George is joined by Coach Mike Mackay, one of Canada's most respected coach developers and former Canada Basketball coach educator, to explore what it truly means to…
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In this episode, George is joined by Coach Mike Mackay, one of Canada's most respected coach developers and former Canada Basketball coach educator, to explore what it truly means to create transformational coaching environments. Coach Mike shares why playfulness, curiosity, and connection are essential for learning, how coaches can design practices that better transfer to games, and why developing self-aware players through intentional feedback and meaningful questions creates lasting impact beyond basketball.
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Esta transcrição corresponde ao áudio original em inglês.
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. On today's episode, I have none other than Mike McKay. Mike, it's an absolute pleasure to be here with you and just to learn from you this week. We're at the Rossetto 2026 Summer Camp. And, you know, before I welcome you, I just want to say, you know, what a privilege it is to just have a conversation with you at the camp.
Explore Transforming Basketball membership and continue your coach development.
So welcome to the show.
Thank you. It's— it is definitely a pleasure to be here. I mean, I know when Alex first started this camp, you always want to attend, but in my previous position with Canada basketball, it always conflicted with national teams. And even this one, it's close because I have to leave a little early for— we have our national championships.
But I just love being able to share and learn and continue to grow. And it's for such an important part of the game, which is transforming lives.
Absolutely. And that's, I think, one of the main talking points that we're going to have here. But before we— I ask you questions here, what's your main takeaway so far? This is our 3rd day. How's it been for you?
Well, first of all, again, I love the diversity of how many different countries do we have here?
Over 30.
Over 30. And everybody is so keen to learn. And when you're doing a session, you look over your shoulder, there's a coach there from a different country and players, and everybody wants to learn. Everybody's so excited about learning. And, you know, the questions that you get from all the coaches and the players, it just shows that playfulness of learning and being curious and wanting to get better.
It's universal. Yeah.
And so let's get into that, the playfulness. I think more so than anything that I've really enjoyed is like how— I don't want to say how little we talk about basketball, but how much emphasis you put on the playfulness, the building culture, making sure they have fun.
Because that's going to translate into buy-in and trust. Can you talk about that?
We're all kids at heart. And how did you learn as a child? Through play. How do animals learn? Through play. It's through play that we learn. It's sticky. So the more that we can make things playful, the more we learn. Now, playful is not haha, hee hee all the time.
Yes.
But we got to be able to laugh. When something funny happens, let's have a laugh.
Yeah.
And it said, no, it's going to be serious. We're not taking this serious. Well, we're human. Let's laugh. The second part of playfulness is challenge. Like, why do people play board games? Why do they play cards? They love the challenge. I want to play you in a card game, but I want to try to win.
You want to try to win. What's the strategy I can figure out to beat you? And, you know, and like, that's fun. Or else there wouldn't be board games.
Yeah.
The third part is curiosity.
Yeah.
Like, why do discoveries get me? Because somebody's curious. It's fun to discover new things. It's fun to learn a new language or learn— it's fun. It's like being curious. And then the last one is being connected, like meeting you and meeting all the other people here.
That's fun. I get to learn about different cultures. What's it like in your country? You know, learning from the players, what's your coaches like? What's your situation like? What's your team like? Just being connected with other people.
That's fun.
So when you build an environment that allows for that joyfulness, right, it allows for connections, challenge, and, uh, um, let me forget my other one now, but curiosity. Yeah, we're gonna learn. So that's my job, is to build that environment. So I kind of spend most of my time, what's our environment like right now?
And then the basketball piece.
And the butterfly. So, and you see it now with Alex at Portland, I think in the, in the Instagram videos. You know, he'll call out 3 things from the players in the postgame and celebrate them. And you did that with the butterflies, you know, at the end of the practice with the players.
We want to celebrate. We want to catch people doing things right. It's not always right being perfect, but who is embracing or embellishing, or I call it the leadership of building the legacy for our team, for the game. And I always try to tell players about, you have some dual roles when you did that with Batman and Robin in a second, but There's a dual role you have.
