A Player's Perspective of Training with CLA with Linus Holmstrom

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. A very different podcast episode today because we're not joined by a coach or a practitioner in the basketball world.

But a player, and a player I've had the pleasure of working with over the last 2 years of the college prep program in Italy, uh, Linus Holmström from Stockholm in Sweden. So Linus, thanks so much for joining us today.

Yeah, thank you. It's a pleasure being on this and talking with you. It's nice.

It's a different format to what we're used to. Hey, we're gonna make it a normal discussion, and the reason I wanted to do this is so that coaches can really actually gain the perspective of the biggest reason that we're coaching and the reason why I'm so passionate about ideas such as the CLA and evidence-based ideas, and that's the perspective of the players themselves.

And I think there's no better person than Linus, who's been training with this approach now for a while, to actually talk about, you know, everything you experienced. So before we get to that, Linus, could you just briefly kind of introduce your background, where you grew up, your brief journey with basketball, and kind of how that took you to Italy?

Yeah, so I grew up in Stockholm, Sweden, playing for my local team, Lidingö Basket, and I was very motivated very early. I trained a lot. Then I got in contact with Alex through a camp he held with the elite athletes in Sweden. So then I started speaking with him and he told me about the program he was putting together in Italy, and it sounded very interesting for me.

And all the stuff he said about player development and that whole part of the experience. And I felt like that was what I wanted to do, so I decided to go to Italy and play for Coach Alex. And those 2 years have been really, really good for me, for my player development, and also every aspect as a player and all that stuff.

So that's kind of what I've been doing. And also, aside from that, I've been playing with the Swedish national team a lot. Started with under-16s just before I went to Italy, and then from there under-18s in B division where we won, and then now this year in the A division where we managed to stay but played some good basketball at times, but at times we struggled.

But that's normal and just still a fun experience. That's what I've been up to.

Great stuff, really nicely summarized. So Linus, we spoke about this. We're gonna share your highlights, which will go out at the same time as this podcast. And the reason I wanna do that is because I think you are the ultimate essence of a player who has developed in an ecological approach through the CLA.

Now, we haven't actually ever, I don't think, spoken about these terms, ecological dynamics and the constraints-led approach. But I think you've been really curious about how we've practiced the last 2 years. So what would you say this approach is, maybe for a coach being exposed to this for the first time?

How would you say this differs to other kind of coaching methods, etc.?

The biggest difference to me is how you can implement it to the game. Like, it's so tangible, constraint-led approach. You can really see those things happening in game that we do in practice. So just making the practice more more and more look like the game has been very, very, very good for like development and decision-making.

Because most people, and also me before I moved to Italy, is so used to only working on skills like perfecting a crossover, for example.

Yeah.

And for instance, in the constraint-led approach, I'm learning how to do that crossover when I see the read and where it fits, and kind of getting those repetitions in practice all the time helps me get those live repetitions where it actually needs to be used.

And when I can think about why it went wrong, and then when I get that situation in the game, I feel way more ready.

Yeah.

So it's been very, very good for my reading the game. I feel like stuff slows down when you get the opportunity to practice against in those conditions. For two years, like we did.

That was amazingly well put, Linus. So let's get on to this then. I mean, early on, I think you bought in like straight away, and it was really easy with you. But I remember, I think we had some conversations about things like the importance of variability, right?

Practicing with more variability versus you know doing those crossovers, boom boom boom boom boom, etc. What made you really embrace variability as a player? Because like. Even when I saw you training by yourself, or sometimes when I went into the gym, you were doing— I remember one point last season you were doing guided defense with Oremus, right?

And you guys were running workouts which were basically workouts which I think were better than workouts I've seen at the professional level with coaches even. It was incredible, the stuff you guys designed. So what made you shift from, you know, where you were before to that mindset of embracing variability, decision-making, et cetera?

Just understanding the game. And when I really listened to what you explained about the variability thing, and it made sense to me, even though I make more 3s uncontested staying in the same spot, that will never transfer to the game. And I remember I liked shooting those 3s a lot.

I felt like a way better shooter when I got to do those things. But on the other side of it, it's way more fun doing those things when, when you have some defense.

Yeah.

It's more live and it's pretty boring, to be honest, to stay in the same spot and shoot. And for me, I just saw the benefit of it. And I also watched, watched some tape, like just generally watching basketball with that in the back of my head.

