George is joined by Gabriel Milian to challenge the idea of an "ideal technique" in basketball and explore why coaches should embrace variability and individual movement…
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In this episode, George is joined by Gabriel Milian to challenge the idea of an "ideal technique" in basketball and explore why coaches should embrace variability and individual movement solutions. Using the defensive zigzag as an example, Gabriel explains why there is no single technique that works optimally for every player and how ecological dynamics can help coaches create environments where athletes learn to adapt, explore, and solve movement problems for themselves.
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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.
Welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Once again, we have Gabriel Barbosa, or what says Barbosa there, but Gabriel Milian. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you?
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Hey, George. Really, thank you for the opportunity to talk about basketball, and I'm really glad to participate on the Transforming Basketball. It's always a pleasure. Thank you. Yeah.
So today we're going to get into ideal technique and specifically we'll use the example of like the zigzag, right? Where you see it. I think maybe I see it a lot on like my socials where coaches, and this could be for any technique, right?
Maybe a layup, you know, but like coaches teach this one way to do something. So the example with the zigzag, it's like you have to move in like, you know, one foot first and then the other foot follows. And then there's this idea that there's only one technique that players should be using because it's the most optimal.
I really want to unpack this idea and I guess from an ecological perspective on why it's wrong. Just want to pass it over to you. What do you think about that?
Oh man, you're touching a really, really one that I like because let me try to unpack this, right? So let's say I really think Basketball coaching is like a mix between art and science, right? Because you need to have science, you need to have technique, you need to have technologies to help you to understand what is going on and what is the best way to teach and things like that.
But it's really an art because you have the unique players, the unique human beings that you are teaching, and you have unique cultures. So you have unique ways to solve problems, right? And would be really, if we think like a scientist, only as a scientist, this would be really understandable, right?
So I have the right answer to the right topic, to the right thing. But would be like, wouldn't make sense if we say like the way to make art is the only way, is just one way to paint.
Yeah.
There's only one way to sing the song. This is crazy, right? And so I really think we got to reframe the idea of ideal technique because every human being is different. We are a complex system. So what does that mean? We have lower processes that work interrelated and they self-organize in emergent characteristics.
So every human being are really unique. We have close types of movement and stuff, but every joint, every muscle, every history, every experience is different. So it doesn't make— for me, it doesn't make sense you have an ideal technique. And we have a century that we've proven, a century of research that like really we have a secret because Bernstein in 1926, when he did like the experiment, right?
He see the hammers, the professional hammers, the efficient hammers, they have variability on the technique, but they have the same results. The same thing about the amateurs, the low efficient, they have variability, but they didn't have the results. So the variability is not a bug.
Variability is a feature of the human movement. Variability is how we evolve, to learn and to adapt. If we have such a complex environment, our behavior really needs to be variable, needs to be adaptable. So we can orient a movement, we can orient a type of, let's say, landscape of our optimal affordances, right?
We cannot have an ideal technique. We don't have it. We don't have it. It doesn't make sense.
Yeah. And also I want to continue to build on this. I think it's like, you know, no, no 2 players shoot the exact same. It's always like, why do we teach the one way to shoot? Right. And it's like, it's not necessarily with the defensive zigzag.
It's not, I'm not saying that the, this, you know, this, the slide lateral slide is wrong. That could be, that could be a very effective technique in certain circumstances. But I think the main point is that that is not the only technique, and that may not be the most optimal technique for every player.
Just like every, every shot is different, players move in different ways. So what is most optimal for another might be, you know, completely different to another player. So it's like, yeah, you know, I do think, you know, you see it all the time, players do zigzag, but you also see players move in a lot of different ways.
You know, they shift their hips. And they run, they backpedal. So there's so many like movements, different dynamic movement patterns that you see if you watch a player play full court defense, that one technique is just not going to do it. Like players have to be adaptable.
And to your point, they have to have some level of variability in their movements so that they can actually keep up because if they're going to rely on one technique, it's just not going to be enough.
For your point, I really like to say one thing because Sometimes when I talk about coaches, with coaches about this, they say, so I just let the player do whatever he wants or things like that. So no, no, no, no, this is going to be harder.
It's going to be harder. It's going to need more planning because you have to constrain. You have to set a really constrained, relate to your players, relate to their skills, relate to their needs. And then you You gotta see if it's working, if they have optimal action coupling with the perception-action coupling with the environment, with the needs for the defense.
Let's say we talk about defense. So if they are being able to do it, so you can simplify the task, you can modify the tasks. So it's not like I can let the player do whatever he wants. No, no, no. It's not about this.
