Players with a winning mentality:

• Embrace the opportunity to fight through fatigue
• Communicate relentlessly
• Grab a ball and get to a hoop as soon as practice is over
• Sprint back immediately when they make a bad play
• Are always active when the ball is in the air
• Bounce off block outs to get rebounds
• Hate when they have a bad day of practice
• Say “my bad” when they throw a pass their teammate should have caught
• Get up off the floor quickly
• Stay in great shape year round
• Don’t mind being uncomfortable
• Know the plays from more than one position
• Take it personal when their man scores
• Embrace criticism in film sessions
• Lift people up with them
• Attack practice
• Hate losing, but learn from it

Players with a losing mentality:

• Make sure everyone can see how hard they are trying
• Endure practice
• Show their fatigue so everyone knows they are tired
• Rarely communicate on the court
• Find a comfort zone in the sympathy they get when they fail
• Cling to their man on when they should be in help side
• Love being in the training room
• Throw their hands up in the air when they turn the ball over
• Think leaning on the back of a block out is crashing the boards
• Don’t know all the plays
• Shake their heads at officials
• Find screens
• Tie their shoes a lot when things get hard to rest
• Get upset with a teammate when they throw a pass he had no chance to catch
• Never seem to get in the gym on their own
• Stay down for a long time every time they hit the floor
• Look at their teammates for help when their man scores
• Connect with other negative thoughts and bring people down with them
• Can’t get out of the weight room quick enough
• Barely make the sprint times
• Struggle with anything that’s hard
• Think practice is too long
• Always do just enough