Alex Sarama interviews Marius Huth. Marius shares his insights on using small-sided games and an ecological dynamics framework to develop basketball skills.
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In this episode, Alex Sarama interviews Marius Huth. Marius shares his insights on using small-sided games and an ecological dynamics framework to develop basketball skills. He discusses the importance of having players start with the game, rather than focusing solely on perfecting technique. Marius also highlights the unique approach taken where the emphasis is on creating a fun and dynamic practice environment that mirrors the game. He also touches on his experience coaching the national team and the challenges of preparing a team with limited practice time.
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Questa trascrizione segue l’audio originale in inglese.
This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast, and I'm your host, Alex Sarama. This is the podcast where we help coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to create the ultimate resource to help make sense of how contemporary skill acquisition ideas can be applied within the basketball world.
Throughout the podcast, we'll unpack how an ecological dynamics framework alters our perspective If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, then this is the podcast for you. Welcome back to the Transforming Basketball Podcast.
Delighted to be joined by Marius Hoef. Marius is someone I've really enjoyed learning from, I'd say, over the last few years. I think doing some amazing work in the youth basketball kind of space. working at ALBA Berlin, one of the most prestigious academies, not just in Germany, but Europe too.
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So Marius, thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you, Alex. Happy to be here.
So just for the benefit of the listeners, Marius, could you kind of just outline, you know, your role at ALBA? Because it's a huge organization. And I think there's not much like it within a European context when it comes to what you guys are actually doing.
So it's hard to describe. I would say my official role is being the coordinator for Under-14 males basketball and mini basketball. But I'm here from day one. So we're now for 18 years. And we're growing and growing, like I said before, in the end, I try to care about the players wherever they are.
So my main focus is educating players under-14, but then keep involved in their education and their development and follow how they develop.
Fantastic. And we've always kind of spoken about the importance of playing with small-sided games and incorporating authentic opportunities for decision-making. And that's something that you're really a big believer in too. How have you kind of gone about introducing some of these things within those youth U14 mini basket programs at ALBA?
We try in ALBA that everything that they learn comes from the games. When I started coaching 18 years ago, I learned everything on zero stuff, like the old coaches' education. And I started like this. I was a coach like this. Pretty soon I realized that, hey, maybe our players can shoot on zero, but they cannot play the game.
You know, when we played Spanish teams, they just kicked our asses. And so not just me, also coaches around me at Alba, we try to figure out how to teach basketball. And I would say this is like our base. So everything that we do starts with the game.
And so we try to teach everything through games, through small-sided games. Close to the normal game and stuff like this.
Love it. So yeah, I followed, you know, the work of yourself and some of the other coaches at Elba, and I think it's great just seeing the flow of a practice. And you guys do, you know, I think the pace is fast and you're playing a lot of small-sided games.
So, you know, even something we hear a lot is players who are under 12 or under 14, they need these fundamentals, quote unquote, before they can actually participate in these complex, more complex environments. What would you say to that?
I know the story. And I know those quotes, but I would just say they're wrong. You know, I feel like a kid could, can start from the beginning. Okay, maybe the technique, whatever technique is, is not perfect in passing and dribbling and shooting or whatever.
But they can start from the beginning and play from the beginning. And for us, it's more important than the perfect technique is that they know what to do at which time and when there is an opponent. And so we feel like, hey, we need to practice with as much movement as possible, with as much decisions as possible, and as close to the game as possible.
And for sure, they will make some mistakes in decisions, they will make some mistakes in technique and stuff like this. But we feel that if we practice like this, it's much easier for the kids to transform to the game. So We feel like that they are pretty fast able to play the game on the weekend, you know, because there are also some coaches that tell me, hey, when a kid starts with our practice, they need to practice 4, 5, 6 months and then they can come to the game.
I think like this is not true. If I have a new kid and I have him in my practice roster, hey, he can start and play in 2 weeks because, okay, yeah, yes, he will make mistakes, but hey, he can play the game and that's, that's the most important for us.
Absolutely. Do you have any examples, Marius, just for the coaches listening to this, of, you know, say they were to go to an Alba Berlin youth practice, which I would recommend if any coach gets the chance to be in Berlin, what may they see?
Have you got any like favorite small-sided games that you could quickly kind of describe for the coaches listening?
I don't know. First of all, if anyone is ever in Berlin, everyone is always welcome to join one of our practices. So we have always open doors and everyone is welcome. I would hope that if you come to practice and see us practicing, first of all, you see kids smiling, yeah, and you see kids running because first of all, it's a game and we love if kids have fun, you know.
