George is joined by Vincent Collet, one of Europe's most accomplished basketball coaches and former head coach of the French National Team, to discuss what modern team…
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In this episode, George is joined by Vincent Collet, one of Europe's most accomplished basketball coaches and former head coach of the French National Team, to discuss what modern team defense really looks like. Vincent shares how his defensive philosophy has evolved from teaching fixed systems to defending offensive threats, why transition defense and paint protection are the foundation of elite teams, and how deception, decision-making, and representative learning design can elevate defenders at every level.
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This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast. This is the podcast helping coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to provide the ultimate resource for making sense of applying contemporary skill acquisition ideas within basketball. Within this podcast, we unpack how an ecological dynamics framework impacts our perspective of the game.
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Welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Today we have a very special guest. We are joined by a true giant of international hoops, a coach who has helped shape French basketball. He has won 9 major international medals, 2 Olympic silver medals, a gold medal at the FIBA EuroBasket in 2013.
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George is joined by Jamie Ransberry during the Transforming Summer Camp 2026 in Roseto, Italy.
George is joined by João Pacheco, a coach from Portugal who has been living and coaching in Germany for nearly 14 years.
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9 medals in total. And last 2 seasons he spent with the Cleveland Cavaliers with Transforming's very own owner, Alex Sarama. Vincent Collet, coach, welcome to the show.
Hello, I am very happy to have been invited.
You know, my pleasure having a chance to speak with you. Just before we get into some of these questions here, how are you? How's it been after the end of the season? How's everything going for you?
Oh, I came back to France and already back on the track. I spent the 3 first days of the week With young French coaches who try to get their professional exam. And I used to spend time with them to talk about basketball and also management for coaching.
And I did that the 3 first days of the week. So when I was just landing from Cleveland end of last week.
Nonstop work. And that's a great segue to my first question, I guess. France has developed elite talent over the last 2 decades. From your perspective at the top of the French national system, and you just spoke about having coaches that you work with in coach development, but what's been the biggest shift in how elite talent is identified and developed in France?
Obviously, it's the main thing was the way federation organized the draft, the selection of this young talent. They put on the table a system where each area in France has a youth center for kids between 13 and 15. And they put coaches, federation put coaches in all these young talent centers anywhere in France.
The first holidays in October, they made the first big camp with the 80 best Talent, boys and girls. 2 months later at Christmas, they make another one with the best 40, 40 boys, 40 girls. And these boys and girls are about 14 because they're still in the youth center.
From these 40, the best 12, best 14, depends the year, they will go to INSEP, what we call Paul, France, something where they practice basketball on a daily basis, but they have the school same place, they sleep at the same place, there is a medical center.
It's a really good organization. The other 28 or 26, depending the year, most often they go to center of formation, which are located with professional teams. They installed that now 30 years ago. Each Pro A team, first division, needs to have a center of formation.
So this way, now I would say very few good kids can go through this system. We know all of them, they are 14, so it's interesting. After that, the development either with the Paul France or center of formation allows them to go to the next level.
And I think this is the main reason why we got better results, because the talent, they were there before, but we didn't do such a good job to help them to grow. And now it's better. We still must do better. I think that's why the coaching development is the key, because we need more and more good coaches to help these kids to get better.
Yeah, I completely agree. So what you're saying is, Over the last 30 years, the best 12 are going to be playing in the same team while the other 26, 28, like you said, that didn't make that team, they're going to the Pro-A teams, developing like that with top coaches, top talent, seeing what the professional players do.
Yeah. INSEP, for instance, is really a success because it's not always the 12 best because they had to agree To go there, it's special. Okay, when they are only 15, sometimes some kids, they live close from a pro team and they prefer to go to a center of formation.
But most often they go to this center. But Victor Wembanyama, for instance, didn't go. He stayed in Nanterre at the beginning and after went to ASVEL and finished with the Metropolitans. Most often they go. And when they don't go, they go to center of formation.
It was the case of Nicolas Batum. Who was my player when he was in Le Mans. But him, he missed entry in the Pôle France. So because he was very young, skinny, that's why they didn't select him. But very often people talk about that, that say, how they could miss him?