I saw those situations occur all the time. And when you have skills that you've acquired through that type of training, Those skills are way more easier to bring out when you really need them. If I learned to read what my defender is doing in certain situations, it's way easier to do that if I'm being exposed to that in my everyday training, just with a partner doing guided finishes, for example.

So like that approach, I think, is implemented with them in like all parts of the game, finishing, Differential finishing, shooting with different contests and all that stuff occurs all the time in the game. So for me, it didn't make sense to train any other way.

Amazing. So it's not in my words, it's in the words of others. A lot of coaches, scouts in Europe describe me as you kind of, you developed as one of the best shooters in Europe for your age group. Okay. And I think, you know, you showed what you glimpses of what you can do at the Euros.

You finished the last game with 27 points against The Lithuanian national team, obviously one of the stronger teams, and obviously you're about to go out to the US, and you know after that you're going to your Division One career, the NCAA, or maybe something else we don't know.

But anyway, I think shooting is a big part of your game as well as your decision making as a guard and pick and roll. But I want to just focus on the shooting part. So we've obviously done a lot of small-sided games over the last two years, but we've also done some differential learning.

And I think differential learning pieces, I think it's actually harder maybe for coaches to understand because we haven't got decisions, we haven't got defenders, but obviously it's a lot of variability. Did you find that differential learning helped you as a shooter?

I felt like it prepared me for kind of more difficult shots I take. And catch and shoot 3s, maybe you can rep them out in between workouts or in between different other shots you take.

Yeah.

But as soon as you're only shooting those shots, that doesn't prepare you. And what I felt we did with differential shooting is when I learned how to fade left, when I learned how to shoot with different step-back variations of balance maybe, and different footwork, it prepares me of all the like game situations I'll be put in.

And like for me, shooting off all the different actions we have Felt like it helped me and like exploring different solutions out of them. And the footwork came naturally. It wasn't something I had to think about or something— I didn't have to have cones to know where to put my feet.

And I like just explored different solutions during the time we did differential shooting. So when you told me, okay, you have to read what I'm doing, like if I'm going over, you have to find the solutions to get to the corner as quickly as possible.

In the past, comes in a different way all the time.

Yeah.

So if I'm drifting to the corner of a floppy action, how am I about catching the ball? And the way my footwork is, is different if I catch it up high or if I catch it low. So all those things just made like the whole connection with my whole body just figures things out.

And when you put yourself in all those difficult situations, when you get a good pass, it's way nicer. So then you really appreciate it, and then you can I feel more comfortable knocking it down. So I feel like differential shooting helps in all aspects of shooting.

I love that.

Some of my best memories of prep were the first year when we had those morning workouts and we had the Miles Davis on in the background, early AM relaxing, and then we just go through an hour of either me playing defense on you or DL, or trying to play defense on you.

And then the DL, the DL activities. Do you have any favorite DL activities that you'd like to share with coaches?

My favorite ones were actually the variation part of it. It's when you change ranges and always change footworks. Obviously most people just shoot in the same spot all the time, but you're never getting the same shot twice in a row in basketball. You may go like a couple possessions without even shooting.

So what we did, what I liked is breaking off the workout by doing different stuff. So I think we did a couple times where I was shooting consistently variable with the mid-range 3-pointer and then NBA 3-pointer with off-the-dribble catch and shoots, different footworks.

And then at a random time you would break it off and make me do like play defense on you to full court and shoot like a pull-up, some stuff like that. And I didn't think of it then, but when I thought about it later, I Like, oh, that had a purpose.

Also, one I helped is shooting with different fatigues, and I would go in a split stance for 2 minutes and my left leg would be shaking.

Yeah.

And then when I was shooting them, my balance was completely off. Also, it can occur in a game in 4th quarter.

You're tired, right? Exactly.

Everything is not always perfect. You're not always fresh. You may not have shot for like 2 quarters maybe if you started off poorly. But then you have to be ready for that one. You get open. So yeah, all of that stuff was really good.

Fantastic. Really, really well summarized. So this is a tough one. If you were to use like singular words to describe your game, Linus, what would they be? I've definitely got one, but if you were to— if you had to try and describe yourself, how you play in like one word, what would it be?

Creative.

Hmm.

I would say, because I find myself in like a lot of positions where people just do simple solutions and maybe bring it back out, but then I feel like I can find other solutions. If he cuts me off there, I know, but through repetition and what I've learned from these past years, that I will surely have a counter instead of just bringing it back out.

