An Ever Evolving Coach with Jonas de Bruyne

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Welcome back to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Delighted to be joined today by Jonas de Bruyne. Jonas and I spent the last year working at college prep in Italy. That was actually the second time we were colleagues, so I had the pleasure of working with Jonas for the first time in Belgium approximately 4 years ago when, when I was working in Antwerp, and, uh, stayed in touch.

Jonas came out to Italy, made transition and now coaching in Germany. And we're going to hear about Jonas's journey coaching in, you know, 3 very different locations and how his kind of philosophy and view of basketball has changed. So Jonas, great to have you on the show.

Thanks, Alex. Really glad to be here.

So let's start. First question then. So when we met for the first time and when we were working together in Antwerp, we had very different philosophies to where we are today. And we were kind of just experimenting, I'd say, with what a CLA was then.

But I'd say we were both using more of a games-based approach. What kind of was the biggest change for you? You know, last year you were coaching obviously professionally full-time, we were working together. What was the biggest change moving from Belgium to Italy?

And, you know, the biggest things you developed last year when we were working at prep?

I think my development has been like 2 big stages. The first one was actually before I was working with you in Antwerp. I was doing a lot of drills I found on the internet, things that coaches in Belgium were doing, and I was just doing literally the same thing.

You're young, You think you're good and then you do, just do it. Then I went to Antwerp, worked with you guys. That already changed a little bit my perspective. Also tried to learn as much as I could during that time of my life.

Before, it was always more like a hobby, but in Antwerp it was a little bit getting more serious. I was not full-time or something like that, but I was really investing a lot of time, also of my free time to learn. Just try to catch up with modern basketball activities.

Then I met you. It's not like a whole new world went open, but it's maybe too big. It's a totally different approach. I really liked it. Then I stayed in Antwerp, obviously still worked there. Did like a little bit of a weird mix, a lot of on-air stuff, but also a lot of CLA activities already then.

And then last year was really big. I think I only worked one year with you, but I think what I learned during that year, in my opinion, it's almost impossible to do that like in 10 years. Because it's also— it also learned me to develop myself and to think for myself.

Last year was like copying a lot of you and of some other coaches, but this is the first year that I really tried to be on my own and try to experiment with a lot of stuff. I obviously keep a lot in touch with, like, coaches I worked with, like in prep with Danny, Adam, Jonathan, and obviously you too.

But I think this year is also really good for me to develop myself as a coach more.

I love that, Jonas. And I think exactly like you said, it's amazing to see how everyone is developing and adding their own ideas to this. Any specific ideas as to some things you really changed in last year when we were in Italy?

I think the biggest approach was that there has to be a defender in everything we do, just for the perception-action coupling. Me personally, that was the biggest thing. Makes totally sense because otherwise you can't read or you don't have decisions. That's like the biggest thing I think I took away of last year.

Yeah. And obviously the small-sided games activities. the parts of the game actually. So what I also learned last year was if you need to work on something, you just need to pick a skill. That's also one of the biggest takeaways I think I had last year.

Awesome. I want to build on that, especially just what you mentioned about perception-action coupling, having a defender. A lot of coaches who find it difficult to go all in with a CLA believe the details or the basics. I think it's very common. I don't want to knock that because I understand why coaches think like that.

It's kind of society as a whole, and it's everything we believed for decades in multiple— but what was your experience, especially in college prep, as to why we don't need that? Why players can learn in context, even young beginners?

I think it's 2 things. One, I don't think you really need the details as long as it's functional for a player itself. I actually had like a discussion with it like a few days ago here. It was about an extended finish, and they were talking about, yeah, An extended finish, you should really get the finish outside of your cylinder, like your arm is straight.

And I said like, yeah, if you put a defender there, then he will need to do it because otherwise he just gets blocked. So it's just, do you need to really have a straight arm? I don't know. Maybe if it's a smaller player, yes, because he's smaller.

But if it's a bigger player, you don't really need an extended finish. So I think that's a really big takeaway. And if so, you want to work on detailed work, then I would just work or give this multi-sided game constraints that he has to do a certain movement.

And then you can maybe give them a little bit of external feedback to make it even better. But I would never do it. I would never teach something in my play development sessions now. We almost don't do anything on air. I also think that's one of the challenges here.

Last year, the players at College Prep, they were really open, really do what we want with them. They were used to the system and every coach there was working like this, so it was all good. But this year it's a little bit different.

A lot of players, especially the pro players that I'm having here, they have been working for years with classical skill development coaches.

Yeah.