It's about you getting better, but what are you doing to make your teammate better? Yeah, that's part of you. You pushing, challenging, and being curious with your teammate, that's also going to make them better. So when we have someone who, who does a little thing but has a big impact, let's celebrate that.
Yeah, and it really builds their identity as well, right?
Yeah, because it doesn't mean that I'm the best scorer. I'm not the one who's getting all the headlines. It's a little thing. I set good screens.
Yes.
Or I'm the guy who starts to cheer us in when the energy's down. I ignite the team with my energy. Or I'm the one who keeps the energy going. Or I'm the one who goes behind the back when I see you're down, gives you a little tap.
Like, celebrate those things.
Yeah. And we know in life how important that is when someone has your back. And then especially in sports where it's such an emotional game.
Well, in our coach education, we talk a lot about ACE feedback. A stands for appreciation. People sometimes just let you know that, hey, we appreciate you. Even though sometimes people don't say that, they do.
We all appreciate it.
Thank you, Mike. Thank you for guiding. Well, that was good to hear. Thank you for making a difference. Whatever it is, people want to be appreciated. The C is the easy one we all do, and that's the coaching. We give feedback on the coach.
We're nudging them. We're guiding them. But the last one is the one I think that's undervaluated, and that is evaluative feedback.
Right.
People need to know where they stand. One of the number one causes of stress for people is when where I think I stand in something or my expectations are drastically different than, say, the coach.
And you don't know that.
And I don't know that. And all of a sudden it comes out and I'm like, what? I get cut from a team. I am— I was a shoo-in for this team and now I get cut. Yeah, that is a major stressor. I thought I was going to start and now I'm on the bench.
I thought I was going to be the first sub off the bench, and now I wasn't. I thought I was going to get 10 minutes a game. I thought the coach would call me in to be the demo in this drill. I'm not.
I thought I was a good shooter. Now the coaches tell me I'm not. But we're very rarely— do we sometimes tell players where they stand? And we've got to let players know where they stand.
And is that a matter of, you know, like you did just during debriefs during practice? I remember one thing I think it was— I remember it was Alex. I learned this from Alex, and maybe he even took it from you, you know, the circle of trust.
And it's after practice, what, you know, the player next to you, tell them one good thing they did today, and then we can go around in the circle. And then it could be one thing they could have done better today, and it could be anything.
It's— again, we call them shoutouts too. Have we got any shoutouts? Now, when you first do it with younger kids, like, I'll give you a shoutout. I want to shout out George. George is really nice to me. And then George will really go, well, I want to shout out Mike because Mike was nice to me.
Like, okay, we got to get past those ones. So that's a good start. But now we got to get past the fluffiness too. Well, what was nice? What actually did he see, show, or do? And describe it. Describe it to us. So we now know that, ah, that's nice.
What defines nice? But we also have to be able to hold each other accountable. And you heard me talk about our UAEs. What was unacceptable, what was acceptable, and what was exceptional.
Yes.
Well, now if, if one of our teammates is not meeting our standard, are we going to let that happen? Are we going to protect the trust of the team? Are we, are we just going to let that person hijack? Yeah, be an energy vampire, suck the energy out of the room.
And how do you teach kids how to hold each other accountable? By building up and not tearing down. That's a big part of what we do is Building, you know, a really functioning team.
Yeah.
Because there needs to be tension in the team. There needs to be, but most people avoid all that. Now it just gets pushed to the back and becomes that elephant in the room.
Builds up.
And it keeps getting bigger, bigger, bigger, and then you can't handle it anymore. But when you can start with simple things that help players hold each other accountable or motivate you that, George, you can do better, like you could do more than that, right?
If you just would sprint and get positioned, we could get you the ball.
Yeah.
Put your jaw in there.
Yeah.
And when that comes from a teammate with an assurance that we're here to help you, wow, powerful stuff.
And you spoke yesterday about— well, you spoke, it was on Monday, but I applied it yesterday, which was ICE, right?
Oh yeah.
Intensity, competition, energy.
Concentration.
Intensity, concentration, and energy. And I brought the kids in, you know, I had the younger session, the under-13s. And how would you rate it? And then it was so much better. And it's interesting just having the ICE there because it reminds me, and I think it also reminds the kids exactly what it is.
