George is joined by Konstantin Hula discusses his experiences and insights gained from coaching youth basketball, particularly focusing on the importance of intentional…
Keep listening while you explore. Your episode keeps playing as you browse other pages on this site.
In this episode, George is joined by Konstantin Hula discusses his experiences and insights gained from coaching youth basketball, particularly focusing on the importance of intentional practice, clear principles of play, and effective communication. He reflects on his growth as a coach, the challenges faced while transitioning from coaching under 12s to under 14s, and the implementation of seasonal constraints to enhance player development.
Select a chapter to start listening from that moment.
Select a chapter to start listening from that moment.
Useful for your staff or players? Share this episode—or a specific moment—with them.
This transcript follows the original English audio.
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.
If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, This is the podcast for you.
Hello and welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Konstantin is a basketball coach from Vienna. He has been coaching for 5 years. He started with individual skills training, and now he's the head coach of the under-14 boys at Basket Flames in the Superliga. Konstantin is also the assistant coach for Austria's under-13 national team.
Explore Transforming Basketball membership and continue your coach development.
He discovered the constraints-led approach through a university colleague, and he has been coaching using the CLA for the last 2 years. Basket Flames is aiming to become the first CLA-only club in Austria. 4 coaches joined the Transforming Camp in Italy last summer, which is where myself and Konstantin met.
In this episode, we talk about his experience applying the CLA and the different challenges he's faced. So tell me, how, how's practice been going, like, since we last spoke?
Really well. Just had my last session yesterday. Felix wasn't there because his sister had a kid 2 days ago. So I did a lot of individual stuff, so one-on-one stuff, finishing, but it went really well. It's just so much fun if you have constant constraints that the kids are used to.
You can start every practice on such a high level because you don't have to redo everything every time.
Yeah, man, I remember like even last season working in Portugal, Our warmups would be so intentional, and I would have a lot of fun, like, just designing small-sided games that are related to what our rate limiters and what we wanted to work on for that specific week or for the specific practice.
And I remember, like, how, you know, intentional the warmups would be. And then, like, you start with a good warmup, and then the rest of the practice will follow.
Exactly. If it's all aligned from the intentionality standpoint, it makes everything so much easier because it's not so random anymore. Because the practice that I always had as a player, they felt kind of random. Now we do shooting, now we do this, now we do that, now we rehearse the offenses.
It's like, how does this align in any way? And now it's just one thing per practice. It builds on the, on the last thing.
Yeah. So what I like to do as well is like make it nonlinear, but it still aligns to your point. So it's like, We'll do 2-on-1 to 2-on-2 to 3-on-3, 4-on-4, and build it up like that. But then in between those, I could just, you know, add in like maybe it's a DL or maybe we're going transition, like a 4-on-3 transition game, just to kind of like, you know, keep them thinking and keep them guessing.
But then the rest of the practice, you know, still aligned with our goals for the week.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm not talking about everything has to be aligned and stuff, but just because They obviously know from the start where the practice is going to take them. It's so much easier for them to get in the right mindset and to know what we actually want from them.
Because I, as a player, I never knew what the practice is going to bring. It never even touched on the last practice we did. One practice can be finishing, next practice is shooting. Like, why? I never understood why as a player. And I think my players now, they They know exactly why we do what we do in practice.
And are those the conversations you have with them, Constantine? You're like, all right, so this is why we're doing this. This is why we practice like this. You educate them like that?
That is a very big part of my practice. I need them to understand why they do what they do and why I want them to do that. Because otherwise, I don't know if I would get the buy-in from their side. For example, every kid in my practice can explain what differential learning is or what the CLA is.
And if they don't understand the principles of play, it's very hard to have a good practice from their side because what guides them, right? So I need them to understand. Yeah. And in practice, in training camp, we did one session per day, just one hour of video analysis or just a PowerPoint presentation for them to actually understand what we're doing here.
Because otherwise, it's very hard in one practice to get them to play basketball and also explain everything. Yeah.
