The Art of Practice Design in Basketball with Tim Dather

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Welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Today's guest is Tim Dather, assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers. Tim's coaching journey started as a student manager at Indiana before moving into the NBA Where he served as video coordinator and player development coach with the Pacers and the Hawks.

Tim worked for 3 years with the San Diego Clippers G League team. Known for his ability to blend film, player development, and practice design, Tim now brings that experience to Tyronn Lue's staff. Welcome to the show, Tim.

Thanks for having me, George. Really thrilled to be here.

So I'm curious, like, what's your perspective on practice design using constraints to manipulate behavior there?

Yeah, I think it's become so important and so much easier to see like skill emerge and different from the traditional approach, right? We in the NBA, almost as much as any, you see a ton of traditional approach and, you know, when you first start experimenting with it and seeing guys use it, all of a sudden you see the skill emerge and you see it transfer.

You know, I think for that reason it's become a very important thing in the NBA and a trending thing. That people realize the value of.

And are you guys, I know now obviously moving to the Clippers, but even when you were with the G League, do you work with the analytics department so you can know exactly what, you know, how to design your practices? Like, what are those conversations looking like?

Yeah, I mean, especially in the NBA, you have all these different departments coming together. Analytics has a big say in it and medical has a big say in it. You know, how can you accomplish what you want from a coaching and X&O perspective?

But also get the load you desire or a low enough load you desire. And that's where even more skill is required in manipulating constraints and making games smaller or letting them be bigger and full court and being able to manipulate in both ways.

Yeah, I guess that's the thing with the NBA. There's just so many games. So like a huge constraint is just you don't practice as much, right? So you have to be super creative. Especially with the guys that are playing a lot. And when you do get practice time, are you actually going to practice with them?

So it's an interesting consideration.

Yeah, it's a very common trait in the NBA is how to lessen loads while still getting live reps, right? So how can you make it shorter distances to cover but still get a live read? And, you know, we have player development associates, which we use all the time to kind of guide them.

And those guys help take some of the load where you don't need to play offense and defense. Maybe you can focus on one side of the ball at a time.

And then it's less like going back and forth. And it's interesting, I forgot who said this, but like players are running, you know, miles and miles every game. And then you add that if you're having a full practice session and it, you know, it's add up, not even like sprinters train like that, right?

They don't put that kind of load on their body. So I think basketball is so interesting with the kind of medical staff blending it all together. So it'll be interesting now how that's all going to work, getting that information.

Yeah.

While you're designing practices.

Yeah, no, you're 100% right.

You talked about the transferable, right? Adding the constraints. What do you think is the thing that most links the practice session to the live reps or the game environment? Is it repetition, the simplicity, or showing video? Like, what is the one thing that for you is like, okay, that's what we need to do for it to transfer to the game?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, you know, what we're all trying to do here is make a representative environment. Is if you can do that, that's when you see most of it transfer, I think. And then, you know, I would say an underrated part of that is kind of the players buying in and having a mindset of exploration.

One of our guys the last couple years, Jordan Miller, is like unbelievable at this, and he's become a super adaptable, creative finisher. And it's all with his want to explore and kind of him accepting feedback from his environment and his defender and Worked on 0-1-2 in 2 feet, different options out of 2 feet, different options out of bumps.

Him exploring all this has kind of emerged into him being a super adaptable finisher.

That's great. I think it's, you know, like, how can you challenge them, especially when they're so talented at that level, to the point where they're still learning, right? Because I think that's the thing with the pro players is they're already so talented. How can you challenge them even more as a coach?

Yeah. And you got to manipulate your constraints accordingly. We had a guy another day actually, and we were doing some finishes. We're trying to get him to draw a little more fouls. And I had to incentivize the Fordham so much because he was just scoring on me and taking 1 point every time.

It's like, well, you get 8 points for a foul. It kind of makes it so attractive to them that you can do that. But yeah, you kind of have to figure out ways around when to challenge them when they're so good.

And that was, they have to get a defensive foul. Before scoring.

Yeah, like a finishing game, they got 1 for a basket, and then I made the foul worth 8, and we'd go to 16 or something. So, you know, they'd be there all day. They didn't take some, you know, affordance there. And then another part of that is like using our guys to guide it as much as you can.

