The Secrets Behind Jeremy Lin's Workouts with Josh Fan

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 Transforming Basketball Podcast. Delighted to have Josh Fan on the show today.

Josh and I connected several months ago, and, you know, we connected due to our shared alignment with how we view basketball through an ecological lens. And I really love the work that Josh is doing in a player development setting. Some really, really creative ideas, and I just love how he's using the CLA.

So had to get him on the show. Josh, welcome. Great to have you on.

Thank you for having me. And when I was going down this rabbit hole, uh, your name kept coming up over and over again. So I said, let me reach out to Alex. I need to talk to him. And you were so kind to respond, and we were able to hop on a call.

So Really glad to be part of this new brand and this new wave that you're bringing to the basketball world.

Oh, much appreciated, man. First question I have, Josh, is how you were actually exposed to ecological ideas, because you told me already and it was a, it was a great story, but for the benefit of the listeners, I think it would be great if you don't mind just sharing that.

Yeah, so I, I moved back to Rockville, Maryland, where I grew up, and I always told myself that when I move back home or stop working for Jeremy Lin, who I worked with for over 10 off-seasons, I said I would start jiu-jitsu 'cause it was something I loved.

And so I was just looking around for gyms and I happened to walk into this gym a few years ago. And this is where I first exposed to the ecological approach was I had, well, first I had no idea what the ecological approach was and I was going to class and here I'm in jiu-jitsu thinking that I'm gonna learn how to break people's arms and choke people out.

And there's no instruction. I mean, there's a constraint. There is a goal that he wants us to achieve, but there was no instruction. I found it so frustrating and wanting to ask him, I was like, how do I do the move? I was like, well, where am I supposed to put my hand?

And that sent me down this, down this entire rabbit hole of searching what is the ecological ball? What is ecological dynamics? And the gym is run by a man named Greg Souders. He doesn't know it, but he's kind of my mentor. I don't tell him that.

So that's where I was exposed to it. And then it was funny enough is I was like, wait, this applies to basketball. What, why haven't I, why haven't I been doing this to basketball? And so that's kind of where I revamped my entire training process, how I approach basketball.

Obviously I grew up in a very information processing, top-down approach where everything had steps. We learned things through moves, which are just moments of time, just the Ander Eriksson's 10,000 hours model, deliberate practice, like just force your way into becoming better. But, you know, when I found the ecological approach, I, I realized this was the middle that was missing.

Because I always wondered what— there's always these guys, everyone knows these guys who are amazing at drills or at practice, and, and they're phenomenal. And then they go in the game and like, where are you? What happened? And so for me, this was explaining what, what was happening or why I wasn't maybe seeing the transfer from what we were doing on the court or what I was doing on the court to in-game performance.

So that was kind of my, how I stumbled upon the ecological approaches is walking into a jiu-jitsu gym and discovering that I knew nothing about skill acquisition and motor performance.

That's amazing, man. But also just I think the fact that you are willing to actually be self-aware and then go through that process, and, you know, you've spent countless hours obviously studying this stuff, learning it, and that's, that's credit to you. And that's what we need more of in the basketball world.

And it's like, it's so important that we have an understanding of these ideas because it changes everything and it changes how we view coaching. The next question I have is, obviously we spoke when we first connected, we spoke about your work with Jeremy.

And also, you know, you're working with youth players, and I think it's great because you're using the CLA with a whole range of players, different abilities, etc. What do you think the biggest difference for your players has been from, you know, take a guy like Jeremy who was maybe working with you 5 years ago and now, you know, where you are at in the present day?

We'll take this a couple ways. We'll take this first from Jeremy's perspective. What we were noticing was That the stuff that we would take an entire offseason to implement, which would be about 3 to 4 months, we weren't seeing much transfer, to be honest, in the season.

And it would take probably, I would say, 2 or 3 offseasons for that behavior that we wanted to emerge for, to finally emerge. And that was just through rote repetition. And so I think for me, that was like the biggest— I just thought, oh, behavior takes 2 offseasons to emerge.

This was before I knew anything. And I was like, oh, well, anything we try to implement, it would be 2 offseasons. But what I realized was it was just because I was The reps of him being able to have perception-action, the reps of him understanding how to read and react, I was not giving him that type of practice design, right?

Everything was your traditional games approach where we would be using small-sided games, but it was very, you're going to come off and do this move.

Sure.