Well, there's a little more depth to it than some people mean. There's a lot of depth to the stuff I do because I think about it a lot. But you think about intensity is really the physical pillar. How are we doing on the physical pillar?
Are we matching the physical requirement right now?
Yeah.
The C is really the cognitive, mental, like, are we putting our concentration on the right thing at the right time? And the E is really the social-emotional. How are we doing on emotions and us as a group connecting? Right. So you're really just giving yourself a quick check on those 3, biopsychosocial, that a lot of people forget about and just get focused on the basketball.
But usually it's one of those 3 things that's preventing the basketball.
Yeah.
Right? And when they can, again, self-check and be aware, that's again one of our most important jobs as a coach is help people become more self-aware.
Yes.
But you have to give them a starting way to do it. Thumbs up, thumbs down, or Or a number, but I constantly do it, ice checks.
And I want to ask you, you know, you talk about making players self-aware. How can we as coaches, what can we do practically to make ourselves more self-aware?
First one is just you've got to be very intentional in what you're doing. A lot of playing, like some of the coaches are like, where's your practice plan? I said, well, it's up here. But I said, you have no idea how much time I spent thinking about what we're going to do.
Yeah, but I'm going to adapt to The context and the environment. I can do that because I've done this for such a long time. But for a beginning coach, you need to probably write it out and check to it and make sure. Yeah.
But then you need something to remind you of your process. So in other words, I had this great intention. I have this drill organized. I got to be able to now step back sometimes and say, how are they self-organized? How are they physically doing?
How's their concentration doing? How's our energy right now?
Right.
Is it good? Or do I have to step in with an intervention? Or am I going to get them to solve it? So I'm always kind of going through that process of they're heading in that direction. We need to be heading in this direction.
How can I constrain or whatever, intervene to get them nudging more that way? Yeah. But do I want to just directly do it myself? Or do I want to get them to see if they're aware of it?
Right. And, you know, you mentioned that It was filming your practice, seeing what you're doing. But I do want to pivot a little bit. Alex always says, you know, you've been his biggest mentor, right? His coaching mentor. I'm curious, who have been your coaching mentors?
Well, it started with my parents. I was very fortunate to have— my mother was a teacher. My father was this diesel mechanic. But they were just good people. But they had high expectations. I always say my mother Was the toughest coach I ever had because when she would say, Michael James, I knew it was serious.
But she always was very direct. And but she always said, I know you can do better. I expect better from you. And she did it in a way, it's like, I can't let her down because I know I can do better. I know I did wrong.
But she never tore me down. She was always building me up because she had— she said, this is the standard that I expect for you. Yeah. And but she did it with care and candor, right? And I think that's so powerful. My father was just a great people person.
He just loved people, and he was a—he loved playfulness in people. So I learned a lot from him about that. Yeah. But then my—I was very fortunate in my high school career to have really—I want junior started junior high, have great phys ed teachers and then coaches.
But I also had the opposite. I had a coach who was a drunk. Who I said, I'm never going to play for him. So I dropped out of, say, hockey.
Okay.
Because of that. And I went basketball. I probably would have been a hockey player because everybody was a hockey player in Canada during my growing up. But I had a transactional coach and a transformational coach. Well, I chose the transformational coach. And then I went to university and had Coach John Huer, who was a— had been a professional football player, came to small town Acadia University, Acadia, to coach football.
He saw something in me and says, you want to be a coach? You be my manager. I will teach you how to coach. You be the third-string running back that's always injured. You're not going to be as good a coach. So I became his coach.
And then he put me on to being the manager of the basketball team. Now, again, I was fortunate to have some— a mentor there who had actually— Ian McMillan, who had coached in the NBA. This is back in the '70s. Right. That didn't happen a lot.
And now, so he was at another level on offensive basketball. So I was just very fortunate. And then, and then I think you find mentors in a lot of different places just by books you read, people you meet, right? Ideas. And I read a lot and I'm very good at searching out new ideas and learning.
So I've had lots of people are mentors just by searching them out.
