomfortable. And we have to accept to be uncomfortable ourselves when maybe something is not working immediately. When there are people in the standings watching us and say, what the beep are they doing here? Why is he shooting from 8 meters and he's not a good free throw shooter?

So true. I think when I've been thinking about how to present DL to professionals this year, and it's kind of like my pitches, I think firstly, like you said, start with the least extreme, you know, MAYA, most advanced yet acceptable. So we'll start with what is, what is the most advanced DL things we could do which are acceptable to the players and the staff around us.

And then how I explain to the players, if, you know, if I was with you right now, I'd be like, okay, The goal with this next shooting activity is to make you as adaptable as possible so that you can shoot in different ways.

Some of these shooting activities, you're not going to shoot like this in the game, but it's really going to enhance your movement and your shooting coordination so that then when you're back in the game environment, you can adapt in different ways. And that would basically be my 10-second pitch.

I wouldn't use any scientific jargon or anything.

Boom.

And we'll go straight into it. So I think it would be a fun task, Francesco. Now maybe we go through some rapid-fire DL shooting activities. Coaches, if you're listening, you can get your notebook out, try these in your next practice. So let's go.

Maybe we'll go on a scale of least Maia to most Maia, and we'll end with the most extreme ones that we've been trying. So maybe I'll kick us off. Least Maia, changing range and location every shot with a different pass.

Yeah, then we can go up into something that, let's say we go into that of the dribble. So we change range, we change location every time, and we try to change like dribble pull-up, but every time you do a different footwork. How many times, how many different footwork can you go into that?

So you can step back, sidestep, same footstep, hesitation, normal classic poke, left and right, right and left, all different stuff.

Great stuff. So I'll build on that, same things, but now you have to shoot your dribble pull-ups or your catch and shoots from a different stance every time while changing range, location, pass type.

Oh, nice. What I would try to do is to add maybe more like— because for now we've been like working on like realistic game-like footwork. Now we can add like some almost non-game-like rotation, for example. So hey, you're gonna jump into this with like 180 degrees rotation.

We're gonna jump into this like with a 360-degree rotation, like rotating back, rotating forward, like different stuff that we can try to do.

Love it. Build on that. Now, same, there's going to be a perturbation as you do it with a guided defender pushing you or resisting. So you got to shoot against that and then land, you know, with the push/pull.

I'm gonna go like Sideways instead of building, maybe. Love it. Do it. I love the ideas of controlling the balance of our shot. So sometimes we tell our players, hey, jump back straight. But I don't think it's about jumping straight up and straight down.

It's about controlling your body. So sometimes I'm sure you're my same age. You remember when we were kids in those like arcade rooms, there were these like dance, dance stuff where you have to put your feet everywhere. And so imagine those and sometimes you have to jump shoot and land forward.

Sometimes you have to jump, shoot, and land on your right, on your left, back. And by doing that, by still keep trying to shoot, you learn how to control your center of gravity and to land in different ways. And then you can do that by jumping off the dribble, coming on from a rotation, and everything we did before.

Awesome. Now let's go almost WTF differential learning shooting. Imagining you're a youth program or you got like the full trust of your organization in a pro setting. I will ask that we've got crash mats out, floor mats, and we're changing different size basketballs, size 5, size 7.

And I even did it with a football as well, shooting with a soccer ball.

That's great. And you know, like I was in pre-draft workout and I won't name the player, but with an NBA player, now he's an NBA player, top 10 pick in draft. We were doing shooting, like simple touch, and we were doing dribbling. And for dribbling, we were already using a heavy ball, a WNBA ball, and a basketball.

But until the moment we had never used those to shoot. And so I said, okay, we start with our classical routine. And I started throwing him different balls. WTF, are we doing this? Like, hey, let's like keep working on that. And he was still missing with the WNBA ball.

I said, no, no, this is fun. Now I have to do it. Like, I think so that, that was one of the most fun that I had trying the differential learning with like pro players. Building on that, I think that sometimes I love to start, and this seems like a fun game.

I did this when I was with you this year. I think sometimes a good way to introduce differential learning and a competition is to start practice with like a 3-minute game of HORSE, the classical game where people have to challenge themselves with different types.