Do this move. And then when you go play pickup today, your goal is to try to get this move Yeah. And I'm not saying it doesn't work. It can. Information processing does work to a certain extent. We could argue that people who are more information processing, they have ecology mixed into it.

And it's hard to say that they're fully an IP top-down processing method. But back to what I was saying was I didn't see the transfer as quickly as possible. And I didn't see the behavior emerging. when we want it to emerge. So in the last few years, we have shifted much more to a completely— I wouldn't say it's complete ecological approach because you have to understand where the individual is coming from, right?

And Jeremy, who's been playing basketball since he's been 8 years old, like, for you to come in and the last, you know, couple years of his career and be like, we're going completely ecological.

Exactly.

Is hard. But I would say 80 to 90%, and I know that's Not ideal. We ideally want—

I think that's ideal, Josh. I think in that context, that's a huge win.

Yeah. So I don't talk about moves. I talk about principles with him and just give him task focuses and where to— for him to— his focus, his intention, and his attention in achieving certain things. And so that has been great. Like, we've seen great results.

And, you know, he's— last year, Taiwan, he had a 50-point game, which he's never achieved. He's never scored more than I think 40 points in a game. Granted, it's a different league, but I'd still like to think, you know, in the last part of his career, he's still finding ways to be effective, efficient, and be an adaptable problem solver.

So that's Jeremy. With my younger kids, it's a lot more interesting. I have kids ranging from middle school to high school to college, Division 1 basketball college in the US. And, you know, the first thing I have kids do when they come in there is I, when I first meet a kid, I set them up on the baseline.

I go, I want you to freestyle dribble from this baseline to half court, and I want you to change up speed as much as possible, height of your center of mass, high, low, and change directions in any manner, fashion. I want you to use as much of the court as you can that you want to.

And that is kind of my litmus test, or I can tell right away what type of training this type of kid has done just through, you know, this first warmup drill. And, you know, typically a kid who's used cones their whole life and is very block practice and learning technique.

Yeah.

They will zigzag and it'll be all the exact same cadence. And I'll say, you used 4 feet, a 4-foot width of the court. Try it again. And so that's kind of how I judge it. But the challenge also is seeing them only once or twice a week.

I have to be realistic with their team practices, them playing AAU. So I view my session with them as also teaching them how to be adaptable problem solvers and teach them how I want them training when they go and shoot in their driveway, but also teaching them like, hey, when you do have an individual workout with your coach and say he is very top-down telling you exactly what he wants you to do, here are some things I want you to think about or try.

And so that is the realistic challenge, but it's been a huge blessing to be able to work with middle school kids and, and just seeing— I've been envious of what you were able to do over at college prep and How much can we, like, I've really wanted to experiment of taking a kid from when he first learns, just using the ecological approach and just seeing how far we can take them.

Absolutely, man. I think that's one of the advantages of the European club system. I don't, not many clubs in Europe are, you know, fully all in on an ecological approach. Obviously now I've just moved to London Lions, we're doing it. I don't know many in Europe who are all in from like under-12s to under-18s.

But yeah, I just keep thinking like, imagine if you had that environment, what it could be. So anyway, I want to go to some of your on-court activities, and I've really enjoyed watching some of your Instagram, especially over the last few weeks. I've seen quite a few posts of some of the activities you've been creating.

And I think, forgive me, I don't know the name of the player, but I think she's maybe like an under-16s, uh, girl, right?

Yeah.

And she's mad, seeing some of the behaviors and how she's interacting within the environment that you're you're creating, how she's adapting. I've loved seeing the videos, they've been really cool. So could you just talk us through, you know, some of those activities that you've been doing?

Because also what I loved is how you actually got someone in to play defense, and that was so cool to see.

Yeah, so I've been blessed to have this player Christian who lives with me right now. He's 6'8, he played at American University, he's originally from France, he's a big man. So He is currently helping me with all my workouts. And man, if you can get a 6'8 big to help you with all your workouts, that is the biggest blessing you could ever ask for.

And play defense the whole time.

And play defense the entire time. So we're actually trying to get him to lose weight, which this has been a huge thing. He, uh, his playing weight is 250. So he was at 336. And so in the 2 months he's lived with me, he's down to 295.

So, oh wow. He's been doing a great job.

But benefits of the CLA.