That almost don't do anything on air. I don't do anything with a live defender or with a constraint-based approach. Now I'm with some older guys. I try just to make it comfortable because they're pros and they need to perform on the weekends. So it's like 10 minutes of form rhythm shooting I'm doing now with them because they just want to feel comfortable with it.

I don't fully agree on it, but I do agree on the fact that they need to feel comfortable for the weekend and they're pros, they need to perform.

Right.

But with the younger guys, I just do all in CLA. They like it, they adapt it. It's, it's all games. That's, it's fun for them. It's just playing. I think that's the most important thing of the CLA. But with older guys, I'm now doing more of a Lazo mix.

And then obviously the small-sided games I do, I still do them with the pros, but especially the first part is still pretty classical. Then I'm using some stuff I learned at Antwerp.

That's something we've spoken about. I think it's a lot of coaches, especially working professionally, are kind of confronted by that same situation. And I think exactly like you said, obviously you don't want to do it, but the players have come to you and they asked you for it.

And I think maybe they've only known you for 3 weeks. And I've experienced the same in other environments where during the year they would change and they'd be more open. And like gradually we become, we make it more and more complex based on what we know is going to be more beneficial for them.

But it's not easy because it's their whole view of life and basketball is based on a traditional model. And obviously when we are basically removing the rail of support from them and throwing them in the water and not chucking them a life jacket and saying, get up, it's very intimidating.

And I think, like you said, it's if the players come to you and ask for it, we have to do it. Now, I think if you can have a conversation with them and talk about maybe why we don't believe in that stuff, it's great.

But I understand that not all players are going to be ready for that.

What I'm trying to do now is like, I try to, it's like the learning is not only for the coaches, I think, but also for the players. So if I see an interesting podcast or really nice clinic about CLA or skill acquisition, I just send it out and the guys that watch it or watch a piece of it, that's good.

And I think too, Joonas, that's basically why we spoke about it. That's why I did Transforming because I've had so many conversations, coaches at all levels, NBA, NCAA, youth basketball. And they were like, how can I get your message to the coaches I'm working with?

And now it was like, let's just do Transforming Basketball where it's everything. And whether it's podcasts, blogs, you know, they can hear about it. For people listening to this, I think the only way we can change is doing what you're doing, where you're sending messages, where you see a cool blog or a cool tweet, a great podcast from someone in the Skill Lab community, you just send it.

And that's the only way we can change. So I want to get a little bit to what you're doing at Ursprünger. So I think, you know, they've become one of the leading academies in Germany. And I love the fact that you have a lot of room for creativity in your player development.

So could you talk a little bit, Jonas, kind of how you've gone about, especially with the youth level where you're going all in, obviously using a CLA? What has that looked like? What are the biggest kind of things you've adapted from our time together in Italy?

I think the number one is, I already said it, is I think it's just more fun. So that's why I try to do in the player development sessions. I like to make them fun. That's the first thing. And the second thing, I also like the individual approach of it.

So here I'm doing actually 2 parts. The first part is like the player development of the Team A in Oespring. There's a Pro B team, it's a 3rd level here, and I'm doing the player development for them. And then I'm having the youth, the Oespring Basketball Academy, for me, mainly consisting of under-19s, high-level under-19s, and then high-level under-16s.

And then I have 2 other teams, under-8 and under-16, that will also be giving player development, but that's not as much as the 3 biggest. Now, in my sessions here, there's always a maximum of 6 players. I work with them based on the play development plans I made with them this year.

All the players now of the most important teams have a play development plan, and I just make my sessions based off the play development plan. So sometimes, most of the time, it's working on their— making their weaknesses better. But for example, if it's before a game, I'm working on getting them more confident and I'm working on their strengths.

So that's how I work here. Obviously, if you have like 6 players in your session, you can't have The play development plan of everyone in it. So what I do now is like I have 45 to 60 minutes mostly for the play development sessions.

I always work with 2 bigger activities, I would say, and those are based or on one player and the other players just follow the same session, or it's like maybe one-on-one. So yesterday there were like 2 really important players in my session of 4 players, and I just based my session out of those 2 more important players.

So that's a little bit how I work here. Yeah, also I always do warm-up, then the first activity, first goal of the session, then mixing some shooting. It's depending on what the players need. Sometimes the players just need more confidence, so I'll just do more drill shooting in between.

If the players wanted to do more contested shooting, I do contested shooting. Then second activity, and then the last part, most of the time I leave it open. It's 5 to 10 minutes, and it's a little bit based on What I see or I feel they need, or what the players think they need.

If I see the topic is, for example, handling pressure, and we did it like in a 1-on-2 situation, I would say gauntlet 1-on-2, for example, then it could be that I just do again like small space 1-on-1 on the last part because I thought it was not there yet where I wanted to be.