Or pick and roll creativity, like coming off the pick and roll And not always, because a lot of point guards do this when they come off the pick and roll and they're always turning the corner and they're always looking down and trying to go all the way.

I feel like being creative and being diverse and doing different things summarizes my game pretty, pretty well.

I think I was going to say adaptive, but I think creative is even better. That's what you are. So let's get to conceptual offense because you alluded to it a little bit there, getting into the pick and roll stuff. And we just, you know, we've been obviously texting

for the summer since we both left Italy. And I think we've both been watching a lot of basketball. And I think the way that we view the game now is very different through everything we've learned together over the last 2 years. And I think especially principles of play on offense and on defense.

But let's focus on the offense. And I think the conceptual offense really couldn't have had a better point guard in Europe your age to be the figurehead for our program. And kind of have you leading the offense. But could you just explain, kind of maybe give coaches the base outline of whatever you remember?

You can go as deep or as short as you like. Just explain to them how we played conceptual offense at College Prep.

Conceptual offense is not about running set plays or running actions where we only look for one thing. Conceptual offense is having a trigger like a pick and roll a wide, like we call it, a screen away, and playing off reads, playing off each other, and playing off instincts and all the stuff we learned from practice.

Reading the defense, taking what they give us, and finding solutions in that system. For instance, all the pick and roll solutions we drilled 5 times a week at practice, like always.

Wall pick and roll, 2-on-2, right?

Exactly. All, all those like small-sided games had like prepared us for the game. So when we got into the game, all players on our team, um, I had a good understanding of what conceptual is and what we wanted out of it. So it was very clear for us that we just played off each other and played off the defense and then looked for good shots, high percentage shots that would give us a high point per possession.

Just having those base triggers and then playing off that has just made it way easier to score, but also Look for different options than a coach always telling you that you have to look for this shot. But that's not always the case, or that's mostly never the case, that that's the only shot that's open.

So conceptual offense is about the coach encouraging the players to find solutions within the basic structure that we had of just starting triggers. But that's kind of how I sum it up.

Excellent. So let's go deeper into that because we play a lot of pick and roll. One of the reasons we did that is for the development of you guys. I felt that was really important. And I think you really showed how skilled you are in the pick and roll.

Now, I'd love it, Linus, if you could just speak about some of our coverage solutions. And this is just important for coaches. I want to make the difference. I think you're about to be really impressed by— I'm not putting you on the spot, Linus, but by what Linus is about to share with us in terms of just his knowledge about the game.

But I think the biggest, kind of the most important thing is his knowledge of, and that means what we as a team, what Linus himself actually shows within the game itself. So one thing being able to talk about these things, as we're going to do now, and it's another thing actually being able to do it.

And that's why, as you mentioned, Linus, things like doing the small-sided games, that's the only way these coverage solutions can actually be developed well. And it's more important that we see them in the game.

Yeah.

But Linus, can you just share, you know, some of those coverage solutions and what you became really good at over the last 2 years?

Yeah, the one thing that I've realized, like, been through, will be with me my whole career, is the reject first and foremost. Like, the reject is almost always on, and when people are playing aggressive coverages, you're getting— when you reject, you get so much space, and then they kick to the corner and everything is collapsing when you reject.

So reject is always my first look. It also helps me bring down my defender if I don't have the reject, and it's a good setup to make him get stuck in the screen. So obviously there's a thousand reads of this, but first I'm gonna try to run them in order so I have somewhat organized.

So the whip and pass, if the strong side corner is overhelping or is in too deep and I have a shooter in the corner, that's also a very good look. So you're not even coming off the pick, you're just Taking one dribble towards, making him go into tag, and then you just go into the corner.

Or before you get off the screen, you can also look for the bingo. And I realized mostly in practice, and I think I did it like once or twice in the game, is when you try to reject and they overcommit, then it's really useful to use the bingo when you go in between my defender and the screener's defender, or in between the screener and my own defender.

Yeah.

So it's not like a split, But it's just before the screen.

Before.

So that also creates a bit more separation. Then if they're playing a drop, for instance, the hostage has also been really good. So you come off the screen, you take the defender on your back, you let him slip, roll, whatever he wants to do, pop, so you can kick it back.

And we worked on a lot of Gore-Tex screens also. So when there's— when I'm, I'm hostage-ing my player, The guy, the screener goes down and set another screen on the drop defender so you can get to the rim way easier. Also, in an aggressive show or show or switch or whatever, I'm always trying to— we call it stalk the show, get over it.