Do you share the documents with them? Principles of Play documents, things like that?
It's a kid-friendly version. So our version is in English so that all the coaches understand, and their version is much shorter, but everything is in there that they need, but only the things that they already know. So for example, we didn't do pick and roll yet, so that's not in there yet.
So everything that they're expected to know is in there.
Cool. Awesome. Let's get into that a little bit more in terms of what's in there. I do want to like give a little bit of, you know, background story on who you are and how we met. Obviously, Transforming Basketball Summer Camp, the inaugural summer camp last year, you and the crew, I want to say you guys were obviously awesome through and we had a great time.
We learned a lot. We played hard too. You know, we worked hard and played hard, so to speak. But yeah, I just want you to maybe talk about that experience last year. How we connected and just the overall, what you learned and how you're bringing that over to your team, which we'll talk about.
The summer camp was actually just half a year after we discovered CLA, or I did at least. And we just took 5 Austrian coaches, 4 from my club and 1 from Klosterneuburg, a club nearby. And we decided to go to Italy and look what it's all about.
It was just a great experience because learning-wise, it was, I would say, mind-blowing. But also from a social standpoint, you have so many aligned people there and such a good atmosphere, learning atmosphere. And for us, it really changed the way we looked at basketball in our club because we had such a better idea how you use the CLA and also differential learning and stuff because we had the theory.
I mean, I study sports, so I knew about the theory. I knew about the papers and stuff, but It was so much easier after you saw Alex or Will do it, right? Or yourself. So that changed a lot in my club because we were 4 coaches there and we're all aligned from there on.
It made everything much clearer and easier to work as coaches, to collaborate and stuff. And yeah, from there on it was just experimenting. I would say that sums it up pretty well.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And we'll get into like How you're experimenting this season as well. You know, I want to ask you, so last year you coached under-12s, you came to the camp, there was a lot of new ideas. I think Alex does a great job of effectively manipulating constraints in real time.
I remember just a couple, a few weeks back, or however long ago that camp was this year, the girls in the girls week, they were doing a crossover and then attacking in a straight line. And the constraint was you have to make contact as they attack in a straight line because He noticed that, especially with the girls, they have a tendency to kind of like banana cut or banana drive.
And the whole emphasis was like attacking in a straight line. So, you know, he's just super, super attuned to like what kind of constraints he needs to put in to get what he wants, right? You know, last year you coached the under-12s and then you picked up some new ideas.
What were some of the biggest challenges last year now heading into this season coaching the under-14s that you're like, okay, I'm going to do this different?
In hindsight, I think there are 2 things that I would, or that I did much differently this season. First thing is I went in with clear principles of play already designed. I took a month, all of August basically, to design our POPs with Felix, my assistant coach.
And that makes everything so much easier because in under-12, I didn't have such a clear idea how I wanted them to play because I didn't have any experience on that level. As a player, obviously it's 20 years in the past, and as a coach, I never coached under-12s.
So I bounced around a little bit with our principles, and honestly, they just weren't ideal for that level. This season, I took way more time designing those, and that gave me the opportunity to avoid my second, let's say, mistake. I got to set clear constraints for the whole season.
And I think that makes a huge difference now. In our principles of play, there are seasonal constraints and situational constraints. And our seasonal constraints, they shape every practice basically. And then what you said, what Alex is very good at is on the fly changing constraints because you notice behavior and you want to change players' affordances.
So that obviously also is a part of our practices. But last season I bounced around so much with constraints and I Kind of confused a lot of players, I think. So this season I'm way more intentional on what constraints I actually use all season long and what constraints I only needed or only needed for one practice.
That's huge. It's huge. I think coaches can really take a lot from that. And even me, like when you showed me that, I've never went into a season with seasonal constraints. So now it's like, because I think just in my head, maybe I never called it that.
So in my head, it was like, all right, we're going to, you know, you're only going to be allowed to score gold medals and silver medals in certain small-sided games. And in a way, those are like my constraints, but the way you've labeled it is super clear.