It's not like that we are working all the time and everyone is, I don't know, of course they are sweating, but they should enjoy what they're doing. And then I would hope that they would see, first of all, like I said before, a lot of kids moving a lot.
So we don't want to have kids sitting around. They move a lot, they're involved a lot, and they have a lot of decisions. The next thing that I would hope them to see is that when they come for several weeks or several practices in a row, that they don't always see the same.
So we try to have as much different games, as much different situations as possible. And in addition to this, especially when they're younger, I hope that they see practices where you not only have 100% basketball. So we always try to bring in, especially for warm-up games, but also for games in between, sometimes to have something with football, sometimes to have something with handball, volleyball, I don't know, whatever, to have as many different sports involved as possible.
So I would say, hey, if you come for us for 5 different practices, I hope that you never see the same game twice.
I love that. That was such a good response because that's— I was really hoping you'd say that because it's like just seeing when Norbert sent me, you know, some videos of practice last year, it was like, You are changing like the small-sided games either through a constraint or a rule.
And it's, I think a lot of people misconstrue what we're doing as kind of having the same small-sided games. And I just think that gets so repetitive for the kids and it's actually not that advantageous because they're just, they can resort to doing the same things every time.
And of course there are some favorite games, you know, they're always with every team it's different, but there are always some favorite games. I don't know, zombie ball or, I know, whatever, which they like a lot. And obviously we bring this game a little bit more often because, hey, sometimes you ask the kids what you want to play and they say, hey, we want to play zombie ball.
Even in the same game, like you said before, we try to change little rules to have something different, what they can learn, something different where we want to provoke playing this game. Because, hey, of course it's playing the game and having fun, but in best case, we always want them to learn something through those games.
And we as coaches try to manipulate the games a little bit that they learn what we want them to learn.
Love that. So I think what we're seeing a lot more of now, Maris, is maybe coaches in youth programs, whether it's in, you know, throughout the world, but what we're seeing is, you know, maybe one coach in a youth program who's really keen on these ideas, but then, you know, they're looking for ways to not just do it kind of independently with their team, but maybe bring it to their whole program and help the other coaches get on board so they're not just working in a silo, but it's kind of like a very much— it's
a shared approach where coaches are using the same language, you know, the same things you're talking about in every practice. So what's the importance to that, and how have you been able to go about that? Because it's not easy. And I think you often go to clubs and you see, you know, there might be one club, different age groups, but every age group, it looks like a completely different club.
There's nothing similar.
Yeah, and it's really not easy, especially for a club That is the big, like, our club. So we have, I don't know, I think we have like 100 coaches working for us. 40 of them are full-time and 60 of them are volunteer coaches.
And it's never easy to bring everyone on the same page. And I'm sure not everyone is exactly on the same page, but we try to connect everyone and to bring our same culture. And in the end, every coach should be a little different because we don't want to have coaches being like robots and everyone is doing, okay, this is the Alba way.
Yeah.
And we go the other way and we do it like this. But everyone should understand how we work. And we are lucky that some of our coaches are in the club for 18 years. So Norbert, who you mentioned before, is here for 17 years.
I'm here for 18 years. Nicky is here for 18 years. So we have some coaches that are here pretty long time, which helps a lot because they can carry on the culture. And then it's the main task, especially in the beginning of the season where we are right now, to bring in the new coaches.
And to bring them to talk, to bring them together to practice, to see together one practice, then to go and drink a beer or water after the practice. I don't know, whatever. And talk about those practices and yeah, just connect and talk about those stuff because in the end, especially if you bring new coaches, usually they come from another club and maybe they are not working the way that we are working and convince them what to do.
Mostly, mostens it's not. that difficult because they understand what we're doing and we have a big name, so everyone likes what we are doing. But to have them to understand how to use the games, you know, because it's the easiest thing is to see a game on YouTube and then to bring it to the practice, but that's not the whole deal, you know.
Of course, for me, it's better if they play a game than they go for 2-on-0 passing drill all the time. But then the next step is to understand the game, And to understand how to change rules, how to change the court, how to change balls, or I don't know, whatever, to adapt the game to what you want them to learn.
And this takes some time. Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes it takes months. With some coaches, it takes 2 years. So that's different.
Hey coach, I wanted to take a quick break from this episode to let you know that we just launched our new website, at transformingbball.com. The goal of our site was to present basketball coaches and practitioners with the ultimate resource for applying evidence-based ideas.
