Breakthrough Basketball Coaching Lab

Maybe THE most difficult balancing act that any Coach ever has to do is to coach their own flesh and blood. The other kids are watching you for signs of favoritism, the parents of those kids are looking for the same thing, your spouse and other family are watching to see if you are too hard on junior or junior miss. The Refs know that’s your kid and of course, are calling every call against him or her, meanwhile allowing them to be hacked by axe murderers with no calls! At least that’s how our parent/coach goggles can see things sometimes. It’s tough.

I had the blessing recently of speaking with Creighton Head Coach Greg McDermott about the challenges he faced in coaching National College Player of the Year and Chicago Bull Doug McDermott. I would strongly encourage you to listen to this JHS Podcast if you are a Parent/Coach. My Podcasting Partner Coach Troy told me after the interview, “If only I had heard all this before I coached my boy,…man I could’ve avoided a LOT of trouble!” Please Subscribe, Rate and Review as that will help this project grow and together, we can make the world a better place through sport.

• MARAVICH VS MCDERMOTT – “THE TWO ROADS TAKEN”

The love Press Maravich had for his son Pete was undeniable. The man lived for, and adored his boy. Pete was his life. A reporter at LSU once asked Press if Pete was receiving special privileges on the floor and Press told him point blank, “Of course he is! Pete is special!” And he was. His skills were astounding; he averaged 44 pts a game at LSU without a 3 point line. With the line, Pete would have averaged 53 pts a game! Press designed his team around his son and didn’t care what others thought. No doubt it put a lot of pressure on young Pete, and no doubt it made for some uncomfortable moments with jealous teammates and frustrated opponents. Until late in his life when Faith intervened, Pete lived with tremendous sadness off the court, due to the pressure on the court to be “the Pistol”. It was lot to put on a boy.

Greg McDermott took a different path, and while Doug’s numbers were more “human”, usually around 25 points a game, they came in a more team oriented system than the circus atmosphere around Maravich. The love was the same, but the path was totally different. “If you don’t treat them like everyone else, then you are asking for trouble,” McDermott told us, “I communicated to the team at the beginning that Doug is my son, that is a fact. I am his Father, that is a fact. When we go between the lines, we are going to attempt to make it so that you will not be able to tell that we are Father and Son.” A lot of NBA Scouts told Coach that if they didn’t know Doug was his son, they would have never guessed it by what they witnessed in Creighton’s practice or games. Doug was very much, one of the guys.

• TWO WAYS YOU CAN RUIN THE PARENT/PLAYER RELATIONSHIP AND YOUR TEAM

1)  One is obvious. You treat you son or daughter special on the court. They start at PG and get the most minutes and touches, yet they don’t truly deserve it. You let them take bad shots with no accountability. You design your team to “feature” your son or daughter instead of designing your team to play together and grow as one. I can walk into any gym in America on any given weekend and find this Coach and Player. It rarely ends well. I can also tell you that college recruiters dread dealing with this type of Player/Parent/Coach because they know trouble when they see it. In trying to help the player, the parent is actually crippling them in the eyes of scouts.

2)  The second way to damage the relationship is less common, but equally destructive. It is the Parent/Coach who is too hard on their son/daughter and holds them to a much higher level of accountability than the rest of the team. Sadly, I can also walk into any gym in America on any given weekend and quickly find this duo as well. This Coach/Parent yells at his son or daughter louder and longer than any other player on the team, pulls them for mistakes quicker and generally holds them to a higher standard than teammates. Coach McDermott described it well, “You are proud of what your son has accomplished but you are hesitant to congratulate him because you don’t want it look to the other players/parents/fans that you are just propping up your son.  It is not fair to your son, if he does something well, deserves to be rewarded or get a pat on the back and he’s ignored.”  Coach McDermott’s Show Link

As with everything in life, one must find a balance.

• THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PLAYER IN THE RELATIONSHIP

As hard as you have it as a Parent/Coach, your child has it tougher. Coach McDermott touched on the fact that it’s sometimes harder for the player to separate Dad or Mom from Coach. A player brings baggage, just as a Parent/Coach brings baggage. Jerry Meyer, college basketball’s all-time assist leader taught us that when we discussed his relationship in playing for his Father, the late, great Don Meyer. JHS Podcast Link Little things, like addressing your parent in the same way on the court carry weight in teammate’s eyes. You can’t say, “C’mon Dad/Mom!” when they get on you as Coach. Between the lines with the McDermott’s, Doug called Greg what everyone else did, “Mac”. Greg told us a great story about Doug being in the locker room in a players only meeting, and some of the upperclassmen started ripping on his Dad a little bit, comparing some of the things they liked more about the way Dana Altman did certain things before “Mac” took over. Then it dawned on them that Doug was in the room. Doug disarmed them by chiming in, “Hey I’m with you guys on some of this stuff!” It was a moment that spoke volumes and helped Doug truly be “one of the guys,” which is what you want for your son or daughter.

Jim Huber is an Elite Guard Skills Instructor for Breakthrough Basketball. He hosts the Jim Huber Podcast and has coached and mentored 40 plus Division 1 players, several of whom have gone on to the NBA. His mission in life is to make the world a better place through sport. Join that mission and become a part of Jimmy’s growing community by subscribing today at JHS Subscribe Page. Contact Jimmy with your thoughts and ideas at thejimhubershow@gmail.com and like the Jim Huber Show on Facebook! The page is constantly updated with great links and content on our wonderful game.

The Article is by “Coach Troy from The Jim Huber Show”

On a recent Jim Huber Show Podcast, Jimmy and I had the great pleasure of speaking with Stronger Team’s Alan Stein about strength and performance training. Every coach want’s a stronger team, every player wants to be strong enough to allow their skills to dominate. Read on to find some answers to these desires.

As a kid 30 years ago, I spent most of my time with my face buried in comic books. Fantastic Four, Spiderman, you name it. I can remember Mom scolding me occasionally to take my nose out of those comic books and go outside and do something! I was a skinny little runt, a late bloomer and probably the weakest kid in my class in seventh grade. Then I saw the advertisement that changed my life!

Mac buys the “Charles Atlas” solo flex machine, and in a few short weeks he’s back on the beach, beating up the bully and of course, getting the girl.

It’s one of the most iconic advertisements in history. It was successful because it found my pain, and offered me hope, offered me a solution. I was being bullied on the football field, the basketball court, the lunch room, etc. Now fortunately for me I was a funny guy, and believe you me, I did my best to make people laugh as that was my coping mechanism. I got along, but I hated being skinny. Hated my ribs showing. Hated being, “the 98 LB weakling.”

Now I didn’t have enough money to buy the Charles Atlas “SOLOFLEX” machine, but I did scrape up enough to buy some weights, the cheap kind that were plastic and filled with concrete inside. I bought a bodybuilding book by Ah-Nold and went to work at home in my room. It took about a month to see real results (just as Ah-Nold told me it would). But from that first half inch on the ole bicep, I was hooked. I became dedicated, started eating better, was constantly reading anything I could find on the subject, and by high school I had caught and ran past most of those middle school bullies. In the old black and white ad, “Mac” was THE HERO OF THE BEACH!” I grew up in Kansas and we didn’t have beaches, but I settled for surviving lunch and actually starting to excel on the court.

We recently spoke to the maybe the greatest basketball strength and performance coach on planet Earth, Alan Stein. Alan coaches with one of the nation’s top high school programs, DeMatha and has trained and strengthened thousands of players including Victor Olidipo and Kevin Durant. In high school at Montrose, KD looked like the kid in the ad. Alan who was at Montrose at the time, went to work on KD and together they began his journey to become the “HERO OF THE BEACH.” Now KD doesn’t look like Vin Diesel, but, he has gone from 180 LBS at Montrose to now 235 LBS for the Oklahoma Thunder.

Alan laid out for us how he helped KD transform his body on the latest of our weekly podcast of “The Jim Huber Show” I’ll summarize in this blog, but I strongly encourage you to click this link and hear the entire podcast, as Alan gave fantastic info a variety of basketball and strength topics.

