Implementing Pro-Level Efficiency in Amateur Gyms with Luke Bonner

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Hello and welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. On today's episode, we have Luke Bonner. Luke is a former Division 1 player and professional basketball player who is now leading change at the grassroots level. After playing at West Virginia and UMass before stints in Europe and the NBA D-League, Luke returns to his hometown of Concord, New Hampshire, where he's rebuilding the local youth basketball scene by using the constraints-led approach to player development and youth coaching.

Luke's perspective bridges elite experience with a deep passion for making the game better for the next generation. Luke, welcome.

Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be on.

Luke, I know you've been very involved with the NBA for the last few years. And, you know, you work with a lot of fringe NBA players, two-way players, G Leaguers. And last year at the Summer League, you told the story where you asked a bunch of guys when they thought that they knew they were good.

And a lot of their answers— or actually, do you want to tell that story and just, you know, kind of talk about the importance of kind of knowing that in an early specialization?

Yeah. Yeah. I think so. At this point in my life, you know, I'm 40 years old. I have 3 kids. My oldest is 9. Like we're just sort of like starting into the wonderful world of youth sports in the United States. Right. And I've been like reflecting a lot on thinking about when did I start like only playing basketball?

When did my brother who went on to be a 2-time NBA champion, when did he start only playing basketball? Right. Even my sister who was an All-American before there was, you know, the WNBA or like McDonald's All-American Game for Girls or anything like that.

Like my brother started really when he was like 12, but he was still playing other sports through middle school and all that sort of stuff. And I just remember when I was a kid, I got my ass kicked like locally for a long time, like awful.

And I was talking to a bunch of the G Leaguers, two-way guys, some NBA guys through the NBA Business Mentorship Program in Vegas last summer. And I was like, kind of interested. I was like talking to some of these guys who are like, you know, they're out of this world.

Athletes, very successful. And I started to ask them like, when did you know you were good? And what I meant by that was like, I'm going to be a Division 1 basketball player and I'm going to be pretty good in college, right? Like that's, that's like the next level.

And pretty much across like the 15 guys I talked to, they all pretty much said junior year of high school or sophomore, junior year of high school is like when they thought like, oh, I can go somewhere with this. And I thought that was just like really interesting to hear because it's something I give them my own experience.

Like when I played in high school in New Hampshire, my freshman year, my team went 4 and 14. Right. And I ended up being Gatorade Player of the Year twice my last 2 years. But it's just like a really interesting sort of perspective now where I'm coaching 9-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and there's already kids who are, they're only doing soccer 12 months a year.

They're only doing basketball 12 months a year. And it kind of creates this really Strange dynamic, honestly, on fields, on courts, whatever it is.

And I think it builds a lot of expectation for those kids as well. Like if you're only doing one sport, it's like you have to be good at that sport. Whereas if you're, you know, having fun in other sports, it makes the sport a little bit less serious.

And when you're a kid, you know, that's important too. Not to mention like the other benefits of like, you know, learning to be a better mover. And if you're a better mover, you're typically going to be a better athlete, you know, things like that.

Yeah. You get the diversity of movement, right? Obviously. But I think beyond that, you get a different perspective. So like an example I give of this is I actually didn't, didn't know about this until I talked to my brother recently. He told me he was still trying to make the middle, or it was a junior high school back then.

He was trying to make the junior high school soccer team in 8th grade. So at this point he was probably 6'6. He was probably already like a top 100 player in the country, right? For basketball. And he played defense on the C team in middle school.

So not the team, not the B team, not the C team. And he said they didn't score a goal the entire season. So beyond like, obviously like it's good cross-training, playing soccer makes you better at basketball, makes you better at lacrosse, makes you better at everything.

But beyond that, it also teaches him how to be a better teammate in the sport that he really excels at. 'Cause he knows how it feels to suck, right? And like give everything and just not be good. So I think that sort of stuff is like really important.