So just to clarify as well, and maybe give more context around that, because we spoke about this before, right? So I know exactly what it is, but can you just elaborate on the constraints across the season and the difference between them versus The ones that you have selectively.
For example, our shot selection, I think, is the easiest way to show it. In all scrimmages and basically all games, gold medals are worth 3 points, silver medals are worth 3 points, bronze medals 1, and everything else 0. An offensive rebound is worth 1 point.
So this is not going to change the whole season, basically. In some games, of course, you adjust, but in 90% of the games, this is going to be the scoring system. which gives the player so much clarity, and it avoids confusion. But it took us a whole season to actually come to this conclusion, and now it's very clear.
Or another constraint is whole season, if you get a defensive rebound, for example, you have to beat 20. So you need to cross midline with the ball before the shot clock hits 19. For example, that's an all-season constraint.
Love it. And we spoke about this again, a lot of things we spoke about, but It's like the 4 seconds or less to get the ball over to half court. So that's like a seasonal constraint. I guess my question is like, when do you, in your perspective, decide when it's time to take a constraint and turn it into a principle?
Like, it's almost like that 4 seconds or less is like, maybe that's the way we want to play instead of it being just a constraint.
I think a principle needs to be something that is over all the age groups. And only needs to be adjusted slightly, and it needs to be no matter what players you have, a principle is always constant. But for example, if I had different bigs, I would set different constraints because not all bigs can bring the ball maybe in under 14s.
But I don't have a traditional big man because I coach them under 12, so this can be a constraint instead of a principle. But I think the difference is very marginal. Constraints maybe they just shape. Player behaviors and principles shape coaching behaviors? I'm not sure, honestly.
It's an interesting topic, isn't it? Definitely some food for thought. I mean, yeah, I'm not, I'm not too sure either, but I do think if you have that 4 seconds or less, it's like, okay, that's, it's like, that's our macro principle. We want to get the ball over quickly over half court.
And how we're going to do that is bust out dribble. We're going to land like a quarterback and we have all those principles of play.
Those are micro constraints then. Yeah, exactly. I think to differentiate in your head between micro and macro principles is, is very important as a coach because everybody wants to play fast, but how to get there is the important question. And for us, the macro principle is get across half court within 4 seconds.
Micro constraints are early and opposite passes or 2-side passes or land like a quarterback and so on and so on. So yeah, I think to differentiate between those 2 is very important. Yeah.
All right, so let's get some more examples here of constraints that have been effective for you guys. So one that I saw in the— you sent me the PDF, I was like, oh, this is great, I would love to try this one out— is if a player doesn't tag up, he's subbed out, and that starts green for the other team as well.
So it's like twofold, right? So just talk, elaborate on that one.
Yeah, Felix and I were talking about it, how to implement tagging up the right way, because obviously it's very different from what we did last season, and Very different from what Austrian teams usually do. So we came to the conclusion that subbing them out is, first of all, the perfect, let's say, punishment.
Because if they don't tag up, they're obviously tired. That's our argument for the players. So they need to be subbed out. And also, it gives the offense green immediately because they're subbed out and the play is not stopped. It's a twofold thing, and it works perfectly because we just yell out the name.
Like, Clemens, no tagging. He runs out, maybe he's mad, but next time he's gonna tag up and the offense just immediately starts green and we can go into our green principles immediately. That's a very effective constraint. Another one is ball pressure is one of our principles.
So if you don't apply ball pressure, if you're not within one arm's length, I just yell out your name or Felix, and you do one pushup on the spot, which of course beats the whole thing why they're sagging. They don't wanna be beat off the dribble.
But then they do a push-up and they get beat anyways.
They get beat off the dribble, yeah.
Yeah. So it's just, we need players to put ball pressure, obviously, to apply pressure, to also develop ball handlers. And this constraint just worked like a charm until now.