Link to Alan Stein’s Interview on The Jim Huber Show

Alan gave most of the credit to diet. “I told Kevin, if you eat like a bird, you’re going to look like a bird.” He went on the say that eating more frequently helps, and that you want to look for calorically dense foods that kids want to eat. This is important, it needs to be things kids want to eat. He gave a great example, “Take a Nature Valley Granola bar, load it up with a scoop of peanut butter and follow it with a glass of chocolate milk. Most kids would think that would taste pretty good. They won’t have to “muscle” it down.” Bottom line, find the good calorie dense foods that your players want to eat. That’s step one.

THE POWER OF INCREMENTAL GAINS

My son is a late bloomer as well and has been trying to gain in strength and weight. We hired a personal trainer and who instantly upped his caloric intake (almost doubling it) in order to gain weight. What we ended up with was a guy who ate and drank so much that he ceased enjoying eating and drinking. The personal trainer I’m sure was under pressure, “Hey I’ve got blank number of sessions, this guy expects weight gain, so lets double this kid up calorie wise” Terrible mistake, as Alan taught us.

“You want to make incremental gains. If you can bench press 100 lbs ten times today, I don’t put 150 on the next time you work out. I put 105 lbs on the make a small incremental change. Same with eating, if a player is eating 2000 calories a day now and you figure they should be eating 4000 calories in order to gain weight, going from 2000 to 4000 is not recommended. But if you could go from 2000 to 2200, that is one extra piece of fruit and greek yogurt. The next week add another 200. After 6 to 8 weeks, they are where they need to be.” If only I had known that I could have saved a few hundred dollars and a few belly aches for my “Mac”. We live in such an age of instant gratification that sometimes it hard for today’s players to grasp the concept of increments and delaying gratification over time to reach our goals. I was guilty here for sure. If only someone had done a podcast to educate me!

Link to Alan Stein’s Interview on The Jim Huber Show

DO SUPPLEMENTS WORK?

Alan was straightforward on supplements. “I don’t believe in using anything that claims to enhance your performance.” A supplement like Creatine would fall in this category. A lot of high school and college players use Creatine because they think it allows them to workout longer and stronger and create bigger and faster gains. Alan said steer clear to any substance that claims to enhance performance. He did say that he sees no problem with using a natural whey protein powder, which is the similar to eating a piece of chicken. He then went on the define the word “supplement”, which means “in addition to,” and not recommend them unless a high school kid is already eating a perfect diet (which none of them are). The danger comes when kids believe the word supplement means, “in place of” and think that they can skip meals and drink a couple of shakes a day and be okay. “They won’t be, because there is not enough calories in those shakes to gain weight.”

Click Here to View Stronger Team’s Video for Smoothie Recipes

Two Other Smoothie Recipes That Alan Stein Recommends:

• 1 cup of ice
• 1 cup of Orange Juice
• 1 Orange Dream flavored Greek Yogurt
• 1 scoop of vanilla Whey Protein

• 1 frozen banana
• 1 cup of plain Almond Milk
• 1 huge scoop of peanut butter
• 1 scoop of chocolate Whey Protein

THE BOTTOM LINE BASICS

Alan brought it together with this, “Get quality sleep, train hard, train smart, train consistent, eat real foods consistently throughout the day. Make it the healthiest food you can find, and on top of that if you want to take something extra like a whey protein I have no problem with that.” What I got from Alan is that there are no real shortcuts. Ads promising things like “double your vertical leap” or “lose 40 lbs in a 2 weeks!” are generally false. As an adult, you kind of know that about ads in general, but some of them are put together so well, they target individual’s pain so well, that they are often hard to ignore. They really hit you where it hurts and suck you in and a lot of dollars are wasted by a lot of honest folks to be sure. If you’re trying to gain weight, instead of buying the latest fad, reread that quote above and take it to heart. There are no shortcuts, although there is no end of folks trying to sell them.

DO YOU NEED TO LIFT WEIGHTS TO BECOME BASKETBALL STRONG?

Coaches want stronger teams, players want to be stronger so they can score, rebound and defend on a higher level. Nobody likes being picked off on screens, having rebounds ripped away or being called, gasp, “Soft”.