I mean, something we try, it seems like, you know, parents get uncomfortable with their kids losing even at a young age, but it's so important to experience that. And that's like one of the most like beneficial from a sociological perspective. One of the benefits of sports is like you sort of learn this reality of a cold, harsh world, but in like a safe space, right?

No, that's a great point. And I do want to move on here to your company, you know, work with soccer mainly. Talk a little bit about what your company does. I know it's involved with data, but more importantly, I want to hear about how you apply what you learn in soccer to basketball.

Yeah. So my current job, like I'm the head of marketing for a company called Player Data. It's a performance tracking company. So it's a wearable device that, you know, gives you data on the athletes on the field or on the court. So you can track distance, speed, heat maps, like all these sorts of things.

The company started out in soccer, in grassroots soccer in the UK, really, where this sort of stuff used to be, you know, cost prohibitive to access. In soccer, obviously fitness is a huge part of the game. Like, that's just like one of the biggest parts of the game.

And now, you know, the product's being used across American football, basketball, so on and so forth. But because of this, I tell a lot of stories about the people sort of behind the different programs that we work with. And I've gotten to like visit for training sessions with MLS academies, with top-level just programs across the country, even, even college basketball and stuff.

And it's super interesting to see like what's happening, you know, in soccer. Some of the academies are even like, they're integrating cross-training into their programs even. So like the, they might play basketball for a day. They might do like a trampoline park or whatever.

Like that's like part of the programming. But then like beyond that, for me, like if I watch Rondo drills and stuff, this is the same sort of stuff that can be applied to basketball. It's similar to like a floor is lava kind of like mentality where like you got to pass and move and you got to move quick and you got to find the advantage and it's constant.

And that's one of the biggest challenges I think with youth basketball is really keeping the kids engaged, keeping them moving, keeping a ball in their hands throughout however long you have in the gym. And I've been fascinated by, you know, I love playing basketball with soccer players too.

The runs they see, the way they see the game is just different. And I think it's like really, really interesting.

No, it's fascinating. I know Kobe used to, used to play soccer. And, you know, there's a lot of other players, you know, and star players that played other sports growing up as well. So it's just kind of all blends together. You spoke about the rondo.

That's one of the games that we have at Transforming Basketball where it's like the basketball rondo. And yeah, to your point, you can work on your kind of dominoes principles by making 0-second decisions or those 0.5, you know, passes. Then it, you know, you can work on that when you're actually in the game as well.

So I love that game. I remember when I watched soccer or football, we used to call it in Europe, it was like, oh, this is a really good game that could be a basketball game.

And then, you know, when I played in Lithuania, one of our practice days a week, we would literally just play indoor soccer. And I'm an idiot American. So anytime the ball came to me in the air, I'd catch it and have to get, you know, take one off the rear end.

That was my punishment. But I also like, I loved it. It became really fun. And then it like, it makes you like happy to come to the gym the next day. It does a lot.

Let's talk about the college basketball system. Just doing some research on you before this episode, I know you transferred. And then I think back then it was like you had to sit out a year before you could play again. I never understood that rule back then.

But now, you know, it's changed a lot since that time. I think it was, what, 15 years ago or 20 years ago or so, something like that. But I want you to speak about what you think coaches could do to maybe do a better job at setting goals for each phase of the year instead of always just trying to, you know, go more and more and more within the season.

Yeah. So I've been in a lot of college gyms this spring and summer. And I think in the United States, when you're looking at like The Power 4 conferences, like the top conferences with big budgets, they've got full performance staffs usually, like in all the tech and whatnot.

As you start to go down, even at like really strong levels, like mid-major, low-level Division 1 through even like Division 3 basketball, I think is as good as it's ever been. Like, it's like hard to be a Division 3 basketball player. You know, a lot of times your performance coach lives in the weight room and isn't necessarily like on the court every day with you.

And what I've kind of seen is like, like just looking at it is in hindsight, when I think back on my college experience and just like all the former college players I talked to, it gets romanticized a lot as like a badge of honor that you work so hard or whatever.