Yeah, we had a, we had a conversation yesterday in the player workshop and it's like, Harry mentioned you are the 5, you are the culmination of the 5 people you spend the most time with. And it doesn't have to be people in your circle, physical people, but it can be maybe, you know, I'm a huge fan of LeBron James.
Maybe I'm watching his interviews, I'm listening to what he's doing, and then he's in my circle and I'm learning from him as well.
Well, I think, I think you've got to be able to be very intentional. We use that word a lot, but yeah, you've got to be able to— what is it that I'm actually doing? What am I— and being aware of what was the impact.
So I can be intentional what I want to do, but how is that impacting me? How is that impacting the player? So that reflective— I'm a big-time journalist. I journal all the time. I'm writing, taking notes. Yeah, I noticed that. Yeah. And, and it's through the writing process that I think, right?
And I can put my notes down and I reflect on them, and, and I enjoy time to journal. Because it's my reflection time. Yeah. Now I've switched now a little bit to ChatGPT because I've trained it to think like me so I can have great conversations with myself.
But I never trust it just to take it solely what it is. But it's great to get a start on some idea. And I've taken thousands of research papers and thrown them into chat, condensed them, distilled them. What's about this? What about that?
What are the biases in there? And it just really takes A lot of— because to read a scientific journal can be painstaking. It takes time. Yeah. And it's written in a way that's not always conducive to the average person. Sure. So by just getting them distilled down, it really helps.
And then if I need to go in and check it a little bit deeper, I can.
Yeah. And I'm curious, like, if we talk about basketball now for a second, you know, when you're working with Canada basketball, how important— not how important, but How much detail are you going in with the coaches? You know, you work with the referees in terms of the principles of play with them.
Well, when you're working with the— see, I work with the master learning facilitators. So I'm training the master learning facilitators who are going to teach the facilitators in the provinces, and those facilitators then coach the coaches. So I'm coaching the coaches of the coaches of coaches.
Okay, so with them, we have to go in depth. We have to make sure they understand why we're doing what we're doing. Right? But sometimes with the what's actually delivered to the coaches, it's not always all that detailed because it's too much. Right?
It's always Goldilocks. Too much, too little. Just right. Yeah. They have to have enough. So oh, I understand why we're doing that. But it can't be like all this detail because it's just too much. Yeah. Right.
So well, I asked you for your feedback the other day, and you know. I think you gave me one or two things, but it was very intentional. And then, you know, I can action it. So is that the same way you're working with the coaches?
Well, through novice, through expert. Like, there's a difference between someone who's never coached before. Their mom and dad went to sign their child up, and next thing you know, they're signed to be the coach. Yeah, that coach needs something entirely different. They need a cookbook.
And that's what we talk about. They need a cookbook. That they can go in and deliver a safe practice.
Yeah.
Someone like yourself who's played, who's been around, you're becoming more of a chef. We need you to understand what your ingredients are. What can you now do to get to where you want to be? And you need to be able to experiment a little bit.
So there's a difference between the novice right through the expert continuum. So we're trying to build our courses now that they're designed for the entry level. Everybody's got to have this foundation, and now we build on top of that. So if there's something for you who wants to be— you're up here already building your 3rd floor, or there's somebody who's just building their 2nd floor, you have to be able to build a model that's adaptable, same as we do with players.
I can't coach every player the same. Same thing, I can't train every coach the same.
And what's next? That's something you've been saying.
Always what's next.
Yeah. And it makes so much sense. It's such an easy— because especially in a game like basketball, every time someone new watches basketball. I just moved back to Brazil and my family's never heard of basketball. So every time I meet with an old cousin or aunt or uncle and, oh yeah, basketball.
And then I show it to them for the first time. Like, yeah, it's always up and down, isn't it? And like a sport like basketball, it's always what's next. So what's the importance of that?
Well, but it's even with coaches say, like, you are a North Star. Line has nothing to do with winning. But you have some coach to win this championship, win that. And I'll say, well, what next? So you win the championship, what's next? Win another one?
Okay, win another one, what next? Like, there's always another hill to climb, but it may not be winning another game, you know. So to me, it's shifting more as you get older. You're shifting more to a legacy. Who's, who's making sure that the game is there for the next generation?