Those are great. You can even do it in the half court, to your point. Instead of the subbing player coming in from the baseline, they could come in from the half court. So that way, in the half court, there's still a dominoes advantage going on until they come back.
So it pretty much simulates a game like where if it's a 4-on-3 plus 1 with the player coming in from the half court.
Yeah, and you can experiment. I mean, I only did this for 1 month now. I'm sure I'm going to change some things around it. But for now, those constraints are perfectly chosen for all-season constraints because they are constant.
No, amazing. And there's another one that it was same score. And I think we've talked about it on the podcast before. But can you just speak about it, how you use it, how you constrain it in practice?
Yeah, so obviously we play a lot of SSGs, so small-sided games, and whenever somebody scores, they need to yell out their score. And this does a few things at the same time, I think. First thing, it just makes games way more competitive. That's just an automatic.
Second thing is it makes them better communicators because they're used to yelling. Because if we can't understand the score, Their score doesn't count. I don't care if he says it in like a normal voice, he needs to yell it. And that just automatically solves 2 problems because then if they yell switch and I don't hear it, it's the same thing.
They just know that they screwed up. And it all starts with saying score constraint.
Yeah, I never really liked that constraint up until probably a few months ago, not too long ago. I just think like I never liked that We kind of forced the players to keep track of the scores. But now, exactly what you said, that's what I think about it.
So it's like, I want my teams to communicate. I want them to talk on pick and roll coverages. I want them to be loud on defense and, you know, be intentional of how they're communicating, give feedback in a way that's constructive. So I want all that for my team.
It's like, that's such an easy way for me to hold them accountable at practice, right?
But the one thing I'm going to say about it is I already had this constraint last season, but I wasn't strict enough. Like, I let too much go. This season we started, and Felix and I, we talked about it, to never let them score a point if they don't yell it.
And because we're so strict, it works. Last season, it didn't work. It just didn't work. So I thought, okay, let's try this one more time and make it right. And it works. So I think as a coach, You need to set certain constraints and then just follow them strictly because otherwise you lose control of the situation too much.
And I think as a coach, man, you tell players to be on it, be focused. And I think it's even more so like coaching because you have to watch everything and you have to watch multiple small-sided games going on. And to your point, you have to officiate.
Oh, you didn't say score. So as a coach, and I think that's really like one of the biggest challenges with adopting the CLA, like this is you have to be so focused when you come to practice. You can't just go into practice and just look at the players play and, you know, put a set play in and be comfortable, you know, just watching them play.
You have to be actively involved in shaping the behavior every single possession.
Yeah, I think that is crazy. And I, first time I saw that was on camp, just how Will was active in his practices was crazy. Basically, Commented on almost every action, but not by telling the players what to do. It's just he enforced his constraints.
And it was beautiful to see, honestly. Shout out to Will.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out, Will. Yeah, exactly, man. I learned a lot from him as well to like, and you know, from everyone at Lions as well. That was just such a powerful experience and a learning experience for myself. It's like the feedback, you don't have to like stop play to give feedback if Your clear language that you can use and the feedback is instant.
So it's a great way to educate what's going on in the game. So if we're doing 2-on-2 gets and the player does a pitch and slip, he gets the ball. So I could yell, great pitch and slip. And now all of a sudden everyone that's watching and the players that maybe did it, they know, okay, so that's what the pitch and slip is.
Because maybe they don't, they were just doing it. They weren't aware of exactly of the coverage solution. So it's like the feedback is so powerful. To shape and continuously shape behavior.
Yeah, especially if you have a shared language. It's such a powerful tool. It's crazy. And that's why we're so intentional about having shared language. Like Felix, Jakob, Bosco, and I, we all use exactly the same language. And that helps a lot because the players actually know what you're talking about by just saying 3 words.
Yeah, and the players can give feedback to each other as well. And so from just speaking to you, and obviously, I guess, from your experiences last year, how have you grown? And at least for me, I don't know, I haven't seen your practices.