If it's like a pick and roll more based session and we already did a 1-on-1, it could be just 3 minutes on the clock. We do 2-on-2. Wall pick and roll only, for example. It's a little bit open. It's also something I learned last year.

I know the topic. I think you do need a little bit of experience for it. Before, I was really preparing all of my play development sessions, like, with it out, like, 10 minutes this, 10 minutes that, all I need to be on shooting is to be in there.

Now I'm a little bit more convinced that it's not the way it is, the way it is to work for play development, because Sometimes you just see and observe the players, and then based on what they need during the session, you can just tweak it.

I know what my topic is, so, and I know some stuff, some activities I can do, so I just look that up. And then during the session, I just watch and observe them, and I just tweak them based on what their need. In 45 minutes, I already saw that it's sometimes it's pretty difficult, so that's why I still prepared, and I still know what certain players need.

But the most of the time, the last part is more open. And it also challenges me to really be present during the session because it's not prescribed yet. So yeah, that's a little bit how I work here now. With the younger guys, I like to experiment also a lot, but with the pro guys, then it has to be, if that makes sense.

With the smaller guys, and when I have a little bit more room to experiment and try to be creative, test some stuff out. And with the pro B players, I almost have like, then it's the head game, I would say, then it's the main part.

Try to be creative in that environment yet. So I experiment a lot in the younger guys.

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Lots of good practical ideas in there, Ioannis. I think especially the PDP one, I get that a lot because people have seen our PDP format at Transforming Basketball. We got it in one of the player development courses. And I think people wonder how, you know, obviously, A, I think doing a PDP for every player is huge.

I think whether it's a youth club or an NBA team, it's, you can't have a specific player development focus without that because what we still see, even at the highest levels, just generic player dev, where it's just teaching techniques and moves. And it's— I think doing a PDP well forces you to think deeply about each player, and it's such a good task.

But then I think the challenge for a lot of coaches is, okay, we've got a small group session, like you said, 4, 5, or 6 players. We got different PDPs for every player. How are we gonna give them all equal attention within this?

Well, I think obviously, like you said, in the pro setting, I think you can definitely focus on a target player. Absolutely. You know, you've got to be careful about how you sell that to the other players and not make it overwhelmingly obvious. But I think especially an easy way, I think,

is just changing activity starts. So one player, they might have to become better reading closeouts. One player might be handling pick and roll. For another player, it might be off-ball spacing, whatever. And I think just changing the starts of the activities relative to each— when each player begins their reps, it's huge.

So you might have the same version of a 2-on-2 or 3-on-3, but you're changing it in a different way for every player. And I think that's a really easy way we can kind of find different ways to challenge everyone. And then of course, looking for similarities in PDPs.

So for instance, one player might need work as the MIG defender, the most important guy or girl, you know, working on contesting roll-ups. Another player might need to work on finishing. So there we've seen a perfect match. And that's something we did at prep where we just had the PDPs in front of us.

I would be like, all right, what's a good link we can make here? What are the natural complementary things that we could do? And then boom, we go into the activities from there. But it takes time doing this, right? It's so much nuance than just doing, all right, I want to go teach 5 different versions of a floater today.

I want to build a little bit on that, Alex. The challenge I also had here is, so the younger guys, the under-16s here and the under-19s, they are mainly, yeah, still going to school. So our play development sessions, they are based on when they are available.

So then I think it's huge to just give them individual constraints during the same activity. But the thing that you said about trying to find a really good fit in the PDPs is what we do here with the Pro B guys. So they are available the whole day.

So if someone needs to work on their pass slips, for example, and someone needs to work on the decision-making on a pick and roll as a ball handler, we definitely try to get them in the same session because it fits. We have a little bit of a mix of that, but I think it's sometimes a challenge if you work in a normal club to have like really fitting play development activities like with the Pro B.

So I think the individual constraining is really big for most clubs.

I agree. So Jonas, this leaves us a good amount of time to go into activities. Could you talk us through, please, some practices that you've done at Urspring, maybe the last practice player development session that you did, and maybe talk us through it specifically with the small-sided games, the constraint manipulations, and what you were seeing within those activities?

I think this would be really interesting for the listeners.

Maybe I'll just go with some activities I yesterday did because they're fresh in my mind. Yesterday I did, for example, the tennis basketball game of you. I think that's a really cool one to warm up with. A thing that I saw now is when we're practicing here at Ushping, it's like a more closer gym.

So when they lose the ball, it doesn't roll like 2 courts further. So that's one thing that was really a tough one. And then the one-handed passing that appeared from it.