We have PD associates, associates who, you know, we invest a bunch of time and money into imitating NBA length, speed, athleticism as much as we That's amazing.

I'm always impressed by how much investment there is now with the coaching staff so that one, players don't have to, you know, exert themselves on defense if you're not working on that. But then 2, the coaching staff know what to do and what they're teaching and everyone's on the same page.

It's great. You've had experience, extensive experience in film. I want to ask you about when you're breaking down film for players, how do you decide what clips to show and how much detail to show?

Yeah, a big part of it for us is focusing on our rate limiters. So we'll set 3 kind of concepts, goals, and areas we want to focus on, again, with the help of our analytics team, medical team at the beginning of the year.

And those change throughout the year. They can change throughout 20 games, but we really try to focus on those in the film. So if it doesn't fit within those 3 categories, most of the time we'll kind of exclude it. And then As far as detail, we try to like guide question in our film instead of giving answers.

And even if you get to a pretty narrow solution space and you're kind of asking, hey, what would be a better solution here? Instead of, hey, put the ball on my left foot, go right, left, stride, stop. Like we'd rather be like, hey, you know, maybe a good place to find 2 feet and find your solution from there instead of that much detail.

We try to At least still present some kind of solution space and not give exact detail of a move even in film.

Right. And is there anything else? Like, is there any other tips and tricks that you've done along the way? I know, like, I've heard of using and referencing pop culture in videos, so players like being funny, so players can find some joy in it.

You know, is there a time limit that you add to it as well? Like, any tips or tricks from your experience?

Yeah. I think kind of one trick we used, and I used a lot in the G League, is you could have 3 themes and no more than 3 or 4 clips for each. So you're looking at a 12-clip edit. And then I think some of the other stuff is always, you know, the art of coaching, I guess, having a little bit of fun and kind of using some of those things.

You know, we used different movies and things like that. I haven't filmed before in my career, so just kind of being able to use things like that to Make it fresh or fun for guys always helps.

No, that's great. And those 3 things, again, just so I'm clear, it's the 3 rate limiters. So it's like the strengths, what they could do better, and then something that they're not so good at yet, their weaknesses, right?

Yeah.

So, I mean, a lot of times a rate limiter for us can be a pretty good strength that we want to make elite. Again, like using the Jordan Miller reference, he was a very good rim finisher. He had a ton of paint solutions already, but we kind of recognize this as a place where he can not only be a good NBA driver, but could be elite if he continues to work on it.

So yeah, some, some weaknesses, but also some moderate strengths trying to make even bigger strengths.

Right. No, that makes sense. That's great. Can you share an example where a film-to-practice adjustment had a clear impact on how your team performed in a game? Do any of those come to mind?

Yeah, I think I could go with a couple here. I think individually, again, kind of sticking with Jordan for this, is he used to walk All his drives and closeout reads from the prior day. And then we'd try to imitate those environments on the court right after.

So that was kind of the last piece of film or the only piece of film before. And then we'd imitate it after. And I think that really helped him going like viewing it. Hey, what are potential solutions? Okay, now I'm doing it versus defense or, you know, a close to similar environment.

As representative as we can get with the people we have out there of a rim read or if you're driving middle and bumping to space, hey, you got to use a bump. And then we'll play from there. So I think that really helped them is doing it right after.

And then team-wise, you know, we had a center this year in the G League with San Diego Clippers who switched a bunch, was on the perimeter, wasn't naturally a center, was more of a 3 and 4 his whole career. And he's playing center for us and is a huge advantage.

But one of the most effective film sessions we had is he would, he would be in the habit of running wide. And so instead of trying to fight it, we had a film session kind of like, okay, if Braxton's going to run wide, like what are our most attractive affordances here?

And it was super open-ended and the guys were like, oh, I think this, I think that. But we all kind of came to conclusions together that this is the most attractive affordance we think if, you know, best players on the strong corner and 5s in the opposite corner.

And that was super effective just for us all to kind of hash out. what we think the best options are. And then, you know, it was a work in progress, but the next day we were much better at recognizing, hey, we see this, this is probably our most attractive affordance to start offense with.