Yes, back to— so that, that those are his constraints. So with Katie, you know, we always have to start with what is the problem we are trying to solve or what is the problem that she's facing. So whenever I work with a new player or, you know, any client, the question I always ask them is like, I want you to think back to your most difficult game this past season.

And what was difficult about that? What felt hard? What, why were you so ineffective this game? What did they do? And then from there, it's kind of, okay, understanding how can we work backwards and find the behaviors that we want to emerge so that she is, she can adapt to those problems next time she faces them.

Not being so prescriptive as in, it's very easy to say, so for instance, Katie, she's, she was a freshman. She probably weighs like 120 pounds, but telling her to be more physical means nothing. Be more physical, be more aggressive, be more tough. Those words mean different things for everyone, but what does that look like?

Right? So we start with the all 4. I look at all 4 things of the physical, technical, tactical, and the psychological, right? So physically in our warmups, what types of degrees of freedom does she need? What type of shapes do I need her to be stronger in?

Right? This is stuff that you've done with Jamie Smith.

Yeah.

From you have strength.

Exactly.

Strength you. But so we do a lot of grappling stuff beginning of practice where I'm trying to create perturbations. I'm trying to get— create a more aggressive, tougher player. So we do, you know, games where we're wrestling the ball from each other. We do grappling games where in a plank position and we're trying to destabilize each other.

I recommend doing that on grass. That is one of the drills where I, you know, after in hindsight, I was like, Yeah, we're probably not going to do that on the court again because if she eats it in front of her mom and she's breathing from the mouth, I'm going to have problems.

So we took that out onto the grass. But then also, you know, in lunge positions, how well can she contract and relax? And in those isometric positions, how well can she handle destabilizations or me pushing her? So that's from like a physical standpoint of how can we prepare her?

From the on-court demands. Also, that involves jumping. I think you've seen that too, where she's finishing in different directions and repetition without repetition, getting her to land in different ways, getting her to jump off from different positions, off of different legs, that kind of stuff.

And then from the technical tactical, okay, not telling her prescriptively how to create contact, but maybe giving her a specific goal of, hey, I want you Uh, when you drive, I want you to try to put your shoulder through my chest.

Educating her intention. Yeah.

Yeah. Intention of where I want her final goal to be. And then for her attention to where, where can you focus? Okay. Where do your eyes wanna be? I won't tell her exactly how to angle her foot, but maybe I set her up against the wall, which you've seen, which is when I had her do an isometric against the wall of feeling the pressure in her foot.

I'm not telling her what we are doing. I, I'm just getting her to feel different. Positions and then helping her develop a sensitivity to what it might feel like. And then ultimately I have to put her in the situation where I'm constraining her in these situations to allow the behavior to emerge, which is creating contact, right?

Against a 6'8 defender, if she just decides to jump up with the same, at the same speed, at the same height, she's gonna get blocked every single time. The only way she could find an effective solution in finishing is if she creates meaningful contact.

Mm-hmm.

That destabilizes or moves the defender back, which creates some space for her to finish, right? And that's not something I will tell her, but if I put her in different scenarios or different situations over and over again for her to figure out how to make a shot, she's going— that behavior is going to emerge.

Where she hits doesn't really matter. It's the effect of moving the defender to create space. And Christian is, like I said, 200.

Yeah.

You know, at the time he was probably 315 pounds, you know, and she's 120, right? The fact that she can even move her, if she's able to do that, I know she's gonna have success in her season. But I've also been thinking about it too, is that she also doesn't play against 6'8 defenders at that size.

So it's important for me to also give her a smaller defender myself, and actually smaller female defenders too, because repetition with that repetition and also being an adaptive problem solver, I want her to be able to do this against any shape person, right?

If she jumps too hard against another girl who's 115 pounds, she might send that girl flying to, you know, the baseline, get called for offensive foul, right? So I realized that I'm helping her learn how to play against a 6'8 defender, but that if I really want her to be adaptable, I cannot only have her play against Christian.

So we do give her different defenders and different lengths, and we do set different constraints for The defender as well as for her.

I love that, Josh. I think it's great that you've got such an awareness of the role of individual constraints, because I think a lot of coaches and skills trainers, I think they confuse constraints for just being these kind of punishing factors or limits or like some form of task constraint.

But it's so much more. It's just, you know, having an awareness of how constraints are continuously interacting.

I—

you gave a great example there. So, I mean, what changes have you noticed just in KT, you know, using your CLA? And would you say there have been any, like, particularly when it comes to on the court? I love how you're integrating the athletic performance into the basketball the whole time and you're not working in silos.