Alan had some interesting thoughts on conventional weight training in programs. While not against traditional lifts, he was bigger on the power of the human body itself.

“Weight training and using conventional weights like dumbbell, barbells and kettle balls and so forth.  That is a subset of strength training.  But is not the only way to get a player basketball strong.   In fact I am at the belief that the human body is the best piece of equipment that you ever need.  You can put your body in different positions, different angles to create leverage.  Just using your own body weight can get someone really strong.  The most basic ones are pushups, pull ups, lunges, body weight squats, step ups and holding plank positions.  For most youth and high school players just doing this by itself can be very challenging to do them correctly when they first start.  But even as you progress as you get stronger you can change the angle or do a hand stand on a push up.  You can do lunges from a variety of different angles not just the forward lunge.  There are so many ways to challenge a basketball player.

You can also do some partner resistance work where you partner provides the reisistance.  “At DeMatha we definitely do strength training a good portion of what we do is body weight and partner resistance.  The ultimate test is not what someone can bench press or squat. The ultimate test is how they play. Can they box out, set screens effectively, do they get knocked off the ball on a pick and roll, can they go to the basket and finish through contact?” As he elaborated on this, I couldn’t help but picture Herschel Walker, a man that has done nothing but pushups and sit-ups from crazy angles to build a body that can only be described as “THE HERO OF THE BEACH!” So I know that it can be done.

Below Are Links to Stronger Team Strength Videos:

How To Be Basketball Strong

Stronger Teams At Home Strength Workout

Advanced Basketball Push-Up Series 

At The Park Basketball Strength & Power Workout

WHY YOU SHOULD SUBSCRIBE TO THIS PODCAST TODAY! (or how to instantly become 2 inches taller and a better dancer!)

I’m a typical Parent/Coach and my podcast partner Jimmy, he’s been a college coach and a has about 20 plus years of coaching kids that have gone to the very highest levels of the sport. 40 plus D 1,  and several kids in the NBA that Jimmy coached and mentored. In this years NBA draft, Jim had coached what seemed like half of the lottery picks! (Stanley Johnson, Willie Cauley Stein, Kelly Oubre). Jimmy is bringing a lot to the table in terms of his knowledge and he is working his tail off to bring great guests like Alan Stein to the show.

As I edit and put together each weeks podcast, it has been like attending a master’s class in basketball and life. Listening to each episode has truly been a blessing to me. I’m a better coach and a better sports parent for having listened to the first 7 episodes we’ve produced. I wasn’t sure how effective a podcast was going to be going in, as I’m 47 and had never really listened to one! They’re great! Not saying our podcast is great, you will be the judge of that, but in general, they are a great tool for learning and it’s so easy.

Click Here To Subscribe. Easy as that. Free. No strings. Just great content that you can listen to at your leisure on a phone, in your car,  on your iPad, etc. I can tell you that a lot of work goes into each podcast on our end. We want it to be great for you and build a community of folks looking to make the world better through sport. Want to know how to survive adversity? Check out this episode of Charlie Miller, “A Man Who Survived Four Years Of Playing For Bob Knight”  Want to know what it’s like to train side by side with Michael Jordan? Click Here To Listen To Coach Matt Doherty’s Episode

Give it a listen, and let us know what you think at @JimHuberShow or thejimhubershow@gmail.com

Take Care and Have a Blessed Day,

Coach Troy

 

Last year, several high profile NBA and former NBA Stars stepped out and attacked “AAU” basketball as being bad for American kids. Kobe Bryant called AAU quote, “Stupid”, saying that, “Horrible, terrible AAU basketball. It doesn’t teach our kids to play the game at all. So you wind up with players that are big and bring it up and do all this fancy crap and they don’t know how to post up. It’s stupid.”“

Lebron James expressed his disappointment in AAU ball as well saying, “I just don’t think the game is being taught the right way.”

WHAT IS AAU AND IS THAT ORGANIZATION WHAT KOBE AND LEBRON ARE TRULY TALKING ABOUT?

AAU stands for Amateur Athletic Union.  From their website, “The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is one of the largest, non-profit, volunteer, sports organizations in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs.”