Yeah.
Who's making sure that we're mentoring And building those environments that will allow the game to evolve and the game to grow and the game to be still there. So to me, it's always getting people to think, well, what next? Okay, so you did this wonderful practice.
What about tomorrow's practice? What's next? And not in a bad way or anything, but you always have to be thinking, what was the impact? What's next? What's next?
And even the specific example, when we were talking, you gave me the feedback, you know, I'm designing a small-sided game and You know, it's 3-on-2 dominoes burst and, you know, they hit the rebound and they're walking off the court. And it's, you know, but in the game, is that what's going to happen next?
So how can I design it into my practice environment? What will happen next in the game?
Well, it's— that is probably one of the biggest weaknesses of most activity design is that it isolates one portion of the game. Yes. But the hard part for the athlete is, how do I flow into these beautiful positions that I'm starting in and arrive in harmony and sequence with my teammates?
And then when it's— when we've taken the final shot, how do I flow into the next phase of the game? And but when you do them all those in isolation, they're missing the most important thing is that change from one phase to the next phase.
Yeah.
And then we go, I'm doing my transition drill. This is one of my biggest pet peeves.
Yeah.
Oh, we run 3-on-2 continuous for transition. I said, great. What's your intention in that? Well, we're working on transition defense and transition offense. I said, okay, so the 3 people that are coming down on offense.
Yeah.
And when the shot goes up, how many of them actually transition back into the defense?
Yeah.
Well, the answer is zero, because you already have 2 people standing there in a tandem. Which never happens in the game, right? So you never get, I was just on offense, I got to get back on defense, which is the hardest part of the game, is shifting from transition offense or offense to transition defense.
Yeah.
And one of the reasons it's hard is because when you watch on TV, you can't see it because the camera doesn't always show what actually is happening.
Yes.
So a lot of coaches don't really analyze it because even you go on Synergy, you're not often seeing unless you've gotten some special camera angle.
Yes.
Or they'd gone to the highlight when the basket was scored and you missed the key parts. So it's very important then that we in drills start working from phase to phase. To me, a great drill design never has just one phase of the game, but it doesn't mean it's a full transition.
It might be just inbound outlet. There's just something that they have to be able to quickly with no lag time shift to another phase.
Yeah. Well, while you were saying that, it's, you know, how the game has changed, right? You've been involved with the game for a long time. And now with the camera cuts, you sometimes you miss the next phase of the game because it happens so fast.
Yeah, that's right. Because it's about the entertainment side. It's about the facial expressions and the fist pumps and the high five, whatever it was. And then to show the slow motion, because we've got all these beautiful cameras that can get the slow motion effect, but we miss how the ball advanced down the floor.
Yeah. So just before we move on, what advice would you give You know, for a coach, maybe someone that's new and they've done their practice design, to how can they challenge themselves to think about adding the next phase of the game?
Just think about the drill you're doing or the activity and what would happen next in a real game if this was not a drill, and then just allow that to happen. And I know some people don't like whistles. A whistle is a part of the game.
When a referee blows a whistle, you stop. And that's what I mostly use the whistle for, is to be the referee. So What I do is I just tell players, I will stop the activity, not you. You guys never stop it. Just keep playing until I, as the referee, and I'll be the referee at that time, will stop it.
Sometimes we just go inbound to outlet. Sometimes we just go to the rebound, but they all show that they got things. Oh, good. Sometimes we go down and back and up again.
Yeah.
And I make it variable, but they can never just be, oh, this is a drill. It's always a small part of the game, even if it's just sometimes one-on-one shooting, a one-on-one contested shooting drill. And that coach said, yeah, but you're not getting as many reps on the shooting.
I go, oh man, 3 seconds. But those 3 seconds that they had to shift their mind is valuable. And again, it's not always— this thing is always balancing, but I can't have the bulk of my practice with no transition.
Yeah, it's the transfer, right? You want what you're doing in practice to transfer to the game.
And 3x3 is the best example. You play 3x3 and you have lag time, they've scored on you already.
Yes.
It's because you just can't— oh, we scored. What are we doing next? They've inbounded the ball. Oh, boom, scoring at the rim. Yeah.