It's about to understand that the human movement— is a complex system. It's organized in a complex way, and it needs variability to adapt itself to the environment and to the needs the environment proposes to the player.
That's a great point, Gabriel. I think, like, you know, just because no one shoots the same doesn't mean that great shooters don't have a specific— like, I think there's clues to, like, good movers, which includes shooting, and then of course defense as well.
So it's not the same. I'm not saying coaches stop teaching the zigzag. The main message is stop teaching that as the only technique. Like, let players move in a way. If they use the zigzag, great. If they turn their hips and sprint to get in front, great.
If they cross one foot over the other, great. As long as they get to the outcome that you're looking for. So it's about less, you know, worry less about what it looks like, more about what it, you know, what the outcome is. And I think to your point, it is still super important that we teach All the techniques.
And I think as well, it's like the Fosbury flop, right? It's like, you know, when we rely on one way to do it, like when the— what's that high jumping in the Olympics, right? So they changed the constraints of the sport, which was they added a mat on the sport.
And before the mat, everyone would jump, you know, with their feet and try to get over the bar like that. Whereas now they changed the constraints and added the mat.
Yeah.
There was something Fosbury, he started jumping and jumping with his back, right? Because now he could land safely on his back on the mat without having to worry about getting hurt or getting seriously injured. So it's like everyone was like, oh, that's silly.
You shouldn't do that. Where it's like, he literally thought outside the box and he thought of a new technique. And now of course, like you look at the sport and everyone does that same technique. There's not one person that doesn't. So the point is, you know, I think players should be encouraged to explore because you might actually discover what's a better technique for them and something that you can probably use with other players as well.
Yeah, that's really, really great, George, because as you were talking, I was really thinking about like how humble we gotta be as coaches. Because if you really think you know the ideal technique, And then you try to teach the ideal technique and the players, some players will do close to the ideal and a lot of players won't.
And you think, well, those players that didn't do it, they are bad learners. They are bad learners. They don't know how to do it. And they are not, they lazy or things like that. And then when you think about coaching in an ecological dynamics way, You think like, so I gotta understand what my players, what are the limitations of my players?
How can I teach them? But how can they teach me? Sometimes they solve a problem and you didn't know that, you didn't know how to solve it, right? Sometimes you modify a situation and players solve the problem, you know? I'm from Brazil, as you are, and we know that soccer In the '90s, we played on the street.
We played with a lot of variability. And what happened after, in 2000, we have the greatest national team ever. But then we start to organize a lot of soccer players. A lot of young players start to be professional players, since like 12 years old, 13 years old.
And now we have a bad national team, as we saw in the World Cup. I'm not saying this. I'm not saying this to say this is the only thing that made soccer bad in Brazil, but we really had different ways to solve problems, right?
We really had different strategies and we don't have anymore because the players, they are playing the national team now, they had a different bring up. They had 13 years old, they already play in the organized Soccer institutions. And, you know, so this is just, this keeps amazing me because we got to be humble as coaches and we got to really try to connect with the players, see what they are trying, like, how can we help?
I think the difference is like orientation. It's not like you're not going to set the right solution. You're going to orient the player to optimal solutions and let the player self-organize, let the player be creative, let the player try to solve the problem for itself.
And it takes time, right? Education takes time. Education takes time. And teaching in this way takes a lot of time. And sometimes it's not really— it's messy. Sometimes it's— a lot of times it's messy. And that's the thing. This is a feature. This is a feature of the process.
It's not a bug.
Yeah.
It's not a bug. We, as I was saying before, we evolve as human beings. We evolve, we adapt in complex situations, in complex situations, right? In complex environmental situations, we had to survive. We had to create cultures. We had to create, organize ourselves in a lot of different ways.
And sometimes we forgot about that. And this is really important for teaching the game.
Yeah.
Because as you were saying, the zigzag is not the problem, right? The problem is to think the zigzag, if I do the zigzag as much as I can, I'm going to transfer to the game and the player is going to do exactly like the zigzag.
It's not the same thing.
Yeah, well said. And I love what you said about the Brazilian soccer system as well. I think everyone, the World Cup ended, everyone's asking me like from a coach's perspective, like, what's wrong with Brazil. And I was like, oh, you know, but that's a great one.
I think that that's an excellent point where it's like now, you know, kids are practicing in a team setting 5, 6 times a week. They maybe have games once or twice a week. And whereas before they're practicing, you know, a couple of times a week and they're playing the rest of the time.
So you develop that, those players. So it's a great point. Gabe, thanks once again, man. Awesome.
I appreciate it, George.
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