Can you add how you changed it? Because I loved how you've changed it.

I want to make it more entertaining for the players because like After a while, it's a few minutes. And then I tried to experiment with a defender on the net line, if that makes sense. First I did it like he played fully defense, but it was a little bit too easy for defense, so I didn't have the really good passing options out of that.

And then I tried to tweak it maybe with no hands, or maybe you can only catch the ball with your feet. That was a good one because they got different— a lot of options when the hands are behind the back, for example. They have a lot of options to pass next to it.

That's how I started. Then after that, we did some differential learning finishing. It was actually based on a guy who needed to work on his snake and a cobra ball. So the first one, and also some mid-range games, so they like mid-range here.

I did the first one was just normal. So 4, we were with 4 players. 3 players are standing by the triple line. I'm playing defense. And then another guy is also playing defense. First one to 4 makes. Only 2 players can go at the same time.

First one was you only have one dribble to try to get any finish you want. If you have 4, then it's game, and then we do the next one. So it was that we did. Then it was only finish when you could finish outside of the smile.

So when you land into it or you get up from the smile, it doesn't count. Then we did a snake or alternating snake dribble or cop dribble. So then you make— gonna make sure that defense is actually playing behind them because yeah, then otherwise you don't have a snake or a cop.

Yeah.

And then we did one last one alternating between backboard and bread or switch. I think that was like 5 or 6 minutes in practice. That was really quick. Then we went on to some pick and roll stuff. So we had 4 players, 2 rings.

So I just put in some chairs. The thing there in that gym is like, there's one, there's no 3-point line, and 2, there's only— you can only shoot a 3-pointer from around the 45. So the court is really small. So I put just down 3 chairs, random spots.

And it's just make and take. So if you can reject, it's live 1-on-1 from the moment defense passes the ball to offense. When you can reject it, it's worth 2 points. All other scores are worth 1 point. You can use the pick and roll twice was a constraint I set.

Then I saw that they were always going under. So then I said, you can only go under once. You can choose between going over and under or going under and then over. And then I like, you can't finish inside a small because it's always When defense goes over and he's just chasing, it's always a normal finish.

And then I constrain it to can't finish inside his mouth. So then I had again the snake and the, the cop dribble if defense was going over. So that was really a good one. Yeah, it was always make and take, 2 points for reject.

That was still the same thing. And then I did, yeah, just some shooting because the guys were a little bit fried already. And then just the other shooting. And the thing was, you should always use push-out dribble. One-hand catch into one-hand pushout. So, and then I ended session with 2-on-2 live pick and roll, already constraining the space from the beginning.

So they only had 2/3 of the half court to play in. It was make and take, snake or cobra ball was worth 2 points, and defense can only play a high drop because that's what they get here during the weekend. And I also wanted to invite the snake and the cobra ball so defense on the ball could only go over, but that's what they're already playing here automatically.

Just played that for a bit. Always a different location. I think we played for more or less 4 or 5 minutes, and also we did a second rep. So if you make the first, that doesn't get the ball or shoots the ball, goes relocate behind the triple line, and then it becomes a 1-on-1 against the defender that's the closest.

So they could also earn points for that. But the decision maker, if they can go again or not, was the live 2-on-2. So if they score the first one, they can go again on offense, and then they can earn an extra point or 2 extra points with the extra 1-on-1.

That's what I did. And maybe some cool-down shooting, 60 seconds on the clock, they can do anything they want. That was the 45 minutes I had yesterday, I think.

That's the biggest thing people don't realize is the pace. And like you said, in the basketball tennis, like every couple minutes they get bored of it, boom, we move on.

I also like it for me because, uh, you need to be really present in the play development session to see what they like or what they maybe don't like and try to tweak it in that way that they need to use it more or need to use it less.

That's it, making some affordances more enticing and some not so much. So Jonas, I want to say a big thanks. You'll be on again for sure when— probably more towards the second half of your season. And, um, you're sharing a bunch of great ideas on your social media, which will be in the show notes of this podcast for coaches to go and check them out.

And we'll also see if we can share a video of how you've adapted some of the ideas we use together in Italy and how you're taking those and you're building on it, coming up with great new ideas. So thanks so much for coming on the show, man.

Uh, great to hear everything you're doing, and obviously best of luck to everyone and the program. Uh, I think it's really cool that you're having such an influence with these ideas, and it's the same as John in Vietnam, Danny in Luxembourg. I think it's just so cool that you guys are just taking this to a different level.

So it's awesome, man.

Thank you, Alex. Thanks for the invite.

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