I'd love to see a practice and games. But how have you grown as a coach? Like, how has this experience in using the CLA consistently in your practice environments, and what else has helped you grow and grow your confidence with this?
I think my confidence stems from knowing the research. So I did a lot of research. Of course, I'm— I come from the sports university, so that helped a lot. The language wasn't too brutal, I would say, but it was basically my task in my club to look at all the research.
And now I feel very confident I can argue basically all my points. And then it's just experience. You just need to screw up a few times. You need to make mistakes. You need to evaluate your practices. I taped a lot of my practices and then looked at them afterwards.
And yeah, the learning there was just crazy because you just don't notice how long, for example, you talk to explain a small-sided game. And by just constraining my own time, I learned a lot there. And yeah, now I think the players know that I'm confident about my coaching, and that helps a lot to get them to buy in.
Yeah, I guess it helps having that year under your belt where you've coached some of the players you're coaching this year. Getting more used to it and accelerating players' understanding. How have you done that? You're a month in now to the new season.
How do you— you talked about sharing principles of play documents with them. We've talked about giving intentional feedback and having a shared language. What are some other things that you're doing to accelerate their learning?
Right. So a big part of it was player-to-player communication. So, for example, we informed only half of the team. Of one principle, and then we had speed dating where they needed to explain the principle to the other player. And we also had some fun speed dating tasks, but it was also serious because they needed to explain those principles for the next practice to work.
So they all needed to actually understand. And we had some players come over and ask us about the details to make sure that they actually understood. Or another thing was video analysis, and just by having. One clear intention for one practice, it makes it so much faster.
For example, we did tagging up in 2 practices and we were done. Now it's just a constraint. It's not our practice focus anymore. That was mind-blowing for me because I thought that's a 3-week process. And it was. Of course, they're not perfect at it, but now it's just a constraint.
So now I just have to regulate that they do it. And now they learn on the fly. I don't need to explain anything anymore. And it's crazy how fast you can actually move if you're intentional about your constraints and your principles of play.
Yeah, we breezed over the seasonal constraints, but just going back to that, would you be willing to share some more of your seasonal constraints that you have?
I mean, I can't share all of them, but I can share some, of course. For example, of course we have turnovers for LAVA or not zero-second decisions. Or one can't guard 2 violations. So those are all season long turnovers. In green offense, for example, all season turnovers are B20.
Already mentioned that. In triggers, if you don't get into a trigger right away after we go from green to yellow, it's just a turnover. So that's all season long. The ball pressure one. And if you fail to communicate in a positive manner with your teammate, You get subbed.
So that's another one to share, uh, to form their behavior a little bit. So if they get frustrated, they cannot let it out on their teammate basically. And that also works perfectly because of course they get frustrated, but we're a mistake-driven team, I always say.
So by making mistakes, we get better. And by accepting the mistakes of our teammates, we make them better. So that's another all-season constraint. That's not going too far into my principles.
That's great. Thanks for sharing. I remember I had one constraint once. I did a short workout. It was only 4 players there. And my focus, you know, it was a short workout. And I was like, all right, my focus is just to get them like touches.
So it was like, all right, so every time you score, the score only counts if you high-five your teammate before the defense high-fives their teammate. It was so interesting because if it was like a, you know, kind of quote unquote normal basket, And they just score a regular layup, like, oh, they're focused and they, you know, but if it was like a really cool play where they reject and then they jump up and do a reverse layup and, you know, maybe they emotionally get attached to what's going on, they kind of forget the rule of
the game to high five. And then the defense never forgets. It's so, and it's also that is, so the defense would always capitalize on it.
And so that one worked really well to one, keep them focused even out, like regardless of what happened, and then just to get extra touches in there for Another funny one that we have that I just thought of is, as soon as you check the ball to start the small-sided game, no matter what activity it is, it could be a, let's say, a get on a wing, and the defense lets you just drive to the basket and score a layup, it's 5 pushups for the defense.