But the reality is everyone's like, this is a grind. Like it's not fun.

Right.

It's like, those should be the most enjoyable years of basketball that you have. And it often is in like off the court sort of ways. But like when I was playing, you know, it was like you step on campus, it's 6:00 AM track workout, 8:00 AM, you know, lift, 11:00 AM individual workout, pickup for 2 hours.

Like it was just like, and doing this every day. And I remember just like everyone was like beat down mentally, physically, so on and so forth. And as like an old person, this is part of like seeing even how like soccer programs work and stuff is like.

I never understood why are we basically doing conditioning in August, right? At such a level that is beyond the amount of games that we'll ever play in a week. Just kind of reformatting. If you look at like your schedule, right? Like, what are your goals for, say the season ends March, like coming back and saying like, hey, what are the goals for our players for this next phase?

We have, you know, April, May, June, July, like that first sort of offseason stretch. So like being confident and understanding like 2 to 3 weeks off and not locking your gym is actually like really good for you physically. Right. And committing to that rather than sort of promoting a culture of like next day in the gym, that's great.

And creating that pressure and then you never get a release. Right. And it's going to like build this grind culture that is just not sustainable and it's not healthy and it's not what's best for your players. So like being confident, kind of structuring, like what are your goals for the offseason?

What are your goals for the preseason ramp-up before you get into full-time practice? And then what are your goals for preseason when you have practice 6 days a week? And then what are your goals for once you hit the regular season? Because if you ask any coach, if you said, hey, first day of practice preseason, do you want your guys coming in fresh?

Do you want them coming in like excited to be there and to work on this stuff? Do you want all your guys to be in game shape, like all 1 through 12 or whatever? Every coach is going to say yes. But then you don't necessarily build that way throughout the course of the year.

And that's where I think even just like, you're going to go up and down, but like ultimately throughout the course of the year, you got to be confident that you're building in a way that is going to have your players at their best when it matters the most, if that makes sense.

You don't want to peak at the start of the season, basically. It's that, you know, I think we're doing a much better job in the basketball space, especially of load managing. And I know that's kind of like a buzzword. kind of in the NBA, but it's really important.

And for you, I want to ask you, from your, you know, you've had a lot of different experiences as a player. You played professional, as it, you know, your brother played in the NBA for 11 years, as you said, Matt Bonner. You know, as a parent, you have kids that you're coaching now, and now you're coaching yourself.

So I want to ask, how have those perspectives shaped the way you approach the youth development today, and specifically around that load management? You talk about locking in the gym, things like that. But like, how do you, with all those experiences, put that together and package it to your coaching?

Yeah. So I think that it's a gift and a curse in a sense, if that makes sense. My own experience, I take very much a long view of player development, right? So I'm not trying to like, no, nobody's out to have the best 5th grader on the planet, right?

Like the reason you get into the game is first of all, you have to like You have to love it. So you need to facilitate a culture of like enjoyment, love for the game, all these sorts of things that has to be the foundation.

But I think because of my experience, like it's pretty rare to— my older brother was in the NBA. That's a pretty rare way to grow up. When I'm a kid, no one ever thinks like, oh, my brother is actually going to be like, that is an actual future NBA player I'm comparing myself to.

Right. But because of that. I also have, I think it's changed my level of conviction in like what is possible. Does that make sense? Like I've seen it done and, and I think because of my brother and my sister, my crew and my friends, like I had 4 Division 1 players on my high school basketball team in New Hampshire following their footsteps.

Basically, we just followed their blueprint and did the same thing. So I also like have this sort of like level of belief and conviction that I think is really important. Like I think it's okay to have standards and okay to like aim high, but But as long as you maintain broader perspective and keep that foundation of like loving the game as your first and foremost thing.

And I think if you are focused on fostering community and all the other stuff that frankly I thought was silly when I was a kid, I always felt like, why would you put any time into a sport unless you're going somewhere with it?

Like as a player, that's literally what I felt. As a parent, I get it now. But like, but definitely it took me like having kids and like coaching Again, to see the impact.