But you know, it's not so easy when the kid is 14 years old. Now when we do this draft, it's in the center of France. Okay, and it is lasting for five days. They come one week, and they do a lot of tests like the combine for NBA.
You know, they do some of these tests, but not only this one. They they have one to determine the age of the boy or the girls, but not only the real age because this one we know, but the age connected with the growth.
If a kid is late, growth is going to be determined. Okay, they are going to say he's not really fourteen; he's more. So it's normal if he's a little bit slow and think about it, but he's very talented and sometimes they will take him for this reason.
On the other hand, another one is advanced and he's more 16 years old, it's going to affect his selection. It's more and more precise and I think that helps to do a good job.
Yeah, you know, there's been lots of Especially when kids are young, being born at the start of the year in January versus being born in December, there's a major impact on the development.
That's why they think about doing that. So now they have some few tests and I think they do radiography to see about the bones. They determine exactly the growth age of each kid to know exactly. They do that. They had different things. Meeting with like a psychological coach to determine also about the will, commitment, to see if the kid is able to go in a structure where he, for instance, he will be alone, far from family, from what is his real motivation to be successful.
And I think we do better and better, but it's still going to improve year after year because we We have the results from the previous year and we can adjust to do it better.
Yes. And it's so important, isn't it? Taking into consideration off the court how the player is going to act in their development. I do want to ask you, you spoke about Wembanyama and, you know, you played a huge part in developing—
Not a huge part. This would be pretentious to say that. He was my player only one year before he got drafted. I had him also before Olympics in Paris, but he started basketball much earlier. Okay. Hopefully there were different coaches that helped him to become what he is now.
I was glad to share this year with him and it was a very, very interesting year.
And what was your approach? I know, listening to him now, he comes off as a person, let alone he's a great player, but he comes off as a person who's emotionally advanced, mature for his age. But what was it like? What was your process for working with him during that year that you were with him at Metropolitans?
It's very— it's a very interesting question because I had many good young guys before that I coached, and I changed a little bit my approach. Okay, all the ones I had before, I was talking about Batum, I always try to figure out What could be the player later, and how we can reach the highest level he could get.
And with Wemby, it was difficult to say because obviously he had so many skills, so much talent, that I really let him do things more than I was doing with other young guys. Other young guys, I was really insisting On their best know-how, but I was sometimes limiting when they had obvious weaknesses.
I was trying to make them understand not to force their game, sometimes to be patient. But with him, I did different, to let him do, but to work a lot with feedback when we were playing games or even after practice, to ask him about what he has been doing, about his decision-making, certain situations.
If he was thinking that could be the best solution, or if he could do something else to influence him to really focus on his decision-making. Because when a player has so much qualities and so many instincts, what was different with him, he could shoot the ball almost every time he got the ball.
For sure, he mustn't shoot the ball anytime he gets the ball. So he had to choose, and this choice will make him be a better player, depending. That was the first part of our work. And the second part, quickly, was the connection with the other players.
Because he was, when we were talking together, he was telling me often that he wanted to become one of the best players in the NBA, but even more, the best player.
For sure.
I thought this ambition was something very positive and that clearly he could get it. So I wanted that he understood you cannot be the best player if you are not connected to your teammates. And what we used to say about the best players, they make the others be better.
So we tried to work on this point. And I remember the beginning of the season, Sometimes he had one assist, sometimes two, sometimes zero. And the end of the season, sometimes he reached seven, eight, but very often it was at least four or five because he has understood that all the focus, the defensive focus he caught was for sure an opportunity to make his teammates be better.
And he did it. And that's why we got better during the whole season. We had a very young team, not only him. We had Koulibaly, Armel Traoré, Besson. We had, I saw, I don't know, 4 or 5 prospects in this team. And also even the US players were young, they were rookies, but really he got better during the season.
But he was main reason for that. Okay. And around him, I think he helped too to create ambitious spirit, a little bit like with the Spurs this year. And we made the finals too. We lost the finals. So I hope for him that this year he will go farther.