And this is you guys co-designing what, you know, might be the best thing for the offense is asking, what do you guys think is the, you know, the most attractive affordance in this situation? What can we get into quickly to help create this advantage and start dominoes?

Exactly. How can we get it as fast as possible with our 5 running in different positions?

Interesting. And speaking on that, what NBA concepts or, you know, the G League concepts do you think most translates to youth basketball or high school basketball?

I think every NBA coach would tell you when guys get here, NBA coaches are always disappointed in their ability to play off the ball and make what we would call space reads. So we're like, you know, you all have the ball so much and that's great.

But when you get to the NBA, not very many people have that. And most of the time they're already established in a team and you have to build to that role. Like the Clippers, like, hey, you know, like everyone's going to have a little bit, but like Kawhi Leonard and James Harden are going to dominate it a little bit because, you know, they're primary playmakers for us.

Well, I think everyone would say kind of the space reads, the cutting, finding windows in space, more drive and kick play. And, you know, if you attack the slot, what's your next play? Successful rim reads. I think Those are kind of more the concepts and other development, individual concepts that the NBA would like for people to be better at when they get here, for sure.

It's interesting because it's like, it's a 2-part thing, right? Like, because they say the European system develops better off-ball players because they learn to play in the team concept. And I guess they kind of play adult, like, you know, with adults in Serbia.

They're going to be like, if you're a great player, you're going to be playing in an adult league. As well as playing with your age group. So you kind of have to learn how to play an off-ball role if you're playing, you know, guys 3, 4, 5 years older than you.

And then the second thing is that usually the better players that make it are the ones that have the more reps with the ball in their hands. So it's really interesting, like, how can coaches, in your perspective, help players learn to play without the ball?

You know, they're going to be so ball dominant, have it so much in their hands. How can they help them?

Yeah, I think it's a great balance and one that we deal with in the G League sometimes, you know, where in the NBA they're more in an off-ball role, but in the G League it may dictate, hey, they're the best one at creating advantages for us, so they're going to have the ball a lot.

So I do think it's a balance, and I think it's getting, you know, both as often as you can. And if you have a system or an offense where the ball, you know, moves a little more, it makes it easier to get within a game by yourself.

But it's definitely a balance, and it's not easy.

Yeah, yeah, definitely a challenge. And we spoke before we got on just about how, you know, looking to get a paint touch before you even start your offense and how that could transform youth basketball. Because then players are going to have to, you know, if you're off the ball, it doesn't matter who's getting the paint touch.

They could be your center. So then the players have to play off the ball to help keep the dominoes falling.

Yeah, I think it's an underrated thing. And we were saying it a little bit earlier, but We use a phrase here sometimes, the rim is king. And a lot of times we constrain drills scoring by saying +4 for a corner 3, but we rarely actually incentivize the best shot in the game, which is the rim.

So yeah, the paint touch and the threat of rim are so important, especially early.

For sure. And now pivoting again to your G League when you were with San Diego, it's known for obviously the rapid roster changes. You know, guys get call-ups, 2-way contracts. During your time with San Diego, how did you build consistency with your principles and culture despite, you know, guys coming in and out, new players coming into the lineup?

Yeah, I think we try our best, but that's the difficulty of the G League. There's no doubt that that's a very difficult challenge. And I think, you know, a lot of it comes to like how strong of culture and principles can you get before anyone's new.

And then, you know, hopefully this year we had a really tough time. We had a lot of new guys at one point in time, but when one or two guys join, Hopefully it's very easy for them to tell what your culture and principles are and kind of follow along.

I think, you know, general things that help is we try to go less plays, less actions, and kind of deeper knowledge of like the coverage solutions. A lot of guys kind of had played together before and there's one new guy. It's kind of, it's an open concept.

So you don't necessarily have to be right and everyone can adjust around you as well. Like there's no wrong answer in like early offense. You know, as long as we get action, there's really no wrong answer. So we used to say those things, but again, I think less actions equals deeper knowledge and quicker way for people to pick up kind of coverage solutions and, you know, really the affordances or things we want to attack.