And you spoke as well about, you know, you naturally gravitated towards the CLA before you even knew what it was. So you kind of were like, oh, I'm doing these drills, but I don't like them for all the reasons you just said there now, you know, making sure kids have fun at practice versus just trying to get them from point A to point B, being the best 5th grader in the country.

So how has that relationship been since you've kind of discovered the CLA? What it actually is. So a 2-part question. How have you also been applying it into your coaching space?

So I'm very hopeful and very excited for our upcoming season. It's about to start. I will say that coaching the sort of like youngest age groups, I recommend like anyone who like thinks they're an awesome coach, expose yourself to that challenge. It's very rewarding and it can be very hard to basically Learn how to break things down to their simplest form and communicate, right, effectively.

And it's not always going to go great. What I have found working with kids, and I think having played at such a level, like I'm also 7 feet tall. So when I walk in a gym, like it's exciting for like kids and parents.

Right. And then like the first few years I was coaching, I was like, I felt really tired.

Yeah.

Leaving like the gym after an hour, trying to figure out how to get kids to shoot a layup the right way, right? The right way, the right way. It's like how we grew up. And I was reflecting on, we've always had this like thought that becoming a great basketball player is actually super boring.

How I would have put it, like what me and my brother and sister did, right? It was a lot of repetition. It's a lot of failing by yourself. And most people didn't want to do that. And we were like willing to stick with it.

And to become a great shooter, which my brother is one of the best shooters on the planet, didn't realize it, requires being willing to miss tens of thousands of shots is like sort of the mentality. And as I've started thinking about this more, I started asking like, why, why is it, why does it have to be like, does it have to be like that?

Is that the best way? So to speak. And then by coaching kids, realizing there's no context to anything they're doing. Right. So even, even like something as simple as like a layup line, drill, they're not really understanding like why they're doing it. And I'm like looking at it, it's like, oh, that kid just took 7 dribbles from the 3-point line.

Right. They're taking their time because they think the result you want is like for the shot to go in. Right. Like right now they want the immediate gratification of making a layup with their parents probably sitting there at that age. Right. To, to then shifting it.

Simple thing as like putting 2 lines, one line in the middle is a chase line.

Right.

Right. And they're 10 feet or 20 feet behind the layup line. And I'm going to hype them up, give a bounce pass to the kid that's really gentle. And now they're like playing a game of chase while shooting a layup. And that kid who just took 7 dribbles automatically takes 2 dribbles, shoots the layup.

They crash into each other. Probably they fall down. They're laughing. They want to do it again. It's really basic. I found myself like changing everything in this sort of way. And suddenly like kids aren't horsing around in practice. Kids are having fun or whatever.

And then I think when I came across all the stuff you guys are doing, I got a bunch more ideas of things I wanted to do. And even just like going to lacrosse practice, I noticed that, hey, they're playing ultimate Frisbee basically with a lacrosse ball.

And so I, I was having a problem. Young kids, like a lot of youth basketball, like really young, right? Kid gets the ball. They're going a million miles an hour in a game, right? To the other end of the court and they're trying to shoot.

And the games could just go like this, like with one, whoever has it is like, they're going to shoot or whatever. So then I changed it and I said, I had the kids play ultimate basketball basically. You know, so like you can't dribble, you only have a, whatever, like make it up a 3 count to pass it.

You can't pressure the ball. Defense can steal it or knock it, but the ball hits the ground or you drop a pass, it's the other team's ball and you're trying to score it basically. And so we're doing that and the kids have fun with it.

And then you change it to score a touchdown, you get an extra point, they get to take a shot. And then after 10, 15 minutes, you just basically start effectively removing all the constraints. And before you know it, the kids are still doing all that stuff and they're playing a proper game of basketball and passing it and stuff because you built up to it.

No, I love playing, like you spoke about pretty much playing a different sport, especially with youth kids. I love playing a different sport with maybe some basketball rules. So you spoke about after they scored a touchdown, they get an extra shot. You kind of add the basketball element in there.