Absolutely. And I love what you said. First, I want to say, I think what really separates Victor to me is just his passing ability, to your point, because it really, the defense can't hone in on him because he's going to give those great shooters open looks.
But I want to, I love what you said about asking him questions when you give him feedback. So letting himself discover what he's doing, what he could be better at, you know, where he could grow instead of telling him, because then maybe you're taking away some of that responsibility.
So I really liked what you said there. I want to move on a little bit here and shift it to your time with Cleveland. So Alex has spoken really highly of your work with the Cavs. And he said that you were one of the biggest influences and someone who helped mentor him.
He said in particular, he learned a lot defensively from you. And he's using those ideas now with the Portland Fire. You're seeing it, you know, trapping the full court, the kind of elaborate switches he has in the half court. Can you talk about how you go building a team defense and establishing that philosophy?
Yeah, so defense is, I think, changing these last couple years a lot. We see many different things appear. And for me today, in the modern basketball, if I have to talk about real philosophy, I would say when you play defense, You defend the danger, the offensive danger from your opponents.
And why it's for me a change? Because 20 years ago, perhaps even 10 years ago, we had defensive systems. Any team has its own defensive system. But the limit of this philosophy, that it was not always fitting to opponents' personnel, because the danger depends from Opponent systems or opponent's way to play.
But for sure, now everybody agrees with that. With the players, you have to match up. I think it's very important to play good defense, to be aware of who you play against, the system you play against, but the players you play against. Probably in NBA, it can be even worse because the style, NBA style.
With more ISOs, more individual ability, force to take this component, the very important one. So you cannot defend all the players the same way. When you do a choice, it's very important to— I saw that with the Cavs, but I know every team is doing the same.
The scouting is half about the styles, the systems of the opponent.
Yeah.
But it's 50% about the players. For me, it's the main thing, but whatever, you still need to have rules and team rules that will fit against any team. This is, for me, a combination of both that will make a good defense. And for instance, defensive transition, which becomes today a very important part of the defensive system.
Yeah.
Because when you say you defend the danger, the first danger that you defend is the offensive transition. All the teams in NBA, but also in Europe now, in the world, I think it's modern basketball, tries to play faster. So if you don't fight against that, already you can be in trouble.
And it's very important to get some clear rules. That will allow you to slow down opponents and to be efficient against their offensive transition. But the other thing for me is to really develop the team defense concept, and this is something for me which will make at the end of the day the difference between the average and good defensive team.
You can sometimes. Work alone in offense. We talked about iso before. Okay, some players, but for me, defensively, it's almost impossible. You need to be together. And this is something very important to teach to the players, even in NBA, that when the ball is moving, you need to move.
And when I watch a couple games, sometimes I don't always see that. This is something now in Europe, the teams, EuroLeague teams are doing that very well, very well. And I think it's very important because we were talking about the danger. If you talk about NBA, for instance, one of the offensive goals for any team is to get paint touches.
You get paint touches sometimes with passes, but most often that's with drives. And when the team is driving, the drive, you can go all the way to the rim, you can dish, or you can kick out. That means defensively, you must be very well organized on this situation because this is the heart of your defense.
As all the teams try to emphasize this way to play, you must be ready if you want to play good defense to limit The impact of all these drives. But there are other things. But already these things, for me, the most important. And to fit to NBA, this is for sure very important, is the ability to contain one-on-one.
We used to say, guard your yard, because the players are so talented with so high-level skills. That if you cannot contain, if you let them blow by all the time, beat you, even if you are well organized behind, it's tough. It's tough. So you need to add both.
But to control, to contain this one-on-one, team defense is also important because the way, and that's why I think that's what Alex tried to bring with Portland.
Yeah.
Fire. I think the gap help is limiting the space for the one-on-one action. At least you show presence that will, uh, influence not to attack easily. You limit the space to attack and you make it easier for the one-on-one defender to contain.
I think that's amazing. A lot of information there. One thing I want to just quickly ask you, so you saying for coaches at all levels have, you know, your base defense, how you're going to keep the ball out of the paint and how you're going to, I guess, rotate.