The confusion arises because people refer to almost all basketball that takes place outside the high school season as “AAU”. That’s a misnomer. It’s like calling a tissue a “kleenex”. Kleenex is a brand of tissue, a popular brand, and that brand has now become a substitute word for what it actually is, which is a tissue. Virtually all youth basketball gets labeled as AAU, and that is not the case.

So when guys like Kobe attack “AAU” they aren’t really indicting that particular organization per se, but making a blanket statement about all of youth basketball in general. If Kobe is saying NBA rookies show up not ready to play, he is indirectly going after his own employer Nike (as well as UnderArmour and Adidas), as they are the folks that are producing a high percentage of American college basketball players that make it to the NBA. So is there meat there? Is American youth basketball failing in general to produce players “who know how to play the game.”

On our recent podcast, we spoke with Jerry Meyer, Director of Basketball Scouting for 24/7 Sports. Jerry has been around the game for ever, as college basketball’s all-time assist leader and playing for his father, the late, great Don Meyer, a man John Wooden has called one of the greatest coaches in college basketball history. Jerry knows the game, and he felt Kobe was using sweeping generalizations and no real solutions.

(Jerry quote)

• “Kobe lived overseas and is very proud of himself. To Be honest he can be called an arrogant person.  He was just pissed off he lost.  The player he is mad at probably played AAU.”

Listen to the Entire JHS Podcast Here

We discussed Jerry’s tweet about the quality of play in the Nike Peach Jam, an event that I was fortunate enough to coach in a couple years back. It’s an event Nike sponsored teams fight all season long in the EYBL to qualify and it brings together the top 24 Nike sponsored teams in the country.

“You can’t paint AAU with one broad paint brush.  It is as good and competitive of basketball you will see on the amateur level.  It has a March Madness feel to it.  Pretty much all of them are going to play in March Madness and you will watch games where there will be 5 NBA players on the floor.  I don’t think that is the problem, but certainly there are problems.”

It’s generally taken that Kobe and the NBA guys on the bash “AAU” basketball bandwagon are in fact talking about the leagues created by the big three shoe companies, Nike, Under Armour and Adidas, because these are the big 3 when it comes to producing the NBA players that they view as suspect when it comes to knowing how to play the game. If you are an NBA rookie, odds are very, very high that you played in one of the shoe company leagues. If Kobe says the current crop of youngsters don’t know how to play, he’s talking about the shoe company kids, not kids from the actual AAU organization itself. He’s calling a tissue a Kleenex.

Are there things that these leagues could improve upon? No doubt.

Youth basketball players in the United States spend way too many weekends playing in meaningless weekend tournaments. Wins and losses don’t matter as much when there is another game to play in a few hours. If a player gets disenfranchised with a coach or a lack of playing time, they can simply hop to another team or another league with no consequences. Instead, these players could be balancing their time working on skill development and trying to focus on weaknesses in individual or group workouts.”

In “the old days”, I think back to how important every game was in my high school career. It seemed like life or death at the time, and I competed accordingly! I “left it all out on the floor every game,” as they say. Kids today who play almost year round every weekend can lose a game, shrug their shoulders and start texting and tweeting like nothing happened, because they know the next game is in 2 hours, and there are 4 more of them coming that weekend. As a coach in that type of situation it can be frustrating trying to build a sense of urgency to play the right way and get kids to leave it all out on the floor. The shoe companies however have been smart enough to make the games matter. In the Nike EYBL, every game matters because only the top 24 teams are invited to the Peach Jam in the end.

In ancient times, when I played, because there weren’t tournaments every weekend we spent the summer working on our game. We sought out old guys to beat us up and teach us the “tricks of the game” on the court at the local YMCA. If a guy made up his mind to go to work in the summer, you could see dramatic improvement during the next high school season. You don’t see those huge jumps in players as often these days. I see guys that are “elite” as 15 year olds who don’t develop skill wise because they don’t find the balance between skill work and playing games.  You don’t improve skill wise just playing in tournaments. You improve skills alone in a gym or working with a partner or small group of likeminded individuals.

The lack of structure and regulation dictates that every team and every league is going to be different. Some players are going to receive really good coaching, some are not. That’s the reality of the situation.