I've spoken before about like playing baseball at practice. So it's basically like instead of pitching, it's like as soon as you take the shot, so it can be wherever they're comfortable at. So maybe it's a free throw if they're under 10 or whatever the case is.

And they take that shot and then the kid can start running around the bases and they have to make the shot. So after the free throw, they can make the layup and then they can pass the ball like they would in baseball to try and get a person out before they get to the base.

You know, just playing those kinds of games versus trying to teach them to make a chest pass. Because automatically, because they're going to want to get this kid out, they're going to be making these really strong passes on the money to the bases without me having to say, you know, at the pocket.

So it's like, you know, those tricks, creating those constraints that guides their behavior.

Right, right. And so I've been banging my head against the wall for a— I've had a hard time Getting kids to understand like how to pivot, even. It's such a simple thing. It's actually really hard to like, it takes some time, right? Trying something out, it might not work, but like, I'm going to make that sort of a game where you put the sort of like flat rubber dots around, like basically every kid will stand in a triangle of these and I'm going to try to get them to like get their timing, catch the ball

on a short hop. And then you have to, with one foot, you have to squish all the bugs basically. Right. They'll do it for like 2 minutes, but like they'll, they'll laugh for a second and then, and then you move on. But like you start to, you start to just like get some of that movement.

'Cause I think that's part of it too, is like this age is just like getting kids active, getting them to like move their bodies, explore movements. That's so important. And even if most of them will never, like, it's really hard to become a tip-top basketball player, right?

They'll hopefully leave with memories that will I take it very responsibly because I live in my community as well. I view this as an opportunity to sort of like cement their own sort of relationship with this community that they're growing up with and help have a sense of identity and purpose at this age as well.

You can also, you know, when you're focused on teaching pivots, newer and newer and crazier games just come to your mind because like, that's your sole focus. And I always find that really interesting and like changing constraints on the fly as well. As you're doing the game, you're like, all right, well, let's try it.

But now maybe they're dribbling or, you know, let's try it and they have to do it twice, but then they have to go to a different spot. Like it's just, you know, different ideas come and I just always find that interesting.

Yeah. And I think like the more you can integrate, like it's cliché, but the teamwork side of it, I'm saying that's not always a given. Some kids don't, they're not happy if their teammate scores. Like they have to be taught like what I, as a coach, what we emphasize is like success is important.

And not that I'm perfect for sure. Like I'm figuring it out. On the fly as well. Right. But like the more that I think starting out with some of the team principles and shared success, I mean, these are extraordinarily important life lessons, not just basketball lessons, but I think it's also really important to start out that way.

Because it is also scary when you're new to the game to like, all right, you're up, you're on your own, go do a thing. Everyone's watching you. Right. Like kind of thing. You're A, putting pressure on them. You're B, you're emphasizing individual out of the gate.

So the more you can kind of like get everyone doing stuff together, I think is like, is also really important.

And gamifying it as well. And I agree 100%. I want to go back quickly because I want to talk about you and your brother's offseason training. You said it was something you saw him do and then you started doing it as you got older.

And, you know, all you said was less is more mentality. And I think what it was, it was like less basketball, but then more doing other things. Like swimming, boxing, short-focused, you know, when you're playing basketball, like, so like intentional games of basketball as well.

So can you just talk about that as well? Because I forgot to ask you earlier.

Yeah, so I think it comes down to like efficiency. And this, my brother playing with the Spurs, the thing they would always say is like, be a pro, be a professional, whatever you do, be a professional. And I think this actually plays into some of the stuff even like on the load management side is like, if you're good with your time, you don't need a 2-hour, 3-hour practice.

Like you should, that's a failure in planning or whatever.

Right.

Like, and so as we got older, we were thinking about, like, we talked about it. We're like, we used to be at the YMCA, like the second the school bell rang until it closed. And we're not doing stuff that whole, like, you're not necessarily being productive that whole time, but you feel like I'm in the gym 5 hours a day or whatever.