So let me rephrase that. Number one, how you're going to prevent the ball from getting in the paint. So to the example, maybe high gaps to not allow penetration, and then how you're going to rotate if the ball does get in the paint to not give up good shots.
Those are like maybe 2 things that coaches can take away in those questions. Maybe they can answer with their teams to improve their defense.
It starts with the transition defense. What I used to say to my players, we try to do the wall in front of the ball on the first action. So we really focus, and it starts from the tag action. By tagging and trying to use a good shadow, We want to limit and at least do like a wall in front of the ball when they are arriving in scoring area.
This is the 4th point. But after, we want with the team movement, the ball move, we move. We want to try to keep always a high gap around the ball and to limit and to prevent the easy drive. We cannot forbid everything. But at least we want to bother the ball handler because the closest guy from the ball, they can also swipe, they can do things to prevent easy drive to easy paint touches.
But we know that it cannot be perfect. Okay, basketball is not perfect. This is the first thing you, you must know about basketball. So there will be some drives and that's why we must I used to say, find a job. We can never stop.
And for instance, one of the rules, many actions, when the on-ball defender gets blown by and watch numbers on his opponent, no need to run behind him or to stop and watch. You need to go somewhere because when you got beaten that way, you expect that the big will prevent The rim attempt.
Okay, the big will come to stop the drive, so you will involve a second rotation to protect the big guy. And probably if there were 2 guys behind the drive, the top guy will drop to the corner guy and will take care of the last one, the on-ball defender.
That's an example. And all these habits, are going to strengthen your drive defense. Not stop everything, once again, because it depends on timing, it depends about the quickness you do that. And for sure, offense has a little advantage, and that's why the first thing to do is to prevent easy drives.
I guess I want to ask you more specifically, how are you coaching this? So Alex also mentioned, you know, you've always used Lots of CLA your whole career. So working on the details, believing in the importance of players making decisions offensively or defensively.
Why is this important, especially for younger players?
Yeah, this is something we, we often forget that, for instance, the fakes, we always talk about fakes in offense, but less often in defense. But you can fake a defense. And for instance, We were working with our big men the way they come to help.
Because I used to tell them, you must be ready to help, but you mustn't be in help position waiting for helping. Because if you are in this position, offense can use this position to reach, for instance, your guy for easy layup. So we have a first rule, a common rule for the team.
If the ball is above the free throw line, we need to be passing lane with our own guy. It's worse for the big man, and he has to stay as long as he can passing lane with his guy. And just at the last moment, he has to defend the basketball.
And this, it's a timing for sure. It's not easy to do because NBA, it goes so fast. You mustn't wait too much to go help because if you wait too much, you will be only on the pitcher, nothing else. So, or perhaps in the dunk pitcher.
So this for sure is about timing. This is an example. And you talk about decision-making on all these situations when the Vanguard, Wood Dwarves, is passing the ball, is kicking the ball out. To the side, very often we have the last defender defending between the last 2.
And this is the same. If he comes all the time in front of the first one to get the ball, the players are very good, they know the situation, they have no surprise, they will make the extra pass so easy, it will be too easy.
And every time offense will beat defense. But if you slice the right way, it's sometimes more interesting because you question the decision-making of the offensive player. Using fakes, you can sometimes fake to goal, but to goal as a real next level, you can do it.
And we were doing it, for instance, with the Cavs, doing drills where one of the last 2 players was a mock guy. And the other one was a hot closeout, and we had to determine our behavior with knowing that if the mug guy gets the ball, you just fake and come back to the hot guy.
And if it's the contrary, for sure you make the rotation and you expect somebody will come back on the mug. But whatever, he will come back on the floor like a cold closeout without giving me the chance to drive. But to take his responsibility with the shot.
And you can mix many, many drills with that, and that extends the ability from the players to recognize quickly who they play against and how they have to manage the situation, which could be the same one, but which is not the same one depending whose players are involved.