And now that you touched on it, just a quick question on that. How's your experience evolving with 3x3? I think it's so fascinating.
I started with 3x3 well before it was 3x3. It was 3-on-3. And there were a few things. I mean, I ran one of the first 3-on-3 tournaments in Atlantic Canada.
Okay.
I actually had a Nike sponsor. A friend of mine, Coach Brent Baker, we got a Nike sponsor for $500. Now, this is back in the '80s.
Oh, wow.
Like, that was a lot of money.
Yeah.
And we would have all the top university, high school kids come and play.
Same rules as it is now?
No, no.
Different rules?
It was different rules.
Okay.
But it was 3-on-3.
Yeah.
And then, of course, when beach volleyball came in, that was the initiative for FIBA that We need to get something like— and that's where the 3x3 came from. And then, you know, there were, even before the current rule set, there was a few tournaments they had at different age groups.
And we sent some teams to it. I remember training up the players. And it was big because the coaches couldn't really coach.
Yes.
That's a big part of it. And, you know, helping the players learn how to lead themselves was not always easy for players who were always, you know, robots. Based on what the coach told them to do. They had to learn how to lead themselves, which I also love.
Yes.
Okay, but the current league, it's a totally different type of fitness.
I love it.
Totally different type of fitness, totally different type of player as far as, you know, that versatility you've got to have. Guard multiple positions, score different ways.
Play more defense on, you know, less people on the floor.
Oh yeah, you've got to be more intentional because— but you can't be so bland on your offense that it's easy to just switch everything and guard. Yeah, you've got to get very creative sometimes in your actions, but you got to get into them like that.
12-second shot clock. That's right. How much of 3-on-3 do you recommend coaches to use in their practice for 5-on-5 basketball? Because of course we want the— like we mentioned, we want it to transfer. But we all— I mean, for me, I understand how important the 3x3 is because they get more reps, you know, and that's to isolate the game.
So When I was doing our junior academy on the Saturday, it was all 3x3.
Right.
And then the Sunday would be 5-on-5. But the concepts that we worked on, on 2-player actions, 3-player actions, one can't guard 2 spacing, keeping the ball hot, being in windows and doors on penetration, domino principle, that all was in 3-on-3 too. But they got a lot more reps doing it in 3x3 than they ever would in 5-on-5.
Yeah.
So they would now transfer Much better when we got to the final five. Now all we had to deal with was where we're going to space these other players. But we didn't just play three on three from top wing wing. We were playing all you got to play three on three on the on the corner side wing or wait you know you had to manipulate space a little bit so they had to be more creative.
And that's all about constraining. This is one of my pet peeves: constraining does not mean coming up with a score that's going to lead them to it. I think that's the low-hanging fruit in constraining. The bigger constraints for me is how do you constrain their attention, pay attention to certain things besides just giving them a score?
But how do you constrain them for the game fit? Did that fit the game right now? And one of the big problems we have in constraining is too often we restrict things. We say you have to use, we're calling it here the post-up, right?
Yes.
To start, to get an initial, or you're only allowed 3 dribbles. But there could be in the game that that 4th dribble may be the one that got the score. And more, I could have just ripped and gone for layup. And, and, uh, why did I need to pass the post?
So, so when you really get good at this and the players start to understand your constraints are, are based on finding the thing that fits the game.
And it's different.
And the team. And it's different towards the context and the situations. And that's what we were starting to get to yesterday with the players. Because one of the coaches, like some of the coaches got Yeah, but they did this and they did that.
I said, but that fit the game. That was okay. Because they said, well, you said no dribbling in the post. I said, he squared and then used the dribble to separate to get to the far side.
Yeah.
That was an excellent use of a dribble. He didn't just pound the ball and pivot to square. That's the one we're trying to get rid of because now when he squares up, he's got no dribble.
Yeah.
If he preserved his dribble and it now creates an advantage, that was a golden fit. That was a good use of that. And I could see the coach like, yep, he dribbled. It's not about the dribble, it's about the game fit of the dribble.