And you guys with the G League had more practice time, right? So how do you now, like when you were there and you were working coaching and you're spending more time teaching as opposed to being on the court, but now when you do get over to the court, I know you spoke about, you know, before practice, you're showing players on an iPad or even a cell phone.

I know coaches, you know, can just get their cell phone out and show maybe, you know, their players clips from the last game or from practice. But then how are you now translating it to the practice environment, what you just kind of talked about in the learning sessions?

Yeah, so I think the big thing is we always try to— that's part of our film and part of even if we send clips And things like that is try to get it as matching as possible. I think it's a great question to ask yourself, like, are you going to cover this today in practice?

If not, maybe it doesn't belong on film. If you are, then it does. But yeah, that's one, I think, underrated strength of the G League is you actually have a little more practice time than NBA games. Yeah.

And for young coaches, what advice on not letting video be a separate department, but instead weaving it directly into how they teach and practice would you give them?

Yeah, I think that's the number one thing is ask yourself, are you going to cover this today in practice? And maybe it doesn't fit. One technique I've really loved is not to block all the video at the beginning or not to block it all at the end.

You know, if a segment of practice is covering something, maybe we show 3 clips, go to our practice, practice it, maybe go back to the film, show 3 clips later on in a new segment. But kind of breaks it up, I think, for guys as well as like directly applies to what we're going to be working on.

And you see it and it's not recalling it from 3 hours ago or, you know, after practice, not knowing, hey guys, I swear this happened. We're going to watch it later. It's a little easier to kind of watch it, then go right to that kind of what you're setting up to practice.

How much is it like the video sessions? If you could just talk a little bit more on it, how much is it player that you're working with, whether it's, you know, you're at, you're in a team practicing, you and maybe a couple other assistant coaches show a couple specific players' clips and then start practice, or how much is it we're showing the team clips to everyone and then starting practice?

What does that balance look like, do you think?

Yeah, I think in the NBA in general, we do a lot of individual film, and especially in the G League where it's a league where you're trying to acquire skill and get better, developing is, you know, the main thing you're trying to do.

There's a lot of individual film, but there's definitely a balance, and I think that helps sometimes showing less is You know, if you know you're showing certain guys certain themes, then maybe you don't have to show the whole team a theme that's more focused for wings or whatnot.

So I think balancing that and being like super prepared to time together is really important to keep it brief and focused.

And you have obviously the experience, like having worked like with film in your stops, obviously in Indiana and Atlanta, like how has that helped you versus maybe like a coach that didn't start with that route? And now, you know, a little bit more around it, you know how players are going to react to certain things.

Yeah, I think it makes my work more efficient is probably number one, makes it a little easier to get it. But also, yeah, you're used to showing players films, you're used to seeing them consume it or get feedback from them consuming it. So a lot of times, you know, kind of individual tendencies and what's important for them to see, what may not be, what helps them more in the game.

And like, even in a film session, how do you Guide them in question can be impactful.

Right. Can you share anything? I know you spoke about having the questions there at the bottom. I'm really digging here, but like, is there anything else that you would offer to young coaches, high school coaches, college coaches even, that, you know, this is what we're going to do?

I remember we had a video session and Alex was like, you should split it half and half. So half of it, you're going to be asking questions and, you know, this was years ago now. And then the other half of it, you can give some answers.

So like, is there any kind of like, you know, things that you guys, that you do specifically that has really helped you and how the players engage with the video?

Yeah, I would say like always question first. Like I pause film often and what do you see here? What do you think? What's the best potential solution? After that is when you can give more of a solution or answer. You were thinking something different or they were, but really going question first and going with an open mind.

And like, especially in the NBA, like I'm learning from these guys as much as they're learning from me. Like, you know, if I were to sit down with Chris Paul today and watch film, like, Chris knows NBA basketball more than me, you know, we got for a reason, you know.

So really an open mind and like question first and kind of use answers second.

Yeah, that's a great point. It's like you can always learn from the players. And that's why I always say they have the whole, I don't know if you're familiar with the Fosbury Flop or even like the Bill Russell Where his coach, Red Auerbach, said, you don't jump to block shots.