I wanna quickly say, so MUC is the player non-shooters for coaches listening. So how you guard the non-shooters. And also one thing that I've seen so much more now to, to this point that you're talking is like, if there's 2 players on that 2 side and 1 player closing out, sometimes player will close out, the ball's on the 45 and they'll close out to take away the corner pass.
And you're seeing that so much more now because like you said, players anticipate that they're going to get the closeout and it's going to be an easy pass to the corner that now you're making them make tough decisions. Well, I have space to drive or I have space to shoot, but I don't have the corner pass anymore.
And that player threw me off and maybe the next player can come and neutralize the offense. So you see that a lot more as well in the game lately.
That situation you have to create because whatever, when the drive happens, there will be something you let, you give up with the team and it will be this pass to the side. For me, it's an urgency situation. If you want to cover everything, finally you will— you won't cover anything.
And for instance, a few years ago, the way— the common way to do against that was X rotation. The top guy was dropping to give time to the low man who was helping the big guy to come back. On certain situations, certain locations, on pick and roll especially, for instance, on the angle pick and roll, most often My low man, who is the safety on the— involved being the safety on this situation, is coming back, whatever.
But the top guy is using fakes very often to send him back to the low man. He fakes to go, but because if you don't do that, it's very difficult. And we involve also the third one, the one who was on the ball at the top, is moving with the ball.
So sometimes he makes that way.
Yeah.
The safety guy doesn't hesitate. He's not in a hurry to get back to his guy, and he can really tag the big man because he has one more rotation to get back on the perimeter.
And do you think these are the most important defensive trends now for neutralizing NBA offenses? So you talked about the X-out, being deceptive on defense, you know, are these the kind of things or is there anything else that we missed there?
When you observe the playoffs and you see, for instance, the series between OKC and Spurs, OKC did it last year to win the championship. The pressure they put on opponents, even backcourt, and both teams were doing it very, very hard. Well, you need to have the personnel to do that.
But this was something obvious in the international basketball. The last competition since, I would say, World Cup 2019 in China, it's mandatory to put this pressure because opponents will do it, will weaken it, will force turnovers sometimes. And another thing, we were talking about the will for any team to play faster.
The pace of the game is increasing year after year. So that's a way to beat that. When they put the pressure, especially on basket made, The time to cross half court is higher. Okay, another thing, more and more the teams are not playing with set plays, they play with triggers.
The way you deny the entry is also defending. You don't only run and react about each action, you deny the first one. And I was talking earlier also about defensive transition. When you can put the wall in front of the ball, all the early action, early aggressive action to the basket are limited.
And that's a way, and I think it's very important now with the basketball, offensive basketball trend in NBA.
Yeah. And it's almost like what you're saying is the importance of transition defense in today's game, full-court pressure, taking away the first option. So one more question before I ask you our transformative tip, just quickly. You know, you've had tremendous success with the French national team.
Can you just share with us what you, in your perspective, I know, you know, a great example is in the last World Cup, you made a tough decision and you benched, you know, one of your starters. They played less minutes, you know, Gobert, who was a great player, but in that specific playing style, the competition you were going, you had to make a really tough decision.
You know, an NBA Defensive Player of the Year, and you had to make a really tough decision. So what are some, you know, quickly, what is some of the reasons for your success over your long career?
Obviously the main one, players. Players' talent, players' level, because I truly believe you cannot get team success if you don't have good players. This doesn't exist. I don't know which percentage coach influence the win, but it's not a lot. But sometimes it's the other direction.
If it's 10 or 15% plus, it's good, but it could be minus. So that's a big difference. But you need to have good players. This is really important. And I will say 2 other things. The main one is to find a basketball identity fitting to our players.
In France, we have a lot of athletes. We are in Europe the most athletic basketball team. And when you are athletic, you can defend at a very high level. And we really try to convince our players that this was the way to really get better and get some medals in the international competition.
And the last point was decision-making. We were considered as a very weak team, country, okay, in Europe. I talk in Europe, but it's the same for the world. And I think year after year, we got better, probably not as good as the best countries, okay, like Serbia, Spain, but we got better.