And then you can like constrain the variation they can put. Hey, this is differential learning. This is HORSE, but only like in catch and shoot shot. So basically you work on your footwork before you throw a self-pass and do this, do that.

Yeah.

More or less realistic. You can do that off the dribble, you can do that on finishing, you can do that with a pass. Like, it's a fair game. Like, I think it's a good and fun way to start practice. Also for coaches that are coaching like in camp situation, it's a good way to get the kids to know each other.

I've done it in a while in many different camps and I think it's effective.

I love that. I just also want to leave a disclaimer for coaches that I think, you know, we explained some general DL tasks, but I think The best thing is if you want to start with this for the first time, maybe you're hearing about it on this podcast and you haven't, you know, studied it before, no problem, try it out.

I think you're gonna have to use these DL activities kind of with maybe all your players in a team practice. But the real kind of benefit is I think when you start individualizing it more and you go around, you know, you can do this in a team practice, but every player has different kind of DL tasks.

And that's something we did at prep. You saw it when you came in. I think that's like for us, like when we started practices, I think the best thing to do is actually DL shooting. You know, the players will definitely want to shoot around a bit, but we always had them kind of changing range, location, no spot shooting, no form shooting.

And then once they were comfortable, they then moved to the DL task that they liked the most. And that was all individual.

But going back to something, now we go into more stuff, more Maya, so more acceptable, I think, yet acceptable. I think that We've been doing something like, hey, we're working on off-screen situation and now you're going to have a young defender chasing you or shooting the gap on an off-screen situation and you go and try to have a different shot every time.

And it's a mix of, now we have, I had a defender, so now the differential learning is not going to be as you wish. You're not going to be able to dictate your own shooting, but sometimes we try to get the player to Try to introduce as much variation as possible.

So let's say that the defense is chasing you. Sometimes you're gonna go 3, sometimes you're gonna go pull-up 3, sometimes you're gonna go for a fake sidestep and see what it's gonna do. And either when you shoot the gap, you know, you can try different footwork to get into that fake shot.

Same on a dribble and dump situation where you want to shoot out of it. Same way in a pick and roll situation. Like, I think that coaches don't have to think about DL as something that you do in a vacuum.

Yeah.

But I think especially if you get older player, you can add DL to more strategic game, like where you say, okay, now we're playing against the drop. For example, you have your defender in the back and he's really trying to play, but you know, classical constraint, the defender has to go over the screen every time.

And yes, you're trying to score every time, but now I don't want you to take the same footwork twice in a row. So you have to, you're gonna have to score and create separation with your defender in different ways.

Yeah.

This is a way to mix together a DL constraints-led approach and to make them experience.

Love it. So this, this is actually how I wanted to finish. Now, we've probably been upsetting Wolfgang Schoellhorn, the inventor of DL. I have a lot of respect for Schoellhorn's ideas, but it seems like just from what I've researched recently, Schoellhorn does not see DL as something that's actually compatible with the CLA.

which I consider very interesting. I think kind of how we both sit, Francesco, is we see DL as supplementing a constraints-led approach for the reasons discussed at the start. And a lot of other kind of contemporary skill acquisition researchers agree with us, I think.

But I think where Shulhorn sees DL is kind of as a main coaching methodology with the CLA underpinned by ecological dynamics not even being necessary. And that's very interesting because you know, you would think that there's a lot of rationale behind, you know, DL complementing the CLA.

But it's also important to note that, you know, in my context, I'd say last season I probably used DL maybe 15% of my total time, and that was only for shooting. So it's like, this is not something that's like— the CLA is something that we, we are both doing a lot more in our practice environments.

Yeah.

But we both view DL as being something very useful because We can enhance the solution space, aka get a shooter learning how to move in more different ways. We can simply do that way more within DL than the CLA, where we might not perturb the system enough.

I would add that DL for me has been effective when you have a situation where maybe a player, an older player, cannot go through like contact practice a lot. So we have used DL for passing a little bit. We have used DL dribbling a little bit, I think is overall, I still use it less than a constraints-led approach.