Yeah, it's, it's like you can have the constraint, but it's what's the intention of the game. And also, it's, I guess it's like the floor is off as an example. You can't catch the ball in the mid-range. What if that pass leads to a layup or leads to dominoes and the defense collapses?
So it's, you know, how do you do, you know, if you're a coach—
What about 3 seconds on the shot clock and The only way I can get a catch and shot is at 3 seconds. The game fit means that rule's off right now.
Yeah.
Or I'm a great, I'm a great backdown post-up player, you know, and I catch just a little bit off the block, but yet I can still create an E2, engage 2, because they got to come double me on the dribble, but I'm such a great passer off it.
And if they don't come and double, I can back the guy into the smile and now he can't Okay, yeah, but floor is lava. He can't catch there. But for him, in that situation, that's a Dave Green hit.
And then that goes back to your point about being adaptable. That's right. Yeah. And I think that's the real, I guess, the art of using the constraints-led approach.
School of locks. Yeah. And it's because if you just— this is the danger of constraint-led approaches. If you turn it into very strict rules, you're just as confining as running a set play.
Yeah.
Because you constrained it that the only thing they can do is your set play. And that's why, again, you've always got to be judging what is it that we're trying to get here? What's my intention? Uh-oh, they're turning into robots because I've constrained it so much.
Yeah, that's a great point. That's not working.
Yeah, that's a great point. I always look at it, it's like if they're doing something over and over and I want to get them away from that, then my constraint is you're not allowed to do this. And then they have everything else to explore.
Well, the other one that happens is, like, learning is not linear, but sometimes we— it's just so easy. It is so tempting just to layer it 1-on-1, 2-on-1, and all these layers. Well, that's because I did one the other day with a coach.
Why did you start at 5-on-5? And I'm like, because that's where the game is played. I needed to see how they self-organize. And now if I have to go backwards, I'll go backwards. But I don't have to always start here because they may already have that knowledge.
Yes.
They may already have that ability to do that. Or if I can constrain the 5-on-5 and get the same results, why go back to here? They don't need extra reps. They need to learn to play as a unit of 5 or a unit of 3 if it's 3x3.
So it's not always A to B to C to D like this. So we used to have that, but I was always telling players, coaches, Sometimes start at the competition here and constrain that and see how they handle it. Because now you can put other— more time on other things that they need to work on.
There's always something they got to work on. But if you're just doing these drills because you need to go on this ladder staircase effect, it's not always the most efficient and effective and the best transfer.
So you would advise coaches then to be as nonlinear as possible in their practice plan?
This is being a chef. That's a Michelin star chef. But that's what they're trying to get to. When you're first learning to be a chef, maybe you got to go a little more linear. But as you get manipulating the constraints and you're observing, I'm going to go here.
I'm going to start here because I think they can handle this. Ah, they are handling it. I can keep going. I know I got to go backwards.
Yeah. That's excellent. Mike, I want to thank you for your time. I'm looking forward to the rest of today and tomorrow and just continue to—
Got a great one tonight. It's going to be fun with these older guys.
Yes. I'm looking forward to that. And I do want to ask you one question. We ask all our guests this here, and it's the transformative tip. What is one piece of advice that you would give to coaches to instantly improve their practice environment?
Ask more questions. Be curious. But don't ask— the worst question you can ask is, does everybody understand? And then expect the answer of, yes, coach. That's not a question. That's compliance. That's power and status. Right? Right. And I know there's other reasons why coaches do that, but I just see too many players thinking that if coach says, do you understand that you got to give this?
Yes, coach, with energy. And what? I didn't hear you. Yes, coach. But ask questions you don't know the answer to and really be curious with it. Never thought of that. That's a great answer. Maybe we'll try that. But that's how I check for understanding.
That's how I check to see where they are in their development. That's where they start to feel empowered.
Yeah.
That's where they start to hold each other accountable. There's so many things come out of just allowing their voices to be heard. Because now you can ask a question, or I can ask a question, you can give an answer. Now we can get into agree, build, and challenge.
And we can have these discussions around tension. We can talk about elephants in the room, dragons in the room. We got all that stuff, all those fun things. But it starts with me opening up and asking questions to hear their voices. Yeah. Excellent, Mike.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
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