It contains a number of free resources such as blogs, practice activity ideas, as well as some of our paid products including clinics, workshops, and courses. The website contains everything you need to take your coaching to the next level. Find the website in our show notes or head to transformingbball.com.
That's a great example. And it's like coach development is nonlinear, just like learning in the game. And that's a great example how you phrased that. I think something I, I'm seeing a lot too, Maris, is people say, you know, this approach using the constraint-led approach, it's show me the results.
I want to see, you know, what this does before I start doing it. And obviously I don't want to talk about why we would both disagree with that, but I think it's seeing the success of Alba Berlin and actually seeing the fact that so many players you've developed and actually players who have gone through to the EuroLeague team.
Do you think, you know, having that environment where they're, they're learning kind of within this, the Alba way, so to speak, learning about the culture of the club and developing this environment, do you think it's gone, it's really helped with the senior team being able to have a steady crop of German players coming through?
I know this question with the results, and obviously I also don't have results. I'm not working for a university doing some studies or stuff like this. But like you mentioned, I would say the players, they show the results. And we're happy to have some really talented players that now play in our EuroLeague team, or even some playing in the NBA, playing for the national team right now at the World Cups.
And I hope, and I also feel like if you see them playing, you would always say, hey, they understand the game. They know how to read the game. They know how to play the game. Maybe they're not the most athletic guys, maybe they're not the greatest in techniques.
I don't know, whatever. I don't know how to say, but I would say I hope that you see that they go through some special school. And the good thing in our club is, or the point where it's changed was when we had a Spanish coach as head coach of our first league men's team, our EuroLeague team, when Aíto, the old Spanish legend, came to our club because he was a pro coach.
Coaching like a youth coach, you know. He was not focused mainly on the result this weekend. He was focused on develop the players, and he was focused on players to understand the game. You know, if you see a team of Aito playing, and especially if you saw them playing at Alba Berlin, it was not like they're running through the sets like robots, having a playbook of I don't know 27 sets and running through them.
So they could read the game. They could understand the game. And if your first league men's coaches like this, he's the best youth coach working for the pro team, it makes everything easier because you can see all the way through and it helps a lot.
Absolutely. Obviously, I had the pleasure of being with Raul Gonzalez in the summer too, working as the youth director, I guess, for the U16, U19, that program. And Raul was just telling me about Aito and all of that. And it was just great to hear about that because it's the perfect kind of synergy for from the work you're doing up throughout the program?
It was amazing because before— and I don't want to say something against Serbian coaches, there are a lot of great Serbian coaches and I learned a lot— but before we always had Serbian coaches, sometimes with really tough style, you know. And I learned a lot from this.
I, I think it's also useful to see how it works, but it was a lot of how to be perfect and pick and roll on zero, how to be perfect in this. What we're doing when they do this, and then from one day to another you have completely different head coach with a completely different approach.
And I could never imagine before that the coach could coach a pro team like Aito did. And it was so I was going to the practice and was amazing every time I see him in the practice was like wow. So I could him imagine being our under nine coach immediately because how the way he talks, the way talk to the players, how he teach the game.
What's just amazing. So yeah.
Oh, that's awesome. So Maris, I want to shift to your experience with the national team because I think it's important we touch on that too, because obviously it's such a different environment to Alba when you've got such limited preparation time. And you know, you've been the head coach of the under-16 national team program and had some really good results there.
How do you go about the approach when, you know, it's less prep time and obviously it's a slightly older age group? How do you really, like, make sure that you can be as efficient as possible while playing, while still using these small-sided games to get a team ready for the European Championships and to perform at a really high level?
That's a good question. And I'm not sure if I have the right answer right now, because I'm still trying to figure out how it works, because it's different. Like I said, the number of practices you have to prepare a team for a European Championship is limited.
I don't know how many, maybe it's 15, 20 practices, some preparation games. And the time is really limited. And obviously you have some players that know this kind of coaching, that maybe they are from Alba Berlin or they are from a different coach with different approach.
But sometimes they come from different clubs and they're just used to run on zero stuff and they used to run whatever the coach tells them, you know. And I see my role— I'm not the guy who tells the player every step what to do on the court at one time.
I'm not the coach for that. Maybe would be better, I don't know, but I'm not the coach and So sometimes I had to find the balance. So obviously I'm not changing my way. So even in the under-16 national team, we're playing warm-up games, we're playing a lot of small-sided different games, which also for 16-year-old boys is a lot of fun.
You know, it's not like— because in Germany was like, hey, everyone understood that in mini basketball you're gonna play games, but then we— when we go to under-14, under-16, we have to be serious. So game time is over. But my experience is completely different.