And I, but also I think for kids, there is a value. Like I'm speaking also like younger kids, like mini basketball kids, maybe like they're playing with some activities, maybe not a defender, but like a, like a tag game.

Yeah.

Tag variation, like a capture the flag, like situation that where you're still reacting to somebody else, but it's not a real defender because 8 years old, a real defender that is trying to steal the ball would be too hard for you to execute a lot of different movement tasks.

Then the app can really help you because you can ask, hey, like, what are— show me all the ways you can get a layup instead of teaching, hey, layup is left or right. Yeah. And this is it. Like, hey, no, we simply want to expand your bag as much as possible early.

So I think the allies might go to, let's say, method when I'm in, when I need to go 1-on-0 or 2-on-0 or stuff like that. The way I see it, like, I'm sorry to contradict the professor, but like, it's compatible with then you go when you can have defenders and then you have constraint to it.

Exactly. No, I think, I think we should contradict research where possible because I think it's like, that's, you know, how we can make more sense of it. And I think the difference is it's like, It's what I mean by contradicting research. There's a difference between research which is very kind of supported and respected in the field with like researchers from multiple different backgrounds reaching the same conclusions versus just one person kind of listing a theory and proclaiming that theory to be true, you know.

And obviously that's where the CLA and ecological dynamics— it's a, it's a rigorous evidence base just proven by the countless kind of researchers all over the world, you know, producing some of the papers. So I'd like to finish with 2 things, Francesco. So obviously most of what we do at Transforming Basketball is focused more on the ideas of an ecological approach in the CLA, with DL kind of supplementing that.

So you've got some excellent CLA activities in shooting, which I've had the pleasure of seeing firsthand. Would you be cool just to describe maybe a few of those, like your top couple or top 3? And then coaches could try those in their next on-court session?

Ooh, let me think about it. So I, I've done a few, like, I think for my specific constraint, what I'm trying to do sometimes is to find a situation where a defender is active, but there's not the amount of contact that you would have in a game.

Yep. So I like situations where, for example, a, the offense is, how can I describe this? Like the offense is, the defense has to chase the offense. around a specific path. And the offense can decide, for example, hey, if I want to go right to left here or left to right and the defense chases me, these are simple ways.

And then I have to come off and then the defense is chasing me. And so I have to get space for a shot. It's a simple way that we have done to simulate some of the off-screen solutions without having the real contact. Okay, now the defense is top locking me or is hitting me.

Yeah.

We want to go into a dynamic shooting that it's similar to what's going to happen in a game. But taking away some of the heat and some of the physicality of that to maybe do in a Friday morning before a Saturday game. And I think then you can add to it and you can say, okay, now the defender can start also to shoot the gap on the last situation.

I'm going to send to your, to your follower a link that you can link in the description.

Okay.

So it's going to be more clear because it's tough to explain just by word. Another activity that I love is building on the classical 2-on-1 shooting. And now I'm doing like 2-on-1 shooting from like A ghost screen situation. So let's say we're playing a ghost screen and the first player is with the ball without a defender, and the ghost screen player is guarded by a defender and they're crossing at full speed like a ghost.

And so either it's going to be the handler coming off to shoot if the ghost defender is not switching in between with the right timing, or if he stops, he has to stop, throw the pass and hit. And now you can see that it's tougher to get— They only have one pass in this scenario.

And the ghost screen defender can do multiple stuff. Maybe he's going to also hedge on that screen. Maybe he's going to also try to fake to switch and then go back to his man. He can stay on the ball, but trying to maybe move his body in a way to make it tougher to make the pass.

Like, there are multiple scenarios that you can try to think of. If you think about it, like, you're not using an explicit DL here, but the solutions need to be different to find. Yeah.

I've experimented about too, Francesco, and just to increase the repetition, repetition, I've added a second ball. So whoever doesn't get the shot, they get another one. And then the defender has to try and contest that one too. So, you know, there's so much unpredictability we can get in that.

And like last year, I had a problem where a rate limiter emerged where when we were ghost screening, guards were always looking to pass it.

Yeah.