Right. And at the time, that was just normal. Right. But now we've evolved. The game is constantly evolving. But the point is, you don't ever want to say, oh, this is how you do this, because there's always things that you can learn and maybe a different perspective that you didn't consider by not allowing them to, you know, give you their perspective.

Yeah. And even back to Jordan with exploring, like, You know, we did different constraint drills where we'd say use 0-1-2, use all 3 of your steps, you know, the one you gather on and the 1-2. But he came up with way more solutions than I could ever have imagined or taught or thought of, you know.

And it just, you know, special athletes come up with some really creative and adaptable solutions sometimes.

No, that's awesome. That's a great example. Another question I have for you, what competitive advantages do you think are the most overlooked by coaches?

Yeah, I would say a lot of what we've talked about, practice design, how you interweave film, how you interweave different departments, you know, especially in the NBA, but even others, how do you interlock all this to the most effective and optimized practice and development sessions?

As far as like real strategy or X and O things, I think defensive aggressiveness is something that's being overlooked and, and I think it's a big part of the game. Coach Wayne Gundy brought it here, but we became way more aggressive and it's really had a huge impact on our defense.

And then I think rim reads and paint solutions is what we talk about all the time and makes for effective offense. And, you know, people watch and they say, oh my God, they're so good. They have so much IQ, so much processing. And I think a lot of that, while true, when you go to kind of close out reads and rim reads and paint solutions, they've really developed and are very good at making those plays.

You talked about pressure defense, so that's obviously against the ball. Is there any correlation, like what are you doing if you're pressuring the ball and then you're off ball in the gaps? Is there anything else that you can share in terms of like how you're pressuring the ball?

Yeah, so we're super aggressive off ball. We try to always have ball pressure. That's a main staple of our defense is hard ball pressure. So we'll always do that. And it's always, you know, your capabilities versus his capabilities. If I'm a big guarding a guard, maybe not as much pressure.

But we always push guys for more pressure. And I think they're most of the time capable of more than they do. Guys are generally cautious, I think, in the NBA. And so we always are pushing to be more aggressive, both on the ball, but especially off ball is where we've really increased aggressiveness over the last year or 2 and, and making plays.

Coach says when it's blind, when it's close or going too fast, attack it. And then again, a thing he says. often is we're not going to play cautious. Like, no one's going to make us play cautious. We're going to be aggressive. And kind of that emphasis into some of what we're talking about, like, maybe it's not our specific footwork we're giving for it, but just the encouragement of it.

And we want the ball, and that's our goal, is to deflect. Our goal is to steal. And all of a sudden you see guys making some really good aggressive plays.

That's awesome. And do you guys offer incentives as well? Like, maybe at practice you're like, oh, if you get 3 deflections, you win the game, or, you know, something like that?

Yeah, we'll do that, especially with our younger guys in individual work even. You know, you got to get 5 stops, but if you get a steal, game over, you win. So different things like that. But yeah, deflections count for more, steals count for more.

Yeah, that's our probably main way we constrain during practice is just additional points or minus points, certain affordances or things we want to incentivize.

No, I love it. And obviously the Clippers, you know, one of the better defensive teams last season as well. You know, it shows like you're focusing on that and seeing the results as well. I want to thank you for your time, Tim. It's been great.

I have one more question for you, and it's our transformative tip question. What is one piece of advice that you would give to coaches to instantly improve their practice environments?

Yeah, I've been waiting for this one because it's one I really enjoy and I think has helped me. I think it helps a lot of people. I think when people first start trying CLA, they're very much games-based approach sometimes. But what helped me is before, you know, you do every practice environment, think about what your intention of purpose of each segment is.

And I think that really has helped me look at what's in front of me and manipulate the game where maybe I had in my mind that this was going to be a perfect game if I did this. But now I realize that we're not getting to my intention of the drill of Finding a window or finding a different angle to finish and pass would be an example.

And it's like, oh, we need one more dribble. So I think focusing on the intention and purpose has really helped me constrain on the fly better to get the player in the desired solution space. So I think that intention and purpose is one of the best things.

No, I love it. I couldn't agree with you more there. That's great.

Yeah.

Well said. Well said. So Tim, thank you so much once again. I really appreciate your time. It's been I enjoyed talking to you.

Yeah, appreciate it, George. It was really fun.

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