So in under-16 and Even this summer I worked with under-20 national team as an assistant coach. Even there we played games, small-sided games for warm-up, and also they enjoyed. And I felt like also they learned something through those games. So I tried to find a balance.
So I tried to find situations in practice where we used small-sided games a lot, but sometimes I had to change the way I'm coaching a little bit to adapt to the players, because in the end I have to pick up the players where they are.
It's the one thing that I know my way, how I want to teach them, but I sometimes I have to look at the players and have to realize how they learn and how they used to learn. And I cannot change a player as a national team coach in 3 weeks.
Exactly.
That's not possible. I can just influence him a little bit and I can just try to bring him a little bit closer to the way that I feel like we should play. And in the end, it's a lot of balancing and finding the right way.
And I felt like 2 years ago, I was pretty close to have a team that was able to read the game. I had some really talented players that were able with limited amount of sets to just see what happens on the court and just read and find the perfect situations.
But with the next team, maybe it's different. So I cannot say that I have the right way how to do it.
And you were, you were playing more conceptually, right? Going to some triggers and just letting players read, make decisions.
With the under-16, we only had short triggers to start the game. So we tried to run a lot because pretty athletic team, and we tried to push the ball and to run. And then we had 3 different entries, 3 different triggers, which was just a combination of handoff and a pick, or just a pick or whatever.
And then they should read the game. And of course, then we had some rules what to do, when to cut and when to give some space. But in the end, open to the players. And they could decide a lot. It helped me a lot that I had some really talented guards like Chris Anderson playing now for Oak Hill Academy in the US.
He understood the game amazing, and it helps a lot if you have a point guard like him. And I also had some other different talented guards like Roy Krupnikas, Jack Cahill, and I pretty much gave the game into their hands and they didn't disappoint me and we had a lot of success.
So I felt like in this case it was right. But I don't know, maybe next year if I have not that much talented point guards, maybe I should have a different approach. Because in the end, we have to be honest, national team is about development, but national team is also about having success.
You know, if I finished on last place with this team in the European competition, they won't give me this job again.
Yeah.
And so it's always, you need to have the balance. For me, development is the most important, but the federation expect me To be successful. So yeah, it's not easy. Not easy.
I guess as we wrap up here, Maris, with the last question, what's kind of next for yourself and Alba Berlin? Are there any like big projects or something that you really want to focus on this year within the program? Because I know it strikes me as yourself and Alba, you're constantly innovating, constantly looking at new ideas, ways you can keep improving, et cetera.
I have so many points on my list, so it feels like that I need another 18 years to develop everything like I would have it to be. So one big thing that you can see also from the outside is that we're much more focusing on girls.
Because to be honest, the first years of our development, the main focus was boys development, development for our first league boys men's team, developing boys from youth national teams and stuff like this. And our female team, they moved up to the first league last year, and they finished fourth in the first league.
So obviously we try to build the same amount or even more players on the girls' side that we have on boys' side. And I feel like it's a little bit easier because there are not that many competitive programs in female basketball like in, like in men's basketball.
And then there are so many more things. So we try to get closer to the schools. We are pretty close to schools to find some new talents at schools, but we try to get even closer and to connect our sports more with school sports because I feel like The PE lessons in Germany, they're not that good.
So we try to bring more PE, more sports to the schools, to have children that just grow up with sports and do a lot of different sports. Because I don't want to have a 12-year-old kid just playing basketball. I want him to be with us.
I want him to play basketball. I want him to fall in love with basketball. But I would like if they also play some soccer, go swimming, go, I don't know, bicycling, whatever. So being better in this one, So many different other things. I hope that every year that we are talking or every year that we, you would come to visit our club, that we would have something new, something that we improved, something that we developed because we felt like that we are just like standing in front of a mountain, you know, and maybe we climbed,
I don't know, 500 meters, but there's still 2,000 more to go. So really a lot of points in my mind that I want us to develop in our club.
Fantastic, Marius. I really enjoyed the episode today. I think For any coaches listening, I think it's really— they'd learn a lot checking out some of the things that you guys are doing at Alba. So that's exactly why I wanted to get you on the show.
So thank you so much for joining.
Thanks for having me. And I just can repeat, everyone is always welcome in our club to see us, to learn from us, and maybe we can learn from them. Because exchange and talking about practice is always the best thing that you can have to develop yourself.
Absolutely. Thank you, Marius.
Thanks, Alex. Have a nice day.
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