And we were getting that pop pass stolen a lot. And obviously, you know, it's just a layup or dunk the other end. So basically our guards weren't attuned to the affordance landscape within a ghost screen. So we did that exact activity you described, 2-on-1 shooting with a ghost screen.

And the defense, we encouraged to play defense many different ways. And obviously in player development, we tried to get them stealing that pass sometimes so it wasn't on. And just, you know, then you do the same thing 2-on-2. And I think it's just a great way to get it across to players that with a ghost screen, there's many different affordances that could be acted upon.

Yeah.

It's not just one thing. We're going to go screen pass it. There's a lot that could happen, right? So I want to finish with this, Francesco. To me, you're a great example of the modern coach in terms of where I believe basketball needs to move towards is obviously integrating contemporary skill acquisition and to move beyond, you know, path dependency, traditional ideas.

I think it's very important we have time to study and to research. I think a lot of our conversations are focused on the latest things we've been reading. listening to within the skill acquisition space. And, you know, a lot of professional coaches, they find it very difficult to do that.

They get caught up just in, we know how demanding it is, the highest level of the game and the, you know, European professional setting and, you know, in the NBA, EuroLeague, WNBA, wherever. So it's like, what can coaches do to, you know, try and keep learning during the season so they can keep experimenting, keep trying some of the ideas that we've spoken about today?

That's a great question because I think on one side, yes, coaches might need to do a better job, like keep being curious and keep being active and keep going finding stuff outside of their comfort zone to read. At the same time, as almost burnout coach that I was 3 years ago, I want to say that sometimes I don't like to use this expression that the system is broken, but like if you are put in a position when you don't have time to do a specific thing or research, like you should also find a situation to

accept it. Like, I think mental health is such a big topic for you and me. We spoke about this multiple times. So yes, we need to be curious. Yes, we need to keep trying to do that. If you're put in a position, let's say for a year, let's say that next year is going to be, I don't know, I get hired by a random NBA team.

That's my dream. And it's so tough to learn everything and to be on top of everything and to learn, hey, this is the way the game is played here and the difference between Europe and here. So I'm working a lot over there. It might be okay if I don't have time to do other stuff.

Like, I want coaches to feel that do your job as better as you can. And when you have time, you have the passion to go and research this. Like, This is the thing that sometimes coaches, when they have time to do their study, they think about that only in terms of watching a EuroLeague game, watching an NBA game.

Sure.

While sometimes reading a paper, watching a clinic, a clinic that is not about X's and O's, but it's about teaching, it's better than watching games. So if you don't have time to study in any way, that's okay. Like, I want you to feel good with that.

But if you have time, I would suggest not only to study the X's and O's, but also to study how to coach, because otherwise, what are we doing here? Like, we are teachers first, and there is a difference obviously between being in a classroom and being in a basketball court.

But I think that I see many great, great European coaches with a lot of basketball knowledge that if they would be able to transfer what they know in a more efficient way, using CLA, using ecological dynamics, using anything.

Yeah.

they would be such better coaches. And I'm lucky that right now I'm coaching this year with an American coach, Jamie and Christian, who is trying to do a lot in this regard. Like, he's trying to get the ecological environment right for the players to learn, to be in the right environment to learn.

That's a great step.

I think that was an amazing response. It linked back to a number of the themes I wrote about in the book Transforming Basketball. Especially just the external lens, which is currently kind of very dominant within basketball, the importance of a positive organizational culture.

And then finally, the department of methodology. And that's where I think, especially at the professional level, having someone on staff who can basically do the research for the coaches and kind of present it in very quick, short, understandable formats, I think that could be a game changer.

So Francesco, I just want to say thanks so much for taking the time to join the podcast, and obviously, uh, we'll do many more in the future and share a lot more of the ideas that you're working on.

Thank you so much, man. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'm gonna be excited for this to come out. I'm gonna keep following your, your great result during the season. I'm so excited. I don't know what I can share publicly on the podcast, but it's gonna be great, man.

I'm so excited to see you there. Amazing.

Thank you so much, man. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Transforming Basketball Podcast. If you would like to learn more about the work we do, head to www.transformingbball.com to access our free resources and help spread these ideas throughout the basketball world.

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