So if they're not ready to just defend naturally, if they cheat, for example, the get pass, you can just score a layup and they have to do pushups. But if you miss the layup, You do the push-ups. So it's a little bit of a risky situation.
So the defense, sometimes they act like they don't defend, and then they stop the layup, and that is the biggest reward for them. It just keeps them ready, of course, and keeps it game-like, because in the game, they don't know that you're running at, right?
So that's another fun one.
No, I love it, man. I think that's the cool thing about it once you start getting more years into it and more experience is like you can get really creative with how you use the constraints. And to unlock, you know, your team's potential with everything, not just on the court, like how you're using it for your warmups, for your video sessions.
I think it's really, it's really neat, to be fair. Before I ask you our last question here, you gave a great metaphor for modern coaching, and it was about comparing an architect, a modern architect and a Gothic architect, right?
Right, right. So I gave a little coach clinic in our club. to get all the other coaches in line, basically, or aligned with our principles. And I told them they need to behave like architects and less like gods. So they just design the activity and the player uses that activity and sees affordances and stuff.
But last season, I made the mistake to have way too many constraints and the affordances weren't clear enough. So I basically just on the spot thought about architecture, and in Vienna there's St. Stephen's Cathedral, a beautiful Gothic cathedral. But of course Gothic style is very complicated.
It's crazy how many details there are. And I told them they need to think of themselves as modern architects, which is very simple architecture. I'm not an architect and less as a Gothic architect. So just simple stuff to have clear affordances and to shape behavior in a very clear And streamlined way.
And coming as a Viennese coach, it's very clear because everybody knows St. Stephen's Cathedral is very insane. Took 300 years to build.
It's a great metaphor as well, to be fair, because you want to avoid the confusion. You know, be an architect, but a modern architect, like you said, keep it simple. It looks beautiful, St. Stephen's, but I don't know, you know, I just don't know if we're going to be investing 300 years or if we have 300 years Right, on the basketball, you know, if we kind of take that metaphor onto the basketball season, right?
So it's, the purpose isn't to just, it's also to create a beautiful, you know, building, work of art. But at the same time, where it's about helping the players learn the principles of play, helping them learn the game as fast and as efficiently as we can.
And that's, I think that's the real message behind that. I really like that.
Exactly. Yeah. And I think last season I also tried way too much to show how much I can shape behavior by changing constraints. So I did 10 constraints. I did, if it's a bread, it's an extra score. If it's a left-handed and so on and so on and so on.
It's just way too complicated for the players to actually know what's going on. So now simplicity is the name of the game for me now.
Yeah.
And I think it's really important to have your non-negotiables. And your team standards, your culture, your identity, right? Because then it's less about constraints and players accountable to those standards. And then, you know, that's where the real, like, people management comes in, where it's like, it's not about adjusting the environment anymore.
You also do have to, you know, step in and challenge people to be better versions of themselves as well. So, Constantine, I want to thank you for your time. I want to ask you one final question. Our transformative tip question here. So if you could leave coaches with one piece of advice to transform their approach, what would that be?
Honestly, just make mistakes because that shaped my learning so much last season. If I look back now, yeah, there are lots of things that I would do differently, but at the same time, the reason why I came to all those ideas now, I mean, of course I'm still gonna, but
The reason why I improved were all those mistakes. So just experiment a lot, but afterwards, just think what you could do differently, try out different stuff, and don't be afraid to admit that you were wrong.
That's great. Thank you so much. There was one thing I wanted to add, but I completely forgot about it. It was like the best friend or the worst enemy of success is not failure. It's actually, or the worst thing of great is not bad, it's good.
Because when you're good, you get complacent and you get comfortable. Whereas when you're bad and you fail and you're making mistakes, you find change, right? And so it's— I think it's almost like, let's look for ways where we can— it's either we're going to shoot for the moon or we're going to fail miserably, but we're going to get so much better.
We're going to progress and get better as opposed to just being in the middle and just being comfortable with that.