Have there been any kind of basketball-specific small-sided games which have been a go-to? So I guess that's a 2-part question. You know, what have you seen the most? What kind of adaptations? And part 2, any Go-tos for your small-sided games?

Yeah, so with her, I think when we do play situational one-on-ones where it might be a closeout one-on-one, it might be a one-on-one off of pick and roll, it might be a one-on-one out of a skip or a glide to the side. Again, it's not right or correct for me to say we only want her to finish with contact.

That is one thing that I am trying to attune her Sensitivity or attention to is, is learning her that ability. But realistically, there's floaters, there's regular layups, there's all kinds of other finishes that I want her to be great at, right? So I do not constrain her to those things.

But what I have noticed is maybe the angles that she's taking, the willingness to initiate contact and not being afraid. I think with younger kids, there's a, a fear, especially when you're very quick, you're not accustomed to People pushing you, like, you just, you just go by people at that age.

You know, she's so much more talented than other people. She's just moving by people. It's when I've seen her go to AAU or I've seen her play against higher competition, against bigger girls who are 3 or 4 years older than them, that are really trapping her purposely, like pushing her and that kind of stuff.

Sure.

So I've seen less fear in her in initiating contact. Small-sided games. Yeah, it's mostly situational one-on-ones, but also just like a She's a point guard, so being very aggressive with double teams, denying her the ball, tiring her arms out, because girls as well as males, but girls especially, are very scrappy and they like— there's a lot of hard screens and holding and that kind of stuff.

So getting her accustomed to that physicality. So a lot of the shooting we do is— it's rarely— we don't do any blocked, you know, make 20, make 10 out of the shots. It's always There's always a specific constraint. So for instance, like a pin down for her, I'll either have myself or another girl just hold their arms and I'll give her the goal of don't let them touch you, right?

The second you see hands coming for you, you're not letting them put their hands on you. And then whenever you feel like you can get out, get out. But sometimes I'll just hold her and I'm trying to fatigue her arms and I'm trying to get her to shoot, go away at different speeds, at different angles.

Yeah.

And then If I want to scale it to be a little bit more challenging or more variability, I'll add a closeout. I'll add a secondary defender. I'll add another third person where if they raise their hands, she has to make a pass no matter what.

You know, if she's in midair, if a person's hands go up, she has to be sensitive to that corner person and be able to hit that corner person with a good pass. So those are mainly like the situations that we use, a lot of small-sided, a lot of situational one-on-ones.

where I do not constrain her to a certain solution.

I think it's a great example because a lot of trainers ask me, what can you do if you are doing individual workouts? How can you use the CLA? And I think some of those things you just spoken about are a great example. And obviously, it's so important to get other live people in to play defense, and then you can really do it.

And my question for you would be, obviously, especially as a point guard, You're her trainer, right? And I guess she's playing high school and things like that in season. Do you find it, you know, obviously in an ideal world you would have maybe access to a team environment too where you could do things like 3-on-3, 5-on-5 with her too, right?

Is there anything you're doing to try and circumnavigate that problem in terms of, you know, you don't get access to that, or are you able to sometimes get some other players in too? How do you figure that out?

Yeah, so, uh, this was my first year working with her, but the way I approached it was, well, time is limited Right? If she was Jeremy or if she was the only player I was working with, the reality is I'm working with 10 other players as well.

But the way I've tried to think about it was I went to a bunch of her games this season. I kind of watched what was happening. I have her send her AAU games as well as her film to be able to see what's kind of happening.

But then also asking her what happens at practice, because at practice they do a lot of pickup or situational, like 3-on-3, that kind of stuff. But yes, in an ideal world, I would be able to have 6 people there, her being able to play 3-on-3, giving, you know, but it's just the reality is you're not going to always have that.

So I haven't found— What you can do.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I haven't found a great way, you know, with the point guard stuff. The best I can do is add another person that involves a passing element where you just have to read the spacing and the timing of when someone is open. We can do a moving target or not.

Second, you see a defender step in, maybe you got to pass to the corner. All those things that I want her to be sensitive to.

Definitely. I think just at the end of the day, it's great because you can really— some of the things I'm seeing, you're creating such specific environments to work with that individual. It's so beneficial when you're able to do that and you're really doing it for a reason.

