Should You Use Points Systems in Practice?

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 of the game. 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 podcast. Today, Adam and myself are going to talk about a common constraint manipulation within the basketball world, but something that we may question the validity over And just ask the question if there's a different way we may think about manipulating constraints.

So Adam, kick us off.

Okay, so I'm gonna have to make sure I watch myself here. I was a little nervous going over my head as you were talking there. I'm like, let's make sure our language is okay here, Adam. Let's not get too vulgar. So I've spent some time recently thinking— not even recently, for a while now.

I mean, I, I can even like picture a time where I think it was in the fall during our prep season. Where I made a suggestion instead for essentially enhancing the efficiency of an action, a simple rule instead of having a point system where we were like reward somebody for, oh, they executed this action, so let's give 'em a bonus point.

I mean, sure, that, that way they seek that out. But instead, I think even like simpler things to do is like the example that I gave you. Like if you don't, if you're neutral after one engagement turnover, and I think literally just giving, 'cause it's an immediate consequence and it's not something that they have to really adjust their behavior.

And like, I don't know how to even like phrase it more. Like we're not changing the way they play basketball. We're really like shaping like the boundaries that they're allowed to play basketball in.

I guess.

Wow. That, that came out actually pretty good, Adam. That's my, my take on like, I, I don't really like the point system because again, it's changing how they're like thinking and engaging in the game. They literally will have to pause and like, wait, that's worth more?

I thought that was worth more. And we're taking away from them engaging with the information within the game itself, the environment. Whereas like if we just simply say, nope, turnover, it's not there to sit. We're not disrupting how they're thinking. We're simply just Constraining the game itself.

So when— how I look at it is we're completely changing their intentions and attentions completely within the small-sided game. And I think let's use that example of what became our favorite constraint, the one opportunity, where say we're in any type of small-sided game, the offense had one opportunity to start dominoes.

Sometimes we might give them 2. You know, we're making these environments harder in some instances than what they would encounter within the game when they had maybe, you know, 3 opportunities to re-trigger in one possession. So when, you know, when we were maybe using point systems early in the year and we were giving bonus points, as you said, it wasn't always as forceful enough to maybe make a certain affordance more enticing.

So for instance, within our pick and rolls as a trigger, if we're playing with one opportunity, well, the offense is going to be forced to be so much more aggressive, creating an advantage through some type of coverage solution than if we played a small-sided game without that constraint.

So would you say, Adam, this is more kind of— it links to what we've been speaking about where we believe the CLA is being misconstrued somewhat, where a lot of coaches are just kind of playing generic general games like 2-on-2, 3-on-3 with different point systems, which aren't really as conducive for learning as they could be if we manipulated constraints in other ways.

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I think that last sentence was a big key in the closing. As you were initially talking, what I kept thinking about was attunement. That when it's very clear the consequences and you're like, this interaction better be effective, they really start to set up their pick and roll.

They're paying attention to their primary defender. They're looking Past them. They start thinking, now I have to look beyond the pick and roll. Are they helping? Because I really truly have to make the most of this position. It puts such a high priority on that interaction if we're going to do it that they start attuning to the information.

You're forcing them to. Now, are you okay with them struggling and them potentially being very upset? You have to be okay with that while also be like encouraging during this struggle. And, you know, may, you may have to, Perhaps like if, if it gets too much for them, then like increase the spacing, but maintain that same rule to me.

Because again, we want them, that attunement is what we want. We want them like engaging with the most important information and playing around with, with the variables and trying to make the, the most of that interaction, whatever we're constraining them to.

Absolutely. And I think this is where there's so much more we can do with the CLA than just saying something like, all right, you get a bonus point if you do this now. I've done that at times, and I think maybe in some short doses you might do that at the start.

But I think as soon as we think of something better, like we did in this instance, we're gonna go to that. And I think it's just— it could be a good starting point, but it shouldn't be an endpoint, just using these point systems in this, in this manner.

And I think especially something I'm seeing a lot is very confusing point systems where maybe coaches— and I did this at the start You know, I didn't know any better, where whenever in one small-sided game, maybe you have 3, 4, 5, 6 even different scoring kind of systems in play.

And it's just, that's way too much because, like you said, attunement. If we really want players focused on, you know, some very particular informational sources within the environment, well, really we're just distracting them with all this, you know, all these variables.

Absolutely. I completely agree because again, like, I'm literally like picturing some of the players because some, yeah, we did do this from time to time. It's just like, but I thought that was worth that point. No, no, no. And it was like constantly their mind is elsewhere except for engaging with the game in front of them, which is what we're actually trying to do.

We're trying to change their behavior in the game, not have them worried about some, like, again, they're reinterpreting the game of basketball. It's too much of a change of like a scoring system. Keep the scoring system simple. And change the way the game is played.

Another good phrase.

They're all coming out today, Adam. So let's let's try and give another practical example just to finish so that coaches can really see this. I'm just thinking of shot selection as one. You might get a better one, Adam. Like obviously, what we had last year at college prep was our gold, silver, bronze medals for shot selection, and a lot of the time most practice activities would be literally.

Only gold and silver, but a few players, we were happy with them taking bronze. And that will save that conversation for another day. But there's a huge difference in any small-sided game if you have, you know, 3s, 2s, and maybe you devalue the mid-range as 1.

You can do that if you want, but then when you just say it's only gold and silver, it's a completely different business. And that's what we had. And what we saw, we We felt that that was one of the most influential task constraints we did the whole season.

Why? Well, the players' finishing got exponentially better because they couldn't bail out for the easy option, aka the pull, the mid-range pull, or the floater. They were forced to exploit space to finish around the rim. At the same time, if they didn't feel they could do that, they were forced to paying closer attention to where teammates were positioned outside the 3 if they felt, you know, they couldn't get to the rim.

So then they were actually looking for cutters, looking for players finding space outside the 3. So would you say that's a good example in terms of, you know, simply changing the scoring system versus actually removing the affordance to shoot those shots and only playing with the shots that we're really trying to hunt out?

Yeah, absolutely. Because again, like, to me, it— again, it simplifies things. I mean, we discussed it again with Previously, I can't remember what we were, what we were discussing on a previous podcast, but it had to do with like Axel. No, you're only gonna slip.

You're only gonna slip screens for this activity. Now there, he's gonna miss out on certain opportunities. Again, it's a forcing function where he's gonna, he's gonna get information out of it. He doesn't have to, he's not quote unquote overcognizizing out there. He's not trying to, oh, what do I do?

What do I do? It's just like, nope. Go do this, see what happens, and then allow the freedom to come back in. And what are you talking about with like the gold, silver medal and bronze medal aspect of it? It, it just, again, it's a forcing function perfect for that.

And then, I mean, you can just further build on that. And I think like, even if we said, like, like you mentioned, like say like Linus or something like that, like we're completely cool with him taking those shots, say he's super efficient at it.

Then we can say, yeah, no, that works. That shot is a silver medal. And all the players would understand. It's like, yeah, it's Linus taking it. It's not Corey taking a pull-up mid-range jumper. These are very different circumstances. So you can start to actually scale it to your individual personnel.

That way it's not even that general as the season goes on.

Fantastic. So coaches, short episode today. As always, we wanted to make it as practical as possible. So we hope that that just leaves you with some more inspiration for your practice design, as you go about, you know, adopting some of the methods that we advocate here for— as you go about adopting some of the methods that we advocate here at Transforming Basketball.

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