And we often talked about like, look, this is like, once you reach a certain point in the skill.

Yeah.

There's a return on diminishes, I think, right? Like my brother going to keep shooting 500 NBA 3s a day when he's already making 85 out of 100 pretty routinely. So we started, for me, like playing for Quinn Snyder in the D-League, I realized I had come back from a, I finished a season after being overseas for a little bit.

I played for the Austin Toros in the D-League and Quinn Snyder was my coach. We were never in the gym for more than 80 minutes, 75 minutes. I don't think any of those days. And in 2 months I got 10 times better at basketball.

Just like the way he ran everything. And I felt good. My body felt good. Like all these important things. And so in the summers I found like my brother, we live in New Hampshire. We'd go up north into the mountains. You'd go for hikes.

We'd run up the utility trails. You know, we'd do a lot of pool workouts. We do, you know, a lot of flexibility, recovery training. We would do some shooting. Usually competitive against each other, varying degrees of healthiness, but more sibling fun, I guess.

And then his trick that I picked up on was you go play, you find a good pickup run with like players who know what they're doing. Usually it's like, yeah, we're going to play for 2 hours or whatever. He would basically make the games happen and it would reach a certain point.

So I don't think he ever would play more than 40 minutes of pickup. But like you'd hit that point, you'd be like, all right, let's play 3 more games. He would say that. And then you play the next game and he's gone basically.

Right. So like not letting it get into the tail end where you're, it's bad habits. People aren't getting back, all that sort of stuff. But it just seemed like my biggest growth personally as like a player was actually when I took some time off and did other stuff and came back to it as well.

Yeah.

Doing boxing workouts, like it transforms sort of like, obviously physically, but also just mentally. I think it was like, those are things I wish I had started earlier.

I heard somewhere, it's like your ability to turn off is equal to your ability to turn on. So it's, you know, the same thing, you know, if you can unplug from the game instead of just being on, on, on all the time, then you're going to be a lot more efficient and better ultimately when

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I mean, we grew up like, if you're not like, it worked too, obviously to an extent, but like the idea of if I'm not working, someone else somewhere is, right. And I'm falling behind. But that can be counterproductive. Obviously it's like, if you, you have to go spend time with family, something happens, right.

And I would like feel tortured that I didn't get in the gym and get shots up. And so the next day I'm going to be awful.

And I think that's just not true. Yeah.

And it's just like, that's not how it works.

That's a whole different story as well, isn't it? Like the perspective on like, oh, I gotta work more than everybody else versus I have to be more efficient. You know, I have to be more intentional. You know, it's funny you say that.

No, you need to work smarter. You need to work better. Right. Those are the things. And in the ways that are advantageous to you. Like I spent countless hours doing guard dribbling drills, right? Like whatever. If you put me in a gym, you gave me 2 basketballs, I can, it'll blow you away what I can do with that.

And then I get to college and like our best point guards who are like all-conference can't do any 2-ball dribbling. Right. And I'm realizing like, oh my gosh, I get like doing that stuff to an extent, but like how much overboard did we go on some of these things?

In hindsight, what would have been way better working on, you know, other aspects of the game or my body.

Yeah, absolutely. Luke, I want to thank you for your time. It's been excellent having this conversation. Before you go, I want to ask you one last question and it's our transformative tip question. So if you could leave coaches with one piece of advice that will instantly transform their practice environments, what would that be?

So I'm going to say, this is for all my former players out there. I played college basketball my first season in 2004, 2005. That was 20 years ago. So if you're still doing what would have been done then, that's like coaching. That's like your high school coach coaching you like it's 1980 still.

And realizing like how much time has passed on that front. So I would say just be willing to adapt to the times and not just complaining about kids these days or anything like that. Because we were all kids these days at one point.

And I think it's on us as the coaches to figure out guide solutions to create good environments and help kids succeed.

Absolutely.

Well said, Luke. Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks for having me.

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