And especially if they're lazy hedging, lazy switching, doing any type of bad job defensively, always try to get over the hedge guy.

Yeah.

And when you do that, there's one less guy worrying about, and then you can just go into your domino sequence kicking it out because you're 5-on-4. Same thing with the split, splitting the hedge. And also the relay pass can be really good, especially against hedging and the switching.

Also, if the big guy's slipping, because if he gets out early, I'm kicking it ahead early. The relay pass and then the pass inside can be really useful.

Yeah.

So the read for the guy I'm kicking it ahead to is whether he kicks it in, whether he skips it to the other side if the corner guy tags him, or whether he just extras it if that guy is too far in. Or of course, if he has a closeout attack, he will take that also.

But that's just one of the main ones. The skip, we also worked on a lot. The skip pass to the corner, because we encourage our big guys, our screeners, to slip a lot of screens. to get out early, because when they started doing that really well, their whole defense had to come in because otherwise it would just be pocket after pocket pass.

And we did sometimes with Vlad, especially when we got those alley-oops.

Yep.

And it was really good. But when defense started figuring that out, they tagged way too early. And then we worked a lot of skip passes to the corners for, for our shooters. And we have a lot more, and you can talk about this for ages, but like against switches also, if they switch, you always try to hunt the mismatch.

And I like attacking bigger defenders because I feel like first and foremost, I get way more space for my shot because they always take one, one or 2 steps to get some space and get some slack if they take it easy on defense.

So I always use the boomerang pass then. So I pass it ahead, take a couple steps back to get some space, and then I get it back in my hands. And playing one-on-one, With a license to kill. Like you say, get the ball in my hands, that's a way more comfortable one-on-one than getting off the dribble and being a bit stressed.

So when you get that, like, you can take that breath, it's easy to get downhill or either look for your shot also.

That was incredible, man. That's incredible just to listen to that. Coaches, I think, will be shocked that you're 18. After you have an amazing pro career, you are going to be, uh, My money's on it now. You're going to be a high-level coach for sure.

Whoever hires you is—

Yeah, I want to.

Let's get on to— so that's our conceptual offense. And obviously, you know, these principles of play we developed in a lot of our practices. I think the biggest thing is it's difficult, Linus, for coaches to— it's actually really difficult to describe what we did at Prep because it was always changing, right?

I think it's tough for coaches always to see it on social media or even to hear about it like we're discussing now. And then to see it live in person, it was just a different thing. But what would you say our team practices were like?

What did it feel like as a player to be in that environment?

You learn something new every day. Like all the stuff I just mentioned, we went through that, that stuff quick and always exposed to difficult situations. Like we played constraints-led approach, small-sided games where I had 2 defenders on me and I was going to bring it up and score with like 3 dribbles, I think.

Being put in very difficult situations, like, it's very difficult, and sometimes you get frustrated, but when you always look to get better, it's really beneficial. And also the environment, environment we had, it was not an angry environment. You would never scream at me doing— making a bad decision.

Like, if I tried to pocket pass and there was no pocket pass, that was— Because a lot of coaches I played for in my day would stop the practice if I made a bad pass, and he would talk about it for 20 minutes, and you waste 20 minutes of practice.

So what we did, we were really efficient. So we set up small-sided games on both baskets and being really efficient with the rotation, so everybody got a lot of reps. And just breaking things up with shooting, breaking things up with differential learning, more small-sided games, and then going into playing to have a focus and have a small amount of triggers that we use to create our advantage and really focusing on those reads.

Because a lot of times you could just, oh yeah, we're playing this get, and then after the get, we don't have anything. We don't get anything yet, no pun intended, but we don't, we don't have anything. So then it's just a regular 1-on-1.

And even if we score off that, it's not what we wanted to find. And you said like one chance to create dominance.

Yeah.

So when we did that, the get was the main focus, and then you really had to think, okay, what is my defense doing? What is defense doing? What coverage are they doing? Are they going under? And that created an urgency that we really wanted to create an advantage of that one.

When we came in a game and ran that get, we wanted to create something of it so bad That we like didn't almost re-trigger because we have more time on the clock. So we, even if we didn't have anything, it was like luxury for us to have another chance of getting dominant.

When we practice in that environment, getting all those reps and getting all, all the reads in, it's really efficient and really fun as a player to, to play in that environment.

Amazing. That one opportunity contraint, definitely, I think that was one of my favorites just in terms of it made our defense so much better as well as the offense at the same time. So if you were to have, Linus, like 3 of your favorite small-sided games or even like constraints, what would they have been?