And this was under the idea to really Focus on this, on the preparation, was very important. And you know what you talk about, Gobert, it was something linked to the context. Okay, we didn't have a long time to prepare the Olympics, and it was the first time for sure we were playing with 2 7-footers.
And Victor was already 7'3, 7'4, Gobert 7'1. And we were missing one or two of our point guards. We didn't have a dominating point guard on this competition. The competition before, the point guards were using Rudy Gobert very well. They were giving him every game, each game, a couple layups, dunk, that we didn't find in this competition.
And the problem was international basketball, there is no Swiss accounts, defensive Swiss accounts. So it was easier for opponents to help a lot with Rudy's defender. And as we couldn't reach him a lot, it was advantage of their defense, not of our offense.
And the second point was I wanted Victor, Wemby to mix. I didn't want Wemby to stay behind the 3-point line. This was for me something very important. It's the same when you see, it's the same in NBA. Okay, this year Wemby was much more efficient.
Because more and more he goes too close from the basket. He can shoot the 3, that's not the problem, but he must, he have to go as much as possible near the basket because that's where he's dominating the most. And the problem when he was with Rudy, it was more difficult and he had tendency to stay away from the basket.
So we wanted to give him the opportunity. To be free, sometimes to be at the three to bring the big men out to play like five out, but sometimes that he can go close from the basket, and that's why we did this choice.
But it was not against Rudy because I am the first one to know how much Rudy helped us to get some of the medals before, and even even this one, he kept playing well and he stayed focused, and he had a very good behavior with this decision.
He didn't part ways, not at all. He stayed with the team and really he was a champion in this situation.
I agree. And credit to yourself, the coaching staff, for making these tough decisions, being able to have a conversation with the players and doing what's best for the team as well. Vincent Collet, thank you so much. Before I let you get out of here, I just want to say it's been great having this conversation with you.
Absolute pleasure. I have one more question and it's our transformative tip. If you could leave coaches with one piece of advice that would instantly improve their practice environments, what would that be?
When we practice, I always try to create situations where the players will have to challenge their decision-making, both directions. So when we, for instance, when we teach offense, we Always insist on the one point, we cannot decide for the defense. The defense can do anything without talking to us what they will be doing.
So we must be ready to adjust. So we try to create this situation. And for instance, another way, when we prepare with the national team, we try to think What do they think about us? So if we want to work on our offense, we try to imagine how they see us.
So we are going to ask the teams that play defense, or coaches if they play defense, to defend the way they will defend, without telling the players what to do, just to make them find solutions, decision-making against the defense. We are supposed to meet when we will play this team.
Before that, with young guys, for instance, if we work offense, I will coach the defense because it cannot be completely free. If it's completely free for young guys, they can be lost. But if you are progressive with that, but I don't give them a solution from the beginning.
From the beginning, I put the situation.
Okay.
On the floor, I coach the defense. For instance, if you just work on a simple horizontal off-ball screen, I am going to tell the defender, okay, the next 2 situations, you chase the offensive player when he goes out of the screen. On situation 3 and 4, you will go over the top.
And the offense has to find the good answer. And when I think they know well about each situation, defense can do anything they want. And we have to find the good decision-making together because it's not only one player, it's also the passer, it's also the screener.
Most often we do it with 4 guys. So the second guy, second big man has to adjust to the situation.
Yeah.
Because if it's, for instance, if the defender goes over the screen, the second big has to flash high post so that we can give him the ball and we change the angles, the passing angle. And all this for sure is challenging decision-making for the players.
That's the way to, I think, to change environment. I think before, I would say 20 years ago, Okay, we were repeating stuff, plays, but with no constraints. And very often when the— during the game, if opponents were doing a defense which they were not supposed to do and we were not expecting, we could be in trouble.
And even timeout was not enough to correct. So it's very important to determine that. And with young guys especially, it's very important To do simple stuff when we talk about collective things, simple, but where the reading is always present. The reading is the key of the learning and the teaching.
I love that. Let the players make the decisions and figure it out. Vincent Collet, thank you so much.
Welcome. It was my pleasure.
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