One thing we can control as Parents and Guardians are the amount of games we allow our children to play in a year. We can make sure they take some time off now and then and just be kids. We can do our due diligence and find a program where they like their teammates, feel respected by their coaches and have fun. We can also help them if those needs aren’t being met.

A friend of mine encouraged his high school son who had been playing for MOKAN to take a summer off, work on his skills and strength and play a few tournaments with his pals “just for fun”. It took some convincing, as the boy is a diehard and loves competing on a high level. In the end he trusted his Dad, and took big strides in terms of skill, strength and most importantly love of the game that summer. He came back bigger, stronger, more skilled and more fired up the next season for MOKAN and he had a nice summer in front of the college coaches. As your kids get older, their needs change in summer ball. Jerry pointed out that in early development, getting minutes and having fun are the priorities, but as kids enter their junior and senior years, exposure also plays a role. Some teams have a cadre of college coaches at every game, and sometimes being a role player on a high level team can pay dividends in terms of exposure that being a star on a less competitive team cannot offer.

SO HOW DO YOU PICK THE RIGHT TEAM FOR YOUR CHILD?

• Ask for background check of coaches/program.
• Ask around the area to get reviews of the coach/program- talk to former players and parents to get feedback.  If in high school, get advice from your coach.
• Ask philosophy of team/coach/program.
• Are they teaching your child life skills through sports that will help them succeed in the future?
• If a college scholarship is important, ask what their track record is in assisting high school players to receive a scholarship
• As a parent know your child’s goals and outcomes – this will help you find the right team/program.  Too many parents think they know their kids’ desires but usually their actions are driven by their own motives. The number one reason most kids play? They want to have fun with their friends. We would all be better served by knowing and remembering that sometimes.

We asked Jerry, how as the son of legendary coach, he picked coaches for his own children.  “At young ages I want them to be pushed but not about the coach winning.  I want them to be taught, have fun, learn to enjoy to compete (that is something we have to be aware with our children) there is no greater joy than working hard, improving and going to bed knowing that you are doing what you can do to max out on your talent.  That is a deeper, richer fun. I think you can make it fun throughout the process but it is not all laughs and giggles.  You are going to have to work one day so why not teach our kids to immerse themselves in a process of improving, working and find value and joy in it.”

Bottom line, if Kobe and Lebron truly want American youth basketball to improve they should offer solutions and get more involved. The opinions of the world’s best players carry weight. More importantly, their actions speak volumes. Kobe hasn’t been at the Nike Skills camps the last few years, and I’m not sure if he’s seen a Peach Jam. Maybe he should. A lot of great NBA players are still highly involved and working to make the game better at the youth level.

I recently began the “JIM HUBER SHOW” as an effort to give back and make the world a better place through sports. We’ve been talking to some of the great minds in the sport and outside of sports about solutions to problems and ways to improve the lives of the kids we coach. I hope you’ll become a part of that mission by subscribing and giving us a rating and review that will help the show grow and have a real impact for our wonderful game!

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We had the chance to  visit with Washington Huskies Head Women’s Basketball Coach Mike Neighbors, who sends out a Coaching Newsletter that reaches over 70 thousand coaches in over 45 countries! The amount of knowledge that Coach has both received and shared in this newsletter boggles the coaching mind.  He strongly encourages teachers, coaches and parents to read Generation iY: Secrets to Connecting With Today’s Teens & Young Adults in the Digital Age by Tim Elmore.

A very powerful nugget that Coach shared was how he deals with coaching and recruiting today’s “I Y” players. If you’re not sure what “I Y” stands for, you are missing out on an incredibly valuable piece of information that will change the way you interact with your players and get the most out of them. All coaches should be studying these kids, how they think and how their minds work. We are not there to provide them with information anymore but we are there to provide them with what to do with that information. Coach Neighbors is not telling you to change your philosophies 100% but you have come a little towards young people in the IY generation because it is the people you are coaching.

He discussed this topic on the podcast from 18:08-19:22.

Click Here To Contact Coach Neighbors On Twitter

Send an email to coach Mike Neighbors at nabes22@uw.edu to receive his weekly newsletter.