I like most of the pick-and-roll small-sided games just because I felt like that was part of the game I wanted to work on the most and it was going to be good for my future. I think you call it Fortnite, or when you had the score of all those different reads.

So it was a reject, It was a relay pass.

Yeah, slip.

It was a twist, it was a get, and all those things. So it really helped me, uh, those small-sided games, like looking for all of that stuff. Even when the defense knew what you were gonna do, how do you create an advantage even if they know?

Because in the highest level, the scouting is crazy, so they already know what the play is and they already know what you're looking for. But how can you still create an advantage of that? And that small-sided game, or what is it, small-sided? Yeah, small-sided game really was good because the more you ticked off the list, the more difficult it got.

Also, it helped me a lot playing with my, my big guy. I used to play with a big guy so he could set me good screens. So whenever I play with big guy, I kind of brief him on whatever Like what I look for and what's— how to play with him and how we would do the best.

And it kind of helps me in that chemistry. So with everybody I play with now, I kind of can see what he wants to do, and then I have every— I've worked on every read, and I've worked— not everything, but like the most of the things you can do in, in those situations.

So I feel very open and adaptable to any big guy.

Absolutely. And for the coaches listening, I think Linus basically described affordances in the best way possible. And, you know, those affordances, those opportunities for action, he's exposed to through the practice environment we created. So, Linus, the last, last question. Let's say we were going to redo the second year of college prep again, and we're rewinding to a year ago.

What could I have done differently as a coach to be a more effective coach?

Oh, that's difficult.

Don't feel like you have to be nice.

No, I know, I know. I'm not gonna be too nice, but I felt most of the stuff you did was very new to me, so I don't have a list of facts how I wanted to be. Of course I had preferences, and at times when we did differential shooting, I became very frustrated about my shoot.

Because I wasn't making anything, and I, I'm a high-level shooter, so when I was missing that much, it made, made me very frustrated. So at parts of practice, that would get me out of my zone or get me out of my regular self-me.

So maybe one of the things would be like making the drills like the perfect level of difficulty.

Yeah.

So you can do that with any player. If you play with a 15-year-old that's not a good shooter, maybe you grade it down and play, have easier drills, but still differential. So monitoring those drills for the level of the player. Yeah, if we did that a bit more and not always playing— maybe example, this double team drill with 3 dribbles.

Yes.

When I'm struggling too much or when it's completely impossible and I'm not getting any value of it because I'm always getting into bad shots and I'm not Finding the solutions, maybe have the second defender come in even later so I can maybe get one rep, one or 2 reps where I feel like, okay, that's a solution that works.

I think that was actually one of the best. That's great feedback. When did we have that conversation? We had it, I think that was one of the best conversations we had in the year. It was the contested shooting, right? When we said it was too challenging, some of it.

And then, and I think we did a better job after that, right? Adapting some of the, what we did, things like we added a passing option or we just made the defense start further away. And then I think we even had some more like lightly contested ones kind of interspersed, right?

If I remember correctly.

Yeah. Yeah. So I remember we, we monitored that a bit to, for it to work better. And I felt like that was good.

Yeah, I think that's great. Just the challenge point, something I was talking about before, Linus, where it's like, if it's too hard, it's like you said, you get frustrated. And I think that's one of the hardest things as coaches, especially being able to change kind of the activities based on the players in a team practice.

Like, I'm constantly trying to get better at that. And it's not easy maybe sometimes when you've got 12 different players and everyone's slightly, you know, different abilities, different needs, trying to find like the sweet spot for everyone.

Yeah.

But it's important.

Yeah, it just comes with like everyone is not at the same level of anything. So maybe like for finishing, for example, Sarama needs more difficult finishing drills than I need, but shooting-wise I need more challenging shooting drills than, than he did. Yeah, just experimenting with that and like finding the sweet spot, as you said.

Excellent. Linus, I just want to say thanks so much for taking the time for joining us. I think that was such an insightful chat we had, man. What a pleasure it was to get the chance to work with you for the last 2 years.

I think, man, I'm always going to remember that, and I just hope I get a chance to coach you again at some point in the future.

Yeah, that would be fun.

Thanks, man. And, uh, we're all, uh, wishing you the best for your upcoming season at Colorado Prep and just excited to see where you go from there.

Yeah, me too. Thank you, man. I'm excited to follow your career as a coach.

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