By Coach Atwood
A coaching friend of mine recently told me he was really looking forward to next season because he’s making some personal changes and he will be able to spend a lot more time on coaching than he’s been able to in the past. That got me to thinking about when “next season” begins for me; and when does “next season” begin for you?
For me, it began on February 13th, the day after the last game of the ’07-’08 season. On that day, I was surfing the web looking for summer team camps and tournaments. I was also thinking about individual players, because I want to have player evaluations done before the team banquet. That week I was also lobbying the local college coach to host a summer league. I was burning DVD’s of game video to mail to college coaches who had asked for game tape. And I was starting to evaluate my season plan to look for ways we can improve next year through better planning on my part.
How about you? If you are a player, when does next season start for you? In our town –and probably every town- there are essentially two kinds of players. The first kind of player works in the off season to improve her skills and hopefully turn weakness’ into strengths. This player is self motivated, she only needs to know when and where there’s an opportunity (summer camp, open gym, summer league, etc) and she’s there. In High School, the starting line up is generally made up of these kinds of players because they put in the time and effort to get better. The second kind of player either shows up for off season opportunities once in a while, or not at all. She will bring with her the same weakness’ and skill deficiencies from one season to the next because nobody gets better without doing the work. This player may be generally a motivated person, but not about basketball, though she may likely see herself as motivated about basketball. I honestly believe that some of the young women who play JV and Varsity basketball actually believe that they get better each season just by showing up. As in, “I’m a senior and you are a freshman, there for I am automatically the better player.” Nothing could be further from the truth.
Observation of female players over a period of years shows that those who continue to work on their individual basketball skills (shooting, ball handling, passing, etc), as well as their athleticism (speed, strength, agility, etc) will continue to develop and improve as basketball players throughout High School, and in college if they play at that level. While those who do not work in the off season generally plateau, or “peak” as athletes and basketball players at about 14-15 years old. We can readily observe this locally with players who make the JV and Varsity teams at WHS but only participate during the season; they become physically faster and stronger as they mature, but they don’t show much fundamental basketball skill improvement from the 9th grade, to the 12th grade. They don’t really get any better. They finish High School with essentially the same set of skills they entered with.
Every season the varsity roster is about half filled with players who never really got any better as basketball players. They may be a little stronger and faster because they have physically matured, but they have essentially the same skills at 16-17 years old as they did at 14-15 years old. The same is true with the JV roster, except it’s less apparent because the best varsity players have spent 2-3 more off seasons improving than the best JV players have, so the “skill gap” from one end of the bench to the other end (1st player to 12th) is less apparent. There are numerous ways to observe this. The easiest is probably statistics. Over four years of High School basketball, did individual statistics stay about the same, or improve, or even decline? Another way, while more anecdotal is just by observing. Did the individual player ever develop their weaker dribbling hand? Did the player ever learn any real post moves? Did the player ever progress to using spin dribbles, or cross overs, or look away passes, or off hand lay ups, etc? Or is their offensive game essentially the same as it was from 9th grade through 12th grade?
When I played High School basketball, I was a marginal player, I never started, I filled one of the last spots on the roster and I worked hard to get it. Making the varsity roster is something to be proud of, and I don’t intend to diminish anyone else’s accomplishments, but sometimes a little dose of reality in the form of the truth is a good thing for perspective. And the truth is that from year to year, the most skilled players on JV could take the roster spots away from the least skilled players on Varsity if the two teams were combined into one team.
The best players, the one’s who play the most get that way for a reason. They put in the time and do the work to improve. What kind of player are you?
Tags: basketball coaching