You're not just going out there playing some type of random one-on-one. You know, everything like we've spoken about is really specific. You're constraining to afford and, you know, creating a very specific environment. So as we kind of wrap up here, Josh, you know, you've gone through this process of learning about an ecological approach and actually doing it and applying it.

What advice would you have for other coaches or trainers out there who, you know, maybe they've just started doing this or maybe they're considering doing it? What advice would you have for them to kind of aid with the learning process and being comfortable enough to, to, you know, shift to an ecologically orientated methodology?

First and foremost, if ecology is real, then we shouldn't only be thinking about it from does it work for our players. We should be thinking about does it work for ourselves, right? I'm 37 years old. My neuroplasticity is not the same as some of these younger people.

So for me, before I kind of went down this rabbit hole of training my players this way, I was like, does it even work on me? Can I learn ecologically? Someone who has grown up in the most information processing, rote methodology ever. Like, I'm the quintessential 10,000 hours, beat this to a dead horse.

Like, I don't even know what the expression is, but if I can become If I can learn through ecology, then I'm like, I'm confident anyone can. So back to your point, first and foremost, if, if you call, if you believe that this is true, then I would challenge whatever coach who's listening to this is, is try to pick up a new skill, whether it's, I don't know, pickleball, what's in right now, or whatever sport.

If you, if you're weightlifting or doing some type of Olympic lifts, is ecology real for you? Can, can you set up constraints? Can you make it work? For yourself and understanding that. So I think first and foremost is if we ourselves as coaches are not experiencing ecology, I think it would be fraudulent or a disservice to ask our players to learn in this methodology if we're out there doing the exact opposite, right?

So that's my first and foremost challenge for myself is learning ecologically for myself. And then second, I think obviously reading the materials, Keith Davids, You know, his— a lot of research and academic papers, as well as Rob Gray, who's done a great job distilling some of the information and explaining it in sport context, right?

So obviously understanding some of that information. And then if you are not ready to make the full jump, I would say finding ways to prototype or experiment in small-sided ways. So if you, if you're working with this one kid who's much younger and you don't feel as much pressure to get him results, right?

Because this is nonlinear, right? Nonlinear pedagogy or nonlearning skill acquisition is nonlinear, right? That's hard when you have an athlete for only 2 months and their parent is asking for results and they want to see results right away. So you're very tempted to do block practice where you're going to see maybe immediate improvement and that kind of stuff.

So ecology is, is real, but it sometimes Can be slower. I don't really think it's slower in the long run because it makes an adaptable athlete. So I think if you can find lower level, lower stakes situations where you can actually practice it, I think that would be a good methodology.

Obviously, I believe that the hybrid method is not ideal where you're kind of doing a 50% games approach, 50%, uh, ecological. Like, that's to me is kind of, um, It's not really how it, it works. And so, but for someone who's starting, it might be really hard to tell them to go 100% into the approach.

So I, I would start small and, and really understand it. I think the biggest misunderstanding I've seen with the ecological approach is that people view us as lazy. They view us as, oh, he's not talking because he doesn't know.

Mm-hmm.

He should be communicating with coaches. Why isn't this coach trainer stopping and giving my kid feedback every single time? Well, you have to ask yourself, what are we creating? Is your coach gonna— is your coach or trainer gonna be with you on the court?

Are they gonna be blowing the whistle and being like, should you have passed it to the corner? Why did you shoot that layup? Right? So why would we do that in training? Right? That doesn't make any sense. And so if we're really trying to train our players this way, I think my final point was we have to understand the game deeply.

We have to understand what is at the fundamental core of basketball, which for me on offense is creating space and creating advantages, right? If we can distill all the moves, every offensive scheme is to create space and to create disadvantages and advantages, right?

So to me, it's understanding what that looks like in the game of basketball, right? So I think as trainers or coaches, it is our job utmost to understand the game of basketball to the deepest level that we can.

Great way to end, I think. Really good practical advice. So quickly, Josh, just for kind of coaches and trainers out there, where can they find out more information about you, see some of the stuff you're doing?

Yeah, uh, you can follow me on, uh, Instagram @coachjoshvan, and they can follow you obviously for more content. But anybody who has any more questions about what I'm doing or wants to see it in person or has any questions, feel free to reach out to me.

And obviously You should link those resources, Rob Gray and whoever else that you think would be great starting points to read.

Definitely. Josh, thanks so much.

Thank you.

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