Yeah, exactly. I think just making mistakes, but then realizing there were mistakes is The most valuable things.
I don't know if we spoke about this last time, but I finished the No Rules Rules Netflix book, and it was like, it talked about the same thing. It's like a mistake isn't a bad thing. It's almost like, all right, but if you make this mistake, but you learn from it, how valuable is that for the other people in your environment?
You know, whereas if you don't make that mistake, it's going to happen eventually, but it might happen at a worse time. Right? Maybe in the final, like in your championship game.
And also, I mean, if you think about it, that's all that science is, just making mistakes, trying out different stuff. And then in the end, something works and that sticks for some years. And then the next thing comes along and it turns out that was a mistake.
And it's just progress. There is no progress without mistakes.
And I think that's the environment, and I'm sure you would agree with this, that we want the players to have. at practice. And that was a big challenge for me last season because I wanted the players to fail, but it was also about how do I convince them that failure is good and it's going to be beneficial for them and for the team to fail early and often, you know, in kind of in context.
So, and I don't know if I found that balance last season, to be quite honest with you, because there was a lot of failure. And I don't know, like, I think it was maybe more people management that I needed to do versus just kind of like constraint manipulations, you know, like pulling players aside and having those conversations with them.
And that's why coaching is such an art, man, because it's not just about the X's and O's. You've got to know the people.
Exactly. You can know all the things you want, but if the people, they don't trust you, it's over. And we talked about it last time, for grown-ups, it's way harder. Like, my kids, they trust me because they don't know anything else, and they kind of know that I know what I'm talking about, at least a little bit.
So they trust me, but If you were successful in a different system, why would you trust another system easily? It's just path dependency. Exactly.
It's so interesting the way it's like written out in the Transforming Basketball book. It's like the players that have made it, they are so like wanting to succeed. They really want to succeed and they'll do anything for it because they've had to overcome so many coaches telling them to like shoot a particular way.
Or, you know, don't do this and don't do that. And then they've kind of, you know, just put that all to the side when the game is ready to be played.
And it's also really hard for them to know why they are successful because they're not scientists. Like, they're successful and they did a lot of work, but they also did a lot of playing. How can you know what factors brought you where you are now?
It's impossible. So we cannot expect them to be informed about it. We can only expect them to be good players. Like, I saw Steph Curry teach a kid to shoot, and he basically taught him to shoot exactly the opposite way he shoots. That makes no sense, but he thinks that that is the proper way to shoot.
It's crazy.
Yeah, well said. But, you know, it's nice to have this change going forward and more and more coaches and researchers and practitioners and just everyone getting more aware of movement as a science versus You have to rep, rep, rep. So it's super interesting.
It's great for science, you know, and it's always the same thing. It's like you wouldn't go into the hospital and have a surgery done with the same research that was available 20 years ago. Like, do we still do it with sports and the way we teach?
In sports, yeah, you're just way less likely to have somebody ask you, why do you know what you know? Why do you believe what you believe? That's just not a common question in sports until now. And now it's kind of starting to. Like, I'm starting to ask those questions in my club, but it's not the culture of sports to ask theory questions.
I mean, even I, as a sports teacher, sports university background, nobody ever asks me anything about sports science, even as a teacher. Even my sports colleagues, they just do what they do, and it's very hard to get them theory-based because they did it 30 years ago.
Like, they were theory-based 30 years ago, but I mean, would you trust the science from 30 years ago in anything else? No.
And you would even go further and be like, you know, it's illegal to use the science from 30 years ago.
In certain things it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Anyways, man, I appreciate the time.
Yeah, but thanks for having me. I think it was actually valuable for a lot of young coaches, I think, or inexperienced coaches.
100%.
Thank you, George.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Transforming Basketball Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about the work that we do, head to transformingbball.com to access our free resources and spread these ideas throughout the basketball world. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.
You can also connect with us on Instagram, X, or YouTube with any questions that You have from the episode. See you next time on the Transforming Basketball Podcast.
